From: linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Sat, May 7, 2016 1:53 pm Subject: PLEASE, MY DEAREST, I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE DEAREST ONE, firstly I thank you for your reaction to my email; online with the message, which I have sent to you. How is every thing over there in your country,i believe that you are in good health, and that the atmosphere over there in your country is very nice today? Mine is a little bit warm over here in Dakar, Senegal. My name is Linda Colly, i am 24years old, but age doesn't matter in a real relationship, so i am comfortable with your age, I am from ( Liberia, in West Africa,) 5.2ft tall, light in complexion single,(never married ) and presently i am residing here in Dakar as a result of the civil war that was fought in my country some years ago. My late father Dr. Bernard Colly; was a politician and the managing director of a (Gold & Mine Industry.) in Monrovia the capital of Liberia, before the rebels attacked our house one early morning and killed my father and mother in cold blood. Right now, as i am talking to you, i am the only person alive in my family, and I managed to make my way to a near by country, Senegal, where i am leaving now as a refugee under the care of a Reverend Pastor and i am using his computer to send these message to you now. Please do not be offended for this message that comes from me please, its just that i don't know what else to do, because my situation here as the refugee is giving me a great concern, therefore, i will like you to consider my situation as an orphan, and be kind with me, as i am putting the whole of my trust on you with out fear, though i don't know who you are before, but i believe that you can not betray it at the end. I have communicated you because of my difficult situation here in this refugees camp, Its just like one staying in the prison and i hope by Gods grace i will come out here soon. I don't have any relatives now whom i can go to, all my relatives ran away in the middle of the war the only person i have now is the pastor Reverend Patrick Mark, who is the pastor of the CHRIST DE SAVIOR MISSION here in the camp, he has been very nice to every body in the camp, but we are not living with him, rather we are leaving in the hostel, which is divided into two sections, one for the male, and the other for the female. The Pastors Tel number is +221-777-901- 233 00221 -777-901-233 if you call and tell him that you want to speak with me ( Linda Colly ) he will send for me in the hostel. As a refugee here, i don't have any right or privilege to any thing, be it phone or what ever, because it is against the law of this country. My Dear I want to go back to my studies because i only attended my first year before the tragic incident that lead to my being in this situation now took place. Please listen to this : please it's a secret, even no one knows about it except the Rev. father that knows about it, I have my late father's statement of account and death certificate here with me, which i will send to you latter, because when he was alive he deposited some amount of money in a leading Foreign bank which he used my name as the next of kin, the total amount is $6.7 m. (Six million Seven Hundred Thousand US Dollars). So i will like you to help me transfer this money to your account and from it, you can send some money for me to get my traveling documents and air ticket to come over to meet with you. I kept this secret to people in the camp here, the only person that knows about it, is the Reverend because he is like a father to me. So, i will like you to keep it toyourself and don't tell it to anyone because i am afraid of loosing my life and the money if people gets to know about it. Remember i am giving you all this information due to the trust i deposed on you. I like honest and understanding people,truthful and person of a Great vision, hardworking and GOD fearing people. My favorite language is English and i speak English very fluently. Meanwhile i will like you to call me like i said i have a lot to tell you, this is my pictures. I will send you more in my next mail. Have a nice day and think about me. waiting to hear from you soonest. Yours f aithfully, Linda. From: linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Mon, May 9, 2016 2:12 pm Subject: Darling, write to this bank I will if you can give me a chance to prove am real my dear please call me at 14:00 GMT with the reverend phone number +221-777-901-233 00221-777-901-233 which I gave to you. I will be waiting for your call because it have been the cry of my heart to hear your voice. I want to inform you that before i contacted you, I saw your profile that you matched mine and you are the type of person i am looking forward to help me in this situation. Please i have not told anyone except you about the existence of this money and i will like you to please keep it secret to other people because since it is (MONEY) all eyes will be on it.I confide you dear that is why i am giving you all this information. You can call the Reverend around 14: 00GMT, i will be there waiting your important call. I have already informed the bank about my plans to claim this Fund and the only thing they told me is to look for a foreign partner who will stand on my behalf due to my refugee status and the laws of this country. You will have 18% of the total money helping me and the remaining money will be managed by you in any business of your choice. Therefore, i will like you to contact the bank immediately with this information, tell them that you are my foreign partner and that you want to know the possibilities of assisting me transfer the 6.7million dollars deposited by my late father of which i am the next of kin to your account in your country.The contact information of the bank are as follows : ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND P.L.C LONDON The name of the transfer officer is Sir Davis Smith. Telephone number. . . +447866076456 Fax Number . . . . 0044-7866-076-456 royalscotbank_transfer1@aol.co.uk royalbanksemailr@aol.co.uk Next of Kin:::::::::::: Miss.Linda Colly Father's Name:::::::::::: Dr. Bernard Colly Account Number::::::::::: (RBS745008901546/QB/91/A) Amount Deposited:::::::::::: 6.7 Million US $ Account switch code::::::::::: Ben Colly Name of Bank::::::::::::::::::::::: Royal Bank of Scotland The name of transfer officer:::::::::::::::Davis Smith. Contact them now on how to transfer the $ 6.7m. (Six Million Seven Hundred Thousand US Dollars)deposited by my late father which i am the next of kin. Honestly I am happy that God has brought you to see me out from this ugly situation which am passing through and i promise to be kind,and i will equally need you in every area of my life Including investing this money since i am still too young to manage it.As i told you before, this camp is just like a prison and I pray always to move out from here as soon as possible. Please make sure that you contact the bank ! I love you with the love of the Lord . Yours forever, Linda. From: linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Thu, May 12, 2016 8:00 pm Subject: Please, darling, all you need to do is to contact this bank My dear, Iwant from you to try and help me so that i can regain my freedom from here, all you need to do is to contact the bank through email address that i sent to you, just fill this form below and forward it to the bank and I do believe that the bank will respond to you and give you every information that you need to know about this transfer. and don't forget to update me the outcome from the bank as soon as you hear from the bank ok ? Have a nice day and waiting to hear from you, yours in heart, Linda. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND. Respected Sir, I,Mr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ., a permanent resident of. . . . . . . . . . . wants to put forth the following few lines for your kind favor and quick necessary action at your end. That Miss. Linda Colly, The daughter of Late DR Bernard Colly, now living in Dakar Senegal,is in a refugee status. I am her foreign partner and trustee living in . . . . . . . . . . . . . will stand on her behalf. She is the only next of kin to her late father who has an account in your bank where he had deposited some amount of money for her beloved daughter in sum of Six Million Seven hundred thousand united state dollars, in the account number of (RBS745008901546/QB/91/A) Sir, I want to know the possibilities of assisting her to transfer the deposited amount of her late father of which she is the next kin to my account in my country. After receiving a reply from you, I will be able to know the procedure and probability of transfer of the amount from your bank to my account. Expecting an early reply, With regards, Sir, Yours faithfully, Mr . . . . . . . . . . Bank contact informations : ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC LONDON The name of the transfer officer is Sir Davis Smith. Telephone number. . . +447866076456 Fax Number . . . . 0044-7866-076-456 From: linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Sat, May 14, 2016 7:35 pm Subject: PLEASE, DEAR,CONTACT THE BANK SOONEST, OK ? My dear, please try to contact the bank soonest, so that after the transfer you will send me money from there to prepare my traveling documents and come over to your country, because i am suffering a lot here. have a nice day i wait to hear from you soonest. Yours sincerely. Linda. From: Royal Bank < royalbanksemailr@aol.co.uk > Sent: Fri, May 27, 2016 10:54 am Subject: Dr. Bernard Colly's fund transfer ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND HQ INST,36/42 ST ANDREW'S SQUARE,EDINBURGH SCOTLAND . The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc RBS, Gogarburn, PO Box 10SCOTLAND PLC. Edinburgh EH12 1HQ Commission File Number: 001-10306 TEI : ( +447866076456) FAX (+44-7866-076-456 ) Email. . royalscotbank_transfer1@aol.co.uk Email . royalbank_remittance@ukr.net Welcome To Royal Bank of Scotland International [RBS]ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND HQ INST,36/42 ST ANDREW'S SQUARE,EDINBURGH SCOTLAND .The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plcRBS, Gogarburn, PO Box 10SCOTLAND PLC.Edinburgh EH12 1HQCommission File Number: 001-10306TEI :FAXEmail. .Email . website. http// www.rbsmakeithappen.com ATTEN! I have been directed by the director of Foreign Operation/Wire Transfer to write to you in respect to the mail which we have received from you today. Actually, we have earlier been told about you by the Next of Kin lindacolly23@hotmail.com ) that she wishes you to be her trustee /representative for the claim of her late father's deposit with our bank. Late Dr. Bernard Colly, is our late customer with account no.(RBS 745008901546/QB/91/A) with substantial amount of (US\$6,700,00.00) deposited with us. Late Dr. Bernard Colly, is our late customer with Data Base! Country code Amount Deposit Sort code Account No. GB US$6.7M RBS RBS745008901546/QB/91/A Hence you have been really appointed as a trustee to represent the next of Kin. However before our bank will transact any business concerning the transfer of the fund with you, we will like you to send the followings: 1.A power of attorney and affidavit of oath permitting you to claim and transfer the funds to your bank account on her behalf. Note: The Power of attorney must be endorsed by a Senegalese resident lawyer (since the money is originated from Africa and the Next of Kin is Currently residing in Senegal). 2.The death certificate of late Dr. Bernard Colly, Her deceased father) confirming the death. 3.A copy of Deposit Certificate of the account issued to Dr. Bernard Colly, by our bank. Note that the above are compulsory, and are needed to protect our interest, yours,the next of kin after the claims. These shall also ensure that a smooth, quick and successful transfer of the fund will be make within 48hours at reception of these documents. Also you have to send your bank account information which will facilitate this fund as soon as this document's are been provided. Therefore You have to present these documents to our bank to enable us wire the fund ( US\$6,700,000.00 ) into your account. We promise to give our customers the best of our services. Should you have any question(s), fax +44-7866-076-456 for more directives/clarifications. Yours Faithfully, Sir. Davis Smith Transfer Officer R.B.S From: linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Mon, May 30, 2016 7:35 pm Subject: Dearest, contact this lawyer today Dearest one, How are you doing today ? I hope you are all fine and i want to thank you for all your love and efforts to help me out of my situation and to help transfer the money to your position pending my arrival to meet with you, it shows you are a dependable and trustworthy Person. Listen honey, before i gave you these information's, i prayed and my spirit convinced me that you are best person to help me in this situation, i have never told anybody about this money, the only people that knows about it is you, me and the Reverend father. No one again knows about it (since the death of my parents) and i will like you to keep it to yourself because of wicked people, for i don't want to lose my life because of money. Now, regarding the requests the bank needs from us,i have with me here My Late Father's statement of account(which i will send to the Bank , if the Lawyer agrees to help us) and the Death Certificate, (which i will also send to the Bank), I thought it's the only thing the Bank will need from us but since they need the Power of Attorney and the Affidavit of Oath from the high court here in Dakar Senegal. I have informed the Reverend Father about it and he gave me the contact of this Lawyer below, according to the Reverend Father he is a Registered Lawyer in the United Nations and he is also a Registered member in (Senegalese Bar Association) who will help in preparing the documents for us. Please i will like you to contact him through email or phone today, because according to what the Bank requested, the documents which is the Power of Attorney and Affidavit of Oath will bear your name. And when you are contacting him, tell him that you are my Foreign partner and you want him to prepare a Power of Attorney in your name to enable the transfer of my Late father's account in ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC to your account in your country. His contact informations are as follows : BARRISTER Dr.KENNEDY ADU, LEGACY CHAMBERS. SENIOR ADVOCATE . Barrister Dr. Kennedy Adu (Principal Partner).(ESQ) +221-765-599-154 kennedyadu@lawyer.com kennedyadu@iname.com So, i will like you to contact him for the preparation of the Power of Attorney. Please try and contact me when you are in contact with him and let me know if he agrees to help us. Please i will like you to first of all get the money transferred and from it you can send some money for me to prepare my traveling documents and air ticket to join you over to your country. So, i will like you to contact him for the preparation of the Power of Attorney. Please try and contact me when you are in contact with him and let me know if he agrees to help us. Please i will like you to first of all get the money transferred and from it you can send some money for me to prepare my traveling documents and air ticket to join you over to your country. Thanks a big hug and kisses for you, i cant wait to see you face to face. From my deepest heart of love, have a nice day. Yours Linda. From: Royalbank Scotland < royalscotbank_transfer1@aol.co.uk > Cc: lindacolly23 < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Sat, Jun 4, 2016 10:33 am Subject: We shall wire $6,7m. into your account Welcome To Royal Bank of Scotland International [RBS] ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND HQ INST,36/42 ST ANDREW'S SQUARE,EDINBURGH SCOTLAND . The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc RBS, Gogarburn, PO Box 10SCOTLAND PLC. Edinburgh EH12 1HQ Commission File Number: 001-10306 TEI : ( +447866076456) FAX (+44-7866-076-456 ) Email. . royalscotbank_transfer1@aol.co.uk Email . royalbank_remittance@ukr.net website. http// www.rbsmakeithappen.com ATTEN! I have been directed by the director of Foreign Operation/Wire Transfer to write to you in respect to the mail which we have received from you today. Actually, we have earlier been told about you by the Next of Kin Linda Colly that she wishes you to be her trustee /representative for the claim of her late father's deposit with our bank. Late Dr. Bernard Colly, is our late customer with account no.(RBS 745008901546/QB/91/A) with substantial amount of (US\$6,700,00.00) deposited with us. Late Dr. Bernard Colly, is our late customer with Data Base! Country code Amount Deposit Sort code Account No. GB US$6.7M RBS RBS745008901546/QB/91/A Hence you have been really appointed as a trustee to represent the next of Kin. However before our bank will transact any business concerning the transfer of the fund with you, we will like you to send the followings: 1.A power of attorney and affidavit of oath permitting you to claim and transfer the funds to your bank account on her behalf. Note: The Power of attorney must be endorsed by a Senegalese resident lawyer (since the money is originated from Africa and the Next of Kin is Currently residing in Senegal). 2.The death certificate of late Dr. Bernard Colly, Her deceased father) confirming the death. 3.A copy of Deposit Certificate of the account issued to Dr. Bernard Colly, by our bank. Note that the above are compulsory, and are needed to protect our interest, yours,the next of kin after the claims. These shall also ensure that a smooth, quick and successful transfer of the fund will be make within 48hours at reception of these documents. Also you have to send your bank account information which will facilitate this fund as soon as this document's are been provided. Therefore You have to present these documents to our bank to enable us wire the fund $6,700,000. 00 into your account. We promise to give our customers the best of our services. Should you have any question(s), fax +44-7866-076-456 for more directives/clarifications. Yours Faithfully, Sir. Davis Smith Transfer Officer R.B.S From: linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Sat, Jun 4, 2016 11:29 pm Subject: Please send this form to this lawyer My Dear, just fill this form and forward it to the lawyer and I do hope the lawyer will respond to you. Have a nice day and waiting to hear from you soonest, yours in heart, Linda. Respected Sir, I, Mr.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - , a permanent resident of - - - - - - - want to put forth the following few lines for your kind favor and quick necessary action at your end. That Miss. Linda Colly, The daughter of Late Dr. Bernard Colly. I am her foreign partner and trustee living in - - - - - - - - - - will stand on her behalf. i want you to prepare a power of attorney and also get the affidavit of support from high court there in Dakar Senegal and that you will do it in my name to enable the transfer of her Late father's ACCOUNT in ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND to my account in my country. with regards, Sir, Yours faithfully, Mr . . . . . . . . . . His contact information's are as follows, Dr. Kennedy Adu + 221.765599154 De : Royalbank Scotland < royalscotbank_transfer1@aol.co.uk > Cc: lindacolly23 < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Envoye le : Je, 9 Jun 2016 12:41 Sujet : PROCEDURE OF ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND Welcome To Royal Bank of Scotland International [RBS] ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND HQ INST,36/42 ST ANDREW'S SQUARE,EDINBURGH SCOTLAND . The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc RBS, Gogarburn, PO Box 10SCOTLAND PLC. Edinburgh EH12 1HQ Commission File Number: 001-10306 TEI : ( +447866076456) FAX (+44-7866-076-456 ) royalscotbank_transfer1@aol.co.uk royalbank _remittance@ukr.net website. http// www.rbsmakeithappen.com ATTEN! I have been directed by the director of Foreign Operation/Wire Transfer to write to you in respect to the mail which we have received from you today. Actually, we have earlier been told about you by the Next of Kin ( Linda Colly ) that she wishes you to be her trustee /representative for the claim of her late father's deposit with our bank. Late Dr. Bernard Colly, is our late customer with account no.(RBS 745008901546/QB/91/A) with substantial amount of (US\$6,700,00.00) deposited with us. Late Dr. Bernard Colly, is our late customer with Data Base! Country code Amount Deposit Sort code Account No. GB US$6.7M RBS RBS745008901546/QB/91/A Hence you have been really appointed as a trustee to represent the next of Kin. However before our bank will transact any business concerning the transfer of the fund with you, we will like you to send the followings: 1.A power of attorney and affidavit of oath permitting you to claim and transfer the funds to your bank account on her behalf. Note: The Power of attorney must be endorsed by a Senegalese resident lawyer (since the money is originated from Africa and the Next of Kin is Currently residing in Senegal). 2.The death certificate of late Dr. Bernard Colly, Her deceased father) confirming the death. 3.A copy of Deposit Certificate of the account issued to Dr. Bernard Colly, by our bank. Note that the above are compulsory, and are needed to protect our interest, yours,the next of kin after the claims. These shall also ensure that a smooth, quick and successful transfer of the fund will be make within 48hours at reception of these documents. Also you have to send your bank account information which will facilitate this fund as soon as this document's are been provided. Therefore You have to present these documents to our bank to enable us wire the fund ( US\$6,700,000.00 ) into your account. We promise to give our customers the best of our services. Should you have any question(s), fax +44-7866-076-456 for more directives/clarifications. Yours Faithfully, Sir. Davis Smith Transfer Officer R.B.S Envoye le : Je, 9 Jun 2016 20:32 Sujet : My dearest, contact this lawyer immediately Dearest one, How are you doing today ?I hope you are all fine and i want to thank you for all yourefforts to help me out of my situation and to help transfer the money to your position pending my arrival to meet with you, it shows you are a dependable and trustworthy Person. Listen honey, before i gave you these information's, i prayed and my spirit convinced me that you are best person to help me in this situation, i have never told any body about this money, the only people that knows about it is you, me and the Reverend father. Noone again knows about it since the death of my parents and i will like you to keep it to yourself because of wicked people, for i don't want to lose my life because of money. Now, regarding the requests the bank needs from us, i have with me here My late Father's statement of account which i will send to the bank , if the lawyer agrees to help us and the Death Certificate, which i will also send to the bank, I thought it's the only thing the bank will need from us but since they need the Power of Attorney and the Affidavit of Oath from the high court here in Dakar, Senegal. I have informed the Reverend Father about it and he gave me the contact of this Lawyer below, according to the Reverend Father he is a Registered Lawyer in the United Nations and he is also a Registered member in (Senegalese Bar Association) who will help in preparing the documents for us. Please i will like you to contact him through email or phone today, because according to what the Bank requested, the documents which is the Power of Attorney and Affidavit of Oath will bear your name. And when you are contacting him, tell him that you are my Foreign partner and you want him to prepare a Power of Attorney in your name to enable the transfer of my Late father's account in ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC to your account in your country. His contact information are as follows : BARRISTER Dr.KENNEDY ADU, LEGACY CHAMBERS. SENIOR ADVOCATE . Barrister Dr. Kennedy Adu Principal Partner, Esq. +221-765-599-154 kennedyadu1@uymail.com , adukennedy@ yahoo . com So, i will like you to contact him for the preparation of the Power of Attorney. Please try and contact me, when you are in contact with him and let me know if he agrees to help us. Please i will like you to first of all get the money transferred and from it you can send some money for me to prepare my traveling documents and air ticket to join you over to your country, thanks. A big hug and kisses for you, I cant wait to see you face to face. From my deepest heart of love, Have a nice day. Yours Tina. De : linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com >Envoye le : Je, 9 Jun 2016 20:32Sujet : My dearest, contact this lawyer immediately From: linda colly < lindacolly23@hotmail.com > Sent: Fri, Jun 10, 2016 6:51 pm Subject: MY DEAR, WRITE YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS IN THE SPACE OK. please dear, have you contacted the lawyer that i gave you his information? if you haven't yet contact the lawyer try to contact the lawyer for the power of attorney and affidavit of oath OK. and don't forget to update me the outcome from lawyer once you hear from him. 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.... 9 5,2% 1 2022 5,2% 699 553 . No one knows how long the 2016 Triple Crown will remain in the publics memory banks, but for now at least it should be remembered for its eccentricities, following one of the most memorable and emotional Triple Crowns in history. With the Belmont Stakes still fresh in everyones mind, lets start with the closing act and its unconventional story lines. First and foremost you have without a doubt the most unusual trainer switch in Triple Crown history. Here is the plot. WinStar Farm has a deep closer trained by Steve Asmussen named Creator, in the Belmont, which appears to be devoid of any early speed, leaving either of the two Todd Pletcher entrants, Destin or Stradivari, to control the pace and the race. But WinStar has a remedy for the situation, and his name is Gettsyburg, who WinStar also owns, but just happens to reside in the barn of Pletcher. Now, they cant have Pletcher run the speedy Gettysburg as a rabbit, because his two horses have different ownership and it wouldnt be the sporting thing to do, especially having Pletcher run a horse who likely would compromise the chances of Destin and Stradivari. So, they do the only thing possible. They snatch Gettysburg away from Pletcher and send him to Asmussen, making it all a neat and tidy package. It proves to be an inspired move. They now have the rabbit to assure a brisk, or at least honest, pace for Creator and occupy any horse with designs on stealing the race. Just like that, Pletchers two horses no longer are in control of the pace, and the chances of one of them wiring the field and even running one-two the whole way around are greatly diminished. What does this mean for Pletcher? No one can say for sure, but there is now a pretty good chance of him being shot in the foot by his own weapon. Again, no one can say for sure what would have happened if Gettysburg had remained in his old stall munching hay on Belmont day, but one can certainly deduce by the way things transpired that the 55-1 Gettysburg did indeed help become Pletchers Waterloo. Although he didnt exactly tear up the track early, Gettsyburgs opening quarter in :24 and half in :48 2/5 were solid enough to assure an honest pace and prevented the tracking Destin from taking command of the race and slowing the pace to a crawl. Although the three-quarters was run in 1:13 1/5, the mile time of 1:37 4/5 equaled the third fastest mile split in the past nine years and was the same mile time American Pharoah ran last year. Considering that Destin, who was within a length of Gettsysburg for the first mile and didnt wrest control until they straightened for home, would be beaten a nose on the wire by Creator, it is safe to assume that a slower uncontested pace would have assured a victory for a colt who ran his heart out and the race of his life. But of course there is no way to know for sure. It's not that Gettysburg cost Destin the race, as the runner-up had a good stalking trip, but it did prevent him from taking total control of the pace and the opportunity to slow it down to a crawl, which would have made it more difficult for Creator to catch him in the final stride. Remember, we're talking about a matter of inches after a mile and a half. If Destin was allowed to set fractions on his own in :49 and change or :50 and 1:14 1/5 instead of chasing a pretty good horse in :48 2/5, 1:13 1/5, and a solid 1:37 4/5, it would be difficult for anyone to claim that it wouldn't have made up that nose difference. WinStar owner Kenny Troutt put it simply: We needed a fast pace up there as much as we could get, and Gettysburg did a great job. That pretty much says it all. After the race, Elliott Walden of WinStar announced that Gettysburg would be returned to Pletcher. Thats like having your ex-wife return to you after she cost you millions in alimony. To paraphrase Pletcher's response to the offer to return Gettysburg to him, "Thanks, but no thanks." He did actually tell Walden, "I think it's better if it doesn't happen." When asked if he thought the outcome of the race would have been different without the presence of Gettysburg, Pletcher said, "I guess we'll never know." Even Pletcher, who is known for his carefully calculated words, couldn't hide his feelings. Asmussen said Gettysburg will be sent to WinStar. He needs to be rewarded and pampered a bit, he said. He needs a couple of days at the spa. He was a valiant horse on the lead. He carried them a long way. It all read like an O. Henry short story, but kudos to WinStar for using all its resources and applying a chess move no one had ever witnessed before. They even switched jockeys, going from Ricardo Santana Jr., who guided Creator to victory in the Arkansas Derby, to local rider Irad Ortiz Jr., who gave Creator a perfect ride, saving ground on the turn and then easing out nearing the quarter pole. There was no doubt all the stars were aligned for Creator on this day, especially with Exaggerator, Lani, and especially Suddenbreakingnews getting prolonged wide trips, which normally is the kiss of death in the Belmont Stakes, and Governor Malibu, who briefly looked like a winner coming up the inside, getting stopped twice in the stretch...by none other than Gettysburg. Then, just minutes after the race, the skies opened up followed by a bright rainbow adorning the skies over Belmont. Hmmm, stars aligned, heavenly occurrences, Creator. I wont take it any farther than that. Finally, what are the odds of the first three finishers of the Belmont Stakes all being grays? That is yet another bizarre aspect of this race, as is WinStar owning the breeding rights to Exaggerator. Although he is still worth a great deal as a stallion based on his Preakness and Santa Anita Derby victories, you still can say that for WinStar, it was a case of every silver lining has its cloud. To continue the ironies of the race, there was Steve Asmussen winning the Belmont over Todd Pletcher in much the same manner Pletcher deprived Asmussen of a Belmont victory when Rags to Riches narrowly defeated Curlin in 2007. And we had WinStar Farm winning the Belmont in much the same manner they lost it in 2014 with Commissioner, who was nailed right on the wire by Tonalist. In case you forgot, Commissioner was trained by Todd Pletcher. And how appropriate for Asmussen to be inducted into the Hall of Fame the same year he wins the Belmont and finishes third in the Kentucky Derby. And by the way, who was the hard luck horse in the Kentucky Derby, getting wiped out at the head of the stretch while making his move? Creator, of course. Finally, care to guess where Destin was broken as a baby? You got it, WinStar Farm. You cant make this stuff up. Then there was the story of the Preakness winner and Kentucky Derby runner-up Exaggerators jockey Kent Desormeaux, who commanded the majority of the headlines and NBCs air time by going into rehab for his longtime alcohol problem about a week and a half after his resounding victory in the Preakness. The only one who obviously didnt consider this a feel-good story was Exaggerator, who decided to spoil the ending by running the only terrible race of his career at odds of 7-5. Looking back at the entire Triple Crown, who was the only horse to compete in all three races and actually improve with each race? Yes, it was the horse everyone was mocking before the Kentucky Derby, the Japanese invader Lani, the horse perceived by many as a harlequin, who provided the media with many moments of levity each morning. But its time we started taking horses like Lani and Casino Drive and Cesario seriously, just as they do in other countries around the world. The Japanese training methods may amuse and bewilder us, but whatever they are doing, it is working. Lani had much to overcome in all three races, in which he ran respectably in the Derby, much improved in the Preakness, and superbly in the Belmont to finish third, beaten only 1 1/2 lengths, while flying at the finish in the last two, despite suffering huge ground loss in all three races. He actually ran 80 feet farther than Creator in the Belmont, which equates to a difference of about nine lengths. So Lani gets the unsung hero award for this years Triple Crown. Going back to the beginning at Churchill Downs, everything looked to be on course for another historic Triple Crown when Nyquist captured the Kentucky Derby to remain undefeated, while scoring his fifth grade I victory, a remarkable achievement. So what happens? The Preakness comes up a sea of slop and Nyquist goes out there in a suicidal speed duel, sandwiched between two other speed horses, and proceeds to run the fastest opening quarter in Preakness history over a quagmire of a track. It was a classic case of overconfidence and believing the horse was invincible. He ran his heart out, trying to re-rally after being passed by Exaggerator. As we all know, he came down with a temperature and high white blood count the following day, which knocked him out of the Belmont, leaving the third jewel of the crown without the Kentucky Derby winner. We also had trainer Dale Romans involved in a bad auto accident while leaving Churchill Downs after the Derby, in which he and the other passengers were fortunate to escape without any serious injuries. Romans then went to Baltimore and finished second in the Preakness with Cherry Wine. Every Triple Crown is a saga unto itself, with its own characters, story lines, and new equine athletes to admire. We are well aware they all cant be Cinderella stories and read like fairy tales. Sometimes, the glass slipper winds up fitting the feet of the stepsisters. Sometimes, the pumpkin doesnt turn into a golden carriage. But that doesnt mean the stories arent compelling, the characters unforgettable or the winners special to those who wagered on them. Yes, there was the disappointment of Nyquists defeat and illness and Exaggerators poor effort. Fortunately, America still was feeling the effects and euphoria of last years emotional Triple Crown journey and couldnt let go of the horse with whom the entire nation fell in love. That was able to sustain everyone over the five-week period, especially returning to New York and reliving the bedlam at Belmont. But in the long run we did have all three Triple Crown races won by a Derby winner the Florida Derby winner won the Kentucky Derby, the Santa Anita Derby winner captured the Preakness, and the Arkansas Derby winner took the Belmont. The 2016 Triple Crown is in the books. How many will read the chapter in the years to come is for history to decide. Right now it is time to close that book and turn our full attention to California Chrome, Beholder, Frosted, Songbird, Tepin, the return of Nyquist, and the other stars of the Turf. One thing is certain, there are plenty of fairy tales still to be written. Coming in as the 10th most read story of the year was from back in January when Shanghai reconfirmed its status as the worlds largest container port. At number nine comes the first of several casualties with the fatal sinking of a PACC Offshore Services semi-submersible barge off Indonesia that left three dead. At the number eight spot was another story involving Singapores offshore and marine sector with Australias Mermaid Marine buying Jaya Holdings. The woes of Excel Maritime Carriers founder Gabriel 'Villy' Panayotides when the Greek shipowners offices were raided by Excels new owners attracted a lot of reader interest. In a year that was to the worlds first 19,000 teu containership steam out on the worlds oceans the prospect of 24,000 teu boxships in two years was the sixth most read story of the year. The fifth most read story of 2014 sees the second casualty of the year and one of no less than three boxship accidents to make the top five. The fourth most read story was also a boxship casualty when to containerships collided in Port Klang causing a fire. The years third most read story on a short story minimum wage for seafarers sparked a lot of interest on social media. The third and the most read of the containership casualty stories in the top 10 was when the Svendborg Maersk encountered heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay and lost over 520 boxes overboard. The single most read story of the year on Seatrade Global was on the alleged fraud and risk management losses that led to the dramatic collapse of OW Bunker, which two months later continues to reverberate around the industry. Many veteran attendees of the show have seen it all before, however. They experienced earlier troughs in the market when people were more eager than ever to meet up, discuss prospects and try to collectively forge a way ahead. And here in Greece especially, periods of entrenched negative sentiment often have been blown away suddenly by a burst of activity from Greek ship owners on the sale & purchase or newbuild front. Shipping cycles are for analysts and corporate accountants, one old hand confided to Seatrade Maritime News. Greek shipowners look forwards to the future, not backwards to the past. Others suggested that an upbeat show like this weeks Posidonia could itself prove a turning point, injecting a note of optimism that could begin to reverse sentiment. Certainly there was no shortage of positive feedback from exhibitors and visitors alike. Im surprised the general atmosphere is so good, I was expecting it to be gloomy, but the vibe is good with the accent on information, said C Dean Tseretopoulos, board director of QACE. My first Posidonia was in 1974 and this time I think there are more shipyard people and their representatives than ever. There are a lot of specialists so you can get real information, observed George D Areteos of G.D. Areteos & Associates, Marine Technical Bureau. Ive been to three conferences and though the topics have been much discussed, a lot of new information was given, agreed Panos Zachariadis, technical director of Atlantic Bulk Carriers Management. "We've had a lot of really positive traffic from customers and partners and really good dialogues all week; it's been fantastic, observed Brian Pemberton, Iridium vp & general manger of aviation & maritime business. "We are happy to be here to participate and meet our existing and potential clients," said DDW-PaxOcean Shipyard senior commercial manager Terry Wong. "The show has been fine for us, echoed the chief assistant registrar of the Hong Kong Marine Department, noting that on the first two days in particular their stand in Hall 1 recorded heavy visitor traffic. "We were very impressed, commented Andrew Pye, technical manager environmental solutions Andrew Trumble. There was good attendance with many shipowners here and a lot of interest shown in ballast water management in particular." Perhaps the simplest and most heartfelt remark came from Vincent Li, overseas project manager of SunRui Marine Environment Engineering, who said simply Its a wonderful place to meet old friends. Theres no way to quantify camaraderie in market analysis, but its an ever present emotion in life at sea - the one constant in an industry where, as a leading Greek owner observed in the conference this week, the stability lies in instability. Box throughput in May was recorded at 3.09m teu, a drop of 2.2% compared to 3.16m teu in May last year, according to figures released by Shanghai International Port (Group) Co (SIPG). Compared to 3.12m teu seen in April this year, last months volumes inched down by 1%, SIPG data showed. In the first five months of this year, Shanghai port moved a total throughput of 14.75m teu, a decrease of 1.3% from 14.94m teu registered in the same period of 2015. Declaring himself "determined to achieve better connectivity around ports", he talked of a "shared goal of better connected ports driving forward our economy". The Minister, four months into his appointment, said: "This Government is committed to record investment in our national transport infrastructure. I think we have to do more about linking our ports to our transport strategy in general. Often there is a disconnect. "It is really important we see our roads policy closely linked to our ports policy it is really important to identify these linkages." Hayes also had strong words on the European Union's latest attempts to introduce a Port Services Directive. His predecessor, Stephen Hammond, had been absolutely right to resist that with every possible means he could, he said. The Government has, at this point in the proceedings, secured an exemption for British ports from some elements of proposals. However, final confirmation of this exemption rests with the EU Parliament. "The UK government will not want to adopt anything that damages the vitality of the [ports] industry," said Hayes. "We will work with all in this room employers, stakeholders, trade unions to resist this at every turn." The Minister was certainly very robust in his comments, said Bristol Port ceo Simon Bird, who has taken over from Forth Ports ceo Charles Hammond as the new chairman of UKMPG. Speaking later to Seatrade Global, he said: "This is the third attempt by the EU to force unwelcome regulation on ports throughout Europe. We and the Government are aligned in being against these regulations." There is still a battle ahead, he said. Europe's transport committee considered the Directive early in 2014 and put forward about 400 amendments. "But then the European elections intervened and since then about one-third of the MEPs have changed. "Although the UK hopes to have secured an exemption, this now goes forward to the European Parliament, where they have the power to review the text and delete/insert as they see fit." John Hayes, who described his views on the EU as "virtually unprintable, certainly unmentionable" said that since becoming Minister he had come to appreciate the value of the ports sector. "As a government, we have slightly undersold the ports industry," he said. "We can shout even louder about the significance of this sector, the people it employs and the energy, enthusiasm and enterprise that characterises it." But as in Europe, so in the UK democracy moves in mysterious ways. More than one person at the UKMPG reception was heard to remark that the Shipping Minister's remarks on the need for connectivity were very positive but with only six months until the UK General Election, who could really take the long-term view? The idea itself, of course, was and is not really new the shift towards port-based logistics solutions based around unpacking, storing, adding value and distributing from the port is pretty much going back to how things used to be pre-containerisation, with warehouses built up around ports just as refineries were located nearby to take direct delivery of imported crude. Fans of portcentric, or the one-stop-shop, say this approach can cut supply chain costs, reduce carbon output and improve flexibility and responsiveness to market demands. But portcentric operations require portcentric space, something that is not always in plentiful supply. So the latest announcement by Hutchison Ports UK that it is launching a very significant warehousing and logistics development within the boundaries of the UKs biggest container port is bound to attract interest. The planned Felixstowe Logistics Park will see the development of 1.45m sq ft of warehousing on a 68-acre site, which has been created by assembling older haulage yards and warehousing and parcels of brownfield land. The new site that we are launching has the key advantage of being located within the ports perimeter, said Clemence Cheng, Felixstowes chief executive. It is less than 100 m from Berths 8 & 9, where we handle the worlds largest container ships, and only 500 m from Trinity Terminal. Both terminals, with a combined throughput of over 4m teu per annum, can be accessed via internal roads, allowing customers to maximise the economics of ocean freight and portcentric logistics. He added: The site is located adjacent to No. 1 Gate with immediate access to the A14 and very close to the ports three rail terminals. With 60 freight train movements each day, this opens up a wide range of sustainable transport options. The logistics park announcement comes shortly after planning consent was granted to freight and logistics company Uniserve for its first Super DC [distribution centre] at Felixstowe this 500,000 sq ft development will be 130 feet high, to accommodate three 320,000 sq ft mezzanine floors. Meanwhile, the construction of a 190m extension to Felixstowes Berth 9 is due for completion in 2015. Felixstowe will start the New Year with a bit of drama and has already issued a Save the Date alert. The worlds largest containership, the 19,000 teu CSCL Globe, is due to call on 7/8 January. The arrival of this ship represents a first for the UK. It is important economically the direct call recognises the scale of the UK economy, said HPUKs head of corporate affairs, Paul Davey. Certainly, the CSCL Globe can expect headlines as well as a welcome on the quayside when she berths. UACC ceo Per Wistoft cited the data, provided by ICAP Shipping International, as strengthening the core rationale of the company of transporting Middle Eastern refined products to the rest of the world. If you look at time-charter rates that product tankers are earning today, its a very strong market. Its the strongest market we have had for maybe five years, Wistoft told Seatrade Global recently. [Middle East] refinery capacity has now reached a level where, when refineries are running at their normal output, there is a very close balance between supply of vessels and demand for them. The tanker market has enjoyed a huge year-end rally across the board. VLCC rates have flirted with the $100,000 a day mark, according brokers C R Weber. In the product tanker sector EA Gibson noted MRs have been able achieve rates of $29,000 per day through triangulation, with LR2s achieving $24,500 a day in the second half trading the Arabian GulfJapan, while LR1s saw $19,500 a day in the period which it said were the highest since 2008. The addition of new capacity over the next four years will only add to UACCs ability to improve the business. Tonne-mile demand is on the up, meaning that more refined products need to be transferred greater distances to reach market, allowing tanker owners to utilise their vessels more efficiently. To meet the demand, the company has taken delivery of five secondhand vessels since Wistoft took over as ceo in September 2013: one MR product tanker and four MR chemical vessels, a number of them from Malaysia's MISC. Of a fleet today of 21 vessels, UACC owns 18 of the vessels and has another three itself on charter. We control 21, and three of them are on bareboat charter, Wistoft said. Wistoft has four ships out to the Straits Tankers pool in Singapore, eight on time charter and nine on the spot market. Its a question of weighing up risk, said Wistoft of the decision to which use to put the vessels in the UACC fleet. While UACC retains the coo and cfo functions in-house, it is not a fully integrated shipping company. We have outsourced the management of our ships to three different technical managers, Wistoft said. UACC employs Executive Ship Management of Singapore, Fleet Management of Hong Kong and Selandia of India for the technical management of its fleet, he said. The company has not recently looked at the market for newbuilds, as Wistoft said it was today at a level where it was prohibitive to contract for them. He said valuations for tankers were difficult to arrive at due to different specifications, different yards and speed consumption. As a broad rule of thumb, he estimated the benchmark value of a five-year-old MR tanker at $25m. Wistoft said that while bunker prices were today half what they were three-to-six months ago, slow steaming continued to affect the entire industry, and that for his fleet, this meant average speeds of 12-13 knots, where 14-15 knot speeds would be employed in normal circumstances. Falling crude prices will help much of the rest of the world to have better economic growth, he said. He said that the optimal utilisation rate that chemical tanker operators could achieve in terms of moving cargoes around the world, as opposed to steaming unladen, was around 65%. Some vessels do much better than that, he said. He said UACC today had around $326m of long-term debt on its balance sheet, more than doubling FY2012 levels. In May, UACC announced that it had secured a $300m term loan from six international banks. According to UACCs website, the fleet, composed of MR and LR1 chemical and product tankers, consists of 21 vessels, ranging in deadweights from 45,249 to 73,427 dwt. We still see clear signs that the average tonne of clean petroleum or petrochemical cargo is transported longer before reaching the end consumer [tonne-mile is increasing], than it did before, wrote Jens Groenning, Wistofts predecessor as ceo, in UACCs 2012 annual report. This is thanks to the state-of-the-art refineries and petrochemical plants coming on line in the Arabian Gulf and India, at the same time as similar plants are closing down in the West. UACC made net losses of $9.7m and $8.3m in 2013 and 2012 respectively, but did not publish an annual report in 2013, and as a private company is not obliged to do so. When Seatrade Global put it to Wistoft that this was a sign of distress, he responded: Quite the reverse. Michael S. Salisbury Michael S. Salisbury, age 62, of Carlisle, passed away Saturday, June 11, 2016 at his home, in the loving care of his wife and nurse, Janice, and surrounded by his loving family. He was born August 21, 1953 in Carlisle to the late Edgar Miles Sam and Lydia Ann (Nulik) Salisbury. Michael was a 1971 graduate of Carlisle High School, where he was a member of the World Champion Marching Band and the Galaxies Swing Band that competed and toured in Europe. He went on to Penn State University to receive his Bachelors and Masters degrees. Michael was a Senior Professor of Automotive Technology at HACC where he retired after 35 years of service. He was also part of the GM ASEP program and did GM product service training. He was always happy to help others with their car problems. Michael was a very active member of Carlisle Christian Fellowship Church. He enjoyed volunteering with the Salvation Army and loved to participate in the Chariots of Fire program, giving rides to those in need so they could attend Sunday services. He is survived by his wife of 33 years, Janice K. Tetherow-Salisbury; a daughter, Alyson (and husband Nathan) Horne; a son, Wesley (and wife Tara) Salisbury, all of Carlisle; a sister, Debra (and husband John) Paulson of Media, PA; two grandchildren, Lyla and William; and several nieces and nephews. Celebration of Life services will be held at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 16, 2016 at Hoffman Funeral Home & Crematory, 2020 W. Trindle Road, Carlisle, PA with Pastor David A. Huston officiating. Burial will follow at Westminster Cemetery. There will be a visitation from 12:30 p.m. until the time of the services. The family would like to offer special thanks to the nurses and caregivers of Celtic Hospice for the wonderful care given to Michael during his illness. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions may be made to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, Radnor Station, Bldg. #2, Suite 320, King of Prussia Road, Radnor, PA 19087 or to the Johns Hopkins Frontotemporal Dementia and Young-Onset Dementias Clinic, Dept. of Psychiatry, FTD Program, 550 N. Broadway, Suite 914, Baltimore, MD 21205. To sign the guestbook, please visit www.HoffmanFH.com Tom Merlie said last week he is concerned when contractors say they want to complete the Iron Forge Elementary School project two months ahead of schedule. I think we should be on the lookout, said Merlie, chairman of the South Middleton School Board facilities committee. There is more money waiting on the horizon for them from other jobs. Lead architect Jeff Straub mentioned the push toward an early completion as he briefed committee members last week on the monthly progress of the $22.5 million project to renovate and expand the Iron Forge building. Concerned about quality, Merlie said it scares him to know there are contractors in a hurry to have a job of this magnitude done early. He added an early completion makes no difference to the school district. Were not moving kids halfway through the school year, Merlie said. He was referring to a district plan to transfer the third grade from the W.G. Elementary School to the Iron Forge building at the start of the 2017-2018 year, not in the middle of the upcoming 2016-2017 year. The current timeline calls for project completion in February. Completing Iron Forge two months ahead of schedule would move the timetable to this December. The official transfer of the third grade will only take place in August 2017. What we said behind doors is Hey, thats great if they finish early ... Let them set a goal, Straub said. He added completing the project two months early is fine as long as the quality of the work is good. Point well taken, Straub told committee members. We will be watching them. Straub noted how the district is holding $850,000 in retainer that will not be released to the contractors until everyone is satisfied with the quality of their work. In related business, school board members last week discussed whether to approve a construction services agreement with Crabtree Rohrbaugh & Associates. Straub is a director at the Mechanicsburg firm. The school board could vote June 20 on the agreement where Crabtree Rohrbaugh would manage the Iron Forge project one day a week for 12 weeks while clerk-of-the-works Ed Consalo is out sick. The cost of this additional service from Crabtree Rohrbaugh is estimated at $8,400 or about $20,400 less than what the district would be paying Consalo to be on-site full-time five to six days per week, according to Matthew Ulmer, district operations and business manager. Board member Stacey Knavel questioned Ulmer on why district administrators are not looking for a replacement clerk-of-the-works. Knavel said she remembers a conversation that took place before her appointment as a school director in which board members agreed it was a great idea to hire Consalo as an independent clerk-of-the-works to monitor the project separate from Crabtree Rohrbaugh. While I think its great that we may save $20,000, theres a lot going on out there this summer, said Knavel who asked if having a Crabtree Rohrbaugh representative show up one day a week is enough oversight. I got the impression Ed saved us a lot in change orders, Knavel said. He was there every day. In response, Ulmer said it would cost the district more money to bring a new clerk-of-the-works onboard and up-to-date at such a critical time in the project. He added Consalo always consulted Crabtree Rohrbaugh on the validity of contractor requests for change orders before the paperwork was fully processed. Crabtree Rohrbaugh has been there from the beginning, Ulmer said, adding how no one else is as familiar with the project and can keep it moving forward. Superintendent Al Moyer said if it were anyone else but Straub and Crabtree Rohrbaugh, he would feel differently about the situation and recommend a different course of action. We have a reputable firm and a reputable lead architect, Moyer said. Yard sales and flea markets are always a popular eventin the right weatherand this was especially true of the 12th annual U-Turn and Community Yard Sale Saturday. The sale, a joint effort between Dickinson College and the United Way of Carlisle & Cumberland County, was held at the Carlisle Fairgrounds and featured both a community yard sale of more than 100 vendors as well as a sale of excess dormitory items donated by college students. Proceeds benefited the local United Way. According to United Way Executive Director Lucy Zander, this years event had a strong turn-out. Early bird (shoppers) came in around 7:30 and we had hundreds of people standing in line, Zander said. I believe the first person was here before six. The events reduced prices and charitable purpose combined to create a cycle of community benefit. It is great for us because it is money that helps us run our operations and to be able to put resources back into the community, Zander said. For us at the United Way, the people that come to shop are sometimes recipients of services, but it is a way for us to (also) touch people that we wouldnt ordinarily touch. I think with the economy, people are still struggling in our community and in other communities, Zander added. (Community sales) are a way for them to get a nice product at a greatly reduced cost, which helps their families. With this (sale) benefiting the United Way, I think that brings a lot of people out, yard sale vendor Heather Keller said. People like to donate. Zander cited socialization and comradery as other contributing factors to the events appeal. People come to see their friends and neighbors, Zander said. We see the community building. They come with a neighbor or someone else, so there is that comradery there. But also the vendors they come back year after year and they get to know other vendors, so there is some relationship building there as well. Yard sale vendor Byron Fleming likened the events popularity to their typical mix of modern and vintage items. His stand featured everything from Beatles records to Xbox 360 video games. There are good deals (on) a variety of stuff, Fleming said. And you have the modern day stuff, so I guess the young people come in to look at it, too. But most vendors chalked sales appeal up to the mutual benefits of a classic adage, one persons trash is another persons treasure. We basically just have a wide variety of items here, Keller said. Nothing specific. Its just a lot of stuff we no longer need. Turf cutters working in an Irish peat bog have unearthed a 2,000-year-old lump of butter, the Cavan County Museum announced. Smelling like a strong cheese, the 22-pound chunk of waxy material was found 12 feet below the surface near the town of Drakerath, some 50 miles north of Dublin. According to experts, the bog butter is still in excellent condition. "Bogs are excellent preservative properties low temperature, low oxygen and highly acidic environment," the museum said in a statement. RELATED: Oldest 'Bog Body' Found with Skin Intact It is likely the butter was put in the peat bog as a gift to the gods rather than buried with the aim of preserving it. Andy Halpin at the National Museum of Ireland, where the butter has been sent to be carbon dated and analyzed, said the creamy dairy product may never have been intended to be dug up. WATCH: Cheese: It Does A Body Good Photo: An recent aerial photo of a manmade Chinese island in the South China Sea, where China plans to build an underwater base as well. Credit: U.S. Navy, via YouTube China is building a massive underwater equivalent of a space station in the South China Sea, which could be used to hunt for minerals and further its military efforts to dominate the disputed area. Bloomberg News reported this week that it had viewed a presentation by China's Science Ministry on the ambitious project, which entails building a manned facility at a depth of nearly 10,000 feet. Manned submersible craft have ventured even further down in the ocean, but not for more than few hours. By comparison, the deepest extended-stay manned base is Florida International University's Aquarius laboratory, which sits in 60 feet of water off Key Largo, Fl. Working for extended periods underwater, even at that lesser depth, requires elaborate life support and safety procedures. Divers who return from the base, where the pressure is 2.5 times that on the surface, must undergo a 15-hours decompression process. RELATED: As China Builds Artificial Islands, Reefs, Fish at Risk The Chinese base would be at a depth where the pressure is about 300 times what it is on the surface. No details about the cost or design of the underwater base are available yet. Chinese President Xi Jinping proclaimed the need for the laboratory at a science conference last month. "The deep sea contains treasures that remain undiscovered and undeveloped, and in order to obtain these treasures we have to control key technologies in getting into the deep sea, discovering the deep sea, and developing the deep sea," he said. The South China Sea may have deposits equivalent to 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations. RELATED: Chinese Building Third Base on Artificial Island in Disputed South China Sea But such a base might also help China to assert its control of the South China Sea, an area that contains some of the world's busiest shipping lanes. China currently is involved in a dispute with Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Asian countries over its claim of territorial rights to 80 percent of those waters. To further their claims, the Chinese have built up reefs to create several artificial islands, including one that contains an airfield. Defense publication Jane's has reported that the Chinese also are considering building the "Underwater Great Wall Project," a deep-sea sensing network that would help to detect U.S. and Russian submarines. In 2012, filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron set a depth record by descending 35,737 feet in a submersible that he helped to design. The Chinese record is 22,600 feet, set by a three-man submarine that same year. WATCH VIDEO: What Do We Really Know About The Ocean Floor? Photo: Shown is a close-up of a lemon shark. Credit: Patrick Quinn-Graham, Wikimedia Commons To unify shark conservation efforts worldwide, marine life experts have just launched a new database containing information on some of the planet's most threatened sharks. The online tool, called the "Database of measures on conservation and management of sharks," also includes information on threatened skates, rays and chimaeras, which are all related to sharks. It was created by FAO-CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. RELATED: Shark Vs. Dolphin Battles Can Have Surprising Outcomes In creating the tool, FAO-CITES received support from the European Union, Japan, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Kim Friedman, a senior fishery resources officer working with FAO member states on CITES issues, said, "This shark measures database is a 'one-stop shop' for those wishing to find information on shark, ray and skate guidance and management measures." Friedman and other members of the convention just wrapped up a meeting in Rome, where new proposals concerning particular sharks and related marine life were discussed. The species included silky sharks and three species of thresher shark. All of the devil rays, one stingray, two ornamental marine fishes (Banggai cardinalfish and clarion angelfish) and all species of the mollusk nautilus were re-evaluated as well. WATCH VIDEO: "6 Animals More Dangerous Than Sharks" The weapons were also used by the shooters in San Bernadino when they killed 14 people on Dec. 2, 2015. Law enforcement officials identified the rifles as a DPMS model AR-15 and a Smith & Wesson M&P 15, according to The Washington Post. Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 at a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. on Sunday when he opened fire with a Sig Sauer AR-15-style assault rifle, as well as a Glock handgun. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. "In the last couple decades, there's been more and more people buying them," said Kopel, who has written on second Amendment issues. "One reason is that they are good guns for a variety of purposes. The recoil is light and they are easy to fire accurately." How did there get to be so many? As David Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute in Denver explains, these semi-automatic rifles are popular for a reason. The AR-15 is the most popular gun in America. With 3 to 4 million out there, it's beloved by sport shooters, hunters, gun collectors and increasingly, the weapon of choice for violent killers like those in Orlando, San Bernadino and Colorado Springs. Kopel says the weapons, which are modeled after the M-16 military rifle, are also highly customizable to each person. "You can add or change a scope or barrel of your choice," Kopel said. The AR-15 also makes it easy to shoot a lot of ammunition. Owners can purchase magazines that carry from 20- to 60-round magazines. RELATED: Are We Getting Desensitized To Shootings? While semi-automatic rifles have been around since the turn of the 19th century, they became more popular during the Vietnam Era when returning soldiers wanted a civilian weapon that resembled the M-16 rifle they used while in the army. The main difference was that they the fully-automatic function was prohibited. Congress banned many types of assault rifles from 1994 to 2004, but the law failed to cover all semi-automatic weapons. Rather, certain barrels, stocks, grips and other features were restricted, according to Kopel. "You had guns that were compliant with the law," Kopel said. "But the gun internally was the same" as before the ban. The law did not apply retroactively to assault weapons that had already been manufactured. "We do not know when the assault weapons involved in the shootings in San Bernardino were manufactured, nor how they ended up in the hands of the shooters after having been purchased legally two years ago by someone else," said Randolph Roth, a history professor at Ohio State University who has written about the history of gun violence. "But if the weapons were manufactured after 2004, it would mean that the lifting of the assault weapon ban was responsible for those particular weapons being in circulation." Roth notes that while the number of guns manufactured in the United States has skyrocketed from just under 3 million in 2001 to nearly 11 million in 2014 (according to ATF figures), the number of gun owners has been declining (according to the General Social Survey). RELATED: Mass Shootings Have Long History Gun ownership is also highly partisan, with ownership by registered Democrats less than half that of registered Republicans. Efforts to regulate the sale of assault weapons, also known as "sport rifles" or "tactical rifles," are pretty much dead, according to Ladd Everett, spokesman for the Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Everett says that the Republican party has blocked any attempts at gun control laws, including universal background checks, greater sharing of mental health data, and restrictions on certain individuals to obtain weapons. There hasn't been a huge push on the Hill because our side has never had the votes," Everett said. "We've had some real dysfunctional congresses, even in the realm of the gun issue. It's an issue that is red hot, so much of their (the National Rifle Association's) messaging is around bans." RELATED: Gun Control Strategy Empowers Relatives To Speak Out For Everett, the focus has been on attempting to get universal background checks and research funds for gun violence studies. Regulating assault weapons isn't in the cards. "When will we get back to this?" Everett said. "I don't have a clear answer." In contrast to gun violence in the United States, since the mid-1990s, Australia's firearm mortality rate has dropped from 2.6 per 100,000 people to just under 1 per 100,000, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The rate in the United States is more than 10 per 100,000, according to the U.S National Vital Statistics Report, according to the Post. In the 18 years leading up to the Port Arthur massacre, there were 13 mass killings in Australia, which instituted a massive gun buyback program afterward. There have been zero in the 19 years since. Carlisle Police (243-5252) Police are investigating an overdose death in the first block of West Louther Street at about 7 p.m. June 10. Police said a 34-year-old man was found dead in the residence. The investigation is ongoing. Two brown chairs, a brown bench and a girls bicycle were stolen from the front porch of a home in the 400 block of Factory Street sometime between 8 a.m. and noon on June 10. The furniture is valued at $70 and the bicycle at $129. Police seek information. Upper Allen Township Police (795-2445) Lorraine Miller of Mechanicsburg was injured and taken to Holy Spirit Hospital after a one-vehicle crash at about 10:30 p.m. June 10 in the first block of East Winding Hill Road. Police said Miller left the road and struck a tree. She was the only occupant in the vehicle. Ahmed Abraham Nur, 36, of Mechanicsburg, was charged with simple assault and harassment after a domestic incident at about 11 p.m. June 11. Police responded to a 911 hang-up call in which yelling was heard in the background. When police arrived, the victim reported being assaulted by Nur and had signs of physical injury. Shippensburg Police (532-7361) Sarah Rose Desmond, 34, of Williamsport, was charged with theft of mislaid property and receiving stolen property after police said she stole a backpack that a man had forgotten on the ground while pumping gas into his motorcycle at Sheetz. Desmond was identified by reviewing video obtained by Sheetz security cameras, police said. State Police at Carlisle (249-2121) Sometime between 5 p.m. May 30 and 8 a.m. May 31, someone stole the license plates from two vehicles in the 600 block of Bloserville Road, Upper Frankford Township. State Police at Newport (567-3110) Numerous animal traps were stolen from a garage in the 800 block of Clouser Hollow Road in Centre Township sometime between 12:01 a.m. May 6 and 11:59 p.m. May 20. Someone stole a Wii video game system and four video games from a home in the first block of North Market Street in Millerstown around 12:01 a.m. June 4. Hows this for cozy party politics? Even as the state Democratic Partys executive committee is being asked to endorse a November ballot measure that would cap prescription drug prices in California, a top party member who is also on the Assembly speakers payroll is pulling down $12,500 a month from the pharmaceutical industry to help defeat it. Records show that Eric Bauman wears many hats these days, and that he has critics in his own party questioning his role in the $68 million campaign to defeat the California Drug Price Relief Act initiative. The measure, backed chiefly by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, would cap the price that any state agency or care program could spend on prescription drugs at what the federal Department of Veterans Affairs pays. Records on file with the secretary of states office show that VictoryLand Partners, a consulting firm registered to Baumans home address in North Hollywood, has been paid $12,500 a month since early February to consult with the pharmaceutical industry and its allies that are fighting the measure. Last year, Bauman reported receiving more than $100,000 from VictoryLand Partners, some of it paid by health care interests. VictoryLand was active in the industrys successful campaign against Proposition 46, the November 2014 ballot measure that would have lifted the cap on damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. The paid political work comes while Bauman pulls down $145,000 a year as a full-time senior adviser to Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Los Angeles. A spokesman for Rendons office said he was unaware of Baumans moonlighting but that his job was running constituent services in L.A. and that his side work didnt appear to pose a problem. Bauman insists there are no conflicts and that his state work doesnt involve advising Rendon on pharmaceutical or other policy matters. Im certainly not using my personal influence with anybody on this matter, Bauman said. The truth of the matter is, this is not an issue Im very much involved in. Bauman said most of the campaign work was being done by his two business partners his husband, Michael Andraychak, and Adam Seiden, who works under him as executive director of the L.A. County Democratic Party. But some party insiders and consumer advocates arent so sure, and theyre worried about Baumans clout as a state party vice chairman and favorite to succeed retiring Democratic boss John Burton next year. The Democratic Party needs conflict-of-interest rules to prevent party insiders from being paid by drug companies and hospitals to steal the party seal from consumer-oriented ballot measures, said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group supporting the drug pricing initiative. Mark Capitolo, a spokesman for Californians for Lower Drug Prices, a group campaigning for the initiative, said Democrats have been fighting for years to bring down the cost of medications. It would be outrageous if a committee funded by the drug companies and backed by the California Republican Party and Cal Chamber (California Chamber of Commerce) is allowed to infiltrate our party and purchase our silence on an issue so critical, Capitolo said. I have a complex life, Bauman said. But I am one of the most loyal, active Democrats you will see unquestionably. Bauman isnt the only high-powered Democrat being paid to oppose the measure. Sacramento lobbyist Jason Kinney is working on the no campaign while also being paid by the state Democratic Party to act as communications director for Senate Democrats. However, Kathy Fairbanks, spokeswoman for the no campaign, emphasized that a number of Democrats and their allies are coming out against the measure not because of any backroom politics but because its poorly drafted and not going to lower drug costs. BART gamble: BART directors are taking a big roll of the dice with the $3.5 billion general obligation bond they just voted to put on the November ballot in San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties. 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. BARTs own polling, done in January by Fairbanks, Maslin, Maullin, Metz and Associates, showed the bond with 66 percent support out of the gate rising to 77 percent after voters hear how the bond would help BART. Support dropped to 69 percent, however, when homeowners were told the bond would raise their property taxes anywhere from $30 to $55 a year. A more recent poll by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce found support at only 61 percent in the city. The bond needs a two-thirds cumulative vote in the three counties to pass. A third poll, commissioned by state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda a vocal critic of BART spending found support in his district covering Contra Costa and portions of Alameda County at 43 percent. Its going to be tough sell out here, Glazer said. If the bond passes, BART will get a new tracks and a new control system that will allow it to run six more East Bay trains an hour in and out of San Francisco at commute time. If it fails, well be patching up the aging system with Band-Aids, said BART board President Tom Radulovich. S an Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: matierandross A series of large investments from sovereign wealth funds has given private companies yet another means to put off an IPO, potentially spawning a new age of megadeals valued at $100 million or more that can help companies keep their valuations high. With the IPO market slowing down, unicorns private companies worth more than $1 billion have remained hungry for cash. And the amounts of money they want to raise are at times bigger than venture capital firms can afford. So private companies have begun turning to deep-pocketed sovereign wealth funds instead. This month, Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund made a $3.5 billion investment in Uber, and in January, Kuwait invested $165 million in Jawbone. Everyday investors, mutual funds and sovereign wealth funds used to look to the public market for wealth creation. But a decline in initial public offerings has confined wealth creation to the private markets. The sovereign wealth funds are realizing that if they dont play in the private markets, they are going to lose out, said Venky Ganesan, chairman of the National Venture Capital Association and managing director at Menlo Ventures. Staying private enables companies to control who has a stake in their business. Their need to sustain aggressive growth means they are looking for more money than ever. Some sovereign wealth funds, meanwhile, have hundreds of billions of dollars. Only large investments will give them a worthwhile return, analysts say. They are here because private companies are raising such big amounts, Ganesan said. Theyre here to stay. Diversifying investments is especially important for oil-based economies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as they look to lure developing industries to their countries. An early investment like this in Uber could position a country to be at the forefront of the next automotive revolution, said Patrick Chung, co-founder and managing member of Xfund. Investing in private companies also gives sovereign wealth funds greater access to information on those businesses. Once companies hit the public markets, they are required to report the same information to all of their shareholders. While sovereign wealth funds have the capital, and therefore the access, to bet on private companies, retail investors are not so lucky. What is happening is that, in essence, the retail investor and the mutual fund investor is being deprived, Ganesan said. Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes The number of publicly listed companies fell by almost 50 percent since its peak of 7,607 in 1997 to 3,822 in 2014, according to data compiled by Jay Ritter, finance professor at University of Floridas Warrington College of Business. Mergers and acquisitions have taken some companies off the public markets, and not enough companies are going public to replace them, he said. With sovereign wealth funds injecting large amounts of money into the private market, private companies face even less pressure to enter the public market, where they would face steep regulatory costs and quarterly scrutiny from Wall Street analysts. The private markets are going to continue to get robust, and the public markets are going to continue to be anemic, Ganesan said. We need to figure out a way to make the IPO market more vibrant again. Megadeals those of $100 million or more have become increasingly common. Eighteen of the 20 largest funding deals since 1995 have occurred within the last three years, according to a MoneyTree report by the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Im always kind of amazed on what happens in any given quarter, said Tom Ciccolella, venture capital leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers. You think things are back to normal, then you get announcements like these. You think things are calming down, and it doesnt seem like that today. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The sorrow and horror of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando quickly gave way to presidential politics Sunday, with both Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton pushing their own views of the tragedy. For both sides, the massacre has changed, at least for now, the focus of the presidential race. As dozens of shooting victims fought for their lives, each campaign worked to turn the new narrative to its favor. For Trump, who has often talked about barring Muslims from entering the country, the news that 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants, had walked into the Florida nightspot and gunned down 50 people was an I told you so moment. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, he said in a tweet Sunday. I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! For Clinton, it was the fact that Mateen, who was shot dead by police, reportedly used an assault-style weapon in the massacre that caught her political eye. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, she said in a statement, and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets. Control the narrative While it may be appear more than a bit unseemly to use a national tragedy for political purposes, theres nothing particularly new about it. Just look at the GOPs effort to bind Clinton and her presidential hopes to the 2012 deaths of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya. The mass shooting in Orlando, and the circumstances around it, are just too much for any politician to ignore, said Jessica Levinson, a political analyst and law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Theres something in this for everyone, she said. Each side is going to try to control the narrative of the tragedy. For Trump, still drawing criticism for his suggestion earlier this month that a judge born in Indiana of Mexican immigrant parents couldnt fairly preside over his California civil trial, any chance to change the subject is welcome. The Orlando killings allow the New York businessman to try to reach for the moral high ground, changing his calls for tough restrictions on Muslims both inside and outside the country from a question of race to one of national security. When will this stop? he asked in a tweet. When will we get tough, smart & vigilant? Its a powerful argument to Americans horrified at the growing realization that anyone, even people out for a night of dancing and partying, can be the target of a terrorist. Fear always speaks most loudly, Levinson said. People who walk into a club assume theyll be able to walk out. President Obama, speaking from the White House on Sunday afternoon, called the shootings an act of terror and an act of hate, and said the shooter was a person filled with hatred. He also talked about how the attacker had targeted lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and called the massacre a reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon. Trumps hard words That wasnt nearly strong enough for Trump, who said that if the president refused to refer directly to radical Islamic terrorism, he should immediately resign in disgrace. What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning, Trump said in a tweet. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban (on Muslims). Must be tough. Clinton and her Democratic backers, who have dismissed Trumps anti-Muslim measures as little more than overt racism, were forced to take a more nuanced and less actively aggressive approach to the Orlando killings. We need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad, Clinton said. That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are ... and refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values. Both sides may be preaching to the converted. For those who already read it one way, this is just a way to double down, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst and professor at the University of Southern California. The dueling campaign messages over what the massacre means are not going to swing the undecided, but only confirm what each sides people already believe. 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. The political wrangling after the Orlando shootings also opened a way for others to explore some of the less savory areas of modern American politics. Just hours after the shooting at the gay nightclub, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tweeted a photo with the words of the Bible verse Galatians 6:7. The verse reads, Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The post was quickly taken down after critics accused him of blaming the LGBT victims of the attack. Patrick, who has been described by Josh Earnest, Obamas press secretary, as a right-wing radio host elected to public state office, is loudly opposed to both same-sex marriage and allowing transgender people to use gender-appropriate restrooms. Patrick later apologized, saying the tweet had been scheduled for days and that he regretted the unfortunate timing. Clintons Spanish tweet Then there was Clinton, who tweeted Sunday morning that her thoughts were with those affected by the horrific events in Florida. Shortly after, her campaign tweeted out the same message in Spanish, probably because of the clubs heavily Hispanic crowd on its weekly Latino-theme night. That brought a quick response. This is America, someone tweeted. Speak English. John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: jfwildermuth One person was flown to the hospital and another injured after a two-vehicle crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Middlesex Township early Monday morning. State Police at Newville said Alselmo G. Dascenzo, 25, of Moon Township, Pennsylvania, was driving a 2008 Dodge Ram 1500 west on the turnpike when his vehicle struck the left rear of the trailer of a commercial vehicle accelerating from the Carlisle Interchange ramp. The impact caused Dascenzos vehicle to become lodged underneath the trailer, police said. Dascenzo suffered moderate injuries and was transported to Penn State Hershey Medical Center. His passenger, Alyssa D. Trautman, 23, of Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, was trapped within the vehicle and had to be freed by mechanical means, police said. She was flown to Hershey Medical Center for serious injuries. The driver of the tractor-trailer, who was not named by police, was not injured. Both vehicles were towed from the scene, and State Police was assisted by Cumberland Goodwill EMS, Carlisle Fire & Rescue, New Kingstown Fire Department, Ne Cumberland Maintenance and Newville Maintenance. Donald Trumps rage after Hillary Clinton criticized him reminded Regan Harrington of Rumpelstiltskin erupting in rage when he couldnt make a deal. David Harrington coined the candidates newest name: Trumpelstiltskin. Researching the original childrens story its German, so dont expect Disney-esque candy cotton I discovered that in one version, angry Rumpelstiltskin drove his right foot so far into the ground that it sank in up to his waist; then in a passion he seized the left foot with both hands and tore himself in two. Bravo. Meanwhile, Alfonso Montuori defines the term Trump loeil: the illusion created by a populist billionaire reality TV star. Carol Pogash is offering to inscribe copies of her book Quotations From Chairman Trump with Trumpisms, the choice of which is up to the buyer: bimbo, stupid, fat pig, dog, slob. In literary agent Andy Ross copy of the book, she wrote, You Loser! Jim Fuller used to have an office at 40 Wall St. in Manhattan, where Trump University had the fourth floor. One day, a man carrying a life-size Trump cutout got into the elevator with Fuller, who asked what it was for. He said he was an employee of Trump University, and he was taking it up to a graduation ceremony, because everybody who signed up for the Premium Real Estate Course was promised a picture with Donald Trump at graduation. But since Donald traveled so much, he wasnt always around on graduation day, so they were going to use the cutout. Janice Hough quotes Elizabeth Warren (Donald Trump is a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud who has never risked anything for anyone and serves nobody but himself) and observes that Warren could be really impressive if she would just stop sugarcoating things. A friend in Des Moines wrote to Ruth Bailey: We may have our first woman president or our last president. Peter Sussman has a different assessment: We have two main political parties in this country. One is searching for its heart. The other is losing its mind. The San Francisco Public Library has announced that its 2017 One City One Book choice is Carey Perloff of ACTs memoir, Beautiful Chaos: A Life in the Theater. The book which follows such past honorees as David Talbots Season of the Witch, Rebecca Solnits Paradise Built and Dave Eggers Zeitoun is about Perloffs life in the theater, and, said a statement from City Librarian Luis Herrera, an inside look at our home-grown world-class theater company. Elle Stern learned, from the newsletter of the Wagner Society of Northern California, that its next meeting is on Saturday, June 18, at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center. The composer, noted for his anti-Semitism, is a-rolling in his grave. High-fashion model Carmen DellOrefice, who was 13 when she roller-skated to her first job at Vogue and a few days ago, at 85, posed for a shoot for Sephora, was in conversation with fashion artist David Downton at Ken Fulks studio the other night. The physical toll of a career in modeling isnt inconsequential: As a teenager, my body had shut down, she said, and from the age of 14 to 17, at photographer Irving Penns request, a Vogue staff doctor gave her hormone shots. She had major dermabrasion (sun damage planed off her face, as she put it) when she was 37. She stood to show off new hips and other parts, and said she has steered clear of drinking and smoking. (According to other interviews, her face has been treated with injections of filler.) She seemed happiest describing her humble beginnings, her surgeries and how she overcame the financial ruin she suffered after investing all her money with Bernie Madoff. As to her status as an idol, though, she claimed to be mystified. She has spent her career in the bright lights, in a business where the other professionals are called girls and where everybody is constantly judged. Surely she was joking when Fulks fluffy black cat wandered in front of her chair, and she complained, Theres always somebody more important than I, even the cat. But Im not quite certain. Open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: leahgarchik Public Eavesdropping My selfie stick uses batteries. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate In the immediate aftermath of Sundays massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, citizens rushed to donate blood to help the survivors. Many of them included gay men who were desperate to contribute but were turned away. It was a tragic irony: Federal guidelines restrict sexually active gay men from donating blood. Many Bay Area activists and health experts decried the decades-old policy meant to protect the blood supply from the virus that causes AIDS. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifted its rule banning gay and bisexual men from donating blood for life in December, the new rules allow them to give blood but only if they havent had sex in at least a year. Its terrible it takes something like this to remind us of the uninformed policy. It makes absolutely no sense to require 12 months of abstinence, said Dr. Paul Volberding, director of the AIDS Research Institute at UCSF. The tests we have are amazingly accurate and fast. They can detect people in as little as three days who have been exposed to the virus. The outrage spilled over to social media, where many gay men railed about how it was easier for them to buy a gun than donate blood. Rumors circulated that one Florida blood center, OneBlood, was skirting the rules to accept donations from all gay and bisexual men, but those reports turned out to be false. Longtime ban revised The FDAs lifetime ban had been in place since 1983, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. While the agency revised the rules late last year, many blood centers have yet to change their procedures. Blood Centers of the Pacific, which provides blood and blood components to hospitals, physicians and patients throughout Northern California, expects by this fall to start accepting blood from gay men who havent had sex with other men in more than a year. The centers spokesman, Kent Corley, said it takes time to put all the new quality-control regulations and procedural changes in place. Weve been working through our own processes after their final approval of the 12-month ban, he said. It may seem very slow to some people, but we were pleased there was progress at all. Dr. Suchitra Pandey, chief medical officer of Blood Centers of the Pacific, said the organization supports the one-year deferral even though the center has used tests for years that can detect the virus in an average of 10 days after exposure. She said the yearlong period is consistent with other high-risk exposures, such as blood transfusions and accidental needle sticks. As we get more data and more studies are done ... potentially theres a chance for it to be revised again, she said. For now, were very supportive of the one-year ban and think its the right way to go. But other health officials disagreed. Overly conservative Dr. Susan Buchbinder, director of Bridge HIV, an arm of the San Francisco Department of Public Health dedicated to HIV prevention and education, called the one-year restriction overly conservative. Buchbinder said better testing tools have eliminated the need for the yearlong ban. I do appreciate the FDA is trying to ensure the blood supply is safe, she said, but it doesnt seem to me the data that are available really support a one-year deferral period. 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. It may feel discriminatory toward men who have sex with men, particularly in wake of this tragedy, she said. Thats how Neal Gallegos, of the Project More Foundation in Santa Clara, feels. Gallegos group has pushed for a change in blood donation rules for years. He is helping to coordinate a largely symbolic National Gay Blood Drive, which will be held July 8 in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Jose. Its frustrating, its offending, and its really on the fine line of discrimination, he said. They can test anybodys blood just in case. Regardless who I am, theyre going to check me out, just like anyone else. Officials from the Blood Centers of the Pacific said they wanted to remind donors that supplies dip low in the summer when students are out of school and people are on vacation. One of the main takeaways from this weekend was that the blood on hand to save those survivors in Orlando was donated in days or weeks prior to the tragedy, Corley said. People just need to be donating blood on a regular basis so its there on the shelf waiting if something is to happen. UCSFs Volberding said the senseless tragedy provides a fitting opportunity to revisit the one-year ban. One thing we can do is find something good to come out of it, he said. Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: vcolliver How much information should be available to the public in cases of severe child abuse? California lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Browns administration have been at odds over that question for two years. Legislators recently rejected a proposal to limit public access to reports on abuse so extreme that children nearly die. The schism reflects a fight between advocates for children and foster youths, on the one hand, and, on the other, the government agencies and workers tasked with protecting them from harm. At stake is almost $5 million in federal funds and the outcome of a debate pitting privacy arguments against revelations of what social workers knew about a family situation before a child was nearly killed. State law already requires the release of original caseworker reports when children die from abuse or neglect, sometimes exposing serious lapses in the governments care of vulnerable children. We spend a lot of time talking about the value of transparency in government, and I think that applies to this scenario, too, state Sen. Holly Mitchell, D-Los Angeles, said of cases deemed near fatalities. If shedding light on a particular practice, a particular worker, can create a different internal procedure that can have a positive outcome for the next child, that should be our collective goal, Mitchell said. Mitchell chairs the Senate committee that turned down a proposal from Browns Department of Social Services to require summaries of social worker reports not the reports themselves to be disclosed in near-fatal child abuse cases. Over the last eight years, 855 children in California were abused so severely that their cases qualified as near-fatalities, according to the Department of Social Services. The term is used when abuse victims end up in serious or critical condition. During the same period, 980 California children died from abuse. Cracked skull In a high-profile Los Angeles case, documents released after 8-year-old Gabriel Martinez died in 2013 with a cracked skull and broken ribs showed that local officials had left him with his mother despite having investigated her for abuse six times. Records also showed an unresolved allegation of abuse that social workers had failed to investigate in the time required by law. By contrast, state law is silent on the release of information when children barely survive abuse. We were proposing to create a process that would require disclosures, said Michael Weston, a deputy director in the Department of Social Services. There are currently no laws that require reporting. The department pitched a similar plan to the Legislature last year, but lawmakers did not accept it. This year, officials came back arguing that California is at risk of losing almost $5 million in federal funding if it does not pass a law defining what information must be made public in near-fatal abuse cases. Disclosing a summary of findings would protect the privacy of a child recovering from abuse and adults or siblings in the home who were not responsible for it, state officials said, while meeting federal reporting requirements. Their plan had support from the Service Employees International Union, which represents social workers, and the County Welfare Directors Association, which represents local agencies that oversee child protective services. Seeking disclosure But Ed Howard, a lobbyist for the Childrens Advocacy Institute, protested that the administrations approach elevated the needs of government over the needs of kids. Foster youth groups objected, too, arguing that original documents are more informative and that releasing them after near-fatalities would force counties to improve how they look out for children. Childrens advocates and newspaper publishers lobbied for a bill that would require disclosure of reports on near-fatalities the same way its done when youngsters die. The administrations latest proposal surfaced last month as part of Browns revised state budget blueprint a common way of passing laws that may be only tangentially related to the budget and avoids the lengthier vetting that regular bills receive. They simply thrust it on everyone with this gun-to-the-head approach and attempted to get it jammed into the budget that way, said Jim Ewert, lobbyist for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, which promotes open government and access to public records. Lawmakers rejected the proposal after the outcry from advocates. A new version is in the works, several people involved in the negotiations said, and could take shape in the budget that Brown and lawmakers must complete this month or in later legislation. CALmatters is a nonprofit journalism venture dedicated to exploring state policies andpolitics. For more stories by Laurel Rosenhall, go to www.calmatters.org/newsanalysis. Gov. Jerry Brown and Californias Democratic legislative leadership have come to an agreement on the state budget for the next fiscal year. The agreement came ahead of this years deadline, and there were no big surprises or rhetorical fireworks. Its a reflection of how well things are functioning in Sacramento during the governors fourth term. Still, its easier to agree on a budget when tax rolls are flush, as they have been for the past several years. But the good times arent going to last forever. To the latter point, Brown has been pushing legislators to add an extra $2 billion into the states rainy-day fund since January. It would be short-sighted in the extreme to now embark upon a host of new spending only to see massive cuts when the next recession hits, Brown wrote in a Jan. 7 letter to state legislators. State legislative leaders granted Browns request Thursday evening. The budget deal will boost the rainy-day reserve by an additional $2 billion. But Brown had to make a few compromises, too. Californias tax rolls have had some good years, but many people in California have not. The state is embroiled in homeless and housing crises. Income inequality, an increasing issue across the country, is particularly pronounced in California: a recent Public Policy Institute of California report noted that top incomes here are 40 percent higher than they were in 1980, while low incomes are 19 percent lower. State legislators have been pushing back on the governor to fight some of this suffering, and he offered some concessions. In his budget revise last month, Brown agreed to a $2 billion bond measure to serve the mental health needs of homeless people. There were small but significant increases for Californias most vulnerable children: boosts for state-funded child care and for public health nurses who monitor the health of foster children. CalWORKS conditions will be updated, so that new children born into state-assisted families will be able to get additional benefits. All of this new spending is badly needed and will save the state money in the long run. Theres still some negotiating to be done over housing. The state Legislature wants hundreds of dollars worth of affordable housing subsidies, but the governor has wisely tied the money to his plan to loosen regulations on new developments that include affordable housing. Local governments may cry foul, but the governor is right. He should stick to his guns. The Orlando shooting instantly became an issue in the presidential campaign, with Donald Trump taking his usual course on the low road. His immediate reaction was self-flattery, reckless accusations and too little regard for the victims of nations worst mass shooting. Its a new low if such a thing is possible for a candidate who exploits fear and now trauma. His words follow a week of fence-mending and restraint aimed at reassuring nervous Republican leaders that hes a fit nominee. Until now, his irresponsible and racially charged words havent chased these leaders off. Now it should reignite the smoldering debate on Trumps instincts served up with his reflexive egotism. Appreciate the congrats for being right began one tweet within hours of the gay nightclub massacre. In short order, Trump echoed his far-fetched stand to ban Muslims from the country, though the shooter was American born. In a speech Monday, he doubled down on the immigration ban, expanding it to include a broad swath of a countries with large numbers of Islamic followers. In his weekend remarks, he reheated the rights obsessive focus on word games by emphasizing radical Islamic terrorism, a phrase hardliners insist President Obama use to sharpen rhetorical battle lines. The president, Trump said, should immediately resign in disgrace. Then he dropped to another level, hinting that Obama was complicit in the deaths. Were led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or hes got something else in mind, Trump said. There is something going on. This stooping to wink-wink accusation is a disgrace. The sum total is vintage Trump, who exploits fear at every turn. He offers overwrought calls for military power and unrestricted intelligence gathering plus dark suggestions that Obama is somehow sympathetic to terrorists. Trump offered a disturbing window into his instincts at a moment of trauma or crisis. Bluster is not leadership. Fearmongering and advancement of conspiracy theories are no substitute for rational policies that actually could reduce the chances of future gun massacres by terrorists. His demagoguery is touching increasingly dangerous depths. Monika Graff/Getty Images As an Afghan American writer, my stance has been not to apologize for the actions of one individual, one Muslim, one racist, because that individual generally does not reflect the entire community. But Sunday, I felt compelled to apologize. Not enough has been done in the Afghan community in the United States to address homophobia, mental health, trauma or violence. Not enough resources have been allocated. We have failed. Omar Mateen was a U.S. citizen, born in New York City. Many believe that the ethnicity of his parents should be irrelevant. However, what the outside world might see as an act of terror by a radical Islamist or an Islamic State sympathizer, I recognize as a pattern that Afghan Americans see frequently one of sweeping family issues under the rug. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Donald Trump used the Orlando massacre to intensify his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S., proposing to suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States or its allies. The immigration laws of the United States give the president the power to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the president deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States, as he deems appropriate, Trump said Monday. I will use this power to protect the American people. When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats. But the presumptive GOP presidential nominees half-hour speech delivered from a teleprompter, which still remains the exception for the freewheeling New York businessman was riddled with errors, vague promises, oversimplifications and inconsistencies, analysts said, with even fellow Republicans and others calling it incoherent. It was an opportunity for him to start to lay out a vision about what direction hed go on foreign policy as commander in chief, said Lanhee Chen, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and former chief policy adviser for 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. We got none of that. Instead, we got more on the Muslim ban. Trump had stated previously that all Muslims should be banned from entering the U.S. Expanding the ban from members of a specific religion to vague, unnamed areas around the world is incoherent, said Todd Schulte, president of fwd.us, a pro-immigration-rights organization founded by tech-community leaders. So does that mean that we are ending all immigration from Spain and London and Tokyo and France and India? Schulte asked Monday. All of these things that he talks about fall into this mix that is incoherent and anti-immigrant which helped him consolidate one-third of the Republican primary vote. Politically, Chen said, the speech was unlikely to enlarge Trumps support beyond those who already appreciate his tough talk and gravitate to his policy-free message that he will keep people safe. His tone is incredibly appealing to all the people who voted for him in the GOP primaries, said Chen, who advised Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the primaries. But its not clear who else it will attract. While Trump mentioned Democrat Hillary Clinton 19 times during his speech, she didnt mention him once during a campaign stop earlier in the day in Ohio. Instead, in broad strokes, she called for expanding President Obamas anti-terrorism policy. We should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign, accelerating support for our friends fighting to take and hold ground, and pushing our partners in the region to do even more, Clinton said. She also said she would make identifying lone wolf terrorists a top priority. As for Trump, here is a closer look at some of the points he tried to make Monday: The Orlando shooter was an Afghan: Trump said the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was born an Afghan, of Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States and added that the bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here. Not only was that wrong like Trump, Mateen was born in Queens, N.Y., making him a U.S. citizen but the fact that Mateen was born in America contradicts Trumps premise that a ban on Muslims entering the country would make America safer. He was trying to tap into the baser fears of Americans by calling him out as an Afghan as an excuse for putting him on one of these lists (of banned immigrants) hes putting together, said Jennifer Taw, a professor of government and international relations at Claremont-McKenna College. I found his speech appalling, frankly. Strangely, Trump ad-libbed that remark; his remarks as prepared for delivery did not refer to Mateen as being born an Afghan. Yet Trump still wants Muslims to help root out terrorists: Trump said Muslim communities must cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people like Mateen. The Muslims have to work with us, Trump said. They know whats going on. They know that (Mateen) was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didnt turn them in. And you know what? We had death and destruction. Farhana Khera, the director of Muslim Advocates and former counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, called Trumps comments reckless and dangerous. This is yet another example of Mr. Trump distorting the facts for political gain, she said. There is no evidence that the Muslim community knew of the killers intentions and plans. In fact, law enforcement officials have praised American Muslims repeatedly over the years for their role in helping to identify criminals before theyve acted. Who is a better friend to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community? Trump said Monday that strict immigration bans on Muslims would better protect women and the LGBT community by preventing radical Muslim terrorists from pouring into our country they enslave women, and murder gays. Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as long as she continues to support immigration policies that bring Islamic extremists to our country who suppress women, gays and anyone who doesnt share their views, Trump said. But unlike Clinton, Trump opposes same-sex marriage, and his record of public statements on protecting the LGBT community from discrimination is mixed, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nations largest LGBT civil rights organization. It has endorsed Clinton. Donald Trumps attack on Muslims today is intended to divide us. The person who committed this heinous act of violence was an American citizen conditioned to hate and to believe that LGBTQ people deserved to be massacred, said Human Rights Campaign spokesman Jay Brown. And make no mistake, Donald Trump is no friend of the LGBTQ community. Trumps rhetoric today isnt fooling anyone, and what he is peddling isnt protection. Its poison. Trump calls for antiterrorism efforts to be tough and smart, but offers no plan: Chen and others found it odd that while Trump said, We will defeat ISIS overseas, he has yet to offer a plan for how the U.S. would act militarily overseas to accomplish that goal. Its not a particularly coherent policy position, so I dont know if we can evaluate it, Chen said. Theres no grand strategy. Theres no specific plan for the Middle East. And theres no specific plan to convince Arab allies to help us. He just talks about the need to do something. But the something we would do is not clear. Trump supported invading Libya just like Clinton: On Monday, Trump referred to the U.S. invasion of Libya as Clintons war in Libya, but he supported it too at the time: In a 2011 video blog commentary Trump said, We should do, on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy (Libyan leader Col. Moammar Khadafy) out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives. Trump overstates Clintons refugee proposal: Trump said Clinton wants to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them. Thats incorrect. She has proposed that the U.S. accept 65,000 Syrian refugees. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has an extensive screening process for resettling refugees, one that takes up to two years for people to wend through. San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Hamed Aleaziz contributed to this report. Joe Garofoli is the San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: joegarofoli Three Cumberland County Girl Scouts are scheduled to receive the Gold Award Girl Scouts honor, when the Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania Council recognizes this years award recipients on Saturday at the Sheraton Harrisburg-Hershey in Swatara Township. Brooke Kiner, 18, of Newville, as well as Kylie Bell, 17, and Gwendolyn Little, 18, of both Mechanicsburg, are among the 51 girls in grades 9-12 who earned the Gold Award in the councils 30-county area throughout central and northeastern Pennsylvania. Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award by successfully developing and orchestrating a community service project of their choice. The projects are something that can make a huge impact not only locally, but it can be nationally or globally, explained Kelsey Evans, program director for Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania. The Gold Award is definitely a prestigious award. Its something that they can put on their resume. This is a special year for Gold Award recipients, Evans continued, because it marks the 100th anniversary of the awards inception. It began as the Golden Eagle of Merit in 1916 and went through a few names changes before arriving at its final moniker, the Gold Award, in 1980. Bell, an incoming senior at Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School, partnered with the Mechanicsburg Girls Softball Association to run softball clinics for her Gold Award project. She was motivated to do so by seeing the dwindling number of girls involved in softball, according to her project description provided by Allie Einsiedel, communications manager for the Girls Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania. Through the clinics, Bell, a member of Girl Scout Troop 00710, increased girls interest in the sport by teaching them techniques and developing new skills and a love for the sport. It also gave players a chance to get exercise while having fun. Little, who just graduated from Cumberland Valley High School, updated and renovated the costume closet at the Gamut Theatre in Harrisburg for her Gold Award project. As the theater moved into its new building, Little, a member of Girl Scout Troop 11595, was responsible for cleaning, painting and organizing two rooms for the costume shop. Now completed, the shop is used to educate visiting children about how theater shows are developed. Kiner, who just graduated from Big Spring High School, addressed the growing need for school supplies for underprivileged families and students through her Gold Award project. Kiner, a member of Girl Scout Troop 10516, held a school supply drive to provide filled backpacks for K-12 students in need within the Big Spring School District. She identified the students with the help of district social worker Jessica Winesickle, Kiner said. Kiner received numerous private donations from Newville and Carlisle, as well as corporate donations from Staples and Walmart. In total, she and around 25 other student volunteers filled nearly 130 backpack donations for Big Spring students, which were distributed at the start of the 2015-16 school year. Everyone was really excited to get their backpacks, Kiner recounted. I got all sorts of designs for the younger kids so they could pick their own. I got a happy/sad reaction from some of the students. One girls started crying and said, Thank you so much. My family couldnt afford this. Evans noted that Gold Award recipients like Bell, Little and Kiner all have a few things in common. They all have a drive for making the world a better place, she said. They have a passion to help others. When we read the project proposals, we can just feel the passion that goes behind them. A year ago, I was awakened by text messages and posts on social media sharing the news of the Supreme Courts decision legalizing LGBT marriage equality. This past Sunday, I was awakened by messages alerting me to the devastating tragedy in Orlando: The mass shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse, which left 49 victims dead and 53 wounded, making it the deadliest mass shooting in American history. In the first awful moments, I turned to the same Facebook and Twitter that 12 short months ago (which now seems like a lifetime ago), was filled with so much joy. I turned to it for comfort, solidarity, information and a way of making sense of this act of hate against my LGBT brothers and sisters. In times of grief, anger and loss, social media provides us with a way to find community, LGBT and otherwise, and come together. It allows friends to unite across the world and console one another. On Sunday it gave those in Florida a way to update us about their safety, and it provided a way to dialogue instantly about the crushing feelings that overwhelmed us. During a crisis these platforms offer us a way to organize aid and create real-life gatherings of support quickly. We are less alone in the loneliest of times. A popular Internet meme of Fred Rogers from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood has consistently reappeared in times of disaster and violence, reminding us to look for the helpers when the world spins into chaos. Through our feeds, we were connected to the stories of the police and medical workers who were helping the victims in Pulse, and as the hours went by, we were able to learn stories of the everyday people who risked and lost their lives to save friends and strangers. Messages of hope from leaders and everyday citizens poured in from across the world. Many of us read them through tears. Through social media, some of us also learned that the violence had affected us directly. In a matter of hours, a friend posted that his friend Edward Sotomayor Jr. was among the first reported dead; we learned of more losses through shared connections of connections, making it more terrible and real. As the news of lives ended filled my feed, I was grateful that their names and faces were living on and being remembered. I continue to hope that these individuals stories will overwhelm the narrative of the man who ended their lives. As the days go on, we will continue to visit their pages and create new ones to pay them tribute. As I walked to the Castro and saw the instant memorial to the men and women of Pulse at the corner of Castro and 18th streets, a place where San Franciscos gay community has gathered for many years to commemorate losses, I was reminded that the world is filled with emotions other than anger and hatred. I shared pictures of people coming together at this shrine, hoping that they reached anyone who needed that reminder as much as I did. Gabrielle Lurie/Special to The Chronicle As I struggled with my thoughts, feelings and words, I turned to two figures of cultural significance in the LGBT community to say for me what I was unable to. I posted a video of Judy Garland singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic following her friend President Kennedys assassination so people would remember that there is goodness in the world even with so much loss. I also tweeted an excerpt from the final speech in Tony Kushners play Angels in America. They are words written about the AIDS crisis that ravaged the LGBT community, but they perfectly state what I was experiencing as we came together in the face of another tragedy: 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. And the dead will be commemorated, and well struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We wont die secret deaths anymore. As we continue to deal with the terrible reality in the days ahead, let us remember the dead and offer comfort to the living through these platforms at our disposal. Flood the world with the light of those lost to fight the darkness that visits us yet again. Tony Bravo is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tbravo@sfchronicle.com A recent release of court documents from Brock Turner's case bears a letter from Turner's mother to the judge, asking for leniency during sentencing because he will become a "major target." In her letter, Carleen Turner asks Judge Aaron Persky to not send Brock Turner to prison, saying that sending him to jail will be a "death sentence": This is his future life. I beg of you, please don't send him to jail/prison. Look at him. He won't survive it. He will be damaged forever and I fear he would be a major target. Stanford boy, college kid, college athlete - all the publicity.... this would be a death sentence for him. Having lost everything he has ever worked for his entire life and knowing the registry is a requirement for the rest of his life certainly is more than harsh. ... Your honor, please be kind and merciful to my beautiful son. He is suffering and will continue to pay for this for his entire lifetime. Brock Turner, 20, was convicted of three counts of sexual assault in March, facing up to 14 years in prison. Persky sentenced him to six months in jail for assaulting a drunk and unconscious woman. Turner is expected to be released after three months. Carleen Turner's letter echoed much of the sentiment of a letter from her husband, which was released earlier this month. In that heavily criticized letter, Dan Turner said that his son was "paying a steep price for 20 minutes of action" and that his son is no longer "his happy go lucky self." In her letter, Carleen Turner never mentions the victim, but says her son is a "shattered and broken shell of the person he used to be." "My once vibrant and happy boy is distraught, deeply depressed, terribly wounded, and filled with despair," she writes. "His smile is gone forever that beautiful grin is no more. When I look into his eyes I see fear and anguish. "His voice is barely above a whisper and he keeps himself hunched over almost trying not to be noticed," the letter continues. "He trembles uncontrollably. He is crushed that the jury ruled against him. He has lost so much weight because he barely eats anything. He is utterly terrified and traumatized by this." The letter also recounts stories of Brock's childhood and gives a background on the Turners, saying that Brock does not come from a wealthy, privileged family instead, she says those reports "could not be further from the truth" and that the family's financial status "is precarious and unstable." Carleen Turner focuses a portion of the letter on Brock's future, saying that he will forever have to register as a sex offender, referencing Ohio as one of the toughest states with its sexual offender registry. She asked that the judge show Brock that "his life still has meaning." "Your honor, I beg of you to show Brock mercy," the letter stated. "He has never been in trouble, never even had a demerit in high school, he studied, swam, worked hard he has lived an exemplary life. He will contribute to society in a positive way, it will just be a different path now. "Please send him a message that his life sill has meaning, that you believe in him. Please give him hope." The letter ends, saying, "Your Honor, please be kind and merciful to my beautiful son. He is suffering and will continue to pay for this for his entire lifetime." The full letter can be read here. A new report bolsters the desire already expressed by nearly every homeless services leader in San Francisco: that the city should emphasize housing over shelters and create a tracking system for homeless people as they make their way through services. The report by the citys budget and legislative analyst, being released Monday, comes as the citys new Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing is taking shape, with a $221 million budget, almost 200 workers and a new director, Jeff Kositsky, former executive director of Hamilton Family Services. Kositksy has the task of trying to care for the citys homeless population, which has continued to grow despite the city spending between $220 million and $241 million a year on the problem and taking roughly 22,000 people off the streets since 2004. With the restructuring of homeless programs under a single department, the city has an opportunity now to re-evaluate the effectiveness of existing programs and identify opportunities for stronger coordination of services, the report states. The development of a clear policy for addressing the needs of the homeless population will be an essential first step in this process. Currently, two policies have largely defined the citys response to homelessness: its 2004-14 10-year plan, which formalized the shift to a housing first model, and the 2002 ballot proposition Care Not Cash, which reduced the amount of cash given to homeless adults and instead invested the money in shelters and other services. But the city lacks a single system to track people as they move among the various agencies trying to help them. Without such a system, the city cant keep track of where homeless people are, what help they have received, and what has and hasnt worked. Board of Supervisors President London Breed, who requested the report, said it underscores the lack of coordination between departments. Each has its own set of systems in place, but they dont necessarily overlap or seem to complement each other so they are actually effective, she said. Thats the frustration here. Breed said an individual-focused tracking system is essential. As more and more homeless people are on the street, we cant keep up the pace of basically getting them housing, getting them into services without trying to make sure that leads to somewhere where they can eventually take care of themselves. We are helping more and more people, but its not clear that translates to eventual self-sufficiency. Sam Dodge, deputy director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, said the department is already on its way to implementing the recommendations included in the report. These are marching orders for the new department, he said. What we have set out to do is create a coherent system using data that helps people navigate to the best possible housing solutions. The reports key recommendations for the department include: Create a single system that tracks people as they move among the various agencies looking for help. While the city has a plan to create such a system, the report says the requests for proposals dont sufficiently outline the technical details to ensure data integration among the various agencies. Other cities, including Houston and Salt Lake City, have found great success with such tracking systems. Conduct regular and formal analyses that look at the needs of homeless people and identify service gaps. Currently, assessing need is done informally on an ad-hoc and reactionary basis, the report states. Without a needs assessment that clearly documents where service weaknesses exist, city officials have a limited ability to understand the dynamic needs of the population and cannot ensure proper policy direction and funding for critical areas, including outreach and housing exits. Change city policy to prioritize responses to homeless-related calls by the Homeless Outreach Team rather than the Police Department. It notes that most of the $37.7 million a year the city spends on outreach and responding to incidents involve police responses that do not lead to referrals to homeless services. Identify why variation in vacancy rates exists in shelters and develop strategies to increase occupancy at shelters that regularly have vacant beds. Expand rental assistance and rapid rehousing programs to serve more clients, particularly younger people and the newly homeless. Compared with permanent supportive housing, which includes on-site case managers and counseling programs, rapid rehousing and rental assistance may be more cost-effective and better suited for these groups, the report finds. Conduct a more robust assessment of the homeless population that takes into account their psychosocial needs to determine who should receive permanent supportive housing versus other forms of assistance. The report speculates that many of the homeless adults who left permanent housing had undiagnosed or untreated medical or mental health conditions that impacted their ability to stabilize. Permanent supportive housing, the most expensive housing placement, is not necessarily the most appropriate place for every homeless individual, the report says. Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: emilytgreen Apple said Monday it will allow developers to incorporate its Siri voice technology into their apps, allowing the tech giant to better compete against rivals Amazon and Google. Amazon is selling an Internet-connected, voice-controlled device for the home called the Amazon Echo, which is powered by digital assistant Alexa, that can hail cars and place orders for food. Google said in May that it will have a similar device launching in the fall, called Google Home. As the major annual conference for Apple developers opened in San Francisco, thousands of attendees paused to remember the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. Sunday. Apple CEO Tim Cook opened the meeting with a moment of silence. He called the shooting a "senseless and unconscionable act of terrorism aimed at dividing and destroying. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A decade ago, Reid Hoffman envisioned LinkedIn, the professional social network he co-founded in 2002, as a haven for deal makers. On Monday, the Mountain View company lived up to that vision: Microsoft agreed to pay $26.2 billion in cash for LinkedIn, the Redmond, Wash., software giants largest acquisition to date. The deal brings together an established tech powerhouse that made its name on desktop PCs and a Web upstart that grew out of the ashes of the first dot-com boom. What they share are strong connections to both big companies and the tools their employees use to get work done. Users wont likely see big changes in the way they add business contacts on LinkedIn or use Microsoft apps. But over time, the companies will build ties between LinkedIns database of users and Microsofts software that make it an even more powerful challenger to the likes of Google, Salesforce and Oracle. In announcing the transaction, which is expected to close by the end of the year pending regulatory approvals, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella both talked up the companies commitment to boosting professionals productivity. But where Microsoft and LinkedIn really connect is in workers inboxes and address books. For businesses that run on Microsofts Exchange email and Office apps, Microsoft is the arbiter of professional identity. As part of its Azure business, Microsoft runs a giant database of logins, with nearly 600 million professional IDs stored in it as of June, the company said. They use those to check email, collaborate on documents and log into apps. Yet those identities are tied to a particular employer and rapidly grow useless as people hop from job to job. In 2014, the median job tenure for those aged 25 to 34 was three years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many of LinkedIns 433 million users members, as LinkedIn prefers to call them keep their online resumes updated, forming a portable calling card they take from one workplace to the next. LinkedIn has a permanent and persistent identity, said Keith Rabois, an early LinkedIn executive who now works as a partner at venture-capital firm Khosla Ventures. Outlook has a temporary identity, but when you leave or change jobs, obviously that doesnt go with you. Punch line Those contact lists were built on email invitations that many find annoying, if effective. LinkedIn connection requests have become a punch line, with some wits suggesting that Id like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn could be the caption to nearly any New Yorker cartoon. Yet those links have real value to many, as an online address book that they can bring to their next employer as salespeople, recruiters or deal makers. Nearly half of LinkedIn members have 500 or more connections, according to Statista. Magic starts Both LinkedIn and Microsoft executives call those sets of connections graphs, a technical term meaning the links between nodes in a network. Microsoft has a corporate graph, said Nadella in a call with investors Monday morning, while LinkedIn has a professional graph. When you connect these two graphs, thats when the magic starts to happen, Nadella said. Microsoft has much to offer LinkedIn, too. As independent companies, the two tussled over how much access LinkedIn could get to Microsofts Outlook software. As parts of a whole, LinkedIns developers will likely get much more cooperation from Microsofts Office team. And Microsoft, which has under Nadella put much more emphasis on developing mobile versions of its software for rival operating systems, including Googles Android and Apples iOS, could help bolster LinkedIns ranks of programmers and designers. On the investor call, Nadella said Microsofts experience in artificial intelligence could be applied to optimizing the feed of news articles and updates that appear on LinkedIns homepage. Weiner described integrating LinkedIn connections into Microsoft software like Word and PowerPoint. On Lynda.com, LinkedIns recently acquired online learning service, six of the top 25 courses are for Microsoft products, he said. Innovate faster LinkedIn will now have access to the resources needed in order to fix all the bugs and finally innovate faster on the product front! wrote Niko Bonatsos, managing director of venture-capital firm General Catalyst, in a post on his LinkedIn page. Innovation may be in order, particularly if LinkedIn is to make strides in key markets. While LinkedIn has grown internationally and broadened its appeal to college students and recent graduates, it has struggled with highly desirable technical employees, many of whom have soured on it because of constant appeals by recruiters. I think engineers have never really adopted LinkedIn, especially young and technically astute engineers, said Rabois. I think thats been a black hole for LinkedIn. Recruiting engineers just works differently than recruiting businesspeople. Engineers, he suggested, are more likely to send a potential employer links to their page on GitHub, a site for sharing software code, than LinkedIn. LinkedIns shares jumped 47 percent to $192.60 in trading Monday morning and closed at $192.21, just under the $196 price per share Microsoft is offering, suggesting investors are highly confident the deal will close as expected. On Mondays investor call, Brad Smith, Microsofts president and chief legal officer, expressed confidence that the acquisition would pass antitrust scrutiny as a highly complementary deal. That price is well below LinkedIns all-time high of $276.18 reached in February 2015, as well as its recent high of $258.39 in November. Stock crashes Wall Streets confidence in LinkedIn, which the company had carefully cultivated since its 2011 initial public offering, was crushed by a forecast of slowing growth earlier this year. In this market, theres no mercy for a miss, James Cakmak, an analyst at Monness Crespi Hardt, told Bloomberg in February. LinkedIns stock dropped nearly 45 percent in a day. Cakmak told The Chronicle Monday that while LinkedIn had rebuilt trust with Wall Street, it was facing a long haul to build revenue by selling more subscriptions to its recruiting and sales tools, and investors likely wanted to see faster growth. Now youve got to grind it out for each individual (sale), he said. Youre dealing with investors who are very momentum-driven. You have a mismatch. After the stock crash, Weiner told LinkedIn employees in an all-hands meeting that nothing important had changed. We are the same company we were a day before our earnings announcement, he said. The question isnt whether or not companies are going to experience this kind of issue. The question is how companies navigate through it. Sure thing By accepting an all-cash deal, LinkedIns board chose to take a sure thing rather than continue to bet on the fickle whims of Wall Street. Hoffman, who owns 11 percent of LinkedIns shares and controls 53.2 percent of shareholders voting power, has said he will vote in favor of the deal. For LinkedIn, Microsoft is a safe haven even if its not what its founders may once have envisioned. If we can tip successfully, we are massively more valuable than Facebook and I mean a multibillion-dollar business, Hoffman told Business 2.0 magazine in 2006. He was half right. Rabois, the former LinkedIn executive, said hed made a bet to that effect with a colleague. Now, he said, hell have to pay up. Owen Thomas is the business editor of The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: othomas@sfchronicle.com Twitter: owenthomas Bay Area county fair season is upon us. The Contra Costa County Fair took place on the first weekend of June, while the Marin County Fair appears at the end of the month for its 75th anniversary, appropriately themed What a Ride! The San Mateo County Fair, which kicked off last weekend, expects more than 120,000 attendees by its closing date on Sunday, June 19. WASHINGTON Omar Marteen's pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State 20 minutes into the slaughter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday morning brought to public attention what had largely been absent from Islamist-inspired attacks in the West: radical Islam's visceral hatred for gays. Gay men have been targeted repeatedly in Syria and Iraq Islamic State 18 months ago began a campaign on social media showing blindfolded gay men being hurled from buildings and the group's violence against gays was the subject of a United Nations Security Council meeting last summer. But the specific targeting of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people by jihadis was rare elsewhere _ something of a surprise to experts on extremist violence who noted that gays and lesbians are targeted more often for violent attack than any other U.S. minority group. "The remarkable thing is that LBGT individuals are hated separately both by white supremacists and by radical Islamists," said Mark Potok, an expert on domestic and international terrorism at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. "These are people who viscerally hate each other, but the one thing they can agree on is that gay people need to die." The uncertainty over Mateen's alleged motive for the attack his father told NBC News that hatred of homosexuality, not Islamic fundamentalism, drove his son left analysts confused about which lens the deaths of 50 people and wounding of 53 more should be viewed. Was this another horror visited on the world by radical Islam, another San Bernardino, or Paris, or Fort Hood? Was it a hate crime aimed at the LGBT community, the latest permutation of the murder of Matthew Shepard, the Wyoming youth beaten and left to freeze to death in Wyoming 18 years ago? Or was it another sign that the nation's gun laws were in need of repair, another Newtown, Conn., or Charleston, S.C., or Aurora, Colo.? More for you Vigil in SFs Castro mourns Orlando massacre victims President Barack Obama addressed all three in his statement of condolence for the deaths Sunday afternoon. He called the attack an act of terror, then expressed sorrow for "all our friends, our fellow Americans, who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender." Lastly, he shifted to guns in noting that the Orlando attacker apparently had a handgun and an assault rifle. "This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or in a house of worship or a movie theater or a nightclub," Obama said. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, though there was no evidence the militant group had operational links to the gunman. The claim cited only a source for its information, and noted that the assault had "targeted a nightclub for homosexuals." In the hours after the attack, experts said it had been only a matter of time before a jihadist attack targeted homosexuals. The club was a so-called soft target, not likely to have the security procedures that say a terrorist might find at Disney World, 16 miles away. "I was not surprised by the choice because ISIS has persecuted gay men in the territories they control," said Shannon Green, an analysts with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, using a common acronym for Islamic State. "So while I don't know what the motivations were for this shooter, it's likely that there was an element of hatred toward gays in particular, and that that was part of the reason he chose that location." Omid Safi, the director of the Islamic Studies Center at Duke University and a native of Jacksonville, Fla., was among those who believed hatred of gays was likely the dominant motivation for Mateen. "As somebody who has lived in the South, who is Muslim and who also is an ally of the gay and lesbian community, this attack reminds us that we live in a part of the country that has had an almost nonstop demonization of this community," Safi said. Safi pointed to a variety of official actions, from efforts to block gay marriage even after the Supreme Court declared in the law of the land to recent North Carolina legislation requiring transgender people to use the bathroom of their birth sex. "Whether it's Florida or Georgia, Mississippi or North Carolina, we've been witnessing everything from the ridiculous bathroom bill to attempts at every step of the way to block same-sex unions," he said. In the past three years, mainly Republican-controlled state legislatures have considered 254 measures limiting gay and transgender rights, with 20 becoming law, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. That despite polls, including an ABC News-Washington Post poll in April 2015, showing that three-fifths of Americans believe people of the same gender should be allowed to marry. Potok said the Orlando attack recalled a hate crime at a gay nightclub in Seattle during New Year's Eve celebrations in the early moments of 2014. Musab Masmari, a Californian of Libyan descent, was later convicted of arson and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Revelers at Neighbours Nightclub were able to extinguish the fire he started before it caused serious harm to anyone. More broadly, Potok said FBI data over 15 years suggest that gays have faced significantly more violence than other persecuted groups. "We found that LGBT people were more than twice as likely to be attacked in violent hate crimes than Jews or black people, more than four times as likely as Muslims and almost 14 times as likely as Latinos," he said. Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, said many ISIS members and other jihadists feel that gays have no right to exist. "They reject Western values, and they use homosexuality as something that the West has locked into society," he said. Chad Griffin, head of the Human Rights Campaign in Washington, said the Orlando shooter was part of the anti-gay backlash. "This is what disgusts me the most," he said. "This maniac was conditioned to believe that LGBT people deserved to be massacred." (Hannah Allam and Curtis Tate of the McClatchy Washington bureau, Steve Rothaus of the Miami Herald and Judy L. Thomas of the Kansas City Star contributed to this report.) LOS ANGELES An Indiana man arrested over the weekend in Santa Monica with three assault rifles and ammunition in his car was forbidden from leaving his home state as part of probation stemming from a case in which he pointed a gun at neighbors, according to authorities and court records. Investigators on Monday were trying to determine whether James Wesley Howell had any plans to use the weapons. The 20-year-old told police that he was in the area to attend a gay pride event in West Hollywood that draws hundreds of thousands of people. His arrest came just a few hours after 49 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando. Police said they had found no evidence the incidents were connected. Howell of Jeffersonville, Ind., was arrested around 5 a.m. Sunday after residents called police to report suspicious behavior by a man who parked his white Acura sedan facing the wrong way. When officers arrived, they saw an assault rifle on Howells passenger seat, Santa Monica police Lt. Saul Rodriguez said. Weapons found They searched the car and found two more assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, and a 5-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police said. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks initially tweeted that Howell told officers he wanted to harm the gay pride event, but she later corrected her statement to say that the suspect only said he was going to the parade. Howell was accused twice last year of threatening people with a gun, according to court records. Police in Charlestown, Ind., said the first incident involved Howells ex-boyfriend in October and the second involved a neighbor four days later. In the first incident, the ex-boyfriend said Howell pointed a rifle at him when he arrived at Howells home to pick up his belongings. James told me that if I stepped foot in his yard, he would shoot me, the ex-boyfriend told a responding officer, according to a police report. In the other incident a neighbor called police and said Howell had pointed a handgun at her. When officers arrived, he denied pointing a gun at anyone, saying he only cocked it and held it at his side. Police found a loaded revolver in his waistband. Plea deal Howell was charged with misdemeanor intimidation in that case and reached a plea deal in April that placed him on probation and prohibited him from having weapons and from leaving the state. A felony charge of pointing a firearm was dropped. James Hayden, chief probation officer in Clark County, Ind., said Monday that he would seek to revoke Howells probation. Howell met with a probation officer on May 22 who rated him a low-level offender, Hayden said. Officers hadnt yet conducted a surprise home visit to check that Howell was following a judges order that he not have weapons during his one-year probation, he said. Howells parents didnt know he was heading to California and were trying to figure out what happened, said Louisville, Ky., attorney Bobby Boyd, who represented Howell in a local case. Theyre certainly shocked by learning of the arrest out there in California, Boyd said. Theyre dealing with it as best they can and trying to process it. ... Theres nothing to indicate any sort of acts that the news has been reporting. Boyd said Howells family is cooperating with federal agents and they were working to find an attorney in California. Howell is scheduled to appear in court in Los Angeles on Tuesday on weapons charges. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy 1 Hit and run: Two children were critically injured when five pedestrians were struck by a car that had gone onto a sidewalk after running a red light and hitting another vehicle at a Las Vegas street intersection. Police said the driver fled the scene Saturday night but was later arrested on hit-and-run charges. A 9-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl were critically injured and admitted to a hospital. The other three suffered minor injuries. 2 D-Day flag: The U.S. flag flown on the stern of the boat that led the first American troops onto Utah Beach on D-Day was sold Sunday for $514,000 at auction in Dallas. Heritage Auctions spokesman Noah Fleisher identified the buyer as Dutch businessman Bertram Kreuk. The presale estimate for the 48-star flag was $100,000. The banner has a bullet hole, blamed on a German machine gun, according to the auction house. D-Day marks June 6, 1944, the date during World War II when the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis. ORLANDO A man who called 911 to proclaim allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group, and who had been investigated in the past for possible terrorist ties, stormed a gay nightclub Sunday morning, wielding an assault rifle and a pistol, and carried out the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, leaving 50 people dead and 53 others wounded. The attacker, identified by law enforcement as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old born in New York, turned what had been a celebratory night of dancing at the crowded nightclub Pulse into a panicked scene of unimaginable slaughter, the floors slicked with blood, the dead and the injured piled atop one another. Terrified people poured onto the darkened streets of the surrounding neighborhood, some carried wounded victims to safety, and police vehicles were pressed into service as makeshift ambulances to rush people to hospitals. Pulse, which calls itself Orlandos Latin Hotspot, was holding its weekly Upscale Latin Saturdays party. The shooting began around 2 a.m., and some patrons thought at first that the booms they heard were firecrackers or part of the loud, thumping dance music. Some people who were trapped inside hid where they could, calling 911 or posting messages to social media, pleading for help. The club posted a stark message on its Facebook page: Everyone get out of pulse and keep running. Tally of victims A tally of victims whose relatives had been notified began slowly building on a city website; by 6 p.m., it had six names. Among them was Juan Ramon Guerrero, a 22-year-old man of Dominican descent who had gone to the club with his boyfriend, Christopher Leinonen, who goes by the name Drew, because they wanted to listen to salsa. A friend, Brandon Wolf, watched people carry Guerrero outside, his body riddled with gunshot wounds. No one immediately knew what had become of Leinonen. A three-hour standoff followed the initial assault, with people inside effectively held hostage until around 5 a.m., when law enforcement officials led by a SWAT team raided the club, using an armored vehicle and explosives designed to disorient and distract. Over a dozen police officers and sheriffs deputies engaged in a shootout with Mateen, leaving him dead and one officer wounded, his life saved by a Kevlar helmet that deflected a bullet. At least 30 people inside were rescued, and even the hardened police veterans who took the building and combed through it, aiding the living and identifying the dead, were shaken by what they saw, said John Mina, the Orlando police chief. Just to look into the eyes of our officers told the whole story, he said. It was the worst act of terrorism on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, and the deadliest attack on a gay target in the nations history, though officials said it was not clear whether some victims had been accidentally shot by law enforcement officers. Obama: We will not give in The casualties far exceeded those in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, where 32 people were killed, and the 2012 shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people died. In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another, President Obama said in a special address from the White House. We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united as Americans to protect our people and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us. As he had done after several previous mass shootings, the president said the shooting demonstrated the need for what he called common-sense gun measures. Fears of violence led to heightened security at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender events and gathering places around the country. In Santa Monica, law enforcement officials confirmed the arrest on Sunday of a heavily armed man who said he was in the area for West Hollywoods gay Pride parade. The authorities said they did not know of any connection between the California arrest and the Orlando shooting. The FBI investigated Mateen in 2013 when he made comments to co-workers suggesting he had terrorist ties, and again the next year, for possible connections to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American who became a suicide bomber in Syria, said Ronald Hopper, an assistant agent in charge of the bureaus Tampa Division. But each time, the FBI found no solid evidence that Mateen had any real connection to terrorism or had broken any laws. Allegiance to Islamic State Mateen, who lived in Fort Pierce, Fla., was able to continue working as a security guard with the security firm G4S, where he had worked since 2007, and was able to buy guns. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Mateen had legally bought a long gun and a pistol in the last week or two, though it was not clear whether those were the weapons used in the assault, which officials described as a handgun and an AR-15 type of assault weapon. A former co-worker, Daniel Gilroy, said Mateen had talked often about killing people and had voiced hatred of gays, blacks, women and Jews. Around the time of the massacre, Mateen called 911 and declared his allegiance to the Islamic State, the brutal militant group. Hours later, the group claimed responsibility in a statement released over an encrypted phone app used by the group. But officials cautioned that even if Mateen, who court records show was briefly married and then divorced, was inspired by the group, there was no indication that it had trained or instructed him, or had any direct connection with him. Some other terrorist attackers have been self-radicalized, including the pair who killed 14 people in San Bernardino in December. MINNEAPOLIS A federal appeals court on Monday threw out $1.8 million in damages awarded to former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who said he was defamed by the late author Chris Kyle in the bestselling book American Sniper. The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also sent a portion of the case Venturas defamation claim back to the district court for a new trial, saying Venturas attorneys made improper remarks and the trial court clearly abused its discretion in denying a new trial. In a ruling affecting numerous federal prisoners in California and other Western states, a U.S. appeals court on Monday allowed inmates who received long sentences after pleading guilty to crimes involving crack cocaine to seek reduced terms under a recent federal law. The inmates were sentenced under federal guidelines that punished crack cocaine crimes much more severely than crimes involving powder cocaine the sentence for selling 1 gram of crack was the same as for selling 100 grams of powder cocaine. More than four-fifths of federal inmates serving time for crack are black, while most powder-cocaine inmates are white. Congress passed a law in 2010 reducing the sentencing disparity to 18 grams to 1, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission adopted guidelines that apply retroactively to all inmates. Most federal courts have ruled that those who pleaded guilty to a crack charge, in an agreement that specified the sentence, cant seek a lower term because their current term was dictated by the plea agreement, not the former sentencing guidelines. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which oversees federal courts in nine Western states, had been part of that majority until Monday, when the court issued a 10-1 decision allowing all crack-sentenced prisoners to ask for shorter terms under the new standards. A lawyer for the defendant in the case said the ruling would affect many hundreds and perhaps thousands of inmates. Even a sentence that was dictated by a plea agreement was, in most cases, based on the guidelines that cover all federal sentences, and thus should be eligible for reduction under the new Sentencing Commission guidelines, Judge Richard Paez said in the majority opinion. The reductions can be substantial. The defendant in Mondays case, Tyrone Davis, pleaded guilty to distributing crack in Washington state in 2005 and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The new guidelines prescribe a term of 10 years or less and would make him eligible for immediate release, although his sentencing judge would make the final decision. Its a positive development for inmates who have been serving terms under a racially discriminatory sentencing regime, said Davis lawyer, Nathaniel Garrett. The disputed issue in the Davis case was the effect of a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling reducing the crack sentence of another inmate. Four justices voted for potential reductions in all such cases, four voted for none, and the ninth, Sonia Sotomayor, agreed to reductions in specific types of cases, including the one the justices were considering. Eight of the other nine federal appeals courts considering the issue have interpreted the ruling as allowing lower sentences only in the types of cases cited by Sotomayor, a position advocated by Judge Carlos Bea in his dissent Monday. We are not free to disregard binding Supreme Court precedent simply because we can think of a rule we like better, Bea said. Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: egelko Norway becomes the first country to ban deforestation Published: June 13, 2016 Norway has become the first country in the world to prohibit deforestation. In this regard, Norwegian Parliament had pledged to make governments public procurement policy deforestation-free. The step was taken by Norwegian Government based on official recommendations of Norwegian Parliaments Standing Committee on Energy and Environment as part of the Action Plan on Nature Diversity. Key facts Henceforth, Norway will no longer procure use or procure products that encourage deforestation. Under the pledge, Norwegian Government will also not award contracts to any company that cuts down and destroys forests. In addition, Norwegian lawmakers also committed to find a way to source essential products such as soy, palm oil, beef and timber that have little or no impact on ecosystems . The standing committee also has asked Government to frame separate biodiversity policy and use funds provided by Government Pension Fund Global to increase biodiversity protection. Month: Current Affairs - June, 2016 Topics: Biodiversity deforestation Environment International Norway Latest E-Books : ; A few North County students have been accepted into the Missouri Girls State and Missouri Boys State program that will be held over the summer. The Missouri Girls State program will be held at the University of Central Missouri June 26-July 2 and the Missouri Boys State program will be held at the University of Central Missouri June 18-25. North County Guidance Counselor Dawn Duncan said only students in the junior class can apply and they have to fill out an application and write an essay. Once they say they are interested and they apply, we try to get them funded, said Duncan. If we can get enough funding for them, then they can go. Only four students are chosen annually and this year there is one boy and two girls. Duncan said last year they only had one student who attended the program. She added the idea behind it is they set up a mock government and will establish a city and a county. They run it and they vote each student into a different elected position, said Duncan. Its a program where they learn about the government and being outstanding citizens. Boys State is eight days of hands-on experience in the operation and fundamentals of government. Duncan added Girls State promotes pride in America and during the program they will create a mythical state that citizens will govern at the city, county and state level. Incoming senior Joe OHara said he decided to take part in this program because he thought making a mock government would be fun. Also, having the chance to interact with other people from different parts of the state will be cool, said OHara. I am very excited about this. It will be like a getaway and I get to meet new people. I hope to have fun, set up my own government and make my own laws. OHara said he had to fill out an application, write an essay and find a sponsor to be able to go. He received his sponsorship from the American Legion. Lexi Faircloth, also an incoming senior, said she received her sponsorship through her work, Town and County Grocers/Country Mart in Bonne Terre. I went to a leadership camp last summer, which made me decide to try and go into this program this year, said Faircloth. This looks very good on all college applications and this will help with what I want to go into in life. I want to go into international business and this program will help give me a view of what life would be like. Faircloth said she had to write an essay, fill out a long application and find a sponsor to be able to attend. I went to a briefing this week and I am very excited about being able to attend, said Faircloth. It really seems like it is going to be a good time. Incoming senior Allie Hammack said she was sponsored by the American Legion Post #39 in Park Hills. She said she applied to go to this program this summer because it is something that her family has done. Its always been a discussion between my mom and I because she was an alternative for Girls State and one of my uncles went to Boys State, said Hammack. Our family has always been involved in that and I am excited to continue the tradition. Hammack said the application process was long and difficult, but it was worth it. She added she is excited to be attending the program and it will be a good experience for her to attend. I just went to a briefing and the lady really put it in perspective, said Hammack. She said to think about how many juniors there are in the state of Missouri and the fact that only 830 girls are actually going to this. Its quite an honor honestly. Each student who participates in the program will receive college credit if they meet the specific requirements while attending. Also those who completes the program will be eligible for various college scholarships at Missouri colleges and universities. Bella is 8 years old. A second-grader. And this year she and her classmates had to choose which famous person they wanted to become. She decided on being Hillary Clinton. This column is dedicated to you, Bella. You must feel quite good you chose to be Hillary Clinton for your famous person. And, I believe, you must have tons of questions about how she has become a major party nominee and, if American voters are willing, president of the United States of America. I'm going to imagine the questions on your mind, Bella, and answer them. Here goes: Q: Is Hillary a nice person? A: Yes. Here's what Peter Doau, a former staffer of Clinton's, said about her recently: "On a Sunday morning 10 years ago, a week after I joined Hillary's team, there were reports of trouble in Lebanon (where I grew up). When my phone rang early that morning I wasn't sure what to expect. It wasn't a family member or a friend. It was Hillary Clinton, calling to make sure my relatives were OK. We spoke briefly and I hung up stunned at the empathy and compassion from someone I had met only a week before. In every encounter with Hillary since then, personal or professional, the same person who called me that morning shines through." Q: Is she the opposite of Bernie Sanders? A: Oh, no, honey. They are both people persons. They share a passion for change. Like Bernie, she believes in economic equality and that everybody should have the freedom to express their talents. Everyone should be able to go as far as their skills, hard work and talents will take them. Q: Some of my classmates say Hillary is dishonest. That hurts my feelings. What do you say? A: Bella, when you run for office, you will have to develop the hide of a rhinoceros. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and virtually every other leader this country has ever had have all faced similar accusations. It goes with the territory. The best answer I know comes from Jill Abramson, who was the first female executive editor of The New York Times. She's a tough cookie who has investigated the Clintons over the years. Here's what she says: "I would be 'dead rich' ... if I could bill for all the hours I've spent covering just about every 'scandal' that has enveloped the Clintons. As an editor, I've launched investigations into her business dealings, her fundraising, her foundation and her marriage. As a reporter, my stories stretch back to Whitewater. I'm not a favorite in Hillaryland. That makes what I want to say next surprising. "Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest and trustworthy." Abramson also says, "Based on what I know about the emails, the idea of her being indicted or going to prison is nonsensical." Q: It seems like campaigning is both awful and awfully hard. I suppose once you're elected that's when you have fun. A: No, Bella. It's the opposite. Campaigns, run right, can be fun. They don't have to be filled with smears and insults to people's looks or race or gender. Once a campaign ends, the real work begins. As Carl Bernstein writes in "A Woman in Charge," the biggest difference between Hillary and others in politics is a "willingness to participate in the drudgery of government rather than simply direct policy from Olympian heights." Hillary knows issues inside and out, Bella. She rolls up her sleeves and works with legislators and citizens groups to hammer out agreements -- to make the best laws. Q: What was Hillary like when she was a student? A: She was a change-maker, Bella, and still is. She was an idealist, and still is. Just recently, someone found a recording of her commencement speech at Wellesley College, which then was an all-women's college. She was chosen to speak for everyone in her graduating class. She could just as easily be speaking about today: "I would like to talk about reality," she said. About how our "perception of it is that it hovers often between the possibility of disaster and the potentiality for imaginatively responding to men's needs. "There's a very strange conservative strain that goes through a lot of New Left, collegiate protests that I find very intriguing because it harkens back to a lot of the old virtues." Q: Are we finally being fair to women, now that Hillary is the first woman to get a major party's nomination? A: Let me quote Jess McIntosh, Bella. She works for Hillary. She says, "Having women in government isn't about 'fairness.' It's about making better laws." Hillary has seen, and made, a lot of change. She got her start in politics reforming the nominating system in 1972. She's still looking at reform, saying we should look at, and have a conversation about, the role of unpledged superdelegates. By the way, Bella, I am a superdelegate. But there is so much work, so much change, to bring about in so many areas, Bella. Women, in general, and especially women of color, are paid less than men for the same work. We're the only developed country in the world without paid family leave -- of any kind. Women's health access is still not secure, and women are still unrepresented in government. Q: Is Hillary the best woman candidate who could have won the nomination? A: Bella, she's not only the best female candidate, she's the best candidate. Period. As President Obama stated in his endorsement: She's one of the most qualified ever to run for the White House. Elizabeth Appells Confessions of a Catholic Child, which has a preview performance Friday, June 17, at the Exit, wrestles with opposing urges familiar to any fallen Catholic: disillusionment with the church and fear of the afterlife. But even if you didnt spend your childhood fending off violent nuns, you should be excited about the group behind this project; it reads like a dream team of the best of San Franciscos indie theater scene. Director Ariel Craft brings a striking vision to any script she touches. Among the cast of 10 are two of the Bay Areas most promising rising stars, Mikka Bonel and Paul Rodrigues. Christina Augello, whos the longtime artistic director of the Exit but who performs too rarely plays the lead. Also making a rare appearance as an actor is Stuart Bousel, a producer, playwright, director and gadfly whos arguably our king of local indie theater. Naturally, he plays the pope. LONDON With nine days left before Britain votes on whether to remain in the European Union, the possibility of Turkeys becoming a member of the bloc has inflamed the debate, injecting divisive issues of race, religion and tolerance openly into the campaign. Supporters of a British exit from the EU say allowing Turkey in would leave Britain exposed to a new wave of Muslim immigration and more vulnerable to Islamic radicals. While Turkey has been pushing for membership, it faces considerable hurdles, and its entry, if it ever happens, would be many years, if not decades, away. The debate over the vote, which has split Prime Minister David Camerons Conservative Party, has largely played out around fear so far. Those in favor of remaining in the bloc, including Cameron, have emphasized the economic risks of a vote to leave. Those in favor of leaving, including other leading Conservatives, have stressed the social, cultural and economic risks of continued immigration from other EU countries, whose citizens are entitled to live and work in Britain. Most of the recent European immigrants to Britain have come from Poland, the Baltics, Spain and Greece. Fear of radicals The emphasis on the supposedly imminent membership of Turkey, however, adds a new and darker aspect to the arguments for Britains leaving: Turkey would be the blocs second-largest country after Germany, and it is poor, is Muslim and borders Syria, where young British Muslims radicalized by the Islamic State travel to enter the netherworld of terrorism. The debate is happening when attacks like the one in Orlando have raised concerns about both Islamic radicalism and Islamophobia. An unofficial group advocating that Britain leave the EU sent a controversial tweet on Monday, warning of Islamist extremism and urging an exit from the bloc before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long. After immediate criticism, the tweet was deleted. In the Vote Leave campaigns official leaflet, which will go to some 40 million Britons, Turkish accession is a prominent theme, and a map shows how Turkish membership would mean an EU border with Syria and Iraq. Vote Leave also has asserted that Turkey has higher levels of criminality, gun ownership and gangsterism. Since the birthrate in Turkey is so high, we can expect to see an additional million people added to the (British) population from Turkey alone within eight years, Vote Leave said. Appeal to prejudice Trevor Phillips, a former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Britain, said there really isnt any doubt that what they are appealing to here is straightforward prejudice. Yvette Cooper, a Labor member of Parliament and former shadow foreign secretary, accused the leaders of the Vote Leave camp, Justice Secretary Michael Gove and the Conservative former mayor of London, Boris Johnson, of lying to voters and putting social cohesion at risk with their exaggerated warnings about emigration from Turkey and assertions that Turkey could be a full EU member by 2020. Cooper said the discussion was utterly shameful, since both men know that Turkey is many years away from joining the EU. Any member nation also could veto the countrys entry, including historical enemies such as Cyprus and Greece. They are deliberately manipulating the facts, they are deliberately telling lies, she said. VIENNA A senior American official on Monday reaffirmed White House support for a treaty banning nuclear testing worldwide and urged other countries to move toward its long-delayed enactment despite the domestic political obstacles keeping her country from ratifying it. Undersecretary of State Rose Gottemoellers comments at a meeting marking the 20th anniversary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty underlined some of the obstacles keeping the treaty from being activated. It will come into force only if the United States and other holdouts among the 44 countries that are designated nuclear capable China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan ratify. Officials of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, the U.N. body created 20 years ago to monitor the treaty, say that U.S. ratification could serve as an example for at least some of the others to follow suit, and President Obama came into office seven years ago pledging to aggressively pursue a global ban on nuclear arms tests. But antitreaty Republicans stand in the way of the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate for ratification. In the shadow of another North Korean nuclear test, illicit rocket launch, and the catastrophic Iran nuclear deal, the Obama administration advocating for a flawed international nuclear-weapons treaty is mind-boggling, Republican senators Tom Cotton and James Lankford declared last month. Gottemoeller alluded to such opposition and the negative message it sends to other nations, despite the Obama administrations clear support for the treaty. The United States acknowledges that we have not completed our work on ratification and that our delay gives cover to other ... countries, she said. At the same time, she said her country continues to advocate for the treaty. If youre looking for things to do in Santa Fe this summer, youll want to check out Pat Hodapps cool new book, which features 100 cool things to put on your bucket list. In the wake of the shooting of Harambe, the 17-year-old silverback gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has proposed six ways to protect the animals in the wild, including an idea to expand existing protected areas and to create national parks near gorilla and chimpanzee colonies. The city of Santa Fe Finance Committee meeting this evening could get interesting. Thereports that some folks are expressing concerns about a resolution being considered by the city Finance Committee Monday that would give councilors the right to remove outspoken Santa Feans from council meetings.The states school funding formula might be inequitable and require retooling, according to a policy analyst who has the ear of state legislators.In a testy congressional hearing last week in Washington DC, a top official with the US Department of Agriculture said, New Mexico is probably the most fouled up SNAP system in the United States right now and has been, unfortunately, I think, for years. Justin Horwath took a long look at history of the program here and a decades old lawsuit challenging the application process.On Sunday,investigative reporter Mike Gallagher took a long look at the opioid epidemic in New Mexico ahead of the papers public forum on the issue. reports, Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he would 'take our campaign for transforming the Democratic Party into the convention, refusing to concede the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton though not explicitly saying he would challenge her for it. While the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando garnered most of the new coverage yesterday, New Mexico law enforcement agencies are searching for Juan David Villegas-Hernandez . The Roswell man is accused of fatally shooting his wife and four daughters. As Broadways biggest stars walked the red carpet before the Tony Awards, wherepicked up 11 trophies, including one for Best New Musical, the stars of theater dedicated their show to the victims in Florida. We read this weekend that there are six gun dealers for every one Starbucks coffee shop, and legal reforms were definitely an issue on the minds of people who attended a vigil at Morningside Park in Albuquerque last night. Gov. Susana Martinez and other New Mexico leaders, including members of the federal delegation, were quick to call the shootings outrageous. Now, were left to wonder if theyll unite to consider meaningful gun law reforms , as mass shootings seem to become the norm. This weekends carnage, the worst in the nations history, is the 1,001st mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. Shooters, like Omar Mateen , have killed at least 1,141 people and wounded 3,943 more. and identify victims, while friends, family and LGBT communities around the nation search for ways to mourn. Letters to the Editor Mail letters to PO Box 4910 Santa Fe, NM 87502 or email them to editor[at]sfreporter.com. Letters (no more than 200 words) should refer to specic articles in the Reporter. Letters will be edited for space and clarity. The Story Thus FarSo last week, that one guy with the face burns was minding his own business and innocently building a tower for that dude from Deadwood, and then everybody got killed. Dont freak, though, because hes got a crazy axe and a lust for blood. And revenge. And throat-slashin. You might even say he's got a serious axe to grind (against the faces of his enemies). While that whole thing was going down, Jon Snow, Sansa and Davos the Balding traveled the land, trying to build an army, but it didnt work out that great for them. At the same time, Jamie Lannister and his army of dorks were living through GoTs best Monty Python and the Holy Grail impression in Riverrun, the High Sparrow kept on being a total dick and Arya was on the receiving end of the stabbing of a lifetime. Will everybody live, or will everybody die? More importantly, will anybody care if everybody dies? Not this guy. Other stuff probably happened too, but Jesusits so much stuff. And it's every damn week!The GistThis weeks episode jumps right back into that lame play they keep doing about the Purple Wedding (so everyone can just relax and Im, like, soooo sorry I thought it was the Red Wedding, and like, get real, you bunch of nerdsit's a show about a woman who raises dragons, OK?). Anyway, this play is going down, and its maybe supposed to be dramatic, and the townspeople seem to like it, but everyone else (namely, me) is like, Get the fuck on with it! As you may recall, I theorized last week about Arya going to the actress she was supposed to kill but then didn't for help with her stab wounds, and wouldnt you know it? Thats exactly what she does! Shes in bad shape, too, which is nuts because, like, didnt she spend a bunch of episodes being blind? And now this? Shit, Arya cant catch a break. As it turns out, the actress is way good at dealing with stabs because shes stabbed more than her fair share of ex-boyfriends (I'd point out that making this woman sound like a violently jealous maniac is yet another slight against women in a Narrow Sea of slights). Looks like Arya can catch a lift with the theater to their next stop, but she whines about the House of Black and Whites resident jerk of a little girl, and the actress is like, Drink this milky crap! and Arya does. Jeeze. Shit knocks her out, too, and before we know it, shes asleep, which is apparently good for wounds in this town, somehow.Meanwhile, some other jerks are out in the woods trying to put fingers into each others buttholes. Oh, how I wish this were a joke sentence, but thats literally what happens. Is it a boredom thing? I mean, I've got no problem with people doing whatever they want, with consent, but this was just weird. But it's really brief because thats also when the burn victim guy shows up and is all like, "Can I axe you a question?" as he starts cuttin' them down. How does it feel to get an axe to the dick? he asks. Dude is pissed. He kills everyone. This surprises no one. In Meereen, Tyrion and his buddy Varys hang about in the streets, looking all grim and sad. Thats their trademark, I guess. Varys is apparently going somewhere, but I cant remember where or if they even mentioned it. Tyrion is still full of himself and wants to remind Varys that he's super-famous. Puke. Who cares, man? You can't do much of anything right, Tyrion, unless we're talkin' about getting drunk. Elsewhere, Cersei is still dealing with house arrest, and her bodyguard The Peninsula or The Archipelago or whatever he's called just looms around, looking tough and angry. He loves to do that; it's pretty much all he knows. Those dudes with the forehead brands show up to be jerks, but The Precipice ain't having it, so he rips some throats and removes some heads. Cersei watches with this smug look on her face, because she knows her trial is based on fighting, and with The Peak on her side, she cannot lose. Or maybe she can? Dude is probably sick of being in some totally heavy set of head-smashin' armor, right? Either way, he's huge, and that's creepy to everyone. At the same time, Brienne and her little bitch of a squire happen upon that Lannister madness in Riverrun. Brienne is simply trying to return Jamies sword to him, which she has for some reason I don't know. Why does she have it? Anyway, Jamie's pal, Baron Chinstrap, and the squire somehow know each other, and while Jamie and Brienne talk about who knows what, they talk about the logistics about fucking Brienne for way too long and gross us all outnot because Brienne resembles Charlie Bucket, but because they're a couple of dudes just being gross. There are some face slaps, but its boring. Brienne and Jamie talk about Gods of Egypt for a while and discuss how weird it is that every non-American in a movie is assigned a British accent. Brienne has to placate Jamie with statements like, "I can tell you worked really hard on Gods of Egypt," which is a classic non-compliment you pay your buddies when they're in something that just plain sucks huge. Jamie makes a lot of faces, when really he should be the one at whom faces are made, and the whole damn thing makes us long for a few minutes ago when that one dude got axed in the crotch. Brienne produces Jamie's bejeweled sword, but he's like, "Naw, keep it, girl! Slash some throats!" So she does, and even though she now owns the bitchin' sword, the guy inside Riverrun is still not making things easy. She's there to get him to let Sansa be in charge, but this guy's a real jerk and doesn't want to do anything nice for anyone. Oh, I see: Brienne thought these guys would help them fight Ramsay Bolton. He won't sign up. He sucks. Sad faces all around. OK, so back with Cersei and The Limestone Cowboy (think about it), things are becoming even more tense. Lets not forget that Tommen went all churchy. So from his sword-chair, he makes a bunch of proclamations about his moms trial and bans sword fights, which seems perfectly normal to us but must be such a bummer for Cersei! Shes got a trick up her sleeve anyway, even if The Butte can't trial-fight for her, and her creepy pal, the mincing Franciscan monk, stands behind her like some sort of Rick James-caliber super-freak. Her son is clearly sick of her shit, but that's still a pretty brutal thing to do to your mom. Meanwhile, Tyrion is shitting all over the traditions of Meereen and peer-pressuring former slaves into alcoholism. They drink with him even though they dont really want to do so, but thats the kinda madcap antics for which Tyrion is known. Well, that and one of the worst British accents since forever (C'mon, Dinklage"odd-vaunt-odge" is not how British people say advantage). The former slaves trade jokes with Tyrion, but they are all sucky, although now theyre best friends, maybe. Then a bunch of slave master boats arrive to fuck up the town, because they all heard that Dragon Tits was on vacation with the Horse Guys. Suck. Hey, do you guys think that Theon and She-on will sail in to save the day? I mean, isn't it actually the most obvious thing you've ever thought of in your entire life? Of course they will. Back in Riverrun, Jamie is trying to convince Lord Edmure to be cool for once in his fucking life, but hes not really the kind of guy to take be cool orders, even when hes tied to a pole like some kind of asshole. Dudes got the convictions of a Russian novelist or something, but hes sure good at sassing Jamie who, in turn, is good at sassing, too. Both of them are also gold medal winners in being boring. Jamie does try to explain how hard he loves his sister, which sucks. It always sucks when we have to see the Lannisters get all mushy about each other. A bunch of weird politics-of-fealty shit goes down, too, while we wait to see if Edmure can get back into his castle, but its obviously a trap, and its also weird when people swear oaths to anything. Anyway, its possible theres an Innerspace thing going on here, and Jamies entire army shrank themselves with a shrink ray and are using Edmure like a Trojan horse (thanks, Rick Moranis!), but the truth is that they somehow talked him into just surrendering. Jesus. And who the fuck is the Blackfish? Isnt that just an awful Sublime song? Oh wait maybe its Edmures uncle? Right. So Blackfish is Edmure's jerky uncle, "Badfish" is that sucky Sublime song. God, Sublime sucks. You guys, I cant take much more of this boring shit, and I'm not just talking about Sublime. Anyway, the music flares, the nothingness spreads, the whole world prays for one good fucking ice zombie fight, and Brienne escapes by boat (even though it didn't really seem like she had to escape). In Meereen, those boats from before all have catapults and begin to trash the city even harder. Looks like Tyrion is a dummy after all, and the former slaves are still pissed about him almost ruining their lives. Oh shit, though, because Dragon Tits is back, and shes pissed. My kingdom for a flotilla run by those people who are way into boats, she thinks to herself. Seriouslythere's no way that's not what happens next. We rejoin Face Burns, who finds the dudes who killed his buddies about to be hanged by some jerks who Burny used to pal around with. The murderers do get hanged, and its fine, but its no throat-slashing, thats for sure. The dudes all sit around a campfire, and its somehow even more boring than all the other boring stuff. I guess one could say that he got revenge and that he's maturing by killing for love instead of hate, but it ultimately doesn't matter, because they're all still jerks. Arya is back out of bed and being attacked again by the nameless little girl. Good thing she can jump out of tall buildings and do belly slides down totally ragged stone steps despite her stab wounds. Ugh. Im all for the suspension of disbelief and having dragons, but this is just silly. The girl with no name is relentless, though. This results in Arya falling down about a million stairs and reopening her wounds. Told ya! Shed be wise to stop leaving bloody handprints everywhere she goes if she doesnt wanna get stabbed again, but heyIm not a doctor, and I cant tell people how to live. It looks like theyre going to sword-fight in the dark, which is actually smart because Arya spent the summer doing a blindness internship. It would have been very exciting, for sure, but they cut away from it before the good stuff happens. Of course, Arya winds up back at the House of Black and White with the girl's face all cut off like she's John Travolta or something, and she tells that faceless wizard exactly where he can stick the face before she mentions she's going home. Uhhh ... so I guess all that training was for nothing? God. Damn. It. He seems like he wants her to stay, but his specialty is baffling, nonsensical answers to simple, straightforward questions. Still, she doesn't much care, because she's really tired of all the weird stuff this awful wizard demands of people. What's his problem, anyway? The Good Well, I guess that one girls face getting cut off was kinda cool. She was such a creepy jerk. End of list. The Bad Literally every non-face-cutting minute was a snooze. The Grade F: Can we just fucking get to it already?! Santa Fe Reporter Blackstone Group's Burger King chain in New Zealand widened its annual loss after taking a charge against its Kiwi Pacific joint venture and incurring higher finance and raw material costs. The net loss for Tango Holdings NZ widened to $7.6 million in the year to Dec. 31, from $7.5 million a year earlier, accounts filed with the Companies Office show. Revenue rose to $187.3 million, from $177.6 million in 2014. The 2015 loss is the fourth since Tango was incorporated in October 2011, the month private equity firm Blackstone acquired the burger chain operator, Antares Restaurant Group, from Australian buyout firm Anchorage Capital Partners. While the burger chain increase sales in the latest year, total expenses were also higher at $191.2 million from $185.9 million and the results include a $529,765 impairment against Kiwi Pacific, its joint venture with Veritas Investments which it is in the process of winding up. The parties were locked in a dispute over the interpretation of the supply deal for Kiwi Pacific, which was set to end on April 24 after Antares, the immediate owner of Burger King that's in turn owned by Tango, won an arbitration hearing, which Veritas had planned to appeal before changing its mind. Antares chief executive John Hunter said 2015 had been a strong year, with Burger King increasing its revenue and market share, and the company had a positive outlook. "We are very satisfied with the strong operating performance made over the past 12 months, and we look forward to making continued progress in 2016/17," Hunter said. The company had refinanced its external debt since the start of the 2016 financial year, and its leverage now represented less than three times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda), he said. The company had $79.3 million debt in 2015, from $149.2 million a year earlier. Net finance costs rose 2.6 percent to about $19 million in the latest year. Raw material and consumable costs rose to $60.3 million from $57.8 million. Tango Holdings has an agreement with Burger King Asia Pacific (BKAP) for a quota of restaurants to be opened by the end of 2016, giving BKAP the rights to charge it US$50,000 for every restaurant not opened by that date. The company said its is currently three restaurants short, and any charge incurred would be negotiated at the end of the year if the target wasn't met. Burger King has 84 outlets nationwide and describes itself as the country's "second-largest burger quick service restaurant chain". It competes with McDonald's branded fast food outlets, which generated an annual profit of $30.8 million for McDonald's Restaurants (New Zealand) on sales of $221 million in 2014 - a combination of franchise fees and own-store sales. The local fast food market is increasingly competitive, with the 2012 arrival of US chain Carl's Jr, brought over by Restaurant Brands, the NZX-listed KFC, Starbucks and Pizza Hut operator, to better compete against McDonald's and Burger King. BurgerFuel Worldwide, which listed on the NZAX in 2007, also operates a franchise model. McDonald's has run promotions such as dollar deals and recently made its breakfast menu available all day. Burger King has dollar specials on frozen drinks, seasonal offers and a promotional partnership with heavyweight boxer Joseph Parker, which Hunter said had been "mutually rewarding." BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: October 25th Morning Report Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report Air New Zealand Limited Retail Bond Offer Books Close Spark welcomes C-band spectrum allocation AIA - 2022 Annual Meeting Chair & Chief Executive Addresses The long-serving director of the Overseas Investment Office, Annliese McClure, has effectively been sidelined by the appointment of a "new short-term deputy chief executive" at Land Information New Zealand, whose job is "to focus on the Overseas Investment Office". The announcement of the appointment of Lesley Haines, a former deputy chief executive of both the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and, prior to its amalgamation with MBIE, the Department of Labour, was made without fanfare late last week by the soon-departing chief executive of Land Information New Zealand, Peter Mersi. The OIO is an autonomous operational unit of LINZ, with statutory responsibility for investigating, approving and making recommendations to Ministers on foreign investment proposals, including so-called "sensitive" investments involving strategically significant New Zealand land and other assets. It routinely faces criticism over the length of time it takes to reach conclusions on foreign investment proposals. Overseas investors are increasingly questioning the government's welcome for foreign direct investment after last year's rejection of the proposal by Chinese multi-national Shanghai Pengxin to purchase Lochinver Station, a large central North Island property, from Stevensons Group. The OIO recommended the purchase after a protracted investigation, but it was turned down by Associate Finance Minister Paula Bennett and LINZ Minister Louise Upston. The office has yet to make a recommendation to Ministers on the joint venture proposal that would see Chinese investor Shanghai Maling gain effective control of the country's largest meat processing firm, Silver Fern Farms. A decision is required on the proposal by June 30, although the JHV partners have signalled they could extend their deadline. Earlier this month, the OIO said it had stopped work on the application while it sought more information on the bid, saying it was "not in a position to indicate when the application will be sent to the relevant ministers for a decision. Spokespeople for both LINZ and Upston's office today confirmed that McClure, whose job title is manager of the OIO, remained at the office but were not immediately able to comment on her current job title or the implications for her of having a new short-term deputy CEO appointed above her, despite a tightly circulated press statement on the decision being issued on June 9. Labour's land information spokesman, David Cunliffe, said the decision was "a welcome step that underlines how much work the OIO has to do to properly do its job." "The appointment comes in the wake of a number of serious failures ... and is supposed to take pressure off Minister Upston's struggling OIO". Haines should check "how many other potentially dodgy deals have been approved", said Cunliffe in a reference to the approval of the sale of Onetai Station in 2014 to Argentinian bidders convicted in a water pollution case and who used Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers global tax avoidance leak, as their legal advisers on the transaction. The government has accepted the OIO's argument that underfunding was slowing down approvals and allowed it to raise its fees for foreign investment applications so that more staff could be hired. In response to a BusinessDesk request under the Official Information Act, the OIO confirmed it currently has 19 staff, of whom nine are senior solicitors, with three new appointments in May. The office declined to give information about the relevant experience of each OIO staff member on privacy grounds. According to Haines's LinkedIn profile, she is currently a board member of BRANZ, the building standards and research body, and of the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand. Mersi's statement said her role will be to "help bring on board additional staff as a result of recent fee increases to fund improvements for faster application screening ... and will manage some of the pressures on the team, so enabling them to focus on their core work". McClure has been manager of the OIO since August 2005, when the Overseas Investment Commission was renamed and moved from under the wing of the Reserve Bank to LINZ. She had been ceo at the OIC for three months at the time of that change and has worked in the foreign investment approval process since early 2004. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: October 25th Morning Report Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report Air New Zealand Limited Retail Bond Offer Books Close Spark welcomes C-band spectrum allocation AIA - 2022 Annual Meeting Chair & Chief Executive Addresses The New Zealand dollar touched its highest level against the British pound in 13 months and is approaching the 50 British pence level, with recent signs British voters are leaning towards an exit from the European Union, referred to as Brexit, in an upcoming referendum. The kiwi hit 49.65 British pence, its highest level since May last year, and was trading at 49.52 pence at 8am in Wellington, from 49.03 pence at 5pm on Friday. The local currency slipped to 70.50 US cents from 70.56 cents at the New York close and 70.85 on Friday. The British pound sank after the publication of an ORB poll for the UK's Independent newspaper ahead of the June 23 referendum showed the leave camp opened up a 10-point lead over remain, with 55 percent planning to vote to leave and 45 percent intending to vote to stay, showing the margin had widened from a 51/49 split in the equivalent poll back in April, and a contrast from the same poll a year ago which put 'remain in front by 60/40. Most economists expect Brexit would hurt the UK economy. "As the GBP remains under pressure, the NZD/GBP has the 0.5000 level firmly in its sights - the cross last traded above this level in April last year," Bank of New Zealand senior market strategist Kymberly Martin said in a note. "The fate of this cross remains in the hands of the UK referendum which is now only 10 days away." In New Zealand today, Real Estate Institute of New Zealand house sales data for May is expected to be released. Australian markets are closed for the Queens Birthday public holiday and this afternoon the focus will turn to a slew of Chinese data releases for May, including industrial production, retail sales and fixed asset investment. The New Zealand dollar fell to 75.32 yen from 75.84 yen as investors favoured safe haven assets after oil prices fell and amid concerns about the risk of 'Brexit'. The kiwi dropped to 4.6241 yuan from 4.6471 yuan, edged lower to 62.64 euro cents from 62.72 cents, and was little changed at 95.53 Australian cents from 95.56 cents.The trade-weighted index slipped to 75.37 from 75.52. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: October 25th Morning Report Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report Air New Zealand Limited Retail Bond Offer Books Close Spark welcomes C-band spectrum allocation AIA - 2022 Annual Meeting Chair & Chief Executive Addresses Fliway, the listed transport and logistics group, expects the loss of a large customer will hurt revenue and earnings next financial year. The customer, which Fliway didn't name, is consolidating its transport and logistics business with a rival following a competitive tender process, Auckland-based Fliway said in a statement. The customer contributes between 4 and 5 percent of Fliway's total revenue and will likely make up about 10 percent of Fliway's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the year ending June 30, 2016, the company said. The work is expected to transition from August 2016. "This is a material customer for Fliway and, while there will be no impact on the FY16 results for the 12 months ended 30 June 2016, at this stage there is expected to be a significant impact on the FY17 revenue and earnings as a result of this customer loss," Fliway said. "Targeted areas of cost reduction will be considered in order to minimise the financial impact of this customer loss, but only where there is no impact to service for our customers." The company said it's "very disappointed" to have not retained the business, and will continue seeking to win contracts with new customers. Fliway transports and warehouses freight throughout New Zealand and coordinates freight movements internationally, including customs clearance. It has 400 staff, 170 vehicles in its fleet, and 15 sites nationwide. It also owns half of UPS-Fliway, a joint venture its had for the past 17 years with UPS, one of the worlds largest package delivery companies. It will publish earnings for the year through June in late August. Its stock last traded at $1.08, after being sold at $1.20 in an initial public offering in April last year. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: October 25th Morning Report Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report Air New Zealand Limited Retail Bond Offer Books Close Spark welcomes C-band spectrum allocation AIA - 2022 Annual Meeting Chair & Chief Executive Addresses NZX's cost-cutting approach with new acquisitions frequently caused "friction", a former employee has told Wellington's High Court. NZX is suing Dominic Pym, Grant Thomas, and their companies Ralec Commodities and Ralec Interactive for between A$20.7 and A$37.6 million, and say they provided "wildly inaccurate" forecasts prior to NZX buying the Australian grain trading platform in 2009. Ralec's counterclaim of A$14 million says NZX and former chief Mark Weldon underfunded the business which meant it couldn't meet the earnout targets. Rachael Greer, who was a Queensland-based business acquisitions consultant at NZX, was called by Ralec as a witness. She was cross-examined by Alan Galbraith QC, the lawyer representing Mark Weldon yesterday. In her brief, Greer said that in September 2009 she told Weldon that Clear "would have the impression NZX has money it would like to give out like lollies" because NZX was a big business. Galbraith asked whether former NZX corporate counsel Rachael Newsome or former head of strategy Heather Kirkham had told Clear that NZX "marched to a slightly drier drum". Greer replied that she didn't know but she had thought it was important to make sure Clear understood it wouldn't be showered with cash because previous companies acquired by NZX had been under that misapprehension, which had caused unhappiness. "NZX had a very cost-cutting approach to new businesses, and I was constantly aware that because we were buying them [Clear] and talking about developing Alcazar [NZX's agri-portal strategy] they had the impression we had a lot of available cash, but we held onto our cash very tightly," Greer said. "There was always a matter of friction and disgruntlement once companies were integrated that there wasn't the money available that they had thought there would be to make the businesses really hum." Greer said when she resigned in November 2009, she believed she was owed $40,000 for a success fee for the acquisition of Clear. When she raised this with Weldon in February 2010, his response was to "storm up the stairs and remove me from the NZX intranet", Greer said. A lawyer Greer approached over the missed fee said she had a good case but it would cost her $40,000 to recover the $40,000 she believed she was owed, so she decided not to pursue the case, she said. Greer declined to talk to NZX after an email from Newsome when the stock market operator started legal proceedings. Greer said she didn't feel any obligation to NZX in respect of the legal proceedings, and agreed with Galbraith's suggestion that it was because she had been unhappy with the circumstances of her resignation. She denied it was an issue she still felt strongly about. "I wasn't happy - I believed that I was owed money, and they had determined I wasn't going to be paid it," she said. "I didn't feel any obligation to talk to them post that." Greer described Weldon as being "gung-ho" and "very, very keen" on the Clear acquisition, and said she had thought Clear could be a "real opportunity" for NZX. Galbraith asked if members of the due diligence team would have altered their advice to "toady" up to Weldon. Greer rejected that but said Weldon controlled how things were done. "[The due diligence team was] thoroughly professional," Greer said. "However, if he wanted something done - we definitely looked at things in terms of getting things done to what he wanted to happen. If people brought something up and he disagreed with that it was put aside pretty smartly. He was the one controlling the strings, not the other way around - we were his workers." Greer said that she could recall Clear's founders' requests for a 50 person call centre, road shows and other marketing spending ahead of the acquisition, though she had taken the requests with a grain of salt as they were trying to sell something and NZX hadn't done its own review. Grant Graham, a partner at KordaMentha who NZX has called as an expert witness, read his brief and was cross-examined by Ralec's QC Tim North in the afternoon on his report on the losses incurred by NZX from the acquisition of Clear. North said Graham's report must be defective if there was no causal connection between the representations made by Clear, reliance on representations, and the loss itself. Graham said he had been told that would be a matter for legal submission, and to assume the causal link was there, but accepted it would "stand to reason" that his report would be of no assistance if that link wasn't there. An error in the employment contracts for Clear employees, which had them employed by NZX rather than its wholly-owned Australia-based subsidiary NZX 4, was another topic North focused on. Justice Robert Dobson clarified with Graham whether he had meant to say Clear's IT staff were employees of NZX4 or NZX, saying that it could be an important distinction in the thousands of pages of transcript which will be generated by the trial. Graham's cross-examination continues today. BusinessDesk.co.nz Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: October 25th Morning Report Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report Air New Zealand Limited Retail Bond Offer Books Close Spark welcomes C-band spectrum allocation AIA - 2022 Annual Meeting Chair & Chief Executive Addresses LISBON: Indian-American inventor Arogyaswami Paulraj, known for his contribution to faster wireless connectivity popularly known as MIMO, the core technology used in all modern wireless networks, said 'digital India' can be a major driver of the country's growth story, if executed in the right manner. He also said that 'Make in India' is "a good slogan" but "it is a long way from a good slogan to execution". "Digitisation of the country at every level will help and particularly with Adhaar, we can do a lot more. We really need to improve broadband access in India, which will be part of digital India campaign and the way to do it is through wireless and the way to wireless is largely throughWi-Fi as the access is cheaper," Paulraj said. MIMO is a core technology used in all modern wireless networks. Without it, high-speed Internet connections embodied in 4G LTE cellular and the latest Wi-Fi networks would not be possible. It will continue to be vital in the next generation of cellular networks, known as 5G. Paulraj said that the Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mobile trilogy is all in the right direction but everything depends on execution. Comparing India with China, he said that while India as a country is more capable in many ways, it cannot execute as well as China does. "But we are a democracy and we move slowly but never the less we are heading in the right direction," he added. He is "sceptical" about whether India can do what China did 20 years ago. Because Indian labour is already becoming expensive and since India is a democracy the country needs to think of a different way. "I think one thing missing is government policy. If China has succeeded it succeeded because of government policy. I don't think we have an effective government policy. Make in India is a good slogan but it is a long way from a good slogan to execution," he said on the sidelines of the European Inventor Award ceremony held here. He, however, does not believe in the free Wi-Fi model. "We need to build Wi-Fi in India and we need to think of a business model to make it work. The politicians keep saying it is going to be free, if it is free, then how do you get entrepreneurs to put up networks and run it, maintain it and then give it up for free? We have to find a better business model," he said. Read Also: PM To Hold Interactive Session With Taxmen At 'Gyan Sangam' Queen Honours Indian-Origin Medics,Entrepreneurs In B'day List WASHINGTON: The Indian government is going to be America's "great ally" and there is a need to nurture this relationship, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Paul Ryanhas said. In a major foreign policy speech here in which he was highly critical of President Barack Obama's policies, the US-India relationship was the only aspect of it which was appreciated by Ryan. "I think you need, and in particular, specifically under Modi's leadership, and he and I have discussed this at great length yesterday, (US-India) have a great potential for the future particularly with the seas, in the Pacific and in the Indian Ocean, making sure that we help police the global commons and international order, namely Chinabuilding, you know, runways on islands in contested areas," Ryan said. He said this in the speech at the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress at his invitation. Modi was the first foreign leader to be invited to address a joint sitting of the Congress under Ryan's speakership. On Wednesday, Modi and Ryan had a one-on-one interaction before the Prime Minister's address. Ryan also hosted a lunch for the visiting leader. A day later, Ryan was all in praise for Modi. "I think the Indian (government), the new Indian government, is going to be a great ally of ours and we have better security cooperation with them. That's one thing that we need to nurture and grow," Ryan told the audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, a top American think tank. "And those of us who are fans of Modi, you know, he's a conservative who wants, who embraces free enterprise. He's bringing needed reform to the country," Ryan said, according to the remarks released by his office. "That's the kind of an alliance that we need to forge and build upon. That stands in stark contrast, I would argue, to the Obama foreign policy of the last eight years where we have neglected our allies and we have basically rewarded our enemies, our adversaries," said the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Except for his comments on India, Ryan slammed Obama's foreign policy. "We know that this new Obama foreign policy concept, leading from behind, can now be declared an unambiguous failure. It is making us unprepared. It is reducing our military capability and strength," he alleged. "It is confusing our allies and incentivising our adversaries. And all that does is tempt fate. So we are saying we've got to reset our system. We've got to restructure and reaffirm our foreign policy, in particular our military policy if we want to prevent these problems on the horizon from getting out of control," Ryan said. In response to a question, he said Modi's address to the joint session of the Congress was a great day. "So we just heard the prime minister of India at the Capitol Hill yesterday. It was a great day. He spoke before Congress and it was a great moment for the growing friendship between our two countries. The main reason I think this moment was so notable is that nowadays it's so rare," Ryan said referring to the bipartisan support that India-US relationship enjoys in the Congress. "On the past seven years, our friendships have frayed. Our rivalries have intensified. It's not too much to say that our enemies no longer fear us and too many of our allies no longer trust us," he said. In the Republican document on foreign policy and national security released by Ryan, the party said India and the US working together for betterment of the world. "We must also embrace emerging partners that could help keep the peace in their region and beyond," the document said. "India, the world's largest democracy, shares common interests with the world's oldest democracy, the United States and we must build upon that foundation to work together in shaping world events," it said. As part of its objective of advancing American interest, the 25-page document calls for "deepening relations" with emerging powers like India. The foreign policy document released by Ryan is also critical of the Pakistan policy of the Obama Administration. The Obama administration failed to prioritise economic growth in its approach to foreign aid and development, preferring high-profile "presidential initiatives" and short-term responses such as loan guarantees and enterprise funds, it said. "In places like Pakistan, the administration has made major investments in infrastructure but failed to accomplish the reforms necessary to create a positive environment for economic growth. Without reform, these initiatives will do little to improve livelihoods," the policy paper said. Read Also: Honeywell Backs Indo-U.S. Deal To Cutdown HFCs U.S. Christens PM's Vision of Indo-US Ties As 'Modi Doctrine' NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold an interactive session with the top brass of the two revenue collection arms of the government -- CBDT and CBEC -- during a first-of-its-kind 'Rajasva Gyan Sangam' to be held here on June 16. Officials said both the Boards have been asked to direct their officials to prepare suggestions on "important policy-level and innovative ideas of far reaching impact relating to the legislative and administrative framework of taxation in India" that they can be put forth to the Prime Minister during the conclave at Vigyan Bhavan here. They said similar ideas will also be put forth to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who will be holding a session with them during the two-day conference. "It has been directed by the Prime Minister's Office that the PM will like to keep it an interactive session rather than just a monotonous inauguration and speech affair. "Both Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) have been asked to prepare a bank of good ideas and out-of-the-box solutions after talking to their officers who will participate in the June 16-17 Gyan Sangam," a senior Finance Ministryofficial said. The meet will be attended by about 250 officials and the top brass of the Income Tax department and Customs and Central Excise. The conclave will deliberate on a host of issues related to taxpayer services and effective implementation of fiscal laws and government policies, including measures to curb black money generation and circulation. Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha will deliver the valedictory address on the second and last day. This is the first time that this annual conference of the two large departments is being held together. Till now, the two Boards used to hold such a conference separately with the chief guest being the Finance Minister. While CBDT is responsible for collecting direct taxes, CBEC does the same vis-a-vis indirect taxes. As per the blueprint of the 'Gyan Sangam', the details of the deliberations and recommendations will be sent to the FM's office and the PMO. The sessions will be divided into two broad subjects relating to the government's plan of financial inclusion and ensuring a transparent tax regime for businesses and foreign investors, besides issues and challenges being faced by the departments like Income Tax, Customs, Central Excise and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence. Modi, at his recent review meetings with CBDT and CBEC officials had reiterated the need for reducing taxpayers' grievances and ensuring a quick resolution of their problems. The Prime Minister is also likely to outline the government's goals vis-a-vis some flagship programmes like 'Make in India' and 'Start-up India' at the conference as tax officials are the most important stakeholders to ensure success of these schemes. Read Also: Indian Govt Is Going To Be A 'Great Ally': Ryan Honeywell Backs Indo-U.S. Deal To Cutdown HFCs MUMBAI: Bariatric surgeon Shashank S Shah has been honoured with the American Diabetes Association's 'Vivian Fonseca Scholar' Award 2016 for his contribution in the field of gastric bypass surgery for diabetes. Shah was conferred with the coveted award, given in recognition of Diabetes research, at a function in New Orleans yesterday, a release issued by American Diabetes Association said. The Pune-based surgeon received the award for his abstract 'Gastric Bypass Vs Medical/Lifestyle Care for Type 2 Diabetes in South Asians', which was the focus of his Vivian Fonseca Award Lecture, it said. Desmond Schatz, president, Medicine & Science--American Diabetes Association, congratulated Shah for his dedication and innovation in the field of gastric bypass surgery for diabetes. Shah, who has authored numerous publications on surgery for diabetes, in particular gastric bypass surgery, is Director of a Laparo-Obeso Centre in Pune, at present. The centre specialises in comprehensive treatment for obesity and related metabolic diseases, and also offers training for laparoscopic and bariatric surgery. Read Also: Senate Move to Give India Global Strategic Partner Status PM To Hold Interactive Session With Taxmen At 'Gyan Sangam' WASHINGTON: Asserting that the US and India face mutual security threats and a robust defence partnership is in the interest of both countries, a top Republican Senator has moved a legislation asking the President to recognise India as America's "global strategic and defence partner". Seeking necessary modifications to defence export control regulations, the legislative amendment to the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2017 was introduced by John McCain, who is Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The move came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to a joint session of the Congress called for greater defence co-operation between the two countries. As per the Senate Amendment 4618, it is the sense of the Congress that the US and India face mutual security threats, and a robust defence partnership is in the interest of both countries. The amendment says that the relationship between the US and India has developed over the past two decades to become a multifaceted, global strategic and defence partnership rooted in shared democratic values and the promotion of mutual prosperity, greater economic cooperation, regional peace, security and stability. As such it asked the President to such actions as may be necessary "to recognise the status of India as a global strategic and defence partner" of the US through appropriate modifications to defence export control regulations. "The commitment of the President to enhancing defence and security cooperation with India should be considered a priority in advancing the interests of the United States in South Asia and the Indo-Pacific region," it said. The NDAA 2017 is slated to come for voting in the Senate next week. The Republican Party has a majority in the Senate. The amendment urges the President to strengthen the effectiveness of the US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative and the durability of the "India Rapid Reaction Cell" of the Department of Defence. It also asks the US President to approve and facilitate the transfer of advanced technology in the context of, and in order to satisfy, combined military planning with the India military for missions such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counter piracy and maritime domain awareness. It asks for resolving issues impeding defence trade, security cooperation, and co-production and co-development opportunities between the US and India. Under the legislation the US President is asked to collaborate with India to develop mutually agreeable mechanisms to verify the security of defence technology information and equipment such as tailored cyber security and end-use monitoring arrangements. The Administration is urged to promote policies that will encourage the efficient review and authorisation of defence sales and exports to India, including the treatment of military sales and export authorisations to India in a manner similar to that of the closest defence partners of the US. Seeking to pursue greater government-to-government and commercial military transactions between the US and India, it asks the President to support the development and alignment of the export control and procurement regimes of India with those of America and multilateral control regimes. It urges the US President to encourage coordination with India on an ongoing basis to develop and keep updated military contingency plans for addressing threats to the mutual security interests of both countries. The legislative amendment asks the President to work toward actions and joint efforts such as significant contributions to ongoing global conflicts, that would allow the US to treat India the same as its closest partners and allies with respect to American laws and regulations. On an ongoing basis the President will carry out an assessment of the extent to which India possesses capabilities to execute military operations of mutual interest between the US and India. The Congress, as per this amendment, feels that the defence partnership between the US and India is vital to regional and international stability and security, and that the national security interests of America can be furthered by advancing the goals of the framework for the US-India Defence Relationship and the effective operation of the US-India Defence Technology and Trade Initiative. Given the bipartisan nature of support to India US defence ties and that it has been introduced by McCain himself, the legislation is expected to be passed. A similar legislative move has been made in the House of Representatives too. Read Also: PM To Hold Interactive Session With Taxmen At 'Gyan Sangam' US Calls On India, Pak To Pursue Closer Ties On Security Front WASHINGTON: Cutting across party lines, top American lawmakers have pledged to strengthen Indo-US strategic ties and take them to a new level as they believe mutual misgivings have given way to benefits in economic and security spheres. Following Prime Minister Narendra Modis address to the joint sitting of the US Congress on Wednesday, he has struck a personal rapport with the lawmakers, engaging with them directly on social media. Lawmakers have spoken both on the floors of the US House of Representatives and the Senate as well as outside about working towards strengthening bilateral relations. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said mutual misgivings had given way to mutual benefits in both the economic and security spheres. "We are now key trading partners. We are the two largest democracies in the world. Our relationship is an important one, and there are more benefits that can be shared from future cooperation," he said. "One of his messages, besides what a great democracy America is and what a great democracy India is, is that we have to think about the future. And we can tap the American ingenuity and what we have already done to clean air and grow business at the same time," said Congresswoman Kathy Castor. Senate Minority leader Senator Harry Reid said he told everyone about his warmness for India. "The second largest Muslim population in the world is in India. So it is a friend that we have, and we must maintain that friendship," he said. Senator John Corny said Modis speech reflected how far the two countries have come in such a relatively short period of time. "When Prime Minister Modi spoke he talked about his vision for his countrys future, including deepening and broadening the relationship with the United States. That is a very welcome statement by the Prime Minister," he said. "Connecting our two nations is also a unique and dynamic bridge of 3 million Indian Americans. Threats of terror are expanding, and new challenges are emerging in cyber and outer space. India is undergoing a profound social and economic change," said Congressman Joe Wilson on the House floor. He said a commitment to rebuild a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan was "our shared objective." "In every sector of Indias forward march, I see the US as an indispensable partner," he said. Read Also: Clinton Offers Unifying Message In First General Election Ad U.S. Win FINA Women Water Polo World League Super Final Source: PTI By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent. Agree Regulation election posters are festooning the nation's and our city's thoroughfares. And so here, to give this column's uncommon readers some relief from the commonplace, is one more of Birdlife Australia's beautiful and unusual election posters. Posters along Canberra's thoroughfares are urging us to vote for a Z. Seselja but famously bird-loving Canberrans would love to have the alternative possibility of voting for this charismatic A. Bittern. A. Bittern is an Australasian Bittern, a large, shy, endangered member of the heron family. Mel Edwards' photo of Arizona-looking sign at Sunrise Apartments, Queanbeyan. Credit:Mel Edwards As previously reported Birdlife Australia, taking advantage of the election-time ambience, has just created 10 lovely online election posters. All 10 in the series are by Julian Chapple. Birdlife Australia's Margaret Quixley explains that the 10 portrayed are all variously struggling and endangered. By voting with your "like" for your favourite you will help raise awareness of it. Then, she hopes, we will all talk of our chosen bird candidate to the human candidates who are buttering us up for our votes. Mr Barr said Canberra monuments would be lit up in rainbow or pink if only one colour is possible on Monday, joining other Australian landmarks in a show of solidarity. Omar Mateen killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub before he was shot dead by police. Credit:Myspace ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has condemned the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, saying there is "no place in any civilised society for this kind of hate". "The news overnight of another mindless shooting massacre from a deranged fundamentalist, this time targeting the gay community, is devastating," he said. Chief Minister Andrew Barr, pictured with partner Anthony Toms in 2014, says there is "no place in any civilised society for this kind of hate". Credit:Jamila Toderas "There is no place in any civilised society for this kind of hate and LGBTI people have experienced more than their share. "Our priority now is to come together as a community to support those who are suffering today. Our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones and friends in this senseless tragedy." Mr Barr said he would be in contact with the US ambassador in Canberra, John Berry, to let him know the people of Canberra stand with all LGBTI Americans and the people of Orlando. The AFL match review panel has cleared Geelong's Lincoln McCarthy of the tackle that concussed North Melbourne captain Andrew Swallow. The star Kangaroos midfielder is in some doubt for Friday night's blockbuster against Hawthorn. Swallow came off immediately after the first-quarter incident on Saturday night and did not return. Andrew Swallow is treated after a heavy knock. Credit:Getty Images North suffered a succession of injuries during the match and eventually Geelong won by 31 points. The panel judged that the tackle was one continuous motion, it was not unreasonable and added it was an accident that Swallow's head hit the ground. Often when family violence is spoken of, it conjures up an image of physical abuse. However, last Tuesday the ACT government announced it was expanding the legal definition of family violence to include economic and emotional abuse as well as threatening or coercive behaviour. This is a positive development, however unless those types of family violence attract criminal sanction, there is a risk that this change will be largely semantic. In recent years, family violence has been wrested from the shadows of private homes and forced under the lamp of public scrutiny. This process has served to educate us that, whether manifesting in physical abuse or otherwise, the fundamental trait of family violence is the desire to control another individual. And so it is appropriate that the legal definition reflects this by including non-physical elements so common to family violence. The use of economic and emotional abuse, or of threatening and coercive behaviour, to subjugate another can manifest in extreme ways in the familial context. It can be as powerful, if not more so, than the use of physical violence. Illustration: Andrew Dyson The Attorney-General, Simon Corbell, said the new definition would emphasise that "family violence is unacceptable in any form". Yet the change in definition has not been accompanied by any new criminal offences which would give it teeth. While it may be of great assistance in obtaining a protection order, without the creation of corresponding criminal offences it means that the criminal justice system is limited in its capacity to condemn and punish this type of conduct. It is clear the ACT government is committed to the condemnation of family violence as criminal behaviour. This definitional reform coincides with the announcement of its Safer Families investment, which will channel millions of dollars directly into the criminal justice system in order to strengthen the response to family violence. Firstly, because we are fair "I write in response to Rob Kerr (Column 8 last week). Willoughby Council would like to confirm that the height of the glass fence around the water feature at The Concourse in Chatswood exceeds the minimum 1.2 metre height requirement for pool barriers, being closer to 1.3 metres," says Debra Just, GM, Willoughby City Council. "Does our Prime Minister realise how hard it is to interpret triple negatives?" asks Peter Butt, of Wollstonecraft. "According to Saturday's SMH, he said: "No sensible person doesn't think that the China Australia Free Trade Agreement hasn't been a big plus." I think he means: "Every sensible person thinks that the China Australia Free Trade Agreement has been a big plus." And to think there are weeks to run in the campaign." "I suspect the SCOSE committee (ABC grammar watchdog, C8, Monday) is now defunct," bemoans Graham Lum, of North Rocks. "Recently an ABC newsreader put the emphasis on the second syllable when using the word, "sepulchre". In years past, the impeccable pronunciation by ABC announcers was as reliable as spellcheck today." The contribution from Jeffrey Gabriel regarding those from Yorkshire omitting articles, reminds me of the classic "Trouble at mill" used to illustrate this speech pattern. But where did that phrase originate? Certainly not from the Monty Python four Yorkshiremen skit," says Charles Davies-Scourfield, of Sutton Forest. Before John Kennedy presented his forward-looking New Frontier, he called upon the legacies of Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, three presidents who fundamentally transformed American politics. Ronald Reagan traced his revolutionary lineage even further, to the Pilgrims and the founders. Clinton and Trump share this rear view approach to their campaigns. Dig deeper, though, and the similarities dissolve. Though history is important to each campaign, the candidates are working in vastly different historical registers. Trump relies on nostalgia, a sentimentality for a lost past tied to a promise for its restoration. His nostalgia is vague rather than specific, pointing to a misty past before mass immigration, before trade wars, before feminism. A time when pay packets were fat and dependable and women were slim and tractable, when America won every war that it fought and fought only wars that were good. Clinton's version of history is one more of struggle than ease. She goes right to the heart of the great American contradiction: the promise of equality for all set against a narrowly drawn field of citizenship. She tells a story of justice delayed, of women and men engaged in a centuries-long effort to bring more and more people into the body politic. And while she points to victories along the way, she makes clear there is still work to be done. But will that feel-good "history in the making" message work in a campaign against Trump, the walking insult-generator determined to conduct a race-to-the-bottom campaign? With important parts of the public service having more time on their hands during caretaker mode, some of that time can be spent meeting with experts from the private sector. Unlike public campaigns, relationship building is a long game. Instant gratification is unlikely, but investing in a wide and diverse network can pay dividends in the long run. Once an election is called and the Governor-General dissolves the Parliament, the government adopts 'caretaker conventions'. It will avoid making decisions on major policy initiatives, major contracts or the appointment of public officials, and avoid involving departmental officers in election activities. Ordinary administrative functions continue as normal, but for many public servants life becomes a bit quieter. While the politicians are looking the other way, the caretaker period is a good time to get a foot in the door. Credit:Louie Douvis However, there's another often-overlooked opportunity: the public service may have a more open ear than at other times. It's a chance for experts to get a hearing. The period before an election is campaign time for interest groups almost as much as for the politicians themselves. It's time to mobilise your members and inform voters which party is doing what for your issue, to deploy attention-grabbing media strategies and to lobby politicians with election wish lists. That said, it's not all coffee breaks and long lunches. During the caretaker period each department prepares incoming government briefs the so-called blue and red books for an incoming Coalition or Labor government respectively. These briefing packages bring a new minister up to speed on urgent matters and advise on the implementation of election commitments. Importantly, they also address significant issues that weren't on the radar during the election campaign but perhaps should have been, or that pose risks to the government. What better time for those seeking to influence policy to engage with public servants? Interest groups often complain that accessing public servants is too difficult, and it certainly is a different exercise to accessing elected officials. While politicians prioritise groups with larger membership bases (representing more voters), bureaucrats tend to favour those with knowledge and information. Public servants have expertise in policy development and implementation, but are typically generalists when it comes to the subject of their policy-making. Outsiders can offer valuable information about stakeholder attitudes and the likely impacts of a policy on the ground. Outside of formal consultations, public servants rely on people they know and trust. It may take some effort, but establishing relationships with public servants is the best way to ensure you're in the loop when decisions are made. It's another common complaint that bureaucratic churn with key people seeming to change departments on a whim makes relationships hard to forge and harder to maintain. But relationships can and do persist across job changes: any good handover brief includes a list of important experts in the field from the research community, industry and NGOs. A wide and diverse network also helps secure access in the longer term. Of course, a name in a handover brief won't always be enough. Policy development, particularly in the early stages before the cabinet considers a proposal, is typically done in confidence. The requirement to treat information confidentially means trust is a big issue and while a reputation for expertise and discretion can transcend bureaucratic churn, there's no substitute for a trusting personal relationship. Loris Capovilla, cardinal and secretary to Pope John XXIII, with the body of Pope Pius X in silver mask in St Peter's in 1959. Cardinal Loris Capovilla, who has died aged 100, was the oldest member of the College of Cardinals and lived long enough to see a pope who revived the style and aims of Pope John XXIII, known as "The Good Pope", for whom Capovilla had been secretary decades before. Loris Capovilla was born at Pontelungo, near Padua. His father, a clerk, died at the age of 37. Capovilla was ordained a priest of the Patriarchate of Venice in 1940 and then did his military service in the Italian air force during the Second World War. He was awarded the Italian War Merit Cross for saving the lives of 10 Italian airmen. After the war he was appointed editor of the Venice diocesan weekly La Voce di San Marco, and contributed to other publications as well as being a radio broadcaster. Then, in 1953, when Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) was appointed Patriarch of Venice, he made Capovilla his secretary. Capovilla later recalled, in his book, Loris F. Capovilla: I miei anni con Papa Giovanni XXIII, how the vicar of Venice, Monsignor Erminio Macacek, expressed his concerns about the new secretarial appointment. "Your eminence," he told Roncalli, "he is a good priest, he is good, but he is not very healthy. He will not live for long." Sir Graham Latimer was a champion of Maori rights; as the longest serving chair of the New Zealand Maori Council, he helped shape the relationship between the modern New Zealand state and the Maori people. Graham Latimer was born on February 7, 1926, by the side of a dirt track on the Aupouri Peninsula, south of Te Kao in Northland, the northernmost region of New Zealand. He was the third son of the six children of Graham Latimer of the Ngati Kahu iwi ( "iwi" meaning people or tribe) and his Scottish-Irish wife, Lillian. Sir Graham Latimer and Maori activist Titiwhai Harawira at the Waitangi Tribunal hearing. Credit:Kevin Stent Graham went to several primary schools before going on to Kaitaia District High School. Only later did he learn from his father that some parents had complained that they did not want any Latimers sitting next to their children because they were Maori and therefore a health risk. Nevertheless, Latimer's own recollections of his school days were generally happy and untroubled by racism. Having joined the Territorial Army a formative experience for the 17-year-old Graham, who drove his recruiting officer father across Northland, visiting Maori communities in 1943 he enlisted in the New Zealand Army, serving with the Maori Battalion. During this time he was much influenced by the work of Paraire Paikea, a Northern Maori MP who was coordinating the Maori War Effort Organisation, formed in 1942 to organise recruitment for the war and the war effort. Business leadership is not a popularity contest; the best companies are run by enlightened dictators. CEOs must listen very carefully to their employees but they have to do what is best for the company, employees, and shareholders. They have to make tough decisions and take responsibility when things go wrong. They expect that once the decision is made, everyone will comply - whether the decision was good or bad. The best leaders share the credit when they achieve success and take all the blame when things go wrong. I'm reading a book called Twelve Against the Gods, by Bolitho. It's really quite good." I know that dictatorship doesn't sound nice, but it is what business leadership entails. People love to follow strong leaders. They want to be led by people with vision, conviction and good values. They may not agree with everything the leader decides but as long as ethical lines are not being crossed, employees will follow directions, work hard and be loyal. Look at some of the most successful business leaders: Imagine if every weekend was a long weekend, and every week a four-day week. In Sweden, a 30-hour week has been shown to benefit satisfaction and health, and lead to a more equal share of housework and childcare between genders. Yet another Swedish experiment found that a decrease in work time by 1 per cent corresponds to an 0.8 per cent reduction in household greenhouse gas emissions. Imagine if you only had to go through this four days a week... Credit:John Phillips Australian academics have recently called for our current 38-hour cap to be strengthened in order to improve gender equality. Perhaps we should go further: a four-day work week - for both men and women. In her book The Wife Drought, Fairfax Media columnist Annabel Crabb suggested we've been looking at workplace equality all wrong. It's not just about getting women into work, keeping them there, and paying them well. It's about getting men to go home. On Saturday night, US time, a man brought two weapons into a gay club in Orlando, Florida, and murdered 50 people, wounded another 53, and was eventually shot dead by police. In terms of possible motive, the gunman's devastated father has claimed that his son had been seething about seeing two men kiss in the street, and his ex-wife has indicated that he was an unstable man with a history of domestic violence. Predictably it's already descended into the standard horror show of gun rights advocacy, anti-Muslim invective, blame-shifting and leaders accusing each other of policitising a tragedy that has become standard whenever this sort of thing happens, while religious-flavoured hate groups like the increasingly-desperate Westboro Baptist Church made their typical claims that this was God's wrath on them sodomites. Terrorist group Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the slaughter, though there's no real evidence suggesting that's anything more than rank opportunism by a group who want to take credit for someone's horrific act. The FBI had investigated the shooter about possible ties to a Syrian terrorist, but had concluded that he wasn't a risk. Country Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Canada Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cuba, Republic of Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Dominican Republic Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Haiti, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Jamaica Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Mexico, United Mexican States Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu US Virgin Islands Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. 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 The first real snap of winter calls for seriously warm clothing. For me, it doesn't get much better than cashmere, so Nuan Cashmere's pop-up in the CBD has come at just the right time. Gorgeous Florence Nightingale-inspired cloaks, jackets, cardigans, jumpers, scarves and gloves are on offer in an array of colours. There's also the recently launched Eco-cashmere range, which is a goat's wool that comes in dark brown, cream and greys; it has not been treated or dyed. Nuan uses only 100 per cent long yarn cashmere, rather than a cashmere blend, used by most ready-to-wear designers. It is expensive but doesn't pill like most other cashmeres/wools. Established in 2006 by Irish-born, Australian-based designer Caoihme Ryan, the brand is (ironically, given its warmer climes) Brisbane-based. Sharing the space is Ballettonet shoes,which are usually only available online. Australian Stephanie Waters set up the shop after a trip to Italy, during which she fell in love with the array of hand-crafted leather shoes, made sustainably, often through family businesses. Specialising in ballet flats, there are also glam high tops (such as the Olivia, honeycomb sneakers, pictured). Kerrie Hess has designed a very cute range of flats for Ballettonet, inspired by Audrey Hepburn's Funny Face. In the heart of the city's suit-land, where there are few retail offerings, it's great for that I-want/need-to-treat myself lunch break. 494 Little Collins Street, city. Prices for Nuan collection from $140 for a pair of cashmere mittens and up to $1293 for the signature Coco long coat with 15% off in June; eco-cashmere starts at $449 for a scarf, $598 for cardigans. Ballettonet prices are from $110 with up to 30% off for pop up. Mon-Wed 10am-6pm; Thu 10am-7pm; Fri 10am-6pm. Open until June 30 A Shorten government would review the board and management of the NBN if it wins office, with some of the company's most senior figures likely to exit the organisation. Labor has pledged to phase out the use of the copper-based fibre-to-the-node technology - a centrepiece of the NBN rollout under the Coalition - and instead connect up to two million premises directly to fibre. It would also commission Infrastructure Australia to examine how to upgrade homes connected through fibre-to-the-node to full fibre after the initial rollout is complete. Then communications minister Malcolm Turnbull cleaned out the NBN board after the Abbott government won the 2013 election, with only one board member, Kerry Schott staying on. One senior Victorian Liberal told Fairfax Media there were real fears Higgins could be "the Indi of 2016", a reference to Sophie Mirabella's shock loss of the safe Liberal seat of Indi to independent Cathy McGowan at the 2013 federal election. As a direct result of the positive poll, the Greens will transfer volunteers and resources from other Melbourne seats in order to target Higgins. Assistant Treasurer Kelly O'Dwyer is under siege from Greens candidate Jason Ball in the once-safe Liberal seat of Higgins, with the latest poll revealing her primary vote has collapsed to just 44.1 per cent. Greens candidate Jason Ball is second in Higgins, with 24.1 per cent of the primary vote, while ALP candidate Carl Katter lags a distant third with 18.5 per cent. If the polling - commissioned by the Greens - proves accurate, such a result would take Higgins to an unlikely preference count for the first time since it was created in 1949. Kelly O'Dwyer is putting pressure on Labor over pairs. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "The Greens will be putting extra resources into the Higgins campaign," said Larissa Brown, state director of the Victorian Greens. "We will increase our door-knocking and phone calls to voters, and the increased likelihood of winning has attracted volunteers from outside the seat." Mr Ball needs a swing of 9.9 per cent to win the seat and preferences to flow the Greens' way. The ALP, along with a number of independent candidates, have already pledged their preferences to the Greens. According to the poll, Ms O'Dwyer has a lower primary vote count (44.1 per cent) than the 44.7 per cent Ms Mirabella recorded in Indi in 2013. The Liberals ended up losing Indi by just 439 votes after preferences, with a swing against them of 10.2 per cent. The Greens will attempt to put the elusive republic back on the menu on Monday with a cake-based stunt atop Parliament House. As several states mark the Queen's birthday, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale will slice the Union Jack out of a cake shaped as the Australian flag - and outline a plan to make Australia independent from Britain as soon as 2020. All three major party leaders nominally support an Australian republic but the Greens argue Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull a prominent leader of republicans in the 1990s now lacks the conviction to prosecute the issue. "He was just a total dad," the mother of a graduating senior said of the president. "No fanfare. You didn't know they were there." Barack Obama was true to his word Friday. He did not speak at Malia Obama's commencement ceremony, which he and the first lady attended, along with family and friends of other graduates of the private school in Northwest Washington. "I'm going to be wearing dark glasses," he told a group of lunch companions during a visit to Detroit earlier this year. "I'm going to cry." When Sidwell Friends School asked the president whether he would like to speak at his elder daughter's graduation, he declined. If the president did cry during the outdoor ceremony, his tears may have been hidden behind his sunglasses. Inside the gates of the school's campus, nestled in the woodsy fringe of Tenleytown, Malia was just one of 127 graduates. Like the other young women, she wore a white dress the young men were in suits and walked down the stairs of the Zartman House administrative building to take her seat on the lawn beneath vines of wisteria. Over recent months, Barack and Michelle Obama have expressed sadness and pride as their daughter has grown up. But primarily, they have been protective as Malia transitions out of their cocoon and into adulthood. She will turn 18 next month and has been accepted to Harvard. Her parents have said she will take a gap year, allowing her to enroll after her father's term ends. Sidwell did its best to close the ceremony to the media. The Obamas, who also celebrated the 15th birthday of younger daughter Sasha on Friday with a post-ceremony luncheon at Georgetown's Cafe Milano, wanted to treat the event as a family affair and the school and others in attendance tried to respect that desire. President Obama drew no attention to himself, and there was no special attention paid to the first family during the ceremony. Sidwell, which also educated the children of Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover and Teddy Roosevelt, emphasises equality among its Quaker traditions: Awards are not handed out at graduation, and VIPs get no special recognition (although heads did turn when the Obamas passed through and, after the ceremony, the president and Malia posed for a couple of photos with well-wishers that quickly ended up on social media). A mother's objection to vaccination is the single biggest reason 3 per cent of Australian infants aren't immunised, new research shows. Meanwhile children from big families, with single parents or who move around a lot, are more likely to only be partially immunised. The Australian Institute of Family Studies linked data from the Growing up in Australia long-term study of children with records from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register to determine why some children were only partially immunised, or not at all. According to the latest figures from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register, 93 per cent of one year olds are fully vaccinated. This is below the official target of 95 per cent immunisation coverage. NSW Labor MP Hugh McDermott is refusing to consent to the public release of key details of his Australian Army Reserve service to back up a statement in his inaugural speech to parliament that he was a non-commissioned officer (NCO). In his speech on May 13 last year as the new MP for Prospect, Dr McDermott referred to his time as an NCO in the army reserve, indicating he achieved at least the rank of Lance Corporal. Labor MP Hugh McDermott is refusing to allow defence to publicly release his service details Credit:Facebook In a separate document provided to Fairfax Media prepared by him from his recollection, Dr McDermott lists among his achievements a promotion to Lance Corporal in 1990 and then to Corporal in 1991. According to the army, promotion to Lance Corporal can occur after Initial Employment Training or three years as a Private, and the promotion to Corporal six to eight years. Stamp duty will be doubled for foreign buyers of a median priced Sydney house under changes to be introduced in next week's NSW budget. Based on the Sydney median house price of $995,804, the stamp duty bill for a foreign investor will increase by almost $40,000 - from $40,305 to $80,137. If they are buying a unit at Sydney's median price, $656,000, they will pay an extra $26,240 in stamp duty. It follows the announcement by NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian that foreign buyers of residential property will be slugged with a 4 per cent stamp duty surcharge from next week and pay an extra 0.75 per cent land tax from 2017. Hundreds of people have gathered in Sydney to remember the victims of a gay nightclub massacre in the US state of Florida. Fifty people were killed and more than 50 others injured when gunman Omar Mateen opened fire inside the Pulse club in the city of Orlando on Sunday morning, in what was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. In reaction to the violence, scores of people from around Sydney flocked to Taylor Square, along the Mardi Gras parade route and a short walk from some of the city's best-known gay nightspots, shortly before 6pm on Monday. Bags of candles and rainbow flags were distributed to the crowd as they arrived, some wiping away tears as they hugged Premier Mike Baird says Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's promise to pay for councils to hold plebiscites on mergers would make no difference to his local government reform program. "The mergers are already done and we know that this is a stunt because ultimately the decision would rest with the state government," Mr Baird said. Mr Shorten promised on Monday that that if Labor were elected it would provide $20 million so councils could ask residents to vote on mergers. "This move will give the people of NSW the power to stand up to the Baird Liberal government, and their plan to unilaterally dispense with democracy and force councils to merge, and to sack elected councillors," Mr Shorten and shadow local government spokeswoman Julie Collins said in a statement. Detailed business cases revealing the financial justification for spending billions of dollars on Sydney's major transport projects remain secret after the state government refused to release them. Transport for NSW has rejected a request from Labor under freedom-of-information laws to make public the full business cases for the second stage of Sydney's $20 billion-plus metro rail project, the $2.1 billion Sydney CBD light rail and the Parramatta light rail. Labor transport spokeswoman Jodi McKay said the public expected the government to release documents that revealed the financial justification for large projects. "We are talking about billions of dollars worth of projects and all we have is the release of glossy documents," she said. A woman is being treated by paramedics after her car crashed into a post office east of Brisbane. A car crashed through the glass windows of a post office in Birkdale Fair off Birkdale Road at Birkdale just after 11am. A vehicle crashed into a shopfront at Birkdale. Paramedics were treating the driver, the sole occupant of the car, at the scene. Australia Post employee Rosanne Eagers said she and another worker were behind the counter when the car smashed through the shopfront. Brisbane will hold a candlelight vigil in honour of the scores of LGBTIQA people targeted in the Orlando massacre. Headed by the organisers of Brisbane Pride, which held its annual celebration of the queer community and their allies on Saturday, the vigil in the heart of the city is designed to allow people to "express their grief and mourn" the attack on their community in America. "This morning LGBTIQA+ communities the world over awoke to the heart breaking news of the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States. This was an attack on our community and the depth of shock and mourning runs as deeply in Brisbane as it does anywhere," Brisbane Pride President Deeje Hancock. Cross River Rail remains the state's and the Palaszczuk government's number one infrastructure project, but Queensland is being told to "wait and see" if there is any money in the budget to get it rolling. Deputy Premier Jackie Trad announced plans for a delivery authority for the crucial project in April. That takes the onus for delivering the project out of the government's hands and into a statutory body's, which aims to take "the politics out" of seeing the project become a reality. The project has been identified as the number one Queensland infrastructure project, with the south-east's population set to grow to 4.9 million by 2036 and congestion costs set to rise to $9 billion in lost productivity without the crucial rail link. The updated business case is due be completed by mid-2016, leaving the government a few days to meet its commitment. The age of startups, innovation and entrepreneurs has triggered an increasing in universities offering degrees in entrepreneurship, but it's yet to be seen if the courses are successful. Born out of the business schools of Australia's leading universities, including Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) and University of Technology in Sydney, the courses are designed to create the next generation of entrepreneurs. Degrees in this field can cost upto $30,000. Yet Small Businesses Australia CEO Peter Strong said he is "cynical" about the benefit of entrepreneurship courses. "Is it really for entrepreneurs or is it just another way to get people into a course?" he said. "What does a degree in entrepreneurship mean? Is this just another name for the same thing?" Washington: To put it mildly, this is one gem of a gem. Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in Western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 billion years ago. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sunday, the researchers said the discovery indicates that Earth's crust formed relatively soon after the planet formed and that the little gem was a remnant of it. "Apple needs to make a clear statement that Siri is improving," says Jan Dawson, an analyst with Jackdaw Research. "Siri still isn't good enough." The Cupertino, California company has a big job ahead. Even though Siri was first to bat among digital assistants, it has limited utility and risks putting Apple in second-tier status when it comes to the make-or-break technology of the moment: artificial intelligence and natural-language learning that can simulate human conversation. Analysts who cover Apple predict an expanded role for Siri will be one highlight of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, which begins Monday in San Francisco. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Siri is expected to expand beyond the iPhone and iPad to third-party apps and Macs, a move designed to hike the usefulness and IQ of Apple's personal digital assistant. Siri 'still isn't good enough', analyst says. Credit:iStock The voice-activated digital assistant is used mostly to operate the iPhone, for instance finding contacts and setting appointments and reminders. It's also pretty good when you want to ask it a silly question. But while you can use Siri which is also in Apple CarPlay to open up the Pandora music app, you can't direct it to play specific stations, for instance. It exists mostly to call up functions in the Apple ecosystem, including Apple's own apps, or simply to open other apps. Siri stands to get more useful and smarter if Apple lets app developers incorporate Siri. "We never had access to Siri before," says Jordan Metzner, founder of on-demand laundry app Washio, which has been in the App Store since 2014. To use the app, customers now need to locate it on the iPhone and open it. But when Apple opens up access to Siri, "they'd simply hold down the Siri button and say 'Use Washio to clean my clothes,' and they could simply place an order that way," he says. "So it will add additional benefit, and open up Siri as a platform to the hundreds of apps that are already on your phone." When Siri debuted 2011, it was the cutting edge: the first of the voice assistants. Five years later, it's got a lot more company: Alexa on Amazon's hit Echo connected speaker and Google's "Ok Google," feature used on Android phones. Google is introducing an Echo-like speaker, Google Home, later this year. Plus, Facebook has launched a platform for commercial chat bots that simulate text messaging with a friend. Facebook has been dragged into a racial discrimination case involving three Queensland university students. Federal Circuit Court Judge Michael Jarrett on Monday ordered the social media giant be subpoenaed for information on the account details of a Queensland University of Technology Student accused of making a racist comment online. QUT student Calum Thwaites claims a racist post was not written by him and came from a fake account. Credit:Reuters He ordered the subpoena be sent to Facebook's international headquarters in Dublin, along with 100 euros to cover international postage fees. Calum Thwaites has denied being responsible for a two-word racist post among a 2013 Facebook thread about three students being asked to leave an indigenous-only computer lab. More than one inmate is dying in Victoria's prisons every month. At least 19 prisoners have died in the past year the most in any year this decade figures obtained by Fairfax Media show. Warders and inmates at the Metropolitan Remand Centre. Credit:Justin McManus However, the figure may not be all it appears. Though this year's prisoner death toll is four more than last year, and almost double the average recorded in financial-year records since 2008-09, most of the deaths were from natural causes. This rise suggests a potential aged-care crisis that has long threatened to destabilise Corrections Victoria could have arrived. A "pro-Australian" group that was involved in violent protests between the far-right and anti-fascist demonstrators in Coburg in May will hold a rally to "celebrate" the national flag. The so-called True Blue Crew posted an invitation to the event on its Facebook page, urging "all Australians" to fly the flag with pride. "Whether you consider yourself on the left, the right, or centre of the political spectrum, whether you're conservative, traditionalist, progressive, whether you're born and bred in Australia, or new to our beautiful country, we call on all Australians to unite and join us on this walk to celebrate this wonderful, accepting, tolerant nation that we all call home," it states. According to the post, the Melbourne rally, to be held in late June, is aimed at stopping changes to the flag. Three fishermen spent Sunday night in freezing conditions after swimming to Wedge Island when the motor on their dinghy broke. WA police spokesman Adam Brouwer said the three men in their 20s had been found safe and well on the island north of Lancelin on Monday morning, a few hours after they were reported missing. Scott Olsen, 27, Tim Harte, 27, and Campbell Banks, 24, had last been seen at 10am on Sunday in Jurien Bay before they were believed to have travelled back to Perth in a Mazda Bravo utility. However they apparently wanted to explore some fishing opportunities in the Ledge Point area on their way back to the city. Two young children left home alone in Perth while their parents were overseas are now in the government care. A 28-year-old woman has been arrested and charged with two counts of knowingly engaging in conduct that may harm a child in her care. A Perth court has to determine if the child accused of rape understands what is going on in court. Credit:John Donegan WA police went to a Cloverdale home on Wednesday and found the children, aged four and six, who had allegedly been left alone since Tuesday. "It will be alleged both parents were overseas at the time the officers entered the property," police said in a statement on Saturday. For most of us, when the weather gets bitterly cold we can slap on a blanket or crank up the heater. But for many homeless people sleeping rough around Perth, a simple blanket is a luxury they can't afford. Food For Me Cafe owner Vikki O'Neill said she decided to rustle up some blankets for the people sleeping rough around Victoria Park, when she noticed a number of homeless people coming into the noshery asking for anything to keep them warm. She put a comment on the cafe's Facebook page calling for coffee drinkers to donate blankets and was overwhelmed by the response. Jakarta: The fight to prove the innocence of cleaners and teachers accused of sodomy at a prestigious international school in Jakarta is being waged not just by lawyers in court but by Indonesian netizens whose battleground is social media. When Fauzan Luthsa, a public relations consultant in Jakarta and father of two young children, heard a preschooler contracted herpes after allegedly being raped by six janitors at the Jakarta Intercultural School he was convinced of their guilt at first. Changed his mind: Fauzan Luthsa from Kawan8 in Jakarta on Friday. Credit:Tatan Syuflana Police said one of the cleaners, Azwar, who died under questioning in the police cells, committed suicide out of shame by drinking bleach during a break in interrogation. US President Barack Obama said on Monday there was no clear evidence that the shooter in Sunday's massacre in Orlando, Florida, was directed externally by a larger terrorist network, comments that were echoed by the director of the FBI. "It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet," the president told reporters in the Oval Office after a briefing by senior officials including Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. "At this stage we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally," Mr Obama said. GREAT BAY, Sint Maarten (DCOMM) Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that trench work in connection with the laying of cables will take place on 14 June. These works will take place from 8.00AM to 4.00AM on the A.Th. Illidge Road, Madame Estate in the vicinity of the business services and accountancy firm KPMG. There will be a partial road closure from 8.00AM to 4.00AM on 14 June. A trench will be opened across the road in order to lay 12 conduits which is related to a TelEm Group of Companies project. The trench works will be executed by Windward Roads. Pedestrians and motorists should pay attention to traffic signs in the area in connection with the works and to watch out for construction personnel and heavy equipment. Ministry VROMI apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause. Doctors are optimistic about the 34 remaining in the hospital. Omar Mir Seddique Mateen (November 16, 1986 June 12, 2016)[37] lived about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Orlando. Mateen was an American citizen born in New York to Afghan parents, and was a Muslim. Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, 29 lived about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Orlando. Mateen was an American citizen born in New York to Afghan parents, and was a Muslim. He was a licensed security guard, attended the Haj in Mecca in 2012. His views became increasingly radicalized. At 2:02 a.m. EDT June 12, shots were heard and an Orlando Police Department (OPD) officer stationed at Pulse nightclub engaged Mateen and returned fire. Pulse posted on its Facebook page at 2:09 a.m. EDT, "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running." Mateen was armed with an assault rifle, a handgun, and a "device" that officials believed mistakenly was another threat. After additional officers engaged the suspect, the gunman retreated into the nightclub and began to take patrons hostage. Dozens of first responders-including OPD officers, Orange County sheriff's deputies, and FBI agents, as well as paramedics and firefighters from three fire departments-reported to the scene. A crisis negotiator was present, as the gunman was holed up inside and holding hostages. The shooter claimed to have an explosive device. Police said that a bomb squad had set off a controlled explosion. Around 5:00 a.m. EDT, SWAT officers entered the nightclub and opened fire. Thirty hostages were freed, and one officer received a non-lethal shot to his head and was hospitalized with eye injuries. It is unknown when the gunman killed the victims. Many people lined up to donate blood at local blood donation centers and bloodmobile locations after One Blood urged people to donate. There was a minor controversy because sexually active gay men are not ordinarily permitted to donate blood. The GLBT Community Center of Central Florida provided grief counseling for survivors. Mateen lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, but received mail at his parents' home in nearby Port St. Lucie At least 49 civilians and the gunman were killed. 52 civilians and a police officer were injured in the shooting; many of them were in critical condition and underwent surgery in local hospitals. The nightclub is three blocks from Orlando Regional Medical Center, the primary regional trauma center, and many victims were taken there; two other area hospitals also treated victims. Coincidentally, Christina Grimmie, who was shot by Kevin Loibl the night before, was taken to ORMC as well, fatally wounded. There were not enough ambulances, so some of the dead and wounded were transported in pickup trucks His ex wife says Mateen was normal at first, but became emotionally unstable and began to beat her after a few months of marriage. So she left him several years ago. She said he suffered from bipolar disorder. A clinic has opened offering to help kill those who want the "right to die" a clinic has opened offering to help kill those who want the "right to die," On the very day California's new legislation takes effect allowing "assisted suicide," a clinic has opened offering to help kill those who want the "right to die," according to Legalinsurrection.com. Dr. Lonny Shavelson, proprietor of the new clinic, is intended to help those 'patients' who are unable to find a doctor or a doctor who will participate in the new law. The legislation requires would-be suicides, required to have a terminal diagnosis with six months or less of life, to submit three requests for lethal drugs. Only one of the requests must be in writing. a clinic has opened offering to help kill those who want the "right to die," Medicare will pay for assisted suicide discussions according to Legal Insurrection. But Medicare only covers a fraction of the cost to doctors of the necessary number of visits. Shavelson plans to charge a total of $2,000 to help a customer end their life. The initial visit, at a cost of $200, is supposed to evaluate whether the patient "qualifies" for the service. We are unsure if that means whether or not they are mentally aware of the consequences of their actions of if they can pony up the additional $1,800. Many physicians are unwilling to assist those desiring to commit suicide. Medical Director Thomas Strouse, with UCLA's Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital says, "They say I went to medical school to cure, and I would not want to participate in writing a lethal prescription." Neither doctors nor hospitals are required to participate in California's "right to die" program. Apparently at least one is more than happy to profit from the new law. PC Market Stability Remains Elusive as Markets Continue to Struggle, According to IDC 6.2016 Worldwide PC shipments are forecast to decline by 7.3% year over year in 2016 according to an updated forecast from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. The outlook continues to call for progressively smaller declines through 2017 followed by stable volume in 2018. However, growth in 2016 is now expected to be roughly 2% below earlier projections as conditions have been weaker than expected. Growth in the first quarter of 2016 (1Q16) came in at -12.5%, just below IDCs forecast of -11.3%, and inhibitors such as weak currencies, depressed commodity prices, political uncertainty, and delayed projects continue to constrain shipments. Although growth rates for devices such as phones and tablets continue to fall, potentially reducing the competitive pressure on PCs, we have not seen this translate into stronger PC shipments. The financial pressure on consumers across regions, and the availability of alternatives such as delaying a PC replacement by using a free Windows 10 upgrade or relying more on other devices continues to pressure consumer PC shipments. Similarly, while a large share of enterprises are evaluating Windows 10, the pace of new PC purchases has not yet stabilized commercial PC shipments. Detachable Tablets also present a growing challenge as specs and price increasingly compare favorably against notebook PCs. Combining detachable tablets with PCs, the market is projected to decline by just over 2 percent in 2016 with small positive growth in later years, though still falling well short of peak shipments. The latest update reflects continuing pressure on PC shipments, but does not significantly change the factors driving the market, said Loren Loverde, vice president, Worldwide Tracker Forecasting and PC research. In addition, we have now had four consecutive quarters of double-digit volume declines. This type of prolonged slump is unprecedented, and lowers the bar for some improvement going forward. Unfortunately, the PC market still faces some persistent challenges, and for now, improvement continues to mean slower declines. Although inventory has improved in some markets, channels remain extremely conservative, said Jay Chou, research manager, Worldwide PC Tracker, The economic and competitive pressures are particularly affecting the consumer segment, which is projected to see another year of double-digit declines in 2016, and decline throughout the forecast. In contrast, commercial shipments are projected to decline just 4.4% in 2016 and see slightly positive growth for the next few years. The U.S. PC market suffered a rough opening salvo. There are some strong market drivers imminent, said Linn Huang, research director, Devices & Displays. Chromebooks should continue their rapid ascent in U.S. K-12 as we enter the peak education buying season. We also believe that some organizations will have been testing Windows 10 throughout the year and will start the transition in earnest towards the end of the year. Still, the backdrop to all of that remains an ever softening consumer PC market. Table Note: Mature Markets include U.S., Western Europe, Japan, and Canada. Emerging Markets include Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Middle East, and Africa (MEA). Taxonomy Note: PCs include Desktop, Mini Notebook and other Portable PCs which possess non-detachable keyboards, and do not include handhelds or tablets such as the Apple iPad, Microsoft Surface Pro, or Android Tablets. This chart is intended for public use in online news articles and social media. Instructions on how to embed this graphic are available by clicking here. IDCs Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker gathers PC market data in more than 80 countries by vendor, form factor, brand, processor brand and speed, sales channel and user segment. The research includes historical and forecast trend analysis as well as price band and installed base data. For more information, or to subscribe to the research, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com. About IDC Trackers IDC Tracker products provide accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe. Using proprietary tools and research processes, IDCs Trackers are updated on a semiannual, quarterly, and monthly basis. Tracker results are delivered to clients in user-friendly excel deliverables and on-line query tools. The IDC Tracker Charts app allows users to view data charts from the most recent IDC Tracker products on their iPhone and iPad. The IDC Tracker Chart app is also available for Android Phones and Android Tablets. International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDCs analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the worlds leading technology media, research, and Events Company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC. Tempered Networks Selected as a 2016 Red Herring Top 100 North America Winner SEATTLE, WA (Marketwired) 06/13/16 Red Herring today announced its in recognition of the leading private companies from the region, celebrating these startups innovations and technologies across their respective industries. Red Herring Top 100 America enlists outstanding entrepreneurs and promising companies. It selects the award winners from approximately 1,200 privately financed companies each year in the US and Canada. Since 1996, Red Herring has kept tabs on these up-and-comers. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, Palo Alto Networks and eBay would change the way we live and work. In 2016, selecting the top achievers was extremely difficult, said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. The variety, depth, disruption and traction we saw from the early stage companies to those with significant scale made it one of the toughest vintages to judge. The are representative of the amazing ecosystem that never ceases to astound, with new and experienced entrepreneurs continuing to push the barriers of innovation. As one of the winners, Tempered Networks should be proud of its accomplishment under such strong competition. I am proud that our company has been recognized for its exceptional vision, strategy and execution, particularly amongst the keen set of competitors in the running, said Jeff S. Hussey, CEO of Tempered Networks. We believe our company is making a significant impact on the future of IP networking, as we build trust and security into the backbone of global commerce and communications. Red Herrings editorial staff evaluated companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technological innovation and intellectual property, DNA of the founders, business model, customer footprint and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the buzz and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in North America. delivers a game-changing approach that brings seamless identity and trust to hybrid enterprise networks. The companys Identity-Defined Networking (IDN) Fabric cloaks an organizations fluid and porous perimeter, with baked-in security, effortless micro-segmentation, and centralized automated orchestration to eliminate manual errors and ensure enterprise scale. Tempered Networks modern approach transcends the restrictive and tedious rules of IP networking, empowering IT staff to focus more on strategic business initiatives. The proven technology was in development and production for over 10 years at a Fortune 50 company and recently commercialized. Customers in the commercial, industrial and public sectors are deploying well-tempered networks today. For more information, go to . You can also follow us @TemperedNW on Twitter or visit us on for more information about Tempered Networks and our technology. Forward-looking statements. Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements include, for example, statements regarding the Companys or managements beliefs, expectations, estimations, plans, projections and similar statements. Any such forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Companys actual results and performance, or industry results to be materially different from any results or performance expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and there can be no assurance that the results and events contemplated by such forward-looking statements will, in fact, occur. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein. Brand Networks Announced as Snapchat Partner BOSTON, MA (Marketwired) 06/13/16 , the award-winning provider of solutions that simplify social, today announced it has been named as a Snapchat Partner. The Brand Networks Platform, which helps media professionals streamline ad investment across social channels, will add support for Snap Ads later this year. For advertisers, the launch of Snap Ads represents an unprecedented opportunity to connect with a passionate, highly engaged audience of more than 100 million daily active Snapchatters that view 10 billion videos every day. It is clear Snapchat is leading marketers into a new era of immersive advertising experiences, said Jamie Tedford, Chief Executive Officer, Brand Networks. Two-thirds of Snapchat users are creating and sharing personalized experiences every single day on the platform. That sets a high bar of creativity and engagement that progressive brands need to embrace to be successful on Snapchat. We are excited that later this year well be able to help agencies and advertisers simplify the process and enable delivery of these powerful experiences at scale. Brand Networks has had the distinction of being an early API partner for every major social platform enabling first-to-network advertising opportunities with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and now Snapchat. More information about Snapchat Partners can be found here: . Brand Networks helps advertisers to Simplify Social. The company delivers award-winning social media advertising software and services to hundreds of enterprise customers, including half of the Fortune 100 and 17 of AdAges 25 Most Advertised Brands. The Brand Networks Platform uses personalization data and powerful automation technologies to help marketers optimize their media investments across the social web. Media professionals can reduce campaign management time by 75% while increasing their return on advertising spend across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Brand Networks was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Boston with offices in San Francisco, New York City, Rochester, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Sydney, and Mexico City. For more information, please visit bn.co. Governments in Australia and New Zealand fail to meet plain English website guidelines Posted by Publisher Software Cambridge UK, Monday 13th June 2016. VisibleThread, a global leader in content quality management, has released the latest in its series of Government website readability reports. They conducted this analysis on 28 Australian Government Agency Websites and 4 New Zealand Government agency websites. The Governments of Australia and New Zealand have taken a positive stance on how they should communicate online. Both governments aim to communicate in a clear, concise and well-organized way that benefits all citizens. In 2015, the Australian Government delivered on this commitment by creating the DTO (Digital Transformation Office) as a part of the Prime Ministers portfolio. The DTO published the Digital Service Standard, a design guide with specific guidance for clear online writing. Sometimes in government people write in convoluted ways using language which hides or confuses the real message they want to convey, said The Hon Jay Weatherill MP and Minister Assisting the Premier in Cabinet. Plain English saves time and effort for citizens, the private and community sectors and other parts of government The New Zealand Government similarly states in its Govt.nz style guide that our goal is to make things as simple and clear as possible for our users to make what government does easier to understand. In their sample of Government websites, VisibleThread analysed up to 100 pages on each site for these metrics: Readability How readable is the content? Passive Language Active Language communicates clearly. What proportion of sentences is passive? Long Sentences What proportion of all sentences are too long? Word Complexity Density How many complex, hard-to-understand words does the content contain? They sampled these sites between May 9th and May 15th 2016. The key findings are: Australia 79% of Australian Government agency websites sampled failed to achieve the target readability score Only 6 out of 28 Australian Government Agencies achieved acceptable readability score. No Australian Government website analysed met the target passive language score of 4% Despite Social Media communications encouraging brevity, long sentences abound on Government websites. On some websites over 30% of the sentences contained more than 20 words. None of the websites analysed met the target score of 5%. The sentence complexity measure varied greatly between websites. Only two out of the 28 Government websites achieved an acceptable score. New Zealand 50% of New Zealand Government agency websites failed to achieve the target readability score Two out of the four New Zealand Government Agencies achieved acceptable readability score. No New Zealand Government websites analysed met the target passive language score of 4% On one website over 25% of the sentences contained more than 20 words. None of the websites analysed met the target score of 5%. The sentence complexity measure varied greatly between websites. Only one New Zealand Government websites came close to an acceptable score. High Fliers and Bottom Dwellers Australia Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads topped the 2016 Australia Government Agency rankings. It scored very highly in Readability and ranked in the top 10 for all categories. However, the Department can improve its overall clear writing score by reducing sentence length and using active voice. The South Australia Health Authority also performed well. Readability was slightly under the target score. However, it boosted its overall clarity by achieving target scores for using active voice and short sentences. Unfortunately, the Australian Electoral Commission website fell well below VisibleThreads recommended scores in all categories. Incredibly, 33% of all sentences encountered contained more than 25 words. It also had a relatively high score in terms of complex sentence use. These two factors combined affected its overall clear writing score. Similarly, the Australian Federal Police fared poorly in its use of long sentences. Phraseology was less complex and its use of active voice ensured that it did not hit rock bottom. Heroes and Villains New Zealand Since they analysed only four New Zealand Government Agency it is not possible to see any trends in the writing quality on New Zealand Government websites. However, it is encouraging to see that two of the four agencies analysed feature in the top 10. The Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment just missed out on a top 10 place coming in a passable 11th place. Inland Revenue New Zealand had the highest readability score of the entire list, indicating well constructed content. If they concentrate on shortening sentences, they will further improve. New Zealand Post trailed the group in 22nd place with long and complex sentences negatively affecting its overall placing. The cost benefits achieved by improving clarity on websites and allowing citizens to complete error-free tasks online are significant. Website users can self-serve and avoid costlier means of communication, calling by telephone or face-to-face interactions. The fact that such a small percentage of Government Websites have reached an acceptable score is disappointing. However, Visible Threads analysis shows that in many cases, agencies can deliver clearer content, if they improve just one of the four key measures. You can download the full report here: 2016 Australia & New Zealand Government Website Agency Clarity Index A partnership between the Center for Great Neighborhoods and Skyward (formerly known as Vision 2015) will soon yield nano grants for creative Northern Kentucky placemaking projects that will be available for those who live, work or study in Dayton, Florence or Pendleton County.Vision 2015 changed its name to Skyward last year to better reflect Northern Kentuckys current five-year work plan, myNKY , the purpose of which is to make Northern Kentucky thrive by connecting education, wellness, business and culture in innovative, inclusive and productive ways.The grants, which will be available in amounts up to $250, are part of Skywards vibrancy goal. The organization wants to help build a region where people from all backgrounds feel included, connected and welcome.Project ideas could include art walks, music making, bicycle tours, art installations or community parties. But projects can be anything that will incite community building through creative placemaking.Workshops were held in Pendleton County and Dayton on June 6 and 7, respectively, to provide more information regarding the grants. There is still a workshop for Florence residents on June 21 before the city council meeting in the Florence Government Center, 8100 Ewing Blvd.Applications and full eligibility details can be found here NAEP scores are down in first test since COVID-19. Here's how Indiana did. education Next on the To-Do List: Ikigai Many moons ago, I worked as a career counselor, first for a college and then for a nonprofit in a... Voters need a third option at the polls I ran for a public office a few years ago. After winning a battle with Genesee County Parks the NRA... Wendy Wolcott best choice for Mott College We have a very special candidate running for Mott Community College Board of Trustees in Wendy Wolcott. Mrs. Wolcott is... Smith and Goyette are not fine men I am responding to Tamara Carlones editorial regarding Davison School Board members Matthew Smith and Nicholas Goyette. I disagree with... Privacy Overview This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful. South Milwaukee Police are trying to raise $2,500 for a K9 program The South Milwaukee Police Department wants to add a K9 unit in 2023 or 2024 and a contest for a $2.5K grant could help kickstart funding. Welcome to SwanseaOnline - your home for the best news, sports and what's on coverage of the city. Never miss a Swansea story with our daily newsletter Sign up to comment on our stories here Follow us on Facebook and Twitter | Swansea City news | Ospreys news | InYourArea This image shows the infrared background, or the infrared light not associated with known sources. It may be left over from the universe's first luminous objects, including stars. Could dark matter the elusive substance that composes most of the material universe be made of black holes? Some astronomers are beginning to think this tantalizing possibility is more and more likely. Alexander Kashlinsky, an astronomer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, thinks that black holes that formed soon after the Big Bang can perfectly explain the observations of gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time, made by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) last year, as well as previous observations of the early universe. If Kashlinsky is correct, then dark matter might be composed of these primordial black holes, all galaxies might be embedded within a vast sphere of black holes, and the early universe might have evolved differently than scientists had thought. [Watch the LIGO documentary "LIGO, A Passion for Understanding"] In 2005, Kashlinsky and his colleagues used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to explore the background glow of infrared light found in the universe. Because light from cosmic objects takes a finite amount of time to travel through space, astronomers on Earth see distant objects the way those objects looked in the past. Kashlinsky and his group wanted to look toward the early universe, beyond where telescopes can pick up individual galaxies. "Suppose you look at New York [City] from afar," Kashlinsky told Space.com. "You cannot see individual lampposts or buildings, but you can see this cumulative diffuse light that they produce." When the researchers removed all of the light from the known galaxies throughout the universe, they could still detect excess light the background glow from the first sources to illuminate the universe more than 13 billion years ago. Then, in 2013, Kashlinsky and his colleagues used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to explore the background glow in a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum: X-rays. To their surprise, the patterns within the infrared background perfectly matched the patterns within the X-ray background. "And the only sources that would be able to produce this in both infrared and X-rays are black holes," Kashlinsky said. "It never crossed my mind at that time that these could be primordial black holes." Then, there was the LIGO detection. On Sept. 14, 2015, the observatory made the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves cosmic ripples in the fabric of space-time itself that had been produced by a pair of colliding black holes. It marked the beginning of a new era of discovery one in which astronomers could collect these unique signals created by powerful astronomical events and, for the first time, directly detect black holes (as opposed to seeing the illuminated material around black holes). But Simeon Bird, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University, speculated that the discovery could be even more significant. Bird suggested that the two black holes detected by LIGO could be primordial. An image of the sky in infrared light, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The image shows the same patch of sky as seen in the image above, but without the known infrared sources removed. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Kashlinsky (Goddard)) Primordial black holes aren't formed from the collapse of a dead star (the more commonly-known mechanism for black hole formation that takes place relatively late in the universe's history). Instead, primordial black holes formed soon after the Big Bang when sound waves radiated throughout the universe. Areas where those sound waves are densest could have collapsed to form the black holes. If that thought makes your head spin a little, just think about spinning pizza dough into a disc. "After a while, you will notice it has these holes in the texture of the pizza dough," Kashlinsky said. "It's the same with space-time," except those holes are primordial black holes. For now, these primordial black holes remain hypothetical. But Kashlinsky, impressed by Bird's suggestion, took the hypothesis a step further. In his new paper, published May 24 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, Kashlinsky looked at the consequences that these primordial black holes would have had on the evolution of the cosmos. (Bird is not the first scientist to suggest that dark matter might be made of black holes, although not all of those ideas involve primordial black holes.) For the first 500 million years of the universe's history, dark matter collapsed into clumps called halos, which provided the gravitational seeds that would later enable matter to accumulate and form the first stars and galaxies, Kashlinsky said. But if that dark matter was composed of primordial black holes, this process would have created far more halos. Kashlinsky thinks this process could explain both the excess cosmic infrared background and the excess cosmic X-ray background that he and his colleagues observed several years ago. The infrared glow would come from the earliest stars that formed within the halos. Although stars radiate optical and ultraviolet light, the expansion of the universe naturally stretches that light so that the first stars will appear, to astronomers on Earth, to give off an infrared light. Even without the extra halos, early stars could generate an infrared glow, but not to the extent that Kashlinsky and his colleagues observed, he said. The gas that created those stars would also have fallen onto the primordial black holes, heating up to high enough temperatures that it would have sparked X-rays. While the cosmic infrared background can be explained albeit to a lesser extent without the addition of primordial black holes, the cosmic x-ray background cannot. The primordial black holes connect the two observations together. "Everything fits together remarkably well," Kashlinsky said. Occasionally, those primordial black holes would have come close enough to start orbiting each other (what's known as a binary system). Over time, those two black holes would spiral together and radiate gravitational waves, potentially like the ones detected by LIGO. But more observations of black holes are needed to determine if these objects are primordial, or formed later in the universe's history. Follow Shannon Hall on Twitter @ShannonWHall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. SpaceX's "Red Dragon" concept envisions using a Dragon spacecraft with only minor modification to land on the surface of Mars as a precursor to later human missions. WASHINGTON NASA's science and space technology mission directorates are considering ways to cooperate with SpaceX on its Red Dragon mission, including flying payloads on that Mars lander. In a June 2 interview during the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Broomfield, Colorado, Steve Jurczyk, NASA associate administrator for space technology, said his office has a "wish list" of technology demonstration payloads they would like to fly on Red Dragon or a future SpaceX Mars mission. "We've had very preliminary talks on payloads for the 2018 mission," he said. However, he added that, with less than 24 months before the launch window for that mission opens, it was unlikely NASA would have such a payload ready to fly in time. [SpaceX's Red Dragon: A Private Mars Mission Plan in Pictures] In April, NASA and SpaceX announced they had revised an existing unfunded Space Act Agreement to focus on a planned 2018 Mars lander mission, using a version of the Dragon spacecraft SpaceX is developing to carry crews. Under that agreement, NASA will offer technical support to SpaceX in a number of areas, while SpaceX will provide NASA with data from the entry, descent and landing (EDL) phase of Red Dragons mission to support NASA's planning for future Mars missions of its own. Access to that data remains NASA's primary interest in Red Dragon. "The SpaceX collaboration really is an EDL demonstration for us," he said, as the spacecraft demonstrates a concept called supersonic retropropulsion that could enable the landing of spacecraft far heavier than possible with techniques demonstrated on previous missions, including the Mars Science Laboratory. If NASA is able to fly payloads on Red Dragon, Jurczyk said a particular area of interest is in situ resource utilization (ISRU), testing technologies that can extract water, oxygen, or other resources from the Martian surface or atmosphere. NASA already plans to fly an ISRU experiment on the Mars 2020 mission to convert carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen, but he said NASA is interested in other ISRU studies. "One would be in situ resource utilization using the water in the soil at Mars to generate potable water and hydrogen and oxygen," he said. Another experiment would be to create methane, which could be used as rocket fuel. Jurczyk said other technology demonstration payloads could include systems that could generate 10 kilowatts or more of electrical power on the surface. "We'd like to demonstrate some of those systems on the surface in an operational environment," he said. "Before we send crew, all of this stuff needs to work on the surface." SpaceX says that Red Dragon is the first in a series of uncrewed missions that the company intends to fly in advance of eventual human Mars missions. Speaking at the Code Conference in California June 1, SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said he expected SpaceX to send missions to Mars during every launch window, starting in 2018. Those launch windows open every 26 months. Jurcyzk said that opened the possibility of flying technology demonstration payloads on later SpaceX missions, assuming Red Dragon does launch in 2018 as planned. "They plan on going every 26 months, so we'll probably in the not-too-distant future engage them on more serious talks for 2020," he said. "If they go in 2018, it's really going to be an EDL demo for us. We won't have any payloads available," he said. "But 2020 there's a possibility." The head of NASA's planetary science division is also considering potential collaboration with SpaceX on Red Dragon. During a June 7 meeting of the planetary science subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council, Jim Green heaped praise on SpaceX's plans, calling them "tremendously exciting." Green said his division is part of the NASA team supporting Red Dragon, including participating in a couple of meetings to date. "I'm very interested in that from several aspects," he said of Red Dragon. That cooperation includes, at a minimum, coordinating the launch of Red Dragon with NASA's next Mars lander, Insight, which is also scheduled for launch in the spring of 2018. Both spacecraft will require access to the Deep Space Network, particularly during the critical landing phase of each mission. While Green didnt elaborate on any additional prospects for cooperation on Red Dragon, he endorsed potential cooperation with commercial ventures in general, including those planning commercial lunar landers, for flying science payloads. "We do plan to stay plugged in to those, watch them carefully and, at the right time, enter into the appropriate partnerships," he said. This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. Russia's Proton rocket, in the first flight of its latest upgrade, on June 10 placed the Intelsat-31 commercial telecommunications satellite into geostationary-transfer orbit. The satellite was reported in good health after separation from the rocket despite an underperformance of the Proton's third stage. PARIS An International Launch Services Proton rocket, in the first flight of its latest and potentially final series of upgrades, on June 10 placed the Intelsat 31 commercial telecommunications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. Despite a problem with the rocket's second or third stage, one of which apparently underperformed, the Proton's Breeze-M upper stage was able to compensate with a longer burn sequence to insert the 6,450-kilogram satellite into the correct orbit. Satellite fleet operator Intelsat said the satellite, built by SSL of Palo Alto, California, was healthy in orbit and sending signals after its release, some 15 hours and 31 minutes after liftoff, by the Breeze-M stage. A workhorse since 1965, recent versions of the Proton-M have been plagued with failures. See how Russia's Proton rocket works in this Space.com infographic (Image credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist) Intelsat-31 carries a Ku-band payload for Los Angeles-based DirecTV's Latin America division. DirecTV Latin America will keep Intelsat-31 as an in-orbit spare at 95 degrees west longitude. It will be co-located with the Intelsat-30 satellite, which was launched in November 2014 and is the principal satellite-television platform for DirecTV Latin America at the 95 degrees west slot. Intelsat will use the four 69.6-megahertz C-band transponders for its own business in Latin America. Intelsat-31 is designed to provide 20 kilowatts of power to its payload at the end of its 15-year service life. Luxembourg- and McLean, Virginia-based Intelsat said before the launch that depending on the precision of orbital injection, Intelsat-31 could hope for a service life of 20 years or more. It was not immediately clear whether the third-stage issue would force the satellite to use more fuel than expected to travel to its final orbital slot and limit its service life. Intelsat said initial indications were that there would be no reduction in service life. Reston, Virginia-based ILS, which sells Protons globally for Moscow-based Khrunichev Space Center, expects Proton to remain on the market for another 10 years as Russian authorities gradually introduce the new Angara rocket family, whose heavier version is designed to replace Proton in the middle of the next decade. John Palme, ILS vice president for operations, said the latest Proton upgrade features lighter-weight, but stronger, metallic structures and high-precision tooling that, taken together, will permit Proton to launch an additional 150 kilograms into geostationary transfer orbit. That would mean a total satellite mass of slightly more than 6,300 kilograms. ILS has said it is preparing Proton modifications to allow the rocket to attract owners of smaller satellites that would launch in pairs on a Proton. The commercial satellite market has bifurcated into both lighter and heavier satellites, especially as satellite fleet owners adopt electric propulsion. An all-electric satellite can weigh 50 percent less than the same satellite using conventional chemical propellant. This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. Baby alien worlds are indeed likely slicing gaps in the disk of dust and gas swirling around the young star HL Tauri a finding that could help reshape scientists' current understanding of how planets form. Astronomers found that some of the rings in the disk's gaseous component line up with rings in the dust, further supporting the theory that exoplanets are coalescing there and suggesting that alien worlds may form much more quickly than scientists had thought. "To our surprise, these gaps in the gas overlap with dust gaps," lead author Hsi-Wei Yen, a researcher at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, said in a statement. "This supports the idea that the gaps are the footprints left by baby planets. Our results indicate that planets start to form much earlier than we expected." [HL Tauri's Planet-Forming Disc Revealed in Amazing Detail (Video)] HCO+ gas (blue) and dust (red) distributions in the disk around HL Tauri. The ellipses show the locations of the gaps. (Image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Yen et al.) Yen and his colleagues used a novel data analysis technique to produce the sharpest image ever of the gas distribution around a young star. The scientists examined archived images of HL Tauri captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, which spotted gaps in the disk around the young star back in 2014. By taking a fresh approach to the existing data, the scientists found gaps in the gas at 28 and 69 times the Earth-sun distance. The gas rings coincide with two bright rings out of seven pairs of bright and dark dust rings. Current planet-formation theories suggest that the material left behind from stars' birth is the stuff that builds planets. But scientists have thought that it takes tens of millions of years or more for worlds to develop from the disk of gas and dust. Scientists estimate that HL Tauri is only a million years old far too young to give birth to planets, according to this view. Artist's concept of HL Tauri. The star is surrounded by the disk (shown in red) and thick envelope. The star ejects a bipolar collimated jet. (Image credit: Yin-Chih Tsai/ASIAA EPO) Previous studies suggested that HL Tauri's rings may have formed by other methods, such as dust building up or being destroyed over time. However, gaps related to changes in the dust properties would be unlikely to affect features of the gas disk, while planet formation would disrupt both, study team members said. The team also found that the gas density in the inner ring is high enough to host a planet 80 percent as large as Jupiter. The outer ring could potentially contain a world with a mass more than double Jupiter's, but the scientists couldn't rule out that it formed due to drag between the dust and gas particles. "Our research clearly demonstrates that applying new data analysis techniques to existing data can uncover important facts, further increasing ALMA's already high scientific potential," study co-author Shigehisa Takakuwa, of Kagoshima University in Japan, said in the same statement. "[By] applying the same method to the data sets for other young stars, we expect to construct a systematic model of planet formation." The research was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. Artist's illustration of the newfound exoplanet Kepler-1647b crossing the face of one of its two host stars. A newfound alien world is the biggest ever discovered that has two suns in its sky, like Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine in the "Star Wars" universe. Whereas the fictional Tatooine is a small and rocky world, however, the real-life Kepler-1647b is a gas giant about the size and mass of Jupiter. In addition to being the biggest known two-star planet, Kepler-1647b also has the widest orbit, circling its host stars in 1,107 Earth days, astronomers said. And the planet's intriguing characteristics don't stop there. Kepler-1647b also resides in its stars' "habitable zone," the range of distances at which liquid water could be stable on a world's surface. Kepler-1647b is a gas giant, so it doesn't have a surface but any moons circling the huge planet could conceivably be capable of supporting life as we know it, study team members said. [10 Real Exoplanets That Resemble Star Wars Worlds] Kepler-1647b was discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope, which launched in March 2009 on a mission to determine how common Earth-like planets are throughout the Milky Way galaxy. Kepler spots alien planets by noting the brightness dips that are caused when the worlds cross their host star's (or in this case stars') faces from the instrument's perspective. The spacecraft generally needs to observe three such "transits" to identify an exoplanet which means that distantly orbiting worlds take longer to find. Graphic showing Kepler-1647b's size compared to that of all other two-star planets discovered by NASA's Kepler space telescope to date. (Image credit: Lynette Cook) "Its a bit curious that this biggest planet took so long to confirm, since it is easier to find big planets than small ones," study co-author Jerome Orosz, an astronomer at San Diego State University (SDSU), said in a statement. "But it is because its orbital period is so long." Kepler-1647b lies about 3,700 light-years from Earth, in the direction of the constellation Cygnus. The planet's two parent stars are about the same size as the sun one is a bit bigger, and the other is a bit smaller and they are both about 4.4 billion years old, study team members said. (The sun is 4.6 billion years old.) Nearly half of all sunlike stars are part of two-star systems. Astronomers have found planets in a number of binary systems, but such worlds had previously all been Saturn-size or smaller, and had orbited relatively close to their host stars. The orbits of all previously known circumbinary planets are shown as gray circles. Kepler 1647b's much larger orbit is the red circle. (Image credit: B. Quarles, Univ. Oklahoma) Kepler-1647b is "the tip of the iceberg of a theoretically predicted population of large, long-period circumbinary planets," co-author William Welsh, also of SDSU, said in the same statement. The study team members announced their results today (June 13) at the 228th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego. Their paper has also been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Kepler's original planet-hunting observations ended in May 2013, when the second of the spacecraft's four orientation-maintaining reaction wheels failed. But scientists are still combing through the huge amounts of data gathered by Kepler, which has discovered more than 2,200 confirmed alien planets to date. The telescope also began searching for alien worlds anew (and observing a variety of other cosmic objects and phenomena as well) in 2014, after mission team members found a way to stabilize Kepler using sunlight pressure. Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. Die deutsche Version dieses Artikels lesen Sie hier. It's rare to see historic moments coming, because it's impossible to know how history will change and what course it will run. But sometimes you do see it. Sometimes you know something is about to happen that has the potential to change our world. If Britain is clever, it will remain a member of the EU, because it will recognise that the future of the west is at stake. This vote is about preserving Europe's competitiveness in times of change and struggle between world powers. It's about nothing less than the future of the peace project started in 1946 by erstwhile enemy nations on a devastated continent, ("Let Europe arise!" as Churchill put it). It is a project that has unified western Europe for seven decades. The words are becoming increasingly heated. EU opponents are comparing Brussels to Hitler and producing dangerously false statistics, while the dominant tone among EU supporters is pathos. For once, the latter is justified, because fundamental principles are at stake. Britain is a bridge between Europe and the US. If Britain leaves the EU on this side of the Atlantic while Donald Trump becomes president on the other, then seemingly permanent alliances will wobble, and a weakened Europe would end up alone, helpless amid myriad global crises. If the right-wing populists grow stronger, because Europe suddenly weakens and shrinks just as they are on the rise, what will remain of the ideal of tolerant and progressive cooperation that defines the west? So if Britain is clever, it will realise that it is not a world power on its own, that it will lose much with a yes to Brexit on June 23, and gain nothing but a brief moment of pride. If it votes to leave because a disproportionately high number of older and less well-educated British want it so passionately, Germany and the rest of Europe will have to accept that today's EU is dysfunctional and unattractive. The EU should then mourn the loss of departed Britain and learn from it, and it should cease giving humiliating gifts to those who have left and develop some resolution. Or else, hopefully, it will be the other way round: Should the British vote against Brexit, perhaps by 55% or 60% rather than 50.1%, then that would be a mandate. Then the British should stop doing the things that have irritated the rest of Europe for years: special requests, self-pity and wretched haggling over every last detail. The day after the vote, the British should understand that they themselves helped create this detested Europe that they were so close to leaving, and start building a better one. A translation error in the print version has been corrected in this editorial to read that a "disproportionately high number of older and less well-educated British want (Brexit) so passionately" and not "the mainly older and less well-educated British want it so passionately." A sda has named Sean Clarke as its new chief executive, with current boss Andy Clarke stepping down next month following a torrid few years at the grocer. The appointment came as a surprise after Andy Clarke said last week that incoming chief operating officer and ex-Sainsburys retail and operations director Roger Burnley would be his successor. Sean Clarke, currently head of parent company Walmart in China, was described as one of the retailers most experienced executives having spent 15 years at the company. His return to Asda he began his retail career as commercial finance director at the grocer comes with the mammoth task of reviving its fortunes amid a fierce industry price war and the arrival of Amazon to the UK fresh food market. Earlier this year the grocer revealed its biggest quarterly sales fall on record over the Christmas period, while full-year sales were down 5.7%. Walmart said Andy Clarke will serve as an adviser until the end of 2016. Burnley arrives in October. B icycle couriers will begin their tribunal fight for employment rights in November and are determined not to settle the case, campaigners told the Evening Standard. Four workers have launched the claim against four courier companies, CitySprint, Excel, Addison Lee and eCourier, backed by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain. The quartet, Maggie Dewhurst, Chris Gascoigne, Demille Flanore and Andrew Boxer, are classified as independent contractors, denying them rights such as an automatic entitlement to the national living wage and holiday pay. Dewhursts claim against Citysprint will be heard first at Holborns London Central tribunal beginning on November 22. The other three cases will subsequently be heard by the same judge. IWGB president Jason Moyer-Lee said: They might try to settle but we want a judgement on this. The case comes against a backdrop of concern over the gig economy where companies like Uber are facing legal actions over the employment status of their workforce. T he chairman of Tesco and the capitals London First lobbying group today warned of a catastrophic impact of a Brexit vote on smaller businesses. City grandee John Allans strongly worded intervention came as stock markets around the world showed more signs of nervousness in the run-up to next weeks crucial EU referendum, with markets in Europe on the back foot after overnight losses in Asia. Allan told the BBC that a vote to pull out of the EU could have a devastating effect on the chances of the UK creating the next tech giant like Apple or Google. He said: What is striking to me is how strongly held the concerns are of small business, for whom a couple of years of uncertainty or maybe longer could be catastrophic for a business that is in its infancy. Big business will ride it out, they may move some activity to Europe but they will survive. [But] a lot of young new businesses which at the moment have got easy access services, creative, tech, internet businsses their chance to the get to the stage where they might be viable may be denied them, Allan warned. Brexit 2016: Roundup That means we wont get the growth, the tech businesses of the future, perhaps the Apples or Googles. The next one should come in Europe not the US. The pound also sank below $1.42 today as hedge funds made the biggest bets against the pound for three years ahead of the poll. T he kebab king of Waterloo is keeping me waiting while he seals a deal. Im sitting in his restaurant at a Formica table, mopping up some baba ganoush with cold pitta. The foods not bad but Im worried about the time; Ibrahim Dogus has packed a lot into his 35 years, and Im concerned we wont get through it all. The restaurant, Troia, is behind County Hall, near the London Eye. Big Ben bongs to inform me Ive been waiting 15 minutes. Suddenly, Dogus bursts into the room a small man with a big smile Come, eat with us! He introduces me to two bigwigs from Just Eat, the listed website for ordering restaurant food online. Its not entirely clear, but over Turkish stew and aubergines, they seem to have agreed to sponsor Doguss British Kebab Awards one of the many plates this former waiter spins at any one time. It feels as if this whole scenario might have been stage-managed for the Evening Standards benefit, though Im assured it wasnt the Just Eat guys were as surprised at my gatecrashing as I was. Just Eat learned of Doguss kebab bash via the Curry Awards, which it already sponsored. Although they might sound a touch Monty Python, food events such as this are big business. Suppliers, property agents and restaurant owners pay handsomely to use them as places to do deals, gossip about new trends and find out whos up and whos down. But its far from being all about commerce. For Dogus, the Kebab Awards are as much about his main interest politics. Dogus is seriously ambitious and has his heart set on becoming an MP. The son of a political asylum seeker, he came to Britain with his family when he was 14. He has been campaigning for dialogue between Turks, Kurds and the UK Government for most of his adult life. With the Kebab Awards, not only does he raise money for his Centre for Turkey Studies group but he also attracts politicians from all parties. This year, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn presented the Outstanding Contribution to Kebabs prize. Corbyns a veggie. Go figure. "Sadiq Khan's victory sends a great message; you can be black, Asian or from any minority community and still make it in this country." More importantly, Dogus says, the awards bring together leaders from the diaspora whose communities at home are, in some cases, bitter enemies. Greeks, Cypriots, Turks, Kurds, they all sit together side by side. They eat and they talk. Dogus is a Turkish Kurd or, as he puts it, a Londoner first, born into a Kurdish family from Turkey. Just as the vast majority of British curry houses are run by Bangladeshis, he says, most kebab shops and restaurants are run by Kurds. When he arrived in 1994, he didnt have a word of English, and went to school in Hackney where there was little help for non-native speakers. He got an evening job as a waiter at Sofra in Shepherd Market. I didnt speak the language, but I made the customers laugh. It was fun, he recalls. Ibrahim Dogus Founded: 2010 Staff: 50 Turnover: 2 million Business idol: Hamdi Ulukaya, billionaire founder of the Chobani Greek-style yoghurt empire Dogus soon became involved in community activities, organising support groups in the Hackney and Stoke Newington area, where many Kurdish emigres ended up. The work was sometimes dangerous, as a scar on his belly proves. He says he was trying to stem the infiltration of Turkish drug gangs into London in the early 2000s when he was shot for his troubles during a savage outbreak of gang violence in Haringey. All that community work meant a nine-to-five job was a non-starter, so he built up a mini-group of bars and restaurants. He started with the one I meet him in, working 12 to 16 hours, seven days a week, before buying out and knocking through the neighbouring site. Then he bought another place a couple of doors down which he turned into a Thirties-style Italian. In his latest deal, he bought out an old Yo! Sushi on the same row which is currently being refitted as a bar-restaurant. Its good business, were always busy here with the tourists and the London Eye, but we get lots of celebrities and MPs coming over: they love it, he says. He has also opened an English-style tearoom in Edmonton and bought the Woodman pub in Southgate, which he plans to turn into a traditional pub with Kurdish-Turkish food. Many Kurds like their beer, he says. So much so, that last month he was putting the final touches to a deal with Molson Coors, maker of Cobra, to create his own Turkish-Kurdish brew, branded Bira. Perfect with a kebab. Friend and role model: Sadiq Khan / Alex Lentati So what next for this Labour Party member? A future London mayor? He wont be drawn on that one, but says: Ive known Sadiq [Khan] for 10 years. He is a great politician and his victory sends a great message; you can be black, Asian or from any minority community and still make it in this country. With rhetoric like that, heres one thing to takeaway from a visit to the king of kebabs: it wont be long before he makes his mark in Westminster. A former Goldman Sachs dealmaker trying to persuade Gadaffi-era Libya to invest $1 billion with the investment bank procured prostitutes and invited staff members to lavish parties in the hope of winning the business, the High Court has heard. The Libyan Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund is suing Goldman for inappropriately coercing its naive staff into investing in products they did not understand. The LIA invested $1.2 billion in complicated derivative trades with Goldman, which rapidly proved worthless as the financial crisis bit. The LIA claimed Goldman gave a highly coveted internship to the brother of key LIA director, Mustafa Zarti, to convince the Libyans to invest. The Goldman banker in charge of the LIA contract, Youssef Kabbaj, also treated the brother to extensive training, holidays in Morocco and, on one occasion arranged for two prostitutes in Dubai for the evening at a cost of $600. These treats were three months before the internship. The LIA cited Goldman bankers emails, which described how the countrys banking system was Jurassic. Goldman banker Driss Ben-Brahim wrote: They are very unsophisticated and anyone could rape them. A Goldman vice-president emailed a colleague: You just delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camels. Goldman denies all wrongdoing. R educed spending on coal and metals saw a slowdown in Chinas investment spending which fell below 10% for the first time since 2000 between January and May of this year. Investment by private firms slumped to 3.9% in the same period, the slowest since China began publishing the data in 2012. Foreign direct investment in the country, meanwhile, declined 1% in May on the same month a year earlier. The figures have triggered expectations that the government which has recently been more cautious about state stimulus will change its mind. Analysts are already predicting fiscal measures such as government officials approving infrastructure projects more speedily. Angela Merkel and Chinese premier Li Keqiang today signed 2.7 billion of deals, with carmaker Daimler and Airbuss German helicopter unit involved. Merkel pressed for transparent rules for foreign investors, while telling Li that the EU is working on a solution for Chinas demand to be granted so-called market economy status. A hotels chain has checked out of its plans for a huge flotation amid claims of a Lotte of dirty laundry, including allegations of embezzlement and bribery, and a ferocious family feud that makes the Miliband brothers leadership battle look mild. South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group had intended to kick off a $4.5 billion initial public offering for its Lotte Hotels arm, which owns the New York Palace hotel where President Obama stays and is the worlds third-biggest duty-free shopping company. But that was axed after South Korean prosecutors raided Lottes offices, with insiders telling Reuters that this was due to reports of a slush fund. A separate investigation is looking into possible bribery at the firm, with allegations that the sister of Lotte Groups chairman and other executives accepted payments from a cosmetics giant for special treatment in shops. Meanwhile Lotte is still in the throes of a huge power struggle at the top of the business. Chairman Shin Dong Bin faced down an attempted coup by his older brother and his father, who founded the group and was then chairman. Shin then sidelined his father into an honorary position and stripped his brother of his job. The brother has since tried to regain his position and boot out Shin, without success. The cancelled float, which the company blamed on international and external issues, is bad news for the banks on the roster including Citigroup and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. S hares in security firm G4S slumped to their lowest since 2009 after it emerged that the gunman who killed 50 clubbers in a Florida nightclub this weekend was an employee. Omar Mateen, an American citizen who pledged allegiance to Islamic State before embarking on the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, had worked for the global giant since 2007, the company confirmed. Mateen was twice cleared by G4Ss checks and the company admitted it was aware of his being questioned by the FBI over potential terror links in 2013. The revelation deals another blow to a company whose reputation has been buffeted in recent years by scandals over tagging dead prisoners and failures to provide enough security guards at the Olympics. G4S, down 11.2p to 176.2p, sank as much as 8% at one stage as the City worried about the potential repercussions of the USs worst gun massacre on the business. Russ Mould, investment director at stockbroker and investment manager AJ Bell said the fall in the share price seemed a fairly dramatic move, potentially exacerbated by market jitters over a potential Brexit. But he added: Im sure there will be questions asked about how it selects its staff and how it screens them. The shooting in Orlando could open up a can of worms for G4S, added CMC Markets analyst Jasper Lawler. G4Ss regional North American boss John Kenning, who said the business was deeply shocked by this tragic event, confirmed Mateen had been employed by the firm since September 2007, working at a gated retirement community in south Florida. He added that the gunman had been through company screening and background checks when he was recruited, revealing no concerns. The screening was repeated in 2013 with no findings. Obama: Orlando shooting was "act of terror" Kenning said G4S was aware of the FBIs questioning of Mateen (pictured) in 2013, over allegedly inflammatory terrorist-related comments in a dispute with co-workers, as well as possible links to a suicide bomber in Syria. In 2013, we learned that Mateen had been questioned by the FBI but that the enquiries were subsequently closed, he said. We were not made aware of any alleged connections between Mateen and terrorist activities, and were unaware of any further FBI investigations. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the victims of this unspeakable tragedy, and their friends and families. Other recent woes for the outsourcer include annual profits virtually wiped out by an extra 77 million bill for housing asylum seekers. T he St Jamess headquarters of Singapores secretive state fund Temasek in the heart of Londons hedge fund district is being quietly sold for 135 million, the Evening Standard understands. The 23 King Street building, owned by Standard Life Investments, commanded a record-busting London rent when Temasek took the top two floors of the building nearly three years ago. The West End offices, a stones throw from the Ritz, the Wolseley and a host of private members clubs including the Brookss and Boodles, also boasts the London headquarters of Swiss private bank Bordier & Cie. Balyasny Asset Management, the hedge fund run by famed multi-millionaire trader Dmitry Balyasny, has its head office there. The latest deal offers a fillip for a commercial property market in London subdued by concerns over the Brexit referendum. Deals in the first three months of the year fell around 40% compared with the same quarter of 2015 as buyers sat on their hands. Property sources said the building, being sold by Savills, is under offer to a Chinese buyer, with speculation centred on Chinese Estates, the vehicle of Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau. Temasek boasts a 137 billion portfolio of assets invested on behalf of Singapore around the world and marked intentions of a London spending spree when it signed up in 2013. Among its investments is a stake in the new 22 Bishopsgate skyscraper under development in the City. Tell them Im in the bathroom. Hes coming. Im gonna die. These were the frantic texts sent by a young man to his mother while trapped inside an LGBT nightclub in Orlando as a gunman was brutally murdering 50 people and injuring many more. Can you imagine being in that dreadful situation? Or receiving those messages from someone you love, and being utterly helpless to do anything at all? The barbarous attack is the worst mass-shooting in recent US history, and while it will take many days for the full story to emerge, President Obama has already described the mass murder as an act of terror, and reports suggest that the gunman swore allegiance to Islamic State before opening fire. In the wake of such despicable violence, its hard not to recall other similarly appalling acts of terrorism in the past year and reflect on what we can do to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again. Its always easy to join the dots backwards, but its certainly striking that in each of the terrorist attacks in San Bernadino, Paris and Brussels, it has transpired that better use of technology and data-sharing might have helped intelligence efforts. Take San Bernadino, for example, where Tashfeen Malik and her husband killed 14 people last December in an attack motivated by Islamist ideology. Ms Malik had posted online messages about violent jihad, but the US visa- application process didnt include an automated search of past social media activity, so this was missed when she moved from Pakistan to America. Or look at the Paris and Brussels attacks. We now know that, in spite of all the advanced technology available today, basic information about terror suspects still isnt being shared digitally between countries. According to intelligence experts there are currently 1,595 jihadists in the European terror database, but if European countries shared information more efficiently, there should be well over 6,000. Small wonder the head of Europol has lambasted the black hole of information hindering the fight against terrorism. Orlando LGBT community tribute In a sense, this is a paradox. Were told by civil rights groups that intelligence services have access to more digital information than ever before, and yet fundamental connections seem to be being missed. Whats going on? In part, its a reflection of the fact that in a digital world awash with vast amounts of data, it can be hard to spot patterns. Thats not the whole answer, though barriers still stand in the way of basic information-sharing. Some are administrative bureaucratic inertia means data isnt being properly categorised, and poorly designed government IT systems prevent information from being accessed quickly. Other obstacles are more challenging, such as whether the law should be changed to make it easier for government agencies to share information between themselves, which might keep us safer but would certainly be criticised by privacy campaigners. As the events in Orlando remind us, we have to remain vigilant to protect our city from the spectre of terrorism. Technology is an absolutely vital tool in this battle, and we need to be willing to take difficult decisions to ensure that the security services and police have access to the information they need to keep us safe. Its not going to be easy but nothing worth fighting for ever is. With all the drama and intricate detail put into the aesthetic of Broadway productions, it is no surprise that last night's Tony Awards saw an impressive array of gowns make their way onto the red carpet. One of the most stylish looks of the evening came from model Joan Smalls, whose floor length, low cut Altuzarra gown had silver, red and black embellishment with a raised hem at the front to avoid swamping her small frame, adding to the elegance. Parting her hair to the side and pulling it back in a dramatic pontyail, Smalls added a vampy edge to her look with deep bronzer and a red smoky eye. Fellow model Liya Kebede also stood out thanks to her gown. A mid-length monochrome piece by Proenza Schouler with a black turtleneck layered beneath, Kebede looked the very definition of high fashion as she too kept her hair pulled back off her face. Joining the run of well-dressed models was British star Jourdan Dunn, who plumped for a less edgy aesthetic than Kebede and Smalls in a classic blush pink satin gown by Zac posen. Celebrities wearing Zac Posen 1 /18 Celebrities wearing Zac Posen Noami Campbell Campbell walks the Zac Posen runway with the designer Neilson Barnard/Getty Doutzen Kroes Attending the Met Gala in 2010 Larry Busacca/Getty Lena Dunham At the Golden Globes in 2013 Jason Merritt/Getty Kate Winslet Attending the BAFTAs in 2009 Tim Whitby/Getty Heidi Klum At the Bambi Awards 2015 Clemens Bilan/Getty Kim Kardashian With the designer during the CDFA Vogue Fashion Fund Awards in 2010 Ben Gabbe/Getty Diane Kruger On the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival Sean Gallup/Getty Gwyneth Paltrow At the Oscars 2007 Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Reese Witherspoon At the 'How Do You Know' premiere in LA Kevin Winter/Getty Eva Longoria At the Golden Globes in 2011 Jason Merritt/Getty Rihanna Attending the first Annual Diamond Ball Jason Merritt/Getty Katie Holmes With Posen at the Met Gala in 2015 Andrew H. Walker/Getty Dita Von Teese At the Met Gala in 2014 Larry Busacca/Getty Demi Moore Attending the 22nd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards Getty Images With a knee-length hem staggered as it fell into a full-skirted hem towards the back, Dunn kept her hair loosely feathered and her accessories delicate with classic diamond earrings and a necklace draped elegantly around her neck. TODO: define component type brightcove Click here to find out more about last night's ceremony v A new report has revealed that the online art market has grown by 24 per cent in the last 12 months, despite an overall dip in the art market. The trade report, commissioned by the insurer Hiscox, found the online art sales reached a record high of $3.27 billion in 2015, which would set the market on course for sales of $9.58 billion by 2020. Hiscox say these findings represent a conservative look at the market. Accordingly, so-called pure-play online auction houses have seen an increase in interest, made clear with both Auctionata and Paddle8, who saw their sales more than double in 2015. Despite the strength of the online market, traditional names are still favoured by buyers, with Christies auction house rated the number one online art platform, and Sothebys fourth. Though these are positive signs for the online art world, the report also showed signs that the market may be slowing down. Hiscox reported 41 per cent of new art buyers and 43 per cent of young art buyers said they had bought art online during the last 12 months, down from 43 percent and 46 percent respectively the year before. Famous art in London 1 /18 Famous art in London The Water-Lily Pond, Claude Monet, 1899 National Gallery, WC2N, nationalgallery.org.uk This Monet masterpiece, painted in his garden in Giverny where he lived until his death, was painted during the early part of his iconic Water Lily series, before the great painter suffered from cataracts. A Japanese style bridge arches over shimmering greens and pinks, a view Monet painted 17 times in one year alone. The National Gallery, London The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, JMW Turner, 1839 National Gallery, WC2N, nationalgallery.org.uk Political, but oh-so-beautiful: Turner shows the once-fearsome gun ship Temeraire headed away from the sunset, being tugged by a paddle boat to be broken up, while another tug ominously waits in the lower right hand corner. Turner is evoking a sense of loss, lamenting the decline of Britain's naval power. Messages aside, the painting itself is a gorgeous contrast of styles: details of the ship are finely done, the rigging lightly sketched, the paddles of the boat slicing the water, while the sky is a glorious explosion of colour, thick layers of oil paint, the sun and sky by turns silver and gold, red and purple. In 2005, it was chosen as the nation's favourite painting in a Radio 4 poll. The National Gallery, London Self-Portrait with Two Circles, Rembrandt, c. 1669 Kenwood House, NW3, english-heritage.org.uk Just look in the eyes for this one: Rembrandt, at the time an old man, showed every ounce of pain and heartbreak he'd endured with the blackness of his pupils, which seems to spill out over his worn-to-grey skin. At the time of painting, he'd lost his wife, three of his children, and his mistress. He sits upright, square-jawed, jaw set defiantly, if a little sourly it's a long way from his early, energetic, playful self-portraits. Four years later, after the loss of another son, he would by dead, having killed himself. The painting is a large one: give it some time. It's a peculiar experience to stand in front of it and sympathise with a stranger. Kenwood House Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh, 1888 National Gallery, WC2N, nationalgallery.org.uk Van Gogh's series of Sunflowers caused an uproar when they were first presented: artist Henry de Groux declared them 'laughable', a remark which saw him only narrowly avoid a fist fight with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Signac. It's said van Gogh was spurred to paint the flowers in order to have new work to impress Paul Gauguin, whom he planned to share a studio with. On a diet of coffee and booze, he painted the first four in just six days. While visiting the Sunflowers, be sure to see his famous Chair; A Wheatfield, with Cypresses; and the magnetic 1899 painting Two Crabs, which sometimes, sadly, goes overlooked. The National Gallery, London Blue Nude II, Henri Matisse, 1952 London Print Studio, W10, londonprintstudio.org.uk Among his final ever work, Matisse's playful, vibrant cut-outs are a triumph of form. Too ill to paint, Matisse invented a new form with the cut-outs and the later Blue Nude series, as seen here, are deceptive: they seem simple, but the limbs swirl around each other, and Matisse captures something very human in the posture particularly noticeable here in the slight incline of the neck. Straightforward, but captivating. DACS Venus, Sandro Botticelli, c. 1490 The V&A, Cromwell Rd, SW7, vam.ac.uk It might not be the famous Birth of Venus, but this piece is as close as one can currently get in London. It contains the same ground-breaking nudity Christian influence had put a bit of a damper on that for a few centuries beforehand and again, it's all in the eyes here: the expression could mean one of a thousand things. Afterwards, head to the National to see Venus and Mars, from a few years earlier. Volker-H. Schneider / Gemaldegalerie, SMB / Jorg P. Anders The Skiff (La Yole), Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1875 National Gallery, WC2N, nationalgallery.org.uk Some Renoir is looked at a little sniffily that's what being so successful your work is printed on everything from T-shirts to table mats does to you but this remains a stunning example of Impressionism, showing off Renoir's famous use of vibrant colour: the orange and blue stand brightly against each other, and while the piece is a picture of calm, Renoir puts motion into the Skiff (La Yole, if you're showing off). The National Gallery, London A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, Edouard Manet, 1882 The Courtauld Gallery, WC2R, courtauld.ac.uk There is more to this extremely famous painting than it first seems: the picture of an ordinary functioning bar quickly unravels with the questions it asks why her expression? Who is the man? Is he asking about buying a drink or her? Though it feels lively and offhand, like a night in the bar might be, the piece is thoroughly kitted out with detail, including a well-hidden trapeze artist. It's partly famous as the barmaid's reflection has puzzled onlookers since it was first shown: still, Manet's last major work proved to be a hit, and so it has remained. The Courtauld Gallery The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28th June 1919, William Orpen, 1919 Imperial War Museum, SE1, .iwm.org.uk William Orpen's piece, commissioned at the then huge cost of 3000, is more notable for its scene than the painting itself, but what a scene: as the title says, it shows the Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919, where the Allies decided the terms of peace following the First World War. In the painting are US president Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, and many, many soldiers, diplomats and politicians. Spend a while with it: the facial expressions and how much they differ are particularly interesting. The architecture, as Orphen sees it, is vast, leaning over the politicians, making them seem small, insignificant, weak. It's subtle, perhaps, but reveals what the artist thought of them. WM (Art.IWM ART 2856) Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, Vincent van Gogh, 1889 The Courtauld Gallery, WC2R, courtauld.ac.uk The shades of green which run through this piece seem to exaggerate van Gogh's despondency. In this self-portrait, painted shortly after his ear was slashed and he almost bled to death, he sits staring, saying something, while wrapped up as if outdoors in a biting winter. Whether van Gogh slashed himself or it was the result of a fight with Gauguin remains unknown, but the two men never met after the incident again, and van Gogh's pain, insecurity and questioning in this picture is undoubtedly clear. The Courtauld Gallery Two Dancers on a Stage, Edgar Degas, 1874 The Courtauld Gallery, WC2R, courtauld.ac.uk Degas's dancers are notable for their movement: while ballet is physically demanding, draining, and emotionally consuming, here the pair seem relaxed, joking, as if in rehearsal. That they aren't centre of the painting gives the piece of a feeling of being a spontaneously captured. Not Degas's most famous work, but a beautiful example from a beautiful painting nevertheless. The Courtauld Gallery Jane Austen, Cassandra Austen, c.1810 National Portrait Gallery, WC2H, npg.org.uk This painting of the famous English novelist was done by her elder sister Cassandra. As the only two girls among eight siblings, the two were extremely close throughout their lifetime and frequently wrote to each other. This incomplete watercolour is thought to be the only known portrait from life of Jane. This does not, however, mean it looks much like her: her family were not convinced by it, although the expression apparently convinced her niece. Still, from 2017, it's the portrait we'll see on 10 notes everywhere. National Portrait Gallery, London An Allegory ('Vision of a Knight'), Raphael, c. 1504 National Gallery, WC2N, nationalgallery.org.uk Seeing any Raphael is extraordinary, especially as there are far too few in London. It's not entirely clear what this piece means, though some think the sleeping knight is meant to represent the Roman General Scipio Africanus, and the piece is an allegorical painting which has taken influence from the epic poem Punica, by Latin poet Silius Italicus. An example of Renaissance painting, it features the typical faraway long perspective in hues of blue, and fine detail throughout. The National Gallery, London The Ambassadors, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533 National Gallery, WC2N, nationalgallery.org.uk Hans Holbein the Younger managed to be a hugely influential figure in art without founding a school, making him something of a rarity. This double portrait might not be as famous as the copy of his lost Henry VIII portrait (head next door to the National Portrait Gallery for that one), but it remains extremely striking, and draws the viewer in with what appears to be a white smudge across the bottom of the canvas: in fact, it is an early example of anamorphosis, and shows a skull, a symbol of death and mortality. While cynics suggest Holbein incorporated it simply to show off his skill (and hence secure future commissions, the canny so-and-so), it forces any audience to engage, to look and consider the work from all angles, and to get a more thorough appreciation for the piece. The National Gallery, London Mont Sainte-Victoire with Large Pine, Paul Cezanne, 1887 The Courtauld Gallery, WC2R, courtauld.ac.uk Odd to think this series of beautiful, calming landscapes once caused a stir, but it did, if only for its form: unlike the Impressionists, Cezanne outlined his shapes and details, and the piece isn't about hundreds of little details blurred together. The colours are prominent and striking, and the painting feels warm, humid, sunny something in it acts like a teleporter to south of France. The techniques here and striking lines shows why Cezanne is sometimes remembered for helping usher in Abstract art. The Courtauld Gallery Bathers at Asnieres, Georges Seurat, 1884 National Gallery, WC2N, nationalgallery.org.uk Famous enough that a bar in Pimlico have a drink dedicated to it. That's how you know you've made it big time. At 2m by 3m, Seurat's painting of young men relaxing by the water is impressively sizeable, and another example of a deceptively simple style: in real life, the painting seems to gleam, shine and wink an effect achieved by contrasting dots of colour. The water is the best example of it, but the boys hat has dots of blue on the orange, making it stand out, drawing attention to him as he braces himself to swim. The side-on figures draws to mind Egyptian art. The National Gallery, London William Shakespeare, attributed to John Taylor, c. 1600-10 National Portrait Gallery, WC2H, npg.org.uk The Chandos portrait (named after a former owner) is currently on tour for about a year, but once it's home in the National Portrait Gallery, is well worth seeing. The painting is mystery itself: no-one is certain who actually painted it, and there's even some scepticism over whether it depicts the Bard or not. Nevertheless, it's this portrait which has formed the basis for countless portrayals of Shakespeare in the four hundred years since his death. An icon, not to be missed. National Portrait Gallery, London Queen Elizabeth I, unknown continental artist, c.1575 National Portrait Gallery, WC2H, npg.org.uk Known as the Darnley portrait, this painting is one of the most important visions of Elizabeth I, and would have been painted from a sitting. Though it has come partly to define how people imagine the Queen, with her pale complexion and withering stare, technical goings-over have revealed the paint has faded, and that she would have had much rosier cheeks when the work was finished, which rather changes how one might see her. National Portrait Gallery, London Unsurprisingly, however, mobile usage has also increased, with Hiscox reporting that this trend is also starting to have a real impact on the way art buyers search, browse and buy art online. Artsys website and app traffic tripled over the last year, including $1.4 million sale between a London art gallery and US-based collector, completed through their iPad app. Increased mobile usage is yet to impact on desktop and laptop usage, however, with 81 per cent of online art buyers saying they used a laptop or PC when purchasing online, an increase of 13 per cent over 2015. Tablets arent doing so well, accounting for just 19 per cent of all online sales, a figure which was at 21 percent in 2015 and 25 percent in 2014. The report makes it clear that galleries and artists behind the curve on their social media should put the effort in, as more people than ever 31 per cent acknowledged social media was influencing their purchasing decision. Among the new buyers, the number was higher, with 38 per cent saying social media impacted their choice. Mobile devices are becoming our weapon of choice and social media is becoming increasingly influential in persuading us that the emperors new clothes really are magnificent, admitted Robert Read, head of fine art for Hiscox. Facebook and Instagram are the two preferred platforms for galleries and buyers alike. It was a good year for Instagram, with 48 per cent of buyers saying they were on board in 2016, up from 34 per cent in 2015. Hiscox also singled out Instagram for becoming a revenue-generating platform, which they expect to affect the way art is purchased in the near future. Despite the success of Instagram and Facebook, Twitter proved to be less popular this year than last, and though all three are on the up, 47 per cent of buyers said social media had no influence on them when buying art. The majority of existing art buyers see the online art market as an alternative channel for acquiring art rather than a substitute, the report said. Recognising that much of the art world remains offline, Read said: Dealers are struggling to deal with the online challenge but remain insulated from reality as the traditional model still works (just about) and most are too small to take such a high-risk gamble probably a case of damned if they do and damned if they dont. The Hiscox Online Art Trade Report 2016 can be read in full at hiscox.co.uk/online-art-trade-report. More from Hiscox: How to look after antiques and valuables Online art market insights Would you buy a painting online? Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout I f youve ever watched someone stretch out fresh mozzarella youll know how transfixing a spectacle it is. Seeing someone use their hands to wind this Italian cheese into knots, mould it into little animal shapes or tear it into strips and add fresh cream to make burrata is a lovely thing. And just five minutes walk from North Acton station, opposite an imposingly ugly Holiday Inn hotel, is where Simona Di Vietri, founder of La Latteria, runs her new London mozzarella business, which started trading in February 2016. Walking in, she hands me a hairnet, blue shoe covers and a temporary lab coat, before taking me next door to watch her chief cheesemaker Michele Di Bori at work as he pulls huge chunks of the stuff out of its milky water bath. Within two minutes the diminuative powerhouse that is Di Vietri is talking at hares pace about how it is made, beginning simply with milk picked up each morning from a dairy in Surrey, to why some of Londons top chefs are buying it. She also lets me taste some, and it's superb - fresher, milkier and springier than any mozzarella I've eaten before. Here Di Vietri tells me why she quit investment banking to make cheese. How many products do you now make? We have 10 basic, but really 17 in total. It all starts with the same thing and then we roll it or add things to it because we do things in addition to the traditional product. We have the Campagnola and Bocconcini balls, the Nodini knots, the little Ciliegine with and without gorgonzola, the Treccia (rope-shape), Burrata, Burratina, Stracciatella, Scamorza, and Ricotta, to name most of them. Why did you start the business? I used to work in investment banking and then [my husband and I] moved to Dubai, and then back to London. Then [I was travelling to offices] around the world but I had two young kids under five, and I realised that I didnt come to London to live on a plane. But also I always had this idea in the back of my mind because my cousin runs a mozzarella business in Milan and hes been asking me for years to do it too and it had got stuck in my head. Finally one year ago, I closed everything, quit [and wrote a business plan] and now I have a wardrobe of suits and heels that have not been touched since. Had you ever made mozzarella before this? Id never made mozzarella. I hate a lot of it! When I left Italy I stopped eating mozzarella - I come from a small town in Italy where I used to go and buy it from the old shops [and its just so fresh] there. Some people told me I was crazy - I literally scrapped 17 years of my work and I started again. I didnt know anything about production, cheese, milk, anything. My cousin was helping me of course, and I used to spend weeks in his lab in Milan asking questions, but at the end of the day its down to me. I spend my nights researching, understanding and talking to people. Where do you sell your products? Only a few, as weve just started, but we have Michelin-starred restaurants including Dabbous and Hibiscus, as well as Social Eating House, Granger & Co. How many products have you sold since you started? Well since day 1, we have worked with probably 20,000 litres of milk. What has the reaction been like? People love it. At a food fair yesterday, we sold out of everything after everyone tried samples. Some of the chefs make things with it, or they like the small balls as you can use them for decoration too. We dont put salt in our ricotta - that way you can do sweets, too. How is it made? We have two cheesemakers including Michele here who has been doing this for 15 years since he was 15; for most of these guys, its been in their family and they dont teach you, its a way of life. Usually they close the door [during production] as its a secret. Anyway we pick the milk up ourselves from Surrey every morning. It goes into the milk refrigerator, gets pasteurised, which is quite quick, and it needs to coagulate for up to 35 minutes, where the curd separates from the whey. These get drained and then the big chunks, in order to soften up and stretch and create structure, go into boiling water and turn into a dome shape, which is easier to work with. And thats the basic form of the product, for the mozzarella, the burrata, the straciatella, and so on, And then you choose what shape you want (braids, or balls, or knots). Once it's made that day, we send it out while it's fresh - we don't keep anything on-site. We have an expiry date of five days including production, but we want people to eat it as early as possible - and it's a totally different texture to anything you buy in the supermarket. It's springy, for example, which is a sign of its freshness. Cheese varieties you should know 1 /9 Cheese varieties you should know Parmesan Getty Panela Getty Emmental Brie Mozzarella Getty Cheddar Getty Feta Getty Was it important to have a London business? It happened beacuse Im here, but I think London is ready to appreciate it. When my husband lived here 25 years ago, the city was not what it is today in terms of food quality. I think London is the perfect entry point to start, and also from a business perspective I had to find the most concentrated market. I would move out if we get bigger. Where do the ingredients come from? Are any from London? We have milk from Surrey, rennet, and salt from Volterra in Italy. This milk works perfectly and is exactly the same as the one my cousin uses in Milan in the sense that its the same breed of cow (Holstein Friesian), and the same fat content, but the milk is completely different. It lasts longer, and it tastes amazing. Anything that happens to the animal is reflected in the milk; theyre out more often, the weather is cooler, they eat more grass, they are not stuck in barns most of the time, and it makes a difference. Whats it like running a business in London? Well the regulations are totally different to Italys so I had re-learn everything, and re-adjust everything. I had to re-design the system, the boiler, to fit with here. But I was happy to do it because I have a passion for it. I come from a militant background, and Im used to working 20 hours, but its not easy. Do you still eat your products on a regular basis? Oh, yeah. And my daughter would eat mozzarella for lunch, breakfast, and dinner if she could. If you stretch it like playdough, you can turn it into penguins and pigs, and kids love it. Do you still have time to eat out for pleasure, or is it all work related now? I spend a lot of time in Notting Hill where I live because Im tired, but I also like trying Italian restaurants to see what theyre doing. Its market research really. But everything I do, pleasure or not, ends up being about cheese now - I always end up chatting in the kitchen with the chef! One of La Latteria's cheesemakers / Rex Features Can you describe the life of a London mozzarella maker? I dont have a typical day. The only thing that is common in my life currently is that I get up in the morning with a plan and then plan gets turned up within an hour. Every single day! Today I thought I was going to do all sorts of things but then the delivery guy came to say the scooter broke down so Im going to do it all instead Which other London producers you admire? I have met someone who apparently has a lab doing something similar in Battersea. They have a pizza chain and they produce for themselves. I havent come across many others. Were starting up, so were still learning. lalatteria.co.uk P olice are hunting a convicted child sex offender who was last seen in west London and may be travelling the country on a barge. Michael Crabb, who was released from prison on licence in March, had previously been handed a nine-year sentence for child sex offences. The 53-year-old is now wanted by the authorities for failing to notify them of his change of address. Police say he was last seen in Uxbridge, an area where he has links, but he may also have travelled to Iver, Slough or Warwickshire. A spokesman for the Met Police said: Crabb also has links to the British canal system and has in the past sought refuge on barges and may therefore travel throughout the country. If seen, Crabb should not to be approached and the public are asked to dial 999 immediately. Anyone with information should call the Wandsworth Borough Manhunt team on 101 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. P olice are upping patrols in areas associated with the LGBT community in London in the wake of the Orlando massacre, Scotland Yard has said. The Met said more officers would be sent to prime locations across the capital, as it sought to reassure London's LGBT community following the mass shooting at gay nightclub Pulse. Scotland Yard added that a robust policing plan was in place for this years Pride parade on Saturday, June 25, and would be under constant review. The extra patrols come after gunman Omar Mateen murdered 49 people in the Florida nightclub on Saturday night before being shot dead. Commander Mak Chishty, the Mets hate crime lead, said: The events in Orlando have caused shock and concern across the world including here in London, our thoughts are with the victims and their families. While there is no intelligence to suggest an increased risk in London, we have increased our patrols in prime locations and continue to work closely and engage with the LGBT community, visiting clubs and local areas offering reassurance and being visible. The Met also said a supportive policing presence will attend a vigil being held at 7pm tonight in Old Compton Street, Soho, to remember those murdered by Mateen, 29. Commander Chishty added: There are LGBT liaison officers available in every borough who are out and about and using their networks to understand how the community is feeling and offer support. Police added that security arrangements for Pride will remain under constant review in the lead-up to the parade. "An appropriate number of officers will be deployed to and this will remain under review as the event approaches," a spokesman said. It comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan said the capital stands "shoulder to shoulder" with the people of Orlando following the "hideous and cowardly" attack. P olice are searching for a man after a spate of defibrillator thefts from train stations across London. Transport officers have issued an image of a man they want to speak to about five of the life-saving devices were stolen in east London. Three defibrillator thefts took place at Loughton, Stratford and Bow Road stations on April 2 and a further two at Leytonstone and Loughton on April 5. Detective Constable Angie Gates, from British Transport Police, said: We believe that all five incidents are linked and I am keen to speak to anyone who may hold information or knows the person in the CCTV image, who I am keen to speak to and who I believe has information that could help us. Defibrillators can save lives and its really disappointing that these have been stolen. Anyone with any information can contact British Transport Police on 0800 40 50 40 or by texting 61016, quoting the reference code 349 10/06/2016. P olice tasered a man after a chase allegedly ended with him brandishing a hammer at officers. Police also apparently found a knife on the suspect when they detained him after being called to reports of a fight in south west London between two men. A Scotland Yard spokesman said officers were called to Plough Road in Clapham at about 9.30pm on Sunday evening to reports of violence. Police arrived five minutes later and used a Taser to arrest a man in nearby Thomas Baines Road following a chase after he allegedly fled. Knifeman: This blade was also recovered from the scene / MPS Wandsworth The man in his 40s was taken to a south London police station, the spokesman added. No police officers were injured. A young motorcyclist has died after he crashed his bike into a parked car in south-east London. Emergency services rushed to the scene after the motorcyclist, a 20-year-old man, hit the parked car in Sidcup in the early hours of Sunday morning. Medics fought to save him but he was pronounced dead at the scene of the collision in Maylands Drive shortly after 5am. The mans next of kin have been informed but officers await formal identification. A post-mortem examination will be scheduled. Detectives from the Serious Collision Investigation Unit based in Catford are investigating the crash. Anyone with any information is asked to contact police on 020 8285 1574. F irefighters were called into action to mount a dramatic rescue after a pigeon became stuck on a roof in south London. An aerial platform was used to hoist a firefighter and an RSPCA officer to the top of a 120ft-high disused water tower so they could reach the stricken bird. Onlookers were stunned by the scale of the rescue bid at the former pump station in Croydon town centre, which was built to look like a castle, at about 10.45am. The RSPCA called in the London Fire Brigade after the bird trapped its wing and leg in some netting. Rescue: Firefighters used an aerial platform to save the bird / Marta Szydlik A spokeswoman for LFB said: We went to assist the RSPCA and used an aerial platform. Its not something we usually go to. RSPCA inspector Anthony Pulfer, who went up on the platform, said: I was able to free the pigeon from the netting and bring him back down. I checked him over and fortunately he wasnt injured so I released him back into the wild. We couldnt have rescued this bird without [the firefighters]. A man has been jailed after making a hoax bomb threat to blow up a south-east London bingo hall. Chris Hallam, 52, rang ahead and told the establishment: This is a warning. There is a bomb in the car-park. We are Islam. He then hung up and emergency services were called to undertake a major sweep of the premises, in Eltham, during which no devices were found. Woolwich Crown Court heard how a member of staff at the bingo hall in Eltham Hill was told there was a bomb in their car-park. Hallam said there was a bomb in Mecca bingo car park / Google Maps Suspicion quickly fell on Hallam, who had been bombarding a bingo hall staff member with texts following a dispute between the two. Investigations of phone networks showed Hallam had called the premises just before they phoned emergency services, and that no-one else had called that number for more than an hour preceding the phone call. Hallam, of Eltham, admitted calling the hall while intoxicated on January 15 last year, but denied making any threats. He was found guilty of making a hoax bomb threat and jailed for 18 months at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday. Greenwich CID detective constable Chris Bryant said: This mans actions caused alarm and resulted in the waste of police resources. Calls like this are no joke and anyone convicted of making hoax calls can face an entirely justified sentence of imprisonment. A caretaker at one of Londons top public schools told of his relief today after the Home Office lifted a ban stopping his brother from travelling to the UK from Nigeria for a lifesaving bone marrow transplant. Isaac Aganozor, who works at Dulwich College, praised the Evening Standard after authorities made a U-turn. The 44-year-old was diagnosed with leukaemia in August and needs an urgent stem cell transplant from his brother Patrick, who lives with his family in Nigeria. Despite being the only potential match in the world, Patrick who earns 2.30 a day as a tricycle courier was refused a visa to enter the UK on socio-economic grounds, because officials feared he would try to stay here. Although the college which charges fees of 36,000 a year offered to pay for his 1,500 return flight and a month-long stay, the British High Commission in Lagos turned down the application in April. Mr Aganozor said there was no danger his brother would try to remain in Britain as he has to care for his four-year-old daughter and ailing mother. Now, after the case was reported by the Standard, and following pressure from Mr Aganozors MP Helen Hayes and the intervention of immigration minister James Brokenshire, the Home Office has approved a visa. Patrick, 38, arrives on Friday and the transplant is expected to take place the following week at Barts Hospital in the City, where Isaac is being given regular high-dose chemotherapy sessions. He said: I am so grateful to everyone who has allowed this to happen. I want to thank my employer, my MP who stood behind me, and the press, especially the Standard which was the first news outlet to highlight my cause. These past two months it has felt like my life was drifting away from me. I felt despair, I didnt know where to turn, but now I am just so relieved and I hope everything will be okay. He added: It is wrong that immigration officers only considered the economic case. The Government should do what is necessary to make sure this never happens to anyone else. My delay was two months, I am still here, but that might not be the case with someone else. Simon Yiend, chief operating officer of Dulwich College, said: We are delighted Patrick has been issued his visa and will be joining his brother. The Home Office said: All visa applications must meet immigration rules and each is carefully considered on its individual merits. L ondon stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Orlando, Mayor Sadiq Khan said today amid fears that the death toll from the worst mass shooting in US history would rise above 50. The Pride flag was flown from City Hall in solidarity with the Florida city as Scotland Yard was today urged to review security for Londons Pride festival, taking place this month. A vigil will be held at 7pm tonight in Old Compton Street, Soho, in memory of those killed by lone gunman Omar Mateen, 29. He opened fire with an assault rifle and handgun on more than 300 revellers at the Pulse nightclub early yesterday morning before being shot dead by police. The Pride flag is being flown at London's City Hall / Jenni Smout He had called 911 to declare allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. IS radio today called him one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America. The victims Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34, travel agency brand manager Stanley Almodovar III, 23, pharmarcy technician Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, Starbucks barista Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old, telemarketer Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, merchandising manager Kimberly Morris, 37, Pulse bouncer Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 Luis S. Vielma, 22, theme park worker at Universal Studios Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30, accountant Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25 Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50 Mateens father suggested his son had hatred in his heart and was motivated by homophobia after seeing gay men kissing. Mayor Mr Khan told the Standard: This hideous and cowardly attack on LGBT+ people in Orlando is an attack on our freedoms and values. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Orlando. Recalling the nail-bombing of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho that killed three people and wounded 70 in 1999, the Mayor added: Londons LGBT+ community knows what its like to face a murderous attack the lives lost in the bombing of the Admiral Duncan here in our own city will never be forgotten. "But no one should be frightened away from being who they are by this attack and we must carry on proudly celebrating our differences as a city. Shooting victim: Luis Vielma / Facebook With up to one million people expected to take part in the Pride parade through central London a week on Saturday, the Met was today reviewing plans to reassure revellers that safety was a priority. Parade organisers were in talks with the US Embassy to decide how best to remember the dead during a minutes reflection in Trafalgar Square on June 25. Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera was also killed in the attack / Facebook/Reuters Pride in London director Mohsin Zaidi said: It seems that people lost their lives at the hands of someone who despised our way of life. Pride can be our moment to stand tall in the face of such brutality. More than 50 people have been killed after a gunman opened fire in a crowded Florida nightclub Human rights activist Peter Tatchell said: This attack is a wake-up call to LGBT organisations and venues in the US, Britain and other Western countries to strengthen their security. "There is no room for the complacent and naive belief the Islamist fanatics will confine their killings of gay people to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In the light of this attack, it is vital that security is increased at this years London LGBT Pride parade, and at other events that could be targeted in the UK, such as those involving the Jewish community. Fifty people, including Peter O Gonzalez-Cruz, 22, were slaughtered / Facebook Actor and presenter James Corden, hosting the Tony awards in New York, paid tribute to the victims. Your tragedy is our tragedy, he said. Hate will never win. Today the names of the first 21 confirmed victims were released by the city authorities in Orlando as Mateens father said he was mystified at what had caused his son whom he described as a very good boy to commit such an atrocity. In a statement posted online and addressed to people in his native Afghanistan, Siddique Mateen said: I dont know what caused it. I never figured out that he had hatred in his heart... I am grief-stricken. He added he did not know why his son committed such an act during the holy month of Ramadan. Victim: Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 Mateen was the father of a three-year-old boy who he had with his second wife, Noor Zahi Salman. It was unclear whether they were still together, but she was listed as living at a separate address. One of the first victims confirmed dead was Eddie Justice, a 30-year-old accountant who texted his mother Mina pleading for help as he hid in a lavatory as Mateen went on a three-hour killing spree. Hes coming, he told her. Im gonna die. A total of 39 people were killed at the club and 11 more died in hospital. Fifty-three were being treated today, many of them critical. 22-year-old telemarketer Juan Ramon Guerrero was killed The majority of the wounded were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Centre. Trauma surgeon Dr Mike Cheatham warned: I think we will see the death toll rise. Edward Sotomayor Jr was also among victims / Facebook US presidential candidate Donald Trump sparked outrage by renewing his demand for Muslims to be banned from the US, despite Mateen being a US citizen born in New York. He called for President Obama to resign for not using the words radical Islam in his condemnation of the attack. Mateen, a bodybuilder and security guard with UK-based international firm G4S, was able to legally purchase the weapons last week. Pulse nightclub shooting 1 /16 Pulse nightclub shooting Police on the scene of the shooting in Florida Twitter/@OrlandoPolice Police direct people away from the scene of the shooting in Orlando AP Embrace: Family members wait for news on the shooting involving multiple fatalities at Pulse Orlando nightclub AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Fatalities: About 50 people are believed to have died in the shooting AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Scene: Police and CSI officers at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, after the shooting EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA Mourning: Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters REUTERS/Steve Nesius Terrifying: Heartbreaking text messages sent from clubbers inside Pulse nightclub have emerged Brian Shields WFTV/Facebook Scene: The shooting happened at Pulse Orlando nightclub AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Press conference: Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, centre right, and Orlando Police Chief John Mina, centre left, arrive to a news conference AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Sonia and Andrea Parra, who said they lost five friends in the Pulse nightclub shooting hold candles on the street corner near the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP People gather in the Castro District in San Francisco, California for a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting at the Pulse nightclub Stephen Lam/Reuters The Kevlar helmet that saved the life of a OPD officer who was hit in hail of gunfire following a shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando Orlando Police This morning G4S shares fell sharply when the London Stock Exchange opened. G4S said background checks revealed nothing of concern when Mateen was hired in 2007. It said the screening was repeated in 2013 but threw up no new findings. Killer: Omar Mateen The FBI confirmed it had three times investigated Mateen after suspicions were raised about him making inflammatory remarks to work colleagues, but he was not placed on a watch list. His ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy said that he was abusive and bipolar and they were together for only four months. He was mentally unstable and mentally ill, she said. She revealed she was rescued by her family after being beaten for not finishing the laundry, They literally saved my life... and had to pull me out of his arms. When they first met online, Yusifiy said he was a fun-loving family man. But she said: A few months after we were married I saw his instability, I saw his bipolar, and he would get mad out of nowhere, and thats when I started worrying about my safety. Then after a few months he started abusing me physically, very often, and not allowing me to speak to my family, and keeping me hostage from them. She said he had a history with steroids that would affect his moods. She initially suspected it was mental illness not radicalisation that had led him to commit the atrocity. He did follow religion, he did practice and he had his faith but showed no sign of radicalism, she said. Speaking at a press conference in Colorado, she described Mateen as being short tempered and would express hate towards things but she declined to say if he held homophobic views. The imam of the the Islamic Centre of Fort Pierce, where Mateen prayed four days a week, said had changed since being wild as a child. He just comes quietly, prays, and leaves, said Syed Shafeeq Rahman. A London mansion dubbed the "mini White House" has gone on sale for 2.5m. The building, said to be the 'best protected home in London,' sits inside the US Embassy complex in Mayfair, which is protected by a fortress-style security cordon. The property at 4 Blackburnes Mews dates back to 1732, and is located inside a private gated mews complex directly adjacent to the American Embassy and within its protective perimeter. The Mews runs across the back of the American Embassy, whose front facade overlooks Grosvenor Square. Anyone wishing to access the building currently has to swipe an identity card, and pass through patrolling US marines, 24 hour British police presence, checkpoints, anti-tank blocks and CCTV security. However, the cordon is due to end next year, when the US embassy relocates south of the river to Nine Elms, and the Grade II listed building will be transformed into a 5* hotel and luxury resort. The new luxury complex will offer 137 bedrooms and suites, ballroom, health spa, five restaurants and bars and six retail boutiques, with new public entrances fronting onto Grosvenor Square and Blackburnes Mews. Meanwhile, the Little White House will be available to buy as a private home, at a cost of 2,500,000. The property got its nickname due to its white facade, grand 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue style entrance hall and sweeping staircase, and its proximity to and long-standing links with the adjacent American Embassy. Blackburnes Mews was first incorporated into the Embassys protective perimeter after 9/11, and, in a UK-first, every resident was asked to carry an identity card and every visitor to the mews was required to explain themselves. Although some residents of the Mews welcomed the cost-free security and police protection, others are said to be pleased to see the cordon coming to an end. Peter Wetherell, Chief Executive of agent Wetherell said: The Little White House in Blackburnes Mews provides the adroit buyer with an outstanding and unique long term investment and lifestyle opportunity. "The transformed Embassy building will become Londons next Claridges or Connaught Hotel with the purchaser having the benefit of living right on the doorstep. "The resorts restaurants, bars, health spa and boutiques will be one of the must visit destinations in Mayfair, and the urban renewal programme has the potential to give huge uplift to property values in the local area. S cotland Yard is to train a squad of riot police as firearms officers to act as a reserve force to cope with a Paris-style terror attack. Around 200 officers from the Territorial Support Group are to get firearms training to create a back-up squad in case of a massive terrorist assault on London. The officers will not carry weapons in their normal public order duties or while on patrol in London, but will be called on if all the Mets firearms capability is committed to dealing with a co-ordinated multiple attack. The TSG group will be part of a second wave of armed officers sent in to tackle fanatics. It will form part of the extra 600 firearms officers announced by Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe in January after the Paris atrocities last November. About 400 of these will be deployed into armed response vehicles, or Trojans, dramatically increasing the number of units on patrol across London. Scotland Yard is spending around 25 million on equipping the units, which patrol in three-man teams, carrying Sig Sauer semi-automatic carbine rifles and Glock pistols. They routinely patrol boroughs with the highest levels of gun crime. Last year it was revealed firearms officers are being told to walk over casualties and go forward to confront terrorists if there is an attack. The TSG is in the front line of policing violent protests and disorder in the capital and carries out routine patrols of crime hotspots. The squad has faced criticism over its policing methods in the past but the number of complaints has fallen in recent years. The unit came under particular criticism after the death of newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson in 2009 during a protest. Images emerged of Tomlinson being struck by TSG officer Simon Harwood, who was later found not guilty of manslaughter but sacked for gross misconduct. Insiders say the TSG officers will be recalled to be issued with weapons in a terror attack. Sir Bernard told a recent London Assembly meeting they could be used to provide a surge capacity. A Met spokeswoman said: There is no change in the plan to raise the number of armed officers by about 600. Of those, 400 will be officers in the Force Firearms Unit (SCO19) and the remaining number of officers within other roles across the Met, and one of those options includes officers from the TSG. A dverts which put Londoners under pressure over body image are to be banned from the Tube and bus network. Sadiq Khan announced that Transport for London would no longer run ads which could cause body confidence issues, particularly among young people. The Mayor, a father of two teenage daughters, warned the ads could demean women and encourage them to conform to unrealistic or unhealthy body shapes. TfLs new advertising policy, which does not include all images of people in their underwear or swimming gear, is only expected to affect a handful of the 12,000 adverts a year which run across the network, including at bus shelters and on-street sites. Are You Beach Body Ready? - Protein World TV advert It means controversial adverts like Protein Worlds Are you beach body ready? poster, which provoked a huge backlash when it appeared last year, would no longer be allowed. The weight-loss ad, which featured a bikini-clad model, sparked a protest in Hyde Park as well as a petition on Change.org with more than 70,000 signatures, although it was not banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. Mr Khan said: As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. It is high time it came to an end. Protein World protesters in Hyde Park Nobody should feel pressurised, while they travel on the Tube or bus, into unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies and I want to send a clear message to the advertising industry about this. The Mayor claimed there would be no impact on TfLs income as a result of the move, with the body still expected to generate more than 1.5 billion from advertising over the next eight years. Last year it made 170 million, up from 152 million in 2014. He asked TfL and advertising partners Exterion Media and JCDecaux to set up a steering group to keep the policy, which will apply to all new ads submitted to TfL, under regular review. TfL will continue to refer campaigns to the Committee of Advertising Practice to ensure that they meet ASA regulations. The change comes a result of passenger feedback, rather than public consultation, but City Hall denied it was nannying Londoners. Graeme Craig, TfL Commercial Development Director, said: Advertising on our network is unlike TV, online and print media. Our customers cannot simply switch off or turn a page if an advertisement offends or upsets them and we have a duty to ensure the copy we carry reflects that unique environment. We want to encourage great advertising that engages people and enhances the transport network. T he Smithsonian Institute is teaming up with the V&A to create a joint gallery as part of the redevelopment of the Olympic Park. It will be the first time the US institution, which runs 19 museums in the US, has had a permanent gallery in another country. Smithsonian Secretary David Skorton said the collaboration with what will be called V&A East will allow them to "build bridges to other countries and continents and share our work with the world". He said: "This would not be a Smithsonian outpost in London. It would be a collaboration with the V&A, giving both of us opportunities to engage with diverse audiences in innovative ways. "What we learn through this collaboration will enable us to better tell our stories not only in London, but in the United States and around the world." The exhibitions will be developed by staff from both institutions and Smithsonian shows will regularly travel to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said:Growing Londons cultural sector is one of my core priorities as mayor, so I welcome this trans-Atlantic collaboration between two of the worlds most prestigious institutions. "These plans would create an exciting new cultural destination in East London, which will help many more people enjoy the extraordinary collections managed by the Smithsonian and the V&A. "It is great news for everyone who wants to see Londons cultural and creative sectors even bigger and better. I n a few hours, Nigel Farage faces an internet Q&A, then a live grilling by Andrew Neil on primetime BBC1. So where is the Ukip leader? Prepping with anxious strategists, a damp towel pressed to his forehead? No, he is settling down for a boozy lunch with the Standard. With a Guinness in one hand and a fag in the other, Farage wears a happy smile on the smoking roof of Boisdale of Belgravia, a favourite haunt. Im loving it, he says of the referendum campaign. I really think we are going to win. He gossips animatedly about what might follow next weeks result. A narrow defeat would see Ukip go from strength to strength, get a lot bigger and attract more funding. A win would change his role to one of making sure David Cameron does not try to back out of a Brexit. Thats what I fear he would try and thats why he has got to go, he adds, savagely. No love lost there. The last chat I had with Cameron was in December at Evgeny Lebedevs party, he recalls with a laugh. He said How are you getting on with Douglas Carswell? I said: About as well as you did, Prime Minister! Of the Tories who might take over, he trusts Boris but mulls: Michael Gove is the form horse, isnt he? Liam Fox, he suggests, is the dark horse, adding with a happy cackle: Even I feel quite pro-EU next to him. The Guinness level drops rapidly as he chats, and it is time to move on. Whats that youre drinking? House claret? Well, a bottle of that then. He orders a 20oz chateaubriand to share with an equally thirsty aide and takes a glug of wine. Boris coming on board was a significant moment, he says, adding in an I-told-you-so tone that the real turning point came when Johnson and Gove started pushing the immigration issue harder. Immigration, for many Londoners, is where Farage stops being the cheeky chappie and becomes a more threatening figure. Only last week he was condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, for pandering to hatred by claiming women are in more danger of sexual assault because of EU immigration. Look, he [Welby] was bullied into it, says Farage dismissively. He hadnt read what I actually said. The closest he comes to regret is when he frets that his comments played into the hands of Camerons attack team: Theyve been waiting the whole sodding campaign to latch onto something I said. TODO: define component type apester But there is also a glaring contradiction at the heart of his key pledge on immigration. Doesnt he say net migration should come down to 50,000? I have said that, he confirms cautiously. Yet, doesnt he also say a points system could allow more black people to come to the UK? What we have said is a non-discriminatory policy, he replies, steering away from actual numbers. However, with 185,000 non-EU migrants already, how can he promise both fewer and more at the same time? There would have to be fewer across the board, he rules after a pause, choosing the message his key audience needs to hear. How can he ignore the clear warnings from major banks and financial institutions that jobs and HQs would leave the City if there is a Brexit? The same people said the banks would leave if we didnt join the euro, he snorts. I personally think the biggest threat the City faces is from European regulation. Japanese and American bankers would quit rather than move to Frankfurt, continues former London Metal Exchange trader Farage, while no other EU city has Londons infrastructure of lawyers and accountants. So why does he think Londoners are largely against Brexit? He replies instantly: Wealth. The wealthier you are the less you want change. Ive met them. They say to me: Oh, Nigel, the mortgage is paid off, the kids have left uni, lifes pretty good and Im going to retire soon, so dont rock the boat! If youre wealthy, uncontrolled immigration is good. Oh daahling, the new Slovakian nanny is marvellous! Yes, I do accept that London is the most difficult part of the country for Ukip. It is because there is so much wealth at the centre. But when you leave the centre of London and go to the outer boroughs, you find that attitudes are exactly the same as they are in Kent and Essex and all the rest of the country. Farage is no longer talking just about Europe, but delivering Ukips core pitch to the dispossessed working and middle classes of the capital city. There are some great truths about London that nobody dares say, he says. Unless you are well-off, London is a dreadful place to live, the worst place to live in the country. The cost of everything! And the impossibility of your children ever aspiring to have what their parents and grandparents considered normal. Another bottle of house claret arrives. Im only a mid-First Division drinker, he apologises. Now, Juncker, hes Premier League. I like him. Isnt he worried about drinking alcohol before going up against Andrew Neil, whom we agree is the best and scariest TV interrogator? Why? Im not having a lot, am I? he asks, innocently. Farage has made a career out of being The Outsider, but occasionally he sounds piqued by a sense of exclusion. I dont think anyone in modern politics has been treated as abysmally as I have, he complains. He claims he was rebuffed by the official Vote Leave campaign because director Dominic Cummings wanted a blue on blue battle and a big job in No 10 under a future Tory leadership. Farage reveals, surprisingly, that if Bob Crow, the hard-Left RMT union leader, had not died in 2014 they had planned to tour the country as a double act for Brexit. He was a friend and a great patriot, he says. But he thinks Jeremy Corbyn lacks patriotism and that Labour voters will find this repulsive. Hours later, with a post-lunch hang-over, I watch incredulous as a neat and composed Farage survives Andrew Neils most lethal questions. Regardless of next weeks result, the Ukip leader shows no sign of leaving the spotlight. A British Airways plane had to turn back for Heathrow four hours into a long-haul flight following a fault. Flight BA277 to Hyderabad, India, got as far as norther Turkey before the decision was made to return to the west London airport. The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner left Heathrow at 4.10pm on Sunday and U-turned over Turkey at 8.25pm UK time. It was due to land in India at 5.15am. Aviation analyst Alex Macheras tweeted that the plane reportedly had a failed weather radar display. A British Airways spokeswoman said: This flight returned to London as a precaution following a technical fault. We are sorry for the delay to our customers journey. The safety and security of our customers and crew is always our top priority. F awlty Towers actor John Cleese has suggested the only way to reform the European Union is to kill the European Commission president. The 76-year-old, who said he will be voting to leave the European Union in next weeks EU Referendum, said he did not believe there was any chance of major reform in the EU. In a series of tweets, Cleese made his views on remaining in the European Union clear. He posted: If I thought there was any chance of major reform in the EU, Id vote to stay in. But there isnt. Sad. Sorry, Paddy. When asked what kind of reforms the EU needs, Cleese replied: It should give up the Euro, introduce accountability, and hang Jean-Claude Juncker. Mr Juncker is the president of the European Commission. Cleese also said Britain had been swimming against the tide to try and make changes in Brussels and said that bureaucrats had taken away any trace of democratic accountability. S ecurity at public events in the UK will be reviewed after the Orlando nightclub massacre, the Home Secretary has said. Theresa May told MPs that police forces would be reviewing plans for major events as she spoke after a minute's silence was held in the Commons. She described the attack at the Pulse nightclub which killed 49 people was an "act of homophobic hatred". Lone gunman Omar Mateen, 29, was killed by police at the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Mrs May said: "It is clear that such an attack has its roots in a twisted ideology which counts homophobia as a cornerstone of its warped world view. This was not just an act of terror, but an act of homophobic hatred. "And I want to make clear to all LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people in Britain and around the world that we will not tolerate such bigotry and violence. "As should be expected in the light of this attack, UK police forces will be further reviewing plans for large scale and other public events over the coming days and weeks. "The police have not advised any organisers to cancel or postpone any LGBT related events." Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said the attack should serve as a "wake-up call" to British LGBT organisations and venues and called for security to be tightened. He said: "There is no room for the complacent and naive belief that Islamist fanatics will confine their killing of gay people to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. "In the light of this attack, security needs to be increased at the London LGBT Pride parade on 25 June, and at other events that could be targeted in the UK, such as those involving the Jewish community, secularists and ex-Muslims." Pride in London is a two-week festival between June 10 and 26 and more than one million people are expected to attend the events, which culminate in a parade in London's West End on June 25. Commander Mak Chishty, the Metropolitan Police's hate crime lead, encouraged the LGBT community to report any fears but said: "There has been no specific threat whatsoever, the level of threat has not changed." A spokeswoman for the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) said police forces across the country would be reviewing security around events in their areas. She said: "Our security measures and activities are under constant review and, following the attack in Orlando at the weekend, UK police forces will be further reviewing plans for large-scale public events over the coming days and weeks." NPCC lead for LGBT issues, Chief Constable Jane Sawyers, added: "We know this was not only an act of terror but also one of hate. "The police service is united in our absolute resolve to protect LGBT communities here in the UK." There was no specific intelligence of any threat, the NPCC added. Additional reporting by the Press Association. A man who was arrested on his way to the LA Pride festival allegedly armed with an arsenal of weapons and explosives told police he wanted to harm people. James Wesley Howell, 20, from Indiana was detained in Santa Monica at about 5am after concerned residents called police to say he was loitering around and knocking on people's doors. Officers found three assault rifles, ammunition and 5lb of mixed Tannerite powder, which can be used to make a pipe bomb, when they searched his vehicle, officials said. Assault rifle magazines taped together to allow for quicker reloading, a camouflage outfit and a security badge were also discovered inside his white Acura. A Santa Monica Police handout photograph shows suspect James Wesley Howell / EPA/SANTA MONICA POLICE / HANDOUT HANDOUT Police said the suspect admitted he was on his way to the LA Pride event to meet a friend and wanted to harm people there. His arrest came on the morning of the worst mass shooting in US history at a gay nightclub in Orlando where 50 people were shot dead by 29-year-old security guard Omar Mateen. So far, officials have said there is no connection between the gun attack in Florida and Howells arrest. Mayor Eric Garcetti earlier said it is believed the man is completely unrelated to the Orlando massacre. Officers are still trying to establish Howells motives and the FBI has taken over the investigation, the Los Angeles Times reported. Authorities are currently searching for a friend the suspect, who is being held on a $500,000 bond at the Santa Monica Jail, said he planned to meet at the parade. F acebook activated its Safety Check feature for the first time in the US after the mass-shooting in an Orlando nightclub. The feature allows users in the area of an emergency situation or natural disaster to allow friends to see that they are safe. Omar Mateen, 29, murdered 50 people after firing an assault rifle and handgun inside the Pulse gay club in Orlando early on Sunday morning. The Facebook Safety Check was first used in 2014, focusing on natural disasters including earthquakes in Chile and Nepal. The first time the Safety Check was not used for a natural disaster was the ISIS attack at the Bataclan in Paris last year, where more than 10 people were murdered. The safety check was also used in March in Brussels after 32 were killed by suicide bombers. A Facebook spokesman confirmed the company was developing the feature to allow app users to initiate the Safety Check themselves. The spokesman added: Over the last few months, we have improved the launch process to make it easier for our team to activate more frequently and faster, while testing ways to empower people to identify and elevate local crises as well. T hese are the first pictures of the victims murdered at a gay nightclub in Orlando in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Many of the 50 victims killed by security guard Omar Mateen, 29, have been named as doctors fear the death toll of massacred revellers will rise. Security guard and body builder Mateen telephoned police and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before he opened fire on the crowds with an assault rifle and handgun, according to reports. The caliphate has since claimed responsibility for the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Florida described by President Barack Obama as an "act of hate". Victim: Edward Sotomayor Jr / Facebook Meanwhile it emerged that the New York-born killer, who worked for security giant G4S, had come under the gaze of counter-terror investigators several times in recent years. The victims Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34, travel agency brand manager Stanley Almodovar III, 23, pharmarcy technician Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, Starbucks barista Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old, telemarketer Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, merchandising manager Kimberly Morris, 37, Pulse bouncer Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 Luis S. Vielma, 22, theme park worker at Universal Studios Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30, accountant Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25 Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50 Amanda Alvear, 25 Martin Benitez Torres, 33 Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35 Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25 Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31 Oscar Aracena-Montero, 26 Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40 Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 Cory James Connell, 21 Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37 Luis Daniel Conde, 39 Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25 Jerald Arthur Wright, 31 Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25 Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25 The identities of the 50 people who were gunned down in the attack have begun to emerge, including at least one gay employee at the nightclub. More than 300 people were inside at the time of the attack in the early hours of Sunday morning, which ended when Swat officers shot Mateen dead in a gun-fight after a three-hour stand-off. Victim: Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 Officials said 39 people died in the venue and 11 at hospitals in the city where 53 people remain, most in a critical condition. Orlando Mayor, Buddy Dyer, described the scene saying there was "blood everywhere". Victim: Luis Vielma / Facebook The majority of the patients were taken to the Orlando Regional Medical Centre. Trauma surgeon Dr Mike Cheatham warned: "I think we will see the death toll rise." Edward Sotomayor Jr, 34, Stanley Almodovar III, 23, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, and Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, were among the first victims to be named. Peter O Gonzalez-Cruz, 22, and Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera 36, and Luis S Vielma, 22, were later added to the grim list along with Kimberly Morris, a 37-year-old who reportedly worked as a bouncer at the club. Victim: Juan Ramon Guerrero Friend Lo Anthony wrote on Facebook that she "always had a smile on her face" and was "loved and adored by all". Mr Obama earlier called the killings at the LGBT club as an "act of terror" and an "act of hate", describing Mateen as being "filled with hatred". Peter O Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 / Facebook The massacre has raised the debate about how easy it is for someone to access guns to shoot others with as it emerged that Mateen had legally purchased two firearms within the last week. "We have to decide if that is the type of country we want to be. To actively to do nothing is a decision as well," the president said. Obama: Orlando shooting was "act of terror" Mateen was known to the FBI after making inflammatory comments to co-workers about extremism in 2013. He was questioned twice and investigated again in 2014 over potential links to an American suicide bomber, but the probe was dropped after he was deemed to be low-risk and he was not under surveillance. The 911 calls involving the shooter from Port St Lucie, Florida that featured conversations about the Islamic State before the massacre have been handed to investigators. Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera / Facebook/Reuters Mateen is believed to have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during the call. The Islamic State's Amaq news agency is understood to have issued a statement saying the massacre was "carried out by an IS fighter". However US officials said it was possible that he was self-radicalised but not "under the command and control of ISIS." An ex-wife described Mateen, reportedly a regular at an Islamic centre in the city, as a violent body builder who had a history of abusing steroids. Loading.... Meanwhile his father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC news that his son had recently been angered after seeing two men kissing while out with his young son and denied the killings had a religious motive. Pulse nightclub shooting 1 /16 Pulse nightclub shooting Police on the scene of the shooting in Florida Twitter/@OrlandoPolice Police direct people away from the scene of the shooting in Orlando AP Embrace: Family members wait for news on the shooting involving multiple fatalities at Pulse Orlando nightclub AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Fatalities: About 50 people are believed to have died in the shooting AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Scene: Police and CSI officers at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, after the shooting EPA/CRISTOBAL HERRERA Mourning: Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters REUTERS/Steve Nesius Terrifying: Heartbreaking text messages sent from clubbers inside Pulse nightclub have emerged Brian Shields WFTV/Facebook Scene: The shooting happened at Pulse Orlando nightclub AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Press conference: Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, centre right, and Orlando Police Chief John Mina, centre left, arrive to a news conference AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack Sonia and Andrea Parra, who said they lost five friends in the Pulse nightclub shooting hold candles on the street corner near the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP People gather in the Castro District in San Francisco, California for a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting at the Pulse nightclub Stephen Lam/Reuters The Kevlar helmet that saved the life of a OPD officer who was hit in hail of gunfire following a shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando Orlando Police On Sunday evening vigils were held in Orlando and a group of around 100 people gathered in Paris in a show of solidarity. David Cameron earlier said he was "horrified" by the shooting, while Afghanistan's president, Ashraf Ghani said "targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever". French president Francois Hollande said he "expresses the full support of France and the French with America's authorities and its people in this difficult time". And Buckingham Palace said a personal message had been sent to President Obama, saying the Queen and Prince Philip were "shocked by the events in Orlando. Mr Obama ordered flags at the White House and federal buildings to be flown at half-mast as a mark of respect for the victims. The Empire State Building in New York was left in darkness as a mark of sympathy on Sunday evening. In the wake of the slaughter, a heavily-armed Indiana man was arrested on his way to a southern California gay pride parade. Police stopped James Wesley Howell, 20, and discovered an arsenal of weapons in his vehicle including three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device. D onald Trump has called for President Obama to resign for failing to use the term radical Islam to describe the shooter responsible for murdering 50 people at an Orlando gay club. Omar Mateen, 29, used a powerful assault rifle and a handgun to shoot at more than 300 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando just after 2am on Sunday. So far, 50 people have been confirmed as dead and 53 people remain in hospital, with most in a critical condition. Mr Obama earlier called the massacre at the LGBT club as an "act of terror" and an "act of hate", describing Mateen as being "filled with hatred". But he also said it served as a reminder of how easy it is for someone to access a weapon like a gun. "We have to decide if that is the type of country we want to be. To actively do nothing is a decision as well. Mr Obama ordered flags at the White House and federal buildings to be flown at half-mast as a mark of respect for the victims. The Empire State Building in New York was left in darkness as a mark of sympathy on Sunday evening. Edward Sotomayor Jr, Juan Ramon Guerrero and Luis Vielma were killed at Pulse Nightclub But Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was quick to call for President Obamas resignation. In the statement, he said: In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words Radical Islam. For that reason alone, he should step down. Omar Mateen was shot dead by police He added: If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. A tweet by Trump has also drawn fierce criticism for congratulating his own stance on Muslims. He tweeted: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness and vigilance. We must be smart. J ournalist Owen Jones stormed off a live paper review programme after clashing with the host and fellow guest over the Orlando gunmans motives. Mr Jones appeared on Sky News paper review programme with guest Julia Hartley-Brewer and host Mark Longhurst to discuss the Pulse gay club shooting, where 50 people were murdered. Tensions mounted between the trio when the attack was compared to the ISIS attack on the Bataclan in Paris last year where more than 100 people were murdered. Mr Jones, 31, continued to stress the importance of distancing the attack from anything other than a homophobic hate crime. Mr Jones walks off the set during the Sky News broadcast / Sky He said: At the end of the day this was a homophobic hate crime, as well as terrorism and it has to be called out, as I have to say, on Sky News and lots of news channels, theres not been many LGBT voices that Ive heard myself. It is one of the worst atrocities committed against LGBT people in the western world for generations and it has to be called out as such. The gunmans father had told US media that his son had got angry when he saw two men kissing, which could be related to the attack. Mr Jones accused the presenters of trying to deflect the homophobic element of the attack, and that Mr Longhurst did not understand because he wasnt gay. Guest Julia Hartley-Brewer sided with Mr Longhurst, saying that the gunman would be equally horrified at her as a gobby woman. Mr Jones replied with: Im sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing Ive ever been involved in on television. If hed walked into a synagogue and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldnt be saying what youre saying now. "You would be talking about it as an anti-semitic attack. "This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people. As the discussion moved on, Mr Jones removed his microphone, saying: Ive had enough of this, Im going home, sorry. P iers Morgan has been applauded for criticising US gun nuts who play down the dangers of semi-automatic weapons in the wake of the Orlando nightclub shooting. The journalist and TV presenter, 51, repeated calls to tighten US gun controls as it emerged that Omar Mateen, who opened fire on crowds at the Pulse nightclub in Florida, had legally purchased two firearms within the last week. Mr Morgan was widely praised on social media for remarks he made on his own show Good Morning Britain and during an appearance on ITVs This Morning. Security guard Mateen, 29, telephoned police and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before entering the nightclub armed with an assault rifle and handgun during the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Mr Morgan criticised US gun nuts for playing down the dangers of semi-automatic weapons and assault rifles like the one wielded by Mateen. He said: This guy [Mateen] only had to reload once to hit 100 people. Ive used an AR-15 during an experiment at CNN - very light, very fast, very easy to use. These are machine guns by any popular definition except they happen to be called semi-automatic. Mr Morgan went on to describe the National Rifle Association the main US gun lobby group as an awful terror group of their own that allows people like Mateen to get their hands on killing machines. The NRA, which has always defended the mass sale of assault rifles insisting they are useful for wild hunting and home defence, has yet to respond to the gun massacre having fallen silent for several days following previous mass shootings in the US. The organisation has come under fierce attack on social media from anti-gun campaigners. Ian Nelson wrote: How many more people have to die? Is there a # the NRA is waiting for til they acknowledge the need for reformation? Just let us know, @NRA. Jasmine said: The Orlando terrorist has the @NRA to thank for the easy access to such high powered weaponry he used to commit such a horrible crime. Jenny Mclaughlin tweeted: Oh America. The problem with gun violence is the @NRA and the hundreds of politicians it has bought. Just stop. Another person wrote: A guy who was on the FBI's radar was able to buy an AR-15 and kill 50 people. This should end the debate over gun control. @NRA." The New York Daily News also attacked the gun lobby with its front-page headline: Thanks, NRA. Because of your continued opposition to an assault rifle ban, terrorists like this lunatic can legally buy a killing machine and perpetrate the worst mass shooting in US history. The social media backlash came as pictures and details of the 50 people gunned down in the attack began to emerge. Officials said 39 people died in the venue and 11 at hospitals in the city where 53 people remain, most in a critical condition. A woman who reported being raped has been convicted of having sex outside wedlock by a court in Qatar. The 22-year-old Dutch woman was given a suspended prison sentence after spending three months in a prison cell. She had claimed her drink was spiked while she was out with a friend during a holiday to the country. While at a hotel bar in Doha, the Qatari capital, the woman claims someone messed with her drink and her memory became hazy, her lawyer said. She woke up with her clothes torn having been raped and reported the attack to police. But she was immediately detained and faced a charge of adultery for having sex out of wedlock. The woman, who had previously appeared in court three times, was today given a one year suspended prison sentence. Her release and sentence were confirmed by Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Daphne Kerremans. The Dutch Embassy in Doha declined to comment further. It was not immediately clear what sentence was given to the man she accused of rape. Qatari officials repeatedly have declined to comment after her detention became public knowledge over the weekend. A n actress from Stockwell was among the winners at the Tony awards in New York, where hip-hop musical Hamilton swept the board. Cynthia Erivo, 29, won best leading actress in a musical for her debut Broadway role as Celie Johnson in the stage version of Alice Walkers The Color Purple. The actress, who first played the part in the West End, has been hailed as an incandescent new star in the New York Times. Born to Nigerian parents, she started singing at the age of five and trained at Rada. She previously appeared in Sister Act and Harry Hills X Factor musical I Cant Sing! at the London Palladium. Last nights big winner was Hamilton, which was nominated for a record 16 awards and won 11, including best musical. The show, about founding father Alexander Hamilton, counts Barack Obama, Beyonce and Dick Cheney among its high-profile fans and is being brought to the West End next year by theatre impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh. Theatre-goers can register for priority booking for the London production from today. It begins at the revamped Victoria Palace Theatre next October. The musicals creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, paid tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting when he collected the award for best score. Tony Awards 2016 1 /36 Tony Awards 2016 James Corden performs at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Evan Agostini/Invision/AP The cast of "The Color Purple" performs onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Actress Jessica Lange accepts the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for "Long Day's Journey Into Night" onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images An image of David Bowie is projected on a screen on stage as part of a In Memoriam tribute at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Lucy Liu and Jesse Tyler Ferguson present director Ivo van Hove with the award for Best Direction of a play for "A View from the Bridge" onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Lupita Nyong'o arrives at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Cate Blanchett wears a silver ribbon as she arrives at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Oprah Winfrey poses with the award for best revival of a musical for iThe Color Purplei the press room at the Tony Awards Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Actress Glenn Close performs onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Jourdan Dunn and Zac Posen attend the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Larry Busacca/Getty Images Presenter Sean Hayes and Jake Gyllenhaal speak onstage with host James Corden during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Cynthia Erivo attends the 70th Annual Tony Awards Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Model Karolina Kurkova attends the 70th Annual Tony Awards Cindy Ord/Getty Images James Corden wears a bathrobe and slippers during the pre-telecast portion of the Tony Awards Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Leona Lewis attends the 2016 Tony Award Getty Images laywright Stephen Karam accepts the Tony award for Best Play for "The Humans" onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards Theo Wargo/Getty Images Jane Krakowski arrives at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Show host James Corden participates in the opening performance during the American Theatre Wing's 70th annual Tony Awards Lucas Jackson/Reuters Cynthia Erivo, left, accepts the award for leading actress in a musical for "The Color Purple" from presenter Audra McDonald at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy arrive at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP James Corden and Julia Carey arrive at the Tony Awards Charles Sykes/Invision/AP James Corden performs onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Show host James Corden participates in the opening performance during the American Theatre Wing's 70th annual Tony Awards in New York Lucas Jackson/Reuters Theo Wargo/Getty Images Leslie Odom, Jr., left, winner of the award for leading actor in a musical for "Hamilton," and Renee Elise Goldsberry, winner of the award for featured actress in a musical for "Hamilton," pose in the press room at the Tony Awards Charles Sykes/Invision/AP James Corden performs at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Invision/AP Lupita Nyong'o applauds in the audience at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Invision/AP He fought back tears as he read a sonnet he wrote about the attack, which included the line, when senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised. Not one day. Barbra Streisand, who presented Hamilton with the Tony for best musical, said tonight our joy is tinged with sorrow, but added that she was thankful for the artists, composers and performers in the theatre because in times like these they console us. There was heightened security at the Beacon Theatre last night, where host James Corden began the show with a sombre tribute to the victims, saying: TODO: define component type brightcove On behalf of the whole theatre community, and every person in this room, our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity. All we can say is you are not on your own right now; your tragedy is our tragedy. Many of the nominees wore silver ribbons to show their support. Corden also provided lighter moments, joking that the show wont be all about Hamilton there will also be commercial breaks. He performed a medley from musicals including The Phantom Of The Opera, The Lion King, Grease, Cats, Annie, and Fiddler On The Roof before being joined by the acting nominees for a singalong. Other winners included Frank Langella, 78, who picked up the fourth Tony of his career, being named best actor in a play for The Father. Ivo van Hoves production of A View From The Bridge, which first appeared at the Young Vic, won best revival of a play. Van Hove also took home the director award. L ord of the Rings actor Sean Astin has paid tribute to the Orlando shooting victims by quoting the famous trilogy. Astin who played Samwise Gamgee in the Peter Jackson directed films wrote a poignant message on Facebook hours after lone gunman Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire on revellers at Floridas LGBT Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning. Alongside a picture of Gamgee and Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) he posted: I know. Its all wrong. By rights we shouldnt even be here. But we are. Its like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didnt want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, its only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. "Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didnt. Because they were holding on to something. The post ends with Baggins asking What are we holding on to, Sam? to which Gamgee replies: That theres some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And its worth fighting for. The quote has been shared more than 54,000 times and has amassed more than 84,000 likes. Other celebrities who have paid tribute following the massacre include Adele who broke down in tears after dedicating her Antwerp concert to the victims. James Corden also spoke of the massacre during the Tony Awards where he told the audience that hate will never win. James Corden pays tribute to Orlando shooting victims at Tony Awards Follow @StandardShowbiz for more news. F our black actors picked up the main awards for acting in a musical for the first time in Tony Award history. Actors Leslie Odom Jr, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs and Cynthia Erivo won the top musical prizes on Sunday night in a ceremony that celebrated diversity. In a night dominated by Hamilton, which picked up an impressive 11 gongs, its three stars were honoured for their roles. Odom Jr was named Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his performance in the show, while Diggs won Best Actor in a Featured Role. Tony Awards 2016 1 /36 Tony Awards 2016 James Corden performs at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Evan Agostini/Invision/AP The cast of "The Color Purple" performs onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Actress Jessica Lange accepts the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play for "Long Day's Journey Into Night" onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images An image of David Bowie is projected on a screen on stage as part of a In Memoriam tribute at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Lucy Liu and Jesse Tyler Ferguson present director Ivo van Hove with the award for Best Direction of a play for "A View from the Bridge" onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Lupita Nyong'o arrives at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Cate Blanchett wears a silver ribbon as she arrives at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Oprah Winfrey poses with the award for best revival of a musical for iThe Color Purplei the press room at the Tony Awards Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Actress Glenn Close performs onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Jourdan Dunn and Zac Posen attend the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Larry Busacca/Getty Images Presenter Sean Hayes and Jake Gyllenhaal speak onstage with host James Corden during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Cynthia Erivo attends the 70th Annual Tony Awards Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Model Karolina Kurkova attends the 70th Annual Tony Awards Cindy Ord/Getty Images James Corden wears a bathrobe and slippers during the pre-telecast portion of the Tony Awards Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Leona Lewis attends the 2016 Tony Award Getty Images laywright Stephen Karam accepts the Tony award for Best Play for "The Humans" onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards Theo Wargo/Getty Images Jane Krakowski arrives at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Show host James Corden participates in the opening performance during the American Theatre Wing's 70th annual Tony Awards Lucas Jackson/Reuters Cynthia Erivo, left, accepts the award for leading actress in a musical for "The Color Purple" from presenter Audra McDonald at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy arrive at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Charles Sykes/Invision/AP James Corden and Julia Carey arrive at the Tony Awards Charles Sykes/Invision/AP James Corden performs onstage during the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre Theo Wargo/Getty Images Show host James Corden participates in the opening performance during the American Theatre Wing's 70th annual Tony Awards in New York Lucas Jackson/Reuters Theo Wargo/Getty Images Leslie Odom, Jr., left, winner of the award for leading actor in a musical for "Hamilton," and Renee Elise Goldsberry, winner of the award for featured actress in a musical for "Hamilton," pose in the press room at the Tony Awards Charles Sykes/Invision/AP James Corden performs at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Invision/AP Lupita Nyong'o applauds in the audience at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre Invision/AP Goldsberry won the award for Best Actress in a Featured Role and Erivo won the Lead Actress prize for her performance in The Color Purple. The wins mark a historic moment for the awards, in a year that saw the Academy Awards tainted by the #OscarsSoWhite debate. Following the show, the official Tony account tweeted: For the first time in #TonyAwards history, all four musical acting awards have gone to people of color. James Corden, who hosted this years ceremony, told the crowd: Think of tonights show as like the Oscars, but with diversity. He added: This show is so diverse that Donald Trump threatened to build a wall around this theatre. TODO: define component type brightcove One viewer wrote on Twitter: The amount of diversity in the Tony Awards last night was beautiful, I hope that all award shows will recognise ALL talent in future #TonyS. Another posted: As a member of the film community but also a theatre lover, I was moved tonight by the diversity at the Tonys. Hollywood must do better. Corden opened this years ceremony by paying tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting. On behalf of the whole theatre community and every person in this room our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity, he said. This page is archived. Data published after 5 April 2022 can be found on the renewed website. Go to the new statistics page Published: 13 June 2016 Intensified or special support was received by 16 per cent of comprehensive school pupils In autumn 2015, a total of 45,900 comprehensive school pupils received intensified support, which made up 8.4 per cent of all comprehensive school pupils. The number has increased by five percentage points from 2011. The share of pupils having received special support remained in autumn 2015 on level with two previous years, at 7.3 per cent. Special support was received by 40,000 comprehensive school pupils. These data derive from Statistics Finlands education statistics. Share of comprehensive school pupils having received intensified or special support among all comprehensive school pupils 19952015, % 1) 1) Pupils accepted or transferred to special education before 2011 have been regarded as equal to pupils having received special support. In all, 16 per cent of comprehensive school pupils received intensified or special support in autumn 2015. Among the recipients of intensified support, 65 per cent were boys and 35 per cent girls. Seventy per cent of the recipients of special support were boys and 30 per cent girls. In autumn 2015, a total of 546,100 comprehensive school pupils were in pre-primary, basic and post-basic education of the comprehensive school, 51 per cent of whom were boys and 49 per cent girls. The statistics on special education in comprehensive schools contain data primarily on intensified and special support. Data can be obtained on pupils having received general support by viewing the number of those having received part-time special education. The database tables connected to the statistics on special education and the database tables related to statistics on pre-primary and comprehensive education allow examination of support received by pupils by area and place of implementation of teaching, for example. Data on special education in vocational education are collected at the end of this release and in Appendix table 9. In Kymenlaakso, one in five pupils received intensified or special support The share of comprehensive school pupils receiving intensified or special support varies between regions. The largest combined difference between recipients of intensified and special support was found in Kymenlaakso, where over 11 per cent of pupils received special support and nine per cent intensified support. The shares of those receiving support were smallest in Kainuu and Lapland, around 12 per cent in both. Share of comprehensive school pupils having received intensified or special support by region 2015, % In 2015, intensified support was arranged more than in the year before in all regions except Aland. Despite a decrease of nearly three percentage points, the share of Aland remained highest, at 11 per cent. In Mainland Finland, the share of pupils having received intensified support in all pupils varied between six and ten per cent in different regions. The share of pupils having received intensified support was lowest in Kainuu and highest in North Karelia. In Mainland Finland regions, the share of pupils having received special support in all pupils was between five and eleven per cent. The share of pupils having received special support was lowest in Central Ostrobothnia and highest in Kymenlaakso. In Aland, the share of pupils receiving special support was under four per cent. Three out of four pupils in intensified support received part-time special education Seventy-five per cent of the pupils who received intensified support in autumn 2015 received part-time special education, 56 per cent remedial teaching, and 39 per cent special needs assistance and/or interpretation services. Thirty-seven per cent of the pupils who received special support received part-time special education, 34 per cent received remedial teaching, and 56 per cent special needs assistance and/or interpretation services. Twenty-seven per cent of the pupils receiving special support had extended duration of compulsory education. Among the recipients of special support, 40 per cent received all education in a special education group and 19 per cent received all education in a general education group. The remaining 41 per cent received part of the education in a general education group and part in a special education group. Forty-nine per cent of the pupils having received special support in basic and post-basic education of the comprehensive school studied general education syllabuses in all subjects. Fourteen per cent of the pupils had individualised syllabuses for one subject, 13 per cent for two to three subjects, and 19 per cent for four or more subjects. Five per cent of the pupils receiving special support studied according to functional skill areas. The teaching can be arranged according to functional skill areas if it cannot be arranged by subject syllabuses due to the pupil's severe disability or illness. Share of pupils in part-time special education unchanged In the school year 2014 to 2015, altogether 123,100 comprehensive school pupils received part-time special education, which was 23 per cent of comprehensive school pupils in autumn 2014. The share remained on level with the previous school year. Share of comprehensive school pupils having received part-time special education among all comprehensive school pupils in academic years 2001/2002 to 2014/2015, % In autumn 2014, part-time special education included intensified support for 30,400 pupils and a plan for special support for 15,100 pupils. By subtracting we can conclude that around 77,600 of the 123,100 pupils having received part-time special education in the school year 2014 to 2015 received part-time special education as general support. In autumn 2014, a learning plan for intensified support had been made for 40,500 pupils and 39,400 pupils had received a decision for special support. In the school year 2014 to 2015, the total number of pupils having received part-time special education as general, intensified or special support was around 157,500, which is 29 per cent of all pupils in comprehensive schools in autumn 2014. The share is exactly the same as in autumn 2013. Number of vocational education students having received special education has continued growing The number of students in vocational education leading to a qualification having received special education has grown at least from 2004 onwards, when the production of these statistics was started: 12,500 pupils received special education in 2004, 18,300 in 2009, and 23,600 in 2014. The share of all students having received special education in all students in vocational education leading to a qualification was in the same years five, six and eight per cent. In 2014, there were 129,116 students in vocational education for young people (curriculum-based basic vocational education provided by educational institutions), of whom 16 per cent were special education students. Eighteen per cent of male students and 16 per cent of female students were special education students. In all, 58 per cent of special education students were men. Most special education students (86%) in vocational education for young people were studying in vocational education institutions. Twelve per cent of special education students attended special vocational education institutions and around one per cent other educational institutions providing vocational education. Eighty-two per cent of special education students in vocational education for young people were studying in the same groups (integrated) with other students. Source: Education. Statistics Finland Inquiries: Heli Hiltunen 029 551 3314, koulutustilastot@stat.fi Director in charge: Jari Tarkoma Publication in pdf-format (266.6 kB) Updated 13.6.2016 Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Support for learning [e-publication]. ISSN=1799-1617. 2015. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 26.10.2022]. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/erop/2015/erop_2015_2016-06-13_tie_001_en.html This page may have been moved, deleted, or is otherwise unavailable. To help you find what you are looking for: Enter Search Term(s): Still cant find what youre looking for? Send us a message using our contact us form. To report a broken link or other problems with the website, please include the URL. Thank you for visiting state.gov. Countries & Areas Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia 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 Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe Monday, 13 June 2016 23:50:57 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo Chilean rebar sales in April rose 6.1 percent, year-on-year, to 42,681 mt, according to the nations civil construction chamber, CChC. CChC said rebar sales in April diminished 1.2 percent, month-on-month, from 43,190 mt in March. Monday, 13 June 2016 15:15:05 (GMT+3) | Istanbul In April this year, Japan 's hot rolled plate and sheet shipments decreased by 9.6 percent compared to the previous month and were down by 6.7 percent compared to the same month last year, amounting to 804,000 metric tons. 75.2 percent of shipments were made to the domestic market, while the remaining 24.8 percent were made to the export markets, according to the Japan Iron and Steel Federation (JISF) data. In April of the current year, Japan 's hot rolled plate and sheet production amounted to 852,000 mt, up 1.2 percent month on month and rising by 0.8 percent year on year. Monday, 13 June 2016 23:40:47 (GMT+3) | Mexico s industrial production declined 0.9 percent in April, year-on-year, and 0.7 percent, month-on-month, according to data released by the nations statistics agency, Inegi. Inegi said output at the mining segment diminished 3.5 percent in April, year-on-year, and 2 percent, month-on-month. Following the same downtrend, industrial production at the local civil construction and the manufacturing industries fell 0.1 and 1.6 percent, year-on-year, respectively, and 0.1 and 0.7 percent, month-on-month. The only industrial sector to see an increase in output was the utilities segment, which includes the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, water and gas through pipes to the final consumer. Output at the utilities segment rose 3.2 percent in April, year-on-year, and 0.6 percent, month-on-month. Monday, 13 June 2016 16:44:57 (GMT+3) | Istanbul In the first quarter of the current year, South Africa 's seasonally adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) decreased by 1.2 percent quarter on quarter, while the country's unadjusted GDP fell by 0.2 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year, according to the detailed statistics released by Statistics South Africa Meanwhile, in the first quarter of this year the country's manufacturing sector registered an increase of 0.6 percent in output from the previous quarter. According to the report, the two manufacturing divisions that contributed the most were wood and wood products, paper, publishing and printing; and basic iron and steel, non-ferrous metal products, metal products and machinery. Monday, 13 June 2016 12:24:11 (GMT+3) | Istanbul According to the data provided by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK), in April this year Turkey 's pre-painted galvanized iron (PPGI) exports amounted to 6,370 mt, falling by 21.2 percent compared to the previous month and down 42.6 percent year on year, while the revenue from these exports totaled $5.5 million, down 12.4 percent month on month and falling 46.5 percent compared to the same month of 2015. During the first four months of the current year, Turkey s PPGI exports decreased by 36 percent to 23,120 mt, while the revenue from these exports amounted to $18.85 million, down 43 percent, both year on year. Bulgaria was Turkey 's leading PPGI export destination in the January-April period, with imports of 3,758 mt of PPGI from Turkey . In the given period, Bulgaria was followed by Algeria and Libya, with Algerias PPGI imports from Turkey amounting to 2,159 mt, while Libya received 1,633 mt of PPGI from Turkey in this period. Turkey 's main PPGI export destinations in the January-April period: Country Amount (mt) January- April 2016 January- April 2015 Y-o-y change (%) April 2016 April 2015 Y-o-y change (%) Bulgaria 3,758 2,908 29.23 1,282 716 79.05 Algeria 2,159 525 - 209 286 -26.92 Libya 1,633 1,650 -1.03 158 156 1.28 Romania 1,251 1,695 -26.19 822 962 -14.55 Georgia 1,248 812 53.69 318 176 80.68 According to a report released by the UK 's Office for National Statistics (ONS), in April this year the UK 's seasonally adjusted production index of manufacturing increased by 0.8 percent compared to April last year and was up by 2.3 percent compared to March. According to the ONS, in the February- April period of this year, the countrys seasonally adjusted production index of manufacturing rose by 0.1 percent quarter on quarter and decreased by 0.9 percent compared to the same quarter of last year. Posted at 8:30 a.m.; updated at 11 a.m. A low-profile professor at Washington University appears to have bested two of the tech industrys brightest lights in a long-simmering legal dispute thats just been settled. Robert Morley Jr., a member of the universitys engineering faculty since 1981, is the recipient of part of a $50 million settlement in a five-year dispute over who deserves credit for developing the Square credit-card reader. The case, which was slated to go to trial this week, has been settled, a federal court official confirmed Monday, although terms were not disclosed. But San Francisco-based Square Inc. recorded a $50 million charge related to the settlement in its most recent quarter, according to a regulatory filing last month. Mobile payments company Square Inc. was co-founded by two of St. Louis best-known entrepreneurs, Jim McKelvey and Jack Dorsey. In December 2010, Square sued Morleys corporation, REM Holdings 3, in U.S. District Court in St. Louis, alleging Jim McKelvey was wrongly left off a patent for Squares credit-card reader device. McKelveys St. Louis-based glass art business, Third Degree Glass Factory, lost a sale when it couldnt process a customers credit card, McKelvey told the Post-Dispatch in a 2013 interview. Squares lawsuit alleged that after McKelvey came up with the idea for processing credit cards using a smartphone, he contacted his friend Dorsey in 2008 about developing the invention. And in 2009, according to Squares suit, McKelvey met with Morley to discuss developing a prototype. Morley, who lives in University City, is an associate professor of engineering at Washington University and a member of REM Holdings 3. Tech entrepreneur Dorsey currently serves as CEO of both Twitter and Square. In 2014, Morley sued Square, McKelvey and Dorsey, alleging he had been unfairly cut out of the Square enterprise after developing key software. The publicized origin story of Square Inc. is a fabrication, Morleys lawsuit stated, adding he alone invented the Square card reader. Dr. Morley had over a decade of experience in the credit card industry, spanning card reader technology, industry contacts, and business operations, Morley alleged in his lawsuit. In contrast, Messrs. Dorsey and McKelvey had no noteworthy experience in the credit card industry. Through his attorney, Morley declined to comment for this story. After earning his doctorate in electrical engineering from Washington University, Morley joined the faculty in 1981, according to his profile on the schools website, and he holds multiple patents for magnetic stripe card verification systems. Square refuted Morleys claims that McKelvey and Dorsey approached him to be a co-founder of Square, according to court documents. Dorsey and McKelvey assumed all of the early financial risk, personally financing the business operations from the start, Squares answer to Morleys lawsuit stated. Morley did not contribute capital to the business or put personal funding at risk. Squares small plastic device that plugs into the audio jack of smartphones and iPads allows the magnetic stripes on credit cards to be read to process payments. Square has since expanded to include other products, including a device that processes chip credit cards and accepts Apple Pay. Square, which went public in November 2015, opened a St. Louis office in the Cortex district in the Central West End last year. The company reported net revenue of $379.3 million in its most recent quarter. In a regulatory filing May 6, Square said it signed a binding term sheet with Morley and REM Holdings on a settlement and recorded a $50 million charge for the quarter that ended March 31, although the settlement was not finalized at the time. According to court documents, REM Holdings has several co-owners in addition to Morley. The regulatory filing followed a judges decision in April to deny Square summary judgment. A Square spokeswoman declined to comment on the finalization of the settlement. When the all-cash settlement was disclosed as part of its earnings report last month, Squares CFO Sarah Friar said in a call with reporters: Were very happy to put this behind us, according to Forbes Magazine. In a statement to the Post-Dispatch, Morleys attorney Bradley Caldwell of the Dallas law firm Caldwell Cassady & Curry said: The matter has been resolved on mutually agreeable terms, but those terms are confidential. The parties are pleased to put the dispute behind them. Phyllis Swenson recognizes the financial breaking point. She sees it in the faces of people who seek shelter at her church. She hears it when they call there asking for food, a spare gift card, anything. Now, the shadow of unemployment and loss is stalking her. "It's scary," says Swenson, who recently received a foreclosure notice on her home. The 63-year-old Fairfax, Va., resident is among millions of Americans who haven't rebounded with the improving U.S. economy. Part-time work at Vienna Presbyterian doesn't pay all her bills, and almost a year of futile job-hunting has left her desperate. "Recovery?" she scoffs. "How are we recovering?" The labor market has staged a strong comeback: Unemployment is 4.7 percent, down from 9.5 percent when the economy started expanding in June 2009. Employers have added an average 150,000 jobs a month this year, though May slowed to just 38,000. The rate at which people quit, a handy measure of job mobility, is trending up. Yet some Americans still feel a deep sense of betrayal. Their journey back to meaningful work has been brutal if they even arrived leaving them with depleted savings, increased debt, homes lost to lenders and for some, long searches that stripped away their most valuable possession: self-esteem. Many who did find jobs now earn less, with fewer benefits. This has helped fuel Donald Trump's improbable rise and Bernie Sanders's strong challenge to Hillary Clinton. Thousands cheer at rallies when the Republican front-runner claims he'll put people back to work and the Democratic contender rails against income inequality. Swenson, who likes Sanders, is just trying to survive. Bloomberg News asked her and two other financially stressed people previously interviewed to share how they're doing now. These are their stories. Swenson has been looking for a full-time job since last fall. An Air Force veteran, she'd taken courses at a two-year college but didn't graduate. She'd worked at the Environmental Protection Agency and as a hotline operator and administrator at a center for women in need of psychological counseling. "I absolutely loved it" she says about her nine years at the center. She was helping people, which is her passion. She resigned in 2009 after a leadership change, a decision she regrets. The timing couldn't have been worse: Unemployment for high-school graduates without a four-year degree reached 11 percent that year, then stuck near there for much of 2010. Swenson became a cashier at a car dealership, but it closed three months later and she was out of work from 2010-2012. She collected unemployment and rented space in her home to help pay the mortgage; she also receives payments from her husband's life insurance. There are pictures of them in the dining room and kitchen, where he died of a sudden heart attack in 1994. "Warren," she says, pronouncing his name with love. "We were an interracial couple." Swenson is black and he was white. She joined a support group at Vienna Presbyterian Church, and after some volunteer work, landed two part-time jobs there that covered most of her bills. The church also helped with two mortgage payments. But churches, a nongovernmental safety net for millions of people, also are financially strapped. Last August, one of her positions was consolidated into another job, reducing her hours. She was "very surprised and deeply hurt," even though she says Vienna Presbyterian remains committed to helping her. She's stuck in a category labor statisticians describe as people working part-time who want full-time work. The number has stalled around 6 million after dropping from 9 million in June 2009. It averaged 4.4 million in 2007 before the recession. Employers want different things now, Swenson notices. When she mentioned her Air Force experience in the past, "Bingo! I got the job," she says. "Nowadays, people say, 'So what?'" She's interviewed at another church, which hired someone else, and at a hair salon, which never called back. She's gotten no response to other queries. "There are days when I think, 'Oh, man, I can't go through with this,'" Swenson says. But "I believe in miracles. I have seen miracles happen in my life." _______ Leticia Vives was "helpless" in September 2014. Then 44 years old, the former teller supervisor was cut in a Bank of America downsizing after 23 years and said she'd been out of work for about 19 months. Her husband's disability check was the family's sole income, so the mother of three was draining her 401(k) to pay bills. Almost two years later, Vives has a job and her Ansonia, Conn., home no longer lingers in foreclosure. But her ordeal leaves her oscillating between a dark read on its indelible scars and optimism borne of her religious devotion and love of family. A native of Sicily who came to the United States when she was 5, Vives says the American Dream isn't what her Italian relatives and others abroad made it out to be. Their vision is of a "glorious, rich place, and it's not really like that," she says. "You really have to work for what you want to have and sacrifice, and it doesn't come easy like they make it sound." She's lost faith in politicians who don't understand "how many people in this country are suffering," so she's decided not to vote in the presidential election. Armed with only a high-school diploma and a handful of industry certificates, Vives lacks the college degree that might have doubled her odds of securing work. And her job search was far different from when she started her career. "There's no human touch to it everything's electronic." During her 21-month odyssey, she submitted applications each week, while counting every dollar. Unemployment insurance helped: first state, then federal benefits for 11 months, until the emergency funds expired without congressional action in December 2013. That's when she tapped her retirement accounts more deeply. She finally got a response to an online application. Her long tenure at Bank of America impressed the boss at Bridgeport Dental Partners, Vives says, and he hired her as financial manager for six Connecticut offices in November 2014. His call came just in time for her to avoid foreclosure, which had dragged on for about two years. Vives now relishes working for a small business. But she yearns for a bigger paycheck. And her employer doesn't offer pension or 401(k) benefits that could help rebuild her almost-empty account. So, with all three daughters 19, 18 and 17 years old college-bound, Vives sees retirement as her biggest worry. "I'm grateful I have a job now, but I'm still not where I want to be." _________ Sally Richards is the rare job-seeker who found what she was looking for after two years, three moves, three part-time positions, resume after resume and months of silence from several prospective employers. A lawyer who specializes in health care, she'd served as a court advocate for about four dozen children in Ohio and had her own practice with more than 100 clients. When she moved to Washington in 2013, she anticipated landing a job in the city's big nonprofit sector where her skills could be put to broader use. When Bloomberg interviewed her in mid-2014, she'd spent six months looking for work. The response to her experience and the salaries at nonprofits were less than she expected. Toward the end of that year, Richards was fighting discouragement. "You get to a point where you say, 'Nobody knows about me. What am I good for?' Sometimes you say, 'I am approaching the job search all wrong.' And you try and reinvent yourself." She wanted to do something constructive, so she started consulting part-time at an insurance brokerage. She had, after all, run her own practice and could help with business development. But the job turned into an administrative position. "I lasted three months," she says. She did some grant writing for Volunteer Alexandria, which links professionals with nonprofits that need support. She worked part-time at an art center for a few months, then took a part-time job at a women's boutique last June. She enjoyed it "It taps into my marketing skills, my people skills" and still works there some weekends for fun. Of course, a part-time paycheck didn't pay life's full-time bills, and her credit-card debt increased. She went from living with her family, to another family, to a leaky basement apartment, which she eventually left. Richards was careful to avoid luxuries as she looked for a new home: no extra fees for a gym or pool. Last summer, Richards's grant writing and juvenile-law experience paid off. She attended a volunteer orientation at Stop Child Abuse Now, or SCAN, and met some of the leaders. Later, she saw an opening for a full-time director of development. She started at the nonprofit Sept. 8 and speaks with passion about its mission. She received a reminder recently of how tough the labor market is: a notice from a company she applied to 14 months ago saying it chose another candidate. "So many people I know from the job search still don't have full-time jobs," she says, adding she hasn't decided yet who she'll support in the presidential election. Satire, parody and comedy, plus a classic game show revival, make this a lively week in TV. Here's more. "BrainDead," 9 p.m. Monday on CBS Robert and Michelle King, creators of "The Good Wife," imagine a Washington in which politicians' brains are being devoured by space bugs. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Tveit and Tony Shalhoub star star in the horror-drama-satire. "Guilt," 8 p.m. Monday on Freeform An American student (Daisy Head) in London becomes a suspect after her roommate is murdered in a thriller with Billy Zane as a lawyer. (Daisy's dad is Anthony Head of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.") "Animal Kingdom," 8-10 p.m. Tuesday on TNT Ellen Barkin leads her four sons (including Scott Speedman and Shawn Hatosy) in a crime rings in a 10-episode drama inspired by the 2010 Australian movie. My review. "To Tell the Truth," 7 and 9 p.m. Tuesday on ABC Anthony Anderson is host of another classic game show revival, ABC's summer go-to. "Uncle Buck," 8 p.m. Tuesday on ABC Mike Epps stars in a new take on the 1989 John Candy comedy, with two episodes airing tonight. "Wrecked," 9 p.m. on TBS It's "Lost," but hilarious? Strangers are stranded on an island after a plane crash in a comedy debuting with back-to-back episodes. "Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?" 7 p.m. Saturday on Lifetime James Franco remakes the terrible Tori Spelling thriller, with Spelling and original star Ivan Sergei back. Oh, and there are vampires. THIS WEEK'S RETURNS "Major Crimes," 9 p.m. Monday on TNT "Aquarius," 8 p.m. Thursday on NBC "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," Thursday on Crackle "Home Free," 8 p.m. Thursday on Fox "Orange Is the New Black," Friday on Netflix "The Jim Gaffigan Show," 9 p.m. Sunday on TV Land "Murder in the First," 9 p.m. Sunday on TNT 'BrainDead,' 9 p.m. Monday on CBS Two stars (out of four) If "The X-Files" and "The West Wing" had a baby, chances are it wouldn't look anything like "BrainDead," arriving Monday on CBS. Everything about this new summer show is confounding. Is it horror? Political satire? Slapstick comedy? In the setup, Laurel Healy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) reluctantly agrees to return to Washington to work for a few months for her brother, Luke (Danny Pino), a Democratic senator. This is Washington, so everyone behaves bizarrely, from the politicians to their constituents (one delivers a giant chocolate dog that is devoured in the course of the first hour). One woman, though, arrives seeking help for her husband, who returned from sea on a container ship behaving nothing like his old self. She's frightened. Laurel is puzzled. ("Something weird is happening." "What?" "I don't know.") Soon, we're let in on what's going on. Ant-like bugs crawling out of a meteor sample delivered by container (and ignored after the government lays off scientists) are crawling into people's ears, doing bad things to their brains and sometimes making heads explode. First, though, there are dramatic personality changes, as drunken slackers become single-minded tea-totalers with an irresistible attraction to the 1984 Cars hit "You Might Think (I'm Crazy)" and an unshakable conviction that their way is the right way. One of those invaded is Sen. Red Wheatus (Tony Shalhoub, overacting as if in some improv sketch). Aaron Tveit ("Grease Live") is his aide, Gareth, who may be a love interest for Laurel. Meanwhile, a government shutdown looms. The creators of "BrainDead," Robert and Michelle King, gave us "The Good Wife," in its prime the smartest drama on broadcast TV. Here, though, you want to ask them what they were thinking. Of course, that's also a question most of us would like to ask Washington's politicians these days. What are they thinking (if they actually are)? Could their minds have been taken over by insects from outer space, leaving them in fact "BrainDead"? Maybe you have another question. Is "BrainDead" any good? Is it terrible? Is it in any way worth watching? If you're intrigued, better just go on and sample it. Beware, though; it could make your head explode. A marketing/promotions website called HomeSnacks believes it has a handle on the best suburbs in STL. If you live in Glendale, you'll probably agree with its rankings; if you live in Kirkwood or anywhere in Illinois, you probably won't. And if you live in Ladue or Chesterfield, do you really care? Using a combination of employment rates, household income, population density, home values and education of residents, the site came up with rankings for 63 municipalities in the St. Louis metropolitan area that have 5,000 or more residents. All that said, here is the Top 10: Glendale; Des Peres; Webster Groves; Clayton; Brentwood; Town And Country; Ballwin; Dardenne Prairie; Manchester; and Sunset Hills. (For the record: Kirkwood, 11; Ladue, 12; and Chesterfield, 14.) The highest ranking Illinois suburb is Glen Carbon (No. 25). Others on the east side of the river making the top half, plus one, are Maryville (27), Shiloh (28), Edwardsville (30) and Swansea (32). On the other end, here are the last 10: Black Jack, Dellwood, Jennings, Centreville, Granite City, Bridgeton, East St. Louis, Berkeley, Pontoon Beach and Cahokia. Cynthia Buck was at work when she received a call about her son. On the phone was the director of the County Justice Center. Your son is dead, he told Buck. Cordney DVor Buck had been an inmate in the St. Louis County Jail in Clayton after being arrested April 29 by Maryland Heights police. He faced a misdemeanor charge of invasion of privacy after allegedly crawling into a stall in a womens restroom in West Port Plaza. Three days later, on May 2, corrections officers found Buck dead. He was 30 years old. The police told me he killed himself, Cynthia Buck told me. It was surprising to me. I said I wanted to go see his body. They told me no. I was hurt because I couldnt see my son. Its been more than a month now since Bucks son died in the County Jail. He was laid to rest May 12. Still, his mother doesnt know anything about how or why his life ended. Attorney Jerryl Christmas said thats not unusual. People in poverty are always treated differently, Christmas said. Hes representing Buck and plans a news conference at noon Tuesday at the County Justice Center to bring attention to the lack of cooperation he said she is getting from county police and Clayton police, which is investigating the jail death. Christmas said he filed a Sunshine Law request to receive police reports and video from the jail and that he was told he couldnt have anything because the toxicology report isnt in. I was given the same answer when I called Clayton police and asked for a police report. Short of confirming Bucks name, age and time of death, the police wont release any information. And thats what bothers Bucks mom, and his friends, more than anything else. While they question the veracity of whether he committed suicide, mostly they just want answers. If they want us to think theyre covering up something, theyre doing a good job, said Lucas Rouggly, who is a friend of the Bucks and also their landlord. Rouggly is a Christian minister who runs the nonprofit Love the Lou, an organization that works to lift people out of poverty, particularly on the north side of the city, where Rouggly lives with his wife and children. I first met Rouggly when he came to our church in Wildwood three years ago to tell us about the work Love the Lou does in the city. My wife and I have since donated to the organization. A couple of years ago, a donor gave the ministry a two-story building in the 2800 block of North Kingshighway that once housed a television repair shop and a pizza delivery business. Cynthia Buck lives in one of the 10 upstairs apartments that Love the Lou rents to people who are struggling with poverty. Her son, Cordney, lived there, too. Downstairs, the ministry mentors neighborhood children. Rouggly and David Davenport, who also works at Love the Lou, said they got to know Cordney well over the past couple of years. Cordney was a good friend, Davenport said. Rouggly said he doesnt question the veracity of the charges his friend faced. After Maryland Heights police arrested Cordney, they found a warrant for his arrest out of Illinois. According to Madison County court records, Buck failed to register as a sex offender. Its unclear what the original charge was that required him to register. Rouggly believes the 57-year-old mother who lost a child deserves better than to be told over the phone that her son had died and then be denied any information about his death for more than a month. Suicide is totally out of character for him, Rouggly said. That isnt the Cordney I knew. Cordney Buck had been to court at 9 a.m. Monday, May 2, Christmas said, where he waived an extradition hearing to Illinois on the outstanding warrant. Then, he believes, Buck was moved into solitary confinement. He was dead by 10:41 a.m. How did he end up dead? Christmas asks. Thats what we want to know. When you take people into the justice center, you take on the responsibility for their care. If they die, you need to explain why. EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this column gave incorrect information about who notified the mother of her son's address. This version has been corrected. ST. PETERS A former children's camp counselor sent sexually explicit photos and videos to a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer he thought was a 13-year-old girl named Molly, authorities said Monday . Robert Alfred Lall, 26, of St. Peters, was charged with eight counts of sexual misconduct involving a child younger than 15. The St. Charles County prosecutor's office said Lall formerly worked as a counselor at Camp Gator, a children's camp run by the city of Lake Saint Louis, and as a lead gym attendant at the St. Peters Rec-Plex. The prosecutor's office said there is no evidence of any identifiable child victims in the case although the investigation is ongoing. Lall, of the 2800 block of Plum Leaf Circle, was being held at the St. Charles County Jail with cash bail set at $50,000. Court records said Lall sent the Canadian constable, who was based in Nova Scotia, eight photos and videos featuring his genitals through a messenger app called Kik. The officer masquerading as Molly twice told Lall she was 13, authorities said. Authorities said the electronic messaging occurred between May and August of last year. Court records said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security filed the probable cause statement on which the charges are based. The records say a homeland security agent spoke with Lall at his home last month and he admitted using Kik to send nude images of himself to girls. The court records do not explain how the contact between Lall and the Canadian officer began. Two Mexican wolf pups nearly had to return to the Endangered Wolf Center in Eureka from New Mexico this week. In April, the pups traveled more than 1,000 miles to be cross-fostered with a pack in New Mexico. Cross-fostering involves placing pups born in captivity with a surrogate mother in the wild, in hopes that they will grow up wild, breed and increase diversity among the species. But on Friday, a federal district court in New Mexico granted a preliminary injunction against the release of wolves into the state by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. New Mexico also requested that the two pups be taken from their new den and returned to Missouri. The judge ruled the pups could stay. Had they been taken from their den, they could not have returned to the wild. Mexican wolves are a critically endangered species, with fewer than 100 left in the wild. People just dont understand what their true nature is, said Regina Mossotti, director of animal care at the Endangered Wolf Center near Eureka. People think of Little Red Riding Hood or werewolves. But theyre very shy and want nothing to do with people. UPDATED at 11:40 a.m. Monday with more details of incident. A man at a suspected meth house was arrested Sunday night after an hours-long standoff with police in the 3000 block of Potomac Street. Police say the man held two other adult men hostage during the ordeal. No one was hurt. Police say the suspect is a 53-year-old man who pointed a shotgun at officers after they found meth being produced in a garage. After the standoff, the man was arrested on suspicion of flourishing, felonious restraint, drug possession and being a felon in possession of a firearm. His name has not been released. Police at the scene said the original call came in about 10:30 a.m. Sunday. They were told that a man was manufacturing meth in the garage. The landlord showed up and signed a form that allowed police to search the home. Officers entered the garage and saw evidence of a meth lab, police say. As the officers went to the front door, the man pointed a shotgun at officers and refused to leave the home. Two men, ages 22 and 25, were inside the home, as well. Police characterized them as "victims" and said the man wasn't allowing them to leave. The home is in the Gravois Park neighborhood. Officers had cordoned off a section of about eight city blocks and limited access. The incident ended before 11 p.m. and residents were allowed to return to their homes. ST. LOUIS A St. Louis County man on probation for burglary and theft has been charged in connection with a street robbery and double shooting last month in St. Louis that left one man dead. Enrique Mills, 22, is charged with first-degree murder, first-degree assault, robbery, attempted robbery and four counts of armed criminal action. He lives in the 11700 block of Villa Dorado Drive in unincorporated St. Louis County. On Saturday, after Mills was charged, Judge David Dowd set bail at $500,000. Police say Mills was an accomplice to Miles Y. Fisher, 22, who was charged last week in the same crimes. Charges say Mills and Fisher fatally shot Chavez Mopkins, 22, on May 27 in the 4000 block of Glasgow Avenue and wounded another man, identified in charges only as K.C. Court records say Fisher shot Mopkins, took a duffel bag from him while Mopkins was on the ground, then stood over him and shot him again. Mopkins died at a hospital the next day. After shooting Mopkins, Fisher demanded the property of a second victim and directed Mills to go through that victim's pockets, police say. Fisher then shot the second victim, hitting him twice in the head. That victim, who survived, is a 22-year-old man. He was found injured in the 4000 block of Vest Avenue. In 2012, Mills pleaded guilty of burglary and theft in St. Louis County. A judge sent him to prison for a 120-day shock sentence, in addition to five years' probation. He has been on probation since August 2012, according to David Owen, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections. WASHINGTON In the darkest days of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln asked Vermont Rep. Justin Smith Morrill, a founder of the Republican Party and the father of land-grant universities, if anyone was abusing him in Congress. Morrill replied that he hoped no one on Capitol Hill was abusing Lincoln. But Morrill could read the nastiness often proffered about Lincoln in the press. Said Lincoln: Oh, well, I didnt mean that. Personally, you are all very kind but I know we do not all agree as to what this administration should do and how it ought to be done. I do not know but that God has created some one man great enough to comprehend the whole of this stupendous crisis from beginning to end, and endowed him with sufficient wisdom to manage and direct it. I confess I do not fully understand and foresee it all. But I am placed where I am obliged to be the best of my poor ability to deal with it. And that being the case, I can only go just as fast as I can see how to go. Last month, Fox News host Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump about how he handles criticism. Said Trump: When Im wounded, I go after people hard. I try and un-wound myself. ... Ive been saying during this whole campaign that Im a counterpuncher you understand that. Im responding. I then respond times maybe 10 I dont know. I respond pretty strongly. In just about all cases, Ive been responding (to) what they do to me. In times of crisis, as we now face in the aftermath of the slaughter in the Orlando nightclub by a man who reportedly hated gays and pledged allegiance to the killers in Islamic State, Americans turn to their president for cues on how to respond. As the nation was digesting the awful news, the differences between Trump and Hillary Clinton were stark. Trump talked tough and sought affirmation for his most controversial policy proposal, a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. Clinton talked of healing but quickly segued to a familiar Democratic crisis refrain: gun control. In contextualizing the differences between Lincoln and Trump in the anecdote above, it should not follow that these times are any tougher on the leaders or the people than any good old days. In the midst of a Civil War, Lincoln was subject to crude and dehumanizing rhetorical attacks: long-armed ape, baboon, subhuman depictions in cartoons. Finally, he succumbed to the ultimate political attack, assassination. The age of Lincoln was brutal in its own right, and the only difference from today may be that the vitriol was not constantly sparked on social media. Lincoln talked often and matter-of-factly of being assassinated, and he held open-door meetings in the White House in which he sometimes didnt know if people came to harm him or praise him. In the middle of the war, someone took a shot at him in the middle of the night. The difference in the previous anecdotes is how leaders react to inevitable criticism that comes with the job. In these two examples, Lincoln made the criticism about the country; Trump made it about himself. This, more than braggadocio or belligerence, may ultimately be Trumps downfall if he doesnt correct it in the general election campaign. Ultimately, elections are about the future of the American people, not the fate of the candidates running to lead them. Clinton bowed to this axiom in her immediate statements after the Orlando shooting. But opportunism followed. Ultimately, the politics surface when politicians talk. This is a time to stand together and resolve to do everything we can do defend our communities and country, Clinton initially tweeted. Then: We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. She used President Barack Obamas exact words in describing the shooting as an act of terror and an act of hate. Subtly, intended or not, it was a message that what youve seen from Obamas reaction to terrorist threats would flow forward into a Clinton administration. Trump talked tough, and was accusatory and self-congratulatory. Orlando was evidence that his call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration was correct, Trump said. He was not comforting. What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning, he tweeted. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough. If Obama didnt use the words radical Islamic terrorism in describing the shooting, Trump said, the president should resign. Then, Trump tweeted: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Nine area departments answered the call to help put out the fire that did extensive damage to the Apple Valley Motel on Old Chain of Rocks Road near Granite City. FERGUSON The First Baptist Church of Ferguson played host Saturday to food trucks, inflatable obstacle courses and free dental procedures for hundreds of area residents. The so-called Crossover evangelical event, hosted by the Ferguson church and the North American Mission Board, preceded the influx of thousands of Southern Baptist church members to St. Louis this week for their annual convention. Members of the North American Mission Board come a week early to every convention and plan a community event nearby. This year, they picked Ferguson. When Pastor Joe Costephens of First Baptist Church of Ferguson was approached by mission board leaders about planning the block party and additional community service projects, it was a no-brainer, he said. The event was hosted just minutes from the site of the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown by then-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, which sparked racial unrest in the community for months. The race issue isnt one that First Baptist Church has shied away from, nor have Southern Baptist Convention leaders. The whole point of this is to impact the community further than we already have, Costephens said. The church has a great reputation already, but we want to be more forceful and meet needs, whether thats food, smoke detectors anything. But were also wanting to bring the realization that everyone in the community has something to bring as well. So its not just, Hey, we are here to help. Its, Hey, we need each other to change our city. Volunteers helped register visitors as they came in, giving them wristbands that qualified them for free food from local food trucks, pizza shops and an ice cream vendor. Fans blowing mist lined the parking lot, combating the 93-degree weather. Jerron Banks, a Riverview resident, learned about the event from a friend whose mother is a First Baptist member. Banks said its great that the church and volunteers from around the country are trying to help, but theres still a lot more to do to truly rebuild the Ferguson community. Rome wasnt built in a day, but this is a good start, he said. Chineta Reed, a Ferguson resident, said events like this make a difference. She brought her children after seeing signs all week throughout the community. Theyre sharing something positive out of a place thats known for something negative, Reed said. Youve always got to go through the bad to get to the good. Beyond the fun and food, Send Relief, the new outreach arm within the mission board, brought an RV equipped with dental chairs and tools, and several local dentists donated their time to perform tooth extractions, fillings and other outpatient procedures for those who needed them. Pharmacists met the patients after their procedures to talk about follow up, and patients were able to fill any necessary prescriptions at a local Walgreens, on the organizations dime. Organization leaders werent able to estimate the full cost of the event Saturday afternoon as it depended on community participation. Volunteers were also canvassing the community with 600 smoke detectors, hoping to install them in at least 200 homes. All leftover detectors go to the Ferguson Fire Department to give away later. The block party was also a time to show the public First Baptist Churchs new food pantry. Its at the church, 333 North Florissant Road, and is open 9 a.m. to noon on the second and fourth Thursday of the month. The whole reason were doing this is Jesus, Costephens said. My personal belief, I grew up in North County, is whats going to restore a community is not another program, another business, another whatever. Theres a deeper need in peoples hearts that makes us dissatisfied. Send Relief had volunteers coming to Ferguson in droves Saturday as more people arrived in St. Louis ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention. The city expects 18,000 attendees throughout the week for the convention that officially starts Tuesday at Americas Center, according to Tony Paraino, director of communications for the St. Louis Convention & Visitors Commission. The event could generate up to $13.4 million in direct economic impact, which Paraino called very exciting for St. Louis. The mission board swoops in to help host events like Fergusons block party to remind Southern Baptists to be more engaged locally, mission board President Kevin Ezell said. Some dont see the needs right under their own nose, under the shadow of their own steeples. We want to help churches in Denver and people in Dubai, but we miss people right down the street. ST. LOUIS A little less than a year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all states. That same weekend, Pride St. Louis held its annual PrideFest downtown. This years Pride festivals come in the wake of a mass shooting at an Orlando gay bar, Pulse, leaving 49 patrons dead on Sunday. In the hours that followed, St. Louisans held a vigil in the Grove for those killed and wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Now, Pride Month celebration leaders are working with area police to promise tight security at the June events, while still honoring the meaning of Pride Month coming together to celebrate. We hold our events to commemorate the Stonewall Riots (in 1969), to educate and celebrate the lives of people that weve lost, Ethan Barnett, vice president of Pride St. Louis, said. PrideFest can we whatever you want it to be. Its an important reminder for people that the fight is not over. St. Louis PrideFest, the largest local celebration, will take place at Soldiers Memorial in downtown St. Louis from June 24 to 26. Pride St. Louis has already been meeting with St. Louis police to discuss ways to increase volunteer and paid security at the event. The rush to improve PrideFest security also comes after an Indiana man was found with weapons and explosives, allegedly on his way to the Los Angeles Pride festival. However, organizers still want festgoers to feel safe in their ability to celebrate. PrideFest is a great place to come together and say, Were not scared, Barnett said. We are not going to be intimidated. We are not going to back down. We are not going to stop the fight. Jill Aul, co-chair of Pride St. Charles, said organizers plan to meet with the St. Peters Police Department to prepare for increased security for the event this weekend. Tragedy can happen anywhere, Aul said. We are doing everything we can to be proactive and have a safe and secure festival. While Aul hopes to focus on the celebratory aspect of PrideFest, she also plans to incorporate some memorial elements into the festival. Nothing is set in stone yet, but she hopes to hand out memorial ribbons and organize an art project, such as decorated hearts to send to survivors and victims families. It is better to meet hate with love, Aul said, invoking the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Pride St. Charles is 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at 370 Lakeside Park in St. Peters. The following weekends commemorations feature not only the downtown St. Louis PrideFest, but also a smaller Tower Grove neighborhood event at Ritz Park. I think were going to see the community come out in bigger numbers in solidarity, not in fear, Michael Powers, co-organizer of Tower Grove Pride said. Tower Grove Pride is June 25 at Ritz Park on South Grand. Powers said organizers plan on holding the same festival they have held for the past four years and has had no vendors express concern since Sunday. Weve carved out space for our community, Powers said. Were not going to be afraid; were stronger than that. Powers said he hopes the shooting in Orlando will show people why Pride Month is necessary. Threats are unpredictable, and something members of the LGBT community already deal with, whether walking down the street or in the workplace, Powers said. Leon Braxton, vice president of St. Louis Black Pride, said having a heightened awareness of threats is even more relevant for black members of the LGBT community. The cross-section identity creates an even bigger target, Braxton said. St. Louis Black Pride Weekend is not until Aug. 5, but Braxton said they will never stop thinking about the Orlando victims. Its a shame that in 2016, with marriage equality, that we now have to look out for homegrown terror, Braxton said. None of the festivals has had problems with violence. And while the safe space of the festivals has been dented, Barnett said, that doesnt take away from the collective force of Pride Month. This violence is something that people wake up to and go to bed with, Powers said. It hasnt stopped us from living our lives, and wont stop us moving forward. ORLANDO, Fla. The gunman whose attack on a gay nightclub left 49 victims dead appears to have been a "homegrown extremist" who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic radical groups, the White House and the FBI said Monday. As Orlando mourned its dead with flowers, candles and vigils, counterterrorism investigators dug into the background of 29-year-old Omar Mateen for clues to why the American-born Muslim carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. "So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States, and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network," said FBI Director James Comey. But he said Mateen was clearly "radicalized," at least in part via the internet. Comey said the bureau is also trying to determine whether Mateen had recently scouted Disney World as a potential target, as reported by People.com, which cited an unidentified federal law enforcement source. "We're still working through that," Comey said. The FBI chief defended the bureau's handling of Mateen during two previous investigations into his apparent terrorist sympathies. As for whether the FBI should have done anything differently, "so far the honest answer is, 'I don't think so,'" Comey said. Wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, Mateen opened fire at Pulse Orlando early Sunday in a three-hour shooting rampage and hostage siege. During the attack, he called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State group. At the White House, President Barack Obama said there is no clear evidence so far that Mateen was directed by the group, calling the attack an apparent example of "homegrown extremism." More details of the bloodbath emerged, with Orlando Police Chief John Mina saying Mateen was "cool and calm" during phone calls with police negotiators. But the chief said he decided to send the SWAT team in and bash through a wall after Mateen holed up with hostages in a bathroom and began to talk about bombs and an explosive vest. "We knew there would be an imminent loss of life," Mina said. Five of the wounded were reported in grave condition, meaning the death toll could rise. A call went out for blood donations. In Orlando, mourners piled bouquets around a makeshift memorial, and people broke down in tears and held their hands to their faces while passing through the growing collection of flowers, candles and signs about a mile from the site of the massacre. About 300 employees of the Red Lobster restaurant chain some in business suits, some in chef's uniforms walked two-by-two across the street to the memorial, each carrying a red or white carnation. "As the names come out, they are overwhelmingly Latino and Hispanic names," Christina Hernandez, a Hispanic activist, told a gathering. "It was Latino Night when this tragedy occurred. These were not just victims of the LBGT community, but of the Hispanic community, as well. This was senseless bloodshed." Despite Mateen's pledge of fealty to the Islamic State, a murky combination of other possible motives and explanations emerged, with his ex-wife saying he was mentally ill bipolar and his Afghan-immigrant father suggesting he may have acted out of anti-gay hatred. He said his son got angry recently about seeing two men kiss. Mateen's grasp of the differences between Islamic extremist groups appeared to be shaky. During three calls with 911 dispatchers, Mateen not only professed allegiance to ISIS but also expressed solidarity with a suicide bomber from the Nusra Front, and a few years ago he claimed connections to Hezbollah, too both ISIS enemies, according to Comey. The FBI became aware of Mateen in 2013 when co-workers told agents about his comments about connections to al-Qaida and Hezbollah, Comey said. The FBI launched a 10-month preliminary investigation but closed it after following him, reviewing his communications and questioning him, the FBI chief said. His name surfaced again as part of another investigation into the Nusra Front bomber. The FBI found Mateen and the man had attended the same mosque and knew each other casually, but the investigation turned up "no ties of any consequence," Comey said. Despite the 911 call from the club, Mateen's intentions seemed to become murkier when his Afghan immigrant father suggested another motive: anti-gay hatred. The father said his son got angry a few months ago when he saw two men kissing in Miami. Also, Mateen's ex-wife attributed the violence to mental illness, saying he was bipolar and abusive toward her. Obama said investigators are still looking into the killer's motivations and considering all possibilities, noting that Muslim extremist groups like the Islamic State have been known to target gays. The Islamic State's radio called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the extremist group, hailed the attack, saying that it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it was the worst attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. The statement gave no indication of whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters Monday that the massacre was "the act of a terrorist," and added: "I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are." Horror inside the club Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. By Monday morning, families of 24 of the victims had been notified, Dyer said. Workers removed the bodies four at a time on stretchers out of the club and loaded them into white vans. The action was repeated over and over. The covered bodies were taken to the County Medical Examiner's office. All were there by 11 p.m., Dyer said. On Monday morning, officials emphasized that there was no immediate threat to the public and said they didn't know whether anyone would be charged as part of the investigation. Jon Alamo had been dancing at the Pulse for hours when he wandered into the club's main room just in time to see the gunman. "You ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? That's how he was shooting at people," he said. "My first thought was, oh my God, I'm going to die," Alamo said. "I was praying to God that I would live to see another day." Pulse patron Eddie Justice texted his mother, Mina: "Mommy I love you. In club they shooting." About 30 minutes later, hiding in a bathroom, he texted her: "He's coming. I'm gonna die." Justice's name would eventually be added to the city's list of those killed in the shooting. At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb. The previous deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself. Act of terrorism? Mateen's family was from Afghanistan, and he was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida, authorities said. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the club in which he professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The official was familiar with the investigation, but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The extremist group did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, but the IS-run Aamaq news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. Even if the attacker supported IS, it was unclear whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateen was not unknown to law enforcement: In 2013, he made inflammatory comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent Ronald Hopper, who called the interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber, but the agent described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Hopper said authorities had "suggestions that individual has leanings towards that." Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In a separate incident, an Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested Sunday in Southern California and told police he was headed to a West Hollywood gay pride parade. 'Nobody stood a chance' The Orlando shooting started about 2 a.m., with more than 300 people inside the Pulse. "He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance," said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next to her get shot. "I just tried to get out of there." At 2:09 a.m., Pulse posted on its Facebook page: "Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running." Mateen exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club, and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, the shooter also had a handgun and some sort of "suspicious device," Police Chief John Mina. About 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the remaining club-goers, Mina said. At first, officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to the dead after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body, Mayor Dyer said. The robot was sent in after SWAT team members put explosive charges on a wall and an armored vehicle knocked it down in an effort to rescue hostages. Just before 6 a.m., the Pulse posted an update on its Facebook: "As soon as we have any information, we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love." Authorities were looking into whether the shooter acted alone, according to Danny Banks, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "This is an incident, as I see it, that we certainly classify as domestic terror incident," Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. Mateen's father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News about his son seeing the men kissing a couple of months ago. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," Seddique said. "We are in shock like the whole country." Mateen was a security guard with a company called G4S. In a 2012 newsletter, the firm identified him as working in West Palm Beach. In a statement sent Sunday to the Palm Beach Post, the company confirmed that he had been an employee since September 2007. State records show that Mateen had held a firearms license since at least 2011. President Barack Obama called the shooting an "act of terror" and an "act of hate" targeting a place of "solidarity and empowerment" for gays and lesbians. He urged Americans to decide whether this is the kind of "country we want to be." LONDON MARKET OPEN: Dollar retreat helps pound, euro; tech stocks sold Wednesday, October 26, 2022 - 09:03 The pound and euro were benefiting from a weaker dollar early Wednesday, while sterling was getting an additional lift from returning investor confidence in the UK as Rishi Sunak takes charge as prime minister. Sterling was quoted at $1.1540 early Wednesday, sharply higher from $1.1464 at the London equities close on Tuesday. The pound had not hit $1.15 since mid-September. The euro traded at $1.002 early Wednesday, moving back above parity for the first time since the start of October, and up from $0.9963 late Tuesday. Against the yen, the dollar was quoted at JP147.38, down from JP147.77. The FTSE 100 index was down 15.08 points, or 0.2%, at 6,998.40. The mid-cap FTSE 250 was down 53.44 points, or 0.3%, at 17,778.19, though the AIM All-Share was down just 0.11 of a point at 799.33. The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.2% at 699.57, the Cboe UK 250 down 0.1% at 15,202.98, and the Cboe Small Companies flat at 12,269.58 In European equities on Tuesday, the CAC 40 in Paris was marginally higher, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was 0.2% lower. In London, Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust was down 1.9% in early dealings as its tech stock-heavy investment portfolio was suffering from the disappointing results overnight from Alphabet and Microsoft. Big technology shares Alphabet and Microsoft both lost more than 6% after releasing quarterly figures - Alphabet A shares lost 6.6% in after-hours trade in New York, while Microsoft lost 6.7%. Alphabet reported a sharp fall in quarterly income on higher costs and foreign exchange headwinds but recorded a rise in revenue. The California-based Google owner reported a 27% fall in net income to $13.91 billion in the third quarter of 2022 compared to $18.94 billion a year before. More positively, revenue rose by 6.1% to $69.09 billion in the period from $65.12 billion. The company attributed the revenue growth to healthy fundamental growth in Search and momentum in the Cloud business. Microsoft reported a rise in first-quarter earnings, with Chair & Chief Executive Satya Nadella arguing that digital technology was the "ultimate tailwind" in a world facing increasing challenges. In the three months that ended September 30, revenue totalled $50.12 billion, up 11% from $45.32 billion the previous year. Revenue in the Intelligent Cloud segment increased by 20% against the previous year, while revenue in Productivity & Business Processes grew by 9.0%. Microsoft, however, saw a fall in net income. The figure dropped 14% to $17.56 billion from $20.51 billion a year prior. In the US, the week's strong rally continued, with stocks ending sharply higher on Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.1%, the S&P 500 up 1.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite up 2.3%. Back in London, WPP was at the bottom of the FTSE 100, giving back 3.5%. Its third-quarter revenue rose 10% to 3.57 billion, with like-for-like revenue up 2.7%. The advertising and marketing firm noted its revenue less pass-through costs increased 13% to 2.99 billion. Chief Executive Mark Read said the firm "continues to show strong momentum". He added: "Our growth over the year has been strong with full year like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs now upgraded to 6.5% to 7.0%." Reckitt Benckiser was 3.0% lower. The consumer healthcare firm's revenue increased by double-digit percentages in the third quarter, with its Hygiene, Health and Nutrition all seeing strong growth. Total revenue was up 14% to 3.74 billion, with like-for-like revenue up 7.4%. "Reckitt delivered another quarter of broad-based growth amidst challenging market conditions, as we continue to innovate and improve on our in-market execution," Chief Executive Nicandro Durante said. "My priority is firmly focussed on continuing to execute on our strategic path, to deliver sustainable mid-single digit growth, and mid-20s adjusted operating margins by the mid-2020s." Reckitt narrowed its like-for-like net revenue growth target for 2022 upward to 6% to 8% from 5% to 8% previously. At the other end of the blue chips, AstraZeneca was up 2.6% - crowning the FTSE 100. The healthcare stock was on the rise after its CAPItello-291 Phase III trial showed its capivasertib, in combination with Faslodex, demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival versus placebo in patients with advanced or metastatic breast cancer. The trial met both primary endpoints. Susan Galbraith, executive vice president of Oncology R&D at Astra, said the data was "exciting" and shows capivasertib could become a "new first-in-class treatment option". Shore Capital kept Astra shares at 'buy'. "Positive results announced today continue to reinforce our belief that AZN boasts an industry-leading R&D pipeline with a breadth of next-generation innovative assets," it said. "We continue to see plenty of scope for this pipeline to surpass expectations and deliver long-term, margin-enhancing revenue growth." In Asia, the Shanghai Composite closed up 0.8% and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong added 0.7%. The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.7%. The S&P/ASX 200 stock index in Sydney closed up 0.2%. Gold was quoted at $1,666.70 an ounce early Wednesday, higher than $1,655.96 on Tuesday evening in London. Brent oil was trading at $90.49 a barrel, down from $91.91 late Tuesday. In the economic calendar, there's a US goods trade balance print, before the Bank of Canada issues an interest rate decision at 1500 BST. Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. Baird analyst, Colin Sebastian, noted that this week (14 June), Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) hosts its first investor day in Hangzhou, China, with presentations from key executives reviewing opportunities in retail, media, logistics, payments/finance and cloud computing. The analyst believes this event could be an important milestone for the company, as it seeks to reassure shareholders that the underlying business remains vibrant, despite recent negative headlines. Baird remains constructive on shares, as Alibaba remains well positioned to drive significant growth across multiple businesses in the worlds largest Internet market. No change to Outperform or $94 PT. For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Alibaba click here. For more ratings news on Alibaba click here. Shares of Alibaba closed at $75.92 yesterday. Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE: GVA) announced today that Kenny Construction Company (Kenny), a wholly-owned subsidiary, has been awarded four sewer renewal contracts by the City of Chicago. The four contracts, totaling approximately $119 million, will be booked into backlog during the second quarter of 2016. The contracts are part of a multi-year program to renew Chicagos aging brick sewers. The city of Chicago has over 4,600 miles of sewer, and renews approximately 50 miles of 8-inch to 48-inch diameter sewer pipes and 5,000 sewer structures annually. Kenny will be responsible for the cured-in-place pipe (CIPP) lining, and CIPP structure lining for two years with a one-year optional extension. CIPP lining and structure lining extends the life of hydraulically adequate sewers at lower cost than excavating and replacing sewers in the streets and is less disruptive to vehicular and pedestrian traffic during construction. The project is funded by the City of Chicago and Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Construction is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2016 with an estimated completion date of May 2019. Minerals Technologies Inc., (NYSE: MTX) announced today that it has entered into a commercial agreement with a premier North American paper company to provide Fulfill E-325 higher filler technology. Minerals Technologies (MTI) now has 27 agreements with paper mills worldwide for adoption of the Fulfill technology, which allows papermakers to reduce costs by replacing higher-cost pulp with increased loading levels of precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC). The agreement with this papermaker, which wishes to remain unnamed for competitive reasons, marks MTI's ninth in North America. "The widespread adoption of our Fulfill technology is further evidence that MTI's solutions-oriented R&D efforts continue to yield valuable innovations for our customers. Technological innovation is a key driver in the company's growth strategy." said Joseph C. Muscari, chairman and chief executive officer. The Fulfill E-325 series allows papermakers to replace higher-cost pulp by increasing PCC loading levels three to five percentage points, from a typical level of approximately 20 percent up to 25 percent. "In addition to the 27 commercial agreements we now have, MTI is also actively engaged with 17 additional paper mills that are interested in FulFill." said W. Rand Mendez, senior vice president & managing director, Paper PCC. PCC is a specialty pigment for filling and coating high-quality paper. By substituting PCC for more expensive wood fiber, papermakers are able to produce brighter, higher quality paper at lower cost. Minerals Technologies originated the satellite concept for making and delivering PCC on-site at paper mills, and the concept was a major factor in revolutionizing North American papermaking from an acid to an alkaline-based technology. Minerals Technologies constructed its first PCC satellite plant in 1986. Today, the company has 64 satellite plants in operation or under construction around the world and continues to lead the industry with consistent quality and technical innovation. PENN WEST PETROLEUM LTD. (NYSE: PWE) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of all of its Saskatchewan assets, including its Dodsland Viking area, for cash consideration of $975 million, subject to normal closing adjustments. The Saskatchewan assets are split approximately evenly between medium and heavy oil properties in the West and the Dodsland light-oil properties in the East. The purchaser is Teine Energy Ltd., a Viking producer backed by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. This transaction, together with additional Alberta asset dispositions for proceeds of approximately $140 million, is expected to close in the second quarter. The total cash consideration from asset dispositions to date in 2016 is approximately $1.3 billion, reducing our pro forma Net Debt to approximately $600 million from $2.1 billion at year-end 2015. As a result, we expect to be comfortably in compliance with all of our financial covenants at the end of the second quarter and the remainder of 2016. "Saskatchewan is a coveted asset amongst many of our competitors and with this transaction we have capitalized on the demand for high-quality oil assets of scale", David Dyck, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Penn West commented. "This is a pivotal transaction for the Company. While we have made significant progress over the past three years in reducing our total debt, this asset sale results in a markedly improved capital structure and positions the Company in the top tier of our peers in terms of all significant debt metrics. Additionally, the sales metrics received are meaningfully above recent precedent transactions in the area and are very accretive to our shareholders." We expect to realize nearly $100 million annually as a result of decreased interest expenses and significant reductions in G&A expenses through this transaction, which more than offsets the loss in net operating income associated with the Saskatchewan properties(1). The following are some of the key metrics and implied transaction multiples for the Saskatchewan properties based on our full year 2016 forecast: Production 13,650 boe/d Operating Cost $14.75/boe Field Netback(1) $12.75/boe 2P Reserves(2) 53 MMboe Implied Production Multiple $71,400/boe/d Implied Net Operating Income (NOI) Multiple(1) 15 times Implied 2P Reserves Multiple (2) $18.40/boe (1) Based on actual achieved commodity prices through May 2016 and C$60/bbl Edmonton Par for the balance of 2016 (2) Based on year-end 2015 working interest reserves The effective date of the Saskatchewan assets sale is May 1, 2016 and closing is expected to occur in the second quarter, subject to the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of closing conditions customary in transactions of this nature. In addition to the sale of its Saskatchewan properties and through a series of transactions, Penn West sold other Alberta properties for proceeds of approximately $140 million with associated 2016 production of 3,100 boe/d. RBC Capital Markets acted as our exclusive financial advisor on these transactions. Corporate Update and Transformation to a Leading Alberta Oil ProducerThe sale of our Saskatchewan assets is a key element of our transformation strategy allowing us to streamline and high-grade the remainder of our portfolio to once again grow reserves, production and funds flow from operations at a profitable and measured pace. "While the Dodsland Viking was an important contributor to Penn West's growth profile in recent years, this transaction will allow us to replace these largely mature assets by funding the more prospective and numerous growth opportunities in our Cardium and Alberta Viking positions; areas where we are more focused and more competitive", commented Dave Roberts, President and Chief Executive Officer of Penn West. "We forecast that the combination of a concentrated asset portfolio, lower operating cost base, and reduced interest expense burden will allow us to grow the Company's production by approximately 10% annually well into the next decade, while still generating funds flow from operations in excess of our capital spending, at current commodity prices." As we continue to monetize our non-core assets over the balance of the year, our remaining operations will be focused in Alberta as follows: Our redefined Cardium area will be focused on our unsurpassed land position encompassing 700 net sections and 1,500 drilling locations, or over 20 years of drilling activity. Our first quarter production in the Cardium area was approximately 19,500 boe/d with operating costs of $10/boe and netbacks of $17/boe. We expect the Cardium to continue driving profitable liquids growth through a combination of waterflood programs, infill drilling and new development for the foreseeable future. Recent production results from Cardium wells in both the Pembina and Willesden Green areas over the last two quarters continue to exceed expectations with production volumes meaningfully above historical type curves. Additionally, this transaction gives Penn West the financial flexibility to begin exploiting the multi horizon potential in our Cardium area. We hold approximately 500 net sections in the Belly River and Mannville formations that we believe are highly prospective. These plays will form part of our development strategy that we will be executing over the next several years. In recent years our technical understanding of the Viking play has extended into Alberta through an active farm-out program as well as the exploratory findings and strong production results from offsetting peers. In the Alberta Viking we see the opportunity to replicate our Dodsland experience, with similar strong economics, but with much higher growth potential given the early stage life cycle of the play. While our Alberta Viking first quarter production was only approximately 1,000 boe/d, we expect this area will be an important focus of our 2017 development program and a key growth area in the foreseeable future. Our Alberta Viking position encompasses approximately 174 net sections and has over 500 potential drilling locations. The Peace River area is focused on our Peace River Oil Partnership (PROP) with our joint venture partner. We expect this area to remain a stable production and cash generation vehicle for the Company, as approximately 90% of our operating and capital costs are paid for by our partner. Our first quarter net production at Peace River was approximately 5,000 boe/d, 98% weighted to crude oil, with operating costs of $1/boe(3). Additionally, we have had positive results from two thermal pilots in the area and we expect larger scale thermal recovery, in a higher crude oil environment, would allow meaningful recovery of the significant oil potential in our Peace River acreage. (3) Net of partner carried operating costs We are continuing to rationalize a number of remaining non-core assets throughout the remainder of the year. We have a number of ongoing asset sale processes, at various stages of completion, and anticipate divesting these remaining high-cost, largely negative net operating income, properties by year-end. Total remaining production expected to be sold is approximately 20,000 boe/d with a range of values expected at $100 million to $200 million. Importantly, these transactions will also reduce the Company's well count by approximately 5,000 wells and our asset retirement obligation by $200 million. "Three years ago Penn West embarked on a path to create the most competitive conventional oil producer in Western Canada. The journey was perhaps longer and more difficult than anyone expected as we have experienced the worst crude oil crash in over a decade. We persevered and we can now see the most challenging time in our Company's history coming to a close. As a result of our actions, we will have reduced debt by over $2.8 billion in the last three years, dramatically lowered our cost structure and meaningfully improved our operational execution. We are very excited to open a new chapter as our focused Alberta operations will create a top quartile Company with a strong and sustainable growth profile, operating costs of $10-$12/boe, and low leverage metrics", concluded Dave Roberts. Our second half 2016 development program of $5-10 million is focused on the Peace River area, but we are actively monitoring opportunities to increase spending on optimization and base maintenance activities. We are also reviewing plans to ramp up spending and development activity in the second half of the year as commodity prices continue to strengthen. We will be formalizing our 2017 activity plans in the coming months to profitably grow our production and cash flows. We expect that we will be able to deliver a plan with improved efficiencies, lower costs, and meaningful reserve additions. Guidance We expect to provide updated corporate guidance and more details on our 2017 plan in the near future. Conference Call and Webcast Details A conference call and webcast presentation will be held to discuss the matters noted above at 10:00am MT (12:00pm ET) on Monday, June 13, 2016. To listen to the conference call, please dial 647-427-7450 or 1-888-231-8191 (toll-free). A man looks at an electronic board showing the recent exchange rate between Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar and Japan's Nikkei average (R) outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, June 13, 2016. REUTERS/Issei Kato By Stanley White TOKYO (Reuters) - Fitch Ratings warned on Monday that it could downgrade Japan's sovereign rating after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delayed an increase in the nationwide sales tax by two-and-a-half years due to worries the economy has not shaken off deflation. Japan's anemic growth is also a credit weakness because Abe's attempts to reflate the economy, known as "Abenomics," have not raised potential growth, Fitch said in a statement. The government could avoid a downgrade if it lays out new steps to meet its fiscal discipline targets, but a lack of measures to bolster confidence in its fiscal policy could lead to a downgrade, Fitch said. "The government has decided to postpone the tax increase, which leaves us to revise our assessment of the government's commitment to fiscal consolidation," said Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia-Pacific sovereigns at Fitch. "If it looks like the debt ratio is going to go on rising, then the next move in the rating could be downwards." Fitch revised down its outlook for Japan's A sovereign debt rating to negative from stable on Monday, a move that was not wholly unexpected given the market's disappointment that critical fiscal reforms had been put on the back burner. Japan's A rating is five notches below the top AAA rating. In general, the time frame for the negative outlook is the next 18 months to two years, Colquhoun said. Japan's government was scheduled to raise the nationwide sales tax next year to 10 percent from 8 percent in April next year, but Abe said earlier this month he would push this back to October 2019. It was the second time Abe delayed an increase after a rise from 5 percent in April 2014 tipped the economy into recession. Fitch said in the statement the delay means the tax hike will not happen. Japan's debt-GDP ratio is the world's worst, standing at more than twice the size of the $5-trillion economy. The revenue lost from delaying the tax increase has raised concerns over how Japan will lower its debt burden and meet its target of returning to a primary budget surplus in fiscal 2020. (Editing by Jacqueline Wong) In 2015, immigration Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor sued the United States Department of Justice after it forced her to recuse herself from all immigration cases involving Iranians. According to reporting from NPR, Obamas DOJ first became concerned with the appearance of impropriety after Tabaddor who is of Iranian descent attended a 2012 White House meeting with other high-profile Iranian-Americans. NPR states that before signing off on her attending the meeting, Tabaddors DOJ superiors recommended she recuse herself from any future cases involving Iranian nationals, yet when she returned to Los Angeles after the summit, that recommendation became an official order. National Association of Immigration Judges president Dana Leigh Marks confirmed to NPR that the DOJs demands of Tabaddor [appeared] to be discriminatory based on her Iranian heritage. NPRs Richard Gonzales noted that although immigration cases are assigned at random, sometimes the parties will ask that a judge recuse him or herself if they suspect a conflict of interest or bias. Police lock down Orange Avenue around Pulse nightclub, where people were killed by a gunman in a shooting rampage in Orlando, Florida June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Kolczynski By Letitia Stein and Jarrett Renshaw ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Orlando nightclub killer Omar Mateen had expressed sympathy for a variety of Islamist extremists, including groups in the Middle East that are sworn enemies, the FBI said on Monday, as a picture began to emerge of the angry, violent man who carried out America's deadliest mass shooting. U.S. authorities said they had found no direct links between Islamic State and Mateen, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday. Mateen, 29, was shot dead by police who stormed the Pulse club with armored cars after a three-hour siege. In 911 calls during his rampage, the killer expressed allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said Mateen had made comments favorable to multiple armed Islamist movements and people, which "adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives." President Barack Obama said Mateen was likely a homegrown extremist. "So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network," Comey told reporters in Washington. "We're highly confident this killer was radicalized at least in some part through the internet." Islamic State, which controls territory in Iraq and Syria, reiterated on Monday a claim of responsibility, although it offered no signs to indicate coordination with the gunman. In calls to authorities on Sunday, Mateen also mentioned support for the Boston Marathon bombers and a Florida man who became a Nusra Front suicide bomber in Syria, Comey said. Nusra is an al Qaeda offshoot which is at odds with Islamic State in Syria's civil war. Co-workers reported Mateen to the FBI in 2013 after he had made "inflammatory and contradictory" statements, including a claim that he had family connections to al Qaeda and membership of Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah, a bitter rival. The FBI's Miami office investigated Mateen for 10 months and interviewed him twice but found no evidence of a crime or connection with a militant group. Comey said the FBI was also "working to understand what role anti-gay bigotry may have played" in the attack. The massacre reverberated on the presidential campaign trail, where Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, the two likely opponents in the Nov. 8 election, clashed over how to confront violent Islamist extremists. Trump proposed suspending immigration to the United States from countries with a history of terrorism against America, Europe or U.S. allies, while Clinton warned against demonizing Muslims and called for tougher gun safety measures. Obama is to visit Orlando on Thursday to pay respects to families of the victims. 'NEEDLES IN NATIONWIDE HAYSTACK' The Orlando killings followed the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last year and raised the question of whether the United States will have to confront jihadist attacks in the homeland for years to come. Comey said tracking apparent lone wolf attackers like Mateen was like finding "needles in a nationwide haystack" while also trying to work out what kind of people could become radicalized. The Florida shooting spree began early on Sunday when the club was packed with some 350 revelers at a Latin music night. Many fled as the gunman raked the crowd with bullets from an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and a pistol. An initial wave of officers charged into the club and trapped Mateen in a bathroom, Orlando Police Chief John Mina told reporters. That allowed many patrons to flee, although others were trapped in the restroom with Mateen, leading to a standoff. Police negotiated with Mateen for about three hours before breaking a hole in the wall, which allowed hostages to escape. Mateen also emerged from the hole and was shot dead by officers, police said. Some 53 people were wounded and 29 remain hospitalized at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Michael Cheatham, chief trauma surgeon at the hospital, told Fox News he expects all of the survivors in the hospital to survive. DANCING, THEN DEATH Amanda Alvear's last Snapchat video post began with a shot of her on the dance floor of the nightclub surrounded by friends. It ended with gunshots ringing out over the music. Alvear, 25, was identified by police as one of those killed at Pulse. Her friend Mercedez Flores, 26, who worked for Target, was also on the list. Another victim was Edward Sotomayor, 34, a marketing manager at a Florida-based gay-themed travel company. He was a legend in the industry, his boss, Al Ferguson, said. Pastor Deyni Ventura visited a survivor in the hospital, whom she identified only as Norman, who had taken refuge in a handicapped bathroom stall crammed with 30 people. Norman could hear the shooter laughing loudly as he sprayed gunfire over and under the bathroom stall. "They couldn't see the shooter but they could hear him laughing," Ventura said, intimating a loud cackling laugh. Norman, who was shot four times, crawled over the bodies of his friends to safety. Everyone else in the stall died, Ventura said. Most of the people fatally shot were Latino, more than half of them of Puerto Rican origin and at least three of them Mexican citizens. Hundreds of people attended a vigil on Monday night for the dead in downtown Orlando. VIOLENT AND ANGRY Law enforcement officials searched for clues as to whether anyone had worked with Mateen on the attack, said Lee Bentley, the U.S. attorney for the middle district of Florida. But officials said they believed there had been no other attackers and had no evidence of a threat to the public. Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusifiy, described him as mentally unstable and violent toward her. "He would get mad out of nowhere. That's when I started worrying about my safety and then after a few months he started abusing me physically very often," she told reporters. The couple split in 2009 after four months of marriage. When Mateen met with his father the day before the killing, he betrayed nothing of the rage that would soon erupt. I didn't notice anything wrong, Seddique Mateen said in an interview. He was very slick. In the close-knit Muslim community of about 100 families in Fort Pierce, Florida, Mateen was known as quiet with few friends. "He wasn't a people person. He was not extremely friendly but he wasn't rude either," said Mohammed Jameel, 54, who worshipped at his mosque. Mateen was an armed guard at a gated retirement community, and had worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years.. He told the FBI during its investigation of him that he had made pro-Islamist remarks because he was angry at co-workers who he felt were discriminating against him and teasing him for being a Muslim, Comey said. (Additional reporting by Barbara Liston and Yara Bayoumy in Fort Pierce, Fla., Zachary Fagenson in Port St. Lucie, Fla., Fiona Ortiz in Chicago, Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Michelle Martin in Berlin and Susan Heavey, Megan Cassella, David Alexander and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides and Alistair Bell; Editing by Peter Cooney and Mary Milliken) Barclays (NYSE: BCS) announces the appointment of Tim Main as Chairman of Global FIG, based in New York. Mr. Main joins Barclays from Evercore Partners where he was most recently Senior Managing Director, with responsibility for covering clients in banking, specialty finance and wealth and asset management. Mr. Main has more than 25 years of experience in banking and has advised on some of the largest and most transformational deals over the past two decades including the merger of Wachovia and Wells Fargo, RBCs $4.1bn acquisition of Ally Canada and most recently M&T Banks takeover of Hudson City for $3.7bn. Prior to joining Evercore, Mr. Main spent over 20 years at J.P. Morgan, which he joined as an analyst in 1987 and where he gained unique experience working in the CEOs office. He then moved on to run Global ECM and, most notably, led J.P. Morgans FIG business for over 10 years acting as in-house advisor on J.P. Morgans own deals. Commenting on the appointment, John Miller, Head of Americas Banking, said: Tim has an outstanding track record and vast knowledge, experience and relationships. His expertise fits perfectly with our origination-led banking model. This appointment reflects our ongoing commitment to bringing top-tier talent into Barclays, and providing clients with first-class strategic advice. In his role as Chairman of Global FIG, Mr. Main will be responsible for developing further relationships and strategic dialogue with key clients worldwide. He will continue to use his expertise within the FIG franchise, while selectively working across a range of other sectors within the financial services landscape. He will work closely with Lee Einbinder and Richard Bonaventura, Co-Heads of FIG Banking in the Americas, and report to Mr. Miller. Mr. Main has an A.B. in Economics and Mathematics from Princeton University. Barclays Investment Bank is currently ranked 6th in the Dealogic Fee Share league table, and remains the highest ranked European bank globally and in the Americas at the end of May. Within the FIG sector, Barclays has advised on notable transactions including: GE Capitals sale of its Commercial Lending and Leasing platforms in France and Germany to Credit Mutuel, Catlins sale to XL Group plc, Deutsche Borses proposed merger with London Stock Exchange, and Elements acquisition of GE Capitals Fleet Operations. As Barclays continues to build on its strength as a transatlantic tier one Investment Bank, anchored in the two financial centers of the world, London and New York, Barclays will continue to strategically invest to ensure it meets the complex needs of its clients worldwide. To support this strategy, Barclays has recently appointed: ABU DHABI, UAE, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The first Islamic Private Placement Sukuk in the UAE Al Hilal Bank acquired a Private Placement funding worth USD 225 Million under its existing Trust Certificate Issuance Program of USD 2.5 Billion. This is the second tranche under the program. The first funding secured was worth USD 500 Million for five years, and was issued back in 2013. Al Hilal Bank, PJSC (A1/-/A+) is the only full-fledged Islamic Bank that is wholly owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi through Abu Dhabi Investment Council. It priced a 2.5-year (January 2019) US$225MM RegS floating rate note Sukuk at 3mL+160bps under its USD2.5 billion existing Trust Certificate Issuance Program on 31st May. This swiftly executed trade comprising a few pre-identified investors, marks the first Islamic Private Placement Sukuk issued by a UAE Financial Institution. This hallmark development also marks the return to senior unsecured dollar Sukuk market since 2013 by any entities out of Abu Dhabi, thus, presents a unique proposition to the investors' fraternity. Speaking about the milestone, Mr. Khaled Abdulla Alkhoori, CEO, Al Hilal Bank, explained, "We are very pleased to announce this first Islamic private placement in the UAE. Al Hilal bank strategy is to diversify its funding base and tenors. We aim to work towards raising funding for medium term to enhance our funding profile and meet balance sheet growth targets." About Al Hilal Bank Al Hilal Bank was founded in 2008 by the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, an investment arm of the Abu Dhabi Government, with the mission of delivering innovative and fresh banking services adhering to core Islamic values with an authorized capital of AED 4 billion. Six months after formally opening its first four branches, the bank was granted the 'Best Customer Experience' award at the 2008 Middle East Retail Banking Awards. Al Hilal Bank's vision is to constantly redefine and set new standards in the Islamic banking sector. Al Hilal Bank now ranks 10th in a highly competitive UAE market shared with nearly 60 other banks and are the first Islamic bank to operate in Kazakhstan. SOURCE Al Hilal Bank NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Fitch Ratings has withdrawn the expected rating for BR Malls Participacoes S.A.'s (BRMALLS) BRL200 million proposed debentures. Fitch is withdrawing this specific security rating as the transaction was not executed. The issuer is not considering pursuing this transaction. Fitch currently rates BRMALLS as follows: --Foreign Currency Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'BB+'; --Local Currency IDR 'BB+'; --Long-term national scale rating 'AA+(bra)'; --BRL400 million local debentures, first and second tranches due in 2017 and 2019 'AA+ (bra)'; --BRL270 million local debentures due in 2016 'AA+(bra)'. Fitch currently rates BR Malls International Finance Limited (Finco)'s perpetual notes as follows: --USD405 million perpetual notes 'BB+'. The Rating Outlook for BRMALLS' Long-Term IDR is Negative. The Rating Outlook for BRMALLS' Local Currency Long-Term and National Long-Term Rating is Positive. KEY RATING DRIVERS BRMALLS' ratings incorporate its business position as the largest Brazilian shopping center operator, stable and predictable cash flow generation, geographical and property revenue base diversification, and low working capital requirements with renters responsible for most maintenance expenses. The ratings also factor in BRMALLS' growth strategy, stable capital structure, a large pool of unencumbered assets, and successful track record in growing the business. The company's consistent use of a balance of equity and debt to fund its organic and inorganic growth during the past five years has kept leverage levels low relative to the value of its assets. RATING SENSITIVITIES Negative Rating Actions: The foreign currency ratings of BRMALLS could be negatively impacted by a negative rating action on the sovereign rating of Brazil and/or a downgrade of its country ceiling. The Outlook for Brazil's foreign currency rating is currently Negative. Positive Rating Actions: BRMALLS' Local Currency IDR and National Scale ratings currently have a Positive Rating Outlook. The Outlook reflects Fitch's expectations of continued consistent operational performance despite Brazil's current business environment. Date of Relevant Rating Committee: Nov. 23, 2015. Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'. Applicable Criteria Corporate Rating Methodology - Including Short-Term Ratings and Parent and Subsidiary Linkage (pub. 17 Aug 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=869362 Additional Disclosures Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1005991 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31 ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEBSITE 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613006494/en/ Fitch Ratings Primary Analyst Jose Vertiz Director +1-212-908-0641 Fitch Ratings, Inc. 33 Whitehall Street New York, NY 10004 or Secondary Analyst Jose Romero Director 011 5511 4504 2600 or Committee Chairperson Joe Bormann, CFA Managing Director +1-312-368-3349 or Media Relations Elizabeth Fogerty +1-212-908-0526 New York [email protected] Source: Fitch Ratings SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Giant Creative/Strategy, LLC, the largest full-service independent healthcare communications agency on the West Coast, recently welcomed industry veteran Heidi Wright as Senior Vice President, Management Supervisor. Wright oversees a key portion of Giant's business for one of its largest client partners. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005241/en/ Heidi Wright, Senior Vice President for Giant Creative Strategy (Photo: Business Wire) Wright brings with her more than 20 years of marketing and advertising experience across consumer, technology, heavy industry, and healthcare sectors. Since 2003, she has focused primarily on healthcare and biotech marketing, working on both the client and agency sides. Her areas of expertise include global marketing, early commercialization, and launch plans in immunology, oncology, immuno-oncology, cardiology, and other medical categories. "We are thrilled to have Heidi join the Giant family in a strategic account leadership role, said Giant President Adam Gelling. Her experience, enthusiasm, and insight are sure to benefit our clients and culture." Previously, Wright was a Group Account Director at Klick Health, where she led the agencys West Coast-based client portfolio. She managed the global and U.S. launch of a melanoma treatment for a top human therapeutics company in her position as Senior Vice President, Management Supervisor at Cline Davis & Mann. Wright also was client services lead on significant accounts there. While at Amgen, she was a Brand Manager for rheumatology, oncology, and osteoporosis client accounts. In my role at Giant, I look forward to forging even newer ways of connecting healthcare and technology, helping to raise the bar for whats possible in healthcare marketing, Wright said. About Giant Creative/Strategy, LLC Giant is the largest full-service independent healthcare communications agency on the West Coast, and also has a full-service office in Philadelphia to provide greater geographic proximity to East Coast accounts. As a premier healthcare engagement agency, Giant works to continually deliver significant and measurable results for healthcare brands through high-impact, cross-channel customer experiences. Giant was a finalist for the Manny Awards Agency of the Year in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and won the honor in 2013. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005241/en/ For Giant Creative/Strategy Janet Haney, 415-902-4283 [email protected] Source: Giant Creative/Strategy, LLC VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/13/16 -- Medgold Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE: MED) (the "Company" or "Medgold") is pleased to announce a C$1.5-million strategic investment in the Company by Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. ("Fortuna"), a leading mid-tier precious metals miner. The private placement is part of a broader strategic alliance between Medgold and Fortuna to explore for precious metal deposits in Serbia. Subject to stock exchange approval, Fortuna will purchase 10.0 million units at $0.15 per unit, representing a premium of 36% to the closing price of Medgold's shares on June 10. Each unit is comprised of one common share in Medgold and one warrant entitling Fortuna to acquire one additional Medgold common share at $0.15 for a period of 12 months. Medgold will use the proceeds of the private placement on project-generating exploration in Serbia within 12 months. If Fortuna exercises its warrants, Medgold will use the exercise proceeds on further exploration work in Serbia within 12 months following the date of the warrant exercise. In conjunction with the private placement, Medgold has granted Fortuna the right to enter into an option agreement to earn up to a 70% interest in one of the geological target areas (a "Selected Property") identified by Medgold's project generation and exploration work in Serbia, by spending a total of US$8.0 million on the Selected Property and completing a PEA. Dan James, the President of Medgold, said: "I'm delighted to welcome Fortuna as a strategic investor into Medgold. Our early-stage work in Serbia is already generating some very interesting targets - we have eight licences currently under application with the Ministry of Mines. Our agreement with Fortuna firstly secures the funding we need -at a premium to market- to kick off an aggressive project generation program in the country. Secondly, it provides Medgold with a potential partner for the advanced exploration to possible PEA level of at least one of the targets generated by our work. Once we make a discovery, we can tap into the experience of Fortuna's first-rate mining, engineering and geological team who have re-commissioned the Caylloma mine in Peru, and built and operate a modern underground silver-gold mine at San Jose in Mexico, which is acknowledged as one of the best run silver mines in the industry. Fortuna's geological team has already spent time on the ground with our geologists reviewing some early-stage targets and we're excited to start working with them as we move our strategic alliance forward." Option Terms To acquire an initial 51% interest in the Selected Property, Fortuna must spend a minimum of US$3.0 million on the Selected Property by no later than the third anniversary of the date of the option agreement. Once it has earned 51% Fortuna can elect to form a 51:49 joint venture with Medgold to further develop the Selected Property; or Fortuna can elect to be granted the option to earn an additional 19% interest in the Selected Property by completing a Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Property and spending an additional US$5.0 million in qualified expenditures within three years following the date of the election by Fortuna. About Fortuna Silver Mines Inc. Fortuna is a growth oriented, silver and base metal producer focused on mining opportunities in Latin America. Its primary assets are the Caylloma silver mine in southern Peru and the San Jose silver-gold mine in Mexico. The company is selectively pursuing acquisition opportunities throughout the Americas and in select other areas. For more information, please visit its website at www.fortunasilver.com. About Medgold Medgold is a European-focused, TSX-V listed exploration and development company targeting gold properties in northwest Iberia and the under-explored gold provinces of southern Europe. Run by a highly experienced management team with a successful track record of building value in resource companies, Medgold is aiming to become a leading European gold company. Additional information on Medgold can be found on the Company's website at www.medgoldresources.com and by reviewing the Company's page on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD Daniel P. James, President & Director Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking statements Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and include, without limitation, statements about the proposed strategic alliance between the Company and Fortuna. Often, but not always, these forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "estimate", "estimates", "estimated", "potential", "open", "future", "assumed", "projected", "used", "detailed", "has been", "gain", "upgraded", "offset", "limited", "contained", "reflecting", "containing", "remaining", "to be", "periodically", or statements that events, "could" or "should" occur or be achieved and similar expressions, including negative variations. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Such uncertainties and factors include, among others, completion of the private placement; advancement of the strategic alliance between the Company and Fortuna; changes in general economic conditions and financial markets; the Company or any joint venture partner not having the financial ability to meet its exploration and development goals; risks associated with the results of exploration and development activities, estimation of mineral resources and the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; unanticipated costs and expenses; and such other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's quarterly and annual filings with securities regulators and available under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management, including but not limited to: that the private placement will be completed as planned; that the strategic alliance between the Company and Fortuna will advance as anticipated; that the Company's stated goals and planned exploration and development activities will be achieved; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; and such other assumptions as set out herein. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Contacts: Medgold Resources Corp. President Dan James (UK) [email protected] +44 7972 579188 Medgold Resources Corp. Investor Relations Ralph Rushton (Vancouver) [email protected] +1 604-630-5544 Source: Medgold Resources Corp. GENEVA, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mercuria Energy Trading S.A ("Mercuria" or the "Company"), announced today it closed its USD 2.2 Billion Multicurrency Revolving Credit Facilities (the "Facilities"). The Facilities launched at USD 2.1 Billion, and as a result of strong support closed oversubscribed by almost 25 percent. ABN AMRO Bank N.V. ("ABN AMRO"), Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank SA ("CA CIB"), Credit Suisse AG, Industrial Commercial Bank of China Limited London Branch ("ICBC"), ING Bank N.V. ("ING"), Natixis, Cooperatieve Rabobank U.A. ("Rabobank"), The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC ("RBS"), Societe Generale ("SG CIB"), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation ("SMBC") and UniCredit Bank AG ("UniCredit") are the "Bookrunning Mandated Lead Arrangers". Bank of America Merrill Lynch International Limited, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, DBS Bank Ltd., London Branch, Deutsche Bank AG, Amsterdam Branch, Emirates NBD PJSC, London Branch, Mizuho Bank, Ltd. and National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC, London Branch joined as Mandated Lead Arrangers. The Facilities comprise a 364 day Multicurrency Revolving Credit Facility, a 364 day Multicurrency Revolving Credit Facility/Swingline and a 3 year Revolving Credit Facility. All Facilities include a 364 day extension option, and will be used for general corporate purposes and working capital. The Facilities were launched at USD 2.1 Billion on 15th April and a bank meeting held in London on 18th April. Following strong demand from banks, the Facilities were significantly oversubscribed by more than 25 percent, and subsequently increased to USD 2.2 Billion in aggregate with Mercuria choosing to scale back lenders' participations. "This strong outcome represents a tremendous enthusiasm from our banking partners. Thirty-nine geographically diverse banks committed to the Facilities. This includes a large group of top level BMLA and MLA banks" said Guillaume Vermersch, Group Chief Financial Officer of Mercuria. "These Facilities, which Mercuria chose to scale back, reflect Mercuria's sustained business growth boosted by the recent strategic investment by China National Chemical Corporation, and the funding will be utilized to support the Group's continued expansion. The strength of the syndicate demonstrates the continued confidence of our financial partners in Mercuria's business model. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our banking group." The following banks joined the Bookrunning Mandated Lead Arrangers and Mandated Lead Arrangers in general syndication: ArrangersBank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ First Gulf BankHSH NordbankNedbankUBS Co-ArrangersBanco do BrasilCommerzbankHang Seng BankKfW IPEX BankLloyds BankRaiffeisen Bank InternationalScotiabankSumitomo Trust and Banking Corp.Zurcher Kantonalbank ManagersBank LeumiBanque Cantonale de GeneveBanque Cantonale VaudoiseBanque de Commerce et de PlacementsDZ BankGaranti BankUnion de Banques Arabes et Francaises About Mercuria Founded in 2004, Mercuria is one of the world's largest independent energy and commodities trading group. Mercuria supplies products from areas of surplus to areas of need, and optimizes the commodity supply chain for its counterparts. The Company's operations span five continents and engage more than fifty countries with principal commercial hubs in Geneva, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, London and Houston. More than 1,000 people operate from offices worldwide to sustain the group's extensive business reach with their market knowledge, diversity, and experience. The group, primarily focused on energy, is present all along the commodity value chain with activities forming a balanced combination of commodity flows and strategic assets. Mercuria is a leader in the trading of physical energy products ranging from crude oil, refined petroleum products, petrochemicals, natural gas, LPG, power, emissions, and coal. Mercuria is also active in iron ore and metals/concentrates. Worldwide, their activities range from sourcing, supplying, trading, and financing to investment, logistics storage and blending. In 2016, Mercuria welcomed the strategic investment by China National Chemical Corporation ("ChemChina"), in addition to the investment by China Materials Storage and Transportation Development ("CMST") into the Henry Bath warehousing business. www.mercuria.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mercuria-energy-trading-sa-usd-2200000000-multicurrency-revolving-credit-facilities-300283925.html SOURCE Mercuria Energy Trading S.A. By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Eritrea and Ethiopia accused each other of starting clashes on Sunday between their soldiers in a border region, highlighting persistent tension over a boundary dispute that triggered war in 1998-2000. Ethiopia said the situation was calm on Monday, after a resident on the Ethiopian side reported the sound of explosions all day on Sunday and lasting into the early morning of Monday. Eritrea, a Horn of Africa country that won independence from Ethiopia in 1991, fought border wars with its larger neighbor in 1998-2000 that killed about 70,000 people. Eritrea's Information Ministry said in a statement late on Sunday night that the Ethiopian government had "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front." Tsorona is a town south of the Eritrean capital Asmara and close to the frontier. The area saw intense fighting during the earlier border war. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," the Eritrean statement said. Ethiopia disputed this account, saying Eritrea started the fight. "Their forces were promptly repulsed. They were given a proper response," government spokesman Getachew Reda said, adding that the situation was quiet on Monday. Eritrea and Ethiopia routinely accuse each other of backing rebels trying to destabilize and topple the other's government, a legacy from the earlier war. A resident in the Ethiopian town of Zalambessa, across the border from Tsorona, told Reuters by telephone that he had heard the sound of shelling on Sunday and into the night. "It did not stop until this morning around 9 a.m. (2.00 a.m. ET)," he said, asking not to be identified. He added that he had seen Ethiopian military vehicles and troops moving along the central stretch of the militarized border. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel had no immediate additional comment when asked about casualties or other details of the attack. Ethiopian government officials also did not say if there were any casualties. Charlotte King, senior Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said it was unusual for Eritrea to comment on flare-ups but said the statement may have been prompted by U.N. criticism Eritrea has faced over its prolonged national service. The U.N. accuses Eritrea of rights abuses for indefinite national service, where Eritreans can spend many years in low-paid work under conscription. Asmara says an ongoing threat from Ethiopia makes extended national service essential. Eritrea's "critics will argue that it is trying to divert international attention away from the alleged crimes against humanity, and justifying its need for an enormous military and compulsory conscription," King said in a brief commentary. Eritrea, which is under U.N. sanctions, says world powers have failed to push Ethiopia to accept an international arbitration ruling demarcating the boundary. Ethiopia's government has said it wants talks on implementation. (Writing by George Obulutsa and Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Heinrich) KABUL (Reuters) - Islamic State militants attacked a police compound in eastern Afghanistan early on Saturday, killing a police chief, government officials and insurgents said. At around 2 a.m. militants attacked the police headquarters in Dih Bala district of Nangarhar province, said Attahullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor. Five police officers, including the district police chief, were killed and six wounded, he said. At least 13 militants were killed and 7 wounded, Khogyani said. Islamic States Khorasan Province branch claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement online and said it killed the police chief and 13 officers. Nangarhar, a volatile province that borders Pakistan, is where militants claiming allegiance to Islamic State have made their greatest inroads in Afghanistan. Earlier this year American forces were given the green light to conduct more air strikes against Islamic State in Afghanistan, wading into a fight being waged by Afghan troops and Taliban insurgents competing for influence in the area. (Ahmed Sultan reported from Nangarhar and Ahmed Aboulenein reported from Cairo, Egypt; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Janet Lawrence) I worked in the casinos in Mississippi in the 1990's in Tunica, Mississippi, which is about thirty miles south of Memphis. At the time Mississippi opened up first in the country, after obviously Nevada and New Jersey. At one time it was the third largest "gaming" destination in the United States, with one hotel, the Gold Strike being the tallest tower in the entire state. Now, most states have casino gambling because big government has pissed away all the money and just taxing people to death is just not that acceptable. Lots of casinos went under. I worked at Harrah's who wanted to be the McDonalds of casinos. Basically had the first casino, and made a shitload of money. Other casinos came in. One was called Southern Belle, a huge, gigantic property, sort of a Costco but with gambling (the biggest *** casino I have ever been in was Venetian in Macau. That was industrial scale gambling. Imagine if they turned the Pentagon into a gambling joint, you get the picture.) Off the subject. Harrah's sold the property to another company called the Isle Of Capri (known as the Isle of Crappy). Isle of Crappy lasted less than a year. It died. Southern Belle died, and Harrah's took the joint over, and remodeled it and had a few years. Had some ridiculous Mardi Gras theme, dressed us employees like clowns and paid us **** (not to mention bringing in the United Way to shake minimum wage employees down for "charity" so ****** Harrah's can get a tax write off). Then a casino company called Grand Casinos built this huge *** property with a golf course, skeet range, kids arcade (to keep the kids busy while the parents piss away their college fund). How many millions dumped in that place. After about two years, Grand bellied up. Harrah's bought that place. Made it go a few years, and then Harrah's stopped making money there and pulled out. No one else wanted this huge property after that and last year in 2015, the whole structure was torn down after only 20 years with a loss of about a thousand employees. My favorite casino was a place called Treasure Bay. The place actually looked like a real pirate ship. Again, lasted about a year or two. Died. That joint was doing so ****** they were doing $1 Blackjack and 25 cents Craps (I love craps) Some of their problems was location. People did not want to drive the extra miles after driving thirty or forty miles, and there is little incentive to go the extra mile. ------------------ To make a long story short, a casino is like any other business and has to compete like any other business. I don't know the official term, but casinos are limited businesses, which means that all the casinos were just alike, except for the wallpaper. All casinos have a Steak House, a (usually ******) buffet, an Asian restaurant, a snack bar, and a lounge with mostly crap music. All of them had these stupid membership cards that basically helped the casino "track play". Every time someone played money, we asked them "Do you have your 'Gold Card'?" What a joke. In the end, even Harrah's Corporation wasn't doing the deal and was sold to Caesars Entertainment in a fire sale. I can see even more shrinkage in Tunica in the future. Hollywood casino is a dump, so is Players Casino who took over the Southern Belle/Harrah's property. My understanding about Atlantic City (never been there or New Jersey) is that the casinos did almost nothing to rebuild AC into something and the casinos lived and died off the New York City junkets. Then Foxwoods in Connecticut opened, and now there are casinos basically a hundred or less miles from almost anywhere in America. Why go to crime ridden Atlantic City? I have not read to deeply about Trump and the casinos, but he made his money, and when they stopped making money, he pulled out. Look at all the dead Walmart stores which became obsolete in lieu of "SuperCenters" same thing. Closing a casino due to lack of business is very common. Just because you own a casino doesn't make it an automatic moneymaker. Just a rich corporation making money off the backs of minimum wage employees, and when the spread sheet goes south, put the employees out of work and tear the building down, or sell it to the next sucker for a song with their dreams of "turning it around" with penny slots. Ok. For the record, I like casinos. I will gamble a little bit, of course I want to make money, but it is more of playing a difficult game and a challenge. Some of these places, one can blow $2-300 bucks and maybe get a voucher or two to one of the restaurants, or maybe a show or even a free basic room. The bars work off of tips for the bartender. But gamblers are fools. My wife gambles and i want to kick her yellow *** for doing it (she is Chinese, a society of addicted gambler idiots). But casinos are not gold mines. Ruben Nunez (L), a member from the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) teachers union takes part in a march against President Pena Nieto's education reform, along Reforma Avenue in Mexico City, Mexico May 27, 2016. REUTERS/Henry Romero MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's government said on Sunday it had arrested the leader of a dissident teachers' union for alleged corruption, redoubling efforts to impose its authority on an education reform that has sparked months of protests in the country. Deputy attorney general Gilberto Higuera told a news conference that Ruben Nunez, head one of the most combative factions of the CNTE union, had been held on suspicion of receiving money of illicit origin through the organization. "This is another step in the process of full application of the law, and respect for the rule of law," said Javier Trevino, deputy minister of education. Nunez is secretary general of the CNTE's Section 22 in the southern state of Oaxaca, a longstanding hotbed of resistance to government efforts to reform the education system. According to Higuera, Section 22 made a deal with companies supplying the teachers' union to charge an illegal 3.5 percent commission on sales, money its leaders then used for personal ends and to fund demonstrations by its members. Between 2013 and 2015, more than 24 million pesos ($1.29 million) were acquired by Nunez as part of the scheme, he added. The CNTE was defiant following Nunez's arrest. "We're not going to give up our fight," Section 22 member Juan Garcia told a crowd of supporters in Oaxaca's capital, Oaxaca City. Organizing marches and protests that have frequently caused chaos in the Mexican capital, the CNTE has spearheaded efforts to resist the education reform, in particular its mandate to carry out evaluations of teachers. Critics argue many teachers in the poorer south lack the financial support to meet required standards. President Enrique Pena Nieto has staked his name on the reform, describing it as the most important for Mexico's future. In the past month the government has said over 4,000 teachers in the states of Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas on the Pacific seaboard will be dismissed. Two other senior figures in Nunez's group have also been arrested in recent days, and the three men are in prison in the northern city of Hermosillo, officials said. ($1 = 18.6235 Mexican pesos) (Reporting by Dave Graham, Adriana Barrera and Jose de Jesus Cortes; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli) United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein arrives for the 31st session of the Human Rights Council at the U.N. European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, February 29, 2016. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief on Monday decried a "worrying rise" in detentions of migrants in Greece and Italy and urged authorities to find alternatives to confining children while asylum requests are processed. More than one million migrants, many fleeing Syria's war, have arrived in Europe through Greece since last year. More than 150,000 have come in 2016 so far - 38 percent of them children, according to United Nations refugee agency data. Italy has also set up mandatory detention centers. "Even unaccompanied children are frequently placed in prison cells or centers ringed with barbed wire. Detention is never in the best interests of the child which must take primacy over immigration objectives," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. "Alternatives to the detention of children must be developed," he told the start of a three-week council session. Zeid said it was possible for Europe to create "well-functioning migration governance systems", with fair assessment of individual requests for international protection while removing what he called "hysteria and panic from the equation". Zeid deplored anti-migrant rhetoric "spanning the length and breadth of the European continent ... This fosters a climate of divisiveness, xenophobia and even as in Bulgaria vigilante violence". In April, Bulgarian police arrested a local man who had posted video on social media showing how he tied up three migrants near the Turkish border. The migrant influx has drawn a rising public backlash, in part because of strains it has imposed on housing and social services. Concerns have also been raised in some EU countries about their ability to integrate many mostly Muslim migrants. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Miles/Mark Heinrich) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a release on Sunday he is cancelling a business trip to Beijing after the shooting in Orlando, the worst in U.S. history. Johnson had planned to participate in cyber conference in China. (Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Nick Zieminski) EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT THIS EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT (this Agreement), dated as of June 7, 2016 (Effective Date), is made and entered into by and between FitLife Brands, Inc., a Nevada corporation (Company), and Patrick Ryan (Employee). R E C I T A L S: WHEREAS, Employee is currently an employee of NDS Nutrition, Inc., a Florida corporation and wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, pursuant to the terms of an Employment Agreement, dated June 1, 2013 (Original Agreement); and WHEREAS, Company and Employee desire to terminate the Original Agreement in consideration for the execution by the parties of this Agreement, pursuant to which the Company will retain the services of Employee in the role of Chief Retail Officer. NOW THEREFORE, in consideration of the foregoing recitals and the mutual covenants and agreements contained herein, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the parties agree as follows: 1. Employment. The Company shall employ the Employee, and the Employee accepts employment with the Company, upon the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement for the period beginning on the Effective Date and ending as provided in Section 7 (the Employment Period) 2. Position and Duties. (a) During the Employment Period, the Employee shall serve as the Chief Retail Officer of the Company and shall have the duties, responsibilities and authority for such position as designated by the Chief Executive Officer of the Company (CEO), which duties, responsibilities and authority shall include national and international retail sales and product development. The Employee shall, if so requested by the Company, also serve without additional compensation, as an officer, director or manager of any entities from time to time directly or indirectly owned or controlled by Company or its affiliates. (b) The Employee shall report to the CEO and shall devote his best efforts and substantially all of their active business time and attention (except for permitted vacation periods and reasonable periods of illness or other incapacity) to the business and affairs of the Company and its affiliates. The Employee shall perform his duties and responsibilities to the best of his ability in a diligent and professional manner. During the Employment Period, the Employee shall not engage in any business activity which, in the reasonable judgment of the Board of Directors of the Company (Board), conflicts with the duties of the Employee hereunder, whether or not such activity is pursued for gain, profit or other pecuniary advantage. (c) The foregoing restrictions shall not limit or prohibit the Employee from engaging in passive investment, inactive business ventures and community, charitable and social activities not interfering with the Employees performance and obligations hereunder. Further, as of the date of this Agreement, Employee agrees that he will not use Companys distribution network systems, employees, or contacts to advance the water bottling and distribution business in which he has invested. 3. Compensation. (a) Base Salary . As compensation for the services contemplated herein, Employee shall receive a base salary of One Hundred and Twenty Five Thousand and 00/100 Dollars ($125,000) per annum (Base Salary), to be paid in accordance with Companys then-current payroll practices and policies. Company shall deduct and withhold all necessary social security and withholding taxes and any other similar sums required by law from any compensation paid to Employee. Employees Base Salary shall be reviewed, at least annually and, in the absolute discretion of Company, may be adjusted upward from time to time based upon the performance of Employee, the financial condition of Company, prevailing industry salary levels and such other factors as Company considers relevant. (b) Equity . Employee may be eligible to receive, at the sole discretion of the compensation committee of the Board of Directors, up to 25,000 shares of common stock and/or related stock options each year under the terms of this Agreement (up to 75,000 shares) and the Companys 2010 Equity Incentive Plan (or such other plan that may be adopted by Company) and made applicable to Employee (the Plan), which amount shall be determined by the compensation committee within thirty (30) days of the Effective Date and within thirty (30) days after each anniversary of the Effective Date during the Term. Any such equity rights shall be provided in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Plan and applicable supplemental agreements. Notwithstanding the above, (c) Commissions . Employee shall be eligible to earn commission compensation on a monthly basis in arrears in an amount equal to 2.00% of the adjusted gross profit from the sale of franchise exclusive products, less all promotional and advertising expenses, and the cost of all product samples, related to the sale of franchise exclusive products to international locations, as determined in good faith by Company. The monthly commissions referenced in this Section shall be calculated and paid, as applicable, within thirty (30) days of the end of each month, consistent with past practice. Employees commission compensation eligibility and rate shall be reviewed at least annually, and, in the discretion of the Company, may be prospectively adjusted upward from time to time based upon the performance of Employee, the financial condition of the Company, prevailing industry trends, and such other factors as Company considers relevant. (d) Bonus . The Employee shall be eligible for an annual cash bonus, which shall be determined in good faith by the compensation committee of the Board in its sole discretion in connection with the annual meeting or other such time, as the case may be, as determined by such committee. (e) Change in Control . In the event there is a change of control, as defined below, of the Company, then the surviving corporation or the acquiring corporation shall assume the Companys obligations pursuant to this Agreement, including any stock or stock option agreements that Employee has with the Company. In the event any surviving corporation or acquiring corporation refuses to assume such obligations and/or to substitute similar stock awards for those outstanding under any agreement between Employee and the Company, then the Employee shall be entitled to accelerated vesting of all unvested shares subject to such agreements, if any, such that all shares will be vested and fully exercisable as of the date of the Change of Control. Change of Control means: (i) a sale or other disposition of all or substantially all of the assets of the Company; (ii) a merger or consolidation in which the Company is not the surviving entity and in which the stockholders of the Company immediately prior to such consolidation or merger own less than fifty percent (50%) of the surviving entitys voting power immediately after the transaction (iii) a reverse merger in which the Company is the surviving entity but the shares of Common Stock outstanding immediately preceding the merger are converted by virtue of the merger into other property, whether in the form of securities, cash or otherwise, and in which the stockholders of the Company immediately prior to such reverse merger own less than fifty percent (50%) of the Companys voting power immediately after the transaction; or (iv) an acquisition by any person, entity or group within the meaning of Section 13(d)or 14(d) of the Exchange Act, or any comparable successor provisions (excluding shareholders of the Company with respect to shares and voting power beneficially held by them as of the date of this Agreement, any employee benefit plan, or related trust, sponsored or maintained by the Company or subsidiary of the Company or other entity controlled by the Company) of the beneficial ownership (within the meaning of Rule 13d-3 promulgated under the Exchange Act, or comparable successor rule) of securities of the Company representing at least fifty per cent (50%) of the voting power entitled to vote in the election of directors, excluding from such percentage securities beneficially owned by stockholders of the Company immediately prior to and after such event. 4. Benefits and Expenses. (a) Employee Benefits . Employee shall be eligible to participate in any employee benefit plans and programs in effect from time to time and generally made available to similarly situated employees of Company (including but not limited to the Companys standard Paid Time Off policy), in a manner consistent with the terms and conditions of such plan or program, and on a basis that is commensurate with Employees position and duties with Company. Company reserves the right to alter, amend, or discontinue any employee benefits at any time without notice if such alterations, amendments or discontinuances would also apply to all other similarly situated employees of Company. In the event of a conflict between any benefit plan or program and this Agreement, the terms of this Agreement shall govern. (b) Expenses . Company shall pay or reimburse Employee, in accordance with Companys then-current reimbursement policy, for any expenses reasonably incurred by Employee in furtherance of Employees duties hereunder upon submission by Employee of vouchers, receipts, or itemized lists thereof prepared in compliance with such reimbursement policy and as may be required by Company in order to permit such payments as proper deductions to Company under the Internal Revenue Code, as amended. 5. Location of Work; Facilities and Support. Subject to the travel requirements of Employees position, Employee will perform Employees duties hereunder based out of the Kansas City, Kansas metropolitan area, or such other metropolitan area as approved by Company management from time to time. Company shall furnish and pay for all reasonable facilities, equipment, supplies, and services, including support staff, needed by Employee to perform Employees duties hereunder, and all other similar expenses incurred as a result of this employment or which are incidental to the performance of Employees duties hereunder, in accordance with the uniform policies of Company; provided, however, that it is understood that Employee works out of his primary residence located in the Kansas City, Kansas metropolitan area and nothing in the section shall require Company to secure additional or alternative office space and/or assume any responsibility for the cost or any portion thereof of Employees personal residence. Moreover, the ability to make all hiring and staffing decisions shall remain the authority of senior management of Company at its sole discretion. 6. Company Policies. Employee agrees that Employee will comply with other employee policies applicable to similarly-situated employees of Company. 7. Term. (a) Unless renewed by the mutual agreement of the Company and the Employee, the Employment Period shall end on the third anniversary of the Effective Date; provided , however , that (i) the Employment Period shall terminate prior to such date upon the Employees resignation, death or Disability (as defined in the following sentence), and (ii) the Employment Period may be terminated by the Company at any time prior to such date for cause or without cause. For purposes of this Agreement Disability means any long-term disability or incapacity which (i) renders the Employee unable to substantially perform their duties hereunder for one hundred twenty (120) days during any 12-month period or (ii) is predicted to render the Employee unable to substantially perform their duties for one hundred twenty (120) days during any 12-month period based, in the case of this clause (ii) only, upon the opinion of a physician mutually agreed upon by the Company and the Employee, in each case as determined by the Board (excluding the Employee if they should be a member of the Board at the time of such determination) in its good faith judgment; provided, however, that no action shall be taken hereunder that precludes Employee from making a claim under any separate long-term disability policy maintained by the Company. The last day on which Employee is employed by the Company, whether separation is voluntary or involuntary and is with or without cause, is referred to as the Termination Date. (b) Except as otherwise required by law ( e.g. , COBRA) or as specifically provided herein, all of the Employees rights to salary, fringe benefits and bonuses hereunder (if any) accruing after the Termination Date shall cease upon the Termination Date. Under no circumstances will the Employee be entitled to payment for accrued and unused paid time off upon the termination of the Employment Period. 8. Nondisclosure. (a) Definition and Access . Employee acknowledges that performance of Employees duties under this Agreement necessarily involves access to and familiarity with highly sensitive, confidential, and proprietary information of Company which includes, without limitation, information about Companys products, formulations, product strategies, product development and production processes, customers and prospective customers, the buying patterns and needs of customers and prospective customers, vendors and suppliers, pricing, quoting, costing systems, billing and collection procedures, proprietary software and the source code thereof, financial and accounting data, data processing and communications, technical data, marketing concepts and strategies, business plans, mergers and acquisitions, research and development of new or improved products and services, and general know-how regarding the business of Company and its products (collectively referred to herein as Confidential Information). (b) Trade Secrets . Company considers much of its Confidential Information to constitute trade secrets of Company (Trade Secrets) which have independent value, provide Company with a competitive advantage over its competitors who do not know the Trade Secrets, and are protected from unauthorized disclosure under applicable law. However, whether or not the Confidential Information constitutes Trade Secrets, Employee acknowledges and agrees that the Confidential Information is protected from unauthorized disclosure or use due to Employees covenants under this Agreement and Employees fiduciary duties as an employee of Company. (c) Protections and Obligations . Employee acknowledges that the Confidential Information is a valuable, special, and unique asset of Company such that the unauthorized disclosure or use by unauthorized persons would cause irreparable damage to the business of Company. In recognition of the foregoing, Employee acknowledges and agrees that the Confidential Information is, and shall at all times remain, the sole and exclusive property of Company. Employee further agrees that both during and after the term of this Agreement, Employee shall not disclose to anyone or use for any purpose any Confidential Information of Company, except as expressly authorized by Company. Employee further agrees that, upon termination of this Agreement, Employee will promptly return to Company all documents, computer disks and files, and records of any kind, in any medium, which contain any Confidential Information, including any and all copies thereof. 9. Development of Intellectual Property. (a) Definition of Intellectual Property . As used herein, the term Intellectual Property shall include, without limitation, any inventions, technological innovations, discoveries, designs, formulas, know-how, processes, business methods, patents, trademarks, service marks, copyrights, computer software, ideas, creations, writings, lectures, illustrations, photographs, motion pictures, scientific and mathematical models, improvements to all such property, and all recorded material defining, describing or illustrating all such property, whether in hard copy or electronic form. (b) Companys Rights in Intellectual Property . Employee agrees that all right, title and interest of every kind and nature, whether now known or unknown, in and to any Intellectual Property invented, created, written, developed, conceived or produced by Employee during Employees employment with Company (i) whether using Companys equipment, supplies, facilities and/or Confidential Information, (ii) whether alone or jointly with others, (iii) whether or not contemplated by the terms of Employees employment, and (iv) whether or not during normal working hours, that are within the scope of Companys actual or anticipated business operations or that relate to any of Companys actual or anticipated products or services are, and shall be, the exclusive property of Company and shall hereinafter be referred to as Company Intellectual Property. (c) Employees Obligations . Employee agrees to take all reasonably necessary actions to enable Company to obtain, register, perfect and/or otherwise protect its rights in Company Intellectual Property in the United States and all foreign countries. Employee irrevocably waives any moral rights, or other rights with respect to attribution of authorship or integrity of Company Intellectual Property, that Employee may have under any applicable law under any legal theory. (i) Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Employee hereby consents and agrees to: a) promptly and fully disclose to Company any and all Company Intellectual Property; b) assign to Company all rights to Company Intellectual Property without limitation or royalty; and c) execute all documents necessary for Company to obtain, register, perfect, or otherwise protect its rights in Company Intellectual Property. Consideration for Employees assignment to Company is hereby acknowledged. In the event Company is unable, after reasonable effort, to secure Employees signature on any documents necessary to effectuate this provision, Employee hereby irrevocably designates and appoints Company as Employees agent and attorney-in-fact, to act for and on Employees behalf, and to execute any such documents and to do all other lawfully permitted acts to further the protection of Company Intellectual Property with the same legal force and effect as if executed by Employee. (ii) To the extent, if any, that any Company Intellectual Property is unassignable or that Employee retains any right, title or interest in and to any Company Intellectual Property, Employee: a) unconditionally and irrevocably waives the enforcement of such rights, and all claims and causes of action of any kind against Company with respect to such rights; b) agrees, at Companys request, to consent to and join in any action to enforce such rights; and c) hereby grants to Company a perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid-up, royalty-free, transferable, sub licensable (through multiple levels of sublicenses), worldwide right and license to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform (whether publicly or otherwise), prepare derivative works of and otherwise modify, make, have made, sell, offer to sell, import and otherwise use, disclose and exploit (and have others exercise such rights on behalf of Company) all or any portion of Company Intellectual Property, in any form or media (now known or later developed). The foregoing license includes, without limitation, the right to make any modifications to Company Intellectual Property regardless of the effect of such modifications on the integrity of Company Intellectual Property, and to identify Employee, or not to identify Employee, as one or more authors of or contributors to Company Intellectual Property or any portion thereof, whether or not Company Intellectual Property or any portion thereof has been modified. (iii) Employee agrees to assist Company in connection with any demands, reissues, oppositions, litigation, controversy or other actions involving any item of Company Intellectual Property. (iv) Employee agrees to undertake the foregoing obligations both during and after Employees employment with Company, without charge, but at Companys expense with respect to Employees reasonable out-of-pocket costs. Employee further agrees that Company may, in its sole discretion, deem Company Intellectual Property as a Trade Secret, in which case Employee will comply with the Confidential Information provisions in this Agreement. 10. Acknowledgment of Companys Goodwill. Employee acknowledges that Company has expended and will continue to expend considerable time, effort and resources to develop and market its products and services, that the relationships between Company and its employees, independent contractors, customers, prospective customers, vendors, and suppliers are valuable assets of Company and key to its success, and that employees of Comp a ny establish close professional relationships with other employees, independent contractors, customers, vendors, and suppliers of Company in the course of their relationship with Company, all of which constitute goodwill of Company (Goodwill). 11. Noncompetition. In order to prevent the improper use of Confidential Information, Company Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets and the resulting unfair competition and misappropriation of Goodwill and other proprietary interests, Employee agrees that while Employee is employed by Company and for a period of twelve (12) months following termination of Employees employment for any reason whatsoever, whether such termination is voluntary or involuntary, and regardless of Cause, Employee shall not, directly or indirectly, individually, with or through his spouse, within any national or international geographic market area which is/was serviced by Employee on behalf of Company during Employees employment with Company, be involved in any business activity that is directly or indirectly in competition with any business activity of Company or any product or service offered, sold or solicited by Company. 12. Nonsolicitation of Customers. In order to prevent the improper use of Confidential Information, Company Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets and the resulting unfair competition and misappropriation of Goodwill and other proprietary interests, Employee agrees that while Employee is employed by Company and for a period of twelve (12) months following the termination of Employees employment for any reason whatsoever, whether such termination is voluntary or involuntary, and regardless of Cause, Employee will not, directly or indirectly, on Employees own behalf or by aiding any other individual or entity, call on, solicit the business of, sell to, service, or accept business from, any of Companys customers (with whom Employee had personal contact and did business with during the twelve (12) month period immediately prior to the termination of Employees employment) for the purpose of providing said customers with products and/or services of the type or character typically provided to such customers by Company. 13. Nonsolicitation of Vendors/Employees. In order to prevent the improper use of Confidential Information, Company Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets and the resulting unfair competition and misappropriation of Goodwill and other proprietary interests, Employee agrees that while Employee is employed by Company and for a period of twelve (12) months following the termination of Employees employment for any reason whatsoever, whether such termination is voluntary or involuntary, and regardless of Cause, Employee will not, directly or indirectly, on Employees own behalf or by aiding any other individual or entity: (a) Encourage, discourage, interfere with, or otherwise cause, in any manner, any business partner, independent contractor, vendor or supplier of Company to curtail, sever, or alter its relationship or business with Company; or (b) Employ or solicit for employment any employee of Company with whom employee worked and had personal contact while employed by Company, except to the extent such employment or solicitation for employment is for a business that is not competitive with the business, products or services offered or provided by Company and cannot adversely affect Companys relationship or volume of business with its customers. 14. Reasonable Restrictions. (a) Applicable to any Status . Employee acknowledges and agrees that the post-employment obligations of this Agreement shall be applicable to Employee regardless of whether Employee engages in any such competing business activity directly (or indirectly via personal contacts) as an individual or as a sole proprietor, stockholder, partner, member, officer, director, employee, agent, consultant, or independent contractor of any other entity. (b) Reasonable Restriction . In signing this Agreement, Employee is fully aware of the restrictions that this Agreement places upon Employees future employment or contractual opportunities with someone other than Company. However, Employee understands and agrees that Employees employment by Company, Employees privileged position within Company, and Employees access to Confidential Information and Trade Secrets of Company and Company Intellectual Property makes such restrictions both necessary and reasonable. Employee acknowledges and agrees that the restrictions hereby imposed constitute reasonable protections of the legitimate business interests of Company and that they will not unduly restrict Employees opportunity to earn a reasonable living following the termination of Employees employment. 15. Remedies. (a) Employee acknowledges that compliance with this Agreement is necessary to protect the business and Goodwill of Company and a breach of this Agreement will cause irreparable and continuous damage Company for which money damages may not be adequate. In addition, the parties agree that, in the event of a breach or threatened breach to this Agreement, the non-breaching party shall be entitled to (a) an injunction to prevent the continuation of such harm, (b) money damages insofar as they can be determined and (c) reasonable attorneys fees and costs. Nothing in this Agreement, however, shall be construed to prohibit the non-breaching party from also pursuing any other remedy, the parties having agreed that all remedies shall be cumulative. The obligations contained in this Agreement shall survive any termination of Employees employment, regardless of the reason for the termination. (b) Because the Employees services are unique and because the Employee has access to certain Confidential Information Company Intellectual Property, the parties hereto agree that money damages would be an inadequate remedy for any breach of this Agreement. Therefore, in the event of a breach of Sections 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 of this Agreement, the Company and any of its Affiliates or their successors or assigns may, in addition to other rights and remedies existing in their favor at law or in equity, apply to any court of competent jurisdiction for specific performance and/or injunctive or other relief in order to enforce, or prevent any violations of, the provisions hereof. The Employee agrees not to claim that the Company has adequate remedies at law for a breach of Sections 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13, as a defense against any attempt by the Company to obtain the equitable relief described in this Section 15. (c) In addition to the foregoing, and not in any way in limitation thereof, or in limitation of any right or remedy otherwise available to the Company, if the Employee violates any provision of the foregoing Sections 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13, any severance payments then or thereafter due from the Company to the Employee shall be terminated forthwith and the Companys obligation to pay and the Employees right to receive such severance payments shall terminate and be of no further force or effect, if and when determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, in each case without limiting or affecting the Employees obligations (or terminating the Non-Compete Period) under such Sections 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13, or the Companys other rights and remedies available at law or equity. 16. Assignability. This Agreement and any rights, duties and obligations of the Employee are personal to Employee, and are not assignable by Employee. Company shall have the right to assign this Agreement to a successor in interest. This Agreement is binding upon, and shall inure to the benefit of, the parties hereto and the personal representatives and heirs of Employee and the successors and assigns of Company. 17. Notices. All notices and other communications provided for in this Agreement shall be validly given, made or served if in writing and delivered personally by hand, by a nationally recognized overnight courier service (i.e., FedEx or United Parcel Service), by United States certified or registered first class mail, postage prepaid with return receipt requested or by facsimile transmission. Each such notice, consent, request, instruction, approval, demand or other communication shall be effective if delivered personally by hand or by a nationally recognized overnight courier service, when delivered at the address specified in this Section; if delivered by United States certified or registered first class mail, on the date appearing on the return receipt therefor; and if delivered by facsimile transmission, when such facsimile transmission is transmitted to the facsimile transmission number specified in this Section and the appropriate confirmation is received. In the event that a party is unable to deliver a notice, consent, request, instruction, approval, demand or other communication due to the inaccuracy of the address or facsimile transmission number provided by the other party pursuant to this Section, or the other partys failure to notify the party of a change of its address or facsimile transmission number as specified pursuant to this Section, such notice, consent, request, instruction, approval, demand, or other communication shall be deemed to be effective upon confirmation by a nationally recognized overnight courier service of its failure to complete delivery to the other partys address as set forth in this Section (or other address duly given to the party by the other party in accordance with this Section). Addresses and facsimile transmission numbers for notices (unless and until written notice is given of any other address or facsimile transmission number): If to Company, to: John Wilson 4509 S. 143rd Street, Suite 1 Omaha, NE 68137 If to Employee, to: Patrick Ryan 14320 Ballentine Street Overland Park, KS 66221 18. Governing Law and Venue. This Agreement shall be governed by and construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the State of Nebraska, without regard to its conflict of laws doctrine. Each party agrees that any action by either party to enforce the terms of this Agreement may be brought by the other party in an appropriate state or federal court in Nebraska and waives all objections based upon lack of jurisdiction or improper or inconvenient venue of any such court. 19. Entire Agreement. This Agreement, including the recitals to this Agreement, which are incorporated herein by this reference, constitutes the entire agreement of the parties relating to the subject matter of this Agreement, and supersedes any prior agreements or understandings, written or oral, between the parties with respect to the subject matter of this Agreement. The previous sentence notwithstanding, Employee expressly acknowledges that Employee may be subject to additional policies and agreements instituted for the purpose of protecting Companys Confidential Information and/or Intellectual Property; as such, Employee expressly acknowledges that all such policies and agreements shall be used together with this Agreement to protect such interests of Company to the fullest extent allowed by law. No supplement, modification or amendment of this Agreement shall be binding unless executed in writing by all of the parties to this Agreement. The failure of any party at any time or times to require performance of any provision of this Agreement shall in no manner affect the right of such party at a later time to enforce the same. No waiver of any of the provisions of this Agreement shall be deemed, or shall constitute, a waiver of any other provision, whether or not similar, nor shall any waiver constitute a continuing waiver. No waiver shall be binding unless executed in writing by the party making the waiver. Employee acknowledges that Employee has had adequate opportunity to consider and secure legal advice relative to this Agreement. 20. Reformation and Severability. Employee and Company intend and agree that if a court of competent jurisdiction determines that the scope of any provision of this Agreement is too broad to be enforced as written, the court should reform such provisions to such narrower scope as it determines to be enforceable. Employee and Company further agree that if any provision of this Agreement is determined to be unenforceable for any reason, and such provision cannot be reformed by the court as anticipated above, such provision shall be deemed separate and severable and the unenforceability of any such provisions shall not invalidate or render unenforceable any of the remaining provisions hereof. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties hereto have executed this Agreement as of the date first above written. FITLIFE BRANDS, INC. By: /s/ John Wilson__________________ John Wilson Chief Executive Officer EMPLOYEE By: /s/ Patrick Ryan_________________ Patrick Ryan Employee 053016(DLG)v4 UNITED STATES 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): June 10, 2016 Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc. __________________________________________ (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter) North Carolina 1-6196 56-0556998 _____________________ (State or other jurisdiction _____________ (Commission ______________ (I.R.S. Employer of incorporation) File Number) Identification No.) 4720 Piedmont Row Drive, Charlotte, North Carolina 28210 _________________________________ (Address of principal executive offices) ___________ (Zip Code) Registrants telephone number, including area code: 704-364-3120 Not Applicable ______________________________________________ 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: [ ] 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 8.01 Other Events. On June 10, 2016, the Public Staff (Public Staff) of the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission (NCUC) filed with the NCUC an Agreement of Stipulation and Settlement (Settlement) among Public Staff, Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc. (Piedmont), and Duke Energy Corporation (Duke Energy) which sets forth stipulations and conditions for approval of the proposed acquisition of Piedmont by Duke Energy. Among the stipulations contained in the Settlement are: Piedmonts North Carolina customers collectively will be credited $10 million, spread over the first two years after the acquisition, to ensure Piedmont customers benefit from Piedmont-related cost savings generated by the acquisition. Piedmont will withdraw its March 2016 petition with the NCUC requesting approval of deferred accounting treatment for certain distribution integrity management program expenses. The combined company would provide funding for annual charitable contributions totaling at least $17.5 million in North Carolina during each of the four years after the acquisition. The combined company would commit $7.5 million for low-income household energy assistance and community job training programs during the first year after the acquisition. Expenses related to the acquisition, including severance costs, would be excluded from customer bills. The NCUC has scheduled a hearing on the proposed acquisition for July 18, 2016. 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. Financial experts are predicting different spending patterns at Fieldays this year. Pundits are predicting farmers won't be shelling out for tractors and utes at Fieldays thanks to the dairy downturn. Though one agri-business expert says not to expect that behaviour from townies. They haven't realised the dairy money won't be pouring in and are overloading themselves in credit, Waikato University agri-business lecturer Jacqueline Rowarth says. CHRISTEL YARDLEY/FAIRFAX NZ Exhibitors are gearing up for the fieldays with the official opening on Wednesday. L-R Stace Hall and Jochen Speer gear up for the fieldays at their STIHL store. "People are still buying things - they are just doing it on credit cards," Rowarth said. "There's a bubble and people are just pushing the visa bills up. There won't be money coming in from dairy to support people's lifestyles." The Southern Hemisphere's largest agri-business event is due to start on Wednesday and will run over four days. CHRISTEL YARDLEY/FAIRFAX NZ Crowe Howarth's Hayden Dillon believes there will be a change in spending trends by farmers at Fieldays this year. There will be 1000 exhibitors at the Mystery Creek Event Centre, 16 kilometres south of Hamilton. Smaller regional towns like Te Aroha and Te Awamutu were having businesses close, but the bigger centres were not seeing the effects yet, Rowarth said. That was due to New Zealand's reliance on credit, she said. Though Rowarth did predict farmers would show an interest at Fieldays in products and services that would help with health and safety compliance. Crowe Howarth's agri-business expert Hayden Dillon agreed. He pointed to technology, like computer apps for health and safety capturing farmers' attention. Dillon also thought there could be a change in farm transport on the horizon. "It's not based on anything scientific, but I think you will see farmers start to steer away from quad bikes to the cab based bikes," Dillon said. "They will become the standard operating system. Farmers don't want to have to wear helmets on the farm." Dillion said farmers would look at systems that aren't cost prohibitive to help with compliance and that was in line with what Fieldays was built on - innovation in the agribusiness sector. Although the importance of innovation at Fieldays had dropped off, it had gotten a new burst of life, he said. Farmers would pounce on any innovation that would lead to running their business in a much more efficient and cost-effective manner, Dillon said. "You have to give Fieldays credit and they have reinvigorated it." Technifarm chief executive Hermen Heesen agreed that innovation around compliance was piquing people's interest. "Farmers are looking for efficiencies. They are just asking more questions when buying, particularly when it comes to handling animals," Heesen said. Heesen's company makes products for both dairy and sheep and beef farmers, so he was not worried that business would be dire in the downturn. Therefore he believed it was still important to have a showing at the event. Sites have been open since May 13 for businesses to set up. The 114 hectares at the purpose built events centre will be used to capacity as about 120,000 people from the agricultural community make their annual pilgrimage to the Waikato region. The dairy farming climate did not seem to have an impact on chainsaw manufacturer Stihl. Marketing manager Stace Hall said when dairy was having record payouts it did not have a sudden spike in sales. Therefore this year as the German company celebrates 90 years of operating it was not going to hold back, he said. It has been setting up its site for the past month, which will have a chopping arena and closed off areas where chainsaw carvers would be at work carving keas and logos for people to watch. "Business doesn't stop and people still need labour saving devices," Hall said. The medical debts of 9000 Americans were bought and then forgiven by United States television host John Oliver. A debt collection company has been knocked back in its attempt to collect more than $500,000 interest on an old property deal that went bad. But the company says court action was always a last resort and it prefers to settle well short of the courtroom door. Debt Buyers Ltd spokesman Damien Grant said it knew some people had hard luck stories and were financially distressed. It was willing to do a deal and settle for part payment of debts or set up an arrangement to pay over time. American television host John Oliver's programme set up hits own debt buying business and bought a bundle. The company took action against Jason Adamson, from Plimmerton north of Wellington, to recover the shortfall long after a mortgagee sale of an investment property. According to a court decision Adamson and his then wife borrowed $560,000 in March 2007 to buy an investment apartment in Napier. About 18 months later they missed a payment and in April 2009 the mortgagee sold the property for $360,000, more than $362,000 short to repay the loan. At that time the debt was $286,800 principal and $75,300 interest that had grown since they had defaulted on repayments. The loan agreement was transferred from the original lender through several companies to end up at Debt Buyers Ltd in 2014. Within days Debt Buyers asked for repayment of the $286,800 principal and about six years' interest totalling $505,000. Debt Buyers sued Adamson at the High Court in Wellington for $791,800. In a recent decision Justice Jill Mallon found it was entitled to just the $286,800 principal, plus about $13,000 interest. Debt Buyers did not inherit the legal right to interest since 2009, some of which was too old to collect anyway, the judge said. The judge said she was not given an explanation why there was no earlier attempt to collect the debt. Adamson was approached for comment. Grant said it was unlikely to appeal against the judge's ruling on the interest component of the loan. Adamson's loan was among a "book" of about 150 loans Debt Buyers bought from the same source. New Zealand's small debt buying industry bought in competitive tenders from creditors such as utilities, consumer finance companies, and banks. It was not that lucrative. Companies had to work hard for the money, Grant said. In the United States it was a well-developed business, with student loans and medical debts making up a large part. The host of the American television show Last Week Tonight, John Oliver, satirised the industry recently. Oliver's programme set up its own debt buying company, paid about US$60,000 for US$15 million of medical debt owed by about 9000 people. Oliver then effectively wiped the debt. Oliver's programme had exposed some unscrupulous tactics of the US debt buying industry. Damien Grant said it was different in New Zealand. Companies selling debt cared about their reputation and they wanted debts collected in a responsible and professional way, by New Zealand-based collectors. Grant said debt buyers might pay, for instance, 5 cents for each dollar of debt, hoping to collect more than they paid for the debt. Most were settled in arrangements that were generally pretty generous to the person who owed the debt, he said. "That is all we want. It's a complete waste of time for us to litigate." Sometimes the company bought debts from people who were owed money but did not have the resources to force payment and were left with a sense of grievance and injustice. "They feel they have been ripped off and it can be satisfying to get someone else to do the chasing." A Kiwi version of the US stage show has been slammed for its predominantly white cast. A race row has erupted over Christchurch's production of hit musical Hairspray after a theatre critic accused the show's makers of "arrogance or blindness" for not casting black actors. The claims, by Christchurch critic Erin Harrington, have been rejected by the musical's makers, Showbiz Christchurch. The musical is about racial integration in 1960s Baltimore and about half the characters in the show are African American. The Christchurch production, staged at the Isaac Theatre Royal by musical company Showbiz, cast actors of Maori, Korean, Polynesian, Filipino, African and one of European descent in the African American roles. Supplied African American characters in the Christchurch production of Hairspray are played by actors of many different ethnicities, including Maori, Korean and Filipino. Harrington said in her review for website Theatreview that the casting was "mortifyingly tone deaf". READ MORE: * Hairspray review * Rowling slams 'racists' after Potter play casts black Hermione "I can't get my head around a production that can't see that staging a show about integration, and that spends as much time with its black cast members as its white ones, sees fit to have an almost entirely white cast," she wrote. The characters Seaweed and Penny Pingleton in John Waters' 1988 film, Hairspray. "It's a casting choice that's mortifyingly tone deaf and almost completely at odds with the point of the show. I can't get my head around why Showbiz Christchurch would think it ethical to programme a show that they obviously couldn't cast appropriately, especially as it means that other signifiers of blackness movement, speech patterns, and so on have to be heightened to sell the characters, so that their caricatures are tainted with more than a century's worth of history of white people dressing up as black people. "I don't mean to cast aspersions on the performances of the large cast, for this isn't their fault it's the fault of the people who cast the show; who in their arrogance or blindness thought that this wasn't an issue." She said "performers of Maori and Pasifika descent have been given a good once-over with some Thin Lizzy and some eyebrow pencil to fit the bill". Showbiz general manager Michael Bayly declined to comment, but wrote a response that was published with the review. He said Hairspray's original creators encouraged diverse casting for the show. "Or else it would never be performed outside America, as many countries could not cast the black characters within their community, and never be given the opportunity to learn and discuss the issues that are raised," Bayly wrote. He said no cast members had "significantly changed their ethnicity by means of makeup". A rights document written by the show's creators said non-African American actors can portray black characters in the show, but that they "forbid any use of the colouring of anyone's face (even if done respectfully and subtly) for it is still ... a form of blackface, which is a chapter in the story of race in America that our show is obviously against". "If the production of Hairspray you see features folks whose skin colour doesn't match the characters ... we ask that you use the timeless theatrical concept of 'suspension of disbelief'." WHAT IS HAIRSPRAY Hairspray is an award-winning musical about racial integration in 1960s Baltimore. This show achieved 99 per cent capacity houses for its first two years running on Broadway, breaking all previous records. The songs include 1960s-style dance music and rhythm and blues. Half of the characters in the show are African American. The original creators encouraged diverse casting for the show. A rights document written by the show's creators said non-African American actors could portray black characters in the show. However, any use of the colouring of anyone's face, which was a form of blackface, was forbidden. Comments on this story are now closed. Tuaine Taringa and her team spent three days visiting Vietnamese markets to collect fresh local produce before finalising their menus. A Kiwi cooking student's dessert has earned top marks from judges at a prestigious gala dinner in Vietnam. Tuaine Taringa, an NZMA culinary arts student, was selected to travel to Ho Chi Minh City to take part in an inaugural cooking competition on June 6. SUPPLIED The NZMA level 5 professional cookery student puts together her winning coconut dacquoise dessert. Three teams, each consisting of two Vietnamese and two New Zealand students, were tasked in April with a brief to design a three-course meal that would showcase the best of New Zealand and Vietnamese cuisine. The team organised their menu online under the guidance of MasterChef New Zealand 2013 finalist Vanessa Baxter before meeting in Vietnam just days before the competition. "It was quite difficult to come up with the recipes that we could use," Taringa says. SUPPLIED The dessert featured a vanilla, mango and coconut delice on a cooked coconut and lime soil. "There was a bit of language barrier there between our team because one team-mate couldn't speak English." "But on the night of the competition he blew me awayhe communicated through the food." The students showcased their culinary skills on stage in front of more than 170 guests, including the Minister of Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Steven Joyce. Taringa's team came second in the competition for their baked mussels entree and lamb rack with coconut and cauliflower puree and ginger rice. However it was their coconut dacquoise dessert that earned them high praise after the judges gave it the score of 9.9 out of 10. Taringa was the brains behind the dessert having spent weeks learning and practising how to create it. The mother-of-three of St Johns says the feedback was a confidence boost. "This competition has made me want to be a pastry chef and learn more about the industry." The New Zealand-Vietnam Culinary Collaboration was created in 2015 as part of a strategic education plan between the two countries. This rare 1957 Chrysler 300C was stolen from a Palmerston North address. Two rare classic cars worth a combined $100,000 have been stolen from a Palmerston North shed. Kevin Long said he had been on holiday with his wife in Australia and returned to find the vehicles had been stolen on Sunday. An orange 1965 Chrysler 300C, registration number DSA652 and a red 1957 red Chevy Bel Air were taken from a locked shed at Long's property on Saturday night. The Chevy was returned after it was discovered in a farm shed on Kairanga-Bunnythorpe Rd on Sunday. A worker on the farm discovered the car in the shed and when the photo was posted to social media Long's friends recognised it. "A $60,000 classic car was just sitting in a shed." It was then discovered the Chrysler, thought to be worth about $40,000, had also been taken. It remains missing. "Neither car is common. "They tried to hotwire it and that's when I think they towed the red car away." Long said he had purchased the Chrysler 11 years ago. "These cars go back in our family quite a bit." He had discovered the car in Los Angeles, while holidaying around America, and made an offer on it. "It was quite run-down. "I fixed it up to get it running." He then shipped it back from America with the plan to sell it, but they got attached to it and decided to keep it. "It was a hard thing to find a colour to suit and when I painted it that colour we thought 'oh yeah'." He had five classic cars, four were running and another that was a project car. "The police assume some of those classic cars do get shipped out of the country [when stolen]. "There have been sightings in Palmerston North so they are driving that one, so in one respect that's nice and hopefully someone will have seen it." The car was only one of 10 in New Zealand and Long said he hoped it would be returned in one piece. "Just to chop up something for the sake of it just seems a waste. "We're still waiting for the police, they got some good finger prints off the red car that was stolen." Social media had been used to put the call out for sightings and Long said they had been overwhelmed with the support. "It's just awesome. "We'll keep our fingers crossed." Anyone who saw the orange vehicle, or knew where it was, is asked to contact the Palmerston North Police Station on 06 351 3600. Alternatively, information can be provided anonymously via the organisation Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. The application process is now open, and the administration says the forms should take five minutes to complete. Get more info on that and more recent business news here. OPINION: If politics is the language of priorities, then we have been left in no doubt as to how this Government ranks the importance of housing and defence. Twenty billion dollars, over the next 15 years, will be spent on weapons of war. Though the outcry against homelessness grows louder every day, hardly a voice has been raised in protest at this monstrous outlay on the NZ Defence Force. How to explain this reluctance to compare the Government's willingness to expend more than a billion additional dollars every year, for 15 years, on new and improved weaponry, with its unwillingness to expend a similar sum on the construction of homes for New Zealand's poorest citizens? No doubt conservatives would respond by asserting that government's highest priority is, and must remain, the protection of its people from armed assault by foreign and/or domestic enemies. A state that can neither defend its borders, nor protect its citizens, is hardly worthy of the name. Conservatives would further insist that, since a small nation like New Zealand will forever be dependent on the willingness of larger powers to come to its defence, it must be prepared to "pull its weight" military expenditure-wise. Expecting our friends to pour out their blood and treasure in our defence, when we are unwilling to do the same, is not only unrealistic it's morally indefensible. READ MORE: * Editorial: Questions remain about $20 billion defence spend-up * Defence White Paper: $20b defence upgrades for new planes, boats and cyber security * Housing makes Auckland uninhabitable for young people * Funding for social housing 'still a Band Aid', not a long-term solution But this romantic almost chivalric understanding of national defence bears little resemblance to the brute historical realities of international conflict. Blood and treasure are almost never poured out for purposes unrelated to either expanding the borders, or defending the interests, of the state/s doing the pouring. If the only arguments in favour of military intervention are moral arguments, then it is most unlikely to happen. How many nations with the military capability to do so intervened in time to prevent the Rwandan genocide? None. Contrast that fatal inaction with the number of New Zealand's "friends" who joined in the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a ruined nation which posed no threat to its neighbours let alone its aggressors. The eminent Jewish scientist and historian, Jacob Bronowski, described war as "organised theft". How many equally wise scientists and historians would be prepared to argue that war is organised morality? (Acknowledging that nearly all American politicians, and an alarming number of their British and Australian counterparts, believe that war and morality go together like apple and pie!) A more realistic assessment of New Zealand's national security (or lack of it) would take as its starting point our extraordinary geographical isolation. So far away are we from the rest of the world that only a major military power could hope to assail our shores. That being the case, we need to ask ourselves what other major power would be willing to prevent such an assault and why? The blunt answer is that any intervention on our behalf would be undertaken solely on strategic grounds. If the subjugation of New Zealand was deemed inimical to the interests of the United States and Australia, then they would hasten to our defence. If not, they wouldn't. The capability and readiness of our minuscule armed forces would not materially alter their calculations. Although, it's at least arguable that the weaker we are, the quicker they'll come. Perhaps, therefore, we should follow the example of Costa Rica and abolish our armed forces altogether. On December 1, 1948, following a bloody civil war, the President of Costa Rica announced the abolition of that country's armed forces. His decision was confirmed the following year in Article 12 of the Costa Rican constitution. The monies previously spent on the military were reallocated to education and culture. The maintenance of internal security was left to the police. Why not do the same? We already have the SIS to warn us of terrorist attack. Protecting our fisheries could become the task of a specialised division of the Ministry of Primary Industries. Defence against cyber-attacks could, similarly, become the responsibility of a special unit within the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management. Imagine the number of state houses and affordable apartments this country could build over the next 15 years with even half the $20 billion currently promised to the NZ Defence Force. Surely, in a democratic state, it is the adequate provision of health, education, housing and employment that should take priority over the vast sums required to purchase the most up-to-date weapons of war? If national defence does not mean ensuring the basic welfare of every citizen then what does it mean? As the Costa Rican President realised 68 years ago, if you maintain a body of armed men, then they will forever be searching for opportunities to use their weapons. If not provided with foreign foes to fight, they will start looking for enemies at home. Comments on this article have now been closed. French tourist Victor Roucher, who died on Mt Taranaki on last week, worked at Wellington bar Dirty Little Secret for five months. A group of Wellington bars are raising money for the family of a French barman who fell to his death on Mt Taranaki last week. Victor Roucher, 25, died after falling near the summit last Tuesday. He had travelled to Taranaki from Wellington to climb the mountain. Kris Foster, who runs four bars in Wellington, said Roucher had been working at his bar Dirty Little Secret before he died. Ross Giblin/Fairfax NZ Dirty Little Secret general manager Kris Foster and other staff at the bar are raising money for Roucher's family. He said bar staff, who were mostly from overseas, were a tight-knit community and were still in shock about their friend's death. READ MORE: * Tramper, 25, dies in fall on Mt Taranaki * EDITORIAL: A guide on Mt Taranaki is a not a guarantee of safety * Death on Mt Taranaki 'highlights lack of winter guides' * Mt Taranaki fall death victim an 'incredible man', says sister Foster said staff at various bars around the city had organised a number of collection pots to be put out to raise money for Roucher's family. Supplied Roucher had lived around the World, including Ireland and celebrated St Patrick's day in Wellington. "Just to help with the cost involved in getting Victor home to France," he said. "We are not too sure if they need the help but we want to do this anyway. It's the only thing we can do to show we support them." Foster said they had put the buckets in the four bars he managed and another 17 bars had got behind the initiative. Supplied His workmates said he was never seen without a smile. Staff who knew Roucher had been hit hard by his death, he said, but being able to organise the collection had helped them cope with it. "The weekend was pretty depressing but the collection's been good because they know they're doing it for him and his family," he said. "It's made them feel a bit better." The bar staff had also created a photo album containing pictures of Roucher that would be given to the family, who he believed had come to Wellington from France. Drew Aitchison, who was Roucher's manager at the bar, said he had always taken the initiative and was keen to learn new skills in the bar. He said the staff and the man who had been climbing with Roucher when he died, had released helium balloons from their rooftop bar with messages for the Frenchman. "It was quite a sad time," he said. Foster said Victor had planned on leaving his job at the bar for two months to travel around the South Island, before picking it up again when he returned and working through the summer. He had also managed to secure a ticket to the All Blacks test against Wales in Wellington on Saturday. An All Blacks game usually meant the bars were so busy that no one was allowed to take time off, but Foster said Roucher talked him into it. "He was going to go by himself because he really wanted to go," Foster said. Tens of thousands of tonnes of rapeseed had to be emptied from a silo in Rolleston after fears it could catch fire. Fire crews have spent the night emptying a Canterbury silo after fears "tens of thousands of tonnes" of rapeseed could catch fire. Fire Service southern communications shift manager Andrew Norris said crews were called to Pure Oil NZ's silo in the industrial area of Christchurch's Rolleston about 11pm on Monday. Four crews have worked on rotation throughout the night to help empty "tens of thousands of tonnes" of rapeseed after temperature spikes were found within the silo. Pure Oil NZ managing director Nick Murney: the former Solid Energy biofuel plant has switched from making biodiesel to high-quality food-grade oil from rapeseed. Norris said it could take more than 24 hours to complete the operation, which was stalled due to problems with the conveyer belt used to move the seed to another silo. READ MORE: * Man seriously hurt after Southland grain silo rescue * Silo fire cleanup done by 'muscle' * Firefighters knocked to the ground at mill blaze * Ordeal not over for yacht crew * Trio swim to safety While the temperature spikes hadn't turned into a fire, there was the possibility of that happening if the seed was left in the silo. "They're emptying it as a precaution after they found several pockets of hot seed." It was not yet known what caused the spikes but it could be due to fermentation if the seed was too damp during harvest or too much moisture made it into the silo, he said. The seed was being checked for hot spots as it was removed from the silo and crews were working to identify the cause of the problem. Crews from Rolleston, Sockburn, Addington and Harewood had been part of the overnight operation. Pure Oil NZ's produces high grade, cold pressed oil and meal from New Zealand-grown oilseed, according to its website. The cold pressed oil is sold to food manufacturers and consumers, while the rapeseed meal (canola meal) is used as a supplementary stock feed. 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. New Dutch Bros. raises money for skate park LEBANON Dutch Bros. earned itself plenty of love late last month with the opening of its newest Lebanon location. On May 26, the new drink stand at 500 Market Street opened with a community giveback that raised $4,500 for the Lebanon Skate Parks expansion project. Dutch Bros offered all 16-ounce drinks for $1 during the event. According to a company news release, The park is a place that connects community members to create relationships that promote positive behaviors and self-esteem. And its a good place to shred. The Market Street Dutch Bros. is open 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday through Thursday and from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Heritage Mall wins awards for KidzShop Heritage Mall won three honors at the International Council of Shopping Centers annual MAXI awards ceremony that was recently held in Las Vegas. These included the Silver MAXI award, which recognizes excellence in marketing, the 2016 Western Region award and the 2016 Overall U.S. Community Support award. All three awards were for KidzShop, an annual back-to-school shopping event created in partnership with Altrusa International of Albany. Last August, during the ninth annual KidzShop, more than 300 children from low-income families were paired with a community volunteer and given $100 to spend on new apparel. Local businesses also donated backpacks, school supplies and hygiene products. As a result of the awards, the ICSC will give $10,000 to Altrusa. We were thrilled with the amount of community support received for KidzShop and look forward to continually implementing programs like this one to support the community of Albany and the mid-Willamette Valley, said Betsy Penson, general manager at Heritage Mall. Heritage Mall is owned by Vintage Real Estate, a Los Angeles-based private investment firm. Four Tauranga Moana Iwi entities have formed a new partnership to support a proposal for the purchase and management of the Housing NZ portfolio in Tauranga. Te Runanga o Ngati Ranginui, Ngai Te Rangi Settlement Trust and Te Runanga o Ngai Te Rangi Iwi Trust and Ngati Pukenga Iwi ki Tauranga Trust have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support the bid made by IHC subsidiary Accessible Properties. Polices patrol dogs will get a new degree of protection with the rollout of a stab-resistant multi-purpose harness. The Mako harness features two layered polymer panels to shield the vital organs from stabbing and slashing, while the robust overall design, in tough Cordura fabric, offers protection from the more usual hazard of blows and kicks. The family of slain man Mike Taylor claim police executed the 57-year-old who was shot dead by officers on Friday. A post-mortem completed over the weekend confirmed Taylor was shot in the torso by officers who were responding to reports of a domestic incident at his Country Road property in the Karangahake Gorge. In welcoming representatives Todd says only through greater liberalisation and a focus on reducing non-tariff measures would the full benefits of the agreement be delivered. The partnership is a 16 country FTA negotiation covering six of New Zealands top 10 trading partners including, China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia and Malaysia. Negotiations have been underway for more than three years and Todd says important progress has been made but there is still a lot to do. I have pressed delegates to use this round of negotiations to agree on a concrete path for better offers, so that tangible progress is made in goods and investment. It is extremely important that RCEP delivers on its full potential and therefore improved market access needs to be agreed. Todd says it is also important to improve public engagement when negotiating FTAs. We need to better explain the necessity of trade and the benefits it can bring. As host for this round, New Zealand has sought to strike an appropriate balance between providing for this engagement while also ensuring there remains the time necessary to progress the substantive negotiations. A session with negotiators from a range of partnership countries is being held at 3pm tomorrow. There will also be a discussion with New Zealand negotiators, which will be livestreamed on MFATs website at 5.30pm tomorrow. Source: Todd McClays Office. Michael says the Government takes its international humanitarian obligations and responsibilities seriously. The increase today demonstrates our commitment to meet the needs of some of the worlds most vulnerable people. New Zealand has a strong record in the resettlement of refugees. Last year we committed to resettling 500 Syrians over two years on top of our annual quota of 750. This means for the next two years we are taking 1000 refugees. He says todays announcement to increase the annual quota to 1000 from 2018/2019 is an appropriate response. We want to ensure the refugees we take settle well and contribute meaningfully to life in New Zealand, while not putting unreasonable strains on social services. We want to be sure people have the appropriate support and services they need to resettle in New Zealand like housing, health, education and translation services, says Michael. The new quota of 1,000 will cost an extra $25 million a year. This is on top of the $75 million a year we currently spend on quota refugees. The Government has also agreed to pilot a new community sponsorship category in 2017/2018. The details of the pilot are still being worked through and will be announced next year. The offers of support from the New Zealand public in the wake of publicity around the significant displacement of people globally is commendable and the Government is keen to explore how that support might be used to the benefit of refugees, Michael says. Immigration New Zealand will also start a process to select a further refugee settlement location to assist the accommodation of the extra intake. There are currently six locations where refugees are settled once they have completed their reception at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, with Dunedin the most recent settlement city. I expect another location will be announced sometime in 2017. The annual refugee quota is just one part of New Zealands total refugee and humanitarian programme. There are also 300 places available each year for family reunification and an additional 125-175 asylum seekers have their claims approved each year. The new Refugee Quota Programme represents an increased contribution from New Zealand to the resettlement of refugees and highlights our commitment to help address the ongoing global refugee crisis. Source: Michael Woodhouse. The MetService recorded 4.7 degrees in the Bay of Plenty at about 7am in what can be described as a chilly start to the morning. Todays daily high is expected to reach around 16 degrees, before dropping to around eight degrees overnight. Priced at $300,000 per couple, the 12 day Baccarat Heritage Experience begins and ends at the Baccarat Hotel New York with pit-stops in France, Japan, Turkey, Russia and South Korea. In New York guests will enjoy a two day stay at the Baccarat branded hotel, where they can experience a spa treatment at Spa de La Mer, an afternoon tea, dinner at Chevalier, as well as an after-hours tour of the Baccarat store on Madison Avenue. The next stop is Paris where guests will spend two days complete with a private tour of the Maison and Musee Baccarat. The Parisian leg of the trip also includes a day trip to Lorraine (by helicopter), where they brand was founded and has a factory. This will be followed by lunch at Chateau Baccarat and an opportunity to view more than 16,000 original sketches of Baccarats crystalware. A private flight will whisk guests off to Istanbul where the palaces of Beylerbeyi and Dolmabahce await, each filled with Baccarat crystal chandeliers commissioned by sultans of the Ottoman Empire. After a night in Istanbul, guests will jet off to Moscow for two days where they will learn about the crystal made for the royal family. They will also have the chance to check out the Maison Baccarat Moscow which is located in the same building that once held the Czars private pharmacy. Mixing together the best in yachts, cars, art, aviation, interiors and lifestyle, Cannes Collection featured 60-plus high profile brands displaying their opulent wares in front of an international clientele hailing from across the world. The event had the atmosphere of a discreet private sale for the selection of 60-plus brands on display. This relaxed and welcoming setting gave exhibitors and visitors time to talk among themselves, as well as seeing and feeling the products on display. Visitors interested in purchasing one of the yachts on show were able to take sea trials a highly unusual offer at such an event and the experiential 'try before you buy' proposition crossed over to motorbikes, helicopters and cars, too. Each of the companies exhibiting was carefully selected by the shows founders, Eric de Saintdo and Bertrand Foache, for their unique qualities and outstanding position in the luxury sector. De Saintdo said of the inaugural event: "We are thrilled with how the four days of Cannes Collection 2016 unfolded [] There has been an overwhelming sense of positivity from all those who took part both exhibitors and visitors on the potential for growth with this new concept. The Cannes Collection will always be put together with the buyer in mind, ensuring we keep the quality of brands on show high, not to mention in a combination unlike anything you will find elsewhere." He continued: "Although the show is physically laid out around the yachts, of which we had 43, this is not a 'yacht show' in the sense that we will never become a trade show with technical products on display; everything has to be interesting to the buyers. We have carefully chosen a variety of brands and sectors, and will continue to do so in the future. It's about finding something different and unique, not just something with an exclusive price tag." A number of exhibitors reported sales, or strong interest, in the products on display, including artworks, fashion items, prestige cars, as well as superyacht builders Sanlorenzo and Sunseeker, the latter receiving an offer for its 28-metre yacht on display, as well as an enquiry for building two further superyachts. Organisers claim a number of brands have already started booking for next years event, both as returning exhibitors and new ones. The next edition is set to take place in June 2017, though there are expected to be a number of dynamic and innovative complementary events and collaborations between the organisers and a range of partners over the coming 12 months. On June 9, Mapletree Investments announced its acquisition of Kumho Asiana Plaza project in District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City for $215 million. The Singapore based group acquired the deal from Kumho Industrial Company Limited and Asiana Airlines Incorporated and this is Mapletrees largest acquisition involving a completed, income-producing property in Vietnam, according to the media release by Mapletree on June 9. The deal is in line with Mapletree Investments overall strategy to invest in strong-yielding assets to further grow its business and earnings. Kumho Asiana Plaza is a rare asset given its attributes such as size, its multiple components with strong occupancies, and location in the heart of HCMCs central business district. We are glad to have seized this opportunity to acquire such a quality, income-producing property in Vietnam, said Hiew Yoon Khong, Mapletree Group Chief Executive Officer. Kumho Asiana Plaza is located in prime location of District 1's CBD. Photo from mapletree.com.sg Kumho Asiana Plaza is a prime mixed-use asset with nearly 146,000 square meters in gross floor area located in the heart of HCMCs central business district. It comprises of Grade A offices, highly-rated serviced apartments and a hotel managed by InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), as well as a variety of food & beverage (F&B) offerings. Occupancies for the office, serviced apartment components and the F&B podium have been consistently over 90 percent. Mapletree began its investment in Vietnam in 2005, and today it owns and manages a portfolio of office, retail, industrial, logistics, and serviced apartment assets. The Group now has over S$1 billion ($733 million) in assets under management in the country. We will continue to seek investment opportunities in completed, quality assets that are immediately yield-accretive in Vietnams major cities such as HCMC and Hanoi. We are also keen to invest in green field opportunities to develop office, retail, residential, serviced apartment and mixed-use developments, either on our own or with local partners, Khong said All our investments in Vietnam are geared towards broadening and growing our earnings base, to delivering strong and stable returns, the groups CEO added. Related news: > Shoppers' paradise lost? Singapore's malls suffer as locals, tourists curb spending ALF TV ALF (Alien Life Form) was a character on NBC's "ALF" from 1986 to 1990, and briefly returned for "ALF's Hit Talk Show" on TV Land in 2004. (Video still) "ALF" star Mahlay "Michu" Meszaros is dead, his manager Dennis Varga announced Monday. He was 76. TMZ reports Meszaros had been rushed to an L.A. hospital last week after being found unresponsive at his home and was still in a coma Sunday. Varga said he had "strict instructions not to take him off life support," but Meszaros had health problems since suffering a stroke 8 years ago. Michu Meszaros appeared in "Big Top Pee-wee" as a circus performer. Meszaros, the self-proclaimed "smallest man on Earth," was the 2-foot-9 actor who played the furry "alien life form" on the '80s TV series "ALF." He wore the costume for action shots, while puppeteer Paul Fusco provided the voice. The Hungary native got his start in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the '70s, later finding U.S. fame and eventually becoming friends with Michael Jackson. The two appeared in Pepsi commercials together and Meszaros reportedly knew MJ's kids and appeared at Neverland Ranch frequently. Meszaros also appeared in "Big Top Pee-wee" opposite Paul Reubens as a circus performer, and had a role in 1993's "Freaked" with Alex Winter and Randy Quaid. Variety reports his credits also include episodes of "Dear John," "H.R. Pufnstuf" and the John Travolta movie "Look Who's Talking." Varga has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay for funeral costs and medical bills. ICON_Indictments (Thinkstock ) SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A former Ithaca accountant today admitted he defrauded investors out of $10 million that he and his accomplice diverted to their personal use. Bruce Kane, 61, of Fort Lauderdale, admitted in federal court that he used $1.5 million of the investors' money to pay $148,000 in rent for a waterfront condo in Florida, to buy a $59,000 boat, to repay $235,000 in personal bank loans, and to pay $280,000 on his credit card purchases, federal prosecutors said. Kane pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud at least 16 investors across the country. His co-defendant, Burton Greenberg, pleaded guilty in November. Bruce Kane At least five of the investors Kane victimized were former clients of his accounting business in Ithaca, Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Brown said. Kane tried to avoid detection by making phony profit payments to the investors in 2004 and 2005, prosecutors said. The payments were in reality a partial return of their principal investment, prosecutors said. Kane and Greenberg lied to investors that their money was being held in an Italian bank where it was generating significant profits, a federal grand jury indictment said. Kane was the managing partner, treasurer and secretary of Global Financial Fund 8 LLP, an investment partnership that solicited and received the investments. Greenberg was president and chief executive officer of M&P Global Financial Services Inc., a Florida company that entered into agreements with Kane and others in 2001 to invest the $10 million on behalf of investors. A third defendant, Senol Taskin, is still a fugitive. Kane faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and restitution of more than $10 million when he's sentenced Oct. 7. Contact John O'Brien anytime | email | Twitter | 315-470-2187 While the WHO recommends that the amount of blood donated as percentage of the population to be at least two percent, the 2015 ratio in Vietnam was just 1.4 percent. The amount of blood donated in Vietnam has increased over recent years. By 2020, the country targets to reach two million units of blood. Source: Ministry of Health Though the amount of blood donated as percentage of Vietnam's population has been going up consitently, it is still below the world's average. The WHO recommends to aim for the highest ratio possible, with acceptable rate being at least two percent. Source: Ministry of Health Developed countries hold the highest rate. Source: WHO Health Report, 2015 By 2020, Vietnam aims to get 100 percent of donated blood from voluntary donors. To date, the rate is just 97 percent. Source: Ministry of Health While in developing countries, most blood donors are young, the reverse is true for developed countries. Source: WHO Health Report, 2015 2014-06-21-dl-pride1.JPG Jim Deferio was forced to protest from across the street during the 2014 CNY Pride Fest at the Inner Harbor. A judge ruled that the city cannot bar Deferio from protesting in front of the entrance this year. David Lassman | dlassman@syracuse.com (David Lassman) Syracuse, NY -- Syracuse police cannot enforce a 40-foot "buffer zone" keeping longtime anti-gay protester Jim Deferio away from this year's CNY Pride festival at the Inner Harbor. For the past two years, Deferio has been forced across the street from the festival entrance by order of Syracuse police, the New York Law Journal reported. But this year, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Kahn ordered that Deferio must not be prohibited from protesting on the sidewalk in front of the festival entrance. Kahn's ruling marks a victory in Deferio's Constitutional free-speech case, which is still continuing. For now, the judge only barred police from enforcing the buffer during this year's event on June 18. Deferio is a well-known presence on Syracuse's University Hill, where the self-proclaimed "Christian evangelist" has staged years of protests against homosexuality with signs and an amplifier. But the buffer zone at the yearly Inner Harbor festival restricted Deferio's right to talk to people freely in a public space, Kahn ruled. The judge noted that governments can put limits on free speech. But those limits must be tailored for a specific public interest -- such as avoiding congestion or maintaining peace and order. They must also leave room for alternative channels to communicate. The buffer zone did neither, Kahn ruled. Video of prior years' protests show Deferio did not block foot traffic or cause a safety problem, the judge ruled. And any concerns could be dealt with using less restrictive measures, such as an order that Deferio not block entrance to the festival, the judge ruled. (There's no evidence Deferio blocked entrances in past years.) Kahn noted the parallels between the buffer zone in Deferio's case and a struck-down Massachusetts law imposing a 35-foot buffer zone outside abortion clinics. The Massachusetts law was overturned by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in 2014. This isn't the first time Deferio has been in the news: UTICA, N.Y. - Steve McCurry's "Afghan Girl" has become so iconic, it's hard to look at the child's haunting green eyes and red scarf without seeing the yellow, National Geographic box wrapped around it. The photo ran on the magazine's cover in 1985. It was taken at a refugee camp in Pakistan, a stopping point for a girl fleeing from fighting between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. It became an international symbol of wartime suffering. McCurry and National Geographic tracked her down 17 years later to discover Sharbat Gula had survived. Now, others are questioning the way some of McCurry's photos - including "Afghan Girl" - have been edited and altered. In the original magazine cover, the girl's right eye is clean. In more recent productions of the image, that eye is smudged with dirt. It's an example, critics say, of other more obvious alterations of some of McCurry's famous photos from the past few decades. In the midst of this controversy, Utica's Munson-Williams Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art is opening "The World through His Lens: Steve McCurry Photographs." The show runs from June 12 to Dec. 31. "The 'Afghan Girl' is the first you see in the exhibition," said Anna D'Ambrosio, director and chief curator at the museum. "In our image there is dirt in the corner of her eye." McCurry has defended his past editing and altering decisions by saying he's a freelancer and a storyteller, not a photojournalist. It's a fine line to draw against a body of work that has turned a spotlight on many remote, wartorn and forgotten places in publications like National Geographic. The show has been in the works for three years, far before this talk about alterations arose. McCurry has promised to come for a talk at the museum this fall; the date has not been set, D'Ambrosio said in early June. But the museum isn't shying away from the recent criticism facing McCurry, and D'Ambrosio hopes more people will visit the exhibit in Central New York to judge the photos in person. "I hope that people come and see these images for themselves," she said. "Some of them are a call to action. They show the sheer beauty of humankind...the universality of the human experience. There's no substitute to coming and seeing them in person." The show features 60 works by McCurry from photographs taken on six different continents. The museum worked with McCurry's studio to curate the show to reflect the history and experiences of Utica's large immigrant and refugee population. More than 17 percent of Utica's 62,000 residents were born in another country, and the small city has been held up as a model for welcoming refugees from all over the world. The Utica show includes some of McCurry's works from Myanmar, Cambodia, Russia, Crotia, India, Thailand, Nepal, Afghanistan and Cuba. Utica is home to people born in all those countries. The exhibit also includes 30 portraits of refugees in Central New York by Lynne Browne, a local photographer. The museum has made three videos that include local immigrants and refugees reacting to some of McCurry's works. D'Ambrosio said she hopes the debate about photo altering and photojournalism will continue. She thinks it should include discussions of works by Civil War photographer Matthew Brady and naturalist photographer Ansel Adams, both of whom took artistic license in some of their images. Admission to the exhibition is $10 for adults and $5 for students. Museum members, active-duty military members and their immediate families, and children 12 and under get in free. There's no need to buy advance tickets, D'Ambrosio said. "The controversy should encourage people to come, to not just look at what's on the Internet, so people can make their own decisions," D'Ambrosio said. Vietnam exports about $7 billion worth of seafood each year, mostly from waters off its southern coast, and the industry has started to feel the impact of the worst drought and saltwater intrusion in almost a century. The southernmost province of Ca Mau, which accounts for 25 percent of the countrys shrimp production, will fall short of export targets this year. The prolonged drought and salinity have affected more than 53,000 hectares of shrimp farms in Ca Mau and cost the province a total of VND260 billion ($11.6 million). The province has subsequently been forced to develop an emergency response plan for the local aquatic farms. The province took the same action earlier this year after harsh weather conditions had destroyed more than 49,000 hectares of its rice crops. Official statistics released by the local government show the total output of farmed shrimps in the first five months of this year has reached 134,000 tons and the output for the first six months is estimated to edge down three percent from the same time last year to 159,000 tons. The prolonged drought, accompanied with extensive saltwater intrusion, large changes in temperatures from the day to night, and other environmental factors have had a serious impact on shrimp farming, said Chau Cong Bang, deputy head of Ca Mau's Agriculture and Rural Development Department. The severe drought, drying up water resources and leading to extensive saltwater intrusion, has been the main reason preventing the shrimp from thriving. According to the local government, diseases including red body, necrosis tail and white antennae or loose head have been reported to also appear at farming sites. Ca Mau has more than 52,000 hectares of shrimp farms, and the prolonged drought and salinity has cost the province a total of VND260 billion. Photo by VnExpress This years harsh weather has taken its toll on the shrimp output, which in turn will affect export volume. The continued lack of input materials has forced many seafood processing factories in Ca Mau to cut their operations, running at just 50-60 percent of their full capacity. Thats why Ca Mau has revised down 2016 export revenues to $1 billion from previously targeted $1.2 billion, said Ngo Thanh Linh, chairman of the provincial association of seafood exporters and producers. Ca Mau is forecast to export $416 million worth of seafood in the first half of this year, said local official, slightly down from a year before. And shrimp exports will fall sharply in the coming months due mainly to dwindling material stockpiles. In addition, local exporters will have to compete head to head with Chinese dealers in the Vietnamese market after Ecuador, Chinas preferred shrimp supplier, was hit by a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in April, severely affecting its shrimp industry. Vietnam exported about $3 billion worth of shrimp last year. The southernmost province of Ca Mau is the latest victim but definitely not the only one. As of May 17, the drought had affected eight provinces in the Mekong Delta, resulting in 81,413 hectares of dead shrimp, according to Vietnam's Directorate of Fisheries. The strongest El Nino in nearly 20 years, which has damaged crop production in Asia and caused food shortages, has ended. During the summer, rainfall could remain significantly below average in the central part of the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and southeastern Myanmar, according to AccruWeather. However, by the end of 2016, farmers will be looking for the development of a La Nina weather pattern, which typically brings wetter weather across the Asian region. Related news: > Shrimp farmers going broke due to severe drought > Historic drought ravages Vietnam's shrimp farms > Salt water drowns Mekong Delta shrimp industry Vietnam has asked China to create favorable conditions for more Vietnamese goods to enter the worlds second largest economy in an effort to help balance the bilateral trade. In a meeting on the sideline of the ongoing 4th China-South Asia Expo in China's Yunnan Province, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung told Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang the country would like to export more agriculture, forestry and fishery products, particularly rice, to China, according to a statement posted on the Vietnamese government portal on Sunday. Regarding economic cooperation, Dung wanted the two sides to boost the operations of their joint working groups, especially on infrastructure and finance sectors. He also asked China to encourage its big enterprises to invest in major projects in Vietnam, including those which connect the two countries in infrastructure sector. In addition, Dung wanted Chinas preferential loans and aids to Vietnam to be disbursed effectively. The meeting between Vietnamese (L) and Chinese (R) delegations. Photo by VGP/Xuan Tuyen Vietnam has signed 13 free trade agreements and is in talks to conclude 3 more including the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which Vietnam and China are members. The Southeast Asian nation will also hold the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit next year. In that context, Vietnam is ready to cooperate with Yunnan Province to enhance cooperation in the Greater Mekong Sub-region on education and training, science and technology, tourism and cross-border trade, Dung said in the opening ceremony of the 4th China-South Asia Expo. Chinas Yang agreed in the meeting that the two sides should increase economic ties and carry out as soon as possible some critical cooperation projects. About 5,000 enterprises from 89 countries and regions are taking part in the event in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, from June 12-17, Xinhua cited the organizers as saying. This year, 140 enterprises mainly involved in handicrafts, agriculture, fishery, food processing and home appliances from Vietnam are participating at the expo with 280 booths. Vietnam saw a reduction of 15.6 percent in its trade deficit with China in the first quarter of 2016, raising expectations about an ongoing decline for the whole year. During the first quarter, Vietnam's export value to China was up 8.2 percent year-on-year to $3.9 billion. This was attributed to an increase in key export products; including fruit and vegetables, up 72.8 percent; and telephones and their components, up 77.1 percent. The country spent $10.4 billion on imports from China, eight percent lower than the same period last year. Export value of some key products fell with equipment down 13.1 percent and telephones and their components down 18.4 percent. Related news: > Trade deficit looms for Vietnam despite positive start to 2016 > Vietnam sees non-stop decade long trade deficit with ASEAN > Vietnams trade deficit with China drops Members of the FBI and local law enforcement search the home of Orlando night club shooter, Omar Mateen, Sunday at Woodland Condominiums in Fort Pierce. (MOLLY BARTELS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) By Staff Report Palm City resident Jerome Kight last week waved to the PGA Village security guard while visiting family in the gated community, not knowing the guard Omar Mateen would days later carry out the deadliest mass shooting in the nation's history. "It was the same, 'How are you?' 'Oh, I'm good,' " Kight said of his last conversation with Mateen. His jaw dropped when he connected the photo splashed across the news and the person he knew. But not from surprise. "I always knew something was off with him," Kight said. Kight and other former acquaintances and co-workers described him as anti-social, someone who made frequent homophobic and racial comments and was demeaning to women. Kight said women would "get a creepy vibe" when talking with Mateen. Daniel Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce Police officer who once worked with Mateen at PGA Village, called Mateen "unhinged and unstable." Gilroy worked the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift with G4S security firm at the south gate at PGA Village for several months in 2014-15. Mateen took over from him for a 3 to 11 p.m. shift, Gilroy said. Gilroy said he complained to G4S several times about Mateen's homophobic and racial comments, but said it did nothing because Mateen was Muslim. When Gilroy finally confronted Mateen, he said Mateen began stalking him via multiple text messages 20 or 30 a day. He also sent Gilroy 13 to 15 phone messages a day, he said. "I quit because everything he said was toxic," Gilroy said Sunday. "And the company wouldn't do anything. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people." The company would only say that Mateen worked for it, a spokeswoman said. They couldn't be reached about Gilroy's comments. Gilroy said this shooting didn't come as a surprise to him. He said he felt responsible and wondered whether he could have changed events had he kept complaining. "He could have been diverted," said Gilroy. 'He was always a gentleman' Others, however, remembered a friendly guard who greeted residents at PGA Village, a gated community in western Port St. Lucie. PGA Village resident Eleanora Dorsi recognized Mateen's face as a friendly one who guarded her community. "Whenever I saw him, he was very polite," Dorsi said Sunday from her summer home in Connecticut. "He was always a gentleman." Dorsi, who has lived in the community since 2011, estimated she saw Mateen a dozen times through the years, but he left a big impression on her because of his chivalry, she said. "He even helped me with the car once, so I can't say he was creepy," she said. Mateen helped her work the windshield cleaning function in her new car one time, she said. Dorsi frequently gave Mateen and other PGA Village guards pizza, cookies and candy for their hard work, she said. The last time she saw Mateen was a year ago, Dorsi said. "He was always smiling and just seemed like a very nice, positive person," Dorsi said. It sent chills down Dorsi's spine to imagine the man charged with keeping her and other locals safe carried out the deadliest mass shooting in the nation's history, she said. "You would never ever think that he would have done anything like this," Dorsi said. "Scary, scary. Very scary. I think everyone feels like that right now," she added. "It hits too close to home." 'He was usually by himself' A Fort Pierce mosque leader said Mateen was quiet and would not be seen with any friends when he attended nightly prayers at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce. "He wouldn't talk or sit with any other members," said Dr. Syed Shafeeq Rahman, Imam for the mosque. Rahman said Mateen had attended the mosque since he was 7 years old. He said Mateen's character had changed over the past 10 years. "As a child, he was aggressive. He would run and laugh," Rahman said. "As he got older, he grew quiet. He was usually by himself." Rahman, 50, of Fort Pierce, said Mateen would visit the mosque with his son for prayer night a few nights out of the week. He said Mateen's mother and father attended the mosque separately. "The father would come to help out," Rahman said. Rahman said he found out about the shooting when he got a text from a friend Sunday morning. "I was shocked. I didn't think he would harm anyone," Rahman said. "We don't promote violence. That's not what we stand for." As an adult, Mateen became devoted to body building and was very muscular, Rahman said. "I don't have any knowledge he was with ISIS," Rahman said. "When something like this happens, it pushes us 10 years back." Staff writers Anthony Westbury, Nicole Rodriguez, Elliott Jones, Nicholas Samuel and Colleen Wixon contributed to this report. Scene from the Port St. Lucie home connected to the Orlando shooting suspect, Omar Mateen. (ERIC HASERT/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) SHARE Suspect identified as Omar Mateen, 29. (PHOTO FROM ORLANDO POLICE) Moner Mohammed Abu-Salha By Adam Neal of TCPalm VERO BEACH The man police say is behind Sunday's Orlando shooting had ties to the first American-born suicide bomber at least two years ago, FBI officials said. MORE | Complete coverage on Omar Mateen and the Orlando shooting The FBI in 2014 investigated the relationship between Omar Mateen, 29, and Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who federal officials then identified as the first American-born suicide bomber. Abu-Salha lived in Vero Beach and had ties to Sebastian and Fort Pierce. Mateen's last known address was in Fort Pierce, the city just south of Vero Beach. Abu-Salha was 22 years old at the time of the suicide bombing. In 2014, he drove a bomb-laden truck that blew up outside a restaurant in the government-held northwest city of Idlib in Syria, officials said. "The FBI conducted an investigation, including an interview with Mateen (in 2014)," Ron Hopper, assistant FBI Special Agent in Chicago, said during a Sunday afternoon news conference. "We determined that contact (with Abu-Salha) was minimal, and did not constitute a substitutive relationship or threat at that time." The FBI first became aware of Mateen in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers, alleging possible terrorist ties, Hopper said. "The FBI thoroughly investigated the matter, including interviews of witnesses, physical surveillance and records checks," he said. "Mr. Mateen was interviewed twice. Ultimately, we were unable to verify the substance of his comments, and the investigation was closed." An American flag is seen in another apartment at the Fort Pierce apartment building where Orlando Pulse shooting suspect Omar Mateen resides. (ERIC HASERT/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) By Staff Reports BREAKING NEWS 9:14 a.m.: Omar Mateen purchased his guns with a concealed gun permit approved by the state of Florida, acording to Carlos Gonzales, spokesman with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. EARLIER STORY FORT PIERCE The investigation continues today into Omar Mateen, the Fort Pierce resident linked to the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office and Fort Pierce Police Department is working with the FBI and Florida Department of Law Enforcement. MORE | Complete coverage on Omar Mateen and the Orlando shooting Authorities say Mateen entered Pulse, a gay nightlight in Orlando early Sunday morning carrying an AR-15. Witnesses said he fired relentlessly in tight quarters, shooting police and taking hostages. When the gunfire stopped, 50 people were dead and dozens more were critically wounded. Mateen, who law enforcement officials said had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a 911 call around the time of the attack, died in a gun battle with SWAT team members. St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara and Fort Pierce Police Chief Diane Hobley-Burney issued a joint statement: "The events that took place today in Orlando were certainly tragic and shake a community, let alone our nation, to its core. "The residents of St. Lucie County continue to offer our thoughts and prayers to the victims, survivors, and their families in Orlando." Residents of the Woodland Condos on 17th Street in Fort Pierce were evacuated from their homes early Sunday. According to Fort Pierce Police, they were able to return to their homes about midnight. TIP LINE Anyone with information about the investigation should call the FBI Tip Line: 754-703-2000. Unit 107 (bottom) at the Woodland Condominium in Fort Pierce, home of Orlando Pulse shooting suspect Omar Mateen. (ERIC HASERT/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) By Elliott Jones of TCPalm As the investigation continues of the man linked to the worse mass killing in U.S. history, residents and neighbors of Omar Mateen express shock. "It is everyone's nightmare: a monster living next door," said Jason Beers, another resident of the Woodland Condomiums in the 2500 block of South 17th Street in Fort Pierce. Mateen lived in the complex. Federal, state and local law-enforcement officials converged on the complex early Sunday morning. MORE | Complete coverage on Omar Mateen and the Orlando shooting Mateen was connected to the gunfire at the Pulse Orlando club. The FBI reported Mateen opened fire in the club, killing 50 and wounding dozens of others Sunday morning. Beers remembered Mateen staring back when greeted in a walkway. "It was an awkward stare," Beers said of saying hello to Mateen about a month ago. "He was a lone wolf" who lived in a first-floor apartment in a quiet working-class neighborhood. "I'm shocked," Beers said after learning about Mateen's connection to the Orlando shootings. "What could he have done here," Beers asked. MATEEN'S FATHER Omar Mateen's father, Seddique Mateen, has a business registered out of a home in Port St. Lucie, according to state records. The business, The Durand Jirga Inc, published videos of Mateen talking about political relationships between the United States and Afghanistan. In one, he announced his candidacy for president of Afghanistan. The business address is in the 500 block of Southwest Bayshore Boulevard in Port St. Lucie, which was one of two locations in that city where additional law-enforcement agencies converged Sunday. Seddique Mateen is listed as the owner of the house. Images from the candlelight vigil held at TattleTails nightclub on Sunday, June 12, 2016 in Port St. Lucie. The vigil was in honor of those who were killed at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. (SAM WOLFE/SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) By Amanda Hicks of TCPalm This story has been modified from an earlier version. Local vigils, ceremonies and fundraisers are scheduled throughout the week to honor and mourn the loss of the 49 individuals killed in the Orlando shooting. MORE | Orlando shooting coverage June 16 Unity Night Where: Tradition Field, 525 NW Peacock Blvd., Port St. Lucie When: 6 p.m. About: Fans are invited on the field for a Ring of Unity ceremony with players and staff before the game. OneBlood donation buses will be on site from 4 to 9 p.m. Donors will receive two free tickets to the game. Donations accepted at the gates for Orlando relief efforts. June 17 Fundraiser for Pulse Victims Where: Cold Keg Nightclub and Bar, 4060 W. New Haven Ave., Melbourne When: 4 p.m. About: The event will feature raffles and shows by entertainers. All proceeds go to Pulse victims families in Orlando. June 18 Out Loud for Orlando Drag Show Where: TattleTails Nightclub, 8283 S. U.S. 1, Port St. Lucie When: 10:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. About: A dozen drag queens perform. Five dollar cover charge and all door proceeds go toward Orlando relief efforts. Happy hour starts at 4 p.m. when the doors open. June 20 Free Support/Gathering Where: Inner Truth Project Building, 2190 Reserve Park Trace, Nbr. 13, Port St. Lucie (Located inside industrial building) When: 7 p.m. About: Vivas Counseling Services is hosting a free support group/gathering for anyone in need of support and unity in light of the tragic events that took place in Orlando. For more information, call or text 772-245-7608. By Nicole Rodriguez of TCPalm Editor's Note: The name of the Imam has been corrected. ----------------------- FORT PIERCE Less than 36 hours before Omar Mateen allegedly opened fire on hundreds of people in a crowded Orlando nightclub, he was praying at a mosque in Fort Pierce. MORE | Complete coverage on Omar Mateen and the Orlando shootings Islamic Center of Fort Pierce spokesman Adel Nefzi last saw Mateen at the mosque Friday night. Mateen whom he remembered as a loving father usually brought his young son with him to weekday prayer services, but he was alone for Fridays hourlong sermon, Nefzi said. Mateen, who never was social, seemed normal, Nefzi recalled. He doesnt talk a lot to people, Nefzi said. He just comes and leaves. It was the last time Nefzi would greet Mateen with the Arabic phrase, As-salamu alaykum, which translates as Peace be upon you. Its a shocking thing, Nefzi said of the nations worst massacre. Adel Nefzi, spokesman for mosque in Fort Pierce, says Omar Mateen seemed like a loving father #OrlandoShooting pic.twitter.com/m50sNEdfR9 Nicole Rodriguez (@NicRodriguez) June 13, 2016 CONDEMNATION Leaders of the mosque where Mateen regularly prayed have condemned the act of terror, saying theres no room for hate or violence in their peaceful religion. By Monday, however, many who came there to pray were losing patience with the news media. Following afternoon prayers, many declined to comment, citing the nearly constant presence of local and national media and what they claimed were remarks taken out of context and woven into a Donald Trump political narrative. Mosque member Bedar Bakht, however, said the mosque does not promote bloodshed. There is no rhetoric here ISIS, Hamas, al-Qaida all these people killing for no reason is totally horrendous, said Bakht, of Fort Pierce. Stop doing all this and we can get on with living our peaceful lives, he stressed. Killing is not good. SAFETY Monday afternoon, at least two motorists or their passengers yelled expletives toward the mosque as they drove past on Midway Road, and could be heard during the afternoon prayer, which began approximately 2:30 p.m. Since the Orlando shooting, Nefzi said, he fears for the safety of mosque members. Law-enforcement officers initially guarded the 20-year-old center on Sunday, but there were no incidents of violence, Nefzi said. I hope and pray it remains the same, Nefzi said. RADICALIZATION WARNINGS Imam says his mosque is in shock and he just wants to lead it in prayer, but still allowing photogs to film prayer #Orlando #FortPierce Nicole Rodriguez (@NicRodriguez) June 13, 2016 When weekly sermons are held during the holy month of Ramadan which started June 5 and ends July 5 leaders warn against radicalization and promote compassion and unity, Nefzi said. "It's not a good Muslim if he goes to his home and his neighbor is hungry regardless of the neighbor if he's Muslim or not Muslim if you see another person that is in need and you don't help him, it's not good," Nefzi said Monday. Tolerance, too, is taught during sermons, Nefzi stressed. On being gay, Nefzi said members of his religion "have no right to judge." The morning after Mateen, 29, carried out the country's deadliest shooting, another area Imam, Abdul Raoof Shandani, issued a statement expressing horror over the mass murder at Pulse Nightclub, a popular gay club outside of the downtown area. "Whoever kills a person it is as though he has killed all humankind," Rahman said, quoting a verse from the Quran. "And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all of mankind." NOT THE FIRST Mateen wasnt the first extremist with ties to the Midway Road mosque. Federal officials in 2014 identified 22-year-old Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, who spent much of his life with his family in Indian River County, as the first known American suicide bomber in the Syrian civil war. Abu-Salha, a Vero Beach resident, spent significantly less time at the mosque than Mateen, who worshipped there faithfully for five years, two to three times a week, Nefzi said. The two occasionally prayed in the same room, Nefzi said, but he never witnessed the pair interact with each other. Nefzi, who didnt know Mateen personally, emphasized the mosque and its some 120 members is not a breeding ground for terrorists, despite the deadly acts two of its members committed. He said he never will know where the radicalization of both men occurred. Thats a question I keep asking myself, Nefzi said. Unit 107 (bottom) at the Woodland Condominium in Fort Pierce, home of Orlando Pulse shooting suspect Omar Mateen. (ERIC HASERT/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) SHARE By Lamaur Stancil of TCPalm FORT PIERCE Within hours of federal investigators vacating the Orlando gunman's Fort Pierce condominium, police said someone broke the lock on the sliding door to Omar Mateen's home. "We're treating it as a burglary," Fort Pierce spokesman Ed Cunningham said. "It will be handled as a crime." About 5 a.m. Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, assisted by police and state law enforcement officials, completed its search warrant at the apartment in the 2500 block of South 19th Street. As media continued to swarm the apartment complex, someone noticed the rear sliding door to the apartment was ajar. Multiple reporters contacted city officials after 10 a.m. about the door. "The FBI let us know the scene was secure," Cunningham said. Police are investigating the break-in, though Cunningham said it will pose a challenge to determine if anything was taken by anyone who shouldn't have been there. The former resident and the gunman who authorities said killed 49 people at an Orlando night club was shot and killed by the Orlando Police SWAT team. Some items were removed by federal investigators, who searched the home for evidence in the shooting. Images from 937 S.W. Bayshore Blvd. in Port St. Lucie, Florida on June 12, 2016. Investigators with the FBI, Port St. Lucie Police Department and St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office searched and removed evidence from a home connected to Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen. (LEAH VOSS/TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) I don't know what is more shocking: To learn dozens of people were murdered early Sunday morning by a lone gunman at a nightclub in Orlando; or To discover the shooter had strong ties to the Treasure Coast. MORE | Complete coverage on Omar Mateen and the Orlando shooting By Sunday afternoon as more details came to light shock gave way to vulnerability. It's one thing to watch from afar as innocent people are gunned down in Paris, France, or San Bernardino, California. It's another thing when the killings occur in a neighboring Florida city and the killer is one of our own. Law enforcement identified Omar Mateen, 29, as the shooter at the Pulse nightclub. Mateen used a handgun and AR-15 assault rifle to kill 50 people and injure 53 over a three-hour period before he was shot dead by police, according to authorities. The worst mass shooting in U.S. history now has a Florida address. Mateen's motives remain unclear. The FBI is investigating potential ties to radical Islam. However, one thing is clear: We are less safe than we were 48 hours ago. "When something like this hits close to home, we begin to realize it can happen anywhere," Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said. "Our sense of security and well-being diminishes." Mateen's parents relocated from Afghanistan to Port St. Lucie more than three decades ago. Their son grew up here. Omar Mateen attended Martin County High School. He graduated from Indian River State College in 2006 with a degree in criminal justice technology. Since September 2007, Mateen had been employed by G4S, a private security firm, according to G4S spokeswoman Monica Lewman-Garcia. He lived in an apartment in Fort Pierce. There are those in our communities who knew this man. You may have sat next to him in school or said "hi" to him at the gym or grocery store. Mateen, now a mass murderer, lived among us. Another part of this story may keep many of us on the Treasure Coast awake at night. There are a lot of "soft targets" in our region. From malls and movie theaters to bars and concert venues, there are plenty of crowded places in our three-county area. Did you go out Saturday night? Were you in a crowded place in Fort Pierce, Vero Beach, Port St. Lucie or Stuart? Did it even cross your mind that being in a large group of people could make you a target for someone bent on slaughtering others? The authorities say Mateen may have chosen Pulse because it is a gay nightclub. However, had he wanted to stay closer to home and been less selective in his target, the carnage visited on Orlando could have unfolded in one of our communities. Is this fear-mongering? No. It is the logical extension of harboring a mass murderer in our midst. "I foresee a day when people will not go into crowded places," said Snyder, who reiterated the importance of "being aware of your surroundings" and calling law enforcement "if someone is acting suspiciously." We are vulnerable like never before. Heightening our awareness may be the only good to come out of this senseless tragedy. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc met with a delagation of volunteered doctors from Mercer University, U.S. in Can Tho on June 13. Photo by VNA/Thong Nhat Doctors and students from Mercer University (U.S.), who have been providing Vietnamese amputees with low-cost plastic prosthetics, have met with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc today in the sourthern province of Can Tho, reported VNA. Headed by Vietnamese born Dr. Vo Van Ha, the designer of the prosthetic, the group consists of American and Vietnamese doctors and over a dozen of Vietnamese students studying in the U.S. Ha's group has provided prosthetics for amputees in many Mekong Delta provinces in Vietnam since 2009. They have also treated and distributed free medicine to more than 40,000 people and fitted 5,000 prostheses for patients who have bone-related medical issues in Vietnam. PM Phuc expressed his gratitude for the work by doctors and students of Mercer University, especially their efforts to help amputees. He asked the group to continue expanding their clinical programs, helping Vietnamese patients to access advanced medicine and free treatment. Members of the group said they are ready to coordinate with Vietnamese agencies to provide free health care for amputees in Vietnam. The group is a part of Mercer on Mission, an annual program carried out by students and faculty members of Mercer University in Georgia State, U.S, which works on projects in developing countries, including prostheses in Vietnam, clean water in Madagascar and medical clinics in Cambodia and Honduras. Related news: > Vietnam-U.S. announce new climate change partnership > United States helps Vietnam train 'disease detectives' People stand during a candlelight vigil at TattleTails nightclub on Sunday in Port St. Lucie. The vigil was in honor of those who were killed at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. (SAM WOLFE/SPECIAL TO TREASURE COAST NEWSPAPERS) By Editorial Board "Evil is no faceless stranger, living in a distant neighborhood. Evil has a wholesome, hometown face, with merry eyes and an open smile. Evil walks among us, wearing a mask which looks like all our faces." Dean Koontz Treasure Coast residents are slowly coming to terms with a haunting revelation: Evil walked among us in the form of Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old Fort Pierce resident who killed 49 people and injured 53 early Sunday morning at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. He attended our schools. He worshipped at a local mosque. He worked in our communities as a private security guard. To some who encountered him, Mateen was a gentleman. To others, a ticking time bomb. By noon Sunday, when the lone gunman was identified by federal authorities, Mateen became known forever by another adjective: mass murderer. MORE | Complete coverage of the Orlando shooting. He now is the second terrorist from the Treasure Coast. The first, Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, became the first American to carry out a suicide attack when a bomb-laden truck he was driving detonated outside a restaurant in Syria in 2014. Abu-Salha lived in Vero Beach and had ties to Sebastian and Fort Pierce. Like Abu-Salha, Mateen was one of us: A U.S. citizen. A local resident. A man who, despite two separate investigations by the FBI for alleged terrorist ties, managed to exist below the radar. Maybe Mateen could have been stopped before Sunday's carnage. Maybe we should have known. Or maybe we didn't see it because our collective values, as a people and a region, are diametrically opposed to the values that animated Mateen's actions. We value diversity and the peaceful coexistence of people from various ethnic, racial, religious and political backgrounds. We value charity and philanthropy. It is no surprise that, only hours after the Orlando tragedy, more than 40 people stood in line to donate blood at the OneBlood Donation Center in Stuart. We value justice and compassion. On Sunday night, almost 200 people gathered for a candlelight vigil at TattleTails nightclub in Port St. Lucie to remember the victims of the tragedy. Mateen wore a mask that looked like all our faces. He was one of us but only in the geographical sense. This is not who we are. Mateen's violent, homophobic, depraved world view is anathema to the collective values shared by people throughout our communities. If we missed the signs, it may be because we lacked a philosophical framework to comprehend the potential for evil by one of our own. Going forward, we must stay loyal to the values that make the Treasure Coast a special place to live. But we must also factor in a new reality: A hometown face may be the mask of a terrorist. SHARE cover Christina DeFalco, Director of Community Relations; Robin Dapp, Coalition Chair and Executive Director of SACIRC; and Cyndee Alves, Coalition Coordinator By Tania Ortega-Cowan For Luminaries In 2008, the Substance Awareness Center adopted a leadership role constructing a community coalition to reduce substance use throughout Indian River County. "This idea has grown into a community-wide effort and now is a fully-funded coalition, which is very exciting," said Robin Dapp, Executive Director of the Substance Awareness Center. "We are creating environmental changes that benefit Indian River County, impact families and the safety of our community." The coalition is called Substance Abuse Free Indian River (S.A.F.I.R.) and is composed of representatives from community-based agencies, county government, schools, law enforcement, youth-centered organizations, businesses, and concerned citizens. The federal grant provides funding for two positions: a Director of Community Relations, Christina DeFalco, and Coalition Coordinator, Cyndee Alves both longtime residents of Indian River County. "Seven years ago, we were approached by colleagues from the Department of Children and Families informing us Indian River did not have a state approved substance abuse coalition," explained Robin. "We began investigating and discovered we were among only a few counties that didn't have a prevention coalition targeting substance abuse, making our county ineligible for state prevention dollars to address underage drinking, which at the time was among the highest in the state." The Substance Awareness Center began connecting with key leaders and organizations, allocating staff to help establish the coalition, making it a priority. In 2009, the coalition applied for a state Substance Abuse Response Guide grant, which led to the development of a community action plan, and delineation of roles and responsibilities of coalition members. The grant built the infrastructure of the coalition, including ongoing training and mentorship from experts in community organizing and planning. Since then, the coalition has brought more than 35 businesses, agencies, and individuals into the fold. Coalition members include: the Substance Awareness Center, School District of IRC, Florida Department of Children and Families, Boys and Girls Clubs of IRC, IRC Sheriff's Office, Vero Beach Police Department, Sebastian Police Department, Bay Street Pharmacy, Florida Pain Management Associates, Childcare Resources of Indian River, 211 of the Treasure Coast, Tobacco Free Partnership of Indian River/QuitDoc, IRC Healthy Start Coalition, New Horizons of the Treasure Coast, Florida Department of Health, SafeSpace, and the Department of Juvenile Justice. The SAFIR coalition is also a member of the regional Community Coalition Alliance that represents Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin and Okeechobee counties. "Underage alcohol use is by far, the biggest concern with 32 percent of high school students admitting to drinking in the past 30 days," said Robin, citing the Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey 2014. "When a community is healthy, safe and academically prosperous, excellence occurs in everyone every age and every station in life benefits. In Indian River County, we are committed to working towards keeping our youth and families healthy and safe," said Christina DeFalco. The next meeting is Aug. 4 at 2 p.m. at the Substance Awareness Center, 1507 20th Street in Vero Beach. It's open to the public. Please RSVP to cwalves@sacirc.org or learn more at SAFIRC.org. SAFIR initiatives: Friday Night Done Right - a campaign that promotes the message that most teens do not drink and use drugs in order to have fun Talk. They Hear You - is an evidenced-based campaign that assists parents facilitating conversation with their kids about underage drinking No One's House - is a parent-to-parent mediated campaign working to reduce the number of parents in the community who are providing teens with alcohol and/or allowing teens to drink in their homes Lock It Up - the campaign encourages adults to lock up their alcohol Know the Law - a class taught by Sheriff Deputies for all Indian River County students providing education surrounding alcohol and other drug laws, along with the possible consequences should they choose to break them The number of foster youth celebrating high school or college graduations increased this year by 30 percent, from seven in 2015 to 10 this year. The number, while small, could represent a trend in the number of youth in foster care choosing to pursue a higher education. 'We're hopeful some of the changes made in recent years to the way we serve Florida's teens and youth in care is having an impact on graduation rates,' said Christina Kaiser, Community Relations Director for Devereux Community Based Care, the nonprofit organization that oversees the child-welfare system in Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties. Some of those changes include a law passed two years ago that gives additional opportunities to young people in foster care, including the options to stay in foster care until age 21 and receive postsecondary educational services and support. The increase in local graduations, especially among students obtaining their GEDs, could have something to do with the stability that comes from remaining in foster care while finishing high school. Or it could be the result of eligibility requirements for the Post Secondary Educational Services and Support program known as PESS. 'Students have to graduate high school to be eligible for the financial support that comes through the program,' said Josie Kirchner, Director of Clinical Services for Devereux CBC. 'The real key is whether these students are enrolling in college.' In fact, four of this year's local high school or GED graduates have plans to attend college, while two are graduating with two and four-year college degrees. 'Whatever the reason, they're graduating,' Kaiser said. 'We're happy for the progress.' September is Hunger Action Month, when Feeding America and member food banks ask everyone in America to take action to fight hunger in their community, all month long. Hunger Action Month is an opportunity to join a movement that has a real and lasting impact on our effort to feed more Americans than ever before. Treasure Coast Food Bank's Hunger Action Month Committee has been working hard planning events and activities to help raise awareness about hunger in our community. To find out more, visit StopHunger.org or call our office at 772-489-3034. Sheriff Ken Mascara and Judge Nirlaine Smartt SHARE Paulette Dupee, Bonnie Desouca, Amy Kwasincki PAL Director and Fort Pierce Police Officer Paul Pearson with Fort Pierce Police Officer of the Year Detective David Jones James Hatfield and Founding Hundred Club Member Hal Roberts SLC Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Bryan Beatty and Founding Hundred Club member Vernon Smith By Wendy Dwyer For Luminaries For the past quarter of a century, Jane Rowley has presided over the St. Lucie County Hundred Club. Following the lead of law officers in Detroit, Michigan in 1950, a group of dedicated individuals in St. Lucie County created the St. Lucie County Hundred Club in 1987 with the same focus and premise. Each member donates $100 to become a member of the organization, and all funds raised are utilized to provide direct financial assistance for spouses and dependents of first responders who have lost their lives or become disabled in the line of duty. The group also hosts an annual awards dinner to honor first responders in each branch of service to the community. This year's Annual Awards Banquet was even more special as the organization's outgoing president Jane Rowley was honored for 25 years of tireless service and leadership to the Hundred Club and the community. Founding members of the St. Lucie County Hundred Club included Jim Russakis, then-sheriff R.C. "Bobby" Knowles, Vernon Smith, Al Brown, and then-Fort Pierce Mayor William Dannahower. As a way to honor 25-year president Jane Rowley who passed the torch to Attorney Jason Berger, a number of the organization's founding and lifetime members were on hand to share in the evening's festivities and honors. Honored this year at the organization's 27th Annual Awards Program were St. Lucie County Sheriff's Deputy Matt Briglia, St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office Detention Officer Vincent William, St. Lucie County Firefighter, Lieutenant Pal Smith, Port St. Lucie Police Officer Robbie Gibbins, Fort Pierce Police Officer David Jones, Florida Highway Patrolman Ronald Weber, and Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Officer James Payne. The Hundred Club's lifetime members represented during the evening included Art and Sandee Allen, Steven Barnett, Jason Berger, Hawk Levy, Jimmy Russakis, and Dr. Tim Ioannides, with a remembrance of Edwin Minton, a lifetime member who has passed. Honorary members of the organization are spouses of fallen heroes, Susan Cooper, Margaret Hover, Kelly Mahan, Mirtha McWhorter, Holly Morales, Susan Morrison, and Michelle Wouters. I joined a bunch of analysts in discussing Hewlett Packard Enterprises next move at a secret conclave last week. The company had just announced the sale of its IT services, which basically undid much of Mark Hurds work as CEO. (It already had sold off PCs and printers, more than undoing Carly Fiorinas earlier efforts.) Granted, HPE spun it like it was an acquisition (Ill get to that later) but this move leaves the firm even more crippled, suggesting theres more to come. Ill focus on that this week and close with an interesting book I should have written on how Donald Trump is winning the election and likely will become president. So, Did HP Buy CSC or Sell Services? I have to hand it to HPE, as Ive never before seen a sale spun as an acquisition. To hear Meg Whitman speak, it was like she had completely lost touch with reality. Im starting to think there is an alien artifact in the CEOs office at HPE, because she clearly isnt the first HP CEO who has lost complete touch with reality. Carly Fiorina, for example, thought the HP board reported to her. Mark Hurd thought an HP-paid mistress was a perk. Leo Apotheker actually thought he was CEO even though apparently no one else at HP shared that view. Here is a test of a sale versus a purchase: When you sell something, you get cash and they get control. HPE got cash and CSC got control. Yes, Whitman got a board seat and undoubtedly another big paycheck, but being on a board and she should know this doesnt mean you run the company. Given that she appears to believe it does, it kind of makes you wonder which HPE board member is running the company. Clearly, Whitman doesnt have a clue. She has sold off printers, PCs, thin clients, tablets, whatever was left of the phone business, and now services. So whats next? Servers on the Block? Id say the smart money was on servers. When IBM sold off PCs, it couldnt sustain its Intel-based server business and had to sell it to Lenovo the firm that bought the PC business. So I guess HPE could try to sell servers to HP Inc., but HP Inc. is up to its eyeballs in debt already, thanks to being gifted with all of the company debt in the divestiture, so I doubt it has the resources to buy it. Next in line would be Oracle, because Mark Hurd knows the business and it would strengthen Oracles offering. However, Hurd also knows what it is worth, and Ill bet it is less than Whitman is willing to accept. Next theres Lenovo, but it currently is finishing two parallel large acquisitions and likely feels it can take the business organically. Finally, theres a bunch of other companies out of China that probably arent too excited about HPs server business. So, other than HP Inc., I dont see a viable purchaser unless Acer wants to make another run at the server business, and I dont think it is that stupid. Storage on Its Way Out? Ive been doing a lot of large customer interviews this year, and a common refrain is that HP Storage isnt competitive at scale. 3Par isnt working at scale either, and that likely is at the heart of Whitmans decision to make a play for EMC. She realized her storage product set was crap and wanted to replace it with EMCs. I also think she realized that if EMC bonded with a different company and Lenovo was looking to partner with it closely at the time shed likely lose a lot of accounts, because the smart buyers that still bought other HP gear were buying EMC storage. By the way, this likely goes a long way toward explaining how Dell justified the purchase. With EMC, it likely gets a decent shot at replacing HP servers. HPs storage is crap so selling that unit likely will be difficult unless it can convince either Lenovo or Oracle that what it has is fixable and thus, at a discount, worth the price. Networking for Sale? HPs networking was its most powerful asset when Whitman took over, but she slowly got rid of all the top networking execs. It still seems to concern Cisco, though, which means it still has a great deal of potential value though with the staffing changes, it likely has a sell-by date after which it wont be worth much. Again, both Lenovo and Oracle likely would-be purchasers, though Dell also might take an interest, depending on how its relationship with Cisco goes after the EMC merger. (EMC loves Cisco Dell not so much.) Ciscos new management appears to be mending fences, though. So if we are talking the asset with greatest value and this suggests Meg Whitman would get the most personal gain from selling it then networking is next. Although many of my peers are thinking servers, Im betting on networking because thats where the biggest return is likely to come for Meg. Software Holding Firm I doubt theyll sell software. Mark Andreessen has been pushing for some time to turn HP into a software company and though some might question his judgment, given the Facebook India scandal and Netscapes failure, other members of the board apparently listen to the guy. Leo Apotheker was hired largely to make that happen, and it seems the idea just hasnt died a well-deserved death. So I think the end game here is to leave HPE as just a troubled software company, making the only real lasting mystery who Andreessen will blame when that fails. (HPE got rid of its top software guy some time ago.) Wrapping Up: RIP HPE Maybe this should be titled Death by CEO. If you dont buy it, just take a look at HP Inc.s executive team. Youll see two people who likely have the strongest inside knowledge of Meg Whitmans plan: HPs old CFO Cathie Lesjak, who is rather famous for either stopping or trying to stop some of HPs biggest mistakes; and HPs old head of HR, Tracy Keogh, who is out of Harvard and arguably the most qualified HR director in tech. Both of them left HPE, and probably not because they thought Whitman was a brilliant CEO. Just saying. I had been thinking it would be interesting to take one of my columns on Trump and turn it into a book named The Trump Presidential Playbook but damn it, Geoff Blades did it first. I think he did a pretty decent job of it. My angle was comparing Trumps manipulative skills to Steve Jobs; Blades is to compare Trump to one of the leading experts on human behavior and hypnotism. Its interesting that he seems to demonstrate how Trump moves minds by using a parody of Trumps skill in the book, making for a very fast read. I actually read it on a flight from Boston to Denver with time to spare. You wont get insight into Trumps views other than they are likely fluid but you will get a sense of how he gutted every Republican politician he ran up against and how he is likely to do the same thing to Clinton. Geoff makes a compelling argument that he even could have taken out the far stronger Obama, though he would have had a battle. This book dovetails with my belief that unless something happens to Trump, the only one who can beat him is Trump himself, and I found it a fascinating read. It is available in paperback and for the Amazon Kindle. A lot of folks who argued that Trump was a joke of a candidate and that Hillary could beat him likely should read the book because it should give them a reason to reconsider (not that wiping the floor with experts like Jeb Bush shouldnt have been a clue). Confirmation bias is a powerful thing, and I expect that when Trump is reading his acceptance speech (who am I kidding Trump doesnt read his speeches, he extemps them) many of those folks will go into shock. Trump has a special set of skills. Coupled with Trump: The Art of the Deal, his 1987 bestseller, The Trump Presidential Playbook delivers all you need to know if you want to understand why he is unbeatable. For that reason, it is my product (book) of the week. Google is rumored to be developing a direct competitor to Amazons Echo, code-named Chirp. The device, which might resemble the OnHub router (pictured above), would incorporate its Google Now voice assistant technology. Google likely will launch the product later this year, according to a Wednesday Recode article that debunked earlier reports suggesting Google would launch the new system at its annual I/O developer conference next week. Google likely will preview the system at I/O, as well as reveal some of its emerging technology in the virtual reality market, Recode said. Echos Success The Echo has been one of Amazons biggest product launches in years. It combines a speaker with the Alexa personal digital assistant voice recognition software that answers questions, sounds alerts, maintains lists, reorders Amazon Prime products, plays music, and controls compatible door locks, lights and other home automation systems, among other things. Amazon has sold more than 3 million Echo units since the products launch in late 2014, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reported last month. Consumers are using the Echo for many different purposes, according to CIRPs research, with more using it to stream music and answer questions than to control home utilities and security. Google has substantial experience in integrating its hardware and software, noted Michael Levin, cofounder of CIRP. However, even if it does bring the rumored product to fruition, Amazon will not roll over and cede any ground, he added. Amazon is a smart, determined competitor in many spaces and defends its products energetically, Levin told TechNewsWorld. Although the rumor seems credible, its not likely that Google is going to raise the bar with the introduction of an Echo competitor, maintained Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. They really havent been all that successful with new products, so I doubt [Amazon CEO Jeff] Bezos is staying up late worrying about their offering, he told TechNewsWorld. That said, I agree much of the future of in-home IoT will likely be tied to something like Echo, Enderle continued, and Im kind of surprised that we havent heard of an Apple offering yet. Integrating Hardware With Search Googles product likely will function as a complementary hardware device to Googles search engine and other service-oriented apps, such as maps and business solutions, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. If customers queried a Chirp device about pizza delivery, they might be steered towards Google clients or restaurants highly rated by Google users, he told TechNewsWorld. It makes sense that Google would develop a competitor to the Echo as a complement to its line of home automation products at Nest, said Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at Tirias Research. The home portal is a natural extension of Googles speech recognition technology, he told TechNewsWorld, although the challenge will be how do people react to Google having so much access inside their houses. Consider that Google kept the Nest separate for that very reason. Microsoft Corp. today announced the launch of its Microsoft Online Store with Tata CLiQ the recently launched e-commerce portal of Tata group to sell Microsoft products through the e-commerce chains phygital model. The Microsoft Online Store will allow Microsoft fans and consumers across the country to enjoy an easy access to Microsofts wide range of productivity-enhancing products. Merchandise available on the brand store will include an assortment of Microsoft products such as tablets, PCs, software and phones. Commenting on the online store expansion, Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Country General Manager, Consumer Channel Group, Microsoft India said, Increasingly consumers are going online to shop for a number of things, including mobiles, devices and software. We therefore are expanding our online presence through our official Microsoft Store so that our consumers find it easier to experience and buy our products. We are excited to partner with Tata CLiQ and see tremendous opportunity in delivering Microsoft products and services through them to our customers. Ashutosh Pandey, CEO, Tata CLiQ commented, Tata CLiQ is pioneering the PHYGITAL revolution in India, and enhancing the customer experience through a combination of in-store shopping benefits and conveniences of online shopping. We are a brand focused marketplace and promise authentic brand experiences to our customers. Launch of Microsoft Store is a step in that direction. We are privileged to have Microsoft as a key phygital partner and look forward to the support that their large on-ground network will bring to TataCLiQ.com. The consumers will be able to buy their favourite Microsoft products and services using innovative services such as click online & PIQ up at store, return to store and ship from store through a large on-ground store network of partner brands. TataCLiQ.com phygital services will be available across 500 plus stores of 12 partner brands. The new Microsoft Online Store with Tata CLiQ launches with attractive inaugural offers on Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and select Lumia smartphones running on Windows 10. Consumers buying the Surface Pro 4 on TataCLiQ.com will be able to get the powerful convertible along with the Type cover at a discount of INR 10,000, plus a free Office 365 subscription for a year. In addition to Surface Pro4, customers will also be able to buy Office 365 subscription, Lumia 550 and Lumia 650 on TataCLiQ.com at attractive prices. @Technuter.com News Service North Korea has hacked into more than 140,000 computers at large South Korean conglomerates and government agencies and planted malicious codes that may have been intended for a massive cyber attack that has been thwarted, a news report said on Monday. The hacking originated from an internet address traced to the North Korean capital and targeted a software used by about 160 companies and government agencies to manage their computer networks, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the police. The internet address was identical to the one used in a 2013 cyber attack against South Korean banks and broadcasters that froze their computer systems for more than a week. South Korea blamed the North for that attack. The South Korean police agency's cyber investigation unit uncovered the hacking and worked with the companies and agencies affected to neutralize the malicious codes and prevent them from being used in a large-scale cyber attack, Yonhap said. The police's cyber investigation unit could not immediately confirm the report. South Korea has been on heightened alert against the threat of cyber attacks by North Korea after it conducted a nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch last month that led to new U.N. sanctions. In March, the South's spy agency said it had intercepted an attempt to hack into the South's computer networks to attack the transport system's control network, blaming the North for the attempt. North Korea has worked for years to develop the ability to disrupt or destroy computer systems that control public services such as telecommunications and other utilities, according to a North Korean defector familiar with the effort. The United States accused North Korea of a cyber attack against Sony Pictures in 2014 that led to the studio cancelling the release of a comedy based on the fictional assassination of the country's leader, Kim Jong Un. Related news: > Vietnam bank nearly falls victim of massive cyber theft like Bangladesh central bank > Bangladesh panel finds possible insider role in c.bank cyber theft > SWIFT network says aware of multiple cyber fraud incidents Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, is optimistic about the future of virtual reality (VR) and sees it going big. Wozniak shared his thoughts and excitement about virtual reality at a conference last month in Lexington, Kentucky, where was honored with the Alltech Humanitarian Award. The chief scientists at Primary Data revealed that Wonziak is intrigued by virtual reality and particularly enjoyed using the Gear VR headset from Apple's rival Samsung. Wozniak waxed eloquent about the immersive experience the Gear VR headset - which costs $99 a pop - offers users, revealing that it makes him "emotional." "It takes you to other worlds. It's so real. It's everywhere you look. That one gets me emotional," noted the Apple co-founder. Wozniak's positive thoughts about the Samsung Gear VR headset, which is compatible with select Samsung smartphones such as the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S6 edge, Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 edge+ and Galaxy Note 5, would suggest that he is among the lucky ones who do not get nauseous when using the device. Luckily for the Apple co-founder, the experience makes him more sensitized. Wozniak is also of the belief that virtual reality will be a game changer and alter the way people perceive things. It could be a hit or a miss, but leave an impact irrespective of the outcome. "Virtual reality is going to have a big future. It could die like 3D TV. But there will be a lot of games possible and that's enough to make the market work. Today the smartest electronic chips are made for video games," revealed Wozniak. Since Wozniak is so gung-ho about virtual reality, he is hoping that Apple also has something that could knock the socks off the competition up its sleeve. It seems that the fact that Cupertino-based company is yet to release a VR device makes him a tad sad. "I hope Apple is working on a VR that's advanced compared to the ones we're seeing," he said. His statement should not be taken as confirmation that Apple has a VR device in the works as Wozniak affirmed he is not privy to Apple's future plans for the technology. Whether an Apple VR headset is on the company's priority list is anybody's guess, especially considering that it seems to channeling all its focus on self-driving cars and smartwatches. While VR may be the next big thing, if one were to take an educated guess, Apple is possibly waiting for the technology to become more developed before it takes the plunge. That said, Apple may well surprise us all at the WWDC next week! Photo: Ed Schipul | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. History has its eyes on the biggest night in Broadway, and the smash hit Hamilton: An American Musical took the spotlight at the 70th Tony Awards from beginning until end. Lyricist and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda's brainchild, which has already broken records for the most number of Tony Award nominations, bagged 11 awards out of 16 nominations. Even the introduction for this year's host, James Corden, was a spoof of the musical's opening song - a proof of the show's growing influence. The awards show also ended with a surprise number from the cast. How Does A Rapper, Lyricist, Puerto Rican Boy ... Nearly seven years ago, Miranda performed a new song at the White House, saying that it was about "someone who embodies hip-hop" - the country's first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Back then, Miranda's introduction of his plans to produce a concept album about Hamilton, who was also a founding Father of the United States, immediately garnered laughs from the audience, including first Lady Michelle Obama. "You laugh, but it's true!" Miranda had said. He went on to explain why he believed so: despite his origins, Hamilton became President George Washington's most-trusted right-hand man, the first Treasury Secretary and "caught beef with every other Founding Father all in the strength of his writing." Years later, with more than a hundred Broadway shows and off-Broadway productions, Miranda's concept album emerged into a full-blown musical. Who's laughing now? ... Grow Up To Be A Genius And Tony Winner? With Miranda's lyrics and music, producer Thomas Kail's direction, Alex Lacamoire's arrangement and the casts' incredible charm and charisma, Hamilton won the following awards, including Best Musical: Paul Tazewell Best Costume Design of a Musical Howell Binkley Best Lighting Design of a Musical Renee Elise Goldsberry Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical Daveed Diggs Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical Lin-Manuel Miranda Best Original Score Alex Lacamoire Best Orchestrations Thomas Kail Best Direction of a Musical Lin-Manuel Miranda Best Book of a Musical Andy Blankenbuehler Best Choreography Leslie Odom Jr. Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical Other winners include the following: The Humans Best Play A View From The Bridge Best Revival of a Play The Color Purple Best Revival of a Musical Jessica Lange, Long Day's Journey Into Night Best Lead Actress in a Play Reed Birney, The Humans Best Featured Actor in a Play Ivo van Hove, A View From The Bridge Best Direction of a Play Clint Ramos, Eclipsed Best Costume Design of a Play David Zinn, The Humans Best Scenic Design of a Play David Rockwell, She Loves Me Best Scenic Design of a Musical Natasha Katz, Long Day's Journey Into Night Best Lighting Design of a Play Frank Langella, The Father Best Lead Actor in a Play Jayne Houdyshell, The Humans Best Featured Actress in a Play Cynthia Ervo, The Color Purple Best Lead Actress in a Musical National Endowment for the Arts Miles Wilkin Special Tony Award winners Brian Stokes Mitchell Isabelle Stevenson Award Paper Mill Playhouse Regional Theatre Award Sally Ann Parsons Seth Gelblum Joan Lader Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre Marilyn McCormick Excellence in Theatre Education Sheldon Harnick Marshall W. Mason Tony Lifetime Achievement Miranda, who has already won a Tony Award for his score on his first musical In The Heights, is perhaps known best for his brilliant freestyle rap skills. He usually performs a freestyle during acceptance speeches, but this time, he recited a sonnet. Watch his heartwarming acceptance speech below. Aside from sweeping the Tony Awards, Hamilton has also received the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Dedication To Orlando Victims The show struck a somber tone in the opening moments because of the terrible news in Orlando. Host James Corden dedicated the night to the victims of the tragedy. "Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced and is loved," said Corden. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Teens who use vaping pens would eventually smoke cigarettes, a new study has revealed. Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) have found that older teens who try using e-cigarettes and vaping pens are six times more likely to smoke traditional cigarettes within two years compared to those who have never puffed before. The results of the study came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report of the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey showing that as much as 40 percent of high school students are using vaping pens and e-cigarettes on a regular basis. "We're concerned that kids who experiment with e-cigarettes may be moving on to other types of tobacco products, like combustible cigarettes, which are arguably a lot more dangerous," said lead researcher Jessica Barrington-Trimis. For their study, USC researchers surveyed 300 high school students in southern California. In 2014, about 50 percent of the students reported to have tried, at least once, to smoke an e-cigarette. A year later, a follow-up showed that about 40 percent of those who tried the e-cigarette have also tried to smoke regular cigarettes. This is in comparison with nearly 11 percent who have not smoked e-cigarette in the earlier survey. After considering other factors such as ethnicity, gender, parental education and grade, the researchers established that the teens who have had prior experience of vaping are six times more likely to shift to cigarette smoking. Not Regular Vapers Boston University School of Public Health professor Michael Siegel, who was not part of the study, said the study lacks the evidence that vaping indeed causes shift to traditional smoking. He explained that it did not indicate how many times the teens had vaped in the initial survey there was a mention of trying the e-cigarettes once. Siegel was the proponent of the use of e-cigarette as a means of slowly weaning off smokers. Siegel argued that the teens did not become regular users of vapers, which is the reason why they smoked cigarettes. "If they turned unto regular vapers, they wouldn't have turned to smoking," said Siegel Government Recommendations Just last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration strengthened its regulations by allowing sale of e-cigarettes to those 18 years and above only. Likewise, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has earlier recommended the e-cigarettes undergo regulation as a tobacco product. The AAP expressed concern that early exposure to nicotine may significantly affect the teens' developing brains. The details of the study were published in the journal Pediatrics on June 13. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Space may be the final frontier, but scientists are already assessing its patterns, a recent study from NASA shows. Space experts computed the patterns of Mars' storms by handling temperature data instead of visible dust movements. The indicator presents the advantage of offering accurate info, even at times when dust levels are reduced. NASA's Mars orbiters revolved around Mars for six years until the researchers decided they had enough data. The space agency has been deploying and using orbiters around the Red Planet since 1997. The observations are revealing that three large types of regional dust storms happen in sequence. The pattern takes place at approximately identical times each year, affecting the southern hemisphere during Martian summer and spring. Keep in mind that Martian years take about two years in Earth time. "When we look at the temperature structure instead of the visible dust, we finally see some regularity in the large dust storms," notes David Kass of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As the dust in the Red Planet's atmosphere heats up, temperature differences of as much as 63 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) can happen between "clear air" and dusty air. The heating has a direct impact on planetary winds, leading to downward motion, which heats up the air near the dust-heated regions. By looking at the temperature variations, researchers can observe the cumulative effects that dust storms have on the planet, both directly and indirectly. Kass and his team studied temperature data from a layer located about 16 miles (25 kilometers) above the Martian surface. The data from the Red Planet's climate was gathered using infrared observations to assess atmospheric temperature. "Recognising a pattern in the occurrence of regional dust storms is a step toward understanding the fundamental atmospheric properties controlling them," Kass mentions. The understanding of Mars atmospheric air movements is still in its infancy. It should be noted that the discoveries do not apply to local storms, which are too shallow to make a difference to the Martian sky or to the global storms that engage the whole planet. Big scale storms usually take place during summer in Mars' southern hemisphere. Once started, bigger storms can last weeks to months. Similarly to Earth, seasons on Mars are generated by the tilt of the planet. However, the tilt of Mars' axis keeps a part of the planet closer to the sun, thus significantly hotter. One of the main reasons for researching Mars' atmosphere is to ensure the safety of future missions on the planet, be it manned or robotic. According to a report from February, the space agency is already working on a new propulsion system that could drastically reduce interplanetary traveling time. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Intex Technologies Forays Into Virtual Reality | TechTree.com Intex Technologies has announced the launch of its first-ever Virtual Reality Cardboard - Intex EYELET, which will come bundled with the latest 4G smartphone, Aqua View today. Intex EYELET is a certified Works with Google Cardboard (WWGC) device, making Intex the first brand in India to launch a Google-certified Cardboard viewer. The 4G-enabled smartphone, Aqua View along with Intex EYELET is available at a price of INR 8,999. The 4G-enabled Aqua View comes with a 5-inch HD display and a 2.5D curved glass display which gives user a smoother touch and swipe experience. The Cardboard Viewer - Intex EYELET offers users a unique gateway inside the fascinating world of 3D and enjoy a 360 degree view. The device has an in-built cardboard application that allows users to experience EYELET VR technology. The Cardboard, EYELET, is the version-2 of Google cardboard and so is compatible with any smartphone (Hardware should support Gyroscope and Accelerometer sensor). Also Read: Intex Launches Its First Finger Print Sensor Smartphone Virtual reality is the next big thing in the area of consumer technology. We are delighted to partner with Google in bringing Intex Eyelet Cardboard bundled with Aqua View thereby marking our entry into the VR space, stated Mr. Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, Mobile Business Head, Intex Technologies. Aqua View comes with the latest bio-metric security - fingerprint sensor at the front panel. The scanner will scan and verify the authority, thereby making the device completely secure. For photography enthusiasts, the smartphone has an 8MP Rear AF Camera with LED flash and 5MP front camera. The camera has various modes like Face Beauty mode, anti-shake, motion tracker mode, Live photo mode and Gesture V capture mode. Also Read: Intex Unveils iRist Pro At INR 4,999 Aqua View has an in-built 16GB ROM and an expandable memory of up to 32 GB. Also, along with 4G network has VOLTE (Voice Over LTE network) feature which enables users to enjoy the crystal clarity of HD voice calls. The 4G-dual-SIM device has a 2200mAh Li-Ion battery, offering a talk-time up to 7 hours along with a standby time of 9 days. With a sophisticated back cover with brush finish, the stylish Aqua View is available in Grey and White colors. TAGS: Intex, Intex Aqua View, Intex EYELET North Korea vs. South Korea : North Korean hackers stole F-15 blueprints in attack on 140,000 South Korean computers North Korea hacked into more than 140,000 computers at 160 South Korean firms and government agencies stealing tens of thousands of documents related to the defense industry including U.S. fighter jet F-15 designs, the latest in a series of alleged cyberattacks by Pyongyang, Seoul officials said on Monday. South Korean police has said today that North Korea was behind cyber-attacks that started as early as July 2014 and breached two of the countrys telecom giants the SK Group and the Hanjin Group stealing over 42,000 documents. However, the intrusion was detected by the authorities only in March 2016. Of the more than 42,000 materials stolen, more than 40,000 were defence-related. The stolen documents included wing blueprints for an F-15 jet fighter taken from Korean Air Lines, a contract manufacturer for the South Korean military. There is a high possibility that the North aimed to cause confusion on a national scale by launching a simultaneous attack after securing many targets of cyber terror, or intended to continuously steal industrial and military secrets, the investigation unit said. However, a defence ministry official said that the stolen documents were not secret and that there was no security breach. A spokesperson at SK Holdings said that four group affiliates were affected by the hack. Declining to identify the software, police said the hacking originated from an IP address traced to the North Korean capital and targeted network management software that is commonly used by private companies and government agencies. The IP address was similar to the one used in a 2013 cyberattack against South Korean banks and broadcasters that froze computer systems for more than a week. South Korea blamed the North for that attack, and the North refused to accept any responsibility. Police said they worked with the companies and agencies that were affected to defuse the malicious codes and stop them from being used in a large-scale cyberattack. While North Korea has constantly denied any involvement in cyberattacks on its neighbor, South Korea has been on alert to ward off any cyberattack coming from North Korea, particularly after the country successfully tested a miniaturised hydrogen bomb in January 2016. A 40 anos de Malvinas "Revisar el pasado es pensar el futuro". La frase de la presidenta de Telam, Bernarda Llorente, resume el espiritu del documental coproducido entre la agencia de noticias y el canal publico de TV sobre la cobertura que los medios de comunicacion hicieron del conflicto, plagada de censura y mentiras. Una autocritica necesaria para mirar hacia adelante en un (ya viejo) contexto de fake news y negocio informativo. The Venezuelan government expects the immediate release of the plane held in Argentina after the release of its 19 crew members; the foreign minister of this Caribbean nation, Carlos Faria,... | Read More Jailed English child abuser Gary Glitter has been accused of funneling money to a Vietnamese ex-prostitute to help cover up his crimes committed in Vietnam, according to The Sun. An investigation revealed that Glitter, who was sentenced last year in Britain to 16 years in jail for molesting children, has paid EUR30,000 ($33,000) to Bui Thi Cam Tu- a former child sex fixer in Vietnam to buy her silence. Bui Thi Cam Tu, the broker, receives regular cash from Glitter through his relative. Photo from The Sun Glitter channels up to 600 a month from a private pension to a relative, who sends it to Tu. Glitter gave Tu a pet name Song as she procured young girls for him during his time living in Vietnam. He first served time in 1999 in the U.K. for storing images of child abuse. After Glitters two-month UK jail spell in 1999, he went to Spain and Cuba, where he fathered a son. Glitter was booted out of Cambodia in 2003 and went to Vietnam, where he lived in a resort in Vung Tau, a coastal city in the south. He shared his seaside villa with Song in 2005. Song, 28, is a hard-drinker and former bargirl with a powerful hold on Glitter. She is thought to have procured dozens of girls for him during his 18 months in Vietnam. One victim who was a teenager at the time, said: Glitter was completely dependent on Miss Tu. Tu knows everything Glitter did and she was the one who found all the young girls for him to sleep with, said one victim who was a teenager at the time. She was also the only girl who could drink as much as him. Song was with Glitter when he was confronted by a British journalist in November 2005, triggering a police investigation into his activities. The pair spent several days in hiding before Glitter was arrested. Song returned to Chau Doc City, An Giang Province and went into hiding. Police traced her and took statements but she was excused from testifying at his trial. After Glitters arrest, Song told friends they were still in contact and he sent her money through his lawyers. Related news: > Internet providers urged to tackle live-streaming of child sex in the Philippines > Child sex tourism does not exist in Vietnam: official > Vietnam named as new child sex tourism destination > Vietnamese actor arrested in U.S. on child sex charges Ship owners in Ha Long Bay used rope and wooden boards to seal decks, upsetting tourists who paid handsomely but were denied from a decent sightseeing experience. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Cuong Since a week ago, many ship owners have taken any means possible, be it rope, wooden boards or bamboo sticks, to prevent guests from getting on upper decks for sightseeing. Nguyen Van Nam, 40, a tourist, said he had to pay dearly to hire a ship to visit Ha Long Bay only to sit in the narrow lower deck with limited view while the upper deck was strictly forbidden. "Before there was no ban like this. Now that the ban is on, we won't return," said Nam. On June 6, Ha Long Peoples Committee requested ship owners not to allow tourists to stand or sit on the sides and the part of ship called 'mui tau' in Vietnamese, which can be understood as the cover over the ship. According to VnExpress sources, the confusion in defining the word 'mui tau' led to a spontaneous ban of mounting upper decks. Any ship failing to comply with the request will get a ten-day suspension and six months for backsliding. Vu Van Hop, Chief of Office at Peoples Committee of Quang Ninh Province told VnExpress on June 13 that the ban is not the provinces policy. After a boat capsized in Da Nang, the captains and crew have been more cautious, exercising the ban of mounting ship decks on their own. If the ships see fit, they can let clients climb, if not, they will impose restrictions, said Hop. Related news: > 3 remain missing, 43 rescued after cruise ship capsized on river in Da Nang > What caused Da Nang cruise ship tragedy? > Toddler survives cruise ship tragedy in Da Nang > Da Nang presses charges against cruise company after fatal capsize > 70 divers search for missing tourists after cruise ship goes down in Da Nang Maroon Productions has been commissioned by Channel 5 to make a two part doc, Inside the Gang, that will offer unprecedented access and a rare insight into the lives of Londons most notorious street gangs. Much of the film is captured by the gangs themselves at secret locations known only to the gangs. The cameras having been left for the gang members use, in pre-arranged locations, and then returned anonymously by them after filming. Channel 5 says the films will have no blurred faces or hidden cameras and no one in the film has been paid. Guy Davies, Commissioning Editor Factual, Channel 5 comments: "This is a first for British broadcasting as Channel 5 breaks new ground with this hard-hitting observational documentary, revealing the true extent of underground gang culture in London. Produced with extensive co-operation of the gangs, the young people in the film have been brutally honest and open about gang life in London today. Paul Blake, Executive Producer and Maroon Productions Creative Director said: Much has been written and made about recent conflicts in war theatres such as Afghanistan, but little is known about a war that has been raging for years in cities like London, where teenagers caught up in a culture of gang violence routinely lose friends who are shot or stabbed. Share this story Sony Pictures Television has launched an environmental short film competition. The Picture This Festival for the Environment will curate short videos from contests held by Sony networks around the world and select a grand prize winner at an all-day event at the Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles this autumn. The PictureThis Festival aims to share the stories of successful endeavors or actions that could lead to a better, environmentally sound world. Eight Sony participating network groups will accept entries from countries in their territories which will be judged by a panel of experts. The regional winner in each territory will be flown to Los Angeles for a day of events and a Hollywood screening on the Sony Pictures lot in October, when a global winner will be announced. Winners will be chosen based on the power of their storytelling and their illustration of the Picture This campaign: Picture a Better World. The grand prize winner will receive $5,000 as well as a Sony 4K package including a 55 4K TV and a Sony Alpha a6300 Mirrorless Camera, courtesy of Sony Electronics. Participating regions include the UK, Spain and Portugal, Russia, Central Europe (Poland, Romania and Hungary), South Africa, Latin America, Asia and the US. Contest dates are as follows, by territory: United Kingdom: June 13 Spain and Portugal: June 21 Russia: July 18 South Africa: July 4 Latin America: July 4 United States: July 18* Asia: August 1 Central Europe (Poland, Romania, Hungary): August 1 For more information and to enter, visit www.picturethisfilmfestival.com Share this story A farmer harvests dried sugarcane on her drought-stricken farm in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang on March 31, 2016. Photo credit: Kham/Reuters The World Bank has approved a US$310 million loan to help Vietnam build climate resilience and ensure sustainable livelihoods for 1.2 million people in the Mekong Delta region. These people live in nine Mekong Delta provinces affected by climate change, salinity intrusion, coastal erosion and flooding, the Washington-based development bank said in a recent statement. Achim Fock, the acting country director in Vietnam, said: Recent extreme weather in the Mekong River Delta, including drought and salinity intrusion, are negatively affecting the lives of the farmers most of whom are poor. We believe this innovative project brings together an effective multi-sectoral model to help farmers adapt agriculture and aquaculture livelihoods to the impacts of climate change. The Mekong Delta contributes half of Vietnams rice, 70 percent of its aquaculture products, and one-third of Vietnams GDP. But the region has also been identified as one of the most vulnerable deltas to the impacts of climate change as well as upstream development. The approved Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods Project supports better climate-smart planning and improved climate resilience of land and water management practices. It will benefit farmers in the upper delta provinces and aquaculture farm and fisherfolk households along the coastal provinces in the region, including the Khmer ethnic minority people living in Soc Trang and Tra Vinh provinces. Working on complex landscapes such as the Mekong Delta, which faces both climate change and development threats, requires a partnership with the government, said Anjali Acharya, environment sector coordinator for the World Bank in Vietnam. This project also exemplifies the value and benefit of close cooperation among key development partners and can be replicable in other countries. Cocain hidden in a bird statue sent from Brazil to Ho Chi Minh City. Photo credit: VnExpress The police have arrested a woman who was doing the paperwork at Ho Chi Minh Citys Tan Son Nhat Airport to receive a consignment of statues from Brazil with a large amount of cocaine hidden inside them. They said she was a 48-year-old Vietnamese but did not disclose her identity. According to customs, the hundreds of small statues of birds were imported as gifts, but officials found nearly 2kg of cocaine hidden inside four hollow ones. It was unclear how they detected the drugs. They [the four statues] were in a steel container with hundreds of other statues, an unnamed customs official told the media. The drugs market value is more than VND5 billion (US$226,000). The police are looking for other suspects in the case. Under Vietnamese law, a person convicted of smuggling 100 grams of heroin or cocaine or 300 grams of other drugs can be sentenced to death. The batch of 30 tons of fish containing phenol. Photo by VnExpress/Hoang Tao After detecting 30 tons of fish containing a toxic substance in the coastal province of Quang Tri, two authorities gave conflicting results on whether the substance could be used or not. On June 10, Quang Tris Department of Health announced that they found 30 tons of fish containing a toxic chemical named phenol at 0.037 milligram per kilogram. The batch was collected after the mass fish deaths struck Quang Tri in April. The Department of Health, together with the Department of Agriculture, decided to seal the batch the next day. However, their opinions on the use of phenol in food are divided. Vo Van Hung, director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that there arent any regulations on using phenol in food. Some toxins can still be found in food but within permisible limits. Besides, seawater as well as cooking or freezing processes can create phenol, Hung added. In response, Tran Van Thanh, director of the Department of Health said that hes not sure about the agriculture ministry's policies, but in the health sector, phenol is a poison and its banned. Ho Sy Bien, head of the Food Administration under the department said: Phenol is an extremely toxic substance. Its not allowed in food packaging, let alone food. He added: The amount of phenol in the batch isnt particularly high, so it cant cause food poisoning. However, it can accumulate in the body over time, affecting people's health in the long-term. To resolve the matter, the Department of Health, together with the Department of Science and Technology will take samples again and carry out independent tests before reaching the final conclusion. Vietnams Ministry of Health has also requested its Food Administration to examine the sample tests of fish from the batch for later comparison. Related news: > Food company threatens to sue authorities over cancer-threat claims > Philippines firm under suspicion of bribery in Vietnam lead poisoning case Police and customs officers in Ho Chi Minh City last week arrested a South African man for smuggling 1.7 kilograms of cocaine into Vietnam. The 32-year-old man, whose name was withheld, was caught with the drug hidden in separate plastic bags in his luggage, when he arrived at Tan Son Nhat Airport on a flight from Qatar's Doha on June 10. The batch could have been sold for US$300,000 and the man had been promised $3,500, the man reportedly told the police. Investigation is ongoing. Vietnam has some of the worlds toughest drug laws. Those convicted of smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or cocaine face the death penalty. The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is also punishable by death. A taxi after falling off a bridge in Ho Chi Minh City on June 13, 2016. Photo credit: Ngoc Khai/Tuoi Tre A taxi driver in Ho Chi Minh City has been hospitalized with brain injuries after his car fell off a bridge and ended up six meters below on Monday. Initial investigation suggested that the 25-year-old driver of Vinasun, Ta Duc Phi, was avoiding motorbikes in the opposite direction on the Chu Y Bridge in District 8. As he made a sharp turn, the car tore through the barrier before plunging down onto the ground below, landing on its roof. Local residents pulled the driver out and rushed him to hospital. The crash and fall caused damage to his internal organs, doctors said. The Ho Chi Minh City police have arrested a Vietnamese-American man for allegedly rampaging at a hospital and stealing a taxi on Saturday. Cao Dinh Khois relatives had taken him into the Orthopedics and Traumatology Hospital in District 5 for treatment for a severed left little finger but the 38-year-old man did not allow medical personnel to treat him. He screamed and threatened to attack anyone coming near him with a pair of scissors he found in there. Khoi, 38, then ran out of the hospital, jumped into a taxi parked there, pushed the driver out and drove away. The police said the car was found later on a street kilometers away. At 3 p.m. the police found Khoi getting treatment at the Viet-Phap Hospital in District 7, a dozen kilometers from the previous hospital. The man was taken to a police station for questioning after a successful surgery to attach his finger. It is not known what caused his finger to be severed or his rampage. A 21-year-old woman succumbed to brain injuries after falling out of an open bus door while traveling at highway-speed. The victim, Pham Thi Thuy Linh of Long An Province's Can Giuoc District, died at Ho Chi Minh City's Cho Ray Hospital, VnExpress quoted the provincial police department spokesman Nguyen Van Duc as saying on Thursday. Investigators said Linh took a bus from her hometown to HCMC on the morning of April 20. The bus driver left the door open while speeding and Linh fell off on National Highway 50 in Can Giuoc District's Truong Binh Commune. She was taken to Cho Ray Hospital and died several days later due to brain injuries, said investigators. Vietjet on June 10 launched a domestic route connecting Hanoi with Phu Yen Province, which is looking to ease the travel of tourists, individuals and businesspeople among the localities thanks to convenient flight time, high-quality services as well as amazing prices. Passengers on the inaugural flight enjoyed special surprises from the airlines inflight activities and interesting gifts. On this occasion, Vietjet presented 200 Health Insurance Cards to poor people in Phu Yen. On the same day, Vietjet also launched its official ticket office in Phu Yen at 38 Tran Hung Dao Street, Ward 1, Tuy Hoa Town, Phu Yen Province with on-going promotion every day. Tickets can be booked at www.vietjetair.com (also compatible with smartphones at https://m.vietjetair.com) or at www.facebook.com/vietjetvietnam (just click the Booking tab) or by calling to the national call center at 19001886. Payment can be easily made with Visa, MasterCard, JCB, American Express, and ATM cards issued by 24 Vietnam banks that have been registered with internet banking. The new domestic route will last one hour 40 minutes per leg. The Hanoi-Phu Yen flight takes off at 11:15 a.m. and lands at 12:55 p.m. The return flight departs at 1:30 p.m. and arrives at 3:10 p.m. Phu Yen has a popular beach destination, being known for natural sightseeing and activities. With its non-stop developing fleet of modern aircraft and dynamic and friendly flight crew, Vietjet offers its passengers with a full suite of high-quality services, including SkyBoss as well as opportunities to win special low-fare tickets everyday from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. and special surprises from the airlines inflight activities. The logo of French hotel operator AccorHotels is seen on top of the company's headquarters in Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris, France April 22, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes Chinese state-owned companies seeking to buy European assets are going to face greater regulatory scrutiny following a landmark European Commission decision on a recent deal. In its review of a proposed joint venture between Frances EDF and state-owned China General Nuclear Power (CGN), the Commission - which has exclusive power over antitrust issues in the European Union ruled that CGN was not independent from Chinas central administrator for state-owned enterprises, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). As a result, it decided that it did have the power to decide whether the deal should be cleared. It meant that the Commission didn't only consider CGN's own revenue but the combined revenue of all Chinese energy state-owned enterprises when considering whether the deal came under its jurisdiction. This approach automatically bumped CGNs turnover above the minimum EU threshold for merger clearance, a warning shot for other Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) who may be considering buying assets in Europe and were not anticipating needing to get a regulatory green light. The Commission generally only reviews a merger if each party to it has more than 250 million euros ($281 million) in sales in the EU as well as combined global sales of more than 5 billion euros. CGNs turnover, alone, didnt cross that 250 million euro threshold, but the Chinese energy SOEs as a whole do breach that level. While the ruling was little noticed when the details were released in April, law firms working with Chinese companies and their targets have in the past few weeks issued warnings to their clients. They have told them the decision could force Chinese SOEs to file for EU merger clearance regardless of their size in Europe, creating an extra barrier, and at the very least delay proposed acquisitions by Chinese SOEs. Political concerns The development comes as the purchase of over $200 billion of foreign assets by Chinese companies in the past 18 months - many of which are SOEs - is triggering some political concerns in Europe and the United States. Politicians in France and Germany have expressed concerns at the rapid advance of Chinese companies in Europe, with French President Francois Hollande balking at the prospect of city of Shanghai-controlled Jin Jiang gaining control of French hotels group Accor. The CGN-EDF deal was approved by the Commission in March. It is the full analysis showing why it reviewed the transaction, which was published in April, that has made the waves. The CGN case marks the first time the Commission has said publicly that Chinese government control is so pervasive that all SOEs in a sector should be treated as a single entity. "The CGN decision demonstrates the European Commission's appetite to look at deals involving Chinese SOEs," said Adrian Emch, a partner at Hogan Lovells in Beijing. "This was the first time the European Commission had said yes, SASAC is effectively the parent company of a Chinese SOE in order to assert its jurisdiction to review the deal - previously the European Commission had left that question open." CGN did not respond to requests for comment, but said in its submission to the Commission that it operated independently. SASAC did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, the Commission said it tests for state-owned company independence regardless of the nationality of the entity, adding: The Commission does not lay down rules in its cases, but makes findings based on the facts of the case at that specific point in time. Some European and U.S. policymakers have raised concerns that China's foreign takeover drive poses national security risks, prompting the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to scrutinize and in some cases block more deals. At least 50 percent of Chinese foreign purchases over the past 18 months involved companies that were either fully or partly state-owned, according to Thomson Reuters data. Compelling evidence One EU source with knowledge of the matter said the Commission's decision did not set a new precedent but offered greater clarity on the regulator's thinking on Chinese state control. "In all likelihood, this will be the basis for such cases going forward," said the source. Lawyers said they were now advising Chinese SOE clients to speak with the Commission even if they believe the deal does not meet the EU merger thresholds, especially if they operate in China's energy sector. Failure to file for approval of a deal can lead to sizable fines. In 2014, for example, the regulator fined Norwegian salmon farmer Marine Harvest 20 million euros for merging with a rival without first having sought EU clearance "This certainly sets down a marker for future cases," said Nicholas French, co-head of the China antitrust practice at law firm Freshfields. "If the SOE is in the energy sector, they would have to show some concrete evidence to the rebut the commissions analysis." For companies that do file for merger review, the clearance process is likely to become more onerous as Brussels seeks extra information on the control structure of an SOE that is buying assets in Europe. This may be hard to produce due to China's strict state secrecy laws. The tougher approach could have implications for state-owned ChemChina's $43 billion bid for Swiss agriculture company Syngenta - China's biggest foreign purchase ever - with lawyers saying the clearance process may take longer and require additional disclosures. "The level of scrutiny is likely to intensify. This will make filing in EU merger cases trickier if you need detailed corporate information on a large number of SOEs," said Alan Riley, professor at the UK-based Institute for Statecraft, a think tank. "If you think about ChemChina, they may well face a huge demand for information from the commission in relation to at least other bio and agriculture SOEs and then they would have to hope there are not many overlaps." ChemChina did not respond to requests for comment. Iraqi troops advance against Islamic State south of Mosul as the U.S.-led coalition intensifies its campaign against the militants on multiple fronts across their self-proclaimed caliphate. Lithuanian army officer Nerijus Rocevicius looks at construction site of the newly built training premises for urban warfare in Pabrade, Lithuania, April 28, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Ints Kalnins/File Photo Leaders in the Baltic countries and Poland fear the force NATO plans to deploy on their territory is too small and symbolic to deter an attack by Russia, whose 2014 annexation of Crimea is fresh in the memories of the former Soviet-bloc states. They will this week press other ministers of the western military alliance to help them build an air defense system against Russian aircraft and missiles. But that would be a highly sensitive step, likely to be condemned by Moscow as yet more evidence of a NATO strategy threatening its borders. Asked about the likelihood of Russian aggression in the Baltics, Lithuania's Defense Minister Juozas Olekas told Reuters: "We cannot exclude it ... They might exercise on the borders and then switch to invasion in hours." Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia see themselves on the front line in any potential conflict with Moscow and say they are putting their armies on a war footing, meaning they can be mobilized almost immediately. NATO defense ministers are set to agree this week on a new multinational force of 4,000 troops for the Baltics and Poland. The United States, Germany and Britain are set to lead battalions of about 1,000 troops each. Canada may lead a fourth. While the Baltic nations welcome the deployments, they say the build-up must go further - pointing to Russia's efforts to develop an "anti-access" capability in the Kaliningrad exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland, using missiles and submarines to stop NATO moving reinforcements into the Baltics. The Baltics want NATO fighters to protect their skies and are seeking medium-range missile interceptors from Norway's Kongsberg Gruppen and U.S. defense contractor Raytheon. "We need to stop possible air aggression," said Olekas. "We are discussing creating a regional medium-range air defense system together with the Latvians, the Estonians and the Poles." Olekas expects to raise the matter with NATO colleagues at the ministers' meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels. Credibility The head of the Estonian defense force Lieutenant General Riho Terras said: "The first and foremost is the defense of our airspace. Air defense is the challenge that needs to solved together with the NATO alliance." "We are not talking about defense of Lithuania, we are talking about the credibility of the whole alliance," said Lithuania's Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius. But such calls would require stretched NATO governments to beef up the so-called air policing mission that regularly intercepts Russian jets flying over international waters close to the Baltic states. The Baltic nations rely on their NATO allies' quick reaction aircraft to patrol their skies, with no mandate to confront hostile aircraft in a conflict. Four British Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets and four Portuguese F-16 fighter jets are currently carrying out the air policing mission. Officials say a lot more would be needed for air defense. And southern NATO nations, focused on uncontrolled migrant flows and the failing states on Europe's borders, may also be unwilling to grant more resources to the eastern flank. Ben Hodges, the commander of the U.S. army in Europe, visited Vilnius last week. He echoed Baltic concerns about the strength of NATO's deterrence. "It is a transition," Hodges said. "I hope that includes serious war fighting capabilities. Just putting garrisons of troops sitting in the countries ... will not deter." Russia insists it poses no threat to the former Soviet states. Top NATO officials say talk of an impending attack is misleading, a view shared by Paris and Berlin. Russia has held unannounced exercises on the borders of the Baltics, including one in 2014 which mustered 100,000 troops, according to Danish Colonel Jakob Sogard Larsen, who heads the new NATO command outpost in Lithuania. "You see it differently when you live here," Larsen said. "We need to learn to fight total war again," he said, in a sign of the return of a Cold War-style mood. Lithuanian officials accuse Russia of trying to buy off Lithuanian soldiers and business people to become spies for the Kremlin, intimidating diplomats and spreading disinformation on the Internet and television. Prosecutors are preparing to file criminal charges against someone they say is a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer arrested last year trying to recruit informants. Russia denies any such activities. Switch to "classic warfare" The NATO battalions are part of a deterrent to be approved by leaders at a summit in Warsaw in July. That will involve forces on rotation, warehoused equipment and a "spearhead" force backed by NATO's 40,000-strong rapid reaction force. Once the decision is made, Germany could deploy to Lithuania before September. Britain is expected to deploy to Estonia, the United States to Latvia and Canada possibly to Poland. U.S. troops cross the Lithuanian-Latvian border during tactical road march Dragoon Ride II in Subate, Latvia, June 6, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Ints Kalnins/File Photo German and Danish soldiers fanned out across swamps and woodland in Lithuania this week in war games to learn the unfamiliar Baltic terrain and test their ability to move equipment and personnel quickly to a possible front. Their tanks and armored vehicles were recently brought back from Afghanistan, desert-yellow camouflage painted over with the green-and-black colors of Baltic woodlands. "We are changing our focus from counter-insurgency tactics back to classic warfare," said German Lieutenant Colonel Marc-Ulrich Cropp from his camouflaged command tent at a Lithuanian military base. "Everyone has to be prepared." Mourners hold up signs during a vigil in Washington, DC on June 12, 2016, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Fifty people died when a gunman allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Florida, in the worst terror attack on US soil since September 11, 2001. Photo: AFP/Andrew Caballero-Reynolds White House hopeful Donald Trump appeared bent on exploiting Sunday's massacre in Orlando to boost the argument that he can be trusted to tackle terrorism over rival Hillary Clinton. With many victims of the carnage yet to be identified, and police still probing the suspected Islamist ties of the slain gunman, Trump wasted no time in harnessing the assault to his political advantage. The presumptive Republican nominee unleashed a broadside accusing President Barack Obama and his would-be Democratic successor Clinton of failing to tackle what Trump calls "radical Islam." "Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen -- and it is only going to get worse," he said in a statement. "I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore." Trump is set to deliver more of the same tough talk at a campaign appearance in Manchester, New Hampshire on Monday. The speech was originally to be about Clinton, but he is shifting the focus to national security. His other Monday event, in Portsmouth, has been scrapped, his campaign said. As the country reeled from what is being treated as the deadliest attack on US soil since September 11, 2001, Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, said the threat of terrorism was likely to dominate the US campaign debate. "It will be at the forefront until election day," he told AFP. Waterboarding After extremists slaughtered 130 people in Paris last November and a Muslim husband-and-wife team murdered 14 in San Bernardino, California, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. The move prompted an uproar, but he doubled down, presenting himself as prepared to do more to crack down on extremism than his political rivals. After San Bernardino, "It became a permanent part of the Trump dialogue," said Quinnipiac's Malloy. In March, following a deadly attack in Brussels, Trump said his insistence on defeating extremism was "probably why I'm number one in the polls." Opinion polls late last year showed a majority of Republicans supporting Trump's call for a Muslim travel ban. Trump and Clinton are promoting radically different approaches to fighting terror, and have traded accusations that the other is not fit to run the country. Trump has repeatedly called for a halt to refugee flows from the Middle East, and assailed Clinton for wanting to expand them. He says he is prepared to re-authorize torture methods such as waterboarding in terrorism cases and advocates targeting the families of terror suspects. Trump also repeatedly argues that attacks like the one in Paris would have seen far fewer casualties if people had been armed to defend themselves. According to Quinnipiac, voters see Clinton as far more prepared than Trump to handle an international crisis -- but they see Trump as better able to tackle the IS threat. Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally in Tampa, Florida, U.S. June 11, 2016. Photo: Reuters/Scott Audette 'Get out of this race' Their rival styles were on display after a gunman unleashed an assault on a gay nightclub in Florida that left 50 people dead, reportedly after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group. "If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the presidency," Trump thundered. The former secretary of state trod more cautiously. She declared Sunday's attack "an act of terror" and an "act of hate," and issued a statement saying Washington should redouble efforts to counter terror threats at home and abroad. Clinton was to visit Ohio Monday for her first rally since clinching the Democratic nomination. She is expected to address the Orlando tragedy then. Obama was to join her Wednesday for a high-profile campaign appearance, but the event was postponed because of the shooting. 'Strongman' Clinton leads Trump in most head-to-head matchups, but "things can happen in the final weeks and months before the election," explained Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. "What if we have an attack like Paris in October?" he asked. "Maybe people will say we can't trust a person who's never had any experience. But maybe there is the allure of a strongman." Clinton argues that her experience -- as first lady, US senator and top diplomat -- makes her the most qualified to be president. She has reminded voters she urged Obama to authorize the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. But Trump touted his own clairvoyance about national security challenges, tweeting the "congrats" he received "for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri hit back at Trump for having "put out political attacks, weak platitudes and self-congratulations." "Trump has offered no real plans to keep our nation safe and no outreach to the Americans targeted, just insults and attacks," CBS News quoted Palmieri as saying." Vietnam and Laos will closely cooperate to strengthen the solidarity of ASEAN and enhance the vital role of the group in regional security structure, Vietnam News Agency reported June 12. Their commitment was announced during the ongoing first foreign visit to Laos, which is the ASEAN chair this year, by Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang. The two countries will work with other ASEAN nations to push for peaceful settlements of maritime disputes in accordance with international law in Vietnams East Sea; fully implement the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and work towards the formation of a Code of Conduct in the waters (COC). Quang will visit Cambodia from June 15-16 after wrapping up his Laos visit on June 14. Related news: > Laos digs deep to help Vietnam counter effects of climate change > China, Laos increase security cooperation after attacks on Chinese > China says Brunei, Cambodia, Laos agree sea dispute must not hurt ties "I love the children and you get to know the mothers, especially those who are here long term. She's there every Tuesday to help the nursing staff do anything from change nappies to hold a baby to sit and chat with a mother. "I enjoy it," she said. Maud Bennett, a volunteer with the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, gives a cuddle to 10-month-old Romeo Rosenman Johnson from north Canberra. Credit:Jamila Toderas The Conder grandmother is a volunteer in the paediatrics ward at the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children in Canberra. "We've had children who have been in here for a year and you get to know them fairly well." Mrs Bennett has been awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the Queen's Birthday Honours for her service to the community, particularly at the Canberra Hospital for the past 15 years. She also volunteered in aged care for five years prior to that. "I was surprised," she said. "I received two letters saying I might get one. I'm a very casual sort of person and I wouldn't be upset if I didn't get one. I'm pretty easygoing." With five children and eight grandchildren of her own, Mrs Bennett said she sometimes felt like a surrogate grandmother to some of the children in the hospital. "Sometimes, particularly when their parents can't be there all the time," she said. Global shortages, continued growth in demand coupled with high meat prices has helped create a window of opportunity for the local salmon industry which could sustain its fortunes over the next two to three years. For consumers, that means getting used to paying more for what has become one of our more popular fish dinners. The reasons for the situation are global. Sea lice has hit salmon production in Norway the global leader hard, slashing its production and exports. It has also been bad news for Chile, the other large producer globally, which was hit by the El Nino weather event, which crimped its production. And given the long lead times within the industry coupled with the rising popularity of eating fish, demand may continue to outstrip supply for some time yet. This has all served to push the international price for salmon to long-term highs with consumers forced to pay up. Even by the boom-bust standards of Asia's equity business, it's been a turbulent 12 months. At this time last year, the industry was riding high as China's stock market soared, volumes jumped to records and some of the biggest names in finance boosted hiring. Without a new mass industrialisation somewhere to drive demand, producers will have to rely on a slower path to the next boom. Credit:FDC Now, turnover is shrinking at the fastest pace since at least 2006 and banks are under growing pressure to either downsize their Asian equity desks, or exit parts of the business altogether. Investors and issuers are retrenching after Chinese shares crashed, the US Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy and divisive political debates from the US to Britain weighed on sentiment. Lotte Group shelved what may have been a $4.5 billion initial public offering, the world's biggest so far this year, for its hotel unit after widening investigations pushed the South Korean conglomerate deeper into crisis. Hotel Lotte Co. decided to hold off on the IPO after talking to arrangers and considering both "internal and external issues," the company said in a statement in Seoul Monday, a day after the parent group signalled the deal would be shelved. Despite the decision, the company will proceed with plans to expand its duty-free business, it said. An employee arranges a bed inside a royal suite room at the Hotel Lotte Co. Seoul hotel in South Korea. Credit:Bloomberg It's the latest blow to hit the conglomerate, which has 89 Korean units with more than 100 trillion won ($85 billion) in assets. With the group still reeling from a feud that tore its founding family apart, Lotte sank into deeper turmoil last week as Korean prosecutors widened their probes into the business empire amid allegations of slush funds and embezzlement. "This crisis can be viewed as a problem of governance and lack of transparency at Lotte Group," said Kim Ho Joon, director of the governance research department at Daishin Securities Co. in Seoul. The forced sale of assets by Israeli-based pharmaceutical group Teva has triggered speculation its longstanding research programs with local biotechnology company Mesoblast may be on the block, or simply given back to the company. Mesoblast sought a suspension in the trading of its shares on the sharemarket last week, subsequently extending the suspension to Friday morning, with the length of the suspension causing concern. Professor Silviu Itescu, chief executive of stem-cell company Mesoblast. Credit:Josh Robenstone "The signs are that it is bad news, with the company scrambling to limit the downside," one industry analyst said. Teva has been reported to seeking to divest as much as $US2 billion in assets double the original estimate as it seeks regulatory approval for the $US40 billion purchase of a generic drug portfolio from the UK's Allergan. Along with an estimated 50 drugs that are already on the market, another 25 drugs under development ranging from cancer to respiratory disease and central nervous system disorders, could also be sold. Vietnam is believed to be the second Asia-Pacific nation to manufacture its own variant of a missile based on the Russian Zvezda-Strela 3M24 Uran, an analysis by two military analysts showed recently. The first nation is North Korea, which has previously shown footage of a missile that closely resembles the Russian medium-range anti-ship weapon, according to Douglas Barrie, Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace and Tom Waldwyn, Research Analyst for Defence and Military Analysis at London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. But unlike Pyongyang, Hanoi has been at least slightly more forthcoming as to the nature of its own program. The Vietnamese variant of the missile, designated as the KCT 15 anti-ship missile, is the result of technology transfer from Russia. It is not clear whether this represents a full production capacity, or licensed final assembly, or something in between, the two analysts said. Photo provided by IISS. Vietnam and Russia began to discuss local "manufacture" of the 3M24 in 20112012. The initial acquisition of the 3M24 from Russia was aimed at improving the anti-surface warfare capacity of the Vietnam Peoples Navy. The indigenious production of the KCT 15 will help develop local industry and likely simplify logistics support. The KCT 15 was first shown publicly in late 2015 as part of a display of defense technology that also included air defense surveillance radar. The missile was shown alongside a twin launcher for surface vessels. The Vietnamese navy already operates the 3M24, with the missile providing the main anti-ship armament of the Russian-built Gepard-class frigate. The navy operates two of this class at present with a further two under construction. The 3M24 is also the main armament of the navys six Tarantul V fast missile boats (the Molniya class), as well as its single BPS-500 corvette, according to the analysis. Work on the basic 3M24 began in the early 1980s and it had a maximum range of 130km, but some local press reports suggest the Vietnams KCT 15 has around double this range. There has also been a suggestion in the media that the licence agreement with Russia covers three versions of the missile. The two analysts said the KCT 15 that was put on display differed from the basic 3M24 in that there was no inlet duct between the mid-body wing for the turbofan engine. An upgraded air-launched variant, known as the Kh-35U, has a revised layout for the engine, which is repositioned in an enlarged rear-fuselage section. This provides for greater fuel capacity and extends the missiles maximum range. The KCT 15 shown, however, did not correspond to this configuration. A further option is that the design has a flush intake, although this was not visible on the missile displayed. Separately, the government of Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordered BrahMos Aerospace, which produces the missiles, to accelerate sales to a list of five countries topped by Vietnam, according to a government note viewed by Reuters and previously unreported. BrahMos has a range of 290 km and can be fired from land, sea and submarine. An air-launched version is under testing. A source at the defense ministry said India was hoping to conclude negotiations on the supply of BrahMos to Vietnam by the end of the year. The Indian government is also considering a proposal to offer Vietnam a battleship armed with the BrahMos missiles instead of just the missile battery, according to Reuters. Related news: > Vietnam Navy opens General Giap Park in Spratly Islands > France to hold military exercise with Vietnam Navy > U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Commanders Visit Vietnam The hunt for tax cheats and multinational tax dodgers continues with accountants, lawyers and economists being invited to join the executive ranks of the Australian Taxation Office's recently created Tax Avoidance Taskforce. The taskforce, which was announced in the May Budget and began recruiting shortly after the Panama Papers revelations, will have a team of 1000 experts, including 390 new officers. The ATO is now recruiting for executive-level specialist staff from industries including energy and mining, banking and finance, infrastructure, insurance, superannuation, pharmaceuticals, telecommunication and e-commerce. The cost of the ATO's new taskforce, being led by Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan, is $680 million over four years. America's worst mass shooting in Orlando, Florida early on Sunday morning may prove to be its most troubling and divisive. Omar Mateen had twice been investigated by the FBI (in 2013 and 2014) for making inflammatory remarks to co-workers about terrorism, and for his alleged ties to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, the first American to carry out a suicide attack in Syria. Both investigations petered out for lack of evidence. Yet despite being on the FBI's radar, Mateen continued to hold a licence to carry a concealed weapon and to work as a security guard, capacities which undoubtedly enabled his murderous rampage. That a nightclub with a predominantly lesbian and gay clientele was targeted by Mateen will increase demands by America's LGBT community for greater protections, legal and otherwise. Similar claims of vulnerability will be heard from other minority groups. Most regrettable of all, Donald Trump's decision to pre-empt official investigations and claim credit "for being right on radical Islamic terrorism" threatens to turn a now charged topic into a partisan free-for-all. There seems little doubt as to the gunman's motive. Minutes before launching his attack, he's reported to have called Orlando police to pledge allegiance to Islamic State. Shouts of "Allahu akbar" were heard during the shooting, and shortly afterwards IS claimed responsibility in a statement released over an encrypted phone app. Prior contact does not necessarily indicate direct and extensive links with IS. That would have heightened the risk of detection by authorities. It's more likely Mateen "self-radicalised" and that he acted partly as a result of a pre-Ramadan speech given last month by IS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. In his jihad, Adnani incited IS supporters to carry out killings abroad during the holy month, and singled out the US as a target. One of the more surprising aspects of Sunday's attack is the claim by a British gay rights activist, Peter Tatchell, that "it has always been on the cards that Islamic extremists might target Jewish, gay and Liberal Muslim people in the West". In fact, IS-inspired terrorists have been threatening, bashing, terrorising or otherwise killing Jews, homosexuals and Liberal Muslims in France and Britain for years. It's one aspect of the hideous IS campaign that does not get the attention of the media or the chattering classes that it warrants. The Greens are not totally bad. As often described, the Greens are green on the outside and red on the inside. The Greens gather a lot of their support on environmental issues. However they also have some bad friends like the militant union left-wingers. As a result the Greens are also well to the left of Labor and they are funded and supported by the militant unions. In office, with Labor, the Greens would be pushing to cut back Australia's security relationship with the United States. Equally a problem for us would be the Greens discouraging the US involvement in our part of the world. The Greens would cut back our intelligence agencies and the Australian Defence Force. Intelligence is vital so that we can know in advance what malignant persons or states might be plotting. And of course, given that the Greens would also cut the number of our next subs and new fighter planes, we would need to spend more dollars on defence, not less. The truth is that the Greens are way out to the left in Australian politics and they should not be given any encouragement. Potential dealmaker: Greens Leader Richard Di Natale. Credit:Andrew Meares The other minor parties are not in the same league as the Greens. Windsor and Oakeshott are just Labor fronts. Nick Xenophon is an opportunist in the Clive Palmer mould and he mainly votes with the Greens. The National Party is another minor party and has become more demanding in recent years. Fortunately the Nats' demand for the recognition of local government in the federal constitution was hotly opposed by the Liberal Party. Unfortunately the Nationals have been successful in adding more bureaucracy in an unjustified push to tighten foreign investment rules on agriculture. In the Howard years, the Nationals leadership team were rationalists and could see that opening the doors to investors is in the interest of farmers as it is to the economy more generally. Hopefully a new Turnbull will take a stronger line with his coalition party in the future. However important the minor parties may think they are, the truth is that they remain minnows compared to the two major parties who determine much of our politics. And in turn, the two major parties, unlike the special interests of minor parties, are locked in a fight for voter support. But let's be clear: This was no more an attack on LGBT people than the bloodshed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris was an attack on satirists. These locations are never random. These targets aren't accidental. They're the very vocabulary in which assailants like the Orlando gunman speak, and he chose a place where there's drinking. And dancing. And where LGBT people congregate, feeling a sense of welcome, of belonging. Both were attacks on freedom itself. Both took aim at societies that, at their best, integrate and celebrate diverse points of view, diverse systems of belief, diverse ways to love. And to speak of either massacre more narrowly than that is to miss the greater message, the more pervasive danger and the truest stakes. Illustration: Andrew Dyson. We don't yet know that much about Omar Mateen, who pulled the trigger, again and again, in a nightclub whose name connotes life, not death: Pulse. We'll be learning more every hour, for days to come, including how much planning went into this, how much ideological influence the Islamic State or other extremists had, how potently homophobia in particular factored into his actions, and how much he knew about Pulse itself and the specific composition of its crowd on different nights of the week. But we can assume - no, we can be sure - that he was lashing out at an America at odds with his darker, smaller, more oppressive mindset. The people inside Pulse nightclub were citizens of it. More to the point, they were emblems of it. In Pulse they found a refuge. In Pulse they found joy. To him they deserved neither. And he communicated that with an assault rifle and bullets. The Islamic State and its ilk are brutal to gay people, whom they treat in unthinkable ways. They throw gay people from rooftops. The footage is posted online. It's bloodcurdling, but it's not unique. In countries throughout the world, to be gay is to be in mortal danger. To embrace love is to court death. In December last year Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik armed themselves with AR-15s - the same type of weapon used to kill 50 people in Orlando - and murdered 14 people at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California, in what was soon classified as a terrorist attack. The following day Republicans in Congress blocked a bill that would have banned people who were on the terrorist watch list from buying guns. The National Rifle Association opposed the ban on the grounds the list might contain mistakes, and some people might unfairly have their right to bear arms infringed upon. The NRA's lackeys in Congress did as they were told, as they always do. But I can't even begin to say how disappointed I am. I was pretty sure that the Prime Minister, who believes in marriage equality, for instance, would emerge as a politician with values on this issue. The Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and his deputy, Tanya Plibersek, made it pretty clear where they stood in a statement on Monday morning. "These murders are despicable, and cowardly. We condemn them, utterly. Many in the LGBTI community will feel an added layer of pain and a sharper sense of loss in the wake of this tragedy. We stand with you in solidarity." The leader of the Greens, Richard di Natale, issued a statement early and later amended it to include the LGBTI community. I can't see anything from Team Xenophon or anything from the National Party. Nothing from the raft of crazy part-timers who go into politics to push a barrow or 10. Politicians, the murdered are people. They have families and friends and deserve so much love and support right now. Instead and as usual in the weeks before the run-up to an election the day was filled with promise. Or promises at least. And I found it pretty tough to care much about anything else, except the broken hearts in Orlando. Chris Neff, a lecturer in public policy at the University of Sydney, with the unusual expertise of both queer politics and mass shootings, was also puzzled by the lack of preparedness by our politicians. "This happened on Sunday night. We all saw the news. Australian politicians are very sophisticated. We are in a federal election and they are point perfect on their messaging and on their spin. I don't think they make mistakes and I take them at their word. "But they erased the queerness from the event, during Gay Pride Month, during a Latino night at a gay bar ... and that's the other thing, this was an assault on queer people of colour." He says: "If you are going to talk about an issue and you are legitimately trying to be empathetic then I do think you have an obligation to know what you are talking about. "This was not an assault on all freedoms, this was an assault on queer freedoms and on queer identity and this was specifically targeting to kill 50 people who were queer." There have been quite a few people who have said only gay/lesbian people should speak out about this calamity and those voices should certainly take precedence over anyone else's. But I fear that if we do that, it will permit the kind of identity politics that allows politicians to get away with being cowards. When Jews are murdered, I want the entire universe to stand side by side with me in condemning it, not just other Jews. China falls back on other justifications. It makes claims based on history. It makes claims based on precedent. Even if China has no legal basis for its dramatic claim, one of the justifications most commonly used by China's apologists is that great powers need to assert their own "strategic space". "Is China doing anything more reckless than imitating our venerated Monroe Doctrine?" poses a US constitutional lawyer, Bruce Fein, writing in the Huffington Post. It is typical of the genre. The Monroe Doctrine was the 1823 declaration by the fifth US president, James Monroe, that the western hemisphere was the special strategic preserve of the US. Other powers be warned. Malcolm Turnbull has a very different view. In his first remarks on the subject, the Australian Prime Minister has completely rejected the argument that the Monroe Doctrine is any kind of precedent for China to follow. "Some people write about China, talk about China, as though it could declare some kind of Monroe Doctrine in the Western Pacific," Turnbull said in an interview with Fairfax Media last week. "It is a very inapt analogy." Why? "When President Monroe declared his Monroe Doctrine in the Western hemisphere, he was talking about the Caribbean and Latin America. All the Caribbean states and Latin American states either were pretty ramshackle former European colonies, mainly Spanish colonies, or still were colonies. "China, while by any test an enormous country and a country of enormous strength, China is surrounded by very large powers itself. Its neighbours are powerful states in their own right. "You have Russia, you have India, you have Japan, you have Korea, you have Vietnam, and so on, then, of course, you have the critically important role of the US." In other words, the US was able to dominate a region of pygmies but even giant China cannot hope to dominate a region of other giants of varying stature. ANU international security expert Rory Medcalf says Turnbull's point "is absolutely key: China is seeking to expand its reach and its interests in what is already a shared space. It's been a shared space all through history. It's not really anyone's to claim". Yet in the face of these arguments, China has been not only claiming but cementing its ownership of vast tracts of disputed ocean by sheer willpower. Apart from its fast-growing navy and its huge fleet of coastguard vessels, which it uses to intimidate other claimants' ships, it has manufactured and militarising a brace of islands in the South China Sea that "enable Beijing to exert coercive power far from the mainland", as Medcalf and co-author Ashley Townshend write in a recent Lowy Institute paper. These islands constitute the core of what Medcalf and Townshend call China's "passive assertive conduct". Or, as Indian strategic thinker Brahma Chellaney calls it, China's "creeping invasion". China so far is getting exactly what it wants. It may be surrounded by giants, but the question is whether they are prepared to act to constrain China's assertions of ownership. The imminent ruling from the Hague will be a threshold moment. Medcalf says "you are seeing an increasing sense of solidarity at the diplomatic level even at the Shangri-La Dialogue", the region's biggest defence conference held two weeks ago. "The US, Japan, India, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam, and some extra-regional countries, too, like France and Canada you are finding near-universal opinion among substantial countries to encourage China to respect the principles" of the forthcoming decision on the law of the sea as it applies to China's claims. Turnbull and other leaders may believe it's impossible for China to succeed in bullying its way to dominance. But so far China has been succeeding faster and more comprehensively than anyone predicted. No one is talking about forcing China to demolish its new militarised islands. The works of Edgar Degas are the focus of an exhibition at the NGV. Credit:Copyright RMN-Grand Palais (Musee d'Orsay) / Martine Beck-Coppola NGV INTERNATIONAL Winter Masterpieces returns to the NGV from June 24 with a major retrospective of the work of Edgar Degas. One of the defining artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, the collection will be presented thematically and will include famous ballet scenes along with arresting portraits, horse-racing, the social world of Parisian nightlife and women at work and leisure. We have five prize packages (worth $134.95 each) comprising a family pass to visit the show plus a copy of the richly illustrated exhibition publication by principal curator Henri Loyrette on offer. Register your details on agecomp@ngv.vic.gov.au before midnight tonight for the chance to win. WINNERS National Celtic Festival: Novatus Kwe S3 Studio Barre Pilates and Fitness Packages: Amber Schmidt, Tam Trinh, Evita Siketa, Sharon Michael, Elsher Keir, Robyn Bishop, Aimee Dash, Paula Davey, Suzanne Marryatt, Alicia Aulsebrook Melbourne Cabaret Festival: Francine Lynn, Mick Kir Eric Clapton has revealed he is living in pain and struggles to play the guitar after being diagnosed with a neurological condition several years ago. The British blues guitarist recently told Classic Rock Magazine his condition wouldn't improve and that he was considering retirement after a music career spanning five decades. Suffering from back pain while touring in 2013, Clapton was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, a type of nerve damage which can cause muscle weakness, tingling and numbness in a person's arms and legs. The ancient city of Hoi An says it best with its serene beauty and gastronomy that drives many here and keeps others coming back for more. Only 30 kilometers from Da Nang, Hoi An is a must on the itinerary of any Da Nang visitor, and more often than not, the primary destination of many people. Hoi An, like the famous Old Quarter in Hanoi, promotes itself first through the well-preserved antiquity that gives the coastal town its character. No matter how beautiful or serene something is, we all know that it will soon turn boring if the only thing we can take home are pictures, because its the experience that matters most. Hoi An has everything needed to get all your senses involved in the Hoi An experience The lanterns The light that keeps the town alive at night. Surely no-one can leave Hoi An without scores of photos of these lanterns. The fabric lamps used to be a daily household equipment with the main purpose of keeping the lit candles from being extinguished by the wind. Nowadays, these beautiful lanterns serve mainly as interior ornaments with the only practical purpose of softening the light inside. A silk and bamboo lantern is also a good choice of souvenir for those back home, constantly reminding them of the land of serenity and elegance. The architectural relic The Japanese Bridge, or Pagoda Bridge, in Hoi An is the evidence of the prosperous and cross-cultural past of the town as an animated outpost under the old monarchs. Though its hard to find any Japanese traces after multiple restorations, the bridge, with its distinct architecture still attracts lots of visitors and has become the symbol of Hoi An. Banh mi The most delicious street food in the world, as dubbed by many gourmets, has its own tasty twist in Hoi An. Banh mi stalls spread across town, but the ones that have cemented the world famous 'banh mi Hoi An' brand are few. The most sought after ones are Madam Khanh and banh mi Phuong, where quality can easily be verified by the number of checks-in and Instagram posts. Banh mi Phuong Chicken rice Besides the take-away banh-mi, Hoi An offers multiple choices for dining-in experience. Based on two most familiar ingredients to Vietnamese people, rice and chicken, the cooks of Hoi An have invented an unmistakable dish without any description but the word Hoi An in its name. Like banh mi, the quality of the chicken rice is guaranteed by the names of the shop owners, with the most recommended ones being ba Buoi and ba Nga. Grilled meat and Vietnamese crepe Both can serve as stand-alone dish or make the stuffing of fresh spring rolls. The go-to place for these dishes, called nem nuong and banh xeo in Vietnamese, is Ba Le Well place. The service here is also an excitement to watch. Food is served according to the number of customers without any order made. You only have to order more if desired. The television miniseries about the life of iconic Australian performer Peter Allen has already won best miniseries, best director and a best actor award for its star Joel Jackson at the annual AACTA Awards. But this week the critically acclaimed Seven Network drama has a shot at one of the world's most prestigious prizes for television, at the 56th annual Monte Carlo Television Festival. Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door is up for one of the world's most prestigious prizes for television. The miniseries, Not The Boy Next Door, has been nominated in the outstanding long fiction program category and its star, Joel Jackson, has been nominated in the outstanding actor category at the festival's Golden Nymph Awards. The festival was officially opened overnight at Monte Carlo's Grimaldi Forum, by their Serene Highnesses, Prince Albert II of Monaco and his wife, Princess Charlene. She also criticised the lack of gun safety reform, receiving huge applause when she said "there is no place for weapons of war on our streets." She also received rapturous applause for making the following commonsense statement. Significantly, Clinton called on the Qatari, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to stop their citizens funding terror organisations and schools. She laid out a plan for combating radical Islam and said it was essential to form contacts in Muslim communities not "scapegoating or isolating" them. After accepting congratulations on Sunday for being "right" on radical terrorism, the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump proceeded once more down the path of conspiracy theories and said "there's something going on," in noting President Obama didn't use the words "radical Islamic terrorism," when talking about the shooting. In a speech just a short time ago, Trump made his strongest ever comments against Muslims and said that the US letting in hundreds and thousands of the Islamic faith was "adding to the problem" of radical Islam which he said was "imported from overseas." He attacked the Muslim community for not turning in the Orlando and San Bernadino shooters. Trump said the killer was only in America because the US had allowed his Afghan parents into the country in the first place. He also pledged to ban immigrants from countries where there is a proven history of terrorism. And Trump boasted of earning the "earliest ever" endorsement from the powerful gun lobby in a Presidential race. 3. Brexit The Orlando shooting also played into the Brexit debate dominating Britain with a grassroots leave group funded by a UKIP donor tweeting that voters needed to "act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long." Our EU Correspondent Nick Miller's report here. 4. Election round-up Bill Shorten went on Q&A solo and vowed to let journalists back onto Manus Island and Nauru to report on the asylum seekers being detained on the islands. My story here. Essentially, Shorten's hard-fought internal battle to keep in place the Coalition's harsh asylum seeker policies, including turnbacks, enable him to strike important positions of difference in this area. A poll conducted for the Greens suggests star cabinet minister Kelly O'Dwyer who holds the seat of Higgins in Melbourne could be under threat and at risk of becoming the "Indi of 2016." This refers to the shock ejection from parliament of O'Dwyer's friend Sophie Mirabella in Indi. Independent Nick Xenophon won't preference either Liberal or Labor but says it would be a dirty deal if the Liberal party and Labor party preference each other (reducing his chance of nabbing key sets from the Liberals in South Australia). In other news, politicians reported to be politicians! 5. Microsoft buys LinkedIn Huge tech news. Microsoft bought professional networking company LinkedIn in a deal worth $26.2 billion, in its largest value acquisition to date. The tech gags have been flowing ever since the announcement. Ok I'll stop now. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has condemned the killing of 50 people in a US gay nightclub as "a murderous attack on gay people" and an assault on freedom. He warned Australians against complacency following the worst mass shooting in modern American history, describing the atrocity as "an attack on all of us". And he conveyed Australians' deepest sympathies, condolences and solidarity to the victims and their families. But when pushed on the details by host Tony Jones, Mr Shorten refused to elaborate, calling Mr Jones' question a bid for a "gotcha" moment. The Labor leader strongly backed a debate on a "post-constitutional recognition settlement with Indigenous people" on ABC's Q&A program, broadcast from NSW's Penrith, in the marginal seat of Lindsay. Bill Shorten has signalled his support for a treaty with Indigenous Australians after Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are recognised in the constitution. "What I'm not going to do, is give all the answers on one spot at one time," he said. Mr Shorten left the option of a treaty open in February and Labor Senator Pat Dodson flagged this early in May, claiming that constitutional recognition and a treaty were not mutually exclusive. Mr Shorten was responding on the program to an Aboriginal questioner Doug Delaney, who wanted to know if Mr Shorten agreed that the British settlement in Australia was an "invasion". Mr Delaney said he wanted sovereignty for Aboriginal people. Mr Shorten danced around the question, claiming that an Aboriginal person might consider it an "invasion", but he described the event as Aboriginal people being "dispossessed". "If anyone says that Aboriginal people weren't dispossessed from their land by the British settlement they're telling lies," Mr Shorten said. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has taken Donald Trump to task over the presumptive Republican candidate's claims the Orlando shooting shows he was right to call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. Mr Shorten, speaking from the University of Western Sydney, condemned the "brutal terror attack" and took note to pay particular condolences to members of the gay community. Mr Trump seized on the mass shooting at the gay club to reiterate his controversial call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the US in a now-familiar flouting of political conventions that eschew exploiting tragedies. But this was also a homophobic attack. Omar Mateen chose a gay nightclub as the theatre of his warfare. He had expressed disgust at gay affection. This was a hate crime - and we should say so. In some ways, that's true. Most of us cherish our freedoms, most of us hope to move about the world without meeting violence, hatred and terror. The worst mass shooting in modern US history has been described by leaders, including Malcolm Turnbull and Barack Obama, as an attack on all of us. There has been a peculiar resistance to call this atrocity homophobic. Some media reports omitted the fact that Pulse was a gay venue, as if this were not relevant. Mr Turnbull was initially reluctant to even mention the context of the attack. Only in his second public statement did he acknowledge it was "directed by a murderous hatred of gay people". Several hundred gay rights activists march in Santa Ana, California in supports of the victims of the Orlando massacre. Credit:Kevin Sullivan/The Orange County Register/AP In Britain, gay Guardian columnist Owen Jones stormed off a television set after fellow panellists insisted Mateen had attacked "human beings" rather than specifically LGBTI people. How does this become a point of contention? Whatever his sympathies or connections, Mateen had a choice of many targets that night. He chose to kill gays - that much seems clear. In recognition of this fact, gay communities the world over are grieving. It is their safe space, the gay bar, that has been violated - a space made necessary by hundreds of years of persecution and hate. That is why it is the rainbow flag you will see bathed in candlelight at vigils this evening. That is why Sydney's Town Hall will be lit up in pink, and Canberra's Kings Avenue bridge covered in rainbow lights. "Do you mean Paul Burrell?" this reporter asked, referring to the former butler of Diana, Princess of Wales, who has been branded a traitor for revealing the private life of the late princess and her family in two best-selling books. Mr Harrold said keeping the royals' private life just that, has won him favour, unlike some other former members of the royal household, who have revealed their secrets. Mr Burrell, who also teaches etiquette, was accused of lying while giving evidence by the coroner at the inquest into Diana's death in 2008 and that he was more concerned with exploiting his connection to the late princess. "Yes, as an example you can look at former butlers," Mr Harrold replied. Paul Burrell, former butler of Diana, Princess of Wales, has been branded a traitor for revealing her private life in two best-selling books. Credit:Getty "I would never go around and say, 'the royals could not cope without me'. Anyone could cope. You don't need people to survive. "Prince Harry and Prince William have said some really nice things to me, but I would not go around telling the world that 'I was their right-hand whatever' because it is irrelevant. "The Royal Butler" demonstrating a handshake fit for the Queen with Fairfax Media reporter Amy Croffey. Credit:SMH "But what I hope I do is promote them in what I am teaching so people can understand what the royals are like and not be afraid of them and show that they are just like you and me and down to earth." Indeed, Mr Harrold, a very friendly and welcoming man, would not be drawn on any private details, particularly concerning himself during a chat with Fairfax Media in Sydney, where he was a guest of Stayz. Grant Harrold was visiting Australia to promote Stayz. Credit:Stayz He refused to speak about his private life, except to say he would not consider himself to be "a family man" save for his two dogs. When asked if he still keeps in contact with the royal family, he said, "I try to keep my space from them", adding that he understands how "weird" that might sound. "I am lucky enough to live in Highgrove, so I do try and keep away. I will speak to them if I see them but I won't purposely go and have a chat with them to give them that privacy." Etiquette 101 When it came down to the brass tacks of etiquette lessons, Mr Harrold was in his forte, jumping up from his seat on the couch to demonstrate what he meant, all while careful not to get a crease on his perfectly pressed blue suit. The most basic rule to remember is that etiquette always favours right-handed people (most noteworthy when it comes to cheek kissing or you could get more than you bargained for). Meeting the Queen "You wouldn't just walk up to her and shake her hand or stand up and say, 'Hello, Your Majesty'," Mr Harrold said. This reporter explained that that is exactly what they would do being Irish, where the norm would be to approach guests with open arms. "They know that and they are very aware of it," he laughed. "Some people do that automatically and the royals being as polite as they are, shake the hand back." The protocol is to stand up and wait for the royal to extend their hand to you and say, "how do you do?" However, if you take a royal out of the equation and it's a man and woman greeting each other, the man would be introduced to the woman. "The woman is superior and courtesy is shown to her," Mr Harrold said. "The lady would then be expected to extend their hand first." When it comes to seniors and juniors, courtesy is shown to the senior. Shaking hands Handshakes can be an etiquette minefield, Mr Harrold outlining a five-step process. Gently and discreetly wipe hands on your sides to avoid sweaty palms. Hold your arm out to a roughly 150-degree angle. Clasp their hand not too tightly but not too gentle either. Shake for two to three pumps. When you are finished, put your hands back down to the sides. Social kissing You would never kiss a royal unless you were a family member or close friend. It's up to the woman if she wants to give a cheek kiss, with Mr Harrold explaining that her lead should be followed. To cheek kiss correctly, you place your right cheek against their right cheek, but you don't air kiss or make the loud pucker noise. In Britain it's one kiss, but most follow the French rule and give two. Bowing Traditional greetings such as bowing for a man or giving a curtsy for women are thought of as outdated as "we live in the 21st century", explained Mr Harrold. If some people wish to observe the custom, men and women can neck bow from the head only, or women can do a small curtsy. "To properly curtsy, you place the right foot behind the left and then it's just a slight bob," he said. "What you don't want is when a lady goes too far down and then she can't come up." Sitting "With ladies who wear skirts we always say legs together with your legs at an angle to the left or the right," he said. This is best seen with Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who sits with her legs angled to the right, while Diana, the late Princess of Wales, would most often sit with her legs angled to the left. Queen Elizabeth keeps her legs together in the centre. "Ladies shouldn't sit cross legged, but you can cross them at the ankles," he added. When it was noted that Tasmanian-born Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, often sits with her legs crossed, Mr Harrold explained that there are different rules of etiquette depending on the country. "Gents can cross their legs and put their hands on their lap [as often seen with Prince Charles] but they should never sit cross legged [knee bent outwards]." Table manners "As your mother probably often told you, 'No wrists or hands on the table'," Mr Harrold said. When it comes to mobile phones, they should be used "politely". "Have the phone with you on silent or vibrate, there's nothing wrong with checking it every now and again, but just do it discreetly," he said. "Never put it on the table and never seem like you are focusing on it. "If you really need to check your phone, in the case of an emergency, you can excuse yourself and pop to the bathroom." Of note to Australians, Mr Harrold said wearing a cap indoors is a big no-no. "A gentleman should always take a hat off when they go inside. Always, no matter where they are," he said, indicating it was one of his biggest "pet peeves". Body language "No slouching or arms crossed," Mr Harrold said. When you are standing you can hold your hands clasped in front of you or you can put your hands behind your back. After five years of teaching etiquette to "everyone from Mr Smyth up the road to some not-so-high-profile royals," Mr Harrold says he still gets confused at times. Nearly 100 Queenslanders have been recognised in the 2016 Queen's Birthday honours list, acknowledging their service to the community. But, unlike their counterparts in other states, they are not getting a day off on Monday to celebrate thanks to the Queensland government's decision to move the holiday to October. Governor-General Peter Cosgrove made the Queen's Birthday honours list public on Monday. Credit:Peter Rae Among the Queenslanders recognised was former federal MP Peter Lindsay, who has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia. "This is not just an award for me, it's an award to the Townsville community," Mr Lindsay said. Velasquez testified while holding a book titled 'The True Pablo: Blood, Treason and Death' during a trial in Bogota, Colombia, in 2006. Credit:William Fernando Martinez/AP The son of one victim a man who was among 107 people killed by a bomb planted by the cartel on a plane that exploded in 1989 over Bogota, Colombia said Velasquez's popularity overshadowed the harm he had unleashed, The Guardian reported. The son, Gonzalo Rojas, said that the former hit man had shown no real remorse and that he was trafficking in a perverse sort of celebrity because of his crimes. Most hit men do not turn up on YouTube seeking a second act by spilling secrets about past misdeeds. (Gotti died in 2002 while serving a life sentence.) But one expert described Velasquez as "an astute self-promoter" who had capitalised on his infamy by claiming to have been reformed while glorifying narco-culture. Velasquez, however, said he felt reborn after being released on parole in 2014, according to a description of his YouTube account. "I created this channel with the intention to be able to talk day to day about my process reintegrating into society as well as my process with true remorse," he wrote. "Being an assassin is not normal," he said in the interview. Now, he said, he "respects life and society". "I was resocialised: when I changed my way of thinking, I changed my way of being," he added. In one video, he seeks forgiveness from a relative of one of his victims. When a viewer asked, "When can the victims of the drug war of the Medellin cartel meet you the ones who lost brothers or fathers in the police force?" Velasquez said he found the question painful. But he asserted: "It was the war that killed your brother, but I am not going to justify that. I am going to assume responsibility because your brother was defending a country, an institution, and we were murderers paid by the cartels." If Velasquez, who uploads videos out of his apartment in Medellin, is troubled that his stated contriteness is at odds with the opening graphics of gunfire and bullet holes in his videos, he is not showing it. And he revels in the limelight. Some viewers have responded by welcoming him back to society. "Hello, Popeye," one wrote. "I love all of your statements because they are full of honesty and courage. Hugs." Others celebrate his flair and ability to talk directly to the people: "You have the personality to be able to tell the truth to the Colombian society." Vincent T. Gawronski, a professor of political science at Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama in the US, said in an email: "In a twisted way, we celebrate 'successful' criminals, even stone-cold killers in Hollywood movies, cable television shows and soap operas: Scarface, Blow, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Netflix's Narcos." Gawronski noted that nearly a dozen "narconovelas" had aired on Spanish-language television and that there were many "narcocorridos", or ballads, celebrating drug traffickers. "We mythologise those that challenge authority and do whatever they want and get away with it," he said. He added: "Of course, Velasquez's fame is directly tied to his relationship with Pablo Escobar. The stories he can tell will keep him popular, but they might also get him killed." In an interview published in The Telegraph in 2014, Velasquez, who said he had a wife and son living in the US, declared that he could take care of himself if anyone came after him. In a video, Velasquez recalled where he was in 1993 when the authorities killed Escobar, the ruthless cocaine trafficker who ran the Medellin cartel. When one viewer wanted to know what Escobar had written in his notepads, Velasquez said: "Those notepads were simply to write the names of the people who he wanted to kill. If he wrote your name in those notepads, you were a dead man." If the mobsters from Gotti's day had a strict code of silence about criminal activity, Velasquez seems unconcerned about revealing the inner workings of the cartel. In a video posted in October, he said he would always be an assassin. He boasted about his reputation on the streets, calling himself the living memory of the cartel. He said he would never speak ill of Escobar. "For me, Escobar was a terrorist, a drug dealer, a kidnapper but he was also my friend; he treated me with kindness and respect," he said. "He was the kind of man that would look you in the eyes and do what he says. Everyone knows what he was, but with me he was good." Everyone knows the frustrating feeling that comes with not being able to check into a hotel before 3PM. Why, in todays age of consumer empowerment and ultimate flexibility, do some industries still follow a business model straight out of the 1950s? Thankfully, entrepreneurs are working to inject some much-needed change into hotel booking. Enter Recharge, a new startup that aims to offer hotel access by the minute. As another example of innovation in what is known as the sharing, online, or platform economy, Recharge charges $0.66 a minute (or about $40 an hour) for access to a hotel room. There is no base fare and Recharge earns money by taking a percent of the stays total cost. The company simply serves as a metered platform to connect customers with hotels. Guests have 15 minutes after booking a recharge before the company starts the clock. The guests then check out when they leave the hotel by simply pressing a button on the app. This means that guests cannot schedule a stay in advance, unless they are willing to pay for it. In addition to a private room, Recharge offers access to hotel amenities, such as the gym and business center. But Recharges promise extends far beyond weary travelers. As the companys founder Manny Bamfo told me, I started Recharge so that everyone can have an element of home when they are on the go. When youre at home you can nap, shower, and have total privacy. When you are traveling, commuting, shopping downtown, or jumping between meetings, you sometimes need a break space. And this need often exceeds what Starbucks can offer. That is where Recharge comes in. As Bamfo explained, Recharges main competitors are coffeehouses such as Starbucks or business centers such as Regis, since both of these options offer an ability to get work done or relax. However, they do not come with the level of privacy and the other amenities that hotels offer.There is no minimum or maximum number of minutes that someone can rent a room. But given the pricing and the sort of people to which Recharge caters, it is easy to imagine a single room being used by five to seven guests a day (the average recharge is two to three hours). Hotel rooms are still cleaned by staff in between guests stays. People are willing to pay for this convenience and flexibility. While $40 an hour would come out to more than four-star hotels charge per day, the premium for consumer control can be likened to a parking lot. A parking lots hourly rate seems to be expensive when you multiply it by 24, but most people do not need to use the space for a full day, and paying by shorter increments is a better deal. Recharge works directly with hotels, so this is not the case of someone who has already rented a room subrenting it to other people. While Recharge currently only operates in four-star hotels in San Francisco, the company recently secured $2.3 million in seed funding, led by Binary Capital. The companys current offerings include select Hyatt, Starwood and Highgate hotels. Because of the startups relationships with large hotel chains, jumping to other major cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington could happen relatively quickly. Expansion to other types of hotel chains, and three- and five-star hotels, is another clear future step for growth. In a rare development for a sharing-economy company, Recharge has not experienced any pushback from regulators or entrenched interests. Contrasted with hotel chainsopposition to Airbnb and other home-sharing platforms, this seems to be a case of clear progress that also benefits established players in the hotel industry.Hotels are warming up to the idea of partnering with Recharge. They specialize in catering to out-of-town guests, and Recharge, while it offers some benefits for visitors, is primarily focused on opening up hotels to locals on a short-term basis. Just as Uber and Lyft did not simply poach existing taxi drivers, Recharge has the potential to expand the proverbial pie of hotel users. If this business model proves successful, hotels could try to replicate Recharge on their own. But one of the appeals of the app is that it spans across an increasingly wide array of options. Someone is much more likely to use a short-term hotel stay if they can go to a variety of hotels rather than trekking to, for example, the citys closest Marriott. Additionally, hotels are usually only at capacity at night. During the day, many of their rooms remain unused. This provides an opportunity for hotels to earn incremental revenue, as hotels have little experience marketing themselves to locals instead of travelers. Putting empty rooms, or dead capital, to use is one of the main benefits of the sharing economy. Many products and services, from unused tools to empty seats in a car, can now easily be put to productive (and lucrative) use. This is because what economists refer to as transactions costs have dramatically fallen with the increased connectivity offered by the Internet. In other words, it is easier than ever before to match someone who has something with someone who wants that thing. While Bamfo says potential clients first assumed that Recharges customers would use the service to engage in illegal activities (prostitution and drug use come to mind), the companys experience so far has proven those concerns to be overstated.One way to help ensure customers are on their best behavior is by allowing hotels to rate their guests. This follows the example of countless other sharing-economy companies that embrace feedback systems to increase trust and safety. Airbnb, for example, encourages its renters and hosts to rate each other. Another way Recharge resembles sharing-economy giants such as Uber and Lyft is that it plans on instituting a form of dynamic pricing (similar to Ubers Surge or Lyfts Prime Time) for times when demand outpaces supply. This is a major reason why sharing economy companies are so successfulthey can instantaneously adjust prices to reflect the levels of supply and demand. Policymakers need to keep in mind that the technological progress driving the sharing economy is unquestionably a positive development. Increased connectivity has led to a drastic increase in consumer well-being and empowerment. Recharge is just one example of how the sharing economy can revitalize entire industries and make us all better off. This article originally appeared on Forbes Jared Meyer is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and the author of the new monograph Uber-Positive: Why Americans Love the Sharing Economy. Follow him on Twitter here. Interested in real economic insights? Want to stay ahead of the competition? Each weekday morning, e21 delivers a short email that includes e21 exclusive commentaries and the latest market news and updates from Washington. Sign up for the e21 Morning eBrief. Hundreds of emergency helicopter flights carrying critically injured patients to Royal Melbourne Hospital may have to stop flying if a 15-level apartment tower - already approved - is built across the road. The Andrews government has asked the state planning tribunal to overturn an approval that Melbourne City Council gave the tower's developers, which would be built directly opposite the hospital on Flemington Road. The dispute comes despite the Andrews government boasting in February that it had secured safe helicopter flight paths for hospitals. The Department of Health and Human Services argues that neither it nor the hospital were warned of the $40 million development before the city council approved the apartments last August. Hundreds of people have rallied in Melbourne to mourn the victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre and protest against violence targeting the LGBTI community. The rainbow crossing on the corner of Gertrude and Smith Streets in Fitzroy became a makeshift memorial on Monday, with more than 200 people gathering to pay their respects to the victims of the attacks on the Pulse nightclub. "Today we grieve with our LGBTI family and allies in the USA," Victoria's gender and sexuality commissioner Rowena Allen said. The CFA board has spoken out for the first time since it was explosively sacked by the Andrews government for refusing to sign a controversial deal with the firefighters union, declaring it was not prepared to break the law. In a message to members, the CFA's eight-member board also lavished praised on Jane Garrett for her "outstanding leadership" as emergency services minister. The praise stands in contrast to a perfunctory 41-word statement released by Premier Daniel Andrews on Friday noting Ms Garrett's resignation "despite all concerns previously raised by Ms Garrett being addressed". The Andrews government is now desperate to move on from the crisis, which has dominated state politics for weeks, cost it a minister and raised questions about union influence. "I've had a look at the EBA and I think it's highly unsatisfactory for volunteer firefighters," Mr Rush said on Monday, in front of members of the Molyullah brigade. Jack Rush, QC, was praised for his role investigating the Black Saturday fires in 2009, when 173 people died. A top barrister who assisted the Bushfires Royal Commission has described the controversial agreement between the Andrews government and the firefighters union as "highly unsatisfactory" for volunteer firefighters, in a doorstop interview at a country fire station. Mr Rush said he was a member of the Molyullah community, and that "our farm was saved by the CFA" from fire in 2007. He also referred to his work on the royal commission. Leading QC Jack Rush has described he EBA at the centre of the firefighters dispute as unsatisfactory for volunteers. Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones "What we learned out of that was the incredible importance to this state of the CFA, but more particularly volunteers. And the whole ethic of volunteers is, I think, put under threat by what's going on," he said. "Without volunteer firefighters in this state, the state is at risk. And everything that is done in relation to firefighting, and the way in which this is being looked at should place volunteers first." The controversial clause requiring seven paid firefighters to be dispatched in some circumstances would deny CFA volunteer firefighters the ability to "run their own show" and undermine CFA recruiting, he said. The Labor party has called on Premier Colin Barnett to sack the Liberal candidate for Midland at next year's state election after another offensive post surfaced on one of his social media accounts. Daniel Parasiliti, who was lucky to survive as a candidate after it emerged last month he posted racist and sexist abuse on Facebook, is again in hot water with his party, this time over a post he made on Twitter nearly three years ago. Daniel Parasiliti (with his wife Alia) is embroiled in a new social media storm. Credit:ABC News Mr Parasiliti criticised the use of Frozen actor Kristen Bell in a beauty product advertisement because she was, in his eyes, ugly. State Liberal Party director Andrew Cox said action against Mr Parasiliti would be considered but defended the candidate. A man reportedly armed with a knife and/or a broken bottle and threatening to harm himself outside Perth's Parliament House has reportedly been Tasered and taken away on a stretcher. WA Police have confirmed it sent negotiators to the scene. The man was believed to be experiencing a mental health crisis, Seven News reporter Alexis Donkin told Radio 6PR from the scene in the car park. "Parliament was sent into lockdown," she reported earlier. "The man is shouting threats ... We don't know exactly what demands he is making. Greens senator Scott Ludlam paid homage to cult film classic Alien in a recent episode of Annabel Crabb's Kitchen Cabinet. In what seems to be a far cry from his serious and sarcastic parliamentarian persona, Senator Ludlam re-enacted the iconic "chestburster" scene over some vegan mousse. He also dished on his childhood as a nomad, what it was like to find peanut butter in Sudan, and the power of social media. And he touched on WA's proposed anti-protest laws, and how they would restrict environmental activists. A woman alleged to have left her two young step-children home alone in Perth while she and their father were overseas has defended her actions, blaming a post office error for the situation. The 28-year-old went overseas to renew her visa but couldn't take her children because of the error, she told Seven News through an interpreter. "The post office lost my children's passports ... that's what has caused all this hassle," she said. "If you want to leave the country to go overseas you have to have your passport, that's common sense." Berlin: Austria's interior minister says he can imagine having the house where Adolf Hitler was born demolished, calling it "the cleanest solution". The Austrian government wants to expropriate the house in Braunau am Inn on the Austrian-German border where the future Nazi leader was born in 1889 to ensure that it doesn't become a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis. Adolf Hitler's birth house, right, in Braunau am Inn, Austria. Credit:AP The Interior Ministry has rented the house since 1972 to prevent its misuse, subletting it to various charitable organisations. The building has stood empty since a care centre for adults with disabilities moved out in 2011. Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka told German television late Saturday that the expropriation was "necessary". He said that all other options, including buying it from the owner had achieved "no results". Istanbul: Civilians fleeing Islamic State-held Fallujah were trapped on the bank of the Euphrates river as families gave tragic accounts of watching relatives drown in its waters. Around 50,000 civilians are trapped inside the IS stronghold as Iraqi forces and allied militias prepare to storm the city. Aid groups said on Sunday that a crowd was swelling along the river bank, waiting to cross to safety. On May 30th, a special court in Senegal delivered a guilty verdict against former Chadian President Hissene Habre. He was found to be responsible for numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture, rape, sexual slavery and the murder of as many as 40,000 people, and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. Hissene Habre became President of Chad in 1982 when his anti-government rebel group seized NDjamena, the countrys capital, overthrew the elected government and appointed Habre as Head of State. For the next 8 years, Habre and his cohort, including the much-feared secret police, conducted large-scale human-rights abuses, including detention, torture and murder. The regime particularly hounded members of ethnic groups that Habre saw as political rivals, frequently arresting their leaders en masse, and from time to time, engaged in ethnic cleansing tactics against them. Eight years after he came to power, Hissene Habre was deposed and fled to Senegal. It took 25 years of hard work on the part of human rights groups and his victims to bring him to trial in a process that could signal a turning point for international justice in Africa. The trial, conducted by the special-created Extraordinary African Chambers, marked the first time an African Union-backed court convicted a former ruler for human-rights abuses, and the first time that the courts of one country have prosecuted the former ruler of another country for crimes against humanity. This ruling is a landmark in the global fight against impunity for atrocities, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, said Secretary of State John Kerry in a written statement. The United States strongly commends the Senegalese Government, the Chadian Government, and the African Union for creating the Extraordinary African Chambers that allowed for a fair and balanced trial. And we especially salute the nearly 100 victims of the accused who testified against him. In the words of Secretary of State Kerry, Let this be a message to other perpetrators of mass atrocities, even those at the highest levels and including former heads of state, that such actions will not be tolerated and they will be brought to justice. Washington: The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida, hosted a political show on a US-based Afghan satellite channel that took a hard anti-Pakistan line. In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son's rampage had "nothing to do with religion". He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and he became very angry. "If they're not ready, I still say to them I'm sorry," he said. "I'm saddened for their injury or if they lost their dear one." Police quickly swarmed the streets of Orlando. Credit:Facebook But, in a Facebook video posted early Monday, he said, "God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality," adding "this is not for the servants" of God. Mateen called the shooting "tragic" but said his son was "a good son and an educated son". Orlando shooter Omar Mateen. He had a child and a wife, and was very dignified, meaning he had respect for his parents," Seddique Mateen wrote, standing in front of the flag of his apparent birthplace, Afghanistan. "I don't know what caused him to shoot last night." Seddique Mateen said his son had access to a pistol through his employer. Media outlets reported on Sunday that Omar Mateen worked as a security guard for G4S, a global security and contracting company. In his video, Seddique Mateen repeatedly said he was "saddened" by the massacre, adding he had a "knot in his heart" since learning his son went to "a gay club of men and women and killed 50 of them". "I am deeply saddened and announce this to the people of America," said Seddique Mateen, noting his son carried out the attack during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Seddique Mateen, speaking in Dari, concluded the video by expressing disbelief that his son took it upon himself to seek retribution against the gay community. In Afghanistan, officials were still trying to piece together the family's background. Afghan government officials said they did not know when Seddique Mateen left the country, but noted millions of Afghans fled after it was invaded by the former Soviet Union in 1979. Omar Mateen, 29, was born in New York but moved with his family to Florida as a child. But Seddique Mateen appeared to maintain a strong affiliation to Afghanistan, hosting a television show broadcast from California that weighed in on the country's political affairs. He also filmed dozens of sparsely viewed, rambling YouTube videos portraying himself as an important Afghan analyst and leader. While his travel history remains unknown, Seddique Mateen apparently traveled back to Afghanistan at least occasionally. In 2014, during Afghanistan's presidential campaign, he secured an inteview with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani filmed in Kabul. Mohammad Haroon Chakhansuri, Ghani's spokesman, said on Tuesday the president does not know Seddique Mateen. The interview was just one of "hundreds" that took place during his campaign, Chakhansuri said. "His campaign media team had screened the outlet, and responded to the request," said Chakhansuri, referring to the station Payam-e-Afghan, which aired Mateen's television program, Durand Jirga. "At the time of the interview, almost two and a half years ago, no indication of any of this tragedy could be seen in the father of this perpetrator." Chakhansuri said Ghani is also outraged by Seddique Mateen's controversial views. In one YouTube video, Mateen expresses gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government. "Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up," he said. "Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon." The Durand Line issue is a historically significant one, particularly for members of the Pashtun ethnic group, whose homeland straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line is that border. It is not clear whether the Mateens are Pashtun. The Afghan Taliban is mostly made up of Pashtuns. The line was drawn as a demarcation of British and Afghan spheres of influence in 1893. The British controlled most of subcontinental Asia at the time, though some parts, including what is now Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, were only loosely held. The line was inherited as a border by Pakistan after its independence. Since it splits the Pashtun population politically, it is seen as a cause for their marginalisation. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in most of eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Oscar Pistorius is a broken man who has suffered like an "animal in a cage", a psychologist has told a South African court. Pistorius, 29, faced the Pretoria High Court on Monday, to be sentenced for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The Paralympic gold medallist, known as "Blade Runner" for the carbon-fibre prosthetic blades he used to race, sat in a dark suit, at times with his head in his hands, as Judge Thokozile Masipa started hearing pre-sentencing arguments. At one point, a member of his legal team passed him a packet of tissues and water. Jakarta: A boat with 44 Sri Lankans who claim to be headed for Christmas Island remains marooned in bad weather off the Indonesian province of Aceh. Indonesian authorities have provided the Sri Lankans with food but will not let them disembark because they do not have passports or valid travel documents. The boat of 44 Sri Lankans remains off the Indonesian coast. Credit:Raihal Fajri "There is one who showed something like a refugee document but it is not from the UNHCR," the head of the Aceh immigration office, Achmad Samadan, told Fairfax Media. Despite growing calls from Democrats that he drop out of the race, Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he would continue to fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, refusing to concede it to Hillary Clinton. Clinton earned enough delegates to clinch the nomination last week, but Sanders has declined to end his campaign or acknowledge her achievement as the first female presidential nominee of a major party. He has contended that he could persuade enough superdelegates, the party leaders who have overwhelmingly backed Clinton, to switch their support to him by arguing that he would be the stronger candidate against Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. That plan became more improbable last week as high-profile Democrats supported Clinton. President Barack Obama endorsed her on Thursday, calling her the most qualified candidate ever to seek the White House and imploring Democrats to unite behind her. Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who had stayed out of the race, also endorsed Clinton. Senator Jeff Merkley, the only senator to endorse Sanders, told CNN on Friday that he now supports Clinton. Still, after a meeting Sunday at his home in Burlington, Vermont, with some of his top advisers and supporters, Sanders emerged and told gathered reporters that he had no intention of leaving the race, though he did recognise the long odds he faced. Washington: In the wake of the Orlando slaughter, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump immediately dispensed with any urge to demonstrate that he could serve as comforter-in-chief - instead, his tweets boasted that he had been "right on Islamic terrorism" and he railed against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama for the failure of their security policies. Bodies were still being recovered when the tone and tenor of Trump's tweets made quite clear that the massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub would be a new battlefront in what observers were already tipping to be America's most divisive and negative presidential campaign. Presumptive presidential nominees: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Clinton trod more cautiously, as the two candidates - each still presumptive - staked out their turf. Trump amped up his call for a ban on all Muslims entering the US, which he first articulated following the San Bernardino massacre in California in December; and Clinton made a carefully worded call for greater gun control. Every Spark-Ignited Internal Combustion Engine Ever Produced Has Been Damaged By Gasoline The shocking truth about gasoline's destructive nature By Marc J. Rauch Exec. Vice President/Co-President THE AUTO CHANNEL How do you like the headline of this story? "Every Spark-Ignited Internal Combustion Engine Ever Produced Has Been Damaged By Gasoline." It's a pretty damming statement, isn't it? Well, I'll be damned if it's not true. Every gasoline-powered internal combustion engine ever produced and put into service has been damaged by gasoline. What's more, every single diesel-powered internal combustion engine ever produced and put into service has been damaged by petroleum diesel fuel. Of course, it's really no big deal; the inherent nature of the internal combustion engine is that it will be damaged after it's put to use. Gasoline and diesel fuel are corrosive, they leave behind filthy deposits that turn to clogging goo, and the igniting of gasoline and diesel in the engine cylinders create thousands of explosions during every minute of operation...so how could every single gasoline or diesel-powered engine put to use not be damaged? It's a no-brainer, right? So if this is such a no-brainer, such an obvious statement of...the obvious, you may be asking yourself why I even sat down to write this story? Here's why: A short while ago, I was directed by one of our readers to a message posted on the Facebook page for a group called American Energy Alliance. The post stated, "As I handed it (my car/engine) over, I asked the mechanic how many of the engines he works on have been damaged by ethanol. His reply: All of them." As far as I could tell, the quote was not attributed to any specific person, and it provided no other details related to the situation that the quote refers to. It's not important if the situation was true or not because it is typical of the overly exaggerated, puerile, ignorant claims made by the oil industry against ethanol. However, the quote was linked to a story written by Jared Meyers, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for the Criminally Insane (just joking, that's a reference to Mel Brook's "Blazing Saddles")...he's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. The story was originally published on Forbes.org, and is titled "Politicians Love Burning Food For Fuel." It supposedly details a conversation of some sort that took place between Mr. Meyers and Robert Bryce, a fellow fellow at the Manhattan Institute for the Criminally Insane (sorry, I couldn't help myself - whenever I hear or read "Institute for..." it makes me think of Mel Brooks). Robert Bryce is a fellow fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a senior fellow, at that! Robert Bryce is a fraud and a liar. He has been spewing his anti-ethanol nonsense for years. In 2013, I wrote a 60+ page rebuttal to his cesspool work "Gusher Of Lies." I use the word cesspool instead of seminal because the book stinks like a filled cesspool. You can read Mr. Meyers' Forbes story by CLICKING HERE, and you can read my rebuttal to Bryce's book by CLICKING HERE. I've given Mr. Bryce numerous opportunities to challenge my rebuttal or to recant or update some of his stale claims from a decade ago with corrected information but he has chosen to not do so. As for the author of this article, Jared Meyers, I'm bewildered why anyone would title an article with a patently false statement, except as a joke or as sarcasm (as I did with my headline of this editorial). But in reading the article I find no evidence of intended humor or sarcasm. There is only stupidity; the kind of stupidity that matches the empty claim made about ethanol damaging every engine that the fictitious mechanic ever encountered. By the way, for those with a scorecard, this is not the first absurd anti-ethanol editorial published by Forbes. This past April they published a work of junk written by Steven Salzberg, titled "Why Are We Growing Corn To Fuel Our Cars? Three Reasons Why Ethanol Is A Bad Idea." Mr. Salzberg is supposed to be a distinguished professor. Based upon the nonsense he wrote about ethanol he must be looking to be an extinguished professor by committing integrity-suicide. If you have the opportunity to visit the Forbes website and read this editorial you will undoubtedly come across my multiple comments after reading Salzberg's fairytale. I was my usual delightful self, of course. The good thing about the anti-ethanol claims made by fellas like Messes Meyer, Bryce, and Salzberg (yes Messes, not Messrs.) is that they are either so devoid of simple common sense, or so obtusely complicated, that they are rather easy to refute - as you would learn if you read my long rebuttal to Mr. Bryce's book. (hahahaha, fellas makes me think of the old Jerry Lewis comedy "Cinderfella") The upshot of what I'm getting at is that it's an absolutely asinine thing for the oil industry and its whores to blame ethanol for causing the same problems that gasoline causes, with even greater regularity and more severe consequences. Engine problems did not suddenly occur with the advent of E10. The automobile profession and automobile repair shops didn't suddenly spring up in the past two decades. Gasoline has been damaging engines for as long as gasoline has existed. The alarming aspect of this is that there are too many mechanics out there who don't know this; they think that gasoline is a magical elixir of engine health and vitality. Now, allow me to turn my attention to this American Energy Alliance thing. This group like several others is nothing more than a disingenuous decoy for the oil industry. Similar to American Council For Capital Formation, AEA is a shill for the oil industry. In AEA's "about us" page they state that they have no ties to any political party, and it has no interest in supporting the agenda of any particular political party. The presumption is that they favor what's right for America and Americans in total. I say it's code for "AEA wants to screw all of America and all Americans, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, or political party." They want what's right for OPEC, foreign oil dictators, terrorists, and un-American American businessmen. To AEA, ACCF and all these others, I ask, if gasoline is so good and so harmless to engines and humans and the environment and our economy then why do you need to rely on ridiculous lies and gross over-exaggerations to condemn ethanol? The fact is that every spark-ignited internal combustion engine ever produced and put into use has been damaged by gasoline, and every single person working for the petroleum oil industry is working to undermine our country, our security, and our health. 2016 Tesla Model X Review By John Heilig TESLA IN CONTEXT: VIDEO, TEXT, NEWS, SPECS THE AUTO PAGE By John Heilig Senior Editor Mid-Atlantic Bureau The Auto Channel A few months ago I had the opportunity to drive the innovative Tesla Model S. I was thoroughly impressed by this all-electric luxury sedan, not only with its range (more than 240 miles) but also its technology all around. There was, and is, nothing else like it. When you compare the Tesla with the other full-time electric cars on the market - Chevrolet Bolt, Nissan Leaf, BMW i3 and i8 - it is so far ahead of them that it isnt even a race. The Tesla is bigger, more comfortable, and has more range. Yes, it also costs more, but its only money. When Tesla contacted me and asked if Id be interested in driving the Model X, Teslas newest model and a four-wheel drive version, I jumped at the chance. The occasion was to be at The Elegance at Hershey concours delegance at the Hotel Hershey. Since my ride in the Model S was around King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and crowded streets, I relished the chance to drive the Tesla on more interesting roads around Chocolate Town. While the underpinnings of the two Tesla's are essentially the same, there are significant differences. For example, the S is a four/five passenger sedan. The X has room for as many as seven passengers with three rows of seating. The two buckets in the front are pretty much the same as in the S. The second row consists of two bucket seats and the third row is another pair of individual seats. A feature that has drawn a lot of interest in the automotive press is the Model Xs gull-wing doors. The front doors are conventional, but the gull wings are for entry to the second and third rows. What makes this entry convenient is that an entering passenger can actually stand while entering the car. No contortions are needed. Also, to open the doors, you push the door handle-like chrome piece and the door automatically does what its supposed to do. And if youre trying to get into the third row, which is often a matter of being a contortionist, the second row seats power forward to the rear of the front seats providing easy access to the third row. For those who are interested, third row legroom is excellent. Sitting in the drivers seat, you face a digital dash and the huge iPad-like center panel that controls all the cars functions. You can set this panel to indicate all the cars features, like HVAC temperature, radio settings, etc. Or you can set it to a map that is actually useful. Our tester was set up so that it showed the roads and features around them in color as if it was photographed from above - a Google Earth view, sort of. The conventional instrument panel in front of the driver shows speed and distance to empty, or when you will run out of electric power. The center panel can also be programmed to show where the nearest supercharger and charger stations are. I was impressed by the windshield that extends up and over the drivers head to about the rear of the front seats. Tinting gets darker as the glass goes further back. If you need visors, they fold out neatly from above the front doors and rotate in front of you. They then unfold to offer a vanity mirror. Both Tesla versions have outstanding acceleration. Electric motors have almost instantaneous torque and they can jump from 0-60 mph in under four seconds without even trying. While this is impressive, it is also the kind of power thats useful for passing slower vehicles. It can be scary for the passed vehicle, because of the driver doesnt look in the mirrors, the Tesla is silent and you dont hear it coming at you. The Tesla has a long wheelbase and it weighs more than 5,200 pounds. Handling is excellent, and the ride quality matches it. The Tesla corners very well. We drove over some beautiful country roads that seemed to be designed for the Tesla. And while we naturally had to drive slower, even the roads around the Hotel Hershey were fun to drive. Our Tesla representative told us that the Model X can tow 5,000 pounds. Can you imaging heading down the highway and seeing a Tesla toting a pop-up trailer? Again, our rep said the base price of the Model X is in the neighborhood of $85,000. All kinds of option packages can jack that price to well over $100,000 if you so choose. For example, the Model S we tested has a base price of something like $58,000, yet the version we tested listed at $93,000. Among the options are various power versions. Theres a normal version, a middle version and the hot version. Personally, all are pretty hot as far and Im concerned. (c) 2016 The Auto Page Syndicate A little more than 25 years ago, Mongolia started down the path of democracy. Since then the U.S. has actively supported the transition process with projects through the Millennium Challenge Corporation including a $285 million compact that has helped to build roads, promote heath care and education among others things. On a recent visit to Mongolia, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stressed the importance of attracting foreign investment to the country. He said, "Theres more we can do to open up the economy. Theres more we can do to get transparency and accountability in place, push back against whatever corrupt practices may have existed from old times into the present, and begin to modernize, create rules of the road which will attract private capital." Implementing the U.S.-Mongolia bilateral Transparency Agreement will go a long way toward creating the conditions favorable to foreign investment. In a meeting with Mongolian entrepreneurs, civic leaders, and political activists, Secretary Kerry announced a $2.5 million program under the U.S. Agency for International Development to help advance the democratic process. The grant will also help to provide materials to schools that will assist them in teaching their students to understand how free markets and democracy work. The United States values Mongolia's growing participation on the international scene. Mongolia has committed peacekeeping troops to Sudan, South Sudan and elsewhere. Mongolian troops have also been serving alongside American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most recently, the U.S. and Mongolia co-sponsored the Khaan Quest Exercises which brings together more than 40 nations and 2000 participants to improve peacekeeping practices and tactics. In an effort to improve people-to-people ties, the U.S. is working to make it easier for Mongolian businessmen, students, and tourists to obtain visas. The U.S. will also continue to support its highly successful Peace Corps program in Mongolia. "The bottom line is very simple," said Secretary Kerry, "Mongolia has made remarkable progress for a young democracy." The U.S. is committed to doing all it can to see that progress continue. OTTAWA, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - The Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport, today launched a national safety campaign and reiterated the Government of Canada's intention to propose new regulations for UAVs, or drones as they are more commonly known. Minister Garneau was joined by representatives of the Ottawa Police Service, Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, the Canadian Airports Council, as well as the CEO of the Ottawa Airport. The Minister unveiled a 'No Drone Zone' sign to remind users to only operate their aircraft in approved areas. The "No Drone Zone" signs will be distributed to a number of airports and other organizations to promote the safe use of drones and to deter operators from flying in areas that put aviation safety at risk. Transport Canada recommends that airports, parks, municipalities and event organizers post "No Drone Zone" signs around the perimeter of their property or event, when it is unsafe or illegal to fly drones. As a world leader in drone safety, Transport Canada will propose new regulations in the coming months and is looking at a number of changes, including: establishing categories of drones; simplifying the registration process for operators; and instituting marking requirements. Canadians are encouraged to learn more about drone safety by using the #NoDroneZone hashtag and visiting www.canada.ca/drone-safety. Quotes "While Transport Canada is working on new regulations to integrate drones into Canadian airspace, I urge all users to learn how to fly safely and legally. As a responsible drone user, think twice about where you fly, stay away from airports and aircraft, and know that there are serious consequences to unsafe use. The "No Drone Zone" signs are a reminder that not all places are appropriate to fly a drone always think safety first." The Honourable Marc Garneau Minister of Transport "Even small drones can cause big problems for airports and aircraft. It's important that users understand the risk associated with flying them, and learn the rules of responsible use for the safety and security of the entire community." Mark Laroche, President and CEO, Ottawa International Airport Authority "From an enforcement perspective, drone users can't fly wherever they like. You are responsible to fly your drone safely and legally. If you feel someone has committed a crime, or breached your privacy, report it to your local police service right away. The Ottawa Police Service is committed to public safety and takes reported incidents seriously." Atallah Sadaka Staff Sergeant, Ottawa Police Service Airport Unit "We thank the government for recognizing the rapidly growing threat that UAVs pose to commercial aircraft near airports or in restricted airspace. Today's announcement represents a positive step towards keeping Canada's airspace safe and moving towards regulations to address this issue." Daniel-Robert Gooch President, Canadian Airports Council Quick Facts Anyone who operates a drone in a reckless and negligent manner, violates controlled or restricted airspace; or endangers the safety of manned aircraft could face fines of up to $25,000 and/or jail time. and/or jail time. Flying a drone around an airport without permission is a dangerous act with serious consequences. Anyone using a drone for commercial or research purposes must hold a Special Flight Operations Certificate (SFOC) from Transport Canada or be eligible to operate under one of the UAV exemptions. Related Products Backgrounder : Safe drone use in Canada : Safe drone use in Find out if you need permission from Transport Canada Associated Links For information on drone safety in Canada , visit www.canada.ca/drone-safety. , visit www.canada.ca/drone-safety. A list of safety guidelines is provided for recreational users to assist them in flying safely. To view the department's drone safety videos, visit http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/mediaroom/video-menu.htm. Backgrounder Safe drone use in Canada Canada is a world leader in unmanned air vehicles (UAV), commonly called drones. Transport Canada has had regulations in place for the safe use of drones since 1996. While the number of drones in Canada continue to increase so do the number of incidents of drones flying too close to airports and aircraft. To respond to their growing use, Transport Canada is implementing a series of measures, including developing regulations, so that drones are used in a safe and responsible way. One size does not fit all Drones are used in a number of different waysrecreation, helping with law enforcement, search and rescue, and taking aerial photographs. If not operated safely, these aircraft can pose a hazard to other aircraft. Recognizing these challenges, and as part of its UAV regulatory development efforts, Transport Canada is looking at establishing different categories for drones depending on weight and operations. A safe drone is one that is operated by someone who knows the flight rules and how to control their device effectively. Transport Canada is exploring knowledge testing requirements and studying minimum licensing age requirements to align with those in place for pilots of manned aircraft. Proactive enforcement measures While most people operating drones strive do so legally and safely, some don't understand the potential for danger, or the stiff penalties involved in breaking the rules. Anyone who operates a drone or model aircraft in a reckless and negligent manner, violates controlled or restricted airspace, or endangers the safety of manned aircraft could face fines of up to $25,000 and/or jail time. In 2015, Transport Canada investigated almost 100 incidents of unsafe practices. Transport Canada is exploring the possibility of partnerships with provinces, territories and municipalities to strengthen enforcement and hold those who break the law accountable. Transport Canada will consult with Canadians once the new draft regulations are published in Canada Gazette in the first half of 2017. Transport Canada is online at www.tc.gc.ca. Subscribe to e-news or stay connected through RSS, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr to keep up to date on the latest from Transport Canada. This news release may be made available in alternative formats for persons living with visual disabilities. SOURCE Transport Canada CONTACT: Delphine Denis, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport, Ottawa, 613-991-0700; Media Relations, Transport Canada, Ottawa, 613-993-0055, media@tc.gc.ca; Media Relations, Ottawa International Airport Authority, 613-248-2050; Media Relations, Ottawa Police, 613-236-1222 ext 5366; Media Relations, Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, 613-236-4901 ext 102; Media Relations, Canadian Airports Council, 613-560-9302 Government Needs To Look For Real GHG Solution And Electric Ain't It +VIDEO SEE ALSO: Electric Vehicles Solution Or Diversion? ABBOTSFORD, BC - June 13, 2016: The Canadian Propane Association (CPA) supports the British Columbia government's commitment to a practical, affordable and immediate strategy to reduce automotive GHG emissions. However, the government needs to look beyond the promotion of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and consider low-emission auto propane, a natural gas liquid, as part of the energy mix. "We support the government's actions on fighting climate change," said Kevin O'Donnell, B.C. Committee Chair of the CPA. "However, there is so much more that can be achieved if the government looks beyond EVs and seriously considers the expanded use of auto propane. It's an energy that is ready to help reduce emissions right away." "There are ongoing questions about affordability and practicality in relation to EVs," said O'Donnell. "If we are going to be serious about an immediate, affordable and comprehensive plan to reduce GHGs in the transportation sector, equal consideration must be given to auto propane, which has significant environmental and economic advantages over gas, diesel and other alternative transportation fuels." O'Donnell noted that auto propane costs about 40% less than gas and diesel. Like compressed natural gas (CNG), auto propane also has a lower carbon footprint than gasoline up to 26% fewer GHG emissions. The distance range of a propane vehicle is almost double that of other alternative fuel vehicles, such as CNG. Range and battery life concerns also exist for EVs, and in Canada's cool climate this is exacerbated. "There is a reason why auto propane is the most popular alternative transportation fuel in the world today," said O'Donnell. "Auto propane is perfectly suited for use in school and transit buses, high-mileage fleets such as couriers and police cars, as well as taxis and pick-up trucks." "Auto propane is clean burning, affordable, available everywhere in B.C. and doesn't face the serious obstacles that other alternative fuels and EVs do," said O'Donnell. "Auto propane can immediately play an important role in helping meet the government's transportation strategy goals and the propane industry is ready to assist now." Since Russia's invasion of Crimea and then eastern Ukraine, it has become clear that Russia is unwilling "to abide by international law or live by the rules of the institutions that Russia joined at the end of the Cold War," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland. To counter the threat posed by Russias aggression and deter any military moves against NATO territory, the United States and its NATO Allies have maintained a military presence on land, sea, and air along NATOs eastern edgein Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and the three Baltic States. All 28 Allies have participated in exercises, training sessions, and patrols throughout Europe supported by the U.S. To press Moscow to bring an end to the violence in Ukraine and fully implement its commitments under the Minsk agreements, the United States has worked with the European Union, the G7, and other like-minded nations to impose successive rounds of tough, economic sanctions on Russia over the past two years. These sanctions, combined with low oil prices and Russias continued structural weaknesses, have imposed significant costs. The United States is working to increase the resilience of countries across Europe that face pressure from Russia. To help Ukraine better monitor and secure its borders, deploy its forces more effectively, and defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the United States has committed over $600 million in non-lethal security assistance. The United States is also helping countries in Eastern Europe and Eurasia to strengthen their democratic institutions, reform their economies, and fight corruption. Energy diversification remains a key component in protecting vulnerable countries over dependence on Russian energy. At the same time, the U.S. will continue to look for ways to work with Russia in areas of common interest, including non-proliferation, nuclear security, and counterterrorism. Finally, the United States will continue to engage directly with those Russian businesses and individuals who share American interests and values. And the United States will continue to speak out against laws and policies that impede the work of Russian civil society and violate the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, assembly, and association in Russia and elsewhere in the region. The United States will continue to strongly support its NATO allies while promoting freedom and democracy throughout Europe and Eurasia. The Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG) recently hosted its Forum on Oral Trials, in attracting close to 400 members of the legal profession from San Luis Potosi, Mexico, including personnel from the Attorney Generals office, the Public Defenders office, law school students and faculty, bar associations, and private attorneys. Senior litigators from the U.S. Among them were District Attorney John Haroldson from Benton County, Oregon, and Anthony Da Silva, Deputy Attorney General, California Department of Justice, made presentations during the event that also featured a mock oral trial. The event, which took place in mid May, is part of United States governments support for Mexican public sector legal professionals and is funded under the U.S.- Mexico Merida Initiative. The Forum was inaugurated by San Luis Potosi Attorney General Federico Garza Herrera. Speaking immediately after the event, Robert Arce, from the U.S. Consulate General, Monterrey, noted: Oral trials will boost the efficiency, transparency, and accountability of the justice system. The legal and law enforcement professionals who came to this forum are committed to meeting their responsibilities under the new criminal justice system. The United States government is privileged to support Mexicos historic transition to a new criminal justice system, and we were delighted to welcome senior litigators from the United States to share their knowledge and experiences with the audience here today. The United States government supports the consolidation of the accusatory system in Mexico through capacity building programs for federal and state judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, criminal investigators, forensics experts, and other members of the judiciary, as well as for university law students and professors. Since 2008, under the Merida Initiative, the Conference of Western Attorneys General has trained over 25,000 members of the legal and law enforcement communities in Mexico through study tours in countries operating under an accusatory system, seminars and forums. The Justice Department has trained over 15,000 justice sector operators in the fundamentals of the accusatorial system. Through other programs funded under the Merida Initiative, the United States government is supporting the training of 1,600 police officers as First Responder Instructors, helping to equip courtrooms for oral trials, and assisting forensics labs to achieve international accreditation. The United States is proud to work with Mexico to support a justice system the serves the needs and protects the rights of the Mexican people. Heartbroken was the one-word response from Imam Daayiee Abdullah, Americas only openly gay imam, to the attack that took the lives of 49 people at a popular gay night club in Orlando. Historically, the LGBT community has suffered violence on an individual basis in America, said the 62-year-old African-American imam, whos also a lawyer. We have seen it from isolated cases like Matthew Shepards murder to 28 members of the LGBT community being killed in a fire targeting a gay night club in New Orleans in 1978 and the list goes on. He added: the goal of this violence is to sequester and keep us (gays) hidden because some are afraid of change and of people who are different. But while America has seen no shortage of anti-gay violence and prejudice, the Orlando attack was unprecedented in its death toll. The gunman, Omar Mateen, reportedly pledged his allegiance to ISIS, but details are still emerging about his mental state and motivations. Whatever a persons motives, its easy access to guns, said Abdullah, that allows someone who hates a minority group to easily commit mass shootings, a pointthe exact point President Obama made Sunday, the 18th time this president has spoken to Americans after a mass shooting. Just one year ago this month, he spoke after Dylann Roof murdered nine African Americans in a South Carolina church, motivated by his white supremacist views. Nowhere in the Quran does it say punish homosexuals, said Abdullah, a scholar in Quranic and Sharia interpretation, who added that even in the verified teachings of the Prophet Mohammad there is no support for killing gays. But, he said, I cant deny some Muslims do have a serious problem with gays, and that some Muslims have been taught that gays need to be punished or even killed. ISIS has murdered homosexuals, and five Muslim countries (out of more than 50) still have a death penalty for homosexuality on the books. The actions of ISIS in killing gays is fueled by a perverted understanding of Islam. An understanding typically learned by word of mouth, not an actual reading of the text and understanding of the principles of Islam, Abdullah added. While Muslim Americans and the LGBT community have teamed up on issues like fighting for anti-bullying legislation to advocating for human rights for Palestinians, some Muslims prefer to put their heads in the sand or be silent when others are spewing hateful comments about the LGBT community, he remarked. We need more Muslims worldwide to speak out to counter the hate so that those who harbor such horrible views realize their views are not consistent with our faith. Its been inspiring for Abdullah to hear his fellow Muslim Americans standing in solidarity with his fellow members of the LGBT community in the common fight against homophobia and Islamophobiaincluding at a press conference Sunday organized by CAIR and featuring leaders from numerous other American, Muslim groups speaking of Muslims standing shoulder to shoulder with their LGBT peers in the face of this hate crime. Still the Imam hoped to see even more from members of the community who have remained on the sidelines. Its not just about speaking out, but creating a Muslim community where perverted interpretations of the Islamic faith are immediately counteredboth in person and online where ISIS recruits. Imam Abdullah went further, adding that while leaders of Muslim American groups have denounced violence, its now time for Muslims worldwide to engage in that as well. If not, next they [the extremists] may be coming for you. Given that this attack happened only days after many Americans were moved by their first exposure to a Muslim funeral, for an American icon, the question for many will be who truly represents Islam in America: Muhammad Ali or the shooter in Orlando? The answer depends on if you want to divide or unite us. Read more coverage of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub When it comes to the issue of gun violence, Geraldo Rivera is about as progressive as they come on Fox News. Following the brutal massacre at gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning, the longtime commentator for the network tweeted his outrage over the fact that the shooter, known to the FBI for having radical jihadist links, was able to legally purchase an AR-15 assault rifle. Refusal to see gaping loophole that allowed erratic #IslamicState Terrorist to purchase a legal arsenal shows how 2d amendment sick we are, he wrote in disgust. Yet, when Rivera appeared on Fox & Friends live from Orlando on Monday morning, that was not the point he chose to highlight for viewers. Instead, he shamed the dozens of terrorist Omar Mateens unarmed victims for failing to fight back. When youre in that situation and you have no weapons, you have two choices, Rivera said of the men and women caught by surprise on a dark dancefloor late into the night. If you cant hide and you cant run, there are two choices. You stay and die, or you fight. For Gods sakes, fight back. Fight back, he urged in the clip first spotted by Media Matters. Theres a hundred people that he murdered with one weapon that he reloaded, Rivera continued, inflating the death toll from a reported 49. When he reloaded, they mustpeople mustAmerica must understand, we are at war with Islamic terror, with these terrorists. Weve got to stop them in Raqqa, weve got to stop them in Mosul, and weve got to stop them in the Pulse in Orlando. With those words, Rivera was equating the battlefields of the Middle East with public spaces in the U.S. like the Pulse nightclub, whose patrons had no reasonable expectation of violence nor the training or capability to fight back against a shooter armed with a rifle capable of firing dozens of rounds in a matter of seconds. And because he used an AR-15 using 30-round-capacity clipswhich the shooter reportedly taped together to make reloading more efficientvictims would have had scant opportunity to intervene. The suggestion that the victims were partially at fault for their own demise recalled former GOP presidential candidate Ben Carsons bizarre reaction to the mass shooting at an Oregon community college last October. I would not just stand there and let him shoot me, Carson insisted at the time. I would say, Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he cant get us all. Even Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade seemed to recognize the absurdity of Riveras argument, pointing out near the end of the segment that gutless terrorists like the Orlando gunman dont want to fight our guys that are trained to fight them, they want to fight the people that are just living their lives. According to Rivera, it seems the victims just living their lives inside the Pulse gay nightclub this past weekend didnt do enough to stay alive. Anti-gay politicians change their tones right quick when they can use LGBT rights to tout their version of the War on Terror. Some of the politicians most opposed to gay civil rights found the attacks on the Pulse nightclub the perfect opportunity to trot out their favorite talking pointseven when those causes had literally nothing to do with the the attacks that left at least 49 people dead. Ted Cruz, for instance, issued a lengthy statement connecting the attacks to, um, Iran. For all the Democrats who are loud champions of the gay and lesbian community whenever there is a culture battle waging, now is the opportunity to speak out against an ideology that calls for the murder of gays and lesbians, he preached. ISIS and the theocracy in Iran (supported with American taxpayer dollars) regularly murder homosexuals, throwing them from buildings and burying them under rocks. This is wrong, it is evil, and we must all stand against it. The alleged shooter, Omar Mateen, was known to the FBI and called 911 during the attacks to swear his allegiance to ISIS. But theres no evidence that he coordinated with Islamic State fighters in the Middle East, or even that he communicated with them before the attack. And theres absolutely nothing to indicate that Irans government was even remotely involved in the attacks. Moreover, Cruz was a staunch and univocal opponent of gay rights over the course of his unsuccessful presidential campaign. When the Supreme Court ruled that gay couples have the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples, Cruz wrote in a National Review op-ed that the ruling undermined the very foundations of our representative form of government. On the campaign trail, he emphasized that he introduced a Constitutional amendment that would let individual states ban same-sex marriages if they chose. Cruz also demagogued the trans bathroom issue in the final days of his campaign, in a last-ditch effort to suggest Donald Trump was okay with child molestation. SHOULD A GROWN MAN PRETENDING TO BE A WOMAN BE ALLOWED TO USE THE WOMENS RESTROOM? onscreen text of an anti-Trump video his campaign released read, THE SAME RESTROOM USED BY YOUR DAUGHTER? DONALD TRUMP THINKS SO. ITS NOT APPROPRIATE. ITS NOT SAFE. On the trail, Cruz surrounded himself with some of the most vitriolic opponents of gay rights in the public sphere. He touted the endorsement of Mike Bickle, a pastor from Missouri who once said legal same-sex marriage was a unique signal of the end times and would result in young children learning in sex-ed that pedophilia is good. Cruz also appeared at a rally organized by a pastor who has called for executing gay peopleand made that exact case at the event where Cruz showed up. That pastor, Kevin Swanson, said at the event that if one of his children married a person of the same gender, he would protest the wedding in sackcloth and ashes at the entrance to the church and Id sit in cow manure and Id spread it all over my body. That is what I would do and Im not kidding, Im not laughing. Rick Scott, Floridas governor, was also front-and-center in the response to the mass killing. During the 2014 gubernatorial contest, Scott defended Floridas state constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions. I dont believe in discrimination. I believe in traditional marriage, he said awkwardly during a debate with then-competitor Charlie Crist. He had another awkward moment on CNN a few hours after the shooting when Jake Tapper asked him if he was taking any special steps to protect other LGBT people throughout the state celebrating Pride festivities. We dont want anybody in our state to ever be targeted, he said, not acknowledging the fact that the shooter specifically targeted LGBT people. We dont want anybody to be discriminated against. And so in every case, when we believe there is somebody doing the wrong thing, we work hard to make sure we take care of them. And Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House, also issued a statement mourning the victimsthat didnt mention whatsoever the fact that the attack happened at a gay nightclub and targeted LGBT people. As we heal, we need to be clear-eyed about who did this, he said. We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists. Theirs is a repressive, hateful ideology that respects no borders. It is a threat to our people at home and abroad. Earlier this month, Ryan and the rest of House Republican leadership made a change to the chambers rules that was reportedly designed, in part, to to keep Democrats from introducing last-minute pro-LGBT amendments to legislation. That came shortly after Republican leaders used a tactic one Republican congressman described as bullshit to block an amendment to a defense spending bill designed to protect LGBT people from workplace discrimination. And, of course, Donald Trump ripped the president for not using the phrase radical Islamic terrorism in his remarks a few hours after the shooting. But in the same statement where Trump levelled that criticism, he neglected to mention that the attack happened at a gay club and targeted LGBT people. Trump and his allies will talk about radical Islamic terror all day every daybut a gay nightclub? Not so much. Read more coverage of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub What do I write when America has once again been turned into a shooting gallerythis time in a hate-filled attack on the gay and lesbian communitysetting still another record for the worst mass shooting in American history? In fact, the deadliest attack here since 9/11. The kind of wholesale slaughter of innocents that I and others have predicted time and again? I guess the onus is on me to find something new to say when Ive been writing about this issue for over a decade and the song remains the same. Lets start here: Why the suspected shooter (I wont name him as I respect the no notoriety campaign), did what he did, is mostly irrelevant. No, not to the investigators, who need to piece together exactly what happened and why it occurred. But to those of us who wont allow flacks who profit from our gun culture to derail the discussion into howling about Sharia Law or Spongebob Squarepants. The why is just not nearly as important as the how. Be it Isla Vista, Aurora, or Orlando, whatever the why, bullets still kill. To begin with, we have no more mental instability or murderous intent in this country than any other high-income nation. In fact, there is less stigma around getting treated for mental illness in the U.S. than peer nations. Regardless, the regularity with which blood is shed from the tip of an AR-15 in the United States just doesnt happen in England. Or Japan. Or France (remember the terror attacks in Paris? Yeah, those are pretty much the only shootings that have happened in Paris, making it a much, much safer place to be than, say, Paris, Texas). It also doesnt happen in Australia. They had their equivalent of Orlando or Sandy Hook or pick your unspeakable slaughter in 1996. Then a not-so-funny-thing happened. They ended their mass shootings and sent their murders and suicides plummetingdown 60-70 percentby passing public health measures to handle a public health crisis. This point has been made before, so here I am already guilty of repeating myself. An occupational hazard when you write about guns in America. So lets go to something Ive said before, but has a new twist to it as of today. The Republican Party, and almost solely the Republican Party (yeah, Im not forgetting you nor letting you off the hook, Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp), has blocked those on terror watch lists from being banned from buying guns. You can be on an FBI watch list that wont allow you on an airplane, but still buy a .50 caliber rifle that can take down a small aircraft. Does that make any sense? The president of the United States, in a PBS town hall that produced a viral video just a week or two ago, put it like this: I just came from a meeting today in the Situation Room in which I got people who we know have been on ISIL websites, living here in the United States, U.S. citizens, and were allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the National Rifle Association, I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun. This is somebody who pledged allegiance to ISIS before the attack. And if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now and buy as muchas many weapons and ammo as he can, nothings prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is. Guess what? the Orlando shooter was a known quantity to the FBI, who had actively investigated him in 2013 and 2014. He had abused his wife. And yet he still had a valid license to own a firearm in Florida. Do we not see a problem with this? This simply would never be the case in virtually any other high income country, which has looked at science, applied it to public policy and prioritized the right of their citizens to live over the cowboy fantasies of a certain subset of the male species there. Why not here? So was he on the Terror Watch List and if not, why not? And can Republicans (save, Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who has been near perfect on this issue) and recalcitrant Blue Dog Democrats finally put their love of country before their love of gun-manufacturer money and Tea Party French kisses? Can they say today, with conviction, that if you cant get on an airplane because you cant be trusted not to commit an act of terror, you cant buy a gun? It isnt like we dont know terrorists are advising their acolytes to buy these weapons and kill. They are. That the suspected murderer was able to get an AR-15, the weapon of choice for mass murderers, makes it that much worse (according to the ATF, he also purchased a handgun within the past few days). No human being who hasnt gone through a rigorous background check, with family members and colleagues as references, the weapon registered and hours of psychological and physical tests, among other things, should have access to this weapon of war. The parents who saw their childrens corpses after Sandy Hook have described them as being torn to pieces. It is time for those in the gun violence prevention movement to revisit getting these weapons off the streets altogether. Full stop. Finally, could there be any better petri dish than Florida? This is the state where National Rifle Association lobbyist and former leader of the organization, Marion Hammer, has had full access to almost anything shes wanted. Doctors have been banned from even discussing the danger of guns with patients. The result of all this? I wrote about it a short while back, in the context of a bill where they were debatingand I am not making this upsuspending all gun laws during the declaration of some ill-defined national emergency: Whether its their pioneering effort in passing racist Stand Your Ground laws the disgruntled marching into a school-board meeting in Panama City and firing on the assembled members in an attempt to get his wifes job back. Shooting a man for texting his babysitter from a movie theater. And returning a Glock pistol and assault rifle to a gentleman named Wayne Rogers, after he shot his drinking buddy. And killed him. Did I mention Rogers is blind? Trayvon Martin was murdered just outside of Orlando. Just a day ago, a rising star on The Voice was signing autographs when she was shot and killed. And now, the worst shooting in American history, in a blatant attack on the LGBTQ community. Do we think in any way, shape or form The Florida Way is working? If anyone is reading this thinking theyre immune to these increasingly common, increasingly deadly and often random shootings, protected by some sort of bubble from an individual with easy access to an assault rifle and having a bad day, theyre sadly mistaken. If you think a gun protects someone who isnt ready for an attack, you exist in a fantasy world. This was predictable, as is the next one, and the one after that. I shot competitively for five years. This isnt that. This is your giving up your right to free association, free speech, the general welfare and domestic tranquilityall in the Constitutionfor a corrupted, politicized reading of a 200+ year old amendment about raising a militia against internal and external threats, in a time of no standing armies. Enough. Read more coverage of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub Hello, there, Im John Oliver and before we start the show tonight, I would like to quickly address the tragic events in Orlando. So began Sunday nights edition of HBOs Last Week Tonight. No credits. No music. Just Oliver sitting behind his desk, staring intently at the camera. Earlier in the day, a madman had stormed into the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, handguns, and rounds upon rounds of ammunition. There, he executed at least 49 innocent people in a rampage fueled, according to his father, by anti-gay hatred after witnessing two men kissing in Miami. Hed also pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call, according to U.S. officials, though the details of his connection to the terrorist organization remain hazy. The typically upbeat Oliver maintained a solemn tone in the cold open, seeming equal parts frustrated, angry, and ashamed that this, the deadliest mass shooting in American history, could happen in his adopted homeland. As Im sure you know by now, at least 50 people were killed by a gunman at a gay nightclub in what is being described as a terrorist attack. And look, its still early and details are still emerging, and right now, this just hurts, he said. And the worst thing is this pain is so familiar, Oliver continued. In Paris last November, terrorists seemed to target places symbolizing everything that is wonderful about Franceculture, music, restaurants. And in Orlando earlier this morning, a gunman attacked a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world. And for the record, I will happily embrace a Latin night at a gay club at the theme park capital of the world as the ultimate symbol about what is truly wonderful about America. But Oliver ended his message on a note of hope. And its hard to even know what to do in the wake of an event like this. We do have a comedy show for you. Well begin it in a minute with what will seem like jarringly inappropriate jangly music, and Im sure there will be much more to say about Orlando going forward, but for right now, on a day when some dipshit terrorist wants us to focus on one mans act of brutality and hatred, it might be worth seeing this video, which was posted to Twitter today. Oliver then threw to a clip of hundreds upon hundreds of people lined up outside the OneBlood bank in Orlando to donate blood in order to aid the victims of the gay nightclub tragedy. It shows hundreds and hundreds of people this morning lining up around the block in Florida waiting to donate blood, said Oliver. And it kind of reminds you that that terrorist dipshit is vastly outnumbered. After midnight at Pulse in Orlando, the dance floor was packed with gays and lesbians out for Latino night during Pride month. When the sun rose on Sunday, the dance floor was littered with bodies and blood, the silence punctuated by the sound of cell phones ringing in the pockets of the slaughtered, as their loved ones tried to see if they were ever coming home. The deadliest mass shooting in American history was an act of ISIS-inspired terrorism, as American Omar Mateen used an AR-15 assault rifle to target a gay nightclub. This slaughter touches on many of the major stories of our time, ones that cut across political lines. It demands our attention and resolve. This mass murder occurs during the mainstreaming of the LGBT civil rights movement in America, at a time when enormous gains toward full equality are being made yet vicious bigotry still endures. Those people who still parade their prejudices will now need to confront the common humanity of the dead in ways that may make it harder to hate in the future. Forty-nine people were murdered because they were gay and because they were in America. They are not some other. They are our sons and daughters. Their murders are a reminder that radical Islamist terrorism is the sworn enemy of liberal values. Americas essential diversity is an insult to fundamentalists who would prefer that the world fit a 7th century theocratic template. Anti-gay violence is a mainstay of Islamists: ISIS pushes gays off towers to their death in Raqqa; in Iran, gays are hung from cranes in public executions. This feature of their fanaticism has seemed remote to many Americans, but now it has come home in horrific fashion. This is a form of fascism that targets the full expression of individuality and that finds gays and lesbians a particular insult to their imaginary world. But we also know that the enemy is not Islam overall. Unity in diversity is Americas greatest strength and as we confront the reality of Islamist terrorism and we need to stay focused on the fact that the success of Muslim-Americans is one of our most powerful push-backs against the hate terrorists peddle to unhinged souls. Pluralism is the answer to extremism. It is no small irony that this mass murder occurs just days after the funeral of Americas most beloved Muslim, Muhammad Ali, whose life was a testament to the strength of self-determination. His status as an American hero was itself a measure of our ability to grow beyond old prejudices and form a more perfect union. Finally, evil is real and the damage evil souls can do increases dramatically when assault weapons are readily available. Mass shootings have become a recurring horror of American life, accompanied by a sense of policy impotence. After all, if we couldnt muster the political will after the chilling killing of 20 kids at Newtown to pass a modest bipartisan bill supported by 89% of the American people, when will we ever stand up to the gun lobby? But this impotence is a choice, backed by cowardly congressmen. Tighter gun laws, consistent with the second amendment, will not be able to stop every mass shooting, but they can help reduce the body count. It appears that Mateen purchased his AR-15 legally, but that same weaponwhose sole purpose is to kill as many people as possiblewas effectively covered by the assault weapons ban that was allowed to expire by Congress in 2004. There will be politicians who demagogue facets of this mass murder for their own purposes. Of course, Donald Trump could not resist making the slaughter all about himself on social media. He will use it to justify his proposed Muslim ban and other spectacularly bad policies designed to stoke fear and blame for short-term political gain. But if we resolve to learn the right lessons from this latest horror, we might be able to emerge from the pain a bit closer as a nation. Conservative politicians who oppose gay rights but are hawks on radical Islam might find new empathy and understanding. Progressive activists who see war with Islamist terrorism as simply a new shade of imperialism might question their occasional blame-America-first impulses. And perhaps we can have a more constructive debate in this presidential election about reasonable gun restrictions, because we are now in an era where terrorists are exploiting our lax gun laws to kill Americans. Surely, there is potential for new coalitions and new common ground. Most of all, defiance to terrorism means refusing to live in fear. The Pulse was targeted by a terrorist because it was a symbol of gays and lesbians living their lives joyously. Americas classical liberal values are based on the foundation of individual self-determination. Standing up for gay rights and standing up to terrorism are now self-evidently complimentary efforts in the larger battle between freedom and fundamentalism. The U.S. and China just completed the 8th meeting of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue. Both countries found common ground on issues including strategic, environmental, and humanitarian matters. A top agenda item was North Korea. The United States and China condemned North Korea's January 6, 2016 nuclear test and subsequent launches using ballistic missile technology and called on North Korea to cease taking actions contrary to its United Nations obligations to denuclearize. The U.S. and China agreed to promote the implementation of the Paris global climate agreement and bring it into force as soon as possible. With regard to protecting the oceans, the United States and China agreed to work together and with other governments to complete negotiations on an agreement to prevent unregulated commercial fishing in the central Arctic Ocean. In order to enhance global nuclear security, the U.S. and China decided to explore expanding cooperation on countering nuclear smuggling. On the humanitarian front, the U.S. and China agreed to increase their support for the Syrian refugees and internally displaced persons through the U.N., Red Cross, Red Crescent, and their partners and to continue providing support for Iraqi refugees and internally displace persons. In Africa, the two countries decided to accelerate cooperation with the African Union and its member states to launch the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The U.S. and China will also increase their contributions to countries adversely affected by El Nino, particularly in the Horn of Africa, through the World Food Program. The U.S. and China decided to explore new areas of development cooperation in Afghanistan and food security in Timor Leste and Africa. Both sides also agreed to promote responsible mineral supply chain practices in the African Great Lakes region. This annual dialogue, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, offers the U.S. and China an opportunity "to lead in the direction of stability, prosperity, and peace. And it is up to us and to our successors to ensure that America and China are more partners than rivals, more in agreement than disagreement about the rule of law, more in harmony than at odds over priorities, and more confident with each passing year in each other's intentions." Donald Trump spoke slowly as he delivered prepared remarks, read off a teleprompter at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Monday afternoon. This is presidential Donald Trump, which means hes still spouting off a lie a minute, but hes doing so in a cool and collected manner. Mondays event had been conceived as an official rebuttal to Hillary Clintons candidacy, but the terror attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning, which left at least 49 deceased in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, forced Trump to change topics. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, Trump congratulated himself for what he said was his accurate prediction that another terror attack would occur on United States soil. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, he tweeted, I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! He then called on President Obama to resign and Clinton to drop out of the presidential race. He announced, in a press release Sunday, that he would be focusing instead on national security. Below are the most egregious falsehoods from his remarks. When I am president, he said. America will be a tolerant and open society. He then said that, in fact, America will be neither tolerant or open. When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats. I want every American to succeed, including Muslims, Trump said, riffing off his script. But the Muslims have to work with us. They have to work with us. They know whats going on. They know that he was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what, they didnt turn em in. And we had death and destruction. Even in the prepared remarks, Trump suggested Muslims knowingly avoid reporting other, bad Muslims to authorities. Muslim communities must cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are badand they do know where they are, the script read. No evidence has emerged to support the insinuation that any Muslims were aware of the plot to murder members of the LGBT community in Orlando on Sunday. Trump managed to contradict himself at different points in his own speech. Trump referred to the tremendous flow of Syrian refugees into the United States. In fact, according to NBC, America is lagging behind its goal to admit 10,000 Syrian refugeeshalfway through the fiscal year, only 1,285 have been resettled. There are 4 million Syrians fleeing violence in the Middle East. The United Kingdom is working to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020. Of Syrian refugees, Trump also said, we dont know who they are, they have no documentation, and we dont know what theyre planning. A Google search or call to one of his many genius foreign policy advisers could have informed Trump that refugees are thoroughly vetted ahead of their arrival to the United States. For the typical applicant, the process takes a minimum of 18 to 24 monthsperhaps more for Syrian refugees, who face more scrutiny. In his prepared remarks, Trump correctly says that the terrorist responsible for Sundays bloodshed was born to Afghan parents who immigrated to America. In the speech Trump gave, however, he said something different, and wrong. The shooter, he claimed, was born Afghan, of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States. But Trump doesnt seem to recognize the difference, anyway. The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here, he said. By that logic, protecting Americaor Making America Safe Again!would require banning all people of Middle Eastern descent on the off chance that they could one day spawn an American-grown terrorist. Ken Burns may try to stay politically neutral in his films, but the commencement speech he gave at Stanford University on Sunday was anything but. For 216 years, our elections had featured the philosophies and characters of candidates who were clearly qualified. That is not the case this year, Burns told a crowd of applauding Stanford grads. And in case that wasnt an obvious enough reference to Donald Trump, the director of mellow PBS documentaries spent more than ten minutes making his position furiously clear. Before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house, he continued, to fight againstno matter your political persuasionthe dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of politics. Burns never mentioned Trump by name, but it's pretty clear he wasn't talking about Hillary Clinton. Read the full transcript of Burns' speech below:President Hennessy, members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished faculty and staff, proud and relieved parents, calm and serene grandparents, distracted but secretly pleased siblings, ladies and gentlemen, graduating students of the Class of 2016, good morning. I am deeply honored and privileged that you have asked me here to say a few words at so momentous an occasion, that you might find what I have to say worthy of your attention on so important a day, especially one with such historical significance. One hundred and twenty-five years. Wow. Thank you, too, for that generous introduction, President Hennessy. I always feel compelled, though, to inoculate myself against such praise by remembering that I have on my refrigerator at home an old and now faded cartoon, which shows two men standing in hell, the flames licking up around them. One guy says to the other, Apparently my over 200 screen credits didnt mean a damn thing. They dont, of course; there is much more meaning in your accomplishments, which we memorialize today. I am in the business of memorializingof history. It is not always a popular subject on college campuses today, particularly when, at times, it may seem to some an anachronistic and irrelevant pursuit, particularly with the ferocious urgency this moment seems to exert on us. It is my job, however, to remind peoplewith story, memory, anecdote and feelingof the power our past also exerts, to help us better understand whats going on now. It is my job to try to discern patterns and themes from history to enable us to interpret our dizzying, and sometimes dismaying, present. For nearly forty years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously maintained a conscious neutrality in my work, avoiding the advocacy of many of my colleagues, trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens. Over those decades of historical documentary filmmaking, I have also come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing, a collection of precise dates, facts and events that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known, truth. History is a mysterious and malleable thing, constantly changing, not just as new information emerges, but as our own interests, emotions and inclinations change. Each generation rediscovers and reexamines that part of its past that gives its present new meaning, new possibility and new power. The question becomes for us nowfor you especiallywhat will we choose as our inspiration? Which distant events and long dead figures will provide us with the greatest help, the most coherent context, and the wisdom to go forward? This is in part an existential question. None of us gets out of here alive. An exception will not be made in your case and youll live forever. You cant actually design your life. (If you want to make God laugh, the saying goes, tell her your plans.) The hard times and vicissitudes of life will ultimately visit everyone. You will also come to realize that you are less defined by the good things that happen to you, your moments of happiness and apparent control, than you are by those misfortunes and unexpected challenges that, in fact, shape you more definitively, and help to solidify your true characterthe measure of any human value. You, especially, know that the conversation that comes out of tragedy and injustice needs to be encouraged, emphasis on courage. It is through those conversations that we make progress. A mentor of mine, the journalist Tom Brokaw, recently said to me, What we learn is more important than what we set out to do. Its tough out there, but so beautiful, too. And historymemorycan prepare you. I have a searing memory of the summer of 1962, when I was almost nine, joining our family dinner on a hot, sweltering day in a tract house in a development in Newark, Delaware, and seeing my mother crying. She had just learned, and my brother and I had just been told, that she would be dead of cancer within six months. But thats not what was causing her tears. Our inadequate health insurance had practically bankrupted us, and our neighborsequally struggling working peoplehad taken up a collection and presented my parents with six crisp twenty dollar bills$120 in totalenough to keep us solvent for more than a month. In that moment, I understood something about community and courage, about constant struggle and little victories. That hot June evening was a victory. And I have spent my entire professional life trying to resurrect small moments within the larger sweep of American history, trying to find our better angels in the most difficult of circumstances, trying to wake the dead, to hear their stories. But how do we keep that realization of our own inevitable mortality from paralyzing us with fear? And how do we also keep our usual denial of this fact from depriving our lives and our actions of real meaning, of real purpose? This is our great human challenge, your challenge. This is where history can help. The past often offers an illuminating and clear headed perspective from which to observe and reconcile the passions of the present moment, just when they threaten to overwhelm us. The history we know, the stories we tell ourselves, relieve that existential anxiety, allow us to live beyond our fleeting lifespans, and permit us to value and love and distinguish what is important. And the practice of history, both personal and professional, becomes a kind of conscience for us. As a filmmaker, as a historian, as an American, I have been drawn continually to the life and example and words of Abraham Lincoln. He seems to get us better than we get ourselves. One hundred and fifty-eight years ago, in mid-June of 1858, Abraham Lincoln, running in what would be a failed bid for the United States Senate, at a time of bitter partisanship in our national politics, almost entirely over the issue of slavery, spoke to the Republican State Convention in the Illinois Statehouse in Springfield. His political party was brand new, born barely four years before with one single purpose in mind: to end the intolerable hypocrisy of chattel slavery that still existed in a country promoting certain unalienable rights to itself and the world. He said, A house divided against itself cannot stand. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Four and half years later, he was president, presiding over a country in the midst of the worst crisis in American history, our Civil War, giving his Annual Message to Congress, what we now call the State of the Union. The state of the Union was not good. His house was divided. But he also saw the larger picture. The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must risewith the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. And then he went on: Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history...The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union...In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the freehonorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. You are the latest generation he was metaphorically speaking about, and you are, whether you are yet aware of it or not, charged with saving our Union. The stakes are slightly different than the ones Lincoln facedthere is not yet armed rebellionbut they are just as high. And before you go out and try to live and shape the rest of your life, you are required now to rise, as Lincoln implored us, with the occasion. You know, it is terribly fashionable these days to criticize the United States government, the institution Lincoln was trying to save, to blame it for all the ills known to humankind, and, my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, it has made more than its fair share of catastrophic mistakes. But you would be hard pressed to findin all of human historya greater force for good. From our Declaration of Independence to our Constitution and Bill of Rights; from Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Land Grant College and Homestead Acts; from the transcontinental railroad and our national parks to child labor laws, Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act; from the GI Bill and the interstate highway system to putting a man on the moon and the Affordable Care Act, the United States government has been the author of many of the best aspects of our public and personal lives. But if you tune in to politics, if you listen to the rhetoric of this election cycle, you are made painfully aware that everything is going to hell in a handbasket and the chief culprit is our evil government. Part of the reason this kind of criticism sticks is because we live in an age of social media where we are constantly assured that we are all independent free agents. But that free agency is essentially unconnected to real community, divorced from civic engagement, duped into believing in our own lonely primacy by a sophisticated media culture that requires younodesperately needs youto live in an all-consuming disposable present, wearing the right blue jeans, driving the right car, carrying the right handbag, eating at all the right places, blissfully unaware of the historical tides that have brought us to this moment, blissfully uninterested in where those tides might take us. Our spurious sovereignty is reinforced and perpetually underscored to our obvious and great comfort, but this kind of existence actually ingrains in us a stultifying sameness that rewards conformity (not courage), ignorance and anti-intellectualism (not critical thinking). This wouldnt be so bad if we were just wasting our own lives, but this year our political future depends on it. And there comes a time when Iand youcan no longer remain neutral, silent. We must speak up... and speak out. For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and character of candidates who were clearly qualified. That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified. So before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house, to fight against, no matter your political persuasion, the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance; who is against lots of things, but doesnt seem to be for anything, offering only bombastic and contradictory promises, and terrifying Orwellian statements; a person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesnt seem to matter; who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything but himself and his own enrichment; who insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants and all Muslims; a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan; an infantile, bullying man who, depending on his mood, is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties and long-standing relationships. I feel genuine sorrow for the understandably scared andthey feelpowerless people who have flocked to his campaign in the mistaken belief thatas often happens on TVa wand can be waved and every complicated problem can be solved with the simplest of solutions. They cant. It is a political Ponzi scheme. And asking this man to assume the highest office in the land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747. As a student of history, I recognize this type. He emerges everywhere and in all eras. We see nurtured in his campaign an incipient Proto-fascism, a nativist anti-immigrant Know Nothing-ism, a disrespect for the judiciary, the prospect of women losing authority over their own bodies, African Americans again asked to go to the back of the line, voter suppression gleefully promoted, jingoistic saber rattling, a total lack of historical awareness, a political paranoia that, predictably, points fingers, always making the other wrong. These are all virulent strains that have at times infected us in the past. But they now loom in front of us againall happening at once. We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires. The sense of commonwealth, of shared sacrifice, of trust, so much a part of American life, is eroding fast, spurred along and amplified by an amoral Internet that permits a lie to circle the globe three times before the truth can get started. We no longer have the luxury of neutrality or balance, or even of bemused disdain. Many of our media institutions have largely failed to expose this charlatan, torn between a nagging responsibility to good journalism and the big ratings a media circus always delivers. In fact, they have given him the abundant airtime he so desperately craves, so much so that it has actually worn down our natural human revulsion to this kind of behavior. Hey, hes rich; he must be doing something right. He is not. Edward R. Murrow would have exposed this naked emperor months ago. He is an insult to our history. Do not be deceived by his momentary good behavior. It is only a spoiled, misbehaving child hoping somehow to still have dessert. And do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points. It does not. We must disenthrall ourselves, as Abraham Lincoln said, from the culture of violence and guns. And then we shall save our country. This is not a liberal or conservative issue, a red state, blue state divide. This is an American issue. Many honorable people, including the last two Republican presidents, members of the party of Abraham Lincoln, have declined to support him. And I implore those Vichy Republicans who have endorsed him to please, please reconsider. We must remain committed to the kindness and community that are the hallmarks of civilization and reject the troubling, unfiltered Tourettes of his tribalism. The next few months of your commencement, that is to say, your future, will be critical to the survival of our Republic. The occasion is piled high with difficulty. Let us pledge here today that we will not let this happen to the exquisite, yet deeply flawed, land we all love and cherishand hope to leave intact to our posterity. Let us nobly save, not meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Let me speak directly to the graduating class. Watch out. Here comes the advice. Look. I am the father of four daughters. If someone tells you theyve been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously. And listen to them! Maybe, some day, we will make the survivors eloquent statement as important as Dr. Kings Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Try not to make the other wrong, as I just did with that presumptive nominee. Be for something. Be curious, not cool. Feed your soul, too. Every day. Remember, insecurity makes liars of us all. Not just presidential candidates. Dont confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that careerism is death. Do not descend too deeply into specialism either. Educate all of your parts. You will be healthier. Free yourselves from the limitations of the binary world. It is just a tool. A means, not an end. Seek outand havementors. Listen to them. The late theatrical director Tyrone Guthrie once said, We are looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of again. Embrace those new ideas. Bite off more than you can chew. Travel. Do not get stuck in one place. Visit our national parks. Their sheer majesty may remind you of your own atomic insignificance, as one observer noted, but in the inscrutable ways of Nature, you will feel larger, inspirited, just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self-regard. Insist on heroes. And be one. Read. The book is still the greatest manmade machine of allnot the car, not the TV, not the smartphone. Make babies. One of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worryI mean really worryabout someone other than yourself. It is liberating and exhilarating. I promise. Ask your parents. Do not lose your enthusiasm. In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means simply, God in us. Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Convince your government, as Lincoln knew, that the real threat always and still comes from within this favored land. Governments always forget that. Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our countrythey just make our country worth defending. Believe, as Arthur Miller told me in an interview for my very first film on the Brooklyn Bridge, believe, that maybe you too could add something that would last and be beautiful. And vote. You indelibly underscore your citizenshipand our connection with each otherwhen you do. Good luck. And Godspeed. Across the water from the United States, Londoners showed their support for the LGBTQ community in Orlando, Florida, which was devastated Sunday by the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. In this video, posted on Twitter by @OhHeyJacob, the London Gay Men's Chorus can be seen singing the Simon & Garfunkel song "Bridge Over Troubled Water" for the massive crowd at a vigil in SOHO, London. Thirty soldiers from Niger and two from Nigeria were killed in a Boko Haram attack by hundreds of assailants on June 3 on the southeastern town of Bosso close to the border with Nigeria. The United States condemns in the strongest terms Boko Harams barbaric attack on the military in Niger. In addition to the soldiers killed in the onslaught, 67 individuals were injured. This latest attack, said the State Department in a written statement, "further underscores Boko Harams blatant disregard for the people of the Lake Chad Basin area." It was the deadliest attack carried out in Niger by the Islamic terrorist group since April 2015, when at least 74 people, including 28 civilians, were killed at the Lake Chad island of Karamga. Boko Haram has been fighting since 2009 to establish an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria adhering to strict Sharia law. About 2.3 million people have been displaced and thousands have been killed during the seven-year insurgency. Bosso is in Niger's Diffa region, where many people have sought sanctuary from Boko Haram violence. Boko Haram attacks in the area began in February 2015, with increased violence since April 2016, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs. As many as 40,000 refugees are moving to safer environments and are in need of humanitarian aid. The United States stands by its partners in Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and Cameroon and supports their efforts to fight and defeat Boko Haram. These countries in addition to Benin have contributed troops to a 9,000-strong regional task force dedicated to fighting the terrorist group. International cooperation and a comprehensive approach remain vital components of this unified effort to bring lasting peace and security to the region and defeat to the terrorists. ELKO The bloody massacre that left 49 dead and 53 injured in Orlando has had a deep effect on Elkos LGBT community. That could have been us, remarked Steve Christean, local LGBT leader and Pride Festival organizer. Just coming out of Pride it hit really close, he said. We had performers here who had just performed at that club. Rural America Pride Corp. organized a candlelight vigil at 8:30 p.m. Monday in the Elko Peace Park. I feel like we should be concerned here in Elko, Christean warned. He mentioned comments that he had found on local social media and was disturbed by some of the cruel and negative banter concerning the victims of the Orlando crime. The gunman appears to have been a homegrown extremist who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic radical groups, the White House and the FBI said Monday. As Orlando mourned its dead with flowers, candles and vigils, counterterrorism investigators dug into the background of 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the American-born Muslim who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States, and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network, said FBI Director James Comey. But he said Mateen was clearly radicalized, at least in part via the internet. Comey said the bureau is also trying to determine whether Mateen had recently scouted Disney World as a potential target, as reported by People.com, which cited an unidentified federal law enforcement source. Were still working through that, Comey said. The FBI chief defended the bureaus handling of Mateen during two previous investigations into his apparent terrorist sympathies. As for whether there was anything the FBI should have done differently, so far, the honest answer is, I dont think so, Comey said. WASHINGTON President Barack Obama decried the deadliest mass shooting in American history on Sunday as a terrorist act targeting a place of solidarity and empowerment for gays and lesbians. He urged Americans to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. Hours after a gunman killed at least 50 people in Orlando, Obama said the FBI would investigate the nightclub shooting as terrorism, but said the alleged shooters motivations were unclear. He said the U.S. must spare no effort to determine whether the suspect, identified by authorities as Omar Mateen, had any ties to extremist groups. What is clear is he was a person filled with hatred, Obama said of the alleged shooter. He added: We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate. And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people. Obama had planned to travel to Wisconsin on Wednesday for his first campaign appearance of the 2016 race, a joint rally with Hillary Clinton in Green Bay, Wisconsin. But Clintons campaign and the White House said that event was being postponed in light of the attack. The president, who has proclaimed June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, called the attack heartbreaking for the LGBT community. He said the site of the shooting was more than a nightclub because it was a place where people came to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights. The shooter targeted a night club where people came together to be with friends to dance and to sing to live, Obama said. For Obama, the hastily arranged remarks were the latest in whats become a tragically familiar routine. Since he took office in 2009, Obama has appeared before cameras more than a dozen times following mass shootings and issued written statements after many others. The president made no new, specific call for stricter gun laws. Though he lamented how easy it is for people to get their hands on weapons, Obama appeared resigned to the likelihood that hell be unable as president to substantially address the mass shootings that have proliferated in recent years. We have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be, Obama said. To actively do nothing is a decision as well. After a gunman in Newtown killed 20 first graders and six adults in 2012, Obama dedicated much of the start of his second term to pushing legislation to expand background checks, ban certain assault-style weapons and cap the size of ammunition clips. That measure collapsed in the Senate, and since then, the political makeup of Congress have made new gun laws appear out of reach. Still, Obama has sought to take incremental steps using his own authority to tighten rules for obtaining a gun. Obama spoke from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, named after the former press secretary who was shot and permanently disabled in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. He also signed a proclamation on Sunday ordering flags to be flown at half-staff until sunset on Thursday in honor of the victims. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Salt Lake City resident Carrie Snyder spent about two years with Stage 4 lung cancer before recently finding out that the disease had spread to her brain and is incurable. Now the 52-year-old mother of four is pushing for Utah to allow her to end her life on her own terms. "If you can picture and imagine something beautiful at the end, instead of something horrific and inhumane at the end, that's why I'm fighting for this," she said. For the third year in a row, Democratic Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck is gearing up to introduce a bill that would allow terminally-ill adults who are expected to live six months or less to choose to end their lives. But in the highly conservative state where her last two attempts have not made it far in the Legislature, she is gearing up for another challenging fight. "This is a very sensitive issue," Chavez-Houck said. "It's going to take a lot of one-on-one time I believe with colleagues to address their concerns." The proposal will likely be similar to the one she introduced during the 2016 session, and include such safeguards as requiring that the patient is mentally competent, and that two physicians sign off on the prognosis. Chavez-Houck said she is open to making tweaks based on discussions she has with lawmakers this summer. She plans to discuss the proposal during committee meetings coming up over the next few weeks. When asked to comment, the governor's office said in a statement that Republican Gov. Gary Herbert is concerned that a right-to-die bill could be "a right to suicide" and life needs to be respected and revered. Chavez-Houck said she began working on introducing the legislation after Brittany Maynard, a terminally ill 29-year-old Oregon woman, generated a national debate on the issue when she ended her life about two years ago. Dan Diaz, Maynard's husband, has lobbied lawmakers across the country since her death in 2014. He plans to visit Utah this week to meet with legislators to give them a firsthand account of why the law is important. "My wife Brittany wanted to live; the brain tumor was killing her and of that she had no control," he said. "The one thing that Brittany could control is simply the manner to which her last few days would play out. And that's what this bill affords." If the legislation passes, Utah would join a handful of other states that have passed similar pieces of legislation, including Oregon, which has had a law for over a decade. The Mormon church, of which more than half of Utah residents are members, said in a statement that it does not support helping someone with a terminal illness end their life, saying that is a "violation of the commandments of God." The proposal in Utah would require that the patient be counseled on other options and available treatments. If a doctor suspects the patient is suffering from depression or a psychological disorder that is impairing their judgment, the person would need to undergo a psychological evaluation. If someone meets all the requirements, a doctor would prescribe a fatal medication that the patient would take at his or her discretion. Chavez-Houck said some Utah residents who are terminally ill have told her that they simply want the comfort of having the prescription and knowing they have the option to end their life. "That's kind of like saying, 'a suicidal person who has a gun in the house feels better,'" said Jean Hill, with the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, which opposes the legislation. She said there are no safeguards that the lawmaker could add to the legislation that would lead to the diocese's support. But if the proposal were to pass, Hill would want it to require that all patients get psychiatric care and be supervised by a medical professional when they take the life-ending drugs. 'A true blessing:' Meet the family behind the viral photo from UK's scrimmage Micheal McGuire didn't know his photo was going to go viral after he rushed to meet his family at the Blue-White Scrimmage in Pikeville on Saturday. New Burlington Area Homeless Shelter director carrying mission forward The new executive director of the Burlington Area Homeless Shelter says she's excited for her new role and here to serve the community. MILFORD When Superstorm Sandy struck this city with a vengeance, it damaged 850 homes and left entire neighborhoods buried in sand and debris. Nearly four years later, city officials are still trying to dig out from a lingering tempest that threatens to swamp them paperwork. Charges of inadequate record-keeping and building permits granted in violation of federal regulations raised questions at the state level about local officials qualifications to oversee Milfords reconstruction, a Hearst Connecticut Media investigation has learned. For the second year in a row, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is back in the city following up on the administrative headache that prompted the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to complain that Mayor Benjamin Blakes administration was not up to the job. At the same time, an FBI public corruption task force has been nosing around city offices, seizing documents, interviewing staffers and worrying residents who have already invested untold thousands of dollars rebuilding homes. Its a nightmare, said Goren Paola, who lives near the water on Platt Street and started a Facebook page, Milford Connecticut Storm Victims Unite. No one in the city is really telling us anything. You dont feel very confident in what they do and do not do. The bureaucratic mess threatened to make life tougher for a community that has already been hit hard, jeopardizing residents eligibility for federally subsidized flood insurance, or significantly raising their rates. Blake said the criticisms were old news and the DEEP has since called the city a good partner. The heart of the conflict between the city and the DEEP was five properties among the 4,000 in Milfords floodplain that the state said were mishandled by Blakes administration. Two beach-areas homes with storm damage assessments that were initially made by FEMA and then radically altered by Joseph D. Griffith, the citys director of permitting and land use, raised questions, DEEP records reviewed under the state Freedom of Information Act show. In three other cases, the citys approval of construction that violated federal building and flood-control requirements received close scrutiny. Big discrepancies A bungalow on flood-prone Caroline Street off East Broadway was deemed almost completely destroyed. In an assessment report soon after the Oct. 29, 2012, storm, a team of FEMA officials checked the damage to the bungalows foundations, floors and windows, and judged it to have $76,000 worth of damage and the building was rated to be 86 percent destroyed. In June 2014, Griffith prepared the citys assessment of the same bungalow, but his report said the damage was far less. He listed it as having sustained only $16,466 in damages and estimated it to be only 19 percent wrecked. Accordingly, Griffith wrote, elevation of the structure was not required. There is no explanation for the discrepancy, which raised suspicions in DEEP following a whistle-blower complaint. Under FEMA rules, houses damaged 50 percent or more must be lifted up to as high as 15 feet, depending on the elevation of the property above Long Island Sound. Jacking up homes onto concrete piers can cost property owners from $80,000 to $150,000, with federal reimbursement covering only up to about $30,000. There is a potentially charged situation unfolding in Milford having to do with FEMA, DEEP staff wrote in an email to Commissioner Robert Klee in July 2014. John Coppola, who bought the Caroline Street property in a May 2014 foreclosure sale, but wasnt allowed to move in until recently, said last week that FEMAs initial report mischaracterized the damage, possibly confusing the structure with others on the short dead-end street, where six of seven houses were damaged more than 50 percent by Superstorm Sandy. The previous owner of the house had been paid $47,771 in flood insurance claims, according to the DEEP records. In another instance, a property on nearby Gardner Avenue was assessed by FEMA as 55.6 percent destroyed, but the city decreased the damage to 19 percent, allowing that home also to be rebuilt without the expensive elevation. The state also scrutinized reconstruction work the city allowed on three properties a beachside house on Melba Street where a concrete berm was deemed illegal by the DEEP because it could obstruct the flow of a tidal surge; a waterfront house on East Broadway cited for issues with a rebuilt foundation; and the site of the former Pietra restaurant on the Boston Post Road, where a developer ignored the limits of his building permit and demolished more than half the existing structure. Blake said by January of this year, issues with each of the five contested properties had finally been cleared. With regard to these five properties, the first of which is commercial and the other four residential, the City has spent a great deal of time working with the respective owners as well as with state officials from DEEP to ensure they are fully-compliant with our zoning regulations, which reference and incorporate those of FEMA with regard to flood plain management, Blake wrote. Adversarial and hostile In a string of emails between the state and the city, Blake described the agency as adversarial and hostile, while state waterways officials pushed for the citys justification of the damage reassessments. Blake, a Democrat now in his third two-year term, took his complaints to Klee and even the governors office. Still, the bureaucratic conflict continued. The DEEP warned Griffith was under qualified to take over the citys National Flood Insurance Program following the July 2014 layoff of an assistant city planner whose duties included administrating the program. Later that summer, the DEEP emailed Griffith that It is clear that attention to program implementation and staff knowledge is lacking, evidenced by two potential violations that have been brought to this offices attention. At the same time, the agency warned the city was in danger of being suspended from the National Flood Insurance Program, meaning residents might be prohibited from either purchasing or renewing flood insurance policies, and that federal grants and loans could cease. By the fall of 2014, a DEEP inter-office email shows the states exasperation. For me, the point is the town needs to be doing a more thorough job in the permitting process with staff that knows what questions to ask, the email said. Blake said any tension between the city and state only shows hes an advocate for his constituents. As Mayor, my first responsibility is to those Milford residents who lost their homes to storms and to the taxpayers of our City, he wrote. In that role, Ive had spirited exchanges with many state agencies, including DEEP, advocating on behalf of our residents. That said, the Citys relationship with DEEP is solid. He also defended Griffith, a licensed architect who, Blake said, has had significant FEMA training in recovery, insurance administration, flood hazards and flood plain development. Seeking an intervention The argument continued and in July of 2015, DEEP requested FEMAs help. We have been unable to reach agreement with the city regarding correcting the issues and therefore recommend requesting FEMAs assistance in this matter, wrote Cheryl Chase, director of the DEEPs Inland Water Resources Division. Karl Anderson, natural hazards program specialist for FEMA Region I in Boston, said recently the agency is evaluating Milfords need for further technical assistance and coordination. In addition, the visits provide an opportunity for assessing the effectiveness of local floodplain management ordinances and enforcement practices, Anderson said. FEMA, in conjunction with the City of Milford, is currently in the process of researching information on various aspects of the citys floodplain management program as well as specific properties within the city. Dennis Schain, communications director for DEEP, said last week the agencys role is to act as the intermediary between federal agencies and local governments on flooding issues. That was exactly our role here to help make certain the city of Milford understood its obligations under various FEMA and federal disaster-relief programs and to encourage them to take all steps necessary to comply with requirements, Schain said. The mayor said he had not been interviewed by the FBI. Thomas Carson, spokesman for the Department of Justice, declined to comment on Friday, as did a spokesman for the FBIs New Haven office. Residents like William Ziebell, a retired union truck driver who only last week finally moved back to his primary residence on Silver Street, expressed disappointment in the citys assistance. The city has basically been nonexistent, Ziebell said. The only thing they did was expedite different inspections for Sandy victims. Other than that, not a damn thing. FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) He was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and wanted to become a police officer. Early Sunday, 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Police said 49 victims died and 53 were wounded. Mateen also was killed. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. He attended evening prayer services at the city's Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. "When he finished prayer he would just leave," Rahman told The Associated Press. "He would not socialize with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful." He was also bipolar, Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters in Boulder, Colorado. "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," Yusufiy said. Although records show the couple didn't divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms. Authorities immediately began investigating whether Sunday's attack was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The law enforcement official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Yusufiy said she was "devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying" when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to Mateen's mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups. Rahman agreed. "My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with ISIS," he said. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesman who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. "It's shocking," he said about the shooting. "(Omar Mateen's) father loves this country." Some of Seddique Mir Mateen's shows were taped and later posted on YouTube. During one episode, a sign in the background read: "Long live the U.S.A! Long live Afghanistan. ... Afghans are the best friends to the U.S.A." But a former Afghan official said the "Durand Jirga Show" appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel that supports ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban, which are mostly Pashtun. Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nation's minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said. The "Durand Jirga Show" expresses support for the Taliban, has an anti-Pakistan slant, complains about foreigners in Afghanistan and criticizes U.S. actions there, the official said. Seddique Mir Mateen lavished praise on current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he appeared on the show in January 2014, but he has since denounced the Ghani government, according to the official, who said that on Saturday, Seddique Mateen appeared on the show dressed in military fatigues and used his program to criticize the current Afghan government. He also announced on that show that he would run in the next Afghan presidential election, said the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be linked to coverage of the shooting. In 2013, Omar Mateen made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and he was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Mateen had no criminal record. Yusufiy said he wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Mateen was a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as "the leading global integrated security company." Daniel Gilroy told multiple news outlets that he worked with Mateen at G45. Gilroy called him an angry, loud, profane man who used slurs for gay people, blacks, Jews and women. "He never used other words to describe them," Gilroy told theTampa Bay Times. Mateen also regularly made threats of violence, according to Gilroy. "He talked about killing people all the time," Gilroy told The New York Times. And Gilroy wasn't surprised when he learned of the massacre: "I saw it coming." Gilroy said Mateen started badgering him and sending dozens of text messages to him daily. Gilroy said he reported Mateen's behavior to his bosses. "I kind of feel a little guilty that I didn't fight harder," Gilroy said. "If I didn't walk away and I fought, then maybe 50 people would still be alive today." But Rahman said Mateen was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence. Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and was into body building "It was totally unexpected," Rahman said. ___ Weiss reported from Charlotte, North Carolina. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Thane Grauel / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Thane Grauel / Connecticut Hearst Media Show More Show Less 3 of 3 NORWALK By the glow of dozens of flickering candles and the haunting sound of a choir singing Gregorian chants, members of the gay community and others gathered within St. Paul's on the Green Church on Sunday night to remember the 50 individuals slaughtered by a lone gunman at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The Episcopal church, at 60 East Ave., has had a long relationship with the local LGBT community, and its usual Sunday night Compline service took on an additional purpose as a place for people to gather and mourn their loss. Susan Herbst, president of the University of Connecticut, released the following statement in response to the shooting at a gay night club in Orlando, Fla.: "Dear Colleagues and Students, "Our campus community, like the nation, watched what took place in Orlando with a sense of horror and helplessness. It is far too familiar a feeling, especially here in Connecticut, where the nightmare that was Sandy Hook is seared into our minds. Yet again, innocent human beings have been senselessly slaughtered. And again, scores of people grieve for someone they loved. This is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. "It is an occurrence that has become so common, that we have come to know each by its shorthand name: Columbine, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook. And now, Orlando. These are only a few. They happen in offices, restaurants, schools, college campuses, and clubs. Whether those responsible are motivated by madness or hate - or both - the result is the same. In this case, it cannot be a coincidence that a gathering place for LGBT people was targeted. "What can we do as a university? In some sense, we can do what every community is doing: watch yet another tragedy unfold and do all we can to ensure the safety and security of our own community. But in another sense, we are already doing what we ought to be doing: making certain that care, compassion, respect, and love for our fellow person defines who we are as a university, and as individuals. There is a reason UConn embraces diversity and rejects hatred, in any form. No, that alone will not stop tragedies from taking place. But it does mean that we live our lives on- and off-campus according to our highest and most precious values. That is who we are, and will continue to be." WESTPORT Project Longevitys Brent Peterkin will be the luncheon speaker at the June 14 meeting of the Westport Rotary Club. Peterkin will speak on the topic of Reducing Group Gun Violence in CT. The public is invited to attend this meeting, which takes place on Tuesday from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Branson Hall of Christ & Holy Trinity Church in Westport. The luncheon cost for guests is $20. Peterkin is the statewide coordinator for Project Longevity, which is Connecticuts multi-city gang and violent group gun violence reduction initiative. Prior to joining Project Longevity, Peterkin served Gov. Dannel P. Malloy working in support of the Office of Early Childhood; worked with Yale Universitys Global Justice Program initiative, Academics Stand Against Poverty; and supported at-risk students with emotional, behavioral and learning disabilities at Greenburgh Academy. Randy Lippincott has always had a passion for flying. At age 5, Lippincott and his older brother, Jerry, took their first-ever flight in a Cessna 172 Skyhawk owned by a relative, Carl Sisskind. Sisskind picked the boys up on Highway 14, outside their home in Central City, and flew them to Kearney over pastures, highways and the Nebraska countryside. From the moment they took flight, Randy was hooked. During the next half-century, Lippincott has flown in various parts of the United States, as well as overseas. For his dedication to the craft, he was awarded the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award, the most prestigious award issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The award is named after the Wright Brothers, the first U.S. pilots, to recognize individuals who have exhibited professionalism, skill and aviation expertise for at least 50 years while piloting aircraft as Master Pilots, according to the award website. Now a resident of Scottsdale, Ariz., Lippincott was the 68th pilot from Arizona to win the award, but just the second from Merrick County, Neb. To be eligible for the Wright Brothers MPA, nominees must hold a U.S. Civil Aviation Authority (CCA) or FAA pilot certificate, have 50 or more years of civil and military flying experience, and be a U.S. citizen. With Lippincotts many adventures, it wasnt hard to meet the criteria. At a young age, he realized the ability to fly was something he never wanted to give up. Even though he couldnt describe it at the time, flying felt like a surreal adventure to Lippincott. Its really like you can see the whole world from aloft, he said. The fence lines and the gravel roads and the highway, they stretch to the horizon like guitar strings. The whole map is just brought to life. As Lippincott grew older, his desire to be in the sky grew as well. At 16, he took his first solo flight in a silver classic Cessna 140. It took just nine hours for him to practice and perform a solo flight in a tail dragger, learning primarily by watching the pilots around him. In addition to Sisskind, Lippincotts father, Dick, and mother, Rosalie, had aviation experience. Lippincott said his desire to fly was facilitated by his fathers airplane on the farm, although he had always found himself gravitating toward aviation. When he was 19, he learned to sky dive, later serving in the military as a freefall exhibitionist. He was constantly in the air, either practicing and performing with the team or flying to various shows. Although I was not at the stick or controlling the aircraft, I was still a part of aviation, Lippincott said. In June 1983, he moved to Alaska and began work in a medical clinic. The cold climate and rough terrain limited transportation options, so Lippincott looked to aircraft as his primary way to get around. He said his experiences in Alaska were the springboard for his aviation career. In that way you could say Im the accidental pilot, he said. Its just something I stuck with and didnt really think about doing it for half a century. Lippincott settled in Arizona in 1993 and continues to fly today. He has flown many times in many types of aircraft during the past 50 years, but said every flight is similar in some ways. Each flight has the same consequences as the first flight and it has the same rewards, Lippincott said. On May 29, almost exactly 50 years after his first solo flight, he was presented his Wright Brothers MPS award. Lippincott was surrounded by family and friends during a family reunion at Mahoney State Park and shared the experience with individuals he had worked with during the past 50 years. About 60 people attended the presentation and Lippincotts mother and wife spoke about their experiences with him. In addition, a handful of attendees shared the personal flying stories they had with the Lippincott family. Lippincott said it was a heartwarming experience to have others help celebrate a milestone in his life. Afterward, he wrote thank-you notes to those who attended not only for their presence, but also for the support they provided during the past 50 years. That really for me helped bring it full circle, thinking about all these different people who made contributions, Lippincott said. I really appreciated them being there helping me celebrate the magnitude of the event. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Utah police found the body of a missing 57-year-old man in a freezer and arrested his son on suspicion of murder, authorities said Friday. Omar Carmona, 27, was angry because his father, Marco Carmona, didnt believe that someone could break in to their mobile home and hurt him while he was taking a shower, according to police. The two fought, and authorities said Carmona wrapped his arm around his fathers throat. He held on for 20 minutes as his father struggled, leaving scratches on his sons chest and back. When his father grew motionless, Omar Carmona dragged his body to the chest freezer in the living room, put him inside and plugged it in, police allege. He took his fathers cellphone and wallet out of his pockets before closing the freezer door, according to court documents. Omar Carmona had previously been arrested in an attack on his father and gotten mental-health treatment, but was afraid of going back to jail, court documents said. A family member reported Marco Carmona missing the next day when he couldnt be reached and police came to the home as a routine first step in the missing-person investigation, said Officer Nisha King with Provo Police. They found the body and eventually Omar Carmona acknowledged his role in his fathers death, authorities said. He was arrested on suspicion of murder, theft and obstruction of justice. No attorney was immediately listed for Omar Carmona in court records. Family members and lawyers who have represented him in other cases didnt immediately return messages seeking comment. Omar Carmona also attacked his father in November 2014, according to court records. Marco Carmona told police he walked into his sons room to talk about his possible drug use and the younger man got angry. He blocked the door and came at his father with a retractable razor blade, court documents read. Omar Carmona faced aggravated kidnapping and assault charges in that case, but they were dismissed after he completed a mental health court program, records show. Their children, Todd and Eudora Weller, Steve and Tara Retzlaff and Matthew and Nichole Weller, along with their 11 grandchildren, would like to honor them with a card shower. Cards may be sent to 1005 27th St., Central City, NE 68826. The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center (NCERC) and Environmental Resources Training Center (ERTC) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville will open their doors to regional employers, elected officials and community members to showcase the Centers expanded training programs and capabilities during an Employer Showcase on Wednesday, June 15. Through a $10 million U.S. Department of Labor grant awarded to SIUE in 2014, the ERTC and NCERC have partnered with Lewis and Clark Community College to deliver hands-on training and education in the fields of water management and bioprocessing at the Centers pilot-scale training plants. Local employers and community members are invited to join program staff and faculty for presentations, discussion and tours at the Centers during the following times: What: NCERC Employer Showcase When: 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m. Wednesday, June 15 Where: NCERC at SIUE (400 University Park Drive, Edwardsville, IL 62025) What: ERTC Employer Showcase When: 2-3:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 15 Where: ERTC at SIUE (5618 New Poag Rd, Edwardsville, IL 62025) The Building Illinois Bioeconomy consortium is 100% funded through a $10 million Department of Labor Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College Career Training (TAACCCT) grant. About Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) This round of funding builds on the Obama Administrations focus on job-driven training by requiring grantees to expand employer engagement throughout the grant process. These employer and industry partners have identified necessary skills and competencies and will assist in designing curricula, programs, assessments or credentials that will help quickly connect ready-to-work Americans with ready-to-be-filled jobs. The grants will expand programs in growing industries, such as advanced manufacturing, transportation and health care, and encourage geographic and industry sector collaboration. All course materials developed using these public funds will be available as Open Educational Resources so that others can access and build on successful training models. A White House fact sheet is available for further details. About the NCERC The NCERC at SIUE is a nationally recognized research center dedicated to the development and commercialization of biofuels, specialty chemicals and other renewable compounds. The Centers fully functional dry grind pilot plant and laboratories are equipped with advanced biofuels capabilities including corn fractionation, pretreatment, and a fermentation suite with 5, 30, 150 and 1500L scale-up. Facilities are staffed by industry veterans with more than 100 years of collective experience in fermentation and biofuels production. This knowledgeable team has the flexibility and expertise to design and carry out projects in any region of the advanced biofuels or specialty chemicals space. For more information, contact Courtney Breckenridge, (618) 659-6737 ext. 230, cbreckenridge@ethanolresearch.com, or visit http://www.ethanolresearch.com. About SIUE Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides students with a high quality, affordable education that prepares them for successful careers and lives of purpose. Built on the foundation of a broad-based liberal education, and enhanced by hands-on research and real-world experiences, the academic preparation SIUE students receive equips them to thrive in the global marketplace and make our communities better places to live. Situated on 2,660 acres of beautiful woodland atop the bluffs overlooking the natural beauty of the Mississippi Rivers rich bottomland and only a short drive from downtown St. Louis, the SIUE campus is home to a diverse student body of more than 14,000. Beginning on Wednesday, June 15, the Village of Glen Carbon will begin to close roads to traffic in preparation for and during the 2016 Glen Carbon Homecoming, which will be held on Friday, June 17, and Saturday, June 18. On June 15, the parking lots in Miner Park, behind the Gazebo and Library and Collinsville Street will be closed through Sunday, June 19. On June 16, Main Street will be closed at 9 a.m. to all through traffic between Spruce and School Streets. On Friday, June 17, Main Street will be closed at 9 a.m. to all through traffic between Spruce and School Streets and South Meridian will be closed at 9 a.m. between Guy Street and West Main. Collinsville Street will be closed between Sunset and Main. West Rosin will also be closed at Main Street at 9 a.m. On Saturday, June 18, in addition to the streets listed closed on Friday, The intersection of Main and Meridian and Glen Crossing as well as the road between Main and Hickory Hill Lane and Meridian and Glen Crossing will close at 5 .m. for the Homecoming Parade. The intersection will reopen at the conclusion of the parade. Remaining closures will reopen as soon as possible at the conclusion of the Homecoming Event and no later than 6 a.m. Monday, June 20. Detour Routes will be posted and plainly marked. The village will be operating a shuttle bus from Village Hall to the Homecoming Celebration. Overflow parking will be at the Bridge Church on Steiss Street. Additional parking areas for the event are: Behind Fire Station No. 1 in Old Town. Glen Carbon Elementary School, after 620 p.m. Friday, June 17. There will be a handicap access point coordinated by the Glen Carbon Police Department on Main Street. With a child in west-central Illinois contracting the earliest known case of West Nile virus in Illinois, and concerns over the mosquito spread Zika virus, local health organizations are warning people to be cautious about the stinging pests. Danny Lawrence, Glen Carbon Public Works coordinator, said the village has already started the fogging process. It is something we will continue to do throughout the summer, he said. With the diseases the mosquitoes spread we will stay proactive throughout the summer. Lawrence said approximately 6-square miles will be fogged and it takes three days. The village sprays between dusk and midnight. Lawrence said the reason for the nighttime spraying is to protect populations of honeybees. At night the bees are in the hives and it is not an active time for them, he said. The insecticide used is called Excalibur, and is sprayed using an ultra-low volume fog applicator. Lawrence suggested residents and pets stay indoors during spraying periods. In addition to spraying, Lawrence said larvicide dunks are placed in retention basins and other areas of standing water. Mosquito dunks are a larvicide designed to lessen the mosquito population. They utilize a naturally occurring biological treatment to eliminate mosquitoes before they become feeding adults. Edwardsvilles abatement program is operated in the same manner. Edwardsville Street Superintendent Matt Taul said the street department tries to fog two wards per spraying session. We do our spraying in the evening and it usually takes three to four hours, he said. We will cover the entire city and continue the program throughout the summer. Taul said his department will also be treating standing water area with the larvicide. Maryville does not fog throughout the village, but Mayor Larry Gulledge said his staff uses the dunks in areas of standing water within the village. He said the crews also keep areas mowed and free of any standing water to eliminate the potentially disease spreading insects. With the first case of West Nile being diagnosed in Illinois, nearly two months before last years first reported case, the Illinois Department of Public Health is reminding residents to protect themselves against mosquito bites. West Nile virus emerged in the United States in the New York metropolitan area in the fall of 1999. Since then, the virus, which can be transmitted to humans by the bite and an infected mosquito, has spread across the country. The first known case of West Nile in a human in Illinois was in 2001, and by the end of 2002 all but two of the states 102 counties reported the virus. There are no medications to treat or vaccines to prevent West Nile infection. Fortunately, most people infected with the virus, according to the Center for Disease Control, will have no symptoms. About 1 in 5 people who are infected will develop a fever with other symptoms. Less than 1 percent of infected people develop a serious, sometimes fatal, neurologic illness. The most vulnerable citizens are the very young, elderly and those with compromised immune systems. Usually symptoms occur from three to 14 days after the bite of an infected mosquito. The Madison County Health Departments website says people can take steps to reduce exposure to mosquito-borne illness. Some of them are: Use an approved insect repellent containing picaridin, Deet, oil of lemon eucalyptus (not for children under 3) or products that contain the active ingredient IR3535 Make sure windows have screens. Eliminate any standing water from your property and dispose of containers that collect water. Make sure roof gutters are clean and draining properly. Report to local municipalities any stagnant water collecting in ditches. While West Nile is an immediate threat, the CDC has issued a warning about Zika virus, but says that far fewer species of mosquito, only 2, carry that disease while 65 known species of mosquitoes carry the West Nile virus. According to the CDC, while there has been no confirmation of Zika carrying insects in the U.S., there is the potential that these species could inhabit areas this summer. The CDC report states that mosquitoes that spread Zika mostly bite during the daytime and no vaccine exists to prevent the disease. Prevention measures for Zika carrying insects are the same as those for all species of mosquitoes. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Samudra Hutabarat (The Jakarta Post) Tilburg Mon, June 13, 2016 Along with the development of technology in Indonesia, the financial sector is also apparently progressing toward a more practical and modern outlook. One piece of evidence of the adjustment of the financial sector to technological developments is the emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending businesses. P2P lending is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders directly with borrowers. The lending takes place online on P2P lending companies websites using various lending platforms and credit analysis tools. The borrower and the lenders do not meet physically and are often strangers. Such businesses are growing and are having an impact on the Indonesian financial market. However, there are challenges for P2P lending companies trying to develop in Indonesia. The lack of underlying regulations can be considered one of the principal issues. Some countries have taken regulatory responses to the development of P2P lending. Indonesia, however, has not provided any regulatory responses to the business, although it is becoming increasingly popular in the country. In the financial industry, regulations are essential to ensure the delivery of consumer protection and a healthy financial system. Numerous countries policymakers are showing increasing eagerness to regulate the P2P lending sector. However, as striking the perfect regulatory balance is not easy, there are different approaches to regulate the business. In the US, the largest P2P lending market, platforms must follow a difficult regulatory process. Each lender is required to be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and register the loans they originate. These businesses receive the same treatment as public companies and as a consequence they have to comply with high disclosure requirements. In the UK, P2P lending platforms need approval from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to operate. In Germany, P2P lending companies are obliged to acquire a banking license or partner with banks, which hinders the development of the industry. Meanwhile, China requires P2P lending platforms to form a third-party depository system for customer funds with a qualified banking institution. In Singapore and South Korea, P2P lending platforms operate mostly outside of the regulators scope. According to the above, it is justified to conclude that P2P lending regulatory responses in Indonesia resemble those in South Korea and Singapore. The businesses are neither legally classified as financial institutions nor governed by industry-specific rules. As the government has not formulated any laws or regulations relating to the P2P lending business, it would be advisable to adopt the most suitable regulatory approaches from other countries. These countries have been recognized as providing valuable experiences on how to handle P2P lending, including the costs and benefits of their regulatory approaches, which Indonesia could leverage. P2P lending businesses in Indonesia are not classified as banks or financing companies under prevailing laws and regulations. Therefore, the German regulatory option, which obliges P2P lending companies to acquire a banking license, is not applicable in Indonesia. Moreover, the obligation to partner with banks is also barely applicable given the fact that P2P lending platforms in Indonesia have entered into the market with a principal objective to disrupt and compete with prevailing financial businesses, and therefore such partnerships would not be deemed in accordance with this spirit. Partnerships might be viewed as one option to foster the businesses, but may not be seen as a mandatory requirement in order to operate. Meanwhile, under the US model, P2P lending platforms operate by filing full-blown registration statements with the SEC and registering the securities they offer to investors. P2P lending platforms file a shelf registration statement, which allows them to issue a maximum amount of securities. Subsequently, P2P lending platforms need to file a prospectus supplement and take securities off the shelf every time they arrange a new loan. Given the legal hurdles involved, additional costs and ongoing reporting associated with public registration, this structure is too complex and would not be applicable in Indonesia. There must be also amendments to the law on capital markets as notes issued under the scheme are not classified as securities under Indonesias current capital market laws. The UK response, on the other hand, provides a more streamlined approach. On April 1, 2014, the FCA regulated the lending platforms that were initially regulated by the Office of Fair Trading. This covered the responsibility for regulating loan-based crowdfunding platforms (the FCA Regulation). The FCA Regulation was available to anticipate the risk of the business and balance the need for investor protection and economic health. Indonesia can therefore observe and duplicate some relevant points to be incorporated in the upcoming P2P lending regulations. These include prudential standards, in which P2P lending firms should maintain regulatory capital in order to withstand future financial shocks, as well as protections in the event of the failure of P2P lending firms, where the existing loans must still be administered in order to avoid difficulty for investors. Another is disclosure rules, which require P2P lending firms to ensure that investors have sufficient information to be able to make informed investment decisions and fulfil reporting requirements as P2P lending firms should submit regular reports to the FCA. Meanwhile, China also shows relevant experience for the Indonesian government. The requirement to form a third-party depository system for customer funds with a qualified banking institution is a positive to be implemented. The custodian account acts as the fund transfer instrument between lenders and borrowers, and escrow, for all transactions between the parties. By ensuring that all funding is conducted correctly, the escrow account is believed to increase the level of confidence of the lender in direct lending and borrowing activities. The circumstances in which P2P lending is not regulated under prevailing Indonesian regulations provides a legal loophole in establishing robust P2P lending business. As such, the fact that the Financial Services Authority (OJK) is currently taking a proportionate approach to formulate specific regulations for P2P lending should be welcomed. Definite and clear regulations are critical as they help to strengthen investor confidence and avoid the mismanagement of any platform that could threaten the reputation and credibility of this very young industry. With no established rules in Indonesia for the P2P lending sector, operators have been trying to interpret the existing prevailing regulations. The problem, however, is that not everyone interprets the rules in the same way. These industry players should be given clear directions to prevent them from operating under a veil of ambiguity. *** The writer is studying international business law at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. --------------- We are looking for information, opinions, and in-depth analysis from experts or scholars in a variety of fields. We choose articles based on facts or opinions about general news, as well as quality analysis and commentary about Indonesia or international events. Send your piece to community@jakpost.com. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Qraved (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Remember Chef, the 2014 movie by Jon Favreau featuring stars from Sofia Vergara to Robert Downey Jr? If you do, then you will never forget the sensational Cuban sandwich. The mouth-watering meal has a complicated history, but Chef introduced it to the world in the most delicious way possible. The size, ingredients and even the appearance of Cuban sandwiches are appealing. Consisting of Cuban bread, ham, roasted pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard and sometimes salami, the charm of a Cuban sandwich will hypnotize you even if you have never seen one. It made us wonder, what it is actually like to eat one? The wait is over. Since Chef, we have discovered that there are actually several places in Jakarta to enjoy Cuban sandwiches. Here's a list of places to get the dish in Jakarta. Big Bad Wolf Sandwich The Big Bad Wolf Sandwich truck usually hangs around Lippo Mall Puri in West Jakarta, and it's true that their collection of sandwiches is amazing. Self-acclaimed as the food truck serving the best BBQ pulled pork sandwiches in town, Big Bad Wolf also offers a Cuban sandwich for about Rp 40,000 (US$3). The price is worth it for the big sandwich. Find out the trucks location through social media. (Read also: What to do on Transjakarta's Saturday night food tour) Lola A photo posted by LOLA (@lolajkt) on May 25, 2016 at 2:58am PDT There's nothing wrong with having a meal in a bar, at least when you're at Lola. According to Lola, its Cubano sandwich is filled with controversy and rich in flavor. Without knowing what exactly Lola means by controversy, the description is indeed intriguing, just like the mysterious character of Lola. Six Ounces Coffee A photo posted by banesitohang (@banesitohang) on Jun 3, 2016 at 10:22pm PDT Worry not because if you live near Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta, finding a Cuban sandwich is a piece a cake. The Green Door Kitchen, which collaborates with Six Ounces Coffee, will serve you with an unquestionable example of the dish. It is perfect because Six Ounces is famous for its great Australian-style coffee, ready to accompany your delightful sandwich. Union Deli A photo posted by Union Deli (@uniondelijkt) on May 18, 2016 at 12:18am PDT There is a certain level of satisfaction when you eat at Union Deli. Good service, friendly vibe and ambiance, great food. Serving various homemade meals from pastries to sandwiches, chef Ron Luhur experimented with his creativity and presented a delicious Cuban sandwich as the result. Wherever you're going to enjoy a Cuban sandwich, visiting Union Deli for a bite is a must. (Read also: Where to find vegetarian burgers in Jakarta) Parc 19 A photo posted by nasthasya (@nasthasya) on Feb 14, 2015 at 12:25am PST As one of the hippest lounges for hanging out in Jakarta, Parc 19 never fails to meet every aspect of its customers' expectations. This includes its choices of mouth-watering dishes from light bites to the Cuban sandwich by head chef Rais Answer. You will know that just one is not enough to satisfy your cravings once you try Parc 19's version. Machete A photo posted by Machete (@machete_jkt) on Sep 29, 2015 at 11:09pm PDT When it comes to sandwiches, Machete knows exactly what it's doing. Even though this food truck offers a fun concept in serving its sandwiches, Machete is pretty serious at keeping its quality in check. And one of the favorites is, of course, the Cuban sandwich. (kes) Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Qraved (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Discovering other people's cultures and traditions can be fun as not only will you learn why they are doing things the way they do, you will also be able to adapt more easily and connect with them. Below are some table manners from around the globe that are interesting to know for future reference. Spain Don't : Leave the table immediately after eating. Do : Enjoy sobremesa. Sobremesa means "on the table". The Spanish use their time to catch up and talk with others right after enjoying their meals. It's considered rude to leave the table straight away. Spanish people use their time to catch up and talk with others right after enjoying their meals.(Shutterstock/-) Thailand Don't : Use only a fork to eat. Do : Use a fork to help a spoon while eating. The spoon is the main eating utensil in Thailand. Using chopsticks is discouraged, unless you are enjoying Chinese food. Forks should be use alongside spoons in Thailand.(Shutterstock/-) France Don't : Hide your hands under the table. Do : Put both hands on the table. In France, people care about what you are doing with your hands during dinner or lunch. Therefore, when your hands are tired, rest them on the table. Eating manners in France require you to place your hands above the table.(Shutterstock/-) Hungary Don't : Cheer with beer. Do : Cheer with other alcoholic beverages. It's an old revenge. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, Austrians used beer to celebrate their victory. This tradition endures. (Read also: Embracing molecular gastronomy: A different dining perspective) In Hungary, cheer with alcoholic beverages other than beer.(Shutterstock/-) Mexico Don't : Use utensils to eat tacos. Do : Eat tacos with your hands. It doesn't make sense -- as simple as that. Mexicans have been eating with bare hands for a long time and following the tradition is a proper way to respect them. Tacos should be eaten with your hands according to Mexican eating manners.(Shutterstock/-) Japan Don't : Put chopsticks on top on your plate. Do : Rest your chopsticks next to the plate. Putting chopsticks on top of your food is discouraged because Japanese consider this behavior to attract bad luck. (kes) In Japan, do not put your chopsticks on top of your food.(Shutterstock/-) Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official stance of The Jakarta Post. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Sat, June 11 2016 This is a busy weekend for President Joko Jokowi Widodo. It began on Friday in Mauk, some 40 kilometers from downtown Tangerang, Banten. Then he flew to West Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, in the afternoon before finally going to Bali the next day. His trip aims to ensure the development of power plants in those regions as part of his ambitious project to create an additional 35,000 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity within the five years of his term in office. In Tangerang, Jokowi witnessed the groundbreaking of a power plant funded by Japan. The coal-fired extension plant will have the capacity to supply 315 MW of additional electricity to Jakarta and Banten. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login A volunteer ties the shoes of former Gibraltar Mayor Solomon Levy. REUTERS To some, the upcoming referendum on whether Britain stays in the European Union might not be that big of a deal. But here in Gibraltar, the possibility of a Brexit means the world. Residents of The Rock are afraid that an Out victory will endanger their unique and profitable economy, which has all the advantages of EU membership while simultaneously offering investors significant tax incentives. Politicians of all stripes and civil society have launched an aggressive campaign to explain to citizens of the territory that it would be a terrible mistake to abandon a market of more than 500 million people. Gibraltarians who still dont know which way they're going to vote on June 23 must surely be living under a rock. What would happen to the free circulation of people and goods? How will Spain react? Theres a lot of questions, you know Bryan Reyes, editor of the Gibraltar Chronicle There are few places that better represent European influence in Gibraltar than Corks. Formerly an old Irish pub that smelled of beer, it is now a modern restaurant with a colonial look. The owner, Gino Gimenez, 45, refurbished the place with EU funds, and when he was done he proudly hung a sign outside the door with the 12 yellow stars against a blue background. A Brexit would be a disaster for us, at the economic and the political level, he says. I have 14 workers, all of them Spaniards, who come and go every day. What will become of them? Tourism, insurance, online gambling (a sector that employs 3,200 people), ship bunkering and financial services drive an economy that barely knows the meaning of the word unemployment. A low corporate tax of 10% and VAT-free shopping keep the engine running, and as a result Gibraltar has barely felt the crisis that has crippled much of the rest of the world. Sign up for our newsletter EL PAIS English Edition has launched a weekly newsletter. Sign up today to receive a selection of our best stories in your inbox every Saturday morning. For full details about how to subscribe, click here. The idea that all this could come to an end drove lawyer Gemma Vasquez to promote the Stronger in Europe campaign. Weve been self-sufficient for the last 30 years. That comes from the fact that we have implemented EU regulations, says Vasquez, who feels confident that her message has reached every one of the 30,000 llanitos who live here. Gibraltars Main Street looks a lot like an airport terminal: there are duty-free stores on both sides selling tobacco products, watches and electronic devices. Halfway down the thoroughfare, a portrait of Elizabeth II presides the entrance to an old Franciscan convent. This is where the representative of the British Crown, Lieutenant General Edward Davis, resides. A police officer wearing glasses and sporting an enormous tattoo on one arm is guarding the building. Would it be possible to know the governors opinion on Brexit? No, thats not possible. What about the queens opinion? Try the phone. Right across from here is Jurys Cafe, where Chief Minister Fabian Picardo is enjoying a cup of coffee. The head of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party feels that Brexit would be a disaster to the British Overseas Territory's economy, and fears that without European laws to protect it, Spain might close off access to pressure for its return. In his mind, that would be detrimental to both nations. Every day, 10,000 people cross the border, 7,000 of them Spanish. We are an economic engine of growth in the region, the second most important factory in Andalusia after the Junta [regional government], he says. Picardo adds that Gibraltarians are massively supporting Brimain after hearing Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo state that if Brexit prospers, Spain will ask Britain for shared sovereignty over The Rock. Weve been self-sufficient for the last 30 years. That comes from the fact that we have implemented EU regulations Gemma Vasquez, lawyer Id like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Margallo for helping me out so much with the campaign. He made it easy, says Picardo. Dont laugh, I really mean that. Some polls are forecasting a very tight result. In such a scenario, the Gibraltarian vote, though small, could be decisive. In that case, many generations of Britons would be thankful to us. But there are those on Gibraltar who back leaving the EU. John Bromfield, a 71-year-old businessman who exports building materials, supports Brexit and believes there are many more people who secretly think like him, but are afraid of speaking out in public for fear of appearing to be unpatriotic. The surveys published by the Gibraltar Chronicle do not support his view. The only street poll conducted in Gibraltar asked 596 people whether they will vote and which way. The results suggest a turnout of over 85% and more than 88% of voters in favor of remaining in the EU. Bryan Reyes, the newspaper's editor, underscores the uncertainty of a Brexit for entrepreneurs. What would happen to the free circulation of people and goods? How will Spain react? Theres a lot of questions, you know, he says. And then there are those who are undecided. Lawyer Charles Gomez claims that the EU is very dangerous, and expresses concern over border controls and a political elite that controls European institutions. But as Gomez exemplifies, Gibraltarians are above all practical: despite his dislike of the EU, the economic risks associated with Brexit makes him hesitate. When all is said and done, business is business. English version by Susana Urra. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Sat, June 11 2016 Sofih Alam can only resign himself to God as he cannot fast together with his family this Ramadhan. Sofih is staying with other Rohingya refugees at the Pelangi Hotel in Medan, North Sumatra, while his wife and child, who are Indonesian citizens, live with his parents-in-law on Jl. Irigasi, also in Medan. Sofih is among the Myanmarese Muslim Rohingya refugees married to Indonesian Muslim women. Since marrying in 2014, Sofih has lived separately from his wife, but the pair of different nationalities is blessed with a son aged 8 months. He said it would be perfect if he could fast with his beloved wife and son. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has criticized his subordinates for sluggish land acquisition in projects funded by the city administration after he issued a ruling on non-cash transactions for such acquisitions. There is a land acquisition mafia. For those who dont want to give a commission, the process is made more complicated. It is always like that, Ahok said at City Hall on Monday as reported by kompas.com. Nearly all land acquisitions are sluggish, particularly since I issued a non-cash transactions [ruling] and said that transfers should be to the bank accounts of land owners, said Ahok. He accused civil servants at the administration of intentionally making land acquisition complicated because they no longer received illegal fees following the non-cash policy. He said, however, that it was difficult to prove any wrongdoing because there was no concrete evidence. Sluggish land acquisition mostly occurs in the citys housing and administrative buildings agency and parks and cemeteries agency. The governor said some of his subordinates told him to issue a memo so that the land acquisition process could be accelerated, but the governor said it could be a trap like the land acquisition case surrounding Sumber Waras hospital in West Jakarta, in which he was questioned by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for an alleged mark-up. He said he wanted to replace civil servants who were allegedly involved in the land mafia, but there were no other people to fill the roles because non-civil servants were not allowed to hold such positions. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (Associated Press) Baghdad Mon, June 13, 2016 An aid group says 4,000 more people have fled the Islamic State-held city of Fallujah in Iraq after government forces retook a key road to the IS stronghold over the weekend. The Norwegian Refugee Council, which works with refugees and internally displaced Iraqis, said on Monday that this brings the total number of residents who have fled Fallujah since the Iraqi offensive to retake the city started in late May to 27,580. Aid groups estimate that 50,000 civilians still remain trapped inside Fallujah, which has been under IS control for over two years the last major city in western Iraq still held by the extremist group. NRC says some refugees reported that IS militants are demanding payments of 150,000 Iraqi Dinars, around US$130, per person to let them leave. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Mon, June 13 2016 Once an ailing airline struggling with debt, Malaysia-based budget carrier AirAsia has successfully transformed itself to become one of the most successful airlines in the region while working to achieve its noble vision: democratizing air travel by offering low fares and high quality service. Despite a market slowdown, AirAsia has so far become the worlds best-performing airline stock this year. In Indonesia, the company manages two units Indonesia AirAsia (IAA), which operates a fleet of 29 Airbus A320s, and Indonesia AirAsia X, the countrys first long-haul, low-cost carrier and has become a serious competitor for major local low-cost airlines, including Lion Air and Citilink. Last week, AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes invited The Jakarta Posts Farida Susanty to his office in Kuala Lumpur to discuss the companys business strategy, his vision for the companys Indonesian units and his response to the recent launch of the worlds biggest alliance of low-cost airlines to challenge the companys stronghold in the business. The following are excerpts of the interview. Question: You keep saying that Indonesia is more than just Bali. How do you envision the countrys aviation industry in the next few years? Answer: We want to invest more [in Indonesia]. Thats why were after a change in Indonesian regulations. We think that domestic flights are already well-covered as Citilink, Lion Air and Sriwijaya Air are doing a good job. We also contribute a little. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Julie Pace (Associated Press) Washington Mon, June 13, 2016 For Donald Trump, Sunday's mass shooting in Florida was a moment to redouble his call for tougher action against terrorism and to take credit for "being right" about the threat. For Hillary Clinton, it was a time to choose words carefully and reiterate her call for keeping "weapons of war" off America's streets. The responses of Trump and Clinton to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history were a study in contrasts for the two presumptive presidential nominees one of whom will soon be leading a country fearful of terrorism, gun violence and the often merciless intersection of the two. The motive behind Sunday's early morning rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando was unknown when Trump and Clinton began weighing in. By day's end, authorities still had far to go in uncovering what led Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen from Florida, to open fire, kill 50 people and critically wound dozens more. As information began trickling out, Trump took to Twitter to say he was "praying" for the victims and their families. "When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?" he wrote. Within a few hours, the presumptive Republican nominee was back on social media saying that he'd appreciated "the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." After President Barack Obama did not use that same phrase to describe Mateen in his remarks from the White House, Trump released a statement saying the president "should step down" a provocative response that far exceeds the typical Republican criticism of Obama's approach to extremism. Trump is hardly the first politician to try to capitalize on a tragedy, though he's more blatant than most in connecting his electoral prospects to incidents of unimaginable suffering. Shortly after last year's deadly attacks in Paris, Trump said, "Whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country. We have weak, sad politicians." After a deadly December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, Trump stunned many in his own party by calling for a temporary ban on Muslims coming to the U.S. Rather than sink his political prospects, it helped propel the businessman to his first victories in the GOP primary. For Trump's detractors, his comments can appear jarring and crass. But he's also tapped into a deep frustration among some voters who believe Obama has been handcuffed in his response to terror threats because he's worried about offending Muslims in the U.S. and around the world. "We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Trump declared Sunday. He canceled a rally scheduled for Monday, but planned to go forward with a speech in New Hampshire, changing the topic from his case against Clinton to national security. Clinton, who is more schooled in the political customs of responding to tragedies from her years as a senator and secretary of state, was careful in her initial comments. The presumptive Democratic nominee also made her first remarks on Twitter early Sunday, writing: "As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Like Obama, Clinton prefers to avoid early missteps even if that leaves her looking overly cautious. On Sunday, she waited for the president to declare the shooting an "act of terror" before doing the same. Clinton and Obama postponed plans to campaign together Wednesday in Wisconsin, a decision driven both by political appearances and an expectation the president would need to spend his week overseeing the government's response to the shooting. Still, Clinton planned to continue with solo campaign stops Monday in Ohio and Tuesday in Pennsylvania. Clinton didn't avoid the prospect of a link to international terrorism in her statement, though she was vague in her language. She has made stricter gun control legislation a centerpiece of her presidential campaign and was more direct in raising the shooting as an example of the nation's failure to keep guns "out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals." Federal authorities said later Sunday that Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so. Whether the tragedy in Orlando ultimately sways the trajectory of the general election campaign is unknown. If current trends hold, there will be more deadly mass shootings in the U.S. before voters head to the polls in November. Other unforeseen events will likely also shape the race over the next five months, as the 2008 economic collapse did in the closing weeks of that year's presidential campaign. But as voters begin seriously weighing Clinton and Trump as their next commander in chief, Sunday's shooting left little doubt that the choice between the two candidates is stark. (dan) ___ EDITOR'S NOTE Julie Pace has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2007. Follow her on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jpaceDC Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Judges of the Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court declared former lawmaker from the Hanura Party Dewie Yasin Limpo guilty of graft and sentenced her to six years in prison on Monday. Dewie, a former member of the House of Representatives' Commission VII overseeing energy affairs, and her staffer Bambang Wahyu Hadi were found guilty of accepting S$177,700 (US$130,985) in bribes for approving budget funding of Rp 50 billion ($3.76 million) for the establishment of a micro hydro-power plant in Deiyai regency, Papua, in 2015. Presiding Judge Masud sentenced each of Dewie and Bambang to six years' imprisonment and a Rp 200 million fine for their involvement in the graft case. The verdict was lower than the nine years' imprisonment sought by prosecutors. Dewie, sobbing upon hearing the verdict, maintained her innocence. "I am the victim. I was fired as a lawmaker and sent to prison. For the sake of the public I was detained, but I did not commit corruption. I did not cause state losses or steal people's money," she told the court as quoted by Antara news agency on Monday. Dewie and Bambang received the money from the head of Deiyai Mining Agency Irenius Adii and from Setiady Jusuf of PT Abdi Bumi Cendrawasih through Dewie's private assistant Rinelda Bandoso. Both Irenius and Setiady were sentenced to two years in prison and a Rp 50 million fine, while Rinelda was sent to prison for four years and given a Rp 200 million fine. (rin) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Agus Dermawan T. (The Jakarta Post) Ubud Mon, June 13 2016 The prominent artist behind the Young Artists art movement in Bali lived a rich life. In April Arie Smit, A Painters Life in the Tropics, a biography of the legendary artist, was published by Pictures Publishers Art Books, in the Netherlands. The 280-page book by Lucienne Smit, 63, had been meant to celebrate Aries 100th birthday on April 15 this year, but sadly, he died a few days earlier on March 23. Lucienne Smit, a fine arts master and graduate of St. Joost Academie in Breda, is Aries niece. She is the daughter of Aries younger brother, Bert Smit (1926-1998). As a fellow artist, she felt obliged to write about her uncle wholeheartedly, prompting her to make frequent visits to Bali to delve into Aries life on the Island of the Gods. After compiling notes on Aries youth in Holland and documents that recorded his creative activity during the Dutch East Indies period, the book finally appeared with a broad coverage. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 PT Transportasi Jakarta (Transjakarta) has said it will install 120 barriers to prevent private vehicles from entering bus lanes as the city administration starts to sterilize the lanes. We will develop more barriers. Some 120 barriers are under construction, said PT Transjakarta CEO Budi Kaliwono as reported by beritajakarta.com on Monday. On Monday, the city administration started to clear Transjakarta lanes of private vehicles, a policy to provide the city with emergency evacuation routes and to discourage people from driving their own private vehicles. Initially, the policy will be imposed on all 12 bus lanes across the city. Budi said the development of barriers was needed because of the limited number of field officers guarding the lanes from intruders. He said his company only had 375 officers to keep vehicles away from Transjakarta lanes. Since Monday, some 500 field officers have been deployed. The additional personnel came from the Jakarta Public Order Agency and the Jakarta Police. Due to the personnel shortages, the city administration cannot enforce its ban on private vehicles entering into Transjakarta lanes. In many areas motorists still enter the lanes to avoid traffic congestion. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Bengkulu Police chief Brig. Gen. M. Ghufron said 200 officers have been deployed to safeguard a coal mining site belonging to PT Citra Buana Selaras in Central Bengkulu following rioting on Saturday that involved locals. Nine locals suffered gunshot wounds and a police officer was wounded by a machete. "The 200 officers will be at the scene for a week to prevent unwanted incidents from repeating, Ghufron said as quoted by kompas.com on Sunday. Police are currently investigating the reasons behind the violence that broke out when locals rallied to protest the companys plans to build an underground mine. Separately, Nurdin, who leads the local protesters, insisted that the residents would continue their opposition to the project. We dont want to inherit land whose ground is porous because of underground mining. In the future, he added, the protesters would avoid getting involved in another riot. (dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Bandung Mon, June 13 2016 In another show of intolerance toward minority faiths in Indonesia, mass organizations have extorted churches in Bandung, West Java, in the process of attaining building permits. The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) recently disclosed the practice to the public. This disclosure has been followed by anonymous reports to the media due to threats made by the mass organizations. The Jakarta Post recently found the extortion practice continued and is usually experienced by churches that are applying for building permits. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login A man injured in the nightclub attack is helped by friends. Steven Fernandez (AP) More information Trump ataca a Obama y Clinton tras la masacre de Orlando Donald Trump has used the massacre at an Orlando nightclub on Sunday the worst terrorist incident in the United States since September 11, 2001 to attack President Obama and his likely rival in the November elections, Hillary Clinton. The Republican Partys presumptive nominee is accusing them of refusing to use the term radical Islam. US citizen Omar Mir Seddique Mateen opened fire on an LGBT club in Orlando, Florida, where he used an assault rifle to kill 50 people and seriously wound at least 53 others. The gunman was heard shouting Allahu Akbar before he was shot and killed by police. Mateen reportedly also called 911 during the shooting to pledge allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, although it is unclear if the shooting was actually directed by the group or only inspired by it. Trump has faced intense criticism from members of both parties for his calls to temporarily ban Muslim immigration to the United States The mass murder has fanned the flames in an already incendiary presidential race. Trump condemned the attack as horrible, saying in a statement: If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen, and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We cant afford to be politically correct anymore. The property magnate later called on Obama to step down, accusing him of being afraid to use the term radical Islam, and that Clinton should get out of this race if she wont either. Trump has faced intense criticism from members of both parties for his calls to temporarily ban Muslim immigration to the United States. In the wake of the Orlando attack, Trump again defended his proposals, saying on Twitter: What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough. The White House issued a statement on Sunday morning saying that President Obama had been updated on the attack by his security and anti-terrorism advisers. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, said Obama. Earlier Sunday, Hillary Clinton released a statement unequivocally calling the massacre an act of terror. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad. That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home. It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values, she said. She also called it an act of hate, a term Obama also used, pointing out that the attacker targeted an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month. The country needs to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals, she said without referencing radical Islam. Spains acting prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has condemned what he called a disgusting attack, adding: We will continue to work together to defend freedom against barbarism and hate. Spain is with the United States. Sign up for our newsletter EL PAIS English Edition has launched a weekly newsletter. Sign up today to receive a selection of our best stories in your inbox every Saturday morning. For full details about how to subscribe, click here. English version by Nick Lyne. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 The Jakarta administration has bogged down on clearing all Transjakarta bus lanes of private vehicles, after discovering that its policy had worsened traffic across the capital. Instead, Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama on Monday told his subordinates to only concentrate on clearing private vehicles from the lanes of Transjakarta Corridor I from Blok M in South Jakarta to Kota in North Jakarta. The sterilization is prioritized along Corridor I. We will deploy more buses there, the governor said. On Friday, Ahok told police officers to ticket intruders in the dedicated lanes of all 12 Transjakarta bus corridors across the city starting on Monday. He said private vehicles would not be allowed to use the lanes no matter what the conditions of the roads. However, Ahok has apparently come to realize that the policy had sparked even worse traffic congestion along the streets shared by Transjakarta bus lanes. I have tried to seek alternative roads to avoid traffic gridlock. The queue is very long, said a motorist, who drove a car from Pejaten in South Jakarta to Palmerah in West Jakarta. Another road user who took a Transjakarta bus from Pasar Minggu said that her bus was also affected by the worsening traffic, particularly when the bus had to pass through intersections where it had to wait in long queues of other vehicles. Ahok said on Monday that the policy to clear Transjakarta lanes of private vehicles would be enforced after the city administration deployed more buses on those corridors. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 The government will not back down from its plan to castrate child rapists despite the countrys doctors association refusing to conduct the procedure. In its official statement, the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) stated that it would refuse to implement the punishment, which has been stipulated in a regulation in lieu of law (Perppu), because it violates the countrys medical ethics. The association argued that there was no scientific proof that chemical castration could guarantee a loss or even reduction of sexual desire among perpetrators. Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo slammed the IDI for blindly emphasizing arguments surrounding the rights of rapists and forgetting the gruesome impact of [the crime on] their victims. How shall we best respond to the brutal rape case [in Bengkulu], for example? said Prasetyo. He was referring to the gang rape and murder, by 14 males including seven minors, of a 14-year-old schoolgirl in a remote village in Bengkulu earlier this year. The case eventually raised national awareness of the prevalence of sex crimes as a result of campaigns on social media. To respond to the perceived increase in sexual assaults, particularly against children, in the country, President Joko Jokowi Widodo signed Perppu No. 1/2016 on sexual violence against children last month. The Perppu included provisions stipulating more severe punishments for perpetrators, ranging from a maximum of 20 years to life in prison and the death penalty to chemical castration. While expressing sympathy for victims, human rights activists as well as the doctors association have found themselves in a dilemma regarding the idea of castration as they have cast doubt on the governments capacity to carry out the punishment, which would be used for the first time in the country. Anti-rape advocates have suggested the government replace it with a more humane punishment. The activists reiterated their stance following the IDIs rejection, highlighting that it once again proved that the decision had been made without comprehensive discussion with relevant stakeholders. There has been a lack of discussion between the government and related parties in deliberating the regulation, National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) chairwoman, Azriana said. Azriana said excluding such voices in the decision-making process had led the government to rush into issuing the controversial regulation. Opposition voices, including that of the IDI, to chemical castration would not have emerged after the President signed the regulation if the government had consulted with the medical association in the first place, Azriana said. Hence, we must respect the IDIs decision because it has scrutinized the policy from a medical perspective. Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the government respected the associations decision, but the government would press on with the penalty. We respect the IDIs decision. [The association] has the right to refuse to carry it out. We still have doctors who serve in police and military facilities, Kalla said. Meanwhile, Prasetyo warned the IDI to comply with the existing law. The Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) said the government should learn from other countries before implementing the punishment. ICJR executive director Supriyadi Widodo Eddyono cited India as an example of how such a punishment had little deterrent effect. India is unique. They impose severe punishments such as the death penalty and chemical castration for rapists. But, you can see that it has failed to reduce the number of sexual offenses in the country, he said. According to the 2014 state-run National Crime Records Bureau of India, rape cases in the country increased to 36,735 in 2014 from 33,707 the previous year. This figure has convinced the ICJR that chemical castration will not reduce sexual offenses in Indonesia. Supriyadi said the government should also consider measures to avoid allegations of human rights abuse in implementing the punishment. In Germany, Switzerland and the UK, chemical castration is only imposed with the consent of the perpetrators. Those countries use a voluntary system, which means it is done only if the perpetrators agree to it. Therefore, doctors dont need to worry, but I dont think it will happen here, he said. (wnd) __________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 Jakarta: Despite the much-touted e-commerce trend, publicly listed cell-phone retailer Erajaya Swasembada still focuses on sales through physical stores, as the online channel accounts for just 7 percent of the industrys sales. Erajaya president director Budiarto Halim said despite the booming e-commerce segment, people still preferred to buy smartphones and gadgets at physical stores, as they needed the physical experience with the gadgets before buying. Why do we still believe in the physical experience? Simply because it is still essential for buyers. They want to touch the product,see the real size of it and know how it is used and set up, he said during a public event in Jakarta on Thursday. Erajayas online sales through erafone.com and ibox.co.id contributed only a minor chunk to its total sales of Rp 4.85 trillion (US$364.6 million) in the first quarter of the year. Nevertheless, Budiarto said, the firm was continuing to develop its online channels. In the future, we want to have multiple channels. Customers can go to our physical stores, but if the products are out of stock, they can still order them online on the spot, he said. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 Jakarta: Winning the Serpong-Balaraja toll road project in March, publicly listed company Bumi Serpong Damai (BSD) now seeks to finalize a loan syndicate deal to finance the Rp 5.18 trillion (US$389.62 million) project. Bumi Serpong president director Fransiskus Xaverius Ridwan Darmali said negotiations were ongoing with numerous banks, including leading lenders Bank Mandiri and Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI). He confirmed that the amount of loans committed was around Rp 4.2 trillion. Yes, it will be around that number. We have been talking with one bank, but probably it will form a loan syndicate with other banks, he said on Friday in Jakarta. Currently, Bumi Serpong has outstanding debt of Rp 2.05 trillion from Bank Mandiri and Rp 151 billion from BRI. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 Jakarta: Publicly listed coal mining firm Golden Energy Mines is upbeat it can double net profits in 2016 to US$4 million as the company has managed to reduce costs and book more sales. Sluggish coal prices had put pressure on Golden Energys performance last year, with net profit slumping by 80.7 percent to $2.1 million. Indonesian coal exports to China, the largest coal importer from the country, plunged by 30 percent to 204 million tons in 2015, while exports to India dropped by 15 percent to 132 million tons. Golden Energy president director Fuganto Widjaja said the company had secured more than 70 percent of its sales target this year. He saw coal supply and demand in balance this year, unlike the coal oversupply amid low demand that squeezed the industry in 2015. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has officially declared the planned Patimban deep-sea port in West Java to be a national strategic project. The decision was cemented with the issuance on May 25 of Presidential Decree No. 47/2016 on the port, which was seen to have vital value for West Java to fulfill its demand for port services. Previous national strategic projects were initially listed in Presidential Degulation No. 3/2016. "It has indeed become a national strategic project," Transportation Ministry director general for sea transportation Antonius Tonny Budiono told The Jakarta Post on Monday. Its status as a national strategic project will be reflected in the planning, development, operation, technical aspects and management of the port. Related agencies and ministries are obligated to facilitate and expedite the construction process. For the future operation of the port, the Transportation Ministry can cooperate with a port company appointed through a tendering process. The ministry is currently in discussion with Japan to fund the construction of the US$3.08 billion project through a soft loan. The presidential regulation was also cited as a requirement from the Japanese government before it will disburse the loan. (dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan has expressed the governments commitment to ensuring openness and transparency in resolving human rights abuse cases in Papua. If our people [government officials] are found guilty of wrongdoing, we will also punish them, he said during a hearing at the House of Representatives in Jakarta on Monday. Currently, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and the Attorney General's Office are investigating three cases of gross human rights violations in Papua, namely the Wamena and Wasior incidents, which took place in 2001 and 2003 respectively, and the Paniai shooting in 2014, Luhut said. The minister further said the government had invited several foreign ambassadors, including those from Fiji, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and New Zealand, to witness Indonesia's efforts to resolve the cases. Luhut claimed government officials had been making a good progress in resolving the cases, adding that the government would remain open to any group who wanted to join the efforts. With the progress, Luhut said, the Indonesian government would not allow any foreign organizations or government branches to conduct independent fact-finding regarding the cases in Papua, adding that the government would take tough action if foreign entities were proven to have done so, Luhut added. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 A fire ravaged two warehouses being used to store and recycle used plastic goods, on Jl. Rawa Kepiting, Pulogadung, East Jakarta on Sunday. No fatalities were reported. The fire started at about 9:40 am at a warehouse owned by residents identified only as AR and MA. According statements from MAs workers, the fire originated from a machine that processes the used plastic goods, turning them into plastic seeds, a firefighter said as quoted by kompas.com. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Mon, June 13 2016 The Transportation Ministry will develop the Manggarai railway station in South Jakarta into a two-story building, in an effort to improve services for train passengers, an official said on Saturday. The ministrys director general of railways Prasetyo Buditjahjono said the first stage of the development would be the relocation of train parking areas from Manggarai Station to Tanah Abang and Senen stations, both in Central Jakarta. Currently, there are five parking tracks at Manggarai Station. By the end of this month, they will have been removed and then we will start construction of a two-story [station], Prasetyo said as quoted by tribunnews.com. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 It is a new era for fuel in Indonesia as more consumers begin to use higher-octane fuel, increasing the need for state-owned oil and gas giant Pertamina to adjust its supply. Indonesians have previously been dependent upon Premium brand gasoline, an 88-octane gasoline that was subsidized. But since the multi-billion dollar subsidies were scrapped in order for the funds released to be directed into infrastructure and social spending, consumers have been shifting away from Premium as its price discrepancy with higher-octane fuel has narrowed. Since the beginning of the year, demand for 92-octane Pertamax gasoline has almost doubled to 13,600 kiloliters per day in May, from 7,000 kl a day in January. Pertamax is sold at Rp 7,350 (55 US cents) per liter versus Premiums price of Rp 6,450 per liter. Pertalite, which has a research octane number (RON) of 90, has seen its consumption skyrocketing to 12,200 kl per day in May from 3,100 kl per day in January. Pertalite sells for Rp 6,900 per liter. Pertalite consumption has grown dramatically, said Pertamina spokesperson Wianda Pusponegoro, attributing the shift in fuel consumption to consumers increased awareness of the importance of higher quality fuels to maintain the health of car and motorcycle engines. Before Pertalite was introduced, Pertaminas Premium gasoline made up 92 percent of gasoline sales, followed by Pertamax at 8 percent. However, by the end of February, Premium made up only 87 percent, followed by Pertamax at 8 percent, 4 percent for Pertalite and 1 percent for Pertamax Plus. The ever-rising sales of Pertamax and Pertalite have encouraged Pertamina to continue making adjustments in order to accommodate the publics consumption. The completion of the Cilacap refinery upgrade, dubbed the Blue Sky Project, will see the conversion of the current production of 91,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) of Premium gasoline to Pertamax by the end of 2018, said Rachmad Hardadi, Pertaminas director for refineries. We inaugurated the Cilacap Blue Sky Project two weeks ago, and it will be completed in 2018. The project will convert the entire 91,000 bopd production of Premium Ron 88 to Pertamax Ron 92 in order to provide better quality fuel, he said. The increased sales of Pertamax and Pertalite also has to do with the increased number of middle class consumers as many are now able to buy better cars that need better quality fuel and cannot handle Premium gasoline, Rachmad explained. However, he emphasized there were no plans to nix Premium gasoline production any time soon since it was still the number one-selling fuel across the nation. Currently, the company is working on upgrading many of its refineries in order to achieve self-sufficiency. Upgrades until 2023 are expected to increase production to 2 million bopd in order to accommodate the demands of motorists. Furthermore, Pertamina has plans to build two more refineries between 2025 and 2030, which will increase the production to 2.6 million bopd. The Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) has called on the government to ensure sufficient supply as higher quality fuels are becoming more affordable, thus increasing demand. Indonesia still lags behind neighboring Malaysia in terms of distribution of high-octane fuel. Malaysia stopped selling gasoline with a RON of lower than 91 in 2008, which resulted in the regular consumption of RON 95 fuel. In Indonesia, the overwhelming majority of drivers still consume RON 88 gasoline for their cars and motorcycles, despite the growing popularity of higher-octane fuels. ---------------- To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Ciudadanos president Albert Rivera in Valencia. Biel Alino (EFE) Almost six months of political gridlock have taken their toll on the popularity of the leaders of Spains main parties. A new poll commissioned by EL PAIS shows that only one out of the four main party chiefs gets anything resembling a passing grade, while the others receive more negative than positive reviews from voters. Albert Rivera, the 36-year-old leader of Ciudadanos one of two new parties to emerge out of Spains post-crisis scenario attracted as much approval as disapproval, according to the survey from polling firm Metroscopia. After coming in fourth at the inconclusive general election of December 20 with 40 seats in parliament, the small liberal party is set to repeat its performance at the June 26 vote. Both Podemos and PP voters are almost equally unhappy about Socialist chief Pedro Sanchez Meanwhile, Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party (PP) and Pablo Iglesias of Podemos may be poles apart ideologically, but Spanish voters reject them in equal measure. The latest polling data shows the anti-austerity leader has a negative approval rating of -45, below the conservative candidate, who gets -40 after being Spains most impopular politician for months. Metroscopia's score rating is measured by calculating the difference between the percentages of voters who approve and those who disapprove of the main parties leaders. The polarizing strategies employed by both men have resulted in across-the-board rejection of Rajoy by Podemos voters, and unanimous opposition to Iglesias among PP supporters. This in turn has brought down their average approval rates. But while Rajoy gets a high approval rate of 79 among his own voters, Iglesias only receives a 57 from his own supporter base. Sign up for our newsletter EL PAIS English Edition has launched a weekly newsletter. Sign up today to receive a selection of our best stories in your inbox every Saturday morning. For full details about how to subscribe, click here. Meanwhile, Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez gets a -37 overall. Its worth noting that both Podemos and PP voters are almost equally unhappy about him (-68 and -67, respectively). Socialist voters return the favor by giving Iglesias a -63 and Rajoy a -86. Yet the Socialist Party, which stands to be bumped down from second to third place in the upcoming elections, will likely be faced with the prospect of reaching governing deals with either the PP in a grand coalition, or with Unidos Podemos in a leftist alliance. Only Rivera is seen positively, not just among his own voters (72) but also among supporters of the PP (15) and the Socialists (15). But Podemos followers gave him a -57. English version by Susana Urra. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Awi Setiyono said officers were questioning eyewitnesses, including security guards, about a drive-by shooting at a Lamborghini car outlet on Jl. TB Simatupang in Cilandak, South Jakarta early on Sunday morning. "We found at least three shots: One hit a pole on the left, one hit a pole on the right and another hit the glass window, said Awi as quoted by kompas.com on Monday. As a result of the shooting, the outlets window was damaged. The motive behind the shooting remains unclear as police were still studying CCTV footage and a 22-caliber bullet found at the scene to track down the suspects. The incident was reported by the outlets security guards, Abdul Wasid and Ahmad Maki. (dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 The Jakarta administration, through slaughterhouse operator PD Dharma Jaya, has ordered 270 tons of Australian beef to secure meat stocks during Ramadhan. The beef shipments will be sent to the Dharma Jaya slaughterhouse and delivered on June 14, 17, 22, 27 and 29. On Tuesday, 40 tons of frozen beef will be stored at Dharma Jayas storage facility in Cakung, East Jakarta. During the fasting month, the citys demand for frozen beef will be met by Australia. Meanwhile, another 200 tons of beef from New Zealand will be imported after Idul Fitri, Marina Ratna Dwi Kusumajati, president director of PD Dharma Jaya, told thejakartapost.com on Monday. The frozen beef will be distributed through market operations in 20 locations across the capital, with prices at Rp 78,000 (US$5.85) to Rp 89,000 per kilogram. Market operations have been conducted from June 4 and will last until July 14. Another 120 tons of imported beef will be allocated for subsidized operations for low-income families in the capital from June 27 to July 1, she said, adding that the beef would be sold for Rp 39,000 per kilogram to occupants of low-cost apartments and holders of Jakarta Smart Cards (KJPs). Meanwhile, to meet demand for fresh beef, Dharma Jaya received 800 head of cattle from East Nusa Tenggara on Sunday, Marina said. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 The Japanese Embassy announced on Monday that the Japanese government had received 265 would-be Indonesian nurses and caregivers to work in the country as part of an economic partnership between Japan and Indonesia. The batch, comprising 33 would-be nurses and 232 would-be caregivers, is the ninth batch since the partnership was forged in 2008, the embassy said in a statement. A ceremony to mark the sending of the Indonesians to Japan will be held on Tuesday, with an official from the embassy in Jakarta, Kozo Honsei, and Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers (BNP2TKI) head Nusron Wahid scheduled to witness the event. The would-be nurses and caregivers have been in a six-month Japanese language training course since December. Upon their arrival in Japan, the Indonesian workers will get another six months of Japanese language training before they are expected to start internships in their respective institutions pending their full employment. (dmr) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Margareth S. Aritonang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 The nation waits to see how President Joko Jokowi Widodo will handle the inevitable political furor over who is to take charge of the National Police. Speculation continues to circulate that Jokowi will extend the tenure of National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti, which, if carried out, will be the first time this has happened since the end of the New Order era. Such speculation has grown even stronger as Jokowis aides tasked with assessing potential candidates to succeed Badrodin have denied it in public but, behind the scenes, continued to search for input as well as legal advice from experts to justify a decision to keep Badrodin in his current post at least until next year. The public reticence displayed by Jokowi and his aides, including the National Police Commission (Kompolnas) has ignited a debate over whether it is right for Badrodin to maintain the leadership of the police after he is due for retirement. It will definitely delay regeneration within the police institution, which could cause internal rifts, said Muradi, an observer of police, defense and security matters at the Bandung-based Padjajaran University. Muradi explained that unhealthy competition as a result of conflict among elites within the police may lead to internal dissension against Badrodin, which could of course pose a threat to the countrys stability. Therefore, I dont see any reasonable arguments to justify the plan to extend Badrodins tenure. It amounts to no less than the President politicizing the institution of the police, he said. In a separate interview with The Jakarta Post, outspoken activist Haris Azhar said the dilemma over selecting Badrodins successor was rooted in the controversial figure of his deputy, Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, who is next in line for the polices top post. Haris, the coordinator of the Jakarta-based Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) explained that Budi, the former adjutant of Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) chief Megawati Soekarnoputri during her time as president, was perceived as a representative of that party. A row between the party and Jokowi broke out last year when Jokowi decided to install Badrodin, not Budi as promoted by the ruling party, due to the latters problems with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK). The KPK had named him a suspect in a bribery case, although this status was later annulled by a pretrial ruling. Im afraid that Jokowi will use the controversy surrounding Budi Gunawan in a power play with Megawati, Haris said. Regardless of whether Jokowi will decide to keep Badrodin or opt for a new candidate, the President will have to face the PDI-P if he chooses not to endorse Budi. PDI-P lawmaker and a member of House of Representatives Commission III that oversees the National Police, Masinton Pasaribu, said the ruling party supported Budi. In several interviews, Masinton argued that unlike last year, there was no longer any reason to oppose the nomination of Budi. National Police deputy chief Budi Gunawan is the right candidate to become the next chief out of all the available three-star generals because he has had the experience of leading the police alongside Badrodin Haiti, Masinton said. The two of them have created solidity in the institution, which will remain under Budis leadership. ___________________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Lawmakers have called on the Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry to develop childcare programs for children of migrant workers who are left behind while their parents work abroad. Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician Ledia Hanifa Amaliah said on Monday that the ministry should develop a community based child custodial program for the children, pointing to the design of the program to begin ahead of the 2017 fiscal year. "The government needs to develop alternative custody care for children that is different from orphanages because these parents tend to entrust their children to their relatives or even next door neighbor," Ledia said during a hearing with Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Yembise. NasDem Party politician Tri Murny said 58 percent of migrant workers were female, therefore the ministry should invest more in the protection of them and the children in their families. (dan) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Lawmakers have urged the Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry to increase its efforts to create child-friendly cities across Indonesia amid recent cases of sexual violence against children. Minister Yohana Yembise attended a hearing at the House of Representatives Commission VIII overseeing religious and social affairs on Monday regarding the ministry's budget. Nasdem politician Tri Murny questioned Yohana's ministry for not specifying the funding allocations for the development of child-friendly cities to be given to regional administrations in the ministry's 2017 draft budget. National Awakening Party (PKB) faction lawmaker Maman Imanulhaq stressed the importance of the ministrys continual support for the development of child-friendly cities. Meanwhile, Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker Ledia Hanifa Amaliah said that programs must be implemented with care, specifically those in the field of health care. She also condemned community health centers (puskemas) who had defied a Health Ministry regulation and advised parents of babies less than 1 month old to feed their children infant formula before the recommended age. "In reality, these health centers who define themselves as 'child-friendly', act in the interest of [infant formula] companies that give them funding, Ledia said in the hearing. There are several requirements for a city to be named child friendly, one of them being strategies for eradicating child abuse. (rin) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 One of largest Muslim associations in Indonesia, Mathla'ul Anwar, has said it would continue to actively contribute to the protection of plurality, law enforcement, human rights and democracy in the country. Mathla'ul Anwar chairman Ahmad Syadeli Karim said the organization was fully aware of the diversity of Islamic practices in Indonesia. Therefore, he said, Mathlaul Anwar supported the governments efforts to maintain harmony between the various faiths by giving followers of all religions equal space to observe their respective duties. "We also support the governments efforts to prevent the spread of radical movements in the country," said Ahmad after meeting with President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo at the State Palace on Monday. During the meeting, Ahmad also urged the government to take action against those who were either covertly or openly supporting communism. Referring to the Provisional Peoples Consultative Assembly (MPRS) Law XXV/1966, he said that communism was still prohibited in Indonesia. During the discussion, the Mathlaul Anwar leader also raised concerns about continuing conflicts in the Middle East. He said Mathla'ul Anwar condemned Israeli atrocities against the Palestinian people, adding that it was not merely a religious conflict, but a social conflict triggered by the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. "Mathla'ul Anwar urges the government to take action to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Given the fact that Indonesia is a country with the largest Muslim population in the world, it is also mandated by the 1945 Constitution that Indonesia must participate in eliminating occupations and maintaining world peace," he explained. Ahmad said that Mathla'ul Anwar, as one of the largest Islamic organizations in Indonesia, also wanted to reaffirm its commitment to advancing education, a strategy that could help improve the quality of life of the Indonesian people. Ahmad said his organization expected President Jokowi to undertake all necessary preparations to ensure that Indonesia was ready to face the era of free competition heralded by the beginning of the ASEAN Economic Community. "We also ask the government to prepare the infrastructure and supporting facilities we need to take advantage of our demographic bonus. Young generations should receive proper education and training, so they can take on positive roles in the development process," he said. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Former Indonesian president Megawati Soekarnoputri has signaled that she might support Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama in the capitals gubernatorial election next year. "Yes, Megawati and Ahok are close. Megawati loves Ahok," Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) secretary-general Hasto Kristiyanto said on Monday in Jakarta, adding that the party will support the current Jakarta governor to finish his work until the end of his tenure. Megawati Soekarnoputri, the current PDI-P chairwoman, has a good relationship with Ahok, despite his decision to refuse party endorsement and run as an independent, Hasto said. "PDI-P considers carefully those who want to be in the governor's post. The candidate should also have a close relationship with the president," Hasto said. (dan) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 A Muslim intellectual has voiced his concern over the Serang Public Order Agencys (Satpol PP) recent raid on an elderly womans food stall that had served customers at midday during Ramadhan. Syafii Maarif urged the authorities to change a regulation restricting some people from making a living during the fasting month. During the fasting month people should do good [] What was done by Satpol PP was not good and could not be justified, the former chairman of Islamic organization Muhammadiyah said as quoted by kompas.com on Sunday. Satpol PP personnel were seen confiscating food from the stall in Serang, Banten, on Friday after customers were sold food during the day, leaving the stall owner in tears. The footage from Kompas TV went viral on social media and led to an impromptu donation drive that collected more than Rp 80 million (US$6,000) in under 12 hours. Serang Satpol PP head Maman Lutfi told Kompas TV that the food stall was a legitimate target for the raid as it had served food during the day, adding that dozens of other stalls had been also been raided and their food impounded. (iik) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 No Indonesians are reported to have died in a nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the US, on Sunday, which claimed at least 50 lives and injured more than 50 others, the Foreign Ministry has stated. The ministrys director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and entities abroad, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal, said the Indonesian consulate in Houston was continuing to collect information, but so far there are no reports that Indonesians fell victim. The consulate will continue to monitor the development and coordinate with local authorities as well as the network of Indonesians [in the area], Lalu said on Sunday as quoted by tempo.co. At least 50 people died early Sunday when a gunman opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in the city. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. (iik) A woman weeps in Orlando after the nightclub massacre. GREGG NEWTON (AFP) More information La mayoria de las victimas del atentado de Orlando eran de origen hispano As family members huddle together and talk in front of Beardall Senior Center, one of the locations where they can go to ask about relatives whom they believe may have been involved in the Orlando shooting on Sunday morning, their words are laced with doubt: should they speak in the present or past tense about their loved ones? They oscillate between fear that their relatives are dead and hope that they have been spared. And from time to time, an intense pain takes hold: relatives emerge from the center completely distraught and numb, after officials tell them their loved one is among the dead. Police and medics meet them outside and try to console them. Orlando has a large Puerto Rican community and most of the centers staff are from the island. Authorities have identified 21 of the 50 people who died. Most of them were Latinos, aged between 20 and 50, including security guards who worked at the nightclub, pharmacy students, Universal amusement park employees and travel agents. The shooting, the deadliest massacre America has seen since the September 11 attacks, took place in the early hours of Sunday at Pulse, a popular nightclub within the gay community. Pulse was hosting Latino night on Saturday. The victims included security guards who worked at the nightclub, pharmacy students, Universal amusement park employees and travel agents Maribel Mejia, a 21-year-old woman born in the Dominican Republic who grew up in Puerto Rico and who has lived in Florida most of her life, says 10 of her friends were at the club that night. One of them was killed, she says. She does not know anything else about the others and it is eating away at her. Everything is uncertain. We are on hold. Her friend, Eric Ortiz, a 30-year-old Puerto Rican man who worked at a gift shop, was a very happy guy. He liked to go out a lot, we ate in together a lot, Mejia says in front of the center on Sunday. He was a very close friend, we spent a lot of time together and he was very happy because he had just gotten married after they passed the law in Florida [allowing same-sex marriage]. His husband was not at the club. Mejia says about 98 percent of the nearly 300 people who were at Pulse the night of the shooting were Latinos, mostly Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Venezuelans. All of her missing friends are Puerto Ricans and long-time Florida residents, including the groomsman at her wedding, a well-known Orlando stylist. Danny Concepcion, a 47-year-old Puerto Rican man, has come to ask for information about his 50-year-old cousin, who went to the club with her 22-year-old son. Orlando officials say her cousin is not on the list of the 53 wounded, which means that, though there is no official announcement yet, she is dead. She was a single mother raising two sons, a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old who lived with her, Concepcion says. She had five other children from other relationships and she was close with the son whom she accompanied to the nightclub. He was gay and she wanted to be part of his world. She never judged him, Concepcion says. The son has survived the attack but he saw his mother get shot at the club. Danny Concepcion, a 47-year-old Puerto Rican man, has come to ask for information about his 50-year-old cousin Karinas 25-year-old brother is not on the list of wounded either but she does not want to give up hope. Her brother worked at an apartment rental company. He liked music, he liked to dance, a very good person, he has a good heart. I have faith that if he is not alive, the Lord has him in his glory, that he has met Jesus and he is well in Jesus arms, and if he is alive then thank God because he gave him a new opportunity at life, she says. You keep having faith until the last moment, she continues. I am trying to prepare myself in case the news is not what I want it to be. Steve, a 35-year-old Puerto Rican man, echoes Karinas feelings. His 25-year-old brother was always happy, self-assured, hard working. Steve speaks carefully, in present tense: He likes... He liked... Im saying he likes because hes alive. And then he stops speaking. English version by Dyane Jean Francois. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Instead of establishing a new intelligence agency, the Defense Ministry should have coordinated with the existing bodies in order to prevent overlapping functions, a human rights activist has said. Currently, the country has the National Police's Security Intelligence Agency (Baintelkam), the military's Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) as well as the National Intelligence Agency (BIN). Ideally, the Defense Ministry should communicate with Indonesian Military commander Gatot Nurmantyo. Then, based on the presidents decision, they could place BAIS under the Defense Ministry, human rights watchdog Imparsial executive director Al Araf said in Jakarta on Monday. With such a move, the military commander would only control combat intelligence in the battalion and territorial intelligence, he said, adding that the government has failed to establish a clear division of work among the existing intelligence agencies. Each agency needs to work on a specific issue: law enforcement, home affairs or foreign affairs, Al Araf said. However, currently BIN and BAIS are doing the same job, including taking care of home and foreign affairs, he said. (vps/bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has given his assurances that there will be no raids on eateries and shops in the capital during Ramadhan. His statement came following a public outcry after the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) in neighboring Serang, Banten, raided a food stall belonging to middle-aged woman Saeni, who had served customers at midday during the fasting month. No shops will be closed during the fasting month, Ahok said at City Hall on Monday, stressing that the capital did not have regulations on the closure of eateries or shops during Ramadhan. Serang Satpol PP personnel raided Saenis food stall based on a regulation prohibiting eateries from serving customers during the day throughout the fasting month. Muslims are required to fast from dawn until dusk. Ahok said he hoped Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo would revoke the intolerant decree. Footage of the raid went viral on social media on Friday and led to a donation drive for Saeni, which had collected more than Rp 176 million (US$13,200) as of Sunday night. (cal) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura, Papua Mon, June 13, 2016 The Papua administration has said it will continue with programs developed in conjunction with the Participatory Monitoring by Civil Society of Land Use Planning for Low-Emission Development Strategy (ParCimon), which will expire this year. The Papua administration has always supported any program, which can provide better living standards, both directly or indirectly, such as the green development program introduced by ParCimon to the people of Papua, Papua Deputy Governor Klemen Tinal said during a joint press conference with EU Ambassador to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam Vincent Guerend in Jayapura on Monday. Tinal said his administration would sign a memorandum of understanding with local administrations at regency and municipality levels on the implementation of the green development program in their respective areas. Begun in Papua in 2013, ParCimon seeks to carry out capacity-building programs on green development for people in three regencies, namely Merauke, Jayapura and Jayawijaya. Sonya Dewi, the Indonesia country coordinator of the World Agroforestry Center, or the International Center for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), said ParCimon had cooperated to strengthen the capacity of the three regencies so that all parties there could plan, implement and monitor and evaluate green development activities, which were sustainable. The capacity building of local administrations can reduce obstacles to achieving our greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments and support our efforts to achieve low-emission development, which involve all parties, said Sonya. Guerend hoped the administrations of the three regencies could continue the ParCimon program and duplicate the program there to be implemented in other regencies. In Jayapura, Sonya said, the Low Emission Development Initiative (IPRE) task force had managed to develop eight mitigation actions to reduce emissions by up to 19.2 million tons CO2 equivalent. Under the ParCimon program, local residents in villages in the three regencies have been trained how to measure greenhouse gas emissions and to participate in green development in a concrete way. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 Twelve years after the Transjakarta bus system was inaugurated the city administration still cannot seem to find the right solution to keeping the dedicated lanes clear. The lanes being hogged by other motorists has prevented the bus system from becoming a sufficiently effective public transportation service to persuade private vehicle owners to leave their cars and motorcycles behind. In its latest effort, the administration has called on the Jakarta Police to stop allowing cars and motorcycles to enter the lanes during heavy congestion. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Severianus Endi (The Jakarta Post) Pontianak Mon, June 13 2016 The government is continuing its social welfare program targeting low-income people in a bid to empower poor families and help students from those families excel in the future. Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa said on Saturday that being poor was not an obstacle to attaining great achievements. It was for this reason that the government was there to lend a helping hand. The minister made the statement while she was in Pontianak, West Sumatra, at the weekend to hand over government financial aid for people in the lowest income bracket. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara Mon, June 13, 2016 Although Indonesias economic growth is considered good and has received international praise, President Joko Jokowi Widodo has said he often feels ashamed by electricity shortages faced by provinces across the country. When I visited various countries, many countries praised our economic growth, through which we could survive the economic downturn [that affected] almost all countries across the globe, the President said during a visit to Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), on Saturday. Some countries exhibited negative growth while others experienced very low growth, and there were countries with a decline in their economies. They praised us but I myself felt ashamed because if they knew that in our provinces the electricity supply is still on and off [they would not commend us]. Power blackouts still happen frequently due to electricity supply shortages, he said. The President was speaking at a mobile power plant (MPP) project in Jeranjang, West Lombok, NTB, on Saturday. Jokowi said electricity was a grassroots problem in Indonesia, which must be resolved as it had become a primary need in peoples lives. Electricity is needed for households that run sewing businesses, or small and medium enterprises. They need electricity to sew at night or to make snacks. Children need electricity to study at night. It will be difficult for them to work on their school assignments without electricity. This is a concrete problem faced by common people, he said. Jokowi said the government, through its 35,000 Megawatt (MW) electricity program, would continue to push the development of energy sources primarily new and renewable especially in regions with power shortages, including NTB. The construction of the MPP project with a capacity of 2 x 25 MW in Jeranjang began earlier in the year, but the ground-breaking ceremony was only officially conducted during Jokowis visit on Saturday. First Lady Iriana Widodo, state electricity firm PLNs president director Sofyan Basir, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Sudirman Said, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno and NTB Governor M. Zainul Majdi also attended the ceremony. The MPP Jeranjang is a gas-fueled power plant so it is predicted it can save around Rp 26 billion [US$1.95 million] of state funds per year, said Sofyan. The MPP Jeranjang is expected start to operating in September 2016. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram Mon, June 13 2016 President Joko Jokowi Widodo is becoming ever more determined when it comes to his plan to generate an additional 35,000 megawatts (MW) of power throughout Indonesias vast archipelago, despite claims that it is over-ambitious. However, few people knew why President Jokowi is so determined. During his visit to West Lombok regency, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), on Saturday, the President disclosed his motivation. He said that despite the countrys steady economic growth with many plaudits coming from the international community, he felt ashamed to realize that many regions in the country still had no access to electricity. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Mon, June 13 2016 The state electricity company PLN should stop its bickering with the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry over the pricing of electricity generated by micro-hydropower plants. Their spat could discourage new investment in this renewable energy that is abundantly available in Sulawesi and Sumatra. We fully support the ministrys decision to set the price of electricity from micro-hydropower plants (with a capacity of up to 10 megawatts) minimally, at the same level as the rates PLN pays other independent power producers. We think, given the multiplier impact of this renewable energy, electricity from micro-hydropower plants even deserves government subsidies to attract more investors to this sector in a concerted bid to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and cut down carbon emissions. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dimas Kuncoro Jati (The Jakarta Post) London Mon, June 13 2016 Every time we eat seafood at a waterfront restaurant there is a one-in-five chance that the fish was trawled outside of the law, according to a study by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Global losses from illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing are estimated to be 26 million metric tons of fish annually. Our government claims that national losses from IUU fishing have contributed to annual economic losses of up to a whacking US$20 billion. Indonesia itself has taken a stringent stance on IUU fishing nationally by imposing a scuttling-vessel policy for foreign vessels caught poaching in its waters. Indonesia is also fervently mobilizing its diplomatic machinery to try to convince the international community to frame IUU fishing as a transnational organized crime, such as at the 25th session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Previously, our diplomats wooed Norway, the US, Australia, Mexico, South Africa and Namibia for support. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Samudra Hutabarat (The Jakarta Post) Tilburg, The Netherlands Mon, June 13 2016 Along with the development of technology in Indonesia, the financial sector is also apparently progressing toward a more practical and modern outlook. One piece of evidence of the adjustment of the financial sector to technological developments is the emergence of peer-to-peer (P2P) lending businesses. P2P lending is the practice of lending money to individuals or businesses through online services that match lenders directly with borrowers. The lending takes place online on P2P lending companies websites using various lending platforms and credit analysis tools. The borrower and the lenders do not meet physically and are often strangers. Such businesses are growing and are having an impact on the Indonesian financial market. However, there are challenges for P2P lending companies trying to develop in Indonesia. The lack of underlying regulations can be considered one of the principal issues. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international Friends and relatives of victims of the Orlando massacre. STEVE NESIUS (REUTERS) The shooting at a nightclub in Orlando at the weekend, which left 50 dead and 53 wounded, forcefully exposes the fact that we are being faced with a new form of terror, one in which individuals under the guidance or inspiration of radical Islamic messages decide to inflict as much pain as possible on defenseless people and groups. The fact that the killing took place at a gay club also underscores that the shooter professed a hatred for a lifestyle based on tolerance for other peoples ideas and respect for individual decisions. Rejecting foreigners will not solve a problem that the worlds democratic nations will have to deal with if possible, in a coordinated manner Omar Siddique Mateen, the perpetrator who was already on the FBIs radar screen was a self-declared homophobe according to his own family. This hatred found a lethal projection in radical Islams message. As President Obama accurately said, it was an act of terror and an act of hate. It is necessary to underscore that this killing bears some resemblance to the attack in San Bernardino, California, in December of last year, when a radicalized couple opened fire against diners at a banquet, killing 14 people and injuring 21. And the ease with which it is possible to legally acquire guns in the US even military weapons eliminates one of the biggest hurdles facing individuals who are bent on causing a tragedy. Sundays was the worst ever shooting on US soil, and possibly the biggest terrorist attack in the country since 9/11. Whats more, it comes at an extremely delicate moment in domestic politics, with presidential elections right around the corner and one of the candidates, Donald Trump, reiterating the need to shut down the borders. Sign up for our newsletter EL PAIS English Edition has launched a weekly newsletter. Sign up today to receive a selection of our best stories in your inbox every Saturday morning. For full details about how to subscribe, click here. But it bears reminding that the assassin was born in the US. Just like in Europe, rejecting foreigners will not solve a problem that the worlds democratic nations will have to deal with if possible, in a coordinated manner. Inevitably, this tragedy will affect the campaign race, but at the same time it will evidence the need for the US to be led by someone trustworthy and prudent. The massacre newly demonstrates that absolutely nobody is free from the threat of radicalism. Whats more, vulnerable groups civilians at a dance club, a restaurant, the subway or an airport are the targets of choice. Under no circumstance is it possible to let ones guard down. English version by Susana Urra. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 Weekends at shopping malls, frequent visits to minimarkets, a population of over 250 million people with an emerging middle class and a domestic consumption-driven economy what is not to love about Indonesia for retailers? Foreign and domestic retailers have laid out big plans for Indonesia, the largest economy in Southeast Asia, which is ranked the worlds fifth most attractive market for retail investment in AT Kearneys 2016 Global Retail Development Index. In the previous years, it sat in the top 20. It is an exciting time to be investing in Indonesias retail sector, the report suggests. The country scores high in market size (64.3 out of a 0-100 scale) and low in country risk (38.9) even lower than top-three China, India and Malaysia. Market saturation (50.2) is okay and urgency to enter the market is quite high (68.9). The overall score of 55.6 is just less than one point behind Kazakhstan. Despite its relatively low retail sales per capita and currency volatility, Indonesias huge population and cities make it quite attractive to foreign retailers, which see untapped potential in the country and are investing heavily in new development, according to the report, which covers 30 developing countries that represent more than half of total global retail sales. This is reflected by burgeoning foreign retail investments in the country. Dubai-based Lulu opened its first hypermarket in Indonesia earlier this month with an investment plan of US$500 million, covering nine hypermarkets and a warehouse. Meanwhile, Singapores Courts, South Koreas Lotte, Sweddish IKEA and H&M have big plans for their young Indonesian operations. Indonesia is identified as a growth market for Courts, Courts Indonesia CEO Roy Santoso told The Jakarta Post, noting that the company has seen its sales growth double since it opened in 2014. The company will be opening four stores by March next year to add to its existing five. Home-grown convenience stores Indomaret and Alfamart have also shown aggressive expansion moves. Indomaret plans to open 1,600 new outlets this year, adding to its existing 12,210 stores, and Alfamart is shooting for six-fold sales growth this year, driven by upgraded online features. The governments recent move to fully open up the e-commerce industry to foreign ownership as long as the business value is more than Rp 100 billion (US$ 7.49 million) is making the retail sector more attractive. Local retailers Matahari and Mitra Adi Perkasa have launched electronic malls, enabling consumers to shop online. The grocers Happy Fresh and Alfamart are also expanding their online presence. E-commerce transactions are expected to reach $24.6 billion this year, three times more than what was recorded in 2013, the Indonesian E-commerce Association (idEA) expressed. Devi Megawati, a 31-year-old housewife from Serpong, Banten, said the presence of online shops enticed her to scroll through the pages almost every day and led her to engage in impulsive shopping. The experience is notably different from the old days before e-commerce when it required time and physical effort to buy things. An emerging middle class, better purchasing power and declining unemployment in recent years are the main reasons behind this increased appetite for shopping, and this has led to a retail investment spike in Indonesia, said Danareksa Sekuritas analyst Lucky Bayu Purnomo. May Risti, 19, just started working as a janitor this year, and this means she can afford to spend more money. I go to Ramayana [clothing department store] frequently and buy my daily needs at the Indomaret near my house, she said. ___________________________________ To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Human rights watchdogs criticized Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu on Monday for making polies based on conjecture, particularly a policy against the possible revival of communism. The defense minister responded to conjecture on the revival of communism by issuing a policy that could lead to conflict, said Puri Kencana Putri, the deputy coordinator for strategy and mobilization of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), in Jakarta on Monday. Puri was referring to a program recently introduced by the defense minister and the Indonesian Military (TNI) offering quasi-military training to thugs and vigilantes in Bali. Al Araf, human rights watchdog Imparsial executive director, said the military should not have introduced such a policy because it was out of its domain. The 2004 TNI Law stipulates that the military is a state defense instrument in times of war. The military is indeed allowed to be involved in non-war matters, but that requires a presidential decree, said Al Araf. Meanwhile, executive director of the Institute for Defense and Security Studies (IDSS) Mufti Makarim said Ryamizards recent announcement on a plan for the Defense Ministry to establish its own intelligence agency would not be effective because the Indonesian Military had the Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS). (vps/bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ben Fox and Mitch Weiss (Associated Press) Fort Pierce, Fla., United States Mon, June 13, 2016 He was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and who at one point expressed interest in becoming a police officer, though he never pursued it. Early Sunday, 29-year-old Omar Mateen gunned down 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, police said. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. Mateen attended evening prayer services at the city's Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Iman Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. "When he finished prayer he would just leave," Rahman told The Associated Press. "He would not socialize with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful." Mateen opened fire early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, killing 50 people and wounding more than 50 others before he was gunned down during an exchange of fire with SWAT team members, authorities said. They say Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a call to 911 on the morning of the shooting. Rahman doesn't think the attack was political or due to anti-American sentiment, though. He said it was more likely the result of psychological issues Mateen may have had. "My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with ISIS," he said. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesman who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. "It's shocking," he said about the shooting. "I don't think it has anything to do with ISIS. [Omar Mateen's] father loves this country." Some of Seddique Mir Mateen's shows were taped and later posted on YouTube. During one episode, a sign in the background read: "Long live the U.S.A! Long live Afghanistan. ... Afghans are the best friends to the U.S.A." But a former Afghan official said the "Durand Jirga Show" appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel that supports ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban, which are mostly Pashtun. Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nation's minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said. The "Durand Jirga Show" expresses support for the Taliban, has an anti-Pakistan slant, complains about foreigners in Afghanistan and criticizes US actions there, the official said. Seddique Mir Mateen lavished praise on current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he appeared on the show in January 2014, but he has since denounced the Ghani government, according to the official, who said that on Saturday, Seddique Mateen appeared on the show dressed in military fatigues and used his program to criticize the current Afghan government. He also announced on that show that he would run in the next Afghan presidential election, said the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be linked to coverage of the shooting. Omar Mateen had no criminal record, but his ex-wife told The Washington Post that he beat her repeatedly while they were married. The woman, whom the Post did not identify, said she had met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and decided to move to Florida and marry him. She said at first the marriage was normal, but then he became abusive, and the couple were only together for a few months. Records show that Mateen married Sitora Yusufiy of Port St. Lucie in 2009, but they were divorced two years later. The ex-wife also said the Omar Mateen she knew was not very religious and gave no signs of radical Islam. She said he owned a small-caliber handgun. Mateen was a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as "the leading global integrated security company." Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The law enforcement official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The shooter in 2013 made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and Mateen was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and at one point wanted to become a police officer but never pursued it, the iman said. He was also into body building. He was not, as far as the iman could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence. The shooting "was totally unexpected," Rahman said. ___ Weiss reported from Charlotte, North Carolina. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hotli Simanjuntak (The Jakarta Post) Aceh/Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 A boat carrying 40 ethnic Tamils from Sri Lanka has returned to Aceh to ask for more fuel so that they can continue their journey to Australia. The group, which includes one pregnant woman, returned to Lhoknga waters in Aceh Besar regency on Monday, after departing the previous day. The vessel was first stranded off the coast of Aceh on Saturday morning when their boat suffered damage. They embarked on Sunday morning after local authorities helped repair the boats engine, gave them food supplies and 1 ton of fuel to help them reach their destination, local authorities have said. However, they returned on Monday asking for 6 tons of fuel, as they feared 1 ton would be insufficient. There are no details yet on whether they will continue sailing and if so when. The Geutanyoe Foundation, an Aceh-based organization providing humanitarian assistance urged for medical assistance and full protection to be given to the group, said Lilianne Fan, the foundations international director. "We hope that the Tamil asylum seekers will be shown the same humanity and granted the protection they deserve by the people and governments of Aceh and Indonesia," Fan said in a press statement on Monday referring to the widely praised humanitarian aid given by the Acehnese to Rohingya refugees and Bangladeshi nationals who were previously stranded in the westernmost province of Indonesia. (rin) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin A. Kurniawan Ulung (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 Facing the camera, 22 female survivors of the 1965 tragedy still could not hide the traces of their decades-old grief when photographer Adrian Mulya instructed them to pose for his photo essay book Pemenang Kehidupan (The Winner of Life). Finding a tiny piece of his bone will make me happy, housewife Sri Muhayati, 74, said of her father Muhadi, an Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) member and a Yogyakarta Legislative Council lawmaker. Muhayatis father and 21 colleagues were reportedly taken by military personnel by truck into a jungle. They were shot dead by a coconut tree near a hole into which their corpses fell. The executions took place shortly after an alleged coup attempt by the PKI that left six Army generals and one lieutenant dead. Adrian met Muhayati in October last year and said that through his new photography book he wants to share the stories of her and another 21 female survivors of the 1965 tragedy. For me, they [the 22 survivors] are the winners of life. Therefore, for my book, I want them to appear as good as possible. I want them to show their best poses, he said on Saturday during the launch of this, his second book, in the third ASEAN Literary Festival at the Taman Ismail Marzuki cultural center in Cikini, Central Jakarta. For the book, he teamed up with writer Lilik H. Setyowatiningsih, his friend of more than 16 years. He chose her because she had a similar interest in making a book about Gerakan Wanita Indonesia (Gerwani), a womens organization associated with the PKI. Adrian said he did not find it difficult to ask Muhayati to become a model for his book because they had known each other for a long time. When the 1965 tragedy happened, Muhayati was a medical student in Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. In November of that year, military personnel raided her home, saying that they wanted to look for weapons. They then found a notebook that she used for her physics course. They arrested her after finding letters PR, which they said was the acronym for PKIs youth arm Pemuda Rakyat, in the book. She tried to clarify that PR stood for Punctum Remotum, which is a medical phrase, but they did not believe her and dumped her into the Bulu Prison in Semarang, Central Java, for five years. After she was let free, she dropped out of college. Like Murharyati, housewife Sumini was still a student when she was arrested in 1965. She studied in a campus owned by the PKI, the Institute of Agriculture and Farmers Movement, in Bogor, West Java. On Oct. 8, at midnight, police and the members of the Pemuda Pancasila youth organization raided her home. They beat her until she fainted. After she woke up, they tortured her. I was accused of being a Gerwani member who gouged out the eyeballs out of the generals, said Sumini, who was released on Feb. 23, 1971, during a national symposium on the 1965 tragedy in April in Jakarta. In October 1965, teacher Utati, 72, was fired from her school. Two years later, in February, a number of military personnel surrounded her home at midnight under a heavy rain. Without trial, they incarcerated her in the now-closed Bukit Duri Prison in South Jakarta. They not only bombarded her with questions about her alleged involvement in the tragedy, but also beat and stripped her naked. In her cell, to kill the time, she wrote some songs, namely Buruh Wanita (Women-Labors), Indonesia Jaya (Great Indonesia), Ibu (Mother) and Relakan (Let It Go). After walking free in 1978, Utati moved to a small alley in Depok, West Java, with her two children. At least, I have tried to reach my dream of becoming a teacher, she said, as quoted from the book. Unlike other survivors, artist Ni Made Murjiwati, 74, was never jailed. However, when she went to China she could not return home because the government revoked her passport because of her status as an Indonesian who was allegedly involved in the 1965 tragedy. Murjiwatis sad story began in 1963, when her fellows from Pemuda Rakyat challenged her to give Balinese souvenirs to then-president Sukarno. She took the challenge. At the Bali governors office, she broke through the members of the presidential security team and ran to the main stage where Sukarno stood with then Chinese president Liu Shaoqi and then Czechoslovakian president Antonin Novotny. I was so nervous. I was not brave enough to look at his face. I just saw his teeth, handkerchief and cap. My hand quivered, she said, as quoted in the book. In her village, all people praised her courage and to express her happiness, she did not change her white shirt for days. Due to her action, she was to represent Indonesian youth at the celebration of Chinas Independence Day and on Sept. 27, 1965, at 5 a.m., her aircraft took off for China. She never imagined that she would not be able to go home after the Sept. 30 tragedy because her passport was declared invalid. In 1974, she moved to Germany and she gave up her Indonesian citizenship to become a German citizen. In 1996, she returned to Indonesia for the first time. Although the book comprises 22 stories, Adrian met with 40 female survivors across the archipelago. He said that while making the book, some of the survivors passed away and he did not have sufficient data about them. Therefore, he did not display their profiles. Five women already passed away, he said. Adrian needed seven years to complete the book. He said he met with challenges to find the survivors. However, he was helped by many parties, including author Fransisca Ria Susanto, whose book, Kembang-Kembang Genjer, inspired him to make Pemenang Kehidupan. In 2007, he met a former member of Gerwani for the first time. He was touched by her life. He was then more interested in searching for the truth about the tragedy because the film Pemberontakan G30S PKI (G30S/PKI Mutiny), which he watched when he was little, created the impression that Gerwani members were cruel. I made the book to counter that film, he said. Adrian then found other survivors in one place or another. As time went by, they treated him like their own grandson. Sometimes, he brought them to watch movies together. When Idul Fitri and Christmas came, he gave them cookies. When he told them that he wanted to make the book, they did not directly agree. Why do you want to photograph us? Adrian said, imitating their questioning. If this life is an examination, for me, you [the survivors] have reached the level of professors, he said, repeating his answer to them. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 Callistasia Wijaya While Jakarta celebrates its 489th anniversary on Sunday, Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama has admitted that he has not managed to solve two big problems facing the city: traffic congestion and the inept city bureaucracy. We havent succeeded in solving the traffic gridlock and inept bureaucracy, said the governor at City Hall on Monday. He cited as an example the poor performance of land acquisitions due to what he called the land mafia, allegedly involving civil servants working in the city administration. The governor said he could not blame certain people because he did not have enough evidence to take action. He also said the worsening traffic in many parts of the city was partly caused by the construction of many major projects including the MRT, the Semanggi Interchange and the LRT. He said that expelling private vehicles from Transjakarta lanes had also contributed to the worsening traffic congestion, but that he would go ahead with the policy to help encourage motorists to switch to public transportation. He promised to deploy more buses along the 12 busway corridors to improve the services of the city-owned public transportation system. On land acquisition, Ahok particularly blamed the head of the city parks and cemetery agency Ratna Diah Kurniati and her failure to do her job. In response, Ratna said the agency was in the process of acquiring 137 plots of land. We are discussing the prices with land owners in 25 locations and we will carry out the purchases of the land this week, Ratna said at City Hall on Monday. (bbn) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13 2016 Two-wheeler manufacturer PT TVS Motor Company Indonesia, the local arm of Indian automotive giant TVS Motor Company, will depend heavily this year on exports of its products as it struggles to expand its market base in Southeast Asias largest economy. TVSs 20-hectare production facility in Karawang, West Java, can manufacture up to 300,000 motorcycle units annually. Apart from marketing its products in Indonesia, the company also ships them to other ASEAN countries, like Philippines and Myanmar, and a number of African countries, including Nigeria and Burkina Faso. TVS Indonesia marketing manager Rizal Rizkiawan Tandju said the company, for this year, would still focus on producing export-oriented products rather than increase production for the domestic market. This year, the target for overseas sales is to sell around 20,000 motorcycle units, while domestically its about 10,000, Rizal said on Friday evening in Jakarta. From April 2015 to March 2016, TVS Indonesia sold 17,130 motorcycle units, 88 percent of which were exported. The figure, however, was down by 26.7 percent, from the 23,388 units sold during April 2014 to March 2015, mainly as a result of the global economic slowdown. The companys domestic sales target of 10,000, however, seems to be too ambitious as it only sold 1,500 motorcycles during the first five months of 2016. The struggle reflects the continuing plunge in national motorcycle sales. The latest data from the Indonesian Motorcycle Industry Association (AISI) showed that domestic motorcycle sales stood at 2.44 million from January to May this year, down by 5.79 percent compared to that in the corresponding period last year. In order to achieve the target, TVS Indonesia is pinning its hopes on its newly launched product, the Apache RTR 200, and an intensified marketing effort, said TVS Indonesia president director V. Thiyagarajan. The Apache has a strong engine with a cheap price for such quality, around Rp 24.5 million [US$1,800]. We believe that it will be well received by the Indonesian market, he said. The company will also use the 2016 Jakarta Fair, which runs from June 10 to July 17, as a promotion stage for the Apache and its other products, including the Maxx, Dazz and THS Bike. Thiyagarajan hopes that the event, which was previously known as Pekan Raya Jakarta, will attract around 300 customers to buy TVS products. Such aggressive promotion efforts are also expected to help the company avoid the same fate as its Indian counterpart PT Bajaj Auto Indonesia. In 2013, on the back of continuous sluggish sales, Bajaj decided to close its business in Indonesia and hand over the right to sell its popular Bajaj Pulsar 200NS to PT Kawasaki Motor Indonesia. Established in 1978, the Chennai-based TVS entered the Indonesian market in 2007 with its Karawang plant. In addition to motorcycles, it also produces the blue-colored gas-fueled bajaj (three-wheeled taxi) that operates in the Greater Jakarta area. (adt) ---------------- To receive comprehensive and earlier access to The Jakarta Post print edition, please subscribe to our epaper through iOS' iTunes, Android's Google Play, Blackberry World or Microsoft's Windows Store. Subscription includes free daily editions of The Nation, The Star Malaysia, the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Asia News. to Read Full Story SUBSCRIBE NOW Starting from IDR 55,500/month Unlimited access to our web and app content e-Post daily digital newspaper No advertisements, no interruptions Privileged access to our events and programs Subscription to our newsletters We accept Register to read 3 premium articles for free Already subscribed? login Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Liza Yosephine (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 The Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry has been blasted by the House of Representatives for performing poorly in the first half of the year. Maman Imanulhaq, a National Awakening Party (PKB) lawmaker, criticized the ministry's lack of focus in setting program priorities and urged the ministry to meet its responsibilities as a coordinating body, since it was not meant to be technical in nature. "Very limited funds and too many programs is counterproductive," the lawmaker said during a hearing between the House and the ministry on Monday, adding that the ministry must focus on its duties in making analysis and organize discussions on its grand design of strategies within its field. During a budget hearing with House Commission VIII, which oversees religious and social affairs, lawmakers said the ministry had not maximized its allocated budget for 2016 as it had used less than 6 percent of it as of May. Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Minister Yohana Yembise said the ministry had used Rp 39 billion of the Rp 769 billion allocated for 2016. Commission deputy chairperson Iskan Qolba Lubis, a Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) lawmaker, said the ministry should fully avail of its budget to optimize its performance. (dan) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dennis Atienza Maliwanag (Inquirer.net/ANN) Mon, June 13, 2016 Facebook has placed the Philippines virtually on war footing, but the social media giant says it was all a mistake. Happy Independence Day! said Facebook in a greeting Sunday as the country celebrated its 118th anniversary of the proclamation of independence. But the graphic message posted on the newsfeed of Filipino Facebook users had the Philippine flag shown upside-down, wrongfully signifying the country was in a state of war. This was unintentional, and were sorry, Facebook said about the error that ignited pointed commentaries in a still politically polarized country. We care deeply about the community in the Philippines and, in an attempt to connect people on Independence Day, we made a mistake, its spokesperson said in a statement sent to the media. The Philippines has about 51 million active Facebook users. It was not the first time the Philippine flag was displayed wrongly. In June 2015, Filipino sprinters Eric Shawn and Kayla Richardson gained national attention not only for bagging gold at the Southeast Asian Games but also for wearing a uniform with an inverted Philippine flag. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin John Liu (The China Post/ANN) Taipei Mon, June 13, 2016 Despite the new southbound policy outlined by President Tsai Ing-wen to put greater emphasis on trade with Southeast Asian countries, China remains a critical trade partner, said Francis Liang, chairman of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA). Liang made the comment on June 10 during a Taiwan Trade Fair press event held in Chinas autonomous region, Inner Mongolia. A total of 43 Taiwan Trade Fairs have been held in China, attracting 10.6 million visitors and creating US$1.58 million worth of business opportunities, Liang said in his opening address. Since the new government was sworn in on May 20, where Tsai will take Taiwan is a pressing question, as China-Taiwans largest export destination - is seldom keen on seeing the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party take power. Asked by the media if TAITRA has experienced any interruptions to its events in China in the wake of heightened cross-strait tensions, Liang said since the dates of this years trade fairs were decided last year, they will proceed as planned. Three more Taiwan Trade Fairs will be held in China before the end of the year - in Jilin, Guangzhou and Nanjing. Southbound policy complements the Chinese market While some believe Tsais southbound policy aims to find new destinations for Taiwans exports, Liang stressed that the policy does not conflict with Taiwans market expansion efforts in China; but rather, complement the Chinese market. TAITRA puts equal focus on three markets: the Chinese market, the emerging market (Southeast Asia and South Asia) and the mature market (Europe, the US and Japan), Liang said, adding that the end goal is to beef up Taiwans economy. Both China and Southeast Asian countries are important, with the former receiving 40 percent of all Taiwanese exports, the TAITRA chairman noted. The southbound policy is also not something completely new. Taiwanese firms have long shown interest in conducting business in Southeast Asia and South Asia territories. To help exporters, TAITRA recently set up three offices in India to promote Taiwanese products. SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS 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 Google Ad 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 UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS 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 Google Ad The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET 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 Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building 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 Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Frances Mangosing (Inquirer.net/ANN) Mon, June 13, 2016 A group of mostly Filipino protesters sailed to Philippine-claimed Scarborough Shoal (Panatag Shoal) in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) on Sunday, Independence Day, but Chinese vessels tried to stop them. The group of 15 Filipinos and one American sailed to the shoal from Zambales on Saturday afternoon and arrived Sunday morning using a fishing boat. They wanted to protest Chinas claims over the shoal, said lawyer Joy-Ban-eg, co-convenor of the group of Kalayaan Atin Ito. Kalayaan Atin Ito was the same group that sailed to Pag-asa Island (Thitu) in the South China Sea in December last year. Ban-eg said that since then they had joined the international group Sea Access by International Law (SAIL), which promotes legal and peaceful resolution of maritime disputes worldwide. The American who joined the trip was a member of the international group. The plans of Faeldon did not push through after President Benigno Aquino III told him to abort his plans because of ongoing negotiations. When they arrived at the shoal at about 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, Chinese vessels two speedboats and three Coast Guard ships tried to stop them. By 11 a.m., five of the members, including Ban-eg, decided to swim to reach the entrance of the lagoon, where the planned to raise the Philippine flag. The Chinese kept stopping them. They were not able to raise the Philippine flag in the lagoon as planned but two of the members were able to reach the entrance and wave a flaglet. By noontime, the group decided to return to the mainland. Chinese Coast Guard escorted them out of the shoal. Scarborough is 124 nautical miles off the coast off Zambales, well within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone. It has been a site of a standoff between the Philippines and China in 2012. The Philippines is pursuing a case to challenge Chinas aggressive claims to most of the South China Sea and is anticipating a decision from the arbitration tribunal in The Hague. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, June 13, 2016 The government will draw up an outline of Indonesias stance on South China Sea disputes in anticipation of the upcoming verdict of a Philippines-China arbitration court hearing looking at the dispute, a senior minister has said. President [Joko Jokowi Widodo] has urged us to formulate our stance on the South China Sea so that all state officials have the same answers [in response to queries on the disputes], said Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan after meeting with Jokowi at the State Palace in Jakarta on Monday. The minister further said all related ministries were set to hold a meeting to formulate the governments stance, which could be hopefully be completed on Tuesday. There will be a meeting tomorrow. I hope we can finalize our stance in the meeting because we already have the draft, Luhut said. ASEAN is scheduled to conduct a special meeting with China from June 13 to 14 ahead of the upcoming verdict on the South China Sea dispute between the Philippines and China at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague. Earlier, the Foreign Ministry's ASEAN dialog partner and inter-regional cooperation director Derry Aman said as a non-claimant country, Indonesia had continued to stress the importance of all parties involved in the dispute to restrain themselves and maintain peace and security in the region. Indonesia, he continued, had also continued to push for the full and effective implementation of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which included an ongoing draft code of conduct. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Matthew Pennington (Associated Press) Washington Mon, June 13, 2016 A case brought by US ally the Philippines against China represents a diplomatic dilemma for far-flung nations as Washington and Beijing rally support for their respective positions on the use of international arbitration in South China Sea disputes. The United States has been building diplomatic pressure in the West and in Asia on China to abide by the Hague-based tribunal's decision, which is expected soon. China, which maintains it won't be bound by the ruling, has been pushing back by building support from nations mostly in Africa and the Mideast. The US is not a party to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, under which the tribunal has been constituted, but says it wants China to play by international rules. Since there is no enforcement mechanism for the ruling, any impact will depend on how the international community reacts. Here's a look at where dozens of countries stand: ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS ASEAN has been trying for years to achieve diplomatic solutions in the South China Sea, making little progress and exposing divisions in the 10-member bloc, which includes the Philippines. Reaching consensus on the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling will be tough. When President Barack Obama met ASEAN leaders in February they agreed on "full respect for legal and diplomatic processes" in accordance with the UN convention, but pro-China members Cambodia and Laos nixed any mention of "arbitration." Vietnam, which has fought China over competing South China Sea claims, has been most supportive of the Philippines' case and submitted a statement to the tribunal. Hanoi has said it supports "full compliance" to the procedures of the convention. But other ASEAN nations are generally wary of speaking out for fear of alienating China, the region's economic heavyweight. Malaysia and Brunei have said little about the case, though they too are South China Sea claimants. Indonesia and Singapore are not claimants but have been a bit more outspoken. Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said last week that the ruling could have implications beyond the South China Sea and "we cannot subscribe to the principle that might is right." Indonesia's Foreign Ministry declined to say whether the ruling should be binding on both sides but said international law must be respected. Even the Philippines' position is unpredictable as a new government takes office there June 30. President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has expressed willingness to restart bilateral negotiations with China. RUSSIA Moscow, which shares China's suspicion of Washington, is Beijing's most prominent supporter on the issue. On a visit to China in April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia is against any interference from outside parties in the South China Sea a reference to the US "or any attempts to internationalize these disputes." Like China, Russia says disputes should be resolved through talks between the parties directly involved. CHINA SUPPORTERS IN AFRICA, MIDEAST China's state news agency Xinhua on May 20 said that more than 40 countries have expressed support for China's stance on the arbitration case. The Foreign Ministry has in recent weeks given prominent mention to support it claims to have from nations principally in Africa, the Mideast and Central Asia. But few of those foreign governments have issued statements independently. Some, including Cambodia, Laos and Fiji, have disavowed China's description of their position. Experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said they could confirm official statements from Afghanistan, Gambia, Niger, Sudan and Vanuatu. A Chinese statement with the 21-member Arab League supported China but it was unclear if it represented all the parties' official positions. EUROPEAN UNION and G-7 The EU has urged all South China Sea claimants to resolve disputes through peaceful means and "pursue them in accordance with international law," including the UN convention. The Group of Seven wealthy nations, which comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the US and the EU, has called on all states to fully implement decisions binding on them in courts and tribunals provided under the convention. In June, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian proposed that European navies coordinate patrols in Asian waters to reinforce a rules-based maritime order. He warned that if the laws of the sea are not respected in that region, they could also be challenged in the Arctic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea. AUSTRALIA In January, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the China-Philippines ruling will be "extremely important" as a statement of international principle and will "settle once and for all" whether artificial reefs are entitled to territorial waters. But Australia has been less outspoken in support of arbitration than the US, perhaps mindful of Australia's own resistance to arbitration to resolve its disputed maritime border with tiny East Timor. INDIA India has not issued a categorical position on arbitration case, but has been broadly supportive of the application of international law. India shares US concerns about Beijing's rising ambitions in the seas of Asia. India's External Affairs Ministry says that "all countries must abide by international law and norms on maritime issues." India set an example in 2014 when it accepted a decision by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration that ruled in favor of Bangladesh in a dispute over the countries' maritime boundary. JAPAN Japan was an early supporter of the Philippines' pursuit of arbitration and says both China and the Philippines should abide by the outcome. Japan sees that as upholding international law, but it also reflects concern that historic rival China seeks strategic control of vital sea lanes in the South China Sea that carry 80 percent of Japan's crude oil imports. Japan's support of third-party dispute resolution is not universal. While it has sought to take its dispute with South Korea over the South Korean-held Dokdo or Takeshima islands to the International Court of Justice, it says no such action is needed in its dispute with China over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, which are administered by Japan. SOUTH KOREA Like Japan, South Korea is heavily dependent on fuel imports that pass through the South China Sea, but it has closer ties with China and has been less inclined to speak out. The Foreign Ministry says South China Sea disputes should be resolved under internationally established regulations and that it is "looking with interest" at the Philippine-China arbitration case. TAIWAN Taiwan has complained that the tribunal has not solicited its views. While Taipei officially exercises the same nine-dash line claim as Beijing in the South China Sea, it is primarily concerned about Taiping island in the Spratlys. Taiwan administers that remote land feature and is concerned it could be designated as a rock without the rights granted to islands. ____ Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing, Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo contributed to this report. New evidence emerged over the weekend that a senior official in the de Blasio administration knew of the Rivington House deal long before the mayors office has previously admitted. In November of last year, the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) lifted deed restrictions on the former nursing home building. The property was then sold the luxury condo developers for $116 million. Now the New York Times has obtained two memos that show a top official in the de Blasio administration was apprised on the progress in removing the restrictions in the middle of 2015 suggesting involvement and coordination by close advisers (to de Blasio) months earlier than the administration has acknowledged. The first memo was written on May 5, 2015 by then DCAS Commissioner Stacey Cumberbatch to Anthony Shorris, first deputy mayor. It referred to Joel Landau, a principal of the Allure Group. His company purchased the property for $28 million in February of 2015. Allure agreed to pay $16 million to remove restrictions requiring the building to be operated as a not-for-profit community health care facility. Cumberbatch stated: Landau seeks to remove the restrictions but intends to use the property as a for-profit nursing home The next step is a public hearing prior to requesting a mayoral authorization document. The second memo, sent to Shorris in July, explained: DCAS is proceeding to remove two use restrictions that were imposed when the Rivington House property was sold by the city in 1992. (The department) expects to have a formalized deed modification approved by the Law Department in July. The Times also referenced a third memo written by Cumberbatchs chief of staff, Sally Renfro, on Sept. 2, 2014. She told DCASs general counsel, It looks like there is movement on the Rivington House issue. Renfro indicated that a staff member from DM Shorriss office called to ask if there are any other steps required to remove the deed restriction on Rivington House At that time, Rivington House was owned by VillageCare, which balked at paying the $16 million fee. Heres why the new revelations are significant. Back in April, the mayors office said that Shorris didnt know about the deal until after the sale had been completed (in February of this year). The mayor insisted he wasnt personally aware of the situation until the story hit the mainstream media the following month. So either the administration didnt know what it knew or theres a coverup. Previously, the Wall Street Journal reported that Avi Fink, a senior de Blasio adviser, met with Allure about the deed change in December of 2014. In a separate story, the Post reported that Emma Wolfe, another top aide, was briefed on the Rivington House situation in January of 2015. The mayors new press secretary, Eric Phillips, declined to address the Shorris emails when contacted by the Times. Our responsibility to protect the integrity of ongoing reviews prevents us from commenting on this, he said. There are three ongoing investigations of the Rivington House matter. One other related note. Heres an anonymous letter we received a few days ago: Cumberbatch was reassigned to a position at NYC Health + Hospitals in January of this year. As the letter notes, she was replaced by Lisette Camilo, who played a role in the Rivington House deal in her previous assignment. Well be looking into these new angles in the days ahead. Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan are telling a lie: action (video) The international community should know that the hostilities on April 2 were unleashed by Azerbaijan. Meeting in Vienna on May 16 showed that Armenia hasnt presented any proof to the international organizations of the fact that Azerbaijan initiated this war. It is the aggressor and not everything is clear for the international community on that issue. We have decided to act ourselves at the civic initiative, said member of the initiative Andrias Ghukasyan. Rise up, Armenia initiative has obtained a video, which will be disseminated by all possible means. The action participants marched from the Liberty Square to the UNO Yerevan office in order to hand over the video and the letter. Ilham Aliyev is telling a lie by saying that Armenia attacked on April 2. And we can see that Serzh Sargsyan is also telling a lie, by saying that the consequences of the war arent of strategic importance, added Andrias Ghukasyan. Representative of the UNO office Christoph Bierwirth attentively listened to the members of the initiative and promised them to send the video and the letter to the central office of the UNO. Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan are telling a lie: action Every day from 09:00 to 18:00 the members of the initiative will gather outside the UNO office, until there is an official response. I will die of hunger, but wont send my child to boarding school again (video) This summer differs from the previous ones for 10-year-old Artyom. The pupil of Gyumri 1 Child Care and Protection Boarding School returned to his family. Five years ago, mother of the child sent him to the boarding institution because of bad social conditions. I lived in a domik belonging to my distant relative. The conditions were awful. After wrist fracture I wasnt able to work and I sent my child to the boarding institution. The child didnt want to go to boarding institution, he always told me to take him back. I told him to wait. The boarding institution didnt return the child, saying that I had neither a house, nor a job, tells Artyoms mother, Hayarpi Hovhannisyan, who takes care of her two children without the husband. Her daughter, Emily, is 2. Hayarpi hasnt found a job, but her son returned to the family with the support of Shirak center NGO and Tereza Mkhitaryan, who lives in Switzerland. They bought a flat for the family in Mush-2 district. The woman says that during these years the main aid came from Shirak center, which provided firewood and food. I happily live with my children after that hell. I should only find a job. Shirak center again supports me in this issue, and I am attending training courses, tells the 30-year-old woman. In reply to the question whether the state didnt aid her during these years, the woman answers, I turned to the Municipality, which told me to go and rent a flat. If I rented a flat, I would bring my child back. Whats more, the state would tell you that if you took your child, you wouldnt be able to bring him back again. I was told those words in the Municipality. I told them that instead of aiding me, they want me to send my child there again. They want the children to stay at the boarding institution, I was told so. But I replied that I will die of hunger, but wont send my child to boarding school again. Starting from September, 10-year-old Artyom will attend secondary school. I am happy that I shall go to new school. I am very happy that I left the boarding school, he said. Artyom is sure that he will learn well. He dreams of becoming a famous boxer. Vahan Tumasyan, Head of Shirak center NGO, highlights that they helped this family, as mother agreed to return her son to the family. We are trying to support the families, which are ready to keep their children and agree to take their children from the boarding school and send to the secondary school. We gave the flat on this condition, so that she can go and take her child from that institution, he said. Vahan Tumasyan recalls that at the beginning the leadership of the center didnt agree to give the child, At the beginning Hayarpi was told that she lived in a domik belonging to another person. When a flat was given, other obstacles arose. I spoke to the director and he couldnt but agree. Artyom will not only attend a secondary school, but will also attend day care center for the homeless families. That center has the best facilities and I think it is the best day care center in Armenia, he said. Tereza Mkhitaryan adds, We have found a patron for that family, and every month money will be transferred to them. Stable income is very important for the family so that it can meet its needs. Photos from Facebook page of Tereza Mkhitaryan President Barack Obama has branded the Florida nightclub massacre the deadliest mass shooting in the US in recent years, an act of terror and an act of hate. He has urged Americans to decide whether this is the kind of country we want to be. Despite continuously calling for tighter gun controls, he has so far been unable to get Congress to pass stricter laws. Small steps have been taken, such as expanding background checks for weapons purchases; but incidents like this prove more needs to be done. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP) As the rest of the world debates US gun laws, here are some answers to the most commonly asked questions: Q: Why has Obama failed to get more controls introduced despite calling for them for years? A: Many thought the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut in December 2012 would be a tipping point. Twenty children and six staff members were shot dead by Adam Lanza, 20, who opened fire after arming himself with weapons including a .223-calibre rifle and a Glock handgun. The issue of gun control laws had been out of the headlines for a while before the attack, but the shock generated in 2012 sparked support for action. Mass demonstrations in favour of tighter controls and new polls suggested a shift in public opinion. However the strength of America's gun lobby was underestimated. Now, more than three years and numerous school shootings later, President Obama has been left making the same impassioned pleas for change. Q: Why is the gun lobby so implacably opposed to change? (Jake Danna Stevens/AP) A: Self-defence and security are two of the arguments most regularly put forward, but the main point continually reiterated is the US constitution. The second amendment states: A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Opponents argue that this was meant to apply to the 18th century militia, made up of citizen soldiers and a key element of the new nations defence forces. They argue it is inappropriate in the US in 2016, which has a significant professional army. However the courts have cited the amendment in upholding the right to bear arms in key rulings. Q: Why is the gun lobby so powerful? A: The main group, the National Rifle Association, describes itself as Americas longest-standing civil rights organisation. It claims to have more than five million members, or proud defenders of historys patriots and diligent protectors of the Second Amendment. It has proved itself to be a very powerful lobbying machine over the years. Q: How easy is it to buy guns in the US? (Jeff Chiu/AP) A: Lots of shops, including the huge Walmart chain, sell guns. They can also be bought from gun shows or through private sales. Background checks are only conducted with shop purchases when buyers have to fill out a form from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to the Coalition To Stop Gun Violence, 40% of guns change hands in the US without a background check. Q: Has the gun control lobby made any progress in the wake of all the massacres? A: Some new restrictions have been introduced at state level and in August last year Walmart, the largest gun retailer in the US, announced it was to stop selling assault and sporting rifles. Gunman Omar Mateen, who killed at least 50 people in a gay nightclub in Florida, was mentally unstable and had a history of using steroids, his ex-wife has said. The 29-year-old wielded an assault-type rifle and a handgun and opened fire inside Pulse, in Orlando. Its the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Mateen was later killed in a shoot-out with police officers after taking hostages. Police were investigating the attack which left at least 53 other people in hospital, most of them critically ill, leading to fears the death toll would rise as an act of terrorism. Mateen made a 911 call from the club in which he professed allegiance to the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a law enforcement official said. Sitora Yusufiy said to reporters in Boulder, Colorado, that she was with Mateen for only four months because he was abusive and that they had no contact for the last seven or eight years. Mateen was short-tempered and had a history with steroids, she also said. Law enforcement officials confer near the Pulse Orlando nightclub (Chris OMeara/AP) Yusufiy described him as religious but not radical, and said he wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy. He was mentally unstable and mentally ill, she said. Mateen would not let her speak to her family, and relatives had to come and literally pull her out of his arms, she said. Yusufiy said she was devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying when she heard about the shooting, and she attributed the violence to his mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups. Journalist Owen Jones walked out of a live Sky News interview about the mass killing in Orlando after clashing with interviewer Mark Longhurst and fellow guest Julia Hartley-Brewer about the gunmans motives. They were discussing the mass killing which left 50 people dead and 53 injured after gunman Omar Mateen targeted gay nightclub Pulse in Florida in the early hours of Sunday. Longhurst told Jones: Clearly there is the question of whether, as you say, there is a hate crime or somethings being done in the name of religion. We do have to try and deliniate between the two. Jones disagreed, saying the attack should be called out for what it is a homophobic crime. He also said the panellists were trying to deflect the homophobic aspect of the attack. At the end of the day this was a homophobic hate crime, as well as terrorism, and it has to be called out, as I have to say, on Sky News and lots of news channels, theres not been many LGBT voices that Ive heard myself, he said. Longhurst interjected and said the crime had been carried out against human beings who were trying to enjoy themselves whatever their sexuality. Longhurst also added Jones could not suggest the Orlando attack was worse than the Bataclan murders in Paris last November where more than 100 people were killed. (Sky News screenshot) Jones responded saying that Longhurst could not understand as he was not gay. Longhurst retorted: Whether Im gay or not has no reflection on the fact that this person killed 50 people. Co-panellist Julia Hartley-Brewer appeared to side with Longhurst, saying that she would equally be at risk for being a gobby woman. (Sky News screenshot) An exasperated Jones said: Im sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing Ive ever been involved in on television. If hed [Mateen] walked into a synagogue and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldnt be saying what youre saying now. You would be talking about it as an anti-semitic attack. This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people. (Sky News screenshot) Eventually Jones walked off the set of the channels newspaper review. Jones said that he'd had enough of this as he took off his microphone and left the set, admitting he was upset. He quickly won support, including comedian Matt Lucas and Labour shadow minister Caroline Flint. Respect to @OwenJones84 - I shared his incredulity on watching the Sky clip but doubt I would have had his articulacy or boldness. Matt Lucas (@RealMattLucas) June 12, 2016 This is actually stressful to watch. @OwenJones84 is right. https://t.co/maki4E7nQR Ned Simons (@nedsimons) June 12, 2016 Agree. @OwenJones84 right to say a homophobic attack & should be acknowledged as such. https://t.co/AqKLKFMnOx Caroline Flint (@CarolineFlintMP) June 12, 2016 How can ppl say Owen Jones had a 'melt down'? Our community has just lost 50 people to a vile hate crime and no one is listening #skypapers Eve Hartley (@eve_hartley) June 12, 2016 So much respect for @OwenJones84. To restrain himself and stay principled after such horrific acts is admirable Dil (@baggins_dil) June 13, 2016 I really understand why @OwenJones84 walked off Skly News His points were right. I hope he feels supported right now. suzanne moore (@suzanne_moore) June 12, 2016 So much respect for @OwenJones84 we have to all stand up to institutional homophobia. Rife from schooling up. Edward McAdam-Hann (@edwardhann) June 13, 2016 Didn't see this on Sky - is this comment for real? If so, no wonder @OwenJones84 walked off set... https://t.co/fkU4QCgcRS Jane Bradley (@jane__bradley) June 12, 2016 Tentang Situs Slot Online Resmi MGS88 Nama Situs MGS88 Minimal Deposit Rp. 10.000,- (Sepuluh Ribu Rupiah) Proses Deposit 2 Menit Metode Deposit Bank Transfer, Pulsa, E-Wallet Judi Online Terbaik Slot Online, Judi Bola, Casino Online, Togel Online, Tembak Ikan Provider Slot Gacor Mudah Maxwin Pragmatic Play, PGSoft, MicroGaming, Habanero Slot Gacor Gampang Menang Gates of Olympus, Sweet Bonanza, Wild West Gold, Starlight Princess Win Rate 98% RTP Live Slot Gacor Tertinggi Hari Ini Terbaru Terlengkap Selamat datang di halaman RTP live dan informasi soal slot gacor hari ini dari situs MGS88 yang setiap hari selalu update. Berdasarkan RTP Live MGS88, Anda bisa mendapatkan informasi tentang slot online yang saat ini yang sedang Gacor atau onfire dengan persentase yang terbukti akurat, ini bisa menjadi rekomendasi anda sebelum memilih permainan slot online di situs MGS88. Cek RTP Slot sekarang juga bosku Klik Provider Slot Untuk Mengetahui RTP Slot Secara Real Time Selamat datang bagi kalian yang sedang mencari situs RTP Live terlengkap dan terkini hari ini. Sangat sesuai jika Anda mengunjungi website MGS88 RTP live untuk informasi tentang permainan slot yang lagi gacor dengan slot RTP yang terupdate. Persentase kemenangan yang kami berikan tentunya diambil dengan data yang sangat valid dan hanya untuk permainan slot yang tersedia di situs MGS88. RTP yang tersedia juga akan selalu diperbarui setiap hari berdasarkan level kemenangan yang diberikan kepada member kami. Memang sih untuk bermain slot itu tergantung hoki dari setiap pemain, Namun RTP live atau bocoran slot dari yang kami sediakan ini adalah data autentik dari banyaknya pemain yang telah bermain dan mencapai kemenangan tinggi. Sederhananya, kalau banyak pemain yang menang di dalam 1 permainan slot, karena itu permainan slot tersebut akan mempunyai persentase RTP yang sangat tinggi. Namun kami tegaskan sekali lagi, ini bukan sebuah paksaan kami situs MGS88 untuk anda bermain di game slot yang mana. Ini bisa dijadikan sebagai referensi atau tolok ukur, boleh dicoba kalau anda mempunyai feel yang kuat dalam memainkan permainan game slot. Anda dapat mengakses kapan saja dan di mana saja selama anda siap bermain. Jangan ragu untuk bertanya ya seputar pola putaran terhadap kami, sebab kami juga menyediakannya loh. Apa itu RTP Live? RTP Live ialah informasi mengenai persentase tertinggi saat ini dari hasil RTP Live dengan bocoran kemenangan pemain saat ini. RTP Live merupakan singkatan dari Return To Play atau bisa juga diartikan sebagai Return to Player. Karena itu, para pemain slot sekarang jika ingin mengetahui seberapa besar kemenangannya, bisa dengan memainkan permainan yang akan dimainkannya dan bisa untung dengan mudah dan tentunya maksimal. Apa itu RTP Slot? RTP Slot juga dikenal sebagai return to player atau pengembalian ke Pemain. RTP slot ialah persentase dari nilai pengembalian semua uang yang dipertaruhkan pemain dari waktu ke waktu. Dengan kata lain, RTP juga dianggap sebagai salah satu fitur slot yang mengembalikan uang pemain saat pemain kalah. Persentase digunakan untuk menghitung RTP dalam permainan slot. Misalnya, jika slot memiliki RTP 97%, itu berarti untuk setiap 100.000 koin yang hilang di slot, slot dapat mengembalikan 97.000. Jika Anda mengetahui RTP sebuah permainan slot, Anda dapat memutuskan permainan slot mana yang akan dimainkan tanpa kerugian besar. Apakah Angka Persentase RTP Slot Itu Penting? Biasanya pemain slot itu tidak memperhatikan RTP dalam permainan yang akan dimainkan, biasanya setelah anda mengisi saldo utama anda akan langsung buru-buru memainkannya. Yang terakhir 90-96% mempengaruhi jumlah kemenangan. Semakin tinggi jumlah RTP yang digunakan, semakin luas peluang untuk mendapatkan keuntungan. Akan namun itu segala tak secara 100% menjamin kemenangan kau dalam bermain, RTP itu cuma sebagai kalkulasi pengeluaran anda saja selama bermain slot.Dengan adanya RTP, kau dapat mengerjakan pengaturan atas uang yang akan kau pertaruhkan nanti pada ketika bermain.Untuk itu pada ketika kau bermain slot dan telah mengalami banyak kekalahan di satu permainan, direkomendasikan kau pindah ke permainan slot lainnya yang RTP nya lebih tinggi dari permainan yang tadi kau mainkan. Keuntungan Menggunakan Bocoran RTP Slot Hari Ini Situs MGS88 Akan dengan senang hati akan beberapa keuntungan yang didapatkan jika anda bermain slot dengan menggunakan RTP Live yang telah disediakan. Berikut Keuntungannya : Peluang Kemenangan Meningkat Tentu saja, saat bermain slot online, menang adalah hal yang paling penting. Di sinilah RTP berperan sebagai metode atau metode baru yang akan membantu Anda memilih permainan slot persentase tinggi. Mendapat variasi dalam Memainkan Game Slot Pastinya banyak pemain slot online yang hanya memainkan 3-5 permainan slot saja. Namun dengan RTP Live slot akan memberikan banyak game slot lain yang bisa anda coba. Tentunya semua permainan slot memiliki potensi kemenangan yang besar, jadi jangan hanya mengandalkan beberapa permainan saja. Menambah Pengalaman Dalam Bermain Slot Keuntungan terakhir adalah Anda tentu saja menambah pengalaman dan keahlian dalam permainan slot online. Dengan berbagai macam permainan slot yang dimainkan, Anda pasti mengetahui karakteristik dari setiap permainan slot yang Anda mainkan. Akibatnya, Anda pasti bisa dianggap sebagai pemain slot yang andal, yang pasti akan meningkatkan peluang Anda untuk menang besar menggunakan RTP. Daftar 8 Situs Dengan RTP Slot Live Tertinggi Hari Ini Ada banyak penyedia mesin slot online di internet. Tetapi tidak semuanya memiliki peluang tinggi atau RTP Live Slot yang sangat tinggi. Tapi jangan khawatir, berikut ini adalah situs slot gacor yang akan memberikan bocoran slot dengan RTP Live Tertinggi: RTP Live Slot Pragmatic Play (RTP Slot 97.85%) RTP Live Slot PG Soft (RTP Live 96.15%) RTP Live Slot Habanero (RTP Slot 95.89%) RTP Live Slot CQ9 (RTP Live 98.83%) RTP Live Slot Spade Gaming (RTP Live 94.99%) RTP Live Slot Micro Gaming (RTP Slot 95.39%) RTP Slot Live Top Trend Gaming (RTP Live 96.14%) RTP Slot Live JOKER123 (RTP Live 97.45%) Itulah Daftar 8 Provider Slot Gacor dengan RTP Live teratas diatas tentunya kami analisa terlebih dahulu. Anda bisa membuktikannya langsung dengan mengklik banner atau meprovider game slot yang sudah tersedia di atas. Saran kami yaitu Anda harus memainkan semua penyedia slot di atas untuk mencapai peluang kemenangan terbaik. Daftar Slot RTP Live Tertinggi Sering Kasih Jackpot Selain mempertimbangkan RTP Slot Gacor yang ada, sebenarnya ada banyak faktor penting untuk menang dalam permainan judi online. Sebab ada banyak game yang memiliki fitur dan mekanisme unik dan bisa membantu anda meraih Jackpot yang sangat besar. Berikut ini akan kami ulas daftar 5 game slot paling populer karena sering memberikan jackpot: RTP Live Gates of Olympus Gates of Olympus adalah game slot teraneh dan terbaik di Indonesia. Karena permainan mesin slot ini paling populer karena kakek Zeus dapat mengizinkan pengganda x500. Selain itu, fitur dan mekanik Gates of Olympus juga sangat menguntungkan untuk memenangkan Grand Jackpot. Secara teoritis, RTP slot langsung Gates of Olympus bernilai 96,50%, yang berarti peluang Anda untuk memenangkan MaxWin cukup tinggi. RTP live Sweet Bonanza Sweet Bonanza adalah permainan slot terpopuler kedua. Game slot bertema buah dan permen yang lezat ini sepertinya akan menarik banyak perhatian karena tergolong slot gacor yang mudah menang. Secara teoritis, slot Sweet Bonanza RTP bernilai 96,48%, yang berarti peluang Anda cukup tinggi untuk memenangkan jackpot. RTP Live Wild West Gold Wild West Gold adalah permainan slot bertema koboi yang juga populer di kalangan penggemar konspirasi. Permainan slot Wild West Gold sendiri kerap menawarkan kejutan jackpot bagi para pemainnya. Selain itu, nilai RTP Live Slot menunjukkan indeks tertinggi hari ini, yang berarti sangat layak dan sangat direkomendasikan. RTP Live Starlight Princess Slot Starlight Princess ini memiliki gaya dan fitur yang mirip dengan Gates of Olympus. Perbedaannya hanya pada desain dan karakter gamenya saja, karena memiliki fitur dan mekanik yang sama tentunya RTP slot teoritis pada game slot ini sama yaitu 96,50%. RTP Live Cash Elevator Mungkin sebagian dari Anda baru mengenal slot Cash Elevator. Namun dari data benchmark yang diungkap, ternyata banyak sekali yang menikmati permainan slot ini. Dengan fitur dan mekanisme unik seperti Lift up and down asli, slot ini juga memiliki slot RTP Live dasar 96,64% yang juga memiliki mekanisme yang sangat menguntungkan untuk memperlancar tingkat kemenangan besar. Bocoran Jam Main Slot Gacor Hari Ini Dalam bermain permainan slot online itu tidak bisa dilakukan dengan sembarangan yah. Jadi, Jika anda bermain pada waktu tertentu seperti yang akan kita bahas sesaat lagi, ada kemungkinan anda untuk mendapatkan kemenangan lebih tinggi. Jam RTP Slot Gacor merupakan bocoran jam main slot yang akan memberikan anda kapan waktu yang pas dalam bermain game slot. Tentu saja seluruh provider slot online memiliki jam tertentu dalam memberikan peluang kepada para pemainnya untuk mendapatkan kemenangan. Disini kami akan memberikan anda Bocoran Jam Slot Gacor yang Paling Akurat Hari ini: Jam Slot Gacor Pragmatic Play 02:30 WIB - Jam 05:25 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Habanero 14:26 WIB - Jam 17:38 WIB Jam Slot Gacor CQ9 00:45 WIB - Jam 05:53 WIB Jam Slot Gacor PG SOFT 14:25 WIB - Jam 17:35 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Joker123 17:41 WIB - Jam 20:42 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Microgaming 22:30 WIB - Jam 00:35 WIB MGS88: Situs Judi Slot Online Gacor Pay4D Resmi dan Terpercaya MGS88 adalah situs game slot online Gacor terbaru yang bermitra dengan Pay4D, Pay4D sendiri merupakan daftar situs game slot online terpercaya dengan berbagai macam permainan judi yang mudah dimenangkan seperti Game Bola, Casino Online, Slot Pay4D, Tembak Ikan dan Pay4D Online Permainan togel seperti Singapura, Hongkong, Sydney dan lain-lain. Tujuan utama kami adalah menjadi situs judi online Pay4D yang menyediakan layanan judi online terbaik di Indonesia. Kami juga salah satu situs resmi PAY4D di Indonesia yang pasti akan membayarkan semua kemenangan kepada semua member kami, karena kepercayaan dari semua member kami adalah prioritas utama kami sebagai mesin slot 4d Asia terbaik di Asia, khususnya di Indonesia. Dalam melakukan sistem transaksi sistem simpanan dapat dilakukan dengan mudah melalui mobile banking dan electronic banking berupa bank BCA, BSI, BRI, BNI, Cimb Niaga, Permata dan Mandiri. Selain itu, transaksi e-wallet juga tersedia melalui Dana, Gopay, LinkAja dan Ovo serta dapat digunakan untuk pulsa tanpa dipotong. Untuk mempermudah dan kenyamanan dalam melakukan registrasi atau melakukan setiap transaksi, MGS88 menyediakan layanan live chat dan Whatsapp terhubung langsung dengan customer service online 24 jam. Mengenal Istilah Dalam RTP SLOT Di slot RTP Live Anda akan melihat berbagai fitur yang mungkin tidak Anda pahami masing-masing. Namun jangan khawatir, disini sebagai situs slot gacor MGS88 kami akan memberikan penjelasan lengkap mengenai tentang istilah yang ada di RTP SLOT dibawah ini. SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS 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 UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS 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 Google Ad The statement of the Defender on the video of the execution of Armenian PoWs by the Azerbaijani armed forces LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET 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 Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building 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 Mother of deceased serviceman: The leaders are to blame (video) 19-year-old Davit Hayrapetyan was destined to become a hero on April 8. The boy with blue eyes is already known not only in Zolakar village of Gegharkunik marz, There was a movie, Kassandra and Luis David, then I decided to call my boy Davit. Maybe it was a name given by God, says his mother, Marine Hayrapetyan. She is talking to the photo of her son, recalling his short life starting from cradle. He didnt cry even when he was a child, mother recalls. Until today the family doesnt know how Davit was killed. They suppose that he was in a tank. Until now I cannot believe. Maybe I will realize when the days of his army service end and he wont come back, then I will realize that he is dead, says Davits sister, Diana. Davit is the youngest of four children. During his service he spoke to his sister on the phone almost every day. The last time the conversation lasted longer than usual, On that day he laughed for an hour. He didnt want to switch off, notes Diana. The Hayrapetyans built their house during recent years. Davit lived in that house only a year. The construction activities arent over yet. The young man didnt really like farming, but he took special care of the only apricot tree of the yard. Diana singles out modesty in his brothers character, I used to say Davit, come out, communicate with people, many people even dont know that we have such a boy. He used to answer, You dont know what will happen. You will see what will become of me. The photo of hero Davit, together with the photo of another hero from their village, Gagik Melkonyan, is at their school. The classroom, where Davit studied, will be soon named after him. At present Davits mother has only one desire, Peace. Let no parent in this world sustain such a loss. Even Turkish mothers shouldnt lose their children. A Turkish child isnt to blame The leaders are to blame. Watch the video for more! Australian Consulate opens in Phuket PHUKET: The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, today (June 13) announced the opening of Australian Consulate-General in Phuket with jurisdiction throughout the provinces of Phuket, Krabi and Phang Nga. tourismimmigration By The Phuket News Monday 13 June 2016, 12:20PM The Australian Consulate-General in Phuket is located on the 6th Floor of the CCM Complex at 77/77 Chalermprakiat Rama 9 Road (the bypass road). Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, today (June 13) announced the opening of Australian Consulate-General in Phuket with jurisdiction throughout the provinces of Phuket, Krabi and Phang Nga. Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, today (June 13) announced the opening of Australian Consulate-General in Phuket with jurisdiction throughout the provinces of Phuket, Krabi and Phang Nga. As part of the largest expansion of Australias diplomatic network in 40 years, the new Consulate-General will serve an important role in providing consular and passport services to Australians in Phuket and the neighbouring provinces of Krabi and Phang Nga, said Ms Bishop in a statement issued today. Around 900,000 Australians visit Thailand each year, with approximately a third of our visitors travelling to Phuket, she added. The Consulate-General in Phuket will open to visitors tomorrow (June 14). The newly launched website for the Phuket Consulate (click here), notes, We offer Passport Services for Australian citizens, Document Legalisation and Notarial Services and general Consular Assistance. For further details please see the Services for Australians (click here.) The new website adds, Please note: Limited notarial services only will be provided in Phuket initially. Full services will be provided later. Those seeking notarial services should contact us for clarification on document legalisation and notarial services that can be provided currently. Visas for travel to Australia and Citizenship matters will continue to be handled through the Australian Embassy Bangkok. (Click here.) The Australian Consulate-General in Phuket is located at: 6th Floor CCM Complex 77/77 Chalermprakiat Rama 9 Road (the bypass road), Muang Phuket 83000 Thailand (See map below.) Phone: +66 (0) 76 317 700 Fax: +66 (0) 76 317 743 Email: consular.phuket@dfat.gov.au Website: http://phuket.consulate.gov.au Hours of operation: 8.30am 4.30pm Monday to Friday (excluding public holidays). Refer to the Consulate-General website for further details on services. Marine Dept deputy probes boss' graft charges BANGKOK: The Marine Department (MD) has sent a letter to the Transport Ministry questioning whether it has the authority to investigate corruption allegations against its director-general, Sorasak Saensombat. marinelandeconomicsmilitarycorruption By Bangkok Post Monday 13 June 2016, 10:30AM A source close to the ministry said the MD sent a letter to the transport permanent secretary Chatchai Thipsunawee asking him whether the MDs deputy chief Jiraporn Jantharasiri has the right to probe Mr Sorasaks alleged wrongdoing in a beach protection project. Mr Sorasak signed an agreement to implement a beach erosion protection system in Nakhon Sri Thammarats Hua Sai district with Port and Marine Corp on May 20, 2014, at a cost of B468 million. In January, the Office of the Auditor-General submitted a letter to the MD suspecting Mr Sorasak would go over the projects budget. An examination later found around B2.7 million was overspent on equipment procurement. Mr Sorasak was briefly moved from his position as MD chief to transport inspector-general pending the investigation but was reinstated as MD director-general on March 16, despite the ongoing investigation. The MD signed an order on March 7 to set up a committee chaired by the MD deputy chief Jiraporn Jantharasiri to investigate the allegations against Mr Sorasak. It is unusual to allow subordinates to investigate allegations against their boss. A new committee should be set up to run the probe to ensure transparency, the source said. The source added a new committee should come from another state agency, not from the MD and that Mr Sorasak should not be involved in the investigation procedure. The source says the MD doubts the probe can be fair and transparent unless an outside body looks into the case. According to the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR), Thailand has 3,148 kilometres of shoreline. Of this, 830km 730km in the Gulf of Thailand and 100km along Andaman coast is being eroded. Eroded shorelines, from Samut Sakhon to Chachoengsao province, are at a critical point. Read original story here. Regional Army chief urges peaceful progress as Phuket sea gypsy dispute heads to court PHUKET: Fourth Army Region Deputy Commander Maj Gen Khunawat Morkaew has urged Baron World Trade Co Ltd and the residents at the sea gypsy village Rawai to pursue peaceful means in resolving their dispute over land in the village. landpropertyculturemilitarypolice By The Phuket News Monday 13 June 2016, 10:14AM Scores of Rawai gypsies waited at Provincial Hall in vain as Fourth Army Region Deputy Commander Maj Gen Khunawat Morkaew left without receiving their letter. Photo: PR Dept Scores of Rawai gypsies waited at Provincial Hall in vain as Fourth Army Region Deputy Commander Maj Gen Khunawat Morkaew left without receiving their letter. Photo: PR Dept Gen Khunawats plea for peace came after a closed-door meeting with Phuket officials at Provincial Hall to discuss the dispute on Thursday (June 9), one day before the Phuket Provincial Court began hearing the claims from both parties in the hope of resolving the dispute on Friday (June 10). Local officials have already discussed with Baron World Trade Co and come to an understanding with them that they should rely on communication not confrontation with villagers, he said. The ongoing dispute with Baron World Trade is over land where the sea gypsies sacred Balai shrine is located. Tensions flared on May 25, when more than 200 sea gypsy villagers confronted 50 workers who arrived with a backhoe and began moving boulders into place to block access to the sea gypsies sacred Balai shrine, which sits on part of the disputed land. The confrontation escalated into clashes, with workers and sea gypsies throwing rocks at each other for 30 minutes. The rock fight stopped when Chalong Police arrived with more than 50 officials. Phuket Governor Chamroen Tipayapongtada has made repeated calls for peace, his latest as recently as May 31 after 200 sea gypsies gathered at the site after hearing rumours that Baron World Trade workers were to return to work. (See story here.) Well let the court decide how they want to solve this land dispute issue between villagers and Baron World Trade. I have also ordered the police to be fair to both parties when investigating the complaints that each party has filed against each other, Governor Chamroen said. This land dispute is very complicated, so both parties must avoid using violence in the hope of ending the issue. No one is above the law, he added. Regarding the separate disputes between sea gypsies and 13 non-sea gypsies who the court has already upheld their claims to plots within the sea gypsy village, Gov Chamroen said that his office has done as much as they can to resolve the dispute. We have reached our conclusion at this point. The 13 landowners are willing to sell the land to government, he said. I have already submitted a request with the central government about the proposal. We are waiting for government to decide. That update, however, showed no progress since February, when Gov Chamroen explained that his office was still waiting for the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security to respond to an official request to buy the 19 rai in dispute for B253 million. If the buyout proposal fails, Gov Chamroen has arranged for the sea gyspies affected to move to a 45-rai site in Rassada, north of Phuket Town, that has no direct access to the sea. (See story here.) I want justice for sea gypsy villagers and I wish this issue were easy to fix, but the area in dispute is complicated because it involve the right of land ownership, legal land documents and encroachment, so the best way to deal with this is to have the government buy the land and develop a better community for the villagers, Gov Chamroen said. Scores of sea gypsies waited outside the meeting on Friday with a letter to hand to Fourth Army Region Deputy Commander Maj Gen Khunawat. However, they were disappointed when the Army general left Provincial Hall without receiving the letter. Runaway truck slams six cars on Patong Hill PHUKET: A truck and trailer carrying 40 concrete pylons slammed into at least six vehicles as it careened down Patong Hill this morning (June 13). patongaccidentstransport By Tanyaluk Sakoot Monday 13 June 2016, 11:13AM The truck slammed at least six cars as it careened down Patong Hill this morning (June 13). Photo: VR Patong145.400 The truck slammed at least six cars as it careened down Patong Hill this morning (June 13). Photo: VR Patong145.400 Many of the concrete poles the truck was carrying spilled onto the road. Photo: VR Patong145.400 Many of the concrete poles the truck was carrying spilled onto the road. Photo: VR Patong145.400 The truck slammed at least six cars as it careened down Patong Hill this morning (June 13). Photo: VR Patong145.400 The truck slammed at least six cars as it careened down Patong Hill this morning (June 13). Photo: VR Patong145.400 Only one motorist, a motorbike driver, was injured, reported first-responders at the scene. He already has been taken to hospital, one emergency worker told The Phuket News. The accident happened shortly before 9:30am, said Patong Police. The truck was descending the hill into Patong when the driver lost control. About six to seven cars were damaged, said the emergency worker, adding, many of the concrete poles were spilled onto the road. The accident caused traffic into Patong to back up all the way to the east side of Patong Hill. We are working on clearing the truck, damaged vehicles and the concrete poles right now, the emergency worker told The Phuket News. We hope to have the debris cleared as soon as possible, he added. Tribute/ Benefit Evening for Mr Piboon 'Snake' Kanyalak. Start From: Tuesday 21 June 2016, 08:30PM to Tuesday 21 June 2016, 11:00PM Mon. Tue. Wed. Thu. Fri. Sat. Sun. Please join some of Phuket's best musicians for a fund raising evening to assist Mr. Snake's family in a "Super Jam" night. ALL proceeds collected will be donated to the Kanyalak Family and a high % of drinks sales on the night will be also be donated..so drink up and let's celebrate Mr. Snake's life in the best possible way. From 8:30pm at New Roadhouse, Patak Road, Karon. 095 959 1381. On Demand We have a new story every day on the front page of thephuketnews.com. Also like us on our Facebook page (facebook.com/thephuketnews) and be the first to watch all the new stories. Finally you can watch any segment, any time by going to thephuketnews.com/tv where all the stories are listed for you to enjoy. All our programs can be enjoyed in High Definition when watching on the internet. In-Room VDO Many South Dakota farmers expect below-average yields this year Dry fields in the southeastern part of South Dakota and wet fields in spring in northeastern South Dakota could mean lower crop yields. Montreal, CA (H4T1V6) Today A mix of clouds and sun this morning followed by some light rain this afternoon. High 74F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low 47F. Winds SW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida, center, is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan after the mass shooting early Sunday at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla.. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday put forth seven "mantras" before BJP leaders and workers, asking them to adopt these in their dealings and cautioned them not to be arrogant. Addressing party activists at the BJP National Executive here, Modi also said that public mentality cannot be satisfied merely with slogans and the party must focus on how the country would be strengthened. "Sense of service, balance, patience, coordination, positive attitude, sensitivity and dialogue were the seven points the prime minister asked party leaders and workers to follow," Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters here. In his concluding remarks the Prime Minister also remembered the contribution of lakhs of party workers. "It was there sacrifice and we are lucky to get its benefit," he said, adding: "Today we are in power at the Centre and also ruling many states. So we should never be arrogant. We need to be useful for the society." He also said that each part of his body and every moment of his life were devoted to the cause of the nation. In his address the Prime Minister said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has had "two successful years" in office, making policy paralysis a thing of the past. "It's a historical period for all of us," Jaitley quoted Modi as saying. He said the BJP's two-day National Executive convention in Allahabad, which concluded on Monday, was held when the party was doing "really well". Among other things, the Bharatiya Janata Party discussed how it would strengthen its presence in states where it was not doing well earlier, Jaitley said. Jaitley also ridiculed the claims of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav that law and order situation in the state has not deterioted. "If the law and order situation of the state is good then he should fight next assembly elections in 2017 over it. Let there be referendum over it. We are ready for it. If referendum takes place, it will be a setback for the Samajwadi Party," Jaitley said. Earlier, the BJP passed a political resolution and launched a scathing attack on the Congress. "Popular message from this round of elections is that they reject not only the Congress but the brand of politics associated with it. Congress Mukt Bharat for us is not merely about defeating Congress at the hustings everywhere, although that will be the primary objective of our party. It also means ridding country of the Congress brand of politics -- corruption, nepotism, politics of inheritance and blue blood, arrogance and non-accountability, politics of obstructionism and vote banks, etc," the resolution said. The resolution further stated: "For the BJP every election from panchayat to Parliament is an important one to expand its electoral and ideological influence. The party is gearing up for the next round of assembly elections due early next year with renewed energy and vigour that it has derived from the recent electoral successes as well as the successes achieved by the Modi Government in the last two years." Two more persons, who were "working" for absconding former Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) Chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, were on Sunday arrested here in connection with state intermediate examination scandal while the ex-BSEB chief's wife has been made a 'non-FIR' accused. The arrested persons are -- Ajit Shaktiman, an ad hoc lecturer with Patna College and Sandeep Kumar Jha, a teacher with Sanskrit Shiksha Board on a deputation from Sanskrit College, Bhagalpur, Senior Superintendent of Police, Manu Maharaj told reporters here. With Sunday's arrest, the total number of persons held have gone upto eight including the alleged kingpin of the toppers' scandal, Bachha Rai, who was yesterday arrested after he surrendered at Bhagwanpur police station in Vaishali district. Both (Ajit and Sandeep) of them were "working as agents" for Lalkeshwar Singh and were in constant touch with Singh's wife and a former JD(U) MLA Usha Sinha, the SSP said, adding, his wife's involvement in the scandal has also come to the fore during thr investigation. Ajit and Sandeep have confessed to their crime while Usha Sinha is absconding, he said. They used to manage centres besides changing copies and helping people in providing marks, said Maharaj, who is heading the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on merit muddle in Bihar Intermediate Examination. Bachha Rai, who is Secretary-cum Principal of controversial Bishun Rai College arrived at the Bhagwanpur police station to give himself up after which he was arrested. On June 9, the SIT had arrested five persons in the toppers muddle that included two Centre Superintendents of two centres where examinees sat and where copies were evaluated. Besides, arts and science toppers, the third-ranker in the science stream Rahul Kumar, whose result has been cancelled by the BSEB along with that of first topper Saurabh Shrestha after a re-test, also hailed from the Bishun Rai College. Arts intermediate topper Ruby Rai did not turn up before an experts team for re-test on Saturday following which the Board has decided to withhold her result. "The Board has decided to withhold result of Ruby Rai and has given another chance to her to appear for re-test on June 25," new chairman of Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) Anand Kishor had said. US President Barack Obama on Sunday called the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida, in which at least 50 people were killed and 53 others injured when a "lone wolf" gunman opened fire early on Sunday, an "act of terror" and "act of hate". "Although it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," Xinhua quoted Obama as saying. President Obama had ordered US flags at half-staff. Obama's statement on Sunday marked at least the 20th time he had addressed the nation on the topic of mass shooting during his presidency. Calling the Florida shooting spree "the most deadly shooting in American history," Obama again reminded the country of the sober reality that "how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon" that could launch mass killings. Following the 2012 school mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, which claimed 26 lives, including 20 children, the Obama administration initiated but failed to push stronger gun control laws. The laws, whose sections included expanded background checks and bans on assault weapons, were stymied in Congress after staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers and gun-rights lobby groups. The gunman, identified by authorities as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida, was found dead inside the nightclub after a shootout with the police. Then the suspect went back into the club to continue shooting and took hostages. About three hours after the shooting first broke out, police shot and killed the suspect during actions to rescue the hostages. "It appeared he was organised and well-prepared," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina at an earlier press conference, adding that the suspect had an assault-type weapon and a handgun. Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has claimed the responsibility for the shootings. In a message published on the groups semi-official news agency, Amaq, it described gunman Omar Mateen as a soldier of the caliphate, The Telegraph (UK) reported. Although the statement did not clarify Mateens relation to the group, but the language appeared to suggest he was viewed as a lone wolf attacker. The attack that claimed 50 or more lives and left dozens wounded has been labeled the worst mass shooting attack in US history. After hours of revelry, the party-goers crowding the nightclub known as the Pulse took their last sips before the place closed. Thats when authorities say Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and spraying the helpless crowd with bullets. Witnesses said he fired relentlessly 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot at police. He took hostages. When the gunfire finally stopped, 50 people were dead and dozens more were critically wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Mateen, who law enforcement officials said had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a 911 call around the time of the attack, died in a gun battle with SWAT team members. Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism and probing the background of Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida, who had worked as a security guard. The gunmans father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men engaging in Toeiva behavior in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Mayor Buddy Dyer said. Jon Alamo had been dancing at the Pulse for hours when he wandered into the clubs main room just in time to see the gunman. You ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? Thats how he was shooting at people, he said. My first thought was, oh my God, Im going to die, Alamo said. I was praying to God that I would live to see another day. Pulse patron Eddie Justice texted his mother, Mina: Mommy I love you. In club they shooting. About 30 minutes later, hiding in a bathroom, he texted her: Hes coming. Im gonna die. As Sunday wore on, she awaited word on his fate. At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb. The previous deadliest mass shooting in the US was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself. Mateens family was from Afghanistan, and he was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida, authorities said. His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters that her former husband was bipolar and mentally unstable. Mateen was short-tempered and had a history with steroids, she said in remarks televised from Boulder, Colorado. She described him as religious but not radical. He wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy, but she had no details. The couple was together for only four months, and the two had no contact for the last seven or eight years, she said. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the club in which he professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The official was familiar with the investigation, but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The extremist group did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, but the IS-run Aamaq news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. Even if the attacker supported IS, it was unclear whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateen was not unknown to law enforcement: In 2013, he made inflammatory comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent Ronald Hopper, who called the interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber, but the agent described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Hopper said authorities had suggestions that individual has leanings towards that. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In a separate incident, an Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested Sunday in Southern California and told police he was headed to a Los Angeles-area gay pride parade. The Orlando shooting started about 2 AM, with more than 300 people inside the Pulse. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance, said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next to her get shot. I just tried to get out of there. At 2:09 AM, Pulse posted on its Facebook page: Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running. Club-goer Rob Rick said the shooting started just as everybody was drinking their last sip. When he heard shots, Rick dropped to the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth. A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area where only workers were allowed. People were then able to escape through the back of the club. Mateen exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club, and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, the shooter also had a handgun and some sort of suspicious device, the police chief said. About 5 AM, authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the remaining club-goers, Police Chief John Mina said. At first, officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to the dead after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. That prevented paramedics from going in until authorities determined the battery was something that fell out of an exit sign or a smoke detector, he said. The robot was sent in after SWAT team members put explosive charges on a wall and an armored vehicle knocked it down in an effort to rescue hostages. Just before 6 AM, the Pulse posted an update on its Facebook: As soon as we have any information, we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love. Authorities were looking into whether the shooter acted alone, according to Danny Banks, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. This is an incident, as I see it, that we certainly classify as domestic terror incident, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. Mateens father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC News about his son seeing the men kissing a couple of months ago. We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident, Seddique said. We are in shock like the whole country. Mateen was a security guard with a company called G4S. In a 2012 newsletter, the firm identified him as working in West Palm Beach. In a statement sent Sunday to the Palm Beach Post, the company confirmed that he had been an employee since September 2007. State records show that Mateen had held a firearms license since at least 2011. President Barack Obama called the shooting an act of terror and an act of hate targeting a place of solidarity and empowerment for gays and lesbians. He urged Americans to decide whether this is the kind of country we want to be. Authorities said they had secured a van owned by the suspect outside the club. Meanwhile, a SWAT truck and a bomb-disposal unit were on the scene of an address associated with Mateen in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando. Across the country, police departments stepped up patrols in neighborhoods frequented by the LGBT community. (AP) (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem Published on Isru Chag Shavuos Eretz Yisrael) The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Beersheva Religious Council must permit a Reform Movement convert to toivel in the citys mikve in front of a Reform Beis Din. Seeking to circumvent the court, MK Moshe Gafne introduced a bill that bans all converts from toiveling in state-run mikvaos, aware of the fact frum converts will easily find a private mikve to use. Gafnes bill, which is currently being debated by legislators, also compels state-run mikvaos to comply with regulations from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Seeking to find a solution to accommodate the Reform and Conservative Movements, the Jewish Agency is going to build four mikvaos for the them. According to Channel 2 News correspondent Daphne Lial, an understanding was reached that will permit passing Gafnes bill as well as the Jewish Agency building the mikvaos for the Reform and Conservative. They will operate outside of the state-run system and therefore they will not be subordinate to the Chief Rabbinate and its religious councils. Speaking to the Kol Chai Radio, MK Moshe Gafne explained he will oppose the construction of these mikvaos, which he calls a farce. He explains in the United States the Reform Movement, which has no issue with finances, can do as it pleases and it has not built a single mikve since they have no use for it. MK (Likud) David Amsellem, who chairs the Knesset Interior Committee, spoke with Mordechai Lavi of Kol Chai Radio. He explains the Reform have no problem raising the funds to build mikvaos but they want the state to do it for this too is de-facto recognition of the Reform Movement and that is what this is about, not funding. Gafne added the chareidim will never compromise or recognize Reform Jewry. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem/ Published on Isru Chag Shavuos in Israel) President Tran Dai Quang and Lao Party General Secretary and President Bounnhang Vorachith (Source: VNA) Following an official welcome ceremony the same day, the Vietnamese leader held talks with Lao Party General Secretary and President Bounnhang Vorachith, who expressed his belief that the visit would be a milestone contributing to consolidating and further developing the traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two Parties, States and peoples. The host said the Vietnamese Presidents selection of Laos for his first overseas trip after taking office demonstrates the importance Vietnam attaches to its relations with Laos. For his part, President Tran Dai Quang expressed his delight at remarkable achievements the Lao Party, State and people have attained over the recent past. Congratulating the Lao side on the successful 10th Lao Party Congress, he noted his belief that the Lao people will fulfill all tasks and targets set at the congress to advance firmly on the path towards socialism. The two sides agreed to push forward the implementation of agreements reached by leaders of the two countries and outcomes of the 38th meeting of the inter-governmental committee on Vietnam-Lao cooperation, as well as the cooperation plans between the two governments for 2016, the Vietnam-Lao cooperation treaty for 2016-2020, the joint statement issued during the recent Vietnam visit by Party General Secretary and President Bounnhang Vorachith, along with the outcomes of the Vietnam visit by Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and the Laos visit by President Tran Dai Quang. The two leaders also reached a consensus on continuing with delegation exchanges, maximizing the operation of bilateral cooperative mechanisms, and enhancing cooperation efficiency across all fields. They renewed the resolve to well carry out the protocol on bilateral defence and security cooperation for 2016-2020, the protocol on border and border markers and the agreement on border and border gate management regulations signed early this year, and the new agreements on trade and border trade between the two countries. The two countries will continue to enhance the connectivity and mutual supplementation of their economies while promoting cultural and people-to-people exchanges and coordinating to hold activities to mark the 55 th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic relationship and the 40 th year of the Vietnam-Lao Amity and Cooperation Treaty next year. The two leaders shared the view that the regional and world situation is seeing many complicated developments and agreed that the two countries should keep a close watch of the situation and maintain discussions to help each other ensure security and stability in their countries. They affirmed that the two countries will coordinate closely at international and regional forums such as the United Nations, the ASEAN and sub-regional mechanisms. President Tran Dai Quang pledged Vietnams active and full support of Laos as Chair of the ASEAN. The two sides reiterated the intention to coordinate closely to strengthen solidarity among the ASEAN, elevating the blocs central role in the regional security structure. They underlined the importance of maintaining peace, stability, security and safety in the East Sea, and vowed to work together with other ASEAN countries for the peaceful settlement of disputes in the East Sea based on international law, the full and effective observance of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and the early conclusion of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea for the sake of peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world as a whole. The two leaders also agreed to promote coordination with each other and with other countries and international organisations for the sustainable and effective management and use of water resource in the Mekong River. On the occasion of the visit, President Tran Dai Quang presented Sekong province of Laos a school worth USD1 million./. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Madina Toure The Queens Library is looking to transfer ownership of the Mitchell-Linden Library in downtown Flushing from Queens Library to the city. The library, which occupies seven condominium units on the ground floor of Sunrise Terrace, a residential condominium unit at 31-32 Union St., moved to its current site Sept. 30, 2013. Then Borough President Helen Marshall provided more than $4 million of the more than $4.5 million in funding for the acquisition of the site. Theres no change in usage, theres no change in space, its a change in title, Joanne King, Queens Librarys director of communications, said. And thats in keeping with standard practice. Almost all of the libraries are owned by the city of New York except for a couple of rental units and its also in keeping with the Carnegie contract. Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate, was a major donor to the New York Public Library. In 1901, he donated funds totaling $240,000, which were used for the construction of seven new libraries in the most heavily populated areas of Queens. Four of those buildingsAstoria, Poppenhusen, Richmond Hill and Woodhavenare still in use. In return, as part of an agreement, the city agreed to pay for the libaries maintenance and operations. A spokeswoman for the city Department of Citywide Administrative Services said the agency is a co-applicant on the project while Queens Library is the lead agency. DCAS is facilitating the purchase of the property under its charter mandate and is the agency tasked with taking care of city property. The project consisted of a new decor, more public computers, fast RFID self-checkout and 24/7 self-check in an expandable program room, laptop work desks with power outlets and a new teen area with computers and space for future expansion. The project cost $6.2 million. The library had been at its previous location at 29-42 Union St. since 1962. It was heavily used, lending more than 400,000 items a year and requiring a new space to accommodate its needs. The current space expanded the library from 5,900 square feet to about 7,656 square feet. King said the city owns almost all of the library property. Its been there a couple of years, thats Mitchell Linden Library and the condo units were purchased in order to put a library into it with the intention of the city acquiring it eventually because the city is responsible for the Carnegie agreement, King said. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Madina Toure More than 2,500 students, which included working parents, veterans, servicemen and first-generation scholars from New York and around the world, graduated from Queens College in the 92nd commencement ceremony last week. The event, held in the Quadrangle of the college at 65-30 Kissena Blvd. in Flushing, featured U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Borough President Melinda Katz and Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Hillcrest), among the speakers. It was the second commencement for the colleges president, Felix Matos Rodriguez, who made it seem as though he was going to deliver a lengthy address at the ceremony but joked that he did not want to bore the graduates with it. By now, I know you guys and I know you were going to do this to me, Rodriguez said, so I taped my presidential charge on video. And he read a brief. Schumer encouraged students to take advantage of a $2,500 federal tax credit for families who make less than $200,000 for every year of college and graduate school to help defray the cost of tuition. He also spoke about how he got into politics as well as what it has been like for him to raise his own family. But his advice for the graduates was simple: Pursue whatever you are interested in pursuing. My advice to the Class of 2016 is a simple one: Go for it, Schumer said. Katz touted the boroughs diversity, noting that 49 percent of the residents in the borough are foreign-born. Isnt that a remarkable gift that we give the rest of the city of New York? Katz asked the graduates and attendees. Lancman, a Queens College alum, said all the graduates are now New Yorkers, meaning that they are tough, ambitious and hardworking individuals. As graduates of the City University of New York, you are today forever New Yorkers, Lancman said. Now for those of you who were born here, youre even more New Yorker today than you were the day you were born. For those of you who come here from every corner of the globe, you are today officially New Yorkers. Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, who served as the commencement speaker, spoke about his life experiences, noting that he has relatives who went to prison and that he had to work hard to get to where he is today. He asked the graduates never to take anything for granted and not to throw away their shot to start their own businesses or vote, for example. I wasnt guaranteed graduation from a top-rank law school, Walker said. The student speaker, Willnide Lindor, a Haitian American fluent in Creole and French who graduated summa cum laude, is the recipient of the Paul Klapper Scholarship, the Paul Zweig Award in Comparative Literature and the Silverstein-Peiser Award in nonfiction from the English Department. She said her peers should think about how they can use their skills to make a genuine difference. It is not enough to simply say that we will have a positive influence in our communities, Lindor said. Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe Times' Game of the Week Preview: Central Valley at Aliquippa Central Valley and Aliquippa are set to face off in arguably the biggest game of the year in the WPIAL. Check out the Times' Game of the Week preview. SHARE Contributed photo Pianist Anna Polonsky was born to Russian musician parents and so was destined to be a musician. She will take the stage with the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra Feb. 21. By Richard Carter Born in Moscow to a classical pianist and violinist, Anna Polonsky was destined to become a musician. "If I had had my druthers, I probably wouldn't have chosen any instrument, because you have to practice. With musician parents, I didn't have a choice ? the Russian discipline," Polonsky said with a laugh. Polonsky will perform 8 p.m. Feb. 21 with the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra. The New York City-based pianist, who teaches at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, will perform here for the first time, though her pianist husband, Orion Weiss, played with the symphony in 2013 and will return March 3 with cellist Julie Albers for the Music Series at Akin concert at Midwestern State University. Polonsky will perform the Mozart Piano Concerto in D minor. "It's an amazing piece," she said. "Mozart composed 27 piano concertos, many more than most. And, out of 27, there are only two in a minor key. "Every concerto of his stands out. This one stands out for its uncommon drama and angst and tragedy. Even the second movement, which is in a major key, has a dramatic minor middle section. In this piece, Mozart can't get away from the darker sides of his soul," she said. In addition her teaching duties, Polonsky regularly performs internationally. "I adore Mozart, I adore Schubert, I love playing Schumann. I love the works of Brahms and Beethoven and Bach, of course, who cannot be surpassed." As a performer, she particularly feels close to Mozart, Schubert and Schumann. "Mozart is divine music that has been composed in the heavens. It's unmatched for the beauty and the charm and the wit and the craft. They are just awe-inspiring," she said. Polonsky had her first piano lesson at age 5, attending the Special Central Music School in Moscow, where she performed her first solo performance at age 7. In a family of musicians (her sister plays violin), "I grew up thinking everyone in the world played instruments for a living. It was a lifestyle. "I think I probably liked playing piano, in spite of appearance, but that I didn't want to practice and I was fighting that." When she was 12, her family immigrated to America. Her parents now live in Ohio, and her sister in Germany. Polonsky didn't realize how close she was to piano until she left home for the first time at age 16. "I realized it was something I was passionate about doing, and I love music and I love recordings and I love playing with other colleagues. I am lucky that it was predetermined for me, because it is something that I love doing." She attended the Curtis Institute of Music, one of the world's most exclusive conservatories, to earn her bachelor's in music and her master's at Juilliard. Growing up, she said, her family members were very involved with each other's music. "Both of my parents couldn't help themselves trying to help me," she said with a laugh. "Everyone was commenting on everything all the time." Also, she regularly listened to and favored pianists such as Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein. A live performance verses a recorded CD is a very different experience, she said. "With records, an audience can depend on the recording being near perfect. But somehow the risk of the performance is taken away. With live performances, the audience is almost invited to perform along with the persons on stage. They are in the journey with them. You are breathing with them at the same time." Polonsky spends a lot of time traveling, which is a challenge with a 2-year-old. Being the daughter of two classical pianists, perhaps she, too, is destined to be a musician. "Oh, God," she said with a laugh. "Hopefully, my daughter will pick something to do that is not so close to her parents, but I'd love for her to do something artistic. I know the risks inherent in having a child doing the same thing that one does." Adam Kuzmenko SHARE A 28-year-old Connecticut man was jailed in Bowie for allegedly threatening to shoot a customer and a police officer at the Allsups convenience parking lot at 500 E. Wise. Assistant Police Chief Kent Stagg said about 5:10 a.m. Thursday, Bowie Police Lt. Kurt Berryman, Patrol Officer Melina Limon and Sheriffs Deputy Lee Phariss were in the parking lot of an auto parts store across the street from Allsups when they heard screaming. The officers saw a man pacing in the store lot and throwing his hands up in the air in an aggressive manner. The report states the man yelled at a customer to tell Limon not to get out of her patrol unit or he would shoot her. Limon attempted to calm the man while Berryman approached the suspect from behind and used his taser to take him into custody. The officers found a .40 caliber handgun on Adam Kuzmenko and arrested him on complaints of unlawfully carrying of a weapon, possession of marijuana under two ounces and terroristic threat. Bonds totaled $5,500. A customer at the Allsups told police he was stopped at the gas pumps when Kuzmenko came over to his drivers side window and threatened to shoot him. PLAYOFFS?! Breaking down postseason scenarios for local high school football teams Who's in? Who's out? Who can clinch with a win? We break down the postseason scenarios for every local high school football district. SHARE Jennifer Peacemaker (right) and other employees at Hospice of Wichita Falls look through the fresh fruits and vegetables at the farmers market set up in the parking lot Friday. TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS A bounty of field fresh fruits and vegetables are available at the farmers market set up on the second and fourth Friday of each month by Morath Farms in the parking lot of Hospice of Wichita Falls. photos by TORIN HALSEY/TIMES RECORD NEWS Hospice of Wichita Falls employees, volunteers and neighbors enjoy the farmers market set up by Morath Orchard on Friday morning. On the second and fourth week of each month, the Moraths bring fresh fruits and vegetables to the front parking lot. By Judith McGinnis of the Times Record News It's a welcome site under a shady tree. Once again, the farmers market has gone mobile. The second and fourth Friday of every month, Becky Morath of Morath Orchards will bring fresh produce to the parking lot of Hospice of Wichita Falls, or HOWF. It's an idea that started five years ago at United Regional Healthcare Center. "The first Hospice market was in late May and was a great success," said Cindy Freeman, HOWF volunteer coordinator. "A percentage of the sales go to our volunteer department. It's been wonderful for everyone and a great opportunity to give support to Charlie, (Texas) farmers." Michelle Watson, an advance practice nurse in palliative care at HOWF, was working at United Regional when the first round of field-fresh produce arrived. "Everyone thought it might be a good way for the health community to stay healthy," said Watson, who pointed out that the project was based on a similar one at Seton Hospital in Austin. "It can be tough for staff on the night shift to make it to downtown or Hatton Road. They're too tired to go." The market at HOWF is open to the public. Organizers hope to attract neighbors, firefighters from Wichita Falls Fire Department Station 6 across the street and the health community at Kell West Hospital, Texas Oncology and the United Regional Physician Group. With the help of HOWF volunteers Friday, Morath kept tables well supplied with freshly harvested tomatoes, eggplant, four varieties of squash, green beans, sugar snap peas and sweet onions. There were plenty of customers who appreciated the convenience. "We haven't decided yet how the funds raised will be allocated. There are lots of things's we'd like to do," said Debra Hanrahan, assistant volunteer coordinator. "This is great for the staff and the community." Hospice of Wichita Falls is at 4909 Johnson Road. The produce market is on the parking lot from 7:30-9:30 a.m. every second and fourth Friday of the month. FILE - This undated file image posted on a militant website on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, shows fighters from the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now called the Islamic State group, marching in Raqqa, Syria. The Islamic State group has killed dozens of its own members over the past weeks in a hunt for spies and informants after U.S.-led coalition airstrikes hit a number of high-level jihadis. (Militant Website via AP, File) SHARE By John Ingle of the Times Record News The White House in recent days broadened the authority of U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan to strike Taliban militants to better support Afghan forces with airstrikes during contentious campaigns. U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, on Friday applauded the decision by the Obama administration, but said it's only loosening the rope that has tied the hands of those commanders for several years as the president focused on pulling out of Afghanistan. The creation of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is largely blamed on removing all combat forces from Iraq, the last group leaving in December 2011 except advisers. "One of the frustrations a lot of people have, in and out of the military, is the way the president has tied our military's hands as far as what they could do and who the targets would be," he said. "So, we have seen, over the past several months in Iraq and Syria and now in Afghanistan, a gradual loosening of some of those restrictions. But, it's just a gradual kind of turning of the dial, in my view, to avoid disaster rather than to achieve victory." Thornberry said he hopes the president's decisions are the result of a painful lesson learned from the Iraq pullout because ISIL has grown to be a significant global terrorist threat. While the gradual change is welcomed, he said the approach isn't going to address what needs to be done to make Afghanistan more secure. As far as what he hears from leaders on the ground and at the Pentagon, the Afghan military is making progress in their development and handling of military operations, he said. It has provided some optimism for those commanders. But there is still the issue of an artificial troop cap, Thornberry said, that limits the number of military personnel in country to 9,800, most of whom serve in a support and assistance capacity. He said it's costing the U.S. more money because the military is having to contract some services like aviation maintenance because, as recently reported, those who maintain them are being left home when aircrafts deploy. "It was all because of this artificial troop cap 9,800 that the president has imposed there," he said. "There are a number of concerns about the ways the administration continues to tie the hands of the military for what must be political reasons. You won't see the commanders come and complain about it because they still have to salute the commander in chief, but it is a concern." Thornberry said the expansion of airstrikes in Afghanistan is important because it allows the military the ability to defend themselves, and for the Afghans to get control of their country. SHARE Conversations! Glorious conversations! What more can you ask for? The other day, former CBS News darling Katie Couric was speaking at an event organized by something called "TheWrap." Specifically, at its "Power Women Breakfast" in New York. (That is exactly the kind of event I'd expect Couric to be at, and I don't even know what it is.) She was asked about the scandal swirling around her anti-gun-documentary specifically, the fact that she deceptively edited a gun rights group's response to a question to make the members seem like dangerous idiots. I wrote about all that in a recent column, so there's no need to repeat myself beyond noting that Couric and her producer are guilty of outright deception. But I thought her response was amusingly revealing. "I can understand the objection of people who did have an issue about it," Couric said. (The "it" here is the deliberate falsifying of the truth). "Having said that, I think we have to focus on the big issue of gun violence. It was my hope that, when I approached this topic, that this would be a conversation starter." Well, OK then. After all, who denies that starting conversations or, as they often call them in academia, "dialogues" -- is the highest aspiration there is? For instance, a Central Michigan University professor claimed last year that she was punched in the face at a Toby Keith concert for being a lesbian. She later admitted that she actually punched herself, but said it was worth it because she wanted to start a dialogue. As the Washington Examiner's Ashe Schow recently chronicled, this sort of thing is common on college campuses. Students and professors initiate or exacerbate a hate-crime hoax or a false rape accusation. The orchestrators are perfectly happy to pretend the fraud is real and demonize anyone who casts doubt on the claims. Then, when the facts come to light, instead of apologies we're saturated with a fog of pomposity and self-justification: We were just trying to start a conversation. Raising awareness of the larger issue is more important than the mere facts. That was the excuse offered by a herd of academics on the 10th anniversary of the Duke University lacrosse rape hoax. Professors there had taken out ads suggesting the exonerated attackers were racists. In response to criticism, they insisted that they just wanted to get a good discussion going. We've heard similar prattling about the University of Virginia rape hoax and many other fabricated events on college campuses (and off) going back decades. I started writing about such instances of "lying for justice" 20 years ago, and it has only gotten worse. I don't think people appreciate how pernicious and widespread this crowdsourced totalitarianism really is. Routine lies in the service of left-wing narratives are justified in the name of "larger truths," while actual truth-telling in the other direction is denounced as hate speech or "triggering." Even when liberals call for an "honest conversation" about this, that or the other thing, what they really mean is they want everyone who disagrees with the prevailing progressive view to fall in line. Almost invariably, when I hear calls for "frank talk," ''honest dialogue" or a new "national conversation," I immediately translate it as, "Let the next chapter of indoctrination begin." It's a way of luring dissenters from political correctness out into the open so they can be smashed over the head with a rock. Remember, behind every obvious double standard is a hidden single standard. For instance, earlier this year, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer came out with a book attacking libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch called "Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right." When asked by NPR's Steve Inskeep what the nefarious supervillains of her screed were really up to, she ominously explained, "What they're aiming at is changing the conversation in the country." Well, so are left-wing billionaire George Soros and his minions. So is Mayer herself. So are all of these campus fraudsters and activists. And so is Katie Couric. But when someone on the other side of the ideological chasm questions the official narrative, they must be demonized or otherwise silenced. Why? Because the last thing progressives want is to start an honest conversation. They want to have their conversations and only their conversations. Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. You can write to him in care of this newspaper or by email at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com, or via Twitter @JonahNRO. State Police arrested a Gansevoort woman they accuse of having a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit. Julie H. Maguire, 42, allegedly had a .30 percent BAC when she was tested Tuesday night. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate TROY Hudson Valley Community College wants to help you take to the skies. The school has partnered with a drone flight training academy out of Canandaigua called SkyOp to offer a three-day course that helps prepare people to get their federal drone certification. The course costs $1,499 which includes a small remote-controlled drone and will be held on three Saturdays from July 23 to Aug. 6. The classes run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. those days. An information session on the course is from 11 a.m. to noon June 21 at the Fitzgibbons Health Technologies Center on the school's Troy campus. More for you Unique courses you can take at local colleges Small, lightweight drones are increasingly being used commercially by wedding photographers, real estate agents, construction and security companies. The course, which has been held at other community colleges upstate, targets those who want to get federal certification for commercial use. Eric Bryant, a spokesman for HVCC, says the course is well timed because the Federal Aviation Administration is getting ready to release new rules this month that could make certification for small commercial users easier and more streamlined. Certification now takes several months and costs $5 and requires a training course that runs about $150, according to the FAA. There are different rules for "hobby" use of drones and the use by government entities. "The commercial potential for the use of drones is astounding; it will literally transform industries," said Brian Pitre, co-owner of SkyOp. "The challenge is there is so much more to know than buying a drone and trying to fly it in your backyard. There are a variety of systems and components to learn, safety concerns, regulations and more to know before taking to the sky." HVCC says to call 629-4111 or email workforce@hvcc.edu for more information on the course. lrulison@timesunion.com 518-454-5504 @larryrulison This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Colonie Joe Vitollo, who lost a bid for Albany County executive last year, is taking a second try at an elective office by running against U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko. Vitollo, 60, of Coeymans is running as a Republican against the Democratic incumbent. A nurse, Vitollo once owned a construction business until a 30-foot fall nearly killed him. Quoting Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy and the Founding Fathers, Vitollo said he wants to cut the size of government in half, backs a balanced budget amendment, and favors term limits for members of Congress. He vowed, however, he would stay in Congress until term limits passed. "Paul Tonko gives us lip service," he said. "He has been a rubber stamp for Obama. He has voted us into a debt that is greater than any of the previous Congresses combined." He contended that Tonko, who is in his fourth term, did not do what his constituents in the 20th Congressional District wanted. "His constituents didn't want this massive health care (bill)," he said. He contended the Affordable Care Act has not reduced the number of uninsured, has driven up health care costs and has not allowed people to keep their doctors. Vitollo said it is time to get the country "back under control." "If elected, I will take responsibility for what we do and don't do in this country," he said. "I will either say I've failed or we did it, and if we failed I will say why we failed." On Twitter, Vitollo has said he would work to eliminate the National Education Association and defeat Common Core. He also sent out a series of messages criticizing Tonko over rules about allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of the gender with which they identify. "Young women raped to convert them to Islam Tonko's worried about where people urinate," he wrote. "Egyptian plane possibly a terrorist attack Tonko's worried about where people urinate. ... Isis dissolves 25 prisoners in Acid Tonko's worried about where people urinate." At his announcement Monday at the Desmond, Vitollo said he favored cutting government regulations, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency, and promised to target the Internal Revenue Service. "We need to have a tax revolution in this country and the only way we're going to get one is to vote these people out and vote new people in," he said. Tonko spokesman, Sean Magers, said Vitollo was short of specifics. "These attacks, with little substance or evidence to support them, do nothing to provide alternate solutions and overcome the challenges before us in the Capital Region and across the nation," Magers said Monday, adding, "Curiously absent from Tonko's opponent's remarks were who he is supporting for President in November." In reply, Vitollo said, "when we get to the convention, we'll make that decision. Right now I'm supporting (Donald) Trump." tobrien@timesunion.com This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Schenectady Harold Ortiz strangled one of his victims and hid her lifeless body in a debris-covered storage cubicle in a Union Street basement. The next day, he took a shovel and whacked another victim in the head, leaving the unconscious man to nearly die under rubble in the same basement. At the time, Ortiz, 45, was less than two months removed from a 17-year stretch in state prison. And now he is headed back there for 30 years to life. The multiple prior felon admitted Monday to the killing of Valerie Washington, 55, and brutal ambush of Ralph Carson, 65, who miraculously survived being buried for three days under the rubble at 1330 Union St. Ortiz pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, third-degree grand larceny and possessing stolen property before Judge Matthew Sypniewski. He will be sentenced Aug. 15. "He is a person who should never, never be reintegrated in society," Schenectady County District Attorney Robert Carney said. "Within a span of two months, killing one person, almost killing another person ... he clearly is just a despicably dangerous person that we just have to be protected from." City police arrested Ortiz in early September after the killer's brother, Anthony, who was in court Monday for the proceedings, went to authorities. The brother had spotted items in Ortiz's apartment and knew they likely did not belong to his sibling. "He knows what (Harold Ortiz) had when he moved him into that apartment, which was nothing and now he has all this stuff that he's accumulated, so (the brother) is suspicious and he asked him what's going on," Carney explained. The brother, who has worked in the funeral business, went into the basement and recognized the "smell of death." He confronted his brother, Carney said. "At some point (Harold Ortiz) told him, 'I hit an old man over the head and buried him,'" Carney said, joined by Assistant District Attorney Peter Willis. "Having been told that, he went to the police." Carney said: "Thankfully, his brother Anthony did the right thing and saved Ralph Carson's life. He's responsible for saving his life." Ortiz was initially charged with the shovel attack on Carson, but ominously told a jail officer, "They haven't found them all yet." Carney and Willis described the sequence of events as follows: On July 10, Ortiz was released from Marcy Correctional Facility in Oneida County after serving his entire sentence, which did not include post-release supervision. Ortiz relocated to Schenectady because his brother lived there. Ortiz was placed at 1330 Union St. by Mohawk Opportunities, a Schenectady nonprofit group that finds homes for people with mental health illness and other disabilities. Ortiz moved in early and started loitering in the basement. On Aug. 29, Ortiz and Washington were already at odds because Washington had objected to Ortiz's plan to run power from the basement through her home. At some point, Ortiz got Washington into the basement, strangled her and stole items from her apartment. The next day, Ortiz ambushed Carson, bashed him in the head with the shovel and placed him underneath the rubble about 10 feet away from Washington's body. Carson was beneath a toilet, a tire and heavy boxes. Had he risked going to trial, Ortiz faced the possibility of close to 100 years to life if convicted, Willis said. A Schenectady County grand jury handed up a 14-count indictment in November. Ortiz's attorney Stephen Signore said he learned early Monday while visiting with Ortiz at the county jail that his client had decided to take the plea deal. Paul Nelson contributed. rgavin@timesunion.com 518-434-2403 @RobertGavinTU ALBANY New York's education policy makers approved a plan Monday to expand graduation options for students with disabilities that could affect more than 2,000 students as soon as this month. The new rules, approved by the Board of Regents Monday, would allow school superintendents to decide whether certain students who have met the academic requirements of a local diploma but were unable to pass every Regents exam should be allowed to graduate. This would help those students who met state learning standards for graduation, officials say, but because of their disabilities were unable to demonstrate proficiency on state tests, even with testing accommodations. "This is a starting point, given the very narrow time frame," said Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa, who has advocated for students with disabilities. "School is ending in a short period of time, so this was an investment and a signal to say to our state that we are very much committed to finding different pathways and different ways for children to demonstrate what they know." The new option is available to students with disabilities who have an individualized education program, or IEP, and receive special education programs or services. Currently, these students have several "safety net" options that would allow them to graduate with a local diploma. The first allows them to graduate at a low pass rate of 55 on the five required Regents exams. The second allows students to appeal their score on a Regents exam if they score within three points below the low pass rate of 55. A third eases restrictions for students who score between 45 and 54 on one or more Regents exams other than the English or math so long as they score a 65 or higher on another required exam that can compensate for the lower score. Under the new option, students would still be required to earn a minimum score on the ELA and math Regents exams, as state officials consider those to be foundational skills that require a standardized measure of achievement. However, when a student fails another required Regents exam, their superintendent must then review that student's academic record to see if, apart from the state assessment, the individual has demonstrated proficiency in the state's learning standards. This involves a review of the student's final course grade in the tested subject, as well as work completed throughout the school year like homework, projects, class work, quizzes and tests. The superintendent would then provide written certification to the state documenting the student met state standards. A failed exam triggers this automatic review and does not need to be requested by a student or parent. About 2,200 students statewide could benefit from the new graduation option this June. About 1,300 students with IEPs currently have four years of high school under their belt, while another 600 have five years and another 300 have six years. State law requires school districts to provide free education to all students until the age of 21. "I will tell you, the stories that have come through from parents have been heartbreaking because they didn't know when their child entered middle school or high school that they suddenly might not have a high school diploma upon graduation," said Regent Judith Johnson. "I think the superintendent and the building principal and the teacher know the student best," she said. "They know the effort the student has put into his or her work. I've heard stories of kids who've been in school for 13 years who've missed fewer than two days of school their entire school career. We need to make sure they are honored with the recognition of that by giving them a school diploma." The decision earned praise from legislators and education groups Monday who called the previous system a "one size fits all" approach to graduation. High Achievement New York praised the efforts as a way to prevent students from languishing because of test scores, but the pro-Common Core group also warned against districts who might "misuse" the new option as a way to avoid the state's new learning standards. "While the Regents work to provide more accessible pathways to graduation for students who really need them, the state cannot allow these pathways to become side doors around New York's rigorous high standards and assessments," the group said in a statement. "Ultimately, the overwhelming majority of students in New York will need to pass tougher Regents exams in the coming years aligned to higher standards. That's why it's so vital that students opt in to state assessments now, so they are prepared for the truly high stakes graduation exams to come." Several Regents spoke out against critics of the new option, saying it in no way lowers standards and instead treats high school graduation in the same way that colleges consider new students, by considering multiple measures of success and talent. "There are so many different ways to capture a student's abilities and talents," Rosa said. bbump@timesunion.com - 518-454-5387 - @bethanybump This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Orlando, Fla. It had been an evening of drinking, dancing and drag shows. After hours of revelry, the partygoers crowding the gay nightclub known as the Pulse took their last sips before the place closed. That's when authorities say Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and spraying the helpless crowd with bullets. Witnesses said he fired relentlessly 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot at police. He took hostages. When the gunfire stopped, he had slain 50 people and critically wounded dozens more in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Mateen, who law enforcement officials said had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a 911 call around the time of the attack, died in a gun battle with SWAT team members. Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism and probing the background of Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen from Fort Pierce, Fla., who had worked as a security guard. The gunman's father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Mayor Buddy Dyer said. Jon Alamo had been dancing at the Pulse for hours when he wandered into the club's main room just in time to see the gunman. "You ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? That's how he was shooting at people," he said. "My first thought was, oh my God, I'm going to die," Alamo said. "I was praying to God that I would live to see another day." Pulse patron Eddie Justice texted his mother, Mina: "Mommy I love you. In club they shooting." About 30 minutes later, hiding in a bathroom, he texted her: "He's coming. I'm gonna die." As Sunday wore on, she awaited word on his fate. At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the toll was likely to climb. The previous deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself. Mateen's family was from Afghanistan, and he was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida, authorities said. His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters that her former husband was bipolar and "mentally unstable." Mateen was short-tempered and had a history with steroids, she said in remarks televised from Boulder, Colo. She described him as religious but not radical. He wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy, but she had no details. The couple was together for only four months, and the two had no contact for the last seven or eight years, she said. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the club in which he professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The official was familiar with the investigation, but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The extremist group did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, but the IS-run Aamaq news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. Even if the attacker supported IS, it was unclear whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateen was not unknown to law enforcement: In 2013, he made inflammatory comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent Ronald Hopper, who called the interviews inconclusive. In a separate incident, an Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested Sunday in Southern California and told police he was headed to a Los Angeles-area gay pride parade. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Albany Like father, like son. Albany attorney Lee Kindlon's defense of a 2012 client convicted of first-degree rape and sodomy in Loudonville will soon be under scrutiny in court much as his father Terence L. Kindlon's defense of convicted Troy double-murderer Michael Mosley went under a legal microscope last December. The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court ruled Thursday it will allow convicted rapist Joseph Sposito, 32, of Watervliet, a special hearing where his new lawyer, James Knox, can argue that Sposito received ineffective assistance of counsel from the younger Kindlon. The ruling does not reverse Sposito's conviction but it will provide the opportunity for a new trial should Albany County Judge Stephen Herrick, the trial judge, rule that Kindlon's lawyering was ineffective. Appellate justices found "nothing in the trial record sufficient to support (Sposito's) contention on his direct appeal from the judgment of conviction that he received ineffective assistance of counsel." But the justices determined Herrick erred in denying Sposito a hearing to make his post-conviction case of ineffective counsel. A jury convicted Sposito of the Oct. 3, 2010 rape and sodomy, which took place several hours after the woman and friends had been out at Albany bars during Oktoberfest on Oct. 2, 2010. Sposito joined the group and went with them to a Loudonville home where, the jury determined, Sposito attacked a woman as she was unable to consent because of a .266 blood alcohol level that caused her to be unconsciousness. "You knew you were hurting me, and you knew the pain you were causing. You just didn't care, and you did it anyway," the woman told Sposito at his sentencing. He is serving 20 years in Great Meadow Correctional Facility, a maximum security lock-up in Washington County. "What I hope you know now is that you picked the wrong girl and I'll do anything in my power, as long as I can, to ensure that you pay for your crime to the greatest extent the law allows," she said. Sposito's "most significant sworn allegation" is that Lee Kindlon failed to watch the entire recording of his interview with police or read the transcript of that interview before he waived a challenge to its admissibility, according to the decision written by Associate Justice William McCarthy and supported by Justices Elizabeth Garry, John Egan, Eugene "Gus" Devine and Sharon Aarons. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. In April 2012, Sposito wrote a letter to the Times Union complaining that, during the trial, Kindlon was consumed with his Democratic primary campaign for district attorney against incumbent David Soares. The case became an issue in the primary race; Soares' chief investigator, Christian D'Alessandro, asked Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple to probe Kindlon's timesheets when he worked as a county assistant conflict defender. At one point, Kindlon called a news conference to defend his allocation of time during the Sposito trial. Soares also mentioned Kindlon's harsh cross-examination of the rape victim and an opening statement in which Kindlon said the woman "asked for it." At Sposito's sentencing, the woman, 27 at the time of the attack, said: "I will never forget the sickness I felt in my stomach as he asked me about an invented sexual encounter with the rapist sitting at the defense table. The sickness I felt at the time was similar to how horribly violated I felt the night I was attacked. It was disgusting." Kindlon later told the Times Union: "As a defense attorney, sometimes my job means standing in a courtroom next to a defendant accused of terrible crimes, and defending that person to the best of my ability. It's not easy, and it's not enviable, but my oath requires it." rgavin@timesunion.com 518-434-2403 @RobertGavinTU After a flurry of unanticipated activity by the Pennsylvania state legislature, on Wednesday Gov. Tom Wolf signed into law a sweeping liberalization of the state's liquor laws, including allowing the sale of wine in grocery stores. With a stroke of the pen, Pennsylvania, whose liquor laws had been among the most restrictive, consumer unfriendly in the country, rose, if not to progressive leadership, at least well out of the cellar. Wolf says he expects about $150 million a year in added sales tax revenue because of wine in grocery stores. So what, you say? That's them, not us. I would ask you to check how long a border New York shares with Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania decision to sell wine in grocery stores, along with offering a host of other consumer-friendly provisions like direct shipping from New York and elsewhere, drew an immediate and sharp response from the Finger Lakes. Pennsylvania residents can account for up to 40 percent of the traffic in Finger Lake winery tasting rooms. The universal response is that what Pennsylvania has done here is going to be a big deal for the economics of the New York wine industry. Whether this will likely play out as a positive or a negative runs the gamut of opinion. Meanwhile, back on Planet Albany, with a week left in the legislative session, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's omnibus proposal to modernize our own Byzantine Prohibition-era ABC laws appears stalled in Assemblyman Robin Schimminger's Economic Development Committee, which is about what the effort deserves. The governor says there's no excuse for the Legislature not to pass his long laundry list of changes to what are among the most complicated liquor laws in the country even without sufficient time to thoroughly digest and research them, or hold public hearings. Frankly, the Legislature would be negligent if it didn't put this intricate proposal on the shelf and use it later as a departure for real change. After all, what the governor wants us to buy wholesale is the partial product of an industry-dominated working group. Although the No. 1 recommendation even from this group, the complete rewriting and reordering of the laws themselves, is left out of the governor's proposal. The governor himself handicapped the working group, or gave them the excuse to do what they did, by prohibiting anything controversial, like wine in grocery stores, from being discussed. Imagine a coterie of foxes being offered the chance to rearrange the hen house, and the hens not even allowed to squawk. So effectively, the agenda was set by the players who make the most money from the existing monopoly and who can write politicians the biggest checks. Consequently, anything that has come out of that working group, in addition to what hasn't, needs a lot of vetting, and that takes more than a week. Now, that doesn't mean they didn't come up with some good ideas, but there are many more even better ideas that need a good public hearing and open debate. Pennsylvania's dramatic move to allow wine in grocery stores shows by contrast how lame the New York effort has been allowed to be. Schimminger, as a veteran of Albany sausage-making in the final push, affirms that aspects of the governor's proposal may still be in play. "Fluid," is how he put it. There are a couple of stand-alone bills to allow on-premises alcohol sales before noon on Sundays probably still in the negotiating mix, but my sense is the big package the governor wants will probably not be delivered. Ted Marks, owner of Atwater Vineyards just above Watkins Glen on Seneca Lake's east shore, says Pennsylvania's new legislation will have a dramatic effect on New York liquor stores and wineries within 50 miles of the state line, as well as on state revenue. He estimates that 30 to 40 percent of his tasting room sales are to Pennsylvania residents. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. "The amount of sales lost to liquor stores will also be in that range, if not higher, the closer they are to the border," he says. Ted feels the current drift in Albany is heavily supportive of craft beers and ciders. And while it is a great credit to proponent Gov. Cuomo, it has left New York's original craft brew wines on the downslope of the playing field. The beers and ciders, regardless of alcohol content, can be sold in both grocery stores and liquor stores, while wines can't. Suzy Hayes, of Miles Wine Cellars, feels as Ted does, that grapes are being discriminated against. She, too, sees the Pennsylvania decision as a game changer, but hers is a far more positive outlook. "Bordering states seem to benefit and I think it's a great step forward for our region and will help New York. A free market always helps the wine business." No doubt there will be no shortage of opinions on what effect the Pennsylvania decision may have on the economics of the New York industry. We'll know soon enough. Regardless, what does stand out is Pennsylvania's unexpected and ascendant leadership position, making the plunge and sending shock waves. They are acting, and we are having to adjust. When Gov. Hugh Carey and his legendary lieutenant governor, Mary Anne Krupsak, gave us the Farm Winery Act in 1976, they in effect created our fabulous modern New York wine industry, but they also sent profound ripples of consequences across the northeast wine world. We've come a long way. flebrun@timesunion.com 518-454-5453 Across New York and the nation, people are fed up. They are anxious about the economy and what the future holds for them and their families. They are frustrated by the partisan political paralysis that has gripped Washington. Most of all, a growing number of Americans feel disenfranchised and fear the democratic process has been eclipsed by the wealthy and the powerful. They are not wrong. While there are many factors at play, one single event has caused much of the harm. The 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission effectively disenfranchised millions of citizens. With the stroke of a pen, the verdict prohibited government from restricting people and corporations from creating unlimited independent expenditure campaigns, allowing these groups to funnel billions of dollars into elections each year. Citizens United must be overturned. I am advancing first-in-the-nation legislation that would close glaring loopholes in state law and prevent these so-called "independent" groups from coordinating with the candidates they support. The legislation would increase state enforcement, root out rampant abuses in election law and ensure absolute and full disclosure of all donors. This much is clear: The ability of dark money and the top 1 percent to sway New York's elections and influence electoral outcomes cannot be allowed to persist. It can't be that the price of admission to the democratic process is now $1 million. In 2011, approximately 80 Super PACs were registered with the Federal Election Committee, with independent expenditures totaling more than $90 million. In 2012, more than 800 Super PACs were registered with the FEC, with groups spending approximately $800 million that cycle. Super PACs have spent more than a billion dollars in the past three election cycles since 2010. Moreover, independent expenditures in New York spent $12 million on just five state Senate races in 2014. In the most expensive race, for the 40th District covering parts of Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester counties, total spending was $7.5 million with half of that coming from outside groups. That's more than what was spent in 91 percent of U.S. House races that year. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. Perhaps the most egregious example is that a person can only contribute $5,400 to a candidate for president, but also donate an outrageous $54 million to a committee that supports that same candidate. This is a disgrace. To restore the integrity of the democratic process, my counsel has issued an opinion that spells out permissible conduct for these groups ensuring there are no ambiguities in state law. Together with my legislation, these protections institute the strictest anti-coordination measures in the country. The state is taking decisive action to ensure the independence of these entities is not a myth, but a reality. A candidate wants to form his or her own PAC? Family members want to create an independent expenditure to support their relative's run for office? A candidate's advisers suggest that the group run an advertisement? Not in New York. I call on the state Legislature to join me and pass this important legislation this session. The Senate and Assembly should rise to the occasion. Because in New York, democracy rules and the voice of the people matters. Elections must not be bought and sold. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate THE ISSUE: Another mass shooting underscores the easy availability of high-power, high-capacity firearms in America. THE STAKES: The latest record death toll will surely be broken if gun laws don't change. More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse The gunman who killed 49 people and wounded 53 Sunday in America's deadliest mass shooting didn't act alone. He had an accessory. It's the same accessory that has accompanied every other crazed or angry killer in recent American history. An accessory that doesn't merely get away unscathed each time, but is defended, praised, even revered by so many people who are otherwise shocked by murder after mass murder. An accessory that only seems to grow more popular the more death and misery it helps to inflict. No, it's not some abstract or amorphous concept like hate, or bigotry, or extremism. It isn't the elusive, all-to-often hidden condition of mental illness. It isn't any of the circumstances that make each of these horrific killings unique. It's the gun. It's the accessory that's there almost every time, for everyone to see. And it's the one thing that too many people prefer not to blame. It's just an inanimate object, they argue. Guns, don't kill people; people kill people, goes the National Rifle Association's pithy dismissal of efforts to place responsibility on these instruments of death, these accessories to every gun crime in this country. Yet here we are again, mourning innocent people cut down by a killer with a gun. The two are inseparable. No weapon in our society is as portable, concealable, readily available and deadly. The gun is the mass murderer's weapon of choice, usually semi-automatic firearms in particular. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. No matter their individual design, these rifles and handguns enable an individual to fire off shot after shot in rapid succession, limited only by the number of rounds in the magazines, which typically hold around 15 shots for pistols and 30 for rifles. It's not hard to see how 49 innocent lives could be extinguished in an Orlando bar in 2016, or 14 people at a California party 2015, or 26 children and adults in Connecticut elementary school in 2012, or 32 on a Virginia college campus in 2007, and so on, back through year after year of tragedy. It's tempting to look at each of these massacres through a narrow lens, to get caught up in the details and say, it's foreign terrorism we need to stop, or racial prejudice, or LGBT bias, or domestic violence, or bullying, or the NRA's latest impossibility mental illness. We should address those issues, but the reality is, we are not going to fix them all, and guns will still be there for all those who slip through the cracks as long as we make them readily available. They will remain readily available as long as the NRA and its lobbyists trump the majority of Americans who agree there should be universal background checks on all gun sales. As long as gun manufacturers persuade Congress that rapid-fire, high capacity semiautomatic weapons should be freely sold. And as long as Congress buys into an interpretation of the Second Amendment that affords gun makers the greatest profits possible, enabling them to supply every aspiring mass murderer with the perfect accessory for the crime. The Ukrainian-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry is to start functioning in autumn 2016, and the ninth meeting of the Ukraine-Germany High Level Group on Economic Cooperation will be held soon, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said. The president's press service reported that Poroshenko had a meeting with delegation of Secretaries of State of Federal Ministries of Germany arrived in Ukraine within the mission of the German government on the provision of assistance in the implementation of reforms. Poroshenko expressed gratitude to Germany for its financial and technical assistance. "The head of state urged German business to use the advantages of the Ukraine-EU Association and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area Agreement more actively. According to him, Ukraine is interested in enhancing economic and investment presence of Germany. The president is hopeful to expand bilateral trade relations," the press service said. Poroshenko said that the Ukraine-Germany Trade-Industrial Chamber will become an important instrument for the enhancement of economic cooperation. Poroshenko informed the German delegation on the efforts of the Ukrainian authorities aimed at profound reformation of the judiciary. The president said that the constitutional amendments on justice and the law the judicial system and the status of judges recently approved by the Verkhovna Rada would allow rebooting the judicial branch of power using the best European practices. The representatives of the German delegation praised the establishment of new anti-corruption bodies that will contribute to the strengthening of the rule of law and improve the quality of the state apparatus of Ukraine. "Here's proof that humans impact climate change," (May 28) cites scientists in a report on anthropogenic global warming from the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. There's also Nature, the world's most highly cited peer-reviewed science journal, which says that future climate change disasters, caused by continued burning of fossil fuels, will cost over $396 trillion. That's consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's conclusion that anthropogenic global warming will cause "global economic collapse" followed by "societal collapse" if we don't transition to clean energy within the next decade. Fortunately, it's possible do that with carbon pricing (Newsweek). And if we use a revenue-neutral carbon tax, it won't have to cost consumers or taxpayers anything. The fossil fuel corporations that created this problem will pay us, not the government. Asking the public to pay higher taxes or energy bills to fix climate change is like asking the residents of Flint, Mich., to pay for the damage their poisoned water system has inflicted on them. Roscrea is in line for a major lift with the announcement of at least 60 jobs for the town. Roscrea is in line for a major lift with the announcement of at least 60 jobs for the town. Farm Relief Services (FRS) Roscrea has teamed up with UK-based company Working Links to create Turas Nua, a joint venture which has been successful in bidding to become the HQ for the Governments JobPath Programme in the south of Ireland. The company will oversee nearly 500 positions across the country, creating between 60 and 100 jobs in Roscrea in the process. Mr Peter Byrne CEO, FRS Network, and Mr Colin Donnery General Manager, spearheaded the project. Mr Donnery told the Tipperary Star that recruiting will begin next Spring, and candidates will be trained on the job. The company is currently looking for a suitable site in Roscrea. Were looking for professional empathetic people who are capable of delivering advice. We have a commitment within the tender, that 10% of the people we take on come from an unemployed background. We will be getting some experienced people in, but most of them will have to be trained from scratch. The news comes as a major boost to Roscrea, and was welcomed by Environment Minister Alan Kelly TD. This shows the strength of local businesses in Roscrea and the potential to have success stories locally. Roscrea has been underinvested in for generations and this news should provide a welcome boost for the town with the potential to have 80-100 jobs based there. Deputy Noel Coonan said FRS will now need to source a suitable building as their headquarters in Roscrea for this project. An Post are currently negotiating with a local businessman regarding a vacant advanced building in Benamore for a Regional Sorting Centre to be located in Roscrea. One would hope we could combine these two endeavours in the one premises and I encourage all parties to explore possibilities to make it happen. Local Labour candidate Shane Lee added: This is one of the biggest announcements for Roscrea in a long time. Roscrea will bounce back, together and be stronger in the coming years. Amy Alcorn, left, stands with New York City firefighter, Michael Wilson, who donated bone marrow for a transplant that saved Alcorns life. She met Wilson for the first time on April 29. Chief of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine Roman Nasirov has said that tax amnesty should not be announced in 2016. "I was in the parliamentary committee when the so-called tax compromise, which in fact is a tax amnesty, was approved. It was necessary. We had to draw a line. It is very difficult to do this now as such action could be interpreted as a wrong signal tax amnesties [will be held] every year," he said during the Swedish-Ukrainian Business Forum in Kyiv on Monday. Nasirov added that he supports the idea of pre-trial settlement of disputes between businesses and tax authorities. You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close [June 13, 2016] LivWell Instrumental in Colorado Cannabis Investment Law LivWell Enlightened Health, Colorado's leading cannabis retailer, was one of the leaders in an industry coalition composed of private businesses and major industry groups that lobbied and secured the passage of a bill that will allow out-of-state investors to have ownership interests in Colorado cannabis businesses. The new law removes the two-year residency requirement previously mandated for equity holders. Investors will still be required to meet other current ownership criteria, including criminal and financial background checks. Passive owners of less than 5 percent will be subjected to less extensive and more cost-effective screening. "This levels the industry playing field a bit," said Dean Heizer, Chief Legal Strategist of LivWell Enlightened Health. "It puts us closer to competitive par with the many other states that don't have residency requirements by freeing up capital for compliance investment, industry growth and by making it easier for small operators to access capital to survive." While the law allows vetted out-of-state investments, it ensures that operational control will remain with Colorado residents. The law also povides that qualified institutional investors like banks, insurance companies, registered investment companies and others may own up to 30 percent of a Colorado cannabis business. To keep growth reasonable and prevent undue burden on the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED), the law limits businesses with out-of-state investors to 15 owners. About LivWell LivWell Enlightened Health is among Colorado's largest cannabis companies, with fourteen locations across the state. LivWell provides its patients and customers with the best value, quality and variety of cannabis products including flower, topicals, tinctures, edibles, smoking accessories and more. LivWell's team of innovative farmers and scientists grow more than 40 strains of cannabis to meet the varied and evolving tastes of its customers. LivWell's searchable strain library can be found at http://www.livwell.com/product-category/strains/. LivWell employees undergo rigorous training and education through LivWell University, preparing them to be the most knowledgeable, helpful budtenders in the industry, and to become advocates of responsible use. LivWell employs approximately 500 Coloradans who enjoy higher-than-average salaries and benefits. For more information, including a list of LivWell's locations, visit http://www.livwell.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613006238/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Rapid Adoption of Electro Scan Inspection by Northern California Sewer Agencies Follows Release of New Guidelines Electro Scan Inc. has begun numerous projects in Northern California to independently assess the condition of sanitary sewers, before and after rehabilitation programs. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005367/en/ Electro Scanning Inspection adopted in the San Francisco Bay Area to locate leaking sewers. (Photo: Business Wire) "We are delighted to begin so many projects near our headquarters," stated Chuck Hansen, Chairman of Electro Scan, "and to show how sewer agencies can reduce their reliance on outdated methods of inspection that may inaccurately prioritize defects and are unable to certify repairs." One recent survey compared sewer mains that were previously inspected using high-resolution cameras; however, closed-circuit television (CCTV) recorded less than 1 of every 10 defects found using Electro Scan Inspection. In another, the majority of CCTV inspections rated pipes as 'leak free' or having no evidence of infiltration, with Electro Scan Inspection finding major leaks in over eighty percent (80%) of the pipes surveyed. In previous surveys, visual inspections simply recorded fatory tap locations that connect homes to the sewer main, without recording any defects. In contrast, Electro Scan Inspection automatically located and quantified leaks at each defective service connection. Authored by the late Ken Kerri, Ph.D., PE, the Electro Scanning Inspection chapter was included in the new Seventh Edition, Volume One, Operation and Maintenance of Wastewater Collection Systems manual to overcome the limitations of visual inspection. The new manual now recommends the use of Electro Scanning Inspection, over CCTV, to evaluate sewer and stormwater pipes, both before and after rehabilitation. "Sewer managers have long acknowledged the drawbacks of using visual inspection to rate the condition of sewers," commented Hansen. "But, what surprises most people are the high number of defects found by Electro Scan in relining and point repair projects that were missed by CCTV inspection." Common defects in CIPP liners, not typically seen by visual inspection, include accidental cuts, accelerator burns, bad service reconnections, equipment damage, defective epoxy, over-cooking, and lining wrinkles that should be repaired or replaced before project acceptance. Electro Scanning Inspection can be a contracted service or municipal sewer agencies can purchase equipment that can easily be added to an existing CCTV truck, able to switch from CCTV to Electro Scan, and back, in minutes. Another recent project performed for a community on the Sacramento River Delta, assessed nearly 13,000 ft of pipe consisting of seventy-seven (77) sewer mains. Fieldwork was completed in 4 days. In a single day, Electro Scan crews completed the evaluation of 3,978 feet or 28 sewer mains - a company milestone - including several difficult access points where several manholes were 40-ft deep and others located in the middle of a dry creek bed. In December 2015, the first Electro Scan Leak Detection Van was delivered to San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), with 10 trainees achieving Electro Scan Certification in January 2016. Today, SFPUC has a full-time team dedicated to running their Electro Scan Leak Detection Van to pinpoint pipe defects where seawater enters its combined sewer system. Electro Scan Inspection uses patented technology to measure the variation of electrical current that flows through cracks, bad joints, defective service connections, and other defects in non-conductive pipes and estimates the amount of leakage in sewer, water, and gas pipelines. Using its Critical Sewers cloud application, defects are automatically located and measured in gallons per minute, with unambiguous reports available in minutes. All Northern California Electro Scanning Inspection projects are being conducted by certified company field crews, in accordance with recommended guidelines published in the Seventh Edition, Volume One, of the Operation and Maintenance of Wastewater Collection Systems manual and in accordance with ASTM F2550-13. About Electro Scan Inc. Electro Scan Inc., headquartered in Sacramento, develops proprietary pipe condition assessment instrumentation and cloud applications that automatically locates, measures, and reports defects in sewer, water, and natural gas pipelines, typically not found by legacy inspection methods. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005367/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] SpaceResources.lu: Luxembourg Government and Planetary Resources sign MoU to develop activities related to space resource utilization The Luxembourg Government, the public-law banking institution "Societe Nationale de Credit et d'Investissement" (SNCI) and U.S.-based aerospace technology company Planetary Resources have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) providing the framework for their cooperation within Luxembourg's SpaceResources.lu initiative which aims at the exploration and commercial utilization of resources from Near Earth Objects (NEOs), such as asteroids. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005583/en/ (from l. to r.) Patrck Nickels, president SNCI; Etienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Economy; Chris Lewicki, President and CEO, Planetary resources Inc. (Photo: Business Wire) Within this partnership, the Government is considering a direct capital investment in the European headquarters established recently by Planetary Resources in the Grand Duchy. This public equity position will be taken by the SNCI to become a minority shareholder. For its part, Planetary Resources is contributing to the promotion of the local space industry by developing several key activities exclusively in Luxembourg focused on space hardware development, space services, applied research and scientific discovery. The Government will support these activities by providing funding through R&D grants or other different types of aid available. Luxembourg Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, Etienne Schneider, stated: "The Government's partnership with Planetary Resources is another ambitious public-private joint venture which demonstrates our strong commitment to support the national space sector by attracting innovative activities in space resource utilization and other related areas. The Grand Duchy has a renowned history in public-private partnerships. We joined the spacefaring nations in 1985 when Luxembourg became one of the founding shareholders of SES (News - Alert), a landmark for satellite telecommunications and now a world leader in this sector." The MoU paves the way to building up in Luxembourg research activities and technological capabilities in the fields of propulsion development, spacecraft launch integration, deep space communications, asteroid science systems, Earth observation product development, and mission operations. "We are excited to begin working with Luxembourg to develop ground-breaking space technologies and services," said Chris Lewicki, President and CEO, Planetary Resources, Inc. "Luxembourg has a strong history and reputation in commercial space operations and we are proud to be working with their government, academia, and industry to further develop the limitless potential of the space resources market." Released by the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005583/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Square Roots Launches "BIRTH 40", the Coalition of Cities Improving Birth in the United States Today, at the 2016 CGI (News - Alert) America meeting, Square Roots announced a new Commitment to Action to launch "BIRTH 40: The Coalition of Cities Improving Birth." BIRTH 40 will address the dire state of maternal and infant health in the United States through a network of 40 American cities, which will receive resources, access to technology solutions, leading research and programs, and a blueprint of best practices to improve maternal health in their communities. The commitment will invest $4.15 million over the next four years to build and support BIRTH 40, adding ten new member cities each year. Following an initial needs assessment conducted with city leadership, the network will connect to families, care providers, city agencies, and other key stakeholders in the local community. Customized educational resources, technology solutions, and a birth plan system will be provided to city partners and expecting mothers within member cities. "Cities are the points of greatest leverage for change at scale. BIRTH 40 was designed to combine this unique capacity of the civic platform with the resources and expertise of the private sector, starting with Square Roots," said Morad Fareed, founder and CEO of Square Roots. "By equipping local leadership with national experts, inventive technology, our BIRTH platform, and a network of peers, this new medium will provide non clinical maternal care for families across the United States in a more targeted, equitable, and impactful way." BIRTH 40 member cities will have access to a customized version of Square Roots' BIRTH platform, which includes: Birth Plan: An educational birth plan tool and system customized to cities An educational birth plan tool and system customized to cities Information: Advisory and collaboration between network cities, a blueprint for best practices and educational curriculum to implement solutions locally Advisory and collaboration between network cities, a blueprint for best practices and educational curriculum to implement solutions locally Ratings: Nationwide ratings system, benchmarking city level IQ on hospital ratings, and access to proprietary database Nationwide ratings system, benchmarking city level IQ on hospital ratings, and access to proprietary database Technology: Innovative solutions to foster collaboration and information saring between and within cities, by creating a new medium of perinatal care through accessible kiosks and technology products within each community Innovative solutions to foster collaboration and information saring between and within cities, by creating a new medium of perinatal care through accessible kiosks and technology products within each community Human Centered: Access to evidence-based research library, a comprehensive needs assessment, index of human data, and cross-city summits to encourage further engagement within network Senator Olympia J. Snowe, the former United States Senator from Maine and a Square Roots Advisor. "BIRTH 40 demonstrates the potential to improve public services through cross-sector and cross-city collaboration, and its innovative approach will lead to better health outcomes for our nation's mothers and infants." "As a mayor, the health, safety, and well-being of my citizens is my top priority," said Mayor-elect Darryl Grennell of Natchez, Mississippi. "Having seen Square Roots work with mothers in Natchez, I'm incredibly excited about the potential for BIRTH 40 to bring their knowledge and networks to even more communities. I look forward to working with and learning from other mayors as part of the BIRTH 40 network." Modeled on the successful C40 coalition for carbon reduction, the BIRTH 40 builds on Square Roots past leadership engaging cities in a national effort to improve maternal and infant health. Square Roots has identified several U.S. cities focused on improving health outcomes by introducing a resolution on maternal health at the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors last summer in 2015. Recruitment for the first BIRTH 40 network members will focus on these cities, as well as other high-need communities. The BIRTH 40 commitment comes at a time of incredible need for new solutions and swift action. The United States maternal health ranking is the worst of all developed countries. Pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. nearly doubled from 7.2 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 14 deaths per 100,000 in 2015. The average woman in the U.S. is two times more likely to die from childbirth than a Canadian woman, while mothers in Mississippi are 2.5 times more likely to die from childbirth than mothers in the state of Arizona. The United States spends more on healthcare and pregnancy than countries with far better outcomes. A lack of focus, collaboration, and information has produced a highly-fragmented, highly-ineffective system of care for mothers across America. BIRTH 40 will bridge these gaps and empower cities to deliver quality care in their local communities. About Square Roots Square Roots (www.squareroots.com) is a mission-driven business focused on defining and empowering healthy birth. By integrating new technology and scientific findings with intelligent partnerships from medicine to policy to maternal care takers, Square Roots brings needed solutions and resources to the most critical period of life: our beginning. We identify the highest impact programs and tools that have a proven health impact for Mothers and coordinate the distribution of these programs and tools between academia, policy, public agencies, and private companies. Follow Square Roots on Twitter (News - Alert) with @SquareRootsLife. Follow Urban Zen on Facebook and Instagram with @SquareRootsBirth. About Clinton Global Initiative America Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America brings together leaders from the business, philanthropic, nonprofit, and government sectors to develop solutions that encourage economic growth, support long-term competitiveness, and increase social mobility in the United States. CGI America's annual convening is designed to be a working meeting that promotes collaboration. Each CGI America participant makes a Commitment to Action: a new, specific, and measurable plan that supports increased economic growth and opportunity. To date, CGI America participants have made more than 500 commitments, which have improved the lives of nearly 2.4 million people. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005944/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Titan Spine Enhances Its Endoskeleton Warranty Titan Spine, a medical device surface technology company focused on developing innovative spinal interbody fusion implants, today announced that it is enhancing its spinal device warranty to provide a free replacement if any of the Company's Endoskeleton interbody fusion devices delaminate or generate particulate debris during implantation. The amended warranty is a direct reflection of the Company's confidence in its proprietary subtractive manufacturing process that was further validated in a recent study published in The Spine Journal demonstrating that the Company's Endoskeleton titanium interbody fusion devices generated no particulate debris or delamination during simulated impaction in to the disc space, as opposed to those made with an additive coating. The company's initial warranty was first offered in September 2014, and provides a one-time free replacement of any eligible Titan spinal interbody fusion device if revision surgery is required within the five year warranty period, as outlined within the terms of the agreement. Peter Ullrich, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Titan Spine, commented, "Since we first announced our warranty in 2014, we have received overwhelming positive feedback from hospitals, surgeons, and patients. We are excited to expand our warranty to now include full coverage of the device if it is ever removed due to delaminaion or detached titanium particles. Our most-recent study1 has generated spirited debate in our industry whether titanium material stays bound during impaction or not when manufactured using a subtractive versus various additive coating techniques. Our science and our experience in the marketplace that includes over 45,000 implantations has confirmed that the titanium on our devices stays bound during implantation and in-situ, which is critical to ensure patient safety." Kevin Gemas, President of Titan Spine, added, "Hospitals and health systems look very favorably on companies who are willing to risk share by standing behind their technologies. We are interested to see which of our fellow interbody device manufacturers are willing to follow our lead and shoulder the liability of backing their devices regardless of patient co-morbidities or the biologic used." Titan Spine offers a full line of Endoskeleton devices that feature Titan Spine's proprietary implant surface technology, consisting of a unique combination of roughened topographies at the macro, micro, and nano levels (MMN). This unique combination of surface topographies is designed to create an optimal host-bone response and actively participate in the fusion process by promoting the upregulation of osteogenic and angiogenic factors necessary for bone growth, encouraging natural production of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), downregulating inflammatory factors, and creating the potential for a faster and more robust fusion.2,3,4 The company will soon be launching its next-generation nanoLOCK surface technology, which has been shown to create superior osteogenic and angiogenic environments when compared to PEEK and the company's current surface technology.5 All Endoskeleton devices, including those that feature nanoLOCK surface technology, are covered by the company's warranty. About Titan Spine Titan Spine, LLC is a surface technology company focused on the design and manufacture of interbody fusion devices for the spine. The company is committed to advancing the science of surface engineering to enhance the treatment of various pathologies of the spine that require fusion. Titan Spine, located in Mequon, Wisconsin and Laichingen, Germany, markets a full line of Endoskeleton interbody devices featuring its proprietary textured surface in the U.S. and portions of Europe through its sales force and a network of independent distributors. To learn more, visit www.titanspine.com. 1 Kienle, A., Graf, N., Wilke, H.J., Does Impaction of Titanium-Coated Interbody Fusion Cages into the Disc Space Cause Wear Debris and/or Delamination? The Spine Journal. 2016 Feb; 16 (2): 235-42. 2 Olivares-Navarrete, R., Hyzy, S.L., Slosar, P.J., Schneider, J.M., Schwartz, Z., and Boyan, B.D. (2015). Implant materials generate different peri-implant inflammatory factors: PEEK promotes fibrosis and micro-textured titanium promotes osteogenic factors. Spine, Volume 40, Issue 6, 399-404. 3 Olivares-Navarrete, R., Gittens, R.A., Schneider, J.M., Hyzy, S.L., Haithcock, D.A., Ullrich, P.F., Schwartz, Z., Boyan, B.D. (2012). Osteoblasts exhibit a more differentiated phenotype and increased bone morphogenetic production on titanium alloy substrates than poly-ether-ether-ketone. The Spine Journal, 12, 265-272. 4 Olivares-Navarrete, R., Hyzy, S.L., Gittens, R.A., Schneider, J.M., Haithcock, D.A., Ullrich, P.F., Slosar, P. J., Schwartz, Z., Boyan, B.D. (2013). Rough titanium alloys regulate osteoblast production of angiogenic factors. The Spine Journal, 13, 1563-1570. 5 Olivares-Navarrete, R., Hyzy S.L., Gittens, R.A., Berg, M.E., Schneider, J.M., Hotchkiss, K., Schwartz, Z., Boyan, B. D. Osteoblast lineage cells can discriminate microscale topographic features on titanium-aluminum-vanadium surfaces. Ann Biomed Eng. 2014 Dec; 42 (12): 2551-61. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005337/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Small Town Edutech Startup 'LearnFatafat' Helps Students Understand Textbooks Without Reading BHUSAWAL, India, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Anything can be learnt in three minutes, yes, that is possible with Learnfatafat. LearnFatafat, the edutech start-up simplifies complex textbook concepts to simple videos which helps students to learn anything in three minutes. 'LearnFatafat', as the word itself suggests, learn anything fatafat (quickly) through visualisation and digitalisation of books. Based on our honourable Prime Minister Shri. Narendra Modi's Digital India concept, LearnFatafat initiated a small step in the e-learning educational industry to avail equal and world-class education to every student from metros to rural areas in India. This is how LearnFatafat.com started One student came to Pankaj Chhajed (the Founder) with difficulties she was facing in understanding certain concepts. She said that she was unable to get the concept even after reading it three to four times and that the concept was too textual and boring. So, Pankaj read it, understood and used his knowledge and experience to explain it to her in a simple way by using live examples and visuals. She understood the concept quickly and clearly and this triggered Pankaj that there is a need to simplify complex textual concepts into a simple and easy-to-understand way. He realised the need of visualisation in education and after doing much research, he came up with the idea of converting textbooks into videos. Research says our brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text. It is observed that - in a year a student spends approximately 1,100 hours in study and these hours increase up to a whopping 3,000 hours during class X and XII examinations and 60% of these hours are spent on reading textbooks. Pankaj discussed his idea with the core business team and arranged brainstorming sessions. After lots of discussions and meetings, it was decided to simplify educational textbooks into videos and this is how LearnFatafat started. Within two months, on 29 June 2015, the idea conceptualised into a live product 'LearnFatafat.com', the beta version. How launching the product was possible within two months? LearnFatafat, a trademark of SDLC Services, is a startup from Bhusawal, a small city in India. Rural location, small team, no major technical capabilities and no experience in video making, many things were against the team. But they had a vision to make a difference, a vision to make world-class products from Bhusawal. With that vision in mind, the team worked day and night to produce the pilot version. Within two months the idea was conceptualised into the live product. LearnFatafat is backed by SDLC Services which provided business analysis for five years to client across the globe. SDLC Services is an ISO 9001:2015 certified company. SDLC was featured in Asia's leading magazine YourStory under the title 'How to lead a successful tech business from a small town: SDLC story'. Within a week of its launch, LearnFatafat started gaining traction among students. Their popularity among students increased because of very simple, easy-to-understand, short videos covering almost 100% of the syllabus. Nothing more than textbooks and nothing less than textbooks concept helped students to focus on what is required to study rather than learning unnecessary extra concepts. "Our popularity increased because of our user experience in product design and our communication with users. We always listened to our users and followed continuous improvement approach to give best viable solution to our users," says Pankaj. Initially the course was available online only, on realising that Internet penetration is still low in India and many students don't have access to good Internet connection. LearnFatafat came up with an offline model consisting of educational DVD's and educational pen drives, where students can learn and use e-learning service without Iinternet. LearnFatafat is among very few edutech companies in India having installable software versions and offline education. We Indianised the accent in videos so that they can be understood by all classes of students. Traction LearnFatafat is gaining wide popularity with 5000+ active users, 40k followers on Facebook and 2k+ subscribers on YouTube. We have many paid users across India and the offline version will add close to 1000 paid users. LearnFatafat also has a tie-up with few schools as a pilot. Users are calling themselves as 'Lovers of LearnFatafat', they are loving and using the edutech platform for quick understanding, quick revision, crash courses, doubt clearance and self assessment. Users are now not depending on ratta and are instead learning the fundamentals. Differentiators - Simplification of complex topics in easy-to-understand videos - Short interesting videos ranging to five minutes maximum - Self-study anytime, anywhere at your own pace - Complete syllabus is covered with 98% of content mapping from textbooks - Videos with animated characters lets you grasp more and remember for a longer period - Understand textbooks without reading textbooks LearnFatafat is backed by a young and vibrant team. The core team members, Pankaj Chhajed, Surabhi Nigam, Tejal Patil, Priya Soni and Sagar Wani play key roles and handle verticals independently. With a zest for achieving something great from their hometown, the team is very confident on making LearnFatafat.com a top edutech company in India. The company is bootstrapped and looking for funding and investments to add many new courses and making a strong distribution channel in India. The startup sees huge traction in the coming months. The product has been tested by paid users and the e-learning platform wants to expand their operations and require funds for continuous product improvement. Their future plans include, expanding courses from Class 1 to 12, inclusion of many other general courses, widen accessibility to come up with a mobile app, establish LearnFatafat learning centres at remote locations and add more courses in the future. They also have targets to develop a library of 10,000+ videos in the coming year, to increase their reach and also establish a strong distribution channel across India. About LearnFatafat: LearnFatafat is a trademark product of SDLC Services Private Limited, an ISO 9001:2015 certified company. Started from small town of India, SDLC initially provided business analysis services to clients across globe and launched their first edutech product LearnFatafat in beta version on 29 June 2015. The company is getting huge popularity among users. LearnFatafat simplifies textbooks into simple, easy to understand videos. With the concept of nothing less than textbooks and nothing more than textbooks, students love LearnFatafat as they are reducing 60% of their time spent on reading textbooks. LearnFatafat is a bootstrapped startup generating revenue. With a library of 2500 videos, the company aims to increase its video library to 10,000 videos in coming year with more courses. Users can connect with LearnFatafat on http://www.LearnFatafat.com or follow them on: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Media Contact: Pankaj Chhajed [email protected] +91-7888272625 Founder and CEO SDLC Services Private Limited/http://www.LearnFatafat.com [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Military Satellite Market Growth to 2020 Driven by Demand for Electro-Optical Imaging Systems PUNE, India, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Global military satellite market analysts forecast emergence of inflatable SATCOM antennas to boost the market growth. Technological advancements in antenna and satellite technology, along with nimble and high-capacity global networks, have brought military forces into the limelight. The emergence of inflatable SATCOM antennas, designed for ground military use in remote areas and harsh weather is one such significant development. Complete report on military satellite market spread across 101 pages, analyzing 5 major companies and providing 61 data exhibits now available at http://www.sandlerresearch.org/global-military-satellite-market-2016-2020.html. The analysts forecast global military satellite market to grow at a CAGR of 5.70% during the period 2016-2020. According to the 2016 report, a key growth driver for military satellite market is the increasing demand for electro-optical imaging systems. Advanced image-enhancing equipment such as high-resolution cameras and advanced remote-sensing technology has improved the quality of satellite-based Earth observation images. Such equipment offers a single internet access point to all the users to obtain EO data from existing databases as well as from the new up-to-date portals. Thus, users from various domains can access the information directly. The global military satellite market is highly competitive with vendors competing on the basis of cost, product quality, reliability, and aftermarket service. In order to survive and succeed in such an intensely competitive environment, it is crucial for the vendors to provide cost-effective and high-quality satellite systems with latest technology and materials. The military satellite market report also highlights Northrop Grumman and Thales Group as the two leading vendors in the market, who compete in terms of availability, price, quality, and technology. Their focus is primarily on the implementation of lightweight materials, more electric technologies, and robust systems. Also, Lockheed Martin, a prominent vendor of the market, is the prime contractor for a number of major US military stellite programs, such as the Advanced EHF constellation, the US Navy's MUOS, the GPS III, and the SBIRS High system. Further, the military satellite market report states that one challenge that could hamper market growth is the cost associated with satellite launches. Researchers believe in-house manufacturing capabilities, product offerings, global footprint network, R&D investments, newer technologies, and strong client base have become the key areas to have an edge over the competitors. Factors like global economic recovery, the growth of the aerospace and defense sector, and R&D investments have opened room for opportunities for defense vendors to compete and grow. The following companies are the key players in the global military satellite market: Boeing, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Thales Group. Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Airbus Defence and Space, GE Aviation, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, and ViaSat. Order a copy of Global Military Satellite Market 2016-2020 report @ http://www.sandlerresearch.org/purchase?rname=55585. Global Military Satellite Market 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global military satellite market for 2016-2020. Another related report is Global Satellite-Based Augmentation Systems 2016-2020, the analysts forecast global satellite-based augmentation system market to grow at a CAGR of 5.2% during the period 2016-2020. It is necessary to maximize the utilization of the available airspace in a safe and efficient manner. The aviation industry requires substantial investment and improvement in ATC systems. There have been several such activities worldwide in the upgrade of ATC infrastructure. Such efforts have helped the growth of the global satellite-based augmentation system market. Browse complete report @ http://www.sandlerresearch.org/global-satellite-based-augmentation-systems-2016-2020.html. Explore other new reports on Defence Market @ http://www.sandlerresearch.org/market-research/defence. About Us: SandlerResearch.org is your go-to source for all market research needs. Our database includes thousands of market research reports from over multiple leading global publishers & in-depth market research studies of over several micro markets. With comprehensive information about the publishers and the industries for which they publish market research reports, we help you in your purchase decision by mapping your information needs with our huge collection of reports. Connect with Us: G+ / Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/106598308303011242341/posts Twitter: https://twitter.com/SandlerResearch Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sandler-Research/524957830948790 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCQLoqvZE2Py7AxNeNlBXoA Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/SandlerResearch/ Contact: Ritesh Tiwari UNIT no 802, Tower no. 7, SEZ Magarpatta city, Hadapsar Pune - 411013 Maharashtra, India. +1 888 391 5441 [email protected] SOURCE Sandler Research [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] InfoReliance Gains AWS Managed Service Program Status for Third Consecutive Year FAIRFAX, Va., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- InfoReliance has been named an approved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Managed Service Provider (MSP) for the third consecutive year. Through the agreement, InfoReliance will continue to provide technical and business benefits to deliver cloud services as managed business solutions to AWS customers. To attain this certification, InfoReliance underwent a third-party audit evaluation of the Company's ability to provide integrated consulting and technology solutions that deliver value to customers through the complete cloud infrastructure and application migration life-cycles, from design and implementation to management and support. The AWS Managed Service Program (MSP) recognizes partners that are skilled at cloud infrastructure and application migration, and deliver value to customers by offering proactive monitoring, automation, and management of their customers' environments. The AWS MSP program required InfoReliance to meet certain criteria and demonstrate that it has specific capabilities, processes, frameworks, and methodologies in place to excel at offering customers secure, fully managed cloud solutions in the AWS platform. The required criteria cover Security, Service Desk/Customer Support, Service Level Agreements, Customer Obsession, and Service Reporting across all of the AWS core services platform. In addition, AWS also recognizes MSP partners for business capabilities based on application migration, hybrid IT expertise, custom application development, and industry expertise and technical capabilities based on application development, data management, mobile apps and end-user support. InfoReliance was among the first companies to earn this certification when the AWS MSP program was first announced, and is now one of only twenty-three companies in the U.S. to be a member. "Over the past five years, AWS has selected InfoReliance as a strategic partner to develop, deploy, and manage their cloud platform as customer solutions and has consistently recognized us as for our cloud expertise and capabilities," said John Sankovich, Executive Vice President of Cloud Services at InfoReliance. "We are seeing customers in both the public and private sectors embrace our managed services model, as well as our ability to provide them with all the benefits of the cloud through our comprehensive offerings, including resale, consulting and managed services." About InfoReliance InfoReliance Corporation is a technology consulting firm that serves customers across the federal government, health care and commercial industries. Our highly focused mission is to solve our customers' complex business problems and provide them with optimal and sustainable business value. InfoReliance accomplishes this by leveraging our corporate expertise in the development of software, cyber security, and cloud computing solutions. Headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, InfoReliance is a privately-held business founded in 2000. Customers who have retained InfoReliance's services to date include more than 30 defense and federal civilian agencies and departments. For more information, visit www.inforeliance.com. Related Images image1.png John Sankovich Executive Vice President 703.246.9360 [email protected] This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/inforeliance-gains-aws-managed-service-program-status-for-third-consecutive-year-300283588.html SOURCE InfoReliance [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] MasterCard Empowers Local Businesses with Big Data, Digital Tools Main street businesses benefit from digital technologies to compete in today's smart cities To tweet this news, copy and paste news.mstr.cd/1PozpnU to your Twitter handle with the hashtag #BigDataSmallBiz TORONTO, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - Today MasterCard announced it is offering real-time, analytics-based market insights on revenue, market share, customer demographics and competitors to local merchants across Canada. Local Market Intelligence (LMI) offers insights on both a particular location and across multiple locations, regardless of the size of business. "The potential for businesses operating in today's technology environment is unlimited, but to harness those opportunities business owners need first to understand how their business is performing," said Brian Lang, President, MasterCard. "Gone are the days of guessing your business share against neighbourhood competitors. Local Market Intelligence offers deep insights into how you're doing, how your competitors are doing and how to capitalize on your customers' shopping patterns." The LMI online dashboard organizes and highlights store-level performance and the resulting insights that help to drive some of the most important decisions a business can make about operations, marketing and personnel. It focuses on three key areas: business performance; customer behavir; and competitive standing. "Our vision for Canada is to see our cities become smarter and more digitally connected to their businesses, governments and citizens," said Lang. "This starts with helping local businesses the economic engines of every city in Canada maximize their revenues and success. When businesses of all sizes harness the power of digital commerce it creates a better environment for business owners and a better experience for employees and customers." LMI was recently announced as part of the Digital Main Street initiative launched today by the City of Toronto in partnership with MasterCard. Digital Main Street helps local businesses in neighbourhoods across Toronto adopt digital tools, technologies, and services. MasterCard offers local businesses in Canada the tools and resources they need to save time, save money, and use technology to their advantage, including the MasterCard Business Owner Toolbox (MBOT), an affordable way to access essential business tools all in one place. Master Your Card educations sessions, presented by MasterCard, empower local businesses with free financial understanding. Master Your Card is rolling out new fall session dates across Canada. The program now contains added education for consumers on fraud protection, an expanded network of partners, and a new website offering free online resources. About MasterCard MasterCard, www.MasterCard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the world's fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. MasterCard's products and solutions make everyday commerce activities such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MasterCardCAnws, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau. SOURCE MasterCard Canada [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] The German federal government has increased the size of its financial assistance to a humanitarian aid program of immediate assistance to civilians suffering from onflict in eastern Ukraine, as implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) by another EUR 6 million. "The FAO will be provided with another EUR 6 million for its activities in eastern Ukraine this and next years," the Embassy of Germany in Ukraine said on Monday. The embassy's statement reads that Germany allocated EUR 4.5 million on the FAO's humanitarian projects in Ukraine in 2015. "The goal of this humanitarian project launched in 2014 is...to provide people, who suffered during the conflict in eastern Ukraine, with help and necessary food. The project makes a significant contribution in the survival of many internally displaced people as well as families in the communities which accepted the refugees and people who suffered from the conflict at both sides of the boundary line in Donetsk and Luhansk regions," the embassy said. The FAO has provided with assistance 650,000 people since the beginning of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the embassy said. [June 13, 2016] Electric Vehicles Provide Only Part of the Solution to Reducing GHG Emissions ABBOTSFORD, BC, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - The Canadian Propane Association (CPA) supports the British Columbia government's commitment to a practical, affordable and immediate strategy to reduce automotive GHG emissions. However, the government needs to look beyond the promotion of Electric Vehicles (EVs) and consider low-emission auto propane, a natural gas liquid, as part of the energy mix. "We support the government's actions on fighting climate change," said Kevin O'Donnell, B.C. Committee Chair of the CPA. "However, there is so much more that can be achieved if the government looks beyond EVs and seriously considers the expanded use of auto propane. It's an energy that is ready to help reduce emissions right away." "There are ongoing questions about affordability and practicality in relation to EVs," said O'Donnell. "If we are going to be serious about an immediate, affordable and comprehensive plan to reduce GHG in the transportation sector, equal consideration must be given to auto propane, which has significant environmental and economic advantages over gas, diesel and other alternative transportation fuels." O'Donnell noted that auto propane costs about 40% less than gas and diesel. Like compressed natural gas (CNG), auto propane also has a lower carbon footprint than gasoline up to 26% fewer GHG emissions. The distance range of a propane vehicle is almost double that of other alternative fuel vehicles, such as CNG. Range and battery life concerns also exist for EVs, and in Canada's cool climate this is exacerbated. "There is a reason why auto propane is the most popular alternative transportation fuel in the world today," said O'Donnell. "Auto propane is perfectly suited for use in school and transit buses, high-mileage fleets such as couriers and police cars, as well as taxis and pick-up trucks." "Auto propane is clean burning, affordable, available everywhere in B.C. and doesn't face the serious obstacles that other alternative fuels and EVs do," said O'Donnell. "Auto propane can immediately play an important role in helping meet the government's transportation strategy goals and the propane industry is ready to assist now." About the Canadian Propane Association With over 400 members, the Canadian Propane Association (CPA) is the national association for a growing, multi-billion dollar industry that impacts the livelihood of tens of thousands of Canadians. The CPA develops and produces industry training materials, offers an emergency response assistance plan to its members and provides advocacy services for the propane industry. SOURCE Canadian Propane Association [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Groysman instructs Nasalyk to draft measure not to allow regional power companies to extort bribes from businessmen Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has instructed Deputy Prime Minister and Energy and Coal Industry Minister Ihor Nasalyk to draw up a measure that would make impossible frauds of regional electricity supply companies with prices for connecting businessmen to the power grid. "Some regional electricity supply companies set too high a price for power grid connection and then extort bribes from businessmen I instructed the profile deputy prime minister to draw up a cabinet resolution that would make this abuse of power impossible," the prime minister wrote on his Facebook page. Groysman said that businessmen who have information about abuse of power should inform the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the government to have quick reaction to these infringements. Gas stocks in Ukraine's inventories 11.2% up after completion of heating season Natural gas stocks at Ukraine's underground storage facilities after the completion of the 2015/2016 heating season have increased by 11.2% or 941.54 million cubic meters. Public joint-stock company Ukrtransgaz reported that if on April 6 8.438 billion cubic meters of gas were in the underground storage facilities, then on June 11 gas stocks amounted to 9.379 billion cubic meters (13.9% down year-over-year). The company said that June 11, 2016, gas was pumped to the underground storage facilities with the daily pace of 20.26 million cubic meters and on June 11, 2015 46.57 million cubic meters. In addition, imports of natural gas since early June came only from Slovakia in the smallest volumes slightly less than 500,000 cubic meters a day. No gas was imported from Hungary, Poland and Russia. If you're suffering from data-breach fatigue, tough luck. LeakedSource, the shadowy website that broke the recent news of the LinkedIn and MySpace breaches, today (June 13) announced that 51 million account credentials for iMesh, a defunct file-sharing service, were being sold online. (Image credit: g-stockstudio/Shutterstock) The good news is that the passwords were hashed and salted mathematically scrambled, with random characters added pre-scrambling to confuse password crackers. The bad news is that the hashing algorithm was so weak that LeakedSource cracked many passwords anyway. If you had an iMesh account and you used the same username and password elsewhere, go change the passwords on those accounts immediately. MORE: How to Create and Remember Super-Secure Passwords Briefly, iMesh was a peer-to-peer file-sharing client that started up in the Napster days, surived a record-industry lawsuit and went "legit" in 2004. But it quietly shut down earlier this year, without much explanation. The company hashed its user passwords with the MD5 algorithm, for which the first weakness was found in 2005. The number of MD5 flaws has built up since then, and no company should have been using the algorithm in 2013, when the iMesh data breach seems to have happened. "Passwords were stored in multiple MD5 rounds with salting," read a LeakedSource blog post. "'Salting' makes decrypting passwords exponentially harder when dealing with large numbers such as these, and is better than what LinkedIn and MySpace did, but MD5 itself is not nearly hard enough for modern computing. The methods iMesh used, albeit 3 years ago, were still insufficient for the times." LeakedSource's list of the most common iMesh passwords is depressing. Close to a million accounts (or about 2 percent) used "123456", more than 300,000 used "123456789", and so on. Except for "password" at No. 5 with 86,000 users, all the top 10 iMesh passwords were similarly common numerical sequences. If you had an iMesh account, and your password was that bad, and you used that same brain-dead password and username on other accounts, then those other accounts have probably already been hacked. Because the iMesh accounts included email addresses, IP addresses and country locations, LeakedSource established that the data dump included 13.7 million American users, nearly 4 million Turkish users and 3.6 million British users. Hotmail was the most common email-address domain, followed by Yahoo. Gmail was a distant third, a sign that the bulk of the iMesh users signed up before Gmail was opened up to the general public in 2007. Declaration Of Kansas City Rainbow Day This bloody Sunday has seenshare his grief, sympathy and support for victims of the worst deadly mass shooting in American history.Take a look at some of the highlights as Kansas City's top elected official tweets his thoughts and battles some local contradictory opinion online:Meanwhile, here's a note on a vigil tonight and more local reactions to the tragedy . . .Developing . . . LIKE IT OR NOT KANSAS CITY'S POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT IS COMPLETELY FOCUSED ON ANTI-GUN RHETORIC TARGETING THE 2ND AMENDMENT AS A RESPONSE TO ORLANDO GAY NIGHTCLUB SHOOTING TRAGEDY!!! What's worth nothing here is that in recent social media discussions we've already we've seen some residents of Kansas City's East Side note that Mayor Sly James rarely attends homicide vigils in the urban core but led the parade of mourners in the LGBT community last night. "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." The 2nd Amendment could be another victim of a deadliest mass shooting in American history as LGBT advocates threaten to join a litany of voices targeting American gun rights.To wit . . .Remember thatNow, a tragic killing has emboldened denizens of Kansas City's political establishment and their opposition of constitutional protections for legal gun owners.Gun violence in Kansas City is nothing new, and to be fair, the mayor has been consistent in his opposition of the 2nd Amendment and proposed crackdowns against gun owners.However, the point of this post isn't to attack the mayor for seizing on an important political opportunity but to question if any Kansas City politico or organization will uphold the assault on freedom that's underway in the latest bout of media hysteria.When we talk about the fundamental principles of our democracy attacked by a city hall administration that's already targeted voter representation in order to promote a development agenda, it's important to separate grief and outrage from a discussion that should also allow for a passionate defense of our freedom.Like it or not, so far the only voices dedicated to preserving the 2nd Amendment amid a tidal wave of reactionary attacks have been among the denizens of our blog community.You decide . . . 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, This site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, at a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768. Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) has approached banks for a loan of as much as $2 billion to finance its acquisition of BlackRocks Asia Square Tower 1, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The sovereign wealth fund has held preliminary talks with banks to borrow between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, the people told Bloomberg, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Talks with potential lenders are at an early stage and QIA has not finalised the timeline for the borrowing, they said. QIA announced an agreement to purchase the office tower from BlackRock last week for S$3.4 billion ($2.5 billion), marking the biggest office transaction in Singapore. BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, had to settle for a lower price than it had originally anticipated for the 43-storey tower, whose tenants include Citigroup and KKR & Company, as rents in the city state decline amid slowing economic growth and rising supply. QIA, which manages investments for the natural gas-rich nation, has invested about $38 billion in property around the world, with $21.7 billion in office transactions and $7.5 billion for hotels, including the 2014 purchase of the St. Regis Rome, according to Real Capital Analytics. A spokesman for the QIA declined to comment.-Bloomberg The Egyptian government has signed a co-operation protocol to develop 370 homes in the Minya and Sohag region at an estimated cost of E20 million ($2.2 million), said a report. It is part of a development project for families that need the most care, stated Mostafa Madbouly, Minister of Housing after signing the agreement with Soha Soliman, the secretary general of the Social Fund for Development (SFD). In the framework of co-operation between the Egyptian government and the World Bank for the implementation of development projects, Madbouly said an agreement was signed between the Egyptian government and the World Bank, reported the Daily News Egypt. The projects funds amounted to $200 million in addition to local contributions from concerned ministries and governorates, it added. At least seven companies which signed the required documents with Ukraine's State Property Fund (SPF) are showing a serious interest to the purchase of public joint-stock company Odesa Port-Side Plant at a tender scheduled for July 26, SPF Head Ihor Bilous has said. "We expect that five more potential investors will confirm their interest. There are no accidental names among them," he told reporters in Kyiv on Monday. Bilous added that the most of the companies have been familiar with the plant for a long time ago. He said that the sale of this large facility is linked to a number of risks. He expressed hope that the investment attractiveness of the plant is high compared with the risks. Commenting on the starting price of UAH 13.175 billion he said that it was set using various methods. Claims that the price was set too high or too low indicate that the tender will give the best answer to this and the main task is to ensure competitive bids. The Egyptian government has started building new flats for slum dwellers under an ambitious housing plan which is expected to cost about E14 billion ($1.58 billion). A few of them like Bayada Mohamed have already moved into their brand new flats in Tahiya Misr development in the Moqattam area leaving their old slums on a crumbling cliffside. The first two phases of Tahya Misr, which is dedicated to rehousing slum dwellers, were completed in 11 months and comprise 12,000 flats. The third phase opens in 2017, bringing the number of flats in the Cairo residential complex to 20,000. Mohamed is among the first to benefit from a government plan to rehouse residents of Egypt's most dangerous slums. Like other residents of the Doueyka slum where homes have no running water and a rockslide killed about 130 people in 2008, Mohamed's family has been offered a rental flat in the recently-opened Tahiya Misr development in the Moqattam area. There are 351 slums deemed unsafe in Egypt, most of them in the sprawling capital where the poorest have built ramshackle homes that lack basic amenities such as mains sewage and water. Some 850,000 people are believed to live in dangerous slums. Building collapses are common in Cairo, home to some 20 million people, and the shortage of afforable housing is so acute that 1.5 to 2 million are believed to live in tombs in an area known as the City of the Dead. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi promised last month to move all those living in unsafe slums to new flats over the next three years. Government efforts to eradicate the worst slums come as Sisi faces growing pressure to revive the economy and avoid the kind of protests that toppled two presidents in the last five years. But rising prices are eroding living standards in a country where tens of millions rely on state-subsidised food and complicating efforts to rid Egypt of its slums. Not all slum residents have been as enthusiastic as Mohamed about leaving behind their communities and seeing their old homes demolished. "Most of the residents of these areas wish to be in areas close to where they are actually living now and this for us is a problem," Sisi said at the recent opening of a low-income housing project in the Madinat Badr area of Cairo. While it evacuates dangerous areas, the government is upgrading other informal settlements, connecting them to basic services and paving roads. But many residents are disappointed with the upgrades. Magdi Mahmoud, a factory worker who lives with his family in the informal settlement of Abu Dahruj in southern Cairo, said the work should have stretched to schools and clinics. "The improvements are not bad but the important thing is people look after them," he said. And on Cairo's dusty and desolate fringes, the city's poorest are building more illegal homes on land they do not own. As the Tahya Misr development nears completion, Ahmed, a vegetable seller, is working with neighbours to complete a new slum near Arab Al Barawi, an older informal settlement in southern Cairo, after struggling to afford the rent there. His new house is built with scavenged materials. "Thank God, today he blessed us with a bit of wood that was left on the street ... to roof my house," Ahmed said.-Reuters Sovereign wealth fund Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has told French authorities it wants to sell its stake in nuclear group Areva, La Lettre de l'Expansion reported on Monday. KIA is Areva's second-biggest shareholder with a 4.82 percent stake, according to ThomsonReuters data. The newsletter said the Kuwaiti fund had complained that its investment in Areva, which is majority owned by the French government, was made based on incorrect company accounts. French Industry Minister Emmanuel Macron and Areva declined to comment on the report. KIA was not immediately available for comment. KIA paid 600 million ($676 million) for the stake in 2010, but since then Areva shares have plunged by about 90 percent as the firm's equity has been wiped out by years of losses. Areva will be rescued by a 5 billion state-funded capital increase and its nuclear reactor unit will be taken over by state-owned utility EDF later this year or early next year. The French state holds about 87 percent of Areva's capital. KIA or other minority shareholders have never publicly complained about Areva's accounts, but former Areva chief executive Anne Lauvergeon was put under formal investigation last month for her role in the 2007 acquisition of uranium mining firm Uramin. In France, a formal investigation does not automatically lead to a trial but often does. Lauvergeon has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has said that asset depreciations at Uramin were partly due to the collapse of uranium prices after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011. Areva has had to write down billions of euros on Uramin, which contributed to years of losses and eventually wiped out its equity, leading to a state rescue package early this year. - Reuters A surge in weapons purchases by Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nations fighting in Yemen, helped push global arms sales up more than 10 percent last year, according to an annual report. The world defence market climbed to $65 billion in 2015, up by $6.6 billion from 2014, said consulting company IHS's Global Defence Trade Report published Sunday, according to a Bloomberg report. Thats the largest yearly increase in the past decade, according to the Englewood, Colorado-based company. While Saudi purchases jumped about 50 percent to $9.3 billion, growth was seen across much of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. As middle-income countries see increases in their gross domestic product, they have more "relative resources" to spend on military equipment, according to Ben Moores, a senior defense analyst at IHS Aerospace, Defence & Security who wrote the report. The study examined trends in the global defense market across 65 countries. The boost in Saudi weapons imports came as the kingdom led a coalition targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen and as it works to counter its regional rival Iran. Saudi Arabias purchases in the past year include Eurofighter Typhoon jets, F-15 warplanes and Apache helicopters, as well as precision-guided weapons, drones and surveillance equipment, Moores said. Egypt, whose economy has struggled since the 2011 ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak, became the worlds fourth-biggest weapons importer, spending almost $2.3 billion, according to the report. Before 2013, the country spent $1 billion or less annually, but "theres been this ramp-up," Moores said, adding that IHS research indicates the higher spending is being underwritten by Egyptian allies France and Gulf Arab states. Iraq spent almost as much as Egypt as it shifts money from operations and personnel toward procurement, IHS said. The country is battling Islamic State militants in long-troubled Anbar province and is preparing for the eventual battle to retake the northern city of Mosul. IHS predicts faltering oil prices wont recover beyond current levels for another three years, so oil exporters will "have to cut back on procurements," Moores said. "Countries will spend less on arms and more on operations, as they try to influence events in the region," he said. Crude has fluctuated at about $50 per barrel in recent weeks, up from $30 to $35 in the first couple months of the year. Russia, the worlds No 2 exporter behind the US, is likely to increase its trade with Iran as the country begins to replace its aging air force equipment after the nuclear deal reached last year eased international sanctions, the report said. Its a massive" undertaking that could cost $40 billion to $60 billion, Moores said. In Asia, states bordering the South China Sea increased their defence spending by 71 percent since 2009 as they aim to deter China, with purchases such as aircraft and anti-ship missiles, IHS said. The US remained the top weapons exporter in 2015, supplying almost $23 billion in goods and equipment, of which $8.8 billion went to the Middle East, boosted by the sale of aircraft and associated mission systems. "Going forward, the total may exceed $30 billion as deliveries of the F-35 begin to ramp up," the report said, referring to the next-generation fighter aircraft built by Lockheed Martin Corp. While Russia has long been the worlds second-biggest arms exporter, France is poised to take that spot by 2018, building on a $39 billion submarine order it won from Australia earlier this year, according to IHS. - Bloomberg Iran plans to increase its refining capacity for crude and condensate by more than 70 percent within the next four years as it works to improve the quality of fuel sold on the domestic market and wean itself off imported gasoline, Bloomberg reported. The oil producer will raise capacity to about 3.2 million barrels a day by 2020 from 1.85 million currently by building five plants, Abbas Kazemi, managing director of National Iranian Oil Refining & Distribution Co, said in an interview in Tehran. The country also needs about $14 billion in investment to upgrade units at five existing refineries to produce gasoline that burns more cleanly than grades currently available in the country, he said. Iran, Opecs third-largest oil producer, is boosting energy output after international sanctions curbing its access to oil markets were eased in January. Since then, Iran has restored oil production near to pre-sanctions levels and raised output of natural gas at the offshore South Pars field, part of the worlds largest deposit. One of the new refineries, the 360,000 barrel-a-day Persian Gulf Star, is scheduled to start operating by March, Kazemi said. The refinery will process condensate, the light oil found in gas deposits. Iran is seeking to use its condensate to make gasoline or naphtha for use in chemical plants. New Refineries Private companies are developing the Siraf condensate refinery complex at the southern port of Assaluyeh. The planned complex of eight units, each with a capacity of 60,000 barrels a day, will process condensate from South Pars into naphtha. The only product theyre short is gasoline, Tushar Tarun Bansal, an oil analyst at consultant FGE in Singapore, said. Transforming condensate into gasoline will help Iran cut imports starting in the second quarter of 2017, he said. The refineries to be upgraded with $14 billion in investment are at Isfahan, Tabriz, Tehran, Bandar Abbas and Abadan, Kazemi said. The government will pay for Abadan plants modernization and is seeking investors to fund the others. Its in talks with contractors from South Korea and Japan to participate, he said. Iran plans also to build three new refineries: the 300,000 barrel-a-day Bahmangenoo plant at the port of Jask, a 150,000 barrel-a-day facility at Anahita in western Kermanshah province, and the Pars refinery, which will process 120,000 barrels a day of condensate. - Bloomberg Turkish Airlines continues to expand its destination network with the addition of flights to Cluj, one of the most important academic, cultural an industrial cities in Romania. Commenncing from July 12, the airline will operate 4 times per week to Cluj, which will be its third destination in Romania. Introductory trip fares are available from Istanbul to Cluj starting from $129 and from Cluj to Istanbul starting at $145, inclusive of taxes and fees. For the first six months of operation, Turkish Airline is offering a special promotion for Miles&Smiles members with a 25 per cent reduction in the miles needed to redeem either award tickets or upgrades. - TradeArabia News Service Royal Jordanian (RJ) and Qatar Airways have expanded their current code-share agreement, which will add six new destinations to Royal Jordanians network. RJ will enhance Qatar Airways network with the addition of flights from Amman to Doha, furthering the existing Qatar Airways code-share on Royal Jordanian operated flights to Doha. Royal Jordanian customers will have access to more destinations on Qatar Airways global network such as, Dhaka in Bangladesh, Muscat in Oman, Karachi in Pakistan, Colombo in Sri Lanka, Perth in Australia, and Singapore, subject to regulatory approvals. This expansion will open up 18 weekly flights between Doha and Amman, in addition to numerous new connections from the award-winning Hamad International Airport. Royal Jordanian president and CEO Captain Suleiman Obeidat said: We are pleased to cooperate with Qatar Airways, a renowned partner in the oneworld airline alliance. In joining forces with Qatar Airways, we are able to extend our customer experience beyond our existing destination network, to include several new destinations around the world. RJ is a pioneer and leading airline in the Levant, serving the passengers of the region to reach further destinations through our code-share partner. Qatar Airways group chief executive Akbar Al Baker said: By partnering with Royal Jordanian, we are opening up the world to passengers travelling from Amman through Doha. Our code-share agreement enables Royal Jordanian to benefit from connectivity to some of our most popular routes, including Perth and Singapore amongst our more than 150 worldwide destinations. We welcome the partnership with Royal Jordanian, and look forward to seeing our collaboration flourish in the years to come. Qatar Airways and Royal Jordanian launched the code share agreement in August 2015. - TradeArabia News Service You can opt out of certain types of cookies (e.g. those used in social media sharing) by choosing "I do not accept". The website will still largely function well, but with slightly less functionality in places. To manage your cookie preferences in future, visit the "Cookie Statement" link at the bottom of any page. Russia's Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are conducting active negotiations on cooperation in the sphere of underground gas storage on the territory of China, a representative of the corporation's management told Interfax, saying that both parties are apparently seriously interested. "Of the several possible locations of the underground gas storage facility offered by CNPC, Gazprom has already selected one, in the eastern Chinese province Jiangsu," the source said. The contract for the supply of Russian gas to China signed in 2014 envisages highly uneven supply. Bearing in mind the big distance from the deposits (Chayanda, Kovykta) to the Chinese border, regulation of uneven supplies by taking gas on the deposit is less effective than the construction of a gas storage facility at the end of the pipe. However, few structures suitable for the construction of gas storage facilities have now been found in the Far East. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has denied reports about the suspension of imports of Ukrainian food products, according to the State Service for Food Safety and Consumers' Rights Protection of Ukraine. The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Embassy in the UAE said this in letters addressed to the Food Safety Service. According to the embassy, the UAE hasn't directly prohibited the import of Ukrainian food products. It has never expressed caution regarding the quality of Ukrainian products. "The problems have arisen due to the cancellation of the right of the Alraid center (halal certification center in Ukraine) to issue halal certificates. However, this institution received the right to issue such certificates only in February 2014. Before that time domestic exporters used other ways of obtaining such certificates, including through alternative certification centers both in Ukraine and abroad," the embassy said. For its part, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that on Ukraine's initiative, a meeting with charge d'affaires of the UAE in Ukraine, Ahmed Al-Suwaidi, took place, during which it was said that the non-recognition of the halal certificates issued by Alraid center was a purely technical issue and was not related to the quality of food produced in Ukraine. The State Service for Food Safety asked the United Arab Emirates agency for standardization and metrology to provide a list of halal centers both in Ukraine and in other countries, which have the right to issue halal certificates for the export of food products to the UAE. On May 30, the State Service for Food Safety and Consumers' Rights Protection of Ukraine reported that the UAE suspended exports of food from Ukraine. Original team expeditions (including Bhutan and North Korea) for adventurers who believe there is plenty left to discover (TRAVPR.COM) BRISTOL - June 13th, 2016 - Many think theres nowhere left to discover. Google has mapped the planet, technology has shrunk the world and Earths extremities have been conquered. Secret Compass offers some adventurous alternatives to the belief that theres nowhere left to explore, as its pioneering expeditions for 2016 and 2017 show. Tom Bodkin, company CEO, said, Secret Compass expeditions have achieved world firsts and won Guinness records. Look hard enough at a remote region or creatively enough at an exploratory challenge and the ideas will arise. World firsts and original adventure experiences are definitely still out there. SECRET COMPASS EXPEDITIONS FOR 2016/2017 DRC (06/16): jungle, volcanic peak and gorilla trekking in Virunga National Park NEW Afghanistan (07/16): highaltitude trek in the Wakhan Corridor National Park Armenia (08/16): exploration of a fabled land and its UNESCOprotected mountains Kamchatka (08/16): head to Russia to trek among Eurasias highest active volcanoes Kyrgyzstan (09/16): bikepacking expedition to mountain bike (MTB) the Silk Road UK (09/16): two miniexpedition styled weekend adventures in Wales NEW Sinai (09/16): minimalistic, camelsupported desert trek with the Bedouin Burmese Nagaland (10/16): first ascent trek to summit SE Asias highest peak NEW Ethiopia (10/16): expedition to explore the Simien Mountains and villages by MTB Iran (10/16): Desert Stars and Solitude: a Lut Desert traverse Chad (01/17): exploring the Saharas volcanic heartland and highest peak NEW Siberia (03/17): reindeer migration across frozen gulfs with the Nenets nomads Bhutan (04/17): trek to scale a 5,000m+ peak in this Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom NEW Panama (03/17): delve into the notorious Darien gap on a petroglyph hunt Iraqi Kurdistan (04/17): exploring the trekking peaks of the Zagros Mountains Madagascar (04/17): an epic trek and raft peak to sea adventure North Korea (05/17): remote Nat. Park exploration in this ultra-secret state NEW Gabon (2017 TBC): trek and packraft across Gabons wildlife rich Equator (new in 2016) Mongolia (2017 TBC): first ascent expedition in the remote Mongolian Altai (new in 2016) Bodkin continued, Secret Compass sent the first commercial team to cross the notorious Darien Gap, to scale war-torn South Sudans highest peak and to film mountain biking in Afghanistan. We created this company to achieve the extraordinary and were not slowing down. Original feats this summer include a packraft adventure across Gabons Equator, a first ascents expedition in Mongolia, and volcano summit attempts in the DRCs Virunga National Park the first time the parks inner reaches have admitted a commercial group. For eight days this August bank holiday, our Armenia team will explore the ridges and trekking peaks of the remote Lesser Caucasus in a manner even local guides have described as impressive! As long as people seek to push their limits in the worlds wildest places, well continue scouring the history books, the maps and the planets remaining challenges to devise creative and often world-first expeditions. Sating the desires of todays demanding adventure travellers keeps us on our toes. Communications director, Kerry ONeill, said, Genuinely new expeditions, culturally immersive experiences and methods of travel are what make Secret Compass stand out at the tougher end of the adventure travel market. ONeill concluded, Prefer no selfie sticks, no other visitors and little tourism infrastructure? Travel with Secret Compass. With its military background, expedition company Secret Compass is renowned for offering expeditions and adventure travel to countries eschewed by most operators due to their remoteness, post-conflict reputations or inaccessibility. For 2016 and into 2017, Secret Compass destinations include Afghanistan, Armenia, Bhutan, Burma, Chad, Ethiopia, Gabon, Iran, Kurdistan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, North Korea, Panama, Siberia and the Sinai desert. Activities range from mixed-terrain trekking and minimalist desert traverses, to mountain-biking, packrafting and culturally immersive experiences. FURTHER INFORMATION For further press information about Secret Compass, contact communications director Kerry ONeill on 0207 096 8428. - ENDS - NOTES FOR EDITORS SECRET COMPASS Secret Compass redefines what is possible by creating pioneering projects in the worlds wildest places. Its built around a team of trusted experts who combine their passion for exploration with industry-leading professionalism. Upcoming expeditions destinations include Afghanistan, Armenia, Bhutan, Burma, Ethiopia, Gabon, Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Mongolia, North Korea, Panama, Siberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Chad and southern Sinai. SECRET COMPASS FOR TV, FILM AND BRAND PROJECTS Secret Compass is trusted by production companies and brands to create and capture the extraordinary in remote and wild regions thanks to its unrivalled location and risk-management expertise. Brand clients to date include Mitsubishi, Sony, Nespresso, Giro, Xbox and Jagermeister. TV credits include location-managing Channel 4s Walking the Nile and Walking the Himalayas series, alongside projects for the BBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. Press enquiries: Kerry on +44 (0)207 096 8428. ### Updates from two world-first adventures in Gabon's Ivindo National Park and Mongolia's Western Altai, with Secret Compass (TRAVPR.COM) BRISTOL - June 13th, 2016 - MIDSUMMER EXPEDITIONS UNDERWAY With midsummer approaching, a distracted nation is slipping into festival mode. At Secret Compass expeditions, however, concentration is at its peak with two teams currently on the ground and en route to achieving adventurous world firsts in Mongolia and Gabon. Its amazing what people commit to once Glastonbury sells out GABON: WORLD-FIRST TALE OF TWO RIVERS JOURNEY A 10-strong team is now finding its feet in Gabons Ivindo National Park (4 20 June 2016) as part of the Secret Compass A Tale of Two Rivers expedition. The team will attempt an amphibious crossing of the Equator, trekking through jungles and then inflating packrafts to continue the adventure along the Djidji and Kongou rivers systems. GABON EXPEDITION HIGHLIGHTS 1. A world-first, human-powered crossing of Gabons Equator. 2. Explore Kongou and Djidji rivers on foot and by dugout canoe and packraft. 3. Birdwatch in Africas forest bird epicentre. 4. Potential observation of elephants and forest gorillas. 5. A brand new destination for Secret Compass in 2016, 2017 dates coming soon. 6. 16 nights, 4 20 June 2016, 2,950pp (all inc. except flights). MONGOLIA: THE FIRST ASCENTS IN THE ALTAI ADVENTURE Concurrently, a six-strong team is on the ground in western Mongolias Siilkhem range (5 19 June 2016). In this remote and mountainous region, the expeditions goal is to make two commercial first ascents, of Nariin Ekhin at 3,952m and of an unclimbed peak at 3,907m. Updates in from the team today confirm that one first ascent has just been notched up despite a team injury which necessitated an evacuation operation, with a first-ascent attempt on a second mountain happening imminently. MONGOLIA EXPEDITION HIGHLIGHTS 1. Make first ascents at the juncture of Mongolia, China and Russia. 2. Cross rivers, traverse valleys and trek on glaciers above 2,900m. 3. Look out for elusive snow leopards. 4. A brand new destination for Secret Compass in 2016, 2017 dates coming soon. 5. 14 nights, 5 19 June 2016, 2,999pp (all inc. except flights). Tom Bodkin, director of Secret Compass, said, Avoiding pre-trodden routes, we identify new adventurous goals for our expedition teams. This means that our teams break new ground in the worlds wildest places or that they notch up a world first as is the case with Gabon and Mongolia. EXPEDITION DESTINATIONS FOR LATE 2016 AND 2017 Kerry ONeill, communications director with Secret Compass, said, Following Gabon and Mongolia, our late-summer expeditions are to the DRC, to Armenias Lesser Caucasus, to Afghanistans Wakhan Corridor and to Kamchatka. Brand new experiences in North Korea, Burma, Bhutan and Chad will follow into 2017. For further press information about Secret Compass (or its TV and Film, Bespoke or Brand Projects departments), contact communications director Kerry ONeill on 0207 096 8428 or visit Secret Compass's In The Media page today. For post-expedition follow ups, interviews or photography, contact Secret Compass today. - ends - NOTES FOR EDITORS SECRET COMPASS Secret Compass redefines what is possible by creating pioneering projects in the worlds wildest places. Its built around a team of trusted experts who combine their passion for exploration with industry-leading professionalism. Upcoming expeditions destinations include Afghanistan, Armenia, Bhutan, Burma, Ethiopia, Gabon, Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Mongolia, North Korea, Panama, Siberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Chad and southern Sinai. SECRET COMPASS FOR TV, FILM AND BRAND PROJECTS Secret Compass is trusted by production companies and brands to create and capture the extraordinary in remote and wild regions thanks to its unrivalled location and risk-management expertise. Brand clients to date include Mitsubishi, Sony, Nespresso, Giro, Xbox and Jagermeister. TV credits include location-managing Channel 4s Walking the Nile and Walking the Himalayas series, alongside projects for the BBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. Press enquiries: Kerry on +44 (0)207 096 8428. ### Malawi President Peter Mutharika has disclosed plans in this years budgets to build a brand new international airport in Blantyre replacing the existing Chileka airport. There are further plans also in place to refurbish the Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe. (TRAVPR.COM) UK - June 13th, 2016 - Malawi President Peter Mutharika has disclosed plans in this years budgets to build a brand new international airport in Blantyre replacing the existing Chileka airport. There are further plans also in place to refurbish the Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe. With an increase in international traffic from Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines with both extending their services to Chileka to join South African Airways, an all-new and modern Chileka International Aiport is planned to meet demand. Plan to renovate and improve KIA are set to begin this year to keep in line with the Department of Civil Aviation safety requirements. The project, which is being funded by Japan with a K17 billion grant, is due for completion in 2018. For more information on flights to Malawi and further useful information, please see our this How to Get There page on our website. ### A new map reveals startling statistics, like that 80% of North Americans can no longer see the Milky Way. Imagine a world without stars. To ponder the twinkling sky is a pleasure humans have had ever since weve been able to tilt our heads back and look towards the heavens. But its a pleasure were at risk of losing; and in fact, for many its already gone. The Impact of Light Pollution The problem of light pollution defined as the man-made alteration of night lighting levels is a glaring one. But its a type of pollution more abstract than, say, a sputtering tailpipe or plastic in the ocean. Its a type of pollution notable not for the visible signs of what is left behind, but for what is taken away in this case, the natural lights of the nighttime sky. The stars, the planets, the glimmering dome that has inspired wonder for countless generations of sky-gazers. Meanwhile, light pollution wreaks all kinds of havoc on the natural world, from affecting birds' nighttime navigation to disorienting baby sea turtles to disrupting the mating patterns of fireflies. Light pollution is one of the most pervasive forms of environmental alteration, but only recently has it been getting much attention from the scientific set. With the notable absence of a quantification of its magnitude on a global scale in mind, an international team of researchers has now created a world atlas of artificial sky luminance. 10 Sobering Facts About Light Pollution The takeaways are breathtaking; the following are some of the more sobering statistics extracted from the research: 1. More than 80 percent of the world and more than 99 percent of the U.S. and European populations live under light-polluted skies. 2. The Milky Way is hidden from more than one-third of humankind, including 60 percent of Europeans and nearly 80 percent of North Americans. 3. Light pollution hurts otherwise pristine and deserted sites because it spreads hundreds of miles from its source. 4. The most light-polluted country on the planet is Singapore, where the entire population lives under skies so bright that the eye cannot fully dark-adapt to night vision. 5. Inhabitants of San Marino, Kuwait, Qatar, and Malta can no longer see the Milky Way. 6. 99 percent of people living in United Arab Emirates are unable to see the Milky Way, as are 98 percent of Israel and 97 percent of Egypt. 7. The largest swaths of land without Milky Way visibility include the Belgium/Netherlands/Germany transnational region, the Padana plain in northern Italy, and the Boston to Washington expanse. Other large areas where the Milky Way has been lost are the London to Liverpool/Leeds region in England, and regions surrounding Beijing and Hong Kong in China and Taiwan 8. If you live in or near Paris, to find the closest place with a large area without light pollution you'd have to travel over 500 miles to Corsica, Central Scotland, or Cuenca province, Spain. 9. If you live in Neuchatel, Switzerland youd have to travel 845 miles to northwestern Scotland, Algeria, or Ukraine to find pristine nighttime skies. 10. The countries with the least amount of people affected by light pollution are Chad, Central African Republic, and Madagascar, with more than three-quarters of their inhabitants living under pristine sky conditions. Maybe where you live you can see the stars, did you know that they are such a threatened natural resource elsewhere? And the question can be asked of those who live in cities; maybe you cant see much in the nighttime sky, but did you know the problem was so prevalent across the planet? I don't expect to see much in the way of stars from my corner of New York City, but even so, I was shocked to see what a global issue this is. As the atlas researchers write in their report, humanity has enveloped our planet in a luminous fog that prevents most of Earths population from having the opportunity to observe our galaxy. This has a consequent potential impact on culture that is of unprecedented magnitude. Indeed, light pollution has dramatic ecological consequences, creates public health issues and the lighting that causes it wastes important resources. The time has come to take light pollution by the horns. And unlike so many other complicated problems this planet is faced with, this is one that can be solved instantly; we just have to turn down the lights at night. Or better yet, just turn them off. An illuminated Empire State Building may be pretty, but the Milky Way beats it by a galaxy. The Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts in Kyiv on Monday opened an exhibition "Rescued Treasures of Italy. 17 Paintings from Castelvecchio Museum in Verona." The exhibition was opened in the presence of Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, Italian Ambassador to Ukraine Fabrizio Romano and Verona Mayor Flavio Tosi, Interfax-Ukraine agency's correspondent said. "This exhibition demonstrates the responsible attitude of Ukraine to its cultural heritage and the cultural heritage of other countries," Ukraine's president said during the opening. Poroshenko also said that these pieces of art would be handed over to Italy in the nearest future. Verona Mayor Flavio Tosi said that this event would strengthen cooperation between the two countries at various levels due to the work of the Ukrainian law enforcement officers, the president of Ukraine and Italian law enforcement agencies. He said that as an expression of gratitude, all Ukrainian citizens would be able to visit Verona museums free of charge. The museum exhibits 17 paintings, which were stolen from the Museum of Castelvecchio in Verona and found due to the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies in May 2016. The mayor of Verona invited the head of the Ukrainian state to visit his city. "I hope that after this exhibition the president will honor us and visit the city of Verona," Tosi said. A total of 17 valuable paintings, which were stolen by armed robbers from the Castelvecchio museum in Verona, were detained near the border with Moldova in Odesa region on May 6, 2016. Art expert analysis of paintings by such artists as Peter Paul Rubens, Jacopo Tintoretto, Antonio Pisanello, Giovanni Caroto, Andrea Mantegna was held on May 7. It was established that the paintings are originals. Ukrainian government earmarks UAH 1.2 mln for families of two volunteers killed in ATO zone The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has allocated UAH 1.218 million for the payment of one-time financial assistance to family members of volunteers - spouses Serhiy and Viktoria Bochnevych, who died in Luhansk airport in August 2014. The government issued relevant resolution No. 421 on June 8. The funds for this purpose will be allocated to the Social Policy Ministry from the reserve fund of the state budget. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, June 13 The body of a 40-year-old man was found in his car at the parking in Sector 17 here on Monday morning. The victim has been identified as Munish Chopra, a resident of Sector 15, who worked as a salesman at a showroom in Sector 17. The body lying on the rear seat of the car was found by a salesman of the showroom. Sector 17 Station House Officer Inspector Uday Pal said the victim had arrived at the showroom on Sunday in an inebriated condition and was asked to leave. The police said the victim, however, didnt reach home. The body did not have injury marks, while blood was oozing from its nose. The salesmans mobile phone was found in the car. The body has been shifted to Government Multi-Specialty Hospital, Sector 16. The police have ruled out murder. Chandigarh, June 13 The shelf life of donated blood is just 35 days. We urge the organisations and individuals not to just hold camps but organise these more frequently so as to meet the shortage of blood and save precious lives. This was stated by Dr Ravneet Kaur from the Department of Transfusion Medicine, GMCH-32, on the eve of World Blood Donor Day here today. Dr Ravneet said, For decades, blood has had a limited storage. During summers, there is an acute shortage of blood. She added there were numerous NGOs, corporates and other social, economic and religious organisations that hold annual or bi-annual blood donation camps. Our request to all those who can afford to hold blood donation camps is to consider conducting these more frequently. It will not only benefit the accident victims but also those undergoing treatment for various ailments, Dr Ravneet said, adding that volunteer donors could give hope and help maintain a sufficient supply of blood for patients in need. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) This year, the theme of World Blood Donor Day is Blood Connects Us All. It is the greatest gift one can give to other humans without actually losing anything. It is that wealth which not only connects us all but also has the unique potential to give life, she said. TNS Shyamal Datta WEST Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has summarily removed as many as 17 senior police officers of all Commissionerates and some divisions and districts in the third round of transfers, after returning to power. The transfers have caused no surprise but have definitely set off considerable dismay and anguish among members of the law-enforcement fraternity. The police machinery stands frustrated and demoralised. There was lurking hope that the ruling party and its supreme leader, after a triumphant return to power, would act with empathy, rising above political considerations in the interest of the state and its people. The hope was that the TMC government under Mamata Banerjee, in its well-deserved second spell, would have nothing to do with vendetta or vengeance, especially against those who had acted according to law and in good faith. A section of the intelligentsia in the state had hoped that post-May 27, 2016, Mamata Banerjee might stand out as an example of a mix of motherly affection and empathy. This hope was belied when the CEC appointee Soumen Mitra, Commissioner of Police, Kolkata, was shown the door much before the swearing-in of the new government. It suggested rancour and vindictiveness. Contextually, through these selective and extraordinary transfers and postings, the government has made it crystal clear that officers must be ready to pay penalty for actions that would undermine the interests of the party in power. Those who make the "mistake" of acting tough, independent and neutral in order to uphold the rule of law, should be prepared to face the consequences of their actions. In the instant case, the "mistake" that the officers, hand-picked by the Central Election Commission (CEC) from the list provided by the state government on the basis of their competence and reputation, committed was to act under the directives of the constitutional body (CEC), to maintain law and order and ensure free and fair elections. These officers exemplified how a difficult and politically vitiated situation could be dealt with competence, without compromising with the enforcement of law. In fact, they made the people of West Bengal proud and showed that the police, if allowed to function without much interference, could enable the state to maintain order and stability, essential for development. Intent on the part of the state is very clear. Demean and demoralise them for causing an affront to the Chief Minister and the ruling party, so that such conduct is not repeated in the future. A liberal-minded and visionary leader would have seized the opportunity and hailed these officers for helping in a free and fair conduct of the Assembly elections in a state notorious for electoral malpractices for nearly 40 years. Does the Chief Minister realise that her image as an invincible political leader has sky-rocketed like never before, largely on account of fairness in the conduct of the poll? Her unprecedented victory delivered by the people came in a free and fair manner. Will the Chief Minister care to appreciate that her image would have been sullied and the victory denied of its legitimacy, had the total tally of her seats (211 out of 294 ) increased by another 20-25, with the complicity of the officers commandeered by the CEC for specified tasks, out of sheer fear of the state CM? Then the officers would not only have let down the CEC, but also fallen in their own esteem, and above all that of the Service. For them, this cross of ignominy would have been too heavy to carry for long. As a long-retired member of the Service, I deem it as my privilege, to salute these officers for the fearless manner in which they discharged their respective responsibilities and did the Service proud. The massive electoral victory offered a golden opportunity on a platter, to Mamata Banerjee to seize and herald the new dawn of order and progress in the state. Had she acted with greater circumspection and refrained from teaching a lesson to lesser mortals like the government servants, for action done in good faith, she would have earned the unstinted support and loyalty of the entire administration and adulation from all sections of people for her political sagacity. Those at the helm, not only have to be strong but also magnanimous to enlist voluntary submission of the people. In its absence, the divisive politics bereft of empathy tends to cause enormous damage to the administrative framework and the polity. The administration which is partisan and afraid of taking lawful action is a slur on society. The 34 years' misrule of the CPM-led Left Front politicised administration cannot be substituted by another which is driven by whims and caprices of one individual. Democracy will then turn into oligarchy and soon mobocracy would make a mockery of democracy. No government can either indoctrinate the officers in their party ideology as a prelude to enforcing party administration or make the officers function as a pliable administrative tool to suit the interests of the supreme political boss. A politicised and personalised or a centralised administration is anathema to democracy. The CEC is bound to face a far more murky situation in the 2021 poll in the state when this government will pitch for a third term in office. The CEC has to think seriously on the imperative need for adequate steps to safeguard the legitimate interests of officers when they act at its behest, and in good faith. For its part, the TMC in West Bengal has already announced its firm opposition to the takeover of the state administration by the CEC during the electioneering and elections. It has called for electoral reforms to do away with such provisions. Those in favour of party rule and personalised rule tend to forget that the bureaucracy and the police are trained to be servants of the public, upholding the rule of law and with loyalty to the Constitution. Any demand for loyalty on any other consideration undermines the institutions which along with the state last permanently, while governments come and go. It is for all to see how a most industrialised state of the past continues to be treated as a pariah by those genuinely interested in its industrialisation. No state can make any worthwhile headway in growth and development unless the investors find its political climate industrially congenial. The favourable political climate is, inter alia, contingent on maintenance of peace and stability. No amount of window-dressing and hollow political rhetoric can restore confidence in those willing to invest in this state. Things are complex and situation intractable for any leader to appreciate that any division in the rank and file of uniform service along the lines of loyalty to an individual, does not augur well for good governance. For a charismatic mass leader like Mamata Banerjee, it is child's play to restore unity and confidence in the police in particular, allowing it the space and responsibility to make things better and different from the past, as a prelude to the all-round rejuvenation of West Bengal. The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau & former Governor, Nagaland. The March of Equality organized by the LGBTI community activists in central Kyiv passed off peacefully. The procession took around half an hour and ended near Lva Tolstoho Square, an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported. The parade participants were carrying placards that read, "Do not be afraid to change everything," "LGBTI rights are human rights," and were chanting: "Human rights are above all!" Some people on the sidewalk shouted "shame" before being surrounded by police and moved aside. Half an hour later, the organizers in Lva Tolstoho Square urged the assembled to break up because the parade was now over. Also present among the March of Equality participants were Petro Poroshenko Bloc parliamentarians Serhiy Leschenko, Svitlana Zalischuk and Mustafa Nayyem, who came to show their solidarity and support for the event. The authorities took unprecedented security measures, with police heavily outnumbering the parade participants, some streets were closed to traffic and pedestrians. It was reported that Ukraine's National Police chief Khatia Dekanoidze said that some 6,000 police officers would be providing public order during the March of Equality. The parade itself involved around 1,000 participants. Cyril Almeida THEY seem to come out of nowhere. These technical spats that are packaged for the laymen here in warlike terms. All week we've heard that the NSG a nuclear group that few had ever heard of before is proof of the US trying to screw over Pakistan and install India as a hegemon over us. It didn't actually come out of nowhere India-in-the-NSG is a wheel that was set in motion in 2005, with the genesis of the Indo-US nuclear deal, and that has built up speed since 2010. And, to be clear, the US is being tricky with this India-NSG business. There is nothing principled principled in a principled definition of the term about the American position. But let's strip away the wonkish complexities and technicalities of the NSG and try and get to some of the basics here. The NSG exists because in 1974 India tested a nuclear device. That, according to the NSG, demonstrated that nuclear technology transferred for peaceful purposes could be misused. You know something funny is up when, 40 years later, the very organisation created because India did something to upset the world is being forced to wrestle with the possibility of Indian membership. Essentially, if it weren't for the US, India would never be in with a shot at NSG membership. That quite remarkable reversal has occurred for at least two reasons that everyone Indian, American, Chinese and Pakistani agrees on: One, the US and India are wary of China and seeking ways to work together over the long term to restrain or counter Chinese influence. Two, the US, and other countries that support Indian membership, see commercial opportunity in India's entry to the NSG; while India sees membership as a step towards joining the big-boys club globally. In neither of those reasons is there a role for Pakistan hence, no US or NSG deal for Pakistan. Now, there's nothing wrong with Pakistan complaining about what India and the US are up to. If we don't have the advantage that India has with the US, we may as well make as much noise as we can to try and prevent ourselves from being further disadvantaged. And there's everything right in Pakistan turning to China for support - in the world out there, you use what you have to try and achieve what you want. But there's a smart way to go about things and then there's the Pakistani way. Even from a security-state prism. Believing that we are at the end of a US-China-India chain, and having to deal with the trickle down of their three-way rivalry, we've latched on to China as the answer to our problems. That's fine. The way the board is now configured leaving aside why it's configured that way in the first place it makes a kind of sense. It's not like we can convince the Americans of strategic convergences or allow ourselves to be friends with India. But it's a long game this and the problem is we seem to be playing it at warp speed. Ever since the CPEC stuff came around, we've gone so all-in with the China card that it's left a lot of folk puzzled, even the Americans and a bunch of the Europeans. The US still wants to engage us, both militarily and otherwise. As long as we have nuclear weapons, terrorists and 200 million Muslims, the Americans can't afford not to. And the Americans are long used to balancing between a squabbling India and Pakistan. So the base line security-state equation should be: Pull China closer while sticking with the US and managing relations with India. And yet - we only seem to be getting one part right. CPEC may be the eventual key, but there're other doors still open. Somehow, and for reasons unclear, we seem determined to shut those other doors. The NSG hysteria this week is another clue in what is emerging as a determined effort to steer national-security and foreign policy into wholly Chinese waters. It's not like that silliness with Russia of a few years ago, when miffed at the Americans we pretended we had the Russian option to embrace. With the Chinese, it looks both deliberate and real. The thinking appears to be, in the US-China-India chain, we're at the trickle-down end of things. And since we're not a part of the economy-competition-trade triangle that the US, China and India are locked in and since our relationship with India is different to what the US, China and India have, we can't leverage our economy to engage in strategic competition and can't use trade to blunt that competition. That means grabbing the One Belt, One Highway lifeline and riding it all the way to wherever it can take us because of India. And the US is on India's side. Which is already turning out to mean two things. One, even as One Belt, One Highway offers historic economic possibilities and not just the CPEC road and energy stuff our security-centric world is nudging it towards becoming primarily a security-based project. Two, we seem prematurely willing to ratchet down ties with the US and wholly closed off to the idea of being a valued and valuable interlocutor between China and the US down the road. Run with the American hare, hunt with the Chinese hound and keep both eyes on India it should not only be possible, but the goal itself. But the security state seems to have other ideas. By arrangement with the Dawn. ITribune News Service New Delhi, June 12 The Delhi Government today ordered an inquiry into an alleged incident of discrimination by a famous restaurant at Connaught Place here. It is understood that the eatery allegedly denied entry to unprivileged children accompanied by a woman. Ordering an inquiry, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said that if the allegations against the restaurant are found true, its licence will be cancelled. "If allegations are found true, Delhi Government will cancel licence of the restaurant," he said. Terming the incident as something reflective of a typical "colonial mindset", Sisodia directed the district magistrate of New Delhi to conduct an inquiry into the incident and submit a report within 24 hours. New Delhi district magistrate visited Shiv Sagar Restaurant this morning and questioned its staff. "This is typical colonial mindset. Can't be tolerated. Have ordered DM New Delhi to inquire & report within 24 hours," he said in his tweet. Sonali Shetty, a writer, had taken some street children for lunch to Shiv Sagar Restaurant to celebrate her husband's birthday yesterday. But, they were allegedly denied service by the staff of the eatery. She alleged she was also ridiculed and threatened to keep off the restaurant. Sonali, whose husband serves in the Indian Army, described the incident as a "failure" of society, while adding that even as she protested outside the restaurant for around 10 hours till around 12 but nothing happened. She also alleged that the police who came to the spot after she called up didn't help her and instead "reprimanded" her and asked her to take the children to some other place. Attempts to reach the restaurant manager got no response. Shetty again went to the same restaurant this evening and staged a protest on being denied entry. Tribune News Service New Delhi, June 12 The city government's Department of Trade and Taxes is going to award 82 people whose names were selected through a draw of lots under its initiative "Bill Banvao, Inam Pao" scheme for May. This time a record nine participants have won the maximum amount of Rs 50,000 under the scheme, said VAT Commissioner SS Yadav while adding that 82 participants will get the cash award this month. Since its launch in January, 330 participants have got the award under the scheme and an amount of Rs 20 lakh has been distributed, he said The bills uploaded by people under the scheme have helped in detecting more than 200 people doing business on cancelled TIN or evading tax. As per the government, the department has recovered more than Rs 2 crore from the tax evaders caught through the bills uploaded by people. After collecting evidence, the department is now planning to file criminal cases against these evaders in the court of law and once convicted, the culprits may be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of six months, Yadav added. The awards will be given away by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia later this month. The award amount under the scheme is five times the amount of bill subject to a maximum of Rs 50,000. Yadav said that in May, more than 11,000 bills were uploaded out of which 8,200 bills were found to be eligible for prize as per the guidelines of the scheme. One per cent of eligible entries get prize through a computerised draw of lots. Further, he stated Bill Banvao, Inam Pao is an innovative scheme of the Delhi Government to encourage people to get bills of their purchases and upload them through DVATBLL App of the department. The App is available for download both at google playstore and appstore. The scheme was launched in January this year. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, June 13 The INLD today in a letter urged the Election Commission to institute an inquiry into the deep-rooted conspiracy behind the Rajya Sabha election and punish the guilty while challenging the BJP government in the state to make public the video of the polling process to prove that nothing was amiss. In the letter sent to the EC, Leader of Opposition and INLD MLA Abhay Singh Chautala has said the INLD was concerned that almost 15 per cent of the votes cast by the legislators were found invalid. Never before in our country have votes been found invalid in such high numbers. The INLD is convinced that this calls for a thorough inquiry, he said, adding that it was a conspiracy by the ruling party along with a section of Congress legislators. Earlier, addressing a press conference, Chautala said Health Minister Anil Vij, in his statement, had said the entire polling was videographed. Let the government make that public like the Prakash Singh Committee report. The truth will come out. If BJP MLA Assem Goyal who changed the pen has not taken more time while casting his vote, I will quit politics. We fear that this video recording will also be tampered with by the government, he said. Accusing former Chief Minister and Congress MLA Bhupinder Singh Hooda along with party MLAs Kuldeep Sharma and Karan Dalal of being involved in the entire conspiracy along with the BJP, Chautala said the government could also handpick five eminent people and show the video of the polling to come clean on the matter if it really had not played dirty. Vij targets Opposition for blaming BJP Ambala: Health Minister Anil Vij today targeted the Opposition for accusing the state government of hatching a conspiracy in the Rajya Sabha elections. In a series of tweets, without naming anyone, Vij wrote, Those who are yelling now after the Rajya Sabha election, were they sleeping inside the polling booths while being on duty. Why they didnt object then. Couldnt they differentiate between blue and purple when they were on a duty to keep a check on their MLAs vote or they were the part of the conspiracy? May be they had close their eyes deliberately. Ravinder Saini Tribune News Service Jhajjar, June 13 The Department of State Transport has sought information from the general managers (GM) of the Haryana Roadways depots about the number of buses the district administrative authority used in maintaining law and order situation during the Jat reservation agitation in February. The department has also asked them to furnish the details of estimated expenditure of such buses. Sources said the details were being procured from the GMs of all those districts that were affected by the February stir. A communique in this regard has recently been sent from the Director, State Transport, Haryana, wherein the GMs had been asked to furnish the information in a set performa. The buses were used to ferry paramilitary personnel, said the sources. In another communique, the GMs had also been asked to install CCTV cameras at the entrance point and inside the campus of the bus stands, said the sources. Balwant Godara, GM, Jhajjar depot, said he had dispatched the information sought by the authority. The expenditure of 293 buses used by the district administration from February 17 to June 6 amounts to over 1 crore, said the GM, adding that 15 buses were still being used by the district authority to maintain law and order in view of the ongoing Jat agitation. Godara said CCTV cameras had been installed at the Jhajjar, Bahadurgarh and Beri bus stands following the directives. The State Transport Department had suffered a huge loss during the stir in February. Several buses were torched during the violence. Kuldeep Chauhan Tribune News Service Shimla, June 13 Tribals in Lahaul-Spiti, Kinnaur and Bharmour-Pangi areas of Chamba district are up in arms against the state government for its failure to allot them nautor land even after three years in power. The Congress government has blamed it on the state Governor, saying he has not given his nod for the nautor policy for the last six months as the last date for two-year-long waver on Forest Conservation Act (FCA), 1980, expires this month. Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had promised to allot nautor land to tribals of three districts. But not even inch of land was allotted to tribals so far, despite the fact that the Forest Rights Act, 2006, provides for allotment of land. On the contrary, the government initiated an eviction process without giving them an opportunity to plead their cases, the tribals charged. Prem Chand, president of the Save Lahaul-Spiti Society (SLSS), said instead of regularising their land under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), the tribals who had been cultivating government land over the decades were being treated unfairly. They were not given even an opportunity to plead their case. People are being evicted unconstitutionally from their land by disconnecting their water and electricity supplies without following the principle of natural justice, said Prem. Ranjit Negi, convener, Himlok Jagriti Manch, Kinnaur, said tribals raised their voice and staged protests for the allotment of the promised nautor land, but the state government launched the eviction process in the state. The state Cabinet had cleared the nautor policy for tribals in December, 2015 that would have benefited 20,000 tribals in three districts. The final documents were sent to the Governor for his nod, but he is learnt to have sent the same to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), where the fate of the file remained uncertain so far, sources revealed. It is the state Governor who exercises power under Section 5, Constitution of India, suspending the provision of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, as all waste land is forest land under the Act. Kuldeep Chauhan Tribune News Service Shimla, June 13 The Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) of the HRTC Karamchari Union today decided to go ahead with the strike tomorrow despite the High Courts stay on the unions proposed two-day strike on the ground that transport was an essential public service. No state official has given us in writing to defer the strike, Hardyal Singh, executive member of the JCC told The Tribune after the JCC hold its meeting which was chaired by its president Jai Shankar and Kheminder Gupta its general secretary here today. The JCC has decided to go on strike regardless of the consequences as they have given a 14-day advance notice to the HRTC and the state government that they will go on strike as previous talks had failed to resolve the matter, he claimed. The JCC said they have been demanding conversion of the HRTC into roadways and pay as per the rules of the roadways in Punjab and Haryana. All talks failed with the HRTC management and they have to take recourse to the strike, the JCC claimed. Meanwhile, CITU state secretary Vijender Mehra said they would support the HRTC strike as the state government was not paying any head to the long-pending demands of the employees. While MD HRTC Ashok Tiwari and other transport officials are tightlipped as the matter was sub judice, Transport Minister GS Bali said the strike has been termed illegal and stayed by the High Court today. Those who indulge in the strike would face the law, he alleged. Talking about the demands of the HRTC employees, Bali said the state Cabinet had already rejected the proposal to convert the HRTC into the roadways. Because all the HRTC employees have joined corporation as its employees and they cannot be treated as employees of the roadways, he clarified. Bali said certain HRTC employees leaders were being misguided by the vested political interest. We have given benefits worth Rs 560 crore in the last three years and paid liability left behind by the previous BJP regime. We have also paid two increments, revised 48 hours working roaster for drivers and put in place policy that the HRTC will regularize the services of drivers with ITI diploma in five years time and those of non-ITIs in six years time, he added. Tribune News Service Jalandhar, June 12 Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, the vice-chairman of campaign committee Punjab Congress, today flayed Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal for creating hurdles before the release of movie Udta Punjab. The Badals have been lobbying hard to prevent the release of the film which, if released, would expose the poor face of the Akalis involved in selling drugs. The Akalis have been backing drug smugglers due to which they are against the movie said Dharamsot, who was at the residence of Punjab pradesh Congress committee secretary, Yashpal Dhiman, to meet party workers ahead of the dharna in which AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi will take part. Dharamsot said law and order in the state had been deteriorating day by day. Each day, heinous crimes are being reported in the state, but the Punjab police had failed to check the same. If the Akalis continue to back the gangsters and drug smugglers, residents will suffer more in the coming days, he alleged. He said the time had come when Punjab residents should wipe out the Akalis from power so that peaceful days could prevail once again in the state. Tribune News Service Srinagar, June 13 Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti today said more points will be opened on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir to facilitate greater movement of people and goods across the border in the region. She said the Government of India had also agreed to set up banking and communication facility to boost the cross-LoC trade. The state government has taken up the matter regarding opening of more cross-LoC points with the Centre and I am sure there will be forward movement on the issue as serious discussions are on in this regard, the Chief Minister told the Legislative Council while intervening during the reply to a question regarding the measures taken by the government to expand the ambit of cross-LoC travel and trade. Mehbooba said during her recent meeting with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, she pitched for opening of Suchetgarh-Sialkote, Kargil-Skardu, Nowshera-Mirpur, Gurez-Astoor-Gilgit, Chhamb-Jourian and some other cross-LoC routes in the state. The confidence-building measures like opening of more cross-LoC points will not only help consolidate peace efforts but also boost local economy through increased tourism activities in these areas, she said. Mehbooba said the Government of India had also agreed to facilitate banking facility for the cross-LoC trade to institutionalise the existing mechanism. A proposal has come from the Central government that RBI is proposing to introduce banking facility in which trade will be done in dollars. We received the proposal and after discussing it in the Cabinet, it has been sent back. So, I am hopeful that something will happen on that, she said. On the cross-LoC bus, Mehbooba said that the buses running on the route were those that had been bought at the time of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in 2003. Unfortunately, the buses were not changed in the last eight to ten years. Now, we have bought Volvo buses because we believe that when a passenger comes from across the border then he should feel that he has come to a nation which is very big in every respect and his eyes will open, she said. The Chief Minister said the government was also planning to promote border tourism activity in the state in a big way. On the return of Kashmiri youth from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), Mehbooba said she recently had a meeting with the Home Minister where move to legalise their return via Nepal route was discussed. Tribune News Service Jammu, June 13 Against the backdrop of Pathankot airbase terror strike, the Jammu and Kashmir Government has banned private airborne activity para-jumping, paragliding and hoisting of air balloons within a radius of one kilometre of any defence and security installations in the state. It follows the request of the Indian Air Force (IAF), Police Headquarters, to all district magistrates to restrict private airborne activity. In this regard, a communique from the IAF, Police Headquarters (Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu area), was issued on June 2. The IAF apprehends that terrorists could use sub-conventional methods to target IAF, defence and police installations in future. Invoking provisions of Section 144 of the J&K Criminal Procedure Code, Jammu District Magistrate Simrandeep Singh has ordered the ban on private airborne activity. He said,it has been brought to my notice that terrorists may use sub-conventional methods to target IAF, defence and police installations in near future. The order said, Such sub-conventional methods include the use of adventure sporting equipment, like paragliders and parachutes. It is imperative to impose restrictions on agencies involved in adventure sports, like parasailing, paragliding. The district magistrate ordered that there would be no private airborne activity within a radius of one kilometre of any defence or security installations in Jammu. Even otherwise, prior permission of the district magistrate shall be required in case any such activity is to be conducted anywhere in the district. All private agencies involved in such business shall disclose the details, including equipment, to the additional deputy commissioner (law and order), Jammu, within 60 days of the issuance of this order, the district magistrate said. He said the sub-divisional magistrates, tehsildars and SHOs in the district would ensure compliance to this order. Sources said that Udhampur district was also contemplating ban on private airborne activity shortly. Pertinently, the state administration, on the directions of Governor NN Vohra, had conducted a multi-agency security audit of all vital civil and defence establishments and installations across Jammu and Kashmir. On January 19, the Governor had said at New Delhi on 7th raising day of NIA that Pathankot terror strike could have been prevented, had lessons been learnt from previous attacks, with focus on securing the international border with Pakistan, which was not yet well-guarded. Ukrainian parliamentarian Nadia Savchenko said she is ready to hold talks over the release of captured Ukrainian soldiers with the leaders of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics (DPR and LPR, respectively), against whom she had fought in Donbas, but not with the politicians. "I am ready to talk to the people that I met in action. If I met personally with Igor Plotnitsky [LPR leader], then I know that I can talk to this person because he at least knows what he is talking about because he's been there. I heard that [DPR leader Alexander] Zakharchenko fought. I have not met him personally, but the guys said yes, he did [fight]... So I am ready to talk about the war and prisoner exchange to the people who know first hand what the price of human life is," Savchenko said in an interview with Radio Liberty. At the same time she said she does not want to talk to those "who want to see themselves as politicians of the so-called LPR and DPR." "I don't know who Pushilin [DPR negotiator Denis Pushilin at Minsk talks] is. Yes, I saw him on Russian television... That is all I have seen... I don't want to talk to Pushilin. I don't want to talk in Minsk. I want to talk directly to the people who are literally from the battlefield," Savchenko said. The parliamentarian also denied being an acquaintance of Ukrainian Choice leader Viktor Medvedchuk. "I am not familiar with him at all... I know that my sister got in touch with him. Because she is the same as me, she'd speak to the devil for the sake of my release. And I, for the sake of every guy who remains there. And I also wish no ill on the guys who remain here. I mean the prisoners-of-war. I think there has to be an all-for-all exchange, there has to be a truce, there have to be certain amnesties," she said. Amarjot Kaur Exploring the potential prospects of promoting cultural exchange through internet and digital media networking, Alan Gemmell OBE, the director of the British Council in India, has launched two digital commissions, along with a digital library (and a physical library at the British Council) for children. Alan, who started serving the office at British Council, from May 14, has been in India for over four months now, hopping from one centre to another across different cities and this is his first visit to Chandigarh. I like Chandigarh. Its quite well-planned and organised, he smiles, first up. With a view of connecting with Indians on a cultural level, Alan ropes-in all possibilities and aspects related with culture and pits them on a digital platform, be it music, dance, theatre or books. We understand that the smartphone users belong to a particular class and we see a huge possibility of digital innovation, through which we can connect with them, he says. Music & the city Alan, who is also a director of fiveFilms4freedom, the worlds biggest online free LGBT Film Festival, shares his first digital commission, mixthecity, an idea that very meticulously blends music with the physical spaces of four cities in India. He undertook a similar project in Israel, while he served there as the director of British Council. We have roped-in Sonia Majumdar, who will travel to different cities, record their music, videotape the city and its people and make a video. We will be doing this in four cities, including Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, and Mumbai. Also, the video will be uploaded on the website of mixthecity, he explains, while adding that the project is in collaboration with UK-based digital design agency, Flying Object. Alan, who was included in GQ Magazines 2016 List of the 100 Most Connected Men in the UK, roots for the campaign2017 UK-India Year of Culture to foster strong cultural ties between the two countries. The year 2017 will mark Indias 70 years of independence and for us, it will mark 400 years of Shakespeare. So, we are looking to connect with Indians through Shakespeare, which has already been done before with so many Bollywood movies being adapted from Shakespeares famous plays, he says. An act apart As he talks about his second digital commission, Alan makes a mention of several activities undertaken by British Council along with two new ones, We are planning to get young British students to study in India and we have an open call till July 7 for our digital creative project, wherein if anyone has any idea or a business module to promote exchange of cultural activities between India and UK, they can share it on British Councils website, and if we like their ideas they stand a chance to win 10,000, he says. Guess its truean idea can change your life! Also, the British Council is launching an app with Roysten Abel, Indian playwright and director, where he will remix and reconnect a scene or an act of Shakespeare. The app is called mix the play and the UK version of it is already available, while the Indian version will be out in November this year. Now this is a very interactive app where you can use pre-recorded samples, effects, locations, and costumes to remix a play by Shakespeare. Its really interesting, says Alan. Well, theres a lot of history between India and UK, most of which Shashi Tharoor reminded us of in his viral speech about reparations last year, and it seems like moving on is the best option we have. Dont forget, theres 10,000 too! amarjot@tribunemail.com New Delhi, June 13 The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (I-T) Department will probe the Rs 1,000-crore scam in the exports of high-quality basmati rice to Iran that was fraudulently diverted mid-sea to Dubai. Both agencies have been asked by a Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team to track the money that has been laundered through the export besides zeroing in on its beneficiaries, official sources said today. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), which unearthed the scam, has shared relevant details of the case with the SIT, which is now monitoring the probe. The SIT, headed by former Supreme Court judge MB Shah, is responsible for investigating cases of black money stashed within and outside the country. Over 2 lakh tonnes of basmati was illegally offloaded in Dubai during 2014-2015, instead of Bandar Abbas in Iran, sources said. At least 25 big exporters from Haryana and Punjab are under scanner for their involvement in the scam. Explaining the modus operandi, sources claimed the rice would be taken to Gujarats Kandla Port by these exporters. They would then file shipping billsdocuments filed with customs authorities carrying details of goods to be exported, consignor and consigneefor exports to Iran. Instead of the consignment reaching Iranian shores, it would be diverted mid-sea to Dubai, allegedly in connivance with cargo ship operators carrying the goods. Surprisingly, payments were also made from Iran to these exporters in India. Importers and port officials would allegedly acknowledge the receipt of rice and allow payment to be made against it here, they said. Agencies are clueless about the end-use of rice offloaded in Dubai and suspect misuse of the proceeds through the commodity to fund some illegal activity like terror financing, sources said. Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha recently informed Parliament about the scam. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has detected cases of diversion of basmati wherein consignments of rice meant for Iran were diverted to Dubai. The payments for the said goods were received in Indian rupees, instead of freely convertible foreign currency, by misusing the facilities granted for the goods exported to Iran, Sinha had said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. PTI Ranchi, June 13 RJD president Lalu Prasad Yadav on Monday appeared before a special CBI court here in connection with a fodder scam case. The RJD president appeared before the special court of Shivpal Singh in connection with the case number 38A/96 pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.31 crore from Dumka Treasury in undivided Bihar during the 1990s. Former MPs Jagdish Sharma and R.K. Rana also appeared before the court. The case was registered against 47 accused, including Lalu Prasad. Presently, there are only 29 accused left as 15 others had died, two turned approvers and one accused got relief from the high court. Earlier Lalu was convicted on September 30, 2013, and sent to Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi in RC case number 20A-96 before being granted bail by the apex court after he spent about two and half months in the jail. The incarceration led to his losing his Lok Sabha membership. PTI Vibha Sharma Tribune News Service New Delhi, June 13 Steering clear of any reference to controversial polarising issues like the alleged Kairana exodus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday offered BJP leaders a seven-point guideline (mantras), which, he said, should reflect in their acharan and neeti (attitude and policy formation) while serving the country. Even while speaking at the Parivartan Rally later to set the tone for the partys poll campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Modi kept away from the issue, focusing on development and governance. He attacked the incumbent Samajwadi Party and its chief rival BSP for holding the state to ransom with a jugalbandi. BSP (Mayawati) and SP (Mulayam Singh) seem to have a jugalbandi (contract) of five years of government for each. Till this is stopped, development cannot take place in the state, he said. However, other party leaders, including president Amit Shah, kept the Kairana pot boiling. Shah told the gathering at the Parade ground, If you dont want Kairana-like exodus, vote for BJP. Cautioning them over the gathjod coordination between the Congress and the SP the BJP president also said the way to the 2019 Lok Sabha was through UP. Earlier, speaking at the National Executive where Modi laid seven principles sewa bhav (service), santulan (balance), sainyam (patience), samanvay (coordination), sakaratmak (positive attitude), samvedna (sensitivity) and samvad (dialogue) for the party workers. He also had a word of advice and caution for them. Briefing the media about Modis speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Prime Minister asked party workers to follow the seven mantras, urging them to not just be content with mere slogans but be concerned about strengthening the nation. To sum up, the message from the National Executive is that when the partys political power has grown, this power has to be used for society, he said. On being asked to qualify the reason for the seven-point mantra, Jaitley said politicians make well-considered statements, not necessarily under provocations. Significantly, the Prime Minister also cautioned his colleagues on satta ka ahankar the arrogance of power. Satta ka ahankar nahi karna chahiye, Jaitley said, quoting the Prime Minister. Also, while referring to win in Assam and partys growth in Kerala and West Bengal, the Prime Minister said the BJP was reaping the benefits of the hard work put in by generations of party workers and leaders. Though he seemed to pacifying the senior lot veterans LK Advani and MM Joshi there seemed to be an underlying message for the new generation. At the rally also, he praised Joshi and Advani, who were present at the stage. We are witnessing history in the making. We are benefitting from the hard work of crores of workers for over many decades in building the party. We are in power in the Centre and many states as well. We should not get affected by this power but think as to how we can use this for the societys benefit, Modi said. Over the past two years, the BJP had emerged as a big political force and the strength should be used for the betterment of society, he said. There is a need to strengthen the nation. People are no longer satisfied only with slogans. They are concerned over how the nation is being made strong, the PM added. Meanwhile, Shah and other party leaders repeatedly brought up the Kairana exodus issue during the two-day meeting. Delivering his concluding address to the Executive, Shah again raised concerns over migration of Hindus from the communally-sensitive western UP town. As per sources, the PMs decision to stay away from the UP-centric issue and concentrate on the national perspective was in line with the mandate of the national executive meeting. The Parivartan Rally was attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, the ministers from UP. Other Union ministers from to the state were also present at the stage. The Prime Minister also lavished praises on Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh, saying that when they served in UP, the state saw development. Simran Sodhi Tribune News Service New Delhi, June 13 The race for India to get into the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) seems to be getting more intense as top government officials remain optimistic of getting through amid spoilers. Pakistan today claimed its credentials for gaining membership into the NSG are stronger than Indias. Pakistans Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz in an interview said: If the group forms uniform criteria, then Pakistan has stronger credentials for NSG membership than India. India, meanwhile, seems to be pressing all diplomatic buttons to ensure when the NSG plenary meeting takes place in Seoul on June 20, its membership gets a green signal. To achieve that outcome, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the weekend called up Russian President Vladmir Putin to get Russian support for Indias NSG entry. Modi, in his recent visits abroad, also managed to get the support of Switzerland, the US and Mexico for Indias bid. China, however, has refused to relent so far. Even smaller countries such as Austria and Turkey have strong reservations to India gaining entry into the NSG without having first signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). China seems to have hardened its position of late, insisting the NPT is a must for nations wanting to join the NSG. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) China went a step ahead and dismissed the idea that the Vienna meeting of the NSG on June 9 even discussed the issue of Indias bid. This is in stark contrast to the position taken by officials of the government here at the highest level who maintained not only were talks held on Indias candidature, but that most countries, opposed to India, seemed to be softening their position. Modi is likely to travel to Tashkent to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meet on June 23-24. He may meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and take up the case of NSG membership. New Delhi, June 13 In a jolt to Delhi's ruling AAP government, President Pranab Mukherjee has refused to give assent to a legislation that protects 21 party MLAs, who have been appointed Parliamentary Secretaries, and face the prospect of disqualification. Petitions have been filed with the President seeking disqualification of these MLAs on the ground that they occupied office of profit violating constitutional provisions. Acting as a quasi judicial body, the Election Commission to whom the President referred the issue, had sought replies of the MLAs. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) The Delhi government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. Through the Bill, the AAP government wanted "retrospective" exemption for the parliamentary secretaries from disqualification provisions. The Bill was forwarded by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to the Centre, which in turn was sent to the President with its comments. After examining the issue, the President has not given his assent to the Bill, official sources said today. On March 13, 2015, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had passed an order appointing the 21 party MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries. PTI Accra, June 13 Terrorism is a scourge that knows no borders and it must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee has said while pledging Indias support to Ghana for combating the menace. Mukherjee, who is here on a two-day visitthe first by an Indian Presidentsaid India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghanas concern that it has become a global menace. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama yesterday, Mukherjee said, It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge. Mukherjees visit is a part of Indias outreach to Africa. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghanas first President Kwame Nkrumah and Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled Africa in his address. Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council, Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africas dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs, he said. The elaborate banquet which saw traditional African dishes with Bollywood numbers playing in the backdrop was hosted at the flag staff college which has been constructed by a noted Indian builder. Mukherjee presented to Mahama a photograph of Indias first President Rajendra Prasad meeting Nkrumah in Rashtrapati Bhavan as he stressed that government of India seeks Ghanas continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Indo African Forum Summit held in New Delhi last year. Lauding Ghanas efforts in reducing poverty levels to almost half and crossing the threshold to become a low income country, Mukherjee said India will continue to extend the hand of cooperation as it marches on the path of prosperity. PTI Vibha Sharma Tribune News Service Allahabad, June 13 The BJP today claimed that now it was the only pan-India party as the Congress was shrinking by the day. A special resolution passed at the two-day national executive of the BJP said, The BJP is the party of Bharats present it will be the party of Bharats future. The (recent Assembly poll) results have once again demonstrated the popularity and admiration Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government enjoy. It is evident from the victory and the formation of the BJP government in Assam and the growth of vote percentage in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and West Bengal. These results have strengthened the all-encompassing expansion of the party in states, it said. Apart from the special resolution, economic and political resolutions were also passed on the occasion. These resolutions dwelled on achievements of the Modi government during two years and its role in expanding the party and its success in the recently concluded five-state Assembly elections. The economic resolution reflected Modis contribution to the growth and development of the country, while the political resolution was about his vision and ideology. Leaders who spoke at the meeting and outside and documents passed at the executive lavished praise on Modis contribution to the Indias economic growth and building its image across the world. Whether it was Ravi Shankar Prasad yesterday or Nitin Gadkari today, the two Union ministers concentrated on lauding achievements and success of Modi. The coming times belong to the leadership of PM Narendra Modi and the victory of our party and its ideology. The BJP will emerge as a strong option in south and eastern India, the leaders said. Gadkari said the economy had gained and decision-making process strengthened since the Modi government came to power two years ago. Though he struggled to give a plausible answer to farmers distress and increasing prices, he said the government adopted an integrated economic approach that resulted in the economy growing to 7.9 per cent and the agricultural growth pulling out of a "negative situation. A large number of posters and billboards dotted the city to mark the event. These were all about Modi, a fact criticised by a section of party leaders who called it a deliberate underplay of contribution of senior leaders, including Murli Manohar Joshi. According to them, it was perhaps the first national executive when it was more about an individual and less about the party. Perhaps that was the reason why the PM was careful to acknowledge the contribution of the earlier leadership in building the party in his speech at the national executive and later at the parivartan rally. Bharat Khanna Tribune News Service Bathinda, June 13 The police today seized more than 21,000 units of fresh frozen plasma (FFP) stored in a cooling van near Behman Diwana village of Bathinda district and arrested three persons, including two lab technicians. One of the accused reportedly works at Adesh University, another at Max Hospital and the third owns a medical shop. Preliminary inquiry revealed that plasma was manufactured in Bhucho block. The cooling van had been plying in the district for the last one week. Its driver revealed that small pick-up vans used to upload the packets in the van. I was waiting for orders to move to Mumbai. The plasma packets are kept under 12 degree Celsius inside the van that consumes around 2.5 liters of diesel an hour, he said. Amit Duggal, District Drug Zonal Authority, Bathinda, said: We will send the samples for testing in Noida labs. The plasma could not be of human beings as it is not available in such a large quantity. The average per month collection of the local blood bank is 60 to 70 units, but this van was carrying more than 21,000 units. Investigating officer Gurcharan Singh said: We have nabbed Dilbagh Singh, a lab technician at Adesh University, Paramjit Singh of Max Hospital and Paramjit Singh Bibiwala of Bathinda, who runs a medical shop. They were planning to sell plasma to Reliance Life Sciences. A has been registered. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that it is important to begin the procedure of formation of the Supreme Court of Ukraine in September and form it by the end of the year, the president's press service reported on Thursday. The press service said that at a meeting of the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policy devoted to the implementation of the judicial reform, Poroshenko welcomed the adoption of amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine in part of justice and the law on the judicial system and the status of judges. The president said that this would help to fully reboot the judicial branch. Poroshenko is confident that with the creation of conditions for the reboot of the judicial power, the formation of principally new infrastructure for the fight against corruption in Ukraine has been finished. "But the courts must be cleared of corrupt officials in order to eliminate corruption," the president said. The head of state welcomed the abolition of judicial immunity and introduction of their declarations of revenues and expenditures. According to him, efficient cooperation of the High Qualification Commission of Judges, High Council of Justice, National Anti-Corruption Bureau and other law enforcement and fiscal authorities facilitates greater quality of contests. "For today, scrupulous lifestyle monitoring, declarations of revenues and expenditures, declarations of family ties, control of the Public Council will allow us to expect an efficient judicial system shortly," the head of state said. Chandigarh, June 13 The decks are still not clear for the screening of Udta Punjab. Even as the Bombay High Court cleared it with just one cut, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today ordered its special screening by tomorrow to ascertain whether the film was fit for public exhibition. Issuing notice to the Union of India, the producer and another respondent, Justice M. Jeyapaul, on a petition by advocate Wattan Sharma, asked them to show cause as to why the films public exhibition should not be restrained. The Bench asked advocate Sujay Kantawala, present in connection with another case, to assist the court as amicus curiae pro bono an offer readily accepted by him. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd) The case comes up for hearing on June 16, a day before the movies release. At the very onset, the Bench asked the petitioner to clarify whether the relief sought had a direct bearing on the petition before the Bombay High Court. To this, the counsel submitted that the producer had challenged the CBFC revision panels alleged inaction before the Bombay HC. This petition, he contended, had been filed against the movies content, which portrayed Punjab's culture in a bad light. TNS Balwant Garg Tribune News Service Faridkot, June 13 An incident of firing at a follower of Dera Sacha Sauda in Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village in the district on Monday morning has led to tension in the area. The Dera follower, who was seriously injured, was shifted to Ludhiana. Heavy police force was deployed subsequently in the village. A number of Dera followers of the area have started assembling in the village. The Dera follower was attacked by two persons in a car about 5.30 am as he was opening his shop in the village. He was hit by multiple shots and the doctors at Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot, referred him to DMC, Ludhiana. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd) Burj Jawahar Singh Wala is the village from where a bir of Guru Granth Sahib was stolen from a gurdwara on June 1, 2015. The theft of this bir was followed by similar incidents and had kept Punjab on the boil for more than a month last year. For the past seven months, the CBI has been investigating the theft case, but has failed to make headway in the sensitive matter. GS Paul Tribune News Service Amritsar, June 13 The United Ex-servicemen Front is mulling to move the Supreme Court against the Centres lenient attitude in bringing back the 1965 and 1971 prisoners of war (PoWs) rotting in various Pakistani jails. The outfit claimed to have traced the antecedents of a few of the PoWs by establishing contact with their kin, who urged them to pursue the matter with the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They said that as many as 54 defence personnel are languishing in Pakistani jails since December 1971. Out of these 27 were from the Army, 24 from the Air Force, two from the Navy and one from the BSF. The organizations state incharge Capt CS Sidhu (retd) said that they would soon meet Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to know why the government was hesitant to file a case with the ICJ. Sidhu said that the government cannot save its skin by submitting in the SC that the salary and retirement benefits had been given to the dependents of the POWs. The Centre had obtained a stay on the SC order of approaching the ICJ stating constraints due to a bilateral agreement with Pakistan based on the 1972 Shimla Agreement. The governments prosecutor also submitted that all dues are being forwarded to the next of kin of imprisoned soldiers, but we question them that when it was known and admitted on the floor of the Parliament that 54 personnel were missing, why monetary benefits are being given to the kin of only 29 PoWs, he said. Col Nishan Singh Randhawa (retd) questioned that when India can release 92,000 Pakistani soldiers in the light of Shimla Agreement then why cant we force them to release our soldiers through the ICJ? He said the front would hold candle march in various districts and in Amritsar on June 17. We also plan to hold a protest at the Wagah border in July. We will not let Delhi-Lahore bus or the Samjhauta Express run to lodge our protest against the governments callous attitude, he said. Aditi Tandon Tribune News Service New Delhi, June 13 Newly appointed Punjab Congress affairs incharge Kamal Nath today defended himself in the ongoing row over his alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, saying that his name had been cleared by the Nanavati Commission probing the matter. On his first day in the new role, Nath said, I was given the clean chit in this case. I appeared before the Commission, which did not find me guilty. Still I will be fine if the Congress leadership reverses its decision to have me as the party general secretary for Punjab. I had not asked for this role. The statement came amid the Opposition outburst, with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP accusing the Congress of rubbing salt into the wounds of Sikh victims of the 1984 riots. AAP leader HS Phoolka slammed the move as a Congress gift to Punjab, while the BJPs Kailash Vijayvargiya said, The Congress has added insult to injury by naming Kamal Nath as the party incharge for Punjab. Nath, a Punjabi who earlier served as Congress general secretary from 2001 to 2004, had been exonerated by the Nanavati Commission probing the alleged involvement of party leaders in the riots. Still, the ghost of the carnage has followed the nine-time Lok Sabha MP from Chhindwara (Madhya Pradesh), who owed his entry into politics to Sanjay Gandhi. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Nath was named an accused in the case about his presence at Gurdwara Rakabganj on November 1, 1984, the day miscreants torched the historical Sikh shrine and killed two Sikhs. Before the Commission, Nath acknowledged his presence at the gurdwara that day but denied the accusations of having led the crowds to kill or torch. His name had finally been cleared and no CBI probe was recommended. However, many Congress leaders from Punjab feel Naths appointment in the state would prove politically costly to the party. Theres no doubt that the party brought in Nath for his managerial skills and tremendous resourcefulness. Yet there will be more damage of this decision than benefit. The damage has already been done. The reversal of this decision wont help, said a senior party leader from the state. Vishav Bharti Tribune News Service Chandigarh, June 13 A historical gurdwara in Lahore has been turned into a Muslim shrine, according to a recent article by Islamabad-based anthropologist Haroon Khalid. Gurdwara Lal Khoohi (well of blood), built at the spot where Guru Arjan Dev was kept in confinement, has now become Haq Char Yaar. Khalid, known for documenting the historical and cultural heritage of Pakistan, said this was yet another instance of a place of worship belonging to a minority community being appropriated by the dominant Muslim population. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook and Twitter @thetribunechd) Khalid, who has written books on Pakistans minorities, said the fifth Sikh Guru was also tortured at this place. The story goes that this site housed the haveli (mansion) of Chandu Shah, the diwan of Mughal Emperor Jahangir, who had developed hatred for the Guru after he rejected the marriage proposal of Chandu Shahs daughter with the Gurus son, Hargobind, he said. As per Khalid, The Guru is believed to have spent his last days here, drinking from the well. Thats how it came to be called Lal Khoohi. Prof JS Grewal, a chronicler of Sikh history and former director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, confirmed that the reference to the fifth Gurus confinement at Chandu Shahs haveli was found in Sikh texts. Lahore-based Majid Sheikh, a journalist and a writer who has extensively written on Lahores history and is now doing PhD on Ancient history of Punjab at Cambridge University, said, This place has nothing to do with Islam. There seems to be no limit to our ignorance. The gurdwara was initially very small, but Sikhs purchased the adjoining houses and built a bigger building. In 1927, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) took charge of it. Talking to The Tribune, Haroon said most of the places of worship belonging to the minorities in Pakistan were in a bad condition. Most of them have been taken over by Partition refugees and transformed into houses. Over the years, these buildings have lost their architectural heritage. However, there are a handful of gurdwaras and temples that the Pakistan Government looks after. These are the places which Sikh and Hindu pilgrims are allowed to visit, he said. Tribune News Service Chandigarh, June 13 The Akali Dal said today that it was a matter of shame for Rahul Gandhi to first dub 70 per cent of Punjabis as drug addicts and now add insult to injury by insisting that they accept this false claim as true. Stating that Rahul was becoming party to maligning Punjabis as drug addicts just as his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, had tagged them as terrorists, the SAD asked him to explain why he had insisted during his speech in Jalandhar today that Punjabis should accept that they were drug addicts. In a statement here, SAD spokesman Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said, I can understand that your father, Rajiv Gandhi encouraged the 1984 anti-Sikh genocide with his utterances and even protected the perpetrators. But you should not have followed in his footsteps by appointing a riot accused, Kamal Nath, as the party incharge of Punjab affairs. It is clear that you have no love lost for Punjabis or their sentiments, so please stop shedding crocodile tears over drugs in the state. The SADleader claimed that the drug trade had flourished during the Congress rule in Punjab. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) Cong rally sidelights Washington, June 13 Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, are fearing a backlash following the Orlando gay club shooting, even as the Obama Administration has assured them of their safety. In a bid to allay growing concerns within the community, the White House sent one of its top officials to a gurdwara in the suburb of Washington DC yesterday to meet members of the Sikh community and local leadership to assure them about their safety and interest. (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) We know, this is a time when some in the community fear unease, Cecilia Munoz, Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said after her interaction with the Sikh community at the oldest gurdwara of MarylandGuru Nanak Foundation of America. She also attended sangat with its members. IN PICS: Victims of hate I shared the work that the federal government is doing to make sure that every child is safe and secure, every person is feeling safe and secure in the places of worship and the places where they work and the places where they study, Munoz said, adding that there was no need to be fearful. Her visit to the gurdwara was planned a few days ago but her presence was very timely in terms of the new wave of fear that has gripped the community because of the Orlando incidentthe deadliest mass shooting in Americas history. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando in the wee hours of yesterday and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. This is a country of great diversity. We cherish that diversity. We celebrate it. We feel great gratitude to the Sikh community for the many, many contributions to the United States, Munoz said. It is fundamental to our democracy that people have freedom of worship, but also have freedom from fear, she said, adding that the Obama Administration has taken steps to address these challenges. Paramvir Singh Soni, chairperson of the Guru Nanank Foundation of America, acknowledged that there is a sense of fear in the community and said the Sikh-Americans are touched by the steps being taken by US President Barack Obama in this regard. We are still looking for stronger actions against hate crimes. I think there we need to do some more work, but we are making progress, he said. Singh said the community wants to have the next President as one who can address its challenge. Someone who is more open to the Sikh community, somebody who is more engaged, he said. Dr Rajwant Singh, Washington-based chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said the Sikh community is very concerned about the possible backlash from the Orlando killings. We are thankful to the White House for sending Cecilia Munoz to the Sikh congregation in Silver Spring in Maryland. As we were thrilled by this kind gesture, our hearts were broken with the terrible news about the merciless killings of so many innocent people in Orlando, Singh said. We have had several incidents of violence after the San Bernardino killings last December. We are praying for the victims but at the same time very concerned that how this would impact the Sikh community across the nation, he said. We have conveyed that this needs to be spelled out by the White House and we request that President Obama include and mention Sikhs, particularly in his remarks, while issuing a statement about the Orlando tragedy. Sikh congregations across the world need some security assistance and capacity building resources, Singh said. The Sikh Coalition in a statement condemned the Orlando shooting as a terrible act of terror, hate and bias-based violence and bigotry against minority communities, including the LGBTQ community. In the aftermath of such events, minority religious communities are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge every Sikh to exercise extra vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety, it said. In another statement, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF) condemned the hateful attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual,and transgender (LGBT) community in Orlando Florida. American Sikh Council (ASC) said it is extremely distressed by the indescribable act of mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in the city of Orlando As a result of such events, religious communities like the Sikh-Americans are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge everyone to exercise vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety. Please notify the local law enforcement in case of any threats of violence, it said in a statement. PTI Washington A team of researchers has come up with a model to predict the outbreaks of zoonotic diseases using environmental changes, allowing communities to be prepared for the epidemics. The model, developed by UCL researchers, is based on changes in climate, population growth and land use. More than 60 per cent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, those originating in livestock or wildlife, and although, Ebola and Zika are well-known, there are many other diseases including Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever that affect thousands already and are predicted to spread with changing environmental factors. Lead author Kate Jones said that the model could help decision-makers assess the likely impact of any interventions or change in national or international government policies, such as the conversion of grasslands to agricultural lands, on zoonotic transmission. Importantly, the model also has the potential to look at the impact of global change on many diseases at once, to understand any trade-offs that decision-makers may have to be make. Co-author Dr David Redding added that the new approach successfully predicts outbreaks of individual diseases by pairing the changes in the host's distribution as the environment changes with the mechanics of how that disease spreads from animals to people, which hasn't been done before. It allows researchers to calculate how often people are likely to come into contact with disease-carrying animals and their risk of the virus spilling over. The researchers said that the model could be refined to consider zoonotic disease transmission within human populations by including the impact of travel infrastructure, human-to-human contact rates and poverty. The research is published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. ANI THE meeting of the Punjab Legislative Council held at Simla on Monday was notable in more than one respect. A special interest attaches to the King Emperor's message to the people of the Punjab in connection with the gift of aeroplanes made by the latter. The message is an extremely gracious one and instinct with that characteristic of saying the right thing at the right moment and in the right way, which we have learnt to associate with His Majesty's utterances. The gracious message which His Honour the Lieutenant Governor read out to the Council will be received with deep and genuine gratification throughout the province. His Majesty had read the letters of His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief and His Honour the Lieutenant Governor 'with pride as interest.' His Majesty was "much impressed with the whole-hearted and voluntary co-operation of all classes, races and creeds in contributing according to the means to the Punjab Aeroplane Fund and heartily congratulates the promoters for the great success." Fifty-seven people were detained and taken to the city's district police stations during the March of Equality in Kyiv on June 12, Ukraine's National Police Chief Khatia Dekanoidze has said. "Some 57 people were detained. They were taken to district police stations and questioned. Ten charge sheets on administrative violation were drawn up," Dekanoidze told a press briefing in Kyiv on June 12. The chief of the National Police later added that some of the detained people had been released. "The detained people were questioned and explanatory work was held with them. We drew up ten charge sheets on administrative violations... Some of them - yes [have been released] and we are still holding preventive discussions with the others," Dekanoidze said. Tribune News Service Dehradun, June 12 Dr Chetana Pokhriyal, Associate Professor & Head, Department of English, MKP College, Dehradun, attended the 14th International Conference on the new directions in Humanities at the University of Illinois, Chicago IL, USA, from June 8 to 10. Her visit was sponsored by the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi. The emerging cultural issues, the critical challenges of communication, political studies, media studies, humanities and education were the key issues addressed at the conference. About 175 participants from 65 countries across the world took part in the conference. Dr Pokhriyal presented the paper on A Transnational Journey of Historical Narrative through Films: A Study of the film Airlift vis-a-vis the Guild War. The paper focused on how the cinematic space is used and artistic liberties exercised by the filmmaker in the reconstruction and reviving of history. The film in focus was Airlift released in January. Dr Pokhriyal has presented research papers in the international conferences in Oxford University, Harvard University, San Diego and Australia in the past. Nainital, June 13 Glow has returned to the famous Naini lake here with the removal of mounds of silt around it. Nainital District Magistrate Dipak Rawat said the declining water level had made ugly heaps around the moon-shaped lake, which is the centre of attraction for tourists visiting the town. This prompted the district administration to launch a drive to cleanse the lake of the mounds of silt and soil with the help of JCBs. Lasting about a fortnight, the drive saw around 14,000 cubic metres of silt removed from around the lake, he said. Reckoned among the countrys major tourist spots, Nainital is particularly famous for the Naini lake, spread over an area of 49 hectares. Boating in the lake, which flows at a height of 6,500 feet, is one of the main tourist attractions. Deficit rainfall during winter this time had brought down the water level in the lake by about 6-7 feet, making silt deposits around the lake visible at Mallital and Tallital areas of the town, Rawat said. Though boating in the lake did not face any obstructions because of the silt heaps, they were having a marring effect on the beauty of Nainital, also called the lake city, the DM said. Declining water level of the lake had also caused a concern among environmentalists who consider overuse of the lake for water supply purposes during summer a major factor, apart from deficit rainfall, for water levels coming down in the lake. With water consumption rising during summer, a major part of the pressure comes on Naini lake, noted environmentalist and Padamshri winner Anil Joshi said. The District Magistrate said the removal of silt around the lake cost the district administration Rs 50 lakh. However, Nainital had begun to receive rain and the level of Naini lake had also begun to rise. According to a study, 52 per cent of the water in the lake is contributed by rain. PTI Tribune News Service Mussoorie, June 13 Four tourists from Ludhiana allegedly thrashed two employees of Hotel Nature Lap for demanding documents to support their identification and advance money on Spring Road near Library Bazaar here last night. The hotel employees sustained minor injuries. The Mussoorie police said the youngsters turned up at the hotel in a Polo car (PB 10 FE 9500) and booked a room. The employees on duty asked them to show any document to support their identification and pay the booking amount in advance. But the tourists thrashed the employees Sumari Lal Nautiyal and Jivanand who were taken to St Marys Hospital, said the hotel management. But the Ludhiana youths, namely Surjeet Singh, Jalpreet Singh, Asleef Singh and Sandeep Singh, have a different story to tell. They held the hotel staff responsible for the brawl. We reached Mussoorie all the way from Hemkund Sahib yatra. We were tired so requested the hotel management to give us a room for which we would pay in the morning along with submission of identity cards. But when they refused, we decided to leave the hotel but they didnt allow us to do so. This followed a spat, they alleged. The tourists alleged that the hotel staffers damaged their car and the latter accused the former of breaking furniture and flower pots in the hotel. The police pacified them and the matter was resolved. The hotel is being run by Ramesh Kumar from Rajasthan on lease. Meanwhile, in another incident, two families of a community had a scuffle just before Ramzan prayers at a Butcher Khana in Mussoorie. A family accused the other of selling meat illegally. A man was reportedly injured in the brawl. Though both parties approached the police, the issue was resolved amicably later. Mussoorie police station in charge NS Namboori said, Any sort of violence will not be tolerated. Both sides have been warned of legal action in case they indulge in such activities in future. Himanshu Kumar Lall Tribune News Service Dehradun, June 13 The Char Dham Yatra is in full swing as nearly 30,000 pilgrims are visiting the shrines everyday, which has helped in reviving the tourism sector of Uttarakhand. The latest data, compiled by the Police Department, highlighted that 9,69,392 pilgrims had undertaken pilgrimage since the portals of the shrines were opened for devotees. The maximum number of footfall of pilgrims (3,86,683) was registered at the Badrinath shrine, which was followed by the Kedarnath shrine as 2,18,330 pilgrims visited it. Gangotri and Yamunotri shrines had registered the footfall of 1,99,626 and 1,27,464 pilgrims. Hemkunt Sahib registered the footfall of 37,289 pilgrims since the shrine was opened on May 25. Gangotri, Yamunotri and Kedarnath shrines were opened on May 9, while the Badrinath shrine was opened on May 11. State Tourism Department officials said if the trend continued, then the yatra could set new records of pilgrims this year. According to them, a large number of tourists and pilgrims were expected to arrive in Uttarakhand due to summer vacations in most of the government and private schools as there was a sharp increase in the graph of pilgrims in the last few days. However, some said there was a steep rise in the number of pilgrims visiting the Char Dhams was due to hot and humid summer in most of the northern states. BD Singh, Chief Executive Officer, Shri Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee, said the government had worked intensely to popularise the pilgrimage since flash floods struck Uttarakhand in 2013. He said Uttarakhand can create a new record in terms of huge flow of tourists, if weather continued to favour the state. According to him, funds had not become a barrier for repairing the damaged infrastructure which includes bridges, roads, potable water pipelines, etc. on the Char Dham yatra route. He said parking lots were constructed at important places to decongest traffic, while medical, paramedical and administrative staff were appointed to help the pilgrims. IG (SDRF) Sanjay Gunjyal said Uttarakhand was the first state to have trained police force for tough and hilly terrains. Companies of the State Disaster Response Force in adequate number had been deployed at the disaster-prone areas to ensure speedy action in case of a disaster, he added. A new high Tribune News Service Dehradun, June 13 Chief Minister Harish Rawat today asked the Centre about the fate of the Budget that was passed by the Uttarakhand Vidhan Sabha in March. I have been asking the Centre where is my Budget? I have requested the Prime Minister and written to the Home Ministry for releasing the Budget. Now, I will take this issue to the people of the state, he said at a press conference today. Rawat said he had weathered the political storm, including saving his government and bagging the Rajya Sabha seat for the party. All political contingencies have been met, now we have to look into the requirements of the state. Now we need the Budget for the development and economic growth of the state. Our state Budget was approved by the Speaker, High Court and the Supreme Court. They had endorsed for maintaining the status quo in case my government won the vote of confidence, he stated. On being asked if his government would take the legal route in this matter, the Chief Minister said all the issues were being looked into. Under the Federal system, states have certain rights. We will do everything that is within our sphere. We will continue to demand our Budget, he said. On the issue of several Assembly seats having been declared vacant for one reason or the other in the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly, which would invariably affect the development in these constituencies, Rawat said I am saddened by this trend but I will pay extra attention to these constituencies like an additional MLA. He was mulling setting up a panel that would take up a survey of the state to pinpoint the areas lagging behind in economical and infrastructural growth. The panels suggestions would be passed on to the government and the policy group for action, the Chief Minister added. ROME, June 13 Pope Francis on Monday condemned the use of hunger as a weapon of war and lamented the fact that it was easier to move weapons across borders than the aid needed to keep civilians alive. Days after aid agencies were allowed to deliver food to the besieged Syrian town of Daraya for the first time since 2012, Francis said preventing supplies from reaching war zones was a violation of international law. On a visit to the headquarters of the World Food Programme, the Pope said the world faced a strange paradox. Whereas forms of aid and development projects are obstructed by involved and incomprehensible political decisions, skewed ideological visions and impenetrable customs barriers, weaponry is not. In some cases, hunger itself is used as a weapon of war, he said in an address to the UN agency that is the largest provider of food aid worldwide. Reuters DHAKA, June 12 Authorities in Bangladesh have arrested at least 103 militants as part of a broad crackdown on Islamists after a wave of deadly attacks on members of minority groups and liberal activists, police said on Monday. In addition to the arrest of the Islamist militants, about 6,000 suspected criminals have been arrested since law enforcement agencies began a weeklong drive on Friday to halt a series of targeted killings in the mainly Muslim nation. All the arrests were made on specific charges, national police chief AKM. Shahidul Hoque said, relating to firearms, narcotics and other offences. "We will have to prevent the emergence of militancy collectively as a whole nation. It is not possible to eliminate it by police alone," Hoque said. Over the past week, an elderly Hindu priest, a Hindu monastery worker and a Christian shopkeeper were hacked to death in attacks for which Islamic State claimed responsibility. The Muslim wife of a counter-terrorism police official was also stabbed and shot dead. Militants have killed more than 30 people in Bangladesh since early last year, with atheist bloggers, liberal academics, gay rights campaigners, foreign aid workers, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups among the victims. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for 21 of the attacks since its first claim in September last year and al Qaeda has claimed most of the rest, according to Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service. The government denies that either group has a presence in Bangladesh and says homegrown radicals are responsible. Last month, junior foreign minister Shahriar Alam said that the Islamic State was trying to ride a wave of religious radicalisation by falsely claiming killings and said there was enough evidence implicating domestic militant groups. Police said two domestic militant groups Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and Ansarullah Bangla Team were behind the attacks as part of their efforts to impose strict Islamic law on Bangladesh, whose population of 160 million are mostly moderate Muslims. At least 10 suspected members of the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen have been killed in shootouts since November, including five last week, police said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has vowed to track down the killers, blaming the growing violence on political opponents linked to Islamist parties. The main opposition party, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, dismisses such accusations and said the mass arrests were a ploy to suppress political opponents. Reuters Islamabad, June13 India has always been the "axis" of Pakistan's foreign policy and for that very reason, it became a "security state", the country's top diplomat said on Monday. "India has always been the axis of Pakistan's foreign policy," Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said. To face India with determination for the past 60 years, based on our principles is an important achievement." "For that very reason, our country became a security state," he said while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs in the parliament house. Aziz told members of the committee that India was a country seven times larger than Pakistan, yet relations between both have remained bad ever since the start due to the issue of Kashmir, the News International reported. He also said after the 9/11 terror attacks, Muslims were attacked and the sparks flew from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Separately, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry told the same committee that no compromise would be made on nuclear programme, according to Radio Pakistan. Chaudhry said Pakistan would not allow its soil to be used against any other country. He said terrorism is the major issue for Pakistan and over 5,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in the war on terror. PTI Beirut, June 13 The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them," a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio said. The jihadist group declared its "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The IS-linked news agency Amaq said on Sunday that the attack on the gay nightclub had been "carried out by an Islamic State fighter". (Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd) US media reported that the gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, a 29-year old American citizen, had pledged allegiance to the jihadist group IS. The FBI has admitted that Mateen - who was born to Afghan parents in New York - had previously been investigated, but cleared, for ties to a US suicide bomber. IN PICS: Victims of hate The worst mass shooting in US history left 50 people dead, in addition to the shooter, and wounded 53 others. Events unfolded over a three-hour period from around 2:00 am (local time) when shots rang out amid the throbbing music at the Pulse Orlando club near closing time. Police said the suspect was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings "as an act of terrorism". The father of the suspect said his son may have been motivated by homophobia. Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, dubbed the murders "the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11." The attack coincides with gay pride month in the United States, with festive events all over the country, including in Orlando last week. AFP The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) after examining public registers has unveiled corruption risks with 235 judges, NABU Director Andriy Sytnyk has said. The Ukrainian president's press service reported last week that at a meeting of the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policy chaired by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko Sytnyk said that access to public registers is an important tool in combating corruption, including during the re-credentialing of judges. "We have received requests regarding 381 judges. Materials evidenced possible risks were formed for 235 judges and 46 of them decided not to continue re-credentialing and retired," Sytnyk said. He added that the welfare of some judges shocked: they own 20 property facilities and several expensive cars. Sytnyk also said that currently the NABU has almost 500 people working, and there are 200 more vacancies, mainly for detective posts. "Today NABU detectives are investigating 148 cases, 15 have been brought to court, including eight cases that concern representatives of judicial power. Some 35 persons were informed about suspicions against them," he said. Washington, June 13 US President Barack Obama said on Monday there was no clear evidence that the shooter in Sunday's massacre in Orlando, Florida, was directed externally by a larger terrorist network. "It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet," the president told reporters in the Oval Office after a briefing by senior officials including Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. Obama said administration officials were examining various internet sites. The shooter, Omar Mateen, expressed allegiance to the radical group Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, in a call to the city's 911 emergency telephone number during a standoff with police while holding hostages in a nightclub called Pulse. Obama also said the United States had to think about the risks of firearms laws that allow easy access to powerful guns. Police have said the gunman was armed with an assault-rifle-type weapon and a handgun that were purchased legally. Reuters Washington, June 13 The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, hosted a political show on an US-based Afghan satellite channel that took a hard anti-Pakistan line. In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his sons rampage had nothing to do with religion. He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and he became very angry. We are saying we are apologising for the whole incident, NBC News quoted him as saying. We werent aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country. Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when came to the United States. He did not immediately return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email. Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called Durand Jirga, which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinents former British rulers. Three or four times a year, he would show up in Southern California, Khatab said in a phone interview on Sunday. Hed talk for about two to three hours. Hed buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day. Khatab said Seddique Mateens political views were largely anti-Pakistan. One of Seddique Mateens videos refers to the killer ISI the acronym for Pakistans main military-run intelligence service and says the agency is the creator and father of the worlds terrorism. US officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against US targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations. A US congressman said Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old Florida resident and US citizen, may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group. US officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between the gunman and any such group. Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single US mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. Seddique Mateen interviewed Ashraf Ghani, who later ran for election as Afghan president, in January 2014, according to a video posted on his YouTube channel. The interview touched on economic development and youth unemployment in Afghanistan. Khatab said Mateen conducted the interview in Kabul and brought it to California for broadcast. Reuters Washington, June 13 Americas deadliest mass shooting in Orlando in which 50 people were killed by a gunman pledging allegiance to ISIS has reignited the debate on gun violence, war against terror and homegrown terrorism with lawmakers calling for stricter gun control laws. Confronting the threat of violent homegrown radicalisation is one of the greatest counterterrorism challenges our law enforcement and intelligence community faces, Florida Senator Marco Rubio said. We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists. Theirs is a repressive, hateful ideology that respects no borders. It is a threat to our people at home and abroad, House Speaker Paul Ryan said. Congressman Robert C Bobby Scott, a vice-chair of the House Democratic Caucus Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and member of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus called for a strong gun control laws. These tragedies are far too common and we cannot continue to sit idly by as these incidences continue to happen. Congress must review every available proposal to determine what we can do to reduce all forms of gun violence. Americans are understandably frustrated at our inability to come together to address this problem in a meaningful way. I will continue to fight for evidence-based policy proposals to address this issue. I just hope that the leadership in Congress will finally agree that enough is enough. Meaningful action is long overdue, Scott said. Senator Tom Carper, top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said this horrific attack reminds that the US must remain vigilant at home against threats of terrorism. It is critical that federal, state and local law enforcement officials work together to get to the bottom of this attack, he said. As we learn more information about this tragedy, we must remain steadfast in our commitment as a nation to acknowledge the threats we face and do everything we can to root out terror, Senator John McCain said. Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator Susan Collins described this as worst attack on the US since 9/11 and the worst mass shooting in our history. If the FBIs investigation confirms allegations that the attacker pledged his allegiance to ISIS or if he proves to have been a lone wolf, this attack is yet another stark reminder that the US is not immune from the threat of violent extremism, she said. PTI Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said that it is appropriate to create a united agency investigating into crimes in the economy sphere. "I am deeply convinced that the country should have the united agency, as the United States has the financial investigations service. The police are ready to eliminate the economy protection department, plus tax police, and the K service should be removed from SBU," he said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine. He said that the authorities' will is required to create the united agency to investigate into economic crimes. "I think that today there is no political will in the country to close the K department in SBU, for example," he said. Liftgate-Lok's inverted U-shaped bar pulls out from underfloor storage, drops down and locks in place. When stowed, this slide-out gate is free to deploy. Photo: Tom Berg Jeffrey Soule runs a trucking company that hauls, among other things, Poland Spring bottled water from a facility west of Portland, Maine. Not long ago he accompanied a driver into New York City with a palletized load to a receiver in the Bronx. They were Spanish grocery stores, three of them (three stops), with no facility to unload trucks other than by hand 1,200 40-pound cases of bottled water on this load, Soule recalled. They didn't even have a pallet jack to move the pallets to the back of the trailer at the receivers, necessitating a bucket line to pass the cases to the back of the trailer. It took nine hours to unload after a 6-1/2 hour drive from Maine, effectively wiping out the drivers hours right there in NYC. Luckily, I went with the driver, so he had a second licensed driver to get him home. Lift gates are made for such jobs. But Soule said he couldnt use one of his lift-gated trailers because Poland Spring wont load them. That's because they lack attachment points for dock restraints, which the company considers absolutely essential to safe loading. Without being secured to a dock, a trailer can be mistakenly moved and a forklift and its driver can fall into the gap. Liftgates do not have a place that dock restraints can grab onto, so many safety-minded shippers will not load them. This greatly cuts backhauling opportunities. Trailers with lift gates usually dont have rear underride guards, whose horizontal bars provide the grabbing point for a restraint hook, Soule explains. And lift gate makers had no method to mate with a dock restraint. Other shippers also won't load lift-gate-equipped trailers, so many shipments are difficult to offload unless consignees have cargo docks at their facilities. For those that dont, Soule came up with a solution: the Liftgate-Lok. He devised it over months of design and testing: an inverted U-shaped steel member attached to a trailers rear. It rests horizontally in a compartment under the rear floor, and is pulled out and drops into a position where the dock hook can grab onto it. When loadings done, the dock hook is retracted and the driver pulls the rig away, then walks back to close the trailers doors. While there, he also lifts the bar and slides it back into its compartment. With the lock bar stowed, the lift gate is free to deploy. Soule tested it at Poland Springs dock and the restraint hook held tight to the bar, the bar wasnt damaged as an underride guard might be, and the trailer couldnt be moved. Trailer is backed to the dock, the Dok-Lok's hook has grabbed the U-bar and the trailer is now unmovable. Photos: Jeffrey Soule Liftgate-Lok fought the Dok Lok to a tie, forming a bond like two railroad cars coupling!" he declared. Poland Spring has therefore approved the loading of trailers with the device installed. Meanwhile, a large grocery fleet which saw the product has agreed to equip many of its trailers with Liftgate-Loks. Millions of empty miles are now run by lift-gate-equipped trailers because they cant load backhauls, but his Liftgate-Lok will allow many of them to take on loads normally, Soule said. Also, trailers can now become part of a hook-and-drop operation; they can be parked at shippers yards, loaded and then picked up by drivers wholl save many hours of waiting time. Liftgate-Lok will work with rail and slide-out gates, but not tuck-aways, Soule says. "The list price is $2,495," he said. "It pays for itself by the third day of use on loads that otherwise could not be loaded on a liftgate trailer. A distributor/warehouser would see an immediate return from recapture of outsourced backhaul freight." He has formed a company to market the product Utopia Ventures and has information and volume pricing available at 207-400-6940. NATO troops' permanent presence on Estonian territory should become a new reality for this country, leader of the ruling Reform Party and Prime Minister Taavi Roivas told his party members on Sunday. The will for defense and allied relations must be strengthened, because the security environment has grown "unstable and unpredictable" and many earlier signs of a threat have become a reality: "Russia behaves like an aggressor capable of changing borders forcibly, international law for it is wastepaper," Roivas said. "The presence of NATO troops is a new reality. It should increase not only as a potent political signal, but also as a means of making our Defence Forces more competitive to repulse any enemy," the party leader said. NATO troops should be in Estonia "not for war or inciting war," he said. "These forces are in Estonia to send a clear and unequivocal message to the adversary: do not quarrel with NATO," Roivas said. He said that at the NATO summit in Warsaw on July 8-9 he will seek to ensure that the allies' presence in Estonia becomes a constant NATO policy. He also said that at the summit NATO countries should support an increase of the defense spending target for NATO members, currently at 2% of the gross domestic product. At present, only five members meet this target, including Estonia. Skinner Trace which is off the S.S. Erin Road is experiencing major land movement which has Tonight Dateline turns its attention to Bangladeshi where girls are married off before theyre fifteen. It follows a distraught thirteen-year-old bride as she prepares for her wedding. In Bangladesh, thirteen-year-old Beezly Roy has big dreams. She wants to study and become a doctor. However, she is preparing for her wedding to an older man that she has met only once. Despite her marriage being illegal, it is not unusual a third* of all Bangladeshi girls marry before they are fifteen years old. Journalist, Tania Rashid gains rare access to Beezlys wedding preparations as the increasingly distraught young woman faces the prospect of a lifetime of subservience to her older husband. She describes the young bride as shaking and terrified. [Translated] I didnt want this weddingThey are marrying me off forcefully, Beezly tells Tania. In Bangladesh, having girls is considered a problem because they are expensive especially if they want to study. Beezly has agreed to the marriage on the condition that she can continue her study; something her husband agrees to before they wed but then changes his mind after the ceremony. With her husband happy to have a young bride and village elders supporting the illegal marriage, Beezly collapses and is carried to her new home. Meanwhile, in another rural Bangladeshi community, Keshab Roy, is a young man walking around his village in search of young girls who are ready to marry but there is something very different about him. Hes not looking for a bride hes trying to stop the ceremonies before they take place. After losing his own niece to suicide, Keshab has become determined to save the lives of others. So far he has helped at least a dozen young girls. [Translated] I keep thinking of her. Why isnt she here? How many more girls are going to die like this? Tuesday 14 June at 9.30pm on SBS. Chief Content Officer for Netflix Ted Sarandos says Netflix is absolutely open to pitches from Australian producers. So far Netflix is yet to commission an original Australian-based drama. I have friends constantly asking me about Miss Fishers Murder Mysteries; when the next season is coming, he told Fairfax. Australia has such a rich production infrastructure and great talent, both in front of, and behind, the camera. Theres no reason we would not [commission] original shows for Australia. After a slump in the number of shootings on Sunday, June 12, during the day, militants 40 times massively attacked Ukrainian forces in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone in Donbas at dusk, the press center of the ATO headquarters reported. "Forty attacks by the Russian occupation army, including 27 in the Donetsk, 12 in the Mariupol, and one in the Luhansk sectors, were registered," the ATO HQ wrote no Facebook. Hi, my name is Scott C. Waring and I wrote a few books and am currently a ESL School Owner in Taiwan. I have had my own UFO sighting up close and personal, but that's how it works right? A non believer becomes a believer when they experience their first sighting. You witnessed it, your perceptual field changes, so now you need to share it. I created this site to help the UFO community get a little bit organized. I noticed that there was a lot of chaos when searching for UFO sighting reports, so I hope this site helps. I wanted to support those eyewitnesses who have tried to tell others about what they have seen, yet were laughed at by even closest of friends. More and more each day the governments of the world leak bits and pieces of UFO information to the public. They have a trickle down theory in hopes of slowly getting citizens use to the idea that we are not alone in universe and never have been. The truth is being leaked drop by drop until one day we look around and find ourselves neck high in it. The discovery of alien species in existence is the most monumental scientific event in human history, suppression of that information is a crime against humanity. About me: I live in Taiwan. I OWN MY OWN ENGLISH SCHOOL, AND ONCE HAD 5 SCHOOLS. Am Former USAF at SAC base (flight line). Age: 42 Educ: BA in Elem ed. Masters in Counseling ed. I had two UFO sightings, (30+bus size orbs) in military and in 2012 personally saw the UFO over Taipei 101 building on New Years Day (and recored it). Ukraine and NATO defense ministers will discuss at their meeting additional assistance to Ukraine, the security situation and the violations of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on the eve of the NATO-Ukraine Commission meeting, which will take place on June 15 in Brussels, Belgium, Ukrinforms own Brussels correspondent reports. "We will meet with Ukrainian Defense Minister at the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission on Wednesday. We are concerned about the security situation during the ongoing violations of the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine," head of the Alliance noted. He also said that defense ministers of NATO member countries will approve additional aid package for Ukraine and Georgia. Earlier, Ukrainfrom reported that a comprehensive package of assistance for Ukraine will be finally approved at the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland, which will be held July 8-9. tl Ihor Bilous, Head of Ukraines State Property Fund, says that Russians till try to participate in a competition on the sale of Odesa Port Plant, which is the only one transportation way for ammonia from the Russian Federation. The State Property Fund head said this in an interview with Dilova Stolytsia. I have no doubts that they will try to take part in the competition. Another question is how we will deal with these attempts. There are not many relevant investors, we know them all. For Russians such a plant is important in terms of gas consumption and the position in the chemical market. But we have a legal requirement not to let the aggressor country and its representatives to the privatization. We will very thoroughly study the submitted documents. Of course, they will try to deceive us," Bilous said. At the same time, according to him, if a fraud is unveiled after privatization, then it will be a sufficient reason to nationalize this company - the sales contract will be valid for international arbitration as well." iy The Peoples Front parliamentary faction has called for the resignation of the current composition of Ukraines Constitutional Court. Maksym Burbak, the leader of the Peoples Front faction, said this at a meeting of the Agenda-Setting Council, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. On behalf of the Peoples Front Im calling for the resignation of the current composition of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, Burbak said. According to him, the faction insists on the resignation of the courts composition because last week the Constitutional Court planned to abolish the process of lustration, which is a matter of principle for the faction, Burbak added. iy Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has called "catastrophic" the negative outcome of the referendum on the Association Agreement Ukraine-EU that was held in the Netherlands on April 6th, he told a meeting with members of the parliaments from the EU Member States in The Hague, NOS Dutch public broadcaster has reported. "The referendum ended with catastrophic results," said Rutte. He noted that there is still a probability that the Netherlands will not sign the agreement if negotiations at the EU level and internally between Netherland political parties do not come to an agreement. Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister hopes that the situation will not go that far. tl facebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter Published June 13, 2016 MONROE, La. Abu Bakr Siddique, a graduate pharmacy student at the University of Louisiana Monroe, won the Thomas L. Lemke Outstanding Poster Presentation Award at the 43rd MALTO Medicinal Chemistry-Pharmacognosy Meeting-in-Miniature held May 22-24 at the University of Houston. MALTO gathers the faculty and students from colleges of pharmacy from Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee and Oklahoma, and is an annual research conference forum where undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral fellows can present the results of their research in a collegiate atmosphere. This years MALTO welcomed more than 70 attendees who shared their latest research in the discovery and design of synthetic compounds and natural products within the fields of medical chemistry and pharmacognosy for the treatment of cancer, inflammation, oxidative stress, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Awards were given in three different categories for best podium and poster presentations. Siddiques winning poster presentation was a project named "Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Based Oleocanthal: A Promising Lead for the Control of C-Met-Dependent Breast Malignancies." This was Siddiques first-time participating in an out-of-state scientific conference while a graduate student at ULM. As a ULM graduate student, I am honored to be recognized with this prestigious award, said Siddique. Im very optimistic this award will motivate forward my ongoing doctoral research and future career." Beside Siddique, the project was also signed by Hassan Y. Ebrahim and Mohamed M. Mohyeldin who are coauthors of the project, while Dr. Khalid El Sayed, ULM Professor of Medicinal and Natural Products, sponsored it. This award is a great reflection of the high caliber of students from the ULM School of Pharmacy graduate program, said Dr. Sayed. The Thomas L. Lemke Outstanding Poster Presentation Award is highly competitive as our students compete with universities from all over the southeast. For more information about the annual meeting and the organization, visit http://www.uh.edu/pharmacy/research/malto/. No Ukrainian servicemen were killed, however, three soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were injured in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in Donbas in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian presidential administration's spokesman Andriy Lysenko said. "No Ukrainian troops were killed in the past 24 hours. Three Ukrainian servicemen were injured," Lysenko said at a press briefing in Kyiv on Monday. Former top manager of the East European Energy Company (VETEK) Andriy Koshel, who was detained on the Ukrainian-Polish border, is suspected of embezzlement of property through abuse of office and forming a criminal gang. "Andriy Koshel, the head of a separate structure of [ex-president of Ukraine Viktor] Yanukovych's criminal organization VETEK, which was involved in the theft of liquefied natural gas, oil and oil products, which belong to state-owned enterprises, was detained according to Article 208 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine on June 12, when attempting to cross the state border of Ukraine at Krakovets checkpoint in Lviv region... on suspicion of committing crimes under Part 4 of Article 28, Part 5 of Article 191 and Part 1 of Article 255 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine," the press service of the Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine reported on Monday. At present, they are choosing a pre-trial restriction for the detainee. Article 28 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine covers crimes committed by a group of people by prior conspiracy, an organized group or a criminal organization. Article 191 deals with misappropriation, embezzlement or seizure of property through abuse of official position, Article 255 deals with the formation of a criminal gang. Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko earlier reported Koshel's arrest on the Ukrainian-Polish border. Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine - Chief Military Prosecutor Anatoliy Matios said that they searched Koshel and found a blade with an engraving: "The Security Service of the President of the Russian Federation" on it. Groysman meeting U.S. Vice-President and Congress Speaker during his June visit to U.S. embassy On June 14-17, Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman will visit the U.S. at the invitation of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and meet with American politicians and government officials, according to the Ukrainian Embassy in the U.S. "During the visit Volodymyr Groysman will hold a series of meetings, in particular with Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker of U.S. Congress Paul Ryan, the leaders of the Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress," reads a report published on the Embassy's page in Facebook on Saturday night. According to the report, Groysman will conduct negotiations in Washington and New York with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Gayle Smith, Chief Operating Officer of the World Bank Sri Mulyani Indrawati as well as "the heads of leading U.S. banks along with financial and industrial companies." The prime minister will also participate in the annual conference of the Centre for Ukrainian-American relations. As reported, Groysman will meet with leading experts of the Atlantic Council (NGO), the Ukrainian community and the leaders of U.S. Jewish organizations. The Chicago-area man behind an anonymous video that sparked racial violence at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale is not connected to the campus, according to authorities. Immediately after the video was posted on YouTube in April, it fueled racial turmoil until the popular video-sharing website finally removed it citing the university leader's aversion of the video. Detectives of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale Department of Public Safety, in coordination with the Jackson County State's Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have tracked and identified the man behind the aforementioned video that encouraged racial uproar on the campus, according to a news release from the SIU Carbondale. The video that was posted around the end of the spring semester went viral on social media, but it was eventually ousted following a request from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The identified individual, a Chicago-based, 19-year-old while male confessed making the video as a mere prank. He is neither associated with the university nor with any other groups or organizations involved in semester-end protests. Moreover, investigators have not found any evidence that hint involvement of fraternity purportedly connected in the making of the video. Evidence connected to the distribution and production of the video that advocated racial violence, led the investigators to the individual. Jackson County State's Attorney Mike Carr, to whom the case was referred to has refused to prosecute stating that the video could be cited as protected speech. Interim SIU Chancellor Brad Colwell noted in the news release that he was glad that comprehensive investigative work done by SIU Department of Public Safety finally resulted in tracking down the man behind the video. Colwell added that the individual, who is in not connected to the university in any way, made this video causing chaos and triggering fear on the university campus. While affirming the university's decision not to file charges, Colwell pointed out that identifying the individual responsible for the viral video is indeed a crucial step forward, TheSouthernIllinoisan reported. The Department of Public Safety continues to seek support from community in a bid to resolve one more end-of-semester episode connected to vandalism and spoilage of state property throughout Faner Hall on campus. While quite a few suspects have been questioned, investigators are seeking help of the community to identify additional suspects on the basis of video evidence. Western Kentucky University has shown the door to at least 25 Indian students, who in their first semester of computer sciences programme have failed to meet the admission standards of the varsity. At least 25 of the roughly 60 students in the program has been advised to return to India. Alternatively, these students have been suggested to seek admission in other schools, The New York Times reported on Tuesday while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was still on a US visit. The university, with the help of international recruiters enrolled about 60 students for the program in January this year. While discussing about the university's decision to ask 25 Indians to leave the university, the chairman of Western Kentucky's computer science programme, James Gary told the Times that nearly 40 of the students failed to meet the requirement of their admissions, despite been offered remedial assistance from the university. This implied that only 35 Indian students could be permitted to continue, while the remaining 25 must leave. Gary compared allowing the students to persist in the programme to "throwing good money after bad" citing that they failed to write computer programmes, which is not only a crucial part of the syllabus, but also a skill that undergraduates in U.S. school are trained in, NDTV reported. The students coming out of programme without learning how to write codes would be extremely embarrassing for the department, Gary said while explaining why the university decided not to allow the 25 Indian students to continue. The students were actually recruited through the means of a recruitment campaign run in India where the recruiters promoted "spot admission" to the university along with tuition discounts. Following the incident, the university Senate has now sanctioned a proposal expressing concern about the aforementioned recruitment campaign, which was the university's effort to boost enrollment and revenue in the wake of profound state budget cuts. The university has reportedly made some changes in its recruitment efforts in India, which involves sending members of the computer science faculty to India and meet with the students prior to their admission. The chairman of the Indian Student Association at Western Kentucky University, Aditya Sharma, on the other hand has expressed concern for the 25 students who has been advised to leave the university or seek admission in another school. Sharma pointed out that these students have invested money to come so far, however he also noted that some of the students embraced a laid back approach to their studies and as a result, they could not even meet the GPA, leaving no other option for the university except to ask them to leave. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister, Mr. Modi is on a three-day visit to the United States, where he addresses the U.S. Congress and held bilateral talks with American President Barack Obama. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry says Belarus is ready to continue dialogue with Washington to fully normalize relations and to achieve full lifting of the sanctions. "We intend to continue the dialogue we have begun with our American partners to normalize our relations and to achieve full repealing of Executive Order N13405 issued by President George Bush on June 16, 2006," the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said in its statement. The ministry said that "it is obvious that the sanctions decisions made in 2006 by the George Bush administration, which have been prolonged by one year, are based on the initially wrong assumption that Belarus may be a source of a threat to U.S. security." "In reality, throughout all pas years our country made a real and broadly recognized contribution to regional and international security," the ministry said. The ministry also said the decision made on June 10 duplicates the previous similar acts and does not take into account the changes taking place in Belarusian-U.S. relations. "We are hoping that the anniversary, tenth year of the sanctions will be the last one," the ministry said. According to earlier reports, U.S. President Barack Obama has prolonged the restrictive measures on some Belarusian officials. The relevant document, addressed to the U.S. Congress, is available for viewing on the official White House website. The document said that "the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Belarus and other persons continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." " For this reason, the national emergency declared on June 16, 2006, and the measures adopted on that date to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond June 16, 2016," the document said. In his address to the U.S. Congress on June 16, 2006, U.S. President George Bush ordered the freezing of the financial accounts of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and nine other high-ranking Belarusian officials, and also prohibited U.S. citizens from having any dealings with them. In 2007-2008, the U.S. imposed restrictive economic measures on the concern Belneftekhim. In October 2015, the U.S. Department of the Treasury suspended the sanctions against Belneftekhim and eight petrochemical enterprises associated with it. June 13 2016 MAC Architects have picked up an award for best interior home improvement for the design of Westwood Villa, Aberdeen , at the annual North-east Trades Awards just three months after picking up a supreme award from the Aberdeen Society of Architects.The Stoneywood property was designed using 3D BIM software to maximise glazing within a super insulated timber envelope which achieves a SAP A rating.Jonathan Cheyne, director at MAC Architects said: Were very excited to have gained such fantastic recognition of our work at Westwood Villa, a project we will always be very proud of. We are strong advocates of sustainability and are constantly looking for innovative ways to make our buildings more energy efficient.Westwood Villa allowed us to unleash all our creativity and design and deliver something very special and totally unique.We remain one of only a handful of practices in Scotland to have 3D BIM software integrated at the core of our business.The award for best exterior home improvement went to Papillon Design & Landscaping. All the latest Uttoxeter news Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. UW Researcher's Papers Ranked Among 'Most Influential' Two papers by UW Professor Mark Gomelsky, shown here working in the lab with former postdoctoral associate Zehra Tuzun Guvener, have been listed among the 100 most influential papers published in the Journal of Bacteriology since it began in 1916. (UW Photo) Telling bacteria Stay! or Go! really is like giving commands to mans best friend to sit or fetch -- you just need to know the key words in micro-speak to unlock the language. One such key is cyclic dimeric guanosine monophosphate, mercifully shortened to c-di-GMP and, in bacterial-speak, is responsible for their deciding to stay put or swim away. University of Wyoming molecular biologists were among the first to determine how the molecule is made and broken down. Two papers by Professor Mark Gomelskys laboratory were nominated by the editorial board members of Journal of Bacteriology to represent the 100 most influential papers published in this journal since 1916. Journal of Bacteriology, the flagship journal of the American Society for Microbiology, is celebrating its centennial. The Gomelsky papers published in 2005 helped open a new field in bacterial signaling. Each paper has acquired about 400 citations, according to Google Scholar. We stumbled upon this new field quite unintentionally, Gomelsky says. But, in some ways, intentionally. Gomelsky wasnt aware of c-di-GMP and had no intention of studying it. The late professor, Moshe Benziman of Hebrew University, Israel, discovered c-di-GMP and described enzymes involved in its syntheses and hydrolysis (Gomelsky dedicated both papers in Benzimans honor). Gomelskys lab was studying light-activated proteins at the time (it still does), and one of their proteins was strange, containing domain of unknown function 1 and domain of unknown function 2. Domains are large modules from which proteins are made. Gomelsky wanted to understand how their strange, light-activated protein worked. I was stunned, he recalls. Unknown domains 1 and 2 were not just in our protein; they popped up everywhere in the bacterial genomes. It was difficult to believe people would not know about this apparently undiscovered universe. He decided to address the issue head on, driven by scientific curiosity, by deciphering what these domains actually do. And did. Our studies were not overly sophisticated, Gomelsky says. We explained that c-di-GMP was made by the domain of unknown function 1 and that it is broken down by domain of unknown function 2. We also offered hard evidence that c-di-GMP is a widespread and probably important molecule. Once these papers were published, along with a few others about the same time, a surge began. Suddenly, there was the gold rush, Gomelsky says. At the beginning, there were just a few papers exclusively from the Benziman group, then a handful of influential papers appeared in 2004-05, and now the annual number of papers about c-di-GMP is in the hundreds. Why is understanding whether bacteria attach to a surface and stay put or swim by without attaching important? Gomelsky explains that when grown on surfaces -- whether human organs, medical implants or water pipes underneath kitchen sinks -- bacteria form biofilms. Biofilms are like bacterial cities in which cells are very diversified. Gomelsky compares bacterial diversity to human diversity. Like in a city, people differ by occupation, incomes, origins, mentality. The same type of diversification happens in bacterial cities, biofilms, he says. Growth on surfaces within self-made protective matrices produces bacteria with different physiologies. Diversification provides strength to bacterial communities, just like it does to human communities. Its difficult to eradicate a diverse population. Antibiotics dropped into a test tube culture, where bacteria are similar, will kill practically all the bacteria. If you do the same thing with biofilm, the antibiotic will kill the top layer but wont necessarily even reach the inner areas due to physical and chemical constraints, Gomelsky says. Some of the cells in the bacterial city are dormant and not even susceptible to antibiotics. Treated chronic bacterial infections go away, but usually come back because some of the bacteria survive the antibiotics onslaught. After multiplying in the absence of the antibiotic, they can cause another episode of acute infection, Gomelsky says. If scientists could command bacteria to go instead of allowing them to build a biofilm or, if they could tell bacteria in an existing biofilm to disperse, antibiotics would destroy bacteria more readily. Speaking bacterial language helps us design psychological warfare agents against pathogens, he says. We want to trick bacteria into making bad decisions during infection. By combining antibiotics, which are regular warfare agents, with drugs that meddle with bacterial minds, Gomelsky says bacteria could be eradicated more efficiently. Studies on c-di-GMP opened the ways for designing new types of antibacterial drugs. Former Ph.D. student Dmitri Ryjenkov, postdoctoral researchers Marina Tarutina and Oleg Moskvin, and technician Andy Schmidt worked with Gomelsky on this project. Ryjenkov is employed by a U.S.-Russian biotech company; Tarutina returned to Russia; Moskvin is a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin; and Schmidt went on to study medical technology. Interfax-Ukraine to host press conference '12 Steps to Peace: Restoration of Peace, Status of the Region and Security' On Wednesday, June 15, at 11.00, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency's press center will host a press conference entitled "12 Steps to Peace: Restoration of Peace, Status of the Region and Security." The participants will include head of the Restoration of Donbas non-governmental initiative Olena Petriayeva; Deputy Director General of TNS Ukraine Company Svitlana Vynoslavska, and project coordinator at TNS Ukraine Konstiantyn Didenko (8/5a Reitarska Street). Admission requires press accreditation. More information by phone: (067) 249 6813. Interfax-Ukraine to host press conference 'Cancer Is Not A Cell Mutation. Kyiv Scientist Says He Discovered Causes of Cancer' On Thursday, June 16, at 12.30 the Interfax-Ukraine news agency's press centre will host a press conference by physiology scientist Oleksandr Kovalenko entitled "Cancer Is Not A Cell Mutation. Kyiv Scientist Says He Discovered Causes of Cancer." (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation. More information by phone: (050) 515 7148, ancer01111@gmail.com. SHARE JOE LUMAYA/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Hallie Owens (in blue), of Camarillo, was the first customer at the soft opening of Aldi grocery store in Simi Valley on Monday. Sandra Maas (bottom right) uses the bagging area after making her purchase. JOE LUMAYA/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Store associate Krystal Kilgore, of Simi Valley, stocks the produce department with fresh fruit at Aldi on Cochran Street in Simi Valley. The store is the first in Ventura County. JOE LUMAYA/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Store associate Chad Sutterman shows Louise Bergfeld how to retrieve her quarter from the shopping cart at Aldi in Simi Valley. The grocery store requires customers to deposit a quarter, which they get back when they return the cart. JOE LUMAYA/SPECIAL TO THE STAR The new Aldi grocery store on Cochran Street in Simi Valley held its soft opening on Monday. By Mike Harris of the Ventura County Star Dannie Lee plunked down $300 in the opening hour of the new Aldi discount grocery in Simi Valley on Monday. Worth every penny, the fitness instructor and mother said. "Major bargains," she said. The market, the first the German discount grocery chain has opened in Ventura County, is in a former Office Depot at 425 E. Cochran St. in the Plaza shopping center. It is open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Lee, of Simi Valley, attended the grocery's open house Sunday at the recommendation of friends who shop at Aldi's in Wisconsin. "I wanted to see what the prices were like," she said. "And I was very pleasantly surprised to see that most of their regularly priced items were up to 50 percent off from what I'm normally paying at other stores." Angie Beltran also found bargains on opening day. "My granddaughter from Chicago is living with us," Beltran, 74, of Simi Valley, said. "And there's like four of these stores in Chicago. And she says, 'Grandma, the deals are great.' So I said I'll try it and see what happens." Beltran was particularly impressed with bananas priced at 39 cents a pound and a 24-pack of water for $1.99. Lee and Beltran were among a modest, but steady stream of shoppers in the first hour of the store's soft opening. A grand opening is set for Thursday, starting at 8:45 a.m. A few thousand people attended Sunday's open house, said John Alvarez, an Aldi director of store operations. "The value we are able to offer is 50 percent less than a traditional grocer when it comes to our products of high quality," he said. "We have all your different organic lines, your gluten-free lines, 1,800 of the fastest-moving items that you'll see in a traditional grocery store." Aldi's U.S. operation, based in Illinois, bills itself as "the nation's leading low-price grocer," operating more than 1,500 stores in 34 states. The Simi Valley store is one of about 45 Aldi markets that have opened or are planned to open in Southern California. It is the only one set for Ventura County so far, though the chain is scouting other possible sites, Alvarez said. "We're definitely looking to open more stores in Ventura County," he said. "We feel it's going to be a great location for us." CONTRIBUTED PHOTO ERIK WOODS SHARE By Arlene Martinez, amartinez@vcstar.com A motorist traveled off the roadway on Highway 101 in Camarillo, causing traffic to back up for northbound travelers. It happened just after 2 p.m. Sunday near the Flynn Road exit. Emergency responders said one person, who was transported to an area hospital with unknown injuries, was involved in the accident. The person had to be extricated after the vehicle rolled onto its back. All lanes remain open to traffic, officials said. Large groups of people march along Main Street as they make their way from Paddy's Bar & Lounge to Ventura City Hall to hold a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting Sunday evening. TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR SHARE TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Mychal Arata (left) and Lea Roman (right) hold each other during a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting held at the Ventura City Hall Sunday evening. TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Large groups of people meet at Paddy's Bar & Lounge to march to Ventura City Hall to hold a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting. TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Large groups of people march along Main Street as they make their way from Paddy's Bar & Lounge to Ventura City Hall to hold a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting Sunday evening. TROY HARVEY/SPECIAL TO THE STAR Large groups of people march along Main Street as they make their way from Paddy's Bar & Lounge to Ventura City Hall to hold a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting Sunday evening. By Manuel Araujo, manuel.araujo@vcstar.com A crowd of more than 100 people walked the streets in Ventura from Paddy's Bar & Lounge to City Hall Sunday to light candles, pray and remember those killed and wounded in Orlando's nightclub shooting. The vigil was organized by Diversity Collective Ventura County, which advocates for LGBT rights and education in the county. Steve Somann, who is president of the collective, said they felt obligated to show their solidarity because so many people within the organization were affected by the shooting, which came as many celebrated Pride month. "Many of us have personal ties to Orlando," Somann said. "We have friends that lived there and friends who were in the building during the shooting." The crowd marched to the steps of City Hall where Mayor Erik Nasarenko lit a candle and spoke. "Ventura stands here in solidarity with the patrons and employees of the Pulse night club," Nasarenko said. "And it stands in solidarity with the LGBT community throughout the world." Doug Green, an attendee at the vigil, said he was glad to have the support of the community. "We're about pride and purpose and liberation and progress and the other people are about hate and being small-minded," Green said. "We are so fortunate to be here, in this." Assemblywoman Jaqui Irwin extended her condolences from Washington in a statement read by her assistant. "It's easy to get frightened and to be angry. But when we choose love over hate, acceptance over intolerance, we are doing our part to change the world around us." The collective said it had plans to review and possibly enhance security for its weekend-long Pride Festival in Ventura County, which is scheduled for August. In Los Angeles, authorities were questioning an Indiana man with weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials in his car who may have had plans to attend the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood. Several other vigils across the country took place Sunday to commemorate the victims of the nightclub shooting. In New York, the Stonewall Inn in New York, known as an epicenter for LGBT rights, hosted a vigil Sunday afternoon for the victims. The city of Orlando asked its residents to hold off on vigils because of the strain the emergency placed on the city's resources. Correction: Steve Somann's name was spelled incorrectly in an earlier version of this story. SHARE LINKEDIN PHOTO Phillip Nelson By Staff Reports A local Catholic is among 13 new permanent deacons ordained Saturday for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Archbishop Jose H. Gomez ordained the new permanent deacons at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Phillip Nelson and his wife, Mary Nelson, of St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Ojai, are among the members of St. Rose of Lima Diaconate Formation Class of 2016. He is a civil engineer, retired naval officer, and director of engineering at Amgen, and she is a family nurse practitioner. He serves in bereavement ministry and both serve in youth detention ministry. Restored in 1968 as a fully functioning ministry within the church, the deacon is ordained to serve God's people in communion with the bishop and his priests, the archdiocese said. In the Catholic Church, the diaconate is the first of three ranks in ordained ministry. Deacons preparing for the priesthood are transitional deacons, while those not planning to be ordained priests are often called permanent deacons. In both instances, the ministry of the deacon is the same. Married and single men may be ordained permanent deacons, but single men must make a commitment to celibacy. The 12 married men and one single man who were ordained completed their theological formation during a five-year period, in preparation for ministry in their parishes. The formation process when the deacons are accompanied by their wives integrates academic, pastoral, human and spiritual dimensions toward forming the couples and single men in ministries of word, liturgy and charity. "The principal function of the deacon is to collaborate with the bishop and the priests in the exercise of a ministry, which is not of their own wisdom, but of the Word of God, calling all to conversion and holiness," said Deacon David Estrada, director of the archdiocese's Diaconate Formation Office. The diaconate has its origin in apostolic times and flourished during the first four centuries of the Church's history. The Second Vatican Council restored the diaconate as a permanent ministry in the church to integrate and strengthen those who were already exercising diaconal functions, and to more fully serve the people's needs. In addition to the Nelsons, the class included: Jim and Karen Allgaier, of Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Claremont; Bill and Sylvia Betancourt, of Our Lady of the Valley Church in Canoga Park; Brian Conroy and Esperanza Madrigal, of St. Mel Church in Woodland Hills; Pedro and Margarita DeLeon, of St. Joseph Church in Hawthorne; Tomas and Sylvia Garcia, of Holy Angels Church of the Deaf in Vernon; Gene and Peggy Gleason, of Beatitudes of Our Lord Church in La Mirada; Frank and Marsha Gonzalez, of St. John of God Church, Norwalk; Mauricio Guerra Ramos and Gilma H. Guerra, of St. Emydius Church in Lynwood; Joseph and Audrey Hamamoto, of St. Cornelius Church in Long Beach; Dan and Lali Revetto, of St. John Baptist de La Salle Church in Granada Hills; Santiago Salas Jr. and Guadalupe Salas, of St. Cyprian Church in Long Beach; and Louis N. Roche Jr., of St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood. AP File Photo A candlelight ceremony will be part of Friday's Festival of Grace at Bethel AME Church in Oxnard. SHARE By Anne Kallas, Special to The Star In light of the shooting of nearly 50 people at a nightclub in Orlando, the Festival of Grace at Oxnard's Bethel AME Church could not be more relevant, said the Rev. Clyde Oden Jr. The Friday event was already planned to commemorate the anniversary of the massacre of nine people last year at a prayer service Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The first-time event at 7:30 p.m. Friday will focus on forgiveness. The church organized the event to remember the acts of grace on behalf of family members in South Carolina, who immediately forgave the shooter. "We want to celebrate that and other acts of grace actions that bring forgiveness to the forefront," the Oxnard pastor said. Oden has already modified the Festival of Grace lineup of dance, songs, poetry and speeches in consideration of the most recent tragedy. "We are including a special piece on Friday in remembrance of the Orlando victims. It is a disturbing, but now recognizable pattern. The atmosphere needs to be changed," he said. "We have to change hearts to change hearts and change the conversation. We need to take the angry rhetoric out of the public square by replacing it with a world of love, kindness and forgiveness." The pastor said forgiveness is needed in so many areas of life. "This will be the beginning of what we believe will be a movement to make it more normal to say, 'I forgive you' and 'I love you,'" Oden said. "Right now, there is a megaphone on angry voices. What is coming from political corners is people who have grievances. There is no room for forgiveness." The attack in South Carolina may have targeted black people, but Oden said others are also experiencing hate and exclusion. "Although victims in South Carolina happened to be African-Americans, victims of unmistakable cruelty can be any color and gender," he said. "People are being attacked for their sexual orientations, language and religion in the case of Islam. People are attacked because they're different. There seems to be no space for conversations on how to deal with the hurt and pain." Iva Jeffreys, a congregation member at Bethel AME, said she supports Oden's efforts. "One thing I feel is the families of people killed in Charleston were very forgiving," she said. "They forgave right away. That's kind of tough. I think actually forgiving is hard to do. You go back and forth. I've forgiven, but when I think about it maybe I haven't." She said she is looking forward to Friday's event. "I think this is going to be a great festival," she said. "It's timely. It's what we need. We need a break with election stuff anyway." Oden said he hopes the Festival of Grace will grow to occur once every few months at various locations around Ventura County. He said examples of forgiveness can transcend people's differences, pointing to the Amish response to the 2006 shooting in the village of Nickel Mills, Pennsylvania, where five young women were killed. "The Amish people responded by going to the murderer's funeral and saying, 'We forgive you,'" Oden said. "There have been acts of reconciliation in South Africa. We will have truth and reconciliations at the festival. We have two people telling their personal stories dealing with issues of grace one person whose son was killed by police in Northern California and another person who performed an act of forgiveness of himself." IF YOU GO What: Festival of Grace When: 7:30 p.m. Friday Where: Bethel AME Church, 855 S. F St., Oxnard Information: 486-6477 STAR FILE PHOTO Oxnard City Hall SHARE By Staff Reports The Oxnard City Council plans a workshop for the city's recommended fiscal year 2016-2017 operating budget on Tuesday and Wednesday. The workshop will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days in the City Council chambers, 305 W. Third St. The public is encouraged to attend the workshop to learn about the budget process and how city funds are allocated. On Tuesday, the City Council will hear presentations from the police, fire, development services, city manager, finance, human resources, information technology, economic development, housing and cultural, and community services departments and offices. Additionally, the City Council will hear a presentation on Measure "O" and other funds. On Wednesday, the council will hear presentations from the city attorney, city clerk, city treasurer and public works-general services departments and offices. The discussion on the three utilities solid waste, water and wastewater is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. In addition to the budget workshop, the City Council plans a public hearing at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday in the council chambers to give members of the public a chance to provide input and ask questions about the proposed budget. The public can access copies of the recommended fiscal year 2016-2017 operating budget during regular business hours at the following locations: City clerk's office, 300 W. Third St., fourth floor. Downtown main library, 251 South A St. South Oxnard branch library, 4300 Saviers Road. The public can also view the recommended budget at http://www.oxnard.org. Those who lack internet access can use the computers at Oxnard's three library branches at no charge. Members of the public who cannot attend the budget hearing can submit written comments to the city clerk's office, 300 W. Third St., fourth floor, by 5 p.m. June 20. Comments also can be emailed to cityclerk@oxnard.org. The budget workshop and hearing will be broadcast live on Oxnard CityWatch Television. Time Warner Cable subscribers can watch the meetings on Channel 10, and Frontier Communications customers can tune in to Channel 35. The meetings will also be live streamed at http://www.oxnard.org. SHARE By Manuel Araujo, manuel.araujo@vcstar.com Detectives with the Santa Paula Police Department on Sunday were investigating a shooting after a man, who was apparently targeted in the shooting, showed up at a hospital with gun shot wounds, authorities said. Police said they responded to a 911 call about 4:49 p.m. in the 200 block of 11th Street after witnesses saw at least one shooter in a black truck shoot out the windows of a white sedan. When officers arrived they found shell casing and broken glass but neither the shooter nor the victim were around, police said. Later that evening, about 6:27 p.m., police got a call that the apparent victim in the shooting was at the Ventura County Medical Center and was being treated for gun shot wounds to his elbow and the back of his head. The wounds were not life threatening, police said. Authorities said the victim is a known Santa Paula gang member and was uncooperative and refused to give a statement. Anyone with information about the shooting is being asked to call Detective Shane Norwood at 805-525-4474 ext. 287 or email him at snorwood@spcity.org. SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO VENTURA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE Gavin Hobbs By Manuel Araujo, manuel.araujo@vcstar.com Police arrested a 75-year-old Ventura resident in connection with a homicide that occurred Sunday night, officials said. The Ventura Police Department received a call regarding a fight in an alleyway in the 300 block of San Clemente Avenue. Once on scene, officers were directed to a residence adjacent to the alleyway. As officers approached the residence, Gavin Hobbs, 75, of Ventura, was found exiting the location. Hobbs was detained as officers entered the residence to check for other occupants. Inside, officers located a 58-year-old male victim, who sustained an injury to his head that resulted from being struck with a hammer. The victim was transported to Ventura County Medical Center and was pronounced dead upon arrival. Ventura Police Major Crimes Detectives responded to the scene to conduct an investigation of the incident. Hobbs was arrested in connection with the homicide and booked into the Ventura County Jail. This incident was one of three homicides reported in Ventura County Sunday night. Earlier reports mistakenly indicated that the incident was a shooting in the 700 block of Santa Clara Street. Chinese American restaurant owner who snatched 'fake' gun from armed robber was shocked to find it was real A restaurant owner who snatched a gun from a robber was shocked when she later fired the weapon which she thought was fake, but turned out wasnt. Keqiu Wang, who runs Crazy Wings in Norfolk, Virginia, US with her husband Jiamde Lin, encountered the armed teenager on Sunday night. Footage from the incident caught by surveillance camera shows Wang trying to take the gun from the young robber as he was putting the customer's money in his pocket. At that point, her husband came from the kitchen and chopped the robber's shoulder with a cleaver, leaving two deep wounds, the police said, while Wang managed to wrest the firearm from him. After the robber fled the scene, Wang is seen firing the gun at the floor and is clearly shocked to discover the 9mm handgun is genuine. The robber fled with the money but was later found and taken to a hospital. He has since been taken into custody on charges of robbery and use of a firearm in a felony. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/Steve Bennett SOAR supporters deliver signatures to Ventura City Hall. SHARE By Arlene Martinez, amartinez@vcstar.com An analysis of an open-space initiative by the Ventura city attorney's office turned up numerous areas that expose the city to litigation, but SOAR proponents stand by the initiative's validity. On Monday night, the City Council will vote on options that include putting the initiative on the ballot as is, placing a competing measure on the ballot that "cures" the legal defects or getting another measure on the ballot in 2018 with the fixes in place. The Save Our Agricultural Resources/Hillsides Voter Participation Measure in Ventura does many of the same things SOAR measures in other cities and the county do; namely, it requires voters to approve rezoning agricultural or open space land for development through 2050. SOAR organizers got enough verified signatures to get the measure on the November ballot. The council in late May directed the city attorney's office to research the initiative in greater detail after planners found deficiencies with it, including references to a nonexistent Urban Restriction Boundary and to incorrect planning documents. In his analysis, City Attorney Gregory Diaz noted the initiative "would actually be less protective of our agricultural resources than the current ordinance" because certain coastal properties could be interpreted as not being covered under SOAR. This is because the group references in place of the Comprehensive Plan the 2005 "General Plan," parts of which the California Coastal Commission rejected. Or, Diaz writes, "an alternative analysis (is) ... they are essentially the same document." SOAR organizer Diane Underhill said the initiative includes a map that clearly shows the coastal properties. She pointed to language in the document: "To the extent 'General' is used in place of 'Comprehensive' or vice-versa, no difference in meaning is intended." It's the ambiguity that places the city at a higher risk for a legal challenge, Diaz said. One of his biggest concerns is how the initiative directs the council to place language into the city's planning documents as they related to SOAR. "If a proposed initiative commands that the City Council take subsequent legislative action, the initiative measure is substantially flawed," Diaz wrote. A reasonable reading of the initiative would make obvious it's the responsibility of city staff to make the changes, not the elected officials, Underhill said. "The severability clause would allow the striking of the obviously unintended addition of the single word 'Council,'" she said. In general, she said, a reasonable interpretation of the measure is what the courts would use. "I haven't seen any compelling argument that tells me that it should not get on the ballot," said attorney Richard Francis, who helped craft the city's original ordinance in 1995 and now sits on the SOAR board. If there are issues because of "inadvertent entries ... you sever it from the rest of the initiative and the rest of the initiative stands," Francis said. Diaz agreed but said his job was to mitigate risk caused by lawsuits or other legal challenges. On Monday, the city attorney said he will walk the council through all the risks, noting how serious a threat each could be. It will be up to the council to decide what to do next. Monday's meeting starts at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 501 Poli St. SHARE The president meets with Bernie Sanders. I expect the president will inform Sen. Sanders that Secretary Clinton will not be indicted and it is time to drop out of the race and unify the party before the convention. In my opinion, Sen. Sanders has no chance to be the presidential candidate in the Democratic party even if Debbie Wasserman Schultz does step down. Robert Stark, Westlake Village Earlier today, Nov. 3, 2015, fans caught a glimpse of House of Blues headliner Carlos Santana as he appeared in front of House of Blues inside Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino to receive an honor commemorating his 100,000th ticket sold to An Intimate Evening with Santana: Greatest Hits Live (Photo: Erik Kabik /www.erikkabik.com). Photo: Erik Kabik /www.erikkabik.com. The memorabilia display will be installed in the House of Blues Las Vegas Music Hall. Photo: Erik Kabik /www.erikkabik.com. The crowd was also treated to a performance by the Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a school Santana has supported over the years. Photo: Erik Kabik /www.erikkabik.com. Santana resumes his residency at the intimate concert venue with performances beginning tomorrow (Wed, Nov. 4). Photo: Erik Kabik /www.erikkabik.com. Photo: Erik Kabik /www.erikkabik.com. Ronnie from MTVs Jersey Shore stopped by Vanity at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas to celebrate Spring Break with DJ FIVE on Sunday night his third appearance at Vanity within the past two months (Photo credit: Hew Burney). Photo credit: Hew Burney. Ronnie called Vanity his favorite Vegas nightclub and mentioned that he recently bought a house in Vegas so that he can party at the hotspot when in town. Another subsidiary of Vinachem, named Ha Bac Nitrogenous Fertiliser and Chemical Company Limited (Hanichemco), suffered huge losses worth VND700 billion ($31.3 million) in 2015 alone. The loss is considered more serious than Ninh Binh nitrogenous fertiliser plants loss of VND500 billion ($22.3 million). The plant made a loss after the expanded plant, upgrading its capacity to 500,000 from the initial 180,000 tonnes per year, started operation in June 2015. The golden age of urea nitrogenous fertiliser was in the 2011-2012 period, and the market was quickly saturated when a series of nitrogenous fertiliser plants came into operation. The most noteworthy contenders on the market are Ca Mau fertiliser plant with a capacity of 800,000 tonnes per year, Ninh Binh nitrogenous fertiliser plant with an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes, and the expanded Ha Bac plant with an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes. According to experts in the fertiliser sector, the domestic demand for urea fertiliser is currently approximately two million tonnes per year, while the total supply amounts to 2.65 million tonnes, leading to an extremely out-of-balance the oversupply situation. Along with the saturation, the domestic fertiliser manufacturing sector also needs to compete with imported products, especially low-price Chinese fertiliser which take up 49 per cent of the total imported fertiliser volume in Vietnam. Furthermore, Vinachems fertiliser plants in general and the Ha Bac plant in particular have difficulties competing in price with other plants products, because most fertiliser plants are fuelled by gas, while Vinachem still uses coal. While gas fuel prices are on a continuous decrease, coal prices are immobile, leaving the Ha Bac plant unable to compete. In late March, Ninh Binh nitrogenous fertiliser plant was forced to call a temporary halt to its operations by its continuous losses. The company temporarily laid off 400 of its 1,100 workers, paying the monthly unemployment allowance of VND3.1 million ($139.37) to each in order to convene them when the plant opens its gates again. Vinachem has submitted 11 plans to deal with the above difficulties to the government and the Ministry of Industry and Trade, one of which is closing the plant. What are some of the challenges facing Vietnamese farmers today? Vietnamese farmers face a number of challenges. One big issue is the cost and availability of labour. As Vietnams economy develops rapidly, many people are moving to the cities to seek employment. This makes it challenging for farmers to find workers to weed fields or help with the harvest and other tasks. Vietnams growing population and increasing middle class means more and more people want high quality food and fresh produce. At the same time, meat consumption has increased dramatically over the last decade and animals require a lot of feed to grow. All these factors put pressure on the Vietnamese farming sector, as more food needs to be grown on the same amount of land. What practical ways are there to tackle these challenges? There are quite a few ways, BASF believes that focusing on education and technology is key. Modern farming practices should be adopted to increase the yield and quality of produce. One example is our new product for rice, known as Headline 100CS. It targets major rice diseases and has an added AgCelence which produces higher quality, higher yielding rice. Labour challenges can also be addressed with the application of modern herbicides such as BASFs FACET, which can help eliminate the need for tiresome hand weeding in fields. Farmers yields can be threatened by harmful diseases and pests, which can lower the yield by 20-80 per cent. Our modern products help to minimise risk for farmers allowing them peace of mind and leaving them to focus on improving the yield and quality of their produce. Could you tell us more about BASFs latest product, Headline 100CS? Headline 100 CS is a fungicide designed to produce high quality rice more efficiently. It delivers outstanding control of key rice diseases such as neck blast, dirty panicle and leaf blast, which pose huge problems for Vietnamese farmers, threatening rice yields across the country. Its special encapsulation technology ensures a precise release of the blockbuster active ingredient F500 directly to the rice leaf surface where it acts while still being environmentally friendly. Aside from disease protection, Headline 100CS also produces a higher rice yield and better grain quality. The product helps rice plants stay healthier, with greener leaves, reducing the negative impact of heat stress. It also helps the plant to produce higher quality rice by reducing unwanted broken or chaffy rice. This translates to higher rice prices for farmers and better quality rice for consumers. Have the products being tested to ensure farmer safety? It is very costly bringing a new crop protection ingredient to the market. BASF estimates that it cost in the region of over $200 million to develop one single active ingredient. This is why we pursue a global approach when developing new products. We then formulate the active ingredients into products which we can adapt for the local market to meet the needs of farmers. We know that in Vietnam most farmers use backpack sprayers for our products. Our formulation is well suited for this application method. Safety in the use of our products is our key priority and we never compromise on safety. We rigorously test our products for their effects on humans, animals, and the environment and make sure that they pass the most stringent tests. Our products are in line with regulatory standards across the world. Transparency is very important to us, we are happy to provide further detailed information on any of our products if needed. Chinas State-run media slammed the Dalai Lama for his attempts to win more world attention for his political purposes by arguing that the South China Sea issue could be solved with global assistance. During a meeting with a Vietnamese delegation in India in late May, the 14th Dalai Lama responded to a question regarding the South China Sea that it is a complicated issue and that the whole world should offer help in order to find a solution to such kind of disputes, reported the Voice of Tibet, a Norway-based website supporting Tibet independence. Such remarks have overlooked Chinas stance and have molded public opinion for forces outside the region, such as the U.S., to intervene in the South China Sea, argued Tibet.cn, a website affiliated with the Chinese government, in a Sunday article. It is once again self-proven that [the Dalai Lama] is a loyal tool for international anti-China, secessionist forces, the article noted, adding that through such remarks, the Dalai Lama has betrayed Chinas national interests. China has repeatedly emphasized on its indisputable rights to sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and that the South China Sea issue should be solved peacefully through consultations and negotiations with all parties concerned. It has also urged countries outside the region to play a constructive role. The Dalai Lamas remarks have obviously gone against Chinas national interests, but assist in boosting the arrogance of forces outside the region with a full flattering tone, the article noted. The conference was attended by more than 100 participants from the department, Thanh Hoa Agricultural Extension Centre, Dekalb Vietnam, and farmers who had joined the pilot programme. According to the departments statistics, Thanh Hoa cultivates 60,000 hectares of corn each year. Now the province is targeting 72,000 hectares by 2020 to comply with the government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Development (MARD)s master plan on switching from rice to corn. In order to restructure agricultural production according to Decree No.16-NQ/TU, the department designed cooperation models to transfer technology to farmers. One of these models provides Dekalb Genuity corn seeds with weed management and insect protection traits to farmers in the spring 2016 cultivation season. The total cultivation area was 50 hectares, for which Thanh Hoa needs about one tonne of seeds. Dekalb Vietnam gave the seeds to the farmers and 100 litres of MAXER 660SC herbicide to go with it. Le Huy Hoang, Deputy Chairman of the Tho Xuan District Peoples Committee, said that in the 2015-2016 spring harvest season the district cooperated with Dekalb Vietnam to pilot the cooperation model to produce corn with weed management and insect protection traits DK6919S, DK6818S, and DK9955S on 50 hectares in Tho Hai commune (37ha) and Xuan Yen commune (13ha). The aim is to evaluate the yield, quality, the ability to resist pests and herbicides, the adaptation capacity of the breeds and their cost-efficiency, in order to decide whether to start mass production. Hoang said the pilot showed that Dekalb Vietnams breeds only needed herbicide treatment once at the seedling stage, so farmers can effectively manage weeds, and reduce the weeding and pesticide spraying workload. Also, thanks to effective weed management, the trees grow well and do not have to compete with the weed for nutrients and light, which increases the yield. Moreover, Dekalb Genuity breeds are resistant to three types of pests. In the same condition, Dekalb corn has a yield of 7,130 kilogrammes per hectare, 600 kilogrammes or 9 per cent higher than the control breed. The cost is VND12,020,000 ($540) per ha, VND1,220,000 ($55) lower than for the control breed, because the workload for weeding, pesticide spraying, and ploughing decreased. In total, Dekalb breeds bring VND5,120,000 ($230) per ha more to farmers than hybrid breeds. We propose that the Thanh Hoa DARD incorporate breeds with weed management and insect protection traits in the provinces cultivation plan. In addition, the department should implement policies to support farmers in Tho Xuan district and Thanh Hoa province so they can access new technologies and breeds in order to have a higher yield, he said. He also asked Dekalb Vietnam to train farmers before every planting season, so that they can increase the scale of production. Farmer Trinh Dinh Luan from Xuan Yen commune of Tho Xuan district joined in the planting of Dekalb Genuity in the spring 2015-2016 season. He said even though after he sowed the seeds, there is a drought so the corn would not start growing until after eight or nine days, but the rate at which the corn actually growing into a tree from the seed is really high. In addition, these breeds can be planted at higher density than others require less care and do not take as much work, as he only had to spray herbicide once. The ears are not too big but consistent, the colour is beautiful, and the seeds cover the cob so the yield is high. If in the next corn season we do not get a subsidy to plant these breeds we will still switch to them, he said. The cooperation model, which aims to improve the supply chain of corn and make it more sustainable, is afocus of Monsantos activities in Vietnam. Monsantos subsidiary Dekalb Vietnam has secured the permission from the MARD to commercialise the breeds with weed management and insect protection traits in the northern region, and in order to join the plan of the Thanh Hoa DARD to restructure agriculture by implementing cooperation models to transfer technology in agriculture to farmers.. Cooperation to develop sustainable corn farming is the focus of the companys strategy in Vietnam and we hope to cooperate with ministries, such as the MARD, and farmers to scale up the model to help farmers increase efficiency, said Pham Van Thuong, Dekalb Vietnam director of sales in the Red River Region. Mai Nhu Thang, deputy head of office of the Thanh Hoa Peoples Committee, said that the model creates linkages from the input stage to the sale of products. If we scale up this model to the regional level, it is going to be really efficient. Moreover, this cooperation can push large scale production to create competitive products for each region, he said. State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) Earlier this month, the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) announced its 2016 divestment portfolio totalling 120 enterprises. Of these, only two out of ten large enterprises that were specifically ordered to be fully divested in accordance with the prime ministers Official Letter No.1787/ Ttg-DMDN dated October 8, 2015, are actually en route to be divested. The two companies are FPT Corporation (HoSE: FPT) and Sa Giang Import Export Corporation (HNX: SGC). The SCIC currently holds 23.9 million shares at FPT and 3.56 million at SGC, equivalent to 6.02 and 49.89 per cent of the enterprises stakes, respectively. At the current market prices of VND40,500 ($1.84) per FPT share, and VND39,200 ($1.78) for an SGC share, SCIC could be expecting to reap VND1.108 trillion ($50.59 million), should the divestment process go according to plan. The other eight that have not been included as part of the SCICs divestment plan for this year are Bao Minh Insurance Corporation, FPT Telecom, Vinamilk, Ha Giang Mineral and Mechanics, Tien Phong Plastic, Binh Minh Plastic, Vietnam National Reinsurance Corporation, and Vietnam Infrastructure Investment and Development. As of December 31, 2015, the SCIC reportedly held between 30 to 51 per cent stakes of these companies, amounting to a total state capital value of roughly $3 billion. Since Official Letter No.1787 came out last year, foreign investors have been eagerly and anxiously awaiting information on timeline and other details of the divestments at these ten enterprises as they are heavyweights with a strong appeal to both domestic and foreign investors. The stakes on sale will be in the billions of US dollars. With reference to those companies that have yet to be divested, the SCIC stated on its website that it has been reporting these cases to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the government, and action is pending further instructions. When necessary SCIC will adjust its 2016 divestment portfolio. In the case of Vinamilk (VNM), despite the companys efforts to lift its foreign ownership threshold from 49 per cent to 100 per cent at its recent annual general meeting, investors are still awaiting action from the SCIC to make the sale of the states stake a reality, sometime in the coming year. At every single AGM held, I have to come back to the issue as to when the SCIC will fully divest the states stake at VNM, but there has not been an official answer as yet, said VNM general director Mai Kieu Lien when asked about the SCICs divestment plan at the company. I have no idea when the SCIC will eventually do it. Similar to the case of VNM, other large state-owned companies are uncertain about the governments divestment route. The delay in divestment, when closely examined, could come down to the enormous profit that each of these companies have brought to the SCIC. At an ownership ratio of 45.06 per cent at VNM (541 million shares), for instance, the SCIC can secure hundreds of millions of US dollars in dividend payouts each year. In its 2015 financial report, the SCIC reported a revenue of VND10.5 trillion ($479.45 million), of which VND4.9 trillion ($223.74 million) alone came from dividend income. Of the $223.74 million, more than half came from VNM. Before questioning as to whether the SCIC wants to divest from VNM or not, I would ask myself the question: would I wish to miss out on an annual profit worth hundreds of millions of US dollars? said VNM chairwoman Le Thi Bang Tam. If I wouldnt, why would the SCIC? Tam noted that the SCIC could not sit on the fence any longer in regards to the governments divestment plan. It could not hold on to the state capital forever, as the state had ordained that it no longer needed to keep a controlling stake in the dairy industry. According to the MoF, in the first five months of this year, the SCIC gained some VND2.81 trillion ($128.63 million) in revenue through the sale of state ownership at various state-owned companies. Cuc Phuong National Park Located 120 kilometers south of Hanoi, Cuc Phuong national park was established in 1962 and is the oldest national park in Vietnam. Consisting of more than 200 square kilometers of tropical forest and many grottoes, the reserve is rich in wildlife and natural beauty and also possesses historical significance, as prehistoric tools and ancient tombs have been discovered in some of the caves. The best way to explore the park is by a combination of motorbike or bicycle and foot. Youll see some sights en route to the centre: Mac Lake is less than two kilometers from reception and so reachable on foot. The lake itself is pretty enough and there is accommodation and a restaurant along its banks. Around five kilometers further on is the cave of prehistoric man, now apparently a refuge for bats. The park centre itself houses a restaurant, a cafe, a shop and more accommodation, and is the starting point for a six kilometer walk to the thousand year old tree. You can also take a short detour to visit the Palace Cave. The tree itself is impressive but not worth more than a few minutes, although theres space to sit and rest ready for the return journey. For those seeking a longer walk, it is 16 kilometers from the park centre to a Hmong village. This needs to be visited through an organised trip Cuc Phuong runs a number of tours including overnights in the village. Other walks, such as the fossil and ancient tree loop trail, also require a guide. As well as the natural environment, Cuc Phuong is home to the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre. This houses around 150 primates from endangered species in large enclosures. The aim of the centre is to release the animals back into the wild, but it is often difficult to rehabilitate them and they have only released a small number since the centre opened in 1995. Over the road from the Endangered Primate Rescue Centre is the Turtle Conservation Centre, a rescue facility for turtles confiscated from the wildlife trade. The entry hall has some well presented displays detailing the problem and up to 19 species can be seen inside. April and May are ideal months for a visit as the park is alive with butterflies and the weather is likely to be hot but dry. Other than that, any time is good as long as you are prepared for the weather: remember it gets chilly December through February. Ba Be National Park, Bac Kan Province Located 250 km away from Hanoi, Ba Be National Park belongs to Ba Be district in Bac Kan province. Designated as Vietnams eighth national park in 1992 and covering an area of about one hundred square kilometers, Ba Be is a region of astounding beauty, from the lush vegetation mirrored in the lakes still waters to towering limestone pinnacles that reach over 1500m. The main attractions for visitors are boat trips to visit caves, waterfalls and minority villages, with the added bonus of seeing at least a few of the 220 animal, 417 plant and 49 fish species recorded here. Bears, tigers and one of Vietnams rarest and most endangered primates, the Tonkin snub-nosed langur (Rhinopithecus avunculus), live in a few isolated communities on the fringes of the park, but nearer the lake theres a good chance of spotting the more common macaque monkeys, herons and garrulous, colourful flocks of parrots. Vietnams largest natural lake, Ho Ba Be forms the core of the delightful Ba Be National Park, a feast of limestone and tropical forest. Enclosed by steep, densely wooded slopes breaking out here and there into white limestone cliffs, the lake is 7km long, up to 30m deep and a kilometer wide in parts. A few islands decorate the surface. Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park Covering an area of more than 343,000 hectares, Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park is situated in Quang Ninh, Bo Trach and Minh Hoa districts of the central province of Quang Binh. Designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003, the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park contains the oldest karst mountains in Asia, formed approximately 400 million years ago. Riddled with hundreds of cave systems many of extraordinary scale and length and spectacular underground rivers, Phong Nha is a speleologist's heaven on earth. Serious exploration only began in the 1990s, led by the British Cave Research Association and Hanoi University. Cavers first penetrated deep into Phong Nha Cave, one of the worlds longest systems. In 2005 Paradise Cave was discovered, and in 2009 a team found the worlds largest caveSon Doong. In 2015 public access to two more cave systems was approved. Above the ground, most of the mountainous 885 sq km of Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park is near-pristine tropical evergreen jungle, more than 90% of which is primary forest. It borders the biodiverse Hin Namno reserve in Laos to form an impressive, continuous slab of protected habitat. More than 100 types of mammals (including 10 species of primate, tigers, elephants, and the saola, a rare Asian antelope), 81 types of reptiles and amphibians, and more than 300 varieties of bird have been logged in Phong Nha. Bach Ma National Park Bach Ma national Park is about 40km to the south of Hue city and 65km to the North of Da Nang. With the beauty of semi- tropical rain forest and cool climate, Bach Ma National Park is famous as an ideal resort for tourists to relax and explore the wild beauty of nature. It has a diversity of flora and fauna and is the home to many rare animals. Coming to Bach Ma, visitors can walk, look at a panoramic view of mountains, rivers, lagoons and villages, hear birds singing, step in the cool streams and see many kinds of animals and plants. As the bio geographical border between northern and southern Vietnam and having a wide variety of habitats, the park is well-known for its biodiversity. Some people consider Bach Ma The centre of flora diversity in Vietnam, as it represents around one-fifth of the entire flora of the country. The forest also possesses a precious source of over 500 species which serve as medicinal plants. Besides, this is where people can luckily see Sao la (Pseudoryx nghetinhensis), a type of antelope that exists only in Vietnam, first discovered in 1992. It may be one of the rarest mammals on the planet. Nature lovers, especially those who are eager for bird-watching would find Bach Ma a real paradise on the ground. The 358 species of birds in the park account for more than one-third of the bird species of Vietnam, including the fabulous crested argus pheasant and the tenacious Edwards pheasant (the symbol of Bach Ma National Park) unseen and thought to be extinct for 50 years. Numerous bird species like pigeons, bulbuls, malkohas, crow pheasant, herons and egrets and sights of parakeets, kingfishers or jungle fowl are worth adding to tourists bird-watching. Tourists are advised to visit Bach Ma National Park in February, when famous red Rhododendron simsii blossom along small streams and in particular at the bottom of the Rhododendron waterfall. During that period of time, the weather is ideally dry with favorable temperatures. In addition, summer is tourism season as people want to escape the heat, from June to August. Yok Don National Park Yok Don National Park, the largest of Vietnams nature reserves, encompasses 115,000 hectares of mainly dry deciduous forest. The park runs all the way up to the border with Cambodia, with the beautiful Serepok River flowing through it. Yok Don is home to 89 mammal species including wild elephants, tigers, leopards and rare red wolves. However, these exotica are very rare (and virtually never encountered by visitors). More common wildlife includes muntjac deer, monkeys and snakes. Numerous bird species live in the park, including storks and two types of hornbills. Within the parks boundaries are four minority villages, predominantly Mnong but also with Ede and Lao people. Three villages are accessible (one by boat from the park office) while the fourth is deep inside the park and out of bounds. The delicate balance between ecological conservation and the preservation of local cultures is a challenge, considering the poverty of the regions people and their traditional means of survival, such as hunting. Buon Don district in Dak Lak province is famous as a centre for elephant riding which is considered as a long tradition of several ethnic groups in the Central Highlands. Elephant riding is now growing in popularity as a tourist attraction, bringing increasing numbers of visitors and revenue to the area. Visiting to Yok Don, you will be able to take elephant rides into the national park. Cat Tien National Park Cat Tien comprises an amazingly biodiverse area of lowland tropical rainforest. The 72,000-hectare park is one of the outstanding natural treasures in Vietnam, and the hiking, mountain biking and bird-watching here are the best in the south of the country. A haven for lovers of nature and outdoor activities, Cat Tien National Park is one of six biosphere reserves recognized by UNESCO in Vietnam. The park protects one of the largest areas of lowland tropical rainforests in Vietnam and is home to many rare fauna and flora, as well as animals including Asian elephants, sun bears, gaur and a variety of smaller mammals. Fauna in the park includes 100 types of mammal including the bison-like guar, 79 types of reptile, 41 amphibian species, plus an incredible array of insects, including 400 or so butterfly species. Of the 350-plus birds, rare species include the orange-necked partridge and Siamese fireback. Tra Su forest The 845-hectare Tra Su cajuput forest, 25 km southwest of Chau Doc town, An Giang Province is home to more than 70 species of birds, including storks, egrets, and herons. The best time to visit is when the cajeput (paperbark) forest is flooded, from July to November. A one-hour exploration by boat includes a motorboat ride and then a peaceful cruise by rowboat through the brilliant green duckweed, lotus flowers, and water lilies. The tour usually includes a stop at a bird-observation tower that is 23 meters high. For most of the year, the sanctuary's narrow 12-km track can also be explored by bicycle, with rentals available at the boat station. U Minh Ha National Park U Minh Ha National Park is located in the two districts of U Minh and Tran Van Thoi of Ca Mau Province, including more than 8,000 hectares of indigo blues and 25,000 hectares of buffer zone as well as rich fauna and flora. Tourists can visit the observatory which is 24 meters high. Standing on the forest observation deck, visitors are surprised at endless forests and vast waterways. U Minh Ha is one of three core zones of the Mui Ca Mau (Ca Mau Cape) World Biosphere Reserve. In U Minh Ha, visitors can rent a boat to go along interlacing canals or walk through the forest. The national park is also home to various wildlife species, including deer, wild boars, monkeys, weasels, snakes, turtles and pangolins, many of which were listed in the Red Book. There are also around 60 kinds of freshwater and brackish water fish. Visitors can fish by themselves or ask local people to help spread the net to catch fish. After the forest travel, visitors together process and enjoy delicious and delicious rustic dishes such as grilled freshwater fish, fried field mouse, grilled snake with water lily and premature lotus leaves. The forest is a source of life for local people on this land, producing an abundant and rich resource of produce. The forest not only protects but also helps them create revenues to feed their families. Travelling and discovering mangrove forests in daytime, along with catching voles are expected to be a memorable experience for visitors to the southern forest land. However, visitors will be limited during the peak seasons in March and April due to the work of forest fire prevention and control. US police officers investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Florida. A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub before dying in a gunfight. ( Photto source: Craig Rubadoux/Florida Today via AP) ORLANDO: Fifty people died on Sunday (Jun 12) when a gunman allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Florida, in the worst terror attack on US soil since Sep 11, 2001. Scenes of carnage unfolded at the Pulse club in Orlando where another 53 people were injured, some critically, in the worst mass shooting in American history. "We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," President Barack Obama said, as he led Pope Francis and Western leaders in condemnation. The FBI revealed on Sunday afternoon that the 29-year-old gunman Omar Mateen, who died in an exchange of fire with police, had previously been investigated for ties to an American suicide bomber. Special Agent Ronald Hopper told reporters Mateen had been cleared by the previous probe, but was believed to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS before the massacre. Strengthening the theory of a militant connection, the IS-linked news agency Amaq said that one of its fighters carried out the attack. "The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and that left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," it said, in a terse statement quoting an unidentified "source". Terrified survivors described how the gunman raked the club with bullets, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue and shoot him dead. RED FLAG Omar Mateen was born to Afghan parents in 1986 and lives in Port St Lucie, Florida, about two hours drive from Orlando. His father Mir Seddique told NBC News his son may have been motivated by homophobia, insisting: "This had nothing to do with religion." The suspect's ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told the Washington Post he had been violently abusive to her but was not especially religious. But the FBI's Hopper told reporters Mateen had sent up a red flag well before Sunday's attack over alleged links to Islamist extremists. First, in 2013, he was probed by the bureau after making inflammatory comments to co-workers that suggested terrorist ties. "Mateen was interviewed twice," Hopper said. "Ultimately we were unable to verify the substance of his comments and the investigation was closed." Later, in 2014, he was questioned by agents investigating his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a fellow Floridian and the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria. "We determined the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time," Hopper said. Map of Orlando, Florida, locating the gay nightclub targeted in the shooting. (Photo: AFP/Jonathan Jacobsen/Kun Tian) 'WHEN WILL WE GET TOUGH' The Orlando atrocity comes at the height of what is already a heated US presidential election campaign, and the main candidates were quick to react. Democratic flag-bearer Hillary Clinton - who postponed a joint campaign rally with Obama in light of the attack - tweeted that her "thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Her Republican rival Donald Trump meanwhile lost no time in claiming the massacre proved he has been "right on radical Islamic terrorism." "When will we get tough, smart and vigilant?" tweeted the billionaire, who has called for Muslims to be banned from travelling to the United States. 'RESCUE HOSTAGES' Events at Pulse unfolded over a three-hour period from at around 2.00am (2.00pm Singapore time) when shots rang out amid the throbbing music. Police said the suspect was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. A police officer working "extra duties" at the club responded, joined by two other officers, who exchanged fire with the suspect. "The suspect at some point went back inside the club where more shots were fired. This did turn into a hostage situation," police chief John Mina said. "At approximately 5.00am (5.00pm Singapore time) this morning, the decision was made to rescue hostages that were in there." Police then stormed the venue, using explosives and breaking through a wall with a wheeled armored vehicle known as a BearCat. Mina said about 30 people were rescued during the operation and that the police priority now would be to identify the victims and notify next of kin. It was unclear whether all the victims were killed by the gunman or if some died in the ensuing shootout. 'I'M TRAPPED' Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revellers with bullets. "It was like complete chaos," he told AFP. "It was like a scene out of a movie. People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped.'" "People were getting trampled. There was no clear exit sign at the club, so we didn't know which door to take or where to go. "It was just really, really, really crazy," said the young man, still missing three friends after the attack. The massacre - which coincided with gay pride month in the United States - cast a long shadow over a parade Sunday in Los Angeles, amid reports that a man had been arrested with weapons on suspicion of wanting to target the Californian event. "We're all still in shock," said Perry Handy, a 48-year-old attorney. "I've been coming to the parade for 20 some years and last night's event was clearly a step backward in our culture." According to the MoIT, the government put a high priority on consuming Dung Quats products on the domestic market, aiming to decrease dependence on imported petrol as well as the foreign trade deficit. Thus, the MoIT requested BSR to negotiate with domestic oil and petrol importers and traders to increase their consumption of Dung Quats products, circumventing the refinerys need to export. Besides, the MoIT requested BSR to compile on solutions to improve its business efficiency to enhance its products competitiveness. In May, BSR asked the Ministry of Finance for permission to calculate the selling price of petrol by themselves because its sales had been steadily dropping due to a sharp decrease in import tariffs after Vietnam joined a variety of free trade agreements, resulting in the removal of tax barriers. Notably, when the Vietnam-Korea Free Trade Agreement was signed, Vietnam halved the import tariff on South Korean gasoline to 10 per cent, effective December 20, 2015. Meanwhile, Dung Quats products are still subject to an import tax of 20 per cent, forcing a number of its local consumers to switch to other imported sources. BSR said Dung Quat has to lower its selling price to compete with imported petrol products. Accordingly, BSR claims it had to reduce the price of petrol by $1 and of diesel by $2.92 a barrel in the domestic market to keep its clientele. The Ministry of Finance has submitted a proposal to the Government to allow Dung Quat to contribute with only 10 per cent in import taxes to the State budget and to calculate its own selling prices. Dung Quat Oil Refinery, which began operation in May 2010, was designed to process 6.5 million tonnes of crude oil a year from Bach Ho oil field. US President Barack Obama makes a statement regarding the Orlando mass shooting in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP) WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama condemned the "horrific massacre" of 50 revellers at an Orlando nightclub on Sunday (Jun 12), an attack that is already fueling rows over guns, gay rights and how to defeat the Islamic State group. Fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded during a late-night assault on "Pulse," a nightclub popular with Florida's gay community. Police have pinned the slaughter on 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a son of Afghan immigrants who is said to have pledged allegiance to IS before going on a rampage with an assault rifle. "This was an act of terror and an act of hate," Obama said in a sombre White House address to mark the worst mass shooting in US history. "The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance, sing and live." "As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people," Obama said. During his eight years in office, Obama has had to appear publicly after more than a dozen mass shootings. He has called the slaying of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the worst day of his presidency. But this latest shooting comes in the middle of a vitriol-filled campaign to see who will replace Obama in the white House next year. An Islamic State-inspired attack in San Bernardino, California in 2015 prompted Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump to call for a blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States. That call was pilloried by many as racist and unconstitutional, but it propelled Trump - now the Republican party nominee - to centre stage in the 2016 race. The identity of the presumed Orlando shooter, his target and the fact that his weapons were legally purchased, will only fan the political flames. Trump is expected to focus a speech on Monday on national security, rather than the alleged shortcomings of his rival Hillary Clinton as planned. Meanwhile, a first joint campaign event between Democratic nominee Clinton and Obama, scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed. In his statement, Obama was careful not to inject too much politics into the issue. "We've reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer," he added, saying that the FBI was nonetheless threating the attack as an "act of terror." "We must spare no effort to determine what, if any, inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups." TRUMP SLAMS OBAMA Trump was quick to point out that Obama has repeatedly refused to associate such attacks with Islam. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" he said on Twitter. The last week had offered Obama a rare glimmer of hope in the fight against the Islamic State, with the group under series pressure in Libya and Syria. Democrats have honed in on evidence that Mateen bought two weapons legally in recent days to call for tighter gun control. "The shooter was apparently armed with a hand gun and a powerful assault rifle," Obama said. "This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub." "We have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well." The flag at the White House was lowered to half-staff and Obama ordered all government buildings to do the same. photo source AFP Quang Ngai Peoples Committee last week sent official documents to related ministries to commit its support as well as viable locations for the gas-to-power complex, which will have a capacity of 1,500 MW and cover a total area of 200 hectares in the first phase of the project. Quang Ngai is committed to maximum site clearance and resettlement, the application of the most preferential land rental rates, as well as the development of infrastructure to meet the plant and ancillary works, stated the document. The three locations Quang Ngai provincial authorities have suggested to the investors for construction are some 85 kilometres from offshore gas blocks, which would be convenient for them during the implementation of the project. Quang Ngai Peoples Committee Chairman Tran Ngoc Cang affirmed that the authorities are willing to create the most favourable conditions for the project. In general, all the requirements set by the investors in land, port, transport conditions, electricity and water would be satisfied, he said. The exact amount of investment capital has not been released, but initial information suggested that the gas-to-power complex could carry a price tag of $20 billion. However, state-run PetroVietnam referred to a figure of $10 billion. ExxonMobil and PetroVietnam signed a memorandum of understanding for the project in 2013. The project is believed to have high feasibility thanks to the good reputation of the investor and the readiness of the local authorities. On a related note, Quang Ngai Province Peoples Committee asked ministries for approval in shutting down the $3 billion Guang Lian Dung Quat steel project after inspections were carried out due to long delays besetting the project. The committee said that all conditions necessary to ending the projects operations had been met. It also said the order to cease should come into effect this month. One of the most important conclusions in respect to the projects scope is that as of June 2016 sufficient conditions are in place for the state to reclaim all of the projects leased land without any compensation in terms of land and assets on site, except for force majeure events. At present, Guang Lian has not agreed to the proposal and has officially refuted the conclusions of the public inspection. A gay Chinese man has filed a lawsuit against a mental hospital in central Chinas Henan province for violation of personal freedom after he was forcibly hospitalized for 19 days to convert his sexual orientation. Yu Hu (a pseudonym), 32, was forcibly collected and sent to a mental hospital in Zhumadian by his family members on Oct. 8, 2015, after he and his wife agreed to divorce due to Yus sexual identity. Yu was then forced to undergo treatment for sexual preference disorder for 19 days, during which time he was tied to his bed and fed unfamiliar medicine. He was even threatened with violence if he did not cooperate, according to a press release sent to Peoples Daily Online. They did it simply because I am gay. I dont know how many other people have been treated like this. They must be held accountable, Yu was quoted as saying in the press release. According to Yus lawyer, Huang Rui, a local court in the Yicheng district of Zhumadian accepted the case on Monday, after the lawsuit was filed on May 17. "The personal freedom of Chinese citizens is protected by law and cannot be infringed upon by hospitals or ones family members. It is against the law to carry out hospitalization against the plaintiffs will, Huang said. Yu was discharged from the hospital after his boyfriend contacted various LGBT rights groups, who then contacted the police. He has since been working and living with his boyfriend in a different city, for fear that his family will send him back to the hospital. China's first case against "gay conversion therapy" ended in 2014 with a Beijing court ruling that a Chongqing-based psychological counseling center should apologize and offer compensation to a gay man who received therapy at the center. The third version of the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders (CCMD-3), released in 2001, removed homosexuality and bisexuality from the list of disorders, following the lead of the 1980 version of the U.S. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Do Thi Thu Ha, senior partner at KPMG Vietnam and governor board member of Amcham Hanoi, talked to VIRs Hong Anh about the implications of this deepening relationship. How is US President Obamas visit to Vietnam different in terms of a historical context from the visits of former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush? President Obamas visit to Vietnam was a logical step after the previous visits by his two predecessors. Back in late 2000/early 2001, the two nations had just a few years of contacts built up after a 20-year hiatus. Therefore, the purpose of former US president Bill Clintons visit was to establish a normal relationship between the two nations. Throughout the years, and especially during the Bush administration, that relationship was strengthened as the US supported Vietnam in its integration into world trade, particularly when the US granted Vietnam permanent normal trade relations as part of Vietnams accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007. As we can see, Vietnam today is very different from what it was a decade ago. In recent years the Vietnamese government has been boosting economic integration through participation in many free trade agreements and communities including agreements with the Eurasian Economic Union, the European Union, and South Korea, and membership in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Within this context, I believe Obamas trip will take the bilateral relationship to another level. We have gone through the normalisation and facilitation stages, and it is now time for a partnership to accelerate the implementation of signed agreements, increase trade and economic co-operation, enhance mutual understanding, and narrow any remaining differences. How will this historical visit impact the bilateral trade and investment? President Obamas visit will boost this co-operation further. The visit saw $16 billion in deals being signed and it also served to re-confirm the US strategic commitments to Vietnam. The presidents delegation involved different governmental bodies and organisations, including the US Department of Agriculture, the US Department of Commerce, the Pentagon, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam. The trip will facilitate the implementation of the TPP agreement in Vietnam, assist Vietnam in developing the strong infrastructure required for economic modernisation, and support the Vietnamese government in several economic and regulatory reforms. Vietnams textile and garment sector is often claimed to be the one to benefit most from the signed TPP. In your opinion, besides this sector, which others will be remarkably affected by the TPP, and in what ways? The TPP agreement, once it comes into effect, will open a sizeable market to Vietnamese exporters, not only in the textile and garment sector, but also in many other sectors. In addition, the TPP will boost foreign investment to Vietnam, and international investors will likely move their capital to the country in order to enjoy easy access to other TPP members. Last but not least, in order to comply with the requirements of international trade agreements, Vietnam will need to implement many economic and regulatory reforms that will ultimately impact the economy and society as a whole. In a scenario where Vietnam or the US does not join the TPP as planned, how will this affect trade and investment between the two countries? For some time now, the Asia-Pacific region has been playing an important role in the policies of the Obama administration. For years, we have seen their efforts to penetrate deeper into Asian markets, and re-balance the economic background in the region. Vietnam is the centrepiece of this policy and a bridge for US exporters and investors to access the very promising market of Asia. Therefore, with or without the TPP agreement, Vietnam and the US will continue to foster bilateral relations. A productive bilateral commercial relationship between the US and Vietnam will offer businesses and workers of both nations substantial opportunities for expanded trade and investment, promoting economic growth and development. It is an opportunity that no one wants to ignore. What should the Vietnamese government do to make Vietnam a more attractive destination to high quality US investors? We have seen many US giants investing in Vietnam to enjoy a stable political environment, a continually improving legal framework, a relatively low cost base, and a large pool of labour, not to mention preferential policies, modern infrastructure, and greater access to utility services. However, to become a hub for US investors, Vietnam will need to provide more than preferential policies, tax or tariff rates. The Vietnamese government will be asked to consider revising certain current economic regulations which are inconsistent with the terms of international agreements, especially in topics such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures, working conditions, and the status of state-owned enterprises. The company (Vinalines) has just sent a document proposing the Ministry of Transport (MoT) to seek permission from Hanoi Peoples Court to sell Lash Song Giang ship fleet to avoid incurring further financial losses. The proposal was made because Hanoi Peoples Court currently retains the petition from Vinashinlines to initiate bankruptcy procedures. Earlier, in late August 2015, Hanoi Peoples Court announced that it received a petition from Vinashinlines with similar contents, causing obstruction to the liquidation process of the specialised ship fleet which was debuted from 2012. According to Vinalines deputy general director Le Trieu Thanh, after the Court issued a decision on opening the bankruptcy procedure, Vinashinlines has lost the right to tackle its assets. Lash Song Giang ship fleet initially belonged to debt-stricken Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (Vinashin) which was later handed it over to Vinalines under the former restructuring plan in 2010. Vinashinlines was assigned to operate Lash Song Giang ship fleet from 2008. At the time, the fleet was hailed as an advanced means of transportation promising to high economic efficiency. It was claimed that the 11,000DWT mother ship Lash could carry more than 40 lighters, a loading capacity of 200 tonnes each, and run both sea and river routes. It could receive and deliver goods at locations with limited channel conditions and did not require the use of major goods handling facilities at big ports. The reality, however, turned sour as after a nine month test-run (carrying cement on the Haiphong-Ho Chi Minh City route) Vinashinlines was forced to stop the fleets operation due to inefficiency. At present, most of the fleet is scattered, with the bulk moored at Quang Ninh port area and the rest at Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces, as well as Ho Chi Minh City. As Vinashinlines faces financial distress, it can not take care of the fleet for much longer. The ship facilities have incurred serious quality degradation and suffered latent risks, Thanh commented. Based on the book value, as of April 30, 2014, Vinashinlines Lash Song Gianh fleet was valued at VND365 billion ($16.6 million). The principle debt for the purchase at state-owned Bank for Development and Investment of Vietnam (BIDV) and Vietnam Development Bank (VDB) has surpassed VND300 billion ($13.6 million), and more than $4 million at Vinashin Finance Company Limited. In Vinalines current situation, the only solution to resume the liquidation of Lash ship fleet is in the hands of Hanoi Peoples Court. Vinalines executives shared that they will try to gather all vehicles of the fleet (including mother ships, tug-boats and lighters) at one spot and wait for Hanoi Peoples Court to green light selling the fleet. An investor tracks the stock movement on Sai Gon Securities Inc floor in Ha Noi. VN-Index soars to its highest level of the year so far. -VNS Photo oan Tung Nguyen The Minh, in charge of market analysis at Ban Viet Securities Company (VCSC), said investor confidence has helped the VN-Index soar to its highest level of the year so far. Ending Friday, the index closed at 629.84, up 1.3 per cent compared with the previous week. Notably, in the June 9 session, the VN-Index climbed to 631.26 point, its highest level in 2016. Nguyen Hong Khanh, Head of Analysis at SBS Securities said last weeks results were better thanks to positive news coming from the industries of oil, construction and steel throughout the week. The crude oil price reached over US$50 per barrel in the middle of the week, its highest in three months, leading to an early rally in local oil and gas stocks including PetroVietnam Gas Corp (GAS), PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Service Corp (PVD), PetroVietnam Technical Services Corp (PVS) and PetroVietnam Coating Corp (PVB). Meanwhile, two steel producers that benefited from the zero per cent tax from the US market, Hoa Phat Group (HPG) and Hoa Sen Group (HSG), rose sharply. Meanwhile the revision of State Bank of Viet Nams Circular No 36 which reduced the tight credit for the realty market helped many realty stocks grow. While most realty stocks rose lightly, An Duong Thao ien JSC (HAR) grew about 10 per cent over the previous week. To conclude all the positive signals, Khanh said the results were not only boosting local investors confidence, but also made foreign investors increase their net buying. Foreign investors were net buyers of VN411billion, contributing significantly to the market boom. Of which, the southern bourse of HCM Stock Exchange (HoSE) accounted for VN375.63 billion. Stocks of Military Commercial Bank (MBB) were foreigners best buy last week with the buying value of VN142.4 billion. Currently, foreign buyers have bought the maximum 20 per cent for foreigners in the bank. On the northern bourse of Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX), foreign investors were net buyers in four out of five trading days last week with a total value of VN35.74 billion, which contributed to help HNX-Index up 84.85 points, the highest level of the year so far. Topping the list of foreign investors net buying on HNX were PetroVietnam Technical Services Corporation (PVS), then Viglacera Ha Long JSC(VHL), Sao Vang Rubber Joint Stock Company (SCR) a Nang Airports Services Joint Stock Company (MAS) and Petrolimex Petrochemical Corporation - JSC (PLC). In further forecasts, VCSCs Nguyen The Minh thought that cash flow was back to mid-caps and small-caps stocks as these stocks had not yet reached the best potential so investors could look for more profit opportunities on them, especially real estate stocks actively benefiting from the revision of Circular No 36 of the State Bank. According to financial website Vietstock.vn, ten of the most attractive stocks in the market this week will include Viet Nam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (CTG), F.I.T Investment Joint Stock Company ( FIT), HAR, Hoa Phat Group Joint Stock Company ( HPG), Ba Ria-Vung Tau House Development JSC (HDC),Tu liem Urban Development Joint-Stock Company (NTL), Son Ha Sai Gon Joint Stock Company (SHA), Truong Thanh Furniture Corporation (TTF), Thang Long Investment Group JSC (TIG) and Vingroup Joint Stock Company (VIC). The website chose the stocks under careful technical analysis of trading and liquidity transactions and experienced recommendations from securities experts. Production line at Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Corporation in northern Thai Nguyen Province. Three Vietnamese enterprises have been levied zero tax instead of the mandated 113 per cent, after answering DOC's questionnaires on anti-dumping. - VNA/VNS Hoang Nguyen The Viet Nam Competition Authority (VCA) said on Wednesday that the US had made its preliminary decision on anti-dumping investigations of carbon welded steel pipe imports into the US market. Hoa Phat Steel Pipe Ltd. participated as a voluntary respondent in the investigation and was levied an individual tax rate of 0.38 per cent. Two other respondents, Seah Steel Vina Corporation and Viet Nam Hai Phong Hongyuan Machinery Manufactory Ltd., were levied a tax rate of zero per cent and 1.19 per cent, respectively. Meanwhile, the anti-dumping duty levied nationwide on other exporters from Viet Nam who failed to respond to the DOC was 113.18 per cent, the highest among the countries affected by the decision. On November 18, 2015, the DOC issued a notice initiating anti-dumping investigations into carbon steel pipe products of Viet Nam and four other countries. On June 1, the DOC announced preliminary determinations in the anti-dumping (AD) duty investigations of imports of circular welded carbon quality steel pipe (CWP) from Oman (7.86 per cent), Pakistan (11.8 per cent), United Arab Emirates (6.1-7.86 per cent), and Viet Nam (113.18 per cent). A final DOC ruling is expected within 135 days. Under US tax law provisions, any rate lower than 2 per cent is implemented as a rate of zero per cent. Viet Nam's 2014 carbon welded steel pipe exports to the United State were valued at some US$60.6 million, the highest among the four countries probed, according to the VCA. Recent extreme weather in the Mekong River Delta, including drought and salinity intrusion, are negatively affecting the lives of the farmers most of whom are poor, said Achim Fock, Acting Country Director for the World Bank in Vietnam. We believe this innovative project brings together an effective multi-sectoral model to help farmers adapt agriculture and aquaculture livelihoods to the impacts of climate change, he added. Meanwhile, Anjali Acharya, Environment Sector Coordinator for the World Bank in Vietnam said, Working on complex landscapes such as the Mekong Delta, which faces both climate change and development threats, requires a partnership with the government. She added that the project also exemplifies the value and benefit of close cooperation among key development partners, and can be replicable in other countries. The approved project supports better climate-smart planning and improved climate resilience of land and water management practices. The project will benefit farmers (especially those planting rice) in the upper delta provinces and aquaculture farm and fishing households along the coastal provinces in the region, including the Khmer ethnic minority people living in Soc Trang and Tra Vinh provinces. The project is a critical part of the World Banks long-term engagement in the Mekong Delta to strengthen integrated adaptive delta management by bringing together the different sectors and provinces to plan, prioritize, and implement resilient investments. The agriculture sector, particularly in the Mekong Delta, has contributed significantly to the development of Vietnam, as well as to regional food security. The wetlands and estuaries of the Delta are important sources of biodiversity. But the region has also been identified as one of the most vulnerable deltas to the impacts of climate change as well as upstream development. Leading opposition parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) say they have organized themselves under one umbrella called Rassemblement or Rally to force President Joseph Kabila to leave power. Kabilas second term concludes at the end of this year. New coalition united in opposition to 3rd term The new coalition was formed last week in Belgium and includes the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) led by veteran opposition figure Etienne Tshisekedi; the Dynamic Opposition, and the G7, which recently chose the governor of Katanga Province, Moise Katumbi, as its presidential candidate. Vidiye Tshimanga is Vice President of Alternative 2016, one of the groups making up the new coalition. He said the new alliance will be led by veteran politician Tshisekedi. A lot of people thought some time ago that Mr. Katumbi was the leader of the opposition, but finally everybody knows and understands that he is really new in the opposition and he cannot handle all the opposition and this very important role. But Mr. Tshisekedi who is an opponent not only of Mr. Kabila the son, but also Kabila the father, and before that an opponent of Mobutu. Finally, we all recognize in him the leadership that we need today to lead all of us, he said. Disunity has hurt opposition in the past The political opposition in DRC has been plagued by disunity since 1960. For example, Vital Kamerhe, leader of the Union for the Congolese nation (UNC) did not attend the Belgium meeting. Tshimanga said Kamerhe was represented at the Belgium meeting by two of his top lieutenants. Mr. Kamerhe did not come himself, but he sent his vice president and second vice president. So, the number two and number three of his party they came at this meeting in Belgium, and they signed this agreement with us. So, I supposed this means the UNC of Mr. Kamerhe is with us and understands that we have to be together in a common fight, Tshimanga said. Demonstrations are underway Opposition groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been holding almost weekly nationwide rallies to force President Kabila to respect the constitution and step down at the end of his second term. Kabila has been in power since 2001. The opposition has accused the president of purposely blocking elections so that he may stay in power. Tshimanga said the new opposition agrees to talks with President Kabila if the president would respect UN Resolution 2277, which calls on the government and its national partners, including the Independent National Electoral Commission, to ensure a transparent and credible process towards holding presidential and legislative elections in November. We agree to sit with the Kabila camp if they will respect the UN Resolution 2277 and we will respect that also, and together we will find the solution to bring our country out of the mess we are in today because we dont want any more wars, Tshimanga said. In addition to respecting UN Resolution 2277, Tshimanga said President Kabila must release all political prisoners and agree not to run for a third term. He said both the government opposition and officials of the current government will discuss when to hold the election during the proposed national dialogue that President Kabila himself has been pushing. (Xinhua file photo) DAMASCUS, June 13 -- The Islamic State (IS) group hailed the gunman behind the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida as a "soldier of caliphate," according to a bulletin over the group's Al-Bayan radio on Monday. The suspect was identified by U.S. authorities as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent, who had reportedly called 911 and claimed allegiance to the IS before going on a spree of shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing and wounding over 100 people. A day earlier, the IS-linked news agency Amaq said that the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting. "The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and that left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," said Amaq in a short English statement posted online Sunday evening. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, in the shooting, the deadliest terror attack in the U.S. since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. A Qatari court on Monday handed down a one-year suspended sentence for adultery to a Dutch woman that was drugged and raped in an upscale Doha night club. The 22-year-old woman, identified only as Laura, was on vacation at the time of the March 14 incident. When she reported it to Qatari police, she was arrested and had been jailed since then. In addition to the one-year suspended sentence, the court fined Laura $800. As soon as she pays the fine, she will be deported from the country. The Dutch ambassador to Qatar Yvette Burghgraef-van Eechoud, who was present in court, told reporters the embassy would help Laura leave Qatar. "We will do everything to get her out of the country as soon as possible to where she wants to go," Eechoud said. The womans attacker, identified as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was convicted of having sex outside of marriage, which is illegal in Qatar. He was given a sentence of 100 lashes for adultery and another 40 lashes for drinking alcohol. While alcohol is available at high-end hotels in Qatar, it is illegal for residents of the country to drink it without their employers' permission. Laura is expected to return to the Netherlands within the next few days. The Eritrean Ministry of Information issued a statement Sunday accusing the Ethiopian government of launching a military attack against the country. Ethiopia denies initiating the attack, accusing Eritrean forces of prompting a counterattack by Ethiopia. The brief statement from the Eritrean Ministry of Information said the attacks occurred on the Tsorona Central Front. Tsorona is a village located near the border, a little over 35 kilometers from Adigrat, an Ethiopian town in the Tigray region. Ethiopian Communications Minister Getachew Reda said Eritrean forces from around the Tsorona region made unusual, aggressive movements, eliciting a response from the Ethiopian side. He denied it was a significant battle. Its just a skirmish because Eritreas side moved in a fashion that is unusual under the circumstances because its been a long time since Eritreas regular army even ventured outside of their ditches, their trenches, Reda told VOA, speaking from Germany. But this time around," he added, "they launched what appears to be a serious attack, but our forces had launched a counterattack which right now has managed to neutralize the threat emanating from the other side of the border. Reda confirmed that Ethiopian authorities have asked civilians to evacuate or seek shelter due to artillery fire. The Eritrean artillery units are making indiscriminate bombardment of the area so it will be a very responsible move for us to tell some of our people, especially those who are close to the border, to evacuate, not to evacuate in a sense of leaving their village but to a safer area, he said. Unilateral aggression alleged The Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel tweeted that the aggression came from the Ethiopian side and that it should be condemned unequivocally, he wrote on his Twitter account. Bland statements calling on both sides to show restraint [are] unwarranted and toothless. Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, with significant fighting occurring between the towns of Tsorona and Zalembessa. Thousands died, and animosities continue to this day, with a heavy military buildup along the unmarked border. When the war ended, the international community formed a boundary commission to delimit and demarcate the countries shared border. The commission was responsible for issuing a final ruling after hearing each sides border claims. Both sides agreed to abide by the 2002 ruling of the EritreaEthiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), but Ethiopia stonewalled after the border had been defined. The border has never been demarcated, and it remains a source of tension. The contested town of Badme, the town at the center of the border conflict, was awarded to Eritrea, but Ethiopia continues to occupy the town and Reda confirmed there are sufficient troops stationed there to thwart any potential attack. Mirjam Van Reisen, the director of the Europe External Policy Advisors (EEPA), a Brussels-based group of consultants focusing on EU development policy, said that if the issue is about border demarcation between the two countries, they have to follow the international agreement, there is no question about that. The incident comes in the wake of a June 8 United Nations report accusing Eritrean leaders of committing crimes against humanity. Law enforcement officials are trying to determine the motive of a man who had an arsenal of weapons in his car who says he planned to attend the Gay Pride parade Sunday in Los Angeles, California. After receiving a call about a suspected prowler, police found possible explosives, assault rifles and ammunition in a car belonging to James Howell, 20, of the central U.S. state of Indiana. The FBI has taken over the investigation. Howell told police he planned to attend the festival and made no reference to doing any harm. Police say there is no known connection between Howell and the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that killed 50 people Sunday in Orlando, Florida. Authorities increased security after the arrest and the parade took place with out incident. Thousands of refugees are pouring out of Fallujah through a safe exit corridor secured by the Iraqi army as the fight to retake the city from Islamic State extremists rages into its third week. According to Lise Grande, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, 3,300 people fled Monday, joining another 4,000 who escaped during the weekend. Thousands more are expected to make the journey in the coming days, overwhelming humanitarian efforts to help them. Most of the civilians fleeing the fighting are going into 27 camps housing displaced people from other parts of Iraq's Anbar province. "The problem is, the camps are full," Grande said. There is a massive effort underway to catch up, with various U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations working to build new camps, while providing food, safe drinking water, latrines, mobile clinics, and help for women who have suffered violence by IS extremists. "We underestimated how difficult conditions were in Fallujah itself," Grande said, adding there were reports that "families have been brutalized, women have been brutalized, children have been brutalized." Watch video report from VOA's Zlatica Hoke: More refugees expected According to the United Nations, 43,000 people have run away from the city, despite the dangers of roadside bombs or being killed by Islamic State fighters. The sudden rush out came after Iraqi forces, working with local tribal fighters, opened one safe exit corridor for civilians. They are now fighting to open up a second. Between 40,000 and 50,000 additional people could still be trapped in the city center, Grande told reporters in a live broadcast from Baghdad. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, some families have been trying to escape by leaving at night and making their way to the Euphrates River, some paying IS roughly $130 to allow them to take small boats across the water. Families have lost children on the way, some have drowned on the river crossing, others have been executed by Islamic State. Many are facing starvation. Nuriya is a refugee who managed to escape on a boat across the Euphrates. "It was total chaos," she told the Norwegian Refugee Council. "When the boat I was on reached the middle of the river, I heard a lot of screams; another boat was sinking. People were shouting, Save us, save us." She said people jumped in to try to rescue those who were drowning, but came too late for her son's two daughters and young son. "Their mother was holding onto two of them, one of them was still alive, the other was already dead, until she lost them," she said. Help needed Humanitarian agencies are calling for more help from the international community. "The needs are great, the resources are limited, and the time to meet their needs is limited because they have gone through an enormous time of deprivation before reaching here," said Bruno Geddo, the UNHCR representative in Iraq. For those who escape, the UNHCR has said there are credible eyewitness reports that some men and boys are facing physical abuse by armed militias operating in support of the Iraqi security forces. Those groups are "separating the men and teenage boys from the women and children, and detaining the males for security screening,' which in some cases degenerates into physical violations and other forms of abuse, apparently in order to elicit forced confessions," said the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein. "There are even allegations that some individuals have been summarily executed by these armed groups," al-Hussein said in a statement from Geneva last week. The governor of Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, said Sunday that 49 displaced civilians who had reached areas controlled by the Shi'ite militia had been killed. Hundreds more were missing, Suhaib al-Rawi told reporters. Some Sunni tribal fighters are battling alongside the Iraqi army and counterterrorism forces, as are a number of Shi'ite militia who operate under the umbrella name of Hashd al Shaabi. Grande said 7,200 men and boys had been separated from their families to be screened. About 2,000 are still being held. "There is a big backlog," Grande said. Fallujah is a traditionally Sunni stronghold that has been under IS control for more than two years. There have long been concerns the sectarian nature of the war against Islamic State extremists could be exacerbated by the presence of the Shi'ite militia. Al-Hussein says Iraqi security forces have a legitimate interest in vetting those fleeing IS-controlled areas to ensure they don't pose a security threat, but he says that screening has to be done legally. This is the first article in a three-part series on Islamist Extremism in America. One day after the worst mass-shooting in U.S. history, this was known about the killer: he supported Islamic State but had no known direct ties; he expressed hatred of gays; his ex-wife accused him of being abusive; and he earlier claimed ties to al-Qaida, prompting the FBI to question him at least twice. Omar Marteen was also a Muslim, a father, a son of middle-class Afghan immigrants, a security guard for nearly a decade and the owner of a state-issued firearms license. The question some are asking is which of the above factors provides a key to why Marteen walked alone into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday and killed 49 people. Flood of information after attacks In a non-descript office in a shopping mall on the edge of the campus of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., researchers log the tweets of English-speaking Islamic State (IS) supporters worldwide. The Center for Cyber and Homeland Security is one of many centers for the study of extremism cropping up across the U.S. There is a really big swell of information that comes right after attacks," says research fellow Audrey Alexander, who, along with her colleagues, follow more than 1700 English speaking accounts 300 of them in the U.S. [Social media] gives tremendous legitimacy to the (IS) movement," she said. "So, the fact that there is such an outgrowth within the United States shows that this a powerful narrative and it is a salient message. The message has resonated with a small but active group of IS social media supporters across the U.S. According to a report released by the Center last year called ISIS In America a title that uses a different acronym to identify IS, which is also known as ISIL and Daesh more than 56 people took things a step farther and were arrested for actively assisting the terror organization in some way. Why this small cadre of Americans is attracted to IS is far from clear. All of the experts VOA spoke with agreed there is no common profile. Of the 56 arrests last year, 86 percent of them were male; the overwhelming majority were U.S. citizens or permanent residents who ranged in age from 15 to 47. Statistically, the vast majority are homegrown, Said Lorenzo Vidino, who co- authored the report. All kinds of backgrounds, maybe second generation immigrants. Failing at life If there is no common profile, there are some common traits, analysts say. The person that is vulnerable is the person that is off their track that is failing in their life somehow, says Anne Speckhard, a research psychologist and Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism in Washington, who has interviewed hundreds of IS recruits worldwide. It is not just their own vulnerabilities; it is that they are exposed to a terrorist network and to its ideology. At this early stage of the investigation, authorities are still trying to gauge the extent of Marten's exposure to IS's network and ideology. However, there is ample evidence that he was a person off his track. In interviews, his first wife said she left him because he became violent, describing him as possibly suffering from bipolar disorder. A co-worker said he often made disparaging remarks towards women and other groups. The shooter's father said his son was deeply angered after seeing two men kissing in front of his child suggesting a motive for the Orlando attack. Religion, not the primary factor Speckhard says while there often is a religious component to extremism, it is rarely the dominant factor. She says joining an Islamist extremist group or even participating in social media banter often bring meaning and purpose to a persons life. Supporters of IS don't always begin as Muslims. Of the current 3.3 million Muslims in America, about 24 percent are converts, who over-represented among those arrested for links to IS comprise about 40 percent of the total population. They stumble across Islamic extremism and then they convert," Speckhard said. "They do it because it is meeting a need. Not because they are necessarily looking for a religion." Speckhard tells the story of a young Christian Sunday school teacher living an isolated life in the northwestern U.S. After IS murdered American reporter James Foley, she tweeted, why would a terrorist behead a journalist? IS answered: Because this is a revolution. Blood is shed in a revolution and we are changing the world. The IS recruiter then posed the question, Did you know Islam is the completion of Christianity?" The Sunday school teacher's conversation and radicalization began. She was lonely, says Speckhard. So all these people are swarming in on her, paying attention to her, sending her tweets, sending her messages, offering to Skype with her. And eventually she converted because she wanted to belong to something. She wanted something in her life. At last, after the recruiter suggested she and her younger brother come join IS in Syria, her grandmother, with whom she was living, intervened. Family dysfunction While that woman had a relative who ultimately proved helpful, another common trait of people who succumb to radicalization is a dysfunctional family. Mohamed Khweis, the U.S.-born son of Palestinian immigrants was captured by Kurdish forces in Iraq after allegedly joining IS. Khweis told his parents he was leaving their northern Virginia home to go on vacation in Europe. In an interview on Kurdish television, he said he flew to London, then Amsterdam, and on to Istanbul where he randomly met a girl whose brother was an IS fighter. She offered to take him to visit the militants. Last week, Khweis was extradited to the U.S. to stand trial. He is charged with material support for IS, which could put him behind bars for 20 years. According to an FBI affidavit unsealed at a hearing, he admitted his intention all along was to join IS. Speckhard says his flight itinerary was one typically used by recruits to avoid detection a young Arabic male flying from the U.S. direct to Istanbul would probably raise red flags. She suspects he was trying to escape family troubles; IS offered a way out, and the young woman was sent to meet and possibly marry him. It all fits the pattern of what she says is a vulnerable person in need. I have some information that his dad was quite a drinker. So imagine being a Muslim raised with a dad that doesnt ... drink at all and then drinks too much. Thats upsetting. So he announced to his parents 'Im leaving. Im going on a vacation,' " said Speckhard, explaining that alcohol-abusing father figures are a factor in numerous cases of radicalization. These cases, and the data researchers are collecting, paint a portrait of Islamist extremism in America that challenges one of the dominant talking points about terror today: that Islam is at the heart of the problem. And it begs the question, by defining violent Islamism solely in religious terms: Is the U.S. deploying resources to counter that assumption in the most efficient and effective way? In the second part of this series, VOA explores the effect of anti-Muslim rhetoric on the Islamic community in the United States and efforts to counter terrorism. Turkish and Israeli ministers say they are close to mending relations that were severely strained after the 2010 killing of nine Turkish activists on a boat seeking to break Israel's economic blockade of Gaza. In the latest negotiations to thaw bilateral relations, Turkish and Israeli diplomats are reportedly due to meet this month. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus last week announced that a deal was close to being reached. Political columnist Semih Idiz of Turkeys Cumhuriyet newspaper says there is powerful political momentum behind rapprochement efforts with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan backing the process. "... First with Erdogan coming out and saying, 'Whether we like it or not, we have to have this' and then various ministers saying it is about to happen, it is on the verge of happening. I think it is actually on the way. I think they are probably working out the fine points," said Idiz. Israel has already met one of Ankaras demands, by apologizing for the killing of the nine Turkish activists aboard a boat seeking to break Israeli's economic blockade of Gaza. Turkish media are reporting agreement has been reached over the amount Israel will pay in compensation to the families of those killed. Columnist Idiz says a compromise is close to being reached over the blockade. "I think the way the Gaza blockade demand by Turkey will be overcome, is that the blockade is not necessarily raised, but that Turkish companies and Turkish aid groups have access to Gaza and that would be solved in that way," said Idiz. Differences remain Rapprochement efforts come as deep differences remain politically between the leaders of both countries, who observers point out make little secret of their dislike of one another. Political scientist Cengiz Aktar of Istanbuls Suleyman Sah University says with both countries isolated in the region, pragmatism is driving the effort. "The deal between Turkey and Israel is between the two loneliest states in the Middle East. This is a typical convergence of interests, that does not mean, that suddenly Israel and Turkey love each other, far from it," said Aktar. Distrust could still jeopardize rapprochement efforts. Western media reports say Israel is demanding Ankara expel leading Hamas members in exchange for concessions over Gaza. The recent appointment of Avigdor Lieberman, a well known critic of Ankara, as Israeli defense minister further complicates bilateral negotiations, says political consultant Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners. "I am quite skeptical, given the fact that Hamas is still in Turkey, and according to the Turkish press, the appointment of Mr. Lieberman as the defense minister, who is a known Turkophobe, does not make matters easier," said Yesilada. "This reconciliation has been in the agenda, since the turn of the year. And every time an authority is asked when is it going to happen? 'It is only a meeting away;' but that meeting never happens." Deepening economic ties are widely cited as a powerful driving force behind rapprochement, particularly in the field of energy, with Turkey seen as an ideal market for Israels newly discovered natural gas reserves. Observers point out shared concerns over Iran's rising influence and power in the region are also powerful forces to bring Israel and Turkey closer. In Uganda, the former presidential candidate of the Forum for Democratic Change, Kizza Besigye, has written to the countrys Chief Justice to complain about what he calls his mistreatment. Besigye, who has claimed he won the February 18th presidential election, was charged with treason after a video surfaced showing he had been sworn in by his party as president of Uganda. In the letter, Besigye recounted his treatment by the government and the legal system over the years, beginning with his participation in the 2001 presidential election. He said he has been repeatedly demonized and ostracized for legitimately seeking the presidency. Besigye: Independence of the judiciary is an issue Besigye told the Chief Justice in his letter that the independence of the Uganda judiciary was increasingly being questioned and that it was incumbent on the Chief Justice to ensure proper administration of justice in the country. Besigyes sister, Olive Kobusingye, visited him last Friday at Luzira prison. She said Besigye wants Chief Justice Bart Katureebe to take a stand because evil triumphs when good people do nothing. The main purpose of the letter was to bring to the attention of the Chief Justice the various complaints that he has related to how hes being arrested, not just on this current imprisonment but over the last so many years and the various abuses that he suffered under both the Ugandan police but also the judiciary that was supposed to be defending his rights, but up until now does not seem to do so," she said. Besigye calls most recent arrest violent In the letter, Besigye outlined what he said was his most recent mistreatment, including his violent arrest on May 11 by Ugandan police and how he was arraigned before a magistrate and charged with treason. On May 18, Besigye said he was taken to Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court where fresh charges of treason were again read to him. Once more, I did not have legal representation and even when I tried to raise my concerns at that time, the presiding magistrate refused to listen to the concerns I wished to address him on and advised that these should be raised with the prison authorities or the High Court, Besigye said. Kobusingye echoes one of Besigyes concerns raised in his letter that it was becoming increasingly apparent that he might be tried in secret in Luzira prison. This is not speculation. A couple of weeks ago he was supposed to be brought to court for the hearing of his case. He wasnt brought to court, and the prosecution said because they had serious security concerns. And then they [the state] actually made an application to the magistrate to say can the case not now be held in that court but rather be held in Luzira, in the prison, Kobusingye said. Kobusingye said her brother wants the Chief Justice to step up and do something about the injustice in the Ugandan judicial system. In another development, Besigye, although not a lawyer by profession, has chosen to represent himself before the High Court. I think it is not so much whether he has the capabilities of a lawyer as the fact that he initially wasnt allowed the opportunity wasnt allowed to hire a team of lawyers, and then I think as events evolved it became obvious that this wasnt going to be a legal process and that the government was going through the motions to make it seem as though there was some legal process underway. So I think he just decided to take it in the same manner and said well, if there isnt going to be a fair legal process, then hes going to represent himself, Kobusingye said. Nightclubs, restaurants, bars, vacation beaches and concert halls have all been targeted by militants in the West, either directed or inspired by the Islamic State (IS) terror group. But in the Orlando, Florida massacre on Sunday, young gay revelers were specifically targeted in a homophobic rampage. Analysts fear that the Pulse nightclub wont be the last gay venue in the West to be targeted by militants. Nightclubs have been considered as easy soft targets for jihadists for a while, says Olivier Guitta, managing director at GlobalStrat, a security and geopolitical risk consulting firm. He points out that in February, some IS followers were arrested in France for planning terror attacks on nightclubs. Such attacks are an easy score for IS. They can just inspire followers to carry out terror attacks and claim credit, Guitta adds, without having any operational involvement. The slaughter at Pulse follows two years of persecution and killing of gays in territory controlled by IS in the groups self-styled caliphate straddling Syria and Iraq. Gays have been stoned and thrown off high buildings with locals encouraged to witness the medieval-style barbarity. On occasion, locals have joined in the stoning of gays. Just last month IS propagandists posted a series of photos of the public execution of an alleged homosexual in the northern Syrian town of Manbij. The photo report released on May 7 was titled, these are the limits [set by] Allah, so do not approach them. Choreographed executions of gays Public executions in IS-controlled Territory, and the posting of the atrocities on the Web, serve to terrorize locals into strict obedience with the groups harsh interpretation of Sharia law and to terrify and demoralize rivals. Analysts say that it also boosts the groups notoriety, in bizarre fashion, by helping it recruit people attracted to its carefully cultivated aura of righteous power. But the murder of gays has been especially relished by IS propagandists. Homosexuality is anathema to the terror group and the jihadists have run elaborate sting operations in the "caliphate" seeking to entrap gays. At times, IS has expended as much effort in identifying gays as it has in rooting out political dissidents, say anti-IS activists. The killings of gays are choreographed with much attention to detail. In April 2015, the jihadists staged in northern Syria a particularly macabre stoning to death of two alleged gay men, embracing the victims before murdering them. The set of four still photographs showed two blindfolded men standing side-by-side in a desert clearing while a group of IS partisans and supporters, some leaning on motorbikes, gathered to watch the killing. One victim with curly hair, a beard and wearing a gray leather jacket appeared to accept his fate as a killer rested his hand on his shoulder. He may well have been given a cocktail of drugs by the jihadists, something they are known to have done with others earmarked for death to calm them before execution. A second photograph in the sequence shows executioners hugging the men. In the last image, tweeted by known IS supporters, the battered, prostrate bodies of the victims are seen being showered with rocks hurled by four killers. The photographs of the hugs the jihadists gave the condemned gay couple went viral on the Internet, prompting outrage in the West. Tweeting explanations, IS supporters said the embraces were meant as gestures of forgiveness and to show their executioners were helping the victims to atone for their supposed crimes. Al-Nusra Last August, gay men who had managed to flee Syria and Iraq briefed members of the U.N. Security Council on the chilling truth of gay life under the militants. They explained that IS wasnt the only group they feared. Not to be outdone, the ISs jihadist rivals, Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaidas affiliate in Syria, also target gays for killing, they explained. Subhi Nahas, a Syrian man who fled to Lebanon and then Turkey, says that when al-Nusra militants took control of his home town of Idlib, they too hunted down men thought to be gay. Once they had a suspect, he says, they would systematically torture him before killing him. This was to be my fate, too, he told an informal meeting of the Security Council organized by the U.S. and Chile to focus attention on the brutal attacks by the jihadists on LGBT people. I was terrified to go out, he said. Nor was my home safe, as my father, who suspiciously monitored my every move, had learned I was gay. I bear a scar on my chin as a token of his rage, he added. The staging and method of execution of gays, and of other victims, are not only meant to send gruesome propaganda messages. They are dictated also by the jihadists interpretation of religious rulings by favored scholars, who detail methods of killing to fit the alleged infraction. IS and al-Nusra supporters have even argued in the past about the "correct" way of killing those they deem offenders. The details as of Monday are unclear, but that kind of talk may have inspired an Orlando man to slaughter dozens of random people. Attacks like Sunday's mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, bring public shock and frustration along with a return to questions about what the government can do to prevent something similar from happening again. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of Omar Mateen, who perpetrated the attack, and interviewed him in 2013 and 2014. But an official said investigators found no evidence of criminal activity. Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said the agency will likely spend the coming days reviewing why Mateen's case was closed, and whether that was the appropriate action. "The issue, as always, becomes when a person goes from radical thought to actual action, and thats what the FBI is trying to grapple with right now," Hughes told VOA. "They have a thousand active investigations in all 50 states and have to make the determination of when is somebody just spouting their mouth off and when theyre actually going to make the violent leap into militancy. Tracking challenges Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, said it is difficult for authorities to keep track of potential violent extremists because they do not necessarily have a criminal record or associate with people who are committing violence. "I dubbed this many years ago the 'Sudden Jihad Syndrome,'" he said. "Sudden in the sense that theres no warning from the outside. Someone who in this case is a security guard who had a 3-year-old child, who had seemed to be integrated and living a normal life, can have ideas in his head that will cause him to erupt in this way and start massacring people." The Orlando shooter claimed allegiance to Islamic State in a phone call to emergency services, while the militant group used its media outlet to claim the attack was carrying out by one of its fighters. Mutual benefits Marielle Harris, a senior researcher at the Counter Extremism Project, told VOA it is unclear yet how much direct support the shooter may have had. But she said the situation was mutually beneficial, with Mateen able to act on behalf of a powerful organization and Islamic State getting to claim an attack that has dominated Western media. She said it is important to look at the internet's role in radicalization, adding that social media companies need to be much more proactive. "We dont know how active Omar Mateen was on social media, but we can guess that he was radicalized online," Harris said. "He had never been to ISIS-controlled territory. He was born in New York. He lived most of his life in Florida. So, really, where do people get information these days? Its on the internet. Where are they self-radicalizing? Its on the internet." Harris also stressed that in addition to visible interactions, another major issue is extremists connecting on Facebook or Twitter and then moving to encrypted platforms that are much harder to trace. She highlighted a CEP initiative that uses the hashtag #CEPDigitalDisruption to flag extremist accounts for removal. It monitors posts in English, French, German, Turkish and Arabic. "We really do need to keep an eye on these extremists and see just how they're radicalizing online because that's half of the battlefield," Harris said. Balancing security and privacy Any discussion of monitoring online activities, particularly those of Americans, also brings with it the debate about the needs to ensure security while also respecting privacy. Its a very difficult balancing act," Hughes said. "The issue becomes: As a public we cant expect the FBI or law enforcement to have a 100 percent success rate. Its just unrealistic. Youre going to have a number of people who make a jump into violence that youre not going to be able to stop, and thats the nature of living in a free society." Pipes said relying on police is not the best method for combating Islamist extremists, and the focus should instead by on countering "these horrifying ideas with better ones." "Its not about guns, its not about poverty, its not about mental illness. Its about a body of ideas, a very ugly body of ideas like fascism, communism, now this Islamism," he said. "We need to focus on this. We will not solve this problem until we deal with this ugly body of ideas." In pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group while in the midst of his deadly shooting spree in Orlando, Florida, Omar Mateen was displaying the radical terrorist organization's worldview.. And that, analysts said, is what sets IS apart from terrorist organizations of the past. IS philosophy, readily available on the internet, has become ingrained in thousands of jihadists worldwide. And even if there is no direct contact with IS as was apparently the case with Mateen the dangerous ideology can fuel waves of terrorism. IS is a political carrier of an ideology that has existed in Islam for centuries, said Ahed al-Hendi, a Washington-based Middle East analyst. He said IS has been effective in spreading that extreme ideology through a persuasive narrative to which many jihadists can relate. What makes Daesh different from any other terrorist organization is that it has declared an Islamic caliphate, al-Hendi told VOA, using another term for the militant organization, which is also known as ISIL and ISIS. This has attracted many Muslims, even those who dont fully agree with the groups actions. Controlling large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq and finding footholds elsewhere in the region, IS has been able to differentiate itself from other terror groups by its style of governance that many sympathizers find ideal for their vision of an Islamic state, analysts said. Despite recent territorial losses as a result of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, IS has continued to gain traction on the internet, and support for the group has increased around the world. Cost of freedom Radical individuals in many Western countries enjoy a large degree of autonomy and freedom of movement, said Houzan Mahmoud, a London researcher on Islamic militancy in the Middle East and North Africa. She told VOA that governments and intelligence agencies need to take more preventive measures to be ready for the unpredictable. Radicals [in the West] are allowed to utilize all platforms to spread their ideology, she said. They use colleges, mosques, media outlets and social media sites to radicalize people. Earlier this month, a group of international academic figures and terrorism experts met in Paris to discuss trends of radicalism in light of recent IS-inspired terror attacks in Europe. We need to come to a consensus that radicalization is a threat to the entire global community, said Adel Bakawan of the University of Evry Val d'Essonne in France, who presented a paper at the three-day conference. He said radicalization comes in different forms and varies from one country to another. Radicalization in America is different from that of Europe, he told VOA, adding that Middle East jihadism is from a different caliber. IS has been successful in understanding these variations and exploiting local trends in each country for its own agendas, analysts said. Glorifying the caliphate and its fighters has been an essential tool of [IS] to recruit and mobilize extremists, said analyst al-Hendi. Passenger go through security checks at an airport in Shanghai. [File photo: Xinhua] Airports in Shanghai have tightened security checks after five people were injured in a blast at the Shanghai Pudong Airport on Sunday, The Paper has reported. Security procedures at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao International Airport are being upgraded, while more passengers are required to open their luggage for checks. Passengers at Terminal 2 of the Shanghai Pudong International Airport are required to take off their shoes for checks as well. "Almost every bag, even check-in bags, needs to be inspected. I have three pieces of luggage, and two of them were already checked," said a passenger surnamed Li at the Pudong airport. Travellers are advised to arrive at the airports to check in at least two hours prior to departure and to make their way through airport security checks as soon as possible. In addition, here are some tips that could help travellers pass through airport securities faster. - Discard lighters and matches before arriving at the airport. - Remove computers, cell phones, iPads, portable battery chargers and cameras from their cases in advance. - Make sure that the total volume of cosmetics and other liquid products in carry-on luggage is less than 100 milliliters. Border clashes have resumed between security forces of Pakistan and Afghanistan after a short-lived ceasefire on Monday, officials said. Overnight skirmishes killed at least one person wounded 18 others, according to officials, forcing around 200 Pakistani families to relocate to safer areas. "Pakistan wanted to build new installations and Afghan border forces didn't allow it. Pakistan went further and fired towards Afghan forces, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told a meeting of ministers in Kabul. He confirmed the exchange of fire, which lasted seven hours, left one Afghan soldier dead and six others wounded. The Pakistani side also suffered casualties at the Torkham crossing clash. Abdullah insists bilateral understandings bind the two countries to seek mutual consent before constructing new installations near the border. The Afghan security and defense forces retaliated to safeguard the territorial integrity and defend the country and its people ... armed forces are always ready to defend their country and people and to react against any kind of threats, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said in a separate statement. But officials in Pakistan rejected Afghan assertions the construction activity was illegal and blamed Afghan security forces for resorting to unprovoked firing that wounded 12 people, including a Pakistani border guard. Pakistani security forces responded to Afghan firing effectively, according to the militarys media wing. It noted Torkham is the most frequented crossing point between the two countries and terrorists have also been found using this gate for entry. In order to check movement of terrorists through Torkham, Pakistan is constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement, the statement noted. Porous, disputed border Pakistan and Afghanistan share a more than 2,500-kilometer porous frontier, but Kabul disputes the border and has opposed repeated fencing attempts by Islamabad. Both sides say militants use the border to conduct anti-state acts in their respective countries. We consider these unprovoked attacks unhelpful in Pakistan-Afghan relations and expect from the Afghan government to investigate this incident immediately, said a spokesman for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs office in a separate statement, expressing Pakistans deep concerns over the incident. Pakistan also Monday summoned the Afghan Charge dAffaires in Islamabad to convey its strong protest over what it called the unprovoked firing by the Afghan forces it said wounded two soldiers and nine civilians, including women and children. It was further emphasized that all steps should be taken for avoiding recurrence of such incidents in the future, the Foreign Ministry said. Afghanistan also summoned the Pakistani ambassador in Kabul to protest the firing incident. The government and people in Pakistan strongly condemned the Orlando, Florida, massacre that left at least 50 people dead. Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement that the killing was against humanity, tolerance and social principles. The countrys foreign secretary, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, told VOAs Urdu service that the shooting in Orlando was a very sad incident. At this difficult time we [Pakistanis] are with the people of United States, he said. Several Pakistani politicians who spoke to VOA also condemned the shooting. Senator Robina Khalid, member of the opposition representing the Pakistan Peoples Party, said extremist ideology must be confronted. This represents a particular thought, Khalid said. It should not be linked only to Islam. Khushbakht Shujaat, a member of the Parliament representing the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, said the incident had nothing to do with Islam. I think the incident is very condemnable as a Muslim country we should condemn it in the strongest terms, Shujaat said. Senator Usman Kakar of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party said such attacks are an attack on humanity. Such barbaric incidents should not happen, Kakar said. The Peshawar-based civil society activist Sana Ijaz said the attacks target an openly gay nightclub should have no bearing on one's view of the tragedy. No one cares about the sexual orientation, Ijaz said. When a human suffers in Palestine, America, Pakistan or elsewhere, the pain is equally felt and the victim is very unfortunate. Islamabad residents, Mohammad Riaz and Chaudhary Irfan, said the attack emphasized the need for international efforts to combat terrorism and extremism. Local activists and journalists in Peshawar say that the tribal region in Pakistan has been hit hard by both militants activities and operations conducted by Pakistan's army. Someone who has been witness to such sufferings can feel the real pain, Mudassir Shah, a social activist said. Whether he is a non-believer, American, or anyone else, Pashtuns can feel their real sorrow because they [Pashtuns] have sacrificed youths and loved ones. The sentencing hearing for South African runner Oscar Pistorius began in Johannesburg Monday. The former Olympic athlete faces at least 15 years in jail after an appeals court overturned a The former icon is now a broken man, Oscar Pistorius psychologist says and needs a hospital, not a prison cell. The athlete was back in the dock Monday after an appeals court convicted him of murder for killing his girlfriend in 2013. Now he faces a minimum sentence of 15 years. The sentencing hearing will continue Tuesday before Judge Thokozile Masipa. Psychologist Jonathan Scholtz said the events of the past few years have taken a severe toll on Pistorius. Mr. Pistorius has elevated levels of anxiety that are clinically significant. These include symptoms and signs of social phobia, agoraphobia and panic disorder," said Scholtz. "In terms of his general mental health it was found that he had deteriorated since 2014. Apart from a worsening in his clinical condition, he has become despondent, lethargic and disinvested, leaving his future in the hands of God. In laymans terms, one would describe him as broken. In my opinion, his current condition warrants hospitalization. Indeed, it has been a trying few years. Pistorius says he is constantly racked by fear and anxiety. He continues to insist that he mistook his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, for an intruder when he shot four times through a locked bathroom door, killing her, on the night of Valentines Day, 2013. Prosecutors argued that he meant to kill Steenkamp when when he shot through the door at his Pretoria home. The lengthy murder trial was closely watched around the world, and outrage ensued when Judge Masipa convicted him in 2014 of culpable homicide equivalent to the U.S. charge of manslaughter and gave him a five-year sentence. He was released on parole in October after a year of time served, only to see his conviction overturned and replaced with a murder conviction in December. Scholtz says he believes Pistorius would be detrimentally affected by more prison time, and that he should instead be given a chance to make a positive contribution to society. But for the most part, these pleas for mercy have been drowned out by howls of opposition. Recently, Scholtz said, a shopper at a supermarket complained about Pistorius presence in the store and demanded that he leave. Just four short years ago, Oscar Pistorius was riding high on a wave of public adoration after being the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics. Today, hes greyer, thinner, a little bit more bent and his life has been redefined not by his achievements, but by the life he took on that horrible night. The leading U.S. presidential hopefuls reacted strongly Monday to the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Sunday's incident that left 49 people dead and 53 others wounded was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The gunman, Omar Mateen, was a U.S. citizen and the son of Afghan parents. In her first speech since the shooting, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told supporters in Cleveland, "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive." Clinton laid out a multi-faceted approach to combating terrorism. The plan would disrupt terrorist groups by infiltrating their online networks, enhancing intelligence sharing among local and federal law enforcement agencies, and asking allied nations to help "prevent the radicalization and recruitment" of potential terrorists in the U.S. and Europe. In an apparent response to presumptive Republican Party opponent Donald Trump's charge that President Barack Obama and other Democrats refuse to use the word "radical" to describe terrorists who happen to be Muslim, Clinton said earlier on CNN that she is not afraid to use the term, but says she refuses "to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion." Doing so, she said, "plays right into the ISIS' hands." ISIS is an acronym for Islamic State, which is also known as IS, ISIL and Daesh. Clinton called for citizens to reach out to Muslims in the United States "to help us defeat this threat." She cited the need for "common sense reform" of gun ownership laws, including a ban on assault weapons. After Obama did not use the term "radical" in his remarks Sunday from the White House, Trump criticized Obama's approach to extremism and said the president "should step down." Trump, meanwhile, renewed a call for a ban on the entry of Muslim immigrants into the United States. "The only reason the killer was in America in the first place was we allowed his family to come here," Trump said in a speech to supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire. Trump said he would lift the ban when the government develops the ability to screen people "perfectly." Trump said the U.S. has a "dysfunctional immigration system" and a "dysfunctional administration." Trump said if he is elected president, things are "going to change" and "going to change quickly." Trump said he wants "a mainstream immigration policy" that reflects American values, and more cooperation between local, state and overseas intelligence operations. WATCH: Obama Calls Orlando Attack 'Homegrown Extremism' Earlier Monday on CNN, Trump said Muslims have to report suspicious people, and reiterated his support for strong gun ownership laws. "Gun owners more than ever need to protect themselves. If people in that [nightclub] had guns, you would not have had the same tragedy," he said. On Capitol Hill on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, "ISIL claims the terrorist who committed this horrific act is one of the soldiers of the caliphate. I'll call him what he really is a coward, a murderer who claimed allegiance to a brutal group that crucifies children and beheads women. This terrorist sought to spread fear and sadness and suffering. Yet, even amidst the horror, he couldn't destroy our common bonds of humanity," he added. "It's no longer an open question whether the followers of ISIL and other Islamic terrorist groups will attempt to strike us here in the West. They have. And they are going to continue to do so. We need to do what we can to fight back so we can prevent more of these atrocities." Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called the shooting "an attack on the LGBT community and all America." "I am heartsick, I am basically sick by our inaction. It's shameful that the United States Senate has done nothing, nothing to stop these mass shootings," he said. As of today, FBI terror suspects can walk into a gun store and legally purchase assault weapons and explosives. Senate Republicans have voted against expanded background checks, limits on the size of ammunition clips and the assault weapons ban. Everyone in this chamber should be able to agree that suspected terrorists shouldn't have guns. Republicans need to find the backbone to stand up to groups like the NRA. It's time for Congress to do something to stop the mass slaughter that's being carried out in our communities." U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry responded to the mass shooting after meeting Monday in Washington with Cypriot Prime Minister Ionnis Kasoulides. "It is horrific in every, every sense of the meaning of that word and I think an act that is profoundly filled with hate as well as a desire to sow terror in people," he said. "All of us will continue in every way possible here at the State Department, where we are deeply engaged every single day in this fight against ISIL." Reaction expresses solidarity in terrorism fight Kasoulides called the massacre a "heinous terrorist attack of hate" and expressed his country's "solidarity in the fight against terrorists worldwide." Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai told VOA's Afghan service, "I fully understand the pain of the American people in this hour. We in Afghanistan have suffered for a long time and daily from such shootings and killings." In Kabul, Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned the attack. "Targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever," he said. Afghanistan's Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, expressed sympathy for families of the victims. He said Terrorism and terrorists as foes of human beings are not representing any faith, religion, ethnicity and race. Condolences from around the world The Vatican issued a statement on behalf of the pope. "Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion. Sharing in their indescribable suffering, he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort." The president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, condemned the massacre, describing it as a hate crime that targeted a minority. "Any act of hate against any group, particularly a minority group, we the Jewish people stand in solidarity against this." Lauder added, "I believe there is a great deal of linkage behind what happens here in Israel and what happened in Orlando because, again, it's about hate." German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking Monday in China said, "We have a heavy heart" over the fact that "the hatred and malignancy of a single person" cost people their lives. Britain's Queen Elizabeth sent a message to Obama. "Prince Philip and I have been shocked by the events in Orlando. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been affected," the message said. A statement from the French president's office said Francois Hollande "condemns with horror" the mass killing in Florida, and "expresses the full support of France ... with America's authorities and its people in this difficult time." Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah described the massacre as "a senseless act of terror and hate." "Palestinians stand with the American people in this difficult time," he said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his support of the United States. Israel, he said, stands "shoulder to shoulder'' with the United States. Chinese President Xi Jinping telephoned Obama, Xinhua news agency reported, and expressed his "deepest sympathies, sincere condolences and deep grief for the victims." Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the attack. He told reporters, "Japan stands together with the people of the United States" and "this despicable act of terror cannot be tolerated." Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the shooting was "an attack on all of us on all our freedoms, the freedom to gather together, to celebrate, to share time with friends." Prime Minister Najib Razak of Muslim-majority Malaysia said he was "horrified" by the Orlando shooting. "Islam abhors killing of innocent people," he tweeted. Our heart is with our American brothers, tweeted Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted, "We grieve with our friends in the US & stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ2 community after today's terror attack." Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London said, "I stand with the city of Orlando against hate and bigotry. My thoughts are with all the victims of this horrific attack." Romes Gay Center spokesman Fabrizio Marrazzo told the Italian news agency ANSA, We are looking at a massacre that has no precedent in the history of the gay community. The fight over how to describe Muslim terrorist acts in the United States has quickly consumed the country's 2016 presidential race in the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump offering divergent thoughts. President Barack Obama, a Democrat nearing the end of two terms as the American leader, has consistently refused to describe attacks by Muslims in the U.S. as "radical Islamic terrorism," so as not to denounce the entire Muslim religion and its 1.6 billion adherents around the world. He maintained that stance, even as U.S. authorities say an American-born Muslim who was the son of Afghan parents shot 49 people to death and injured 53 more at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday. In the hours after the mayhem ended with police killing the suspect, Omar Saddiqui Mateen, Obama described Mateen's assault as "an act of terror and an act of hate." Obama's Republican critics have often belittled his parsing of the language in describing terrorist attacks, saying it represents weakness in combating a mortal threat to Americans, even as he has ordered a steady round of armed drone attacks against suspected terrorists in the Mideast. Trump, the brash billionaire real-estate mogul who surged to the top of the Republican presidential field with a call to block Muslims from entering the country, dared Obama to change his language about Muslim-launched attacks as the extent of the Orlando carnage became known. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism?" Trump tweeted Sunday. "If he doesn't he should resign immediately in disgrace." In another tweet, Trump said, "Appreciate the congrats for being right on Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" Clinton changes rhetoric Until Monday, Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state during Obama's first term in office from 2009 to 2013, had also rejected use of the term "radical Islamic terrorism." But in the wake of the Orlando attack, she altered her description of such terrorist actions. Clinton, in several news show interviews, said she had no problem using the term "radical Islamism" as the impetus behind terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. But she said that words mattered less than actions to combat terrorism and that the United States cannot "demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. "I have clearly said many, many times we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people. We have to stop them and we will. We have to defeat radical jihadist terrorism or radical Islamism, whatever you call it," she told one interviewer. "And from my perspective, it matters what we do, not what we say. It matters that we got bin Laden, not what name we called him," Clinton said. Clinton, seeking to become the first female U.S. president, said that if Trump "is somehow suggesting I don't call this for what it is, he hasn't been listening. I have clearly said we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering people. We have to stop them and we will. We have to defeat radical jihadist terrorism, and we will." For more than a decade, millions of people turned to social networking and media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to learn the latest news. The massacre on Sunday at the Orlando nightclub Pulse was no different. For example, a Snapchat video by clubgoer Amanda Alvear that accidentally captured the first moments of gunfire inside the club quickly went viral, even before major news outlets began reporting on the attack. Increasingly, especially in times of tragedy and trauma, social researchers say people turn to their online communities for news, for solace, to share painful experiences of confusion and sadness, and reach out to friends for emotional support and counsel. Nothing about the Internet is purely good or bad, and those same social networks that can help bring people together can also often be used to drive them apart. In this instance, it took almost no time for acrimonious fights to start over placing the blame, the threats of Islamist terrorism, gun control, presidential politics and LGBT rights. So, is social media a help or a hindrance in times of crisis and tragedy? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is both. Sharing and oversharing With social media, we can now connect with millions of people, including strangers, remotely, says Tomas Chamorro-Premuzi, a business psychology professor at University College London and Columbia University. Such a connection is mostly digital, but human imagination enables us to experience empathy, what other people feel, even when they are far away and we dont know them. Chamorro-Premuzic says that social networks can function something like watching a sad movie: collectively, individuals can share their emotional responses together as part of a community. When overused, it can reduce profound, complex emotions and issues into talking points and babble. The perpetual need to overshare opinions and feelings does trivialize the expression of emotions over social media. It is not the same to lose a close friend than to change the profile picture of your Facebook page, he told VOA. Social media is an amplified, yet more superficial, version of spending physical time with a close friend. Fundamentally, our emotions havent changed, but social media is used to broadcast them more widely. It is harder to suffer in private now. Everybody thinks they ought to share, said Chamorro-Premuzic. Another issue researchers are studying is how social media can rapidly drive individuals to their safe spot, the place theyre most comfortable personally and ideologically, and close off opinions that are different from their core values and beliefs. This, says Charles Steinfeld, is especially true at moments of pain and confusion, such as with the Orlando massacre. Social media conversations tend to connect like-minded people, so it isn't as likely to bridge big ideological divides and is more likely to deepen divisions," says Steinfeld, a professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. But Steinfeld says that tendency is not a hard and fast rule. In many cases, our connections on social media may have arisen because of similarities in one area of our lives. For example, we work in the same company, but our views on other topics are different. So we do at times see people in our network of connections making statements that are inconsistent with our own views. Reinforcing belief and bias One main problem with social media use during crises, said Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, it that it enhances confirmation bias, or the tendency to seek out and listen to only that information that reinforces long-standing opinions. We mostly pay attention to those who think like we do, he said. It was no surprise to see that Facebook edits the news feed to promote liberal news, for most of its users are probably liberal. Likewise, we like and share comments and content from those who share our views, which perpetuates a vicious cycle and makes people more narrow-minded." On social media it is more tempting to believe that our views are the truth, because we are only exposed to opposite views in small doses. And, says Steinfeld, confirmation bias affects not just the sources we seek out for news and information, but those were most likely to listen to and share. It's just more common that the people in our network tend to agree with us on the big issues - like gun control, abortion rights, immigration, and so on. So the discourse on these topics is more likely to be pretty one-sided within a person's social network, he cautions. Just hours after news began to circulate of the murder of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, millions of flame-filled arguments and accusations filled social networks of all sorts, all the while millions of others posted messages of condolence, support and love for all those touched by the shootings. For those hurt or unfriended on social media in the wake of the tragedy, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic says the best thing to do is put yourself first. There is no etiquette here if you are really hurt, he said. Do what makes you feel better. Mourning and grief are normal human emotions and they wont get better or worse because of social media. By clinching the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton has joined a prestigious club of women who have made history in their search for political power in America. "The only thread that connects them is their willingness to go against the grain because they did. I mean, the women who have run for president have been quite diverse," said feminist scholar Jo Freeman, author of several books, including "We Will Be Heard:Women's Struggles for Political Power in the United States." Clinton savored the moment she made history for being the first female to win a presidential nominating contest, saying We all owe so much to those who came before, and tonight belongs to all of you. The first one among those came before was Victoria Woodhull, who in 1872, showed her inner steel when she made her bid for the White House as a candidate of the Equal Rights Party. Her attempt, the first-ever by a female in America, came even before women won the right to vote under the U.S. Constitution in 1920. Woodhull weathered many attacks for making history, said Erin Blakemore, a freelance journalist who has chronicled and reported on American women in politics for many publications. "Certainly Clinton has faced charges on par with those lobbed at women like Victoria Woodhull, whose sex life was constantly called out and seen, at the time, as kind of the "price of admission" for her doomed campaign." After Woodhull, there were a few more attempts, but it wasn't until 1964, Freeman argues, that a breakout female candidate shook up American presidential politics. "The real icebreaker was Margaret Chase Smith, 1964. She ran for the Republican nomination for president. That was the icebreaker," Freeman said. "She was a respectable member of the US Senate, she was not a radical," added Freeman, who points out that no women had tried to run for the presidency since the 19th century. In '64, the Republican ticket belonged to Barry Goldwater. But Mary Chase Smith was a cause candidatethat is, she knew she wouldn't win against Goldwater. She was practical. "She ran to raise issues about women, other things she was concerned about, she really had no expectations of getting the nomination, she wanted a platform, she got a platform," Freeman said. Less than a decade later, another courageous attempt was made. And it was a one-two punch for America in 1972. Shirley Chisholm was not only a woman, but a black one. "Sometimes I have trouble, myself, believing that I made it this far against the odds," Chisholm said in 1972. She had already made history, being elected the first African-American woman to Congress four years earlier. The rhetoric aimed at Chisholm was "horrible," said Blakemore, who just wrote a piece about the withering attacks against her in Time. Blakemore writes: "One piece by Andrew Tully mourned that We are, I fear, doomed to an era of female meddling in the electoral process. Besides, he noted, Chisholm doesnt have a chance at top banana, of course.' "She actually did better than Mary Chase Smith did, but of course she's running after the women's movement started at a time in which there is both consciousness about women and consciousness about blacks," Freeman said. "I went to the '72 convention," Freeman added, "By running for president and getting a lot of press about it, placed another big crack in that glass ceiling." Hillary mentioned that same glass ceiling on last week on Tuesday night, her first as the presumptive Democratic nominee. "This campaign is about making sure there are no ceilings, no limits on any of us." Human rights values and freedoms are under attack throughout the world, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein. In an opening speech to the 32nd session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, he outlined a number of pressing human rights concerns he said could have been prevented. The filthy abuse by politicians of the vulnerable is leading to escalating violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, warned Zeid, adding that the laws, institutions and values which bind people together are buckling. Zeid said hate is becoming mainstream, walls are being erected and barriers of suspicion are rising as clampdowns on public freedoms grow. He said the world is witness to every kind of horror imaginable on a daily basis. I also condemn with the greatest possible force the outrageous attacks by violent extremists on innocent people, chosen at random, or because of their presumed beliefs, or opinions, or as we saw yesterday, their sexual orientation, Zeid said. Around 50 people were killed and 53 wounded by a gunman Sunday in a nightclub frequented by LGBT people in Orlando, Florida. Zeid said he is concerned about the high incidence of gun violence. The Americas have by far the highest rate of intentional homicide of any region in the world. Many of these crimes can be linked to organized criminal gangs, which also drive corruption of the judiciary and other institutions, Zeid said. The high commissioner highlighted numerous trouble spots. Zeid lamented the deepening, continuing disaster in Syria, along with Iraq and Yemen, and noted many parts of the Middle East and North Africa are being crushed by repression, conflict, and violent anarchy. He chastised the European Union for its inability to find a solution to the teeming refugee and migration crisis. He condemned new waves of attacks by violent extremist groups in Mali and raised concerns about the many ethnic-based killings in Burundi. He pinpointed other areas of enduring instability and conflict in African countries, including Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Zeid, however, says terrible situations can be reversed. He noted the formation of a transitional government of national unity in South Sudan and the peaceful transfer of power in Central African Republic offer hope to the people in these beleaguered countries. Zeid said the denial of human rights can lead to war; whereas respect for human rights will maintain the peace. He said human rights are not costly; they are priceless. The United States continues to hold the title of the worlds top weapons exporter, supplying almost $23 billion worth of weapons to other countries last year particularly in the Middle East according to a new report by the leading global source of such information. The consulting firm IHS Jane's released its annual Global Defense Trade Report Sunday, showing the global defense market rose by $6.6 billion in 2015, up to a total of $65 billion. U.S. exports of nearly $23 billion represent an increase of $10 billion since the 2009 report. The global defense trade market has never seen an increase as large as the one we saw between 2014 and 2015, said Ben Moores, senior analyst at IHS. 2015 was a record-breaking year. French arms sales more than doubled in 2015 from the year before, rising from $8 billion to $18 billion. If that rate continues, the report said, France will overtake Russia as the second largest defense exporter by 2018. The increase in global arms sales last year was driven largely by increased demand from countries in the Middle East, which dominated the top of the list and received around $21.6 billion worth of equipment deliveries, including $8.8 billion from the U.S. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates alone accounted for more than half of the weapons purchases in the Middle East around 17.5 percent of all global defense imports at $11.4 billion. Thats an increase of nearly $3 billion over 2014. Saudi Arabia, which was the single largest weapons importer last year, purchased several types of aircraft, precision-guided weapons, along with drones and other surveillance equipment, as it battles rebels in Yemen and tries to keep up with rival Iran. Following the relaxation of sanctions levied against Iran by Western countries as part of the nuclear deal, Iran is looking to update its old air force equipment, and is likely to increase trade with Russia. According to the report, Iran could eventually spend between $40 billion and $60 billion replacing the aging aircraft fleet. Egypt has greatly increased the amount of money it spends on defense, up to $2.3 billion last year, making it the worlds fourth-largest importer. Southeast Asian countries bordering the South China Sea also ramped up their defense spending since 2009 around 71 percent in an effort to counter Chinese influence in and around disputed waters. Authors of the report expect defense trade will continue to expand, and in 2016 will be worth around $69 billion. One day after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Americans are debating tighter gun control laws. Public opinion polls conducted by Quinnipiac University, show from February 2013 through November 2015 support for background checks for anyone who wants to buy a gun has remained consistently high. The latest poll shows 93 percent of Americans support required checks. The polls also indicate 58 percent support for banning the sale of assault style weapons. The polls were first conducted after a lone gunman went on a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 students and six adults. Sunday, a 29 year old American Muslim gunned down 49 people and wounded 53 others at a dance club in Orlando, Florida. BEIJING, June 13 -- China will hold the first Silk Road International Cultural Expo in the city of Dunhuang in northwestern Gansu Province, on Sept. 20, with France as the guest of honor. The expo will promote exchanges among nations along the route of the ancient Silk Road, the China-led project to improve infrastructure and increase trade in the region, authorities said Monday at a press conference. It will feature conferences and ministerial meetings as well as cultural exhibitions. Currently, 58 countries and five international organizations have "given feedback on attending the expo." The event is sponsored by the Gansu government; the Ministry of Culture; the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television; the National Tourism Administration; and the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. Muslims across America showed an outpouring of support for victims after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history left at least 50 people dead in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub. The founder of Make Space, an Islamic Center near Washington, D.C., told VOA's Afghan Service that "shooting innocent humans is a cowardly act that every Muslim and every human being should condemn." The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a statement that said, "We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence." Imam Tariq Rasheed of the Islamic Center of Orlando said, "No religious tradition can ever justify nor condone such ruthless and senseless acts of violence." The Islamic Society of Central Florida condemned the attack and posted on its Facebook page: "We stand united as Americans against any act of violence that tries to bring fear and division to our communities." Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the group American Islam, said, We condemn the person who did this, whatever ideology he had. No lives should be lost because of anger and hate. He said he does not know what can be done for what seems like one mass shooting after another. I condemn all acts of terrorism, especially those done in the name of my faith. Goal of extremism is to create divisions In Washington, Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the attack was "a hate crime, plain and simple." He said CAIRs sympathies lie with the LGBT community, and that the goal of extremism is to create divisions among as many social groups as possible. As Muslims, as Americans, now is the time to speak out and make it clear, we will not give in to hate, and we will not give in to fear, Awad said. Noting that the shooter had reportedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State, Awad said to the terror group and its supporters: How will you stand before God and answer for your crimes against innocent people, thousands of innocent people, Muslims, Christians and other minorities? You do not speak for us, you do not represent us. You are an aberration, an outlaw. The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity, which works to support and empower LGBTQ Muslims, said in a statement, "This tragedy cannot be neatly categorized as a fight between the LGBTQ community and the Muslim community. As LGBTQ Muslims, we know that there are many of us who are living at the intersections of LGBTQ identities and Islam. At moments like this, we are doubly affected. We reject attempts to perpetuate hatred against our LGBTQ communities as well as our Muslim communities." Several Muslim organizations across the country, including the Florida chapters of CAIR and the Muslim Council of America, are asking their members to donate blood in solidarity with the victims in Orlando. There will be many moments of silence for the victims of the Orlando shooting in the days ahead, but on Sunday night in front of the White House, the dead were remembered in song. Singing the Civil Rights anthem We Shall Overcome, the Gay Mens Chorus of Washington marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to join a vigil quickly organized on social media. Circling around a makeshift memorial of flickering candles and handmade signs protesting hate, the chorus sang the National Anthem. Many in the crowd of hundreds openly wept. Partners hugged, wrapping the rainbow flags of gay pride around each other. This was an act of terrorism intended to strike fear into the hearts of LGBT people said John Becker, a gay man from Washington who stood as close as he could to the gates of the White House waving a gay pride flag. Becker said gay clubs like Pulse, the Orlando, Florida nightclub where Omar Mateen murdered 50 people and injured 53 others were safe spots when he was growing up and coming to terms with his identity. Those are spaces LGBT people through the decades have found safe havens to meet people like us, he told VOA. For many of us myself included theyre one of the first places we felt comfortable being and expressing ourselves. That was shattered in Orlando today. Becker grew up in a culturally conservative town in the state of Wisconsin and said that while there has been progress, theres a lot of misinformation, a lot of misunderstanding. The crowd was filled with self-described straight allies who joined the vigil to help counter misunderstanding. I didnt want hatred to win, said Lauren Rose, a young woman from Washington. She struggled through tears to explain why she felt it was so important to be part of the vigil. Any terrorist attack is hard but this one really shook me to my core because of where it was it was supposed to be a safe space for people to be who they are, she said. Watch: White House vigil Lauren often stopped talking to look at the vigil organizers who took turns calling on members of Congress to act on gun control. She kept repeating to herself, What a nightmare. The potential impact of the 2016 presidential campaign was on the mind of the vigil organizers and for Lauren. Im tired of homophobia, transphobia, racism, xenophobia, she said. Especially right now with the Trump campaign galvanizing all of these bigoted groups. In the early hours after the tragedy, social media turned into a circle of finger-pointing about LGBT rights, terrorism and gun control. One young woman took the microphone to push people to act after the news had faded, a reminder that a seemingly endless string of tragedies can often obscure the emotion felt in these kinds of moments. Allow me to allow you to be something more than your cell phone, she shouted, something more than your Facebook page. How many of you will use those connections to be heard? The White House is often a rallying point for the causes and beliefs that shape Americans. But the unique nature of the Orlando attack an Afghan-American man who reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS before the attack meant the vigil organizers had a range of issues to confront. Some mentioned past mass shootings and called for stricter gun control. Other held up signs calling Islamophobia un-American. But all of them mentioned the hatred LGBT people still face. And that bothered Chris and Kristen, two tourists visiting Washington from South Carolina. They sat on the curb of Pennsylvania Avenue watching the crowd. If you believe in the Bible and I do, said Kristen, I believe all of thats not supposed to be. She nodded toward the crowd of gay and lesbian men and women, many of them still wearing the colorful outfits for the Gay Pride march held in Washington earlier that day. Kristen and Chris who asked to be identified only by their first names - are in their late twenties and said they had seen significant changes in attitudes towards gays and lesbians in their short lives. Growing up in school, you still talked about God, you still had God in school, you still had the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, said Chris. Theyve taken all of that out of schools now even in the South and it seems like our youth is just awful. You take God out of the equation and this happens, he said. Here we go again with the rallies in your face, Kristen said about her first thoughts upon hearing the news this morning. Put your guns away all that stuff. They both said they were not concerned by reports about the shooters pledge of allegiance to ISIS but were worried by the calls for gun control. Chris said in his home state of South Carolina, gun culture was strong and shootings like Orlando could be avoided if he and other law-abiding citizens were armed. They said they were offended by some of the language and actions of the gay and lesbian men and women at the vigil. You cant change it now they are how theyre going to be, said Chris. What I dont like now is they push it in your face. John Becker acknowledged this problem. The flip side of that progress is that there are people who see this inclusive America, he said, And they respond with fear and anger and hatred and we may have seen that in Orlando today. The chorus began We Shall Overcome for a second time, lit by news cameras and the illumination that surrounds the White House at night. There have been so many times when weve felt like weve had turning points, said Becker. We have to keep speaking out about the value of everyones life whether theyre gay, straight, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, male, female every persons life has dignity and value. While U.S. investigators are still trying to determine if there were any actual links between the Orlando shooter, 29-year-old American-born Omar Mateen, and the Islamic State terror group, Islamic State supporters moved quickly to claim responsibility. The Amaq News Agency, essentially a propaganda arm of IS, issued statements both in Arabic and English Sunday. The English language statement said the nightclub attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter, and it claimed more than 100 homosexuals had been killed. Thats a legitimate claim, said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. But that doesnt mean that Mateen was directed or acting under the orders of the Islamic State, he said. It could be that Amaq is just playing off news reports that say Mateen swore allegiance to Islamic State either before or during the attack. Still, experts worry this is the type of attention that IS craves, especially given the growing string of setbacks the terror group and self-proclaimed caliphate has been suffering on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq, as well as in Libya. From their perspective, it doesnt matter if he (Mateen) was acting under the orders of Islamic State or not, Joscelyn said. Its a big PR win to have one of their supporters do it. Early indications are that the Orlando nightclub attack may have, at least briefly, reenergized IS followers on social media. IS English language supporters on Twitter attempting a comeback, terror expert and author J.M. Berger posted on his @intelwire Twitter account Sunday, adding one account tweeting 130+ per hour. A stern and somber U.S. President Barack Obama took to the podium in the White House briefing room in Washington Sunday to express his condolences to the families of those killed overnight in an Orlando nightclub shooting. It was the 15th time he has had to address the American people after a mass shooting during his tenure in office. Obama said the massacre "marks the most deadly shooting in American history." He said he was briefed at the White House by FBI Director James Comey and added: Although its still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate. The president said "no act of terror or hate can change who we are, but he added that the mass shooting is a "sobering reminder" that an attack on any American is an attack on all of us. Obama addressed the fact that the brutal shooting and hostage taking attack took place at an iconic gay nightclub. Watch: Obama Delivers Statement on Orlando Shooting This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends - our fellow Americans - who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub - it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. The gunman responsible for the killing of at least 50 people in an Orlando, Florida nightclub early Sunday has been identified as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent who the FBI said committed a crime that is being investigated as an act of terrorism. Earlier, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said intelligence officials informed him the shooter may have pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Presidential candidates react The presidential candidates also were quick to react to the shootings. The likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, tweeted: "Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Late in the day, the Clinton campaign and the White House announced they were postponing a planned joint campaign appearance set for Wednesday in the northern state of Wisconsin. No reschedule date was announced. The presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, directly challenged President Obama, tweeting: Is President Obama going to finally mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism?' If he doesn't, he should immediately resign in disgrace! Some Republican leaders and lawmakers have repeatedly called on President Obama to use the words Islamic terrorism when speaking about terrorist acts inspired by radical Islamic leaders. The White House has said the president does not want to tarnish an entire religion practiced by millions of innocent people because of heinous acts conducted by a few. House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce issued a statement, saying "My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and all those who lost a loved one today," adding that "Jihadist-driven terrorism has hit America again. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted about the mass shooting on Sunday. Senator John McCain also issued a statement extending his condolences. Eight Zimbabwean women from different parts of the United States of America recently came from afar to compete for the crown of Miss Zimbabwe USA 2016 and there was, as expected, one winner. Andile Nobuhle Mpofu came top of the annual pageant, which displays beauty and brains. Twenty two year-old beauty is studying for a Business Economics Major at Green River College in California. The greater part of her education was mainly in Zimbabwe. I attended primary school at Amanda Primary School in Concession and did part of my high school at Langham Girls High and the last half at Harare High school. Her hobbies include modeling, cooking, camping and traveling. I love trying out a bunch of new stuff, it could be food, culture visiting new places. Another fun fact about me, I sing a lot but my singing only sounds good in the shower. She adds, As soon as I wake up the first thing I do, is look at the clock not because I need to get going but because I would be wanting to calculate how many more hours I am left with before going back to bed. Andile, who is the last born in the Mpofu family, started modeling at the age of five. I come from a family of two girls and I am the last born of Thandekile and Nhlanhla Mpofu. I was born and brought up in Harare but my parents are from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. She adds, I started modeling at five and my mum would teach me and my sister. My mum started to teach me and she would remind me not to slouch but sit up straight, chest out, head high. My mum continually reinforced it. She says the Miss Zimbabwe USA beauty pageant was a scary one but also pretty relaxed. I had people support me especially my uncle and aunt who stay in the Washington state. She adds, It was overwhelming, but my aunt was in the forefront and on top of the whole situation." Beauty pageants over the world have nurtured a tradition of asking questions to test the minds of these future beauty queens and also as a strategy to find out how they perceive their country. "One of the questions they asked me," says Mpofu, " ... is ... 'If l was to change anything in Zimbabwe what would it be?' Here is how she tackled that question. We are more than our struggles, Zimbabwe is struggling as a country right now, we can be better than we are The answer is within ourselves. To get the mind to be creative it has to know that it can be creative." In her message to the youth, she says, "What I want to tell the Zimbabwe youth it that you are beautiful, you are gorgeous, beauty is from within. Its not from the weaves or make up or even natural hair. Believe in what you are and dont let anyone tell you that you are not. "I want to thank all those who supported me in the beauty pageant, they cheered me on and that gave me the courage and faith." The writer Chioneso Jani can be contacted on cjani@bbg.gov Defections rock the Movement for Democratic Change formation led by Professor Welshman Ncube amid reports that some former party members want to form a new opposition political group. Some villagers make a living through removing landmines in Zimbabwes border with Mozambique. Today is International Albinism Awareness Day. People with albinism face multiple forms of discrimination worldwide. In some countries they are hunted and killed for medicinal purposes. And Zimbabweans mourn the death of seven Dynamos supporters. 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. This evening on Livetalk our hosts Blessing Zulu and Gibbs Dube will be talking with listeners about albinism. What do you think about this issue? Participate by sending your messages on our WhatsApp number 001 202 465 0318. You can also post comments on this Facebook wall or send us your number so we can call you back. Please note that we are livestreaming on all Studio 7 Facebook pages. Stay tuned!!!!!! We accept many different kinds of announcements. Just click on the button below and submit a form. Go to forms Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. BANGKOK, June 13 -- The tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) signed a memorandum of understanding on tourism cooperation with Chinese internet giant Baidu here Monday, in a bid to make travel easier for Chinese tourists visiting the kingdom. In the signing ceremony, Baidu unveiled the newly upgraded Baidu Map, which is a popular mapping app in China and now also available for Chinese visiting Thailand. As soon as Chinese visitors arrived, there would be a push notification from the Baidu Map on their smart phones welcoming them, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu. With data from TAT, the mapping app in Chinese language can help Chinese tourists visiting Thailand in finding the location of tourist attractions, restaurants, products and services. Baidu, on the other hand, will provide information on tourist trends and characteristics for TAT. Srisuda Wanapinyosak, deputy governor for Asia and South Pacific marketing of TAT, said TAT and Baidu share the same goal of helping Chinese tourists here, so they decided to cooperate. According to Srisuda and Paul Chen, general manager of Baidu Thailand, more and more Chinese tourists chose to come by themselves instead of coming with tour groups, which means the mapping app will be useful for many. TAT and Baidu will work together on the "Amazing Romance in Thailand" in July by compiling the information of locations related to love and romance, and also on the "Women's Journey" project in August, during which information of shops and businesses that participate in will be provided on the app. The duo will also will work together on a "Smart Guide" project. Chinese visitors can use the mapping app on their smart phones to scan the QR-code at some tourist attractions to hear their history and story in Chinese language. "TAT aims to restructure the market by expanding to high-end tourists from various cities of China. This cooperation will allow TAT to reach this target group directly and rapidly," said Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT governor. Although Baidu Map is currently in Chinese, the company also plans to attract local users in the future. "Our first step is to provide our mapping service for Chinese tourists, then for Chinese Thai and finally for Thai people with a Thai version of the app in the future," said Dangen She or Daniel, general manager of Baidu Global Maps product. Baidu Map, accounting for about 70 percent of mapping market in China, has extended its mapping service to about 50 countries and regions outside Chinese Mainland since the Chinese new year in 2016, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu, adding that the information on the app will be updated regularly. According to a statement from organizers of the event, there are 500 million Baidu Map users now. Over the last two years, the world market for energy sources has been overturned. First of all, the offer and the demand have changed considerably, followed by the transformation of the commercial flow, and finally the prices, which have collapsed. These radical changes challenge all the geopolitical principles of the oil market. The myth of penury The economic slowdown of the Western countries, and also that of certain developing countries, has resulted in a fall in demand, while continued growth in Asia has, on the contrary, led to its rise. Ultimately, global demand continues to develop at a slow rate. From the supply side, not only have none of the oil-producing states seen their capacities collapse, but some of them have been able to expand, like China, which is now accumulating important strategic reserves. As a result, the world market is heavily over-supplied. This first observation contradicts what used to be the common belief of the scientific and professional milieux during the first decade of the 21st century world production was approaching its peak, and the world was going to experience a period of penury during which certain states were going to collapse, and wars for resources were going to break out. As soon as he returned to the White House in January 2001, Vice-President Dick Cheney formed a work group to plan the development of a national energy policy (National Energy Policy Development NEPD), which was qualified as a secret society by the Washington Post [1]. In an ultra-protected atmosphere, the Presidents advisors auditioned the heads of the main businesses in the sector, a number of celebrated scientists, and the heads of the Intelligence apparatus. They arrived at the conclusion that the clock was ticking, and that there was no time to waste consequently the Pentagon would have to guarantee the survival of the US economy by grabbing the resources of the wider Middle East. It is not known for certain who participated in this work group, what data they were working with, or what were the stages of their deliberations. All the internal documents were destroyed so that no-one could discover the statistics to which they had access. This is the group that advised the waging of war on Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and the Sudan - a programme that was officially adopted by President George W. Bush during a meeting on the 15 September 2001, at Camp David. I remember having met, during an AFPO assembly in Lisbon, the General Secretary of the White House work group. He presented a report on the study of known reserves, the imminence of Hubberts peak and the measures which had to be taken to limit US energy consumption. At that time, I was convinced mistakenly by his reasoning and his assurance. With time, however, we realised that his analysis was completely false, and that the first five wars on his list (against Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya and Syria) had, from this point of view, been entirely useless, even though the programme continues today. This huge error in prospective should not surprise us. It is the consequence of groupthink. Within a group, an idea can progressively impose itself to the point where no-one dares to question it for fear of being excluded from the circle of reason. Its intellectual orthodoxy. In this case, the White House advisors started off with, and stayed rooted in, the Malthusian theory which dominated Anglican culture in the 19th century. According to this theory, the population increases exponentially, while resources only increase arithmetically. In the end, there will not be enough resources for everyone. Thomas Malthus intention was to oppose Adam Smiths theory, according to which, when it is free from all regulation, the market will regulate itself. In reality, pastor Malthus found in his own theory - which has never yet been demonstrated - the justification of his refusal to help the innumerable poor in his parish. What is the point of feeding these people, if tomorrow, their many children will starve to death? The government of George W. Bush was mostly WASP, and included many people from the oil industry, starting with Vice-President Cheney, the ex-chief of the manufacturing firm Halliburton. Although oil is a non-renewable ressource and will therefore one day come to an end, nothing proves that the end is near. In 2001, we were thinking in terms of oil of the Saudi type, which we knew how to refine. At that time, we did not believe that the reserves of Venezuela, for example, were exploitable, while we know today that they are sufficient to supply all of the worlds needs for at least a century. We note that the human origin of global warming theory is probably no more accurate than that of peak oil. It stems from the same Malthusian origins, and has the advantage of enriching its promoters via the Chicago Exchange for emissions trading [2]. The theory was popularised with the aim of teaching Westerners to reduce their consumption of fossil fuel-based energy, and therefore to prepare for a world where oil would become ever more rare and expensive. The end of artificial prices The rise of the price of a barrel of oil to $110 seemed to support the theory of Dick Cheneys team, but its brutal fall to only $35 showed that the theory is wrong. As in 2008, the fall in prices began with the European sanctions against Russia, which upset world exchange, displaced capital, and in the end, definitively burst the oil speculation bubble. This time, the low prices were encouraged by the United States, which saw in them another way to sink the Russian economy. Things became even more complicated when Saudi Arabia discovered it could also benefit from the situation. By flooding the market with its products, Riyadh maintained the price of the barrel of Arabian Light at between $20 and $30. By doing so, it destroyed the profitability of investments in alternative sources of energy, and guaranteed its power and income in the long term. The Saudis managed to persuade their partners in OPEC to support this policy. The members of the cartel made the decision to save their authority in the long term, even if it meant earning a lot less for a few years. Consequently, the drop in prices, encouraged by Washington as a tool against Moscow, ended up by damaging the US itself. More than 250,000 jobs were destroyed over two years in the energy industries world-wide, and approximately half of them were in the United States. 78% of US oil platforms were shut down. Even if the recession in oil production is not as spectacular, the fact remains that the United States are probably no longer energy-independent, or will soon become so. And not only the United States are concerned the whole Western capitalist system is affected. In 2015, Total lost 2.3 billion dollars, ConocoPhillips 4.4 billion, BP 5.2 billion, Shell 13 billion, Exxon 16.2 billion, and Chevron close to 23 billion. This situation reminds us of the Carter Doctrine of 1980. At that time, Washington gave itself the right to intervene militarily in the Near East to guarantee its access to oil. Thereafter, President Reagan created CentCom in order to implement this doctrine. Today, oil is being exploited all over the world, and in various different ways. The fantasy of Hubberts peak has evaporated. President Obama was thus able to order the displacement of troops from CentCom to PaCom (the theory of the pivot to Asia). We observed that this plan was modified by the accumulation of forces in Eastern Europe (EuCom), but it will probably be modified futher if prices remain between $20 and $30 per barrel. In this case, we will probably cease the exploitation of certain types of oil, and fall back on Arabian Light. The question of the repositioning of forces in the Near East is therefore valid as of now. If Washington chooses this path, it will probably also modify the Pentagons methods. The Straussian theory of constructive chaos indeed allows the governance of vast territories with very few men on the ground, but it takes a long time to enable the exploitation of vast resources, as we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Perhaps we should resort to a wiser policy, cease organising terrorism, accept peace, in order to engage in trade with other states, or whats left of them. Photo taken on June 12, 2016 shows police arrives at the scene after a shooting incident happened at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. [Photo: sxdaily.com] Orlando gunman phoned 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS, also mentioning Boston bombing, U.S. official says. Fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told a news conference. "Today we're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Dyer said. The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida, was found dead inside the Pulse nightclub after a shootout with the police, according to Orlando Police Chief John Mina. The shooting began around 2:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) inside the club and there once was a confrontation between the suspect and an officer working at the club outside the venue, according to local police. Then the suspect went back into the club to continue shooting and took hostages. About three hours after the shooting first broke out, police shot and killed the suspect during actions to rescue the hostages, said Mina. "It appeared he was organized and well-prepared," said Mina at a earlier press conference, adding that the suspect had an assault-type weapon and a handgun. Danny Banks, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said that the shooting, the deadliest in a single shooting in the U.S. history, was being investigated as an act of terrorism. "Do we consider this an act of terrorism? Absolutely, we are investigating this from all parties' perspective as an act of terrorism," said Banks. Ronald Hopper, an assistant FBI agent in charge, said the authorities now had "suggestions that the individual may have leanings toward" ideology held by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. But he added that "right now we can't say definitively." Reports said the parents of Mateen, a 29-year-old U.S.-born citizen, were from Afghanistan. ABC News quoted U.S. law enforcement officials as saying that Mateen was "on the radar" of U.S. officials for some time, but he was not the target of a specific investigation. U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed by his homeland security and counterterrorism advisor Lisa Monaco on the tragic shooting, the White House said in a statement. Obama asked for regular updates on the investigation, while directing that the federal government provide any assistance necessary to pursue the investigation and support the community. Gun violence in the United States has in recent years grabbed headlines nationwide and worldwide, especially such cases as the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 in Connecticut, in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered an elementary school and fatally shot 20 children as well as six adult staff members. Additionally, the United States has seen a number of cases of multi-victim shootings, such as a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. A gunman entered a movie theater and murdered 12 people and injured 70 others. But despite these and other incidents, powerful gun lobbying groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) have successively blocked Congress to pass any bills to curb gun rights. So far gun violence has not been a major political issue during this election season. It remains unknown if the latest shooting will ignite heated debate on gun violence among the presidential candidates. The NRA has endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, who attacked his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for trying to curb the gun rights of U.S. citizens endowed by the Constitution. Meanwhile, IS radicals are calling on followers to hit the United States and Europe during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts last week. In a recording released online in later May, IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani called for launching further terror attacks against Western targets. U.S. authorities have been on high alert against terror attacks since the shooting last December in San Bernadino, California, where an armed radicalized couple killed 14 people in an act of terrorism. Indeed, U.S. intelligence and police leaders have always warned about the danger of "lone wolf" attacks in the United States by terror groups or radicalized individuals. James Clapper, director of U.S. National Intelligence, warned at a Senate hearing in February that IS is the U.S. "number one terrorist threat," as it was attempting to launch direct attacks on the U.S. homeland in 2016. Adele joined the sea of remembrances and dedications for the victims of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting last night while performing in Antwerp, Belgium. Id like to start tonight by dedicating this entire show to everybody in Orlando at Pulse nightclub. The LGBTQ community, theyre like my soulmates since I was really young so Im really moved by it, Adele said, beginning to cry. Fighting back tears, she joked, I dont know why Im crying already, because most of tonight is pretty miserable, because my songs are fucking miserable. As if an Adele concert wasnt one of the few places where its appropriate to cry whenever you need to. Do you think Rachel Bloom looked up from her air flute at any point while shooting this weeks Lip Sync Battle and thought, Goddamn it, if only we did covers? From the looks of this video, the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend stars performance of Katy Perrys Teenage Dream depicts a sort of a parallel universe version of Rebecca Bunch, one thats filled with the kind of raw, sexual, band-geek energy our American scientists need to do more research to explain. Who were those confident nerds? Did their conviction in their own romantic destinies make them follow their ex-boyfriends to small-town California, and if so, where are all their CW shows? Meanwhile, Michael Shannon, someone you would never imagine in a thousand years would actually partake in a silly musical reality competition, went all-out for R.E.M.s jukebox staple Its the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). Maybe its his crazed dance moves or post-apocalyptic outfit, but this might be his most enjoyable role in years. (Just kidding.) Michael Stipe, give this man a call. Form a duo. Anything. Call yourselves The Michaels. Itll be grand. WASHINGTON/ORLANDO, June 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obamaon Sunday called the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida earlier in the day an "act of terror" and "act of hate." At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in the shooting at the popular gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida. It is the deadliest shooting incident in the U.S. history. "Although it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," said Obama at the White Housebriefing room. Speaking at a briefing, a local surgeon told reporters that many of those injured were "critically ill as a result of their injuries," suggesting that the death toll could further rise. The gunman, identified by authorities as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida, was found dead inside the nightclub after a shootout with the police. The shooting began around 2:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) inside the nightclub and there once was a confrontation between the suspect and an officer working at the club outside the venue, according to local police. Then the suspect went back into the club to continue shooting and took hostages. About three hours after the shooting first broke out, police shot and killed the suspect during actions to rescue the hostages. "It appeared he was organized and well-prepared," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina at an earlier press conference, adding that the suspect had an assault-type weapon and a handgun. So far, it remained unknown if Mateen was motivated by the terror group the Islamic State (IS), though U.S. media reports said he called 911 before the shooting to swear allegiance to IS. The latest media reports also said IS has claimed responsibility for the nightclub attack. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Mateen was once investigated for possible terrorist ties. Speaking at a press conference, FBI official Ronald Hopper said the shooter legally purchased at least two firearms recently. However, federal officials said so far they had seen no immediate evidence linking the terror group based in Syriaand Iraqto the shooting spree in Orlando. President Obama had ordered U.S. flags at half-staff. Obama's statement on Sunday marked at least the 20th time he had addressed the nation on the topic of mass shooting during his presidency. Calling the Florida shooting spree "the most deadly shooting in American history," Obama again reminded the country of the sober reality that "how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon" that could launch mass killings. Following the 2012 school mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, which claimed 26 lives, including 20 children, the Obama administration initiated but failed to push stronger gun controllaws. The laws, whose sections included expanded background checks and bans on assault weapons, were stymied in Congress after staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers and gun-rights lobby groups. During his presidency, Obama has been confronted with more than a dozen of high-profile mass shootings, and in an interview last year he called the failure to reform U.S. gun laws "one of the greatest frustrations" of his presidency. "If you ask me where has been the one area where I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied, it is the fact that the United Statesof America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun safety laws, even in the face of repeated mass killings," Obama told BBC in an interview in July, 2015. (Global Times) 11:29, June 13, 2016 German Chancellor Angela Merkel is in China from Sunday to Tuesday to attend the fourth Chinese-German Government Consultations. Established in 2010, the mechanism for intergovernmental consultation between China and Germany is the only one between China and a Western power. In her ninth trip to China, Merkel brought many cabinet members and a high-level economic delegation, which obviously shows the close ties between China and Germany. With its trade with China set at $156.8 billion in 2015, Germany is China's largest EU trading partner, about 30 percent of China's trade with the entire EU. Last year, China again had the biggest number of greenfield investment programs in Germany. German products are well-renowned in China. However, German newspapers often carry negative reports about China-related issues such as human rights, the South China Sea and China's market economy status. As the two largest economies in Asia and Europe, China and Germany have great room for more cooperation since they have no major disputes and are economically complementary. If they open up more to each other, the two can create more cooperative miracles. Germany still has mental shackles in dealing with China. Yet it has built a decent image among Chinese given its sophisticated products and German people's qualities. Chinese people understand that the problems facing Germany should be addressed by the country itself. In contrast, some German elites are always passionate about stepping into China's problems. They bash China over human rights, but overlook China's achievements in this regard. Some Germans are influenced by bias in Western countries like the US. Before visiting China, Merkel was reportedly warned by German security authorities to not use her cellphone in China to prevent espionage. This is hilarious since Merkel should have been given the warning before her US tour as she was actually wiretapped by the US. We are not upset by the inclination shared by German public opinion with their other Western fellows. But we hope German public intellectuals can use more vision and insight to boost China-Germany cooperation, not the other way around. Germany is renowned for its many philosophers, craftsmen and thinkers. Meanwhile, given its weak foundation and sizable population, China has a complicated reality, and its rapid development deserves serious-minded and in-depth analysis and thought. China and Germany have generally respected each other and made dynamic progress in their relations, but they can do better. The future development of Western civilization depends on how much it can integrate and collaborate with other civilizations to achieve breakthroughs. In this Germany should be a leader of other Western countries. (Global Times) 11:31, June 13, 2016 Illustration: Liu Rui/GT Editor's Note: Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit China this month. Rossiya Segodnya recently invited experts to a video seminar to discuss the China-Russia relationship, with energy cooperation top on the agenda. What are the most effective ways to cooperate in this field? How will the bilateral relationship develop? Chinese scholars exchanged views with their Russian counterparts. Feng Yujun, director of the Institute of Russian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations The global economy and the energy market are experiencing historical changes, bringing drastic adjustments to China-Russia energy cooperation. Despite falling oil prices, China and Russia have seen increasing oil trade volume and diversified cooperation. Apart from traditional oil trading, the two sides are exploring pipelines. High-level exchanges will instill impetus to bilateral energy cooperation as well. As the Russian market is increasingly open to China, a number of Chinese financial agencies have speeded up their investments in Russian energy projects. However, it should be noted that the energy market is undergoing fundamental changes. Energy reform, which is characterized by the US shale gas revolution, has exerted major influences on the global market. The consumption of fossil energy is predicted to decline, posing challenges to China-Russia cooperation. Xu Qinhua, professor at the School of International Studies at the Renmin University of China China-Russia energy cooperation is increasingly diversified, strategically focused and motivated. Both governments are focusing more on long-term gains than instant profits. In the past, some observers worried that certain countries may take advantage of energy cooperation to exploit resources in other regions. However, energy cooperation has become an important tool to solidify bilateral relationships. The role of China and Russia has been changed in today's energy cooperation. Considering the abundant oil and gas resources in Russia, China can function as a bridge to transit Russia's resources to Asia-Pacific countries, which are now key energy consumers. It is true that China-Russia cooperation may be upset by certain negative factors. However, fluctuating oil prices have provided the two states with opportunities to strengthen their collaboration. This will help stabilize the global energy market and establish a sound basis for the two states to have a greater say in international affairs. Igor Tomberg, director of the Center for Energy and Transport in the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences Although energy cooperation between China and Russia is not developing as fast as we expected, cooperative projects are progressing smoothly. We should be alert to the fact that the bilateral relationship is now being upset by a number of negative factors, for instance, the slowing world economy and the global economic crisis. Therefore, it is of vital importance for the two sides to explore new ways to cooperate. It is wise for top leaders to meet amid international economic difficulties. The two nations are jointly exploring ways to get out of the current difficulties. Irina Pominova, expert at Analytical Center for the Government of the Russian Federation We should prioritize the construction of oil and gas pipelines. To this end, we need to sketch a more detailed development plan. Given the negative international factors, the bilateral relationship between China and Russia is not developing as fast as expected, and domestically, there are some pessimistic voices on energy cooperation. However, it should be noted that the cooperation will for sure return to the right track. The two sides can explore more fields to cooperate and to improve the current cooperative mechanism. Political talks and meetings can become concrete economic cooperative projects. The two sides are also advised to change their trading patterns and to establish a fund to take charge of energy cooperation projects. PRESS RELEASE The 100th anniversary of The Boeing Company, the worlds largest commercial and military aircraft company, will bring a unique collection of airplanes and presentations to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2016 on July 25-31. The 64th annual Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in convention, the Worlds Greatest Aviation Celebration, will take place at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Many of the airplanes will be displayed on EAA AirVentures main showcase ramp, which has been dubbed Boeing Centennial Plaza for this years event. Those aircraft include current commercial and military aircraft as well as historic Boeing airplanes from the companys first 100 years. Boeing aircraft have touched nearly every part of civilian and military aviation history over the past 100 years, so well rightly celebrate that century of innovation at Oshkosh this year, said Rick Larsen, EAAs vice president of communities and member programs who coordinates features and attractions at AirVenture. From vintage biplanes to huge jumbo jets, at AirVenture youll see how Boeing shaped the world of flight. Among some of the highlights during AirVenture week will be the arrival and display of a Cathay Pacific 747-8 Freighter on Saturday, July 30 which has been named Boeing Day at Oshkosh. There will be other historic Boeing aircraft, such as the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-29 Superfortress on Boeing Centennial Plaza that day. Prior to the night air show on July 30, Boeing historians and officials will also present highlights from a century of Boeing aircraft production during a Theater in the Woods program. For 100 years Boeing has been the leader in the aviation industry, said Sherry Carbary, vice president of Boeing Flight Services. As we start our second century, we look forward to celebrating our centennial at EAA AirVenture with our customers and aviation enthusiasts. Along with the July 30 festivities, an Alaska Airlines 737-800 will be in Oshkosh on Wednesday, July 27 to participate in WomenVenture Day at Oshkosh, of which Boeing is the presenting sponsor. The airliner will be flown by an all-female crew and bring more than 100 female Alaska Airlines employees to be a part of WomenVenture activities, which highlight the possibilities to increase the number of women in the aviation industry. Also that day, FedEx will showcase a Boeing 767 Freighter on Boeing Centennial Plaza. A major gathering of Stearman biplanes built in the 1930s and 1940s is also scheduled during EAA AirVenture 2016. These airplanes are a major part of the Boeing legacy and will be displayed in both the vintage and warbirds aircraft areas. The Stearmans were among the most popular primary training aircraft for military pilots during the World War II era. The walking marriage, in which a man and a woman establish relations after the man's nocturnal visits to the woman's boudoir, has been less prevalent in the Mosuo ethnic group generally residing in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. The Mosuo ethnic group [File photo/Xinhua] The traditional matriarchal practice has nowadays been questioned by the modern moral criterion of monogamy underlying loyalty as long as people are married. However, the demand of fidelity doesn't work in the Mosuo minority who can easily change their partners. Generally, a marriage can be ended if a man informs his partner that he will no longer come to visit or refuses to visit her for a long time. If a woman is unwilling to maintain the marriage, she can directly tell her partner in person not to come or stop his visits to her bedroom. Anyone who finds the partner has fallen in love with someone else can send a package stuffed with charcoal, peppers and chicken feathers to warn the partner or directly terminate their relations. In this matriarchal society which began during the primitive ages, the walking marriage, as a custom of the Mosuo minority, has endured the changes of the world. Currently, with the exodus of its young people and influence from the external world, the prospect of the indigenous custom is dimming. "People have followed the call of the government to lead a life with a formal and stable marriage since the 1960s, so the number of walking marriages is diminishing," said a guide from the Mosuo minority. However, despite losing its attraction to many local young people, the walking marriage, which has been preserved and inherited from one generation to another in some villages, is appealing to a number of visitors, who mistake the ritual merely as a one-night stand. Several years ago, a woman's four diaries covering her travels in the towns of the Mosuo ethic group in Yunnan, where she flirted, had sex with Mosuo men and experienced the walking marriage, sparked controversy. Following her blogs which received millions of hits, Chinese online users commented that she, as a woman from modern society, was not eligible for the walking marriage preserved by local Mosuo ethnic people in the primitive milieu where they comply with the tenets of a matriarchal society. However, there were also a number of netizens supporting the adoption of the walking marriage in modern society, saying, the way of the walking marriage is a good option for young people who may fall in love without economic concerns, such as, a house, a car, as well as nuptial and betrothal gifts. Also, a man in this situation can be free from his duties as he will leave the children to the woman in her family headed by the maternal grandmothers. However, experts showed their disapproval of the idea to adopt the walking marriage in modern society. Tao Li, a professor at the Research Center of Folk Culture of China's Minzu University, said that mankind has eventually chosen monogamy as an overwhelming legal system for marriage to ensure the stability of families, clans, societies and social development. With the extension of the monogamous marriages which have been stipulated in the laws of our country, the customs of the walking marriage are gradually fading among the villages of the Mosuo minorities. The professor also said that the walking marriage is a remnant of the primitive social structure of a matriarchal society, so it cannot survive without the pervading local cultures. Therefore, those who misinterpret the marriage as a one-night stand in modern society are perverting the absolute understanding of the historic tradition. You're not imagining it. Aldi's ads are everywhere. And for the first time, it has spent more on ads than major chain Coles. After Aldi initially shunned expensive television ads and the major media, the privately held German chain outspent Coles for the first time in August 2015. It then spent "significantly" more on ads than Coles in November 2015, and again in January this year, according to information and measurement company Nielsen. Because it is so wrenching, we cannot require a victim to tell their story again after doing so to police, prosecutors, and in the case of a not-guilty plea, the jury in a trial, after surviving the crime, then enduring the prosecution unless they choose to re-tell it once more. There can be subtle pressure to do so: a belief a sentence will be unjust if they don't; a fear the offender will do it again to someone else if they can't find the strength to write a letter; a worry someone might think the damage done was somehow less if they do not speak. If such an expectation develops, justice will not be done. We would hurt victims again, hurt them once more by a system that is already difficult to endure. The courts have to hear a victim's voice even if it is unspoken. The second problem is the need to vigilantly guard against any perverse incentive for offenders to prey on inarticulate victims. Should sentences be increased on the basis of eloquent accounts of the damage wrought by an offender, the dangerous corollary is that a sentence will be less if no such eloquence is given in court. The courts have to be so cautious when allowing the views of victims to influence their sentences even if the position is for a reduced sentence. It has long been taken that a crime is not only an offence against an individual, but one against the whole community, and part of sentencing is not only to punish an offender but to vindicate the dignity of the victim and to consider the harm done without needing to hear from the victim when determining what the punishment should be. Victims of crime should be equal in their human dignity, even in the distressing case of homicides in which the victim goes unmourned. Justice has to mourn them, even if no one else does. As one NSW appeal judge, Michael Adams, has put it, it would be "monstrous" to suggest "for some reason killing her should attract a lesser sentence than would be the case if she had a loving family and grieving relatives". A danger of powerful accounts of victims and their families is not that justice will not be done in the cases in which they are given, but that it will not be done in other cases in which they are not. The Chinese-American entrepreneur Zhang Bo. [File Photo: china.com] An entrepreneur is to attempt China's first solo globe-circling flight. Zhang Bo, a Chinese-American entrepreneur, will embark on the adventure alone from Beijing on August 7 in his own SOCATA TBM 700 light aircraft. Details were given at a news conference in northwest China's Gansu Province on Sunday. Zhang will fly approximately 40,000 kilometers by way of 20 countries, on a route which includes the first ever flight along the ancient Silk Road. The entire trip is expected to take 58 days, with Zhang making 50 stops along the way. Several media companies have reportedly already signed contracts with the entrepreneur to make documentaries and other television programs of his journey. Scientists working in the mine's temporary lab operate in a confined space. Credit:Mark Killmer At 600 metres underground, it starts getting warm. By one kilometre down, the temperature is hovering between 35 and 40 degrees. The dust in the air is as fine as talcum powder. It's humid. But it won't be like that inside the purpose-built lab, which will be set at a comfortable 18 degrees year-round. Scientists will be able to shower and change into a clean pair of clothes before they begin working although the hard hat, vest and boots are not negotiable. It is after all, a working mine. The temporary lab, in one of the Stawell mine's tunnels, will be replaced once the new lab is completed in 2017. Credit:Rajat Malhotra Among the mind boggling experiments to take place a kilometre underground will be the search for dark matter that invisible cosmic glue with so much pulling power that it is able to hold our universe together. It accounts for 84 per cent of the universe but scarcely anything is known about what it is. "Dark matter is one of the great mysteries of our time," says Swinburne University astrophysicist Alan Duffy. "This experiment is truly groundbreaking and it will place Stawell at the forefront of one of the biggest quests in science." Professor Elisabetta Barberio believes it will be Nobel prize-winning work Credit:Eddie Jim This experiment is truly groundbreaking and it will place Stawell at the forefront of one of the biggest quests in science. Swinburne University astrophysicist Alan Duffy. In the four decades since American astronomer Vera Rubin first proposed there was another form of matter binding the universe, dark matter has stubbornly remained one of modern physics' most important and tantalising questions. What we do know is that dark matter is the reason galaxies exist. It provides the gravitational seed for the galaxy to grow. It gets its name because it does not interact with light. It's the dark side of the universe. The tunnel leading to the lab, one kilometre underground. Credit:Justin McManus If the international team of scientists do strike gold in their mine lab in Stawell, Melbourne University's Professor Barberio has no doubt it will be Nobel prize-winning work. "What we know about what the universe is made of is the tip of the iceberg," she says. "If we understand dark matter, we will understand how the big bang occurred and how the universe evolved and how it might continue to evolve." Melbourne University scientists John Koo and Francesco Tenchini will be among the team hunting for dark matter. Credit:Justin McManus Duffy, one of the project's chief investigators, agrees. "If you can actually identify the particle, or whatever that dark matter is, that is Nobel prize-worthy. There is no doubt about that." But why a mine? Why does the hunt for the elusive dark matter that holds the universe together have to be undertaken a kilometre underground by researchers trucking to and from the lab, wearing hard-hats and high-vis vests? Simple. It's a way of escaping the constant stream of cosmic radiation arriving on Earth from space. The kilometre of volcanic rock between the mine's surface and the cavernous laboratory acts as a natural barrier, blocking most radiation within the first few hundred metres. However having gone to some trouble to escape cosmic radiation, scientists still have to consider other sources. For a start the laboratory's basalt rock walls are a source of radiation, albeit at very low-levels. Ditto for the scientists. Even at the lowest levels radiation is enough to contaminate the super-sensitive experiment, which relies on materials being extremely pure to eliminate radioactive "noise". A collection of seven sodium iodide crystals, each weighing six kilograms, will act as a target for the ghostly dark matter that has made it underground. The ultra-pure crystals, custom-made for the Stawell experiment by Princeton University, boast extraordinary low levels of radiation. When a dark matter particle strikes the crystal's nucleus, light will be generated, transformed into energy and collected. This energy is what the researchers are looking for it will tell them about the mass of dark matter particles. Of the more than 10 laboratories in the northern hemisphere already hunting for dark matter so far only one, DAMA/LIBRA at Gran Sasso near the central Italian town of L'Aquila, has detected strong evidence of dark matter. That was in 1998. "There is a quest all over the world to repeat this experiment and see it," says Barberio, who was a key member of the international team that confirmed the Higgs boson or "God particle" in 2012. Physicists have long wondered if there are seasonal differences in the amount of dark matter that reaches Earth. Due to be completed in 2017, the Stawell laboratory is the best candidate to settle this dark matter dilemma because it is the only laboratory in the southern hemisphere. If Stawell experiments conducted in December and June deliver the same result as the Italian experiments conducted in the same months, then it will confirm that the amount of dark matter reaching Earth is not seasonal. "If we can do the same experiment and get the same results here in the southern hemisphere ... we will know that we have discovered dark matter," Barberio says. "That's big." All will not be lost if the results from the twin experiments differ. While scientists will have to accept they were unable to detect dark matter, they will have gathered enough information to rule out other hypotheses. Given the mystery surrounding dark matter, this would still be an achievement. Meanwhile, there will be any number of other experiments going on at the Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory, with its low-radiation environment a valuable setting for groundbreaking work in chemistry, biology and even defence science. For example, Duffy says, we don't know how cells deal with radiation damage, which can lead to cancer, or how they grow without radiation because we are never in an environment free of radiation. Experiments could also lead to new gold mapping techniques which involve taking an X-ray of land around a mine. "Just as an X-ray is blocked by a bone in your arm, so too is radiation from space blocked by things like gold," Duffy says. "This will allow us to see a shadow and locate the gold." "There are a lot of cool technologies and applications that you can pursue when you build something as unique as this underground lab," he says. While there is much excitement within the scientific community, enthusiasm for the project is shared far beyond the boundaries of the mine, which sits in a bush setting two kilometres out of Stawell. The Northern Grampians Shire Council has been an active supporter of the project, well-aware that the international attention will put the Wimmera town on the map and generate jobs. Mayor Cr Murray Emerson also hopes the underground physics laboratory will inspire a generation of local students to pursue a career in the sciences. He is so enthusiastic that he has visited year seven students at the local secondary school to talk about the benefits of finishing school and the opportunities a career in science can present. With international partners including the Universities of Rome, Milan and Princeton, as well as the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics, it's an easy sell. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews also sees the global picture. When he announced the state government would chip in $1.75 million to convert part of the gold mine into a particle physics lab last November, he enthused that it could possibly be "the world's next great scientific discovery". She also called for stricter gun control laws, reiterating prior calls to prohibit those on terrorism watch lists from buying guns. She pointed out that while the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of Mateen as a possible threat, he was still able to legally purchase a gun. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Credit:AP Clinton has called for a complete ban on assault-style guns. "It's important that we stop the terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attacks, and that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino," California, Clinton said, drawing a standing ovation from the crowd. Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump is reflected in the glasses of a supporter as he greets them and signs photographs after a campaign rally in Pittsburgh. Credit:AP Clinton called on Americans to come together in the way they did after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. She pointed out that, at the time, she was a Democratic US senator representing New York, while the US president, New York governor and New York City mayor were all Republicans. "Americans from all walks of life rallied together with a sense of common purpose on Sept 12. ... We had each others' backs. We did not attack each other, we worked with each other to protect our country and rebuild our city," Clinton said. "It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, the spirit of 9/12, let's keep looking for the best within our country, the best within each of us." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump making a point. Credit:AP Trump lashes out at Obama Earlier, Trump questioned Obama's motives for not using the term "radical Islam" in an interview on Fox News. Hillary Clinton pausing while speaking. Credit:AP "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump said. "It's one or the other, and neither one is acceptable." Trump has for years suggested that Obama is secretly a Muslim. In 2011, when the wealthy businessman drew national attention for demanding that Obama produce another copy of his birth certificate, he told Fox News, "maybe it says he is a Muslim." Obama is a practicing Christian. "We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind," Trump said on Fox without being specific. "And the something else in mind. People can't believe it. ... There's something going on. It's inconceivable." A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House spokesman Josh Earnest refused to address Trump's comments directly, saying Trump's remarks were "small" in the shadow of the massacre, and as such, neither he nor Obama would focus on them. "When you are focused on something as big as helping the country respond to the worst mass shooting in our nation's history, when you are focused on something as big as safeguarding the country and combating violent extremism, it's important not to get distracted by things that are so small," Earnest told reporters at the daily news briefing. Trump on Sunday had called for Obama to resign for not using the words "radical Islam" in his comments about the shooting. He also renewed his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump was delivering a speech on national security in New Hampshire. The topic was a change from his earlier plan to criticise Clinton. Trump said on CNN that the United States needed better intelligence gathering to prevent incidents such as the Orlando attack. Greeson said Howell's family in Jeffersonville had not seen him for days and that his parents had called Greeson's parents looking for him. He added that Howell was known to have a gun collection. People show their support for the victims of the Orlando mass shooting during the West Hollywood Pride parade on Sunday. Credit:LA Daily/AP According to Indiana court records, Howell was charged in October 2015 with intimidation and felony pointing a firearm at another person. On April 19, Howell pleaded guilty to misdemeanour intimidation, and prosecutors dropped the pointing a firearm charge. Court records show he was sentenced to a year in state prison and placed on probation. Under the deal, he agreed to forfeit all weapons during his term of probation. Federal and local law enforcement decided against cancelling the annual parade, which went forward on Sunday morning under tightened security. Investigators are now trying to piece together what happened but said they do not believe there is any connection between the incident and the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed at least 50 people overnight. James Wesley Howell, 20, of Indiana in police booking photo. Credit:AP Early on Sunday, Santa Monica police received a call about a suspected prowler who was knocking on a resident's door and window about 5am, Santa Monica police said. Patrol officers responded and encountered Howell, who was sitting in a car registered in Indiana, police said. Officers inspected the car and found three assault rifles, high-capacity ammunition and a five-gallon bucket containing "chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device", police said. A law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the contents of the bucket included tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to create a pipe bomb. The source, who was not authorised to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, said authorities also found camouflage clothing in the car. Married couple Grapes, left, and Candi Wasserman show support for the people who were gunned down in a gay night club in Orlando, as they ride in the West Hollywood's Gay Pride Parade. Credit:AP Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said the suspect told police he was going to the Pride parade to look for a friend. Authorities were looking for that individual. Santa Monica police spokesman Saul Rodriguez said detectives were "not aware of what the suspect's intentions were at this point". Santa Monica police continued to search the suspect's white Acura on Sunday morning. All four of the car's doors were open and a green blanket, red petrol canister and several other smaller items were being piled on the pavement next to it. The car's licence plate included a symbol of the National Rifle Association on the left side and the bottom said, "Teaching Freedom". A Facebook page for Howell said he attended high school in Louisville, Kentucky, and lives in Jeffersonville, Indiana, where he works for an air filtration company. A car enthusiast, Howell posted numerous photographs of the Acura as well as a couple of videos taken from inside cars. Another 10-second video includes gunfire, with shots striking grass. The site includes political posts, including one in which he compares Hillary Clinton to Adolf Hitler. In another, he repeats conspiracy theories that the government was behind notorious terrorist attacks, including Sept. 11, 2011. That post shares a video claiming that last year's terror attack on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was a hoax and attributable to the "New World Order." "They found him with weapons that were very disconcerting," said one source, adding officials are "taking the appropriate safety precautions." One source in West Hollywood said there was discussion of calling off the parade but that officials decided to go forward, with heavy security including undercover officers in the crowd. The sources spoke to the Los Angeles Times on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly. The parade came hours after the attack at the Orlando club. In addition to those killed, at least 53 were injured in the deadliest shooting in modern American history after a gunman took hostages. The gunman, who was killed in a shootout with police, has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen. West Hollywood City Councilwoman Lindsey Horvath said in a statement that Los Angeles County sheriff's officials were stepping up security efforts around Sunday's parade and other festivities. But she said officials did not believe there was any threat around Sunday's activities. Even as a UN conference began last week in New York, taking up the subject of ending AIDS, a Kremlin-backed research institute claimed the West is using HIV and AIDS as part of an "information war" against Russia. The Russian Institute for Strategic Research (RISR) presented a report to the Moscow City Council last week on HIV in Russia where, unlike almost everywhere else in the world, rates of HIV infection are on the rise. HIV+ woman receives antiretroviral therapy pills from PIH Nurse Natalya Shtrevenskaya in her home in Tomsk, Russia. Credit:Elena Devyashina/ Partners In He According to RISR deputy director Tatyana Guzenkova and her colleagues, the real goal of the West's fights against HIV "is the implementation of the economic and political interests of US-led global structures, relying on an extensive network of international and quasi-NGOs." But none of this comes as a shock to Anya Sarang, head of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation. (Global Times) 08:28, June 13, 2016 Chinese defense ministry says navigation legal and reasonable Tensions in the South and East China Seas continued to rise following last week's security summit in Singapore and ahead of an international court ruling on a South China Sea arbitration case filed by the Philippines. Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua dismissed Japanese protests over a Chinese warship's entry in waters near the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, China Central Television reported Friday. Japan summoned the Chinese ambassador on Thursday after reports that a Chinese and three Russian warships had entered what Japan called the "contiguous zones" near the Diaoyu Islands almost at the same time. Calling the navigation "legal and reasonable," the Chinese defense ministry said Thursday that "China's naval ships have every right to navigate in waters under its jurisdiction, and no other country has the right to make thoughtless remarks about this." The move came ahead of a large-scale joint military drill involving the US, Japan and India over eight days from June 10 in the western Pacific, Reuters reported. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei on Wednesday told a regular press conference that "it is hoped that this drill is conducive to regional peace, security and stability." Hong also responded to a US claim on Tuesday to China's "unsafe" interception of a US reconnaissance plane over the East China Sea, noting that "the US' frequent reconnaissance over Chinese waters, which severely undermines China's maritime and air safety, is the real source of danger." Bringing the dispute between China and the Philippines to the Permanent Court of Arbitration would give the US "the leverage to continue its provocative patrols in the South China Sea," Rod Kapunan, a Philippine columnist, wrote in an article published Saturday in The Standard, a Manila-based English-language newspaper. "Nobody would believe that its continued patrols in the area are to secure freedom of navigation. Rather, the whole military infrastructure it built would be exposed as a fa ade to contain China," Kapunan added. Last week, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said during the Shangri-La Dialoguein Singapore that Paris will urge European navies to ensure a "regular and visible" presence in the South China Sea, the Singapore-based Straits Times reported. Besides France, Canada also pledged to enhance its engagement in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the newspaper. The recent frequent military activities in the South China Sea by countries outside the region contributed to observers' concern over whether the "Eight-Power Allied Forces" might reappear in this region, experts warned. "If it happens, it would send a clear warning to the world and to China," said Liu Zhiqin, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, adding that the Chinese people will not forget the invasion of Western powers in the 19th century. Washington: On the same day the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump pledged a massive crackdown on immigration to protect the US as a "free and open society", he also announced he would revoke the press credentials of one of the country's oldest and most respected newspapers over their coverage of his campaign. In a statement issued on Monday afternoon, after a tumultuous couple of days in which Mr Trump stated he "appreciated the congrats" for being "right" about Islamic terrorism, gave a hardline speech about immigration and made several factual errors about the Orlando terror attack, Mr Trump made another headline-grabbing announcement. "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post," he posted. The Washington Post, a recipient of 62 Pulitzer Prizes for excellence in journalism since 1936 and which broke the Watergate scandal, has assigned a team of reporters to produce a book about Trump that is scheduled to be released later this year. Patrick Norman Pat Chapman is a 34-year-old, Caucasian male who was last known to be in Piedmont which is near the area of Greenville, Missouri on May 10, 2020. Pat had stayed the night with a friend and his wife at their home. In the early morning when the friend woke to go to work. Pat was gone in his own Burgundy color 1995 Ford Escort. That is the last anyone was known to have seen him. The vehicle was later recovered on May 29, 2020 in Mill Spring, Missouri. Worldwide shipments of smart TVs exceeded 100 million units in 2015, according to data from the research institute IHS. China is a major player in the smart TV market. In 2015, shipments of Chinese smart TVs accounted for more than three-quarters of the total number. In addition to gaining a foothold in the Chinese market, emerging Chinese smart TV manufacturers such as Xiaomi and LeTV are tapping into overseas markets. For instance, TVs produced by LeTV have already been sold in India and several Southeast Asian countries. In 2016, LeTV also set a goal of expanding into the U.S. In the mean time, Google has started working with Xiaomi to produce a new type of set-top box, which will sell in the U.S. market, according to Chen Tong, Vice-President of Content Investment and Operation at Xiaomi. The collaboration between Xiaomi and Google suggests an ongoing trend of increasing cooperation between Chinese and foreign companies. Whaley Technology and Oriental Dreamworks entered a strategic cooperation to become China's first smart TV manufacturer to provide IP addresses to access international first-class films. At the invitation of the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group (ACWG), WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya spoke at the ACWG meeting held on 10 June 2016 at Lancaster House in London, United Kingdom. The ACWG is developing a G20 Anti-Corruption Action Plan 2017-2018 to be presented to the G20 Summit later this year. As such, it was interested in the work being done by the WCO in the area of Customs as this was identified as a high-risk area. Secretary General Mikuriya spoke about WCO efforts in helping Members to identify risk areas for corruption and measures to improve integrity, in line with the revised Arusha Declaration. His explanation encompassed the need for a policy framework for trade liberalization, such as avoiding high tariff levels and widespread exemptions, streamlined procedures for trade facilitation supported by the use of technology, and investment in human resource management by providing a professional career path backed by acceptable working conditions. He called for G20 political support for Customs reform, so as to make Customs a positive reference for anti-corruption efforts for both the private and public sectors. The Government of Mexico has been keen to develop links between the WCO and the ACWG. Accordingly, Mr. Carlos Gabriel Enriquez Montes, Permanent Representative of Mexicos Tax Administration Service (SAT) in Brussels, presented the Strategic Document on Customs Integrity, prepared by the WCO and incorporating comments by G20 representatives, as well as a proposal for future actions taking into account the key factors of the revised Arusha Declaration. The OECD representative presented to G20 Members the outcomes of a survey conducted, based on the WCOs revised Integrity Guide. G20 Members welcomed the Strategic Document on Customs Integrity and appreciated the WCO's leadership and contribution in the area of anti-corruption. They further agreed on the need to strengthen their cooperation with the WCO for their future work. At the invitation of Mr. Galo Molina, President of ALACAT, and Mr. Enrique Lacalle, President of the International Logistics and Material Handling Exhibition of Barcelona, WCO Deputy Secretary General Sergio Mujica attended the XXXIII International Congress of ALACAT, which was held in Barcelona, Spain, from 7 to 9 June 2016. The Congress was attended by over 200 freight forwarders and logistics operators from Latin America, Spain, and other Mediterranean countries, as well as several international organizations from the private and public sectors. The agenda of the Congress featured several Customs-related topics, including the vision of international organizations on trade facilitation, Customs contribution to global competitiveness, and collaborative strategies in the private sector and their response to Customs. Deputy Secretary General Mujica participated in two panel discussions where he emphasized the key role of Customs to contribute to economic competitiveness and to the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA). He presented the main WCO instruments and tools designed to support Customs to enhance economic competitiveness and to implement the TFA in an effective and consistent manner. Mr. Mujica also highlighted the importance of Customs-business cooperation to achieve these objectives. During his visit to Barcelona, Mr. Mujica also held working meetings with Ms. Pilar Jurado, the Director General of Spanish Customs, and her management team. He also met with senior representatives of the private sector of Catalonia and visited the Port of Barcelona. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend: Azerbaijan and Iran are considering three options for financing construction of the Rasht-Astara (Iran) railway section, which is a part of the North-South transport corridor, which aims to connect northern Europe to South-East Asia, Head of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC Javid Gurbanov said in an interview with ANS TV channel. Construction of the Rasht-Astara (Iran) railway section is worth nearly $900 million, according to estimates of the Iranian side, head of the company said. He added that the Azerbaijani side has not yet conducted examination of these calculations. "We have asked Iran to provide us with the documentation on the project, and we will submit it to the ministries of finance, economy and emergency situations of Azerbaijan," Gurbanov said. "An evaluation will be conducted, and its results will be presented to the president of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani side expressed its readiness to provide financial support to Iran in the construction of this section." "President of Iran Hassan Rouhani is expected to visit Azerbaijan August 8-10, and until that time, we will try to prepare the necessary documents and protocols to provide financial assistance regarding this section, and these protocols will be signed between the two countries if the president of Azerbaijan approves them." The form of financing sources depends on the outcome of the negotiations, Gurbanov said. "It will depend on the conditions of the agreement whether the sources of financing will be in the form of a loan [which will be provided by Azerbaijan] to Iran, whether Iran will attract a foreign loan or it will be a loan attracted within the country," Gurbanov added. "All the three options are being considered, and the one which suits the two sides will be chosen," he said. "Iran wants the companies of the two countries to work together and on equal rights. However, there are options of working within a joint venture or holding an international tender." The Qazvin-Rasht-Astara railway is a part of the North-South transport corridor. The North-South international transport corridor will link Northern Europe and South-East Asia. It will serve as a bridge to connect the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia. Initially, three to five million tons of cargos per year will be transported via the corridor, and the volume will increase up to 10-12 million tons in the future, according to preliminary estimates. --- Follow the authors on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 Trend: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is ready to support Azerbaijan's financial sector improvement. This was announced at the meeting of members of the board of directors of Azerbaijan's Financial Market Supervisory Body with the ADB delegation headed by the bank's Executive Director Mathew Fox, Azerbaijan's Financial Market Supervisory Body said in a message June 13. The ADB executive director at the meeting stated about support for important steps taken to ensure stability of Azerbaijan's financial sector and the recently implemented reforms. Cooperation framework of Azerbaijan's Financial Market Supervisory Body with the ADB was discussed at the meeting. Azerbaijan's Financial Market Supervisory Body was created by the decree of the country's president dated February 3, 2016 in order to ensure stability of financial sector and improve oversight mechanisms in this area. Liban recently released his latest "Noob Talk" Podcast where at the end, we discussed what we'd most love to see at this years E3. Naturally, being a massive fan of Anime, for me Berserk was the first thing to spring to mind. Little did I know however, just how possible that actually was. Here's why.... Start by watching episode 1 of the original Anime, all the way up until chapter 19. Episode 1 is optional as it actually takes place after the Golden Age Arc, but I left it here because it sets the scene for Berserk well. From Episode 19 jump to chapter 37 of the Manga only, before jumping back to episode 20 of the Anime. Continue watching up until the 17:51 mark of episode 22 and then immediately switch to chapter 54, page 20 of the Manga, all the way up until the end of chapter 69 (the Princess is here because she actually smuggled Guts into the tower to make the rescue, which is not covered in the Anime). Now, go back to episode 23 at the 4:16 mark and watch to Episode 25 (the final episode). At 18:20 you should immediately switch to the third movie at 1:22:48, stopping at 1:30:00 before moving on to chapter 88 of the Manga, viewing pages 17-26. From here, jump back to film/movie 3 at 1:30:00 (exactly where you paused it from before) and watch up to 1:40:45 mark, before moving onto chapter 92 of the Manga and continuing up to the end of Chapter 94. From here, jump back to Chapter 000a all the way up to Chapter 000h and then finally switch back to Chapter 95 of the Manga once more, reading from here onwards. Over Twitter last July, Platinum Games' Kenji Saito (the guy responsible for the recent Transformers; Devastation title and the Director of Metal Gear Rising) has said that he'd like to make a Kill la Kill or Berserk title. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, Berserk is going through a pretty big revival project right now. Universal have bought the rights to it. The next chapter of the Manga will release June 24th (11 days from this article) and go back to being released on a monthly basis. The latest volume (Vol.38) of the printed Manga will be released worldwide around this time also, with the new Anime airing in Japan from the 1st July on WOWOW, scheduled to have 24 episodes, covering both the Black Swordsman and Conviction Arcs, which both take place immediately after the end of the previously released Golden Age Arc. Kenji Saito's original Tweet last year. Berserk actually had two games released many years ago. One was for the Dreamcast (Sword of the Berserk - Gut's Rage) and the other, released in Japan only was for the PS2. This covered the Millennium Falcon Arc, which is more or less where the Manga is currently at. You can find footage of both titles on YouTube. Since then, there has also been an Android/ios game titled "Berserk: Raging Waves of Mercenaries", though little is known about this and all I can provide is this link here. Over Twitter last July, Platinum Games' Kenji Saito (the guy responsible for the recent Transformers; Devastation title and the Director of Metal Gear Rising) has said that he'd like to make a Kill la Kill or Berserk title. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, Berserk is going through a pretty big revival project right now. Universal have bought the rights to it. The next chapter of the Manga will release June 24th (11 days from this article) and go back to being released on a monthly basis. The latest volume (Vol.38) of the printed Manga will be released worldwide around this time also, with the new Anime airing in Japan from the 1st July on WOWOW, scheduled to have 24 episodes, covering both the Black Swordsman and Conviction Arcs, which both take place immediately after the end of the previously released Golden Age Arc. More importantly however, KOEI/Tecmo (the company behind the recent Arslan Senki title, Dynasty Warriors and Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom) have a mysterious website up in place, promising for the most brutal Musou game yet. For a while now there's also been talk that they've been working on a title for both Japanese and Western fans alike. Although I'd much prefer a Berserk title to be more akin to Devil May Cry with a blend of combat and QTE's from God of War, if this is what KOEI/Tecmo have planned with a new Warriors game, I just hope it's not like your typical button mashing version of Dynasty Warriors. It needs the atmosphere, deep combat and gritty visuals. Still, they did a good job in keeping true to the visual style of Arslan Senki and Attack on Titan. This could be their chance to shine! The Armour and Weapon set in Dragons Dogma. If I were to choose a developer to be in charge of Berserk I'd personally want Platinum Games behind it, though Capcom are just as capable. We'll see what happens, but with only a couple of hours left until KOEI/Tecmo and Omega Forces reveal, we'll soon discover what their next project is. The colour scheme is the same as Berserks "Brand of Sacrifice" logo and although that might just be coincidence, If I were to choose a developer to be in charge of Berserk I'd personally want Platinum Games behind it, though Capcom are just as capable. We'll see what happens, but with only a couple of hours left until KOEI/Tecmo and Omega Forces reveal, we'll soon discover what their next project is. The colour scheme is the same as Berserks "Brand of Sacrifice" logo and although that might just be coincidence, you can view the website here UPDATE - New Berserk Game is official and Personally, I feel this date is just a date as to when we can expect to see the next update. It's most likely when the official Facebook page goes live, though if we're lucky we'll see a little more of the title at Sony's E3 conference. With the teaser stating 2016, it's looking very likely this new Berserk title will be out soon, but in the meantime check out the teaser below: Berserk's official game Twitter page In the West (that's us), Berserk will be releasing on PS4, PS Vita and Steam. In the East (Japan etc), Berserk will be releasing on PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. No news on other formats at this time, so it's looking to be Sony exclusive with the exception of Steam. How do you feel about a new Berserk title? Is this something you'd be looking forward to, or do you see it as just another cash in? Let us know in the comments below, or hit me up on twitter You can also find us on our Social Networks below: http://www.facebook.com/weknowgamers http://www.twitter.com/weknow_gamers With Berserk now making a pretty big comeback, I feel now is the time to release a new game. The hype is here. The fans are present. All we need now is a good game with the original English voice cast returning. Hopefully the same can be said for the Anime as it's one of those rare occasions where the Dub is better than watching the series Subbed, but perhaps now Kentaro Miura will finally get the love and praise he's deserved for so long.- New Berserk Game is official and according to the official website , is scheduled for release in just 10 days time! 23/06/16Personally, I feel this date is just a date as to when we can expect to see the next update. It's most likely when the official Facebook page goes live, though if we're lucky we'll see a little more of the title at Sony's E3 conference. With the teaser stating 2016, it's looking very likely this new Berserk title will be out soon, but in the meantime check out the teaser below:Berserk's official game Twitter page can be found here In the West (that's us), Berserk will be releasing on PS4, PS Vita and Steam. In the East (Japan etc), Berserk will be releasing on PS4, PS3 and PS Vita. No news on other formats at this time, so it's looking to be Sony exclusive with the exception of Steam.How do you feel about a new Berserk title? Is this something you'd be looking forward to, or do you see it as just another cash in? Let us know in the comments below, or hit me up on twitter @CaptainCortez You can also find us on our Social Networks below: With the Souls series (Dark Souls, Demon's Souls and even Bloodborne to some degree) taking a lot of inspiration from Kentaro Miura's Dark Fantasy masterpiece, Capcom including the full armour and weapon set for Guts and Griffith in Dragon's Dogma (yea, I was surprised to learn of this also) and a new Anime coming out on the 1st July in Japan, it's clear there are a lot of Berserk fans still out there.Although Kentaro Miura is seen as lazy by some, I have a lot of respect for him. The level of detail he puts into each chapter, the character development and the fact he's been able to keep the Manga running since 1989 is both insane and an incredible achievement. Not only that, Berserk is currently going through a huge revival process, with Miura himself overseeing the upcoming Anime!The original Berserk Manga has been running since 1989 (I was 2), the original Anime aired in 1997 and then between 2012-2013, we had three new movies - Egg of the King and The Battle for Doldrey in 2012, The Advent in 2013. To make three movies 16 years after the original Anime could be seen as madness, but at the same time, there's usually method behind madness and this is what I'll be elaborating on a little further down the line.In my opinion, Berserk has the most unexpected and shocking turn of events in Anime history. It's incredibly dark, gritty, tragic and thought provoking. The story-telling is phenomenal and it's not hard to see why it's loved as much as it is. Each individual character has something to offer. They all have a personality, each with their own feelings and desires. It's the soundtrack and how everything all plays out which makes Berserk so perfect to me, though.Check out a trailer for the original Anime below:For me, the movies were very disappointing because although they looked nice, there was something wrong/off with the animations frame rate and all three films seemingly lacked any kind of atmosphere. I didn't find myself immersed in the story like I did in the Anime. There was no real development of feelings between characters, there was nothing to relate to and the story was presented as a series of different, individual events, rather than a constantly ongoing plot. On the up side, the ending did go beyond the original Anime run by around 15 minutes or so, though that didn't justify a soulless triple movie remake of the Golden Age Arc already covered within the original Anime run. It's too generalistic to say everybody hated it, but for most fans, this was a wasted opportunity.I'm quite thankful, because I only just discovered Berserk at the start of this year. I didn't have to wait years for further chapters to release because everything was there, waiting for me to read and watch as soon as I'd finished the original Anime. Code Geass used to be my all-time favourite Anime. I truly felt that nothing could beat it until I discovered Berserk, which hacked it straight down to second place, claiming the throne for itself. I've watched and read everything official to Berserk. I'm up to date with the Manga. I regularly re-watch episodes of the Anime, I have my own theories on how the Behelit works, who Skull Knight really is, what relation Guts has to him, whether Griffith is really Griffith anymore. All sorts. I've even got a Dark Souls 3 Griffith character I regularly play online with my friend who controls his own Guts creation. The hair and armour isn't exact, but you can get pretty close to them in looks if you try hard enough.I'm a very social person. I love to engage with people who share similar interests to myself. I feel anyone with a stigma towards Anime is missing out and spent two hours of my time linking the Anime, Manga and films together for new people just discovering the Berserk series to really experience Berserk to its fullest. For those of you interested, here's my guide to watching Berserk for a more complete experience before switching over to the Manga:It may seem like a bit of work, but trust me on the guide above. If someone told me this to begin with, my experience would likely be untouchable by anything else. Now though, I'm going to go into a little more detail as to why I believe we'll be getting a new Berserk game soon. If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now! Submit DERIDDER -- The Beauregard Parish Police Jury will meet Tuesday. Here are the agendas: PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Regular Monthly Police Jury Meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at 201 W 2nd Street, DeRidder, in the Police Jury Meeting Room at 6 o'clock p.m. to transact official business of the Police Jury in Regular Session according to the following agenda: BEAUREGARD PARISH POLICE JURY REGULAR SESSION JUNE 14, 2016 6 p.m. AGENDA: Invocation Pledge of Allegiance Amendments to the Agenda Approval of Minutes PUBLIC PARTICIPATION Hold Public Hearing on Revised Subdivision Ordinance introduced at the Official Police Jury meeting held on May 10, 2016 and published May 13, 2016. Consideration of adoption of the Revised Subdivision Ordinance # 1-2016 ANNOUNCEMENTS Notice of Public Hearing - FY 2015 CAPER - will be held June 9, 2016 at 1:30 p.m. in the meeting room of the Louisiana Housing Corporation located at 2415 Quail Drive, Baton Rouge. Watermelon Festival, June 23 - 25 2016 at the fairgrounds Notice of Public Hearing - FY 2017 Consolidate Annual Action Plan - will be held on June 9, 2016 at 1:30 p.m. in the V. Jean Butler Board Room of the Louisiana Housing Corporation located at 2415 Quail Drive, Baton Rouge. Regions 7 Meeting, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016 at 6 p.m. in Lake Charles. CHAIRMAN'S COMMITTEE REPORT (S) A) FINANCE - Teddy Welch Approval to Transfer $1.8 million from Solid Waste to Beauregard Parish Work Zones Resolution to give signing authority to N.R. "Rusty" Williamson, S.E. "Teddy" Welch, Robert "Bobby" Hennigan and Shantel Alleman B) ROAD & BRIDGE - Gerald McLeod 1. Approval to Advertise: a. Road Gravel b. Pea Gravel c. CRS2 d. SS1 2. Approval to advertise road improvement project in Ward 2 and Ward 6 C) LEGISLATIVE - Carlos Archield Approval of Official Journal for Beauregard Parish Police Jury D) PERSONNEL - Ronnie Libick E) ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - John Stebbins Approval for the BPPJ to work in conjunction with the City of DeRidder and the Chamber of Commerce, in hiring a Director of Economic Development to work for the entire parish, at a cost of $15,000 per year. F) BUILDING & GROUNDS - Jerry Shirley G) INSURANCE - Ronnie Jackson WAYS & MEANS - Mike Harper LANDFILL SOLID WASTE - Elvin Holliday SECRETARY/TREASURER'S REPORT ADMINISTRATOR'S REPORT A. Approval of May 2016 Emergency Work Orders PERSONNEL COMMITTEE MEETING PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that there will be a Personnel Committee Meeting, Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at the Police Jury at 2:30 p.m. for the following purposes: War Memorial Civic Center Board - Appoint Johnnie Howell Water Works District #2 Board - Appoint Carroll Johnson Discussion of the Police Jury Policy Manual Updates Any Other Business LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE MEETING PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that there will be a Legislative Committee Meeting, Tuesday June 14, 2016 at the Police Jury at 3 p.m. for the following purposes: Ron Smith - Cleco, Discussion of Franchise Agreement Any Other Business BUILDING AND GROUNDS COMMITTEE MEETING PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that there will be a Building and Grounds Committee Meeting, Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at the Police Jury at 3:30 p.m. for the following purposes: Lori Veazey - Beauregard Parish Tourist Commission, Discuss the ribbon cutting of the Beauregard Parish Historic Jail Any Other Business FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that there will be a Finance Committee Meeting, Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at the Police Jury at 4 p.m. for the following purpose: Approval of the Accounts Payable and Payroll Registers for May 2016 Review 2016 Budget Any Other Business. ROAD & BRIDGE COMMITTEE MEETING PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that there will be a Road & Bridge Committee Meeting, Tuesday, June 14, 2016 at the Police Jury at 5 p.m. for the following purposes: Approval of Subdivision Rose Estates Southern Legacy Review Equipment needs for Parishwide Any Other Business VERNON PARISH -- The Vernon Parish Police Jury will meet at 5 p.m. Monday. Here's the agenda: AGENDA COMMITTEE MEETING VERNON PARISH POLICE JURY PARISH GOVERNMENT COMPLEX BUILDING 300 S. 3RD STREET, 2ND FLOOR LEESVILLE, LOUISIANA MONDAY, JUNE 13, 2016 5 p.m. 1. Call to Order 2. Invocation 3. Pledge of Allegiance 4. Roll Call 5. Visitors 1. Sherry Wood, Tilley Road 6. Public Comment 7. Committee Reports: 1. Capital Properties 2. Econ. Development & Planning 3. Equipment 4. Finance 5. Fire Protection and Solid Waste 6. Permit & Claims 7. Personnel 8. Road Maintenance & Construction 9. Veterans Affairs 10. Ways & Means 11. Wildlife & Lakes 8. Notice is hereby given that at its meeting to be held on Monday, Aug. 8, 2016 at 4:45 p.m. at the Parish Government Complex Building, 300 S. 3rd Street, Second Floor, Leesville, Louisiana, the Police Jury of the Parish of Vernon, State of Louisiana, plans to consider adopting a resolution ordering and calling an election to be held in the Parish of Vernon to authorize the issuance of general obligation bonds. 9. Discuss adopting a resolution authorizing the jury to finance a new 2017 Chevrolet 1500 series pickup truck for District 2 from Courtesy Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (state contract) with Sabine State Bank; $22,856.62. 10. Discuss adopting a resolution authorizing the jury to finance a new 2017 Chevrolet 1500 series pickup truck for District 6 from Courtesy Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (state contract) with Sabine State Bank; $22,856.62. 11. Discuss adopting a resolution authorizing the jury to finance a 2016 Backhoe for District 3 from Doggett (state contract) with Sabine State Bank; $99,718.32. 12. Discuss adopting a resolution fully accepting Bar 71 Lane, District 11 Ward 1, into the Parish Road Maintenance System, beginning at Gill Hunt Road and ending at the dead end (approximately 1,325 feet). This road has been in the system for one year and meets the requirements of Chapter 17 Section 23 of the Vernon Parish Code of Ordinances. 13. Discuss adopting a resolution approving the Multi-Jurisdictional Agreement between the six-parish CEO Consortium of Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jeff Davis & Vernon Parishes, stipulating the actions, responsibilities, etc. for the services provided as a result of the funds allocated through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (July 22, 2014), Public Law 113-128. (ROLL CALL) 14. Discuss adopting a resolution to approve and accept Change Order No. 1 - Reconciliation for the LASTEP Water Line Extension Opel Davis Road Area Contract 2 Contracted Work (MA Project No. A8-13067-DA) for a decrease in the contracted amount of $39,109.00 to reconcile contact quantities. 15. Discuss adopting a resolution to authorize the parish to select the contractor with the lowest qualified quote for the construction of the new Arena Concession Stand, and to authorize the President and/or Administrator/Treasurer to accept and sign all necessary contracts or documents related to this project. 16. Discuss adopting a resolution authorizing the jury to approve Amendment #1 to the Agreement Between the State of Louisiana, Division of Administration, Office of Community Development and the Vernon Parish Police Jury (grant# B-06-DG-22-0001), and authorize the President and/or Administrator/Treasurer to sign all project documents. 17. Discuss entering into Cooperative Forest Road Agreement with the USDA, Forest Service, Kisatchie National Forest and authorize the President to sign the agreement. 18. Discuss holding a public hearing on Monday, July 18, 2016 at 10 a.m., during the regular Police Jury meeting, to hear public input on a proposed ordinance to move Voting Precinct 02/01 and 02/01A from the Anacoco Town Hall at 4973 Main Street to the Anacoco Community Center at 4955 Main Street. 19. Discuss authorizing payment of all invoices as authorized by the Finance Committee and authorize payment of all expenditures above the budgeted amount from Ward Maintenance and/or Construction accounts. 20. Adjourn. In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need special assistance, please contact Belinda S. Diehl, Parish Secretary, at 337-238-0324, describing the assistance necessary. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 Trend: Azerbaijan condemns the heinous shooting perpetrated in Orlando, the US, on June 12, which resulted in numerous human causalities and injuries, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry, told Trend June 13. Azerbaijan extends heartfelt condolences to the people of the US and the families of those who lost their lives, and wishes a speedy recovery to the wounded, added Hajiyev. Fifty people were killed and 53 wounded in shooting at the crowded Pulse gay nightclub in the heart of Orlando, Florida, June 12. The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club with armored cars after a three-hour siege. This became the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Advertisement By Chris Skates Jun. 13, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY By Chris Skates Jun. 13, 2016 | 11:24 AM | PADUCAH, KY On Sunday, the day before the anniversary of D-Day, I visited the National World War II museum in New Orleans. A visit to this facility should be required for every voting citizen. I am a small government guy but I would support government subsidized trips to this museum (and two or three other key historic locations) as a prerequisite for receiving ones high school diploma. I thought the museum did an incredible job of making it clear that WWII was a confrontation between freedom and tyranny without glorifying war. The curators and designers did not play the current Presidents game of apologizing for Americas role in saving the world from tyranny neither did they depict Americas role as a panacea. One cannot visit the exhibits without realizing that in many cases even our most celebrated generals were capable of abject stupidity. That is not an overt criticism but instead an acknowledgement of the chaos of war and the endless possibilities for murphys law to manifest itself, often repeatedly in the same battle, under such extreme conditions of duress. You dont need me to reiterate the battles or the history for you here; rather I want to focus on some personal takeaways. First, I am quite well read on the subject of WWII. I had the honor of getting to know my first WWII veteran as a boy of eleven or twelve. My dad was a history buff as well and turned me on to books about the war. I devoured many. As an adult, when I went to get a company physical in 1994, I took great pains to make an appointment with a physician who I knew had jumped with the 82nd at St. Mere Eglise. As soon as the gray haired old doctor walked into the room I said, You jumped with the 82nd at St. Mere didnt you. His back was too me and he froze. He turned slowly and said, How in hell did you know that? I told him I saw his name in the glossary of Ryans book The Longest Day. I was in his office for a good half hour as he told stories of the war without further prompting. His waiting room was full of patients. At the end he said, Aww hellyou look fine to me, and signed off on my physical. That time was a highlight of my life. I say all that to say thisthe museum made me realize, I dont know a damned thing. There are displays there of individual fighting men, winners of the medal of honor, the bronze star and navy cross who performed utterly mind-blowing feats of heroism and I had never read of any of them prior to my visit. Sure there were a few I had read about in other books but the museum humbles you. It makes you realize that the war was such a massive effort that one can barely scratch the surface of understanding the individual courage, sacrifice and the human toll of the war. The film Beyond All Boundaries is extremely moving and powerful and is a must see for visitors. But what moved me even more were the uniforms on display. There are uniforms, actually worn during the war and donated by vets or their families, throughout the museum, complete with biographical information and the service history of the original wearer. I was struck by how small they all looked. I havent looked it up but the average weight of these fighting men couldnt have been more than 150 pounds. As I said my son toured with me. He is 22 and slim. Many of the uniforms would have been tight on him and then it hit me, he would have been called Pops or something similar by many of the eighteen and nineteen year olds that stormed beaches from Normandy to Iwo Jima or manned ships at war. Despite all the emotions I felt that day, awe, wonder, abject sadness and horror. I left the museum with one overriding feeling that hasnt left me even now, five days laterregret. I cant stop asking myself how did the culture of the West go from that level of valor and selflessness and determination, to one that has nominated Clinton and Trump? How is it that my generation is in the active process of allowing what one writer called the unholy trinity of media, entertainers, and leftist university professors, to do that which our grandparents would not allow Hitler, or Mussolini, or Stalin to do? Namely, the dismantling of the greatest nation on earth and its civic and ethical foundations while leftists replace it with the same species of tyranny that those dictators fostered? How is it, that as of this writing, one state is passing a low to mandate fascism against those who wont use the absurd and invented transgender pronouns while another has proposed a law to prosecute man-made climate change skeptics while the majority of people in the nation seem powerless to stop it and the US GOP led Congress fiddles. The whole thing is beyond repulsive. So who will lead us out of this no mans land? Will Trump? My God, will Hillary? It is past time for us to follow our grandparents example. Theres only one way out of this and thats right across the beachright at the metaphorical machine guns. Its time for brand new, multiple individual acts of valor. More on that in an upcoming column. Chris Skates is a Paducah resident, columnist and novelist who won the best historical fiction award from the Christian Writers Association for his first novel entitled The Rain. His second novel Going Green was compared by one critic to Grisham and Clancy. Chris has worked and traveled in an Al Quieda dominated region and was greatly enlightened during a private meeting with the son of the founder of Hamas Mossab Hassan Yousef. Chris is available to speak and can be reached at chris@chrisskates.com. One arrested, two to the hospital after hit-and-run crash on I-24 in Christian County Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required. Your Full Name: (optional) Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 13, 2016 | 09:00 AM | FULTON COUNTY, KY A Fulton man was arrested on numerous charges after leading police on a short pursuit Sunday. The Fulton County Sheriff's Office was conducting a highway safety check on US Hwy 51 when a vehicle approaching from the north abruptly stopped in the middle of the road and turned around. The vehicle exited on Bowden Road then proceeded east on State Route 924. Deputies said they pursued the vehicle for about three miles before the driver, 31-year-old Zachery D Winters, of Fulton was forced to stop. Winters was arrested and charged with fleeing or evading police, two counts of wanton endangerment, operating on a suspended or revoked operators license, operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs, reckless driving and disregarding a stop sign. There were also two active arrest warrants out of Obion County, TN that were served on Winters. He was booked into in the Fulton County Detention Center. By West Kentucky Star Staff Jun. 13, 2016 | 06:36 AM | FULTON COUNTY, KY A one-vehicle wreck Friday in Fulton County left one person injured. According to the Fulton County Sheriff's Office, the crash happened around 5:30 pm on Jeffress Road. Deputies said 24-year-old Zachary Kelly of Fulton was traveling south on Jeffress Road when he lost control of his vehicle. The vehicle ran off the road, traveled up an embankment, came back onto the road and hit a concrete embankment. Deputies said Kelly was ejected from the vehicle and thrown approximately 30 feet. He was found unconscious lying face down in a ditch. Kelly was airlifted to a Cape Girardeau hospital for further treatment. Police said Kelly was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident. By MSU Public Relations Jun. 12, 2016 | 10:28 PM | MURRAY, KY The Murray State University Office of LGBT Programming, along with the First Presbyterian Church of Murray and First Christian Church of Murray, are hosting a community candlelight vigil to remember victims from Saturday's mass shooting in Orlando. The vigil will take place at the First Presbyterian Church, located at 1601 Main Street in Murray, tonight at 8:00 pm. Members of the entire Murray State campus community are welcome to participate in this remembrance progra "On behalf of the Murray State Community, our hearts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims of this weekend's shooting in Orlando," President Bob Davies said. "We are deeply saddened by the senseless act of horrific violence which occurred, needlessly taking innocent lives. These acts must remind us, empower us, to reach out and embrace our neighbor and realize we are all in this together and we can not tolerate hate and prejudices. During this time, it is imperative that we come together and learn from one another, support one another, and respect and embrace, the differences we have as it is through that lens of reflection, we find the commonalities in the hope for our future that unites us." Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 Trend: YARAT Contemporary Art Space presented 300 Words on Resistance - a group exhibition with emerging contemporary artists in conversation with modern Azerbaijani masters. 300 Words on Resistance draws from the belief that resistance is both personal and political. It is an essential social attitude in building civil society. Seven emerging Azerbaijani artists explore their perspective on resistance, introducing themes pre-occupying the youth of the country, such as gender relations, cultural stereotypes and socio-political uncertainty. The newly commissioned works explore both general and individual struggles facing the Azerbaijani society today. These artists carry the voices of their generation, through times of economic turbulence and geo-political unrest, into the new century of capitalism and social awareness. Throughout the exhibition, the new works were marked by and put into conversation with older works of the generation of artists from the 60s. The modern works, many of which have never been exhibited before, defined resistance during the Soviet era by going against the mainstream of Socialist-Realism and subverting propaganda art. These modern masters continue to act as a solid foundation and a source of inspiration for the younger generation of artists throughout the country. Sitara Ibrahimova and Farhad Farzaliyev subvert the prevalent gender specific stereotypes through irony and humour in their video works, Reflector (2016) and What a Nice Place to Eat and Drink (2016). A similar urge to break free is expressed in a Non-Conformist painting by Talat Shihaliyev, Portrait of a Young Man (1961). These works are opposed by the seeming stillness of Tahir Salahov's Homage to the Mothers (1986). The passing of time in this work continues in Habib Saher's Waiting for Godot (2016), evoking a slow decay of traditional worldviews through art historical references. Resistance takes a phenomenological turn in Aida Mahmudova's Untitled (2016). Her new work made predominantly with gauze fabric, is a material expression of a personal struggle, which is shared with the viewer through its out of scale presence in the space. The sheer physicality of the installation finds its historical counterpart in the Expressionist work of Rasim Babayev, The Earth is Rich with Oil (1976). The idea of a private mental space breaking through into a public political realm manifests itself in the painting of Anvar Asgarov, To those Disappearing on the horizon (1985). The relation to public space finds contemporary commentary in the photographic works of Ilkin Huseynov, We Apologise for Temporary Inconvenience (2016), reflecting on the superficial facade of a city and society in continuous transition. The identity shifts evident in the architecture of Baku are mirrored in an ideological struggle explored in the work of Zamir Suleymanov, Claim (2016). As an end point of the exhibition, an unidentified black mountain marks a conflict that has defined the political reality of Azerbaijan as a nation-state since its independence in 1991. Further supported by a randomly generated top 20 playlist from Nagorno-Karabakh, Elturan Mammadov's Unidentified Heights (2016) are controversially juxtaposed with a call for peace in Boyukagha Mirzazade's 1945 (1976). This modern masterpiece suggests a timeless form of resistance - "". This exhibition was curated by Suad Garayeva-Maleki and Bjorn Geldhof. The exhibition was supported by works from Azerbaijan National Picture Galler. Artist Biographies: Eldar Aghamalov (b. 1954) graduated from A. Azimzade State Art College in 1971 and later obtained Monumental Paintings degree at the V.I. Surikov State Art Institute, Moscow in 1974-1980. He has been widely exhibited from 1978 including Baku, Moscow, London and Paris. He is vice-president of Baku Art Center and owner of Yeni Gallery. Aghamalov is a member of Artists Union of Azerbaijan since 1981 and Journalists Union of Kazakhstan since 2005. Anver Askerov (1940-2014) graduated from A. Azimzade State Art College in 1963 and from the Metal Faculty of St. Petersburg's V. Mukhina Industrial Institute of Arts in 1968. Although early stages of his art are related to industrial landscapes, it developed to be lyrical and elegant odes to the capital. Enver Askerov was awarded the title 'Honoured Artist of Azerbaijan' in 2000. Rasim Babayev (1927-2007) graduated from A. Azimzade State Art College in 1949. Pursuing further education, he graduated from Moscow's Surikov State Art Institute in 1956. With a distinct style and a vast oeuvre of paintings and graphics, he is regarded as one of Azerbaijan's most influential artists. Babayev has been exhibited in established institutions and various works feature in institutionalized collections such as The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; The Museum of Oriental culture, Moscow; and in many others. Farhad Farzaliyev (b.1989) is a multidisciplinary artist devoting his practice to investigating socio-cultural reality of Azerbaijan. He obtained his MFA at the Azerbaijan State Architecture and Construction University in Baku in 2012. Farzaliyev held his first solo show I Am Your Only Tiger at the YAY Gallery, Baku in 2016. Selected group exhibitions include 2015 Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Candy Mountains, Oil Shores, PERMM museum, 2014 Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival among the others. He is a member of the Artists' Union of Azerbaijan. Photographer Ilkin Huseynov (b.1988) predominantly works on prevailing social issues of modern Azerbaijan. He graduated from EFTI School of Photography in 2015 and is currently based in Madrid. Huseynov was a finalist of London Photography Festival, won a second place in the PowerHouse Books competition and was nominated for the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund. The artist is a co-founder of Riot Books, an independent Publishing House, specialised in Handmade Limited edition Artist's Books. Documentary photographer Sitara Ibrahimova (b.1984) devotes her practice to examining traditions, gender norms, and social pressures within Azerbaijani society. She obtained her bachelor's degree in Psychology from the Baku State University in 2004 and then graduated from the FAMU University in Prague with a diploma in Still Photography (2010). Her work has been exhibited at the 55th and 56th Venice Biennales; 2012 Tbilisi Photo Festival; 2009 Inter Photo Festival Camp in the Czech Republic; Museum of Modern Art, Moscow among others. Aida Mahmudova (b.1982) obtained her bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins College, London. Her paintings draw inspiration from landscape and architecture of Azerbaijan. She has held solo shows at the YAY Gallery, Baku; Leila Heller Gallery, New York; Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich among others. Group shows include in 55th and 56th Venice Biennales; Louise Blouin Foundation, London; Vienna Art Fair The New Contemporary. Mahmudova is a founder of the non-profit organization YARAT, directed at supporting Azerbaijani arts scene. Elturan Mammadov (b.1990) is a self- taught photographer who draws inspiration from peculiarities of Azerbaijani life. He has participated in exhibitions including To Be Surprised, To Surprise, Artim, Baku; Candy Mountains, Oil Shores, PERMM museum; Moscow International Biennale for Young Art and Zavod contemporary art exhibition, Baku Air-Conditioning Plant Building amongst the others. Beyukaga Mirzazade (1921-2007) graduated from the Theatre-Scenery Department of the Baku Art School in 1939, where he was a student of the respected artist Azim Azimzade. He further pursued his education at the Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts. Mirzazade's practice consisted predominantly of paintings, graphics, scenography and large-scale sculptures. From 1946, he began to exhibit internationally and participating in major national, all-union and international exhibitions. The set designer on 20 separate shows, Mirzazade also gained a reputation as an excellent theatre set designer. In 1960, Mirzazade was a laureate of the Azerbaijan Republic's State Prize. Togrul Narimanbekov (1930-2013) trained at the A. Azimzade State Art College and the Vilnius Art Institute - graduating in 1950 and 1955 respectively. The same year he completed his further education, Narimanbekov became a member of the USSR's Union of Artists. Characteristic of his expressionist work was to draw inspiration from traditional Azeri folk tales, depicting them in rich, vibrant colours with an imbued rhythm. In 1980 he was granted with the USSR State Prize and in 1989 with the title of People's Artist of USSR. His monumental murals decorate the Azerbaijan Parliament Hall and Baku Puppet Theatre. Habib Saher (b.1986) is a Baku-based artist of Iranian descendant. He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in Sculpture from the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts. The artist is preoccupied with existential questions that he addresses in sculpture and installation art. In 2016 Saher held his first solo show This Too Shall Pass, ARTIM Baku. His group exhibitions include Semeni, Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku; Zavod, Baku Air-Conditioning Plant Building and Summer Group Show at the Seed Corn gallery, Berkeley, CA. Tahir Salahov (b.1928) graduated from the A. Azimzade State Art College in 1950 and later trained as a draughtsman in Moscow's Surikov Art Institute, graduating in 1957. His diploma piece won him early recognition and he was admitted in 1957 Moscow All-Union Art Exhibition. Regardless, Salahov came to be a pivotal representative of 'Severe Style' in Socialist Realism that aimed to subvert state-imposed cliches. The artist was granted USSR State Prize in 1968. Through 1968 to 1992 he served as the first secretary of the Artists Union of the USSR. Salahov is a member of the CIS Academy of Art, San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid and France Academy of Fine Arts. Talat Shikhaliyev (1928-1987) graduated from the A. Azimzade State Art College in 1951 and pursued further education internationally at the Kiev State Art Academy, which he graduated from in 1960. Two years later, the artist began participating in numerous international exhibitions. Shikhaliyev received his first solo show in 1976 in a gallery named after V.Samadova. In 1964, he became a member of Azerbaijan's and the USSR's Artists Unions and was eventually awarded the title of Honoured Artist. Trained as an economist, Zamir Suleymanov (b.1987) took up photography upon graduating from the university. His photo and video works observe the artist's minute surroundings to offer a commentary on Azerbaijan's socio-cultural reality. Suleymanov has participated in numerous shows both in Azerbaijan and abroad including To Be Surprised, To Surprise, Artim, Baku; Sharjah Biennial of Islamic Arts, the GRID International Photography Festival, Amsterdam; IV Moscow Biennale for Young Art among others. He is a member of the Union of Photographers of Azerbaijan. Moreover, YARAT Contemporary Art Space presented Little Lies - an exhibition with works of David Claerbout (Belgium) and Soren Thilo Funder (Denmark). Little Lies is a journey through a network of white lies, disillusionment and fabricated histories. The exhibition confronts the two main political narratives of the 20th century, with the deception in everyday images, constructed personal stories and false metaphors. Little Lies belong to our everyday; they establish our understanding of a socio-political reality and influence our historical awareness. Through a selection of works of the two artists the exhibition considers the boundaries of our physical reality and how its representation can highlight social ambiguities. This exhibition is a conversation of six works, three of which are continuously looped. Breathing Bird (2012), by David Claerbout, is a poetic and treacherous image that misleads and confuses the viewer. Its small scale is opposed to the monumentality of Oil Workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain (2013). This work subjects the viewer to a soulless gaze, trapped in a constructed mise-en-scene. It questions an economic reality based largely on oil and its social impact on a population in-wait. The lifelessness of the Oil Workers is opposed by effortless vitality in In This Very Moment (Antoine) (2014), by Soren Thilo Funder. Here a young boy obliviously dances on rollerblades on a field in Verdun, a place known as a brutal battlefield of WWI. These works raise a political awareness, while evoking the endlessness and inescapability of time and memory. Sequentially presented throughout the space, the three other works evoke a sense of history through make-belief. The works of Soren Thilo Funder employ cinematic tricks to suggest historical narratives. The Cosmonaut (I don't see any God up here) (2013) uses signifiers from the collective imaginary and deliberately subverts them through false constructions. The same tactics are further complicated in Swerve (You're Gonna Die Up There) (2016) by adding an element of popular associations, through the history of cinema, while exposing the technical mechanisms behind his own storytelling. Funder's works thereby force the viewer to recognise the white lies, which are continuously denied in favour of constructed images and stories. Opposed to Funder, in Travel-1996-2013, David Claerbout allows the illusion to further expand and engulf the viewer. Made over a period of ten years, the work is a digital construction of an ever deepening and elusive forest. The full submersion of the senses is violently broken down as the camera pans out to reveal a plain sub-urban landscape. It voices a critique of a singular perspective, manifested through the inevitability of betrayal. Little Lies enchants and disappoints. It draws from our need for confirmation and exposes our human vulnerability. In a society of false constructs it calls out to our senses and urges us to recognize the white lies embedded in our daily reality. This exhibition was curated by Suad Garayeva-Maleki and Bjorn Geldhof. Produced with the support of Vidi-Square, Belgium. Artist Biographies: David Claerbout (B. 1969) currently lives and works in Antwerp and Berlin. Having developed a technique of pictorial 3D, he is at the forefront of the discourse exploring confluences in representation, photography, film and digital technology. Recent years have seen his work honoured with prizes and numerous solo exhibitions in Europe and North America. Recent shows include a retrospective at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Belgium, and the touring exhibition 'The Shape of Time', which travelled between 2007 and 2009 to the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts; the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland; the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver; and the De Pont Museum for Contemporary Art, Netherlands. Soren Thilo Funder (B. 1979) lives and works in Copenhagen. His works are formal investigations of the power relations of modern day society. He graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and The School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Previous exhibitions include solo presentations at Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Tranen Contemporary Art Center and Overgaden - Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen. He was represented at the 19th Biennale of Sydney, 1st Copenhagen Art Festival, International Biennial of Visual Art - "After The Future", 12th Istanbul Biennial, 2nd International Moscow Biennial for Young Art, Manifesta 8 - Parallel Events and 6th International Liverpool Biennial. YARAT is an artist-founded, not-for-profit art organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan, established by Aida Mahmudova in 2011. YARAT (which means 'create' in Azerbaijani) is dedicated to contemporary art with a long-term commitment to creating a hub for artistic practice, research, thinking and education in the Caucasus, Central Asia and surrounding region. YARAT comprises the YARAT Art Centre, ARTIM project space, YARAT Studios, YAY Gallery and an extended educational programme. YARAT Art Centre, a 2000m converted Soviet-era naval building, opened in March 2015 and is the organisation's main exhibition space. The exhibition programme features new commissions by artists responding to the region. It supports and provides access to artists from the Caucasus, Central Asia and surrounding region, while engaging and introducing established, international artists. The Centre is also home to YARAT's collection, which is exhibited in the space once a year. In October 2015, YARAT opened ARTIM, a central, accessible and dynamic space in Baku's Old City. ARTIM (meaning 'progress' in Azerbaijani) shows experimental practices and new work by emerging Azeri art professionals (selected through open call) and the international artists from the residency programme. It features 12 small-scale projects each year. YAY Gallery is a commercial gallery that opened in 2012 in order to further support arts infrastructure in Azerbaijan. The gallery shows mid-career and established Azerbaijani artists both locally and abroad. Yay (meaning "share" in Azerbaijani) shares all proceeds from sales of work between the artists and YARAT. In 2016 YARAT launched a renewed residency programme. Aimed at developing young Azerbaijani voices and emerging international artists, the focus is on new, innovative practices and artists with an interest in the region. The residency programme is based at YARAT Studios, which has 11 spaces for artists. Education has been at the heart of YARAT's activities since its creation. With a dedicated public programme, including workshops, lectures, screenings and a specific programme for artist residencies, YARAT aims to give access to broad audiences of all ages. The public programme invests proactively in building communities and nurturing a wider understanding of, and participation in, contemporary art. By The Associated Press By The Associated Press Jun. 12, 2016 | 06:25 PM | LOUISVILLE, KY Louisville police say an officer is hospitalized after being shot during a foot chase and a suspect is being sought. Louisville Police Chief Steve Conrad tells media outlets that Officer Kyle Carroll was wearing a bulletproof vest when he was shot in the chest Saturday night. Conrad says Carroll was taken to the University of Louisville Hospital where his condition is stable. Conrad says police are "very, very hopeful" for Carroll's recovery. Carroll was driving in his patrol car when he recognized the suspect from a previous arrest. Conrad says the suspect turned away and eventually took off running. Carroll began a foot pursuit before being shot. Conrad identified the shooting suspect as 22-year-old Jacquan Lamont Crowley. Louisville police spokeswoman Alicia Smiley says Carroll is white and Crowley is black. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 Trend: The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway construction is under completion, Javid Gurbanov, head of Azerbaijan Railways JSC, said in an interview with ANS TV channel. As for the construction delay, Gurbanov said that there is too much unforeseen work, additional costs. "The work is being conducted in difficult climatic conditions," he said. "In fact, the work has been completed in Georgia." Gurbanov also said that the work has been completed in Turkey by 80 percent. "The railway will stretch 85 kilometers on the territory of Turkey and this is not a big problem for the country," he said. "The rest work is likely to be finished by late 2016 and we will be able to transport the cargo by diesel locomotives." Gurbanov stressed that he intends to hold a meeting in connection with the project with Turkish Minister of Transport, Shipping and Communications Ahmet Arslan. While commenting on the Great Silk Road project, Gurbanov stressed that while crossing the territory of Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, this route is expanding the way to Europe. "The Europe-China trade turnover hits about 100 million tons," he said. "But this index will increase." Gurbanov also added that the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway will intensify this route. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. Azerbaijan has allocated a $775-million loan for the construction of the railway's Georgian section. The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) finances the project in accordance with the Azerbaijani president's decree 'On implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project activities', dated February 21, 2007. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Azad Hasanli - Trend: Ferrosilicon and ferrosilicon manganese will be produced at Azerbaijan's Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park (SCIP) starting from the second half of 2017, said the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry June 13. Construction of a plant has already begun by the Baku Non-Ferrous Metals & Ferroalloys Company, said the ministry. The plant is planned to produce 20,000 tons of ferrosilicon and 36,000 tons of ferrosilicon manganese annually. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree to create the Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park in December 2011. The Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park now includes the following residents: Azertexnolayn, SOCAR Polymer, Azerfloat, Azerbaijan Fibro Cement, SIKA, Baku Non-Ferrous Metals & Ferroalloys Company and MST Engineering. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Canadas top Mountie says the tough terrain of the southwestern Philippines may make it difficult to find the killers of two Canadian hostages, but it wont prevent the ongoing effort to bring them to justice. RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulsons commitment was affirmed Monday by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau following the death of Canadian Robert Hall, who had been held hostage by Abu Sayyaf since September 2015. Halls death comes after the execution in April of fellow Canadian John Ridsdel, who was snatched from a marina by Abu Sayyaf along with Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad and a Philippines national last September. Canadians Robert Hall, left, and John Ridsdel are seen in this still image taken from an undated militant video. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has "reason to believe'' that a Canadian man who was being held hostage by a militant group in the Philippines has been executed. He says Canadian officials are working closely with authorities in the Philippines to formally confirm Robert Hall's death at the hands of extremist group Abu Sayyaf, but has compelling reason to believe that published reports of the Calgary man's demise are true. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO via Youtube Paulson said the RCMP is helping local authorities give chase to the kidnappers, but as you know, its a very difficult piece of geography and its a very complex and challenging environment. The Mounties are conducting an extraterritorial investigation into the murders, meaning the perpetrators could one day face justice in Canada, he added. Trudeau said Canada holds Abu Sayyaf fully responsible for Halls death. We are more committed than ever to working with the government of the Philippines and international partners to pursue those responsible for these heinous acts and bring them to justice, however long it takes, Trudeau said. Officials in the Philippines confirmed Tuesday that Hall was beheaded by Abu Sayyaf militants. Presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma issued a statement condemning Halls the brutal and senseless murder. This latest heinous crime serves to strengthen our governments resolve to put an end to this reign of terror and banditry, he said. A militant video obtained by Philippine police officials showed Hall in an orange shirt and kneeling in front of a black Islamic State-style flag before he was killed in a jungle area. Abu Sayyaf operates mainly in the south of the Philippines, in the western Mindano and the Sulu Archipelago, but staged a major attack in 2004 that killed more than 100 people when militants bombed a ferry in Manila Bay. In recent years, Philippines security forces have attacked Abu Sayyaf, killing senior leaders and arresting others, but theyve been unable to end the groups kidnapping, extortion and terrorist activities. The Washington-based SITE Intelligence group said the militants released a video that showed Ridsdel, 68, being beheaded. The militants said they were angry the Canadian government had failed to meet their demands for ransom. In an echo of that tragedy, police in the southern Philippines were investigating the discovery Monday of a severed head, found in a plastic bag on a street in the Sulu province town of Jolo, to determine whether it was related to Halls murder. Our troops thought it was a bomb but found out it was a head, Police Supt. Junpikar Sitin told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the mainly poor Muslim region. Trudeau called terrorism a scourge on the world, and said all of Canada is mourning with Halls family. Too many families have endured the unspeakable grief the Hall family is feeling today because of these senseless acts of hatred, Trudeau said. On behalf of them and all Canadians, we mourn their loss and reassert our resolve. Trudeau said Philippines President Benigno Aquino has offered his condolences and regrets over the murder of Hall, whose family the prime minister praised. The Hall family has shown great strength of character in their resilience and are admirable in the face of this terrible situation, he said. This is a grievous loss for them and their country mourns with them. Hall was born in Calgary, but lived various places in Western Canada, and his career path took him from insurance sales to welding to acting, the Globe and Mail reported after he was taken hostage last September. Halls stepmother, Catherine Dafoe Hall, declined comment when contacted by The Canadian Press on Monday. Last month, the militants threatened to kill one of the two surviving western hostages on June 13 if their demands werent met. Another video released by the militants last month showed the three remaining hostages pleading for help from the Canadian and Philippines government as gun-wielding hooded captors stood behind them. Trudeau has steadfastly refused to entertain the thought of paying ransom to hostage takers. In the wake of Ridsdels execution, he said Canada would never pay a ransom for the hostages in the Philippines, and last month persuaded leaders of the other G7 countries to reiterate their opposition to paying ransoms. On Monday, he repeated that paying ransoms would put more Canadians in danger. Canada cannot and will not pay ransoms to terrorists, he said. We will not turn the Maple Leaf worn with pride by over three million Canadians abroad into targets. Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose also expressed shock and outrage at the news of Halls execution. The threat of radical and barbaric acts of terrorism remains very real. Canada is not immune to the danger presented by global terror networks, she said in a statement. We must stand in solidarity not just with the victims but with our allies around the world as we work together to disrupt and destroy these terrorist organizations. With files from Jim Bronskill and The Associated Press Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. QUEBEC Parti Quebecois house leader Bernard Drainville will announce his political resignation Tuesday. A source tells The Canadian Press the former Radio-Canada journalist will host a radio show for Quebec City station FM93. Drainville, 53, has been a member of the legislature since 2007 and is best known for introducing the former PQ governments doomed secular values charter. He recently said he wouldnt be joining the race to replace Pierre Karl Peladeau as the partys permanent leader. Peladeau resigned abruptly in May, citing family reasons. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A 41-year-old man is in hospital in stable condition after he hit the ditch in the vehicle he was driving near the intersection of Grassie Boulevard and Plessis Road at 12:30 a.m. Monday. Police said the man was driving a Hyundai Sonata eastbound on Grassie Boulevard approaching Plessis Road when he failed to stop at the intersection. The vehicle went into the west-side ditch and the man was injuried by the impact. BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Police remove a beer can from a vehicle that crashed into the ditch at the end of Grassie Boulevard where it meets Plessis Road. He was taken to hospital in critical condition but later Monday morning, was upgraded to stable condition. Alcohol and manner of driving are factors in the collision and charges will be laid, police said. ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Imagine moving thousands of kilometres in November to Winnipeg from a place where the average temperature is 27 C. Emita Mahamat knows what thats like. At the end of 2007, she moved here from Lagos, Nigeria with her husband, Donah, and their children. It was cold (and) it was scary, recalls Mahamat, 32. I had no idea how people dress. I had four kids at that time, and I had no experience (with) dressing them and going out. I kept just crying. ZACHARY PRONG / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Emita Mahamat, 32, works to make newcomers feel at home. The Canadian Muslim Womens Institute is one of the resources Mahamat accessed as she was adjusting to life in Canada. The organization promotes and empowers refugee and newcomer women and their families by offering a variety of support groups, an employment referral service, a small food pantry for clients in high-need circumstances, clothing and more. Mahamat first got involved at the institute attending its Moms and Tots program for mothers with preschool-age children. All the people coming here are newcomers, so it kind of felt like home, Mahamat says. I felt blessed that something like this (exists). Mahamat now volunteers at the institute three times a week, sometimes carrying six-month-old Azayne, the youngest of her six children, in a sling on her back while she works. I have the time to (volunteer) because Im home, she says, adding her volunteerism is an expression of her appreciation for those people who helped her get established in Winnipeg. Why not come out and do something to give back? While volunteering at the institute, Mahamat does a variety of different jobs. She sorts donations, cleans the office, occasionally works at the reception desk, assists newcomers with finding clothes and household items, and uses her Arabic language skills to translate. I enjoy my time all the time when I come here, she says. Coming here, seeing people and meeting new people who come here just makes my day. Mahamat appreciates it when the relationships she forms extend beyond the institute. Occasionally when she is out and about, she will run into someone she helped there. They know that I did help them maybe with translating or that kind of thing, she says. Mahamat is a great help, says Diane ONeil, the institutes executive director. Shes such a nice person, ONeil says. Shes absolutely delightful. Shes a hard worker (and) shes good to work with. When we need assistance at the front when its very busy, shes right there, assisting the clients coming in. Mahamat is one of more than 60 volunteers the institute relies on, and ONeil is currently looking for more people to help. Anyone interested can call the office 204-943-8539 or email ONeil at dianeoneil@cmwi.ca. Being the mother of six children and volunteering keeps Mahamat busy, but she hopes to return to school one day to become a teacher. I didnt get the opportunity to go to school when I (was) young, she says. My goal is to be educated. If you know a special volunteer, please contact aaron.epp@gmail.com. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A lawyer who helped three Manitobans obtain court orders granting them the right to die with the assistance of medical professionals says a new provincial policy allowing patients to bypass the court system is a welcome development. From a patients perspective, not having to go to court is very significant, Winnipeg lawyer John Myers said Monday. The new policy was adopted quietly by the provincial Justice Department late last week in the absence of a federal law governing medically assisted death. RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES A new provincial policy allows patients to bypass the court system when seeking a medically assisted death. Approval for assisted death in Manitoba will be carried out on a case by case basis until federal legislation is in place. A medical team will now present a comprehensive patient assessment to government lawyers instead of the courts for review. The lawyers will ensure the case meets the criteria laid down by the Supreme Court of Canada in its 2015 landmark ruling on assisted death. They will then issue a letter to the medical team assisting the patient, providing assurances they will not be prosecuted. Myers said the medical assessments dictated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba are rigorous. Nobody takes this lightly, he said. The patient has been thinking about this for some time. Theyre in intolerable suffering, theyve tried any number of treatment modalities, the palliative care, pain management and all of the things that are put in front of them and theyve come to a point where theyve said, No, Ive just had enough. Having to seek permission from the courts was an added burden to applicants and their families, Myers said. The Supreme Court of Canada gave Ottawa until June 6 to enact a law governing medical assistance in dying (MAID). The new Manitoba policy came into effect three days after Parliament missed the deadline. Bill C-14 has yet to receive Senate approval. The High Court ruled in February 2015 that physician-assisted death was not illegal for competent adults suffering from grievous and irremediable medical conditions that cause enduring suffering, and who consent to the termination of their life. In the absence of a federal law, rules established by provinces and provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons are filling the vacuum. Justice Minister Heather Stefanson said her department will ensure that the approval process does not become bogged down. It will be handled in a timely fashion, she said in an interview Monday. The only caveat the minister would place on this is that she is unsure what kind of cases are going to come forward. However, overall, she said her department will deal with applications in due course, and nothing will be held up. Liberal MLA Jon Gerrard, who is a medical doctor, said he is pleased medical teams will be given the protection they need. From what Ive seen so far, this new policy is essentially what I was asking for last week, the River Heights MLA said. The Supreme Court ruling spoke of physician-assisted death, provoking concern among other health-care professionals, such as nurses and pharmacists, that they may not be protected from prosecution. Manitoba courts, in the three cases of assisted dying theyve approved so far, have offered legal protection to the entire medical team. Susan Lessard-Friesen, registrar with the College of Pharmacists of Manitoba, said her organization will continue to ensure its members are protected. Were very supportive of pharmacists being involved in this process. We have been from the beginning. Were just trying to make sure that theyre fully protected from all angles, she said. larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Education Minister Ian Wishart assured the legislature Monday that midwifery students will have a program at the University of Manitoba this fall. But 14 students enrolled in the class of 2019 watched from the public gallery in dismay then issued a statement saying there is no funding for their program this fall. They declined to be interviewed. In their statement, the 14 women in the joint University College of the North and U of M program said: Without this funding, midwifery cannot become sustainable in Manitoba. The reason to why our program was picked to be excluded from funding is unknown to us, and has come as quite a shock, they said. Midwifery combines an understanding of cultural, social spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical aspects of a womans reproductive experience, they said. Midwives promote wellness in women, babies, and families and by extension, their community. Former premier Greg Selinger promised $844,000 in January for the joint program this coming fall, but there was no sign of it in the provincial budget that the Tories tabled last month. The money was among an additional 1.5 per cent in post-secondary grants that Selinger promised, but which the Conservatives have so far not funded. Wishart insisted during question period that he is not making cuts. We will be focused on getting the best value, he said. There have been no cuts to this program. There will be a program for them this fall. Wishart said any dissatisfaction with the midwifery program has been with how it was handled in the past. There have been some mismanagement issues, he said. Yes, we are committed. An aide said Wishart met with the students Monday and is working on a solution. However, Tory political staff said Wishart would not be made available for interviews Monday. Officials from UCN and the U of M could not be reached Monday. New Democrats Nahanni Fontaine and Wab Kinew pressed Wishart in question period. Indigenous midwives are a key health care provider, Fontaine said. She said that colonialism forced indigenous women to go south to give birth. The program was initially to provide midwifery services to northern indigenous communities. While the 14 midwifery students declined to be interviewed Monday, midwife Sarah Harpe said she was one of the first two graduates in 2014. The program began in Norway House and The Pas in 2006, Harpe said, but none of those students graduated, and there has not been a midwifery class taught at UCN since 2009, though the joint program is supposed to develop a satellite campus, she said. Right now, any northern student would have to come to Winnipeg, Harpe said. For someone who has to relocate, its quite expensive. Students are required to have a vehicle, Harpe said. When she was in the program, midwifery classes took place within the nursing building at the Fort Garry campus rather than at the faculty of health sciences on the downtown medical campus. Kinew implored Wishart to tell the house whether hes cut funding such as $1 million in capital support for the National Centre for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the U of M, or $440,000 to help students transfer credits among colleges and universities. He has not made cuts, Wishart reiterated. nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca Baku, Azerbaijan June 13 Trend: The disbursement rate of the World Bank's funds in Azerbaijan has reached 24 percent, said Azerbaijan's Finance Minister Samir Sharifov. He made the remarks during a ceremony dedicated to the expiration of the office term of the WB country manager for Azerbaijan, Larisa Leshchenko. Samir Sharifov noted that the disbursement rate of the World Bank's funds in Azerbaijan was 13 percent in 2012. Azerbaijan became a WB member in 1992. The World Bank has allocated nearly $3.786 billion worth loans to Azerbaijan as of Feb. 1, 2016. Those funds were directed to finance over 60 projects. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The NDP says Premier Brian Pallister owes Manitobans an explanation for his absence from Monday nights vigil for the 49 shooting victims in Orlando, Fla. Pallister also missed question period and forced the postponement of executive council estimates. No explanation was offered for his absence Monday. The worst mass shooting in U.S. history targeted the Pulse nightclub, a gay bar, early Sunday. WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Premier Brian Pallisters chair is empty during question period Monday. He also didnt attend an evening vigil. Premier Pallister is not available today. Minister (Rochelle) Squires will be speaking at (Monday nights) vigil on behalf of the government. Premier Pallister will be back in the legislature (Tuesday), Pallisters spokeswoman, Olivia Billson said in a prepared statement. When asked why she went in Pallisters place, Squires, who is the minister of sport, culture and heritage, said he was unavailable. Interim NDP Leader Flor Marcelino said Manitobans and the LGBTTQ community deserve a better explanation than Pallister is unavailable. The premier has his personal life, of course. We dont know why he is not here today. If it is for personal reasons, I will respect that. If it is for government business, the people of Manitoba deserve to know, Marcelino said. I dont consider (the answer) to be open and transparent. The vigil, hosted by Pride Winnipeg, was held at the steps of the legislature Monday evening. Mayor Brian Bowman and other community leaders attended. We invite all Manitobans who believe in equality to join us, Pride Winnipeg said in a statement sent Sunday. Squires offered condolences to the families of the victims of Sundays shooting, adding she has a close friend who is a member of the LGBTTQ community who lives in the United States. As news of Sundays horrific events broke, her thoughts immediately went to him. I want to do what I can to ensure that all men and women in our country and south of the border are ensured their liberties and their safety, Squires said after question period. Our government wants to extend a heartfelt sympathy and assurance to everyone in the Manitoba LGBTTQ community that their safety, their security and their liberty to live as they choose is assured by our government. Seddique Mateen, the Orlando shooters father, said his son, Omar Mateen, became angry a few months ago when he saw two men kissing in Miami. The White House and the FBI portrayed the killer Monday as an apparent homegrown extremist who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic organizations. Karen Busby, a professor of law at the University of Manitoba who has won awards for activism within the LGBTTQ community, said she can forgive Pallisters absence considering the short notice. However, she took issue with a statement sent on his behalf Sunday evening that made no mention of homophobia or the LGBTTQ community. I dont understand why he wouldnt acknowledge that it is a homophobic act in some way. Obviously it was an act aimed at queer people, so why not acknowledge that? she said. This is the worst atrocity that has happened to queer people since the Nazi extermination. This wasnt a random act, it was an act aimed at queer people. She pointed to other statements on the massacre, made by Republicans in the United States and interim federal Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose, which also didnt mention the LGBTQ community. You wouldnt talk about the Montreal Massacre without mentioning women were killed and it was a misogynistic act, she said, referring to the murder of 14 women at Ecole Polytechnique in 1989 by Marc Lepine. What it signals to me is that politicians think they will get more votes if they are not supportive of queer communities. kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Its the type of call Winnipeg police rarely see an apparent kidnapping for ransom. But new details are emerging publicly for the first time about a bizarre case in which a city man allegedly impersonated a police officer, snatched a 14-year-old boy and demanded the victims frantic family pay up. Harpreet Singh Kanda, 23, began his Court of Queens Bench trial Monday by pleading not guilty to a slew of criminal charges. The Crowns first witness, Const. Robert Zurstegge, told court how he arrived at the missing boys home in January 2014 to a tense situation. There were more than a dozen family members and friends, many of them openly weeping, and they immediately showed him a handwritten note that had been left at the front door. (The victim) has been kidnapped by the Russian Mafia, the warning began. The author then demanded the Canadian equivalent of nearly half a million dollars otherwise we will kill him. Dont try to call police. You will have lost your son. You have one day to give us the ransom. Wait for a call. We have our eye on you at all times, it concluded. Among the people present at the familys home that day was Kanda, who had befriended them months earlier. Zurstegge said the accused stood out because he was sharply dressed. He was wearing a very shiny suit. He was the only person dressed like he had just come from a function. Everyone else was very casual, he said. The victims aunt told Zurstegge and his partner, Const. Steve Prociuk, that she had overheard the teen talking about going to play video games with Kanda earlier that day before he vanished. That led the officers to speak with Kanda, who denied any knowledge of what happened. We dont get a lot of kidnapping calls to begin with. We didnt know if we had a kidnapping here or if (the victim) was playing a hoax on his family, Prociuk said Monday. Kandas story began to fall apart hours later when police learned that he had told the victims family he was in training to become a Winnipeg police officer. That was not true. His story was changing quite a bit, said Prociuk. Police arrested Kanda at the scene on a charge of impersonating a police officer, but also warned him he was now a suspect in the boys mysterious disappearance. They searched his wallet and found a room key to a local hotel, and searched his car where an air soft gun was located. Officers also opened his trunk basically to make sure there wasnt a body in there, said Prociuk. It was empty. No thank you, I did nothing wrong, Kanda told officers when asked if he needed to contact a lawyer. When quizzed about why he was pretending to be a cop, Kanda said I did it because my mother is sick and I didnt want to tell her. Hours later, police located the missing boy after he was able to free himself from a locked hotel room and call his parents. He was not injured. According to the Crown, the kidnapping was set in motion when Kanda phoned the teen and told him he was conducting an investigation into an assault and needed to meet. Once together, Kanda allegedly the ruse by taking him to the downtown hotel room and telling him he must remain inside one of the rooms or risk arrest, prosecution and jail. Kanda allegedly showed him a firearm which was the air soft gun as part of the so-called investigation. He also took away the victims cellphone and confined him inside. He then left under the guise of continuing the probe. Kanda is on trial for a number of charges including kidnapping using a firearm, extortion, impersonating a peace officer, possession of a weapon and carrying a concealed weapon. www.mikeoncrime.com Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. In early 2015, a few months after I had published a book on the history of Toronto, I received a nasty email from an anonymous sender who berated me for what this person regarded as my critical treatment of the late Rob Ford, the former Toronto mayor. And it was true: I had concluded that Ford, uncouth and with serious personal problems, was the worst mayor in the citys history. The most interesting aspect of the Ford phenomenon, however, was not that as mayor he smoked crack cocaine and initially lied about it or that he was drunk and vulgar in public. But, rather, that absolutely nothing he said or did made an iota of difference to the thousands among the Ford Nation, such as my correspondent, who were so blindly devoted to him they ignored his missteps, lies and foibles. To them, the fact Ford had not delivered on his key promise of saving Toronto taxpayers $1 billion was irrelevant. He was their champion, and thats all that mattered. NICK UT / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS files Demonstrators protest outside a rally by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Anaheim, Calif., in May. The obsessive embrace of Ford comes to mind in trying to solve one of the great mysteries of the current U.S. political campaign: how is it possible so many otherwise intelligent Americans believe Donald Trump should be president? Given the large, zealous crowds his rallies attract from Maine to California, these fervent supporters cannot all be part of his so-called core group of disgruntled lower- and middle-class white, male voters fed up with Washingtons established politicians. (Truth be told, I have come across professionals in Winnipeg, bright and accomplished individuals, who if they could would inexplicably cast their votes for Trump.) To repeat what already has been said by Trumps political opponents as well as TV and newspaper commentators: it is near impossible not to conclude Trumps ideas are dangerously incoherent, as Hillary Clinton put it; that he is not just unprepared to be president, as she added, but temperamentally unfit for the job; and that he is the pathological liar and narcissist Ted Cruz, his erstwhile Republican foe, labelled him last month. His racism, negative comments about women and his general buffoonery continue unabated and surely will right up until U.S. election day in November. Most recently, there is his absurd accusation of bias against U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel. The judge, who is of Mexican heritage, is currently deliberating fraud lawsuits brought by former students against Trump University, which once offered courses in real estate and relied on Trumps reputation as a real estate mogul. Because Trump has said that if elected president he will build a wall between Mexico and the U.S., it follows according to his distorted logic that no judge who has Mexican parents, as Curiel does, can possibly give him a fair verdict. A ridiculous charge. And now in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Trump could not restrain himself by tweeting that his proposed ban to stop Muslims from entering the U.S is somehow justified, ignoring the fact that the perpetrator of this tragedy while swearing allegiance to the Islamic State before he went on his killing spree, was American-born. From Trumps skewed point of view, spreading fear makes for effective campaigning. Across the U.S., Trumps growing army of supporters, who line up for hours when he is scheduled to speak, verbally and even physically attack anyone who dares to question or protest their candidate as anything but the saviour who will make America great again as the Trump slogan declares. They readily slough off, ignore or worse revel in his every outburst and insult. They are angry, some desperately so, about immigrants who allegedly have taken their jobs, trade deals that have weakened the U.S. economy and an African-American president who has seemingly ruined the country domestically and globally. Trump is their rescuer. He talks to them in the same indignant tone as a friend at the local bar might and vaguely promises them what they need to hear: he will magically solve all of their problems. Though several commentators have noted Trumps fascist tendencies, and as tempting as it may be, there is no comparing Trumps rise to that of Adolf Hitler. Still, there is something eerily historically familiar in the fanaticism exhibited by Trumps followers. During the late 20s and early 30s, average Germans, far more beaten down by the poor economic conditions than Americans today, humiliated by the countrys defeat in the First World War and disgruntled with the apparent ineffectiveness of the Weimar government, flocked in large numbers to Hitler, the one leader who, as his biographer Ian Kershaw writes, could reawaken Germany and restore the countrys greatness. Hitler was a much more polished orator than Trump, and those who attended one of his stage-managed rallies were thereafter under his spell a religious-like image of him bolstered by the Nazis ruthless use of propaganda. For the 13 million Germans who voted for the Nazis in 1932, Hitler was not just another politician, adds Kershaw, he was a party leader extraordinary, a man toward whom opinion could not remain neutral. Donald Trump is hardly as extraordinary a politician even in the dangerous sense Kershaw implies about Hitler. But he is definitely someone who is as impossible to be neutral about. Now & Then is a column in which historian Allan Levine puts the events of today in a historical context. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Far too many aboriginal children were separated from their parents, physically and/or sexually abused, forbidden to speak their native language, poorly fed and forced to live in overcrowded, unhealthy firetraps and, overall, denied the benefits of an adequate education. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was clearly moved and deeply troubled by the testimony of thousands of former Indian residential school students and the unspeakable horrors they described. Listening to them day after day, month after month, would break a heart of stone. However, as communities across Canada mark the first anniversary of the release of the TRCs report, its worth noting the TRC got some things wrong. Empathy for former students does not justify how the TRC ignored a considerable body of information in its own report or its unbalanced account of why the schools were established. For example, the TRCs allegation the residential schools were an act of genocide under Article 2(e) of the United Nations Convention on Genocide cannot be substantiated. The schools even at their worst were not comparable to what the United Nations General Assembly had in mind in adopting Article 2(e) in 1948 in response to the Nazis abducting an estimated 400,000 children in occupied Europe. Equating the conduct of the churches and Canadian government to that of Adolf Hitler and the Gestapo is totally unwarranted. The TRC should familiarize itself with why Article 2(e) was adopted and, with the benefit of a fuller understanding, withdraw its allegation the Government of Canada committed an act of genocide. The TRC claims the Canadian government engaged in forcibly transferring children of the group to another group as described in Article 2(e). However, that claim is contradicted by a substantial body of evidence in its own report. It wasnt until 1920 that school attendance became mandatory. Even then, the TRCs report notes: In most years, there were more First Nations children attending Indian Affairs day schools than residential schools. According to the TRC, there were 28,429 school-age aboriginal children in the 1944-45 school year. Only 16,438 (57.8 per cent) attended school. Of those, 8,865 (53.9 per cent) attended residential schools and 7,573 (46 per cent) attended day schools. The report says: This meant that 31.1 per cent of the school-age aboriginal children were in residential school. That also means that 68.9 per cent were not. As the day-school students were still living in their own homes, they would have been speaking their native language with their parents, siblings and relatives and would not have lost the ability to speak Cree, Ojibwa or any other native language. The parents of those in the boarding schools on the reserves were most likely away hunting for months at a time just as so many were before the treaties of 1871-1921. The TRC records many instances of parents refusing to send their children to the schools, withdrawing their children from the schools and insisting certain changes be made before they would return their children to the schools. The parents of the estimated 400,000 children abducted by the Nazis had no say whatsoever. As so many parents refused to enrol their children, the residential schools which depended on per capita funding from the federal government were severely underfunded. Many were closed because of lack of students and funds. Its worth noting church-run schools for aboriginal children were established decades before the Dominion of Canada came into being and before the out-of-context quotes from Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, Duncan Campbell Scott and others the TRC relied upon to bolster its unsubstantiated allegation of genocide. The first Anglican church in Ontario was built on the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve south of Brantford in 1785 82 years before Confederation by the British Crown in gratitude for the important role the Mohawks played in support of the British during the American Revolutionary War. By 1830, the Methodists were operating 11 schools for aboriginal children in southern Ontario attended by about 400 students, 150 of whom could read. Ojibwas who had converted to Christianity promoted the church-run schools as a means of rescuing children from the deplorable conditions so many were living in because of widespread drunkenness in Ojibwa communities. Many aboriginal people covered by the treaties the newly formed Dominion of Canada entered into had converted to Christianity, and their children were attending boarding schools established and maintained by the different churches. A significant number asked for missionaries and education for their children. Those who were Roman Catholic or Protestant demanded teachers from their own denomination. Given the significant number of aboriginal people who had converted to Christianity and voluntarily placed their children in church-run schools decades before Confederation, the TRCs claim the schools were established by the Canadian government as a means of destroying the race and culture of the childrens parents and breaking the chain of memory that connected the hearts, minds, and spirits of aboriginal children to their families, communities and nations cannot be substantiated and should be reconsidered and withdrawn. Robert MacBains recently released Their Home and Native Land is based on interviews conducted with Ojibwa, Mohawk and Cree people. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Sunset Palliative Care volunteers are trained to be good listeners for people in their last weeks, days or hours of life. Sunsets volunteer coordinator Aldene Moroz said dying people sometimes want to talk about personal issues with volunteers issues that they might not feel comfortable sharing with their loved ones. They just want to express their feelings, Moroz said. Andrea Geary Mike Goldberg, Palliative Manitoba community outreach co-ordinator, stands outside the organizations office in Winnipegs Deer Lodge Centre. He recently ran a training pilot project for health care workers and palliative care volunteers in Portage la Prairie. Shes in charge of 26 volunteers. From her office in Portage la Prairie, she and the volunteers serve a large area within Southern Health-Sante Sud. There is no charge for their services. Weve had clients in Marquette and Woodlands, Moroz said. Its a very needed program. Sunset Palliative Care was started in 1994 by a local doctor and his wife. With an increasing number of people opting to spend their last days at home, volunteers typically see clients in their homes but can also visit them in hospital. Moroz said all volunteers are screened and take a six to eight-week training course that was originally designed by the Palliative Care Association of Manitoba (now called Palliative Manitoba). Clients are referred by medical staff or family members. Moroz said she usually matches a client with more than one volunteer so someone is always available to see the client. Some of Sunset Palliative Cares volunteers recently attended a workshop held by Palliative Manitoba, entitled the Rural Bereavement Project. Funded by the Thomas Sill Foundation, the pilot project is meant to educate volunteers and health care providers about loss, grief and bereavement. Mike Goldberg, Palliative Manitobas outreach co-ordinator, said 13 people attended the Portage workshop on May 24. This was one of nine sessions held across Manitoba. Goldberg said one of the workshops main discussions focuses on self-care for those working with dying clients or patients. We know that we need to take some time off for leisure, to recharge our batteries, he said. He hopes that additional funding will allow Palliative Manitoba to extend the project to northern communities. Palliative Manitoba also offers a toll-free service to connect dying people and their caregivers with trained volunteers. While this is primarily a phone service for people located outside Winnipeg, in-person visits are offered within the city. The approximately 200 Palliative Manitoba volunteers are also well-trained, taking about 24 hours of instruction. Thats a lot more training (in palliative care) than many people in health care get, Goldberg said. Moroz said the bulk of their operational funding comes through donations and two annual events, one of which is a barbecue being held on Fri., June 17 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Portage la Prairie Co-op parking lot (2275 Saskatchewan Ave. W). Like Goldberg, she also sees the need to educate health care workers about caring for those who are dying and dealing with their own and others feelings of loss and grief. To address this need, Sunset Palliative Care sends eight health care workers to the annual Palliative Manitoba conference in Winnipeg. The non-profit organization also organized fundraising to renovate and equip two rooms for palliative care patients at Portage District General Hospital. Palliative Manitoba is involved in a fundraising campaign until the end of June. Through the Great Canadian Giving Challenge, every dollar donated to Palliative Manitoba online by any individual or organization will help them get a chance to win $10,000 to support programs and services. To reach Sunset Palliative Care, call 204-857-3746. For more information on Palliative Manitoba, visit http://palliativemanitoba.ca/ Facebook.com/TheHeadlinerWPG Twitter: @CanstarHeadline A man was arrested Sunday night in Trempealeau County without incident, following an hours-long standoff. The Trempealeau County Sheriffs Department was notified at 7:30 p.m. that a man with a felony warrant, Brandon L. Hanson, 35, was at a residence on Osseo Road in the city of Independence, the department said. The Independence Police Department, assisted by the Trempealeau County Sheriffs Department, approached the residence. As they did so, Hanson ran into the house. The homeowner stated that Hanson had a gun and was threatening to use it against law enforcement. Officers set up a perimeter of the residence and evacuated nearby homes. The Trempealeau County Sheriffs Department Emergency Response Team was requested to assist, as well as the La Crosse County Sheriffs Department and their Bearcat armored vehicle. After several hours of unsuccessful attempts of talking the suspect out of the house, the Emergency Response Team deployed chemical agents into the residence. After that was also unsuccessful, the team made entry into the residence. Hanson was located in a crawlspace and did not comply with commands. More chemical agents were deployed into the crawlspace and Hanson eventually surrendered. He was then taken into custody without incident or injury. Hanson was booked into the Trempealeau County Jail on a charge of criminal trespassing, resisting/obstruction and a felony probation warrant. The Independence Police Department was also assisted by the Arcadia Police Department, Whitehall Police Department, Wisconsin State Patrol, Tri-County Ambulance, Independence First Responders and the Independence Fire Department. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Aygun Badalova - Trend: Onshore construction activities within the Trans Adriaric Pipeline (TAP) project will commence in parallel in all the host countries during the summer of 2016, while offshore construction will take place in the winter of 2017/2018, the source in TAP told Trend June 13. The source said that TAP's construction activities are progressing in line with the project schedule. "Following TAP's construction inauguration ceremony (17 May 2016 in Thessaloniki) the project contractors have been mobilized. TAP's main marshalling yards have been prepared and batches of line pipes and bends continue to arrive in the ports of Thessaloniki and Kavala (Greece) as well as Durres (Albania)," the source said. "Also, the construction and rehabilitation of access roads and bridges (combined progress) in Albania is over 65 percent complete," the source added. The overall construction phase will take approximately three years and will be completed in 2019, according to the source. TAP project envisages transportation of gas from the Stage 2 of development of Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz gas and condensate field to the EU countries. The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south. TAP's shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent). Last week the Greek Ministry of Environment and Energy has granted TAP its Installation Permit for Greece. Together with the Installation Act, secured in January 2016, the Installation Permit allows the pipeline construction activities in Greece to start in line with the project schedule. If you want to serve on the Winona Area Public Schools board, you have a second chance. By order of Winona County District Court Judge Jeffrey Thompson, filing is now open for four seats on the I.S.D. 861 school board. The filing period, which had closed May 31, was re-opened with a stroke of the judicial pen shortly after 11 a.m. Monday. Candidates will have until 4 p.m. Friday, June 17, to file for election in election districts 3, 4 and 5 for a full four-year term, and for a special election for the District 2 seat to fill the remaining two years of board chair Mohamed Elhindis term. Elhindi will step down as chair of the Winona Area Public Schools board, effective July 21. The judicial do-over resulted from an oversight on the part of school district staff earlier this spring. As school district attorney Christian Shafer explained to the judge, the district had opted into participation in the statewide primary by a resolution passed in 2008. However, for lack of candidates, there were no school district primaries held in the last three election cycles, longer than current district administrators had been on staff, and the resolution had simply been forgotten. As a consequence, the district missed the required posting of filing notices and there was confusion over filing dates. The district did accept filings during the last week of the filing period, but petitioned the court to reopen filing to give all potential candidates an opportunity to run. I see no reason to believe this is anything but an inadvertent error, Thompson said, and observing that there doesnt seem to be anyone here to oppose it, signed the order. As filing reopens, four candidates have filed for election: Allison Quam has filed in District 3, where incumbent Brian Zeller has not refiled. Karl Sonneman has filed in District 4, where incumbent Jeanne Nelson has not refiled. Incumbent Tina Lehnertz has filed for re-election in District 5, as has Ken Kersting. No candidates have filed in District 2 to replace Elhindi. Candidates who have already filed will not have to refile. If required, a primary election will be held Aug. 9. The general election will be held Nov. 8. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed which candidates were running in which districts; the order has been fixed above. I started my voting life as a registered Republican. When I turned 18, my dad took me to register to vote. He was a Republican. My mother was an independent and a member of her union. We had heated political discussions in my household. I like to say we had politics for breakfast. The Republican Party my dad belonged to is not the same party we see today under Donald Trump. My dads party was the party of Ronald Reagan, the president who gave amnesty to many people in 1986, a sweeping act that made my paternal grandmother a citizen. At some point, my father switched his party affiliation. Now both my parents are registered Democrats. When Trump declared that Mexico sends its worst people to the United States, calling them rapists and criminals, I thought about my hardworking family members. They worked for Maytag and John Deere in Iowa. They fought in World War I, World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. They went to Iraq and Afghanistan. Their offspring have become nurses, doctors, teachers, school psychologists, lawyers, paralegals and policemen. They work in finance, for nonprofits and have run for office. Now Trump has come out against U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, declaring that because the judge is a Mexican-American, he is not fit to preside over a lawsuit against the defunct Trump University. He claims the judge will surely be biased by Trumps plans to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Trump is a blatant bigot and, frankly, not a nice person. He is not fit to serve as president of the United States and not someone who should have access to weapons of mass destruction. He has alienated people all over the world, including Muslims and women, and even mocked a person with disabilities. Trump will not even release his tax information. This should be a red flag. There is a reason he is against documents being revealed in the Trump University suit. The media has a responsibility to force this issue out in the open. Show us your papers, Trump. Or are you afraid? What Trumps candidacy has revealed, along with much else, is that racism is alive and well in the United States. He has even unleashed violence at his political rallies. I was at his rally in Janesville, Wis. Most of the thousands of people who came could not get in. The police broke up supporters and protestors when things got heated. A young woman was pepper-sprayed in the face by a Trump supporter, and the police quickly acted to assist her and to wash out her eyes. I see racism every day in how justice is meted out differently to people from different ethnic backgrounds. We have much work to do. We are at a tipping point in many ways. Where we go next is crucial for the country and the world. Wisconsin Foodie host Kyle Cherek has a unique and special connection to Circus World Museum in Baraboo. His grandfather was the late William Thallmayer, the woodcarving artist who restored many of the circus wagons at the museum. Cherek was the emcee for the 13th annual Circus of Chefs in the museums W.W. Deppe Wagon Pavillion on Sunday. Its a heritage trip for me, Cherek said before he began his emcee duties for live auction. When he started working on the wagons, I was 1 year old. Theyre part of my life. I spent countless hours in his workshop and studio. With more than 30 restaurants, wineries and breweries offering samples of their food, brews or vintages, Circus of the Chefs, the museums biggest annual fundraiser, was truly a foodies event. More than 500 people walked and mingled among the food and drink stands. This is 20 percent of our annual operating budget, said Scott ODonnell, the museums executive director. So its a big day for us. Its a great foodie culture in this state. Were blessed by the support of all the restaurants and wineries and brewers. Last years Circus of Chefs generated over $217,000 sponsorships, ticket and table sales, auction items and donations of goods and services. Its an event close to Kathleen and Dennis Thurous hearts as well. Kathleen is the president of Tent No. 100 Circus Fans of America and is treasurer for the Friends group, Circus World, Inc. Her grandparents August and Elizabeth Reinking owned the store where the circus costumes were once stored. This is an important event to my family, Kathleen said. I just like the circus, Dennis said. Its a great thing for the community and I just want to keep it going. Cindy Ballweg with Wollersheim Winery said she looks forward to the event every year. We love doing this event, Ballweg said. Its the people and the atmosphere. Its just a fun event. Its well run with lots of really nice people. Vicki and Curtis Eberle of the Mixing Bowl in Sauk City were busy at their food stand. They brought a bit of the Sauk Prairie heritage along with their desserts. This is our Eagles Nest, Vicki said. Its a baked donut bottom with a vanilla cheesecake on top, with extreme chocolate frosting and homemade chocolate drizzled on top with a chocolate espresso bean on top as the egg. Chef Nick Conley, the chef at Kaminskis Chop House in Wisconsin Dells, who was serving Parmesan herb encrusted salmon with a lemon caper aioli, said he enjoys the event. It was his sixth Circus of Chefs. Its a lot of fun, Conley said. After it settles down, we get to walk around, check out the different food, meet people have cocktails. Graft, of Madison, was at their first Circus of Chefs. Graft opened less than a year ago. A couple of our really regular customers asked us to participate in this, so were in, said Lucas Henning of Graft. Amber Giddings of The Barn Restaurant in Baraboo colored up the place with her multi-tiered stand of cupcakes made of every color of the rainbow. I like cupcake wars so we brought this, Gidding said. Its all the colors and its sugar, so it smells good. Its just fun. Grant Slayton of Brothers on Oak passed out his brisket sliders topped with mashed potatoes. Everyones been talking about them like crazy here, Slayton said. We have a lot of people walking away shaking their heads over them. Editor's note: A previous version of this article was changed to reflect the correct day of the event. In 1956, Sen. John F. Kennedy published his masterpiece, Profiles in Courage, short biographies of eight United States senators, Republicans and Democrats, who had shown extraordinary courage in their careers, willing to buck the opinions of their party and their constituents in order to do what they thought was right. What a contrast to todays Republican leaders, whove shown no courage at all in their response to repeated racist comments by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Of course, it started on day one of the Trump campaign, when he characterized all immigrants as rapists and criminals. It continued when he proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States both positions he still holds. But Trumps outright racism reached a new low with his attack on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, the presiding judge in the San Diego trial over a class-action lawsuit filed against Trump University, which alleges the so-called university is nothing more than a scam. He could never get a fair trial under Curiel, claimed Trump, because the judge is Mexican and Donald Trump wants to build a wall along the border. Trump refused to back down, even when reporters pointed out that Curiels actually an American citizen, born in Indiana. Instead, he doubled down by insisting he couldnt get a fair trial under a Muslim judge, either. Indeed, Trump has insulted so many people of so many different faiths and ethnicities that, by his logic, he probably couldnt get a fair trial from anybody. Certainly not from a woman. His racist, personal attacks against a sitting judge, confirmed unanimously by the Senate, have put GOP leaders in a pickle. After all, Trumps their newly anointed presidential nominee. Hes now the head of the Republican Party. They either have to condemn his comments or cave in. So what do they do? In classic political fashion, they do both. And nobodys proved a bigger hypocrite than House Speaker Paul Ryan. Unfortunately for Ryan, Trumps outburst came just as the speaker was trying to unveil a new GOP anti-poverty program. However, to his dismay at a news conference in Washingtons Anacostia neighborhood, all reporters wanted to ask him about were Trumps latest comments on Judge Curiel. Which led to the embarrassing scenario of Ryan, surrounded by a group of African-American leaders, denouncing Trumps remarks as textbook racism while vowing to support him anyway, because hes the Republican nominee. Ryans not the only Republican trying to have it both ways. Others have outdone themselves seeking refuge in ever more clever and cynical formulas. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he disagrees with Trump, but will stick with him because The party of Lincoln wants to win the White House. Former candidate Marco Rubio also disagrees, but adds, You dont want Hillary Clinton to win. Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, rumored to be on Trumps short list for vice president, admits there could be a line that would make him withdraw his support for Trump, but were not there yet. Even John McCain, who was himself ridiculed by Trump for being a prisoner of war, admits hes offended by Trumps racist comments, yet argues, You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee of our Republican Party. Really? No matter who he is? No matter what he says? Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., in a tough race for re-election, has re-written the political lexicon by inventing a new category of support. She told reporters she will vote for Donald Trump, but she does not endorse him. Equally disgusting was Chris Christies robust defense of Trump. Hes known Trump for 14 years, Christie told reporters, and he knows hes not a racist. Yet Christie, a former federal attorney, also knows that Trumps lawyers have filed no motion seeking Judge Curiel to be removed from the case. In fact, theyve actually praised him for conducting a fair trial. The only reason Trump attacked him is because of his supposed ethnicity. Profiles in Courage? No, these Republicans are just the opposite. Profiles in Cowardice: so-called political leaders who readily put whats good for their party over whats good for the country, because they believe in nothing and stand for nothing. Its not that they dont know the difference between right and wrong. They just dont have the backbone to do whats right. Fortunately, there are at least two brave voices among the GOP. Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk cited Trumps comments as reason to withdraw his endorsement, which led South Carolinas Lindsey Graham to observe that if any Republican was looking for an off-ramp to get off the Trump highway, this was it. More Republicans should take it. The impulse of some conservatives for self-destruction this year seems to have no limits. Many of the same people who paved the way for Donald Trump are now trying to excommunicate from polite conservative company the men in the best position to minimize the presumptive GOP presidential nominees damage. Thats the only way to read the conservative journalists who are joining Democrats in denouncing House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for saying they would vote for Trump, albeit without embracing his rhetoric or all of his agenda. This has offended various Beltway grandees who are lecturing the two leaders that they have besmirched their good names, and for all time. We can understand why the left takes this line, which is partisan and opportunistic. Democrats know that Ryan in particular doesnt share Trumps political style or his views on many issues, especially immigration. But they want to use Trump as a battering ram to retake the Senate and House. Then they can go about fulfilling their Bernie Sanders-Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama agenda of expanding the entitlement state without opposition. The swarm of tut-tutting progressive columnists want Trump to destroy the GOP. The question is why conservatives would play along. Talking heads on the right and left can afford to indulge their political preferences because they are only responsible for themselves. Political leaders have to consider the consequences of their actions for their institutions. For Ryan and McConnell, this means preserving GOP majorities as a check against either Trump or Hillary Clinton. Conservative pundits say Trump has authoritarian tendencies, but then they should want principled leaders in positions of power to restrain him. This week Ryan and his GOP colleagues are starting to roll out their own agenda for governing next year. It includes tax, health-care and financial reforms, as well as measures to reduce poverty and restore Congressional authority. This is smart politics, not least because it gives GOP candidates for the House and Senate something other than Trump to promote and talk about. Voters will be able to see that Republicans stand for something beyond Trumps passions. Ryans endorsement doesnt include a vow of silence. In the last week he has joined other Republicans in criticizing Trump for saying a federal judge is biased against him merely because he is Mexican, saying Tuesday the remarks are the definition of a racist comment. He and Republicans in Congress can score their nominees excesses while still believing he is superior to Clinton. The Trump ascendancy is a dangerous moment for Republicans and conservative ideas. But unless the convention delegates in Cleveland stage an uprising and nominate someone else, Trump or Clinton will be the next president. Those who want to preserve space for better conservative politics should support politicians who share those beliefs, not engage in Trump-like purges. Accident Friday at 11:42 a.m., someone reported that a car was backed into another car near Walmart Supercenter, 120 Frances Lane. Animal Friday at 8:19 p.m., someone at Beaver Dam Community Hospital, 707 S. University Ave., told police that a dog bit a man while he was delivering pizza in the 100 block of Lake Crest Drive. Disorderly conduct Saturday at 12:20 p.m., a 30-year-old woman told police that a woman was screaming in the 200 block of Monroe Street. Police met with a 26-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man and they said they were yelling at someone on the phone. Both were advised to keep noise levels down. Accident Saturday at 3:49 p.m., a 76-year-old woman and a 33-year-old man were involved in a vehicle accident near Aldis, 1733 N. Spring St. Accident Saturday at 6:22 p.m., a 66-year-old man and a 39-year-old woman were involved in a vehicle accident in the 800 block of Madison Street. Accident Saturday at 10:23 p.m., a 50-year-old man told police that his vehicle was hit near Walmart Supercenter, 120 Frances Lane. Theft Sunday at 8:15 a.m., a 46-year-old woman reported the theft of a patio chair from her residence in the 300 block of Madison Street. Theft Sunday at 10:54 a.m., a 21-year-old man told police that a wallet was stolen from his vehicle in the 600 block of South Center Street. Accident Sunday at 11:40 a.m., there was a two-vehicle accident in the Fleet Farm parking lot, 1815 N. Spring St., involving a 61-year-old man and a 20-year-old man. Traffic Sunday at 11:24 a.m., a man near the North Spring Street and Industrial Drive intersection told police that a vehicle began following him through the city after he exited the highway. Theft Sunday at 2:02 p.m., a mother told police that someone stole her childs motorized four-wheeler in the 300 block of Parallel Street. Misc. Sunday at 2:44 p.m., someone reported that a 12-year-old boy was smoking in the 200 block of Madison Street. The boy was warned and was banned from Cotton Mill Park for one week. Theft Sunday at 10 p.m., a woman told police about a possible theft of items from her residence in the 100 block of West Third Street. The states job-creation agency has an extra $8 million in refundable tax credits to award to companies this year under a request approved Monday by the Legislatures budget committee. The motion passed along party lines, 11-4, with one member absent. Democrats decried the move as a corporate giveaway that wont help the state increase funding to public education and roads, while Republicans said it was necessary because Wisconsin is competing for companies with other states. Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, contrasted the state now giving out nearly half a billion dollars in tax credits a year through a 2011 manufacturing and agriculture tax credit with federal data showing the state ranked in the bottom third of states for job creation over the past five years. So far these investments have not paid off, Hintz said. Its time to stop digging and setting up our state to fail. Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, knocked the Democrats for voting against attempts to invest in job creation while criticizing Republicans for the states job performance. You cant have it both ways, Nygren said. The committees action moved the tax credits from a pool of $30 million in nonrefundable tax credits available to companies involved in angel investment and early-stage seed funding for startup companies. They are now part of a new business development tax credit, which goes from $17 million to $25 million this year. Under questioning from Democrats, analysts from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau acknowledged that a manufacturer with millions of dollars in profits and little to no tax liability could theoretically receive money from taxpayers if it received a business development tax credit award, provided it created promised jobs. WEDC historically has not used all of the nonrefundable startup tax credits, which increased in 2011 to $40.5 million before dropping to $30 million last year under provisions in the state budget. Last year businesses were awarded about 61 percent of the available credits. In past years the state has reallocated nonrefundable tax credits to refundable tax credits ranging from $3.1 million 2009 to $10 million in 2012. Last year the agency asked to reallocate $15 million, but WEDC rescinded the request after an objection was raised. Presidents are called upon, in moments of great horror and great sorrow, to speak of love and solidarity. President Obama did just that on Sunday afternoon, when he responded to the worst mass shooting in American history an act of terror and an act of hate by declaring: In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. The president recognized that those who died at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando were members of a community of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people and allies who gathered in the sort of dance club that has always been more than just a dance club. He spoke movingly of what the club scene means for people who have historically faced discrimination and, yes, hatred because of their sexuality. This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends our fellow Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights, said Obama. So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans. Obamas recognition that the values that make us Americans are shaped by a sense of love and solidarity was beautiful. And good. But what makes rhetoric beautiful and good is an understanding that words are not enough. They must be connected to action. So Obama spoke, gently but clearly, of necessary action explaining: Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well. Across America, people decided to speak up. There were vigils from Sheridan Square in New York to the Castro in San Francisco. LGBTQ Muslims joined the vigils, while Muslim leaders reacted with horror to reports that the killer was a Muslim who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. No religion justifies such a senseless act of terror, wrote Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, who added: This is yet another reminder that Congress must pass meaningful, common-sense gun reforms that include a ban on assault weapons, which have no place in civilian hands. Members of Congress must stand up to the NRA. As always, there were defenders of a violent status quo who objected to any suggestion that something must be done. Some literally told Americans to shut up. We know by now that there is nothing more political than an immediate denunciation of any call for action as the politicization of a tragedy. It is a crude calculus. Those who rush to silence debate are saying: Do not let the stark recognition of our circumstance, and the pain that extends from it, cause us to take necessary steps to address hatred and gun violence. Obama called it out last fall, following a mass shooting at an Oregon college, when he said that gun violence is something we should politicize. No one with the possible exception of Donald Trump is so naive as to believe that there is a specific response to terror and hatred that will make us as safe as we would like to be. But, as the president has well noted, the killings in Orlando raise many concerns. Those concerns invite action. If there are haters who aspire to violence, would it not be wise to make it difficult for them to obtain assault-style weapons? If there are Americans who are targeted because of their race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, would it not be wise to stop telling the lie that says equal protection under the law is some special right accorded to members of the LGBTQ community and to acknowledge that this is the birthright of every American? And would it not be wonderful if powerful Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would recognize that Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin was right when she said: As we offer our thoughts and prayers, we also must come to terms with the fact that they are not enough. This was not only a horrific attack on the LGBT community, it was an attack on the freedoms we all hold dear, explained Baldwin, the first openly gay member elected to the Senate. The question now for America is are we going to come together and stand united against hate, gun violence and terrorism? I understand it may not be easy, but I know we are better than this and it is past time to act together. It is right and necessary to speak in times like these of love and solidarity. It is equally right and necessary to identify the steps that must be taken to express that love and solidarity in practical terms. It is right and necessary to take those steps with a sense of urgency and with a faith that, in the face of hate and violence, Americans can and must love one another. Baku, Azerbaijan June 13 By Elena Kosolapova - Trend: Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has signed a law on ratifying a loan agreement worth $1 billion with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), Kazakh president's press service said June 13. The loan will be spent on financing the development policy in the macroeconomic management and increasing the economic competitiveness. The maturity date of the loan is 20 years with a grace period of 2.5 years. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova Railroads play a crucial role in the Badger State, with the thousands employees who call Wisconsin home operating on approximately 3,400 miles of track. The Wisconsin rail system connects the states farmers, manufacturers and resource producers to markets in other states and around the world, and in a typical year, 175 million tons of freight is carried in the state. Moving this freight safely is the industrys highest priority, and based on the three most common safety measures used by the Federal Railroad Administration train accident, employee injury, and grade-crossing collision rates recent years have been the safest in railroad history. The railroads are not resting on their record. They are constantly investing in infrastructure, technology and training to make their already-safe operations even safer. In recent years, railroads annually have spent more than $26 billion of their own funds not taxpayer money on upgrades and maintenance of their infrastructure and equipment, enhancing their ability to operate safely and reliably. A major initiative is the implementation of positive train control, a technology that will automatically stop a train before certain types of accidents occur from human error. Other innovative technologies include drones for inspecting bridges and improved ultrasonic inspection systems that identify track defects so they can be repaired before accidents occur. Another important aspect of the industrys safety program is to ensure railroad and state and local emergency responders are prepared for hazardous materials accidents. Railroads have an outstanding record of transporting crude oil and other hazardous materials safely more than 99.99 percent of hazardous materials shipments reach their destination without incident. Nevertheless, the railroads recognize the importance of being able to respond to accidents when they do occur. Railroads train tens of thousands of first responders annually to ensure they are prepared to react quickly and effectively in the event of an accident. Some of this training takes place at the Security and Emergency Response Training Center in Pueblo, Colo., operated by the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. In 2015, nearly 2,000 first responders learned how to handle derailments first hand at the training center, and more than 800 others received online training. Should a railroad accident involving hazardous materials occur, it is vital that state and local responders have access to information on the materials in the train. One source of information is a new program developed by the railroad industry, the AskRail app. This app provides another way emergency responders can identify cars in a train carrying hazardous materials and obtain relevant emergency response information. Firefighters around the country have spoken highly about the app. It is vitally important for Wisconsin and the nation that the countrys nearly 140,000-mile freight rail network operate safely and efficiently. With the help of advanced technologies; cooperative efforts with employees, customers and the communities they serve; and sensible public policies, railroads will continue to serve the public interest. How to take free public higher education from pipe dream to reality Providing free education to all citizens has inestimable value and limitless possibilities. Universities are any nations key public institutions of knowledge development. They drive research, teach students and supervise postgraduates. By producing and disseminating knowledge, universities can fulfil their mandate as institutions of social, economic, cultural and intellectual development for democratic societies and the global environment. Its not easy to reconcile the costs of education with narrow economic goals alone. The remit of education is simultaneously individual, social and global. It has qualitative attributes that cant be measured in conventional ways. Higher education is a public good. Providing free education to all citizens has inestimable value and limitless possibilities. This is especially true in South Africa today. The country is in transition from a traumatic past. Its universities must respond to the many and profound challenges faced by the state and society. The challenges faced by universities are fundamental to the reconstruction of post-apartheid society. This is why universities should be funded as comprehensively as possible, allowing them to discharge their important socioeconomic, political and cultural mandates to the best of their capabilities. Free public higher education for all is possible and necessary. In this article, based on a submission made to the recent Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training, or Fees Commission, we will explain how to make it a reality. Research for a deeper understanding The starting point for any change is dedicated research. This must examine the costs of quality public education and must create space to open up the fiscal debate. Once this is done, ordinary South Africans can begin to understand what democratic choices could be made to inform fiscal and other policy decisions about the provision of education and potential funding sources. Very importantly, research must be conducted that examines how institutional funding choices are made. Student funding in South Africa depends on a variety of sources. These include parents contributions, bank loans, and the goodwill of business and charitable institutions; the contributions of universities who are themselves underfunded; as well as other bursaries and scholarships from the public and private sector. All of these sources are unsustainable. None carry any legal obligation to fund students in the first place. This is even true in the case of parents, many of whom are likely to depend on bank loans for such funding. The government must increase funding by at least an aggregate amount equal to the ratio achieved in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. In 2011, South Africas state budget for universities as a percentage of gross domestic product was 0.75%, which is more or less in line with Africa as a whole (0.78%). But it lags behind when compared with OECD countries (1.21%) and the rest of the world (0.84%). No student who meets the requirements for admission to a university course should be excluded for financial reasons. Students should be funded for the full cost of study. This includes registration and other fees, accommodation, costs of meals, travel and books. Universities should also receive a subsidy per student from public funds that is sufficient for its recurrent operations. Such a subsidy is crucial to ensure what has been called both financial and epistemic access to university education. In other words its not just about getting students into university, its about tackling the push-out rate those who are unable to finish their studies and actively retaining those students whove traditionally borne a higher burden. A determined state should examine the structure of personal taxation that could be levied for the top 10% of income earners in the country and for high-net-worth individuals people who earn an annual income of more than R7 million (about US$474,000 at current rates) or have assets of more than R70 million. This could generate a substantial increase in available public revenue to fund higher education. This approach concentrates on the structural aspects of inequality. It puts tax revenues to good use. Some have mooted the idea of a differentiated approach to the rich and the poor. In this model, a basic means test is applied to all students. But many South African students fall into the missing middle their parents dont earn enough to pay fees, but they earn too much to qualify for state funding. Our proposal supports the idea that those who earn the most pay for their childrens education through taxation and the distribution of public funds rather than through an individually based wealthy user pays model. Ours is a more democratic model of public interest and public funding than individual philanthropy or subsidy which, we argue, is not sustainable. Students have responsibilities, too But, in our model, students will not simply take their fully funded qualifications and run. All students will be regarded as beneficiaries of public funding. They will be viewed as participants in a system that prioritises the public good. As such, theyll be expected to contribute to society when leaving university through community service and by working in public institutions after graduation. This approach will support the creation of socially cohesive attitudes among students. It is, we believe, necessary for genuine, far-reaching structural and systemic change. For our suggestions to work, students should be widely consulted before any final decision is made. It is they, after all, who have led the charge for fee-free education. Such consultation should be meaningful, open and frank. Choices cant be left entirely to experts, advisors, consultants and the agents of institutions that represent a narrow, fiscal-driven approach to the provision of public goods like higher education. Equality is the goal Of course, making education free will not magically make all individuals equal. But the spirit of the sort of policy were proposing must actively aim to end the culture of individualism, corporatisation and unnecessary managerialism that is pervasive in the university system. This is important because of the role that higher education can play in a society with high levels of unemployment and chronic inequality. Until now, education has been about elite transition within the framework of an ethic defined by the present market-driven capitalist system. This has engendered both uncritical thinking and an isolation from the key issues facing the vast majority of society in particular the black working classes and marginalised communities. A properly funded university system is necessary to engender and encourage cooperation, collegiality, collaboration and a new social compact based on a set of values in which knowledge is not commodified and is socially relevant. Authors note: An extensive piece on these issues has been submitted to the New South African Review and a submission made to the Fees Commission. For further information, please contact lead author Salim Vally on salimvally1@gmail.com Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 13 By Huseyn Hasanov - Trend: Turkmenistan and the UN are discussing the action plan for implementation of the Framework Partnership Program for the period until 2020, said the message from Turkmenistan's government. The issue was discussed at the Cabinet of Ministers' meeting during which Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov approved the draft action plan in the strategic spheres, including the energy efficiency and management, addressing the climate change issues, the rule of law and so on. Jointly with the UN specialized agencies, Turkmenistan has implemented 264 projects in various spheres over the last ten years. Berdimuhamedov confirmed his country's commitment to the strategic partnership with the UN. By gaining considerable experience of cooperation with leading UN specialized agencies, Turkmenistan is taking concrete steps to boost this traditional dialogue, he added. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, June 13 By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend: The 55th meeting of the Interstate Statistical Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is planned to be held September 6-8, 2016, in Ashgabat in accordance with the committee's decision, said the Turkmen government in a message June 13. Meanwhile, forums on agricultural statistics will also be held during this period in Ashgabat. Preparations for the event were discussed by the Turkmen Cabinet of Ministers with participation of the President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. President Berdimuhamedov said the strengthening of fruitful relations with CIS countries is one of the key directions of Turkmenistan's foreign policy strategy. As an associate member of the CIS, Turkmenistan builds its relations with CIS countries on the principles of respect and equal and mutually beneficial partnership, based on both the national and common interests, said the Turkmen president. Ashgabat have repeatedly become the venue for representative forums of the CIS's different structures. Brown and Betsy combine for 110 years of service to W&M 50 years on the job Betsy Croswell has spent a half-century in a variety of departments at William & Mary. Her latest stop: the registrar's office. Photo by Stephen Salpukas Photo - of - Hide Caption Melissa Strain, marketing manager for William & Mary Dining Services, said she was blown away when told that one of the men in her department, Guy Brown, has logged 60 years at the university. But then I saw how he interacts with people, and I understood, Strain said. Hes one of the most genuine people youll ever meet. Browns ability to connect with everyone on campus, regardless of their station, has been so powerful that when some alumni return to campus, they visit Brown. Theres an attorney in Richmond who once brought his family down to meet Brown. Perhaps he savored the memory of Browns roast beef and mashed potatoes, his specialty and a favorite with students for decades. They tell me its real good, Brown said, as though hed never eaten any himself. Brown points to his head when asked what makes it so tasty. Its a normal recipe, he said then smiles. The secret part? Ive got it up here. {{youtube:medium|9oxGXMkUEBA, Guy Brown celebrates 60 years at W&M.}} Hundreds of William & Mary employees will be celebrated at a June 14 service awards ceremony at the university for reaching milestone work anniversaries, from five to 60 years. Brown stands alone at the top of that list, followed by Betsy Croswell with an impressive half-century at William & Mary. Four employees are celebrating 40-year anniversaries at the university: Juanita Achols, Mary Anderson, Scott Fenstermacher and David Tidwell. Brown was still in high school in 1955 when he began working in the kitchen at Trinkle Hall, then the universitys main cafeteria. Two of his brothers, already working at Trinkle, taught him how to cook, and for three summers he honed those skills at a YMCA summer camp in New York. Brown likely has worked every job imaginable in Dining Services: busboy, dishwasher, chef from 1959 on and, now, prep cook. In that capacity, Brown cuts approximately 1,200 pounds of meat per week, as well as helping with produce production. Working at W&M has been a family experience. In addition to his brothers, Brown met his wife, Gertrude, early in his career at W&M. She worked for what then was called the Wigwam, now known as the Marketplace. I still enjoy being around the kids, he said, when asked what keeps him going. A lot of them Id like to see again. I really dont know when Im going to retire; I guess when my body tells me, Ill give up. Its been a blessing to be here. Brown will continue to leave his mark when he does finally retire. He has trained some of the young chefs, teaching them recipe formats, portions, even different styles of cooking. Meanwhile, across campus, Croswell has completed her 50th year at the university, a journey that has taken her from W&Ms Virginia Marine Science Institute (VIMS) to James Blair to the Bryan Complex to Jones Hall to the Chancellors office and, for the last decade or so, to Blow Hall and the registrars office, where she works 29 hours a week. Her job title is Customer Service Representative, a role she said that encompasses dealing with any and everyone: students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff, townspeople seeking class information and out-of-towners seeking information about the university. Betsy has an extraordinarily keen eye for detail, and she brings that to everything she does, said Sara Sallie Marchello, university registrar. Just a few examples: verifying academic records that were transferred from the legacy system to Banner; producing the student lists for the Commencement program, including dissertation titles, honors and prior institutions; validating official records as a notary public and producing customized enrollment verifications. Croswells affection for William & Mary is real and deep. But her heart stands closest, she said, to the Raymond A. Mason School of Business and its MBA program. I loved it, she said of her years there. Its wonderful when I say University Registrars Office and on the other end is an alum of the MBA program that I knew 30 years ago. I let them talk and I finally say, Do you have any idea who youre talking to? And they say, No. And I ask, Do you remember Betsy Croswell? And they say, Betsy, are you still there? Crosswell said she hopes to help the business school with its upcoming 50th anniversary, sending out letters to alumni, including personal notes and encouraging them to return to campus. Its that type of dedication that has made her an extraordinary employee. Think of how the world and William & Mary have changed in the past 50 years, Marchello said. Its remarkable to think of the generations of students she has served, and the amount of institutional history she possesses. Shes a great resource person and a trusted, experienced colleague, and we are all better for her years of service. China News on Women Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home page Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Umid Niayesh - Trend: Iran, a large market with an 80-million population, has found itself in the center of interest from the world's economic powers following removal of international sanctions, as the historic nuclear deal came into force in mid-January. Alongside with the EU, which is already trying to benefit from the new conditions, Iran's traditional allies also intend to use the situation to strengthen ties with the sanction-freed Iran. Tehran itself has repeatedly announced that in the post-sanction era it will not forget the countries, such as China and Russia, which backed it under the sanctions' pressure. Russia, in this context, has an important place for Tehran. The two countries preserved their close ties despite certain ups and downs in recent years. Tehran and Moscow share joint viewpoints towards various regional issues, including Syrian crisis. Tehran has entered a military coalition with Moscow in Syria, which can lead to closer ties and economic cooperation. On the other hand, considering Tehran's political stance, it's unlikely that the country will move its gaze from East towards West. President Hassan Rouhani's diplomatic moves in the post-sanction era also indicate that his administration remains loyal to its Eastern allies and is trying to use the post-sanction opportunities to develop economic ties with Russia, China and India. Political theorists in Tehran occasionally raise the issue of forming a new block against the West, an Asian block, with Tehran and Moscow as its two main axes. Tehran also looks to realize its military dreams through Russian help. In spring 2015, Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who was confident of a nuclear deal at the door, lifted the ban on supplies of the S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran. Tehran received the first consignment of the system last April and announced that it will continue the weapon purchase from Moscow. The fresh tensions between Turkey and Russia, at a time when Ankara is already at odds with Tehran over regional issues, also provide new grounds for cooperation between the Islamic Republic and Russia, including profitable tourism and food sector. Iran and Russia are also speeding up the long-awaited joint projects, which were delayed under the sanctions, including the North-South corridor, an ambitious international transport corridor that will link Northern Europe to South-East Asia. Where is Azerbaijan's place in this landscape? Linking Asia to Europe, Azerbaijan stands at a strategic point between East and West. Elements from both eastern and western cultures are combined in Azerbaijan. Being both a former Soviet country and a part of the eastern-Muslim world, Azerbaijan has no problems with understanding either Russia or Iran. Azerbaijan also has joint borders with Russia, its strategic counterpart, and Iran, which enjoys good ties with it as well. The shared cultural and historical traits between Iran and Azerbaijan, and the fact that Iran is a home to the world's biggest Azerbaijani population, presents a strong foundation for close economic cooperation between the two countries. Since 2013, when Hassan Rouhani took office as Iran's president, the two countries' have boosted their mutual ties to such high level, which wasn't seen in the previous years. Despite his predecessor, Iran's pragmatic president attaches importance to the ties with Azerbaijan, emphasizing on joint interests. The Islamic Republic sees Azerbaijan as a friendly country, which can contribute to strengthening the Tehran-Moscow ties. Early in March, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, the Iranian government spokesman, said that Iran's ties with Azerbaijan will reach strategic cooperation level in the near future, underscoring that Tehran's relations with certain neighboring countries, as well as Russia, will witness significant boom within the context of development of the Tehran-Baku relations. All this shows why Azerbaijan can play a unique role in forming a Tehran-Moscow strategic block, with itself being an irreplaceable part of it. The Iran-Azerbaijan relations now enjoy such high level that the two countries have launched military cooperation. Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin June 7, confirmed that Azerbaijan is buying weapons from Iran, apart from Russia, Turkey, Israel and Belarus. There is no doubt that close military cooperation also paves a path for more economic and strategic ties. As for the North-South corridor, Azerbaijan presents the most economically justified and shortest route that can connect Iran's southern ports to Russia and through there to Europe. The North-South corridor, which will serve as a link for connecting the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia, once launched will make Azerbaijan a transit hub, bringing significant economic profits to the country. Azerbaijan, which is already known with its energy projects, will contribute to global transit as a center of new Silk Road with important international transport corridors, such as the Trans-Caspian Transport Route passing through its territory. Both Iran and Russia are also involved in the largest Azerbaijani gas project Shah Deniz, which will contribute to Europe's energy security. The three countries also plan to synchronize their power grids. Tehran and Baku have reached an agreement to synchronize their power grids, and via Azerbaijan the Iranian electricity network will join Russia's power grid. The trilateral mutual economic interests, as well as joint participation in international transit and energy corridors, present enough capacity to turn Tehran, Baku and Moscow into regional strategic allies. In Iran, Rouhani's administration has left behind its third year in office, however it is expected that the pragmatic technocrats will run the country for another four-year period, as Rouhani remains the frontrunner at the next presidential election in 2017. The upcoming five years are enough time for the three countries to reach a level of strategic cooperation that would not be affected by the changes in Iranian administrations. Involvement of the three countries' private sectors in mutual cooperation also will contribute to securing the ties, independent from political changes. No wonder that both Iran and Azerbaijan are encouraging their private sectors to take part in the expansion of ties between the two neighbors. --- Umid Niayesh is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Construction of Iran-Oman gas pipeline needs two years, Alireza Kameli, managing director of the National Iranian Gas Exports Company (NIGEC), said. Once the studies on the project are completed and the deal is signed, two years will be needed for construction of pipeline as well as compressor stations, he said, ISNA news agency reported June 12. Kameli further said that the Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company (IOEC) has been entrusted with studies to specify the route for building the seabed pipeline. The IOEC has offered four paths for pipeline, which one of them is selected by Iranian and Omani parties, he added. Kameli also said that seven foreign companies have expressed willingness to participate in the project, without unveiling the name of the companies. Early in July Mohammad Akbarzadeh, the project's manager said that the Dutch Intecsea company has officially submitted a proposal to participate in the project. He also said that the studies on the project have been completed by 22 percent. Previously, South Korea's state-run Korea Gas Corp (KOGAS) and National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on constructing three major gas pipelines in the Islamic Republic including the Iran-Oman gas pipeline which experts say requires at least $1.5 billion-investment. Based on an agreement signed between Tehran and Muscat in 2013, Iran will export 28 million cubic meters of gas to Oman per day via a sub-sea pipeline within 15 years. Last September, after bilateral negotiations in Tehran, it was announced that the project will be operational by late 2017. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Khalid Kazimov - Trend: Iranian security forces have killed five members of a PJAK (Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) terrorist group in northwestern Iran, IRNA news agency reported citing public relations office of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). The report added that a considerable amount of weapons were seized following the operation. According to the report, the members of the group had earlier conducted assaults against people in the region, going as far as killing three members of local Basij forces (militia). It should be noted that PJAK members are regularly targeted by Iranian forces in northwestern Iran. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Khalid Kazimov - Trend: Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called for interaction with Norway on regional issues. He also said that Iran and Norway can cooperate on fishery, oil and gas sectors, IRNA news agency added. Zarif made the remarks at a joint press conference with his Norwegian counterpart Borge Brende in Oslo. He further praised Norway's role in nuclear talks between Iran and the world major powers which led to a historic deal last year. "Without Oslo, we could not have reached an agreement on exchange of enriched uranium," Iranian foreign minister added. Zarif has arrived in Oslo on a two-day official visit to discuss bilateral ties and regional developments. Germany will be Zarif's next destination. Rainbow Flag At Half Mast Over Wrexham Guildhall As Mark Of Respect This article is old - Published: Monday, Jun 13th, 2016 Wrexham Council is flying the rainbow flag at half mast over the Guildhall this afternoon as a mark of respect for victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre. The Mayor of Wrexham Cllr John Pritchard has also written to Buddy Dyer (the Mayor of Orlando) expressing the sympathies of the people of Wrexham. Fifty people died in the attack at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, with 53 more injured in what is the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history. Wrexham Council tweeted shortly after the flag was raised: The Rainbow flag is flying at half-mast at the Guildhall, as a symbol of respect to all those who lost their lives in the attacks in Orlando Wrexham Council (@wrexhamcbc) June 13, 2016 Wrexham Council also retweeted a message from the North Wales Pride account. Our thoughts are with all those affected, by the horrendous events in the #OrlandoShooting North Wales Pride (@NorthWalesPride) June 12, 2016 At 7pm this evening there will also be a vigil outside the Senedd in Cardiff to remember the victims. Similar tributes have been taking place across the globe: A rainbow around the world: Global Orlando tributes Tehran, Iran, June 13 By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend: Five members of the Jaish ul-Adl terrorist group have been killed by Iranian police, Tasnim news agency reported June 13. The group were about to carry out terrorist acts inside Iran, police spokesman Said Montazerolmahdi said. He said the terrorists were killed during a shootout in Khash city of Sistan-Baluchestan Province in southeastern Iran. The spokesman added that the police found the terrorists had been carrying huge amounts of explosives. During the shootout wit the terrorists, one Iranian policeman was killed. Jaish-ul-Adl, known to many as the army of justice in reference to its Arabic name, was formed out of the so-called Jundollah, another terrorist group dismantled by Iranian intelligence forces on February 23, 2010 after its leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, was arrested onboard a flight from the UAE's Dubai to Kyrgyzstan's Bishkek. Jaish-ul-Adl has claimed responsibility for a number of criminal activities in Pakistan and Iran in recent years. On February 6, 2014, the terror group abducted 5 Iranian border guards in the Jakigour region of Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan and took them to Pakistan. On March 23, the terror group claimed that it had killed one of the hostages named Jamshid Danaeifar. The other four were freed and reunited with their families two months after the abduction. On October 25, 2013, Jaish-ul-Adl killed 14 Iranian border guards and wounded six other in the border region near the city of Saravan in Sistan-Baluchestan. Reading the commentary in the international press concerning the referendum on a British exit from the European Union, one gets a sense of a ruling class that has totally lost its bearings. It took some time before the international media realised that on June 23 a vote is to take place in the United Kingdom that will have wide-ranging implications for the whole of Europe. But now, an atmosphere of panic reigns. Behind the scenes, trepidation over the unthinkable is spreading, writes Der Standard from Austria. Switzerlands Neue Zurcher Zeitung warns, When Europe wakes up on the morning of 24 June, it will find itself on a political map that has changed radically overnight like nothing since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. And Aripaev from Estonia worries that a decision for a Brexit could have consequences similar to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the global financial crisis of 2008. The Danish Jyllands-Posten describes British Prime Minister David Camerons decision to allow Britons to vote on remaining in the EU as a major strategic blunder, a political gamble with unjustifiable risk. Germanys Suddeutsche Zeitung writes of a light-minded play with the Brexit. Italys Il Sole 24 Ore complains, A Brexit would open Pandoras Box and unleash a flood of accusations and possible new attempts to leave Regardless of how the vote result turns out on 23 June, we have already lost everything. However, there are also voices playing down the issue. Rzeczpospolita from Poland hopes that a Brexit would strengthen Polands role within the EU. Therefore, it states, let us not view a Brexit as a catastrophe, but as an opportunity to bring our own ideas forward in this restructuring. Belgiums De Standaard seeks to soothe concerns: But in the end, the question of whether a Brexit was worth all the hysteria will be posed. There will be complicated regulations with the Union, full of clauses and protocols. Valuable political energy will certainly be wasted. But the chance that Britain will remain in the EU is great, even if it leaves. Until now, nobody appears to have seriously considered what the impact of the EUs second largest economy leaving would be on the rest of Europe. The thinking in Europes capitals, as in the British campaign itself, is dominated by pragmatic considerations and narrow interests. This does not apply only to immediate economic risks, which are being cited by the Remain camp as an argument against an exitthe threat of a collapse of the British currency and a panic on financial markets and the stock exchange; the possible loss of jobs at international corporations; the uncertainty over negotiations with the EU, which could hardly be completed in the two-year time period provided; etc. It applies above all to the long-term political consequences. What would be the impact of a British exit on the relations between Germany and France, which fought three wars against one another between 1870 and 1945, dragging the entire world into the abyss in the process? Britain has up to now played a major role in mediating and containing the rivalries between the two former arch enemies within the framework of the EU. Some comments assume that Berlin and Paris would draw closer together in the event of a British exit. But given the massive economic superiority of Germany, this is unlikely. As Frances La Tribune put it, One thing is certain: an EU reduced to 27 states could become entangled in contradictory positions, and the German-French tandem could be the victim of collateral damage from a potential Brexit. What will happen if a yes to a Brexit provokes a Europe-wide chain reaction and encourages the strengthening of right-wing, nationalist forces? Could civil war flare up once again in Ireland when the EUs external border runs between the south of the island and Northern Ireland? And what will happen if Scotland pushes for another referendum to leave the United Kingdom? All of these questions are not only being ignored or downplayed by the Brexit supporters, but the advocates of remaining within the EU have no answers to them. On the contrary, their perspective is just as reactionary as that of the Brexit supporters. Regardless of its outcome, the referendum will accelerate the tendencies that have made the European Union the most hated institution on the continent. And this not only because a slim yes on the question of Europe would haunt society like the living dead, as the Neue Zurcher Zeitung put it, but because the supporters of the EU are in the process of transforming it into a police state and military fortress. The few concessions the EU broughtthe elimination of border controls, the possibility of working and studying in the country of ones choice, a guarantee of certain democratic rightsare being done away with in the name of combating terrorism and deterring refugees. At the same time, an Orwellian police and surveillance state is being established. Germanys Die Zeit recently reported on the options currently being discussed behind closed doors in Brussels on the means for holding the 27 member states together in the event of a Brexit. The first option is focused on closer police collaboration, or, as Die Zeit formulated it, the strengthening of security by increasing cooperation in the exchange of intelligence information, and measures against asymmetric warfare. The shift of the EUs focus from an economic to a military alliance is also being discussed. The notion driving this is that the European powers, whose relative economic position has declined significantly on a world scale, can only together challenge great powers like the United States or China, as the Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote. Given the growth of nationalism in Europe, which is finding particular expression precisely in the Brexit referendum, the emergence of such a military bloc seems unlikely. The EU will also continue and intensify its role as the driving force of social attacks and deregulation in the event of a Brexit victory. Frances Le Monde is already calling for action to be taken to resist German-British dominance in the event Britain stays. It wrote: A victorious David Cameron would want to impose his political agenda on Europea Brexin (remain) could strengthen the economic convergence between Germany and Britain, Europes two largest economies If it is not to be sidelined, France has to prepare a real plan B for the euro zone and the EU 28. If Britain stays in the community, the French must be the first to press the initiative. The light-mindedness, political short-sightedness and brutality with which both the opponents and advocates of a Brexit push ahead with the sealing off, destruction and militarisation of the European Union is not an individual, but a class phenomenon. It is characteristic of a ruling class whose social system is historically outmoded. The ruling elites are incapable of looking to the future and are concerned only with their most immediate privileges and interests. The Brexit referendum proves that no faction of the ruling class can offer a way out of the blind alley of the capitalist crisis. The widespread opposition to social attacks, xenophobia, war and the strengthening of the state apparatus must be turned into a conscious political movement that rejects the EU and calls for the unification of Europe on a socialist basis by fighting for the United Socialist States of Europe. The British Socialist Equality Party, with its campaign for an active boycott of the referendum, has taken an important step in that direction. Intense storms, which began in Queensland on June 4 and swept south along Australias east coast over the next three days, killed five people, flooded hundreds of homes and destroyed basic infrastructure in parts of Queensland, New South Wales (NSW), the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania. Major cities impacted included Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Launceston with thousands advised to evacuate their homes. At least, five bodiesthree in NSW and one each in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territoryhave been found by search and rescue officers. Three people are missing, believed to have been killed. While the total cost of damage caused to residences, farming and public infrastructure, including roads and bridges, has not been released it is expected to be well over $100 million. Many farmsfrom banana plantations to dairy, beef and sheep propertiessuffered major damage. One banana grower in northern NSW, for example, lost 70 percent of his crop. Flooding has also killed hundreds of livestock in NSW and Tasmania. In Brisbane, the Queensland capital, dozens of roads were closed due to the heavy rain. Canberra and nearby towns recorded their wettest June day on record while parts of NSW experienced over 400mm of rain. In Sydney, winds were over 100km/hour, causing havoc on airport runways and to the citys transport systems. Waves, recorded at over 12 metres high, caused severe damage to several coastal suburbs. In Tasmania, over a hundred roads were blocked by flooding and damaged bridges. The state-owned TasPorts reported that freight and cruise vessels shipping lanes were affected by debris and damaged boats in rivers. The states second largest city, Launceston, was placed on high alert with warnings that flooding could reach one-in-100-year levels. State emergency services in NSW and Tasmania called on thousands of residents to leave areas at risk. For many this was simply impossible with roads subject to flooding, power outages and many public transport systems suspended. Emergency response units were spread thin across the affected areas with hundreds of flood victims rescued by under-resourced services. NSW State Emergency Services Commissioner Phil Campbell said that call rates were at around 50 to 100 per hour during and in the aftermath of the storm on June 5. One of the areas hit hardest in NSW was Collaroy, on Sydneys northern beaches, where heavy seas eroded up to 50 metres of beachfront and damaged numerous homes. Local residents have been calling for a protective sea wall for several years. NSW Liberal Party Premier Mike Baird told the media that if a sea wall was to be built, residents would have to make a contribution. In a federal election campaign dominated by widespread disaffection and hostility to the entire political establishment, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten seized the opportunity to express sympathy for the victims of the storms. However, successive Coalition and Labor governments, state and federal, are responsible for the lack of emergency services and preventative measures as well as the overall rundown of infrastructure that exacerbates the impact of such disasters. Baird joined Turnbull on a visit to storm-ravaged Picton, 80 kilometres south-west of Sydney and voiced concern for those affected. But government disaster relief for storm victims is a pittance. Under joint federal and state Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements those who have lost their homes and belongings will only receive $200 per adult and $100 per child or a total of no more than $750 per family. Baird, Turnbull and Shorten have fostered the illusion that the insurance companies can be pressed to assist the victims. Echoing these sentiments, Michael Keenan, the federal justice minister, told ABC radio on Wednesday: The government would expect the insurance companies will fulfil their obligation to people. The insurance companies have made clear, however, that damage caused by storm surges and coastal flooding was frequently not covered by insurance. Insurance Council of Australia spokesman Campbell Fuller told the media that many insurers dont cover actions of the sea. Its a very common exclusion. Insurance Australia Group (IAG), the countrys largest insurer, said it had 10,000 of the over 19,000 claims already lodged. The companys share prices increased this week when it announced its market share in Tasmania was low and that other storm damage claims would not heavily impact on the companys bottom line. Last weekends storm occurred when a low-pressure trough developed into an intense low-pressure system known as an east coast low. While these occur several times every year the severity of the June 46 storms was produced by the coupling of the east coast low with a king tide. King tides (unusually high tides) are predictable events that arise naturally and periodically with highest instances being recorded both around Christmas and in the cooler winter months of JuneAugust. Ian Turner, Water Research Laboratory director at the University of NSW, told the media that the storms were a harbinger of whats to come. Climate change, he said, is not only raising the oceans and threatening foreshores, but making our coastlines much more vulnerable to storm damage. What are king high tides today will be the norm within decades. Turner warned that although the Water Research Laboratory had collected valuable data on coastal variability over many decades it only applied to a 500 km stretch of southeastern Australia. There are very different coasts across the country exposed to very different conditions, and we just dont have the observational data we need to make predictions with any great confidence For that, we need a national approach. But even this attitude is limited. The problem of climate change is global by its very nature. Without internationally coordinated efforts to curb the problem, nothing can be resolved. And the problem, at its core, is the capitalist profit-system, where only the most profitable endeavours are pursued. Under the current system, humanity is coming face-to-face with a future in which the events of last weekend on Australias east coast will become more commonplace, affect more lives and put our future existence on this planet at risk. The author also recommends: Australia: Insurers delay or deny claims of Queensland flood victims [8 March 2011] Australia s floods: a failure of government and the profit system [29 January 2011] As more details of the sellout deal reached between the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and Verizon emerge, the various apologists for the unions are continuing to hail the agreement as a victory for workers. The CWA and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) shut down the seven-week strike by 39,000 Verizon workers just before the Memorial Day weekend, announcing an agreement in principle with management. The deal, many details of which still remain hidden, included a substantial expansion of medical co-pays, amounting to hundreds of millions in savings for management, and the introduction of contract language changes that will facilitate the restructuring and downsizing of the companys landline operations. Under conditions of deep disquiet and rebelliousness in the working class, a coterie of pseudo-left groups that operate in the orbit of the Democratic Party are more and more being called into service to prop up the unions and provide a cover for their betrayals. They are particularly aware of the growing influence of the World Socialist Web Site, which gained a wide readership among Verizon workers during the strike. The International Socialist Organization (ISO) and its organ Socialist Worker are emerging as among the most shameless apologists for the CWA and IBEW. This is hardly a new role for the ISO. Its supporters play a prominent role in the Chicago Teachers Union and were instrumental in imposing a sellout contract in 2012, which facilitated the mass closure of schools. The ISO does not speak for the working class, but for a disaffected layer of the upper middle class. They reject the revolutionary role of the working class and the transformation of the existing social order. Instead they look to the advancement of their own careers by carving out niches for themselves within the existing capitalist structures, including the unions and the Democratic Party. The role of the ISO comes across sharply in a June 3 piece in Socialist Worker titled, What can labor learn from the Verizon strike? Purporting to be a balance sheet of the Verizon workers struggle, co-authors Lee Sustar and Alan Maass begin by hailing the settlement of the strike as a victory. They write, It's a strike outcome that's all too rare these days: A corporate powerhouse forced to drop sweeping union-busting demands by a solid strike of tens of thousands of workers with widespread public support. The question now is whether organized labor will follow the Verizon workers' example and once again make the strike a weapon against the employers' relentless attacks. They go on to dismiss the substantial concessions surrendered by the CWA and IBEW at Verizon as mere downsides. They downplay the $200 million in out-of-pocket health care increases on the grounds that the union had already agreed to these cuts before the strike. Socialist Worker hails the elimination of the Quality Assurance Review program (QAR) as a rare gain. They do not mention that in place of the QAR, the CWA agreed to the establishment of a joint union-management committee aimed at setting performance standards to drive up productivity. The authors go on to praise the CWA strategy of subordinating the Verizon strike to the Democratic Party and the presidential campaign of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders. They write, Notably, however, the CWA did break from labor leaders unquestioning support for Hillary Clinton the Democratic Party establishments choice for a presidential nominee, and instead backed Bernie Sanders left-wing campaign. Having encouraged members to be active in the Sanders campaign and support his anti-corporate themes, the CWA leadership prepared the ground politically for taking on the bosses. Sanders is a tested defender of the capitalist status quo whose supposedly left wing program does not go beyond a watered down liberalism. He is currently preparing to support Clinton, as he pledged to do from the beginning. His entire contribution to the Verizon workers struggle consisted of a brief picket line photo-op. To present the CWA endorsement of Sanders as a radical break with establishment politics is a fraud aimed at disarming and disorienting Verizon workers. Socialist Worker distorts reality by implying that the intervention of US Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez in the Verizon negotiations was aimed at pressuring Verizon to settle. In fact the White House intervened to shut down the strike, with the collaboration of the CWA, to prevent it from becoming the catalyst for a broader movement of the working class. The strikebreaking role of the Obama administration was demonstrated by the intervention of the National Labor Relations Board, which sought and secured a court injunction barring the picketing of hotels housing scabs. The authors say nothing about the role of so called progressive Democratic politicians such as New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who kept Verizon strikers penned behind metal barricades and used the New York Police Department as an auxiliary strike breaking force in the service of Verizon. In support of its claim that the CWAs role in the Verizon strike represents some kind of a left turn, Socialist Worker presents a potted history of the CWA over the past 25 years. It covers the repeated betrayals of the CWA by referring merely to mistakes and failures. By doing so it seeks to prevent workers from drawing any fundamental conclusions about the transformed role of the unions. These organizations have long ceased to function as defensive workers organizations and have become, in line with their pro-capitalist and nationalist program, appendages of the corporations and the capitalist state. Socialist Worker calls the 1989 NYNEX strike, which the CWA isolated and sold out on the basis of a concessions contract, a victory. The strike saw violent attacks on pickets, including the murder of striker Gerry Horgan. Among other cuts, the strike settlement did not contain an amnesty clause for 170 CWA strikers and 35 IBEW strikers victimized by management. The authors promote illusions in Chris Shelton, a long time union hack, who was installed in the post of CWA president in 2015. They write, [T]here was some reason to believe that Sheltonwho had opposed the return to work with no contract at Verizon in 2011would match his fighting talk with action as contract talks began last year. They present the collapse of the unions and the virtual cessation of strikes as though it were simply the product of abstract forces, completely apart from the conscious policies of the trade union bureaucracy, which at every step has collaborated with management to shut down strikes and impose concessions. In their account of the run-up to the 2016 Verizon strike, the authors refer to the active sabotage by the CWA, stating blandly, preparations for this battle weren't as effective as they should have been. In fact the CWA did everything in its power to undermine the militancy of Verizon workers and ensure that the strike took place under conditions most favorable to management. The CWA realized that it could not directly impose the cuts demanded by management. Workers were in no mood to accept massive concessions from a company raking in billions in profit every month. When the Verizon contract expired August 1, 2015, the CWA ordered workers to stay on the job. Its intent was to prevent a united struggle by telecommunications workers with auto and steelworkers whose contracts were also set to expire soon. The delay gave management time to make extensive preparations for strikebreaking. When it finally called the strike, the CWA rejected any attempt to actually halt scabs from crossing the picket line by seeking to mobilize broader sections of the working class, such as teachers, transit workers and city workers in support of the Verizon workers. Instead they promoted illusions in Sanders and Obamas labor department, presenting these defenders of capitalism as allies. When New York police and scabs ran down strikers on the picket line, sending several to the hospital, the CWA said nothing. It did not organize any protest rallies or issue appeals to mobilize the working class. When the contract for 17,000 AT&T West workers expired in California and Nevada in the midst of the Verizon strike, the CWA ordered these workers to continue on the job. A limited strike by 1,700 AT&T West workers in San Diego was shut down by the CWA after a few days. The CWA, meanwhile, doled out miserly strike support payments to workers while sitting on assets of some $500 million. It decided to shut down the strike just days before unemployment benefits were set to start for Verizon strikers in New York, which would have reduced the financial pressure on workers to accept a quick settlement. The CWA ordered workers back on the job without even presenting the full details of the reported settlement. Indeed, the CWA announced merely an agreement in principle, not the acceptance of an actual document. Now it is working feverishly to sell this deal, relying on the corporate media and its pseudo-left allies such as the International Socialist Organization to present the sellout of the strike as a victory. This leftward movement of the working class has found positive expression in the growth in the readership of the World Socialist Web Site Verizon Strike Newsletter, which at every point in the Verizon strike presented an objective analysis of the role of the CWA and advanced a strategy aimed at breaking the isolation of the strike. It fought for an independent socialist political orientation for the working class, insisting that the Verizon struggle was part of a mounting resistance by the working class globally. Verizon workers should organize a campaign to defeat the contract settlement and use that as the basis for a rebellion against the CWA through the formation of independent rank-and-file committees. Such a struggle requires clarity on the role of groups such as the ISO who at every point seek to maintain the authority of the right wing trade unions. The author also recommends: The Communications Workers of America, Coporatism and the Verizon strike [3 May 2016] The Left Party has responded to the announcement by federal President Joachim Gauck that he will be retiring next year on age grounds by moving further to the right. Over the past days, one party leader after another has demanded that the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Greensparties responsible for the Hartz IV welfare reforms and for taking Germany to warstand a joint candidate in the next federal presidential elections in Spring 2017. On Tuesday last week, Left Party parliamentary leader Sarah Wagenknecht declared in a press statement, We wish the SPD had the courage to slip the embrace of the grand coalition and not only put forward a joint candidate with us and the Greens, but also carry it through. The co-chairs of the Left Party, Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, on hearing of Gaucks official announcement on Monday, immediately invited the SPD and Greens for talks. In a joint press statement, they declared their respect for the decision of Joachim Gauck. Now, the time for talks had dawned, and the Left Party is ready to reach an understanding with the SPD and the Greens on a common candidacy. Representatives of various party tendencies and the party press are singing from the same hymn book. Dominik Heilig, spokesman for the right-wing Forum for Democratic Socialism, pleaded that the Pirates and the South Schleswig Voters Union be included in the search for candidates alongside the SPD and Greens. Alban Werner of the Socialist Left, in which the pseudo-left Marx21 sets the tone, described it as ideal if the SPD-Left Party made a good personnel proposal that is also acceptable to the Left Party and the Greens. The Left Partys campaign is not limited to a common presidential candidate. Its advances towards the SPD and Greens also serve to prepare a possible SPD-Left Party-Green (so-called red-red-green) government at the federal level. Historically, the presidential elections has often functioned as a precursor to subsequent government alliances. For example, in March 1969 Gustav Heinemann was elected with the votes of the SPD and Free Democratic Party (FDP) as the third president of post-war Germany. This was followed in the autumn of the same year by the SPD-FDP coalition with Willy Brandt (SPD) as Chancellor. In 2012, Gauck went into the race as a joint candidate of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), SPD and Greens. A year later, the SPD/CDU/CSU grand coalition was formed. In a commentary entitled Who follows Gauck?, Benjamin Hoff, the culture minister in the Thuringia state coalition government led by the Left Party, together with the SPD and Greens, formulated the strategic game plan of the Left Party. The SPD must use the presidential election in 2017 to make a political statement of its own creative power against the CDU/CSU. This would be a legitimizing tailwind for an SPD chancellor candidate On the way to the general election in 2017, after the stops in Berlin and Mecklenburg Pomerania, and in preparation for the proposed exploratory talks on the resumption of a red-green-red government in North Rhine-Westfalia, the Left Party would gain the opportunity to take a formative influence on federal policy in a very clear manner. In addition, it could provide a leap of faith to punish all those lies that already hold a red-green-red coalition to be illusory. At the end of his commentary, Hoff outlined clearly the political and social developments to which the Left Party was reacting with its call for greater formative influence on federal policy. A joint presidential candidate could and should in times of populism from the right; the fear of failing by wide sections of the middle class; the challenge posed by the integration of refugees and the need to ideally newly justify European integration, stand for the courage to say what is. To put it bluntly: Under conditions of growing opposition to social inequality, the decline of the establishment parties and the breaking apart of the European Union, the Left Party sees its task as taking on government responsibility at federal level in order to stabilise bourgeois rule and suppress an independent movement of the working class against capitalism. As always, Wagenknecht, Kipping, Hoff and Co. embellish their government offensive with a few left phrases, but the actual role of a red-red-green coalition has long been known. In Berlin, the Left Party created a social disaster, ruling from 2001 to 2011 together with the SPD. In Thuringia, the Ramelow state administration is already implementing the reactionary policies of the federal government. This includes extremely business-friendly policies (Ramelow brags of being more investor-friendly than the CDU), the brutal deportation of refugees and the open propagation of German militarism. Significantly, a Leopard battle tank was presented to the public outside Erfurt Cathedral Square in the state capital on Fridays Day of the Armed Forces. This was certainly done to the satisfaction of Gauck, whom the Left Party now wants to replace with a red-red-green successor. The US presidential election campaign has reached a new stage with the clinching of the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump. Not only the identity of the nominees, but the political posture of the two campaigns has clearly emerged. Up to this point, the most significant element of the election campaign has been the manifestation of deep popular opposition to social inequality and growing anti-capitalist sentiment. This took the form of support for Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a democratic socialist and based his campaign on denunciations of the billionaire class and calls for a political revolution. The major driving force of this political radicalization is the impact of the 2008 economic crash, which has been followed by a restructuring of class relations with devastating consequences for the lives of millions of people. The ruling class, and, in particular, the Democratic Party establishment, is far less concerned about the rise of Donald Trump than it is about the broad support for Sanders, which created a political crisis for Clinton and seriously jeopardized her planned coronation. The surge in support for Sanders came as a frightening shock to the entire political establishmentincluding Sanders himselfand the corporate-controlled media, because it demonstrated the emergence of a mass constituency for anti-capitalist, socialistic ideas. There is a broad consensus, across both parties, that the class issues raised by the Sanders campaign in the primaries must be buried in the general election campaign. The decision has been taken at the highest levels of the political establishment to direct attention to issues of race and genderincluding deliberately provoking such issuesin order to distract the public from the more fundamental economic division in society. This will be combined with an extremely right-wing campaign by the Democrats aimed at winning support from sections of the Republican Party on the grounds that Clinton, with her close links to both Wall Street and the military-intelligence establishment, is the most competent and reliable figure for waging war abroad and deepening the attack on the working class at home. Clinton set the tone in her victory speech last Tuesday night, preceded by a campaign video that presented her candidacy as the culmination of a struggle for womens rights extending over nearly two centuries and going back to the first stirrings of support for womens suffrage. Bernie Sanders added his voice during a day of meetings Thursday with Obama, Vice President Biden and Senate Democratic leaders. Speaking to the press outside the White House, he made clear that he was planning on working closely with Clinton, as he had pledged to do at the outset of his campaign. He denounced Donald Trump, declaring, It is unbelievable to me, and I say this with all sincerity, that the Republican Party would have a candidate for president who in the year 2016 makes bigotry and discrimination the cornerstone of his campaign. It was noticeable that Sanders did not describe Trump as a billionaire, or link his opposition to Trump to his own year-long campaign against the domination of millionaires and billionaires over US politics. He referred exclusively to Trumps bigoted attacks on Mexican immigrants, Muslims, women and other groups defined by religion, race, language or gender, not economic class. The extraordinary intervention by Vice President Joe Biden into the controversy over a Stanford University sexual assault case is part of this effort to promote identity politics as the central issue in the 2016 campaign. Last week, Biden lent his support to a campaign led by a Stanford professor to recall the judge who presided over the sexual assault trial and conviction of a university freshman, on the grounds that the judges sentence was too lenient. There is no basis for the federal government to intervene into what is a local criminal matter. Biden has shown no such solicitude for the victims of the lead poisoning of the water supply in Flint, Michigan or the countless victims of US police killings, to say nothing of those bombed, incinerated or turned into homeless refugees by US military violence in the Middle East. Biden, acting on behalf of the Democratic Party establishment, calculates that with the imminent demise of the Sanders campaign, which drew wide support from college youth, a new basis must be created for drawing students around the Democrats and the presidential campaign of Clinton, who is widely despised as a corrupt personification of the political status quo. Hence the calculated effort to promote right-wing agitation tied to issues of gender identity. The most unabashed argument for the primacy of race and gender over class issues comes from New York Times commentator Paul Krugman, who throughout the election campaign has used his column to promote Clinton and heap scorn on supporters of Sanders. In a piece published Saturday under the headline Hillary and the Horizontals, Krugman defines as horizontal inequality differences between social groupings based on race, gender, etc., as opposed to class inequality (which he refers to as individual inequality), measured by economic position or income. He declares, like it or not, horizontal inequality, racial inequality above all, will define the general election. Krugman describes the campaign by Sanders against economic inequality as a pipe dream because it ignores the factin Krugmans viewthat the working class in the United States is irretrievably divided by race. Defining oneself at least in part by membership in a [racial or ethnic] group is part of human nature, he claims. By his account, the Republican Party has long sustained itself by getting working class whites to think of themselves as a group under siege, and to see government programs as giveaways to Those People. The Times columnist ignores the fact that support for Sanders is itself a refutation of this slanderous characterization of the working class. He also ignores the drastic shift to the right of the Democratic Party, which has long abandoned the reformist liberal program that prevailed from the 1930s to the 1960s based on limited concessions to the working class, in favor of various forms of identity politics benefiting sections of the upper-middle class. Krugman has functioned as an apologist for the economic policies of the Obama administration, presenting its health care program as a progressive reform on a par with the New Deal and the Great Society, rather than an effort to shift medical costs from corporations to workers. He deliberately conceals the principal basis for Trumps appeal to working people: the Obama administrations role as the spearhead for big business in destroying jobs, wages and living standards. Instead, he claims, the 2016 campaign is going to be mostly an election about identity. He continues: The Republican nominee represents little more than the rage of white men over a changing nation. And hell be facing a womanyes, gender is another important dimension in this storywho owes her nomination to the very groups his base hates and fears. Trump is polling at 43 percent of the vote. To suggest that this is a measure of the rage of white men is a political libel of the working class, to say nothing of a mathematical absurdity. The truth is that working people instinctively, and for good reason, regard both Trump and Clinton with distaste. These are the two most unpopular politicians ever to contest the presidency. It is a measure of the isolation and bankruptcy of the US financial aristocracy that such is the choice its political system offers to the American people. Following the shooting of student protesters by heavily-armed police at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) last Wednesday, the government and university authorities have quickly moved to suppress widening anti-government unrest. Nearly 40 were injured when police fired into a group of 1,000 students as they were preparing to march on parliament in support of a planned vote of no-confidence against the government. Prime Minister Peter ONeill, who is accused of allegedly authorising payments for fraudulent legal bills amounting to $A30 million ($US22 million), has been the focus of sustained student protests and mass boycotts of classes for six weeks. Behind the longstanding corruption scandal lies a worsening social crisis produced by the precipitous collapse of global commodity prices. In the last 12 months the PNG economy, which is almost entirely dependent on commodity exports, has gone into sharp reverse. Severe government spending cutbacks has resulted in public servants not being paid and spending reductions of up to 40 percent in health and 23 percent in education. The police shootings, and ongoing measures of suppression, are a warning to young people and workers, not only in PNG but throughout the region and internationally, as to what the ruling elites have in store as swingeing austerity policies are enacted in response to the unfolding capitalist crisis. Despite government claims to the contrary, the police attack on the peaceful protest was unprovoked. Radio New Zealand described the scene at UPNG as a veritable war zone. Two of the victims were reportedly chased and shot by police several kilometres from the campus. Six people remain in hospital. Police are encamped at UPNGs Waigani campus, where classes are due to resume on Tuesday. The university has been closed since armed police occupied the campus on May 17. In the wake of the shootings, further protests have been banned. A court order was obtained late on Wednesday by the university administration stopping the students from acting in any way contrary to their enrolment. Acting chancellor, Nicholas Mann, claimed the court order was deemed necessary to prevent any intimidation on campus. Government spokesmen defended the police actions and vilified students. Higher Education Minister Malakai Tabar declared: The thuggery of these opportunists must end and the violence has to stop. ONeill blamed the shooting on students, falsely claiming they threw rocks at police and provoked a response that came in the form of tear gas and warning shots. According to Students Representative Council (SRC) president Kenneth Rapa, students remain fearful. If the police can go right into the campus and shoot them, it's unsafe for them to stay in the campus anymore so most of the students have left the campus already, he said. Rapa added the SRC would abide by the court rules, but that it was considering legal options. Separate inquiries by the government, police and the university are being prepared in order to carry through a witch-hunt. ONeill declared the governments inquiry is intended to uncover external influences driving the student protests. A similar inquiry by the police will also look into sources of outside support for protesting students, as well as the conduct of SRC president Rapa. ONeills actions mirror measures he took in April against striking power workers. After falsely blaming them for repeated power blackouts in the main cities, he enacted a provision making deliberately cutting off the electricity supply a criminal offence. Discontent over the shootings has continued to spread in the Highlands region. Air Niugini and PNG Air were forced to cancel flights into Mt Hagen after unrest forced the closure of the airport. Two secondary school students were arrested following a reported riot in the town. The Kainantu section of the Highlands Highway has been blocked and local businesses shut due to looting. Protests, led by high school students and their parents, have occurred in the Enga Province. In Port Moresby, despite media reports that the capital is now calm, Transparency International postponed a public demonstration that had been planned for yesterday after police told the organisers they were unable to guarantee their safety. As many as 4,000 people in three separate provinces were expected to join the annual Walk Against Corruption. In a sign of growing alarm within sections of the establishment, the National newspaper declared in an editorial critical of the government on Thursday that the police failed to uphold their constitutional duty when they fired into the crowd of students. If this is how the police are going to handle public protests then something is terribly wrong with this State body, it concluded. The PNGs founding father, former prime minister and governor of East Sepik province Michael Somare condemned the actions of police as inexcusable. ONeill ousted Somare in 2011 in a series of unconstitutional manoeuvres, tacitly backed by the Australian government, which regarded Somare as too close to China. Opposition MPs have sought to exploit the student movement while issuing repeated warnings against the protests getting out of hand. Far from condemning the government, opposition leader Don Polye welcomed its impending inquiry, saying that police should be using normal riot equipment and crowd control methods as used by police all over the world instead of lethal force. As the PNG ruling elite becomes increasingly desperate in the face of the teetering economy and broad social crisis, opposition politicians are using the corruption scandal and students protests to bring down ONeill and make their own bid for power. Such a government would be no different from the current one in carrying out drastic austerity measures. Until recently PNG was deemed the best-performing country in the region, mainly due to the construction of a $US19 billion gas plant operated by ExxonMobil. However, the fall in commodity prices has slashed state revenues. The Asian Development Bank is forecasting annual growth to slow to 2.4 percent by 2017, a severe reversal of the 13.3 percent rate in 2014. There is a shortage of foreign exchange, with the value of the kina collapsing and foreign reserves dwindling. In 2012 the kina was worth 47 US cents, but is only 30 cents today. Over the same period foreign currency reserves have fallen from $US4.7 billion to $US1.7 billion. PNGs international credit rating has been cut three times in the past 12 months. The opposition has positioned itself accordingly. Last August Poyle warned that the looming financial turmoil required urgent belt-tightening measures. In February, the shadow cabinet expressed concern over escalating crime due to the deepening social crisis and called for a review of the 2016 budget. It demanded urgent adjustments be made to concentrate on basic life and death items and, goods and services. The head of the New York City jail guards union was arrested last week on corruption charges, accused of investing $20 million in union pension funds in a high-risk hedge fund in exchange for a $60,000 kickback. The fraud accusations against Norman Seabrook highlight the nexus of corruption involving Wall Street, its political representatives in both Democratic and Republican parties, and union bigwigs tied to the capitalist politicians. Seabrook, the undisputed boss of the New York City Correction Officer's Benevolent Association for the past 20 years, faces honest services fraud and wire fraud conspiracy charges in connection with his diversion of union funds. The arrest was followed by a press conference by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, where this official of the Justice Department declared that the union chief made investment decisions based not what was good for his union members but based on what was good for Norman Seabrook. It was Bhararas office, responding to growing resistance and conditions so brutal they could no longer be ignored, that issued a report two years ago referring to a deep seated culture of violence facing teenage prisoners in New York, especially at the massive Rikers Island complex in the East River off the coast of Manhattan. Only this week, five correction officers were convicted by a jury and three others found guilty by a judge in a non-jury trial in connection with the brutal beating of a Rikers inmate in 2012. Seabrook is notorious for his vociferous defense of the medieval conditions at Rikers and elsewhere in the prison system. The details of the charges facing the union president, as laid out in the Justice Department complaint and elaborated upon in the media, are fairly straightforward. He is alleged to have invested $20 million into the Platinum Partners hedge fund, run by one Murray Huberfeld. Huberfeld, who it turns out had faced fraud accusations in 1993 and 1998, promised Seabrook a cut of the hedge fund profits, up to $100,000 to $150,000 annually. The deal was arranged by a 26-year-old businessman, Jona Rechnitz, who is not identified by name in the complaint but whom sources identified, as reported in the New York Times, as CW-1, or cooperating witness-1. Rechnitz has reportedly pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the federal agents. It was Rechnitz who transferred the money to Seabrook, who was waiting in his car in midtown Manhattan. The kickback took place, according to the federal complaint, some 18 months ago. At the time, the hedge fund was in trouble. Seabrook, whose union salary, including expense allowance, was $300,000 annually, was angry that he had received only $60,000 instead of the larger sum that had been promised. The money was delivered in a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. The luxury shoe store is one of Seabrooks favorites, and a search of his home after his arrest turned up a Ferragamo bag matching this description, along with 10 pairs of Ferragamo shoes. The scheme to invest union funds was first discussed a year earlier, when Seabrook told his businessmen pals that, after running the union pension fund for years, it was time that Norman Seabrook got paid. When the proposed investment was brought to the attention of union lawyers, they indicated that such a high-risk venture in connection with municipal pensions was unprecedented, but they went along without objection. Seabrook, who was released on $250,000 bail, was suspended by the city, but he is scheduled to run for another term as union president this summer and is unopposed. Huberfeld, arrested on the same charges, was obliged to post bail of $1 million. The charges facing Seabrook illustrate the close connections between sections of Wall Street, the capitalist politicians and the unions, which are totally integrated into the Democratic Party and through it into the capitalist state apparatus. In this case, Huberfeld and Rechnitz are apparently relative small fry in the world of high finance and real estate. Their role points to the rot endemic in the whole system, although the major players on Wall Street use more sophisticated methods and are, in addition to being too big to fail, also too big to indict. As far as the two-party political system in New York, one need look no further than the successful corruption prosecutions in the past year of both Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and the top Republican in the state legislature, Senate leader Dean Skelos, by the same office of US Attorney Bharara. While defending and encouraging vicious brutality in the New York City prison system, Seabrook himself was regularly praised or consulted by top Democratic and Republican politicians over the years. These included Republican Governor George Pataki, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo. Two years ago New York mayor Bill de Blasio called Seabrook a friend and a great leader. Leading officials have cultivated close relations with Seabrook over the years both because of his sometimes generous campaign contributions as well as the role of the prison system in maintaining capitalist rule amid an increasingly precarious political equilibrium in New York. Seabrooks task has been to preside over the dirty work deemed necessary to defend the profit system. As social inequality and social tensions have continued to mount, he has become something of a liability. The de Blasio administration has attempted, through various cosmetic reforms, to improve the infamous reputation of the prisons, Rikers Island in particular. The charges against Seabrook also overlap with continuing investigations being carried out by Bhararas office of campaign finance violations involving the de Blasio administration. Rechnitz, who has been close to de Blasio and served as a member of his inaugural committee after his election in 2013, is also a cooperating witness in these ongoing probes. The mayor, who took office as a self-styled progressive and is expected to run for reelection next year, faces a growing crisis. Initial enthusiasm over his promises to reduce inequality has long since evaporated, amid deepening social polarization and attacks on social conditions. The Brexit referendum takes place under conditions of a rising tide of social struggle throughout the world. All over Europe, the working class is deserting the old national organisations that have subordinated it to the capitalist order promising reforms that have never been honoured. They are looking for a more radical solution to the capitalist crisis. In Greece, France and Belgium this has taken the form of open mass strikes and protests. The support for a Brexitboth in the form of the openly right-wing Vote Leave and of the pseudo-left Left Leave campaignis directed against this social movement. It is an attempt to channel the opposition of the working class into the dead end of nationalism and the straitjacket of the capitalist state. The only way to fight the European Union, an instrument of the major banks and corporations, is an active boycott of the referendum and the unification of the European working class on the perspective of the United Socialist States of Europe. Peter Schwarz, secretary of the International Committee of the Fourth International and a leading member of the Partei fur Soziale Gleichheit in Germany, will speak on this perspective and the historical experience of the German workers movement, which paid a terrible price for the subordination of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) to nationalism in the 1930s. The adaptation of the Stalinist KPD to the nationalism of the Nazis contributed significantly to Hitlers rise to power. You can listen to the meeting via a live audio stream here from 7 p.m. local time on Tuesday, June 14. No registration is required. Meeting details: London Tuesday, June 14, 7 p.m. Student Central (formerly ULU) Malet Street WC1E 7HY (nearest tube: Euston, Euston Square, Goodge St.) The WSWS published a review of novelist Don DeLillos Zero K earlier this month. The following comment by Eric London offers a different appraisal of the book. Death makes me very angry, said Oracle founder and CEO Larry Ellison to his biographer, Mike Wilson. Ellison has spent over $430 million of his $50 billion to fund programs aimed at putting an end to human aging. While expressing his desire to live forever, Ellison asked, incredulously: How can a person be there and then just vanish, just not be there? Don DeLillos Zero K mocks this conceit of the latter-day aristocracy. The novel features an aging hedge-fund manager and his second wife who join a cult-like group called the Convergence. The purpose of this group is to cryogenically freeze the worlds richest people, allowing them to cling to the possibility of eternal life. As one of the Convergences leading lights tells a group of money people, including statesmen and leading military-intelligence figures: Here you are, collected, convened. Isnt this what youve been waiting for? A way to claim the myth for yourselves. Life everlasting belongs to those of breathtaking wealth. DeLillos narrator, Jeffrey Lockhart, a thirty-something-year-old, doesnt buy it. He responds, dryly, Give the futurists their blood money and they will make it possible for you to live forever. Over the course of the novel, DeLillo expands on this hoped-for utopia of the wealthy. One Convergence spokesperson explains to another assembly of gathered oligarch donors later in the book: Your situation, those few of you on the verge of the journey toward rebirth. You are completely outside the narrative of what we refer to as history. Soon after, You are about to become, each of you, a single life in touch only with yourself. The spokesperson continues: That world, the one above, she said, is being lost to the systems. To the transparent networks that slowly occlude the flow of all those aspects of nature and character that distinguish humans from elevator buttons and doorbells. To this monologue, DeLillos narrator responds with a healthy and humorous deadpan: I thought what. It is to Don DeLillos credit that he has critically taken up the subject of the worlds billionaires and military-intelligence officials trying desperately to escape what they view as the worlds biggest problem: That world, the one above. In a word, society. DeLillo has written a book which poses an essential artistic question: where is truth to be foundinside oneself, in an escape from history, or in that world, the one above, in the complex set of social relations that, in their aggregate, make up human society? The breathtaking final pages of the novel indicate that the author is attempting to draw literary life back in the direction of the latter. That he has posed this question is certainly welcome, even if DeLillos answers are of highly varied quality, ranging from profound to superficial. Sections of the text, particularly Jeffreys relationship with his partner and her son, are verbose and boring. The problem is not DeLillos skill as a writer, and the book has its better moments. At one point the author describes a love affair taking place roughly in the year 2015: Know the moment, feel the gliding hand, gather all the forgettable fragments, fresh towels on the racks, nice new bar of soap, clean sheets on the bed, her bed, our blue sheets. This was all I needed to take me day to day and I tried to think of these days and nights as the hushed countermand, ours, to the widespread belief that the future, everybodys, will be worse than the past. The note of escapism aside, the simple rhythm of daily life is well presented here and contrasts simply with the delusions of immortality cited above. Zero Ks handicap is that the authors humanism does not rise to the level of conveying the complexities of society and of the individuals living in it. DeLillos detailed portrayal of social anxiety and confusion is the product of not only his attentiveness to prevailing social moods, but also of the fact that he himself is swept up and overwhelmed by them. His characters become empty vessels for nebulous moods, and as a result they are hard to sympathize with. When asked about his characters, DeLillo recently told the Guardian: People always use the word identify. Do you identify with these individuals? And I really dont. This is not a laudable sentiment. Though the characters appear tired and pessimistic, the reader cannot help but identify with the crisis-ridden world they confront. DeLillo portrays this particularly toward the books conclusion in a series of images with which readers are all too familiar from the nightly news: those of environmental catastrophe, war, and poverty. These scenes are broadcast on television screens which descend in the Convergences pallid rooms. DeLillos is not a world of inward introspection or identity-based self-obsession. His narrator sees homeless people destitute on the street, waiting to die. He realizes to his evident horror that many of the images he is watching are captured by drone. Another drone image, he says, ruined town, ghost town, small figures scavenging among the rubble. In viewing this madness, the narrator knows he is not alone: The halls are jammed with people watching the screens. All of them thinking my thoughts. That the narrator is able to comprehend (and identify with) one of the sources of the delusion of those seeking immortality underground is to his (and the authors) credit. But DeLillo does not really make sense of this and other contradictions. Incapable of exposing the true essence of the madness and confusion DeLillo sees around him, he creates a flourish of beauty in the last scene, the basic message of which seems to be: I think humanity will figure this all out. What is it that the worlds oligarchs fear about society, and why are they so desperate to escape history by turning toward what they view as the purest form of existencethe individual, separated from all else? What explains the social pathology of the class to which the author refers? Why are the halls jammed with people watching in horror and disgust as war and poverty envelop the world, and, importantly, what are they to do about it? The novel avoids these crucial questions and leans on the tired notion that death is mysterious as a crutch. At bottom, DeLillos weakness is that he portrays social consciousness as a free agent, something connected to reality in an opaque and essentially indecipherable way. And yet social consciousness can be understood. Ideaswhether in the form of social moods or individual thoughtsare the product of social reality. They are shaped over time by a complex ensemble of social relations. Under capitalism, war is not the product of a condition or human malady, but of the contradiction between the international world economy and the capitalist nation-state system. Refugees do not drown at sea because of a general lack of human empathy, but because of decisions made by powerful elites in Washington, Paris, Berlin, and Athens without any input from the vast majority of the population. There is no hint of this vital truth in the novel. Responding to the Symbolist school of literature, Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov wrote in his essay Henrik Ibsen that it is the task of the artist to attempt to both portray social reality and to advance beyond its bounds. This difficult and even insoluble task is not to be achieved through abstraction, but by determining the direction of [social realitys] development. Under such circumstances, literature is capable of uttering magical words that conjure up an image of the future. But, Plekhanov added, the capacity to utter magical words is a sign of strength, and the incapacity to utter them a sign of weakness. This inability to comprehend the logic of social development is at the center of the limitations of Zero K. Nonetheless, in the novel, DeLillo has raised critical social issues that will undoubtedly receive more substantive treatment under the impact of deepening social and political contradictions and, for this reason, Zero K deserves a wide readership. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Khalid Kazimov - Trend: Iran has condemned the recent terrorist attack on a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari has said that in line with its policies against terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns the recent terrorist attack in the US, IRNA news agency reports. A gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, leaving 49 killed and injuring dozens of people. Omar Mateen, 29, the attack's perpetrator was shot dead by the police. The IS terrorist group (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) said it was behind the attack. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is postponing its first joint event with President Barack Obama on Wednesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, because of the deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida, AP reported. Clinton's campaign says Sunday the event will be rescheduled in light of the Florida shooting. The White House confirmed the cancellation. Clinton and Obama were scheduled to make their first appearance together since the president announced his endorsement of the likely Democratic nominee last week. If you are sending a Letter To the Editor, please be sure to follow these rules: Letters have a firm 200-word limit and will be edited for grammar, clarity and accuracy. The person who signs the letter must be the author. Anonymous letters will not be considered. Letters must address the editor, not a third party. We will not print form letters, libelous letters, business promotions or personal disputes, poetry, open letters, letters espousing religious views without reference to a current issue, or letters considered in poor taste. Letters reflect the opinion of the writer. The Yakima Herald-Republic cannot verify the accuracy of all statements made in letters. Writers are limited to one published letter per calendar month. A protest against the agreement on the creation of an Armenia-Russia united air defense system is taking place outside the building of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, according to the News.am website. Several dozen people are taking part in this demonstration, which started June 13 morning. The activists are also holding respective signs. Tigran Khzmalyan, who is also among the protesters, said that if this agreement is signed, Armenia will turn into a target. "The signing of the agreement is a mistake, a betrayal," he said. The NA will kick off a special session on June 13, during which the Armenia-Russia air defense agreement also will be debated on. This document has brought forth a reaction among certain Armenian political and civic circles, who argue that with this agreement, Armenia is surrendering its airspace and security to Russia. The IDF arrested on Friday 6 wanted individuals in the West Bank and a further 5 wanted idividuals toward the end of the Shavuot festival. Most of the arrested are suspected of terror-related activities and disruption of public order. Avi Alfasi (59), an American-Israeli who lives in Florida, was shocked upon receiving the news of the massacre that took place at the Pulse Gay club, on Saturday in Orlando. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Exactly one week before the attack, which claimed the lives of at least 50 people and injured dozens more, Alfasi had organized a massive party at the club in which he himself had participated, alongside many friends. It could be said that many Israelis were miraculously saved, he said on Saturday night. In a party which took place last Saturday there were at least 20 of them with me. I could hear in the club a lot of Hebrew. Avi Alfasi (left) The party, organized by Alfasi, was especially significant since it was held to mark Gay Days at Walt Disney World - an event held annually on the first Saturday in June which is one of the largest gay pride events in the world. I have been in this club many times, said Alfasi, who owns a business which organizes massive parties for the gay community in the area. Since I organized big parties there I even rented an apartment opposite the place and today I discovered that many of my friends were murdered there. It is absolutely terrible that such a thing can happen in a place where people just want to be happy. It is an awful feeling that I could have been there. Orlando (Photo: Reuters) Alfasi added that the club was, like many places in the US, an easy target for terrorists. They do have security in the club but it isnt like in Israel he explained. You can get in through the side entrance, they dont really check bags. Unfortunately, they are stupid. In Israel the level of security is on another level. In America it is a joke. You could say that the writing was really on the wall, he continued. They told me that the terrorist entered the club, simply stood by the doors, began shooting and didnt let anyone escape. Anyone who approached him was shot in cold blood. The massacre, predicted Alfasi, would change the feeling of the gay community especially in clubs, along with the way in which security is coordinated I, personally, will ensure that from now on there will be better security in all of the clubs, which will be properly protected, he said. Any weapon that someone wants to bring into the club will have to be stopped from doing so. At the moment they are saying that it was an Islamic hit and the FBI are saying that perhaps the terrorist didnt intend to carry out the attack in a gay club but simply looked for a crowded place close to a highway but not everyone accepts this. Rabbi Aaron Katz, an Israeli-American who lives in Miami Beach in Florida and who is affiliated with the gay community said, even before ISIS took responsibility, doubted that he choice of venue in which to carry out the attack was an accident. There are many places in America where they (are stuck in the past) when it comes to the subject of gays. he said. It is extremely sad, extremely bad, extremely concerning. Unfortunately racism and the hatred leads, in the end, to an attack like this. German Chancellor Angela Merkel met China's Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on Monday amid concerns over trade and the ability of German firms and foreign non-governmental organizations to operate in China. Merkel met Li following a formal welcoming ceremony and was scheduled to meet later with President Xi Jinping. Her visit comes amid growing worries among German firms over obstacles they face in doing business with China. "It is important to have a secure juridical environment. The secure status of law is important in a large number of fields," Merkel told Li in her opening remarks before reporters were ushered from the room. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Ankara's membership in the EU won't benefit Turkey, since any economic problem in the Union may destroy the Turkish economy, believes Naciye Selin Senocak, chair holder at UNESCO Cultural Diplomacy, Governance and Education Chair, Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies (CEDS). Speaking to Trend June 13, Senocak didn't rule out that for a number of reasons, Turkey won't be able to become a member of the EU. "There are many reasons hindering Turkey on this path," said the expert. Senocak added that one of these reasons is young and dynamic population of Turkey that may compete with Germany from political and economic points of view. Another important reason is the fact that Turkey is a Muslim country, and that is perceived as a cultural threat in the EU, according to the expert. "In addition, the EU perceives political chaos in Turkey's neighboring countries as a real threat," said Senocak. At the same time, she believes that Turkey itself doesn't really need the EU. The EU is no longer an "island of hope and stability", as it can be seen from the economic problems in France and Greece, the EU policy towards migrants, as well as the expected June 23 referendum regarding UK's membership in the EU, said Senocak. "Turkey needs to develop a model of cooperation with the EU on the win-win principle, as China did," the expert added. She went on to add that in case if Turkey stops negotiations with the EU regarding the membership issue, the EU will immediately start propaganda about Turkey's radicalization with an aim to internationally isolate Ankara. Senocak also believes that Turkey should resume relations with Russia, which is very important for stability in the region. Earlier, the then prime minister and the current president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the EU continues to mislead Turkey [on the issue of accession] and this upsets the country. Meanwhile, the Minister for EU Affairs Volkan Bozkir noted that the accession negotiations "cannot continue in the format required by the EU," and stressed that democracy in Turkey is at a higher level than in some European countries. Ankara submitted its EU membership application in 1987, and negotiations on accession started only in 2005. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Israel's President Reuven Rivlin says the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 50 people and wounded dozens more is "as cowardly as it is abhorrent." Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter In a letter to President Barack Obama, Reuven Rivlin says Monday that Israel stands "shoulder to shoulder with our American brothers and sisters" after the attack on the LGBT community. He sent his condolences and said there is "no comfort for those who have had their loved ones torn away from them." Zion Square in Jerusalem The Orlando attack has dominated news in Israel, which has seen a wave of Palestinian attacks in recent months. On Wednesday two Palestinian gunmen killed four people at a popular shopping and restaurant area in Tel Aviv. LGBT groups in Israel planned rallies and other support for the community in Orlando. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also issued a statement saying, "On behalf of the people and government of Israel, I extend our deepest condolences to the American people following last nights horrific attack on the LGBT community in Orlando." "Israel stands shoulder to shoulder with the United States at this moment of tragic loss. We send our heartfelt sympathies to the families of the victims and wish a full and speedy recovery to the wounded," he said. During the opening of the government's weekly cabinet session on Monday, Netanyahu said, We are all shocked by the terrible massacre in Orlando. I wish to express our national condolences to the American people and to the families. Islamic terror threatens the entire world and all enlightened nations need to unite in order to fight against it." A number of solidarity events with the victims of the Orlando attacks took place around Israel on Sunday afternoon and evening. The Tel Aviv Municipality lit its southern facade overlooking Rabin Square to display the LGBT pride, American, and Israeli flags, and a candlelight vigil was held at Gan Meir. In Jerusalem, a group of people gathered in Zion Square holding rainbow flags and signs of support. Three people were lightly injured on Sunday night after a group of Palestinians hurled rocks at a bus near the Rockefeller museum in East Jerusalem. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The Egged line number three bus crossed Neviim Street and continued in the direction of the Kotel. Approximately 500 meters after it passed Sultan Suleiman's Street and the Damascus gate, the rock throwers targeted the bus, causing panic and a nuber of injuries. Scene of rock throwing incident (Photo:Avi Orlov) Magen David Adom (MDA) rescue and paramedic teams arrived at the scene to treat a 22 year old and a 23 year old, who sustained head injuries. The two were later evacuated to Jerusalem's Hadassah Mount Scopus hospital. MDA also treated and evacuated a 61-year-old lady to Hadassah Mount Scopus, who became overwhelmed by anxiety and was suffering chest pain. All three injured individuals were discharged from hospital on Monday morning. The rock throwers also damaged the bus's windshield and lower storage compartments. The Jerusalem police opened an investigation to locate and arrest the suspects. In another incident near Kiryat Arba, a woman was lightly during incident in which stone throwers launched rocks at her windshield. Magen David Adom treated the woman on the scene. She refused to be evacuated to the hospital. While talks about warming relations between Turkey and Israel have not yet reached their conclusion, airports in Istanbul remain the top destinations from Israel, with flights to and from them constituting eight percent of Ben Gurion Airport's traffic. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Analysis Israeli-Turkish relations and their implications Eldad Beck Op-ed: While Turkey and Israel begin to thaw their relations following the Istanbul terror attack, Israel should be wary of getting too close to a dictator such as Erdogan too quickly, taking into account his anti-Semitism and and oppressive policies. Israel-Turkish relations and their implications A new report from the Israel Airports Authority shows that, in the first five months of 2016, 483,000 flights have travelled from Ben Gurion to Istanbul, marking a rise of 12.6 percent from 2015. These flights went to the Turkish metropolis's Sabiha Gokcen International and Ataturk Airports on Turkish and Pegasus Airlines Of the different nationalities flying to Istanbul, it is predominantly the Israelis who remain for vacations in Turkey. Most of the other passengers to these airports are on layovers and continue on to destinations in Europe, the Far East and North America. Heathrow in London, Israeli's no. 3 destination The second most popular destination from Ben Gurion airport is New York (both JFK and Newark), with 477,000 travelers flying there over the five-month period of 2016. The figures represent a 5.5 percent increase from last year. London's myriad of airports traled in third place with some 378,000 travelers fying from Ben Gurion Airport (an increase of 5 percent). The top five are completed with Moscow (334,000 travelers, a rise of 21 percent) and Rome (263,000 travelers, a rise of 16 percent). The leading ten airlines in international flights from Ben Gurion Airport all experienced an increase in the number of passengers in the first five months of 2016. The most active airline was El Al, which flew more than two million passengers. The Israeli airline's market share in Ben Gurion was close to 35 percent. In total, 5.8 million passengers travelled through Ben Gurion Airport from January to May 2016 on international flights. BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia's state TV says Serbian Prime Minister-designate Aleksandar Vucic has canceled his visits to Brussels and separate talks with American officials after reports in a pro-government newspaper that the EU and U.S. ambassadors are fueling protests against his rule. Vucic, a former ultranationalist, was scheduled to travel later this month to Brussels for the formal opening of EU membership talks and to the US on an inaugural Air Serbia flight to New York. The cancellation comes amid increasing pressure by Russia against Serbia joining the EU and NATO. Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah says the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history is a "senseless act of terror and hate" and that "Palestinians stand with the American people in this difficult time." The statement made no direct reference to the LGBT community. Homosexuality is deeply taboo in the conservative Palestinian society. Gay Palestinians tend to be secretive about their social lives and some have crossed into Israel to live openly safely. Residents in a multistory apartment building in Ramat Gan near the Ayalon Highway were evacuated from their homes due to a fire that broke out on the ninth floor and spread to other levels. There are as yet unconfirmed reports of persons trapped in the building. Firefighters are battling the blaze. The Jerusalem District Court convicted on Monday Balal Abu Ghanem from the village of Jabel Mukaber in Jerusalem, who carried out a shooting and stabbing attack in Armon Hanatziv last October during which he killed three Israelis. He was convicted on three counts of murder, seven counts of attempted murder and for aiding an enemy during war. Jerusalem police arrested a 20-year-old man last week from the Shuafat refugee camp after he used his Facebook page to incite to terrorism. The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court extended his arrest until the district attorney files an indictment against him later this week. Wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Kidnapps, torture and extremist attacks infringe on human rights worldwide. Tyrannical, autocratic leaders and their allies from Belarus to Burundi repel dissent with an iron fist. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter But while human rights abuses are all over in these troubled times, only one country has its record inspected at every single session of the United Nations Human Rights Council: Israel, specifically over its policies in the West Bank. Israel, which trumpets its bona fides as a democracy in a difficult neighborhood full of enemies, is crying foul. And it is not alone: Other critics, notably the United States, also decry what they see as an entrenched bias in United Nations institutions and an obsession with the Palestinian issue at the expense of other crises around the globe. As the council convened Monday in Geneva for its second, weeks-long session this year, "Item 7" considers the human rights implications of Israel's control of the West Bank. The standing item at the 10-year-old council has come to exemplify the spotlight on Israel in a number of UN bodies. Photo: AP "I don't know whether it's fair or unfair, but it's obvious that the majority of members want to continue to focus on the situation of Israel and Palestine," council president Choi Kyong-lim told the Associated Press. Of 233 country-specific HRC resolutions in the last decade, more than a quarter - 65 - focus on Israel. About half of those are "condemnatory." Israel easily tops thecountry in second-place in the infamous rankings: Syria, where since 2011 at least 250,000 people have been killed, over 10 million displaced, and its cities destroyed, was the subject of only 19 resolutions. "The UN continues to single out Israel, the one liberal democracy in the Middle East," said David Keyes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman. "Imagine that. A country with free speech, free elections and minority rights is condemned more than mass murdering dictatorships like North Korea, Iran and Syria. That speaks for itself." Shortly after taking office in 2007, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticized the standing item on Israel, saying he was "disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item, given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world." It hasn't budged since. Over the years, the council has criticized Israel's presence in the Golan Heights and its detention of Syrian suspects without trial, a lack of cooperation with UN human rights investigators, its expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and its muscular and at times deadly response to militants' rocket attacks from Gaza that have killed Israeli civilians. This session no resolutions are planned on Israel, but it still gets automatic billing. The criticism of Israel spans many UN bodies. Take some other recent examples: -Israeli officials bristled after the UN's cultural agency, UNESCO, passed a resolution in April that put the Western Wall in Jerusalem - Judaism's holiest site - in quotation marks and described other Jewish sites as "so-called Jewish." -A Human Rights Council resolution in March called on UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein to set up a database of businesses operating in settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights. US Ambassador Keith Harper said that move "only serves to reinforce the council's one-sided actions against Israel." -On Friday, Zeid condemned Wednesday's gun attack in Tel Aviv that killed four people. But he quickly expressed concern about the response, saying that Israeli authorities could be engaging in "collective punishment" with some measures against Palestinians like canceling 83,000 travel permits granted to West Bank and Gaza residents during Ramadan. Israel's mission in Geneva accused his office of "using the murder of innocent Israelis to attack Israel." "Israel tries to say that the UN is not the place to solve problems," said Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki. "Israel tries hard to single out the Palestinians by saying the conflict will be solved by the two sides and in the same time it continues confiscating lands and building settlements. Israel ... doesn't listen to anybody." The Palestinians, who have been gaining a greater presence in UN institutions in recent years, have allies like the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, which has often led the push for resolutions critical of Israel. An OIC official did not respond to calls or emails for comment, saying that its ambassador to the council had recently left. John Fisher, Geneva director for Human Rights Watch, said that while his group believes Israel's record deserves attention, it also has been calling for "attention to situations that are not on the council's agenda at all, but should be." The more economic and political heft that a country has, the more it can block intense scrutiny. Uber-rich Saudi Arabia thwarted efforts to create an international probe of rights abuses in neighboring Yemen, where a Saudi-led military coalition has led a campaign including air strikes that have left hundreds of civilians dead. On the side of those less influential, there's Eritrea: a small, poor country on the Red Sea whose African neighbors want to highlight in this session with a resolution critical of its rights record. Nearly from its inception, the HRC has drawn criticism for its make-up. This year, China, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela and Burundi are among its 47 members. Diplomats insist the HRC reflects the world, and cannot only include peaceful Western democracies. They say no country is fully above reproach. The HRC has had achievements in places like post-genocide Sri Lanka, whose new government has been generally receptive to scrutiny and has cooperated with the council. Some Latin American countries are expected to lead an effort in this session to support protections for people based on their gender identities and sexual orientation. BRUSSELS- NATO's chief said Monday the alliance will agree this week to send four multinational battalions to the Baltic states and Poland to boost their defenses against Russia. Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said alliance defense ministers will formally approve the deployment plan drafted by NATO military planners at a meeting that begins Tuesday in Brussels. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, four of NATO's members that feel most threatened by Russia, will each be reinforced by "a robust multinational battalion," Stoltenberg told a news conference. Baku, Azerbaijan, June 13 Trend: A US citizen serving as chief of the fire department at Turkey's Incirlik airbase was found dead in the courtyard of his house, the Hurriyet newspaper reported June 13. The cause of the airbase employee's death is unknown. Turkey has initiated a criminal case into the airbase employee's death and an investigation is underway. The Incirlik base is located five miles north of the Turkish city of Adana near the Syrian border. The airbase currently hosts aircraft of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and Qatar involved in the US-led air campaign against the "Islamic State" terrorist group. Governments across the globe neglected to officially condemn the deadly terror attack in Tel Avivs Sarona Market , but that doesnt mean there werent voices in the Arab world who spoke out against the shooting. Sadly, these voices have met with negative, even hostile, responses. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Egyptian journalist Bothaina Kamel, was among those brave enough to come out in public against the attack. What kind of heroism is it when you go into a restaurant and murder the diners inside? she asked on twitter. While some expressed their support, many others turned their attention to Israels actions against the Palestinians. Kamal agreed that Israels actions were bad, but later wrote, responding to a crime with a crime doesnt cancel out your crime. The scene of the attack at Tel Aviv's Sarona Market. (Photo: Getty Images) Responding to some of the harsh replies she received, Kamal clarified that she saw actions aimed against settlers, or the occupying army as another matter. One user responded by telling Kamal, All of the Jews in the land of Palestine are occupiers and settlers. (Even) if you give up Tel Aviv, the Palestinians will stick to it. Egyptian Journalist Wael Kandil of the al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper, which is known for its anti-Sisi coverage, responded to Kamals words, writing, Bothaina condemns the attack in Tel Aviv, shares in Avichay Adraees (the IDFs Arab-language spokesperson) grief, and wishes her Arab neighbors a satisfying fast and enjoyable fast-breaking meal. Meanwhile, Saudi journalist and analyst Dahham Bin Tarif al-Enazi went even further. Enazi, who previously raised the idea of opening a Saudi embassy in Israel, wrote the action in Tel Aviv is terrorism and barbarity. Our empathy with the Palestinians doesnt mean that we agree to murder civilians and innocents. Our condolences go out to the victims families. Bothaina Kamel. One of the few willing to condemn the attacks. Enazis statement naturally led to harsh replies on Twitter, especially from Palestinians. (Spit) on you and your honor, you dog, wrote one replier. Another wrote, The occupation is the real terrorism. The Iranian press was quick to take advantage of al-Enazis statement. The Arabic-language Iranian news station Al-Alam framed it as an exampl of Saudi cooperation with Israel against Iran, and against the Resistance axis, which includes the Assad regime in Syria and Lebanese-based Shiite terror organization Hezbollah. An expanded story on the Al-Alam website said that al-Enazi is a member of the Saudi press association, and, it seems that this Saudi media man hasnt noticed the continuous Israeli crimes in the Palestinian territories, and the daily killings there. A tweet by Dahham Al Enazi. Caused a stir of its own. The Iranian news channel later mentioned that meetings were being held between Saudi and Israeli officials, in an attempt at normalizing relations. Saudi TV network Al Arabiya took a lot of criticism after it called the people murdered in the attack victims. One of the repliers wrote sarcastically that the networks people should have prayed for the souls of those killed in Tel Aviv. Another wrote, How loathsome they are they dont even have a minimum amount of Arab-ness (in them). Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump faulted the Muslim community on Monday for not reporting people like the man who carried out the Orlando gay nightclub attack, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, told CNN that he thought the Orlando nightclub shooter - Omar Mateen - was known to people in the Muslim community as someone with a potential for violence. "You will find that many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job ... (that) something like this would have happened," Trump told CNN in a phone interview. "People that knew him, the ex-wife, other people. They don't report them. For some reason the Muslim community does not report people like this." Donald Trump on CNN X Trump said the United States needed better intelligence-gathering to prevent such things from happening. "We have to look at the mosques ... and we have to look at the community," he said. "And believe me, the community knows the people that have the potential to blow up." He also asserted Monday that there are thousands of people living in the United States "sick with hate" and capable of carrying out the sort of massacre that killed these 49 people at the Florida nightclub. "We can't let people in. ... We have to be very, very strong," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said in one of a host of broadcast interviews he undertook in advance of a speech he planned later Monday in New Hampshire. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (Photo: AFP) "The problem is we have thousands of people right now in our country. You have people that were born in this country" who are susceptible to becoming "radicalized," the billionaire real estate mogul told Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends. He claimed that there are Muslims living here who "know who they are" and said it was time to "turn them in." The gunman, identified by police as Omar Mateen, was a 29-year-old U.S. citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida. He opened fire with an AR-15 inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, killing at least 49 people before dying in a gunfight with police. Another 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition. Trump's hardline approach to fighting Islamic terrorism was a hallmark of his primary campaign. Besides proposing a temporary prohibition on foreign Muslims from entering the country, he has and advocated using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods to try to stave off future attacks. In the hours after the Orlando shooting, Trump issued a statement calling on President Barack Obama to resign for refusing "to even say the words 'radical Islam'" in his response to the attack. He said Clinton should exit the presidential race if she does the same. In an address from the White House, Obama called the tragedy an act of terror and hate. He did not talk about religious extremists. He said the FBI would investigate the shootings in the gay nightclub as terrorism, but added the gunman's motivations were unclear. On Monday he said "we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind. People cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he is and cannot even mention radical Islam." Knesset Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein spoke on the phone with US House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, sending Ryan his condolences, in the name of the entire Israeli parliament. Edelstein emphasized the point that terrorism does not distinguish Orlando from Tel Aviv, and that Israel and the United Stated must work together to be victorious in the face of global terrorism. TORONTO/MANILA - Canadian hostage Robert Hall is believed to have been killed by his captors in the Philippines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday, in what appears to be the second execution of a Canadian hostage by the militant group Abu Sayyaf in the area in recent months. Trudeau said Canadian officials were working with authorities in the Philippines to confirm the death of Hall, who was taken captive with three other people by the militants in September 2015 from an upscale resort on Samal island, hundreds of miles (km) east of Jolo. Trudeau said in a statement there was "reason to believe" that Abu Sayyaf had executed Hall. Hours later, he told reporters that "Canada holds the terrorist group who took Mr. Hall hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder." CARACAS- Venezuelan authorities are investigating the shooting death of a 21-year-old man during a protest over food as the South American nation's economic disarray fuels more unrest. Luis Fuentes died after being shot in the leg as national guard troops broke up a protest on a highway in Sucre state. Another dozen people were injured. The attorney general said in a statement Sunday that it is investigating security forces' actions. The government's ombudsman condemned the use of firearms to break up protests after a video circulated on social media showing the national guard firing into the crowd. ADDIS ABABA- Ethiopia and Eritrea are trading accusations over an incident in a disputed border area, with Ethiopia on Monday confirming its military had taken "proportional measures" against Eritrea in response to an attempted attack in the Tsorona area the day before. "The attack heavily weakened Eritrean military's attacking capacity," Ethiopia's Communications Affairs Office said. In a statement late Sunday, Eritrea's Information Ministry accused Ethiopian troops of carrying out attacks against Eritrean positions in the Tsorona Central Front. MANILA- Police found a severed head in the southern Philippines on Monday and are examining whether it belonged to a Canadian hostage who is believed to have been beheaded by Abu Sayyaf militants after a ransom deadline passed, officials said. The hostage, Robert Hall, was abducted from a marina last September along with another Canadian, a Norwegian and a Filipino. The other Canadian, former mining executive John Ridsdel, was beheaded in April. Police Superintendent Junpikar Sitin said troops found the head late Monday in a plastic bag on a street in Jolo town in Sulu province. DUBAI- Bahraini police detained a prominent activist during a raid on his home early Monday, rights groups and the activist's family said, part of a wide crackdown on dissent more than five years after the Arab Spring. It wasn't immediately clear why authorities detained Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. However, his detention comes after Zainab al-Khawaja, another prominent activist, fled the island nation for Denmark in recent days over fears of being imprisoned again. Police seized electronic devices and other items from Rajab's home as they detained him, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. Rajab's wife, Sumayia, also confirmed his arrest and said on Twitter that their home was searched. After months of behind-the-scenes diplomatic struggles, Israels Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon was elected to head the UN Legal Committee (officially named the Sixth Committee) on Monday. The committee deals with sensitive topics including fighting global terrorism. . Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter This is a historic event, as it marks the first time an Israeli representative will head a permanent UN committee since its induction into the organization in 1949 109 nations voted for Danon (the process only included votes cast for a candidate for the position, and did not include nay votes). Palestinian representative Dr. Riyad H. Mansour worked to convince voting representatives to not support Danon until the last second. Irans delegation was also active in trying to stop the appointment, sending representatives a letter on the matter. The historical vote in which Danon was chosen to head the UN's Sixth Committe. I am proud to be the first Israeli elected to this position, said Ambassador Danon, Israel is a world leader in international law and in fighting terrorism. We are pleased to have the opportunity to share our knowledge with the countries of the world. We will not allow dictatorships and anti-Israel countries to harm our standing in the international community. Those who tried to block our appointment would be well advised to take note of the jurisdiction of this committee, as they have much to learn about international law, he continued, We are a full member of the UN and any attempt to deny us of our legal rights in this organization will be met with uncompromising rejection. Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon. Ambassador Danons candidacy received widespread backing from many member-states, led by the United States and the Europeans. Prior to todays appointment, Ambassador Danon was first elected as the Western European and Others (WEOG) regional groups candidate for the position. Then, following the objection by the Arab Group to approve the nomination, the General Assembly proceeded to elect Ambassador Danon by a secret ballot. All 193 UN member-states were eligible to take part in todays election. After his election, Ambassador Danon was congratulated by colleagues from around the world. Flanked by three special operations aircraft, an audience of citizen commandos and well-wishers welcomed the 919th Special Operations Groups first female commander to the family here June 12. Col. Regina Sabric accepted the guidon from Col. James Phillips, the 919th Special Operations Wing commander, officially taking command of her new group. If all the great things I heard about her are true, I know I made the right decision choosing Colonel Sabric as the new commander, said Phillips. I look forward to great things from her. Sabric, a 20-year veteran and senior pilot, took the command after serving at Headquarters Air Force at the Pentagon in Washington D.C. Commanding this group is an opportunity of a lifetime and theres no other place Id rather be, said the new colonel. I look forward to working with all of you and continuing to support the successful total force relationships and missions we have here. Im honored and humbled to be the new group commander. The Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania native graduated from Penn State University with a Bachelors Degree in Science-Aerospace Engineering before commissioning in the Air Force in 1996. Col. Kurt Matthews relinquished command to take command of the 920th Operations Group at Patrick AFB. I feel Ive left the SOG better than I found it and I expect it to reach even greater heights under Colonel Sabrics leadership, said Matthews. Baku, Azerbaijan June 13 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: A major terrorist attack has been averted in Turkey's Istanbul city, the Haber7 newspaper reported June 13. A suspicious package was found in one of the central streets in Istanbul June 13 in the morning, following which the street was blocked by a bomb squad. It was revealed that there is an explosive device in the package. No further details of the incident have been reported. A terrorist attack was committed in Istanbul June 7, leaving 12 dead and 35 injured. Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has said that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist group stands behind this terrorist attack. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company. As of 2020, Minuteman Review is now the proud owner and operator of Your Defence News, a website with a long history of breaking huge news stories and investigative journalism. We hope you are equally as excited as us. This means that now the teams of Minuteman can combine with the firepower of Your Defence News to stay at the absolute forefront for our readers. Keep an eye. Big things are coming soon. We couldn't be more excited. In the meanwhile, here are some of our most popular posts and categories to keep you busy. Happy shootin' my friends! Buying Guides: Firearms Firearm Accessories Ammunition Gun Safes Scopes & Optics Hunting Air Rifles Best AR-15 Best AR 15 Scope Best Hunting Rifle Best Gun Safe Best AK 47 Best AR 10 Best Glock Triggers Best Glock Best Home Defense Shotgun Residential communities specially designed for China's younger generation are popping up in China's big cities, offering a place to live, start a business, and make friends. You+ International Youth Community is considered one of the first companies to offer this type of accommodation service to renters across China. Advertisement Graffiti adorns walls around the community, and the rental rooms are all tastefully decorated and equipped with all the trappings of modern life. More than 400 young people live and work at one of the You+ communities in downtown Beijing. Its founder and chairman Liu Yang has worked and lived in six cities around the country. "I understand the 'transient' and 'precarious' feeling of living in an unknown city," Liu, 42, said. His own experience inspired him to provide young people with a real "home," and somewhere they could kick-start their career. Young people do not often communicate with their neighbors since they are busy working so hard, Liu said. "People are uncomfortable in an unfamiliar environment," he said. "Thus, safety comes in numbers." "Home means warm, safe, and stable," Liu said. "Our You+ community is grounded in these concepts." Liu raised 8 million yuan (about $1.24 million) in 2011 and opened his first youth community in Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong province. "Young people do not necessarily need a very big bedroom, they prefer communal recreational spaces," Liu said. "We assign spaces for cafes, KTV rooms, cinemas, billiards, and gyms." The maximum age for residents of the community is 35 years old, and no children are allowed. Rent ranges from 1,500 to 6,000 yuan a month. "Actually residents can save more money by volunteering for the community, as all our facilities are free except beverages and snacks." The youth communities pride themselves on being a place to live, rather than somewhere to stay. "We are pushing strangers to become acquaintances by living in the community," Liu said. "It's just like neighbors in the village." The community is also an industrial incubator where private companies could be registered. Many of Liu's renters start their own business at the community. Some of them are busy day and night. "They do not need to jam into the subway and go to the office to the other side of the city," Liu explained. Wei Jialin, 26, used to live at the You+ community in 2015. She said that the biggest difference between a private apartment and the youth community is being able to make friends. "I don't want to sit in front of the computer all day and night," she said. "It's not what young people should be doing." Wei works on an overseas study program service now. She met her boss and colleagues at the same youth community. "Most are outstanding entrepreneurs who helped my career a lot," Wei said. Liu Yang believes that his community is safe. "Any unfamiliar face is recognizable," he said. "All the door-entrance buttons are hidden; only members know." There are around 10 maintenance and communication workers in each You+ community. One resident had an angina attack. "Many members rushed to his aid after they heard about it on WeChat." By the time the ambulance arrived, the ill resident was out of danger, thanks to his friends. According to Liu, all the residents are unique and can make their own contribution. You+ has 16 communities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and Fuzhou. They attracted around 400 million yuan in investment. Liu saw You+ as just the prelude of youth communities in China. "The supply is still far less than the demand." Ge Lan, chairman of Mofang Apartments, one of over 1,000 similar youth communities in China, understands that there is huge potential for the market; "China has a floating population of more than 200 million." The public-house rental sector, including youth communities, is considered by many as an efficient solution for the housing inventory. Since last year, China has introduced a range of policies encouraging the development of the house rent market. Credit: China Daily Samsung is rumored to release a high-end foldable smartphone, codenamed Veyron, exclusively in China. (Photo : Samsung) As the mobile tech enthusiasts and fans eagerly digest each and every rumor about Samsung Electronics' upcoming premium handsets - be it Galaxy Note 6 (or 7) and the S8 - a recent news said that the Korean-based giant is prepping a new clamshell handset to be released only in China. Advertisement Clamshell smartphone is not considered a trend anymore in the larger parts of the world as it does not appear so "smart" anymore, but acknowledging the huge mobile market in China, Samsung has continuously released such handsets in the big Asian country. The South Korea-based company will be releasing a new high-end clamshell smartphone with the internal codename Veyron, according to a recent report by Sam Mobile. As the new handset shared a moniker with one of the most expensive car in the world, Bugatti Veyron, the upcoming device is believed to have a hefty price tag. It can also be noted that its predecessor, the SM-2016, shared almost the same price tag as Samsung's premium S6 slate. Samsung Veyron will reportedly feature a huge boost on its precursor's specifications. One of the known upgrade is that the new clamshell device will be featuring a powerful Exynos 8890, the latest octa-core chip. This is better compared to SM-2016's Exynos 7420. While Samsung has no official announcement to the upcoming handset's specifications, report said it will feature the same dual 3.9-inch HD Super AMOLED touchscreen display, which is the same screen specification of SM-2016. In terms of its shooters, Veyron will sport a 12MP rear camera and a 5MP front shooter - a downgrade to its predecessors which is packed with 16MP back shooter and the same front camera. The upcoming clamshell device will also feature the same glass-and-metal build of Samsung Galaxy S7. It is not, however, known if the Samsung Veyron will be a waterproof device like the Galaxy S7. Meanwhile, in a related update, President and CEO at Samsung Telecommunications America Gregory Lee recently confirmed the upcoming release of the Korea-based mobile giant's first and radical foldable phone. The executive said that the new smartphone "is just around the corner" during the Future Mobile conference, as reported by Recode. While the company executive remains mum on the new phones' specifications, it is rumored that Samsung will release two bendable smartphones next year. iBuyNew CEO Mark Mendel said if banks are prepared to fund a development for construction then they should take the same stance on providing finance when it comes to the buyers of those apartments. The banks should be offering to fund the buyers of those apartments under the same policy that exists when the construction started, Mendel said. Buyers of off-the-plan apartments should be able to go to the bank that funds the construction and take out a pre-approval that will last them until settlement. This reduces a part of the risk for the buyer as they dont have finance risk. It also reduces problems for the developer as they dont have settlement risk and overall its a win/win situation for the bank. Mendel, whose company focuses on off the plan apartment and townhouse sale, said settlement risk for off-the-plan properties is something buyers, developers and lenders need to guard against. He said there was an onus on banks in the current highly competitive lending landscape to better protect their home loan customers. Consumers typically will not have the knowledge or expertise to predict what will occur in the economy going forward, he said. Banks have research teams who will have a better idea of what will play out economically over the next 18 months. Some lenders are in a position to provide mortgage pre-approvals of up to 12 months, which would better protect customers purchasing off the plan. ASUS demonstrates their new Zenfone 3 Deluxe which has a 5.7-inch 1080p Super AMOLED screen (Photo : YouTube / ASUS) The Asus Zenfone 3 will have a fast laser auto-focus feature, which will be able to focus in just 0.03 seconds. It will also have some great camera specs for selfie lovers. Asus Zenfone 3 will come packed with a lightning fast laser feature, which will help to capture impeccable images super-fast, according to Android Pit. The speed of the Asus Zenfone 3 focus is the same as the high-end Sony Xperia Z5 despite the fact that the former is a midrange device. Advertisement Regarding the other camera specs, the device comes with a 16 MP primary camera. It also has a 8MP secondary camera so that there is no need to compromise on the quality of the selfies. Asus Zenfone 3 will also have the USB Type-C port and the fingerprint scanner at the back of the device. The scanner will help the users to use Android Pay, which comes along with Android Marshmallow. The Asus flagship device will also have a 5.5-inch full HD screen. It is a budget device yet the screen size is great and at par with high-end devices. It will also have a Snapdragon 625 processor and a battery of 3,000 mAh capacity. Asus Zenfone 3 also comes packed with five magnet speakers for playing sound files at great clarity. It will also have a RAM of 3GB so that there is no lag while multi-tasking. Design-wise also, it is created with an aesthetic appeal, according to CNET. It will come in a curved glass design, which is very similar to the look of Samsung Galaxy S7. Asus is also offering multiple color options such as white, black, gold and blue to the customers. Like all the comparable smartphones in this bracket, Asus Zenfone 3 comes with the usual connectivity options. It has LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and USB Type-C connectivity options. Various Asus Zenfone 3 variants are going to be released soon. These include Zenfone 3 Deluxe, which will come with Snapdragon 823 processor and Zenfone 3 Ultra. They are expected to release in August. The price tag may start from $249 for the basic model. They will come equipped with Android Marshmallow out of the box. They will be upgradable to the upcoming operating system Android N as well. Watch the video to know more about Asus Zenfone 3 here: The students demanded the dismissal of Egypt's minister of education over the high school exam leaks A group of high school students organised protests in Cairo and Alexandria against Education Minister El-Hilali El-Sherbini on Monday, calling for his dismissal over recent leaks of high school exam papers. In Cairo, dozens of high school students protested in front of the ministry's headquarters, demanding the dismissal of El-Sheribini and cancellation of the current grading system for students to enroll in universities. The students chanted against El-Sheribini and the ministry, shouting: "Down with the ministry of leaks!" and "Down with the ministry of cheating!" In Alexandria, dozens of high school students protested in front of the Alexandria Bibliotheca, also demanding the grading system be changed. Security forces dispersed the protest as it was unauthorised; protests that have not received prior police permission are illegal according to a 2013 controversial law. Six students were arrested and detained, but later released. At least three high school exam papers, including those for Arabic and English exams, were leaked on social media before and during the summer high school exams, for the fourth year in a row. The general prosecution are investigating the leaks, and several people have been arrested for allegedly sharing the leaked material via popular cheating Facebook pages. A number of officials at the education ministry were also arrested pending investigations. Marks scored on the high school exams, known as the thanaweya amma, dictate students' university choices. More than 500,000 students are sitting this year's tests. Search Keywords: Short link: Arizona News Phoenix, Arizona - It's been nearly six months since Arizona Governor Doug Ducey launched his controversial initiative that publicly shamed suspected "deadbeat parents," and the numbers are in on how it's going so far. The Governor's Office confirmed on Wednesday detectives found their 11th suspected deadbeat mom or dad since the program started in January. The latest delinquent parent to be found appears to be David Rojas, who reportedly owes more than $66,000 in back child support for his two children. During his State of the State address in January, Gov. Ducey started the initiative where the Arizona Department of Economic Security tweeted out names and faces of suspected deadbeat parents with the hashtag, "#deadbeat." Since the social media shaming campaign began, DES has posted 56 deadbeat parents online. Those include eight women and 48 men. "If you're old enough to father a child, then you're old enough to accept financial responsibility for that child. If you don't want your embarrassing unlawful and irresponsible behavior going viral: Man up and pay up," Ducey said in January. Ducey said he thinks public shaming is a way to help get deadbeat dads and moms to pay what they owe. Health News Rochester, Minnesota - Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder of the nervous system that affects movement. It develops gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. But while a tremor may be the most well-known sign of Parkinson's disease, the disorder also commonly causes stiffness or slowing of movement. In the early stages of Parkinson's disease, your face may show little or no expression, or your arms may not swing when you walk. Your speech may become soft or slurred. Parkinson's disease symptoms worsen as your condition progresses over time. Although Parkinson's disease can't be cured, medications may markedly improve your symptoms. In occasional cases, your doctor may suggest surgery to regulate certain regions of your brain and improve your symptoms. My sole motivation behind letting myself into that abominable prison house called school was the little white stick that my mother allowed me to grab and lick after the classes were over. I used to look with wishful eyes the attractive white box of ice cream walla who also had other varieties-the red tangy one that came in twenty five paisa, the slightly yellow one that came in fifty paisa and the expensive white creamy one that came in full one rupee. My mother had warned me against eating the orange one as she said it contained worms that came out if you sprinkled salt on it! So my childhood remained deprived of that one single taste that so often contented the appetite of my not-so-affluent friends.

When I went to college I read about globalisation, about the invasion of markets by foreign goods and of absolute wiping out of the local economy by organized production houses. But I could not understand these things till one day while crossing from near my school my eyes failed to spot that old ice cream walla whose presence had become such an inseparable part of the entire set up. It came as a rude shock to me that his place was now taken by three four colourful wheeled vans endorsing attractive logos and pictures of branded ice cream.

That changes are always for better or worse is like putting an emotion into plain black and white. I may have in my own personal way some attachment with the white stick ice cream or with the more expensive soapy, frothy softie of my school days but the accessibility, taste and variety that the present day ice cream industry is offering is no doubt incomparable.

Who would have thought barely a decade ago of eating ice creams made of real fresh fruits- a la Gelato Vittorio or a cool creamy liquid fried in hot boiling oil or what is called today the fried ice cream.

In India the ice cream industry took sometimes to catch the global cue because the country has an indigenous rich and well developed dessert market. What ice cream would stand in competition against Indian sweets? But no you cant say so just because you are born in the land of Kulfi. You will have the authority only when you taste Baked Alaska (an ice-cream sponge cake dish topped with meringue), Arctic roll (British dessert made of vanilla and flour), Adzuki (Japanese red bean ice cream) and Dondruma( a Turkish ice made of salep and mastic resin).

We Indians who generally go gaga over a handful of varieties that Baskin Robbins offers are unaware of the fact that the company actually makes 1000 flavours! What we get in India generally as branded ice cream is nothing but milk and corn flour seasoned with a few chemicals and packed in attractive cones, cups and cornettos. Our knowledge of Ice cream is so poor that we do not even know what cornetto is! Most of us think it is the name of an ice cream that Kwality offers. Update your dictionary- it is actually the registered name of an improved variety of waffle cone that does not become soggy and that was invented and patented by an Italian firm called Spica in 1960!

The world offers so much in shape of that delicate, cool, tender delight called ice cream that I being a lover of it feel choked with emotion at my own minisculeness and misfortune of not having tasted even a fraction of that tremendous, rich and inexhaustible treasure. What is thy life O mortal, my heart cries out, if thou hast not known the glories of the Australian Giant Sandwich Monster, the Manoco Bar, the Irish Scottish Sliders, the Argentine Helado, the Greek Kimaki and the Japanese Macha!

Sometimes I wonder whether there is an intricate connection between the survival of a race and its appetite for ice cream! Otherwise why would the Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese and the Persians survive the ravages of time and the Glorious Harappan civilization fade into oblivion? And let us be pragmatic and not blame some harmless ecology or innocent river for their decline. The reason I am sure was hidden in their food habits-they having failed to secure the divine blessings of the Gods. Yes, thats precisely what the ancient Greeks called ice cream! Imagine what foodies they must have been that nearly 4000 years ago they got for themselves ice houses constructed at the banks of Euphrates and as early as 5th century BC they began its marketing by selling ice cones mixed with fruit and honey. A honey flavoured cornetto.!

Roman emperor Nero (62 AD) was fond of fruit ice cream and hence sent his servants to fetch ice from mountains! The Falooda that we eat today is actually a Persian dish Faloodeh made from starch and has its origin around 400BC. The Chinese who claim to be the pioneers in almost everything -be it the first currency notes, the first stint with silk or the first to flood the markets of neighbours with cheap plastic goods-were not far behind in making ice cream too. They are credited to have invented a device that made quick ice using salt peter (no, it was not imported from Bihar, China had enough of it).

The unfortunate Charles I whom the world knows as an autocrat, a despot, a tyrant, an enemy of democracy and parliament was also a lover of ice cream! It is said that he made his chef keep the formula a secret so that it remained a royal prerogative.

Our great Mughals, we should not forget were the die hard lovers of food and all that is rich and luxurious in the modern Indian cuisine has a Mughal origin. So they too loved ice cream and they too enjoyed it in royal feasts and ceremonies. When they could get choicest fruits from Farghana and Samarquand and the best wines from Persia, why couldnt they send relays of horsemen to bring ice from Hindukush for their aromatic fruit sherbets?

But were sending horsemen to run and fetch ice or storing ice in underground icehouses near rivers, the only way of making ice creams in those days? Sadly, yes. And thats why the common man remained deprived of and unknown to its delectable taste. But lets thank Nancy Johnson of Philadelphia who first got the patent for a small hand run ice cream freezer. Gradually with the coming of electricity there also came a revolution in ice cream making. Thereafter Giant corporates like Howard Johnson, Dairy Queen, Baskin Robbins, Gelato Vittorio, Ben and Jerrys, Haagen Dazs and Carvel changed the concept of ice cream in the world. Soft serves, Sundaes and super premiums began to be offered by shops next door.

Thanks to globalisation, the world has really become a small place to live in. Today I can access any ice cream from the world over in my local confectionary shop. but among the confused tastes of multitudinous flavours I some how always try to find that one singular taste of the white stick ice-cream which trickled through my fingers and ran into my nursery uniformspoiling it but leaving an imprint on my memory which has failed to faint in all these years. The Egyptian parliament's constitutional and legislative committee is seeking Al-Azhar, Dar Al-Ifta and the Coptic Orthodox Church's opinions about removing the anti-blasphemy article from the criminal code, after which it will prepare a comprehensive report about the proposal. Egypt's Radio and Television Union's website reported that MPs Nadia Henry, Mohamed Zakareya Mohi El-Din and Mona Mounir submitted a draft law to remove Article 98 (f) concerning insulting religion, as a number of MPs think it is vague and can lead to contradictions in verdicts based on judges' preferences, and is contrary to press freedom. The justice ministry strongly opposed the draft law to remove the article, saying it violates the constitution, which stipulates that "discrimination and incitement of hatred are crimes punished by the law" (Article 53). Article 98 (f) criminalises whoever exploits religion in order to promote extremist ideologies by word of mouth, in writing or in any other manner, with a view to stirring up sedition, disparaging or contempt of any divine religion or its adherents, or threatening national unity, shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to five years, or pay a fine of at least EGP500. MP Mohamed Anwar Esmat El-Sadat said on Monday the three religious entities' opinions will define the controversial article's fate, in a statement reported by Al-Ahram Arabic website. El-Sadat said all viewpoints must be listened to so that a consensual wording is reached to protect "religious constants" without violating freedom of expression. The law has been used recently to target several people in high-profile cases, including four Christian high students who were sentenced to five years in prison for recording a satirical video; well-known writer Fatma Naaout who was sentenced to three years for her comments about the slaughter of animals during Muslim festivals; and TV presenter Islam El-Beheiry who was sentenced to one year for his statements regarding Islam and reform. Search Keywords: Short link: The recent attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore has put forward numerous questions that need to be answered. While on the one hand it has proven once again that Pakistan is an extremely unsafe country to tour, the cowardly act by the terrorists has also put a question mark on International Cricket Councils role as the supreme body governing the game around the world.

Just a few weeks before this heinous act, the ICCs security team went to Pakistan to assess the security scenario before deciding the fate of the Champions Trophy, which was scheduled to be held there. Everybody is aware of what transpired after that and how Pakistan lost the hosting rights because the governing body was reportedly not entirely satisfied with the security arrangements.

The question here is that if there was even a semblance of doubt on the security front, why did the ICC even allow the Lankan players to tour the country, especially when India had earlier decided to call of their scheduled cricket series.

The ICC will have to share the blame equally for this unfortunate event and will have to act authoritatively now by declaring Pakistan as unfit for touring if it wants to rescue its image as the apex cricket body in the world.

While it would be a disappointing decision for cricket, especially for the Pakistan board but one must understand that no amount of money is bigger than a players life. It is better to be safe than sorry at this point of time.

Sri Lankan teams return to Pakistan may have been influenced by reasons other than just lending a helping hand to the PCB in their time of crisis, such as safeguarding their own interest as a terror hit nation. Perhaps, that is also the reason why first reactions coming in from the Lankan players suggest that they are stunned but do not want to make a huge hue and cry over the entire episode.

Cricket has suffered because of terror in the past as well but this is the first incident when cricketers have been targeted directly.

The need at this point of time is also to ensure the safety of the cricketers while making an attempt that Pakistan as a cricketing nation is not completely discarded by other nations. ICC President David Morgan in his press conference after the incident said that he hoped Pakistan will continue to play at neutral venues, not only for the sake of its fans but also for world cricket. At the moment it looks like the only solution to save Pakistan cricket atleast in the next couple of years.

Taking such actions will not only help the cause of the ICC but also instill a sense of security amongst such nations as Australia and England that the apex body cares about their security and will take every possible step to ensure it.

The ICC, which has until now done its best to declare Pakistan as a safe country for teams to tour must now accept the reality, which the world has already acknowledged. Patna: Hundreds of students who could not clear 10th and +2 exam from different boards recently in Bihar are queuing up in the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) to save their one year. "More than 800 students have applied in Stream 2 so far in which examination would be conducted in September-October this year," NIOS regional director Sanjay Kumar Sinha said. The last date for applying under Stream 2 is June 30, 2016, he said in a statement here. "This innovating scheme to save one year of a student who failed to clear the board exam and keep them in the mainstream of academics is the brainchild of NIOS director KB Sharma," he said. Besides, the NIOS is also providing "On demand exam" facilities to failed students who are prepared to face the test immediately, Sinha said. "Under stream 2, the NIOS is also providing the facility of ToC (Transfer of Credit). Under this, a failed student has to appear in at least three subjects including the subject he/she has failed. The original marks of rest two subjects in the previous exam would be credited in the new marksheet," the NIOS regional director added. Forms for Stream 2, 3 and 4 are available on website www.nios.ac.in and there is a facility of applying online, he said. Sinha said that for the convenience of students, the NIOS has opened four new centres in Purnea, Gaya, Ara and Darbhanga in addition to Patna for On-demand examination. NIOS, formerly known as National Open School, was established in 1989 as an autonomous organisation by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Purnea: In the wake of the toppers' scandal in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said a probe is underway to ascertain if the degree awarded by B.Ed colleges in the state are genuine or not. "All B.Ed colleges are being probed to ascertain if classes are held in these colleges or degrees are distributed illegally," he said at an event in Purnea district. Asserting that his government will work to improve the education system gradually, Kumar said, "I took the intermediate exam scandal not as a subject of inquiry but as a subject of criminality and that's why I ordered the police to immediately investigate the irregularities." After the Intermediate examination scandal came to the fore, following a media expose of the dubious toppers, the Chief Minister ordered registration of FIR into the matter. The police crackdown resulted in resignation of Bihar School Examination Board Chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh and arrest of eight persons including the alleged kingpin of the toppers' scandal, Bachha Rai of Vishun Roy College in Vaishali, from where Arts and Science toppers Ruby Rai and Saurabh Shrestha belonged to. At the event on prohibition organised by women self-help group "Jeevika", Kumar presented Rs one lakh cheque to each of the nine women, belonging to SC category, for starting cattle rearing after closure of their liquor trade and said the initiative by Purnea district administration "is a noble example for the entire state." Patna: In what could cause embarrassment to the Bihar education officials, it was reported on Monday that the degrees of Usha Sinha, a former ruling Janata Dal-United legislator and the wife of Bihar School Examination Board's former chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, are fake. Notably, Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, one of the key accused in the Class 12 toppers scam, and Usha Sinha are absconding. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Bihar Police is conducting searches at various places to arrest Singh. The role of his wife Usha Sinha too in the toppers scam is in question, and the SIT is keen to interrogate her as non-FIR accused in the case. Besides, she now has a lot of explaining to do about educational qualification and face another charge of holding fake degrees. According to the affidavit filed by Usha Sinha in 2010, she was 49 years old when she contested the Bihar Assembly Elections and won the polls. Sinha's year of birth in the affidavit is given as 1961, and she completed her matriculation from the UP Education Board in 1969 -- which means she passed her matriculation when she was only eight-year-old. Her affidavit says that she completed her Master's degree from Awadh University in 1976. Interestingly, Awadh University was established in 1975. Going by her affidavit, Usha Sinha completed the two years of MA in just one year and passed out in 1976. Also, she earned her Ph.D. at 23 from Magadh University. Currently, she is working in the Hindi department of the College of Commerce in Patna -- but missing along with her husband after the toppers scam broke out. (With IANS inputs) New Delhi: Delhi Assembly on Monday adopted a resolution to give a status of "Martyr" to the NDMC official MM Khan who was killed last month after he refused to take bribe allegedly to hush up a matter of a hotelier. The proposal was moved by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Speaking in the assembly Kejriwal sought a fair probe in the matter and said that police was not doing its work properly. "It is unfortunate that Delhi police is not under the Delhi government. Had it been under our government, the murderers of M.M. Khan would have been caught and hanged," Kejriwal said. Blaming the investigation of not satisfactory, Kejriwal said, "name of a person close to home minister has surfaced, I don't know what his role is but police should have at least questioned him," making an obvious reference to New Delhi Municipal Corporation vice-chairman Kanwar Singh Tawar. Kejriwal said that Khan took pride in his honesty and rejected several offers of bribes in his life. "Khan was an honest and brave officer. He knew that his life was in danger and still he chose the path of honesty and rejected the bribe of several crore rupees...," Kejriwal said. Khan, 58, was shot dead outside his house in south Delhi's Jamia Nagar on May 16. The NDMC, on the directions of the home ministry, has offered a job to Khan's wife on compassionate grounds. Delhi government had announced a compensation of Rs 1 crore to Khan's family members while Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had announced an ex gratia of Rs 25 lakh to the bereaved family. New Delhi: A contractual worker employed by the Delhi University was on Monday allegedly assaulted by Delhi University Students Union president Satender Awana and six other students, police said. Victim Vineet Mehta is incharge of the swimming pool at Sri Ram College of Commerce in north Delhi, police said. "He was assaulted by the DUSU president and few of his friends over the issue of entry to the swimming pool," a senior police official told IANS. He said police is probing the matter after receiving a complaint. Mehta said Awana was accompanied by six to seven unidentified students when he was beaten up around 4 p.m. New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday demanded registration of a case against his predecessor Sheila Dikshit and jailing her for what he said was the 'water tanker scam' unearthed in the national capital. "Now that we have submitted a report on the scam to Prime Minister Narandra Modi and Lt. Governor Najeeb jung, the former should ensure that Sheila Dikshit is sent to jail within two months," Kejriwal said while addressing the Delhi assembly here. Kejriwal also took a jibe at Leader of Opposition Vijendra Gupta and said that if the Prime Minister failed to send her to jail, Gupta will resign. In case he does not resign, we will sit on a hunger strike, the Chief Minister said. The Aam Aadmi Party government in June 2015 constituted a fact-finding committee to probe the irregularities in hiring some 385 stainless steel water tankers by the Delhi Jal Board in 2012, during Sheila Dikshit's rule. The five-member committee was formed by Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra. Its report submitted to Kejriwal in August 2015 highlights alleged corruption of Rs 400 crore in the process of awarding tenders for hiring water tankers. It recommended FIR against Congress leader Sheila Dikshit by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB). On Monday, almost a year later, the report was sent to the Prime Minister and Lt. Governor by the AAP government. New Delhi: Two persons were killed and one seriously injured when they were knocked down by a Honda City car driven by a drunken youth here on Monday, police said. The incident took place around 6.30 a.m. on a road behind Tihar jail in west Delhi's Janakpuri area, police said. The car was intercepted by police after a chase of around 400 metres and accused Rishab arrested. "Accused Rishabh, 21, hit three pedestrians at different places in Janakpuri area this morning," Deputy Commissioner of Police Pushpendra Kumar told IANS. "Kameshwar Prasad, 40, and Ashwini Anand, 67, were killed while Santosh, 40, was injured and admitted to a hospital," the official said, adding that he was out of danger. The police officer said that Santosh was not in a condition to give a statement. Anand was a resident of Janakpuri while Kameshwar Prasad, a government employee, lived in Sagarpur. Santosh too is a resident of Janakpuri. According to another senior police official, Rishabh, a resident of west Delhi's Janakpuri area, was drunk at the time of the accident and was returning from a late night party in Hari Nagar. He is a student of business administration and the car is registered in the name of his father who runs a hardware shop. On April 4, Siddharth Sharma, 32, was mowed down by a speeding Mercedes car in north Delhi's Civil Lines area by a juvenile, who was allegedly driving in a residential colony at a very high speed. Shimla: Congress president Sonia Gandhi, her daughter Priyanka Vadra and her grandchildren reached Shimla on Monday for a three-day private visit, officials said. "There is no programme for Sonia Gandhi to meet any party leaders during their stay. It`s a private visit only," a government official told IANS. The Gandhi family is staying at Wildflower Hall, a luxury resort on the outskirts of Shimla. In the evening the family visited Charabra where Priyanka Vadra`s cottage is being built. After inspecting the construction work for about an hour, the family left for the resort. The Gandhi family is expected to stay here till June 15, the official added. A two-storey five-room cottage, constructed earlier, was pulled down four years ago as Priyanka Vadra wanted the house to gel with the surroundings. The new structure, rising from the debris of the old one, now gives the impression of a typical hill structure. It lies close to The Retreat, the summer holiday resort of the Indian president. The Vadras purchased a three-and-a-half bigha (one bigha is 0.4 hectare) agricultural plot, located at a height of more than 8,000 feet from US-based Satish Kumar Sood and Satinder Sood in 2007. Later, they purchased additional land near the existing one, just half a km away from Wildflower Hall. Priyanka Vadra, her children and mother Sonia Gandhi have been frequently visiting the cottage to inspect the construction work. Delhi: In yet another provocation, a transgression by the Chinese army in Arunachal Pradesh's Yangtse region last week has been reported. As per India Today, the transgression took place around the same time that India's bid for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was blocked by Beijing. The website quoted sources in defence ministry and Intelligence Bureau as saying that the transgression by nearly 250 soldiers of the Peoples' Liberation Army divided into four groups happened on June 9 in Arunachal's East Kameng district. They reportedly spent nearly three hours on this side of the border before going back to their side. Meanwhile, as per the report, the Indian Army has decided to lodge a complaint with the Chinese government. This is the first known transgression by the Chinese army this year in the region, which China claims is part of its territory. If the amendments to the controversial 2013 protest law are passed by cabinet, the legislation will be then discussed by the parliament for the first time The governmental committee tasked with amending Egypts controversial protest law will submit a draft to cabinet next week, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Magdy El-Agati announced on Monday. "The committee, which is formed of legal consultants affiliated with the ministry, is currently studying the amendments to the law -- especially the articles related to the penalties," El-Agati said in press statements. The law, which mandates stiff penalties, including up to three years in prison and heavy fines for those who protest without a government permit, was passed in November 2013 during the turbulent period that followed the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The authorities have applied the law since it was first implemented to jail thousands of protesters, mostly supporters of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood group, but also hundreds of non-Islamist demonstrators. Local and international critics say that the law infringes on the constitutional right of citizens to hold peaceful protests, including street demonstrations. However, advocators of the law argue that it was necessary to put an end to recurrent protests and ensuing violence following the 2011 uprising and during Morsi's rule. El-Agati noted that if the law is amended it could possibly be retrospectively applied to the people who were sentenced to jail, reducing the penalties against them. In the case that the amendments are passed by the cabinet, an official discussion by the parliament on the law would take place, marking the first time the House of Representatives, which convened in January 2016, reviews the legislation since it was passed in 2013. The law was not among 340 pieces of legislation that was passed by the executive in the absence of a legislature and then revised by the current parliament as mandated by the 2014 constitution since it was issued before the charter was approved by the electorate. Search Keywords: Short link: Allahabad: On the second day of its National Executive meeting here on Monday, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to chalk out strategy for the upcoming assembly elections in five states, including Uttar Pradesh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in the city to attend the meeting, will address a public rally here around 4 PM. Senior Cabinet ministers, chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, party MPs and other senior leaders who are participating in the conclave are likely to chalk out winning formula for the next round of assembly elections in five states - Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Goa. What happened on Day 1? With eye on next year's assembly polls in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, and on "Mission 2019", PM Modi on Sunday exhorted BJP party workers to preserve the massive goodwill the party received in 2014 till the next general elections. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah, in his speech, trained his guns at the state's Samajwadi Party government and raised the issue of alleged "migration" of Hindus from Kairana, in Shamli district, and the recent Mathura violence. The Prime Minister, addressing a meeting of party office bearers in Allahabad before the official inauguration of the party's two-day National Executive meet, said: "The need of the hour is to preserve the massive goodwill that the party got in 2014, like a monsoon downpour," according to a BJP leader, who attended the office bearers meet. The Prime Minister also asked the party leaders to preserve its 11 crore members. Meanwhile, in an economic resolution passed on Sunday night, the BJP said India has emerged as the growing economy under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi amidst global slowdown and two years' of successive drought. In an economic resolution passed at its national executive meeting at Allahabad last night, the party expressed confidence that there will be a transformation in the lives of the poor. The party attributed the new growth story to extensive and persistent efforts by the Modi government and its prudent policies. It said economic experts, think tanks, multilateral institutions and reputed media have acknowledged India's growth story and hailed various schemes and initiatives of the government. New Delhi: Government on Monday said it is working round the clock to secure the release of Judith D'Souza who has been abducted in Afghanistan even as her family wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to do his "utmost" in ensuring that she is reunited with them at the earliest. "This is a very delicate matter. Human life is at stake. We are working round the clock. I cannot share details," tweeted External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj while responding to a question on what steps government has taken to rescue the 40-year-old woman from Kolkata. The Indian Embassy in Kabul has been in constant touch with the Afghan authorities. Official sources said government was in constant touch with Afghan authorities and they are making all efforts to trace and ensure her release. Meanwhile, keeping the hope alive that Judith will be home soon, her family today wrote to the Prime Minister, urging him to do his "utmost" in securing her release. Her father Denzil D'Souza, mother Gloria D'Souza, brother Jerome D'Souza and sister Agnes D'Souza wrote a common letter to Modi, whose copies were sent to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress MP from the state Derek O'Brien. In the letter, the family members have said the "brave, thoughtful, generous and compassionate" Judith had been working in Afghanistan for the well-being of the Afghan people and "as an ambassador of goodwill from India's people, participating in the developmental programmes of that country". Describing her as a "proud Indian", the family said, "as you can imagine, the news of Judith's kidnapping has shocked and stunned us. It has placed a shroud upon our family." They added, "We were eagerly awaiting her arrival home on vacation in a week from now, and do hope she will be back with us soon." Judith, working for an international NGO Aga Khan Foundation as senior technical adviser, was kidnapped by suspected militants in the heart of Kabul three days back. She was scheduled to return to India this week. The family members said the government has reached out to them in "our time of need and anxiety" and the External Affairs Minister as well as an official of the ministry had spoken to them in the past two days. "However, we still await concrete details," they said. "Sir, we appeal to you in your capacity as the leader of our great country and as the custodian of the well-being of our citizens, to please do your utmost to get dear Judith back home, among her family, her friends and her people. Please commit all levers you can bring into play to successfully reunite our family," the family wrote in the letter to the Prime Minister. Delhi: Weeks after denying any link with four offshore companies named in the Panama Papers, it has been reported that soon after Amitabh Bachchan was appointed director, one of the companies, Tramp Shipping Limited (Bahamas), acquired a ship from another Bahamas company, co-owned by his brother Ajitabh Bachchan, in 1994. As per a report in The Indian Express, earlier, the ship, MV Nile Delta, was owned by Nile Shipping Ltd, one of four offshore shipping companies set up during 1990-91 by Ajitabh Bachchan in partnership with late Mehernoosh Khajotia and London-based lawyer Sarosh Zaiwalla. The actor has denied any link with the four offshore companies named in the Panama Papers that list him as director. The Daily quoted Amitabh as saying in an email, "I have been an NRI since 1986 for about 20 years. I was involved in a perfectly legitimate shipping business in the early 90s. My brother Amitabh Bachchan had nothing to do with my shipping business. The report further said that Ajitabh is said to have invested US $15 million as seed capital and Khajotia looked after the business. It also said that lawyer Zaiwalla was instrumental in bringing the partners together. In an email interview with the Daily, Zaiwalla confirmed the partnership. The report quoted him as saying, "I was informed by Ajitabh that the source of the US $15 million was Bachchans own family wealth. I had assumed that both the brothers invested the money but I had not at that time specifically asked Ajitabh if what were said to be Bachchan family funds belonged to both Amitabh and Ajitabhs families or they simply belonged to Ajitabhs family." He added, My (law) firm was instructed by Ajitabh Bachchan to commence libel proceedings against the Swedish Newspaper Dagens Nyheter the libel actions related to allegations concerning the Bofors gun deal. The Indian Express had carried a report based on leaked documents of a Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca which is said to feature links of over 500 Indians to firms and accounts in offshore tax havens. Panama is deemed as a tax haven of well-heeled living across the globe, who set up offshore companies and get benefits of the secretive, tax regulatory system in the country offered to these firms. To be noted is the fact that when the news had broken, Amitabh had tweeted the following: T 2197 - I do not know any of the companies referred to by Indian Express - Sea Bulk Shipping Company Ltd, (cont) https://t.co/QlcY6vDo6J Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) April 5, 2016 @SrBachchan FULL statement by @SrBachchan on #PanamaLeaks disclosures he says he has done nothing wrong!! pic.twitter.com/CtEfTlonFk Amitabh Bachchan FC (@Thekkapoor) April 5, 2016 (With Agency inputs) Srinagar: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday dubbed the Kashmiri separatists as 'Pakistani agents' and blamed them for creating a disorder in Jammu and Kashmir after they conducted a meeting on the Sainik colony issue. Saying that they are following instructions given by the kingpins in Pakistan, BJP leader Ravinder Raina told ANI: "These Separatist leaders are Pakistan's agents. They take money from Pakistan and follow the instructions of their bosses in Pakistan and work on their command." "As far as separatists are concerned, the turmoil that has been created in Kashmir in the past 30 years where lakhs of people lost their lives, these separatists are responsible for that. If Kashmiri pundits return to Kashmir then who will suffer from pain? Not Kashmiris, but Pakistanis," he said. Remembering those Kashmiri soldiers and lakhs of people who have been murdered in the past 25 to 30 years, Raina held the separatists responsible for harboring terrorism in the state. "But Kashmiris don't give them any value. Kashmiris are not with them. And hence, they (separatists) have failed. And they have no credibility. They ask people to not to take part in elections. Still 80 to 90 percent of people come to cast their votes," he added. Raina said neither the Jammu and Kashmir Government nor the Indian Government is soft on separatists. "The perpetrators will be tried in the court as per the law and will be given suitable punishment. Nobody will be spared," Raina further said. Separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were put under house arrest on Sunday ahead of their meeting on the Sainik colony issue. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik has been arrested. According to reports, both factions of the Hurriyat Conference and the JKLF are launching a joint effort against the state government's decision to set up separate colonies for Sainiks and Kashmiri Pandits in the valley. Though the Jammu and Kashmir Government has reiterated that it has no plans to set-up a Sainik colony in the Valley, the controversy was raked up after reports said the government is planning to set up shelters for "floating population" and implement a new industrial policy that allows a non-state subject to get land on lease anywhere in Kashmir for 90 years. Mumbai: Amidst India's aggressive bid for entry into the elite NSG, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on Monday said that a stronger Indian nuclear industry can help make nuclear power more competitive globally. He said "large anticipated investments" in nuclear energy sector can only happen in a climate of "predictability". Delivering keynote address at the inauguration of the two-day 'The Gateway of India Dialogue' on 'Where geopolitics meets business' here, he said India's membership to Nuclear Suppliers Group can "effectively" address concerns regarding certainty of trading rules and technology access. "We are in a position now to build on the international cooperation openings that have been negotiated in the last decade and confirmed by the settlement of the liability issue. "The path is once again open to a substantial increase in domestically-produced nuclear power plants while simultaneously moving forward with foreign partners," the Foreign Secretary said. "These large anticipated investments in the nuclear energy sector can, however, only happen in a climate of predictability. In particular, it would require greater certainty of trading rules and technology access. "It is our expectation that membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group can effectively address that concern. A stronger Indian nuclear industry can help make nuclear power more competitive globally," Jaishankar said. While the US has been pushing for India's NSG membership, China has been opposing it. "Indeed, as our own nuclear industry expands and we go rapidly beyond the 140 nuclear-related export licences that we issued last year, it's also in larger interest that our practices are in conformity with global ones," he said. He said the Ministry of External Affairs is pleased to support this event, which has been organised by the Gateway House and MEA. The Foreign Secretary said of all the global challenges, none has captured the world's attention more than the threat of terrorism. "Whether it is its orthodox version that this city knows only too well, or the more recent cyber manifestations, the intention remains one of dominating through disruption. National resilience and systemic hardening are obviously part of the answer," he said. Stating that the preemptive and responsive policies are "equally important", he said international cooperation in that regard has consequently come to occupy a significant place in our diplomatic agenda. "While this is a subject in itself, let me just state that events have shown that a reputational downgrade is as damaging for nations as for companies. "A comparison of statements and outcomes of Indian diplomacy over the last many decades will bring out how much more central economic and developmental issues have become to our external engagements," he said. Underlining the importance of business, Jaishankar said, "No high-level visit is complete today without a business event. Ensuring market access and responding to investors' concerns are taken as a given. The advancement of flagship programmes is clearly a key thrust. Enhancing national branding is a major preoccupation". He said a more global business outreach has widened the horizons of Indian diplomacy. "A new normal is in the making, one where the business of Indian diplomacy is increasingly business," he said. Stating that the connection between business and diplomacy is self-evident, Jaishankar said, "This is a very different foreign service from the one I joined four decades ago". Replying to queries of the audience, Jaishankar said he was expected to go to Pakistan but then the Pathankot attack happened. To a query on when will "Made in China" will give way to "Made in India", he said, "This is not an objective and not reasonable also. I don't subscribe to this thinking". Allahabad: Unhappy over Varun Gandhi`s blatant attempt to project himself as probable chief ministerial candidate during BJP`s two-day National Executive conclave here, the party on Monday issued show cause notice to two party workers, who allegedly were found to be involved in the goof-up. Hundreds of posters of BJP Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi were put in the the city to make sure that Varun Gandhi`s candidacy is not missed, if the party is looking for a face to project in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early next year. However, the move did not go down well with the party`s central leadership. After noticing the posters on Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah asked for a report on the issue from party cadres, and it was found out that two local party workers, who supported Gandhi, were involved in the act of putting hundreds of hoardings and posters in the city. The posters also had images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. Shah had also taken a note of some party workers shouting slogans in support of Varun Gandhi at the entrance of the party National Executive meeting. UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya, on thedirection of the party`s central leadership, issued the notice to the party workers, party sources said. The party leaders had gathered in Allahabad to brainstorm the strategy for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, which are due next year. The National Executive meet was attended by Modi, Shah and other senior leaders of the party. The party had almost painted the city saffron with its posters and hoardings on both sides of the roads -- from railway station and airport to K.P. School ground, where the BJP conclave was held. Udhampur: One terrorist was killed an three Central Reserve Police Force jawans were injured when two militants opened fire at a CRPF and police camp at Khud area of Jammu and Kashmir's Udhampur district on Monday. Notably, the terrorists reportedly got-off a bus that was travelling from Srinagar to Jammu. The militants attacked when they were stopped for frisking. Three civilians -- two women and a child -- were also injured in the incident. Meanwhile, SSP Udhampur confirmed about the shooting incident and said: Militants attack CRPF camp on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in Kud area of Udhampur District. "Police and CRPF were frisking all the Jammu-bound vehicles at Kral Nallah area in Kud when they stopped an SRTC bus and during its checking, an unidentified suspected militant opened fire at them this evening," said Director General of Police (DGP) K Rajendra Kumar. In the cross-fire, one militant was killed and one AK-47 rifle and one pistol were recovered from him. He further said that it seems only one militant was travelling in the bus. "It was just the random checking of the vehicles when the police and the CRPF team were attacked, while the militant was gunned down, three civilians including two women and a child were injured in the firing," the DGP added. He said while it seems that the attack was carried out by one militant, the security forces cordoned off the area and launched a combing operation to ensure that no other suspected militant was involved in the attack. "The firing has stopped, CRPF and Police is on the spot and we are carrying a combing operation. Investigation is also on to ascertain the identity of the slain militant," the state police chief said. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Jammu, Danish Rana said that one militant has been eliminated even though the search operation is on. The attack comes a day after four policemen were injured in a terror attack in J&K's Kulgam district. The militants had opened fire on a police party at Nawa Chowgam village in Qazigund, about 75 kms from Srinagar. Security forces had last week busted a militant hideout in JK's Rajouri district and recovered some arms and ammunition. At least five attacks were carried out by militants in the past two weeks in Kashmir valley, inflicting casualties on security forces. (With Agency inputs) Jammu: In the wake of attack on Kashmiri Pandit pilgrims to Kheer Bhawani temple, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) today held a protest accusing the BJP-PDP government in the state of following the separatists' agenda in the Valley. Decrying Saturday's attack, the JKNPP slammed the government for encouraging such activities. "This government led by PDP and BJP is encouraging anti-national elements and following their agenda. Attack on the buses carrying pilgrims and not allowing Abhinav Gupt Yatra demonstrate the government following the separatists' agenda", JKNPP Chairman Harshdev Singh said. Singh said the attack on pilgrims depict "parochial psyche" of the separatists who are hell-bent on vitiating peace and erasing the centuries-old heterogeneous diversity of Kashmir. "The BJP has develop a soft corner for the secessionist forces which have further emboldened the anti-national elements to execute their nefarious designs," he said. Terming the coalition government as a "sinister alliance", the JKNPP leader said the situation in the state has drastically worsened. "The way, tight security had to be provided to Kheer Bhawani pilgrims depicts that situation in Kashmir has returned to the dark era of the 1990s", he said. Questioning the silence of the BJP, JKNPP leader said the party which once raised hue and cry in the Assembly against the separatists, became a mute spectator and allowed them to hold anti-India seminars in Kashmir and other parts of the country. Singh said that the denial of permission for Abhinav Gupt Yatra demonstrates that the government was interfering in the religious affairs of the Hindus. He claimed that disallowing religious yatras and changing the name of Hindu shrines in Kashmir were attempts to push the Valley towards radicalisation and it was sheer irony that BJP along with its ally was endorsing the communal mission of Hurriyat and other separatist leaders. Srinagar: More crossing points are expected to be opened on the Line of Control (LoC) for greater movement of people and goods to and fro Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and banking system is likely to be introduced for trade, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said here on Monday. "The state government has taken up the matter regarding opening of more cross-LoC points with the Centre and I am sure there will be positive movement forward on the issue as serious discussions are on in this regard," Mehbooba informed the Legislative Council. She said during her recent meeting with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, she had pitched for opening of Suchetgarh-Sialkote, Kargil-Skardu, Nowshera-Mirpur, Gurez-Astoor-Gilgit, Chhamb-Jourian and some other cross-LoC routes in Jammu and Kashmir. "I am hopeful that, if not all at a time, one or two at a time will be opened, so that we can send Basmati from Jammu to there," the Chief Minister said while intervening during the reply to a question regarding the measures taken by the Government to expand the ambit of cross-LoC travel and trade. She said the confidence building measures like opening of more cross-LoC points will not only help consolidate peace efforts but also boost local economy through increased tourism activities in these areas. Giving examples of items which can be traded, Mehbooba said Pakistan has no hardware industry while Jammu has a hardware industry and the state can benefit from the export of such material. "Nothing is manufactured there (in Pakistan). They import everything including big cars. From a needle to an airplane, they import everything. But if the road is opened, it will benefit us. The same way, if Kargil-Skardu route is opened, we can go to central Asia via that road," she said. "We are working on it with seriousness and I am hopeful that in the time to come, something will happen on one or two routes," she said. Mehbooba said the Centre has also agreed to facilitate banking facility for the cross-LoC trade to institutionalize the existing mechanism. "The trade that is going on, is based on the barter system. Now, a proposal has come from the central government that RBI is proposing to introduce banking facility in which trade will be done in dollars and perhaps neither our currency nor theirs will be used. "We received the proposal and after discussing it in the cabinet, it has been sent back. So, I am hopeful that something will happen on that," she said. This is not the first time that El-Sisi has outlined what he sees as the need to curb extremists use of the internet for spreading radical ideas Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed while holding talks in Cairo with Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva the need to strengthen international efforts to prevent the use of the internet for spreading extremist ideas, a statement from his office said on Monday. "The president stressed on the importance of adopting a clear perspective for combating terrorism that includes developmental, cultural and religious dimensions along with military and security aspects," the statement read. This is not the first time that El-Sisi has argued that the internet needs to be prevented from being used by extremists to spread ideas. Last month when he held a meeting with Kuwaits Justice Minister Yacoub Abdel Mohsen Al Saneain in Cairo, El-Sisi said it was necessary to curb terrorists use of social media and electronic websites to promote extremist ideas and attract new members. During his visit to Egypt, Foreign Minister Augustos Santos Silva passed on a message to El-Sisi from Portuguese President Marcelo de Sousa inviting him to Portugal and his view on the importance of developing bilateral relations between the two countries, the statement from the Egyptian presidents office read. Search Keywords: Short link: Thiruvananthapuram: In a hard-hitting message to former Kerala chief minister Oommen Chandy, the head of his church said on Monday that he no longer felt like a "political orphan" now that the new government is in office. "We now feel that we are no longer political orphans which we were under the previous government. We have wished the new chief minister the very best and have given him our support," said Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, the head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church after meeting Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Chandy is a member of the same church, which is headquartered in Kottayam. He had tense relations with Paulose II while he was in office from 2011 to 2016. The strain in their relationship has a lot to do with the church`s schism and dispute with the Jacobite faction of what was once the united Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church. The church complains that Chandy did not take its side in its property dispute with the Jacobite faction. It`s bishops would not share the stage with Chandy, when he was chief minister, or his cabinet ministers, as a protest. Chandy has had his own compulsions -- some senior Congress leaders are members of the Jacobite faction. The CPI-M, on the other hand, pleased the bishops by fielding Veena George, who is the wife of a top office bearer of the church, from Aranmula assembly constituency in Pathanamthitta district. She managed to trounce Congress veteran K Sivadasan Nair. Gurgaon: The body of gangster Sandeep Gadoli has been in Mumbai's J.J. Hospital's mortuary for over four months as his family refuses to accept the body until the Gurgaon Police officials involved in his encounter are arrested. Five members of a Gurgaon Police Crime Branch team led by Pradyuman Yadav, which allegedly shot dead most-wanted gangster Sandeep Gadoli on February 7 in Mumbai, were suspended on May 30. The family wants to bring back his body to their village, Gadoli Khurd in Gurgaon for cremation, but insists he was killed in a "fake encounter". "Available evidence revealed it was a point-blank shooting and not an encounter," said one of the family members. Gadoli's family claimed that he did not have a weapon at the time when he was shot and also wants the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Mumbai police to include sections of "killing in custody". The involvement of few Gurgaon Police Crime Branch officials in the alleged staged gunfight was indicated by the Mumbai Police for the first time in their status report in the Supreme Court on May 27. The police team involved in the operation has been kept under suspension, a senior Gurgaon police officer said. Gadoli was carrying a cash reward of Rs 1.2 lakh on his head. Infamous as Gurgaon's "most-wanted", Gadoli was on the run. He was accused in more than 30 cases, including the killing of the driver of rival gangster-turned-municipal councillor Binder Gujjar. The two rival gangs had been fighting for over four years for control over extortion, land grabbing, gambling and alcohol smuggling. Nagpur: In what is possibly the country's first case of its kind, a baby girl suffering with a severe genetic disorder and near-total missing external body skin, was born in Nagpur on Saturday, reports said. According to media reports, Harlequin baby girl was born in a farmers family in Nagpur during wee hours on Saturday. Born around 12.45 am at Lata Mangeshkar Hospital, the first child to a farmer-couple from Wadi, the child is currently in the NICU and being attended by a team of medicos who were conducting a series of tests and investigations on the baby. "It's the first 'Harlequin Baby' in the country. The infant is born blind and the chances of her survival are uncertain," paediatrician Dr Yash A. Banait, who was involved in the rare delivery along with obstetrician-gynaecologist Dr Prachi Dixit, said. The child presents a sad picture with large parts of her body without skin and internal organs visible. Her palms, fingers and toes have barely developed. There are two reddish swabs in place of her eyes and her nose is just two holes from where she breathes and ears are practically missing on her face. Dr Yash Banait said such children have severely cracked skin which makes it difficult to maintain body temperature and they become prone to infections. Renowned paediatrician Dr Avinash Banait said there was a similar case in Bastar, Chhattisgarh in 2014, but it would not be medically proved. Besides this, there have been only around a dozen-odd such recorded cases in medical history since 1750. The first such child was born in April 1750 in South Carolina, US, and there are reportedly around a dozen such cases recorded in that country. One such child Nusrit Shaheen was born in 1984 to a Pakistani woman and four of her children had the same disorder and succumbed at an early age. Another such male child was born in 2013 to a woman in South Africa and was given a slim survival chance, but lived more. Columbia: Microsoft on Monday shifted its focus to social networking with a massive $26.2 billion deal for professional social network LinkedIn. With its biggest-ever acquisition and one of the largest in the tech sector, Microsoft is adding tools to connect with business as it moves further away from its roots as a pure software firm. The acquisition aims to position the former tech sector as a Facebook-like entity oriented to business, with an array of services centered around cloud computing. "This deal brings together the world`s leading professional cloud with the world`s leading professional network," Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella said in a statement. Nadella added that LinkedIn "has grown a fantastic business and an impressive network of more than 433 million professionals." LinkedIn "will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence," with Jeff Weiner remaining as LinkedIn CEO, the companies said. The firms said they had reached a "definitive" agreement that would close later this year, with the support of LinkedIn chairman and controlling shareholder Reid Hoffman. LinkedIn, which enables members to connect with similar-minded professionals and facilitates recruiting and job hunting, has carved out a social network with a distinct identity. But the company reported a loss of $46 million in the past quarter and a $166 million loss for 2015, which put its shares at multiyear lows early this year. LinkedIn, which calls itself "the world`s largest and most valuable professional network," has been seeking to expand its offerings with more messaging and mobile applications, and revamped its "newsfeed" to help boost engagement.The deal reflects Microsoft`s new focus on business services and cloud computing, Nadella said in an email to staff. The tieup "is key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes," he added. In a conference call, he identified several ways for the firms to integrate their services. Each company has collections of data about their users, or "graphs," that complement the other`s. Microsoft holds data such as contacts and calendars, while LinkedIn has deeper biographical and professional network information. "If you connect these two graphs, that`s when the magic starts to happen," Nadella said, adding that Microsoft can use this data with its Cortana virtual assistant and artificial intelligence. "Imagine you`re walking into a meeting and Cortana tells you about the people in that meeting because it has access to that professional network," he said.Analysts were divided about whether the deal is good for Microsoft. Benedict Evans, a member of the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm who blogs about technology, said it seems to be looking toward the future. "Very clever and oblique MSFT thinking -- how will we communicate, share & connect in a decade? Not docs + email. Social graph is key," he said in a tweet, referring to the company`s Wall Street trading symbol. Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates said LinkedIn "is highly complementary" to Microsoft services such as Skype for Business and Yammer. The acquisition "gives Microsoft a great way to keep a pulse on what business users are doing on the web and how they may use certain tools and products," he added. "This ability will give Microsoft lots of knowledge in what and how to deploy future products." But Roger Kay, analyst and consultant with Endpoint Technologies Associates, said it is doubtful Microsoft can use the deal to compete in a world of social networking dominated by Facebook. "It doesn`t help at all competing with Facebook," he said. "LinkedIn is not in the same league as Facebook." Microsoft, paying a premium of some 50 percent for LinkedIn, will probably end up writing down much of the investment. "It seems extraordinarily expensive," Kay added. "There is no way they can extract $26 billion from LinkedIn." Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research said Microsoft has not learned from a string of failed acquisitions. Microsoft "was late to mobile" with its purchase of Nokia`s phone division and "failed miserably on it," he said, adding that Skype usage "has gone in only one direction, and that is down." "It is extremely difficult for a company to acquire insights," Chowdhry added in a research note. "LinkedIn will very likely fail in Microsoft." Chandigrh: Congress party loyalist and senior leader Kamal Nath, who was appointed as in-charge of party affairs in Punjab and Haryana, on Monday refuted Bhartiya Janata Party and Aam Aadmi Party's charges of party's insensitivity towards Sikhs. Kamal Nath was speaking to a News18 reporter when he said, "The Nanavati Commission set up by the BJP government in its report has absolved me of any charge in 1984 anti-Sikh riots. For 21 years, my name figured nowhere. There were no charges, no allegations of my participation in Sikh massacre in any manner. Even the Akali Dal didn't level a charge against me all these years. Now, allegations of my involvement in '84 Sikh riots suddenly come up. People of Punjab know the truth and are intelligent enough to understand why these allegations are coming up now. Taking a jibe at Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party, Nath said, "The AAP is indulging in political propaganda. It doesn't know what they are talking about." Kamal Nath has been indicted by the Nanavati Commission on allegations that he was involved in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that led at least 3,325 people dead. Delhi alone accounted for 2,733 deaths while the rest occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and other states. On Sunday, AAP leader and senior lawmaker HS Phoolka had told ANI, "Giving charge of Punjab elections to Kamal Nath shows Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's insensitivity towards the Sikhs. Proves the Congress is unfit to lead Punjab." Phoolka also added that Nath was the one leader, who was leading the mob at Gurudwara Rakabganj Sahib on November 1, 1984 when the mob set the Gurduwara on fire. The Punjab Assembly elections next year are expected to be a tough electoral battle between the ruling BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) alliance, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress. Now, at a time when the Congress is looking to arrest the downslide in its political fortunes, the appointment of senior party leader Kamal Nath as in-charge of the party's Punjab affairs has triggered a massive controversy. Chandigarh: At a time when the Congress is looking to arrest the downslide in its political fortunes, the appointment of senior party leader Kamal Nath as in-charge of the party's Punjab affairs has triggered a massive controversy. As Punjab is set for Assembly elections early next year, political parties have latched on to the issue as Kamal Nath faces allegations of direct involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi. Terming the appointment as "the ultimate insult to Sikhs", Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said, This comes on the eve of Rahul Gandhi's visit to Punjab. It is an unbelievably brazen act of insensitivity towards Sikhs." "I just cannot believe a political party can be so brutally insensitive to the sentiments of the Sikh community," he added. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also attacked the Congress party over the issue, asking Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh if he has absolved Nath for his alleged involvement in 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Kejriwal tweeted: "Capt Amrinder shud state his stand on Kamal Nath. Does Capt absolve Kamal Nath?" Kejriwal also questioned Centres move to reopen 75 cases of anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and some other states saying BJP has set up SIT (Special Investigation Team) only to prevent AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) from forming an effective SIT. He tweeted: "Reopen cases now? What did they do in one n a half years? BJP set up SIT only 2 prevent AAP from formin effective SIT." AAP is set to contest assembly polls in Punjab, the first time it is contesting a state election after its landslide victory in Delhi in 2015. Meanwhile, a Home Ministry official said Centre-appointed SIT will re-investigate around 75 cases of 1984 riots in Delhi and some other states, a decision that comes months ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab. A total of 3,325 people were killed in the riots. Delhi alone accounted for 2,733 deaths while the rest occurred in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and other states. Delhi Police had closed 241 cases citing lack of evidence. The Justice Nanavati Commission had recommended reopening of only four of the 241 cases closed by police but BJP wanted re-investigation of all the other 237 cases. Chandigarh: The AAP and SAD on Monday tore into Congress for appointing Kamal Nath as the party's general secretary in-charge of Punjab with Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal terming it as "the ultimate insult to Sikhs". "It is an unbelievable brazen act of insensitivity towards Sikhs and crass and vulgar disregard of national opinion on the guilty of the massacre of thousands of innocent Sikh children, men and women by Congress goons in November 1984. I just cannot believe a political party can be so brutally insensitive to the sentiments of Sikhs," Badal said. "I am shocked that the Congress high command is going to these heights to rub salt into Sikh wounds while at the same time enacting the drama of putting up a show of prime ministerial repentance over its sins. Are these signs of genuine repentance or adding fresh insult to old wounds?" he said. Hitting out at Congress, HS Phoolka, an advocate fighting for the victims of the 1984 riots, said by appointing Nath as the Congress in-charge of Punjab, the party has tried to rub salt into wounds of the victims. "...On November 2, 1984 a national daily reported that Kamal Nath was leading the mob which attacked Rakabganj Sahib. On November 3, another national daily reported the same," he said, adding that through this appointment, Congress has conveyed that the party does not care about the sentiments of the victims. "All that Congress cares is about the people having lots of money and muscle power," he said. SAD secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said the appointment of Nath was the outcome of Rahul Gandhi's recent visit to the state and asked the Congress vice president why he still follows the Gandhi family policy of "protecting and promoting" the perpetrators of the 1984 riots. He claimed it was a fact that Nath had been indicted by the Nanavati Commission and that a witness had testified to seeing Nath leading an armed mob that attacked Rakabganj gurdwara. Cheema said it has now become even more important to make all documents relevant to the riots public. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) too flayed Congress over the issue. State convenor of AAP Sucha Singh Chhotepur said for the last 32 years, Sikhs have been trying hard to get justice for the massacre in 1984, but instead of giving justice, Congress is cracking a "cruel joke" on them by sending Kamal Nath to oversee party's affairs in Punjab. Sikhs would give a befitting reply to Congress in the forthcoming assembly polls, he added. Bangladesh police said Monday they have arrested more than 8,000 people in a nationwide crackdown on militants launched after a series of murders targeting minorities and secular activists. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed on Saturday to catch "each and every killer" as Bangladesh reels from a wave of murders of religious minorities and secular and liberal activists that have spiked in recent weeks. Police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan said 3,245 suspects had been arrested in the last 24 hours, raising the total number to 8,192 since the campaign began Friday. Bangladeshi authorities have come under mounting international pressure to end the attacks, which have left nearly 50 people dead over the last three years. But opposition parties have accused police of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent. Many of those arrested were suspected ordinary criminals with existing warrants against them. "We`ve arrested 3,245 people including 34 Islamist militants on the third day of the nationwide anti-militant drive," deputy inspector general AKM Shahidur Rahman told AFP. "Only a fraction of the people who have been arrested are members of Islamist militant groups. "Most of those who have been detained have warrants of arrests against them or they are charged with narcotics, arms and other criminal offences." The week-long crackdown is part of ramped up efforts to halt the killings, with five suspected Islamist militant group members shot dead in gun battles with police in recent days. Among those arrested in the latest sweep were members of banned group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), police said. JMB is one of two local groups blamed for most of the recent killings. The government rejects claims of responsibility from the Islamic State (IS) group and a South Asian branch of Al-Qaeda, saying international jihadists have no presence in Bangladesh. Omar Faruq, an alleged senior official of the banned Islamist outfit Hizb ut Tahrir, was among those arrested, a local police chief told AFP from the northwestern district of the Chapai Nawabganj. "We seized anti-government leaflets, pistol and gunpowder from his possession," Bashir Ahmed said. "Faruk was previously arrested in 2012 and went out on bail. Then he started trying to re-organise the activities of the banned organisation," he said. Islamabad: The transgender community in Pakistan`s northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province took to the streets on Monday to protest a murder attempt on a community member who was shot multiple times for refusing the sexual advances of a group of armed men. The transgender community also criticised the police for not providing them security in the wake of rising incidents of attacks on community members. They took to streets after a transgender, identified as Kashi alias Chand, was critically injured after being shot for allegedly resisting sexual advances of some armed men who barged into her house in Mansehra town of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The Monday incident comes weeks after another transgender activist succumbed to her injuries after being shot multiple times in the provincial capital Peshawar and was denied treatment at the hospital. Police sources told the Express News, "Kashi alias Chand was at her home when three armed persons barged into her home and started making sexual advances towards her which she resisted." "Chand`s refection infuriated the men who shot her multiple times, leaving her critically injured," a source added. The attackers managed to escape from the scene while the victim was shifted to a hospital in a critical condition. There has been an increase in incidents of violence against transgender people in the province, where they have been beaten and their heads shaven. The EgyptAir flight crashed into the Mediterranean on 19 May on route from Paris to Cairo, presumably killing all passengers on board The flight data recorders from an EgyptAir airliner that crashed in the Mediterranean last month are expected to continue emitting signals until 24 June, according to an official Egyptian committee investigating the crash on Monday. "According to the information provided by the manufacturers of the plane recorders, it is expected [that] the continuation of the singles emitted by the plane recorders [will last] until the 24th of this month," reads a statement. The EgyptAir Airbus A320 plane crashed into the Mediterranean, presumably killing all 66 people on board, during a 19 May flight from Paris to Cairo after disappearing from radar screens. Two French vessels have been searching the Mediterranean to locate the exact position of the black boxes as the reasons behind the crash haven't been determined yet. The civil aviation ministry also confirmed that the plane turned 360 degrees before it disappeared from radar screens. "The radar photos which were delivered to the investigation committee affiliated with the Egyptian military shows that before the crash happened that the plane turned left then right in a full cycle," the statement read. "This information comes in accordance with the photos which were transmitted from Greek and English radars," the statement said. "But we can't rely on this information and separating it from the context of the investigations," the statement said. Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos had said the aircraft "made swerves and a descent" after it entered Cairo FIR (flight information region), "90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right." Last month, Al-Ahram Arabic daily newspaper published a document from the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which showed that the doomed Airbus 320 jet transmitted "11 electronic messages" starting 2109 GMT on 18 May. The first two messages indicated that the engines were functioning properly. The third message, which was sent at 0026 GMT on 19 May around four minutes before the plane vanished from radar, indicated a rise in the temperature of the cockpit's right-side window. The plane then continued to send messages for three more minutes before dropping off radar screens. Earlier this month, a French ship picked up signals from deep in the Mediterranean Sea from what is believed to be the black boxes from EgyptAir's plane as recordings on the black boxes could help investigators determine the cause of the crash. Search Keywords: Short link: New Delhi: The International Space Station (ISS) is currently home to six astronauts, including Commander Tim Kopra of NASA, Flight Engineer Tim Peake of ESA (European Space Agency) and Soyuz Commander Yuri Malenchenko of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, who are a part of Expedition 46 and 47. However, they have currently completed 181 days in space and that leaves them with 5 more days to go, after which, they will make their way back down to Earth. Once again, NASA has announced live coverage from the undocking process to their eventual landing in Kazakhstan on its website's live TV. As per NASA schedule, the astronauts will undock their Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft from the space station at 1:52 a.m. Saturday and land in Kazakhstan at 5:15 a.m. (3:12 p.m. Kazakhstan time), beginning at 9:15 a.m. EDT Friday, June 17. Since their launch in space in December 2015, the Expedition 47 crew members have participated and contributed in numerous experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science aboard humanitys only orbiting laboratory. The undocking process will give way to the onset of Expedition 48 aboard the ISS under the command of Jeff Williams. Williams, along with his two crew members, Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos, will operate the station for three weeks until the arrival of three new crew members on July 6. To see the entire schedule, click here! Chennai: In a veiled caution to the Centre, DMK patriarch Karunanidhi on Monday said "no one should become responsible for a big stir" against Sanskrit on the lines of massive agitations against Hindi held in the state decades ago. "I would like to tell at this juncture that no one should become responsible for a big stir against Sanksrit like the one against the imposition of Hindi," he said, upping the ante against the language without naming any party or the Union government. Hailing Tamil as an influential and ancient language, he said, "if they say that we will give no place for Tamil... (also) seeking to wipe out the hoary tradition of the language, and if they say that we will only give room for Sanskrit, then every Tamilian should take a whip to root out that hegemony." He made the remarks at a marriage function of a party leader' daughter here. "Let us take a valorous vow that we will not give room for hegemony of Sanskrit. There is no place for Sanskrit in Tamil Nadu. Not only in Tamil Nadu, but in any other language speaking state, whoever imposes Sanskrit, we will drive it (the hegemony) away," he said. DMK chief's comments comes after he had earlier slammed the Centre for being "obstinate in thrusting Sanskrit as it is a convenient route towards fundamentalist Hindutva." He had cited media reports that the Centre may set up a board for Vedic education. He had also referred to introduction of Sanskrit as a third language in CBSE schools and efforts to get Hindi empanelled as an official UN language to buttress his point that Sanskrit and Hindi were being promoted vigorously. Hitting back, BJP State president Tamilisai Soundararajan, in her repartee, had asked him if his party had not used posters in Hindi to grab votes of North Indians during polls. AIADMK also had mocked at the DMK for using Hindi during elections. Allahabad: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Monday mounted a blistering attack on Samajwadi Party as he appealed the public to vote the BJP-led NDA to power in Uttar Pradesh. "It is from Uttar Pradesh that today our Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being able to take our country forward through development. The Bharatiya Janata Party will get full majority in state assembly election in 2017 and will make government," Amit Shah said. Shah was addressing a rally at Allahabad today when he took on Samajwadi Party government on Kairana mass exodus. "The migration happening in Kairana due to violence is a matter of serious concern. There is an atmosphere of violence. The lack of development and the lack of governance in the biggest state of India that is Uttar Pradesh is becoming a matter of serious concern," Shah said. "Uttar Pradesh should not take Kairana exodus incident lightly. Kairana incident is not an ordinary event but a very serious issue. If you want to avoid such incidents, you need to remove the Samajwadi Party government and bring BJP-NDA to power in the state," he added. BJP legislator and Kairana MP Hukum Singh had last week claimed that over 300 Hindu families have moved out of the Muslim dominated Kairana following multiple reported attacks and charges of extortion. Shah also accused the Samajwadi Party and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samajwadi Party of indulging in caste politics and not letting the Modi government to function. "BSP, SP as well as Congress do not want the Modi government to function. I urge the people here to end the cycle of BSP-SP in Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Yadav government has failed on all fronts. Only BJP has capibilities to defeat Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh," Shah asserted. With the entire party leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in attendance, Shah also targeted the Congress, saying it is increasingly weakening and its atrophy is growing at an alarming pace due to its policy of repeatedly obstructing the governments path to development in the last two years. Allahabad: Raising the issue of alleged "migration" of Hindus from Kairana in Shamli district, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Monday said that there will be a time when everyone will wish to leave Uttar Pradesh. Taking potshots at Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) Government, Gandhi said there is neither development nor safety in UP. I get at least 10 to 15 calls from Uttar Pradesh every day regarding rape, kidnapping and the lacklustre attitude of the police. It seems the Uttar Pradesh Government has no shame, she added. BJP legislator and Muzaffarnagar riots accused Hukum Singh had earlier reportedly said that the Hindus were being forced to leave their homes in the Muslim-majority town in Uttar Pradesh. According to reports, the police have ordered a probe into the alleged migration after Singh presented a list of 346 families from the Muslim-majority town while claiming that they had to leave their homes after attacks and extortion attempts. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav said that the list provided by the BJP must be scrutinised as the people mentioned in the list fled the state many years ago when SP wasn't even in power. Since elections are near and the BJP does not have any issue to raise, it is trying to downplay the development work done by the SP, added Yadav. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah had on Sunday, in his speech, trained his guns at the state's Samajwadi Party government and raised the issue of alleged "migration" of Hindus from Kairana and the recent Mathura violence. "The incident at Kairana where a large number of people are migrating is very unfortunate. The Mathura violence was also very unfortunate. The SP government has been unable to control the situation," Shah said in his presidential address. "There is no peace. Here, the atmosphere is of violence and the state government has failed to control all these," the Bharatiya Janata Party president said. New Delhi: The shocking exodus of hundreds of families from Kairana town in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh has once again put the focus back on a region that has remained divided ever since the Muzaffarnagar riots in 2013. While there is no denying that people of a particular community Hindus indeed have left Kairana, the political debate over the issue now centers around the reason for the exodus. BJP MP from Kairana, Hukum Singh, who had released a list of people who have left the town insists that the issue is not communal but one of law and order. On the allegations that he is communalising the issue, Singh said, The word Hindu has not been mentioned in the list; it contains names of people. To the allegations that the list has names of people who left the town years back or of people long dead, Singh said that he accepts that there may be some discrepancies in the list as it has been prepared by local BJP workers and is not official. However, his political opponents have accused him of trying to create a communal divide ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. The ruling Samajwadi Party which has been under fire over the law and order situation in the state dismissed the entire issue as a political conspiracy cooked up by the BJP. Party leaders insist that those who have left have done so only with the intent of migrating to other places in search of livelihood. And that the migration has taken place not suddenly but over a decade or more. The BJP has rubbished the suggestion and blamed the SP of patronising criminals who are terrorising Hindus of the town. The Amit Shah-led party has since decided to send a fact-finding team to assess the situation. Allahabad/Mathura: A war of words broke out on Monday over alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana in UP with the BJP saying it is not good for democracy and that a party team will be sent to probe the "sensitive" issue, prompting Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to accuse the saffron leaders of resorting to lies. As political temperatures rose over the alleged exodus of Hindus from Kairana village in Shamli district in western Uttar Pradesh ahead of elections due in the state next year, the BJP promised "proper action" after the completion of the probe. Shamli district had witnessed communal riots in 2013. A day after BJP chief Amit Shah expressed serious concern over the "migration", senior BJP leader and Union minister Nitin Gadkari said his party has taken up the issue with all seriousness. "Party President has set up a committee, which will go there and study the situation. Such a migration is not good for democracy. The party is sensitive about it and proper steps will be taken after the report comes," Gadkari told reporters on the second day of BJP National Executive meeting in Allahabad. The seven-member committee comprises four MPs and three leaders from UP. Gadkari, a former BJP president, parried a question about the Samajwadi Party (SP) government's assertion that many Hindus had migrated from Kairana long back and some of them are now already dead, saying the BJP President has already reacted to this matter. "The party is sensitive on this issue and will take proper action," was his repeated refrain. Akhilesh Yadav accused the BJP leaders of being "dishonest" and "lying" on the issue and said he would like to see "better work" from the party. "The BJP is alleging that the Samajawadi Party Government forced the people flee from Kairana... BJP can be dishonest to this extent," Yadav told reporters in Mathura after meeting the families of two police officers killed in the violence that erupted during an anti-encroachment drive on June 2. Yadav claimed that most of the people left the village about 10 to 15 years back while others left in search of jobs about seven or eight years back. "A house to house search shows the lie of BJP," he said, adding that in fact BJP does not have any issue like development and would only tout digital India whereas the state has made tremendous progress under the SP-led government like distribution of laptops, construction of roads and bridges and providing power for long hours. Taking a dig at the BJP, which is seeking to wrest power from the SP in the state, Yadav said he would like to see "better" work from the BJP. "I want them to show some work. They should come and say that they distributed laptops to the people and not only talk about digital India," he added. Shah, in his address to the National Executive yesterday, had said, "The migration happening in Kairana due to violence is a matter of serious concern. There is an atmosphere of violence. The lack of development and the lack of governance in the largest state of India, that is Uttar Pradesh, is becoming a matter of serious concern." Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh government on Monday ordered a probe in connection with the alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana town in Shamli district in western part of the state. Shamli District Magistrate has asked the SDM and Circle Officer to probe into the allegations that "jihadi elements" had forced migration of Hindus from there, IG (Law and Order) HR Sharma told reporters here. They have been asked to verify the list of 346 families handed over by the local MP who have allegedly migrated, he said. BJP MP from Kairana, Hukum Singh has alleged that 346 families have been forced to flee the town, which has 85 per cent of Muslim population. The state government's action came after VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain's today said, "Jihadis are being encouraged to carry out their activities...VHP calls upon the state government to rein in jihadi elements who are responsible for this exodus and tighten law and order in the state." He termed the migration of Hindus from Kairana as "unfortunate" and said the township, which was a Hindu majority 40 years ago, now has only eight per cent Hindus left. Sharma said further details will be known only after the report is received from the district officials. Replying to a question, he said the state government is yet to receive the NHRC notice in this connection. Last week, National Human Rights Commission had issued a notice to the UP government in this regard. While observing that the allegations made were serious in nature, the NHRC also directed the state's DIG (Investigation) to depute a team of officers for a spot enquiry in the matter covering all the allegations made in the complaint and submit a report within two weeks. Dehradun: Calling himself a deeply concerned Chief Minister of a state which has suffered due to prolonged political uncertainty, Harish Rawat on Monday sought Centre's cooperation in development and demanded clearance to the Uttarakhand budget passed by the state Assembly before his government was dismissed. "Modi ji meru budget kakh gaye? (where is my budget Mr Modi?)" He asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Garhwali. "This is what I ask from every forum these days," Rawat said as he translated the words into Hindi for the reporters at a press conference. He said if the issue is not resolved he would take it to the people's court, indicating the question to the Prime Minister could become the party's campaign punch line for the state Assembly elections due early next year. "I should not perhaps be expecting help from BJP which is in power at the Centre at a time when elections are just six-seven months away. But I still seek the BJP's and the Centre's co-operation in the development of the state as I am an extremely concerned Chief Minister today," he said. He said the "unsavoury incidents" that took place after March 18 should be forgotten and both Congress and BJP should work in the larger interest of the people so that whichever government takes over after the Assembly polls does not suffer the kind of resource crunch present dispensation is facing. Noting it was time to rise above political considerations and show statesmanship, he said if BJP co-operates he is ready to accept a commonly agreed budget document for the state. "The economic uncertainty in Uttarakhand must come to an end or else our growth will stop. Our BJP friends must come forward in the interest of the people of the state. In a federal set up, the Centre and state are partners in the development process," Rawat said. It was in fact a reiteration of the demand by the Chief Minister?who had sought Centre's assent to the state's own budget at a press conference here last week too. He had said development goals set for the year could not be achieved without it. An intense political drama was witnessed in the Assembly on March 18 when it was about to pass the state's budget. Nine Congress MLAs had rushed into the Well of the House along with BJP members to demand a division of votes on the appropriation bill, a collective legislation on the budget. The Speaker did not allow a division of votes on the legislation and subsequently announced it passed by voice vote. Narayangarh: Stressing that the Centre's decision to reduce West Bengal's kerosene allocation would cause "grave distress" to the poor and weaker sections, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retain this at the earlier level. "This decision will cause grave distress to the consumers in remote and tribal areas and adversely affect the poor, SC, ST, minorities and economically weaker sections of the society," Banerjee said in a letter to Modi, the text of which was released to the media at her rally here. "I would therefore request you to kindly reconsider the decision and permit allocation of kerosene oil to the state at the level, as it existed in March 2016," she said. The Chief Minister pointed out that her government has taken strong steps and already cancelled about 1.41 crore bogus ration cards to ensure the benefits of the Public Distribution System reached only the genuine beneficiaries. "Survey and monitoring is an ongoing and continuous process and the state is committed to ensure that only the targeted beneficiaries obtain subsidies," the missive said. In such a backdrop, it would not be "appropriate to reduce allocation of kerosene oil, which is so much essential for basic needs like lighting the household and cooking by the poor people". She said the education of children from the poor families would also be adversely hit because of the reduction in the quota. Sources said the Centre has slashed the monthly allocation of kerosene oil to the state by 4,000 kilo litres from 78,600 kilo litres to 74,608 kilo litres since April. Banerjee had earlier written to Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on the same issue. London: Following the Israeli government`s demands, nearly 70 percent of pro-Palestinian content has been removed from social networking site Facebook and micro-blogging website Twitter, media reports said on Monday. "We succeeded to achieve our goals as around 70 percent of our demands were fulfilled," Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked told Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, TeleSUR TV reported. The decision was taken as "there is a direct relationship" between Internet incitement and violence in Israel. "We succeeded to delete incitement contents calling for death and violence across the internet," the minister added. "It is not uncommon for Israel to use social media and freedom of expression as a means of controlling viewpoints from being expressed globally," the Palestine Chronicle wrote. Facebook and Twitter have put in a number of mechanisms to report offensive content on the websites. According to Facebook, any profile, page or group related to a terrorist organisation is shut down and any content celebrating terrorism is removed as part of the social netwoking sites`s policy. Sarajevo: A Bosnian Muslim leader on Monday paid tribute for the first time to Serb civilians killed in Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war, expressing regret for lost lives. Bakir Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of Bosnia`s tripartite presidency, came to Kazani, on the heights of Sarajevo, where several dozen Serb civilians were killed by the majority Bosnian Muslim army and dumped in a ravine. No senior Muslim official has ever before been to the massacre site. Accompanied by other Bosnian Muslim leaders, including Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic, Izetbegovic laid flowers on the edge of the ravine. "I feel I have a debt (towards the victims). I should have come here earlier to express my regrets and express condolences to the people who have ended up here in an awful way," Izetbegovic said. "This is the main reason why I came here... But I also hope that this gesture will inspire others to do something similar," he added, referring to Bosnian Serb and Croat officials. During almost the entire war, for more than three years, Sarajevo was under siege by Bosnian Serb forces. More than 10,000 people were killed either by shelling or by snipers during the siege, the worst in the modern history of Europe. However, mostly between the spring and fall of 1993, a number of Serb civilians were taken from their homes and killed, including several dozen in Kazani. A notorious criminal who commanded a defence unit of Sarajevo, Musan Topalovic, nicknamed Caco, is considered the main person responsible for these crimes. He was killed in October 1993 under circumstances that remain unclear after being arrested by Bosnian Muslim forces. The bodies of 29 people were exhumed from the Kazani grave, although the exhumations have never been completed. Milan Mandic, president of an association of families of Serbs who disappeared in the Sarajevo region, hailed a "brave gesture for Serb people and the families" of victims. "In the capacity as the most influential politician among Bosniaks (Muslims), he found strength to come to this place and lay flowers in the memory of these innocent victims," Mandic told AFP. The Bosnian war claimed more than 100,000 lives and left homeless more than a half of country`s pre-war four-million population. Beijing: Brazil's interim President Michel Temer's major policy shift has posed a test to the capability of BRICS as the new government has relegated cooperation with the five-nation bloc to "secondary place", Chinese state media said today. Outlining China's thinking towards the political crisis leading to the ouster of President Dilma Roussef, who was suspended from office pending her impeachment trial, a Xinhua news agency's commentary quoted analysts as saying that Brazil's interim government is likely to put its cooperation with other BRICS countries - Russia, India, China and South Africa - in a secondary place. Whether the BRICS countries stand united and whether their cooperation mechanism functions smoothly will be crucial for the development of the bloc, the commentary said. Brazil always valued its cooperative relations with other BRICS countries after the birth of the bloc in 2009. However, the political developments since the suspension of Rousseff are resulting in readjustment of its foreign policies. Interim Foreign Minister Jose Serra outlined new priorities in foreign policies, saying Brazil would instead put emphasis on bilateral ties with Argentina and Mexico and, meanwhile, make it a priority to restore the "traditional partnerships" with the US, Europe and Japan, it said. On cooperation with other BRICS countries, Serra said Brazil will seize opportunities brought about by this mechanism with an eye to enhancing trade and investment cooperation among its members. A subtle difference was noticed from the terms frequently used by Rousseff such as "strategic cooperation" and "diplomatic priorities", the commentary said. Amid the volatile political situation in Brazil, the fate of Rousseff remains to be seen before the last two rounds of vote at the Senate. Zhou Zhiwei, Executive Director of the Brazil Research Centre, a unit of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that no matter what the final result is, the fermenting political crisis could lead to a "backtrack" in the foreign policy of Brazil and affect its dedication to the BRICS mechanism in the short term. The term BRIC, coined by Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O'Neill in 2001, refers to the grouping of the four fast- growing emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In 2006, Goldman set up the BRIC Fund, which generated fairly good returns for its investors in the first few years. However, with sharp declines in prices of commodities since 2013, BRICS experienced a slowdown in economic growth. Brazil and Russia even registered negative economic growths. New Hampshire: The Orlando massacre has exposed some of the sharpest contrasts yet between America`s presidential rivals, with Hillary Clinton on Monday warning against demagoguery and rival Donald Trump declaring prospective immigrants from some nations persona non grata. Instead of unifying a politically divided nation, the worst terror attack in the United States since September 11, 2001 has widened the gap between the White House contenders over how to tackle extremism and keep Americans safe. Both candidates used their speeches in the wake of the shooting to enhance their commander-in-chief credibility, in starkly different tones. Presumptive Republican nominee Trump ratcheted up his pointed rhetoric, blasting Clinton for seeking to "allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country" and suggesting the former secretary of state "has no clue" about radical Islam. "When I`m elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats," Trump said during a highly-anticipated national security speech in New Hampshire. "We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer," he said, referring to the Orlando gunman, whom US authorized suspect was radicalized by Islamist propaganda. The provocative billionaire again called for a halt to Syrian refugees entering the United States and warned there are people living in America with "hate in their heart." In an exchange with Fox News, Trump said President Barack Obama "doesn`t get it" when it comes to the extremist threat, a comment that drew curt reaction from the White House. "When you are focused on something as big as helping the country respond to the worst mass shooting in our nation`s history... and combating violent extremism, it`s important not to get distracted by things that are so small," White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said.Trump heaped criticism on his rival. "The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system" of screening, Trump said. "She wants to take away Americans` guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us." Clinton made no mention of Trump in her speech, instead urging Americans to reject political partisanship and "stand together" to defeat terrorism. "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive and we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values," she said. "The threat is metastasizing." While Clinton zeroed in on fighting Islamic State extremism and the need to rein in American gun violence, Trump seized on how Muslims may be protecting their own. "We have to get the people that surround these maniacs to start talking," he told ABC. Trump`s argument followed his accusations that neighbors and relatives of the San Bernardino attackers who slaughtered 14 people in December knew the couple had been radicalized but did not alert authorities. Clinton for her part recognized the need to track so-called lone wolves and prevent them from launching attacks, and reiterated her call for reinstatement of an assault weapons ban, saying Orlando shooter Omar Mateen used a "weapon of war" to kill 49 people. But she stressed that "inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric" and bans based on religious affiliation would only hurt the vast majority of Muslims who abhor terrorism. She warned that demagoguery would not end terrorism. "I`m not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion," Clinton said. But she did demand that other governments reconsider policies that allow extremism to thrive, calling out three US allies. "It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations," Clinton warned, urging them to stop supporting "radical schools and mosques" that promote extremism. Trump expressed strong support for America`s gay community, following Sunday`s attack on the gay nightclub. "It`s an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity," he said. "It`s a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation." Beijing: With India seeking entry into the NSG, China on Monday said the 48-nation body will have "extensive discussions" about admission of new members ahead of its plenary meeting to be held in Seoul on June 24. "As to how non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) countries can join the NSG, the group shall have extensive discussions," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kong told a media briefing here replying to a question whether the group is likely to take a decision at the Seoul meeting. China yesterday said no discussion about admission of new members was held at the June 9 meeting convened by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) chair Argentine Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi in Vienna. "The Chair said that this meeting has no agenda and is only convened to heed opinions from all parties on the outreach of the NSG and prepare for a report to be submitted at the NSG Plenary Meeting in Seoul later this month (June 24)," the ministry said yesterday. While the US and a majority of the 48 members back India's admission, China along with New Zealand, Ireland, Turkey, South Africa and Austria are reportedly opposed to India's entry. China which is reportedly backing Pakistan's entry into the club maintains that there should be consensus about admitting non-NPT members into the grouping. Asked how China views Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to the US and the absence of the mention of South China Sea issue in the Indo-US joint statement, Lu said, "India always upholds diplomatic policy of independence. We believe that it is independent choice India made in light of its own interests," he said outlining efforts by China and other east Asian countries to resolve the maritime dispute. China claims almost all of the South China Sea while Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the waterway believed to be rich with oil and minerals. About the completion of the formalities of India and Pakistan's admission into the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at its forthcoming summit in Tashkent later this month, Lu said, "I can't predict the outcome of the summit. But I am sure that this will be an important agenda". "All the leaders will have in-depth discussions on the issue and ensure steady progress of the enlargement of the SCO," he said. Paris: A French police officer has been stabbed to death in front of his home in the Paris suburbs by a man who then holed up in the house, a police source said. Elite police have surrounded the residence in Magnanville, which is northwest of the French capital, the source said yesterday. It was not immediately clear if the suspect was holding any hostages. Fallujah: Iraqi forces have detained more than 500 suspected Islamic State group members trying to sneak out of the city of Fallujah by blending in with fleeing civilians, police said Monday. "We have arrested 546 suspected terrorists who had fled by taking advantage of the movements of displaced families over the past two weeks," said Hadi Rzayej, the police chief for Anbar province in which Fallujah is located. "Many of them were using fake IDs," he told AFP from the southern edge of Fallujah, where Iraqi forces are pressing a three-week-old offensive to retake the city from IS. When civilians reach government forces, teenage boys and adult men are screened separately. Some are released after a few hours while others undergo more thorough interrogation. Until last week, an estimated 50,000 civilians were still trapped in the centre of the city, which is one of the jihadist group`s last bastions in Iraq and lies only 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad. The Iraqi army on Saturday opened a corridor to the southwest of the city that has allowed thousands of civilians to escape IS rule and reach government-run displacement camps. Estimates for the number of IS fighters holed up in Fallujah vary from 1,000 to 2,500. IS has been expected to put up a tougher fight in Fallujah, which looms large in jihadist mythology, than for any of the other cities it lost in Iraq over the past two years. Iraqi forces have been making slow but steady progress over the past two weeks, with elite troops dodging suicide car bombs and picking their way through thousands of explosive devices to work their way up from the south of the city. United Nations: Israel on Monday was elected to chair a UN committee for the first time in the world body`s 71-year history, triggering strong protests from Arab countries and the Palestinians. Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon won the chair of the legal affairs committee of the General Assembly by picking up 109 votes from the 193 member-states. Danon`s candidacy was put to a vote by secret ballot at the request of Arab countries. All of the other committee chairs were chosen by consensus. Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour criticised the regional group for putting forward Danon`s candidacy, saying he was divisive and unworthy of the task. "They should have advanced a very responsible qualified candidate and not a big violator of international law," Mansour told reporters. Yemen`s Ambassador Khaled Alyemany, who heads the Arab Group at the United Nations, said he had sent a message to all member-states to protest the election of the Israeli ambassador. "We cannot accept that a country like Israel, violator of international law and humanitarian law and the last colonial force existing in the world, has the right to rule on all legal affairs," said Alyemany. Danon said he was "very proud" to be the first Israeli to head a UN committee and declared that it was "a pitiful moment to see some of the Arab countries trying to block that nomination." Israel`s candidacy was backed by the United States and European countries. Most of the work on resolutions adopted by the General Assembly is done by committees, which present measures that are agreed by all UN member-states. Los Angeles: Santa Monica police arrested a man armed with a gun and seized a car with explosives here on Sunday morning hours before a gay pride parade in West Hollywood. FBI agents confirmed the arrest hours after the gay club mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. The man told police that he was in town for the pride parade, Xinhua quoted Los Angeles Times as saying. The 46th annual Los Angeles Pride Parade, one of the biggest public festivals celebrating gay, lesbian and other alternate lifestyles, was to continue along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on Sunday. Normally, about 400,000 people will party at the celebration for freedom in diversified sexual orientation. The parade has been held every year since 1970 in Hollywood and was moved to West Hollywood in 1979. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told media that they were assisting the Santa Monica Police Department with the arrest of an individual, but would not supply any details. Some unnamed police officials noted that there were explosives in the car. "Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said the sheriff`s department. "In light of the unfortunate shooting incident in Orlando, Florida, the Sheriff`s Department is fully prepared to respond to a similar situation," said Sheriff Lieutenant Edward Ramirez. He said the security forces have been increased to ensure people are safe at the Pride Weekend. "We, as a department, are in heightened awareness, and our Criminal Intelligence Bureau has been activated today to gather and disseminate information, as they receive it." Iran's Revolutionary Guards killed five members of a Kurdish separatist group involved in assaults last month in the northwest of the country, state media said on Monday. The five were responsible for the killings of two members of the Revolutionary Guards in Sardasht last month and an engineer working there, the Guards said in the statement. It did not say when the five were killed. "A five-member team of the terrorist group PJAK were identified in a region near Sardasht ... and were all killed by the Revolutionary Guards army," Tasnim news agency reported, citing the Guards' statement. Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PJAK, is an outlawed group that seeks self-governance for Iran's Kurds and has links to Turkey's militant Kurdish Workers' Party. A ceasefire between the government and PJAK was signed in 2011, when Iran said it would suspend executions of Kurdish political prisoners if PJAK stopped its attacks. Both sides regularly violated the deal, but in recent months the number of clashes has climbed. Iran's seven million Kurds make up around 10 percent of the population. Most live in Kurdistan, a region in the northwest on the border with Iraq. It is among the most politically active regions in Iran, where little dissent is tolerated. Search Keywords: Short link: Illinois: In a convergence of two of the United States` biggest cultural giants, McDonald`s is moving into the old home of The Oprah Winfrey Show. The talk-show queen`s production empire left the Harpo Studios complex near downtown Chicago in December, headed to Los Angeles. The property will now have new life, morphing from the epicenter of influential daytime television to the standard-bearer of American fast cuisine. McDonald`s plans to "transform the space" into its new corporate headquarters, as well as a new home for the Hamburger University training center, according to a company statement. "Today`s announcement is about more than just a new location for us," said McDonald`s chair Rick Hernandez. "It is an important investment in our people," he added, speaking of moving "our business forward for many years to come." Oprah Winfrey, whose talk show ended in 2011, sold the facility to a real estate developer two years ago. But her mark in the area is unmistakable, after more than two decades spent producing her popular talk show from the facility just west of Chicago`s bustling downtown business district, in an area known as the West Loop. "Once her show went syndicated, my God, it was amazing, because we had people coming to the neighborhood," Ina Pinkney, a former chef at a West Loop restaurant told NPR in 2011. Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley even named a short stretch of the street in front of Harpo Studios "Oprah Winfrey Way" and called the talk show host a "great ambassador for our city." "That`s better than an Oscar, or an Emmy," Winfrey said at the time. The current headquarters for McDonald`s is in a Chicago suburb. The move to the trendy, restaurant-rich West Loop that Oprah helped create is part of the company`s efforts to become a more modern operation. "This world-class environment will continue to drive business momentum by getting us even closer to customers, encouraging innovation and ensuring great talent is excited about where they work," said McDonald`s CEO Steve Easterbrook. Slumping sales led the company to install Easterbrook as CEO last year. He made a number of changes, including a focus on improving customer service, promising to use eggs from cage-free chickens and adding an all-day breakfast to the menu. Those changes and others have lifted earnings and led to three straight quarters of growth. In announcing its headquarters move, the company said it will create a "modern setting that fosters collaboration and connectivity." Ankara: A car bomb attack apparently targeting court officials in a town in Turkey's mainly-Kurdish southeast region injured at least nine people , the country's state-run news agency reported. The explosion occurred close to housing for courthouse employees in the town of Ovacik, in Tunceli province, Anadolu Agency reported. Three of the wounded were in serious condition. A police officer was also among those wounded, the report said. The explosion cause several small fires which were quickly extinguished, Anadolu added. Last week, two car bomb explosions, both claimed by Kurdish militants, killed 17 in Istanbul and the southern town of Midyat. The militant group, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, which is considered an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, claimed responsibility for a car-bomb attack that targeted a police vehicle and killed six police officers and five civilians. Istanbul's bombing was followed a day later by a suicide attack targeting the police headquarters in the southeastern town of Midyat that killed three police officers and three civilians. Turkey's southeast region was plunged into violence last summer after peace talks between the state and the Kurdish rebels collapsed. Columbia: White House hopeful Donald Trump lost no time Sunday in claiming a massacre in a gay nightclub showed he has been right about Islamic extremism. The Republican flag-bearer demanded that President Barack Obama stand down if he refuses to blame the attack on what Trump called "radical Islam". And the property mogul went to Twitter to double down on his promise to ban Muslims from travelling to the United States if elected. Obama had earlier branded the attack an act of "terror" and "hate" but the FBI investigation into the slain suspect`s motives is continuing. The attack by a US citizen left 50 dead in the worst mass shooting in US history and has been claimed by a media source close to the Islamic State group. In a series of Tweets starting just hours after the shooting began and as reports were still sketchy, Trump said the tragedy supported his views. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism," he said. "I don`t want congrats, I want toughness and vigilance. We must be smart!" Later, he followed up with a strongly-worded statement. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words `Radical Islam`. For that reason alone, he should step down," he said. "If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words `Radical Islam` she should get out of this race for the presidency." Clinton, Trump`s Democratic rival for the White House, had been due to campaign with Obama on Wednesday, but cancelled the event while the FBI probe continues. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore," Trump warned. "Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen -- and it is only going to get worse. "I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can`t afford to be politically correct anymore," he warned. Trump has previously argued that events like the San Bernardino shooting in December last year show that the United States should ban Muslim travelers. In his statement, Trump did not repeat this call for a visa ban -- promising simply to make a detailed national security speech on Monday. But he quickly returned to Twitter to repeat and underline what has proved one of his most controversial campaign promises. "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning," he tweeted. "I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough." Florida: As they mourn friends and partners murdered in the gay nightclub massacre, homosexual men in Orlando are eager to join in the rush of solidarity by donating blood for those victims still clinging to life. But they are angry and frustrated: federal law imposes strict conditions to guard against HIV transmission. Gay men can only give if they have not had sex with another man for a year. So while they say it is a relief to see many others lining up outside blood banks in suffocating heat for hours to donate in the wake of the attack that killed 49 and left 53 wounded -- and the response has been described as overwhelming -- gay men are forced to sit by and watch. "I am married. I am gay and sexually active with my husband, of course. But I am ineligible to donate blood," said Rob Domenico, a board member and chief fundraiser at The Center, Orlando`s main LGTB community center. "So at a time when I am needed the most to help save my brothers and sisters, I can do nothing. So it is very frustrating," he said at the center`s small, jam-packed headquarters, which has operated in crisis mode since the massacre in the wee hours of Sunday at the Pulse nightclub by gunman Omar Mateen. The Center teemed with activity Monday as volunteers arranged appointments for people who need counseling after the carnage and took delivery of supplies -- food, drink, even toiletries -- for victims` families. A charity group brought in golden retrievers to serve as comfort dogs for people to pet. This therapeutic technique was also used after the Newtown school shooting in Connecticut in 2012, which left 26 dead, most of them small kids. Outside The Center, Chris Callen, 34, said he knew Pulse very well -- he worked there performing as a drag queen. And his loss of friends in the attack was huge. "I lost a total of seven -- and I actually just found out I lost one more, on the phone," he said, gesturing to his mobile and wincing.Callen said he could not donate blood because he has been HIV-positive for nearly seven years. Back when he was healthy, however, he said it hurt really badly to not be able to give. "When the Twin Towers fell, we had a whole bunch of the gay community that wanted to rally and go and give blood. And we weren`t allowed," said Callen, wiry and shirtless in the muggy Florida heat. "I would do anything to help my community," he added. The government restriction on gay men giving blood used to be even tougher. Until very recently, the Food and Drug Administration rule stipulated that any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 could not give blood, said Pat Michaels, a spokesman for OneBlood, a network of blood bank clinics in Florida and other southern states. OneBlood had been pressuring the FDA for years to lift the older blanket ban, said Susan Forbes, another representative of that not-for-profit network. She called the change, mandating a year of abstinence, a step in the right direction. Domenico said it was a joy to see so many straight people turning out to donate blood. On Sunday alone, it was 3,500 people across OneBlood`s network, said Michaels, compared to 1,000 on a regular day. "We have straight allies that are there for us and have been there for years," Domenico said. Herb Voyles, a 40-year photographer who is straight but has gay friends who used to go to Pulse, said even the new rule is ridiculous, arguing that since blood can be tested for HIV, gay men should not be barred from donating. Voyles spoke as he sat in what looked like a dentist chair, donating his dark, red O+ and squeezing a rubber toy to keep it pumping. Of his contribution, he said: "It is small. But if it can save someone`s life, I guess it is something I should do." Florida: The gunman behind the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida that left 50 dead is a 'soldier of caliphate', said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group on Monday in a radio bulletin. The suspect, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is a Muslim American of Afghan descent and law enforcement agencies were investigating whether he had ties to or was inspired by Islamist extremism after a source had linked to the Islamic State group claimed the attack. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting and in a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio, it said: "God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them." The jihadist group declared its "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The IS-linked news agency Amaq said on Sunday that the attack had been "carried out by an Islamic State fighter". The FBI said Mateen apparently made a 911 call just before the massacre to claim allegiance to the Islamic State group. Sunday`s attack, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, was carried out at Orlando`s Pulse nightclub, a well-known gay hangout. US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings "as an act of terrorism". Orlando: The ex-wife of the 29-year-old man suspected of killing 50 people in a Orlando nightclub early on Sunday has revealed that he was violent and mentally unstable and beat her repeatedly while they were married. The ex-wife, according to the Washington Post, said she met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and decided to move to Florida and marry him. At first, the marriage was normal, but then he became abusive, she said. "He was not a stable person," said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that," she added. While the FBI has not identified Mateen publicly, US law enforcement officials said his identification was found on the body of the killer, who was armed with a handgun and an assault rifle. Authorities think he used those weapons to kill 50 people and injure dozens more in the attack on the gay nightclub that began just after 2 am on Sunday morning. Mateen was killed in a shootout with police three hours later after a SWAT team assaulted a section of the club where Mateen was holed up with hostages. Mateen's ex-wife said his family was from Afghanistan, but her ex-husband was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida. In a series of Myspace photos, Mateen is seen taking selfies and wearing New York Police Department shirts in a couple of the shots. His ex-wife identified him as the man in the Myspace photos. Mateen's ex-wife said she was having a difficult time when she first met him and decided to move to Florida to be with him. The two married in March 2009 and moved into a 2-bedroom condominium in Fort Pierce, Florida, that Mateen's family owned. "He seemed like a normal human being," she said, adding that he wasn't very religious and worked out at the gym often. She said in the few months they were married he gave no signs of having fallen under the sway of radical Islam. She said he owned a small-caliber handgun and worked as a guard at a nearby facility for juvenile delinquents. "He was a very private person," she said. Washington: In a major development in Orlando shooting incident, Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has claimed the responsibility for the attack. In a message published on the groups semi-official news agency, Amaq, it described gunman Omar Mateen as a soldier of the caliphate. Worst mass shooting in US history In the worst mass shooting in US history, at least 50 people were killed and 53 others injured when a "lone wolf" gunman opened fire early on Sunday in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Although the statement did not clarify Mateens relation to the group, but the language appeared to suggest he was viewed as a lone wolf attacker. A state of emergency has been declared in Florida. Gunman Omar Mateen The gunman Omar Mateen, 29, was killed by a SWAT team after he took hostages at Pulse, a popular gay night club. He was armed with an assault rifle, a handgun and an unspecified "device", said officials. "It appears he was organised and well-prepared," Orlando Police Chief John Mina said. Officials said the killings were likely to be ideologically motivated, though there was no information that the gunman was associated with a particular group. Washington: Orlando shooting attacker Omar Mateen's father Mir Seddique has made an explosive revelation! Mir Seddique has said that Omar Mateen had been angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami recently. "We are in shock like the whole country," Omar Mateen's father said. "This has nothing to do with religion," Omar Mateen's father added. The gunman Omar Mateen, 29, was killed by a SWAT team after he took hostages at Pulse, a popular gay night club. Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has claimed the responsibility for the shootings in which at least 50 people were killed and 53 others injured when a "lone wolf" gunman opened fire early on Sunday in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where a state of emergency has been declared. In a message published on the groups semi-official news agency, Amaq, it described gunman Omar Mateen as a soldier of the caliphate. Florida: Eyewitnesses at Pulse nightclub have revealed the full horror that unfolded in the most deadly shooting in US history. Reportedly, the attacker was armed with an assault rifle, a handgun and an unspecified "device". Guns traced in #Orlando shooting: .223 caliber AR type rifle and 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Similar to those pictured pic.twitter.com/Ao5pcLtwBg ATF HQ (@ATFHQ) June 12, 2016 According to Orlando Police Chief John Mina, "It appears he was organised and well-prepared." When did it start? The carnage began about 2 AM, just before closing time, according to eyewitnesses. Most of the people were taking their last sip when the shooting began, say eyewitnesses. What really happened inside Pulse nightclub? One Jon Alamo says he was at the back of one of the clubs rooms when a man holding a weapon came into the front. I heard 20, 40, 50 shots; the music stopped, Alamo revealed, according to a report in news.co.au Gunman raked the club with bullets Clubber Ricardo Negron, who was inside the club when the shooting began, says the gunman raked the club with bullets. "At around 2 AM someone started shooting. People just dropped on the floor. I guess the shooter was shooting at the ceiling because you could see all the glass from the lamps falling, Ricardo Negron said. Non-stop firing Ricardo Negron described hearing non-stop firing that lasted less than a minute but felt like longer. 'I thought it may have been the music' Another clubber, Christopher Hansen, said he heard loud banging noises, like gunshots going off. "At first I thought it may have been the music until I heard too many shots. It was like, bang, bang, bang, bang, Ricardo Negron said. I fell down. I crawled out. When I got across the street, there were people - blood everywhere, Ricardo Negron added. 'People are getting shot' A terrified witness was heard saying Oh my god, people are getting shot, dude. Oh my God! Ricardo Negron Almodovar, who escaped the club, posted a horrific description on his Facebook page. Another eyewitness said, "It was getting closer and louder and louder." 'Never seen so many dead bodies' One Juan Rivera said that he had never seen so many dead bodies on the ground. DJ Ray Rivera told The Daily Beast that he thought the gunshots were just firecrackers at first before realising the full horror of the situation. I ducked behind my DJ booth, Rivera added. Orlando shooting Islamic State (IS) terrorist group has claimed the responsibility for the shootings in which at least 50 people were killed and 53 others injured when a "lone wolf" gunman opened fire early on Sunday in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, where a state of emergency has been declared. In a message published on the groups semi-official news agency, Amaq, it described gunman Omar Mateen as a soldier of the caliphate. The gunman Omar Mateen, 29, was killed by a SWAT team after he took hostages at Pulse, a popular gay night club. New Delhi: The Embassy of the United Stated of America on Monday lit up in the iconic rainbow colours of the LGBT movement here in the national capital, as a tribute to the victims who were massacred when a gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub, in Orlando killing almost 50 people. "We express our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were brutally massacred in the Orlando, Florida nightclub attacks on Sunday June 12. The U.S. stands firmly by the principles of equality for all, including for members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexuals, Transgender and intersex community worldwide," Deputy Chief of Mission Michael P. Pelletier said. Quoting President Barack Obama, he said 'in the face of hate and violence we will love one another. We will not give in to fear' adding that it was in this spirit, that the US Embassy will will raise the rainbow flag along with American flag, once the American flag is raised full staff, following the mourning period of the victims of the Orlando attack. Asserting that the fight for dignity and equality for LGBT people, is reflected in the tireless dedication of allies who work for a more inclusive society, Pelletier added that this 'Pride' month the U.S recommits to bending the arc of their nation towards justice. President Obama described Sunday morning's gun attack as "an act of terror and an act of hate" and said that the nation grieves the horrific massacre of dozens of innocent people. "This is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American -- regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation -- is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans," he said. The ISIS has called the Orlando gunfire attacker "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the IS extremist group, on Monday hailed the attack that left 50 people dead, saying it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it's the worst attack on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Omar Mateen (29) opened fire at the crowd present at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday. He killed 53 people and wounded several others before getting killed in a shootout with the police. Eritrea and Ethiopia accused each other of starting clashes on Sunday between their soldiers in a border region, highlighting persistent tension over a boundary dispute that triggered war in 1998-2000. Ethiopia said the situation was calm on Monday, after a resident on the Ethiopian side reported the sound of explosions all day on Sunday and lasting into the early morning of Monday. Eritrea, a Horn of Africa country that won independence from Ethiopia in 1991, fought border wars with its larger neighbour in 1998-2000 that killed about 70,000 people. Eritrea's Information Ministry said in a statement late on Sunday night that the Ethiopian government had "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front." Tsorona is a town south of the Eritrean capital Asmara and close to the frontier. The area saw intense fighting during the earlier border war. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," the Eritrean statement said. Ethiopia disputed this account, saying Eritrea started the fight. "Their forces were promptly repulsed. They were given a proper response," government spokesman Getachew Reda said, adding that the situation was quiet on Monday. Eritrea and Ethiopia routinely accuse each other of backing rebels trying to destabilise and topple the other's government, a legacy from the earlier war. A resident in the Ethiopian town of Zalambessa, across the border from Tsorona, told Reuters by telephone that he had heard the sound of shelling on Sunday and into the night. "It did not stop until this morning around 9 a.m. (0600 GMT)," he said, asking not to be identified. He added that he had seen Ethiopian military vehicles and troops moving along the central stretch of the militarised border. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel had no immediate additional comment when asked about casualties or other details of the attack. Ethiopian government officials also did not say if there were any casualties. Charlotte King, senior Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said it was unusual for Eritrea to comment on flare-ups but said the statement may have been prompted by U.N. criticism Eritrea has faced over its prolonged national service. The U.N. accuses Eritrea of rights abuses for indefinite national service, where Eritreans can spend many years in low-paid work under conscription. Asmara says an ongoing threat from Ethiopia makes extended national service essential. Eritrea's "critics will argue that it is trying to divert international attention away from the alleged crimes against humanity, and justifying its need for an enormous military and compulsory conscription," King said in a brief commentary. Eritrea, which is under U.N. sanctions, says world powers have failed to push Ethiopia to accept an international arbitration ruling demarcating the boundary. Ethiopia's government has said it wants talks on implementation. Search Keywords: Short link: Rome: Pope Francis on Monday hit out at the `brazen` free circulation of arms around the world, comparing it unfavourably to the bureaucratic obstacles put in the way of humanitarian aid. "It makes no difference where arms come from; they circulate with brazen and virtually absolute freedom in many parts of the world," the pontiff said on a visit to the World Food Programme. His comments came a day after a gunman shot 50 people dead in an Orlando nightclub but the Catholic leader did not specifically refer to the shooting. Orlando: Omar Mateen, who is suspected of have gunning down 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday, had roots in Afghanistan. Investigation into the Orlando carnage has now revealed various facets of Mateen's personality he was a body builder, a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and who at one point of time expressed interest in becoming a police officer, though he never pursued it. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. Mateen attended evening prayer services at the citys Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. When he finished prayer he would just leave, Rahman said. He would not socialise with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful, he added. Mateen opened fire early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, killing 50 people and wounding more than 50 others before he was gunned down during an exchange of fire with Swat team members, authorities said. They say Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a call to 911 on the morning of the shooting. Rahman doesnt think the attack was political or due to anti-American sentiment, though. He said it was more likely the result of psychological issues Mateen may have had. My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with ISIS, he said. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesperson who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., and ran a talk show "Durand Jirga Show" on a California-based TV channel. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesperson who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show named Durand Jirga Show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The law enforcement official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The shooter in 2013 made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and Mateen was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and at one point wanted to become a police officer but never pursued it, the imam said. He was also into body building. He was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence. The shooting was totally unexpected, Rahman said. With AP inputs Moscow: The Russian Orthodox Church said it would not go to a historic meeting of all of the world's Orthodox churches because other churches have walked out. The meeting on the Greek island of Crete due to start on Sunday would be the first in more than a millennium. The Ecumenical patriarch, however, seemed to open the door for further talks that could prevent the meeting from falling through. Orthodox church leaders haven't held such a meeting since the year 787, when the last of the seven councils recognised by both Orthodox and Catholics, was held. The "great schism" that divided the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox followed in 1054 amid disputes over the Vatican's power. Hilarion, a bishop who heads the Moscow Patriarchate's department of external church relations, said in a televised statement that Russia would not take part if others are walking out, and suggested the meeting be postponed. "We have made a decision that we will not be able to take part in the all-Orthodox Synod if other churches do not go," Hilarion said yesterday. The announcement of the Russian Orthodox Church, with an estimated 100 million flock, is a heavy blow to the plans by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who had hoped the gathering of leaders from 14 independent Orthodox churches later this month could promote unity among the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. Bartholomew I ranks as "the first among equals" in the Orthodox world. The Moscow Patriarchate last week proposed holding a preliminary meeting to discuss the controversial issues raised by the Bulgarian church and others. Reverend Alexander Karloutsos, a member of the organising committee of the Great and Holy Council, said they are inviting Moscow and other churches to meet and discuss the differences on June 17. "There is no mandate to change or postpone and we are going to proceed. They asked for a pre-conciliar meeting on the 17th and we expect to them to be here," he said. "We are the church of love and embrace everyone." Bulgaria's Orthodox Church put the plans in jeopardy last week saying it would not attend, citing differences over the agenda. Unlike the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox churches are independent and have their own leadership. Washington: Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, are fearing a backlash following the Orlando gay club shooting even as the Obama administration has assured them of their safety. In a bid to allay growing concerns within the community, the White House sent one of its top official to a gurdwara in the suburb of Washington DC yesterday to meet members of the Sikh community and local leadership to assure them about their safety and interest. "We know, this is a time when some in the community fear unease," Cecilia Munoz, Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, told PTI after her interaction with the Sikh community at the oldest gurdwara of Maryland -- Guru Nanak Foundation of America. She also attended 'sangat' with its members. "I shared the work that the federal government is doing to make sure that every child is safe and secure, every person is feeling safe and secure in the places of worship and the places where they work and the places where they study," Munoz said, adding that there was no need to be fearful. Her visit to the gurdwara was planned a few days ago but her presence was very timely in terms of the new wave of fear that has gripped the community because of the Orlando incident -- the deadliest mass shooting in America's history. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando in the wee hours of yesterday and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. "This is a country of great diversity. We cherish that diversity. We celebrate it. We feel great gratitude to the Sikh community for the many many contributions to the United States," Munoz said. "It is fundamental to our democracy that people have freedom of worship, but also have freedom from fear," she said, adding that the Obama Administration has taken steps to address these challenges. Paramvir Singh Soni, chairperson of the Guru Nanank Foundation of America, acknowledged that there is a sense of fear in the community and said the Sikh-Americans are touched by the steps being taken by US President Barack Obama in this regard. "We are still looking for stronger actions against hate crimes. I think there we need to do some more work, but we are making progress," he said. Singh said the community wants to have the next president as one who can address its challenge. "Someone who is more open to the Sikh community, somebody who is more engaged," he said. Dr Rajwant Singh, Washington-based chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said the Sikh community, is very concerned about the possible backlash from the Orlando killings. "We are thankful to the White House for sending Cecilia Munoz to the Sikh congregation in Silver Spring in Maryland. As we were thrilled by this kind gesture, our hearts were broken with the terrible news about the merciless killings of so many innocent people in Orlando," Singh said. "We have had several incidents of violence after the San Bernardino killings last December. We are praying for the victims but at the same time very concerned that how this would impact the Sikh community across the nation," he said. "We have conveyed that this needs to spelled out by the White House and we request that President Obama include and mention Sikhs particularly in his remarks while issuing a statement about the Orlando tragedy. Sikh congregations across the would need some security assistance and capacity building resources," Singh said. The Sikh Coalition in a statement condemned the Orlando shooting as a terrible act of terror, hate and bias-based violence and bigotry against minority communities, including the LGBTQ community. "In the aftermath of such events, minority religious communities are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge every Sikh to exercise extra vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety," it said. In another statement, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF) condemned the hateful attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual,and transgender (LGBT) community in Orlando Florida. American Sikh Council (ASC) said it is extremely distressed by the indescribable act of mass murder at the 'Pulse' nightclub in the city of Orlando. "As a result of such events, religious communities like the Sikh-Americans are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge everyone to exercise vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety. Please notify the local law enforcement in case of any threats of violence," it said in a statement. Dubai: Leading Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was rearrested on Monday by security forces in the Gulf island state, his family said on Twitter. Rajab, who was detained in 2014 for tweets deemed insulting to the authorities before his release on health grounds, was apprehended in a dawn raid on his home in the mainly Shiite village of Bani Jamra near Manama, according to his family. "Rajab was arrested from his house and his house was searched," Sumaya Rajab, his wife, posted on Twitter. The activist, who has led anti-government marches and heads the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, had previously served two years in jail for taking part in unauthorised protests. He was sentenced to six months in jail for his tweets but pardoned in July 2015 after King Hamad issued a royal pardon "for health reasons". Bahrain, home to the US Navy`s Fifth Fleet, has been rocked by unrest since security forces crushed Shiite-led protests in 2011 demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. Washington had previously called for Rajab`s release, while international rights groups have condemned the trials against opponents of the Sunni regime. Washington: Republican presidential presumptive nominee Donald Trump on Monday called for vigilance on Muslims and mosques in the US, a day after an Afghan-origin gunman killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in the deadliest shooting in American history. "We need much better intelligence gathering information. We need intelligence gathering centers, because the people in the communities where these people are, they know there's something off. They know there's something going on," he said. "We need intelligence gathering. We have to look at the mosques. We have to look at the community. And believe me, the community knows the people that have potential for blow up," said Trump, who has been criticised for advocating a ban on Muslim immigrants. Citing the example of last year's San Bernardino shooter, Trump said there were bombs all over his apartment floor. "You're going to find that with this mad man (Orlando shooter). People in the area, the people in the neighborhood, they know there's something off with him, and they don't report them to the police," he told CNN. "This is much different, than when we fight a war with Germany or with Japan, and they have uniforms," Trump said. "It's an enemy without a uniform, George. It's very dangerous. We're fighting an enemy without a uniform," Trump told ABC. In response to a question, Trump told the CNN that this is going to be "pure intelligence gathering, and people... Muslims, where they are, they have to report these people. Otherwise it's going to be a bigger, bigger problem." Defending his view on right to carry fire arm, Trump said things could have been different if there were other people in the club carrying guns. "If you had some guns in that club the night that this took place, if you had guns on the other side, you wouldn't have had the tragedy that you had," he said. "If people in that room had guns with the bullets flying in the opposite direction right at him... Right at his head, you wouldn't have had the same tragedy that you ended up having. And nobody even knows how bad that tragedy is, because I think probably the numbers will get bigger and bigger and worse and worse. I hear the injured are so gravely injured," he asserted. Pushing for increased surveillance, he said this is the case of intelligence gathering, information. "Many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job, he something like this would have happened. I already hear it starting to happen of people that knew him, the ex-wife and other people," he said. "They don't report them. For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this. So, we do have two different standards. We have people that live here and have become radicalized and have been radicalized," he said. United Nations: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned the "horrific" mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando that claimed at least 50 lives. "The Secretary-General condemns the horrific attack this morning in Orlando, Florida, in which dozens of people were killed and injured," a statement issued by Ban's spokesperson said. "He extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the Government and people of the United States," the statement said. The suspect in the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the US has been identified as 29-year old Omar Mateen, a New York-born man of Afghan descent. The casualties far exceeded those of the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, where 32 people were killed, and the 2012 shooting at an elementary school in Newtown where 26 people died. "In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another," President Obama said in a special address from the White House. "We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united as Americans to protect our people and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us," he said. Aden: A US drone attack in southern Yemen killed two suspected Al-Qaeda members, the second deadly strike in as many days, security sources said today. The drone yesterday targeted a car driving in Habban, killing "two Al-Qaeda fighters and wounding their driver," one of the sources said. The strike comes after an American drone attack on Saturday killed two other presumed Al-Qaeda members in their vehicle in Marib province, east of the capital Sanaa. Washington, which views Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch as its most dangerous, acknowledged on May 7 that a "very small number" of US military personnel have also been deployed in support of the operation to retake former Al-Qaeda stronghold of Mukalla. Al-Qaeda exploited the civil war in Yemen between Shiite Huthi rebels and government forces to expand its presence in the south and southeast. The United States regularly conducts air strikes against Al-Qaeda. A March strike on a training camp west of Mukalla killed more than 70 fighters. Islamabad: Pakistan has closed the chapter of seeking F16 fighter jets from the US and will now opt for Jordan-owned F16 jets, an official said here on Monday, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry, briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Foreign Policy, said the US seemed to be satisfied with Pakistan`s decision. Chaudhry said that one of the reasons for strained relations with the US were Pakistan`s close ties with China. "Pakistan cannot cooperate with the US on some issues," he said. "One of these issues is its sovereignty." He added that strained relations with the US were nothing new for Pakistan. Condemning the US policy of the war on terror he said, the US "has spent 16 years fighting the war on terror. If only it had given six years to the peace process, things would have been different." Egypt's Finance Ministry issued $745.4 million in one-year dollar-denominated treasury bills with an average yield of 3.629 percent, the central bank said in a statement on Monday. The minimum yield was 3.59 percent and the maximum was 3.63 percent, it said. Search Keywords: Short link: YEREVAN, JUNE 11, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Embassy in Russia issued a statement on elaborating the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Russia Polad Bulbuloglus comments where he recalled the UN Security Councils famous resolutions and threatened to restart the war. The statement says Azerbaijani Ambassador with such interviews firstly aims to disguise Azerbaijan's failed military aggression unleashed against Nagorno Karabakh in early April. There is no doubt that Azerbaijan initiated the aggression. In his latest statements the Azerbaijani Ambassador tried with every measure to forget his own words which he said after a few hours of the start of the large-scale military operations in the Karabakh conflict zone. These show that Azerbaijan unleashed the military aggression. And his further assurances are made only for his ignorant compatriots. We once again recall that citing the UN SC famous resolutions with Azerbaijani selected comments on the separate provisions of the international fundamental law of the conflict settlement are considered as deliberate distortion of the existing documents within the OSCE Minsk Group. In this context, we suggest the Azerbaijani Ambassador to investigate the analysis of patriarch of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict negotiation process Vladimir Kazimirov which was published on Friday. Such statements distorting the facts and the realities, as well as the comments by the Azerbaijani partners do not contribute to the current efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at the peaceful settlement of the conflict, to which Azerbaijan allegedly seeks. Referring to the military solution of the conflict, we would like to once again remind that a long time has passed since Azerbaijan asked Russia to become a mediator for establishing the ceasefire in the conflict zone in 1994, and this was enough for Azerbaijan to be convinced that the military option is impossible. If anyone had such hopes, they collapsed in early April of this year. Therefore, it is illogical to make such a statement in Russia, especially when Russia once again demonstrates initiative to continue the negotiations for the peaceful settlement of the conflict, Armenpress reports, the statement reads. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. A salvage firm has begun a difficult and costly operation to raise a sunken South Korean ferry which capsized at sea more than two years ago in a disaster that shocked and enraged the country, reports ABC News. The Sewol was carrying 476 people when it sank off the southwestern island of Jindo in April 2014, with the loss of 304 lives most of them school children. Bringing the ferry to the surface has been a key demand of some victims' families, who hope nine bodies still unaccounted for may yet be recovered. The Seoul Government last year announced plans to salvage the 6,825-tonne ship and selected a Chinese consortium led by state-run Shanghai Salvage Co. to spearhead the $98 million project. "The operation began at 2pm," Jung Seong-Wook, a bereaved family member who acts as a families' representative for the salvage project, said. Mr Jung was one of dozens of family members watching the work anxiously from fishing boats in foggy weather. Preparatory work was completed early in the morning, with the salvage firm's main crane positioned near the bow and several cables attached to the ferry. The lifting of the bow section which will be conducted over the next two days is seen as the most challenging part of the operation. "This operation takes up about 70 per cent of the overall salvage project," Mr Jung said. Once the bow is lifted, work to place 18 lifting beams beneath the ferry will begin. If the lifting operation goes announced smoothly, the Sewol may be brought to the surface by late July. The Sewol lies more than 40 metres beneath the surface, and officials say lifting the 145-metre-long vessel from the seabed without causing it to break up will be the main challenge. A naval architect involved in the project put the success rate at 80 per cent at a press briefing in April, saying lifting a wreck in one piece from such a depth had never been done before. The disaster was mainly due to human error an illegal redesign of the ship, an overloaded cargo bay, inexperienced crew and a questionable relationship between the ship operators and state regulators. Captain Lee Jun-Seok was sentenced to life in prison for "murder through wilful negligence" and sentences ranging from two to 12 years were passed on 14 other crew members. Photo by Reuters YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. In an interview with Armenpress Turkish historian Sait Cetinoglu said the reality and the attitude towards the Armenian Genocide has not changed in contemporary Turkey. Although the use of the genocide word is no longer considered as a criminally punishable act, the users of this word are still being targeted. Turkish liberal parties and scholars announce they admit the Armenian Genocide and apologize for it. 30.000 people signed that announcement. People signed this announcement whose families more or less took benefit from the consequences of the Genocide, they took Armenians property. It is not necessary to immediately return that property, but they can express a wish over it. They do not even do it. Many of them still live in the houses left from Armenians where Armenian letters are engraved in the walls. When it comes to returning the Armenian property, from those 30.000 people you cant find even 30 of them, the historian said stating the issue is really difficult. Referring to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Germany, he recalled the past when Soghomon Tehleryan, who killed one of the criminals of the Genocide Taleat Pasha, was standing before the German court. Courts decision on Tehleryans case is strictly important. He said in the court: Yes, I have killed a man, but I am not a murderer. The court accepted this. During that period, the court disguised Germanys role in the Armenian Genocide, it made a decision within two days and released Tehleryan. Currently, there is nothing to hide. The humanity is on the way to resolve the Genocide issue. Germany is accomplice to the crime and accepted it. Therefore, except Germany, there are other culprits as well, such as England, Armenpress reports, he said. The historian said the Bundestag decision is not related with the EU-Turkey relations. Moreover, he stated one of the most important issues within the agenda of these relations the refugee issue has been proposed by Turkey which uses this issue as a weapon, as a threat against Europe. He considered the recent developments in Syria as an action by Turkey to move the genocide beyond its borders. Armenians no more live in the territories under the Kurdish control including Rojava. Assyrians are being exiled and are put under pressure. Ethnic cleanings are being conducted in these territories. Turkey attacked with Turkish weapons at Kesab where Armenians were majority. Everyone knows this. The Karabakh issue should also not be viewed separately from the Syrian conflict. 100 years later the Karabakh conflict is being used to threaten Armenians and say them we did such thing 100 years ago, we can do the same 100 years later as well, the Turkish scholar said. He highlighted it is difficult to be an Armenian and live freely in the contemporary Turkey. The evidence of this is famous Armenian linguist from Istanbul Sevan Nishanyan who was sentenced to jail for at least ten years. Sevan did many important contributions. Today he is in jail not for religious reasons. He shook with his books the foundations of the republic, the historian said stating although till now Nishanyan is being threatened, he continues writing new books. Speaking about the Armenian Genocide, Cetinoglu stated the Genocides committed against Armenians and Pontic Greeks in the Ottoman Empire have a significant difference from the Holocaust: The West never used the Jewish genes, it just simply killed them, but the genocide was different in Turkey. They killed some of them, and some were exiled or forced to Islam conversion. This is a very important fact, the historian highlighted. State policy and human values are different. We must put more importance to human values, rather than state interests. The West must fulfill its own rhetoric and values. Unfortunately, words and actions are sometimes not the same, and this strictly insults us and puts in a difficult situation. I was in Yerevan during the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and I saw how the worlds oppressed people were in solidarity with Armenians. It gave me great hopes. Armenia and the Armenian society seem to have become the umbrella of the oppressed people of the world, Sait Cetinoglu concluded. By Araks Kasyan YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. The first session of the council of CIS Correctional Services Heads took place in Moscow on June 9-10. Head of the Correctional Services of Armenia Major-General Artur Osikyan also took part in the session. The session approved to set an agenda for upcoming sessions and agreed to elect a council Chairman. The Council Secretary was instructed to present the 2016-2017 plan of activities of the session of the Heads of Correctional Services of CIS countries. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. 32nd session of the UN Human Rights Council kicked off in Geneva which will continue until July 1, reports Armenpress. Representatives of 47 states will discuss urgent human rights issues, including the situation in Ukraine, Syria, Burundi, Eritrea, South Sudan and other states, regions, as well as the fight against racism, the protection of rights of women and migrants, the provision of freedom of speech. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein on June 29 will provide information on the situation in Ukraine and Burundi, and then interactive dialogue will take place, TASS reported. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Head of the Department for the History of the Armenian Question and Armenian Genocide of the NAS of Armenia Armen Marukyan says by recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide each country pursues its own interests. Germanys non-recognition of the Armenian Genocide in 2015 was related to the fact that there were hopes to solve the migration issue with Turkey. Until the last moment the process of the resolution discussion was unpredictable since there were still talks with Turkey. By recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide every state first of all is guided by its own interests. And this does not only apply to Germany, other countries pursue their interests as well. We must make those interests in compliance with our national interests. Big states have always used the Armenian Genocide issue for their interests, we must coincide our national interests with those of the big states and get practical benefit, Armen Marukyan said. Referring to the content of the resolution adopted by Germany, Marukyan said there is no word about the reparation issue. The resolution speaks about the restoration of the Armenian-Turkish protocols, the reconciliation between the two peoples, but not about the reparation issue. In fact, we see that Germany, which recognized the Holocaust and compensated the Jewish people via 1952 Luxembourg agreement, now does not speak about the reparation issue in the resolution, in a case when Turkey committed similar crime. It would be desirable the reparation issue would have been included in the resolution. However, the German society limited itself only with recognition and apology, Armen Marukyan said. He said the reason of this that there is no word about the repatriation issue in the resolution is that the Armenian side had no impact on the text of the resolution. All these show that we will continue to have similar resolutions until we will be involved in the preparatory works of the texts, Marukyan highlighted. He said we must take steps before the adoption of such resolutions, since it will be difficult to make changes in already adopted documents. Eventually, what do we expect from the recognition process, a moral moment, or we will try to use it as a tool to put Turkey on pressure by which we will achieve the restoration of the violated rights of the Armenian people?, Armen Marukyan concluded. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Parliament Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov says the fight against corruption is not new in Armenia which started yesterday and will last tomorrow. It is a fact that corruption is a disease and we should fight against it. We have repeatedly said corruption is a challenge for us. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan talked about this issue in his speech in February 12. It is also a fact the Armenian Government has a political will to solve this issue, Armenpress reports, Sharmazanov said. He stated the results of this cannot be quickly achieved. I see political will and necessity over this issue. For me it is much more important that the leadership has targeted it. It is important the Government sees that challenges exist in Armenia, the most serious of which is corruption. The results of fighting against it will be enough, elections will be held, and our people will give their political assessments, he said. Referring to the complaints by the business MPs of the National Assembly over the Tax Code, Sharmazanov said it is normal that there are different opinions over the code. It is a vivid example of democracy and pluralism. We appreciate inter-party democracy, and thats why we think there should be discussions until the second reading when the Government will approve the proposals of MPs. Based on that, we will have a completely new Tax Code after the first reading taking into account the joint work of our MPs and the Government, Sharmazanov highlighted. To the question is there any fear that it will create disagreements within the leadership, he said there is no need to fear from pluralism, political debates since we live in a democratic Armenia where there are various opinions, and the truth will be based on the clashes between these opinions. The leadership is powerful, the leadership is consolidated around President Serzh Sargsyan and fulfills step by step its obligations, whether they are good or bad, people will decide, he concluded. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Rapporteur of the OSCE Parliamentary Assemblys political affairs and security committee Margareta Cederfelt has authored a report and draft resolution geared towards strengthening international dialogue and improving cooperation, Armenpress was informed by the OSCE Office. The resolution will be discussed at the 25th OSCE PA annual session, which is going to be held on July 1-5 in Tbilisi, Georgia. The resolution points to conflicts in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova as requiring greater attention and political will. Cederfelt also expressed concern over recent military escalation in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, with the resolution urging parliamentarians to encourage political will from the sides in the region to promote an agreement on confidence building-measures to reduce the risk for further hostilities. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. National Geographic has outlines 10 countries that deserve more travelers. Armenpress reports Armenia tops the list. National Geographic describes Armenia the following way, Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the tiny Caucasus country of Armenia has often been associated with conflict. The countrys Nagorno-Karabakh war with Azerbaijan over a 1,700-square-mile patch of land each claim as their own ended with a cease-fire in 1994, with Armenia technically in military control of the ethnically Armenian territory, which currently exists as a self-proclaimed, largely unrecognized republic. Despite occasional skirmishes along the Karabakh border, however, Armenia today is safe, with a burgeoning tourist infrastructure, largely centered around family-run B&Bs and agrotourism-style homestays, designed to attract adventurous backpackers to the countrys staggering and often unheralded natural and architectural beauty. Why Go Now: Few people know that Armenia was the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as a state religion, in A.D. 301. And Armenias ancient churchesmassive, sprawling complexes of ruins nestled into the wildly green canyons and mountaintops of the countrysideare among the worlds best preserved. While other Christian churches are decorated with painted frescoes, many of which have faded or been destroyed, the carved stone lions of cliffside Geghard Monastery and intricately carved khachkars (stone graves) of Sanahin stand as a testament to the creative power of one of the worlds oldest, and least heralded, civilizations. And Armenias churches arent the only attraction of its countryside. The wildflower-dappled hills and valleys herefar more accessible than the vertiginous mountain paths of Georgiaare full of pagan temples like Garni, just outside Yerevan, and cobblestoned spa towns like Dilijan, nicknamed Armenias Switzerland. Dont Miss: Most tourists concentrate their activities around Yerevan, the countrys muted, largely Soviet-era, capital. But a half-days drive from Yerevan ($50 with a reliable taxi driver), is the town of Goris, set among caves and cliffs in Armenias verdant south and among the countrys most spectacular. Winding hikes through the historic village take you through the cave villages of Old Khndzoresk, while a short bus ride takes you to the ninth-century mountaintop stone monastery of Tatev, once a capital of Armenian culture and learning, accessible by one of the worlds longest cable cars. In the heart of Goris, an eccentric mountaineer runs Khachiks B&B (from $20 per night, including meals), a homestay with nightly home-cooked meals, garnished with fresh herbs, boasting terrace views over Old Goris. The National Geographic also warns that violence is not something common in Nagorno Karabakh, but at the same time recommends to be aware of the conflict that can suddenly flare-up. If youre planning to visit Azerbaijan after Armenia, be aware that border control may take a dim view of your prior travels and may even encourage you to get rid of offending photographs (or guidebooks). If Azeri officials suspect you of having visited Nagorno-Karabakh, furthermore, you may be denied access to the country entirely, adds National Geographic. Nicaragua, Nepal, Iran, Kosovo. Uzbekistan, Albania, East Timor, Georgia and Tunis are included in the top ten list of the National Geographic. Villa 69 is the first feature film coming from director Ayten Amin Directed by Ayten Amin, the drama movie Villa 69 will be screened in Cairo's Magnolia - Leaves of Art on Monday 20 June. The film starring Lebleba, Arwa Gouda and Khaled Abol Naga talks about Hussein who enjoys a solitary existence until his past catches up with him when his sister and nephew move into his house. According to Ahram Online's film reviewer Menna Taher, "Villa 69, formerly called '69 Mesaha Square, is a nostalgic film infused with a youthful spirit. Within the confines of a beautiful, dusty villa in a quiet neighbourhood, the viewer feels transported to an older version of Cairo or one that is hidden in the cracks of bustling contemporary Cairo." This is the first feature coming from the young director Ayten Amin. Equally, the film is also the first by screenwriter Muhammad El-Hajj, and Mahmoud Ezzat, who co-wrote the script. Villa 69 premiered at Abu Dhabi International Film Festival 2013 where it was awarded a Special Jury Award (Arab World). It received three awards at the Egyptian Catholic Centre for Cinema awards in 2014: best actor for Khaled Abu El-Naga, best cinematography for Hossam Shahin and a certificate for actress Heba Youssry. The film also received the highest number of awards at the 40th annual Egyptian Film Association Festival: best debut work for Ayten Amin, best leading actor for Khaled Abu El-Naga, best supporting actor for Omar El-Ghandour, best supporting actress for Heba Youssry, best editing for Emad Maher and a certificate for art director Shahira Nassef for her impressive work on the film's production set. The film was first screened in Egypt during the 6th Panorama of the European Film in November 2013, and was later screened commercially in numerous movie theatres across the country in December the same year. Villa 69 is in Arabic with English subtitles. Running time: 108mins Programme: Monday 20 June, 9pm Magnolia. Leaves of Art: 12 Mohamed Anis street, Zamalek, Cairo For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: Strong results from US rivals like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have put pressure on Deutsche Bank to show it can defend its share of the market A German court on Monday found six former Deutsche Bank employees guilty of evading taxes on trading carbon emission certificates. A court spokesman said that a former department head was sentenced to three years in jail, while five others were given suspended sentences of between one and two years and ordered to pay fines of between 10,000 and 200,000 euros. The six former employees all pleaded guilty, the spokesman said. They participated in tax evasion on the certificates between September 2009 and February 2010. The scheme is estimated to have cost Germany around 145 million euros ($164 million) in unpaid taxes via the purchase and sale of carbon emission certificates abroad. Under a European Union trading system, limits are placed on the amount of carbon dioxide companies may emit, and those that pollute less are free to sell credits to companies that need more. In December 2011, a Frankfurt court jailed three Britons, two Germans and a Frenchman for between 10 months and seven years for their involvement in the scheme. Britain's opposition Labour Party scrambled to make the case for the EU as stock markets slipped and a new poll showed Brexit backers in the lead ahead of next week's knife-edge referendum. With the latest poll giving the "Leave" camp a six point lead, former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown pleaded the EU's case to left-wing voters, while Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny also began a tour of the United Kingdom to campaign against Brexit. "Britain can't build a relationship just on its own, only the EU coming together can offer the economic incentives and strategic support so we can deal with the causes of terrorism," Brown said during a speech in Leicester, central England on Monday. The former Labour leader insisted that the only way to defeat "gangmasters" fuelling illegal immigration was "through cooperation" with the EU. Many Labour supporters plan to vote "Leave" on June 23 due to concerns over levels of immigration from the European Union to Britain, leading to fears in the "Remain" camp that their votes could be decisive. Britain's most-read newspaper, The Sun, urged readers to back Brexit in an editorial splashed across its front page Tuesday in the colours of the Union Jack. "BeLEAVE in Britain" read the headline in a newspaper credited with generally backing the winning side and which famously claimed to have swung a general election in 1992. A Guardian/ICM poll published Monday gave "Leave" a 53 percent to 47 percent advantage, meaning that an average of the last six polls compiled by the WhatUKThinks website puts "Leave" ahead on 52 percent. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron appeared to have temporarily stepped back from campaigning to allow Labour to make the case to its side. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has made only a limited number of appearances in the referendum campaign. The voice of Brown, who between 2007 and 2010 served as the party's most recent prime minister, is seen as influential with Labour supporters. Story continues His intervention late in the Scottish independence referendum campaign in 2014 was credited with helping the successful push to stay in Britain. On the other side of the debate, a group campaigning for Britain to leave the EU came under fire after tweeting that EU membership could lead to an "Orlando-style atrocity". Home Secretary Theresa May, who wants Britain to stay in the EU, said the post was "utterly irresponsible". - End of Western civilisation? - World stock markets slid further on Monday after several recent opinion polls suggested the "Leave" camp could win. Tokyo's main stock index dived 3.5 percent to a two-month low by the close on Monday and slid further on Tuesday morning. London's FTSE 100 index lost 1.2 percent while Frankfurt's DAX 30 index and the CAC 40 in Paris were both about 1.8 percent lower. The British pound hit two-month lows against both the euro and dollar. European Council President Donald Tusk also issued a stark warning, saying that Brexit could spell the "destruction" of Western political civilisation. "Do you know why these consequences are so dangerous? Because in the long-term they are completely unpredictable," he told the German mass circulation daily Bild. "As a historian, I am afraid this could in fact be the start of the process of the destruction of not only the EU but also of Western political civilisation," Tusk said. Also on Monday, Ireland's Kenny began a tour of the UK to try to shore up support for "Remain", particularly among the estimated 600,000 Irish citizens living in Britain who can vote. "It is no secret that the Irish government very much wants the UK to stay as a member of the EU," Kenny said during a speech in Belfast, Northern Ireland. "I very firmly believe that our common membership of the EU provided an important backdrop to the Irish and UK governments working together to secure peace in Northern Ireland." Ireland, an EU member that is also part of the eurozone, is concerned that Brexit could hit its trade ties with Britain and mean the restoration of customs checks along its border with Northern Ireland. Branded merchandise is seen in the office of pro-Brexit group pressure group "Leave.eu" in London, Britain February 12, 2016. REUTERS/Neil Hall European stocks closed sharply lower on Monday amid a global selloff, as uncertainty over a possible "Brexit" and looming central bank meetings shook markets. The pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) index ended down 1.6 percent. The U.K.'s benchmark FTSE 100 (FTSE International: .FTSE) provisionally closed 0.9 percent lower. It outperformed the French CAC 40 (Euronext Paris: .FCHI) and the German DAX (^GDAXI), which both closed unofficially 1.5 percent lower. Several polls published on Friday and the weekend showed a small majority of Britons in favor of leaving the European Union (EU), ahead of a referendum on membership on June 23. This rattled global markets. "The risk that the U.K. votes to leave the EU next week is the dominant force in the capital markets," BBH analysts led by March Chandler said in a note on Monday. Bank of England and Swiss National Bank policymakers will meet this week, but neither central bank is expected to announce policy changes. The Bank of Japan's policy meeting on June 15 may be of more interest, with analysts saying the bank could announce additional easing measures. Plus the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting on Tuesday. Expectations for a June interest rate hike by the Fed have waned following a lower-than-expected May nonfarm payroll number in recent weeks that cast doubts on the health of the U.S. economy. U.S. stocks opened slightly lower on Monday, following sharp declines in overseas markets, but received a boost from a 45 percent jump in LinkedIn (LNKD) shares on the news that the platform will be purchased by Microsoft (MSFT). Gold prices rose as investors put money into safe-haven assets. Precious metals miner Randgold Resources (London Stock Exchange: RRS-GB) was one of a handful of companies in the black as a result. Amid the negativity, some defensive stocks such as GSK (London Stock Exchange: GSK-GB) also found support. Adding to the grim mood in Europe was the weekend massacre in the U.S. at an Orlando nightclub that killed around 50 people. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was an employee of security firm G4S (London Stock Exchange: GFS-GB) and shares in the U.K. security firm closed around 5 percent lower on Monday. Story continues German insurance firm Hannover Re (XETRA:HNR1-DE) was sharply lower after Credit Suisse initiated coverage of the stock with an "underperform" rating. Credit Suisse put an "outperform" rating on Hiscox (London Stock Exchange: HSX-GB), sending shares in that insurance firm higher. Shares of Nokia (Helsinki Stock Exchange: NOKIA-FI) closed around 1.6 percent higher after the Finnish network equipment maker signed a 9.9 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) network infrastructure deal with China Mobile. Satellite firm Inmarsat (London Stock Exchange: ISAT-GB) saw shares in the black after signing a deal with SpeedCast to roll out broadband on boats. Banks in peripheral European countries were among the worst performers on Monday, dragged down by Italian lenders, which remain under scrutiny because of their heavy load of bad debts. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (Milan Stock Exchange: BMPS-IT) and Banca Popolare di Milano (Milan Stock Exchange: PMI-IT) shares closed more than 9 percent lower. Greek banks, which are among the most troubled lenders in the euro zone, were also deeply in the red. Alpha Bank (Athens Stock Exchange: ALPHA-GR) closed down 6.9 percent, while Eurobank Ergasias (Athens Stock Exchange: EUROB-GR) was off by 6 percent. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. More From CNBC [From YouTube] Last week, a cowboy on horseback used quick wits and a long rope to stop an alleged bike thief from getting away. Robert Borba saved the day when he lassoed a man who was trying to make off with a bike that wasnt his in a Walmart parking lot in Eagle Point, Oregon, NBC affiliate KOBI reports. I just roped him and the rope went down around his feet and I just rode off like I would if Id rope a cow or something by myself, Borba told KOBI. The cattle rancher was at the store to pick up some dog food when he heard a woman yelling that someone had stolen her bike from a rack. According to The Guardian, the woman tried to catch up with the thief on foot but was unable to get him. Thats when Borba came in to save the day. He took he horse out of its trailer, mounted it and chased the thief down. According to KOBI, Borba wrapped his lasso around the suspects ankle and held the man in place until police arrived. He did it so well I thought, man, he must in a rodeo or something, Rob Roque, who witnessed the incident, told KOBI. It was perfect. The suspect, Victorino Arellano-Sanchez, was charged with theft, The Guardian reports. Borba, whos been called the Lone Ranger since the incident, says he was just doing the right thing. Tensions are bubbling into what might be the cleanest war in the history of France. Soap producers are struggling to agree on a true recipe for the southern city of Marseilles famed, traditional hard soap made from vegetable oils. According to Agence France-Presse, the dispute began when the Association of Makers of Savon de Marseille (AFSM), led by French cosmetics giant Occitane and a number of other soap makers from the region, filed a bid last October to have the local product be granted a geographical indication to distinguish it from cheap Chinese and Turkish imports that have flooded the market. The designation is usually reserved for food products such as Champagne, Gorgonzola and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The original Marseille soap was made with seawater, olive oil and soda ash, but the AFSM are backing a recipe that will permit for certain additives and perfumes, such as the cheaper palm or copra oil and lavender, to be allowed. Serge Bruna, a master soap maker at the AFSM, told AFP that the traditional pale green and beige blocks of soap are not what 90 per cent of consumers want. He added that one of the most popular wares at his shop in the Marseilles Old Port is a soap shaped like a sardine. The soap is scented with lavender oil, which he said for many customers is the essential odour of savon de Marseille. On the other side of the battlefield, four traditional master soap makers from the city, who make the suds from scratch in large cauldrons, want to keep the their artisanal roots pure. We are the last to keep the up the traditional know-how, Marie Bousquet-Fabre, who runs Marius Fabre soapworks with her sister Julie, told AFP. We are true soapmakers. We start from the vegetable matter and oil and we transform them by heating them with soda ash in our cauldrons. However, even traditionalists now use some palm or copra oil. The group also has the support of a number of residents of Marseille, who have started a petition on Change.org that has more than 120,000 signatures. It calls for a return to a recipe that was officially recognized in 1688, during the reign of Louis XIC, the Sun King. Story continues The suggestion that an official recipe could contain additives and ready-made ingredients produced elsewhere has the master soap makers and their supporters frothing, and the discussions between the two groups have deteriorated. Talks have broken down, our only communication now is through third parties, said Bruna. In response to the dispute, the French government has had to step in and arbitrate the question of the soaps true ingredients. The traditionalists and their lobby group, the Union of Professionals of Marseille Soap, also insist that Marseilles true soap can only be created by the citys artisans and those from the surrounding area of Bouches-du-Rhone. Meanwhile, the members of the AFSM come from across southern France. A public inquiry into the soaps recipe is set to wrap up next week, but a decision isnt expected until September. Sebastien Malangeau, an advisor to the minister of state overseeing commerce Martine Pinville who will make the final call, told AFP that officials need to balance the obligation to promote quality, while also opening the GI classification to a maximum number of people. He added that the most important criteria is the quality and if the designation is seen as a marketing gimmick it will die. TORONTO/MANILA (Reuters) - Canadian hostage Robert Hall is believed to have been killed by his captors in the Philippines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday, in what appears to be the second execution of a Canadian hostage by the militant group Abu Sayyaf in the area in recent months. Trudeau said Canadian officials were working with authorities in the Philippines to confirm the death of Hall, who was taken captive with three other people by the militants in September 2015 from an upscale resort on Samal island, hundreds of miles (km) east of Jolo. Trudeau said in a statement there was "reason to believe" that Abu Sayyaf had executed Hall. Hours later, he told reporters that "Canada holds the terrorist group who took Mr. Hall hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder." The prime minister said the Sunday attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando and the killing of Hall "serve as devastating reminders for all of us, the vicious acts of hatred and violence cannot be tolerated in any form." Abu Sayyaf, based in the south of the mainly Catholic country, is known for kidnapping, beheadings and extortion. It initially demanded one billion pesos ($21.67 million) each for the detainees, but it lowered the ransom to 300 million pesos each early this year. The group executed Canadian John Ridsdel, a former mining executive, in April. A Norwegian man and a Filipino woman are still held captive. Philippine security forces were checking intelligence reports that al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants executed Hall on the remote southern Philippine island of Jolo. Preliminary intelligence reports said he was beheaded 10 minutes after the 3 p.m. deadline in the mountains outside the island's Patikul town. Abu Raami, spokesman for the Abu Sayyaf Group, confirmed the beheading in a telephone call to a local newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer. The report could not be independently verified. Wilfredo Cayat, police chief of Jolo island, said officials were checking reports that said Hall was beheaded in Mount Bunga by Ben Yadah, a local Islamist militant holding four captives - three foreigners and a Filipino - since September 2015. "We don't know if this is true because we know there are ongoing negotiations for their release," he told reporters. Security is precarious in the southern Philippines despite a 2014 peace pact between the government and the largest Muslim rebel group that ended 45 years of conflict. (Reporting by Allison Martell in Toronto and Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and W Simon) The test papers for several subjects of the Thanaweya Amma high school exams were leaked online last week Egypts education minister told parliament Saturday that he requested the Internet be disconnected in the country an hour before high school exams, to prevent online cheating, but his request was denied. Minister El-Hilali El-Sherbini said his request was deemed against the law and the constitution, and thus the education ministry attempted to find other methods to prevent cheating, state news agency MENA reported. These methods include using cell phone jammers to disrupt cell phone signals inside classrooms. But officials found it unfeasible, as it would cost around EGP150 million. The minister was speaking in front of parliament after the test papers for several subjects of the Thanaweya Amma (General Secondary) high school exams were leaked online last week. The leaks prompted officials to cancel the religious studies exam Sunday as well as to investigate possible leaks from within the ministry. El-Sherbini defended his ministry, saying they have been making efforts since February to prevent exam leaks. The ministry conducted a study, according to the minister, with finding stating that it is hard to completely eliminate online cheating. He added that the ministry cancelled a number of examination venues known for group cheating in the past year, and instead referred students to other secure locations to sit their exams. The minister also said that exam papers have been transported to a number of governorates using military aircraft and that the interior ministry have been securing the transfer of exam papers by road. Around 600,000 students are sitting the exams this year. The Thanaweya Aama exams are a do-or-die for Egyptian high school students, since the outcome dictates who among them goes on to what college, if any. Last week, a number of Facebook admins were arrested on charges of leaking the exams online, while 12 education ministry officials are also being investigated in connection to the exam leaks. The 12 officials are reported to be employees in the printing houses the education ministry assigned to print the exam papers, or in the ministry's examinations centre. Meanwhile, head of parliaments education committee, Gamal Sheha, told MENA that the majority of parliamentarians were angered and shocked by the exam leaks and that their anger is a reflection of feelings on the Egyptian street. Sheha added that the current examination system is outdated and that the exams, evaluations and university acceptance criteria have to be changed. The current system is a remnant from the first half of the 20th century and no country still applies it, he stated. Search Keywords: Short link: If you're already feeling gouged by bank fees, it may be time to check your statements. Almost all of Canada's big banks are doling out some kind of personal banking fee increase this year. Bank fee hikes can easily make people angry, especially when those financial institutions are earning multi-billion dollar profits. But some experts argue the charges are just the cost of doing business. "Banks are expensive to run," says Carleton University business professor Ian Lee. They may be costly operations, but some also pull in plenty of cash. Last month, TD reported a second-quarter profit of $2.05 billion, up from $1.86 billion in the same period last year, thanks largely to retail bank earnings. TD also hiked some fees on March 1. For example, the bank raised non-TD ATM fees by 50 cents to $2. It's also the last of the big banks to levy a fee $75 for transferring a tax-free savings account to another bank. TD said it introduced the fees "to remain competitive in today's marketplace." The changes quickly inspired fury online. "They make BILLIONS every year forever. But that's not enough, let's tack on a few more cents or dollars and let's make more," commented one reader on a CBC News story about the new fees. "They're getting richer than you think," echoed another person. Widespread increases CIBC was next in line with fee hikes. On April 1, it upped the minimum account balance needed to avoid a monthly fee for its Everyday Chequing Account from $1,000 to $2,000. Transaction fees associated with that account also went up. CIBC is having a good year as well. The bank saw its second-quarter profit grow to $941 million, up 3.3 per cent from the same period last year. CBC News asked CIBC why it introduced the fee hike, and if the bank is planning any other personal banking fee increases this year. In response, the bank provided details about its new Smart Chequing Account, which offers a flexible pricing plan. Story continues It isn't just savings and chequing accounts: Scotiabank, BMO and National Bank are all upping some credit card fees this year. BMO, for example, on Friday increased the charge for a missed credit card payment due to insufficient funds by $8 to $48. This month, National Bank also raised some banking service fees by 25 cents. The bank explained that the changes are in line with their digital development. Blame it on online banking Professor Lee explains that charging fees for personal banking became a trend a couple of decades ago, and says it is largely the digital age that's to blame. Lee spent a decade working in the industry in the 1970s and 1980s. He says during that time banks often didn't charge fees for personal savings and chequing accounts, which were treated as loss leaders to generate other business. But Lee says when banks moved into the digital area, they suddenly faced enormous costs everything from complex hardware and software development to hiring security teams who could fend off potential hackers. "I don't find it a coincidence that they started to increasingly charge for fees just shortly after they decided to go online, investing massively in digital banking." Lee also points out that these days the big banks face more competition from smaller institutions such as credit unions, which have "become much more aggressive, more professional at horning in." That increased competition shrinks profit margins, Lee says, and consequently means that banks are not inclined to offer freebies. "They incrementally and gradually moved towards pricing every product as a standalone, separate product line that had to break even or make money." 'If there's gouging, it should be publicized' The big banks often argue the fee increases are required to remain competitive. But not all Canadians are buying it. Duff Conacher, co-founder of Ottawa-based Democracy Watch, believes some bank fees are getting out of control. The advocacy group has been lobbying the government to investigate all bank charges. "There needs to be an independent audit of every division of the banks to determine whether there's gouging. And if there's gouging, it should be publicized," he says. Conacher believes the publicity could force banks to bend. There's some evidence this can work. Last year, when new Royal Bank fees sparked public and political outcry, the company axed them. Royal had planned to charge customers transaction fees for payments on their loans, mortgages and credit cards from some RBC accounts. While Lee says banks have their reasons for charging fees, he believes that Royal's charges went too far. "To charge people to make a payment that they're compelled to make out of the loan agreement, I thought that the optics were terrible," he says. At the time, RBC said it had changed its policies because it was listening to customers. The bank tells CBC News it has no personal banking fee hikes planned for this year. So while banks are free to up their fees, Canadians are also free to complain if they feel they're being gouged. Now and then, complaining can actually bring about change. By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday it is proposing a $350,000 civil fine against Amazon.com Inc for shipping a product that allegedly violated hazardous materials regulations and injured several UPS workers who handled the package. The penalty is the largest fine the FAA has proposed imposing on Amazon, which the agency said has had a series of at least 24 hazardous materials violations in recent years. The FAA alleged that on Oct. 15, 2014, Amazon sent a UPS package with a one-gallon container of "Amazing! LIQUID FIRE," a corrosive drain cleaner for transportation by air from Louisville, Kentucky, to Boulder, Colorado. The package leaked and nine UPS employees who came into contact with the box reported feeling a burning sensation and were treated with a chemical wash, the FAA said. The FAA said the shipment was improperly packaged, not accompanied by a declaration for dangerous goods and not properly labeled to indicate the hazardous contents. Amazon declined to answer questions about the incident or prior fines, but said in a written statement that "we ship tens of millions of products every day and have developed sophisticated technologies to detect potential shipping hazards and use any defects as an opportunity for continuous improvement. We will continue to partner with the FAA in this area." UPS spokesman Mike Mangeot in a statement declined to discuss the incident "other than to say our employees were fine after receiving treatment." UPS is committed to the safe transportation of hazardous materials, he said. "We expect our customers to follow hazmat regulations, and when incidents or discrepancies occur, we report those situations," Mangeot said. The FAA alleged Amazon failed to provide emergency response information with the package, and Amazon employees who handled the package had not received required hazardous materials training. The FAA said that from February 2013 to September 2015, the government found Amazon had violated the hazardous materials regulations 24 other times seeking a total of nearly $1.3 million in fines. In at least 15 instances, hazardous material leaked, the FAA said in its notice of violation reviewed by Reuters. It was not clear how many total times Amazon paid fines or admitted responsibility, since the FAA does not issue press releases for fines below $50,000, an FAA spokesman said. The company did pay $91,000 in April 2014 for a 2013 incident. The agency is continuing to investigate Amazons compliance with hazardous shipment rules. In April 2014, Amazon paid a $91,000 fine to the FAA after its employees improperly shipped a package in 2013 containing flammable liquid adhesive by air on Federal Express from Whitestown, Indiana, to Boulder, Colorado. (Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by David Gregorio and Diane Craft) China's Industrial output rose 6.0 percent year-on-year in May, matching expectations, while retail sales were up 10.0 percent year-on-year (AFP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri) China's fixed asset investment, an important gauge of infrastructure spending, rose 9.6 percent in the first five months of the year, government statistics showed Monday, as investment growth slowed in the world's second-largest economy. The moderation comes after a record credit binge in the first quarter of the year, a splurge aimed at stimulating China's slowing economy. China's economy, a key driver of global economic expansion, grew just 6.9 percent in 2015, the weakest rate in a quarter of a century. The fixed asset investment results fell far short of economists' median forecast of 10.4 percent in a survey by Bloomberg News and was the slowest pace of expansion since 2000, the company said. But factory production and consumer spending showed steady growth for the period, the government data showed, as industrial output rose 6.0 percent year-on-year in May, matching the figure for April, while retail sales were up 10.0 percent year-on-year in May. "The national economy extended a stabilising and progressing trend that emerged since the start of the year with positive factors accumulating," said Sheng Laiyun, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics. "But we must be aware that the international environment remains complicated and severe, the painful domestic structural adjustments continue, and the economy is still under downward pressure." Private investment growth also slowed, with a 3.9 percent increase in the first five months of the year. "The slowdown in private investment growth indeed showed the intrinsic driver of China's economic growth is yet to be strengthened," said Sheng. He blamed the weakening on factors including the difficulty for private firms to get loans, industrial overcapacity, and limited access for private firms to some sectors. "At this moment the growth momentum is stable," Larry Hu, head of China economics at Macquarie Securities, told Bloomberg News. Story continues "This is comfortable for policy makers and will give them more time to focus on supply-side reforms." A note from ANZ Research said the figures suggested that China may miss its growth target of 6.5 to 7 percent in the second quarter and may lead authorities to use more aggressive fiscal policies such as faster approval of infrastructure projects. Steel output rose 1.8 percent on-year in May, the data showed, as US and European steelmakers accused bloated Chinese firms of dumping excess production on foreign markets. As part of a programme aimed at moderating its economic slowdown, Beijing has listed reducing overcapacity and excess inventory and cutting down borrowing as top priorities, with the country's ailing steel industry a key target. But foreign governments say they have seen little movement towards implementing its promises to tackle the problem. (Beijing) Private car services operator Didi Chuxing Technology Co. said it has received about US$ 600 million in new funding from China's top life insurer, which joined Apple as the latest major backer of the firm often called China's homegrown Uber. Didi, China's largest private car services and taxi-hailing app operator by rides, said in a statement that the state-owned China Life Insurance Co. made the investment using US$ 300 million in cash and a long-term lending commitment of 2 billion yuan ($303 million). The two companies plan to cooperate in Internet finance and insurance, and to explore potential expansion of ride sharing in the international market, according to the statement. Didi already has an agreement with Lyft, another major US operator, which allows interoperability between the two services. Major investors have pumped billions of dollars into China's increasingly competitive car services market, where companies have spent heavily to gain market share through subsidized fares and other marketing tactics. By December, Didi controlled 87.2 percent of China's car-hailing market, followed by Uber with less than 10 percent of the market, according to China Internet Network Information Center. Other players in the market are Shenzhou Zhuanche and Yidao Yongche. But whereas Didi began life as a taxi-hailing service and later expanded into hired private cars, Uber exclusively uses private car owners as its drivers. The battle for global investment between Didi and Uber has intensified in recent months. In May, Apple invested US$1 billion in Didi, a move that Apple CEO Tim Cook said would help the company better understand the critical Chinese market. That funding was part of a larger ongoing round that saw Didi also raise US$400 million from e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and from its financial affiliate Ant Financial Services Group in the same month. Didi President Jean Liu said at a conference in California earlier this month that the fund-raising round is still continuing and that the company had raised more than US$3.5 billion, the amount that Uber raised from the investment arm of Saudi Arabia as part of its own recent US$5 billion financing round. According to documents viewed by Caixin, Didi plans to raise US$ 3.5 billion for its latest financing round that would value the company at US$ 26.5 billion. Previous reports have indicated the company is working toward an initial public offering that could come as early as 2018 in the United States. (Rewritten by Chen Na) Seven years after the end of the Great Recession, many young adults remain wary about using credit, a new Bankrate survey found. While a majority of older Americans own a credit card, just 33% of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 say they have one, according to our Money Pulse survey. Even as the economy and job prospects have improved, this generation hasn't warmed to the idea of using credit as a financial tool. Two years ago, when Bankrate commissioned a similar survey, nearly two-thirds of young adults said they had no "major" credit cards, defined as cards issued by either American Express, Visa, MasterCard or Discover. The survey was conducted May 19-22, 2016, by Princeton Survey Research Associates International and included responses from 1,002 adults living in the continental United States. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Photo courtesy of Kristian Rivera Kristian Rivera "I've never owned nor have ever wanted to own a credit card," says Kristian Rivera, 25, a digital marketing specialist in New York City. "It wasn't really a decision that I made, but growing up I was warned of the risks of having a credit card and advised to put off getting one as long as possible." CARD OFFERS: Need a new credit card? Let Bankrate help you find the right card today. Learning from the past I spoke with a number of young adults who don't own a credit card. They said they either shunned credit because of previous financial problems they encountered, or because they saw how debt affected their loved ones during the recession. Revolving debt, which is made up mostly of credit cards, spiked to its highest level ever -- $1.02 trillion -- in July 2008 in the middle of the recession. It slowly fell over the next few years as cardholders either paid down their cards or issuers wrote off bad debts. "We don't want to make the same mistakes our parents made in the past," Rivera says. "We want to do things smarter and safer." Darnell Billups, 29, a U.S. Marine Corps captain stationed in Twentynine Palms, California, says when he and his wife, Natasha, married in 2011, they had a combined $40,000 in debt, including credit cards and student loans. They paid off their debts in 2013, just 2 weeks before Billups was deployed to Afghanistan for the second time. Story continues "Our thing is, we will never have a credit card ever again," Billups says. More than just credit cards, the couple wants to steer clear of all debt. They recently opened a photography business, Emmanuel Photography and Designs, without taking on any debt, and they plan to eventually buy a house using only cash. "It's been just wonderful because we don't have to pay anyone back," he says. Who is using credit? Young adults aren't the only demographic group shying away from credit card use. Our survey found that you are unlikely to own a credit card if you: Have an annual income of less than $30,000. Haven't attended college. Are black or Hispanic. Credit card ownership is most prevalent among: Baby boomers. College graduates. Adults with an annual income of more than $75,000. Those who identify themselves as Republicans. Why establishing credit matters For young adults, one of the quickest ways to build credit is to get a credit card and use it responsibly. FREE TOOL: Check your credit score for free today with myBankrate. Without a strong credit history, millennials may find it more difficult to get an auto loan or a mortgage when they're ready for those financial commitments, says Kent Thune, president and owner of Atlantic Capital Investments in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. "Credit is a financial tool; debt is a financial problem." Marc Aschoff learned this lesson when he and a group of friends tried to buy a rental property shortly after college. But since Aschoff had never had a credit card, he hadn't developed a solid credit history and none of the mortgage brokers he spoke with would qualify him for a mortgage. "Needless to say, this isn't something I considered," says Aschoff, 25, of Hoboken, New Jersey. Aschoff and one of his business partners, Chris Sorrentino, also 25, say they now own credit cards only to help with their credit scores. And building up their credit helped them qualify for a mortgage. Michael Zonin completes demo work on a house | Photo courtesy of Marc Aschoff Michael Zonin completes demo work on a house he and 3 friends bought in Springfield, New Jersey. The friends plan to renovate the house and then resell it. They now own 3 rental properties near Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In January, Aschoff, Sorrentino and 2 other partners in their real estate firm -- Acrez LLC -- purchased a house in Springfield, New Jersey, with cash. They are now renovating and hope to resell. "The only debt we really take on is mortgage debt," Aschoff says. "Other than that, debt is not our friend." Other ways good credit helps Your credit needs extend beyond a car or a house. Without a credit card, you may have a hard time getting a cellphone contract or renting a car, says Rod Griffin, director of public education for the credit bureau Experian. Your credit score determines whether you qualify for certain insurance policies. "As they go through life, they will need access to credit in order to do the things we want as adults," Griffin says. Difference between credit and debt Many of the young adults told me they don't have a problem with credit; it's debt they worry about. Without a credit card, though, it's harder to get into debt. Aversion to debt is generally a healthy outlook, Griffin says, noting, "Credit is a financial tool; debt is a financial problem." "There's a fear of debt," he says. "I think you have to have a healthy fear of debt, just not sheer terror." Your credit card doesn't impress While the majority of American adults own a credit card, that piece of plastic isn't something that can impress most people. The Bankrate survey found more than 8 out of 10 adults say if they were eating dinner at a restaurant with another person and that person paid with a premium credit card -- like a platinum or black card -- it would leave no impression. Indeed, the days when credit cards were seen as status symbols are probably numbered. "You don't see commercials and such on television and there's a guy that pulls out his gold card and people are looking at him admiringly," Thune says. CARD SEARCH: Find the best reward credit card offers on Bankrate today. Photo courtesy of Allen Walton Allen Walton Allen Walton, 28, owner of the online retailer SpyGuySecurity.com in Richardson, Texas, says he thinks if people actually saw someone pay with a high-end card, their responses might be different. "People that say they aren't impressed, that's not necessarily true," Walton says. "But I guarantee if someone pulled that (premium card) out to pay for an $80 steak one night, anyone that saw would make a mental note of it because they themselves don't have it and know they're probably not ever going to be given the opportunity." More From Bankrate.com CLEVELAND, June 13, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- After extensive review and discussion with hospital members over the last month, The Center for Health Affairs formally submitted its concerns regarding the Healthy Ohio waiver in a comment letter to the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM). Underscoring the implications for hospitals and the patients they serve, The Center strongly urged ODM to reconsider several provisions of the Healthy Ohio waiver request that stand to undo the recent progress of the Medicaid program. Comments highlighted the potential consequences of the proposal, including: Limiting access to healthcare. In order to maintain their coverage, Medicaid beneficiaries will be required to make monthly contributions to a Health Savings Account. If a beneficiary is unable to make a payment, coverage will be terminated. This creates an unnecessary barrier to healthcare coverage and will deprive hundreds of thousands of Ohioans access to the care they need. In order to maintain their coverage, Medicaid beneficiaries will be required to make monthly contributions to a Health Savings Account. If a beneficiary is unable to make a payment, coverage will be terminated. This creates an unnecessary barrier to healthcare coverage and will deprive hundreds of thousands of Ohioans access to the care they need. Disrupting healthcare delivery. Caring for patients whose coverage has lapsed will limit the ability of providers to effectively manage the health of their patients. Inconsistent coverage, like that which would result from the Healthy Ohio waiver, does nothing to promote coordinated care in the right setting at the right time. Caring for patients whose coverage has lapsed will limit the ability of providers to effectively manage the health of their patients. Inconsistent coverage, like that which would result from the Healthy Ohio waiver, does nothing to promote coordinated care in the right setting at the right time. Increasing costs for patients, providers and the state. Monthly premium payments and expenses that beneficiaries would incur as a result of becoming uninsured would increase costs for patients. For providers, the elimination of the 90-day retroactive billing period under the current Medicaid program would cost hospitals millions of dollars. Lastly, the proposal would increase the cost of administering the Medicaid program, which would have to be paid for by the state. The letter was written in response to a waiver request made by ODM on April 15, which aims to change many aspects of the state's current Medicaid program. The proposal, which was mandated by the Ohio General Assembly during the last biennial budget process, will be submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) at the end of the required 30-day comment period. Following the comment period, which ends on May 16, ODM is required to compile the input received from the public prior to sending its application to CMS. Once the request is received by CMS, there will also be a mandatory federal comment period of 30 days. Shortly thereafter, CMS will begin its decision-making process and determine whether or not it will accept all, some, or none of the Healthy Ohio waiver. The timeframe for that process can fluctuate from three months to over a year. For questions about the Healthy Ohio waiver or The Center's comments to the ODH, please contact Tony Gutowski, government relations manager, via email or by telephone at 216.255.3610. With a rich history as the Northeast Ohio hospital association, dating back to 1916, The Center for Health Affairs serves as the collective voice of hospitals and the source for Northeast Ohio hospital and healthcare information. As the leading advocate for Northeast Ohio hospitals, The Center aims to enhance the effectiveness of the healthcare community and the health of the communities it serves by providing expertise, resources and solutions to address the challenges faced by the region's healthcare providers. The Center's efforts focus on areas that benefit member hospitals from a regional approach, including healthcare workforce; emergency preparedness; public policy and advocacy; finance and reimbursement; and community initiatives. And because of its business affiliation with CHAMPS Healthcare, The Center has the resources to provide a broad level of professional services to its members. The Center, located in downtown Cleveland, is proud to advocate on behalf of 34 acute-care hospitals and two long-term acute-care hospitals in six counties. The Center for Health Affairs is honored to be named as one of The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Top Workplaces in 2014 and 2015, as well as to ERC's NorthCoast99 List in 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2015. For more, visit neohospitals.org. 2016 marks 100 years of hospital advocacy and partnerships for The Center for Health Affairs and CHAMPS Healthcare. The centennial anniversary includes a community gift, commemorative timeline and celebratory event. To learn more visit neohospitals100.com. Estonian English Today, on the 13 June, 2016 the results of the general contractor competition for the construction of the River Breeze Residence have been confirmed and construction agreement signed. The new apartment building in Riga, Kliversala, will be built by construction company LNK Industries. Construction will begin in July, but the building itself will be commitioned in 18 months - winter of 2017. The volume of the construction agreement is 12.6 mln eur, excluding VAT. 7 construction companies registered in Latvia took part in the competition. A general contractor is tasked with full scope of the construction and connections to all the engineering networks, as well as upkeep of the premises and the coastline. River Breeze Residence on Kugu str. 28 is the first building to be built as part of the Kliversalas area development, developed by A/S Pro Kapital Latvia daughter company SIA Kliversala. Total area of the building is 12 850 square meters, it has 7 floors and 2 underground parking sites. Currently 48 apartments are planned, their areas range from 56 to 316 square meters. At this moment 8 prepurchase agreements have been already signed. Each apartment has a terrace and is equipped with individually regulated energy-efficient ventilation system. The upper floors have built-in fireplaces, while the other floors have an option for one. First floor apartments are constructed in a town house manner in two levels, with a private, walled-off area, creating the feeling of a private house in the very center of Riga. Paolo Michelozzi, CEO of AS Pro Kapital Group: We are aware of how important the Kliversalas area is to Rigas urban environment, and we are planning the development of this territory with special reverance. The architects are planning to integrate River Breeze Residence seemlessly into the natural enviornment by decorating the roofs and roof terraces with various greenery and plants. Additional information: Iveta Vanaga, phone: 29239064, e-mail: iveta@a-sono.lv As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ (Beijing) Nine months after announcing that a Chinese consortium would build a high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, the private U.S. company behind the plan said June 9 that the deal was terminated, denting China's ambitions to export its train technology. XpressWest, a rail company in the U.S. state of Nevada, said in an online statement that the decision to end the partnership with China Railway International (U.S.) Group Ltd., was based "primarily upon difficulties associated with timely performance and CRI's challenges in obtaining required authority to proceed with required development activities." The company did not specify from whom or for what purpose these "approvals" were required. The US$ 12.5 billion initiative may have been derailed after hitting a regulatory hurdle. XpressWest may have decided to pull the plug after the two sides failed to get the green light from the U.S. Department of Transport, Tom Skancke, Executive Director of Western High Speed Rail Alliance, a transportation think tank in Las Vegas, said. The 2009 Buy America initiative requires trains to be made in the United States, he said. XpressWest also said in its online statement that the biggest challenge it faced was a U.S. federal government requirement that high-speed trains must be manufactured locally to secure regulatory approval. However, "as everyone knows, there are no high-speed train manufacturers in the United States," the company said. "This inflexible requirement has been a fundamental barrier to financing high-speed rail in our country." China's rail road operator, China Railway Corporation (CRC), which heads the Chinese consortium, had pledged US$ 100 million in initial funding, the Communist Party's top business and economic decision-making body said in a statement when it announced the project on September 17. Work was expected to begin in September at the earliest, the Central Leading Group on Financial and Economic Affairs said. The Chinese side includes the CRC subsidiary China Railway International; China Railway Group Ltd.; and CRRC Qingdao Sifang Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. (CRRC), a statement last year from XpressWest and China Railway International USA showed. An executive from CRC, who asked not be named, said XpressWest decided to drop the project because the Chinese side refused to make certain concessions. But he did not detail the sticky points in the negotiations. The CRC criticized its U.S. partner for being irresponsible and making a public statement, while talks were ongoing. A CRC spokesperson, in a written reply to Caixin's questions, said XpressWest has violated the joint venture contract by making a unilateral announcement. "Our agreement stipulates that one side should not release information without seeking prior approval from the other," said the CRC, "we have expressed our objection to this move because it's wrong and irresponsible." The CRC did not detail any problems it has faced or whether there were any delays on its part. Losing Steam The sudden cancellation may have a ripple effect on China's plans to export its bullet train technology. China Railway Corporation, which has built the largest high-speed rail network in the world in less than a decade, wanted the U.S. project to serve as a model for international cooperation, said Yang Zhongmin, chairman of China Railway International. The country has been aggressively marketing its bullet train technology abroad and competing for contracts in countries such as Mexico and Thailand. In January 2015, the Mexican government cancelled a multi-billion dollar contract given to a Sino-Mexican consortium to build the country's first high-speed rail link citing budget woes after oil prices dropped. The 210-kilometer line ran from the capital Mexico City to the central city of Queretaro. Another consortium led by the CRC visited Malaysia in late May to lobby for a high-speed rail project linking Singapore and Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, people with knowledge of the matter said. The project is worth US$10 billion to US$15 billion, The Strait Times, a news outlet in Singapore, reported in April. (Rewritten by Li Rongde) The reaction to that review took me by surprise: 700 + comments online (pro and con). Not only that, the column trended nationally on Twitter and at one point, was the most read story on the entire Post site. Crazy! The envelope, please: It's been a big week for doling out accolades, locally with the RAMMY awards and internationally with the 50 Best Restaurants list from San Pellegrino. Regarding the latter, I was thrilled to see two of my favorite dining destinations -- Central in Lima and Steirereck in Vienna -- among the top 10, but surprised at the praise heaped on Eleven Madison in New York, where I had a truly unimpressive meal during my survey of New York last year. Unfortunate (food) news du jour: Joseph Paire, the talented young chef at Mulebone, was let go by the restaurant. Based on my meals under his watch, I suspect he'll be cooking somewhere else, soon. Good morning, everyone. Lots to talk about today. Let's begin. NFPA 2016: Big Data and NEC 2017 Changes The National Fire Protection Association's annual Conference & Expo is taking place June 13-16 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. The National Fire Protection Association's annual Conference & Expo is taking place June 13-16 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, bringing together the industry's leading manufacturers with thousands of fire service and emergency services professionals bent on learning the latest on key codes and standards, fire prevention and suppression technologies, and building and life safety innovations. NFPA Chair Ernest Grant and President Jim Pauley are speaking during the June 13 opening session, which will include a presentation on drones and sensing technologies that is titled "Eyes in the Sky, On the Ground and Under the Waves." In a sign that Big Data is a key theme this year, a June 15 keynote will be delivered by career firefighter Bart van Leeuwen of Netage, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: "Smart Data for Smarter Fire Protection." The conference's educational tracks include codes and stanards, fire protection engineering, emergency preparedness/business continuity, electrical safety, detection and notification, loss control/prevention, wildland fire, public education, fire suppression, health care, building and life safety, and fire and emergency services. The technical sessions include presentations about NFPA 400, the Hazardous Materials Code, and its practical application for prevention chemical facility incidents; changes in NFPA 70-2017, the National Electrical Code; and NFPA 88, the Health Care Facilities Code. Expo hours are June 13, 4-8 p.m.; June 14, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.; June 15, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m., at convention center. The NEC Challenge is taking place on the expo floor during the expo. Also featured in the expo are the Smart Solutions Showcase and the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Showcase. This article was originally on GET.com at: 5 Programmes With Financial Subsidies For Special Needs Kids Raising a special needs child may be easier in Singapore than it is in some other countries, but it still comes with a lot of challenges. The Straits Times recently reported that the Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children (Eipic) has benefited at least 2,600 children in Singapore with special needs last year. This is a positive jump from the 1,400 children that benefited from the same programme 6 years ago in 2010. While most Singaporeans are not aware of how financially straining it can be on families and parents who are taking care of special needs children, its comforting to know that there is a support system available to help lighten the load. We at GET.com have rounded up these 5 financial programmes with financial subsidies for special needs kids, which may help you or someone you know. 5 Programmes With Financial Subsidies For Special Needs Kids 1. Early Intervention Programme For Infants And Children (Eipic) This programme provides social, educational and therapy services for children below the age of 6 who are diagnosed with moderate to severe disabilities. Through this programme, the kids will be able to participate freely in activities that will help with their development growth potential and also help minimise the development of their secondary disabilities. The fees at these Eipic centres are means tested, so families will be entitled to subsidies according to their income per capita. That way, families will be paying the fees according to how much they can afford. 2. Development Support Programme (DSP) The Development Support programme helps kids with mild developmental needs to improve and overcome their language, literacy and social skills before they enter a mainstream primary school. The programme is offered in Anchor-Operator pre-schools such as My First Skool (MSF) and Sparkle Tots (PCF). On top of the monthly base subsidy of $300 that all Singaporean children are entitled to, parents will also receive further subsidies based on their income per capita. Story continues 3. Residential Care Services At Children Disability Homes For children under 16 years old who do not have any care takers, there is the option of Children Disability Homes where they can stay in for short or long periods of time. While at these homes, the kids will be able to go through therapy and training as well as participate in recreational activities that will help maximise their abilities. There are 4 different centres you can consider - Chen Su Lan Methodist Children's Home, MINDSville@Napiri, THK Home for Disabled and Red Cross Home for the Disabled. Different centres will provide different services, so make sure you enrol your kid into one that suits them. The fees here are also means-tested, so subsidies will be available according to the family's income per capita. However, should they need further help, they can approach their respective centres and ask if there are any internal fundings available that the families can apply for. 4. Integrated Child Care Programme (ICCP) The ICCP aims to provide a conducive environment for the kids to learn side by side their peers who are in mainstream child care centres. As its name suggests, this programme will help the kids prepare for when they have to integrate in the mainstream primary education. Working mothers will be eligible to subsidies of up to $300 depending on whether the kid is enrolled for the half-day or full-day programme. For non-working mothers, the subsidies will go up to $150 for both half-day and full-day programmes. 5. Special Needs Savings Scheme The Ministry for Social and Family Development has worked with the National Council of Social Service (NCSS) and Special Needs Trust Company (SNTC) to come up with a scheme called the Special Needs Savings Scheme. While this isn't really a financial support scheme, it's still good to know because it can come in handy when you're planning your finances for the future. Through this scheme, parents will be able to nominate their kid with special needs to be entitled to the savings theyve set aside in the Central Provident Funds (CPF). This will ensure a constant flow of pay-out to the child after the parents are no longer around. Other Financial Tips Although we feel that there is still a lot more that Singapore as a nation can do to improve conditions for families with special needs children (see our list of the top 3 things the government can do to help special needs children in Singapore), it's important that you make full use of the existing support structure. To find out more about the specific support schemes you can head over to the Ministry for Social and Family Developments website or go to the SG enable website. Even if you dont have kids to provide for, its still good to manage your cashflow efficiently. Here are 4 ways to manage your money as a couple in Singapore. What do you think? Share your comments with us below! GET.com Singapore is Singapore's lifestyle and personal finance website. We help you GET more for your money - food, travel, home loans, credit cards, shopping - everything! Like GET.com on Facebook and sign up to get the HOTTEST stories delivered to your inbox! For serious stuff, you can compare home loans, personal loans and credit cards at GET.com. Our free GETdeals App helps you get the best credit card discounts near you for dining, shopping, lifestyle and more. Download it today! Other Articles You May Like From GET.com When we first started DollarsAndSense.sg in October 2012. We had a simple mission; Help Singaporeans make better financial decisions. We like to think we have made a difference in Singapore over the past 4 years, amidst the challenging environment that we operate in. Writing articles on finance isnt easy. We have to convert complex topics into simple, bite-sized ideas that people can understand. Otherwise, nobody would bother to even read. Information needs to be accurate, and opinion, fair. We have to be independent and provide perspective to our readers that they can relate to. Important financial concepts transcend geographical boundaries. Budgeting skills, compound interest, risk management and dollar cost averaging are all concepts that are important to know about, regardless of wherever you are living in. Being Hyperlocal Is Important However, there are financial topics that are hyperlocal in nature. For example, a person living in Singapore would have different consideration when buying a house, compared to someone staying in Malaysia, or anyone else in the world. In some countries, people would rather rent than own a home, and with good reasons. Likewise, investing and retirement planning would be different for people in different countries. Some countries have pension or welfare schemes. Others tag their pension scheme to a save-as-you-earn concept, similar to CPF in Singapore and EPF in Malaysia. In some countries, the capital market provides extensive choices for retail investors. In others, choices are limited. Why Trust Is Important In The Financial Sector Trust is an invaluable commodity in life. All of us want to work with people whom we can trust. When it comes to finance matters, trust is paramount. Nobody wants to buy an insurance policy from an agent he doesnt trust. Nobody wants to buy a property from a housing agent or developer whom they cant trust. Nobody wants to put their life savings into a bank that they dont fully trust. Story continues If there is anything the global financial crisis in 2008 taught us, its that we cant just rely on the advice provided from the people in the banking sector. We cannot just believe what they say, without questioning their motives. Yes, they might be the experts, or so they claim. Yet at the same time, many of them cannot get away from the fact that their job, one way or another, is to sell us their products or services, or support the people who are doing that. We are not saying that their products and services are bad. The world today cannot function if financial institutions were suddenly gone. But we have to recognize that their interests may not always be our best interest. There is a conflict of interest situation that they will always be facing. Read Also: Why We Should Care About Conflict Of Interest Problems In The Financial Sector Being Consumer Centric When it comes to running a digital publisher, readers mean everything to us. A reader is not only a reader, they are also our brand ambassador, and in time to come, the reason for our continuous existence as a publisher. Most digital publishers do not charge their readers for articles simply because information is perceived to be free in the internet. This gives rise to information overload. For example, try to Google best food in Singapore or best investments to make in Malaysia. You are going to have a difficult time sorting through whats true, and whats not. Because of that, building a strong brand is important. Here at DollarsAndSense, we hope to build up a brand where our readers can feel comfortable trusting our analysis and judgement. We seek to provide you with the important knowledge you need to know to better make a financial decision. We strive to make it interesting for you, because frankly speaking, its boring, even for us, to write about something that nobody cares about. We have no insurance policies to sell you, no credit cards for you to apply for, and definitely, no investments for you to buy into. Neither do we have any bank account for you to donate into. We are not a charity organisation. So how can you support us if you enjoy our content? You can do so by doing the one thing that keeps us going, and thats by reading our article and sharing it with your friends. Thats the most important endorsement we can get from you. We hope to bring you more good stuff in the years to come, be it in Singapore, Malaysia or elsewhere in the world. Timothy Ho, Co-Founder, DollarsAndSense On behalf of the DollarsAndSense team. The post Why We Decided To Start A DollarsAndSense Website For Malaysia appeared first on DollarsAndSense.sg. BERLIN, June 13 (Reuters) - If Britons vote to leave the European Union in a June 23 referendum it could be the beginning of the end for the 28-nation bloc and for western political civilisation more generally, European Council President Donald Tusk said. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Tusk said a so-called Brexit vote would provide a major boost to radical anti-European forces who he said would be "drinking champagne". "Why is it so dangerous? Because no one can foresee what the long-term consequences would be," Tusk said. "As a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilisation in its entirety." Everyone in the European Union would lose out economically if Britain left, Tusk said. "Every family knows that a divorce is traumatic for everyone. Everyone in the EU, but especially the Brits themselves, would lose out economically," he said. The latest polls show Britons are almost evenly split over whether to stay or go. Although he expressed hope that the EU would survive in the event of a Brexit, Tusk said the price would be high. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Noah Barkin) There has been a significant increase in the number of GP-led transactions reviewed by LPs over the past 12 months, according to a study by Capstone Partners focused on GP-led Secondaries. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan sent a congratulatory telegram on June 13 to Pulitzer Prize Laureate, poet Peter Balakian, on his 65th birthday. With your works, you have brought the Armenian Genocide issue to American literature, and once again reminded the international community about our peoples tragedy and rebirth. Your works full of high morality and fascinating charm - are loved and appreciated by both thousands of readers and critics, a vivid testimony of which is your recent Pulitzer Prize. Your literary creations are universal and permanent. In Armenia, people are proud of you and love you, the message reads. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. On June 13 representatives of the Government of the United States and of the Republic of Armenia conducted a scheduled review of the 2008 U.S.-Armenia Joint Action Plan on Combating Smuggling of Nuclear and Radioactive Materials, press service of the US Embassy in Armenia informed Armenpress. Incidents of nuclear and radioactive material smuggling around the world highlight the need for coordinated international efforts to secure these dangerous materials and keep them from falling into the hands of terrorists or other criminals who might use them for malicious purposes. The United States and Armenia have been close partners in this effort for a number of years. In addition, Armenia has been an active and important member of the international communitys work to enhance nuclear security and combat nuclear proliferation, through the Nuclear Security Summit process, the IAEA, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, and other international institutions. We are partnering together to enhance Armenias ability to investigate nuclear smuggling incidents, as well as build on the sides shared commitment to nuclear nonproliferation overall, said U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills Jr., who led the U.S. delegation, which included a D.C.-based experts from the State Departments Bureau of International Security and Non-proliferation. This review reflects Armenias commitment to proper stewardship of nuclear materials under its control and continued willingness to work to prevent the smuggling of nuclear materials across its borders. The Armenian side was led by Gagik Hovhannisyan, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs International Security Department, and included representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Energy, the NSS, and from Armenias border security, customs, and nuclear regulatory agencies. Also participating were experts from the nations nuclear power plant operator. Signed in July 2008 by then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian, the Joint Action Plan on Combating Smuggling of Nuclear and Radioactive Materials lists steps that Armenia can undertake to strengthen its capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to nuclear and radioactive material smuggling. U.S. assistance to Armenia as it moves forward to implement the plan has included training, equipment, and other forms of support. Together, the two governments have strengthened security at Armenian facilities that house radioactive materials, improved Armenias ability to detect radioactive materials that might cross its borders, and developed Armenias capacity to investigate nuclear smuggling incidents. At the conclusion of the full day of meetings, the United States and Armenia pledged their commitment to continue these efforts and identified opportunities for further collaboration. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan sent a letter of condolences to US President Barack Obama on the terror attack in Orlando which killed and wounded dozens of innocent victims, press service of the Presidential administration informed Armenpress. The Armenian President strictly condemned this phenomenon of intolerance and emphasized that this tragedy once again proved the friendly American people that all forms of hatred, the overcoming of which is everyones collective duty and mission, still continue to be a serious challenge for humanity even in the 21st century. Published On Jun 13, 2016 12:31 PM By Khan Mohd. for Datsun GO Cross After launching the low-cost redi-GO earlier this month Datsun is now shifting its focus to its highly applauded vehicle at the Indian Auto Expo, the GO Cross. As per a report, the Nissan subsidiary is looking to prepone the launch of the GO Cross to 2017 based on the tremendous response it received at the Expo. The gorgeous GO Cross is based on the same platform as seen in the GO+ MPV, however, the design has been completely revamped, unlike the existing cross versions of its rivals like the Toyota Etios Cross, Volkswagen Cross Polo and Hyundai i20 Active, which all strikingly hint towards their hatch roots. Its not a secret that the top end Kwid is the most successful variant from its partner, Renault and Datsun knows it. The majority of the Kwids plying on Indian roads have a touchscreen which gives Japanese automaker all the reasons to include a similar connected car concept in its upcoming GO Cross. We can also expect the same to make way in its soon to be facelifted cars, the GO and the GO+. To keep prices in check Datsun is looking forward to lower costs incurred on the GO platform. It is to be noted that the existing platform is already very cost effective but Datsun is looking to further bring down the costs. For the same, it plans to industrialise some of the components available in India which come from Tier II and Tier III cities. The Datsun GO Cross price is expected to start from Rs 4.4 - 4.6 lakh. However, it wont be easy to offer the scuff plates, cladding, roof rails and LED lights showcased in the concept car at this price. Lets see how the carmaker fits all of them yet keep prices competitive. Have a look at Datsun GO Cross image gallery Source - Autocar Read More on : Datsun GO With the upcoming commemoration of Philippine Independence, Akbayan party-list today called on government to hold steadfast in pursuing the arbitration case filed on the UNCLOS regarding Chinese occupation of the Scarborough shoal in the West Philippine Sea. The Chinese governments call for the Philippines to drop its arbitration case is but the latest manifestation of its bullying against Philippine sovereignty, said Akbayan spokesperson Rafaela David. China continues to be the single biggest external threat to Philippine independence and sovereignty.Without even recognizing that its illegal occupation of Philippine territory is violating international law, China wants the country to drop its last remaining bastion of hope to protect our interests, David said.Chinas call for bilateral talks is a dangerous path that brings back memories of Philippine-China deals that have gone awry, such as the NBN-ZTE scandal, and the corruption-laden North Rail loan, explained David. We cannot expect for the Philippines to come out unscathed in any deal in which China, the more powerful country, dictates the terms.Akbayan therefore called on the incoming Duterte administration to reject bilateral talks as a strategy, and stick to the arbitration case to the end. A favourable decision would spell disaster for China, and strengthen the Philippine position, said David. It would enable us to rally neighboring countries to a peaceful resolution of the West Philippine Sea aggression towards a binding code of conduct to which China should abide.On the commemoration of our Independence Day, we should be reminded of the freedoms we enjoy and how Chinas aggression threatens those freedoms, said David. Dropping the arbitration is tantamount to recognizing we are not free to chart our own foreign policy.Akbayan committed to work with other groups and individuals in a broader coalition to sustain the campaign for upholding the UNCLOS arbitration and guard against Chinas attempts to weaken Philippine position on the West Philippine Sea. Stuff reports: The Government are being blamed for plummeting home-ownership rates for Maori and Pacific Islanders. But Housing Minister Nick Smith says the data just confirmed broader social statistics, including that these groups having lower incomes and lower education achievements. Recently released figures from Statistics New Zealand show Maori and Pacific Island home ownership fell at a faster rate than for the total population over the past 25 years (ending at the latest census in 2013). The Labour party have added the latest statistics to their list of housing issues the Government was not adequately addressing. It clearly shows this Government doesnt have a plan, Labour MP Meka Whaitiri said. - President Buhari reportedly turned down N20 million housing allowance for ministers - At least seven of the ministers are stranded in Abuja and consider exit plans NewsDay has obtained the information that at least seven ministers may soon leave President Muhammadu Buhari cabinet because of the severe position of the incumbent government. The affected ministers are reportedly not satisfied with the N4 million approved by President Buhari as their yearly accommodation allowance as they have not been able to rent any meaningful house in Abuja. READ ALSO: Nigerians, prepare to be shocked by 3 Buhari's revelations One of the political aides to the ministers noted that the austerity was becoming so unbearable that most Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) have been made to cut down on their continual expenditure such as local travels and the purchase of newspapers for the different units in the headquarters of the ministry. He said: Do you know that we no longer buy plenty of newspapers as before? We just buy a few copies which are sent to the minister's office. It is after he has finished reading, that the papers would be sent to other offices. Also , we no longer travel with Oga on some of these trips because there is no money . These days , if he is travelling, he goes with just a few persons , mainly security and protocol officials. It is from these guys that we get to know where they are and what is happening at any point in time . According to another source, the ministers demanded a N20 million grant each to enable them settle down in Abuja. However, this request was turned down by President Buhari who saw the amount as unreasonably high in view of the state of the economy. Therefore, a number of the ministers have been technically stranded on the issue of accommodation. One of the ministers who once served as a Commissioner in one of the SouthWest states has been squatting in one of the mansions belonging to his political godfather and chieftain of the ruling party, the source added. ThisDay carried out a survey, that showed that a four to five-bedroom detached house in Wuse II, Abuja, goes for anywhere between N8 million to N10 million per year. READ ALSO: Buhari urged to sack these 6 ministers The price is almost the same in Gwarinpa Phase 1 and Utako, Abuja, while a four-bedroom detached house in Maitama or Asokoro goes for between N10 million and N15 million per year. There were reports that one of the serving ministers is probed by the anti-corruption agency. President Buharis newly-appointed ministers were said to earn same remuneration as those of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan. The incumbent government many times restated its commitment to cut the cost of governance. Source: Legit.ng Crammer teachers who circulated leaked questions from the Scholastic Aptitude Tests and the brokers who sold the questions now face criminal charges. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Sunday said 14 owners and instructors of SAT preparation crammers in Gangnam, Seoul and seven brokers were indicted without detention. One former broker now serving his mandatory military term was referred to military prosecutors. Prosecutors have investigated the leak since February, when they raided 12 crammers after a tip-off as well as 44 offices and homes of those allegedly involved in the incident. The leak led to the cancellation of several SAT sessions in Korea and a tightening of security. Prosecutors said the owners and instructors employed various ways to get hold of questions to use them in their teaching, hiring part-timers to sit the tests and memorize the questions, or buying leaked questions online. One owner of a crammer was nabbed trying to take pictures of the test paper with a small camera at a test center in Guam in March this year. The brokers sold the questions for W20,000 to W300,000 (US$1=W1,068) each. One 22-year-old broker allegedly made W220 million from selling questions he obtained online. Jeffrey Sohn, a famous SAT instructor, is accused of infringing copyright after he was cleared in March of uploading answers to a test that was yet to take place in the U.S. on his website, taking advantage of the time difference. Leakage of SAT questions is prohibited because the questions are repeatedly recycled. Some can legally be accessed via the company that runs the test, Educational Testing Service. But even then they cannot be copied, distributed or used for teaching purposes. Thank you for reading The Cascadia Advocate, the Northwest Progressive Institutes journal of world, national, and local politics. Founded in March of 2004, The Cascadia Advocate has been helping people throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond make sense of current events with rigorous analysis and thought-provoking commentary for more than fifteen years. The Cascadia Advocate is funded by readers like you and trusted sponsors. We dont run ads or publish content in exchange for money. Help us keep The Cascadia Advocate editorially independent and freely available to all by becoming a member of the Northwest Progressive Institute today. Or make a donation to sustain our essential research and advocacy journalism. Your contribution will allow us to continue bringing you features like Last Week In Congress, live coverage of events like Netroots Nation or the Democratic National Convention, and reviews of books and documentary films. Become an NPI member Make a one-time donation The number of visitors to Lisbon has grown rapidly in recent years. Maybe its the generally sunny weather. Maybe its the crenelated, stone castle almost always in view on the hill overlooking the center of the city. Or maybe its the buildings lining the often-winding streets covered with the colorful tiles, azulejos, for which the region is renowned. Whatever it is, the magical feel appeals. Lisbon also has affordability going for it; its relatively cheap compared to other European destinations, especially when it comes to food. Though less glamorous than some cities, new infrastructure investments promise up and coming sparkle. And as tourism has offered a bright spot in an otherwise fairly depressed economy, the government has upgraded transportation, and new hotels have sprung up around the city. In short, this destination, which has never been more popular, will keep travelers busy and well-fed. Emma Jacobs is a multimedia journalist and podcast producer based in Paris. She also sketches her travels here. 1 of 7 1. Mercado da Ribeira The Mercado da Ribeira is a prime example of where old Lisbon meets new. Side by side, you'll find the more traditional vegetable market, which has existed in some form on this spot for centuries, and a sleek, new Time Out-branded food court. The market, open mornings, has cheap and fresh produce grown in Portugal and neighboring Spain. The food court has dozens of stands including outposts of some well-known Lisbon restaurants and fine food shops offering everything from cherry liqueurs to steak. The beautiful glass-roofed building that encloses both dates back to 1892 but the new lights and long tables in tan woods lend themselves to a distinctly modern, trendy atmosphere. Photo courtesy of Emma Jacobs 2 of 7 2. Cais do Sodre The whole Cais do Sodre neighborhood is undergoing a similar transformation. A banner on new apartments under construction promise "live + invest," but you can still stop in at O Triangulo Da Ribeira to drink a cheap morning coffee standing at the metal counter. If you'd prefer to sit and eat in a cozier setting, the Cafe of the Order of Architects (COA) and Cafe Tati right across the street from the market are both terrific options; COA has a terrace and during the day, Cafe Tati's big windows let in lots of light to a space with colorfully and eclectically decorated arched ceilings. This neighborhood is also home to Pink Street, a block painted pink that has become popular with tourists but frankly isn't much to write home about. You're better off back at Cafe Tati, which is typically overflowing with visitors for the live music and delicious food. Photo courtesy of Emma Jacobs 3 of 7 3. The Carmo Archaeological Museum If you had just a few hours to spend In Lisbon, this would be the place to spend them. The Carmo Archaeological Museum is in a 14th century convent that was partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1755. Set high on the side of a hill, it's crumbling outline can be seen from much of downtown. The courtyard is capped with stone arches now open to empty sky. The presentation of architectural elements rescued from other endangered buildings embedded in the remains is unique and sometimes breathtaking. The museum dates all the way back to 1864, when it was established by the Portuguese Association of Archeologists as a way to preserve the country's architectural heritage. That said, the highlight for many visitors will be the creepy but fascinating Peruvian mummy with its arms wrapped around its knees, displayed in a glass case in the library. While you're there, pick up one of the illustrated guidebooks to the museum by artist Joao Moreno, part of a series published by Gerador. Photo courtesy of Emma Jacobs 4 of 7 4. St. George's Castle The Castelo de Sao Jorge Castle or St. George's Castle is worth a visit alone but the walk to reach it is a bonus. This trek winds along some of the city's oldest tiny streets, the buildings crowded along them decorated with Lisbon's famous tilework. The view of Lisbon from the ramparts is also a highlight. But now onto the structure itself: Its transformations mirror the history and cross-cultural influences of the region. St. George's began as a Moorish castle before being transformed into a Portuguese king's fort in the 12th century. Portions of the castle were also casualties of the 1755 earthquake but large sections remain, allowing you to walk the stone walls and climb towers that have stood for centuries. A small archaeological museum displays relics offering clues to what life was like on the site back in the seventh century BC and visitors can also explore a portion of the excavations. Also wandering the grounds: a troop of peacocks. Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty 5 of 7 5. Belem A train ride away from the city center along the Targus River, Belem is home to a cluster of museums and moments. The Jeronimos Monastery is the largest, built as a tribute to the voyage to India of Vasco de Gama. The explorer's remains now lie here alongside those of Portuguese royalty. During the Age of Discovery, the monastery's resident monks prayed for the sailors bound for the far corners of the globe. They also made the regional pastry, pasteis de nata. These are now manufactured down the block in the bakery, Pasteis de Belem, which produces tens of thousands of these egg custard tarts each day. The monks have long departed and visitors can now walk through the monastery's chapel and cloisters. Then, take a short walk to see the Tower of Belem, a historic prison built out on the river and connected to shore by a bridge. Photo by Pedro Loureiro/Getty 6 of 7 6. Museum of Design and Fashion The former bank building that houses this museum is undergoing renovations during parts of 2016 and 2017. However, portions of its collection will be on view in other parts of the city and country. The Museum of Design and Fashion's main exhibit normally offers a free tour through decades of trends in fashion and production design in the 20th century. The museum's motto of sorts is that designer gowns can have a lot in common with tables and chairs. It draws out unexpected connections between the international evolutions of haute couture and furniture. The museum also has extensive archives of documents and objects related to Portuguese design. Photo courtesy of Luisa Ferreira/MUDE As news rolls in about the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida which left 50 people dead, and for which ISIS has claimed responsibility, now seems a good time to reflect on one of Americas biggest issues: gun violence. In June 2011, American born Al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn released a video titled Do Not Rely on Others, Take the Task Upon Yourself, and called on Muslims to take advantage of Americas lax gun laws specifically gun shows and carry out lone wolf style attacks. In other words, our enemies know our dirtiest secret: or government is not protecting its people. Guns kill roughly 30,000 people every year (33,636 in 2013, most of which were suicide), and injure over 100,000. Due to the inconsistency of regulatory schemes from state to state, and even county to county, these weapons are extremely easy to come by, and hard to monitor or control. Even in a city like Chicago, which at one point, had some of the toughest gun laws in the country, gun violence can still be rampant given the geographical proximity to areas without such protections and regulations. Guns travel easily across state and county lines. In 2013, following the Sandy Hook massacre, the federal government sought to establish some semblance of uniformity to our nations gun laws with the Manchin-Toomey gun reforms. Polling from the time showed that Americans overwhelmingly favored an expansion of the background check to every gun sale, as well as tighter gun laws in general but not the establishment of a federal database of gun owners. Machin-Toomey would have done just that: required every firearm sale (with exceptions for friends and family) to be subject to our National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as well as made illegal the creation of a national gun registry. However, the proposed legislation failed in the Senate. It was, and still is, one of the President Barack Obamas greatest defeats. An examination of why a proposal failed with overwhelming public support provides insight into the flaws with our system, and perhaps guidance for fighting these battles in the future. At this point, it is no secret that our government has been taken over by the influence of money. A study by professors from Princeton and Northwestern University found that popular support has a negligible impact on policy outcomes especially when compared to the demands of the wealthy elite. As I have written in previous articles, this staggering political inequality has a few direct causes: The courts have rolled back the regulations on campaign finance and political speech in decisions. For example, Buckley v. Valeo held that money is a vehicle for speech, while Citizens United v. FEC and SpeechNow.org v. FEC held that corporations and unions are people for the purposes or political spending, and as such may donate unlimited sums to independent expenditure groups, respectively. However, those independent expenditure groups are still subject to PAC registration and disclosure requirements. Still, thanks to the courts, we now have what are known as super PACs. These independent expenditure groups are forbidden from coordinating with political campaigns, but that does not stop them. Unlike super PACs, nonprofit 501 organizations are not necessarily required to disclose their donors and theyre tax exempt. 5014 groups (dark money groups) are not held to such a requirement. Unlike super PACs, these groups may engage in issue advocacy only rather than express advocacy (for or against a politician). That said, whereas in the past, these organizations were limited to social welfare activities, over the years that has changed. Now political activity and social welfare are nearly indistinguishable, and the line between express and issue advocacy has become so blurred it hardly matters. Tax exempt groups are now able to engage in exclusively political activity. Too often in our government, legislators and public officials leave office only to find themselves working in the industries they were charged with overseeing while in office either as lobbyists or, in some cases, board members of major companies. That there are no laws currently barring this practice, known as the revolving door, allows big businesses to manipulate our elected leaders. After all, how likely is a lawmaker to crack down on his or her future employer? The Chairperson of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Ann M. Ravel, recently announced that due to political divides among the agencys six commissioners the agency is unable to do its job preventing election abuse which is widespread and unchecked. This recent announcement means that said abuse may continue, unhindered. On top of partisanship, there is immense political pressure on the FEC thanks to the courts. There are very few rules left. Similarly, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), since coming under fire for trying to enforce the law forbidding nonprofits from engaging (primarily) in political activity, faced a backlash when conservative groups filing for 501(4) nonprofit status cried foul over being held up in the process. These groups claimed that the government was persecuting conservatives. As it turned out, none of the stalled groups were actually denied while two liberal groups were. Moreover, the majority of groups applying to become dark money organizations were conservative. Nevertheless, the narrative spread, and the agency has never recovered. This past January, the IRS gave up the fight for greater transparency when it withdrew a rule that would have required nonprofits to collect the social security numbers of their donors, and announced it would not impose new rules on dark money groups until after the 2016 election. And so now we are left with a system where the influence of money is unchecked and corrosive. Given the numerous ways for major industries to have an impact our elections and leaders, and given the inability of our government to curb abuse, is it any wonder why legislators spend half of their time fundraising, and why so many refuse to stand up to special interests? The gun rights lobby, which represents individual gun owners but mostly gun manufacturers, has consistently outspent the gun control lobby by massively slanted ratios. In 2010, the National Rifle Association (NRA) alone, outspent the entire gun control lobby 9.5-to-1. Today that ratio has evened out significantly, but is still stacked on one side: 2-to-1. However, the gun rights lobby still outspends the gun control lobby 6.7-to-1. That spending from gun rights groups takes the form of political advertising which can either be positive or negative. The NRA doles out cash depending on a legislators assigned Grade an evaluation of their voting record on guns to see how aligned that person is with the cause of less gun regulation. Over the years, the gun rights lobby has been able to intimidate our legislators with their power and influence. Thats why Congress previously banned the use of federal funds for gun research (but the ban has been lifted), why it has protected gun manufacturers from products liability suits (with some exceptions), and why it has failed to act on gun control in spite of mass shooting after mass shooting and terrorists lauding our lax regulations. A quick note: people are often divided on gun manufacturer liability under the mistaken belief that liability is only for defective products. This is not the case. In products liability, if one can show that a reasonable alternative design would have prevented the injury, there can be liability. While the Republican Party has been seemingly unwilling to address the issue of gun violence, both rhetorically and legislatively, the Democratic Party is not much better. For all their talk of curbing gun violence, Democrats have shown little willingness to fully address our broken campaign finance system. They have talked about overturning Citizens United, which is a good step, but is not nearly enough. The presumptive presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, has not seriously addressed the issue as a part of her campaign platform, and yet made guns a central point of difference between herself and Senator Bernie Sanders. However, if we are going curb gun violence we must change how our system operates. As Sanders says, We need a revolution. CBRE has today announced the appointment of Alexandre Astier as Managing Director of its Capital Markets business in Italy. Astier takes over from Paolo Bellacosa who has decided to step down from his role at CBRE to pursue other interests after 12 years with the group. He joined CBRE in [] Remco Gerritsen (47) is the General Manager of the new Maritim Hotel Amsterdam that is to open in 2018. The native Dutchman has been working for Maritim Hotelgesellschaft since 1st April 2016 and will assist with the entire opening phase of this Maritim hotel, which, with its 579 rooms and [] It looks like nothing was found at this location. Maybe try a search? Search for: Search How must a landscape be utilized in order to fulfil both ecological and socio-economical requirements? This question has been answered by an international research team with the participation of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), using abandoned pasturage in the Ecuadorean mountain rainforests. By means of simulations, the scientists ascertained that the key to this is multitasking, which is to say the most diverse utilization possible. The results have now been published in Nature Communications. "We wanted to find out how a landscape has to be composed in order to render many ecosystem services at the same time and as safely as possible," explains the lead author of the study Prof. Thomas Knoke of the Institute of Forest Management at the TUM. Experts use the term ecosystem services to refer to the effects of an ecosystem that are important for human well-being, such as protection against erosion, soil formation or provision of energy sources. In their study, Knoke and his colleagues simulated various land use concepts. The results have now been published in the magazine "Nature Communications." The simulations are based on data that had been gathered by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers in the tropical rainforest of Ecuador over a period of 15 years. There, the scientists had investigated the reintegration of abandoned agricultural areas into forestry or agricultural production. Compensating for uncertainties The aim of the simulations carried out on the basis of these investigations was to take 22 indicators into account in a land use plan on as equal a footing as possible. Sixteen of the indicators are criteria from the field of ecology such as e.g. carbon storage, protection against erosion, reduction of the runoff of surface water and climate regulation. Eight criteria are from the field of socio-economics, including the question of how profitable the use is and what kind of cultivation the local farmers would prefer. Uncertainties were also incorporated into the simulations. Reasons for these uncertainties include, for example, fluctuations in the production of foodstuffs and wood as well as price changes. A good mixture of different land use forms has a balancing effect in this context, because not all land use forms are affected by the uncertainties to an equal degree. "It works like a share portfolio in which the risk is of course spread over many investments," explains Knoke. advertisement Area mosaic of five concepts The scientists had already worked out the following five usage concepts for the abandoned agricultural areas in a preceding study and were able to use the results for the simulation of multifunctional land use: no cultivation -- abandoned pasture areas are left alone, forestry utilization -- planting with an indigenous species of alder, forestry utilization -- planting with an introduced species of pine, extensive pasture utilization -- mechanical weed control, then utilization after initial fertilization, intensive pasture utilization -- chemical weed control, then utilization with regular fertilization. The optimum result provided by the simulations was a kind of area mosaic: 46 percent of forestry utilization, with 21 percent indigenous alders and 25 percent of exotic pines, 10 percent extensive pasture utilization, 20 percent intensive pasture utilization. 24 percent of the landscape is not to be used at all, but instead rather left to natural succession. The concept of combining different land use options provides a buffer in the event of under-average ecosystem services from an individual land use component, because the other land use alternatives can balance this out. Few indicators will not lead to optimal multitasking If, instead of 22 indicators, only individual ecosystem services are optimized, such as only socio-economic ones for example, very uniform landscapes can arise. Although a land-use mosaic is the best concept for balancing out uncertainties, the influence of the uncertainties is not great enough in all scenarios. It depends on precisely which ecosystem services are optimized and how great their uncertainties are. If, for example, only biomass production, hydrological indicators or climate regulation are defined as the sole aim of the land use then this will result in uniform landscapes which are either solely characterized by agriculture or by forestry. Protection for the rainforest On 385 to 472 million hectares of land around the world, the previous agricultural or forestry use of the land has been abandoned. If these area resources could be transformed into productive, multifunctional landscapes, this would contribute to the protection of the endangered tropical forest. "At the moment there is the tendency to afforest such areas solely with exotic types of trees," says forest scientist Knoke. "This is, however, to be critically regarded against the background of the now clearly proven major advantages of diversified land use." He says, on the other hand, that incentives are necessary -- especially financial support of the farmers -- in order to be able to implement the concept of diversified land use. The researchers now want to apply their planning approach to other types of landscapes around the world as well. In this application, the existing forms of land use, such as e.g. natural forest, active agricultural land use and plantations, are also to be incorporated. Another important point is the explicit spatial distribution of the types of land use and structural elements of the landscape -- such as hedges. Following the January 2016 announcement of the production of a whole genome assembly for bread wheat, the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC), having completed quality control, is now making this breakthrough resource available for researchers via the IWGSC wheat sequence repository at URGI-INRA-Versailles, France. Wheat breeders and scientists around the world will be able to download and use this invaluable new resource to accelerate crop improvement programs and wheat genomics research. The dataset will facilitate the identification of genes associated with important agricultural traits such as yield increase, stress response, and disease resistance and, ultimately, will make possible the production of improved wheat varieties for farmers. Since the January announcement, the IWGSC project team has been fine-tuning the data so that the genome assembly released to the scientific community is of the highest quality possible. The resource released today -- based on Illumina sequencing data assembled with NRGene's DeNovoMAGICTM software -- accurately represents more than 90 percent of the highly complex bread wheat genome, contains over 97 percent of known genes, and assigns the data to the 21 wheat chromosomes. This data release represents the IWGSC continued effort to produce a "gold standard reference sequence" -- the complete map of the entire genome that precisely positions all genes and other genomic structures along the 21 wheat chromosomes. The wheat genome is large -- five times that of the human genome -- and complex, with three sets of seven chromosomes. "The IWGSC policy has always been to make all data publicly available as soon as they have passed the quality checks," explained IWGSC Executive Director Kellye Eversole. "By doing so, the scientific community can start exploiting the data now while the Consortium progresses towards a gold standard reference sequence, anticipated to be released in 2017." As is customary in the scientific community, the dataset is being made available for breeding and research under the "Toronto statement," which outlines rules for prepublication data sharing, under which the IWGSC reserves the right to publish the first analyses of the data, which includes descriptions of whole chromosome or genome-level analyses of genes, gene families, repetitive elements, and comparisons with other organisms. Detailed information on how to access the data is available on the IWGSC website. Over the coming months, the IWGSC project team will continue its work towards completing a high quality, ordered sequence of the wheat genome that includes annotating and identifying the precise locations of genes, regulatory elements, and markers along the chromosomes, thereby providing invaluable tools for wheat breeders. The final result will integrate all genomic resources produced under the umbrella of the IWGSC over the last decade, including individual physical and genetic maps. Wheat is the staple food for more than a third of the global human population and accounts for 20% of all calories consumed in the world. As the global population grows, so too does its dependence on wheat. To meet future demands of a projected world population of 9.6 billion by 2050, wheat productivity needs to increase by 1.6% each year. In order to preserve biodiversity, water, and nutrient resources, the majority of this increase has to be achieved via crop and trait improvement on land currently cultivated rather than committing new land to cultivation. As for other major crops, a well annotated reference genome sequence will be an invaluable resource towards this goal by providing the detailed maps of genes and gene-networks that can be improved through breeding. The Scholastic Aptitude Tests for university entrance in the U.S. will be put through sweeping changes in 2016. The written essay, added in 2005, will become optional, and the penalty for wrong answers will be scrapped. The top score will be reduced from the current 2,400 to 1,600. The SAT is taken by students around the world who are applying for American universities. The U.S. College Board, which administers the SAT, on Wednesday released the redesign plan, claiming it focuses on strengthening public education. Standardized tests have become "far too disconnected from the work of high school classrooms," College Board president David Coleman said. Reshaping it to better reflect the common core standards would be a top priority, he added. The redesign is aimed at creating more opportunities for students by reducing the need for private tutoring. The College Board pledged to provide low-income students with free practice tests and explanations online from spring 2016. About 6,000 Korean students sit the SAT each year. According to the Education Ministry, some 72,000 Koreans were studying in the U.S. last year, accounting for about a third of the Korean students overseas. Private education firms compete fiercely to grab a larger share in the domestic SAT crammer, and SAT questions have repeatedly been leaked, leading to the cancellation of the tests here last May. In the race towards the discovery of a ninth planet in our solar system, scientists from around the world strive to calculate its orbit using the tracks left by the small bodies that move well beyond Neptune. Now, astronomers from Spain and Cambridge University have confirmed, with new calculations, that the orbits of the six extreme trans-Neptunian objects that served as a reference to announce the existence of Planet Nine are not as stable as it was thought. At the beginning of this year, the astronomers K. Batygin and M. Brown from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, USA) announced that they had found evidence of the existence of a giant planet with a mass ten times larger than Earth's in the confines of the Solar System. Moving in an unusually elongated orbit, the mysterious planet will take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete one revolution around the Sun. In order to arrive at this conclusion, Batygin and Brown run computer simulations with input data based on the orbits of six extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs). Specifically, these ETNOs are: Sedna, 2012 VP 113 , 2004 VN 112 , 2007 TG 422, 2013 RF 98 and 2010 GB 174 . Now, however, brothers Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos, two freelanceSpanish astronomers, together with scientist Sverre J. Aarseth from the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), have considered the question the other way around: How would the orbits of these six ETNOs evolve if a Planet Nine such as the one proposed by K. Batygin and M. Brown really did exist? The answer to this important question has been published in the journal 'Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society' (MNRAS). "With the orbit indicated by the Caltech astronomers for Planet Nine, our calculations show that the six ETNOs, which they consider to be the Rosetta Stone in the solution to this mystery, would move in lengthy, unstable orbits," warns Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. "These objects would escape from the Solar System in less than 1.5 billion years, -he adds-, and in the case of 2004 VN 112 , 2007 TG 422 and 2013 RF 98 they could abandon it in less than 300 million years; what is more important, their orbits would become really unstable in just 10 million years, a really short amount of time in astronomical terms." According to this new study, also based on numerical (N-body) simulations, the orbit of the new planet proposed by Batygin and Brown would have to be modified slightly so that the orbits of the six ETNOs analysed would be really stable for a long time. advertisement These results also lead to a new question: Are the ETNOs a transient and unstable population or, on the contrary, are they permanent and stable? The fact that these objects behave in one way or another affects the evolution of their orbits and also the numerical modelling. "If the ETNOs are transient, they are being continuously ejected and must have a stable source located beyond 1,000 astronomical units (in the Oort cloud) where they come from," notes Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. "But if they are stable in the long term, then there could be many in similar orbits although we have not observed them yet." In any case, the statistical and numerical evidence obtained by the authors, both through this and previous work, leads them to suggest that the most stable scenario is one in which there is not just one planet, but rather several more beyond Pluto, in mutual resonance, which best explains the results. "That is to say we believe that in addition to a Planet Nine, there could also be a Planet Ten and even more," the Spanish astronomer points out. International race to discover Planet Nine These studies are only a few of the countless international peer-reviewed articles published or in preparation about the search for Planet Nine with the help of N-body simulations and other techniques. Batygin and Brown are going to present soon new models of the orbit of the mysterious Planet Nine with up-to-date data. On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, Professor Jacques Laskar's team from the Paris Observatory is also attempting to be the first to compute the position of the hypothetical Planet Nine in order to then observe it. advertisement This situation is reminiscent of the discovery of Neptune, in which the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier was the first to "discover" a new planet using laborious hand calculations based on the positions of Uranus; later, the German astronomer J. G Galle directly observed it. "If Neptune was the first planet discovered using pen and paper, Planet Nine could be the first to be discovered using entirely computerized numerical calculations." notes de la Fuente Marcos, although he points out that the results of the French team are based on residuals in the tracking data from the Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn, caused by the presence of the hypothetical planet, but NASA has denied it, suggesting that it could simply be statistical noise in the signal. Could Planet Nine be an exoplanet? One of the most revolutionary studies from recent months, also with computational simulations and participation of French institutions, was led by the researcher Alexander Mustill from Lund University (Sweden), who raised the idea that Planet Nine may have come from outside the Solar System, that is to say, that it could be an exoplanet. His hypothesis is that around 4.5 billion years ago, our then young Sun "stole" this planet from a neighbouring star with the help of a series of favourable conditions (proximity of stars within a star cluster, a planet in a wide and elongated orbit,). Other scientists, however, believe that this scenario is improbable. The debate is on. What all astronomers do agree on is the importance of closely tracking the motions of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects to be able to adjust the calculations that should lead the way to the location of Planet Nine, without forgetting that the best evidence will be its direct observation, a race which several research teams are fighting to win. In 50 years, summers across most of the globe could regularly be hotter than any summer experienced so far by people alive today, according to a study by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). If climate change continues on its current trajectory, the probability that any summer between 2061 and 2080 will be warmer than the hottest on record is 80 percent across the world's land areas, excluding Antarctica, which was not studied. If greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, however, that probability drops to 41 percent, according to the study. "Extremely hot summers always pose a challenge to society," said NCAR scientist Flavio Lehner, lead author of the study. "They can increase the risk for health issues, but can also damage crops and deepen droughts. Such summers are a true test of our adaptability to rising temperatures." The study, which is available online, is part of an upcoming special issue of the journal Climatic Change that will focus on quantifying the benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Swiss National Science Foundation. Simulating a range of summers The research team, which includes NCAR scientists Clara Deser and Benjamin Sanderson, used two existing sets of model simulations to investigate what future summers might look like. Both had been created by running the NCAR-based Community Earth System Model 15 times, with one assuming that greenhouse gas emissions remain unabated and the other assuming that society reduces emissions. advertisement The Community Earth System Model is funded by NSF and the U.S. Department of Energy. The simulations were run on the Yellowstone system at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center. By using simulations that were created by running the same model multiple times, with only tiny differences in the initial starting conditions, the scientists could examine the range of summertime temperatures we might expect in the future for the "business-as-usual" and reduced-emissions scenarios. "This is the first time that the risk of record summer heat and its dependence on the rate of greenhouse gas emissions has been so comprehensively evaluated from a large set of simulations with a single state-of-the-art climate model," Deser said. The scientists compared the results to summertime temperatures recorded between 1920 and 2014 as well as to 15 sets of simulated summertime temperatures for the same historic period. By simulating past summers -- instead of relying solely on observations -- the scientists established a large range of temperatures that could have occurred naturally under the same conditions, including greenhouse gas concentrations and volcanic eruptions. "Instead of just comparing the future to 95 summers from the past, the models give us the opportunity to create more than 1,400 possible past summers," Lehner said. "The result is a more comprehensive and robust look at what should be considered natural variability and what can be attributed to climate change." Emissions cuts could yield big benefits advertisement The scientists found that between 2061 and 2080, summers in large parts of North and South America, central Europe, Asia, and Africa have a greater than 90 percent chance of being warmer than any summer in the historic record if emissions continue unabated. This means that virtually every summer would be as warm as the hottest to date. In some regions, the likelihood of summers being warmer than any in the historical record remained less than 50 percent, but in those places -- including Alaska, the central U.S., Scandinavia, Siberia, and continental Australia -- summer temperatures naturally vary a great deal, making it more difficult to detect the impact of climate change. Reducing emissions would lower the global probability that future summers will be hotter than any in the past, but the benefits would not be spread uniformly. In some regions, including the U.S. East Coast and large parts of the tropics, the probability would remain above 90 percent, even if emissions were reduced. But it would be a sizable boon for other regions of the world. Parts of Brazil, central Europe, and eastern China would see a reduction of more than 50 percentage points in the chance that future summers would be hotter than the historic range. Since these areas are densely inhabited, a large part of the global population would benefit significantly from climate change mitigation. "We've thought of climate change as 'global warming'; among what matters is how this overall warming affects conditions that hit people where they live," said Eric DeWeaver, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funds NCAR. "Extreme temperatures pose risks to people around the globe. These scientists show the power of ensembles of simulations for understanding how these risks depend on the level of greenhouse gas emissions." Lehner recently published another study looking at the overlay of population on warming projections. "It's often overlooked that the majority of the world's population lives in regions that will see a comparably fast rise in temperatures," he said. Families of children with severe hemophilia A may want to take a fresh look at treatment options from human plasma. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 26 showed that participants who received a recombinant therapy -- the present standard in the United States -- developed antibodies or "inhibitors" to the treatments at almost twice the rate as those whose treatments were made from human plasma. Recombinant Factor VIII, derived from a hamster cell line, was associated with an 87 percent higher likelihood that the patient would develop inhibitors, which can make the standard treatment ineffective, than the alternative, Factor VIII derived from human plasma with von Willebrand factor, a naturally occurring protein apparently protective of Factor VIII. "Families will want to have a discussion with their physicians about how this study might impact the treatment options," said Dr. Mindy Simpson, a Rush University hematologist-oncologist who participated in the international study. The Hemophilia and Thrombophilia Center at Rush University Medical Center, the largest program of its kind in Illinois, was one of seven centers in the United States to take part in the study, Simpson said. The study, the Survey of Inhibitors in Plasma-Products Exposed Toddlers, or SIPPET, is the first randomized, controlled study of the associations between inhibitors and the two first-line treatments for hemophilia A. "Who is developing inhibitors, and why? This study is the first to try to sort out the answer to those questions regarding the factor treatment options," Simpson said. Hemophilia is a rare genetic condition, affecting mostly boys, that hinders the production of an important clotting factor, Factor VIII in the more common hemophilia A, and Factor IX in hemophilia B. People with severe hemophilia can bleed excessively from even minor injuries. Untreated, hemophilia can be disabling and even fatal. The best treatment for a "bleed" caused by hemophilia, or in some cases even to prevent bleeds from occurring is injection with the appropriate clotting factor, either drawn from human plasma, or a recombinant product. Recombinant Factor VIII has been the preferred treatment for hemophilia A in part because patients died in large numbers after the human blood supply was tainted with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s, Simpson said. "Patients and families have been afraid of plasma-derived products even though they have been safe for decades," Simpson said. There have been no transmitted cases of HIV or hepatitis C in hemophilia factor products since the 1990s. The development of inhibitors, which occurs in about 30 percent of patients, is a major problem in the management of hemophilia A. When inhibitors appear in high titers -- that is, large numbers of antibodies per unit of blood -- the factor VIII replacement products are no longer effective to treat or prevent bleeding. That individual must then use more expensive and potentially less effective treatments. Patients who develop inhibitors usually do so early on, within the first 50 treatments. SIPPET was conducted between 2010 and 2015, with 251 previously untreated young children in 42 centers in 14 countries, on five continents. The study, which does not have direct implications for patients with hemophilia B, was led by investigators Flora Peyvandi and Pier Mannuccio Mannucci, and sponsored by the Angelo Bianchi Bonomi Foundation, with funding from the Italian Ministry of Health and other groups. Lack of transportation is a hurdle for many families in Texas whose children could benefit from free summer meals from a federally funded program administered by Texas Department of Agriculture, according to a study by Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University. "This is important work," said Kathy Krey, research director of Texas Hunger Initiative (THI). "For years, we've heard from those who work with the summer meals program that transportation is a barrier. But this is the first published study looking at the Summer Meals program that corroborates this anecdotal evidence: transportation is a problem." Partnering with local public transportation and communities in innovative and alternative ways to provide awareness of and access to the meals sites might increase participation, researchers suggested in the study, published in the Journal of Applied Research on Children: Information Policy for Children at Risk. "That could range from putting advertisements on buses about site locations to distributing maps that people can pick up to find meals sites," Krey said. "Some cities have experimented with using church vans to get kids to meal sites." THI partners with the Texas Department of Agriculture and Texas Department of Transportation Rural Transit to assist underserved areas where transportation is a common barrier to summer meals participation. This past year, THI met with local transit authorities to identify transportation barriers, identify assets and develop next steps. An example is in Lubbock, Texas, where a collaboration between the local Head Start and Spartan Transportation enabled car rides for children to summer meals sites. Hunger is a major problem in Texas, where 17.2 percent of households are "food insecure," compared with 14 percent nationally. Food-insecure households have difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. advertisement While participation is high in the United States Department of Agriculture's school-year programs such as the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program, "we see the Summer Meals Program as an underutilized resource," Krey said. The State of Texas requires school districts with 50 percent or more students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals to offer the summer meals program for at least 30 days. If a school does not continue to operate that program after those 30 days, other groups often step in to fill the gap, Krey said. Organizations often need neighborhood locations and volunteers, as well as to create spaces that are attractive -- perhaps offering recreation opportunities -- and comfortable in varying weather conditions. For the study, researchers merged administrative program data, including total meals and reimbursement dollars, with Census-tract level demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Tracts vary in physical area and generally have a population size between 1,200 and 8,000 people, with an optimum size of 4,000 people. The study found that: Urban areas have the most summer meal sites, but they also have the most unmet need. Availability of transportation in a Census tract strongly influences the meal site coverage and site density in both urban and rural areas. Urban tracts -- with more people who carpool, use public transportation or walk to work -- are more likely to have access to a federally funded summer meals site. Rural tracts with higher numbers of households who walk and take public transport are more likely to have sites than rural areas that relied more on cars. In the suburbs, where more households use cars, people are less likely to have access to a summer meals site. In rural and suburban areas, households with an unemployed primary wage earner are more likely to live in tracts without access to a site. But in urban areas, tracts with more jobless people are more likely to have summer meal sites. Tracts with public housing units were more likely to have a summer meals site in suburban and rural areas, so those may be key areas for outreach for the summer meals program. "Even if you have access to transportation, there can be safety concerns," Krey said. "In an urban area, if you have a site across an interstate from you, the parents may not want a child to walk for safety reasons. In urban areas, you're likely to have a site closer to you, but it may be harder to get to for other reasons. Those are things you have to look at." For those who are some distance from a site, "we've had some parents who said it would cost them more money to go to a meal site for healthy meals than to go to the corner for chips and soda," Krey said. Making people aware of the sites is another issue, she said -- which is why collaboration with public transportation to advertise could be helpful. Cultural barriers -- such as language differences or distrust of government programs -- also play roles in whether children attend the summer sites, the study found. Some families may be reluctant because they fear a stigma for participating. "While urban areas certainly have the largest number of tracts with sites, they also have the greatest need," Krey said. "This isn't surprising, as urban poverty is generally more visible, and residents may have increased access to government programs." If you cast your eyes toward the constellation Cygnus, you'll be looking in the direction of the largest planet yet discovered around a double-star system. It's too faint to see with the naked eye, but a team led by astronomers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and San Diego State University (SDSU) in California, used NASA's Kepler Space Telescope to identify the new planet, Kepler-1647b. The discovery was announced today in San Diego at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal with Veselin Kostov, a NASA Goddard postdoctoral fellow, as lead author. Kepler-1647 is 3,700 light-years away and approximately 4.4 billion years old, roughly the same age as Earth. The stars are similar to the sun, with one slightly larger than our home star and the other slightly smaller. The planet has a mass and radius nearly identical to that of Jupiter, making it the largest transiting circumbinary planet ever found. Planets that orbit two stars are known as circumbinary planets, or sometimes "Tatooine" planets, after Luke Skywalker's home world in "Star Wars." Using Kepler data, astronomers search for slight dips in brightness that hint a planet might be passing or transiting in front of a star, blocking a tiny amount of the star's light. "But finding circumbinary planets is much harder than finding planets around single stars," said SDSU astronomer William Welsh, one of the paper's coauthors. "The transits are not regularly spaced in time and they can vary in duration and even depth." "It's a bit curious that this biggest planet took so long to confirm, since it is easier to find big planets than small ones," said SDSU astronomer Jerome Orosz, a coauthor on the study. "But it is because its orbital period is so long." The planet takes 1,107 days -- just over 3 years -- to orbit its host stars, the longest period of any confirmed transiting exoplanet found so far. The planet is also much further away from its stars than any other circumbinary planet, breaking with the tendency for circumbinary planets to have close-in orbits. Interestingly, its orbit puts the planet with in the so-called habitable zone-the range of distances from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet Like Jupiter, however, Kepler-1647b is a gas giant, making the planet unlikely to host life. Yet if the planet has large moons, they could potentially be suitable for life. "Habitability aside, Kepler-1647b is important because it is the tip of the iceberg of a theoretically predicted population of large, long-period circumbinary planets," said Welsh. Once a candidate planet is found, researchers employ advanced computer programs to determine if it really is a planet. It can be a grueling process. Laurance Doyle, a coauthor on the paper and astronomer at the SETI Institute, noticed a transit back in 2011. But more data and several years of analysis were needed to confirm the transit was indeed caused by a circumbinary planet. A network of amateur astronomers in the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope "Follow-Up Network" provided additional observations that helped the researchers estimate the planet's mass. Tundra, a 29-year-old polar bear, has been living alone at the Indianapolis Zoo since 1988. But her life is about to change. "The Indianapolis Zoo has made a very difficult decision to permanently close its polar bear exhibit," the zoo announced on Monday. The environment where Tundra was living just wasn't good enough for the aging bear, the zoo decided. Tundra, who was born at the San Diego Zoo in 1986, can't be released into the wild. "As a 29-year-old polar bear who spent her entire life in human care, she is not a candidate for reintroduction in the wild," Carla Knapp, a representative for the Indianapolis Zoo, told The Dodo. So people figured out the next best thing. Tundra was born in captivity and has lived at the Indianapolis Zoo since 1988. | Detroit Zoo/Scott Reppert Luckily, not too far away, is what is probably the best place for Tundra in the world: the Detroit Zoo, a leader in conservation and animal welfare that provides sanctuary for animals in need of rescue. "The zoo's veterinary staff carefully reviewed all of the options and agree that the Detroit Zoo is the perfect facility for Tundra's needs as a senior bear," the Indianapolis Zoo said in the announcement. "Considered one of the leading polar bear facilities in the world, the Detroit Zoo offers large spaces and pools with easy slopes for Tundra to enter and exit the water, especially as she gets older." Dodo Shows Wild Hearts Guy And Wild Shark Have Been Best Friends For Decades Tundra at the Indianapolis Zoo, which she'll be leaving at the end of June | Detroit Zoo/Mark Kaser The Detroit Zoo's four-acre Arctic Ring of Life, the largest polar bear exhibit in the world, is an environment that seeks to give polar bears what they need most. Tundra will join Talini, an 11-year-old female, and Nuka, an 11-year-old male, at the Detroit Zoo. "Talini was born at the Detroit Zoo in 2004 to Barle, who was rescued from a Puerto Rican circus and given sanctuary at the Detroit Zoo until her death in 2012," the Detroit Zoo said in a statement. "Nuka arrived at the Detroit Zoo in 2011 as a potential mate for Talini." Tundra will join Talini and Nuka at the Detroit Zoo. | Detroit Zoo More than most other necessities, polar bears need to feel that they have a sense of choice, and the Detroit Zoo has created an environment based on that knowledge. "We're always trying to find out how to improve the zoo for animal welfare," Kagan said recently. "If animals aren't thriving in the zoo, they need to be able to go live somewhere they can." The Arctic Ring of Life at the Detroit Zoo | Detroit Zoo Shutterstock One day, researchers noticed that a female snub-nosed monkey, whom they named "DM," appeared weak, with blood seeping from her nostrils. Her partner, an alpha male, appeared to notice DM's condition and went to her, New Scientist recounted. Dodo Shows Comeback Kids Family Stops At Nothing To Help Their Great Dane Run Shutterstock The two of them climbed up a tree, where DM was groomed by her love. Things suddenly - and tragically - took a turn for the worse when DM fell out of the tree and hit the ground. She was alive, just barely - and her husband, as well as other female monkeys, rushed to her side to groom her for nearly an hour. Sadly, she eventually passed away. However, her male partner remained with her body even after the other monkeys left it. He continued to touch her for minutes after, before leaving to join the rest of his group. He kept looking back in her direction until the group left the area later in the day. Researchers buried DM's body, but the next day, her husband found the spot where she rested, to quietly observe her grave before leaving once again. Shutterstock A former principal of Moose International Inc., who was manufacturing counterfeit jackets on the side, provided false information to the Competition Bureau that triggered an investigation, it was alleged on Monday. The allegations were contained in Moose Internationals response to Competition Bureau charges that it falsely advertised premium parkas as made-in-Canada. In 2015, the Bureau received false information from a former principal of Moose who had, in late 2013 or early 2014, organized and carried out the clandestine manufacture, importation and sale of counterfeit Moose Knuckles jackets (conduct which has resulted in criminal charges against him), according to the response filed by Moose International on June 10 and made public by the Competition Bureau on Monday. The document does not name the principal or say what the charges were. Moose Knuckles CEO Ayal Twik said the company cannot release any further details as its a pending legal matter. The Bureau has been aware of the unlawful conduct of the former principal since at least July 2015, and that he had his own agenda to obtain money illegitimately from Moose and was attempting to use the Bureaus investigation to advance his agenda, according to the official legal response from Moose International. Acting on the false information, the Bureau requested the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) stop certain shipments of Moose jackets so they could be photographed, the document goes on to say. The photographs formed part of the allegations made by the Bureau, which is seeking $4 million in damages against the Montreal-based firm for misleading consumers. In reply, Moose is asking that the charges be dismissed, with costs payable to the company. Moose Knuckles makes premium parkas with fur trim sold by luxury retailers in Canada, the U.S., Europe, South Korea and other countries, with foreign sales comprising a substantial part of overall sales, according to the document. The parkas in question ring in at about $600. Moose says Moose parkas labeled Made in Canada were made in Canada, due to the substantial skilled labour, Canadian design, Canadian components and other work done in Canada to make them, using some imported components and materials. In addition, more than 51 per cent of the costs of producing a parka were incurred in Montreal, Winnipeg and elsewhere in Canada. Parkas not made in Canada carry different labels. The company says it revised its production processes in 2011-2012 to ensure compliance with Bureau guidelines and also spoke to Bureau representatives on two separate occasions and received confirmation that they were meeting guidelines. According to the document, when Moose launched in 2010 it made all its winter jackets, including parkas, at a single Canadian factory, but had to contract some work overseas when rapidly growing demand, including international demand, outstripped the capacity of Canadian manufacturers. Most manufacturers in this country in 2016, including the garment industry, operate in a global marketplace, Moose argues. Manufacturing in Canada is dependent on materials, parts and components that are produced in other countries as well as in Canada. The garment industry uses foreign textiles, for example, as there is virtually no textile manufacturing left in Canada. Moose is also alleging that while it does meet the guidelines set by the Competition Bureau, they are not law. It is also arguing that many manufacturers and importers brand their products using Canadian images, words, symbols and icons, including the Canadian flag. Using Canadiana in its marketing and branding does not mean that a manufacturer has misled consumers or otherwise engaged in reviewable conduct. This is the first time that the Bureau has filed an application to the Competition Tribunal under the 2009 deceptive marketing practices provisions of the Competition Act for alleged Made in Canada violations. In terms of next steps, we anticipate filing our reply, as appropriate, with the Tribunal within 14 days, said Competition Bureau spokesperson Phil Norris. SHARE: Asked to strike swiftly at the heart of what makes her angry interview time is tight, skip the niceties Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka pushes through the uneven outcomes from the Beijing declaration some 20 years on, the need to diversify the constituency of voices supporting gender parity (more boys, more men, more faith-based institutions) and on to questioning why it is that women have to prove themselves to be a positive economic force. In order to justify and make a cogent argument about the empowerment of women, we are even being asked to provide evidence that women are worth investing in, says the executive director of UN Women. We dont say men are fit to govern because they add value to the economy. We dont do research to say, What is the argument that supports the fact that men have affirmative action in the world? Not that its hard to make the economic case for women. Its just ridiculous that we have to do so. Numbers have been crunched and projections made the McKinsey Global Institute estimates that global GDP could grow as much as $12 trillion (U.S.) across a 10-year span if all countries were to match the rate of gender parity advances of the fastest-improving country in their region. A full potential scenario, defined by McKinsey as one in which women play an identical role to men in the labour market, could add as much as $28 trillion to global GDP. Evidence shows overwhelmingly that it is the right thing to do, she says. We are past the era of not being able to see the linkage between cause and effect. Its the gulf in between that preoccupies Mlambo-Ngcuka, the space between now and the future that it is our shared responsibility to shape. How will we get there? Its been more than three decades since she became the first president of the Natal Organisation of Women, which may sound unfamiliar until its affiliate association with the United Democratic Front is noted. The push to create a non-racial, fully democratized South Africa included numerous womens groups, of which NOW was one. Mlambo-Ngcukas deep resume includes three years as deputy president of South Africa. In 2013, she took on the job at UN Women, which set as its single focus gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls by 2030. Its an audacious goal. In September 2014, UN Women launched HeForShe, leveraging the engagement of men and boys as agents of change for gender equality led by corporate, university and country leaders. (The University of Waterloo is one.) Ten corporations have made a five-year commitment to serve as role models for the private sector. Data reporting from these five is meant to transparently reveal the unsurprising fault lines, and year-over-year progress. Barclays, by example, has near parity in its company overall, yet men occupy 78 per cent of the most senior roles in the big bank. As part of its participation, Barclays has set participation goals for increasing the percentage of women in senior posts. Interestingly, McKinsey showed an even greater imbalance, with 89 per cent of the most senior roles at the consultancy occupied by men. (HeForShe data is based on 2014 reports.) The 10 corporations have decided they want to deal head on with the issue of parity at the board level, at the senior management level, and to create a pipeline to recruit from, and they want to achieve that by 2020, says Mlambo-Ngcuka. It seems silly to have to state that the struggle extends way beyond corporate America. The fact that youve got discrimination and unequal pay for a woman on Wall Street, a woman in a sugar cane field in Brazil, a woman on a shop floor in India, a woman in an institution in South Africa, she says. When Mlambo-Ngcuka speaks of linkages, of cause and effect, she thinks of how food security is raised when women play a role in agriculture, how the health of the family, the community, the nation itself improves the longer women stay in school and how education is a path to decreasing pregnancies. We seem to have been studying this for forever. The more girls are able to stay in school, the greater their ability to prove their economic empowerment, to say nothing of their ability to exit abusive relationships. Mlambo-Ngcuka turns to the topic of child marriage. Millions of girls live with it and in the same countries that have child protection acts, she says. So these contradictions by member states that sit around the table and owe allegiance to the charter really create a lot of frustration. Another uncomfortable contradiction lies here at home. Canada has a lot of good going for it, she says. The day before the interview, she was in Ottawa working toward what she hopes will be a strategic partnership between the government and the UN on advocacy, policies and actions toward gender equality. But Canada has to effectively address the issue of indigenous people, she says finally. This is a blot that can take away from a lot of the goodness that can happen in Canada. Canada must ensure that the benefits of an endowed, democratic country accrue to everyone, she says. If you get it right for Canada, it is not just for Canada. It is also generating best practices we can share with other countries. SHARE: With the second of two Canadians taken hostage last year in the Philippines murdered by his captors, Prime Minister Justin Trudeauaffirmed Canadas policy Monday of not paying ransoms to terrorists. In announcing the execution of Robert Hall by the extremist group Abu Sayyaf, Trudeau promised to bring the killers to justice, but said paying ransoms risks turning all those wearing the maple leaf into targets. The federal government is still seeking formal confirmation of Halls death. However, Arjun Chowdhury, an assistant professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, told the Star that Canadians remain at risk abroad irrespective of whether ransom is paid. Is this going to eliminate the risk? No. The big fear for the government is that individuals are kidnapped and executed to send a signal, he said. When country A pays a ransom and country B does not, you have an incentive to kidnap somebody from country B and execute them to send a signal to the government and citizens of country A, Look, were serious. This, he said, is why Trudeau was so eager to get agreement at the recent G-7 meeting that nobody pays a ransom. As long as these other governments are paying ransom, the risk to Canadians overseas is still there, he said. If youre a kidnapper, every now and then you have to send a signal that youre serious. Because otherwise people wont pay or will pay less money. Hall and fellow Canadian John Ridsdel along with Halls Filipina girlfriend Marites Flor and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad were kidnapped Sept. 21, 2015, from a resort marina on Samal Island by an al-Qaeda-linked group. Ridsdel, 68, a semi-retired mining executive, was beheaded in late April. The captors then set a deadline of June 13 for ransom to be paid or, they said, one of the remaining Western hostages would be killed. In a video released by the captors after Ridsdels murder, the three surviving hostages pleaded with their embassies and the Philippines government for assistance. In the video, Hall said the governments had the capacity to get us out of here . . . Im wondering what theyre waiting for. Trudeau vowed Monday to work with international allies to bring those responsible to justice, however long it takes. But he insisted that paying ransom fuelled terrorism and endangered more Canadians. The status of the two remaining hostages was not known. Local police around the southern city of Jolo said patrols had been dispatched but no evidence was found. Efforts by the Philippine military to locate the hostages before the murder of the two Canadians had also failed. Abu Sayyaf emerged in the early 1990s as an offshoot of a separatist rebellion by minority Muslims in the predominantly Catholic nation. The group has relied on extortion and ransoms from kidnappings, mostly of Western tourists and missionaries. Chowdhury said the Abu Sayyaf group, though it has been cut from about 1,000 to 300 by successful military operations in the Philippines, is now essentially a criminal group and kidnapping is their main revenue source. In that sphere, rescuing hostages, authorities have been unsuccessful for quite a long time, he said. Where the group operates is remote, lightly policed and sparsely populated, he said. Police dont have good local intelligence, he said. Abu Sayyaf can intimidate the locals to not provide information, because theyre on the ground and the Filipino government is not on a consistent basis. Trudeau said the Hall family has shown great strength of character and resilience under these terrible circumstances. According to some media reports, the family had tried to negotiate personally for Halls release, but a reported offer of $1.4 million was rejected by captors demanding more than $6 million per hostage. They have suffered a terrible loss and this is a devastating moment for them Trudeau said. Our thoughts are with them as they mourn this tragedy. He asked the media to respect their privacy and allow them time to come to terms with their loss. RCMP Comm. Bob Paulson said the Mounties were working with authorities in the Philippines. We were working with families, trying to support families, trying to have them manage the terrible situation that they found themselves in; helping the local authorities to deal with the kidnapping, he said. But, as you know, its a very difficult piece of geography, and its a very complex and challenging environment. We do have an extraterritorial investigation that we are pursuing to get the offenders who are engaged in these murders. Asked if there was anything more Canada could have done, Paulson said: You know, I dont think so. SHARE: The company that administers one of the two most widely-used U.S. college admissions tests recently announced its first major revisions to its test since 2005. The College Boards' changes to the SAT exam drop infrequently used vocabulary words and the mandatory essay, and add passages referencing U.S. historical documents. When Howard University students from Nigeria and Jamaica were applying to college, they were among the approximately 100,000 foreign students each year who took the SAT. Now, some have mixed emotions on whether the newly-announced changes will help or hurt international students interested in U.S. schools. "First of all, they are dropping the vocabulary words, which is, I think, the biggest challenge for most international students," said Howard University student Peace Umoru. But Shanique Campbell, also a Jamaican student at Howard, has concerns about adding questions about U.S. historical documents. "That I believe will be very scary for international students," said Campell. "We are already faced with knowing that we are taking an American-based exam, and so there are a lot of things that we are not prepared for in terms of what to expect on that exam -- [for example], cultural references that we will not be able to identify with." Some 800 of the approximately 3,000 four-year colleges in the U.S. do not use the SAT or its rival test, the ACT, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing. But, the group's Bob Schaeffer says those that do could put foreign students at a disadvantage. "Students from other countries, particularly those who did not grow up learning English, are at a double disadvantage," he said. "The test is in a foreign language and they did not get test prep. So, it is harder." The revisions begin in 2016 for the 1.5 million students who take the SAT each year. Overall, the revisions appear to be positive, says Eddie West of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. "I feel like the changes are moving the test in a more positive direction insofar as they link up with skills and abilities that students will need to succeed, not just in getting into a college or university, but succeeding once there," said West. But he agrees that references to U.S. historical documents could put foreign students at a disadvantage. "It is going to be relatively uncommon for an international student to be really conversant with the Declaration of Independence or Martin Luther King Jr.'s work, or anything else along those lines that might be cited in the test," he said. West says U.S. colleges need to engage with overseas high schools to learn more about their coursework and make better decisions about admissions criteria. More than 800,000 international students are in the United States, about four percent of the college population. Last year, when a reporter asked newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau why he supported a gender balanced Liberal cabinet, the PM paused and said matter-of-factly, Because its 2015. Trudeaus response a glorified duh has since taken on a life of its own, appearing in feminist memes and on official Liberal party apparel; last year the federal Liberals offered to mail a limited edition Because Its 2015 T-shirt to anyone who donated $100 or more to the party. I think the popularity of the phrase (currently, Because its 2016) is tied up not only in its blunt delivery but in its message: who doesnt want to believe, after all, that social progress is informed by the passage of time? The phrase suggests that equality is inevitable and that gender disparity isnt a constant or growing problem but a hangover from sexist decades past a cloud that will eventually pass. Its a lovely idea. Unfortunately though, its false. Canada may have a gender-balanced cabinet, but according to this years Future of Jobs Report published by the World Economic Forum, our global workforce isnt moving forward into a gender-balanced future; its actually moving backwards. The reason for this isnt discrimination by men; its technology. By 2020, disruptive technology such as artificial intelligence and robotics could lead, reads the report, to a total loss of 7.1 million jobs two thirds of which are concentrated in the office and administrative job family. One particular set of jobs affected by this, for example, are customer service roles, which will become obsolete due to mobile internet technology. And guess who works, in greatest numbers, in administrative and customer service positions? You got it: women. Meanwhile, jobs in the traditionally male, STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are growing rapidly. This means one day we could presumably find ourselves in a world where the labour force is dominated not by men and women, but by men and machines. If youre OK with this scenario, of course, sit back and relax. However, if it concerns you as a feminist afraid of a dystopian future run by dudes and robots youre not alone. It concerns Colleen McMorrow too, partner of Strategic Growth Markets at Ernst & Young. McMorrow believes the most effective way and in fact, likely the only way to close this ever-widening gender gap is to encourage more women to enter the STEM fields. If sales and administrative jobs are disappearing, women must try their hand at something new. McMorrow was in Monaco this week, hosting her companys World Entrepreneur of the Year Award an event that opened with a Women in Leadership Summit. I get to meet a lot of entrepreneurs in the tech sector, she told me over the phone, and it always strikes me when I walk through their offices and I think where are the women? McMorrow is worried that women are being left behind in the STEM fields because of an absence of female role models in the industry. Few visible female role models she believes, results in limited interest in science and technology on the part of girls. This theory isnt exactly a bad one; research shows girls do take an interest in activities and industries they can see themselves in. (On a personal note, I was once hired at a summer camp to teach aggressive inline skating to 8-13 year olds in part because I was the only woman who applied for the job and the camp director believed more girls would try the activity if the camp hired a female skater. He was right; they did, big time.) There is an opportunity for men to help change the culture and encourage women to pursue STEM, says McMorrow. In fact, in recent years, she has noticed that STEM guys who have young daughters are more likely to take an active interest in recruiting women into the field and mentoring them. But the earlier girls get involved the better. You need them to be pursuing those faculties as theyre moving through elementary and high school, says McMorrow. Technology is a powerful enabler and it is where the future of jobs are. Women have a role to shape that future. Because its almost 2020: dawn of the robot-dude invasion. SHARE: After a mass shooting on Sunday that killed at least 50 people and injured dozens more at a gay nightclub in Florida, many Canadians were reflecting on what the violence means for the LGBTQ community. A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning. He was shot and killed by police. Candlelight vigils to mourn the victims were planned in several Canadian cities Sunday night. Hundreds gathered for a vigil in Toronto in a predominantly gay neighbourhood. Some carried flags Canadian, American and Pride while others held signs. Speakers called for love in the face of violence. A handful of uniformed police officers patrolled outside the vigil, and others provided security within the crowd. In Vancouver, hundreds joined a vigil at the art gallery, holding white candles in red plastic cups as speakers emphasized the importance and strength of the community. City councillor Steve Thomson told the crowd he never imagined in his nearly four decades of fighting for equal rights that this kind of hatred could exist. We have to face that there are people who want to put us back in the closet, if not kill us as they did in Orlando. But that wont stop us. That wont stop any of us, he said. The attack came during Pride month, both in the U.S. and Canada. The executive director of Pride Toronto, a not-for-profit with the goal of bringing together the citys LGBTQ community, said the massacre was a grim reminder of the setbacks his community faces. It reminds us that hate and discrimination are still a big part of this society, and that because of this, some of our brothers and sisters this morning lost their lives, Mathieu Chantelois said on Sunday. The organization also runs Torontos pride month, and Chantelois said Pride Toronto was already working with city police and the RCMP, and would see if there were any additional security steps that could be taken. The main objective of Pride is to create a safe space for our community to gather together and feel comfortable, he said. Spencer Chandra Herbert, a member of the British Columbia legislature, was in Quesnel, B.C., celebrating the small towns second annual pride celebration with his husband when he heard the news. His immediate reaction was disbelief. To think that in this so-called accepting day and age that this hatred is still there and could strike at any time, its unbelievable, Chandra Herbert said. Hearing about the massacre was especially crushing in the wake of celebrating love with a small community. Ive been hearing from people how much it means to them to see somebody there, a politician there with their husband, walking hand-in-hand down the main street, Chandra Herbert said. It sends a pretty strong signal that we here believe in diversity and will stand up against hatred for love. The violence shows theres still work to be done in educating people and spreading awareness and understanding of LGBTQ issues, said Chandra Herbert, who has repeatedly tried to get transgender rights legislation passed in B.C. (Education) is still vitally important because there are still people hiding in closets, afraid of coming out because of violence or fear of being disowned by family members or being beaten up at schools. Its still an issue, Chandra Herbert said. In Montreals gay village, many people reacted with shock and sadness Sunday afternoon while pointing out that many LGBTQ individuals still face violence, even in Canada. Francis Cavanagh, a bartender at Bar Aigle Noir, said the incident proves homophobia is not a thing of the past. Its a reminder that we still need gay villages, we still need Pride parades, and we still need solidarity to show we are all together, he said. These things dont just happen in Russia or in faraway places. In Edmonton, people attending Mayor Don Ivesons annual pride brunch reflected on the Florida massacre. Lorne Stelmach said he feels safer in Canada because gun-control laws are different here. There are pockets of bigotry here and there, and we try to deal with those as best we can, Stelmach said. Hopefully, as we grow as a community, we will extinguish all that bigotry. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered Canadas condolences to the victims, calling the massacre a domestic terror attack. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, who is openly gay, wrote on Twitter that her thoughts were with the LGBTQ community while B.C. Premier Christy Clark tweeted that she was incredibly saddened by the evil brutality of the Florida shooting. SHARE: Who do you hate? The Christian, the Jew, the kafir; the American, the Westerner, the educated, the open-minded. The female, the gay man. The apostate Muslim whose branch of Islam is different from what you fervently believe. Yourself, maybe, if in possession of even a wisp of humility and self-awareness. At the very least, we know learned in the very early aftermath of the slaughter in Orlando, city of make-believe theme parks and family holidays Omar Mateen hated men who loved men. The deviant infidels. The slain mass-murderer kill a half hundred, pay for it with one worthless life felt repugnance for homosexuals. This was disclosed by his own father, in part as an explanation for what unfolded at a gay nightclub in the small hours of Sunday morning, but also as a sort of disclaimer, a preventive deflection of any potential hostility expressed towards the Muslim faith, towards radicalized terrorists of the Muslim faith. Better to be taken for a maniacal homophobe than a murderous Muslim, as if the twain never shall meet. It was those deviant kissing men who purportedly lit the fuse on his sons incendiary temper the indignation, the righteous ire that triggered the worst ever domestic attack on U.S. soil, if domestic is an adjective that will stick in the coming days. We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music, Seddique Mateen told media on Sunday, collecting the dots that apparently made discursive sense to him, amidst everything that was not making sense on the morning after unspeakable horror. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry, the father continued. They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said: Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that. Except there is no wife, only an ex-wife, and shes claimed her former spouse, while never proclaiming any sympathy for religious terrorism, certainly made his virulent antipathy for homosexuals known well enough. The father continued: And then we were in the mens bathroom and men were kissing each other. Oh yes, touch them all, every stereotype, every filament of exculpation when youre the Afghan-born father of a 29-year-old mass shooter, born and raised in the U.S., a son who skulks into a gay nightclub a place of God-shaming hedonism, Mateen doubtless thought to himself, and he the virtuous avenger, a martyr to Muslim piety packing an assault rifle, a handgun and some other type of explosive device not yet confirmed by police. Walk into a happy, gay the old-fashioned use of that word social place at 2 oclock in the morning, Latin music playing in the front, reggae out on the patio, and light up the place with gunfire, cut the night with bullets. Spray gunfire. Men and women, at first not comprehending, then flinging themselves out of the way of a predator, a large group seeking refuge in a bathroom when they apparently couldnt get out without exposing themselves to gunfire. But there was no safety there and no mercy, as Mateen stalked them there, too, and took them hostage. Hostages are for the purpose of negotiation, so maybe Mateen wasnt entirely resigned to martyrdom after driving for an hour and 45 minutes from his home outside Port St. Lucie in a rented car. On a mission, though. A mission he undertook with cold-blooded forethought and organization, not a disorganized mind, as shots fired were first reported at 2:02 a.m., heard by a police officer working security at the club. The two men had a brief encounter, followed by three tense hours of not knowing what would happen next for the survivors, and those who would not survive when the smoke cleared. One woman apparently covered herself with dead bodies to hide from the shooter. There was a three-hour standoff and, as reported by journalists who gathered bits of information on Sunday, some negotiation with responding law enforcement. But at 5 a.m., a SWAT team, worried about those still alive inside, made the decision to blast through an outer wall with an armored vehicle, and a furious gun battle ensued. I saw this kid fall and I yelled: What are you doing? Get up! Luis Barbano told CNN. I saw he had a bullet wound in his arm and side. So I ripped my shirt to make a tourniquet and stop the bleeding. He was from Jacksonville, so I was talking to him, trying to keep him awake. I saw another guy and he was trying to get back in to look for his friend. He had, I kid you not, a bullet sticking out of him. So I ripped my shirt again. Then we were told to get away from there. This is the world we live in now, when loathing and malice can strike anytime, anywhere: an elementary school, a fast-food restaurant, a mall, an office workplace, a church, a theatre, during a live TV interview, a dance club. Gunmen with grievances, nursing their grudges, stoking their bitterness, with nothing left to distinguish their existence except the manner in which they forfeit it and how many innocent lives they can take with them. And those others, as weve seen too often, who align themselves with the radical fringe of a nihilistic terror entity, radicalized from afar, on the Internet, by trolling the websites where the monsters groom their acolytes. Inspired. Mateen was a licensed court security guard by profession, some nine years employed by a private security firm, so it was even easier for him to arm up, walk into a gun store and pick out his killing tools of choice. He knew how to reload, how to fire, how to inflict the widest havoc. At least twice, as reported yesterday, hed been on the national security radar and interrogated reported to authorities for wild statements hed made, allegedly supportive of Daesh yet the trail meandered into nothingness. Those interviews turned out to be inconclusive, so there was nothing to keep the investigation going, said Assistant Special Agent Ronald Hopper. Mateem was not under investigation any longer; not under surveillance, no monitoring. And yet again, the easy access to guns, my God the guns, war-grade weapons that should never be sold to civilians but America has shown little sensible response to the scourge from within. Mateen, according to his family, was not an observant Muslim. But parents, weve seen, know so little of their childrens leanings, their ideological affiliations. How little we believe them when they profess ignorance. The son they claim to have known as non-violent merely anti-gay called 9-1-1, according to reports, just before activating his plan and pledged allegiance to ISIS, the Islamic State, Daesh, whatever damn name were giving them, to open up space between terrorism and Islam, as if theres only a superficial conjoining there. Forty-nine innocents murdered, at least 53 wounded, dozens of them undergoing emergency surgery on Sunday. Parents and friends descended on the scene, desperate to find information about those missing, people unaccounted for in the hospitals, being counted instead at the morgue amid a wail of agony as their identities began to be confirmed. A lone gunman, but not necessarily isolated in his hatred; a specific group targeted. We know enough to say this was an act of terror and an act of hate, said President Barack Obama, whos long been so cautious about using the latter term, when he addressed the nation from the White House. How many times, in his eight years in the Oval House, has the president attempted to bind his nations wounds? Today as Americans we grieve the brutal murder, the horrific massacre of dozens of innocent people. This is where we live now, in a world mutating under the thrall of terror. And this is where we die now, at a gay nightclub in Walt Disney Orlando. More on thestar.com 50 killed at Florida gay nightclub in worst mass shooting in U.S. history Global LGBTQ community mourns for Orlando Trudeau calls Florida shooting a domestic terror attack against LGBT community Ideology usually just a rationale for mentally ill attackers, says expert Survivors of Orlando mass shooting recall struggle to stay alive Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. SHARE: A doctor commissioned to write a report on fair compensation for Ontarios injured workers is embroiled in a legal battle alleging he conspired with a private auto insurance company to unfairly cut car accident victims medical benefits, the Star has learned. The allegations come as the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board also faces sustained criticism for slashing injured workers entitlements. Christopher Brigham, who was paid almost $100,000 to complete a 2012 report for the WSIB, is not a named defendant in the Hawaii-based lawsuit against Farmers Insurance Inc. But a statement of claim obtained by the Star alleges Brigham was paid a substantial fee by the company to write medical reports that were used as a pretext for terminating (plaintiffs) insurance benefits in direct contravention of the professional recommendations of the treating physicians. The accusations have not been proven in court. When reached by the Star by phone, Brigham called the allegations against him inaccurate. From my perspective, I performed reviews of records to ensure whether care was consistent with evidence-based medicine, he said of his work with Farmers Insurance Hawaii. In many circumstances, it was not supportable by current science. The complaint by eight Hawaii plaintiffs was filed in 2015, three years after Brigham was contracted by the WSIB. Christine Arnott, a spokesperson for the WSIB, said Brigham had not worked with them since. But the court documents shed new light on the man hired to provide a comprehensive review of the boards policy on evaluating workers with permanent injuries in the province. The suit, expected to go to trial in September, describes Brigham as a medical doctor who has a reputation in the community and nationally for being biased and predisposed in favour of the insurance companies that hire him. Brigham wrote medical reports for the company about each of the plaintiffs injuries, according to the complaint, but did so without interviewing the patient, without conducting any tests on the patient and without communicating with the patients treating physicians. The eight plaintiffs subsequently had their benefits terminated. Farmers and Dr. Brigham therefore conspired together to defraud each and all plaintiffs by handling and deciding plaintiffs insurance claims unfairly and in extreme bad faith, the lawsuit alleges. A spokesperson for Farmers Insurance declined to comment on matters of ongoing litigation. Its statement of defence did not contest that Brigham provided medical reports to the company without ever examining accident victims, but rejected the notion that claimants were unfairly denied benefits. Brigham told the Star he was a strong advocate for those who are recovering from injury or illness, assuring that they receive appropriate care that permits them to live full, joyful and productive lives. Unfortunately, sometimes people are involved in minor automobile accidents and see health care providers who reinforce the experience of pain and provide unnecessary treatments and narcotics, he said, adding that plaintiff attorneys profited financially from attacking his work. In 2012, Brigham authored a report for the WSIB to help staff accurately rate the severity of permanent injuries and to maximize the efficiency of the process. The report made several recommendations, including that the board should consider any degenerative and pre-existing conditions workers might have when ruling on compensation. A WSIB orientation guide obtained by the Star, which was revised two months after the Brigham report, characterized the boards current approach to determining permanent injuries as more aggressive and says claims managers should reduce compensation if workers had pre-existing conditions. Maryth Yachnin, a lawyer with the Industrial Accident Victims Group of Ontario, says she believes the boards change in permanent impairment policy is a cost-cutting measure legitimized at least in part by Brighams 2012 report. She says the result is that workers are being unjustly denied compensation. Between 2012 and 2014, permanent injury awards dropped by 37 per cent, according to WSIBs own stakeholder reports. Michel Lacerte is a doctor based in London, Ont., who specializes in physical rehabilitation and worked with Brigham on his 2012 report. He describes his colleague as very much a technocrat. But he voiced deep concerns about how the WSIB has moved to systematically identify pre-existing conditions, in what he believes is a pretext to reduce injured workers entitlements. Degenerative disease is an example, he said. Everybody after the age of 40 has degeneration in the neck and back. Lacerte says that if the injured worker hadnt experienced any symptoms from a degenerative disease before a workplace injury, the board should not use the condition as a reason to cut benefits. That, he says, violates its own thin-skull principle, which states that the WSIB cannot consider any prior conditions unless they were already debilitating before the workplace injury happened. Lacerte said that principle no longer exists at the board. Undermining the thin-skull principle, critics argue, leaves workers vulnerable. In 2010, a workplace accident damaged tractor-trailer driver Fernando Pauls lower spine, leaving him almost completely unable to walk. Paul uses a wheelchair, has lost control over his bodily functions and is struggling with mental health issues, according to his WSIB file. But in 2012, after an MRI found that he might have a mild degenerative disc disease in a completely different part of his spine, the board halved Pauls permanent impairment rating a key figure in determining how much compensation workers receive from the WSIB. Paul, now 65, currently receives next to no compensation for his workplace accident. He was on the cusp of qualifying for the boards serious injury program, which would have made him eligible for additional support, until the board reduced his impairment rating. The money is so tight that at the end of the month, every penny counts. We dont spend money. We dont have any extras, the Toronto resident said. In a statement to the Star, the WSIBs Arnott said she could not comment on Pauls case for privacy reasons. Arnott added that the WSIB had undertaken a benefits policy review following the Brigham report, which recommended addressing pre-existing conditions to ensure benefits appropriately compensate for work-related injuries/illnesses. Arnott said the board only considers pre-existing conditions when (they are) shown to contribute to the degree of (a workers) permanent impairment. The WSIB has faced intense scrutiny in recent years over what critics call backroom efforts to reduce benefit payments to workers. As first reported by the Star, a group of lawyers, doctors and labour groups have now formally requested an ombudsman investigation of the board, alleging that it has systematically ignored the medical opinions of workers own physicians and blamed pre-existing conditions for their illnesses in a bid to cut payouts. Brigham said he was not aware of how his recommendations to the WSIB were implemented. He said he was not interested in slashing injured workers benefits only in accurately rating their injuries. It may appear to make a better story to portray me as a biased physician; however, nothing could be further from the truth, he told the Star. Brigham was the subject of congressional hearings in the United States two years before he was contracted by the WSIB. In the hearings, critics claimed that a medical guide written by Brigham, which is used to evaluate workers injuries by numerous compensation boards in the U.S., was developed in near secrecy and that it dramatically reduced impairment ratings for many types of conditions without apparent medical evidence and transparency. In the hearings, lawyer Frederick Uehlein spoke in Brighams defence, and said his guides were evidence-based and afforded consistency and ease of use. Uehlein and Brigham were formerly business partners at a workers' compensation cost containment company called Impairment Resources, which went bankrupt in 2012 after a massive data breach. Brigham has made no secret of his broader views on workers compensation schemes. In his 2015 book Living Abled and Healthy, he says the system is based on workers repeatedly showing how workplace activities led to their injuries, which requires us to maintain a negative focus on our problem. Yet we know we are more likely to have a better health outcome when we maintain a positive focus, the book counsels. We know that accepting responsibility for our health is healthier for us than blaming others or relying on others to make us well. Lawyer Maryth Yachnin calls that attitude pernicious. We do see that kind of moral judgment about our clients, that they are not accepting responsibility, that theyre not really trying or even that theyre faking. The whole idea that our clients choose this experience of disability and pain is so ridiculous, she added. Fernando Paul agrees. I miss working. But in my condition its impossible, he said. I lost a life. SHARE: Police have identified two men who were found dead in Lake Ontario this morning after they went missing in a small boat on Sunday. Barry Burnett, 70, and Gerald Ferreira, 52, were reported missing from the Bluffers Park area at 7:20 p.m. They had been last seen around 8 a.m. in an aluminum fishing boat. The marine unit launched a search for the men Sunday evening, which was called off when it became too dark. The search resumed around 6 a.m. Monday, and the two men were found without vital signs shortly after. They were taken to a local hospital where they were pronounced dead. Police say the deaths are not considered suspicious. SHARE: Patricia Gucci was born in 1963, the illegitimate daughter of Aldo Gucci, head of the famous fashion house. Later her father did legitimize her and include her in the running of his company, but there were many ups and downs, and Guccis story often seems like a Barbara Hutton, Gloria Vanderbilt tale: poor little rich girl whose life was not as glamorous as one would expect. Patricia Gucci spoke to me from London about her new book, In the Name of Gucci: A Memoir. Our conversation has been edited for length. Jennifer: You had to deal with many complexities, being the illegitimate child of a famous, wealthy man. Your mother was emotionally absent much of the time; you were shunted from country to country and you didnt meet your stepbrothers until you were a young adult. You describe your family as dysfunctional and, yes, they were difficult. But as a journalist who has witnessed poverty and homelessness, I believe you had a very privileged life, with wealth, security, a good education and lovely homes to live in. Patricia: I am not disputing that. I am privileged and lucky. But its all relative. It is important for people to talk about things that affected them. We are all human. In my book, I am just trying to tell the story of my father. I discovered things during the research. I wanted to understand my mother and why she was so unhappy. Her unhappiness did affect me all my life. She wasnt involved in my life the way a daughter would want a mother to be. We never did fun things together. Go shopping, for example. Having the benefit of being in a great home with all the comforts and going to a good school and having lovely clothes is an incredible gift, but it doesnt mean it will make you a happier person. Nor will it give you less reason to have doubts about yourself. Jennifer: Your mother took a real risk by entering a relationship with Aldo Gucci. She was in her early 20s; he was in his 50s. She came from a modest family and was living in a very Catholic Italy. This was the 1950s, when religious strictures were strong and divorce was verboten. Why do you think she did it? Patricia: She was on her path to live a certain life, married to a certain man. She didnt question that destiny. When her father died, her mother told her, You need to find a job so at least you can pay for things you want. And she did and she walked into the world of Gucci (first working as a clerk). When she met my father, there was complete respect and understanding, and it went on that way for a year and a half. It was an incredible world and she was grateful she had this opportunity to be there, but she never in her wildest dreams believed my father would think that way about her. There was something about her that struck him. There was nothing coquettish about my mother, nothing flirtatious. She was modest and demure, and he fell for that. When she became his secretary, they were in even greater proximity. She still went through a long process of rejecting him. She became extremely ill with a thyroid condition. My father was sophisticated, 30 years older than she was, and when he sent her letters he used words that made her feel important. The words of love and poetry made her feel she was the most important human being in the world. Even though she loved my father, and was loyal, the relationship created anxiety for her, a feeling that she never belonged. She became more private, more reserved. Jennifer: Your mothers care of you was very perfunctory: When I needed to be fed, she prepared my meals. When it was time for me to clean up, she drew me a bath. Then shed plop me in front of the television until it was time for bed. Shed done her duty and thats where it ended. But now, as an adult, you see her differently. Patricia: As a child you look at things in a black and white way. I would look at my friends and their families and saw there was more fun and more interaction. My mother is somebody who lives very much in her mind. She thinks too much, she worries too much. When I look back, I can begin to understand what was going on in her life. Her main concern was taking care of my father. Jennifer: In the 1990s, the Gucci family imploded due to family friction and the intervention of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Your father died in his 80s of liver cancer after spending a year in prison. Patricia: Very few people would have survived unscathed by what my father went through. Having a son betray you and send you to the IRS, or to be kicked out of the company, to go to prison that was a terrible thing for an 82-year-old man to endure. Then to see your whole lifes work suddenly taken away from you. In his late 70s, he was one of the healthiest, most vibrant human beings who walked on the planet. He had the energy and the stamina of a 50-year-old. But those blows were too much for anyone to endure. Jennifer: Whats your relationship like now with your famous family, those who are still living? Patricia: There is no relationship. Zero. Theyre in Italy and I live elsewhere. My half-brothers died and the one who is left is very elderly. He is a nice man but I dont speak to him. My father worked all his life to create a family company. He wanted his sons and daughter and nephew and grandchildren to carry it on. What happened was very unfortunate. Jennifer: Do you at least get a family discount when you go into a Gucci store? Patricia: I used to in the beginning and for some reason that stopped. Now I buy full retail. SHARE: WASHINGTONForty-nine people were killed and 53 injured at an Orlando gay nightclub in a terrorist massacre carried out by an American who pledged allegiance to the Daesh extremist group. The assault on Pulse Orlando early Sunday was the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. The killer, Florida security guard Omar Mateen, was an alleged homophobe who targeted a beloved refuge for young gays and lesbians. The first seven victims identified by Orlando officials were Hispanic men. Mateen struck during the clubs popular Latin Saturday, where three disc jockeys spun reggaeton, salsa and merengue. The attack reignited U.S. debates over gun control, Islamic extremism and anti-gay hatred, and seemed certain to influence the presidential election campaign. Republican nominee Donald Trump seized on the murders to reiterate his call for a ban on Muslims entering the country. The attack came as LGBTQ communities celebrated Pride. Gay leaders expressed horror, grief and defiance as they organized nighttime vigils and vowed to carry on with Pride events and their own lives. I just want to say that we as a gay community, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community are a people who love. And if you think youre going to stab at the heart of us by doing this horrible, violent act youre not. Because we love. We are a resilient people, said Patty Sheehan, an Orlando city commissioner who is a lesbian and frequents the club. More than 300 people were drinking and dancing at the cozy three-room club when Mateen, 29, began shooting just after last call at 2 a.m. Survivors described a pop-pop-pop they initially thought might be part of the music, then the gruesome sight of falling bodies and blood on the dance floor. Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running, the club posted on its Facebook page at 2:09 a.m. Some managed to flee out of back doors. The unscathed carried the wounded down the street to safety, using bandanas and T-shirts to try to stop the bleeding of strangers fallen beside them. Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that. Being covered in blood, trying to save a guys life that I dont even know, survivor Joshua McGill wrote on Facebook. The things I had to say to the guy, and make promises I didnt know I would be able to keep or not, to keep him conscious while holding him as tight as I could, and blood everywhere on me. Mina Justice told local television that she received a series of terrified text messages from her son, Eddie. Im gonna die, he wrote from a bathroom where he was hiding. He has us. Mateen held hostages until about 5 a.m., when the police broke down a wall with an armoured personnel carrier. After an exchange of gunfire, he was shot dead. This is a reminder that attacks on any American, regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation, is an attack on all of us, and on the fundamental values of integrity and dignity that help us as a country, U.S. President Barack Obama said at the White House. Police in California may have prevented Sundays anti-gay carnage from being even worse. An Indiana man named James Wesley Howell, 20, was arrested early Sunday with a cache of high-powered guns and bomb-making materials; police officials said he expressed a desire to do harm at the Pride parade in Los Angeles on Sunday night, though they did not provide details. Howell was not believed to be connected to Mateen. Toronto police spokeswoman Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu said the services LGBTQ liaison officer has reached out to police in Orlando to discuss appropriate next steps, but that police currently have nothing to indicate any threat to Pride Toronto events or the local gay community. Mateen carried a handgun and an AR-15 assault rifle he purchased legally in the last few days, an official from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said at a news conference. The same common, controversial rifle was used in mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif.; Newtown, Conn.; and Aurora, Colo. The tidbits of Mateens background that emerged Sunday offered grist for all sides of the debate over guns, prejudice, terror, homeland security and immigration. Born in New York, he had an alleged history of domestic violence and mental instability, a virulent loathing of gay people, a father from Afghanistan, an apparent devotion to the ideology of Islamic extremists, and easy access to high-powered guns. Mateen, who lived 210 kilometres south of Orlando in the city of Port St. Lucie, called 911 to declare his allegiance to Daesh leaders soon before the 2 a.m. attack, FBI special agent Ronald Hopper said at the news conference. Daesh claimed responsibility later Sunday, saying the attack had been carried out by an Islamic State fighter. But it was not immediately clear if Mateen had actual ties to the group or was one of the self-radicalized lone wolves that have proved difficult for authorities around the world to track and thwart. There was no immediate evidence of a direct link to Daesh, U.S. officials told Reuters. Yet the attack is still likely to raise questions about U.S. intelligence. The FBI interviewed Mateen in 2013 and 2014, Hopper said first after he made inflammatory remarks to co-workers about possible ties to terrorists, then over possible links to Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, a Florida man who became a suicide bomber in Syria. We determined that contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time, Hopper said. Mateens ex-wife described him to the Washington Post as an unstable abuser who was not particularly religious during their brief union in 2009. His father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC that his son had been recently angered by the sight of men kissing in Miami. Mateen had worked since 2007 as a security guard for G4S Secure Solutions, a major security company, and was licensed to carry a concealed handgun in Florida. Daniel Gilroy, who worked with Mateen two years ago, told Florida Today that he quit the company because Mateen made regular homophobic and racist remarks, then started harassing him via text message. He told the Miami Herald that Mateen regularly uttered anti-gay and anti-black slurs. I quit because everything he said was toxic and the company wouldnt do anything, Gilroy told Florida Today. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people. Mateen, according to U.S. news outlets, was married with a 3-year-old son. What is clear is that he was a person filled with hate, said Obama. Pulse, he said, is more than a nightclub. It is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. Mateens father is a political pundit who comments on events in his native country. Some of his commentary is bizarre: in a video posted online just hours before the attack, he pretends to be Afghanistans president. The shooting was the worst terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11, and it was by far the most deadly shooting in the countrys history. Thirty-two people were killed in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech. Most of the Pulse victims appeared to be Hispanic men in their 20s or 30s. The first identified by Orlando officials was Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34, the national brand co-ordinator at the gay travel firm AlAndChuck.travel. Sotomayor, nicknamed Top Hat Eddie for his signature garment, was a popular fixture on the companys Drag Stars At Sea cruises. Drag performer Pandora Boxx recalled him on Facebook as one of the kindest, sweetest people Ive met. Others recalled a sense of humour one acquaintance described as wonderfully sarcastic and salty. Victim Stanley Almodovar III was a 23-year-old pharmacy technician described by friend Devanise Figueroa as a funny, outgoing lover of music and dancing. He was really good with brushing things off his shoulders, Figueroa said. Among the other victims were Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20; Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22; Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36; Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22; Luis S. Vielma, 22. Pulse was founded in 2004 by a woman whose brother had died of AIDS. More than just another gay club, its website says, Pulse Orlando continues to make strides toward equality, awareness and LOVE for all. Patrons described the atmosphere as welcoming and upbeat. Out of all the gay clubs in Orlando, I went there the most because I knew it was going to feel safe, Piero Rojas, a 25-year-old who recently moved to Texas, told the Star. Back then the biggest concern was whether your car was going to get towed or not. Orlando responds to mass shooting Shayla Gray, a straight woman from Washington, D.C., went to Pulse with a friend on June 3. She described the club as so full of life, the patrons and employees welcoming and hilarious. An employee wearing only a Speedo escorted her to the bathroom. It was so dark, I couldnt really find it, and there were so many people. He walked me all the way. And then Id had a few drinks he stood outside and waited for me to come out, said Gray, 21. We met some amazing people at that club. And I feel like theyre no longer with us. Sunday was at least the 15th time Obama has made a speech after a mass shooting. His tone this time was more resigned than angry. Though he called again for common sense laws, the president and his Democratic allies have been unable to persuade Republicans in Congress to approve any new gun control measures, and the chances are nearly nonexistent in an election year. But the purchases may renew the battle over a congressional proposal to deny gun ownership to people on the FBIs terror watch list. The proposal was defeated by Senate Republicans late last year. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called in a statement for both defeating international terror groups and making it harder to access weapons of war. Trump took a sharply different approach. On Twitter, he said, Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness and vigilance. He later called for Obamas resignation over the presidents decision not to say the words radical Islamic terrorism, reiterated his call for a Muslim ban, and pointedly noted that Mateens father was an immigrant. The Muslim advocacy group CAIR condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms. Hundreds of people lined up in Orlando and elsewhere to donate blood (though gay men bitterly noted they are still effectively banned from doing so in the U.S.). A GoFundMe drive to raise money for the victims and their families raised more than $700,000 in less than 12 hours. We will not be defined by a hateful shooter. We will be defined by how we support and love each other, said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. Global response to Orlando mass shooting More on thestar.com: Florida nightclub shooting suspect was known to FBI, official says Trudeau calls Florida shooting a domestic terror attack against LGBT community LGBTQ community in Toronto and beyond mourn for Orlando Ideology usually just a rationale for mentally ill attackers, says expert Florida nightclub attack latest in U.S. mass deadliest shootings Survivors of Orlando mass shooting recall struggle to stay alive Photos: Aftermath of the Florida massacre, deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history With files from Jackie Hong and Fakiha Baig SHARE: DUNHUANG, CHINAAt the heart of the ancient Silk Road, on the edge of the Gobi Desert, lies a centuries-old place of pilgrimage: hundreds of caves hewn from a sandstone cliff containing some of the most exquisite Buddhist frescoes and figures in the world. Abandoned for centuries, the Mogao Grottoes somehow survived everything that nature and man could throw at them, including earthquakes, floods and sandstorms. Marauding Muslim rebels, plundering European explorers and White Russian soldiers all left their mark. Rampaging Red Guards were turned away at the height of Chinas Cultural Revolution. Today, the caves outside Dunhuang, in western China, enjoy a new stature, at the heart of Communist Chinas efforts to revitalize and rebuild the Silk Road as a testament to its growing power in Asia. They also stand as a symbol of Sino-American co-operation in Chinas cultural preservation, thanks to pioneering work by the Getty Conservation Institute. But the fragile wall paintings, some of which date to the 4th century and show stories from Buddhas life and visions of the afterlife, face another threat from a new army of tourists and the lure of profit. In the past 100 years, most of the damage has been done by nature, but visits by more tourists will break the original balance inside the caves, said Wang Xudong, president of Dunhuang Academy, which runs, preserves and restores the site. Constant entrance and exit changes the temperature and humidity inside the caves. Human bodies also carry microorganisms, and if they start to grow inside the caves, it would be very scary. More than 1.1 million tourists visited the caves in 2015, a rise of 40 per cent in just a year and a roughly 20-fold jump in the past two decades. The vast majority are Chinese, as the countrys growing wealth fuels a huge boom in domestic tourism and as interest is renewed in Chinas Buddhist past. With advice from Gettys experts, the Dunhuang Academy initially tried to cap the number of tourists at 3,000 a day but later realized that limit just would not stop people from coming, Wang said. The limit was then raised to 6,000 a day, but demand regularly exceeds that in the peak July-to-October season. To relieve the pressure, tourists are asked to register in advance and, before visiting the site, watch two 20-minute movies in a sweeping new visitors centre on the history of Dunhuang and the caves themselves. Later, they are guided through a selection of the 40 caves that are open to the public, forbidden to take photographs in case their camera flash damages the frescoes. Register too late, above the 6,000 cut-off, and youll miss the movies and get to see only four caves. By giving these latecomers a very bad experience, Wang said he hopes to encourage more people to come during the low season, when ticket prices are halved. The question is whether Wang can stem the tide. Beside the visitors centre, 15 kilometres from the caves, construction workers are building a privately funded tourist complex, including a theatre and hotels. In the city of Dunhuang, a $250-million (U.S.) conference centre and a bigger, 2,000-seat theatre are being built to house an annual Silk Road Cultural Expo. The large modern airport is being expanded, with a $150-million upgrade. There is enormous commercial pressure, said Neville Agnew, who has been visiting and working in the caves for 28 years for the Getty Conservation Institute. The growth of the city of Dunhuang depends ultimately on the Mogao Grottoes. They are going to have their work cut out to control visitation and, of course, I think youd find many people who are interested in development of the region want more visitors. Yet there is also state-of-the-art restoration work going on here, thanks to a long-standing collaboration between the Dunhuang Academy, Getty and other foreign experts. Painstakingly, the restorers start in each cave by taking hundreds of high-resolution photographs, in colour and black-and-white. Then the frescoes are examined to see what materials were used and the causes of deterioration diagnosed before experts decide on the best materials and methods to restore them. Some of the paintings, rendered on a base of mud and grass, are partly detached from the rock face, and enormously vulnerable to humidity or earthquakes. Different kinds of grout were extensively tested before one was chosen to fill the gaps. The project has produced guidelines that have been applied to other grottoes across China as well as principles that have helped the country better manage its heritage sites. It has also spawned a major new exhibition at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles that runs from May until September and includes full-size replicas of three of the caves. It is a much happier example of Sino-western collaboration than the caves experienced a century ago. In 1907, Hungarian-British archeologist Aurel Stein persuaded a local monk to sell him 24 trunks packed with ancient Buddhist scriptures and five trunks of paintings, embroideries and other artworks that had only recently been discovered in a small walled-up cave. He paid the equivalent of 130 pounds. French, Japanese and Russian explorers took thousands more priceless documents in subsequent years before American Langdon Warner showed up in 1923 to find the portable treasures gone. Determined not to leave empty-handed, he took some of the sculptures and used adhesive glue to rip a dozen paintings off the walls. The official history calls them the despicable treasure hunters. Others who werent seeking relics inflicted their own sorts of damage. In 1870, Muslim rebels turned up at the caves, burning down many of the wooden ladders that gave access. They may also have been responsible for scratching off the faces from some of the paintings. In 1921, White Russian soldiers who had retreated into China during the war against the Bolsheviks were detained by the Chinese government and temporarily jailed in the caves. The damage from their fires and graffiti is still visible in several caves. But history was kinder during Chinas Cultural Revolution, when, on orders from premier Zhou Enlai, Peoples Liberation Army soldiers and police were dispatched to protect the caves from gangs of Red Guards intent on destroying them. Today, 735 caves remain, hewn from the cliff over a period of 1,000 years. Nearly 500 have paintings on the walls undecorated caves were for meditation while more than 2,000 sculptures have survived. With partners all over the world, the Dunhuang Academy is working on a major digital archiving project, photographing the caves and everything that was once contained within them. Wang said that more than 40,000 artworks or scriptures are scattered around the world but that this is a way to unite them and preserve them forever. Of course, we hope that when the world truly becomes a big family, they can come back to Mogao caves and unite with the other relics here, he said. But reality is quite cruel sometimes. If we can get them back to the Internet family through digitalization, that is a target we can achieve for now. Read more about: SHARE: WASHINGTONThere is a political playbook for the aftermath of terrorist attacks, a leadership script born of wretched experience. Offer sombre thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families. Vow, resolute, to defeat the perpetrators and their ideology. Urge the public to remain united and unbowed. Advocate a few policy solutions. In the wake of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday, Hillary Clinton is sticking to routine. Donald Trump is very much not. Instead, the Republican nominee has offered a series of furious arguments and false accusations unlike anything else in the recent campaign history. Over the course of two days, Trump has called for the resignation of the president, insinuated the president is supportive of jihadists, and escalated his anti-Muslim rhetoric. In a written statement on Sunday, Trump demanded that Barack Obama quit in disgrace over his refusal to say the words radical Islamic terrorism. In a series of morning interviews on Monday, Trump repeatedly suggested that Obama secretly endorses Muslim terrorism. Monday afternoon offered the sharpest contrast between the two candidates. Clinton, speaking in measured tones in Ohio, called for an intensification of the war in Syria, new gun control measures, bipartisan unity and respect for Muslims. Trump, appearing in New Hampshire, spoke in the agitated voice of his early campaign rallies. After expressing condolences, he focused almost exclusively on immigration specifically, on what he said was the threat posed by immigrants and refugees from Muslim countries. It will be easier to deal with our current problem if we dont keep on bringing in people that add to the problem, he said. He did not stop there. In an ad-libbed comment that ranks among the starkest bigotry of his campaign, he baselessly accused U.S. Muslims of harbouring advance knowledge of the deadly plans of Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen and the couple who committed a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. in December. The Muslims have to work with us. They know whats going on. They know that he was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didnt turn them in. And we had death and destruction, he said. In the prepared portion of the speech, Trump reiterated his call for a ban on all foreign Muslims entering the country this time, notably, saying he could impose the ban unilaterally as president without approval from Congress. He also went further, proposing a new ban on anyone from unspecified countries with a history of terrorism against the U.S. And he accused Syrian refugees, again baselessly, of trying to take over our children and convince them how wonderful ISIS is and how wonderful Islam is, and we dont know whats happening. Clinton attempted to project calm but also toughness. Denouncing radical jihadists she said have a twisted ideology and poisoned psychology, she called for an intense focus on identifying and thwarting lone wolf attackers, an effort to dismantle terrorists financial and arms networks, and improved protection of some sort for vulnerable soft targets like clubs and schools. The Democratic nominee also advocated new gun control measures: the renewal of the expired ban on so-called assault weapons, a new ban on gun purchases by people on the no-fly terror watch list, and the closing of a loophole that allows some guns to be bought without background checks. That may not stop every shooting or every terrorist attack, but it will stop some, and it will save lives, she said. Clinton portrayed respect for Muslims as both a moral necessity and a practical demand in the quest to gather intelligence. The government should deepen its contact with Muslims, she said, not scapegoat them. Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric hurts the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terror, she said. In an appeal to moderate Republicans, she invoked the George W. Bush mosque visit and bipartisan co-operation after 9/11. It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, she said. The spirit of 9/12. Trump has attributed his success in the Republican primary to the terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels. It remains unclear, however, how the general electorate will respond to their widely divergent approaches. Trump holds a slight lead in polls on who would best handle terrorism, and some research suggests male Republicans benefit and female Democrats suffer when terror becomes a more pressing issue. But a Trump terror bump is no foregone conclusion. Clinton leads with the general electorate on temperament, experience and readiness to serve as commander-in-chief. One researcher, Vanderbilt University professor Elizabeth Zechmeister, said Clinton appears to be harmed less by terror effects than other female candidates, likely because of the experience that the public sees her as having acquired in handling national security issues as secretary of state. And Zechmeister said it is possible Trump will be seen as having crossed the line from strength to recklessness. Her studies have shown that the public shifts toward a preference for hawkishness in times of terror threats but they didnt contemplate the fairly extreme stances that Trump is taking. Trumps speech was notable for his explicit references to the LGBT community. Many Republicans have declined to mention the identities of the Orlando victims; Trump said the Orlando attack targeted the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity. More on thestar.com: Pall of dread hangs over Orlando as families mourn: Paul Wells Orlando nightclub shooter called 911 three times, says FBI Orlando nightclub shooter was body builder, abusive husband Mommy I love you Im gonna die: Orlando shooting victims last texts Read more about: SHARE: ORLANDO, FLA.The gunman who attacked a Florida gay nightclub had attended the club before the attack and had used a gay dating and chat app, witnesses said. Kevin West, a regular at Pulse nightclub, said Omar Mateen messaged him on and off for a year before the shooting using the gay chat and dating app Jackd. But they never met until early Sunday morning. West was dropping off a friend at the club when he noticed Mateen whom he knew by sight but not by name crossing the street wearing a dark cap and carrying a black cellphone about 1 a.m., an hour before the shooting. He walked directly past me. I said, Hey, and he turned and said, Hey, and nodded his head, West said. I could tell by the eyes. At least four regular customers of Pulse, the nightclub where the massacre took place, told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday that they believed they had seen Mateen there before. Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent, said Ty Smith, who also uses the name Aries. He saw Mateen at the club at least a dozen times, he said. We didnt really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times, Smith said. He told us he had a wife and child. As soon as West saw photos released of Mateen after the shooting, he said, he drove to his local police station, where officers summoned FBI officials, who showed him a photo of Mateen on a computer screen. I said, Thats him, West said, and turned over his phone and Jackd log-in information to the FBI, which still had the phone late Monday, he said. Also Monday, officials said Mateen appeared to have been radicalized by Islamic extremists on the internet but expressed sympathies with radical groups that violently oppose each other. He was also bipolar, Mateens ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters in Boulder, Colo. He was mentally unstable and mentally ill, Yusufiy said. Although records show the couple didnt divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms. Mateen was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and wanted to become a police officer. On Sunday morning, Mateen told a 911 dispatcher that he was attacking Pulse on behalf of the leader of Daesh, also known as the Islamic State, FBI Director James B. Comey said at a news conference Monday. Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, Fla., was killed by a SWAT team and was among the 50 found dead at the site. Fifty-three more were wounded. But Mateen, who was born in New York, had also expressed solidarity with the 2013 Boston bombers and an American suicide bomber who belonged to an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria opposed to Daesh, Comey said. The FBI previously investigated Mateen, a security guard, for 11 months for telling co-workers in 2013 that he had relatives connected to Al Qaeda, the Sunni Muslim extremist group, while claiming he was a member of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, Comey said. Both groups oppose Daesh and each other. The FBI also briefly investigated Mateen in 2014 on suspicion of watching videos by Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki and for attending a mosque in Florida with a man who later became a suicide bomber for Nusra Front in Syria, which also opposes Islamic State. Both investigations were closed without an arrest. Comey defended his agents work but said the agency would still conduct a review. We know that this killing is upsetting to all Americans. We hope that our fellow Americans will not let fear become disabling, Comey said. He added that fear is what these savages want. FBI agents scrambled Monday to recover data from Mateens electronic media cellphones, computers and other devices hoping to find clues to what sparked the massacre at the nightclub, according to current and former FBI officials. Mateen bought both of the guns used in the attack, and a third weapon was recovered from Mateens car, said Regina Lombardo, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Officials would not identify the weapon found in the car or say whether any explosives were recovered from the scene. Mateen bought his guns at the St. Lucie Shooting Center, owner Ed Henson told reporters in a televised news conference. Henson said Mateen was familiar to me vaguely. I dont know him personally. He said Mateen had multiple security licenses for armed and unarmed security work, and passed a background check. He did not buy the handgun and the long gun at the same time; they were approximately a week apart, said Henson, who added that one of the sales came about a week to 10 days before the shooting. Hes evil, Henson said, and the shooting was horrific. We happen to be the gun store he picked. President Barack Obama said Monday that Mateen appeared to be inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet but that investigators had found no evidence he was working with outside groups. Islamic State proclaimed him as a member of the group through a media affiliate after the shooting. FBI agents closed their 2013 investigation into Mateen after concluding that he didnt understand how Al Qaeda operated and had not committed a crime. He told investigators that he had been lying and blustering about his terrorist ties. During the investigation, Mateen was placed on the FBIs terrorist screening database, an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an investigation. The list serves as a clearinghouse for federal and state law enforcement agencies to share information and keep track of potential threats, but it does not bar a suspect from boarding a plane or purchasing a weapon. Mateen was removed from that database after the bureau closed its investigation into him, an official said. In 2014, agents again questioned Mateen after learning he had attended the same mosque as Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, an American who later joined Islamic State and was killed in Syria. The FBI determined that contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time, Ronald Hopper, an FBI official, told reporters in Orlando. Some who knew the gunman described him as a practicing Muslim who spewed homophobic and racist slurs. But it still wasnt clear Monday what motivated Mateen to attack the nightclub. His father, Seddique Mateen, hosts a show on the satellite network Payam-e-Afghan TV about the national politics of his homeland. In new video posted on Facebook early Monday, he calls his son well-educated and respectful to his parents, saying that he was not aware what complexities he had in his heart, and what caused him to go to this gay and lesbian club and shoot 50 people, he said in Dari, one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. Seddique Mateen said he was saddened by his sons actions. But he added: In this month of Ramadan, the gay and lesbian issue is something that God will punish, though the servants of God shouldnt have anything to do with it. At a news conference at his home Monday, Seddique Mateen said he still thinks of his only son as a good boy but condemned his acts. I dont want any father to go through what we are going through, Mateen said, clasping his hands and occasionally bowing his head as he sat on an ornate floral sofa surrounded by cameras and microphones. I dont approve of what he did. What he did was completely an act of terrorism. Seddique Mateen, a U.S. citizen from Afghanistan, insisted on his love for and loyalty to his new homeland. The United States is the house that has always taken care of me, my family, all the people from my homeland ... . I condemn what he did. I wish I didnt know that (is) what he was doing. If I could catch him, I would could ask him myself. The only thing Ill say is those people who lost their loved ones, they are my family. I apologize for what my son did, and I am as sad and as mad as you guys are. You are my family. He said hed had no inkling that his son might perform any kind of act of terrorism. If I did know of 1 per cent that hes committing such a crime, my son, I would arrest him myself. I would have called the FBI. I would have called the local law enforcement. Mustafa Abasin, Omar Mateens brother-in-law, stood in the doorway of his pastel pink, three-bedroom home in Port St. Lucie, a city close to Fort Pierce, about 125 miles south of Orlando, still struggling to make sense of what had happened. Omar was a very good guy, he said. You know, right now I feel that Im grieving. Im not awake. Its unbelievable. It wasnt him. On Sunday investigators swarmed Abasins home, which was in Mateens name, although he never lived there. When they informed him of his brother-in-laws actions, he said, he assumed there had been a misunderstanding. The only thing that popped in my mind was it was an accident, he said. Still, I cant believe it. With files from the Associated Press More at thestar.com How a normal night of drinking and dancing at Orlando nightclub was shattered by gunfire Pall of dread hangs over Orlando as families mourn: Paul Wells Donald Trump raises anti-Muslim rhetoric after Orlando mass shooting SHARE: The Philippines outgoing president has cautioned his fellow citizens to be avid about defending their freedoms and democracy as a new hardline president is set to take office. Benigno Aquino, speaking Sunday on the 118th anniversary of the country's declaration of independence from Spanish colonial rule, warned President-elect Rodrigo Duterte could take an authoritarian path reminiscent of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' 20-year rule. Aquino said Marcos had deprived Filipinos of their freedoms and warned "if we are not vigilant, this can happen again." Then, using a quote usually attributed to British statesman Edmund Burke, Aquino said "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." ORLANDO, FLA.The June calendar for the Beardall Senior Center, a stately 19th-century high school that took on a new vocation after it was renamed in 1986 for a former Orlando mayor, lists a Fathers Day Luau Ice Cream Social and a weekly Savvy Seniors program at which area students teach older residents to navigate Facebook and Twitter. But the Beardall Center is only a few blocks away from Pulse Nightclub, so on Monday it also became the venue where Orlando families came to identify the remains of their murdered sons and daughters. Cesar Flores was one of them, a stocky and soft-spoken man who, like everyone who approached the Beardall Center, found himself quickly surrounded by camera crews and reporters. Police say Omar Mateen killed Flores daughter Mercedez Marisol Flores, her friend Amanda Alvear, and 47 other revellers at Pulse early Sunday morning. Cesar Flores talked briefly with reporters in Spanish, his eyes cast downward, his tone impassive. He switched to English, which was more difficult for him. The questions he faced, coming from reporters who joined and quit the scrum as he spoke, were inevitably repetitive. How old was Mercedez? Twenty-six. Could he hold his phone with her image next to his face again? The two made a good news photo together. He obliged. The phone began ringing in his hand. Senor Flores, one reporter asked gamely, am I right in understanding that youre saying this is a crime of hate, not a crime of terrorism? He was not saying much about anything any more. Let me go, please, he pleaded. My family, they are calling me. The little knot of journalists parted to let him pass. We are crueller in our effect than our intent, most days. Most of modern Orlando was built after its main attraction, Walt Disney World, opened in 1971, and before this past weekend it was a monument to cars more than anything: it sprawls for miles in every direction, with no apparent urban plan and almost no buildings more than two storeys tall outside the citys compact historic downtown. On Monday there was a pall of dread over just about every square inch of the city, but much of the action was concentrated in a few areas: at police roadblocks a few blocks north and south of Pulse on Orange Ave., at the Beardall Center, and at the LGBT Center of Central Florida, a clearing-house for information, assistance, counselling and support in the aftermath of the weekend slaughter. It occurs to me that I have had altogether too much practice covering the aftermath of terror. I drove through northwestern U.S. border states on 9/11 and the days after, watching anger overtake grief in the American heartland. I was in Paris after last years Charlie Hebdo massacre and Brussels after this years subway bombings. Too much doesnt change. What I noticed in Brussels is that these things have taken on their own terrible regularity, a symbolic language of grief and anger: The candles and bouquets, the loitering clusters of apologetic cops facing rows of network camera positions across tape lines. But if anything has changed, it is that people have learned from terrible and repeated experience to skip right past the stunned disbelief and get right to the polemic. CNN cut into their own coverage of the Monday-morning joint news conference by members of federal, state and local police agencies to carry a live interview with Hillary Clinton, who was phoning in. It was the right call. There are questions about the police work at Pulse, including the terribly long three hours between the beginning of Mateens attack and the police assault. But there is also a presidential election going on. And the Pulse massacre occurred at the intersection of so many fault lines of a deeply divided electorate: Islamist terror, LGBTQ rights, and a culture of easy access to guns. America must work with our allies to dismantle the global networks that fuel this kind of radicalization, Clinton told CNN. Its a complex challenge, but were actually up to doing it. On the deadly weapons Mateen bought legally after a background check, Weve got to get back into common-sense gun reform, she said. There are reasonable common-sense measures to try to keep people safe from guns. Trump is less of a believer in complex challenges and common-sense measures. He spent the morning calling in to news shows, suggesting Mateens plans were common knowledge among American Muslims (For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this) and repeatedly calling for a ban on Muslim immigration. Three news anchors reminded him Mateen was born in New York. He found the information unworthy of comment. There are still five months to go until Americans elect a president. There is no guessing how weird this campaign will get by then. But it took 36 hours for the deadliest gun massacre in the history of the Republic to get sucked into the rhetoric of this bewildering campaign. Florida always was good at turning bad news worse fast. Maybe its the heat. More at thestar.com How a normal night of drinking and dancing at Orlando nightclub was shattered by gunfire Survivors of Orlando mass shooting recall struggle to stay alive Mommy I love you ... Im gonna die: Orlando shooting victims last texts Photos: Aftermath of the Florida massacre, deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history SHARE: PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICAOscar Pistorius is a broken man whose mental state has deteriorated over the last two years and he should be hospitalized and not jailed, a clinical psychologist testified for his defence Monday. It was the opening day of the former track stars sentencing hearing for murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Prosecutors immediately challenged that opinion of Pistorius in their cross-examination, charging that the double-amputee Olympic athlete confronted a police witness at the courthouse on an earlier occasion. Pistorius is currently under house arrest after serving one year of a five-year sentence after being found guilty in 2014 of manslaughter for killing Steenkamp in 2013. But the manslaughter conviction was overturned last year by South Africas Supreme Court which convicted Pistorius of the more serious charge of murder, which carries longer jail sentences. Pistorius lawyers are arguing for some leniency from a judge when she decides his sentence. South Africa has a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison for murder, although a judge can reduce that in some circumstances. The sentencing hearing is scheduled to run through Friday this week. Judge Thokozile Masipa, who initially acquitted Pistorius of murder at his trial, will decide his new sentence. Called by Pistorius defence lawyers, clinical psychologist Prof. Jonathan Scholtz said Pistorius was quite ill and struggled with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Scholtz evaluated Pistorius in 2014, during his murder trial, and again in May this year. Mr. Pistorius condition has worsened since 2014, Scholtz testified. He said Pistorius was now despondent and lethargic, disinvested, and leaves his future in the hands of God. The clinical psychologist said he did not think Pistorius would be able to testify at the sentencing hearings because of his psychological problems. Chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel pounced on that at the start of his cross-examination of Scholtz, pointing out that Pistorius had recently given a TV interview, and yet claimed to be unable to testify in court. Prosecutors had depicted Pistorius, one of the worlds most celebrated athletes at his height, as an arrogant figure with a sense of entitlement and a love of guns. On Monday, Nel subjected Scholtz to sharp questioning, getting him to acknowledge that someone suffering from the same stress disorder as Pistorius could become irritated and agitated. Nel referred to an incident involving Pistorius and a police witness, apparently trying to show that Pistorius was not a changed, remorseful man and could still be a potential danger to others. Nel quoted Pistorius as saying to the police officer: Please give us space and privacy. You didnt do your job in any case. The prosecutor said the defence team apologized for the spat; Pistorius defence lawyer did not immediately comment on the allegation. Dressed in a dark suit, Pistorius sat calmly on a bench during the testimony, mostly with his head down. During an adjournment before Nel began his cross-examination of Scholtz, Pistorius spoke briefly to defence lawyer Barry Roux and made a call on a cellphone. The gallery was packed with relatives, journalists and other onlookers. Police officers lined the wood-paneled walls of the courtroom. Barry and June Steenkamp, the parents of Reeva, who Pistorius killed by shooting multiple times through a toilet door in the pre-dawn hours of Valentines Day 2013, were also present in court. In his testimony, the psychologist had described Pistorius as despondent and forgetful, and said further imprisonment for the convicted murderer would not be psychologically or socially constructive. Instead, Scholtz recommended that Pistorius be treated in a hospital, and then use his skills and past experience in charity to give back to society by helping disadvantaged and disabled people, particularly youths. He noted that Pistorius had sold his firearms, became jumpy even at the sound of gunfire on television, and was unlikely to resort to violence again. He also said Pistorius was subjected to several traumatic and humiliating experiences during the year he spent in prison, including being forced to shower while sitting on the concrete floor because of his disability. Pistorius spent 18 hours a day in solitary confinement while in prison, Scholtz said, and was treated like an animal in a cage. Prosecutor Nel challenged Scholtz on some of those claims surrounding Pistorius imprisonment. For example, Scholtz said Pistorius told him that he had heard an inmate being raped by another, and then seen the body of the alleged victim after he had hanged himself. Nel disputed the assertion. Nel also said Pistorius was not confined to his cell for 18 hours a day, but rather was allowed to walk around a wing of the prison he shared with only one other inmate. He complained about everything, Nel said of Pistorius time in prison. SHARE: Justin Trudeau was only a backbench opposition MP during the Afghan detainee scandal, and spoke just once in Question Period about allegations of Canadian complicity in acts of torture. But what he said on Nov. 29, 2009, was insightful: We need to get at the truth. The international reputation of Canada and our military is at stake. Trudeau was responding to a story broken by the Toronto Star in May 2007, which grew into a scandal that ultimately led to the prorogation of Parliament in December 2009. As one detainee told reporter Rosie DiManno, They whipped me with rubber hoses. Another time, they used a chain to hang me from the ceiling, my head toward the floor. The same detainee said Canadian officials visited the prison operated by the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), but were never allowed to speak with prisoners. As the late James Travers wrote, also in this newspaper, the story was part of a long march into twilight for Canada. The country that gave the world Lester Pearsons peacekeeping and Brian Mulroneys stand against apartheid now had to struggle with Stephen Harpers apparent blindness to compelling evidence of Afghanistan prisoner abuse. The Harper government had, indeed, received many warnings about the risks to transferred detainees. Louise Arbour, then serving as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, reported in March 2006 that complaints of torture at the hands of Afghan officials were common. Three months later, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission estimated that one in three prisoners handed over by Canadians are beaten or even tortured. In March 2007, the U.S. State Department reported that: Complaints of serious human rights violations committed by representatives of national security institutions, including arbitrary arrest, unconfirmed reports of torture, and illegal detention were numerous. Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin was posted in Afghanistan during this period. He wrote 17 separate reports that warned explicitly of torture and were distributed widely within the Departments of Foreign Affairs and National Defence. As Colvin explained when called to testify before a Parliamentary committee, for a year and a half after they (senior Canadian officials) knew about the very high risk of torture, they continued to order military police in the field to hand our detainees to the NDS. Colvins testimony was supported by later developments. In 2009, then Chief of the Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk admitted that a prisoner severely beaten in 2006 by Afghan interrogators had earlier been taken into custody by Canadian soldiers. In 2010, Murray Brewster of The Canadian Press reported that one in five Afghan detainees interviewed by Canadian diplomats said they had been abused. Torture must never be taken lightly. Defined as the deliberate infliction of severe pain on a fellow human being, it is categorically prohibited under international law. The Geneva Conventions forbid cruel treatment and torture at any time and in any place whatsoever. The Convention Against Torture stipulates that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court specifies that even in an armed conflict not of an international character, such as existed in Afghanistan from 2002 onwards, the cruel treatment and torture of detainees constitutes a war crime. The prohibition extends to anyone who knowingly facilitates torture, including by providing the means for its commission. For this reason, any soldier who transferred a detainee to a known risk of torture could be guilty of a war crime. Any superior who ordered the transfer of a detainee to a known risk of torture could also be guilty of a war crime. This responsibility extends all the way up the chain of command, including government ministers. Governments faced with allegations of war crimes have no choice. They must investigate war crimes allegedly committed by their nationals or armed forces and, if appropriate, prosecute the suspects. This rule, identified by the International Committee for the Red Cross as part of customary international law, is also found in treaties that Canada has ratified. Under the Convention Against Torture, Canada is required to submit allegations of torture to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution. Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Canada has a duty to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes. The Harper government flouted these legal obligations. Defence Minister Gordon OConnor misled the House of Commons on the role played by the International Committee of the Red Cross in overseeing detainees. Peter MacKay, his successor as defence minister, asserted there was no evidence that any detainee transferred by Canada had been tortured. In May 2011, the Conservatives used their new majority to close down a panel of Members of Parliament that had been reviewing documents on detainee transfers for possible public release. Stephane Dion, the Liberal representative on the panel, responded to the closure by stating the likelihood is very high that a detainee was abused after being transferred from Canadian custody. The now Foreign Minister also said: I dont think Canadians will accept that it [the detainee transfer issue] is over. Six years have passed since Justin Trudeau spoke from the backbenches about Afghan detainees. Now, as prime minister, he can put his insight into action. Nothing would do more to strengthen Canadas reputation as a progressive and principled country than investigating possible war crimes by our own soldiers and officials. Nothing would do more to help Canada win a UN Security Council seat. We need to get at the truth, and we need to do so now. Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia. William Schabas OC is professor of international law at Middlesex University London. Read more about: SHARE: Canadas Conservative party has been in rapid makeover mode. Its dumping the divisive identity politics, dropping its official opposition to same-sex marriage, and reminding voters that the bad man (aka Stephen Harper) is gone. Welcome, new, moderate Tories! Well, not quite. Apparently some of the partys MPs didnt get the memo. Instead of embracing a sensible, long-overdue effort to make our national anthem more inclusive, theyve been throwing sand in the works at every opportunity. The latest episode came late last week when a number of Conservatives in the Commons once again denied unanimous consent for the House to move ahead with a bill to update the lyrics to O Canada. Brought forward by Ottawa-Vanier MP Mauril Belanger, it would change the English version of the anthem from in all thy sons command to in all of us command. Other MPs have been bending over backwards to facilitate debate on the bill because Belanger is suffering from the incurable neurological disease ALS. They wanted to find a way around a parliamentary rule requiring him to be physically present in the Commons for the bill to move forward. But after the Conservatives blocked that effort, Belanger had to make his painful way into the chamber on Friday to keep it going. The result was a foregone conclusion: the bill was carried in a resounding voice vote, and is expected to be formally approved in the Commons this coming week. All the Conservative holdouts managed to achieve was to force a dying man to make a difficult and ultimately unnecessary trip to the office. This in itself was mean-spirited enough. Even worse is that it was in the service of blocking something that should be, as we wrote last month, a no-brainer. Updating O Canada to make it inclusive of all Canadians has been debated for more than a quarter of a century. The Star supported a similar effort in 1993, and other attempts since. Even the Harper government proposed it in 2010, before backing down in face of protests from its base. Its that obvious. The arguments of the opponents are shopworn. O Canada, as has been frequently noted, has been changed over and over again. In fact, its original lyrics dating from 1908 were gender-neutral. What critics attack as political correctness run amok would essentially restore the spirit of the original version. Others argue its a meaningless change. All thy sons, they maintain, includes everyone sons and daughters alike. Anyone who doesnt see that is just being obtuse, they say. In fact, words matter. They reflect change, but they can also spur it. We no longer talk casually about businessmen and expect female business leaders to feel fully included. The old words now sound jarring. Belanger is right to fight for this change, and those smoothing his path should be proud to stand with him. The Conservatives who have thrown up obstacles at every turn have done themselves no credit. Read more about: SHARE: The number of victims, alone, is shocking. More than 100 people shot with 49 killed by a single homicidal bigot. Its the largest mass shooting in U.S. history, but the horror of what happened in Orlando early Sunday morning goes beyond stark numbers. It wasnt a random attack. In targeting a crowded gay bar, 29-year-old Omar Mateen deliberately took aim at members of a vulnerable community that so often has been the object of senseless hate. Mateen killed his victims for the perceived offence of simply existing. He did so in the name of a merciless movement that has pillaged its way through the Middle East. And he used an assault-style rifle a type of gun painfully familiar for its role in other mass killings, including the butchering of 20 children and six school staff in Newtown, Conn., four years ago. Many hoped that the slaughter of innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School would finally rouse American political leaders to take serious steps on gun control. President Barack Obama had declared curbing gun violence a top priority and he pressed hard for stricter firearms laws. Unfortunately, almost every Republican in the U.S. Senate, plus a smattering of Democrats, blocked reforms. They even shot holes in a modest proposal to expand background checks on people wanting to buy firearms. Orlando is the natural result of maintaining ridiculously lax gun laws in the face of tragedy upon tragedy. Obama warned of the consequences of such folly just days before the Orlando attack, telling a PBS townhall that he had recently been briefed on the danger posed by radicalized U.S. citizens. Were allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines . . . but I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun, he said. This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer, and if he wants to walk into a gun store or a gun show right now and buy . . . as many weapons or ammo as he can, nothing is prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is. Obama wasnt specifically talking about Mateen, but he drew an eerily accurate portrait. The New York-born U.S. citizen of Afghan parentage was interviewed by the FBI twice in 2013 for making extremist comments to co-workers. He was interviewed again in 2014 in connection with ties to an American suicide bomber who had gone to Syria. In both cases, there wasnt enough evidence for the FBI to take action. Mateen also had a troubling history of homophobia, unstable behaviour and spousal abuse. Yet he was able to buy at least two guns legally within a week or so of his rampage at Pulse nightclub. Before being shot to death by police, Mateen placed a call to 911 and pledged allegiance to Daesh jihadists in Iraq and Syria. The radical group subsequently referred to Mateen as one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America. But Obama said on Monday there was no evidence of any prior involvement by Daesh in this attack. Mateen appears to have been a largely self-motivated lone wolf terror attacker. He wasnt armed by Daesh, but by the society that spawned him. Speaking in the wake of that tragedy, Obama said: We have to decide if this is the kind of country we want to be. To actively do nothing is a decision as well. The sad reality is that the United States appears to have chosen; it remains dedicated to wide and easy access to guns. Until that changes, despite all the heartbreak and soul-searching inspired by Orlando, further massacres are sadly inevitable. Read more about: SHARE: So ingrained was environmental laggardness in the Harper governments DNA that even its occasional attempts at ecological do-gooding quite often fell short. So it was with the almost-laudable creation of Rouge National Urban Park, which remains a mere glimmer of the glorious commons it might yet become due to totally avoidable intergovernmental squabbling. Thankfully, the new federal government seems to have pointed a better way forward last week, one that puts ecology first without ignoring agricultural interests. The sticking point has always been how to impose the stringent environmental protections that must apply to national parks given the Rouges unusual semi-urban context. The 79-square-kilometre area, which falls within the boundaries of Toronto, Pickering and Markham, is traversed by major highways, roads and bridges, and is home to some 75 working farms. The Harper government promised Ontario that, in creating the Rouge, it would meet or exceed the provinces existing standards for the protection of green space. But the legislation delivered last year was far less rigorous. The Tories contended that, given the unique nature of the Rouge, Ottawa could not make ecological integrity the guiding principle of the parks management, as is the global standard. Such a model would be too harmful to agricultural and other industrial interests, they argued. In response, the province understandably refused to hand over the lands under its control roughly 50 per cent of the planned park. Ottawa was right that the Rouge requires a new set of rules, but in abandoning the nature-first approach at the heart of sound parks policy, it went too far. The result is that the park remains only half a jewel and a vulnerable half at that. It neednt remain that way. This past Thursday, the Trudeau government announced that it would amend the existing legislation to bring it in line with international standards of park management. The government will expand the parks borders by about 17 square kilometres and make ecology the top priority in its running. At the same time, the new legislation will make clear that ecological integrity and farming are not mutually exclusive. And in a show of good faith, the government struck a deal with the areas farmers to allow lease extensions of up to 30 years, replacing the current, much-maligned year-to-year arrangements. The new legislation, a wise compromise, is merely a good start. During last years federal election campaign, the Liberals promised several other prudent measures to improve protections of Rouge Park, which they should deliver in good time. But the new legislation makes clear that the area, like every other national park, must first and foremost be preserved. Surely thats enough to bring Ontario back to the table. Brad Duguid, the provinces minister of economic development, employment and infrastructure, rightly called the amendment a significant improvement. The province should now begin the process of handing over its lands. Rouge Park was a rare, if incomplete, green gift from the instinctively anti-environmentalist Harper government. Roughly 20 per cent of Canadas population lives within an hours drive of its wetlands and woodland trails. The park has the potential to connect millions to nature and enhance the quality of urban life. Ontario was right to hold out this long. But the time for bickering is over. Read more about: SHARE: More than 100 schools will be involved in reviews for closing or boundary changes over the next six years under the Toronto District School Boards updated long-term plan. The board is also looking to ensure each area of the city offers programming in the arts, science and technology as well as the trades and other programs, said vice chair Jennifer Arp, a member of the planning and priorities committee, where the accommodation report will be discussed Wednesday. This helps the community understand, and to see the volume of work we are trying to undergo, she said of the detailed proposal. I think they then start to realize how the puzzle pieces fit together. Our planning people are very busy people. Between this fall and 2022, more than 50 schools divided into 15 groups will have gone through enrolment reviews; typically, one per grouping is recommended for closing. The proposal, which runs through to 2021-22, has a dozen boundary reviews starting this fall, as well as a review of enrolment in 11 schools in three neighbourhoods. A handful could be closed. Arp said she met with planning staff in January to talk about demands in her own Eglinton-Lawrence ward, given the revitalization of Lawrence Heights and growth in other pockets. There are a lot of moving pieces right now, she added. She also said the now-closed Bannockburn Public School will be reviewed in 2017-18. Community members have been calling for it to reopen, to ease over-enrolment in nearby schools. I think Eglinton-Lawrence is one of the (few) wards where enrolment is increasing, and significantly, she added. I think having a planning document that goes out so far is really smart as we move forward. The board is expected to vote this month on closing Greenwood Secondary School, also known as newcomer high because it serves new immigrants, and moving the program to nearby Danforth Tech, a recommendation that students strongly opposed during the current review process. Schools under review this fall: Charles H. Best, Wilmington Manhattan Park, Buchanan Jack Miner, Poplar Road, Guildwood, Elizabeth Simcoe Scarlett Heights Entrepreneurial Academy, Kipling Collegiate, Richview Collegiate Schools under review in 2017-18: Gracefield, Amesbury Galloway Road, St. Margarets George Harvey Collegiate, York Memorial, Weston, Runnymede, Humberside, Oakwood Schools under review 2018-19 to 2021-22: Kensington, Ryerson, King Edward, Lord Lansdowne Donview, Fenside, Roywood, Rene Gordon Henry Kelsey, Alexmuir, Anson Taylor, Brimwood Boulevard, Chartland, Iroquois, Lynnwood Heights, Percy Williams Braeburn, The Elms, Boys Leadership Academy Keelesdale, Silverthorn Fairbank Memorial, General Mercer, F.H. Miller, Fairbank Bendale, North Bendale Henry Hudson, Heather Heights, Churchill Heights, Woburn The board has roughly 130 schools the education ministry considers less than 60 per cent full. Trustees dispute the rating, as many schools have little space to spare because parts are rented out to daycares, parenting programs or community agencies. SHARE: NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Hanesbrands (HBI) stock is decreasing by 1.94% to $26.34 in late morning trading on Monday, after the apparel company's CEO Richard Noll announced he will step down to focus on his role as executive chairman. "This is the perfect time to transition our leadership," Noll said in a statement. "Our business is healthy, our acquisitions are performing well, and we have a very bright future." COO Gerald Evans will succeed Noll as CEO, effective October 1, and will immediately join the board of directors, which has been expanded to 11 members. "We are grateful for Rich's decade of leadership and success, and we are thrilled to have such a capable leader as Gerald to build the business even further," the board's lead director Ronald Nelson added. Separately, Hanesbrands has a "buy" rating and a letter grade of B at TheStreet Ratings because of the company's growth in earnings per share, increase in net income, revenue growth, notable return on equity and expanding profit margins. You can view the full analysis from the report here: HBI TheStreet Ratings objectively rated this stock according to its "risk-adjusted" total return prospect over a 12-month investment horizon. Not based on the news in any given day, the rating may differ from Jim Cramer's view or that of this article's author. From left, Rep. Gary Palmer ( R-Ala.), Del. Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (D-Northern Mariana Islands), Del. Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) and Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) prepare a bill, since passed b y the House, that would create a financial control board for Puerto Rico and restructure some of its $70 billion debt last week. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP) The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Puerto Rico cannot adopt its own legislation to restructure its crushing debt burden because of a 1984 federal bankruptcy provision that bars the commonwealth from using Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy law. The 5-to-2 majority decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, is a blow to the Puerto Rican government and supports arguments by major holders of bonds issued by Puerto Ricos government, agencies and utilities. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented and was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The plain text of the Bankruptcy Code begins and ends our analysis, Thomas wrote, adding that the unambiguous language of the bankruptcy measure preempts any effort by Puerto Rico to fashion its own bankruptcy process. [House passes Puerto Rico fiscal rescue bill ahead of July cliff] The decision leaves any rescue plan for Puerto Rico in the hands of Congress. The House and the Treasury Department have been debating ways to help the territory, which faces certain default on a portion of about $2 billion in payments due July 1. The default, one of many in recent months, would hit general obligation bonds, considered the safest kind of bond. The House passed a rescue bill last week that would create an appointed federal oversight board empowered to overrule local officials on spending plans and force debt restructuring on recalcitrant bondholders. But that would happen only after a number of tests to protect and satisfy creditors. In the case before the Supreme Court, the government of Puerto Rico, through what is known as the Recovery Act, had sought to adopt its own version of bankruptcy that would help its municipalities, agencies and utilities restructure more than $20 billion of their debts and force creditors to accept haircuts, or reductions in their payments. [A dark money groups misleading claim that the Puerto Rico debt plan is a bailout] The source of much of the confusion about who is empowered to do what stems from a 1984 vote by Congress to alter the treatment of Puerto Rico (as well as the District of Columbia) and prevent it, its agencies or its municipalities from using Chapter 9 of the bankruptcy code to restructure debts that cannot be repaid. Congress never debated the change and appears to have left no written record of its intent. Municipalities and agencies in all U.S. states have the ability to use Chapter 9, as the city of Detroit did. And while Thomas wrote that Puerto Rico should be considered a state, the 1984 legislation singled out the island and excluded it from Chapter 9 use. Left adrift and struggling to renegotiate with the holders of bonds issued by 18 government entities, Puerto Rico passed its own law last year to restructure some of its $72 billion of debt. But a federal appeals court struck that down, saying that the legislation conflicted with federal bankruptcy law even though Puerto Rico does not have access to bankruptcy the way other state and local governments do. In its appeal to the Supreme Court, commonwealth officials argued that the appeals courts decision left the island in a legal no mans land without access to any legal mechanism to restructure its utilities debt. Leading Puerto Rican politicians denounced the Supreme Court decision. Former Puerto Rican governor Luis G. Fortuno, now a partner at the law firm Steptoe & Johnson, said it confirm[s] that the islands current territorial status has evolved into the worst of both worlds. During arguments, liberals on the Supreme Court including Sotomayor, the daughter of Puerto Rican parents were moved by the islands plight and puzzled by the 1984 congressional laws language. Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that because Puerto Rican municipalities cannot access Chapter 9s federal bankruptcy process . . . a nonfederal bankruptcy solution is not merely a parallel option; it is the only existing legal option for Puerto Rico to restructure debts that could cripple its citizens. But bondholders from Franklin Templeton, Blue Mountain Capital Management and other investment funds argued that the federal bankruptcy statute preempts the commonwealths own legislation and explicitly bars Puerto Rico from using Chapter 9. Those firms hold nearly $2 billion in bonds issued by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Thomas agreed, writing in his opinion that our constitutional structure does not permit this Court to rewrite the statute that Congress has enacted. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. recused himself from the case, most likely because he owns Puerto Rican bonds, popular tax-exempt investments. In a second case, the court increased the chances for larger damage awards when a company intentionally copies anothers patent. In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had adopted a test for awarding triple damages that was too rigid and did not give enough leeway to district judges overseeing the litigation. Roberts said the test, which requires a finding of objective recklessness by the infringer, was too strict. It can have the effect of insulating some of the worst patent infringers from any liability for enhanced damages. The decision sends two cases back to the lower courts: Halo Electronics had sued Pulse Electronics for alleged infringement, and Stryker Corp. had sued Zimmer Inc. over alleged infringement of a device used to clean tissue during surgery. Robert Barnes contributed to this report. Chinese authorities arrested a North Korean spy in the border city of Dandong early this month and confiscated 30 million yuan and gold bars, Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun daily reported Sunday. A government official here said Sunday, "We've been aware since last week that a high-ranking North Korean had been arrested in Dandong. The fact that he was caught with a sizeable amount of cash and gold means he was probably affiliated with either the military or Workers Party." The arrest came just a few days after Ri Su-yong, the vice chairman of the Workers Party, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 2. The Yomiuri said that since Ri told Xi that North Korea will continue its nuclear weapons program "permanently," the arrest probably aimed to add pressure on the North to scrap it. After raiding the spy's home and arresting him, Chinese authorities notified the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. The spy had apparently lived in Dandong for many years, and was referred to by North Korean traders as a "representative" or "chief executive" and was involved in smuggling products banned by the UN. U.S. telecommunications rivals Verizon Communications and AT&T are set to go through to the third and final round of bidding in the auction for Yahoos core Internet assets, according to people familiar with the matter. After holding a board meeting to review second-round offers, Yahoo was to start reaching out to bidders as early as Monday to notify them whether they will make it to the next round, one of the people said. Verizon, the biggest U.S. wireless carrier, is seeking to challenge AT&T, the second largest U.S. wireless provider, in the third round of bidding, even though its latest offer was at the low end of the $3.5 billion to $5 billion range of the second-round bids that came in last week, the people said. Yahoo hopes to conclude the auction by next month, according to one of the people. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company started exploring a sale of the assets after coming under pressure from activist hedge fund Starboard Value. A consortium led by Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert, and backed by Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett, also will make it through to the final round, the people added. Some private equity firms that had made it through to the second round will not be invited to submit third-round bids,one of the people said. The people familiar with the matter asked not to be identified because the bids were confidential. Yahoo, Verizon and AT&T declined to comment. A Quicken Loans representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment on behalf of Gilberts consortium. Not all offers involve exactly the same assets, with some bidders indicating they are not interested in some of the patents and real estate assets on offer, people have previously said. Verizon is primarily interested in Yahoos advertising technology tools. Verizon has been examining how the other assets up for sale, such as search, mail and messenger services, could be combined with the corresponding businesses of AOL, which it acquired last year for $4.4 billion, Reuters reported last month. AT&T has been seeking to catch up with Verizon in advertising technology as it seeks to expand in mobile video offerings. A sale of Yahoos Internet assets would leave the company just owning a 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo Japan, as well as a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding, which accounts for most of Yahoos value. In December, Yahoo scrapped plans to spin off its Alibaba stake, after investors fretted over whether that transaction could have been carried out on a tax-free basis. One of the peculiar aspects of American slavery is how much we know and how much we willfully forget. Despite the vast body of historical research, works of fiction still inform most of what we understand (and misunderstand) about the grisly institution. Alex Haleys Roots revived this season for another TV generation gave millions of Americans their most visceral, sympathetic experience of slavery. Toni Morrisons masterpiece, Beloved, seared into our imagination the grotesque distortions of antebellum life. And now, Yaa Gyasis rich debut novel, Homegoing, confronts us with the involvement of Africans in the enslavement of their own people. Gyasi, who was born in Ghana and immigrated to the United States with her family at the age of 2, has spoken of Ghanaians complicity with the British slave trade. That characterization should make us squirm not least because its an argument used by Southern apologists eager to dilute the unique horror of American slavery: Everybody was doing it; even Africans were doing it! But, of course, that isnt at all Gyasis point. Shes merely asking us to consider the tangled chains of moral responsibility that hang on our history. This is one of the many issues that Homegoing explores so powerfully. [Review, A Mercy, by Toni Morrison] The story begins in Ghanas coastal Fanteland in the mid-1700s with two beautiful half-sisters who dont know of each other. Effia is 15 years old when she attracts the attention of James Collins, the newly appointed British governor. Collins pays Effias father 30 pounds and takes Effia to the Cape Coast Castle. While she enjoys the upper floors of the governors mansion, her half-sister, Esi, also 15, finds herself trapped below in a dungeon among slaves awaiting transport to the New World. As hells anteroom fills up with bodies and waste, the survivors are regularly beaten and raped. James never spoke to Effia about the slaves they kept in the dungeon, Gyasi writes, and Effia feigns oblivion. She had never thought of what James must think every time he saw them. If he went into the dungeons and saw women who reminded him of her, who looked like her and smelled like her. If he came back to her haunted by what he saw. The villagers have a saying about separated sisters: They are like a woman and her reflection, doomed to stay on opposite sides of the pond. The pond, in this case, is the Atlantic Ocean, and from Effia and Esi eventually grow two branches split from the same tree. Chapter by chapter, the book moves back and forth between them and their respective continents, jumping ahead a generation each time. That structure essentially a novel in linked stories places extraordinary demands on Gyasi. Each chapter must immediately introduce a new setting and new characters making fresh claims on our engagement. (The family tree at the front of the book is an invaluable readers crutch.) But the speed with which Gyasi sweeps across the decades isnt confusing so much as dazzling, creating a kind of time-elapsed photo of black lives in America and in the motherland. Author Yaa Gyasi (Michael Lionstar) Its no criticism of the latter chapters to say that the earlier ones are particularly haunting. To some extent, this reflects the unusual subject matter of these stories set during the first infernal arrangements between the British and the natives along Ghanas coast. If some tribes and clever tribal leaders profited by turning over black flesh, Gyasi also encourages us to consider what choice the Africans ultimately had to refuse their determined and technologically advanced business partners from the West. This paradox is embodied in the life of Quey, the biracial son of Effia and Gov. Collins. Like the other half-caste children, Gyasi writes, he could not fully claim either half of himself, neither his fathers whiteness nor his mothers blackness. Neither England nor the Gold Coast. Nevertheless, because of his status complicated further by his secret homosexuality Quey finds himself working as a slavers representative, charged with persuading his uncle to sell human chattel only to his company. Its a devastating story that manages to capture the degradations of slavery among the enslaved and the enslavers. [Review: Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings ] The chapters set in America involve more familiar events, perhaps, but are no less moving. Kojo opens on the eve of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. The story that unfolds conveys both the intense thrill of free blacks in Baltimore and the unimaginable terror of losing ones liberty or ones family members at any moment. In this episode and all the others, theres a courageous lack of sentimentality, an absolute refusal to allow good and evil to be distributed along color lines. Although most of the characters in Homegoing are black, the whites and Africans who populate this world are equally capable of kindness and nobility, savagery and weakness. Gyasi, who is just 26 and reportedly received more than $1 million for this book, has developed a style agile enough to reflect the remarkable range of her first novel. As she moves across the centuries, from old and new Ghana and to pre-Civil War Alabama and modern-day Palo Alto, Calif., her prose modulates subtly according to time and setting: The 18th-century chapters resonate with the tones of legend, while the contemporary chapters shine with clear-eyed realism. And somehow all this takes place in the miraculous efficiency of just 300 pages. During a chapter set in the mid-20th century, a teacher in Ghana tells his students, We believe the one who has the power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So, when you study history, you must always ask yourself, whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Gyasi has found several of those suppressed people and given them voices that are truly captivating. Ron Charles is the editor of Book World. You can follow him on Twitter @RonCharles. Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. (Adriane White) We need to ask ourselves if artistic excellence is the ultimate goal. Other things may be more important. She said it. Sitting on the stage of the Meyerhoff concert hall in Baltimore last week, the conductor Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, stated a question thats been lurking around the edges of the orchestra world. That is: Is the main purpose of orchestras to play great music, as well as humanly possible? And if not, what is it? Never before have our large institutions been subject to such a string of existential questions. How do we justify the continued existence of our [orchestras, newspapers, insert institution of your choice here]? How do we make these institutions relevant to an audience that is pulling away, finding other ways to get music and information? The scrutiny isnt necessarily a bad thing, but its shining a light on some unexpected baggage. Alsops statement came at the start of the annual conference of the League of American Orchestras, which was held in Baltimore last week, and which this year aspired to tackle the timely topic of diversity. Today, 85 percent of American orchestra players are Caucasian; 8 percent are Asian, a growing number, and less than 2 percent are African American. And thats not even counting the audiences. How do you broaden this musics appeal? Should you even try? Ive heard from more than one reader over the years averring that an orchestras role is simply to play the music of Beethoven, Brahms and their ilk: Forget contemporary stuff, much less diversity. You cant change the canon, opined Alex Laing, the principal clarinet of the Phoenix Symphony, in a panel discussion at the start of the proceedings. But Earl Lewis, the head of the Mellon Foundation the main remaining funder of the orchestral world challenged him with the precedent, in literary circles, of resistance to black women writers for years before Alice Walker and Toni Morrison finally got their due. It just takes time. You have to look ahead 15 years, not five years, he said, or youll get frustrated. A member of the BSO OrchKids program rehearses for the orchestras centennial concert in February. (Jordan August) Over the course of the conferences first day, Alsop and her orchestra demonstrated to their colleagues what other concerns, apart from artistic excellence, might occupy an orchestra and what diversity might look like. In the afternoon, the league members were treated to a vivid performance by members of OrchKids, the program Alsop helped launch eight years ago for inner-city children, and which now works with some 2,000 kids. Orchestras these days are fond of presenting educational initiatives as panaceas for the problem of audience decline; I hold that the decline in audiences and in music education are both symptoms of the same societal shift, rather than cause and effect. But its hard to argue with the kind of concrete, day-to-day work that OrchKids has done with these students, who, in a rainbow of bright T-shirts, sang along to Sibeliuss Finlandia and danced while playing New Orleans-style brass. [After years of crouching, arts ed is raising its hand again.] In the evening, the BSO showed another face of community involvement with a performance of Coplands Appalachian Spring, accompanied by a reconstruction of the Martha Graham choreography, danced by high school students from the Baltimore School for the Arts. No, the dancers werent professional. Yes, it was still a worthwhile performance. The concert also included a world premiere by James Lee III, Thurgoods Rhapsody, a big, intense burst of music (one of 10 short works commissioned for the orchestras centennial by the company Classical Movements); Thomas Adess Polaris, during which the orchestra beta-tested a smartphone app with accompanying program notes; and an exuberant performance of Ravels second suite from Daphnis and Chloe, with the offstage chorus sounding woody and feral and the orchestra and Alsop sounding notably liberated. In short, there was something for everyone, including some interesting hypotheses about an orchestras role. [Baltimore Symphony Orchestras centennial gala hits all the right notes.] Meanwhile, down the road in College Park, the National Orchestral Institute the annual training ground at the University of Maryland for gifted young musicians is taking a different kind of look at orchestras futures. The NOI is right in line with ongoing concerns about diversity; this year, it partnered with the Sphinx Foundation, devoted to promoting diversity in the arts. Its also eager to broaden the canon. Saturday nights concert, led by U-Md.s conducting guru James Ross, focused entirely on the music of American composers and was recorded for future CD release by the label Naxos, now in the second year of partnership with the institute. Administrators are concerned about the future of orchestras, but these young players certainly didnt sound so. The clock turned back to the 1930s with the eager, impassioned first symphony by Samuel Barber, in a performance as vivid as any youre likely to encounter. Neither of the other two pieces on the program was any more familiar. Samuel Adams, son of the composer John, who is forging a starry career for himself already, was represented with the 2012 piece Drift and Providence, an evocative onomotopaeic five-movement tone poem about the sea, with an unobtrusive computer soundscape holding out tones gently, like the last rays of sunlight on a distant ocean horizon. Least striking was Randall Thompsons second symphony, but that wasnt the players fault: It was just too controlled, too mannered, dating itself with the lush, almost big-band sound of its second movement, and betraying its restraint in its inability to let go with the hoe-downing movement of its fourth. An underlying problem with orchestras that no one explicitly addressed last week: Theyre so mired in their sense of exalted purpose that theyre often not much fun. Getting away from excellence may mean, in part, just getting away from the straitjacket of tradition. Both of these concerts were useful reminders that the point of the exercise is not worshiping at familiar altars, but making music. If only its not too late to get audiences to listen. The National Orchestral Institutes concerts continue on Saturday, conducted by Teddy Abrams, and June 25, conducted by Osmo Vanska, at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will conclude its season with the Verdi Requiem on Friday through Sunday; see bsomusic.org. Lin-Manuel Miranda performs with the cast of Hamilton at the 70th Annual Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) The Tony Awards on Sunday night were a bonanza for Hamilton, as Broadways wildly popular hit musical collected an impressive 11 prizes, including the coveted one for best musical. While the results reflected the widespread audience and critical acclaim for Lin-Manuel Mirandas hip-hop biography of Alexander Hamilton, they did not quite match the record 12 prizes bestowed on the musical The Producers in 2001. Miranda scooped up two statuettes himself, for best book and best score of a musical. Among the shows other wins were in the categories of direction (Thomas Kail), choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler), orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire), supporting actress (Renee Elise Goldsberry) and supporting actor (Daveed Diggs). In a mild surprise, Mirandas co-star Leslie Odom Jr., who plays Aaron Burr to Mirandas Alexander Hamilton, beat him for best actor in a musical. The show celebrated victories, too, in the design categories of costumes and lighting. Its attempt to break the 15-year-old record of The Producers, however, was thwarted by David Rockwell, a winner for the set of the revival of the musical She Loves Me, and by a sterling performer in another show, Cynthia Erivo, who plays tragic-to-triumphant Celie in the acclaimed revival of The Color Purple. Such was the power of Erivos performance that she managed to hold back the Hamilton tide and win as best actress in a musical. Her show, too, took home the trophy for best revival of a musical. Cynthia Erivo of The Color Purple performs at the Tonys. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) Still, Hamilton was able to win in all but two of the 13 categories in which it earned 16 nominations, almost half of the evenings 24-category take a pretty remarkable achievement. [The complete list of the 2016 Tony Award winners] The traditional ebullience of the Tony Awards the ceremony in which excellence is rewarded by 800 industry voters for productions that opened in the past season in one of Broadways 40-odd theaters was tempered by the news of the massacre earlier in the day in an Orlando nightclub. Producers of the ceremony announced that they were dedicating the event to the shooting victims, and some minor changes were made to take note of the mass killing. For the interlude from Hamilton, for example introduced by video by President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama it was decided that the number would be performed without the muskets used in the show. And Broadway costume designer William Ivey Long, head of the American Theatre Wing, which runs the Tony Awards with the Broadway League, created a special silver ribbon that attendees wore to honor those killed in Florida. In his opening monologue at the Tony Awards host James Corden addressed this mornings shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. All around the world people are trying to come to terms with the horrific events, Corden said. All we can say is you are not on your own right now Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. (Courtesy The Tony Awards) An emotional Miranda accepted the first of his awards, for best score, by reciting what he described as a sonnet that included allusions to the violence of the type in Orlando that has become so prevalent in American life. Love is love is love is love, Miranda said, declaring that it cant be killed or swept aside. He then grabbed the awards presenter, songwriter Carole King, in a bear hug. Lin-Manuel Miranda gives heartfelt Tonys speech] The night was auspicious, too, for playwright Stephen Karam, whose tragicomic family drama The Humans was named best new play. Actors Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell won for their supporting work in Karams piece, an exploration of the financial, medical and emotional pressures bearing down on an average family in Americas declining middle class. Noting that The Humans is an ensemble piece for six actors, a delighted Houdyshell said: No one of us could do what we do without the other five. And Ivo van Hove, in contention for his work on two productions this season, was voted best director of a play for his captivating revival of Arthur Millers A View From the Bridge. Van Hoves rawly innovative staging earned it the Tony for best revival of a play, as well. [Broadways man of the moment: Ivo van Hove] Best actor in a play went to Frank Langella, for his turn as a man drowning in dementia in The Father, and Jessica Lange scored her first Tony for her portrayal of the hopelessly addicted Mary Tyrone in Roundabout Theatre Companys revival of Long Days Journey Into Night. It fills me with such happiness, even on such a sad day as this, Lange said. Langella devoted the entirety of his brief remarks to the Florida massacre. Of tragedy in general, he said, We have three choices: We let it define us, we let it destroy us, or we let it strengthen us. Today in Orlando, we had a high dose of reality. And I urge you, Orlando, to be strong. By virtue of its extraordinarily high profile Miranda has appeared on the covers of Time and Rolling Stone and Michelle Obama publicly described the show as the best piece of art in any form I have ever seen in my life Hamilton was destined to be a focal point of the telecast. CBS had been aggressively promoting the musicals appearance on the show, and host James Corden made it the focal point of several gags. 1 of 80 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Scenes from the 2016 Tony Awards red carpet View Photos See what the stars are wearing at the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre. Caption See what the stars are wearing at the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre. Host James Corden and Julia Carey attend the 70th Annual Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre in New York City. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions Wait 1 second to continue. So the show opened, of course, with a parody Hamilton number featuring several of its cast members and Corden, who assured the audience that in addition to mentions of the show, the telecast would also feature some commercial breaks. In a fresh recurring segment, the cameras went outside the theater, where nominated artists performed Broadway show tunes of their choosing. It mimicked the popular free #Ham4Ham performances Miranda stages frequently with actors from various Broadway shows, outside Hamiltons Richard Rodgers Theatre. The diversity of the evenings nominees served, too, as a noteworthy counterpoint to the 2016 Oscars, which came under fire from some quarters for their total shutout of actors of color. While there were no nonwhites recognized in the 20 slots of the Academy Awards four acting categories, a total of 14 actors of color were nominated for Tonys this year, out of 40 total slots. (The Tonys dole out acting awards separately for plays and musicals.) Of those 14, four actors of color won, in all four musical categories. [Oscars, Tonys, Emmys: Which one is more diverse?] For some nominated shows, the paltrier results could spell box-office trouble. Some nominated productions struggling to build an audience depend on the promotional value of Tony wins. On Sunday night, the musicals Shuffle Along, Or the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, Waitress, School of Rock and Bright Star all failed to garner a single Tony. Only a juggernaut of the magnitude of Hamilton could be looked upon as having slightly underperformed with a tally of 11 wins. And in spite of that, it was clearly Miranda and Hamiltons night. In his acceptance speech, Hamilton director Kail summed up his debt to the shows creator. I exist to try to take what you have given, he said, addressing Miranda, and bring honor to that. Q: I have a basket that was a gift. Its from Liberia and about 50 years old. Its coming unsewn. Where can I get it repaired? Washington A: The answer depends partly on what your goals are. If you want the basket to look as good as possible but arent concerned about 100 percent authenticity, Ginnie Porter, owner of Baskets Old and New in Port Townsend, Wash. (253-370-4978; basketsoldandnew.com), probably can help you. She specializes in restoring vintage Native American baskets from the Northwest and Southwest, but she said she probably could repair your African basket using fibers that match fairly well. Porter cautioned, however, that the job might not be cost-effective. She charges $35 an hour, and repairs typically start at $100 and sometimes run into a few thousand dollars. You should probably try to figure out what the basket is worth, she suggested in an email. Of course, sentimental value is also part of the equation. If the sentimental value of this gift is high, the safest route is to consult a conservator who specializes in baskets. Most conservators offer a free assessment and then a range of possible treatments, with estimated costs. The American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works offers a find a conservator service on its website ( conservation-us.org). To locate someone who works on baskets, do an advanced search and select objects and reeds/grasses. If you want to get the basket back to usable condition but cant afford to have it restored professionally, you might want to do strategic repairs yourself, using a stout needle and fishing line, suggests Cael Chappell, founder of Baskets of Africa (basketsofafrica.com), an Albuquerque shop that imports baskets from many areas of Africa. Fishing line isnt historically accurate, but neither is newly harvested material. Chappell said that when his mother-in-law had some Apache baskets repaired, the weaver salvaged materials from another damaged Apache basket of the same vintage. He collects damaged antique baskets so he can do the repairs for customers, Chappell wrote in an email. Chappell doesnt know of anyone who has Liberian baskets from 50 years ago, however. A similar perspective came from Sweetgrass Baskets and Palm in Hanahan, S.C. (843-478-4522; sweetgrasspalm.com). This company offers a basket-repair service in addition to making new baskets based on traditional coiled styles from West Africa. But because the company uses native South Carolina bulrush, it couldnt repair your basket, a representative said. The materials wouldnt match. The website of the National Museum of African Art (africa.si.edu) in Washington, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution, says that it offers free consultations with conservators. But it has discontinued that service, said Frank Esposito, who used to handle reservations for the consultations. Im getting transferred out of the country and would like to donate my furniture . I have a sofa, a coffee table, end tables, lamps, a bed, nightstands, a dresser and two dining tables, each with four chairs. How can I arrange a pickup? Alexandria Several area nonprofit organizations pick up used furniture in good condition, give you a note confirming your donation and then sell the items to help finance their work. If you want to claim a tax deduction for the value, there are a few important things to do. First, choose a nonprofit that has been recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as eligible to receive tax-deductible donations. To check an organizations status, go to the IRS website (irs.gov) and type EO Select Check into the search box. Organizations sometimes have legal names that are different from what they use publicly, so if you find nothing on the first search, try searching via the organizations federal Employer Identification Number. Thats listed on the Form 990 tax return, which many charities post on their websites. Second, get a receipt. If it doesnt list what youve donated, write in the specifics yourself. Be aware that you, not the organization, need to establish the value of your donation following IRS rules. The IRS has a useful publication, Determining the Value of Donated Property, which you can find on its website by typing the publication number, 561, into the search box. These nonprofits near you qualify for tax-deductible donations and offer pickup service for used furniture: Habitat for Humanity (703-360-6700; habitatnova.org). Union Mission Ministries (757-627-8686, Ext. 604; unionmissionministries.org ). United Community Ministries (703-799-7015; ucmagency.org). Vietnam Veterans of America (888-518-8387; vvapickup.org). AMVETS (800-526-8387; amvetspickup.org). Have a problem in your home? Send questions to localliving@washpost.com . Put How To in the subject line, tell us where you live and try to include a photo. Speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz with Michelle Obama on a flight from Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland, to Santa Fe, N.M., where the first lady delivered a commencement address last month. (Chuck Kennedy/The White House) When Sarah Hurwitz sits down at her laptop, she puts on her noise-blocking headphones and imagines Michelle Obamas exacting voice in her head. The voice might say: No, that transition is clumsy. Or: Are we really telling this story in a way that honors these people? Hurwitz, the first ladys head speechwriter, has written for the Obamas for eight years and for Michelle Obama exclusively for nearly seven. The two have worked so closely together that nearly every word the first lady has spoken in public has been written or edited by Hurwitz. As I write for her now, Im sort of editing the speech with her voice in my head because shes given me so much feedback over the years and been so clear about what she wants, Hurwitz said between sips of water at a Penn Quarter coffee shop two blocks from the White House. The 38-year-old Harvard Law School grad is an Obama original, one of the few remaining staff members who joined the White House straight from the 2008 campaign. She started that cycle, though, as Hillary Clintons chief speechwriter. Two days after Clinton conceded defeat with a memorable speech hailing 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling, the Obama team called to offer Hurwitz a job. [How Michelle Obama came around on Hillary Clinton and delivered a stunning convention speech] She was first assigned to write for the candidates wife when Obama was preparing to reintroduce herself to the world at the Denver convention, after a period when she had been caricatured as angry, elitist and unpatriotic. Michelle Obamas speech at the 2008 Democratic convention, authored by Hurwitz, helped boost her popularity. (Preston Keres/The Washington Post) Hurwitz was hesitant and wondered whether Obama would be suspicious of her after the brutal primary campaign. She wasnt. Their second meeting was a 90-minute conversation in the living room of the Obamas Chicago home. [Transcript: Read Michelle Obamas full speech from the 2016 DNC] She clearly said to me: Okay, this is who I am. This is where I come from. This is my family. These are my values, and this is what I want to talk about at the convention, Hurwitz recalled. I realized then that Michelle Obama knows who she is, and she always knows what she wants to say. After trading a couple of drafts back and forth Hurwitz writing, and then rewriting, based on Obamas edits they settled on a final version that told the story of Michelle Obama as a child of Chicagos working-class South Side, a woman who had long been skeptical of politics but who believed in her husbands ability to make a difference. Hailed as a high point of the convention, it sent Obamas popularity soaring. Speechwriters were not historically part of the first ladys staff not even for Eleanor Roosevelt, who gave at least 1,300 speeches during her time in the job, according to Myra Gutin, a historian and author ofThe Presidents Partner: The First Lady in the Twentieth Century until Lady Bird Johnson tapped press secretary Liz Carpenter to help her craft public addresses. First ladies these days are expected to deliver an increasing number of speeches, each with a distinct, newsworthy point yet not about policy and rarely about politics. Which is just fine as far as Michelle Obama is concerned. First lady Michelle Obama addressed the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia July 25. Here are some highlights from that speech. (Video: Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post; Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) She and Hurwitz seem to have chosen an understated oratorical style, Gutin said. Its a gentle way of making a suggestion. Its not the kind of thing that hits you over the head. In a commencement address before Tuskegee University, in Alabama, last year, the first lady took on the topic of race first by describing the pressure that students at the historically black college face trying to live up to the achievements of earlier generations of African American trailblazers, and then acknowledging that she could relate to that stress. Back when my husband first started campaigning for president, folks had all sorts of questions of me: What kind of first lady would I be? What kinds of issues would I take on? . . . But, as potentially the first African American first lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations, conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others. Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emasculating? Or was I too soft, too much of a mom, not enough of a career woman? [We spent decades dreaming up the perfect female president. She doesnt exist.] Tyler Lechtenberg, a speechwriter for the president who wrote for the first lady before moving to the West Wing, worked on that speech. She really wants to connect and to be sure theres an emotional center in every speech, he said. Shes not interested in rattling off a bunch of statistics. Obama is more interested in telling a story, and Hurwitz has come to know her personal story intimately. More often than not, Obama weaves tales of her working-class childhood in Chicago into her speeches. The key for Hurwitz is retelling that story and making it fresh. In addition to her intuitive sense of the big narrative arc of Obamas story, shell know some of the smaller stories like, what did the first lady and her brother, Craig, do at some moment, said Tina Tchen, the first ladys chief of staff. That helps. Hurwitz with other members of President Obamas speechwriting team from left, Adam Frankel, Ben Rhodes and Jon Favreau in December 2008, during the presidential transition. She has a knack for finding someones voice, former White House colleague Jon Lovett said. (Lois Raimondo/The Washington Post) A Wayland, Mass., native who got her start as a speechwriting intern for Vice President Al Gore, Hurwitz has kept a relatively low profile during her White House years, even as some of her colleagues notably Jon Favreau, who hired her have become personalities in their own right or taken their credentials to Hollywood in search of screenwriting careers. [Deesha Dyer: How a hip-hop lover from Philly became social secretary] In the East Wing, she oversees just one other writer, David Cavell, who works in an adjacent office; they often yell through the wall to exchange thoughts on a project. The hours are long; there always seems to be some important event looming. Hurwitz has made efforts to focus on her personal life by taking classes on Judaism and exercising regularly although her time on the elliptical is sometimes interrupted by a burst of inspiration, and she will jump off the machine and tap out an email to herself with an idea of how to turn something the first lady brought up in a meeting into prose. Yet the first ladys lawyerly sense of organization has made the job easier. Michelle Obama has been known to practice big speeches word for word, weeks in advance, and rarely orders last-minute changes. Hurwitz was with her boss in New Mexico recently, where she got to see how one of Obamas final commencement speeches resonated with its audience, at the Santa Fe Indian School. It drew a sharp connection between her enslaved ancestors and the painful early history of the 126-year-old school. Michelle Obama accepts a gift from a student at Santa Fe Indian School at its May commencement. In a speech, the first lady drew a connection between their schools history and that of her ancestors. (Mary Hudetz/Associated Press) Graduating seniors at Santa Fe Indian School. (Mary Hudetz/Associated Press) This school was founded as part of a deliberate, systematic effort to extinguish your culture; to literally annihilate who you were and what you believed in. But look at you today, the first lady said to applause. The native languages that were once strictly forbidden here now echo through hallways and in your dorm-room conversations at night. Hurwitz said she got lost in the moment even though she had helped to craft the words. I thought to myself, I am watching the great-great-granddaughter of a slave give a speech to a room of Native American kids, [and] the vast majority of them are going to college, and many to Ivy League schools, Hurwitz said. To see that this is a great country. Former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray departs after casting his ballot at Precinct 113 in Ward 7 in Washington. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post) Democrats who vote in the Districts primary Tuesday will decide the makeup of the D.C. Council for the next two years, including whether former mayor Vincent C. Gray will return to public life. Gray is seeking a political comeback as a Ward 7 council member after federal prosecutors announced in December that they would halt a five-year investigation into illegal financing of his successful 2010 run for mayor. Six of Grays friends and associates pleaded guilty in the scandal; he was never charged. [For Vincent Gray, Tuesday is a referendum on his past] Because three out of every four voters in the District are registered Democrats, the primary election is tantamount to the general election. Polls in the city open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. In Virginia, there are contested primaries in three of the states 11 congressional districts, some of which were turned upside down by a recent court ruling redrawing the congressional district map. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Ward 7 candidate Yvette Alexander poses for a photo with a ballot station worker inside the gymnasium of the Highlands Elementary School on Tuesday. (Christian K. Lee/The Washington Post) Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) opted against running for reelection in his Richmond-area 4th District and is instead trying for a win in the 2nd District, anchored by Virginia Beach. He faces a challenge from Del. Scott W. Taylor (R-Virginia Beach), a former Navy SEAL, and attorney Pat Cardwell. Democrats think they have a good chance of turning Forbess old district blue. Under the new boundaries, the district gained African American voters who reliably vote for Democrats, according to exit polls. In that district, Sen. A. Donald McEachin (D-Henrico) is taking on Ella Ward, a council member in Chesapeake City; both candidates are black. In addition to a contested GOP primary in the 4th District, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) will face a lesser-known challenger, Harry Griego, in the 6th District, which includes Roanoke and Lynchburg. Locally, there is also an unusual Democratic primary, with the sitting Arlington County Board chair facing a primary challenge for the first time in 14 years. Libby Garvey , a first-term incumbent, aggravated party activists two years ago when she supported a Republican running as an independent against another Democrat in a County Board race. Newcomer Erik Gutshall has been hammering away at Garveys record on the board. Since Virginia voters do not register by party, the primary is open to any registered voter in the county. Garvey has been soliciting Republicans and independents as well as her Democratic supporters. Gutshall is relying on motivated Democratic stalwarts to vote. In the District, Democrats will also weigh in on the race for their partys presidential nomination, although it seems a futile exercise, as front-runner Hillary Clinton secured enough delegates last week to vanquish Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Former president Bill Clinton, in the District on Saturday, appeared at a farmers market on Capitol Hill to meet voters and try to stir up some interest in Tuesdays vote. The race between Gray and incumbent D.C. Council member Yvette Alexander will be decided at the ward level, with voters mostly east of the Anacostia River making the call. With only a handful of such intensely local contests in play, Anita Bonds, chairwoman of the D.C. Democratic Party on Monday recorded a robo-call delivered to 80,000 homes before dinner, urging Democrats to turn out and vote. Its important that you express your right that so many people have died for, Bonds, an at-large D.C. Council member, said on the call. A spokesman for Bonds said the call was intended to be neutral, not favoring any candidate, and was paid for by the party. D.C. Democrats have struggled with historically low turnout in recent primaries. [Dead last again D.C. voters chafe at a trivial vote.] In 2014, when the mayors office was up for grabs, turnout was the partys worst in at least three decades, with about a quarter of registered voters going to the polls. Before that, turnout in a mayoral race had never dipped below 30 percent of registered voters. Political observers attributed part of the low turnout that year to the date April 1, the earliest a local primary had ever been held. But some voters blamed continued scandals in D.C. politics and others said the citys improving economy may have muted concerns about the functioning of city government. Last year, however, turnout was even weaker for a special election to fill openings created by Muriel E. Bowsers ascension to the mayors office and Marion Barrys death. A rematch in that race, between incumbent LaRuby May and challenger Trayon White, could be the closest contest Tuesday. In the crowded special election last April, May topped White by fewer than 100 votes. In Ward 4, Council member Brandon Todd, a former campaign finance chairman for Bowser, faces his biggest threat from Leon Andrews, who has questioned Todds support for the Pepco-Exelon merger and close backing of other Bowser policies. In the at-large race, Council member Vincent Orange is facing challengers Robert White and David Garber. Jenna Portnoy and Patricia Sullivan contributed to this report. The 1,775 Stanford University undergraduates who received their degrees at Sunday mornings commencement ceremony here paraded into the football stadium dressed as dinosaurs, astronauts, crayons, lions, 1920s flappers and Roman soldiers. Its an annual tradition known as the Wacky Walk, a carnival of costumes that enlivens the customary uniformity of dark caps and gowns. Mingled amid the comic and the outlandish were students bearing a more serious message: Criticism that efforts to address sexual assault at Stanford and on other college campuses across the country are still inadequate. Graduating seniors held signs reading, Teach Your Son Not to Rape, Stanford Protects Rapists, and 125 Years of Rape Culture, an allusion to the fact that this years commencement was the universitys 125th. Protest and discussion of sexual assault at Stanford was catapulted into the national media spotlight this month, after Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced former Stanford student Brock Turner to six months in jail for sexual assaulting an unconscious woman outside a fraternity party in January 2015. The victims eloquent statement about the effects of the attack, published online, has been viewed millions of times. Two graduating seniors, Brianne Huntsman and Jonathan Fiske, helped organize Sundays protest at commencement. Were using momentum from this case to bring light to broader issues, said Fiske, who earned a bachelors degree in earth systems. Its a big PR issue. Stanford likes to keep this pristine image and sweep things under the rug. A judge sentenced Brock Turner to 6 months in jail for sexually assaulting a woman on campus. The light sentence drew harsh criticism. His victim, who has chosen to not be named, spoke directly to him in a court statement. Here's what she said. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post) [Did you rage? In Stanford sexual assault case, court records shed new light] Stanford, in official statements and news releases, has sought to shift the conversation away from Palo Alto by noting that the Turner case is just one example of a much broader national problem not unique to this elite campus. Many students argue that much more can be done at Stanford. Jackson Beard, an international relations major from Chicago, interacts regularly with the Stanford administration in her capacity as president of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). On May 12, shortly after being elected president on a campaign platform that emphasized addressing the issue of sexual violence, Beard emailed a top Stanford official to discuss ideas for making improvements. She said she received a response that appeared dismissive and then never heard back on her request to set up a meeting. It was very disheartening, she said. Ive been very proud of how many students in our community feel the urgency and importance of this issue. It remains unclear to me at this point whether that same sense of urgency is shared by the higher levels of the administration. Beard has many suggestions on how Stanford could increase campus safety, including better lighting throughout the many dark areas on the sprawling 8,000-acre campus, additional surveillance cameras at key campus locations, making rape kits available at Stanfords hospital or health clinic (San Jose, about a half-hour drive away, is the closest available location), increasing staff for counselors and therapists, better education, and more transparency from the administration. [Prosecutors urged substantial prison term in Stanford sexual assault case, records show] Paul Harrison, center, carries a sign of protest during Stanford Universitys commencement at Stanford Stadium, Sunday, June 12, 2016. (D. Ross Cameron/AP) Stanfords budget next year has allocated $2.7 million for expanded programs to combat sexual violence. Lisa Lapin, a Stanford spokeswoman, said this will fund a range of counselors and staff in multiple university offices. The Turner assault happened behind a dumpster, close to what undergraduates refer to as the scary path, because it is unpaved and unlit and is hedged in by dense shrubs. Stanford created a task force in response to the safety concerns of students who use the path at night and has hung signs discouraging its use. Lapin said that Stanford tries to discourage students from being in areas that are not well lit. We tell our students that if they feel unsafe, they shouldnt be in those darker areas, Lapin said. Stay on the lighted paths. Elliot Kaufman, a junior who is managing editor of the Stanford Review, a conservative campus newspaper, said the university has generally responded effectively in trying to protect students from sexual assault. Turners attack was interrupted by two Stanford graduate students who ran him down, tackled him and waited for authorities. [The Swedish Stanford students who rescued an unconscious sexual assault victim speak out] With the exception of the sentence for Turner, which was not Stanfords decision, the system seems to have worked, Kaufman said. I think one danger of the controversy is that it could be used to weaken the rights of the accused. Its a delicate balance between the rights of victims and maintaining due process. Some students were more critical, singling out the schools Title IX office, which is responsible for coordinating responses to alleged sexual assault and discrimination in accordance with the federal law after which it is named. Beard said the process of investigating allegations takes too long and that the office lacks sensitivity for survivors. Mackenzie Alexis Yaryura, a public policy major from Florida, echoed the sentiment, saying, I havent heard of anyone whos had a positive experience with the Title IX office. Many parents of graduating Stanford students were eager to discuss campus safety and sexual assault over the weekend, including Loree Devery, a mother and attorney from Portland, Ore., whose daughter planned to take part in the protests. Im very concerned about what appears to be a culture of acceptance of assault on campus, Devery said. Lets not kid ourselves that this isnt happening all the time. Diana Staatz, a Stanford graduate and the mother of a graduating senior, said that although Stanford has improved since she studied there in the 1970s, theres still much more to do. Im glad its getting attention. Things like this were more hushed up and under the radar when I was here. They tried to just make the problems disappear, she said, noting that in the Turner case, Stanford reacted quickly to keep him away from the school. Its good that they sent it to the courts and banned him from campus. But we can do a whole lot better in our treatment of women in this country. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, Stanfords commencement speaker, directly addressed the issue of sexual assault, noting that he has four daughters. If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, Burns said, take it effing seriously and listen to them. This story has been updated. A Chinese fishing trawler caught 4 km south of the inter-Korean maritime border on Saturday tried to make a dash for it despite having 14 South Korean coast guards on board. Coast guards in Incheon said the 50-ton Chinese trawler was captured at 4:40 p.m. on Saturday around 50 km off the coast of Yeonpyeong Island. The seven fishermen turned tail when the coast guards began their pursuit. Officials caught up with them around 5 km south of the Northern Limit Line, and 14 maritime police boarded the vessel ordering it to stop. But the crew ignored the order, shut themselves in the wheelhouse and carried on for another kilometer until the coast guards finally managed to bring them to a halt just 4 km south of the NLL by covering up the engine's air vents, and forcing the engine to stop. One coast guard said, "If we'd failed to stop the Chinese trawler, we would have had to give up the chase before it crossed the NLL." A report found that black and Latino students are suspended and referred to law enforcement at higher rates than their white classmates in Alexandria, Va. (Alex Wong/GETTY IMAGES) A civil rights advocacy group argues that the Alexandria public school system has failed to fully implement reforms that could help cut suspensions and law enforcement referrals among black and Hispanic students, who are suspended and charged with crimes at far higher rates than their white classmates. The Advancement Project report examined discipline data from the 2014-2015 school year and found that black students were nine times as likely as their white classmates to receive short-term suspensions in the Northern Virginia city; Hispanic students received short-term suspensions at four times the rate of white students. Black students also were far more likely than white students to be referred to police for offenses that dont require law enforcement involvement, such as defiance. The disparities in Alexandria mirror a national trend, with black students nearly four times as likely to be suspended from the nations schools as white students, according to federal data from the 2013-2014 school year. U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr. said the national data should give people a tremendous sense of urgency about continuing to close our equity gaps. [New federal civil rights data show persistent racial gaps in discipline, access to advanced coursework] Advancement Project advocates have pushed for Alexandria schools to implement a restorative-justice program, one that focuses less on punishment and more on repairing the harm that bad behavior causes. City school officials rebutted the reports findings, highlighting the work they have done to train teachers and staff members in what they termed restorative practices. They have trained all 10th-grade English teachers in how to run community circles, opportunities for frank dialogue among students that are intended to build relationships and deter conflicts, and also have trained many faculty in the International Academy, a special program for recent immigrants housed within T.C. Williams High. School system spokeswoman Helen Lloyd said Alexandria has used restorative practices and paired them with shorter suspensions, so the impact of the program is not necessarily reflected in school suspension data. The citys program, begun in 2013, earned Cs, Ds and Fs from the Advancement Project, and the report criticizes the school system for failing to hire a restorative-justice coordinator and for not training enough staff. When it came to objective offenses such as alcohol possession or possession of a BB gun black students made up about 38 percent of total law enforcement referrals when blacks constituted 31 percent of the student body, according to the report. But for discretionary offenses, such as disorderly conduct or defiance, black students made up 61 percent of law enforcement referrals. The report says the numbers suggest that administrators and police, when they exercise discretion, are treating black students more harshly for behaviors like talking back or insubordination. The report noted clear evidence that racial discrimination is playing a role in how students are treated. When its really up to the teachers or the staff at the school as to whether theyre referred or not, we see that black students are far more likely to be referred for those types of behavior, said Oscar Lopez, a staff attorney at the Advancement Project. In an editorial published in The Washington Post, T.C. Williams students Elizabeth Tibebu and Salem Mesfin said that they have seen a black student suspended for talking back to a teacher, yet white students merely get sent out of the room for similar behavior. Students from Alexandria United Teens which helped compile the report also told Superintendent Alvin Crawley last week that they had seen no evidence of a restorative-practice or restorative-justice program in the citys schools. [Students seek justice in Alexandria schools] Crawley pushed back, writing in a response to the teens that the school system is solving the problem with a thoughtful strategy. While I appreciate the perspective of our student authors, contrary to the assertion that ACPS has not moved forward since 2013 with restorative practices, there have been a number of steps taken to institute restorative practices at T.C. Williams High School, Crawley wrote. These steps are part of our larger efforts to implement positive behavior support activities that impact school climate and reduce rates of suspensions. [Letter to the editor: Restorative practices are part of the solution in Alexandrias public schools] The report found that school officials are moving slowly to make changes while suspension rates for students at T.C. Williams, the districts only high school and the states largest, continue to rise. In 2014-2015, 11.5 percent of black students were suspended, compared with 3.9 percent in the previous school year. Across the city, 93 percent of suspensions for behavioral issues were given to black and Hispanic students; the two groups made up 66 percent of the student body that year. Julie A. Crawford, Alexandrias chief of student services, alternative programs and equity, urged patience. She said the school system is in Year 2 of a five-year rollout of the restorative-justice program. She added that the district also is training staff members in cultural competency, with the aim of reducing racial disparities. But Jennifer Farmer, spokeswoman for the Advancement Project, said the problem demands urgency: To tell people to be patient in the face of these types of dramatic disparities is laughable. The Four Freedoms Flag, or United Nations Honor Flag, is displayed with the Stars and Stripes in this 1943 photos. Its four bars symbolize freedom of speech, of worship, from want and from fear. (John Collier/Library of Congress) Brooks B. Harding was many things in his life before he found his true calling: designing a flag that was briefly as famous as any banner in the free world. Seventy years ago, you would have seen his flag flying all over Washington. Today, its largely forgotten. Harding was born in 1896 and raised in Humboldt, Neb. He was an aviator, and during World War I, he trained other pilots. After the war, he barnstormed across the Midwest, offering airplane rides and dropping advertising leaflets from his cockpit. Harding switched careers and became a Hollywood casting agent. Then he moved to Gloversville, N.Y., and switched careers again, operating a factory that made novelty furniture. Whatever novelty furniture is, it didnt hold Hardings interest, especially not once World War II began. Our way of life was at risk, and Harding wanted to make a contribution. What the Allies needed, he decided, was a flag that all of their citizens could fly, a flag that symbolized their commitment to defeating fascism, a flag that symbolized what they were fighting for. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had urged Americans to fly the flags of each country in what were called the United Nations. This wasnt todays international body, but the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and China and those countries that had lined up behind them to fight the Axis powers. The list eventually grew to include 47 countries, and supporting players ranged from important military allies such as Canada and Australia to tiny Haiti and Ethiopia. That was far too many flags to fit on anyones pole. So Harding went to work. He sketched out designs and created fabric examples. He moved his family to Washington and made the rounds of the embassies here, looking for feedback. Most was not encouraging. His early efforts were a clash of symbols and colors. At the Czechoslovakian Embassy, the first secretary, Vladimir Palic, folded one of Hardings samples into smaller and smaller squares until just the canton the top inner corner of the flag was visible. Pointing dramatically, Palic announced: There, Mr. Harding, is your flag! It was rather simple: four pillars, bright red on a field of white. But the simplicity made it memorable and underscored its symbolic power. The four vertical bars represented the Four Freedoms that FDR had outlined in a 1941 address: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Harding scrambled to have the flag made. He enlisted a Washington seamstress named Sue Siady to worked overtime to sew what was being called the United Nations Honor Flag or the Four Freedoms Flag. It was first formally displayed in Washington on June 14, 1943, Flag Day. A week later, it was raised at Dumbarton Oaks, the Georgetown estate where, a year later, the seeds of todays United Nations were planted. Harding recommended that half-size versions of the flag be flown beneath the Stars and Stripes. He toured the country, promoting his flag and meeting with representatives of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Daughters of the American Revolution. It is in no way a flag of a super-government, he reassured people. Its function is to put a psychological floor under international relations so that those nations and peoples dedicated to the cause of winning the war and maintaining the peace may visually indicate their solidarity of purpose and demonstrate their mutual regard for each other. The flag caught on. Youll spot it in old photos and on newspaper graphics illustrating the Allied advance across Europe. The British even included the design on packets of cigarettes distributed to their soldiers. Harding must have hoped that, after the war, his flag would be adopted by the United Nations, but the now familiar blue U.N. flag was chosen instead. The Honor Flag became a curious footnote. Harding stayed in Washington, where he published the World Flag Encyclopedia and lectured on flag history. He established a flag lending library in his rented Sherier Place NW home. He had more than 3,000 to choose from, renting flags out when foreign heads of state visited. He had an area downstairs in the basement in which those flags were, said a son, Brooks Harding Jr., 76. Then whenever he needed them, hed take them upstairs and put them in the car and drive them to wherever. Brooks Jr. remembers helping his father fill Washington National Cathedral with Union Jacks for Queen Elizabeths 1957 visit. Brooks Harding died in 1959 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where the snap of fabric in the breeze and the sound of halyard against flagpole is a constant reminder of sacrifice. Twitter: @johnkelly For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly. District Man fatally shot on F Street in Southeast A man was shot and killed a few minutes after midnight Sunday, D.C. police said. They said Antonio Leach, 23, of Southeast was killed in the 4400 block of F Street SE. Martin Weil MARYLAND Crash in White Oak injures at least three At least two pedestrians and two vehicles were involved in a crash Sunday afternoon in Montgomery County, authorities said. The crash occurred in the 11500 block of Lockwood Drive, in the White Oak area, according to county fire and rescue spokesman Pete Piringer. He said three people, apparently including the two pedestrians, were taken to hospitals with what appeared to be serious injuries. Martin Weil VIRGINIA Fairfax townhouses damaged in fire Townhouses in Fairfax County were severely damaged by fire Sunday. The blaze broke out in the 2800 block of Pine Spring Road, according to the county fire department. The site is in the West Falls Church area of the county, just inside the Capital Beltway.There was no immediate report of injury. Faiz Siddiqui and Martin Weil THE REGION Hot here, but not so hot as Saturday It was hot again Sunday, with temperatures in the 90s at the three major airports. But it wasnt as hot as Saturday. At Dulles International Airport, it was 91 degrees Sunday, four below Saturdays 95, which set a record there for June 11. At Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport, and at Reagan National Airport, it was 93. It might be thought that temperature records rise each day as the peak hot-weather season approaches. But it does not always turn out that way. Saturdays high at National of 96 was higher than Sundays record, which was 95 degrees. But the record for Washington for Saturdays date is 101 degrees, according to National Weather Service records. It was set in 1911, a time without air conditioning. Even without a heat index to help gauge discomfort, it is hard to see how that day was less than miserable. Martin Weil Wind topples trees around area A breezy day brought down trees and branches in the region, with one tree hitting a car in Montgomery County and another blocking a road in Fairfax County. No injuries were reported after the car was struck in the Rockville area on Twinbrook Parkway. In Fairfax, a tree fell in the 4500 block of Olley Lane. Martin Weil THE DISTRICT Anti-gay graffiti is investigated D.C. police are investigating what appears to be anti-gay graffiti painted on the sidewalk in front of a Thai restaurant in Dupont Circle. Sapol Jirapanjavat, the owner of Thaiphoon, said an employee discovered the graffiti Sunday morning at the restaurant in the 2000 block of S Street NW. It reads Down with the Gay agenda in blue paint. On Monday afternoon, a local restaurant worker painted the word gun in red over the word gay to change the meaning to Down with the gun agenda. Dito Sevilla said that at first he ignored the grafitti, but by Monday afternoon it had the neighborhood abuzz. Suddenly, I got angrier and angrier, Sevilla said. It looked like the street was yelling at us at the worst time possible. The vandalism has raised new worries following Sundays mass shooting at a gay club in Orlando that killed 49 people. The graffiti was first reported on the Internet blog Borderstan. Peter Hermann VIRGINIA Police: Nude man charged with DUI Virginia police on Sunday arrested a man who they said swung a hatchet during an argument after he was mistaken for an Uber driver. At about 2:20 a.m., a U.S. Park Police officer responded to the 2300 block of South Eads Street, in Arlington, for a report of a vehicle driving erratically and nearly striking pedestrians, the Arlington County Police Department said in a statement. Before police arrived, the vehicle entered a parking lot where three individuals approached it, mistakenly thinking it was their Uber ride, the statement said. This led to an argument with the driver, Michael Monroe, 64, of Gainesville, Va., who was naked. Monroe retrieved a hatchet from the vehicle and started swinging it, police said. There were no injuries, and the three individuals wrestled the hatchet away from Monroe, the statement said. Monroe was arrested and charged with DUI, refusal and disorderly conduct, police said. Justin Wm. Moyer Man sought in coffee thefts at Starbucks Police in Virginia said they are seeking a man connected to numerous instant-coffee thefts at several Starbucks locations from April 20 to May 23. The thefts occurred at nine locations from the Franconia Police District in the Alexandria area of Fairfax County to the Reston Police District, Fairfax County police said in a statement. The man would enter the businesses and appear to talk on his cellphone while hanging around the stores. When store employees were distracted, he would allegedly load a bag with instant-coffee packets and leave, according to the statement. The perpetrator was described as black, about 30 years old and 6-foot-1, the statement said, with long dreadlocks and pock-marked skin. The man carried a black duffel bag and was seen leaving in a white Hyundai Tucson, police said. Justin Wm. Moyer Two possible drive-by shootings in McLean Fairfax County police are investigating two possible drive-by shootings, where authorities said moving vehicles were struck by what appeared to be bullets while traveling down a McLean street this weekend. The vehicles were traveling north on Old Dominion Drive late Saturday and early Sunday, said Officer Megan Hawkins, a department spokeswoman. No one was injured, she said, and both victims described seeing a white, larger sedan in both incidents. The first vehicle was on Old Dominion Drive near Falls Run Road about 11:45 p.m. Saturday, Hawkins said. At some point, the white sedan which police said could be an Audi passed the drivers vehicle and a loud bang was heard. Hawkins said a second vehicle passed the sedan around 12:10 a.m. Sunday on Old Dominion Drive near Bellview Road, and the driver told authorities there was a bang. When both victims arrived home, police said they noticed holes that appeared to be from bullets in their vehicles. Authorities ask anyone with information to contact Crime Solvers electronically by visiting fairfaxcrimesolvers.org. BLOOD DONATIONS BLOOD DRIVES Friday 1:30-6 p.m., St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St., Leesburg, 800-733-2767; June 20, 2:30-7:30 p.m., Village at Leesburg, 1614 Village Market Blvd., Leesburg; June 28, 3-8 p.m., Loudoun Valley Community Center, 320 W. School St., Purcellville, 800-733-2767; June 21, 3-7 p.m., Rust Library, 380 Old Waterford Rd., Leesburg, 866-256-6372. INOVA BLOOD DONOR CENTER Mondays noon-8 p.m., Tuesdays 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Fridays 6 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sundays noon-4 p.m. Dulles Town Center, 45745 Nokes Blvd., Sterling. 866-256-6372 or inova.org/donateblood. FIRST AID FIRST AID/ADULT, INFANT AND CHILD CPR/AED Fauquier Hospital Medical Office Building, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. Call for schedule. Registration required. HEARING DISABILITY RESOURCE CENTER Technical assistance through the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and presentations to businesses, civic groups and schools. Third Tuesdays 2-5 p.m., Workplace, 205 Keith St., Warrenton. Call for an appointment, 800-648-6324; TDD, 540-373-5890. Free. FREE HEARING TESTS Age 18 and older. Mondays-Thursdays 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. 703-858-7620. Registration required. HEARING LOSS, TINNITUS AND MENIERES SYNDROME SUPPORT For all ages, including parents of children with hearing loss. First Fridays at 2 p.m., Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2906. NORTHERN VIRGINIA RESOURCE CENTER FOR THE DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING Age 18 and older, second Tuesdays 10 a.m., Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. HEARING LOSS OUTREACH Free referrals. Fourth Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Loudoun County Workforce Center, 102 Heritage Way, Leesburg; third Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Free appointments: 703-430-2906 or nvrcloudoun@aol.com. MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE SURVIVORS Provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice. 703-771-9020. CRISISLINK Suicide and crisis intervention. The organization provides community education, has a volunteer crisis response team and offers CareRing, a daily telephone outreach program for the elderly and disabled. 703-527-6016, volunteer@crisislink.org or crisislink.org. PIEDMONT CHAPTER, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS Serves Fauquier, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock counties. Support group, education classes and events for people living with mental illness and their family members. First Wednesdays 7-9 p.m. Fauquier Hospital, 500 Hospital Dr., Sycamore Room A, Warrenton. 571-426-8213. NORTHERN VIRGINIA CHAPTER, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS A support group, classes and programs for people living with mental illness and their family members. naminorthernvirginia.org. PREGNANCY, PARENTING ADOPTIVE FAMILY PRESERVATION Adoptive families discuss common experiences; registration required. Third Tuesdays 12:30-2 p.m. Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd. Call 703-941-9008, Ext. 23, or email jmellerio@umfs.org. BIRTHRIGHT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY Free pregnancy tests, baby clothing, transportation and support throughout pregnancy, 823 S. King St., Leesburg. 703-777-7272. BOND BETWEEN US A nonprofit organization that offers support to birth parents when children have been placed for adoption. Fourth Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. Call for location. 703-771-7844. BREAST-FEEDING SUPPORT Mondays 9:30-10:30 a.m., Fauquier Hospital Family Birthing Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. DAD SUPPORT New and expectant fathers share ideas. First Tuesdays 7 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg. 703-858-6360. FOR THE CHILDRENS SAKE A group for separating or divorcing parents to share advice. Four-hour session weekly. Information : 703-391-8599 or fitsfoundation.org. LA LECHE LEAGUE Mother-to-mother support and breast-feeding information. 10 a.m. second Wednesdays in Warrenton, 540-351-6103. Third Fridays 10:15-11:45 a.m., call for location, 703-444-7386. Second Fridays 10:15 a.m., Ashburn Library, 43316 Hay Rd., 703-431-3852; Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon, Panera Bread, 43670 Greenway Corp. Dr., Ashburn, email lllashburn@gmail.com. Third Fridays 10:15 a.m., Christ the Redeemer Church, 46833 Harry F. Byrd. Hwy., Sterling, 540-338-4637. LOUDOUN FATHERHOOD PROGRAM Fathers discuss the joys and challenges of being a parent. Meets every other Saturday for two hours for four months; sponsored by Northern Virginia Family Service. 571-748-2796. Free. LOUDOUN NURTURING PARENTING PROGRAM Positive parenting techniques; children attend with parents. Registration required. Call 703-771-3973, Ext. 27, or email nurturingprogram@lcsj.org . Free. MOTHERNET/HEALTHY FAMILIES LOUDOUN Program links first-time parents with medical, social and educational resources to give children a socially and physically healthy start in life. Family support workers meet with participants in homes. English-Spanish translation provided. 703-444-4477, Ext. 217 , or inmed.org. NEW MOTHERS SUPPORT Wednesdays 9:30-11:30 a.m. Inova Loudoun Medical Pavilion, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg, main entrance. Babies welcome. 703-858-6360. YOUNG PARENT SERVICES Support for teenage parents. Loudoun County Department of Family Social Services, 52 Sycolin Rd., Leesburg. Call for times. 703-771-5375. ONLINE CHILDBIRTH EDUCATION PROGRAM Inova Loudoun Hospitals Web-based program uses animation, videos and interactive activities to guide users through the basics of childbirth, breast-feeding and caring for newborns. 703-858-6360. thebirthinginn.org/classes. PARENTING ALONE GROUP For parents of school-age children who have lost a spouse or partner to cancer. Second Tuesdays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-698-2536 or email jennifer.eckert@inova.org . PREGNANCY AND CHILDBIRTH SUPPORT Childbirth Solutions Resource Center, 8393 W. Main St., Marshall. 571-344-0438. SENIORS EXERCISE EQUIPMENT Weights, treadmills, bikes and a cardio-glide. Instruction provided. Age 55 and older. Weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. FITNESS FOR PEOPLE 55 AND OLDER Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 1-1:45 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 571-258-3400. $36, 12-visit card. EYE CARE LensCrafters staff members will clean glasses and make minor repairs. Second Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 703-430-2397. Free. INOVA LOUDOUN MOBILE VAN Blood pressure checks. Second and fourth Tuesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling, 571-258-3280; first Wednesdays 9:30 a.m.-noon, Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. LAUGHING YOGA FOR SENIORS I mprove flexibility and balance. Thursdays 9:30-10 :30 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. LOUDOUN ADULT DAY CENTERS For seniors with physical limitations or memory loss, a safe and social environment, therapeutic activities, individualized care and respite for caregivers. Limited transportation. Sliding-scale fees. Weekdays in Leesburg, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., 703-771-5334; Purcellville, 571-258-3402; and Ashburn-Sterling, 571-258-3232. SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Senior Center at Cascades. First and third Wednesdays 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280. SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Sign up in the Leesburg Senior Center lobby. Second and fourth Thursdays 11 a.m.-noon and 12:30-4:30 p.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. SENIOR OUTREACH SERVICES Free and confidential assistance from an Area Agency on Aging Elder case manager. Call for an appointment or sign up at the Carver Center. First and third Mondays, 12:30-5 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 703-737-8741. Free. ZUMBA GOLD CLASS: For people 55 and older who are learning Zumba for the first time, or those who prefer a lower-impact version. The fitness program combines Latin and international music with dance.Thursdays 11 a.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. 571-258-3280. $12. TAI CHI Stretching and strengthening movements. Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. Free. ZUMBA GOLD CLASS Age 55 and older. Wear rubber-soled shoes and comfortable clothing; bring water and a towel. Tuesdays 11 a.m., Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 p.m. Senior Center of Leesburg, 102 North St. NW, Leesburg. 703-737-8039. $24 per month. SUPPORT GROUPS AL-ANON SERVICE CENTER OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA A volunteer is available 24 hours with information for spouses, family members and friends of problem drinkers. 703-534-4357 or 877-339-8350. Mondays 8 p.m. Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 125 W. Washington St., Middleburg, 540-554-2747; Tuesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg, 877-339-8350; Fridays 8:30 p.m. Grace Episcopal Church, 6507 Main St., The Plains, 800-344-2666; Tuesdays 12:15 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, Route 29 N., 540-347-7448; Tuesdays 7 p.m. and Saturdays 8:30 p.m. Warrenton Presbyterian Church, 91 Main St., 800-344-2666. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS Various meeting times and locations in Loudoun County. 800-208-8649 or 703-876-6166. nvintergroup.org. ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT For those who care for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Fourth Wednesdays 4-5:30 p.m. The Villa at Suffield Meadows, 6735 Suffield Lane, Warrenton. 540-316-3800. ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVERS SUPPORT For those caring for people with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia. Second Mondays 7-8:30 p.m. Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-430-9229. galileeumc.org. ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT Emotional, educational and social support for family members and friends of people with the disease. Third Saturdays 10 a.m. Loudoun County Area Agency on Aging, 20145 Ashbrook Pl., Ashburn. Call 703-771-5407 or email lesley.katz@loudoun.gov. ALZHEIMERS CAREGIVER SUPPORT GROUP Fourth Thursdays 3-4 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. 540-903-6831 or alz.org. ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT First Tuesdays 10-11 a.m. Spring Arbor Assisted Living, 237 Fairview St. NW, Leesburg. 540-338-6520. ALZHEIMERS SUPPORT First Wednesdays 4 p.m. Leesburg Adult Day Center, 16501 Meadowview Ct., Leesburg. 703-771-5334. TALK ABOUT CURING AUTISM A nonprofit organization educating and supporting families affected by autism. tacanow.org. AUTOIMMUNE SUPPORT Last Thursdays 6:30-7:30 p.m. Jackson Building, 209 Gibson St., Leesburg. Email autoimmunesupport@hotmail.com . BEREAVED PARENT SUPPORT One-on-one counseling is available. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv. BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT For those experiencing loss because of the death of a loved one. Age 18 and older. Third Mondays 1 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-957-1800. BREAST CANCER SUPPORT Fourth Tuesdays 7-8 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Tower, Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-0588. BREAST CANCER SUPPORT For those with new diagnoses or starting treatment. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857. BREAST CANCER SUPPORT For those who have finished treatment, have had a recurrence or metastatic breast cancer. Register if attending for the first time. Fourth Mondays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8857. Free. BREAST CANCER SUPPORT ASSISTANCE FUND Loudoun County residents who have received a diagnosis or have undergone treatment in the past 12 months are eligible to apply for financial assistance. Areas included are wigs, bras, puffs and prostheses, mammograms and medical bills, food and help with utilities, rent or mortgage, and transportation costs. The Pink Assistance Fund has been established by the Loudoun Breast Health Network. lbhn.org. CANCER SUPPORT Oncology nurses, social workers and spiritual care providers offer education and support to patients, families and caregivers. Second Mondays 5:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2273. CANCER SUPPORT Life with Cancer, for patients, family members and friends. Second Thursdays 7 p.m. Ashburn Presbyterian Church, Room 202, 20962 Ashburn Rd. 703-729-2012. ashburnpresbyterian.org. CAREGIVER SUPPORT AND RESOURCE GROUP Wednesdays 10:30 a.m.-noon (no meeting first Wednesdays), Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. scsm.tv. CARING FOR AGING PARENTS Support group. Confidential. Fourth Wednesdays 7:30 p.m., Family Focus Counseling Service, 20-B John Marshall St., Warrenton. 540-349-4537. CHADD PARENTS SUPPORT For parents of children with ADD/ADHD. Fourth Sundays 3 p.m. KinderCare, 44051 Ashburn Village Shopping Plaza. chadd.nova loudoun@gmail. com . CHRONIC ILLNESS SUPPORT Tuesdays 10:30-11:30 a.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministries, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814 or scsm.tv. COFFEE AND CONVERSATION: Support for those discouraged because of illness, bereavement, caregiving or a loved one in the military. Thursdays 10 a.m.-noon. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. COMPASSIONATE FRIENDS For parents who have experienced the death of a child. First Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. St. James Episcopal Church, 14 Cornwall St. NW, Leesburg. 540-882-9707. CREATING AND CONNECTING Two-hour art therapy and relaxation workshop for cancer patients. Every other month, 12:30-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-858-8850. DEPRESSION BIPOLAR SUPPORT ALLIANCE OF WESTERN LOUDOUN Saturdays 3 p.m. Purcellville Library, 220 E. Main St., Carruthers Room. Call 703-431-7160 or email kathy@dbsanca.org. DROP-IN GRIEF SUPPORT For those coping with a death. Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. St. Davids Episcopal Church, 43600 Russell Branch Pkwy., Ashburn. Sponsored by Capital Caring. 703-597-1781. FAMILIES OVERCOMING DRUG ADDICTION SUPPORT First and third Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Sycamore Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-9221 or email myfodafamily@gmail.com. GAY, LESBIAN, BISEXUAL AND TRANSGENDER YOUTH AND PARENT SUPPORT A group in partnership with Metro DC PFLAG. Fourth Sundays 4-6 p.m. Unitarian Universalist Church, 22135 Davis Dr., Sterling. 703-328-6518. GRIEFSHARE Open to anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one. Tuesdays from 7-8:30 p.m. Purcellville Baptist Church, 601 Yaxley Dr., Purcellville. Call 540-338-0918 or email caring@purbap.org. Workbook, $15. GRIEFSHARE Nondenominational seminar and support group. Tuesdays 7:30-9 p.m., and Wednesdays, 1-2:30 p.m. Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. Free. GRIEF SUPPORT Sponsored by Hospice Support of Fauquier County. Individual counseling available. First and third Thursdays 3:30-5 p.m. Hospice Support Office, 42 N. Fifth St., Warrenton. Registration required. Call 540-347-5922 or email hospicesupport@verizon.net. GRIEF SUPPORT Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.-noon, Spiritual Care Support Ministry Center, 76 W. Shirley Ave., Warrenton. 540-349-5814. HOSPICE SUPPORT Free medical-equipment loan facility for Fauquier County residents. Especially needed are donations of wheelchairs, bedside commodes, rolling walkers, electric hospital beds, shower benches and chairs, adult diapers, lift chairs, Ensure and hospital bed mattresses. 540-347-5922. LOOK GOOD, FEEL BETTER For women undergoing or emerging from cancer treatment. Every other month, 6:45 to 9 p.m. ,Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Call for dates. 703-776-2820. Free. LOUDOUN CHADD SUPPORT Led by Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Third Thursdays 7 p.m. Leesburg Town Hall, lower-level conference room, 25 W. Market St. 703-669-2445. LOUDOUN INTERGROUP OF OVEREATERS ANONYMOUS Fellowship and support. For locations and times, call 571-420-2012. oa.org. LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Fourth Sundays 2-4 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Conference Room A and B, Leesburg. Go to natcaplyme.org or email loudounlymeadvocates@gmail.com. LYME DISEASE SUPPORT Third Thursdays 7 p.m. Warrenton Church of Christ, 6398 Lee Hwy. Access Road, Warrenton. 540-347-7265 or email lymeinfauquier@gmail.com. LYME DISEASE SUPPORT First Tuesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville. Email charphealy@yahoo.com. MADD LOUDOUN VICTIM SUPPORT For those who have been affected by drunken driving. Third Wednesdays 7:30 p.m. 210 Wirt St., Leesburg. 540-338-6491. MAN-TO-MAN CANCER SUPPORT Sponsored by Loudoun Cancer Care Center, for prostate cancer patients and their families. Second Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling. Call 703-858-8857 or email karen.archer@inova.org. MENDED HEARTS Northern Virginia chapter, for heart surgery patients and families and friends of heart disease patients. Third Saturdays 11 a.m., Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg (Patient Information Lounge) . 703-924-6244 or mendedhearts200.org. MENOPAUSE SUPPORT Third Thursdays 6:30-9 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg (second floor, Patient Education Room). 703-858-8060. MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SUPPORT Saturdays 10:30 a.m. Fauquier Hospital Chestnut Room, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-349-2826. MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SUPPORT Last Sundays 2-4 p.m. Cascades Library, 21030 Whitfield Pl., Potomac Falls. 703-771-4256. NAR-ANON FAMILY SUPPORT For those affected by loved ones with addiction. Meaningful Mondays, 7-8 p.m., Galilee United Methodist Church, 45425 Winding Rd., Sterling. 703-203-9792; Wisdom Wednesdays 7-8 p.m., St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, 37730 St. Francis Ct., Purcellville, 703-606-7125; Serenity Thursdays, 7-8 p.m. Leesburg Presbyterian Church, 207 W. Market St., Leesburg, 703-606-7125. PARKINSON'S SUPPORT Open to anyone with Parkinson's disease, family members and caregivers. First Tuesdays 1:30-3 p.m. Call for Ashburn location. 571-442-8851. POST-PARTUM SUPPORT Second and fourth Wednesdays 1-2:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Cornwall Campus, 224 Cornwall St., Leesburg. 703-909-9877. Email lamckeough@gmail.com. Registration required. REACH TO RECOVERY Home visit program for mastectomy and lumpectomy patients. Temporary prostheses, exercise instruction and encouragement. 703-938-5550. SEXUAL ASSAULT AND INCEST SURVIVORS GROUP COUNSELING Services provided by Loudoun Citizens for Social Justice and the Loudoun Abused Womens Shelter are free and confidential. 703-771-9020. SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS EMPOWERMENT SUPPORT Sponsored by Sexual Assault Victims Volunteer Initiative. Child care available with 48-hours notice. Mondays; call for times and locations. 540-349-7720. SPIRITUAL SUPPORT GROUP For cancer patients, family members and friends. Third Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. 703-858-8850. STROKE SURVIVORS AND CAREGIVERS SUPPORT Second Wednesdays 11 a.m.-noon, Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second floor, Patient Education Room. 703-858-6667 or robynthomson@inova.org . SUICIDE COUNSELING Third Wednesdays 7-8:30 p.m. Leesburg Town Office, Conference Room 2, lower level, 25 W. Market St., Leesburg. 703-587-1618 or survivorsofsuicidelossleesburg@gmail.com. WOMENS SUPPORT Sponsored by Services to Abused Families. Tuesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Confidential location. 540-825-8876. WIDOW AND WIDOWER SUPPORT Third Mondays 11 a.m. Leesburg Senior Center, 102 North St. NW. 703-737-8039. WOMENS CANCER SUPPORT Woman to Woman, first Wednesdays 6:30-8 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital Radiation Oncology Center, 44035 Riverside Pkwy., Suite 100, Leesburg. Registration required. 703-858-8850. MISCELLANEOUS BRAIN TRAUMA SURVIVORS BROWN BAG LUNCH For survivors and caregivers, first Tuesdays, noon-1:30 p.m. Inova Loudoun Hospital, 44045 Riverside Pkwy., Leesburg, second-floor Patient Education Room. Call 703-737-3150 or email jberg@braininjurysvcs.org. Free. CHILD DEVELOPMENTAL SCREENINGS For ages 2-5. Children may not be kindergarten-age-eligible. Sponsored by the Loudoun County public schools Child Find Center. 571-252 - 2180. CHOLESTEROL SCREENINGS Weekdays 6 a.m.-8 p.m. Fauquier Health LIFE Center, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-2640. Registration required. $35. EMERGENCY FOOD SUPPLIES Loudoun residents who are in need can receive a free three-day supply of groceries. Supplies are distributed Mondays through Saturdays by Loudoun Interfaith Relief. 703-777-5911. interfaithrelief.org. FAUQUIER FREE WALK-IN MEDICAL CLINIC Patients must call Thursdays from 12:30 to 1 p.m. to register for the clinic, which begins at 5:30 p.m. Patients are also seen by appointment Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fauquier and Rappahannock residents only. Bring proof of address for the first visit. Patients cannot have Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance. Information: 540-347-0394 Tuesdays or Thursdays, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. FAUQUIER HOSPITAL BISTRO SENIOR SUPPER CLUB Nutritious meals and fellowship for people 55 and older. Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:30-6:30 p.m. Fauquier Hospital Bistro on the Hill, 500 Hospital Dr., Warrenton. 540-316-3588. $5.49. GAMERS UNION FOR TEENS WITH ASPERGERS Youths 12 to 21 interact through gaming; their caregivers meet for networking. Second Tuesdays 6 p.m. Rust Library, 380 Old Waterford Rd., Leesburg. 703-777-0323. Free. HEROES (Hometown Enabling Relationships, Opportunities and Empowerment through Support) is a program for military families. A trained volunteer provides support to military members and their families, from pre-deployment up to two years post-deployment. Assistance includes financial help, job placement, family care and mental health services. heroescare.org or email caring@purbap.org . INOVA LOUDOUN HOSPITAL MOBILE HEALTH SERVICES BLOOD PRESSURE SCREENINGS Tuesday 9 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfiled Pl., Sterling; Thursday 11 a.m.-noon, Lovettsville Community Center, 57 E. Broad Way, Lovettsville; June 20, 9-11:30 a.m., William Watters House, 22365 Enterprise St., Sterling; June 23, 10 a.m.-noon, Carver Center, 200 Willie Palmer Way, Purcellville; June 28, 9 a.m.-noon, Senior Center at Cascades, 21060 Whitfield Pl., Sterling; June 29, 10 a.m.-noon, Lansdowne Woods, 19400 Leisure World Blvd., Leesburg. For information, call 703-858-8818 or go to inova.org/mobilehealth. Free. LOUDOUN CARES INFORMATION AND REFERRAL HELPLINE Call for help in finding resources for county residents who are dealing with rent eviction, utility cut-offs, needed health care, employment and more. 703-669-4636. MOTOR SKILL SCREENINGS Birth to 21 months. First Thursdays, Blue Ridge Speech and Hearing Center, 19465 Deerfield Ave., Suite 201, Lansdowne. Call for an appointment. 703-858-7620. Free. NORTHERN VIRGINIA LONG-TERM CARE OMBUDSMAN Call for help in resolving complaints related to long-term-care facilities. 703-324-5861. ROAD TO RECOVERY, for cancer patients who need rides to appointments. 410-781-6909. Email jen.burdette@cancer.org. Free. SEVEN LOAVES FOOD PANTRY Individuals and families can receive a three-day supply of food, distributed Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 10 a.m.-noon. 540-687-3489 or sevenloavesmiddleburg.org. TREE OF LIFE FOOD PANTRY Serving western Loudoun County. Food is delivered Wednesdays and Saturdays. 703-554-3595. Compiled by Sandy Mauck TO SUBMIT AN ITEM Email: ldliving@washpost.com Fax: 703-777-8437 Mail: Health Calendar, The Washington Post, 104 Dry Mill Rd. SW, Suite 101, Leesburg, Va. 20175 Some small nonprofit insurers are paying millions of dollars a year to larger carriers under an Obamacare rule that was supposed to financially protect providers that bring on high-risk patients. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg) A nonprofit health-care cooperative in Maryland is suing the federal government to avoid paying tens of millions of dollars to a larger insurer under what the group described as a dangerously flawed program of the Affordable Care Act. Evergreen Health on Monday filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maryland claiming that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has unfairly required it to fork over $22 million to CareFirst, a Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliate operating in the Mid-Atlantic region. Peter Beilenson, chief executive of the 40,000-member co-op, said in a statement Monday that the system is providing a financial boon for the countrys largest and most established health insurers, at the expense of new, innovative insurers. He added that the cost would eat up 26 percent of Evergreens 2015 revenue from premiums. CMS declined to comment on pending litigation. Evergreen is required to make the payment under CMSs risk adjustment program, an element of President Obamas 2010 health-care overhaul that aims to provide financial protection for organizations that participate in the new health-care exchanges and end up with sicker, more expensive customers because of a rule that prohibits them from denying coverage for preexisting conditions. Under the system, insurers with healthier patients pay those with sicker customers. But the current method for calculating risk does not provide an accurate picture of an enrollees health status, partly because many customers sign up for plans late in the year and dont visit a doctor before the determination period ends. CMS counts those individuals as low-risk, even if they are not. The agency seemed to acknowledge a problem with the system last week, when it announced changes that will take place over the next two years to reflect the cost of partial-year enrollees, including allowing insurers to use prescription-drug information to determine risk levels since such customers are more likely to need a pharmacist than a doctor in the short time they have been with the insurer. Theyre taking the right steps, but theyre just not doing it quickly enough, Evergreen spokesman Matt Jablow said of CMS. Evergreen has asked the court for an injunction that would free the group from its risk-adjustment payments until the new guidelines take effect. Architects of the Affordable Care Act envisioned nonprofit health insurers as a consumer-friendly alternative to for-profit plans, saying they would increase competition in a market typically dominated by large commercial carriers. The federal government dedicated billions of dollars in loans to the nonprofits, but several have experienced financial troubles, and CMS told nearly half of them by 2015 that they risked losing their loans. Some have gone out of business, including Health Republic Insurance of New York and the Nevada Health Co-Op. The latter was initially among a group of carriers that federal officials cited as best positioned to succeed. [Financial health shaky at many Obamacare insurance co-ops] Supporters of the nonprofit model say shuttering the co-ops will decrease competition and probably lead to higher rates in states where the closures occur. Evergreen believes more co-ops could perish if CMS doesnt revise its risk-adjustment method sooner. Risk adjustment was designed to stabilize the health insurance markets in the states but, in fact, CMSs implementation of the program has done just the opposite, Beilenson said. If the system isnt changed in the immediate future, many of the countrys most innovative and most affordable health insurance companies could very well go out of business. Obituaries of residents from the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia. William A. Calnan, DHS officer William A. Calnan, 74, a project manager with the Department of Homeland Securitys U.S. Customs and Border Protection unit, died May 3 at a medical center in Bethesda, Md. The cause was sepsis due to cancer, said a daughter, Dima Calnan. Mr. Calnan, a Bethesda resident, was born in County Cork, Ireland, and immigrated to New York in 1959. He served 23 years in the Army, retiring in 1983 as a chief warrant officer. He later served as an officer with the Treasury Departments U.S. Customs Service until 2003, when the service was absorbed into DHS. Roger Machanic, real estate developer Roger Machanic, 80, a Northern Virginia business leader and developer of residential and commercial property, died May 10 at a hospital in Falls Church, Va. The cause was complications of Alzheimers disease, said a son, Bruce Machanic. Mr. Machanic, a resident of Alexandria, Va., was born in Burlington, Vt. He settled in the Washington area in 1963 and was a principal in real estate partnerships, development and management companies, including Development Resources and MRE Properties. He was a former chairman of Alexandrias First Commonwealth Savings & Loan and the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce. He retired in 2005. Dorothy Bockstiegel, group homes provider Dorothy Bockstiegel, 86, who helped provide group housing and support services for the mentally disabled under the auspices of the LArche Greater Washington program, died May 19 at a hospital in Washington. The cause was a head injury suffered in an accidental fall at her home in the District, said a daughter, Carol Akers. Mrs. Bockstiegel was born Dorothy Johnson in Chicago and had lived in the Washington area for 40 years. Thirty-three years ago, she was instrumental in opening the first of several LArche homes. She had lived and worked in three of the four homes and was most recently membership coordinator. James E. Schwab, real estate broker James E. Schwab, 95, a Washington-area real estate broker from the 1950s to the 1990s, died April 29 at his home in Highland Beach, Fla. The cause was cancer, said a daughter, Suzanne Normandin. Mr. Schwab, a native Washingtonian, owned and operated the Leigh and Schwab real estate office, specializing in commercial and residential real estate. After selling the business, he moved from Washington to Williamsburg, Va., and then five years later to Florida. From staff reports Graffiti in front of Sapol Jirapanjavats Thaiphoon restaurant. The blue slogan was discovered Sunday. Then, on Monday, someone returned and painted the word gun in red. (Sapol Jirapanjavat) D.C. police said Monday that they are investigating what appears to be anti-gay graffiti painted on the sidewalk in front of a Thai restaurant in Dupont Circle. Sapol Jirapanjavat, the owner of Thaiphoon, said an employee discovered the graffiti Sunday morning at the restaurant in the 2000 block of S Street NW. It reads Down with the gay agenda in blue paint. On Monday afternoon, a local restaurant worker painted the word gun in red over the word gay to change the meaning to Down with the gun agenda. Dito Sevilla said that at first he ignored the grafitti, but by Monday afternoon it had the neighborhood abuzz. Suddenly, I got angrier and angrier, Sevilla said in an interview. It looked like the street was yelling at us at the worst time possible. Sevilla went on Twitter and immediately confessed to the Department of Transportation and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser: @MayorBowser, @DDOTDC Im sorry I had to paint over this sidewalk vandalized with hate speech. In an interview, Sevilla offered to pay to remove all the grafitti. Jirapanjavat said that the vandalism had raised new worries following Sundays mass shooting at gay club in Orlando that killed at least 49 people. Like other restaurants in the area, Jirapanjavat displayed the colors associated with the Capital Pride Festival, a gay rights celebration that took place in the District on Sunday. [Capital Pride Day takes somber tone after mass killings in Orlando] I do not understand what the agenda is, Jirapanjavat said of the graffiti, which he unsuccessfully tried to remove using paint thinner. Jirapanjavat said that at first he did not understand the phrase to be anti-gay. But he said an advisory neighborhood commissioner advised him to call police, which he did Monday. The graffiti was first reported on the Internet blog Borderstan. A police spokeswoman said an investigation is underway. Police in Virginia on Sunday arrested a man who they say swung a hatchet during an argument after he was mistaken for an Uber driver. At about 2:20 a.m., a U.S. Park Police officer responded to the 2300 block of South Eads Street, in Arlington, for a report of a vehicle driving erratically and nearly striking pedestrians, the Arlington County Police Department said in a statement. Before police arrived, the vehicle entered a parking lot, where three individuals approached it, mistakenly thinking it was their Uber ride, the statement said. This led to a verbal argument with the driver, Michael Monroe, 64, of Gainesville, Va., who was naked. Monroe retrieved a hatchet from the back seat of the vehicle and started swinging it, according to the statement. There were no injuries, and the three people were able to wrestle the hatchet away from Monroe, police said. Authorities say Monroe attempted to flee the scene before Park Police initiated a traffic stop, and Arlington County police attempted a sobriety test. Monroe, who refused the test, was arrested and charged with DUI, refusal and disorderly conduct, police said. The ACT test for college admission in the U.S. has been abruptly canceled in Korea and Hong Kong after test materials were "breached," the administrator said Sunday. According to the AP, the cancellation affected about 5,500 students who had been scheduled to take the test at 56 venues. ACT spokesman Ed Colby said in an e-mailed statement, "ACT has just received credible evidence that test materials intended for administration in these regions have been compromised." ACT said students will get refunds on their registration fees but it is "not feasible" to reschedule the test. Colby expressed "serious concern" over the leakage but did not elaborate when and how the materials had been leaked, saying merely that the matter is under investigation. ACT only informed candidates of the cancellation at around 7 a.m. on Saturday, the day they were to sit the test. Some candidates who did not check their e-mails only found out when they arrived at the test center. Students who plan to apply for early decisions at U.S. universities need to send in their applications by early November. Many expressed frustration. One staffer at an agency that helps students study abroad said, "Some parents are thinking about sending their children to take the test in Japan." Reuters said Korea and China are "notorious" for cheating on U.S. college entrance exams. In 2013 the SAT test was canceled here over leaked answers, and brokers, owners of private crammers and teachers were arrested on charges of illegally obtaining and exchanging SAT test questions. The U.S. College Board, which administers the SAT, reduced the number of tests offered in Korea. Just before the latest ACT test there were rumors that test questions were leaked to private crammers in the affluent Gangnam area of southern Seoul. Education experts said the scandal deals another blow to the credibility of Korean high school graduates at U.S. universities. Around 3,000 U.S. universities let applicants submit either ACT or SAT scores, and the tests are big business for the companies that run them. A police sex-sting operation in Northern Virginia, aimed at finding men who wanted to have sex or commit indecent acts with juveniles, has nabbed a police officer in Maryland, officials said Monday. Christopher Dunkes, 27, a patrolman with the Montgomery County Police Department, answered a Craigslist advertisement posted by an undercover officer who was posing as a 15-year-old girl from Prince William County, detectives said in a criminal complaint filed in Prince William court. Dunkes emailed and texted with the undercover officer about sex acts, according to the complaint. Dunkes twice proposed a specific act and suggested that they meet in his car, according to the court document. He agreed to meet the undercover officer at a Target store. He was arrested without incident, police said. Dunkes has been suspended without pay, said Capt. Paul Starks, a Montgomery police spokesman. Dunkes had joined the force in 2014 and most recently had been assigned to the Bethesda bureau. Montgomery County police officer Christopher Dunkes (Prince William County police) We are cooperating with the investigation, Starks said. Our internal affairs division is communicating with Prince William County police. Dunkes was charged in Virginia with three counts of using a communication device to facilitate offenses with juveniles, according to Prince William County police. Dunkes was being held without bond Monday, said an official at the Prince William jail. It was not clear from court records whether he has an attorney. The week-long sting operation began June 6, Prince William police said. It was a proactive operation and not in response to any specific incident. During this operation, undercover detectives used social media and an undisclosed online site where they posed as underage juveniles, Prince William police said in the statement. Male suspects contacted the undercover detectives and, during the course of communications, solicited sexual or indecent acts. These conversations involving the accused parties took place through electronic means. In each of the incidents, the suspect made arrangements to meet the undercover detective at a public location in Prince William County. Once there, detectives arrested the individual without incident. Prince William police identified six other men arrested as Steven Castillo, 20, of Woodbridge; Jeffrey H. Dimond, 35, of Fredericksburg; Curtis M. Jenkins, 54, of Fairfax; Jordan Kolbinskie, 23, of Manassas; David Lee Mathes, 58, of Warrenton; and Chad M. Warner, 24, of Sterling. A mural depicts Freddie Gray and the uprisings after his 2015 death while in the custody of Baltimore police. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) Freddie Gray showed no signs of immediate medical distress when he requested help the day of his April 2015 arrest, but he should have been taken to a hospital anyway, according to an officer who was forced to testify in the trial of a colleague charged in the case. Key prosecution witness Officer William Porter took the stand Monday in the trial of Caesar Goodson Jr., testifying that Goodson was responsible for Grays safety in the back of the transport wagon the day the 25-year-old suffered a fatal neck injury in police custody. I let Officer Goodson know that when prompted, Mr. Gray said hed like to go to the hospital, Porter told the court. I said we should take him to the hospital because hes not going to pass booking. The third day of a trial for the only officer charged with murder in Grays death launched Monday with Porters testimony, which was hard fought and significant for prosecutors seeking a conviction in the case. Goodson and Porter were together for many of the stops the van took before police discovered Gray unconscious in the back, but Goodson is the only one of the six officers charged who did not give a statement to investigators. Prosecutors, who began their case last week, are seeking to show that Goodson gave Gray a rough ride that April 12 morning. They allege that Goodson drove recklessly as Gray, wearing shackles but no seat belt, bounced around in the back of the vehicle. Goodson, 46, faces the most serious charge in the case second-degree depraved heart murder as well as counts of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. He has opted for a bench trial before Judge Barry G. Williams. Defense attorneys contend that there is no evidence that Goodson gave Gray a rough ride and that officers had rarely put seat belts on detainees in the back of police vans. [Judge declares mistrial in case of officer charged in Freddie Gray death] Porter, who also faces charges in the case, was tried last year, but a jury could not reach a verdict. He is set for a retrial in the fall. Porter was forced to testify under a grant of limited immunity from prosecutors, who have called him a necessary and material witness. Whether Porter should have been compelled to take the stand was hotly contested, with legal wrangling delaying trials for months. Porters attorneys argued that his role as a prosecution witness would undermine his fair-trial rights. The issue went to the states highest court, which ruled that Porter would be sufficiently protected by prosecutors promises to avoid using his witness testimony at retrial. [Freddie Gray and William Porter: Two sons of Baltimore whose lives collided] Porters testimony during two hours on the witness stand Monday mirrored statements the officer made in his own trial in December. At the fourth van stop, Porter said, he responded to Goodsons call to have another officer meet him at the location. He testified that the officers found Gray on the floor of the van asking for help getting up. Porter said he then helped Gray onto a bench and asked Gray if he wanted to go to the hospital. Gray responded that he did. When prosecutors asked who was responsible for Gray after he asked to go to the hospital, Porter said, The wagon operator. Officer Goodson. Porter also testified that although he told Goodson that Gray should go to the hospital, it wasnt because the officer saw signs of a medical emergency. Gray appeared lethargic but was breathing normally and didnt appear to need a hospital, Porter said. But he said the magic words in a sense, Porter said of Grays request. When you go down to booking and someone says they want to go to the hospital, they automatically reject them. Prosecutors questioned Porter on whether Goodson agreed that Gray should go to the hospital or acknowledged Porters statement about Gray not getting through central booking. Porter gave varying answers from Sure to I dont think he said anything to me to I dont recall. Porter eventually said Goodson had agreed Gray should be taken to the hospital. The testimony came after Chief Deputy States Attorney Michael Schatzow pressed, pointing Porter to statements he made to detectives early in the investigation. When Schatzow asked if the two officers had the opportunity to put Gray in a seat belt, Porter replied, I guess so. Prosecutors argue that officers are responsible for Grays death because they put him in the police wagon unbuckled but with his hands and feet shackled. An autopsy report indicates that Gray probably fell and suffered a severe spinal injury when the van made a stop or turn he couldnt anticipate in the windowless compartment. He died days later. Witness testimony on Monday ended with Morris Marc Soriano, a neurosurgeon who said Gray would never have suffered the injuries that he did if he had been seat-belted. He also said prompt medical attention would have helped Gray. Goodson is the third officer to go to trial, following Porter and Officer Edward M. Nero, who was acquitted in May of assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. Roxanne Granberry had a separate bank account from her husband and sometimes a separate home. But a jury in an Alexandria federal court decided that the couple should go to prison together for illegally buying and selling prescription painkillers. William Granberry, who pleaded guilty in February, would print false prescriptions for the opioid oxycodone. Friends and relatives would then collect the pills at pharmacies in the D.C. area for sale on the black market. Over eight years, prosecutors estimate that the group sold about 130,000 pills for around $25 apiece, netting a profit of $3.25 million. Roxanne Granberrys defense attorney, Jonathan Simms, emphasized that the more than $1 million in cash the Hughesville, Md., couple appeared to garner from the scheme went mostly into William Granberrys bank account. The two separated at times, and William Granberry maintained his own residence where he cheated on his wife and kept drug-related possessions. But jurors were convinced that Roxanne Granberry knew about and contributed to the drug businesses, despite any marital strain. William Granberry was unable to hide his serial affairs from [his wife], Assistant U.S. Attorney Anna Kaminska argued in closing. Yet he was somehow able to conceal a multi-year drug operation? Conspirators testified that she weighed in on financial decisions related to the pill scheme and even joined a trip to Georgia to try to obtain oxycodone at a clinic. Both Granberrys face up to 20 years in prison. Four other defendants involved in the ring are awaiting sentencing; eight others have already been sentenced. This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando early Sunday. (Associated Press) Hate has the stage, the mic and most of the cards. Thats the problem, the common thread, the biggest glaring issue in all the bloodshed, grief and debate over the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Omar Mateen despised gays in the same way that Donald Trump and too many of his supporters despise Muslims. And hate, alas, is contagious. Its true that Mateen, 29, pledged his allegiance to the brutal Islamic State organization before he slaughtered 49 people and injured 53 others inside a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning. But it isnt Islam that explains what Mateen did. There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world 3.3 million in the United States and the vast majority are peaceful, productive people. If mainstream Islam really demanded violence, our world would look pretty different. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives a campaign speech in Tampa. (Chris O'meara/Associated Press) No, Mateen didnt kill people because he was a Muslim. He killed people because he was an angry, unstable person who apparently beat his former wife and was outraged when he saw two men kiss in Miami. What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred, President Obama said Sunday. In the coming days, well uncover why and how this happened, and we will go wherever the facts lead us. Obama knows what its like to be the target of hatred. He and first lady Michelle Obama have endured endless abuse during their seven years in the White House. [The Obamas: Refusing to give in to the haters after years of abuse] This week, the presidents enemies, led by Trump, excoriated him for avoiding the use of the word Muslim in his speech. They said nothing about the 49 souls who were lost, the pain of their family members and friends, the damage to our nations sense of security. So where was their fury when Obama omitted the word Christian in the speech he gave after Robert Lewis Dear Jr.s slaughter at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado? Dear had crosses all over his ramshackle house and his Internet writings urged people to Turn to JESUS or burn in hell. Islam made Mateen a killer the same way Christianity made Dear a killer. The one and only altar those men worshiped at was the altar of hate. The day after a shooting at an Orlando nightclub, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump railed against the president and warned that Muslims should be banned from entering the U.S., while Democratic rival Hillary Clinton called for changes to gun restrictions. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Our country is being consumed by all this rage, and sometimes it feels impossible to put a stop to it. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said before he became the victim of a hater. Muslims were already under attack from Trump, who wants to bar them from entering the United States. He repeated that call again Monday, using Mateens deadly attack on gays to justify his own ugly bigotry toward Muslims. [Attacks on American Muslims are growing uglier by the day. It must stop.] This horrific Orlando attack however should NOT be used to vilify and stereotype the peaceful and law abiding Muslim community in America, the leaders of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Northern Virginia wrote on their website after the massacre. Islam absolutely condemns and forbids terrorism and extremism. The Quran, Islams revered text, states: Whoever kills a person, it is as though he has killed all mankind. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind. For Hassan Ahmad, a Northern Virginia lawyer, Mateens actions were a reminder how much work goes into building inclusivity and coexistence, and how quickly it can be destroyed, he wrote in a raw Facebook post. If we let it. The country had just celebrated one of its most famous Muslims, Muhammad Ali, who worked all his life and even in death brought people together, Ahmad told me. Indeed, Ali had been a voice of reason, even in the last months of his life. I am a Muslim, he said, and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so-called Islamic jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion. Reports of hate attacks against U.S. mosques tripled last year compared with previous years, according to the Council on American Islamic Relations. Many Muslims think the attacks are being fueled not by terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino, Calif., and Orlando, but by the election-year rhetoric of Trump. There was a time when the American conversation was about hope, discovery and growth, about a melting pot unlike any other the world has ever seen. Today, weve allowed hate to grab the microphone and seize the stage. And we have to take it back. Twitter: @petulad The first day of poetry class, the young man had only one word to say to his new instructor Laurie Gilkenson: Pizza. Whats your name? Pizza Whats your favorite color? Pizza. When Gilkenson started teaching the class for Arlington Countys Program for Employment Preparedness, which works with young adults who have mild to moderate intellectual and emotional disabilities that can include autism and Down syndrome, she knew there would be challenges. What she didnt count on as much were the goosebumps. They crawled up her arms that first day of class in April when she handed that 20-year-old student a pen and paper and, with help, he wrote two poems. And there they were again on Friday as she watched him and his classmates stand on a stage at the Arlington Career Center and recite their works. [She inspired those with Down syndrome as unstoppable until she wasnt] If I were a butterfly, the young man said in a whisper as a teacher assistant repeated his words louder for the audience to hear, I would fly to Guatemala. I would eat pupusas. Oh my, oh my! Of the employment preparedness programs 42 students, 13 stood on the stage, encouraged by an audience filled with their peers, parents and educators. They also had support from the nations top poet. U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera sent an email that was printed in the program. I am so honored to hear that you are creating poetry! he wrote. This is the best news I have heard today! He signed it, Sending you poetry hugs. Arlington Career Center Principal Margaret Chung said the poetry class, which was a first for the program this year, is important because it empowers students who are trying to learn to become their own advocates. It gives them a voice, she said. Its a voice we dont often hear, Chung said. Its a voice we often misinterpret. Student Julia Van Gieson, a 22-year-old with autism, has learned to tell people what she likes and what she doesnt. Some people with autism dont like to hug, she has explained to those who have taken the time to listen, but she is okay with hugs if she knows a person well. She said shes also worked hard to create a life in the community. She has her own place, a job at Safeway and is dating. Ive got three younger sisters, she said. I have to show them, Yeah, I have a disability, but Im not going to let that rule my life or hold me back. If I can do it, you can do it. The poetry class, she said, was fun and helped her better understand some of her classmates who arent very verbal. The less you can talk, she said, the more shut away you are. [This nonspeaking teenager wrote a profound letter explaining autism] When Van Giesons turn came to read her poem, she took a long pause after saying her name. She explained later that she had never spoken in front of such a large crowd about 40 people. Then she recited: I have a dream to work with animals and make enough money to support myself successfully. I also want to be able to own my own home. Lastly I want to put down roots. I want to have two cats as companions. She smiled wide when she finished, and the audience snapped fingers as applause. The next student ended his poem by raising his hands above his head, resembling a boxer who had knocked out his opponent. Another young man stood in front of the lectern and flapped his arms in imitation of the butterfly he spoke about. That same young man at a rehearsal a few days earlier struggled to say his name but then read his poem fluidly, Gilkenson said. He cared so much about his poem that he didnt even think about his impediment, said Gilkenson, 63, who taught drama at the H-B Woodlawn magnet program for 14 years. Poetry is something thats a win-win situation because you cant make a mistake. As soon as you put pen to paper, youre a success. Student Jason Corea, 20, said after the event that he felt proud of himself. I was able to accomplish something that I stuck my heart and mind into, he said. I didnt give up. Through poetry, he said, he and his classmates shared how we feel, the person we truly are. My life as a butterfly, would feel so good to me and heres why, he said when reciting his poem. Its so peaceful up in the sky, no worries, no troubles nearby. But if I were to become eaten, Id make my enemy sick, so they wont be quick. Micah Stein-Verbit, who leads the program, said the staff members had considered offering other creative outlets such as knitting or pottery. But they then settled on poetry and never looked back. Later, as Stein-Verbit stood in front of the stage, congratulating students, Gilkenson walked over with a young man who wore a superhero T-shirt. Next year, I want to take poetry, the young man told Stein-Verbit. My dream is to be a rapper. Afterward, Gilkenson had only one word: Goosebumps. North Korea is sending active servicemen as construction workers to the Middle East, Radio Free Asia reported last Thursday. A source said increasing numbers of soldiers are sent to the region through North Korean construction firms Namkang and Cholhyon. Namkang has about 800 workers in Kuwait and 750 in Qatar who come from the Army corps of engineers, according to the source. Cholhyon has also increased numbers of servicemen working there since it first sent about 70 soldiers to Kuwait in 2010. Of its 3,200 workers in Kuwait, 30 percent are soldiers. The regime tells soldiers to grow their hair before they are dispatched to the Middle East to disguise them as civilians, RFA said. The regime is probably using soldiers because it does not have to pay them for their work and they are easier to control than civilian laborers. The regime already steals most of the wages of laborers in the Middle East, who are kept in virtual slavery at building sites and work in atrocious conditions even by the low standards of the region. Friends and family members grieve outside a Hampton Inn hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center in Orlando. (Loren Elliott/Tampa Bay Times via Associated Press) The two sisters the mother and the aunt of a man in his early 20s missing after the Orlando shooting were led into a guest room on the second floor of a Hampton Inn hotel early Sunday evening. They sat side by side on a beige couch while a hospital chaplain pulled up close in front of them on a small brown ottoman and gently broke the news. After confirming with the coroners office and the police department, I have information that your loved one is dead, the chaplain said, and another chaplain interpreted her words into Spanish for the two Puerto Rican women, who spoke little English. The Rev. Jorge Figueroa, who was in the room to offer spiritual support, said the aunt fainted. Paramedics on standby were called into the room and gave her oxygen. I got down on the floor with her and held her, said Figueroa, 42, a native Spanish speaker who was born in Puerto Rico. I looked her in the eye and spoke to her softly and calmly. I told her it was okay to cry. 1 of 90 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Mournful reactions to the shootings in Orlando View Photos National and international reaction to the mass shootings at a nightclub in Orlando. Caption National and international responses to the mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. June 18, 2016 Visitors at a makeshift memorial in downtown Orlando mourn the victims of the Pulse massacre. Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via Associated Press Wait 1 second to continue. A small hotel across the street from the Orlando Regional Medical Center became a place where shattered families came together Sunday, amid donated pizza and cookies and the comfort of strangers, to begin coping with the unbearable. I cant take back what happened, but I can be present and that makes a huge difference, said Figueroa, a pastor from a Seventh Day Adventist church in Altamonte Springs, Fla., who drove to Orlando on Sunday morning to volunteer with the families of the victims of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The hotel lobby where families came for information was a scene of raw grief late Sunday. The air conditioning was not working well on a muggy day near 90 degrees, and many family members were fanning one another with paper plates or had towels draped over their heads or necks to stay cool. People in Disney polo shirts handed out bottles of water, as did what appeared to be Christian and Muslim clerics. Employees of the hospital, numerous members of law enforcement and people with name tags identifying themselves as counselors filled the hallway and lobby area. Sobbing family members, from the elderly to young children, quietly hugged and waited for news. Mary Ann Rodriguez said her stepson, Jeffrey Rodriguez, 38, had been shot at Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. She said that the family believed he was alive and being treated at the hospital, but that they hadnt received a confirmation. Her husband sat next to her, sleeping. She said she had to give him medication because he was so upset. Rodriguez said Jeffrey texted his brother in the early hours of the morning: Im bleeding so much and I dont think Im going to make it. Call mom and dad and tell them I love them. View Graphic Minute by minute: How the attack in Orlando unfolded She said she thinks Jeffrey was shot three times. She said he went to the club with a big group of friends. She added that he was among 15 people who hid in a restroom, and that a friend who is a physicians assistant helped save his life by stanching his wounds. His name hasnt been called, she said. We dont know if its because hes had surgery or because they cant ID him. Were just praying for the best. Just after 5 p.m., an official stood on a chair in the hotel lobby. He read off a list of names of shooting victims being treated at two hospitals. During the reading of the list, a woman in the crowd fainted and EMTs were called. Rodriguez could not be reached later Sunday evening; it was unclear whether Jeffreys name had been called. The official then said that if the families had not heard their loved ones name called, they should expect the worst, Figueroa said. They told them that if they still didnt know where their loved one was, they were probably dead, Figueroa said, noting that as of Sunday evening, many victims bodies still had not been removed from the nightclub. If they didnt call the name, they were still inside the club, said Candice Cruz, an Orlando resident who brought donated water to the hotel and spent the day offering support to the families. At D.C. Pride on Sunday, the LGBTQ community expresses sorrow and stands in support with the victims of the deadly mass shooting that took place at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post) After the announcement, a woman sat on a chair next to a stack of pizza boxes, sobbing and screaming, as a clergy member knelt next to her and tried to comfort her. A man appeared to be passed out in a corner. A woman crumpled in her chair, crying, and had to be taken out in a wheelchair. Another woman had to be helped outside; she couldnt make it and medics set up a chair for her near the exit. She vomited into a trash can. An older man clutching a cane sat in a chair, tears streaming down his face. A woman offered him tissues and no words were exchanged. Therapy dogs were walked through the lobby. A man talked on his cellphone, tears streaming down his cheeks. Two sobbing women hugged, crying silently, both of them shaking. A sobbing man in a Chicago Bulls hat was helped into the hotel, people supporting him under each arm. He was followed by a young woman who also could not walk under her own weight; two people supported her. As she walked down the hallway she wailed, Why? Why? Why? Many of the families were Hispanic, and most seemed to speak more Spanish than English. An older woman sat in a chair and wailed, Mi hijo, mi hijo, mi hijo, por favor, Spanish for My son, please. Figueroa said the scene was overwhelming. I have seen a lot of grief, he said. But what I had never been exposed to before was so many people grieving so openly at the same time. It looked like a war zone. As I type these words, theres nerve-tingling in my ring finger. My neck is fatigued. My forearms ache. Just like everyone else, I spend too much time typing on a keyboard or tapping on a screen. Devices out, heads down, thumbs scrolling. I should know better. As a writer who relies on tech, Im in the vanguard of the Digital Ages physical fallout, a canary in the cyber coal mine. Text neck? Got it. Cellphone elbow or cubital tunnel syndrome? Yep. Tendinitis? Check. For well over a decade, there have been months when I couldnt type an email. Or pick up a piece of paper, let alone my children. [Is data good for doctors? The Washington Post examines the question live June 14.] Pain is a great and terrible teacher. Few pay attention unless they too begin to suffer. (Courtesy of Ken Hansraj M.D.) Research, meanwhile, hasnt matched the pace of tech innovation. Still, nearly a decade after the smartphones arrival, evidence of tech-caused digital disabilities is emerging. Among the studies: College students with high smartphone usage are more likely than those with low usage to experience impaired hand function, thumb pain and other issues, a 2015 study in the journal Muscle & Nerve found. Other recent articles associate the use of hand-held devices with discomfort, pain and repetitive-strain injuries. A recent case study in JAMA Internal Medicine, for example, chronicled a 29-year-old man who played a match-3 puzzle video game (such as Candy Crush or Puzzle Quest) all day for six to eight weeks, one-handed while doing other tasks. Researchers at the Naval Medical Center San Diego said all this play on his smartphone was associated with chronic thumb pain and a ruptured tendon. They noted that gaming suppresses pain perception: In effect, people dont notice their pain enough to stop before going too far. [Text neck is becoming an epidemic and could wreck your spine] Whether typing, swiping or tapping, people are stressing an array of muscles, nerves and tendons. Movements that might seem minor can wreak havoc when done repeatedly with force, experts say, and such usage is likely to increase, especially among youth. By 2015, nearly two-thirds of American adults owned a smartphone, up from 35 percent in 2011, a Pew Research Center report found, and smartphone ownership is especially high among younger Americans at 85 percent. Text neck has become a catchphrase describing neck pain and damage from looking down at your cell phone, tablet, or other wireless devices too frequently and for too long, chiropractor Steven Shoshany wrote recently on the peer-reviewed physicians website Spine-health. A head bent 45 degrees forward a typical tilt while one is texting exerts a force on the spine of nearly 50 pounds, noted a 2014 study in Surgical Technology International weight that hangs off neck ligaments, muscles and bones. In many ways, its about the angle. Occupational health and safety researcher Jack Dennerlein, of Harvard and Northeastern universities, found that the ways we torque our necks or twist and overextend wrists or thumbs along with the length of time we spend on devices can cause discomfort and pain. In a 2015 review article in the journal Work, Dennerlein wrote that the state of ergonomics, or safe design, for mobile technology is a work in progress. Tablet stands, external keyboards, voice dictation, neck support and styluses could help prevent discomfort, he noted. In some ways, he said, were in the midst of a natural experiment: Mobile devices allow us to use them in any type of configuration to lay back in bed, upside down, in all sorts of awkward postures. A few minutes might be okay, but if youre typing emails for three hours, thats not good. Dennerlein is at the center of the emerging research. In 2012, he led a Harvard study that found that adjusting tablet viewing angle to as straight ahead as possible provides relief. His other recent research has evaluated the benefits of smaller smartphones and better icon placement for hand comfort and thumb access. Most advice has not yet filtered down. Tons of people come in with tendinitis and overuse injuries, and a lot of them are texting, said Ryan M. Zimmerman, a Baltimore orthopedic surgeon and hand specialist. Its hard to determine a sole cause, he said, because arthritis or other issues might factor in. Whats clear, he said, is this: People spend a lot of time with their shoulders rounded forward, focused on this little, tiny device. Frequent texters might notice a painful snapping when bending the thumb. Other overuse symptoms include tenderness, pain, tingling and loss of sensation or strength. Treatment may include anti-inflammatories, heat or cold packs, and braces. Next steps: physical therapy, steroid injections or surgery. For some patients in pain, Zimmerman advises taking a hiatus, especially to ease a thumb disorder known as de Quervains tenosynovitis, a.k.a. BlackBerry thumb. His advice often falls on deaf or ear-bud-plugged ears. Kids are starting to have the same problems as adults, Zimmerman said. Theyll say, It hurts when I text. And I say, Stop doing that. But thats a totally unacceptable proposition to them. Its a just-give-me-a-shot kind of thing. Newer waves of digital natives might be at greater risk. Tech device use is increasing, even in schools. The Department of Educations 2016 National Education Technology Plan urges higher integration of tech in K-12 classrooms. Yet the plan does not list ergonomic guidelines to prevent pain or injury. In some parts of the Washington area, even elementary-age children increasingly work on tablets or laptops. Yet such districts, school officials note, offer scant ergonomic guidelines specific to new tech, especially tablets. Yet a bent-neck posture, which is seen in many classrooms, is implicated in neck pain, according to a 2015 study in Ergonomics, which found that the mechanical demand on neck muscles is three to five times greater with such flexion than a neutral posture for seated tablet users. Baltimore County Public Schools is leading Maryland with what some officials call a digital learning environment. Increased screen time is de rigueur, including software-based curricula. In a few years, under the schools plan, my children are to be among 110,000 students assigned their own laptop or tablet. Im among parents raising questions about the districts lack of screen-time limits and other guidelines. Children could be especially susceptible to tech-related disorders, experts say, because they lack postural awareness and their bodies are growing. Its a big experiment, Zimmerman said. Recently, the superintendent announced formation of a Baltimore County School Health Council to make recommendations. Karen Jacobs, a Boston University clinical professor of occupational therapy, has authored several studies on tech ergonomics, with upcoming findings showing that ergonomic education significantly improves neck posture in middle school students using tablets. Trained occupational therapists already based at some schools can offer guidance, Jacobs said. Children dont want to be in pain, she added, noting that kids some of whom experience headaches, eye strain or neck discomfort after using tech devices need frequent breaks and physical movement, not static postures. Its really important that our children are doing lots of different things. Debra Milek, a University of Washington associate professor in environmental and occupational health sciences, noted that worn-out tendons, neck pain and carpal tunnel syndrome have plagued computer users and store cashiers, and ended the careers of guitarists. Discomfort may be an early indicator of future injury, Milek noted, which is why its important to pay attention to how we use these devices. We might have predicted such problems. The Industrial Revolution created injuries specific to factories. With the PC revolution in the 1980s and the Internet boom in the 1990s, computer-specific injuries cropped up. I know. Starting in my early 20s in the frenetically paced newsroom of the Miami Herald, I faced bouts of pain and disability. In the mid-1990s, a mini-epidemic of repetitive-strain injuries was reported by journalists who were tap-tap-tapping shoulders hunched for hours. Sound familiar? Not everyone was affected. But the intensity and time spent typing were major factors. Media companies and other businesses responded with ergonomic workstations. Yet those seem quaint in the current age of on-the-fly media consumption. As tech evolves, device designers should think outside the rectangle, physicians say. A hand-friendly smartphone might wrap around the palm, for example. As Zimmerman noted, Theres nothing about a flat rectangle thats great for a hand. Meanwhile, advice for digital device users: Limit screen time and take breaks. Close your eyes every 20 minutes or look to the distance to avoid vision problems. Gently stretch wrists and necks, and alter postures. Some pointers, however, resemble a ballet lesson: Keep shoulders relaxed and elbows close to your body, and your hands, wrists, forearms and thighs parallel. How likely is all this when our minds are absorbed into the portal, our body awareness muted as we tap into free WiFi at Starbucks? I know what I should do, and I still forget to do it. My iPad and iPhone 6s, which offer respite from the keyboard, also lure me in until my neck has hit the 45-degree slouch for an hour. I try to support my head, tap on dictation or pick up a pen and write. Ill dodge pain however I can and still use the tech thats central to my work. And, yes, Ill also take a break from revising this essay soon, and look out the window at the skittering clouds in the sky beyond. Some people receive constant reminders on their smartphones: birthdays, anniversaries, doctors appointments, social engagements. At work, their computers prompt them to meet deadlines, attend meetings and have lunch with the boss. Prodding here and pinging there, these pop-up interruptions can turn into noise to be ignored instead of helpful nudges. Something similar is happening to doctors, nurses and pharmacists. And when theyre hit with too much information, the result can be a health hazard. The electronic patient records that the federal government has been pushing in an effort to coordinate health care and reduce mistakes come with a host of bells and whistles that may be doing the opposite in some cases. Whats the problem? Its called alert fatigue. Electronic health records increasingly include automated alert systems pegged to patients health information. [Too much noise from hospital alarms poses risk for patients] One alert might signal that a drug being prescribed could interact badly with other medications. Another might advise the pharmacist about a patients drug allergy. But they also could simply note each time that a patient is prescribed painkillers useful to detect addiction, but irrelevant if, say, someone had a major surgery and is expected to need such meds. Or they may highlight a potential health consequence relevant to an elderly woman, although the patient at hand is a 20-something man. The number of these pop-up messages has become unmanageable, doctors and IT experts say, because of reflecting what many experts call excessive caution, and now they are overwhelming practitioners. Clinicians ignore safety notifications between 49 percent and 96 percent of the time, said Shobha Phansalkar, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. [Heart doctors are listening for clues to the future of their stethoscopes] When providers are bombarded with warnings, they will predictably miss important things, said David Bates, a senior vice president at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. Now, doctors, technologists and software vendors are trying to fix the problem. Research on this human-computer interaction is starting to explore the degree of risk posed by excessive alerting vs. the benefits that alerts produce. The companies selling electronic health records say advances are moving their systems toward more targeted, relevant warnings, instead of broad-brush signaling. [A medical mistake happens. Who pays the bill?] This is an issue that everyones going to have to wrestle with eventually, said Bill Marella, executive director of patient safety operations and analytics at ECRI Institute, a nonprofit that studies health-care safety and quality issues. In April, the institute ranked design and implementation of new health IT systems as its top safety concern for 2016. Some hospitals and health systems are paving the way. Take Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia. In 2012, the facility switched to a new electronic health record, said Eric Shelov, the hospitals associate chief medical information officer. Immediately, he said, practitioners began seeing far more alerts, to the point that doctors were overriding almost all of them. The problem, Shelov said, is that if you see enough nonsense, youre going to start ignoring it. That has consequences. In one instance at Childrens, doctors ignored relevant information about how a patient might respond to a drug, Shelov said, because it appeared alongside heaps of superfluous notifications warnings, for instance, about drugs that posed minimal risk of interfering with each other. Consequently, the patient received medication that induced a potentially lethal reaction. The hospital caught the mistake in time, but the incident spurred a series of changes. A team of pharmacists, doctors and other clinicians have sorted through what triggered alerts in the system, turning off the ones they decided werent actually relevant or necessary. That has helped. But its an ongoing battle, Shelov said. Its a little bit of trying to turn off the fire hose. Systems such as Cleveland-based MetroHealth, the University of Vermont Medical Center and Group Health Collaborative of Southern Wisconsin have undertaken similar projects. Still others, including Brigham and Womens, are working on it. But figuring out what merits a warning takes time, manpower, expertise and money. Not all hospitals have those resources, Bates said. Its inherently subjective. Some stakeholder groups have put out recommendations, and hospitals such as Childrens have made presentations on ways to combat alert fatigue. But individual hospital task forces often end up deciding for themselves whats risky enough to warrant an alert. Patients, meanwhile, arent standing beside their doctors as they scroll through their medical records, noted Helen Haskell, a patient safety advocate. Patients can request access to their records, but thats a static page theyll see only after getting care. That means that, while this hyper-alerting poses a danger, theres no way for consumers to know if, say, they got worse care because the doctor missed a warning. Its very rare that patients are granted that perspective, she said. Software vendors say theyre trying to make their systems smarter. Epic Systems, outside Madison, Wis., for example, has been hearing feedback for years from doctors about redundant or irrelevant alerts, said Bret Shillingstad, a physician who works on Epics clinical informatics team. Epic has added features that allow hospitals to turn those alerts off. The company is working on software that might target alerts based on such things as a patients health condition or that might recommend medications that better match someones overall profile. Then there are simpler adjustments, such as changing a system so that if a patient needs a vaccine, reminders just go to the primary-care doctor, not the orthopedist, too. In the long term, system designers are trying to better consider the nuances of a patients medical needs so that they can use fewer warnings, and send them only when they matter, said Terry Fairbanks, director of MedStar Healths National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare in Washington. For instance, people with advanced cancer often need doses of morphine that might be unsuitable for other patients. A smarter system would warn doctors about that morphine order for patients who dont have cancer but would treat it as normal for someone in the diseases late stages. Such a change could limit distractions, so that physicians act upon pressing reminders such as a notification that a patient is at risk for sepsis, which can be deadly if its not noticed early. But theres still debate. Haskell said she would argue that doctors should always be warned about certain medications and drug interactions. All of these alerts have really reduced medication interactions. Its a service, she said. It just needs to be refined. Kaiser Health News Read more: Check your health records: You may be able to avoid trouble. Is your childs pediatrician better than a smartphone? No? Get a new pediatrician. Family members gathered at a hotel in Orlando to receive updates on the status of their loved ones following the worst mass shooting in American history. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post) Family members gathered at a hotel in Orlando to receive updates on the status of their loved ones following the worst mass shooting in American history. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post) During the biggest mass shooting on U.S. soil, Jeffrey Rodriguez reached out to his brother through a text message: Im bleeding so much and I dont think Im going to make it. Call mom and dad and tell them I love them. He was in a group of about 15, he wrote, hiding in a bathroom while a friend, a physicians assistant, tended to his wounds. It was the last time his family heard from him, and on Sunday evening his stepmother, Mary Ann Rodriguez, was among the dozens of family members of the missing at a holding area at the Hampton Inn and Suites in downtown Orlando waiting for news. His name hasnt been called, Rodriguez said. We dont know if its because hes had surgery or because they cant ID him. Were just praying for the best. After the devastating attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the process of identifying victims and getting news to their families has been agonizingly slow. Authorities said 50 people were killed and an additional 53 injured, but as of early Monday morning they were able to publicly confirm the deaths of only 21, leaving many friends and relatives anxious and emotional. View Graphic Minute by minute: How the attack in Orlando unfolded Area hospitals were not releasing details on the patients being treating at their facilities, but doctors said many of the injured had gunshot wounds to their chests, legs and arms. All those identified so far by Orlando officials were people in their 20s and 30s: Stanley Almodovar III, 23; Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22; Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22; Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20; Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36; Luis S. Vielma, 22; Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34; and Kimberly Morris, 37. Almodovar, of Clermont, worked as a pharmacy technician. His friend Ivelisse Santiago described Almodovar as kind but sassy, someone who was confident in his sexual identity and able to help others find their place in the gay community. He was a fierce advocate for his friends, she said, recalling how he defended her one night when they were out dancing and she fell, drawing jeers. He was so proud of who he was, she said. Sotomayor, who went by Eddie and lived in Sarasota, was a national brand manager at AlandChuck.travel, a gay travel agency. Al Ferguson, owner of the company, posted a video on Facebook of Sotomayor and a friend making silly faces at the Pulse nightclub that they sent to him 23 minutes before the attack. I am empty, Ferguson wrote shortly after Sotomayors death was confirmed. The scene outside the hotel and at nearby Orlando Regional Medical Center, where many of the victims were taken, was one of unimaginable pain. One woman sat on a chair next to a stack of pizza boxes, sobbing and screaming. A clergy member knelt next to her as two other people fanned her with paper plates. Another woman had to be helped outside; she couldnt make it and medics set up a chair for her near the exit. She vomited into a trash can. An older woman cried for someone in Spanish: Mi hijo, mi hijo, mi hijo, por favor! People in Disney polos handed out bottles of water, as did others who appeared to be members of the clergy. Jose Honorato was waiting with seven siblings for information about younger brother Miguel. He was at the club with three friends. They made it out safely when the shooting started, but they dont know if he made it out, Honorato said.He said he jointly manages a Mexican restaurant that his parents own with Miguel, and that Miguel, 30, has a wife and three children. Sara Lopez was looking for her best friend. Hes like my brother, she said, her voice breaking under the strain of not knowing what happened to him. Members of Orlandos gay community were particularly shaken, with some saying that more than a dozen of their friends were still unaccounted for. I would have thought it was the safest place I could go to, said Enakai Mpire, who has performed at Pulse but was not there Saturday night. On Sunday evening, more than 200 people packed the one-room Joy Metropolitan Christian Church, praying for unity and vowing to remain strong.It was standing room only in the church known for welcoming the gay community, with a pulpit draped with rainbow banners. The churchs founder, the Rev. Elder Troy Perry, joined via teleconference, telling the congregation that he had wept all day. We will continue the struggle, he said, his voice breaking. Prayers for the victims, their families and even the attacker were spoken and applauded.One clergy member read a prayer from the prophet Muhammed, calling for peace. One victim of the shooting joined the vigil and walked to his seat supported by friends. He said he hid in a bathroom for three hours and at one point had to play dead. Every time I heard a shot, he recalled, I prayed it wasnt taking a friend of mine. hayley.tsukayama@washpost.com katie.zezima@washpost.com Amanda Elder in Orlando and Isaac Stanley-Becker in Washington contributed to this report. Cha reported from Washington. Korean brands rank a poor sixth in the lucrative Chinese market for high-end consumer goods like perfume, fashion, jewelry and handbags. But exports of high-end goods to other countries in Asia are increasing thanks to the popularity of Korean TV dramas and movies in the region. According to the Institute for International Trade on Sunday, China imported US$20.9 billion worth of high-end consumer goods in 2014, with Korean products accounting for 2.8 percent. Italian products led the field with 14.9 percent, followed by French with 12.3 percent and Swiss with 9.1 percent. Japanese products accounted for five percent and American for 3.5 percent. Korea's share of the Chinese high-end market rose only 0.2 percentage point from 2.6 percent in 2011 due to a lack of global brand awareness. According to a study by Deloitte, the only Korean-owned brand among the world's top 100 luxury consumer goods is MCM, originally a German brand. Last year, Korea exported $6.1 billion worth of high-end luxury products, a mere 8.5 percent of Italian and 10.1 percent of French shipments. They account for just 1.2 percent of Korea's overall exports. But in terms of growth Korea's high-end consumer products are faring better than key exports, which are slowing down due to the global slump. Korea's overall exports declined eight percent last year, but exports of high-end consumer products rose 13.1 percent and an average of 29 percent over the last five years mainly on the back of premium beauty products In Vietnam they account for 7.8 percent of the market, a respectable slice and the highest anywhere. Shim Hye-jeong at the institute said, "The Asian population is expected to grow from 52.5 billion in 2009 to 322.8 billion in 2030, which translates into a marked increase in demand for high-end products, so we need to develop new luxury brands and try to acquire leading foreign brands." Shim also recommended diversifying sales channels to meet changing consumption patterns. BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO REPUBLICANS Theres no sign of a Donald Trump effect down ballot yet. For all the trouble Republicans are having getting their nominee to stay on message, their primaries have gone relatively smoothly. So far, only one Republican incumbent, Rep. Renee L. Ellmers (N.C.), has lost a primary, and she lost it after being the first member of Congress endorsed by Trump. One potential takeaway for Republicans: Their voters may be able to distinguish between Trump and the rest of their party's elected leaders. We dont know if thats the case for sure, but its a heartening thought for Republicans as they watch their presidential nominee continue to step in controversy. BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO DEMOCRATS They finally lined up behind their de facto nominee, Hillary Clinton. Or at least, top party officials did. As it became clear that Clinton had officially won enough pledged delegates to clinch the nomination, President Obama, Vice President Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorsed her. Warrens endorsement in particular was notable, given that the progressive hero had conspicuously stayed out of the primary campaign. For his part, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) said hell keep his campaign going through at least Tuesday, when Washington, D.C., voters will be the last to chime in on the Democrats nominating contest. When Sanders eventually does suspend his campaign, its an open-ended question whether his passionate supporters will line up behind Clinton as easily as the rest of the party apparently has. Amber Phillips IRAQ Escape route from Fallujah secured The Iraqi army said on Sunday that it had secured the first safe exit route for civilians to leave the Islamic States besieged stronghold of Fallujah, and a Norwegian aid group said thousands of people had already used it to flee in the first day it was open. While it pressed on with its offensive in Fallujah, the army also launched a fresh advance in the direction of the northern city of Mosul, the Islamic States de facto Iraqi capital. The Iraqi government launched a major operation last month to recapture Fallujah, an hours drive from Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said troops are delaying advances to protect civilians. The United Nations fears for the fate of up to 90,000 people believed trapped inside Fallujah with little food or water. The new exit route, known as al-Salam (Peace) Junction, was secured on Saturday, southwest of Fallujah, said Joint Operation Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool. There were exit routes previously, but this is the first to be completely secured, and its relatively safe, he said. About 4,000 people had fled the city over the previous 24 hours through the al-Salam Junction, said Karl Schembri, a spokesman in Iraq for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has been assisting people who escape. Reuters SYRIA Airstrikes kill at least 27, including children A series of airstrikes in an insurgent-held Syrian province on Sunday killed at least 27 people, including four children, activists said. The airstrikes in the northwestern Idlib province struck a crowded market and an apartment block and came despite reports that a local truce between the government and insurgents had been renewed. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said at least 21 people were killed by several airstrikes in Idlib city, including one that hit a popular market. The group said it believes the airstrike was carried out by Russian forces, supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime. The group said another airstrike in the city of Maaret al-Numan, also in Idlib province, hit an apartment building, bringing it down and killing six people, including a mother and her four children who were trapped under the rubble. Associated Press NIGERIA Refugees to be returned home Nigeria says it has agreed to Cameroons voluntary return of 80,000 Nigerian refugees who have fled the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency. Nigerian officials had said Cameroon was threatening to force the repatriation. Cameroon previously has dumped thousands of people on the border. Nigerian emergency agency spokesman Sani Datti said Sunday that an agreement for their return voluntarily and in a dignified manner has been signed by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Nigeria and Cameroon. Last month, Nigerians who had returned home were blocked from returning to Cameroon though they complained they did not have enough water as temperatures soared above 100 degrees. A new influx will tax Nigerian officials struggling to cater for 2.1 million people displaced within the country. The United Nations says another 600,000 are displaced in the region. Associated Press Dozens of military officers reportedly arrested in Uganda: A Ugandan military official says dozens of army officers, including some senior ones, have been arrested over an alleged plot to overthrow longtime President Yoweri Museveni. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda said Sunday that more officers are being held over alleged acts of subversion. One of those in detention is a colonel with Ugandas air forces. He said the officers have suspected links to an opposition lawmaker, Michael Kabaziguruka, who is being questioned by the police over similar allegations. Egypt says time is running out to find black boxes: Egyptian investigators say time is running out in the search for the black boxes from an EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea last month, killing all 66 people on board. In a statement Sunday, they said searches by ships in the area will intensify, given that only around five days remain before the batteries in the flights data and cockpit voice recorders expire and they stop emitting signals. London mayor vows to fight Brexit: Londons mayor is pledging to fight to the bitter end to persuade voters to remain in the European Union in a June 23 referendum. Sadiq Khan told the Associated Press on Sunday that it was time for political leaders who want the country to stay in the 28-nation bloc to present a more unified front fighting together in common cause. Italy says 1,230 migrants rescued: Italys coast guard said on Sunday that 1,230 migrants had been picked up in nine rescue operations in the waters between Sicily and North Africa, with one body being recovered. That brings the number of people saved at sea over the past four days to more than 4,000. From news services Sanford J. Ungar, author of The Papers & the Papers: An Account of the Legal and Political Battle over the Pentagon Papers, is a Lumina Foundation fellow and teaches seminars on free speech at Harvard and Georgetown universities. Nothing is more important to the health and sustainability of a modern democracy than its citizens awareness of, and confidence in, what their government is doing. Excessive government secrecy inherent, instinctive, utterly unnecessary and often bureaucratically self-protective is poison to the well-being of civil society. It is useful to remember this simple precept Monday, the 45th anniversary of the 1971 publication by the New York Times of the Pentagon Papers, a classified government history of decades of U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia and the untruths the public was told about it. For the 17 days that followed, the Nixon administration and the press, already at odds, duked it out in the federal courts while the Times, The Post and other media withheld the information under judicial orders. Although the Supreme Court ruled, 6 to 3, on June 30 that the administration had not justified its demand for prior restraint on further publication, the legacy of the case has been a subject of argument ever since. Because the subsequent criminal charges against Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the documents ended in a mistrial, the right of current or former government officials to reveal foreign policy misconduct has never been convincingly established. In the digital age, the boundaries, if any, of press freedom in the United States are more difficult to define. Whether the more recent secret-document dumps by Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were in the public interest remains unclear. But one thing is certain: Government secrecy, especially in matters of foreign policy and national security, is worse than ever, and the over-classification of information increases by the day. As a member of the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB), based at the National Archives, I have come to appreciate the mind-boggling dimensions of this problem: The volume of the federal governments classified digital information assets is growing at an astonishing pace. The Clinton Presidential Library has about four terabytes worth to be processed, and the George W. Bush Library 10 times as much. There is no official estimate of the amount generated during the Obama administration. According to the Archives, as of 2012, the Presidential Libraries alone [held] the equivalent of at least 5 billion pages of digital information in need of review. Lining the pages end-to-end would stretch over 631,313 miles . . . enough to circle the Earth more than 25 times. This fantastical tally does not include the uncountable classified electronic records held outside the presidential libraries, or the hundreds of millions of paper records going back decades and still being created. The Archives is, in a word, out of space to store the paper records and cannot possibly review them fast enough to make room for all the new ones. Review here is a euphemism for an often-tortuous process in which overtaxed declassification experts from various federal agencies painstakingly go over documents line by line to determine what can be made public without posing a national security risk. In a classic instance of good intentions leading to problematic consequences, reforms requiring intelligence agencies to share more information with each other have created a new genre of secret documents in which distinct parts of the bureaucracy all have their own interests to protect. Hence, much of the material must be circulated for repeated examinations before it can be released. Frequently, different agencies redact different portions of documents, and a further adjudication process may ensue. Two current concepts offer a glimmer of hope. One, pressed by the PIDB, is to allow the National Declassification Center at the Archives to replace what its director calls the factory approach to document review (which often results in the declassification of routine information of little public interest) with a system of prioritization. This would involve developing a consensus among interested parties, including Congress, historians and journalists, on an annual list of big-ticket topics on which declassified documents (even some not ordinarily due for review for 25 years) might shed particularly useful light policy deliberations leading to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example. Arriving at each years list of issues for priority attention, naturally, could be extremely difficult. More radical is the push to introduce widespread use of electronic declassification of sensitive documents, an effort sponsored, to the surprise of many, by the CIA, along with the Archives. Research conducted by the Center for Content Understanding (CCU) at the University of Texas in Austin has shown that sophisticated computers can be taught the analytical ability to understand natural language and concepts as humans do, in order to provide decision support technology for classification and declassification alike. Cheryl Martin, director of the CCU, held a briefing last month for officials from Cabinet departments, intelligence agencies and others, including PIDB representatives; she demonstrated that when reviewing small samples of classified material, the computers achieved 98 percent accuracy a better record than human reviewers. Members of the intelligence community, who reflexively classify far too much information in the first place, worry about the grave risks that could arise from the 2 percent of mistakes the computers might make. You could see this on their faces at Martins briefing. (Of course, you cannot prosecute a computer for endangering national security, but how about its programmer or minder?) But change, be it gradual or rapid, must come, and soon. The alternative is to continue relying on manual processes that can only be compared to trying to bail the water out of a sinking ship thats about to get hit by a tsunami. And to expect periodic crises over leaks, orchestrated by people who think drastic measures are justified to let the public in on more of its own vital business. Dana Milbanks June 7 Washington Sketch column, GOP shocked shocked! as Trump remains Trump, laid out evidence of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps bigotry and racism. However, its much uglier than Mr. Milbank imagined. Media commentators have puzzled over why Mr. Trump would expend so much effort to accuse a respected judge of being a hater of Donald Trump who issued unfair rulings because of the judges ethnic background. Why not just litigate to dismiss the judge? Here comes the shock: There is no evidence. Its not about this judge. Mr. Trump is putting on a show to appear as a victim of racial prejudice in order to stir up racial hatred in the United States. Mr. Trump is a disrupter; what he has done to the GOP he intends to do to the United States. He is like the schoolyard bully who has succeeded in intimidating the teachers so that they turn their backs while he and his surrogates rule the playground. Mr. Trump intends to keep the electorate distracted and redirect its anger to achieve his ends. John J. Hudak, Columbia A man lights a candle as people gather outside of the Stonewall Inn in New York as a vigil is held following the massacre that occurred at a gay Orlando nightclub on Sunday. (Monika Graff/Getty Images) On Thursday, scores of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans lined up in the glorious sunshine outside the southeast entrance to the White House for the presidents eighth annual celebration of LGBT Pride Month. You have just read one of hundreds of sentences I never expected to be able to write, four decades after I realized that I was gay. And here is the sentence I never wanted to write about 50 people being massacred in a gay club, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. In the United States, almost every step forward for gay people has been followed by several steps backward. But Sundays horror exceeds anything many people have experienced before except for those of us old enough to remember the mass casualties of the AIDS epidemic. That catastrophe wiped out one-half of the gay men of my generation. On the eve of that epidemic, a similar though much smaller shooting spree sent a wave of fear through Manhattans Greenwich Village, quite like the one felt in Orlando early Sunday. In November 1980, a former New York City transit police officer stole an Uzi and three other weapons. Then he fired into a Village bar and two other locations, killing two and wounding six. On days like this, it is especially important to remember that we are a battle-hardened movement. Indeed, Thursdays White House celebration came 51 years after Washington saw the very first people ever to identify themselves as gay outside the White House. Twelve picketers led by Washington gay leaders Jack Nichols and Frank Kameny startled bystanders with handwritten signs reading 15 Million Homosexuals Protest Federal Treatment. They were referring to the executive order signed by Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 that prohibited the federal government and all of its contractors from employing anyone who was known to be gay a policy backed even by the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1950s. Five decades later, we had the run of the second floor of the White House with champagne and smoked salmon and the company of Eric Fanning, the openly gay secretary of the Army. There too were openly gay legislators, such as Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York and former senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania, as well as powerful allies, such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. And then there was the African American president who has done vastly more for Americas LGBT citizens than all of his predecessors put together. It is especially appropriate that the greatest champion we have ever had in the White House is a black American, because the success of the gay liberation movement flowed from our emulation of the fierce bravery of the nonviolent civil rights movement. Obama spoke briefly and beautifully about the folks who never imagined wed come this far maybe even some in this room, and about the upcoming generation Malias, Sashas generation [who] instinctively know people are people and families are families. And discrimination, its so last century. So when my husband and I left the White House, we felt a glow of pride and wonderment. Outside, we paused so I could snap a shot of my Joe holding up the presidents proclamation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month with the Peoples House behind him. And then we woke up Sunday morning to the horrific news. My first reactions were those of a citizen furious at a Republican-dominated Congress that has refused to enact even the most limited gun control proposals. I worried that if this was described as another act of terrorism, it could fuel the xenophobic campaign of Donald Trump. And when the shooter was identified as a Muslim, my thoughts passed to my newest Muslim friend, a recent graduate of the Columbia Journalism School, who is proud and out in New York City but doesnt think he will ever be able to tell anyone in his own East African family about the way he loves. After that, I spoke with Maloney, who had arranged our White House visit, about the necessary conversation to come: about anti-LGBT hatred, about gun violence and about terrorism. But Maloney made what I think is an essential point, that the models for the gay community should be the brave parishioners in Charleston, who even in the immediate aftermath of that horrific shooting responded with love and with dignity. They did not allow themselves to be defined by the hatred of their attacker, and neither should we. Frank Kameny died in 2011, yet there is little doubt he would have endorsed those sentiments. After seeing Stokely Carmichael declare on television in 1968 that black is beautiful, Kameny invented the first slogan of the gay liberation movement: Gay is good. Gay is good, and gay is strongest when we use the worst adversity to strengthen our commitment to liberty and life. BERLIN, GERMANY - JUNE 18: The Brandenburg Gate is seen with a rainbow flag projected onto it during a vigil for victims of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida nearly a week earlier, in front of the United States embassy on June 18, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. Fifty people were killed and at least as many injured during a Latin music event at the Pulse club in the worst terror attack in the U.S. since 9/11. The American-born gunman had pledged allegiance to ISIS, though officials have yet to find conclusive evidence of his having any direct connection with foreign extremists. The incident has added fuel to the ongoing debate about gun control in the country. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images) BERLIN, GERMANY - JUNE 18: The Brandenburg Gate is seen with a rainbow flag projected onto it during a vigil for victims of a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida nearly a week earlier, in front of the United States embassy on June 18, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. Fifty people were killed and at least as many injured during a Latin music event at the Pulse club in the worst terror attack in the U.S. since 9/11. The American-born gunman had pledged allegiance to ISIS, though officials have yet to find conclusive evidence of his having any direct connection with foreign extremists. The incident has added fuel to the ongoing debate about gun control in the country. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images) Adam Berry/Getty Images Justin Torres is the author of the novel We the Animals. If youre lucky, theyll play some Latin cheese, that Aventura song from 15 years ago. If youre lucky, there will be drag queens and, if so, almost certainly they will be quick, razor-sharp with their humor, giving you the kind of performances that cut and heal all at once. If youre lucky, there will be go-go boys, every shade of brown. Maybe your Ma blessed you on the way out the door. Maybe she wrapped a plate for you in the fridge so you dont come home and mess up her kitchen with your hunger. Maybe your Tia dropped you off, gave you cab money home. Maybe you had to get a sitter. Maybe youve yet to come out to your family at all, or maybe your family kicked you out years ago. Forget it, you survived. Maybe your boo stayed home, wasnt feeling it, but is blowing up your phone with sweet texts, trying to make sure you dont stray. Maybe youre allowed to stray. Maybe youre flush, maybe youre broke as nothing, and angling your pretty face barside, hoping someone might buy you a drink. Maybe your half-Latin-ass doesnt even speak Spanish; maybe you barely speak English. Maybe youre undocumented. At D.C. Pride on Sunday, the LGBTQ community expresses sorrow and stands in support with the victims of the deadly mass shooting that took place at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post) Outside, theres a world that politicizes every aspect of your identity. There are preachers, of multiple faiths, mostly self-identified Christians, condemning you to hell. Outside, they call you an abomination. Outside, there is a news media that acts as if there are two sides to a debate over trans people using public bathrooms. Outside, there is a presidential candidate who has built a platform on erecting a wall between the United States and Mexico and not only do people believe that crap is possible, they believe it is necessary. Outside, Puerto Rico is still a colony, being allowed to drown in debt, to suffer, without the right to file for bankruptcy, to protect itself. Outside, there are more than 100 bills targeting you, your choices, your people, pending in various states. You have known violence. You have known violence. You are queer and you are brown and you have known violence. You have known a masculinity, a machismo, stupid with its own fragility. You learned basic queer safety, you have learned to scan, casually, quickly, before any public display of affection. Outside, the world can be murderous to you and your kind. Lord knows. But inside, it is loud and sexy and on. If youre lucky, its a mixed crowd, muscle Marys and bois and femme fags and butch dykes and genderqueers. If youre lucky, no one is wearing much clothing, and the dance floor is full. If youre lucky, theyre playing reggaeton, salsa, and you can move. People talk about liberation as if its some kind of permanent state, as if you get liberated and thats it, you get some rights and thats it, you get some acknowledgment and thats it, happy now? But youre going back down into the muck of it every day; this world constricts. You know what the opposite of Latin Night at the Queer Club is? Another Day in Straight White America. So when you walk into the club, if youre lucky, it feels expansive. Safe space is a cliche, overused and exhausted in our discourse, but the fact remains that a sense of safety transforms the body, transforms the spirit. So many of us walk through the world without it. So when you walk through the door and its a salsa beat, and brown bodies, queer bodies, all writhing in some fake smoke and strobing lights, no matter how cool, how detached, how over-it you think you are, Latin Night at the Queer Club breaks your cool. You cant help but smile, this is for you, for us. Outside, tomorrow, hangovers, regrets, the grind. Outside, tomorrow, the struggle to effect change. But inside, tonight, none of that matters. Inside, tonight, the only imperative is to love. Lap the bar, out for a smoke, back inside, the ammonia and sweat and the floor slightly tacky, another drink, the imperative is to get loose, get down, find religion, lose it, find your hips locked into anothers, break, dance on your own for a while but you didnt come here to be a nun find your lips pressed against anothers, break, find your friends, dance. The only imperative is to be transformed, transfigured in the disco light. To lighten, loosen, see yourself reflected in the beauty of others. You didnt come here to be a martyr, you came to live, papi. To live, mamacita. To live, hijos. To live, mariposas. The media will spin the conversation away from homegrown homophobic terrorism to a general United States vs. Islamist narrative. Mendacious, audacious politicians Republicans who vote against queer rights, against gun control will seize on this massacre, twist it for support of their agendas. But for a moment, I want to talk about the sacredness of Latin Night at the Queer Club. Amid all the noise, I want to close my eyes and see you all there, dancing, inviolable, free. Cuban President Raul Castro, right, lifts the arm of President Obama at the conclusion of their joint news conference at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana on March 21. (Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press) There are two ways dictatorships can end, says Oscar Elias Biscet. One is a revolution of the superstructure, where the top changes itself. The other is a change from the bottom up, like those that introduced democracy to Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and, most recently, Tunisia. Cubas leading dissidents are sure about their choice. We want to build a a civic, nonviolent movement that will overturn this regime and bring democracy to Cuba, says Biscet. President Obama has bet on the other side. He has spent the past several years cultivating the regime of Raul Castro, on the theory that normal diplomatic relations and increased commerce will lead, eventually, to greater freedom for Cubans. In announcing the opening, he went so far as to say that neither Cubans nor Americans should wish for the collapse of the Castro regime. Last Wednesday, as Biscet arrived in Washington for the first time in his life, U.S. envoys from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department were meeting in Havana with Obamas chosen interlocutors regime security officials, including those from the notorious Interior Ministry, which oversees domestic repression. Biscet, who got to know the Interior Ministry well during the dozen years he spent as a political prisoner, was meanwhile explaining why Obamas strategy is more likely to entrench than transform Cuban Communism. This was a great move for Castro, said the 54-year-old doctor, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush in 2007, while he was in prison. The rapprochement with the United States, he said, provided Cuba with a vital economic prop at a time when it was losing the support of imploding Venezuela. Meanwhile, when people see Obama greeting Castro in the way that he did, it gives a totalitarian regime global legitimacy. Obamas policy has had the effect of stranding the most pro-American, pro-democracy people in Cuba the activists who have spent their lives fighting the system, at enormous personal cost. While the regime collects U.S. cooperation and dollars, repression of the opposition has sharply increased; according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights, there were 6,075 political arrests during the first five months of this year, the highest number in decades. This month two of the most important dissident leaders, Biscet and Jose Daniel Ferrer, were allowed to leave the island for the first time. Why did the Castros abruptly grant them this permission to travel? They are feeling strong, said Biscet. They think that at this point we wont get that much attention. Both nevertheless came to Washington to make their case. After all, congressional Republicans are still listening; they just passed legislation that would restrict the blossoming U.S.-Cuba military contacts. Biscet and Ferrer have a lot in common: They were both arrested in the early 2000s, during a sweeping crackdown on the opposition, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. When a Vatican-brokered amnesty of political prisoners began in 2010, they both remained behind bars, because they refused to go into exile. Finally released in 2011, they both launched grass-roots political movements. Biscet heads the Havana-based Emilia Project, which he says has collected 3,000 signatures on a manifesto calling for democracy. Ferrer, 45 and based in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, heads the even larger Cuban Patriotic Union, which runs its own social services and distributes DVDs of the news and information banned in Cubas public squares. They differ, however, on Obamas initiative. Biscet is implacably opposed, though he still calls the United States a beacon of liberty. Ferrer avoids condemnation, which he calls political suicide, given the broad support for the opening among ordinary Cubans who desperately hope for change. Ferrer nevertheless has a similar view of Obamas initiative. They run the risk that the regime will be the one that comes out the winner, he said during a conversation a week before Biscets visit. They are making it possible that any change in Cuba will not end in democracy, but in something like the Russia of Vladimir Putin. So what do they the dissidents want? They dont ask for another radical change of U.S. policy; only for measures that would help their fledgling political movements. Foremost is information more U.S. broadcasting, more Internet access, more of everything that can provide Cubans uncensored news. The control the regime has over the media is the greatest obstacle for people to wake up and channel their rebellion, said Ferrer. Said Biscet: Broadcasting TV Marti from an airplane was very expensive, but people watched it. That will be news to those in Washington who ridiculed U.S. broadcasting to Cuba and cheered Obamas cultivation of the Castros. Their bet was that Cubas Communists would be better partners than its pro-democracy dissidents. So far, theyve been wrong. Read more from Jackson Diehls archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. The President called for an expansion of social security during remarks at Concord Community High School in Elkhart, Indiana. (The White House) The President called for an expansion of social security during remarks at Concord Community High School in Elkhart, Indiana. (The White House) President Obama unintentionally damaged his legacy recently by urging an expansion of Social Security benefits and, thereby, reminding everyone (and particularly future historians) that he failed to deal with one of the largest issues facing the country: an aging society. Its time we finally made Social Security more generous, and increased its benefits so that todays retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that theyve earned, he said in Elkhart, Ind. Actually, it isnt. Obama perpetuates the popular but outdated myth that, by and large, the elderly are a poor, needy group. That they deserve more financial help. The 65-and-over population exceeds 46 million. Some fit this description. Most do not. Various statistics on income and wealth can be adduced to prove, depending on ones political purpose, that the elderly are well-off or almost destitute. Whats more instructive is how the elderly view their own financial situation and how this compares with other age groups. The evidence is conclusive: The elderly do better. NORC at the University of Chicago conducts a respected opinion poll (the General Social Survey) that asks, among other things, whether people are satisfied, more or less satisfied or not at all satisfied with their financial situation. In every year since 1973, the elderly have been the most satisfied by a wide margin. The table below shows the average share of each age group since 1972 that is most and least satisfied. (The rest are in the middle category, more or less satisfied.) Its no contest. Other surveys are similar, says Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute. A recent Gallup poll asked, Do you have enough money to live comfortably, or not? Among retirees, 75 percent said yes compared with 67 percent of non-retirees. There are several reasons for this. First, expenses in retirement are often lower than expected. Its frequently said that retirees should have 80 percent of their pre-retirement income to maintain their lifestyles. A study by Peter Brady of the Investment Company Institute suggests that 60 percent may be adequate. Many costs (work expenses, mortgage payments) disappear or drop sharply. Second, retirement incomes may be higher than reported by government statistics. According to Biggs, many withdrawals from IRAs or 401(k)s arent counted as income for largely technical reasons. The total, he says, may exceed $200 billion a year. Thats more than $4,300 for every American 65 and over. What justifies increasing payments to an age group that is more satisfied financially than any other? This is what Bernie Sanders proposed with across-the-board Social Security increases that would cost $1.2 trillion over a decade when fully phased in, estimates the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Sanders would pay for this expansion with stiffer taxes on the upper middle class and wealthy. Hillary Clinton and now Obama have jumped on the bandwagon, though theyve been vague about precisely what benefits or taxes they would expand. Donald Trump has pledged not to cut benefits. If taxes are raised, there are more worthy uses for the added revenue than higher across-the-board Social Security benefits. The most worthy would be reduced budget deficits, which shift the costs for todays government onto todays youths in the form of higher debt, higher taxes and lower government services (squeezed by rising Social Security and Medicare spending, $1.6 trillion in 2016). Generational fairness seems anathema to todays progressives. Although there is a case for targeting Social Security increases to the poorest beneficiaries, this expansion ought to be financed with modest reductions in benefits for the wealthiest recipients. As important, the long-run costs of the programs ought to be reduced by higher eligibility ages and still-lower benefits at the top, all introduced gradually. Whats missing in the skimpy discussion of these issues its hardly a debate is candor. Only the president can challenge outdated ideas. Obama didnt do so. He has not used the bully pulpit to educate the public about the demands of an aging society: the pressures on government budgets; the need for Americans to work longer, accommodating greater life expectancy; the conflicts between generations. None of this will escape historians, who will in the future observe the powerful economic, social and political effects of an aging society. It will affect their verdict on the failure of Obama and congressional Republicans to reach a Grand Bargain on the budget, a failure reflecting both Republican resistance to higher taxes and Democrats unwillingness to make meaningful reductions in Social Security and other entitlements. The historians will ask: Why didnt we better prepare for a predictable future? Obamas record does not provide a flattering answer. Read more from Robert Samuelsons archive. AT THE turn of the century, Peru was a struggling South American country with a poverty rate of 52 percent, while Venezuela was slightly richer, with 46 percent of the population rated poor. Today the difference between the two countries could hardly be more dramatic. After 17 years of Hugo Chavezs autocratic populism, poverty in Venezuela has soared to 76 percent, according to a recent survey. Meanwhile, in Peru, it plunged to just 22.7 percent in 2014, and it is still falling. One big explanation for this difference could be seen in the results of the Peruvian presidential election on June 5, which produced a surprise victory for Pedro Pablo Kuczynski , a right-of-center former investment banker. Repeatedly since the collapse of the right-wing populist regime of Alberto Fujimori in 2000, Peruvians and their leaders have flirted with and then rejected populist solutions. The result has been a steady course of centrist, free-market policies and a prolonged boom of foreign investment and exports that have elevated the country of 30 million into the ranks of Latin Americas most successful economies, along with Chile, Mexico and Colombia. Mr. Kuczynski , who lived in the United States for many years and once held U.S. citizenship, defeated Mr. Fujimoris daughter, Keiko Fujimori , by a razor-thin margin. He did so largely because many Peruvians feared a revival of the autocracy and corruption that marked the previous Fujimori government and led to Mr. Fujimoris imprisonment. In the end even Perus left-wing leader endorsed the 77-year-old Mr. Kuczynski , who promised democratic stability and seasoned, technocratic management of the economy. Such skill will be needed. Like much of Latin America, Peru has been buffeted by plunging commodity prices and a drop-off of Chinas appetite for raw materials though it has avoided the steep recession, exacerbated by mismanagement, that afflicts Venezuela and Brazil. Mr. Kuczynski is promising some pump-priming measures, including an increase in the minimum wage and cuts in consumption taxes, to be balanced by drawing more of Perus large informal economy into the taxation system. A predictable, business-friendly government could also attract more of the big mining investments that have propelled the steady reduction of poverty. Mr. Kuczynski will replace Ollanta Humala, who began his political career as a would-be leftist imitator of Mr. Chavez but who ended up sustaining the centrist policies of his post-Fujimori predecessors. Peru thus becomes the third South American country, after Argentina and Brazil, to shift toward the right in recent months. The resurgence of what Latin Americans call neo-liberalism, and the embrace of uncharismatic characters such as Mr. Kuczynski , is a reaction to the abject failure of Mr. Chavez and his followers, whose demagoguery, persecution of opponents and gross disregard of economic fundamentals inevitably led to catastrophe. Eighteen years after Mr. Chavez first rose to power, much of Latin America seemingly has been inoculated against populist authoritarianism. If only the rest of the West were so lucky. President Obama delivers the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy on June 2 in Colorado Springs. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press) The June 10 front-page article The high toll of Obamas low-cost wars highlighted several obvious reasons the presidents strategy to bring a successful end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is not working. Moreover, his political decisions to limit the number of ground troops have only lengthened the years of engagement resulting in the loss of lives both military and civilian. Whenever political decisions are the basis to limit military strength and its supporting resources, the results are unsuccessful. Such decisions do not merit bragging rights in a recent speech at a military academy commencement. Ronald L. Baker, Springfield Regarding Aaron David Millers June 5 Outlook essay, Why U.S. diplomacy cant fix the Middle East: The Israeli-Palestinian peace process did not fail because the United States was too optimistic about peace but because the United States broke the basic rule of mediation: It was not evenhanded. Rather, as Mr. Miller acknowledged, the United States coordinated too closely with the Israelis. As a result, the United States lost the Palestinians trust and willingness to cooperate. Israeli-Palestinian peace is possible, but it would require an impartial broker and a cessation of aid until implementation. Repeating the errors of the past will only repeat the failures of the past. Bob Krasnansky, Ellicott City How long will it be before American Muslims are forced to wear yellow badges with the star and crescent? Donald Trump, the man Republicans will nominate to be president, has already said that, in addition to banning Muslim immigration, he would also look at closing mosques and forcing Muslims already in the country to register with the authorities. And now, exploiting the weekends massacre in Orlando, Trump is claiming thousands of American Muslims, protected and hidden by their coreligionists, are prepared to commit even greater carnage because of their hatred for the country in which they live. You have many, many, many people, right now living in the United States who are worse than him, who are more hateful than him, Trump said on Fox News Monday morning. Trump determined that you have thousands of shooters like this, with the same mentality out there in this country. The presumptive nominee, speculating that the trouble could be in their religion, said you have many, many people, thousands of people, already in our country that are sick with hate. And people that are around them, Muslims, know who they are, largely. If that were too subtle, Roger Stone, Trumps confidant and informal adviser, said on Sirius XM that Huma Abedin, a Muslim who is a top Hillary Clinton adviser, could be a Saudi spy or a terrorist agent. Trump also floated, again, the notion that President Obama is in cahoots with the terrorist enemy thus accusing the commander in chief of the capital crime of treason. Trump said Obama should immediately resign in disgrace if he refuses to use the phrase radical Islamic terrorism. Obama, like George W. Bush before him, avoids words that needlessly inspire further radicalization. But Trump saw a conspiracy, telling Fox that Obama perhaps gets it better than anybody understands and has something else in mind. . . Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Pressed on NBC about this inconceivable something, Trump said that there are many people that think maybe he doesnt want to get it. Trump has long floated versions of Obama-as-Muslim-traitor conspiracy theories for years. Last year, he said of Obamas decision to allow Syrian refugees into the United States: A lot of people think its evil intentions. At another point Trump said Obama was emphatic on not solving the problem with terrorism because theres something we dont know about. Before that, of course, was his questioning of Obamas birth: He doesnt have a birth certificate or, if he does, theres something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now somebody told me . . . that where it says religion it might have Muslim. The Orlando tragedy has allowed Trump to shift the conversation from his racist attacks on a federal judge of Mexican descent. But the shocking carnage in Orlando doesnt lend itself to simple politicization. The killer appeared to have mental problems and, while claiming allegiance to Islamic State, he was obviously motivated by anti-gay hatred. And Trump couldnt blame immigrants because the killer was American-born. Still, Trump tried, saying in a prepared speech Monday afternoon using the teleprompter he once forswore that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here and that Muslim communities must turn in the people who they know are bad and they do know where they are. 1 of 25 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad What the investigation into the Orlando mass shooting looks like View Photos Officials are scouring the site and others in the area for information about the June 12 massacre. Caption Officials are scouring the site and others in the area for information about the June 12 massacre. June 15, 2016 Law enforcement officials gather outside Pulse nightclub in Orlando during the shooting investigation. David Goldman/AP Wait 1 second to continue. Trump made the Orlando killer just one of thousands of would-be murderers knowingly harbored by American Muslims and a terrorist-friendly president. As part of his conspiracy theory spinning on Fox Monday morning, Trump declared that ISIS took over our passport machines. They make passports now better than we do. (Actually, U.S. intelligence has warned that terrorists might be able to make authentic-looking passports with their own machines.) Trump, as Ive written, has spread dozens of conspiracy theories, many with racist overtones and often couched by saying hes merely repeating what some or a lot of people think much as he denies culpability when he retweets the work of white supremacists. Before the Orlando shooting, Mitt Romney told CNNs Wolf Blitzer that he worried about Trumps trickle-down racism. Good phrase, though Trump is more accurately tapping underground racism and causing it to gush freely. Trump, hours after the Orlando slaying, tweeted: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism. He does deserve congratulations for a new wave of radicalization. Trumps anti-Muslim hostility makes it easier for terrorists to recruit and to inspire disaffected young Muslims. Trump warned Monday that the terrorism seen in Orlando is going to get worse and worse and, thanks to him, thats probably true. Twitter: @Milbank Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the spiritual leader of Tibet. Since 1959, he has lived in exile in Dharamsala in northern India. Almost six decades have passed since I left my homeland, Tibet, and became a refugee. Thanks to the kindness of the government and people of India, we Tibetans found a second home where we could live in dignity and freedom, able to keep our language, culture and Buddhist traditions alive. My generation has witnessed so much violence some historians estimate that more than 200 million people were killed in conflicts in the 20th century. Today, there is no end in sight to the horrific violence in the Middle East, which in the case of Syria has led to the greatest refugee crisis in a generation. Appalling terrorist attacks as we were sadly reminded this weekend have created deep-seated fear. While it would be easy to feel a sense of hopelessness and despair, it is all the more necessary in the early years of the 21st century to be realistic and optimistic. There are many reasons for us to be hopeful. Recognition of universal human rights, including the right to self-determination, has expanded beyond anything imagined a century ago. There is growing international consensus in support of gender equality and respect for women. Particularly among the younger generation, there is a widespread rejection of war as a means of solving problems. Across the world, many are doing valuable work to prevent terrorism, recognizing the depths of misunderstanding and the divisive idea of us and them that is so dangerous. Significant reductions in the worlds arsenal of nuclear weapons mean that setting a timetable for further reductions and ultimately the elimination of nuclear weapons a sentiment President Obama recently reiterated in Hiroshima, Japan no longer seem a mere dream. The notion of absolute victory for one side and defeat of another is thoroughly outdated; in some situations, following conflict, suffering arises from a state that cannot be described as either war or peace. Violence inevitably incurs further violence. Indeed, history has shown that nonviolent resistance ushers in more durable and peaceful democracies and is more successful in removing authoritarian regimes than violent struggle. It is not enough simply to pray. There are solutions to many of the problems we face; new mechanisms for dialogue need to be created, along with systems of education to inculcate moral values. These must be grounded in the perspective that we all belong to one human family and that together we can take action to address global challenges. It is encouraging that we have seen many ordinary people across the world displaying great compassion toward the plight of refugees, from those who have rescued them from the sea, to those who have taken them in and provided friendship and support. As a refugee myself, I feel a strong empathy for their situation, and when we see their anguish, we should do all we can to help them. I can also understand the fears of people in host countries, who may feel overwhelmed. The combination of circumstances draws attention to the vital importance of collective action toward restoring genuine peace to the lands these refugees are fleeing. Tibetan refugees have firsthand experience of living through such circumstances and, although we have not yet been able to return to our homeland, we are grateful for the humanitarian support we have received through the decades from friends, including the people of the United States. A further source of hope is the genuine cooperation among the worlds nations toward a common goal evident in the Paris accord on climate change. When global warming threatens the health of this planet that is our only home, it is only by considering the larger global interest that local and national interests will be met. I have a personal connection to this issue because Tibet is the worlds highest plateau and is an epicenter of global climate change, warming nearly three times as fast as the rest of the world. It is the largest repository of water outside the two poles and the source of the Earths most extensive river system, critical to the worlds 10 most densely populated nations. To find solutions to the environmental crisis and violent conflicts that confront us in the 21st century, we need to seek new answers. Even though I am a Buddhist monk, I believe that these solutions lie beyond religion in the promotion of a concept I call secular ethics. This is an approach to educating ourselves based on scientific findings, common experience and common sense a more universal approach to the promotion of our shared human values. Over more than three decades, my discussions with scientists, educators and social workers from across the globe have revealed common concerns. As a result, we have developed a system that incorporates an education of the heart, but one that is based on study of the workings of the mind and emotions through scholarship and scientific research rather than religious practice. Since we need moral principles compassion, respect for others, kindness, taking responsibility in every field of human activity, we are working to help schools and colleges create opportunities for young people to develop greater self-awareness, to learn how to manage destructive emotions and cultivate social skills. Such training is being incorporated into the curriculum of many schools in North America and Europe I am involved with work at Emory University on a new curriculum on secular ethics that is being introduced in several schools in India and the United States. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that the 21st century does not repeat the pain and bloodshed of the past. Because human nature is basically compassionate, I believe it is possible that decades from now we will see an era of peace but we must work together as global citizens of a shared planet. To assert that The party of Lincoln is dead, as Michael Gerson did in his June 10 op-ed, is to neglect history. The Republican Partys so-called Southern Strategy, the exploitation of racial antagonism to win the historically Democratic South, killed Lincolns party more than 40 years ago. The party simply has dawdled in signing the death certificate. Speaking to the NAACP in 2005, then-Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman admitted that some Republicans had tried to benefit politically from racial polarization. And he added: We were wrong. I doubt, however, that Mr. Gerson would argue the party has acted firmly and decisively to correct the mistake. The decision of todays Republican leadership to support presidential candidate Donald Trump, despite his appeal to racism, is in sum not the watershed that Mr. Gerson suggested. It is, rather, an unsurprising perpetuation of regrettable decisions made long ago. Eric R. Terzuolo, Washington Kelvin Cobaris, a local clergyman, consoles Orlando city commissioner Patty Sheehan, right, and Terry DeCarlo, an Orlando gay rights advocate, as they arrive on the scene near where a mass shooting occcured in Orlando on Sunday. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via Associated Press) It only compounded the horror that the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history called forth talking points that had been composed long before 50 innocents were murdered early Sunday. The immediate reactions on social media to the killings at Pulse Orlando, a popular gay dance club, etched a portrait of our national divisions, our mutual mistrust and our inclination to know what we think even when we lack all the facts. Even before President Obama spoke Sunday afternoon, there were declarations of great certainty that he would attribute the massacre to guns and not Islamism and would therefore feed support for Donald Trump. Trump did not disappoint. At 12:43, he turned to his communications medium of choice and tweeted: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! It is no day for partisanship, but how could Trump even think of using a moment of national trauma and mourning as an occasion to tout his own genius or to reach sweeping conclusions on the fly? But its entirely true that those of us who have long believed that our scandalously lax national gun laws make sickening slaughters inevitable had predictable reactions of our own. I freely admit that I identified entirely with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) when he declared: This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America nowhere else. Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. Note that phrase near constant. We are far from alone in the world in confronting terrorism. What is different about our nation enragingly, dispiritingly, depressingly different is that from Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook to Orlando, attacks of this sort happen here again and again and again. Why can we never include a reappraisal of our weapons laws as part of democracys arsenal of responses to terrorism and mass violence? Why are those who tout themselves as being the toughest among us in calling out terrorism inspired by Islam so timid as soon as any plausible answer is labeled gun control? Nonetheless, those of us who hold these views must find ways of reaching out to fellow citizens with whom we have been battling for decades. Terrorism terrorizes advocates of gun control and supporters of gun rights alike. And those on both sides of the gun issue will want to know why three FBI interviews with the killer, Omar Mateen, did not raise more alarms in light of evidence of his apparent terrorist sympathies. What we know so far underscores the challenges of fighting terrorism in a free society. When the president did address the nation, his sobriety and restraint reflected the reaction of a man who had been required too often to speak about the unspeakable and whose calls for action have gone unheeded. He gave his critics who despise his views on guns nothing, turning the tables on them by saying simply that failing to act to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of those who would use them against innocent human beings is a decision as well. And it is. He also did something important, showing how futile it is to force an act of evil into the boxes we prefabricate. The Orlando slaughter was, he said, an act of terror and an act of hate. We should despise what happened if our fellow citizens were gunned down by a man who was inspired by foreign terrorists. And we should despise what happened if people had their lives snuffed out because of their sexual orientation. We gain nothing by arguing about which form of moral revulsion is superior or more appropriate. We set ourselves back by responding to an act of violence against Americans who are gay by turning on Americans who are Muslim. The only appropriate response to Orlando is solidarity harnessed to intelligent determination. So far, no body count, however repulsive, has forced us to abandon our ideological cul-de-sacs. The dead on the floor of a nightclub cry out to us. Read more from E.J. Dionnes archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg takes part in a discussion at the U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit Judicial Conference on May 26 in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. (Mike Groll/AP) Michael Bryant Jr., Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said from the Supreme Court bench Monday, is a man given to abusing women. A member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana, Bryant has a record of more than 100 tribal court misdemeanor convictions, at least five of them for domestic assault. He is the kind of man Congress probably had in mind when it created the federal felony offense of domestic assault, imposing longer imprisonment for repeat offenders in Indian country, where domestic violence is a serious and growing problem. So the Supreme Court was unanimous Monday in upholding Bryants habitual offender convictions for which he received a sentence of nearly four years in prison. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit had thrown out Bryants conviction. It said that Bryants previous convictions that made him eligible for the enhanced sentencing were constitutionally infirm because he had not been represented by counsel. Counsel would have been required by the Sixth Amendment, that court reasoned, if those charges were in state and federal courts instead of tribal courts. But Ginsburg said the convictions were valid at the time and thus make Bryant eligible for the tougher sentence. We resist creating a hybrid category of tribal-court convictions, good for the punishment actually imposed but not available for sentence enhancement, Ginsburg wrote, quoting from a previous Supreme Court decision. Ginsburg said the Sixth Amendment right to counsel guarantees indigent criminal defendants a lawyer in any case in which a prison sentence is imposed. But she said the Supreme Court has long held that the Bill of Rights does not govern tribal court proceedings. Instead, the Indian Civil Rights Act does, and it requires appointed counsel only when a tribal court sentence exceeds one year. Bryants previous convictions carried sentences of less than that, Ginsburg wrote. Bryant was denied no right to appointed counsel in tribal court because he had none and his Sixth Amendment right was honored in his federal prosecution, Ginsburg said in announcing the decision from the bench. He therefore suffered no deprivation of a right to counsel. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the decision, but said he questioned whether some of the courts precedents that supplied the reasoning for the decision were rightly decided. Ginsburg wrote in her opinion that there was good reason for the federal government to step in to enhance the penalties for domestic violence in Indian country. Native American women suffer from the highest rate of domestic abuse, according to Congress, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that as many as 46 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women have been victims of physical violence by a partner, Ginsburg wrote. And, she said, the court has noted before that domestic abusers exhibit high rates of recidivism, and their violence often escalates in severity over time. Before Congress enacted the enhanced penalties, Ginsburg wrote, the complex patchwork of federal, state and tribal law governing Indian country . . . has made it difficult to stem the tide of domestic violence experienced by Native American women. The case is U.S. v. Bryant. The Republican senator who once campaigned hardest against gays serving openly in the military is now the civil rights communitys greatest bulwark against undoing LGBT protections in this years defense policy bill. Democrats and LGBT rights advocates will be keeping a close eye on Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) during upcoming negotiations on the defense measure, as House and Senate leaders could clash over language concerning whether religious organizations with federal contracts should be exempt from nondiscrimination orders covering gender identity and sexual orientation. The shooting incident Sunday that killed 50 people in a popular Orlando gay bar and dance club will only increase the attention on how Congress deals with LGBT issues and could have a big impact on negotiations about the defense bill. McCain, unlike House Republicans, wrote a defense bill that seeks no special nondiscrimination exemptions for religious groups, a move that has the support of Democrats and LGBT advocacy groups. McCain has also steered the Senate debate clear, so far, of the tensions in the House, where Republican leaders maneuvered to prioritize exemptions for religious groups over LGBT nondiscrimination protections. But how the House and Senate resolve their differences over the issue remains unclear, and McCains opponents will likely not let him forget it on the campaign trail, where the GOPs most influential congressional voice on military matters is facing a fierce challenge from Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick. In Arizona, independent voters are key to winning reelection. . . and this is a good swing issue, said Human Rights Campaign political director David Stacy. [McCain] could be the decider here. As of last week, McCain did not appear to be feeling much pressure, and he hinted he expects social issues like LGBT rights and whether women to should be subject to the draft to not be a big source of contention during negotiations to reconcile the Senate and House legislation. On Sunday, McCain issued a statement extending condolences to the families of the victims. As we learn more information about this tragedy, we must remain steadfast in our commitment as a nation to acknowledge the threats we face and do everything we can to root out terror, he said. The Obama administration has already threatened to veto both the House and Senate defense bills over several provisions, including the complaint that the House bill would make it easier to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. McCain has never before been a standard-bearer for better integration of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals in the military. Six years ago, McCain led the Senate opposition to a repeal of the militarys Dont Ask, Dont Tell policy preventing gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, a provision that was tucked into that years defense policy bill. He never reacted warmly to President Obamas plans to open all combat roles to women, and he has been similarly circumspect in recent months about plans to allow transgender troops to serve openly. But over the same period, McCain also stepped forward as one of the few Republicans willing to vote for legislation preventing employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and he spoke out against a bill in Arizona to allow businesses citing religious beliefs to deny service to gays and lesbians. He was also one of the first senators to call for including women in a potential draft, once combat roles were opened to women a provision he incorporated into the Senates version of the defense policy bill. Democrats are now looking to McCain to hold the line against efforts from House Republicans to keep their language on LGBT people and the draft in the final bill. That would be a flip that we would take advantage of, absolutely. Because to go from being fair to swallowing your words, in this campaign, I think would be hard, said Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) It would leave an opening for Kirkpatrick to just call him on the hypocrisy. Even before Sundays shooting, Kirkpatrick had already lobbed terms such as shameful and cowardly toward the House GOP for their efforts to block measures guaranteeing nondiscrimination for LGBT federal workers. While Arizona is widely considered a red state, conservative ideology does not always dominate public opinion when it comes to social issues. Polling done last year by the Public Religion Research Institute shows a majority of Arizona residents favored nondiscrimination laws on sexual orientation and gender identity and opposed religious exemptions from such laws. Even conservative Republicans acknowledge that the political climate in Arizona makes it difficult for McCain to acquiesce to the Houses take on social issues during a close election. Im afraid that the elections and the fear of them has a profound influence on the committee, said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). The calendar could be what saves McCain from having to make tough choices on whether to include contentious social policy language in the final bill. Once the Senate passes its version of the defense bill later this month, it will be working against the clock: With only a few legislative days in July, it is unlikely that lawmakers finish negotiations on the defense bill before the August recess and McCains August primary. Then Congress spends just a few weeks in Washington in September before jetting off for the election. In years past, this schedule has delayed final votes on the defense bill until well into the post-election lame duck period. But activists do not plan to wait for the negotiations process to finish before pressuring lawmakers to commit to a position on these social issues. Absolutely we are going to hold members accountable; we are going to make sure their constituents know how they voted, said Stacy, adding that if this is still pending over the course of the August recess, we have a lot of independent lobbying well be doing then. Clinton Foundation fundraising, particularly from foreign governments, came up repeatedly at Hillary Rodham Clintons confirmation hearings for secretary of state. (Liam Richards/AP) The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clintons tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed Wednesday. Most of the contributions were possible because of exceptions written into the foundations 2008 agreement, which included limits on foreign-government donations. The agreement, reached before Clintons nomination amid concerns that countries could use foundation donations to gain favor with a Clinton-led State Department, allowed governments that had previously donated money to continue making contributions at similar levels. The new disclosures, provided in response to questions from The Washington Post, make clear that the 2008 agreement did not prohibit foreign countries with interests before the U.S. government from giving money to the charity closely linked to the secretary of state. In one instance, foundation officials acknowledged they should have sought approval in 2010 from the State Department ethics office, as required by the agreement for new government donors, before accepting a $500,000 donation from the Algerian government. The money was given to assist with earthquake relief in Haiti, the foundation said. At the time, Algeria, which has sought a closer relationship with Washington, was spending heavily to lobby the State Department on human rights issues. While the foundation has disclosed foreign-government donors for years, it has not previously detailed the donations that were accepted during Clintons four-year stint at the State Department. A foundation spokesman said Wednesday that the donations all went to fund the organizations philanthropic work around the world. In some cases, the foundation said, foreign-government donations were part of multiyear grants that had been awarded before Clintons appointment to pay for particular charitable efforts, such as initiatives to lower the costs of HIV and AIDs drugs and curb greenhouse gas emissions. As with other global charities, we rely on the support of individuals, organizations, corporations and governments who have the shared goal of addressing critical global challenges in a meaningful way, said the spokesman, Craig Minassian. When anyone contributes to the Clinton Foundation, it goes towards foundation programs that help save lives. Some of the donations came from countries with complicated diplomatic, military and financial relationships with the U.S. government, including Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. Other nations that donated included Australia, Norway and the Dominican Republic. The foundation presents a unique political challenge for Clinton, and one that has already become a cause of concern among Democrats as she prepares to launch an almost-certain second bid for the presidency. Rarely, if ever, has a potential commander in chief been so closely associated with an organization that has solicited financial support from foreign governments. Clinton formally joined the foundation in 2013 after leaving the State Department, and the organization was renamed the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation. Foreign dollars The Washington Post reported last week that foreign sources, including governments, made up a third of those who have given the foundation more than $1 million over time. The Post found that the foundation, begun by former president Bill Clinton, has raised nearly $2 billion since its creation in 2001. Foreign governments and individuals are prohibited from giving money to U.S. political candidates, to prevent outside influence over national leaders. But the foundation has given donors a way to potentially gain favor with the Clintons outside the traditional political limits. In a presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton would be likely to showcase her foreign-policy expertise, yet the foundations ongoing reliance on foreign governments support opens a potential line of attack for Republicans eager to question her independence as secretary of state and as a possible president. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the foundation had accepted new foreign-government money now that the 2008 agreement has lapsed. A review of foundation disclosures shows that at least two foreign governments Germany and the United Arab Emirates began giving in 2013 after the funding restrictions lapsed when Clinton left the Obama administration. Some foreign governments that had been supporting the foundation before Clinton was appointed, such as Saudi Arabia, did not give while she was in office and have since resumed donating. Foundation officials said last week that if Clinton runs, they will consider taking steps to address concerns over the role of foreign donors. We will continue to ensure the Foundations policies and practices regarding support from international partners are appropriate, just as we did when she served as Secretary of State, the foundation said in a statement. Foreign governments had been major donors to the foundation before President Obama nominated Clinton to become secretary of state in 2009. When the foundation released a list of its donors for the first time in 2008, as a result of the agreement with the Obama administration, it disclosed, for instance, that Saudi Arabia had given between $10 million and $25 million. In some cases, the foundation said, governments that continued to donate while Clinton was at the State Department did so at lower levels than before her appointment. Foundation officials said Wednesday that the ethics review process required under the 2008 agreement for new donors or for existing foreign-government donors wishing to materially increase their support was never initiated during Clintons State Department years. But, they added, on one occasion, it should have been. Algeria donation The donation from Algeria for Haiti earthquake relief, they said, arrived without notice within days of the 2010 quake and was distributed as direct aid to assist in relief. Algeria has not donated to the foundation since, officials said. The contribution coincided with a spike in the North African countrys lobbying visits to the State Department. That year, Algeria spent $422,097 lobbying U.S. government officials on human rights issues and U.S.-Algerian relations, according to filings made under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Data tracked by the Sunlight Foundation shows that while the Algerian governments overall spending on lobbying in the United States remained steady, there was an increase in 2010 in State Department meetings held with lobbyists representing the country with 12 visits to department officials that year, including some visits with top political appointees. In the years before and after, only a handful of State Department visits were recorded by Algeria lobbyists. The country was a concern for Clinton and her agency. A 2010 State Department report on human rights in Algeria noted that principal human rights problems included restrictions on freedom of assembly and association and cited reports of arbitrary killings, widespread corruption and a lack of transparency. Additionally, the report, issued in early 2011, discussed restrictions on labor and womens rights. Algeria is one of those complicated countries that forces the United States to balance our interests and values, Clinton wrote in her 2014 book, Hard Choices. She said that the country was an ally in combating terrorism but that it also has a poor human rights record and a relatively closed economy. Clinton met with the president of Algeria during a 2012 visit to the country. A State Department spokesman referred questions about the ethics-office reviews to the charity. Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman, declined to comment. Besides Algeria, a number of the other countries that donated to the foundation during Clintons time at the State Department also lobbied the U.S. government during that time. Qatar, for instance, spent more than $5.3 million on registered lobbyists while Clinton was secretary of state, according to the Sunlight Foundation. The countrys lobbyists were reported monitoring anti-terrorism activities and efforts to combat violence in Sudans Darfur region. Qatar has also come under criticism from some U.S. allies in the region that have accused it of supporting Hamas and other militant groups. Qatar has denied the allegations. The 2008 agreement laid out that the new rules were intended to allow the Clinton Foundation to continue its important philanthropic work around the world, while also avoiding conflicts. It was signed by Bruce Lindsey, then the foundations chief executive, and Valerie Jarrett, who was co-chair of Obamas transition team. Jennifer Friedman, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement that the agreement was signed to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest and in keeping with the high standards we set for our nominees. She said the deal went above and beyond standard ethics requirements. Clinton Foundation fundraising, particularly from foreign governments, came up repeatedly at Clintons confirmation hearings for secretary of state. Then-Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), who was the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the foundation a unique complication that will have to be managed with great care and transparency and called on the organization not to take any new foreign-government money while Clinton was serving as secretary of state. The Clinton Foundation exists as a temptation for any foreign entity or government that believes it could curry favor through a donation, he said then. It also sets up potential perception problems with any action taken by the secretary of state in relation to foreign givers or their countries. Lugar also called on the foundation to release more information about its donors, including how much each gives annually. (Since 2008, the foundation has released only how much donors have given cumulatively over time.) He said ethics officials should review donations from all foreign sources, not just governments, because of the close ties in many countries between wealthy interests and government officials. Then-Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the committees chairman at the time, called Lugars concerns a legitimate question. Kerry, who succeeded Clinton as secretary of state, suggested the potential at least for appearance problems if her official duties seemed to coincide with her husbands fundraising efforts. If you are traveling to some country and you meet with the foreign leadership and a week later or two weeks later or three weeks later the president travels there and solicits a donation and they pledge to give at some point in the future but nobody knows, is there an appearance of a conflict? Kerry asked. At the hearing, Clinton said foreign governments donated to the foundation in part because the U.S. government had been slow to press for reductions in the cost of HIV and AIDs drugs. She said the agreement went beyond what was required by law. I will certainly do everything in my power to make sure that the good work of the foundation continues without there being any untoward effects on me and my service and be very conscious of any questions that are raised, she said. But I think that the way that this has been hammered out is as close as we can get to doing something that is so unprecedented that there is no formula for it, and weve tried to do the very best we could. President Obama pauses while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday after being briefed on the investigation of the nightclub shooting in Orlando. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) This was supposed to be the week President Obama jumped fully and gleefully into the 2016 campaign at a triumphant joint rally with Hillary Clinton that would highlight how far his Democratic administration has brought the nation over seven-plus years in office. Instead, the Orlando massacre quickly resurrected the debate over one of the presidents greatest areas of political weakness and personal frustration. The worst mass shooting in U.S. history Sunday thrust Obama on the defensive over terrorism and gun control just as he had begun to try to frame the stakes of the November election. The White House announced late Monday that Obama would travel to Orlando on Thursday to pay tribute to the victims. In place of an image of Democratic unity, with Obama and Clinton, the presumptive presidential nominee, on stage together in Green Bay, Wis. where Clinton canceled the rally planned for Wednesday reporters spent much of Monday parsing Clintons reaction to the shooting for signs that she had split from the president on his national security policies. Specifically, Clinton told CNN she is not afraid to use the phrase radical Islamism, which Obama has refused to use in describing terrorist attacks, although the former secretary of state did not fault the president. I feel confident in telling you that, having worked in this administration for four years, she is somebody who agrees strongly with the presidents approach, White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters during his daily briefing. FBI Director James B. Comey listens to President Obama speak to members of the media at the White House on Monday. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) The slaying of 49 people in a gay nightclub by a gunman marked another in a long list of high-profile mass shootings that has punctuated Obamas tenure. But the timing, scale and circumstances of the Orlando massacre highlighted the political risk for the president as he seeks to calm public fears and reassure the public that his administration is exhausting all avenues to keep Americans safe. Obamas fiercest critics, including presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, wasted little time attacking the president, calling him soft on terrorism and lambasting him for his refusal to define the killings as the work of radical Islam. Trump also called for a ban on Middle Eastern immigrants to the United States. Even as the president defended his approach to combating violent extremism, his efforts to highlight the role of lenient U.S. gun regulations in aiding the Orlando shooter in maximizing the carnage served to call attention to the Obama administrations inability to take stronger actions to change the law. The president has called the failure to push gun control reforms through Congress after the December 2012 shooting deaths of 20 elementary school students in Newtown, Conn., the most stinging legislative defeat of his presidency. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Obama emphasized that the gunman, Omar Mateen, appeared to be a self- radicalized actor with sympathy for the Islamic State militant group but with no direct ties to that or any other terrorist network. Obama cautioned the public not to retreat to partisan corners in the aftermath of the attack, suggesting that the solution to extremist violence should not be considered in reductive terms based on political ideologies. My concern, Obama said, is that we start getting into a debate, as has happened in the past, which is an either/or debate, and the suggestion is either we think about something as terrorism and we ignore the problems with easy access to firearms. Or its all about firearms and we ignore the role, the very real role, that organizations like [the Islamic State] have in generating extremist views inside this country. Its not an either/or. Its a both/and. [Obama calls Orlando shooting a case of homegrown extremism] While Obamas overall job approval ratings have topped 50 percent in his final year in office, the public has remained uneasy about his counterterrorism strategies. Since the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in 2014, less than half the public has approved of the way Obama has been handling the threat of terror, according to a series of Washington Post-ABC News polls. The figure stood at 43 percent in December in the wake of a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., by a married couple purportedly inspired by the Islamic State. By contrast, the figure was 69 percent after he ordered the U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011. Despite public skepticism, the president has refused to alter his approach, and he has sought to place the mass shootings into context, suggesting that Americans should be vigilant but not fearful at home. After past incidents, Obama has followed through on pre-planned trips outside Washington in an effort to project confidence and show that his administration would not be cowed by the violent acts of extremists. But the outsize political impact of the Orlando attacks was evident Monday at the White House, where the president met with an expanded cast of top advisers during his daily national security briefing. Obama aides were debating privately whether to alter more of his public schedule, which includes a congressional picnic Tuesday and a three-day trip to national parks in New Mexico and California, starting Friday. My hope is that over the next days and weeks that we are being sober about how we approach this problem, Obama said, that we let the facts get determined by our investigators, but we also do some reflection in terms of how we can best tackle what is going to be a very challenging problem, not just here in this country but around the world. [Gunmans father denies his son was motivated by Islamist radicalism] On Tuesday, Obama will hold a long-scheduled meeting with his National Security Council at the Treasury Department, the latest in a rotating series of meetings at various federal agencies that the president initiated after the Paris attacks to show the public he is focused on the fight against terrorism. Last week, the administrations top coordinator for the strategy against the Islamic State briefed reporters at the White House on progress that has been made in the Middle East. But for Obama and Clinton, the Orlando massacre offers another tricky test of their ability to coordinate their messages on the campaign trail. Clinton expressed some mild disagreements with Obamas Syria strategy in her 2014 autobiography, Hard Choices. Since then, she has largely tied herself to her former boss. In an endorsement video last week, Obama returned the favor. I dont think theres ever been someone so qualified to hold this office, the president said. From the decision we made in the Situation Room to get bin Laden, and our pursuit of diplomacy in capitals around the world, I have seen her judgment. I have seen her toughness. Whether Clinton so forcefully echoes those sentiments about him in the coming days remains to be seen. Scott Clement contributed to this report. Preschoolers suspended from school? Sounds crazy. But its real, and racial disparities make it worse. As my colleague Emma Brown reported, an Education Department report released last week says black children account for almost half of the public preschool suspensions but are less than a fifth of the preschoolers. Well look at the appropriateness of any preschool suspensions really an adult behavior problem, one expert says but first lets drill into the racial disparities. The departments new civil rights data collection for the 2013-2014 school year is a major empirical dive, covering 50 million students in nearly all U.S. public schools and a broad range of information. Here are key points on preschool suspension disparities: Black preschool children are 3.6 times as likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions as white preschool children. Black children represent 19 percent of preschool enrollment, but 47 percent of preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions. In comparison, white children represent 41 percent of preschool enrollment, but 28 percent of preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions. Black boys represent 19 percent of male preschool enrollment, but 45 percent of male preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions. Black girls represent 20 percent of female preschool enrollment, but 54 percent of female preschool children receiving one or more out-of-school suspensions. Those who think black students are suspended at higher rates because their behavior is worse should find the facts, as Russell J. Skiba and Natasha T. Williams did for a report published by the Equity Project at Indiana University. The top line of their 2014 study asks Are Black Kids Worse? The answer is no. In short, the data are consistent, they wrote, that there is simply no good evidence that racial differences in discipline are due to differences in rates or types of misbehavior by students of different races. Catherine E. Lhamon, the assistant education secretary for civil rights, tells the story of young children in Minneapolis that illustrates disparate treatment. These were second-graders, not preschoolers, but the lesson is the same. A white student threw a rock in a classroom, hit another child in the head and broke a teachers sunglasses, but was allowed to come in at recess to help clean the classroom as a way of working off the harm, she said in a phone conversation. Meanwhile, a black second-grader in the same school poked another child with a pencil and was suspended. Studies demonstrate that this kind of bias treatment feeds an implicitly racist system facing black people all along the preschool-to-prison pipeline. A joint policy document by the Education and Health and Human Services departments says that young students who are expelled or suspended are as much as 10 times more likely to drop out of high school, experience academic failure and grade retention, hold negative school attitudes, and face incarceration than those who are not. Although the impact of preschool suspensions is particularly insidious for black students, it is a weapon that should not be used against any child. Parents know how difficult a tantrum-throwing preschooler can be. Educators need to know that kicking an unruly kid out of school, even for a day, is not the answer. The Tupelo, Miss., pre-K parent handbook, for example, focuses on positive behavior support and says if a child continually breaks a rule, the teacher and the child will work towards conflict resolution through our plan of Think, Talk and Do. If the problem continues, we will send a note home or call you and we can discuss a solution. W. Steven Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, said serious preschool discipline issues are most often an adult problem occurring when the teacher is inadequately prepared and the curriculum is weak. To deal with misbehavior, educators need more constructive methods that are consistent with the educational mission and purpose of schools, and in some cases mental-health tools, said Liz King, the director of education policy at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Suspending preschoolers, she said, means they are more likely to learn the lesson that the school doesnt want them there or that they dont belong, than that their behavior was inappropriate. The joint agency document says it is federal policy to prevent, severely reduce, and ultimately eliminate expulsion and suspension in early childhood settings. The number of preschools suspensions is falling, although not quickly enough. The 6,743 suspensions in the 2013-2014 school year were down from more than 8,000 from 2011-2012, which was the first year that information was collected. It was jaw-dropping for us, Lhamon said of the preschool suspension data. But officials were, she added, enormously gratified that some school districts, such as Baltimore and Chicago, have made it almost impossible to suspend in the early grades. The D.C. school system is a national leader with its policy that early childhood students may not be suspended, period. So there is good news. Yet the remarks of Arne Duncan, when he released the previous report two years ago when he was still education secretary, still hold: The civil rights data collection paints a stark portrait of inequity in opportunity in America that is educationally unsound, morally bankrupt, and economically self-destructive to our nations best interest this must compel us to act. After the deadly shooting in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub on June 12, politicians were quick to respond. Some pushed for stricter gun control while others asked for prayers, and presidential candidate Donald Trump ignited controversy with his tweets. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) After the deadly shooting in an Orlando, Fla., nightclub on June 12, politicians were quick to respond. Some pushed for stricter gun control while others asked for prayers, and presidential candidate Donald Trump ignited controversy with his tweets. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trumps first tweet Sunday morning was a fairly measured comment about the deadly mass shooting in an Orlando gay nightclub. Really bad shooting in Orlando. Police investigating possible terrorism. Many people dead and wounded. His second tweet, an hour and a half later, was a return to campaign trail politics an attempt to falsely recast a verbal attack he made against a disabled journalist. Then came another, more sympathetic tweet about the Orlando tragedy, followed by one in which he took credit for being right on radical Islamic terrorism. And then Trump went fully on the attack, saying, Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesnt he should immediately resign in disgrace! Trumps approach to the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history posed a sharp contrast to the conventional one of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. She first tweeted a note of concern for the victims; hours later, she issued a statement that sought to address the main issues that the tragedy touched on terrorism, gay rights and gun control. The disparity between the two encapsulates the choice facing voters this fall: Do they see Trumps bombast as the solution to a dangerous world, or do they find comfort in Clintons more familiar manner? President Obama made a statement on the shooting in Orlando from the White House briefing room. (AP) Trumps way served him well in the Republican primaries. His standing improved after the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., and his call for a total and complete ban on all Muslims entering the United States. But it is unclear whether the much larger general-election audience will react as favorably to a candidate who has called for a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding, has said of terrorists that you have to take out their families and who is willing to circulate unconfirmed reports on social media amid a federal investigation. While Trump issued a formal statement Sunday afternoon, he made most of his points about the attack via Twitter. At one point on Sunday, Trump, who has nearly 9 million followers, tweeted, Reporting that Orlando killer shouted Allah hu Akbar! as he slaughtered clubgoers. This appeared to be a slightly altered version of a tweet sent by a Fox News guest, which did not cite a source for the information. [Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting] Stuart Stevens, who served as Mitt Romneys chief strategist during the 2012 campaign, called Trumps statements and actions on Sunday childish. Every day he finds a different way to show hes unqualified to be president, Stevens said. Today hes accepting congratulations at a time when 50 people are slaughtered. 1 of 90 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Mournful reactions to the shootings in Orlando View Photos National and international reaction to the mass shootings at a nightclub in Orlando. Caption National and international responses to the mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. June 18, 2016 Visitors at a makeshift memorial in downtown Orlando mourn the victims of the Pulse massacre. Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via Associated Press Wait 1 second to continue. Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for the Clinton campaign, said in a statement: This act of terror is the largest mass shooting in American history and a tragedy that requires a serious response. . . . Donald Trump put out political attacks, weak platitudes and self-congratulations. Trump has offered no real plans to keep our nation safe and no outreach to the Americans targeted, just insults and attacks. Trumps handling of the unfolding events on Sunday private consultation with aides while issuing a flurry of proclamations and comments on social media is reflective of how he often handles breaking news. While he works closely with advisers to craft the theme of public remarks and statements, he believes it is also crucial for him to be part of the national conversation as soon as possible. Hell monitor everything; thats how he is. Its not just on Twitter but on his smartphone and television and articles, Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide, said when asked how Trump digests major news events. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally, said in an interview that the mogul should ignore the rush of critics who on Sunday cast Trumps responses as inappropriate. What Trump ought to do, and what he has historically done, is go to the country. And he should take the elite media head-on. There is no possibility of coexisting peacefully with these people. They are his mortal enemy, so he should relax and accept it, Gingrich said. He should use a campaign on social media to beat them. Clinton began Sunday with a personally signed tweet that drew no conclusions about the incident. Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. [Orlando shooters wife: He was not a stable person.] Hours later, she issued a statement calling on the United States to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad while also imposing restrictions on firearms and ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans are not targeted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Clinton has made gun control and gay rights central issues in her campaign. Following a mass shooting last year in Roseburg, Ore., she issued a detailed plan to expand gun background checks through executive action: President Obama later adopted a similar approach. She has called for the reinstatement of an assault weapons ban, favors a California proposal regulating ammunition and has promised to seek legislation ending the immunity gun manufacturers have from some lawsuits. And while Clinton lagged behind many Democrats in calling for the legalization of same-sex marriage, she has repeatedly called for ending discrimination against members of the LGBT community during her presidential campaign. The mass shooting prompted both leading presidential candidates to tear up their campaign schedules. Trump had planned to give remarks Monday at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselms College focused on scandals linked to Hillary Clinton over the years, but by late Sunday afternoon the speech had been reframed to further address this terrorist attack, immigration, and national security. Later, Trumps campaign released a statement saying it was postponing a Monday evening rally that was supposed to follow the speech. Trump, who has told aides he sees the issues as interconnected, said in his formal statement: I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We cant afford to be politically correct anymore. Clinton had been scheduled to deliver a speech in Cleveland on Monday, followed by one in Pittsburgh on Tuesday, two events aimed at refocusing her campaign on Trump now that she has amassed enough delegates to secure her partys nomination. By Sunday afternoon she had canceled a much-heralded joint rally with Obama slated for Wednesday in Green Bay, Wis., citing the attack. Speaking to reporters at the White House James S. Brady briefing room Sunday, the president framed the shooting as a moment when the nation needed to come together to support those who had been victimized and defend Americas traditions of diversity and tolerance. He did not mention proposals to ban Muslims from entering the country or religious tests designed to prevent Muslim refugees from Iraq and Syria from coming to the United States. But they were clearly on his mind as he called on Americans not to give into fear or turn against each other. Obama described the attack as a sobering reminder that attacks on any American regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. And he made a point of saying the Orlando nightclub where the killing occurred was a place of solidarity and empowerment, where members of the citys gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing and to live. It is unclear whether the more nuanced approach Clinton and Obama are advocating one that calls on Americans to refrain from targeting people from the Mideast or of Middle Eastern descent while pursuing incremental gains against Islamist extremists overseas will resonate with the majority of voters. For Trump, according to Ronald Reagans former education secretary William J. Bennett, Mondays speech represents a test of whether he can rise above the infighting that dominated the GOPs nomination contest. If he looks and sounds big, he can put his detractors to rest the Mitt Romney people and the others who have been going after him, said Bennett, who has grown friendly with Trump. Its a time for him to say were at war and get the whole country and party behind him. This is the kind of event that can cut through the rhetoric and the name-calling about him pretty quick and make it all fade into the background. Sean Sullivan and Abby Phillip contributed to this report. Hillary Clinton says that defeating the Islamic State terror network is a pillar of her national security program that she would achieve largely by extending and amplifying policies put in place by President Obama. Donald Trump says his plan to confront the terror syndicate is to throw out that strategy because it failed. Weve tried it President Obamas way. Doesnt work, Trump said Monday, calling the administrations approach, which Clinton helped carry out as secretary of state, weak and bungling. He gave the world his apology tour, Trump said of Obama. We got ISIS and many other problems in return. Both candidates scrapped their planned campaign speeches Monday and focused instead on the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando over the weekend the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. It was the first time their plans to deal with terrorism again a central issue for voters in a presidential election were set in direct comparison. We cannot contain this threat. We must defeat it, Clinton said before lacing a discussion of her plan with an appeal to reject hatred and division in politics and to unite as a nation in the spirit of solidarity that followed the 9/11 attacks. Speaking in Cleveland, Ohio, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for unity in the wake of the tragic shooting in Orlando. Here are key moments from that speech. (Reuters/Associated Press) The presumptive Democratic nominees program is detailed and long, drawing on Clintons resume as a New York senator and secretary of state. On Monday, she homed in on the hardest counterterrorism question raised by the Florida attack how to deal with Americans who are recruited or inspired by terrorism and face no hurdles such as overseas travel or difficulty buying weapons. The threat is metastasizing. We saw this in Paris. And we saw it in Brussels. We face a twisted ideology and poisoned psychology that inspires the so-called lone wolves, radicalized individuals who may or may not have contact and direction from any formal organization, she said Monday. Trump, in contrast, has put forward a plan to defeat the Islamic State and protect Americans from terrorists rooted in big general ideas rather than granular details. Much of his policy has been advanced through tweets and sometimes with what appear to be off-the-cuff remarks. In his Monday speech, Trump argued that the countrys homegrown terrorism problem is fundamentally an immigration problem. The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here, said Trump, speaking of the Orlando shooter. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at Saint Anselm College on June 13 in Manchester, N.H. (Jim Cole/AP) Clinton would combine military action, diplomacy and law enforcement with a crackdown on international financing for terrorism, efforts to stem the flow of foreign fighters to and from the Islamic State battlefield and counter radicalization and recruitment online a vexing problem that her State Department struggled with little success to address. She also would expand efforts to identify potential terrorist recruits and monitor and interrupt terrorist communications. Clintons campaign website promises to confront the Islamic State in a way that builds greater stability across the region, without miring our troops in another misguided ground war. She would intensify the current coalition military air campaign, which she claimed Monday has scored some recent successes, and expand U.S. and allied support for local forces on the ground. Although she has previously broken with the Obama White House to favor a militarily enforced no-fly zone to protect civilians in northern Syria, she has not raised the issue lately. She would press diplomacy to end Syrias civil war and the renewed sectarian conflict in Iraq, both of which helped allow the growth and expansion of the terror group also known by the acronyms ISIL and ISIS. Trumps signature proposal to safeguard the homeland is a temporary ban on most foreign Muslims entering the country. Trump also said he would suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats. Trump, perhaps in reaction to criticism and confusion over what he meant, later tweeted: In my speech on protecting America I spoke about a temporary ban, which includes suspending immigration from nations tied to Islamic terror. It is still not clear whether the wording he used Monday would apply to those who are natives of or were traveling through predominantly Muslim countries. Trump first proposed the ban days after the last mass shooting, in San Bernardino, Calif., in December. At the time, he released a statement endorsing a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on. Although Clinton and many Republicans reacted with revulsion, the ban has remained a central Trump tenet and a reason many supporters cite for backing him. What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough, he tweeted Sunday. We have to screen applicants to know whether they are affiliated with or supporting radical groups and beliefs, Trump said. We have to control the amount of future immigration in this country, and we have to prevent large pockets of radicalization from forming inside America. The Republican inaccurately stated that hundreds of thousands of Muslim immigrants are entering the United States without screening. He also seemed to suggest that the Orlando killer, Omar Mateen, had been born in Afghanistan, deviating from his script. Trumps prepared remarks said he was born to Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States. Mateen was born in the United States to Afghan immigrants. Trump has urged Muslims in the United States to be more vigilant about reporting suspicious activity. He has also called for surveillance of certain mosques. We have, right now, thousands of people in the United States, living in the United States who have the same kind of hate in their heart as he had, Trump said Monday on CNN. And we have to know who they are. Trump has also called for a wall to be built along the United States-Mexico border, which he has said over and over will be paid for by Mexico. Trump also wants to deport the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. South Africas public protector, Thulisile Madonsela, speaks to reporters in Johannesburg on June 7. Her seven-year term, marked by a tenacity that has brought her both celebrity and opprobrium, is up in October. (Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images) Its not every day that a constitutional lawyer gets treated like a rock star. But at South African President Jacob Zumas State of the Union address in February, reporters jostled to hear what Thulisile Madonsela had to say about it, and onlookers took to Twitter to gush about her and her canary-yellow dress. Please, can we have her as president! one pleaded. Madonsela is not just a lawyer. She is also South Africas public protector, an ombudsman-like post that has come to symbolize for many a struggle for rule of law and better governance in this young democracy. During her seven-year term, which ends in October, the soft-spoken Madonsela has endured personal attacks and intimidation as the public face of an office investigating allegations of misconduct, abuse of power and shoddy administration at every level of government, including the presidency. But her tenacity and success have also restored a vital sense of optimism in a country that many worry has veered off course 22 years after its first free elections. For the system to work, people have to believe it works, said Pierre de Vos, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Cape Town. She has made people believe the public protector is someone you can trust. In a country where people are cynical about institutions, thats a very big thing. Madonsela speaks during the official launch of the Civics Academy, an institution dedicated to inspiring civic participation among South African youths, at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Houghton, Johannesburg, in May. (Siphiwe Sibeko/REUTERS) Since the African National Congress sailed to power in the 1994 elections, the party that helped liberate South Africa from white minority rule and apartheid has retained deep voter loyalty. But it is also showing signs of disarray. Infighting has burst into the open, with veterans of the freedom struggle openly calling for Zuma, the party leader, to step down. Politicians and business leaders have been accused in recent months of trying to wield inappropriate influence over the government. With the economy slowing and unemployment at 26.7 percent, the gap between the political elite and poorer South Africans seems increasingly stark. [This data confirms South Africas ruling party initially ignored mass protests] Amid these uncertainties, Madonselas willingness to stand up to stalwarts of the ruling class has raised the hopes of ordinary citizens. When Zuma appointed her to the post one of the Chapter 9 institutions written into the constitution to safeguard democracy some wondered whether she would be tough enough to wake up the hitherto sleepy office. The powerful soon found out. They didnt bargain for what they were going to be getting, said David Lewis, executive director of Corruption Watch, a nonprofit civil society group. I think shes the most highly regarded public servant in the country. Madonsela was born in 1962 in Soweto, outside Johannesburg, 14 years before the uprising in the township that inspired widespread resistance to the apartheid regime. Her mother was a domestic worker and her father a laborer before they both began working in the informal economy. Her father was often harassed by police for lacking a license to run his business, she said in a 2014 interview with news channel eNCA, and would regularly represent himself in court. I think that may have spiked my interest in the law, she said. Madonsela became a successful lawyer, working in trade unions and eventually forgoing a Harvard scholarship to help draft South Africas post-apartheid constitution. She worked in the Department of Justice and was a commissioner at the South African Law Reform Commission before being appointed public protector in 2009. I didnt think I was good enough for the job, she told eNCA. Today Madonsela, a single mother of two, is known widely as Thuli a testament, perhaps, to her laid-back demeanor. She speaks quietly and listens carefully. She is exceedingly reserved but likes to tweet out inspirational advice: If you walk steadily on the path you honestly believe is right, life will work with you. Most of the thousands of complaints her office deals with are filed by ordinary people who, for instance, have not received their pensions on time or whose government housing is falling apart. But the probe that has come to define her tenure and perhaps her career is referred to as Nkandla, the name of Zumas homestead. In 2014, the public protector issued a report finding that Zuma had unduly benefited from public funds spent on non-security upgrades to the estate and that he should pay back some of the money. He did not do so, and Parliament later absolved him from paying for the upgrades. Opposition parties took the matter to the nations highest court, which ruled in March that Zuma had failed to uphold the constitution by not heeding the report and that the public protectors powers were legally binding. Zuma has since apologized to the nation and said he will pay. [South African President Jacob Zuma survives vote to oust him] After the Nkandla report came out, all hell broke loose, Madonsela said during a brief interview last week. It became, Who are you to tell us what to do? As the powers of her office came under scrutiny, Madonsela also came under personal attack. A local newspaper reported that the deputy minister of defense and military veterans, Kebby Maphatsoe, suggested that Madonsela had a handler and that the Chapter 9 institutions had fallen under CIA influence. Madonselas office demanded and got an apology, although Maphatsoe said he had been misunderstood. In April, Madonsela has said, she received a tip from a police informant that a gang boss in the southern part of the country had been paid about $50,000 to arrange a hit on her life. Her office confirmed that she is under police protection. Some critics also accuse her of seeking the media limelight and demonstrating professional bias. I feel she has gone out of her way to ridicule and embarrass the president, said Khaya Xaba, spokesman for the Young Communist League of South Africa. (The South African Communist Party is part of the governing alliance.) For her part, Madonsela says that while the government sometimes drops the ball, she doesnt see South Africa as engaged in an entrenched battle over the rule of law. Its not really a culture of impunity, she said. But she added, What youd like to see is a situation where everyone is equal, everyone is subject to the law, and everyone is accountable for their actions, whether they are on good terms with the powers that be or on bad terms. The Constitutional Courts March ruling on the Nkandla issue not only helped clarify the public protectors powers but also helped thaw the chill created by her refusal to back down. Since then, weve had more declarations of commitment to the constitution . . . more cordiality, even from Parliament, Madonsela said. All of that could make her successors job easier. But it is crucial to ensure that person will also be somebody who does not wilt under pressure, observers say. A parliamentary committee has started looking for candidates. The nomination process allows for public participation, and Corruption Watch has been encouraging people to pitch in. Madonsela says her staff is well prepared to carry on its work. Her deputy, Kevin Malunga, who has been nominated for the job, agreed. This institution works as a team, he said. The question is, he said, how do we keep that momentum? Read more South African court says embattled president must face corruption case South Africas gold industry, like its economy, is crumbling South Africa still struggling to fulfill Mandelas hopes and dreams Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world People from Thailand to Germany expressed horror at the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando as well as sorrow and sympathy towards the victims. (TWP) People from Thailand to Germany expressed horror at the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando as well as sorrow and sympathy towards the victims. (TWP) People around the world held vigils Monday to honor the victims of the Orlando shooting, with Sydneys Harbour Bridge and Aucklands Sky Tower bathed in rainbow colors as night fell in Australia and New Zealand. In central London, a large crowd gathered on Old Compton Street to pay tribute with songs and silence. At one point, shortly after balloons were released into the air, a chant rose slowly and then loudly from the crowd: Were here, were queer, we will not live in fear. One of those in attendance was Owen Jones, a British journalist who stormed off the set of Sky News after clashing with hosts who wouldnt say the shooting was definitely a homophobic attack. The exchange has touched off a debate here over whether the hosts played down the homophobic aspect of the shooting. To overlook the specific realities of who was targeted would be negating the significance of what happened, said Raphael Cadenhead, 28, a childrens social worker at the vigil. Gatherings were held in several other cities around the world, from Belfast to Barcelona, Calgary to Cologne. Members of the gay community and others gather for a vigil in downtown Paris to mourn the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando. (Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images) Lets cry today and continue the fight tomorrow! one user wrote on a Facebook page for a vigil in Hong Kong. [How has the shooting in Orlando affected you as a Muslim?] Some of the most impassioned comments from overseas came from countries such as Pakistan, Israel and France that have themselves fallen victim to terrorist acts, and there was also outrage from nations where gay sex is criminalized. Many people expressed anger at another attack committed in the name of radical Islam, while others registered concern that the shooting could further inflame passions in the highly polarized U.S. presidential election race. Pakistans prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, said he was deeply saddened by what he called a gruesome act of terrorism and an inexcusable act of inhumanity. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, visiting Washington after attending the funeral of boxer Muhammad Ali, condemned the shooting in Orlando and called it beyond any measure of humanity and decency. He declined to comment on the gunmans links to Afghanistan. [Orlando suspects father hosted a TV show and now pretends to be Afghanistans president] Narendra Modi who as prime minister of India leads a country that, like Pakistan and Afghanistan, criminalizes gay sex tweeted condolences and said he was shocked. Social-media reactions there ranged from grief to extreme denunciations of Islamist terrorism. British Queen Elizabeth II issued a statement from Buckingham Palace through Twitter. Prince Philip and I have been shocked by the events in Orlando, she said. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been affected. From the Vatican, Pope Francis issued a statement saying that he joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and compassion. While the Catholic Church considers homosexuality unnatural, it also opposes discrimination against homosexuals. In Russia, where a law against the promotion of homosexuality to minors was passed in 2013, President Vladimir Putin wrote to President Obama to say that the Russian people share the pain and grief of those who lost family and loved ones as a result of this barbaric crime. In a France still reeling from the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris, when Islamic State militants killed 130 people across the capital, many saw similarities in the Orlando shooting. [What we know about the Paris attacks] French President Francois Hollande condemned the attacks, and dozens gathered in solidarity on Place Igor Stravinsky, but Marine Le Pen, the outspoken leader of Frances far-right National Front, wasted no time in denouncing Islam in general. Once again, she wrote on Facebook, terrorism has killed. This time, those targeted were targeted because they were homosexuals, and we know to what extent homosexuality is attacked in the countries that live under the Islamic yoke. We must fight with all our strength this dark barbarism. Rio de Janeiro Congressman Jean Wyllys, Brazils best-known gay lawmaker, took to Facebook to condemn homophobia, which he said was also a deadly issue in his own country, and to express hope that the attack would not play into the sharply divided U.S. election campaign. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his country stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States at this moment of tragic loss, while Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai wrote to Floridas governor and Orlandos mayor to express his solidarity. Violence will not and shall not break us or change the way we live, he wrote. On the contrary, it will only unite us in guarding our citizens rights and freedoms. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah called the shootings a senseless act of terror and hate. [Mayor links terrorist attack in Tel Aviv to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands] Chinas president, Xi Jinping, called Obama to express his condolences, state media reported Monday, while on social media, the countrys Netizens mostly expressed horror and outrage, with many posting images of candles. But some expressed anger at Muslims or Islam in general, calling the religion an evil cult. Others chose to make political points about the United States, with many contrasting its lax gun laws with Chinas strict regulations. Its reasonable to ban guns in China, one posted. Stronger than all prayers: A Farewell to Arms, another wrote. In Jamaica, Prime Minister Andrew Holness issued a statement calling for an end to gun violence. The world must finally deal with terrorism and gun violence; which continues to scar our quest for peace and brotherhood among peoples, he wrote. We are working with our United States partners to reduce the influx of guns into Jamaica as they too are constantly reminded of the impact of gun violence on their society. Not all of the reaction was compassionate. A Turkish newspaper aligned with the ruling party published a headline that called gay people perverted. On social media, some noted that you could find people celebrating the attack in various corners of the Internet. Go to Al Jazeera Arabic Facebook page and read the comments about the #Orlando attacks and you will see 1000s of people celebrating, a Twitter user wrote. At the vigil in London, some people said they felt that their sense of safety had been attacked. Gay clubs are one of the only places where we are safe. That was taken from us, said Sophia Walker, a 31-year-old poet from London and Washington. This has hit me harder than anything since 9/11. Denyer reported from Beijing. Rick Noack in London, Max Bearak in Washington, Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro, Tim Craig in Islamabad, Joshua Partlow in Mexico City, Annie Gowen in New Delhi, William Booth and Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem, James McAuley in Paris, Andrew Roth in Moscow, Erin Cunningham in Istanbul, and Xu Jing in Beijing contributed to this report. Read more: Omar Mateens father says hes saddened by massacre, calls gunman a good son Donald Trumps obsession with the phrase radical Islam wont defeat terrorism Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world 49 people were killed at a nightclub in Orlando when a gunman who pledged loyalty to the Islamic State opened fire and took hostages. Here are the victims. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) 49 people were killed at a nightclub in Orlando when a gunman who pledged loyalty to the Islamic State opened fire and took hostages. Here are the victims. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post) Some came for the Latin music, others just wanted to blow off steam. The 49 victims in the massacre at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday were varied in background, nationality and profession. But the majority were young, in their 20s or early 30s, and came of age in an era very different from that of their parents, when being openly gay was risky if not impossible. For those who flocked to Pulse, a popular destination for Orlandos LGBT community, for last weekends Latin Night, Orlando in 2016 was a sharp contrast to that: a place where ones sexuality could be celebrated. Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, a 25-year-old native of Puerto Rico who loved to perform, was a dancer and a drag queen. He also worked as a hip-hop dancer at a tropical-themed club in Orlando, showing off his talents to classics like Michael Jacksons Thriller. Lucas Daniel Acosto Doleo, who identified himself on Facebook as Laureanos cousin, learned of Laureanos death on Facebook early Monday. What I have is a pain beyond repair, he wrote. I love you cousin. 1 of 38 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad The scene in Orlando after a gunman opened fire at a nightclub View Photos Officials say at least 49 people were killed and dozens were injured in the shooting. Caption Officials say at least 49 people were killed and dozens were injured in the shooting. June 12, 2016 An injured person is carried out of Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Steven Fernandez/Associated Press Wait 1 second to continue. Disla and dozens others were killed when Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard inspired by the Islamic State, opened fire on the crowd around 2 a.m. Sunday. According to the shooters father, Mateen became incensed several months ago when he saw two men being affectionate in public. Other of Mateens victims were Christopher Drew Leinonen, 32, and Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, who were among several couples killed in the attack. Speaking by phone Monday, Guerreros father, Juan Guerrero Sr., said his son and Leinonen had a beautiful relationship. Guerrero, a financial adviser, and Leinonen, a mental-health counselor and active member of the gay rights community, liked to travel and made time for visiting family together. Like many of the other victims, Guerrero had roots in Latin America. The youngest of four, his parents arrived in the United States from the Dominican Republic shortly before he was born. They settled in Queens, and later moved to Florida. In a reflection of the rapidly changing norms across Latin America regarding homosexuality, Guerreros father, despite growing up in a more-conservative society, said he had embraced his son and was always accepting of his homosexuality. When Guerrero and Leinonen decided to move in together more than a year ago, Guerrero Sr. said, No problem. I supported my son. The family is considering holding a joint funeral with the Leinonen family. I believe in that, he said. Leinonens mother, Christine Leinonen, told ABC on Sunday that her son had been active in the gay rights community for years, and had established a gay-straight alliance at his high school. Another couple, Oscar Aracena-Montero, 26, and Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31, both worked as managers at Orlando-area McDonalds restaurants. In 2014, they bought a home together in Kissimmee, Fla, a sign of their plans for a shared life together. Photos on the two mens Instagram accounts showed the couple in a series of selfies, alone and with friends, posing together under a rainbow, near the Statue of Liberty and at what appeared to be Niagara Falls. According to relatives, Aracena moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic around age 18. Cousin Kendra Michelle Astacio Montero, who grew up with Aracena in Santo Domingo, said Aracena was a super quiet guy, hard-working, intelligent he didnt have problems with anyone. Speaking in an online chat, Astacio said Aracenas family in his home country was devastated. We all loved him. According to Venezuelan media, Carrillo hailed from Cabudare, a small city in western Venezuela, and emigrated to the United States several years ago. In a statement, McDonalds CEO and President Steve Easterbrook said the company was deeply saddened by the loss of two of its workers. Angel L. Candelario-Padro, another victim, had attended Latin Night at Pulse with his boyfriend, who survived the shooting, according to a family friend, Peter Hernandez Valentin. Padro, 28, came from a small town in southern Puerto Rico with dreams of working as a nurse in Orlando. Kimberly, or KJ, Morris, 37, worked as a bouncer at Pulse. According to former classmate Narvell Benning, Morris was openly gay at their Connecticut college and seemed confident with her sexual identity. She always laughed, she always had a smile, he said. What I would say is that she had a happy soul. abigail.hauslohner@washpost.com Isaac Stanley-Becker, Lateshia Beachum, Ariana Eunjung Cha, Danielle Paquette, Katie Zezima and Julie Tate contributed to this report. Read more: Bomb disposal officers check for bombs at a Fort Pierce, Fla., apartment complex linked to the gunman in the fatal shootings at an Orlando nightclub on Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Alan Diaz/AP) In its early expansion phase, the Islamic State called on Muslims across the world to join its ranks in Syria, urging not only fighters but also doctors and engineers to take part in what it billed as the historic restoration of the caliphate. But the groups most recent message essentially repealed that summons. Dont bother coming to Syria, Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani said in a recording issued May 21, because the smallest action you do in their heartland is better and more enduring to us than what you would if you were with us. As much as loyalists might still dream of reaching the caliphates borders, he said, those inside wish we were in your place to punish the crusaders day and night. The bravado of the message masked the extent to which the Islamic State is being forced to revise its strategy after losing territory, cash and streams of recruits to opposition forces backed by U.S. airstrikes and Syrian government forces backed by Russian airstrikes. But the devastation in Orlando represents a danger that many U.S. counterterrorism officials warn will be harder to contain than the Islamic States aspirations for an extremist haven in the Middle East. FBI Director James Comey, right, listens to President Barack Obama speak to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington June 13, 2016. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) The so-called lone-wolf attack . . . this is very difficult to deal with, CIA Director John Brennan said in an interview with the al-Arabiya news organization just days before the shooting in Orlando. Countries around the world are having to be concerned about the potential for individuals or groups of individuals to act on their own, without the direct contact with organized terrorists or groups. The shooting in Orlando is the deadliest example to date of the terrorism model Brennan described. The attack at the gay nightclub appears not to have been directed, funded or even approved in advance by the Islamic States operatives in Raqqa, its de facto capital in Syria. [Portrait of the gunman: He was not a stable person] As of Monday, U.S. officials said they still had seen no indication that Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old security guard accused of killing at least 49 people at the Pulse nightclub, had traveled to Syria or even had direct contact with members of the Islamic State. But much like the attackers in San Bernardino, Calif., last year, Mateen inserted an extra step in his terrorist script to make sure the world would properly attribute his violence. In one of three calls with 911 dispatchers after the attack was underway, Mateen declared his allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi while also claiming solidarity with the Boston Marathon bombers and a Floridian who committed a suicide bombing in Syria for Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate and Islamic State rival, according to James B. Comey, the FBI director, who briefed reporters Monday. Comey, who refused to use Mateens name, said there were strong indications that the killer was inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, even if he didnt always understand the distinctions between different groups. FBI Director James B. Comey held a news conference at FBI Headquarters on the terror attacks in Orlando, Fla. (Reuters) [On 9/11, the Orlando shooters classmates mourned. Some say he celebrated.] Baghdadi is seen as a sullen figure who lacks the charisma of Osama bin Laden or al-Qaedas flair for the dramatic. He has endorsed a more prosaic brand of terrorism that emphasizes hitting vulnerable targets and exploiting Western weaknesses. As a result, counterterrorism experts believe that the Islamic State may only be in the early stages of demonstrating its ability to incite a kind of violence that doesnt require penetrating the post-Sept. 11, 2001, defenses of the United States. Baghdadi understands that if he calls for terror, it will come, said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who is a terrorism expert at the Brookings Institution. Baghdadi doesnt need any direct human connection or even a Web connection. His message is so pervasive in the media and so simple it is certain to inspire the angry. Add the easy availability of military-style weapons and we have a challenge that wont die with Baghdadi. The threat is even greater in Europe, where security services must contend not only with lone-wolf actors but also with hundreds of experienced fighters who have returned from Syria with contacts and training like those who carried out the multistage attacks in Paris and Brussels. For several years, U.S. officials have quietly expressed relief that the nations greater distance from the Middle East and the massive spending on counterterrorism measures over the past 15 years serve as major barriers to plots like those in Paris or Brussels. Orlando, however, exposed the limits of that protection. Mateens anger also appears to have been driven by a deep- seated animosity toward gays, a mind-set that would have melded seamlessly with the online rantings of a terrorist group so violently homophobic that it has posted videos of accused homosexuals being thrown from rooftops to their deaths. President Obama said Monday that while theres no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot, Mateen was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the Internet. The depth of Mateens religious convictions may not matter to the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the shooting and declared him a martyr to the groups cause. Experts said that it is almost inevitable that the Islamic States bleak message has already drawn other silent recruits in the United States and that they will be emboldened by the nations inability to defend against mass shootings. [Obama: Orlando shooting was a case of homegrown extremism] Although Mateens ties with the Islamic State, if any, are not fully understood, his actions and background are remarkably similar to those of other domestic terrorists involved in mass shootings in recent years. Even Mateens age, 29, is exactly the average for perpetrators in past incidents, said author Peter Bergen, whose book, United States of Jihad, looked at 300 U.S. cases. They tend to be well educated to at least an average education, and they tend not to have a criminal background or mental derangement, said Bergen, vice president of New America, a Washington think tank. Typically they are American citizens. And without exception, none of them have been part of foreign terrorist organizations. They may have been inspired, but theyre not working with them. Based on what is known of Mateen, Bergen said, this guy already fits that profile very well. Joby Warrick contributed to this report. Read more: New details emerge in siege at Orlando club Shattered families gather at hotel for news When tragedy strikes, Americans stand divided Omar Mateens father, Seddique, says he last saw his son a day before the Orlando nightclub shooting. And nothing seemed amiss. (Lee Powell/The Washington Post) Omar Mateens father, Seddique, says he last saw his son a day before the Orlando nightclub shooting. And nothing seemed amiss. (Lee Powell/The Washington Post) The father of the Orlando nightclub gunman insists that his son was not motivated by Islamist radical ideology, describing the 29-year-old as a a good son who did not appear agitated or angry the day before the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. In two videos one is an interview with The Washington Post in Florida, and the other is a separate posting to Facebook Seddique Mateen offered no hints on what could have driven his son, Omar Mateen, to carry out the carnage early Sunday before police killed him. During the rampage, Mateen pledged loyalty to the Islamic State in a call to 911, but his father said he did not believe it was a genuine pledge of support. I think he just wanted to boast of himself, the elder Mateen told The Post late Sunday in an interview from his home in Port St. Lucie, Fla. No radicalism, no. He doesnt have a beard even. . . . I dont think religion or Islam had anything to do with this. [He was not a stable person: Orlando shooter showed signs of emotional trouble] 1 of 38 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad The scene in Orlando after a gunman opened fire at a nightclub View Photos Officials say at least 49 people were killed and dozens were injured in the shooting. Caption Officials say at least 49 people were killed and dozens were injured in the shooting. June 12, 2016 An injured person is carried out of Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Steven Fernandez/Associated Press Wait 1 second to continue. Seddique Mateen said his son stopped by the day before the rampage and showed no apparent warning signs. He was well behaved. His appearance was perfect, he said. I didnt see any sign of worrying or being upset or nervous. The elder Mateen said he planned to travel to Orlando and visit those who were injured or lost loved ones in the shooting at a nightclub popular with the citys gay community. If theyre not ready, I still say to them, Im sorry, he said. Im saddened for their injury or if they lost their dear one. But in a Facebook video posted early Monday, he said, God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. He had a child and a wife and was very dignified, meaning he had respect for his parents, Seddique Mateen wrote, standing in front of the flag of his apparent birthplace, Afghanistan. I dont know what caused him to shoot last night. Seddique Mateen said his son had access to a pistol through his employer. The Post and other media outlets reported Sunday that Omar Mateen worked as a security guard for G4S, a global security and contracting company. 1 of 25 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad What the investigation into the Orlando mass shooting looks like View Photos Officials are scouring the site and others in the area for information about the June 12 massacre. Caption Officials are scouring the site and others in the area for information about the June 12 massacre. June 15, 2016 Law enforcement officials gather outside Pulse nightclub in Orlando during the shooting investigation. David Goldman/AP Wait 1 second to continue. I am deeply saddened and announce this to the people of America, said Seddique Mateen in his Facebook video, noting his son carried out the attack during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Seddique Mateen, speaking in Dari, concluded the video by expressing disbelief that his son took it upon himself to seek retribution against the LGBT community. God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality, he said. This is not for the servants of God. In Afghanistan, officials were still trying to piece together the familys background. [Horror around the world at Orlando shooting, and fear for the United States] Afghan government officials said they did not know when Seddique Mateen left the country but noted millions of Afghans fled after it was invaded by the former Soviet Union in 1979. Omar Mateen, 29, was born in New York but moved with his family to Florida as a child. But Seddique Mateen appeared to maintain a strong affiliation to Afghanistan, hosting a television show broadcast from California that weighed in on the countrys political affairs. He also filmed dozens of sparsely viewed, rambling YouTube videos portraying himself as an important Afghan analyst and leader. In one video, the elder Mateen expresses gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban while denouncing the Pakistani government. [Shifting portraits emerge of shooter as authorities seek clues of terrorism ties] Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up, he said. Inshallah, the Durand Line issue will be solved soon. The Durand Line issue is a historically significant one, particularly for members of the Pashtun ethnic group, whose homeland straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line is that border. It is not clear whether the Mateens are Pashtun. The Afghan Taliban is mostly made up of Pashtuns. The line was drawn as a demarcation of British and Afghan spheres of influence in 1893. The British controlled most of subcontinental Asia at the time, though some parts, including what is now Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, were only loosely held. The line was inherited as a border by Pakistan after its independence. Because it splits the Pashtun population politically, it is seen as a cause for their marginalization. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in most of eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Just hours before the shooting in Orlando, Seddique Mateen posted a video on a Facebook page called Provisional Government of Afghanistan Seddique Mateen. In it, he seems to be pretending to be Afghanistans president, and he orders the arrest of an array of Afghan political figures. I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen and against our homeland, he says, while dressed in army fatigues. The most recent video on Mateens YouTube channel shows him declaring his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. The timing of the video is strange, as it came a year after presidential elections were held in Afghanistan. Mateen appears incoherent at times in the video, and he jumps abruptly from topic to topic. His use of Dari, instead of Pashto, the language of Pashtuns, was another strange element of his presentation, given that he is discussing issues of Pashtun nationalism. People would make jokes of this guy, especially after videos surfaced of him claiming to be the president in exile, said one senior Afghan government official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to media. He looked very serious, but no one could tell what he was talking about. Seddique Mateen also appeared to go to extraordinary lengths to appear as if he was a relevant figure in Afghan politics. In 2014, for example, Seddique Mateen uploaded a video to YouTube that showed him interviewing Ghani. At the time, Ghani was a candidate in Afghanistans most recent presidential election. Ghani initially had no recollection of meeting the elder Mateen. After scrutinizing the video on Monday, his staff determined Seddique Mateen had interviewed Ghani during his unsuccessful bid for president in 2009. tim.craig@washpost.com Bearak reported from Washington, and Powell reported from Port St. Lucie, Fla. Sayed Salahuddin and Mohammad Sharf in Kabul contributed to this report. Read more: Hes coming . . . Im gonna die: Heartbreaking final texts from Orlando victim to his mom Pulse was founded in her brothers memory, and named for his beating heart The history of the AR-15, the weapon that had a hand in the United States worst mass shooting Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world Three weeks out from the July 2 election, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has published a research paper titled Agenda for Change 2016: Strategic choices for the next government. ASPI strategists openly advise that the Australian government, during the next three-year term of parliament, will face the possibility that the tensions in the South and East China Seas could draw Australia into a full-scale war with China and result in attacks on the Australian mainland. The document states: Theres potential that these disputes [in the South and China Seas], especially between the US and China, could spiral into conflict and involve Australia. Australian vessels operating with US forces in the region, as well as US forces stationed in Australia, would be at considerable risk of being attacked. ASPI does not spell out how US forces in Australia could come under attack. There is, however, virtually only one conceivable way that the Chinese military could launch attacks on mainland Australiawith intercontinental ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons launched from submarines. While the most significant US base in Australia, the satellite spying and communications facility at Pine Gap, is located in a remote and thinly-populated part of the country, US naval, Marine and air forces operate from major Australian cities such as Perth, Darwin, Townsville and Brisbane. ASPI has effectively revealed that the US-Australia military alliance and the presence of the US military in those cities have transformed them into targets in a nuclear war. The strategists and analysts who prepare ASPI reports are fervent defenders of the US-Australia alliance and supporters of American and Australian imperialist operations on a world scale. They are not warning of the prospect of war from the standpoint of opposition, but to insist that the Australian government commit ever greater resources to the armed forces. Even if the provocative US challenges to Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea do not result in war in the next three years, the ASPI strategists advise the next Australian government that it has to be prepared to join Washington in a range of other military conflicts. The foreword is authored by Kim Bomber Beazley, who was the defence minister in the Hawke Labor government from 1984 to 1990, deputy prime minister during the Keating Labor government from 1992 to 1996 and Labor Party opposition leader from 1996 to 2003 and again in 20052006. After leaving parliament, Beazley was appointed as Australian ambassador to the United States, a position from which he only retired last year. Beazley names the Middle East and growing tensions with Russia, as well the US-China tensions in Asia, as potential triggers for Australian military operations. Leading ASPI analyst Peter Jennings calls for the deployment of more Australian troops to Iraq, even closer integration with the US military and the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. In the key chapter headlined Defence Policy, where the warning of attacks on the Australian mainland appears, ASPI analysts advocate providing the US military with even more bases in Australia and insist that Canberra stump up the cash to pay for them. Summing up its forecasts for the next three years, ASPI writes: The government should prepare for new Australian Defence Force (ADF) operations, ranging from low-intensity but still challenging humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) tasks in the South Pacific, through significant operational tasks in the Middle East Area of Operations and potential ADF deployments in maritime Southeast Asia particularly in the South China Seathat could see them involved in high-intensity military operations alongside coalition partners, to the prospect of a major operation on the Korean Peninsula. ASPI places the prospect of conflict and war within the context of the failure of the world economy to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. It notes the ongoing slump in the United States, Europe and Japan and highlights some of the political consequences. In Europe, the report states, reactionary politics is making something of a comeback in a haunting echo of what happened in the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s. In the US, it asserts that Trump is peddling a truly bizarre brand of belligerent isolationism in the presidential election and declares there is an emerging question about the USs willingness to play the role it has since the 1940s. Warning of even greater economic upheaval, which will impact severely on the commodity-export dependent Australian economy, ASPI writes that China is awash with manufacturing overcapacity, vacant real estate and public works projects for which the costs outweigh the benefits. The risk is that the banking sector will eventually fall into crisis The Australian population has been kept in the dark about the content of the document. Since ASPI published it on June 7, it has not been reported in any of the major newspapers, the commercial television stations or the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). No candidates in the election, except for the candidates of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), have referred to it. There is no innocent explanation for the silence in the Australian political and media establishment. By now, it will have been read by senior figures in all the capitalist parties and by leading journalists. They all know that ASPI analysts have warned that there is a considerable risk that Australia could be drawn into a catastrophic war, and face attack, most likely with nuclear weapons, because of its alliance with the United States. The ASPI document is not being mentioned in either the media or the Australian election campaign because the establishment is acutely conscious that mass opposition will emerge once millions of workers and young people begin to recognise the danger of war. It falls to those who are becoming aware to support the SEPs campaign to break the conspiracy of silence and bring the truth into the light of day. To contact the SEP and get involved, visit our website or Facebook page. Authorised by James Cogan, Shop 6, 212 South Terrace, Bankstown Plaza, Bankstown, NSW 2200. Sharp class tensions are emerging in both the British and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea oilfields. Late last year, 3,000 auxiliary and catering workers providing meals for workers across the UK continental shelf voted narrowly in favour of a strike and 67 percent in favour of industrial action short of a strike in pursuit of a pay claim. This was the first strike vote in the UK sector for decades. In April, thousands of offshore workers covered by the Offshore Contractors Association agreement voted 93.5 percent for a strike in a consultative ballot against pay cuts of between 22 and 30 percent. Another ballot is being held over the next few weeks, following the breakdown of talks. There have been reports of wildcat strikes. In Norway, long planned talks between union officials and the oil companies, scheduled to last a couple of days, also broke down, this time in a matter of minutes. The crisis in the North Sea industry is one expression of the global capitalist chaos in oil production. Under conditions of a sharp fall in demand, suppliers, led by Saudi Arabia, increased productionseeking to ruin their rivals. As a result, oil prices have slumped over the last two years to a fraction of their former value of well in excess of $100 a barrel. Over the last months, Canadian wildfires, political unrest in Venezuela, supply disruption in Nigeria and Libya and a reduction in US shale oil production have temporarily moderated the oversupply. But with Iranian production being ramped up following the end of sanctions against the country, and with record volumes of oil in storage worldwide, there is no near prospect of prices recovering much beyond $50 a barrel. As a consequence, expensive, deep-water North Sea oil, already in decline as fields become more expensive and technically challenging to exploit, is increasingly unviable. Companies are drastically downsizing, cutting wages, increasing working hours and cutting safety corners, seeking to offload the cost of the slump onto the working class. Latest figures suggest that out of a total 375,000 in the British sector, 120,000 jobs will have been lost by the end of this year since 2014. Companies shedding workers include Shell, which recently announced 2,200 jobs would go globally, 475 of which would be in its UK and Ireland business. BP announced 7,000 jobs would be lost after reporting losses of $6.5 billion. The Wood Group has announced that up to 1,000 of 6,200 onshore staff are imperilled. In the Norwegian sector, 30,000 of 300,000 jobs have been lost thus far and, as of January, every company was claiming to be losing money. Across the sector, for every one job created, six are currently lost. Facing a growing determination by oil workers to oppose the assault on their livelihoods, the trade unions are devoting all their efforts to diverting workers, suppressing their struggles and defending the interests of the North Sea industry. Following the 93.5 percent strike vote at Wood Group in April, the unions launched a sabotage operation. The leading oil industry official for the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, Jake Molloy, visited four installations in quick succession. He was quoted in Energy Voice as stating, In the 35 years Ive been in this industry, Ive never encountered such low moral or such a demoralised workforce. ... We have a totally disenfranchised workforce thats getting angrier by the day and that can cost the companies more than anything they are trying to save. Molloys admission that offshore workers are disenfranchised is a remarkable expression of political bankruptcy. He has for decades been a central figure in the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee (OILC), set up after the 1988 explosion on the Piper Alpha rig that killed 167 workers. Set up by the trade unions to contain a series of wildcat actions and protests, OILC presented a more militant face to offshore workers for a number of years before being finally merging with the RMT union in 2008. Hailed by the pseudo-left as a revival of trade unionism, OILCs development as the closest ally of the offshore industry is yet another expression of the collapse of trade unionism as a perspective on which workers can defend their interests. The British unions are also focusing their efforts on warnings to the Scottish and British governments that the companies are overstepping the mark, while supporting industrial summits aimed at winning tax breaks for the industry. Unite union regional officer, Tommy Campbell, warned a parliamentary committee in May of safety consequences of new work rotas that can mean some workers face 21 consecutive 12-hour days. Stating the obvious, he complained that there are some changes that are just a step too far. Reflecting the same tensions, in Norway, talks organised for late May between the Industry Energy union and the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association over wages for offshore production workers were expected to last two days. The talks swiftly collapsed. Trade union officials were seeking some form of nominal pay increase in return for an agreement similar to ones worked out in other Norwegian export industries. The oil companies rejected any possibility of pay increases no matter what terms accompanied them. Trade union leaders complained of the employers aggression. Leif Sande, of Industry Energy said, The differences were so obvious so early that is was just as well to make an appointment with the national mediator right away rather than sit here for two days. Hilde-Marit Rysst, head of the SAFE trade union, warned that the employers demands were unheard of. Rysst said employers were trying to reduce rights, compensations and cut costs. To the extent the trade unions have coordinated their efforts against this combined offensive of the employers, it is to promote nationalism and protectionism. In late May, unions from Britain, Norway and Denmark affiliated to the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) met in Aberdeen to discuss the use of workers from Eastern Europe and from outside the European Union to replace better paid workers. The ITF promised to oppose social dumping, a term which precisely sums up the union bureaucracys attitude to the working class. Rather than respond on a progressive basis to the ever more globally mobile and integrated character of the working class to strengthen the struggle against big business, the trade unions promote every conceivable national and regional division, all of which set workers against one another. Oil workers face immense challenges, but they have immense social strength. Utilising that strength depends on workers freeing themselves from the strangling grip of the trade unions and building rank-and-file organisations of struggle. However, as was demonstrated by the OILCs evolution, this must be based upon a new internationalist and socialist perspective. Scandinavian and British North Sea offshore and onshore oil workers have powerful allies. There are ongoing strikes and protests, particularly in France and Belgium, centred on oil refineries, petrol stations and transport. But realising this possibility demands a political break with the trade unions and a conscious orientation towards uniting with workers across the industry in Europe and internationally for the socialist reorganisation of society. The Socialist Equality Party of Britain is campaigning for an active boycott of the upcoming referendum on UK membership in the European Union. The following is a speech delivered by Chris Marsden, national secretary of the SEP, at meetings in Manchester and Sheffield. A final meeting will be held in London on June 14. It will be addressed by Peter Schwarz, secretary of the International Committee of the Fourth International and leading member of the Partei fur Soziale Gleichheit in Germany. Full details of the meeting are here. The June 23 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union needs to be understood for what it really is. Portrayed as the most democratic of instruments because it allows the people to decide, it is highly undemocratic. There is only a binary choice to be made, either to Remain or to Leave. There is no opportunity to register an argument as to why you are in favour or against remaining in the EU because for that to take place there must be a party that advances a political argument, a programme, with which you can express your agreement. For that reason, all that is on offer to workers and young people is to declare for one of two officially constituted campaigns, both of which are led by right-wing, pro-business, pro-austerity, militarist, anti-worker, anti-migrant forces drawn from opposed wings of the Conservative Party. One is led by Prime Minister David Cameron and the other by Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London. I will spend some of my time tonight addressing the arguments of the advocates of what they themselves call a Left Leave option, or Lexit: the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, Counterfire, the Stalinist Communist Party of Britain and just three trade unionsthe Rail Maritime and Transport Union, the train drivers union ASLEF, and the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union. This is not because they represent a major political alternative, but because they claim to and dont. The objective role they play is to subordinate the working class to the open political representatives of sections of the British ruling elite, most immediately the Eurosceptic wing of the Tories and the UK Independence Party, but also to the other leading force in the pro-EU Remain camp, the Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn and the Trades Union Congress (TUC). Our statement, For an active boycott of the Brexit referendum, clearly lays out our own approach and I will cite some key passages. We explain first of all: The SEP is irreconcilably hostile to the European Union, but our opposition is from the left, not the right. The EU is not an instrument for realising the genuine and necessary unification of Europe. It is a mechanism for the subjugation of the continent to the dictates of the financial markets and a forum in which competing states fight amongst themselves and conspire against the working class... No support can be extended to the Remain campaign. This option has the backing of much of Britains corporate elite, who regard EU membership as essential to their ability to compete internationallynot least through a continued offensive against the living standards of the working class throughout the continent. It also has the support of the United States and the major European powers, which fear that a British exit (Brexit) could provide the catalyst for the EUs unravelling and jeopardise the NATO alliance and its agenda of militarism and war... Over the past weeks, we have written extensively against the EU and the forces dominating the Remain campaign. We note firstly the role played by the EU in imposing devastating social attacks on the working class of Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spainwhich provides an unanswerable refutation of the claims made by Corbyn, Labour and the TUC that the EU offers social protection to the working class. Secondly, we have noted the increasingly strident invocations of national security and the danger of war with Russia used to support EU membership. However, our statement then explains: None of this imparts a progressive character to the Leave campaign, or justifies lending even the most critical support to it. Its claim that the British parliament and its parties are any less instruments for imposing the wishes of finance capital than the EU is a transparent fraud... British workers cannot find a way out of the current economic and political impasse on the basis of a nationalist programme. The notion of returning to an isolated and sovereign British state in todays global economy is as archaic as Stonehenge... The Leave campaign is led by staunch advocates of austerity who have worked alongside Cameron to implement attacks that have devastated the lives of millions. This basic fact needs emphasising because we now have the disgusting spectacle of Gove, Johnson, Priti Patel and even Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party posturing as defenders of the poor worker, the NHS and the welfare state from what they claim is exclusively EU-driven austerity. The reality is that austerity is Made in Britain and has gone further here than most anywhere else. In 2014, the TUC, which now sides with Cameron, noted that whereas the governments original proposals expected austerity to amount to 6.7 percent of GDP, This is now expected to reach 10.3 percent, increasing in cash terms from 120 billion to 210 billion. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), real per capita spending on public services will be cut by 23 percent between 2007/8 and 2018/19. This means that between 2014/15 and 2019/20, spending on public services, administration and grants by central government is projected to fall from 5,650 to 3,880 per head in 2014/15 prices. This is set to worsen after June 23. Around 60 percent of cuts will be delivered in this parliament, with the OBR noting that the implied squeeze on local authority spending is simply severe. By this month, government funding for councils is estimated to be 53 percent lower than it was in 2010, after Chancellor George Osborne made an additional 4 billion in cuts this year. The OBR said the chancellors plans would mean one million additional government job losses, a 20 percent fall overall. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that colossal cuts to the state would take total government spending to its lowest level as a proportion of national income since before the Second World War. By the end of the process, the role and shape of the state will have changed beyond recognition. Then there is the warmongering on both sides. In backing Remain, Corbyn is lining up behind British imperialisms alliance with Washington in furtherance of NATOs war preparations against Russia and China, which now involve military operations in every state and all of the waters surrounding Russia. Cameron described EU membership as essential to combating a newly belligerent Russia. He was backed by US President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry, 13 former US defence and foreign affairs chiefs, five ex-NATO secretaries-general and the former heads of Britains MI5 and MI6, Jonathan Evans and Sir John Sawers. This week, the largest military exercise ever staged by NATO in Europe takes place, involving 30,000 troops, mainly from the US and Poland, as well as 3,000 vehicles, 105 aircraft, and 12 warships, based on a simulated war with Russia. Operation Anaconda, a dress rehearsal for a NATO invasion, is the real agenda concealed behind claims that Russia is the belligerent party. But claims that Left Leave articulates opposition to the NATO alliance and British, US and European imperialism are false. The campaign for a UK exit from the EU has secured the backing of a dozen former senior military officers, collectively described as Veterans for Britain. They portray the EU as a challenger and a threat to NATO. Major General Julian Thompson, commander of land forces during the 1982 war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands/Malvinas, declares, NATO is responsible for peace across Europe. NATO has been the cornerstone of Western security since World War II and won the Cold War before the EU even existed... MI5 and MI6 base their information on the Five Eyes agreement with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The EU doesnt help intelligence sharing; in fact, many members cannot be trusted due to their close relationship with Russia. This description of other European powers as Russian quislings is extraordinary. Rear Admiral Roger Lane-Nott, the former NATO commander, submarines Eastern Atlantic, adds that the problem is that EU attempts to set up its own operations, security structures and even armed forces take resources away from the organisation that really protects us, identifying Germany as the power pushing for inexorable merger of defence... As we stress in our statement, Against the national chauvinism and xenophobia promoted by both sides in the referendum campaign, the working class must advance its own internationalist programme to unify the struggles of workers throughout Europe in defence of living standards and democratic rights. The alternative for workers to the Europe of the transnational corporations is the struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe. It is in order to create the best conditions for consciously establishing the political independence of the working class from both reactionary camps in this referendum that we have called for an active boycott. And we warn, The biggest political danger in this situation is the mixing of class banners on the basis of the espousal of a supposedly left nationalism... Let me make this absolutely clear. We do not have merely tactical disagreements with the pseudo-left groups over the referendum. We have fundamentally opposed political perspectives, from which our opposed tactics flow. What is the argument advanced by the advocates of a Left Leave campaign? Last June, Joseph Choonara of the SWP wrote quite frankly on the referendum: The mainstream arguments on both sides will be unpalatable. The Yes campaign, to retain Britains EU membership, will be dominated by the Conservative and Labour leaderships, along with whats left of the Liberal Democrats... Meanwhile, the tone of the No campaign is likely to be set by the UK Independence Party (UKIP), some of the nastiest elements of the Conservative Party and a motley array of smaller businesses. ... There will still be a few socialists campaigning against EU membership. During the 2009 and 2014 European elections some left forces stood as No2EU. Unfortunately, its campaigns made dangerous concessions to the right over immigration, with one article on its website arguing that free movement within the EU impoverishes workers in a race to the bottom. The SWP admitted from the start that the two campaigns are right-wing and the Leave campaign more nastily xenophobic. Choonara also made clear that the forces to which it is now aligned in Left Leave, the Communist Party and the RMT, base themselves on dangerous concessions to the right over immigration. But all considerations as to the impact of supporting the Leave campaign on the working class and its political consciousness are simply brushed to one side. Choonara makes the following statement, which I was struck by: There are times when socialists put forward simple arguments and rally large numbers of people around them. There are other times when we have to provide clarity by making complex arguments to relatively small groups of people. The EU referendum is an occasion for the latter. Opposition to the EU follows from our principles. Our tactics in advancing the argument, though, flow from the overall balance of forces. This is very similar to points that we have made repeatedly in our campaign for an active boycott. So why does the SWP, while claiming to be animated by similar concerns, come to such completely opposed conclusions to us? Because the pseudo-left oppose the EU not as internationalists, but as defenders of the British state and advocates of national reformism. Choonara made this clear more recently, when he insisted, Here in Britain some people speak as if Brexit would automatically mean a shift to the right. However, if Cameron loses the referendum it will weaken the ruling class and it would almost certainly mean the end of Camerons own tenure as prime minister. The Tories would be in a dire state. One potential beneficiary of such a scenario is Jeremy Corbyn. I would welcome an election under those conditions and I would welcome a Corbyn victorysomething that would open up a broader space for the revolutionary left. The same argument was advanced by all the speakers during the recent launch of Left Leave in London. Alex Callinicos of the SWP said, If Leave is successful this will shatter the Tory government and take out the two central figures in that government, Cameron and Osborne. John Rees of Counterfire stated, Our aim is getting rid of the Tories before 2020, while Jeremy Corbyn is still leader of the Labour Party and while the left has its best ever chance to do in the Tory government and get a better replacement. The basic political assertion of Left Leave, then, is that the EU is reactionary and the answer is to create the best conditions for Corbyn to come to power by deepening a political split in the Tory Party. A victory for Johnson and Nigel Farage of UKIP in the referendum therefore will be pyrrhicmerely a staging post that will create the basis for a resurgence of reformist policies under a Labour government. Who can seriously give credence to such an assertion? Corbyn has repeatedly shown his refusal to fight the right wing, even within his own party, and has declared himself in favour of EU membership. You can easily lose count of the times when spokespersons for Lexit state how unfortunate it is that Corbyn has missed an opportunity to mobilise a left Leave vote without an explanation ever being offeredother than the pressure exerted upon him. But if Corbyn cannot oppose the demands of his right wing now, after securing a massive mandate from his partys membership and with his opponent isolated, discredited and hated, what will he do differently after the referendum? To ask the question is to answer it. The Tory Party is tearing itself apart. Some of the bitterest Eurosceptics have already begun drumming up support for a leadership challenge against Cameron and a Leave vote, or even a narrow vote to Remain could precipitate one. However, the pseudo-left groups never bother to explain how a political line that diminishes the significance of Camerons likely successors as being not the main enemy or their overt anti-immigrant racism as somehow less important than opposing Fortress Europe prepares the way for a leftward shift in politics. There is, in fact, a long and very bitter history of attributing a progressive outcome to political initiatives dominated by right-wing bourgeois forces. And for the most part they have involved attempts by tendencies claiming to be socialist to tactically exploit nationalism. In our campaign, we have referred to the support extended to the Nazi Party by the Stalinised Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the 1931 Red Referendum, on the basis that the fall of the Social Democrats would strengthen the working class. Also, in December 1929, a referendum was held on the instigation of the German Nationalist Party to formally renounce the Treaty of Versailles and end the payment of reparations to the victorious powers in the First World War. There was mass opposition to the terms of Versailles, but the referendum was recognised by class conscious workers as an effort to exploit this sentiment by the nationalist right, and especially Hitlers Nazi Party. The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) correctly opposed the referendum, which helped limit turnout to less than 15 percent. It was in the aftermath of the 1929 referendumunder instruction from Stalin and the Cominternthat a process of wholesale adaptation to German nationalism began to escalate with the adoption of the policies associated with National Bolshevism. As we explain in our statement, By 1931, the KPDs retreat was such that it lined up with the fascists in supporting what it dubbed the Red Referendum. Initiated by the Nazis, the referendum urged the removal of the Social Democrats from power in Prussia, Germanys largest state, which included the capital Berlin. The KPD supported the referendum on the basis that the Social Democrats were social fascists and were engaged in repression against the working class. Their removal, the KPD claimed, would be a step towards national liberation and a peoples revolution. The political impact was devastating. The injection of nationalist poison into the German working class and the demobilisation of the overwhelming opposition to the Nazis ended in the victory of fascism and the onward march towards world war. Yet the professional liars of the Socialist Party (SP), in order to urge a Leave vote, turn these events on their headattributing the rise of fascism to the earlier 1929 decision by the KPD to oppose work with the Nazis and the nationalist right. Clive Heemskerk of the SP wrote: But, Trotsky insisted, the working class cannot abandon the field to the nationalist right, as its mass organisationsthe Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the KPDdid in December 1929 when a referendum was promoted by the German National Peoples Party (DNVPled by the media baron Alfred Hugenburg) to reject the Young Plan reaffirming German war reparation debts ... The Nazis participation with the DNVP in the referendum campaignthe first time an important section of the capitalists had collaborated with Hitlerwas a factor in their phenomenal surge from 810,000 votes (2.6 percent) in the May 1928 general election to 6.3 million (18.2 percent) in September 1930, against the backdrop of the 1929 crash. The SP cites Trotskys warning, made in a different context, only to give its tacit endorsement to Stalinisms policy of National Bolshevism encapsulated in the infamous slogan, After Hitler, Our Turn!so that it can pursue its own policy of After Boris, Jeremy! To reiterate, the Red Referendum was a disastrous example of the type of political opportunism advocated by the SP. Trotsky warned then against any mixing of banners and against badly miscalculating the impact of a generally correct callto bring down a social democratic government and fight for revolutionwhen this is not what the actual referendum would bring about. In one extraordinary passage, Trotsky writes what can be seen as both a devastating indictment of the pseudo-left and a confirmation of our own approach to the Brexit referendum: If one could designate his party adherence on the ballots, then the referendum would at least have the justification (in the given instance, absolutely insufficient politically) that it would have permitted a count of its (the KPDs) forces and by that itself separate them from the forces of fascism. But German democracy did not trouble in its time to provide for participants in referendums the right to designate their parties. All the voters are fused into one inseparable mass which, on a definite question, gives one and the same answer Whether the fascists vote together with the Communists or not would lose all significance at the moment when the proletariat, by its pressure, overthrows the fascists and takes the power into its own hands ... To come out into the streets with the slogan Down with the Bruning-Braun [Centre Party/Social Democratic Party] government at a time when, according to the relationship of forces, it can only be replaced by a government of Hitler-Hugenberg [German National Party], is the sheerest adventurism. Consequently, we consider the coincidence of voting with the fascists not from the point of view of some abstract principle, but from the point of view of the actual struggle of the classes for power, and the relationship of forces at a given stage of this struggle. The parallels are clear. In 1931, the KPD entrusted the task of dealing with the Social Democrats to the fascists. Today, the pseudo-left entrust the struggle against Camerons government to Eurosceptics led by Johnson and Gove. The referendum raises fundamental questions of perspective and orientationeither capitalist nationalism or socialist internationalism. The Socialist Equality Party is not an advocate of the breakup of the EU on the basis of an espousal of economic nationalism and anti-immigrant xenophobia. The European bourgeoisie has proven that it is incapable of unifying the continent on a progressive basis. Indeed, there is nothing left of the pretensions to a social democratic and peaceful Europe promised throughout the post-war period. But the danger posed is that the collapse of the EU, without the political intervention of the working class, is preparing the way for an explosion of the very national antagonisms it was meant to have put an end to. As I explained in a recent World Socialist Web Site Perspective, Everywhere, amid deepening economic crisis, free trade is giving way to trade war, financial security to insecurity and joblessness, prosperity to austerity, the free movement of people to the erection of razor wire borders and concentration camps, democracy to dictatorship and the rise of the fascist right. The end result will be that humanity is dragged once again into the maelstrom of world war. The pseudo-left groups, inasmuch as they acknowledge any of these political realities, exclusively blame transnational institutions such as the EU and trade treaties such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Their answer is a return to the nation state so that Labour in the UK or some other partySyriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain, for examplecan once again carry out reformist measures behind a system of protectionist barriers and other forms of economic regulation. This would represent a massive regression, posing not the rebirth of reformism but an accelerated descent into right-wing nationalist reaction. Capitalism is based on corporate ownership of the means of production and competition between companies and states. It cannot overcome the national division of Europe, any more than it can overcome the national division of the world. What is now called globalisation describes a dog-eat-dog struggle to dominate the worlds markets and resources, which is why, with increasing frequency, the world faces the scourge of war. However, the answer is not a return to the nation state. Yes, under capitalism, globalisation serves only the interests of a privileged few who grow fabulously wealthy at the expense of the impoverishment of the worlds billions. But the globalisation of economic life, with production organised across national borders, is both objectively progressive and necessary. By massively increasing the productivity of human labour, it provides the material foundations for the development of a socialist society. To achieve this, however, the grip of the super-rich oligarchy over society must be broken and the economy liberated from the restrictions placed upon it by the profit system and the division of the world into antagonistic nation states. For the European working class, this means opposing the EU on its own independent class perspectivenot the nationalist splintering of the continent, but the struggle for a socialist Britain within a United Socialist States of Europe that allows for planned production across national borders to meet social need. In opposition to this perspective, no one is more convinced of the continued viability of the nation state than the pseudo-left. They are wedded to it. Consider the argument set out by Callinicos in The internationalist case against the European Union, in which he rejects any possibility of a unified struggle of the European working class. He states: Strategically, the problem is that since the 1980s, but more especially as a result of the euro zone crisis, a Europe-wide neoliberal regime is being constructed. Breaking that is most likely to happen at national level. To make successful resistance dependent on a coordinated movement at the EU level is to postpone that resistance indefinitely. The process of uneven and combined development implies that struggles are most likely to succeed at national level but can then be generalised. Dialectically, then, for internationalism to advance there have to be breakthroughs at the national level. There are three references insisting on struggles being waged at the national level in a single paragraph! The SEP rejects all such assertions of a national basis for the development of the class struggle. In an increasingly globalised world, the class struggle too takes on an ever more openly international form. As we meet tonight, events are unfolding in France that will have a far greater impact on the fate of the British working class than a leadership challenge against Cameron or the possibility of Corbyns Labour Party benefiting from such a challenge. French workers are involved in the initial stages of a bitter confrontation with the Socialist Party government of Francois Hollande, which is seeking to impose labour legislation expanding the normal working week to 46 hours, making it easier to sack people, and limiting the right to strike. It was pushed through parliament in the face of a wave of strikes and protests involving millions of workers and youth, which were met with brutal police repression. A movement against similar legislation has already broken out in Belgium. Hollande and the Socialist Party are detested. But it should be recalled that he was elected in 2012 promising leftist measures that put Corbyn and McDonnells thin gruel to shame, including raising taxes on big corporations, banks and the wealthy, including a 75 percent tax on incomes beyond 1 million; creating 60,000 teaching jobs; bringing the official retirement age down to 60 from 62; creating subsidised jobs in areas of high unemployment for the young; and promoting industry by creating a public investment bank. Instead, he introduced labour reform in 2012 making it easier for companies to fire employees and cut salaries and hours during times of economic difficulty, i.e., always, and pension reforms increasing contributions; sent troops into Mali; imposed a state of emergency, meaning that 60,000 troops are patrolling Paris; and now sanctions violent attacks by riot police on workers with water cannon, rubber bullets and tear gas for opposing his plans to ruin them. The immediate beneficiary has been the fascist National Front, which describes the new labour laws as an example of the dictatorship of Brussels and calls for a Frexit. But this can all change with the development of the class struggle and the entry of the working class into political life. The pseudo-left responds to these developments by urging a return to hearth and home, with Hollandes equivalents ruling over us in Westminster. We have responded by urging a unified struggle against the EU and its austerity policies, insisting that the working class must now take the revolutionary road by fighting to bring down pro-austerity governments, of the so-called left and right alike, in France and across Europe. It is a measure of the global character of political processes that the full significance of the political campaign we are waging here in the UK is made clearer still on the other side of the Channel. We offer a perspective that unites rather than divides the European working class. A Perspective written by Alex Lantier on May 26 insists: The indispensable ally of the French, Belgian and Greek workers in this struggle is the European and international working class. ... Workers must reject all attempts to divide their struggles along national lines. The European Union of the corporations and banks is a prison for the working class and breeding ground for national chauvinism, militarism and war. It must be overthrown. But a retreat behind national borders on the basis of French, German, British, Greek or any other chauvinism is no less reactionary and destructive of the interests of working people. The only progressive alternative to the European Union is the unification of Europe on a new, revolutionary and egalitarian basis through the coordinated struggle of workers across Europe for workers power and socialism. Our socialist and internationalist perspective provides the basis for a political intervention under conditions of unfolding class struggle. As yet, that political situation has not matured to the same degree here in the UK as in France, even though we have witnessed the determined struggle of the junior doctors. But we are oriented to a developing mass movement of the European working classunder conditions of an escalating crisis of rule for the British and European ruling class. Before and after the referendum, we will orient the working class to this international development so as to prepare the ground for the eruption of the class struggle that is coming in Britain, which only the Socialist Equality Party is ready and able to lead. 25 Years Ago | 50 Years Ago | 75 Years Ago | 100 Years Ago 25 years ago: Kuwait emirate sentences 29 people to death after Iraqi withdrawal This week in 1991, the martial law court set up by the Kuwaiti monarchy sentenced 29 people to death after brief trials which made a mockery of democratic procedures. Prisoners were sentenced to public hanging for such crimes as running a secondary school or writing newspaper articles during the seven-month occupation of the emirate by Iraqi military forces. After three death sentences in the first month of show trials, the right-wing dictatorship stepped up the pace of its savagery, handing down death sentences in batches every day. On Saturday, June 15, six journalists were sentenced to death for working on an Iraqi-sponsored newspaper. On Sunday, June 16, three men were sentenced to death on charges of stealing property and cooperating with the Iraqis. The three, Hassan Daoud, Mossam Hadi and Youssef Moustafa, fled Kuwait after US forces invaded in February. On June 17, a Palestinian headmistress was sentenced to death for operating the Tulilla School, where she taught Arabic, during the Iraqi occupation. The woman, 55-year-old Hamdi Assad, told the five-member panel of judges that she had lived in Kuwait for more than 30 years. Her two sons were being detained and tortured by Kuwaiti police. Her two daughters, who attended the trial, broke down afterwards, screaming at the judges and police who used bayonets to disperse the crowd of onlookers. On June 18, eight people were sentenced to death, six of them in absentia, because they had been drafted into the Iraqi military after the occupation. The regime of Saddam Hussein declared Kuwait to be Iraqs 19th province and extended Iraqi law, including the draft, to the territory. Finally, on June 19, eight more prisoners were sentenced to death, including six Jordanians, a stateless Arab and the first Iraqi given the death sentence. More than 250 prisoners were dragged through the kangaroo courts set up by the emirs police and military officers. They were denied the right to present a defense, cross-examine witnesses or testify, and in many cases, even to know the evidence against them. A total of 440 prisoners were to be tried by the time martial law would expire at the end of July, Kuwaiti authorities said. Youth as young as 12-years-old were subjected to court martial. Human rights groups and Palestinian groups said that 2,000 people were now imprisoned in Kuwait, the vast majority of them Palestinian or other stateless Arabs. Thousands of other Palestinians were deported without trial. [top] 50 years ago: Supreme Court issues Miranda ruling On June 13, 1966, by a 5-4 margin, the US Supreme Court voted to set limits on the power of police to question suspects. The ruling in the case of Arizona prisoner Ernesto Miranda and three other prisoners required police to inform detainees of their right to remain silent and their right to legal counsel before beginning any questioning. The majority, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, further stipulated that if an arrested person requested a lawyer but could not afford to pay, the state was obliged to appoint an attorney to represent him during questioning. The decision provoked a storm of outrage from the conservative minority on the Supreme Court led by Justice John C. Harlan, who denounced it as dangerous experimentation at a time of a high crime rate. The ruling upheld the appeals of four men charged with unrelated crimes, who were convicted following the extraction of confessions by the police. All four men made incriminating statements to the police after hours of intensive questioning. In his majority opinion, Warren expressed a desire to curb some of the most blatant excesses of the police. While praising the defenders of capitalist law and order, he warned that by a too open display of injustice, provoking the indignation of the masses, they become as great a menace to society as any criminal we have. The court decision expanded on the ruling in the 1964 Escobedo case. There, the Supreme Court upheld the right of a defendant to legal counsel during police questioning. Prior to Miranda and Escobedo the constitutional guarantees against self-incrimination had been interpreted to apply only in the courtroom and did not prohibit the use of force or psychological pressure by the state to secure incriminating information from arrested persons. [top] 75 years ago: Stalin ignores invasion threat from Nazi Germany On June 13, 1941 the Soviet news agency Tass declared over Moscow Radio that both Germany and the Soviet Union are fulfilling to the letter the terms of the Soviet-German nonaggression pact, so that in the opinion of Soviet circles the rumors of the intention of Germany to break the pact and to launch an attack against the Soviet Union are completely without foundation, while the present movements of German troops ... to the eastern and northern parts of Germany, must be explained by other motives ... For nearly a year, Soviet military and covert intelligence had provided a steady and voluminous stream of ever more detailed information on the deployment of German units, their strength, tactics and, ultimately, the exact date of the invasion. Stalin ordered, however, that all documents claiming that war is imminent must be regarded as forgeries emanating from British or even German sources. In addition, Stalin had been warned of the attack by both Churchill and Roosevelt. The German press, after several years of silence on the question, was again serializing excerpts of Hitlers Mein Kampf that dealt with German expansion to the east, that is, into Ukraine and Russia. A German printer had appeared at the Soviet consulate in Berlin with a German-Russian phrase book being printed in large quantities for the military. It instructed Germans on how to interrogate Russians. German aircraft violations of Soviet airspace increased dramatically throughout April and May. During the same period, Stalin boosted deliveries to Hitler of grain, oil, cotton, rubber and various metals to record levels, while Germanys reciprocal shipments had virtually ground to a halt, and military exports to the USSR had been cancelled. [top] 100 years ago: Striking miners in Minnesota draw up list of demands On June 15, 1916, 1,500 miners met at the Finnish Socialist Hall in Virginia, Minnesota to elect a central strike committee and draw up a list of demands for better working conditions and pay in mass strike action that had begun at the beginning of the month. The dispute become one of the largest labor conflicts in Minnesota history. United States Steel was the first billion-dollar corporation in the United States. The companys subsidiary, Oliver Mining Company, controlled about 75 percent of the ore resources in the Mesabi Iron Range in northern Minnesota. The iron ore was mined both underground and from open pit mines. The miners who worked underground were paid on a contract system that rewarded them for the amount of ore they extracted rather than the hours worked. Mine foremen estimated the quality of ore that could be produced and the difficulty of extracting it from a particular location and set the contract rate accordingly. This system was known to be subject to abuse with mine foremen demanding bribes from the workers in return for allocating better working locations. The underground miners were charged by the company for the equipment they used to extract the ore, and their pay consisted of the amount the contract had earned with costs deducted. Their net pay was often below $3 per day and sometimes below $2 per day. Open pit miners who were not on the contract system were paid on average between $2.25 and $2.60 per day. The demands raised by the striking miners included the end of the contract system, daily pay rates of $3.50 per day for underground work in wet areas, $3.00 per day for underground work in dry areas and $2.75 per day for work in the open pit mines. To combat the strike, the mining companies hired over 1,000 armed guards and sought to starve the strikers out. By the time the strike ended on September 16, 1916, three people were dead, many were injured, hundreds of strikers had been arrested, and the miners had failed to win a single concession from the mining companies. [top] As much as the date 9/11 has come to represent tragic loss and pain for our country, so too will Sunday, June 12. In the early morning hours, just after 2 a.m., shots shattered the sound of Latin music as fear and confusion ripped through the largely LGBT Latin community that had come to the Pulse nightclub for dancing, drinking and socializing. Patrons were quickly dropping to the floor -- some in an effort to escape the hail of bullets, while others fell victim to fatal gunshots from Omar Seddique Mateen, 29, a New York-born American of Afghan descent. LGBT Clubs in American History: Cultural Centers, Safe Space & Targets After the initial onslaught, Mateen took several of his surviving victims hostage inside the club. Nearly three hours later, shortly after 5 a.m., a heavily armed SWAT team used an armored vehicle to smash down a doorway to the building, which allowed approximately 30 trapped club attendees to escape and the armed team to kill Mateen. At press time, reports indicated Mateen had taken the lives of 49 individuals and injured 53, with most listed in critical condition in what has been called the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Despite the horrific terrorist slaughter, Orlando's LGBT community will survive -- and thrive -- as it has for many years. Tom Dyer, 60, is a well-known figure in Orlando's LGBT community. He founded the publication Watermark in 1994. Although he sold the company that produces the paper and website earlier this year, he still continues to write for both. With a long history in the city, he's a wealth of information when it comes to what Orlando has to offer. "Pulse is generally a great club," he says. "It's been open for eight years or so and caters primarily to a younger crowd, mostly twentysomethings. They usually have a lot of different theme nights, which is probably one of the reasons it has continued to be successful for so long. Great management, pretty club, pretty people." Story continues Music Stars React to Orlando Nightclub Massacre, Deadliest Mass Shooting in U.S. History Dyer is particularly proud that Orlando is a supportive and welcoming city, and he's happy to share its recipe for success. "Orlando has always had a sizable gay population, because of Disney and the other attractions here," he beams. "A lot come to visit, and a lot work here. It's a diverse group of people. I'd say most of the growth [within the LGBT community] has taken place over the past 20 years. That's when the gay community became involved with the gentrification of downtown, which they were pretty much responsible for. There are a lot of other contributing factors that make it a welcoming and supportive place for the gay community and LGBT businesses," he continues. "Our mayor, Buddy Dyer, is very gay-positive and liked by the community. He's been in office since 2003. And we have an openly lesbian city council woman -- who was open when she ran. Patty Sheehan has been in office since 2000 and she's up for reelection again this year. This is a great city to be gay and open in. It's very supportive." Even though the shooting and deaths of so many have left the entire city broken and fearful, Dyer is confident it will regain its strength over time. 'This Is the New Reality': Artists & Concert Execs Weigh In on Security Challenges After Orlando "No one ever saw anything like this coming," he explains. "Most of the victims are really young, which makes it so sad. But I don't think this will take the spirit out of our community. We'll bounce back. I think most people realize this is just one isolated incident, perpetrated by one individual. Our gay community will survive, and tourists will still come to visit just as much as they always have. We're not going to let this person or this tragedy, as horrible as it is, make us step back." Another personality who's known around the country and in Orlando is Linda Clifford. She's responsible for such R&B and Dance music hits as "If My Friends Could See Me Now," "Red Light" and "Don't Come Cryin' To Me." They're all previous Billboard Dance chart toppers and still popular favorites on retro disco nights in dance clubs. Most recently she joined forces with Evelyn "Champagne" King and Martha Wash to release the dance single "Show Some Love," which hit the top ten of Billboard's Dance Club Songs Chart last July. She's been a regular performer in Orlando, and still maintains a dedicated fondness for the city and its gay community. "I'm devastated, like most people," says Clifford. "These are my people, family, and friends. I feel the loss of every mom. Many of them are like my children, too. My professional life has been spent primarily in the gay community. They danced to my music, we danced together, we cried together during the AIDS epidemic." "There really are no words that can ease the pain these families must be going through," she adds. "When you think about the ages of the victims, it's heartbreaking. Twentysomethings are just babies. They have been robbed of a life that could have brought any number of joys to the world. Future doctors or inventors, or presidents. Who knows what could have come from this group of young people?" Orlando Latin Music Community on Nightclub Shooting: 'This Affects Us All' Like Dyer, Clifford is certain Orlando will rise from the ashes. "It's a strong, wonderful city with a lot going for it," she professes. "I've enjoyed coming here as a performer and bringing my family here many times for vacations. People aren't going to just stop. We have to go on living!" David Aaron Moore has served as an editor for Southern Voice, Q-Notes and Jezebel Magazine. His written works have appeared on Al-Jazeera America, FOX News, Yahoo! The Advocate and more. In addition, he is the author of Charlotte: Murder, Mystery and Mayhem for History Press/Arcadia. Shooting At Orlando Nightclub Leaves 50 Dead in Largest Mass Shooting in U.S. History | Patrons on Orlando's Pulse Before the Tragedy: 'We Could Be Our Authentic Selves' | President Obama Calls Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting Act of Terror and Hate | Orlando Gay Nightclub Shooting Casts a Shadow on Tony Awards | Orlando Shooting: Trump Sees Backlash Over 'Congrats' Tweet; Clinton Calls Attack an 'Act of Terror' | Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting: Hollywood Reacts | 'This Is the New Reality': Artists & Concert Execs Weigh In on Security Challenges After Orlando | Skrillex, Chainsmokers & More Dance Music Stars React to Orlando Nightclub Massacre | Orlando Pride Radio Host Talks Pulse's Place in LGBT Community, Why It's Hard Not to Be Scared | James Corden Gives Touching Orlando Speech at 2016 Tony Awards: 'Hate Will Never Win' JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A group of 26 Mozambique civil society organisations said on Monday $1.86 billion of government debt arranged by Credit Suisse and Russia's VTB Bank was illegal and should not be paid. In a joint statement, the organisations said the loans breached a law requiring all borrowing and guarantees longer than a year to be approved by parliament. The debt also exceeded limits in the 2013 budget and were not entered into that year's budget, the groups said. Paula Monjane from the Civil Society Budget Monitoring Forum, which coordinated the statement, said those who broke the law - on both sides of the transactions - should be investigated for corruption. "The officials who broke the law in Mozambique need to be held accountable," she said. "This includes the lenders and financial institutions which facilitated these loans. In defence of the common good and against the continued impoverishment of the Mozambican people, we do not want, do not accept and will not pay the debts." Mozambique's parliament has agreed to set up a commission of inquiry into the issuing of the debt, which has pushed the foreign borrowing levels to 80 percent of the impoverished southern African country's GDP. The controversial loans are an $850 million Eurobond issued in 2013 to build a tuna-fishing fleet, a $622 million loan to enhance maritime security and a $535 million loan to build shipyards for the offshore natural gas sector. The tuna bond has already been restructured and the state company behind the $535 million loan missed a repayment of $178 million due on May 23, putting the government on track for default. Financial watchdogs from Switzerland and Britain are looking into the arranging of the sovereign borrowing, which was done without consultation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or Mozambique's foreign donors. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said last month the lack of transparency behind the transactions was "clearly concealing corruption". She did not elaborate. Credit Suisse has consistently declined to comment on the maritime security loan. VTB, which arranged the shipyard loan, says it expects the government to honour its sovereign guarantee. Both banks say the tuna bond was above board and had the approval of the finance minister. (Reporting by Ed Cropley; Editing by James Macharia) On June 13, 1866, the House approved a Senate-proposed version of the 14th Amendment, sending it to the states for approval. Two years later, the ratified statement became a constitutional cornerstone. 14thamendment Part of the amendments Section One is one of the best-known and most-quoted sections of the Constitution. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, it reads. The passages author, House Representative John Bingham, explained that he sought a simple, strong, plain declaration that equal laws and equal and exact justice shall hereafter be secured within every State of the Union, guaranteeing equal protection for any person, no matter whence he comes, or how poor, how weak, how simpleno matter how friendless. The language created an Equal Protection Clause that allowed Congress and the courts to extend the Bill of Rights provisions to the states. The debate over the 14th Amendment started as the first of the three Reconstruction amendments, the 13th Amendment, was ratified in December 1865 and the Civil Rights Act was passed in April 1866. In May 1866, Thaddeus Stevens introduced a 14th Amendment with sections that addressed equal protection under the law, proportioning representatives, former Confederates in government positions and the national debt. In only took the House two days to debate and pass the measure, by a 128-37 vote on May 10, 1866. The Senate, however, had concerns. It added a citizenship clause that read, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside. It also modified the conditions of how former Confederates could hold office. The Senate version passed on June 8, and five days later, the House agreed to approve that final version. Story continues President Andrew Johnson was notified that the amendment was being sent to the states for ratification, and he expressed his public disapproval. Regardless, a two-year fight started over the 14th Amendments ratification. Most southern states refused to ratify it, until Congress passed an act in 1867 that denied their representation in Congress until they voted for ratification. North Carolina, Louisiana and finally South Carolina ratified the amendment after initially rejecting it, and on July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment officially became part of the Constitution after South Carolinas vote on July 9. For more information Interactive Constitution: Common Interpretation and Debates John Bingham: One of Americas forgotten Second Founders 10 huge Supreme Court cases about the 14th Amendment From Road & Track Classic Datsuns like the 510 and the 240Z are road-racing legends, but they also make great off-road racers too. The 240Z actually won the East African Safari rally in 1971 and 1973, and some of Datsun's sedans raced there as well. This 1971 1600 SSS, a non-U.S. market performance version of the 510, has been modified with inspiration from the rally cars, and it cries out to be driven hard on dirt. It's currently listed for auction on Bring a Trailer with a little under five days of bidding left as of the time of writing. It was recently imported to the U.S. from Portugal and undergone a generous freshening up. Paint has been resprayed in its original (fantastic) shade of brown, and the car sits on rally tires with black Minilite-style wheels. Raised suspension, a front skid plate, and rear tow-hooks complete the rally-ready package. The auction listing says the body is mostly rust free, and that the interior is all original and in good shape. Under the hood, the 109-hp 1.6-liter inline-four is also said to be original, sending power through a stock four-speed gearbox. This really is the perfect classic car for someone who just wants something that's different. It's a Japanese car that was never sold in the U.S. and that has been turned into a quasi-rally car. Even among early-1970s Datsuns, this is fairly unusual. Put another way, you're not likely to see anything like this at your next Cars & Coffee. Those who are living in the secluded end of the North-East (Purple) MRT Line*coughs* Punggol and Sengkangwould certainly agree that Serangoon and Kovan are God-sent locations laced with food joints to enliven this region in Singapore. Serangoon and Kovan being more mature estates, are naturally filled with old-time hawkers, sprouting cafes and hidden gems, which I find myself frequenting these areas more often to curb my hunger pangs. Heres a list of places in Serangoon/Kovan you can mark down in your food hunts for residents living in these areas, and a couple of midnight supper spots to run to if Chomp Chomp is too mainstream. Serangoon 1. Bee Kee Wanton Noodle () Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Bee Kee Wanton Noodles Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Bee Kee Wanton Noodles Starting my list is this extraordinary Truffle Wanton Noodle ($6) from Bee Kee wanton noodle. With each bite, my mind was screaming Whutttt sorcery is this?! The wanton noodle surpasses my expectations in every possible way. The noodles were thoroughly infused in truffle oil, and spritz with yet another dash of truffle oil on top before serving, causing a whiff of aroma to hit your nose when stirring in the noodles. However, after sitting in the truffle oil for awhile, the egg noodle started having a distinctive alkaline taste. So eat up quickly! Bee Kee Wanton Noodle: 2 Lor Lew Lian, Foodpark, Singapore 531002 | Tel: 9877 3310 | Monday Friday: 7am 3pm, Saturday Sunday: 7am 4pm 2. Lau Wang Claypot Delights ( Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Lau Wang Claypot Delights Tucked away from the chaos of Serangoon Central, in a little corner sits a small coffeeshop that houses Lau Wang Claypot Delights. Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Lau Wang Claypot Delights Frog leg herbal soup (1 frog $8/ 2 frogs $15 /3 frogs $21). The herbs, goji berries, and red dates made the clear broth felt extremely homemade and nourishing to the body. Frogs were also fleshy and chewy with a bounce. Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Lau Wang Claypot Delights Sesame chicken ($4.80 / $6.80). Cooked in a special black sauce recipe of ginger and spring onion, the zup was thick but not overwhelming, you could tell that sesame oil was used generously to cook this dish, instead of just drizzling over just for taste. Story continues Lau Wang Claypot Delights: Blk 264 Serangoon Central Drive, #01-43, Singapore 550264 | Opening hours 10am 10pm (closed on alternate Mondays) 3. Suriya Curry House Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Suriya Indian Food Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Suriya Indian Food Chicken murtabak ($8). Albeit a tad expensive, the portion was huge. Chunks of chicken pieces were embedded within the crusty dough, along with onions and spices. Makes for a good supper spot too as Suriya is open 24 hours daily. Suriya Curry House: 536 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534551 | Tel: 6285 6442 | Opens Daily 24 hours 4. Song Kee Fish Ball Noodle Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Song Kee Fish Ball Noodle Fish ball noodle ($4/$6). Song Kee Fish Ball Noodle is neighbour of Suriya Curry House. Yet another great spot for night owls as they are opened till 1am (although they open till 1am, they typically sell out by 11ish pm) Bouncy handmade fish balls, slimy fish dumpling (hee keow), and springy noodles warrant Song Kee the crowd and fame that it truly deserves. Song Kee Fish Ball Noodle:532 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534547 | Opening Hours: 7pm to 1am (closed on Wednesdays) 5. Tai Lei Loi Kei () Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Tai Lei Loi Kei Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Tai Lei Loi Kei Polo pork bun ($6.90). Yearning for a taste of Macau? Tai Lei Loi Kei offers a glimpse of classic dishes and snacks influenced by the Oriental and Portuguese, like the polo pork bun in the picture above. Greasy pork patty sandwiched between crusty, sweet buns offers a good play of texture and flavours. However, the patty could be a little more tender. Tai Lei Loi Kei (): 23 Serangoon Central., #B2-15, Nex Shopping Mall, Singapore 556083 | Opens daily 1030am 1030pm 6. The Plain Jane plain-jane-cafe-serangoon An advocate of slow-living, The Plain Jane serves up unpretentious swiss rolls, fresh bakes and coffees to enjoy over a girly afternoon date. Dont miss out on its Original Creme ($4.90) and Meringue Roulade ($5.90/$6.90) for a more unique twist on the classic spongecake. The Thai Milk Tea and Matcha flavours are also hot favorites. The Plain Jane: Blk 211 Serangoon ave 4, #01-10, Singapore 550211 | Monday Tuesday, Thursday : 12pm 8pm, Friday: 12pm 10pm, Saturday 10am 10pm, Sunday 10am 8pm (closed on Wednesday) 7. Artease Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Artease Artease was opened a little over a year ago in the heartlands, teasing Seragoon residents who would like to hang out and chill with a little more substantial coffee and sweet treats. Housing a row of seats by the large windows, you would most likely find me typing away on my laptop here. Artease: Blk 261 Serangoon Central, #01-29, Singapore 550261 | Tel: +65 9664 6255 | Website | Facebook page 8. Kim Heng (HK) Roasted Delights kim heng hk roasted meat-2 kim heng hk roasted meat-1 Chicken roasted pork rice ($4.50). If you love smokey charred meats, Kim Heng will be your next go-to stall for roasted delights. A line of charcoal roasted meats glistering in rendered fat juices are neatly displayed at the window, tempting you to order and pile everything on your plate. Kim Heng (HK) Roasted Delights: Blk 214 Serangoon Avenue 4, #01-88, Singapore 550214 | Operating hours: 8.30am 7pm (Daily) 9. Chillax Cafe chillax cafe-5887 Marmite Pork Burger ($17). Look no further for a good place to Chillax over a slow Sundays brunch, the open-concept cafe is located just opposite Seragoon Gardens Village, which is usually quiet and conducive for a relaxing time away at noon. Other wacky dishes to try include root beer chicken wings, salted egg mushrooms, and shabu beef poutine. Chillax Cafe: Serangoon Garden Estates, 28 Maju Avenue, Singapore 556698 | Tel: +65 6244 5529 | Website 10. Ah Hock Fried Hokkien Mee Credit Credit Ah Hock is rated as the best hokkien mee stall among regulars at Chomp Chomp Food Centre, it is always seen with a long queue and takes about 30 to 45 minutes for your order to come. However, if you love lard, then skip the line, youd be disappointed to know it does not contain lard! Ah Hock Fried Hokkien Mee: 20 Kensington Park Road, #01-27, Singapore 557269 | Opening hours: 530pm 12am (closed alternate Tuesdays) 11. Soon Huat Pigs Organ Soup pig organ soup soon huat online Credit Located in the second most popular hawker centres to eat in Serangoon Gardens, Soon Huat touts a long line of queue for its pigs organ soup. Slices of tomatoes in the soup, adds a tangy taste to the salted vegetable broth. See also: 10 Best Pigs Organ Soup in Singapore Soon Huat Pigs Organ Soup: 49A Serangoon Garden Way, #01-42 Serangoon Garden Market, Singapore 555945 | Tuesday Sunday: 930am 4pm Kovan 12. Cheng Kee Beef Kway Teow Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Cheng Kee Beef Kway Teow Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Cheng Kee Beef Kway Teow Beef thick bee hoon soup ($4/$5). Known for its beef kway teow, the stall had already ran out of kway teow by the time I reached. Nonetheless, the bowl of beef noodle is one of the best Ive eaten thus far! The rich, cloudy broth was filled with sweetness from boiling the beef bones and meats, which was also peppery from the spices infused in it. The vinaigrette chilli was tangy and goes well with the fresh beef slices. True story, I slurp down every bit, right up to the last drop of soup. Yums. Cheng Kee Beef Kway Teow: Blk 203 Hougang Street 21, Wong Poh Kopitiam, Singapore 530203 | Monday Sunday: 930am 5pm (Closed on Friday) 13. Simon Road Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodles Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Simon Road Hokkien Mee Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Simon Road Hokkien Mee Fried hokkien prawn mee ($4/$5/$6/$8/$10). An old stall that brings back nostalgia to many who grew up eating it, Simon road fried hokkien mee is nestled in a quaint coffeeshop of Kovan. Instead of using the usual thick bee hoon, Simon road hokkien mee uses the thin bee hoon to soak up the prawn soup stock, making it drier as you chow through the plate. It was laced with an ample portion of sotong and pork, along with three prawns so each mouth is accompanied with ingredients. Simon Road Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodles: Blk 210 Hougang St 21, Gourmet Street ( ), Singapore 530210 | Opening hours: 11am 10pm (closed on Mondays & Tuesdays) | Facebook 14. Chong Pang Huat () Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Chong Pang Huat Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Chong Pang Huat Chicken, mutton satay ($0.60 each, minimum 10 sticks). If your mouths itching for a light snack to go along with the above mentioned Simon road hokkien mee, located just beside it, you can get sticks of chicken, mutton and pork. Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Chong Pang Huat These glistening skewered meats are tender and infused in lemongrass, coriander and other spices. Its peanut sauce was paste-like with bits of crushed peanuts, which reminded me of a slightly watery version of peanut butter, but I reckon could be less oily. Chong Pang Huat: Blk 210 Hougang St 21, Gourmet Street ( ), Singapore 530210 | Opening hours: 12pm 1030pm (closed on Mondays) 15. Wawas Lechon and Grill Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - wawa lechon and grill *online official fb Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - wawa lechon and grill *online official fb Spicy lechon with rice ($10). A Cebuano street food, Wawa Lechon and Grill closely replicates the taste of the classic dish, by slow roasting their hogs whole, along with lemongrass, spices stuffed within. Located beside the famous Punggol Nasi Lemak, it is a mouth-watering cuisine to try for when youre starving and the queue at the nasi lemak stall is far too long. The skin is crisps and meat is fragrantly tender. Wawas Lechon and Grill: 973 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534725 | Tel: 8233 7569 | Monday Friday: 5pm 11pm , Saturday Sunday: 12pm 11pm | Facebook 16. Ponggol Nasi Lemak Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - punggol nasi lemak A very popular Chinese-style nasi lemak, you can customise your own plate and pile it up with your favourite ingredients like fried chicken wings, fish fillet, otah, long beans, and more. Be sure to bring along more cash as it is way more pricey as compared to other nasi lemak alternatives. Ponggol Nasi Lemak: 965 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534721 | Operating hours: 5.30pm 2.30am (closed on Thursday) 17. Yi Dian Xin Hong Kong Dim Sum () Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - yi dian xin hongkong dim sum online Credit Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - yi dian xin hongkong dim sum online Credit Yi Dian Xin is a fuss-free and cheap hawker dim sum. Located along the popular midnight supper spot of Upper Serangoon, it can be slightly tricky spotting it from the massive crowds patronising Heng Long Teochew Porridge right beside it. Chef Foong hails from Tung Lok restaurant previously, so youd know quality is assured for the dim sum dishes. Some items to try include steam carrot cake ($2.60), and salted egg custard bun ($3). Yi Dian Xin Hong Kong Dim Sum: 1012 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534752 | Tel: 91685587 | Opens Daily 7am 6pm (closed on alternate Tuesdays) 18. Heng Long Teochew Porridge Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - heng long teochew porridge Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - heng long teochew porridge Boasting a large variety of comforting dishes, just like those eaten at home, some of the ingredients you can slurp up with your teochew mui include spicy minced pork, salted egg, braised duck, fish cake and cabbage (), topped with braised sauce (). A popular midnight supper spot for the Serangooners. Expected damage: $15-$20 for two pax Heng Long Teochew Porridge: 1006, Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534744 | Opening hours: 6pm to 4am (daily) 19. Qi Wei Ji Bao ( Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - qi wei ji bao online Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - qi wei ji bao online Qi Wei Ji Bao is the ultimate comfort food for a cold rainy night or a great supper spot on cheat days. The Spicy chicken hotpot ($24.90) is a personal favourite, although slightly salty to eat the gravy alone, it goes really well with a fluffy bowl of rice. The pot chicken is thoroughly infused in the zup along with onions green peppers, leek, dried chilli and garlic, you can choose the intensity of spiciness, and add on other side ingredients for $3.80 each. Qi Wei Ji Bao: 973 Upper Serangoon Road, Singapore 534725 | Tel: +65 8444 7113 | Monday Sunday : 5pm 3am 20. Knuckles Bistro Serangoon Kovan Food Guide - Knuckles Bistro online Credit Pork knuckles ($10). Knuckles Bistro is a great guys/girls night out for affordable German pork knuckles and beer. For just $10, youd get a good serving of crispy pork knuckle, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Complete you meal with a pint of beer from $6 to $10. Knuckles Bistro: Block 212, Hougang Street 21 #01-33, Singapore 530212 | Opening hours: 530pm 11pm (closed on Mondays) Feel free to share with us other places to eat in Serangoon and Kovan. Related Guide: Best Ang Mo Kio Food Places To Eat Like a Heartlander The post 20 Best Food & Supper Spots In Serangoon & Kovan For Hungry North-Easters appeared first on SETHLUI.com. Hamilton ascended to the awards throne to which the Broadway smash has been headed all season, taking home eleven trophies at the 2016 Tony Awards, including the top prize for new musical, in a ceremony that aimed to strike a tricky balance between acknowledging the recent shootings in Orlando with the life-affirming impulse to go on with the show. The big winner of the night among plays was The Humans, snagging four trophies including the medal for new play, while the revival awards went to musical The Color Purple and play A View from the Bridge. The Tony ceremony also stood in stark contrast to this years #OscarsSoWhite controversy by setting a new landmark in diversity, with all four musical acting trophies going to African-American performers three from Hamilton (Leslie Odom, Jr., Renee Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs) and one from The Color Purple (Cynthia Erivo). The live Broadcast on CBS opened with host James Corden making an impassioned speech about the tragic events in Florida, which had occurred less than 24 hours before the telecast. He pre-recorded his introduction in the half hour before the show went live, in order to make sure he got the important acknowledgment right. Your tragedy is our tragedy, he told Orlando from the stage of the Beacon Theater, the Upper West Side venue where the ceremony took place. Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced and is loved, he said. Hate will never win. Tonights show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle. Hamilton creator-star Lin-Manuel Miranda also acknowledged the shootings in his first speech at the podium, accepting the award for best score. Im not freestyling. Im too old, he joked, in reference to his tendency to rap, and proceeded to read a sonnet. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us nothing here is promised, not one day, this show is proof that history remembers, he said, later adding: Hope and love last longer. Love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. Story continues Later in the evening, Jessica Lange, accepting the award for best actress in a play for her performance in Long Days Journey Into Night, said, This is such a dream come true, and it fills me with such happiness, even on such a sad day as this. Frank Langella, taking the lead actor in a play award for his turn in The Father, said from the podium, I urge you, Orlando, to be strong. Im standing in a room full of the most generous human beings on earth, and we will be there to support you every step of the way. The Orlando shootings were top of mind in other parts of the ceremony as well. Nominees and other attendees sported silver ribbons to acknowledge the tragedy, and producers of Hamilton chose to drop the use of musket props from its telecast performance of the song Yorktown (The World Turns Upside-Down). Barbra Streisand, handing out the new musical Tony to Hamilton, noted, Tonight our joy is tinged with sorrow. The telecast was bound to have a political overtone even before the Florida shootings cast a shadow over the proceedings. Hamilton, the founding-father saga retold with hip-hop and a diverse cast, had such cultural pull that it warranted an introduction by President Obama and the First Lady, with the president, in a videotaped sequence, praising the show as a civics lesson kids cant get enough of. The upcoming presidential election also provided fodder for the ceremony. One skit touted upcoming musicals The Book of Moron, featuring Book of Mormon original star Andrew Rannells in a bad blonde wig as Trump, and A Clinton Line, starring Glenn Close as Hillary Clinton quoting A Chorus Line. (I really need this job, she sang.) Immigration got a handful of shout-outs, too. Emilio Estefan introduced Gloria Estefan and the cast of their bio-musical On Your Feet! with a gag about the shows largely Latino cast being entirely legal. We all have our papers, he said. Later, one of the producers of View from the Bridge called the Arthur Miller play a great play about immigrants, making it especially relevant today, while the song from Hamilton included the line, Immigrants. We get the job done. Diversity had long been poised to be a hot topic at the ceremony, following a 2015-16 season widely celebrated for an inclusive slate that encompassed not only Hamilton but also Shuffle Along, The Color Purple, Spring Awakening, Allegiance, Eclipsed and On Your Feet! Think of this as the Oscars, but with diversity, Corden cracked early in the ceremony. It is so diverse, Donald Trump threatened to build a wall around this theater. The emcees surprisingly heartfelt opening number culminated in a tribute to Broadways inclusiveness. In a song (written by Corden and Finding Neverland songwriter Gary Barlow) welcoming kids of every color, class and race and face and shape and size as well as boys, girls and transgender kids too he trotted out the 20 nominated musical actors. Dont wonder if this could be you. It absolutely could be, he sang. In a season thats been all about Hamilton, the Tony telecast acknowledged the #HamilTonys phenomenon early. After Cordens speech about the Orlando shootings, the ceremony launched with a spoof of the first song from Hamilton, performed by the musicals cast with lyrics rewritten to intro Corden, the upstart Brit and chubby dude from Into the Woods and the host of CBS The Late Late Show whose gig as the Tony emcee made for a classic exercise of corporate synergy for CBS. Soon thereafter, Corden joked, I promise you, tonights show will not be all about Hamilton. There will also be commercial breaks. A 2012 Tony winner for One Man, Two Guvnors, the Tony host then segued into his opener, which began by recounting his discovery of theater as a youth and his childhood dreams of being onstage. The tune reflected the origin story of most theater fans, who tend to become lifelong devotees following early exposure to the stage, and spiraled out into a sequence reminiscent of Oscar telecast openings, in which the emcee imagines himself in a series of iconic titles. In this case Corden found himself doing bits of Les Miserables, The Lion King and Guys and Dolls, among many others, ending in a Momma Rose-style breakdown a la Gypsy. Here I am, hosting the Tonys, this time tomorrow Im back at 12:30! he finished in a panic. The telecast nodded to Hamilton by recreating the Broadway musicals Ham4Ham series of live afternoon mini-performances on the street outside the theater. On an outdoor stage on the sidewalk outside the Beacon, Miranda led fellow nominees Andrew Lloyd Webber (School of Rock), Sara Bareilles (Waitress) and Steve Martin and Edie Brickell (Bright Star) in a round of Tomorrow from the musical Annie. Throughout the ceremony, subsequent outdoor sequences saw the casts of nominated shows riffing on Broadways greatest hits, with, for instance, the cast of The Color Purple singing some of The Lion King, Hamilton performers doing Rent and She Loves Me crooning from Cabaret. Hamilton won the first award it was eligible for on the broadcast, with Goldsberry scoring for featured actress in a musical, and swiftly followed up with co-star Daveed Diggs nabbing featured actor in a musical and then Miranda taking the prize for score. By that point in the evening, the Broadway juggernaut had already kicked things off in the pre-telecast segment of the awards, winning the first competitive trophy announced for costumes of a musical (Paul Tazewell). The production picked up lighting of a music (Howell Binkley) as well, but as predicted by many in the industry, it didnt take home the award for set design. That went to Broadway veteran and first time Tony winner David Rockwell, scoring for his sets to She Loves Me. The haul for Hamilton also included director (Thomas Kail), choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler), lead actor (Leslie Odom, Jr.), orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire), book (Miranda). Aside from the Tonycasts opening number, the most hotly contested real estate on the telecast is the one musical segment that airs prior to the evenings first commercial break. This year, pole position went to School of Rock and the song Youre In The Band. Its a number thats been oft-seen in the productions overall marketing push, but it made for a good fit for the Tony segment, given its high energy and the irresistible appeal of watching the productions half-pint actor-musicians rock out. Whether to perform a single song straight through, or a medley of memorable moments, is one of the toughest decisions theater producers face in putting together a nominated productions segment. Those segments which this year went to all nine nominated musicals, plus Estefan bio-tuner On Your Feet! essentially function as nationally televised advertisements for each show. Several productions this year went the School of Rock route and performed a single full number. Along with Yorktown (The World Turned Upside-Down) from Hamilton, Shuffle Along gave a solid sense of the shows narrative arc with the dance-heavy Broadway Blues while Fiddler on the Roof spotlighted both the emotion and the lively dance in the wedding sequence that features familiar tune Sunrise, Sunset. The cast of Bright Star performed their shows opening number, If You Knew My Story, which offered a taste of the productions bluegrass-inflected musical style but may have come off as too statically staged to sell many tickets. Other productions went the medley route. On Your Feet! did a shock-and-awe megamix of Estefan hits, bringing Gloria Estefan out to duet with Ana Villafane, the actress who plays her in the musical, while She Loves Me gave Jane Krakowski a chance to show off her splits before ceding the stage to her co-stars, also familiar from TV, Zachary Levi and Laura Benanti, the latter of whom sang a snippet of the musicals signature tune, Vanilla Ice Cream. Among the cleverest medleys was the sequence from The Color Purple (introduced by producer Oprah Winfrey), which interpolated its featured actresses Danielle Brooks and Heather Hedley, executing choreography drawn from their notable numbers, into the musicals opening song. The sequence then made way for headliner Cynthia Erivo and her showstopper, Im Here. In a performance funded by fans on Kickstarter, the cast of the Spring Awakening revival also gave their production an effective showcase, despite the fact that the now-defunct show has no plans for future life. The segment launched with the ruminative Mama Who Bore Me, which sets up the productions convention of working deaf actors and American Sign Language into the proceedings, before ramping up into the more rocking The Bitch of Living. As expected, Stephen Karams nuanced family drama The Humans took the trophy for best play, as well as the featured acting in a play trophies (Jayne Houdyshell and Reed Birney) and the medal for set design (David Zinn). Humans producer Scott Rudin, who also produced the winning play revival View from the Bridge, handed his Tony to the shows director, Joe Mantello (Wicked), to call attention to a nominee who had lost the award he was up for to Ivo van Hove, the director of View. Hamilton also closed out the telecast, taking the evenings final trophy, new musical, and then sending its cast on stage to perform The Schuyler Sisters under the credits. Related stories 'Hamilton' Creator on Orlando Shootings: LGBT Community is the 'Cornerstone' of Theater Tony Awards: 5 Biggest Snubs and Surprises Tony Awards: Pride, Passion Flows Through Beacon Theater in Wake of Tragedy Wells Fargo Advantage Funds has allocated more than $121.5 billion (excluding money market assets) of assets from diverse mutual funds categories. Wells Fargo manages more than 110 mutual funds, varying from domestic and foreign funds to money market funds, asset allocation funds and fixed-income funds. The Wells Fargo Fund family claims that it offers funds in every key category, each guided by skillful investment teams who have been chosen because of their proven, time-tested strategies. The team also helps investors to clarify their investment ideas and identifies their risk tolerance. Additionally, the owner of Wells Fargo Advantage Funds brand, Wells Fargo, is one of the top four banks in the U.S. and has been maintaining its standard in the financial services sector for more than 150 years. It is a highly diversified financial services company with operations not only limited to the domestic market. In 2010, the Boards of Trustees of Wells Fargo Advantage Funds and Evergreen Funds had approved the merger of the fund families to create the new fund lineup under the Wells Fargo Advantage Funds brand. Below we share with you three top-rated Wells Fargo Advantage Funds. Each has earned a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank #1 (Strong Buy) and is expected to outperform its peers in the future. To view the Zacks Rank and past performance of all Wells Fargo Advantage Funds, investors can click here to see the complete list of Wells Fargo Advantage Funds. Wells Fargo Core Bond R6 WTRIX seeks total return through growth of capital and income. WTRIX invests a major portion its assets in bonds that are rated investment-grade. The fund may invest a maximum of a quarter of its assets in asset-backed securities, which are not from the mortgage-backed category. Also, nearly 20% of WTRIXs assets are expected to be invested in foreign debt securities that are denominated in dollar. The fund is expected to maintain a dollar-weighted average effective duration of not more than 10% of that of its benchmark. Wells Fargo Core Bond R6 has returned 4.16% year to date. WTRIX has an expense ratio of 0.37% as compared to the category average of 0.82%. Wells Fargo High Income A SHBAX invests the lions share of its assets in debt securities that are rated lower than investment-grade. Not more than 30% of SHBAXs assets are expected to be invested in dollar-denominated foreign debt securities. SHBAX invests one-fifth of its assets in convertible debt securities and equities and one-tenth of its assets in defaulted debt securities. Also, SHBAX invests mainly in "junk bonds" or securities which are "high-yield." Wells Fargo High Income A has returned 5.95% year to date. As of April 2016, SHBAX held 112 issues with 3.12% of its assets invested in SPDR Barclays High Yield Bond ETF. Wells Fargo High Yield Bond A EKHAX seeks total return with high capital and income appreciation. EKHAX invests its assets not only in securities of domestic and foreign companies but also in emerging markets. The fund invests more than 80% of its assets in debt securities that are rated below investment-grade. EKHAX does not manage its portfolio for a specific duration. Wells Fargo High Yield Bond A has returned 6.48% year to date. Margaret D. Patelis the fund manager of EKHAX since Aug 2012. To view the Zacks Rank and past performance of all Wells Fargo Advantage Funds, investors can click here to see the complete list of funds. About Zacks Mutual Fund Rank By applying the Zacks Rank to mutual funds, investors can find funds that not only outpaced the market in the past but are also expected to outperform going forward. Learn more about the Zacks Mutual Fund Rank at https://www.zacks.com/funds. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Get Your Free (SHBAX): Fund Analysis Report Get Your Free (EKHAX): Fund Analysis Report Get Your Free (WTRIX): Fund Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Amid a host of factors plaguing the global economy, including the timing of the Fed rate hike, the uncertainty surrounding Brexit raises concerns. The Brexit debate is all about whether the UK will opt to remain or leave the European Union (EU) after voting in a referendum on Jun 23. Recently, several polls showed that though most of the voters are in favor of Brexit, a significant number of them are still unsure. Some of the most important issues include trade, immigration, and the costs associated with being an EU member. (Read: The 3 Largest Issues Surrounding the UK's Potential Brexit). However, there are also solid counter arguments against Brexit. In any case, it is certain that Brexit will have a rippling effect in the economy. The upcoming EU referendum has the potential to impact securities including stocks, ETFs and mutual funds with significant exposure to the UK. Meanwhile, several leaders from Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and other EU countries have issued warnings about the economic consequences of Brexit. Apart from that, the Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen has warned that Brexit could have significant economic repercussions for the U.S. Amid the prevailing macroeconomic challenges, we believe investing in the consumer staples stocks is safe because of their defensive nature. So let us look at some companies in the consumer staples sector that are well positioned and have the potential to offer great value to the investors. Four Consumer Staples Stocks to Bank On With the help of our new style score system, we have identified four consumer staples stocks that have excellent prospects and might prove to be profitable for long-term investors. Our Value Style Score condenses all valuation metrics into one actionable score that helps investors steer clear of value traps and identify stocks that are truly trading at a discount. Our research shows that stocks with Style Scores of A or B when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or 2 (Buy) offer the best upside potential. Story continues To arrive at the best value picks, we have shortlisted those consumer staple stocks that either have a Zacks Rank #1 or #2 with a Value Style Score of A and finally zeroed in on four stocks that can offer great value to investors. We suggest investing in Dean Foods Company DF, which carries a Zacks Rank #1 and generates a dividend yield of 2.02%. Dallas, TX-based company processes and distributes milk, and other dairy and dairy case products in the United States; and has posted positive earnings surprise in all the four quarters, delivering an average surprise of 17.81%. Estimates, especially for full year 2016 and 2017, have largely been moving upward since the company reported strong first-quarter 2016 results wherein both the top and bottom lines beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate, and earnings also exceeded managements guidance. Results mainly benefited from lower milk costs and robust execution across all business operations. The company remains impressed with its progress, given its solid operational and financial results, and is optimistic about carrying this momentum forward in the future. The stock looks attractive with a forward P/E multiple of 11.60x, lower than the industry average of 26.50x. Also, it has a long term EPS growth rate of 12.00%. Houston-based Omega Protein Corp. OME holds a Zacks Rank #2 and has a long term EPS growth rate of 8.00%. It is one of the nation's leading producers of edible fish oil. It trades at a forward P/E (price-to-earnings) of 11.96x, which is favorable compared with the S&P average of 17.50x. Further, Omega Protein has posted positive earnings surprise in three of the last four quarters, delivering an average positive surprise of 25.04%. Springdale, AR-based Tyson Foods, Inc. TSN is also a good value pick. Tyson Foods is the world's largest fully-integrated producer, processor and marketer of chicken and poultry-based food products. Tyson offers a wide array of meat products and enhances its portfolio through innovation and acquisitions. Its sales boosting initiatives and strong international presence are also appealing. The company has delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 5.02% in the four trailing quarters. Estimates for fiscal 2016 and 2017 have been largely moving upward over the last 60 days. The stock also looks attractive with a forward P/E multiple of 13.98x, lower than the industry average of 17.00x and S&P average of 17.50x. With an attractive Zacks Rank #2, dividend yield of 0.99% and a long term EPS growth rate of 11%, this stock is a hot pick for investors. Rhode Island based United Natural Foods, Inc. UNFI can also be considered. The company distributes and retails natural, organic, and specialty foods, as well as non-food products primarily in the United States and Canada. This Zacks Rank #1 company has delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 2.13% in the four trailing quarters and the results were driven by a continuous increase in demand for the companys organic and natural food products and robust acquisitions. Last week, this specialty foods distributor posted better-than-expected earnings in the third quarter of fiscal 2016 and raised its outlook for fiscal 2016. Estimates have also risen sharply over the past 7 days for fiscal 2016 and fiscal 2017 since the company reported solid third quarter results. The stock offers a long term EPS growth rate of 8.73%. Bottom Line We believe investing in these stocks can prove to be valuable additions to investors portfolio. You can use the Zacks Stock Screener to find other stocks with this winning combination. Investors can confidently end their search at stocks with a favorable Zacks Rank of either #1 or #2, which encompasses its strong fundamentals, promises price movement and highlights analysts constructive view on the same via positive estimate revisions. A sturdy portfolio always gives favorable returns. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report UTD NATURAL FDS (UNFI): Free Stock Analysis Report DEAN FOODS CO (DF): Free Stock Analysis Report TYSON FOODS A (TSN): Free Stock Analysis Report OMEGA PROTEIN (OME): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f114262%2fblood-ban-protest Donating blood is universal good, but not a universal right and there's a lot of debate about whether it should be. Sunday morning marked the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, with at least 49 people killed and another 53 wounded at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. In the aftermath of the massacre, officials appealed to the public for blood donations to fill a dire need. SEE ALSO: What 8 activists want you to know about living with HIV and AIDS But advocates on social media and beyond were quick to point out that many queer friends, partners and peers of those injured in the shooting could not donate blood. This is due to controversial, longstanding restrictions on giving, directed at men who have sex with men. Men who have sex with men face a federally mandated ban on blood donation unless they abstain from same-sex sexual contact for one year. This caveat to blood donation is known as the MSM ban or the men who have sex with men blood ban within the queer community. Below, we explain what this policy means, and ways to navigate it responsibly in order to spread awareness and keep up the blood supply. Why this is important On the surface, the policy may seem like an improvement from where federal regulations once were. The blood ban, first instituted in 1983 during the height of the AIDS crisis, previously placed a lifetime ban on any man who had sex with a man since 1977. Though the blood ban was modified in late December 2015, it still exists in a way that effectively prevents most men who have sex with men from donating due to the stipulation of abstinence. Anthony Hayes, vice president of public affairs and policy at Gay Mens Health Crisis, tells Mashable the shift to a one-year deferral is simply a repackaging of the lifetime ban, not a lessening or lifting. As it stands, the ban will still last a lifetime for many men who have sex with men even, for example, for an HIV-negative man who is in a monogamous marriage with another HIV-negative man. Story continues "It's the same lifetime ban, just dressed differently," Hayes says. Michael Kaplan, CEO of AIDS United, argues that the way the current ban is packaged furthers the stigma around same-sex sexuality and panic around HIV and AIDS. He says even the one-year ban has a harmful focus when it comes to assessing what, or who, is a potential threat to the safety of the blood supply. "The current ban encourages people to think of sexuality as a risk, not risky behavior," Kaplan tells Mashable. According to the Red Cross, current methods of testing the blood supply for HIV can detect the virus four to seven days after infection, with current testing methods leaving the risk of HIV infection from a blood transfusion at 1 in 1,467,000. Even with those statistics, the Red Cross tells Mashable, the organization supports the one-year deferral for men who have sex with men. "There is insufficient scientific data available to determine whether it's safe to rely only on individual behavioral risk factors when determining donation eligibility," says Kara Lusk Dudley, public affairs manager at the Red Cross. "Medically supported donor deferral criteria are critical to the continued safety of blood transfusion." The FDA, speaking directly in response to Orlando's mass shooting, echoed the Red Cross, stating the administration is constantly reevaluating its policies to be up-to-date with the most recent scientific evidence. "At this time there is an adequate supply of blood to meet the need, and the scientific evidence is not available to support an alternative to the current deferral policy," FDA press officer Tara Goodwin told Mashable. "We empathize with those who might wish to donate, but reiterate that at this time no one who needs blood is doing without it. That being said, the FDA is committed to continuing to reevaluate its blood donor deferral policies as new scientific information becomes available." Goodwin added that a safety monitoring system for the blood supply has been implemented nationally to help inform future actions the FDA may take on blood donor policies: "Moving forward, the FDA will continue to reevaluate and update its blood donor deferral policies as new scientific information becomes available." But many advocates in the queer community argue the ban is outdated, and that those who claim the ban is backed by sound science are simply untrue. As an alternative, they're calling for a focus on behavior and individual risk for all, rather than a focus on sexual orientation. Hayes says a 30-day deferral window for all at-risk populations, such as injection drug users not just men who have sex with men would be a better policy, and one that focuses on science instead of discrimination. "The goal is to keep the blood supply safe and not discriminate," Hayes says. "And you can do both of those things. They are not mutually exclusive." What you can do 1. Ask someone to donate on your behalf or donate to honor those who can't. If you're banned from donating as a man who has sex with men, talk to those in your life about blood donation. Explain to them why you can't give, and why you wish you could. Then, call them to action by asking if they would donate on your behalf. Not only does that allow more blood donations, but it also educates those closest to you about a policy many aren't aware of. If you're able to donate yourself, consider honoring those who can't through donation and be vocal to blood donation organizers about why you're donating. Hayes says this donation tactic helps organizers see how many people are willing to donate who simply can't due to regulations, encouraging organizers to engage in advocacy for policy change. After all, he says, a shift in policy would make their drives more successful. "With this tactic, organizers would probably take a more active role by saying to the national organizations they are representing, 'Listen, we turned away a number of people that were willing to donate because they are gay,'" Hayes says. 2. Volunteer at a blood drive while also spreading awareness of the ban. Blood drives often look for volunteers to staff their donation events, serving to check in participants and watch over participants after donation. Donating your time, especially when you can't donate your blood, is one of the main ways you can give back in a big way. To help spread awareness and start conversations of the ban, Hayes recommends asking organizers if you can wear a tag that says, "Ask me why I can't donate." From there, you can casually spread awareness during the event. "This is really about grassroots organizing that requires everyone who is bothered by it to speak up," Hayes says. When having those conversations about why you can't donate, Kaplan recommends being open about the tricky balance between being appalled by the ban but still wanting others who aren't banned to donate. Make sure those you approach know that by talking about the ban at a blood donation event, you aren't trying to discourage participants from donating. Instead, you're advocating for even more donations in the future. 3. Know who has the ability to change the policy. When you're advocating for change, its important to know who has the power to make that change happen. Although many blood donation organizations support the current one-year deferral on men who have sex with men, they ultimately do not hold the power to change the policy. "American Red Cross and all blood collectors in the U.S. are required to follow the rules and guidance issued by the FDA, including blood donation eligibility," Lusk Dudley says. Though being vocal at blood drive events can help drive awareness, change will only happen if the FDA deems it safe. Kaplan says the best thing someone can do is weigh in at the FDA level, stating their disappointment in the ban and advocating for individual risk assessment over sexuality-based restrictions. To contact the FDA, you can find non-emergency lines and mailing addresses here. 4. Support organizations working to change the blood ban. Though many major blood donation organizations, including the American Red Cross, Americas Blood Centers and American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), support the current one-year ban, it's often necessary to still support them to adequately fill the need for blood. These organizations, after all, are major sources of the blood supply in the U.S. To balance the need to support these organizations with your displeasure with the ban, seek out organizations that are working to advocate for the bans repeal in favor of other alternatives. Gay Mens Health Crisis, Kaplan says, has been at the forefront of advocacy for years, providing comprehensive alternatives to the ban. Unfortunately, he says, the organization is one of the only national organizations making it a priority to repeal the policy. Many HIV and AIDS awareness organizations, however, are working to decrease stigma around same-sex sexuality and the virus, which is essential to thinking critically of the ban. Organizations like AIDS United and research efforts like The Williams Institute are some of the biggest names working to shift the dialogue. Another option? Before giving to your favorite LGBTQ advocacy organization, ask what its stance is and see if you want to support it. "There are people out there who are ready, willing, able and healthy in terms of their HIV status or any other blood diseases who want to donate," Hayes says. But they cant because the federal government is still discriminating. That needs to change." Editor's note: The death toll has been updated to 49, to exclude the shooter, per the FBI on Monday. The story has also been updated to include comment from the FDA. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton spent about an hour chatting in the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's Washington, D.C. home on Friday morning, fueling rumors that Clinton might enlist Warren as her vice president. A Democratic strategist even called the rumored pairing "the ultimate dream ticket." But just who is the Massachusetts senator? Here are five things you need to know about the Oklahoma native. 1. She is Wealthy But Doesn't Flaunt It Warren, 66, is worth between $3.7 million and $10 million, according to CNN Money she and her husband reportedly own a three-story Victorian home assessed at $1.9 million. Despite her wealth, mainly held in mutual funds and retirement accounts, Warren has fought for student loan reform, the middle class and condemned policies that cater to the wealthy. 5 Things to Know About Elizabeth Warren Will She Be Hillary Clinton's VP?| 2016 Presidential Elections, Presidential Elections, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Rodham Clinton "Big banks, powerful corporations and billionaires people who can afford to hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers have amassed more and more wealth," she wrote in a CNN op-ed. "Meanwhile, the foundations of our once strong middle class have begun to crumble, and families have been caught in a terrible squeeze." Proud to have the support of @SenWarrenaa woman who is Trump's exact opposite: honest, decent, and deeply concerned for working families. -H a Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 10, 2016 2. Donald Trump Calls Her Pocahontas It is unclear whether the presumptive GOP nominee really believes Warren is the wise Powhatan princess portrayed in the 1995 Disney film, but Trump has consistently called Warren Pocahontas as a jab some have said targets Warren's self-proclaimed Native American roots. "Pocahontas is at it again! Goofy Elizabeth Warren, one of the least productive U.S. Senators, has a nasty mouth! Hope she is V.P. choice," he tweeted on Friday. Story continues Pocahontas is at it again! Goofy Elizabeth Warren, one of the least productive U.S. Senators, has a nasty mouth. Hope she is V.P. choice. a Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 10, 2016 No, seriously -- Delete your account. https://t.co/O1u7oc0jAR a Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) June 10, 2016 One day later, he wrote: "Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas, pretended to be a Native American in order to advance her career. Very racist!" Warren's supporters don't seem to be bothered by the nickname, though. In fact, one supporter purchased the Pocahontas.com domain name and redirected it to the senator's website. 3. She Was the Subject of a Western-themed Rap Music Video (No, Really) In 2010, a group called the Main Street Brigade released a music video, calling for Warren's nomination for director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency that regulates financial institutions. The comical video featured a simple hook: "Got a new sheriff/Got a new sheriff/Elizabeth!" The video didn't do the trick though. President Obama declined to nominate Warren as director of the watchdog agency in 2011, CNN reports. 4. She Graduated Law School While Pregnant When her daughter, Amelia Tyagi, turned two, Warren headed to law school at Rutgers University. "Shortly after she graduated, her son Alex was born," according to Warren's website. "She practiced law out of her living room, but she soon returned to teaching." Warren has taught law at Harvard for nearly 20 years and wrote multiple books, including A Fighting Chance which became a New York Times bestseller. 5. She is a Lean, Mean Debating Machine Warren was a debate champion in high school, and her arguing chops even landed her a debate scholarship from George Washington University, CNN Money reports. She showed off her skills in several debates with former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown as the two battled to be the state's senator. There are so many things you could talk about on a first date to figure out if the person sitting across from you might be "the one": shared interests, passions, goals, family, childhood, friends, career, favorite kitchen appliances, least favorite dog breeds, etc. Or! You could just cut to the chase and ask them which presidential candidate they plan to vote for in November. New data suggests that this is quite the hard-and-fast deal breaker for many single Americans. To coincide with the premiere of the fourth season of its dating competition Are You The One?, MTV conducted a study on millennial dating and the election. of Hillary Clinton supporters would be willing to date a Donald Trump supporter. The Hillary camp is decidedly not into dating those who support the competition, though. According to stats exclusively sent to Mic, there is quite the impressive list of undesirable characteristics they would rather tolerate than deal with someone who plans on voting orange in November. Here are all the dating dealbreakers Hillary supporters will overlook before dating someone who supports Trump: 1. Someone who has been arrested 2. Someone who doesn't have a cell phone 3. Someone who smokes 4. Someone who is a bad kisser 5. Someone who pops their collar 6. Someone who doesn't speak the same language as them S that pledging allegiance to the Donald during this election is a risky move if you're trying to not die alone. Back in March, Mic shared the story of Terrence Lee, a gay man from Arkansas whose partner of six years dumped him due to his Trump love. Lee told Mic at the time that their opposing viewpoints particularly in regards to Trump's proposal of building a wall between Mexico and the United States had finally become too much for the relationship to handle. Story continues Meanwhile, couples that do stay together despite their differences on the subject can find it difficult to talk politics at all. Mandy Stadtmiller demonstrated this in a Cut essay titled "Trump is Tearing My Marriage Apart," also in March. "I don't want this screaming shitshow to be our marriage," she wrote. "I read articles aloud and show him news segments. He returns with his own articles and news segments that refute mine." Perhaps it's no surprise that the single folk of the world would just rather not go down such a murky road in the first place. After all, why date a Trump supporter when you can just date a cell-phone-less, collar-popping, smoking bad kisser with an arrest record instead? O , resulting in at least 50 deaths and over 50 wounded. It caused more deaths than any mass shooting in modern U.S. history and the attack, which may have been ideologically inspired by ISIS, seemed clearly targeted at LGBTQ people. "This is an especially heartbreaking day for all of our friends and fellow Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender," President Obama said in a statement. "The place where they were attacked was more than a nightclub. It's a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights." But legislators opposed to those civil rights have offered tepid takes on the situation unfolding in Florida. Here are seven politicians who have issued statements, tweets or Facebook posts invoking the power of "thoughts and prayers" or the like following the massacre, but who have demonstrated throughout their careers they have little regard for the real targets of the shooting, LGBTQ people. Or, in other words: I don't think queers should be able to marry, be near children, hold jobs, or use the bathroom, but they deserve to be technically alive 1. Florida Gov. Rick Scott Source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Here's how Scott addressed the massacre in his state on Twitter: My prayers are with the victims' families & all those affected by the shooting in Orlando. We will devote every resource available to assist This is an attack on our people. An attack on Orlando. An attack on Florida. An attack on America. An attack on all of us. I ask the nation to pause in a moment of silence at 6:00 PM this evening in honor of the victims of this horrific tragedy. I ask every American to continue to pray for our state and nation and all those affected by this terror attack. On CNN, Scott repeatedly refused to acknowledge the attack was directed against LGBTQ people, R Story . Story continues "Just pray," Scott added. "Pray for the victims, pray for their families, pray that this never happens again." As the Miami New Times reported, Scott has failed to say the words "gay" or "LGBT" since the gunman opened fire, and punted when asked if he was directing law enforcement in the state to protect LGBTQ Floridians against continuing threats to their safety. Scott is personally against gay marriage. While he's said the matter should be left to the courts, the governor made sure the state of Florida kept fighting gay marriage even after other states gave up similar efforts. In March, a federal judge "chastised state officials" for dragging their heels on a number of issues related to Florida's overturned ban, reported the Tampa Bay Business Journal. Just months ago, Scott's Department of Children and Families began a push to remove "gender expression" and "sexual orientation" from the types of bullying prohibited in state group homes, and Scott signed a "Pastor Protection Act" shielding churches that refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies in March. 2. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Source: Drew Angerer/Getty Images Following the massacre, Cruz took to Twitter to say he stood in "solidarity" with the victims. Today, all of America stands in solidarity with the people of Orlando: https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/posts/10154196246167464 ... In a linked Facebook post, Cruz challenged Democrats to stand up for LGBTQ people by committing to the fight against ISIS: For all the Democrats who are loud champions of the gay and lesbian community whenever there is a culture battle waging, now is the opportunity to speak out against an ideology that calls for the murder of gays and lesbians. ISIS and the theocracy in Iran (supported with American taxpayer dollars) regularly murder homosexuals, throwing them from buildings and burying them under rocks. This is wrong, it is evil, and we must all stand against it. But Cruz's track record shows that far from his opportunistic embrace of defending gay people from ISIS, he is an enemy of LGBTQ equality. Cruz launched his campaign around opposition to the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. He's accused LGBTQ people of waging an anti-Christian "jihad." The senator also urged "every Believer, every Constitutionalist, every lover of liberty to stand with Kim Davis," the Kentucky clerk who refused to comply with the SCOTUS order on gay marriages. In November, Cruz even attended a "religious liberties" conference in Iowa where at least three speakers "advocated or defended imposing the death penalty on gay people," Right Wing Watch reported. , who believes the Bible justifies . It took another month for the Cruz campaign to admit appearing with the speakers was a "mistake." 3. Donald Trump Source: Chris O'Meara/AP Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump offered his own take on the massacre in Orlando, releasing a statement saying his "deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded and their families." But those victims predominantly LGBTQ people and their allies only earned in the rest of the seven-paragraph statement, when Trump said "Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans." Trump's full statement on the Orlando attack is what you'd expect.pic.twitter.com/9Dj4wvu9KP https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckxy0FqVAAAbKRY.jpg:large Trump isn't the worst candidate on LGBTQ rights to run for the Republican ticket this year. As Slate's Mark Joseph Stern wrote earlier this year, Trump supported the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," has advocated for civil rights protections for LGBTQ people and sided against Davis, saying the SCOTUS decision was "the law of the land." However, his support for the LGBTQ community is as tenuous as many of his other policy positions, and being more progressive on the issue than many of the other contenders is a low bar indeed. As the Huffington Post recently reported, Trump has been seeking the endorsement of influential figures on the religious right and in the evangelical community, including anti-gay groups like the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family. On Friday, he addressed the Road to Majority conference, using familiar rhetoric on family values and "religious freedom." In February, he seemingly flipped on gay marriage, saying he would " appointing federal judges who would overturn the SCOTUS decision. 4. Paul Ryan Source: Allison Shelley/Getty Images The GOP speaker of the House issued a short statement calling it "horrifying to see so many innocent lives cut short by such cowardice. Tonight, and in the long days ahead, we will grieve with the families. We will thank the heroes. We will hope for a swift recovery for the injured." My statement on the Orlando terrorist attack:pic.twitter.com/tiJX2yysK1 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyF0IqUYAAqfmg.jpg:large He also posted a tweet saying "the victims & families will not be forgotten." We pray for those brutally attacked in Orlando. While we must learn more about the attacker, the victims & families will not be forgotten. Maybe not forgotten, but certainly white-washed, as Ryan failed to mention anything about who those victims were. As noted by On the Issues, Ryan lent his support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, as well as opposed gay adoption (although he has since flipped) and LGBTQ people serving openly in the military. 5. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr Source: Chuck Burton/AP Burr posted the following tweet, saying "my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this morning's horrific attack in Orlando and their loved ones." My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this morning's horrific attack in Orlando and their loved ones. However, Burr has a 0% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, a group which advocates LGBTQ equality in the U.S., indicating an anti-gay voting record. As recently as 2006, Burr supported a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, as well as voted to ban gay adoption in Washington D.C. In 2013, Burr told WRAL he chose to remain mostly silent on the issue of same-sex marriage because he wanted to leave the issue up to the states, though he clarified that his "personal opinion is that it's between a man and a woman." Burr only recently said he felt the infamous , which banned all local LGBTQ anti-discrimination policies in his state and requires all people in North Carolina to use the bathroom according to their birth certificate, went "too far." But he had to be dragged there kicking and screaming by his Democratic challenger for re-election, Deborah Ross, who has made HB2 a campaign issue. As the Huffington Post reported, Burr "previously said he was out of the country when it passed; stated it's up to the courts to decide if it's valid; suggested it doesn't actually discriminate; and declared it a state issue." 6. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert Source: Stewart F. House/Getty Images Gohmert, who is strongly affiliated with the Tea Party movement, also said he was "sending prayers and thoughts to those in #Orlando affected by the tragic terrorist attack." Sending prayers and thoughts to those in #Orlando affected by the tragic terrorist attack. Gohmert, however, is one of the most strident opponents of LGBTQ equality in the federal government. In 2014, he compared the LGBT movement to Nazism, saying "now all of a sudden, people like me are considered haters, hate mongers, evil, which really is exactly what we've seen throughout our history as going back to the days of the Nazi takeover in Europe." Just weeks ago, the representative took to the House floor to warn his colleagues about gay space colonies, since their violation of God's "natural law" means they cannot be relied upon to propagate the human species. 7. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell Source: Cliff Owen/AP Like the other officials on this list, McConnell invoked the power of prayer in his reaction to the shooting in Orlando in his official statement, while neglecting to mention LGBTQ people. My statement on the #Orlando shooting: "The nation's prayers are with the victims and their families..."pic.twitter.com/RrvnUScq43 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckwx6G7WYAEe0Zb.jpg:large McConnell has voted for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, against adding sexual orientation to the definition of a "hate crime," and for allowing employers to continue to discriminate against LGBTQ employees. He made it clear he disagreed with the Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage, but the GOP was out of options to fight the new policy. Stocks on a roller-coaster ride. Stocks mentioned in this story: SCHW, TYC, MU, CSCO Spied from a helicopter above Manhattan, Wall Street appears fairly straight, with a gentle bend at Pearl Street. But in the jittery geography of the trading world, stocks often endure hairpin turns with enough velocity and violence to throw them into the Hudson River. What makes a stock skyrocket only to thud like a queasy Central Park pigeon? Sometimes it's corruption, unsustainable hype or a failed buyout. Here are eight stocks with bounces that propelled shareholders on a ride of bungee cord proportions. Enron Corp. Some bounces are more crash landings and the scandal surrounding the former Houston energy behemoth took investors from the trading pit to the fiery pit. On New Year's Eve 1999, Enron stock closed at $44.38 a share. A year later, it had nearly doubled to $83.13. And by New Year's Eve 2002? Just 6.2 cents a share. Worse yet: Investors were told by CEO Kenneth Lay to expect Enron shares to hit roughly $140 -- while he and other execs dumped their stock. Value America Long before Amazon.com (AMZN), Value America sought to connect the internet's first shoppers directly to manufacturers. "The company went public in April 1999 by selling shares at $23 and closed on the first day it publicly traded at $55 per share," says Robert Johnson, president and CEO of the American College of Financial Services in the greater Philadelphia area. But logistical problems with shipping and billing shipwrecked the company. By August 2000, VUSA traded for 72 cents a share. Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW) The discount brokerage firm rose more than 400 percent from 1998 through the peak of the dot-com bubble. "In 1999, Schwab's stock market value exceeded that of Merrill Lynch, an amazing accomplishment for an upstart financial firm," says Daniel Kern, chief investment strategist with TFC Financial Management. But the dot-com fallout and the ill-fated acquisition of U.S. Trust in 2000 hurt shareholders and Schwab stock fell by 80 percent until bottoming in early 2003. The stock has more than doubled since and now trades at $29 a share. Story continues VA Linux The company that combined open-source Linux software with Intel-based hardware went public on Dec. 9, 1999, at $30 per share -- and closed at $239, shattering all records for a first-day IPO. "By July of 2002, a scant 32 months later, the stock had fallen by more than 99 percent from its all-time high of nearly $243 to 54 cents a share," Johnson says. The firm changed its name and business approach several times, is now known as Geeknet, and owned by the gaming retailer GameStop Corp. (GME). Tyco International (TYC) With a successful portfolio of security systems, electronic components and medical device businesses, "Tyco was an investor darling, rising nearly 300 percent from 1998 through 2000," Kern says. But in 2002, it plummeted nearly 80 percent as CEO Dennis Kozlowski and other senior executives were accused of looting the company. Kozlowski's abuses made headlines "after footage surfaced of the $2 million toga party in Sardinia that Kozlowski hosted to celebrate his wife's birthday." It featured an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David urinating vodka, perhaps apt considering what happened to shareholders. Celera Genomics Group Celera was one of the first firms to successfully map the human gene sequence, and as a consequence the company mutated from $7 per share in April 1999 to $276 in March 2000, thanks to the promise of drug-related patents. "But if you held Celera for a few more years, you saw it fall to about $8 per share," says Keith Baker, professor of mortgage banking at North Lake College in Irving, Texas. Competing companies had quietly sought patents, while world leaders called for genome information to be made public. Micron Technology (MU) Follow the bouncing chip: MU went from $9.43 a share in August 1996 to $97.50 on July 1, 2000, and then back down to $8.21 on Feb. 1, 2003. "Everyone wanted to own something connected to the internet and Micron was a play on semiconductors," says Carlos Martinez, professor of economics at Richland College in Dallas. Still around, Micron has also gone through a more recent if smaller bounce -- from $7 a share (January 2013) to $36 (December 2014) to its current price of $12.19. Cisco Systems (CSCO) Unlike many a high-tech company splattered when the dot-com bubble burst, Cisco has survived -- and is today the largest networking-equipment company in the world. Yet it's no longer the world's most valuable company, as it was on March 24, 2000. On that day, CSCO hit $79.38 a share, up more than five times from just 18 months prior. A year later, it was trading at $15.91. Competitors played a large role in the bounce as they chipped away at Cisco's market share. More From US News & World Report Stocks on a roller-coaster ride. Stocks mentioned in this story: SCHW, TYC, MU, CSCO Spied from a helicopter above Manhattan, Wall Street appears fairly straight, with a gentle bend at Pearl Street. But in the jittery geography of the trading world, stocks often endure hairpin turns with enough velocity and violence to throw them into the Hudson River. What makes a stock skyrocket only to thud like a queasy Central Park pigeon? Sometimes it's corruption, unsustainable hype or a failed buyout. Here are eight stocks with bounces that propelled shareholders on a ride of bungee cord proportions. Enron Corp. Some bounces are more crash landings and the scandal surrounding the former Houston energy behemoth took investors from the trading pit to the fiery pit. On New Year's Eve 1999, Enron stock closed at $44.38 a share. A year later, it had nearly doubled to $83.13. And by New Year's Eve 2002? Just 6.2 cents a share. Worse yet: Investors were told by CEO Kenneth Lay to expect Enron shares to hit roughly $140 -- while he and other execs dumped their stock. Value America Long before Amazon.com (ticker: AMZN), Value America sought to connect the internet's first shoppers directly to manufacturers. "The company went public in April 1999 by selling shares at $23 and closed on the first day it publicly traded at $55 per share," says Robert Johnson, president and CEO of the American College of Financial Services in the greater Philadelphia area. But logistical problems with shipping and billing shipwrecked the company. By August 2000, VUSA traded for 72 cents a share. Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW) The discount brokerage firm rose more than 400 percent from 1998 through the peak of the dot-com bubble. "In 1999, Schwab's stock market value exceeded that of Merrill Lynch, an amazing accomplishment for an upstart financial firm," says Daniel Kern, chief investment strategist with TFC Financial Management. But the dot-com fallout and the ill-fated acquisition of U.S. Trust in 2000 hurt shareholders and Schwab stock fell by 80 percent until bottoming in early 2003. The stock has more than doubled since and now trades at $29 a share. Story continues VA Linux The company that combined open-source Linux software with Intel-based hardware went public on Dec. 9, 1999, at $30 per share -- and closed at $239, shattering all records for a first-day IPO. "By July of 2002, a scant 32 months later, the stock had fallen by more than 99 percent from its all-time high of nearly $243 to 54 cents a share," Johnson says. The firm changed its name and business approach several times, is now known as Geeknet, and owned by the gaming retailer GameStop Corp. (GME). Tyco International (TYC) With a successful portfolio of security systems, electronic components and medical device businesses, "Tyco was an investor darling, rising nearly 300 percent from 1998 through 2000," Kern says. But in 2002, it plummeted nearly 80 percent as CEO Dennis Kozlowski and other senior executives were accused of looting the company. Kozlowski's abuses made headlines "after footage surfaced of the $2 million toga party in Sardinia that Kozlowski hosted to celebrate his wife's birthday." It featured an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David urinating vodka, perhaps apt considering what happened to shareholders. Celera Genomics Group Celera was one of the first firms to successfully map the human gene sequence, and as a consequence the company mutated from $7 per share in April 1999 to $276 in March 2000, thanks to the promise of drug-related patents. "But if you held Celera for a few more years, you saw it fall to about $8 per share," says Keith Baker, professor of mortgage banking at North Lake College in Irving, Texas. Competing companies had quietly sought patents, while world leaders called for genome information to be made public. Micron Technology (MU) Follow the bouncing chip: MU went from $9.43 a share in August 1996 to $97.50 on July 1, 2000, and then back down to $8.21 on Feb. 1, 2003. "Everyone wanted to own something connected to the internet and Micron was a play on semiconductors," says Carlos Martinez, professor of economics at Richland College in Dallas. Still around, Micron has also gone through a more recent if smaller bounce -- from $7 a share (January 2013) to $36 (December 2014) to its current price of $12.19. Cisco Systems (CSCO) Unlike many a high-tech company splattered when the dot-com bubble burst, Cisco has survived -- and is today the largest networking-equipment company in the world. Yet it's no longer the world's most valuable company, as it was on March 24, 2000. On that day, CSCO hit $79.38 a share, up more than five times from just 18 months prior. A year later, it was trading at $15.91. Competitors played a large role in the bounce as they chipped away at Cisco's market share. A former longtime staff writer, editor and columnist at the Chicago Tribune, Lou Carlozo writes about investment for U.S. News & World Report, and personal finance for Money Under 30 and GOBankingRates. He is based in Chicago. Connect with him at linkedin.com/in/loucarlozo. Investing in Latin America. The economies of Latin America, many of which have taken a multiyear beating, are back with gusto in 2016, with many funds covering the region rebounding by 20, 30 and even 40 percent. That's coming on the power of rebounding prices in energy and various materials, which make or break the bank for numerous countries south of the U.S. If you're looking for ways to jump into this potentially fruitful (though likely volatile) region, these exchange-traded funds can expose you to some of Latin America's largest economies. SPDR S&P Emerging Latin America ETF (GML) GML focuses on a basket of 322 Latin American companies, though the fund isn't as diverse as that count would suggest. GML represents just five Latin American countries, with Brazil accounting for nearly half the fund's weight, and Mexico nearly a third. Top holdings aren't egregiously weighted, though, with Itau Unibanco Holding (ITUB) at nearly 5 percent and mega-brewer Ambev (ABEV) at just more than 4 percent. You're not going to find much more diversity in Latin American funds. Expenses: 0.49 percent, or $49 annually per $10,000 invested Global X FTSE Andean 40 ETF (AND) If you'd like more exposure to what GML goes light on, the AND is for you. Whlie Chile, Colombia and Peru make up just more than 20 percent of SPDR's fund, they make up all of Global X's fund, at a respective 49, 33 and 18 percent. Financials such as top holding Credicorp (BAP), a multi-armed Peruvian bank that also offers insurance and investment services, make up the largest sector at 36 percent, though materials, utilities and consumer staples all get double-digit weightings. Expenses: 0.72 percent iShares MSCI Brazil (EWZ) If the EWZ were a carnival ride, it'd be the Vomit Comet. The past year has seen this Brazilian fund plunge 45 percent from its peak before rebounding 55 percent. That's what you can expect when your president is facing impeachment -- which is what's happening with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who also was embroiled with a corruption scandal involving EWZ top 10 holding Petroleo Brasileiro Petrobras (PBR). Still, EWZ is enjoying a huge upswing, and its battered energy holdings are getting a lift from rebounding oil prices. Story continues Expenses: 0.62 percent iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF (EWW) iShares also offers the leading Mexican ETF, with more than $1 billion in assets under management. Like many single-country funds, EWW is terribly top-heavy, with the top five of 63 holdings making up well more than 40 percent of the ETF's weight. That includes Mexican telecom America Movil (AMX) at 11 percent. To the fund's credit, it does mirror Mexico's diverse economy, with a good balance of six sectors receiving double-digit weights, including consumer staples at nearly 30 percent of the fund. Expenses: 0.48 percent Global X MSCI Argentina (ARGT) Argentina has long made its trade off its rich natural resources -- reflected in the energy-heavy nature of Global X's ARGT. Companies like steel pipemaker Tenaris (TS) and integrated oil and gas major YPF (YPF) are heavily representative of Argentina's economy, and are similarly weighted in the ARGT at roughly 17 and 8 percent, respectively. ARGT has rallied hard in 2016, up roughly 20 percent as the country turns to new president Mauricio Macri to turn around the country's struggling fortunes. Expenses: 0.75 percent iShares MSCI Chile Capped ETF (ECH) The ECH has actually been a miserable fund for the past five years as economic growth has slowed, thanks in large part to dwindling copper prices; Chile is the world's largest copper producer at nearly a third of the world's output. However, industrial output has been better in recent months, and ECH has enjoyed a recovery year in 2016, up 20 percent. The fund itself is very utility-heavy (32 percent), with strong weightings in financials (19 percent) and materials (13 percent) as well. However, top holdings include energy play Empresas Copec and consumer plays S.A.C.I. Falabella and Cencosud (CNCO) at a combined 20 percent-plus in weight. Expenses: 0.62 percent Global X MSCI Colombia (GXG) Weak energy and materials prices hurt Colombia's economy in 2015, slowing GDP growth and sending the peso into a tailspin. Like other Latin American ETFs, though, GXG is enjoying a bounce -- to the tune of 25 percent for the year. Financials (36 percent) and utilities (18 percent) are the fund's thickest sectors, with materials (17 percent) and energy (12 percent) less than in previous years, as GXG is market cap-weighted, and as GXG's holdings in these spaces have seen their market capitalizations decimated. Expenses: 0.68 percent iShares MSCI All Peru Capped ETF (EPU) EPU has led a stomach-churning year, with shares hemorrhaging 40 percent from May 2015 highs of about $31 down to a February low in the $18s ... and now it's back near $31. You can thank a rebound in gold, silver, copper and a few other materials, which have been the rising tide to all of Peru's mining boats. EPU has a massive 47 percent of its assets invested in mining companies, including Southern Copper Corp. (SCCO), Compania de Minas Buenaventura (BVN) and Fortuna Silver Mines (FSM). Expenses: 0.62 percent Tierra XP Latin America Real Estate ETF (LARE) LARE is a young fund that only came to life in December 2015 -- not bad timing, as that's about a month before Latin American stocks snapped back with a vengeance. LARE, which invests primarily in real estate investment trusts, is built from an index of 56 REITs, and actually is pretty well diversified in that no holding currently makes up more than 3.4 percent of the fund. Expenses: 0.79 percent More From US News & World Report ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's ABB Ltd has hired a former Siemens executive to run a division that makes robots, motors and generators and whose profit margins have shrunk for five straight quarters amid sluggish demand for its products. ABB named Sami Atiya as head of the Discrete Automation and Motion Division and moved its former boss Pekka Tiitinen to head the country's operations in his native Finland, the engineering company said in a statement on Monday. Atiya worked at Germany's Siemens for 18 years and had run its Mobility and Logistics division since 2011 before leaving the company last December. The automation unit which Atiya will lead has seen its operating margin on earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation decline to about 13 percent from more than 18 percent as demand for its motors and drives slumped and as U.S. and Chinese customers ordered fewer robotic products. ABB says the division makes motors, generators, drives, power electronics and robotics which provide power, motion and control for a wide range of automation applications, including for wind generators and increasingly solar power. Sustained low oil and gas prices have particularly hurt demand for automation solutions. Tiitinen has responded with a wave of job cuts, including at factories in Finland. A margin turnaround will hinge on a recovery in energy customers' businesses, analysts said. "They have been reducing production capacity for more than half a year, but an increase in volume is likely to take longer, given that so much of the division's business is related to process industries such as oil and gas," said Richard Frei, a Zuercher Kantonalbank analyst. The shares fell 1.9 percent to 19.67 francs at 1015 GMT, their lowest level since April and trimming ABB's gain on the exchange in Zurich this year to 9.6 percent. ABB highlighted Atiya's experience in restructuring as well as a doctorate in robotics, sensors and data processing as key reasons for his hiring. "Sami Atiya has tremendous experience in leading industrial portfolios across a wide range of markets and geographies as well as a proven track record of delivering strong results in growth, restructuring and integration situations," the company said. (Reporting by John Miller; Editing by Michael Shields and Alexander Smith) - By David Goodloe Bill Ackman (Trades, Portfolio) of Pershing Square Capital Management LP made transactions in four stocks in the first quarter, reducing his holdings in two and adding to his holdings in the others. Ackman pared his stake in Mondelez International Inc. (MDLZ), a food processing company based in Deerfield, Illinois, by more than 47%. Ackman sold 20,424,117 shares for an average price of $40.73 per share. The deal had a -7.35% impact on Ackmanas portfolio. The remaining stake of 22,942,225 shares is 1.48% of Mondelezas outstanding shares and 10.4% of Ackmanas total assets. Ackman is the companyas leading shareholder among the gurus. Mondelez has a P/E of 9.8, a forward P/E of 21.7, a P/B of 2.5 and a P/S of 2.6. GuruFocus gives Mondelez a Financial Strength rating of 5/10 and a Profitability and Growth rating of 5/10 with an ROE of 27.80% higher than 91% of the companies in the Global Confectioners industry and an ROA of 11.62% that is higher than 86% of the companies in that industry. Mondelez sold for $45.02 per share Friday. The DCF Calculator gives Mondelez a fair value of $49.23 with a margin of safety of 9%. The guru raised his stake in Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (VRX), a Canadian pharmaceutical company, by more than 30% with the purchase of 5 million shares for an average price of $74.84 per share. The transaction had a 1.48% impact on Ackmanas portfolio. The stake, now 21,591,122 shares, is 6.29% of Valeantas outstanding shares and 6.21% of Ackmanas total assets. Ruane Cunniff (Trades, Portfolio) is Valeantas leading shareholder among the gurus with a stake of 30,308,449 shares. The stake is 8.84% of Valeantas outstanding shares and 6.19% of Ruane Cunniff (Trades, Portfolio)as total assets. Valeant has a forward P/E of 2.8, a P/B of 1.4 and a P/S of 0.8. GuruFocus gives Valeant a Financial Strength rating of 4/10 and a Profitability and Growth rating of 7/10 with an ROE of -12.35% that is lower than 78% of the companies in the Global Drug Manufacturers a Specialty & Generic industry and an ROA of -1.63% that is lower than 72% of the companies in that industry. Story continues aa0da5cd9a7df8e4523867d0323153ab.png Valeant sold for $24.14 per share Friday. The DCF Calculator gives Valeant a fair value of $-22.79. Ackman increased his position in Restaurant Brands International Inc. (QSR), a Canadian fast food company, by just over 3% with the acquisition of 1,146,567 shares for an average price of $34.76 per share. The deal had a 0.5% impact on Ackmanas portfolio. The stake, now 39,150,551 shares, is 16.79% of Restaurant Brandsa outstanding shares and 17.17% of Ackmanas total assets. Ackman is Restaurant Brandsa leading shareholder among the gurus. Restaurant Brands has a P/E of 67.6 and a P/S of 4.9. GuruFocus gives Restaurant Brands a Financial Strength rating of 4/10 and a Profitability and Growth rating of 4/10 with an ROE of 11.05% that is higher than 57% of the companies in the Global Restaurants industry and an ROA of 2.30% that is lower than 62% of the companies in that industry. Restaurant Brands sold for $42.28 per share Friday. The DCF Calculator gives Restaurant Brands a fair value of $3.64. Start a free seven-day trial of Premium Membership to GuruFocus. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Photo: Getty Images Can you help me? a man, bleeding from three gunshot wounds, pleaded on the street outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Dont worry, I got you, club-goer Josh McGill, himself escaping the scene of violence inside, replied before peeling off his shirt to stop the rush of blood, engulfing the wounded man in a bear hug, and keeping him conscious as they drove to the nearest ER, according to the LA Times. The man, Rodney Sumter Jr., is now recovering, largely in part to McGills brave efforts. Josh McGill describes his life-saving actions in the aftermath of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. (Video: CBS) The country awoke on Sunday, June 12, to news of the most devastating mass shooting in American history, with 49 dead and 53 wounded. Painful details of what happened during the massacre at Pulse are still emerging, yet so are stories of kindness, bravery, and selflessness. Another man packed a cooler, jumped in his car and drove for nearly four hours from Tallahassee to Orlando to pass out free drinks to the reeling community. Miami television station WSVN-TV Channel 7 captured the unidentified man, standing over his half-empty cooler, in a Facebook post, Photo: Facebook Gracie the Comfort Dog, a Chicago pup who brings comfort and compassion to the suffering, was immediately put on a flight to Orlando on Sunday morning. Gracie is no stranger to national tragedies; she deployed to Newtown, Conn., in 2012 to comfort members of the community after 26 were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Photo: Facebook By Monday afternoon, just over a day after the shooting, $2.1 million had been raised to help victims and their families through the GoFundMe platform. Some 600 people at a time have lined up to donate blood in Orlando. Counselors have offered their services pro bono, even via phone or Skype. People across the nation lined up in droves to donate blood after the shooting at Pulse. (Video: ABC) Story continues Humans are hardwired to create actions that lead to our own preservation, says Karla Ivankovich, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, Springfield. Emotions spur these acts, she tells Yahoo Beauty. Whether the initial emotion is hope or hopelessness, we attempt to be proactive in good times and reactive in difficult times. Ivankovich says traumas often cause us to imagine what it would be like to be faced with the difficulties of the victims. Helpers frequently react in ways theyd hope others would if the tables were turned and they were in dire straits. We feel an intense kinship and desire to protect others, especially because, at some point, you realize that this could have been you, your family, one of your friends, and the hurt and loss settle in, she explains. Related: 7 Things Kind People Do That Make Us Love Them The effects of tragedy also cut a layer deeper. According to Art Markman, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, there is another reason we see so many random acts of kindness in the wake of extreme tragedy. There is a lot of work in psychology on what is called terror management theory, he tells Yahoo Beauty. The idea is that humans are probably the only animals on the planet that can contemplate their own mortality. As a result, humans have to deal with the fear that someday we will die. Markman says that when confronted with our mortality, we engage with this fact in ways that help us cope with that existential fear. One in particular is to bind ourselves more closely to other members of our broader social group, he explains. The idea is that our culture, our people, will live on beyond us, and so we increase our affiliation with our social groups. These random acts of kindness are a way to feel closer to other members of society in times of crisis. In certain ways, tragedies help erase the boundary lines that divide us all, Markman says. We often define our social group more broadly in times of crisis than in normal times, he says. Ordinarily, people in California, Texas, or New York might think of Floridians as being socially distant from them. Similarly, members of the straight community might feel social distance from the LGBT community. But, following a crisis like the one in Florida, people across the country were thinking of themselves as Americans a group that is inclusive rather than maintaining this social distance. Markman says feelings stirred after Orlando are similar to ones many Americans felt for the people of France in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings. Instead of defining ourselves in a million unique and different ways, in times of crisis, tragedy simply makes us human. And small moments of humanity and kindness restore our faith in the people around us. This is is an instinctual response, says Ivankovich, which provides a sense of balance amid horrific catastrophe. There is so much death and mayhem that people are searching for hope and that means we have to be a part of the solution, not the problem, Ivankovich says. Thats why people do random, wonderful things. Nothing can erase the pain of 50 lost lives and 53 wounded on Sunday, but small, amazing acts of kindness are an instinctual bonding mechanism of the human race. Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Paris (AFP) - The gay community worldwide has been hit by a number of vicious and sometimes deadly hate attacks, but Sunday's massacre at an Orlando nightclub was one of the worst. Here is a list of several of the more high-profile attacks: - Dhaka, Bangladesh - April 26, 2016: Two leading gay rights activists are hacked to death inside an apartment in Dhaka by a group of men carrying machetes. Police have arrested a suspected Islamic militant over the attack in this deeply-conservative, Muslim-majority nation where the gay community has been heavily persecuted. - Jerusalem - July 30, 2015: A 16-year-old girl dies after being stabbed at a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem, where five other revellers were also wounded. The attack was carried out by an ultra-Orthodox Jew called Yishai Shlissel who was released from prison three weeks earlier after serving 10 years for a similar attack at the same event in 2005. In a posting online, Shlissel had lashed out at the "abomination" of a Gay Pride parade being held in the Holy City. - Tel Aviv - August 1, 2009: A teenage girl and a man in his 20s are killed and another 15 people wounded in a shooting attack on a gay youth centre in Tel Aviv. Although the suspected gunman was later arrested, the case against him collapsed in 2014. - Roanoke, Virginia - September 22, 2000: Ronald Edward Gay went on a shooting rampage at a bar frequented by homosexuals, killing one person and injuring six others. The gunman later told police he had wanted to get rid of "faggots" with media reports suggesting his actions were motivated by long-simmering anger over jokes people made about his surname. - London - April 30, 1999: An explosion rips through the Admiral Duncan pub, which was popular with gays, killing three people, including a pregnant woman, and wounded 65 others. It was the third in a series of racist and homophobic bomb attacks on the British capital, with a self-confessed Nazi sympathiser named David Copeland jailed for six life terms over the blasts. Story continues - New York - November 18, 1980: Two people are killed and six others wounded when Ronald Crumpley opens fire on a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and sent to a psychiatric institution after testifying that he felt gay men were stalking him and "trying to steal my soul just by looking at me." - New Orleans - June 24, 1973: Thirty-two people die in an arson attack on the Upstairs Lounge gay bar in New Orleans' French Quarter. Almost all of the victims were male, and until the Orlando massacre, it was the deadliest attack on homosexuals in the US. Public reaction was extremely subdued however, and the city's Catholic archbishop remained silent, something for which the church has since apologised. The main suspect killed himself about 18 months later, and the case was closed. Adele was moved to tears on Sunday night during her show in Antwerp, Belgium, when she told the audience she was dedicating the concert to the victims of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which took the lives of 49 and injured 53. "I would like to start tonight by dedicating this entire show to everybody in Orlando at Pulse nightclub last night," she told the crowd at the Sportpaleis on the first night of a three-show run. "The LGBTQA community, they're like my soulmates since I was really young, so I'm really moved by it." Welling up with tears, she cut the tension by adding, "I don't know why I'm crying already because most of tonight is pretty miserable because my songs are f---ing miserable." Patrons on Orlando's Pulse Before the Tragedy: 'We Could Be Our Authentic Selves' She added her voice to the chorus of entertainers and politicians who have spoken out against the attack on the popular gay nightclub, which was also honored by Sunday night's Tony Awards telecast, which was opened by host James Corden saying, "hate will never win." Shooting At Orlando Nightclub Leaves 50 Dead in Largest Mass Shooting in U.S. History | Patrons on Orlando's Pulse Before the Tragedy: 'We Could Be Our Authentic Selves' | President Obama Calls Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting Act of Terror and Hate | Orlando Gay Nightclub Shooting Casts a Shadow on Tony Awards | Orlando Shooting: Trump Sees Backlash Over 'Congrats' Tweet; Clinton Calls Attack an 'Act of Terror' | Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting: Hollywood Reacts | 'This Is the New Reality': Artists & Concert Execs Weigh In on Security Challenges After Orlando | Skrillex, Chainsmokers & More Dance Music Stars React to Orlando Nightclub Massacre | Orlando Pride Radio Host Talks Pulse's Place in LGBT Community, Why It's Hard Not to Be Scared | James Corden Gives Touching Orlando Speech at 2016 Tony Awards: 'Hate Will Never Win' Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f11498%2fsddefault On a recent stop in Belgium, Adele began her show by dedicated the entire performance to the people in Orlando at Pulse Nightclub, the site of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history this past weekend. The LGBTQ community, theyre like my soulmates since I was really young, so Im very moved by it," she told the crowd before breaking into tears. Adele then invited the crowd to dance with her to "Rumor Has It" because it's one of her two songs that at least sounds happy and has a beat, "if you like to dance, this is your final chance. Literally." ReCore returns to E3 with a new gameplay trailer, release date Dude chronicles months-long attempt to flip a spoon into a mug Here's what happens when a bald eagle and a Canada goose fight it out John Oliver offers a touching message about the Orlando shooting Adrian Posse, the veteran composer, producer and industry exec who for years led the A&R departments at BMG and EMI Latin, has died. The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, diagnosed after doctors recently found a tumor in his lung. He was 67 years old. Posse, a short man with a bigger than life demeanor and boundless enthusiasm was instrumental in developing the careers of artists like Belinda, Aleks Syntek, Patty Manterola and Mijares. During his tenure at BMG, he also had key roles in Alexander Pires' crossover into Spanish and Christina Aguilera's extremely successful Spanish-language album. "Adrian dedicated his entire life to music as an author, composer, producer and executive," said his longtime friend and colleague Nestor Casonu, now MD for Kobalt Music in Latin America. "He was a man of tireless creativity and his name is linked to the history of many Latin music acts. His search was permanent and his optimism endless. He transmitted great energy to those around him and was always looking to make his projects a reality. He lived as he wanted and I'm sure we all have great anecdotes about him!" Born in Argentina, Posse began his career in music as a member of 1970s folk group Los Huanca Hua and as a producer for well-known tango acts like Osvaldo Pugliese. Although Posse toyed with the notion of a recording career -- he won the OTI festival representing Argentina in 1978 -- he found fame as a songwriter, producer and A&R in the 1980s, initially working for EMI Argentina. In the years to come, Posse worked both independently and with labels, primarily EMI and BMG Latin. In his run as A&R director for EMI Mexico he worked with the likes of Aleks Syntek, Thalia and Ricardo Montaner. Later, as international VP of A&R for BMG's Latin operation, he produced albums for Juan Gabriel, Jose Jose, Alejandra Guzman and Rocio Durcal, among others. Posse was also instrumental in helping create EMI Televisa, the joint venture between TV network Grupo Televisa and EMI Music Latin America that launched in 2005. There, he was appointed senior creative VP of the company. Story continues Posse was a big risk-taker, and not all his projects took hold. But he was always singularly enthusiastic about everything he put his name on. When he was particularly excited about a project, he would insist one visit his office or recording studio, where he could pump the volume and dissect the recording -- the lyrics, the key changes, the particularities of an arrangement. The excitement was contagious. Although Posse worked with all genres, and was very vested in reggaeton since the beginning, his true calling was pop, a genre he lived and breathed through multiple generations of artists, and whose evolution he recognized early on. "At this point you can't release an album that has no musical fusions," he told Billboard in 2006, when he took the creative reins of EMI Televisa. "All pop songs ultimately have the same structure. When you incorporate fusions, you have unique opportunities, where you can mix our folklore -- which all has the same four by four rhythm -- with other styles. It's not a question of marketing. It's a need people have. They like that sound." At the time of his death, Posse wasn't working directly for a label but was producing several acts through his company, Del Angel Music. He is survived by sons Nico Garibotti, Rocco Posse and wife Cynthia Posse. A customer enters an Aeropostale store in Broomfield, Colorado, United States May 14, 2015. REUTERS/Rick Wilking Aeropostale has been struggling. The teen retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month, following quarter after quarter of poor sales. One anonymous employee told Business Insider about the awkward and tense experience of working there during the company's implosion. The anonymous employee wrote that when the company filed for bankruptcy, workers "found out which stores would be closing from the USA Today article that listed the closing stores." The worker says life at Aeropostale feels uncertain. "It's continued to be very unknown as to what they plan to do, and it seems as though we are notified once the plans are already in motion and occuring," the employee wrote. ready for the weekend. A photo posted by AERO (@aeropostale) on Jun 10, 2016 at 6:18pm PDT on Jun 10, 2016 at 6:18pm PDT He explained that the company's demise was threefold: one, the employee pointed to the "direct competition of the fast fashion brands and the ability of other stores like Hollister, Abercrombie, and American Eagle to keep up with trends and truly appeal to the customer demographic." Even Abercrombie & Fitch which is trying to salvage its reputation is faring better than Aeropostale. The worker also questioned some of management's financial decisions, specifically its choice to send over 100 workers to Florida on an annual basis for a meeting called Partners in Profit. Finally, the employee said that the company hasn't treated its longtime staffers well. "We feel undervalued and underappreciated," the employee wrote. Aeropostale did not immediately return Business Insider's request for comment. NOW WATCH: The one reason Zara is dominating the fashion industry right now More From Business Insider * Part of deal to sell 100 helicopters to Chinese consortium * Factory to be locating in Qingdao; production to start 2018 * Plant to have capacity of 36 units a year (Adds details, value of investment, shares) PARIS/BEIJING, June 13 (Reuters) - Airbus Helicopters , the world's largest supplier of commercial helicopters, finalised an agreement on Monday to build an assembly line in China as part of a deal to sell 100 H135 helicopters to a local consortium. The helicopter sale is worth 700 million euros ($788 mln) at catalogue prices, but the value of the deal rises to 1 billion euros when support and initial industrial investment are included, an Airbus Helicopters spokesman said. The factory will be located in the Sino-German Ecopark in the coastal city of Qingdao, and is expected to start operations in 2018 with a capacity of 36 units a year, the company said. The deal, first outlined last October, was signed during a visit to China by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. China is opening up its low-level airspace to civilian aircraft, and the global aviation industry is laying the groundwork for a boom beyond private business jets with the purchase of helicopters that is likely to include fleets of air ambulances. The light twin-engined H135 is already used in China for medical services and police surveillance. Airbus Helicopters sees demand for 3,000-5,000 helicopters in China over the next 20 years. "With the further opening up of the Chinese skies and the increasing growth in the civil and parapublic segments, China is gearing up to be the biggest market for helicopters in years to come," Norbert Ducrot, head of Airbus Helicopters China and North Asia region, said in a statement. The 100 helicopters are expected to be assembled in China over the next 10 years, the company said. The Chinese purchasing consortium comprises China Aviation Supplies Holding Company (CAS), Qingdao United General Aviation Industrial Development Company (Qingdao United) and CITIC Offshore Helicopter Co Ltd. Story continues Industry analysts said Merkel's visit was not expected to lead to major new deals for Airbus jets. Airbus got a boost in May by finalising an order for 60 A320neo-family aircraft with China's Spring Airlines , according to airline industry sources, but the name of the carrier has not yet been officially disclosed. Airbus declined comment. ($1 = 0.8873 euros) ($1 = 0.8879 euros) (Reporting by Tim Hepher and Winni Zhou; Editing by Geert De Clercq and Susan Fenton) Mihaly Michu Meszaros, who played the titular wisecracking alien on the 80s sitcom Alf, has died. He was 76. Meszaros reportedly fell into a coma last week, and had been grappling with health issues since suffering a stroke eight years ago. According to TMZ, the actor was found unresponsive in his bathroom by his longtime manager, Dennis Varga. Also Read: Hollywood's Notable Deaths of 2016 (Photos) Born in 1939 in Hungary, Michu stood just 2 feet, 9 inches tall. He performed in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1970s, billed as the smallest man in the world. During his tenure with the circus, Meszaros performed for presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Meszaros, however, is perhaps best known for portraying the title character in the NBC sitcom Alf. Meszaros would wear a full-body costume when head-to-toe shots of the alien were required, and a half-costume for upper-body shots, due to the heat of the full-body suit. Alf, about a furry alien who lives with an earth family after crashing into their garage, also starred Max Wright, Anne Schedeen, Andrea Elson and Benji Gregory. Also Read: Theresa Saldana, Star of 'The Commish' and 'Raging Bull,' Dies at 61 The actors credits also included 1988s Big Top Pee-wee, Dear John and Warlock: The Armageddon. A GoFundMe page was recently launched to raise money for medical and funeral expenses. Related stories from TheWrap: Theresa Saldana, Star of 'The Commish' and 'Raging Bull,' Dies at 61 Beth Howland, Vera From Sitcom 'Alice,' Dies at 74 The world's oldest computer was probably used as a teaching aid and a mechanism to predict future astronomical events, according to new research. This ancient computer is called the Antikythera Mechanism. Pearl divers discovered it in the Mediterranean Sea in 1900, and scientists have been studying it for decades. The mechanism is extraordinarily advanced for its time. It dates all the way back to 60 BC, but something of its equivalent technical level doesn't appear again until over 1,000 years later. The Antikythera Mechanism The mechanism is badly corroded and several pieces are missing, but scientists have figured out a few things about it. It's not a programmable computer like the ones we're used to, but it's considered the first analog computer. The ancient Greeks likely used it to track the positions of celestial objects. It works similar to a clock, with hands for the sun, moon and planets, and a knob and crank for a user to rotate the hands. The latest discovery: A new X-ray scanning analysis of the mechanism has revealed a series of inscriptions on the side that reads like an information sign by a museum display. Those inscriptions have revealed more about the mechanism's purpose. "It was not a research tool, something that an astronomer would use to do computations, or even an astrologer to do prognostications, but something that you would use to teach about the cosmos and our place in the cosmos," Alexander Jones, a professor of the history of ancient science at New York University, told the Associated Press. "It's like a textbook of astronomy as it was understood then, which connected the movements of the sky and the planets with the lives of the ancient Greeks and their environment." The research team described it as a "philosopher's instructional device." Fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism. Why it matters: Learning more about the Antikythera Mechanism could help us better understand ancient Greece and how our understanding of astronomy has evolved over time. "Now we have texts that you can actually read as ancient Greek. ... What we had before was like something on the radio with a lot of static," Jones told the Associated Press. "It's a lot of detail for us because it comes from a period from which we know very little about Greek astronomy and essentially nothing about the technology, except what we gather from here. So these very small texts are a very big thing for us." At the beginning of the companys highly anticipated annual developer conference on Monday, CEO Tim Cook took the stage to a standing ovation, but quieted the eager crowd. Cook, an openly gay business icon, asked the 5,000 attendees in San Francisco to pause and reflect on the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, which happened early Sunday morning at an LGBT club in Orlando, Florida. We offer our deepest sympathies to everyone whose lives were touched by this violence, he said, calling the shooting a senseless, unconscionable act of terrorism and hate aimed at dividing and destroying. Cook then made a point about diversity by using the crowd as an example, which contained attendees from 74 different countries. The Apple community is made up of people from all around the world, all different backgrounds and all different points of view, he said. We celebrate our diversity we know it makes us stronger and moves everyone forward. He then asked the crowd to stand and observe a moment of silence, as the otherwise non-stop clicking of cameras paused. The Orlando shooting has hit home in San Francisco, though its nearly 3,000 miles away. The city is a bastion of gay rights, a place that has been considered a safe haven for LGBT people much like gay clubs have in cities around the nation. Yet it is also a place where the LGBT community has suffered collective tragedies before, such as the shooting of openly gay lawmaker Harvey Milk. Thousands gathered Sunday evening in the Castro neighborhood for a vigil, crying, embracing and laying piles of flowers. On Monday morning, as the thousands of developers lined up waiting to enter the auditorium for Apples WWDC, they did so on a city plaza right outside city hall, which was lined with rainbow flags. Elsewhere in the city, for the first time in a decade, that symbol was felled to half-mast. Tim Cook Apple Over the last few weeks, there's been a lot of anxiety over Apple's ability to compete in artificial intelligence the mega-hot space that companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft see as the next big thing. At today's WWDC conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook and the rest of the presenters pulled off a neat trick: Totally and utterly rebutting that claim, without ever bringing it up once. The message is clear, if you read between the lines. Apple is signaling that artificial intelligence is the future, but that its belief on user experience trumps everything else. It's a very Apple-like approach. For instance, the iPhone is getting voicemail transcription with the next iOS update, due in the fall. That sounds straightforward, but it requires some heavy-duty speech recognition juice behind the scenes to do it justice. Recognizing real, actual human speech is different than the stilted way you talk to Siri and her ilk today, and much more difficult. Similarly, the souped-up Apple Photos coming in the next version can recognize people's faces and sort them by groups, so you can see photos bunched up by family member. That's a hallmark feature of Google Photos, hailed as a pioneering app in artificial intelligence when it first launched last year. And Siri intelligence is coming to the iPhone keyboard, so it can make intelligent recommendations based on the text message conversation you're having. If someone asks you for a phone number, just as an example, the Siri-powered keyboard will suggest that you send the appropriate entry from your contacts. Or if you're bilingual, it'll switch to the correct keyboard. WWDC2016 The ability to read a conversation and glean the context in real time is a huge challenge for artificial intelligence, and one that Facebook has worked really hard at solving. Ultimately, Apple spent a lot of time and a lot of energy on stage today talking about features that require advanced, real-deal artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to work. But it never addressed the topic head-on, focusing instead on the cool features coming to consumers soon. Story continues Apple is famous for its willingness to wait on integrating a new technology into its products before it can get it just exactly right. And artificial intelligence is notoriously hard to get right. If Apple is putting it into consumer-facing products, it's a sign of confidence from a company that some are concerned could become the next BlackBerry. NOW WATCH: Sorry Apple fans the iPhone 7 is going to be boring More From Business Insider (Adds details from presentation, share price) By Julia Love and Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO, June 13 (Reuters) - Apple Inc is opening its popular Siri digital assistant to outside developers, which means iPhone users could soon be able to hail rides with Uber, publish photos on Shutterfly or make a call on Skype with voice commands. The move, announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco on Monday, is Apple's latest attempt to spruce up the iPhone experience as sales of the best-selling product flag. The world's best-known technology company also gave a demonstration of Siri on the Mac computer, which for the first time will be able to search for photos, documents, music and other files via voice commands. Siri will also work similarly with Apple TV. Among other revamps, it said its Apple Pay mobile payment system would be able to work for some internet purchases on its Safari browser, including on Mac computers, representing a challenge to PayPal Holdings Inc. Apple is also adding Siri's artificial intelligence to its messaging app, which will get quick access to emojis and new ways to expand and change how texts are displayed. The presentation was kicked off by Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook asking for a moment of silence for the victims of Sunday's mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. That was followed up by a demonstration of a new operating system for the Apple Watch that opens apps much faster than the previous version, and lets users write messages with their finger on the watch face, including in Chinese. Apple's Siri move was largely foreseen by analysts, and the event itself did not grip investors as some of Apple's product announcements have in the past. Its shares were down 1.1 percent at $97.65 in afternoon trading, near where they were at the start of the presentation. "Whatever news comes out of it (the conference) might matter to some short-term traders but won't affect our view on the stock," said Mark Mulholland, portfolio manager of the Matthew 25 fund, during the presentation. "We're going to hold this stock for at least another three years, because it has such a dominant position in the phone market." Story continues Siri is the most visible aspect of Apple's artificial intelligence program, commonly known as AI. Rivals such as Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc's Google are investing heavily in their own digital assistants, analysts say. "Apple just can't stand still in light of this competition," said analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. Apple acknowledged a number of developers' grievances this month by allowing ads in App Store search results, which gives them a way to stand out in a sea of apps. And it will give developers a bigger cut of revenues on subscription apps. (Reporting by Julia Love and Noel Randewich in San Francisco, additional reporting by David Randall; editing by Peter Henderson and Bill Rigby) All grown up! Modern Family star Ariel Winter celebrated her upcoming high school graduation on Sunday, sharing a snap of herself on Instagram hugging a pal dressed in a similar lacy white dress. "From Baccalaureate to Graduation tomorrow and then UCLA bound #classof2020," Winter wrote. WATCH: EXCLUSIVE -- Ariel Winter Opens Up About Racy Instagram Pics, Building Her Confidence The 18-year-old actress is graduating from Campbell Hall School, a private high school in Studio City, California, on Monday. In April, she revealed she's attending college at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). "I love UCLA. Everyone in my family loves UCLA. It's an amazing school," Winter told ET last month at Modern Family's Emmy consideration event in Los Angeles. "The college process was so long and just really, really insane. But at the end of the day, I'm so happy with UCLA." "When I got the acceptance letter I literally just sat and cried staring at my computer," she added, also sharing that she'll continue to act while in school. Graduation isn't the only big milestone Winter's recently celebrated. Last month, she attended her senior prom in a lacy black strapless gown with a friend, after recently splitting with her now ex-boyfriend, Laurent Claude Gaudette. WATCH: Ariel Winter Shares a Racy, Cleavage-Baring Easter Photo Aside from her school activities, Winter is currently filming Burt Reynolds' upcoming dark comedy, Dog Years, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Reynolds, 80, plays an aging, former movie star in the film, who is forced to realize that his glory days are behind him. ... And it's safe to say Winter's skin-baring costume on set is pretty jaw-dropping. Watch below: Related Articles Arjun Kapoor with kid sister Anshula. Arjun Kapoor with kid sister Anshula. Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor paid his final respects to his maternal grandmother, Sattee Shourie, who passed away on Saturday. His father, Boney Kapoor, was also present at the crematorium. The actor was shooting for Mohit Suris Half Girlfriend in Delhi when the news broke out. Arjun grew up with his maternal grandparents after his parents separation and hence was said to be very close to his grandmother. After losing his mother Mona to cancer a few years ago, Arjun and his kid sister Anshula had become very close to his maternal grandmother. Shourie passed away in her sleep in the early hours of Saturday. The last rites were held at the crematorium on Saturday evening itself. Arjuns sister Anshula and his uncle, actor Anil Kapoor and his nephew, actor Mohit Marwah were also present. Other friends and family who were spotted outside the crematorium were director Karan Johar, actor Tanvi Azmi, actor-director Satish Kaushik and comedian Sunil Pal. Click through the pictures. Images by Yogen Shah ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports Sam Ehlinger officially becomes the starting quarterback of the Colts. If he fails or gets injured, Nick Foles will take over. And if Foles gets injured, the quarterback will be anyone but Matt Ryan. Ryan is done. Hes out. He wont play again, for reasons rooted in his contract. Put simply, once the team decided [more] From ELLE Want a new obsession? Try Audrey Marrs. She's a former punk rocker who produces documentary films, holds an Oscar (for Inside Job with Matt Damon), gets career advice from Carrie Brownstein, and thinks Internet feminism is awesome. And since her new film, Time to Choose, debuts this week, we figured we'd put our girl crush (grrrl crush?) to good use and interview her You have an Oscar. You can do almost anything, work-wise. Why 'Time to Choose'? Before this film, I had two children. My perspective got turned upside down. And I wanted to produce a documentary on climate change because it's urgent. I'm not a journalist, but we share something with you which is the addiction to urgency. I have that for sure. Climate change is like the Kanye of world issues-everyone talks about it, all the time. How is this movie different? This film is not about whether or not climate change exists. Quite frankly, that argument is beneath anything I would want to make. This story is about solutions. I'd found peace with the fact that we were fucked, as a planet. But now, I know that we're not if we do the right things, and those things require a lot of faith in humanity. Will those things happen? Don't know. But this film explores what technologies exist that might actually save the world. Oscar Isaac is my husband, but you got him to narrate your documentary without asking me. How? Our music supervisors, Leigh Lezark and Geordon Nicol [of The Misshapes] suggested him. And I'll be honest, we were like, who? I have tunnel vision because I have a two year old, a four year old, and 200 urgent things about climate change in front of my face. So I was like, 'Uh, sure, he sounds nice.' Leigh was like, 'Yes, he's great. He's in this movie called Star Wars. He's a very nice guy.' We talk a lot about career satisfaction at ELLE. You were a punk rocker who became a film producer, without any family connections or porn detours. How? Why? Tell us everything. Story continues I was in Olympia, Washington in the '90s-and if you know about '90s music, you know it was a hotbed for punk, especially riot grrrl and other [female-driven genres]. It was a scene that was very easy and welcome for girls to start bands in any capacity. It was really a cool time. And around 1998, I loved what I was doing, but the music scene was evolving and changing and it wasn't like any of us were making money When I was on my last tour with Bratmobile and The Donnas, I thought, 'Okay, as soon as I get back from tour, I'm gonna be an art curator.' That's what I wanted to do. But I had no experience, and in the art world, having a degree from the tn State College equals not having a degree at all. So I thought, 'What's the best thing I can do now? What's the best job I can get under the circumstances? Maybe be somebody's assistant?' I read your partnership with your director, Charles Ferguson, came about from Craigslist?! It was 2003, and so I did what you do in 2003: you go on Craigslist. And I saw that the filmmaker Charles Ferguson wanted an assistant. I had three grueling interviews with Charles. They were hard. I came to New York for basically the first time. I met his fascinating friends. I loved it. But I knew it wasn't my destiny to be someone's assistant. So then I went back to school. Film school? No, so, do you know who Miranda July is? Yeah, I'm familiar with Miranda July. So I didn't really know her, but she told our mutual friend Carrie Brownstein, 'Hey, there's a curatorial practice program at California College of the Arts.' And Carrie said, 'Call Audrey!' So I guess you could say, if Miranda July and Carrie Brownstein hadn't told me, I wouldn't have gone to grad school. But I almost didn't make it through. Why? Because that's when Charles and I started working on No End In Sight. He'd called me and said, 'How do you feel about Iraq?' and I was like, 'Uh, for vacation? I feel pretty bad about it.' But it was about a film on the war, which-again this addiction to urgency-seemed awfully pressing. So I said, 'Sure, I will fly anywhere to make this work. But not as someone's assistant.' And I advocated for myself, you know? I became a producer. I was already doing the work of a producer anyway, but it felt very good-very good-to have the title. Why do you love producing? Because I'm great at chaos! I'm serious, I am. I love chaos. I love finding solutions to many problems at the same time. I love seeing paths to things that nobody else does. It's incredibly satisfying to me. Is it weird to have a music producer on your films, because you used to be a musician? Not if they're good! I do get annoyed if someone isn't competent, for sure, but for Time to Choose, we had Geordon Nicol and Leigh Lezark, and they picked music for the film that was so perfect, it was like it had been written for us. And that's what you want: people on your team who have the same level of vision as you. That's a big part of success in film. You mentioned Carrie Brownstein, who's obviously a superhero. Miranda July is, too. Do you find having successful friends is motivating for your own career, or is it a distraction instead? Honestly? It's a non-issue. Carrie Brownstein is a famous musician because she works hard and she's great. She deserves it. Kathleen Hanna and women in the Olympia scene who found success in the music world, they found it because they're talented and they're driven and they're good. Maybe I was born without the jealousy gene, I don't know. I'm super competitive, but it's with myself. And that's what I credit to my own accomplishments. How do you feel about the reverent way Riot Grrrl is portrayed on the Internet? Especially by a younger generation like Tavi Gevinson? I feel great about it. I read how younger women are tapping into the scene as a feminist portal, and I think what they're saying is positive, and intelligent, and exciting. I love it. How about the way '90s fashion is becoming a thing? Is it cool or annoying to see your tour wardrobe on the Saint Laurent runway? I actually think that is very cool, too, and very flattering, and a little silly. But I also wish-gosh, I wish-that the girls who are trying to dress like that could have been to Olympia in the '90s. It was a scene. What people were making from thrift store finds and what was on the Paris runways, sometimes even then it felt like the same thing. And we knew we were having a moment and it was this very special, very strange moment in time. How about the fact that those silk softball jackets you probably paid $5 for are now a Gucci hallmark? It's cool. I think fashion can be art, and if you want to invest in something beautiful, fashion is a great way to do it. I do. I mean, should you spend $600 on ripped tights that are based on tights we ripped while dragging our equipment around? I don't think you need to do that. [Laughs.] Did you save any of your clothes? Yeah. I have daughters, and I'm kind of sentimental. I saved a few things for them. I have a leather jacket that I got at Goodwill. It's beat to hell. I hope they love it when they're teenagers. Sydney (AFP) - The Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit with the colours of the rainbow on Monday as hundreds of Australians gathered to stand in solidarity with the global gay community after the worst mass shooting in modern US history. As Sydney's Town Hall was bathed in pink light, a crowd gathered at Taylor Square for a sombre, candlelit vigil for the 50 people shot dead at an Orlando nightclub on Sunday, and the scores left wounded. "This could have happened anywhere," Paul Savage, one of those paying tribute, told AFP from the busy strip that hosts Sydney's annual gay pride Mardi Gras as those attending held hands and hugged. "He could easily have walked into a bar in Sydney even though the gun laws here are much more helpful." Savage said the level of hatred displayed by the gunman was "just incomprehensible" and described the vigil as a "show of solidarity". Earlier Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had said the shootings were not only an assault on the gay community but "an attack on all of us" as Sydney's Lord Mayor Clover Moore tweeted "our hearts break for Orlando". In Newtown, in Sydney's inner west, hundreds more gathered for a second impromptu vigil to call out discrimination and racism, adding that not only had the gay community been targeted but also Latinos. "We called this action because it desperately needed to be called," organiser Rachel Evans told AFP. "It's very important to come and say 'together we are strong'." Organisers called on Australians not to lash out against Muslim communities, adding the focus should be on continuing the fight for gay rights. In Melbourne, hundreds more gathered to pay their respects to those killed, while the government said buildings such as the Arts Centre would be lit in rainbow colours. Australian rights activists said the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community had taken the attack deeply to heart. Story continues "When you go to a venue like a gay club you expect that to be one of the places where you feel safe and supported," Chris Pycroft from the New South Wales Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In Wellington, the city council said the New Zealand capital's main downtown concert venue, the Michael Fowler Centre, would be illuminated in rainbow colours, with a vigil nearby to remember the victims. Vigil organisers InsideOUT said all were welcome, adding: "We intend for this to be a space free of Islamophobia, please help us keep it that way." Prime Minister John Key said it was "a terrible and tragic day for America and the gay community". In Bangkok around a dozen people gathered outside the US embassy, lighting candles and laying down flowers and cards. One note on rainbow coloured paper read: "Love always wins." In Hong Kong, about 100 people held a vigil in the city's financial district. "Homophobia affects everyone. As a community we stand together," activist William Leung of Pink Alliance, one of the vigil organisers, told AFP. DUBAI (Reuters) - Bahraini police detained Nabeel Rajab, one of the most prominent rights activists in the Arab world, his wife said on Monday on her Twitter account, nearly a year after he was freed from prison by royal pardon. Sumaya Rajab said security forces searched the family house before they arrested her husband. No reason for the arrest was given, the Arabic language al-Wasat newspaper reported her as saying, and there was no immediate comment from authorities. Rajab, founder of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, played a leading role in Shi'ite Muslim-led demonstrations in the 2011 demonstrations demanding reforms in the Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab kingdom. Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is based, quelled the 2011 protests but has since struggled to resolve political deadlock between the government and the opposition. Many Shi'ites complain of political and economic discrimination, a charge authorities deny. Rajab was jailed in May 2012 on charges of organizing and participating in illegal protests and released two years later. In January 2015, he was sentenced to six months in jail over remarks deemed insulting of the kingdom's security establishment. He appealed against the verdict but an appeals court confirmed the ruling in May 2015. He served two months in jail before King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa ordered his release by special pardon due to his poor health. (Reporting by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Dominic Evans) By Donna Owens BALTIMORE (Reuters) - The Baltimore police van driver who transported black detainee Freddie Gray left him unattended after the ride in which he broke his neck, a police officer testified on Monday at the murder trial of a third officer in Gray's death. Prosecutors allege that Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 46, gave Gray a "rough ride" or drove erratically after Gray was arrested in April 2015. Their questioning of Officer William Porter aimed at showing Goodson ignored department procedures and failed to seek medical help. Gray's death triggered rioting and protests and stoked a U.S. debate on police treatment of minorities. Gray was arrested for fleeing officers unprovoked and was bundled into a police van while shackled and not seatbelted, a violation of procedure. Goodson is among six officers charged in Gray's death. He is accused of second-degree depraved heart murder and other charges, and his attorneys have argued that Gray caused his own injuries. During two hours of testimony in Baltimore City Circuit Court, Porter said Goodson was not around after he drove Gray to the Western District station. Gray was unresponsive in the back of the van, he said. "I don't recall where he was," Porter testified under questioning by defense attorney Matthew Fraling. He added that Goodson might have been dealing with a second detainee. Porter was present at some of the stops that Goodson made. Prosecutor Michael Schatzow underscored in his questioning of Porter that leaving a prisoner unattended was a violation of police procedure. Schatzow read from a statement from Porter in which he said he had told Goodson during Gray's transport that he should be taken to a hospital. Asked if Goodson had agreed, Porter said, "Sure." Porter said that he responded to a call to assist Goodson at the fourth of six stops the van made. He found Gray lying on the van's floor, and helped him onto a bench. Story continues A medical examiner's report found that Gray was fatally injured between the second and fourth stops. Judge Barry Williams is deciding the case in a bench trial. Porter's testimony in a case in which he also faces trial was the result of a legal battle that reached Maryland's highest court. Porter's trial on a manslaughter charge ended in a hung jury, and he faces retrial in September. Williams acquitted one officer, Edward Nero, in a second trial. (Writing by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Dan Grebler and Matthew Lewis) Dhaka (AFP) - Bangladesh police said Monday they have arrested more than 8,000 people in a nationwide crackdown launched after a wave of murders targeting minorities and secular activists. Authorities have come under mounting international pressure to end the attacks in which nearly 50 people have been killed over the last three years, many hacked to death with machetes. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed at the weekend to catch "each and every killer" and on Monday police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan said 3,245 suspects had been arrested, raising the total to 8,192 since Friday. Opposition parties have accused the government of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent. Deputy inspector general of national police AKM Shahidur Rahman said most of those arrested were criminal suspects with existing warrants against them, rather than suspected militants. "Only a fraction of the people who have been arrested are members of Islamist militant groups," he said. The crackdown comes after five suspected Islamist militants were shot dead in gunbattles with police in recent days. It is thought to have been triggered by the murder this month of Mahmuda Begum, wife of a top anti-terror police officer. The officer had led several high-profile operations against the banned group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), members of which were among those arrested in the latest sweep. JMB is one of two local groups blamed by the government for most of the recent killings. Authorities reject claims of responsibility by the Islamic State (IS) group and a South Asian branch of Al-Qaeda and say they have no presence in the country. Premier Hasina accuses the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its Islamist party ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, of orchestrating the killings to destabilise the country. - Hindu priest decapitated - A BNP spokesman said police had detained more than 2,100 of its activists across the country. Story continues "Police have arrested and harassed opposition activists and ordinary people in the name of the crackdown. Also many of our activists have fled their homes, fearing arrests," Rizvi Ahmed told AFP. "Police have said several suspected militants have been shot dead in crossfire. Instead of putting them into trials, these suspected militants are being eliminated in cold blood." Last week an elderly Hindu priest was found nearly decapitated in a rice field, while a Christian grocer was hacked to death near a church. IS claimed responsibility for those murders as well as that of a 62-year-old Hindu monastery worker on Friday. Bangladesh is officially secular, but around 90 percent of its 160 million-strong population is Muslim. Other victims have included liberal activists and secular bloggers along with two foreigners and two gay rights activists. Mubashar Hasan, an expert on political Islam, said the crackdown risked further alienating hardliners who feel they have no choice but to join the militants. A previous government crackdown on government opponents -- including a ban on Jamaat -- following a protracted political crisis is widely blamed for pushing many Bangladeshis towards extremism. "While fighting militants on the ground is important, winning hearts and minds of people is crucial so that more people do not join militancy," said Hasan, of Dhaka's University of Liberal Arts. National police chief Shahidul Hoque defended the crackdown, saying only those suspected of wrongdoing were being picked up. Thousands of people were arrested over the weekend in Bangladesh, as part of a sweeping crackdown by the South Asian nations government against increasing Islamic extremist attacks on minorities. Authorities said they detained more than 5,000 people, of which 85 are believed to be Islamic fundamentalists, the Associated Press reported. Nearly 20 individuals including atheist bloggers, foreigners and priests from various minority religions have been killed in Bangladesh in the past two years, with most of them hacked to death in broad daylight. The country witnessed four such murders in the past week alone, including two Hindus and the wife of a counterterrorism police official. Although the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda have claimed responsibility for most of the killings, the Bangladeshi government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina continues to insist the international militant organizations have no presence in the country and attributes the attacks to local terrorist outfits linked to opposition parties. [AP] By Melanie Burton HONG KONG (Reuters) - Bank of China International (BOCI) plans to boost its commodity business by tapping a latent investor base in China and broadening its drive into Europe. The investment banking arm of state-backed Bank of China (3988.HK), the country's No.4 lender by assets, became the first Chinese member of the London Metal Exchange in 2012, pushing into commodities near the height of a demand boom. "Hopefully for the next five years, we'll get into the next stage (in our commodity business) which is to expand our products and our service capability so we can become a key player in the landscape," said Arthur Fan, managing director of BOCI's global commodities arm. "Supporting Chinese clients, that is where we have an edge. We regard ourselves as an international player, not from China or Hong Kong. Commodities is a global business, and with a global platform we will tap into those local players." BOCI set up the unit in 2010 to serve its Chinese customers with an energy hedging business in Hong Kong, before opening in London, New York, Singapore and Shanghai's free trade zone, focussing on energy, as well as base and precious metals. At the time, however, market participants said it was slow to build on momentum. Having launched an oil index product last year, BOCI plans to expand its index and structured products business for institutional and private wealth clients in China, from its own private banking base in Hong Kong, and through its parent's customers on the mainland. Further afield, BOCI is looking to expand its financing business for commodity clients, in repurchase agreements and for offtake and prepayments. In Europe, it will also rely on Bank of China's branches for introductions to new clients. "These next two years, we will start aggressively expanding our European clients," Fan said on Monday, adding that a mix of Chinese and Europeans on his London team should increase business with firms in the continent, such as in hedging for automakers. Story continues Fan moved back to Hong Kong this year after five years in London. Within Asia, BOCI is readying its business for the internationalisation of the yuan, which Fan sees in the next 2-3 years. (Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Joseph Radford) Some of us may develop a temper when weve had a drink. Its not unheard of. By making our brains release more of the happy chemical dopamine, alcohol can lower our inhibitions and make us more carefree. For some, this manifests in being more relaxed. For others, it can make us less concerned with the consequences of our actions. On a recent holiday to Berlin, I got into a fiery argument with a close friend on a drunken night out. It was me at fault, blowing my fuse over something harmless, something she'd said that Id taken the wrong way. The next morning, I apologised profusely; I was stricken with guilt over how Id treated my friend and mortified that Id ruined the fun. The truth is this wasnt an isolated incident. There have been other nights where Ive argued with friends over a silly miscommunication, or where Ive lost my temper with a stranger after theyve accidentally bumped into me on the dance floor. Sober, Im a patient and upbeat person; drunk, Im someone else entirely. Its largely proven that drinking can make adults more violent. Statistics suggest that in almost half of violent crimes committed in the UK, the perpetrator was under the influence of alcohol. The Home Office detail how the night-time economy i.e. bars, clubs and the alcohol they sell increase crime rates, particularly in city centres. This problem is only heightened by binge drinking culture in the UK, and particularly effects young males who do not know each other well. Alcohol doesnt inspire aggression solely in men, though. In a 2012 study from the University of North Carolina, Nora Noel, PhD, a professor of psychology at the university, proposed that, in general, women were less likely to express anger assertively and suppressing this emotion can lead to an irritation build-up that may explode with alcohol. This sounds familiar; Im relatively docile day to day, but those closest to me have now started to refer to my drunken outbursts as Prosecco Rage. It makes me reticent to go on nights out with them and drink at the rate they do, just in case I start acting out of character. Internally, I wonder where this behaviour comes from, and whether my drunken anger reveals something more sinister about my personality. Story continues Joshua Gowin, PHD of the National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse, explains that, like any drug, alcohol doesnt introduce behaviours that arent already present. He claims that alcohol isnt capable of creating new behaviours and merely heightens behaviours that already exist within us. Trouble is, alcohol dulls activity in your brains prefrontal cortex, which has been linked to self control and self reflection. So, when normally, you would slow yourself down or realise your actions or reactions arent appropriate, when youre drunk that doesnt happen. Other scientists argue that outbursts of aggression when drunk are more of a genetic problem. According to Men's Fitness, a 2015 study in Finland found that people with a mutated form of the HTR2B gene had a tendency to become more violent, reckless and impulsive when they drink. In a small group of 14 Finnish people who carried ta certain mutated gene, those who had consumed alcohol were far more likely to pick a fight or explode into an aggressive outburst. Do I need to just face up to the terrifying prospect that I really am an aggressive and angry person whose true identity is revealed after one too many Jagerbombs? Does this mean Im suffering from a faulty gene? Or can I say my brains prefrontal cortex is being dulled by my Friday night boozing? Or do I need to just face up to the terrifying prospect that I really am an aggressive and angry person whose true identity is revealed after one too many Jagerbombs? I took my concerns to integrated psychotherapist and couples counsellor Hilda Burke. Hilda first told me that, no matter what our personality type is, its natural to experience anger. She explained: Where we differ is the capacity to make sense of our emotions and how we express our feelings of anger. Sober, most of us have the ability to do this. However, alcohol is a disinhibitor. It breaks down the ability to rationalise and listen to others. Therefore, if someone annoys us we are more likely to vocalise it when drunk. By way of a solution to the problem, Hilda believes that going teetotal may be a good lifestyle change for some but isnt actually exploring the root cause. Aggression and anger are symptoms of drinking. But alcohol isnt the cause of these emotions. She says: As anger is a secondary emotion, its often masking something else. Anger can be an emotion we express when we feel hurt, anxious or even insecure. Hilda tells me to think back to those nights when anger took over. How were you feeling emotionally? How were you feeling in yourself? Did you have an existing conflict with the person you argued with? She says that these are the things to explore simply because alcohol doesnt create new behaviours and it doesnt make you a different person. When working with my clients, I try to unravel what the backdrop of the outburst was. This rather than the anger itself is what needs to be tackled. Of course the drunken outburst needs to be looked at as it can prove very damaging for a relationship. But to focus solely on alcohol is to address the symptom rather than the root issue. Drinking to ease your mood is never a wise choice. Similarly, drinking to excess is unlikely to make you behave well. Thats not to say Hilda doesnt think you can help the issue by curbing reckless drinking habits. She explains: Drinking to ease your mood is never a wise choice. Similarly, drinking to excess is unlikely to make you behave well. If there is an emotion bubbling under the surface, a large quantity of alcohol is likely to see it emerge and invariably in a way that is not constructive. If drinking simply brings out the feelings youre already having, then it makes sense that stopping drinking altogether might not make you feel better. Following my Berlin bust up with my friend, I went sober for a month to see how Id enjoy nights out without alcohol. It wasnt as challenging as I feared but being in a bar with your mates is not so fun when theyre screeching like hyenas on their fifth espresso martini and youre sat there quietly sipping on your lime and soda. For me, not drinking altogether doesnt seem like a long term answer. Plus, talking to the experts makes me think there is an emotional link to my outbursts that Im not seeing. As a 28-year-old girl, theres always a plethora of insecurities, worries and self- doubt swirling through my head. Perhaps I need to examine what was going on psychologically for me on those nights where my temper was unleashed. Because alcohol may be fun, but alcohol mixed with anger, rage and apologies is not a cocktail I enjoy. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here? Are Period Apps An Invasion Of Privacy? Tattoo Artists Are Often The First People To Catch Skin Conditions 6 Guys Get Quizzed On Periods And Fail Miserably From tributes to the victims of the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando to a big night for Broadway hit Hamilton, the 2016 Tony Awards show was packed with action. Here are some of the highlights from the night. James Cordens Hamilton spoof The host of the show (and of CBSs Late Late Show) kicked off the awards with a quick tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting, followed by a parody of the opening number of Hamiltonbut instead of being about the founding father, it was about Corden: How does an upstart Briton best known for sittin and jesting from a desk in the middle of of a forgotten slot on late night, far from Manhattan, chattin with Hollywood phonies end up being the guiding host of Tonys? Lin-Manuel Mirandas sonnet The Hamilton star and creator accepted the award for best original score with a sonnet dedicated to his wife and acknowledging the victims of the Orlando shooting: Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. Frank Langellas acceptance speech When the star of The Father won for best leading actor in a play, he read a quote relating to the shooting in Orlando: When something bad happens we have three choices: we let it define us, we let it destroy us, or we let it strengthen us. To those affected by the attack, he said, I am standing in a room full of the most generous humans on Earth, and we will be with you every step of the way. The Hamilton performance The cast of the hit show, who were introduced by Barack and Michelle Obama as well as Common, performed History Has Its Eyes On You and Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down). Out of respect for the victims of the Orlando shooting, they left their prop rifles at home. The political jokes Andrew Rannells dressed up as Donald Trump and Glenn Close dressed up as Hillary Clinton. Referencing A Chorus Line, she sang: I really need this job, oh God I need this job, Ive got to get this job! Hamilton wins best musical Producer Jeffrey Seller said it all when he quoted the show in his acceptance speech: Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now. The show failed to match (or beat) the record 12 wins set by The Producers, but surely 11 awards feels sweet to the cast. * For a graphic of opinion polls: http://tmsnrt.rs/1Ke31HF * Betfair: 64 percent chance of an In vote * William Hill: 69 percent chance of an In vote (Adds details on odds) LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - The chances that Britain will vote to leave the European Union increased sharply on Monday to 36 percent, the highest level since the June 23 referendum was announced by Prime Minister David Cameron four months ago, according to betting odds. The implied probability of a British vote to stay in the EU fell to as low as 64 percent, down around 14 percentage points from last Thursday when the probability was 78 percent, according to betting odds supplied by Betfair. Odds moved after an opinion poll by ORB for The Independent newspaper showed the "Out" camp was 10 points ahead of "In". Bookmaker William Hill said it was offering its shortest ever odds - 7/4 or a 36 percent implied probability - on the chances of a vote to leave the European Union. "We had to halve our odds on Monday morning for a Brexit result," William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said. "Political punters betting with William Hill that the EU Referendum will produce a 'Leave/Brexit' outcome have forced the odds down to their shortest level since the date of the vote was confirmed back in February," Sharpe said. William Hill said it was offering 4/9 for a bet on an In vote, or an implied probability of 69 percent. Opinion pollsters who failed to forecast both Prime Minister David Cameron's unexpectedly decisive election victory and the result of Israel's election last year have so far painted contradictory pictures of British public opinion. A British exit would rock the European Union -- already shaken by differences over migration and the future of the euro zone -- by ripping away its second-largest economy, one of its top two military powers and by far its richest financial center. (Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Stephen Addison) PARIS French director Bibo Bergeron, whose credits span DreamWorksThe Road to El Dorado,Shark Tale and Luc-Besson produced A Monster in Paris, is set to helm Charlotte, a WW2-set animated feature turning on the life of German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomo The 2D feature will be mainly based on Charlotte Salomons Life? Or Theatre? an autobiographical series of 769 paintings which the young artist created between 1941 and 1943 in the south of France, where she lived before she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to Auschwitz in 1943 at the age of 26. Staying true to Charlottes spirit and body of work, our film will be punctuated with fantasy, dream-like elements and the animation designs will be minimalist, in a similar vein as (Remi Chayes) Long Way North. Well be animating and interpreting her paintings, placing the emphasis on the story which is extraordinarly moving, said Bergeron, adding that Charlotte will play to young adults as well as family audiences, as Waltz With Bashir. Bergeron is attending the Annecy Festival this week to pitch the project to potential partners. The theme of Charlotte is how art can save our lives and help us stay sane; and it still resonates today, noted Bergeron. Julia Rosenberg at Toronto-based January Films is producing Charlotte, which will mark the producers first toon pic. Rosenberg has produced feature films and documentaries, notably Alan Zweigs 15 Reasons to Live which was nominated at Hot Docs. A pair of Canadian writers, Erik Rutherford and Miriam Toews, whose best-known novels are A Complicated Kindness and All My Puny Sorrows, are writing the screenplay. Bergeron said the project was being supported by the Charlotte Salomon Foundation, the trustee of Charlottes work. Telefilm Canada is financing the development of Charlotte, whose budget is in the 10 million Euros range. The production will be carried out of Canada and France. Charlotte Salomon is also the subject of a prize-winning novel, Charlotte, penned by one of Frances top authors, David Foenkinos, and published in January 2015. Salomons paintings were exhibited just last month at the Massena Museum in Nice. Story continues Related stories Annecy: U.S., Globalization Fire Up Fest, Market Annecy: Cartoon Network Imagination Studios Launching in Europe Indie Sales Powers Up Sales on 'My Life As a Zucchini' (EXCLUSIVE) Bill Murray will be honored with the 19th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, it was announced Monday. The actor-comedian will be awarded the prize at a Kennedy Center gala on Oct. 23, which will feature some of the biggest names in comedy and be taped for broadcast. "I'm honored by this award and by its timing," Murray said in a statement. "I believe Mark Twain has rolled over in his grave so much for so long, that this news won't disturb his peace." Kennedy Center president Deborah F. Rutter added, "Since his first performances on Saturday Night Live more than three decades ago, Bill Murray has charmed us with unforgettable performances from an eclectic cast of characters that have become ingrained in our cultural vernacular. An award-winning writer, actor and comedian, his brilliant wit and infectious spirit continue to inspire our laughter across generations both on and off the screen. His unique brand of humor seems to defy time itself - always remaining relevant and relatable to new audiences - much like our award's namesake." Read More: Comics Laud Eddie Murphy Ahead of Mark Twain Prize: "He's the Muhammad Ali of Comedy" The prize recognizes people who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the 19th-century novelist, essayist, social commentator and satirist who was born Samuel Clemens. Previous recipients of the prize include Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Lily Tomlin, Lorne Michaels, Steve Martin, Neil Simon, Billy Crystal, George Carlin, Bill Cosby, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Ellen DeGeneres, Carol Burnett, Jay Leno and Eddie Murphy. Murray was recently seen in the movie Rock the Kasbah and the Netflix holiday special A Very Murray Christmas. He also voiced Baloo in Disney's The Jungle Book, which hit theaters in April, and will next be seen in a cameo appearance in the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot. Orlando shooting Witnesses described running for their lives and seeing unimaginable carnage at Pulse in Orlando, a gay nightclub where 50 people were shot dead in an ISIS-claimed attack early Sunday. The shooting was the deadliest in US history. The suspected gunman, 29-year-old Omar Saddiqui Mateen, reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh) in a 911 call. Mateen started shooting at about 2 a.m., near last call for the club, which was hosting its popular Latin Night. Police shot and killed Mateen about three hours later. Those inside the club when the shooting happened told various news outlets about what they saw. Here are some of their stories: Ray Rivera, a 42-year-old DJ at the club, told The New York Times that he didn't realize at first that the noise he heard was shooting. He lowered the music in the club to figure out what was happening. "I thought it was firecrackers," he said. "I saw bodies on the floor, people on the floor everywhere. It was chaos, everybody trying to get out." Joel Figueroa, 19, described hearing the first shots ring out. "Bam, bam, bam. The only thing I could think of was to duck," he told the Times. His friend, Stanley, was there with him. "There was Stanley, on the floor," he recounted. Stanley was shot three times, Figueroa said. His present condition is unknown. Jose Flores, 25, was near the scene after the massacre had ended. "It looks like a war zone might look. Thats why I think its so important to have a relationship with God those people didnt know they were having their last drink, what was getting ready to happen." Christopher Hansen told the Associated Press that he escaped the club after the shooting started. "When I got across the street there was blood everywhere," he said. "I was helping somebody because he was laying down and I wasn't sure if he was dead or alive. I took my bandanna off, I shoved it in this hole, the bullet hole that was in his back." He described what he was thinking when the shooting started: "I was thinking, 'Are you kidding me?' So I just dropped down. I just said, 'Please, please, please, I want to make it out.' And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don't get shot." Story continues It's unclear what Mateen's connection with ISIS was, but he was on an FBI list of suspected ISIS sympathizers, and federal authorities had looked into him in 2013 and 2014. Mateen's father told NBC News that his son was angered when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago. "This has nothing to do with religion," he said. NOW WATCH: Golf legend Greg Norman reveals the truth behind US President Bill Clinton's late-night 1997 injury More From Business Insider Following the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir drew parallels Sunday between the anti-LGBT rhetoric of radical members of the Republican party and the language of terrorist groups like ISIS. Laura Jane Grace Talks Orlando Shooting, Gun Control Weir issued his remarks at this weekend's Bonnaroo Festival, where he accepted the Les Paul Spirit Award for Innovation and Achievement. "As we know, there was a massacre in Florida, not far from here," the famous guitarist said towards the end of his acceptance speech. "I'd like to point out that last week, a distinguished representative from the State of Georgia went on the floor of the House of Representatives of our country and started quoting Bible verses in which he basically promoted, or at least rationalized, death to gay people as a reward for the way they were born." Weir was referring to an incident that took place on the House floor at the end of May, when Georgia Rep. Rick W. Allen reportedly read from Romans 1:18-32 and Revelations 22:18-19. These passages include lines suggesting that LGBT people are "worthy of death." The reading drew a rebuke from the Human Rights Campaign. "At a time when LGBT people face staggering rates of discrimination, harassment and violence, Representative Allen's comments spread hate that does real harm," HRC Senior Vice President of Policy and Political Affairs JoDee Winterhof said in a statement. Speaking at Bonnaroo, Weir also brought up a since-deleted tweet from the lieutenant governor of Texas quoting Galatians 6:7. "This morning, the lieutenant governor of Texas said that, 'Well, they're reaping what they've sown,'" Weir said. "Now, I wanna ask a question: how different are these peoples' worldviews from the worldviews of the people with ISIS? It's the same hatred. They pull those hatreds out of different books, but it's the same hatred and I'd just like to point that out." Story continues In a short address on Sunday, President Obama called the Orlando massacre "an act of terror and an act of hate. "As Americans," he continued, "we are united in grief and in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people." Related TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed three and wounded seven at a field hospital for forces fighting Islamic State in their Libyan coastal stronghold of Sirte on Sunday, a security source said. The bombing caused extensive damage to the hospital, about 50 km (30 miles) from the front line, the source said. Two other attempted suicide bombings against forces positioned just outside the centre of Sirte did not cause casualties, he said. Brigades aligned with Libya's U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) have made rapid advances over the past month. This week they entered Sirte, engaging Islamic State militants in street battles and targeting them with air strikes. The brigades, made up mainly of fighters from the western city of Misrata, have faced suicide bombings, snipers and mines. At least 120 brigade members have been killed and more than 500 wounded, security and hospital officials say. (Reporting by Ahmed Elumami; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Louise Ireland) Sarajevo (AFP) - A Bosnian Muslim leader on Monday paid tribute for the first time to Serb civilians killed in Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war, expressing regret for lost lives. Bakir Izetbegovic, the Muslim member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, came to Kazani, on the heights of Sarajevo, where several dozen Serb civilians were killed by the majority Bosnian Muslim army and dumped in a ravine. No senior Muslim official has ever before been to the massacre site. Accompanied by other Bosnian Muslim leaders, including Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic, Izetbegovic laid flowers on the edge of the ravine. "I feel I have a debt (towards the victims). I should have come here earlier to express my regrets and express condolences to the people who have ended up here in an awful way," Izetbegovic said. "This is the main reason why I came here... But I also hope that this gesture will inspire others to do something similar," he added, referring to Bosnian Serb and Croat officials. During almost the entire war, for more than three years, Sarajevo was under siege by Bosnian Serb forces. More than 10,000 people were killed either by shelling or by snipers during the siege, the worst in the modern history of Europe. However, mostly between the spring and fall of 1993, a number of Serb civilians were taken from their homes and killed, including several dozen in Kazani. A notorious criminal who commanded a defence unit of Sarajevo, Musan Topalovic, nicknamed Caco, is considered the main person responsible for these crimes. He was killed in October 1993 under circumstances that remain unclear after being arrested by Bosnian Muslim forces. The bodies of 29 people were exhumed from the Kazani grave, although the exhumations have never been completed. Milan Mandic, president of an association of families of Serbs who disappeared in the Sarajevo region, hailed a "brave gesture for Serb people and the families" of victims. "In the capacity as the most influential politician among Bosniaks (Muslims), he found strength to come to this place and lay flowers in the memory of these innocent victims," Mandic told AFP. The Bosnian war claimed more than 100,000 lives and left homeless more than a half of country's pre-war four-million population. Boston Pride held a moments silence at their closing party on June 12 in honor of the victims and their families in the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub, Orlando, that morning. Miik Martorell, one of the organizers of Floridas Fort Lauderdale Pride was there to speak before the moments silence, honoring those killed. He said, We came here this weekend from Pride in Fort Lauderdale to help out our fellow Pride so we could learn. And Im going to tell you, the biggest experience weve learned is how wonderful you guys are here in Boston. So loving community, please dont let anyone ever take away your happiness. Dont ever let anyone tell you you cant be who you are. Be proud of who you are. Salute those who have come before us and the lives of those who have, who have gone now, who have fought valiantly for us to be able to be here today. Credit: YouTube/Boston Pride London (AFP) - A group campaigning for Britain to leave the EU briefly posted a tweet on Monday warning that EU membership could lead to an "Orlando-style atrocity", prompting outrage from "Remain" supporters. "Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long," read the slogan on a picture featuring what appeared to be Islamic State fighters. The tweet on the @LeaveEUOfficial account said: "The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists. Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote Leave". The tweet was taken down around an hour later. Forty-nine people were killed Sunday when gunman Omar Mateen burst into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and opened fire. Mateen later died in a shootout with police. In the wake of the recent Paris and Brussels attacks, anti-EU campaigners in Britain also issued warnings about the free movement of arms and fighters in the bloc. Their opponents say Britain is not part of the EU's Schengen free movement zone and therefore has the border checks to prevent such activity. Home Secretary Theresa May, who supports Prime Minister David Cameron's campaign to keep Britain in the EU, said the poster was "utterly irresponsible" when asked about it in parliament. "This is a terrible and horrific homophobic attack," she said. "I think attempts to link it into membership of the European Union should rightly be condemned." Education minister Nicky Morgan, who also backs staying in the EU, reacted on Twitter saying: "This is really shameful". Hilary Benn, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour party which also supports "Remain", called the tweet "shameful and cowardly". "Our best protection against terror is standing together, whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels," he tweeted. Ten days before the referendum, opinion polls indicate that the "Leave" and "Remain" campaigns are neck and neck. By Elizabeth Piper LONDON (Reuters) - A group campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union urged voters on Monday to back a British exit from the EU, or "Brexit", to prevent what it called "an Orlando-style atrocity", a message condemned by rival campaigners. Posted on the @LeaveEUOfficial Twitter account run by Leave.EU, a day after 50 people were killed in the Florida shootings, the poster-style advertisement said: "Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long". It accompanied a Tweet saying: "The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists. Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote #Leave." The @LeaveEUOfficial Twitter account is linked to the Leave.EU's website. The poster disappeared from the Twitter feed about an hour after it appeared. Several calls to representatives of Leave.EU, founded by insurance tycoon and supporter of the anti-EU UK Independence Party Arron Banks, went unanswered. An email asking for comment and to clarify that the campaign had posted the advertisement also went unanswered. The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club early Sunday morning after a three-hour siege. The official "Vote Leave" campaign, which has distanced itself from Leave.EU, disassociated itself from the poster. Former London mayor, Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of Vote Leave, told reporters his campaign had nothing to do with the Leave.EU message and it was "very, very important" not to make political capital out of the shooting. Both sides have stepped up campaigning before a June 23 referendum on Britain's EU membership, keen to break a deadlock in opinion polls which suggest that voters are all but evenly split. With less than two weeks to go, many lawmakers and voters have criticised the often bitter campaign. The main opposition Labour Party, which supports Britain remaining in the European Union and some lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party, which are deeply divided over the vote, condemned the poster. "This is a shameful and cowardly poster," said Hilary Benn, Labour's foreign affairs spokesman. "It takes courage to stand by your principles and your friends when they are attacked, whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels," he said in a statement, referring to Islamist attacks on the two European capitals which killed more than 150 people. "Doing so makes us stronger and shows our resolve to stand up for our values and our way of life in the face of those who hold both in such murderous contempt." "This is really shameful," Nicky Morgan, the Conservative education minister, posted on Twitter. (Additional reporting by Kylie MacLellan and William Schomberg, editing by Mark John) Early Sunday morning, a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing at least 49 people and injuring 53 others. The suspected shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida, used the same weapon as Adam Lanza did at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012; as Syed Rizwan Farook did at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California in December; as Chris Harper Mercer did at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon in October: an AR-15. According to the National Rifle Association, AR-15s are "America's most popular rifles." Widely available, lightweight and customizable, the AR-15 is a semi-automatic firearm often and incorrectly termed an assault rifle. It's also been the weapon of choice for the most staggering mass shootings in recent memory. This has almost everything to do with two facts: The AR-15 is entirely legal to own and, for those with $ to toss around, not particularly difficult to procure there are an estimated 3 million AR-15s in the United States. The AR-15 is billed as a hunting rifle, a representation that stretches the limits of credulity because the gun is essentially a civilian's M16. It's "marketed more toward civilians who want to play war," says ThinkProgress, than toward those looking to bag a deer. Source: George Frey/Getty Images But there's a novelty aspect to the weapon that's drawing people to it. According to Breitbart, it's the impressive array of accessories available for fixes and improvements that has transformed the AR-15 into "the Colt 1911 of rifles." "You can always buy the part you need to make it better or repair it in the event that something breaks," Breitbart's Awr Hawkins writes. It's also "great for women as well as men," for people of all different frames, which perhaps helps explain why the San Bernardino shooters, one of whom was a woman, chose it. "You can take the whole gun apart and replace any part you want to without special tools, without knowing a whole lot," says Tim McDermott, a range officer at the Personal Defense and Handgun Safety Center in Raleigh, N.C. told the New York Times. "They are Legos for guys." Story continues But, as retired Marine infantryman Thomas Gibbons-Neff wrote in the Washington Post, modifications to the gun can make it precisely the kind of more dangerous weapon gun advocates insist it's not. Those willing to shell out a significant sum of money can get their hands on an automatic AR-15 or, by jumping through some hoops set up by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, purchase an auto sear, a device which converts a semi-automatic into an automatic. "You can take the whole gun apart and replace any part you want to without special tools, without knowing a whole lot. They are Legos for guys." But in truth, one could really make-do with the semi-automatic weapon as it came to them. "Even a semi-automatic AR-15 can fire a large number of rounds in a very short amount of time, about as fast as a shooter can aim and pull the trigger," according to Gibbons-Neff. An AR-15 usually holds a 30-round magazine, but the number of rounds can escalate to 75 or 100. In some states, Florida not included, magazine size is controlled and kept at a lower number. Because it's easy to load, customize websites like GunGoddess.com offer a slew of customizing accessories, including pink accent pieces and carry, it's the same base model used by the U.S. military, which is how it came into existence in the first place. Introduced in 1958 by ArmaLite, the AR-15 was the brainchild of arms company's chief engineer Eugene Stoner, who modified the AR-10 model he'd previously invented to include a smaller, .223 Remington cartridge. ArmaLite sold the trademark to its product to Colt, which marketed the gun to the military as the M16 and to civilians as the AR-15 rifle from 1963 onward. It was, says Gibbons-Neff, "an answer to Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK-47." Source: Guy J. Sagi/Shutterstock But in the eyes of commercial consumers, the Times reported, it was regarded as a "poodle shooter" because of the small bullets it used. The AR-15 was thus considered an inefficient tool for hunters looking to bring down that buck, and its military look offended their woodsy sensibilities. "Consumers were buying the guns for small game 'varmint hunting' as well as recreational shooting called 'plinking,'" according to the Times. Vietnam War vets, familiar with the rifles from their time in combat, also formed a market. The 1994 assault weapons ban, though, prompted manufacturers to scale back the gun's accoutrement in order to push the AR-15 as an as-macho-as-legally-possible option. Gunmakers promptly beefed them back up after the ban expired in 2004. At that point, Guns & Ammo was peddling them as versatile firearms whose efficacy was guaranteed by troops in the Middle East, whether the targets were "prairie varmints or the kind that come uninvited through your door," the Times reported. The AR-15 now appears under a number of , including Bushmaster C4, and is available in 60 countries to police, military and lay people including Omar Mateen. London (AFP) - Britain's most-read newspaper The Sun urged readers to vote to leave the European Union in an editorial splashed across its Tuesday front page in the colours of the Union Jack. "BeLEAVE in Britain" read the headline in large letters. "We are about to make the biggest political decision of our lives. The Sun today urges everyone to vote LEAVE." Britain votes in ten days on whether to withdraw from the 28-member bloc, and polls indicate the referendum result may be tight. The editorial argued the vote was a chance for Britain to reclaim its mantle as a great nation and control immigration into the country. "Vote Leave, and we will reassert our sovereignty - embracing a future as a self-governing, powerful nation envied by all," it read. Britain's future would be "far bleaker" within the EU and would be swallowed by a "relentlessly expanding German-dominated federal state", The Sun said. "Our country has a glorious history. This is our chance to make Britain even greater, to recapture our democracy, to preserve the values and culture we are rightly proud of," it argued. "We must set ourselves free from dictatorial Brussels," the newspaper urged, describing the EU as "increasingly greedy, wasteful, bullying". It said the campaign to remain in the bloc had been "nasty" and "cynical" and accused it of trying to "terrify us all about life outside the EU". The Britain Stronger In Europe campaign argues that the economy would suffer and Britain's place in the world would diminish outside the EU. The Sun, part of the media empire of US-Australian mogul Rupert Murdoch, is credited with generally backing the winning side and famously claimed to have swung a general election in 1992. Its headline "It's the Sun Wot Won It" claimed credit for the Conservative party's victory because of the newspaper's campaign against the Labour leader Neil Kinnock -- and became something of a catchphrase. By William Schomberg LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - Britain's status as a trade power has become one of the most contentious issues in the European Union membership referendum on June 23. The uncertain outlook for exporters, and the implications for investment in Britain, are driving much of the nervousness in financial markets where the pound has weakened sharply. "In" campaigners, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, warn that Britain's economy would suffer if it lost its unfettered access to the EU's single market of over 500 million consumers. Britain would lack negotiating muscle for any new deal, they say, because 44 percent of its exports go to the EU compared with 8 percent of the EU's exports that go to Britain. On its own, Britain would also struggle to secure deals with non-EU countries, the "In" camp says. By contrast, "Out" campaigners say the EU would do a deal with Britain because of its importance as an export market. It also says Britain would strike deals with other nations, such as the United States and China, more quickly than the EU with its 28 member countries and their different priorities. Below is a summary of the various trade options for Britain in the event of a so-called Brexit. CANADA OPTION Many Brexit supporters, among them former London mayor Boris Johnson, point to a recently agreed deal between Canada and the EU as a possible model for a post-Brexit Britain. Under the Canada model, Britain would no longer have to allow in workers from across the bloc or pay into its budget, two unpopular EU requirements among voters. But the Canada deal, which took over a decade to negotiate, involves only a partial opening up of the market for services, which make up nearly 80 percent of Britain's economy. Banks would not have the same kind access to the EU they do now. Finance minister George Osborne says such an agreement would leave Britain's economy 6.2 percent smaller by 2030 than it would be if it stayed in the EU. Story continues NORWAY OPTION Norway has a trade deal that gives it access to the single market, as part of the European Economic Area. A deal like that would allow British-based banks to carry on doing business in the EU. But Norway accepts free movement of EU nationals and pays a contribution to the EU budget as large as Britain's, when measured per person, two of the things British "Out" supporters most resent about EU membership. Norway also has to accept the EU's single market rules and regulations without a having a say in making them. SWITZERLAND OPTION Switzerland has bilateral deals with the EU which give it access to bits of the single market in return for a fee, but it does not have the right to provide cross-border financial services. Big Swiss banks have set up subsidiaries in EU countries, adding to their costs. Switzerland also adopts EU rules in the areas in which it has single market access and accepts the free movement of EU citizens although a vote in favour of restrictions, at a referendum in 2014, has jeopardised Swiss-EU economic ties. A UK-SPECIFIC DEAL Brexit supporters say German car exporters or French wine-makers would press their capitals to do a deal with Britain rather than punish it for leaving. But if the price of a broad deal was the continued free movement of people and budget contributions, a less ambitious arrangement might be struck. British justice minister and "Out" campaigner Michael Gove says Britain could strike a deal with the EU similar to ones reached by Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Ukraine. "In" supporters say those deals are no model for Britain's much bigger economy and do not cover non-tariff barriers such as standards. German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on June 10 that Britain would not be able to continue to benefit from the single market like Norway or Switzerland if it quit the EU. WTO OPTION Britain could fall back on World Trade Organisation rules to govern its relationship with the EU if it cannot strike a deal. "Out" supporters say import tariffs on most goods traded between rich economies have been cut to very low levels. But the EU has higher tariff levels on some goods including a nearly 10 percent duty on automobiles, an industry which employs about 800,000 people in Britain. Cutting tariffs unilaterally would leave some sectors facing fierce competition. Furthermore, the WTO has not yet significantly opened up global trade in services. British exports would face non-tariff barriers such as rules of origin and other red tape. WTO boss Roberto Azevedo has said Britain might take several years to renegotiate its relationship with other WTO members. REST OF THE WORLD A solo Britain would try to strike its own trade deals with countries beyond the EU, including more than 50 which have trade deals with the bloc. The "Out" camp says it would focus on big markets with which the EU currently does not have a deal, such as the United States and China. But in April, U.S. President Barack Obama said Britain would go to the "back of the queue" in U.S. trade talks if it left the EU. The United States and the EU are trying to conclude a wide-ranging trade and investment deal. (Writing by William Schomberg; additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Paris, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Tom Miles in Geneva and Costas Pitas in London; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) By William Schomberg LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's status as a trade power has become one of the most contentious issues in the European Union membership referendum on June 23. The uncertain outlook for exporters, and the implications for investment in Britain, are driving much of the nervousness in financial markets where the pound has weakened sharply. "In" campaigners, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, warn that Britain's economy would suffer if it lost its unfettered access to the EU's single market of over 500 million consumers. Britain would lack negotiating muscle for any new deal, they say, because 44 percent of its exports go to the EU compared with 8 percent of the EU's exports that go to Britain. On its own, Britain would also struggle to secure deals with non-EU countries, the "In" camp says. By contrast, "Out" campaigners say the EU would do a deal with Britain because of its importance as an export market. It also says Britain would strike deals with other nations, such as the United States and China, more quickly than the EU with its 28 member countries and their different priorities. Below is a summary of the various trade options for Britain in the event of a so-called Brexit. CANADA OPTION Many Brexit supporters, among them former London mayor Boris Johnson, point to a recently agreed deal between Canada and the EU as a possible model for a post-Brexit Britain. Under the Canada model, Britain would no longer have to allow in workers from across the bloc or pay into its budget, two unpopular EU requirements among voters. But the Canada deal, which took over a decade to negotiate, involves only a partial opening up of the market for services, which make up nearly 80 percent of Britain's economy. Banks would not have the same kind access to the EU they do now. Finance minister George Osborne says such an agreement would leave Britain's economy 6.2 percent smaller by 2030 than it would be if it stayed in the EU. NORWAY OPTION Story continues Norway has a trade deal that gives it access to the single market, as part of the European Economic Area. A deal like that would allow British-based banks to carry on doing business in the EU. But Norway accepts free movement of EU nationals and pays a contribution to the EU budget as large as Britain's, when measured per person, two of the things British "Out" supporters most resent about EU membership. Norway also has to accept the EU's single market rules and regulations without a having a say in making them. SWITZERLAND OPTION Switzerland has bilateral deals with the EU which give it access to bits of the single market in return for a fee, but it does not have the right to provide cross-border financial services. Big Swiss banks have set up subsidiaries in EU countries, adding to their costs. Switzerland also adopts EU rules in the areas in which it has single market access and accepts the free movement of EU citizens although a vote in favour of restrictions, at a referendum in 2014, has jeopardised Swiss-EU economic ties. A UK-SPECIFIC DEAL Brexit supporters say German car exporters or French wine-makers would press their capitals to do a deal with Britain rather than punish it for leaving. But if the price of a broad deal was the continued free movement of people and budget contributions, a less ambitious arrangement might be struck. British justice minister and "Out" campaigner Michael Gove says Britain could strike a deal with the EU similar to ones reached by Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and Ukraine. "In" supporters say those deals are no model for Britain's much bigger economy and do not cover non-tariff barriers such as standards. German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on June 10 that Britain would not be able to continue to benefit from the single market like Norway or Switzerland if it quit the EU. WTO OPTION Britain could fall back on World Trade Organisation rules to govern its relationship with the EU if it cannot strike a deal. "Out" supporters say import tariffs on most goods traded between rich economies have been cut to very low levels. But the EU has higher tariff levels on some goods including a nearly 10 percent duty on automobiles, an industry which employs about 800,000 people in Britain. Cutting tariffs unilaterally would leave some sectors facing fierce competition. Furthermore, the WTO has not yet significantly opened up global trade in services. British exports would face non-tariff barriers such as rules of origin and other red tape. WTO boss Roberto Azevedo has said Britain might take several years to renegotiate its relationship with other WTO members. REST OF THE WORLD A solo Britain would try to strike its own trade deals with countries beyond the EU, including more than 50 which have trade deals with the bloc. The "Out" camp says it would focus on big markets with which the EU currently does not have a deal, such as the United States and China. But in April, U.S. President Barack Obama said Britain would go to the "back of the queue" in U.S. trade talks if it left the EU. The United States and the EU are trying to conclude a wide-ranging trade and investment deal. (Writing by William Schomberg; additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Paris, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Tom Miles in Geneva and Costas Pitas in London; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) St. Helena Airport St. Helena is a small remote island in the South Atlantic. Located 1,200 miles west of the African mainland, the island is most famous for being Napoleon Bonaparte's place of exile. Until recently, St. Helena, a British overseas territory with a population of about 4,000 people, was accessible only by taking a cruise on board the mail/passenger ship RMS St. Helena. To make it more access able to the public, the UK government spent more than $400 million to construct a brand new airport on the island, the BBC reported. Although the airport was scheduled to open for commercial operation in May, the BBC reported that commercial operation at St. Helena Airport has be postponed indefinitely. This is because validation flights into the airport using a Boeing 737-800 found wind shear to be too extreme for large airliners to operate. St. Helena Airport However, St. Helena Governor Lisa Philips has refuted media reports that the island's airport and its 6,400-foot runway has been shut down even before it enters service. "Press reports in the UK and elsewhere that describe St Helena Airport as being scrapped, mothballed or postponed indefinitely are incorrect," Governor Philips said in a statement. "The Airport is certified and open, as demonstrated by the emergency medevac flight last Saturday when we were able to fly a sick baby to Cape Town." St. Helena Map According to Governor Philips, wind shear is too extreme for large airliners such as the Boeing 737-800 to land safely at the airport when approaching from the north. However, the Governor believes select types of airliners will be able land at the airport if they approach from the south. But even then conditions are not ideal because there is a tail wind. Pilots prefer to take off and land into the wind. Although the St. Helena government is trying to establish air service to the new airport, the only consistent means of getting to the island remains the trusty old mail ship RMS St. Helena. Story continues NOW WATCH: Hugh Hefner's son reacts to the sale of the Playboy Mansion More From Business Insider Photo: GETTY Schoolboys can now wear skirts as part of their uniform, just as girls have been allowed to wear trousers. Its a move thats come after continued lobbying from LGBT communities, and marks an increasing spotlight on gender equality and acceptance of diversity in British schools. The Independent today reported that "80 state institutions", which includes 40 primary schools, have edited, or altogether scrapped their uniform dress codes, in line with supporting students' rights to choose what they wear to school every day. Last week MPs were told of growing concerns over girls being forced to wear shorts under their skirts at school in order to combat sexual harassment from their male peers. The Women and Equalities Committee who launched an inquiry into the safety of young girls in schools in April of this year discussed their concerns that skirts mean girls are made more vulnerable in the classroom and playground. One lobbyist, Sophie Bennett, co-director of UK Feminista, said: "We've heard from girls who tell us you don't leave school as a girl without being called a slut, that to wear shorts under your skirt to prevent boys revealing your underwear in the playground is just normal behaviour. So there is that sense of a normalised culture of sexual harassment in schools where girls don't feel able to report it and instead change their own behaviour, such as wearing shorts under their skirts." Discussions surrounding gender-neutral uniforms have multiplied this year. In January, Brighton College, a 170-year-old private school took the forward thinking decision to scrap traditional uniform dress-codes for students. Richard Cairns, the headmaster of the college explained why he made the forward-thinking decision to The Independent: If some boys and girls are happier identifying with a different gender from that in which they were born, then my job is to make sure that we accommodate that. My only interest as headmaster is their welfare and happiness. Story continues Now Cairns' gender-neutral vision might roll out all over the country. Julia Neal, who chairs ATL teaching union's equality and diversity committee, and has been petitioning for gender-free toilets in schools, explained the urgency over more gender-fluid attitudes in schools: "It's about senior management teams and governing bodies understanding that there are a lot of facilities in schools that are separated changing rooms and toilets and uniforms are very gender-specific. "If there is gender fluidity they need to understand the importance of gender-neutral facilities. And they need to understand how pupils want to be referred to, as he or she." Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here? What's Happening To The UK's Sexual Health Centres It's Not Too Late To Do Something To Save Our Oceans Why LGBT People See Orlando Differently According to a recent statement posted on the Burning Man Festival blog, Burning Man has acquired the Fly Ranch, a 3,800-acre property located in Washoe County, Nevada. Burning Man Fest Gets Green-Light to Grow "In 2012 we became a nonprofit with the intention of amplifying and extending Burning Man culture," the statement reads. "So here we are, taking a big step in that direction. As a year-round site, Fly Ranch has the potential to expand Burning Man Project's activities and existing programs, as well as amplify Burning Man's cultural impact into the wider world beyond Black Rock City." The festival acknowledges that it's not yet sure what the new land will be used for. "We're a long way from defining exactly what will happen at Fly Ranch," the statement notes. "But it's not too early to begin dreaming of the potential. We're inspired by this milestone and hope you are too. At this stage there are simply more questions than answers." Burning Man 2016 Sells Out 30,000 Tickets in 30 Minutes Watch a video about the new property below. Burning Man is held annually in the Black Rock desert in Nevada. This year it starts August 28 and wraps up September 5. Captain Fantastic and Girl Asleep won two of the biggest awards at the 42nd annual Seattle Film Festival. The winners were announced during a ceremony and breakfast held at the Space Needle on June 12. Captain Fantastic received the Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Film. Directed by Matt Ross, the film was shot on location in the Pacific Northwest with the support of Washington Filmworks Film Incentive. Gleason, another film with ties to Washington, won the audience award for Best Documentary. The Clay Tweel directed documentary told the story of New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason, who played for Washington State University. SIFF Official Competition Grand Jury Prize went to Girl Asleep which the jury acknowledged for being truly original and theatrical and for being impeccably choreographed. Other winners included Javier Ruiz Caldera, who won the audience award for Best Director; Rolf Lassgard, who won the audience award for Best Actor; and Vicky Hernandez, who won the audience award for Best Actress. The remaining Grand Jury awards went to Youll Never Be Alone, which received the Ibero-American prize; Sand Storm, which received the New Directors prize; Middle Man, for the New America Cinema prize; and Death by a Thousand Cuts, for the Documentary prize. The 25-day festival, which began May 19, featured 421 films representing 85 countries, including 54 world premieres, 56 North American premieres, 27 U.S. premieres, and 850 screenings and events. Related stories 'Olli Maki,' 'Captain Fantastic' Win Big in Un Certain Regard at Cannes Viggo Mortensen: 'I'm Just Looking for Stories I Think Are Worth Telling' Woody Allen's 'Cafe Society' to Open Seattle Film Festival The Company Prides Itself on its Outstanding Carpet Cleaning Services, Attention to Detail and Affordable Prices SAN DIEGO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 13, 2016 / The founders of Carpet Cleaning Champs, a San Diego, California-based company that provides thorough carpet cleaning services at reasonable prices, are pleased to announce the launch of their new website. As a company spokesperson noted, the timing for the new website could not be better. Summer vacation is just around the corner, and homeowners are busy cleaning their houses in anticipation of visits from company, as well as for their children who are home from school. The new website not only offers information about Carpet Cleaning Champs and their variety of services including rug cleaning, carpet repair, upholstery cleaning, tile and grout cleaning and more, it also features a section about the top myths surrounding professional carpet cleaning. For example, while some homeowners might feel that scheduling a professional carpet cleaning can be a hassle, the spokesperson noted that the friendly and experienced team from Carpet Cleaning Champs is devoted to making sure the appointments are scheduled when it's most convenient for the client. "Professional carpet cleaners are trained to provide you the ease and comfort while they work according to your time schedule," the spokesperson said, adding that the high quality professional cleaners from Carpet Cleaning Champs also guarantee their work. "Because we do this as a job, we are quick and efficient, which means that we'll be out of your hair sooner than you think, leaving a soft and clean carpet behind." Another common myth about professional carpet cleaning, the new site noted, is that it is expensive and hard on the budget. In reality, DIY carpet cleaning can cost a lot more, especially when people take into account the machinery they have to rent or buy, the solutions they must purchase and any additional money they must pay to take care of any mistakes or do-overs. Story continues Anybody who would like to learn more about Carpet Cleaning Champs is welcome to visit the new company website; there, they can read more about the top-quality services they provide. About Carpet Cleaning Champs: Carpet Cleaning Champs has a mission to provide nationwide consumers with an amazing carpet cleaning experience they can rave about to their friends and family. By refusing to use bait and switch tactics that are common in the industry, Carpet Cleaning Champs is dedicated to deliver on what they promise: top quality and affordable services that follow their strict guidelines of pleasing the customer. They also provide carpet repair, upholstery, tile/grout and rug cleaning. For more information, please visit https://carpetcleaningchamps.com/. Carpet Cleaning Champs 6640 Lusk Blvd A108 San Diego, CA 92121 Contact: Peter Kirkendall info@carpetcleaningchamps.com 619-376-6056 SOURCE: Carpet Cleaning Champs The two presidential candidates didnt just disagree on solutions to the deadliest shooting in American history, they disagreed on what the problem was. In rival speeches Monday about the mass shooting at an Orlando gay bar, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump largely talked past each other, showing vastly different understandings of the underlying causes. For the presumptive Democratic nominee, the Orlando shooting was a time to come together in the kind of unity shown after Sept. 11, another argument in favor of gun control and support for the LGBT community. To the extent that Islam was a factor, she said it involved a radicalized misreading of a religion in which most oppose terrorism. Millions of peace-loving Muslims live, work and raise their families across America, Clinton said in an industrial park on Clevelands East Side. They are the most likely to recognize the insidious effects on radicalization before its too late. They are in the best position to help us block it. We should be intensifying contacts in those communities, not scapegoating or isolating them. For the presumptive Republican nominee, the Orlando shooting was a time for Americans to draw bright lines on immigration, another argument in favor of a blanket ban on Muslim immigration (though the suspected shooter was born in America) and a reason to question political correctness. Can you imagine what they will do in large groups? Trump asked his audience at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. Clinton had planned Monday as the kickoff to her general election, scheduling a rally in Cleveland that was morphed into a policy speech with unusual overtones. Campaign signs were ditched for American flags, and the audience was clearly on edge the day after largest mass shooting in U.S. history left the country in shock and sorrow. Today is not a day for politics, Clinton said as she began her remarks. Story continues Trump had zero interest in that tactic. He ripped into his remarks with typical bravado and said the deaths were the fault of the political establishment. They have put political correctness, above common sense, above your safety, Trump said. I refuse to be politically correct. He said Clinton was beholden to politically correct special interests and cast himself as an above-the-mix outsider. The lopsided approach is a cue for how the balance of this campaign will play out. Clinton is a thoughtful, cautious leader; Trump shoots from the hip and trusts his gut. The imbalance, especially at this moment when the country is rightfully anxious about terrorism, is an untested proposition in national elections. When four Americans died in a 2012 attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney were offering symmetrical rhetoric. Eight years before that, when Osama bin Laden released a video just before President George W. Bushs re-election campaign, he and Democratic rival John Kerry were mostly working off the same script. Not this year. Clinton is typically careful, with an ear to how the world will hear her words. She broadly vowed to dismantle terrorism, but noted that we have to see what the investigation uncovers. She added of Islamic extremism: We cannot contain this threat. We must defeat it. Trump, by contrast, already knew what he knew. Though the shooter was born in New York, immigration, as Trump saw it, was the core of the problem, just as he sees it on the countrys reduced manufacturing base and stagnant wages. We cant keep bringing people who add to the problem, Trump said. Why would we admit people who support violent hatred? At the same time, Trump took a moment to note that the killer targeted the nightclub because he wanted to kill gays and lesbians, an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity. He argued that gays and lesbians should support him because he wants to stop terrorism. Still, Trumps words on Muslims and immigration earned him criticism. The bigotry, the hate that is spewed by Donald Trump, the words that incite and encourage violence, said Representative Marcia Fudge, an Ohio Democrat who backs Clinton. Now, more than ever, the United States needs a steady hand. The dueling visions for the 2016 battlefield offered a preview of the two often disconnected fights happening in real time. The two sides couldnt even decide on the terms of the fight: religion, extremism, immigration, guns. The only term they agreed on was terrorism, and even there they took strikingly different approaches. Trump, who has repeatedly criticized Clinton and President Obama for not using phrases like radical Islamic terror bragged that he had swayed her, as Clinton had debated the most diplomatic phrasing during morning interviews. Whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, Im happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing, Clinton said. Meantime, Trump was hinting darkly that President Obama somehow has ulterior motives to not fight terrorism. Look, were led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or hes got something else in mind, he told Fox News. Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on. And a Trump ally, Roger Stone, was elsewhere suggesting the vice chair of Clintons campaign was a terrorist agent and a Saudi spy. The differing reality is shaping a campaign that could test Americans patience for competing narratives. Clinton has made her bet that Americans anxiety will lead them to her deep experience. Trump is wagering that their uneasiness will prod voters, frustrated with years of worry over terrorism, to his side. Voters at the moment might be torn as to which promises a greater feeling of safety, even if the reality of security is more elusive. The national media continued reporting from Orlando, Fla., on Monday as more details emerged about the shooter who massacred 49 people at a nightclub early Sunday morning. The coverage follows a sadly familiar script, though this time it comes in the middle of a volatile - and at times ugly - presidential campaign. But many news anchors once again making the hastily booked flights to the scene of yet another mass shooting are not simply going through the motions. "I don't want to be desensitized to it," said Gayle King, co-anchor of CBS This Morning, who reported from Orlando on Monday morning along with her colleague Charlie Rose. King was preparing to attend the Tony Awards when it became clear on Sunday morning that she would instead be heading to Orlando to cover the worst massacre in U.S. history; 49 people were killed, as well as the gunman, and 53 were injured when Omar Mateen opened fire at a nightclub there. "I don't want to get to the point of, 'OK, here we go again,'" said King. "Even though the stories are hauntingly familiar because we are all human beings with beating hearts. And I think it's important to drive that home. Sometimes you do need to be reminded that this is not how the world is supposed to be, people." Read More: NYC Deploys More Than 500 Anti-Terrorism Officers as a Precaution After Orlando Shooting Cable news has offered continuous coverage of the shooting with breaks to cover the volatile presidential primary - including Donald Trump's latest salvo against the media. Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren and Megyn Kelly will anchor their respective programs from Orlando while Bill O'Reilly will have an interview with Trump. CNN's Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon also will helm their shows from Orlando. And all three broadcast evening news anchors - CBS' Scott Pelley, ABC's David Muir and NBC's Lester Holt - will once again be live from Orlando on Monday evening. Holt's Nightly News will expand to one hour. Story continues The latest mass shooting has once again brought the topic of gun control - and particularly the kind of semi-automatic assault rifles that have been used in such deadly shootings - to the fore. The 29-year-old Mateen used an AR-15, the same assault-style weapon used in the 2012 massacre of 20 school children at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. In his statement from the Oval Office on Monday, President Barack Obama noted: "We make it very easy for individuals who are troubled, or disturbed, or want to engage in violent acts to obtain very powerful weapons very easily, and it's a problem." Read More: John Oliver on Orlando Shooting: "Right Now This Just Hurts" Mateen, an American citizen who had been questioned by the FBI for expressing extremist views and allegiance to the Islamic State, purchased the gun legally. The Newtown shooting prompted much soul searching but little movement on new gun control legislation. "I'm not sharing my position on gun control," added King, who observed that the issue is a "very controversial hot topic. "If you try to bring up gun control during one of these horrible, despicable tragedies, all politicians sort of run for the hills and say, 'Now is not the time to discuss it, we must come together and heal.' Well, my question is, when is the time to discuss it?" From Esquire Eric Ripert has built a reputation as one of the United State's preeminent chefs. His restaurant, Le Bernardin, which he co-owns, is the recipient of three Michelin stars, the highest rating given out in the food world. He's turned his success in the kitchen into a career on television, making frequent appearances as a judge on Top Chef and Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown, as well as his own show, Avec Eric. Now, he can call himself an author. Ripert's recently released memoir, 32 Yolks: From My Mother's Kitchen to Working the Line, is about Ripert's journey into fine dining and explores what it means to live a life of luxurious food while searching for yourself in a divorced home and an abusive step-father. Ripert came to America in 1989 as a 24-year-old string-bean chef with a culinary school diploma and time spent working at two of Paris' famous eateries, including two separate stints at Joel Robuchon's world-renowned restaurant, Jamin. Now, he's traveling the country to promote his new book. I caught up with him in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he was appearing before a sold-out crowd, eager to hear Ripert talk about his life and career. Let's start with something easy. You write about watching your mom cook and eating her food, those delicate meals. She spent a lot of time on the plates and the services. How did she find the time to do that while running a business? She was waking up at five [in the morning] and she would not only prepare not only a great breakfast, but also lunch and dinner and appetizer, main course, cheese, dessert on a different table cloth, a different china platter, different flower arrangements and candles at night. I thought every kid in the world was easting like me, but it wasn't the case. How did she have the time while running her own business? Just getting up early and prepping everything? She had a passion, and she would take a break for lunch from her [store], a two-hour break, and she would finish what she started. She would find the time. If you want do it, you can do it. Story continues What did watching her teach you? Passion. Passion for great food. My grandmother, who cooked soul food, Italian soul food and provincial soul food, and my mother doing these elaborate, sophisticated meals. I developed this really interesting passion not only for the food, but also for the whole-what we call in French, art de la table. I liked the fact that we were sitting around the table. For me, it was a special moment because food brings people together and it was very special at a very young age. I think if someone who is cooking doesn't care and is angry and frustrated, I think you will feel it in the taste, too, because it will not be as good. How does someone cook with passion? You say it often in your book that "they cooked with love." How do you see that? How do you feel it? Well, if you observing in the process, you can see when people cook with passion. You can feel it. If you don't see the process, it is very hard to prove, obviously. But I will give you an example. Let's suppose you have someone in your family, someone who loves you very much and cooks for you, I don't know, an apple tart or cookies. When you taste those cookies and taste that apple tart, it has something you cannot describe. Let's suppose you eat the same cookies made in a factory. They may taste delicious, but they will miss that element. Anyone in a crowd, I think, can feel it-the differences. I think if someone who is cooking doesn't care and is angry and frustrated, I think you will feel it in the taste, too, because it will not be as good. That is my theory. Now, it is related to the philosophy of temple food in Korea, where they believe you can put love and compassion into the food. Quantum physics can reconcile that theory. While working for Jeff Robuchon, it seemed like there was a lot of fear in the kitchen, but it still translated pretty well to the table. How do you explain that? We had a passion. We went to Robuchon knowing it was not a democracy over there. We were a bunch of young kids, and he was this kind of... First off, he was not violent. He was not screaming. But he was this very severe, rigorous professor, that basically terrorized the class. You didn't know why, but it was going around. He was instigating in us passion and the rigors we needed to cook in a very high level, exactly like you train athletes. That was the idea. You wouldn't stick around if you didn't love it. We had the freedom to leave, obviously. The door was open. No doubt. We were there because we knew he was the best. Despite the struggle, we had a lot of passion and love for the craftsmanship and the artistry of cooking. You write about watching from the kitchen doorway as your grandmother cooked and how boys and men weren't allowed in the kitchen. But chefs were always men in France, so how does that work? Basically, they didn't want a nine-year-old messing up their kitchen. Then, men, especially on the farm, they'd go to the field and come back with dirty shoes and dirty hands, and basically it was messing up the kitchen. It was why they were out. As professional chefs, you're right: It's mostly men. It's hard to know why. I think a lot of ladies, even today, want to be chefs, and then they want to have children and create a family, and it is very difficult to be in a professional kitchen every night and Christmas and holidays and everything else. I think very often they are choosing between the children and being in the kitchen very late at night, and I think that is why we see more male chefs. Which seems to be a hot-button issue lately, because it's almost in all work? A lot of people talk about it saying, "Your world is sexist," and, "Women don't have the opportunity." I don't think it's true. I think it is just a matter of [if] you want to have a family; at some point someone has to stay at home, and to me it is logical that the woman will take care of the baby. You're talking to a stay-at-home dad. Good for you. Look, it is fantastic if you can do that, but the majority of families don't work like that. I don't think it is sexist decision on kitchens. How do you balance running a kitchen with being on TV and the travel? The travel on TV is condensed. In three weeks, you can achieve a lot. The book tour is exceptional, but it is like a two-week period of my life. I balance my life in a very harmonious way, I would say. My journey is divided into three. Of course, time for the restaurant and work, time for the family and time for myself. It is very important to have on a daily basis, and on a periodical base, time for me to reflect and take, and I think I come back as a better family member, a better husband. I come back as a better boss. Is that in relation to the book [about Tibet] you pick up in the airport at the at the end of your book? Of course. That book changed your life then. A lot. First of all, I had an interest in Tibet. I knew very little about Tibet and then suddenly I had an interest. As soon as the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize [in 1989] and I read his acceptance speech, I was so inspired that I was driven to Buddhism. Today, I am a Buddhist practitioner; I study every day, I do the rituals everyday, I'm Buddhist. It changed my life completely. It helped me find my level of contentment, and my level of contentment is to say, I have the three parts: my family, my business, and myself. I don't need to have 30 restaurants. I am happy with the one I have. I don't need to have 30 restaurants. I am happy with the one I have. It's interesting you say that as all these other chefs are opening so many restaurants, while you have the one. Maybe they'd be bored to death in my situation. I would be stressed to death in their situation. But every day I walk in Central Park. I see my family. I see my team. It makes me happy. I don't want to be in an airport and flying to one place to another. It's not like being in control-but not being part of the team. I like working with them. At my age, it's when you mentor, right? I like that interaction with the team. When you landed in the United States, what did you see in American food and what did you know about it? I landed in Washington, [D.C.] and would go see Jean-Louis [Palladin], who was the chef at the Watergate Hotel-famous in Washington at the time for other reasons. But Jean-Louis was big in my industry. I thought I was coming from the best kitchens. I worked really hard and I was like,"You know I am going to save America-those poor Americans eating burgers everyday." I was expecting a red carpet in Washington. None of that. I realized that in America, Jean-Louis especially had amazing connections, great products, knew lot of guys knew how to cook really well. A lot of American chefs were really talented already. For me it was kind of like a wakeup call. "Dude, wake up, because this is real. You were dreaming. This country doesn't need you." How has American food evolved since then? We see more and more what I call good food, sustainable food. I mean, do you want to give your child milk that has pesticides, growing hormones, antibiotics, or do you want to give your child milk with none of that? If you can afford it, because very often it is about a budget. But people now want to know where [their food] is coming from, want to support the local farmer so we don't destroy the land, and care about sustainability. Recently Pete Wells at the New York Times has been tearing apart some of your fellow chefs and restaurateurs, what do you think of his comments of Per Se and fine dining? It's hard for me to comment because I was not with him for the right reasons. I wouldn't bring you, either, if I were writing a review. I don't know what kind of experience he had. I have to say, at the end of the day, I felt really bad for the great professionals, the friends of mine. It is an opinion, but we have to love the New York Times because this is real journalism. Liking or not liking the outcome of the article, the New York Times is not corrupt-they pay their bill, they come, they have an opinion. This is very important. Journalism is dying. I have great respect for them. I am disappointed for my friends losing a star, of course. Doesn't it keep you honest at the same time? I love Thomas [Keller] and when he cooks for me. I love his food. Again, this experience was not my experience, and I would be unfair for me to go on one side or the other. Obviously I am not happy for Thomas. What has food television done for you? It brings in a bigger audience, a broader audience. And you have cooks who are entertainers-they call them chefs. Ultimately it brings more attention to what we do. It brings more interest to the food, the source of the food. I see that as a good thing. I don't see this as a bad thing, all this sudden interest about my industry. We use to be the poor white guy-white because we would never see the sun, in the back over there-and suddenly we are highly regarded and what we do is considered an art. How can I complain? Amid the national outcry about this morning's attack in Orlando, Florida, the Tony Awards created a silver ribbon for presenters, nominees, and guests to wear in honor of the victims and their families. "The theatre community stands in solidarity," the Tony Awards' official Twitter account posted Sunday afternoon, alongside a photo of the ribbon. The Tonys have created a ribbon in remembrance for Orlando. The Theatre community stands in solidarity. #TonysRibbon pic.twitter.com/w0jBbTd8zU The Tony Awards (@TheTonyAwards) June 12, 2016 WATCH: LGBT Groups, Celebs and Public Figures Pay Tribute After 50 Killed in Orlando Nightclub Shooting American Theater Wing chair and six time Tony Award-winning costume designer William Ivey Long designed the special ribbons. "We wanted to open our arms and show love, that we understand. It's a sense of camaraderie and family. We made them in the basement and we're still making them. Our goal is [to produce] 3,000," Long told Page Six. WATCH: 50 Dead in Orlando Gay Bar Shooting Lin-Manuel Miranda, Megan Hilty, Laurie Metcalf and Andrew Rannells were among the celebs who wore the silver ribbon on the red carpet. ETONLINE ETONLINE ETONLINE ETONLINE "It's the worst shooting tragedy in our nation's history," said Miranda to ET. "And that it happened to our community, the community that makes up Broadway. It feels more important than ever to celebrate new music. If art is what fights tragedy, if art is what fights the void, if art is what helps us make sense of violence and random acts of cowardice and killing then tonight's important, it's important for us to celebrate those things." Earlier in the day, Tony Awards organizers announced that the show would be dedicated to the victims. Story continues "Our hearts are heavy for the unimaginable tragedy that happened last night in Orlando," read a statement posted to the Tony Awards' official Twitter account. "Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those affected. The Tony Awards dedicate tonight's ceremony to them." The 2016 #TonyAwards are dedicated to those affected by the events in Orlando. pic.twitter.com/ILNbbhxSHD The Tony Awards (@TheTonyAwards) June 12, 2016 In light of the news, the Hamilton musical cast adjusted their scheduled performance to not include the Revolutionary War-era muskets. President Barack Obama addressed the nation on Sunday, following the shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida that left 50 dead and more than 50 injured. "This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends our fellow Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender," Obama said in his remarks. "The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights." The 2016 Tony Awards will air Sunday on CBS, beginning at 8 p.m. ET. Related Articles Information technology company CGI Group Inc. GIB was recently awarded a task order to provide operational and interoperability testing under the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) Test and Evaluation (T&E) Mission Support Services (MSS) contract. Financial details of the contract remained under wraps. This cost plus fixed fee task order has one base year and two option years. Work on the contract will be performed at Fort Huachuca, AZ and the Pacific Northwest. Per the task order, CGI will assist in validating the Joint Interoperability Test Command's (JITC) requirement meant for Operational Effectiveness Suitability Interoperability and Survivability (OESIS) testing of the Department of Defense (DoD) Healthcare Management System Modernization (DHMSM) Electronic Health Record (EHR) system. The DHMSM program is meant to oversee the acquisition of off-the-shelf solutions to update the Military Health System (MHS) EHR system and set up seamless medical data sharing. CGI will assist in test planning, execution, analysis and reporting to offer sufficient operational support for decision-making. Leveraging CGIs expertise, the MHS EHR system will combine and increase accessibility of incorporated, evidence-based healthcare delivery and decision-making. In addition, it will help to maintain appropriate medical records, for 9.6 million military beneficiaries and around 153,000 MHS personnel worldwide. This system will help keep medical records available electronically for healthcare professionals to treat military personnel and their families when they seek medical care even when they relocate. The new system will improve time efficiency as well as reduce cost. This contract marks the companys continuous support of military healthcare modernization goals. Earlier it had provided its support to the Joint Interoperability Test Command system. Notably, CGI Group is the fifth largest independent IT and business process services firm globally. It provides a comprehensive range of IT services and solutions that help clients stay ahead of the curve in a fast-evolving and competitive business scenario. Story continues CGI carries a Zacks Rank # 3 (Hold). Some better ranked stocks in the industry include The KEYW Holding Corporation KEYW, NCI, Inc. NCIT and Ebix Inc. EBIX. All three stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days.Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report EBIX INC (EBIX): Free Stock Analysis Report NCI INC-CL A (NCIT): Free Stock Analysis Report KEYW HOLDING CP (KEYW): Free Stock Analysis Report CGI GRP INC -A (GIB): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Paris (AFP) - Weak coal and gas prices will not stop record investment in renewables over the coming decades as the cost of generating clean energy drops, a key energy report said Monday. Renewables are set to attract $7.8 trillion (6.9 trillion euros) by 2040, nearly four times as much as carbon-based power over the same period, the New Energy Outlook 2016 forecast said. The impact of cheap gas and coal will be offset, it projected, by drops of 41 and 60 percent, respectively, in the price of power from wind and solar panels. Some analysts, however, questioned wither renewables could expand that quickly. Compared to a year ago, the report projects "significantly lower" coal and gas prices, said Jon Moore, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the research unit which conducted the study. "But, strikingly, (the report) still shows rapid transition towards clean power." Nonetheless, the shift to a low-carbon energy sector will not happen quickly enough to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), much less the more ambitious goal embraced by the world's nations last December, the analysts warned. The Paris Agreement calls for capping Earth's average surface temperature at "well below" 2.0C to stave off severe climate impacts. To achieve even the two-degree target, additional investment of $5.3 trillion in zero-carbon power -- on top of the projected $7.8 trillion -- would be needed by 2040, the report concludes. The energy sector accounts for two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming. Currently, 80 percent of global energy consumption is drawn from fossil fuels. From a climate change perspective, the annual report is a "good news/bad news" compendium of energy trends. - India holds key - The encouraging surge in renewables -- which today account for only a small slice of energy consumed -- is balanced by the fact that fossil fuel power will still pull in more than $2.1 trillion (1.9 trillion euros) in investments by 2040, mainly in emerging economies. Story continues China's slowing economy and retreat from coal means that CO2 emissions from the world's top carbon polluter may peak as early as 2025, five years earlier than Beijing promised. At the same time, however, energy demands in India -- which, despite a big push towards solar, continues to rely heavily on dirty coal -- are forecast to nearly quadruple in the next quarter century. "That makes India the key to the future global emissions trend," the authors said in a statement. In Europe, renewables will dominate, generating 70 percent of the continent's power by 2040, up from 32 percent in 2015. In the US, the share of wind, solar, hydro and other zero-carbon energy sources will jump from 14 percent last year to 44 percent in 2040. At the same time, natural gas' slice of the energy pie will slip from 33 to 31 percent, despite a boom in fracking. A surge in electric cars will add some eight percent to global electricity demand, the report forecast. By 2040, 35 percent of light-duty vehicles sold in the world will be electric, some 41 million cars in all. David McCollum, an energy expert at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, challenged the report's "aggressive assumptions" on the growth of green energy. "Considering the low coal and gas prices it assumes, I'm surprised by the large quantity of renewable electricity the New Energy Outlook 2016 report sees entering the mix by 2040," he commented by email. In a scientific analysis of how low or high oil prices could affect energy markets and carbon emissions, published Monday in Nature Energy, McCollum found that cheap fossil fuel was more likely to stymie green technologies. For renewables "to out-compete cheap coal is not a result we generally saw in our scenario runs," said McCollum, lead author of the study. General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) has been running comparison ads between its Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck and Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)'s F-150. Ford has responded by stating GM's latest ads are no more than a "cheap shot," according to a Forbes report. GM's various TV, pre-movie cinema ads and online videos purportedly show the strength and durability deficit between the steel bed of its Silverado and the unconventional new military-grade aluminum bed of the Ford F-150," according to Dale Buss, Forbes contributor. Related Link: Piper Jaffray Likes Ford's Big Balance Sheet, Starts At Overweight The report said Chevrolet slammed Ford once more this past Sunday, "with another four pages of graphic insult wrapped around the week's largest edition of their home town's largest newspaper, the Detroit Free Press." Ford's Response "It's a cheap shot," one Ford executive commented. "But we're the industry leader, so naturally they're going to come after us." "GM is stuck with what they have for another few years, without a new truck version coming, so they have to do what they can," another Ford exec stated. Forbes said Ford came out with an official statement regarding the Silverado ads, highlighting F-150 buyers' supposed complaints toward the durability of the aluminum bed. As summarized by Buss, "[B]uyers simply aren't complaining about the durability of the aluminum bed." Maybe No Overwhelming Complaints, But Numbers Aren't There But, Ford has a key chink in its armor its sales numbers. Sales of all Ford F-Series trucks through May were up by more than 7 percent versus last year, and up 9 percent in May. Meanwhile, sales of Silverado were up by only 1 percent for the period, though GM said that in May it experienced "the lowest incentive spend and the best-managed inventories in the segment." Shares of Ford closed Friday's regular trading session at $13.09, while GM ended at $29.06. See more from Benzinga 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Shanghai (AFP) - Chinese police on Monday identified the suspect in a bombing at Shanghai's main international airport which injured four people as a 29-year-old man with heavy debts from online gambling. Zhou Xingbai had been working at an electronics company in Kunshan city near Shanghai but had lost his savings through gambling and was having difficulty supporting himself, the Shanghai police department said in a statement on its official microblog. Zhou told his friends through social media that he "owed many people money" and was "preparing to do something extremely crazy" and "losing his little life was a certainty", the statement said. A previous government statement said Zhou threw a beer bottle packed with explosives near a check-in counter in Terminal Two at Pudong International Airport on Sunday afternoon. He then took out a knife and slashed at his own neck before being admitted to hospital in critical condition. Police said he used gunpowder from fireworks in his home-made explosive device, residue of which was found in his rented room in Kunshan. "A beer bottle with a burning fuse rolled into the queue when we were waiting for check-in," passenger Susan Shen was quoted as saying by the Shanghai Daily newspaper. "And then suddenly the bottle exploded with a loud bang and colourful flash like fireworks." Zhou, originally from the southwestern province of Guizhou, had a high-school education and worked at various jobs before arriving in Kunshan in 2014, police said. There have been several cases in China of disgruntled individuals setting off explosions or starting fires in revenge for perceived wrongs. In 2013 a wheelchair-bound man detonated a homemade bomb at Beijing international airport as a protest at alleged police brutality. The man, Ji Zhongxing, was later sentenced to six years in jail. Last year an unemployed man set off an explosion at a public park in the eastern province of Shandong, killing himself and another person and wounding 24. LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - China Three Gorges, which operates the world's largest hydropower plant on China's Yangtze river, will buy German offshore wind park Meerwind from U.S. buyout firm Blackstone, the companies said on Monday. The terms of the sale were not disclosed but people familiar with the process have told Reuters that they expected it to be valued at around 1.6 billion euros ($1.8 bln). The deal, signed during a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to China, has German government approval despite growing controversy over Chinese takeovers of German businesses. China Three Gorges, which seeks to expand beyond hydropower as it faces a saturated domestic hydro market, will buy Blackstone's majority interest in WindMW GmbH, an offshore wind power joint venture. WindMW owns Meerwind, a 288 megawatt project in the North Sea and one of Germany's largest offshore windfarms. Reuters reported on Friday that China Three Gorges was closing in on a deal. The agreement was signed on Monday in the presence of Merkel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the statement said. It was one of a number of deals expected to be signed during Merkel's visit. Airbus agreed to sell 100 helicopters to a Chinese consortium on Monday, while Daimler AG and its Chinese partner, BAIC Motor, pledged to jointly invest 4 billion yuan ($607.53 million)to expand engine production. The German government has expressed concerns over foreign takeovers of strategic assets deemed key to the German economy. Germany has been trying to co-ordinate a counter-offer for Chinese home appliance maker Midea's controversial 4.5 billion euro buyout offer for robotics group Kuka. Bremerhaven-based WindMW is 80 percent owned by Blackstone and 20 percent by Windland Energieerzeugungs GmbH, and provides electricity for up to 360,000 households. The present management team will continue to operate the business. Jefferies, PJT Partners and Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisors to Blackstone. ($1 = 0.8876 euros) ($1 = 6.5840 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting By Freya Berry; Editing by Susan Fenton) Scientists in China want to conduct full-body transplants, which would replace every part of the human body, to help people who are paralyzed. The New York Times reports that Dr. Xiaoping Ren, an orthopedic surgeon at Harbin Medical University in China who was involved in the first hand transplant in the U.S. in 1999, says he is building a team for the procedure and has so far tested the possibility in mice and cadavers. The mice only lived for a day after the transplant. The science behind the procedure is still unclear, and many experts argue that its not possible to sever and reconnect a spinal cord. Others condemn the work on ethical grounds, calling it reckless. If the surgery failed, the recipient would die. According to the Times article, doctors say Rens idea for an operation is impossible: His plan: Remove two heads from two bodies, connect the blood vessels of the body of the deceased donor and the recipient head, insert a metal plate to stabilize the new neck, bathe the spinal cord nerve endings in a gluelike substance to aid regrowth and finally sew up the skin. The intended operation is also the latest in a series of scientific efforts by China that push ethical boundaries. In April 2015, it was announced that Chinese scientists used a genetic editing technology called CRISPR to modify human embryos, to the disbelief of researchers worldwide who believed the science was too nascent at the time. [NYT] China's fixed asset investment, an important gauge of infrastructure spending, slowed to its weakest pace in 16 years, government statistics showed Monday, a worrying trend despite other signs of economic stabilisation in the Asian giant. The moderation comes after a record credit binge in the first quarter of the year, a splurge aimed at stimulating China's slowing economy. Fixed asset investment rose 9.6 percent in the first five months of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The world's number two economy, a key driver of global expansion, grew just 6.9 percent in 2015, the weakest rate in a quarter of a century. The investment results fell far short of economists' median forecast of 10.4 percent in a survey by Bloomberg News and was the slowest pace of expansion since May 2000. But factory production and consumer spending showed steady growth for the period, the government data indicated, as industrial output rose 6.0 percent year-on-year in May, matching the figure for April, while retail sales were up 10.0 percent. "The national economy extended a stabilising and progressing trend that emerged since the start of the year with positive factors accumulating," said Sheng Laiyun, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics. "But we must be aware that the international environment remains complicated and severe, the painful domestic structural adjustments continue, and the economy is still under downward pressure." The data show that overall industrial conditions were broadly stable, Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a note, but added that growth was "increasingly reliant on rapid state sector investment" that is likely to drop off later this year. -Private investment slows - Private investment growth also weakened, with a 3.9-percent increase in the first five months of the year. "The slowdown in private investment growth indeed showed the intrinsic driver of China's economic growth is yet to be strengthened," said Sheng. Story continues He blamed the weakening on factors including the difficulty for private firms to get loans, industrial overcapacity, and limited access for private firms to some sectors. Beijing has promised to take steps to address these problems, pledging to cut red tape and release the economic power of small and medium enterprises. But as with other reform vows, talk seems to have outweighed action and complaints from private enterprises remain abundant. Following Monday's release, analysts said that this month's overall figures may endanger China's growth target of 6.5 to 7 percent in the second quarter. The numbers may lead authorities to use more aggressive fiscal policies such as faster approval of infrastructure projects, analysts with ANZ Research said. "If fixed asset investment declines further in June, the 6.5 percent threshold is at risk," it said, a sentiment echoed by Nomura. As part of the programme to avoid that outcome, a possible first step towards a feared "hard landing", Beijing has pledged to reduce overcapacity and excess inventory in its industrial sectors, with the country's ailing steel industry a key target. But output rose 1.8 percent on-year in May, even as US and European steelmakers have accused bloated Chinese firms of dumping excess production on foreign markets. Foreign governments say they have seen little movement towards implementing promises to tackle the problem. Chinese stocks were sharply lower, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 2.4 percent in late trade. * Deal comes a month after Didi raised $1 bln from Apple * Battle with Uber for control of China ride-failing market (Adds details of deal, industry context) June 13 (Reuters) - Chinese car-hailing app Didi Chuxing said on Monday it had received an investment of about $600 million from China Life Insurance Co Ltd, boosting resources to fund its battle with Uber just a month after it raised $1 billion from Apple Inc. The latest fund-raising comes with China's top ride-hailing company locked in a struggle to fend off its global rival's march into China. Uber raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund in new resources earlier this month. The investment by China Life - the largest insurer in the Asia-Pacific region by market value - included equity of $300 million and a long-term borrowing commitment of $305 million, the companies said in a statement. "The two parties will also collaborate on investment opportunities in mobile transportation and related sectors in China and beyond," the statement said. Apple invested $1 billion in May in Didi, a move that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said would help his company better understand the critical Chinese market. Didi and Uber have spent heavily to subsidise fares to gain market share in China, raising speculation in local media that they might ultimately join forces. Didi itself teamed up with a former local rival last year. Prior to the China Life investment, the company had raised about $6.3 billion including funding rounds before and after it became a merged company, according to research firm CB Insights. In May, sources told Reuters that Didi, which completes more than 11 million rides a day, was working towards in initial public offering in the United States that would likely take place in 2018. (Reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese and Kenneth Maxwell) By Michelle Price HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese state-owned companies seeking to buy European assets are going to face greater regulatory scrutiny following a landmark European Commission decision on a recent deal. In its review of a proposed joint venture between Frances EDF and state-owned China General Nuclear Power (CGN), the Commission - which has exclusive power over antitrust issues in the European Union ruled that CGN was not independent from Chinas central administrator for state-owned enterprises, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). As a result, it decided that it did have the power to decide whether the deal should be cleared. It meant that the Commission didn't only consider CGN's own revenue but the combined revenue of all Chinese energy state-owned enterprises when considering whether the deal came under its jurisdiction. This approach automatically bumped CGNs turnover above the minimum EU threshold for merger clearance, a warning shot for other Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) who may be considering buying assets in Europe and were not anticipating needing to get a regulatory green light. The Commission generally only reviews a merger if each party to it has more than 250 million euros (197.19 million) in sales in the EU as well as combined global sales of more than 5 billion euros. CGNs turnover, alone, didnt cross that 250 million euro threshold, but the Chinese energy SOEs as a whole do breach that level. While the ruling was little noticed when the details were released in April, law firms working with Chinese companies and their targets have in the past few weeks issued warnings to their clients. They have told them the decision could force Chinese SOEs to file for EU merger clearance regardless of their size in Europe, creating an extra barrier, and at the very least delay proposed acquisitions by Chinese SOEs. POLITICAL CONCERNS The development comes as the purchase of over $200 billion (140.74 billion) of foreign assets by Chinese companies in the past 18 months - many of which are SOEs - is triggering some political concerns in Europe and the United States. Story continues Politicians in France and Germany have expressed concerns at the rapid advance of Chinese companies in Europe, with French President Francois Hollande balking at the prospect of city of Shanghai-controlled Jin Jiang gaining control of French hotels group Accor (ACCP.PA). The CGN-EDF deal was approved by the Commission in March. It is the full analysis showing why it reviewed the transaction, which was published in April, that has made the waves. The CGN case marks the first time the Commission has said publicly that Chinese government control is so pervasive that all SOEs in a sector should be treated as a single entity. "The CGN decision demonstrates the European Commission's appetite to look at deals involving Chinese SOEs," said Adrian Emch, a partner at Hogan Lovells in Beijing. "This was the first time the European Commission had said yes, SASAC is effectively the parent company of a Chinese SOE in order to assert its jurisdiction to review the deal - previously the European Commission had left that question open." CGN did not respond to requests for comment, but said in its submission to the Commission that it operated independently. SASAC did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, the Commission said it tests for state-owned company independence regardless of the nationality of the entity, adding: The Commission does not lay down rules in its cases, but makes findings based on the facts of the case at that specific point in time. Some European and U.S. policymakers have raised concerns that China's foreign takeover drive poses national security risks, prompting the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to scrutinize and in some cases block more deals. At least 50 percent of Chinese foreign purchases over the past 18 months involved companies that were either fully or partly state-owned, according to Thomson Reuters data. COMPELLING EVIDENCE One EU source with knowledge of the matter said the Commission's decision did not set a new precedent but offered greater clarity on the regulator's thinking on Chinese state control. "In all likelihood, this will be the basis for such cases going forward," said the source. Lawyers said they were now advising Chinese SOE clients to speak with the Commission even if they believe the deal does not meet the EU merger thresholds, especially if they operate in China's energy sector. Failure to file for approval of a deal can lead to sizable fines. In 2014, for example, the regulator fined Norwegian salmon farmer Marine Harvest 20 million euros for merging with a rival without first having sought EU clearance "This certainly sets down a marker for future cases," said Nicholas French, co-head of the China antitrust practice at law firm Freshfields. "If the SOE is in the energy sector, they would have to show some concrete evidence to the rebut the commissions analysis." For companies that do file for merger review, the clearance process is likely to become more onerous as Brussels seeks extra information on the control structure of an SOE that is buying assets in Europe. This may be hard to produce due to China's strict state secrecy laws. The tougher approach could have implications for state-owned ChemChina's $43 billion bid for Swiss agriculture company Syngenta (SYNN.S) - China's biggest foreign purchase ever - with lawyers saying the clearance process may take longer and require additional disclosures. "The level of scrutiny is likely to intensify. This will make filing in EU merger cases trickier if you need detailed corporate information on a large number of SOEs," said Alan Riley, professor at the UK-based Institute for Statecraft, a think tank. "If you think about ChemChina, they may well face a huge demand for information from the commission in relation to at least other bio and agriculture SOEs and then they would have to hope there are not many overlaps." ChemChina did not respond to requests for comment. (Reporting by Michelle Price; Additional reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Martin Howell) Chris Christie Chris Christie's team fired back Monday at a New Yorker story that painted Christie as "a sort of manservant" to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. "Governor Chris Christie, of New Jersey, another of Trumps opponents early in the campaign, has transformed himself into a sort of manservant, who is constantly with Trump at events," The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza wrote in an article posted Monday. Lizza added as an aside, in parentheses: "One Republican told me that a friend of his on the Trump campaign used Snapchat to send him a video of Christie fetching Trumps McDonalds order." Reached for comment, Brian Murray, a Christie spokesman, called the McDonald's anecdote a "completely invented scenario." "We categorically deny this ridiculous, completely invented scenario, which the writer attributed to an unnamed sources anonymous friend," Murray told Business Insider in an email. "The fact the writer relegated this bit of sleaze between parenthesis certainly indicates he knew it was trash that had to be separated from the rest of the story." NOW WATCH: Heres the $5.3 million mansion the Obamas will reportedly live in after the White House More From Business Insider Han Zheng, Timothy Massad talk about role of CCP12 in China From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-06-13 11:03 SHANGHAI Party Secretary Han Zheng met Timothy G. Massad, chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission last week while Massad was in town to attend the celebration of the Global Association of Central Counterparties (CCP12) as a legal entity in China. Han said Shanghai is developing the pilot free trade zone and carrying out financial reform and innovation according to the national strategy. Shanghai wants to learn from other countries experiences and keep risks under control when conducting experiments. He noted that financial institutions in Shanghai have active exchanges with their counterparts in the United States and their cooperation has been fruitful. He hoped CCP12 can become a new platform for exchanges and cooperation between local and international financial institutions. Massad said Chinas development in the past 30 years is impressive and Shanghais achievement has drawn world attention. He said his commission is paying close attention to financial reform measures taken in Shanghai and is keen to share its expertise and increase cooperation with China and Shanghai. Massad said the registration of CCP12 as a legal entity in Shanghai is essential to promoting fair competition and cooperation among international financial institutions. Founded in 2001 by 12 central counterparty organizations, CCP12 is a global association with 33 members. Shanghai Clearing House joined the association in 2013. CCP12 works to promote the industry dialogue on the adoption of best clearing and risk management practices and to support strategic progress on regulatory harmonization and enhancement of global standards. Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f114290%2f8b1ccb4f723f4b66b699f33fb0a9e22d After the tragic events in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday, people from all over the globe are showing their support for the victims. The rainbow flag can be seen flying over government buildings, monuments and public bridges everywhere from Sydney, Australia, to New York, in solidarity with those injured and killed in the attack. SEE ALSO: How to help the survivors and victims of the Orlando mass shooting The shooting has claimed the lives of more than 50 people and injured 53, making it the worst mass shooting in American history. Sydney Town Hall, the Welsh Assembly, St. Andrew's House in Edinburgh and the John Seigenthaler Pedestrian Bridge in Nashville, Tennessee, are among the many tributes to Orlando. The Empire State Building in New York, which shines nightly with bright, colorful lights, showed support for the victims by going dark on Sunday. On Jun 10, British financier Guy Hands withdrew its seven-year long litigation against Wall Street giant Citigroup Inc. C -- in London. The lawsuit was related to Terra Firma Capital Partners, the private equity firm owned by Guy Hands, purchaser of EMI Group Ltd. in 2007. Both the parties confirmed the dismissal of the case. Justice Michael Burton said at a special hearing: Im sure this is the right result. These claims were brought in good faith, Mr. Hands said in a statement. However, it has become evident that our documentation of the fast-moving and complex events, and memories of these events after nine years, are no longer sufficient to meet the high demands of proof required for a fraud claim in court. Citigroup said in a statement: We have always maintained that the allegations made by Terra Firma were entirely baseless and that Citi, specifically [Citi bankers] David Wormsley, Michael Klein and Chad Leat, acted at all times with absolute honesty and professional integrity throughout the EMI transaction. We are very pleased that Terra Firma has unreservedly withdrawn the allegations, agreed to the dismissal of the proceedings and will pay Citis costs in relation to the matter. Background In 2007, Guy Hands and his private equity team at Terra Firma offered $6.7 billion (4 billion) as the bidding amount for EMI but failed to meet the loan payments provided by Citigroup to finance the deal. Therefore, Citigroup finally took EMI over and vended it in two parts in Nov 2011. EMIs recorded music division, EMI Music was sold to Vivendis Universal Music Group (UMG) for $1.9 billion (1.2 billion), while the publishing division was divested to a group of investors led by Sony Corporation of America (SCA) a U.S. subsidiary of Sony Corporation SNE for $2.2 billion. Back in Dec 2009, Guy Hands filed a lawsuit against Citigroup claiming that a Citi banker convinced him to buy EMI at a higher price. Terra Firma claimed $8 billion (5 billion) as damages, which was reduced to $2.2 billion (1.5 billion) at a trial. Further, in 2013, a federal appeals court turned down a 2011 jury verdict, which was in favor of Citigroup. As per the verdict, Citigroup was cleared of committing any wrongdoing against Tierra Firma. Therefore, the federal courts move provided a fair opportunity to Guy Hands to seek compensation for the banks wrongdoings. However, Citigroup denied the allegations and in turn accused Guy Hands of being involved in "legal tourism" by trying to prove his claims in both the U.S. and England prior to the mutual agreement in 2014, under which Guy Hands and Citigroup ended their legal tussle in the U.S. However, both parties agreed to pursue the case in England. Conclusion Pending lawsuits are not only a burden on a companys financials but they also dent its reputation. Thus, resolving legal issues at the earliest are in the best interests of any organization. Currently, Citigroup carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Better-ranked finance stocks include Enterprise Financial Services Corp. EFSC and Heartland Financial USA, Inc. HTLF, both with a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report CITIGROUP INC (C): Free Stock Analysis Report SONY CORP ADR (SNE): Free Stock Analysis Report HEARTLAND FINCL (HTLF): Free Stock Analysis Report ENTERPRISE FINL (EFSC): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign stop in Sylmar, California, United States June 4, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said Monday that she would use the phrase "radical Islamism," but stressed she wanted to steer clear of demonizing an entire religion. Clinton's comments came after her Republican rival, Donald Trump, challenged her to use the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" in reference to the mass shooting in Orlando, which was carried out by a 29-year-old man who pledged allegiance to the terrorist group ISIS. "I have clearly said that we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people," Clinton told CNN on Monday. "And whether you call it radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think that they mean the same thing. I'm happy to say either." Hillary Clinton on combating terrorism: Demonizing "an entire religion" is "dangerous" https://t.co/J1lSVtIR1b https://t.co/Hx1NPOWVE1 CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 13, 2016 She then cautioned against giving ISIS what it wants. The terror group has stated its desire to provoke a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West. "But what I won't do, because I think it is dangerous for our efforts to defeat this threat, is to demonize and demagogue and, you know, declare war on an entire religion," she said. "That plays right into ISIS' hands." The Orlando shooting was the deadliest in US history and worst terror attack on American soil since 9/11. Omar Mateen, a US citizen, killed at least 49 people and wounded scores more when he opened fire at an LGBTQ nightclub early Sunday. NOW WATCH: Trump said hes willing to do what no sitting US president has ever done More From Business Insider By Steve Holland and Ginger Gibson MANCHESTER, N.H./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday he would suspend immigration to the United States from countries "where there is a proven history of terrorism" against the West, his strongest reaction yet to the Orlando nightclub massacre. Trump's speech in Manchester, New Hampshire, was in response to the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 were wounded at the gay nightclub early on Sunday before gunman Omar Mateen was killed by police. Trump said that, if elected on Nov. 8, he would use the executive authority of the presidency to impose stronger controls on immigration, one of the main themes of his campaign. "I would use this power to protect the American people. When Im elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats," the 69-year-old businessman said. He noted that the parents of the gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, were born in Afghanistan. Mateen, who was born in the United States, pledged loyalty to the Islamic State militant jihadist group. Pointing to specific incidents such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Trump also said threats were posed by people with roots in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia. He stressed that his proposed ban would be temporary and would last until "when as a nation we are in a position to properly screen these people coming into our country. They're pouring in, and we dont know what were doing." In her response to the massacre, the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, warned against demonizing Muslim Americans. Goaded by Trump, Clinton, 68, referred to Islamic State militants as "radical jihadist" after repeatedly refusing to go along with Republicans' description of the threat as "radical Islamic terrorism." Story continues "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very strong, and we must attack it," she said in a speech in Cleveland. In proposals for dealing with threats of violence at home and abroad, the former U.S. secretary of state called for increased efforts to remove Islamic State propaganda from the internet, more air strikes in areas held by the group and better coordination with allies in the region. She specifically called out three U.S. allies - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait - for allowing its citizens to fund mosques and schools that train jihadists. Clinton also proposed stricter gun control laws, reiterating previous calls to prohibit people on terrorism watch lists from buying firearms. She pointed out that while the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of Mateen as a possible threat, he was still able to purchase a gun legally. Clinton has called for a complete ban on assault-style guns. "Its important that we stop the terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attacks, and that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino," California, Clinton said, drawing a standing ovation from the crowd. Clinton called on Americans to come together like they did after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. She pointed out that, at the time, she was a Democratic U.S. senator representing New York, while the U.S. president, New York governor and New York City mayor were all Republicans. "Americans from all walks of life rallied together with a sense of common purpose on Sept 12. ... We had each others' backs. We did not attack each other, we worked with each other to protect our country and rebuild our city," Clinton said. Trump challenged Clinton to explain why she favored letting Syrian civil war refugees into the United States. He said his policies would better protect American women, gays and lesbians, Jews and Christians. Trump's support among women and gay voters lags far behind that of Clinton. "Radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-American," said Trump. "I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people, and Jewish people are the targets of persecution and intimidation by radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence." "The bottom line is that Hillary supports the policies that bring the threat of radical Islam into America, and allow it to grow overseas," Trump said. Trump also lashed out at President Barack Obama by questioning his motives for refusing to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" in describing such attacks. He argued that both the president and Clinton were unfit to lead the nation, and said he would expand U.S. intelligence capabilities. White House spokesman Josh Earnest refused to address Trumps comments directly at a daily news briefing, characterizing Trumps remarks as small in the aftermath of the massacre, and as such, neither he nor Obama would focus on them. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Alana Wise in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis) By Melanie Burton HONG KONG (Reuters) - Commodities broker Marex Spectron is expanding its metals business into new regions and products beyond the London Metal Exchange after fee hikes led its customers to look for cheaper avenues for trading. London-based Marex has hired new staff to reach into Japan and to add an industrial metals base in Singapore, its global head of metals told Reuters in an interview late last week. Simon Van Den Born said the additions would boost its regional base metals business now centred in Hong Kong and help build up alternative business lines such as in gold. "I would say that the predominant response we get from clients is: how can I avoid the LME with its fee structure? People are migrating away from the LME because of that," Van Den Born said. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd bought the LME for $2.2 billion (1.55 billion pounds) four years ago, before raising trading fees by an average 31 percent at the start of last year as it aimed to wring profit from its investment. LME volumes fell in 2015 and have dropped by 9 percent in the first quarter, while volumes at rivals the U.S Comex bourse and Shanghai Futures Exchange have grown. Volumes fluctuate for reasons including macroeconomic factors, the LME said in a statement. "Historically low prices have led to lower hedging activity from the physical industry, which is a significant constituency of the LME market," it said, adding that it would enhance its market structure with guidance from its customers. Marex Spectron was formed through a merger of metals and oil brokerage firms in 2011 and is majority owned by British private equity house JRJ Group. Its head count has doubled to more than 500 since 2012, of which metals accounts for some 60 global roles. Beyond London, the broker has bases in Houston, Oslo and New York. "Our business a couple of years ago was centred around the LME floor and 20 people in London. Today the business is just far more diverse. Precious metals is something we've seen decent growth in the last 24 months," Van Den Born said. Story continues "We're looking to institutional investors, Chinese players like hedge funds, that's the marketplace we're expanding in ... Our China corporate business may have subsided a little bit, (but) our investor business has increased - our presence in Singapore will maintain that." While its overall metals business was steady, Marex's direct Chinese volumes have shrunk 30 percent since the start of 2015, he said. Van Den Born also said that HKEX's push to develop a monthly contract at the expense of the LME's current structure which encourages daily trade for three months out, was changing the nature of the bourse. "After a while you defund the contract, you just drive towards a cash settled contract rather than a fundamentally physically settled contract which has been the bedrock of the LME." (This version of the story has been refiled to change headline to give full name of company) (Reporting by Melanie Burton; Editing by Joseph Radford) AMC Through three episodes of AMCs Preacher, many people who have read the Garth Ennis source material and many who have not are expressing similar confused sentiments. Viewers have no idea whats going on. I am so confused as to what all is going on. #Preacher King Crowley (@TrueKingOfHell) June 13, 2016 I watched all 3 episodes of #Preacher and I still have no idea what's going on Deej (@Djenane1) June 13, 2016 Watching #Preacher on #AmazonPrime ? No idea what's going on but it's the best show on tv right now. pic.twitter.com/9RhhDF7ulQ Steve Blears (@steveblears) June 8, 2016 Viewers who have not read the comics may have no idea who the man watching the snuff film was this week, or who the cowboy from 1881 was in last weeks episode, while people who have read the comics may not understand whats going on with Jesse Custer because practically none of whats in the series happened in the comics. The reason the series is so dissimilar from the comics is that the comics would have been impossible to adapt effectively to television. A literal adaptation would have been frantic, overwhelming, and too expensive. In the comics, readers never really get to see Jesse Custer as a preacher: Hes immediately hurled into a road-trip story with Tulip and Cassidy, going up against assassins, angels, and God Himself. Comics readers should think of the television series this way: Where the source material begins is approximately where the first season of Preacher will end. As showrunner Sam Catlin has explained: Story continues We really like the idea of seeing [Jesse Custer] as a preacher initially, and introducing this crazy, crazy world into a very small world of a very typical small West Texas town. I think its actually helped us, because its grounded it in the familiar the mayor and the sheriff and the preacher whose hearts not really in it and all that stuff so all the crazy stuff about heaven and angels and vampires and violence hopefully doesnt overwhelm, because it keeps giving the viewer a sort of grounded place to return to. Its almost like a deep-sea diving. If we were to just jump right into the Preacher world, youd probably get the bends as a viewer, but were sort of calibrating the show. Meanwhile, viewers who havent read the comics may find some of Preacher fairly straightforward, but may be completely confused by some of the flashbacks and asides. Heres what viewers need to understand so far: Jesse Custer AMC Jesse Custer comes from a difficult background. We dont know much about his family life yet, but we do know that he witnessed the execution of his own father when he was a small boy. We do not yet understand who shot Jesses father or why. However, it was Jesses father who inspired him to do good in the world, and after a living a life of crime with Tulip for several years, something happened involving a man named Carlos that prompted Jesse to go back home to Annville, Texas, and become a preacher. Unfortunately, Jesse wasnt very good at being preacher until he was possessed by an spiritual entity called Genesis. Genesis gave Jesse the power to command others to do as he says. However, there are limitations to that power: A person can only do what he or she is actually capable of. Jesse can ask Cassidy to fly, for instance, and Cassidy can try to fly, but Jesse cant give him the power to fly or the ability to recall the name of the governor of Texas. He could also give Tracy the teenager in the coma the power to open her eyes, but apparently not the ability to awake from her coma. We dont know exactly where Jesse is heading in the series, but we do know that hes confused about his powers, their source, and why he has been chosen to possess them. Hes also determined to use those powers to serve the word of God. What Jesse doesnt realize, however, is that God Himself has given up. Tulip OHare AMC We dont know much yet about Tulip OHares back story. At one point, she and Jesse were madly in love and engaged in the criminal life. However, they got involved with a man named Carlos, who abandoned Jesse and Tulip during a bank robbery. During that robbery, Jesse killed a security guard. Carlos took all the money and left Tulip and Jesse behind, which eventually led to their breakup. Tulip has been obsessed for a number of years with getting the love of her life back and exacting revenge upon Carlos. Her mission has gotten Tulip in bed with a woman named Danni and a man named Herr Starr, who works for Grail Industries. She now knows where to find Carlos. However, she hasnt been able to convince Jesse to join her in killing him. Cassidy AMC Cassidy is a 119-year-old vampire from Dublin. He has a taste for drugs and alcohol and hes being chased by vampire vigilantes. Someone from the outside we dont know who yet knows where Cassidy is. Hes laying low in Annville and working for Jesse. Hes not like a typical vampire: He doesnt need to feed constantly on humans, but we do know that blood heals his wounds. Garlic and crucifixes do not work on him, but he does have to avoid direct sunlight. He seems to be working with Fiore and DeBlanc now to help them retrieve Genesis from Jesse. Fiore and DeBlanc AMC Fiore and DeBlanc are angels from Heaven posing as government agents in Annville. They have been sent to retrieve Genesis, the spiritual entity that has possessed Jesse. They cannot be killed. However, they are afraid of Jesse and his power. They are now working with Cassidy in an attempt to pull Genesis out of Jesse. Sheriff Root and Eugene AMC Sheriff Root knows about Jesses past, and he is suspicious of him. Some of the townspeople also seem to believe that Root is a murderer. At one point, Eugene tried and failed to kill himself with a shotgun, leaving him with a face that looks like an ass. Eugene believes that God has abandoned him. He also appears to have developed an affection for Tracy Loach, the teenager in a coma. Something happened in Eugene and the sheriffs past that led to Roots wife becoming some sort of invalid. Odin Quincannon AMC Odin owns a meat-packing company that another organization is attempting to take over, but Odin is not concerned about that other company. Odin employs much of the town, including Donnie, the temperamental man who beats his wife because she likes it. Odin is clearly not a good person. Hes up to something thats no good, and he seems to have a fondness for the sounds of cows being slaughtered. Odins storyline will come more into focus in next weeks episode. The Saint of Killers and Herr Starr AMC Viewers are not really supposed to know much about the Saint of Killers (the cowboy from 1881) or Herr Starr (the man watching the snuff film) yet. Its enough to understand that these two men are the villainous forces that drive much of the story in Preacher. Thats about where Preacher is. Were only three episodes in, and it may still take a few more episodes for many of these storylines to snap into focus. In the near future, however, viewers can expect to learn more about Odin Quincannon, Jesses relationship with Odin, and how Tulip and Cassidy become acquainted. Mayhem and then a hail of gunfire. That is how Orlando police on Monday described how law enforcement had taken down Omar Mateen, the shooter who authories say killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. Mateenwho police say opened fire at the club just after 2 a.m. with steady semi-automatic fire, raking the assembled of more than 350 dancing, drinking, and singing at on Latin Nighthad barricaded himself in a bathroom with a handful of hostages after trading fire with a uniformed off-duty officer at the club and first responders. After two hours of failed negotiation, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said he had no choice but to give the order to his SWAT team to breach the building, as time was running out to rescue the victims. Most of the killing was over by the time Mateen took refuge in the bathroom, law enforcement officials said. The dead and grievously wounded remained inside for hours, their cell phones ringing hauntingly through the air, and hospital officials cited the standoff as contributing to bodycount. At least 200 people fled out the clubs doors, following the message posted on the Pulse nightclubs Facebook page minutes after 2 am get out and keep running from the club. A number of them turned back around when they realized that their friends that they came with werent with them, said David Ward, whose was awoken in his nearby condo by the opening shots. Mina said the off-duty officer engaged in a shoot-out with Mateen up until more officers arrived. Additional police officers arrived and also engaged the suspect, and forced him to stop shooting and retreat to the bathroom where he had some hostages. Mateen made three phone calls to 911, FBI Director James Comey told reporters, and in one pledged his allegiance to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and invoked the Boston Marathon bombings and a Florida man who became the first U.S. suicide bomber in Syria on behalf of the al-Nusra Front. Hostage negotiators tried to make contact through the early morning hours. Mina said Mateen had not seemed angry or upset. Based on the calls he was cool and calm, he told reporters. He really wasnt asking for a lot. We were doing most of the asking. Story continues Believing loss of life was imminent, as Mateen threatened to use explosives, Mina said he gave the order to breach. An explosive breaching device was used, at about 5 a.m., but when that didnt work police used an armored vehicle, known as a bearcat. When officers were able to penetrate the wall, the police chief said dozens and dozens of people exited, including the gunman. Officers and the gunmen then engaged in a brief, but intense gun battle, during which Mateen was killed and one officer was shot in his kevlar helmet. During a news conference on Monday, Comey revealed that the agency had interviewed Mateen on three separate occasions. Twice as part of a 2013 investigation, after the killer told coworkers at his security job that he hoped law enforcement would raid his apartment and attack his wife and child so he could martyr himself. Mateen also told his coworkers at the time he was a member of the terror organization Hezbollah, Comey said. On another occasion in 2014, officials sought out Mateen to determine his connection to the Florida man who carried out a suicide bombing in Syria for the Al-Nusra Front, which is linked to al-Qaeda. Officials determined that the link between Mateen and that bomber was casualthey attended the same mosque. Comey said there are strong indications that the killer was radicalized and inspired by terrorist groups, but no clear indication that he was directed to carry out the attack by any organized militant group. Comey likened searches for lone-wolf attackers to looking for needles in a nationwide haystack and also attempting to determine which hay has the potential to become a needle. I dont see anything in reviewing our work that our agents should have done differently, Comey said of his agents previous investigations of Mateen. ATF agents said Monday there were two weapons recovered on the scenea handgun and an AR-15-type rifleand both weapons traced to the last known purchaser, who is the shooter. A third weapon was found in his car, but officers are working to trace the last known purchaser of that weapon as well. There was no other shooter, they said. The explosives Mateen threatened to detonate were apparently never there. Officers on Monday said the operation saved many many lives in the nightclub. The officers also said they do not believe anyone connected to the shooter poses imminent danger to the public. We have no reason to believe that anyone connected to this crime is placing the public in imminent danger, the FBIs Ron Hopper said. The police revised down the toll of victims from 50 to 49, explaining that the shooter had originally been counted among the victims. So far, 46 have been identified and 36 of the next of kin have been notified, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said. As the next of kin are being notified, the city is putting names on a city website. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has asked President Obama to declare an emergency in his state in the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history. The governor is hoping resources the federal government could provide under an emergency declaration would aide in the states ongoing recovery. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with officials to discuss the ongoing situation in Orlando on Monday. It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was being distributed on the Internet, Obama said after the briefing. This is an example of the type of homegrown extremism that a lot of us have been concerned about for a long time. Officials said Monday that the shooting at the Pulse nightclub was the most horrific event in the citys history, but Mayor Buddy Dyer said hed never been prouder of the city. We will not be defined by the act of the cowardly hater, Dyer said. We will be defined by how we respond. In a video posted on Facebook, Mateens father Seddique Mir Mateen apologized for his sons actions saying he hates both terrorism and ISIS. I always [was] telling him that the terrorists and terrorism are the enemy of the whole humanity, Sediqque Mir said. I dont know what has caused him to do this, his father added. I was not aware that he had hatred. Data Published in the Journal of Critical Care Supports the Potential of Neutrolin as a Non-antibiotic Antimicrobial Solution BEDMINSTER, NJ / ACCESSWIRE / June 13, 2016 / CorMedix Inc. (NYSE MKT: CRMD), a pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing therapeutic products for the prevention and treatment of infectious and inflammatory disease, announced today publication of a research article highlighting the increased cost and mortality associated with bloodstream infections ("BSI") following placement of a central venous catheter ("CVC"). CorMedix's non-antibiotic anti-infective solution Neutrolin is in Phase 3 clinical development in the U.S. for preventing catheter-related bloodstream infections. Neutrolin demonstrated greater than 96% reduction in infection rate compared to historical benchmarks in an observational study conducted in Europe where Neutrolin is a CE Marked product. The article titled, "Clinical and Economic Burden of Bloodstream Infections Following Central Venous Catheter Placement in the Intensive Care Unit" will be published in the Journal of Critical Care and is currently available online ahead of print. The study was conducted by DaVita Clinical Research and was presented recently at 21st Annual International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research Meeting in Washington, DC. Randy Milby, CorMedix CEO, said, "This research underscores the importance of our work as we pursue the current U.S. Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of Neutrolin for the prevention of catheter-related bloodstream infections and maintenance of catheter patency in CVCs used for vascular access in hemodialysis patients. Currently, there are no pharmacological agents approved in the United States for the prevention of catheter related bloodstream infections. At the same time, data indicates that catheter related bloodstream infections are associated with significant increases in costs of care and risk of death during initial hospitalization." The study analyzed patients who had an index hospitalization involving an Intensive Care Unit stay between January 1, 2011 and September 30, 2014 wherein a CVC was placed. Comparisons were made between patients who developed bloodstream infections following CVC insertion (n=522) and those who did not (n=1441). Length of hospital stay, billed costs of the index hospitalization, and total healthcare costs incurred over the 180-day period following discharge were compared, in addition to in-hospital mortality and 30-day readmission rates. The study found that development of BSI (versus not) was associated with longer hospital stay: 15.4 versus 8.6 days, respectively, and greater costs for the index hospitalization, $296,933 versus $188,387, respectively. Development of BSI was associated with a more than 3-fold greater mortality rate, corresponding to an adjusted incidence rate difference of 15.5%. Full text of the article can be found by visiting the Journal of Critical Care website here: http://www.jccjournal.org/article/S0883-9441%2816%2930068-5/abstract. About CorMedix Inc. CorMedix Inc. is an emerging commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company that initiated a Phase 3 clinical study of a novel anti-infective solution Neutrolin in hemodialysis patients in the United States in December 2015. The Company seeks to in-license, develop and commercialize therapeutic products for the prevention and treatment of infectious and inflammatory diseases. CorMedix's first commercial product in Europe is Neutrolin, a catheter lock solution for the prevention of catheter related bloodstream infections and maintenance of catheter patency in tunneled, cuffed, central venous catheters used for vascular access in hemodialysis patients, in addition to oncology patients, critical care patients, and patients receiving total parenteral nutrition, IV hydration, and/or IV medications. The FDA has granted Fast Track status to Neutrolin Catheter Lock Solution and also has designated Neutrolin as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product for oncology, hemodialysis, and critical care/intensive care patients, where catheter-related blood stream infections and clotting can be life-threatening. The initial and planned indications aim to address significant needs in catheter-based treatments in the U.S. and the rest of the world. For more information visit: www.cormedix.com. For Investors & Media: Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc. Joshua Drumm, Ph.D.: jdrumm@tiberend.com; (212) 375-2664 Janine McCargo: jmccargo@tiberend.com; (646) 604-5150 Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, regarding management's expectations, beliefs, goals, plans or CorMedix's prospects, future financial position, financing plans, future revenues and projected costs should be considered forward-looking. Readers are cautioned that actual results may differ materially from projections or estimates due to a variety of important factors, including: the results of studies regarding Neutrolin conducted by us and others; the cost, timing and results of the planned Phase 3 trials for Neutrolin in the U.S.; obtaining regulatory approvals to conduct clinical trials and to commercialize CorMedix's product candidates, including marketing of Neutrolin in countries other than Europe; obtaining additional financing to support CorMedix's research and development and clinical activities and operations; the risks associated with the launch of Neutrolin in new markets; CorMedix's ability to enter into, execute upon and maintain collaborations with third parties for its development and marketing programs; CorMedix's ability to maintain its listing on the NYSE MKT; the risks and uncertainties associated with CorMedix's ability to manage its limited cash resources; the outcome of clinical trials of CorMedix's product candidates and whether they demonstrate these candidates' safety and effectiveness; CorMedix's ability to identify and enter into strategic transactions; CorMedix's dependence on its collaborations and its license relationships; achieving milestones under CorMedix's collaborations; CorMedix's dependence on preclinical and clinical investigators, preclinical and clinical research organizations, manufacturers, sales and marketing organizations, and consultants; and protecting the intellectual property developed by or licensed to CorMedix. These and other risks are described in greater detail in CorMedix's filings with the SEC, copies of which are available free of charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or upon request from CorMedix. CorMedix may not actually achieve the goals or plans described in its forward-looking statements, and investors should not place undue reliance on these statements. CorMedix assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. SOURCE: CorMedix Inc. UNESCO meeting kicks off in Shanghai From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-06-13 14:55 The third interregional meeting of national commissions for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization was kicked off in Shanghai today. Representatives from more than110 countries and regions will discuss the role of the national commissions in the implementation of UNs 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, youth and prevention of violent extremism, as well as protection of our common heritage in the event of armed conflicts or natural disasters, in the three-day event. It is the first time for the meeting to be held in China. It was held in Astana of Kazakhstan in 2014 and Paris of France in 2015. Zagreb (AFP) - Croatia is to hold a no confidence vote this week against Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic, threatening snap elections, the main party in the country's fragile ruling coalition announced Monday. Oreskovic, a former pharmaceutical company executive, faces the vote less than five months after taking over as head of a right-wing coalition cobbled together following indecisive November polls. The parliament is to vote Thursday on the no confidence motion, filed by the ruling coalition's biggest party, the conservative HDZ, its secretary general told reporters. "The government has arrived at the end of a blind alley," Domagoj Ivan Milosevic said. The coalition's work has been marred by disputes between HDZ and its junior partner Most party ever since it took over. The crisis escalated last month after Most called for HDZ leader Tomislav Karamarko to quit as deputy premier over an alleged conflict of interest. It prompted Oreskovic to call for the resignation of both Karamarko and Most leader Bozo Petrov, who is another deputy premier. But Oreskovic refused to quit, saying he wanted to defend himself against HDZ accusations in the assembly. If the government falls, which is a likely scenario, Karamarko will avoid his own no confidence vote due by June 18, over a business deal between his wife and lobbyist for Hungary's oil group MOL. HDZ insists it would manage to form a new parliamentary majority as they label early elections the "last option". But analysts estimate the party is unlikely to be able to stitch together a new coalition. If the government falls and a new one is not formed within another 30 days, parliament is dissolved and the president calls new elections. Early elections would delay implementation of reforms in the European Union's newest member whose economy remains one of the 28-nation bloc's weakest. By Sarah Marsh MOA, Cuba, June 13 (Reuters) - Cuba is trying to reduce costs in the nickel industry to offset losses from low global prices, rather than raising output from 56,000 tonnes annually, industry executives said on a rare tour of one of the communist-led island's plants. The head of state monopoly Cubaniquel and plant managers said that despite the slump they were looking to foreign investment to increase capacity in the future. Nickel is one of the top foreign exchange earners for Cuba's beleaguered economy, and the country averaged production of around 74,000 tonnes in the decade after 2000. But nickel export earnings have been hit by plant obsolescence and a sharp fall in prices for the metal over the last four years. Cubaniquel originally expected revenue of $600 million to $700 million from nickel this year, projecting prices at around $14,000 per tonne, director Eder Oliveros Garcell said. Instead, prices have hovered around $8,600 per tonne, meaning sales will be substantially lower. "We expected revenue of this order, but the reality today is different," Oliveros Garcell said, during a visit late last week to the Pedro Soto Alba plant in the eastern Cuban city of Moa, a joint venture between Cubaniquel and Canadian mining company Sherritt International Corp. PRICE RISE SEEN Oliveros Garcell said he expected prices for nickel, used in the production of stainless steel and other corrosion-resistant alloys, to rise again next year. Cuba is one of the world's largest producers and exports to China, Europe and Canada. Output at the Pedro Soto Alba plant will continue to run at full capacity, producing 37,500 tonnes per year. If it continues to run at the same pace, it has enough reserves to last another 18 to 20 years, the plant's production manager Ricardo Quintana Santana said. But Cuba's only other processing facility, the state-owned Che Guevara plant, also in the northeastern district of Moa, was operating well below its capacity of 30,000 tonnes per year, said Cubaniquel's Oliveros Garcell. Output would likely be 18,500 tonnes this year, rising to 19,000 tonnes in 2017, he said. Story continues Low prices are exacerbating the impact of low output on financial results. "The topic of prices this year is having a significant impact in the plant's results and we have to improve on costs to get better results," he added. The industry was seeking to reduce energy and metallurgical costs, Santana said. Yet it wanted to raise salaries in line with recent reforms under President Raul Castro designed to update Cuba's Soviet-style command economy. The average Cuban state monthly wage is around $25, not enough to live on despite free housing, food rations and free healthcare and education. "The salary we had last year has multiplied by around four," said Santana, adding that wages were now around 3,000 Cuban pesos monthly, equivalent to $125. Motivation had risen as a result, he said. Despite the slump in prices, Cuba was looking for a partner for other projects in the nickel industry, Oliveros Garcell said, and had interest from companies in China, Brazil and South Africa. Exploration in and around Moa has shown reserves could support 120 years of mining at the country's current rate of production Both Oliveros Garcell and Santana said they hoped U.S. sanctions on Cuba would be lifted so the nickel industry could export there and import spare parts from its nearby northern neighbor rather than from Europe. (Editing by Cynthia Osterman) The father of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen apologized for his sons shooting rampage, calling it the act of a terrorist, but also said God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality, this is not for the servants of God. In a series of interviews Monday, Siddique Mateen condemned his 29-year-old son for storming the Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning, killing at least 49 people and wounding 53 others. Read: Orlando Nighclub Massacre Is Country's Latest Mass Shooting in a Series of Deadly Attacks Omar Mateen died in a shootout with police inside the club, a popular gay venue. As a father, I dont want any father to go through this, the elder Mateen said in an interview with APTN from his Port St. Lucie home in Florida. What he did was completely (an) act of (a) terrorist. The Afghan-born dad said he was proud of becoming a U.S. citizen and has long been against terrorism, against injustice. He is thought to have left Afghanistan after it was invaded by the former Soviet Union in 1979. He appears to have maintained ardent support for his native country and in a series of disjointed YouTube videos presents himself as an influential Afghan leader, The Washington Post reported. He also expressed gratitude in one video to the Afghan Taliban and expressed vehement anti-Pakistan views, the paper said. Our brothers in Waziristan, our brothers in (the) Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up. Inshallah, the Durand Line issue will be solved, he said. Read: Orlando Shooting Suspect Omar Mateen Ex-Wife Says He Was Violent and Unstable The Durand Line is the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan that splits the homeland of the Pashtun ethnic group. It is seen as detrimental to the Pashtun population. Mateen said Monday that he had seen his son the day before the shootings and Omar Mateen seemed perfect, with no sign of being upset or agitated. Story continues I would have arrested him myself, if he had any inkling of what his son was about to do, Mateen said. Im sorry again, the father said. Im very, very mad. Watch: Son Who Texted Mom From Bathroom During Orlando Shooting Is Among The Victims Related Articles: By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Monday called the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in which 50 people died, a "very serious tragedy," but said it was wrong to see all Muslims as potential terrorists. Asked in an interview with Reuters about U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's reiteration of a call after the shooting for a ban on Muslims entering the country, the Dalai Lama said the billionaire businessman was entitled to his opinion. However, he added that if he had a chance, he would ask Trump "What's his reason? More detail." The Dalai Lama said that in every religious community, including Buddhist ones, "there are some mischievous people." "But you cannot generalize," he said. "Some individual Muslims may carry out some terrorist activities, but better we should not say 'Muslim terrorists.' I think that's wrong." Fifty people, including the gunman, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants who had declared his allegiance to Islamic State militants, were killed in the attack at the Orlando nightclub on Sunday morning. It was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton are at odds over how to respond to such attacks, with the latter warning against demonizing Muslims and calling for tougher gun safety measures. Speaking earlier at Washington's U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), the Dalai Lama said that by nature, women were more compassionate and if more world leaders were female, "there may be less trouble, less violence." "Of course, some ladies, females, are exceptional," he added. "Equally, some males are very compassionate." Asked by Reuters if it was time for a female leader in the United States, he said, "that's up to the people of this country," although he added that past female world leaders such as India's Indira Gandhi, Israel's Golda Meir, Britain's Margaret Thatcher and Germany's Angela Merkel had set good examples. Asked if he would meet President Barack Obama during his three-day visit to Washington, the Dalai Lama said it was "not finalized, but some friends say he may meet me." Obama met the Dalai Lama when the latter visited Washington in 2014 and vowed "strong support" for Tibetans' human rights, angering China which sees the spiritual leader as an anti-Chinese separatist. Asked how Beijing (Peking) might respond this time, the Dalai Lama said: "I don't know - you should ask them. I think in Peking, we cannot as of now generalize. In Peking there are different views. Some people there have a more realistic view. Some are more hardline, which is more narrow-minded." At the start of the USIP event, the Dalai Lama called on the audience to observe a moment of silence for the Orlando victims. "Yesterday, very serious tragedy, Orlando. So let us (say) some silent prayer, OK," he said, while adding afterwards: "Although, one Buddhist monk grows quite skeptical about the effects of prayer." Real change, he said, required serious action, including better education, to ensure more compassion and tolerance in the world, and it was important not to lose "determination or courage." "Then on top of that, some prayer is OK, no harm," he said. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Frances Kerry and Sandra Maler) The days after a mass shooting in the United States have become a national ritual of helpless grief and anger. On Monday, the Dalai Lama joined the conversation by urging a Washington audience to build a world without violence a topic that is even more prescient after early Sundays massacre in Orlando, Florida, which killed 50 people celebrating LGBT pride in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The Dalai Lama believes that a lasting peace is best achieved by empowering young people. As part of that, he told his audience at the U.S. Institute of Peace, people must approach and befriend others from different backgrounds and religions, and voiced skepticism about the effects of prayer if it is not coupled with serious action. Asked about the Orlando shootings, the Dalai Lama said when people create bloodshed they are no longer a genuine practitioner of Islam. He added, The very meaning of jihad is not harming others, but to combat your own destructive emotion. He called the sad event in Orlando a symptom of a larger problem of a self-centered attitude that creates a lack of a sense of oneness of human brothers and sisters. But he also criticized U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, saying many problems in the region could be traced to the U.S. response to the 9/11 terror attacks. American military power, he said, easily can crush. But American military power cannot change others mind or emotion. In May, the Tibetan Buddhist leader held a conference in Dharamsala with 28 youth leaders from areas of conflict or violence around the world. Soukaina Hamia, one of the youth leaders who was there, has for years sought to change the minds of vulnerable youth in Morocco to prevent them from turning to terrorism. After terrorist bombings in Casablanca in 2003 and 2007, she began working at a new cultural center in Sidi Moumen, the citys largest slum, and where all of the attackers in the two blasts had lived. Story continues Hamia, who is now the deputy director of the center, saw a connection between the lack of opportunities for youth and terrorist acts. Before her center opened, vulnerable youth in Sid Moumen had no outlet to express themselves. They dont have a sense of belonging, that they are citizens, that they are Moroccans, so it was their way to maybe make the world hear them, she told Foreign Policy. When events like the Orlando shootings happen, she tries to process the events with the youth at her center, which she said can be difficult for people from conservative backgrounds who are not used to thinking or talking about LGBT peoples rights. What we do is we focus more on the human factor, she said. People use religion as a pretext to justify their acts, but [violence] it is an act against religion. Speaking of the Orlando shootings, she added: It doesnt matter if you are Muslim or not, this is an act against humanity. This story has been updated. Photo credit: United States Institute of Peace/YouTube By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has a moral responsibility to try to ease tensions between majority Buddhists and minority Rohingya Muslims, her fellow Nobel laureate, the Dalai Lama, said on Monday. The Tibetan spiritual leader said he had stressed the issue in meetings with Suu Kyi, who came to power in April in the newly created role of state counselor in Myanmar's first democratically elected government in five decades. "She already has the Nobel Peace Prize, a Nobel Laureate, so morally she should ... make efforts to reduce this tension between the Buddhist community and Muslim community," he told Reuters in an interview in Washington. "I actually told her she should speak more openly." Violence between majority Buddhists and minority Muslims in recent years has cast a cloud over progress with democratic reforms in Myanmar. Rights groups have sharply criticized Suu Kyi's reluctance to speak out on the Rohingya's plight. The Dalai Lama said Suu Kyi, who won worldwide acclaim and a Nobel Peace Prize as a champion of democratic change in the face of military persecution, had responded to his calls by saying that the situation was "really complicated." "So I dont know," he said. There is widespread hostility towards Rohingya Muslims in the Buddhist-majority country, including among some within Suu Kyi's party and its supporters. More than 100 people were killed in violence in western Rakhine state in 2012, and some 125,000 Rohingya Muslims, who are stateless, took refuge in camps where their movements are severely restricted. Thousands have fled persecution and poverty in an exodus by boat to neighboring South and Southeast Asian countries. The Dalai Lama said some Buddhist monks in Myanmar "seem to have some kind of negative attitude to Muslims" and Buddhists who harbored such thoughts "should remember Buddha's face." "If Buddha happened, he certainly would protect those Muslim brothers and sisters," he said. The new Myanmar government announced late last month that Aung San Suu Kyi would lead a new effort to bring peace and development to Rakhine State. The announcement offered no details on how the group would go about addressing the state's multitude of problems. Suu Kyi said during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last month that the country needed "enough space" to deal with the Rohingya issue and cautioned against the use of "emotive terms", that she said were making the situation more difficult. (Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by David Gregorio) When the political scientist Andrew Hacker published The Math Myth and Other STEM Delusions earlier this year, he didnt break the internet. But he certainly stirred up the math establishment in arguing that anything more complicated than arithmetic is useless to most people, that requiring algebra in high school is an obstacle that drives the countrys dropout rates, and that the Common Cores approach to math, which calls for more complex math like trigonometry, is a mistake. As a journalist who has made math education her beat for a while now, I have been fascinated by the whole debacle, in part because many of Hackers arguments are more than a century old. And I sympathize with the irate mathematicians, because who likes being told their vocation is useless? So when I found out that James Tantonan Australian who serves as the Mathematical Association of Americas mathematician at large, and a proponent for Common Corewanted to debate Hacker last month at the National Math Museum in New York, I had to watch. Recommended: Standing by Their Man But as I watched, I had a sinking feeling: It was clear that neither of these men had ever had the experience of being told, either directly or indirectly, that math was not for them. And I realized that, by not being told this, they had never felt compelled to steer clear of math and numbers-heavy careers, even if high-school math wasnt fun for them either. Thats what happened to me. Math and I have a checkered past. I convinced myself in the sixth grade that I was awful at it because I wasnt getting easy As anymore, and spent the rest of my school years fearing and failing it. My math phobia kept me out of the sciences and medicine, and pushed me into the humanities. I got through my initial career avoiding it, which was easy: Those in the media are a notoriously math-hating bunch. But seven years ago, I enrolled in a pre-algebra class at a community college, and eventually wound up retaking all of high-school math through calculus. Story continues By the last class, I had come to not only appreciate math, but to alsomaybelove it. Most importantly, I realized my childhood fearthat I wasnt capable of understanding abstract mathwas unfounded. Girls dont need any more reasons to shun math. Neither does anyone, for that matter. And as I went through my community-college courses, I realized something else was a lie. I had actually been using abstract math, like algebra and geometry, all my adult life. So much for the trope that such math was useless outside the classroom; I just couldnt see past my own bad memories. Finally, I realized the problem had never been math, but the system, and the prejudices of the people in that system. My school years were filled with so many teachers and counselors and family members who seemed all too happy to let me think math was not for me. Reasons included that I was not a genius, and advanced math is only for geniuses; or that I should stick to writing, because most people are either word people or number people. There was also my gender, and this was a system that assumedand continues to assumethat girls simply lack the same spatial reasoning as boys, so math is better for boys. Recommended: Donald Trump Implies Obama Was Involved in the Orlando Shooting And so, as I watched Hacker take the podium for his opening argument, I was leery but prepared to listen. Alas, he disappointed me quickly. While I agreed with him that for many, failing a math course can derail them from college, never mind graduation, he lost me when he insisted struggling students shouldnt have to bother with more abstract math. The teenaged me would have rejoiced outwardly at no longer being forced to deal with functionsbut inwardly, it would have been the confirmation of my groundless fears: Sorry, youre too stupid to even try this. I contacted him later to ask about this concern, and he wrote me the following: Alternative classes in quantitative reasoning can be just as rigorous. One of the many myths discussed in my book is that the standard mathematics sequence sharpens quantitative skills. Abstract algebraic and geometric reasoning dont help you untangle the federal budget or a corporate report. Setting aside loftier aspirations of balancing the federal budget, or steering a corporations finances, it wasnt until Algebra II that I was taught the equation for compound interest. Understanding how exponential growth works has helped me decide on everything from which credit card to choose to realizing a variable-rate mortgage is a terrible idea. I have watched friends lose their homes to such mortgages, and in too many cases, it was the math that intimidated them. But as long as Hackers alternate courses tackle such helpful equations, and explain the concept of exponential growth, Im on board. How they will do this without embracing more complex algebra is a better question. Recommended: A Victory Lap in Blood He lost me again when he discussed the gender gap. I appreciated his acknowledgement that while girls tend to do well in the classroom, they lag behind boys in the math sections of standardized exams like the SAT, and that this lag can prevent them from getting into top universities or being named as merit scholars. But thats where his argument ended, leading me to wonder whether he truly believes girls test performance should be enough to discourage them from continuing with abstract math, or if he was just being provocative. When I asked Hacker about this, he made it clear he was criticizing the tests, not the girls ability: Standardized tests like SAT, ACT, and now the Common Core, he said, fail to show the true mathematical talents of girls and young women. I cannot argue with him there, but surely the simpler solution is to stop relying so much on such tests? Again, isnt the problem the system, not the math? But at the end of the day, it doesnt matter. Girls dont need any more reasons to shun advanced math. Neither does anyone, for that matter. Hackers solution to repackage math and strip it of its more abstract elements, whether useful or not, will do little to ease this countrys belief in the myth that math is for geniuses. It wont make math and STEM less elitist. And this elitism puts guys like Tanton on the hook. I believe Tanton when he says he shuns the genius myth and says he wants to bring the joy of math to everyone. I appreciate that he is working on ways to make it, as he put it to me when I contacted him later, less about getting through a heavy curriculum and passing high-stakes tests, and less like a boot camp. The problem is there are too many others in the math establishment who think sink or swim is the best approach, particularly at the college level. Worse, they believe, covertly and overtly, that those who understand math look a certain waymale, white, or Asian, from a certain social class. And if an aspiring mathematician does not fit that mold, he or she had better be a genius or theyre not worth the waste of graph paper. And that is why, for all their implementation issues, the Common Core standards should be applauded, because they say to students: I expect more. I believe you can do this. You are at least worthy of trying. Again, I know Tanton, as a Common Core supporter, knows this, though his take, while realistic, is depressing: For those that encourage and practice those awful biases you describeI really don't think they are going to go away. Probably not, but that is why it is vital for Tanton and his like-minded colleagues to be even more forceful in calling them out, and to resist circling the wagons when a provocateur like Hacker pokes his head in their mathematical midst. So, as a math-phobe-turned-math-phile, I say this to Hacker: I appreciate you for stirring things up, but Im glad I took on the standard courses, even if I failed. And yes, failing geometry and having to retake it meant I never got into UCLA. But I did well elsewhere. And yes, I was lucky. And to Tanton and the math establishment: Take even more time to figure out why people may be struggling, work harder to squash the harmful stereotypes about who can and cant do math, even if there will always be holdouts, and keep reforming this broken system where far too often, the only options are sink or swim. Again, I was just lucky I was able to swim. But as a member of the cynical media, I fear this debate will just rage for another 100 years. At least Ill have something to write about for quite a while. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Juries for Asian New Talent Award meets media From:Shanghai Daily | 2016-06-13 14:55 The juries for the Asian New Talent Award held a meeting with media today during the ongoing 2016 Shanghai International Film and TV Festival. Launched in 2004, the award, an important program of the festival has discovered and fostered many new talents in the film industry over the passing years. A lot of young Asian film makers have now grown into veterans including mainland directors Ning Hao and Gao Qunshu, and Iranian filmmaker Hassan Yektapanah. Hong Kong director Derek Yee, chairman of the 5-member jury panel said that his criteria for an outstanding film is its artistry. "Young talents need a lot more practice even from some inconspicuous positions of the film industry," Yee said. South Korean producer Jonathan Kim is eager to see more new co-productions of China and South Korea. "We will have more movies to be produced together and shown in both countries," Kim said. "It is necessary to study each other's culture." Japanese film maker Koji Fukada expressed his wish of wider collaboration in film industries among varied countries in Asia. Mainland director Zhang Meng, known for "The Piano in a Factory," said that it is still a difficult time for art-house film directors. It is important to nurture more young generation of audiences. Mainland actress Jiang Yiyan said that inspiring good films are beyond boundaries of countries. It is a good chance for her to know more about film art as a judge. Authorities are trying to figure out why an Indiana man had three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives some 2,000 miles from home in Southern California, where he told the officers who arrested him that he was headed to a gay pride parade. Santa Monica police and the FBI were examining the intentions of James Wesley Howell, 20, who told police he was going to L.A. Pride in West Hollywood, an event that draws hundreds of thousands of people each year. His arrest came just a few hours after at least 49 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando, though police said they had found no evidence that the incidents were connected. Howell, of Jeffersonville, Ind., was arrested around 5 a.m. after residents called police to report suspicious behavior by a man who parked his white Acura sedan facing the wrong way. When officers arrived, they saw an assault rifle sitting in Howell's passenger seat, Santa Monica police Lt. Saul Rodriguez said. They searched the car and found two more assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police said. Authorities say suspect going to L.A. Pride had 3 assault rifles & chemicals for explosives: https://t.co/POZtiPwKIg pic.twitter.com/p0qYMSBRQF - Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) June 12, 2016 Read More: Santa Monica Police Arrest Man With Explosives, Guns Going to L.A. Pride Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks initially tweeted that Howell told officers he wanted to "harm" the gay pride event, but she later corrected her statement to say that Howell only said he was going to the parade. A Facebook page that apparently belongs to Howell includes photos of the white Acura he was driving. The postings on the page are unremarkable: There's no enmity toward gays or notable political activism. One post says he's signing a petition to legalize marijuana. Story continues The page's most recent public post, from June 3, shows a photo comparing an Adolf Hitler quote to one from Hillary Clinton. An anti-Clinton, pro-Bernie Sanders photo was posted in February. The page says Howell worked as an auditor for a company that makes air filters. He was charged in October in Clark County, Ind., with pointing a firearm at someone and with intimidation. He made a deal with prosecutors in April to plead guilty only to the misdemeanor intimidation charge. He was given one-year prison sentence that the judge suspended in favor of strict probation that prohibited him from having weapons. Read More: 49 Killed in Orlando Gay Nightclub Shooting; Largest Mass Shooting in U.S. History A friend of Howell's, Joseph Greeson, 18, said Howell's parents in Jeffersonville had not seen him for days and that they called Greeson's parents looking for him. Greeson told the Los Angeles Times that he and Howell are in a car club together and that Howell had a gun collection. Greeson also said Howell harbored no ill will for gays or lesbians. In California, the gay pride event went on as usual, albeit with increased security. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the arrest at the start of the parade and struck a defiant tone. "We are here as Angelenos, as the LGBT community and allies," he said. "And we will not shrink away, we will not be stuck in our homes, we will not go back into our closets. We're here to march, to celebrate and to mourn." Carl Oliver of Los Angeles attends the parade every year. He said he cried after hearing about Orlando, but he never considered not coming. "This is about love," he said. "We have to show our love and unity." Frankfurt (AFP) - A German court on Monday found six former Deutsche Bank employees guilty of evading taxes on trading carbon emission certificates. A court spokesman said that a former department head was sentenced to three years in jail, while five others were given suspended sentences of between one and two years and ordered to pay fines of between 10,000 and 200,000 euros. The six former employees all pleaded guilty, the spokesman said. They participated in tax evasion on the certificates between September 2009 and February 2010. The scheme is estimated to have cost Germany around 145 million euros ($164 million) in unpaid taxes via the purchase and sale of carbon emission certificates abroad. Under a European Union trading system, limits are placed on the amount of carbon dioxide companies may emit, and those that pollute less are free to sell credits to companies that need more. In December 2011, a Frankfurt court jailed three Britons, two Germans and a Frenchman for between 10 months and seven years for their involvement in the scheme. Donald Trump has made his name in presidential politics as a tough talker, a blusterer who promises to keep the country safe and rout evildoers. But his initial responses to the slaying of 49 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and what he will say about it and incidents of terror in the coming days, could have an as-yet unseen effect on his campaign as he pivots to a general election fight against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Read more: Donald Trump Says Orlando Victims Could Have Saved Themselves if They Were Armed Trump's bellicose talk has served him well so far and per conventional wisdom was largely seen as an advantage over Clinton. But that view took hold during the primary phase of the campaign, when he was still battling it out for voters on the right flank of the political spectrum and the Clinton-Bernie Sanders battle was still raging. For example, a Quinnipiac poll released May 10, which included the swing state of Florida, found respondents there saying by a margin of 49% to 43% percent that Trump would "do a better job handling terrorism" than Clinton, a former secretary of state and member of the Senate Armed Services committee. Similarly, a Gallup survey from mid-May had voters giving Trump higher marks on terror-fighting: Source: Gallup Poll How much of an impact will the Pulse incident in which 49 people and shooter Omar Mateen died have on views of the general election? "It's June, and I doubt this awful event will have any real impact come November. We move on quickly," Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said in an email. "Trump's backers will insist this proves him right about ISIS and the Muslim ban," Sabato added. "Those opposed to Trump will cite his un-presidential, narcissistic tweet congratulating himself as more evidence he is unfit for office. So what's new here? Not much." Trump's social media reaction to the incident, in which the gunman reportedly caught the attention of authorities because of his reported taste for the murderous ideology of the Islamic State terrorist group, goes beyond the tragedy itself as Election 2016 plays out. Story continues Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Reporting that Orlando killer shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. 2nd man arrested in LA with rifles near Gay parade. "@WandaWalls20: @realDonaldTrump Please make us safe. We cannot have Hillary as president. We will be in so much trouble. "I think the next rounds of polls could easily show a different kind of match-up. There'll be a transformation [in] that the two of them are the only ones that'll be considered as the two candidates facing each other," Lee Miringoff, director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said in a phone interview. Generally, Miringoff added, "Trump's answers in the terrorist area work with a group that he's already got. The question is how does he broaden his base to be more attractive to [general electorate] voters." Both Clinton and Trump are scheduled to speak on the events in Orlando today, and how they handle the incident in public posture and private strategizing will show voters a lot. Source: J. David Ake/AP Clinton, like Trump, has struggled with measures of how "trustworthy" she appears to the public. Temperament, however, is a separate subject and that's where Team Clinton has been trying to skewer Trump, and may find new ways to do so in the wake of Orlando. "They're willing to make it a referendum on Trump and Trump seems to be cooperating at this point," Miringoff said, citing Trump's eyebrow-raising questions about President Obama's true allegiances in the fight against terrorism. By patting himself on the back, the veteran pollster said, Trump is "writing [Clinton's] lines for her." I have been hitting Obama and Crooked Hillary hard on not using the term Radical Islamic Terror. Hillary just broke-said she would now use! At the same time, Trump cannot be underestimated. "He's unorthodox, he's unconventional," Miringoff said, and that's how Donald Trump got to where he is today within a November Election Day's reach of the presidency. Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, cautioned against sweeping predictions. "As with anything involving the Trump and the 2016 race, this could go either way, and is most likely to be the most unpredictable outcome. On the one hand, these types of attacks generally results in a heightened sense of fear among the public and a desire for more 'get tough' policies," Murray said in an email. "But then there are the Trump comments [it's] not unusual to hear this rhetoric in this type of situation, but rarely from someone who aspires to the presidency." Disney's first Polynesian princess finally has a trailer and from what we've seen so far, it's a visual spectacle. Moana, named after the titular princess of the film, follows her on an epic oceanic adventure to fulfill her ancient ancestors' quest of reaching a long-fabled island. Along the way, she'll receive the help of a boisterous, once mighty demi-god, Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson. As for Moana, she will be voiced by newcomer Auli'i Cravalho, a Hawaiian native who nabbed the part in Disney's open casting for the role. While we don't get much of Moana in the trailer, what really shines is the expansive Pacific Ocean backdrop, and the animals that comprise the environment. Add in a musical score that features Tony Best Score winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Moana is shaping up to be another Disney classic this time, with a diverse princess at the helm. You can check out the teaser trailer for Moana below: Disney and SeaWorld on Sunday issued statements following the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Originally, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said that there would be increased security in and around Universal Studios on Sunday but later clarified that the staffing at Universal is always robust and will not be increased. Anaheim police told THR that the department takes Disneyland "very seriously" and the park would be closely watched, adding that the park always has a high police presence. Bob Iger, Disney CEO released a statement on the shooting: "We are all heartbroken by the tragic and horrific events in Orlando, and offer our thoughts, prayers and support to everyone in our community affected by this senseless act." Disney continuously reviews its security procedures and make adjustments as necessary. Los Angeles police declined to comment on how many additional officers were on duty Sunday, but numerous police choppers were in the Hollywood air. Read More: Santa Monica Police Arrest Man With Explosives, Guns Going to L.A. Pride SeaWorld issued a statement on the Orlando shooting: "Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those touched by the unimaginable events that occurred in Orlando early this morning." It is unclear what additional precautions the parks in San Diego and Orlando are taking concerning security measures. Early Sunday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti revealed Santa Monica police arrested a man who had explosives and guns in his car and told police he intended on going to L.A. Pride. It remains unclear if that suspect has any connection to the shooter who killed at least 50 people when he opened fire in Orlando's Pulse nightclub on Saturday night. Garcetti reassured Pride fest attendees and viewers watching his news conference that "we are safe." Read More: 49 Killed in Orlando Gay Nightclub Shooting; Largest Mass Shooting in U.S. History Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those touched by the unimaginable events that occurred in Orlando early this morning. Story continues - SeaWorld (@SeaWorld) June 12, 2016 Updated 6:34 p.m. Sunday, June 12: Added clarification about Universal Studios security. The offending photo on Sephoras Instagram. (Photo: @sephora/Instagram) Fans are accusing cosmetics brand bareMinerals of not offering enough shades for dark skin tones in its new 16-foundation Complexion Rescue line. The controversy started when beauty retailer Sephora posted a picture of three womens arms representing three different skin tones. Swatches of makeup can be seen on each arm, but the accounts followers were not satisfied with the diversity of shades. Why are there only two shades for black people? Reevaluate your priorities, friends, wrote @westcoastaesthetic. Dark skin tones shouldnt be an afterthought!! Like honestly how many beiges porcelains and light tans do you need? asked @glindlas. Others noted that the line is not inclusive of very pale tones either. Its not pale people friendly, though, chimed in @kristin.laflin. I see a whole lot of pink skin tones and not a lot of yellows or dark options, added @hannahpres1. While the majority of comments argue this two-sided conundrum, some commenters are happy with the selection. Thank you for doing multiple skin tones! wrote @glitteryshutterbug. People need to stop being divisive. Cosmetics companies cant please/cater to absolutely every skin tone, added @imprincesslolly. A few weeks ago, beauty blog Revelist called out Almay, whose tag line is The American Look, for not including women of color in its makeup lines. With a shade selection ranging from ivory to warm (a deep bisque shade), Almays options clearly cater to light-skinned women, the site claimed, while quoting a statement from Almay that said, We make getting this natural beauty look easy and safe. We are very proud of our American heritage and to be a truly American brand. Revelist retorted, Almays look doesnt apply, unless youre 50 shades of beige. In December, Cosmopolitan asked, Why Are Women of Color Still Having Trouble Finding Foundation? The writer talks of going to her local Walmart in a futile effort to find foundation in her color, which she describes as light-skinned black. Think Beyonce, she wrote. If high-end brand MAC could offer a diverse selection of shades, why couldnt drug store brands? (The writer quoted a beauty industry analyst at the NPD Group as saying, They [MAC] offer a wide range of skin tones at their stores [located across the U.S.], and women buy them. Indeed, Studio Fix Fluid Foundation is a beloved product for women of color.) The article noted that LOreal, Make Up For Ever, Clinique, and Lancome have all launched lines catering to darker skin tones. Story continues Speaking of MAC, in February, the company shared a photo of a black model wearing MACs Matte Royal lip color a deep purple. This time, it was the public that came under fire for shocking racist comments on the brands Instagram page. The company said in a statement, MAC stands for and respects All Ages, All Races, All Sexes. We do not tolerate any abusive comments in our community. As Yahoo reported, fashion and beauty blogger Ofunne Amaka is on a mission to change that. The 26-year-old launched an Instagram account, @cocoaswatches, where she tests and demonstrates how different makeup products look on her dark skin providing a neutral testing platform that calls out brands for better or worse. Hearteningly, more major companies are rising to the challenge of serving women of all colors in the beauty industry, from existing brands like CoverGirl Queen and NARS (try its Radiant Creamy Concealer and All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation) to companies designed specifically for black skin, like Iman Cosmetics, Black Opal Beauty, and Shea Moisture Cosmetics. As for the bareMinerals controversy, Yahoo Beauty reached out to the company (and to Sephora) and is awaiting comment. Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Int'l textile trade fair to be held in Madagascar in November 2016-06-13 08:48 ANTANANARIVO, June 7 (Xinhua) -- An international trade fair ontextile and clothing called "Origin Africa" will be held inMadagascar Nov. 3-5, the Executive Director of Madagascar ExportProcessing Zone Association, Eva Razafimandimby said. "This is the first time for Madagascar to host thisinternational event," Razafimandimby said during a press conferenceheld in Madagascar's capital Antananarivo on Monday. "This fair will be the engine for the revival of Madagascar'stextile which has been doubly affected by the global financial andeconomic crisis of 2008 and the suspension of the country'seligibility from the U.S. African Growth Opportunity Acts (AGOA) inJanuary 2010," Razafimandimby added. Amid the political crisis in Madagascar in 2009, the UnitedStates suspended from 2010 to 2014 Madagascar's eligibility toAGOA, a program allowing African countries to export their textileproducts without tax to the United States. Due to the suspension ofAGOA, hundreds of thousands jobs were lost, making the countryamong the poorest countries in the world. By this fair, Madagascar will target to regain its place in thefirst rank among African countries in terms of textile export andis planning to export about 100 million US dollars of textileproducts, Razafimandimby said. The country is currently at thefourth rank after Kenya, Lesotho and Mauritius. Before the political crisis in 2009, Madagascar exported around350 million US dollars by year but the export value dropped to 15million in 2010 amid the suspension of the country from theAGOA. According to Eva Razafimandimby, hosting of this internationalfair on textile is important for Madagascar because the developmentof the country was made in the textile sector since the last 10years. "The sector recorded 105,000 direct jobs in April 2016representing 30 percent of jobs in the formal sector inMadagascar," Razafimandimby said. The main destinations of textile products made of Madagascar'sprocessing zones are European Union countries, USA, membercountries of Southern African Development Community and CommonMarket for Eastern and Southern Africa, Australia, Canada andChina. Enditem Donald Trump charged into a muscular defense of his proposed immigration policy including barring non-U.S. Muslims from entering the country in a speech that quickly shifted from tones of mourning for the victims of Sunday's Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting to an indictment of Islamic terrorism and his likely opponent in November, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. "If we don't get tough and if we don't get smart and fast, we're not going to have our country anymore. There will be nothing, absolutely nothing left," Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee . "We have no choice." Trump began his remarks at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire with a softer tone, calling the carnage at the Pulse club "a very dark moment in America's history" and requesting a moment of silence for the victims. In a prepared speech off which he riffed rather than read, Trump also sought to position himself versus Clinton as the greatest defender of gays and lesbians, as he had, to much scorn given his track record, as the stronger champion of women. Donald Trump: This is a dark moment in America's historyhttp://cnn.it/1ZLJ1il "A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub, not only because he wanted to kill Americans, but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation," Trump said. "It's a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation. it's an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity. It's an attack on the right of every single American to live in peace and safety in their own country." A hard line: He started tweeting shortly after news of the slayings broke and came under fire for taking an "I-told-you-so" approach to the tragedy. Story continues His moderate tone Monday lasted just minutes before he tore deeply into current immigration and anti-terror policy, and assailed a potential Clinton administration as a political correctness-fueled disaster for national security. "We have a dysfunctional immigration system," Trump insisted. "What I want is common sense. I want a mainstream immigration policy that promotes American values." Having denounced "radical Islam" as a font of anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-American hatred, Trump demanded to know why Clinton would support what he called a torrent of immigration by people who espouse such views. "Who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community? Donald Trump with actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words?" Trump asked, saying he believed the former would be proven LGBT Americans' best ally "big league." During one of his repeated sallies against Clinton and her party, Trump remarked: "The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system to really to screen. We are not screening people... The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why we should admit anyone into our country who supports violence of any kind against gay and lesbian Americans. the burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us how she will pay for it." Speaking earlier in Ohio, Clinton called the aftermath of the Pulse murders no time for politics. Hillary Clinton addresses #OrlandoShooting in Cleveland: "Today is not a day for politics" http://cnn.it/1sBSCgW http://cnn.it/1XSstI5 Trump apparently felt no such obligation to hold back: "The LGBT community is just what's happened to them is just so sad, and to be thinking about where their policies are currently with this administration is a disgrace to that community. I will tell you right now. Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country. They enslave women and they murder gays. I don't want them in our country." Trump also urged Muslim communities to "work with us" by identifying radicals to authorities: "I want every American to succeed, including Muslims, but the Muslims have to work with us." "They know what's going on," Trump said. "They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad, but you know what? They didn't turn them in, and we had death and destruction." Wrapped in the flag: Often attacked for not being "presidential" enough thanks to the nit-picking and name calling that flavors his personal Twitter feed Trump also served up a thick slice of the "America First" rhetoric that's marked his limited foreign policy blueprint to date. "America must unite the whole civilized world in the fight against Islamic terrorism, just like we did against Communism in the Cold War," Trump said. Source: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/Getty Images This, he also said, meant a renewed focus on the home front: "Our new goal must be to defeat Islamic terrorism, not nation building. No more nation building. It is never going to work and by the way, we've spent almost $5 trillion over the years on trying to nation build in the Middle East and it has been a complete and total disaster." Trump, who is just slightly trailing Clinton for the presidency in national polling averages compiled by RealClearPolitics, ended on a soaring note of tolerance and inclusion that stood in marked contrast to where he began his presidential question almost a year to the day ago by calling Mexican immigrants "rapists" and drug dealers. "When I'm president, I pledge to protect and defend all Americans who live inside our borders. wherever they come from, wherever they were born, I don't care," Trump said. "All Americans living here and following our laws, not other laws, will be protected." Whether Trump's updated post-Orlando sales pitch helps or hurts him in the fight against Clinton for votes, of course, won't be known for sure until November. The morning after the deadly shooting at an Orlando nightclub was a time for TV news operations to interview victims friends, air Snapchat video from inside the club at the time of the carnage, and broadcast presidential candidates giving speeches in which they scored political points by vowing not to politicize the slaughter. Donald Trump having days ago promised to deliver a full-frontal attack on Hillary Clinton today, the former secretary of state wisely scheduled her speech earlier in the day. Today is not a day for politics, Clinton said, at a widely covered event in Cleveland, during which she called for unity and promised to pass gun control measures, after yesterdays tragedy in which a lone gunman pledged allegiance to ISIS during a three-hour standoff that left 49 club-goers dead. We are not a land of winners and losers, Clinton said, in a nod to Trumps rhetoric. Primly declining to mention her GOP rival by name, Clinton nonetheless took shots at him, saying This has always been a country of we, not me. We stand together because we are stronger together E Pluribus Unum: out of many, one. Trump began his speech by disappointing fans with news it would not be the anti-Clinton humdinger hed promised for today, in which he would detail all of the bad things, and we all know whats going on. That speech, revealing the degree to which Clinton does not have the temperament to be president, he said (a nod to her line about him) will come very, very soon, he assured. Instead, Trump called for a moment of silence for the victims of the Orlando shootings, and their families, who have been through something nobody could ever experience. He called it a very dark moment in Americas history perpetrated by an Islamic terrorist who wanted to kill gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation, which strikes at who we are as a nation. Story continues If we dont get tough and smartand fast, we are not going to have our country any more, Trump warned. There will be absolutely nothing left. Trump declared himself and Republicans better friends to the LGBTQ community than Hillary Clinton. Thats because it is the policies of Clinton, and her pal President Obama, that have allowed into the country the terrorists who would kill members of the LGBTQ community, he explained. Trump said he would ban all immigration into this country from countries where terrorism is a threat. He claimed that thousands and thousands of people, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer in Orlando are entering the country. Hillary Clinton, Trump said, can never claim to be a friend of the gay community so long as she opposes his ban on Muslim immigration. Why does Hillary Clinton want to bring in vast numbers who reject our values? His immigration strategy will be lifted when, as a nation, we are in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country, Trump insisted. Clinton, he said, has no clue what radical Islam is, and she wont speak honestly about it, if she does, in fact, know. The Muslim community, he said, knows whats going on and must be compelled to work with us. He called for an investigation into the Orlando shootings, and anyone who had any knowledge of the shooters activities leading to those 49 deaths will be outta here. Trump again insisted Clinton plans to abolish the Second Amendment. She wants to take away Americans guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us let them have all the fun they want, he said. Not gonna happen, Trump growled. Related stories Disney Bolsters Security At Parks & Resorts After Orlando Shooting Samantha Bee Calls For Banning Of "High Capacity Penis Substitutes" After Orlando Shootings Lady Gaga Gives Emotional Tribute At L.A. Vigil For Orlando Victims Donald Trump In his first campaign speech since the Sunday terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, Donald Trump came out firing against Hillary Clinton, characterizing his likely rival as weak on immigration policy and as an advocate of a gun policy that would "disarm law-abiding Americans." The presumptive Republican presidential nominee went after his Democratic rival in remarks at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. He blasted Clinton for refusing to "say the words 'radical Islam'" which she did on Monday and emphasized the need to reform US immigration laws. "I don't know if you know this, but just a few weeks before San Bernardino, the slaughter ... Hillary Clinton explained her refusal to say the words 'radical Islam,'" Trump said. "Here is what she said, exact quote: 'Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.'" Trump also slammed Clinton for suggesting that the solution to stopping terrorist attacks is banning guns. "They tried that in France, which has among the toughest gun laws anywhere in the world, and 130 people were brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists in cold blood," Trump said, in reference to the Paris terrorist attacks late last year, for which ISIS claimed responsibility. He added: "Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans, abolishing the Second Amendment, and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns. No good. Not going to happen, folks. Not going to happen." Trump accused Clinton of wanting to "take away Americans' guns" and admit into the country "the very people who want to slaughter us." "'Let them come into the country, we don't have guns, let them come in, let them have all the fun they want,'" Trump said, mocking Clinton. "I will be meeting with the NRA ... to discuss how to ensure Americans have the means to protect themselves in this age of terror," Trump continued. "I will be always defending the Second Amendment." Story continues He then turned to Clinton's immigration policies. "The bottom line is that Hillary supports policies that bring the threat of radical Islam into America and allow it to grow overseas, and it is growing," Trump said. "Hillary Clinton's catastrophic immigration plan will bring vastly more radical Islamic immigration into this country, threatening not only our society, but our entire way of life." A 29-year-old gunman killed at least 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday. He pledged allegiance to the terrorist group ISIS, aka the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh. He was a US citizen, but his parents emigrated from Afghanistan. The Clinton campaign didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's speech. In a statement on Sunday, Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri told Business Insider that Trump had spent the day putting out "political attacks, weak platitudes, and self-congratulations." NOW WATCH: 'The textbook definition of a racist comment': Paul Ryan disavows Trump's attacks on a federal judge More From Business Insider Donald Trump Donald Trump attempted to closely tie himself to the LGBT community during a Monday speech that followed the terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday morning. The massacre left at least 49 people dead. The gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, was born in the US to Afghan parents, and, according to his father, was recently disturbed by seeing two men kissing in Miami. The shooting is being investigated as an act of terror, as Mateen allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS and other terror organizations ahead of the attack. "Our nation stands together in solidarity with the members of Orlando's LGBT community," Trump said, according to prepared remarks distributed by his campaign. "This is a very dark moment in Americas history. A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub not only because he wanted to kill Americans, but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens because of their sexual orientation." "It is a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation," he said. "It is an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want, and express their identity." At two points in the speech, Trump seemed to confuse the LGBT acronym, at one point referring to the community as "LBGT." But he was forceful in his condemnation of the ideology perpetrated by terror groups, which he cast as "anti-gay and anti-American." "I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people, and Jewish people are the targets of persecution and intimidation by radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence," he said, adding that it's a "quality-of-life issue." "If we want to protect the quality of life for all Americans women and children, gay and straight, Jews and Christians, and all people then we need to tell the truth about radical Islam," he said. In the speech, Trump used recent terror attacks, including the one in Orlando, to prop up one of his most prominent campaign policy proposals: an indefinite ban on Muslim immigration into the US. Story continues He ripped presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for supposedly weak immigration policies that he said prove she cannot claim to be a friend to LGBT Americans. Clinton has advocated for proposals that would allow 65,000 refugees from war-torn Middle Eastern countries such as Syria to enter the US following a lengthy screening process. "Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as long as she continues to support immigration policies that bring Islamic extremists to our country who suppress women, gays, and anyone who doesnt share their views," Trump said, according to prepared remarks. "She cant have it both ways. She cant claim to be supportive of these communities while trying to increase the number of people coming in who want to oppress them." He added: "Why does Hillary Clinton want to bring people here in vast numbers who reject our values? Ask yourself, who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community: Donald Trump with his actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words? Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country they enslave women and murder gays. I dont want them in our country." Many observers noticed the theme in his speech. Annie Linskey, a reporter for The Boston Globe, tweeted that Trump was the "most pro-gay GOP presidential nominee we've had." NOW WATCH: Golf legend Greg Norman reveals the truth behind US President Bill Clinton's late-night 1997 injury More From Business Insider Donald Trump suggested Monday that President Obama is oblivious to issues of terrorismand he seemed to suggest in the process that Obama might sympathize with the suspected gunman in the deadly Orlando nightclub shooting. The unsubstantiated insinuations, in a series of interviews Monday morning, came from the Republican presidential candidate who once led calls for the release of the Presidents birth certificate and has more than once indulged conspiracy theories about Obamas faith and heritage. On Monday, just one day after a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in Orlandothe worst mass shooting in American historyTrump said on Fox News that he believes theres something else going on. Look, were led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or hes got something else in mind, Trump said. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and cant even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on. Trump was referring to Obamas refusal to utter the words radical Islamic terrorism, a term Obama has argued in the past elevates groups like ISIS as religious groups instead of terrorist groups, while playing into the hands of people who want to paint the U.S. as at war with Islam as a whole. In a tweet sent out Sunday, Donald Trump said the president should immediately resign in disgrace if he does not say the words. In statements delivered in the White House Press Briefing Room on Sunday, President Obama did not say the words radical Islamic terrorism. The President did, however, call the shooting in Orlando an act of terror and an act of hate. He doesnt get it or he gets it better than anybody understands its one or the other and either one is unacceptable, Trump said Monday. Story continues Trump made additional appearances on the Today show and Good Morning America on Monday. Trump told NBCs Savannah Guthrie there are many people that think maybe he doesnt want to get it, though he said he thinks Obama just doesnt know what hes doing. Hes not addressing the issue. Hes not calling it what it is. This is radical Islamic terrorism, Trump said. He also rediscussed a plan he put forward in December to ban Muslims from entering the United States. The shooter in the Orlando nightclub, Omar Mateen, was Muslim but he was an American-born U.S. citizen. We have many people coming in whose hate is equal to his and just as bad and even worse, frankly, and we have to stop people from coming in,Trump said on Good Morning America. Trump has been under fire for his response to the brutal terror attack. On Sunday, he sent out a self-congratulatory tweet thanking followers for congratulating him on being right on radical Islamic terrorism. On Monday, Trump doubled down on his comments telling Fox News Ive been right about a lot of things, frankly. I was right about many, many things. Trump will discuss terrorism in a speech on Monday, scheduled for mid-afternoon. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest addressed Trumps insinuations during Mondays press briefing, saying President Obamas record on counter-terrorism speaks for itself. And that record includes a lot of dead terrorists, Earnest said Monday. This president has made his number one priority keeping the American people safethe president has done that in a way that is smart, that is tough and that makes this country safer. Pastor Paula White was praying early Sunday morning before her church services began when she got the text that there had been a massive shooting at a gay nightclub twenty minutes away. She immediately called her senior staff for a meeting and texted city officials, including the mayor, to let them know that her church would be there for the community in any capacity she could. A few hours later, she got another message, this time from Donald Trumps campaign manager, asking what Trump could do to help. White is the senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center, a 10,000-member congregation in Apopka, northwest of downtown Orlando, and one of the largest churches in the area, representing some 50 nationalities. She also is a longtime friend of Trump, and has been working behind the scenes to support his presidential campaigns faith outreach efforts. Corey Lewandowski reached out to White on Trumps behalf between New Destinys morning worship services. White has known Trump for 14 yearsthey met after he reached out after seeing some of her sermons on television, and she has helped to organize meetings for Trump with evangelical and televangelist leaders. Lewandowski asked how her church was, how she was, how the city was, and what Trump could do to help, White says. He even offered the possibility of Trump visiting. Hell be there if you need him to for a prayer vigil, she says, quoting Lewandoswki. It was not, what can we do for political advantage, it was what can we actually do, she adds. His call to me was genuine concern, care and compassion. White promised to keep him informed as the crisis progressed, and Lewandowski kept in touch through the day. New Destiny Christian Center plans to be open 24 hours a day for the next three days for a time of fasting and prayer. White says she did not see Trumps controversial tweets on Sunday where he said he appreciated the congrats for being right on terrorism. We are a very open-door policy, she says. The bottom line is there is a crisis in our city, and there are hurting people. Story continues As the day progressed, White sent some of New Destinys ministers down to ground zero, as well as Spanish and Hindu interpreters, at the request of city officials, she says. After services many church members joined the lines to donate blood. White also plans to offer to host memorials or funerals for victims if families ask. She also reached out to Tim Clinton, president of the 50,000-member American Association of Christian Counselors, with whom she has been working behind the scenes to form a more official faith advisory committee for Trump. He mobilized a set of counselors and trauma experts trained to work in terrorist situations and with children, White says. Separately, the Trump campaign scheduledand then canceleda prayer time planned for Monday evening in New Hampshire. Trump surrogate pastor Mark Burns of Easley, South Carolina, told TIME on Sunday that Trumps campaign reached out to him after the shooting to have him lead a prayer in Portsmouth on Monday evening. Official campaign language referred to the event as a campaign rally, but Burns says the prayer time would replace campaigning. Im thankful that Mr. Trump is sensitive to this horrible American crime that he has saw fit to pause from campaigning to pray for the victims and their families, Burns says. The Trump campaign later issued a statement canceling the rally due to the horrific tragedy that has just taken place in Orlando. Donald Trump on Monday said on social media that his campaign is pulling press credentials for the Washington Post. "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post," Trump said in a Facebook post. In a lengthier statement on his decision, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said The Post crossed the line one too many times, in his opinion, and a Monday headline was the last straw. "Today's headline, 'Donald Trump Suggests President Obama Was Involved With Orlando Shooting' is a perfect example. We no longer feel compelled to work with a publication which has put its need for 'clicks' above journalistic integrity," Trump said in his second statement. "They have no journalistic integrity and write ly about Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump does not mind a bad story, but it has to be honest." Read More: Orlando Shooting: Trump Sees Backlash Over "Congrats" Tweet; Clinton Calls Attack an "Act of Terror" The Post was quick to respond to the first mention of the ban. "Donald Trump's decision to revoke the Washington Post's press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press," editor Marty Baron said in a statement. "When coverage doesn't correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished. The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along - honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. We're proud of our coverage, and we're going to keep at it." Trump has criticized the "sloppy" Post numerous times and taken plenty of swings at the paper's owner, fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos. Monday was no different. In his second statement, Trump once again went after Post brass. "The fact is, The Washington Post is being used by the owners of Amazon as their political lobbyist so that they don't have to pay taxes and don't get sued for monopolistic tendencies that have led to the destruction of department stores and the retail industry," Trump said in the Monday statement. Story continues In May, Trump accused Bezos, the founder of Amazon, of using the newspaper as his "toy." "He's using it as a tool for political power against me and other people," Trump said, adding that he believes Bezos has a "huge antitrust problem" because of his multiple business dealings. "Amazon is getting away with murder, tax-wise," he said then. "He's using the Washington Post for power so that the politicians in Washington don't tax Amazon like they should be taxed." Bezos responded then by saying Trump's remarks were "not an appropriate way for a presidential candidate to behave." Trump has blasted the media in general almost daily since announcing his bid for the White House. The billionaire businessman routinely points out the media during his rallies and tells the crowd how little he thinks of those in the business. Trump also has personally insulted numerous members of the media both at rallies and through the social media platforms on which he has tens of millions of followers in total. The Washington Post and The New York Times, along with CNN, seem to be Trump's top favorite targets to criticize. Some Washington Post reporters responded to the news from Trump with humor. It's the FAILING Washington Post. Get it right! https://t.co/ZUOMkORVt1 - daveweigel (@daveweigel) June 13, 2016 Read More: Jeff Bezos Calls Donald Trump's Criticism "Not Appropriate" June 13 3:27 p.m.: Story updated with new statement from Trump One day after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history in Orlando, Donald Trump re-upped his call for banning Muslim immigration to the U.S. Speaking in New Hampshire, the presumptive Republican nominee framed the Orlando shooting as largely an immigration issue. Although the pause is temporary, we must find out what is going on, Trump said of halting Muslims entering the country. We have to do it. It will be lifted, this ban, when as a nation were in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country. Theyre pouring in and we dont know what were doing. Trump first called for banning Muslim entry to the U.S. in the wake of Decembers San Bernardino shooting. The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here, Trump said of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, who was born in New York to Afghan immigrant parents. That is a fact, and its a fact we need to talk about. Earlier Monday, Trump insinuated that President Obama sympathized with Mateen. Mateens father has said he does not forgive his son, who was killed in a shootout with police after the attack. The Muslims have to work with us, Trump said. They know what is going on. Trump also attacked his likely general election foe, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She supports so much of what is wrong and what is wrong with the country and what is going wrong with our country and our borders, Trump said. She has no clue in my opinion what radical Islam is Shes in total denial, and her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness around the entire world. Trump also said Clintons calls for gun control contribute to the problem. She wants to take away Americans guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us, he said. Let them come into the country, we dont have guns, let them in, they can have all the fun they want. Story continues Trump added that Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community, as long as she supports immigration from nations that oppress homosexuality. In a unique move for a Republican presidential nominee, he set himself up as a bigger ally to the LGBT community: Its a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation, Trump said of the Orlando shooter targeting a gay bar. Its an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want, and express their identity. Its an attack on the right of every single American to live in peace and safety in their country. Trumps speech directly followed one by Clinton. During her talk, Clinton said today is not a day for politics and largely stayed away from hitting Trump, never mentioning him by name. She called for gun control, outlined plans to defeat ISIS abroad and in the U.S., and criticized Trumps controversial proposals to ban and watch Muslims in the U.S. as [hurting] the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terror. Early Sunday morning, Mateen opened fire in Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, leaving 49 people dead and 53 wounded. Sino-German industrial park to step up IP protection 2016-06-13 18:23 SHENYANG, June 13 (Xinhua) -- A Sino-German industrial park in northwestern China's city of Shenyang has pledged to step up intellectual property (IP) protection in canvassing Germany companies. The China-Germany Equipment Manufacturing Industrial Park works with companies such as Siemens and automaker BMW. It won approval from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) at the end of last year. "I understand that German companies prioritize IP protection when coming to China, so we will step up IP protection and law enforcement," said Li Baojun, deputy director of the park management committee. A special IP bureau along with arbitration and mediation committees will be set up to support the companies, he said. "The park will follow some of the most stringent IP protection measures to dispel the concerns of German firms," Li said. The 48-sq-km park has 37 companies. About 100 other companies and joint ventures have registered their interest, Li said. The companies are mainly in automobile manufacturing, electronics, robotics and intelligent manufacturing. GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Campaigns In Western Pennsylvania Donald Trump on Monday continued his verbal assault on Mitt Romney, attacking the former Republican presidential nominee as someone who is jealous and sad and pathetic. Trump made the comments on Breitbarts Sirius XM show just days after Romney savaged him in a sit-down CNN interview. Hes a very jealous guy, Trump said. Hes got a lot of problems. I watched his statement over the weekend, the New York businessman continued. Actually, it was sort of sad and pathetic at the same time. It was pathetic, but it was sad, too, to watch him. Romney on Friday blasted Trump for attacks on a federal judges Mexican heritage. He argued that the billionaires election could lead to trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, and trickle-down misogyny. Trump fought back against the charges Monday, telling Breitbart that there was no reason for [Romney] to do this. The presumptive Republican nominee insisted he would appoint great judges. In the interview, Trump also repeated attacks on Romney that have become familiar in the 2016 cycle. The real-estate mogul called Romney a loser who lost the election badly. He should have won that election. He choked, Trump said. He was a choker. And I was very tough on him at the beginning, because we dont want to give a choker I backed him, but we dont want to give a choker a second chance. We cant afford to. He wasnt going to win anyway. He would have choked the same way. NOW WATCH: Heres the $5.3 million mansion the Obamas will reportedly live in after the White House More From Business Insider Donald Trump is the presidential candidate Osama bin Laden made. Nothing demonstrates that like Trumps performance in the wake of the shooting that took place in Orlando on Sunday. If the goal of a terrorist is to spread terror, then his most potent weapon is not a gun or an explosive vest, but the fear-mongers within a targeted society especially those who embody or inflame the impulses that support the terrorists narrative about his enemies. And in that regard, it is hard to imagine a more effective ally of extremism than Trump, who uses his global platform to trumpet views that are a caricature of the ignorant, hateful American. His words seem designed to support the narrative that the United States is intolerant, racist, and at war with all the people of Islam. Trump made this clearer than ever in the hours after the news of the attack on the Pulse nightclub. He renewed his call for a ban on all Muslims from entering the United States, tossing aside the freedom of religion on which America was founded and ignoring the fact that the shooter in Florida was, in fact, a U.S. citizen who would not be affected by such a ban. He called on the president of the United States to resign, thus politicizing a terror attack and magnifying its impact in the worst possible way. Also, of course, he appeared triumphant even in the wake of the shooting, claiming that it validated his views on extremism thus showing his willingness to place his demagoguery and narcissism ahead of the sensitivity and leadership an attack like this ought to generate in a would-be president. In a speech on Monday, he compounded these damaging missteps. He went to new heights in his grossly unconstructive and self-serving effort to spread hysteria when he suggested that if we dont change our policies on terror, were not going to have a country anymore there will be nothing left. This places the threat posed by the relatively small number of extremists in the world (there are perhaps 30,000 members of the Islamic State) on a par with the existential threat posed by the USSR during the Cold War. It is absurd. It is wrong. And it is damaging. It serves only one purpose: to stir up fear and support for his out-of-control policies. He illustrated that by doubling down on his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States while reiterating his support for the gun lobby. He characterized allowing Muslims into the country as a potential Trojan horse once again implying that all Muslims are a threat, stirring up hatred against a religious group in a completely un-American way. What a combination targeting a group for their spiritual beliefs, suggesting that they represent an existential threat to all Americans and our way of life while arguing that we need to continue providing Americans with assault weapons, which exist for one purpose: killing other people in mass numbers. Together his actions send an ugly message to the world about the kind of people America seems willing to consider placing at the head of its government. The 2016 election marks the fourth presidential election since 9/11. Each has been powerfully influenced by those attacks. The first was a referendum on George W. Bushs response to the attacks and, in the end, his re-election was a vote of confidence in the way he was waging the war on terror. The second and third, in 2008 and 2012, were about Americas search for another way to deal with terror and the related upheavals in the Middle East that were so closely tied to it. While Barack Obama may have repudiated Bush, he could not and did not really try to shift terror from being the central national security issue on the minds of Americans. I outlined the Bush and Obama presidencies and how they handled these challenges in my book National Insecurity and referred to the entire period as an Age of Fear. I argued that future generations would see the foreign policies of both presidencies as being reactive to terror Bush reacting to 9/11, Obama reacting largely to Bushs reaction to 9/11. No politician during this period dared to note that the threat from terror was less than existential (even though it clearly was). The rise of the Islamic State during Obamas term created a new threat that was even more ominous than al Qaeda, one that not only had aspirations to its own territory but that had cannily become the first terror group to embrace an open-source model. Anyone could be part of the Islamic State simply by claiming they were. It was decentralized. It was not hierarchic. It was seeking to spread terror. It recognized that by embracing the alienated and angry who were willing to act out in its name even if they had little prior connection to the group it would make the Islamic State seem larger and more ominous. The coffee shop attack in Sydney, Australia, was a perfect illustration. Sundays attack by Omar Mateen is another. When I wrote the conclusion of my book, I expressed the hope that the 2016 presidential election would be different, that perhaps we could turn our attention away from terror and back to bigger issues shaping the world, that we would address the bigger questions influencing Americans quality of life from inequality to the rise of major new powers globally. I hoped we had come to the end of the Age of Fear. Early rhetoric from Trump suggested that this hope would go unfulfilled. From the earliest days of his candidacy and particularly in the wake of the San Bernardino attacks Trump has fanned the flames of many Americans anxieties about terror, about Islam, and about distant unfamiliar cultures of which many Americans still know painfully little. But now it is clear, once again, that terror will be a centerpiece of this presidential election cycle. Once again, bin Ladens desire to set the U.S. agenda will have been realized, albeit posthumously. Once again, many U.S. citizens will ignore the fact that the only way to truly defeat terror is to refuse to be terrorized, to set fears aside, and to focus on cultivating the wellsprings of our strength. The near-certain Democratic candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has reacted more soundly. Her comments on the Orlando shooting have been strong but temperate. She decried the attacks, but did so without making America look more hateful or without stirring up more hate as Trump did. Im not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. Thats just plain dangerous, and it plays into ISISs hands, she said on the Today show. But even with her measured approach, the U.S. presidential campaign will nonetheless turn largely on the question of who can keep us safer from such attacks. Sadly, it seems likely that Clintons call for the one set of measures that could have made Sundays attack considerably less likely new gun control measures including an assault weapon ban and stronger background checks will have little real political traction. Our national pathology about guns, a disease that is killing Americans at a rate hundreds of times higher than terror attacks, is no closer to a cure today than it was after Columbine or Newtown. It is hard to imagine there wont be any more attacks between now and the election. But even if there arent, this weeks events assure that Trumps anti-Muslim hate talk will continue and that there will be a market for it among scared and angry voters. His own extreme views will make this a subject that dominates the political debate at the center of the election campaign. This is ironic, of course. Because if it is the case, if Trump goes on as he has attacking all Muslims, talking about bans, embracing torture, and arguing that restraint and fact-based policies are weak he will continue to play into the hands of the terrorists. He will spawn new recruits for the Islamic State. He will trigger new hatred or fear of the United States. In fact, he will strengthen our enemies while fostering the divisions in America that actually weaken us and make us more vulnerable. In fact, for all his rhetoric about threats, Trump will miss the greatest national security threat America faces even though each morning it will stare back at him in the mirror when he shaves. Because that threat is clearly him. Trump would be the president the bad guys want us to have. He is a racist, know-nothing, global bully with no respect for international law, out to alienate the vast majority of Muslims, despite the fact that many are deeply sympathetic to the United States and could be our most important allies in combating extremism. Further, Trump is a danger because he has failed to recognize that first and foremost what happened in Orlando was an American tragedy. Those victims in Orlando are part of a hated and bullied class of Americans, and they were slaughtered with firearms that were too easily purchased in America. Mateen wore the belief system of a terror group like a cheap suit, seizing it as a justification that was as insincere and unrelated to Islamic values as Trumps response is to true American values. In failing to see this as an American problem rather than one we can blame on some other, we assure nothing will be done to address it and thus it can only get worse. What a great victory that is for Osama bin Laden. What a victory it is for all extremists. It weakens the most powerful nation in the world in the only way it can really be done from within. That was bin Ladens greatest insight, of course. He knew no terror group or foreign power could defeat the United States; it could only be done by us to ourselves. In this election cycle, it once again seems clear that a substantial number of Americans and the GOP candidate seem absolutely committed to proving that thesis right. Photo credit: JOE RAEDLE/Getty Images Donald Trump said that he is revoking the press credentials of the Washington Post, after complaining about a headline on one of their stories about his response to the terrorist attack in Orlando. On Facebook and Twitter, Trump wrote that based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post. Earlier, he had complained about a headline on a Post story, which keyed in on comments that Trump made on Fox & Friends on Monday. I am no fan of President Obama, but to show you how dishonest the phony Washington Post is, they wrote, Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting as their headline. Sad! Trump wrote. On Fox & Friends, Trump said that were led by a man that is either not tough , not smart, or hes got something else in mind. People cannot believe it. They cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and cant even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on. The Post and other news outlets zeroed in on Trumps suggestion that theres something going on. The Wall Street Journal headlined its story on Trumps comments, Trump Suggests Obama Sympathetic to Islamic Terrorists. Martin Baron, the executive editor of the Post, said that Trumps decision to revoke the credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press. When coverage doesnt correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished. The Post will continue to cover Trump as it has all along honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. Were proud of our coverage, and were going to keep at it. The headline to the story now reads, Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting. A Washington Post spokeswoman said that they changed the headline Story continues We changed the headline in question shortly after it posted to more properly reflect what Trump said. She said the Trump campaign never contacted them about it. Trumps campaign has denied press access to reporters from Politico and BuzzFeed, but he has previously criticized the Post and the motives of its owner, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Last month, Trump accused Bezos of trying to use the Post as a tool for political power against me and against other people, and that Amazon had an antitrust problem. Bezos said that Trumps attacks were not an appropriate way for a presidential candidate to behave, while noting that he welcomed scrutiny of Amazon. Reporters Without Borders said that Trumps decision was a serious violation of freedom of the press. The organizationss director in the United States, Delphine Halgand, said that they strongly and unequivocally condemns this latest act of hostility toward the press as a serious violation of press freedom. How, in the country of the First Amendment, can the Republican partys nominee for President justify revoking press credentials for one of the countrys major newspapers? Related stories Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Offer Contrasting Responses to Orlando Attack Donald Trump Tweets He Was 'Right' About Terrorism After Orlando Mass Shooting Norman Lear: 'I View Donald Trump as the Middle Finger of the American Right Hand' Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump asserted Monday morning that the victims in the Orlando nightclub massacre could have been prevented if more people had been armed with guns. "If people in that room had guns, with the bullets flying in the opposite direction right at [attacker Omar Mateen], right at his head, you wouldn't have had the same tragedy that you ended up having," Trump said on CNN's New Day. "And nobody even knows how bad that tragedy is, because I think probably the numbers will get bigger and bigger and worse and worse." Donald Trump: "If you had guns in that room ... you wouldn't have had this same kind of a tragedy" #OrlandoShootinghttp://cnn.it/234xpcd Mateen, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror group before carrying out the massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse, killed 50 and injured 53. Trump's remarks echo his comments after terror attacks in San Bernardino, California, and Paris in late 2015. One day after a series of coordinated attacks in Paris killed 130 people in November, Trump told voters in Texas that "it would've been a much different situation." After the December attack at a social services center in San Bernardino, in which 14 people died, Trump said, "I think it would've been a lot better if they had guns in that room, somebody could protect. They could've protected themselves if they had guns." Once an advocate of a ban on assault weapons, Trump has moved to the right on guns since embarking on his Republican presidential quest. In May, the billionaire accepted the endorsement of the National Rifle Association, vowing to end gun-free zones if elected. London (AFP) - A buying spree in the Asia-Pacific region propelled double-digit growth in the global arms market last year to a record $65 billion (57.7 billion euros), defence analysts IHS Jane's said Monday. Defence imports by Asia-Pacific nations soared 71 percent in a "spend surge" between 2009 and 2016, the analysts said, helping the global arms market jump 11.3 percent or $6.6 billion last year. "The global defence trade market has never seen an increase as large as the one we saw between 2014 and 2015," said Ben Moores, a senior analyst at IHS Jane's. "2015 was a record-breaking year," he added. It said there had been an acceleration in particular in "states bordering the South China Sea". Beijing has stirred regional opposition by rapidly building artificial islands capable of hosting military hardware, despite partial counter-claims by several Southeast Asian states. An IHS Jane's report said three of the top 10 countries with the fastest growing opportunities were in Asia-Pacific: Vietnam, Philippines, Bangladesh. South Korea rose from being the seventh biggest defence importer in the world in 2014 to fifth largest last year, purchasing arms worth $2.2 billion. The report predicted it would rise to fourth place in 2016. Australia's defence imports also rose from sixth to third place with $2.3 billion, after top importer Saudi Arabia and second-placed India which did not change positions from the previous year. IHS Jane's predicted that the global arms market would grow further in 2016 to $69 billion, pointing in particular to India's inability to manufacture the quality of defence equipment it needs to replace ageing stock. "Large numbers of India's fighters and submarines need to be replaced and, given the country's high economic growth rate, it should be in a strong financial position to acquire them in the coming decades," IHS Jane's director Paul Burton said. Story continues On the exporting side, IHS Jane's found that Germany rose from being the world's fifth biggest arms exporter to third biggest in 2015 with sales of $4.8 billion. France slid from third to fourth place ($4.8 billion) and Britain from fourth to fifth ($3.9 billion). The top arms exporters are still the United States and Russia. AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Monday he hoped British voters would decide in a June 23 referendum to stay in the EU, saying the bloc needed such a strategically important country with its strong trading and "seafaring" traditions. "Britain is a free market economy facing outward, just like the Netherlands. We are both seafaring nations, used to trading and working with open borders. It's of importance that a country with that kind of makeup remain," said Rutte, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency. "We see a lot of instability in the world. If one of the largest economies in the world from Europe leaves, that would lead to a lot of popping champagne corks in many capital cities outside Europe. I don't want that," said Rutte, speaking on the sidelines of an event in The Hague. (Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Gareth Jones) Navios Maritime Holdings Inc. NM is a shipping company that could be an interesting play for investors. That is because, not only does the stock have decent short-term momentum, but it is seeing solid activity on the earnings estimate revision front as well. These positive earnings estimate revisions suggest that analysts are becoming more optimistic on NMs earnings for the coming quarter and year. In fact, consensus estimates have moved sharply higher for both of these time frames over the past four weeks, suggesting that Navios Maritime Holdings could be a solid choice for investors. Current Quarter Estimates for NM In the past 30 days, 1 estimate have gone higher for Navios Maritime Holdings while none have gone lower in the same time period. The trend has been pretty favorable too, with estimates narrowing from a loss of 39 cents a share 30 days ago, to a loss of 29 cents today, a move of 25.6%. Current Year Estimates for NM Meanwhile, Navios Maritime Holdings current year figures are also looking quite promising, with 1 estimate moving higher in the past month, compared to none lower. The consensus estimate trend has also seen a boost for this time frame, narrowing from a loss of $1.48 per share 30 days ago to a loss of $1.18 per share today, an increase of 20.3%. NAVIOS MARI HLD Price and Consensus NAVIOS MARI HLD Price and Consensus | NAVIOS MARI HLD Quote Bottom Line The stock has also started to move higher lately, adding 18.5% over the past four weeks, suggesting that investors are starting to take note of this impressive story. So investors may definitely want to consider this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock to profit in the near future. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report NAVIOS MARI HLD (NM): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Frankfurt (AFP) - The European Central Bank said Monday it had reviewed financial institutions' contingency plans for a possible Brexit vote and the "headwinds" it would bring. British voters go to the polls on June 23 to decide whether to leave the European Union, a decision that would impact major financial centre the City of London. Daniele Nouy, president of the ECB banking Supervisory Council, said that "we asked some time ago" what plans banks had in case Britain votes to leave the 28-member bloc. "Obviously the plans are quite different depending on the possible impact or the possible risk that needs to be covered," she told the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. "We challenge these plans, we make sure they are up to the headwinds that could be generated on the market," Nouy added. "But I would say, this is almost business as usual for banks, to be prepared for specific headwinds." ECB president Mario Draghi said early this month that the monetary institution was ready for "any eventuality" after the British referendum, while pleading for Britain to stay in the EU. Europe's sole banking supervisory authority, set up within the Frankfurt-based ECB in November 2014, is directly in charge of the supervision of 129 of the region's biggest banks. East Rutherford (United States) (AFP) - Ecuador set up a Copa America Centenario quarter-final showdown with the United States after romping to a comfortable 4-0 win over Haiti. Goals from Enner Valencia, Jaime Ayovi, Christian Noboa and Antonio Valencia on Sunday completed a routine win for Ecuador who are now assured of finishing in second place in Group B. Peru and Brazil play later in the evening with the winner of that game assured of reaching the quarter-finals as group winners. A draw would leave Brazil, Peru and Ecuador level on five points, but Brazil would advance as group winners with Ecuador second by virtue of their superior goal difference. Ecuador -- making their first appearance in the Copa America quarter-finals since 1997 -- will now travel to Seattle to face the United States at CenturyLink Field on Thursday for a place in the semi-finals. Haiti, mauled 7-1 by Brazil in their previous game, were given a similarly torrid time by a rampant Ecuador side who attacked at will during a breathless opening period. Ecuador defender Arturo Mina set the tone for a one-sided encounter, blazing over the bar after only three minutes with the Haiti goal at his mercy. The opening goal came in the 11th minute, Enner Valencia taking advantage of acres of space down the left flank to get behind the Haiti defense before calming tucking away a low finish beneath the advancing Johny Placide. Enner Valencia then turned creator for the next goal. A superb dummy by Jaime Ayovi allowed the ball to run through to the West Ham player who turned and went clear once more. Ayovi had sprinted into space after his dummy and Valencia unselfishly squared to the striker who tapped into an empty net for 2-0. Ecuador's large contingent of fans in a crowd of around 50,000 at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey were made to wait for their team's third goal. It arrived on 57 minutes, Russia-based central midfielder Christian Noboa hammering in a half volley just inside the area to make it 3-0. Manchester United's Antonio Valencia was the next to get on the scoresheet after Haiti's porous defense was again caught square. Once again Enner Valencia went clean through on goal and calmly rolled a pass into the path of his namesake who finished for 4-0. CAIRO (Reuters) - The flight data recorders from an EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean last month are expected to stop emitting signals on June 24, and search boats are working against the clock to retrieve them, Egyptian investigators said on Monday. Without the "black boxes", investigators say there is not enough information to explain why flight MS804 crashed on May 19, killing all 66 people on board. The Egyptian-led investigation committee said in a statement that it had accepted a request by the United States' National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to have a representative join the investigation team. The plane's engines were built by a consortium led by the U.S. firm Pratt & Whitney. The country where the engines were built is often invited to take part in an air crash investigation, although it is not compulsory. Investigators also said on Monday that radar imagery obtained from the Egyptian military confirmed previous reports based on Greek and British radar data indicating that the plane had swerved in mid-air before crashing. Egyptian Air Navigation had previously said that the plane suddenly disappeared off the radar at cruising altitude around 37,000 feet. Those comments contradicted the Greek defense minister's account on the day of the crash that the plane had turned sharply to the left, then 360 degrees to the right before disappearing from radar at 15,000 feet. That conclusion is important, said one aviation source, because it goes some way to excluding the possibility that the plane was brought down by a mid-air explosion. France's air accident investigation agency, the BEA, which is advising Egypt on the underwater search, has said that one of the search ships has continued to pick up locator signals from one black box, whose position has been narrowed to within 1 to 2 km (just over a mile). To recover the black boxes from the seabed, 3,000 meters below the surface, investigators will need to pinpoint the signals to within a few meters and establish whether the pingers are still connected to the recorders. (Reporting by Eric Knecht and Lin Noueihed in Cairo and Tim Hepher in Paris; Editing by Kevin Liffey) https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/sets/72157667519938826/with/26405462060/ SpaceXs aim to colonize Mars is inspired by the Age of Exploration, but the plans themselves look a lot more like a white board at a global logistics firm. The Elon Musk-led company, which announced in April that it will send an unmanned Dragon spacecraft to Mars in 2018following years of research and testing to develop the needed technologyhas a goal of repeated Martian missions that are designed to give predictability to researchers. Heres how Musk described the objective in an interview with the Washington Post: Essentially what were saying is were establishing a cargo route to Mars. Its a regular cargo route. You can count on it. Its going happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station. And if scientists around the world know that they can count on that, and its going to be inexpensive, relatively speaking compared to anything in the past, then they will plan accordingly and come up with a lot of great experiments. This is akin to the way that massive container ships ply the oceans to bring components between far-flung factories. Planners dont rely on a specific ship to make it across the Pacific at a discrete time, but instead imagine the ships as a kind of conveyor belt, constantly in motion, and plan their operations around the idea that goods are constantly in motion between two given sites. Whether for SpaceX or a major oceanic shipper like the Maersk Group, the challenge is to solve for efficiency over long distances. And in both cases this involves timing (based on the tides, in the case of shipping, or the position of astronomical bodies in space) and conserving fuel (whether diesel sludge or a high-octane mixture of kerosene). If SpaceX is to make colonization possible on Mars, where nearly everything humans need to live must be brought to them, or the infrastructure to create it must be supplied, then shipping must be cheap. Keeping transit costs down in turn allows for maximum investment in the cargo carriedhence this demonstration phase for SpaceX to move bots and experiments from the green planet to the red one. Story continues Unlike the spacecraft that NASA is contemplating for its Martian missions, the SpaceX Dragon is built with the capability of returning experiments and samples in mind. It may not be too long before we see a chain of Dragons linking two planets in the Solar System. Musk says that after the 2018 mission, he will launch another group of Dragons in 2020, and by 2022, the infrastructure for the colony, teeing things off for a manned mission in 2024. By that time, hopefully, well have figured out the human software needed to keep Martian society functioning. Its important to keep in mind these are just goals, and though SpaceX has a good record of hitting Musks targets, the strikes tend to come a year or more later than anticipated. The next real challenge for SpaceX (beyond perfecting the Dragon) is flying the Falcon Heavy, a powerful rocket needed to reach Mars. The company hopes to demonstrate it in flight later this year. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news. More stories from Quartz: New York (AFP) - New York's Empire State Building went dark late Sunday while the spire of One World Trade Center lit up in the colors of the gay pride flag in memory of the victims of the Orlando massacre. The symbolic move came as the United States mourned the 50 victims of the worst mass shooting in modern US history, gunned down at a gay club in the Florida city. In the wake of the attack by a heavily armed assailant, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all flags would be flown at half-staff in the largest US city and that security measures have been strengthened, in particular around places associated with the LGBT community. De Blasio told reporters that the shooting that also left dozens injured was "against our values." He said there were no credible threats directed at New York City. But "you'll see a lot of additional police presence on the streets of the city," he added, stressing: "No city in the world is better prepared to stop terror, to stop hate." Hundreds of people gathered Sunday evening in Greenwich Village to reflect on the violence and leave flowers, candles and letters beside a sign reading "Stop Hate." The Tony Awards, which honor the best of Broadway, opened in New York dedicated to victims of the shooting, the deadliest terror attack in America since September 11, 2001. Paris (AFP) - English FA chief Greg Dyke on Monday raised the alarm over security for England's next Euro 2016 game after the pitched battles with Russian fans in their first match. Dyke also slammed stadium security Saturday's game against Russia in Marseille as "unacceptable" in a letter to Europe's governing body UEFA. The letter was sent as French courts jailed six England fans for up to three months for their role in the Marseille violence. A French prosecutor acknowledged that about 150 hardcore Russian fans had evaded arrest. England and Russia fans could again cross paths in the northern French city of Lille on this week. Russia play their next Group B game in Lille on Wednesday against Slovakia. England fans are due to gather in Lille the same day ahead of their country's next game against Wales on Thursday in the nearby city of Lens. Dyke said the English FA and British government "will be working hard to positively influence" English fans in Lille. But he added: "We have serious concerns around the security arrangements for the city in the next few days. "These concerns are heightened with the knowledge that Russia will play in Lille on Wednesday afternoon." Dyke called for police authorities in Lille and Lens to meet "as soon as possible to ensure there is a co-ordinated and effective plan in place." UEFA has warned Russia and England that they could be disqualified from the European Championships if their fans are involved in new violence. Dyke told UEFA that a distinction should be made between the treatment of English and Russian fans in disciplinary measures. He also slammed arrangements in the Marseille stadium on Saturday when Russian fans were accused of crossing barriers to attack English supporters including women and children. "We believe the stewarding arrangements in place were unacceptable," Dyke's letter said. "Supporters were able to get in with fireworks and flares, and then let them off, and there was insufficient segregation between the Russian and English fans, particularly given the events of the previous two days." Story continues Dyke said UEFA had made an "implication" that English fans were partly responsible for "the terrible events" in the Marseille stadium. In a letter which condemned the behaviour of certain England supporters on the streets of Marseille, he said: "The implication in your jointly-addressed letter is that English fans were in part responsible for the terrible incidents at the end of the match with Russia. "This is contradicted both by the video evidence and by the fact your independent disciplinary bodies have only instigated sanctions against the Russian Football Union." UEFA has charged Russia with crowd disturbances, racist chants and throwing fireworks. It is due to announce a punishment on Tuesday. Taking a course at a community college this summer may be a good option for teens who would rather hit the books than the beach. And some teens may be able to use federal dollars to help pay for these courses. The Department of Education announced last month that 44 colleges and universities will participate in an experimental program that will allow high school students to use Pell Grants -- a form of financial aid -- to help pay for dual enrollment courses. Generally speaking, teens earn both high school and college credit when participating in dual credit programs, say Elisabeth Barnett, an expert on dual enrollment at Teachers College, Columbia University. Though, she notes, that the language used to describe these types of programs varies. But high schoolers don't have to participate in a dual enrollment program to take classes at a community college, says Barnett. They could just go to a community college and ask to sign up for a class. Parents can help teens take the following steps to enroll in a community college course this summer. 1. Research: Parents and students should talk with a high school counselor before teens enroll in community college courses, says Tim Conway, director of school counseling at Lakeland Regional High School in Wanaque, New Jersey. A high school counselor can help students plan and select courses that align with their future goals, he says. High school counselors can also inform families of the necessary procedures to enroll in a community college course in their state, he says, while making sure families get the most affordable cost. And school counselors can ensure students get high school credit if they are participating in a dual enrollment program, along with advising students on which community college courses are likely to transfer to four-year institutions students are considering attending, he says. [Find out how earning college credit in high school can slash undergrad costs.] Parents can aid in the process by researching community college summer courses online through the course catalog to see what's available, and at what time, location and price, to ensure the course fits into families' schedules and budgets, he says. Story continues 2. Apply: High schoolers will typically have to apply for admission to the community college before they can take a course. The application is typically really straightforward, says Barnett. However, some community colleges have minimum age requirements, she says. And sometimes students may have to take a placement test before enrolling in certain courses. Most community colleges have open admission policies, which means that typically anyone who can benefit from higher education can enroll, says Julie Leidig, provost of Northern Virginia Community College's Loudoun campus. She also coordinates the dual enrollment program. At her institution, high schoolers have to meet a standard for college readiness, often through a placement test, to take a course. And if they want to get high school credit, they have to get approval from their high school beforehand. 3. Register: After students receive admission to the community college, they will need to register for courses, says Conway. Leidig says first-time students are required to go through an orientation before they register and go through advising at her institution, so students shouldn't wait until the last minute. However, there is still time for high schoolers to enroll in summer classes at her school this year. Conway says these courses can help students find their niche, get a jump-start on college and potentially allow families to save some money on higher education. [Get 4 answers for parents about college-level classes in high school.] Leidig tells high schoolers to take these courses seriously. "It is real college, and that transcript will follow you," she says. "A student should not be too afraid of doing this if they have the right preparation, but they should understand that it's not just an experiment with going to college -- it is going to college." Have something of interest to share? Send your news to us at highschoolnotes@usnews.com. Alexandra Pannoni is an education Web producer at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at apannoni@usnews.com. By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Eritrea and Ethiopia accused each other of starting clashes on Sunday between their soldiers in a border region, highlighting persistent tension over a boundary dispute that triggered war in 1998-2000. Ethiopia said the situation was calm on Monday, after a resident on the Ethiopian side reported the sound of explosions all day on Sunday and lasting into the early morning of Monday. Eritrea, a Horn of Africa country that won independence from Ethiopia in 1991, fought border wars with its larger neighbour in 1998-2000 that killed about 70,000 people. Eritrea's Information Ministry said in a statement late on Sunday night that the Ethiopian government had "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front." Tsorona is a town south of the Eritrean capital Asmara and close to the frontier. The area saw intense fighting during the earlier border war. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," the Eritrean statement said. Ethiopia disputed this account, saying Eritrea started the fight. "Their forces were promptly repulsed. They were given a proper response," government spokesman Getachew Reda said, adding that the situation was quiet on Monday. Eritrea and Ethiopia routinely accuse each other of backing rebels trying to destabilise and topple the other's government, a legacy from the earlier war. A resident in the Ethiopian town of Zalambessa, across the border from Tsorona, told Reuters by telephone that he had heard the sound of shelling on Sunday and into the night. "It did not stop until this morning around 9 a.m. (0600 GMT)," he said, asking not to be identified. He added that he had seen Ethiopian military vehicles and troops moving along the central stretch of the militarised border. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel had no immediate additional comment when asked about casualties or other details of the attack. Ethiopian government officials also did not say if there were any casualties. Charlotte King, senior Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said it was unusual for Eritrea to comment on flare-ups but said the statement may have been prompted by U.N. criticism Eritrea has faced over its prolonged national service. The U.N. accuses Eritrea of rights abuses for indefinite national service, where Eritreans can spend many years in low-paid work under conscription. Asmara says an ongoing threat from Ethiopia makes extended national service essential. Eritrea's "critics will argue that it is trying to divert international attention away from the alleged crimes against humanity, and justifying its need for an enormous military and compulsory conscription," King said in a brief commentary. Eritrea, which is under U.N. sanctions, says world powers have failed to push Ethiopia to accept an international arbitration ruling demarcating the boundary. Ethiopia's government has said it wants talks on implementation. (Writing by George Obulutsa and Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Nairobi (AFP) - Eritrea on Monday accused arch-rival Ethiopia of attacking its heavily militarised border, but officials in Addis Ababa said they had no knowledge of the reported fighting. Ethiopia on Sunday "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front," Eritrea's ministry of information said in a statement. Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Redda said there were "no clashes that we know of". Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after three decades of war, but returned to battle in 1998-2000. They remain bitter enemies, with their troops still eyeing each other along the fortified frontier. Tensions are never far from the surface. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," Eritrea said, adding it "will issue further statements on the unfolding situation." Eritrea and Ethiopia have long traded accusations of attacks and of backing rebels to needle each other. In February, Ethiopia accused Eritrea of being behind anti-government protests in the Oromia region last year which led to a violent clampdown by the government in Addis Ababa. The two countries remain at odds over the flashpoint town of Badme, awarded to Eritrea by a United Nations-backed boundary commission but still controlled by Ethiopia. By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Eritrea's government has accused Ethiopia of launching an attack on its territory, but the extent of the assault was still unclear and there was no immediate response from Ethiopia. A resident on the Ethiopian side of the border reported hearing the sound of explosions on Sunday and saw Ethiopian troops moving in the area. Eritrea, which won independence from Ethiopia in 1991, fought a bloody border war with its larger neighbour between 1998 and 2000. Tensions between the Horn of Africa nations persist. "The TPLF regime has today, Sunday 12 June 2016, unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front," the Information Ministry said in a statement around midnight. TPLF refers to Ethiopia's Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, one of the four parties making up the ruling coalition. Tsorona Central Front is region of military command around the town of Tsorona, south of Eritrea's capital Asmara and close to the border. The area saw intense fighting during the border war that killed about 70,000 people. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," the Eritrean statement said. A resident in the Ethiopian town of Zalambessa, across the border from Tsorona, told Reuters by telephone that he had heard the sound of shelling on Sunday and into the night. "It did not stop until this morning around 9 a.m. (0600 GMT)," he said, asking not to be identified. He added that he had seen Ethiopian military vehicles and troops moving along the central stretch of the militarised border. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel had no immediate additional comment when asked about casualties or other details of the attack. Ethiopian government officials were not immediately reachable for comment. Charlotte King, senior Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said it was unusual for Eritrea to comment on flare ups but said the release may have been prompted by U.N. criticism Eritrea has faced over its prolonged national service. The U.N. accuses Eritrea of rights abuses for indefinite national service, where Eritreans can spend many years in low-paid work under conscription. Asmara says an ongoing threat from Ethiopia makes extended national service essential. Eritrea's "critics will argue that it is trying to divert international attention away from the alleged crimes against humanity, and justifying its need for an enormous military and compulsory conscription," King said in a brief commentary. Eritrea, which is under U.N. sanctions, says world powers have failed to push Ethiopia to accept an international arbitration ruling demarcating the boundary. Ethiopia's government has said it wants talks on implementation. Eritrea and Ethiopia routinely accuse each other of backing rebels trying to destabilise and topple the other's government, a legacy from the two-year war. (Writing by George Obulutsa and Edmund Blair; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Dominic Evans) TOKYO (Reuters) - The British pound and the euro fell to their lowest level since 2013 against the yen on worries a UK referendum later this month could pull Britain out of the European Union, possibly disrupting European political and economic affairs. The pound fell to as low as 151.50 yen , its lowest level since August 2013 while the euro fell to 119.87 yen , a level last seen in April 2013, as the yen has become something of a safe haven. (Reporting by Hideyuki Sano; Editing by Eric Meijer) BERLIN (Reuters) - If Britons vote to leave the European Union in a June 23 referendum it could be the beginning of the end for the 28-nation bloc and for western political civilization more generally, European Council President Donald Tusk said. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Tusk said a so-called Brexit vote would provide a major boost to radical anti-European forces who he said would be "drinking champagne". "Why is it so dangerous? Because no one can foresee what the long-term consequences would be," Tusk said. "As a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety." Everyone in the EU would lose out economically if Britain left, Tusk said. "Every family knows that a divorce is traumatic for everyone. Everyone in the EU, but especially the Brits themselves, would lose out economically," he said. The latest polls show Britons are almost evenly split over whether to stay or go. Although he expressed hope that the EU would survive in the event of a Brexit, Tusk said the price would be high. Ulrich Grillo, head of Germany's BDI industry association, said on Monday that businesses in Europe's largest economy did not want Britain to leave the EU, adding that his message to Britain was: "Stay in". A survey published last week showed that almost two-thirds of German companies are uncertain what the effect of Britain leaving the EU would be on their business. (Reporting by Michelle Martin and Gernot Heller; Editing by Noah Barkin and Richard Balmforth) It was the deadliest mass shooting America has yet seen: 50 people killed at a gay nightclub, with the perpetrator, Omar Mateen, pledging allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group. The month of Ramadan and Gay Pride has taken a terrible turn. We turned to our senior columnist John McLaughlin to interpret the mass shooting. How is global terror evolving? Should we expect more attacks? And, most important, how can we best protect one another? OZY: Is this an act of terrorism? John McLaughlin: In the broadest definition of the term, absolutely. Weve become accustomed to associating it almost exclusively with acts directed from abroad, but of course weve experienced terrorism spawned domestically, such as the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Atlanta Olympics bombing in 1996. To be crystal clear, we dont yet know whether Mateen acted with any foreign direction the answer probably lies in the electronic media that the FBI and police will now scour. But even if he did not, the fact that he pledged allegiance to ISIS in his 911 call establishes that he was at least paying attention to ISIS propaganda and its appeal to attack infidels. OZY: How has the Islamic State changed the terrorism paradigm? J.M.: ISIS, to an extent beyond what earlier terrorist groups achieved, has a presence everywhere people can go online. To a degree, Al Qaeda was a VHS-era group recall how they would smuggle out videotapes intermittently to spread their messages. ISIS, by contrast, uses just about every instrument of social media to spread their propaganda to vulnerable potential recruits. They are also less wedded to the idea of large-scale, elaborately planned attacks on big iconic targets and much more inclined to encourage smaller-scale attacks on soft targets, such as we saw in Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino. They are essentially telling their adherents to go ahead and freelance to go out there, kill and cause mayhem. OZY: What is the risk of copycat attacks? Story continues J.M.: This is always a great risk. For all we know at this point, Mateens attack may itself have been a copycat attack. Perhaps he got the idea from hearing about Paris, where terrorists also attacked social gatherings. OZY: What do you think the political fallout will be especially on the presidential election? J.M.: The leading candidates are already taking positions that mirror their long-standing themes Trump claiming he was right in his concern about Muslims entering this country, Clinton emphasizing her support for tougher gun controls. They are about as far apart on these issues especially on gun control as any two candidates have ever been. Much as an assault weapons ban makes sense, at least to me, its opponents seem always to have the upper hand. Probably the most important future factor will be which candidate gets to appoint the next Supreme Court justices. Recall that the Supreme Court in 2008 declared the District of Columbia ban on handguns unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, thus negating the ability of local jurisdictions to legislate such bans. A different court might roll this back in another test case. OZY: What conclusions, if any, should we draw about the effectiveness of FBI counterterrorism efforts? J.M.: The FBI is doing an excellent job but is severely challenged by the growing magnitude of the problem. The FBI leadership has made the point that they are pursuing ISIS-related investigations in all 50 states an incredible case load. We will have to learn more about the bureaus earlier investigations of Mateen before drawing any conclusions about their work on this case. OZY: What, if anything, should we be doing differently? J.M.: In my personal view, it is way past time for an assault weapons ban. And when something like this happens, it is always worth reviewing how well our various databases are connected. Did the information the FBI collected on Mateen in 2013 and 2014 get into the kind of databases that security firms, like the one where Mateen worked, use when checking out a potential employee or when gun dealers make a sale? Someone will be looking into all of that, but I cant stress enough that we need to know more before drawing any sweeping conclusions. Related Articles PARIS (Reuters) - A former top aide to Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday he would run against him in the conservative party's primaries for the 2017 presidential election, further weakening Sarkozy's own bid. Henri Guaino, who wrote many of Sarkozy's key speeches when he was president in 2007-2012 and was one of his closest advisers, backs a statist economic policy that is absent from the increasingly large field of candidates for Les Republicains (LR) party's November primaries. "I am tired of that single world view, of austerity policies," Guaino, who is an LR lawmaker, told France Inter radio. While Guaino has little chance of getting his party's ticket, for which former prime minister Alain Juppe is currently the front runner, the candidacy of such a close former aide highlights Sarkozy's struggle in keeping a grip on his party. At least 10 other candidates are also eyeing the party's ticket for the presidential election. Sarkozy has still not officially announced his candidacy but no one doubts he plans to throw his hat in the ring. He tried to boost his ratings among grassroots LR sympathizers last week by reviving one of his most divisive mantras, that of France's need to defend its national identity. Guaino said that he would try and run in the presidential election anyway even if he does not win the party's primaries. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander and Simon Carraud; Editing by Richard Lough) As with the rest of America, Broadway is struggling to make sense of something so senseless. On Sunday morning, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history was perpetrated in Orlando, Florida, killing 50 and injuring at least 53 in an LGBT nightclub. After the horrific news, the Tony Awards announced in a statement that Sunday night's ceremony would be dedicated to the victim's and their families, and attendees were given silver ribbons to wear in their honor. ET spoke with several people on the red carpet, including Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who weighed in on the national tragedy. MORE: James Corden Opens Tony Awards with Tribute to Orlando Shooting: 'Hate Will Never Win' "I went straight from waking up into the Tony rehearsals, so I didn't find out until mid-afternoon today," the 36-year-old actor told ET. "It's the worst shooting tragedy in our nation's history. And that it happened to our community, the community that makes up Broadway... It feels more important than ever to celebrate new music." "If art is what fights tragedy, if art is what fights the void, if art is what helps us make sense of violence and random acts of cowardice and killing then tonight's important, it's important for us to celebrate those things," he added. WATCH: LGBT Groups, Celebs and Public Figures Pay Tribute After 50 Killed in Orlando Nightclub Shooting Chuck star Zachary Levy told ET, "I don't know what to say other than it's just insanely sad." "I hope that whatever steps that need to be taken so that we can prevent this are taken, and that somebody provides what that solution is or we collectively can find that out," he said. "We were here rehearsing the show earlier, and I looked into a cafe, and they had it on the TV in the cafe and it just put me in a whole other headspace. It kind of puts things in perspective." Hamilton star Jonathan Groff added that he was feeling "shock, horror, heartbreak, disbelief, anger, frustration." Story continues MORE: Tony Awards Dedicating Sunday's Ceremony to Victims of Orlando Mass Shooting "It still hasn't computed," he admitted. "It is devastating and incomprehensible." Gloria Estefan joined the voices mourning the tragedy in her home state, saying, "You keep hoping that things will get better, but if we're going to be realistic, we all have to be very vigilant about life around us. But you can't stop living. We can raise [a new generation] with a lot more love in their hearts." "But you can't stop living," she added. "A new generation... we can raise them with a lot more love in their hearts." Estefan added that she is "sending prayers and thoughts to all of the families of the victims and the survivors." "We hope to just envelope them with love as much as we can," she told ET. "It's not a question of how do we go on, it is a question that we must go on, and we must begin to relate to each other in a way that we show compassion and kindness and connection," said Transparent star Judith Light. "We are one body of humanity, and we must start acting that way." "Anytime there is a hate crime -- and this is another unnecessary example of gun violence -- who will we be is the question," the two-time Tony winner added. "What kind of people will we be?" Glee star Jenna Ushkowitz called the massacre "something that you have to acknowledge, something you have to mourn, you have to get angry about." "You have to remember this is why we are together tonight," she added, "to celebrate the LGBT community." WATCH: President Obama Speaks Out on Shooting at Orlando Gay Nightclub: 'This Was an Act of Terror and an Act of Hate' "You have to [address it]," Tony Awards host James Corden told ET just before the ceremony. "The great thing about this community, the LGBT community, is that they historically have just embraced any race, religion, gender, sexuality, and tonight has to be a statement about that." The late night comedian opened up the broadcast with a statement addressing the horrific events in Orlando. Watch the video below to see more responses to the shooting. Related Articles As the world continues to mourn for the victims of the mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday morning, a number of stars attended the L.A. Pride Parade in West Hollywood on Sunday, and spoke out about the tragedy. ET caught up with reality star and LGBT advocate Lisa Vanderpump at her West Hollywood restaurant, Pump, where she said she felt "great sadness" about the "random act of violence" that took the lives of 50 people and left at least 53 others injured. "I think the most important thing is courage in the face of adversity," the 55-year-old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star shared. "Now is the time we stand together and unite." WATCH: LGBT Groups, Celebs and Public Figures Pay Tribute After Orlando Nightclub Shooting Vanderpump recounted being "really devastated," when she first heard about the killings, adding, "My heart goes out to the victims and their families." "It's definitely thrown a kind of very somber shadow over today's events, which should be a day of celebration," Vanderpump said. "I've had gay restaurants, bars, clubs, and I've known the gay community to be a kind, peaceful community that embrace one another such a heinous act is devastating," she added. Sara and Erin Foster, sisters and stars of the VH1 comedy Barely Famous, also spoke with ET while riding in the parade. WATCH: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Zachary Levi and Other Tony Stars Weigh in on Orlando Shooting "The best way to respect what happened last night, I think, is to continue to show the strength around the pride that everyone has," Erin shared. "You can be afraid or you can stand stronger and band together with everyone and say, 'No matter what happens we're still going to stay strong,' and still show up and still support everyone's ability and right to love each other freely and not have to be in fear." Story continues Sara echoed Erin's message, and added that the mass shooting is "just one more reminder that gun control is not where it needs to be." "We need to be taking steps to complete eliminate access to military weapons," Sara added. " It's just not okay." WATCH: Tony Awards Dedicating Sunday's Ceremony to Victims of Orlando Mass Shooting The Orlando tragedy also had a strong impact among those who attended this year's Tony Awards in New York City, with many wearing a silver ribbon to commemorate the victims during Sunday's awards show. Host James Corden opened the show with a message of love and solidarity, while Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda addressed the shootings in the form of a sonnet he recited while accepting the award for Best Original Score. Watch the video below to hear his emotional words. Related Articles By Greg Roumeliotis NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. telecommunications rivals Verizon Communications Inc and AT&T Inc are set to go through to the third and final round of bidding in the auction for Yahoo Inc's core internet assets, according to people familiar with the matter. After holding a board meeting to review second-round offers, Yahoo will start reaching out to bidders as early as Monday to notify them whether they will make it to the next round, one of the people said. Verizon, the biggest U.S. wireless carrier, is seeking to challenge AT&T, the second largest U.S. wireless provider, in the third round of bidding, even though its latest offer was at the low end of the $3.5 billion to $5 billion range of the second-round bids that came in last week, the people said. Yahoo hopes to conclude the auction by next month, according to one of the people. The Sunnyvale, California-based company started exploring a sale of the assets after coming under pressure from activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP. A consortium led by Quicken Loans Inc founder Dan Gilbert, and backed by Berkshire Hathaway Inc Chairman Warren Buffett, will also make it through to the final round, the people added. Some private equity firms that had made it through to the second round will not be invited to submit third-round bids, another of the people said. The people familiar with the matter asked not to be identified because the bids were confidential. Yahoo, Verizon and AT&T declined to comment. A Quicken Loans spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on behalf of Gilbert's consortium. Not all offers involve exactly the same assets, with some bidders indicating they are not interested in some of the patents and real estate assets on offer, sources have previously said. Verizon is primarily interested in Yahoo's advertising technology tools. It has been examining how the other assets up for sale, such as search, mail and messenger services, could be combined with the corresponding businesses of AOL, which it acquired last year for $4.4 billion, Reuters reported last month. Story continues AT&T has been seeking to catch up with Verizon in advertising technology as it seeks to expand in mobile video offerings. A sale of Yahoo's internet assets would leave the company just owning a 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo Japan Corp, as well as a 15 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, which accounts for most of its value. In December, Yahoo scrapped plans to spin off its Alibaba stake, after investors fretted over whether that transaction could have been carried out on a tax-free basis. (Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in NEW YORK; Additional reporting by Malathi Nayak and Dan Freed in NEW YORK and Liana B. Baker in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell) MUMBAI (Reuters) - Exiled tycoon Vijay Mallya said on Sunday that Indian authorities trying to recover about $1.4 billion from his collapsed Kingfisher Airlines had no legal grounds for sequestering certain assets in a money laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) tweeted on Saturday that it had "attached" properties worth 14.11 billion Indian rupees ($210.78 million) in the case involving a loan from state-owned IDBI Bank to Kingfisher to buy properties abroad. The assets were purchased several years before Kingfisher was launched, Mallya said in a statement to the media on Sunday. "There is no rationale nor any legal basis for the series of actions initiated by the ED which is now making it more difficult to raise resources to pay the banks," Mallya said. The ED says Mallya's United Breweries Group used 4.3 billion rupees of Kingfisher bank loans to buy property overseas. Mallya's statement said Kingfisher had provided evidence that the funds were used for legitimate business purposes. Creditors, led by State Bank of India, have rejected an offer of partial repayment by Mallya, who had given a personal guarantee for the Kingfisher loan. They want the former billionaire, who is living in Britain, to attend a hearing in India's Supreme Court. The foreign ministry in April revoked a diplomatic passport that he carried as a member of parliament's upper house. A judge in Mumbai has non-bailable warrant for his arrest. ($1 = 66.9423 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Louise Ireland) NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Tony Awards, American theater's highest honors, were handed out on Sunday at the Beacon Theater in New York. The following is a list of winners in major categories: Best musical: "Hamilton" Best play: "The Humans" by Stephen Karam Best revival of a musical: "The Color Purple" Best revival of a play: "Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge" Best performance by a leading actress in a musical: Cynthia Erivo, "The Color Purple" Best performance by a leading actor in a musical: Leslie Odom Jr., "Hamilton" Best performance by a leading actress in a play: Jessica Lange, "Long Day's Journey into Night" Best performance by a leading actor in a play: Frank Langella, "The Father" Best book of a musical: "Hamilton" Best original score: "Hamilton" Best choreography: "Hamilton" (Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Michael Perry) A six-year-old Indian boy was rushed to hospital with serious burn injuries after his father dropped him on hot coals during a Hindu ritual, a doctor said Monday. The father was walking barefoot with his son Kartik in his arms on the red-hot embers when he lost his balance and fell during the ritual on Sunday, an AFP photographer at the scene said. Bystanders rushed to the rescue and took Kartik to hospital after other family members refused to accompany him, saying they had faith in God to heal him. "The boy was admitted last (Sunday) night in the emergency ward. He has burn injuries on his limbs and on one side of his trunk," doctor Jangpreet Singh told AFP. "The father has also sustained about 15 percent burns. I think it will take at least five to seven days for their wounds to heal." In one of the pictures Kartik, wearing marigold garlands and a white vest, can be seen screaming in pain as those around him try to pull him out. Around 600 devotees had gathered in Jalandhar city in northern Punjab state for a festival in honour of the goddess Maa Maariamma. Devotees must fast for seven days before walking on the burning coals in the ancient Hindu practice aimed at appeasing the deity. Three years ago a mother carrying her daughter slipped and fell on the hot surface, also during the Jalandhar ritual. The father of the man who gunned down dozens of people inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando reiterated his apologies to the American people and denounced terrorism as the enemy of humanity on Monday. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of Omar Mateen, condemned his sons deadly actions in a video he posted on his Facebook page, saying he did not realize his son had anger in his heart, according to a translation by the New York Times. He spoke in Dari, a language used in Afghanistan. The younger Mateen, 29, took hostages and opened fire inside Pulse Orlando early Sunday, in a mass shooting that left 49 people dead and 53 others injured before Mateen was killed during a gun battle with police. The gunmans father on Sunday had said the shooting had nothing to do with religion and may have been sparked months ago by the sight of two men kissing in Miami, which angered him, according to an interview with NBC News. Only God can punish homosexuality, the elder Mateen said in the video. This is not an issue for humans to punish. I am really sorry and have expressed this to the people of the United States, especially in this holy month of Ramadan, he added. He told NBC News that he hates terrorism and that ISIS should be destroyed. I always [was] telling him that the terrorists and terrorism are the enemy of the whole humanity, he added. I am very angry and mad at him. By Jonathan Landay and Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, is a fringe political commentator who rails against Pakistan and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Seddique Mateen, who public records indicate is the father of Omar Mateen, had an occasional television show on a U.S.-based Afghan satellite channel for about three years, and has continued to post political commentaries on his Facebook page as recently as Sunday. Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called "Durand Jirga," which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinent's former British rulers. In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son's rampage had "nothing to do with religion." He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, U.S.-born Omar Mateen, 29, of Florida, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," NBC News quoted Seddique Mateen as saying. "We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country." Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when he came to the United States. He did not return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email. Khatab said Seddique Mateen would show up at his studio in Canoga Park, California, "three or four times a year" to tape his shows. "He'd talk for about two to three hours," Khatab said in a phone interview. "He'd buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day." Story continues CRITICAL OF PAKISTAN'S ISI Khatab said Seddique Mateen's political views were largely anti-Pakistan. A YouTube channel under Mateen's name had more than 100 videos posted between 2012 and 2015. One of the videos refers to the "killer ISI" - the acronym for Pakistan's main military-run intelligence service - and says the agency is the "creator and father of the world's terrorism." U.S. officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against U.S. targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations. U.S. officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection between the Florida attack and Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between Omar Mateen and any such group. Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. Seddique Mateen interviewed Ghani in January 2014, eight months before Ghani became president, according to a video posted on his YouTube channel. The interview touched on economic development and youth unemployment in Afghanistan. Khatab said Mateen conducted the interview in Kabul and brought it to California for broadcast. During the interview Mateen praised Ghani but by the following year had changed his views, apparently angered by Ghani's outreach to Pakistan in his bid to start peace talks with the Taliban. In a 2015 video, Mateen declared his own candidacy for the Afghan presidency, even though there was no election at that time. In the videos, he wears a Western suit and tie and speaks Dari, a dialect of Persian spoken in northern Afghanistan. He harshly criticizes Ghani's policies both at home and abroad and lashes out at Pakistan, its intelligence service, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and some senior Afghan government officials and jihadist figures. In a February video on his Facebook page, he addresses Taliban members and castigates them for being the "servants" of the ISI. In a June 11 video posted on Facebook, Mateen is dressed in military fatigues and says Afghanistan must "punish the traitors." "I wish a hero one day removes Ashraf Ghani's turban and slaps this crazy man," he said in the video. "This traitor has rolled up his sleeves to destroy our country." On Twitter, Ghani condemned the Orlando attack and called it an "act of terror." (Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb in San Francisco and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Editing by Bill Trott) Orlando (AFP) - The gunman who launched the worst terror attack on US soil since 9/11 at a gay nightclub in Orlando was radicalized by Islamist propaganda, officials said, amid reports he was a club regular. Lone gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 and wounded another 53 before he was killed when police stormed the Pulse, one of Orlando's most prominent gay venues, early Sunday. The attack is reminiscent of the November 13 suicide attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 90 people were massacred when jihadist gunmen opened fire on concertgoers. A total of 130 people died across the French capital that night in a series of shootings and suicide bomb attacks. The FBI said Mateen had been radicalized by Islamist propaganda, but found no evidence -- contrary to the Paris attacks -- that the shooting had been coordinated from abroad. The Islamic State group claimed that Mateen was acting as "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." US investigators believe that Mateen was a "lone wolf" inspired by Islamist propaganda to carry out what President Barack Obama dubbed "an act of terror and an act of hate." FBI chief James Comey said his agents found no evidence that the attack had been directed from outside the United States, "and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network." Agents are instead looking into the possible role of anti-gay bigotry. The FBI was "highly confident" Mateen had been "radicalized" while consuming online propaganda, Comey said, adding that he claimed allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a series of calls during the attack. - Mateen a club regular? - In a further twist to the story, four people said Mateen, 29, had been a regular at the gay club, the Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported late Monday. "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," Ty Smith told the Sentinel. Story continues Smith said he had seen Mateen inside at least a dozen times. "We didn't really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times," Smith said. "He told us he had a wife and child." Another Pulse regular, Kevin West, told the Los Angeles Times that Mateen messaged him on and off for a year using a gay chat app. Other club goers told local media and MSNBC News that Mateen had been using multiple gay apps, including Grindr, with mutual acquaintances to "hook up." Mateen's wife, Noor Zahi Salman, was not cooperating in the probe, a law enforcement official told the Sentinel. However agents have talked extensively with Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, who said he had beat her. Relatives and acquaintances portrayed Mateen as an unstable man prone to violence who expressed homophobic views. The slaughter raised questions about US counterterror strategy and gun laws. The FBI said it had investigated Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan descent, but cleared him of extremist ties. Nevertheless Mateen legally bought a rifle and a handgun. "We make it very easy for individuals who are troubled or disturbed or want to engage in violent acts to get very powerful weapons very quickly," Obama said. He demanded that the Republican-controlled Congress pass legislation to curb the sale of assault-type weapons like the one used in Orlando. The White House said Obama would travel to Orlando on Thursday to pay his respects to victims' families. - 'Help me, help me' - A gay chorus sang and rainbow flags fluttered in the evening wind late Monday as thousands in Orlando gathered for the first major vigil for the night club victims. The trim green lawn outside a performing arts center filled with people gay and straight to hear speakers urge the city known for theme parks and fun to unite and not surrender to fear. "We're not going anywhere, we are here to stay," the crowd chanted at one point. Police put their number at about 5,000. "It shouldn't be so easy to get guns," said Joe Brennan, a 52-year-old engineer at the vigil. "The innocent deserve to be protected, too." Police have identified all 49 victims -- mainly club goers celebrating Latin Night at the Pulse nightclub at the start of Gay Pride month. Many of the wounded remained hospitalized. As the club was closing around 2:00 am Sunday, Mateen began a gun battle with an off-duty officer working at the club. More officers responded, and the gunman escaped to the bathroom, where he barricaded himself and seized hostages. Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revelers with bullets. "It was like complete chaos," he told AFP. "People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped!'" The attacks triggered solidarity vigils by gay and lesbian groups and their supporters across the world. Thousands also gathered Monday in New York at the birthplace of the gay rights movement, and in Los Angeles, where pop star Lady Gaga led a tearful vigil. "This is an attack on humanity itself... an attack on everyone," said Gaga, who has often spoken out on gay rights issues. Other memorial vigils were held in Philadelphia, San Diego and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Several of the victims were natives of the US Caribbean possession. In London's Soho district, thousands marched under rainbow flags, bursting into chants of "We're here, we're queer, we will not live in fear." Marches and vigils were also held in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Australia. * Young professionals consider city too expensive * Tech firms acknowledge costs, offer staff support * Companies worried costs mean city is losing competitiveness * House prices up 63 percent in April from year earlier * Housing costs higher than Beijing, Shanghai By Clare Jim and James Pomfret SHENZHEN, China, June 13 (Reuters) - A housing boom in China's wannabe "Silicon Valley" of Shenzhen risks undermining the city's tech boom as young professionals consider moving out to avoid the highest residential prices in the country. In the space of four decades, Shenzhen has transformed itself from a fishing village into a manufacturing centre and now a tech hub - attracting top firms and young talent in sectors including technology, advertising and design. But a property frenzy, which has driven prices up by 580 percent in the past 10 years, is beginning to weigh on the city's competitiveness, tech firms, professionals, industry groups and officials say, just as it strives to develop new economic drivers and pull away from old-economy manufacturing. The tech hub has drawn some of China's top names including internet giant Tencent and telecoms firm Huawei, plus emerging new leaders such as DJI, the world's biggest commercial drone maker, and gene mapping company BGI. If these firms and those that are part of the tech-hub's ecosystem of startups struggle to attract talent because of high housing costs, they could start to doubt if Shenzhen is the right location for their operations. That could stunt the development of a high-tech sector that Chinese media reports showcase as a shining example of China's move up the value chain. "For people of my age group, Shenzhen's high property prices are causing a lot of pressure," said Chen Zhitao, a 25-year-old marketing officer for Chinese online retail giant JD.com . To save on rent, he shares a tiny flat with two others where one has to sleep on a couch each night. "Now my friends are discussing more and more whether to leave, and to consider what other cities we might go to," he said. Story continues The Shenzhen city government, which has tightened housing regulations to take the heat out of the price rally, and its Science and Technology Innovation Commission did not respond immediately to requests for comment. CHINA'S MOST EXPENSIVE CITY While commercial rents are stable, residential prices have soared as available building land within the city shrank. In the year to April, prices rose almost 63 percent - the biggest rise in China - data shows. Average residential property prices in Shenzhen in May were 40 percent higher than Beijing and 30 percent above Shanghai, according to data provider China Real Estate Index System (CREIS). A 90-square metre apartment (970 sq ft) near the city centre, or in the tech district of Nanshan, costs around 6 million yuan ($915,000). The prices rises have been matched by a sharp increase in borrowing. Outstanding mortgages rose 40 percent to 742 billion yuan in 2015 and new mortgages jumped more than 200 percent to 340 billion yuan. Blue-chip firms headquartered in Shenzhen acknowledge the boom is a concern. Internet giant Tencent expanded its housing subsidy programme in May to include rent relief of up to 15,000 yuan a year, a source at the firm said. It also provides interest free loans of up to 500,000 yuan ($76,214.86). "The company has been very proactive with their (housing) policies. It's very obvious," said a Tencent employee who only gave his surname Chen. "They can't not offer these if they want to retain and attract employees ... high property prices are a big concern for them." Other major firms such as ZTE Corp , Huawei Technologies, DJI Holdings and the Qianhai Free Trade Zone authority told Reuters they own apartments and dormitories that they rent to staff at below-market rates. Ren Zhengfei, founder and head of Shenzhen-based Huawei, expressed concern in an interview with China's state-run Xinhua news agency about the impact of rising property prices on business development on the mainland. Housing and production costs are too high, he said. Huawei declined to comment further. HOUSING "DILEMMA" Many other high-tech firms can not afford subsidies. Fiona Zhang, a 26-year-old who helped found an online marketing startup, said she was forced to move out of her studio apartment last year when her rent jumped 42 percent. She now shares a four-bedroom flat with three others. She said many of her friends had quit Shenzhen to move to a cheaper city. "Starting my own business has been my dream," she said. These cost pressures suggest the Shenzhen government needed to change policy, Chen Geping, the head of the Shenzhen Housing Research Association, was quoted as saying. "Shenzhen's current property dilemma ... is no longer to protect families in need, but how to find housing for its (professional) talent," Chen said in the Southern Weekly newspaper. Other business groups, such as the Federation of Shenzhen Industries, said they were concerned about the impact of property prices on Shenzhen's competitiveness. An employee at the Shenzhen Promotion Association for Small & Medium Enterprises, who gave his surname as Huang, had a different take on the impact of the housing rally. Huang said startups required less labour than larger firms so higher apartment prices might "eliminate mediocre labour while keeping talent in Shenzhen." ($1=6.56 yuan) (Additional reporting by Yimou Lee, Tris Pan and Teenie Ho; Editing by Neil Fullick) By Clare Jim and James Pomfret SHENZHEN, China (Reuters) - A housing boom in China's wannabe "Silicon Valley" of Shenzhen risks undermining the city's tech boom as young professionals consider moving out to avoid the highest residential prices in the country. In the space of four decades, Shenzhen has transformed itself from a fishing village into a manufacturing centre and now a tech hub - attracting top firms and young talent in sectors including technology, advertising and design. But a property frenzy, which has driven prices up by 580 percent in the past 10 years, is beginning to weigh on the city's competitiveness, tech firms, professionals, industry groups and officials say, just as it strives to develop new economic drivers and pull away from old-economy manufacturing. The tech hub has drawn some of China's top names including internet giant Tencent and telecoms firm Huawei, plus emerging new leaders such as DJI, the world's biggest commercial drone maker, and gene mapping company BGI. If these firms and those that are part of the tech-hub's ecosystem of startups struggle to attract talent because of high housing costs, they could start to doubt if Shenzhen is the right location for their operations. That could stunt the development of a high-tech sector that Chinese media reports showcase as a shining example of China's move up the value chain. "For people of my age group, Shenzhen's high property prices are causing a lot of pressure," said Chen Zhitao, a 25-year-old marketing officer for Chinese online retail giant JD.com. To save on rent, he shares a tiny flat with two others where one has to sleep on a couch each night. "Now my friends are discussing more and more whether to leave, and to consider what other cities we might go to," he said. The Shenzhen city government, which has tightened housing regulations to take the heat out of the price rally, and its Science and Technology Innovation Commission did not respond immediately to requests for comment. CHINA'S MOST EXPENSIVE CITY While commercial rents are stable, residential prices have soared as available building land within the city shrank. In the year to April, prices rose almost 63 percent - the biggest rise in China - data shows. Average residential property prices in Shenzhen in May were 40 percent higher than Beijing and 30 percent above Shanghai, according to data provider China Real Estate Index System (CREIS). A 90-square metre apartment (970 sq ft) near the city centre, or in the tech district of Nanshan, costs around 6 million yuan ($915,000). The prices rises have been matched by a sharp increase in borrowing. Outstanding mortgages rose 40 percent to 742 billion yuan in 2015 and new mortgages jumped more than 200 percent to 340 billion yuan. Blue-chip firms headquartered in Shenzhen acknowledge the boom is a concern. Internet giant Tencent expanded its housing subsidy programme in May to include rent relief of up to 15,000 yuan a year, a source at the firm said. It also provides interest free loans of up to 500,000 yuan ($76,214.86). "The company has been very proactive with their (housing) policies. It's very obvious," said a Tencent employee who only gave his surname Chen. "They can't not offer these if they want to retain and attract employees ... high property prices are a big concern for them." Other major firms such as ZTE Corp, Huawei Technologies, DJI Holdings and the Qianhai Free Trade Zone authority told Reuters they own apartments and dormitories that they rent to staff at below-market rates. Ren Zhengfei, founder and head of Shenzhen-based Huawei, expressed concern in an interview with China's state-run Xinhua news agency about the impact of rising property prices on business development on the mainland. Housing and production costs are too high, he said. Huawei declined to comment further. HOUSING "DILEMMA" Many other high-tech firms can not afford subsidies. Fiona Zhang, a 26-year-old who helped found an online marketing startup, said she was forced to move out of her studio apartment last year when her rent jumped 42 percent. She now shares a four-bedroom flat with three others. She said many of her friends had quit Shenzhen to move to a cheaper city. "Starting my own business has been my dream," she said. These cost pressures suggest the Shenzhen government needed to change policy, Chen Geping, the head of the Shenzhen Housing Research Association, was quoted as saying. "Shenzhen's current property dilemma ... is no longer to protect families in need, but how to find housing for its (professional) talent," Chen said in the Southern Weekly newspaper. Other business groups, such as the Federation of Shenzhen Industries, said they were concerned about the impact of property prices on Shenzhen's competitiveness. An employee at the Shenzhen Promotion Association for Small & Medium Enterprises, who gave his surname as Huang, had a different take on the impact of the housing rally. Huang said startups required less labour than larger firms so higher apartment prices might "eliminate mediocre labour while keeping talent in Shenzhen." ($1=6.56 yuan) (Additional reporting by Yimou Lee, Tris Pan and Teenie Ho; Editing by Neil Fullick) Fifth Harmony paid tribute to the late Christina Grimmie with a moment of silence at the WBLI Summer Jam in Wantagh, New York on Saturday night (June 11). "Such a beautiful soul, such a beautiful talent," Fifth Harmony member Normani Kordei told the crowd. "From the moment that we met she was always nice to us. So humble. We love you and we are praying for your family. And we know you are smiling down from above. Let's all bow our heads down. Chrstina Grimmie." Christina Grimmie's New Jersey Hometown Plans Vigil in Her Honor The entire crowd at Nikon at Jones Beach Theater fell silent as the audience lit up the night with the light of their cell phones. On the same evening in Miami, Selena Gomez honored her slain friend onstage with a moving performance of Hillsong Worship's "Transfiguration." Selena Gomez Honors Christina Grimmie in Miami: 'I Don't Really Understand How This Really Happened' Grimmie -- a YouTube star who placed third on the sixth season of The Voice -- was shot and killed by 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl at the Plaza Live on June 10 after her show opening for the band Before You Exit. Loibl was quickly tackled by Grimmie's brother Mark before shooting himself. Watch the tribute below: Fifth Harmony honored Christina Grimmie last night and held a moment of silence with the entire arena. ---- pic.twitter.com/ilN2lSZASc - Music News & Facts (@musicnews_facts) June 12, 2016 A last minute move to keep Led Zeppelin's music expert from testifying could delay the trial that will determine if "Stairway to Heaven" copied a 1968 instrumental called "Taurus," which is set to begin Tuesday morning. Attorneys seeking to prove Zeppelin infringed on songwriter Randy Wolfe's work claim when they deposed musicologist Lawrence Ferrara they discovered a massive conflict: he had been hired to evaluate the similarity once before. "In 2013 he conducted a musicological analysis of the compositions of Taurus and Stairway to Heaven for Plaintiff's publisher, Hollenbeck Music Co., a conflict that Dr. Ferrara and defense counsel knew about but purposefully failed to disclose," states a motion for sanctions filed Saturday. "Defense counsel misleadingly stated and implied that they had no knowledge about this situation, but in fact they orchestrated the entire scenario and have conspired with Plaintiff's publisher (and fiduciary) since 2014 to undermine Plaintiff's lawsuit, including by inducing the publisher to file false documentation with the Copyright Office in 2016 in an effort to undermine Plaintiff's case." Led Zeppelin Says 'Stairway to Heaven' Adversary Is Trying to Taint the Jury Pool Wolfe's heirs sued in 2014, seeking not only monetary damages but also that he be credited as a writer on the iconic song. Now attorney Francis Malofiy is not only claiming that his opposition conspired to destroy his case, but also that Ferrara can be bought. "Ferrara is the go-to expert for major industry players," states the motion. "He gives them the opinions they want. He has done so literally hundreds of times Defense counsel wanted the expert they knew would give them the opinion they wanted, and went to great lengths to hide disqualifying information about him." Malofiy wants the court to preclude Ferrara from testifying at trial and to impose monetary sanctions on Zeppelin's attorneys for using a conflicted expert and trying to cover it up. Story continues In light of this new information, Malofiy also filed a motion to ask U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner to reconsider an earlier motion that would reduce any damages by 50 percent because Wolfe's songwriter agreement limited him to half of any recovery, so the trust would be limited in the same way. Malofiy argues that the publisher has violated its fiduciary duties by conspiring to defeat this lawsuit and "has rendered any applicable contracts, that could be used to reduce Plaintiff's recovery by 50 percent, void and/or voidable." Led Zeppelin Knocks Out Sound Recordings, Experts, More From 'Stairway to Heaven' Trial The last round of exclusions weighed heavily in Zeppelin's favor. In April Klausner ruled that the jury won't hear any testimony about the wealth of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, how bandmembers used drugs and alcohol and it won't actually hear the sound recordings at issue. The only music to the juror's ears will be recreations based on the original sheet music that was filed with the U.S. Copyright Office. The trial has already been delayed once -- and the motions ask for it not to be delayed again -- so if Klausner doesn't need much time to mull over these filings, it could begin as planned Tuesday at 9 a.m. This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter. By Manuel Mogato MANILA (Reuters) - Chinese coast guard vessels prevented a Philippine nationalist group from planting a Filipino flag on a rocky South China Sea outcrop, the group said on Monday, the latest territorial standoff between the two countries. The incident between the coast guard and the Kalayaan Atin Ito (Freedom It's Ours) group took place at the disputed Scarborough Shoal on Sunday, just as foreign ministers from Southeast Asian countries and China prepared for a meeting in Kunming to discuss territorial rows in the hotly contested waters. Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea and the move by the Filipino nationalists comes as the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague prepares to deliver a ruling on a complex case brought by Manila that could dent China's sweeping sovereignty claim. "They refused to allow us to get near Scarborough Shoal," Joy Ban-eg, leader of the Kalayaan Atin group, told reporters. "There was a standoff until we decided to leave." Ban-eg said 15 Filipinos and an American joined the 16-hour voyage to the Scarborough Shoal to mark the Philippines' 118th Independence Day and to find out if local fishermen could freely go there. The shoal, seized by China after a three-month standoff in 2012, is a bone of contention for the Philippines and its president-elect, Rodrigo Duterte, has vowed not to give way over the right of his country to sail there freely. The attempt to plant the flag comes after Duterte himself pledged during his election campaign to do the same, but on China's manmade islands in the Spratlys, using a jet ski. The wooden-hulled fishing boat came close to shoal when China's coastguard blocked them and ordered them to go back to the Philippines, the group said. Five Filipinos jumped on the water and tried to swim to the shoal but were chased down by Chinese sailors on rubber dinghies who sprayed them with water and tried to take their cameras and bag, which contained a Philippine flag, they said. Philippine defense and military officials declined to comment on the incident. Beijing stressed that the shoal belonged to China. "The Scarborough Shoal has been China's territory since ancient times," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a regular briefing in Beijing. "We urge the Philippines to respect China's sovereignty and refrain from taking provocative actions." (Additional reporting by Megha Rajagopalan; Editing by Martin Petty and Nick Macfie) Four new elements have four new names: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson. These names correspond to elements 113, 115, 117 and 118, which scientists announced they had found in January, but had not yet named. The new names were announced Wednesday (June 8) by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the organization that standardizes chemical element names. But don't buy a new periodic table just yet; there will be a five-month window for public comments on the names, after which they will be finalized. The endings of each of the proposed names (such as ium) reflect the element's place in the periodic table. The rest of the name is specific to each element's discovery, according to a statement that IUPAC issued in recommending the new names. The proposed names came from the labs that collaborated on the discovery of each element, according to the recommendation. [Elementary, My Dear: 8 Elements You've Never Heard Of] It is a pleasure to see that specific places and names (country, state, city and scientist) related to the new elements is recognized in these four names," said Jan Reedijk, who authored the recommendation, in a comment to the IUPAC. Nihonium (symbol Nh, element number 113) was discovered at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Japan. "Nihon" is one way to say "Japan" in Japanese. Moscovium (Mc, 115) is named after Moscow, which is just south of where the experiments discovering it were conducted at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, in Russia. Tennessine (Ts, 117) is in recognition of research contributions from the state of Tennessee. This includes work from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee. Oganesson (Og, 118) is named after experimental physicist Yuri Oganessian for a lifetime of work in the field, including research done at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. If the name is accepted, it will be one of the few elements named after a living person. Seaborgium, element 106, was named for Glenn T. Seaborg, according to the New York Times. And elements 99 and 100 were named after the physicists Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi while both men were still alive, according to the LA Times. But because of the Cold War, the discoveries of those elements, along with their names, were classified at the time. Both scientists had died by the time the information was declassified, according to the Times. Story continues Although there may not be any major disputes over whether the names properly give credit or recognition where it is due, the public response window will be valuable, given that these names are meant to be used around the world, in many languages, said Cleveland Evans, a professor of psychology who studies names and naming at Bellevue University in Nebraska and chairs the Name of the Year committee for the American Name Society. "There's a slight chance that one of these names will resemble something that turns out to be very humorous or bad in another language, which would be a good thing to know beforehand," Evans told Live Science. [In Photos: Notorious Retired Hurricane Names] He noted that naming things after living people is sometimes frowned upon. "Although these choices may perhaps be viewed by some as slightly self-indulgent, the names are completely in accordance with IUPAC rules," Reedijk said in his comment. IUPAC rules allow naming elements after living people. "I'm quite pleased by them," Geoff Rayner-Canham, a chemist at the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University in Canada, told Live Science in an email. "They have been agreed upon by all the possible claimants, unlike the controversies with alternative names for the same elements in earlier cases." Rayner-Canham has written about the history of science and element-naming controversies. Original article on Live Science. Editor's Recommendations Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. (Reuters) - Shares of U.S. firearm makers surged on Monday as renewed fears of tighter gun control after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history led to expectations of a spike in firearm sales. Smith & Wesson Holding Corp's shares rose as much as 11.6 percent, while those of Sturm Ruger & Co Inc jumped 10.7 percent. A man armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to Islamic State killed 50 people during a gay pride celebration at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida early on Sunday. The rampage, by New York-born Florida resident Omar Mateen, was denounced by President Barack Obama, who had previously blasted Congressional inaction on gun control. Gun sales jumped in January after President Obama vowed to use executive powers to expand background checks for buyers and bolster licensing requirements for dealers. The Orlando shooting is also expected to reignite emotional debates over American gun laws and homeland security in what is shaping up to be a vitriolic U.S. presidential campaign between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. However, several gun shop owners and managers interviewed by Reuters said they were yet to see an increase in gun sales or ammunition following Sunday's shooting. "It's been a regular Monday," said Edward Pepper, the owner of Belle, Missouri-based Osage County Guns. Pepper said he had not seen a spike in gun sales, unlike in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012. People seem to have come to terms with the idea that there is no government effort to take away guns, he said. Wolf Laughlin, the manager of Helotes, Texas-based Gun Shack, said that business was actually slower than usual, perhaps because people were waiting for government response to the shooting. However, BB&T Capital Markets analyst Brian Ruttenbur, citing an industry contact, said media coverage and recent statements by politicians on the events over the weekend were spurring buying of military style rifles. If the buying momentum is sustained, it could result in a pickup in manufacturing orders, which were expected to slow this year due to decreasing consumer demand, he said. Smith & Wesson shares were up 6.6 percent at $22.82 in late afternoon trading, while Sturm Ruger's shares were up 8.3 percent at $62.16. Up to Friday's close, Smith & Wesson's stock had risen 39 percent in the past 12 months, while Sturm Ruger's shares had risen about 6 percent. (Reporting by Subrat Patnaik and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru and Marcus Howard in New York; Editing by Anil D'Silva, Sriraj Kalluvila and Kirti Pandey) (Reuters) - The gunman who killed 50 people at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was emotionally and mentally disturbed with a violent temper, yet aspired to be a police officer, his ex-wife said on Sunday. Sitora Yusufiy, the former spouse of Omar Mateen, 29, identified as the shooter slain by police at the end of Sunday's massacre, also told reporters in a news conference aired on CNN that she was "rescued" by family members from her ex-husband after four months of a stormy marriage that ended in divorce. (Reporting by Tim Reid and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney) By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, who announced his retirement from the Senate after ending his Republican presidential bid in March, said on Monday he would reconsider his future after being urged to seek re-election in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub massacre. The Florida Republican told radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview that the worst mass shooting in U.S. history "most certainly has impacted my thinking in general, at least, about a lot of things." But Rubio said he has not considered the rampage from a political perspective. "When it visits your home state, when it impacts a community you know well, it really gives you pause to think a little bit about your service to your country and where you can be most useful to your country," Rubio said. "My family and I will be praying about all this and we'll see what I need to do next with my life in regards to how I can best serve." Hewitt urged Rubio to remain in the Senate, describing the lawmaker who sits on the Senate intelligence and foreign relations committees as one of the "very few people" who know the security issues raised by Sunday's rampage. News of the interview brought an attack on Rubio's voting record from Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who referred to the Republican repeatedly as "the junior senator" from Florida. "How can he speak of running for office again when he voted to let potential terrorists buy assault weapons and explosives?" Reid asked on the floor of the Senate. "That is how he voted. The junior senator voted against every gun safety measure." Rubio, who is also seen as a potential vice presidential running mate for Republican Donald Trump, announced that he would retire from the Senate and take a break from politics after losing Florida's presidential primary in March to Trump. Before Sunday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others had urged him to seek re-election, citing polling data that showed he would win re-election and help Republicans retain their Senate majority. Rubio has backed his friend and fellow Republican, Florida Lieutenant Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera, in Florida's August primary contest for his Senate seat. If he were to run for re-election, Rubio would have to decide by a June 24 filing deadline. (Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) Howard Gutman, the former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, said how the attack in Orlando could not have happened in Belgium, due to the countrys strict firearm laws and terror watch list. On a watch list you couldnt have gotten a legal weapon at all and in any event no one could get a semi-automatic, Gutman told the FOX Business Networks Liz Claman. The former ambassador said lone-wolf terror attacks are nearly impossible to stop, especially when someone has a deep-rooted animosity toward a particular person or group of people. Anyone with hatred if they can buy a semi-automatic weapon and start shooting[FBI Director] James Comey cannot get that [information] in advance, Gutman said. One of the biggest issues Gutman stressed was the ability to stop potential radicals from acquiring firearms or other weapons. These are radical terrorists. These are people who abuse religion and so we shouldnt politicize names. We should go after terrorists. But for Gods sake, dont let them buy arms, he pleaded. Related Articles The terror attack in Orlando is a too-familiar tragic event, reminiscent of countless others, for one nation thats been under siege since 1948. Israels survival in the Middle East is a daily battle and security is of the utmost importance for the nation surrounded by its enemies. During an interview with FOX Business Networks Countdown to the Closing Bell, former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak, discussed Sundays Orlando shooting in the U.S., gun laws and some of the lessons the United States can take from the Israelis when it comes to national security. Barak said in Israel, the Orlando shooter could have never obtained the assault rifle that killed at least 49 and wounded 53 people at the Pulse nightclub. A guy like this wouldnt be able to get permission to get any gun. And not mention in Israel, no one, including myself, I cannot get more than a simple hand gun. People probably understand American ethos about having weapons, but foreigners cannot understand why the hell you have to equip them with assault rifles, Barak told host Liz Claman. Israeli gun laws are relatively strict, banning assault-weapons and requiring gun owners to register ownership with the government. A licensed gun owner in Israel must at be least 21 years old and an Israeli citizen or permanent resident. Despite the countrys strong gun regulations, Israel recently experienced a violent attack in which two Palestinian gunmen killed four people in a popular Tel Aviv area using handmade guns. Israeli security forces are cracking down on metal shops in the West Bank suspected of manufacturing the handmade weapons known by their street name, Carlo. But, could such measures be taken by terrorist sympathizers in the United States? Barak said the FBI needs to delineate the balance between the private rights of its citizen and the public safety in a different manner under congressional supervision. Israels secret services are allowed to profile. They are not looking the same way at a group of a Buddhists living in Israel, Barak said. Story continues When it comes to facing the reality of terrorism, the former prime minister said you cannot demonize the whole region -- there's no sense in doing it. But there's no sense to ignore reality, that at the present time in 2016, most of terror comes abroad, comes through radicalized Muslims." Related Articles Former California state Sen. Ronald Calderon has agreed to plead guilty to having accepted $60,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents posing as independent filmmakers who wanted changes to Californias film incentives program. According to the U.S. Attorneys office, Calderon agreed to support an expansion of a state law that gave tax credits to studios that produced independent films in California. The Film Tax Credit applied to productions of at least $1 million, but, in exchange for bribes, Ron Calderon agreed to support new legislation to reduce this threshold to $750,000, according to the plea agreement. The bribes included $3,000 monthly payments to his daughter for services she never provided, a $5,000 payment towards his sons college tuition, and a $25,000 payment Californians for Diversity, a non-profit entity that Calderon and his brother, former state assemblyman Thomas Calderon, used to improperly pay themselves. Thomas Calderon pleaded guilty last Monday to a federal money laundering charge for allowing bribe money earmarked for his brother to be funneled through his firm. Despite the bribes, the law was never changed. My office will not tolerate pay-to-play corruption by public officials and their associates, said Deirdre Fike, the assistant director in charge of the FBIs Los Angeles field office. While in office, Ron Calderon and others profited handsomely when bribe money was accepted and laundered, and Im gratified that he has chosen to take responsibility for his actions. As part of his plea agreement, federal prosecutors have agreed not to seek a sentence of more than 70 months in federal prison, also the judge in the case is not bound by any sentencing recommendation and could sentence Calderon to the statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. Related stories Feds Indict California Politician Who They Say Took Bribes To Alter The State's Film & TV Tax Credit Program UPDATE: State Politician Tossed From Film Commission After Bribery Allegations Netflix Picks Up Ricky Gervais' 'The Office' Spinoff movie By Tom Polansek CHICAGO, June 13 (Reuters) - CME Group on Monday banned a former Delta Air Lines fuel executive for using accounts owned by his wife to front-run trades subsequently entered in an account controlled by the carrier and for breaking other exchange rules. The futures exchange operator also banned the executive's wife for taking part in the scheme. The couple, Jon and Ivonne Ruggles, could not immediately be reached for comment. In addition to the lifetime bans, the exchange operator ordered Jon Ruggles to disgorge profits of $2.8 million and pay a $300,000 fine. Jon Ruggles worked for Delta, the No. 2 U.S. carrier by passenger traffic, from early 2011 to December 2012, according to the airline. It said he was a vice president of fuel management. CME, in a disciplinary notice, said he "repeatedly abused his trading discretion given to him by his employer for personal gain" from April 2012 to December 2012. During that time, he intentionally traded his employer's account opposite two personal accounts owned by his wife "to obtain a favorable execution price for Ivonne's orders in blatant violation of exchange rules," according to the notice. CME rules prohibit traders from executing an order for their own benefit while in possession of an order from someone else for a transaction in the same market. The company also bars traders from disclosing other people's orders to anyone aside from designated regulatory officials. According to the disciplinary notice, the chief financial officer of Ruggles' employer said in an affidavit that he violated company policies prohibiting employees from using information on its commodity trades to benefit anyone other than the company. The notice did not identify the employer. The company considers such information to be confidential and proprietary, the notice said. "Delta has the highest standards of ethics and expects all of its employees to maintain those standards," company spokesman Trebor Banstetter said. CME, which owns the New York Mercantile Exchange and other markets, said it requested that the couple appear for interviews and both declined through legal counsel. (Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli) PARIS (Reuters) - France's interior minister called on tough sanctions against England and Russia after violent clashes in Marseille and urged hosting cities to consider a ban on alcohol around match days. "It is absolutely necessary that the national federations whose supporters create incidents of this nature be punished for what happened inside the stadium, and also outside," Bernard Cazeneuve told a news briefing. Cazeneuve said he asked police chiefs in nine hosting cities to take all measures to prevent the sale, consumption and transportation of alcohol on the day before a fixture and on the match day. Anybody arrested for violent incidents could also be banned from all stadiums, fan zones and popular public areas in all host cities, he added. (Reporting by John Irish; editing by Richard Lough) (Reuters) - Aveva Group Plc (AVV.L) said it received a revised, conditional proposal from Schneider Electric SE (SCHN.PA), six months after the French company pulled out of a deal to buy a majority of the British software maker. The proposed cash-and-stock deal, if completed, would see Schneider Electric owning a majority stake in Aveva, the company said on Monday. [nRSM0336Ba] London-listed Aveva said it was is in preliminary discussions with Schneider Electric about the merits of such a transaction and its terms and that a potential deal would be a reverse takeover under UK listing rules. Aveva, founded in 1967 as a spin-off from Cambridge University, had agreed upon a deal with Schneider in July, which involved Schneider paying 550 million pounds ($783 million) for new shares in Aveva. The deal would have resulted in the French company taking a 53.5 percent stake in an enlarged group that also comprised Schneider's software operations. [nL5N1000XT] But the companies called off the deal by mutual consent in December, saying the combination would have been too risky due to the complex structure of the deal. [nL8N1440PE] Shares in Aveva, which makes software used to design oil rigs, ships and nuclear power stations, were up 9.9 percent on Monday, after the Financial Times first reported the news. Trading in the stock was later temporarily suspended at the company's request. [nRSM0303Ba] Shares in Schneider Electric, which makes electric components and energy management systems, were down 1.96 percent at 54.16 euros at 1338 GMT. The company declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. ($1 = 0.7022 pounds) (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Mamidipudi Soumithri; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) Frankie Ballard released his third album El Rio on Friday (June 10th) in the midst of the CMA Music Festival, but while he was enjoying the crowds and hearing what fans think of the new music, he admitted that he had to get out of Nashville in order to make this record. See Billy Gibbons Jam ZZ Top Hits With Frankie Ballard Just before blazing through a guitar-only rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" to kick off the second night of the CMA Fest's Nissan Stadium shows, Ballard told reporters in the press room that Nashville can be a tough place to be creative when your whole life is centered there. "I've done a lot of recording in Nashville and I get easily distracted," he explained. "I'm in there and we're doing our thing, and somebody stops by like 'How's it going? Can I bring you guys some sandwiches?' It's like 'No, you're breaking up our mojo.'" As much as Ballard loves his adopted home, he wanted his new music to come from somewhere different aesthetically and literally. He ended up finding the perfect spot in the Sonic Ranch just south of El Paso, Texas, on the banks of the Rio Grande. That's how the album got its title. "I live here in Nashville and I've got other things pulling on me," Ballard continued. "I knew that we needed to go to the next level with this album and the only way to do that was by focusing ourselves and getting some distractions out of our way, getting to a quiet place where we could just make music and get our heads into it. I discovered the place first, the Sonic Ranch, and it was a dream come true. I sold it to my producer Marshall Altman and we packed up the bus." Along with Ballard's current single "It All Started With a Beer," a tender drinking tune with a sunset vibe, El Rio features 11 tracks of dusty, laid-back country rock and even an old-school portrait of Ballard for its cover art all of which seems very much inspired by the isolated, unchanging place where El Rio was recorded. That's what he was going for, Ballard says. Once he and Altman settled on the idea, they realized how transformative it could be. "[Altman] thought it was exciting," Ballard said. "If you look at it from our perspective, we're dreamers, we think about ourselves in the shower like [playing air guitar], that's who we are. We're performers and entertainers, and getting to travel around to exotic places to record music and try to look for inspiration in different places, we both jumped at the chance because it's like living the dream. Story continues "We were ready," he summed up, "and I knew putting a mission on the thing and saying 'We gotta go to the rainbow and get the gold and bring it back' would put some pressure on us good pressure so we would deliver." Related PARIS (Reuters) - A petrochemical unit of French oil and gas company Total (TOTF.PA) has been found guilty and fined 200,000 euros (158,833 pounds) on Monday by a French court for a 2009 blast at its Carling plant that killed two and injured six. A former manager of the petrochemical plant at the time of the accident was handed a one year suspended prison sentence and fined 20,000 euros. "The disrespect of the procedure by field operators is the direct cause of the explosion but is not the sole and exclusive cause," he court said . It added that the explosion would not have occurred if flame detectors that were supposed to have prevented the accident had worked properly. The judges rejected the company's argument of human error. The blast at the Carling petrochemical unit near Strasbourg in the east of France occurred when workers tried to rekindle a gas oven used for cracking naphtha. ($1 = 0.8885 euros) (Reporting by Gilbert Reilhac; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Geert De Clercq) Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f114193%2fmonique_hen_world_tour LONDON They say dogs are man's best friend, but that rule doesn't apply to Guirec Soudee because his best friend is a hen. The 24-year-old Frenchman is currently two years in to a sailing tour of the world. Every minute of his journey so far has been spent in the company of his travelling companion: a plucky hen named Monique. SEE ALSO: A woman is knitting tiny wool jumpers to keep her chickens warm "I knew she was the one straight away," Soudee told the BBC. "She was only about four or five months old then, and had never left the Canary Islands. I didn't speak any Spanish and she didn't speak any French, but we got along." Soudee went on to explain that he'd picked Monique as his travelling companion because he wanted a pet for company, and a hen needs little looking after. They also lay eggs. "At the beginning, I was very worried," he said. "There would be huge waves and she might stumble, it would look for a second like she might go overboard, but she would always regain her footing. She's very brave." Soudee says he takes great care for her welfare, and puts her safely in her hutch when the weather worsens. Here's a video about their adventure so far. Soudee and Monique are currently in Greenland, and the next destination on their list is Alaska. They started their journey in the Canary Islands, before visiting the Caribbean and then heading to the Arctic. The two have become great friends over the course of their travels. Monique is a bird of many skills. Together, they make a fearsome team. Here they are sharing a meal on Valentine's Day last year. Image: facebook/voyage d'yvinec - guirec soudee Here they are reading an article about themselves. Not even icy cold weather fazes Monique. On the boat, she's basically an honorary human. Image: facebook/ voyage d'yvinec - guirec soudee Just look at her. Image: faceboook/voyage d'yvinec - guirec soudee Story continues She's also a fearless explorer. They'll sing songs about these two, one day. Next stop: Hollywood. Godspeed, Monique. Follow Guirec Soudee on Instagram and Facebook for the latest on his adventure. The security firm that employed Omar Mateen, the gunman behind the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, is one of the worlds largest private security firms and counts the CIA as a client. G4S PLC, based in central London, operates in more than 110 countries and has over 623,000 employees, with a little more than 54,000 based in North America. G4S focuses on advancing the safety and security of businesses and governments. Mateen, 29, was recruited by the firm in 2007 and worked as an armed security officer at a gated retirement community in South Florida. He was off-duty when he walked into the Orlando nightclub, Pulse, where he shot and killed at least 50 people in the early morning hours Sunday. A spokesman for the company told Reuters that they were trying to determine if any of the guns used in the attack are connected to the firm. John Kennings, the companys CEO for North America, said in a statement that they carried out two background checks on him and found no adverse findings. The statement was later removed from the companys website. G4S later clarified it had learned in 2013 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had questioned Mateen, but that the inquiries were subsequently closed. This is not the first time G4S has been linked to controversy. In 2012 after botching its contract to provide security for the 2012 London Olympics, the U.K. government was forced to mobilize around 5,000 troops to make up for the shortfall. The company later apologized and covered the cost of almost $100 million dollars. The firm also helps to secure 40 U.S. embassies around the world and operates 32 juvenile justice facilities across the United States. In 2015, the company generated over $6.4 billion dollars in profits and is the largest employer that trades on the London Stock Exchange. Shares closed almost 5 percent lower Monday, knocking about 150 million pounds ($283 million) off its market value. G4S did not respond to FOXBusiness.coms request for comment at the time of publication. Related Articles LONDON (Reuters) - News that a G4S employee was the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida wiped almost 200 million pounds ($282.80 million) off the value of the world's largest security firm. Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida resident and U.S. citizen, had undergone company screening as recently as 2013 with "no findings," his Britain-headquartered employer G4S said on Sunday. When trading opened in London on Monday, shares in G4S lost 6.6 percent to 175 pence to hit their lowest level since 2009. An analyst who declined to be named said the incident could cause more damage to G4S after a long line of issues. "It doesn't help having their name in the press against something like that," the analyst said. Mateen was employed at a gated retirement community in South Florida. He underwent two instances of company screening and background checks - once when he was hired in 2007, and again in 2013. At that time, the company learned that Mateen had been questioned by the FBI but that the inquiries were then closed. G4S has a chequered recent history after it failed to provide enough guards for the London Olympics in 2012, was then involved in a tagging fiasco the following year, and earlier this year took a 65 million pound charge on loss-making British government contracts. ($1 = 0.7072 pounds) (Reporting by Sarah Young, additional reporting by Alistair Smout, editing by Louise Heavens) Early Sunday morning, the LGBTQ community in Orlando, Florida experienced an unparalleled tragedy in what was supposed to be a safe space. A shooter who had announced allegiance to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, opened fire in the gay club Pulse to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, killing at least 49 and injuring dozens more. Late Sunday night, some of the most powerful vigils offered precisely the thing those victims were enjoying before the bullets reached them: music. None were more powerful than those led by gay choirs in cities such as New York, Washington D.C. and Orlando, which gathered to reaffirm the strength and resilience of their communities. Each graceful harmony taps into a history of choral music serving as a form of political protest and support network for gay communities. A mile and a half away from Pulse, the Orlando Gay Chorus gathered at the Joy Metropolitan Community Church in Orlando to sing "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical Carousel. The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington with a similar message, taking their hopes for peace right up to the steps of the White House with a rendition of "We Shall Overcome." "We are so devastated by the events of today," a chorus spokesperson said at the capitol's event, according to People magazine. "I could not grieve more for central Florida right now. The chorus is here to sing for equality and for peace." The gay choral movement has provided a haven for LGBT individuals, as far back as 1978, when openly gay politician Harvey Milk was shot and killed inside San Francisco's city hall. The world's first chorus to use the word "gay" in its name, the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, gathered on those steps to that very building to sing Mendelssohn's "Thou Lord, Our Refuge" in a spontaneous act intended to help guide mourners work through their grief. Story continues " "In the gay community, the chorus plays a major community role. There is a very, very strong support network within the chorus." This same needs for health, safety and community has driven Sunday's vigils, which continued into Monday morning, with New York City Gay Men's Chorus paying tribute to victims on Good Morning America with the song "Light," from the Broadway play, Next To Normal. "Day after day/ We'll find the will to find our way/ Knowing that the darkest skies will someday see the sun," its lyrics run. "And when the night has finally gone/ And when we see the new day dawn/ We'll wonder how we wandered for so long, so blind." To find a more necessary message and a group operating within a tradition more qualified to deliver it, would likely be an impossible task. Beirut (AFP) - The Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for an attack on a gay nightclub on Sunday that left 49 revellers dead, has a history of extreme violence against gays. A bulletin from the group's Al-Bayan media outlet on Monday praised the shooter, Omar Mateen, for the attack in "a nightclub for followers of the people of Lot" -- a term it uses for gays. While there is no indication IS coordinated the attack, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, the group has killed dozens of gays in the areas it controls in Syria and Iraq. It has published videos of allegedly gay men being thrown from rooftops or stoned to death. - Terminology - Since it founded its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in 2014, IS has carried out dozens of execution-style killings for what it calls "sodomy" and "sexual deviance". IS also refers to gays as "followers of the people of Lot" -- a reference to the biblical and Koranic prophet associated with Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the Bible and the Koran, God destroyed the two cities after their people engaged in same-sex relations. - Theology - In a 2015 article in its online magazine, Dabiq, IS claimed that the early Islamic ruler, Abu Bakr, sentenced a man found "guilty of committing sodomy" to be burned alive. It also claimed that Abu Bakr had a tradition of taking those who "committed this filthy deed" to the top of buildings and throwing them off. IS says it is implementing "the rulings of Allah" against people who practise "any form of sexual deviancy or transgression". It carries out similar sentences against people accused of adultery and sorcery. It blames western society for promoting gay and lesbian lives against the teachings of Allah. - Executions - In the same article, IS published pictures of a man it said was "guilty of engaging in sodomy" to the top of a building and him thrown off. Story continues That is one dozens of killings IS has carried out against men it said were gays in both Syria and Iraq. The LGBT rights group OutRight Action International has recorded more than 30 such acts since December 2014, backed by videos and pictures, although they could not be verified. The most recent series of photos is dated 7 May. It shows a group of men and children attending the execution of a young man who is thrown from a four-storey building. His body is then apparently stoned. - Crimes against humanity - These executions are based on an IS penal code established in 2014, which the group claims is based on a the principles of Islamic law. The United Nations has accused the jihadist group of crimes against humanity for its acts of beheading, crucifixions and slavery. Gays face discrimination across the Islamic world. They risk being condemned to death in countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen. DailyFX.com - Talking Points: - GBP/USD has quickly sliced through range support near $1.4300. - GER30 and JPN225 breaking lower out of recent triangles. - FX volatility set to remain high with FOMC and Brexit vote next two weeks - it's the right time to review risk management principles to protect your capital. Risk assets have continued to slide to start the week as a light economic calendar and negative, deeply saddening news headlines have given investors reason to pull back. Unfortunately, the sick events that unfolded in Orlando over the weekend are eerily reminiscent of the cowardly acts that took place in Brussels back in March. For the British Pound in particular, the news out of Orlando regarding the attacks represents another piece of emotional evidence for the 'vote to leave' camp for the UK-EU referendum next Thursday, June 23. The acts of terror perpetrated in Orlando over the weekend - after Brussels in March and Paris last November - are the types of events that will feed into a 'fear-driven' mindset when it comes to the June 23 vote. The British Pound is taking the brunt of the collateral damage (the event is easily transferable in the minds of British voters), and we're likely to see the next wave of negativity regarding the vote hit the newswires over the next few days. With said events unfolding on the doorstep of the June 23 vote, global investors are waking up to the growing possibility of the UK leaving the European Union. Aside from the fact that the GBP/USD, which saw its range break below $1.4300 on Friday and implied volatility run to its highest levels since the day of Scottish referendum in September 2014 (and we're still nine full days away from the vote(!)), global equities are spilling over on the news - a clear sign that investors feel the odds of a Brexit are increasing. As GBP/JPY has slumped into fresh yearly lows, the German DAX (CFD:GER30) and the Japanese Nikkei 225 (CFD:JPN225) have just broken out of their respective multi-week triangles to the downside. Put in context of the recent sharp rise in precious metals, there are clear warning signs going off about the state of risk in global markets and the economy. Story continues See the video (above) for technical considerations in EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, AUD/USD, GBP/JPY, and the USDOLLAR Index. Read more: Mounting Brexit Tensions Weighing on Euro as UK Vote Nears --- Written by Christopher Vecchio, Currency Strategist To contact Christopher Vecchio, e-mail cvecchio@dailyfx.com Follow him on Twitter at @CVecchioFX To be added to Christophers e-mail distribution list, please fill out this form original source DailyFX provides forex news and technical analysis on the trends that influence the global currency markets. Learn forex trading with a free practice account and trading charts from FXCM. While the focus of most in the New York stage community last week fell on the Tony Awards, Tony-winning director Michael Grandage spent his Gotham week promoting Genius and mobilizing his upcoming bigscreen version of the classic musical Guys and Dolls, which hell direct for Fox. Genius is a small gem of a film that stars Colin Firth as famed Scribners literary editor Maxwell Perkins. He develops an unusual father-son relationship with bombastic novelist Thomas Wolfe, adding him to a stable of writers that included Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Jude Law plays Wolfe and Nicole Kidman and Laura Linney also star in an adaptation of the A. Scott Berg biography scripted by John Logan, with whom Grandage collaborated on the celebrated stage play Red. Grandage, who took over as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse after Sam Mendes left to direct films, has directed stage plays at a prolific pace and waited until age 53 to make his way behind the camera. Sounds like hes here to stay as he focuses on Guys and Dolls and a movie version of Photograph 51 with Kidman. DEADLINE: In Genius, you and John Logan have made a movie about a literary editor who spent his days red penciling prose to bring out the best in Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is your first film after years directing stage productions, bringing out the best from major stars. Is it too much to imagine you identified most closely with the literary editor Maxwell Perkins on those grounds? GRANDAGE: Well, youre correct and interestingly enough youre the first person Ive talked to whos said it before Ive said it. Most people just say why did you want to direct this movie, and dont really see the clarity of the link between the editor and the role of the director. Nobody really knows what a director does, certainly in the theatre I can speak for that. I like that. I think its this great privilege of working with a role and extraordinary talent, honing it and working with to bring it before the public. And when weve done it, we take a back seat to let them have the relationship with the audience. So there is certainly a parallel there. When I read the script, the appeal was this overriding friendship between Perkins and Wolfe that exists on the page and you know would be dramatically good because most films are based on a central friendship or a central relationship of some kind. Story continues DEADLINE: How hard is it though, to make the red penciling of words cinematic? GRANDAGE: How do you make the editing process, and literature, dramatic? That came down to the nature of their relationship with the words. But certainly the way in for me when I first read this screenplay, was that it felt like someone opened a little secret door of the world of the director and the world of the editor. We do inhabit the same place and that spoke to me on a very personal level. But making Genius for that reason alone wouldnt have been fruitful. Youve got to make something come alive in the process of editing a book which has nothing to do at one level with directing a play. DEADLINE: Beyond opening up a new career in film, what was your objective with this period piece? GRANDAGE: Id love it to have a number of things to come out of it. The first thing Id obviously like is that Wolfe is put back into a place in American literature history that he once had. I believe he was taken off the curriculum in the 1970s, and since then has lost the reputation he once had. A generation since doesnt even really know who he is. There is certainly a group of people in their late-50s or mid-50s and over who absolutely engaged with Wolfe as young people. They know all of Wolfes writings; it was part of their education. Since it came off the curriculum, Wolfe has disappeared. I wish I knew why. DEADLINE: It is remarkable to watch the scene where a declining F. Scott Fitzgerald talks about how he made two dollars in royalties from The Great Gatsby in the same year that Wolfe made a fortune from Look Homeward Angel. Gatsby is now one of the most revered American novels. Why has Fitzgerald withstood the test of time and not Wolfe? GRANDAGE: I guess the most obvious thing to say is that we have progressed our way with language to where we now, in the 21st Century, need to speak and say what we need to say in very, very short silent bursts and short sound bites. Where would that leave the big sprawling literary titan who as the film indicates, needed several sentences to say what could be said in one sentence? That was part of his DNA and what he enjoyed doing. Even if this film made some people read Wolfe, would they be able to appreciate him? He refers to it a bit in the film, that he has this Proust-ian tendency to enjoy going off to places, and the reader has to stay engaged and has to want to go off on one with him. I dont know whether there is a hunger for that anymore where we are now in 2016. Id like to think there is, and I certainly know theres a hunger for it in every inquiring mind who is interested in literature. But in the bigger population could Wolfes books hold up, whereas somewhere the narrative tension of Hemingway and the narrative tension of Fitzgerald still holds true, their great stories? They say quite a lot, succinctly. It is fascinating that in his day, Wolfe was more successful than both of them, financially, and with the amount of books that were bought when they came out. Somewhere, clearly in the 1970s, somebody somewhere thought fit to keep Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and all the rest of them at the top of the education pile, but then to remove Wolfe. How that came about is probably an investigation in itself. Putting Wolfe aside, I liked that the film looks at the process of editing. When I travel, when I am on the subway or in a park, I see people reading novels. They engage in the narrative and maybe thats all that matters, but I love the idea that a film like this in some way helps people understand that behind the book, it wasnt just a lonely writer in a room writing, and then the book appeared in their hands, but that that is actually a part of that process that includes engagement with somebody else on a very literary level. I have some novelist friends in England and one of them, Edna OBrien, she was the first person who brought Max Perkins to my attention. She said, The problem these days is a lack of great, great editors. We dont have a Max Perkins around. I cant speak for all novelists, but the ones I know crave great editors. That is part of this, but the core is the emotional central relationship that John Logan rightly focused on in order to make that film dramatically interesting. These sidebars, the notion of editing, Wolfes place in the world, the parallels for me between director and editor, I just found it all fascinating. DEADLINE: Perkins working relationship with Wolfe was not unlike capping an oil well, and the trick was to manipulate the writer and make it seem like the editors ideas were the writers ideas. Though they had a father-son relationship, Wolfe became bitter about Perkins getting too much credit for his success. How do you handle it when you need for actors to carry out your vision, but you want them to think something good was their idea all along? GRANDAGE: I think it is important always that the director has a vision not just for the actors, but for creative things that range from design to story. Youve got to be able to answer the question, why do you want to do this play, or this movie, and youve got to become good at articulating the big why because that is why a lot of people are going to sign up for it. Then it becomes this collaboration, and one of my jobs is to allow that to flourish and not cap the creativity. You need to have everyone support your vision, but you must be open to the possibility that you will have to consider things that might take your vision in a different direction. My process is to always be open to everybody else in the process, and allow things that are occasionally different to your vision, and to not be so closed that you cant accommodate it. Going into a rehearsal with an actor, you need to have done so much background and research that you know everything that there is possibly to know about the piece. Then you can offer guidance to an actor. There are three opportunities; it can go one of three ways. First of all, lets just take the actor. The actor can give the line, it can be lost and doesnt know how to do a line. Then the next version is that the actor can do a line pretty much as you hoped it would be. Then the third one is that the actor could do something completely different with the line, but is just as valid as anything you had in your head. DEADLINE: What happens in those latter cases? GRANDAGE: I think for options two and three the best directors should shut up and keep quiet. I think obviously in option one, I think your job is to come in like an expert, you can help, it may be a fit, but in two and three the actor has found a way how to do the line without you actually intervening so they will have much greater opportunity to own the line. I can sometimes see though performances, where something has been given to a good actor and deep down they know theyre doing it for somebody rather than owning it for themselves. DEADLINE: How do you avoid that? GRANDAGE: Its a very, very fine line and even very, very difficult to notice. But I think Ive learned that with great actors, if theyre just suddenly there in front of you and say a line, you as the director have to do an immediate assessment in your head. Was that line as good as anything I thought of? If it was, then shut up. I think directors can interfere and affect performances in a detrimental way, but I think one of the most important things about directing is actually letting something happen without feeling your need to show them youre a director. DEADLINE: Stage plays evolve not only in rehearsal, but through nightly repetition during the actual run. Features films are different. What was the biggest difference in your first film? GRANDAGE: The fundamental difference is the great arc of the play that develops when youre watching it with an audience, whereas in films you work in much, much, much shorter bursts during the shooting period. Sixty seconds to two or three minutes is about a long as it gets for a take. Youre looking at the arc of how it worked within that take, but as director you have to be concerned with the editing process before the editing process has begun, thinking a little bit about the arc of the film and how that take sits. Your process of dissection is different. You dissect in the theatre, in the rehearsal room where you put it all together, and then again when you take it onto the stage, before an audience, and you dont have to pull it apart in any way. Whereas in film you are looking at an individual scene on the shoot, and you are absolutely analyzing every version of that moment you want or think you might need. DEADLINE: How do you compensate for lack of experience behind the camera? GRANDAGE: I was out of my comfort zone for my first feature here, Id never done it before so I was very aware that I needed a lot of prep. I visited other sets. I visited other editing rooms. I had gotten used to what every part of the process would be, but then youll run into all your own film and you can only deal with that. I learned a lot for instance from Nicole Kidman when I was working with her. She is a very seasoned film actress who knew her way around a camera very, very well. We did two or three takes and she knew what I was after. Wed have a long discussion about that before rehearsal and she came phenomenally prepared. We did a couple of takes and by the third take quite frequently Id gotten what I needed. She was happy that she had delivered it to a certain level, but frequently she would say, I love this moment with Colin Firth; would you like me to do something completely different now just so youve got options in the edit? I discovered thats the big difference between a film and a play. When you go into the edit you make a different film to the one you shot, and certainly a different film to the screenplay you went into the shoot with. So the film almost gets made three times; in preparation, in the shoot and then in the edit. And the edit is the one youre left with. DEADLINE: Michael Fassbender was originally going to play the Wolfe role that went to Jude Law. Whats the hardest thing about taking a not overtly commercial premise and then vamp for backing and find it comes down to foreign sales formulas based on the value of specific actors? GRANDAGE: The experience was astonishing on many levels. I didnt appreciate how much finance is raised at ones given profile at a moment. Not a given profile necessarily earned over time, but how someone has been performing in very, very recent history. So its quite interesting that you think that just going back for a nanosecond in the theatreyou build a career in the theatre on the whole. Unless you get off the rails that means you put layer upon layer upon layer in your profile if your life continues to rise as an actor. In film thats not untrue, but you are definitely only as good as your last film. When I took on this project it had Michael Fassbender and Colin Firth attached, and we went out and started to raise money against those two. Then Michael became unavailable for the period we wanted to do the movie in, and we moved it a little bit and then he became even more unavailable. We decided to part company there very amicably and I was left with just Colin Firth and in the process of raising money. It was at that point that it became about a group of things rather than a single actor. So replacing Colin Firth and Michael Fassbender with Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Laura Linney, Jude Law, with cameos from Guy Pearce and Dominic West, what does that all add up to in the financing of this movie? The answer from all of the people, film management and everybody who had parts of our backing was it fit in very nicely, on the back of this John Logan screenplay that had been doing the rounds for some time. People really admired and respected the script. I found that process completely fascinating. DEADLINE: How does losing a star like Fassbender impact your creative plans? GRANDAGE: The other thing that was looking nice to me actually which was while Michael Fassbender was moving out of the film wasthe day I remember it happening, it was also a day where I had an opportunity, having inherited those two actors, to stamp my own identity a bit more onto the film by casting somebody I believed could do Thomas Wolfe in the way that I saw Thomas Wolfe in my head. Thats why I turned to Jude at that point. Hes somebody Ive worked with a lot on stage, and hes somebody I know as an actor to be the one quality I knew I was looking for, for somebody playing Wolfe. I wanted a theatre actor, somebody to dare themselves to be as big and as larger than life if its possible to be and not to do too much self-censoring that they go. In an early scene with Max, he says, Im not a circus animal you know, I want people to take me seriously. But the truth is he comes across as a bit of a circus animal and thats why hes so paranoid about it, and I wanted an actor who could embrace that, and I knew the great joy of working with somebody so much whether its Hamlet or Henry V or any of those big huge, huge guys. I knew Jude would be that person. max perkins DEADLINE: John Logan spent about 14 years in this adaptation of Scott Bergs book on Perkins. Between Hemingway and Fitzgerald, those were two authors far more familiar in todays world, and very eccentric characters. Why Wolfe? GRANDAGE: Its a personal story attached to Wolfe that attracted Logan because youre absolutely right. In his book, Scott Berg deals with Max Perkins brilliance across all of his authors. I think the bit that appeals to Logan was less about where he sat in whos the greatest writer here, and much more that Wolfe became a son that Max never had and wanted. It became a kind of father/son relationship which was one of the great themes that John does explore in his work as he did with his play Red. He was also fascinated by the fact that Wolfes life was cut short, so it begs so many questions about what would have happened if he had gone on to live another 30 years in terms of where his place would be in literature now. And theres so many good dramatic things that Wolfe and Perkins bring up that maybe a film about Hemingway and Perkins or Fitzgerald and Perkins wouldnt necessarily offer, in the dramatic part of their lives together rather than the literature. Its something that governed Johns keen interest in it. DEADLINE: So youve gotten a small movie under your belt and now youll direct Guys and Dolls, about the highest profile musical project one could imagine. Hollywood has tried to mount this for almost two decades, with every actor who can sing vying for the roles played in the movie by Sinatra and Brando. You directed a West End revival of the show, so what can you tell us about how youll make a period piece relevant, and are big actors now banging down your door? GRANDAGE: Since your piece came out actually, the floodgates have opened. So thank you, actually. I had such an extraordinary time during Genius and I didnt know I was going to. Remember, Id put off film because I decided you shouldnt really leave theatre to make a film, if you are running a theatre company. Thats what I did, and I put off a lot of very interesting scripts that had come my way. It just didnt feel like the right time. Then when this did happen, I seized it and enjoyed throwing myself out of my comfort zone because actually I felt very alive. The whole process of Genius from start to finish was creatively very, very fulfilling, possibly the most fulfilling time Ive had in my career. Partly because every part of it was new, which is always wonderful. I kept waiting for the day that I wouldnt enjoy it. Would it be the edit? Would it be the mix? Every single part of it was wonderful. When I sat with my agent Brian Siberell at CAA at the end of that process, he said, Well? Do you want to do another one? I said, Hell yes. Id love to do another one. I asked him the status of Guys and Dolls and he came back and said, its still with Fox, but dormant. It had a screenplay by Danny Strong and was waiting a director. I went and pitched for it. guys and dolls I was very clear why I would like to make a Guys and Dolls for a new audience in a new century, but honoring all of the great things that make it Guys and Dolls. I could see it. I wanted to free it completely from the stage which frankly is where even the original film slightly belongs because of the way they designed it, and the way it was very much a piece that captured that first production in the 50s. I want to return it to the 30s where it sat with the Runyon books, but somehow absolutely link it to a modern audience, some of that through the casting, and the way you might perceive certain characters in a different way. I made my pitch and it went very well obviously and Fox bought it. The picked up the rights again and were now moving forward with it. And youre right, I do know the material very well, but I also want to free myself from anything at staging and make a film of it and not make the version of a stage musical of it. The casting will help define that. Ive come up with a vision that Im starting now to share with more people because up until last week the only people I was sharing it with was Fox. Weve brought in a casting director. Im meeting production designers, costume designers, Im meeting DPs. Ive had some meetings in New York, while here promoting Genius. DEADLINE: You have also said you want to direct a film based on Photograph 51, where Nicole Kidman played Rosalind Franklin, whose role in the discovery of DNA was marginalized. I just wrote about a rival project landing at eOne, which bought the spec script. So now youll become part of that movie tradition of a footrace to mount a movie first? GRANDAGE: I think the film prospects for Photograph 51 are strong in that Nicole Kidman wants to make a movie of it with me. Weve already got a screenplay from Anna Ziegler, who wrote the stage play, so thats moving ahead. Its really about when we do it and how we do it, and I guess in terms of it sitting alongside other versions of the Rosalind Franklin story, it might be one of those things where whoever gets there first just does it. I remember the two Capote films that fell in close proximity to each other, and further back, the two versions of Les Liaison Dangereuses. Im not sure Id want to be part of a group of films coming out about Rosalind Franklin. I think one of the joys of Photograph 51, like John Logans Red, is that it takes a moment in somebodys life, and its not a biography. A significant moment in their life can tell you everything you need to know about that life, through the prism of that one key moment. Were on schedule in terms of where we need to be. Theres a very good screenplay. Theres an actress signed up for it, effectively. Theres a director that wants to direct. So its really just a question of where it fits in with me doing Guys and Dolls and Nicole doing her next three projects back-to-back. Yeah, Id like to make that happen. Id like to make that a reality because my understanding in talking to some other people who have found other Rosalind Franklin material, nobody else is quite that far ahead yet. Were going to try and get Photograph 51 back onto Broadway at some point, and my company back in England is certainly actively looking for theatre projects to do. Right now were putting something together for the end of this year and I may well be involved in one of those in terms of directing. But my next film I think is almost certainly going to be Guys and Dolls. Although one thing Im learning is that film is not like theatre. There, when we say we will begin rehearsals on September 13, and it will all be over by January 25, thats usually the way it happens. Not always the case with film. Related stories Number 9 Films And StudioCanal-Owned RED Teaming Up for Henry James Adaptation 'Portrait Of A Lady' Nicole Kidman Joins 'Top Of The Lake' Season 2 In Reteam With Jane Campion Docs 'De Palma' and 'The Music Of Strangers' Top Weekend: Specialty Box Office By Ben Blanchard and Andreas Rinke BEIJING (Reuters) - China's leader told Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday he did not want trade tensions with the European Union, a vital market for a huge economy facing falling exports, to descend into a trade war. Merkel has already said she favours, in principle, granting China market economy status at the World Trade Organization, and Beijing hopes she can encourage more sceptical EU voices to accept the move. "China has already fulfilled its obligations on joining the WTO. What's needed now is for the other parties to fulfil the matching obligations they had promised," Premier Li Keqiang told reporters in Beijing on Monday alongside the German leader. "We don't want to fight a trade war because this will benefit nobody," he said, echoing a similar comment Merkel made on Sunday. The European Commission is set to accept the WTO switch that will mean China is no longer treated as a state-controlled market, making it easier for Chinese exporters. But the EU executive also wants to strengthen Europe's ability to defend itself against heavily subsidised Chinese goods. That reluctance to give up a method to defend against cheap imports has set up a looming dispute at the WTO and the prospect of broader trade friction. Merkel, on her ninth trip to China as chancellor, said: "It does not help us to emotionalize the whole subject. I am convinced that we can find a solution on the lines of what was promised 15 years ago." She also pressed China on liberalising its banking industry in return for giving more access to the sector in Europe. RECIPROCITY "We will certainly pay even more heed to reciprocity in the financial sector than in classic industry," Merkel said, adding that German banks were restricted by a 20-percent limit on the size of stakes they can buy in Chinese banks. "Germany has always presented itself as an open investment market," Merkel said. "We expect reciprocity also from the Chinese side." Story continues "In the banking sector, we are at the start of a cooperation," she said. Li said there were informal barriers in Europe for Chinese banks, which were disadvantaged compared to European and U.S. competitors. "We need to talk more about how both sides will be treated equally," he said. Merkel said during a trip to China last year that Germany favoured granting China market economy status in principle but that Beijing still had work to do, including further opening its public procurement markets. Heads of the European Commission are expected to debate the issue in late June or July, at a time of heightened trade tension after global rivals accused China of dumping cheap steel exports after a slowdown in demand at home. Li said trade protection measures would not help resolve the problem and that low-end steel was not something China wanted to produce or sell and was committed to phasing out. Foreign critics accuse China of not following through on its reform agenda and of introducing new regulations that further restrict market access. "The facts prove that China's market is open. We will be even more open," Li said. "We will take even more steps based on the principles of treating everyone equally, fairness and transparency." Delegates at a Sino-German cooperation conference on the sidelines of Merkel's visit agreed 96 deals valued at $15 billion, according to China's official news agency, Xinhua. Airbus Helicopters (AIR.PA) finalised an agreement to build an assembly line on a Sino-German business park in China and to sell 100 helicopters to a Chinese consortium. Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE) and its Chinese partner, BAIC Motor (1958.HK), pledged to jointly invest 4 billion yuan ($608 million) to expand engine production. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Andreas Rinke; Additional reporting by Jake Spring and Winni Zhou in Beijing and Tim Hepher in Paris; Writing by Michael Martina; Editing by Paul Tait and Robin Pomeroy) We issued an updated research report on the premium steel & iron firm Gibraltar Industries, Inc. ROCK on Jun 10, 2016. The company enjoys a leading position in the industry supported by its diversified product offering. Bullish Factors Gibraltar Industries is improving its top line and bottom line on the back of a productive value-creation strategy. Under this program, the company continues to improve its operational performance through more economic pricing, reduction in overhead expenses, consolidation of important facilities and increased efficiency in all three business segments. Moreover, the company is attempting to improve its revenues via strategic inorganic growth initiatives. For instance, the RBI acquisition is expected to support Gibraltar Industries financial position in the quarters ahead. We also believe that the companys pillar growth strategy would prove to be highly productive in the to-be-reported quarters. Based on such initiatives, Gibraltar Industries expects to generate revenues in the range of $1.04$1.06 billion for full-year 2016. This reflects an increase of 1% year over year. Full-year earnings are estimated the range of $1.30$1.40 per share as against $1.09 at year-end 2015. Headwinds Gibraltar Industries conducts its trade in a highly competitive industry. Intense competition exposes the company to risks of market share loss and products competitiveness. Moreover, several construction of the company involves long gestation periods and hence, is generally funded by government authorities. As a result, demand in the companys construction market is highly dependent on government funding. In addition, the companys international operations are subject to foreign currency risks, various environmental and economic laws, geo-political risks. Such factors might lead advereslt affect for the companys near-term operations. Stocks to Consider Gibraltar Industries presently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry include Installed Building Products, Inc. IBP, Simpson Manufacturing Co., Inc. SSD and TopBuild Corp. BLD. All the three stocks currently sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report SIMPSON MFG INC (SSD): Free Stock Analysis Report GIBRALTAR INDUS (ROCK): Free Stock Analysis Report TOPBUILD CORP (BLD): Free Stock Analysis Report INSTALLED BUILD (IBP): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Last week saw new all-time lows in government bond yields across the globe, driven by central bank intervention. The 10-year German bund traded just barely in positive territory at 0.02%, the U.K. gilt 10-year fell to 1.22% ahead of the June 23 referendum to leave the European Union, and the Japanese 10-year pushed further into negative territory at negative 0.15%. This helped weigh on the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield, which retreated 6 basis points to 1.64%, its year-to-date low, which is only about 25 bps wide of its all-time low reached in mid-2012. This comes on the heels of this week's Federal Reserve meeting, which is expected to be a nonevent with the market pricing in only a 2% chance that the Fed will raise rates in June but a 23% probability in July. ECB Commences Corporate Bond Purchases Corporate bond spreads were fairly steady during the week, with the Morningstar Corporate Bond Index ending flat. Yields on the index compressed 5 bps along with Treasuries, ending at 2.91%, comfortably wide of the 2.52% low reached in May 2013. Yields on the Morningstar Eurobond Corporate Index continued to grind lower to 0.75%, bumping up against the all-time low of 0.72% in March 2015. The European Central Bank contributed to tight market technicals by commencing its European nonfinancial corporate bond purchase program. This is expected to be EUR 5 billion-10 billion per month, in comparison with an addressable market thought to be in the area of EUR 600 billion. The ECB reportedly dipped low into the investment-grade arena, even buying one name that contained only one of three ratings in investment grade. The chase for yield has brought global bond buyers to the United States, as thin European corporate bond yields provide limited upside. High-Yield Market Sustains Robust Returns In the high-yield space, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch High Yield Index tightened 11 basis points to an option-adjusted spread of +598 bps. Yields came in a like amount to about 7.27%. The index has produced a total return of 9.1% year to date, although we note that the B and BB buckets are somewhat lower at 7.6% and 8.0%, respectively. CCCs have produced an 18.4% return on a sharp recovery in the commodities space. Fund flows for high-yield funds and exchange-traded funds were positive for the second straight week at $0.5 billion, although modestly below last week's $0.8 billion. The new issue market continued to be healthy, with total investment-grade and high-yield issuers covered by Morningstar at $11 billion. However, that was down meaningfully from the very strong $35 billion issued last week. Most deals priced in line with our fair values. Rating Actions Slant to the Downside Morningstar had a number of rating actions last week. In the technology, media, and telecommunications sector, we downgraded CenturyLink (CTL) a notch to BB and brought Dish Network (DISH) down two notches to BB-, removing it from UR-. In the investment-grade space, we lowered Southern Copper (SCCO) two notches to BBB-. We upgraded Ford one notch to BBB and affirmed General Motors (GM) at BBB- but established a positive outlook. Kabul (AFP) - The father of the gunman behind the Florida massacre voiced sadness that his son took it upon himself to attack the gay community, saying it was up to God to punish homosexuals. In a video posted on Facebook early Monday, Seddique Mateen said he was grieved by the rampage that left 49 people dead in a gay nightclub in Orlando, calling the 29-year-old killer Omar Mateen a good and educated son. I am deeply saddened and have announced this to the people of America, Seddique said in the three-minute video in the Dari language, voicing disbelief that his son carried out the killings during the holy month of Ramadan. It is up to God to punish homosexuals. It is not up to servants, the US resident added, sitting before a flag of his home country Afghanistan. The assault, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, has triggered an outpouring of grief but also defiance in the gay and lesbian community. The father is a minor celebrity in Afghan political circles in the US, hosting an occasional television show in which he expresses hardline views dressed sometimes in a pinstripe suit and other times in military fatigues. In the Durand Jirga Show available on YouTube, he rails against the Pakistani government and announces a quixotic bid to seek the Afghan presidency. Sitting like a statesman with an Afghan flag in the background, he lauds the Taliban as his warrior brothers in one of the videos. The Taliban are 100% Afghan, said a large yellow signboard he held up in a picture he posted on social media. But his sympathy for the militant group appears confused at best, as he pillories Taliban leaders in various Facebook posts for alleged links with the Pakistani military establishment. Officials in Afghanistan sought to distance themselves from the family, saying they did not know when exactly Seddique had left the conflict-torn country. All we can say is that he (Mateen) is a US citizen of Afghan origin. He had been living in the US for decades, and that is all we know from the media, a foreign ministry official told AFP, requesting anonymity. Story continues A senior Taliban source on the border dismissed any association with the family, pointing out that Mateen was born, lived and worked in the US. I dont even consider him as a jihadi, the source said. The FBI has admitted that Mateen who was born to Afghan parents in New York had previously been investigated, but cleared, for ties to a US suicide bomber. The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by one of the soldiers of the caliphate. US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings as an act of terrorism. Slideshow: Victims of the Florida nightclub shooting >>> Slideshow: Front page coverage of the Orlando Mass shooting >>> Slideshow: World reacts to Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: Shooting rampage at Florida nightclub >>> (Adds details from LIA opening statement) By Claire Milhench LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - A Goldman Sachs executive footed the bill for prostitutes and the bank paid for a lavish trip to Dubai for the brother of a decision-maker at Libya's sovereign wealth fund, a lawyer for the fund alleged on Monday, in a case it has brought against Goldman in London's High Court. The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) is attempting to claw back $1.2 billion from nine trades it carried out with Goldman Sachs in 2008. In the suit, the $67 billion fund argues that the U.S. investment bank took advantage of its financial naivety by first gaining its trust, then encouraging it to make risky and ultimately worthless investments in equity derivatives. Goldman Sachs denies all the allegations. "The claims are without merit and we will continue to defend them vigorously," the bank said in an emailed statement to Reuters on Friday. The LIA's claim hinges in part on its allegations that the trades were procured under "undue influence". It specifically cites an internship that Goldman Sachs provided for Haitem Zarti, the brother of Mustafa Zarti, the LIA's former deputy chief and a key decision-maker at the fund. The LIA alleges that Mustafa Zarti's willingness to do business with Goldman was influenced by the favourable treatment it was conferring on his brother in providing an internship. Neither side disputes that the internship took place. In his opening statement on Monday for the LIA, lawyer Roger Masefield said that in February 2008 Goldman Sachs sales team executive Youssef Kabbaj had flown Haitem Zarti from Morocco to Dubai at Goldman Sachs' expense. According to the LIA's claim, accommodation at the five-star Ritz Carlton was also paid for by Goldman, whilst Kabbaj arranged for two prostitutes to spend the evening with them at a cost of $600, Masefield said. The bank does not deny that it paid for some flights and hotels, but Kabbaj did not seek to expense the cost of the prostitutes to Goldman, and the bank did not know about it at the time, a source familiar with the bank's position said. Reuters was unable to reach Kabbaj for comment. Story continues Neither Zarti is connected with the fund now. Reuters could not reach either of the brothers for comment. Legal representatives for Goldman Sachs have not yet had a chance to make their opening statement setting out the bank's defence. But in the bank's court filings outlining its defence, Goldman Sachs argues that it was always clear the relationship was one in which the LIA and the bank were dealing with each other as commercial counterparties, and from which each side would seek to profit financially. Goldman Sachs maintains that its relationship with the LIA was at all "material times an arm's length one" between banker and client, and that the trades in question "were not hard for the LIA to understand". In its court filings, the bank also rebuts the suggestion that the LIA's employees were naive or unsophisticated. "The LIA's plea that it was 'financially illiterate' is as unfounded as it is extreme," the bank argues. The LIA is also pursuing the French investment bank Societe Generale for some $2.1 billion in relation to another set of trades entered into between 2007 and 2009. SocGen is contesting the case, which is only expected to come to trial in January 2017. The Goldman Sachs case is scheduled to run for seven weeks. (Reporting by Claire Milhench; Editing by Kevin Liffey) London (AFP) - Goldman Sachs exploited inexperienced staff at Libya's sovereign wealth fund to clinch "inappropriate" deals which cost the fund $1.2 billion (1.5 billion euros), lawyers claimed at London's High Court Monday. The high-profile trial promises a rare glimpse into the workings of the US investment bank and features allegations of the use of prostitutes and of shady dealings in 2008. The Wall Street giant denies any wrongdoing, saying the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) lost money due to the 2008 financial crash, not their close but controversial working relationship. On the opening day of the hearing into LIA's claim, its lawyer Roger Masefield read out an internal message sent by Goldman Sachs partner Driss Ben-Brahim. Ben-Brahim said the nascent fund, set up by Moamer Kadhafi's regime in 2006 to capitalise on Libya's oil wealth, was "very unsophisticated -- and anyone could 'rape them'," the court heard. The LIA alleges that Goldman Sachs employee Youssef Kabbaj embedded himself in the fund, gained the trust of "young and impressionable staff" and sold it complex products that ended up losing the LIA over $1.2 billion. These actions earned the bank over $220 million in profits, LIA lawyers claim. Kabbaj built an especially close relationship with Haitem Zarti, younger brother of fund chairman Mustafa Zarti, securing him a coveted Goldman internship, Masefield told Judge Vivien Rose. Kabbaj took Haitem Zarti on holidays to Morocco and to a conference in Dubai. Here, "it appears from Goldman Sachs' disclosure that, while there, Mr Kabbaj arranged for two prostitutes to spend the evening with them at a cost of $600," LIA lawyers claimed. It is then alleged that the bank rushed through a basket of deals of "staggering size" in 2008 without the LIA conducting due diligence tests or seeking independent advice. - Abuse of trust? - The bank had earlier sold the LIA complex derivative products tied to the share prices of Citigroup bank and French energy firm EDF. Story continues The LIA, one of the world's wealthiest investors, claims it was tricked into believing it had gained strategic stakes in the companies. But it says in reality it only held risky bets which became worthless when stock markets plunged following the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in September 2008, wiping out the $1.2 billion outlay. The situation became clear to Mustafa Zarti during a 2008 meeting with the bank, whereupon he threw Kabbaj out of the meeting, the court heard. He later called Goldman Sachs a "bank of Mafiosi" and claimed it had "abused his trust", selling him risky products inappropriate for a state fund. The claimant's legal team cited as evidence of their opinion of their financial knowledge an email sent by a Goldman Sachs vice-president criticising a presentation given to the LIA. It said: "You just delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camels." Goldman Sachs denies it exerted undue influence on the fund or abused its trust, arguing that the deals involved standard products common in the financial world. In its submission to the court, it said: "The credit crisis and its impact on global markets turned out to be far more prolonged than the LIA and the great majority of market participants had anticipated. "The LIA was the victim of an unforeseen financial depression, not of any wrongdoing." Goldman partners including Andrea Vella, co-head of investment banking in Asia, are expected to give evidence in the eight week hearing, in which the LIA is seeking to recoup its losses. Good news! British schools are introducing gender-neutral uniform policies Good news! British schools are introducing gender-neutral uniform policies All of the applause for new gender-neutral uniform policies being enacted in the U.K. According to The Independent, 80 institutions, including 40 primary schools, have either removed reference to girls and boys in their dress codes or have rewritten their uniform policy. We absolutely love this. For as long as we can remember, school uniforms have meant that girls wear skirts or dresses, and boys wear slacks. Sometimes things are slightly different, but uniforms almost always come with a gender divide. Looks like the times, they may be a changin. This new change toward gender-neutral uniforms in the U.K. is part of a government-funded initiative to help combat discrimination amongst school children, and to make them all feel as though they are able to express their true selves. What exactly does this uniform change mean? Paula Weaver, the headteacher at Allens Croft primary school in Birmingham, told The Guardian that, Children are expected to wear uniform, but they can wear whatever part of that uniform they want. A spokesperson for the organization Stonewall spoke to The Independent commending the change, We welcome all efforts to support young people on trans and gender identity issues and ensure that they feel happy, welcome and accepted at school, and its encouraging to see this move. No trans person should be forced to present in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable. When this happens, it can be deeply damaging, particularly for young people. Here in the U.S., gender-neutral uniforms are not common in schools, though they have recently become part of Navy dress. As for us, were thrilled to hear about changes like this. Its these kinds of tweaks to everyday policies that are essential, and will go a long way to creating a more inclusive society. The post Good news! British schools are introducing gender-neutral uniform policies appeared first on HelloGiggles. From Popular Mechanics Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Larry Page, cofounder of Google, is personally funding two startups, Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk, both dedicated to developing a flying car. Zee.Aero was founded in 2010 by inventor and NASA scientist Ilan Kroo, and from the beginning the company was secretive about where its money came from. The only thing spokespeople would tell the media was that the company was not funded by Google or any other company, which was technically true since Zee.Aero was personally funded by Page to the tune of $100 million. Zee.Aero first caught media attention in 2013 when it submitted patent designs for an electric car. The patents described an all-electric vehicle with eight vertical rotors for vertical takeoff and landing and wings that fold up for driving. Over the next few years, amateur pilots would catch a few glimpses of a test vehicle at a small airfield, proving that Zee.Aero built at least one working prototype. Zee.Aero employees worked in a ultra-secretive environment. Bloomberg reports that each employee was given a card with instructions on how to dodge questions from the press, and spokespeople stopped answering questions altogether. Employees were not allowed to say Larry Page's name. Instead they referred to him as GUS (the guy upstairs). Page appears to have earned this nickname due to literally living in the second floor of the Zee.Aero building, installing a bedroom, bathroom, exercise equipment, and expensive paintings. Page also appears to have invested in a competing electric car company, Kitty Hawk, run by Sebastian Thrun, founder of Google's research division Google X. Kitty Hawk is rumored to be working on a design that resembles a large quadcopter, although information on the startup is even more scarce than for Zee.Aero. We know basically nothing about what it's up to. A number of Republican politicians sent "thoughts and prayers" on Twitter in reaction to the deadliest mass shooting to in modern U.S. history that left at least 50 dead and 53 wounded at gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida on Sunday. But many of those same politicians have accepted hefty donations from the National Rifle Association to leverage their campaigns and voted against blocking people on the U.S. terror watch list from buying guns. Igor Volsky, Deputy Director of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, is calling them out hard for it on Twitter. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis tweeted that he's "continuing to pray for the victims & their families." My statement on the #Orlando shooting http://1.usa.gov/1PV6A8a . Continuing to pray for the victims & their families.pic.twitter.com/n9er79JhHy https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyGfF7UgAA8WZp.jpg:large But ... @SenThomTillis got $2,459,881 in expenditures from @NRA & voted against making it harder for terrorists to get gunshttps://twitter.com/SenThomTillis/status/742115910996119552 ... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyGfF7UgAA8WZp.jpg:large Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan tweeted that "it is horrifying me to see so many innocent lives cut short by cowardice." My statement on the Orlando terrorist attack:pic.twitter.com/tiJX2yysK1 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyF0IqUYAAqfmg.jpg:large Meanwhile ... @SpeakerRyan - who took $35K from @NRA - has issued a statement on #OrlandoShooting that doesn't even mention gunshttps://twitter.com/SpeakerRyan/status/742115174346280961 ... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyF0IqUYAAqfmg.jpg:large Arkansas Sen. John Boozman tweeted that "we must have the resolve to defeat #ISIS." This act of terrorism in #Orlando is an attack on our freedoms. We must have the resolve to defeat #ISIS. http://1.usa.gov/25RZs3I #arpx That's interesting because ... @JohnBoozman got $24,618 in expenditures from @NRA & voted against measure to stop terrorists from buying gunshttps://twitter.com/JohnBoozman/status/742107613891022848 ... Ohio Sen. Rob Portman tweeted that the act of terrorism was "another wake up call to address the hatred and violence." The Orlando massacre now being called a terrorist act inspired by ISIS: another wake up call to address the hatred and violence. Perhaps he's forgetting ... @robportman received $596,489 in expenditures from @NRA and voted against bill to stop terrorists from buying gunshttps://twitter.com/senrobportman/status/742099280228278273 ... Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tweeted that "our hearts go out to those killed & wounded" Our hearts go out to those killed & wounded last night. Our prayers are with their families & grieving loved oneshttps://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/742092773239754756 ... Really, Cruz? The man who spent his presidential campaign degrading LGBTs wants you to know you're in his #ThoughtsAndPrayershttps://twitter.com/SenTedCruz/status/742092975526797312 ... Check out the all of the tweets on Volsky's Twitter page. The massacre in Orlando was on the mind of Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir when he accepted the Les Paul Spirit award on June 12. Speaking at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts festival in Manchester, Tenn., the 68-year-old accepted the honor with what he said was a "heavy heart," and went on to draw a parallel between the radical belief of ISIS and those of homophobes. "It's the same hatred," said Weir. "They pull those hatreds out of different books but it's the same." 5 Songs Dead & Company Should Debut This Summer Later in the night, Weir joined Dead & Company for a two-set Bonnaroo bow. According to an insider, the band, which consists of fellow original Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti, made sure there were no songs that referenced guns in their set-list. Read and listen to Weir's comments below: "As we know, there was a massacre in Florida, not far from here. I'd like to point out that last week, a distinguished representative from the State of Georgia went on the floor of the House of Representatives of our country and started quoting bible verses in which he basically promoted, or at least rationalized, death to gay people as a reward for the way they were born. This morning, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas said that, 'Well, they're reaping what they've sown.' Now, I wanna ask a question: how different are these peoples' world views from the world views of the people with ISIS? It's the same hatred. They pull those hatreds out of different books, but it's the same hatred and I'd just like to point that out." Orlando (AFP) - The people of Orlando grieved and remembered the dead after a gunman murdered 50 people at a gay nightclub in the Florida city, but there was also defiance in the face of tragedy. On Sunday evening many relatives kept anxious vigils at the bedsides of wounded loved ones at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Angel Colon emerged from the hospital thankful to have found his son Angel Jr, 26, alive and in stable condition despite three gunshot wounds, including a bullet that went through his thigh. Knocked to the ground by the bullets and with his leg broken, Angel was unable to flee Pulse, the popular nightspot that turned into a bloody shooting gallery just before closing time early Sunday. Colon said a girl fell to the ground next to his son, and they held hands as the gunman moved around the room methodically pumping bullets into people on the ground. "Then he shot the girl he was holding hands with," Colon said. "It looks like she didn't make it." "When I saw him, I held him," Colon said of his son. "I told him in Spanish, 'Pai, God is giving you another chance'." Earlier in the evening, authorities appeared before family members gathered at a hotel and read out the names of those hospitalized. Some in the audience broke down when they failed to hear the names of their loved ones, concluding they had died in the deadliest shooting attack in US history. At around the same time about 300 people gathered in El Calvario church not far from downtown Orlando to pray for the victims. Many were Hispanics, a reflection of the fact that Latinos were heavily represented among the dead and wounded. For about an hour they prayed and sang hymns, often with their hands raised toward the rafters as a violent downpour battered the city outside. - Blood donors out in force - But heavy rain did not discourage volunteers who lined up to give blood at mobile stations set up around the city. Story continues "At the central location there were thousands of people," said Sonia Drudge after giving blood for the first time. "I was there at 11. It was a five-hour delay. I've never seen anything like this." "My sister's gay and I have many relatives in the gay and lesbian community and I feel that I just need to do this for my people," she said. Claudia Santesimo, a regular at Pulse who waited three hours to give blood, could not get over what happened. "You expect maybe to see someone getting beat up in the parking lot but not an attack," she said. Drudge, however, was not surprised. Orlando is a city that draws 62 million tourists a year because of its amusement parks and other attractions and has long been considered a terrorist target. "We know that we're ground zero, that we're at the top of the list for terrorist attacks because of who we are. It's Orlando, it's the happiest place on earth. I've been expecting this," she said. More than radical Islam, the top concern mentioned by many Orlando residents is the proliferation of guns. - Guns 'out of hand' - "I'm sick of the silent prayers," said Corrine Brown, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from Orlando. "We need to do something about guns in the United States. You should not be able to kill 50 people like that," she told AFP. "It's just out of hand. Guns that people have, it's not for hunting, it's not for protecting themselves, it's for killing people." Just hours after the attack and despite the staggering death toll, many in Orlando were already talking about rebounding from tragedy. "Were a resilient community, a resilient state, a resilient nation," Rick Scott, Florida's Republican governor, told those gathered at El Calvario. Kathleen Gordon, the vice chair of a local school board, said: "This is devastating but it will not stop the love that Orlando has. We love our LGBT community," she said. "They can't stop us." Freeforms new summer drama Guilt follows a young American girl who finds herself in hot water with European law enforcement when her roommate turns up dead. The case becomes an international sensation in the media and every one of her past actions comes under scrutiny. Sound familiar? When the network announced the series last year, many were quick to compare it to the Amanda Knox case that dominated cable news for years. News outlets ran headlines calling it the Amanda Knox series. But co-creator Nichole Millard says theres far more to Guilt than that. Millard and her writing partner, Kathryn Price, were inspired not just by the infamous 2007 murder case following the death of British exchange student Meredith Kercher, but by all the criminal trials that are endlessly sensationalized in the media, including those surrounding JonBenet Ramsay and Casey Anthony. Also Read: Evolution of Freeform: From '700 Club' to 'Shadowhunters' (Photos) The media takes such a role in public perception of whether this person is innocent or guilty, Millard said. That was our inspiration. Guilt stars Daisy Head (as Grace Atwood, who is accused of killing her roommate), Emily Tremaine (as Natalie, her prosecuting-attorney sister from Boston), Billy Zane, Cristian Solimeno, Naomi Ryan and Kevin Ryan. Read more of TheWraps interview with Millard below: TheWrap: Your show has drawn a lot of comparisons to the Amanda Knox case, and the premise has a lot of similarities. How do you respond to that reaction? Do you think thats fair? Millard: I get that. The show was inspired more by the idea that these sort of cases, like Amanda Knox or JonBenet Ramsay or Casey Anthony, they take on a life of their own. The media takes such a role in public perception of whether this person is innocent or guilty. That was our inspiration. And beyond that, setting it in London was just an opportunity for us to open up a number of worlds We have a character that well meet in Episode 2 whos a young reporter. Shes very aggressive and she sees the Grace Atwood case as a way to make a name for herself. Shell sort of be our entry into that world. Story continues Also Read: Freeform's 'Dead of Summer' Trailer Teases Classic Camp Horror Story (Video) Do you have a timeline for when the mystery will be resolved? Do you already know who killed Molly? Absolutely. Kathryn and I wanted to give the audience resolution by the end of the first 10 episodes. That was a promise we made to ourselves and to our audience. By Episode 10, you will know who killed Molly Ryan and why. How did you come to cast Daisy? What was it about her that made her right for the role of Grace? We saw hundreds of girls for this role. Of course we had in mind that we would cast an American, but here comes Daisy Head, who is of course British, but when we got her audition, she just immediately drew us in. Shes enigmatic, and shes someone that you root for, but at the same time could be a sociopath. And that is, as it turns out, a really rare quality to find she really blew us away and were thrilled to have her as our lead. Guilt premieres Monday, June 13 at 9/8c on Freeform. Related stories from TheWrap: Evolution of Freeform: From '700 Club' to 'Shadowhunters' (Photos) 'Shadowhunters' Renewed for Season 2 by Freeform Why ABC Family Became Freeform Early on Sunday morning, a shooting spree at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida left 50 people dead and 53 wounded, marking the worst act of terrorism on American soil since September 11, 2001. Meanwhile, gun makers are soaring in early trading on Monday. Smith & Wesson (SWHC) jumped 7% and Sturm, Ruger & Co (RGR) rose 4% in a move sadly predictable after mass shootings like this. The Orlando shooting adds to an already tragic list of gun violence over the past year that includes the Inland Regional Center for developmental disabilities in San Bernadino, California in December; a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado in November; the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina in June of last year. Smith & Wesson shares are up over 40% over the past year. Event-driven sales Mondays rise in shares of Smith & Wesson amidst unfolding news of the Orlando shooting reflects data showing strong gun demand after tragic events. The chart below highlights some of the most widely reported tragic events and the spike in gun background checks, which is a proxy for demand, following the violence. The largest month of growth for firearm background checks was January 2013, which saw an increase of more than 90%, according to Wedbush. This demand surge was prompted initially by the re-election of President Barack Obama, who had made tighter gun control legislation a part of his platform during the 2012 campaign and in the aftermath of the July 2012 shooting in Aurora, CO. The Newtown, CT tragedy a month after the November 2012 election further prompted an effort to ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazine pistols. These events caused a flood into stores, but no ban materialized given lack of support in Congress. And when it seemed demand trickled off a bit, a handful of high-profile tragedies (beginning with the tragedy in Charleston, SC) hit the news in fairly quick succession, sparking a renewed interest by many to enact new gun regulations. The industry saw double-digit growth last summer. Story continues Data suggests, contrary to common sense, that Democratic presidents have been very good to the gun industry, at least in the short run, according to Wedbush securities. The drive? The National Rifle Association (NRA) has seized on regulatory comments that prey on gun advocates fear of governmental confiscation of guns. Yet, still, the likelihood of any actual gun legislation is exceedingly low, according to Wedbush. Its important to note that firearms used in this weekend's massacre were not obtained illegally. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Omar Mateen legally purchased the guns he useda .223 caliber semi-automatic AR-type rifle and a Glock handgunwithin the past week, even though he had been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) numerous times. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, written by then-Senator Joe Biden, was signed into law in 1994 in the early days of Bill Clintons Administration.The law barred the manufacture of 19 specific semi-automatic guns classified as assault weapons as well as any semi-automatic gun that accepts a detachable magazine and also possesses two or more features consistent with such weapons. Congress let the law expire in 2004 under President George W. Bushs administration, which is why Americans are able to purchase rifles like the AR-type rifle used by the shooter. Smith & Wesson reports earnings on Thursday. - By Tiziano Frateschi The following stocks are trading with wide margins of safety, according to the DCF calculator, and some of them have very low P/E ratios. GuruFocus' All-in-One Screener can be used to find similar stocks. Discover Financial ServicesA (DFS) has a market cap of $23.21 billion and a GuruFocus business predictability of 5/5 stars. The stock has a price of $56.3 with a P/E ratio of 10.83 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 54%, since its fair value is $122.2. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has dropped by 3% and is now 5.98% below its 52-week high. The company offers credit card loans, private student loans, personal loans, home equity loans and deposit products. Its profitability & growth is rated 8/10 with ROE of 19.83% and ROA of 2.66% that are ranked higher than 53% of other companies in the Global Credit Services industry. The largest shareholder among the gurus is Barrow, Hanley, Mewhinney & Strauss with 1.2% of outstanding shares followed by PRIMECAP Management (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.69%, NWQ Managers (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.54%, Pioneer Investments (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.07%, John Keeley (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.02% and Diamond Hill Capital (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.01%. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) has a market cap of $6.78 billion and a GuruFocus business predictability of 4/5 stars. The stock has a price of $43.53 with a P/E ratio of 8.47 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 53%, since its fair value is $92.82. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has dropped by 37% and is now 39.27% below its 52-week high. The company operates a chain of retail stores under the names Bed Bath & Beyond, Christmas Tree Shops, Harmon and Harmon Face Values, buybuy BABY & World Market or Cost Plus World Market. Story continues Its profitability & growth is rated 8/10 with ROE of 32.39% and ROA of 12.62% that are ranked higher than 89% of other companies in the Global Specialty Retail industry. HOTCHKIS & WILEY is the largest shareholder of the company among the gurus, with 4.87% of outstanding shares followed by PRIMECAP Management (Trades, Portfolio) with 2.71%, Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio) with 1.12%, Chuck Royce (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.99% and Ray Dalio (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.3%. Polaris Industries Inc. (PII) has a market cap of $5.26 billion and a GuruFocusa business predictability of 2.5/5 stars. The stock has a price of $81.32 with a P/E ratio of 13.20 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 53%, since its fair value is $171.92. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has dropped by 44% and is now 47.99% below its 52-week high. The company designs, engineers and manufactures off-road vehicles, which includes all terrain vehicles and side-by-side vehicles for recreational and utility use, snowmobiles and motorcycles. Its profitability & growth is rated 7/10 with ROE 45.0% and ROA of 18.24% that are ranked higher than 96% of other companies in the Global Recreational Vehicles industry. The largest shareholder among the gurus is Columbia Wanger (Trades, Portfolio) with 1.93% of outstanding shares followed by Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.35%, Meridian Funds (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.23% and Mairs and Power (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.01%. Celadon Group Inc. (CGI) has a market cap of $282.19 million. The stock has a price of $10 with a P/E ratio of 7.63 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 52%, since its fair value is $21.03. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has risen by 57% and is now 57.34% below its 52-week high. The company through its subsidiaries provides truckload transportation services between U.S., Canada and Mexico. It offers services such as long-haul, regional, dedicated, less-than-truckload, intermodal and logistics services. Its profitability & growth is rated 6/10 with ROE of 10.04% and ROA of 3.07% that are ranked higher than 51% of other companies in the Global Trucking industry. Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) is the largest shareholder of the company among the gurus, with 0.36% of outstanding shares followed by Paul Tudor Jones (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.14%. Silicom Ltd. (SILC) has a market cap of $207.721.28 million and a GuruFocus business predictability of 4.5/5 stars. The stock has a price of $28.41 with a P/E ratio of 13.53 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 52%, since its fair value is $59.78. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has dropped by 26% and is now 31.43% below its 52-week high. The company is engaged in the design, manufacture, marketing and support of high performance networking and data infrastructure solutions for servers, server based systems and communications devices. Its profitability & growth is rated 8/10 with ROE of 14.27% and ROA of 11.67% that are ranked higher than 80% of other companies in the Global Communication Equipment industry. Energy Company of Parana. (ELP) has a market cap of $2.02 billion. The stock has a price of $7.39 with a P/E ratio of 5.15 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 23%, since its fair value is $9.62. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has dropped by 29% and is now 36.13% below its 52-week high. The company is engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity mainly in the Brazilian State of ParanA. It also provides telecommunications and other services. Its profitability & growth is rated 7/10 with ROE of 6.6% that is ranked under than 61% and ROA of 3.27% that is ranked higher than 56% of other companies in the Global Utilities - Diversified industry. Charles Brandes (Trades, Portfolio) is the largest shareholder of the company among the gurus, with 2.01% of outstanding shares followed by Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.84%, RS Investment Management (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.25% and Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.01%. Agrium Inc. (AGU) has a market cap of $12.98 billion and a GuruFocusa business predictability of 3.5/5 stars. The stock has a price of $93.92 with a P/E ratio of 13.62 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 52%, since its fair value is $196.15. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has dropped by 10% and is now 14.20% below its 52-week high. The company is a retail supplier of agricultural products and services in North and South America and producer and marketer of agricultural nutrients and industrial products. Its profitability & growth is rated 8/10 with ROE of 15.37% and ROA of 5.60% that are ranked higher than 64% of other companies in the Global Agricultural Inputs industry. The largest shareholder among the gurus is Jeff Ubben (Trades, Portfolio) 2.29% of outstanding shares followed by Dodge & Cox with 2.01%, NWQ Managers (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.7%, Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.13%, Joel Greenblatt (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.12%, Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.1%, Ray Dalio (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.08%, Westport Asset Management (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.08% and John Buckingham (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.01%. ICICI Bank Ltd. (IBN) has a market cap of $21.43 billion. The stock has a price of $7.38 with a P/E ratio of 14.53 and according to the DCF calculator is trading with a margin of safety of 51%, since its fair value is $15.11. During the last 12 months the price of the stock has dropped by 24% and is now 30.51% below its 52-week high. The company is a banking company engaged in providing banking and financial services including retail banking, corporate banking and treasury operations. Its profitability & growth is rated 6/10 with ROE of 60.09% and ROA of 6.16% that are ranked higher than 98% of other companies in the Global Banks - Regional - Asia industry. Ken Fisher (Trades, Portfolio) is the largest shareholder of the company among the gurus, with 0.43% of outstanding shares followed by Jim Simons (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.21%, Sarah Ketterer (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.21%, Howard Marks (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.14%, Jeremy Grantham (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.13% and Prem Watsa (Trades, Portfolio) with 0.05%. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f114033%2f7a02bb56c0284cfca5783b7678da0924 History is happening in Manhattan. Lin-Manuel Miranda's revolutionary show Hamilton won 11 of the 16 awards it was nominated for at this evening's Tony Awards. Among those awards was the top prize for Best Musical. SEE ALSO: 'Hamilton' cast predictably slays its Tony Award performance In addition to Best Musical, Hamilton received Tony Awards for Best Lead Actor in a Musical (Leslie Odom Jr.), Best Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical (Renee Elise Goldsberry), Best Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical (Daveed Diggs), Best Original Score (Miranda), Best Book of a Musical (Miranda), Best Direction of a Musical (Thomas Kail), Best Choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler), Best Costume Design of a Musical (Paul Tazewell), Best Lighting Design of a Musical (Howell Binkley) and Best Orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire). As soon as living legend Barbra Streisand presented the Best Musical award to Hamilton, the audience erupted into a standing ovation. "Alexander Hamilton was a dreamer," said Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller, who accepted the award. "I stand on this stage tonight, and in this theatre, surrounded by dreamers." After accepting their award, the cast jubilantly closed out the live broadcast with a performance of Hamilton's "The Schuyler Sisters" in their red carpet attire. Somehow getting tickets to Hamilton just probably got even more impossible. In only took thirteen millionths of a second to cause a whole lot of problems. Last January, as the U.S. Air Force was taking one satellite in the countrys constellation of GPS satellites offline, an incorrect time was accidentally uploaded to several others, making them out of sync by less time than it takes for the sound of a gunshot to leave the chamber. The minute error disrupted GPS-dependent timing equipment around the world for more than 12 hours. While the problem went unnoticed by many people thanks to short-term backup systems, panicked engineers in Europe called equipment makers to help resolve things before global telecommunications networks began to fail. In parts of the U.S and Canada, police, fire, and EMS radio equipment stopped functioning. BBC digital radio was out for two days in many areas, and the anomaly was even detected in electrical power grids. Recommended: Ignoring People for Phones Is the New Normal Despite its name, the Global Positioning System is not about maps; its about time. Each satellite in the constellation (24 are needed, plus the U.S. has several spares) has multiple atomic clocks on board, synchronized with each other and to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)the time standard used across the worlddown to the nanosecond. The satellites continually broadcast their time and position information down to Earth, where GPS receivers in equipment from iPhones to automated tractors acquire signals and use the minuscule differences in their arrival time to determine an exact position. What if all these flying clock radios were wiped out, and everything on the ground started blinking 12:00? While GPS was initially conceived to aid navigation, globally synchronized time is now a much more critical function of the system. Telecom networks rely on GPS clocks to keep cell towers synchronized so calls can be passed between them. Many electrical power grids use the clocks in equipment that fine-tunes current flow in overloaded networks. The finance sector uses GPS-derived timing systems to timestamp ATM, credit card, and high-speed market transactions. Computer network synchronization, digital television and radio, Doppler radar weather reporting, seismic monitoring, even multi-camera sequencing for film productionGPS clocks have a hand in all. Story continues But last Januarys system failure brings up an often-ignored question: What if all these flying clock radios were wiped out, and everything on the ground started blinking 12:00? According to Mike Lombardi, a metrologist at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, Nobody knows exactly what would happen. Since so many of these technologies were designed specifically with GPS in mind, the unsettling truth, he says, is theres no backup. Recommended: Outed in Orlando in the Worst Possible Way This isnt a secret. Concern for the consequences of the countrys reliance on this invisible utility has been growing among industry and government workers for more than 15 years, after the Department of Transportation issued a report on the need for a backup navigation system, in 2001. But while the means to create one has existed since, a winding bureaucratic path has kept it from actually being implemented. And that leaves many of the everyday tools society depends on vulnerable until one is. * * * There are plenty of reasons GPS could fail. Intentional attack is one, as emphasized by a declassified 2012 risk estimate by the Department of Homeland Security. One of the systems most basic problems is its signals are weak enough to be easily obstructed. Truckers with cheap jamming devices designed to elude employer tracking have unintentionally interfered with airport systems; criminals thwarting GPS tags on stolen goods in shipping containers have accidentally shut down port operations. On a grander scale, North Korea has tormented South Korea with waves of jamming attacks. (Jamming devices are now illegal in the U.S., but not difficult to obtain illicitly.) A few steps up from jamming devices in both complexity and damage are spoofers: systems that get GPS receivers to lock on to mimicked signal. Spoofers dont trigger equipment alarms, and deliver altered time and position information to unaware users. It's been suggested that Iran used this tactic to lead astray two U.S. Navy patrol boats captured in the Gulf last January. It wouldn't take that large of an event to take out all GPS." A plausible worst-case attack scenario would look something like this: Spoofers feed erroneous data to electrical substation equipment in a metro area, which could overheat power lines and transformers, causing widespread outages. Meanwhile, multiple hidden jammers could cripple cellphone service, and also force fire, police, and emergency medicine departments to revert to old, single-frequency channels. Supplies in this scenario could only be bought in many places with cash, which would be limited without ATM service. According to the DHS report, it could take 30 days or more before the malicious devices are located and disabled. The longer it took, the more systems that would be compromised. As for unintentional threats to GPS, the DHS risk estimate lists space debris, space weather, defective software, and good old-fashioned human mistakes, among other things. Of these threats, space weather is the most potentially catastrophic, according to Norwegian geophysicist Pal Brekke, whose country was hardest hit by the January outage. Eruptions of high energy radiation from the sun (known as solar flares) and ejections of electrically charged gases have disabled satellites in the past. Recommended: Donald Trump and the Future of the Republican Party With satellites and the chips inside them getting smaller as technology progresses, "one particle from the sun that penetrates a satellite can ruin things, Brekke says. It wouldn't take that large of an event to take out all GPS." * * * So far, mitigating the loss of GPS signals has involved two approaches. One is interoperability with other global navigation satellite systems like Russia's GLONASS (which also failed due to a ground control error in 2014) or the European and Chinese systems, both of which are expected to be up by 2020. The other is better clocks, says Lombardi, the NIST metrologist, who's published numerous articles on the topic. "The typical cell tower clock has an oscillator similar to that of a wristwatch," he says, "and can drift out of tolerance in minutes without a signal." How long a clock can maintain time on its own, called "holdover," also affects electrical grids, many of which rely on GPS-dependent devices called synchrophasors used to precisely regulate current flow, as well as help locate faults in the network. A lack of such timing technology was the reason it took some Canadian technicians three months to locate failures after the infamous blackout of 2003. Chip-scale atomic clocks the size of a penny are a promising new technology that can hold time for about a day, but are currently too expensive to deploy widely. Moreover, hedging and holdover still aren't backups for when space-based signals are simply unavailable. The bulk of a more promising, comprehensive backup system already exists, right here on the ground. After the sextant but before GPS, navigators around the world used Long Range Aids to Navigation, or LORAN, a terrestrial system of transmitters and receiving equipment first developed during WWII. By the mid-1990s, Loran "tower chains" provided coverage for North America, Europe, and other regions in the Northern Hemisphere. Its use declined in favor of the much finer accuracy of GPS after it became available for civil use in 1995, but the U.S. Coast Guard continued working on an improved system using the existing infrastructure. If adopted, "Enhanced" LORAN, or eLoran, could provide positioning accuracy comparable to GPS. Broadcast at hundreds of thousands of watts, the signal is virtually un-jammable, and unlike GPS, can even be received indoors, underwater, and in urban or natural canyons. It also turns out that eLoran can provide a UTC time signal with sub-microsecond time resolution across a large geographical area. The technology is availablethe Coast Guard demonstrated a working prototype last yearso why isnt America using it? John Garamendi, a California congressman, asked this question at a July 2015 congressional hearing on the Federal Radionavigation Plan, the nation's primary planning document for position, navigation, and timing (PNT). "There are two kinds of time," he opened, "real time and then federal time, which seems to be the forever time. The e-Loran system was identified as a backup 15 years ago, and here we are, federal time, not yet done." Cost doesnt seem to be a problem. A complete alternate PNT system is estimated at $350 million to $400 million; it costs $1 billion yearly to maintain GPS. And science and industry appears to share a consensus that eLoran is the solution. Even the Air Force Colonel and engineer who created GPS, Brad Parkinson, had been on record for years saying "eLoran is the only cost-effective backup for national needs." In a 2004, a presidential directive tasked DHS and DOT with creating a backup to the GPS system. In 2008, the DHS issued a press release that it was committing to the system and transferred control from the Coast Guard to its National Protection and Programs Directorate. But push and pull between DHS and the Coast Guard appears to have slowed progress. Space Katrina would be biblically catastrophic. After this years satellite error, many European officials who had previously followed Americas reluctance to adopt eLoran stepped up development. Meanwhile, pressure from Garamendi, who argued in his address that without an eLoran system in place ASAP, this country is in serious, serious jeopardy, prompted a letter to him from the Deputy Secretaries of Defense and Transportation informing that the PNT Executive Committee has agreed that an eLoran-based timing network could provide a near term solution (if private entities bore some of the cost) while they continue [their] efforts to prescribe a complete set of requirements necessary to support a full complementary PNT capability for the nation. In other words, it seems: federal time. * * * Why is the sense of urgency among decision-makers so out of sync? Could some of it be similar to why people delay backing up our computers even though theyve been telling themselves to for weeks? How do we decide, when presented a risk with unknown odds, when its time to sacrifice time and resources to prevent it? Now is a critically important time to answer that question, as the world actually been given odds on another, even more catastrophic risk than GPS failure: destruction of the electrical power infrastructure itself. On July 23, 2012, a billion-ton cloud of electrified gases blasted off the far side of the sun at over six million miles per hour. According to professor Daniel Baker at University of Colorado, this coronal mass ejection (CME) "was in all respects at least as strong as the 1859 Carrington Event," referring to the strongest solar storm ever recorded, which set fire to telegraph stations and caused auroras down to Cuba. As was widely reported two years ago, if the 2012 CME had occurred one week later, it would have hit Earth. Space Katrina would be biblically catastrophic. Power could be out for years while electrical transformers were repaired, if the resources are even available to do so. "Collateral effects of a longer-term outage would likely include disruption of the transportation, communication, banking, and finance systems, and government services; the breakdown of the distribution of potable water owing to pump failure; and the loss of perishable foods and medications because of lack of refrigeration, reads a 2008 National Academy of Sciences report. In 2014, physicist from San Diego calculated the likelihood of a Carrington-level event in the next decade. The odds he came up with were 12 percent. The predicament of events like this is not that theyre occurring more frequently, but that the rapid development of technology is opening the tools on which humanity depends to an increasingly wide variety of rare but potentially destructive cosmic threats. In the span of a century, weve transferred much of the weight of modern society to global infrastructures with wobbly legs. If they collapse, time will very quickly appear to move backward. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. From their stunning royal wedding to welcoming their first child, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia's first year of marriage has been all sorts of exciting. To mark their royal anniversary, we're taking a look back at their sweetest (and most glamorous!) moments from their first year of marriage. After their June wedding, the two spent a leisurely summer celebrating their nuptials. After spending their honeymoon in Fiji, the two jetted off to the French Riviera looking tanned and toned for a vacation with Sofia's royal in-laws, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia. Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia In late August, the newlyweds embarked on their first joint royal tour to the town of Arvika to visit Byanmossarna, a nature preserve. Despite the rain, the two were all smiles, telling the Swedish newspaper Expressen that they were "so happy to be here." Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia In October, the couple paid a visit to the town of Alvaden, where Sofia grew up. The two wrote their names on a rock wall while Sofia reflected on coming home again. "It was pretty nervous coming home here today in an entirely new role," she said. "It feels unbelievable." It continued to be an "unbelievable" month for the couple: They announced they were expecting their first child just a couple weeks later. Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia Want to keep up with the latest royals coverage? Click here to subscribe to the Royals Newsletter. In February, the two stunned in white tie for the first official dinner of 2016 at the royal palace in Stockholm. They were even in more glamorous than usual Sofia in particular, who dressed her growing baby bump in a glittering gold dress. Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia When Sofia was eight months pregnant, the couple stopped by Stockholm's Royal Palace to greet United Nations ambassadors wearing a dress she borrowed from her sister-in-law, Crown Princess Victoria. Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia Proving that royals are just like the rest of us, Carl Philip and Sofia posed for an ultra-casual photo with their new son, Prince Alexander, as they left the hospital with their newborn in April. "For me and my wife, this is obviously a great day with a lot of emotion," Carl Philip said while greeting the press after his son's birth. "Words cannot describe." Story continues Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia A few weeks later, the couple went glam in a series of portraits to mark Alexander's birth with their royal dog, too! Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia Just six weeks after welcoming Alexander to the world, the couple stepped out for the christening of another royal baby nephew Prince Oscar, son of Victoria and Prince Daniel. Carl Philip and Sofia looked more in love than ever: Throughout the event, they held hands and gazed lovingly into each other's eyes. Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia While honoring Sweden's National Day, Sofia stole the show in a traditional Swedish dress, but Carl Philip looked as dapper as ever in a gray suit and Prince Alexander made his first official appearance! Happy Anniversary, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia! The Sweetest Photos From Their First Year of Marriage| The Royals, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Sofia Happy anniversary, you two! We can't wait to see all the glamorous pictures to come. From ELLE On Sunday morning, as Stanford students prepared for the school's 125th commencement, Brianne Huntsman checked her phone. It was 8 a.m. and the stadium was still quiet, but Huntsman was busy assembling materials protest Brock Turner's sentencing and to support sexual assault survivors: She covered a table with a crimson tablecloth, lined the edges with bits of tape, and stacked printouts. "We're doing this because Stanford survivors asked us to," Huntsman, a product design engineering major, explained. Handouts were printed with "1 in 3" on them-the statistic of how many "gender nonconforming students will have been assaulted by the time they leave Stanford," according to Huntsman. And signs like "Stanford Protects Rapists," "Community Resilience," and "To Girls Everywhere I Am with You," littered the walkway outside the stadium. She offered these to students, encouraging them to tape "1/3" to their graduation caps or carry the signs during "Wacky Walk"-a tradition where Stanford graduates enter the all-school ceremony in outlandish costumes and attire. Although over a hundred students joined a private Facebook group in support of the protest, Huntsman said she had "no idea" how many would actually partake. She also worried that the three media crews and nagging journalists were scaring them away. "A lot of students who are very supportive of us have parents or families here who might not want to bring up that issue with them over commencement weekend," Violet Trachtenberg, a co-organizer and comparative studies in race and ethnicity major, explained. "It is a sensitive time for a lot of people." The occasion didn't deter James Cranston, a computer science major. "I think this is an issue that men have a huge role and responsibility in," he said of his decision to protest. When asked if his parents would be upset, Cranston said, "No, they'll love it." Story continues Benjamin Wheeler, a mechanical engineering major, saw protesting at Wacky Walk as "another means of exposure." He added, "I think another voice we can give to people who are most vulnerable and who really need their stories told." A member of the Navajo Nation in Arizona, he wore his tribe's flag draped across his shoulders. A group of four girls dressed as emojis for the Wacky Walk posed for photos. They declined to protest, but Aurora Stottler, a biology major, and one of the four, explained: "We know a lot of people who are very involved with the movement and definitely support it." During the ceremony, the National women's advocacy group UltraViolet commissioned a plane to fly a banner saying, "Protect Survivors. Not rapists. #PerskyMustGo," over the stadium. Stanford's President John Hennessy opened the ceremony with a moment of silence for sexual assault survivors and Orlando's shooting victims. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns gave a fiery speech on the state of the union. But many attendees were largely unaware protests were occurring or felt unaffected. Colleen Ayer, 58, a microbiologist, said she "was expecting overwhelming protesting, and it wasn't that way at all." Kaitlin Ayer, 26, a project manager, and Mrs. Ayer's daughter, thought the overall atmosphere was "more lighthearted, considering what I've been reading about the rape in the news and how prevalent it's been in social media." She saw students wearing 1/3 on their caps, but didn't understand the significance. An Phan, an English major, didn't protest for personal reasons but partook in the 2014 #StandWithLeah student movement that called for reform in Stanford's handling of sexual assault cases. "At Stanford, they keep impressing upon us the rights, responsibilities, and privileges of our degree," she explained. "I think that it's really important that we choose to voice ourselves in the ways that we need to. For a lot of people who identify as survivors, they really needed to do that here and I really respect it." Phan, who identifies as a survivor of an incident that didn't occur at Stanford, added that she appreciated President Hennessy's acknowledgement of trauma and other's realities during the momentous occasion. "It's a super joyful moment for so many of us graduating, but also so many of us have endured violence on this campus," she said. "To recognize that trauma alongside joy and celebration is important. I don't think it was meant to ruin everyone's parade. I think it's about bringing as many experiences into the fold as possible." GettyImages 539865014 Celebrities have taken to social media to voice their anguish and mourning in the aftermath of the Orlando nightclub shooting on Sunday morning an attack that claimed 49 lives and left another 53 people injured, making it the deadliest such incident in US history. Stars and notable voices from the LGBT community paid tribute to the victims of the shooting, which occurred at the gay nightclub Pulse, and many used their various media platforms to call for gun-control reform. Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Lady Gaga were among the many who expressed their condolences to the victims and their grief over the deadly attack: Sobbing. Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) June 12, 2016 Shocked by the senseless tragedy in Orlando. We must stand together against hate and intolerance. Leonardo DiCaprio (@LeoDiCaprio) June 13, 2016 I pray for all the victims families during this shooting epidemic. That their pain be met with compassion and support from the world. Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) June 12, 2016 Plane just landed. Turned phone on. I wasn't ready to see that headline. What will it take just to have a conversation about #GunControl? Questlove Gomez (@questlove) June 12, 2016 Horrified by the mass shooting in Orlando. When will we do something to prevent these killing sprees? John Legend (@johnlegend) June 12, 2016 These shootings are a regular occurrence. You don't get to be "shocked" anymore unless you take action to stop them. Ban automatic weapons. Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) June 12, 2016 My heart goes out to the victims and their families. Our community has suffered a tremendous loss. We must stand together more than ever. Ellen Page (@EllenPage) June 12, 2016 In one week: our hearts break for Christina Grimmie and her family, her fans. Our hearts break for the queer community in Orlando, unsafe even in a space they created for themselves. Our hearts break for a country where this is what the news looks like day after day. The concerned citizens of the United States of America demand change. A photo posted by Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) on Jun 12, 2016 at 7:29am PDT on Jun 12, 2016 at 7:29am PDT My Breaks for the LGBTQ community in Orlando!We are 1! You Touch one of us you Touch All of us! Freedom ain't Free! STAND UP AMERICA! Queen Latifah (@IAMQUEENLATIFAH) June 12, 2016 Many celebrities also addressed the tragedy on television and in video responses. John Oliver, host of "Last Week Tonight," called the attacker a "dips--t terrorist" in a cold open on his Sunday night show. Oliver also highlighted and commended the outpouring of support from Floridians, who "raced to give blood in a show of solidarity with the victims." Story continues The Tony Awards, which took place on Sunday night, dedicated the show to the victims of Orlando. The show's host, James Corden, discussed the attack in his opening monologue. NOW WATCH: Sacha Baron Cohen recounts his 2003 Trump interview: 'I was the first person actually to realize that hes a d---' More From Business Insider Further details are emerging about the gunman behind the Orlando massacre. Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old married father and security guard, opened fire inside the Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday, killing 49 people and injuring more than 50 others. Police then shot him dead. Read: Missing Man Who Sent His Mom Chilling Texts From Inside Orlando Club Is Among The Dead He was born in Flushing, New York, to Afghan refugees. He wanted to become a cop and posted photos of himself in NYPD t-shirts, although he had no actual link to the NYPD. After the killings, his ex-wife, Sitora Yusifiy, told reporters in Colorado that she had met Mateen on social media and was married to him for just four months in 2009. She left him because he beat her for not doing the laundry, she said. My family literally rescued me, she said. They had to pull me out of his arms. I left all my belongings. They were divorced in 2011. He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," she said. "That's the only explanation I can give and he was obviously disturbed. Mateen married for a second time and has a 3-year-old son. He lived in Port St. Lucie, Florida, where he worked as a security guard at a courthouse and at the security gate of an upscale gated community just outside Orlando. A former co-worker recalled how Mateen spoke about hating gay people and other minorities. "This guy was unhinged and unstable," Daniel Gilroy told Florida Today. "He talked of killing people." In 2012, Mateen made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was questioned by the FBI twice for alleged links to ISIS but he was cleared. "The FBI first became aware of Mateen in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties," Special Agent Ronald Hopper told reporters on Sunday. Read: Pope Francis Joins Obama, Others in Chorus of Condemnation Against Orlando Attack "The FBI thoroughly investigated the matter including interviews with witnesses, physical surveillance and records checks. Story continues "In the course of the investigation Mateen was interviewed twice. Ultimately we were unable to verify the substance of his comments and the investigation was closed." Mateen had a gun license in Florida and was able to obtain two weapons legally shortly before the attack. When questioned about how Mateen was able to buy the guns in light of his history with the FBI, Hopper only said that the investigation into Mateens radical ties had been "inconclusive." "It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the Islamic State," he said. "We're looking into any and all connections both domestic and international." The shooters father, Seddique Mateen, is host of a bizarre YouTube show aimed at his native country, where he claims to be running for president. He has also expressed support for the Taliban. He told NBC that he visited his son hours before the massacre. At two oclock he became another person, he said. Mateen Sr. added that his son previously became upset when he saw two men kissing in Miami. Watch: How to Use a Folding Chair to Barricade the Door During a Shooting Related Articles: Senior Reuters photographer Kevin Lamarque explained on Friday the story behind his viral image of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that led to the "Texts with Hillary" meme. "I actually had a teenager come up to me and say, 'Hey you're famous, you're a meme.' And I said, 'Can you tell me what that means?'" Lemarque said during a Facebook Live interview. In 2011, Lemarque, the only photographer on a C-17 transport plane from Malta to Tripoli, took the following photo of Clinton on her phone. hillary blackberry According to Lemarque, since Clinton was traveling on a C-17 and not her usual plane, he had an opportunity to photograph her in the main cabin. "I thought it would be a different kind of image, but it wasn't the story of the day. We were landing in Libya and that was the news and that was the story and those were gonna be the pictures." When asked about her sunglasses, Lemarque explained, "It was very early in the morning, and it's kinda nasty fluorescent lights on these planes. And I tell ya, if I had a pair of sunglasses, I'd be wearing them too." When asked if he was aware that his shot launched an investigation into Clinton's private email server during her time as Secretary of State, Lemarque responded, "It caught me off guard." "I was always wondering this email story, where did it start? I had no idea that the photograph was the trigger in this person's head they said, 'Hey, there she is with a BlackBerry. I can't recall this email account," Lemarque said. "You just never know down the road where these pictures are going to end up and who is going to have a use for it in either a news way or meme or something fun." NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEN BERET: Essential survival tips that could save your life More From Business Insider Traders gesture at each other while working in the crude oil and natural gas options pit on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange March 7, 2011. Via Dave Lutz at JonesTrading, here's a quick guide to what traders are talking about right now: Good Morning! US Futures are starting under pressure, with the S&P off 40bp early, but well outperforming some carnage overseas. Chinese growth concerns and UK leave vote getting more momentum seems to be the focus hitting the DAX for 1.3% in heavy volume. Banks are getting whacked, losing 2% across the continent and 4% in Italy there are no sectors trading positive at the moment. In London, the FTSE is outperforming a bit, losing only 75bp as Energy and Materials outperform the broader market. Was ugly overnight in Asia, Shanghai lost 3.2% and Nikkei lost 3.5% as Fixed Asset investment in China plunged, IMF warned on Chinese corporate debt, and Fitch cut its outlook on Japan. Australia closed for a holiday, and even the falling $ could not help emerging markets, with all major players closing lower in decent turnover. Havens are on fire German 10YY tests 1bp overnight, driving 10Y treasury yields to 1.61%. Gold popping to 4week highs. All majors are gaining against the British Pound as volatility hits an all-time high ahead of the referendum next week. The Yen is surging in risk-off fashion, driving the $/Y cross to test 2016 lows. Commodities are starting today mixed, with a bid early in metals Gold up 1% and Copper 50bp and all the softs starting today higher led by a 2% pop in Corn. Energy starting mixed, with Natty jumping another 2%+, while Oil breaks downside $50 as Rigs Count increases for the 2nd week in a row. Relatively quiet day of catalysts ahead of a busy week A fresh ICM Brexit poll will hit at 7:30am then we have 2 ECB speakers this AM (Nouy at 9, Carlos da Silva Costa at 10:40) and at 11:30 the US Treasury Auctions $31B in 3M and $26B in 6M bills. At 1pm we start getting headlines from AAPLs WWDC, ahead of Brazils Trade Balance at 2. Main catalysts rest of week include MSCIs Chinese decision tomorrow, Fed Weds, BOJ and BOE Thursday and we have a Triple Witch Expiry Friday. Story continues NOW WATCH: These are America's 2 most hated fast-food restaurants More From Business Insider Kurokawa Yusaku has his routine: At lunchtime, he ducks out of his office and heads for one of his favorite ramen shops. He picks out his order on the vending machine that dispenses order tickets (standard ordering practice at any ramen joint). He likes his broth thick and rich, and prefers tonkotsu, the kind made with pork bone. But he has a staggering number of options for where to play out this routine. According to the Japanese-language restaurant site Tabelog: There are 6,000 ramen noodle shops in Tokyo and more than 20,000 in Japan. Thats over half as many restaurants as there are in Manhattan, period, according to the New York City Department of Health. Sure, this is for a city of about 13 million people, many of whom, says ramen blogger Brian MacDuckston, will chow down on a bowl of the noodle soup two or three times a week, paying little more than 1,000 yen ($9). But that only begins to capture the ubiquity and uniqueness of ramen food culture here. 3784175697 a840523b75 o Source: Jeff Laitila/Flickr CC For one, ramen is a thoroughly new-school food, MacDuckston explains over steaming bowls of veggie ramen (a rarity, but possible, as your herbivorous correspondent discovered) at Soranoiro, in the Chiyoda neighborhood. It became popular only after World War II, he says. Modern sushi, in comparison, has been eaten since the 19th century, and tempura took off in the 17th century. But in a matter of decades, its become a staple. For 27-year-old Yusaku, a meal at a ramen joint is hearty and practical: Its easier to come here alone, he says, gesturing around the shop Chabuton in the Shimokitazawa neighborhood, where he works. Today, for 750 yen (less than $7), hes slurping down a satisfying meal and doesnt need a date. Not the case if he were to pop into an izakaya, or gastropub, instead. Tokyo-ites love to eat out. The teeming city is full of apartments with small kitchens, and ingredients are expensive, MacDuckston says, so restaurant culture abounds. And its a foodies paradise, with 13 three-star Michelin restaurants and more than 200 with one or two stars. Among the latter category is a single ramen spot, Tsuta, which received the honor for the first time this year. But although ramen is spreading as a global phenomenon, attracting the attention of gourmands worldwide, MacDuckston warns us not to get too wild about experimentation. Some restaurants, hoping to seem innovative and fancy, throw things like filet mignon on top of ramen. MacDuckstons take: Toppings are well and good, but the true test of ramen is the broth. That said, hes seen some crazy things, like foie gras ramen and bitter chocolate ramen. Story continues 7454054804 3040a44569 o Source: Jeff Laitila/Flickr CC Ramen comes in many iterations that pork bone style, tonkotsu; miso-broth-based; shoyu-based, with a soy sauce flavor and MacDuckston says you can find almost all of them in Tokyo. But some remain outside the citys grasp, like yatai-style noodles, made on the street, often found in Fukuoka. The problem for Yusaku, though, is that theres a little too much available. I used to eat ramen two or three times a week, he says. Now I eat it all the time. He pinches his stomach, where a little roll of fat rests above his pant line. Its getting really bad. It's the deadliest attack on American soil in modern U.S. history: On Sunday, Omar Mateen, armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, entered Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, with the intent to kill scores of its LGBT patrons. He murdered at least 49 innocent people and injured 53 more. But as more details of the tragic evening emerge, so, too, do the acts of heroism from people at Pulse who risked everything to protect complete strangers. These are their names and their stories. Joshua McGill escaped out of Pulse's back door and came across one of the bartenders, Rodney Sumter, covered in blood. McGill ran to retrieve Sumter and pull him behind the car. "That's when I noticed he had been shot once in each arm," he said, on Good Morning America. "I my shirt off, tied it around his first initial gunshot wound on his left arm. I took his shirt off, tied it around his other arm where the other gunshot wound was," McGill added. "We proceeded to dodge and weave through the parking lot. That's when I noticed he had another gunshot wound on his upper back." After locating emergency personnel, police told McGill to lie on top of Sumter in the back of the police car and squeeze him, functioning as a human tourniquet, keeping him conscious until an ambulance arrive. Sumter appears to be in stable condition and was due to have surgery on Monday. McGill went to the hospital to check in on the Pulse bartender. E mayor, Jr., a 34-year-old brand manager for a LGBT travel agency, was shot in his back and killed after he pushed his boyfriend through a door, preventing him from getting hit by the spray of bullets. Edward Sotomayor, Jr. R , also known as DJ Infinite, was working the club that night he was at the DJ booth when the initial shots where fired, which he ducked behind with another man and woman. After the man ran to escape the scene at the first moment possible, Rivera stayed behind with the woman, ensuring she too was able to get to safety. Story continues Ray Rivera is seen kissed by his wife, Pattie. "People were running from the main room, out to the patio, which leads into the parking lot," Rivera told the Daily Beast. "It emptied out quickly. Basically everybody was just panicking ... I looked inside and saw people were laying on the floor in the main club." "It's just one of those things, man," he added. "I never imagined I would be at anything like this. It was so terrible." Hillary Clinton addresses the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in Washington, D.C., June 10, 2016. (Reuters/Gary Cameron TPX Images of the Day) Hillary Clinton said Monday she would be willing to call the Orlando attack an act of radical Islamist terror. From my perspective, it matters what we do more than what we say, the presumptive Democratic nominee said in a CNN interview. And it mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him. I have clearly said we whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism Im happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing. Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump blasted both President Obama and Clinton for not immediately calling Sunday mornings mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando an act of radical Islam. The attack, which left 50 dead, is the deadliest act of terror on U.S. soil since 9/11. Based on that omission, Trump called on Obama to step down from office and for Clinton to exit the race. In a Monday morning CBS interview, he said Clinton wont use the term because shes afraid of Obamas Justice Department. Shes afraid to offend her boss because she doesnt want to go jail, Trump asserted, an apparent reference to Clintons use of a private email server while at the State Department. Both Clinton and Obama called the attack an act of terror and hate but stopped short of connecting it to radical Islam in their initial statements. Authorities have said the attacker declared his allegiance to ISIS when he started shooting, but its unclear if hed had any contact with the group or if they helped him plan the attack. Trump has called for a ban on Muslim immigration to the United States, suggesting that such a ban could have prevented this weekends attack. However, the attacker, identified as Omar Mateen, was born in the U.S. and was an American citizen. I have been hitting Obama and Crooked Hillary hard on not using the term Radical Islamic Terror. Hillary just broke-said she would now use! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2016 Clinton argued on CNN that Trumps approach to the terrorism issue would undermine U.S. security. Story continues What I wont do, because I think it is dangerous for our efforts to defeat this threat, is to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion, she said. That plays right into ISIS hands. That echoed Obamas rhetoric on the issue. He has not referred to ISIS as the Islamic State since he plunged the U.S. military into an undeclared war against the group two years ago, on the reasoning that calling it a state glorifies the group. He also does not emphasize the groups self-proclaimed religious purpose for the same reason. ISIL is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents. And the vast majority of ISILs victims have been Muslim, he said on Sept. 10, 2014. And ISIL is certainly not a state. But that tactic is not politically popular on the right. A February 2016 poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP wanted the next president to speak bluntly even if the statements are critical of Islam as a whole. For Democrats and independents who lean left, it was just 22 percent. Clintons remarks highlighted how the frequently angry debate about the rhetoric of the war on terrorism has moved since the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes. Six days after those attacks, then President George W. Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington to declared that the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. Thats not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists dont represent peace. They represent evil and war. While he is often remembered for blunt talk wanting Osama bin Laden dead or alive, vowing victory in a crusade against terrorism Bush worked hard throughout his presidency to convince Americans not to demonize Muslims. Related slideshows: Slideshow: Victims of the Florida nightclub shooting >>> Slideshow: Front-page coverage of the Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: World reacts to Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: Shooting rampage at Florida nightclub >>> hillary clinton Hillary Clinton made an impassioned gun control plea Monday, one day after a terrorist shot 49 people dead and wounded scores more at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando. In what was billed as a major national security speech, the presumptive Democratic nominee reiterated her call for greater background check measures on gun purchasers and a ban on AR-15-style rifles. Clinton contended that both measures could help lower the number of mass shooting deaths in the US. "It's essential that we stop terrorist from getting the tools they need to carry out attacks. And that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like the ones used in Orlando and San Bernardino," Clinton said, referencing two recent "lone wolf" attacks committed with assault rifles. "Weapons of war have no place on our streets." The former secretary of state also voiced support for Congressional Democrats' bill that would prohibit individuals on the FBI's terrorist watch list from purchasing a firearm. Republicans have argued that prohibiting people on the watch list from purchasing a gun violates the Second Amendment, since individuals on the watch list have not been convicted of any wrongdoing. "If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you should not be able to buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldn't be able to exploit loopholes or evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show," Clinton said. She added: "And yes, if you are too dangerous to get on a plane, you're too dangerous to buy a gun in America." Despite her decision to position herself to the left of then-Senator Barack Obama on guns during the 2008 race, throughout the 2016 campaign Clinton has repeatedly made gun control a central part of her pitch to Democratic primary voters. In the lead-up to several key primary contests, Clinton and her allies repeatedly knocked Democratic presidential rival Sen. Bernie Sanders over his more mixed record on gun control issues. Story continues Watch part of Clinton's speech below, via CNN: Hillary Clinton: "I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets" #OrlandoShooting https://t.co/0Nh1VPRFZl https://t.co/KI0wdHMgzy CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 13, 2016 NOW WATCH: Watch the Secret Service jump to protect Sanders after 5 protesters rushed the stage More From Business Insider Hillary Clinton obliquely criticized her rival Donald Trumps worldview in a speech Monday afternoon addressing the recent terrorist attack in Orlando. The former secretary of state said divisive rhetoric targeting Muslims makes law enforcements job harder and alienates contacts in the Muslim-American community who can play a critical role in preventing future attacks. Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric threatening to ban the families and friends of Muslim-Americans hurts the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terrorism, she said in the address in Cleveland. Clinton said hate crimes against Muslims and mosques tripled after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., at the end of last year. Thats wrong, and its also dangerous. It plays right into the terrorists hands, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said. Clinton recast her speech to focus on terrorism after last weekends attack against a gay-themed nightclub in Orlando. She told the crowd Today is not a day for politics, and emphasized her own planned response to ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, her belief that assault weapons like the AR-15 the attacker used have no place on our streets and her plan to stop lone-wolf attacks if shes elected president. Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters at the Cleveland Industrial Innovation Center on June 13, 2016. In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Orlando, she is campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania to present her vision for a stronger and safer United States. (Photo: Angelo Merendino/Getty Images) But without naming her Republican opponent, Clinton nevertheless rebuked Trumps response to the attack thus far. Trump reiterated his call for a temporary ban on Muslim travel to the United States and criticized Clinton and President Obama for not referring to the shooting as an act of radical Islamic terrorism. He called for Obamas resignation and for Clinton to leave the presidential race because of this omission, although, on Monday morning, she acknowledged that radical Islamism was one way of describing the Orlando gunmans ideology. This has always been a country of we, not me, Clinton said in her Cleveland speech, calling for unity in response to the mass shooting. She also said, We are not a land of winners and losers, calling on Americans to lift each other up. Story continues In her speech, Clinton described the threat ISIS poses to the United States as dire, and referred to ISIS as radical jihadists who distort Islam to justify killing innocent people. She also said that the United States should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign against ISIS. The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive, she said. We know already the barbarity that we face from radical jihadists is profound. Clinton also told the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community that she and millions of Americans stood with them. The terrorist in Orlando targeted LGBT Americans out of hatred and bigotry, and an attack on any American is an attack on all Americans, she said. After her speech, Trump gave a national security address again calling for a ban on immigration from countries that have a proven history of terrorism against the United States. Trump incorrectly said the Orlando shooter was Afghan (he was American, born to Afghan parents) and suggested that curtailing immigration would prevent future attacks. Trump also said Muslim communities must cooperate with law enforcement. Related slideshows: Slideshow: Victims of the Florida nightclub shooting >>> Slideshow: Front-page coverage of the Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: World reacts to Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: Shooting rampage at Florida nightclub >>> RELATED VIDEO: Hillary Clinton on Monday said she will not demonize the religion of Islam by using the specific phrase radical Islam when discussing the Orlando nightclub massacre after calls from Donald Trump to do so. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, responded to Trumps criticism following Sundays deadly mass shooting at Pulse Orlando during a telephone interview with NBCs Today show. In my perspective, it matters what we do, not what we say, Clinton said. To me, radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. Im happy to say either, but thats not the point. Im not going to demonize and declare war on an entire religion, she added. Thats just plain dangerous and it plays into ISISs hands. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, had slammed both Clinton and President Barack Obama for being weak for failing to describe the shooting as an act of radical Islam. In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words Radical Islam. For that reason alone, he should step down, Trump said in a statement Sunday. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words Radical Islam she should get out of this race for the Presidency. In a Today interview on Monday, the mogul again renewed his call for a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. and reiterated his criticism against American leaders. Its insulting to our country that Obama doesnt use the term radical Islamic terrorism, Trump said. Hes not addressing the issue, hes not calling it what it isradical Islamic terrorism. Clinton also pushed for gun control Monday in a separate interview with CNNs New Day. Authorities say Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen used a handgun and an assault-type rifle during his attack. Yes, there is a right for law-abiding, responsible Americans to own guns. And yes, there are reasonable common-sense measures to try to keep people safe from guns, Clinton said. Weve got to figure out the best way to move forward on that. Both Clinton and Trump are expected to address the shooting in separate addresses Monday. By Allison Lampert MONTREAL (Reuters) - Honeywell International Inc (HON.N) would not rule out bidding for another major aerospace supplier, among other possible acquisition targets, after merger talks collapsed in March with rival United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), the company's chief executive said on Monday. CEO David Cote said in an interview that Honeywell has around 100 potential acquisition targets in the pipeline at any time that he regularly reviews, but stressed that he was not in a rush to make an acquisition. "I've got a pretty rigorous process for this," he said on the sidelines of the International Economic Forum of the Americas conference in Montreal. "When it comes to M&A for us we still have a lot of money, which is a nice position to be in," he said. "If we can't (do a good deal), I'm not going to get hung up on 'I have to deploy the money'." In March, Honeywell scrapped a $90.7 billion offer to buy United Technologies in a merger that would have created a behemoth with combined sales of almost $100 billion, citing UTC's unwillingness to engage in negotiations. Airbus Group SE (AIR.PA), a major customer of both Honeywell and UTC, expressed concern that the merger would not be in its interests. Cote, 64, said the failed talks with UTC would not dissuade him from considering other aerospace companies. His greater concern is being disciplined on price. "If you overpay, you're dead," he said. (Reporting by Allison Lampert; Editing by James Dalgleish) As Bill Cosby continues to fight claims of sexually assaulting women - and lying about it - the unfolding scandal has also hit those who have allegedly aided the embattled entertainer over the years. Chloe Goins claims to have been a victim of Cosby's at an event at the Playboy Mansion in 2008, and she's now suing Hugh Hefner for conspiring with Cosby. According to her complaint, Hefner told her at the party she looked "woozy" and that Goins should go "lie down" in the bedroom. Goins claims that Cosby gave her a drug to knock her unconscious and that Hefner "knew or should have known" that Cosby "over the years had a propensity for intoxicating and or drugging young women and taking advantage of them sexually and against their will or while they were unconscious." On Friday, Hefner reacted to the lawsuit by demanding dismissal, arguing in court papers that the allegation "smacks of a desperate ploy to garner publicity and wrangle an unwarranted settlement." According to the 90-year-old Playboy founder's lawyers, the "vague and conclusory allegation" that Hefner should have known about Cosby or that the alleged assault was foreseeable must be rejected because Goins "fails to offer even the lightest dusting of operative facts" in support. Separately, Hefner's attorneys point to statute of limitations. If Goins was a minor when the assault occurred, it's possible that the claim isn't time-barred, but Hefner points to what the plaintiff told authorities. A January 6, 2016 report states she was 18 years old at the Playboy Mansion event. "The District Attorney's office was given no reason to believe she was a minor at the time of the incident and proceeded as if Goins was an adult victim, as demonstrated by the contemplated criminal charges against Cosby," states the memorandum from attorney Anthony Glassman. "The office declined to prosecute Cosby because it deemed the charges were barred by the statute of limitations. Not surprisingly, Hefner's name is not mentioned in the District Attorney's report, as investigating authorities never considered Hefner was responsible for, or participated in, Cosby's alleged criminal acts." Cosby's own lawyers also point to this in arguing that the claims be dismissed. Besides statute of limitations, they also seize on a lack of corroborating evidence. "Significantly, police reviewed video footage of the Midsummer Night's Dream party, and found no images of Plaintiff or Mr. Cosby in attendance," states Cosby's memorandum on Friday. "Similarly, police reviewed guests lists for all events at the Playboy mansion during the summer of 2008 and, once again, found no entries for Plaintiff or Mr. Cosby." Many in America woke up on Sunday morning to the news that, while they slept, 29-year-old Omar Mateen had entered an Orlando gay club and opened fire, killing 50 and injuring dozens more. It was the bloodiest mass shooting in U.S. history; many also saw it as a calculated attack on the LGBT community. (In a statement, the gunmans father insisted that the attack had nothing to do with religion, and said that his son had grown very angry after witnessing two men kissing.) On Sunday evening, members of that community in New York City gathered at the Stonewall Inn, the Greenwich Village tavern where, in the summer of 1969, a police raid precipitated a massive gay-rights protest. The Stonewall riots are a historical touchstone in the gay-liberation movement, and the bar is still a living monument of sorts a destination for gay tourists visiting New York City, and also a place of solidarity and tribute. Hundreds of people stood outside the tavern on Sunday. Chants led by protest organizers decried hate and demanded protection. Budapest (AFP) - Hungarian lawmakers on Monday gave the government the power to block ride-sharing applications, in a move aimed at US giant Uber whose popularity in the country has triggered protests by traditional taxi drivers. The new law allows the government to technically block "a provider of taxi services operating without a proper dispatch centre" for up to one year. "Uber has no place in the Hungarian market," said lawmaker Janos Fonagy of the ruling right-wing Fidesz party, before the vote in the capital Budapest. Since Uber entered the Hungarian market in 2014, around 1,200 drivers and 150,000 riders have registered with the company. The vote follows months of protests by licensed taxi drivers who have complained that orders have been decreasing sharply, and that Uber drivers -- who are charging significantly cheaper fares -- should be subject to the same stringent rules regulating official cabs. In response, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban tightened regulation of Uber drivers, with authorities stepping up fines and on-the-spot confiscations of their licence plates. In May, Uber's Hungarian branch handed the government a petition signed by some 30,000 people urging it not to ban the service. "The ban of new technologies, simply because they do not fit in old legal frames, is not a good direction", said Zoltan Fekete, the company's head in Hungary, in a statement following Monday's parliamentary vote. The US company has become one of the world's most valuable startups, worth an estimated $50 billion (44 billion euros), as it has expanded to more than 50 countries. But it has faced regulatory hurdles and protests from established taxi operators in most locations where it has launched. No, not find myself. It was a stopover, I was there. It was bizarre. I wasnt meant to be at Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. It was simply a stopover before my next flight, to my next destination. They say you live most of your life when youre in between things. Well, Ujjain was one the most interesting 'in between experiences Ive had in a while. Gods and goddesses uncomfortably prancing around in 45 degrees heat More From 101 India:Travel & Food The few hours I spent in Ujjain, were during Simhastha one the four Kumbh Melas in the country. I would never have gone to a Kumbh Mela, if not for happenstance, like this. I love to travel, but these Melas seem like an overdose of culture whenever I read, or see anything about them. The Lord kept checking his lip colour every few minutes The Ujjain Simhastha started in the 18th century as an adaptation of the Nashik-Trimbak Simhastha. I just happened to be passing through, on the one day it happens, every 12 years. Babas with ashes from funeral pyres thronging the streets for the Shahi Snan It was the first day of the Shahi Snan in Ujjain. It is believed that during 'Samudra Manthan or the churning of the ocean, our 'Devas or the divine beings got the nectar of immortality, and as they carried the nectar away from the 'Asuras (demons), drops fell on four different places on Earth Haridwar, Prayag, Trimbak and Ujjain. These places are hence believed to have a certain mystical power and spirituality about them. Its why people believe that bathing there can help them attain 'Moksha or salvation. Naga babas took to the streets tripping to the music with swords The few hours I spent there helped me experience beauty from every nook and corner of India. The mela was a mind bending array of colours, and it throws upon you raw emotions which you would never face if you were simply passing through on any other day Music, colours and the amazing people flocking for a bath of salvation Story continues I was just about ready to leave from my hotel when I heard chanting outside. There were people lining up, and crowding every corner of the street below. Sadhus from different Akhadas were walking in a procession, towards the Shipra river. I stepped out, to try and make more of this surreal situation. As soon as I got on to the streets, I was pulled into a trippy mystical world of bizarre. Camels, horses and elephants were all trained to dance to the beats More From 101 India: Im Trying To Ride 1 Lakh Kilometres Across India This Year There was music a lot of it and people, NO, NOT JUST PEOPLE, horses, camels, elephants, everything dancing to those tunes. Mad! Dancing elephants with God-men on top Naked Sadhus were atop towering elephants, blessing us ordinary, uninitiated folk. Gangsters flanked with machine-gun escorts were walking amongst the crowd. Heavily guarded gangsters with their henchmen and automatic firearms managed to get salvation after the long walk I could see strange, golden, pumpkin carriages that seemed like props straight out of a Tim Burton movie. I was gliding through all of this, as if in a daze. Golden horse driven carriages with Sanyasis from different Akharas blessing ordinary folks More From 101 India: Into The Kumbh: In Search Of A Naga The loud strange music, extreme heat and ordinary folks dressed up as Gods truly hit me hard. I got out of my daze when I reached the banks of the Shipra river. Demon masked people screaming and shouting Now that was a sight to behold. Thousands and thousands of people dipping in, skinny-dipping in, and just lazing about the once-in-twelve-years holy water. The crowd cheered as the Chakra wielding god arrived I dipped my feet in, to complete my experience, and headed back to the hotel to check out. I wish I had more time to experience this bizarre Mela. But as I said before, lifes about the in-betweens you have. Heres to the next stopover. Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are independent views solely of the author(s) expressed in their private capacity and do not in any way represent or reflect the views of 101India.com. By Sajit Warrier Photographs by: Sajit Warrier For More visit www.101india.com Ian McKellen called the violence that devastated Orlando, Fla., on Sunday "abhorrent" as he shared his own feelings of grief over the incident. McKellen, who was speaking Monday at a press conference promoting the works of Shakespeare during the Shanghai International Film Festival, said that "there was much to say about the violence in our world today. [But] I've always tended to be a pacifist. I think violence at the personal level or at the state level is abhorrent. I share everyone else's feelings of distress." When pushed on the issue, the celebrated actor and fervent LGBT activist said that "it isn't always helpful when foreigners make comments about events in another country. The President of the United States summed it up better than I could." Read More: China's Alibaba Pictures Sets Renny Harlin-Directed 'Legend of the Ancient Sword' McKellen, who has a wide following in China for playing Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, as well as Magneto in the X-Men franchise, is in Shanghai to promote the British Council and British Film Institute's Shakespeare Lives cultural program to coincide with the 400-year anniversary of the playwright's death. The global program seeks to promote Shakespeare's works on stage, screen and elsewhere. A remastered version of McKellen's seminal 1995 film Richard III is part of the festival program, and the actor also gave a master class on the Bard to aspiring students and actors. Read More: Ian McKellen Explains Why He Returned $1.4M Memoir Advance By Karen Pierog and Dave McKinney CHICAGO, June 13 (Reuters) - Illinois has never missed a bond payment, but the state for the first time is addressing that doomsday scenario in a document filed ahead of a scheduled $550 million bond sale this week. In the prospectus for its June 16 sale of $550 million of bonds, dated June 6, Illinois warned that if it were to miss a payment, bondholders' ability to collect their money could be delayed by court proceedings or other actions out of the state's control. This is the first time the state has highlighted such a warning, though its lawyers have given similar notice in opinions appended to prior offering documents. "It's a pretty cautious, if alarming, statement," said Richard Ciccarone, who heads Merritt Research Services, which analyzes municipal bond issuer data. The warning should increase investor anxiety over buying the bonds, he added. Standard & Poor's last week also questioned whether the state could "maintain adequate debt-paying capacity" because of deteriorating finances and political gridlock. The politically gridlocked state is poised to enter a new fiscal year on July 1 without a budget for the second time since Republican Governor Bruce Rauner took office in 2015. The nearly 12-month impasse - at a time when Illinois has the worst-funded pension system among the 50 states- marks a level of fiscal paralysis not seen in the United States at least since the Great Depression. No state has gone a full year without a budget since at least the 1930s, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. FEELING THE BITE The budget impasse is beginning to exact significant monetary costs. Of the state's $7.6 billion backlog of unpaid bills, $4.1 billion represents obligations incurred without appropriations from the state legislature, raising questions about whether the state legally can pay those bills. Illinois Budget Director Tim Nuding in a presentation to potential investors this month said the state cannot make the $4.1 billion in payments without appropriations from the legislature. A state legislative committee has held hearings on the question. Story continues The $7.6 billion backlog means Illinois will top the record $317 million in late-payment fees it set in fiscal 2013, according to projections from the state comptroller's office. Moody's Investors Service is projecting the state's total backlog of unpaid bills could hit $14 billion in the coming months, surpassing Illinois' previous high of $10 billion in 2012. Rauner himself has become the defendant in a recent lawsuit from a consortium of social-service providers demanding more than $100 million in payment for services already provided. One of the plaintiffs, the Ounce of Prevention Fund, is run by the governor's wife, Diana Rauner. Illinois' warning to bond investors comes as the state's $26 billion of general obligation debt inched closer to "junk" status with a new round of rating downgrades by Moody's Investors Service and S&P last week. UNCERTAINTY The Rauner administration's disclosure of a potentially disrupted bond payment scenario represents a "hedge against the worst, worst case scenario," said John Schomberg, former general counsel to Democratic former Governor Pat Quinn. Rauner's political opponents are questioning the governor's decision to sell bonds in the face of such uncertainty. "If you're going to provide disclosure you can't pay the bonds, why are we floating the bonds in the first place?," said state Representative Stephanie Kifowit, a Democrat on the legislative committee looking into the state's backlog of unpaid bills. Illinois' Republican state comptroller, Leslie Munger, told reporters on Thursday she could "envision no scenario" in which the state would miss a debt payment. General obligation bonds are secured by Illinois' full faith and credit, and money for such bonds is placed into a fund each month exclusively for principal and interest payments. If a bond payment were missed, bondholders could ask the Illinois Supreme Court to compel payment, but would need to compete against litigation in other courts also seeking payment, said Schomberg, who today is senior counsel at law firm Clark Hill in Chicago. (Editing by David Greising and Matthew Lewis) We issued an updated research report on Illinois Tool Works Inc. ITW on Jun 10, 2016. The $38.8 billion company is well-recognized globally for its highly engineered products and specialty systems. The company offers solid long-term growth potential, but certain near-term risks might restrict its growth momentum. Below we briefly discuss Illinois Tool Works tailwinds and headwinds. Growth Drivers Product & End-Market Diversification: Illinois Tool Works seems well-positioned to benefit from its diversified and technologically advanced product portfolio that includes an array of highly engineered fasteners and components, equipment and consumable systems, and specialty products and equipments. Also, the company has a vast clientele in the industrial, automotive, food, welding, construction, beverages and others end markets. The combined impact of solid products and vast customer base is likely to boost the companys organic growth. Growth Strategies & Long-Term Targets: Illinois Tool Works Enterprise Strategy (20122017), comprising Business Structure Simplification, Portfolio Management and Strategic Sourcing, will help it ensure maximum profitability through development of new, improved products and effective cost-control. This strategic trio is expected to save approximately $600$800 million in structural costs, enabling the company to achieve its long-term targets of organic revenue growth of 200 bps or more above global Gross Domestic Product, an approximate operating margin of 23%, and return on invested capital of above 20%. Also, continuous application of 80/20 business process for both existing businesses and new acquisitions will help the company achieve higher operating margins, better capital efficiency and solid return on invested capital. Shareholders Return: Illinois Tool Works has been consistently rewarding its shareholders with dividend payments and share buybacks. For 2016, the company plans to repurchase shares worth $2 billion. Such disbursements are reflective of the companys strong cash position, with free cash flow conversion anticipated to be greater than 100%. Promising 16 Guidance: An impressive first-quarter 2016 earnings beat as well as expectations of better operating conditions made Illinois Tool Works increase its 2016 guidance. Earnings are anticipated to be within $5.40$5.60 per share range, up $0.05 from the previous earnings guidance of $5.35$5.55. The revised guidance reflects a 7% year-over-year increase at mid-point. Organic revenue growth is expected to be 13%. Operating margin will likely be more than 22.5%, driven by at least 100 bps contributions from the companys enterprise initiatives. Near-Term Headwinds Risks Associated with International Operations: International expansion of businesses has exposed Illinois Tool Works to risks arising from foreign currency translations and other geopolitical issues. Forex losses negatively impacted the companys top-line in first-quarter 2016 and such influences are likely to continue in the quarters ahead. Relation to Global Uncertainties: Illinois Tool Works is highly susceptible to global economic conditions as well as level of industrial activities in the U.S. In first-quarter 2016, macro headwinds, characterized by fluctuating currency movements and globally weak economic conditions played spoilsport for the U.S. based machinery companies. Industrial production in the U.S. declined 2.2% year over year in the quarter. Such negatives adversely influenced the companys sales, earnings and cash flow. Highly Leveraged: Illinois Tool Works is highly leveraged company with a long-term debt balance of approximately $6.4 billion at the end of first-quarter 2016. Its total debt-to-EBITDA ratio was 2.1x in the first quarter. If unchecked, higher debt levels might increase the companys financial obligations and be detrimental to its profitability. Other Headwinds: Illinois Tool Works is also exposed to risks arising from stiff industry rivalry, volatilities in input price & supply and difficulties or delays in research and development or production and services. Conclusion Illinois Tool Works currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We believe the above-mentioned pros and cons clearly justify the companys investment value. However, there are certain stocks in the machinery industry that have been performing better than Illinois Tool Works and have gained high investment value. They include Gorman-Rupp Co. GRC, Kadant Inc. KAI and Luxfer Holdings PLC LXFR. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report ILL TOOL WORKS (ITW): Free Stock Analysis Report KADANT INC (KAI): Free Stock Analysis Report GORMAN RUPP CO (GRC): Free Stock Analysis Report LUXFER HOLDINGS (LXFR): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research MANCHESTER, N.H. Donald Trump on Monday defended his response to the deadly nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., insisting in television interviews that the attack proves he was right in calling for a ban on Muslim immigrants, who, he claims, are entering the country to plot terrorist attacks. But pressed on how his proposed ban would have stopped Sundays massacre, which authorities say was perpetrated by an American-born citizen, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee simply doubled down on the policy, suggesting immigrants are entering the country and corrupting people who are already here. The issue arose at a critical moment in Trumps campaign, as he was preparing to answer Hillary Clintons attack 10 days ago on his temperament and grasp of foreign policy issues. In recent weeks, he has downplayed the call for a ban on Muslim immigration, which was a cornerstone of his campaign during the primary, all but dropping it from his stump speeches. But the shooting seems to have reenergized the issue for him, and also his insinuations that President Obama identifies with radicalized Muslims who have carried out terrorist attacks like the Orlando shooting. Look, were led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or hes got something else in mind, Trump told Fox News. And the something else in mind you know, people cant believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and cant even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on. He doesnt get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands. Its one or the other, and either one is unacceptable, Trump added. Asked what he meant by those comments in a subsequent interview with NBCs Today show, Trump replied, Well, there are a lot of people who think maybe he doesnt want to get it. On Monday, Trump called for not only increased surveillance of potential terror suspects, but also of Muslims in the United States in general. He told CBS News that the Muslim community knows who the bad apples are, where the bad seeds are. In multiple interviews, Trump implied that Muslims havent reported those who have become dangerously radicalized. Story continues That man yesterday was sick with hate. There are many, many people, thousands of people already in our country that are sick with hate, Trump told Fox News. And people that are around him, Muslims know who they are, largely. They know who they are. They have to turn them in. They know who they are. They see them. In an interview with ABCs Good Morning America, Trump suggested that neighbors of the accused Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, knew he had bad intentions but didnt report them. Citing that, Trump said, We have to have a ban on people coming in from Syria and different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible. Donald Trump at a campaign rally in a private hanger at Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, in Moon, Pa., June 11, 2016. (Photo: Keith Srakocic/AP) Trumps comments came just hours before a planned policy address on national security that will present his first formal remarks since the Sunday morning shootings. Mondays speech, which Trump will deliver at St. Anselm College at 2:30 p.m. ET, was originally planned to be the opening of his general-election campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton, contrasting his candidacy with what he has called her leadership and ethical shortcomings. But after Sundays attack, Trump aides scrambled to recast the speech to focus more on the Orlando attack as well as immigration and national security though its unclear exactly what Trump will say. The speech is still expected to contrast Trumps candidacy with Clintons, but it could also wade into politically risky territory, addressing the controversial issues that have plagued his campaign, including the proposed Muslim ban, which many Republican lawmakers publicly oppose. Republicans also worry it will raise more questions about Trumps experience and temperament to be president. In recent weeks, Trump seemed to have distanced himself from the ban, barely mentioning it at rallies. That prompted some Republicans to privately question whether he was attempting to moderate his position. But Trump revived the subject on Sunday in a series of Twitter messages that reopened questions about his ability to respond to a crisis. As he has in the past, he claimed credit for raising the alarm about radical Islam. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, Trump wrote. The comment echoed other remarks Trump has made on Twitter in the aftermath of other deadly terrorist attacks, which critics say have taken on a self-congratulatory tone. Time & time again, I have been right on terrorism, Trump wrote in March after a series of deadly bombings in Brussels. In an interview with NBC Monday, Trump defended his tone, insisting he was just responding to supporters who had offered their congratulations because Ive been the one that predicted it. But he added, I dont want the credit I want you to be strong and vigilant, and I want you to be smart. Related slideshows: Slideshow: Victims of the Florida nightclub shooting >>> Slideshow: Front-page coverage of the Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: World reacts to Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: Shooting rampage at Florida nightclub >>> From Cosmopolitan As expected, it was a huge night for Hamilton at the 2016 Tony Awards, and with a very impressive 11 nods by the evening's end, it's safe to say this musical is here to stay. From the coveted Best Musical award to Best Original Score for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton totally swept the show on Sunday night - and deserved every ounce of recognition it got. In fact, when the Broadway cast took the stage to perform hit songs "History Has Its Eyes on You" and "Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down)," they even got a video introduction from none other than President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle. "Hamiltonhas become not only a smash hit but a civics lesson our kids can't get enough of," President Obama said in the video. "One with fierce musical energy, one where rap is the language of revolution and hip-hop its urgent soundtrack." "It's a musical about the miracle that is America, a place of citizenship where we debate ideas with passion and conviction," First Lady Michelle continued. In honor of Hamilton's well-deserved and momentous evening, here are just a few fun photos of its incredible cast Follow Gina on Twitter. By Anastasia Moloney BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Efforts to save the world's forests hinge on securing private sector funds and ensuring indigenous communities in tropical forests are more involved in protecting their environment, Norway's environment minister said. Speaking ahead of a high-level conference on forest conservation hosted by Norway, Vidar Helgesen said stronger political leadership is needed to amplify the voices and role of indigenous people in forest conservation. Norway is the biggest donor to the United Nations program aimed at Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) in developing nations. When forests are degraded or destroyed, the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere, with deforestation accounting for 10 to 15 percent of carbon emissions worldwide. "A key priority of REDD+ is self-governance and strengthening the involvement of indigenous communities in the forests," Helgesen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview. But campaigners say all too often indigenous groups are sidelined from decisions affecting the forests on which they rely for their livelihoods, and are not properly consulted about dam, mining and agriculture projects on or near their lands. "In some countries it is still at the level of lip service," Helgesen said. Ensuring indigenous communities have formal land tenure or ownership is an effective way of slowing down deforestation, environmental campaigners say. RESULTS BASED Norway, rich from offshore oil, is financing projects to help protect forests from Ethiopia to Peru, as well as two projects worth $1 billion each for Indonesia and Brazil and one worth $750 million for Guyana. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is due to speak at the two-day conference starting on Tuesday, and Helgesen said Norway and the United States would announce a bilateral agreement on forest conservation. Developing countries participating in REDD+ get payouts for meeting verified emission reduction targets for slowing deforestation over several years. The payments are usually distributed to farmers and local community and indigenous groups working on forest protection. "This is results based. If we don't see results, we don't pay," Helgesen said. A key challenge to be discussed at the Oslo conference - attended by nearly 500 experts and policymakers - is the need to attract more private finance to fund forest conservation. Funding from the private sector has contributed just one-tenth of the money provided to keep forests standing, according to 2015 figures from U.S.-based non-profit group Forest Trends. "You can't depend on aid budgets as they are not as abundant as they were in the past," Helgesen said. "Private sector funding and strengthening public-private partnerships will have to be brought forward further." BRAZIL Helgesen singled out Brazil, home to the world's largest rainforest, as a success story in efforts to cut deforestation. Brazil's deforestation rate dropped by 70 percent during the past decade "while significantly increasing agricultural production," he said. "One of the most important lessons learnt is that it is not just a matter of protecting but producing too," Helgesen said. However the rate of forest loss has recently increased. Brazil's rate of deforestation edged up 16 percent in the year to July 2015, according to government data. Slowing forest clearance involves encouraging sustainable agriculture, particularly among small farmers, who need to be able to produce food and crops for sale while protecting the forest, Helgesen said. This includes small farmers using new irrigation and fertilizer systems to produce higher yields on the same land. "At the local level practices have been unchanged for decades and centuries and new techniques and knowledge have not been applied," Helgesen said. COLOMBIA He said progress on slowing deforestation in Colombia's vast Amazon rainforest depended on combating illegal gold and silver mining, which cuts down trees and contaminates water. "There are strong interests including illegal actors involved in illegal mining posing a threat to local leaders and activists," he said. Colombia is home to more than 45 million hectares of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined. It has declared the goal of zero net deforestation by 2020 and halting the loss of all natural forest by 2030. Under the REDD+ program, Colombia received its first payment of $6 million this month from Norway, Britain and Germany for reducing emissions from deforestation in its Amazon rainforest in 2013 and 2014. If Colombia meets its deforestation targets it is set to receive $300 million from the three donor nations by 2020. (Reporting by Anastasia Moloney, 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 http://news.trust.org) Jakarta (AFP) - Indonesia's environment minister lashed out Monday at Singapore for failing to show "respect" after the city-state tried to question the director of an Indonesian company over last year's haze outbreak. It was the latest row between the neighbours over the smog-belching Indonesian forest fires that choked Singapore, Malaysia and other parts of the region with acrid smog for weeks. The blazes are an annual occurrence during the dry season as land is cleared using slash-and-burn methods but they were the worst for some time in 2015, with Singapore particularly angered at what it said was Jakarta's failure to take action. Tempers frayed again after Singapore last month tried to call in the director of an Indonesian company suspected of being linked to the haze for questioning when the individual was in the city-state, Singaporean media reported. Jakarta is furious at what it sees as a violation of its sovereignty, and Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar stepped up the angry rhetoric Monday. "The most important principle is that cooperation is done with respect for each country's sovereignty," she told reporters in Jakarta. "What has been done by Singapore, in my opinion, does not show their mutual respect to Indonesia." Bakar said she was seeking a review of "of all issues of cooperation with Singapore concerning the environment and forestry". She also pointed out that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a 10-member regional bloc that includes Indonesia and Singapore, had an agreement to deal with forest fires that was based on cooperation. Her comments came after Indonesia's Vice President Jusuf Kalla insisted that Singapore cannot take legal action against Indonesian citizens. The director of the firm called in by Singaporean authorities reportedly did not turn up for the interview despite being served with a legal notice and has since left the city-state. The individual or the firm were not named in the reports. Singapore is seeking to take legal action under a 2014 law that allows the city-state to levy heavy fines on local or foreign companies that contribute to unhealthy levels of haze pollution in the city-state. Singapore has also given notices to six Indonesian-based firms, asking them to explain what they are doing to put out fires on their land. JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia will not allow Singapore to prosecute its citizens over forest fires that blanketed the region in toxic smog in 2015, media on Monday quoted Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla as saying. Singapore media said last week the city-state was planning to prosecute Indonesian polluters in Singapore courts under the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act. Home to the world's third-largest area of tropical forests, Indonesia has been criticized by green activists and by neighboring Southeast Asian nations for failing to stop the region's annual "haze" caused by forest-clearing for palm and pulp plantations. "The law that applies is in Indonesia," Kalla told reporters as quoted by Detik.com media portal. Palm oil is a major growth driver for Indonesia, the world's biggest producer of the edible oil. Indonesia's president pledged in April to tackle the fires by imposing a moratorium on expansion of plantations. (Reporting by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Nick Macfie) IRVING, TX and NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / June 13, 2016 / International Western Petroleum (OTCQB: INWP) a Texas-based E&P company that focuses on the acquisition, development, and exploration of crude oil and natural gas properties in Texas, today announced the Company has selected PRISM Digital Media as their Digital and Social Media Agency of Record. PRISM (PRoactive Integrated Strategic Messaging) Digital Media is an innovative, full-service agency with a state-of-the-art suite of technologies refined by years of experience applying the virtues of social media to the discipline of investor relations and corporate communications. Its three-step marketing methodology is designed to position companies as thought leaders by building online communities and ongoing informational exchanges where influencers and stakeholders interact. Ross Henry Ramsey, CEO of International Western Petroleum stated, "International Western Petroleum has an exciting story to tell and our management team recognized the need for the right agency to share our key messages. We selected Jeff Ramson and his team at PRISM Digital Media because they are on the cutting edge of digital communications and are true experts. We need our story told correctly and to the right audiences and we believe that PRISM Digital Media is the perfect agency to help us grow our following and maximize awareness." Jeff Ramson, Founder and CEO of both PCG Advisory Group and PRISM Digital Media said, "We are pleased to serve as International Western Petroleum's Social and Digital Agency of Record. We salute International Western Petroleum's management team for embracing cutting edge communications and we look forward to bringing additional visibility to the Company's growing audience." About International Western Petroleum, Inc.: International Western Petroleum is a Texas-based E&P company that focuses on the acquisition, development, and exploration of crude oil and natural gas properties in Texas. The company is actively looking to acquire oil and gas properties and apply the latest technologies and production know-how to increase acreage, productions and reserves with a focus in the Central West Texas region. For more information, please visit its corporate website: www.iwpetroleum.com Story continues About PRISM Digital Media: PRISM Digital Media, an affiliated company of PCG Advisory Group, was created for public and private companies by seasoned investment and communications professionals. It brings together a team of innovators from Wall Street to Madison Avenue resolved to change the agency model to inspire innovation. PRISM Digital Media works seamlessly with private and publicly traded companies to help brand their missions online through social media. For more information, please visit www.prismdigitalmedia.com Contact: Investor Relations Department International Western Petroleum, Inc. 5525 N. MacArthur Blvd, Suite 280 Irving, TX 75038 (855) 809-6900 ir@iwpetroleum.com Valentino Shine (646) 863-8997 SOURCE: International Western Petroleum, Inc. Tehran (AFP) - Iran on Monday condemned the mass killings at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida carried out by a shooter claiming allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group as an "evil... terrorist attack". "The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its principled policy of condemning terrorism and its strong will to seriously confront this evil phenomenon, condemns the recent terrorist attack in Orlando," foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said, quoted by state news agency IRNA. In Iran, whose diplomatic ties with the United States have been severed for more than three decades, homosexuality is banned and can be punishable by death, under the Islamic Sharia laws in force since its 1979 revolution. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 others wounded when a heavily armed gunman opened fire and seized hostages on Sunday at the Pulse gay nightclub, in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The assailant, Omar Mateen, 29, a US citizen of Afghan origin, reportedly made a 911 call during the massacre pledging allegiance to IS, which itself claimed responsibility for the attack, calling Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". Tehran (AFP) - Ten militants and a police officer have been killed in separate armed clashes in Iran, local media reported Monday. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards killed five Kurdish rebels near the country's northwestern border with Iraq, an official statement said. "A team of five from the PJAK terrorist splinter group... has been identified and destroyed in the Sardasht region" on the Iraqi border, a Guards statement said on its official website. It said the group was responsible for the death of three members of Iran's Basij militia more than a month ago. No further details were provided about the operation. The last reported clashes between Kurdish rebels and the Revolutionary Guards were in September, when two rebels and two Iranian soldiers were killed. State television later Monday reported six more deaths in armed clashes in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province. One police officer and five militants were killed in the fighting, which pitted Iranian forces against the Sunni militant group Jaish-ul Adl. Officials recovered "large amounts of explosives" after the clashes, state television website said. Tehran accuses Jaish-ul Adl of having links with Al-Qaeda. The group has conducted several armed attacks inside Iranian territory in recent years. PJAK -- the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan -- is an Iranian Kurdish party with close links to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Kurdish rebels periodically attack Iranian armed forces near the border with Iraq's Kurdish region. By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq said on Monday it had made arrests as it investigates allegations that Shi'ite militiamen helping the army retake Falluja had executed dozens of Sunni Muslim men fleeing the city held by Islamic State. Iraqi authorities "are following up on the violations and a number of arrests have been made," government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said after a regional governor said 49 Sunni men had been executed after surrendering to a Shi'ite faction. Sohaib al-Rawi, governor of Anbar province where Falluja is located, said on Sunday that 643 men had gone missing between June 3 and June 5, and "all the surviving detainees were subjected to severe and collective torture by various means." The participation of militias in the battle of Falluja, just west of Baghdad, alongside the Iraqi army had already raised fears of sectarian killings. Iraq's Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi said four military personnel were arrested after video footage showed them abusing people displaced from Falluja. He pledged on Twitter to prosecute any serviceman involved in such acts. "Harassment of IDPs (internally displaced persons) is a betrayal of the sacrifices of our brave forces' liberation operations to expel Daesh (Islamic State) from Iraq," he said. Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and the Shi'ite-led governments that followed. In the north of the country, troops fought with Islamic State militants in the village of Haj Ali for the second day in a row, an Iraqi officer taking part said. Haj Ali is near the Qayyara, a town under Islamic State control which has an airfield that Baghdad's forces seek to use as a staging ground for a future offensive on Mosul, about 60 km (40 miles) north. STRICT ORDERS "Strict orders were issued to protect the civilians," government spokesman Hadithi said, adding that these instructions were also given to the Hashid Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces, the coalition of mostly Shi'ite militias backed by Iran which are involved in the fighting. The United Nations said last week it knew of "extremely distressing, credible reports" of men and boys being abused by armed groups working with security forces after fleeing Falluja. Iraqi authorities routinely separate males aged over 15 from their families when they manage to escape Falluja, to screen them to ensure they do not pose a security risk and check if they may have been involved in war crimes. U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said screening was legitimate but should not be done by paramilitary groups. "The country must avoid further divisions or violence along sectarian lines, lest it implode completely," he said on Monday. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said the Baghdad government was aware of the abuses. "We know that the prime minister has come out and said that he believes that these abuses have happened and that he ... has demanded accountability of any perpetrators," Colonel Chris Garver said. "We think that is the right course of action." The Iraqi army launched the offensive on Falluja on May 23, with air support from the U.S.-led coalition. The United Nations has said up to 90,000 people are trapped in the city with little food or water. Repeated phone calls to three spokesmen of the Popular Mobilisation Forces were not answered. Last week, one of them, Kareem Nuri, said past accusations of human rights violations were "politically motivated and baseless". (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) A U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq has made further progress in the push to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), moving toward a key village to the citys south on Sunday after having captured another from the extremist group. Members of the Iraqi force attempting to recapture the city the largest one under ISIS control said they had advanced to the village of Haj Ali in tanks and armored vehicles after militants fled the adjacent village Kharaib Jabr, Reuters reported. In the beginning they resisted, but when they saw the force they withdrew, an officer told Reuters. ISIS has been in control of Mosul for the past two years, since it declared a caliphate across Iraq and neighboring Syria. However, a recent military offensive alongside air strikes by international forces has resulted in multiple setbacks to the terrorist group. [Reuters] Pulse Police Nightclub Orlando Shooting The terrorist group ISIS has again claimed responsibility for the shooting that killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend, according to Reuters. The latest statement was made in an official broadcast on the group's Albayan Radio on Monday. "One of the caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida ... where he killed and injured more than a hundred of them before he was killed," the group said in its broadcast, Reuters reports. The shooting took place early Sunday morning. The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, called 911 on Saturday night and pledged allegiance to ISIS. The ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq News reportedly said in a statement Sunday that the shooting was the work of "a soldier of the caliphate," using the term that the group, also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh, uses for the territory it controls. It's unclear whether Mateen had a direct link to ISIS or was only inspired by the group. As Business Insider's Pamela Engel points out, the Amaq statement was attributed to a "source" and did not describe or provide any details about the attack. NOW WATCH: The number of times Obama has had to respond to mass shootings during his presidency is staggering More From Business Insider Orlando shooting The terrorist group ISIS on Monday released a second statement on the terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida, providing a more detailed account of the massacre carried out by a 29-year-old US citizen armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle. ISIS aka the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh claimed credit for the attack on Sunday afternoon. The gunman, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call during the shooting, FBI Director James Comey said. Mateen killed 49 people at an LGBTQ nightclub in the massacre. The first statement from ISIS's propaganda channels was brief. The ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency attributed Mateen's ISIS link to a "source," and the statement did not describe or provide any details about the attack. But the second statement, released in an official broadcast on the group's Albayan Radio on Monday, was slightly more in-depth. "One of the caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida ... where he killed and injured more than a hundred of them before he was killed," the group said in its broadcast, according to Reuters. "It is not completely unusual for ISIS to release an expanded version of an al-[Amaq] statement," Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst at the Levantine Group, a Middle East-based risk-consultancy organization, told Business Insider in an email. He added: While it is an open secret that al-Amaq is linked to ISIS, it still attempts to present itself as a neutral "news source." This means that al-Amaq often use a softer language than the one found in ISIS official statements, hence the need for a new statement. Still, the fact that even the second statement doesn't allude to any inside knowledge of the attacks suggests that the shooting might have been inspired by ISIS rather than directly ordered by the terrorist group. Story continues "The information in the Albayan thing is, I mean, there's nothing new in it," Charlie Winter, an expert on jihadist propaganda and a senior research associate at Georgia State University's Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative, told Business Insider. "It compounds my suspicions that it was not connected to the organization itself, but was carried out in its name," he added. FBI Director James Comey delivers a speech at the Master of Science in Foreign Service CyberProject's sixth annual conference at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., U.S. April 26, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria FBI Director James Comey said on Monday that Mateen mentioned links to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State all within a three-year span. But Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider that it's not all that unusual for a jihadist at Mateen's level to have conflicting sympathies for different terrorist groups. Winter noted that if the shooting was inspired rather than carried out on direct orders from ISIS leadership, then "it does change somewhat the implications of the attack." Other experts have agreed. Michael Vickers, a former US undersecretary of defense for intelligence, said on an Atlantic Council conference call on Monday that the Orlando shooting "certainly looks far more like an inspired attack." "This is a key element of ISIL's strategy," Vickers said. Rukmini Callimachi pointed out the implications of the strategy in The New York Times on Monday. "Influencing distant attackers to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State and then carry out mass murder has become a core part of the group's propaganda over the past two years," Callimachi wrote. "It is a purposeful blurring of the line between operations that are planned and carried out by the terror group's core fighters and those carried out by its sympathizers," she added. Pulse Nighclub Orlando Shooting Even if Mateen wasn't acting on direct orders from ISIS leadership, then he might have been in contact with some ISIS members. And it's likely that, at the very least, he was familiar with the group's ideology and messaging. "The fact that Mateen swore allegiance to ISIS on the phone suggest both that he did know the codes of ISIS-inspired attacks, and that he wasn't an ISIS member in the same way that the Paris attackers for instance were," Horowitz said. He continued: "It suggests that Mateen may have been in contact with ISIS members, possibly during his radicalization, and even during the planning of the attack." Several terrorists who carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks, in contrast, had trained in Syria and were in contact with high-level ISIS leaders. They traveled back to Europe with the express purpose of forming a terrorist cell to carry out attacks on Western European countries. And ISIS's statement after the Paris attack, which left 130 people dead in a series of bombings and shooting across the city, was much more extensive. The terrorist group also rolled out a social-media campaign after the Paris and Brussels attacks, with ISIS's online channels encouraging supporters to blast out canned messages on their social-media accounts. Channels on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, which ISIS uses to send out information to supporters, asked followers to post canned messages celebrating the attacks and threatening more violence. With the Orlando attack, there was no similar campaign. Recently, ISIS has ramped up calls for attacks from supporters in Western countries. Horowitz noted on Sunday that these messages could be effective as calls to action for radicalized people. "These messages by ISIS's leadership are meant to maximize the psychological impact of these attacks among the Western public," he said. He added: They create the perception that ISIS does control these attacks from within the "safety" of its Caliphate in Iraq and Syria. In general, however, ISIS has little control over these radicalized individuals, other than pushing them to act within a specific timeframe. NOW WATCH: The number of times Obama has had to respond to mass shootings during his presidency is staggering More From Business Insider CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed responsibility on Monday for the shooting that killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, in an official broadcast on the group's Albayan Radio. "One of the Caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida ... where he killed and injured more than a hundred of them before he was killed," the group said in its broadcast. (Reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Catherine Evans) ROME (Reuters) - Italy's market watchdog Consob committed "grave errors" in its oversight of bond sales by banks to retail clients, the industry minister said on Monday. Last year thousands of Italians lost savings invested in bonds after four small banks declared bankruptcy under tough European Union rules that require shareholders and holders of junior or subordinated debt to shoulder some of the pain in a bank rescue. RAI state television's investigative news programme "Report" revealed this month what it said was a letter to Consob head Giuseppe Vegas. In the letter a Consob division head refers to "indications" made by Vegas that banks remove risk probabilities from their bond prospectuses, Report said. The letter, dated May 3, 2011, said that according to Vegas's recommendations "banks will be invited to not insert information on probabilities in the prospectus and will ask that they be eliminated should some banks do it of their own initiative". Asked on Monday about the letter and Report's call for the Consob chief's resignation, Industry Minister Carlo Calenda said: "I don't believe it's up to the government to comment, but grave errors were made. Report is right." Consob, whose job is to make sure that investors are properly informed when they buy financial products, did not immediately respond to Calenda's comment. It has previously denied that Vegas said risk probabilities should be removed. Vegas did not respond to an email asking for comment on Monday. Consob "is doing its job", said Carmine Di Noia, a Consob commissioner, on the sidelines of a conference in Milan. After the airing of Report on June 5, Consob said there had never been a legal requirement to include risk probabilities in bond prospectuses, either nationally or at a European level. Deputy Economy Minister Enrico Zanetti said last week that Vegas should quit. "The credibility of institutions like Consob must be preserved and this can sometimes happen by taking a step back. By not resigning, Vegas is damaging the institution," he said. Story continues Italy has been struggling to shore up its banking system, which is fragmented and laden with bad loans, and both Consob and the Bank of Italy have come under pressure to improve oversight of lenders. Vegas took over at Consob in December 2010 after being nominated by then-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. His mandate ends in December 2017. Last year, when junior bond holders lost their savings, Consob said sale prospectuses for junior bonds always detailed the risks. One pensioner hanged himself after his life savings were wiped out, and others who had lost money staged vocal protests. In April, the government passed a measure to reimburse some retail bondholders who lost money when the banks went under. (Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, additional reporting by Paola Arosio and Silvia Aloisi in Milan, writing by Steve Scherer; Editing by Gareth Jones) In his somber Tony Awards introduction, James Cordon said that the "whole world" was trying to come to terms with the mass shooting in Orlando on Sunday morning. His fellow Brit J.K. Rowling soon proved exactly what he meant. In a tweet sent Monday, the author remembered one of the victims, 22-year-old Luis Vielma, an employee at Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park in Florida, saying she "couldn't stop crying." Read More: 49 Names of Orlando Mass Shooting Victims Released Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying. #Orlando pic.twitter.com/Nz2ZCWxNsS - J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 13, 2016 In a statement from Universal Orlando, retweeted by Rowling alongside many messages from those who had met Vielma at the resort, the company said it was "deeply saddened" by his loss and was working to support his friends and colleagues. Read More: Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting: The World Reacts J.K. Rowling tweeted this touching tribute for an Orlando shooting victim in the Harry Potter family J.K. Rowling tweeted this touching tribute for an Orlando shooting victim in the Harry Potter family On Sunday morning, at least 50 people were killed at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Another 53 people were injured, and people everywhere felt helpless many took to Twitter to speak out against gun violence and spread information about how we could help the victims. Twitter was also used for another reason to spread information about those who had been killed, including 22-year-old Luis Vielma. It turned out, Luis Vielma worked at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, where he operated the Forbidden Journey ride. News reached J.K. Rowling quickly that someone in the Harry Potter family had passed. Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying. #Orlando pic.twitter.com/Nz2ZCWxNsS J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 13, 2016 This tweet is now her pinned tweet. A friend of Vielmas replied to Rowlings tweet, saying that Luis was a Gryffindor who would make her proud, and that they have a Slytherin named Tony who is still in the ICU. @jk_rowling I worked with Luis he was a gryffindor who would make you proud. We have a slytherin who's still in the icu. His name is Tony. Victoria Bidorini (@abnormalvb) June 13, 2016 Rowling replied that she is praying Tony pulls through, and is thinking of all of them. She continued to retweet responses from friends and family of Luis Vielma, and support for all of the victims in the Orlando shooting. I'm praying Tony pulls through. My thoughts are with all of you #LoveIsLove #Orlando https://t.co/JLSBMWRrfJ J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 13, 2016 People also used Twitter to give perspective on the event, as well as to tell LGBTQIA folks that theyre not alone during this time, and that we see whats happening and will do what we can to rectify it. Story continues 50 dead in LGBT nightclub attack. Perspective: Va Tech: 32 Sandy Hook: 27 San Bern: 14 Fort Hood: 13 Navy Yard: 12 Aurora: 12 Charleston: 9 Lucia Graves (@lucia_graves) June 12, 2016 *The worst mass shooting in American history* targeted queer people of color, in a gay night club, during Pride. America. Anthony Bejarano (@AntBejarano) June 12, 2016 President Obama spoke on the matter, and said about the event, This was an act of terror and act of hateThis is an especially heartbreaking day for our friends who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The post J.K. Rowling tweeted this touching tribute for an Orlando shooting victim in the Harry Potter family appeared first on HelloGiggles. A tough job. James Corden opened the 2016 Tony Awards with an emotional speech on Sunday, June 12, hours after a lone gunman killed 50 people and injured dozens more during a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. "Your tragedy is our tragedy," Corden said to the camera, describing the award show as "a symbol and celebration" of tolerance and inclusion. "Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced and is loved. Hate will never win." PHOTOS: Tony Awards 2016 Red Carpet Fashion What the Stars Wore After his speech, members of the Hamilton cast took to the stage and sang about the British host, who made a quick dig at Donald Trump before crooning and dancing his way through a number about his childhood Broadway dreams. The show-stopping song included references to Les Miserables, A Chorus Line, Cats, Evita, Sweeney Todd, Jesus Christ Superstar, Dreamgirls and Gypsy. The Late Late Show host, 37, previously teased his opening number during an interview with the New York Times, saying that he wanted his act to speak to theater fans across the country. Lets try to have an opening that talks to the theater kid in Nebraska, or Ohio, or Michigan, who dreams of being a performer on a stage one day, dreams of working on Broadway and to whom it feels so far away, he said on Thursday, June 9. And this one night represents the center of their world for that day, you know? Lets try and have a song that says you can absolutely do this. Well see on Sunday night if that comes through. I know who that kid is, because thats who I was. In truth, thats who everyone on that stage was. So thats what were going to try and do. PHOTOS: Famous Funny Faces Earlier this week, Corden prepared for the Tony Awards with a new segment of his late night shows signature Carpool Karaoke series. With some help from Hamiltons Lin-Manuel Miranda and fellow Broadway stars Jane Krakowski, Audra McDonald and Jesse Tyler Ferguson, the TV host sang some unforgettable show tunes, including Rents Seasons of Love and Les Miserables One More Day. Story continues As Us Weekly previously reported, the 2016 Tony Awards dedicated its ceremony on Sunday evening to the victims of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. PHOTOS: Celebrity Deaths in 2016: Stars Weve Lost Our hearts are heavy for the unimaginable tragedy that happened last night in Orlando, Tony Award Productions said in a statement on Sunday. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those affected. The Tony Awards dedicate tonights ceremony to them. The incident, which is now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, was carried out by ISIS follower Omar Mateen. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out a $1.8 million court victory by former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura over Chris Kyle's book, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. In the book, Kyle describes punching a "celebrity" who he refers to as "Scruff Face" in 2006 at a bar where some friends had gathered after the funeral of a Navy Seal. In an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, which happened before Clint Eastwood adapted the book into a mega-successful film starring Bradley Cooper, Kyle said it was Ventura who he had punched. In 2013, Kyle died, survived by his wife Taya. Ventura denied the incident occurred and sued Kyle and publishers for defamation, misappropriation and unjust enrichment. The case went to trial in 2014, and on the fifth day of deliberations, the jury reached a 8-2 verdict in favor of Ventura on the defamation claim, awarding $500,000 while recommending $1.35 million more for unjust enrichment. The judge adopted the recommendation. The case then went to appeal where it brought forth the Motion Picture Association of America and some 30 media companies arguing that an award of profits from the book for unjust enrichment would be "unjustified" and have a "potentially crippling" effect on the First Amendment. In today's opinion, the 8th Circuit voted 2-1 to set aside the $500,000 defamation award because of improper and prejudicial testimony about Kyle's insurance. The federal appeals court remanded the defamation claim for a new trial. It's the unjust enrichment reversal, though, that's unanimous and going to be received warmly by media companies, as the ruling decides that damages for defamation constitutes an adequate legal remedy. "Neither the district court nor Ventura cited any case awarding profits in a defamation case under an unjust-enrichment theory, or even suggesting money damages are an inadequate remedy in a public-figure defamation case," states the opinion authored by 8th Circuit Judge William Jay Riley. "We find none ... We cannot accept Ventura's unjust-enrichment theory, because it enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law." In wake of the Orlando shooting at a gay nightclub that has left 50 people dead and 53 wounded the deadliest mass shooting on American soil in modern U.S. history J.K. Rowling has paid tribute to one of the confirmed victims from the massacre. The Harry Potter author took to Twitter to share a photo of 22-year-old Luis Vielma, who worked at Universal Orlando Resort, and specifically, the Harry Potter-themed ride at the park, according to his Facebook page. "I can't stop crying," Rowling wrote. Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying. #Orlandopic.twitter.com/Nz2ZCWxNsS https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckzo9hGXIAA5pvm.jpg:large Co-workers of Vielma responded to Rowling's tweet, describing him as someone who "brought smiles to everyone he met," to which Rowling offered more condolences. @JMuniz822 I'm so, so sorry. My heart goes out to you, all his friends and his poor family. Another one of Vielma's co-workers said he was a "Gryffindor," but added that another worker at the ride, Tony, is still in intensive care. "I'm praying Tony pulls through," Rowling responded. "My thoughts are with all of you #LoveIsLove." @jk_rowling I worked with Luis he was a gryffindor who would make you proud. We have a slytherin who's still in the icu. His name is Tony. I'm praying Tony pulls through. My thoughts are with all of you #LoveIsLove #Orlandohttps://twitter.com/abnormalvb/status/742283692215808000 ... As of writing, Vielma is one of that have been named from the shooting, according to the city of Orlando's website. John Oliver opened Sunday's episode of Last Week Tonight with a cold-open to the victims of the shooting in Orlando, Florida, at a gay nightclub that has left 50 people dead including the shooter. The shooting, believed to be perpetuated by 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. "The worst thing is this pain is so familiar," Oliver said. "In Paris last November, terrorists seemed to target places symbolizing everything that is wonderful about France culture, music, restaurants. And in Orlando earlier this morning, a gunman attacked a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world. And for the record, I will happily embrace a Latin night at a gay club at the theme park capital of the world as the ultimate symbol about what is truly wonderful about America." However, Oliver's ending message didn't harp on the brutality of the act rather, the perseverance of people who were willing to help the victims. "I'm sure there will be much more to say about Orlando going forward, but for right now, on a day when some dipshit terrorist wants us to focus on one man's act of brutality and hatred, it might be worth seeing this video, which was posted to Twitter today," Oliver says, before showing a clip of hundreds of people gathering to donate blood to the victims. "It kind of reminds you that that terrorist dipshit is vastly outnumbered," Oliver concludes. "And now, please enjoy our stupid show." You can watch Oliver's full cold open below: In a rare cold open, John Oliver started off "Last Week Tonight" by addressing the tragic shooting in Orlando, Florida. Oliver admitted that its hard to know what to do in the wake of an event like this, but assured everyone that he was still going to do his comedy show, which would start with some jarringly inappropriate jangly music. John Oliver opened Sundays episode of Last Week Tonight with an emotional monologue about the mass shooting in Orlando that left 49 dead and 53 injured early Sunday morning. As Im sure you know by now, at least 50 people were killed by a gunman at a gay nightclub in what is being described as a terrorist attack, Oliver said. Look, its still early and details are still emerging, and right now this just hurts. 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Fla., opened fired during a Latin-themed night at Pulse nightclub at approximately 2 a.m., and later held patrons hostage before exchanging fire with officers, which eventually led to his death. Mateen was initially counted as one of the 50 causalities, but was removed from that list after authorities determined he wasnt a victim. Oliver said the attack was reminiscent of the Paris shootings And the worst thing is this pain is so familiar. In Paris last November, terrorists seem to target places symbolizing everything that is wonderful about France: culture, music, restaurants, he said. The gunman attacked a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world. For the record, I will happily embrace a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world as the ultimate symbol of what is truly wonderful about America, Oliver added. But for right now, on a day when some dips terrorist wants us to focus on one mans act of brutality and hatred, it might be worth seeing this video, which was posted to Twitter today. It shows hundreds and hundreds of people this morning lining up around the block in Florida waiting to donate blood, and it kind of reminds you that this terrorist dips is vastly outnumbered. The Orlando incident is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Some good: a video of the line to give blood in Orlando right now (taken by my best bud) pic.twitter.com/0jx8JKvm6D Ariana Bacle (@iambacle) June 12, 2016 Related stories Story continues President Obama Says Orlando Attack Was 'Homegrown Extremism' Tony Awards: Winner Frank Langella Gives Impassioned Speech on Orlando Attack 'Hamilton' Star Pays Tribute to Orlando Victims at Tony Awards: 'Love Cannot Be Killed' (VIDEO) Because of the timing of the horrific mass shooting in Orlando early Sunday morning, John Oliver became the first late-night comedian to address the tragic event on his show, Last Week Tonight on HBO. As he has done following previous terrorist attacks, Oliver opened the Sunday show, airing only hours after the shooting, with brief emotional remarks about the murders. Its still early and details are still emerging and right now this just hurts, he said. And the worst thing is, this pain is so familiar. In Paris last November, terrorists seemed to target places that symbolize everything that is wonderful about France culture, music, restaurants. And in Orlando early this morning a gunman attacked a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world. And for the record, I will happily embrace a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world as the ultimate symbol of what is truly wonderful about America. Oliver almost apologized for doing a comedy show so soon after the attacks. Its hard to even know what to do in the wake of an event like this, he said. He ended his comments with an image of the hundreds of people who had lined up in Florida today to donate blood for the victims of the Orlando shooting. It kind of reminds you that that dips**t terrorist is vastly outnumbered, Oliver said. We will update with video when available. Related stories 'Game Of Thrones': "No One" Left Unscathed As Show Heads To Season 6 Conclusion TV Execs & Producers Talk the Risks & Benefits Of Peak TV, Competing With HBO & Netflix-- ATX Television Festival 'Westworld' EPs Talk 'Game Of Thrones' Influences, Robots & Lack Of Diversity In Westerns - ATX Television Festival When it comes to smart financial advice, comedian John Oliver seems to be on a roll. Following up last week's medical debt investigation that went viral, "Last Week Tonight" turned its attention Sunday to retirement plans. With an estimated $24 trillion in retirement assets, Oliver said, 401(k) plans and other retirement accounts are a potential gold mine for financial services firms. Oliver called out three problems in particular hurting consumers: Financial analysts that aren't required to work in clients' best interests , high fees that compound over time, and under performing actively managed funds. "The entire retirement plan industry is a potential minefield," he said in the segment. "You need to pay attention." Those are issues Oliver's team encountered personally. In setting up a 401(k) for show employees, he said, they realized their John Hancock-sponsored plan charged asset management fees of 1.69 percent, on top of a $24 per-person annual fee and other fund fees. An unnamed intermediary broker (who told Oliver's team he was not a fiduciary, i.e. required to work in their best interest) would receive 1 percent the first year and 0.50 percent thereafter. Oliver said the show is covering the fees for its employees, and is also leaving both John Hancock and the broker. In a statement provided to CNBC.com, John Hancock spokeswoman Melissa Berczuk said the firm stands by the value of the services it provides. "We feel that the analysis and presentation of fees and services by the show is flawed and misleading," she said. "For the average person saving for retirement, it doesn't need to be this confusing," said Oliver in the segment. Most retirement advice is common sense, said Oliver, segueing into a public-service video with comedian Billy Eichner and Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth. Here's what "Last Week Tonight" suggested, and our take on the advice. 1) Start saving now (and ideally, go back in time and start saving earlier). Our take: Yes. The longer you wait, the less time you have for the magic of compounding to work for you and the more you'll need to save . For example, a 25-year-old aiming to retire at 62 would need to set aside 15 percent to adequately replace his income in retirement, according to a 2014 study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. If you start saving at age 35, you'd need to save 24 percent, while late starters at age 45 would need a whopping 44 percent. Story continues 2) Keep the money in low-cost index funds. "Check it about as often as you Google whether Gene Hackman is still alive," said Eichner. Our take: This is a smart bet for most consumers. Numerous studies have found that actively managed funds typically fail to outperform index strategies that track a market benchmark such as the S&P 500 index, and they have lower costs, to boot. A 2015 study from SigFig found that the wealthiest investors tend to focus on low-fee investments, abstained from panic selling and seemed to trade less often behaviors that helped them achieve significantly better investment returns. 3) Ask if your advisor is a fiduciary. If they aren't? Find a new pro to work with. Our take: Yes, but that's just one of the questions you should be asking ahead of the April 2017 implementation of the broader fiduciary standard rule . Some investment products may be subject to other rules, and you should ask how a broker or advisor handles such recommendations. 4) Gradually shift from stocks to bonds as you get older. Our take: Yes but there's some nuance in how gradually. Entering retirement with a portfolio that's heavy on stock can be risky. A 2015 Prudential report found that negative net returns shortly after retirement can be more damaging than bad years later in retirement. But Americans are living longer, which might mean you'll spend 25 to 30 or more years in retirement. Enter retirement with a portfolio that's too conservative , and it won't generate enough growth to help you balance out distributions . 5) Keep fees, Eichner said, "like your milk under 1 percent." Our take: Yes, yes, yes. As the segment put it, "Even one tenth of one percent can really f--- you." A 2014 Center for American Progress report estimated over a career, high fees could cost you a six-figure sum and shave off 20 percent or more off your savings balance. Check BrightScope.com to see how your plan's fees stack up , and if the results are bad, consider saving outside your workplace plan . More From CNBC star supermassive merger The computer-security company Symantec is buying Blue Coat Systems for about $4.65 billion in cash. Blue Coat CEO Greg Clark will become chief executive of Symantec and join the Symantec Board once the deal has closed. Business Insider previously reported that Blue Coat was close to filing for an IPO. The company had been running a so-called dual track process, running a sales process while preparing for an IPO. If you look at what weve paid, its well within the range of what an IPO valuation would have been, Symantec CFO Thomas Seifert told The Wall Street Journal. With this IPO path in mind, we think we paid fair value for what were receiving. Blue Coat's current owner, Bain Capital, will re-invest $750 million into the newly merged company. The private equity firm Silver Lake, which had already agreed to invest $500 million in Symantec this year, will double its investment to $1 billion. JPMorgan is the lead advisor to Symantec, while Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, and Wells Fargo are also advising and providing debt financing to the company. Goldman Sachs is Blue Coat's lead adviser, while Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are also acting as advisers. The deal follows a recent frenzy of acquisitions in the software industry. Large tech companies like IBM, Oracle, Ingram Micro, and Salesforce have purchased cloud computing startups this year. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that this year has been the "most intense M&A season" he's ever seen in an interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer on Wednesday. Here's the press release from Symantec: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and SUNNYVALE, Calif. June 12, 2016 Symantec (SYMC) and Blue Coat, Inc. today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Symantec will acquire Blue Coat for approximately $4.651 billion in cash. The transaction has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies and is expected to close in the third calendar quarter of 2016. Greg Clark, Chief Executive Officer of Blue Coat, will be appointed Chief Executive Officer of Symantec and join the Symantec Board upon closing of the transaction. Story continues Blue Coat is the #1 market share leader and share gainer in Web Security with a widely recognized portfolio of integrated technologies serving as a trusted platform to deliver Cloud Generation Security to more than 15,000 customers worldwide. For Blue Coats fiscal year ending April 30, 2016, GAAP revenue was $598 million and non-GAAP revenue was $755 million, with 17% year-over-year growth, supported by new products and new customers. For the same time period, the company had non-GAAP operating margins of 22% and cash flow from operations of $135 million. Also for this time period, GAAP operating margins were -42%. Defining the Future of Cybersecurity With the acquisition of Blue Coat, Symantec will enhance its leadership position to define the future of cybersecurity and set the pace for innovation industrywide. The combined company will: Protect customers against more cyber threats, with best-in-breed protection, detection and remediation across endpoint, email, web, network and servers. This transaction will combine Symantecs leading threat telemetry with Blue Coats networks and cloud security offerings to provide differentiated security solutions across hundreds of millions of endpoints and servers, and billions of email and web transactions. Help enterprises securely embrace the cloud. Symantec will be able to deliver security for the cloud generation of users, data and apps, for the cloud, from the cloud and to the cloud. The companys leading data loss prevention capabilities will be applied at the web proxy and to over 12,000 cloud applications. Bring together a formidable scale of investment in cyber R&D and threat research. These investments span over 3,000 engineers and researchers, as well as nine Threat Response Centers. With this transaction, we will have the scale, portfolio and resources necessary to usher in a new era of innovation designed to help protect large customers and individual consumers against insider threats and sophisticated cybercriminals. Together, we will be best positioned to address the ever-evolving threat landscape, the massive changes introduced by the shift to mobile and cloud, and the challenges created by regulatory and privacy concerns, said Dan Schulman, Chairman of Symantec. Greg and the entire Blue Coat leadership team have done an exceptional job of strengthening, growing and scaling their business. In addition to a proven track record of delivering scale and profitable growth, Greg brings significant leadership experience, deep security expertise and a history of successfully integrating companies into a single portfolio; he is the right person to lead Symantec as we advance our position as the leader in cybersecurity. On behalf of the Board, I want to thank Ajei Gopal for his decisive and insightful leadership as our Interim President and COO; he has been central to creating and driving our business momentum during a time of transition and has been an integral part of the team engineering the Blue Coat acquisition. I also want to thank Thomas Seifert and Scott Taylor, and the rest of the Symantec management team, for their fortitude and hard work, which has helped enable us to announce this transformational acquisition, Mr. Schulman added. Greg Clark, Chief Executive Officer of Blue Coat, said, Today, Symantec keeps global enterprises, governments and individual consumers protected with solutions across threat protection, information protection and managed services. Likewise, Blue Coat is the trusted source for protecting billions of web transactions daily and is the clear leader in the growing cloud security market. Once combined, we will offer customers around the world from large enterprises and governments to individual consumers unrivaled threat protection and unmatched cloud security. With employees of Blue Coat and Symantec coming together, we will be well positioned to drive meaningful growth and push the boundaries of innovation. I am very excited about the opportunity to join Symantec as CEO and look forward to working with the strongest, deepest team in security to realize the many strategic and financial benefits this transaction will create. Thomas Seifert, Chief Financial Officer of Symantec, said, With the $150 million in expected annual net cost synergies, in addition to our previously announced $400 million in planned net cost savings, this transaction will allow Symantec to improve our profitability while continuing to invest in innovation and drive growth. The acquisition is expected to be significantly accretive to our non-GAAP earnings creating meaningful value for our shareholders. We are reiterating our first quarter guidance and maintaining our commitment to our previously announced $5.5 billion capital return program, of which the remaining $1.3 billion will be returned by the end of the current fiscal year. We will also continue our practice of paying a quarterly dividend to our shareholders. Delivers Attractive Financial Benefits to Symantec Shareholders On a pro-forma, non-GAAP basis, the combined company would have had $4.4 billion in revenues in fiscal year 2016, of which 62% would come from enterprise security. By the end of fiscal 2018, Symantec expects to realize $550 million in run-rate cost savings, of which $400 million will come from Symantecs previously announced cost efficiency program. Creating a Strong Organization and Leadership Team, Focused on Integration Planning The Board of Directors will continue to be led by Symantecs current Chairman, Mr. Schulman. Mr. Clark will serve as CEO and Mr. Seifert will continue as Chief Financial Officer. Members of Blue Coats management team have not only agreed to join Symantec but also made the decision to rollover a substantial portion of their cash and options into the combined entity. Mr. Schulman added, The Board would like to thank Symantecs management team for their continued dedication and commitment to our company and welcome Blue Coats executive team to Symantec. The integration of the two companies will be led by executives from both Symantec and Blue Coat, with integration planning to begin immediately. The companies expect an efficient and successful integration given their complementary product offerings and distinct customer footprints, as well as Blue Coats management teams track record of integration. The combined company will be headquartered in Mountain View, California. Investing in the Future of Symantec In connection with the transaction, Silver Lake has agreed to make an additional investment of $500 million in 2.0% convertible notes due 2021 of Symantec, doubling its investment in Symantec to $1 billion. In addition, Bain Capital has agreed to make an investment of $750 million in the convertible notes. The convertible notes are noncallable and unsecured, and have an initial conversion price of approximately $20.41 per share. In connection with this investment, David Humphrey, a Managing Director of Bain Capital Private Equity, will be appointed to Symantecs Board of Directors, effective at the close of the transaction. Financing and Path to Completion Symantec intends to finance the transaction with cash on the balance sheet and $2.8 billion of new debt. The company is focused on paying down a significant portion of this debt within the next several years with cash on the balance sheet and through cash generation. The transaction, which is expected to be completed in the third calendar quarter of 2016, is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including applicable regulatory approvals. NOW WATCH: Why this Instagram star withdrew $1.2 million in cash then deposited it the next day More From Business Insider Squad 38 - Premieres on June 18 Cast: Seo In Guk, Choi Soo Young, Ma Dong Seok Genre: Crime/Detective, Action Synopsis: The Task Force Chief of Seoul City Hall works together with a con man, using their skills of fraud and deception in order to help catch tax evaders. You Are My Present - Premieres on June 14 Cast: Choi Myeong Gil, Heo Yi Jae, Song Jae Hee, Shim Ji Ho, Jin Ye Sol Genre: Family, Fashion Synopsis: A costume designer, Gong Hyun Soo, goes against all odds to find what shes truly happy doing. The Vampire Detective - Finale on June 13 Cast: Lee Joon, Oh Jung Se, Lee Se Young, Lee Chung Ah, Jei Genre: Romance, Supernatural, Crime/Detective Synopsis: San and his friends are fighting to keep their loved ones alive. But will they succeed? Find out in this action packed finale! The Royal Gambler - Finale on June 15 Cast: Jang Keun Suk, Yeo Jin Goo, Kim Ga Eun, Hyun Woo, Choi Min Soo Genre: Historical, Family Synopsis: Will Baek Dae Gil and King Yeoning manage to stop Yi In Jwas rebel, and work together towards a better Joseon? Entertainer - Finale on June 17 Cast: Ji Sung, Lee Hyeri, Kang Min Hyuk, Gong Myung, Ljoe Genre: Music, Family, Romance Synopsis: Now that the truth about Ha Neuls rape case, and his brothers song royalty is out, whats left is for the Entertainer Band to make it big! And will the love triangle between Suk Ho, Ha Neul and Geu Rin be cleared out? Marrying My Daughter Twice - Finale on June 18 Cast: Seo Ha Jun, Yang Jin Sung, Jang Seung Jo Genre: Family, Romance, Revenge Synopsis: Will Hyun Tae be able to get over the pain of Young Chaes death, and successfully form his happy family with Soo Kyung? And will they finally get out of the clutches of Jae Young? Mammootty's Rorschach hits all the right notes, except in the end | Movie Review champions-single Kanye West debuted Champions earlier this month on Big Boys show on Los Angeles radio station REAL 92.3, explaining that the track was so new it didnt even have a title yet. Since then, he performed it with the whole crew at Hot 97s Summer Jam in New York and then tried, unsuccessfully, to put on a last minute concert in the city. Kanye has also said that there is a longer version of the song featuring every G.O.O.D. Music artist. Champions is the first single from the upcoming G.O.O.D. Music compilation album Cruel Winter, a follow-up to 2012s Cruel Summer, and you can see the artwork above via iTunes. The track is being officially released at midnight tonight, June 12, on digital platforms and it is currently available in countries like Japan and the United Kingdom where it is already past midnight. UPDATE: Buy Champions on iTunes in the U.S. here. Now the track has been released the question remains: Who had the best verse? Related: Kanye By The Numbers: A Career-Spanning Infographic More from Pigeons & Planes Nairobi (AFP) - Kenya's planned closure later this year of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, must not result in people being forcibly returned to war-torn Somalia, the UN's refugee chief warned Monday. "Repatriation, when it happens, must be in a humane, dignified manner, in line with international principles," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in Nairobi after a five-day visit to Kenya and Somalia. Kenya has vowed to send back 350,000 Somali refugees living in Dadaab in north-east Kenya by November, insisting the camp is a security threat and a drain on national resources. Nairobi has taken a hardline position, describing Dadaab as a terrorist training ground for Shabaab Islamists, and has publicly and repeatedly said all the Somali refugees would be removed from the country by the end of the year. But Grandi -- who met with President Uhuru Kenyatta on Sunday -- said there was room for flexibility. "The time frame of a few months is very short. I'm sure it will be longer than November, how long I don't know," Grandi said. "I hope there will not be a scenario of coercion and forced return." Just 14,000 refugees have taken up the offer of voluntary return since the programme began in December 2014, but Grandi said "tens of thousands" more had returned "spontaneously", meaning without UN assistance. - 'Arrests, detention and harassment' - Grandi said the planned returns would not be conducted unilaterally by Kenya, but in discussion with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Somali government, and would require financial support from foreign donors to improve conditions in war-torn Somalia and provide a return package of food and money to those who go home. The vast majority of residents of the sprawling Dadaab complex of camps close to the Kenya-Somalia border fled Somalia's more than two-decades long conflict. Many remain fearful of returning to a country where insecurity remains rife and life tough. Story continues Grandi said that while Kenya's government sees Dadaab and its Somalis as "a situation that has to end as soon as possible" it will remain a host for asylum-seekers from other conflict-hit countries, such as South Sudan. "The current discussion only concerns Dadaab," Grandi said. Charities and the UN have voiced dismay at the closure plan, while rights groups have warned that forcibly repatriating refugees would break international law. On Monday rights group Amnesty International said it "continues to receive reports of arrests, detention and harassment of refugees by the police" since the closure plans were announced last month. The human rights group called for "concrete action to be taken to ensure continued protection for thousands of refugees at risk of forcible return." WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday warned Americans against pointing a finger at one religion or another after a gunman who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group massacred 49 people at a gay night club in Orlando. "The worst thing we can do is engage in trying to point fingers at one group or one form of sectarianism or another or one religion or another. Those are not the values of our country," Kerry told reporters as he posed for pictures before a meeting with Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides. (Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) Birmingham (United Kingdom) (AFP) - Madison Keys made an impressive start to the Birmingham WTA tournament on Monday, beating Timea Babos 7-6 (7/3) 6-4 in the first round of the grasscourt Wimbledon warm-up event. The 21-year-old, whom Serena Williams last year described as "a world number one of the future" is widely considered America's best hope of success when the long Williams era ends. Keys struggled early this year after injuring a leg during the Australian Open. Now, though, she attacked freely on a lush green surface. A swift victory seemed likely after she hurried into a 5-2 lead, but when Keys tried to close out the set, serving at 5-3, she seemed to lose her serving rhythm and allowed Babos to break back with some good returns. The pivotal moments, though, came when Keys took seven successive points in the tie-break from 0-3 down, making one stunning service return to reach 3-3 and thereafter driving more confidently and accurately. "I think I was rushing too much to get the first set over in those moments when I played badly," admitted Keys. "But I have become better at figuring stuff out after this clay court season." This included a win in Rome over Garbine Muguruza, soon afterwards the French Open champion, a success which helped Keys back into the world's top 20. Keys could now be one win away from a quarter-final meeting with Petra Kvitova, the two-time Wimbledon champion who however suffered a curious piece of ill luck as she begins one of her most important tournaments for many months. Dogged by illness, injury, and indifferent form, Kvitova landed an opener against one of her best friends. The Czech left-hander was originally drawn against Misaki Doi, the 48th-ranked Japanese player, but after a redraw was required by the withdrawal of the third-seeded Simona Halep, Kvitova found herself saddled with an encounter with last year's French Open runner-up, Lucie Safarova. Story continues The two have known each other since their childhood days in Moravia and still train at the same club. Later, Belinda Bencic, another young prospect who could do well in this grass court season, spoke of her comeback after two months out with injury. "I believe I can beat all these opponents," said the 19-year-old Swiss, the youngest player in the world's top 10. "The first time I played Serena I had too much respect for her," said Bencic, who notably beat the world number one in Toronto 10 months ago. "But now I try to ignore who she is, and just play point after point." Bencic played four matches on grass in her comeback at den Bosch last week after a back injury, and hopes to do even better here. She does though have a possible quarter-final with Karolina Pliskova, the winner of the grass court title at Nottingham last week, and, as the fourth seed, has a projected semi-final with the top-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, the former Wimbledon finalist from Poland. BIRMINGHAM, England (AP) -- Madison Keys showed her ability to make an impact on the new grass court season with a 7-6 (3), 6-4 victory over Timea Babos on Monday in the first round of the Aegon Classic. The 21-year-old Floridian, described last year as a future world number one by Serena Williams, moved swiftly into a 5-2 lead against a Hungarian opponent who beat her in the Wimbledon warmup event two years ago. Keys then faltered while trying to serve out for the set, and trailed 3-0 in the tiebreaker. ''I was rushing too much,'' Keys said. ''But after that I got a read on her serve and served better myself. The combination saw her ease through to the second round of the tournament in central England. ''I'm more confident after the clay court season when I learnt how to figure stuff out better,'' she said, referring to a sequence in Rome where she won a semifinal against Garbine Muguruza, who shortly afterward became the French Open champion. ''I would like to think I can win a trophy or two, but the main thing for me is to focus on consistency.'' Keys could face Petra Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion, in the quarterfinals. Belinda Bencic, the youngest player in the top 10 at 19 years old, showed that she also talks a good game ahead of her opening match Tuesday. Bencic made her comeback after two months out with four matches on grass at Den Bosch in the Netherlands last week and begins against Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania. The fourth-seeded Swiss player said she can improve on that performance this week. Bencic is also hoping for a chance to repeat her Toronto victory last year over Serena Williams, who is not in Birmingham. ''I gave her too much respect when I first played her but now try to ignore who she is,'' Bencic said. ''I wouldn't want to play her at Wimbledon this year because it would be something like in the first round. But it might be nice to beat her in the final one day.'' Kim Kardashian has taken to Twitter to make a heartfelt plea for gun control in the wake of the mass shooting that left 50 dead in Orlando, Florida on Sunday morning. "I'm truly at a loss for words. To everyone in Orlando affected by this massacre, my thoughts, love, & prayers are with u," she tweeted to her more than 45 million followers on Sunday morning. I'm truly at a loss for words. To everyone in Orlando affected by this massacre, my thoughts, love, & prayers are with u Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 12, 2016 The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star weighed back in to the debate later in the day with a series of tweets expressing outrage at America's lack of gun regulation. "Under current federal law people on terror watch lists can legally buy guns -- this is called the Terror Gap," she wrote. "We have repeatedly called on Congress to close this loophole that makes it easy for dangerous people to get guns & kill. Nothing has changed!!!! People continue to senselessly die. When will these gun laws be changed?!" Under current federal law people on terror watch lists can legally buy guns this is called the Terror Gap Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 12, 2016 We have repeatedly called on Congress to close this loophole that makes it easy for dangerous people to get guns & kill. Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 12, 2016 Nothing has changed!!!! People continue to senselessly die. When will these gun laws be changed?!?!?!?!!!!????? Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 12, 2016 According to the Everytown for Gun Safety website, an organization working towards ending gun violence, a bill to close the terror gap loophole was blocked in the Senate in December 2015. Story continues Kardashian retweeted others expressing similar sentiments, including one from popular YouTuber Troye Sivan about Australia's successful response to a mass shooting by enacting gun control measures. In that case, a shooter killed 35 people in a small Tasmanian town with an AR-15 rifle, the same make as reportedly used in the Orlando shootings this weekend, as well as in other recent mass shootings in the U.S. The fact that someone on the FBI's watch list was able to purchase firearms legally tells you just how flawed the system is. Tracy Nguyen Romulus (@tracyromulus) June 12, 2016 There was 1 mass shooting in Australia in 97. Laws were put in place & guns were bought back by the gov. How many mass shootings since? 0 Troye Sivan (@troyesivan) June 11, 2016 The AR-15 was used in Orlando, the same military assault weapon that was used in Sandy Hook, Oregon, SanBernardino and Aurora. Tracy Nguyen Romulus (@tracyromulus) June 12, 2016 This isn't the first time the 35-year-old reality star has made her thoughts on gun control well known on social media. Last year, Kardashian took to Twitter after it emerged that David Conley, a man who fatally shot his ex-wife, her six children and her husband, was able to buy the ammunition he used in the shootings online. Other celebrities have also come out in favor of stricter gun laws. Notably, Amy Schumer made an emotional speech against gun violence after a man opened fire last year during a screening of her movie, Trainwreck, killing two women. See what Schumer had to say in the clip below. Related Articles In sync with its strategy to exit from its Canadian operations, Kimco Realty Corporation KIM announced the sale of its interests in a 17-property Canadian portfolio. The New Hyde Park, NY-based retail real estate investment trust (REIT) sold this property, covering an area of 1.8 million square feet, to the Vancouver, Canada-based real estate development and investment company Anthem Properties Group Ltd. for CAD $413.2 million (USD $324 million). Growth Strategy Notably, per the 2020 Vision, the company aims at owning high-quality portfolio in major, metro markets in the U.S and at the same time plans to gradually wind off its operations in Mexico, Latin America and Canada. In fact, since Dec 31, 2015, the REIT sold 26 properties in Canada, which accounted for 85% of the net operating income of the company in the country. Further, in addition to the latest sale, Kimco also sold its interests in two shopping centers in Canada for CAD $99.3 million during second-quarter 2016. These sales are in sync with the strategy of the company to completely exit from the Canadian market by the end of 2016. Kimco along with its subsidiaries is one of the major owners and operators of neighborhood and community shopping centers in the U.S. The company reported first-quarter 2016 adjusted funds from operations (FFO) per share of 37 cents, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate and a penny higher than the prior-year quarter. KIMCO REALTY CO Price KIMCO REALTY CO Price | KIMCO REALTY CO Quote Zacks Rank & Other Stocks to Consider The stock presently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). However, investors interested in the REIT sector can consider stocks like Retail Opportunity Investments Corp. ROIC, Saul Centers Inc. BFS and Urban Edge Properties UE. Each of these stocks carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Note: FFO, a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs, is obtained after adding depreciation and amortization and other non-cash expenses to net income. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report KIMCO REALTY CO (KIM): Free Stock Analysis Report SAUL CENTERS (BFS): Free Stock Analysis Report RETAIL OPPURTUN (ROIC): Free Stock Analysis Report URBAN EDGE PROP (UE): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research As details continue to emerge about Omar Mateen the 29-year-old Florida man who has been identified as the gunman in the mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Sunday morning that left 50 people dead, including the shooter media attention has also turned to his father, Seddique Mir Mateen. Seddique Mir Mateen was the source of some early information about his son this weekend, including insight into Omar Mateen's latent homophobia. "[He] saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid, and he got very angry," Seddique Mir Mateen told NBC News, describing a trip his son took to Miami. "They were kissing each other and touching each other, and he said: 'Look at that. In front of my son, they are doing that.'" Seddique Mir Mateen also added that Sunday's shooting "had nothing to do with religion," corroborating accounts from Omar's ex-wife, Sitora Yusifiy, who told the Washington Post her former husband was not devoutly religious but would "beat" her regularly and was "not a stable person." Yet in the days since Sunday's massacre at Pulse nightclub the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history Seddique Mir Mateen has come into the spotlight on his own terms. According to CBS News, he recorded a video on Facebook early Monday in which he expressed sadness over his son's actions. He added that gay people would face God's wrath, but that humans should have nothing to do with executing it. "God will punish those involved in homosexuality," he said according to CBS News, though none of the videos on his Facebook page are in English. "[It's] not an issue that humans should deal with." The CBS News report includes more at times bizarre details about Seddique Mir Mateen, who hosts a TV program on a California-based satellite station, watched primarily by "ethnic Pashtun Afghans living in the U.S. and Europe." T Story continues In the videos Seddiuque Mir Mateen has posted on Facebook of which there are several he often appears wearing military fatigues . He has declared himself the leader of a "transitional revolutionary government" in Afghanistan and claims to run his own intelligence agency, which he says he will use to take control of the country, according to CBS News. "He thinks he runs a government in exile and will soon take the power in Kabul in a revolution," CBS News' Ahmad Mukhtar said. He added that Seddique Mir Mateen might be delusional. A history have now occurred on U.S. soil. South Korea's Lotte Group said Monday it was scrapping an initial public offering worth almost four billion dollars amid a widening investigation into alleged embezzlement by its founding family. Hotel Lotte -- the group's key unit -- had planned to list shares worth at least 4.6 trillion won ($3.9 billion) on Seoul's main stock market in July. But the firm decided to "cancel all the remaining process" and postpone the IPO due to "recent internal and external circumstances", according to its regulatory filing. The Seoul-based group, founded in Tokyo in 1948 by Shin Kyuk-Ho, has a vast network of businesses in South Korea and Japan including department stores, hotels and processed food, with combined assets valued at more than $90 billion. But the group -- currently controlled by Shin's son, Dong-Bin -- has been rocked by widening probes into the Shin family. They face allegations of embezzlement and creating secret slush funds worth tens of millions of dollars. State prosecutors in recent weeks have raided several Lotte units as well as the homes of Shin family members, accusing them of destroying evidence in an attempt to impede investigations. The group has made headlines since last year because of a bitter feud between the founder's two sons. Dong-Bin and his older brother Dong-Joo locked horns over the control of the business empire and launched personal and public attacks on each other for months last year. The dispute ended after the group's board members sided with Dong-Bin but it fanned public resentment at the family-run conglomerates known as "chaebol" which dominate the economy. The chaebol spearheaded South Korea's stellar growth from the ashes of war to become Asia's fourth-largest economy. But they have been denounced for ignoring corporate governance norms and running listed subsidiaries with no apparent concern for shareholders. As public criticism grew of the Shin family, the government last November awarded a lucrative licence previously held by Lotte for a Seoul duty-free store to a rival bidder. All nine Lotte subsidiaries currently listed on the Seoul stock exchange dropped heavily on Monday, losing more than one trillion won in combined valuations in one day. Keeping up with the Kardashian and Jenner girls' love lives and boyfriends is a full-time job these days. Just when you thought one sister had broken up with her boyfriend, another sibling starts hanging out with him. It's so confusing. The most recent sister-ex run-in includes Kylie Jenner. Kylie was spotted on Sunday night with Khloe Kardashian's ex, French Montana, in Hollywood, California. She was seen leaving The Nice Guy restaurant with Khloe's former bae, before the two hopped into Kylie's red Porsche. WATCH: Kylie Jenner Still Isn't Over Tyga Khloe and French were linked in 2014 (and broke up in December 2014), and have kept things cordial since their split. In fact, French just appeared in an episode of the family's reality series, where he awkwardly ran into Khloe at the home of Kourtney Kardashian's ex-boyfriend, Scott Disick. Although it looked a little strange when the former couple saw one another, it's definitely not uncommon for the close-knit family to see each other's former flames. Photographer Group/Splash News Despite no longer dating Kylie's sister, French looked happy while spending time with the cosmetic guru over the weekend. The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star let French drive her car as they took Snapchat videos together. The rapper even bought Kylie a bouquet of red roses from a lady selling them on the side of the road. "Aw, French. Stop! Stop!" Kylie said in the video when he decided to surprise her with the flowers. WATCH: Khloe Kardashian Goes to Strip Club With Her Ex French Montana French isn't the only guy the 18-year-old has hanging out with since her split from Tyga in May. While she is not romantically involved with Khloe's ex, she has been linked to up-and-coming rapper PartyNextDoor. "Kylie is just living her life right now and having fun," a source told ET about Kylie's relationship with the rapper. Meanwhile, Kylie has also found the time to post even more sexy photos than usual, including a few where she shows off her, um, assets. Story continues "Ernie," Jenner captioned an Instagram photo where she shared more than her new puppy. The young star strategically revealed a cute angle of her dog, while serving up some serious skin in her cut-off jeans. When Kylie isn't posting sexy pics in her bikini or of her behind poking through her jeans, she's proving that being makeup-free can be a great thing. See her stunning fresh-faced look below. Related Articles * Banks say attack targets whole sector * Bombing follows closure of accounts seen as Hezbollah-linked * Hezbollah condemns move, linked to U.S. law (adds quotes, background) By Tom Perry BEIRUT, June 13 (Reuters) - Lebanon's prime minister said on Monday a bomb attack at a major bank had harmed national security after an incident seen as a dangerous escalation of a crisis over a U.S. law targeting the finances of Shi'ite group Hezbollah. The bombing outside the main Blom Bank building in Beirut on Sunday night, which caused damage but no fatalities, followed the closure of accounts considered to be linked to the group by banks afraid of being shut out of the international financial system. Noone has claimed responsibility for the attack. Hezbollah, proscribed by the United States as a terrorist organisation and fighting in the civil in neighbouring Syria as a vital ally of President Bashar al-Assad, reacted angrily last month to the U.S. measures aimed at cutting off its funding. The U.S. law, passed in December, threatens to bar from the American financial market any bank that knowingly engages with Hezbollah. The group has not commented on the bombing. The U.S. law has ignited an unprecedented standoff between the central bank and Hezbollah, which views it as a breach of sovereignty. The banks say they have no choice. Blom Bank has closed more accounts than other banks as a result of the legislation, Lebanese officials say. At a meeting with the finance minister and central bank governor, Prime Minister Tammam Salam said the attack "rose to the level of damaging the national security of Lebanon". The banking sector was "the fundamental dynamo" of the economy and "one of the main pillars of the state in light of the paralysis suffered by the constitutional institutions", he added, according to a government statement. CENTRAL BANK ROLE The central bank is widely seen as one of the only effective institutions in the weak state afflicted by political crisis since the onset of the Syria war in 2011. The banking sector is vitally important to Lebanon as a conduit for billions of dollars of annual remittances that keep its economy afloat. Story continues Monday's government statement expressed confidence in central bank measures taken to preserve the financial sector's immunity and credibility. The U.S. law poses an unprecedented financial challenge to the powerful Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanon and has ministers in Salam's unity government. Though analysts say Hezbollah itself can operate without bank accounts, the situation is seen as carrying a political cost as it affects its support base in the Shi'ite community. Hospitals are among social institutions deemed linked to Hezbollah that have had their accounts closed, sources familiar with the matter say. There is also a risk to institutions and individuals dealing with such hospitals, including their staff, insurance firms and suppliers of medical equipment. Societies affiliated to Hezbollah run hospitals, schools and other social institutions and the group says the measures are targeting the entire Shi'ite community. "They won a military war, they won a political war, but they cannot win a financial war," said one Lebanese banker, discussing the matter on condition of anonymity. "They have to find ways to work in the shadows but the problem is that whoever deals with them will be under scrutiny." "The banks have no choice. They will not accept not to implement the sanctions because for them their survival is more important. If the Americans say to a bank: 'you are out of the banking system', the bank will default because it will be shut down from transactions in dollars," the banker added. When the law first came into effect, Lebanese banks began closing accounts, including of Hezbollah officials, themselves. The central bank subsequently issued a directive requiring the banks to refer accounts considered linked to Hezbollah to an investigative unit before any measure is taken. In a statement issued last week, Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc stepped up its attack on central bank governor Riad Salameh for "ambiguous and suspicious" statements, and said Hezbollah's education and health institutions could not be undermined. In an interview with CNBC last week, Salameh said the central bank was making sure banks had really studied account activity before any decisions are taken. "The law is being implemented," he said. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Shi'ite politician and Hezbollah ally, said the attack on Blom Bank had targeted "Lebanon firstly, and Hezbollah secondly". Nabil Boumonsef, a commentator with An-Nahar newspaper, said the bombing meant the crisis had now become a security issue. "Its danger is that it is connected to the most important, and I can even say the last bastion of protection for Lebanon's social, political and economic stability - the banking sector." (Reporting by Tom Perry, Samia Nakhoul, Laila Basam; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Catherine Evans, Hugh Lawson and Philippa Fletcher) Marine Gen. James N. Mattis is something of a legend in the US military. Looked at as a warrior among Marines, and well-respected by members of other services, he's been at the forefront of a number of engagements. He led his battalion of Marines in the assault during the first Gulf war in 1991, and commanded the task force charging into Afghanistan in 2001. In 2003, as a Major General, he once again took up the task of motivating his young Marines to go into battle. One day before beginning the assault into Iraq, on March 19, 2003, every member of 1st Marine Division received this letter, written in Mattis' own hand. In the letter, he tells them, "on your young shoulders rest the hopes of mankind." He conveys a sense of staying together and working as a team, writing, "keep faith in your comrades on your left and right and Marine Air overhead. Fight with a happy heart and a strong spirit." He finally signs off with the motto of 1st Marines: "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy." You can see the full letter below: general mattis marines letter iraq NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEN BERET: Essential survival tips that could save your life More From Business Insider The mass shooting that took place in Orlando on Saturday, killing at least 50 people and wounding 53 others, was not only the worst such incident in U.S. history but also a seemingly targeted attack on the LGBT community. Not only did the gunman 29-year-old Omar Mateen choose a gay nightclub as his target, he reportedly did so after getting very angry when he saw two men kissing in public, according to an interview with his father. Celebrities and public figures from the LGBT community were at the forefront of the national and global mourning of the attack, with many of them sharing messages of support and condolence on social media. Actor-director George Takei of Star Trek fame, a longtime advocate for LGBT rights, said he was devastated by the attack and expressed support for the victims and their families. British musician Sir Elton John also took to Twitter to express his grief, sharing a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. along with a message of solidarity. Apple CEO Tim Cook, who came out in late 2014, added his voice to the outpouring of grief, as did actors Neil Patrick Harris and Kristian Nairn (known for his role as Hodor on Game of Thrones) Two prominent individuals from the transgender community, Orange is the New Black actress Laverne Cox, and former Olympian and reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, also grieved. Comedienne Ellen Degeneres, meanwhile, summed up her reaction to the horrific attack in one word. Microsoft has, erm, a checkered history with acquisitions. It bought Nokia for $7.2 billion in 2014, then had a $7.6 billion write down on that business a year later. It bought Yammer for $1 billion, but failed to develop the enterprise messaging application, and now Slack is poised to own the enterprise chat space. It paid $6 billion for ad tech company aQuantive, then wrote that down. So, Microsoft's decision to pay $26.2 billion for LinkedIn has a few people raising their eyebrows thinking Microsoft is about to make another massive mistake. And those people could be right! This could be yet another big mess. However, there's reason to believe this time is going to be different. And that reason is Satya Nadella , Microsoft's relatively new CEO. All of the previous deals that failed were executed by Steve Ballmer , Microsoft's former CEO who had a different view of the world. Ballmer was more of a top-down, autocratic leader, whereas Nadella has embraced partnerships and has taken a more open approach to Microsoft's business. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner seems to be aware that people would wonder about whether or not Microsoft will do a good job running the professional social media site. To that end, in a lettter to employees he said: When Satya first proposed the idea of acquiring LinkedIn, he said it was absolutely essential that we had alignment on two things: Purpose and structure. On the former, it didn't take long before the two of us realized we had virtually identical mission statements. For LinkedIn, it was to connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful, and for Microsoft it was to empower every individual and organization in the world to achieve more. Essentially, we're both trying to do the same thing but coming at it from two different places: For LinkedIn, it's the professional network, and for Microsoft, the professional cloud. ... Turning from purpose, we focused our attention on potential structure. I had no idea what Satya was going to propose, but knew how difficult acquisition integrations could be if not established the right way from the start. Story continues Long story short, Satya had me at "independence." In other words, his vision was to operate LinkedIn as a fully independent entity within Microsoft, a model used with great success by companies like YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. I would remain as CEO and report directly to him instead of a board. Together, along with Reid [Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn], Bill Gates, my former colleague Qi Lu, and new partner Scott Guthrie, we would partner on how best to leverage this extraordinary combination of assets while pursuing a shared mission. This, we both agreed, might not only be a structure that could work, it would be one in which both companies could thrive. In other words, Weiner believes LinkedIn will be given room to operate freely, which he thinks means LinkedIn will thrive, not wither at Microsoft. More From CNBC December 15th, 2008, marked the first day of the best job Ive ever had. My rationale for joining LinkedIn was simple: The opportunity to work with Reid Hoffman, a founder I greatly admired and respected; to join an extremely talented and dedicated team; and to massively scale LinkedIns membership and business, both of which had the potential to fundamentally transform the way the world connects to opportunity. Never in my wildest dreams, could I have imagined what would happen in the next 7 years. Our team has grown from 338 people to over 10,000, our membership from 32M to over 433M and our revenue from $78M to over $3 billion. Despite those accomplishments, weve only just begun to realize our full potential and purpose: Our mission to connect the worlds professionals to make them more productive and successful, and our vision to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Todays announcement, that LinkedIn will be combining forces with Microsoft, marks the next step in our journey together, the next stepping stone toward realizing our mission and vision, and in remaining CEO of the company, the next chapter in the greatest professional experience of my life. No matter what youre feeling now, give yourself some time to process the news. You might feel a sense of excitement, fear, sadness, or some combination of all of those emotions. Every member of the exec team has experienced the same, but weve had months to process. Regardless of the ups and downs, weve come out the other side knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is the best thing for our company. Let me explain why. Every day I come to work, Im primarily guided by two things: First, realizing our mission and vision. While this has always been top of mind for me, its never been more so than now. Remember that dystopian view of the future in which technology displaces millions of people from their jobs? Its happening. In the last three weeks alone, Foxconn announced it will replace 60,000 factory workers with robots, a former CEO of McDonalds said given rising wages, the same would happen throughout their franchises, Walmart announced plans to start testing drones in its warehouses, and Elon Musk predicted fully autonomous car technology would arrive within two years. Whether its worker displacement, the skills gap, youth unemployment, or socio-economic stratification, the impact on society will be staggering. Ive said it on multiple occasions and believe it even more so every day: creating economic opportunity will be the defining issue of our time. Thats why Im here and why I cant imagine doing any other job. Simply put, what we do matters, and matters more than ever. The second thing I focus on every day is making our culture and values come to life. Ten years ago, had you asked me about culture and values I would have rolled my eyes and recited a line from Dilbert. But when I started as CEO I began to appreciate just how important they were. Culture and values provide the foundation upon which everything else is built. They are arguably our most important competitive advantage, and something that has grown to define us. Its one thing to change the world. Its another to do it in our own unique way: Members first. Relationships matter. Be open, honest and constructive. Demand excellence. Take intelligent risks. Act like an owner. Thats who we are. Thats LinkedIn. I primarily focus on these two things, because thats all I ever wanted when I was in your shoes: A clear sense of purpose and the opportunity to be successful in pursuit of that purpose. Thankfully, in my current role, I can actually do something about that. In order to pursue our mission and vision, and to do so in a way consistent with our culture and values, we need to control our own destiny. That, above all else, is the most important rationale behind todays announcement. At this point, some of you may be thinking this sounds completely counterintuitive: How will we be more likely to control our own destiny after being acquired? The answer lies in both the way in which the world has been evolving and the unique way in which this deal will be structured. Imagine a world where were no longer looking up at Tech Titans such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook, and wondering what it would be like to operate at their extraordinary scale because were one of them. Imagine a world where were not reacting to the intensifying competitive landscape were leading it with advantages most companies can only dream of leveraging. Imagine a world where were not pressured to compromise on long-term investment, hesitant to disrupt ourselves, or hamstrung in the way we can reward and acquire new talent due to stock price concerns, but consistently investing intelligently toward the realization of our mission and vision. And imagine a world where a global economic downturn doesnt limit our ability to execute, but reinforces the essential quality of our purpose and actually strengthens our resolve when people need us most. With todays news, we wont need to imagine any of it because its now our reality. Some of you may be asking Why Microsoft? Long before Satya and I first sat down to talk about how we could work together, I had publicly shared my thoughts on how impressive his efforts were to rapidly transition Microsofts strategy and culture. After all, its extremely rare to see a company of that scope and scale move so quickly to make fundamental changes. The Microsoft that has evolved under Satyas leadership is a more agile, innovative, open and purpose-driven company. It was that latter point that first had me thinking we could make this work, but it was his thoughts on how wed do it that got me truly excited about the prospect. When Satya first proposed the idea of acquiring LinkedIn, he said it was absolutely essential that we had alignment on two things: Purpose and structure. On the former, it didnt take long before the two of us realized we had virtually identical mission statements. For LinkedIn, it was to connect the worlds professionals to make them more productive and successful, and for Microsoft it was to empower every individual and organization in the world to achieve more. Essentially, were both trying to do the same thing but coming at it from two different places: For LinkedIn, its the professional network, and for Microsoft, the professional cloud. Both of us recognized that combining these assets would be unique and had the potential to unlock some enormous opportunities. For example: And these are just some of the ideas that have been discussed since our first meeting. Turning from purpose, we focused our attention on potential structure. I had no idea what Satya was going to propose, but knew how difficult acquisition integrations could be if not established the right way from the start. Long story short, Satya had me at independence. In other words, his vision was to operate LinkedIn as a fully independent entity within Microsoft, a model used with great success by companies like YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp. I would remain as CEO and report directly to him instead of a board. Together, along with Reid, Bill Gates, my former colleague Qi Lu, and new partner Scott Guthrie, we would partner on how best to leverage this extraordinary combination of assets while pursuing a shared mission. This, we both agreed, might not only be a structure that could work, it would be one in which both companies could thrive. Now onto the most important question: What does this mean for you specifically as an employee of LinkedIn? Given our ability to operate independently, little is expected to change: Youll have the same title, the same manager, and the same role you currently have. The one exception: For those members of the team whose jobs are entirely focused on maintaining LinkedIns status as a publicly traded company, well be helping you find your next play. In terms of everything else, it should be business as usual. We have the same mission and vision; we have the same culture and values; and Im still the CEO of LinkedIn. I wanted to conclude on a familiar note. One of the most memorable moments Ive experienced at LinkedIn was ringing the bell at the NYSE. I remember the All Hands we had following the event like it was yesterday. During that meeting, we reinforced the fact that becoming public was not the end game, but rather a stepping stone in the process of our ultimate objectives. We finished the All Hands with two words that have become LinkedIns unofficial mantra: Next play. In other words, dont dwell on the past, lingering for too long on a lesson learned, or the celebration of a special accomplishment, but rather focus on the task at hand. Its a mantra thats served us well. So, heres to the next stepping stone. Next play. Here are some of the stocks the Yahoo Finance team will be tracking for you today. LinkedIn (LNKD) shares surged in early trading after Microsoft (MSFT) announced it is buying the professional networking site for $ 26.2 billion in cash, or $196 a share. That's a 50% premium of the stock's closing price of $131.08 on Friday. Symantec (SYMC) is buying privately held Blue Coat Systems for about $4.7 billion in cash. The deal will help Symatec beef up cyberdefense technologies and fill the CEO seat that has been vacant since April. Get the Latest Market Data and News with the Yahoo Finance App Visa (V) shares under pressure this morning after Walmart (WMT) announced over the weekend that it would stop accepting Visa in its stores in Canada starting July 18th. The retailer citing "unacceptably high" fees, after the two companies were not able to agree on a fee for transactions. Investors also watching gun stocks following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history in Orlando over the weekend. Shares of Smith & Wesson (SWHC) were sharply higher in early trading. Stocks of gunmakers tend to rise amid concerns of tougher firearm regulations following mass shootings. Apple (AAPL) is making last minute preparations for one of their biggest events of the year, the Worldwide Developers Conference." CEO Tim Cook will deliver the keynote speech later today. Apple is expected to focus on software updates, such as iOS 10, and minor hardware changes. Unfortunately, we may not hear any major changes to the iPhone till September. A hotel booking site has come up with a ranking of the top 40 hotels across five major cities in the US, with brands like the St. Regis, Langham and Rosewood receiving ringing endorsements. UltimateHotels.com, which claims to make independent recommendations, has released a list of the top hotels in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Washington DC and Chicago. Hotels were ranked based on factors such as location, price, value, proximity to landmarks and attractions, unique distinguishing characteristics such as architectural features and design, and overall guest experiences. The list is based on thousands of hotel reviews gleaned from trusted sources and the most respected brands in the travel industry and was developed to provide an edited, curated list of properties. The concept takes a page out of the playbook of The World's 50 Best Restaurants list, which creates a hierarchy of restaurants around the world in a single, powerful ranking. Winners of the 15th edition of the event were to be announced from New York on Monday night. Meanwhile, according to UltimateHotels.com, the top-ranked guest experience in New York can be had at the luxury Casablanca Hotel in Times Square, a boutique hotel that stands out for its warm, European-inspired decor. In San Francisco, the St. Regis takes the top spot for offering modern, luxurious accommodations with style and grace. One of the hotel's most popular attractions? Champagne sabering, an evening ritual in which guests witness the theatrical art sabering a champagne bottle before clinking their flutes of bubbly. Here are the top five hotels in each of the five cities: San Francisco St. Regis Scarlet Huntington Omni Loews Regency White Swan Inn New York Casablanca Hotel Library Hotel Hotel Giraffe Knickerbocker Bryant Park Miami Hotel Beaux Arts Mandarin Oriental Four Seasons Miami JW Marriott Marquis The Shepley Hotel Chicago Langham Virgin Hotel Waldorf Astoria Peninsula Hotel Thompson Hotel Washington DC Rosewood The Jefferson The Hay-Adams Sofitel Fairmont Georgetown For the full list visit https://ultimatehotels.com/. An advertisement that was banned in the U.K. last year for being harmful. Every person around the world most likely sees an advertisement promoting a negative body image every day. Although this is just a simple truth, one thats so common that most people dont even consciously realize it, Londons new mayor wants to change the status quo. Sadiq Khan, who was recently elected to the office, swore during his campaign that he would ban all advertisements promoting unhealthy or unrealistic body images that can demean people, particularly women, the BBC reports. It turns out that he wasnt just pandering for votes. True to his word, Khan took action and starting next month, all body-shaming ads will be banned from the citys transportation network. As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies, Khan said. It is high time it came to an end. Khan made the campaign promise after an ad for a Protein World weight-loss product resulted in a worldwide discussion about the ethics of advertising. Claire Mysko, CEO of the National Eating Disorders Association, agrees that advertisements like these can have a major impact on someones self-image. The causes of eating disorders are complex, but there is no doubt that the advertisements we see every day have an impact. Among American elementary school girls who read magazines, 69 percent say that the pictures influence their concept of the ideal body shape and 47 percent say the pictures make them want to lose weight. Considering that low self-esteem is a big risk factor for developing eating disorders, its vital to ensure that the media and advertising companies are thoughtful when deciding how to promote their brands. London isnt the only city to take steps toward combating the negative effects of harmful ads. Trondheim, Norway, the third-largest city in the country, has banned images that feature scantily clad models in publicly owned spaces in order to eliminate negative body image issues from their population. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, all outdoor advertisements (billboards, etc.) were banned in 2006 as part of the Clean City Law that fought to rid the city of visual pollution. Story continues For eating disorder treatment referrals, visit www.MyNEDA.org or contact the National Eating Disorders Associations helpline: 800-931-2237, Monday Thursday, 9 a.m. 9 p.m. ET, Friday, 9 a.m. 5 p.m. ET. Read This Next: To the Teacher Who Said, But You Look So Normal Follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. On Monday evening, thousands of Londoners came out in solidarity for an Orlando shooting vigil in the historically gay neighborhood of Soho. Crowds gathered in and around gay bars on Old Compton Street, an LGBTQ thoroughfare. "They [gay bars] are more than that," Mark, a 50-year-old truck driver, told the Independent. "They are places of safety. They are like visiting family." A deluge of photos and videos from Monday evening's gathering was shared on Twitter. London turned out today. #LoveIsLovepic.twitter.com/YnDdTgYxtU https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck2gmYlXAAAryJo.jpg:large Orlando ,your friends over in London brought Soho to standstill in your honour. #LoveIsLove XXXXpic.twitter.com/kO7XXKQ6p0 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck2hICCWsAAh_qy.jpg:large The vigil included a performance of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by the London Gay Men's Chorus, which stopped and silenced the surrounding crowds: London Gay Men's Chorus singing Like A Bridge. #LoveWins #LoveIsLove #SohoVigil #Orlandopic.twitter.com/hGkDKb1fwq Just for the Twitter. Amazing post-silence song from @LdnGMC #Orlando #London #loveislove #LoveWinspic.twitter.com/X0hKahqVG2 London vigil for #OrlandoShooting victims now. #LoveIsLovepic.twitter.com/SQI1Q4HNzu Solidarity from London to #Orlando #loveislovepic.twitter.com/zCSmFY6Cm6 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck2nydnXIAALfvC.jpg:large Absolutely packed on the streets of Soho - we're here at London Stands with Orlando vigil #LoveIsLovepic.twitter.com/kAb9sjYLPI https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck2daCfWYAAGRIe.jpg:large Yes! So proud of London!! #Loveislove #morenowthanever!!#Sohopic.twitter.com/PnFX4nkbJu https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck2cM5AWUAEiOYe.jpg:large The shooting, which occurred early Sunday morning at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was the worst in modern U.S. history and left 50 people dead, including the shooter, and at least 53 injured. Cities around the world including Sydney, Tel Aviv, New York and Orlando, among myriad others paid tribute to the LGBTQ community with rainbow lighting displays on prominent buildings and landmarks. The massacre has largely been seen as an attack on the LGBTQ community, and regarded as a hate crime. Members and alliances of the LGBTQ community, therefore, have become a significant part of memorializing the lives lost in Orlando. One stock that might be an intriguing choice for investors right now is Louisiana-Pacific Corp. LPX. This is because this security in the Building Products - Wood space is seeing solid earnings estimate revision activity, and is in great company from a Zacks Industry Rank perspective. This is important because, often times, a rising tide will lift all boats in an industry, as there can be broad trends taking place in a segment that are boosting securities across the board. This is arguably taking place in the Building Products - Wood space as it currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 15 out of more than 250 industries, suggesting it is well-positioned from this perspective, especially when compared to other segments out there. Meanwhile, Louisiana-Pacific is actually looking pretty good on its own too. The firm has seen solid earnings estimate revision activity over the past month, suggesting analysts are becoming a bit more bullish on the firms prospects in both the short and long term. LOUISIANA PAC Price and Consensus LOUISIANA PAC Price and Consensus | LOUISIANA PAC Quote In fact, over the past month, current quarter estimates have risen from 22 cents per share to 23 cents per share, while current year estimates have risen from 58 cents per share to 60 cents per share. This has helped LPX to earn a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), further underscoring the companys solid position. So, if you are looking for a decent pick in a strong industry, consider Louisiana-Pacific. Not only is its industry currently in the top third, but it is seeing solid estimate revisions as of late, suggesting it could be a very interesting choice for investors seeking a name in this great industry segment. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report LOUISIANA PAC (LPX): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research For Perth Grammar School in Tayside, Scotland, there's not just one, but a flock of bullies snatching up students' lunches. Seagulls have reportedly been swooping down to the outdoor lunch tables and sneaking off with students' and staff's sustenance, according to the Independent. Source: Giphy Thankfully, a lunchtime hero, Spiney the Harris' hawk, was hired to save the day (and the snacks). The school dedicated nearly $10,000 to employ Spiney to offer his watchful, seagull-scaring eye during lunchtime. Not Spiney himself, but another Harris Hawk is pictured here. Harris' hawks are powerful hunters, and not a friend to other winged creatures. They hunt small mammals like squirrels, rabbits, wood rats and kangaroo rats, and also go after medium-sized birds like quail and woodpeckers, according to Audubon. "The council arranged for hawking activity to take place at Perth Grammar School as a pest control measure to deter seagulls which had been nesting on site and causing a nuisance to pupils, staff and visitors," a Perth and Kinross Council spokesperson told the Independent. A photo posted by Cheezburger (@cheezburger) on Dec 30, 2015 at 4:31pm PST The spokesperson said that Spiney's term is now over, and the school will look into other measures, like disrupting seagull nesting, to prevent future lunch snatching. Spiney's legacy will join that of other birds of prey who've helped to keep pests away. At past Wimbledon matches, a beloved hawk named Rufus was employed as a security guard to keep pigeons from landing on the courts. Rufus was such a help and a hit with fans, beer brand Stella Artois featured him in a commercial: Mourners gathered in Madrids Plaza Pedro Zerolo on Sunday, June 12, to remember the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting. About 200 people attended the quickly-organized vigil, according to local news reports. The mourners waved rainbow flags and lit candles in honor of the victims. A gunman walked into Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, around 2am on Sunday, opening fire. He killed 49 people and injured another 53 people. People held vigils and memorials across the world to honor the dead. Credit: YouTube/Jose Ramon Caracas (AFP) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's allies on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block the opposition's effort to organize a recall vote against him, alleging fraud in the collection of signatures. Jorge Rodriguez, the head of a panel appointed by the president to oversee the recall push, said he had filed a complaint asking the high court, which is seen as close to Maduro, to "protect Venezuelans' constitutional rights" by intervening. The opposition, which accuses Maduro of driving the country to the brink of economic collapse, is racing to call a referendum on sacking him by the end of the year. It has submitted a petition with 1.8 million signatures to start the lengthy process. Electoral authorities accepted 1.3 million of them as valid. Last week, they said they would proceed to the next stage: verifying those 1.3 million signatories' identity with fingerprint scans. Speaking to journalists outside the Supreme Court, Rodriguez said it would be "perpetrating a brutal fraud to authorize (the opposition) to proceed to the next stage" of the process. But he did not elaborate on the scope of the complaint or the specific action it sought. "What we're seeking is the defense of the constitution. This farce put on (by the opposition)... was trying to create a climate where violence would erupt," he said. With Venezuela racked by shortages of food, medicine and electricity, the opposition has warned the country risks exploding into unrest if authorities do not allow a recall vote. It is racing to complete the process by January 10, the cutoff to trigger new elections. After that date, a successful recall vote would pass power to Maduro's vice president. college students classroom The ACT college examination was canceled in South Korea and Hong Kong, China, last weekend because of suspected cheating, The New York Times reported. "ACT received credible evidence of the breach on Friday, June 10, and made the decision to cancel the test centers soon after," Edward R. Colby, a spokesman for ACT, told The Times. "This is the first known cancellation of an ACT test administration in an entire country," he continued. The breach, related to leaked testing materials, affected 5,500 students at 56 test centers in the two countries, according to The Times. The test was canceled mere hours before students were set to take the exam. The test will not be rescheduled, and students will have to wait until September to take it, according to The Washington Post. The ACT acknowledged that this will affect students who were currently under college-admissions deadlines. "If you are facing college application deadlines, you may provide a copy of this message to colleges to which you applied as verification that you were registered for the June 11, 2016, test date," the ACT said in a statement, which was printed in full by The Post. Read the full ACT statement below: To: All examinees registered to take the June 11, 2016, ACT in South Korea and Hong Kong This letter serves to inform you that ACT is cancelling the June 11, 2016, administration of the ACT test at all test centers in South Korea and Hong Kong. ACT has just received credible evidence that test materials intended for administration in these regions have been compromised. Accordingly, ACT took the difficult but appropriate step of cancelling the test event to ensure the fairness of the exam for all examinees. The June 11 test date will not be rescheduled. Please do not report to the test center or contact the school. ACT will issue an automatic refund of your June registration fees. Story continues If you would like to test on a future ACT test date, registration for the 2016/2017 test dates will open the week of June 20th.If you are facing college application deadlines, you may provide a copy of this message to colleges to which you applied as verification that you were registered for the June 11, 2016, test date. We deeply regret that you are affected by this unfortunate situation and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience it may cause you. Please direct any questions concerning your registration or the information in this message to ACT-reg@act.org. Thank you, ACT Test Administration NOW WATCH: We took a Louisiana literacy test and failed spectacularly More From Business Insider Chuck Schumer Senate Democrats pledged on Monday to reintroduce a bill banning people on the terror watch list from buying weapons in the aftermath of Sunday morning's massacre at an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The massacre left at least 49 people dead and dozens more wounded. It was the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The suspected gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, was born in the US to Afghan parents, and, according to his father, was recently disturbed by seeing two men kissing in Miami. The shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism, as Mateen allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS and other terrorist organizations before the attack. The FBI confirmed that it had conducted two terror-related investigations into Mateen in recent years. During a Monday conference call, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said that, if the bill was passed when first brought before the Senate in December, then the terrorist attack would've been avoided. In December, just one day following the San Bernardino, California, attacks, Senate Republicans rejected the bill stopping suspected terrorists from buying weapons. The counterargument to the bill is that, since people can be placed on the terror watch list also referred to as the no-fly list without due process, then a citizen could be stripped of his or her Second Amendment right without due process. The bill failed on a 54-45 party-line vote. North Dakota Sen. Heidi Headlamp was the lone Democrat to vote against the bill while Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk was the lone Republican to vote in favor of it. Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, did not vote. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein sponsored the legislation, and argued, as she did again during the Monday conference call, that former President George W. Bush initially proposed the legislation in 2007. "Now that we have lone wolves inspired by ISIL, even more [see] the reason to do this than ever before," Schumer said. "It made sense 10 years ago, it makes even more sense today." Story continues The Democratic senator said that the bill might be tucked into a recent appropriations bill brought before the Senate by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid also insisted on Monday that his party will be bringing the bill before Congress "as soon as possible." "We're just asking for people to come into this country and go out and buy a gun," Feinstein said during the call with reporters, later adding, "Even if you're a suspected terrorist, you can go out and buy a gun. And that's just not right. So I hope there will be a change." hillary clinton Both presumptive presidential nominees, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, voiced their opinions on this issue during dueling Monday speeches. Trump promised to do nothing in regards to promoting gun-control legislation, while Clinton expressed solidarity with the Democratic senators. Clinton said: If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, then you shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. You shouldn't be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. And yes, if you're too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America. Schumer insisted on Monday that the bill will do better this time around. He said: The bottom line is we have to keep trying, and I believe our Republican colleagues, particularly so many of them now in a difficult political season, are going to find it very very difficult [to vote against the bill]. We've had two incidents: San Bernardino and now Orlando where this type of legislation would be relevant, making sure the terrorists don't get guns. He added that the bill will include provisions for a "quick and speedy appeals process" for those placed on the terror watch list. "Believe me," he said. "President Bush wouldn't have put together a bill that took away people's legitimate rights." But, he said, rights don't "trump everything." "We can have both," he continued. "We can have people's rights protected and we can have safety. And that's what this legislation does. As I said, George Bush, who was hardly the strongest advocate of gun control in America, drafted it." Also on the conference call, Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said "all rights have to be balanced." "No right is absolute," he said, adding that the bill "would provide a due process to remove people from the list ... that is an absolute requirement." "Many of our Republican colleagues who are hardline on individual rights on this amendment seem to blow those rights away on other amendments," Schumer said. "Hardly consistent." "In terms of terrorism, this is the most effective piece of legislation we can pass," he continued. NOW WATCH: The head of a domestic violence prevention organization says that gun control could have a huge impact More From Business Insider Netflixs Making a Murderer swept up audiences with the story of Steven Avery, who had previously been exonerated for a crime after spending 18 years in prison, and Brendan Dassey, his nephew, as murder suspects in the killing of Teresa Halbach in 2005. The series brought to the fore questions about the tactics used by law enforcement and the prosecution. But the impact of the Netflix series went beyond stunning audiences and generating a White House petition for the release of Avery. Steven Drizin, who works at the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, is Dasseys current lawyer. [Dassey was convicted of murder, among other charges, in 2007 when he was 17.] Drizin believes he knows why the series has struck a chord with millions of viewers. I think the series has really opened peoples eyes to just how overzealous law enforcement can be in their efforts to gain a conviction at all costs, he says. For Dasseys case in particular, Drizin says, it has raised serious concerns about how police officers interrogate suspects, particularly youthful suspects. The series has also served to educate people about the problem of false and coerced confessions. Not only that, but it has also called into question whether police officers and prosecutors in the zeal to win cases are willing to trample on suspects basic constitutional rights, even to go so far as to plant evidence. On the flipside, while the series has created clouded perspectives about law enforcement, it has uplifted certain areas of the legal system. For the first time, in my lifetime, two of the heroes are criminal defense attorneys [Steven Avery co-counsels] Dean Strang and Jerry Buting. They are being praised for fighting like hell on behalf of a client who was accused of committing the most awful of crimes, Drizin says. You dont see defense attorneys getting that kind of acclaim very often. Drizin thinks that the overall impact of the series has created a chance for Dassey. Story continues The fact that so many people are outraged by what they saw gives me hope that this could be a real opportunity for change, says Drizin. Related stories 2016 Emmys: 'Little Big Shots' May Shake Up Structured Reality Category 2016 Emmy Contenders: Reality Competition 'I Am Cait's' Teen Cast Member Reaches Out to Younger Viewers BAMAKO (Reuters) - A Malian pro-government militia has killed eight Islamist fighters in a gunbattle in northern Mali, two security sources said on Sunday. Clashes between the militia and the Macina Liberation Front erupted on Saturday in Gourma-Rharous village, in the Timbuktu region of Mali which has long been plagued by Islamist militants, a military source and one from the militia told Reuters by telephone. They had no details of how the clashes started. Mali's government and various separatist groups signed a peace deal last year but it has failed to prevent periodic violence in northern Mali by Islamist militants, who have also staged assaults on high profile targets in the capital Bamako, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the Security Council to add just over 2,500 peacekeepers to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed an attack on two U.N. sites in northern Mali at the end of last month, in which a peacekeeper from China and three civilians were killed and over a dozen others wounded. French forces intervened in 2013 to drive back Islamist fighters that had hijacked the Tuareg uprising to seize Mali's desert north in 2012, but it has since proved difficult to prevent Islamists staging deadly attacks. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Ros Russell) A man who police say was arrested with an arsenal of weapons in his car told police he was headed to the Los Angeles Pride celebration. While the Santa Monica police initially indicated that James Howell meant "to harm" the LGBT event in West Hollywood, Lt. Saul Rodriguez later clarified that Howell's intentions are not clear. What police say is clear, however, is that Howell had three assault rifles, high capacity magazines and a five-gallon bucket of a chemical "capable of forming an improvised explosive device," police said. Read: Missing Man Who Sent His Mom Chilling Texts From Inside Orlando Club Is Among The Dead Compounding fears was the horrific attack 2,500 miles away in Orlando earlier in the day, where a gunman killed 49 people in a gay club early Sunday morning. Howell's car was registered in Indiana, where the LA Times reports his family in Jeffersonville hadn't seen him in days. Howell was arrested at 5 a.m. on Sunday after a Santa Monica resident reported a suspect was knocking on their door and window. Read: Orlando Shooting Suspect Omar Mateen's Ex Wife Says He Was Violent and Unstable The weapons were discovered in his car at the time of Howell's arrest, police said in a statement. Police said the investigation is ongoing and the FBI is participating. Following the Orlando incident, West Hollywood City Councilwoman Lindsey Horvath said in a Los Angeles County sheriffs officials were stepping up security at the annual event. However, it was unclear if that was connected to Howell's arrest. Watch: How to Use a Folding Chair to Barricade the Door During a Shooting Related Articles: UPDATE 14 June 2016: The man in question has posted response and deleted his comments. More details here. A man claiming to be a Singaporean father has threatened to open fire in a post on the Facebook page of We Are Against Pinkdot in Singapore. Bryan Lim, who said he is an NSMan, was responding to the post of the anti-LGBT group on the foreign support for the Pink Dot event. On 4 June, Pink Dot held its eighth rally for the LGBT community, which saw a record number of foreign sponsors for the event. In his reply to the post, Lim said, I am a father. And I swore to protect my nation. Without referring to any individuals or group, he added that he would like to see them die for their causes. Meanwhile, Canon Singapore, Lims employer, said on its Facebook page on Monday (13 June) that it is looking into the matter. The Japanese MNC said that it abides by the philosophy of Kyosei, which it defines as all people, regardless of race, religion, or culture, harmoniously living and working together for the common good. As such, we do not condone violence in any form. Thus, we take this issue seriously and are looking into the matter, Canon added. In response to a post by Facebook user Kenneth Tan regarding Lims comments, the police said that a report has been filed and that investigations are ongoing. Last week, the government said that foreign entities should not fund or support events that address domestic issues at the Speakers Corner like Pink Dot. The organisers of Pink Dot said that they have done all they could to ensure Pink Dot SG stays within the law. Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio speaks at a campaign event in Manchester, New Hampshire, February 7, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday that he was thinking about his service to country in the wake of the deadly Orlando terror attack, but declined to speculate on whether it would change his decision not to seek reelection. The Republican senator and former presidential candidate told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt the attack that claimed the lives of 49 victims has impacted his thinking about a lot of things. I havent even given it thought in that perspective other than to say that Ive been deeply impacted by it, and I think when it visits your home state, and it impacts a community you know well, it really gives you pause to think a little bit about, you know, your service to your country and where you can be most useful to your country, Rubio said. We live in a very dramatic moment in our history. I think were at a tipping point here moving into the next election, he continued. So you know, obviously I havent thought about it from a political perspective, but it most certainly has impacted my thinking in general about a lot of things. Hewitt pressed Rubio, asking if he would at least consider running for reelection again. Well, obviously I have a couple of things in play, Rubio said. Its not part of our plan as a family. And certainly wasnt part of, I have a friend of mine who is running for the US Senate. So I want to be fair, Hugh. I havent thought about it in that context. I really dont want to link the two things right now, because I dont want politics to intrude in all of this. I understand, but there are people who know this issue, Hewitt said. You are one of them. Well, as I said, my family and I will be praying about all this, and well see what I need to do next with my life in regards to how I can best serve, Rubio replied. The communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sadie Weiner, knocked Rubio for his comments. Story continues "Its disappointing that Senator Rubio would use this tragedy to raise speculation about his political future, and if he reconsiders anything this week it should be his vote to leave open the terrorist gun loophole and let suspected terrorists continue to have access to guns," Weiner said in a statement to Business Insider. Since dropping out of the 2016 race for the White House, Rubio has been under increasing pressure to seek reelection to his Senate seat. Donald Trump, who relentlessly mocked him on the campaign trail, even posted a tweet urging him to reconsider a run. This story was updated at 3:52 p.m. ET to include comment from the DSCC. NOW WATCH: Watch the Secret Service jump to protect Sanders after 5 protesters rushed the stage More From Business Insider From Cosmopolitan Wil and Anne Wheaton are a normal couple in their mid-40s. They have a number of charming pets whose cuddly mugs pepper their Instagram accounts and a fondness for board games and rescue animals. When Anne met Wil, she had no idea about his days as a reluctant Teen Beat heartthrob, although she remembers seeing Stand by Me in theaters. She didn't know what a Wesley Crusher was. She was a young single mom of two kids when they met, and some 20-odd years later, they've all grown up together. They live in Los Angeles, but they're not of Los Angeles, and the sort of fame they have is borne of the rise of so-called nerd culture, social media, and honest affability. Wil's geek bona fides include his long-time presence online as a personal blogger and an eager embrace of Twitter in its nascent days, not to mention his role on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The rise of comic book culture created a perfect storm where Wil is internet famous enough to end up on The Big Bang Theory after tweeting about it, but not so famous that they're constant prey for paparazzi. Anne is an avid advocate for animals and serves on the board of directors at the Pasadena Humane Society and SPCA; together, they raise money for assorted charities through their organization, The Foundation to Increase Awesome. Between the two of them, they have almost 4 million Twitter followers. In a word, they are #RelationshipGoals. How did you two meet? Wil: It was Dec. 31, 1995, and our friend Stephanie was having a New Year's Eve party that neither one of us wanted to go to. She wasn't trying to set us up. It just kind of happened that we both ended up going to this thing. I saw Anne and she was cute, and I was a nerd and I was afraid to talk to her. Anne: About halfway through the night, our friend comes over to me and she said, "My friend Wil thinks you're cute." My New Year's resolution was no men for six months, so I didn't think anything of it. Then a few days later she invited me to go to the movies with her and her boyfriend, and she said, "Oh, my friend Wil's coming, is that OK?" I'm like, "Yeah, that's cool." And so we've been together ever since. Twenty years later. Story continues Anne, you really didn't know Wil was a famous actor? Anne: I didn't know who he was at all, no idea. It's funny because people just assume I was a Star Trek fan, and that's why we're together. There was a Star Trek convention in London over Easter weekend four months after we met, and he had asked me if I wanted to go with him. I was like, "Sweet, I've never been to London. What's a Star Trek convention?" It was sold out the entire time, and that was my first experience with it. It was so amazing and terrifying at the same time. So what did you think of your first Star Trek convention? Anne: It was a little scary because I didn't know what to expect. There were people that were waiting outside of our hotel, and following us if we were trying to go to dinner or whatever. That was scary to me ... At one point, we were at dinner, and a man walked over when Wil was eating ribs and put his baby on Wil's lap That was jarring to me, and I just got up from the table and went and sat in the bathroom for a few minutes because I was thinking, I cannot believe we can't even just sit down and eat. Wil: It was such a normal part of my life for all of my teens. I just took it for granted. I didn't date very much, and I had friends, but I didn't go out in public very much. I would go to my friend's house and we would play board games, and that was about it. It never even occurred to me that Anne would be like a Muggle at Hogwarts. I'm like, "Well, of course the staircases move. How do you think we get to our rooms?" Being in love with a normal person really put a lot of how fucking weird that shit is into perspective for me, and made it OK for me to say, "You know, world, I don't belong to you. I have limits, respect them." Did you ever worry that attention from fans would be a deal breaker for Anne? Wil: I grew up living a life where it was very normal for me to drop everything at a moment's notice to go on an audition or go to a location. That wasn't normal for Anne, and it was really challenging to find ways to balance those things I still struggle like crazy just to get Hollywood to even acknowledge that I exist, and it was even harder back then. I just felt like, if I don't make myself available to these opportunities when they come around, they're just going go away and never come back. Thankfully that wasn't the case. Wil: There's a whole chapter in my book Just A Geek about that, where Anne and the kids went away for vacation, and I was going to go with them but I had auditions They had a great time, but the auditions were terrible. They weren't just terrible in that I didn't get the jobs, but the people that I went to read for, they didn't care. They didn't care that I was there, and they shouldn't. They shouldn't care that I had sacrificed a great deal to be there - why do they give a shit about that? That's not their problem. That was this moment of realization for me, that I was at a point where I couldn't have both. I made a choice, like, I was going to have a family or I was going to have a failing career. I couldn't have both, and I chose the family, and I started writing. It's worked out more or less. Anne: We actually met with a therapist before we got married, and she asked us to write down in importance the things in our life. Wil wrote career first, and career was at the bottom for me. Career was at the top of his because he spent so much of his childhood working that he thought that had to be the most important thing in his life if he was going to be successful. The one clear thing I remember that she talked to us about was that. Sometimes in your life, the order of importance of those things will juggle, but if you're talking about going into this marriage, what's a priority shouldn't be the career. You need to put your oxygen mask on yourself before you help other people, and your family life and your personal relationships should come first. Anne, what was it like for you when Wil's career was struggling? Anne: He was 23 when I met him, so he was going back to acting and doing all his training. I didn't know what his career was like before. When he was struggling to figure out what he wanted to do, my thought was, I'm just going to work as much as I can so I can help support us while he figures out what he wants to do. I didn't know any different, so I didn't feel like, "How come you don't have the career you had before?" I didn't start dating him or marry him because of success that he had in the past. I just met this person who was young and trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life, because he had started [acting] when he was 7, and then walked away from it when he was 19. He needed to walk away from that when he did. For me, I just wanted him to find something that made him happy. What was it like for you when he first got cast on The Big Bang Theory? Anne: I think it started [because] Wil said something on Twitter about how funny it was. Bill Prady and Steve Molaro, who write and produce it, asked if he'd be interested in being on an episode. I clearly remember standing in my kitchen, I was making us dinner, and he walks in and said, "The writers on Big Bang Theory want to talk to me about being on an episode," and I'm like, "What?!" Just like that? Anne: Half an hour later, he was on the phone with them. They had this idea of Wil playing an evil version of himself, and they wanted to know if Wil was OK with it ... It's really cute because they still get in touch with him if they need a reference on something nerdy. So that's how it first started, because he said something on Twitter about it. We never thought of it as, "Yay! You're going to have a paycheck!" It was just like, "Oh my god, you get to do this really cool thing on a show that we love," and he was so excited. He came home, and he said, "Oh my god, they're all so nice!" He had such a great time. We just thought, what a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And then he was asked to come in again. He still gets super excited when they ask him, but I think it was probably five episodes in where he was like, "Oh my god! They like me, and they want me on this thing!" Do you ever go on set with him? Anne: I've only missed maybe two tapings! I went several times, then our son Ryan went with him one of the times ... I really like it too, and I love seeing how much he loves being part of that, so that's cool. It seems like you guys have all become friends in real life too. Anne: Yeah, they're all the nicest people, and it's so funny because the first couple of times he did some episodes, I asked Wil, "Is Sheldon [Jim Parsons] or Leonard [Johnny Galecki] as nerdy in person?" and he's like, "No, Kaley [Cuoco]'s the nerdiest of all of them!" Anne, what's it like to go to a red carpet when you're not the "star"? Anne: When I first met him, we went the Screen Actors Guild Awards because it was the 30th anniversary for Star Trek. I was terrified. I had my friend do my hair and my makeup. I went out and looked for a dress, and I was a single mom so I couldn't afford anything. But I found this perfect black dress that I loved and it was $400, and I couldn't afford it. My friend had told Wil, and he surprised me and bought it for me. I still have it today! [On the red carpet] I was clutching his arm because I saw Harry Connick Jr. I peed in the bathroom next to Lea Thompson, and that was really bizarre because I loved Back to the Future when I was in high school. I don't know how anyone does it, because I feel like no matter how you look or no matter what you say, you're going to be criticized. Over the years, Wil, you've become more high-profile now that comic book and con culture has become so mainstream. You've become this personality that represents it. How does this affect your relationship? Wil: There's no such thing as a single-edged sword in this particular industry. There are a lot of really terrific things; I'm creatively satisfied most of the time, and I'm able to earn enough to not worry and to help provide for our kids and hire a couple people to work with us to make our lives easier. Anne: It makes things busier, and so it's really important for us that we still make the time for ourselves. The Secret Life of Marrieds is a bi-weekly series of interviews with married couples about the things no one tells you about marriage. This interview was edited for length and clarity. Follow Jenni on Twitter. There are many reasons students may choose to attend a community college before transferring to a four-year college, including career uncertainty and personal situations that require them to remain close to home. Another common reason students choose community college is to boost their likelihood of success when applying to more competitive colleges. Finally, community college can be an excellent first step when returning to school after spending time in the working world. If any of these paths describe you, read on for tips about how you can use your community college experiences to strengthen your application to a top-tier university. 1. Set and achieve specific goals: Success in college depends on your ability to complete projects with minimal supervision. While at community college, work hard on your assignments, and focus on ways to best complete your projects. Set specific goals you would like to accomplish, and do you best to make these a reality. When writing your admissions essay, consider emphasizing your workflow in completing one or more major assignments. Mention your grades on the projects, but primarily focus on the ways you broke the assignments down into manageable pieces or how you led a team in completing a group project. Community college is more difficult than all but the most elite high schools, and outlining your ability to complete this significant challenge can be a major application achievement. You do not necessarily need to have an associate degree or certificate in hand, although that can certainly help. Simply demonstrating your ability to manage complex tasks can suggest just how serious you are about your education. [Learn the seven steps to success at community college.] 2. Learn to overcome challenges: For many students, college is a new beginning. Enrolling and performing well in difficult community college courses can be an excellent way to demonstrate that you are not afraid to stretch yourself, especially because transfer admissions officers are often well aware that students do not always thrive in the strictures of high school. If you can prove that you are taking challenging classes and doing well, you can likewise prove that you are well suited for the rigors of a four-year degree program. Story continues Many college courses will include lab reports, research papers and the like. Do not be afraid to reference these in your personal statement or to include them as supplemental materials in your application. 3. Seek help when necessary: Letters of reference are an important component of your transfer application. As such, it is critical to ensure that you are speaking regularly with your professors and forming personal connections that go beyond class attendance. A professor who can detail your ability to complete assignments on time, your interest in your chosen field of study, and your willingness to contribute to course discussions can build a case for your academic engagement. Ideally, you will have been building these connections from day one. It is never too late, however, to begin attending office hours or to begin speaking up in class. It takes surprisingly little effort to stand out, and you need not have the best grades to do so. Passion and dedication count for much more than grades when it comes to references, and a willingness to seek help is a trait that universities welcome in prospective students. When asking a professor for a reference, be sure to mention that you need the letter to emphasize your skills that will enable success at the next level. [Read three student tips for getting great college recommendation letters.] 4. Embrace mentorship: Some community colleges have formal mentoring programs that match students with professors. Take advantage of this opportunity to gain valuable academic, career and networking advice. Many professors at community colleges are either recent graduates of advanced degree programs or late-career professionals who enjoy teaching. The first category of instructor may have a great deal of insight into the inner workings of colleges and universities. These instructors may be able to connect you to professors at your schools of choice. They also may be able to counsel you on what to look for -- and what to avoid -- when choosing a four-year college. Late-career professors, in contrast, can offer advice on long-term success in your intended field. They can also connect you with internships and recruiters. If you find an instructor who balances book learning with a lifetime of practical experience, do everything you can to learn from this individual. Even if your community college does not offer a formal mentoring program, most professors love to share their knowledge. Stay after class or visit during office hours to establish rapport. [Get tips on transferring from a community college.] Later, when you are writing your personal statement, mention your experiences as a mentee and how these demonstrate your willingness to improve yourself and to work with others to do so. 5. Learn to lead others: The opportunities for leadership in community college are ironically both harder to locate and easier to claim than in high school. Every college has student groups, and most have some form of student government. But since community college students generally stay on campus for less time as well as commute to school, community colleges often have fewer well-defined groups and little or no Greek system. However, there is often less competition for the leadership roles that do exist. Take advantage of these opportunities to become involved and use that experience to bolster your application. Even a semester of leadership can demonstrate your campus involvement, and it can also highlight your ability to manage multiple responsibilities. Regardless of your purpose for attending community college, take stock of the opportunities you have to distinguish yourself. Then when you apply to transfer to a four-year school, be clear in emphasizing how you have grown as a person and as a student. This will significantly strengthen your application. Brian Witte is a professional SAT tutor with Varsity Tutors. He earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Washington and holds a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. From Road & Track A few months ago, the director of Harvard's Center for Health Communication told the New York Times that "We're losing the battle against distracted driving." Anytime somebody in the government-academic-industrial complex says something like that, you can bet that there will soon be a (highly profitable) "weapon" available for that "battle", and sure enough, that's the case. The "textalyzer", developed by the same Israeli firm that made it possible for police to perform possibly unconstitutional and certainly invasive roadside searches of your cell phone's personal data, will tell police if you were texting at the time of a crash. Or right before it. Or ten minutes before it. Or the day before. Whatever's most conducive to the writing of tickets, I suppose. Distracted driving, they say, is the new drunk driving. Which implies that people are no longer being killed by the old drunk driving. I'm not sure that's the case. But I am absolutely of the opinion that drunk driving is now verboten among the middle-upper class. As a child in the Seventies, I grew up thinking that it was perfectly normal to have three or four or six drinks at dinner and then drive home. My parents didn't do it, but their friends did. To this day, some forty years later, I continue to associate the odor of Scotch with the frightening (thirty-year-) old people who would hug me at the end of my mom's dinner parties before steering their Cadillacs and Chryslers besottedly into the night. Those days are long gone. Drunk drivers are still killing people, but the mobile imbibers you seem to hear about or see in the news tend to be uneducated, poor, and already deeply acquainted with the criminal justice system. Not the kind of people who have the ability to pay massive traffic fines without complaint. That woman in the new Lexus SUV who is sitting in traffic with her eyes glued to Instagram? There's somebody who can pay a thousand-dollar ticket without flinching, and she needs to be protected from herself the same way that unenlightened countries that happen to be sitting on massive oil reserves need regime change. Get ready for a Global War On Distracted Driving. It's for the children. Story continues Of the eight cars surrounding me, six of them had drivers who were looking at a handheld screen. Don't get me wrong. There really is a lot of distracted driving going on out there, much of it related to mobile devices. I see it every morning and afternoon as my trusty Honda CB1100 and I stop-and-go through our thirty-two-mile roundtrip commute. This morning I looked around at a red light and realized that, of the eight cars surrounding me, six of them had drivers who were looking at a handheld screen of some type. One particularly enterprising fellow was holding an iPad horizontally, in both hands, and using the pressure of his wrists on the top of the steering wheel to direct the car. He was watching some kind of anime. Or manga. I'm not sure what the difference is. There were spaceships, if that helps. When the light turned green, there was a bit of a pause before anybody started moving. I revved the Honda impatiently a few times before the cars ahead of me began accelerating, very gently, towards the next group of stopped traffic. Nobody seemed to be in much of a hurry. This is par for the course on my commute, and it's very different from the way things were ten or even five years ago. The last time I worked downtown like this, which was back in 2006 or thereabouts, my morning commute was full of drivers swerving wildly from lane to lane, jamming alternately on throttle and brake, glaring out of their windshields with both hands white-knuckled on the wheel. I quit riding a motorcycle in rush hour way back in 2002 because I was sick unto death of being deliberately forced onto the shoulder by road-raging drivers desperate to gain even the smallest of advantages at what seemed to them like the entirely reasonable cost of my life. That sort of thing just doesn't happen any more. Sure, a few times a week I'll have to yield the lane to somebody who isn't paying enough attention to the road to notice a 250-pound man in a high-visibility-yellow armored jacket, but it's rarely done out of malice and usually they'll eventually swerve back into their lanes with an embarrassed wave of whatever hand isn't holding their phone. The plural of anecdote is not data, of course, but as it turns out there is plenty of data to show that "distracted drivers" drive more slowly, are less aggressive in traffic, and are far less interested in passing the cars around them. All that "road rage" that had the media up in arms a few years ago? Turns out you can solve it pretty easily by giving drivers something to watch when they are stopped, or crawling along, in traffic. It has the same pacifying effect that the widespread availability of WiFi on planes has had on annoying conversational sallies from the insurance salesman in the window seat next to you. Speaking strictly as a motorcyclist who has to deal everyday with a plague of two-ton, seventy-inch-tall vehicles moving at 70 miles per hour around him, I'd much rather deal with distracted drivers than angry ones. I have plenty of strategies to keep from being killed by people who aren't paying attention, from watching my mirrors and splitting the lane at stoplights to watching the shoulders of the driver in the lane next to me for the twitch that always precedes an un-signaled lane change. But I have much less ability to avoid people who are driving much faster than the flow of traffic and swerving around out of temper or impatience. I'm not saying that distracted driving is not a problem, and I'm not saying that it's harmless. I'm not saying that distracted driving is not a problem, and I'm not saying that it's harmless. I am, however, suggesting that we use moderation and intelligence in addressing the issue. That won't happen if we let the police and the legislators treat distracted driving like another cash cow to be milked for revenue. Look at speed-limit enforcement. Most of it takes place during the day on open sections of freewaynot because that's where speeding is most dangerous to other motorists, but because that's when it's easiest for cops to write tickets. Five years ago, I was sitting in traffic outside the New York Auto Show. My phone rang and I reached down to pick it up. A cop walked out from the sidewalk and wrote me a ticket. I didn't even pull over, because the cars ahead didn't move an inch in the five minutes it took him to charge me $125 for looking at my phone. After he was done with me, the cop started walking back through the stopped cars looking for other violators. Could he ticket aggressive drivers so quickly and profitably? Of course not. Which explains why there's never been a War On Aggressive Driving, even though it's arguably just as big a problem as distracted driving. So bring on the "textalyzers", and the frivolous ticketing, and all of the hyperbolic, hypocritical justifications. As with most wars, there's going to be an economic component to it, and as with most wars, the ends will justify the means. Born in Brooklyn but banished to Ohio, Jack Baruth has won races on four different kinds of bicycles and in seven different kinds of cars. Everything he writes should probably come with a trigger warning. His column, Avoidable Contact, runs twice a week. Skopje (AFP) - Marijuana-derived medicines became legal on Monday in Macedonia, which joined over a dozen European countries that have already authorised the products for certain patients. Medicines containing less then 0.2 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant's main psychoactive ingredient, can now be prescribed by doctors and bought in pharmacies, the head of Macedonia's agency for medicines Marija Darkovska-Serafimovska told reporters. "This will help a huge number of Macedonian citizens that are fighting serious illnesses and have a need for treatment with nature-based products," Darkovska-Serafimovska said. The medicines are available to patients battling health problems linked with cancer, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. The marijuana-derived products are, however, only accessible under doctors' supervision and with a prescription. "This is not a replacement for medical treatment," Health Minister Nikola Todorov said after parliament passed in May the new law allowing the sales following months of public debate. Other marijuana use remains illegal under Macedonian law. So far 13 European Union nations have legalised marijuana-derived medicines including Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Macedonia applied for EU membership in 2005 but has yet to open accession talks. ORLANDO, FL / ACCESSWIRE / June 13, 2016 / MEDITE Cancer Diagnostics, Inc., (OTCQB: MDIT, the "Company") specializing in the development, manufacturing, and marketing of molecular biomarkers and premium medical devices for detection, risk assessment and diagnosis of cancer and precancerous conditions announces that UNIC Medical, the Company's Chinese distribution partner received May 31, 2016 China FDA approval as a Class I in vitro diagnostic reagent for MEDITE's "SureThin" cell preservation solution. "As China adapts Cytopathology standards across the country, we expect 'Liquid Based Cytology Tests (LBC)' will be used for the majority of Pap collections for cervical cancer screening. We are prepared to sell the complete SureThin products including the already approved Processor to this potential market of 485 million women between the ages of 16 and 64 years of age," stated Michaela Ott, CEO of MEDITE. "MEDITE's brand name for Histology and Cytology products, associated with German engineering and manufacturing is well known throughout China. As a result, we are excited to commence selling MEDITE's cytology products," stated Dr. Zhongxi Zheng, CEO of UNIC Medical a division of UNIC Technologies of China. Dr. Zheng owns 5.2% of Medite Cancer Diagnostics, Inc. About MEDITE Cancer Diagnostics, Inc. MEDITE Cancer Diagnostics Inc., is a Delaware registered company consisting of wholly-own MEDITE GmbH a Germany-based company with its subsidiaries. On April 3, 2014, MEDITE was acquired by former CytoCore, Inc. a biomolecular diagnostics company engaged in the design, development, and commercialization of cost-effective cancer screening systems and Biomarkers to assist in the early detection of cancer. By acquiring MEDITE the company changed from solely research operations to an operating company with a well-developed infrastructure, over 80 employees in four countries, a distribution network to about 70 countries worldwide, a well-known and established brand name and a wide range of products for anatomic pathology, histology and cytology laboratories. Forward Looking Statement This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, regarding future operating performance, events, trends and plans. All statements other than statements of historical fact contained herein, including, without limitation, statements regarding our future financial position, business strategy, budgets, projected revenues and costs, and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward -looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may," "will," "expects," "intends," "plans," "projects," "estimates," "anticipates," or "believes" or the negative thereof or any variation thereon or similar terminology or expressions. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations and projections about future events. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions about us that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause our actual results to differ from our expectations, include but are not limited to, MEDITE's ability to maintain and grow its revenues. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements, as they speak only as of the date made. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and we undertake no obligation to disclose any revision to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date hereof. For more information please visit: www.medite-group.com. Investor Contact: Robert McCullough, Jr. CFO Phone: 407 996 9630 SOURCE: MEDITE Cancer Diagnostics, Inc. Satya Nadella Microsoft is buying LinkedIn in a $26.2 billion mega deal and one bank is helping the company do it. Morgan Stanley is the sole adviser to Microsoft on the deal. Morgan Stanley's lead bankers on the deal are Mike Wyatt, head of global technology mergers and acquisitions, and Drew Guevara, head of global technology investment banking, according to a person familiar with the matter. Wyatt is a managing director at Morgan Stanley. He has been with the firm for 22 years, according to his LinkedIn profile, and has advised on more than 125 transactions, including McAfee's $7.7 billion sale to Intel in 2010. Guevara joined Morgan Stanley from Bear Stearns in 1995, according to his LinkedIn profile, and has helped bring companies including Ingram Micro, SanDisk, and Seagate public. He also counts Amazon, Yahoo, and Zynga among his clients, according to the profile. LinkedIn hired two advisers, the San Francisco-based tech boutique firms Qatalyst Partners and Allen & Co. Veteran dealmaker Frank Quattrone, George Boutros, who took over as CEO from Quattrone earlier this year, Marcie Vu, and Jonathan Turner worked on the deal for Qatalyst: Quattrone worked for Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and Credit Suisse before cofounding Qatalyst, and has advised on more than 500 transactions. His clients include Apple, Google, eBay, and Oracle. He led the IPOs of Amazon, Cisco, and Intuit, according to Qatalyst's website. Boutros took over as CEO of Qatalyst in January. He has previously worked for Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley. Boutros has advised on more than 400 transactions, according to Qatalyst's website, including Google's purchases of YouTube and DoubleClick and Google's deal for Motorola Mobility. Vu, head of consumer-technology banking, worked with LinkedIn on its IPO in 2011. She joined Qatalyst in 2013 from Morgan Stanley, where she was head of consumer internet banking. She's also worked on the IPOs of Facebook, Google, and Alibaba, according to Qatalyst's website, and on mergers and acquisitions, including CNET's deal for CBS, OpenTable's sale to Priceline, and Zappos' sale to Amazon. Turner is a founder and copresident of Qatalyst overseeing consumer technology and software banking. He previously worked for Credit Suisse. He advised Tumblr on its sale to Yahoo, Twitch on its sale to Amazon, Xoom on its sale to PayPal, and Autonomy on its sale to HP. Story continues Ian Smith was the lead banker on the deal at Allen & Co., according to a person familiar with the matter. He has worked with tech companies, including Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, and Dropbox, according to his LinkedIn profile. Earlier this year, tech media startup The Information named Smith Silicon Valley's favorite banker. NOW WATCH: The Secrets Behind Getting Your Profile Viewed On LinkedIn More From Business Insider Mel Gibson and writer Randall Wallace creating a sequel to "The Passion of the Christ," which will tell the story of the resurrection of Jesus, Wallace told the Hollywood Reporter. Wallace, who was nominated for an Academy Award for scripting "Braveheart," for which Gibson received the 1995 Best Picture Oscar, confirmed the rumors, saying "the project is becoming too difficult to keep under wraps." Related Link: Networks Prepare To Chase Mel Gibson, Kurt Russell TV Series About "Barbary Coast" Wallace said, "I always wanted to tell this story [...] The Passion is the beginning and there's a lot more story to tell." Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter said a representative for Gibson declined to comment on his level of involvement in the sequel. "The Passion" was released in 2004 by independent Newmarket Films and earned a huge $612 million worldwide on a production budget of $30 million. "Since then, many in Hollywood have presumed a sequel would someday be made, but Gibson has moved on to other projects." See more from Benzinga 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Microsoft will soon add Linkedin to its own professional network. The technology and software giant will acquire the social networking site for a reported $196 per share; the all-cash transaction is valued at $26.2 billion, according to a Microsoft blog post. Linkedin will remain its own distinct brand, culture, and independence according to a press release and Jeff Weiner will remain the CEO of the networking platform. The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the worlds professionals, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said. Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet. Linkedin CEO Jeff Weiner said Just as we have changed the way the world connects to opportunity, this relationship with Microsoft, and the combination of their cloud and LinkedIns network, now gives us a chance to also change the way the world works. Linkedin is a 13-year-old brand with over 400 million users and over 7 million active job listings. Mondays announcement was distributed via press release, but investors are expected to attend a conference call with Microsoft and Linkedin CEOs later in the morning. Yahoo Finance is tracking the stocks youre following, based on your Yahoo Finance ticker searches. LinkedIn (LNKD) Microsoft (MSFT) is buying LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in cash. The deal, which has already been approved by both boards, still needs to get regulatory approval. Twitter (TWTR) Shares are moving higher after news broke that Microsoft is buying LinkedIn, as the agreement is a sign that dealmaking in Silicon Valley is picking up again. Since Twitter is seen as a possible acquisition target, this could be good news for the company. American Airlines (AAL) - The stock is falling following the attack in Orlando, due to concern that people will become less likely to travel. American Airlines is not the only stock under pressure in the sector. Hawaiian Airlines (HA), Southwest Airlines (LUV) and Delta Air Lines (DAL) are all trading in the red. Blackberry (BBRY) President Obama is ditching his BlackBerry. He told Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon that with less than a year left in his term, he was given a new smartphone. Facebook (FB) Short seller Andrew Left from Citron Research is making a call on Facebook. In a phone interview with CNBC, Left said the social media giant is losing an extensive amount of relevancy and that he is short the stock. satya nadella Microsoft may be excited about its $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, but it has a spotty history with gigantic acquisitions. In 2012, Microsoft took a massive $6.2 billion writedown on the $6.3 billion acquisition of aQuantive. In 2015, just about a year ago, Microsoft took a $7.6 billion writedown on the legendary flameout of the Nokia acquisition. But on a conference call with investors today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that LinkedIn fits in to the company's existing business way more smoothly than those past mega-deals. "Our executional handicap is a lot lower than any of the others we've talked about in the past," Nadella says. Furthermore, Nadella says that unlike Nokia or aQuantive, Microsoft plans to let LinkedIn operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary, like Instagram and WhatsApp are to Facebook. "Of course we'll learn from the past," Nadella says. In fact, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood says on that conference call that the combination of LinkedIn and Microsoft assets will actually help the company blow away an important financial milestone for the company. Once the acquisition is complete, LinkedIn will be a part of Microsoft's Commercial Cloud business unit, which includes crucial and fast-growing internet-based business products like Dynamics CRM and the Azure cloud platform. Amy Hood Microsoft CFO Microsoft has said that it wants to see the Commercial Cloud unit hit a $20 million annual run rate by fiscal year 2018. The company is more than halfway there, breaking $10 million by April 2016. Now, Hood says that with the addition of LinkedIn's revenue, plus the social network's technology and product lines for HR departments and recruiters, Microsoft will actually beat that $20 million goal, ahead of schedule. "That goal did not account for this type or scale of M&A," Hood says. "I think this should accelerate our momentum beyond what we've talked about as our goal beyond FY18." Story continues With Microsoft turning its whole business to orient on the cloud, beating that milestone will be a nice feather in Nadella's cap. NOW WATCH: 5 insider tips for getting noticed on LinkedIn More From Business Insider (Adds details, background) June 13 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp announced 'Project Scorpio', a new Xbox console that will support ultra-high resolution gaming and virtual reality, while also launching a slimmer version of its Xbox One console at the video game conference E3 in Los Angeles on Monday. Project Scorpio, which will have the ability to power virtual reality experiences and 4K gaming, is expected to be available during the holiday season in 2017. The console will be compatible with Xbox One games and accessories. Details on its pricing were not disclosed. Microsoft launched a partnership with Oculus Rift last year, which made some Xbox One games playable on Oculus' virtual reality platform. The new Xbox One S console, an updated version of the Xbox One launched in 2013, will bring new features such as streaming support for 4K videos, which provides four-times the resolution of high-definition content. The Xbox One S will be available in August and its base model will be priced at $299. Microsoft also announced a number of new games at the conference, including Gears of War 4 and Forza Horizon 3. The company also introduced Xbox Play Anywhere, that allows gamers to buy a game once and play it on both their Windows 10 PC and Xbox One console. (Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta) June 13 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp launched a new version of its Xbox One console at the video game conference E3 in Los Angeles on Monday, bringing newer features such as support for 4K videos and high dynamic range imagery. The new console Xbox One S, which will be smaller than the Xbox One, will be available in August. The base model will be priced at $299. Microsoft also announced 'Project Scorpio', the next Xbox console in the pipeline, that will offer support for virtual reality. Project Scorpio is expected to be available during the holiday season in 2017 and will be compatible with Xbox One games and accessories. (Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta) On Jun 10, 2016, we issued an updated research report on Milacron Holdings Corp. MCRN. Milacron Holdings is a global leader in the manufacture, distribution, and service of highly engineered and customized systems used in the plastic technology and processing industry. Milacrons first-quarter fiscal 2016 adjusted earnings per share jumped 29% year over year to 27 cents per share. Backlog as of Mar 31, 2016 was $235.7 million, a $24.1 million increase from Dec 31, 2015. The upside was predominantly driven by strength in the North American equipment and hot runner businesses. For fiscal 2016, Milacron retained its guidance of flat to 2% organic sales growth and adjusted EBITDA margins between 18.5% and 19.0%. The company expects revenue growth to be supported by underlying market growth in key segments, geographic expansion of certain product lines, continued penetration of hot runners, and incremental share gain from new products. Demand for a diverse range of finished plastic products is on the rise in many markets. Factors like global population growth, continued urbanization, increased purchasing power and improved lifestyle have resulted in higher demand for automotive, construction and consumer products. Given its strong global presence, Milacron is well positioned to capture a portion of this growth. The company has made significant investments in China and India based on the projected growth rates of the plastic business in these markets. In Central and South America, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, the company is building capabilities and working on creating new relationships to support growth. Management expects profitability to be supported by both revenue growth and margin expansion in the near term. Revenues are expected to improve on the back of underlying market growth in key segments, geographic expansion of certain product lines, consistent penetration of hot runners, and incremental share gain from new products. The companys new products are focused on solidifying its current market position, as well as expanding addressable market through the introduction of technology that displaces other materials, primarily metal and glass. Over the past two years, Milacron has undertaken a number of organizational redesigning and cost-reduction initiatives to improve its cost structure and operating flexibility. These actions are expected to yield approximately $35 million of annual run-rate cost savings by the end of 2017. In the first quarter, new orders were $291.8 million, down 2.3% year over year. New orders were primarily hurt by an increase in European equipment business, offset by lower demand volumes for mold bases. Notably, approximately 51% and 54% of Milacrons sales in fiscal 2015 and during the first quarter of 2016, respectively, were attributable to operations outside the U.S. Around 43% of sales in fiscal 2015 were typically denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Thus, significant changes in foreign currency translations could have an adverse effect on Milacrons financial condition and results of operations. Milacron currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the sector include ACCO Brands Corporation ACCO, General Cable Corporation BGC and Brady Corp. BRC. All of these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report GENL CABLE CORP (BGC): Free Stock Analysis Report BRADY CORP CL A (BRC): Free Stock Analysis Report ACCO BRANDS CP (ACCO): Free Stock Analysis Report MILACRON HLDGS (MCRN): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research It was 50 years ago today that the phrase Miranda warning was born, after the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark case about the Fifth Amendment. ernestomiranda The Miranda in the Miranda warning was Ernesto Miranda. He was arrested in March 1963 in Phoenix and confessed while in police custody to kidnapping and rape charges. His lawyers sought to overturn his conviction after they learned during a cross-examination that Miranda wasnt told he had the right to a lawyer and had the right to remain silent. (Miranda had signed a confession that acknowledged that he understood his legal rights.) The Supreme Court overturned Mirandas conviction on June 13, 1966, in its ruling for Miranda v. Arizona, which established guidelines for how detained suspects are informed of their constitutional rights. The decision consolidated three other cases that dealt with related issues: California v. Stewart, Vignera v. New York, and Westover v. United States. In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren said that it is not admissible to do a great right by doing a little wrong. It is not sufficient to do justice by obtaining a proper result by irregular or improper means. The syllabus for the case includes one of the best-known sentences in American culture. The person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him, it says. Justices John Marshall Harlan II and Byron White issued dissents. Nothing in the letter or the spirit of the Constitution or in the precedents squares with the heavy-handed and one-sided action that is so precipitously taken by the court in the name of fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities, said Harlan. The Miranda warning actually includes elements of the Fifth Amendment (protection against self-incrimination), the Sixth Amendment (a right to counsel) and the 14th Amendment (application of the ruling to all 50 states). Story continues However, there are common misunderstandings about what Miranda rights are, and how they can protect someone under criminal investigation. First, there isnt one official Miranda warning that is read to a suspect by a police officer. Each state determines how their law enforcement officers issue the warning. The Supreme Court requires that a person is told about their right to silence, their right to a lawyer (including a public defender), their ability to waive their Miranda rights, and that what they tell investigators under questioning, after their detention, can be used in court. The Miranda warning is only used by law enforcement when a person is in police custody (and usually under arrest) and about to be questioned. Anything you say to an investigator or police officer before youre taken into custodyand read your Miranda rightscan be used in a court of law, which includes interviews where a person is free to leave the premises and conversations at the scene of an alleged crime. In fact, Ernesto Miranda came into a Phoenix police station voluntarily to answer questions in 1963 and also took place in a police lineup. The police can ask you questions about identification, including your name and address, without a Miranda warning. And they can use any spontaneous expressions made by you as evidencefor example, if you say something without the prompting of police before youre taken into custody. Of course, youre still protected by your Miranda rightsafter youre detainedeven if you waive them after an arrest. At any time, during an interrogation, you can stop answering questions and ask for a lawyer. As for Ernesto Miranda, though his original conviction was set aside by the Supreme Court ruling, he was retried and convicted, and was in jail until 1972then in and out of jail several more times until 1976. After being released in 1976, he was fatally stabbed during a bar fight. His suspected killer was read his Miranda rights and didnt answer questions from police. There was never a conviction in Mirandas death. More Historical Stories From Constitution Daily On This Day: James Madison introduces the Bill of Rights 50 interesting facts about Abraham Lincolns life Examining the legacy of Chief Justice Warren Burger Dwayne The Rock Johnson is heading to theaters in a seemingly never-ending stream of new projects. And one of the most anticipated of those just released its debut trailer which features the wrestler-turned-actor in a uniquely cartoonish, larger-than-life role. Watch the clip above. This Thanksgiving, Johnson will voice Maui, a South Pacific demi-god with a fish hook that can move the sun and the Earth and a raised eyebrow that resembles his real-life counterparts in Disneys latest animated princess saga Moana. The story of a young girl named Moana (newcomer AuliI Cravalho) who sets out to locate a legendary island with Mauis aid, its a 3D adventure that, from the looks of its initial footage, will boast vibrant computer-animation think Big Hero Six meets Frozen, except with more Maori flavor. Itll also be led by a raucous vocal performance from Johnson, whose Maui appears to function as a gregarious, shape-shifting, comedic-relief sidekick not unlike Robin Williams Genie from Aladdin. While the films premiere trailer doesnt touch upon its basic plot, it does remind us that at least part of its musical score will come courtesy of Lin-Manuel Miranda, the mastermind behind Broadways stratospheric hit show Hamilton (which just picked up 11 Tony Awards last night). And as we already know, Johnson will be crooning at least some of the materials many songs. Moana sails into theaters this Thanksgiving when its sure to be yet another of Disneys numerous 2016 hits but you can get an early peek at the film via the trailer above. Value investing is always a very popular strategy, and for good reason. After all, who doesnt want to find stocks that have low PEs, solid outlooks, and decent dividends? Fortunately for investors looking for this combination, we have identified a strong candidate which may be an impressive value; Mobile TeleSystems PJSC MBT. Mobile TeleSystems in Focus MBT may be an interesting play thanks to its forward PE of 9.74, its P/S ratio of 1, and its decent dividend yield of 7.6%. These factors suggest that Mobile TeleSystems is a pretty good value pick, as investors have to pay a relatively low level for each dollar of earnings, and that MBT has decent revenue metrics to back up its earnings. But before you think that Mobile TeleSystems is just a pure value play, it is important to note that it has been seeing solid activity on the earnings estimate front as well. For current year earnings, the consensus has gone up by 1.1% in the past 30 days, thanks to 1 upward revision in the past one month compared to none lower. This estimate strength is actually enough to push MBT to a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), suggesting it is poised to outperform. So really, Mobile TeleSystems is looking great from a number of angles thanks to its PE below 20, a P/S ratio below one, and a strong Zacks Rank, meaning that this company could be a great choice for value investors at this time. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report MOBILE TELE-ADR (MBT): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research (Reuters) - More than half of the fatal victims from the shooting in Orlando were of Puerto Rican descent, Rolando Padua, deputy secretary of state for the Puerto Rican government, told Reuters on Monday. "What they have informed us so far is that 90 percent of the victims are Latinos and that more than half of the dead victims are of Puerto Rican origin," Padua said in a brief telephone interview. "We are awaiting an official list of the victims this afternoon." (Reporting by Fiona Ortiz in Chicago; Editing by Chris Reese) Screen Shot 2016 06 13 at 9.22.33 AM It's been quite a year for oil. The commodity's prices have seen a nice rally amid decreasing non-OPEC production and ongoing production outages. Both WTI crude and Brent crude prices are currently hovering around $48 to $49 per barrel well above their lows, below $30 per barrel, earlier this year. Notably, in a recent report to clients, a Morgan Stanley team led by Adam Longson wrote that they think oil supply will ramp back up. "Oversupply is likely to return as outages resolve, and prices could fall back into a $30-50 oversupply pricing regime," the team wrote. Specifically, they argue that many of the causes of the recent outages such as the Canadian wildfires will subside, and the reduced production from maintenance projects in the North Sea and Brazil will soon moderate. Moreover, they believe that OPEC members Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Libya could ramp up production (although other analysts have expressed doubt about Libya in particular). "Returning Canada production alone should be enough to put the market back into oversupply, even if Nigeria remains near current levels," they wrote. However, the team did concede that there are plenty of wild cards that could upset this forecast. For example, Nigeria's outages could continue for some time, and, although it probably won't lead to huge disruptions, what will happen with Venezuelan barrels is still up in the air. "Tail risks are admittedly large in both directions, as geopolitics create more uncertainty," they wrote. "The risks of both additional disruption and supply returning are elevated." In short, supply could bounce back. Maybe. NOW WATCH: Heres why flights take longer than they did 50 years ago More From Business Insider RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco is planning to sell a 40 percent stake in state-owned port operator Marsa Maroc via an initial public offering (IPO) on the Casablanca stock exchange, bourse regulator AMMC said on Monday. Marsa Maroc was established in 2006 and manages terminals at nine Moroccan ports and provides logistic services. The port operator has said it is seeking funds for expansion as it plans to bid for two other terminals at Casablanca Port and is looking for opportunities elsewhere in North and West Africa. The offering would be the first IPO this year in Morocco and the first ever for a privatisation. It could help revive Casablanca's stock market, which has suffered from the knock-on effects of the euro zone crisis and a lack of foreign investors. Morocco's stock market was downgraded to "frontier" status by index provider MSCI in 2013, due to a lack of liquidity. The Finance ministry has hired Moroccan bank Attijariwafa bank for the offering expected from June 20 to June 30 involving 40 percent of Marsa's shares, the regulator's statement said. AMMC said it had approved the issue from which the government is expected to raise between 1.9 billion dirhams and 1.94 billion dirhams ($200.8 million). The company will sell 29.36 million shares at 65 dirhams each. Marsa Maroc had more than 2,000 employees and annual revenue of 2.17 billion dirhams in 2015, company data showed. The government launched a tender seeking advisors for selling part of Marsa Maroc in 2011 but then dropped the idea without any explanation. ($1 = 9.6610 Moroccan dirham) (Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; editing by David Clarke) Hundreds of mourners gathered outside the historic Stonewall Inn in New York Citys Greenwich Village on Sunday, June 12, to remember the victims of a shooting inside a Florida gay nightclub. Fifty people were killed and another 53 were injured when a gunman opened fire just before last call. People sang, waved banners and left flowers, candles and tributes in front of Stonewall, which became a center of the gay rights movement after a police raid and riot in 1969. A vigil grew outside the bar as people looked for a place to mourn the victims. Credit: Instagram/scottyely Mourners gathered at New York Citys historic Stonewall Inn on Sunday, June 12, to remember the people killed inside an Orlando gay nightclub overnight. A gunman killed 50 people and injured 53 more in a shooting that happened right around closing time at Pulse. The crowd sang songs, left flowers and remembered the victims at the bar, which became a center for the LGBT rights movement after a police raid and riot in 1969. The vigil continued to grow as more people looked for a place to remember the victims. Police are still identifying and notifying the families of those who were killed at the Orlando nightclub. Credit: Instagram/scott_photog (Adds Aviva Investors, AIG, Demica, ICBC Standard) June 13 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Monday. To inform us of other job changes, email moves@thomsonreuters.com. AVIVA INVESTORS The global asset management business of Aviva Plc said it appointed Anne Whitaker to its board with immediate effect. AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP INC The insurer said it named Eric Taylor senior vice president, independent annuity and accident and health (A&H) distribution. DEMICA UK-based boutique capital markets firm Demica said it added three new roles to strengthen its team in London. ICBC STANDARD BANK The bank has named Rene Baars as head of its international commodity coverage, overseeing the bank's relationships with global commodities traders. VONTOBEL The Swiss private bank said it hired Bernhard Breiter to lead its new team of private banking advisers, who will advise wealthy private clients in Australia. HSBC HOLDINGS PLC HSBC has appointed Kapil Seth as regional head of securities services in the Middle East and North Africa, the bank said in a statement on Monday. AON PLC UK-based Aon Plc's human resources and consulting services unit Aon Hewitt hired Alison Trusty as hedge fund researcher in its liquid alternatives manager research team, the company said. GULF CAPITAL Mahmoud Atalla, previously co-head of distressed debt and loan trading at HSBC, has left the bank to join Abu Dhabi-based private equity firm Gulf Capital, the chief executive of Gulf Capital said on Monday. BLP INSURANCE UK-based insurance agency BLP Insurance said it appointed Samantha Ferneley as business development executive. (Compiled by Ankit Ajmera in Bengaluru) * MTN to list local unit in Nigeria under settlement deal * To also issue apology to Nigerian people, government * Firm to pay $1.7 bln fine, a third of initial demand * Lawmakers say still probing legality of reduced fine (Adds parliamentary probe) By Camillus Eboh and Joe Brock ABUJA, June 13 (Reuters) - South African telecoms group MTN will take immediate steps to list shares in Nigeria as part of a deal to settle a dispute over unregistered SIM cards and will also issue an apology, according to a copy of the agreement seen by Reuters. The company said on Friday, after months of talks, that it had agreed to pay a heavily reduced fine of $1.7 billion in a settlement with the Nigerian government for failing to deactivate more than 5 million unregistered SIM cards. Authorities have been cracking down on unregistered cards, concerned they are used for criminal activity in a country battling an insurgency by Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Nigeria, facing its worst economic crisis for decades, had agreed to cut the fine initially demanded by almost 70 percent after MTN threatened to shut down its operations in the West African nation, a Nigerian official said on Friday. Under the deal, MTN - Africa's largest telecoms company - will strengthen its presence in Nigeria by listing its local unit, a plan held up by the prolonged dispute, according to the copy of the agreement obtained by Reuters on Monday. "MTN undertakes immediate steps to ensure the listing of its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as soon as commercially and legal possible after the date of execution," the document said. The South African mobile phone giant will also issue an apology to the Nigerian government and people within one month of the execution of the deal, the agreement said. The group - which filed a lawsuit against the fine before opting for an out-of-court deal - will also cover its own legal costs, the agreement said. PARLIAMENT PROBE The fine will be paid by MTN Nigeria over three years and is only around a third of the $5.2 billion figure initially demanded by the country's communications regulator last October. Story continues However, in a potential obstacle to the settlement, a committee of Nigerian lawmakers said on Monday that it intended to press on with an investigation, launched in March, into the legality of offering MTN a reduced fine. "We will certainly continue with our investigation," Saheed Akinade-Fijaba, chairman of the parliamentary communications committee, told Reuters. "We are disappointed that this agreement was reached without our consultation," he said. "We need to make sure everyone complied with the law. The law doesn't say anything about reducing a fine." Nigeria's House of Representatives - the lower house of parliament - was due to question the communications minister and a senior official from the communications regulator on Monday, but the hearing was delayed for one week, lawmakers said. MTN is the largest mobile phone operator in Nigeria with 62 million subscribers, and the country accounts for about a third of its revenues. The company has already paid 50 billion naira of the 330 billion naira ($1.7 billion) owed. The rest will be paid in six instalments over three years, the company said. It set aside $600 million in March to pay the fine. (Additional reporting and writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Pravin Char) By Sebastien Malo NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The number of murders of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people jumped 20 percent in the United States last year, activists said on Monday, releasing their findings a day after a mass shooting at a Florida gay nightclub left 49 people dead. The violence in 2015 was the highest since 2012, according to the report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP). It said 24 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and people with HIV were murdered in the United States, a 20 percent increase from 2014. The advocacy group released its findings a day ahead of their scheduled publication after the Orlando, Florida shooting, the worst mass murder in U.S. history. A gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub called the Pulse early on Sunday morning. He was shot and killed by police who stormed the club with armored cars after a three-hour siege. Beverly Tillery, who heads the New York City Anti-Violence Project, which coordinates the NCAVP, called for public discussion on LGBTQ people and violence. "This is ... a tragedy that belongs to LGBTQ communities, but a tragedy that belongs to the entire nation as well," she said. The NCAVP said it compiled its figures by monitoring media reports, through notifications from associated programs and from individual contributions. Among the victims listed was Shade Schuler, a 22-year-old transgender woman found dead in a field in Dallas, Texas, the NCAVP report said. Media and police listed Schuler as a man until local LGBTQ activists intervened to insure she was listed as a transgender woman, the NCAVP said. The report also said that in 11 U.S. states there were 1,253 incidents of violence against LGBTQ people and those with HIV in 2015, an 8 percent drop from 2014. The NCAVP said it has reported on violence for nearly 20 years. (Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org) Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fstory%2fthumbnail%2f11496%2f94d89f22e15e4ff1b5b41752824963f0 "Our community in central Florida is heartbroken but let's put our colors, religions, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views all aside so we can UNITE against those who are trying to hurt us." Even though he was fasting while observing the month of Ramadan, Mahmoud ElAwadi still made his way to OneBlood Inc. in Orlando, Florida, to donate blood to survivors of the Pulse terrorist attack. SEE ALSO: John Oliver offers a touching message about the Orlando shooting In his Facebook post, ElAwadi expresses the complicated duality of emotions he experienced as a result of the attacks. Expressing anger and frustration at the shooter and loss of innocent lives, he also felt pride, witnessing, "thousands of people standing in 92 degree sun waiting on their turn to donate blood even after they were told that the wait time is five to seven hours." "Yes together we will stand against hate, terrorism, extremism and racism," ElAwadi continued. "Yes our blood all look the same so get out there and donate blood cause our fellow American citizens are injured and need our blood." Ultimately, his message was one of coming together, despite our differences. "Yes our community in central Florida is heart broken but let's put our colors, religions, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political views all aside so we can UNITE against those who are trying to hurt us," he wrote. Neil Young wants to settle this once and for all: he doesn't support Donald Trump and he insisted the Republican presidential candidate stop playing his music at campaign rallies. And if doesn't get through, he's issued a "f--- you, Donald Trump" just to be sure. The veteran Canadian rocker has made his thoughts crystal clear on the American businessman and politician, while removing any doubt over his own political leanings. Young was chastised by David Crosby after Reuters last month published an article which claimed Young was fine with Trump using his music. "He actually got a license to use it," Young was quoted as saying. "I mean, he said he did and I believe him. So I got nothing against him. You know, once the music goes out, everybody can use it for anything." Neil Young OK With Donald Trump Using His Music, But He's Still Backing Bernie Sanders That's not how it went down, says Young. "When I discovered that the candidate first used my song at his campaign launch, my management called his office and immediately requested he stop. We thought he had. But now, unfortunately, I understand he is still using it," Young writes in a Facebook post. "Though there is a considerable legal difference between obtaining music rights for commercial use and obtaining a license agreement for public venues (When licensing music for public events - artists permission is not required) I believe using an artists work for a specific politicians campaign represents 'implied consent,'" he added. Neil Young on His Support for Bernie Sanders and Why 'Trump Is Interesting' Young, an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders, took a swipe at Reuters for "purposely misleading" its readers. And for good measure, he reiterated that he doesn't "endorse hate, bigotry, childish name calling, the superficiality of celebrity or ignorance." Young makes his point without ambiguity in a video attached to the bottom of the message. In it, Young blasts a few lines of "Rockin' in the Free World" and hollers into the mic, "F--- you, Donald Trump." See Young's Facebook post below. "His style did not shout -- it whispered," says Nick Jonas' stylist Avo Yermagyan, who explains how late French icon Serge Gainsbourg's "discreet elegance" is surfacing in male artists today -- from Wiz Khalifa's barely-buttoned shirt to Mark Ronson's choice of shoes. The Open-To-There Shirt [[{"fid":"616704","view_mode":"media_original","type":"media","attributes":{"height":1843,"width":1240,"alt":"Wiz Khalifa","class":"media-element file-media-original"}}]] Evan Agostini/Invision/AP Wiz Khalifa in a classic white button-front shirt (open, natch) with a Giorgio Armani jacket. "Gainsbourg paired classic staples, but the looks were always chic and minimalistic," says Yermagyan. The Original Canadian Tux [[{"fid":"616705","view_mode":"media_original","type":"media","attributes":{"height":1710,"width":1240,"alt":"Pharrell Williams","class":"media-element file-media-original"}}]] Raymond Hall/GC Images Gainsbourg, who had an "ease when it came to dressing," didn't shy away from teaming denim on top and bottom, and neither does Pharrell Williams, here in a Levi's jacket and G-Star jeans. Casual Pinstripes [[{"fid":"616706","view_mode":"media_original","type":"media","attributes":{"height":1024,"width":1548,"alt":"Nick Jonas","class":"media-element file-media-original"}}]] Neil Mockford/Alex Huckle/GC Images "The same suit worn to an elegant dinner can be worn casually," says Yermagyan of Nick Jonas' John Varvatos pinstripe look. "It's all about having classic pieces and the confidence to put your own spin on them." Story continues Rhinestone Cowboys: The Embroidered Suits Once Rocked By Johnny Cash and Gram Parsons Are Making a High-Fashion Comeback The Shoe That Serge Swore By Oxfords By Parisian ballet company Repetto still remain white-hot this season. [[{"fid":"616703","view_mode":"media_original","type":"media","attributes":{"height":2792,"width":1240,"alt":"Mark Ronson","class":"media-element file-media-original"}}]] BCR/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images Legend has it that Serge Gainsbourg went through more than 30 pairs a year of Repetto's white Zizi oxfords, which took their name from legendary French dancer Zizi Jeanmaire. Gainsbourg's then-girlfriend Jane Birkin found the shoes for him in the 1970s as a solution to sensitive feet -- and supposedly the last of those pairs still sits in a hallway closet of his untouched Paris apartment (which daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg often has discussed turning into a museum). The latest musician to carry on the white-sole tradition? Mark Ronson, who frequently pairs the Repettos with another signature Serge look: the double-breasted jacket. Where to Eat, Stay and Play (Like Jay and Bey) at the Cannes Lions Fest, Hosting Its First-Ever Music Program For The Man In Cannes So louche and luxurious a la Serge Gainsbourg at the Riviera's annual Cannes Lions advertising festival (from June 18-25), now with its first-ever music program. For more details on where to eat, stay and play, check out our guide here. [[{"fid":"616713","view_mode":"media_original","type":"media","attributes":{"height":1595,"width":1240,"class":"media-element file-media-original"}}]] Jamie Chung 1 Our Legacy poplin box shirt, $190; eastdane.com. 2 Barena pinstripe blazer, $800; mrporter.com. 3 Sandro jeans, $225; mrporter.com. 4 Cartier Tank MC steel and leather watch, $9,950; cartier.us. 5 Repetto white goatskin leather Zizi oxfords, $365; repetto.com. Never A Faux Pas? Too Much Denim [[{"fid":"616712","view_mode":"media_original","type":"media","attributes":{"height":1604,"width":1240,"class":"media-element file-media-original"}}]] Jamie Chung 1 Saint Laurent denim shirt, $690; mrporter.com. 2 Charvet silk pocket square, $80; charvet.com. 3 Ring Jacket double-breasted blazer, $2,175; A.K. Rikk's Grand Rapids, MI 616-957-3242. 4 Soludos espadrilles, $55; soludos.com. 5 Boglioli leather belt, $395; boglioli.it. 6 Frame L'Homme straight-leg jeans, $239; saks.com. This article originally appeared in the June 18 issue of Billboard. ABUJA, June 13 (Reuters) - Nigeria's parliament will continue to investigate the legality of negotiating down a fine imposed on MTN, despite the South African telecoms company already striking a deal with Nigerian regulators, a lawmaker said on Monday. MTN said on Friday, after months of talks, that it had agreed to pay a fine of $1.7 billion in a settlement with the Nigerian government for failing to deactivate more than 5 million unregistered SIM cards. "We will certainly continue with our investigation," Saheed Akinade-Fijaba, chairman of the parliamentary communications committee, told Reuters. "We are disappointed that this agreement was reached without our consultation. We need to make sure everyone complied with the law. The law doesn't say anything about reducing a fine." (Reporting by Joe Brock; Editing by Pravin Char) By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - With more than one million people living in camps around Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri, having fled their homes due to Boko Haram attacks, some are finding innovative ways to rebuild businesses from scratch. Many of the displaced arrived at the camps with no money or possessions, leaving them totally dependent on the government and humanitarian organizations for their day-to-day survival. Despite the harsh conditions of the camps, which host up to 30,000 residents, entrepreneurial spirit is not in short supply. Several of those uprooted by the Islamist militant group, such as shopkeeper Modu Mustafa, have launched profit-making businesses within internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. Mustafa saw his opportunity when the former governor of Borno state visited the camp where he resides in Maiduguri, home to 4,000 people, and gave the families there bags of rice. Rather than eat the rice with his two wives and 10 children, 45-year-old Mustafa decided to sell it for 8,000 naira ($40) and used the money to open a kiosk in his family's tent - selling items ranging from biscuits and batteries to salt and sugar. "In one month, I make about 20,000 naira ($100) and use the money to feed my family," he said, adding that the food provided by the state and aid agencies was not sufficient for his family. Maiduguri has been inundated in the past three years by people fleeing Boko Haram, sending the city's population surging to two million from some 600,000 and putting pressure on housing, health, food, and water supplies, aid agencies say. More than 15,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced in Nigeria and neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon during the militant group's seven-year insurgency to carve out an Islamist caliphate. While nine in 10 of the displaced who arrive in Maiduguri find accommodation with host families, the rest reside in the city's 22 government camps, or live in informal, makeshift settlements dotted outside of the capital of Borno state. FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS Fanne Saidu, a widow in her seventies, earned a living from selling locally-made pots and pans which helped her send her eight children to Islamic school, until the threat of Boko Haram forced her to flee to a camp in a primary school in Maiduguri. She begged people for money and raised enough to buy dried plant flowers, which she mixed with water from a solar-powered tap in the camp to make a popular Nigerian drink called zobo. Five months later, she is still in business, buying empty bottles from local children for 5 naira and filling them with the drink to sell at 10 naira (5 cents) each - and has even saved enough to rent a room at 1,500 naira ($7.50) a month. "I make about 600 naira ($3) daily," said Saidu, who earns more during term time when students buy zobo en route to school, or during their breaks. "I have never been idle in my life." Many government IDP camps in Maiduguri were previously established in schools, which remained shut for almost two years due to the widespread violence caused by Boko Haram. The militants have destroyed nearly 1,000 schools in northeast Nigeria, and in their most high-profile attack, seized more than 200 girls from their school in Chibok in April 2014 . While the government began relocating the displaced from schools in February in preparation for their reopening, many, like Husseina Abdullahi, were unhappy to have been moved. "The environment there was better," said the 35-year-old widow and mother of eight, adding that aid agencies had fitted the school with toilets and running water. Although Abdullahi was first disappointed with her new home in the Bakassi camp, which she described as just a vast piece of land, she soon discovered she could turn her hand to farming. She began sewing and selling traditional caps, and used the profit to buy seeds and farming tools which enabled her to grow vegetables such as spinach behind her tent. "With what I plant, I can feed my children," Abdullahi said. POWER FOR FOOD Many people in the IDP camps complain that conditions are poor, and the United Nations say many of the makeshift shelters are overcrowded and substandard in terms of water and sanitation facilities, cooking and privacy, especially for women. Sites tend to be unfinished structures, with limited access to clean water, sanitation, waste management and electricity. Usman Muhammed and Babagana Alhaji-Grema saw a business opportunity given the poor electricity supply in their camp. The cousins, aged 29 and 22, fled their home in Bama two years ago, where they had sold over-the-counter medication. But, they soon became bored with the daily routine of life in the camp routine. "We had nothing to do," said Alhaji-Grema. When his older brother came to visit from Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, and gave them 30,000 naira ($150), they invested it in a phone charging business - to enable people to charge their phones when the electricity supply was out. "An electrician from our village who is also here in the camp built it for us," said Alhaji-Grema, explaining how they had bought a small generator, a variety of phone chargers, adapters and wood from a local market nearby. It costs 30 naira (15 cents) to fully charge a phone, and their device is equipped with about 30 adapters, Alhaji-Grema added. "We make at least 700 naira ($3.50) to 1,000 naira ($5) per day," he said, out of which they buy enough fuel for the following day's work, save some, then spend the extra on food. "In the camp, the food is just manageable ... if you go outside, you can buy better food." (Reporting By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Editing by Kieran Guilbert; 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 news.trust.org) By Daniel Dickson STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The waterfront building in an upscale part of Stockholm was meant to showcase one of the world's most famous prizes. Instead, plans for a new Nobel Centre have sparked royal outrage, political spats and objections from a Swedish business tycoon that it spoils his view. "It looks like a brass-coloured nuclear power plant," said Lotta Edholm, who heads the opposition Liberal Party in Stockholm and who voted against the decision to approve the 130 million euro ($146 million) building because of its design and cost. The Nobel Foundation centre, designed by British architect David Chipperfield, is intended to host exhibitions, seminars and probably the prize ceremonies. It is to be built on the site of an 1870s customs house and other historic sites in Stockholm's old harbor. Stockholm City Council approved the plans but has since faced uproar and appeals against the 18,000 square meters building, which is partly financed by the Wallenberg business dynasty. In June, King Carl XVI Gustaf, who presents the Nobel prizes each year in Stockholm, triggered controversy himself by criticizing the building as too big in a rare public foray into Swedish public life. "It need not be so gigantic," he told Dagens Nyheter newspaper. "It could be downsized..... And why get stuck in trenches and say it has be located right here? It could also be moved." Queen Silvia called for a referendum on its construction. Some politicians accused the king of meddling in politics. The centre will dominate an area featuring some of Sweden's most emblematic and historic buildings like the National Museum, an area with an aristocratic air of traditional restaurants, harbour-side bars and shining yachts. Original plans for the building have already been reduced in size and a brass facade has been changed to brass colored steel to adhere to environmental standards. The cost will be met by donations, including from Swedish icons like the main owner of retail giant Hennes & Mauritz as well as the Wallenberg family. But another business tycoon is on the opposite side of the conflict. Fredrik Lundberg, often referred to as Sweden's Warren Buffett, has objected to the scale of the building, citing concerns about the sea view of his nearby offices and the value of their century-old properties. A Lundberg real estate company that owns a neighboring building has threatened to launch a claim for damages for hundreds of millions of crowns if the Nobel Centre is built. Another neighbor is the National Museum, owned by the National Property Board, which filed a rare appeal over the plan, saying the proposed building had a negative impact on the surrounding areas. Susanne Lindh who is heading the Nobel Centre project said criticism was to be expected. "I would have been more surprised if it had not been debated, and in this case it has also helped to make the building better," she told Reuters. The 8 million Swedish crown ($964,797) prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. ($1 = 0.8894 euros) ($1 = 8.2919 Swedish crowns) (Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Richard Balmforth) SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore-based commodities trader Noble Group (NOBG.SI) said on Monday it has hired Morgan Stanley and HSBC as advisors on the planned sale of its Noble Americas Energy Solutions (NAES) unit, targeting completion of the deal in the second half of the year. The company began the sale process for San Diego-based electricity supplier NAES on May 30 when it had also announced that its Chief Executive Officer Yusuf Alireza quit. In August 2015, Noble indicated the value of the business at more than $1.25 billion (880.78 million pounds). The sale move is aimed at boosting the balance sheet at Singapore-listed Noble, whose shares have been battered since early last year by an accounting dispute and weak commodity markets. Earlier this month it said it was raising about $500 million (352.31 million pounds) from a deeply discounted share issue and cutting jobs, Chairman Richard Elman announced he was stepping down. "The announcement of the divestment has already generated significant interest from a broad spectrum of potential buyers," Noble said in a stock exchange filing on Monday. (Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell) Ankara (AFP) - A Turkish professor sparked a furore in Turkey Monday by branding people who don't pray as "animals", on a state television programme celebrating the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. "Let me put it straight, the verse of the Koran says... animals do not perform prayers and those who do not perform prayers are animals," Mustafa Askar said during the show aired on the state-run TRT television over the weekend. Askar said human beings are the only creatures whose foreheads incline to allow the prostration of prayer. "Human beings were created to be prayer ergonomic," said Askar, professor at Ankara University's Faculty of Theology. With controversy growing, Turkey's religious affairs directorate, Diyanet, said it was "unacceptable" to insult people by targeting their freedom of faith. "The place, importance and value of prayers in our religion are known by everyone," Diyanet said in a statement on its Twitter account. "But it is unacceptable to denigrate or insult people by targeting their freedom of faith and worshipping." Diyanet also said the professor's inference from Koranic verses "does not bode well with Islam's language of wisdom and its messages of mercy." Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli, however, declined to comment on the controversy created by the professor's comments. "We did not have the opportunity to watch in detail" the programme, Canikli told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Monday. "If it constitutes a crime, necessary investigations and prosecutions are carried out by our prosecutors and our courts. There's no obstacle," he said. Turkey's secular constitution is supposed to guarantee freedom of worship but critics have complained of a growing Islamisation under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Engin Altay, of the main opposition secular Republican People's Party (CHP), called Askar a "lunatic." "I've read the Koran. There is neither a verse, nor a saying (by the prophet). I think this individual is a lunatic," he was quoted by the Dogan news agency. "The ones who are animals are actually those who let him appear on such an important broadcasting company like TRT." On Monday, President Obama said in a press conference that while it appears Omar Mateen, the gunman responsible for the shooting at Orlando, Florida, gay nightclub Pulse on Sunday, was "inspired by extremist information," there is no evidence that the 29-year-old was involved in a larger terror plot. BREAKING: Obama says it appears Orlando shooter was inspired by extremist information disseminated over the internet. According to the Associated Press, Obama said authorities are still investigating the massacre as an act of terrorism, and compared it to 2015's San Bernardino shooting. However, the implications of the shooting happening at a gay nightclub have not been lost on Obama or investigators: Obama said officials are looking closely at Mateen's motivations, the AP reported. "The fact that it took place at a club frequented by the LGBT community I think is also relevant," said Obama. "At this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally," Obama said. "It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL." Though Mateen may not be affiliated with a larger terrorism plot, United States Attorney Lee Bentley III said earlier Monday morning that authorities are investigating possible accomplices to the shooting. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama has been updated regularly on the investigation into a mass shooting that killed 50 people and wounded 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, a White House official said on Monday. Obama was scheduled to be briefed in person by FBI Director James Comey and other top national security officials at the White House later on Monday morning. The rampage by a gunman in the early hours of Sunday was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Frances Kerry) OTTAWA, June 13 (Reuters) - Canada's housing regulations should be further tightened and regionally targeted to help cool booming real estate markets in some of its major cities, a report from the OECD recommended on Monday. A disorderly housing market correction, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, remains the main domestic downside risk to Canada's economic outlook, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said. Vulnerabilities related to housing and high household debt are still increasing, though at a slower pace, the report found. The OECD noted that Canadian authorities have taken steps to shore up the housing market, but said further regionally focused measures should be considered. The Canadian government has acted five times since 2008 to clamp down on heated housing markets, most recently in December 2015. But policymakers are challenged by the need to prevent certain housing markets such as Toronto and Vancouver from becoming overheated without further depressing slower activity in commodity-sensitive regions. The Bank of Canada last week warned that the rapid pace of home price increases in Toronto and Vancouver is unlikely to continue. Targeted measures could go beyond the changes to capital requirements in regions with high price-to-income ratios already planned by Canada's financial regulator to make capital requirements more responsive to market developments, the OECD said. It cited New Zealand as an example where policymakers have put lower caps on loan-to-value ratios in the hot Auckland market. On the whole, the OECD sees Canada's economy growing 1.7 percent this year and 2.2 percent next year, unchanged from its downgraded forecasts released earlier this month. It had previously forecast 2 percent growth in 2016 and 2.3 percent in 2017. (Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Paul Simao) OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's housing regulations should be further tightened and regionally targeted to help cool real estate markets that are booming in some of its major cities, a report from the OECD recommended on Monday. A disorderly housing market correction, particularly in Toronto and Vancouver, remains the main domestic downside risk to Canada's economic outlook, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said. Vulnerabilities related to housing and high household debt are still increasing, though at a slower pace, the report found. Canadian authorities have taken steps to shore up the housing market, but further regionally focused measures should be considered, it said. The Canadian government has acted five times since 2008 to clamp down on heated housing markets, most recently in December 2015. But policymakers are challenged by the need to prevent certain housing markets, such as those in Toronto and Vancouver, from becoming overheated without further depressing slower activity in commodity-sensitive regions. "We recognize it's a complex market with different situations going on," Finance Minister Bill Morneau told reporters. Morneau said the government was looking closely at the impact of a number of factors in the housing market, including demographics, supply issues and foreign investment. The Bank of Canada warned last week that the rapid pace of home price increases in Toronto and Vancouver was unlikely to continue. Targeted measures could go beyond the changes to capital requirements in regions with high price-to-income ratios that are already planned by Canada's financial regulator to make capital requirements more responsive to market developments, the OECD said. It cited New Zealand as an example where policymakers have put lower caps on loan-to-value ratios in the hot Auckland market. On the whole, the OECD sees Canada's economy growing 1.7 percent this year and 2.2 percent next year, unchanged from its downgraded forecasts released earlier this month. It had previously forecast 2 percent growth in 2016 and 2.3 percent in 2017. (Reporting by Leah Schnurr; additional reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal; Editing by Paul Simao and Bernadette Baum) Oil markets might be showing signs of concern over the global economy but the rest of the year is nonetheless looking rosy for oil-producing cartel OPEC with the 13-member oil producer group forecasting that the second half of 2016 will continue to see oil markets rebalancing. According to OPEC's latest monthly report, which looked ahead to the second half of 2016, global economic conditions should continue to improve to reach global growth of 3.1 percent, OPEC said. "Provided that there is a clearer picture regarding oil supply and demand, the expected improvement in global economic conditions should result in a more balanced oil market toward the end of the year," the group said on Monday. Focusing on the 13-member group's supply and demand forecasts for the second half of the year, OPEC forecast that global oil demand growth would continue to rise by 1.20 million barrels a day (mb/d) year on year. It said India would drive oil demand growth with China adding some support to that demand growth. It projected that demand for OPEC crude in the latter half of 2016 was expected to average 32.6 mb/d, giving the oil cartel, which includes major Middle Eastern producers as well as Nigeria, Venezuela, Indonesia and Ecuador, room to expand its current oil output; in May, OPEC said the group's oil production averaged 32.36 mb/d. While demand for OPEC crude was forecast to rise, the group repeated its prediction that markets would continue to see a contraction in supply from rival non-OPEC members to the tune of some 140,000 barrels a day compared to the first half of the year and almost 1 mb/d lower compared to the same period last year. The latest report from the group of oil producers comes at a time when analysts are closely monitoring supply and demand for signs of a rebalancing after two years of falling prices. Aside from concerns over OPEC supply, however, oil markets are keeping a close eye on the drawdown of U.S. crude inventories and general demand in the market. Renewed fears over an economic slowdown in Asia are weighing on prices again with oil prices falling in early trade on Monday with Brent futures trading at $50.16, down 37 cents from their last settlement. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was down 43 cents to $48.63 on Monday morning. Story continues Non-OPEC producers, such as those in the U.S., have had to dramatically cut back on oil production amid the price drop and OPEC chose to defend its market share rather than oil price. OPEC noted that an increase in supply from some developing countries of some 270,000 barrels a day would be broadly offset by a decline of 280,000 barrels a day supplied by member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development over the second half of the year. "China's output is expected to increase by 60,000 b/d and production in Brazil is expected to increase by 270,000 b/d due to the start-up of two new projects. In the U.S., despite higher growth in the Gulf of Mexico, total U.S. output will decline by 150,000 b/d in the second half of the year compared to the first half of 2016. With the recovery of production disrupted by wildfire, supply in Canada is expected to grow by 60,000 b/d compared to 1H16," the report noted. OPEC said that the above projections indicated "that the excess supply in the market is likely to ease over the coming quarters. To some degree, this has started to be seen in the slowing pace of inventory builds in U.S. commercial crude stocks," it said. In May, commercial crude stocks saw a draw of around 8 mb, compared to an average 12 mb build over March and April, and a 19 mb increase over January and February, OPEC noted. "Provided that there is a clearer picture regarding oil supply and demand, the expected improvement in global economic conditions should result in a more balanced oil market toward the end of the year." The June report is the first to come since OPEC met this month in Vienna. As with an earlier summit in Doha in April, the meeting ended with no agreement on changing the group's oil output policy or any new production ceiling . Iran had proposed returning to a former country-based quota system for oil output but that failed to find unanimous agreement. The stalemate over oil output policy only served to highlight divisions between the members, particularly between Iran and OPEC's de facto leader Saudi Arabia, rival Middle-Eastern powerhouses. Deadlock over output did not help to buoy the oil price either, which was hovering around the $50 a barrel mark at the time of the meeting. Prices have risen since the start of the year, however, leading some OPEC oil ministers to declare that the market was finally rebalancing anyway as non-OPEC supply withered, despite OPEC's decision to maintain record production levels. More From CNBC Sunday, following the deadly shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, that left at least 50 dead and dozens more injured, Madonna reached out to comfort her fans. She posted several pictures in the intent of honoring gay communities on her Twitter and Instagram. However, as many on Twitter were quick to call out, one of them, a photo of Madonna kissing Britney spears from the MTV Video Music Awards in 2003, seemed aimed at honoring herself rather than the victims. Stop Hate. Stop Violence. #revolutionoflovepic.twitter.com/bcmYfy2utE https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkybHlWWUAEO5O1.jpg:large As some noted on Twitter, Madonna has long been an ally of gay communities, "defending [LGBTQ individuals] when it wasn't the cool thing to do," as user @GelidFields wrote. LGBTQ magazine the Advocate has described her as one of the first celebrities to work to bring "queer sensibility into the mainstream." But sometimes, even queens stumble and this nod didn't sit well with many: @Madonna are you serious right now? This isn't about you and your fake ass kiss for publicity. I would think you'd know better. @Madonnapic.twitter.com/KPPYP6UyE4 Dear @Madonna Please stop equating #Kissing4Capitalism with Love. #LGBTQ ?Jade @Madonnapic.twitter.com/FlhTFVfmfi One user likened it to Katy Perry, another pop star who doesn't identify as LGBTQ but has looked to "capitalize" on her experience as she did with her early hit "I Kissed a Girl." Story continues @Madonna Way to capatililze on the lgbtqa community with "bisexuality, I kissed a girl for momentary gain" Katy perry bullshit. over it. @Madonna ...but you're not lesbian and this is a fake kiss The backlash didn't reach "delete your account" levels as it did in the case of Donald Trump, who also posted a tweet congratulating himself for anticipating attacks from Muslim individuals. Madonna's fans encouraged her to simply log off and do better. @Madonna let's hit that 'log out' button now mom Vienna (AFP) - OPEC said Monday a supply glut in the world's oil market is likely to shrink further, leading to a more balanced market by the end of the year. "The excess supply in the market is likely to ease over the coming quarters," the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its June report. The oil price is now at just under $50 a barrel, having recovered in recent months from a slide that saw it tumble from over $100 in 2014 to close to $25 in January. In its report, OPEC attributed the recovery to a myriad of factors, including a weaker dollar, falling production in the US and forecasts of a sharp fall in non-OPEC oil supply this year, partly due to disruptions in some producer countries. Falling US inventories and production and the impact of wildfires in Canada curbed supply, as did rebel attacks in Nigeria and an oil refinery strike in France. But OPEC also warned that there was still much more oil available than demand for the commodity, and inventories continued high. "There is still a massive global supply overhang," it said. However, OPEC said solid economic growth across the world, despite a weak start to the year, was likely to underpin future oil demand. Global gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to rise to 3.1 percent this year after 2.9 percent last year. "Provided that there is a clearer picture regarding oil supply and demand, the expected improvement in global economic conditions should result in a more balanced oil market toward the end of the year," OPEC predicted. OPEC itself has done little to correct the market's imbalance, failing earlier this month to agree on any production ceilng at a key meeting and deciding instead to keep oil gushing as the moderate recovery in the oil price eased pressure to limit output. Kingpin Saudi Arabia said at the time that the cartel was "very satisfied" with the market. - Speculators lose interest - Story continues World demand for oil is projected to rise by 1.2 million barrels per day in the second half of the year compared to the same period in 2015, taking global oil demand to an average 94.18 mb/d for the whole year, the cartel said Monday. Demand in the developed economies belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is expected to be strongest in the Americas, flat in Europe and contracting in Asia. Outside of the OECD area, demand is expected to be vibrant in India thanks to solid economic growth, but mixed in China. On the supply side, non-OPEC production is projected to decline, notably so in the former Soviet republics and Russia. However, OPEC noted that oil market operators who re-entered the market with enthusiasm in May became "somewhat less interested in long positions" by the end of the month amid renewed worries about a global overhang of oil stocks. In Asian trading Monday, WTI was down 62 cents, or 1.26 percent, at $48.45 a barrel while Brent fell 61 cents, or 1.21 percent, to $49.93. Orlando (AFP) - Forty-nine people were killed and 53 others wounded when a heavily armed gunman opened fire and seized hostages at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida -- the worst terror attack on US soil since September 11, 2001. Here is what we know so far: Who was the gunman ? Law enforcement identified the gunman, who died in a shootout with police, as Omar Mateen, 29. A US citizen, Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York and resided in Port St Lucie, Florida, about two hours south of Orlando by car. The FBI said it had previously investigated -- and cleared -- Mateen after he made inflammatory terror-related comments to co-workers and for suspected ties to an American suicide bomber. Mateen made three 911 calls during Sunday's massacre and told the dispatcher he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group, according to FBI Director James Comey. The IS group claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, calling Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate." But US investigators are still piecing together his motives, as he also claimed solidarity with the Boston bombers and a Florida man who carried out a suicide bombing in Syria for the Al-Nusra Front, which is in conflict with the IS group. Comey said those facts added "a little bit to the confusion about his motives." Law enforcement recovered a handgun, an AR-15 assault rifle and an unknown number of additional rounds from Mateen. The gunman sprayed the club with bullets and took hostages in a three-hour standoff that ended when police stormed the venue. Police chief John Mina said the authorities made that decision because they feared "further loss of life was imminent" among those still trapped in the venue. What was his target? Pulse is a popular club known on the Orlando LGBT party scene for its drag shows. It is not known exactly how many people were inside at the time of the attack, but the club was packed with Saturday night revelers who came to watch a drag queen contest on a special Latin night. Story continues Co-founded by a woman whose brother died in 1991 after battling HIV, the nightclub described itself as "more than 'just another gay club.'" Barbara Poma and a friend opened the club in 2004 to keep her brother's spirit alive, naming it in honor of his heartbeat. It has become a flagship establishment for the LGBT community in Florida and further afield, and forms part of a vibrant activist scene that aims to promote awareness of gay rights. Was this an anti-gay hate crime? US President Barack Obama called the massacre "an act of terror and an act of hate." The suspect's father told NBC News his son may have been motivated by homophobia and not by extremism. Seddique Mateen recalled a recent incident in downtown Miami when his son became angry after witnessing a gay couple embracing. The suspect's ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told reporters he had been violently abusive to her and was not especially religious. The Pulse attack coincided with Gay Pride month in the United States, with festive marches and events held across the country, including in Orlando last week and into the weekend. Who are the victims? The authorities say they have identified 48 of the 49 victims. As of Monday afternoon, 47 names have been released. Most of the victims were men ranging in age from 19 to 50, with many in their 20s and 30s. Officials are publicly identifying victims only after their families have been notified. Based on their names, most of the victims appeared to be of Hispanic heritage. Other threats? Police in the Los Angeles area on Sunday arrested a man who said he planned to attend the city's Gay Pride parade and was found with multiple weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials in his car. Police initially said he had expressed intent to "harm" those at the parade. Later, they said investigators were trying to establish his intentions and that he had not referred to doing any harm, just to attending the event. There was no known connection between 20-year-old James Howell and Mateen, authorities said. Riyadh (AFP) - The American gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando twice performed a minor Islamic pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, the interior ministry said on Monday. "He performed umrah twice," a ministry spokesman said of Omar Mateen, 29, who was of Afghan descent. Mateen performed the minor umrah pilgrimage for 10 days in March 2011 and again for eight days in March 2012, the ministry spokesman told AFP. He gave no further details. CNN, citing an unnamed US official, said Mateen had also visited the United Arab Emirates. The Islamic State group, which has also claimed attacks within Saudi Arabia, said Mateen was acting as one of its "soldiers" in Sunday's rampage. It was the worst mass shooting in modern US history. Mateen died in a gun battle with police. FBI chief James Comey said he was confident the gunman had been "radicalised" while consuming online propaganda, and there was no indication of a plot directed from outside the United States. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to its holiest sites. The annual hajj and the umrah pilgrimage, which can be performed at any time, bring millions of Muslims to the kingdom every year. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic party nominee for US president, on Monday accused Saudi Arabia and its neighbours of allowing extremism to thrive. "It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organisations," Clinton said in a speech. "And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path toward extremism." Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denounced bombings and shootings carried out in various countries by the Islamic State group and other extremists. In a statement broadcast Sunday, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the mass shooting at Pulse a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. With at least 49 dead and 53 others wounded, it is now considered the deadliest shooting on American soil. The shooting is presumed to have been spurred by anti-LGBT views but it's not the only attack born from such motivations. In 2014, ISIS released a recruitment video in which it condemned gay people as the "worst of all creatures," according to Advocate. The terrorist organization has a history of carrying out and publicizing homophobic attacks on LGBTQ people throughout its Middle Eastern territories, making this type of crime an emerging human rights crisis. As of August 2015, over 30 gay people had been executed by the group. ISIS allegedly finds their gay victims through cell phone address books and social media accounts. Source: Spencer Platt/Getty Images It's also possible that ISIS uses accusations of homosexuality to publicly discredit others. Often, gay people throughout the world feel they cannot be open about their sexuality for fear of societal stigmas and harassment. "In my society, being gay means death and when [ISIS] kills gays most people are happy because they think we are evil, and [ISIS] gets a good credit for that," an Iraqi man who went by Adnan said at a briefing of LGBT issues for the U.N. Security Council last August, according to the Independent. There are several instances in which ISIS militants have publicly executed gay men by throwing them off roofs or by stoning. In June 2015, the militants dropped three gay men to their death from a 100-foot-tall building and released images of the execution as part of their media propaganda. A similar murder of two other men also occurred in January 2015, and the deaths were recorded and captioned with a biblical reference to the towns Sodom and Gomorrah. Two years ago, two young Syrian men were stoned to death by ISIS over allegations of being gay. Story continues In March 2015, ISIS decapitated three allegedly gay men in the middle of a traffic roundabout, although the victims' sexual orientations were not confirmed. "My father encouraged me not to come back to Syria, because he knows that if I do I will be killed," a gay Syrian refugee now living in Turkey told Vocativ. "The real victims are those still in Syria." Americans examined by the FBI over alleged terrorism concerns should be flagged when purchasing firearms, retired ATF Special Agent Jim Cavanaugh said Monday, after it was revealed the shooter in the Orlando gay nightclub rampage was interviewed twice by federal authorities in 2013 for making "inflammatory" comments about radical Islamic propaganda. American-born Omar Mateen used a legally purchased AR-15-style weapon in the massacre that left 49 other people dead at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Mateen also was killed. "Here's a glaring example, let's make sure anybody who came to the interest of the Joint Terrorism Task Force for whatever reason, even if the file was closed, if they're going to be buying a firearm and lots of ammunition ... [we should] know that," Cavanaugh told CNBC's " Squawk Box ." "We're not going to arrest the guy. We're not going to kick his door in. Just want to know, tell us he's buying a gun today," he continued. "It took a week for him to then kill. ... We can tighten that up through process. But it doesn't mean we can arrest him." Mateen had security and firearm licenses. Law enforcement sources told NBC News the 29-year-old swore allegiance to the leader of ISIS in a 911 call moments before the attack. Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner, agreed with Cavanaugh, expressing shock Mateen was able to buy guns with no "flagging mechanism" to federal or local authorities. Kerik said it's one thing to investigate alleged terror connections, but it's another to keep on top of previously interviewed individuals. "There's no consistent follow-up," he added, suggesting local authorities could help keep tabs of people who were of interest to the feds. "We have ticking time bombs of people who are inspired but not necessarily directed by this nefarious terrorist group," said Brian Levin, criminal justice professor at California State University, San Bernardino. Story continues San Bernardino was where 14 people were killed in the December attack by a husband and wife team, who also used AR-15-type assault rifles and other weapons. "Even if you consider the Second Amendment to be a fundamental right ... it can be regulated. And there are reasonable regulations including wait periods ... and issues with magazine size," Levin said. Cavanaugh said limiting capacity of ammunition magazines was the most effective part of the 10-year 1994 federal assault weapons ban signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. "The magazine capacity back during the assault-weapons ban was limited to 10 rounds," he said. "We saw during the 10 years of the assault weapons ban that [magazine limit] was starting to have an effect as the years went by." Michael German, former FBI counterterrorism officer and ex-policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told CNBC: "Part of the problem is ... we're looking at too many people who we really don't have a reasonable basis to be looking at." "It diverts law enforcement resources from real threats," he said. "Our counterterrorism is constantly ringing false alarms so often that it's hard to respond and to acknowledge what is a real threat." Frances Townsend, an advisor on Homeland Security and counterterrorism to President George W. Bush, said the failure after interviewing Mateen several times was realizing his transformation from "aspirational" and acting on the "disruption opportunity" when he bought weapons. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, while expressing empathy for the victims and their loved ones, told CNBC Monday: "This is just absolutely terrorism. ISIS has to be destroyed." The Republican governor told " Squawk on the Street " he declared a state of emergency Sunday in Orange County, Florida, where Orlando is located, to direct state resources to the investigation and support for the families those killed and wounded in the attack. Scott called on President Barack Obama to do the same: "The president needs to declare a state of emergency to make sure we have all the federal resources we need." More From CNBC Orlando shooting The shooting that erupted at a gay nightclub in Orlando over the weekend and left 49 people dead is renewing arguments about who should be able to own high-powered weapons in the US. The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, had an AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun during the attack at Pulse early Sunday morning. FBI officials say that Mateen had previously been investigated on suspicion of having ties to terrorism. Without a clear link established, however, he was able to legally purchase the guns used in the massacre. When asked why Mateen was still able to obtain his weapons despite his past run-ins with federal authorities, retired Army intelligence officer and Stetson University law professor Charles Rose III said it came down to the FBI's lack of concrete action against Mateen. "If the FBI had identified the shooter as someone with possible terrorist links, the ability to purchase a firearm might have been taken from him," Rose said in a conversation with Business Insider. He said, if nothing else, the shooter "might have at least been higher on a watch list." Rose said "fallout" occurs when authorities have "actionable intelligence but not enough to detain [a person] based upon probable cause." He said the root of the problem was in the way the US handles domestic terrorism as "a criminal, rather than a military activity." In doing so, Rose added, suspects retain their constitutional rights. Gun rights police shooting "Someone can assert their association with ISIS under the freedom-of-speech umbrella and say they're going to do something, but until they do it, they have all protections afforded to them under the law," he said. Rose suggested that if a person's association with a terrorist organization resulted in that person's being classified as an "enemy combatant, or a partisan under the Geneva Convention," the person would be stripped of his or her constitutional protections. Story continues Gun-reform advocates have pushed for stronger restrictions on certain types of buyers in recent years, but conclusive legislation on the matter has been fleeting. In January, President Barack Obama revealed new executive actions designed to narrow the "gun-show loophole" by requiring firearms dealers to issue tougher background checks on prospective buyers. Obama's actions also expanded the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, aimed to improve mental-health treatment, and sponsored new research into gun-safety technology. More From Business Insider Following Sunday's attack on Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the global LGBT community held vigils to commemorate and honor the at least 50 dead and 53 injured. A full and growing list of events planned nationwide is available here. The massacre is the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The primary suspect, Omar Mateen, reportedly claimed ties to the Islamic State group before carrying out the attacks, for which the extremist group has since taken responsibility. Orlando One mile east of the nightclub, a vigil at Joy Metropolitan Community Church saw a performance of "True Colors" by the Orlando Gay Chorus. Orlando Gay Chorus sings "True Colors" at the Joy MCC vigil. Congregation members singing along through tears.pic.twitter.com/tNkAu7stiG Source: John Raoux/AP Source: Chris O'Meara/AP Paris At the site of the ISIS-coordinated attack that killed 130 people in November, some 100 people assembled Sunday evening for what the Associated Press called a "spontaneous vigil" on Paris' Place Igor Stravinsky. In #Paris, a vigil in solidarity with #Orlandopic.twitter.com/B7GTEqfX3z https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ckx1d0xWUAEqxwB.jpg:large Source: Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Getty Images Washington, D.C. The ongoing candlelight vigil at the Washington Monument is one of many gatherings scheduled. Another took place outside the White House. Source: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images Candlelight vigil ongoing at the Washington Monument. People encouraged to speak regardless of emotion or beliefs.pic.twitter.com/ngApDAlnzD https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkynKCxUkAAJPmn.jpg:large White House vigil with gay men's chorus. Sign reads: The NRA is killing youpic.twitter.com/MTaAb70yCF https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyxVNqW0AA76ju.jpg:large Americans sing their national anthem outside the White House during a vigil for the #Orlando shooting victimshttps://amp.twimg.com/v/db0d581d-aa38-4b68-9c79-d6a48762f0e8 ... Atlanta Mourners came together at Ten Atlanta, a local gay bar in Midtown. Story continues Source: David Goldman/AP Source: David Goldman/AP Boston A candlelight vigil brought hundreds Sunday evening to Boston's Copley Square. PHOTO: Candlelight vigil just ended in Boston's Copley Square @ Trinity Church for #Orlando shooting. @universalhubpic.twitter.com/fcX1IQhIZA https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyxVRDWgAEz3Cv.jpg:large Toronto At a vigil, a woman recited the Surah al Fatihah from the Quran, the Muslim holy book's preface that asks Allah's help in living righteously. Surah al Fatiha recited at Toronto vigil for victims of #OrlandoNightclubShooting:pic.twitter.com/XGa0QtY9ls "Guide us on the straight path, the path of those who have received your grace," goes the verse. "Not the path of those who have brought down wrath, nor of those who wander astray." Ottawa, Canada In Ottawa, residents held a vigil where the known names of those lost in the "abhorrent acts of violence" perpetrated at Pulse were read out to the crowd. "Abhorrent act of cowardice": vigil for #Orlando victims, 8 pm, Human Rights Monument, Elgin St., Ottawa http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/capital-pride-holding-8-p-m-vigil-for-victims-of-orlando-shooting-rampage/ ... #LoveIsLove Chicago The city held two vigils Sunday evening, one in Lakeview East and another in Andersonville. Chicagoans hold a vigil in Lake View for #Orlando shooting victims. Watch live: http://nbcchi.com/DAy3LQq pic.twitter.com/hLUxebCKGz https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CkyguL1W0AETV9m.jpg:large New York City At the Stonewall Inn, a downtown Manhattan landmark where, in 1969, the gay community pushed back against police raids and brutality, hundreds gathered for a vigil where participants waved anti-NRA signs and pride flags. Source: Andres Kudacki/AP Source: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Source: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Indianapolis LGBT non-profit organization Indy Pride organized a gathering at the Old National Centre where mourners joined in a chorus of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Federal officials were aware of Orlando gunman Omar Siddiqui Mateen long before he orchestrated Sunday's mass shooting at LGBT nightclub Pulse, a FBI source tells PEOPLE. Mateen was working as a security guard at a private company in early 2013 when his co-workers reported to law enforcement that Mateen had claimed to be a member of Hezbollah with ties to al-Qaida, and that he was "looking for an excuse to become a martyr," the source says. According to the FBI source, Mateen's co-workers were interviewed by local FBI agents, who recommended that he be watched by the terrorist screening center. In the months between June and September 2013, the FBI interviewed "numerous witnesses" about Mateen and conducted physical surveillance operations on him on several occasions. Searches of other records and travel history, however, "found nothing noteworthy." Mateen acted alone in the Orlando shooting the worst in America's history killing at least 49 people and injuring 53. The 29-year-old's parents were from Afghanistan, but he was born in the United States. A second FBI source previously told PEOPLE that Mateen's father had claimed in videos posted to YouTube that he supported the Taliban. President Barack Obamasaid on Monday during a briefing that Mateen "was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the Internet." Orlando Shooter Allegedly Told Co-workers He Wanted to Become a Martyr and Was Investigated by the FBI Twice, but Cleared: Source| Crime & Courts, Shootings, True Crime Although Mateen announced allegiance to ISIS, Obama said there was no evidence that the gunman was directed by the group. Instead, the president said that the attack was "an example of some kind of homegrown extremism." "His travel was consistent with religious pilgrimage," the FBI source tells PEOPLE. "We asked our foreign partners for anything derogatory they had on Mateen and they came back with nothing." Related Video: ISIS Claims Responsibility for Attack at Orlando Gay Club, the Deadliest Mass Shooting in U.S. History Mateen further denied the conversations his coworkers alleged in a 2013 interview, and said he had no ties to Hezbollah, al-Qaida or the Boston bomber orchestrators, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The FBI's investigation into Mateen was closed in March 2014, and he was removed from the Terrorist Screening Center's official Terrorist Watchlist. "We found no indications that Mateen was connected with anyone involved with terrorists," the federal source says, noting that Mateen was interviewed one final time in May 2014 after Abu Salha's suicide attack in Syria, but was once again cleared. On the Pulse attack, the source says: "We have no indication this attack was directed by ISIL. It could have been ISIL-inspired, but even then, it is too early to say that definitively, despite the credit claimed by ISIL leaders." Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? A "Click to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. On Sunday, Obama called the attack both "an act of terror and hate." The gunman's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said during a press conference on Sunday that she believes Mateen suffered from mental illness, and alleged that he physically abused her during their four-month marriage. "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill and he was obviously disturbed, deeply," she said of her ex-husband, who she hadn't seen or spoken to in at least seven years. Regulars at Pulse, the gay nightclub that was attacked early on Sunday morning, say that the shooter had come to the club before. At least four regulars told the Orlando Sentinel that they had seen Omar Mateen at Pulse beforewith one witness even saying Mateen had been there at least a dozen times. He returned early Sunday morning, opening fire in a shooting that left 49 victims dead and 53 wounded. Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent, Ty Smith told the Sentinel. We didnt really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times He told us he had a wife and child. The FBI is looking into reports that Mateen had visited gay clubs previously, and officials are also investigating whether Mateen had tried to communicate with Pulse patrons on gay dating apps, NBC News reported. Cord Cedeno, a Pulse customer, told MSNBC that he recognized Mateen from Grindr, a dating app for gay and bisexual men. Cedeno also said he had seen Mateen at the club before. Thats not his first time there, Cedeno said. Hes been there several times. I know that for a fact. In an interview with the Guardian, Mateens father denied that his son was gay. Its not true, he said. Why, if he was gay, would he do this? The rat-a-tat of gunfire blasted out in near-darkness, amid loud music coming from the clubs sound systemat first seeming like it was part of the show. Then, as clubgoers began dropping from a hail of bullets, the panicked crowds rushed to escape the bloodbath. This could be a scene not just from the mass shooting in the Pulse club in Orlando early Sunday but also from the Bataclan concert hall in Paris last Nov. 13an attack whose strong similarity to the massacre in Florida raise deeply worrying questions for officials and intelligence analysts. The Orlando killings were different in one key respect, in that the suspect appears to have targeted a specific community of LGBT people rather than a random collection of concertgoers. Homophobic hatred may be a factor, as well as extremist ideology. But in other respects, the two attacks were so strikingly reminiscent that some officials in both the U.S. and Europe see a connection of some kind, whether through specific ISIS guidelines, or through simply emulating an attack that brought mass casualties. There is no information yet that Mateen modeled his attack after the Bataclan, which took place exactly seven months ago. But the similarities are unmistakable. In Paris, three gunmen claiming allegiance to the Islamic State, or ISIS, burst into the Bataclan, Pariss iconic music venue, during a packed performance of the California band Eagles of Death Metal, and unleashed a volley of automatic fire in the darkness. A total of 89 died. In Florida, a New York-born man named as Omar Mateen opened fire in the Pulse club with automatic weapons, killing 49 people and wounding dozens more. He too had sworn fealty to ISIS before the attack, reportedly in a call to emergency services. Just as Orlando was the U.S.s worst mass shooting in modern times, so too the Bataclan massacre was Frances worst single attack in memory. The event was so traumatic that it spawned the term The Bataclan Generation to describe the previously carefree French youth who are now marked by tragedy. On its cover on Monday, Britains tabloid The Sun splashed below a photo of the Orlando massacre the words, Americas Bataclan. Story continues This is very, very similar to the attack on the nightclub in the concert hall in Paris, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R.-California) told CNN on Sunday. That is why it is critical right now in this juncture for the FBI and other law enforcement to quickly track down all possible leads to see if this individual is connected to any other terrorist nodes around the United States or elsewhere. It is not yet known whether Mateen had contact with terror groups, or whether his pledge of allegiance to ISIS was the sole connection he ever had to the organization. The group announced on Monday that he was one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, but theres no evidence of collusion. Yet direct communication with ISIS almost does not matter. That is because both the Orlando and Bataclan massacres followed guidelines that ISIS has already made clear, about how its supporters could conduct mass murder in Western cities. Even before the Bataclan, ISIS had suggested an attack on a concert venue, according to one member arrested last summer. What is more, the Bataclan attack offered a living example to follow of a hugely successful attack that ISIS sympathizers could emulate. It could be a coincidence, but it is difficult to believe that someone who shared the ideology of ISIS and says he is acting in the name of ISIS would just be using the same modus operandi, just by chance. I dont believe it, says Claude Moniquet, a longtime agent for Frances external intelligence service DGSE, who now runs a private intelligence company in Brussels. He was clearly planning to do the same kind of thing as the Bataclan, Moniquet told TIME on Monday. Because it works. Moniquet says the ISIS playbook for such attacks breaks up the operation into three distinct phases: An initial phase of mass shooting, to kill as many people as possible before the arrival of security forces; a second phase of retrenching with hostages while waiting for the police to arrive; and a final phase involving a shootout with security forces. That was clearly the ISIS guidelines since 2014, he says. We know that is what they teach in their training camps. Indeed, French police uncovered that tactic months before the Paris attacks. Last August, they arrested a young Parisian, Reda Hame, shortly after he had returned home from a weeks combat training with ISIS in Raqqa, Syria. Hame told them that the group had instructed him to open fire in a crowded music club or auditorium: A location where hundreds of targets would be grouped together tightly, unarmed and off guard. Three months later, that exact attack unfolded in the packed auditorium of the Bataclan. There are another similarity between Orlando and the Bataclan: The attackers themselves. Like Mateen, all three Bataclan attackers were born and raised in the WestFrance in their caseas the sons of immigrants from conservative Muslim countries, familiar with the patterns of their own generation. Perhaps different from Mateen, the Bataclan attackers were part of a broader ISIS network that spent months planning the Paris attacks, in part because Europes far tighter gun-control laws complicated their plans; in total 130 people died in the November 13 assault. Now comes the question of how to prevent another Orlando, and another Bataclana hugely difficult challenge for law enforcement in both the U.S. and Europe. In Europe, just as in the U.S., terrorist attacks on crowded places like the Bataclan have sparked furious debates over gun control. The E.U. Parliament is set to vote next month on whether to introduce a blanket ban on semi-automatic and automatic weapons in the 28 member nationsa proposal introduced after the Paris attacks. Although European gun-control laws are already far stiffer than in the U.S., with extensive background checks required, the proposals has deeply divided the parliament, with some delegates saying the E.U. has failed to crack down on the extensive networks of illicit arms smugglers. Whether the law passes, dark crowded nightclubs will remain extremely difficult to secure properly against attackersa fact ISIS seemed to know, in planning how to wage attacks in the West. I dont see any possibility to really protect these kinds of places, Moniquet says. And even if you do, the threat will just move. (credit: Fibonacci Blue) (credit: Fibonacci Blue) In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, leaders on both sides of the aisle are calling for action. Heres what you need to know. Around 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, June 12, gunshots were fired at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. By midday, 50 people were dead, including the alleged shooter, and 53 others were wounded. The presumptive major presidential nominees weighed in with sympathetic words and policy proposals. In a prepared statement, businessman Donald Trump criticized President Barack Obama for failing to identify radical Islam in his remarks to the nation, and reiterated his belief that, if we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Trump also noted that the shooter was the son of Afghan immigrants, and said that, since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States. After last Decembers mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S. until our countrys representatives can figure out what is going on. In a tweet, he reaffirmed that call: What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 For her part, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the incident an act of hate, highlighting that the attack took place at an LGBT club. To all the LGBT people: know that you have millions of allies all over the country. We will continue to fight for their right to live freely, openly and without fear. Clinton also reasserted her call for greater public safety restrictions on gun use, saying that weapons of war have no place in our streets. (Police say the Orlando shooter carried a handgun and AR-15 assault rifle, among other items.) Like Trump, Clinton echoed her remarks after the San Bernardino attack, at which point she called for the government to take action now on guns. Story continues We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. Hillary on the FL attack Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 In the weeks and months ahead, the country will continue to grapple with important questions about guns, immigration, terrorism, and more. The National Constitution Center will continue to be a nonpartisan resource for learning about the Constitution; watch this space for further analysis. INTERACTIVE CONSTITUTION: The Second Amendment Adam Winker of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Nelson Lund of George Mason University explain what they agree about, and disagree about, when it comes to the Second Amendment. BLOG: Constitution Check: Should gun control laws have to pass the toughest constitutional test? Lyle Denniston, the Centers constitutional literacy adviser, looks at a federal appeals court decision that requires the strictest constitutional test for a law that restricts assault weapons ownership. BLOG: Constitution Check: Would a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. be valid? Denniston looks at the scholarly debate over Donald Trumps proposed Muslim ban and some possible court scenarios. BLOG: Constitution Check: Can guns used in mass shootings be banned? Denniston analyzes the Supreme Courts refusal to take a case about banning assault weapons. PODCAST: A reasoned debate about the Second Amendment Winkler and Lund join We the People to examine the history of the Second Amendment and the current debates about the extent of its protections. TOWN HALL: Should We Restrict Speech Promoting Terrorism Online? As part of Freedom Day 2016, Geoffrey Stone and Eric Posner of the University of Chicago join Monika Bickert of Facebook to discuss the balance between free speech and public safety. TOWN HALL: Resolved: The Second Amendment Protects the Individuals Right to Own and Carry a Gun At an event in Chicago, Illinois, Michael OShea of Oklahoma City University and Carl Bogus of Roger Williams University debate whether or not the Supreme Court got it right when it ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individuals right to own a handgun. TOWN HALL: The History of the Second Amendment Attorney Alan Gura and Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center for Justice discuss the history of the Second Amendment and the constitutionality of gun controlfrom the time of our Founding Fathers through present day. In the early hours of Sunday morning, 29-year-old Omar Mateen carried out the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Forty-nine were killed; dozens more were injured. After an attack like this, it's hard to avoid testaments to the physical carnage. We watched news channels broadcast footage of survivors escaping with bloodied wounds. We heard Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) announce at a Sunday press conference that "there's blood everywhere." But the Orlando shooting may take an invisible toll, too, on the mental health of LGBTQ people worldwide. What happened at Pulse was a clear act of hate-based violence and in a historically safe space, no less. "This is not just the biggest mass shooting in U.S. history it's a huge triggering event for all of us," Scout, director of LGBT HealthLink, said in a phone call Monday. "So many of us are survivors of some kind of aggression or violence and if not, we're definitely survivors of all the micro-aggressions and hate that is currently in the political arena," he said. "So when something like this happens, it triggers all of that." A candlelight vigil honoring Orlando shooting victims The shooting may also produce long-term mental health effects, according to Liz Margolies, psychotherapist and founder of the National LGBT Cancer Network. People who directly experienced the attack or know someone who did may develop post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. "The rest of us could be more vulnerable to anxiety and depression," Margolies said in a phone interview. "It is perfectly natural for most people to be very upset now and over time, those feelings should subside," she said. "But for some people, the impact will be greater and will unconsciously stay with them and can be triggered by going into a club, or years later, they'll hear a sound, and it will remind them." A candlelight vigil honoring Orlando shooting victims It's not just the Orlando shooting. Research has found links between other forms of anti-LGBTQ discrimination and dire mental health consequences, according to this 2011 review in the Journal of Homosexuality. Story continues This 2009 study examined how state-level protections for LGBTQ people affected the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among lesbian, gay and bisexual adults. In states without those protections, researchers found a "significantly stronger association" between LGB adults and anxiety disorders, PTSD and dysthymia or persistent depressive disorder. "Policies that reduce discrimination against gays and lesbians are urgently needed to protect the health and well-being of this population," the researchers wrote. The findings were similar in 2010, when researchers looked at mental health conditions among lesbian, gay and bisexual adults in states that instituted same-sex marriage bans in 2004 and 2005. A memorial outside NYC's Stonewall Inn Compared to a time before the bans were in place, LGB adults in those states showed a 248.2% increase in generalized anxiety disorder, a 41.9% increase in alcohol use disorders and a 36.3% increase in psychiatric comorbidity. "When you hear religious leaders, politicians and other folks talk about [LGBTQ] people in demeaning ways, there are long-term effects associated with that," Terry Stone, executive director at CenterLink, said in a phone call Monday. "It has an effect on the way you think about who you are, about your value, about your place in the world," he said. A memorial for the Orlando shooting What you can do: If LGBTQ people are feeling any of those ways, Stone suggests they "reach out to a mental health professional so they realize they are strong, they are powerful, they are good and they deserve respect." If you're a health care provider who supports LGBTQ folks, it's important to publicly go on record about it, Scout pointed out even if you're not an expert in LGBTQ issues. "We need a lot more people to stand up and say, 'I may not yet be an expert, but I'm willing to learn,'" Scout said. If you're an ally, Scout suggests reaching out to your LGBTQ friends and family. "Do not presume they're doing OK," Scout said. "Do not presume Orlando hasn't rocked them to their roots." At least 50 people died and more than 50 were injured after a gunman identified by police as Omar Mateen opened fire in a crowded Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The attack, occurring against the the backdrop of a bitter presidential election, led to familiar political debates over gun control and terrorism. Whatever comes of those debates, the shooting underscores a simple, indisputable fact: The United States of America has a lot of guns. More than any other country in the world, in fact, by any measure. us-guns American citizens own hundreds of millions more firearms than the residents of the next closest country, India, and more than 88 times the number of weapons as Australia, a country whose gun control policy President Obama has frequently praised. TIME examined 10 countries across the world and their gun laws, supply and cultureand the result shows just how much of an anomaly U.S. gun ownership is, in part of course because it is one of a handful of nations that extends some form of constitutional right to bear arms. The countries below are ordered from fewest number of total guns to most. (Read more about our methodology at bottom.) Japan has some of the oldest gun restrictions in the world, dating back to firearm controls implemented in the 16th century. David L. Howell, professor of Japanese history at Harvard University, said the Shogunate restricted the manufacture of guns and banned most private ownership. Those measures effectively quashed any chance of Japanese gun culture, according to David Kopel, a Second Amendment scholar and author of The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Laws of Other Democracies? Japans current laws effectively ban all but hunting guns and air-powered rifles for target shooting and require a clean bill of mental health, ammunition restrictions and inspections by authorities in order to own firearms. Its sort of like how people like you and I might feel about Sarin gas, said Kopel, who also serves as reserve director at the Independence Institute, a think tank that has received grant money from the National Rifle Associations Civil Rights Defense Fund. They think Why would a person own one? Story continues Australia, a former British colony, has a strong frontier spirit like the U.S.but the two countries have very different attitudes on guns, especially when it comes to self-defense. Namely, Australian law doesnt recognize self-defense to be a reasonable justification for owning a gun, said Philip Alpers, an associate professor at the Sydney School of Public Health in Australia, and founding director of GunPolicy.org, a pro-gun control website that promotes a public health approach to reducing gun violence. By and large people are horrified at that thought, he said.When you might get a robbery at a 7-Eleven and someone suggests you should be allowed to keep guns on the premises, all hell breaks loose in the media. Australias already low gun ownership rate dropped further when a spate of mass shootings in the 1990s led to significant restrictions on the ownership of semi-automatic rifles, handguns and pump-action shotguns, including a 28-day waiting period, buyback programs, a genuine reason for ownership and in-person police inspections before a license can be granted. England has effectively banned civilian handguns entirely (before 2008, even Englands Olympic pistol shooters practiced outside the country) and purchasing a shotgun or hunting rifle requires interviews with the police and a good reason. Self-defense is not an accepted answer. England also has a long history of limiting access to firearms. The Firearms Act of 1920 allowed local law enforcement to deny gun licenses at their discretion. On a per capita basis, Switzerland, the tiny European nation has the third highest rate of firearm ownership in the world, with less restrictive gun laws that allow anyone over the age of 18 without a criminal record or a history of mental illness to own a semiautomatic weapon. Switzerlands strong gun culture is rooted in its history of defense, requiring all men to do military serviceand those who serve are are allowed to keep their weapons at home. Even with more than 3 million firearms in circulation, Switzerlands gun homicide rate is 15 times lower than that of the U.S., according to GunPolicy.org. Canada strikes a middle ground between strict European gun control laws and the looser American model, requiring prospective gun owners to undergo a training course and a 28-day waiting period, along with additional restrictions for those who want to buy handguns and some semiautomatic rifles. Licenses to carry may be denied by officials for any good and sufficient reason. While Canada shares Americas frontier history, the U.S. and its northern neighbor long ago went separate ways when it came to guns, partly because the settlement of Canadian territory was more managed, with mounties establishing order and trust in government, said Blake Brown, author of Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada. Some Canadians in the late 19th century voiced support for an individual right to bear arms, but that strain within Canadian thinking dropped away, Brown said. [Later in the century] you started to have Canadians who identified gun rights as a difference between Canadians and Americans and created a cultural view of thought that, somehow, were different than Americans in terms of firearms. Yemen is one of the only countries in the world where firearmsincluding machine gunscan be purchased without restriction. A historically weak central governmentcurrently engaged in a civil warhas never exercised much control beyond a handful of population centers. Guns have also formed a currency of sorts in Yemen, since the British began buying allegiance from tribal leaders with large shipments of weapons in the 1950s, said Clive Jones, deputy head of the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University in the United Kingdom. That tradition continues today, with former President of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh purchasing loyalty with gun shipments. As a result, firearms have become all but ubiquitous. Its very rare certainly as you go to rural parts of Yemen that you would see a male not carrying some form of weapon, Jones said. In Mexico, buying a firearm legally is more difficult than in almost any other nation. Diligent citizens who manage to file the necessary paperwork to obtain a gun license must travel to Mexicos only gun store, located in Mexico City, where they may purchase a weapon and a box of bullets. Despite these strict laws, many Mexicans bypass the official procedures and purchase guns from the countrys large non-official market supplied by corrupt officials and international arms traffickers. Poor people living in some rough city cant go through a licensing system that isnt going to operate that efficiently for anyone and will be pretty hostile for them, the Independence Institutes Kopel said, so they get a gun for protection illegally. Drug cartels have also had no trouble acquiring enough weapons to carry out thousands of homicides. Compared to European neighbors, Germany has a large number of guns in public hands. But there are strict requirements regulating everything from who can own guns to how those guns are stored. To own a gun, Germans must prove their expertise with firearms, undergo a criminal background check (and a psychiatric evaluation if under 25), show they are not dependent on alcohol or drugs and demonstrate a need for the weaponand even then, they must meet a tough reliability standard that includes subjective and objective reasons for refusal. The German Weapons Authority may also carry out random inspections of gun owners homes to make sure they are in compliance with the law. India is second only to the U.S. in terms of total civilian gun ownership, but with a population roughly four times as large, the country actually has fewer guns per capita than low ownership nations like Australia. That stems from stringent colonial firearms controls put in place after the 1857 Indian rebellion against the East India Trading Companys rule, said Priya Satia, a Stanford history professor specializing in the British empire in the Middle East and South Asia. Following the rebellion, guns were strictly controlled by the central government, making firearm ownership effectively impossible for all but the ruling elite. Rohit De, a history professor at Yale, said members of the Indian nationalist movementincluding Mahatma Gandhiinitially supported allowing more gun ownership, but brutal violence between Muslims and Hindus during the struggle for independence removed it from the agenda. Instead, the nations post-independence laws continued the colonial tradition of strong gun control, restricting semi-automatic firearms, allowing the government to deny a license for any reason and requiring all licenses to be renewed after three years. Americans own more guns, and drastically more guns per capita, than any other people in the world. In fact, the U.S. has more total firearms than the 23 countries that rank behind it combined. Americas vast civilian cache of arms can partly be attributed to less restrictive gun laws. While federal background checks are meant exclude felons and those with a history of mental illness, buyers can skirt the check by purchasing firearms from collectors or others not considered in the business of selling firearms, who are not required to run background reports. Even Americas relatively minimal hurdles to gun ownership are relatively recent: the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, passed in 1993, was the first law that mandated federal background checks on gun purchases from licensed dealers. New fully automatic machine guns could be legally bought until the passage of the Firearm Owners Protection Act in 1986. The deadly 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut school, led to a renewed push for restrictions. But even a bipartisan measure that would have expanded background checks on gun sales failed in the Senate. Methodology All national gun ownership figures come from the 2007 Small Arms Survey. The survey seeks to estimate all firearms, legal or illegal, held in civilian hands through a number of indicators, including gun registration, expert estimates, household surveys, police firearm seizures, and data on total firearm production, imports and exports. While the number of guns has undoubtedly changed in some nations since the datas publication, Aaron Karp, senior consultant for the Small Arms Survey, notes that most countries civilian arsenals have stayed relatively stable over the intervening yearswith the exception of the United States, where gun ownership has seen the most growth. The 2007 numbers were used to illustrate American gun ownership in the interest of keeping to a consistent data set across countries (numbers arent updated as frequently in some other countries). But according to the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. has at least 310 million guns available to civilians in 2009 for a rate of 1.01 guns per 100 peoplenot the 270 million total guns and 88.8 guns per 100 found in the 2007 survey and displayed above. While comprehensive estimates, such as those provided by the Small Arms Survey, inherently sacrifice some level of accuracy, they paint a broadly meaningful picture of gun ownership. Return to the top As the death toll rises from the Orlando mass shooting that left at least 50 people dead and 53 more injured, the usually quiet Sunday for Americans has turned into a nightmare. Americans are now facing a situation similar to that of the Paris attacks seven months ago. Why did this happen? How was it executed? And could this attack have been prevented? The Security Failure The shooter, Omar Mateens known information and the circumstances of the massacre provide unmistakable elements of security failure for the local, federal and private security authorities. Related: Ryan on Orlando shooting: 'We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists' First, Mateen (meaning solid in Arabic) was brought to the FBIs attention twice in 2013 and 2014 when he made some extreme statements and for having an alleged connection with an American suicide bomber. Protected by the U.S. Constitution, Matten pursued a career as a security guard and obtained an assault weapon. Second, the nightclub in Orlando, which can accommodate 300 people, lacked the security procedures that could keep the clubs customers safe and prevent an armed person from entering. Third, the lack of information sharing between the FBI and the local police in Orlando regarding the shooter is troublesome. The failure of the FBI in not only keeping Mateen under surveillance, but in sharing his information with Orlando police constitutes a multiple failure on the part of the FBI. Fourth, this massacre took place during gay pride week in several American cities. This celebration of homosexuality coincided this year with the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan that usually witnesses a surge of terror attacks. The FBI could have warned the public of the possibility of an ISIS-inspired attack on gay gatherings, based on the inhuman way the terror group and other radical Islamists treat gays. A Los Angeles man was arrested for plotting attacks on homosexuals, and the plots were planned to attack gays in Europe during similar gatherings. Story continues Related: Trump calls on President Obama to resign in wake of Orlando shooting The Gun Control Debate Again The Orlando shooting, the deadliest in United States history, is an example of the dysfunctional gun control system. A person who was placed on an FBI watch list for extremist statements and a history of domestic abuse was able to own a gun and ultimately use it to kill at least 50 people. This massacre marks the fifteenth time president Obama spoke to the nation on gun violence after a mass shooting. This issue divides Americans sharply, and will be another unsolved political issue left to the next president to confront, with no realistic prospect of resolution. The ISIS Threat This mass shooting is the second successful ISIS-inspired attack in the U.S after the San Bernardino shooting in California last December. It is also the fourth large attack in a western country, counting the events in Paris and Brussels. This recent attack has taken place as the terror group is losing ground -- its worst days since the capture of Mosul, northern Iraq, two years ago. ISIS has just lost its entire Libya operation to a coalition of Libyan militias loyal to the newly formed government, a government that has the support of the international community. In Iraq, ISIS is battling the Iraqi government forces in its most receptive city ever, Fallujah. In Syria, the Kurds were able recently to place the city of Manbij under siege, cutting off most of ISISs path to Turkey. The Syrian government and the Sunni rebels are mounting other significant attacks on the ISIS-held territories in northern Syria. Related: Orlando triggers Facebook 'Safety Check' for first time in U.S. As good as it sounds, the fall of ISISs state in Iraq, Syria and Libya will end the image of a successful terror state in the Middle East that inspired tens of thousands of extremists around the world, yet it gives no guarantee that the lone wolves, who take ISIS as their inspiration, will disappear any time soon. On the contrary, the fall of ISISs state in the Middle East might trigger acts of revenge against western targets conducted by lone wolves or by returnees from Syria. The so-called lone wolf is now the most serious challenge facing U.S. counterterrorism. Islam and the Issue of Homosexuality As with other major terror attacks conducted by Islamist groups, this massacre is another example of a crisis that needs to be handled by the leaders of the Islamic faith. ISIS was actively killing gay men in Iraq and Syria by tossing them from roofs of high buildings as part of its hardline interpretation of Islam. While most Muslims do not condone such brutal killing of gays, many Muslims still refuse homosexuality for religious or social reasons. In almost every Muslim-majority country around the world, the gay revolution has not even begun. Gays are often mocked publicly. This issue is still a taboo in the Islamic world and it will continue to be so until the Muslim leaders tackle it. What's Next for the U.S. Presidential Election and Muslims in the West? The Orlando massacre is a gift to Donald Trump. Suddenly, many Americans will think that his call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. makes sense. He will use this mass shooting to collect support for his anti-Muslims views. His overall popularity might surge temporarily in the wake of this attack. Muslims in the U.S. and the west will suffer. Islamophobic acts on public streets, in airports, public parks and so forth will likely rise in the near term. This could also give terror groups like ISIS or al-Qaeda a better opportunity to recruit or inspire potential extremists in the U.S. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: A bill that would prevent terrorist suspects, as identified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, from legally purchasing firearms has languished in the House for more than three years but is now receiving renewed media attention in the wake of Sundays terrorist attack in Orlando. The bill, Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act, was first sponsored by Rep. Pete King, a Republican from New York, in April 2013, four months after the deadly mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. It was then reintroduced in February 2015 and now has 100 mostly Democratic co-sponsors. On Monday, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton threw her support behind the idea. If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldnt be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked, she said at an event in Cleveland. And you shouldnt be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. At yes, if youre too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America. Senate Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Bill Nelson and Richard Blumenthal, also announced they would push for the immediate passage of Kings bill. But due to the powerful politics of the National Rifle Association and the timing of the Orlando attackjust ten legislative days before the summer recessKing says he doesnt expect the legislation to pass anytime soon. Ill push it, but its not going to go anywhere, King, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, told TIME. I dont want to sound defeatist, but theres no support for it in the Republican Party. Its just the reality. In December, just days after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, every Republican in the Senate voted against a proposal that would have given the U.S. attorney general the power to deny firearms or explosives to known or suspected dangerous terrorists. Forty-five Democrats voted in favor of it. Story continues Another, Republican-backed amendment, introduced by Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, would have allowed the attorney general to temporarily prevent an FBI terrorist suspect from purchasing a weapon for up to 72 hours. The proposal required law enforcement and government officials to use that time to investigate the case and provide probable cause that the person on the watch list would misuse the weapon in the future. The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, was interviewed by the FBI twice in 2013 and 2014 about his ties to terrorist groups, including passing contact with an American who died in a suicide bombing in Syria, according to the Los Angeles Times. The FBI ended its investigation of Mateen, and apparently did not include him on its formal watch list, known as the Terrorist Screening Database, because he had not yet broken any laws. Mateen legally purchased an assault-style rifle and a semiautomatic handgun from a gun store in Florida within the past two weeks. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives described the weapons as a .223 caliber AR type rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. President Obama addressed the issue of preventing suspected terrorists from accessing weapons on June 2 in a prescient statement at a PBS town hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana. In response to a question from a pro-gun rights activist, Obama warned that known terrorist sympathizers can legally purchase guns in the U.S., even when the FBI knows who they are. I just came from a meeting today in the Situation Room in which Ive got people who we know have been on ISIL websites living here in the United StatesU.S. citizens, Obama said, referencing the Islamic State terrorist group. And were allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines. But because of the National Rifle Assocaition, I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun. Obama continued, This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer and if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now [and buy] as many weapons and ammo as he can, nothings prohibiting him, even thought the FBI knows who he is. On Monday, Obama re-upped him commitment to giving law enforcement officials the power to prevent suspected terrorists from legally acquiring weapons. The fact that we make it this challenging for law enforcement even to get alerted that somebody who they are watching has purchased a gunand if they do get alerted sometimes its hard to stop them from getting a gunis crazy, he told press in the Oval Office on Monday. The point is that if we have self-radicalized individuals in this country then they are going to be very difficult, often times, to find ahead of time, he said. How easy it is for them to obtain weapons is in some cases going to make a difference in whether they are bale to carry out these kind of attacks or notAnd we make it easy. Thats a problem, he continued. Its a problem when an angry young man on a college campus decides to shoot people because he feels disrespectedIts certainly a problem when we have organizations like ISIL who are actively trying to promote violence over the internet. King told TIME that part of the reason for Republican opposition to his bill is the fear that the president, or the federal government in general, might control who is on the terrorist watch list, and therefore determine who has access to a gun, or that a law-abiding citizen might be inadvertently added to the list. To opponents of the bill, thats the worst case scenariothat someone calls and reports a person wrongly, and then he cant go out and buy a gun, King said. To assuage that fear, Kings bill includes provisions that would allow people to challenge the categorization if they believed that they were improperly put on the watch list, King said. Another failed amendment to Kings bill, sponsored by moderate Republicans last year, would have prevented foreigners on the terrorist watch list from legally acquiring firearms, while U.S. citizens on the list would have still been allowed to access weapons legally. That fix, however, would not have prevented Mateen, who was born in the U.S., from accessing weapons, even if he had remained on the FBIs radar. National polls consistently show the vast majority80 to 90%of Americans support criminal background checks for gun sales. A 2013 poll found that even 74% of NRA members support universal background checks, according to PolitiFact. The idea of preventing people on the FBI terrorist watch list from legally acquiring weapons is also widely popular, King said. Its the hardest thing for me to explain to people in my district that this bill isnt passing 435 to zero, he said. I hate to sound defeatistI strongly support this bill and Im certainly willing to sit down with anyone, to discuss what it takes to get it through, but I dont see it happening. According to an April 2011 GAO report, people on the terrorist watch list purchased guns and explosives from licensed dealers between February 2004 and December 2010 91% of the time. That means in less than seven years, over 1,300 individuals on the terrorist watch list succeeded in legally obtaining the guns and explosives they sought, King wrote in a Dear Colleague letter asking for support for his bill. Political response to the attack in Orlando has been sharply divided. Most Republican politicians, including Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, have focused their attention on the brand of radical Islamic fundamentalism that motivates such attacks. Democratic politicians, including presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton have called for a ban on assault rifles, background checks, and other forms of gun control. Former Sen. Larry Pressler, a Republican from South Dakota, endorsed Clinton on Sunday because of her position on gun control. Secretary Clinton would be able to handle such explosive situations which are terrorist inspired much better than Donald Trump, he said in a statement. Remember that these domestic terrorists also buy automatic weapons, he added. Sen. Christopher Murphy of Connecticut, who has pushed for gun control in the past, said Congress must act in the wake of the Orlando attack. He did not endorse any specific piece of legislation but instead said his colleagues were complicit in these murders by remaining silent. This doesnt have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing again, said in a statement Sunday. King has introduced different versions of his gun control bill since 2003 with no success, and expects this time to be no different. When Congress returns in the fall, it will have to pass a budget in the looming shadow of a presidential electiona highly-politicized environment that promises to make passing controversial gun control legislation even less likely, King said. Thats not what they teach you in civics class, he said, but thats how it works. News of Sunday morning's massacre at Pulse nightclub's Latin night in Orlando, Florida, rapidly spread across the nation. By Monday, the gruesome event was on the cover of almost every newspaper throughout the country; revealing the faces and stories of those impacted by the tragedy. Most publications reported the shocking details: 49 dead; the shooter killed by SWAT forces; two explosives detonated on either side of the building by authorities, in order to disrupt 29-year-old Omar Mateen from his rampage; Mateen's twice-inconclusive FBI investigations, and the fact that he was able to legally purchase an AR-15 just two weeks before stepping into Pulse. But newspapers also typically noted one common point: the country has already , holding candlelit vigils, sharing stories of the fallen and m ty. The Orlando Sentinel's message was one of healing the popular newspaper ended its cover with the hashtag, #OrlandoUnited. The front page of a newspaper in the wake of the Orland, Florida mass shooting. The Press Journal made it abundantly clear Mateen was a Florida resident and U.S. citizen with three simple words on its front page: "One Of Us." The front page of a newspaper in the wake of the Orland, Florida mass shooting. The New York Daily News took it a step further, placing blame on the National Rifle Association for the U.S.'s plague of systematic shootings. Source: Newseum The Longview News-Journal shared the story of Mina Justice, a mother who received texts from her son from the bathroom of Pulse when Mateen took him as hostage. Thirty-year-old Eddie Justice died in the bloodshed. The front page of a newspaper in the wake of the Orland, Florida mass shooting. The always controversial New York Post blamed ISIS with a photograph of Omar Mateen's face and the headline, "Islamic terrorist kills 50." Orlando Shooting: The Nation's Front Pages A Day After Deadliest Shooting Massacre The New York Times shared an image of victims' family members and friends finding out news of their lost loved ones in what will be a historic newspaper cover for decades to come. Source: Mic/Newseum The Tampa Bay Times featured a rainbow rose with the headline, "there are no words." The front page of a newspaper in the wake of the Orland, Florida mass shooting. The Tuscaloosa News only had one: "Unimaginable." The front page of a newspaper in the wake of the Orland, Florida mass shooting. The Mercury News shared photographs of those impacted by Sunday morning's shooting just below an image of a selfie of Mateen in this California newspaper. The front page of a newspaper in the wake of the Orland, Florida mass shooting. The Bakersfield Californian noted that if there is any light to be shed on such a tragedy, it's a moment to reflect on our communities, and see how we can improve them so love can always win. Hillary Clinton; Donald Trump (Photos: (Andrew Harnik/AP; Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters) In the aftermath of the Sunday morning shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that left 50 people dead, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump announced changes to their plans for the coming week in order to give speeches focused on national security. Clinton also postponed her first campaign appearance alongside President Obama on Wednesday. Clinton is still making a planned speech in Cleveland on Monday. A campaign official told Yahoo News that her remarks would address this act of terrorism and hate and the steps she would take to keep Americans safe. Clinton was initially expected to make a call for unity following her primary campaign against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Clintons Wednesday event in Green Bay, Wis., was also scrambled. Obamas planned rally with Clinton would have been their first together since he endorsed her campaign last week. The presidents support came after Clinton scored enough delegates to earn presumptive nominee status in her race against Sanders. Clintons campaign said the joint appearance would be rescheduled. A White House official also confirmed the decision to delay the event. In light of the attack in Orlando, the presidents travel to Green Bay, Wisconsin, scheduled for Wednesday has been postponed. We will have more information on the presidents schedule as soon as it is available, the official said. Trump generated backlash with a Sunday afternoon tweet in which he indicated he was receiving congrats because of his frequent warnings of potential terror attacks by Muslim extremists. Soon after, Trump released a lengthy statement in which he used the attack to argue in favor of his proposed ban on Muslim immigration and tourism. That ban, Trump previously explained, would continue until our countrys representatives can figure out what the hell is going on. In his comments on the Orlando attack, Trump criticized Clinton for favoring immigration from the Middle East. He also took issue with both Clinton and Obama for not using the term radical Islam in their descriptions of the incident. Story continues According to the FBI, the shooter, identified as Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to the terror group Islamic State on 911 calls placed from inside the nightclub. Mateen was born in the U.S. to parents from Afghanistan. In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words Radical Islam. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words Radical Islam she should get out of this race for the presidency, Trump said, adding, If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak. Trump framed his position on Radical Islamic Terrorism as a positive thing for all Americans. We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from Radical Islamic Terrorism which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a president for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans, Trump said. Trumps statement also included an announcement about his planned event in New Hampshire on Monday. It had been billed on a speech about Clinton and controversies from her past as a former secretary of state, senator, and first lady. It said Trumps remarks would instead further address this terrorist attack, immigration, and national security. S According to Yusufiy, both her and Mateen were immigrants from Muslim families who had lived on the East Coast for years. After the couple married in 2008, h "There were definitely moments when he'd express his intolerance toward homosexuals," she told the New York Times. Source: LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/Getty Images Y , described her ex-husband as having an erratic, Jekyll and Hyde-esque personality. "He was totally two different people sometimes, and would turn and abuse me, out of nowhere, when I was sleeping," she told the New York Times. According to Yusufiy, Mateen abused her not only physically, but also financially and verbally, forcing her to hand over her paychecks and forbidding her to call her parents. "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that," she told The Washington Post. Her parents eventually caught wind of the situation and came to physically remove her from her abusive household in Florida, taking Yusufiy back to their home in New Jersey. Source: Mic/Getty Unfortunately, her experience is not unique. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in five women will experience "severe physical violence" from an intimate partner and every nine seconds, an American woman is assaulted or beaten. Studies of American Muslim communities found that reports of domestic abuse were slightly lower than the national average, although still discourages many women from reporting. Story continues "The Muslim community is under a lot of scrutiny, so they are reluctant to look within to face their problems because it will substantiate the arguments demonizing them," writer and activist Rafia Zakaria told the New York Times. Mateen's former coworker Daniel Gilroy echoed many of his ex-wife's allegations about his behavior. Gilroy told the Miami Herald that Mateen was constantly raging about "queers" and "dykes" and that his aggression was specifically targeted at people who challenged his ideas about race and gender. "It was always about violence ... All he wanted to do was cheat on his wife," Gilroy told the Herald. "He had very little respect for women." Mateen was investigated by the FBI at least twice, but the Afghan immigrant wasn't considered "a threat," according to the Herald. Although the New York Times did not specifically note whether Yusufiy had ever reported her ex-husband to the police, there is a statistical correlation between gendered violence and mass shootings. A 2014 study of 133 mass shootings across the country based on FBI data found that the shooter had killed a current or former intimate partner in 57% of cases. In at least 21 instances, the shooter had a prior domestic violence charge. Research from the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that even misdemeanor domestic violence offenders are two to ten times more likely to commit a crime with their firearms than average gun-owners. The American Psychological Association has repeatedly recommended stricter firearm regulations for domestic violence offenders, which it has identified as a "high-risk" group. Across the United States, people are gathering at vigils honoring the victims of a shooting attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando that left 50 people dead and 53 wounded. In Miami Beach, mourners lit candles, embraced and waived rainbow flags Sunday evening. Members of LGBT groups and their supporters met in the Boystown neighborhood of Chicago. Among them was Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who said the city has stepped up security in gay communities. Also there in solidarity were mothers who have lost their children to gun violence. Hundreds of people in Austin, Texas, attended an evening vigil at the Capitol that included Muslim leaders and a Christian pastor, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Several hundred people filled the parking lot of a popular LGBT-district bistro in downtown Atlanta, singing, lighting candles and speaking out against the violence that struck Orlando. Matt Garrett helped organize the event, handing out candles and lining up a series of speakers who would address the swelling crowd that spilled into the busy street. Authorities say Omar Mateen opened fire early Sunday morning inside Pulse, a crowded nightclub. Mateen died in a gun battle with SWAT team members. Guns. Homophobia. Mental illness. Islamophobia. Hatred. Domestic violence. Racism. Though talking heads might try, there is no singular lens through which to reflect on Sunday mornings horrific mass shooting at a gay club in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead and another 53 wounded. Untangling this senseless violence is a daunting struggle for Americans, especially those who fear that there could be morewhether at the hands of copycats repeating the shooters heinous acts, or by politicians whose vitriol toward American Muslims may increase. Within 24 hours of the attack, the Islamic State had publicly claimed the shooter29-year-old Omar Mateenas one of their own, sparking promises from presidential hopefuls to defeat the terrorist group. Amid many expressions of grief, the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association stepped in Monday morning to express its deepest solidarity with the largely queer people of color who were the victims of (the shooting) and their families. It was Latin night at Pulsethe club where the attack took placea night frequented predominantly by queer, trans black and Latino members of the LGBT community. The group, which formed to support and amplify the work of artists and writers of Afghan descent, anticipated backlash when it learned Mateens parents were from Afghanistan. Some members of the small organization are also Muslim and can speak to the fears that are growing in a community that has increasingly been the target of isolationist political rhetoric. We all recognize that theres going to be serious blowback and that things are not going to get any better in this current political climate, Wazhmah Osman, a spokesperson for and member of the group, told TakePart. After every incident of this kind, theres an escalation of attacks and violence toward Muslims. For Osman, an academic and a filmmaker who was born in Afghanistan and grew up in New Jersey, the attacks were doubly personal because she identifies as queer. (Disclosure: Osman is a friend of the writers.) With her peers in the AAAWA, she penned a response to the massacre in hopes of pushing back against anticipated anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence against their community. Story continues Osmans fears are well founded. In 2015, there were approximately 174 incidents of anti-Muslim violence and vandalism, including 12 murders and 29 physical assaults, according to research from Georgetown University on the 2016 elections and rising violence targeting Muslims. That marks a surge from 2014, when 154 such incidents were recorded. Georgetowns researchers note that a spike in Islamophobic political rhetoriclargely among the broad slate of Republican presidential hopefulsbegan in early September 2015, coinciding with Europes refugee crisis. Violent attacks are also all too common in the LGBT community, which was Mateens intended target. After the attack, Mateens father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News that his son had recently seen two men kissing in Miami and became very angry. In spite of a steady increase in tolerance toward the LGBT community from all religious groups, antigay hate crimes are still disturbingly common. LGBT people are 2.4 times more likely to be targets of violent hate-crime attacks than Jews or black people, according to a 2011 analysis of FBI hate crimes by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Black and Latino people in the LGBT community are nearly two times more likely to experience this kind of violence as their queer white peers, according to a 2013 report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. This attack was years in the making, based off of hundreds and hundreds of years of oppression and violence targeted toward queer and trans people of color, said a participant in a video project shared on Sunday by the organization Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement. Its impossible to discern whether Mateens alleged allegiance to the Islamic State or homophobic anger was the primary driver of what was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. But the fact remains that he targeted a gay club during pride month. This is what disgusts me the most about this tragedy: The maniac who did this was somehow conditioned to believe that LGBTQ people deserve to be massacred and that they are less-than in this society, Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, told reporters during a press conference on Sunday. And he wasnt just hearing this message from faraway terrorist organizations. He was hearing it from politicians and radical anti-LGBTQ extremists right here in our own country. Sunday mornings bloodshed touched numerous communities, making it even more apparent to advocates that efforts to stem hatred must be multifaceted and inclusive. We can no longer have an effective or moral LGBT movement unless it is also an antiracism movement, an antipoverty movement, a pro-immigrant movement, a pro-disability rights movement, a pro-worker movement, and a pro-womens movement, said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. There are people who want to come for all of us. We have to be standing there together. As fingers are pointed and tears are shed, Osman hopes her collective of writers and artists can push the national conversation away from drawing connections between Mateens Afghan descent and his act of hatred and violence. Mateen was born and raised in the U.S., she said. In spite of what the media is spinning, a lot of his beliefs have to do with American militarization, access to weapons, and American notions of masculinity that arent necessarily [related to his being] Afghan. People are quick to say Muslim people who grow up in Western society become radicalized through their contact with the Islamic state, but a lot of it is their contact with the American state. Send a Letter: Protect Runaway and Homeless Youths Related stories on TakePart: FDA Overturns Ban on Gay and Bisexual Blood Donors, but Theres a Major Caveat Meet Two Iraqi Men Who Risked Their Lives for Love Heres What Happened When Gay People Went Door-to-Door for Same-Sex Marriage Original article from TakePart Oscar Pistorius is suffering from major depression that has developed since he killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, said a psychologist during the sentencing hearing Monday. As a witness for the defense, psychologist Jonathan Scholtz said he recommends a community service sentence rather than prison time, which would not be constructive given Pistorius mental state. Pistorius was first sentenced to five years in jail for manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Steenkamp through a bathroom door in 2014, and got out on parole after one year. But the prosecution appealed to South Africas Supreme Court of Appeal, arguing that Pistorius should have been convicted of murder. Read More: Oscar Pistorius Is Being Re-sentenced for Murder. Heres Why The court overturned the original conviction and found him guilty of murder at the end of 2015. Murder convictions in South Africa have a minimum sentence of 15 years, but Pistorius could be reduced given the time he has already served in jail. Since the offense, [Pistorius] has developed a serious psychiatric condition which has become worse over the past two years, said Scholtz in court on Monday. The hearing will likely last through the week and a sentence is expected by Friday. Scholtz also said that Pistorius will probably not be able to testify given his depression, and has become traumatized by guns and gunshots since the killing. He has asserted he thought Steenkamp was an intruder and did not mean to kill her. [BBC] By Ahmad Sultan TORKHAM, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani and Afghan soldiers clashed overnight at the main border crossing at the end of the Khyber Pass, officials said on Monday, with at least one killed and several wounded, further straining relations between the militancy-plagued neighbors. One Afghan soldier was killed and six were wounded, an Afghan official said. The Pakistani army said one of its soldiers was wounded in the fighting at the Torkham Gate crossing in the mountainous region of northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Both countries blamed each other for starting the fighting, which broke out at roughly 9 p.m. local time on Sunday and continued into the night. "We currently have agreed on a ceasefire with #Pakistan. We hope this problem will end through the work by diplomatic addresses," the Afghan government's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, said on Twitter. "The current fight Pakistan started doesn't help anyone's interest." Relations between the neighbors have been strained in recent months. Kabul has accused Pakistan of harboring militants seeking to topple the Afghan government, including the notorious Haqqani network, blamed for high-profile attacks in the capital. Pakistan denies supporting militants and said it was constructing a border gate near Torkham, a Pakistani town close to the frontier, to prevent militants crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan. "In order to check movement of terrorists through Torkham, Pakistan is constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement," Pakistan's army said in a statement. "Pakistani security forces responded to Afghan firing effectively." Ayub Hussainkhil, border police commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the fighting at the Torkham Gate stopped at t 5 a.m. on Monday. "We have received reinforcement and are ready to defend our country until the last drop of blood in our bodies," he said. The Pakistan-Afghanistan border has long remained porous and disputed. Afghanistan has blocked repeated attempts by Pakistan to build a fence on sections of the roughly 2,200-km (1,370-mile) long frontier, rejecting the contours of the boundary. Last month, Pakistan build a border post between Pakistan's South Waziristan and Afghanistan's Paktika province and handed it over to Afghan officials. Hours later, Afghan authorities shut the post, saying that the actual border lay about a kilometer inside Pakistani territory. (Additional reporting by Rafiq Sherzad at TORKHAM. Asad Hashim in ISLAMABAD; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Nick Macfie) An influential group of Pakistani clerics has issued a fatwa against honour killings, with a spokesman calling them "unethical and unjustifiable" Monday following a series of attacks on women that have caused national outrage. The Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) said killings such as last week's murder of teenager Zeenat Bibi in Lahore after she married the man of her choice were a "great sin". The edict was backed by up to 40 clerics in the council, a group of Sunni organisations that wields considerable influence in Pakistan's powerful Punjab province. Allah has decreed that women should be free to marry whomever they choose so long as both parties are agreed, the SIC's Punjab General Secretary Mufti Saeed Rizvi told AFP Monday. "So the killing in a normal or in a brutal way (burning alive etc), as was done to the innocent Zeenat recently in Lahore, is absolutely a great sin. All clerics have severely condemned it and declared it an unlawful, unconstitutional, undemocratic, unethical and unjustifiable act that must be stopped by the state at any cost," he said. Islam, he said, respects the rights of women, while the issue of honour was based on "illiteracy" and had nothing to do with the religion. The fatwa also called on the government to draft new legislation to punish those guilty of honour killings within a week, and to launch an awareness campaign. Hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives in Pakistan each year on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour. "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" -- a film telling the story of a rare survivor of an attempted honour killing -- won an Oscar for best documentary short in February. Amid publicity for the film, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to eradicate the "evil" of honour killings but no fresh legislation has been tabled since then. On Friday, Sharif ordered an investigation into Zeenat Bibi's killing. The same day another Pakistani couple were murdered for marrying without their family's consent. Pakistani police have arrested a fellow officer after he was accused of beating up an elderly Hindu man for not fasting during Ramadan, an incident that sparked a social media outcry. The elderly man was pictured bloodied after the attack which reportedly took place in Ghotki district of Sindh province on Saturday just before sunset. The images were widely shared over the weekend. Activists and outraged Pakistanis using the hashtag #JusticeforGokalDas called for the officer who allegedly attacked him to be arrested. "Religion doesn't mean forced fasting & terrorising the weak. Shame on those who did this," tweeted one Pakistani user. "Deplorable! Non-muslims should be allowed to eat food anytime they want. Stop terrorising them," said another. Bilawal Bhutto, son of Pakistan's slain prime minister Benazir, later tweeted that the police officer had been taken into custody. Local police confirmed the arrest and told AFP an inquiry was being conducted. "Strict action will be taken against the police official and a senior police officer will go to meet the victim and seek an apology to give a better image of the police to the public," a statement said. Eating or drinking in daylight hours during Ramadan is a crime for Muslims in Pakistan. They can be fined or even jailed for up to three months. The restrictions do not apply to other religions. Ramadan is the most sacred month of the Islamic calendar and Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset every day during the whole month. (Dimebag Darrell/Photo: Getty Images) The members of Pantera urged club promoters/owners to beef up security for artists in the wake of Christina Grimmies murder this weekend. Citing the onstage 2004 murder of lead guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott by a fan at a Columbus, Ohio, gig during a show by his band Damageplan, the group posted a Facebook message juxtaposing pictures of Grimmie and Abbott. Adam Levine Offers to Pay for Christina Grimmies Funeral Expenses We are so sad and disappointed to hear that Christina Grimmie was gunned down the same way that Dimebag Darrell was, they wrote. After Dimes murder, we all prayed that our industry (i.e. club owners & promoters) would do whatever they needed to do to protect artists from gun wielding fanatics. Sadly, thats not the case and another rising star had to pay the consequences with her life. SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE! The post was dedicated to Grimmie, Abbott and the three other people (Jeff Thompson, Erin Halk and Nathan Bray) killed alongside the speed metal star during the 2004 shooting at the Alrosa Villa club. Former Voice contestant Grimmie, 22, was gunned down by 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl who was quickly tackled by Grimmies brother before shooting himself on June 10 after opening for pop-rock band Before You Exit at the Plaza Live. She was signing autographs at a meet and greet after the show when Loibl shot her. Leena Yadavs Parched, a story of female empowerment, continues its march across the film festival circuit opening the seventh Bagri Foundation London Indian Film Festival on July 14. She is one of seven female directors with films unspooling in the program. Toba Tek Singh, the story of Punjabi mental patients locked up during Partition, from Ketan Mehta closes the festival on July 24. Films will play in both London and Birmingham. The program covers films in 15 languages from not only India, but also neighboring Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Rajnikanth documentary For the Love of a Man; I Am Not He She, a transgender tale from B.S. Lingadevaru; Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoys A Girl in the River; Dirty, Yellow, Darkness, from Sri Lankan directors Kalpana & Vindana Ariyawansa; Brahman Naman from director Qaushiq Mukherjee; and Jayarajs Berlin Crystal Bear winner The Trap are among the other highlights of the festival. Yadav, Obaid-Chinoy and Rinku Kalsy will talk about their careers as female directors, while Shekhar Kapur, Kamal Hassan and Sharmila Tagore will give master classes. The festival will also holds its Satyajit Ray Short Film competition with a prize of 1,000, in association with the Bagri Foundation. We aim to showcase films that entertain but challenge and make one think about the many social issues happening in India today, and that includes many positive changes including the fact that so many emerging Indian women filmmakers who are producing world-class films that are giving their male counterparts a serious run for their money, said Cary Rajinder Sawhney, director of the Bagri Foundation London. Visit the festivals website for more information. Related stories 'Umrika' to Open London Indian Film Festival 'Sold' to Open London Indian Film Festival Costa-Gavras, Kamal Hassan Lauded At Mumbai Festival Bow The world took its questions online following a deadly shooting in Orlando, making the incident the top searched shooting on Google over the last 12 months, according to data from the search giant. Interest in the Orlando shooting began to rise early Sunday morning, just as reports of violence there began to spread online and searches continued to flood in throughout the morning, until search interest peaked around noon. Interest online in Orlando continues to remain higher than normal on Monday, with the most searched query being shooting in Orlando. Searches for the Orlando shooting were higher than any other shooting in the U.S. in the last year, including attacks in San Bernardino and Colorado Springs. A gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, took 49 lives during the incident, while more than 50 others were injured after Mateen went on a shooting rampage at a gay nightclub. There was a rise in searches in Florida of donate blood on Sunday, as many in the state looked to give blood to hospitalized victimslines were reportedly around the block for donations. The Orlando area had the highest concentrated search interest in the country, with top questions including: Where can I donate blood in Orlando?, How do I mark myself safe on Facebook? and What does state of emergency mean? The attack has become a hot-button issue in the presidential election and that reflected online as many searched to see what leading politicians had to say, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump being the most searched in relation to Orlando, followed by President Obama and Democrat Hillary Clinton. Search interest in the incident rose in more than 30 countries, including those closer to home like Canada and Mexico and peaking even as far as Australia, South Africa and Singapore. Google has previously compiled international search response for terror incidents, calculating response times in different countries based on when related searches began to appear. Every so often, journalists uncover an intriguing story that stimulates intellectual debate on issues of grave import. The revelation that eccentric Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogans invasion of privacy lawsuit against Gawker Media is not one of those stories. And neither is news that Gawker has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to avoid paying $140 million in damages recently awarded by a Florida court. Then why is the media so up in arms over this sordid affair? Why has the fourth estate almost universally condemned a famous tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist for putting up $10 million to help the wrestler win a slam-dunk case against a despised media company for refusing to take down a secret sex tape? And why are a whos who of media pundits and columnists striving so desperately to turn this tabloid trash into an existential threat against the almighty First Amendment, even after the jury sent a very clear message that it is not a free speech issue when it ruled in Hogans favor back in March? Since everyone who came out against Thiel on this which is pretty much everyone seemed to have a different reason for doing so (none of which rang true, mind you) it took me a while to figure out what their real beef was all about. Turns out, that is of grave import in an election year. On LinkedIn Pulse, media entrepreneur and investor Michael Lazerow writes that hes not just disgusted by Peters actions, but that his secret war violated two of Silicon Valleys most core and fundamental principles, trust and transparency. I dont know what Valley Lazerow is talking about, but, since hes from New York, I thought Id fill him in on how things really go down around these parts. Apple spent years and billions of dollars in legal fees to fulfill Steve Jobs vow to go thermonuclear war on Google and destroy Android for stealing the iPhone design while Googles Eric Schmidt sat on Apples board of directors and Jobs was mentoring the search giants founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Talk about a breach of trust and transparency if only that were unusual in tech [sigh]. Story continues Meanwhile, in a feature piece, Forbes somehow managed to paint Gawker and its CEO, Nick Denton, as victims. And yes, thats the same Gawker that rose to fame on scathing, sensationalist takedowns where anything is fit to print and ethics is a foreign word. Thats also the same Nick Denton who the New Yorker described as an evil, soulless, Machiavellian puppeteer. Sympathy for the devil, indeed. Others have taken it quite a bit further. Vanity Fairs Nick Bilton fears that Thiels action is just the first of what will surely be many brazen attempts by the tech elite to morph society into the world they believe we should live in. After all, he writes, Who do you think is going to create the laws on Mars? The U.S. government, or Elon Musk and his old co-worker and buddy from PayPal, Peter Thiel? Bilton also seemed quite upset that Thiel had the nerve to serve him and other guests at his mansion sushi, edamame and drinks instead of the fanciful feast fit for a billionaire that he was expecting. I kid you not, folks. What do you say we come back down to Earth and have a good honest heart-to-heart about what this is really all about: the enormous red, white and blue elephant in the newsroom, politics. You see folks, Peter Thiel may be gay as Gawker wrote when it outed him in 2007 and he may live in the most liberal city north of the South Pole, San Francisco, but the German born businessman is a devout conservative libertarian who has supported dozens of Republicans in the past and is a pledged California delegate for one Donald J. Trump. That explains a lot. You see, the tech media generally fall all over themselves glorifying entrepreneurs and VCs, and few have been as remarkably successful at both as Thiel. A Stanford Law graduate who co-founded PayPal and $20 billion unicorn Palantir, Thiel was also an early investor in Facebook, LinkedIn, Yammer and Yelp. He manages over $2 billion in venture capital via his Founders Fund, which holds positions in Airbnb, Lyft, SpaceX, Spotify and cancer drug maker Stemcentrx, which is being acquired by AbbVie for $10 billion. He also funds a long list of philanthropic causes and wrote the #1 bestseller, Zero to One. If anyone is deserving of the medias adoration, its Thiel. Instead, theyve come up with all sorts of hokey reasons to demonize him, not least of which is his latest cause, the demise of Gawker, which also owns Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Jezebel and Deadspin, and whose motto is Todays gossip is tomorrows news. While the media and many of Thiels cohorts have tagged him for taking vengeance too far, they actually have his motives wrong. If you read a rare interview he did back in 2009, its clear that Thiel indeed sees his efforts on behalf of those whove been wronged by Gawker, not as revenge, but as one of his many causes. Thiel called Valleywag (now part of Gawker) the Silicon Valley equivalent of Al Qaeda, adding Its terrible for the Valley, which is supposed to be about people who are willing to think out loud and be different. I think they should be described as terrorists, not as writers or reporters, he said. And he recently confirmed to the New York Times that he sees his actions against Gawker as among his greater philanthropic efforts. Look, Im not saying that, if it werent for his politics, everyone would wholeheartedly agree with his methods. There will always be paranoid conspiracy theorists who are fearful of plutocrats chilling free speech. Never mind that Thiels methods are entirely legal and, so far, the courts have ruled that Gawkers free speech defense is invalid. But if Thiel marched like the good little left-wing soldier that the tech media adore, I doubt if this backlash by otherwise clear-thinking people would have ever materialized. Related Articles Manila (AFP) - Filipino protesters said Monday that Chinese coastguard ships blocked and sprayed them with water as they sailed to a disputed South China Sea shoal to plant a Philippine flag for independence day. China claims most of the strategic and resources-rich sea and has controlled Scarborough Shoal, just 230 kilometres (145 miles) off the main Philippine island of Luzon, since a 2012 standoff with the Philippine Navy. The Kalayaan Atin Ito (Freedom This is Ours) group said 16 of its members arrived near the shoal early on Sunday, Philippine independence day, and their boat was promptly blocked by two Chinese coastguard vessels. "Five of us attempted to swim to the rock to plant the Philippine flag and the UN flag but they harassed us," the group's coordinator Vera Joy Ban-eg, told AFP via text message. "They chased us with their two speed boats and blocked our path, sprayed water on us. Two of the swimmers however were able to reach the ring of the shoal and raised the Philippine flag." The incident comes at a particularly tense time in the long-running dispute between the Philippines and China over Scarborough Shoal and other parts of the sea claimed by both. China insists it has sovereign rights to nearly all of the sea, even waters close to the shores of its neighbours. Aside from the Philippines, other claimants are Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Philippine President Benigno Aquino's administration has taken China to a UN-backed arbitration tribunal in a bid to have Beijing's territorial claims declared illegal. A ruling is widely expected over the next few weeks, although China does not recognise the arbitration and has reacted angrily to the Philippines' legal efforts. Kalayaan Atin Ito has organised trips to Philippine-claimed or -controlled South China Sea islands in the past, sending 47 Filipino youths by boat to Filipino-garrisoned Thitu Island in the Spratly group in December. Story continues The Philippine government has previously said it recognises the group's patriotism but has discouraged such trips, owing to safety concerns. The group posted video clips and pictures of its latest trip on its Facebook wall. One clip showed a group of young men and women singing the Philippine national anthem while they stood on the deck of a wooden-hulled boat flying Philippine and United Nations flags. A larger, white-hulled vessel is seen shadowing the Filipino vessel from behind. Ban-eg said 15 Filipino youths and an American national took part in the protest sail, but did not identify the foreigner beyond calling the person a "volunteer". A Chinese embassy spokeswoman in Manila told AFP it may comment later. A candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco, California, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Monday (13 June) sent Singapores condolences to US President Barack Obama on the tragic Orlando shooting. A US citizen armed with an assault rifle killed 50 people and injured 53 others in the city in Florida state on Sunday (12 June), in the worst mass shooting incident in US history. Lee said he was deeply shocked and saddened by the tragedy, which has resulted in the loss of many innocent lives and injuries. On behalf of the Government and people of Singapore, I offer my deepest condolences to the victims and their families on this horrific tragedy. Nothing can excuse such brutal and senseless acts of violence, Lee added. Obama denounced the mass killing as an act of terror and hate. Police killed the gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, a son of Afghan immigrants who was twice questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in recent years. Preliminary investigations suggested Mateen was inspired by the Islamic State to carry out the attack, though there was no evidence that he had any ties to the group, US law enforcement officials said. Police were sent to Johnny Depp and Amber Heards downtown Los Angeles home on Monday, with LAPD confirming to ET that Heards attorney is the one who placed the call. NEWS: Johnny Depp Auctioning Off Valuable Art Collection Ahead of Divorce Proceedings While Depp, 53, is currently believed to be in the Bahamas, Heards team is reportedly claiming that the actor is in violation of the temporary restraining order that Heard was granted against her estranged husband last month, by sending his people to collect items from the house. The court order requires that Depp remains at least 100 yards from their home, but includes a move-out order, allowing him to collect clothing and personal items needed before Fridays hearing. WATCH: Amber Heards Ex-Girlfriend Speaks Out on Domestic Violence Arrest in 2009 TMZ reports that Depps people are removing things from the walls and taking furniture out of the home, and that 30-year-old Heards team views this as overreaching. Two officers told ET there was nothing to report as they left the building. ET reached out to reps for both Heard and Depp, who have yet to respond. Related Articles Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f114346%2fcowchase These cows deserve an award for being outstanding in their field. After a suspect led police on a manhunt in Brazos County, Texas, on June 9, officers were able to apprehend him with the help of some cows who tipped them off. SEE ALSO: Cows do not appreciate baby elephant's tip-top dance moves KBTX reported that the suspect, 24-year-old Samuel White, was initially pulled over for speeding. "When he was told that he would be arrested, he took off and led several agencies on a high speed chase," police said. While he was evading the police, White ended up hitting another car and crashing into a field before running away on foot. The woman whose car White hit Ajitta Harwell told KBTX, "I guess he must have panicked and took off and just hit me head on." "He just hit me so hard, I was in shock," said Harwell. "I couldn't do nothing but sit there and scream." Police called off the manhunt afterwards after White, "was found laying in some fields." According to KBTX, "Authorities say they found White after some cows apparently gave up his hiding spot, as they were staring at him." Police later discovered that White had an outstanding warrant, which they believe is the reason he chose to run. To see the full news report, watch the KBTX video below. Photo: AP/Phelan M. Ebenhack Update: The last names of the deceased have been released by the city of Orlando. Antonio Davon Brown, 29, Akyra Monet Murray, 18, Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25, and Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24, are the last four victims to be named. Six of the 53 wounded remain in "critically ill" condition, with another five in "guarded" condition, according to The Associated Press. Update June 13, 2:30 p.m. : An additional 19 victims have been identified by the city of Orlando. The names identified are: Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32, Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19, Cory James Connell, 21, Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37, Luis Daniel Conde, 39, Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33, Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25, Jerald Arthur Wright, 31, Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25, Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25, Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24, Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27, Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33, Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49, Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan, 24, Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32, Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28, Frank Hernandez, 27, and Paul Terrell Henry, 41. There are four victims yet to be named by the city. In an interview with CNN on Monday afternoon, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said that only one of the deceased had not yet been identified, and authorities were in the process of notifying the families of those who had been killed. Bondi said that interpreters were being brought in to help the notification efforts, as many of the families are Spanish-speaking. CNN reports that, of the wounded, five individuals are still in grave condition at an Orlando-area hospital. Update June, 13, 10:45 a.m. : As vigils are held around the world for the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting, names and details of more victims continue to be released. The city of Orlando has released 20 additional names of those killed in Saturday nights attack on the Pulse nightclub. The additional victims are Luis S. Vielma, 22, Kimberly Morris, 37, Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30, Darryl Roman Burt II, 29, Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32, Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21, Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35, Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50, Amanda Alvear, 25, Martin Benitez Torres, 33, Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37, Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26, Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35, Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25, Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31, Oscar A Aracena-Montero, 26, Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25, Miguel Angel Honorato, 30, and Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40. Story continues There are 23 victims still to be named, as their families are notified. Details about some of the victims are beginning to emerge. David Sotomayor told The Associated Press that his cousin, Edward Sotomayor, one of the first victims to be identified, was a fun-loving man who wore a silly top hat on cruises and was always part of the fun. A coworker remembered Luis Vielma as a welcoming, reliable friend. He was always a friend you could call. He was always open and available, Josh Boesch told the AP. Vielma, who worked at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter amusement park in Orlando, was also mourned by book author J.K. Rowling in a tweet. Around the world, candlelight vigils were held on Sunday night in honor of the victims. In New York, the Empire State building went dark in honor of the victims, while Gothamist reported that mourners brought flowers to the Stonewall Inn, a nightclub known for its role in the gay civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. This story was originally published on June 12, 2016. The first six names of the 50 people who were killed in a mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL, on Sunday have been released. Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar III, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, Juan Ramon Guerrero, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, and Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz are among the dead. Their names were posted on the City of Orlandos website and shared in a tweet from the Orlando Police account. The website has been set up specifically to identify victims after their families have been notified. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer asked that anyone who may know a possible victim also call a hotline (407-246-4357). On this very difficult day, we offer heartfelt condolences to todays victims and their families, the City of Orlando wrote on its victims page. Our city is working tirelessly to get as much information out to the families so they can begin the grieving process. Please keep the following individuals in your thoughts and prayers. So far, there hasn't been any information about the victims' personal lives or their families. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here? Stanford Judge Removed From Subsequent Sexual Assault Case Disney Is Donating $1 Million To Help The Orlando Victims 49 People Killed In Orlando Nightclub Shooting Police are investigating an officer whose K-9 partner died after being left in a hot patrol car for several hours. Read: Communities Mourn Two Police K-9s Shot and Killed Just Hours Apart In a statement to InsideEdition.com, the Cherokee County School District in Georgia said that Lt. Dan Peabody is a school resource officer who's been working with the district for the last 16 years. Peabody, a certified K-9 handler, trained the 4-year-old Belgian Malinois since he was a puppy to serve with him, including tracking and detecting narcotics. According to WGCL, Peabody arrived home at 4:15 p.m. Friday evening and left K-9 Inka in the back of his squad car with the engine turned off to "deal with another dog inside the home," officials reported in a press conference. The Marshall's Office said that the temperature that day was reaching and exceeding 90 degrees, although it would have been much hotter inside the car. Though it is unclear why Peabody left the dog in the car, it was not until after 7 p.m. that he returned to the patrol car and discovered Inka dead in the back seat. "Peabody was very distraught, very despondent over it, naturally. Even to the point where he was transported to the hospital [the same night]," Cherokee County Marshall's Office Chief Ron Hunton said in a press conference. According to Hunton, when officials responded on the scene, they determined his car was not equipped for a K-9 dog. "You should not have a dog in a car that's not equipped for a K-9," Hunton said. Offficials said Peabody let another officer use his K-9 squad car, and the Ford Crown Victoria he had driven that day was not equipped with cages or alarms. They believed that the car "played a factor" in Inka's death. Read: K9 Gets Stage Fright As He Is Sworn Into Office as Department's First Comfort Dog According to a school district statement provided to InsideEdition.com: "[Inka] served her community well and was loved by many, especially our students who met her through safety presentations." Story continues A necropsy completed on Monday determined the K-9's cause of death was from heat stroke. The Cherokee Sheriff's Office assured that a separate department is investigating the incident. It is still unclear whether Peabody will face charges. Watch: Officers Salute Last Known 9/11 Search Dog as She Heads to Hospital to Be Put Down Related Articles: By Jarrett Renshaw Orlando, Fla. (Reuters) - A day before the Orlando, Florida, nightclub massacre, Luis Vielma, 22, updated his Facebook profile with a picture of himself standing with young people in front of a Disney castle and a caption that read: "True friends who become family." By Sunday night, his profile was altered to "Remember Luis Vielma" after police confirmed he was among 50 people killed in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. As authorities frantically tried to notify all the relatives, the Orlando Police Department began publishing the names of victims on a city website on Sunday afternoon. Among them was Vielma, who worked part-time as a rides attendant at the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey theme park ride, while studying physical therapy at Seminole State College, according to his Facebook profile. Others included Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34, Stanley Almodovar III, 23, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, and Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22. Police killed the gunman, who was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a New York-born Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan, and officials were probing evidence suggesting the attack may have been inspired by Islamic State militants. The sheer number of deaths appeared to overwhelm officials in Orlando, a city of 270,000 people. Orlando police asked mourners to hold off on vigils as they were understaffed to police them. "We understand our community is grieving and that vigils are being planned but PLEASE hold off on vigils they represent a serious strain on our limited resources, which we need to dedicate to law enforcement and victims," the city posted on its official Twitter handle. Sotomayor was a marketing manager at a Sarasota, Florida-based gay-themed travel company. His boss, Al Ferguson, said Sotomayor's partner was outside the nightclub putting something in the car when the shots rang out. Story continues He got a text from Sotomayor telling him he was safe in the bathroom and not to come back into the club. Sotomayor texted again 20 minutes later to say he was OK. That was the last his partner heard from him, Ferguson said. Sotomayor was a legend in the industry, Ferguson said. He booked tours for entertainer and drag queen RuPaul and put together the first gay cruise to Cuba last year. He was going to announce a second trip on Sunday, but was killed. "Anyone who booked gay cruises knew Sotomayor," Ferguson told Reuters. "He was a great man." In an Instagram post published on Sunday, RuPaul's Drag Race judge Michelle Visage called Sotomayor "a joy." "I loved you on so many levels. You were SO SO special and will never be forgotten," she wrote. "I promise you that." Neighbors of Almodovar, a 23-year-old pharmacy technician, said his parents had recently moved back to Puerto Rico after his mother became ill with cancer. He was the youngest in the family. The Facebook page for Almodovar, of Clermont, Florida, was flooded with shocked tributes. "We'll miss you Stanley. You made an impact on everyone that you came around. A good person and friend, wrote Mark Nielsen of Deltona, Florida. Images posted to Almodovar's wall over the years showed him socializing with dozens of friends. "I will always remember you," Jeannette Molina wrote. "Your beautiful personality and spirit." (Additinal reporting by Amy Tennery and Angela Moon in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Peter Cooney) At first, the reactions were only subtly different: expressions of horror and sadness, thoughts, and prayers. But in the hours after Omar Siddiqui Mateen opened fire at a gay club in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday, killing 50 and injuring 53 others, different political interpretations began to emerge. Politicians, advocates, and religious leaders were united in rejecting the violence. But faced with untangling the many layers of the attackthat it happened at a gay bar on its Latin dance night; that the killer had allegedly made a pledge to ISIS; that the he used an assault rifle, and chose to execute his attack during the month of both gay-pride celebrations and Ramadanpolitical leaders stood apart, seemingly poised for the policy fights that are bound to come in the days and weeks to come. Among Republicans and other conservative leaders, few specifically mentioned the fact the attacks happened at a gay club, nor did they express solidarity with the gay community. Some, like Marco Rubio, addressed the issue, but in hedged language: He targeted the gay community because of the views that exist in the radical Islamic community about the gay community, the Florida senator, a Catholic who has opposed public-accommodations protections for LGBT Americans, said on CNN. He did not mention the LGBT community in his official statement. The Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore was more direct with his empathy: Lets realize that, in this case, our gay and lesbian neighbors are likely quite scared. Who wouldnt be? he wrote in an article for Time. Demonstrate the sacrificial love of Jesus to them. We dont have to agree on the meaning of marriage and sexuality to love one another and to see the murderous sin of terrorism. Many Republicans, including Rubio, spoke much more extensively about the threat of ISIS and Islamic terrorism. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, pegged the problem to immigration policies, noting on Twitter he asked for a ban on Muslim admissions and calling on President Obama to resign the presidency for not mentioning radical Islam during the presidents statement on Sunday. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan condemned the attacks as an act of terror, emphasizing that America is a nation at war with Islamic terrorists. And Mondays New York Post cover declares, Islamic Terrorist Kills 50 ISIS vs. U.S. Recommended: Donald Trump and the Future of the Republican Party On the Democratic side, leaders were much more eager to show their solidarity with the LGBT community. Obama noted that the shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance, and to sing, and to live, and Vice President Biden said the violence is not normal, and the targeting of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans is evil and abhorrent. Hillary Clinton addressed the LGBT community directly: Please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. Leaders of left-leaning organizations including the National Center for Transgender Equality, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, and Muslim Advocates gathered outside of the Human Rights Campaign building in Washington, D.C., to decry the violence. Like Obama, Clinton, and other Democratic politicians, though, they also emphasized a policy issue: gun control. Lets not forget that what made this hate so deadlyis that its still far too easy for dangerous people to get their hands on guns in our country, said Chad Griffin, the president of HRC. Like a mirror to the Posts cover, the headline of the New York Daily News was Thanks, NRA. People seemed to feel a sense of helplessness in the face of evil. Its not yet clear why Mateen committed the attacks, though initial evidence suggests the answer is complicated: the pledge to ISIS suggests the crimes were motivated by faith, yet Mateens father said homophobia, not religion, was the more likely cause. Gun control, immigration policies, and the war on ISIS are accessible policy proposalsthey represent an instinct to explain and solve violence that defies logic. Recommended: Why Hillary Has Never Apologized for Welfare Reform And yet, the more difficult problems are ones of ideology and culture. On Twitter, The New York Times Rukmini Callimachi discussed the way ISIS has encouraged lone wolf attacks, providing templates for hostage-taking and martyrdom. Its a decentralized call to violenceanyone with social-media access can follow the groups writings and decide to take up the cause themselves. And many American conservatives have widely condemned these murders, but some have also been at the forefront of rhetoric against same-sex marriage and bathroom restrictions. Mara Keisling, the head of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in an interview that this kind of rhetoric creates a culture of fear. She pointed to a April tweet from Anita Staver, the head of the conservative legal-advocacy organization Liberty Counsel, who said she would bring a Glock .45 to the ladies room because of the transgender-bathrooms issue in North Carolina. Were creating a super-heated environment here, Keisling said. People are calling us predators. It is not surprising that some unstable people are going to think something of that. Griffin, the head of the HRC, argued it this way in his statement on Sunday: Lets get one thing clear. And this is what disgusts me most about this whole tragedy. The maniac who did this was somehow conditioned to believe that LGBT people deserve to be massacred. And he wasnt just hearing these messages from ISIL. He was hearing it from politicians and radical anti-LGBT extremists here in our own country. Every time we see legislation that puts a target on the back of LGBT people; every time a preacher spews hate from the pulpit; every time a county clerk says that acknowledging our relationships violates her religious beliefsit sends a signal that LGBT people should be treated differently, and worse. No one is born hating, he added in an interview. One is taught to hate. Recommended: Donald Trump Implies Obama Was Involved in the Orlando Shooting Everyday aspects of culture are the most difficult to change. That is particularly true of these attacks, because they touch so many different communities. The scale of violence against Orlandos LGBT community is an outlier, but not uncommon; sexual orientation is the second-largest motivator of hate crimes in the United States. Brenda Abdelall, a program director at the legal-advocacy organization Muslim Advocates, said she expects possible retaliation against the Muslim community as a result of the Orlando attacks. Unfortunately, it is also the month of Ramadan, and historically, there has always been a spike in hate crimes during the month of Ramadan, she said. And as Janet Murgia, the president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, said during the HRC press conference on Sunday, the violence affected Latinos as well: The LGBT and Latino communities came together last evening at the clubs weekly Latin night, she said. But that night of celebration and of unity was shattered. Sunday was only the first day after the attacksmostly a time for grieving and pause. Calls for gun control and action against ISIS will likely get louder in the coming days. They represent a countrys attempt to fix a layered set of cultural and policy failures in the face of almost certain conflict ahead. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Rome (AFP) - Pope Francis on Monday hit out at the "brazen" free circulation of arms worldwide, a day after a gunman used an assault rifle to kill 50 people in an Orlando gay nightclub. On a visit to the headquarters of the World Food Programme (WFP), the pontiff contrasted the ease of obtaining lethal weapons with the bureaucratic obstacles often encountered by organisations trying to deliver humanitarian aid. "Whereas forms of aid and development projects are obstructed by involved and comprehensible political decisions, skewed ideological visions and impenetrable customs barriers, weaponry is not," Francis said. "It makes no difference where arms come from; they circulate with brazen and virtually absolute freedom in many parts of the world. "As a result, wars are fed, not people." Francis did not explicitly refer to the Orlando shooting in his speech at the UN agency. On Sunday he condemned the killings as an act of "homicidal folly and senseless hatred." Global hunger and opposition to the arms trade have been recurring themes in Francis's pronouncements since he became the first pope from the southern hemisphere in 2013. The leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics insists hunger can be eliminated by addressing inequalities and waste. "Food shortage is not something natural," he said Monday. "That fact that today, well into the 21st Century, so many people suffer from this scourge is due to a selfish and wrong distribution of resources, to the 'merchandising' of food." From Cosmopolitan President Barack Obama has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. "I want to congratulate Hillary Clinton on making history as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the president of the United States," he said in a video announcing his endorsement Thursday. "I don't think there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office." Obama ran against Clinton in the 2008 election and tapped her as Secretary of Stateunder his administration. "She's got the courage, the compassion, and the heart to get the job done," he said. "I have seen her judgment. I've seen her toughness. I've seen her commitment to our values up close. And I've seen her determination to give every American a fair shot at opportunity, no matter how tough the fight - that's what's always driven her, and still does." The Associated Press declared Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee Monday based on delegate count, and on Tuesday, Clinton embraced the historic milestone as the first woman to become a presidential nominee of a major political party in the U.S. She thanked Obama for his support on Twitter: Earlier Thursday, Obama met with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to gain his support in unifying the party against Donald Trump. Obama with will join Clinton on the campaign trail in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on June 15. Follow Prachi on Twitter. President Obama said Monday that there is no clear evidence Omar Mateen, the suspected gunman in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, was a part of a larger terrorist plot or that he was directed by any terrorist group. This an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time, Obama said in the Oval Office, a day after the shooting at an Orlando nightclub left 50 people dead and even more injured. He spoke shortly after meeting with FBI Director James Comey, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nick Rasmussen, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. Countering this extremist ideology is increasingly going to be as important as making sure that we are disrupting plots from the outside, Obama said. Authorities said Mateen called 911 from inside the nightclub, sounding cool and calm, and declared allegiance to ISIS. The terrorist group has since taken credit for the attack. ISIS has increasingly looked to inspire independent actors in the U.S. to mount attacks, taking credit later. There is no evidence so far that he was directed [by extremists] no indication that he was a part of a larger plot, Obama said. In An Interview with CEOCFO Magazine, Dr. Robert Clarke Explains How Pulmatrix's Innovative Inhaled Drugs Can Fight Serious Infections and Tackle Major Unmet Medical Needs PHILADELPHIA, PA / ACCESSWIRE / June 13, 2016 / CEOCFO Magazine, an independent investment and B2B publication that conducts interviews with company CEOs, announced today that it has published an interview with Robert Clarke, PhD, CEO of Pulmatrix, Inc. (PULM). As Dr. Clarke describes in the interview, Pulmatrix is a small pharmaceutical company developing innovative inhaled drugs to treat respiratory diseases. "Specifically, we look at COPD, asthma, cystic fibrosis, and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, all of which are major diseases of the lung," Dr. Clarke says. Pulmatrix has created a novel engineered dry powder technology, called iSPERSE, for delivering drugs deep into the lungs. "What differentiates it from traditional inhaled approaches is that the particles fly very easily into the patients' airways," Dr. Clarke explains. That boosts the efficiency of drug delivery and makes it possible to deliver high doses when needed. The first product candidate in the company's pipeline is PUR0200, a once daily bronchodilator for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which affects tens of millions of patients worldwide. Clinical data show that Pulmatrix's delivery system is so efficient that PUR0200 can use a dose of the active drug that's 80% lower than that of the current standard of care to get similar benefits. Pulmatrix expects to follow a quick path to approval in Europe, while also seeking approval in the U.S. The next product candidate is PUR1900, an inhaled drug to treat fungal infections in the airways of patients. The only current treatment, using oral antifungal drugs, is both relatively ineffective and causes serious side effects. That's because "you have to take a lot of the antifungal orally to get the drug into the bloodstream and all the way into the lung tissue," Dr. Clarke explains. "We believe we can correct both of those issues." Story continues The iSPERSE technology can deliver virtually any type of drug, from small molecules to large antibodies, so it can be used for many different diseases. "We have this applicable technology to bring better products forward for patients," says Dr. Clarke. The company now is considering other disease targets. It also has a strong financial position, having raised enough money last year "to take us into mid-2017," says Dr. Clarke. The Pulmatrix CEO discussed the company's plans in a recent Stock-Sector.com news interview. http://stock-sector.com/stock-sector-discusses-pulmatrixs-unique-inhaled-drugs-in-interview-with-ceo-dr-robert-clarke/. Contact: Bud Wayne Editorial Executive, CEOCFO Magazine 570-851-1745 SOURCE: CEOCFO Magazine A photo posted by patrickstarrr (@patrickstarrr) on Jun 3, 2016 at 6:08pm PDT Pulse Nightclub in Orlando the site of the U.S.s deadliest mass shooting, early Sunday hasnt only been a haven for expressing same-sex love and affection, but, like all LGBT clubs, its also a place where people can feel unabashed and empowered when it comes to expressions of beauty and style whether that means a touch of eyeliner, a shaved head, or full-on drag. This was the ONLY place I felt I could wear makeup in public. It was the first gay club I ever went to. Pulse Orlando has such a close place in my heart, wrote beauty vlogger Patrick Starrr on Instagram on Sunday, hours after what has now been deemed to be the worst mass shooting in the country and a direct attack on gay people, right in the midst of Gay Pride month. I have been here probably 200 times and I cant believe my eyes and ears, continued Starrr. I am so heartbroken with the news 49 dead and 53 injured. Please just pray for everyone. Hug someone today and everyday. Always tell your loved ones I LOVE YOU #PrayForOrlando. Makeup guru Jeffree Star, meanwhile, tweeted repeatedly about the tragedy noting that he donated $20,000 to the fundraising effort for families of Orlando victims, urging friends, YouTubers, makeup artists and followers to also lend support, and sharing that he was heartbroken and horrified. He also wrote on Instagram that he had decided to add a new upload to YouTube after friends urged him to go ahead, explaining, If a few people smile this week, thats all I wanted. Story continues Plenty of others took to social media to express outrage and to reminisce about the special place Pulse held in their hearts. It was a haven for freedom of expression particularly because it was the Orlando areas ground zero for drag shows, which hold a profound and powerful historic significance within the gay community and with the ongoing struggle for LGBT rights. Pulse was special to so many Orlando gays because for the younger generation it was the first bar there that we were part of from the start tweeted local fan John Anthony. It should also not at all be forgotten than Pulse had a thriving drag scene and many of the queens we know and love have been on that stage. Two of those performers, Kenya Michaels and Roxy Andrews both former contestants on RuPauls Drag Race were feared dead in the hours immediately following the attack; both eventually announced they were safe. A photo posted by Kenya Michaels (@kenyamichaels) on Jan 28, 2014 at 12:53pm PST Hate may be contagious, but so is love! Spread love around the world and stand in solidarity with the LGBT community, exclaimed the Facebook page for RuPauls Drag Race a show that apparently played a big role in the culture at Pulse. I attended Pulse Nightclub every Monday this year to watch Drag Race. The only night I didnt attend was the night of the finale. To say that I have a special place in my heart for Pulse is an understatement, shared one mourner on Reddit. I was there when Tyra hosted a S9 viewing party. I was there when Kenya hosted an episode. I made so many friends as we watched the show we love at a club we love, one we felt safe in. Many of my friends are unaccounted for, and I can only imagine how many of the staff members are among the 50 dead. Please be safe out there, everyone. Cherish your local club that much more. Cherish your queens. Cherish yourself and your loved ones. It can happen anywhere. Shared another Florida Redditor: Pulse was the first gay bar Ive ever gone to. And it will always be my second home. It was a place where I could be myself and where I could feel comfortable in my own skin, he wrote. I wasnt out to that many people early on but the amazing people I met at Pulse helped me through that. Through crazy drink specials and crazier Drag Race viewing parties, I made some incredible friends at Pulse. Im absolutely devastated by whats happened, but if being in this amazing community has taught me anything, its that we will always rise and we will become stronger. On Facebook, supporter Tyler Breton shared, As a drag performer and proud gay man, my heart goes out to my LGBTQ brothers and sisters who were senselessly murdered at Pulse Nightclub. I am still in utter disbelief that so much hatred still exists in the world in a community full of love and light. RIP my friends. Similarly, makeup purveyor Shannon Holt noted early on, Devastating news for Orlando. 20 gunned down at Pulse Nightclub, where I have body painted, watched #SkinWars and danced with friends. This comes on the heels of a GAY DAYS Orlando, and right before Welcome to the Jungle charity body paint event at the LGBT Center this Sunday! We are rocked and outraged. Please send love and empathy and donations for our beautiful and strong LGBT community. Read this next: The Complex Relationship Between Transgender Women and Makeup Lets keep in touch! Follow Yahoo Beauty on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Doha (AFP) - Qatar is to deport a Dutch woman who was convicted of adultery on Monday and given a one-year suspended sentence after she reported being raped while on holiday in Doha. The 22-year-old, known only as Laura and who was not in court, was also fined 3,000 Qatari riyals ($800/710 euros) and will be deported once she pays the fine, court officials said. She had denied the charge against her. The male defendant, said by a court official to be Syrian and named as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was sentenced to 100 lashes for having illicit sex and 40 lashes for drinking alcohol. Hasan, who was also not present in court, will undergo a medical examination to see if he is fit enough to withstand his punishment. He will not serve any time in jail but will also be deported from the Gulf state once he has been punished. Dutch ambassador to Qatar Yvette Burghgraef-van Eechoud, who was present in the packed courtroom, told reporters that the embassy would help Laura to leave Qatar. "We will do everything to get her out of the country as soon as possible to where she wants to go," Eechoud said. The envoy added that she expected Laura to leave Qatar, which will host the football World Cup in 2022, within the next few days. The ambassador added that she had spoken to Laura on Sunday and said that "under the circumstances she was doing fine". In the Netherlands, Laura's mother said she had not yet spoken to her daughter but was "so happy" at the news of her release. - 'So happy' - "I do not know yet when she gets home, but this is not most important," she told the Dutch television NOS website. "The most important is that she gets home... I am so happy," she said. Laura was arrested on March 14 and has since been held in custody. Her lawyer previously said that the incident happened after she had visited a Doha hotel. "She went dancing but when she returned to the table after the first sip of her drink, she realised that" she had been drugged, Brian Lokollo has said. Story continues "She really didn't feel very well," he added. The young woman remembers nothing more until the following morning when she woke up in a totally unfamiliar apartment "and realised to her great horror, that she had been raped," Lokollo said. The male defendant had insisted that their night together had been consensual and that the woman had even asked for money. Adultery, or illicit sex, is treated as a serious crime in the conservative emirate. But the case provoked an international outcry with many people appalled by the treatment of an alleged rape victim and an online campaign using the #freelaura hashtag to try to draw attention to the Dutch woman's imprisonment. Nicholas McGeehan, Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the case demonstrated that "proper procedures and investigation are needed to avoid such cases in the future". Queen and Adam Lambert honored the memory of the victims of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando at the U.K.'s Isle of Wight Festival on Sunday, closing their headlining set with a moving and emotional performance of the 1986 song "Who Wants to Live Forever." Standing alone at a microphone on a darkened stage surrounded by dramatic blue and purple laser lights, Lambert was somber as he spoke of the fallen. "This song is dedicated to those who lost their lives last night in Orlando, Florida, and anyone who has been a victim of senseless violence or hatred," he said. Adele Dedicates Concert to Orlando Victims: 'The LGBTQA Community, They're Like My Soulmates' On Monday (June 13), Lambert took to Twitter to denounce the act, calling the murder of 50 people and wounding of 53 a hate crime. The American Idol season 8 runner-up is also urging his followers to donate to a GoFundMe page set up to assist the victims and their families. "The horrible tragedy in Orlando is BOTH a terrorism AND gun control issue. It is also a horrendous hate crime. It sickens me to see commentary in my own feed of people over how to classify or politicize it," Lambert wrote. "This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. This is not just an LGBTQ issue. This is a HUMAN issue. 50 lives were lost. Let's make sure we pay our proper respects first and foremost. Please do what you can to help the families of the victims. We need to mourn and to process." pic.twitter.com/5nfvbPgihn - ADAM LAMBERT (@adamlambert) June 13, 2016 Watch the performance below: Shooting At Orlando Nightclub Leaves 50 Dead in Largest Mass Shooting in U.S. History | Patrons on Orlando's Pulse Before the Tragedy: 'We Could Be Our Authentic Selves' | President Obama Calls Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting Act of Terror and Hate | Orlando Gay Nightclub Shooting Casts a Shadow on Tony Awards | Orlando Shooting: Trump Sees Backlash Over 'Congrats' Tweet; Clinton Calls Attack an 'Act of Terror' | Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting: Hollywood Reacts | 'This Is the New Reality': Artists & Concert Execs Weigh In on Security Challenges After Orlando | Skrillex, Chainsmokers & More Dance Music Stars React to Orlando Nightclub Massacre | Orlando Pride Radio Host Talks Pulse's Place in LGBT Community, Why It's Hard Not to Be Scared | James Corden Gives Touching Orlando Speech at 2016 Tony Awards: 'Hate Will Never Win' London (AFP) - A Shin Hikari is in prime form and ready to become the first Japanese horse to win at British flat racing's showpiece festival Royal Ascot, his trainer says. The horse is one of several from Asia and the United States who can threaten the established order of the finest thoroughbreds the English, Irish and French send out and all in front of noted racing enthusiast Queen Elizabeth II, no stranger herself to visiting the winners' enclosure. A Shin Hikari pushed himself to the forefront of the betting for Wednesday's Group One Prince of Wales's Stakes with a stunning performance under veteran Japanese jockey Yutaka Take in the Group One Prix d'Ispahan at Chantilly last month on heavy ground. Trainer Masanori Sakaguchi, who will be anxiously surveying the skies because he does not want soft ground for his stable star at Ascot, sounded a warning to his rivals after he watched a final serious pre-race training gallop at Chantilly. "I think he has progressed and that he's in better condition than before the Prix dIspahan," Sakaguchi told The Racing Post. "I suppose I was a little bit surprised he was able to produce a performance like that (the Ispahan). "I expected him to lead at Chantilly, but the horse remained mentally strong with the change of tactics (Take decided to come from behind instead), and the way he finished was extraordinary." A Shin Hikari shouldn't encounter any traffic problems if Take decides once again to forego pace-setting duties, with less than 10 rivals set to take him on. Irish master trainer Aidan O'Brien's filly Found, a well-beaten second at Epsom last time out, is the likeliest major obstacle to him going one better than compatriot Agnes World's runners-up spot in the King's Stand Stakes at the 2000 meeting. Hong Kong too have a strong contender for major honours in hoary veteran seven-year-old Gold-Fun, trained by Englishman Richard Gibson and set for the Group One sprint The Diamond Jubilee Stakes on Saturday, the final day of the five-day extravaganza. Story continues Gibson, who began his training career in France before decamping to Hong Kong, is confident of a good showing from the sprinter whose battle-hardened experience will count in the rough and tumble of a sprint up the Ascot straight. "I don't have any worries about him handling the track there," he told the Racing Post. - 'Nothing comes close' - America could get the non-European challenge off the mark on the opening day on Tuesday with the Wesley Ward-trained Acapulco -- who won the two-year-old race the Queen Mary at the meeting last year -- in the King's Stand Stakes. Acapulco's chances have been done no harm by having Ryan Moore on his back as the American challenger is owned by among others Michael Tabor and Sue Magnier, who provide him with the majority of his rides out of the O'Brien stable. The classiest race of the week, though, will not feature any "gatecrashers" from far afield. The St James's Palace Stakes over a mile will bring together the winners of the French, Irish and English 2000 Guineas in O'Brien's The Gurkha, veteran Kevin Prendergast's Awtaad and Hugo Palmer's Galileo Gold respectively. As for racing's most high-profile personality, Frankie Dettori, the effervescent Italian believes he has a couple of potential winners on a track where he famously rode the "Magnificent Seven" winners in 1996, although that was on Champions Day, not the Royal meeting. The 45-year-old -- who broke the 50-winner mark at the Royal meeting last year but trails way behind overall leader Lester Piggott's astonishing total of 116 -- says there is no festival like it. "It is my biggest week of the year," Dettori told The Sun. "I travel all over the world, but nothing comes close." Different fans have different reactions to their favorite movies. Some cosplay as their favorite characters. Others write fan fiction. And some dedicate years of their lives to filming a shot-for-shot recreation of a movie, complete with elaborate costumes, car chases, and even some pyrotechnics. Which is exactly what three Mississippi 11-year-olds did in the 1980s after they saw Steven Spielbergs Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time. For seven years, they worked tirelessly on a faithful recreation of Raiders, and their final project became the stuff of cinematic legend, making fans out of everyone from Eli Roth to John Rhys Davies. The documentary Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made chronicles their effort and reunites the fan films original cast members, years later, to complete the only scene they never finished: the epic airplane fight scene. WANT MORE EW? Subscribe now to keep up with the latest in movies, television and music. In the exclusive clip above, the filmmakers discuss one of the trickiest scenes they shot as teenagers: the explosive shootout in Marions Nepalese bar. Doing so required a bit of playing with fire and a slight disregard for safety. Two of the original filmmakers, Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala, are currently on tour across the United States, showing a double feature of the documentary and their original fan film. Raiders! will debut in theaters and on VOD June 17. It sounds more like a pipe dream than government policy. Its called Universal Basic Income, a proposed government program that would essentially give every citizen a guaranteed floor income of say $1000 a month from Washington. Its an idea thats been around for a while and has more credibility than you might thinkand not just from left-wingers. Richard Nixon and conservative uber-economist Milton Friedman were both proponents. So too is Andy Stern, former president of the powerful Service Employees International Union and now a professor at Columbia University. In his new book Raising the Floor, Stern lays out the case for UBI, and he suggests that it isnt some pie-in-the-sky notion that would never see the light of day. I sat down with Stern to discuss. It is an old idea, Stern points out. Thomas Paine proposed it early on when we were forming the nation. As for why we need the program, Stern says that at a time when our anti-poverty programs arent really working, and with technology bringing massive job disruption, we need to provide a safety net, a floor for every single American. UBI isnt socialism, Stern says. Rather its a way to make sure every single American has stability in their life. Stern argues that middle class parents do this with their children, why shouldnt our nation. A big question: How in the world would the government pay for this? Stern says there are 126 government programs that pay out cash to citizens and acknowledges that some of themnot Social Security could be cashed out and folded in to a Universal Basic Income program. He also notes though that UBI would require some new income, some new revenue sources, aka taxes. Some have suggested that UBI in the U.S. would cost $3 trillion a year. Still Stern says he thinks the UBI is a realistic plan, pointing out that its maybe the only major big idea in the 21st century that has support on both the left and the right. I pointed that that Swiss voters just strongly rejected a UBI plan in that country, but Stern countered that in Swiss poll, 70% of those who voted in that referendum indicated that they expected to see UBI in Switzerland within the next 25 years. Bottom line: UBI is an interesting idea and even better grist for debate. TRUMP: (OFF-MIKE) This was going to be a speech on Hillary Clinton and all of the bad things and we all know whats going on, and especially how poor shed do as president in these very, very troubled times of radical Islamic terrorism. TRUMP: Even her former Secret Service agent, whos seen her under pressure and in times of stress, has stated that she lacks the temperament and integrity to be our president. There will be plenty of opportunity to discuss these important issues at a later time, and I will deliver that speech very, very soon. But today, theres only one thing to discuss, the growing threat of terrorism inside of our borders. The attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was the worst terror strike on our soil since September 11th, and the worst mass shooting in our countrys history. So many people its just hard to believe, but just so many people dead, so many people gravely injured, so much carnage, such a disgrace. The horror is beyond description. The families of these wonderful people are totally devastated, and they will be forever. Likewise, our whole nation and indeed the whole world is devastated. We express our deepest sympathies to the victims, the wounded, and their families. We mourn as one people for our nations loss, and pledge our support to any and all who need it. I would like to ask now that we all observe a moment of silence for the victims of this attack. Thank you. Our nation stands together in solidarity with the members of Orlandos LGBT community. They have been through something that nobody could ever experience. This is a very dark moment in Americas history. A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub, not only because he wanted to kill Americans, but in order to execute gay and lesbian citizens, because of their sexual orientation. Its a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation. Its an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want, and express their identity. Its an attack on the right of every single American to live in peace and safety in their own country. We need to respond to this attack on America as one united people, with force, purpose, and determination. But the current politically correct response cripples our ability to talk and to think and act clearly. Were not acting clearly, were not talking clearly, weve got problems. If we dont get tough, and if we dont get smart, and fast, were not going to have our country anymore. There will be nothing, absolutely nothing, left. The killer, whose name I will not use, or ever say, was born in Afghan, of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States. His father published support for the Afghan Taliban, a regime which murders those who dont share its radical views, and they murdered plenty. The father even said he was running for president of Afghanistan. The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place, was because we allowed his family to come here. That is a fact, and its a fact we need to talk about. We have a dysfunctional immigration system, which does not permit us to know who we let into our country, and it does not permit us to protect our citizens properly. We have an incompetent administration. And if Im elected president, that will not change, I will tell you, that will not change over the next four years. We have an administration that will not change. But if I get in there, its going to change, and its going to change quickly. Were going from totally incompetent to just the opposite, believe me. (APPLAUSE) TRUMP: Thank you. With 50 people dead and perhaps more ultimately and dozens more wounded, we cannot afford to talk around issues anymore. We have to address these issues head-on. I called for a ban after San Bernardino and was met with great scorn and anger but now many years and I have to say many years but many are saying that I was right to do so. And although the pause is temporary we must find out what is going on. We have to do it. It will be lifted this ban when and as a nation were in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country. Theyre pouring in and we dont know what were doing. The immigration laws of the United States give the president powers to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons. Now, any class it really is determined and to be determined by the president for the interests of the United States. And its as he or she deems appropriate. Hopefully its he in this case. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. I will use this power to protect the American people. When Im elected I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where theres a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats. After a full (APPLAUSE) Thank you. And by the way we have no choice. After a full and partial and long really long overdue security assessment we will develop a responsible immigration policy that serves the interests and values of America. (APPLAUSE) We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer. Many of the principles of radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and institutions. (APPLAUSE) Remember this, radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti- American. (APPLAUSE) I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people, Jewish people are targets of persecution and intimation by radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence. (APPLAUSE) This is not just a national security issue. Its a quality of life issue. If we want to protect the quality of life for all Americans women and children, gay and straight, Jews and Christians and all people then we need to tell the truth about radical Islam and we need to do it now. (APPLAUSE) We need to tell the truth also about how radical Islam is coming to our shores. And its coming (APPLAUSE) With these people, folks, its coming. Were importing radical Islamic terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system and through an intelligence community held back by our president. Even our own FBI director has admitted that we cannot effectively check the backgrounds of people were letting into America. All of the September 11th hijackists were issued visas. Large numbers of Somali refugees in Minnesota have tried to join ISIS. The Boston bombers came here through political asylum. The male shooter in San Bernardino again whose name I will not mention was the child of immigrants from Pakistan and he brought his wife, the other terrorist from Saudi Arabia through another one of our easily exploited visa programs. (APPLAUSE) TRUMP: Immigration from Afghanistan into the United States has increased nearly five fold five fold in just one year. According to Pew Research, 99 percent of the people in Afghanistan support oppressive sharia law. We admit many more, and thats just the way it is. We admit many more from other countries in the region. And Ill tell you what: They share these oppressive views and values. We want to remain a free and open society. Then, and if we do, then we have to control our borders. We have to control, and we have to control them now, not later. Right now. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Yet Hillary Clinton, for months, and despite so many attacks, repeatedly refused to even say the words radical Islam until I challenged her yesterday. And, guess what, she will probably say them. She sort of has said them, but lets see what happens. She really has no choice, but she doesnt want to. However, shes really been forced, and she has been forced to say these words. She supports, and the reason is, she supports so much of what is wrong, and what is wrong with this country, and whats going wrong with our country and our borders. She has no clue, in my opinion, what radical Islam is and she wont speak honestly about it if she does, in fact, know. Shes in total denial, and her continuing reluctance to ever name the enemy broadcasts weakness across the entire world true weakness. I dont know if you know this, but just a few weeks before San Bernardino, the slaughter, thats all it was was a slaughter, Hillary Clinton explained her refusal to say the words radical Islam. Here is what she said, exact quote, Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people, and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. That is Hillary Clinton. So, she says the solution is to ban guns. They tried that in France which has among the toughest gun laws anywhere in the world, and 130 people were brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists in cold blood. Her plan is to disarm law abiding Americans, abolishing the Second Amendment, and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns. No good. Not going to happen, folks. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. She wants to take away Americans guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us. Let them come into the country, we dont have guns. Let them come in, let them have all the fun they want. I will be meeting with the NRA, which has given me their earliest endorsement in a presidential race, to discuss how to ensure Americans have the means to protect themselves in this age of terror. I will be always defending the Second Amendment. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you. The bottom line is that Hillary supports policies that bring the threat of radical Islam into American and allow it to grow oversees, and it is growing. In fact, Hillary Clintons catastrophic immigration plan will bring vastly more radical Islamic immigration into this country, threatening not only our society but our entire way of life. When it comes to radical Islamic terrorism, ignorance is not bliss. Its deadly totally deadly. The Obama administration, with the support of Hillary Clinton and others, has also damaged our security by restraining our intelligence gathering and we have, just, no intelligence gathering information. We need this information so badly, and he stopped it. We dont have the support. We dont have the support of the law enforcement system because Obama is not letting them do their job. They are not being allowed to do their job. And, they can do it well better than anybody. We need a new leader. We need a new leader fast. (APPLAUSE) TRUMP: Thank you. They have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety, and above all else. I refuse to be politically correct. (APPLAUSE) I want to do the right thing. I want to straighten things out and I want to make America great again. (APPLAUSE) The days of deadly ignorance will end, and they will end soon if Im elected. As president I will give our intelligence community, law enforcement and military the tools they need to prevent terrorist attacks. They dont have those tools now. (APPLAUSE) We need an intelligence gathering system second to none. Second to none. That includes better cooperation between state, local and federal officials, and with our allies, very importantly. I will have an Attorney General, a Director of National Intelligence and a Secretary of Defense wholl know how to fight a war on radical Islamic terrorism. (APPLAUSE) And they will have the support that they need to get the job done right, not like it is right now. Its not right. (APPLAUSE) We also must ensure the American people are provided the information they need to understand the threat. The Senate subcommittee on Immigration has already identified hundreds of immigrants charged with terrorist activities inside the United States since September 11th. Nearly a year ago, the Senate Subcommittee asked President Obamas Department of Justice, State and Homeland Security to provide the immigration history of all terrorists inside the United States. These Departments refused to comply. Nobody even knows why. They refused to comply. President Obama must release the full and complete immigration histories of all individuals implicated in terrorist activities of any kind since September 11th. So important. The public has a right to know how these people got here, how they came on to this great land, why are they here? (APPLAUSE) We have to screen applicants to know whether they are affiliated with or supporting radical groups and beliefs, very simple. We have to control the amount of future immigration into this country and we have to prevent large pockets of radicalization from forming inside America. Not complicated. (APPLAUSE) Every and just think of this. Take a look. Every single event, even a single individual can be devastating, and all you have to do is take a look at what happened in Orlando and what happened in other cases. Just a single event. And just one person. Can you imagine what theyll do in large groups, which were allowing now to come here. Truly our President doesnt know what hes doing. Hes failed us and hes failed us badly. Under his leadership this situation will not get any better, it will only get worse. And Ive been saying that for a long time. Each year the United States permanently admits 100,000 immigrants from the Middle East and many more from Muslim countries outside of the Middle East. Our government has been admitting ever- growing numbers, year after year, without any effective plan for our own security. In fact, Clintons State Department was in charge of admissions and the admissions process for people applying to enter from overseas. Having learned nothing from these attacks, she now plans to massively increase admissions without a screening plan including a 500 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into our country. Tell me, tell me how stupid is that? This could be a better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan Horse ever was. Altogether, under the Clinton plan, youd be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children. Not only their children, by the way, theyre trying to take over our children and convince them how wonderful ISIS is and how wonderful Islam is and we dont know whats happening. TRUMP: The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system to really to screen. Were not screening people. So why dont we have an effective screening system? We dont. Were being laughed at all over the world. The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why we should admit anyone into our country who supports violence of any kind against gay and lesbian Americans. The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us how she will pay for it, her plan will cost hundreds of billions of dollars long term. Wouldnt this be money better spent rebuilding America for our current population including the many poor people already living here. We have cities, we have inner cities (APPLAUSE) We have poverty all over and this is how were spending billions of dollars. We have to stop the tremendous flow of Syrian refugees into the United States. We dont know who they are, they have no documentation and we dont know what theyre planning and we wont unless we have proper supervisor and proper leadership in which case theyre out of here. What I want (APPLAUSE) What I want is common sense. I want a mainstream immigration policy that promotes American values. Thats a choice I put before the American people. A mainstream immigration policy designed to benefit America or Hillary Clintons radical immigration policy designed to benefit politically correct special interests. Thats all it is. Weve got to get smart and tough and vigilant and weve got to do it now because later is too late going to be too late for our country. The media talks about home grown terrorism but Islamic radicalism and thats a very, very important term a term that the president refuses to use and the networks that nurture it are imports from overseas whether you like it or whether you dont like it. Yes, there are many radicalized people already inside our country as a result of poor policies of the past. But the whole point is that we will be much, much and it will be easier to deal with our current problem if we dont keep on bringing people who add to the problem. And thats what theyre doing. Were letting all of these people hundreds of thousands of people come in and all theyre doing is adding to this incredible problem we have. For instance, the controversial mosque attended by the Boston bombers had at its founder and as its founder an immigrant from overseas charged in an assassination plot. This shooter and amazingly in Orlando was the child of an immigrant father who supported one of the most repressive regimes on earth. Why would we admit people who support violent hatred? Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community as long as she continues to support immigration policies that bring Islamic extremists to our country and who suppress women, gays and anyone who doesnt share their views or values. (APPLAUSE) She cant have it both ways. She cant claim to be supportive of these communities while trying to increase the number of people coming in who want to oppress these same communities. How does this kind of immigration make our lives better? How does this kind of immigration make our country better? Why does Hillary Clinton want to bring people in in vast numbers who reject our values? Why? Explain. Ask yourself who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community, Donald Trump with actions or Hillary Clinton with her words? TRUMP: I will tell you who the better friend is and some day I believe that will be proven out bigly (ph). (APPLAUSE) And by the way the LGBT community is just whats happened to them is just so sad and to be thinking about where their policies are currently with this administration is a disgrace to that community, I will tell you right now. Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country. They enslave women, and they murder gays. I dont want them in our country. (APPLAUSE) Immigration is a privilege, and we should not let anyone into this country who doesnt support our communities. All of our communities, every single one of them. Americans already admitted four times more immigrants than any country on Earth, anybody in the world. Four times more. At least, because we dont even know whos coming in. And we continue to admit millions more with no real checks or scrutiny. Not surprisingly, wages for our workers havent budged. In almost 20 years. You wonder why we get the crowds, you wonder why we get this tremendous support, you wonder why Ive gotten more votes than any Republican in any primary in the history of the Republican Party? Take a look at that. Take a look at your security, take a look at the wages. For 18 years theyve been stagnant, theyve even gone down. So whether its a matter of national security, or financial security, we cant afford to keep on going like this. Cannot afford it. We owe $19 trillion in debt. And no longer have any options. Our communities from all backgrounds are ready for some relief. This is not an act of offense against anyone. Its really an act of defense. I want us all, all of us, to work together. We have to form a partnership, with our Muslim communities. We have Muslim communities in this country that are great, and we have to form that partnership. Now, the Muslim community, so important. They have to work with us. They have to cooperate with law enforcement and turn in the people who they know are bad. They know it. And they have to do it, and they have to do it forthwith. I want to fix our schools. I want to fix our bridges. And our jobs market, were going to have it rocket again, were going to make great trade deals. But I want every American to succeed including Muslims. But the Muslims have to work with us. They have to work with us. They know whats going on. They know that he was bad. They knew the people in San Bernardino were bad. But you know what? They didnt turn them in. And you know what? We had death, and destruction. Hillary Clinton wants to empty out the Treasury to bring people into the country that include individuals who preach hate against our citizens. I want to protect our citizens, all of our citizens. The terrorist attack on Pulse nightclub demands a full and complete investigation into every single aspect of the assault. In San Bernardino, as an example, people who knew what was going on, they knew exactly, but they used the excuse of racial profiling for not reporting it. They said oh, We thought so but we didnt want to use racial profiling. Which was probably an excuse given to them by their lawyer, so they dont get in trouble. We need to know what the killer discussed with his relatives, parents, friends and associates. We need to know if he was affiliated with any radical mosques or radical activists and what, if any, is their immigration status. We have to know, and we have to know fast. We need to know if he traveled anywhere and who he traveled with. We need to know, and we need to make sure, every single last person involved in this plan, including anyone who knew something but didnt tell us, is brought to justice, so when people know whats going on and they dont tell us, and we have an attack, and people die, these people have to have consequences. Big consequences. (APPLAUSE) America must do more much more to protect its citizens, especially people who are potential victims of crimes based on their backgrounds or sexual orientation, as you just saw in Orlando. TRUMP: It also means we must change our foreign policy. The decision to overthrow the regime in Libya, then pushing for the overthrow of the regime in Syria, among other things, without plans for the day after, have created space for ISIS to expand and grow like nobody has ever seen before. These actions, along with our disastrous Iran deal, have also reduced our ability to work in partnership with our Muslim allies in the region. That is why our new goal must be to defeat Islamic terrorism not nation building. No more nation building. Its never going to work. And by the way weve spent almost $5 trillion over the years on trying to nation build in the Middle East and it has been complete and total disaster. Were further away now than we were 15 years ago. For instance, the last major NATO mission was Hillary Clintons war in Libya. That mission helped to unleash ISIS on a new continent. Ive said NATO need to change its focus and stop terrorism. We have to focus on terrorism and we have to stop terrorism. Since Ive raised that criticism and its OK. Ive gotten no credit for it but these are minor details NATO has since announced a new initiative front page of the Wall Street Journal four days ago focused on just that. America must unite the whole civilized world in the fight against Islamic terrorism. (APPLAUSE) Pretty much like we did with communism during the Cold War. We tried it President Obamas way, doesnt work. He gave the world his apology tour. We got ISIS and many other problems in return. Thats what we got. Remember the famous apology tour. Were sorry for everything. Id like to conclude my remarks today by again expressing our solitarily with the people of Orlando who have come under this horrific attack. When Im president I pledge to protect and defend all Americans who live inside our borders. Wherever they come from, wherever they were born, I dont care. All Americans living here and following our laws not other laws will be protected. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you. Were going to be tough and were going to be smart and were going to do it right. America will be a tolerant and open society. America will also be a safe society. We will protect our borders at home. We will defeat ISIS overseas. We have no choice. We will ensure every parent can raise their children in peace and safety. We will make America rich again. We will make America safe again. We will make America great again. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Thank you all very much. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you all. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you. I am Im absolutely Im absolutely delighted to be back in Cleveland and to be here at the Industrial Innovation Center. Ive had a chance to learn about the great work you do here. I especially want to applaud Team Wendy for everything you do to protect our troops, first responders. (APPLAUSE) And others from traumatic brain injury. It is so important that we continue to support those who protect us. AUDIENCE: We want Hillary! CLINTON: Thank you. AUDIENCE: We want Hillary! CLINTON: Thank you all. AUDIENCE: We want Hillary! (APPLAUSE) CLINTON: It is good to be back in Cleveland, I can tell you that. (APPLAUSE) I want to thank I wan to thank your extraordinary senator, Sherrod Brown, for his leadership, for that very kind and generous introduction. You are very fortunate to to have him representing you. I want to thank your congresswoman, Marcia Fudge (APPLAUSE) Who is both indomitable and indefatigable. She is such a tenacious advocate for the people she represents. I want to acknowledge the mayor, Mayor Jackson, who was here, County Executive Budish (ph). And I particularly want to recognize the passing of George Voinovich, and he devoted his life to serving the people of Ohio as mayor of Cleveland, as governor and senator. And we send our prayers and sympathy to his family. I also want to thank Dan Moore, the owner and founder of this company and Team Wendy for his belief in Cleveland, for his commitment to create jobs. I cant wait to work with him to do more of what he has accomplished here. (APPLAUSE) You know, originally, I had intended to come to Cleveland under very different circumstances. We are heading into a general election that could be the most consequential of our lifetimes. But today is not a day for politics. On Sunday, Americans woke up to a nightmare thats become mind numbingly familiar. Another act of terrorism in a place no one expected. A madman filled with hate, with guns in his hands, and just a horrible sense of vengeance and vindictiveness in his heart, apparently consumed by rage against LGBT Americans, and by extension, the openness and diversity that defines our American way of life. We will learn more about the killer in the days to come. We know that he pledged allegiance to ISIS, that they are now taking credit and that part of their strategy is to radicalize individuals and encourage attacks against the United States, even if they are not coordinated with ISIS leadership. But theres a lot we still dont know, including what other mix of motives drove him to kill. The more we learn about what happened, the better well be able to protect our people going forward. In the days ahead, we will also learn more about the many lives he viciously cut short, many of them young people, just starting out in their lives. They were travel agents and pharmacy techs, college students and amusement park workers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and they had one thing in common. They all had a lot more to give. CLINTON: We should take a moment today amid our busy lives to think about them, to pray for everyone who was killed, for the wounded, those who are fighting to regain their lives and futures, for our first responders who walked into danger one more time. As a mother, I cant imagine what those families are going through. But lets also remember the other scenes we saw on Sunday. We saw the faces of some of those first responders who rushed into danger and tried to save as many people as they could. We saw survivors like Chris Hansen who risked their lives to help others. People gathering outside hospitals to comfort anxious family members, waiting for news of their loved ones and waiting, too, to learn more about what they could do to make sure this never happened again. Religion leaders condemning hate and appealing for peace. People lining up to donate blood. Americans refusing to be intimidated or divided. Yesterday I called Mayor Dyer of Orlando and offered my support and my appreciation for the leadership that he and the other officials have shown. This is a moment when all Americans need to stand together. No matter how many times we endure attacks like this, the horror never fades. The murder of innocent people breaks our hearts, tears at our sense of security and makes us furious. Now we have to steal our resolve to respond. And thats what I want to talk to you about. How we respond. The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive. And we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values. (APPLAUSE) I have no doubt I have no doubt we can meet this challenge if we meet it together. Whatever we learn about this killer, his motives in the days ahead, we know already the barbarity that we face from radical jihadists is profound. In the Middle East, ISIS is attempting a genocide of religious and ethnic minorities. They are slaughtering Muslims who refuse to accept their medieval ways. They are beheading civilians, including executing LGBT people. They are murdering Americans and Europeans, enslaving, torturing and raping women and girls. In speeches like this one, after Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino, I have laid out a plan to defeat ISIS and the other radical jihadist groups in the region and beyond. The attack in Orlando makes it even more clear, we cannot contain this threat. We must defeat it. And the good news is that the coalition effort in Syria and Iraq has made recent gains in the last months. So we should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign, accelerating support for our friends fighting to take and hold ground and pushing our partners in the region to do even more. We also need continued American leadership to help resolve the political conflicts that fuel ISIS recruitment efforts. But as ISIS loses actual ground in Iraq and Syria, it will seek to stage more attacks and gain stronger footholds wherever it can, from Afghanistan, to Libya, to Europe. The threat is metastasizing. We saw this in Paris. And we saw it in Brussels. We face a twisted ideology and poisoned psychology that inspires the so-called lone wolves, radicalized individuals who may or may not have contact and direction from any formal organization. CLINTON: So, yes, efforts to defeat ISIS on the battlefield must succeed. But it will take more than that. (APPLAUSE) We have to be just as adaptable and versatile as our enemies. As president, I will make identifying and stopping lone wolves a top priority. (APPLAUSE) I will put a team together from across our government, the entire government, as well as the private sector and communities to get on top of this urgent challenge. And I will make sure our law enforcement and intelligence professionals have all the resources they need to get the job done. As we do this, there are three areas that demand attention. First, we and our allies must work hand-in-hand to dismantle the networks that move money, and propaganda, and arms and fighters around the world. (APPLAUSE) We have to flow we have to stem the flow of jihadists from Europe and Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and then back again. The only way to do this is by working closely with our partners, strengthening our alliances, not weakening them or walking away from them. Second, here at home, we must harden our own defenses. We have to do more to support our first responders, law enforcement and intelligence officers who do incredible work every day at great personal risk to keep our country safe. (APPLAUSE) I have seen firsthand how hard their job is, and how well they do it. In Orlando, at least one police officer was shot in the head. Thankfully, his life was saved by a Kevlar helmet, something folks here at Team Wendy know a lot about. (APPLAUSE) It has often been said that our law enforcement, our intelligence agencies, our first responders have to be right 100 percent of the time, but terrorists only have to be right once. What a heavy responsibility. These men and women deserve both our respect and gratitude. And they deserve the right tools, and resources and training. Too often, state and local officials cant get access to intelligence from the federal government that would help them do their jobs. We need to change that. We also need to work (APPLAUSE) We also need to work with local law enforcement and business owners on ways to protect vulnerable, so-called soft targets, like nightclubs and shopping malls and hotels and movie theaters and schools and houses of worship. Now, I know a lot of Americans are asking how it was possible that someone already on the FBIs radar could have still been able to commit an attack like the one in Orlando, and what more we can do to stop this kind of thing from happening again. Well, we have to see what the investigation uncovers. If there are things that can and should be done to improve our ability to prevent, we must do them. We already know we need more resources for this fight. The professionals who keep us safe would be the first to say we need better intelligence to discover and disrupt terrorist plots before they can be carried out. Thats why I have proposed an intelligence surge to bolster our capabilities across the board with appropriate safeguards here at home. Even as we make sure our security officials get the tools they need to prevent attacks, its essential that we stop terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attack. (APPLAUSE) CLINTON: And that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino. (APPLAUSE) I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets and we may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things. If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldnt be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldnt be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. And yes, if youre too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America. Now, I know some will say that assault weapons and background checks are totally separate issues having nothing to do with terrorism. Well, in Orlando and San Bernardino terrorists used assault weapons, the AR-15. And they used it to kill Americans. That was the same assault weapon used to kill those little children in Sandy Hook. We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war. And that may not stop every shooting or every terrorist attack, but it will stop some and it will save lives and it will protect our first responders. And I want you to know, Im not going to stop fighting for these kinds of provisions. Now, the third area that demands attention is preventing radicalization and countering efforts by ISIS and other international terrorist networks to recruit in the United States and Europe. For starters, it is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations. And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism. We also have to use all our capabilities to counter jihadist propaganda online. This is something that I spend a lot of time on at the State Department. As president, I will work with our great tech companies from Silicon Valley to Boston to step up our game. We have to a better job intercepting ISIS communications, tracking and analyzing social media posts and mapping jihadist networks, as well as promoting credible voices who can provide alternatives to radicalization. And there is more to do offline as well. CLINTON: Since 9/11, law enforcement agencies have worked hard to build relationships with Muslim American communities. Millions of peace-loving Muslims live, work and raise their families across America. And they are the most likely to recognize the insidious effects of radicalization before its too late, and the best positioned to help us block it. So we should be intensifying contacts in those communities, not scapegoating or isolating them. (APPLAUSE) Last year, I visited a pilot program in Minneapolis that helps parents, teachers, imams, mental health professionals and others recognize signs of radicalization in young people and work with law enforcement to intervene before its too late. Ive also met with local leaders pursuing innovative approaches in Los Angeles and other places. And we need more efforts like that in more cities across America. And as the director of the FBI has pointed out, we should avoid eroding trust in that community, which will only make law enforcements job more difficult. Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric and threatening to ban the families and friends of Muslim Americans as well as millions of Muslim business people and tourists from entering our country hurts the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terror. (APPLAUSE) So does saying that we have to start special surveillance on our fellow Americans because of their religion. Its no coincidence that hate crimes against American Muslims and mosques have tripled after Paris and San Bernardino. Thats wrong. And its also dangerous. It plays right into the terrorists hands. Still, as I have said before, none of us can close our eyes to the fact that we do face enemies who use their distorted version of Islam to justify slaughtering $ innocent people. Theyd take us all back to the Stone Age if they could, just as they have in parts of Iraq and Syria. The terrorist in Orlando targeted LGBT Americans out of hatred and bigotry. And an attack on any American is an attack on all Americans. (APPLAUSE) And I want to say this to all the LGBT people grieving today in Florida and across our country. You have millions of allies who will always have your back. (APPLAUSE) And I am one of them. (APPLAUSE) From Stonewall to Laramie, and now Orlando, weve seen too many examples of how the struggle to live freely, openly and without fear has been met by violence. We have to stand together, be proud together. There is no better rebuke to the terrorists and all those who hate. Our open, diverse society is an asset in the struggle against terrorism, not a liability. It makes us stronger and more resistant to radicalization. And this raises a larger point about the future of our country. America is strongest when we all believe that we have a stake in our country and our future. CLINTON: This vision has sustained us from the beginning. The belief that, yes, we are all created equal and the journey we have made to turn that into reality over the course of our history, that we are not a land of winners and losers, that we should all have the opportunity to live up to our God-given potential. And we have a responsibility to help others do so as well. (APPLAUSE) As I look at American history, I see that this has always been a country of we not me. We stand together because we are stronger together. E pluribus unum. One out of many, one has seen us through the darkest chapters of our history. Ever since 13 squabbling colonies put aside their disagreements and united because they realized they were going to rise together or fall separately, generation after generation has fought and marched and organized to widen the circle of dignity and opportunity. Ending slavery. Securing and expanding the right to vote. Throwing open the doors of education. Building the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. And we are stronger when more people can participate in our democracy. (APPLAUSE) And we are stronger when everyone can share in the rewards of our economy and contribute to our communities, when we bridge our divides and lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. Now we have overcome a lot together and we will overcome the threats of terror and radicalization and all of our other challenges. Here in Ohio and across America, Ive listened to people talk about the problems that keep you up at night. The bonds that hold us together as communities, as one national community, are strained by an economy with too much inequality and too little upward mobility. By social and political divisions that have diminished our trust in each other and our confidence in our shared future. I have heard that, and I want you to know as your president I will work every day to break down all the barriers holding you back and keeping us apart. Were gonna get an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, were gonna forge a new sense of connection and shared responsibility to each other and our nation. And finally, (APPLAUSE) finally let me remind us all, I remember, I remember how it felt, on the day after 9/11, and I bet many of you do as well. Americans from all walks of life rallied together with a sense of common purpose on September the 12th and in the days and weeks and months that followed. We had each others backs. I was a senator from New York. There was a Republican president, a Republican governor, and a Republican mayor. We did not attack each other. We worked with each other to protect our country and to rebuild our city (ph). (APPLAUSE) President Bush went to a Muslim community center just six days after the attacks to send a message of unity and solidarity. To anyone who wanted to take out their anger on our Muslim neighbors and fellow citizens, he said, That should not, and that will not, stand in America. It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, spirit of 9/12. Lets make sure we keep looking to the best of our country, to the best within each of us. Democratic and Republican presidents have risen to the occasion in the face of tragedy. That is what we are called to do my friends and I am so confident and optimistic that is exactly what we will do. Thank you all so much. For now, it looks like the battle lines are drawn for the 2016 presidential election, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the main combatants. But in this most unusual of races, are the traditional Swing States the same? Recent toss-up map from 270towin.com The answer is maybe, depending on whose definition of Swing States or Battleground States you are using. Back in 2012 during the Barack Obama-Mitt Romney contest, there wasnt an exact consensus on the number of Swing States or Battleground States that either candidate could win, where the polling was so close that each states outcome wasnt known until all the votes were counted. In May 2012, the list of possible Swing States ranged from nine to as many as 21 states. In 2008, there was a consensus that six Swing States were in play near the elections end, while there were 11 states in play in 2004. The presence of the Electoral College, an integral part of the Constitution, makes Swing States very important. A presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the election. For 48 states, it is a winner-take-all election within each state, with the winner getting every electoral vote. (Nebraska and Maine use a proportional vote system.) So a state like New Hampshire, with its four electoral votes, was critical in a tightly projected race like the 2012 contest was expected to be. Nevada and Iowa were also important states in 2012, where President Obama gained enough small Swing State votes to lessen the importance of bigger swing states like Florida and Ohio. With a clean slate in June 2016, the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have already started targeting some battleground states. The website Politico tracks what it considers 11 Swing States, while another site, 270toWin.com, had 16 Swing States. RealClearPolitics, a site that tracks polling numbers, has 12 Battleground States. In the end, polling numbers and demographics will determine what are the contested states in the fall contest. Here is a quick look at the possible battleground states, and how recent polls have treated the candidates in head-to-head match-ups. Story continues Definite Swing States (11) Colorado (Electoral Votes: 9) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: No recent poll Florida (Electoral Votes: 29) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +1.6 Iowa (Electoral Votes: 6) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: No recent poll Michigan (Electoral Votes: 16) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +8.3 Minnesota (Electoral Votes: 10) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: No recent poll Nevada (Electoral Votes: 16) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: No recent poll New Hampshire (Electoral Votes: 4) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +6.5 North Carolina (Electoral Votes: 15) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Trump +1 Ohio (Electoral Votes: 18) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +1.4 Pennsylvania (Electoral Votes: 20) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +4.0 Virginia (Electoral Votes: 13) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +4.3 Potential Swing States (5) Arizona (Electoral Votes: 11) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +1.0 Georgia (Electoral Votes: 16) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Trump +4.2 New Mexico (Electoral Votes: 5) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +8 Oregon (Electoral Votes: 7) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +4.5 Wisconsin (Electoral Votes: 10) Current Real Clear Politics Consensus Poll: Clinton +11.6 Recent Stories on Constitution Daily The Miranda warning is born 50 years ago today It was 150 years ago today: Congress approved the 14th Amendment Podcast: Hamilton, the man and the musical Geneva (AFP) - The United Nations said Monday it will try to resettle a record 170,000 refugees urgently in need of a new home next year as it grapples with an unprecedented displacement crisis. The projected resettlement figure from the UN refugee agency represents an increase of nearly 30,000 people compared with this year. But it is still less than 15 percent of the 1.19 million refugees worldwide who will be "in need of resettlement" in 2017, the UNHCR acknowledged in a report released Monday. That group mainly consists of refugees who the UN believes will not be able to return home or integrate in their current host country. But resettling 1.19 million people over a 12-month period is not feasible based on recent trends, UNHCR spokesman Leo Dobbs told AFP. The agency therefore expects to recommend that the 170,000 people most in need of resettlement should be moved to third countries. Dobbs noted that the final decision in each case rests with prospective host countries, but in recent years the overwhelming majority of those recommended for resettlement have been given new homes. In 2015, UNHCR referred a record 134,000 people for resettlement and 104,000 in 2014. The projected figure for this year is 143,000. By nationality, Syrians led the list of resettlement cases last year at 20 percent, followed by people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq and Somalia. The European Union has agreed to a responsibility-sharing scheme, which foresees the relocation of 160,000 refugees who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea and landed in Italy or Greece. But only a few hundred have been resettled to date under the EU plan. Overall the UNHCR has estimated that there are currently more than 60 million people who have been forced from their homes worldwide. Of those, roughly 40 million are internally displaced within their home country, while just over 20 million are refugees who have fled across borders. Were in the midst of an unusually contentious presidential election, and one in which the typical playbook for candidates has been entirely discarded by one partys presumptive nominee. Against this extraordinary backdrop, CBS has launched a series that argues not merely that political engagement is silly and pointless, but also that Americas two major political parties have effectively no differences between them. BrainDead, the new series from The Good Wife creators Michelle and Robert King, feels out of step with the political scene it sets out to satirize. Its less a missed opportunity than entirely misbegotten. BrainDead, which premieres Monday night, takes as its story the struggle of an earnest would-be documentarian (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 10 Cloverfield Lane) forced to work in the office of her brother, a U.S. Senator (Danny Pino). She stumbles upon a strange epidemic whereby ants from outer space (transported to the Beltway, naturally, by a meteor that crashed in Russia) enter human crania and turn people into absent-minded robots who become blandly obsessed with politics. This Invasion of the Body Snatchers-style plot features brains leaking out of human ears, but isnt weird enough to work as farce (though the songs that open each episode, recapping the plot, try very hard for glee, and end up just being trying). Rather than odd in a distinctive way, the show is yet another D.C. satire, but with little to say. (The Senators we see fight endlessly over leadership posts, not any issue that might make the show have to say anything.) The malady at the heart of BrainDead is meant to parallel the aggressive partisanship on the current contemporary scene; both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are shown on TV screens, constantly, and heard as dull background noise. This makes for an odd contrast that cant be what the Kings intended. The very presence of Trump, a figure whose policy positions and whose rhetoric (in just about every speech other than the carefully chosen dull ones hes shown giving on BrainDead) differ meaningfully from every other politician in his orbit, negates the shows argument that both sides are equal and that choosing between them is pointless. Theres something almost painful about watching BrainDead struggle to find a point that must have seemed obvious when the election was meant to be between two members of the permanent political class. Perhaps its points would have landed had the election been between Clinton and, say, Jeb Bush, a candidate perceived as more fueled by the grinding gears of partisan tradition than by passion. Then again, its hard to imagine BrainDead working at any point in historyits ideas, chiefly the rejection of the concept of having ideas, are just too toxic. Take one moment thats particularly painful now, but that wouldnt have worked at even the most opportune moment. Winsteads character is talking to a zombified friend, whos now devoting her life to liberal causes. Her flat delivery of various liberal platitudes builds to the pronouncement There are only three gun deaths a year in Finlandthree! Her being quite so interested in the subject is treated as the incontrovertible moment her madness has taken root. For the writers, having an interest (on either side) in gun control, perhaps the defining political issue of our time, is proof that theres something wrong with you. Its a message the public who votes with their remotes ought to reject. ar-15 The AR-15 holds a dubious distinction. Law-enforcement officials have said it has been used by James Holmes in Aurora, Colorado; Adam Lanza in Newton, Connecticut; and Syed Rizwan Farook in San Bernardino, California; and. Officials inititally said Omar Mateen used to it carry out the deadliest mass shooting in US history at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. They have since clarified that one of the weapons he used was a Sig Saucer MCX rifle, aesthetically similar to the AR-15. The AR-15 rifle itself, however, is extremely easy to come by. Not much that distinguishes an AR-15 from other production rifles. Often the differences between an "assault rifle" and a "hunting rifle" are superficial but sometimes they are practical. The AR-15 does offer multiple rails, which allow things like scopes, additional grips, and laser sights to be readily added to the rifle. Importantly, it is a semi-automatic rifle that is less powerful than many common hunting rifles, but these distinctions mean little in reality. A semi-automatic rifle fires as fast as you can pull the trigger. It is commonly known that by "belt-loop firing," you can essentially use the gun's own momentum to make it fire as if it was automatic. ar15 In states like Florida, where Mateen's rampage took place, there are no limitations placed on the design and capacity of magazines that can be sold for semi-automatic rifles. This means that the AR-15's 30-round capacity can be readily expanded. Mateen was also licensed to carry a firearm, as he worked as a security officer. That means he passed a background check and demonstrated firearm competency in front of state licensing agents, as The Wall Street Journal noted. mateen Story continues But there were also signs that Mateen was violent. Sitora Yusifiy, Mateen's ex-wife, said Mateen "was not a stable person." "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasnt finished or something like that," she said, according to The Washington Post. Additionally, FBI official Ronald Hopper said Mateen had been investigated twice by the FBI for links to terrorists. He was cleared both times, and this did not affect his legal right to own guns. This post has been updated to clarify the type of gun officials said was used in the Orlando shooting. NOW WATCH: FORMER GREEN BERET: Essential survival tips that could save your life More From Business Insider Shortly after a gunman entered Pulse, a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, with an AR-15 rifle and a Glock 9mm pistol early Sunday morning and killed at least 49 people, Americans settled into a familiar routine of debating why he did it. When his name Omar Mateen became public, some of those same Americans attributed his crimes to a predictable set of traits: his religion (Islam); his mental "instability"; his foreign-born parents; his alleged connection to the Islamic State. "Omar S. Mateen," someone tweeted upon hearing the gunman's name for the first time. "[That] ain't Irish." "Terrorist was 29-year-old Islamic radical," shrieked TMZ's headline, accompanied by a photo of the swarthy killer. But in the rush to explain Mateen's motivations, we have ascribed his crimes to everything but his most obvious and aggressively glossed-over trait: that he was a male bigot born and raised in the United States of America. In this context, there is nothing uniquely foreign about what Mateen did on Sunday. A mourner in London raises a sign in solidarity with Sunday's victims. A cursory glance at American history reveals a legacy of terrorists who've used difference to justify mass violence against other people. In 1890, a government-sanctioned attempt to control South Dakota's Sioux population sparked the Wounded Knee massacre, in which U.S. troops killed an estimated 150 Native American men, women and children. In 1921, resentful whites attacked the prosperous black community of Greenwood, Oklahoma a suburb of Tulsa and looted and burned the town to the ground, killing an estimated 300 black people. In 2015, a 21-year-old white terrorist named Dylann Roof killed nine black parishioners in the basement of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. "You rape our women and you're taking over our country," Roof reportedly said before killing one victim. "And you have to go." Story continues For LGBTQ Americans, this violence has no less sordid a history. In 1973, arson claimed 32 lives at the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans. In 1997, terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph detonated a projectile bomb in the Otherside Lounge a lesbian club in Atlanta, injuring five. The next year, in Laramie, Wyoming, two bigots beat up Matthew Shepard, who was gay, before tying him to a fence and burning him to death. Cruising grounds in public parks have routinely been targeted by homophobic assailants over the decades, while the number of transgender women of color killed in recent years verges on staggering. It's remarkable with this history how far many of us will go to avoid indicting the United States. Lax gun laws in this country indeed contribute to the availability of weapons used to carry out an attack of Sunday's scale, but the impulse to commit such violence has been present for much of America's lifetime. Homophobia has been inscribed in our laws. Our churches have called LGBTQ lifestyles an abomination before God. Our insistence on finding whatever we can that is foreign, un-American or at odds with America's perceived values in crimes of this scale makes it impossible to reckon with our ghosts. Sunday's massacre represents a chance to rectify that. Will we use it? Moscow (AFP) - A Russian gay couple were arrested Monday while trying to leave a tribute outside the US embassy in Moscow to victims of the Orlando shooting rampage, the RBK newspaper reported. Islam Abdullabeckov, a social media editor for the newspaper, and his boyfriend Felix Glyukman were trying to leave flowers and a sign reading "Love wins - Stay with Orlando" outside the embassy when they were detained, they told RBK. "The police arrested us straight away and put us in their car for so-called 'unauthorised action'," Abdullabeckov said. "We only wanted to express our condolences for the murder of these people and we had not at all planned any kind of political act," he added. The two men, who list themselves as being in a relationship on Facebook, posted photos on the website that they took inside the police car. "This is completely surreal," Abdullabeckov wrote in a caption. Glyukman added: "We tried to leave flowers and a sign at the embassy -- we did not succeed." He also posted a photo of himself in detention on Instagram with his sign fallen to the ground. A pile of flowers and candles have been left outside the US embassy in Moscow, a day after Omar Mateen gunned down 49 people in a gay nightclub in the Florida resort city of Orlando. The attack, which the Islamic State group says was carried out on its behalf, has sparked an outpouring of grief and anger around the world, with Russian President Vladimir Putin branding the killings "a barbaric crime". But gay rights demonstrations are systematically banned in Russia, where homosexuality was a criminal offence until 1993 and categorised as a mental illness until 1999. The LGBT community in Russia continues to suffer widespread homophobia. putin military russia On Thursday, Russia grounded it's entire fleet of Su-27s, believed to be more than 300 planes, after a jet from the Russian acrobatic team crashed and killed the pilot. The latest incident follows a string of deadly accidents which continues to underscore Russia's military maintenance and modernization woes. In March, Russia withdrew the majority of their best pilots from Syria even though they had "left some important military tasks unfinished," like encirclement of Aleppo, as Jeff White, a defense fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Business Insider previously. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin's withdrawal from Syria, Russian planes have carried out a number of high profile stunts, including simulating an attack on the USS Donald Cook and pulling "top gun stunts" over a US recon plane that was performing a routine patrol over the Baltic sea in international airspace. russian jet su 24 baltic donald cook What's more, Russia's new T-50 (aka PAK FA) was seen flying over Crimea for Aviadarts, the Russian version of Red Flag, a US-led air force exercise that trains fighters in realistic scenarios. The flight of the T-50 over Crimea came off as especially brazen due to Russia's illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. And while the tactic was perfect for propaganda purposes, the jet doesn't hold up to closer scrutiny. The fact is that the T-50, the first truly new airframe designed in Russia for some time, has been plagued by difficulties in its development. Russia routinely touts the plane as being a "fifth generation fighter," but as IHS Jane's notes, it's a fifth generation fighter in name only. The design fails to adequately integrate the avionics and integrated stealth characteristics that typify true fifth generation platforms like America's F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II. Story continues Sukhoi PAK FA The T-50 failed to impress at a Singapore air show, and India was so unimpressed with the T-50 that they decided to shelve their version of the fighter, citing failing engines and high costs. Instead, it is likely that the T-50 flying over Crimea was another flashy move done for propaganda purposes, to show that Russia has an advanced and powerful air force, despite evidence of the contrary. NOW WATCH: JOHN MCAFEE: This is why the US is losing the cyber war to China and Russia More From Business Insider NAIROBI (Reuters) - Rwanda has expelled about 400 Burundians back to their country accusing some of them of espionage and fuelling tensions between the two small neighbours whose relations have been strained by Burundi's political crisis, an official said on Sunday. It's the second such expulsion in about a month and brings the total number of Burundians deported over the period to at least 1,700. One of those expelled, a young man who did not wish to be named for fear he might be targeted, told Reuters Rwandan officials accused some of them of spying for Burundi. "We were accused of being envoys of Burundi government and sent there to spy on Rwanda," he said. Renee Mukandori, a Burundi local government official, confirmed the expulsion to Reuters and said it occurred on Thursday and Friday. Those deported mostly came from the Bugabira district of northern Burundi. Burundi has accused Rwanda of interfering in its political crisis - which has seen Burundian government forces clash with protesters and rebels who say the president violated the constitution by standing for a third term last year. Rwanda has denied Burundi's accusations. But the violence in Burundi has rattled Rwanda and other countries across the central African region were there are still fresh memories of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which like Burundi has a Hutu majority and Tutsi minority. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has said in the past he would not allow a repeat of the genocide in the region and has been critical of the handling of the crisis by President Pierre Nkurunziza, who led a Hutu rebel group in Burundi's civil war. About a quarter of million people have fled the violence in Burundi and most of them are now in refugee camps in Rwanda and Tanzania. Gille, another man who was sent back to Burundi, said those expelled were not newly arrived refugees and that they had come to Rwanda years ago seeking economic opportunities. "We went to seek for better life. Once we got there, some of us rented fields and cultivated...we were not given time to go to harvest what is on our land," he said. Rwandan officials could not be immediately reached but foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, told reporters last week the Burundians being expelled were in the country illegally. (writing by Elias Biryabarema; editing by Ros Russell) Washington (AFP) - White House hopeful Hillary Clinton on Monday issued a pointed warning to US allies in the Middle East, saying countries like Saudi Arabia must crack down on citizens supporting extremism. Following the weekend massacre at a gay club in Orlando by a gunman who the FBI says may have been radicalized, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee vowed to step up efforts to stop so-called lone wolf attacks, and said Americans should unite to defeat domestic terrorism. But she also called on other governments to reconsider policies that allow extremism to thrive, calling out three US allies which already have sensitive ties with Washington. "It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations," Clinton said in a national security speech in Cleveland, Ohio. "And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path toward extremism." In her half-hour speech, the former secretary of state said "American leadership" was crucial in resolving political conflicts that fuel Islamic State extremists, as well as waging the immediate battle against terror groups and messages, including online. "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive and we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values," she said. "The threat is metastasizing," she added. "We face a twisted ideology and poisoned psychology that inspires the so-called lone wolves," whom she described as radicalized individuals who may or may not have direction from a formal organization. US officials have said they do not believe the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, had outside direction from abroad in carrying out the attack that left 49 dead. Clinton also renewed her call for an assault weapons ban, saying "weapons of war have no place on our streets." She mentioned in particular the AR-15, the style of semi-automatic rifle used in Orlando. And she insisted that if federal authorities are tracking someone for suspected terror ties, that person "shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked." "If you're too dangerous to get on a plane," she added, "you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America." DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's powerful deputy crown prince flew to the United States on Monday for meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Saudi media reported. The visit of Mohammed bin Salman, whose powers include his role as defense minister, comes amid a diplomatic row with the United Nations and policy differences with the United States over the war in Syria and relations with Iran. Prince Mohammed, spearheading an ambitious plan to revamp the economy of the world's top oil exporter, will also travel to California where he is expected to meet company executives in Silicon Valley, the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said. The royal court said in a statement late on Sunday that the prince would discuss ways of strengthening relations with the United States, which have cooled under Obama's presidency. Saudi Arabia, a leading supporter of Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad, has been critical of what it sees as foot-dragging by Washington over efforts to end the conflict. It has also urged Obama to take a tougher stand on what Riyadh sees as Iranian meddling in the affairs of Arab states. Iran denies such interference. Asharq al-Awsat quoted Saudi sources as saying that Prince Mohammed, a son of King Salman, would start his visit in New York where he was expected to meet the U.N. chief on Monday. Ban said last week that Saudi Arabia had exerted "unacceptable" pressure on the world body after a U.N. report blacklisted a Saudi-led military coalition for killing children in Yemen, a charge denied by the kingdom. The United Nations removed the coalition from the list after Riyadh threatened to cut its funding of U.N. programs, diplomatic sources said. The prince would then meet Obama as well as Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Washington, the newspaper said. State news agency SPA said that a number of senior officials, including Finance Minister Ibrahim Alassaf and Commerce and Investment Minister Majid al-Qusaibi were part of a delegation accompanying Prince Mohammed, but it did not specify who he would meet during the three-day visit. Under broad economic reforms announced last week, which aim to free Saudi Arabia of its dependence on oil exports, the kingdom is seeking a big increase in foreign investment and tie-ups with foreign companies in non-oil industries including the technology sector. (Writing by Sami Aboudi, editing by Dominic Evans) (Reuters) - Damian Clarke, a former equities trader at Schroders Investment Management (SDR.L), has been sentenced to two years imprisonment for insider trading, Britain's financial watchdog said. Clarke pleaded guilty to nine counts of insider trading spanning nine years, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Monday, adding that the profits made from the deals amounted to at least 155,162 pounds. Clarke pleaded guilty to seven counts of insider trading on July 24 last year. In March this year, he pleaded guilty to the remaining two counts in London's Southwark Crown Court. (http://yhoo.it/1UedjZj) Schroders, one of Britain's largest investment managers, did not immediately comment on the news. (Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru, additional reporting by Mamidipudi Soumithri; Editing by Kirti Pandey) Scientists at NASAs Johnson Space Center found something very unexpected in a Martian crater. Using the Curiosity Rover, the scientists detected a mineral called tridymite that, until now, they thought could only be created in extremely hot temperatures. The discovery of this tridymite might rewrite the history of the planet, suggesting that it might once have been hotter than we previously thought, and home to monstrous volcanoes. The scientists found the tridymite with a special instrument on the rover that shoots x-rays at material to identify the crystal structure of minerals. It was the last mineral we expected to see, said Richard Morris, NASA planetary scientist and lead author of this study. If this stands test of time it has a lot of implications for how Mars evolved. We may have to rethink a few things. On Earth, tridymite is formed at extremely high temperatures in an explosive process called silicic volcanism. Mt. St. Helens, known for having the deadliest volcanic event in American history, is an example of a silicic volcano. These volcanoes form as a result of plate tectonics: Plates shifting in Earths outer shell dive deep into the Earths mantle, carrying water with them. They melt and form a mixture of molten rock, or magma, which forces its way to the surface, where it explodes and flows out. The combination of high silica content and extremely high temperatures in these volcanoes creates tridymite. But as far as we know, Mars doesnt have water, or dynamic plates hidden beneath the surface, and its average temperature is pretty frigid. So where did this tridymite come from? Thats what scientists need to figure out now. And to do this, theyll either need to change their understanding of how Mars evolved, or change their understanding of how tridymite forms. We searched long and hard for terrestrial evidence that tridymite might form at low temperatures and not imply silicic volcanism, Morris said. We couldnt find any. This paper will cause a lot of researchers, including ourselves here at the Johnson Space Center, to look for ways it could form at lower temperatures. Story continues The next step, Morris said, is for scientists to run experiments and reexamine terrestrial systems in more detail to look for evidence of tridymite. Either way, what they find will shake up our understanding of the Red Planet. Mars is a different place, Morris said. Processes are different there. There may be something weird going on that we just dont recognize yet. Related video: NOW WATCH: NASAs Mars rover has measured something in the air that scientists cant explain More From Business Insider A black bear is shown in this undated handout photo provided by the State of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, March 10, 2016. REUTERS/State of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries/Handout via Reuters Over the next century, as temperatures climb, precipitation patterns shift, and sea levels rise, there will be a dramatic altering of the American landscape. Faced with these changes, some plants and animals will either have to adapt or flee to new, colder homes in order to survive. In fact, a number of species have already begun shifting their habitats, with most moving towards the poles or to the higher elevations of the mountains. Some animals might even need to move many hundreds of miles over the next half-century. But, the untouched forests, deserts, mountains, and parks that these species call home are fragmented and divided by human development, such as cities, agriculture or roads. This, more often than not, leaves species no escape route if climate change continues to make their habitats inhospitable. A new study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that only 41% of todays natural areas are sufficiently connected to allow plants and wildlife to remain in their optimal climate. The situation is even more dire in the eastern US: only 2% of natural lands provide the kind of connectivity needed for species to flee, compared to 51% in the west. Not only is the east more densely urbanized, but it also has less of a climate gradient due to smaller, older mountains. The west, in contrast, has much taller mountains (providing a bigger climate gradient) and much bigger swaths of untouched wilderness. Species need little plant and animal highways, paths that make it easier to move and disperse over the landscape, Jenny McGuire, study author and research scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technologys School of Biology, told Business Insider. These paths called habitat corridors would be one way of helping species adapt to a warming world. They could be created through the restoration of forests, bogs, and other areas in order to connect up the fragmented wildlife refuges, allowing plants and animals to shift or migrate if they need to. Story continues PRMap4 The PNAS study findings suggest that creating corridors could improve the connectivity by as much as 65% nationwide, boosting the chances of survival of more species. This would be especially important in the Southeastern part of the US, where such corridors could provide escape routes to northern climates for a variety of species, including amphibians such as woodland salamanders, which need cover to survive. Without corridors, McGuire said, extinction will be higher and a lot of populations of species will be lost. Habitat corridors have already been created in a few places. Wyoming has begun to invest in wildlife overpasses, researchers are working on digging tunnels for amphibians under busy roads in New York State, and North Carolina is looking into connecting bog land. An important contribution of this [PNAS study] is that it helps us, ecologists and managers, prioritize limited funding for research and habitat restoration efforts, by focusing on areas of the US where it will have the biggest impact on improving connectivity of habitat corridors for species, Dr. Nate Nibbelink, associate professor of spatial ecology at the University of Georgia, told Business Insider. He was not directly involved in the study. In future work, McGuire and her colleagues hope to examine individual species to determine which one are most likely to struggle with the changing climate and which areas of the country are most likely to be impacted. NOW WATCH: The mysterious direction of time reveals something fascinating about our universe More From Business Insider Seahawks Yesterday was a difficult one for all Americans. The news coming out of Orlando that 50 people had been murdered in a hate crime/terrorist attack at a gay club called Pulse was a sad reminder of the divisions and violence that are so entrenched in our society. What made it so much worse was the hateful, bigoted reactions by so many people on social media to the news. Instead of offering condolences to the victims, Donald Trump thanked everyone for congratulating him on being right about terrorists, but his was hardly the most disgusting response on Twitter, which is infested by people who are an embarrassment to the human race. Last night Seahawks punter Jon Ryan encountered a similar such person on Instagram, and hes since apparently decided to ditch social media altogether. Ryan has deleted his social media accounts after he lashed out at one fan who took this heinous crime as an opportunity to remind us all that his religion does not condone the victims lifestyle. Seahawks punter Jon Ryan blasts bigot @EdgeofSports did you catch the Jon Ryan story overnight? Has since deleted his accounts. Had enough pic.twitter.com/nNTUjQUUy7 Mark O'Shea (@markoshea75) June 13, 2016 Had enough says it about right, doesnt it? AROUND COVER32 Madden Monday: Mastering the vertical interception NFL: Three holdouts to keep your eye on Fantasy Football: Ranking the top ten defenses of 2016 Throwback Thursday: Wes Welker needs to shut the door Murdering dozens of people should be condemned regardless of the victims personal beliefs or lifestyles. Gabriel Rojas is a bad example and a poor reflection on Seahawks fans, but hes only one of tens of thousands of people who couldnt get over their own hate and simply offer a message of peace, love, or condolences at such a painful time. Story continues I read dozens of tweets that were far more inflammatory and offensive than his after the news broke yesterday morning. Eventually, it got too upsetting and I logged out. Given the nature of my job, I dont have much choice but to keep tabs on social media, if not actively participate too much. The more I read though, the more I want to follow Jon Ryans example and delete it all. The anonymity of the internet allows for a lot of freedom, but it also enables sick people to hide behind a mask and spew ideas that would (hopefully) be roundly rejected in person and polite society. Ive had enough of Twitter trolls who are only fluent in the language of hate. Ive had enough of the epidemic of gun violence in this country, which is the main reason I left Chicago for Seattle in the first place. Most of all, I have had enough with our elected puppets who apparently cant get enough of this carnage on a daily basis or simply dont care enough to actually do something. Jon Ryan is originally from Canada, which is sounding like a pretty cool place to settle down right about now The post Seahawks punter Jon Ryan has had enough appeared first on Cover32. By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Monday cleared the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to resume civil proceedings against a former Standard & Poor's executive over an alleged fraud involving mortgage debt ratings. In a brief order, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a preliminary injunction that had halted the SEC's in-house administrative proceeding against Barbara Duka. The appeals court cited a June 1 decision in which it rejected as premature a constitutional challenge by New York financier Lynn Tilton to a similar proceeding. It returned Duka's case to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in Manhattan, who issued the injunction Aug. 12, 2015, for further proceedings consistent with the Tilton decision. Guy Petrillo, a lawyer for Duka, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The SEC was not immediately available for comment. Duka, Tilton and other defendants have objected to the SEC's use of in-house courts, saying the appointment of the presiding judges and hurdles that can make it impossible for the president to remove those judges are unconstitutional. Administrative proceedings also offer procedural advantages that can make it easier for the SEC to win. The SEC accused Duka, a former head of S&P's commercial mortgage-backed securities group, of concealing how the agency had eased its criteria for calculating some ratings in 2011. In halting that case, Berman had said the appointment of SEC judges was likely unconstitutional. But in the Tilton case, the 2nd Circuit ruled 2-1 that a defendant could not challenge an administrative proceeding's constitutionality before a final decision had been rendered. The SEC began pursuing more cases in-house under powers granted by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms. S&P, a unit of S&P Global Inc, agreed in January 2015 to pay $77 million to settle charges by the SEC and the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts related to the Duka case. The case is Duka v SEC, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 15-2732. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Alan Crosby) By Andrea Shalal BERLIN (Reuters) - The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the Mediterranean late on Monday, the U.S. Navy said, at a time when U.S. officials are raising alarm over Russia's maritime expansion. The Eisenhower, also known as the "Ike," will relieve the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group which later this month heads back to the United States after an extended eight-month deployment. The Eisenhower, which also leads a strike group of cruisers, destroyers and warplanes, is scheduled to continue on to the Gulf to participate in U.S. air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria. Exact details of its deployment have not been released. Fighter jets based on the Truman have been carrying out air strikes against Islamic State from the Mediterranean since June 3. The Eisenhower's deployment is part of a rotation of U.S. forces supporting maritime security operations around the globe, the Navy said. Its strike group includes two guided-missile cruisers, four guided-missile destroyers and nine air squadrons. The Navy said the presence of two carrier strike groups in the Mediterranean showed the U.S. commitment to safety and security, while sending "a strong message of support to our allies and partners in Europe." The move coincides with NATO military exercises across eastern Europe and Turkey that may raise tensions with Russia. U.S. officials say Russia is operating warships and submarines in the Mediterranean and plans its own military exercises in coming weeks. Vice Admiral James Foggo, who heads the U.S. Navy's fleet in the Mediterranean, and naval analyst Alarik Fritz last week said Russia was aggressively expanding its surface and submarine maritime capabilities from the Arctic to the Black Sea. "Combined with extensive and frequent submarine patrols throughout the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea, and forward-deployed forces in Syria, Russia has the capability to hold nearly all NATO maritime forces at risk," they wrote in the naval journal Proceedings. They said it was critical to leverage allied navies to work with NATO partners so they could respond to emergencies and protect maritime infrastructure. Russia last week said it would respond to a U.S. destroyer's entry into the Black Sea with unspecified measures, saying it and other deployments were designed to ratchet up tensions ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw next month. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Richard Balmforth) The flag that Americans will celebrate for Flag Day on Tuesday has a certain neatness to it: complementing the 13 stripes for the 13 original states, there are nine orderly rows of stars, totaling 50. With more than a half-century having passed since the 50-star flag debuted in 1960following the admission of Hawaii as the 50th state in 1959Americans are accustomed to the look of this flag. But, of course, the nation didnt skip right from 13 states to 50 of them. Though its been a while since new states were a common addition, there was a period of time during which the flag changed designs frequently to accommodate new stars for new states. And, as the GIF below shows, while some numbers lend themselves to star patterns that can be a little bit awkward (were looking at you, 37 stars), theyre all equally patriotic: flags.NEW Most changes to the flag have come one state at a time, with the exception of the early years, and 1890 (the Dakotas, Montana, Washington and Idaho) and 1912 (New Mexico and Arizona). The most recent changes came in 1959 and 1960, after the consecutive additions of Alaska and Hawaii. The design for the 50-star flag has a particularly fun back story: it was created by a high school student, Robert G. Heft. As the Columbus Dispatch reported in Hefts 2009 obituary, his history class was given the assignment of designing a new flag in 1958, after it became clear that two states were on their way, and he earned a B-minus for the design he made. Though he was not the only person to suggest that 50 stars could be best displayed in alternating rows of six and five, the Dispatch reports that he was the only person to mail a prototype to Washington, where it was selected by President Eisenhower. And Heft got the last laugh in more than one way: his teacher changed his grade to an A. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter At the Capitol arm-weary policemen raised and lowered 1,072 new flags on four flagpoles so that Congressmen could mail favored constituents new flags authentically flown over Washington in the first day; the cops took about 30 seconds to clamp each flag to the halyard, haul it up and drop it down again into a red, white and blue mailing box, TIME reported when Alaskas star was added in 1959. Next year the whole procedure will have to be done all over again, when the U.S. unfurls its 50-star flag in honor of Hawaii. KHAYELITSHA, South Africa -- It's the middle of sex education class in Zola Business High School and 90 teenage boys and girls are laughing and talking through a presentation about birth control, condoms and HIV. The school day is almost over in this township on the outskirts of Cape Town, but that's hardly the only thing keeping the students distracted. At the back of the room, about 10 teenagers -- mostly women -- wait in line to take an HIV test behind a small white screen. Their fingers are pricked, and then they reassume their seats and wait for the outcome. Ten minutes later, they are called back behind the screen and given the results. The verdict rendered, they rejoin the class. Thandi, a 17-year-old with a quick smile and thick braids pulled up in a ponytail, stands along a wall, waiting her turn. "It's hard, because if you take too long, people may know you are positive," says Thandi, who hopes to go to college next year and become an accountant. "I tested twice last year and I was negative, but I'm very nervous." If statistics are any guide, she has reason to be. AIDS is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. The issue is particularly pronounced in South Africa, where about 2,500 girls 15 to 24 years old are infected with HIV every week -- more than any other country in East and Southern Africa. South African women in the age group are four more times likely to become infected with HIV than their male peers and account for the highest percentage of new HIV infections. To eradicate HIV once and for all, experts say, new infections must be prevented in young women like Thandi. But while much headway has been made in the 35 years after the AIDS outbreak, infection rates among South Africa's young women have barely budged in the last 10 years. "We've known for years that the face of AIDS is a woman's face," says Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, a nonprofit organization that advocates for HIV prevention. "What we do not yet know is how to fundamentally disrupt that from happening." Story continues This summer, just in time for bragging rights at the July International AIDS Conference in Durban, two large-scale initiatives will attempt to do just that in South Africa. By July, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Johnson & Johnson and other corporate and nonprofit partners plan to fully implement a program in South Africa called DREAMS, or Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe women. The $385 million partnership hopes to curb infection rates in adolescent girls in 10 sub-Saharan African countries -- the region most affected by HIV -- by 40 percent by the end of 2017. "It's a moonshot," says U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Patrick Gaspard. "But that's what you need when you consider just how acute the epidemic is." This month, the South African government hopes to build on the DREAMS program by launching a three-year initiative aimed at curbing HIV infections in young women and the men who are their primary infectors. The program is a 3 billion rand ($200 million) initiative funded by the South African government, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the German Development Agency. Leaders hope the program will advance the country's goal of having an AIDS-free generation under 20 by 2030 -- a noteworthy aim for a country whose former President Thabo Mbeki argued that poverty, not a virus, caused AIDS. The hope is that these kinds of programs, which plan to address the complicated social and structural challenges that drive new infections, will have a bigger impact than biomedical interventions alone. Research suggests that vaginal rings, pre-exposure prophylaxis and vaginal gels can have a positive impact on preventing infections in young women. But they've had mixed results in studies, partly because women haven't always adhered to them. The causes of HIV in young women Although South Africa has the most expansive antiretroviral therapy program in the world -- a mostly self-funded program accessible to 3.4 million people -- it still has the globe's largest epidemic in terms of the number of people living with HIV. About 7 million South Africans had HIV in 2015, according to UNAIDS. Slightly more than half a million of those people were young women, an increase from 2012. No one is exactly sure why young women in sub-Saharan Africa have such high rates of HIV infection. Some researchers believe a gene or other biological factors are involved. But most agree with the 2016 UNAIDS report that "harmful gender norms and inequalities, obstacles to education and sexual and reproductive health services, poverty, food insecurity and violence" play a role in the high infections. Young, black women are the the most vulnerable group in South African society, experts say. Sexual violence is common, and women don't have much bargaining power in their relationships. Low self-esteem is a persistent challenge. Thandi, whose name has been changed, explains it this way: "Our boyfriends, they say they don't want to use condoms," she says as she moves further up in line. "But we tend to trust them, even though we know they might be doing something on the side." By boyfriends, she could mean someone her age -- or middle-aged. During the past few years, more young South African women have had relationships with older men. It's a trend that hasn't gone unnoticed. The South African media has recently made much to do about "sugar daddies" or "blessers," older men who support young women financially in exchange for sexual relationships. The latter term evolved from the social media hashtag #blessed, which some women used to refer to gifts from their boyfriends. Peer pressure is intense in South Africa's townships, and young women often pair up with older men who can buy them the latest clothes or shoes, says Ntomboxolo Giyose, a community mobilizer with the Treatment Action Campaign, which is coordinating the sex education in Thandi's school. The dynamic helps HIV spread, she says, "Because when a sugar daddy doesn't want to wear a condom -- when he wants flesh on flesh -- then she can't wear one." The latest HIV prevention efforts channeled through DREAMS and the South African government aim to help young women navigate these kinds of difficult situations -- whether it be having sex in exchange for perks, money, or out of intimidation and fear. The DREAMS program, which allocates $66 million of PEPFAR funds to South Africa over two years, focuses on the five highest-need districts within the country. The program aims to lessen economic stressors in young women by linking them to cash transfers -- essentially social welfare checks -- and educational subsidies to help them stay in school. DREAMS is also providing parenting programs, facilitating access to different kinds of contraceptives, educating communities about preventing and reacting to sexual violence and dispersing PrEP, pre-exposure prophylaxis that can prevent HIV when taken regularly. The initiative, which the South African government is using as a model for its own program, also will identify the male sexual partners of young women to help link them with treatment, such as circumcision, which can reduce HIV infections. HIV advocates and foreign policy experts say they are happy to see governments, nonprofits and the private sector working together to tackle the issue. But they're eager to see how success will be measured. "Getting data and getting quality data is always an issue," says Richard Downie, deputy director and fellow with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "That will be something to look at." Ambassador Gaspard says the DREAMS team is working on such a system now. "The goal is to have as much transparency as we can," he says. Funding also is a concern. PEPFAR is looking at static or declining funding over the next few years, Downie says, and it's the leading partner in DREAMS. "Changing behavior is a generational task. It's not an overnight thing," he says. "Sustainability around these programs is always an issue. What happens after the two-year funding window expires?" Back in Thandi's sex education class, educators are hoping they can change behavior in a much shorter window. Ten minutes after her test, Thandi heads back behind the screen to see her results. When she rounds the corner, she smiles and gives two thumbs up. There's one less obstacle in the way of her dreams -- at least for now. Devon Haynie reported from South Africa on a fellowship through the International Reporting Project. Devon Haynie is news editor, international for U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at dhaynie@usnews.com. Just hours after the mass shooting at a gay Orlando nightclub, Broadway's most influential figures gathered at the Beacon Theatre Sunday for the 70th annual Tony Awards, dedicated to the victims of the Orlando massacre. Read: First Orlando Victims Named as Families Anxiously Wait for News About Their Loved Ones Standing in solidarity with the 49 dead and 53 injured in the Pulse mass shooting earlier that morning, the 2016 Tony Awards honored victims with somber acceptance speeches and performances. The event's host, late night TV personality James Corden, opened the awards with a solemn speech to the viewers at home on behalf of the theater community. "All around the world, people are trying to come to terms with the horrific events that took place in Orlando this morning," Corden began."On behalf of the whole theater community and every person in this room, our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity." He continued: "All we can say is you are not on your own right now. Your tragedy is our tragedy. Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, embraced and loved. Hate will never win. Together, we have to make sure of that. Tonights show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle. Read: Orlando Gunman Pledged Allegiance to ISIS in 911 Call He Made During Attack The Tony's announced on Twitter earlier that evening that the 70th annual award show will continue as planned, but will be dedicated to those affected by the shooting in Orlando. The 2016 #TonyAwards are dedicated to those affected by the events in Orlando. pic.twitter.com/ILNbbhxSHD The Tony Awards (@TheTonyAwards) June 12, 2016 Attendees were given silver pins, worn in remembrance of the Orlando victims. Story continues The Tonys have created a ribbon in remembrance for Orlando. The Theatre community stands in solidarity. #TonysRibbon pic.twitter.com/w0jBbTd8zU The Tony Awards (@TheTonyAwards) June 12, 2016 Hamilton creator and star, Lin Manuel Miranda, whose hit musical took home 11 awards that night, could be seen on stage wearing a rainbow pin next to his silver ribbon as he accepted the award for Best Original Score in a tearful sonnet. Read: Was 'Deadliest Mass Shooting in American History' Inspired After Killer Saw Men Kiss? "When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day, this show is proof that history remembers," Miranda began. "We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall, and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer." He continued: "And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. As sacred as a symphony Eliza tells her story. Now fill the world with music, love and pride. And thank you so much for this." The musical about the American Revolution also took a stance against gun violence by abandoning their musket props during their performance at the award show. Frank Langella, who accepted the award for best leading actor in a play for "The Father," also substituted the original speech he wrote for one addressed to victims of the shooting. "When something bad happens we have three choices. We can let it define us, we can let it destroy us or we can let it strengthen us," Langella said, after putting aside his list of people to thank. "Today in Orlando we had a hideous dose of reality. I urge you Orlando to be strong. Im standing in a room full of the most generous human beings on earth and we will be with you every step of the way. Read: America Pays Tribute to Orlando Victims As Hundreds Line Up To Donate Blood Barbra Streisand, who shocked the audience with her first Tony's appearance since 1970, also said a few words on the tragedy before presenting the award for Best Musical. "Tonight our joy is tinged with sorrow. But were here to celebrate Broadway, and the beauty that artistry can bring into this world," Streisand said. "Art can entertain us and educate us and at times like this, console us. Watch: Missing Man Who Sent His Mom Chilling Texts From Inside Orlando Club Is Among The Dead Related Articles: Traders are looking for Southwest Airlines to hold its ground. optionMONSTER's monitoring programs show that 6,750 July 40 puts were sold in one print for $0.32 on Friday. This is clearly a new position, as open interest in the strike was only 284 contracts before the trade occurred. Short puts lock in a price where investors must buy a stock, while letting them collect premium. Traders use the technique when they like a stock and think that the risk of a big drop is limited. (See our Education section) LUV fell 1.27 percent to $43.63 on Friday but is up 5 percent in the last week. The airline carrier's last quarterly results on April 21 were bullish, and its next earnings report is expected on July 21. Overall option volume was 3 times greater than average in the name on Friday. More From optionMONSTER Career gurus have written extensively about what it takes to be successful, but according to Stanford University professor and author Carol Dweck, a simple shift in the way that you think might make all the difference. It's very simple: Ask for help. "You don't know what your abilities are until you make a full commitment to developing them," she said. Dweck stressed that paying attention to the way you think about your abilities can be a game-changer. The psychologist described two default mindsets: fixed and growth. In the fixed mindset, people think their talents and abilities are fixed. If you think this way, then you worry about them and try to validate them, limiting you. When you operate with a fixed mindset you're afraid to ask for help, she said. In contrast, when you embrace a growth mindset, you believe that your talents and abilities can be developed through hard work, good strategy and mentoring, she said. "Everybody who's been successful has gotten lots of help and input from many, many people," she told CNBC. Still, believing that your abilities are malleable doesn't guarantee that you'll be successful, but it takes away the other worries, the author of "Mindset" said. She explained that a growth mindset encourages risk taking, which in turn takes away worries about your abilities. While people are a mix of both fixed and growth mindsets, it's crucial to understand what triggers a fixed mindset or the belief that one's talents and abilities are inherent, she said. Dweck identifies failure as a common trigger for the fixed mindset. A great example is when "you try something, it doesn't work and maybe people even criticize you. In a fixed mindset, you say, 'I tried this, it's over.' In a growth mindset, you look for what you've learned," she explained. To change this thought process, "You have to start by finding your fixed-mindset trigger. Listen to the situation; when you start feeling your ability is fixed or limited. Just accept it at first, just listen to it. Then you start working with it. You can give your fixed mindset a name; it could be your father or your aunt. Who is that person [that discourages you]? Start talking to that voice. Reason with your persona: 'Thank you for looking out for me, but I'd really like to try this,'" she said. Story continues The mindset theory is just as important in the work environment, Dweck told CNBC. The self-conception expert has worked with many companies where she helps identify what the corporate culture is and whether it is an environment that is conducive to growth. "We did a study of a group of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies, and we found that the companies that embody more of a growth mindset had employees that felt empowered and committed to the company," she said, adding that those companies also fostered creativity. "The managers saw much more growth potential in their employees," she said. Dweck recalls visiting a financial company in Chicago that endorses a growth mindset, and she noted that "everyone felt empowered." "When someone endorses a fixed mindset, it can limit them, even if they're successful at the moment, because if they start struggling and tumbling they can lose their confidence, but also, they may not create a growth mindset environment for others," she said. "They may create a culture of genius where people compete with each other to look smart, instead of learn," she added. But the problem of a culture of genius is more than looking smart, Dweck said. The difference is that "a growth mindset company really values teamwork. A culture of genius, there's a lot of competition and a lot of keeping secrets from each other, because everyone wants to look good." More From CNBC Orlando takes its place on a grim list. In the minutes before opening fire at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., shooter Omar Mateen called 911 and told an operator that he was pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. But investigators still dont know what kind of link if any he may actually have had to the group. The horrific shooting that killed at least 50 and wounded 53 more is the worst shooting in U.S. history and the bloodiest terror attack at home since 9/11. Its also the third time a pledge to the terrorist group has been invoked to justify an attack within the United States. The first was came in May 2015 when a gunman sent out a series of Twitter messages just before opening fire on a cartoon exhibit featuring images of the Prophet Muhammad in Texas. Next came a December attack in San Bernardino, Calif., by a married couple who posted their oath of allegiance on Facebook before gunning down 14 people. ISIS? Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi knows if he calls for terror it will come, author Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and now a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told FPs Molly OToole and Dan De Luce. He doesnt need any direct human connection or even a web connection. His message is so pervasive in the media and so simple it is certain to inspire the angry. The Islamic State quickly claimed credit for the attack in Orlando, with its al-Bayan Radio describing him Monday as one of the soldiers of its self-described caliphate. But according to SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks terrorist activity online, neither the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news site nor al-Bayan indicates there was coordination with the ISIS prior to the attack. Numbers. The scale of the attack, bluntly: Before the attack in Orlando on Sunday, 45 people in the United States had died in jihadist terrorist attacks since 9/11, according to a database maintained by the New America, a Washington think tank. The think tank added 50 more deaths to its database Sunday because of the attacks in Orlando. Story continues Libyan militias smash ISIS. Forces loyal to the internationally-recognized Libyan government continue to batter Islamic State fighters in the coastal city of Sirte, and have taken back much from the city from the terrorist group including the port. The relatively swift series of victories in recent weeks along the Libyan coast came after militias from the city of Misrata, which is between Tripoli and Sirte, pledged their loyalty to the government, and began pushing toward the Islamic States stronghold. Officials in Washington have estimated there to be as many as 5,000 ISIS fighters in Libya, but the pro-government Libyan have been bolstered by the support of special operations forces from the U.S., France and the U.K. While the fighting was street-to-street over the weekend in Sirte, officials in Libya have estimated there to be about 30,000 civilian left inside the city. No word yet on civilian casualties. Good morning again from the Sitrep crew, thanks for clicking on through for the summer 2016 edition of SitRep. As always, if you have any thoughts, announcements, tips, or national security-related events to share, please pass them along to SitRep HQ. Best way is to send them to: paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or on Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley Russia Russias military has a new icebreaker ship ready for Arctic operations, Agence France Presse reports. The Russian navy debuted the 6,000-ton Ilya Muromets this weekend, the first such ship to be built by the service in nearly a half decade. Russias renewed interest in icebreaker ships and Arctic operations reflects of the changing strategic interest in the region as climate change has opened up new waterways and access to energy and mineral resources. FPs Keith Johnson and Dan De Luce recently explored the U.S. Coast Guards own struggles to keep up with rivals in the Arctic. Syria The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing near revered religious shrine in Syria, according to NBC News. The assault on the Sayyida Zeynab shrine killed 20 people on Saturday and involved three attackers wearing suicide vests,. The shrine is believed to hold the remains of the granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammed and is particularly sacred to Shia Muslims. Iranian authorities frequently reference the shrine when announcing the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members, describing the dead as having fought to defend it. Iraq Civilians trapped inside the Islamic State-held city of Fallujah finally have a way out. Reuters reports that Iraqi security forces have established a secure corridor for civilians to leave the city, labeling it the Peace Junction. Norwegian Refugee Council, a human rights group on the ground outside Fallujah, says 4,000 people have already made use of the corridor to escape. Residents of Fallujah have faced starvation at the hands of a months-long siege of the city and abuse by the Islamic State commanders ruling the city. The Islamic State The U.S. military says its killed 120 leaders from the Islamic State since it joined the campaign against the jihadist group, the Los Angeles Times reports. Lt. Gen. Robert Otto, the Air Forces top official for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, however, is quick to point out that decapitation, alone, isnt likely to topple the group, telling the paper that removing senior officials has a temporary impact on operations. The leadership culling is, however, making the group more paranoid, sowing suspicions about spies within its ranks and forcing members to put dubious counter-drone screens on buildings in the self-styled caliphate capital in Raqqa. Whos where when 2:30 p.m. Afghanistans ambassador to the U.S., Hamdullah Mohib, appears at the Hudson Institute to discuss the fight against the Taliban in aftermath of the death of its leader, Mullah Mansour, in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan. More here. Lebanon A bomb attack in Beirut, Lebanon targeted the Blom Bank, Reuters reports. The explosion caused significant property damage but no injuries or deaths, fortunately. Theres no claim of responsibility thus far or hard evidence confirming a perpetrator. Reuters notes, however, that the incident comes amid growing tensions in Lebanon between the U.S.-designated terror group Hezbollah and the Lebanese central bank. In 2015, the U.S. passed the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act, threatening sanctions against financial institutions like the Lebanese central bank that do business with Hezbollah and triggering a political standoff between the terror group and the Lebanese state. Afghanistan The Taliban have committed a horrifying atrocity in Afghanistan and some are worrying it may be a sign that the group is becoming even more brutal. The Washington Post reports that videos posted on the Internet reportedly show members of the Taliban killed a man by skinning him alive. The man, Fazl Ahmad, had been targeted because a relative had killed a Taliban commander. Experts worry that the group may become ever more radical as its leadership fragments and younger commanders take positions of prominence within its ranks. Special Operations Special Operations Command, Pacific (SOCPAC) has a new commander. Maj. Gen. Bryan P. Fenton takes the helm from Rear Adm. Colin J. Kilrain, whos headed to lead special operators in Europe serving under the NATO flag. U.S. Pacific Command boss Adm. Harry Harris called Fenton a combat-tested snake-eater whos been primed for the job by a series of previous leadership posts in hotspots around the world. Bots o war BAEs armed drone technology demonstrator is headed for more flight testing. IHS Janes got a rare look at testing facilities for the Taranis, a joint project between Britain and France to develop an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV). The Taranis looks something like a cross between a B-2 stealth bomber and a Cylon Raider from Battlestar Galactica. BAE officials told Janes that the secretive stealth drone already underwent flight trials in 2013 and 2015 and the company is already in talks for another round. Photo credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images A number of DJs and producers took to social media to express support for the LGBT community following the massacre at a nightclub in Orlando this weekend. Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Orlando Mass Shooting: 'This Is Clearly an Act of Terror' Dillon Francis and others suggested they would donate to the families of victims, while Moby condemned Donald Trump for trying to politicize a tragedy. Krewella issued a plea for unity, writing "I beg that we not allow this senseless act of violence to divide us." See more reactions below: #orlando pic.twitter.com/9VisUm750o - SKRILLEX (@Skrillex) June 12, 2016 Our hearts go out to Orlando & the amazing LGBT community right now, & I beg that we not allow this senseless act of violence to divide us - KREWELLA (@Krewella) June 12, 2016 A good way to handle today: Pride (A deeper love) The undisputed Queen of Soul @ArethaFranklin can bring us up.https://t.co/ZAQ38Z0zO1- Kaskade (@kaskade) June 13, 2016 No. My heart is broken for the victims and friends and families of the people killed and wounded https://t.co/VUNQ9V0NQb - moby XX (@thelittleidiot) June 12, 2016 Shame on you @realDonaldTrump trying to use the heartbreak and tragedy in #orlando for your political gain. Shame on you. - moby XX (@thelittleidiot) June 13, 2016 Our thoughts, love and prayers with Orlando. Unthinkable... - Funklordz (@Chromeo) June 12, 2016 This.Must.End https://t.co/3SnhrMQh2M - LA ROUX (@larouxofficial) June 12, 2016 'Be a human, not a monster' well said @SteveAngello https://t.co/sw7bYUX7Wz - Laidback Luke (@LaidbackLuke) June 12, 2016 Shame on anyone who agrees with the atrocious event that happened today.... I will be helping by donating money to the victims of Orlando - Dillon Francis (@DILLONFRANCIS) June 13, 2016 I really hate reading the news. Seeing people get hurt, being terrorized, abused, starved https://t.co/ddRPWQCBEI pic.twitter.com/kowTFs5r6T - Steve Angello (@SteveAngello) June 12, 2016 Story continues We are devastated with what happened in Orlando. It is beyond upsetting. - The EDM Family (@TheEDMFamilies) June 12, 2016 We created a shirt to show Orlando's strength. 100% profit go to Victim Fundhttps://t.co/NuhPrbryke#LoveIsLove pic.twitter.com/t5ekJz3jZK - The EDM Family (@TheEDMFamilies) June 12, 2016 :( - Zedd (@Zedd) June 12, 2016 Love and peace to the victims of the Orlando shooting - GRiZ (@mynameisGRiZ) June 12, 2016 This is insane. Our prayers are with all those effected by the the tragedy that took place in orlando. Something needs to change! - THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) June 12, 2016 I wake up everyday and I'm disgusted that I am getting used hearing about these Senseless acts of violence - THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) June 12, 2016 The worst in history. When will we wake the fuck up and realize this happens no where else in the world as frequently - THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) June 12, 2016 God bless the families and victims. - THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) June 12, 2016 Hopefully this is a wake up call. Imagine how many acts of hate towards our LGBTQ community go unheard of or unnoticed. Let people be - marshmello (@marshmellomusic) June 12, 2016 Hopefully this is a wake up call. Imagine how many acts of hate towards our LGBTQ community go unheard of or unnoticed. Let people be - marshmello (@marshmellomusic) June 12, 2016 A soul is a soul you should love who you love and have no one question it. Be proud and strong. - Alison Wonderland (@awonderdj) June 13, 2016 I am sending my love and happiness to anyone who needs it. Feel appreciated and special. Eat some ice cream. Enjoy the stupid small things. - Alison Wonderland (@awonderdj) June 13, 2016 Don't lose your faith in humanity there are some really fucking beautiful people out there - Alison Wonderland (@awonderdj) June 13, 2016 here is @equalityfl's @gofundme page to provide support for the victims of the Orlando shooting https://t.co/dwjP7a892U - Mark Ronson (@MarkRonson) June 12, 2016 sending my love and good energy to everyone in orlando. this really hurts me to see happening right now. - mija (@hi_mija) June 12, 2016 Orlando i'm due with you in 4 days. I'm in shock over what im reading. I hope you're holding strong & your friends & family are safe. :( <3 - WHAT SO NOT (@WhatSoNot) June 12, 2016 Incredibly sad to hear the news about the mass shooting and casualties in #Orlando And in a https://t.co/4b9MxAdYRY - Dubfire (@dubfire) June 12, 2016 My heart is heavy as I read about what happened last night in Orlando. No words can expres https://t.co/q2Cbg5KfCd pic.twitter.com/JydzYJLzuQ - NERVO (@nervomusic) June 12, 2016 Peace is the result of accepting one another & to love life as it is, rather than to hate because it's not the way you want it to be. One - Datsik (@datsik) June 14, 2016 Like if you can fucking witness an atrocity like what happened last night and still oppose gun control with a clear conscience than idk man. - EDM KLAY THOMPSON (@Jauzofficial) June 12, 2016 How to stand up to the gun lobby? How to break down the power of the NRA? This has got to stop - Annie Mac (@AnnieMac) June 12, 2016 While I can understand (not condone) political ambition, greed, power lust etc--- I find actual hatred completely alien and so truly sad. - Tiga (@Tiga) June 13, 2016 How many things have to be wrong inside your mind for you to actually seek to harm another person because they are different. - Tiga (@Tiga) June 13, 2016 Hopefully the silver lining in all this is that we grow from this tragedy and unite to stomp out this prejudicial bullshit. - Datsik (@datsik) June 14, 2016 Suck my fucking dick trump! #eatshitanddie https://t.co/vJt8LjvomD - Justin Martin (@mrJUSTINMARTIN) June 12, 2016 the minute we succumb to hatred & fear, they win. we must continue to love.#LoveIsLove#LoveWins#Orlando- Tommie Sunshine (@tommiesunshine) June 13, 2016 Heart goes out to #Orlando thoughts and prayers to everyone affected - dj icey (@Dj_Icey) June 12, 2016 Pulse is exactly the kind of hometown club that saved my life. It is the kind of place that let me live as a young person. - The Black Madonna (@blackmadonnachi) June 12, 2016 The first gay club I ever went to was in basement of a gay bookstore. My middle school teacher was working the door. I was 15. - The Black Madonna (@blackmadonnachi) June 13, 2016 I have spent 25 years of my life in primarily queer or queer friendly clubs where I made friends that stood with me in my darkest hours. - The Black Madonna (@blackmadonnachi) June 13, 2016 So help me god if someone ever comes in another gay club Im in and so much as looks at my people sideways again, I will unleash hell. - The Black Madonna (@blackmadonnachi) June 13, 2016 Shooting At Orlando Nightclub Leaves 50 Dead in Largest Mass Shooting in U.S. History | Patrons on Orlando's Pulse Before the Tragedy: 'We Could Be Our Authentic Selves' | President Obama Calls Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting Act of Terror and Hate | Orlando Gay Nightclub Shooting Casts a Shadow on Tony Awards | Orlando Shooting: Trump Sees Backlash Over 'Congrats' Tweet; Clinton Calls Attack an 'Act of Terror' | Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting: Hollywood Reacts | 'This Is the New Reality': Artists & Concert Execs Weigh In on Security Challenges After Orlando | Skrillex, Chainsmokers & More Dance Music Stars React to Orlando Nightclub Massacre | Orlando Pride Radio Host Talks Pulse's Place in LGBT Community, Why It's Hard Not to Be Scared | James Corden Gives Touching Orlando Speech at 2016 Tony Awards: 'Hate Will Never Win' The military challenge posed by a mass killer pledging allegiance to the Islamic State is pretty straightforward: there isnt a whole lot armed force can do to combat it. Thats the essential conundrum of terror: it is a tool of the weak, asymmetrically aimed at the strong and powerful. Many Americans initial reaction to the slaughter of 49 in an Orlando nightclub over the weekend was to bomb the Islamic State into oblivion. Shortly before police killed him, Omar Mateen, 29, reportedly said he was carrying out his carnage on behalf of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The only real solution is to destroy Islamic State in its havens abroad so that young Muslims around the world wont see it as a vanguard of the future, the Wall Street Journal said in its lead editorial Monday. Part of President Obamas legacy will be that Islamic State grew so dangerous on his watch, prospering in the political vacuum that was created when he chose to withdraw from Iraq and then do little in Syria. Thats something for historians to debate. But pressure to step up attacks on ISIS will only grow if other lone wolves emulate Mateens murders. Even military veterans are divided on just how much armed force can do to defeat ISIS. We need to change our leaders, change our laws and fight, says Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. This is zero-sum warfare, civilization against fanatical barbarism, and we continue to underestimate the barbarians. But while military action is necessary, it isnt sufficient, cautions retired Army three-star general David Barno. Much like al Qaeda, ISIS spews an ideology of extremist beliefs, hate and destruction that in all likelihood cannot be destroyed by military means, says Barno, who commanded U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. That reality makes our military actions against ISIS necessary, but not sufficient to destroy this deadly phenomenon. Story continues In New Hampshire, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said the Obama Administrations current politically correct response hampers the nations ability to grapple with ISIS. He declared that, if elected, he would give our intelligence community, law enforcement and military the tools they need to prevent terrorist attacks. They dont have those tools now, he added, without elaborating. In Cleveland, Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton said we should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign, which shouldnt be hard to ramp up: according to the most recent data published by the Pentagon, the number of weapons used against ISIS peaked at 3,227 last November and dropped to 1,982 in Marcha decline of nearly 40%. While the self-declared caliphate occupied by ISIS in Iraq and Syria continues to shrink, its existence keeps it a potent recruiter for jihad. The U.S. and its allies could do more to destroy ISIS, ranging from increased air attacks to putting troops on the ground. But the Obama Administration, leery of being sucked anew into another war in the region, has embraced a steady but modest air war against the Islamic State instead. If investigators conclude this was an act of terror directed or inspired by ISIL, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter posted to his Facebook page (using the U.S. governments preferred term for ISIS), it will only steel our resolve to defeat this depraved enemy, prevent the spread of its hateful ideology, and defend our people. Steeling our resolvethis time, really, we mean itis, of course, a lot different than putting steel on target. Hours after Carters statement, the Pentagon detailed, as it has done pretty much every day for nearly two years, the 32 strikes against assorted ISIS targets it had conducted over the prior 24 hours. Manned and unmanned aircraft took out, among other targets, a pair of oil wells, a light machine gun, a front-end loader and a cave entrance in Syria. In Iraq, U.S.-led air attacks denied ISIL access to terrain suppressed an ISIL mortar position suppressed an ISIL machine gun position and suppressed a separate ISIL tactical unit. No matter its tallied, this is not a bombardment for the record books. The challenge for Obama and his successor is to come up with a battle plan that punishes ISIS more forcefully while sustaining the support of the American people. Maintaining that balance can be difficult. Congress has been so fearful of getting its hands bloody that it has refused to pass a resolution explicitly authorizing war on ISIS. Young Americans are risking their lives every day under a congressional resolution passed a week after the 9/11 attacks to go after al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government of Afghanistan that shielded them. The danger is that if more such lone-wolf attacks occur, the political pressure to strike ISIS harder may eclipse the military utility of such a move. As every military strategist know, bullets cant kill an idea, no matter how foul. Airstrikes will not destroy the ideology of ISIS, which seems right now to be what motivated the Orlando terror attack, Barno says. Rejecting the violent radical ideology of ISIS and al Qaeda will have to ultimately come from within the Middle East and its people, not simply from the West. Palo Alto (United States) (AFP) - Prestigious Stanford University's graduation ceremony has been overshadowed by a sex assault case that prompted a brief protest by students. The event kicked off with the university's president John Hennessy calling for a moment of silence for survivors of sexual assault as well as victims of the massacre in Florida that left 50 people dead. "As events on our own campus and around the country remind us, violence in all forms has become a scourge on our society," he said. A handful of students carried signs that read "Rape is Rape," "It doesn't matter what she was drinking" or "Stanford protects rapists" during the so-called "Wacky Walk" processional into the university stadium. At the ceremony itself, there was only muted protest with several students sporting on their caps a message that read "1/3," in reference to the ratio Stanford students say will be victims of sexual assault by the time they finish a four-year degree. A plane hired by a women's activist group earlier flew overhead, trailing a banner that read "Protect survivors. Not Rapists. #PerskyMustGo." The tag referred to Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky who earlier this month sentenced to six months in jail a former student -- Brock Turner -- who was convicted for the 2015 sexual assault of an unconscious woman. The sentence, which gained attention after the victim's statement to the court was made public, has prompted widespread outrage and calls for Persky to be recalled. The judge has not commented on the case as Turner's attorney has indicated he may appeal his sentence. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, who spoke at the ceremony, urged the nearly 5,200 graduates from 35 countries to be vigilant about sexual assault and to speak out against it. "I am the father of four daughters," he said, addressing the students. "If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them," he added to sustained applause. Protesters stood outside Stanfords graduation ceremony to voice their anger over the six-month sentence given to Brock Turner, the ex-student who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. A petition created after the sentence has garnered thousands of signatures in an attempt to have trial Judge Aaron Persky, who presided over the case, removed from the bench. Read: Meet The Hero Who Stopped Stanford Attacker Brock Allen Turner At the Stanford ceremony on Sunday, activists marched in protest while a banner flew above the crowds reading, "Protect survivors. Not Rapists. PerskyMustGo." Keynote speaker and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns addressed the sexual assault incident during his commencement speech. "Look, I am the father of four daughters. If someone tells you they've been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously, and listen to them," he said. Burns also mentioned the emotional testimony the victim penned to the judge recalling the incidents of the assault. "Maybe someday we will make the survivor's eloquent statement as important as Dr. King's letter from a Birmingham jail," he said. Multiple students joined the march after they received their diplomas, including graduating senior Jonathan Fisk. Read: Brock Turner Banned From Swimming for Life as It Emerges He'll Only Serve 3 Months We also want to draw light to non-consent culture, not just rape culture, but non-consent culture, and how that intersects with different privileges such as race, class, and ability especially, which we've seen in this case," he said. The sexual assault on Stanfords campus has sparked a national debate and opened a dialogue about how sexual assault cases on college campuses are handled in the courts. Turner will reportedly only serve three months in jail and is set to be released September 2. He will be registered as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Story continues USA Swimming has placed a life-long ban on Turner, prohibiting him in participating in any sanctioned events, including those that would qualify him for the U.S. Olympic team. Vice President Joe Biden has also weighed in with his own letter in response to the victims testimony. "I am in awe of your courage for speaking out," he told her, "for so clearly naming the wrongs that were done to you and so passionately asserting your equal claim to human dignity. Watch: Outrage Grows Over Six-Month Sentence for Stanford Assault Case Related Articles: European stocks closed sharply lower on Monday amid a global selloff, as uncertainty over a possible "Brexit" and looming central bank meetings shook markets. The pan-European STOXX 600 (^STOXX) index ended down 1.6 percent. The U.K.'s benchmark FTSE 100 (FTSE International: .FTSE) provisionally closed 0.9 percent lower. It outperformed the French CAC 40 (Euronext Paris: .FCHI) and the German DAX (^GDAXI), which both closed unofficially 1.5 percent lower. Several polls published on Friday and the weekend showed a small majority of Britons in favor of leaving the European Union (EU), ahead of a referendum on membership on June 23. This rattled global markets. "The risk that the U.K. votes to leave the EU next week is the dominant force in the capital markets," BBH analysts led by March Chandler said in a note on Monday. Bank of England and Swiss National Bank policymakers will meet this week, but neither central bank is expected to announce policy changes. The Bank of Japan's policy meeting on June 15 may be of more interest, with analysts saying the bank could announce additional easing measures. Plus the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting on Tuesday. Expectations for a June interest rate hike by the Fed have waned following a lower-than-expected May nonfarm payroll number in recent weeks that cast doubts on the health of the U.S. economy. U.S. stocks opened slightly lower on Monday, following sharp declines in overseas markets, but received a boost from a 45 percent jump in LinkedIn (LNKD) shares on the news that the platform will be purchased by Microsoft (MSFT). Gold prices rose as investors put money into safe-haven assets. Precious metals miner Randgold Resources (London Stock Exchange: RRS-GB) was one of a handful of companies in the black as a result. Amid the negativity, some defensive stocks such as GSK (London Stock Exchange: GSK-GB) also found support. Adding to the grim mood in Europe was the weekend massacre in the U.S. at an Orlando nightclub that killed around 50 people. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was an employee of security firm G4S (London Stock Exchange: GFS-GB) and shares in the U.K. security firm closed around 5 percent lower on Monday. Story continues German insurance firm Hannover Re (XETRA:HNR1-DE) was sharply lower after Credit Suisse initiated coverage of the stock with an "underperform" rating. Credit Suisse put an "outperform" rating on Hiscox (London Stock Exchange: HSX-GB), sending shares in that insurance firm higher. Shares of Nokia (Helsinki Stock Exchange: NOKIA-FI) closed around 1.6 percent higher after the Finnish network equipment maker signed a 9.9 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) network infrastructure deal with China Mobile. Satellite firm Inmarsat (London Stock Exchange: ISAT-GB) saw shares in the black after signing a deal with SpeedCast to roll out broadband on boats. Banks in peripheral European countries were among the worst performers on Monday, dragged down by Italian lenders, which remain under scrutiny because of their heavy load of bad debts. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (Milan Stock Exchange: BMPS-IT) and Banca Popolare di Milano (Milan Stock Exchange: PMI-IT) shares closed more than 9 percent lower. Greek banks, which are among the most troubled lenders in the euro zone, were also deeply in the red. Alpha Bank (Athens Stock Exchange: ALPHA-GR) closed down 6.9 percent, while Eurobank Ergasias (Athens Stock Exchange: EUROB-GR) was off by 6 percent. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. More From CNBC Stockholm (AFP) - Scandinavian airline SAS cancelled Monday a majority of its Swedish and European flights after pilots rejected an improved pay offer and their strike pushed into a fourth day. SAS said some 230 flights and 27,000 passengers would be affected by Monday's action, adding to the 50,000 travellers who have been stranded since Swedish pilots walked out on Friday. Flights between Stockholm and Athens, Brussels, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, London and Paris were cancelled on Monday. The strike began after Swedish pilots based in Stockholm rejected the airline's offer of a 2.2 percent wage increase, insisting on a hike of 3.5 percent, and attempts by a mediator to broker a deal on Sunday failed. "The Swedish pilot union has turned down a second bid by the mediator, which SAS accepted," said the airline. The walkout comes during peak travel season, and has hit charter groups hard. SAS, which is 50-percent owned by the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian states, has said it has not calculated how much money it was losing because of the strike, but financial analysts have estimated it was costing the airline at least $1.2 million (1.1 million euros) a day. The airline says all the pay and contract demands sought by pilots would result in a 10 percent increase in its costs. However the head of the pilots union, Martin Lindgren, said "the pilots have helped save billions" for the airline by going along with the 2012 recovery plan that included job cuts, salary reductions and administrative cutbacks. SAS has come under increasing pressure in recent years from low-cost rivals including Scandinavia-based Norwegian, Europe's third-largest budget airline. While the airline returned to profit in 2015, it managed net earnings of only 171 million kronor (18.3 million euros, $20.6 million) in the second quarter of this year despite low fuel costs. due to fierce competition and exchange rate swings. Washington (AFP) - The US Supreme Court struck down Monday a local law intended to help Puerto Rico restructure part of its massive debt, leaving the territory's fate over its financial crisis to Congress. The ruling upheld a lower court decision that backed creditors against Puerto Rico's unilateral move in 2014 to gain powers to restructure some $20 billion in debt issued by the island's electric and water utilities. The lower court had said that the Caribbean island's own law was unconstitutional given existing US federal bankruptcy laws, which do not allow a state or Puerto Rico to enact their own bankruptcy rules. At the same time, the federal laws allow states, but explicitly not Puerto Rico, the power to place their cities or utilities into federal bankruptcy protection. By a vote of five to two, the Supreme Court agreed that under the law Puerto Rico had some but not all of the rights and restrictions as states. That closed off one of the few avenues the cash-starved Puerto Rican government hoped it had to force holders of its $70 billion in debt to negotiate reductions or other measures to ease the burden. Puerto Rico now must wait for the US Senate to vote on a bill that passed the House of Representatives last week that will place the US territory under a federally appointed supervisory group to renegotiate its debt while enforcing austerity and reform measures. The island already has missed several deadlines for debt payment and risks defaulting on a $2 billion payment due July 1. The high rollers of Las Vegas should look north to the Lake Tahoe area to spot the most expensive home in Nevada. This $59 million spread in Zephyr Cove holds that lofty distinction. After 30 years in the business, its really the most ideal lakefront home I have seen, says co-listing agent Daniel Spano. Spano is listing the property with Lexi Ceretti of Sothebys International Realty. Views of the lake are spectacular from every room. As soon as you walk in, you look right out to the lake, Spano says. But theres a lot more than lake views that will make some prospective buyer go all-in on this mansion. Each of the eight bedrooms in the main house has an en suite bathroom and a fireplace. A wine tasting room can hold up to 3,500 bottles. Mix in a billiard room, family room, movie theater, and 378 feet of private beachfront with a private pier, and its the most perfect home to relax and enjoy Lake Tahoe, Spano says. Entertaining space also includes a formal dining room and chefs kitchen with Wolfe range and Neff self-closing cabinets. LAke Tahoe views The current owners bought the property in the early 2000s with the idea of developing it for their thoroughbred horses. Opening scenes of Bonanza were filmed along the lake on the property, making it one of the most well-known properties in the area, Spano says. The main house was built in 2004 using 450 tons of Montana stone. The actual design has a little bit of a European feel to it, more of a mountain-Italian flair, Spano says. Lake Tahoe kitchen For equine-minded buyers, theres a 15-stall horse barn on the property and fields for horses to graze. The 31 acres being sold with the home are on two parcels: the 24.3-acre parcel the main house sits on and an adjacent parcel of roughly 7 acres, Spano explains. In addition to the 16,703-square-foot main house, theres a 1,348-square-foot caretakers cottage and a 1,448-square-foot, two-bedroom guesthouse. Its hard to stand out in Nevada amid the over-the-top opulence Vegas is known for, but this lovely lakefront mansion over 400 miles to the north is flush with features worth gambling multimillions on. Story continues The post Surprise! Nevadas Most Expensive Home Isnt in Las Vegas appeared first on Real Estate News and Advice - realtor.com. Related Articles Young supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump couldn't be further apart on all the major issues or so you might think. A recent survey of millennials by MTV Insights perhaps all the more relevant after the weekend massacre at a gay Florida nightspot shows millennials of all political stripes come together on who should have guns, who shouldn't, where and why. A supermajority of millennial backers of both Democrat Clinton and Republican Trump in a poll in April expressed support for gun control. Some 88% supported mental health screenings for gun purchasers, and 66% backed a one-month waiting period between buying a gun and getting it. The MTV Insight findings came after the mass murders in December in San Bernardino, California, but before this past weekend's slayings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Source: MTV Insights The results also included a stunning disclosure by the survey subjects: Close to 1 in 5 (19%) said they personally know a victim of gun violence. MTV Insights screened members of other demographic groups, including baby boomers and Gen Xers. Among millennials, nearly a quarter (23%) have owned a gun themselves, and 56% either grew up in a house where someone owned a gun or say they know someone who did. Young people also had strong feelings about where guns should and should not be lawful to carry. The highest percentage, 70%, said guns should be banned from elementary and middle schools, such as the site of the 2012 slayings in Newtown, Connecticut, while 62% approved of keeping weapons out of bars and 61% said they had no place on college campuses and theaters, both of which have been the scene of notorious mass killings in the U.S. over the last decade. Source: MTV Insights Meanwhile, a with former astronaut and Navy veteran Mark Kelly, husband of shooting victim and former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, whose Americans for Responsible Solutions argues that people on the terrorism watch list should not be able to own guns. Story continues Support for banning guns ownership by people convicted of domestic abuse was exactly as high, and it was even higher for "a college student with a history of mental illness." said they'd keep guns from people with substance abuse problems. Source: MTV Insights Mariana Agathoklis, vice president of MTV Communications, declined to provide the full research data from the national survey of 500 millennials (ages 18 to 34), 200 Xers (35 to 50) and 200 boomers (51 to 70), describing it as "proprietary." Notably, 81% of those surveyed supported gun access for "someone who wants a gun for protection." To the other extreme, 38% said they backed allowing only members of the military or police to bear arms at all. Donald Trump There's a strikingly similar way to how Donald Trump has reacted to recent terror attacks. A review of the presumptive Republican nominee's tweets found that in the aftermath of such events, Trump tends to reflect attention back on himself. The observation was first made by NBC News reporter Katy Tur. Following the deadly terror attack in Orlando on Sunday, the New York businessman initially offered prayers for the victims and their families. Soon after, however, in keeping with a running trend, Trump praised himself for being "right" about terror threats. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism," he tweeted. "I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" Here are some of Trump's tweets following recent terrorist attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, and Orlando: Paris: Thank you @JakeTapper for giving me credit for my vision on bombing the oil fields. Should have been done long ago. #Trump2016 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2015 They laughed at me when I said to bomb the ISIS controlled oil fields. Now they are not laughing and doing what I said. #Trump2016 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 13, 2015 San Bernardino: Thank you CBS & Breitbart-total vindication! Will the mainstream media apologize? Many, many witnesses. #Trump2016 https://t.co/AsxnfFWipJ Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2015 Trump also retweeted a number of accounts that praised him for his statements that Muslim Americans cheered the September 11 attacks from New Jersey. Story continues Brussels: I have proven to be far more correct about terrorism than anybody- and its not even close. Hopefully AZ and UT will be voting for me today! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2016 Watch this clip from earlier this year. Time & time again I have been right about terrorism. Its time to get tough! https://t.co/8mnY3GFRzw Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2016 Orlando: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 NOW WATCH: 9 people who may be on Donald Trumps 'short list' for vice president More From Business Insider Orlando's Pulse nightclub has been part of 28-year-old Michael Belvedere's life for nearly seven years. The LGBT club was one of the places he began developing the drag queen persona Axel Andrews -- whose drag mother is RuPaul's Drag Race vet/Orlando fixture Roxxxy Andrews -- before joining the staff as a bartender and cast member about four years ago. Belvedere, who recently purchased a house, says he was able to do so "because of the love and opportunities Pulse had given me." At 2 a.m. on Sunday, heavily armed gunman Omar Mateen opened fire and began taking hostages at the popular central Florida gay bar. Hours later, a SWAT team shot and killed Mateen, but not before the gunman declared his allegiance to ISIS and killed 49 people in what is now the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Patrons on Orlando's Pulse Before the Tragedy: 'We Could Be Our Authentic Selves' As on most Saturdays, Belvedere was tending bar that night. After several tense, uncertain hours, he made it out alive. On Monday afternoon (June 13), Belvedere spoke to Billboard over the phone about his experience: what he saw, how he survived and helped others escape, and the unexpected kindness a stranger showed him after the tragedy. How long have you been at Pulse? I've been there coming up on seven years. I started off as an entertainer doing their talent shows and developing my character as an entertainer. I was working on and off there for a couple years. About four years ago is when I started bartending there. I became a cast member, hosting a talent show every Thursday, and I would bartend every Wednesday and Saturday. So Saturday you were just bartending? Yes. Were you in drag? No. I started bartending in drag. The owner [Barbara Poma] thought it would be fun to have the entertainers be bartenders, and it started off fun, but it takes hours to get ready. We ended up making the same amount of money either way, so we decided it wasn't lucrative to bartend in drag. Story continues I know it's a smaller-sized venue. What's its role in the Orlando gay scene? In Orlando we consider the Pulse, Parliament House and Southern Nights the Big Three. Those are the clubs that are very stable, they've been there since the beginning. Pulse was about to celebrate 12 years. It was one of the more important nightclubs; it was the one for the younger kids. We used to get a lot of straight people too; I feel like 35-40 percent straight sometimes. It was a bar everyone could go to and feel comfortable at. How many hours had you been working there on Saturday when the shooting started? I'd been there since 10, when my shift starts. The bartender who is normally next to me was out of town, so I was next to a newer bartender. When that happens, I get a lot of my friend's clientele, so I was extremely busy. It was just a normal night, actually a really good night for me making good money. It was just a couple minutes before 2 o'clock when I heard the first gunshots. Orlando's LGBT Community 'Will Survive' After Pulse Massacre Did you realize what was going on right away, or did you think it was music? Everyone thought it was music. Especially the room I work in, it's called the Adonis Lounge; it's a separate room attached to the club. It's darker, there are dancers in there, and we have our own DJ, DJ Flawless. That room is older -- I thought maybe the wiring was getting messed with when I heard the loud popping. And a lot of people thought it was the music as well and just continued to go along with the night. When did you realize it wasn't music? Did you see the gunman? I did not see the gunman. To be honest, the noise was so loud, it sounded like it was on top of me. Your first reaction is to get down. It literally felt like the gunman was next to me. The other bartender ran toward me and we were both lying down, but there was still a question if it was fake. Some of us thought it might be fireworks. Even at one point a girl who was hiding with us jumped up and, very drunkenly, was like, "This is fake, this isn't real." She almost made us believe her. Then the gunshots kept going. I remember lying on my back looking at the ceiling. I remember feeling like the gunshots were on top of me but they were getting louder and closer. At that point we all ran for our lives. I ran toward the back of the room. I don't know what made me think there's a back alley and I could have ran to the back alley and out through the parking lot, but I panicked and went into a dressing room. It had a lock on the door you needed a code for. I put the code in quicker than I've ever done it, and by the time I was in there, I noticed there were already people in there -- one of them being Angelica Sanchez, our main entertainer at Pulse. She was just out having a good time; I don't think she was working that night. She was terrified. At first it seemed there were only five of us in there, but then it came out there were eight of us; they were just hiding really well. How long were you in the room? We were in there for hours. I don't know what happened, but I got into survival mode. Maybe because I didn't see the gunner, I still kind of doubted it -- I was scared -- but I tried to think what I'd do if he came in the room. Everyone was hiding, but I stood on a chair beside the door and I picked up the heaviest chair in the room and held it above my head for a while, waiting for him to open the door. I was going to try to hit him with it. I stood there for a while and realized there wasn't much noise for a little bit. Maybe five, 10 minutes, but I'll be honest, my timeframe was totally off -- it could have been two minutes or 20. So you were prepared. Everyone else was hiding. The way I saw it, someone firing off so many shots, he couldn't have been selectively shooting. I figured if he came in, he wouldn't even blink before shooting all of us, so I figured I'd prepare myself and maybe damage him or stop him before he could just pick us off like fish in a barrel. Did he attempt to come into the room? At one point the door opened, very slightly, I don't even think he looked through the crack. I also don't know if it was him. Then it closed. I don't know if he thought it was a storage closet or something, or it could have been someone else looking for a place to stay. But just for a second it was open and then it was closed again. Was it silent in the room, or were you talking to each other? In that room, there are makeup stations. There was a girl lying on the ground under one of the stations. I kneeled next to her near the door, still with the chair in my hand, preparing. I found out deep under the makeup station, where it was really dark, there was another girl hiding. And that girl was throwing up a lot. She'd had a lot to drink that night, that and between her nerves. That was the first noise for a while I heard. Angelica, she was calling all the people she loved and whispering to them, so I heard her. Next to her, there's a toilet in there with a privacy curtain; Angelica was there with three girls and two boys hiding behind the curtain. They would talk to each other and cry a lot. Were you texting anyone? It took me about 20 minutes. People were blowing up my phone, but I didn't think I'd be able to talk. Then I started sending text messages. I didn't want to worry my mom or my family so I sent them a text -- maybe they thought I'd been drinking -- that I loved them and they're the best family. And I sent a group text message to some of my best friends and people who have been there for me just because if something happened and I never told them. I didn't respond to any messages at first. Then my manager called me and I stayed on the phone with him. The police then guided me, through him, through the rest of the night. When did it end? At first we would hear some ruckus out there. There were times I'd go 10 minutes without hearing anything. And then I remember at one point I heard some reallyblood-curdling screams from some girls who were out there. It sounded like a horror movie, it didn't sound real. I thought someone was playing a joke on us. It wasn't real. The screams were something out of a horror movie. I guess people tried running for it. I heard what I thought was a police officer by the way he was talking to them. He was yelling at them like "get down, motherf---er, put your hands down." To me it was something a cop would say, like, "Put your cell phone down, turn the light off." He kept calling them a motherf---er over and over. So for me, I was relieved because I thought it was the police but it turned out to be the shooter. I wound up shortly after that hearing more gunshots, and then it was silent for a really long time. I kept my ear toward the door, I still had the chair in my hand the whole time. I heard a glass break. Eventually the policethey were just talking to me, I was giving them diagrams of how to find us. And then eventually the police officers got people out in the dressing room across from us. I could hear the door open, get them out, and 30 minutes after that, we gave them a diagram to get to us, and they found a back wall behind us where there was an AC window unit mounted in cement. The police officer pushed it through, we caught it, and we all crawled out through the window. It sounds like you took control of the situation. Well, I tried. Two of the boys in there, they didn't know English, the girls were hysterical, Angelica was praying because she's very spiritual so... When the police officer came, the first thing I worried about was that [the window] was a pretty small space, and my friend Angelica is not a small person. The first thing I thought was, "I'm not going to leave her." I was upset. I was like, "That means I'm not leaving." But we wound up getting Angelica through. I'll be honest: I'm disappointed the two boys went out before the girls. So the two boys went out and I stayed to help the girls go out. Because it was up in the wall, they needed help to stand on things, and then I was the last one to go out. What did you feel when you were out? Relief. People want to say so many negatives about the cops and stuff, but the first thing -- every time I heard a cop, every time I heard a walkie-talkie, or I thought of a cop coming, it was like the presence of an angel. You prayed for that cop. When I crawled out of the window and saw the cops, they caught me -- it was like a safety blanket. I felt safe right away. They made us all stand in a line and put our hands on each other's shoulders and walked through the parking lot to the other street. Other people kept coming out, people that were hurt, people that were shot. They would pull up pickup trucks really quick, put someone into the back and drive them over to the hospital, which was just blocks away -- that was a good thing. At one point we heard an explosion. We thought it was the bomb that was supposedly on him, but I guess the police officers detonated a bomb for some reason, or it might have been that they were knocking down a wall. I'm unsure of that. But I do know they knocked down a wall to get to hostages in the bathroom. And later on in the night, we heard just cops unloading on something. It was like fireworks, it was so fast, and I think that's when they took the gunman down. Did you feel safe when you were waiting in the street? I just wanted to leave and get as far away as possible. As far as my knowledge, they didn't know who did it or if he was still in there. I was terrified that he was somebody who, after doing it, threw his gun down and pretended to be a hostage. For all I knew they could have been bringing him to us as a hostage. That was something I was worried about. I just wanted to leave. My boyfriend was terrified -- he was on the other side of the street waiting for me. I wanted him to leave. For all I knew, the gunman was running around still. A million thoughts were running through my head. Honestly, it sounds like you were a hero in the situation. I wouldn't say that. Maybe because I didn't see it, it didn't seem real to me. I was kind of numb to it. Even right now, I'm pretty numb to it. I get my waves of emotion, but I haven't been hysterical like some people. All of my extremely close friends and co-workers are safe. I keep wondering. There are some acquaintances I knew and cared about that they lost their lives. Have you cried or have you not really processed it? That's something I've been battling with since the instance. I've had a bunch of talks going through my head the whole time. While I was in there, I didn't want to hear anything about deaths. When I was on the phone with my manager and people were behind him talking about actual people dying and being hurt, I told them to walk away. I didn't want it to be real. I told him, "Listen, if anyone is talking about it, I don't want to hear it." I don't want to hear about how many bodies are out there. I told him if I was to walk through it later, I wanted to close my eyes. The main thing for me is you can't un-see something like that. I thought it would have control over my life. So I told them I didn't want to hear about it until I got out or see anything until I got out. I think that I am still pretty numb because I didn't visually witness anything. I have cried. I'm not somebody that cries at realistic things often. I cry at stupid things in movies, but in real life, I'm not much of a crier. Of course when I talked to my mom I cried a little bit. Later that night when I took a shower, I cried a little. But that's pretty much it. As you mentioned, some of the people there were drunk. Had you been drinking that night? They'd allow us [bartenders] to drink as long as we're responsible. We're not allowed to over-serve and we're very strict on things like that at Pulse. But it was actually just my birthday a couple week ago, so I did a lot of drinking that week. For my birthday, I always have three parties in a row at nightclubs, because I work at all of them. So I decided I'd take a little break from drinking, and I didn't have anything to drink at all [that night]. I was just drinking ginger beer and soda water all night. That was a good thing too, because around 2 o'clock is when I usually use the bathroom if I've been drinking, and that's where a lot of the hostages were kept. Things like that were going through my head. What if I had walked on the dance floor to get change from the bar? I'll be honest, the main thing running through my head is that when I have my birthday party at Pulse, my biological family and my gay family, everybody is out for that. I couldn't stop thinking, "What if he chose that night where all my loved ones were there?" Once you found out about the gunman, what were your thoughts? I honestly at first thought it was a hate crime. I really did not think it was related to any form of terror. I couldn't believe it. Out of all the places, he picked Pulse? It didn't make sense. Why would there be a national terror attack at this small bar? Then I started thinking about it. It was a Latin night. It was a gay bar. Out of all the gay bars, we're the one with a name like Pulse. Like your pulse, blood. We were called "the heartbeat of Orlando." It was kind of an obvious target, I guess, after I started thinking about all that. A lot of people have been taking about gun control after this. What are your thoughts on that? I felt very strongly about gun control. I try to keep my opinions to myself, especially when I don't feel I'm educated enough. But I don't think anybody should be able to purchase a gun that holds a certain number of rounds. I don't think a person should be able to purchase a gun that's more than recreational. There's absolutely no point for anybody to own an automatic rifle. If somebody wants to shoot a gun, there should be ranges and areas if you need to get it out of your system, but you can't walk around with one. To have a handgun for protection or hunting is completely different, but to have a gun that's meant to obliterate something -- a person or animal -- that's not right. And hunters shouldn't even want a gun like that because to me, that would take the fun out of hunting, if you have an automatic weapon. To me, it logically makes no sense to have a gun like that besides being a toddler with a toy that's too big for them to handle. Do you know if the club will reopen? The club was demolished. They ripped out walls to get people out. Even if it hadn't it breaks my heart [to say] because that's been my home for so long. I built my character there, made my living there. I just purchased a house because of the love and opportunities Pulse had given me. But I don't think they'll be able to reopen. That building, that area, is always going to be remembered as such a tragic thing. I don't know how Pulse can recover from it. I wanted to share one other thing: After I got home, my friends were with me. I took my nap, woke up, and they wanted me to get out of the house and eat. I didn't want to leave, but they convinced me to go, so we went to a Tex-Mex place by the airport called Chuy's. The server wound up being gay, and there were nine of us. I think he knew what was going on, but he didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to make anything personal. But at the end of our meal, he took care of the entire check. He wrote on a blank piece of paper and gave it to us, saying we'd been through a lot and he was happy we were safe. It was one of the kindest things I'd ever experienced. We all started crying. Patrons on Orlando's Pulse Before the Tragedy: 'We Could Be Our Authentic Selves' | President Obama Calls Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting Act of Terror and Hate | Skrillex, Chainsmokers & More Dance Music Stars React to Orlando Nightclub Massacre | James Corden Gives Touching Orlando Speech at 2016 Tony Awards: 'Hate Will Never Win' A tornado rampaged through Baker, Montana on Saturday, June 11, damaging at least 30 homes and completely destroying six in several residential neighborhoods. This footage, shot by a local resident, shows the tornado forming overhead. According to reports from KTVQ2, Baker officials estimate that the tornado caused over a million dollars in damage. Credit: Travis Hatfield By Liana B. Baker REUTERS - Technology security firm Symantec Corp said it would buy privately held cyber security company Blue Coat for $4.65 billion in a cash deal that will ramp up Symantec's enterprise security business. Blue Coat helps protects companies' web gateways from cyber attacks, a service that will complement Symantec's existing offerings for large corporations such as email and endpoint security, Symantec executives said in an interview on Sunday. "Blue Coat brings capabilities from the web and for network-born threats, which combined with what we already offer will provide better protection for our customers," said Ajei Gopal, Symantec's interim president and chief operating officer. Symantec, which makes the Norton antivirus software, has been undergoing a transformation over the past year. It sold its data storage unit, Veritas, for $7.4 billion to a group led by Carlyle Group LP in January to gain the cash necessary turn around its core security software business. Chief Financial Officer Thomas Seifert said Symantec had been eyeing Blue Coat for a while and wanted to wait to have the separation of the Veritas unit behind the company before it made a move to buy it. He said the deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter, would be accretive immediately. By buying Blue Coat, 62 percent of Symantec's revenue will now come from enterprise security, and it will be better positioned to compete with security players such as Palo Alto Networks Inc, FireEye Inc and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. Symantec will now have $4.4 billion in combined revenue. While it is shifting to focus more on enterprise security, Symantec has no immediate plans to sell its consumer unit, Seifert, the CFO said, adding that it is a highly profitable part of the company. By buying Blue Coat, Symantec also solves a leadership issue, with Blue Coat CEO Greg Clark becoming Symantec's CEO. Symantec's previous CEO, Michael Brown, left in April after the company reported disappointing quarterly results. Story continues Blue Coat had been preparing an initial public offering for later this summer. Its sale marks a quick turnaround for its private equity owner, Bain Capital LLC, which acquired Blue Coat Systems Inc from fellow private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LLC for $2.4 billion last year. "We enjoyed a very productive partnership, and are excited to be a significant investor in the future of Symantec as the leading cyber security Company in the world," Bain managing director David Humphrey said in a statement. Humphrey will join Symantec's board as the firm agreed to invest $750 million in convertible notes. Technology-focused private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners also agreed to invest $500 million in convertible notes of Symantec, which doubles its investment in Symantec to $1 billion. Symantec financial advisers were JP Morgan, Barclays Plc, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo and its legal advisers were Fenwick & West and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Blue Coat's financial advisers were Goldman Sachs & Co, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse and its legal advisers were Ropes & Gray and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The Wall Street Journal first reported news of the deal Sunday. (Reporting by Liana Baker in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Parikshit Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier) Taiwans former President Ma Ying-jeou has been refused permission to visit Hong Kong for a speaking engagement by the very government he led until late last month. Ma, who helmed the self-ruled island of 24 million from 200816, was due to give the keynote speech on Wednesday at the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) award dinner in Hong Kong, where he was born in 1950. A spokeswoman for Mas office said the decision showed disrespect and damages Taiwans democratic image in the world. Hau Lung-bin, vice chairman of Mas Kuomintang (Nationalist Party or KMT), decried a lack of self-confidence and goodwill from Tsai Ing-wen, the new President of Taiwan, who was inaugurated May 20 following the landside victory of her Beijing-skeptic Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in January elections. According to Taiwans Presidential Office, the refusal was due to Ma having only recently left office, a lack of adequate preparation time, and there being no precedent of security cooperation between Taiwan and the semiautonomous Chinese territory of Hong Kong. At such short notice, it is unlikely that the new government could discover what kind of classified information [Ma had] accessed and whether he had returned all those documents and completed clearance procedures, said spokesman Alex Huang. Since Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997, the former British colony has enjoyed rights and freedoms unthinkable on the mainland, under an agreement known as one country, two systems. However, Beijings increasing presence in Hong Kong appears to have sparked security concerns among Tsais administration. Taiwan has already been shaken by the deportation in April of at least 45 of its citizens from Kenya to mainland China, where they were wanted on fraud charges. Taipei regarded the deportations as a flagrant violation of its jurisdiction. Story continues The island effectively broke from the mainland in 1949 following Chinas civil war; however, Beijing insists that Taiwan still falls under its dominion, and has vowed to retake it by force if necessary. Tsais DPP has long incensed Beijing by refusing to acknowledge that Taiwan is part of China thus opening the door for a formal break from the mainland. Ma, by contrast, spent his two terms building fraternal ties with Beijing, causing many independence-minded voters in Taiwan to doubt where his true loyalties lie. According to Professor Lin Chong-pin, of Tamkang Universitys Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies in Taipei, the nixing of Mas trip was likely the result of Tsai bowing to pro-independence hard-liners within her party. There are growing sentiments questioning [Tsais] ideals, Lin tells TIME. Because everyone believed that her conviction was for Taiwanese independence, but she has been very pragmatic since she was inaugurated. Therefore internal mistrust is growing. And external mistrust may well follow. Already some Chinese universities have canceled study exchange programs with Taiwan after Tsais inauguration, and mainland authorities will clearly be irked by Taiwans most pro-Beijing leader of recent times being forced to address the SOPA dinner via video link. It is rare for a President who just left office to go abroad, says Sheng Jiuyuan, dean of the Taiwan Research Center at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. But as a law-abiding guy, Ma should be trusted. The DPPs extreme reaction will cause discontent and raise question about its position on cross-strait relations. TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party slammed the self-ruled island's new government as "suppressive" for barring former president Ma Ying-jeou from traveling to Chinese-controlled Hong Kong on the grounds of national security. Ma's China-friendly Nationalists lost landslide elections in January to President Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has traditionally leant towards independence from China. They said barring Ma from visiting the former British colony of Hong Kong was "completely unhelpful for Taiwan's internal political reconciliation and social harmony". "This suppressive style of the just-sworn-in DPP government is naked to all the people," it said. Tsai's administration said on Sunday it had barred Ma from traveling to Hong Kong where he was due to give a speech at a Society of Publishers in Asia media awards ceremony on Wednesday. "Based on the international situation faced by Taiwan and in consideration of national security and interests, Hong Kong is a highly sensitive area (when it comes to) maintaining our national security," the Presidential Office said in a statement, adding that it would be difficult to control the risks of such a visit. It also said Taiwan and Hong Kong authorities had had no time to coordinate on preparations. The DPP has traditionally been more wary of China than Ma's Nationalists. Its caution comes after a group of Taiwanese were forcibly deported from Kenya to China for suspected fraud in China in April, a case that enraged Taiwan. Some comments on Taiwan social media at the time questioned whether a precedent was being set of Taiwanese abroad being "taken away" by China, drawing a parallel with the case of five booksellers in Hong Kong who temporarily went missing in mysterious circumstances. The Society of Publishers in Asia said in a statement on its website it was disappointed Ma would not be able to attend but that it planned for him to speak via a video link. China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island. Communist Party rulers in Beijing have vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary. Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula which guarantees wide-ranging autonomy for the financial hub but was the scene of lengthy and sometimes violent anti-China street protests in 2014 calling for fully democratic elections. China had put forward the "one country, two systems" formula as a model for Taiwan to follow, which island leaders rejected. China has also repeatedly warned Taiwan of negative consequences if they fail to recognize Taiwan is a part of China under Beijing's "one China" principle. Tsai has said she will maintain the status quo with China, but has not repeated the "one China" principle. (Reporting by J.R. Wu; Additional reporting by Anne Marie Roantree in HONG KONG; Editing by Nick Macfie) While most employees won't hesitate to call in sick or tell their boss they need time off for medical treatment, many people are far more reluctant to do that when the issue is related to mental health. Despite the prevalence of mental health issues in the workplace -- one study from the U.S. National Comorbidity Survey found that 18 percent of employed respondents said they had symptoms of a mental health disorder in the previous month -- they tend to remain hidden at work, in large part because the stigma still attached to them makes people hesitant to approach their employers and ask for accommodations they might need. [See: 8 Things You Really Need to Know About the Family and Medical Leave Act.] That means that employees struggling with mental health issues have to deal not just with the issue itself, but also with the stress and anxiety of trying to figure out how much, if anything, they can tell their employers about what they're dealing with. That's frustrating because in some cases, you might want to give your manager context for why you might not be fully 100 percent at work, just like you might if you weren't all full speed while getting over the flu. Or you might need to ask for medical accommodations, such as a schedule change, a quieter work space or time to attend therapy appointments. Polly Drew, a psychotherapist specializing in relationship, marital and family issues, says to start by considering what you know of your manager. "Consider the variables," she says. "Is your supervisor someone [who] you can talk to and if so, does he or she demonstrate any kind of a bias on a day-to-day basis? If you are a highly productive worker with an excellent relationship with your supervisor, and you trust him or her, it's okay to explain a personal difficulty." In talking with your manager, keep these tips in mind. Be very clear about specifically what you're asking for. For example, Drew suggests you might say something like, "As you know, my sister died. I am wondering if I could work through lunch and take off at 3 p.m. to go see my therapist?" Or, "I've been struggling with sleep and working with my doctor. I'm wondering if I could start 30 minutes later for the next six weeks while I get this under control?" Story continues [See: The 6 Best Jobs for Work-Life Balance.] Be measured in what you say. "Keep in mind that your employer is not your mom, dad or therapist," says Drew. "Be vague with all the details and avoid being overly descriptive with how badly you feel. You also want to avoid giving diagnostic information. Firstly, you may have it wrong. Secondly, it may be too much information and you may be left with a 'vulnerability hang over,' feeling as if you disclosed too much. You are entitled to your privacy." Be mindful of the risks, but not paralyzed by caution. There can be risks to disclosing a mental health issue at work, and people often worry that they'll be treated differently or even put their jobs in peril. But it can help to pay attention to what you know about how your manager and your company operate. "Some supervisors handle difficulties that their employees are having with ease," notes Drew. "Others do not. Pay attention to what you've observed to help you determine if your boss will handle your difficulty with care. Remember that keeping excellent boundaries at work will help in the long run." Get a professional involved in your care. If your condition is affecting you at work, a licensed mental health professional can help you figure out how to navigate the situation and decide what, if anything, to tell your boss. If your company offers resources, use them! If your company has an employee assistance program (EAP), Drew recommends accessing it as soon as possible. "You don't need permission from a supervisor or human resources" to use an EAP, she says. "They are there to help you, and best of all, it's confidential and free." [See: Famous CEOs and Executives Share Their Best Career Advice.] Know your legal rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the federal law that protects employees with physical or mental impairments, may offer you some protection at work. It's important to keep in mind that the ADA doesn't contain a list of specific conditions that constitute disabilities. Rather, the law has a general definition of disability; it covers "a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment." What that means, in practice, is that whether or not you're covered will depend on your specific symptoms. However, if you are covered, the law says that you are entitled to reasonable accommodations from your employer if such accommodations will help you to maintain your job performance. However, you still must be able to perform the essential functions of your job, with or without accommodations. Use helpful resources. These resources can be good starting points for finding mental health care: National Institute of Mental Health MentalHealth.gov Suicide Prevention Lifeline Recovery.org The beauty industry has long relied on creating a sense of mystery, magic even, around its creams, powders and potions. But now it has something else up its sleeve: high technology. French cosmetics giant L'Oreal has opened a "tech incubator" employing two dozen people in San Francisco and elsewhere seeking ways to use big data and algorithms to win the hearts and minds of customers. It may involve analyzing large data sets to find the right color for nail polish, or patches that measure absorption of ultraviolet radiation -- or using technology to spot emerging beauty trends ahead of the curve. The French group is hoping that Silicon Valley's talents can help it improve its products and connect better with customers. Guive Balooch, who heads the San Francisco incubator, said he sees how these kinds of analytics and other technologies can help improve beauty products. One of the innovations from the team has resulted in the L'Oreal Lancome brand developing an individualized makeup foundation, known as "Le Teint Particulier." This system, now used in some retail outlets, scans a person's skin and uses an algorithm that designs a custom-blended product based on skin tone. The system was developed by California startup Sayuki, which L'Oreal bought in 2014. L'Oreal's team also created the Makeup Genius application which uses virtual reality to allow people to try various makeup schemes on their smartphone. It has been downloaded some 20 million times. The cosmetics giant also worked with California Organovo for "bioprinting," creating three-dimensional human tissue to test its cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and with PCH Lime Lab, a San Francisco design and engineering firm on the patch that sticks to one's skin and changes color with exposure to sun rays. - Hair tech - The L'Oreal team also hopes one day to have a Genius app on hair color, which could help another key product line, if it can overcome technical challenges. Story continues "Hair color is very complex, because you have 100,000 fibers on average in your hair, on your head, and they're all moving in different directions," Balooch said. L'Oreal wants to stay on top of trends, and the data analytics team can play an important role, says Balooch. "We do know from anonymous data what colors people are trying all around the world, we know what products they're trying, we know how long they're using them before trying something else," Balooch said. Being aware of new trends is also critical for marketing efforts. L'Oreal is working with Google, with whom it has an online advertising deal, to help better understand fashion trends by studying search queries. This could allow L'Oreal to place ads better based on keywords, according to its digital strategist Axel Adida. Adida said it is important "to be on point with the latest fashion that comes up on the street." "The thing which is very cool when you work with Google, it's a sort of beauty insight center," he added. "So the things that come up and that pop up as a novelty, the new fashion and beauty, a lot of it is being searched very early. You see little things moving in the trends -- and you end up with something as big as smoky eyes." Orlando (AFP) - US anti-terror strategy came under fresh scrutiny after a gunman previously cleared of jihadist ties launched a hate-fueled rampage in a Florida gay club that left 50 dead. As the worst mass shooting in modern US history erupted Sunday, Orlando police blasted their way into the Pulse nightspot and shot the attacker dead. The murderous assault triggered grief but also defiance in the gay and lesbian community, and more than 100,000 marched in a planned Los Angeles Gay Pride parade. In New York, the Tony Awards for musical theatre went ahead as planned but were dedicated to the victims of the massacre. "We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," President Barack Obama said, as the FBI investigated the shooter. Prominent US Muslim figures, Pope Francis and world leaders condemned the attack, which is being treated as the worst act of terror on US soil since September 11, 2001. The FBI admitted that 29-year-old Omar Mateen had previously been investigated -- but cleared -- for ties to a US suicide bomber. Special Agent Ronald Hopper also said Mateen was reported to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group shortly before the massacre. Meanwhile, the IS-linked news agency Amaq said without providing evidence that one of its fighters carried out the attack. But the group, which has previously been a conduit for IS statements, cited only "a source," leading experts to doubt the claim. Terrified survivors described how the gunman raked clubgoers with bullets, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue. Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York in 1986 and lived in Port St Lucie, Florida, about a two-hour drive from Orlando. His father Mir Seddique told NBC News his son may have been motivated by homophobia, insisting: "This had nothing to do with religion." - FBI probe - The suspect's ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told reporters he had been violently abusive to her but was not especially religious. Story continues But the FBI's Hopper told reporters Mateen's behavior had raised red flags well before Sunday's attack. In 2013 he was probed by the bureau after making inflammatory comments to co-workers that suggested terrorist ties. In 2014 he was again questioned by agents investigating his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a fellow Floridian. Abusalha became notorious as the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria, and was reportedly a member of an Al-Qaeda affiliate. "We determined the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time," Hopper said. The Orlando atrocity came at the height of what is already a heated US presidential election campaign, and the main candidates were quick to react. - Hostage rescue - Democratic flag-bearer Hillary Clinton postponed a joint campaign rally with Obama and tweeted that her "thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Her Republican rival Donald Trump lost no time in claiming the attack proved he was right to promise a ban on Muslims entering the US. Trump demanded Obama resign for failing to publicly blame the massacre on "radical Islam," and vowed to make a speech on security policy Monday. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore," Trump declared. Paul Ryan, speaker of the House of Representatives, echoed Trump's line: "As we heal, we need to be clear-eyed about who did this. We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists." Events at Pulse unfolded over a three-hour period from around 2:00 am Sunday (0600 GMT), when shots rang out amid the throbbing music. Police said the gunman was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. A policeman working "extra duties" at the club responded and, along with two other officers, exchanged fire with the suspect. Police stormed the venue after the suspect fell back inside, and broke through a wall with a wheeled armored vehicle known as a BearCat. It was unclear whether all the victims were killed by the gunman or if some died in crossfire during the assault to rescue his hostages. - 'I'm trapped' - Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revelers with bullets. "It was like complete chaos," he told AFP. "It was like a scene out of a movie. People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped!'" "People were getting trampled. There was no clear exit sign at the club, so we didn't know which door to take or where to go." Relatives of victims gathered at a hotel near Orlando Regional Medical Center to hear authorities read out the names of those hospitalized. People broke down when names of loved ones names were not read out, suggesting they had died. A relieved Angel Colon found his son, 26-year-old Angel Jr, alive and in stable condition with three gunshot wounds. "When I saw him, I held him," Colon said. "I told him in Spanish: 'Pai, God is giving you another chance'." The massacre -- which coincided with Gay Pride month in the United States -- cast a long shadow over the parade in Los Angeles. Chillingly, a man was arrested in nearby Santa Monica with weapons and explosives in his car. Police said he had no known connection to the Orlando bloodshed. Thailand's ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej is recovering well after a recent operation to improve blood flow to his heart, the palace said, the latest in a series of major medical procedures for the 88-year-old. Bhumibol is the object of an intense personality cult and his frail health is a matter of significant public concern. On Tuesday doctors performed a series of angioplasty procedures without anaesthetic, using balloons and stents to widen multiple arteries in his heart. In the latest update on his health released by the palace late Sunday, doctors said the king was making progress with blood pressure and breathing back to normal. An electrocardiogram also showed improved bloodflow to the heart, the statement added. The king is confined to a wheelchair and rarely seen in public. He has spent most of the past two years hospitalised in Bangkok for a series of ailments, including bacterial infections, breathing difficulties and hydrocephalus (water on the brain). Bhumibol is the world's longest-reigning monarch and most Thais have never known life under another king. He is largely seen as a unifying force in a nation bitterly divided along political lines. Anxiety over what will happen after his reign ends is considered an aggravating factor in the country's past decade of tumultuous politics, as competing elites jostle for power and influence before the transition. Information on the monarchy is tightly controlled by the palace. Throughout much of the last two years of Bhumibol's hospitalisation, updates have been rare. But in recent weeks the palace has issued a string of health announcements. Last month doctors announced that he had been successfully treated for hydrocephalus as well as a lung and knee infection. Bhumibol has not been seen by the public since September when the palace released a video of him being taken in his wheelchair to visit a shop inside Bangkok's Siriraj hospital. Shoppers and attendants knelt and bowed as he passed by. Story continues An official photograph of him attending a ceremony was released by the palace in December, while officials also released a statement in January saying he briefly left his hospital for an hour-long trip by car to visit a palace and other royal projects. Discussion of his reign and the role of the monarchy is all but impossible because of the world's strictest lese majeste laws. Use of the laws has skyrocketed in the last two years since the military took over in a coup with some people jailed for as much as 30 years. Https%3a%2f%2fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2fuploads%2fcard%2fimage%2f114333%2fjaime-and-cersei-lannister-in-game-of-thrones-controversy The most unpopular couple in King's Landing might have even more tragedy of Greek myth proportions in the near future. A popular fan theory arising on the Internet suggests that Cersei's ultimate downfall will come at the hands of her brother/lover, Jaime Lannister. And, wait for it, the future doesn't seem too bright for Jaime either. SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thrones' is gearing up for the most epic battle in the show's history The theory, laid out by Redditor RobertGoulet850, states that Cersei will inevitably be choked to death by Jaime. Following her death, Jaime will also die by either by his own hand or by being caught in the wildfire that Cersei unleashes on King's Landing. Cersei and Jaime's ultimate demise is laid out, almost perfectly, by a prophecy that Cersei was given as a young girl by the witch, Maggy the Frog. Here are the three parts of Cersei's prophecy, laid out by Maggy: When Cersei asks if she will marry the Prince, Maggy says, "Never. You will wed the king. When Cersei asks if she will be queen, Maggy says, "Queen you shall be until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear." When Cersei asks if she will have children with the King, Maggy says, "Oh, aye. Six-and-ten for him, and three for you," adding, "gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds. And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you. So far, most of the prophecy is quickly coming to fruition: 1. Cersei, who was expected to marry Rhaegar Targaryen, ended up married to Robert Baratheon after Rhaegar married Elia Martell and was killed by Baratheon. King Aerys was also killed by Jamie Lannister. 2. Robert Baratheon has tons of bastard children (20 in the show, 16 in the books), while all of Cersei's children were fathered by Jamie: Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen. Story continues 3. So far, both Joffrey and Myrcella have been killed, and it looks like Tommen may also share the same fate. Theories about Margaery, the presumable "younger and more beautiful" woman who will "cast [Cersei] down and take all that [Cersei holds] dear" suggest she is working on a plan that will end in Tommen's death. The end of the prophecy states that "valonqar," which is High Valyrian for "little brother" will kill her. Jamie is Cersei's twin, born after her, which means he may be the valonqar. However, it's important to note that Tyrion is also her younger brother. Cersei always assumed he would be the brother who ends her life which makes for some very awkward family reunions. Cersei is most likely planning to spread the deadly wildfire throughout the city, using the secret caches hidden at strategic points, if King Tommen dies. King Aerys tried to do this as well, but his plan was stopped when Jamie killed him. It seems that the Kingslayer might become the Queenslayer. Elizabeth Holmes Theranos' biggest partner has abandoned the blood-testing company. Citing Theranos' decision to void two years' worth of test results and a government agency's rejection of the company's plan of correction, Walgreens on Sunday said its relationship with Theranos was over effective immediately. The termination shutters an additional 40 Theranos Wellness Centers, where people can go to have their blood drawn, in Walgreens stores. Theranos' problems came into focus in October, when The Wall Street Journal reported that the company's tests weren't producing accurate results and that the company was trying to cover it up. Since The Journal's report, the company, which once fetched a $9 billion valuation, has lost out on a key deal, had one of its two labs shut down, and wound up under investigation by several government agencies. Its founder, 32-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, faces a two-year ban from the blood-testing business, its president and chief operating officer Sunny Balwani has left the company, its $9 billion valuation has been struck down, and it voided or corrected tens of thousands of blood tests in an attempt to make things right with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Theranos had been running blood tests since 2013, at one point serving as many as 46 locations. Theranos' blood-testing center in Pennsylvania has remained closed since January. Here's what Theranos has left: Theranos still operates five centers (four in Arizona and one in California). It still has plans to present its scientific data at a medical conference in August, when the company will have to show whether its technology is as revolutionary as it seems. Theranos did finally create a medical advisory board in April, with eight scientists from major universities and hospitals, which is meant to find ways to present the data to the scientific community. Its Arizona lab remains open, though its California lab is still under scrutiny after a failed CMS inspection. Story continues Most of Theranos' commercial operations that put its tests to use hinged on its agreement with Walgreens. "We are disappointed that Walgreens has chosen to terminate our relationship and remain fully committed to our mission to provide patients access to affordable health information and look forward to continuing to serve customers in Arizona and California through our retail locations," a Theranos spokeswoman in a statement to Business Insider. Gaining back that ground won't be easy, and any partnership from here on out will most likely rely on validating the company's technology. NOW WATCH: This medical device should make drawing blood a lot less painful More From Business Insider LONDON (Reuters) - Thousands of people held a two-minute silence at a vigil in London's Soho neighborhood on Monday to remember the victims of a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. At least 49 people were killed and 53 others were wounded at the Pulse nightclub on Sunday before the gunman, who had pledged loyalty to Islamic State, was shot dead by police. It was the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history. From 1800 GMT bars stopped serving, crowds fell silent and hundreds of balloons were let off in memory of those killed. London Mayor Sadiq Khan was in attendance. "We stand here today united together in solidarity with our U.S. neighbors, our friends, our colleagues, our family and all of those affected across the LGBT community," Scottish National Party equalities spokeswoman, Angela Crawley, told Sky News. A vigil was also held in the Canal Street district in central Manchester, northern England - an area of the city that is filled with gay bars and restaurants. The Metropolitan Police said there was no intelligence to suggest an increased risk of attacks in London but it has increased its patrols in areas popular with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. On June 25, Pride will hold their annual parade and related events in central London for the LGBT community. (Writing by James Davey; Editing by Louise Ireland) Cynthia Erivo has won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical for The Color Purple. Even in the year of Hamilton, Erivo stood out with her star-making lead role in the revival of the musical based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. (The Color Purple also won best revival of a musical on Sunday.) Erivo thanked Oprah, Walker, director John Doyle, and the cast. "To every single person in my cast you are magnificent. Thank you so much for lifting me up when I'm tired, for holding my hands when I'm happy, for kissing me on my forehead when I just need some love." Erivo plays Celie, a young girl in the who suffers all the horrors of sexism and racism before finally coming in to her own. "Erivo's portrayal of that transformation is remarkable," Jesse Oxfeld wrote in EW's A-review of The Color Purple. This transformation is demonstrated in the showstopping number "I'm Here," which Erivo performed on The Late Show in May. The 29-year-old British actress beat out Hamilton's Phillipa Soo, Waitress' Jessie Mueller, She Loves Me's Laura Benanti, and Bright Star's Carmen Cusack for the win. How does a musical about a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and Scotsman... win a Tony? By taking win after win like it's running out of time. The Broadway and pop culture phenomenon chronicling the ups and downs of Alexander Hamilton's life and career nabbed the Best Musical trophy at the Tony Awards on Sunday night, adding one more accolade to the celebrated production that broke the record for most Tony nominations. The Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical created by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda won 11 total awards, including best actor in a musical (Leslie Odom, Jr.), best featured actor in a musical (Daveed Diggs), and best featured actress in a musical (Renee Elise Goldsberry). Of course, the show isn't done telling Hamilton's story: Performances begin in Los Angeles in August, Chicago in September, and San Francisco in March. The Broadway productions tickets remain highly in-demand, with Miranda penning an op-ed this month against brokers using bots to mark up and resell the tickets. Hamilton beat Bright Star, School of Rock, Shuffle Along, and Waitress in the Best Musical category. James Corden went to the Tony Awards in 2012 to accept a statue for his performance in One Man, Two Guvnors, but the Late Late Show host attended in a different capacity this year: to helm the ceremony. Corden kicked off the show on a somber note, mentioning the Orlando shooting that took place early Sunday morning. "Hate will never win," he said. He then officially opened the show with the cast of Hamilton -- who rapped an original song, joked about CBS synergy and called Corden "the chubby dude from Into The Woods who played the baker." After the Hamilton bit, Corden appeared on stage and welcomed the crowd to New York's Beacon Theatre. "Ladies and Gentleman, what you just saw was a parody of a little-known musical that goes by the name of Hamilton. We like to give the little guys a leg up here." (The show was nominated for a record 16 Tony Awards.) WANT MORE EW? Subscribe now to keep up with the latest in movies, television and music. He continued the jokes by poking fun at Hollywood: "Think of tonight as the Oscars but with diversity. It is so diverse that Donald Trump has threatened to build a wall around this theater." (Another zinger: "This is like the Super Bowl for people who don't know what the Super Bowl is.") The monologue then turned musical again when Corden began to tell a story of his childhood, when he fell in love with the stage. He ran through an impressive medley of songs, parodying musicals like Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Sound of Music, Music Man, Annie, Guys & Dolls, and more. During the final moments of his musical monologue, the 2016 musical acting nominees appeared on stage with Corden and together they sang to all musical theater hopefuls. "This could be you! This could be where you belong." See his whole opening medley in the video above. via GIPHY New York (AFP) - The Tony Awards, the biggest night in Broadway, dedicated its star-studded ceremony to the victims of the Orlando massacre, the deadliest terror attack in America since September 11, 2001. Fifty people died when a heavily-armed gunman opened fire and seized hostages at a popular gay nightclub in the Florida city before the attacker was shot dead by a police SWAT team. "Our hearts go out to all of those affected by that atrocity," said host James Corden in his opening monologue, wearing one of the special grey ribbons created by the Tony Awards to honor the dead. "Your tragedy is our tragedy. Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced and is loved," said the British comedian who has recently found success in America. "Hate will never win," he told the famed Beacon Theatre in New York. Sunday's 70th annual Tony Awards, which are the equivalent of the Oscars for the theater, saw smash-hit, hip-hop musical "Hamilton" win 11 awards after scooping a record 16 nominations. Superstar Barbara Streisand, who presented "Hamilton" with the prize for best musical -- dressed in an outfit inspired by the show -- joined several of the winners in paying tribute to Orlando. "Tonight our joy is tinged with sorrow," she said. "Art can educate us and entertain us, and in times like these console us." - Diversity - "Senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day," said Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of "Hamilton," reading out a sonnet in accepting the Tony for best original score. "Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside," he said to cheers. "I urge you Orlando to be strong," said Frank Langella, accepting the award for best actor in a play -- "The Father" -- originally written in French which came to New York from Europe. Story continues "I'm standing in a room full of the most generous human beings on earth and we will be with you every step of the way." Sunday's awards were marked by diversity, with black actors winning all four musical acting awards and "The Color Purple" -- about a black Southern woman -- winning best musical revival. "Hamilton" also stars largely black and Latino actors. "Think of tonight as the Oscars but with diversity," quipped Corden in reference to this year's Academy Awards, which were panned for failing to honor minority actors and directors. Hollywood stars Cate Blanchett, Claire Danes, Meg Ryan and Oprah Winfrey were among those who handed out prizes on Sunday, while US President Barack Obama taped a video message in support of "Hamilton." - Trump mocked - In a nod to the US general election, Cordon took pot shots at Republican contender Donald Trump -- joking that "Donald Trump in the Book of Moron" would come to Broadway in the autumn. Glenn Close appeared on stage dressed as his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, singing: "I really need this job" to applause. Famous for its catchy score merging hip-hop, rap, blues and jazz "Hamilton" won in all aspects of showmaking: from best musical and best original score to directing, choreography, costumes and lighting. It recounts the life of the colorful first US Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, fatally shot in a pistol duel with rival and then vice president Aaron Burr in 1804. Its 16 nominations were the most in Broadway history, but "The Producers" still holds onto the record for most wins at 12. The show broke another record last week by offering tickets for more than $6,000 for Miranda's July 9 last-night performance. Oscar winner Jessica Lange won best lead actress in a play for "Long Day's Journey Into Night," beating fellow Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o in "Eclipsed" set amid the chaos of the Liberian civil war. Play "The Humans" won four awards, while Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge" won best play and best director for Belgium's Ivo Van Hove. Frank Langella was so moved by the mass shootings in Orlando that he tore up the speech he planned to deliver at Sundays Tony Awards so he could pay tribute to the 50 people who had been gunned down in a Florida nightclub. Im now a 78-year-old man and I react to things a lot more profoundly than I did when I was 60, when I was 50 or 40, said Langella. This constant violence and sense of madness that seems to be pervading this country is terrifying. After taking the stage to accept his best leading actor in a play statue for The Father, Langella urged the people of Orlando to remain strong. When something bad happens we have three choices: we let it define us, we let it destroy us, or we let it strengthen us, he said. In the press room, Langella said he hoped the speech wasnt over the top, but that he felt such disgust, anger and tremendous pain that he couldnt stay silent. Theres no greater group of people in a room who will band together and do everything possible theater people are really the most generous people in the world, said Langella. The Orlando killings are the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and appear to have targeted the LGBT community. The murders took place at Pulse, a Florida gay nightclub. Langella wasnt the only big Broadway name to speak out about the murders. Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Phantom of the Opera composer, told press that no child was ever born to hatethe only way to take on these appalling acts is through believing in the arts and through music and theater. The Father deals with a man who is battling dementia. The subject matter inspires a deep response in audiences, Langella said. Ive never played a role in which so many people come back stage and sit on the floor of my dressing room and weep, he noted. Not necessarily because of my performance, but because of how many of us are dealing with people who are losing reality. Related stories 'Hamilton' Creator on Orlando Shootings: LGBT Community is the 'Cornerstone' of Theater Story continues Tony Awards: 5 Biggest Snubs and Surprises Tony Awards: Pride, Passion Flows Through Beacon Theater in Wake of Tragedy Jessica Lange first performed the part of Mary Tyrone 16 years ago in a London stage production, but the newly minted Tony winner said that she understood the part in a fresh way starring in the acclaimed revival of Long Days Journey Into Night. This time I came to it and it felt explosive, Lange said at a press conference after winning best leading actress in a play on Sunday. With any great part theres a time in your life when you come to it and something happens between you and the character. It has to do with what you bring, your life history, your life experience, and somehow this one had that feeling to it, Lange added. Returning to the part of the morphine-addicted matriarch of a troubled family was made possible by Ryan Murphy. The two had collaborated on American Horror Story and Lange said the television impresario was moved to secure the rights to the show after she told him it was the greatest part shed ever had. It was through his good friendship and graces that we did this production, said Lange. I always find coming back to something after lots of time, you bring something back to it when you revisit a role. Lange is best known for her performances in films such as Tootsie and Frances, but the actress said she gets a special thrill from her stage work. When theater works theres nothing more thrilling in the world, its immediate and theres a certain kind of alchemy, said Lange. Theres an exchange of energy between the audience and the performers. Its palpable. Related stories 'Hamilton' Creator on Orlando Shootings: LGBT Community is the 'Cornerstone' of Theater Tony Awards: 5 Biggest Snubs and Surprises Tony Awards: Pride, Passion Flows Through Beacon Theater in Wake of Tragedy The antics of one Arkansas police officer are making a huge impact far beyond his community, thanks to his unique approach to policing. North Little Rock police officer Tommy Norman is not your average cop. His patrols often involve productions of playing, dancing, singing and visiting with members of his community. Read: See What Happened When These Animals Asked Police Officers for Help A self-proclaimed "friend" to citizens in his jurisdiction, Norman believes gaining the trust of the people is an important and rewarding aspect of his job, and he often goes the extra mile to get it. Activities recorded on the officers social media accounts show him playing, dancing, singing, and visiting with members of the community. From surprising children with toys and treats, to chauffeuring elderly citizens to the store and make them smile, Officer Norman believes an effort has to be made to make a difference. Its about going to slip-n-slide with the kids, or having a water gun fight with them, dancing with them you really have to take it to the next step and go above and beyond because theyll remember it, Officer Norman told InsideEdition.com. "[Police officers are] going to be there, theyre going to work there, but the question is, are you going to commit yourself to them and be a part of their lives? Norman told InsideEdition.com. The honest relationships he has built with members of the North Little Rock community have captivated his social media followers around the world. I know when I put on this uniform, that automatically people are going to be looking up to me, especially kids, so it has a really huge impact on me to know kids are looking up to me as a member of the police department, Norman said. It's not just children that Officer Norman reaches out to. He regularly visits with elderly, formerly imprisoned and disabled people to spread a message of generosity and care. Story continues Apart from his exceptional personal outreach, Norman continues to credit the people around him, as well as his police department, for their kindness, friendliness and integrity. Read: 17 Years After Cop Saved Baby, He Celebrates Her Graduation: 'That's My Little Girl" "North Little Rock is a close-knit community," Norman told InsideEdition.com. "Were in the south, so obviously you know, were friendly people. We love people to come and visit. We love each other." He added: "Our police department is really supported by a lot of members of the community. They respect our job and look out for us." Watch: Police Officers Attend Kindergarten Graduation For Fallen Cop's 5-Year-Old Son Related Articles: Dubai (AFP) - Bahraini security forces on Monday rearrested the leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab in a dawn raid, his family said on Twitter. Detained in 2014 for tweets deemed insulting to the Gulf kingdom's authorities before his release on health grounds, Rajab, 51, was apprehended at his home in the mainly Shiite village of Bani Jamra, near the capital Manama, his family said. "Rajab was arrested from his house and his house was searched," his wife Sumaya Rajab tweeted. No immediate reason was given for his latest arrest. The head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights who has led anti-government marches, Rajab had previously served two years in jail for taking part in unauthorized protests. Sentenced to another six months in prison for his tweets, he was released in July 2015 after King Hamad issued a royal pardon "for health reasons." Home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, Bahrain has been rocked by unrest since security forces crushed Shiite-led protests in 2011 demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. Washington, which has called for Rajab's release during previous detentions, complained directly to the government again on Monday. "We're deeply concerned," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. "We do not at this point know what charges have been levelled against him." "We don't believe anyone should be put in prison or prosecuted for engaging in peaceful expression or assembly," he added. "Societies are strengthened, not threatened, by peaceful expression of dissent." Rajab's arrest comes a week after another leading opposition activist, Zeinab al-Khawaja, fled Bahrain following her release from jail on "humanitarian grounds." "It pains me to leave, but I leave carrying our cause on my back, and my love for my country in my chest," Khawaja -- who left for Denmark where she also holds citizenship -- said on Twitter. Story continues She was sentenced to three years and one month on charges including tearing up the monarch's picture and insulting a police officer, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights has said. Human rights groups condemned Rajab's latest detention. It "appears to be another alarming example of Bahrain's zero-tolerance stance toward peaceful dissent and activism, which it enforces through arbitrary measures including revolving-doors detention," Amnesty International's James Lynch said. - 'Deteriorating human rights record' - Also on Monday, an appeals court in Bahrain upheld jail terms of between 10 and 15 years for 11 Shiites convicted of forming a "terrorist group" that planned to attack police and the Saudi embassy in Manama, among other charges, a judicial source said. The court also confirmed a previous criminal court order to revoke their citizenship, the source added. Bahrain has detained scores of opponents of the kingdom's Saudi-allied rulers, often sentencing them to lengthy jail terms, rights groups say. A court in May more than doubled the jail sentence passed against opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, who is now set to serve nine years in prison for inciting violence. The authorities also prevented five activists from leaving Bahrain for Geneva on Sunday to attend a UN Human Rights Council session, London-based Amnesty said. "It has become painfully clear in recent weeks that the authorities in Bahrain have little interest in what the world makes of their deteriorating human rights record," Lynch said. Tensions over trade and Chinese investment in a German robotics firm dominated Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Beijing Monday, with differences about steel and China's future market status on display. China has been pressing the European Union to grant it "market economy" status this year, making it harder for the bloc to levy anti-dumping tariffs even as Beijing is accused of selling excess steel cheaply on world markets at the cost of European jobs. European lawmakers in Strasbourg last month voted overwhelmingly against issuing the designation, concerned that doing so would cost Europe jobs in key industries such as steel. At a press conference with Merkel, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang repeated Beijing's view that the EU must grant it market economy status according to accession rules when it joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001. "Before the end of this year... the agreement should receive appropriate enforcement," said Li, adding: "We don't want a trade war." "Steel overproduction is a global problem, not just a Chinese problem," he said, adding China imported large amounts of steel from Germany and was cutting its own domestic capacity. "I hope people don't point fingers at China". Merkel responded that Germany was "very clear about promises made in 2001", adding that it was better to have "a situation in which anti-dumping tarriffs are not necessary," according to a translation of her remarks. China posted a 2.4 percent year-on-year increase in steel exports in May, swelling the supply glut that has left industry in Europe and elsewhere in turmoil. Beijing says reducing overcapacity and excess inventory and cutting borrowing are top priorities in its economic reform drive, with the ailing steel industry a key target. But foreign governments say they have seen little movement towards implementing the promises. The EU, the second-biggest steel producer, has launched a dumping probe into Chinese steel. Angry manufacturers urge it to copy the US in introducing tough tariffs. Story continues - 'Good solution' - The trip is Merkel's ninth to China as chancellor and comes as Chinese appliance giant Midea tries to increase its stake in German robotics firm Kuka from 13.5 percent to more than 30 percent. Kuka describes itself as one of the world's leading manufacturers of industrial robots and automated systems for manufacturing. Berlin last week denied reports it was blocking what has been described as a Chinese takeover bid for the firm. "We are looking into a solution which can satisfy both sides," Merkel told reporters in Beijing, adding: "There will be a good solution." In remarks Sunday the chancellor sought to reassure Chinese investors that Germany was open for business. Her country has invested around 60 billion euros ($68 billion) in China, she said, adding that "what we have is reciprocity". "Of course, Chinese companies will come to the German market too." Merkel also took the opportunity of her meeting with Li to prod her hosts on the sensitive issue of disputed claims in the South China Sea. Beijing has stirred regional opposition by rapidly building artificial islands capable of hosting military hardware, despite partial counter-claims by several Southeast Asian states. It opposes attempts to solve the dispute through international bodies, insisting that all talks be bilateral. In rare direct comments on the dispute, Merkel said that "a variety of mechanisms, including multilateral ones, should be used to avoid new tensions emerging". Dish Network and Tribune Broadcasting are at loggerheads in discussions to keep programming from 42 local stations owned by the Chicago programming on the air. Dish said Sunday evening that Tribune content was no longer being offered on its satellite systems. At issue, the two companies said, were disagreements over the terms of payment for programming from Tribunes stations, as well as the value of Tribunes WGN America cable network. A distribution contract between the two companies expired at 7 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. We want to reach an agreement, just as we have with every one of our other cable, satellite and telco distributors, but Dish refuses to reach an agreement based on fair-market value, said Gary Weitman, Tribune Medias senior vice president for corporate relations, in a prepared statement. We want to keep servicing our local communities and we have repeatedly offered Dish a lengthy extension to continue negotiationsunfortunately, Dish rejected these offers. Tribune is demanding an unreasonable rate increase for channels that are available for free over the air, said Warren Schlichting, executive vice president of programming for Dish, in a statement. Actions like Tribunes are what drive price increases and feed customer frustration for our industry. The company said it would offer free over-the-air antennae to Dish customers who were affected and still wanted to gain access to offerings from Tribunes stations. Dish also said Tribune was trying to force bundle carriage of its WGN America cable network with that for its broadcast stations. Dishs satellite-based system has around 13.8 million pay-TV subscribers. The company said customers in 34 states and the District of Columbia were affected by the disagreement. The flare-up is the latest conflagration between a programmer and one of its distributors, a signal of the growing reliance media companies have on the fees they get from such companies. The decision to pull programming is not without risk: Consumers are annoyed when they cant watch programming for which they pay subscriber fees, and regulators also take a dim view of the tactics. At the same time, media companies have more need of the revenue they can wring from distribution agreements. Advertising, another source of fuel, has become less reliable as consumers migrate from traditional TV screens to mobile devices and streaming video,. Story continues Dish said it had been willing to enter into a short-term extension of its distribution agreement with Tribune, but was rebuffed. The satellite distributor said it had a lackluster opinion of WGN America, a cable network whose profile Tribune has been trying to raise by introducing higher-quality programs. Dish said its research had found viewership levels for the network had dropped, while many of the programs WGN America offered were available on other networks Dish carries. Dish has in recent months experienced breakdowns in talks it has held with 21st Century Fox and Time Warners Turner. In 2014, Dish and Turner entered into a standoff that resulted in Cartoon Network and CNN going off the air for a period of time. Last year, a Dish disagreement with Fox led to Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network being taken off the air for about three weeks. Related stories Tribune Stations Warn Dish Subscribers of Possible Sunday Blackout Are Skinny Bundles All Hype or the Future of TV Delivery? Viacom and Dish Avert Blackout, Set Deal That Includes Sling TV Rights for Key Channels Washington (AFP) - White House hopeful Donald Trump, in his latest attack on the media, said Monday he was rescinding The Washington Post's press credentials for covering his campaign events. "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record-setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post," Trump wrote in a tweet. Later, the campaign said in a statement that "we no longer feel compelled to work with a publication which has put its need for 'clicks' above journalistic integrity." The distinguished daily became the latest media outlet targeted by the Trump camp, which has reportedly banned several news organizations from attending his events and press conferences over the past year, including Buzzfeed, the Des Moines Register, the Huffington Post, Politico and Univision. The dustup appeared to have been triggered by a Post story that reported Trump's comments earlier in the day in which he slammed President Barack Obama for poor leadership in battling extremism following the horrific shooting in Orlando, Florida by a radicalized gunman. "Look, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind," Trump told Fox News. "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands -- it's one or the other, and either one is unacceptable," he added. The Post wrote that Trump "seemed to repeatedly accuse President Obama on Monday of identifying with radicalized Muslims who have carried out terrorist attacks in the United States and being complicit in the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando." The story apparently was the last straw for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. "I am no fan of President Obama, but to show you how dishonest the phony Washington Post is, they wrote, 'Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting' as their headline. Sad!" Story continues The campaign then hit out at the Post's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. "The fact is, The Washington Post is being used by the owners of Amazon as their political lobbyist so that they don't have to pay taxes and don't get sued for monopolistic tendencies that have led to the destruction of department stores and the retail industry," the campaign said. Post executive editor Martin Baron said the paper's coverage would not change. Trump's move "is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press," Baron said in a statement. "The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along - honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically and unflinchingly." Manchester (United States) (AFP) - The Orlando massacre has exposed some of the sharpest contrasts yet between America's presidential rivals, with Hillary Clinton on Monday warning against demagoguery and rival Donald Trump declaring prospective immigrants from some nations persona non grata. Instead of unifying a politically divided nation, the worst terror attack in the United States since September 11, 2001 has widened the gap between the White House contenders over how to tackle extremism and keep Americans safe. Both candidates used their speeches in the wake of the shooting to enhance their commander-in-chief credibility, in starkly different tones. Presumptive Republican nominee Trump ratcheted up his pointed rhetoric, blasting Clinton for seeking to "allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country" and suggesting the former secretary of state "has no clue" about radical Islam. "When I'm elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats," Trump said during a highly-anticipated national security speech in New Hampshire. "We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer," he said, referring to the Orlando gunman, whom US authorized suspect was radicalized by Islamist propaganda. The provocative billionaire again called for a halt to Syrian refugees entering the United States and warned there are people living in America with "hate in their heart." In an exchange with Fox News, Trump said President Barack Obama "doesn't get it" when it comes to the extremist threat, a comment that drew curt reaction from the White House. "When you are focused on something as big as helping the country respond to the worst mass shooting in our nation's history... and combating violent extremism, it's important not to get distracted by things that are so small," White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said. Story continues - 'Metastasizing' threat - Trump heaped criticism on his rival. "The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system" of screening, Trump said. "She wants to take away Americans' guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us." Clinton made no mention of Trump in her speech, instead urging Americans to reject political partisanship and "stand together" to defeat terrorism. "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive and we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values," she said. "The threat is metastasizing." While Clinton zeroed in on fighting Islamic State extremism and the need to rein in American gun violence, Trump seized on how Muslims may be protecting their own. "We have to get the people that surround these maniacs to start talking," he told ABC. Trump's argument followed his accusations that neighbors and relatives of the San Bernardino attackers who slaughtered 14 people in December knew the couple had been radicalized but did not alert authorities. Clinton for her part recognized the need to track so-called lone wolves and prevent them from launching attacks, and reiterated her call for reinstatement of an assault weapons ban, saying Orlando shooter Omar Mateen used a "weapon of war" to kill 49 people. But she stressed that "inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric" and bans based on religious affiliation would only hurt the vast majority of Muslims who abhor terrorism. She warned that demagoguery would not end terrorism. "I'm not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion," Clinton said. But she did demand that other governments reconsider policies that allow extremism to thrive, calling out three US allies. "It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations," Clinton warned, urging them to stop supporting "radical schools and mosques" that promote extremism. Trump expressed strong support for America's gay community, following Sunday's attack on the gay nightclub. "It's an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity," he said. "It's a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation." donald trump Donald Trump seemingly suggested on Monday morning that President Barack Obama may be deliberately hindering America's response to terrorist threats. Without elaborating, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said during an interview with "Fox and Friends" that Obama may have an ulterior motive in his response to the Orlando terrorist shooting that left 49 dead and over 50 wounded on Sunday. "He doesn't get it, or he gets it better than anyone understands. It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable," Trump said. He returned to the subject several minutes later: "We're led by a man who is not tough, not smart, or has something else in mind. The something else in mind people can't believe it. They can't believe he's acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on." In an interview on NBC, "Today" host Savannah Guthrie pushed the real-estate magnate to clarify his comments. "There are a lot of people that think he doesnt want to get it," Trump said. "I happen to think he doesnt know what hes doing, but there are many people think he doesnt want to get it." Trump has repeatedly slammed the president following the Orlando attack. On Sunday, Trump called on Obama to resign following the shooting for refusing to refer to extremism as "radical Islamic terrorism," which Obama refuses to do because he says it propagates the notion that the US is at war with Islam. While the suspected shooter was an American citizen born in New York, over the past two days, Trump has reiterated that the attack justifies his plan to bar Muslims from coming to the US. Though immigration experts contend that emigrating to the US legally as a refugee is one of the most difficult ways for potential terrorists to enter the country, in Monday's interview on Fox, Trump maintained that refugees fleeing violence in Syria could be "the all-time great Trojan horse." Story continues "You know, the legend of the Trojan horse. This could be it," Trump said. "I used to say it with a smile ... I'm starting to think it could happen." NOW WATCH: The number of times Obama has had to respond to mass shootings during his presidency is staggering More From Business Insider WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump will postpone a campaign rally planned for Monday evening in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, because of Sunday's Orlando shooting, his campaign said. But Trump will go ahead with a major speech at St. Anselm's College in Portsmouth scheduled for Monday afternoon, the campaign said in a statement, adding that he would hold a rally in the city in the near future. "He looks forward to returning to New Hampshire and discussing the serious threats facing all Americans and his solutions for making this country safe again," the statement said. (Reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Chris Reese) MANCHESTER, N.H. In his first formal remarks since Sundays deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Donald Trump repeated his call to bar Muslims from immigrating to the United States and added a promise to suspend immigration from any country with a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or other allies. It wasnt clear if this language was meant to broaden the category of foreigners Trump wants to keep out of the country, and his campaign declined to elaborate. The presumptive Republican nominee used the attack, which left 50 people dead, including the killer, as ammunition for accusing President Obama and his likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, of putting the nation at risk with deadly ignorance about the threat of radical Islam. They have put political correctness above common sense, above your safety and above all else, Trump declared in a speech at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. I refuse to be politically correct. AP FACT CHECK: TRUMPS SPEECH NEEDS SOME ASTERISKS The speech had been initially planned as a way for Trump to contrast his record with Clintons. But the Trump campaign shifted the focus to immigration and national security in the aftermath of Sundays massacre, expanding on and defending proposals that were the centerpiece of his primary campaign. Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump speaks at the Saint Anselm College New Hampshire Institute of Politics in Manchester, N.H., on June 13, 2016. (Photo: Tim Clarey/AFP/Getty Images) The ban on Muslim immigration, which many Republicans oppose, had largely been dropped from Trumps stump speech in recent weeks, but he brought it back in full force on Monday. The candidate has largely dodged questions of how his proposal would protect against attacks by American citizens, including the perpetrator of the Orlando massacre. Yes, there are many radicalized people already inside our country as a result of the poor policies of the past, Trump said. But the whole point is that it will be much, much easier to deal with our current problem if we dont keep on bringing in people who add to the problem. Story continues At one point, Trump incorrectly stated that Omar Mateen, the accused Orlando shooter, was born an Afghan, of Afghan parents. Mateen, who was killed by police gunfire, was an American citizen who was born in New York to immigrant parents. It was not clear whether Trump, who spoke with the aid of a TelePrompTer, simply misspoke or was ad libbing the line, which was not included in a written copy of his remarks later released by his campaign. In the roughly half-hour speech, Trump repeatedly called out Clinton for opposing new restrictions on immigration while claiming to be in solidarity with the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, the presumed target of Sundays attacks. Obama and Clinton, he said, are not fit to lead the nation. The bottom line is that Hillary supports the policies that bring the threat of radical Islam into America, and allow it to grow overseas, Trump said. Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country. They enslave women and murder gays. Trump also dismissed Clintons calls for new gun controls, including a ban on assault weapons. Although he expressed support for an assault weapons ban in 1999, when he first considered a run for the presidency as a Reform Party candidate, the GOP candidate touted his recent endorsement from the National Rifle Association and said he would meet with them to discuss how to ensure Americans have the means to protect themselves in this age of terror. RELATED: TRUMP REVOKES PRESS CREDENTIALS OF WASHINGTON POST Trump accused Clinton of trying to overturn the Second Amendment, something she has repeatedly denied. Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans, abolishing the Second Amendment and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns, he said. She wants to take away Americans guns, then admit the very people who want to slaughter us. Related slideshows: Slideshow: Victims of the Florida nightclub shooting >>> Slideshow: Front page coverage of the Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: World reacts to Orlando mass shooting >>> Slideshow: Shooting rampage at Florida nightclub >>> RELATED VIDEO: By James Oliphant and Ginger Gibson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave an aggressive response to the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, quickly claiming the attack was the work of an Islamist militant while calling on President Barack Obama to resign and for Democrat Hillary Clinton to exit the presidential race. For Trump, it was an attempt to frame the attack in Orlando in a light favorable to his campaign for the Nov. 8 presidential election. Early on Sunday, when few facts were known about the shooting, he boasted on Twitter that it proved he had been right about his warnings over "radical Islamic terrorism." Trump canceled a planned Monday evening rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire late on Sunday, because of the shooting, but will go ahead with a major speech at St. Anselm's College on Monday afternoon. In a tweet just hours after the incident, he wrote: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance." Trump has made combating the threat of groups such as Islamic State a central part of his candidacy. It was last December's attack in San Bernardino, California that killed 14 people that led Trump to propose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump re-visited the proposal on Sunday after at least 50 people died in the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough," Trump wrote on Twitter. In a statement late Sunday, the businessman went further than U.S. officials investigating the shootings by asserting that the attack in Orlando was the work of a "radical Islamic terrorist." Islamic State, which controls land in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the shooting but U.S. officials said they had seen no immediate evidence directly linking the militant group to the massacre. The shooter, U.S.-born Florida resident Omar Mateen, was killed by police. Mateen, 29, called 911 on Sunday morning and made comments saying he supported the Islamic State militant group, officials said. A Trump supporter played Trump's speeches on a loudspeaker outside the Port St. Lucie, Florida home of Mateen's parent's. "I'm a Cuban citizen and I'm becoming an American citizen on July 6 and I'm going to vote for the first time in my life for Donald Trump," said Arisley Travieso, 36, who works for a shredding company. Traveiso said he supported Trump because the Republican nominee sees "the problem is Islamic terrorism. He (Trump) has been saying it nonstop." Trump ripped Obama for his long-standing refusal to refer to Islamic State and other extremist groups as in part representative of the religion of Islam. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down," Trump said, adding that, "if Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the presidency." Trump's day-long barrage of tweets and statements contrasted with more cautious approaches taken by Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and her fellow Democrat Obama. In remarks at the White House, Obama said the investigation into the shootings was ongoing and declined to speculate on the motives of the shooter. "Weve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer," Obama said. "The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. Similarly, Clinton, in a statement, called the attack an "act of terror" but did not speculate about the ideology of the gunman. "Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work, and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead," said Clinton, who expressed her sympathy for the victims and said "weapons of war" have no place on U.S. streets. Trump's campaign said that a speech scheduled for Monday that was to be devoted to criticizing Hillary and Bill Clinton would now be centered on national security and counter-terrorism. (Additional reporting by Alana Wise; Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy in Port St. Lucie, Florida; Editing by Caren Bohan, Alistair Bell and Michael Perry) Donald Trump Donald Trump on Monday called for the federal government to release "the full and complete immigration histories" of anyone "implicated" in terrorist activity since the 9/11 attacks. "President Obama must release the full and complete immigration histories of all individuals implicated in terrorist activity of any kind since 9/11," Trump said in prepared remarks delivered at Saint Anselm College. He added: "The public has a right to know how these people got here. We have to screen applicants to know whether they are affiliated with, or support, radical groups and beliefs." Trump's comments came on the heels of the worst terror attack on American soil since 9/11. In the deadliest shooting in US history, a lone gunman opened fire at an Orlando LGBTQ nightclub, killing 49 and wounding scores more. In his speech, Trump returned to advocating for his plan to bar Muslims from immigrating to the US. He blasted America's "dysfunctional immigration system," saying current screening processes do not "permit us to know who we allow into our country." "The only reason the killer was in America in the first place is because we allowed his parents to come here," Trump said. "That is a fact, and it's a fact we need to talk about." The gunman in the Orlando shooting was a US citizen born in New York whose parents were from Afghanistan. Trump noted that he called for a ban on Muslim immigration after the terror attacks in San Bernardino, California. He was excoriated by critics, and his campaign eventually softened the rhetoric about the ban. "I called for a ban after San Bernardino and was met with great scorn and anger," Trump said. "But now, many years, and I have to say, many years, but, many are saying I was right to do so, and although the pause is temporary, we must find out what is going on. We have to do it." Story continues He said the ban would be lifted once "as a nation we're in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country." Trump said that if he's elected president, he will "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there's a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats." "We cannot continue to allow thousands and thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer," Trump said. "Many of the principles of radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and institutions." NOW WATCH: Watch the Secret Service jump to protect Sanders after 5 protesters rushed the stage More From Business Insider Hillary Clinton The speeches Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump gave on Monday in response to the Orlando, Florida, terrorist attack laid out the key distinction in visions between the two candidates. One vision calls for doing approximately what we're doing now, with some improvements on the margins. The other vision is dystopian, urging our society to reject outsiders and arm ourselves to the teeth to protect against threats that are allegedly inherent in Islam. You don't have to like the status quo very much to prefer the former approach over the latter. Clinton's view is that America's society, institutions, and international relations are broadly working, but that they require tweaks to protect us. She says that we must make it harder for certain people to buy certain kinds of guns, spend more on certain kinds of intelligence, disrupt terrorism financing, and intensify the military campaign against ISIS. Trump's view is that everything is going to hell and that we need a radical, authoritarian shift to protect ourselves. He says that we must seek to exclude Muslims from the US and arm ourselves personally to protect against violent attack, because Americans and Muslims have a fundamental and unbridgeable difference in values. Trump indulged in fever dreams, saying that "Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country." Clinton is a Democrat, but as the conservative writer Matthew Continetti put it, she was speaking up for a bipartisan post-Cold War consensus on security and international relations, a consensus Trump is proposing to chuck. So the question before voters is: Do we want Trump's anti-Muslim revolution, or do we want to stay the course? For me, the answer is easy. I was horrified by Trump's speech it was the stupidest and scariest speech I've ever heard him give, which is a high bar. Trump, who has previously said that "Islam hates us," accepts the ISIS frame of a fundamental struggle between Islam and the West. Trump's choice of this frame will increase sympathy for jihad among Muslims abroad, making it easier for terrorist groups to recruit. It insults millions of Muslim citizens of the US who love their country. It surely also scares them, since Trump's words are likely to inspire anti-Muslim hatred and violence. Story continues All that said, Trump's appeal stems in part from the fact that the bipartisan post-Cold War security consensus for which Clinton speaks has had high-profile failures, including the September 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq war. There is a strong sense among Americans that what we're doing isn't working, and that we need to do something else. I get that impulse, but here's the thing: "Something else" is not a policy. If we are to abandon the status quo, we must replace it with something specific, and what Trump is proposing is far worse than the status quo. U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a campaign speech about national security in Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S. June 13, 2016 in response to the mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub. REUTERS/Brian Snyder The specific ideas Trump advances a combination of isolationism and aggression, of vitriolic rhetoric and neglect of allies, of treating Muslims as an enemy and yet also saying that it would be OK for Saudi Arabia to have a nuclear weapon are worse than whatever we are doing right now, even if you do not like exactly what we are doing right now. Several politicians, including Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, have framed a hostile stance toward Islam as necessary to protect the safety of LGBT Americans. It is reasonable to raise concerns about global Muslim attitudes about pluralism, and particularly about treatment of LGBT people in Muslim-majority countries, some of which sanction the death penalty as punishment for homosexuality. But those who do raise these concerns, including Trump, should note that opinion among Muslims in the US is very different than it is abroad. A 2014 Pew survey found that 45% of American Muslims think homosexuality should be accepted by society, a higher figure than for Mormons or evangelical Christians. That was up from 38% in 2007 reflecting the fact that Muslim Americans, like all the American religious groups studied by Pew, are becoming more accepting of gays over time. That is, we don't need to ask whether Islam can be compatible with a modern, pluralistic society that protects the rights and safety of LGBT people. In the US, we know that Islam is compatible enough approximately as compatible as various other major religious traditions whose compatibility with Americanism we do not routinely question. There is a reason the attacks in Orlando and San Bernardino, California, though apparently based in extreme Islamist ideology, were not supported by a local terrorist network like the attacks in Paris and Brussels. The reason is that America's Muslim minority is well-integrated, well-adjusted, and not disposed to harbor people who would harm other Americans. Lone-wolf attacks are a risk, but they are a risk mitigated by American Muslim communities, not exacerbated by them. All of which is to say that America's Muslim communities are an example of how our pluralistic society is working pretty well, not of how everything is broken. It's hard for people to be optimistic right now, but Clinton is right to take the view that we are better off with small changes than large ones, that we are better off being open to each other than identifying specific religious groups as threats, and that America has a pretty good thing going that we shouldn't just throw away for an authoritarian approach to "safety." NOW WATCH: TRUMP: Radical Islam is coming to our shores More From Business Insider Berlin (AFP) - The chief editor of Turkish newspaper Hurriyet was on Monday presented with a Freedom of Speech award by German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle as concerns grow over press freedom in Turkey. Sedat Ergin, who was in Bonn to receive the award, was charged last December with insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a headline on the newspaper's website. If found guilty, he faces up to five years and four months in prison. His trial has not yet begun. "Hurriyet is one of the biggest and one of the last independent media outlets, a torch of liberty and one of the last bastions of freedom of opinion in Turkey," said Kai Diekmann, editor-in-chief of Bild, Germany's biggest-selling daily, in remarks made at the award ceremony. One of Turkey's most popular dailies, Hurriyet mixes mainstream news coverage that generally toes the government line with popular columnists known for their opposition to Erdogan, such as the very prominent Ahmet Hakan. The recent hiring of prominent pro-Erdogan columnist Abdulkadir Selvi also brought a different voice into the newspaper. Concerns have been rising about press freedoms in Turkey under Erdogan, with thousands of people prosecuted for insulting the president and two top journalists from the opposition Cumhuriyet daily on trial for revealing state secrets. The award was presented as German and Turkish ties sank to a low over the Bundestag's decision to recognise World War I-era mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as a genocide. (Rewrites throughout with questions from judges at hearing) By David Ingram NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court fired skeptical questions on Monday at a lawyer for a U.S. congressional committee and a former staffer who argued that Congress is immune from having to cooperate with an insider-trading investigation. During a hearing, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared to lean in favor of forcing Congress to comply at least somewhat with two subpoenas from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The case is a test of how far securities enforcers may go to police the murky world of "political intelligence," in which firms seek to gather and sell information for traders. The SEC is investigating trading in Humana Inc stock in 2013 ahead of a government announcement about physician reimbursement rates, which affect Humana and other health insurers. In court papers, the SEC said it believes a congressional staff member at the time, Brian Sutter, "may have been a source" of an early leak to a lobbyist at the Greenberg Traurig law firm, who then passed the information to a Height Securities analyst, who in turn alerted clients. Lawmakers and their staff are not immune from prosecution under insider-trading laws. But Sutter and his former employer, the U.S. House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee, refused to comply with subpoenas for documents and testimony. Their lawyers argued that they should be shielded from such investigative tactics because, under the legal principles of sovereign immunity and legislative independence, they cannot be questioned without their consent. Circuit Judge Richard Wesley asked if Sutter went beyond protected activity in talking to the lobbyist. "I don't care what his job was at the Ways and Means Committee; he wasn't in charge of insider trading," he said. William Pittard, a lawyer for Sutter and the committee, said it was not the court's role to question the motives of congressional staff. Story continues SEC lawyer Jeffrey Berger told the court that a ban on insider trading by Congress would be an "empty shell" if the regulator lacked the power to investigate. The appeals court is expected to rule in the next several months. A Humana spokesman could not be reached for comment. A Greenberg Traurig spokeswoman declined to comment. Height Securities said in a statement it has not received a subpoena from or been formally investigated by the SEC. (Reporting by David Ingram; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Andrew Hay) TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy to Libya called on Monday for investigations inside and outside Libya into the killing of 12 men jailed on suspicion of crimes against protesters during the 2011 revolution and granted conditional release last week. Libya's judicial police say the men were released from Tripoli's Al-Baraka prison on Thursday, a day before their bodies were found dumped in different parts of the capital. According to their families, the men had been beaten savagely, shot in the chest and head, and some had their hands and feet tied. "This crime should be thoroughly and independently investigated and perpetrators must face justice," said U.N. envoy Martin Kobler. "I urge the relevant Libyan authorities to establish a joint national-international investigation and I will follow developments closely." The attorney general in Tripoli has said the case will be investigated. The U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli has also called for an urgent investigation. The United Nations said the killings may constitute international crimes under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. The case is sensitive because the GNA arrived in March with the acquiescence of some of the armed factions that have long controlled Tripoli and acted with impunity there. Many were originally formed of rebels who took part in the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, and present themselves as guardians of the revolution. The GNA, which is designed to replace two rival governments set up in 2014 in Tripoli and the east, says it is working to integrate armed groups in Tripoli into a national security force as it tries to ease the previous government in the capital aside. But its critics, especially in the east, have accused the GNA of legitimising militias operating in western Libya by seeking their cooperation and not acting quickly enough to disband them. The eastern government, parliament and military forces all released statements on the prison killings, with the government pointing the finger at "outlawed groups that control the jail". AlBaraka prison houses hundreds of inmates, many of whom are accused of being Gaddafi loyalists. Last year detainees at the jail told Human Rights Watch that prison guards frequently beat them, and administered electric shocks. Thousands of people including women and children are detained in Libya, many of them arbitrarily, the United Nations says. (Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Andrew Heavens) GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief on Monday decried a "worrying rise" in detentions of migrants in Greece and Italy and urged authorities to find alternatives to confining children while asylum requests are processed. More than one million migrants, many fleeing Syria's war, have arrived in Europe through Greece since last year. More than 150,000 have come in 2016 so far - 38 percent of them children, according to United Nations refugee agency data. Italy has also set up mandatory detention centers. "Even unaccompanied children are frequently placed in prison cells or centers ringed with barbed wire. Detention is never in the best interests of the child which must take primacy over immigration objectives," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. "Alternatives to the detention of children must be developed," he told the start of a three-week council session. Zeid said it was possible for Europe to create "well-functioning migration governance systems", with fair assessment of individual requests for international protection while removing what he called "hysteria and panic from the equation". Zeid deplored anti-migrant rhetoric "spanning the length and breadth of the European continent ... This fosters a climate of divisiveness, xenophobia and even as in Bulgaria vigilante violence". In April, Bulgarian police arrested a local man who had posted video on social media showing how he tied up three migrants near the Turkish border. The migrant influx has drawn a rising public backlash, in part because of strains it has imposed on housing and social services. Concerns have also been raised in some EU countries about their ability to integrate many mostly Muslim migrants. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Tom Miles/Mark Heinrich) GENEVA (Reuters) - The top U.N. human rights official on Monday condemned the deadly attack by a gunman targeting people at a homosexual bar in Orlando, Florida. A man armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to Islamic State killed 50 people during a gay pride celebration at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. "I also condemn with the greatest possible force the outrageous attacks by violent extremists on innocent people, chosen at random, or because of their presumed beliefs, or opinions, or as we saw yesterday their sexual orientation," Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein told the start of a three-week session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Tom Miles) By Josh Smith KABUL (Reuters) - The United States is asking its allies helping with security in Afghanistan to maintain funding for Afghan forces at a cost of nearly $5 billion a year until at least 2020, a top U.S. military commander said on Monday. The plan extends the international financial commitment for the foreseeable future at a time when Western leaders have been hoping to reduce Afghanistan's reliance on foreign military aid. Military commanders are making the pitch for continued funding ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw in early July, where the alliance's leaders will discuss support for the Afghan government, which is struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban insurgency. "There is strong agreement, certainly from the chiefs of defense, that the support for Afghanistan ... needs to continue," Major General Skip Davis told reporters in Kabul. "I think there is much more consensus on the fact that stemming extremism here, in the region, is a direct contribution to security in the homeland. Theres a willingness to do what it takes." Efforts by Western nations to extract themselves from the war in Afghanistan have been frustrated by high levels of violence. When they gathered at a similar summit in 2012, NATO members and other nations had planned on slowly reducing financial support for Afghanistan as international troops withdrew. "Obviously, conditions have changed since decisions were made back in 2012 and 2014," Davis said. Under the current funding structure, the United States provides a little more than $3.5 billion a year. Other countries contribute another $900 million to $1 billion, while the Afghan government pays more than $400 million, a share Davis said was expected to grow. Commanders say that general level of funding is expected to continue for at least four years. The funding is based on maintaining a goal of 352,000 Afghan soldiers and police. The official roster currently includes about 320,000 members of the security forces, Davis said. Among the factors that coalition commanders are considering as they recommend funding and troop levels are the high rates of Afghan casualties, their struggles in training new troops and replacing damaged equipment, and the continuing "fragility" of the national government, Davis said. "Last year was a big signal that the Afghan army and police need some more time," he said. "They are resilient, they fought well and they took on leadership, but at the same time, they had some significant challenges and the Taliban proved much more resilient than we expected and less likely to come to the table for reconciliation." (Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel) The much-awaited #UdtaPunjabVerdict is finally Out! Recommended Read: Udta Punjab has been passed by CBFC with an A certificate: Pahlaj Nihalani The Bombay High Court on today rapped the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for the cuts it ordered in Udta Punjab, and stated that mere references, signboards of Punjab does not affect sovereignty and integrity of India. A Division Bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar Joshi heard the plea filed by Udta Punjabs co-producer Phantom Films. As reported, 89 cuts were suggested by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) in the film, which sparked a massive debate on social media, alter moving to the court. The HC stated in its judgement, Creative freedom envisages presentation and choice of words. Hence the attempt is not to discourage making of films. Board has to ensure drugs not glamourised. Bombay HC also said that CBFC must exercise its powers consistently in consonance with constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech. While CBFC officials were demanding for the removal of the word 'Punjab from the title, the HC judge stated, The title contains the word Punjab, so there is no need to delete scene of a sign board showing Punjab. The court also cleared that adults would not be tempted to use foul language just because they heard it in the film. Henceforth, the film will hit theatres with all the cuss words in place. In regard to delete the visual of a Sardar 'scratching his sides, HC pointed out that the scene does not show the community in bad light. As CBFC had apprehension on close up shots of drugs being injected, the judge cleared that the sequence does not encourage or glorify drugs. Another popular cut demanded by the board was removing the dialogue, 'Jamin banzar te aulad kanjar. Bombay HC strongly stated that it does not suggest anything about the state and added, Punjab is a land of warriors, they are not that sensitive. Story continues The only sequence which the court asked to be deleted from the film is the sequence where Shahid Kapoors character Tommy Singh urinates in front of a crowd, and said that there was enough material for the filmmakers to drive home their point even without this scene. Director Abhishek Chaubey, who was ecstatic with the decision said, Massively relieved today, looking to release the film on the scheduled date. The court has also directed CBFC to issue certificate in two days. CBFC has been asked to issue 'A certifictae to the film. A massive victory indeed in B-towns history! United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Monday strongly condemned the Orlando attacks in a unanimous statement after some haggling with Russia and Egypt over a reference to the targeting of gays. The 15-member council said the "terrorist attack" on a gay nightclub in the early hours on Sunday targeted "persons as a result of their sexual orientation." Council members expressed condolences to the families of the 49 victims of the attack and reaffirmed that terrorism is one of the most serious threats to peace and security. The US-drafted text was circulated to council members on Sunday, but Russia and Egypt raised objections over the reference to "sexual orientation," diplomats said. French Ambassador Francois Delattre described the statement that was finally adopted late afternoon Monday as "very important," and acknowledged that "there were some consultations to achieve unanimity on this text." US Deputy Ambassador David Pressman separately took a swipe at the United Nations for failing to do enough to uphold the rights of sexual minorities. Pressman said the world body must do more than contribute condolences and condemnation when gays and lesbians are targeted in attacks. "Let us be equally united around the basic premise of upholding the universal dignity of all persons regardless of who they love, not just around condemning the terrorists who kill them," Pressman told the General Assembly. The diplomat deplored that the annual renewal of a resolution on protecting the right to life leads to a "pitched fight over whether it is appropriate to include sexual orientation in that protection." "Dignity should not be so hard to protect. Here, it too often is," said Pressman. The General Assembly last month denied accreditation to 22 groups, mostly gay rights activists, to take part in a conference on ending the AIDS pandemic after Russia, Muslim countries, Cameroon and Tanzania blocked it. Homosexuality is illegal in some 77 countries worldwide. In five countries, it is punishable by the death penalty. Geneva (AFP) - The UN's human rights chief voiced alarm Monday at the increasing detention of migrants in Europe, including unaccompanied children, amid widespread anti-migrant rhetoric across the continent. As Europe faces its biggest migration crisis since the aftermath of World War II, UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said he had sent staff members to assess areas along the main migration routes in the central Mediterranean and Balkans. "They have observed a worrying increase in detention of migrants in Europe, including in the hotspots, (which are) essentially vast mandatory confinement areas which have been set up in Greece and Italy," he told the opening of the UN Human Rights Council's second annual session. "Even unaccompanied children are frequently placed in prison cells or centres ringed with barbed-wire," he said, insisting "detention is never in the best interests of the child." Zeid urged the EU to collect data on migrant detentions by member states, warning that "the figures would, I fear, be very shocking." More than one million people made the journey to Europe in 2015, the majority fleeing war in Syria and the Middle East, and a further 208,000 have come since January, according to UN figures. More than 2,850 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean so far this year. Faced with the influx, the UN rights chief warned that many countries were showing "a strong trend that overturns international commitments, refuses basic humanity, and slams doors in the face of human beings in need." He pointed out that EU countries so far have managed to relocate fewer than one percent of the 160,000 people they have committed to taking from overwhelmed Greece and Italy. He urged European countries to "find a way to address the current migration crisis consistently and in a manner that respects the rights of the people concerned," and to "remove hysteria and panic from the equation." Story continues This, he said, was particularly important in the context of a controversial deal between the European Union (EU) and Turkey in March, under which migrants not entitled to asylum are to be deported from Greece back across the Aegean. Zeid also decried "the widespread anti-migrant rhetoric that we have heard, spanning the length and breadth of the European continent." "This fosters a climate of divisiveness, xenophobia and even, as in Bulgaria, vigilante violence," he said. Before they reach Europe, many migrants are meanwhile suffering horrible human rights abuses in chaos-wracked Libya, the UN rights warned. He decried "disturbing reports of many migrants in Libya being subjected to prolonged arbitrary detention, attacks and unlawful killings, torture and other ill-treatment, sexual violence and abduction for ransom." UN staff visiting a migrant detention centre in the country found "dozens of people crammed into storage rooms without space to lie down." He urged EU countries attempting to cooperate with Libya on migration and border management to only do so "in full respect for the human rights of the people involved." By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. refugee agency said on Monday it expects 248,000 refugees and migrants to arrive in Europe via the Eastern Mediterranean this year, far lower than the "up to 1 million" it foresaw at the start of the year. The figure is made up the 156,000 who have already arrived and another 92,000 who may arrive on the Turkey to Greece route by the end of the year, UNHCR said, in an update of a regional refugee plan first issued in January. The flow of migrants via Greece effectively dried up after a string of border closures in the Balkans in February and then a deal in March between the European Union and Turkey to halt migration to Greece. "From a response solely targeting people on the move, the overall strategy is now focusing on a largely static population, with the majority residing in urban areas," said the plan, which set out UNHCR's strategy and a $670 million budget. "The response strategy ... recognizes that while legal and physical restrictions have been put in place at borders along the former route, the motivation of refugees and migrants to reach further into Europe will not abate," it said. "There are therefore considerable risks that people remaining in countries along the previous route may approach smuggling networks to facilitate their onward travel, further exposing them to human rights violations and exploitation." The document did not give any full-year estimate for the other major migration route into Europe, from Libya to Italy through the central Mediterranean, which has seen almost 50,000 arrivals this year, and over 2,400 deaths. The International Organization for Migration has said there has been no evidence of migrants switching from one route to the other, with the Libyan route mainly attracting African migrants and the Greek route mainly Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis. The UNHCR report said its strategy would be revised as necessary, especially if there were large migrant movements from Libya or in other parts of Europe. It added that it was possible that some migrants would try to sail from Greece and Turkey to Italy, because smuggling and trafficking networks were highly adaptable. New restrictions were likely to prompt refugees and migrants to try dangerous smuggling and trafficking networks, exposing them to serious risks and preventing humanitarian workers from coming to their aid, it said. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Alison Williams) Aden (AFP) - A US drone attack in southern Yemen killed two suspected Al-Qaeda members, the second deadly strike in as many days, security sources said Monday. The drone on Sunday targeted a car driving in Habban, killing "two Al-Qaeda fighters and wounding their driver," one of the sources said. The strike comes after an American drone attack on Saturday killed two other presumed Al-Qaeda members in their vehicle in Marib province, east of the capital Sanaa. Washington, which views Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch as its most dangerous, acknowledged on May 7 that a "very small number" of US military personnel have also been deployed in support of the operation to retake former Al-Qaeda stronghold of Mukalla. Al-Qaeda exploited the civil war in Yemen between Shiite Huthi rebels and government forces to expand its presence in the south and southeast. The United States regularly conducts air strikes against Al-Qaeda. A March strike on a training camp west of Mukalla killed more than 70 fighters. Washington (AFP) - The head of a prominent US Muslim advocacy group has strongly condemned the nightclub massacre in Florida, calling members of the Islamic State group an "aberration" amid allegations the gunman was inspired by the jihadists. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also called for unity and urged politicians not to "exploit" the slaughter in Orlando, which left 50 dead and dozens more injured. "This is a hate crime. Plain and simple. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Awad told a news conference. "It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims. Let me be clear, we have no tolerance for extremism of any kind." The FBI said the American gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who died in an exchange of fire with police, was believed to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS before the shooting. Awad referenced such reporting and said he had a word for IS members and supporters. "You do not speak for us. You do not represent us. You are an aberration, you are an outlaw ... they don't speak for our faith. They never belonged to this beautiful faith." With the 2016 race for the White House in full swing, Awad warned that perpetrators of attacks such as the one in Orlando "mean only to divide us" and called for calm on the political front. "And to those politicians who may try to exploit this tragedy, we ask them to respect the victims and their families. This is not the time to score points. This is not the time to exploit fear. This is the time for unity and faith." White House hopeful Donald Trump lost no time in claiming the killing showed he has been right about Islamic extremism all long. The Republican flag-bearer demanded that President Barack Obama stand down if he refused to blame the attack on what Trump called "radical Islam." The billionaire has previously argued that incidents like last year's San Bernardino shooting show that the United States should ban Muslim travelers. Stockholm (AFP) - The world's biggest nuclear powers, the US and Russia, are slowly reducing their nuclear arsenals but are modernising their capacities, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday. Nine states -- the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea -- had 15,395 nuclear warheads at the start of 2016, including 4,120 which were operationally deployed, the institutess annual report said. At the beginning of 2015, the number was 15,850. "Global nuclear weapon inventories have been declining since they peaked at nearly 70,000 nuclear warheads in the mid-1980s. The decline has been due primarily to cuts made in the Russian and US nuclear forces," researchers Shannon Kile and Hans Kristensen wrote in the report. The reductions are the result of three arms limitation treaties signed since 1991, as well as unilateral force reductions by the world's two nuclear superpowers. "However, the pace of their reductions appears to be slowing compared with a decade ago, and neither Russia nor the US... has made significant reductions in its deployed strategic nuclear forces since the bilateral New START treaty" entered into force in 2011, SIPRI said. Russia was estimated to have 7,290 nuclear warheads at the start of 2016, and the US 7,000, with the two countries accounting for 93 percent of nuclear weapons in the world, it said. They were followed by France (300), China (260), Britain (215), Pakistan (110-130), India (100-120), Israel (80) and North Korea (10), a reclusive country for which the data is uncertain and therefore not included in the overall totals. "None of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future," SIPRI said, noting that Washington and Moscow have "extensive and expensive nuclear modernisation programmes under way." Two bordering, rival countries are increasing their capacities: India is beefing up its nuclear-capable ballistic missile programme and speeding up its plutonium production, while neighbouring Pakistan is developing battlefield nuclear weapons in a bid to offset India's superior conventional forces. Pakistan's "nuclear arsenal may increase significantly over the next decade," the institute warned. SIPRI concluded that worldwide, "the prospects for genuine progress towards nuclear disarmament remain gloomy." The third season of American Crime, Season 2 of Rosewood, Season 6 of Veep, newbies This Is Us and Pitch are today among the latest television recipients of Californias lucrative tax credits. With the John Ridley-created series relocating from Austin, Texas and getting over $5.2 million, the series were part of the 11 projects that the California Film Commission announced Monday (see full list below) will be receiving part of the $65 million available this round to newly relocating TV series, recurring TV series and 1st season TV series picked up from pilots that had secured tax credits. Both Pitch and This is Us garnered tax credits for their pilots. Among the conditionally approved projects, Foxs Rosewood was the largest recipient with over $11.3 million in tax credits. Having relocated to California last year, HBOs Veep got $6.5 million for its upcoming sixth season. The 11 approved TV projects will generate around $464 million in direct in-state spending, including $171 million in wages to below-the-line crew members, according to the CFC. june 2016 CFC 2 list copy The latest application period ran from May 17-27, with only shows with series pick-ups eligible. The next round of tax credits will come at the end of this month with the window of June 27 to July 8 for feature films to apply for approximately $79 million in incentives. With more TV series, mini-series, MOWs, pilots and relocating series in the mix, the next TV round is from November 14- 29. Since the expanded and employment-centric tax credits program came into effect in 2015, relocating series has been a priority for the Golden State and the CFC with the likes of Veep, Mistresses, American Horror Story and Screen Queens moving to Cali. Snagging $9.2 million in credits the latter renewed Fox series from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuck was the big catch among the last round of TV incentive allotments back in early March this year. At the same time, California lost Supergirl this year as the Greg Berlanti EPd series moved from CBS to the CW for its second season and up to Vancouver where fellow WBTV shows Arrow, The Flash and DCs Legends Of Tomorrow film. Story continues Once capped at $100 million a year when it was first introduced in 2009, Gov. Jerry Brown greatly expanded the incentive when he signed the now-five-year, $330 million-a-year tax credit program into law in September 2014. Since then, California has clawed back some of the production that was once flooding out of the home of Hollywood to more lucrative states like NY, Georgia and Louisiana and Canadian provinces. Coming off its most successful year ever and with the Canadian dollar competitively low next to the U.S. currency, British Columbia took the unexpected move last year to bring its subsidies down from 33% to 28% starting on October 1. RelatedOn-Location L.A. Film Production Up Nearly 24% In Q1 Related stories Indie Producers Say They're Getting Shortchanged By California's Tax Incentives Program 'Scream Queens' 'Good Girls Revolt' & 'American Horror Story' Among 9 TV Projects Awarded California Tax Credits Pilot Locations 2016: Los Angeles Continues Rebound, New York Tally Slips CARACAS (Reuters) - The recent wave of lootings and food riots in crisis-hit Venezuela has left three people dead in the last week, authorities and a rights group said. The state prosecutor's office is investigating the deaths of a 21-year-old man in eastern Sucre state on Saturday, another 21-year-old man in the Caracas slum of Petare on Thursday, and a 42-year-old woman in the western state of Tachira last Monday. All three suffered gunshot wounds during chaotic scenes outside supermarkets, which have become a flashpoint for violence and looting amid scarcities of basics across the South American OPEC member country, according to local rights group Provea. A policeman has been arrested over the Tachira death. With basics such as flour and rice running short, crowds chanting "We want food!" are thronging supermarkets daily, presenting a major problem for the struggling leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro. More than 10 incidents of looting are occurring daily, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, a local monitoring group. Venezuela's political opposition is pursuing a recall referendum in an effort to remove the socialist Maduro from office. Maduro, 53, won election to succeed Hugo Chavez in 2013. The government accuses its opponents of deliberately stirring up trouble and seeking a coup. (Reporting by Sarah Dagher and Girish Gupta; editing by Andrew Cawthorne, G Crosse) Asuncion (AFP) - A top Venezuelan opposition leader on Monday launched a tour of Latin American countries to rally support for his side in its bid to remove President Nicolas Maduro from office. Henrique Capriles, a senior figure in the opposition MUD coalition, was in Paraguay and planned to move on to Argentina and Brazil. "Venezuela is a marvelous country but we need help from all of our brothers in the region for the constitution to be respected," he told reporters. He called on the South American regional blocs UNASUR and MERCOSUR to back his side's constitutional efforts to remove Maduro via a recall referendum. Capriles spoke after meeting with Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes. Capriles was scheduled to meet with Argentina's President Mauricio Macri and Brazil's foreign minister Jose Serra on later steps in his tour. The MUD blames Maduro for a severe economic crisis in Venezuela. Citizens are suffering shortages of basic food and goods. Maduro vows to hold on to power and push on with the "socialist revolution" launched by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez. Center-right leader Capriles lost his bid for the presidency in the 2013 election against Maduro. "The situation in Venezuela is not a matter for indifference," he said. "It can affect what happens in Paraguay and in all the countries in the region. Do not abandon us." MADRID (Reuters) - British telecoms operator Vodafone (VOD.L) will keep Spain's Ono as a separate company for tax reasons, a spokesman for the group said on Monday, after its 7.2 billion-euro (5.71 billion pounds) acquisition of the cable operator was sealed in 2014. Spain's Supreme Court recently ruled a tax imposed by Madrid's city council on telecoms companies for their use of land was legal, potentially opening the door to more taxes of this kind. Vodafone will not fully merge its Spanish business with Ono as a result, although it will keep control of the company. "Following a recent ruling, the tax burden the integrated company would have to contend with would be a lot higher than if the two companies remained separate," the spokesman said. The spokesman added that the new structure of the deal would have no impact on the group's close to 18 million clients in Spain as of the end of last year. (Reporting by Robert Hetz and Andres Gonzalez, Writing by Sarah White, Editing by Paul Day) (Reuters) - Wal-Mart (WMT.N) has turned to the chief of its Chinese business Sean Clarke to revive Asda, its British supermarket group which has been the biggest casualty in an industry price war that has hammered its sales for nearly two years. The U.S. group said Clarke would take over from his namesake Andy Clarke at Asda on July 11, tasked with repositioning the chain, which ranks third after Tesco (TSCO.L) and Sainsbury's (SBRY.L), in the "very competitive" British marketplace. The move comes as a surprise after Andy Clarke said last week that Roger Burnley would succeed him at some point after the incoming executive joins the firm in October. Asda poached Burnley from rival Sainsbury's last year. Wal-Mart International's president and chief executive David Cheesewright said Burnley would be deputy chief executive, and he viewed him as a "top talent and future chief executive". Sean Clarke, who started his career at Asda in 2001, said he was "looking forward to returning to the business that got him hooked on retail". He rejoins a supermarket that has reported seven straight quarters of underlying sales declines, and a loss of market share, including surrendering its second place in the market to Sainsbury's, according to industry data. Asda has been the laggard among Britain's big four supermarkets, which also includes Morrisons (MRW.L), as German discount chains Aldi [ALDIEI.UL] and Lidl[LIDUK.UL] have successfully targeted British shoppers. Andy Clarke has run Asda for six years. Wal-Mart said last month it would shift the balance of Asda's strategy from protecting profits to protecting market share, indicating more price cuts might be on the way. The company also said Dirk Van De Berghe, CEO of Wal-Mart Canada, will take over leadership of Walmart's China business. (Reporting by Parikshit Mishra in Bengaluru and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Sunil Nair and Kate Holton) June 12 (Reuters) - Walgreens Boots Alliance said it is terminating its relationship with Theranos and closing operations at all 40 Theranos Wellness Centers at its stores in Arizona. The company, the largest drugstore chain in the United States, said it will be working over the next several days to help transition customers. Walgreens said it informed Theranos that tests collected at its Wellness Centers at Walgreens stores in Arizona must be sent only to Theranos certified lab in the Phoenix area or to an accredited third-party lab for analysis. It said no patient samples were to be sent to the Newark lab until all issues raised by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have been fully resolved. Theranos Inc was sued in late May and is accused of endangering customer health through "massive failures" that misrepresented the accuracy and quality of its blood tests. The blood-testing company once touted its Edison device as a ground-breaking technology able to test blood from just a pinprick. The CMS said in January that Theranos's practices violated several clinical-laboratory regulations, jeopardizing patient health and safety. Theranos has been in the spotlight after reports in the Wall Street Journal suggested that its blood-testing devices were flawed and had problems with accuracy. (Reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Trott) The second season of Fear the Walking Dead has taken the walker action to the water and now fans of the original series will get their chance, too. The second annual Walker Stalker Cruise is set for an epic voyage, and EW can exclusively announce that The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus, Chandler Riggs, Michael Cudlitz, Tom Payne, Michael Traynor, and Greg Nicotero will be among the vacationers. A collaboration between Walker Stalker Con and festival cruise company Sixthman, the three-night cruise will be filled with the usual festivities (drinks, food, sun, etc.), but will also feature panels, photo ops, autograph sessions, cosplay contests, themed celebrations, and more. All the walker-themed action will take place on the Norwegian Pearl, which will set sail on Feb. 3, 2017 in Miami and make a stop at Great Stirrup Cay, a private island in the Bahamas. Check out the video below for a taste of last years inaugural Walker Stalker Cruise, which attracted over 2,600 fans. For more information, visit the voyage's official website. Streaming music appears to represent the future of how individuals listen to their favorite artists. It is safe for investors to assume that streaming music is here to stay, but the question remains: Which companies will be profitable and offer shareholders superior returns and which ones will fade into irrelevancy like Rdio? Business Insider has an article which attempts to answer this relevant question. The publication spoke with Giasone Salati of Macquarie Research who said that the music industry "is on the verge of a structural multi-decade growth period, which will likely benefit all industry players." Related Link: Google, Apple Are Doing Something New That Could Be A Positive For Pandora Stock Selection Nevertheless, Salati added that his stock selection is "relatively narrow," but includes a few notable names. 1. Revenue from music represented 20 percent of Sony Corp (ADR) (NYSE: SNE) total operating profits as the company's record labels includes names such as Adele. 2. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s streaming music service is relatively small with around 1 million tracks, but its strength comes from brand integration. Specifically, an individual that pays $99 a year for two-day delivery via Amazon Prime is more likely to use its streaming service, and vice-versa. 3. Korea-listed Loen Entertainment Inc dominates the local streaming music scene with a 60 percent market share. 4. Vivendi SA (ADR) (OTC: VIVHY) owns the Universal Music Group which includes some of the biggest artists including Justin Bieber, Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and Rolling Stones. The company is well positioned to take advantage of the continued shift to streaming music reduce some of the inefficiencies related to multiple cost structures (i.e., physical, download, streaming). See more from Benzinga 2016 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. After a string of successful true-crime series have entranced viewers (and listeners) from Netflix to NPR, HBO is offering up a good old-fashioned fictional crime drama. But the eight-episode miniseries, The Night Of, couldnt feel more real, down to the badges on the baffled NYPD officers. The story centers on a young man (Riz Ahmed) from a Muslim family in Queens, who is accused of committing a murder he has no recollection of committing. He finds himself caught up in the sprawling tentacles of New York Citys criminal justice system with a lawyer (John Turturro), hired in a moment of desperation, who may be in way over his head. The series looks like a beautifully shot, much more complex rendering of the kind of story that might be told on Law & Order, spread over enough episodes to delve more deeply than that show ever could into each characters back story and personal motivations. Based loosely on a BBC miniseries called Criminal Justice, it was written by novelist and screenwriter Richard Price (The Wire) and directed by Steve Zaillian, who wrote Schindlers List and directed A Civil Action, among other films. The Night Of premieres July 10. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will deliver remarks on terrorism just one day after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. In the wake of the attacks, Trump has been highly critical of American leaders including President Obama and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump has also re-upped calls to ban Muslims from immigrating to the U.S., because of the religion of the shooter, identified by police as Omar Mateen. Mateen, however, was an American-born U.S. citizen. Mateen opened fire in an Orlando nightclub on Sunday, in a mass shooting that left 49 dead and 53 wounded. Mateen was killed in a shoot-out with police. Officials believe the gunman was radicalized via the internet, but do not believe that he was directed by external terror groups. Both Trump and Clinton will address the shooting in speeches on Monday. Trump will speak at 2:30 p.m. ET. Donald Trump will answer to his critics after sharing what many called an insensitive tweet in the wake of the horrific mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub on Sunday. Appearing from Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump will address national security and terrorism in a press conference, streaming live on PEOPLE starting at 2:30 p.m. ET. After the shootings the deadliest in U.S. history Trump initially tweeted, "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" Despite the backlash ("Is this the grossest tweet in Twitter history? Yes. I think it is," wrote Eric Stonestreet), Trump told Today, Monday, "I said while I appreciate because I've been receiving tens of thousands of tweets literally tweets and calls and letters and everything because I've been the one that predicted it. What I said is 'I want you to be strong, I want you to be vigilant and I want you to be smart.' I don't want the credit." Trump also called for President Obama to "resign in disgrace" over his response to radical Islamic terrorism. Related Video from TIME: Witness Describes Scene at Mass Shooting in Orlando The gunman, Omar Siddiqui Mateen, was "mentally unstable," according to his ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy. The Islamic state has claimed responsibility for the attack which left 50 dead, and 53 more injured and a source previously told PEOPLE that authorities are looking into Mateen's background for connections. Hillary Clinton also addressed the shootings in a speech on Monday, saying, "We cannot contain this threat, we must defeat it." "We need continued American leadership to help resolve the political conflicts that fuel the ISIS recruitment efforts," Clinton said. Photo: GETTY On Sunday night, British political commentator, journalist and author Owen Jones stormed off the set of SkyNews newspaper reviews show during a discussion about the shooting of 50 people at a gay Latino club night in Orlando, Florida. As a gay man, Jones was offended by the host Mark Longhursts suggestion that we delineate between the Orlando massacre as a terrorist attack and homophobic attack, as though it must be one or the other. Drawing an apt analogy, Jones told Longhurst and his fellow panellist Julia Hartley-Brewer, If he [the Orlando shooter] went into a synagogue and killed innocent Jewish people [...] wed call it out for what it is. Owen Jones did well to remind us its not incidental that this attack was focussed on an LGBT venue, of all the clubs in Orlando. He also pointed to reports that suspected shooter Omar Mateens father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC News that his son apparently became angry after seeing men kissing in Miami a few months ago. Longhurst attempted to argue that the attack was an assault on the freedom of all people trying to enjoy themselves." This fell flat, because well, as a friend put it quite simply this morning this attack was far too specific. You dont understand this because youre not gay. Owens anger on SkyNews was palpable, and the moment that this stood out the strongest for me was when he told Longhurst: You dont understand this because youre not gay. Some people will have seen this as the moment Jones floundered, others might think it sounded like a schoolyard retort. But crucially, this is the moment when Jones made it sound like gay people have the right to see this attack differently. And from where Im standing, they do. As I scroll through my personal social media feed today, as I talk to my gay friends about what happened, and when I think about the attack myself as someone who identifies as gay, it is clear that LGBT people are taking Orlando personally. Story continues 50 LGBT brothers and sisters slaughtered in the Pulse Club in Orlando, wrote transgender journalist Shon Faye on Facebook yesterday. What has happened in Orlando today is a sign that contrary to how it might be presented, the safety of queer people is always under threat, writes London drag queen Amrou Al-Kadhi. Homophobia still exists, and this weekend's attacks should serve as a reminder to our community that we still have so much to do, writes gay filmmaker Ashley Joiner. To be clear: This isnt about who cares more. It's about resonance. My straight friends walls remain largely devoid of responses. To be clear: This isnt about who cares more. If you listen to SkyNews carefully, Jones (ever articulate) also makes it abundantly obvious that this argument isnt about ownership. Its not a competition or a case of this has affected me more than you. Rather, its about resonance. And the reason this attack resonates so strongly with LGBT people is not just because we can so easily imagine ourselves in that club on Saturday night anyone could imagine that its because we are a historically oppressed community; and you hurt one of us, you hurt all of us. Gay solidarity exists not just because each and every LGBT person has experienced homophobia first hand, but because, when youre gay, it can be difficult to feel a sense of belonging to anything else. It can be hard to reconcile your homosexuality with a sense of nationalism once you become aware that the State only decriminalised homosexuality in 1967. It can be hard to reconcile your homosexuality with religion, when religions like Islam and Christianity tend to preach that homosexuality is wrong. No wonder so many gay people find their sense of belonging in the gay community. This is, I think, what Jones is talking about when he says You dont understand this because youre not gay. Where is Facebooks rainbow flag filter for the biggest massacre of LGBT people in recent history? From my point of view, the downplaying of this attack as homophobic is evident beyond the SkyNews debacle. The Times and Sun newspapers omitted references to the fact the club was gay in their headlines this morning. Mention of the atrocity is notably absent from the Daily Mail s front page today, which instead focusses on the Queen's birthday and the "Fury Over Plot To Let 1.5 Mil Turks Into Britain." And where is Facebooks rainbow flag filter for the biggest massacre of LGBT people in recent history? Perhaps this is part of the reason that, tonight at 7pm, there will be a London vigil for those who died in the Orlando shooting on Old Compton Street in Soho. Its not a coincidence that this is home to some of Londons longest standing gay clubs, just as Jones, myself, and a lot of my gay friends do not view it as a coincidence that the Orlando shooting was targeted at gay people, in a gay club. The vigil which will be likely attended by gay people and straight people is about bodies on the street showing the likes of Mark Longhust and Julia Hartley-Brewer and anyone else who might show indifference to the fact that this was a homophobic attack that, actually, a great number of people see it as one. We see it as connected to the stabbing of six people at Jerusalem Gay Pride last August (Reuters). The murder of 10 trans people in America in the first five months of this year (The Advocate). And the 5,597 homophobic hate crimes recorded in Britain between 2014-2015 (The Independent). Clearly, homophobia is still rampant, and in the face of such a specific type of atrocity as Orlando, it is comforting to see politicised LGBT people mobilising to make noise about this problem. If any good can come of the evil that took place in Florida, its that it will serve as a brutal reminder that the fight for tolerance of all people gay, straight, Latino, Muslim is a battle far from won. In the days that follow, there is one thing Id like to see on social media, though. And its more discussion of the fact that gay lives matter. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here? What's Happening To The UK's Sexual Health Centres Here's What An Undercover CIA Agent Learned About Foreign Policy It's Not Too Late To Do Something To Save Our Oceans TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / June 13, 2016 / Wi2Wi Corporation (Wi2Wi or the Company) (TSXV: YTY), a leading global developer and manufacturer of wireless connectivity solutions, high precision frequency control, timing, and microwave filter devices, is pleased to announce a Low power BLE module WE7220B0, the first product from its embedded series of products. WE7220B0 module with integrated antenna provides everything required to create a Bluetooth low energy product. It integrates Low Noise Amplifier, Power Amplifier, RF switch, Baluns, baseband, crystals, filter, Microcontroller, qualified Bluetooth v4.1 stack, allowing reduced design cost, complexity, and faster time to market for the customer. With a Packet-by-packet automatic gain control, this module allows the end system to work with improved performance, even in a high interference environment. The best in class small form factor, and cost effective WE7220B0, using advanced power management features and consuming Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says that the whistleblower organization will publish more emails Hillary Clinton sent and received on her private email server while Secretary of State. We have emails pending publication, that is correct, Assange told U.K. television on Sunday. The Wikileaks founder was speaking from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has lived since July 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where is he wanted for rape allegations dating back to 2010. Assange did not indicate when or how many of Clintons emails he would leak, the Guardian says. The FBI is currently investigating whether the presumptive Democratic presidential nominees handling of classified information violates federal law and State Department procedures. In May, the State Departments Office of Inspector General released a 78-page report that harshly criticized Clintons email practices. In March, Wikileaks set up a public, searchable Hillary Clinton email database, which archives 30,322 emails and email attachments sent to and from Clinton between June 2010 and August 2014. [The Guardian] In the aftermath of Sunday's shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Islamophobic sentiment is running high. The shooter, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, reportedly pledged his support to the Islamic State group, otherwise known as ISIS in a 911 call just before the attack; after ISIS took credit for the shooting, Donald Trump came forward with a new round of anti-Muslim rhetoric and social media and traditional media began blindly targeting Muslims. But the hate has also inspired courageous acts of love, including one moment detailed by a New York City woman in a Facebook post that's gone viral. During her morning commute Monday, Amaira Hasan wrote about watching the scene when a man boarded her subway car and began verbally abusing two women in hijab. The man told them to "go back home and take their bombs with them." And that's when the rest of the train rose up to shut him down. "This is New York City," one bystander said, according to the post. "'The most diverse place in the world. And in New York, we protect our own and we don't give a fuck what anyone looks like or who they love, or any of those things. It's time for you to leave these women alone, sir." According to Hasan, the train then stopped so that the "royal douche" could be booted out its doors amid cheers from the passengers. She was late for work, she wrote, "but for the best reason." "I say all this to say that in light of all the bad happening around us, remember that there's so much good and so much love," Hasan said. At least 49 people died and 53 were injured in the attack, the deadliest ever committed on U.S. soil. London (AFP) - Crowds flocked to vigils around the world in shock at the shooting of dozens of Florida club-goers in the deadliest ever attack on the gay rights movement. Thousands lined the streets in the central London district of Soho, long a hub for the gay community in Britain, bursting into chants of "we're here, we're queer, we will not live in fear" under rainbow flags. A policeman at the scene estimated the crowd at between 5,000 and 7,000 strong, as other rallies took place in cities from Berlin to Bangkok. "It's about solidarity, it's a way for our voice to be to be heard -- to try to tell everybody that love wins," said Julius Reuben, 35, wearing towering heels and a long black dress. "It made me feel more insecure," he added. "We shouldn't have to protect ourselves so much, we should be accepted for who we are." The crowd in London released 49 brightly coloured balloons into the sky for each one of the victims of Sunday's massacre at the gay nightclub in Orlando, the worst mass shooting in modern US history. Standing outside the Admiral Duncan, a pub where three people died when a neo-Nazi planted a nail bomb in a homophobic attack in 1999, Jennifer Hersey, a 36-year-old originally from Texas, wiped away a tear as she looked out onto the crowd. "It's amazing, because people could be scared. It's better that people gather and meet together. Every time that something horrible happens, people come out," she told AFP. The leader of Britain's opposition Labour party Jeremy Corbyn attended the vigil as did London mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to hold the post. "It was an attack on our freedoms and our values," Khan said in a television interview before the rally. "What's really important is that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the victims and their families in Orlando." - 'Act of hate' - In Australia, the landmark Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit with the rainbow colours of the gay community flag as hundreds gathered to condemn terror and homophobia. Story continues "This could have happened anywhere," Paul Savage told AFP at a candlelit vigil for the victims on the busy strip that hosts Sydney's annual Mardi Gras pride march. "He could easily have walked into a bar in Sydney," he said, though he added that Australia's tighter gun laws were "much more helpful" in preventing the mass shootings that claim hundreds of lives each year in the United States. In Berlin, more than 100 people gathered outside the US embassy to lay flowers, light candles and wave rainbow flags. And in the Netherlands, the first country to legalise same-sex marriage, hundreds gathered at Amsterdam's "Homomonument", composed of three pink triangles, designed to commemorate gay men and women who have been persecuted because of their sexuality. But in Moscow a couple were arrested as they tried to leave a tribute outside the US embassy, the RBK newspaper reported. Islam Abdullabeckov, a social media editor for the newspaper, and his boyfriend Felix Glyukman were trying to leave flowers and a sign reading "Love wins - Stay with Orlando" outside the embassy when they were detained, they told RBK. In an outpouring of solidarity similar to that seen after the Paris and Brussels attacks, social media were awash with messages of support for the families of the victims. The Eiffel Tower was lit up in rainbow colours and the colours of the American flag in solidarity, as the city still reels from November jihadist attacks in which 130 people were killed. The Islamic State group, which was behind the Paris and Brussels attacks, also claimed responsibility for the Florida bloodshed. In one of several vigils across the United States, hundreds gathered in New York's Greenwich Village on Sunday to leave flowers beside a sign reading "Stop Hate", and the One World Trade Center's spire was lit up in rainbow colours. Leaders around the world sent condolences, with Pope Francis expressing shock at Mateen's "homicidal folly and senseless hatred". US President Barack Obama denounced the attack at the Pulse nightclub by slain shooter Omar Mateen, which also wounded 53, as "an act of terror and an act of hate". We issued an updated research report on onshore contract driller Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. PTEN on Jun 10, 2016. The companys fleet includes the technologically advanced Apex rigs, which are the key to its success. Despite the recent improvement in oil prices since February, the commodity is still trading under the $50 per barrel mark. This is about half the level at which crude traded two years ago and is far below the breakeven price for many energy companies. Hence, Patterson-UTIs near-term prospects do not seem too bright amid weak crude pricing. This is reflected in Patterson-UTIs Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), which implies that the stock will perform in line with the broader U.S. equity market over the next one to three months. Patterson-UTI Energy is the second-largest North American land drilling contractor with a large, high-quality fleet of drilling rigs. The companys proprietary design makes the rigs move faster, drill quicker and more efficiently than the conventional rigs. The companys advanced technology allows for a safer operating environment. As such, these rigs are better suited to fulfill the demands of the exploration business and, therefore, command higher dayrates and utilization than rigs from the other land drillers. Moreover, the company spent more than $1 billion over the last few years to build new land drilling rigs, as well as to modify, upgrade and maintain its drilling fleet. We believe that the new rigs and efficient equipment should give Patterson-UTI Energy an edge over competitors and help it weather the current volatile environment relatively better. Demand for newbuilds remains far more robust than older commodity units given their ability to drill the more challenging wells in emerging resource plays. As such, the dayrates for these rigs are expected to be higher. Additionally, Patterson-UTI's cost-control initiatives remain on track with lower average rig operating cost per day than the year-ago levels. Also, the companys rig count continues to decline and the company is expecting it to go down further. This is likely to act as a positive step toward balancing the market, given the extreme overcapacity. Story continues However, as is the case with the other oil services and equipment suppliers, results for Patterson-UTI are directly exposed to crude prices, which are inherently volatile and subject to complex market forces. As a result, the ongoing slump in oil prices have curtailed drilling and dampened equipment demand, thereby adversely affecting bookings at Patterson-UTI. Stocks to Consider Some better-ranked players in the energy space include Braskem S.A. BAK, PetroChina Co. Ltd. PTR and Sasol Ltd. SSL. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report PETROCHINA ADR (PTR): Free Stock Analysis Report SASOL LTD -ADR (SSL): Free Stock Analysis Report BRASKEM SA (BAK): Free Stock Analysis Report PATTERSON-UTI (PTEN): Free Stock Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research Apple wants to take the hassle out of signing into and authenticating apps on its Apple TV device but its latest push for a simpler TV experience may not actually work for everyone. Thats because Apple doesnt yet seem to have the backing of some major pay TV operators for the new feature. Apple introduced a new feature dubbed single sign-on at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco Monday. Single sign-on aims to take the pain out of authenticated TV services like Watch ABC, HBO Go and Showtime Anytime by taking away the need to sign into every single app. Instead, users will be able to sign into just one app, and automatically be authenticated for all other pay TV apps available to them. The new feature will be available on both Apple TV as well as iPhones and iPads in the U.S. this fall if your TV provider is on board, that is. Apple showed off Dish as a participating operator during the WWDC keynote, but didnt mention any other supporting operators, and an Apple spokesperson didnt respond to repeated requests from Variety on the issue. Many pay TV operators were equally mum on the issue Monday. However, Variety has learned that not everyone may be ready to commit to Apples approach just yet. Comcast in particular seems to still weigh its options and is currently exploring whether to support Apples solution for its 22.4 million Xfinity TV subscribers. Thats not because the industry is opposed to single sign-ons. Many networks in particular have long pushed to make it easier to use authenticated apps. Just last week, the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) and the Open Authentication Technology Committee (OATC) jointly introduced a single sign-on initiative backed by Comcast and Cox as well as NBCUniversal, Disney, Fox, AMC and others that wants to offer functionality very similar to the one introduced by Apple Monday. However, Apple isnt a member of either group, and seemingly built its own solution. Apples single sign-on may still work with some of the same building blocks already used by the industry; both TV Everywhere authentication specialist Synacor as well as Adobe, which has been building TV Everywhere solutions for some time, pledged support on Monday. However, TV providers may still need to take a closer look at the solution before theyre committing to support it. Story continues Whats more, authentication for TV Everywhere apps has also long been held back by business decisions. Comcast in particular has been very deliberate in the past about authenticating these kinds of apps. Xfinity subscribers for example cant authenticate the newest Starz app for Xfinity subscribers, reportedly because it combines TV Everywhere functionality with a standalone subscription service plan within the same app. And Comcast didnt allow its subscribers to use HBO Go and Showtime Anytime on Roku devices for several years until finally changing course at the end of 2014. Thats not to say that Apple may not be able to sway some TV operators to allow single sign-on when it eventually becomes available this fall. But its far from certain that the new feature will work for everyone. Related stories Apple Music Now Has 15 Million Subscribers, Gets New App Design Apple TV Gets Sling TV App, Single Sign-On Functionality for TV Everywhere Apple's New App Store Rules a Big Boon for Netflix, Hulu & Co. The robot Pepper during a press conference oat the CHR Citadel hospital centers of Liege on June 13, 2016 (AFP Photo/John Thys) (AFP) Liege (Belgium) (AFP) - His diction is still a little odd, and his movements sometimes a bit hesitant, but Pepper the robot is all geared up to help patients at two Belgian hospitals. The humanoid assistant, who has a screen on his chest and a round head, is the first robot in the world to be used to greet people in a medical setting, his software creators said. Pepper is taking up reception duties at hospitals in Ostend and Liege, where he was unveiled at the Centre Hospitalier Regional La Citadelle on Monday. Standing 140 centimetres (4 ft 7 in) tall and equipped with wheels under his white frame, Pepper can recognise the human voice in some 20 languages and detect if he is talking to a man, woman or child. In Liege the robot helper, who costs about 30,000 euros, will for the moment remain in the hospital's reception area. But at the AZ Damiaan hospital in Ostend, he can accompany visitors to the department they are looking for, said Raphael Tassart of Belgian firm Zora Bots which developed the software inside his robot brain. Robots like Pepper, whose components come from Asia but are assembled in France, have already been tested in Japanese shops and a few large French malls, generally carrying out retail functions. "But it's the first time that they will be used in reception," said the spokesman. Another line of smaller robots made by the same company, the 57-centimetre tall Nao, have already been deployed in some 300 hospitals and retirement or care homes around the world. In Liege and Ostend, they are used as a support tool in the paediatric and geriatric departments. Online reservation platform Hotels.com has become the latest travel partner for ride-share program Uber. Travelers who have downloaded the Hotels.com mobile app and booked a room through the online reservation site will now be able to hail an Uber ride to their hotel with a single click. The new feature is available for Android users in 30 languages. Users will see the Uber option appear on their mobile app on the first day of their hotel stay. When the feature is activated, the user's current location and the hotel address are automatically saved in the Uber app, for a seamless experience. It's the latest hotel partnership for the ride-sharing service -- a trend that threatens to make the sight of taxis pulling up to hotel driveways obsolete. Last year, InterContinental Hotels Group, which includes brands such as the Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Intercontinental and Kimpton -- launched an Uber feature allowing guests to book a ride directly through the hotel's mobile app and earn hotel loyalty rewards. Likewise, Hilton Worldwide allows their loyalty members to order an Uber to their hotel straight from their mobile app. The Amazon Echo is a black cylinder that sits on a shelf and responds to your spoken commands, like Siri for the home. Critics and customers alike adore this thing (heres my review). But, as a wise man once said: Whats astonishing is that no other company is making a rival. Amazon has invented a product category with only one product in it. (OK, it was me.) Well, it didnt take long. Suddenly, voice assistants for the home are multiplying like rabbits. Amazon has introduced two spinoff models: the Tap, which is a battery-powered Echo, and the Dot, which is a very small Echo. Google has now announced an Echo copycat called Google Home, and Apple is rumored to be working on one, too. Finally, intriguingly enough, Amazon has begun offering its Echo technology to other companies, in hopes of letting a thousand Echoes bloom. The first one has now arrived, courtesy of a French company called Invoxia. Its cute, its weird, its flawed, and it takes Echo spoken commands. Meet the Triby ($170). Parts of the sum Triby (pronounced tribby) doesnt look high-tech at all on purpose. Its meant to be friendly, charming, and kid-friendly. It looks vaguely like a flattened radio, complete with a carrying handle, and it has a colorful rubber bumper all the way around. The black-and-white e-ink screen is always on; if it has nothing else to say, it shows the current time and date, temperature, and humidity. Functionally, the Triby is a remix a peculiar new stew of familiar ingredients. Since its vaguely radio shaped, lets deal with that first. Yes, the Triby is a radio, a portable, battery-operated internet radio that you can carry around the house with you. Two physical buttons on the front can store your two favorite stations (you choose which they are using the Triby phone app); your presets can include favorite Spotify playlists, which is fantastic. (Weirdly, though, you cant voice-request Spotify playlists, as you can on the real Echo.) Story continues A third button produces a list of additional stations that you can scroll through. On top of the Triby, there are Play/Pause and Previous/Next buttons. Clearly, theres no room for 22-inch speakers inside this thing. But the sound quality is at the upper range of what youd expect, and the top volume is easily loud enough to be heard over running water or sizzling bacon. Which is lucky, since the kitchen is obviously where this thing is supposed to go. It has two strong magnets on the back, for handy slapping onto a refrigerator. You do, however, have to yank it off every couple of days to recharge its battery. (You can make the battery last a lot longer if you turn off the always-listening Echo feature, and instead press the button on the right side when you want to issue a spoken command.) Messaging As a proud occupant of the kitchen, the Triby is also a message center. Using its app, from anywhere in the world, any family member can type or even draw little messages. In seconds, accompanied by a happy chirp, the message appears on the Tribys black-and-white e-Ink screen back at home: The weirdest, cutest part is the spring-loaded, plastic yellow Post-It note that pops out of the Tribys left side a bizarre, low-tech New Message indicator. You can either shove it back into the body of the Triby, or you can press the emoji button underneath it and reply to the received message by selecting one of eight smiley-face icons. Since theres no way to type or speak a reply, its a good way to say to your message-sending family member, OK, got it. The phone app also lets you send typed or sketched messages to other people in your family, assuming theyve all got the Triby app. This part of the app keeps track of the little messages youve sent, for ease of re-sending later. The Triby is also a very loud, very good speakerphone for phone calls again, handy if youre busy or greasy with other things in the kitchen. There are even two speed-dial buttons on the Triby itself, which you can program to make a free internet phone call to the smartphone of, for example, Mom and Dad. (Here again, a third button produces a list of additional speed dial names.) If one of your homes occupants doesnt have a smartphone hey, it could happen these buttons make a pretty great emergency communication system. Even a 3-year-old could learn to mash one of those buttons whenever she wants to speak to her mom or dad. And then comes Alexa Ive saved the best for last: The Triby is also an Echo. Whenever you say your virtual assistants name (which can be Alexa, Amazon, or Echo), the Play button lights up, and the Triby listens for a spoken command. You know, the usual: Alexa, play Coldplay. Ask for any band, song, album, genre, and the music just starts. If, that is, youve set up an Amazon Prime or iHeartRadio account. Alexa, play WCBS. You can request any radio station. Alexa, whats the news? Alexa plays NPRs latest headline summary. Alexa, whats the weather in Dallas this weekend? As youd expect. Alexa, set a timer for 20 minutes. Worlds easiest kitchen alarm. Alexa, wake me up at 7:20 a.m. The Echo is rock-solid on alarms. Alexa, how far is it from Chicago to Tampa? Shell convert units, give you historical or geographical facts, calculate the days of the week for dates, fill you in on movie and music trivia, and on and on. Alexa, when do the Cavaliers play next? Shes up on schedules and teams. Alexa: Wikipedia Taylor Swift. She reads the first couple of lines from the corresponding Wikipedia entry. Alexa, how do you spell fluorescent? She can spell or define any word. Alexa, whens my next appointment? You can ask various things about your Google calendar, once youve told the Echo app your Google account details. Alexa, ask Uber for a ride. Triby tells you how many minutes away the nearest car is, and asks if you want to continue or cancel. Its quite awesome. Alexa, tell me a joke. Shes always good for a short, painful pun or two. (Heres a tip: If you have a fear of elevators, take steps to avoid them.) There are hundreds more commands. In fact, Amazon has been aggressively adding new features to the Echo new vocabulary for Alexa every week, and therefore the Triby also gets more useful over time. Just because the Triby has inherited Alexas spirit doesnt make it a full Alexa clone, though. The Triby is slower to respond to your commands than an actual Echo, and more likely to misunderstand them. Thats particularly frustrating when youre listening to the radio on Triby; you have to pause the radio before you can get Triby to listen to a command. The Triby can respond to almost any Echo command, but not all of them. Some of the skills (add-on Echo features written by independent programmers) dont work on the Triby. You cant voice-request songs from Spotify or Pandora. You can ask for an alarm, but not more than one, and you cant specify the volume. The Triby cant auto-connect to smart-home products like Hue light bulbs and WeMo internet-connected power strips (although you can control them if youve set them up with an actual Echo). The trouble with Triby Every now and then, some electronics company thinks that what the modern kitchen really needs is a family communications hub. Remember the 3Com Audrey? Gateway Connected Touch Pad? Compaq iPaq IA-1? Honeywell WebPad? Didnt think so. Theyre always underpowered and goofy, and they always die an ignominious death in the marketplace. The Triby is treading on a path littered with the corpses of earlier attempts at making a kitchen computer hub. Thats not the only strike against it. Heres another: Its not polished. Theres no instruction manual. Alexa sometimes ignores you. And there are bugs. The big problem, though, may be this. Just about every person who sees the Tribys repertoire winds up saying, Why not just use your phone? And thats kind of a good point. Your phone already takes spoken commands, plays internet radio, and makes free internet phone calls. It already lets you send texts and calls to other people. Who, exactly, would benefit from a $170 gadget that duplicates those functions in a static location? Heres one possible answer: young children or old relatives. Thanks to its rugged design, its big buttons, its simple layout, its bright yellow youve got a message flag, and its one-touch speed-dial speakerphone functions, the Triby makes a useful, nonthreatening link between you and your very young or very old loved ones back home. Everyone else can be forgiven for passing over the Triby but not before taking note of its arrival. Maybe the Triby isnt destined to adorn many fridge doors any time soon. But as the first licensed Amazon Echo clone, its an important harbinger of future offerings. Its our first inkling that very soon, all kinds of things in our homes will listen to our commands, and obey. David Pogue is the founder of Yahoo Tech; heres how to get his columns by email. On the Web, hes davidpogue.com. On Twitter, hes @pogue. On email, hes poguester@yahoo.com. He welcomes non-toxic comments in the Comments below. When Microsoft (MSFT) announced plans to buy the Finnish phone maker Nokia in 2013, then CEO Steve Ballmer called it a bold step into the future. It was more like a step off the plank. Microsoft never got traction in the smartphone market and wrote down the $7.9 billion deal barely a year later laying off roughly 80% of the Nokia employees it had brought on board. Microsofts just-announced purchase of LinkedIn (LNKD), under new CEO Satya Nadella, looks like a smarter deal. Microsoft is paying $26.2 billion to fully acquire the social network for professionals, a 49% premium to LinkedIn's stock price prior to the deal. Its the first big acquisition for Nadella, who took over from Ballmer in 2014. "Owning LinkedIn gives Microsoft a great way to keep a pulse on what business users are doing on the web and how they may use certain tools and products," analyst Jack Gold of J. Gold Associates advised clients, following news of the deal. "This ability will give Microsoft lots of knowledge in how to deploy future products." Unlike Nokia, which was one of many smartphone makers when Microsoft bought it, LinkedIn is a market leader. LinkedIn sits alone at the top of the market for professional social networking, Morningstar says of the company. LinkedIn was founded in 2002 two years before Facebook and has a trove of data on its 433 million members. It earns the majority of its revenue helping companies recruit workers, with other revenue coming from advertising and a lead-generator service for salespeople. Nokia operated in a crowded market with low profit margins for most providers. And Microsoft bet on the companys phones, powered by Microsofts software, at a time when the smartphone market was consolidating under two primary brands, neither of them Microsoft: Googles (GOOGL) Android system and Apples (AAPL) iOS. The Nokia purchase was a bet on hardware never a Microsoft strong suit that simply came way too late. Story continues Aligning with LinkedIn, by contrast, actually does look like a bold step into the future. While other professional networks challenge LinkedIn in developing nations like China, Morningstar says, We do not believe [another] company could launch a competing offering. The only exception might be Facebook (FB), but Mark Zuckerberg's company seems more focused on connecting mass-market consumers and possibly getting into ecommerce than in challenging an established competitor in professional networking. Nadella wants to connect Microsofts cloud services with LinkedIns professional network. That seems to be a natural fit in a growing field with little overlap. Microsoft is the second largest cloud operator, after Amazon (AMZN), and that business is expected to continue growing rapidly as more companies outsource their storage and server needs. Microsoft has also moved its Office suite of software to the cloud, along with its Dynamics offering, which helps small- and medium-sized businesses manage clients and other matters. LinkedIn will now give professionals new ways to access Microsoft products, such as Office, Skype or Yammer, and let Microsoft pitch its offerings to a large new target group. There are always risks. Microsoft might be paying too much. Something new could come along to displace cloud computing or professional networking. And Microsoft could bungle its pitch to LinkedIn members, alienating users with hard-sell tactics or tedious disruptions. At the outset, however, the Microsoft LinkedIn deal seems to match two business aligned about as well as possible for an unpredictable future. Rick Newmans latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman. A crowdsourced study has revealed the extent of abuse that women face online (AFP Photo/LEON NEAL) (AFP/File) North Korean hackers managed to steal thousands of records from private firms and state agencies in the South including defence industry information and files from Korean Air, Seoul police said Monday. The hacking originated from 16 servers based in the North's capital Pyongyang, police said, adding the North had stolen more than 42,000 internal records. The North gained access to the internal systems of the firms and agencies at some point after hacking in 2014 into computer management software developed by a Seoul IT firm, according to the police. The breach was discovered earlier this year. The hackers also planted 33 types of malicious code into the computers in an apparent bid to use them as "zombie" machines to launch future cyberattacks on other organisations in the South, it said. The companies that were hacked include South Korea's flagship air carrier Korean Air and SK Networks, a sister company of South Korea's top wireless operator, SK Telecom, Yonhap news agency said. "We worked with the organisations that were targeted to recover the lost records and fortify their computer security to prevent further infiltration," the police said in a statement. Some of the stolen records however contained information about the defence industry or network data essential to stage cyberattacks, it added. The records include designs of military aircraft and Internet facilities at South Korean army barracks, according to the Yonhap. Police added that some of the 16 servers in Pyongyang had the same IP addresses as those that had staged a crippling cyberattack on Seoul's banks and TV broadcasters in 2013. Seoul has in recent years blamed the North's hackers for a series of cyberattacks on military institutions, banks, state agencies, TV broadcasters, media websites and a nuclear power plant. The attack in March 2013 left the websites and tens of thousands of computers at several TV stations and banks paralysed for hours. Pyongyang has angrily denied involvement in the attacks and accused Seoul of spreading fabrications aimed at slandering its leader. The North operates an army of more than 1,000 hackers who stage hacking or cyberattacks targeting Seoul's major institutions or key officials, according to the South's spy agency. Team, Im excited to share that today Microsoft announced a deal to acquire LinkedIn. You can see how Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, and I envision the opportunity ahead in thispublic presentation. This deal brings together the worlds leading professional cloud with the worlds leading professional network. I have been learning about LinkedIn for some time while also reflecting on how networks can truly differentiate cloud services. Its clear to me that the LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business and an impressive network of more than 433 million professionals. Given this is the biggest acquisition for Microsoft since I became CEO, I wanted to share with you how I think about acquisitions overall. To start, I consider if an asset will expand our opportunity specifically, does it expand our total addressable market? Is this asset riding secular usage and technology trends? And does this asset align with our core business and overall sense of purpose? The answer to all of those questions with LinkedIn is squarely yes. We are in pursuit of a common mission centered on empowering people and organizations. Along with the new growth in our Office 365 commercial and Dynamics businesses this deal is key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes. Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world. It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professionals information in LinkedIns public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task youre trying to complete. As these experiences get more intelligent and delightful, the LinkedIn and Office 365 engagement will grow. And in turn, new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising. Jeff and I both believe we have a significant opportunity to accelerate LinkedIns growth and the value it brings to its members with Microsofts assets and scale. In fact, when Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, and I spoke about the opportunity for us to come together, he called it a re-founding moment for LinkedIn and an opportunity to reach the mission the company set out on 13 years ago. The opportunity for Office 365 and Dynamics is just as profound. Over the past decade we have moved Office from a set of productivity tools to a cloud service across any platform and device. This deal is the next step forward for Office 365 and Dynamics as they connect to the worlds largest and most valuable professional network. In essence, we can reinvent ways to make professionals more productive while at the same time reinventing selling, marketing and talent management business processes. I cant wait to see what our teams dream up when we can begin working together once the deal closes, which we expect will happen this calendar year. A big part of this deal is accelerating LinkedIns growth. To that end, LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand and independence, as well as their culture which is very much aligned with ours. Jeff will continue to be CEO of LinkedIn, hell report to me and join our senior leadership team. In essence, what Ive asked Jeff to do is manage LinkedIn with key performance metrics that accrue to our overall success. Hell decide from there what makes sense to integrate and what does not. We know that near term there will be no changes in who reports to whom so no reporting relationships at Microsoft will change in that regard. This approach is designed to keep the LinkedIn team focused on driving results while simultaneously partnering on product integration plans with the Office 365 and Dynamics teams. During the integration, well pick key projects where we can go deep together that will ultimately result in new experiences for customers. Kurt DelBene will lead the overall integration efforts at Microsoft in close partnership with Qi Lu and Scott Guthrie. Im on the LinkedIn campus today in California and will host a call for investors at 8:45 a.m. PT with Jeff, Brad and Amy please join if you can. Following that, Ill then spend the day meeting with the LinkedIn team. Tomorrow, Ill host a special Microsoft employee Q&A I hope you can make it. So far, what Ive learned about the LinkedIn team is how much our cultures share many of the same attributes. We both care deeply about individual and collective growth, and find deep meaning in the work we do to make a difference in our world. Together well do just that. While Im in northern California sharing our vision to empower professionals, the Xbox team is in southern California at E3 sharing our vision to empower gamers. I encourage you to check out the E3 press briefing, which starts at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Finally, if youre not on LinkedIn, join up now and start using and learning more. Satya Samuel warned Kaan & Associates that nothing was going to go the way they thought it would in Cuba, and boy was he was right. In the series finale of Showtimes House of Lies, Marty and the Pod finally put their personal lives first and their professional lives second, allowing the payday to end all paydays to fall by the wayside in an effort to preserve the country and enable themselves to pursue what made them happy. Best of all, they still managed to screw over Monica and Skip. RELATEDShameless, Masters of Sex, The Affair Get Fall Premiere Dates In the end, Marty opted against striking a deal for the Kohl Brothers (one of whom was played by The Walking Deads Michael Cudlitz) to open up beachside resorts across Cuba, which in turn meant they wouldnt be buying out K&A. (So much for early retirement!) Rather than help the Kohls usher in a new era of capitalism in the country, Marty, Jeannie, Clyde and Doug used Monica and Skips dirty work against them to ensure no one would walk away with a deal. Knowing Monica was unaware that K&A was privy to the spyware she planted on Dougs computer, the Pod exchanged e-mails made to look like notes about how theyd convince officials that commercializing the country would reap great benefits. Once Monicas pitch to the Cubans went sour (because of course she stole K&As notes), the Kohls exchanged fisticuffs, pretty much guaranteeing theyd never do business there. RELATEDHomeland Season 6 to Feature Female President-Elect Jeannie, of course, was thrilled K&A would remain intact. As shown in the previous episode, the stay-at-home mom life just wasnt her cup of tea, and shes happiest when she and Marty are in business together. Similarly, Marty is at his happiest when hes with Jeannie and their daughter Phoebe, and thus he asked her to marry him after they crashed an outdoor wedding and argued over what a sale of K&A would mean for their future. The bride and groom wasted no time at all and married later that evening before stealing a car and hightailing it to the beach. Story continues RELATEDEpisodes Fifth Season Will Be Its Last Though Doug wasnt particularly thrilled about the call-off on early retirement, for now hell at least have a job where he can happily surf the web for X-rated materials. (And who knows, perhaps hell find that elderly woman he made out with in First Class and theyll live happily ever after.) As for Clyde? He was just happy he wouldnt have to enter a meaningless retirement where hed be left with nothing better to do than build affordable housing for those less fortunate. (What can we say? Clydes a garbage person.) What did you think of the House of Lies series finale? Was it the right time to end the show, or would you have liked to see Marty and Jeannie tackle marriage? Grade the episode in our poll, then sound off below. Launch Gallery: 2016 Fall TV Scoop: Babies, Deaths and More Related stories Penny Dreadful Recap: Love Bites Niecy Nash Joins Masters of Sex as [Spoiler]'s AA Advocate Masters of Sex Season 4: Being Erica Star Books Multi-Episode Arc The nations TV-news outlets mobilized to cover a tragedy in Orlando in which a shooter opened fire in a nightclub catering to LGBT customers, killing what is estimated to be about 50 people. Lester Holt, Matt Lauer Scott Pelley, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon and Bill Hemmer were among the high-visibility anchors who were dispatched to Orlando to provide on-the-scene coverage of the mass murder and its aftermath, a signal of the intense interest in an incident which authorities have suggested has terrorist undertones. NBC planned to devote a new Dateline to coverage of the event Sunday and to have Lester Holt anchor Sundays NBC Nightly News from Orlando. Matt Lauer is expected to anchor Today from Orlando Monday morning, NBC News said. CBS said Scott Pelley, Charlie Rose and Gayle King and Josh Elliott would all travel to Orlando to anchor CBS Evening News, CBS This Morning and the CBSN feed from Orlando. On Sunday night, 60 Minutes contained a segment with the latest updates on the story. ABC planned to run a special hour of 20/20 on Sunday evening and dispatched World News Tonight anchor David Muir to anchor coverage from Orlando for Sunday and Monday. Many of the networks have covered the horrific incident since early Sunday. MSNBC, for example, said its coverage began at 4:30 a.m. Eastern. Chris Jansing and Alex Witt anchored coverage in the late morning and early afternoon on the NBCUniversal-owned outlet until making way for Tamron Hall at 2 p.m., then Brian Williams at 3:50. He was expected to continue to hold forth on MSNBC through the evening. Fox News Channel pre-empted regular programming Sunday morning, giving the anchor reins to Bret Baier at 11 a.m., rather than running the regularly scheduled program at that time, MediaBuzz, a media-analysis program hosted by Howard Kurtz. At CNN, Jake Tapper devoted his political-talk program, State of the Union, to coverage of the incident, interviewing national-security analysts and Rep. Pete King, among others. Tapper continued to anchor coverage into the early afternoon. Story continues Scott Pelley anchored CBS and CBSN, CBS live streaming-video news feed, in the late morning. Willie Geist, normally on NBCs air Sunday to anchor Sunday Today, led an NBC News special report that started at 10:16 a.m. eastern and led rolling coverage that continued in the late morning and early afternoon. ABC News also broke into programming Sunday morning to cover the incident. Most of the cable networks have given way to wall-to-wall coverage, and clearly planned to devote the bulk of their coverage to Orlando heading into Monday. Fox News said Bill Hemmer and Greta Van Susteren were expected to anchor live from the scene on Monday to report on the most current developments. ABC said Good Morning America will cover the aftermath. with George Stephanopoulos and Amy Robach expected to be on the ground in Orlando on Monday June 13. NBC said Matt Lauer would be in Orlando to anchor coverage for Today. [Updated 5:06 PM PT] Related stories Media Coverage of Orlando Tragedy Follows Familiar Scripts TNT's 'The Last Ship' Season Premiere Postponed After Orlando Shooting Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Offer Contrasting Responses to Orlando Attack #police Man put under emergency detention for allegedly killing wife, 2 sons Police on Wednesday made an emergency apprehension of a man in his 40s on suspicion of killing his wife and their two teenage sons at their home in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul... #DP Opposition leader blasts gov't over Legoland crisis Opposition leader Lee Jae-myung blasted the government Wednesday over its handling of a debt default linked to the Legoland theme park project, warning it could lead to an economic... Merkel's visit focused squarely on economy Updated: 2016-06-13 08:09 By Fraser Cameron(China Daily) German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) receive an honorary doctorate from President of the University of Nanjing, Chen Jun (R) at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) in Beijing, China, 12 May 2016. The German Chancellor is in China 12-14 June to attend the 4th Sino-German government consultations.[Photo/IC] German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ongoing visit to China is focused on how the two countries can deepen economic relations and help boost a flagging global economy. The visit takes place two weeks after the G7 summit in Japan and just over two months before the G20 summit in China, where global economic issues are expected to dominate the agenda. Merkel will be accompanied by a large business delegation, and apart from talks in Beijing, she will also visit a Chinese-German joint venture in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning province. On the bilateral front, Merkel will bring several ministers for the regular China-Germany intergovernmental consultations. Top of the agenda is likely to be trade and investment, market access, innovation and cyber security. German companies such as Siemens have been vocal in criticizing China for failure to open markets and protect intellectual property rights. The European Chamber of Commerce also criticized Chinese restrictions in a report last week highlighting a drop in European Union investment in China due to "an increasingly hostile business environment". Although German investment in China has stalled, an increasing number of Chinese companies are seeking a foothold in Germany. Chinese investment in Germany rose more than 35 percent last year. These investments were often in high-tech areas as China seeks to benefit from German expertise and technology. This has raised some questions about whether Chinese enterprises should be allowed to take over companies with the latest technology. For example, the Midea Group is currently trying to buy Kuka, a German manufacturer of industrial robots and a flagship company for "Industrie 4.0"the fourth industrial revolution. This has provoked a debate in Germany on whether such technology should be protected. German law allows the government the right to veto the takeover of companies in sensitive sectors but so far the law has been rarely used. Merkel herself has adopted a hands-off approach to foreign takeovers of German enterprises. Already this year ChemChina has bought the machinery giant KraussMaffei; Beijing Enterprise Holdings plans to acquire a major German waste management company, Energy from Waste; and Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund LP plans to buy the German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron. Merkel is also likely to raise the sensitive issue of excess capacity, especially in steel production. This issue has now become linked with the debate over granting China market economy status later this year. Germany says it will wait for the impact assessment by the European Commission in July before taking a stance. On the positive side, an agreement on cyber security is due to be signed that aims to protect companies from economic espionage. The German chancellor is also expected to press Chinese leaders on the pace of internal economic reform, something Berlin strongly supports. Germany also has considerable experience in helping areas reliant on heavy industry to reform and change course. On the multilateral front, Merkel may seek to establish a link between the G7 and G20 summits. In Japan, the G7 called for "a more forceful and balanced policy mix, in order to swiftly achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth pattern". This phrase covered up differences between Germany and the UK on the one hand, which are determined to continue with their austerity policies, and other G7 countries wanting to pursue greater public spending to boost economic growth. Merkel may press China not to follow those countries ready to further increase public debt. There will be an exchange of views on trade issues against the background of the stalled major deals (Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). And Merkel will push for an early conclusion of the EU-China bilateral investment treaty negotiations. She is also expected to push forward other issues on the G20 agenda, including financial sector reform agenda and tax transparency. For Merkel, her trip to China will be a break from internal problems (finding a successor to President Joachim Gauck) and European difficulties (UK referendum, migration, Ukraine). The author is director of the EU-Asia Centre in Brussels. Time for parents to understand their kids' importance Updated: 2016-06-13 09:03 By Cai Hong(China Daily) Yamato Tanooka, a 7-year-old Japanese boy who miraculously survived six days alone in a mountain forest, leaves hospital in the Hokkaido city of Hakodate on June 7, 2016, with his parents making a deep bow.[Photo/IC] The rescue of seven-year-old Japanese boy Yamato Tanooka after he survived six nights alone in Hokkaido's woods prompted the whole of Japan to deliberate on how to properly disciple children. Tanooka's parents forced him out of their car and left him on a mountain road in the bear-inhabited forest on May 28 as punishment for throwing stones at cars and people. While Japanese rescue workers and Self-Defense Force personnel were scouring the forest for Tanooka, he had walked almost 7 kilometers to a SDF training facility. He kept himself warm by sleeping between two mattresses and drank water from a tap he came across in the SDF training camp (he didn't get anything solid to eat). The second grader's endurance and survival skills awed the whole of Japan. And his parents were condemned for treating their son too harshlysome people called for understanding of parental frustration, though. Many Japanese parents consider disciplining children an important part of their children's development. As an old Japanese saying goes, there are four things to be feared in life: earthquakes, thunder, fire and fathers. In old times, Japanese fathers were regarded as strict and men of authority. But it seems their authority (when it comes to raising a child) has diminished over the past generation. If you thought college was expensive for parents in the United States, pity the families of the United Arab Emirates. Parents in the Persian Gulf nation spend an average $18,360 per year toward their childs college education. That compares with $14,678 in the U.S., according to HSBCs annual report on the value of a college education. The report surveyed more than 6,200 parents in 15 countries. Across all countries, parents say they spend an average of $7,631 per year on their childrens college education. The United Arab Emirates is one of only three countries where parents spend more than in the United States, largely because families in the UAE send their children to college abroad. The other two are Hong Kong (where the yearly average is $16,182) and Singapore ($15,623). The 11 countries where parents spend less than parents in the U.S. are: Malaysia: $8,720 yearly average Taiwan: $8,188 United Kingdom: $6,566 Canada: $5,990 China: $5,718 France: $5,465 Australia: $5,146 Mexico: $3,807 India: $3,211 Indonesia: $2,655 Egypt: $1,210 College isnt just costing parents in the U.S., however its also costing students. In the U.S., HSBC found that 37 percent of students contribute toward the cost of their college education. Thats the second-highest rate among the 15 countries. Canadian students are the only ones more likely to contribute to their college costs, with 39 percent doing so. At the other end of the spectrum, children are least likely to contribute in Egypt (less than 1 percent) and India (1 percent), followed by Hong Kong (4 percent) and Singapore (5 percent). CNN Money reports that in Hong Kong and Singapore, its a cultural expectation that parents provide their children with a college education. Watch the video of 11 Countries Where College Is Cheaper Than in the U.S. on MoneyTalksNews.com. If your children or anyone else you know is struggling with college loans, heres how they can get help with student loan debt. Whats your take on the news of how American parents college spending compares with that of parents in other countries? Share your thoughts below or over on our Facebook page. Story continues This article was originally published on MoneyTalksNews.com as '11 Countries Where College Is Cheaper Than in the U.S.'. More from Money Talks News TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - The Air Canada Pilots Association (ACPA) supports Minister of Transport Marc Garneau's efforts aimed at drawing greater attention to the danger posed by drones operated in restricted airspace. "We strongly support all efforts -- by the Minister of Transport and others -- to raise awareness of the risk involved in operating drones in restricted airspace," said Captain Ed Bunoza, Chair of ACPA's Flight Safety Division. "Particularly in light of the events last month where our pilots reported a drone in their airspace as they were on approach to Ottawa airport, there is no question that this needs urgent attention at the highest levels. We look forward to continuing to work with Transport Canada as they work to update regulations in this area." Drones are unmanned aerial vehicles (or UAVs), controlled remotely by an operator, which can vary in size (generally under 2 kg for recreational use and over 2 kg for commercial applications). They are being increasingly tested for commercial applications, with companies as diverse as Amazon and the Australian Postal Service recently conducting trials of small package delivery. Drones operating near an aircraft pose a risk to passengers, crews and the general public near airports -- with the greatest concern being during the take-off or landing phases. "You would not want anything flying in restricted airspace to distract a pilot during these critical phases of flight," noted Capt. Bunoza. "Not to mention that even at the smallest sizes, drones could cause significant damage to an aircraft or engine." Mandatory education should be the standard As their popularity increases with Canadian businesses, so too are hobbyists making significant inroads into this market. It's important that, at the time of purchase, every drone operator be provided with information so that they are aware of Canada's restrictions on use and the consequences of reckless operation. Story continues "You can walk into almost any electronics store today and buy a drone. Some of these drones cost less than $100 and are marketed to photographers and videographers. But there are some who are sold to kids. Anyone can walk out of the store with a drone, with no mandatory education, and start to fly them. That needs to change," said Capt. Bunoza. In the US, some lobby groups have even called for a mandatory locking/key code for all drones that would only be unlocked after the owner completes an online training course. Mandatory registration can help track reckless operators The Air Canada Pilots Association also believes that new regulations should require mandatory registration for all drones sold in Canada. "We are concerned that Canadian regulations are falling behind in this area," Capt. Bunoza added. "At least in the US, if there were ever an incident involving a drone, authorities can track the responsible party to ensure appropriate consequences." In December 2015, the FAA introduced rules in the US that required mandatory registration for all drones between 250 g and 25 kg. Drone owners were given a one-month time-frame for initial registration, and all purchasers of new drones are required to register them before the first outdoor flight. Owners receive a certificate and registration number, which must be marked on every drone the owner operates. Strong penalties are key ACPA supports the Minister of Transport's campaign to reinforce penalties for drone operators who do not fly by the rules. "The penalties should be high," noted Capt. Bunoza. "Whether an operator is taking his or her drone into restricted airspace intentionally or unintentionally is irrelevant. It is still a reckless act that can put an aircraft, crew and passengers at serious risk. If a drone operator does that, we think strong penalties are entirely appropriate as a deterrent." The Air Canada Pilots Association (ACPA) is the largest professional pilot group in Canada, representing more than 3,200 pilots who fly millions of passengers across Canada and around the world on Air Canada and Air Canada rouge. (Adds value of deals) * Germany's Merkel visits Beijing, WTO status discussed * Both she and China's Li play down trade tensions with EU * Deals worth $15 billion signed by companies - Xinhua By Ben Blanchard and Andreas Rinke BEIJING, June 13 (Reuters) - China's leader told Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday he did not want trade tensions with the European Union, a vital market for a huge economy facing falling exports, to descend into a trade war. Merkel has already said she favours, in principle, granting China market economy status at the World Trade Organization, and Beijing hopes she can encourage more sceptical EU voices to accept the move. "China has already fulfilled its obligations on joining the WTO. What's needed now is for the other parties to fulfil the matching obligations they had promised," Premier Li Keqiang told reporters in Beijing on Monday alongside the German leader. "We don't want to fight a trade war because this will benefit nobody," he said, echoing a similar comment Merkel made on Sunday. The European Commission is set to accept the WTO switch that will mean China is no longer treated as a state-controlled market, making it easier for Chinese exporters. But the EU executive also wants to strengthen Europe's ability to defend itself against heavily subsidised Chinese goods. That reluctance to give up a method to defend against cheap imports has set up a looming dispute at the WTO and the prospect of broader trade friction. Merkel, on her ninth trip to China as chancellor, said: "It does not help us to emotionalise the whole subject. I am convinced that we can find a solution on the lines of what was promised 15 years ago." She also pressed China on liberalising its banking industry in return for giving more access to the sector in Europe. RECIPROCITY "We will certainly pay even more heed to reciprocity in the financial sector than in classic industry," Merkel said, adding that German banks were restricted by a 20-percent limit on the size of stakes they can buy in Chinese banks. Story continues "Germany has always presented itself as an open investment market," Merkel said. "We expect reciprocity also from the Chinese side." "In the banking sector, we are at the start of a cooperation," she said. Li said there were informal barriers in Europe for Chinese banks, which were disadvantaged compared to European and U.S. competitors. "We need to talk more about how both sides will be treated equally," he said. Merkel said during a trip to China last year that Germany favoured granting China market economy status in principle but that Beijing still had work to do, including further opening its public procurement markets. Heads of the European Commission are expected to debate the issue in late June or July, at a time of heightened trade tension after global rivals accused China of dumping cheap steel exports after a slowdown in demand at home. Li said trade protection measures would not help resolve the problem and that low-end steel was not something China wanted to produce or sell and was committed to phasing out. Foreign critics accuse China of not following through on its reform agenda and of introducing new regulations that further restrict market access. "The facts prove that China's market is open. We will be even more open," Li said. "We will take even more steps based on the principles of treating everyone equally, fairness and transparency." Delegates at a Sino-German cooperation conference on the sidelines of Merkel's visit agreed 96 deals valued at $15 billion, according to China's official news agency, Xinhua. Airbus Helicopters finalised an agreement to build an assembly line on a Sino-German business park in China and to sell 100 helicopters to a Chinese consortium. Daimler AG and its Chinese partner, BAIC Motor , pledged to jointly invest 4 billion yuan ($608 million) to expand engine production. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Andreas Rinke; Additional reporting by Jake Spring and Winni Zhou in Beijing and Tim Hepher in Paris; Writing by Michael Martina; Editing by Paul Tait and Robin Pomeroy) MUMBAI (Reuters) - Exiled tycoon Vijay Mallya said on Sunday that Indian authorities trying to recover about $1.4 billion from his collapsed Kingfisher Airlines had no legal grounds for sequestering certain assets in a money laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) tweeted on Saturday that it had "attached" properties worth 14.11 billion Indian rupees ($210.78 million) in the case involving a loan from state-owned IDBI Bank to Kingfisher to buy properties abroad. The assets were purchased several years before Kingfisher was launched, Mallya said in a statement to the media on Sunday. "There is no rationale nor any legal basis for the series of actions initiated by the ED which is now making it more difficult to raise resources to pay the banks," Mallya said. The ED says Mallya's United Breweries Group used 4.3 billion rupees of Kingfisher bank loans to buy property overseas. Mallya's statement said Kingfisher had provided evidence that the funds were used for legitimate business purposes. Creditors, led by State Bank of India, have rejected an offer of partial repayment by Mallya, who had given a personal guarantee for the Kingfisher loan. They want the former billionaire, who is living in Britain, to attend a hearing in India's Supreme Court. The foreign ministry in April revoked a diplomatic passport that he carried as a member of parliament's upper house. A judge in Mumbai has non-bailable warrant for his arrest. ($1 = 66.9423 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Swati Bhat; Editing by Louise Ireland) U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a campaign stop in Long Beach, California, United States June 6, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake The campaign of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton released a statement on Sunday slamming her Republican rival Donald Trump for his response to the Orlando, Florida, massacre. Trump reacted to the shooting, in which a gunman who pledged allegiance to ISIS killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, by criticizing Clinton and President Barack Obama for what he sees as a weak response to terrorism. Clinton campaign representative Jennifer Palmieri hit back by implying that Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, wasn't providing a serious response to the attacks. "This act of terror is the largest mass shooting in American history and a tragedy that requires a serious response," Palmieri said in a statement to Business Insider. "Hillary Clinton has a comprehensive plan to combat ISIS at home and abroad and will be talking to the American people in the coming days about steps she would take to keep the country safe." She continued: "In contrast, Donald Trump put out political attacks, weak platitudes, and self-congratulations." This is most likely a reference to a tweet by Trump about people congratulating him for "being right" about "radical Islamic terror." "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" Trump wrote. Palmieri said Americans deserve better. "Trump has offered no real plans to keep our nation safe and no outreach to the Americans targeted, just insults and attacks," Palmieri said in the statement. "In times of crisis more than ever, Americans are looking for leadership and deserve better." NOW WATCH: The number of times Obama has had to respond to mass shootings during his presidency is staggering More From Business Insider cair orlando Muslim leaders across the United States are condemning the shooting that killed at least 50 people and injured at least 53 others in Orlando Sunday morning. The shooter, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to ISIS Saturday night during a 911 call, and a news organization affiliated with the terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Nihad Awad, executive director and founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called ISIS "an aberration," and said he had "a word for ISIS and their supporters." "You do not speak for us. You do not represent us. You are an aberration," he said at a press conference in Washington DC. He continued: "They never belonged to this beautiful faith. They claim to, but 1.7 billion people are united in rejecting their extremism, their interpretation and their acts of senseless violence." Meanwhile, the Orlando regional coordinator of the council's Florida chapter issued the following statement: "We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence." Rizwan Jaka, executive officer of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, said his organization condemns the attack and "rejects any possible motive." "This attack that happened in Orlando should not be used to vilify or stereotype peaceful, law-abiding Muslims in America. Islam absolutely condemns and forbids terrorism and extremism," he said at the Washington press conference. Here are some of the statements from American Muslim groups: We are saddened by the news of the shooting in Orlando, Florida and express condolences to the families of the victims. #OrlandoShootings ISNA HQ (@ISNAHQ) June 12, 2016 More From Business Insider June 13 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Headlines *Goldman Sachs set for revealing Libya trial (http://bit.ly/1VTVEZA) *RateSetter to start lending to small businesses (http://bit.ly/1VTWuFz) *Deutsche Bank to tackle transactional unit security (http://bit.ly/1VTVLEu) *HC-One plans 200m sale and leaseback deal to reduce debt (http://bit.ly/1VTYjCu) Overview - The Libyan Investment Authority claims that Goldman Sachs Group Inc exploited the sovereign wealth fund's limited financial experience in 2008, forcing it into risky and loss-making trades. - RateSetter is breaking into small business loans with the help of government backing. The company has hired a specialist team and built a technology platform to support business loans ahead of its launch into the market this week. - Deutsche Bank AG's transaction unit is to use the rest of this year improving its systems stability and security, which have been criticised by regulators for providing inadequate controls against financial crime. - Elderly home-care provider HC-One is seeking a sale and leaseback deal on 200 million pound worth of property in a bid to reduce its borrowings. (Compiled by Sangameswaran S In Bengaluru) Qatar hosts the largest US airbase in the region, which is crucial to operations against Islamic State group jihadists (AFP Photo/Patrick BAZ, Patrick BAZ) Doha (AFP) - Qatar is to deport a Dutch woman who was convicted of adultery on Monday and given a one-year suspended sentence after she reported being raped while on holiday in Doha. The 22-year-old, known only as Laura and who was not in court, was also fined 3,000 Qatari riyals ($800/710 euros) and will be deported once she pays the fine, court officials said. She had denied the charge against her. The male defendant, said by a court official to be Syrian and named as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was sentenced to 100 lashes for having illicit sex and 40 lashes for drinking alcohol. Hasan, who was also not present in court, will undergo a medical examination to see if he is fit enough to withstand his punishment. He will not serve any time in jail but will also be deported from the Gulf state once he has been punished. Dutch ambassador to Qatar Yvette Burghgraef-van Eechoud, who was present in the packed courtroom, told reporters that the embassy would help Laura to leave Qatar. "We will do everything to get her out of the country as soon as possible to where she wants to go," Eechoud said. The envoy added that she expected Laura to leave Qatar, which will host the football World Cup in 2022, within the next few days. The ambassador added that she had spoken to Laura on Sunday and said that "under the circumstances she was doing fine". In the Netherlands, Laura's mother said she had not yet spoken to her daughter but was "so happy" at the news of her release. - 'So happy' - "I do not know yet when she gets home, but this is not most important," she told the Dutch television NOS website. "The most important is that she gets home... I am so happy," she said. Laura was arrested on March 14 and has since been held in custody. Her lawyer previously said that the incident happened after she had visited a Doha hotel. "She went dancing but when she returned to the table after the first sip of her drink, she realised that" she had been drugged, Brian Lokollo has said. Story continues "She really didn't feel very well," he added. The young woman remembers nothing more until the following morning when she woke up in a totally unfamiliar apartment "and realised to her great horror, that she had been raped," Lokollo said. The male defendant had insisted that their night together had been consensual and that the woman had even asked for money. Adultery, or illicit sex, is treated as a serious crime in the conservative emirate. But the case provoked an international outcry with many people appalled by the treatment of an alleged rape victim and an online campaign using the #freelaura hashtag to try to draw attention to the Dutch woman's imprisonment. Nicholas McGeehan, Gulf researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the case demonstrated that "proper procedures and investigation are needed to avoid such cases in the future". Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a campaign rally in Tampa, Florida, U.S. June 11, 2016. REUTERS/Scott Audette Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump blasted Democrats and renewed calls for a ban on Muslim immigration to the US after a gunman on early Sunday morning shot dead 50 people at an Orlando LGBTQ nightclub. In a statement, Trump called on President Barack Obama to "step down" for not using the words "radical Islamic terrorism" and challenged Clinton to use the phrase when referring to the Orlando attack which ISIS claimed responsibility for. He also warned against admitting migrants from the Middle East and renewed calls for a ban on Muslims entering the US. "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough." He added in his statement: We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States. Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalizing. We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from Radical Islamic Terrorism which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a President for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans. We are going to make America safe again and great again for everyone. Clinton has said that the US should increase the number of Muslim refugees allowed into the US, calling on the US to admit 65,000 refugees from Syria due to the humanitarian crisis there. When Trump previously called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, critics blasted the proposal as ineffective and bigoted. Since then, Trump backed away from that rhetoric and said that the ban was "just a suggestion." Story continues Paul Manafort, the chief strategist and chairman for Trump's campaign, said last month that Trump would "moderate" and "soften" his stance on a Muslim ban. A representative for the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. NOW WATCH: Trump said hes willing to do what no sitting US president has ever done More From Business Insider WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation (USHCCF) is delighted to announce the generous donation of more than $65,000 by Cinemark Holdings, Inc. to the USHCCF Ecuador Small Business Reconstruction & Recovery program. The funds donated include employee contributions, Cinemark matching funds, and a grant from the Mitchell Foundation. The USHCCF program was launched in response to the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Ecuador in April 2016. More than 660 people have been killed, with more than 27,000 injured. Thousands of homes, businesses, public buildings and schools are in ruins. In recent days, additional powerful quakes and aftershocks have again struck the region, causing further damage. In Ecuador, Cinemark operates a total of seven theaters, including two in Quito, three in Guayaquil, one in Latacunga and one in Ambato. USHCCF Chairman Nina Vaca explained: "While the disaster has already faded from the headlines, the acute needs of water, food, clothing and shelter are thankfully being addressed. Unfortunately, the people of Ecuador are also dealing with the long-term effects losing family, friends and property. They are also coping with the challenge of restoring their communities -- specifically, the small business enterprises upon which countless families depend for their livelihood. It is on their behalf that I want to thank the many Cinemark employees who so generously gave from their own pockets to help those affected." Cinemark Holdings then matched all employee contributions. "Our hearts go out to the people and businesses that have been impacted by the devastating earthquake in Ecuador," said Mark Zoradi, Chief Executive Officer of Cinemark Holdings, Inc. "Though the reconstruction and healing process will take time, we hope our employees' personal donations and the matching funds from Cinemark will aid in rebuilding businesses and helping those in need." "At the USHCCF, we are staying true to our mission by aiding the reconstruction effort specifically to help entrepreneurs re-build their damaged or destroyed small businesses. We will direct the aid to the communities and small businesses that need it most. We are immensely grateful to Cinemark for bolstering this effort with their generous contribution" said Javier Palomarez, USHCC President & CEO. The USHCC Foundation pioneers programs that actively bolster the growth of both established and aspiring entrepreneurs and professionals, including America's women, youth, and local business leaders. At the Table is a national movement ensuring female entrepreneurs and corporate professionals are receiving the strategic resources, access, and influence they need to expand their enterprises and bolster their careers. The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Foundation also supports America's next generation of business leaders. The BizVenture program fosters the innovative spirit of college students through Youth Entrepreneurship competitions and scholarships. Finally, the Foundation's Chamber Training Institute, delivered by faculty from the University of Notre Dame, provides professional training to local chamber leaders, fostering economic development by helping them better serve their millions of small business members nationwide. ABOUT CINEMARK HOLDINGS, INC. Cinemark is a leading domestic and international motion picture exhibitor, operating 516 theatres with 5,540 screens in 41 U.S. states, Brazil, Argentina and 12 other Latin American countries as of March 31, 2016. For more information, go to investors.cinemark.com ABOUT THE USHCC The USHCC actively promotes the economic growth, development and interests of more than 4.1 million Hispanic-owned businesses, that combined, contribute over $661 billion to the American economy every year. It also advocates on behalf of 260 major American corporations and serves as the umbrella organization for more than 200 local chambers and business associations nationwide. For more information, visit ushcc.com. ABOUT THE USHCC FOUNDATION The mission of the USHCC Foundation is to enrich the experiences of future leaders in the world of business through life-long learning and support. The Foundation's initiatives awaken and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit, support business growth, strengthen local chambers and foster leaders. Please visit www.ushccfoundation.org for more information. 2000 - 2022 24 .- . focus-news.net, () . 24 . 24 . . 24 . We value your privacy. Focus Taiwan (CNA) uses tracking technologies to provide better reading experiences, but it also respects readers' privacy. Click here to find out more about Focus Taiwan's privacy policy. When you close this window, it means you agree with this policy. Ludlow said: . Come on Blackloaf you know you've been wanting to swap spit with Richard Keil from the 007 movies for the longest time. Click to expand... It's digusting. We're bombarded with homosexuality everywhere you look nowadays. Most love stories in our TV soaps now, such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale and EastEnders, are queer love stories. You very rarely see normal, healthy heterosexual relationship going on. Back in 1995, the first ever gay kissing scene occurred on British TV when two women snogged each other on the now defunct soap Brookside. People were outraged by it at the time and wrote letters to complain about it. My mother complained about all the gayness we're bombarded with on TV the other day. She pointed out that the number of gays now inhabiting one street (Coronation Street), one little Yorkshire village (Emmerdale) or one little Albert Square (EastEnders) just has no basis in real life at all. We're just bombarded day in, day out by homosexuality on our screens and the British people haven't been asked whether they want it or not. Seeing two men or women kissing each other is disgusting and makes me feel rather queesy. It puts me off my food. Islamist extremists on Monday (June 13) executed the second of three foreigners they took from a high-end resort in the strife-torn southern Philippine island group of Mindanao, amid a military rescue operation involving up to eight battalions.The small, but brutal, Abu Sayyaf group carried out its threat to behead Mr Robert Hall, 51, a Canadian, at 3pm on Monday in Jolo island, Sulu province, some 1,000km south of the capital Manila, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported, citing a spokesman named Abu Raami.A separate source in Jolo confirmed with The Straits Times Mr Hall had been executed.Brigadier-General Restituto Padilla, the military spokesman, said: "I cannot confirm or deny it. We don't have reports yet coming from our units on the ground.The militants had demanded 600 million pesos (S$18 million) in ransom for Mr Hall and a Norwegian resort manager, Mr Kjartan Sekkingstad, 57Mr Hall, Mr Sakkingstad, another Canadian, Mr John Ridsdel, and a Filipina, Ms Maritess Flor, 41, were taken on Sept 21 last year (2015) by the Abu Sayyaf from the Holiday Oceanview Samal resort on Samal island, in Davao province.Mr Ridsdel, 68, a former mining executive and journalist, was beheaded on April 25.The Inquirer reported that Mr Hall, just hours before his scheduled execution, had appealed to the Philippine government to get us all out here.My condition is pretty bad. We have been starved, our sleep is deprived and they threaten to beat me, Mr Hall told the Inquirer by phone.Efforts to hunt down heavily armed, well-stocked and mobile groups of Abu Sayyaf bandits with a network of checkpoints and battalions of soldiers have proven to be ineffective and even fatal for both troops and hostages - in the past.On April 9, Abu Sayyaf gunmen killed 18 Filipino soldiers searching for hostages in a day-long battle.The only operation that led to some measure of success was in 2002, when US-backed Philippine special forces units ambushed a group of bandits holding American missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham, and a Filipino nurse, Ms Ediborah Yap.Mrs Burnham was rescued, but her husband and Ms Yap were killed in the ensuing crossfire.In most cases, hostages were released after payment of millions worth of ransom. One of the Abu Sayyafs biggest recent windfalls is believed to have come in 2014 when it claimed to have been paid more than US$5 million (S$6.7 million) for the release of German physician Stefan Okonek, 71, and his companion, Ms Henrike Dielen, 55, abducted from aboard their yacht. PLATTSMOUTH A man who sent multiple threatening text messages to a female victim in Cass County pled guilty to a criminal charge Monday morning. Eagle resident Robert D. Reece 2nd, 43, entered into a plea agreement during a hearing in Cass County District Court. Reece pled guilty to a Class I misdemeanor charge of domestic assault-third degree. The state agreed to reduce its original Class IIIA felony charge of terroristic threats. Deputy County Attorney Colin Palm told the court the female victim in the case had communicated with prosecutors in the weeks before the plea hearing. He said the victim had approved the proposed plea agreement after it was presented to her. A Cass County Sheriffs Office deputy was dispatched to an Eagle residence on Feb. 2 after a woman reported receiving threatening text messages and voicemails. The deputy looked at the womans phone and saw she had received more than 100 texts from Reece in less than two hours. Many of the texts contained threatening language. One text stated I am coming to kill you, and another said I am coming now and when I get there we will both leave this place. Several other text messages included obscene language and a voicemail featured threatening words. Reece was living in Lincoln at the time he sent the texts. The deputy asked the woman if Reece knew where she lived in Eagle. The woman stated that Reece did know her address and that she believed he would try to hurt her. Lancaster County authorities arrested Reece in Lincoln later that month and transported him to Cass County Jail. Reece was later released on a $10,000 signature bond. He then went to a medical center in Grand Island for inpatient substance abuse treatment. Reece remains free on bond. Sentencing will take place Aug. 8. Russell Reeser, 81, of Fremont passed away Friday, June 10, 2016, at his home in Fremont surrounded by his family. Russell Reeser was born on Dec. 17, 1934, in Rugaton, Kan., to Ted and Mildred (Franks) Reeser. He grew up in Clayton, N.M., where he attended school and spent most of his time helping on the family farm. Russell served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1959. Russell married Shirley Humphrey on Aug. 23, 1956, at the Baptist-Presbyterian Church in Valley, and they were blessed with three children: Carl Dean, Theodore Michael and Shirley Winifred. Russell and Shirley raised their family in Valley before moving to Fremont in 1964. Russell farmed and worked at a local gas station before going to Valmont in 1959, where he would stay for 37 years, retiring in 1996. He enjoyed fishing, camping and tinkering in his garage. Russell was a quiet, hard-working man with a good heart. He was preceded in death by his parents, Ted and Mildred; and siblings Theodore, Dorothy, Irene and Frank. Russell is survived by his wife, Shirley; children Carl, Theodore and Winnie Stoll; eight grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren; and brother, Lawrence. The graveside service will be 10 a.m. Tuesday at Prospect Hill Cemetery in Elkhorn with military honors. Visitation will be from 6-8 p.m. Monday at Reichmuth Funeral Home, 21901 W. Maple Road, in Elkhorn. Condolences may be sent at www.reichmuthfuneralhomes.com. The FBI says a gunman who killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida early on June 12 called an emergency police-dispatch operator just before the mass killing and swore allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS) militant group. The FBI identified the gunman responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a U.S.-born citizen of Afghan descent. Mateen was shot dead by police who stormed into the Pulse nightclub three hours after the killing spree began there. Police said the attacker carried an assault rifle and a handgun into the nightclub shortly before 2 a.m., started shooting people, and then held a group of club patrons as hostages for three hours before he was killed in a shoot-out. U.S. President Barack Obama called the attack "an act of terror and an act of hate." Obama said authorities were "still learning all the facts" and that an investigation was continuing, but authorities had "reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer." Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said on June 12 that another 53 people were hospitalized as a result of the attack -- many in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds. The Amaq news agency, which supports IS, said the militant group claimed that an IS "fighter" had carried out the shootings. But it was not immediately clear whether the attacker received instructions and training from IS or was merely inspired by the group's militant, extremist ideology and had acted alone. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said late on June 12 that investigators had not yet found any evidence of direct communication between Mateen and IS or any other international terrorist organization. Schiff said it was possible that Mateen was self-radicalized but not "under the command and control" of IS. WATCH: Police search home Of Orlando shooter (Reuters) Mateen, the son of Afghan immigrants to the United States, was born in New York and moved to Florida at a young age with his parents. He was licensed as a private security officer and had worked for the G4S private security firm in Florida since September 10, 2007. G4S said in a statement that it was "cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation." Mateen spent his teenage years in Florida, where he went to high school. He also attended two colleges in the state and received a degree in criminal justice. Mateen married a woman in March 2009 named Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy, who was born in Uzbekistan and immigrated to the United States. They became separated after just a few months and were legally divorced in 2011. Yusufiy told The Washington Post that she had met Mateen online and moved to Florida, where she lived with him from April to August 2009 in a condominium that was owned by Mateen's parents. Yusufiy described Matten as an unstable and physically abusive spouse who beat her regularly. "He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that," she told The Washington Post. The Washington Post also quoted public records showing Mateen had recently been living with a 30-year-old woman named Noor Zahi Saman and that he had a 3-year-old son. It was not immediately clear whether the two had married. A Facebook profile under the name "Noor Zahi" shows two photos of a woman posing with Mateen and a small boy. A neighbor who lived near Mateen told The Washington Post that he had seen a woman living with Mateen and a young boy. The neighbor said he never spoke to the woman and that she did not wear conservative Islamic clothing. Imam Shafiq Rahman, from the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, Florida, confirmed that Mateen regularly attended prayer services at the mosque with both his father and his son and that Mateen had visited the mosque as recently as June 10. Rahman told The Washington Post that Mateen was "the most quiet guy" who "never talked to anyone." He said Mateen "would come and pray and leave," and "there was no indication at all that he would do something violent." Rahman also said Mateen never sought any spiritual guidance from him. The father of the suspect, initially identified in reports as Mir Seddique and later named as Seddique Mateen, said early on June 12 that he believed his son was motivated by hatred of homosexuals -- not by his Muslim religion. Seddique Mateen said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in public in Miami several months earlier in front of his 3-year-old son. "This had nothing to do with religion," Mateen's father told NBC News. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," Seddique Mateen said. "We are in shock like the whole country." Father Backs Taliban vs Pakistan However, The Washington Post reported later on June 12 that Seddique Mateen holds strong political views that have included what the newspaper described as "support for the Afghan Taliban." He hosts a television show in the Dari language called the Durand Jirga Show on a channel called Payam-e Afghan, which broadcasts from California. In one broadcast, available on YouTube, he expressed gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban and criticized Pakistan's government. Referring to territorial claims that some Afghans have made against Pakistan along the border of the two countries, known as the Durand Line, Mateen's father said: "Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in the Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban, are rising up. Inshallah, the Durand Line issue will be solved soon." However, RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal notes that in other programs he described the Taliban as slaves and shameless people who kill Afghans and defame Islam. Mateen's father also once announced a bid to seek the Afghan presidency on his television program. In a statement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack, saying that "targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever." "We are sickened and heartbroken by this appalling attack," said Nihad Awad, executive director of a leading Muslim organization in the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. FBI agent Ronald Hopper said the attacker appeared to "have leanings toward" radical Islamist ideology. The FBI said its agents twice investigated Mateen but closed those cases after interviewing him. Hopper said Mateen was first investigated in 2013 after he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible ties to terrorists. In 2014, the agency looked into potential ties between Mateen and Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a resident of Fort Pierce, Florida, who carried out a suicide truck-bomb attack in Syria and had appeared in a video released by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front. Hopper said the FBI determined that contact between Mateen and Abusalha "was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time." With reporting by AP, The Washington Post, NBC-TV, Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, and the Orlando Sentinel CHICAGO Two months before Joe Clark died of colon cancer at age 31, a doctor gently told him it was time to stop treatment. He had suffered through more than a year of chemotherapy that produced painful sores in his mouth, last-ditch major abdominal surgery had left behind excruciating scar tissue, and hope had dried up. But the end of treatment had a surprise effect on Clark and his wife. It was a whole new way of thinking to wrap our minds around, his widow, Amanda Evans-Clark, recalled. No more fight mode, she said. We finally felt like we were allowed to live. When to stop aggressive treatment is one of the most wrenching decisions in cancer care. Medical guidelines say dying cancer patients shouldnt get harsh and painful treatment, but new research suggests it happens almost all of the time. During their last month alive, three out four cancer patients younger than 65 got too-aggressive treatment and only a handful got comfort-based hospice care instead, according to the recent study. There are many reasons why, but one of them is this, said University of Chicago palliative care specialist Dr. Monica Malec: Theres nearly nothing harder than being faced with a patient whos begging you not to give up on them. Dying patients and their families are sometimes in denial about their illness, and sometimes dont understand the limitations of medical treatment, the researchers and other specialists say. Those misunderstandings can often be avoided if doctors begin end-of-life conversations early in the process of treating patients whose cancers are likely to be deadly. But those talks often never happen, Malec said, or they dont happen until the situation has progressed to crisis, because theyre just too difficult. The new study is an analysis of health claims data involving more than 28,000 cancer patients who died between 2007 and 2014. Their end-of-life treatment included hospitalizations, chemotherapy and invasive procedures. Fewer than one in five patients received hospice care. There are hundreds if not thousands who undergo too much therapy and too much suffering for every one person that we have who ends up having a miracle, said Dr. Otis Brawley, the American Cancer Societys chief medical officer. The study was presented last week in Chicago at the American Society of Clinical Oncologys annual meeting. Dr. Ronald Chen, the studys lead author and a cancer specialist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, said the decision is still a struggle, even when he knows hospice might be the right choice. Dr. Andrew Epstein, a palliative care expert with the oncology society, said the new research, which echoes studies in older cancer patients, is important because less is known about end-of life care for younger patients. Too few doctors know about hospice, which is among the best but most under-used resources, he said. And abandoning treatment and seeking hospice care is sometimes seen as surrendering, especially with young patients, said American Cancer Societys Brawley. When youre dealing with young people, in their 40s, 50s, even 60s, its just so difficult to accept that this person is going to die, he said. Joe Clark, an Orlando, Florida businessman, was diagnosed in 2011, two days before his 28th birthday and two months before his wedding. Instead of a honeymoon he had chemotherapy. No one uses the words like, incurable, Evans-Clark said. We said whats next, and I remember hearing, youre going to be on chemotherapy, and we said, How long? And they said, indefinitely. She recalls turning to look at her husband, and he just broke down crying. Evans-Clark remembers agonizing discussions with her husband about quantity versus quality of life. Major abdominal surgery failed to stop the cancers spread. Chemo had caused mouth sores and there were problems with the ostomy bag that replaced his diseased intestines. I remember looking at him and he was so thin, and he was so depressed, and everything that made him a man ... had been taken from him, she said. They moved to Indianapolis, where a doctor finally sat them down and said, I dont think this is worth it anymore. It was an epiphany. Clark starting receiving comfort care at a hospice center that felt more like home than a hospital, where he could finally focus only on spending time with his wife and baby daughter. I was able to be his wife versus being the one pushing all the meds, Evans-Clark said. I was only given two more months with him but I would say they were some of the best months I had with him. DES MOINES In the wake of a mass shooting that claimed 49 victims lives and left dozens more injured, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad on Monday called for a more forceful response to terrorists both verbally and militarily. He also did not rule out support for a law that would prevent individuals on terror watch lists from purchasing weapons. A shooter killed 49 people and injured dozens more early Sunday at a club in Orlando, Florida. A federal official said the shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group in a 911 call. Branstad started his weekly meeting with Iowa reporters Monday morning by expressing his condolences to the victims and their families, and he called for flags in Iowa to be flown half-staff until Thursday. Branstad deflected questions about public statements and social media posts made by Donald Trump, the Republican Partys presumptive presidential nominee. Branstad instead criticized Democratic President Barack Obama for his handling of the Islamic State. (Trumps) problem, as far as Im concerned, is Obama has consistently denied the seriousness of this threat that has grown and grown, and I believe the leader of this country needs to stand up and have the guts to say we have Islamic extremists that are committed to killing us, Branstad said. I just think the leader of the country ought to have the guts to say what it is. That doesnt condemn every Muslim. But it does say there is a certain radical element of Islam that is committed to destroying our way of life and killing as many people as possible. Branstad also said he thinks the U.S. military should take a more active role in combating the Islamic State. I dont think we can continue to be on the defensive, Branstad said. I think we have to go after them in a much more dramatic way where they are in Iraq and Syria and Libya and other countries. Media reports said the Orlando shooter had been twice interviewed by the FBI prior to this weekends shooting. Branstad on Monday said he did not think more gun control laws are appropriate, but he did not rule out supporting a law that would prevent individuals on federal terror watch lists from purchasing weapons. When asked if such a law should be put in place, Branstad said, I think we do need to seriously review our procedures in dealing with people that are making threats, be it on the internet or in person, just because of the need to protect the safety of our citizens. We put people on a watch list and restrict their travel by airplane, Branstad said. It seems to me that we need to be looking at this very seriously in order to protect the citizens of this country. Branstad also said he would like to see better communication between the FBI and people in charge of gun permits. MASON CITY First Congregational United Church of Christ will open its sanctuary from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday for people to gather in silence to honor the victims of the shooting Sunday in Orlando, Florida. The church is at 100 First St. N.E. The Rev. Chuck Kelsey said, It will be a time of silent prayer, meditation or reflection. No readings, no speakers, no music simply a gathering in silent witness against all hate crimes directed at any of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer/questioning. The shooting early Sunday was at a gay nightclub, and the shooter was said to have expressed homophobic sentiments. Kelsey continued, All are invited who understand that hatred is not the answer. All are invited who understand that love wins, not hatred. So, Muslim, Sikh, Jew, Hindi, Buddhist, Christian and any iteration of religious belief, as well as agnostics and atheists, are invited to connect for five minutes or the entire hour as a tangible expression that we in the Mason City community will not tolerate hate crimes against anyone. MASON CITY Dean Genth, a longtime advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, said Monday the tragedy in Orlando is a wake-up call to the LGBT community. People are shocked and reeling, said Genth, who is a board member of One Iowa and a co-founder of One Iowa-North, an offshoot of the state organization. We are just as shocked as when children were killed at an elementary school in Connecticut or patrons were killed in a movie theater in Colorado or people were killed in San Bernadino, he said. But Genth said the weekend terrorism was at a gay bar in which the shooter had reportedly made negative comments about gays in the days and weeks before the shooting. At the bar in Orlando, the patrons felt they had a safe haven where they could gather and support one another. What this has done has erased the feeling of security. Nowhere can we be free from terrorism, said Genth. He emphasized that the shooting at a gay bar is not worse than other mass killings like a man going into a church, praying with people and then killing them. But it is a shocking example of people being targeted. One Iowa North has a mailing list of 350 families in several counties throughout North Iowa, he said. MASON CITY Several Mason City intersections flooded early Monday afternoon after a brief rain storm went through the area. City crews checked the problem spots but did not need to close any roads, said City Parks/Street Supervisor Bob Berggren. One crew unclogged an intake in particularly deep water at Sixth Street Southeast and South Delaware Avenue. Most of the water quickly receded. The National Weather Service forecast calls for a 70 percent chance of rain Tuesday and Tuesday night. The heaviest rain, 1-2 inches, is expected after 7 p.m. Tuesday. MASON CITY An ill-fated proposal for a Chinese student exchange program reinforced concerns about Mason City School Districts superintendent for some School Board members, according to emails obtained by the Globe Gazette through an open records request. The emails appear to show that at least partly based on Superintendent Anita Micichs actions regarding the exchange program, the School Board eventually agreed to buy out the second year of Micichs two-year contract and replace her as superintendent. Micich told the Globe Gazette Saturday that she believes she did her job as a superintendent should. In my workings with the board, I believe Ive always carried myself very professionally and responded in a professional manner. I continue to do that, she said. When asked if Micichs actions regarding the Chinese student exchange program directly contributed to her exit, School Board Vice President Lorrie Lala declined to comment, saying she would let the emails speak for themselves. In early 2015, Tom Pinkham, executive director of International Education Management Corp. (IEMC), was trying to set up a program from China to bring Chinese-born students to study and graduate from North Iowa public high schools. He and Micich began communicating in March 2015, according to emails. Over about a year, according to a timeline Micich later compiled for board members, she communicated with Pinkham several times as he sent her a business plan and also approached the Charles City School District, North Iowa Area Community College and Opportunity Village about potentially joining his proposal. WEBSITE CONCERNS That proposal began to cause concerns starting in March 2016 when unauthorized pictures depicting Mason City students were discovered on Pinkhams company website and at least one Mason City School Board member felt Micich had not adequately vetted the project. I am upset that in 4 hours, (Lala) and I found out that this is basically a fraud of an organization, School Board member Jodi Draper wrote in an email on March 24 after she contacted multiple partner schools listed on the website. The email was sent to Lala, board President Janna Arndt and board member Paul DeRoy. (Micich) did no research just said (Pinkham) came highly recommended ... if we would have just followed the leader where would our district be by next year in this mess of (his program)? Draper wrote, also mentioning she took vacation time to investigate the company after noticing a photo of her son on the site. I am a board member, and I felt it could not wait, she wrote. Draper also took issue that Micich seemed unaware of the websites existence, according to email on March 24. I have not had an opportunity to review the website information you forwarded as yet and will respond when I have done this, Micich wrote to Draper. NIACC President Steve Schultz told Draper on March 24 that he had only had an informational meeting with Pinkham and said he would be contacting Pinkham to remove NIACCs information from the website. I had no knowledge of the website, nor does NIACC have any formal or informal agreement with this company or their representative, wrote Schultz. I think we dodged a major bullet, Draper wrote to Arndt and Lala. More investigation should have been done prior to ever bringing this to the board as an option ... at least we are out of it. On March 10, Micich had sent a signed letter of intent to Pinkham that agreed the district would allow his company to be the exclusive agent to recruit and place Chinese students in Mason City Schools for enrollment starting in August 2016. A non-binding memorandum of understanding Micich also sent to Pinkham outlined terms of an agreement that would need to be finalized in a contract, including a proposed five-year agreement between the district and Pinkhams company. Micich told the Globe Gazette Saturday that it was understood all the documents she sent to Pinkham were not binding until a contract was approved by the School Board. She said it is common for a superintendent to review information before it is brought to the School Board, and that she kept Arndt and Lala informed about the program through the spring. Micich said the school districts logo and photos showing up on Pinkhams website without permission permanently halted any progress on the proposal. It was surprising and shocking to everyone, she said. NEWSPAPER ARTICLE Following the March 20 publication of a Globe Gazette article about the Chinese student exchange proposal based in part on information provided by Micich, Lala expressed disappointment in an email to the board and Micich the next day that a story about the proposal ended up in the paper before the board had voted on it. On Wednesday, March 23, at 5:19 a.m., Lala sent an email to Arndt requesting a special closed meeting to consider terminating Micichs contract due to her continued insubordination toward board members. Most of her concerns centered on Pinkhams proposal: A few insubordination examples include refusal to include the board concerning insurance matters as directed in a meeting, listing the school as a partner in the Abroad Education program without board approval, offering a Mason City High School Diploma for students studying in China without board approval and misrepresenting the intent of the Abroad Education program with China. Please note these are only a few examples, Lala wrote. Draper emailed her concerns to Micich in a follow-up email at 11:45 p.m. on March 23, asking who gave permission for talks with Pinkham to proceed and if the district had received any money from his company. At 6:40 a.m. on March 24, Micich emailed Pinkham, informing him his website had caused board members significant concern and asking him to remove references to both Clear Lake and Mason City schools. Later that day, Micich informed Pinkham the district would end talks with his company, who said via email he thought the decision was a major over reaction. On March 24 at 2:35 p.m., Draper wrote to Micich and the board that she and Lala had contacted several partner schools Pinkham had listed on his website. Every school listed wasnt aware of the site, she wrote, had done nothing more than have a conversation with Tom Pinkham and absolutely did not enter in agreements, verbal or contracts. My conclusion is that (the company) has misrepresented our school district, Draper wrote. This is not an organization that I am comfortable with if this is how they operate... Micich, she wrote, was very upset with how Tom Pinkham handled this and will send an email ... to have our information removed from this site and end correspondence at this time in pursuing this project. A few days before the decision was reached, Pinkham had sent an email to Micich asking her to keep him updated. I know you have to deal with the board and be cautious about what information you give out, he wrote on March 22. The same day, Pinkham in another email told Micich he had a Chinese high-schooler student lined up to study at Mason City. We need to expedite the process, he wrote. AN APOLOGY On March 28, Pinkham wrote an apology email to Micich and the board. It became horrifyingly clear to me that I have overstepped the bounds of our formal relationship and deeply offended you by moving ahead with the promotional activities that had not yet received your full approval, Pinkham wrote. In truth, the dialogue we had ... led me to believe that board approval was only a rubber stamp away from formalization. ... Draper reached out to Pinkham through an online Skype call the next day. My conclusion after this discussion was the Board is somewhat in the dark about what we want to do, Pinkham later wrote to the board after their conversation. On March 28, Lala and board President Arndt wrote to Micich requesting she provide them all of Micichs emails related to the Chinese exchange program. At the direction of President Arndt I called to request all emails related to the China deal, she wrote. The request spanned communication with partnering schools and any other individuals. Micich said Saturday she complied with all requests for information. Im very open and honest in what I do, Micich said. There is no hidden agenda in what I do. Over the next few weeks, the board would give Pinkham the chance to make his own case at a board meeting scheduled for April 14 before it voted on a final decision. In an exchange between Arndt and Lala on April 4, Lala cautioned her against polling board members via email before a vote. You may not want to give (Micich) the info we send you, Lala wrote. That is almost like voting electronically. Maybe she is trying to catch us in something. I just dont trust her, Lala later replied. At the April 14 School Board meeting, the board voted 6 to 1 to end further contact with Pinkhams company. On April 13, he told board members via email the project would have to be pushed back to 2017, but that the district could expect 10 to 20 exchange students. On May 3, Arndt emailed board members telling them they would meet in closed session the following day to discuss Micichs contract. HAMPTON Prestage Foods of Iowa has had little contact with Franklin County since May, an economic development official said this week. Theyve gone kind of quiet, Franklin County Development Association Director Karen Mitchell told county supervisors. After Mason City, theyve gone quiet. A Prestage representative met with Franklin County officials in May to talk about the county as a possible location for the plant. The supervisors approached Prestage after the Mason City Council turned down a development agreement to build a plant in Mason City. We dont know if theyre really interested or not, Mitchell said.In the meantime, the association has been working to discuss whether or not special committees should be formed to deal with law enforcement, education and more if the opportunity for Prestage remains a possibility. Weve commissioned an economic impact study from Iowa State University, Mitchell said. Weve been talking with city councils in our communities. Mitchell said Hampton and several communities within the county have extend public support for the project. Supervisors agreed to assign Supervisor Michael Nolte to work with the development association as a liaison. Nolte had been working with the association already but wanted the more formal assignment on the record. I just want it official that Ive been working with Karen, Nolte said. Id feel more comfortable to have an official motion. Chairman Corey Eberling said an official appointment has not been needed in the past. I feel considering the size and scope that this could have on Franklin County that we should designate Mike as being front person and report back to the board, Supervisor Gary McVicker said. Prestage Public Relations Director Summer Lanier said the search for a location is ongoing. We have not made any final decisions and are continuing to evaluate all of the communities that have contacted us about being considered as a possible location for our project, Lanier said in an email. MASON CITY Cerro Gordo County supervisors on Tuesday will consider deleting one phrase from the countys social host ordinance to eliminate the possibility of misinterpretation. The ordinance, passed several years ago, holds adults accountable if underage drinking occurs on their property. Section 7 of the law says The provisions of this ordinance shall apply throughout Cerro Gordo County Iowa, including municipalities that have not enacted ordinances dealing with similar subject matter. Sheriff Kevin Pals is asking supervisors to change the ordinance to eliminate the last phrase the mention of municipalities that have not enacted laws with similar subject matter. There has been some confusion and weve had some cases thrown out of court because of it, said Pals. Our goal is to eliminate the confusion. In other business, supervisors will canvass results of the June 7 primary election and hold public hearings on two requests for zoning changes. The supervisors meet at 10 a.m. in the board room on the first floor of the courthouse. Sculptures of the female figure symbolizing justice traditionally wear a blindfold that suggests she will weigh her scales impartially. But at the U.S. Supreme Court, Lady Justice has another use for her blindfold to hide her shame. The shame does not rest with Lady Justice or the court, but taints other immobile characters who hear the call to do their duty and pretend they have stone ears. They are Republican senators. Although lately the theory has been sorely tested, Republicans admittedly have their good points. For one thing they love and respect the Constitution. We know this because they constantly tell us so, in case it is not self-evident. In the matter of the Supreme Court, it is not self-evident. Last February, Justice Antonin Scalia, who relished writing incendiary opinions without seeming to scorch his health, died unexpectedly. His untimely passing was a chance to honor the Constitution by replacing him according to the prescriptions laid out in the nations founding document. Please take out your pocket Constitution, which is good to keep handy these days, and turn to Article II, Section 2, wherein the power of the president on appointments to the court and other offices is defined. If you left your copy at a militia meeting and dont you hate it when that happens? let me refresh your memory. The president shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint judges of the Supreme Court. Even for partisan politicians, this should be relatively easy. The Constitution assumes action one way or the other; it does not demand a rubber stamp on any nomination. If senators do not like the presidents nominee, they can give critical advice and withhold their consent and their constitutional duty is done. The trouble for would-be naysayers is that presidents nominee, Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, is objectionably unobjectionable. He has had an exemplary legal career and gives every sign of being moderate, reasonable and fair. In fact, Republican senators who have met the judge on his recent visits to Capitol Hill their attempt at courtesy in the absence of granting him the real courtesy of a vote have said he is a fine fellow. The problem is not him but the president who nominated him, Barack Obama, whom they abhorred before he even did anything. This man cannot be allowed the usual prerogatives of a president. They have an implausible theory to justify their politicization of the court that the people must speak on this at the next election, a scenario the Constitution forgot to mention. This might be reasonable if the vacancy had occurred in September in the growing shadow of the November election. But the time between February and November was about nine months and close to a year before a new president would be inaugurated. Every case that comes to the now eight-member Supreme Court risks being hamstrung for the lack of a majority. A bizarre theory now applies the peoples business cannot be properly done out of deference to the people. So what happens when the people deliver their verdict in the November election? Why, President Donald Trump may nominate Bozo the Clown, provided that he is not of Mexican descent or a Muslim. President Hillary Clinton may nominate someone from the far reaches of the left. I wonder if Bernie Sanders will be available? Such choices will not make the long wait worthwhile yet the Republicans remain as indifferent to logic as they are to their constitutional duty. Why? The only explanation is that this is their final insult to a hated president they could not get rid of. As it happens, hes the first African-American president, which some may think a coincidence, but future historians struggling to explain visceral dislike probably wont. The shame of these contemptuous senators now invites such a harsh future judgment. WORCESTER, Mass., June 13, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- World Energy Efficiency Services, a leading provider of turn-key energy-efficiency services in New England, today announced it is implementing a comprehensive set of energy efficiency technologies on behalf of Geisslers Supermarket (Geisslers), a family-owned grocery chain with seven stores in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The multi-store engagement, which includes a completed lighting and mechanical retrofit at the companys Windsor, Conn. store, a current implementation at its Agawam, Mass. facility, and auditing the remaining five locations for additional energy-reduction opportunities, is set to save the grocer over $350,000 annually, reducing its electricity use by approximately 30%. Grocery stores and supermarkets are among the most energy-intensive buildings on a per-square-foot basis, and energy ranks among the top operational costs in this segment. Wanting to address this large, growing cost, Geisslers turned to World Energy Efficiency Services based on the firms proven success serving grocers and experience providing comprehensive energy efficiency solutions for businesses across New England. Beginning with an energy audit at Geisslers Windsor store, World Energy Efficiency Services identified numerous energy-saving opportunities, spanning lighting, refrigeration and controls. As a result of implementing LED lighting, lighting automation controls, refrigeration equipment, variable frequency drives and HVAC controls, Geisslers slashed its energy use in this store by 28%. Critical to this project, and to the viability of implementing these measures across all Geisslers stores, was World Energy Efficiency Services ability to work seamlessly with Eversource and the Energize Connecticut Small Business Energy Advantage (SBEA) program. Through this relationship, World Energy Efficiency Services was able to secure for Geisslers the maximum incentive possible from the program 50% along with interest-free, on-bill financing. Together, these financing benefits are enabling Geisslers to dramatically reduce energy use without large capital expense. For years we had been bombarded with energy offers by various parties, but finally we chose to work with World Energy Efficiency Services because they listened more, understood our business better, and showed us a clear, compelling path to savings, said James Nilsson, Jr., President, Geisslers Supermarket. In our business, reputation is everything, and we have found in World Energy Efficiency Services an energy partner who does what they say they are going to do and makes you want to work with them by delivering results. We like what energy efficiency looks like now at our Windsor store and are eager to bring these gains to all our Connecticut and Massachusetts locations. Added Mike Santangelo, Vice President, World Energy Efficiency Services: It is very satisfying to bring the best of 21st century energy-efficiency technologies to the businesses of New England, especially ones like Geisslers that have been in operation for decades and have continued to distinguish themselves by delivering quality goods and great customer service. Additionally, the grocery segment remains an industry ripe for energy-efficiency gains, and we continue to have success there by delivering comprehensive solutions lighting, cooling, automation and working in sync with all the major utilities to ensure our customers get the financial support they need to make their energy efficiency initiatives a winning proposition from day one. About World Energy Efficiency Services World Energy Efficiency Services, LLC is an energy conservation and project management company that assesses, develops, engineers and manages commercial energy efficiency projects. It is one of the regions only firms to offer comprehensive energy conservation measures, including lighting, energy management systems (EMS), HVAC, refrigeration and the installation of variable frequency drives (VFD). The company is a preferred provider of energy efficiency services in several utility programs in the Eversource Massachusetts and Connecticut portfolio: Eversource MA-East Direct Install Program for small businesses; Eversource MA-East Municipal Program for government entities; Eversource MA-West program for small commercial and industrials; and the Small Business Energy Advantage (SBEA) Program for Eversource CT. In addition, World Energy Efficiency Services provides services for the SBEA Program for the United Illuminating Company. For more information about World Energy Efficiency Services, see www.WorldEnergyES.com or call (774) 420-2764. WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) announced today that he has appointed Cohen Milstein partner S. Douglas Bunch to the Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary. The appointment is subject to confirmation by the Virginia General Assembly. I am extremely honored. It is a privilege to serve on William & Marys Board, and a unique opportunity to contribute to an institution that has had such a deep impact on my life, said Mr. Bunch. I thank Governor McAuliffe for his trust and his confidence. William & Mary, located in Williamsburg, Va., was established by Royal Charter in 1693 and is the second oldest college and first law school in the nation. It is one of eight U.S. institutions to be designated a public ivy, and has consistently been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as one of the nations top public universities. Included among its alumni are three presidents of the United States, namely Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler. Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates currently serves as the Colleges Chancellor. The Colleges Board of Visitors, which governs the university, is composed of seventeen individuals appointed to four-year terms by the Governor of Virginia. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Mr. Bunch graduated summa cum laude from the College of William & Mary in 2002, where he earned a B.A. in Government and Classical Studies. Subsequently, Mr. Bunch attended Harvard Universitys Graduate School of Education, from which he graduated in 2003 with an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy. Following his return to William & Mary, Mr. Bunch earned a J.D. from William & Mary Law School in 2006. Mr. Bunch joined Cohen Milstein in 2006 and became a partner of the Firm in January 2016. He is a member of the Firms Securities Litigation & Investor Protection practice, where he litigates federal securities class actions on behalf of defrauded investors. He was instrumental in successfully litigating the suits that followed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, including on behalf of public pension funds and other institutions that purchased defectively-issued mortgage-backed securities. For the past two consecutive years, Mr. Bunch has been named a "Rising Star" in Securities Litigation by Super Lawyers magazine. Mr. Bunch is also co-founder and chairman of Global Playground, Inc., a nonprofit that builds schools in the developing world, and serves on the board of Virginia21, an organization that advocates on behalf of the interests of college and university students in Virginia. In 2011, Mr. Bunch received William & Mary Law Schools inaugural W. Taylor Reveley III award, recognizing alumni who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to public service. For more information about Mr. Bunch or Cohen Milstein, visit www.cohenmilstein.com. Editors Note: Photo Available Hasmita Nair , who was a student at INSEAD. (We first met Hasmita two years ago you can read our first interview with her This interview is the latest in an Accepted blog series featuring interviews with MBA students , offering readers a behind-the-scenes look at top MBA programs . And now for a chat with, who was a student at INSEAD. (We first met Hasmita two years ago you can read our first interview with her here .) Accepted: It's been nearly two years since we last spoke can you bring us up to speed? What have you been up to? Hasmita: Accepted: Tell us about INSEAD! How was it? What was your favorite thing about the program? What was your least favorite thing? Hasmita: Accepted: At the time, cash was tight how did you go about surviving the year on a tight budget? Can you share some tips with our readers about paying for and budgeting for b-school? Hasmita: Accepted: What's 10 Minutes With? What role did INSEAD play in helping you secure your internship? Hasmita: Accepted: What's your current job? Again, how instrumental was INSEAD in this process? Hasmita: Accepted: One year MBA vs. two years - which do you think is better? Hasmita: Accepted: Were you involved in any clubs on campus? How central to student life is club/extracurricular involvement? Hasmita: You can follow Hasmita's story by checking out her blog at www.joziliciousblog.co.za . Thank you again Hasmita for sharing your story with us we wish you loads of luck! For one-on-one guidance on your b-school application, please see our MBA Application Packages Related Resources: you I've been up to a lot! The MBA was exhilarating and incredible, and life has moved on very quickly since then. I found a job in brand strategy consulting in London at a company called Kantar Vermeer. I'm loving working in Marketing instead of Finance, and London is treating me very well. INSEAD was the best experience of my life. It's hard to explain the magnitude of the experience to anyone who wasn't there. It was completely life-changing, from a self-development perspective more than anything else. My favorite thing was the fact that it allowed me to feel like and become a true global citizen, and with that, I feel like there are no limits as to what I'm able to achieve. Least favorite thing would be the job hunting. It was incredibly stressful, especially as a South African trying to get work sponsorship.It was tough especially because I wanted to travel a lot. I had a student loan from Prodigy Finance that was very helpful, and I also got a partial scholarship. I sold everything I owned, cashed out all my investments and savings and also part of my pension. It was a very expensive year. I think one needs the equivalent of tuition costs for living expenses. At the outset, the money seems overwhelming, but somehow when you're there, it all works out. Your lifestyle adjusts I went from weekly manicures and dinners at fancy restaurants to DIY nails and mostly cooking at home.10 Minutes With is a platform that connects students with employers. While I was at INSEAD, I did some freelance writing for them covering details of the MBA experience.My current job is an Associate Director at Kantar Vermeer. I help clients realize brand led business growth through a variety of different strategic lenses. I'm having a lot of fun and learning a lot too. I was approached by the company through INSEAD the school was definitely a key reason I got the job.I have no idea how anyone affords a two year MBA. I think just the one year was very rushed content wise, and I don't feel like I learnt that much academically. The bulk of my learning was on the softer skills project management, relationship building, self-awareness etc. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing about my decision to do a one year MBA at INSEAD it was everything I imagined it to be and more!I was involved in VINSEAD the food and wine club, and we hosted monthly supper clubs. I was also part of Women in Business, but quite honestly, the course and social aspects are so jam-packed that there's little space left to do much else. Paying for Your MBA: Before, During & After , on-demand webinar An Inside Look at INSEAD , podcast This article originally appeared on blog.accepted.com Applying to a top b-school? The talented folks at Accepted have helped hundreds of applicants get accepted to their dream programs. Whether you are figuring out where apply, writing your application essays, or prepping for your interviews, we are just a call (or click) away.Contact us, and get matched up with the consultant who will help_________________ Also see: My Review of the Official Guide for GMAT Review 2018 I am a Harvard grad, 99% GMAT scorer and professional GMAT tutor with 16 years of experience, and am fairly obsessed with this test. I also take the GMAT at least once every 5 years to stay up-to-date. The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2017 receives my strong recommendation because it provides a great source of real GMAT questions at a decent price (it normally retails for about $30).One aspect of this book that you must understand is that it is not meant to teach you GMAT test-taking strategy. For that, look elsewhere (see product links below). However, it includes some of the very best practice materials available, straight from the test-maker, and although the answer explanations are often convoluted, they are still useful in understanding how the GMAC thinks.Why are the 2017 Official Guides the very best place to start your GMAT preparation, other than the free GMATPrep software ? Because the questions in these books are super-realistic. They are just like the questions on the real GMAT, because these books are written by the test-maker and use actual, retired GMAT questions. Don't waste your time and money practicing on questions made by any other companies--these are merely inferior imitations of the real thing. If you must use other materials for test strategy, then that's fine, and in most cases necessary, but try your best to stick to official questions whenever possible.Pro tip: You can take each of the 6 GMAT Prep CATs more than once, because the GMAT is an adaptive test (it adjusts the difficulty level of later questions based on your previous responses). There are about 4 to 16 times as many questions in the GMAC's question pool as there are in any given test, which means that every test you take will be different. Tests 1 and 2 draw from a (gigantic!) pool of about 1,500 questions, and tests 3, 4, 5, and 6 draw from a more modest pool of about 400 questions each. To re-take your GMAT Prep tests, click "reset" in the lower-left hand corner of the GMAT Prep software window, but make sure to take screenshots of your previous test sessions beforehand--frequent screenshots are a good idea anyway because the software is prone to crashing and losing your data. For your screenshots, use either the "Print Screen" (Windows Key + PrtScn) button on a PC or (Shift + Command + 3) on a Mac. For more information, check out this blog It's important to remember that although this physical GMAT book is extremely helpful, the GMAT is still a computer-based test, which means that you should still spend at least 50% of your preparation time reading a screen instead of reading a piece of paper. For this reason, consider buying the Kindle versions of the guides, as well as making full use of the computer-based practice options (Exam Packs, Question Packs, Mobile App, etc.) available from the GMAC (see detailed product links below). Or, if you prefer to buy the physical books, then you can also use the access codes located in the sealed pouches in the back covers of the books to access a free web-based version of the books, where you can try most of the questions in the books in an online format, and organize quizzes by question type / difficulty level (easy, medium, hard). You will also have to create a Wiley account, which is mostly painless. I strongly suggest that you save your login information on your browser so that you wont have to enter your username / password every time you access the Wiley site THE GREAT DEBATE: THE PRINT BOOKS + (INCLUDED) ACCESS TO THE FREE ONLINE QUESTION BANK FROM WILEY vs. THE KINDLE VERSIONS OF THE BOOKS In this cornerFirst of all, remember that you should be spending lots of time exploring the GMAT Prep software (both the Exam Packs and the Question Packs) during your studies, in addition to the questions in these books / the Wiley question bank, especially if you are going for a score of 700 or above.Purchasing the print version of the books as a discount bundle seems like the obvious answer for many old-school GMAT tutors such as myself, since it also offers the option to use the online Wiley question bank, which includes nearly every question in the Official Guides in a computer-based format. Why not have the best of both worlds (print and digital) instead of digital only?The Kindle version of the booksaccessible not just for Kindle owners but on nearly any device with a screenare exact copies of the physical books, in digital, searchable form. Its very easy to navigate among the different chapters of the books, for example, and to review individual questions. Its also helpful for Skype GMAT tutoring with a tutor like me, despite some formatting issues with equations, and it allows you to hold the entire bundle in the palm of your hand.The Wiley question bank (accessible through the codes located in the back covers of the books) includes 6 months access to a question bank where you can try random questions from the Official Guides through the Wiley website. You can sort your questions by difficulty level / question type, and answer explanations are provided. You can also choose different modes of study, including practice mode and exam mode, and you can also name your sessions for later review. When it works (at the moment the question bank is down for maintenance, and any interface dependent on an internet browser is found to malfunction sometimes), it works quite well.The question bank is far from perfect, however, and the Kindle version clearly has its advantages, so this is not an obvious choice.In some regards, the Kindle version is superior, because the Wiley interface is not nearly as easy-to-use. Also, if you don't have internet access, then the question bank is inaccessible, in contrast to the Kindle version, which is basically a static, searchable PDF that lives on your device instead of in the cloud.There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to both, but I think the print + Wiley combo is the way to go for most old-schoolers like me, who grew up in the era of paper tests and taking lots of notes. Keep in mind that if you don't have internet access for a while, you can still access the roughly 1,500 questions on Exams 1 and 2 of the free GMATPrep software.I do have a Kindle, and I even use the Kindle versions of the books on my computer during my Skype sessions with private students, but I still enjoy the tangible feeling of having the physical books. That being said, the GMAT is still a computer-based test, so I would advise you to spend at least 50% of your preparation time reading a screen instead of a book.It all depends on how you plan to use the books, their current costs, and your personal moral code. Here are some key factors:1) Wiley requires internet access, Kindle does not (other than the initial download, of course).2) Wiley allows you to select the difficulty level (E/M/H) of the questions, Kindle does not (remember, its just a PDF-style replica of the print books, which are only roughly ordered in terms of difficulty).3) Kindle is quick and convenient, Wiley is not (you have to log into the question bank through your browser instead of a desktop application, you cannot access specific questions on demand, it has a clunky user interface, etc.)4) Wiley requires an actual computer, and the Kindle does not (it will work through the Kindle app on your cell phone or mobile device).5) Like the GMATPrep Software (Exam Packs and Question Packs), Wiley resembles the actual GMAT exam more closely than does the Kindle version.6) Kindle is (probably) better for the environment. But remember that all those glowing screens use a lot of energy too.7) If you buy the Kindle version, then you will spend 100% of your time looking at a screen. If you buy the print + Wiley combo you will only be looking at a screen for about 50% of the time (GMATPrep software + Wiley question bank). In my opinion, 50/50 is better because we are human beings and thus subject to screen fatigue. Studying with paper versions of the books can be less stressful and is more convenient for taking notes, studying outside, etc.8) Not a big deal, but the books are offered as a discount bundle on Amazon and the Kindle versions are not.9) Perhaps most importantly, the Wiley bank is included, for free, with your purchase of the physical books. If you plan to do most of your work on the computer, then you could think of the physical books as a bonus to the online question bank, instead of the other way around.Some GMAT tutors are of the opinion that you should be working off a screen nearly all of the time that you prepare for the GMAT. If you agree with this assessment, then the Kindle version is probably the best option for you, since its a lot better organized than is the Wiley question bank. However, I am of the opinion that working out of a book 50% of the time is fine, and in fact better for many, so Im more inclined to recommend the print + Wiley combo for its best of both worlds (print and computer) quality. I also think that the random nature of the Wiley question bank (you cannot access specific questions by number, no answer key, etc.), one of its major weaknesses, is also one of its strengths, since this random question format is closer to the format of the GMAT itself, and the format of the GMAT Prep software (which contains far harder questions than nearly any question in the Official Guides!).However, dont expect the Wiley question banks to be a digital replica of the physical books. If you require that, then youll need to purchase the Kindle version. To state the obvious, the best thing to have is both. But if I had to choose one, I would probably go with the print books and Wiley question bank.One very annoying aspect of the 2016 version of the Wiley site was that it automatically logged you out due to inactivity after a very short amount of time. Thankfully, the 2017 version of the Wiley website has fixed this bug.Instead of giving you a paper and pencil, the GMAC also requires you to use a water-based maker and a laminated sheet like this one: Manhattan w/ Marker I don't recommend always using the laminated sheet when you study, because it's messy and harder to keep track of your notes that way. But it makes sense to at least use it a few times, just to get the feel of it before test day. OVER 130 NEVER-BEFORE SEEN QUESTIONS Approximately 15% of the questions in this 2017 edition of the are new to . However, it is worth noting that never before seen is not entirely true, since all of these questions are retired questions from past GMAT computer exams (it says so right there on the cover). A more accurate description would be never before seen on paper, but that probably wouldnt sell as many books.For those of you who already have copies of the 2016 Bundle, here is a full list of the new questions in the 2017 version of the GMAT Official Guides: MAIN / WHITE BOOK (131 new questions): Integrated Reasoning (8 new questions): 9, 10, 11, 21, 28, 35, 41 & 43Problem Solving (36 new questions): 2, 5, 7, 13, 19, 23, 32, 44, 45, 47, 50, 53, 62, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 88, 89, 91, 96, 100, 109, 116, 120, 123, 127, 128, 132, 140, 152, 192, 194, 201 & 209.Data Sufficiency (26 new questions): 231, 237, 243, 252, 254, 255, 258, 259, 262, 274, 275, 278, 283, 288, 291, 294, 304, 305, 310, 315, 316, 325, 327, 332, 347 & 359.Sentence Correction (21 new questions): 668, 669, 683, 684, 685, 688, 696, 697, 703, 704, 705, 724, 725, 738, 739, 740, 747, 762, 771, 799, & 803.Critical Reasoning (19 new questions): 546, 549, 562, 571, 582, 587, 592, 599, 607, 610, 612, 616, 617, 618, 619, 627, 629, 661, 666Reading Comprehension (21 new questions): 415-423, 427-430, 460-462, 529-533 QUANT REVIEW GUIDE / BLUE BOOK (47 new questions): Problem Solving (26 new questions): 1, 10, 11, 16, 19, 24, 38, 53, 59, 63, 68, 71, 76, 77, 79, 83, 85, 87, 89, 114, 136, 137, 139, 145, 158, 164Data Sufficiency (19 new questions): 184, 185, 186, 189, 194, 199, 202, 208, 211, 218, 219, 222, 225, 230, 236, 262, 295, 297, 300 VERBAL REVIEW GUIDE / PINK BOOK (45 new questions) Sentence Correction (17 new questions): 189, 190, 200, 210, 211, 216, 241, 243, 245, 250, 254, 258, 260, 279, 281, 296, 299Critical Reasoning (13 new questions): 106, 110, 117, 124, 133, 139, 146, 153, 158, 166, 172, 180, 188Reading Comprehension (15 new questions): 11-16, 46-54NOTE: For free "forum-style" explanations and SUPER-USEFUL classifications of every question in the 2017 , check out the GMAT Club Guide to the GMAT Official Guide 2017 Are the questions from the 2017 versions any better than the questions they are replacing from the 2016 edition? No, not really. All of the questions in the books are old questions from past GMAT exams (retired questions), so there is no guarantee that these 220+ new questions are either any newer or any more helpful than are the questions they supplant from the 2016 Editions of the OGs. Moreover, early adopters of the 2017 editions will find that certain questions are so new that its hard to access online explanations until GMAT tutors like me (GMATClub username: mcelroytutoring ) start posting them, which could take weeks or even months.While I will concede that the questions in this book are roughly ordered from easy to hard, there are some curious places where low-numbered questions are quite difficult for most of my students, and vice-versa. Thus, I think that we cant necessarily take GMAC at their word here, especially since there has already been evidence in past official guides of the GMAC moving the exact same questions to radically different locations in the books. If the questions are truly ordered from easy to hard, for example, then why would a question numbered in the 30s suddenly show up numbered in the 90s in the next years edition? A WARNING ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY LEVEL OF THE QUESTIONS IN THE OFFICIAL GUIDES: It is important to note that the difficulty level of questions in these books is sufficient for most test takers, but is admittedly a bit lacking on the high end. High scores take note: If you are aiming for a GMAT score of 700-plus, then you should spend more time practicing on questions from the GMATPrep software (Exams 1-2) and Exam Packs 1 and 2 (Exams 3-6), which offer more difficult questions that will bear a closer resemblance to the questions you will see on your actual test day.Remember: the GMAT is an adaptive exam. If you answer a lot of questions right, then the test keeps getting harder (as your score rises), and if you answer a lot of questions wrong, then the test keeps getting easier (as your score lowers). And the questions on the test are front-loaded so that the first 1/3 of questions have a much larger impact on your score than do the final 1/3 of questions. (There is a SEVERE penalty for not finishing the sections, however, so make sure that you give yourself time answer all the questions before time expires, even if they are just random guesses. At all costs, make sure to answer every question before time expires.) For more about the GMAT algorithm, please read this post by me: Leveraging the GMAT Scoring Algorithm to Your Advantage If you do run out of official GMAT Prep computer tests (the first two are free, and you can buy four more from GMAC), then I can recommend the CATs (computer adaptive tests). You used to be able to just buy one book from the series, which would give you access to all 6 CATs, but that is no longer an option--you must now buy the CATs separately here For free video explanations to all the math questions in these books, google "GMAT Quantum," or if you prefer to read your explanations, then just try google searching the first few lines of your question's text. I would also strongly recommend that you check out informative websites such as GMAT Club, Beat the GMAT, and Atlantic GMAT, and that you consider retaining the services of a qualified private tutor such as myself. HOW TO STUDY FOR THE GMAT: My core philosophy: use official GMAT questions only! Its OK if you end up memorizing all the solutions and answersthats part of the point, as is repetition of certain questions until you fully understand them. There are thousands of real GMAT questions available from the GMAC, so its unlikely that you will ever run out. Imitation questions are not quite the same, so why settle for anything less than the real deal?For purposes of brevity, I am only including a one-month study plan, but the truth is that most students need at least 3-6 months to study for the GMAT. To turn this 1-month study plan into a 3-month or 6-month study plan, simply break the study plan into smaller increments.Ideally, your studying should be done at regular intervals throughout the day, instead of one large chunk, to maximize retention. Take frequent breaks, but also try to get used to working for 4 hours straight at least once a week, to simulate test conditions.If you dont have time to take a full section, then dont use the GMAT Prep Exams, because you will need to finish the entire test in order to review the questions afterward. Even if you only want to try a Quant section, for example, you will have to click through the rest of the test, or wait for time to expire, which is annoying. Better to use the Question Packs, the OGs or the Mobile App for smaller increments of time. Also, if youre a Mac user like me, then you should know that the Escape button does not work on the GMAT Prep software. Instead, try (Command + Tab) to switch to other open applications.Dont forget to utilize GMAT club for explanations to any questions whose explanations in the books dont make sense. Just google search the first few lines of your questions text. MY RECOMMENDED GMAT STUDY PLAN: "Section" = a timed, scored section from the GMATPrep Software (Exams 1 through 6). Helps you practice test-taking techniques, and leveraging the GMAT algorithm."Practice" = unscored (no composite score, only correct/incorrect) and the time limit is less strict. Take as long as you need for understanding.Remember that you dont necessarily need to pay for Exam Packs 1 and 2, because there are approximately 1,500 potential questions in (free) Exams 1 and 2, so you can just keep resetting the tests and using them again. The IR sections will be exactly the same (not adaptive!), but the quant and verbal sections will be different every time.Another option is to install the GMAT Prep software on 2 different computers. 2 different computers = 2 different versions of the test = nearly twice as many questions to practice.Here is a sample weekly schedule that I would recommend IF YOU ARE TRYING TO PREPARE IN ONLY ONE MONTH (see modifications for 2-6 month study plans below). Day 1: COMPUTER DAY 1) 75 minute Quant Section - GMATPrep2) 75 minute Verbal Section - GMATPrep3) Review Incorrectly Answered Quant Questions + Math Concepts and Strategies4) Review Incorrectly Answered Verbal Questions + Verbal Concepts and Strategies5) 30 minute IR Section or Practice - GMAT Prep / IR tool from Wiley6) 30 minutes Essay Practice Day 2: BOOK ( ) / WILEY DAY 1) 37 Quant Questions in / Wiley2) 41 Verbal Questions in / Wiley3) Review Incorrectly Answered Quants4) Review Incorrectly Answered Verbals5) 12 IR Questions - Any Source Day 3: COMPUTER DAY 1) 37 Quant Questions in GMATPrep (Question Packs)2) 41 Verbal Questions in GMATPrep (Question Packs)3) Review Incorrectly Answered Quants + Math Concepts and Strategies4) Review Incorrectly Answered Verbals + Verbal Concepts and Strategies Day 4: BOOK ( ) / WILEY DAY 1) 37 Quant Questions in / Wiley2) 41 Verbal Questions in / Wiley3) Review Incorrectly Answered Quants + Math Concepts and Strategies4) Review Incorrectly Answered Verbals + Verbal Concepts and Strategies5) 12 IR Questions - Any Source Day 5: COMPUTER DAY 1) 75 minute Quant Section - GMATPrep2) 75 minute Verbal Section - GMATPrep3) Review Incorrectly Answered Quants + Math Concepts and Strategies4) Review Incorrectly Answered Verbals + Verbal Concepts and Strategies5) 30 minute IR Section or Practice - GMAT Prep / IR tool from Wiley6) 30 minutes Essay Practice Day 6: BOOK ( ) / WILEY DAY 1) 37 Quant Questions in / Wiley2) 41 Verbal Questions in / Wiley3) Review Incorrectly Answered Quants + Math Concepts and Strategies4) Review Incorrectly Answered Verbals + Verbal Concepts and Strategies5) 12 IR Questions - Any SourceDay 7: Take a rest! Youre only human.Repeat for three more weeks, and youve completed approximately 2,160 real GMAT questions out of the approximately 4,000 official GMAT questions available.Here are my modifications for 2-6 month study plans:2-month study plan: complete 3 assignments (numbered above) per day.3-month study plan: complete 2 assignments per day.4-month study plan: complete 1-2 assignments per day.6-month study plan: complete 1 assignment per day.The founder of the GMAT Club forum has also written an excellent GMAT Study Plan on GMAT club AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON HOW TO REVIEW INCORRECTLY ANSWERED GMAT QUESTIONS: Yes, the correct answers (along with mildly helpful explanations) are all right there in the books. But at all costs, dont check the correct answer right away, because in many ways it ruins the utility of that question.When it comes time to re-try the questions that you answered incorrectly, I recommend that you either buy a 2nd copy of the books to keep blank, or that you simply re-try the questions on your computer screenBEFORE checking the answer. It's what I call a "blind review": going over all the questions you got wrong without first checking the correct answer/explanation, or seeing any of your previous work.Yes, I knowwhen you get something wrong that you thought you got right, your first instinct is to immediately check the correct answer choice. However, try your best to avoid this temptation.In my opinion, blind review is one of the key facets of effective test prep. Thus, when using the physical book, you should only mark your answers in the book as correct or incorrect. Most importantly, don't write down or look at the correct answers before you get a chance to review / re-try them at least once.Obviously, this type of study is much easier with a partner: if youre working by yourself out of the physical books or the Kindle editions, then there is no way to check your answers without actually looking at the correct letter answers. So, if youre studying solo, then I recommend that you write your answersonly your answers, not your work on a separate sheet of paper. Do at least 40 questions at a time, to get a feel for what a GMAT Quant or Verbal section feels like. When you correct them, dont indicate the correct answers in the book yetsimply mark incorrect answers as incorrect. And try to correct your questions all at once instead of one at a time, so that when you review the actual question afterward, you are less likely to remember the correct answer.In contrast, if you go over questions by checking the correct answers right away, then you can create false confidence by fooling yourself into thinking that you understand the questions fully, when in fact you are still prone to those types of mistakes. The best way to know for sure is to try the questions again, from scratch, *without* the aid of the answer key, your previous answer, or the answer explanations. Only then should you confirm the correct answer and read the explanation provided. For those of you who are just getting started, here is the overall structure of the GMAT:1) Analysis of an Argument Essay (AWA or Analytical Writing Assessment): 30 minutes, 1 question.2) Integrated Reasoning (Multi-Source Reasoning, Table Analysis, Graphics Interpretation, Two Part Analysis): 30 minutes, 12 questions. Please note: unlike the Verbal and Quantitative sections, the IR section is not adaptive. For this reason, every time you try a GMATPrep Exam you will see the same 12 IR questions.3) Optional 8-minute break4) Quantitative Section (Problem Solving, Data Sufficiency): 75 minutes, 37 questions (2 minutes per question)5) Optional 8-minute break6) Verbal Section (Reading Comprehension, Critical Reasoning, Sentence Correction): 75 minutes, 41 questions (1.8 minutes per question)Keep in mind that on the GMAT you cannot go back or skip any questions, and that the first 12-15 questions of the Verbal and Quantitative sections have the most impact on your score due to the adaptive scoring algorithm. A correct answer will yield a slightly harder question in most cases, and vice versa, and the GMAT will gradually determine your score as you go. The largest adjustments are made at the beginning of the test, which is why the first 1/3 of questions are so essential. Also, approximately 10 to 25% of the questions on the actual GMAT (and 4 of the 12 IR questions) are experimentalyou dont know which ones they are, and they dont count toward your score. MY RECOMMENDED GMAT RESOURCES: Practice Strategy: 1) Free GMATPrep Software - 2 diagnostic CATs (Exams 1 and 2: 180 questions total) and 90 practice questions out of 1,500 possible questions2) GMAT 2017 Official Guide Bundle - 1 diagnostic test and over 1,500 practice questions and answer explanations - about $45or, buy the guides separately for the Kindle versions (Verbal guide not yet available):a. The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2017 with Online Question Bank and Exclusive Video b. The Official Guide for GMAT Quantitative Review 2017 with Online Question Bank and Exclusive Video c. The Official Guide for GMAT Verbal Review 2017 with Online Question Bank and Exclusive Video If you need the Kindle versions right away, then I would suggest that you purchase the 2016 versions of the books, which are not much different.3) GMATPrep Exam Pack 1 - 2 diagnostic CATs (Exams 3 and 4: 180 questions total) out of 400 possible questions - $504) GMAT Prep Exam Pack 2 - 2 more diagnostic CATs (Exams 5 and 6: 180 questions total) out of 400 possible questions - $50Please note: you can save $10 by buying #3 and #4 together as an Exam Pack Bundle from the GMAT website for $90.5) GMATPrep Question Pack 1 - 404 questions with answer explanations and ability to sort questions by type and difficulty - $306) The Official Guide for GMAT Review 2016 Mobile App -$5 for 50 questions and $30 upgrade for an additional 800 questions7) GMAT Focus Quizzes - 24 questions per quiz (math only) - $30 per quiz and 4 total GMAT Focus Online Quantitative Diagnostic Tool: Single Use8) IR Prep Tool - 48 Integrated Reasoning Questions GMAT - $209) GMAT Write - 4 Auto-Graded Essays for $3010) GMAT Enhanced Score Report - Technically this is not a practice tool, but it provides an in-depth look at your score, including overall rankings, rankings by question type, time management information and a summary of your strengths and weaknesses, which can be helpful if you plan to take the test more than once. - $251) GMAT Club Forum (you are here) - Free explanations to nearly every official GMAT question, as well as questions written by other companies ( I do not recommend practicing on non-official questions ).2) GMAT Quantum - Free video explanations to nearly every official GMAT quantitative question.3) GMAT Series: $144 for the Complete GMAT Strategy Guide Set or about $20 per book GMAT Sentence Correction (Manhattan Prep GMAT Strategy Guides) 4) Ace the GMAT: Master the GMAT in 40 Days by Brandon Royal5) LSAT Preptests for Extra Critical Reasoning and Critical Reading Practice: $20 for 10 tests 10 More, Actual Official LSAT PrepTests: (PrepTests 19 through 28) (Lsat Series) 6) Free Online Materials7) Powerscore GMAT Critical Reasoning Bible : $218) Powerscore GMAT Reading Comprehension Bible : $359) The Complete GMAT Sentence Correction Guide : $27 Princeton Review and Kaplan are OK for strategy too. I prefer Princeton Reviews GMAT guide (full disclosure: P.R. is my former employer) to Kaplans (in my humble opinion, a mediocre, corporate behemoth who somehow always manages to rank #1 on Amazon with lots of suspect 5-star reviews), but any effort to write an "all in one" guide to a test as complex as the GMAT is destined to be at least a partial failure. The Kaplan and Princeton guides can be helpful if you are a below-average scorer trying to obtain an above-average score without too much effort, but the perfectionists among us will be frustrated by their lack of depth and unrealistic practice questions.Finally, you can check out my GMAT Action Plan to read my personal, frequently updated recommendations for GMAT Prep. UPDATE 8/26/16: All of the typos/errors from the previous 2017 editions have now been fixed, both in the print versions and the Wiley Question Bank. Both the 2017 Quantitative and main have recently been released as Kindle versions, but the Verbal Review Guide has not. SCrimson wrote: Hi I am an Indian female with an engineering background. I will be applying to B schools in US this year for a two year MBA program. I am looking for a profile evaluation so that I can find the best fit and shortlist schools that I have a chance of getting into. I hope to specialize in Operations/Supply Chain/Consulting. Please evaluate my profile for UCLA. GMAT: 720 (49Q/40V) GPA: ~3.63 (9.08/10) Degree: B.Tech(Information Technology) from VIT University,Vellore Experience: 2 years in an IT firm as a software developer ( 3 years till I join the program) Extracurricular: I have some experience working as a volunteer for various events in college , serving as an NSS volunteer, etc. But I don't have any experience in professional leadership/managerial roles. Some experience in managing office events and display of good leadership qualities within the team. Please evaluate my profile so I know if I should try for UCLA or there is no chance of getting an admit at all ? read all You your fit Culture of the cohort (Though many don't consider this). Focus area of b-school. Location/Proximity to your target job/internship locations. Ranking Recruiting industries. I would give you a general tip rather than delving into the profile evaluation (which lacks lot of data and I guess is not even my area of expertise).A b-school experience is 2 years away from work with you spending most() of your earnings (assuming you worked mostly in India over your 3 year stint). I would say you have to clearly analyse your strengths/weaknesses in your application.Strength: If one worked in SW development for say a supply chain client then it is a strength when you want to specialize in that domain.Weakness/Mismatch: All I have done in my life is around clothing boutique, fashion design but now I want to move into Oil & Gas post MBA with no prior experience.have understandand then zero in upon your b-school list. You are the best judge.Having said that you can consider the following factors (Alphabetical order) to rate each b-school you're looking at and then find the final weighted list. This is a very quantitative way of getting things done.Start following the b-school blogs, interact with student representatives, attend the events in your city and/or virtual sessions.Regarding scores, work-experience: Most of the adcoms look at your profile in a holistic way.You can find the last 2-3 year cohort stats (from school page) and find where you fall in the bell curve. This gives you an understanding of what you need to work on to improve your chances.Extra-curricular: Difficult to grade, closer and quantifiable impact you've created the better it is.All the best for your journey..._________________ Hi there,Thanks for sharing your information with us. Glad to hear you're planning to retake the GMAT. Anything you can do to boost your score will help your chances. That said, I think your target schools need to be adjusted a bit. Darden, Fuqua, and Ross are going to be stretches for you. As part of a diverse application strategy, I'd recommend targeting 1-2 max out of this list for this cycle. With a boosted GMAT, I think UNC and Texas make sense, but that will be highly dependent upon the quality of your application (i.e. how well can you craft your story?)It seems like you have some solid leadership experience, however I feel like you're selling yourself short. Of course, I know we're in a forum and it's tough to get into the details of your leadership and accomplishments, but I mention this only to guide you to ensure that you provide details of your experiences so that you can stand out amongst your peers.You have a good starting point on your goals, but they could be more specific. What kind of consultant do you want to be? Industry categorization is one thing, but if you're looking to be a management consultant, top firms will start you off as a generalist before allowing you to specialize. Or, are you looking to focus in a particular function of consulting - IT, finance, ops, etc? What do you mean by "leadership roles" in industry? You'll need to get tighter about expressing your goals post MBA and how you think a given program can help you.Let us know if you'd like to chat about how we can help you on your journey this season - sign up for a free consultation below. In the meantime, check out our free resources to get you started for your R1 preparation. Best of luck this season!_________________ Hi there!Thanks for sharing your information with us! In seeing your academic stats, it's clear you've got the intelligence and work ethic to do well at your target programs. At this point, it's all a matter of crafting the right story for you. This does include the fact that you do have that disciplinary probation which all schools will ask about in the online application. While that isn't ideal, it CAN be overcome. The key question is: what did you learn from it? We've helped countless applicants overcome these situations, so don't fret!It's also quite clear that your a natural leader - you seem to take on lead roles in just about everything you do which is critical when discussing your experiences. AdComms don't just want to hear that you showed up for an event, they want to know that you made an impact to make it successful. Your LOR situation seems like a tough one, but again, this isn't the first time this has come up and with your level of involvement and leadership at work and in the community, I'm confident we'll find a solid alternative for you.All in all, your application strategy and target schools make sense. Should you want to chat more in detail about how we can help you, feel free to sign up for a free consultation below - we'd love to chat! In the meantime, check out our free resources to get you started for your R1 preparation. Best of luck this season!_________________ bakfed wrote: Those skeptical of the extent of global warming argue that short-term temperature data are an inadequate means of predicting long-term trends and point out that the scientific community remains divided on whether significant warming will occur and what impact will it have if it does . (A) on whether significant warming will occur and what impact will it have if it does (B) on whether warming that occurs will be significant and the impact it would have (C) as to whether significant warming will occur or the impact it would have if it did (D) over whether there will be significant warming or the impact it will have (E) over whether significant warming will occur and what impact it would have Meaning is crucial to solving this problem: Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses + Awkwardness/Redundancy A: B: is sure to occur warming that is significant C: either or both and D: either or both and E: Correct. both warming that is significant and Hence, E is the best answer choice. Dear Friends,Here is a detailed explanation to this question-Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that the scientific community remains divided over whether significant warming will occur and over what impact it would have. will is preferred for referring to events that are certain to happen and would is preferred for referring to events that are hypothetical, meaning the use of would alongside verbs that express uncertainty (predict, assume, guess, etc.) is redundant.This answer choice incorrectly uses will to refer to a hypothetical action; please remember, will is preferred for referring to events that are certain to happen, and would is preferred for referring to events that are hypothetical. Further, Option A uses the needlessly wordy phrase what impact will it have if it does, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase whether warming that occurs will be significant; the construction of this phrase incorrectly implies that the scientific community remains divided over whether the warming thatwill be significant; the intended meaning is that the scientific community remains divided over whetherin nature will occur.This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase or the impact it would have if it did; the use of or incorrectly implies that the scientific community remains dividedover whether significant inflation will occurover what impact it would have; the intended meaning is that the scientific community remains dividedover whether significant warming will occurover what impact it would have. Further, Option C uses the needlessly wordy phrase the impact it would have if it did, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase or the impact it would have if it did; the use of or incorrectly implies that the scientific community remains dividedover whether significant inflation will occurover what impact it would have; the intended meaning is that the scientific community remains dividedover whether significant warming will occurover what impact it would have. Further, Option D incorrectly uses will to refer to a hypothetical action; please remember, will is preferred for referring to events that are certain to happen and would is preferred for referring to events that are hypothetical. Additionally, Option D uses the passive voice construction there will be significant warming, leading to awkwardness and redundancy.This answer choice uses the phrase whether significant warming will occur and what impact it would have, conveying the intended meaning that the scientific community remains dividedover whetherin nature will occurover what impact it would have. Further, Option E correctly uses would to refer to a hypothetical event. Additionally, Option E is free of any awkwardness or redundancy.All the best!Team_________________ Mayor Bill de Blasio condemned the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub that left 50 dead and over 53 others wounded Sunday, calling the attack "not just an attack on human beings, but an attack on our values. Our values of tolerance and freedom." The Mayor made the statement Sunday afternoon after marching in the celebratory National Puerto Rican Day Parade. "We stand in solidarity, as New York City knows so well what it feels like to be the victim of a terrorist attack," de Blasio told reporters. "It's an act of terror, there's no question about that, and it's an act of hate." While de Blasio assured New Yorkers "there are no credible threats directed at New York City," he also reiterated that NYPD counter-terrorism units have been placed on heightened alert. "You'll see a lot of additional police presence on the streets of the city," de Blasio said, specifically noting that "key LGBT community institutions" will see elevated police presence. "There is no city in the world better-prepared to stop terror, to stop hate crimes." Flags at City Hall (and the White House) have been lowered to half-staff in reverence to those killed, and de Blasio confirmed reports that City Hall will be lit in rainbow colors at sunset Sunday as a gesture of solidarity with the entire LGBT community. The New York Times reports that de Blasio plans to attend an evening vigil at Stonewall Inn Monday night. In addition to Monday night's vigil at Stonewall Inn, the Mayor's Clergy Advisory Council will host a vigil tonight at Judson Memorial Church in Washington Square Park, beginning at 7 p.m. Other Sunday Night vigils, including one at Diversity Plaza in Queens, have been planned throughout the city. We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today It was a deadly weekend on New York City roads thanks to criminal drivers responsible for four fatal hit-and-run crashes. The first took place in East New York just before 10 p.m., when the driver of a Ford Explorer allegedly sped through an intersection and smacked into a Toyota Sienna crossing in a perpendicular direction. The crash killed Saber Mohammed, 20, a passenger in the Sienna. The Daily News reports that Mohammed, a bodega clerk, was planning to fly back to his native Yemen next month to be married. "He was an intelligent boy, and helpful," his cousin Hussain Mansour told the tabloid. "The whole family is in pain." Mohammed's friend, who was driving the Sienna, survived but suffered neck and back injuries. The Explorer driver bailed, but cops caught up to Bronx resident Christopher Cates, 29, and charged him the following day with vehicular manslaughter, negligent homicide, leaving the scene of a crash, driving while high, marijuana possession, speeding, and failing to stop at a stop sign. Police also charged his passenger with marijuana possession. Hours later, FedEx worker Giovanni Nin was headed to his girlfriend's house to rest before returning to work a 3 a.m. shift at the company's Castle Hill shipping center when police say the driver of a BMW SUV hit him on East Tremont Avenue near Mayflower Avenue. "He was an employee but I treated him like a son," his supervisor Jeffrey Rodriguez told the News. "He would do anything for anybody. Hes the hardest worker Id ever known." The driver of the silver BMW X5 left Nin for dead and is still at large. Nin was reportedly saving up for a wedding. Another driver struck near Battery Park City on Saturday evening, shortly before 8 p.m. The man behind the wheel of a Ford truck turned right off of West Street onto Chambers Street and ran into a woman riding a bike in the same direction, according to police. The driver fled, but an off-duty MTA cop caught up to him three blocks away, and officers arrested him. The driver, Samuel Silva of Newark, is being held without bail at the Tombs in lower Manhattan and facing charges of vehicular manslaughter, leaving the scene of a crash, failure to yield to a pedestrian, and driving while intoxicated. The weekend's fourth fatal hit-and-run occurred early on Sunday morning at around 1:19 a.m., when an SUV driver slammed into 62-year-old Sharon Smith as she tried to cross East Gun Hill Road in Williamsbridge. The driver never stopped, according to police. A pedestrian in his 20s was also critically injured by a cab driver on the Upper West Side early on Saturday morning. The News reports that the victim was paralyzed in the crash. In response to the slew of deadly crashes, the street-safety group Transportation Alternatives called for state legislators to pass legislation that would toughen penalties against hit-and-run drivers. Leaving the scene of a fatal crash is currently a Class D felony, punishable by as many as seven years in prison, but leaving the scene of a crash resulting in an injury is a misdemeanor, punishable only by a fine and a maximum of three months incarceration. First-offense drunk and high driving is punishable by as much as a year in prison, and New York prosecutors almost exclusively reserve vehicular manslaughter charges, punishable by up to 15 years, for drivers proven to have been impaired. It's hard to prove drunk driving, Transportation Alternatives director Paul Steely White said in a statement, when the driver is long gone. "Under current law, drivers who may have consumed alcohol and are then involved in a collision have a strong incentive to flee, since the penalty for a DWI is currently more severe than the penalty for leaving the scenean act that delays medical attention for victims and undermines investigations," Steely White said. Road-safety advocates often deem vehicular carnage "traffic violence," and whether or not one agrees with the rhetorical flourish, the casualty count is real. For example, from May 29th to June 5th of this year, the NYPD recorded 4,654 crashes on city streets resulting in 1,262 injuries and three deaths. During the same period, police logged nine murders, but the number of people injured by gun violence was just a fraction of those injured in crashes. Specifically, 33 people were injured in 28 shootings that week. This weekend, four people died in shootings, all clustered within six hours on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Hundreds of people came together outside the landmarked Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village last night to grieve and express solidarity with the victims of the Sunday morning massacre in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Gathered outside of a bar that has long been hallowed ground for the American gay rights movement, mourners held close to one another, quietly sobbed, wove flags, and cheered. Many were speechless, dazed by the news that so many LGBTQ people had been gunned down where they had felt safest. "This massacre did not happen in a vacuum," said Ann Winthrop, who shouted her message of outrage from a stoop near the bar. "Members of our community are being attacked and killed every day in this city, in this country, and all over the world." "Clubs are safe spaces, and historically always have been. And so to attack at that point, in that way, is so alarming to us," Brandon Cordiero, 28, said amidst the packed crowd, which rallied just after 6 p.m. and stayed outside Stonewall for hours. Cordeiro had helped to organize Sunday night's vigil at Stonewall. "I woke up and saw what had happened. Without even thinking I said 'We need a vigil.'" Around Cordiero, chants of "No hate!" shifted to "Fuck hate!" and dozens laid flowers outside of Stonewall while a high-alert NYPD presence loomed in the background. Some admitted to being fearful of new violence breaking out at the vigil. "Of course I was nervous about coming. We're nervous for our gay pride month. It always crosses your mind," Queens resident Chad Ryan, 38, said. "Gay bars started a revolution. It's the place where we feel safe. For the majority of people who come out of the closet, it's the first place they go," Ryan continued. As some mourners returned home, the vigil turned into a protest march, as dozens of people made their way up Seventh Avenue, stopping traffic and spontaneously blocking intersections. The NYPD, which is known for aggressively cracking down on disruptive marches that take to the streets, was noticeably lenient. Later in the evening that tone changed, however, as mounted officers disrupted crowds marching near Times Square. According to an NYPD spokesperson, five protesters were arrested on 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. Gay pride flags were waved alongside American and Puerto Rican banners, and chants of "New York is Orlando, Orlando is New York" were met with supportive horns from motorists on 14th Street as the protest group marched toward, and then congregated in, Union Square. In the park, 50 electronic candles were lit and a moment of silence was held in honor of those killed. Aquib Yacoob, a gay Muslim man, used a megaphone to speak to the crowd just after 8 p.m. "Last night, at 5 a.m., I was at a gay club. It's ramadan, I'm not drinking, I was hanging out. I was enjoying the space, I was enjoying the people, I was enjoying the love. Then I saw my newsfeed, and I was terrified. I wanted to go home. I wanted to hide under my blanket and not come out. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't feel, I couldn't be." Yacoob, 23, paused for a moment. "But today I came out. I saw the crowds outside of Stonewall, I see the crowds gathered here and I have hope. I know we will fight and I know we will win. We're awake, finally. The LGBT community is awake to violence, the senseless killing." Photo by Jay Fine for the New York Wheel We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today A Brooklyn man is among the 36 victims publicly identified so far in the mass shooting at a gay nightclub just outside Orlando, Florida early Sunday morning that left 49 people dead (not counting the perpetrator) and more than 50 injuredthe deadliest mass shooting in American history. Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25, was on vacation in Orlando this weekend. He worked as a coordinator for a Brooklyn elderly home-care provider, according to his Facebook page, and studied social work at St. Francis College. Rios's mother has launched a GoFundMe page to raise money to return her son's body to Brooklyn for a funeral. "I come as a humble, hurt, devastated mother," she wrote. "My family is torn apart and all I would like is to have my son with me so he can the funeral he deserves." "My son was a good kid. He was just having a great time on his vacation, until this deranged man came in and shot the place up," she added. The city of Orlando has released a running list of victims whose families have been notified, which will be updated periodically. A local helpline, 407-246-4357, has been set up for families still searching for their loved ones. According to the NY Times, 48 of the 49 victims had been ID'd as of Monday morning. ABC reports that bodies were removed methodically on stretchers throughout the day Sunday, four at a time, and placed in white vans. All of the deceased had been taken to the county medical examiner's office by 11:00 p.m., but doctors at local hospitals stressed that the majority of the 53 injured victims are in critical condition. The death toll is expected to increase. The shooter, who was killed by responding police after a lengthy standoff, has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen who was living in Port St. Lucie, Florida when he carried out the deadly attack. At a press conference early this morning, Orlando Police chief John Mina told reporters that Mateen "didn't ask for much" during hostage negotiations. "We were doing most of the asking," he added. Mina couldn't confirm whether any hostages were struck by police. The back side of Pulse nightclub (Getty). The Orlando Sentinel provided the latest update on the sequence of events as they are understood: ...an officer working security at the club exchanged gunfire with Mateen near one of the entrances. The officer called for backup at 2:02 a.m. as Mateen ran inside and opened fire into the crowd on the dance floor. Additional officers ran inside and immediately started exchanging fire with Mateen. Mina said many people were then able to escape, as Mateen retreated to a bathroom. He held about a handful of people hostage with him, while about 15 others hid in a nearby bathroom. That's when Mateen called 911 and pledged alliance to the Islamic state, Mina said. Crisis negotiators tried to work with him, Mina said, and during that time things "stabilized." No shots were fired, but there was talk about explosives and a possible bomb vest. Mina said he then -- three hours after the first gunshot -- gave the order for SWAT crews to use a battering ram to get inside. They broke a 3-foot hole into one of the bathroom walls and pulled several people out. Mateen, 29, followed for a final, fatal gun battle. Mateen had two separate licenses to carry firearms in Florida, and worked for private security company G4S. He was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun when he entered the nightclub Pulse around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. New footage acquired by CBS seems to show Mateen firing 24 rounds in 9 seconds. Mateen was born in New York, to Afghan parents. Although ISIS has since taken credit for the attack, stating that it was "carried out by an Islamic State fighter," it is as yet unclear whether Mateen had any communication with the extremists leading up to Sunday's massacre. According to his immediate family and ex-wife, Mateen was extremely homophobic and an abusive partner. It has also been confirmed that Mateen was investigated by the FBI in 2013 and 2014both cases were closed. His father, Seddique Mir Mateen, posted a video on Facebook early this morning, speaking in Dari. The NY Times translated: I dont know what caused this. I did not know and did not understand that he has anger in his heart. "My son, Omar Mateen, was a very good boy, an educated boy, who had a child and a wife, very respectful of his parents." Addressing reporters on Monday, Florida Governor Rick Scott confirmed that he has asked President Obama to declare a federal emergency on his state's behalf, so that "the full resources of the federal government can be made available for all those impacted by this horrific massacre. Such a declaration typically prompts an initial $5 million relief grant. In New York, the Post reports that the NYPD has announced plans to ramp up security at gay nightclubs city-wide. We are working closely with the LGBT community to figure out exactly where we need to put our assets, Chief of Department James ONeill told reporters Monday. The NYPD will also have ample security at tonight's vigil at the Stonewall Inn. As some families waited to learn whether their loved ones are among the dead in Orlando Monday morning, Donald Trump appeared on television and suggested that President Obama was pleased with, and perhaps even encouraged, the mass shooting. Trump offered up his YouTube-comments-grade conspiracy live on (where else?) Fox & Friends, leaping from his typical Obama criticisms to something much more sinister all in one sentence. "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other," Trump said. "We're led by a man who is a verylook, we're led by a man that either is, is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can't believe it. People cannotthey cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and can't even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. There's something going on. It's inconceivable." Trump later took credit for being correct in his anti-Muslim comments. Im getting thousands of letters and tweets that I was right about the whole situation, he told Fox. He later called for increased bombing abroad and increased surveillance of Muslim Americans. We have to be very strong in terms of looking at the mosques, Trump said. In the hours immediately following Sunday's tragedy, the likely Republican presidential nominee seized upon nationwide shock in a blatantly insensitive attempt to score political points with the xenophobic and anti-Muslim contingents of his base. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism," Trump tweeted yesterday framing the death of 49 people at the hands of an American-born Muslim as a vindication of his nativist rhetoric. Trump's remarks might appear to stem from the news that the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, was Muslim, and in the middle of his shooting spree paused to pledge his allegiance to the Islamic State during a 911 call. Mateen has been described by his family as a regularly violent man with deep-seated homophobia and legal access to firearms. But for Trump, there is no nuance, only a violent man with a foreign name who at some point read the Quran before committing an atrocity. In Trump's twisted toxic worldview, Mateen and Obama are both Muslims, and therefore the president is a Manchurian Candidate-style terrorist mastermind who was no doubt celebrating on rooftops during 7/11. Read all about it in the next racist comic sans email from your stupid uncle. Last night Broadway toasted the unlikely musical blockbuster about the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, awarding Hamilton with 11 Tonys from its record-breaking 16 nominations, including Best Score, Best Book, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Actor, Best Direction and Best Musical. Producer Jeffrey Seller, when accepting the Tony for Best Musical, paid tribute to the creative, generous spirit in which the show was developed, and quoted one of the songs, "Look around. Look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now." His words had another meaning, as it was also a somber night in the aftermath of the Orlando massacre. In addition to Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda's moving acceptance speech for Best Score ("We rise and fall and light from dying embers / Remembrances that hope and love lasts longer / And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love), Frank Langella, who won Best Actor in a Play for The Father said, "I found some words that will mean more to you than a list of names. When something bad happens we have three choices: we let it define us, we let it destroy us, or we let it strengthen us. Today in Orlando we had a hideous dose of reality, and I urge you Orlando to remain strong... We will be with you every step of the way." He told reporters later, "I had to say something about it... I react to things much more profoundly than I did when I was 60, 50. This violence, sense of madness that seems to be pervading this country is terrifying me." It was also a notable night because all the winners of the musical acting categories are people of color: Leslie Odom Jr. won Best Actor for Hamilton; Cynthia Erivo won Best Actress for The Color Purple; Daveed Diggs won Best Supporting Actor for Hamilton; and Renee Elise Goldsberry won Best Supporting Actress for Hamilton. Host James Corden said, "Think of tonight as the Oscarsbut with diversity." After the applause, he continued, "It is so diverse, Donald Trump has threatened to build a wall around this theater." Corden also explained, "This is like the Super Bowl for people who don't know what the Super Bowl is." Here's a full list of the winners. Among them should be Corden, who was an excellent host, even if the show felt a bit overstuffedwhich is to be expected, as the program is a way for Broadway to entice people to buy tickets to their shows. Check out video clips from the show below; sadly CBS hasn't included the really terrific bit where Corden name-checked nominees, noting that they were better known by the bit parts they played in Law and Order: James Corden's opening number: Which was preceded by a Hamilton spoof/tribute to Corden: Gloria Estefan and the cast of On Your Feet: Cynthia Erivo, Heather Headley, Danielle Brooks and the cast of The Color Purple: Alex Brightman and the cast of School of Rock: The cast of Fiddler on the Roof: Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and the cast of Shuffle Along: Gavin Creel, Jane Krakowski, Zachary Levi and Laura Benanti sing songs from "She Loves Me": Steve Martin, Edie Brickell and the cast of Bright Star: The "In Memoriam" segment, complete with applause-meter: The cast of Spring Awakening: The cast of Hamilton performs "Yorktown": Jessie Mueller and the cast of Waitress: The cast of Hamilton closes the Tonys with "The Schuyler Sisters": Its one familys tale but it could happen to anyone living with wildfire. One-Third Mile to Safety: A Familys Story originated in 2003 as southern California faced several large wildfires burning hundreds of thousands of acres, scorching more than 2,200 homes and costing many lives. As one of those blazes, the Paradise fire, rapidly approached the Roach familys home, they attempted to escape the only one-third mile to the local fire station. In the panic of blinding smoke and showering embers, events ended in tragedy with the death of 18-year-old Ashleigh Roach and leaving Allison Roach severely burned. On Saturday, June 18 in Helena, Allison will tell her story as part of a public event organized by Helenans Doris Davis and Mary Kelley along with local fire officials. Attendees will participate in a staff ride simulation of the one-third mile the Roach family endured, with stations along the way for discussion of what happened and what could have been done differently. This will be a very emotional day, full of powerful and inspirational messages, said Sonny Stiger, Tri-County FireSafe Working Group representative and retired Forest Service Fire Behavior Analyst. It is not meant to be a light-hearted experience but it is meant to be an experience that moves our Montana neighbors into taking action: to get prepared and ready for wildfire season, each and every year; and to evacuate if or when that call is made. The idea for One-Third Mile to Safety began with Ravalli County fire official Bob Mutch, and his desired to see civilians who perish in wildfires recognized, said Pat McKelvey with FireSafe. The staff ride is about the telling of a story but also going through to make it better, asking what events happened here that we dont need to duplicate, he said. In the chaos of a late evacuation many things can go wrong. Cars do not run well, often stalling if smoke is too thick. Visibility is extremely low and embers can ignite wild and residential fires in a matter of seconds. One of the biggest things were talking about is situational awareness, McKelvey said. You dont have to wait for a guy in a brown Kevlar vest with a gun to tell you to go. If you think its time to go, go. You can always come back. Fire modeling specialists have identified Helena as vulnerable to a wildfire. Modeling predicts that with the right wind, a fire on the east side of MacDonald Pass could reach Helenas Westside in as little as four hours. Outlying communities such as Rimini and Unionville are also in a potential fires path, McKelvey said. Weve dodged so many bullets year after year after year, he said. Beetle kill has largely changed where incident commanders are willing to send firefighters, Stiger said. Downfall trees create hazardous conditions for firefighters and while not burning as fast as the red dead trees, the stacked fuel tends to burn much longer, he said. By creating a life-like experience for the public, organizers hope to trigger thoughtful discussion and a call to action. Planning before a fire and taking steps to mitigate around homes is paramount and they encourage homeowners to take advantage of cost-share programs to help fire-safe homes. One of the things we need to keep emphasizing is its not just mitigation in the forest, its a city project and a community project all the way through, Kelley said. I recently took a business trip to our nations capital. It wasnt your typical business trip though. I went to D.C. to educate our Montana delegation and federal lawmakers that some places are more valuable than gold. Im a member of the Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition. A pro-business, property rights organization seeking to limit the impact of two controversial gold mines near Yellowstone National Parks northern boundary and in the Paradise Valley. These mines dont make sense for the economy and quality of life in Montanas Park County. I was joined on this trip by Bryan Wells, owner of Emigrant Creek Cabins. This was only Bryans send time in his lifetime that he had been east of Billings. He rode a 46-hour train to Washington to speak his mind, and then came back home again. I was also joined by Tracy Raich, owner of Raich Montana Properties, LLC in Livingston. Tracy handles ranch and recreational properties and strives to encourage positive development in the Paradise Valley. She worries that gold mines will negatively impact our local economy, ranching and quality of life. Her husband, a mining engineer agrees that gold mines are not appropriate near Yellowstone. We and the 200-plus other businesses that make up the Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition, are seeking a permanent solution that protects the economy, the way of life, and private property rights near Yellowstone National Park. One that fits Park County, and Montana. Thats why we went to Washington. For business. One potential tool to consider in limiting the impact of mining near Yellowstone is a modest legislative mineral withdrawal for public that protects property rights. This is similar to what has already been done with the North Fork Watershed Protection Act championed by Sen. Steve Daines, Sen. Jon Tester and the Rocky Mountain Front lease withdrawal legislation championed by former Sen. Max Baucus and the late Sen. Conrad Burns. Montanas delegation has a successful track record of listening to Montanans and advancing bipartisan leadership solutions. We are investigating whether they can do it again. However, we need time for the right solution to come together. Legislation takes time and our clock is ticking. In addition to conversations with our Montana delegation, we are investigating what tools the federal government has to push a pause button and give us more breathing room. Advertisement (1 of 1): 0:25 We came to Washington DC armed with plenty of ammo to support our arguments. A new economic report from the OConnor Center for the Rocky Mountain West, notes that large-scale, highly visible, and environmentally disruptive activities such as large-scale mining and heavy manufacturing may pose the greatest threats to Park Countys economy. The economic report, titled Park Countys Growing Economy, specifically warns that any economic benefits from large-scale mines in Paradise Valley are often short-term or transitory while their negative impacts are deep, continuing sometimes in perpetuity. The Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition has shared the report with Tester, Daines, and U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, as well as agency officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Interior. This report reinforces what we have known for years, that Yellowstone National Park provides small business owners in Park County with a competitive advantage and a brighter future, Tester said. That is why I support the business leaders and land owners who are working together to protect Yellowstone from short-sighted decisions that will limit economic opportunities and slow down job creation in the Paradise Valley. A summary of the report can be found on our website at dontmineyellowstone.org. Montana cannot afford any proposal that will pollute our clean water, hurt our businesses and threaten our jobs. We traveled the 2,000 miles between Montana and Washington to give a voice to Montanas outdoor heritage and to protect our state as a home for thousands and a destination for millions. Is it really worth mining for gold near Yellowstone when you stand to lose so much? We dont think so; thats why we called it a business trip. Obtained by ABC News(ORLANDO, Fla.) -- A former co-worker of the Orlando, Florida nightclub shooter said that Omar Mateen was "a very troubled person." Daniel Gilroy used to work at a community security gate alongside Mateen, who was identified as the shooter who killed 49 people and injured an additional 53 people at Orlando's Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. "[Mateen] had a lot of rage in him," Gilroy told ABC News. "When I say that he was unstable or unhinged, I mean this is a man who would lose his temper for no reason. He would kick walls, slap desks. Ive seen him throw the chair across the room one time," Gilroy said. Gilroy said he purposefully lost contact with Mateen in March 2015 when he left the job. "I didn't want to be around him anymore," Gilroy said. "Im not surprised at what he did. I always knew he had something in him like that. And if I had to pick one person that would be capable of that, it would be him." The shooting started just after 2 a.m. on Sunday at the popular gay nightclub. Mateen died in a firefight with police when they raided the club at around 5 a.m. Federal authorities determined that Mateen had recently purchased the two guns he used during the shooting. Mateen's ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy also said that Mateen had a temper that could turn violent. "He would be perfectly normal and happy, joking, laughing one minute -- the next minute his temper his body would just [go] totally the opposite," Yusufiy, 27, told ABC News. "Anger, emotionally violent and that later evolved into abuse, to beating." Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. MISSOULA -- There will be about a hundred of them in all from a dozen or more states, traveling by car or train or airplane, and when they gather in Montana at the end of this month it will be to celebrate another kind of journey the one their families made by ox cart a century ago. As John Gutierrez of Northridge, California, explains, it was exactly 100 years ago, in 1916, that several related Ukrainian families -- having left their homeland behind when they moved to Canada a few years earlier -- made the trek across the United States border. They homesteaded on the open prairie some 40 miles from Malta, the nearest town of any size. Weve really got to remember these people and the sacrifices they made so we could have what we have today, says Gutierrez. It was a tough place because youre totally on your own -- its entirely up to you to succeed or fail. Theres no doctors, no medicine, nothing. Youre 40 miles from the nearest town. You lived in a tent until you built that first two-room house and then youre working in the fields. It just took a lot of stamina and endurance and hope. A centennial reunion of the Obach-Wachula and Ivanovitch-Walchuk families will celebrate the legacy of those immigrants when the descendants gather June 24-26 in Malta. Most of those families arrived in 1916 to join the Walchuks, who had already arrived in 1914. It was the still the homesteading era in eastern Montana, and they had very likely seen the Great Northern posters blaring the promise of lands available for homesteading in places such as Phillips County, Montana. They found land near Frenchman Creek. Its almost a sacred place to me. This is where it all started -- the homestead, said Gutierrez. He is helping to coordinate the reunion for the Obach family, those descended from Thomas and Anna Obach. Gutierrez, who worked on the Saturn 1B and Saturn V Launch Computer Complex for RCA Radar Systems Division in Van Nuys, California, from 1961 to 1969, said he sometimes marveled at the way that Obach family -- one in which education was stressed -- arrived in America. What is amazing to me is that my grandparents immigrated to the United States in 1916 on an ox-drawn cart - a two-wheeled ox-drawn cart in which they moved to this promised land. In two generations their grandson, me, John Gutierrez, Im working for RCA Radar Systems Division, Im working on the Saturn IB and Saturn V launch computer complex, which helped launch a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth. My grandparents came here in an ox cart and I helped land a man on the moon -- only in America could this happen -- in two generations. It just boggles my mind. Quest for religious freedom Pat Donich of Seeley Lake, who is coordinating the reunion for descendants of the Wachula/Ivanovitch family, said the familys story has echoes of the Mayflower voyage -- a quest for religious freedom. At that time, there was still a czar in Russia, and thats when the Bolsheviks were working to take over everything. Our family was in favor of the czar, but they were afraid because they were religious. The Bolsheviks, who successfully overthrew the czars government in 1917, were famously opposed to religion. For religious people, it seemed like a good time to leave Ukraine. They were really terrified of the Bolsheviks, who hadnt even taken over yet, said Donich. And Donichs father, John Ivanovitch -- who was 7 when his family came to Canada in 1914, and 9 when then came to the U.S. in 1916 -- never forgot the feeling that things would be better in America. I remember my dad saying, Dont ever complain about paying taxes in this country. Just be so happy youre here and you can, Donich said. Donich said the family already knew about the opportunities to homestead before they left home. They saw ads in Ukraine about free land, which was the homestead land. So when they got to Canada, after a couple years they just walked across the border and applied for citizenship and homesteads, and nobody cared if they did that. Well, they actually came in ox carts, because they had goods. The familys tradition also tells that the family stayed one season in Mankota, Saskatchewan, because they needed to raise a crop of potatoes so theyd have something to eat when they came. The land north of Malta didnt exactly drip with milk and honey when they arrived. It was prairie and lots of rocks and never very good land, Donich said. They raised lots of things. They raised wheat and barley and hay and turkeys -- 500 turkeys at a time -- and cattle and chickens. They just did anything they could possibly do to make some money. They lived in sod houses. A sod house is like the sod you would put down on your lawn now, only they plowed up the prairie and the walking plows would plow 18 inches wide. Then they would just stack that up like bricks. They would stack it in two rows for one wall and kind of lean them together and the houses were like 30 feet by 40 feet. And theyd have two rooms in them with all those children. The Obach family lived in their sod house 10 years and then they bought a wooden house from some neighbors who left. They then donated their sod house as a school to educate their own children and those of the neighbors. So that sod house became the Obach School from 1924 to 1934. Bonnie OBrien, who came to teach the pupils -- there are photos of her and her students standing next to the sod walls of that prairie school -- ended up marrying John Ivanovitch and staying the area as a farm wife, mother and teacher. New opportunities The Obachs, meanwhile started looking, American-fashion, for new opportunities as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s set in. They looked toward western Montana. They sold the homestead back to the government and the Obach family moved to Charlo. They had a much smaller farm, but it was much more productive. There was rain in the spring and there was water and streams. It became a very successful farm in Charlo, said Gutierrez. But tragedy went with them. For already in September 1935, Michael Obach -- who had won $20 in May of that year for being the best judge of horses and mules in the state of Montana at a contest in Bozeman -- was killed in a car accident near Hinsdale. It was at night and he had no lights. Another vehicle driven by the postmaster at Meharry struck the Obach family truck head on. Michael was standing in front of the truck at the time, cranking it to get it started. He was pinned between the two vehicles. He was the fourth-oldest. He was a farmer. He loved it, Gutierrez said. I know my grandmother never got over it -- how tragedy strikes your family. And three years after they moved to Charlo, my grandfather died of stomach cancer. But immigrants in America long ago figured out that bad things still happen in the promised land. Theres some good stories and some sad stories, Gutierrez said. They will tell both kinds when the descendants of the Obachs and Wachulas, the Ivanovitches and Walchuks, gather in Malta later this month. DECATUR Clamped in place and lying flat while punched through the air and dipped up and down on a Macon County Fair ride called the Cliff Hanger, 13-year-old Jessica Cuttill was frank in her emotional self-assessment. Asked if she had been scared, the Decatur girl said: Yeah, kinda. She would have volunteered more but her brother Riley, 10, had seen the promised land in the shape of a round ride that twists its occupants up and down in a series of vicious circles. Let's go to 'Wipe Out', come on, come on, cried Riley, and they were off and flying again. Their mom, Jenifer Cuttill, looking on with a smile, said her kids are regulars at the fair. All the events, rides, food and the fun, she said. We'd sure miss it if it was gone. The fair has certainly seen its fair share of ups and downs over an extraordinary 160-year history. Once forced to drop popular livestock shows because of previous financial problems, the swine, goat and other critters were back on the roster this year after first returning last year. The Macon County Fair Queen Pageant, another previous casualty, returned for 2016 and proved popular on Tuesday's opening night. The lineup of activities also included new stuff such as professional wrestling and a karaoke contest while a traditional favorite, demolition derby, wrapped up the fair's week Sunday. Crowds braving high heat and humidity were not tumultuous but they were steady. Families were generally pleased with the prices and said paying $22 for an armband to ride any ride Sunday afternoon was a good deal for the kids. Sandra Tolbert, visiting from Alabama with her grandchildren Maddison Moody, 6, and 4-year-old Annabelle Moody, said Macon County needs to realize its got a good thing going. There's a nice variety of rides for the little ones, and I'm really impressed, Tolbert said. I really like it. Jim Stalker, first vice president of the fair, said the event had more than held its own this year. My philosophy about the fair is if we can break even and pay all of our bills, we've had a super fair, he added. And, right now, I'm left with a smile on my face. SHELBYVILLE From about 10:30 p.m. Saturday until daybreak Sunday morning, a few volunteer members of the Shelby County Dive Team and a team from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources moved their boats slowly around Ninth Street Beach area of Lake Shelbyville. They were using sonar to search for a Decatur man who had disappeared while swimming around 4:30 p.m. Saturday. The body of the swimmer, 21-year-old Brandon R. Breeze, was discovered after 11 a.m. Sunday. It was rough, dive team captain Austin Pritchard said. The visibility underwater at the lake is six to 12 inches. Its hard to see anything, so you go by feel. Almost a dozen agencies responded to the 911 call for help. Friends said Breeze and others were swimming outside the designated swimming area near the Lake Shelbyville Dam when Breeze and another man became fatigued. The other swimmer made it back to the safe area with assistance, but Breeze disappeared. We used sonar to find a couple of targets and sent divers, but neither one was correct, Pritchard said. Then we went back and interviewed witnesses and tried to get a more exact location of where he was last seen. Assisting in the search were rescue workers from Effingham County, Shelby County law enforcement agencies and fire and rescue squads, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and IDNR responded to the call. Red Cross and other volunteers provided assistance for searchers and family members in the 90-plus degree heat. Divers were called out of the water late in the evening, but Pritchard and others continued to use sonar to search for Breeze overnight. Divers returned to the water early Sunday morning and Breeze was found about 11:30 a.m. An investigation into the accident is continuing. Pritchard said swimmers sometimes overestimate their own abilities and may have trouble judging distances on lake waters when they leave the designated swimming area. The first and most important thing we want people to know is stay inside the swimming area, he said. The second is if you are not a strong swimmer, either wear or have floating with you a flotation device to keep you above water. The lengthy search was emotionally hard on family members and friends waiting on the beach, and on the rescue workers. Its hard on everyone, Pritchard said. Emergency personnel dont talk about it in front of everyone, but when we get behind closed doors well talk about it. Theres not going to be a good ending and its tough. LINCOLN The railroad depot that has been at the heart of Lincoln for more than a century is about to undergo a $4.1 million renovation that should return it to rail service by next spring. When we are all done, we anticipate it being restored to what it once was, said City Administrator Clay Johnson. Its a hallmark of the community. "We are looking forward to having it restored to honor the history of the community, but also looking forward to the future, by having an upgraded, modern, high-speed rail facility," he said. City officials hope to open bids June 23 and have a contractor working as soon as possible. It will take them about a year to get this done, so we are looking for late spring or early summer of 2017, Johnson said. The Chicago & Alton Railroad depot opened Nov. 15, 1911, on a platform near the spot where Abraham Lincoln christened the city in 1853. It was closed to the traveling public in 1972. It was sold and renovated five years later and named the Depot Restaurant. The restaurant and catering hall was last known as McCartys at the Depot, but it closed in 2013. When completed, the depot, which is about 4,000 square feet, will serve as a passenger station for high-speed rail until at least 2037. The city will have 700 square feet to use for promotional purposes. The plan includes restoring the brick Spanish Mission-style exterior and adding new drop-off drive and parking area at the north end of the depot, at the corner of Pekin and Chicago streets. Parking areas would be added on both the Sangamon Street and Chicago Street sides of the building. New landscaping and sidewalks also are in the plan. The Pekin Street railroad crossing was closed permanently to vehicle and pedestrian traffic last week as construction crews began work on high-speed rail upgrades. The street will remain closed because the station and loading platform will be extended north through the crossing. About 20,000 people use Amtrak rail service at the station each year. The Illinois Department of Transportation is funding about $4 million of the project. The city of Lincoln will pay about $100,000, plus the cost of basic utilities once the depot reopens. Muller and Muller Architects, based in Chicago, have drawn the preliminary plans for the project. The firm could not be reached for comment. The early morning arrest in Santa Monica of James Wesley Howell, 20, of Jeffersonville, came just a few hours after at least 50 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., though police said they had found no evidence of a connection between the events. The LA Pride event continued as usual, albeit with increased security. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced the arrest at the start of the parade and struck a defiant tone. "We are here as Angelenos, as the LGBT community and allies," he said. "And we will not shrink away, we will not be stuck in our homes, we will not go back into our closets. We're here to march, to celebrate and to mourn." Howell was arrested about 5 a.m. after residents called police to report suspicious behavior by a man who parked his white Acura sedan facing the wrong way. When officers arrived they saw an assault rifle sitting in Howell's passenger seat, Santa Monica police Lt. Saul Rodriguez said. That prompted them to search the whole car. They found two more assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police said. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks initially tweeted that Howell told officers he wanted to "do harm" at the gay pride event, but she later corrected her statement to say only that Howell said he was going to the parade, about seven miles from the scene of the arrest. Authorities would answer no further questions on Howell or his motives. The FBI is leading the investigation. A Facebook page that apparently is Howell's includes photos of the white Acura he was driving in Santa Monica. The postings are unremarkable. There's no enmity toward gays or notable political activism. One post says he's signing a petition to legalize marijuana. The page's most recent public post, from June 3, shows a photo comparing an Adolf Hitler quote to one from Hillary Clinton. An anti-Clinton, pro-Bernie Sanders photo was posted in February. The site includes political posts, including one in which he repeats conspiracy theories that the government was behind notorious terrorist attacks, including 9/11. That post shares a video claiming that last years terror attack on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was a hoax and attributable to the New World Order. The site said Howell worked as an auditor for a company that makes air filters. Howell was charged in October in Clark County, Ind., with pointing a firearm at someone, and with intimidation. He made a deal with prosecutors in April to plead guilty only to the misdemeanor intimidation charge. He was given one-year prison sentence that the judge suspended in favor of strict probation that prohibited him from having weapons. A friend of Howell's, 18-year-old Joseph Greeson, said Howell's parents in Jeffersonville hadn't seen him for days and that they called Greeson's parents looking for him. Greeson told the Los Angeles Times that he and Howell are in a car club together and that Howell had a gun collection. Greeson said Howell was bisexual. Greeson said Howells family in Jeffersonville hadnt seen him for days and that his parents had called Greesons parents looking for him. He added that Howell was known to have a gun collection. Greeson also said Howell harbored no ill will for gays or lesbians. The organizers of LA Pride said in a statement before the parade that the Orlando tragedy made them all the more determined to continue with plans. "Our brave founders made this happen to show the world who we are," the statement said. "We will be loud. We will be proud, and we will celebrate in honor of all those lost." Carl Oliver of Los Angeles attends the parade every year. He said he cried after hearing about Orlando, but he never considered not coming. "This is about love," he said. "We have to show our love and unity." By Karine Vann Part I: Interview with an Karabakh Peacebuilder in Baku The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh does not end when one leaves the front-line. On the contrary, there is a potent and powerful media war surrounding us at all times, from the BBC to our Facebook feeds, and for many on either side of the conflict, barriers ranging from language to legislation impede access to independent sources on the ground. Dissatisfied with the English-language coverage of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of the last two months and sensing a worrying dearth of commentary from ethnic Azerbaijani specialists from both local and international publications, I recently decided to take it upon myself to reach out independently to Azeri peacebuilders to ask them what is happening on their side of the media warzone. Motivated by my own fears about the possible outbreak of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, I went into each conversation, not pointing fingers or making any territorial claims, but simply to get closer to the truth about what Azeris are feeling and experiencing in Azerbaijan and what their thoughts might be about the possibility of a peaceful resolution. The first person I reached out to was Avaz Hasanov, Director of the Humanitarian Research Public Union in Azerbaijan. Hasanov is a veteran of peacebuilding in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict (if one can say such a thing). For years, he has written intensively on the conflict, working side-by-side both Armenians and the people of Karabakh to find common ground and participate in peacebuilding seminars and workshops. He is one of very few Azerbaijanis who can say they have voyaged to the disputed region since the devastating fighting of the nineties, which saw thousands displaced. His last visit to the conflict zone was in 2006 and his last trip to Armenia, as recent as 2014. Having spent many years engaging in official initiatives, Hasanov is well-rehearsed in the diplomatic process. He deftly handles meetings with official representatives, whether its those from Armenian and Azerbaijani governments or the OSCE Minsk Group. Yet in the last two years, he says, he has lost all his projects. Recent government legislation has blockaded his and dozens of other NGOs ability to secure financing. Where he once had a staff of twenty, today, he has three. Where his organization once enjoyed a large office space, they now occupy a small room. Discouraged by these developments, Hasanov is distraught about what this means for the possibility of a peaceful resolution between the two nations. No stranger to Armenian press (he has undertaken several interviews in the past), he kindly agreed to speak with me to provide answer some questions I had regarding public opinion and the media in Azerbaijan from a non-governmental representative. Lets get right into it. What, in your opinion, is required in order to reach a peaceful resolution to this conflict? Yeah. [Laughs] I will try to find the words. I am not an optimist now. I was very optimistic a few years ago. I believed in the people of Armenia and Azerbaijan. I dont think the solution of the conflict is dependent on moderators, on initiators, on officials. I think the solution of the conflict depends on the Azeri, Armenian, and the Karabakh people. I dont know, I had many conversations with Azeris here and Armenians and Karabakhs, sometimes I tried a simulation game in University where Im trying to present both sides opinionswhat Armenians want, what Azeris want, what people in Karabakh want And you know, I havent got a real concept about what we can get in the end. But I think its the issues of two nations. But my main idea is that I dont agree with war. Im against any military interference. We cannot solve the conflict with warall of us will lose in the end. In any case, we will sit around the table and discuss the final solution, but I am sure Azeris and Armenians didnt spend a lot of time trying to find a solution. We are waiting for moderators, waiting for mediators to decide for us. Because, for whatever reason, we cant seem to communicate with one another. People from both sides are not really conversing, it seems. This is our big mistake. Its been over two decades and I have never seen a real negotiation process. Im not talking about between officials, but between regular people, Armenians and Azeris. And sometimes, I am looking to process what is happening and I wonderwhy Armenians and Azeris, two nations with similar histories, similar cultures cannot find a common language. Literally. Yeah. We face this situation now. How will Russia and how will the foreign mediators solve this conflict for us? Meanwhile, we are losing time and the opportunity to be able to decide on a solution for ourselves. So, given the current situation, what can Armenians do to help--right now? Really I dont know. I know you mentioned that you arent an optimist anymore, but do you have any examples of a moments during one of your peace-building initiatives when you really saw some kind of progress? Maybe it was even something as small as a successful conversation between people? Yeah, I have a lot! But unfortunately, many of my interviews and my articles about it are in Russian. Speaking of language, would you say that English is starting to be a more popular language with young people in Azerbaijan Yes, English is becoming more powerful, but basically were using Russian. Its more popular than English, definitely for the middle-aged population. And English is more popular amongst the young generation. But the people who have good English in Azerbaijan, they have no interest in getting involved in the conflict. Young people dont like to speak about the conflict, dont like to be involved in the conflict. Only the middle-aged generation has interest. Do you think its important for Armenian journalists to try and get in touch with Azeris and get their reactions on what is happening? To be honest, sometimes I am looking to Armenian mass media. I have found many very good Armenian analysts. You mean, in Armenian language? No, I mean, in English and Russian. I know plenty of Armenian experts in Armenia. And sometimes, I see a similarity of our view, our position to peacebuilding process. And at this point, Armenias position and Armenias public opinion is so clear for me. But its not clear for me what the Azeri position is, unfortunately. Sometimes we will say, We will give Karabakh high status, a very high status. But we dont know what that means. No one really wants to discuss the elements of this high status or what that means. I saw very active Armenian journalists on issues in the Karabakh conflict. I saw how Armenian journalists would try to learn the position of Azeris and contact experts. But in Azerbaijan, you cannot know the position of the Armenian independentexperts. There are only 2 or 3 sites propagating any kind of opinions of Armenians. But I have been following the media, and I havent really seen any popular Armenian media outlets use ethnic Azerbaijanis as primary sources. But, OK, in the last three months, yes, it was not so popular. But, you can look to previous years. You can see that journalists were doing this kind of activity. We also had this joint website where Azeri and Armenian NGOs could collaborate. Regarding the international coverage of the conflict, it seems to me that sources like Al Jazeera and BBC generally lack ethnically Azerbaijani panelists represented. Is this a misinformed assessment? Is it just that I only see Armenian panelists speaking because I have a primarily Armenian network propagating specific clips of the coverage? Or is this a general truth, something that you have noticed as well? The first issue, why the Azeri perspective is not really clearly stated in international media I think its because the Azeri public and Azeri experts are not so active in international media. They are not more active in shaping their opinion and views in the international coverage. From my view, I think this is the first mistake of Azeri experts. The second problem is that Azeri society is closed to international journalists. The government has made Azerbaijan totally dependent on government official announcements. I can count on one hand how many free media outlets we have in Azerbaijan. Third, we have very little accessphysical accessto international journalists. Sometimes, international publications call for quotes from experts, but we do not have these experts living in Baku. When your branch or contact point does not live in Baku, you cannot really access what is actually going on. Azerbaijans government two or three years ago stopped cooperations with international media and we do not have any branch or representatives here, like CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, or other international media. And the last issue is that we are not so open to the international community. We have no independent analysts in Azerbaijan. I knew a few active experts, who has access to international media, international community, but we do not have a chance to get access. Seeing as you teach in a university, I imagine you probably have pretty good insight into the reactions of young people to the conflict. How do you feel about these reactions? Are people thinking independently about the conflict, or just accepting the information the media disseminates? Good question. Knowledge about the conflict amongst young people in general is not sufficient. They get their information only from social media and from the official media and television. Sure, all people know the main issues in the conflict. For all Azeris, Karabakh is Karabakh. They know we have this issue with Armenia and they know how they feel about it. But no one is thinking about how to solve this conflict. How can we find a solution? This is a big problem, not only with students. Its a problem with 40% of the population. All alternative views you can find by searching the opinions of experts, not by searching the official media. Its not just Azerbaijans societyits happening everywhere. But without the alternative views, you cannot imagine what the real situation in the conflict is. Thats the difference between Azerbaijan and other societies, is that finding the alternative sources is much more difficult. This is the main difficulty for us. They are not interested to read an article or do some research. This conflict is not the proiority of the young generation. I think its happening everywhere. All young generations are thinking about themselves, the first priority is developing themselves. You, Im sure, have been following international coverage? Are you satisfied with how international organizations are summarizing and presenting the situation to the general public? Hm, I dont know. Im sure that Al Jazeera and CNN and BBC have only one goal when covering this conflict. They want to give objective information. And every nation wants to receive the result from them. I think for Al Jazeera and other international media, they have more opportunities to work in Armenia and Karabakh than in Azerbaijan. They have full access to press, mass media, experts, panelists, the community, sometimes to the line of contact, to the frontline. But its not the case here. And this is the fault of the Azeri government! I dont see journalists from Al Jazeera and CNN in Baku because acquiring a visa is a huge problem for them. In this case, I cannot say. I am watching what is happening, Im agreeing, but the main issue is how international media presents Azerbaijan. It omits the main issues. You know, journalists from Al Jazeera and CNN came to Azerbaijan through the ministry of foreign affairs. They visited the line of contactthe front line. And they met with people whose houses were damaged. Okay, it was the main reason of their visit to Azerbaijan. They didnt meet with experts, they didnt meet with journalists here. Thats a problem. For those interested in seeking more articles and news that offers alternative narratives in English from people on the ground in Baku and Yerevan, the author recommends the media platform JAMNews. This website focuses on building media transparency in the Cacuasus and translates all of its articles into Armenian, Azeri, Georgian, Russian, and English. Header photo: David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters Karine Vann is a freelance writer, graphic designer, and activist based in Yerevan, originally from the Washington D.C. area. She is a musician by training and is passionate about the arts and the environment (in no particular order). "The HoseMaster is the funniest satirist writing about wine in the world today." --Karen MacNeil --Terry Theise HoseMaster HoseMaster HoseMaster --Robert Parker "...With sometimes crude analogies and occasional droppings of f-bombs, Washam cleverly uses satire to expose the underbelly of the wine business. It's often hilarious stuff as long as you're not the one being lampooned. Washam takes no prisoners in skewering all that is silly, stupid, frustrating and pretentious about wine, and his favorite targets are other bloggers and writers. No one is immune." -- Linda Murphy in "Vineyard and Winery Management" -- JancisRobinson.com " Hosemaster of Wine First: Im not sure if there is anyone better at cutting through the confidence trick that is often intrinsic to the business of wine. Second: in a world where offending people appears to border on the illegal, the Hosemaster piles in. No one is safe." --Joss Fowler "Vinolent.com" "As serious as the world of wine is, it does allow time for humor. Each Monday and Thursday, Ron Washam customarily posts a commentary on his needling wine blog HoseMaster of Wine . Washam, a former sommelier and comedy writer he might say they are closely related is the most opinionated, humorous and ribald observer in the wine world. His body of work is irreverent and remorseless. Its almost always satire and parody, though he occasionally drifts into straight commentary, sometimes even with tasting notes. This past year, one of his posts was named the best of the year in the Wine Blog Awards. His success has spawned several imitations, which in their awkwardness show just how difficult satire is." --Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/21/6089630/dunne-on-wine-wine-blogs-and-bloggers.html#storylink=cpy "Please let this guy write the scripts for Saturday Night Live which has gotten so lame...his newest "wisdom" is worth an Emmy....I wonder if he is the genius behind all those Hitler/Parker,etc. clips? No one else is remotely as funny or as talented.And the wine world sure needs someone to poke fun at all the nonsense and phoney/baloney unsufferable crap out there." --Robert Parker " Washam uses his own blog, HoseMaster of Wine , to skewer the industry in general and wine blogs in particular. If your mouse scoots to your browser's close box while reading a wine blog, Washam may be the blogger for you." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Ron Washam, former sommelier, is easily the most bitingly funny blogger/wine writer that we have ever come across. He is an equal opportunity crusader who pillories big wineries and amateur bloggers alike, as well as everything and everyone in between...One needs a sense of humor and a tolerance for earthiness to enjoy reading The Hosemaster . We must have both because this guy deserves a wider audience, in our humble opinion." --Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine --Steve Heimoff "This site should carry a warning label. It's sort of a Dave Barry/George Carlin approach to wine. The Hosemaster (real name Ron Washam) skewers fellow bloggers and industry savants with glee, while offering hilarious wine guides such as his Honest Guide to Grapes... --Paul Gregutt, Seattle Times "Washam is a skilled wine judge (I have judged with him) who is willing to judge wine double blind, in public . To my knowledge, Parker does not do this and never has. So Ron's credentials are in place, and so is his sense of the absurd." --Dan Berger, VintageExperiences "...I consider Ron a talented writer and Ive long been an admirer of his scathing wit..." --1WineDude "And if any free sites think they can conquer the world, theres always the Hosemaster to take em down a notch." --Tyler Colman "Dr. Vino" --Jo Diaz "Juicy Tales by Jo Diaz" "I must say you are an idiot. I've never liked you. I have no idea why people find you funny." --Reign of Terroir --Will Lyons (WSJ) on Twitter --Levi Dalton on Twitter very Share your opinion on this topic by sending a letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less. State Debate: To fight crime, finding solutions better than making threats, says the Journal Sentinel Its worth recalling that Gaylord Nelson was right on the pressing social issues of his time, be it the Vietnam War and civil rights or protections for workers. Its just that his environmental legacy casts such a long shadow that we forget much of the rest of his work. A Viola motorcyclist was injured Sunday night when he crashed into the back of an Amish buggy in rural Monroe County. According to the Monroe County Sheriffs office, 22-year-old Jerrand White was southbound on Highway 131 just before 10:30 p.m. when his 1996 Honda hit the buggy northeast of Wilton. White was thrown from the bike, which came to rest inside the buggy, ejecting driver William Borntreger, 22, and passenger Susie Borntreger, 21, both of Wilton. White, who was wearing a helmet, was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and later transferred to Gundersen Medical Center in La Crosse, where he was listed in fair condition Monday. The buggy passengers received minor injuries but declined treatment. The buggy was equipped with rear lights and a slow-moving vehicle warning. The sheriffs department is investigating the crash. On Sept. 12, 2011, 90-year-old Anna Mae Dahlk of 902 North High Point Road, No. 113, was sent a letter from Sherry Kramer, an Eligibility Services Representative with WEA Trust. Kramer wanted to confirm that we have terminated your continuation of life (insurance) coverage effective July 31, 2011. Kramer writes that on Aug. 15, a letter was sent telling Dahlk her August payment had not been received. Because of that, the coverage on the policy ended July 31. Dahlk did not receive those letters, a fact that WEA Trust should have known when that first letter was returned. WEA, after that bill was returned with the notice that the forwarding time had expired, still sent the renewal and then the termination notice to that very same and very wrong address. Dahlk hadnt lived at the address for more than 21/2 years, her daughter, Ruth Stormer, said. Stormer had no idea her mother had the WEA life insurance, which she got while a cook in the Minocqua area school district. Stormer found the policy as she went through papers after her mothers death March 2. When she contacted WEA, she was told the company had followed contact protocol, then terminated the policy. Stormer contacted SOS because she wasnt satisfied with that answer. Stormers mother had moved from the High Point address after a fall in 2008 to a care facility in Cross Plains. In November of 2010 she was moved to a nursing home on Mineral Point Road, and in January 2011, Stormer had her mothers mail forwarded to her address. My mother at this point was 90 years old. And they never made any effort to find out if she had died? Or moved? They just cancelled her policy, Stormer said. She said WEA told her they didnt know her mothers age. WEA wouldnt answer any questions from SOS, but spokesman Kyle Humphrey offered this explanation on the companys contact policy: If there is a forwarding address the Post Office notifies us of the change and we change addresses in all our systems. If something is not able to be forwarded, we will receive it back with the reason. We will make every reasonable effort to find a member, including an internet search, phone book searches, and phone calls. Our current process for delinquencies is we send a letter notifying them that they are delinquent and they need to bring their account current in order to maintain coverage. If we dont get the payment, we send another letter notifying them that their coverage is terminated. If these letters are returned we would go back to the returned mail process. SOS advised Stormer to contact the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance for a clarification, which she had already done. OCI sent her complaint to WEA and asked for an explanation. Diane Craney, a dispute resolutions administrator, sent the explanation to the OCI on May 26. OCI would not supply that to SOS because the complaint was still active, but Stormer provided a copy. In it, WEA confirmed Dahlk had group term life from the Minocqua school district as a retiree benefit, which allowed her to continue coverage as long as the premiums are received and the eligible class of employees continues to be insured. WEA also notes Dahlk in July 2010 paid an entire years premiums normally paid monthly at once. Then, WEA admits, the premium bill for August 2011 was returned with the notice that the forwarding time had expired. The September premium was billed with no response, a delinquent letter was sent and on Sept. 12, a termination letter was sent, all to Dahlks long-expired address. Craney then outlines what WEA would have done with the returned mail, adding it appears Ms. Dahlk moved prior to July 2010. We make every reasonable effort to find a member ... When (it) involves a life policy, we search obituaries and death records. However, when an insured enters an assisted living facility or nursing home, as Ms. Dahlk did, that information is not available on the internet. As an experiment, SOS decided to use the address of 902 North High Point Road, which was Dahlks last known (to WEA anyway) address, for an internet search and turned up in an eye-blink the name and telephone number for Rosewood Villas Apartments for Seniors. Had WEA done that in 2011, an apartment manager might have been able to help find out what happened to Dahlk. Stormer points out the manager then not only would have known where Dahlk had moved to, but also would have known the family members. Stormer notes that her mother had two life insurance policies. The WEA one, and one with CUNA Mutual. The CUNA renewal bills were successfully forwarded to Stormers address and she paid them, as her mother had suffered a stroke and a heart attack and was having difficulty remembering things. I dont know how much this (WEA policy) was worth. All I could find was a note mother wrote on the policy, $2,500, Stormer said. The policy from CUNA was $3,900. The additional $2,500 would have helped a lot, as her funeral cost almost $11,000. One more thing, the WEAs Craney adds in her explanation letter: I note that the Minocqua Jt. 1 School District terminated their group term life insurance policy with WEA on June 30, 2012, thus, had Ms. Dahlk continued her premium payments, her coverage would have terminated when Minocqua terminated coverage for her eligible class. No benefit would have been available from WEA upon her death in March, 2016. This was a surprise to Stormer, who wished WEA had told her about that when she attempted to get an explanation. She said she realizes there is no policy, but adds, I am still going to respond about that attempt to contact. Stormer advised family members be told of policies that might affect them. A 23-year-old Baraboo woman was killed Saturday when her car left the road and struck a tree. The crash happened at about 5:20 p.m. Saturday on Bunker Drive south of Hillman Road in the town of Delton, the Sauk County Sheriff's Office said. The initial investigation determined the woman was driving west on Bunker Drive and left the road on a curve, hitting a tree before coming to rest in a ditch. She was not wearing a seat belt. Speed and failure to have control were contributing factors in the crash, but alcohol was not believed to be a factor. The woman was the only person in the car. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Her name has been withheld pending notification of family. The crash remains under investigation. For a down payment of $30 from his jail account, a Dane County Jail inmate tried to hire a hit man to kill the Madison police officer who arrested him last year after a domestic battery incident, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday. Alijouwon T. Watkins, 20, was charged Monday with conspiracy to commit first-degree intentional homicide, felony intimidation of a witness and solicitation of perjury for an alleged plot to hire someone to kill the officer. Another inmate, whom Watkins had sought out to find someone to kill the officer, told police about the plot. Watkins appeared in court Monday, where his bail was set at $150,000. He will return to court on July 11. His trial in the battery case from last year was to have started on Monday but was postponed. In that case, a criminal complaint states that Watkins had fought with police who tried to arrest him. The officer suffered a concussion during the struggle. According to the homicide conspiracy complaint: An inmate at the jail contacted deputies on May 28 after discussions with Watkins about his wish to have a police officer killed so that the battery case would be dismissed. The inmate told police that he returned to his cell on May 27 to find an unsigned note stating that a friend would pay whatever to have two pigs in Madison slaughter(ed), and asked whether the inmate knew anyone who would do it. The inmate believed Watkins had left the note because Watkins had talked in the past about wanting to hurt police officers, and because Watkins had asked him before if he knew how much people charge to do a body. Watkins later confirmed to the inmate that he had left the note, and wrote in a subsequent note about the officer, I need her gone. He went on to give a complete description of the officer, including name, height, date of birth, eye and hair color, and her work shift. Watkins said he would kill or rob anyone on behalf of the inmate to make them even. Watkins complained that other people he had asked to do it had only messed around with him. In addition to killing the officer, who was only identified in the complaint by her initials, he also asked the inmate to find him a witness who would say that during the June 2015 incident that led to Watkins arrest, he was being attacked by the officer, and later gave the inmate a note stating in detail what the witness should say. On June 6, the inmate told police, he gave Watkins a phone number that he said belonged to a friend of his uncle, Johnny, who came from New York specifically to kill people. The number actually belonged to Michael Aalto, a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent. Eventually, Watkins reached Johnny, and told him that he had $30 in his jail account that he could release to him, but Aalto, as Johnny, said he didnt want to come to the jail to get the money. Someone else was to come to get the money. Their conversations were recorded by the jail. That person, described in the complaint as a cooperating witness, was contacted by the inmate but not told the reason for the pickup. The $30 check was turned over to police. The inmate and Watkins also talked about how the officer should die. At one point, Watkins said to make it look like an accident, and that he preferred that she be killed while off duty, but at another point he talked about a rifle shot at the parking ramp near the Dane County Courthouse. And if they couldnt kill her, Watkins said to the inmate, just make sure she is in a hospital so she couldnt testify against him. A 16-year-old gang member from Madison was arrested early Sunday morning with a loaded handgun allegedly found in his pocket, police said. The male teen was taken to the Juvenile Reception Center on tentative charges of carrying a concealed weapon and obstructing an officer. The teen was contacted by Madison police at about 12:15 a.m. Sunday in the 600 block of University Avenue. "The suspect is a gang member and gave arresting officers a fake name and date of birth, claiming he was 25 years old," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain. A Madison man who's been arrested three times in the past year for alleged burglaries was arrested one more time Saturday for a burglary attempted earlier in June. Roderick Williams Jr., 22, also was tentatively charged with bail jumping, Madison police said. Williams was taken into custody after his car was stopped by police on Gammon Road. "A prolific West Side burglar is back behind bars," said police spokesman Joel DeSpain. The latest burglary attempt was caught on videotape by a Hathaway Drive resident who mounted a motion-activated video camera in his garage after his car was stolen. On June 3, the camera started recording when someone broke into the garage. "When the camera starts, there are some blinking lights on it," DeSpain said. "The burglar noticed this as he broke in, looking right at the camera before fleeing without stealing any property." A detective in the Burglary Crimes Unit watched the video and immediately recognized Williams. "She's dealt with him on numerous prior burglary cases," DeSpain said. "There are three prior incident reports regarding this suspect." On Saturday, police set up surveillance near Williams' home, hoping to arrest him, and did so when he was spotted on Gammon Road. Court records show Williams was charged in May with 28 counts of theft or receiving or concealing stolen property, in cases dating from May 2015 through September 2015. All of the counts are misdemeanors. A driver seen weaving between lanes early Saturday near Baraboo was arrested for his alleged 10th drunken driving offense. Shawn Sosinsky, 47, Plain, was stopped by a Sauk County Sheriff's Office sergeant at about 2:45 a.m. Saturday on Highway 12 near Hatchery Road in the town of Baraboo. The sergeant saw a pickup truck going south on Highway 12 at the Highway BD roundabout, and took notice when the truck's tires made noise on the pavement, indicating it was going too fast. The sergeant followed the pickup truck, watching as the truck deviated from its lane, to a point where another driver was forced to take evasive action, the report said. Sosinsky failed field sobriety tests and refused to take a breath test, then refused to give a blood sample at the Sauk County Jail. Court records show Sosinsky was convicted of drunken driving in 2009 following his eighth arrest, and sentenced to four years in prison. A woman who stabbed her husband to death last year after an argument has pleaded guilty to a lesser form of homicide. Irina Kolenkina, 55, who had been charged with first-degree intentional homicide for the June 13, 2015, death of her husband, Vladimir Shevchuk, 52, pleaded guilty on Friday to second-degree reckless homicide. She will be sentenced by Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan on July 29. The first-degree intentional homicide charge carried a mandatory life prison sentence. The second-degree reckless homicide charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, followed by 10 years of extended supervision. According to court records, prosecutors will ask for no more than seven years in prison for Kolenkina. A criminal complaint states that Kolenkina told detectives that she shoved Shevchuk to the floor at their town of Vienna farmhouse, causing him to trip, and then jumped on him and stabbed him repeatedly. She said that she would have cut his head off if she could have, the complaint states. She also told detectives that she had killed Shevchuk professionally, the way she did while working as a butcher in the meat industry in Russia, where she had once lived. But in a motion filed in February, her lawyers said they intended to show that Kolenkina had fought back after being attacked by Shevchuk, grabbing the knife in an attempt to keep him away from her. The motion states that Shevchuk grabbed her neck and cut off her air supply, and that Kolenkina stabbed him in the chest to stop him from choking her. The motion also discussed several other incidents in which Kolenkina was the victim of domestic violence at the hands of Shevchuk. Kolenkina was to have gone to trial in early July. Rejecting recent statements by the Rev. Franklin Graham, a group of Madison religious leaders say they will hold an interfaith gathering at the same time the prominent Christian evangelist is scheduled to rally people at the state Capitol on Wednesday. The alternative service, called Neighbors in Faith, will celebrate religious diversity and the common good, according to organizers, who criticized Graham for comments hes made about Islam, Muslim immigrants, atheists, gay people and others. Were really trying to bear witness to a different vision for America, said the Rev. Jonathan Grieser of Grace Episcopal Church, who called some of Grahams views deeply problematic. Graham, 63, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, is on a 50-state tour of capitols called Decision America. Madison will be the 28th stop. The rally was planned before a man pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group carried out the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history early Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The attack led Franklin Graham to again call for a tightening of the countrys borders, an issue he addresses frequently. His outdoor prayer rally is to begin at noon on Wednesday on the King Street side of the Capitol. The alternative gathering, also set for noon, is to be held indoors at Grace Episcopal Church, which is on the Capitol Square at 116 W. Washington Ave. Additionally, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, has announced plans for a protest during the Graham rally, as have members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Franklin Graham leads both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritans Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization. His father, now 97, rose to worldwide fame as a host of huge crusades, as a confidant of presidents, and as a writer of religious books. The premise of the 50-city tour is to recognize and not ignore that this country is in a lot of trouble, said Steve Rhoads, a vice president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Were going to every single state to call together Christians to pray for our country and to pray that God brings an awakening. The threats to the country include a fundamental disregard for basic morality, he said. It manifests itself in a disregard for life and a lack of emphasis on the traditional family, Rhoads said. And I dont mean only same-sex marriage. Its also the brokenness in homes and the number of children being raised in less-than-ideal situations. Franklin Graham does not shy from these issues, voicing opinions that have made him controversial. At the prayer rally in Pierre, South Dakota, last month, he encouraged his followers to run for public office, saying they are needed to combat gays and lesbians who want to take their wicked agenda and force it down our throats. Following the Paris terror attacks last fall, he said, We cannot allow Muslim immigrants to come across our borders unchecked while we are fighting this war on terror. On his Facebook page in March, he wrote, Why does Islam hate so much? Its because the Quran teaches its followers to hate. He does not support transgender issues, and recently said atheists will face an eternity in hell if they have not trusted Christ as their savior. The Rev. Paula Harris, pastor of St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Madison and the moderator for the Neighbors in Faith event, called Grahams views Islamaphobic, xenophobic and homophobic. Thats not the spirit of the faith I practice, she said. I think America is better than that. Harris said people from dozens of congregations are planning to participate in the alternative event, representing Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Alhagie Jallow, imam of Madinah Community Center, a Madison mosque, is among the scheduled speakers, as is Rabbi Jonathan Biatch of Temple Beth El in Madison. I think the people of Madison understand the need for a diverse religious life, rather than an exclusive life celebrating one faith, Biatch said. According to figures provided by Grahams organization, attendance at the first 26 prayer rallies averaged 4,700 and ranged from 1,400 people in Salt Lake City to 8,600 in Nashville. Rhoads said he expects people from churches across Wisconsin to attend the Madison rally. Rhoads said the alternative event planned in Madison is a first for the tour. He expressed surprise. All were doing is gathering people together to pray, he said. How anyone who is a Christian can oppose that is a little confusing. Madison West High School plans to continue using gender-neutral royalty courts following a successful launch of the groundbreaking approach during the 2015-16 school year. The school switched to a gender-neutral homecoming court in October, becoming one of only a few in the country to do so and possibly the first in Wisconsin. It then used the same approach for its royalty courts during the schools mid-winter dance and the spring prom. Our students took the lead and embraced the idea of change in order to create an inclusive community where each and every student feels valued, said Principal Beth Thompson. With the change, it is no longer a given that a royalty court will have a balanced mix of boys and girls, although that still could occur by happenstance. Rather, the top 20 vote-getters become royalty candidates, regardless of gender. The two winners no longer need to be one boy and one girl. The change, initiated by students, was intended to make the school more welcoming to those who feel their genders do not fall along strict male and female lines. Its about respect, said West senior Kingsley-Reine Pissang, who graduated Saturday and served as president of the student council. This is something West is very proud to claim. Pissang said some people were kind of bummed that the titles of king and queen are no longer always apt. But she said losing the titles is a small price to pay to make sure everyone feels comfortable. Calling the two winners The Regent Royals a reference to the schools mascot likely will be the new approach, she said. That was the case at the spring prom. The court had 13 students who identify as male and seven who identify as female, Thompson said. The two winners were both male. These young men did an awesome job of leading the court with West High spirit and pride, Thompson said. A Madison student expelled in January for allegedly bringing a BB gun to middle school has filed a federal complaint along with his parents claiming the Madison School District discriminates on the basis of race when disciplining students. The 64-page complaint, filed Friday with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, alleges that the district intentionally discriminated against Dereian Brown, who is black, by treating him differently than other similarly situated students of other races. The family claims the boy was punished more harshly than most other students charged with a similar offense, that the districts treatment was frequently unethical and illegal, and that certain district employees and members of the School Board demonstrated animosity and clear bias against him in some of their actions and public statements. Additionally, the complaint alleges that the district discriminates more broadly through its disciplinary code, called the Behavior Education Plan (BEP), by creating a disparate impact on minority students. District spokeswoman Rachel Strauch-Nelson declined to comment on the complaint or specifics of the case. She said the BEP was implemented in 2014-15 to address racial bias and to begin to eliminate disparities that have long existed in schools when it comes to suspensions, expulsions and removal from the classroom. The districts approach is aimed at doing everything it can to keep students in school, help students learn positive behaviors and repair harm when negative behavior occurs, she said. In the first year of the new approach, the number of days of instruction lost to out-of-school punishments such as suspensions dropped dramatically. The complaint was filed by attorneys Nick Gansner and Matthew Giesfeldt on behalf of Dereian and his parents, Malcolm Brown and Bernadine Ward. It alleges that the district violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance. Anyone with a grievance can file a complaint with the federal office. Merely doing so does not mean the office will investigate. Dereians case in January became a high-profile event after his parents took the uncommon step of waiving their sons right to a confidential hearing. The boy was 12 at the time and a sixth-grader at Cherokee Heights Middle School. District administrators alleged that Dereian had confessed to bringing a BB gun to school, though they acknowledged that he threatened no one and that no staff member actually saw him with the gun. Bringing a BB gun to school as a sixth-grader is classified by the district as a Level 5 offense, the highest, and requires a mandatory recommendation for expulsion. District administrators sought to expel him for two semesters, with the potential for reinstatement after one semester. An independent hearing examiner also recommended expulsion, but for a shorter time period. School Board members upheld the expulsion but allowed for the possibility of immediate reinstatement if the boy met certain conditions. Ultimately, Dereian was allowed to return to school without missing additional school days, though he already had served a 15-day suspension. The boys attorneys say that in the last several years, 28 students have been recommended for expulsion for BB gun-related incidents. Of those, only four were actually expelled, and none faced the kind of scrutiny and negative statements that Dereian did, they say. One example they cite is a Jan. 17 blog post by board member Ed Hughes in which he wrote, I dont think students benefit much from being represented by attorneys in the expulsion process. Hughes goes on to say that rarely is there a significant factual dispute about whether the student did what he or she is charged with. This, Dereians attorneys argue, shows Hughes approaches hearings with a pre-determined bias in favor of guilt. Hughes declined comment. In another example, the attorneys cite comments made by James Howard, board president, to a TV reporter, in which Howard said, It was important to send a message ... We cannot decide this case by case. This shows that Howard fails to consider individual circumstances in an expulsion case, Dereians attorneys argue. Howard declined comment. State statutes require that for a school board to expel a student, it must make two findings: that the student committed the offense; and that the interest of the school demands the students expulsion. Dereians attorneys argue that the districts disciplinary code is so automatic and so lacking in discretion that it relieves the district of half of its burden the need to prove why an expulsion is necessary. The complaint also alleges that the BEP creates an illegal disparate impact on minority students. Discrimination occurs, the attorneys say, when a policy has a disproportionate adverse affect on a protected class, even if the policy itself is neutral on its face. Black students are about 18 percent of the districts enrollment, yet they represent 62 percent of those suspended and 50 percent of those recommended for expulsion, according to the complaint. The School Board has sought to address shortcomings in the BEP, voting last month to add more discretion into the policy and to create a new abeyance program that nonviolent students can complete to avoid being expelled. Gansner said the changes are not enough and do not address the intentional discrimination the boy suffered or the implicit bias in the disciplinary process. The complaint requests that the district be ordered to rectify any problems and that School Board members and all district staff be required to undergo anti-discrimination training. It also wants the district ordered to remedy the effects of its discriminatory actions against Dereian, though no specifics are given. When the Great Wisconsin Birdathon wraps up Wednesday, birds identified and counted by a fourth-grade class at Lincoln Elementary School will be among the tally for the annual event. Besides counting birds in the neighborhood and collecting money to benefit birds, it was the first time that most students in Laurie Solchenbergers regular and special education class at Lincoln had used binoculars and had a chance to experience bird-watching. Fourth-grader Kya Johnson said she gained a whole new appreciation for birds. Before I would look at a bird and I wouldnt care about it because I thought they were all the same, she said. The little things we can do for these birds make a lot of difference. Fourth-grader Janina Wells said she enjoyed seeing the different kinds of birds that came to the feeder at the school and how beautiful their feathers are. Solchenberger said the students got so interested in birds that some families told her their children asked to put up a bird feeder at home. Taking part in the Birdathon, in which students collected pledges and donations for finding as many bird species as possible, was the culmination of a year spent learning about their backyard birds. Donations benefit the Wisconsin Bird Protection Fund and nine priority bird projects designated by a partnership that includes the Department of Natural Resources, Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative, Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Society for Ornithology. Its important for kids to know they are doing work that is real, Solchenberger said. For their part in the birdathon, Solchenbergers students walked through the neighborhood with binoculars and notebooks to count birds at the end of May. They also raised a total of $95, including collections in a penny jar in the classroom. The class took part in Cornell Universitys Project FeederWatch citizen science project as well, with students identifying and counting the birds they see at feeders outside their classroom from November through April. The class also reports its sightings on eBird, a Web-based reporting platform. In addition, Madison Audubon Society education specialist Carolyn Byers visited the class, the students took field trips to bird havens like Goose Pond, and they taught others what they had learned during a school-wide event last month. Fourth-grader Gagan Acharya talked about what he learned, such as how climate change affects bird migration and the animals who prey on birds. Theyll take that knowledge wherever they go, Solchenberger said. In an effort to address racially charged incidents at UW-Madison that officials say may be driven by ignorance rather than malice, the university will require about 1,000 new students to receive cultural competency training this fall, and plans to make the training mandatory for all incoming students by next year. The program, called Our Wisconsin, is aimed at increasing knowledge about cultural differences and promoting community among incoming students, according to a UW-Madison news release. It is one of several new initiatives UW administrators have announced after they faced criticism during a spring semester marked by racist incidents, protests and a social media outpouring from minority students who described a range of negative experiences on the predominantly white campus. Administrators say they are also bringing on new counselors at University Health Services and studying how other institutions support minority students. UW-Madison faculty and staff are reviewing more than 100 proposals from students, organizations and others for ways to improve the campus racial climate. The universitys announcement of the pilot program said the training will touch on topics such as identity, culture and micro-aggressions, a term for seemingly minor or unintentional slights that may contribute to a hostile atmosphere for people of color. UW-Madison will spend between $150,000 and $200,000 to administer the training this year, spokeswoman Meredith McGlone said. It is primarily aimed at the roughly 7,200 freshmen and transfer students who enter the university each fall, she said. College is often the first time where people are exposed to people who are different from themselves, said Joshua Moon Johnson, who leads the university group that investigates reported incidents of racism or other bias. Johnson said the training is meant not to tell people how to think, but to tell people how to critique the ways in which they think. Officials did not provide details of the trainings curriculum, which will be developed by Infinity Martinez Consulting, a California-based agency. Michael Davis, a black graduate student who helped organize a protest this spring, said the training program could be one step toward improving the campus. But he said UW shouldnt only address racism on an individual level, and must take steps to combat structural inequality. Cultural competency has a place when done right, Davis said. But ultimately if the University of Wisconsin wants to see real change, theyll shift power to students. A federal change to Medicaid funding for services at tribal clinics could help close significant health gaps for Native Americans in Wisconsin, advocates say. The federal government said in February that it would offer full federal funding for transportation, long-term care and other services provided indirectly by the clinics, as it does for services within clinics. The change also applies to specialty care by providers outside of the clinics, as long as the clinics still coordinate the patients care. Until now, the federal government has paid for about 60 percent of such care, as it does for other Medicaid services, with the state picking up the other 40 percent. Anytime we can look at increasing our access to care, its a good thing, said Jerry Waukau, health administrator for the Menominee Tribal Clinic. This could open up more avenues for tribal health centers to get more specialty care for their patients, said Sashi Gregory, health care policy analyst at the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. The state Department of Health Services is working with Wisconsins 11 federally recognized tribes and the federal government on assessing the changes impact, spokeswoman Claire Yunker said. Native Americans in Wisconsin die at an average age of 63, compared to 77 for whites, according to a Wisconsin Council on Children and Families report May. Native American babies are 69 percent more likely than white babies to die within the first year, and the diabetes mortality rate is almost four times higher, the report said. A state health department report in May said rates of depression and adverse childhood experiences, such as substance abuse in the home and physical or sexual abuse, are higher than average for Native Americans. Waukau said the smoking rate is also higher, and higher rates of poverty and unemployment take their toll. Those are issues that ultimately affect the health of your community, he said. Wisconsin has about 86,000 Native Americans, according to the 2010 U.S. Census, the 17th largest population among states. The new federal Medicaid policy is similar to a deal offered through the Affordable Care Act. The health law, also known as Obamacare, offered full federal funding through this year for states that expand Medicaid to cover people who make up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or $26,813 for a family of three. The federal government said it will cover at least 90 percent of the cost in future years. Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled Legislature didnt adopt the expansion, making Wisconsin one of 19 such states, saying they couldnt rely on the federal government to honor its commitment in the future. Instead, Wisconsin removed tens of thousands of people from Medicaid who make more than the federal poverty level while allowing tens of thousands of others who make less and previously didnt qualify to enroll. This is a column about the value of six. Actually, its about three individual sixes and their respective values. The first six came after a 23-year-old woman her name has never been revealed spoke in court to address the man who raped her last year, who took her out behind the dumpsters and penetrated her with his fingers after she had too much to drink and passed out at a party. He might have gone further, except he was spotted by two passersby who tackled him when he tried to run. You dont know me, she told 20-year-old Brock Turner, a former student at Stanford University, an Olympic hopeful in swimming, but youve been inside me, and thats why were here today. She spoke of the rape and its aftermath, including the fact that that awful night a year and a half ago has left her sleeping with the lights on like a 5-year-old. In her statement (which you can and should read at Buzzfeed.com) the woman describes how it felt, after a long and invasive rape exam, to finally be alone with herself in the shower. I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I dont want my body anymore. I was terrified of it, I didnt know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it. I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else. Turners father, Dan, also offered a statement, pleading for leniency for his son. His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-plus years of life. Turner was facing up to 14 years in prison. Judge Aaron Persky gave him the aforementioned six. Months. A harsher sentence would have a severe impact on him, explained the judge. Perskys compassion for the rapist and lack thereof for the victim has detonated social media like a bomb. People are furious. They are weeping. They are calling Turner a monster. At this writing, a petition at Change.org demanding Perskys recall stands north of 900,000 signatures. Which brings us to the second six. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network says that one woman in every six has been the victim of an attempted or completed sexual assault. Its an awesome, awful number. Think about it in terms of women you know. Think about Bonnie, Kadijah, Heather, Consuela, Sarah and Kim. One, two, three, four, five ... Six. Maybe shes never told you about it, so maybe you think it didnt couldnt have happened, not to one of your six. But the numbers are what the numbers are. Maryum, Stephanie, Yumiko, Keshia, Laurie ... and Pam. One, two, three, four, five ... And six. Its not a big number. You were counting past it in kindergarten. For an American woman, its a measure of the danger she faces from predatory men who consider her body to be their right. It is the difference between self-confidence and fear. For Turners victim, it is a measure of the value the justice system placed on her trauma and on her. It is the difference between the free woman she was and the frightened one she has become. For Turner, it is the fraction of his life hes been ordered to pay for the arrogant violation of another persons self. It is the difference between spring and fall. And heres the final six: According to RAINN, only six in every thousand perpetrators of sexual assault end up in prison. If you are a woman, or a man who cares about women, you ought to seethe, and then you ought to do whatever you can to fix a culture that makes possible a Brock Turner and an Aaron Persky. Because, either way you look at it, the value of six is small too small for safety, too small for solace. And way too small for justice. WASHINGTON Thirty-six years ago this summer, Ronald Reagan asked me to assemble and chair a group of advisory task forces made up of Republican members of Congress from both the House and Senate. The members had expertise in each of the major policy areas the next president would have to address tax policy, spending programs, health care and defense issues, energy and transportation. It was the sort of approach to governing one would imagine Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin would have loved. I dont know Ryan, R-Janesville, as well as Id like. But I knew Reagan well. I campaigned for him in state after state, had long talks with him as we drove from place to place when he came to Oklahoma to campaign with me. I sat with him in his hotel room in Manchester watching the New Hampshire primary returns that rejuvenated his campaign after a surprise loss in the Iowa caucuses. As the national chairman of the American Conservative Union and a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation, I sat with him at his annual appearances at the Conservative Political Action Conference. I saw his instinctive compassion as, at my request, he diverted Air Force One to fly us over the city of Bartlesville, in my congressional district, after it had been heavily damaged by a tornado. As a member of the Republican congressional leadership, I met with him in the Oval Office every week of his presidency. I know Ronald Reagan would never have endorsed Donald Trump for the presidency. Not ever. No matter what. I had assumed and was enthusiastic about Ryan being the next link in the chain for conservatives from Reagan to Congressman Jack Kemp, the man Ryan has called his role model. Kemp was a champion of outreach to the poor and minorities. Kemp supported restructuring the tax code because he really believed a rising tide lifts all boats and that it was the lifting of all boats, not just the idea of lower tax rates, that drove his policy ideas. Ryan was to be next. I campaigned and traveled with Kemp, spending hours together in long policy discussions. Ryan may consider Kemp his hero, but Kemp would never have endorsed Trump for the presidency. Not ever. No matter what. If Speaker Ryan had concluded Trump was the right man for the presidency smart, knowledgeable and mature enough, with the right kind of temperament, judgment and values to be president I would have had no problem with him endorsing Trump. I would have disagreed with him strongly but nobody made me king. People who support Trump have as much right to their opinion as I do. But Ryan doesnt believe those things. He has made it clear he doesnt think Trump is fit to be president. And yet because Trump is of his political party his club Ryan is now urging the American people to give Trump access to the nuclear codes, the power to use the veto to override the decisions of Congress, and the sole ability to nominate Supreme Court justices and the heads of the departments of Justice, State and Defense. Ryan hopes his endorsement of Trump will help his club win. Its my club, too. But its also my country, which means more to me than my political party. Ryan hopes his support of Trump will help Republicans keep control of Congress. But it will do the opposite. Those Republican members of Congress whose constituencies are not likely to support Trump might have previously been able to run independently of him. Ryan has tied Trumps hatreds to every Republican member of the House and Senate. Trump is no longer the immature buffoon who captured the nomination with the support of roughly one in nine registered Republicans. Trump is now, because of Ryan, the anointed and endorsed national personification of the Republican Party. With his endorsement, Ryan has done to the party of Reagan and Kemp what the political left had never been able to do. Yes, a divided Republican Party might have lost the next election and even lost control of Congress for a while. But this is a Republican-leaning country. Republicans control most of the governorships, most state legislative seats and both houses of Congress. We would have come back as the party that turned its back on the worst major party nominee for president in the history of the country. We would have come back as the party that put the interests of America ahead of the interests of its club. We would have come back as a party whose leaders could look at themselves in the mirror and not be ashamed. Ryan has taken that from us. Before becoming speaker of the House, Paul Ryan set out to show he cared about poor Americans. He traveled to low-income neighborhoods to talk to struggling families, and he proposed big ideas such as merging separate federal programs to create large opportunity grants so states could try new ways to help the poor without the micromanagement of federal bureaucracies. He even threw his support behind an expanded earned income tax credit, which is paid to low-wage workers through the tax system. Then Ryan became speaker and realized his party needed not a Ryan anti-poverty plan but a Republican anti-poverty plan. His goal became twofold: finding serious proposals that would help low-income Americans move up, and encouraging the Republican House conference to embrace the effort and make it their own. House Republicans just delivered on both counts when the Poverty, Opportunity and Upward Mobility Task Force, which is made up of six Republican committee chairmen, released its report. The determination to focus on poverty was clear at the Republican conference retreat this winter, where Ryans staff was encouraged by the members to abandon the traditional format of having outside experts, selected by the leadership, lecture at members. Instead, the entire conference engaged in a wide-ranging discussion where member after member described the challenges they were seeing in their districts and offered their own ideas for helping poor Americans. Those ideas were refined over the intervening months, informed by listening sessions and hearings, and resulted in a promising agenda. Task force members recognize a federal role in helping the poor. The report is comprehensive and addresses an array of challenges ranging from early childhood development to needed services for the disabled. The members contend our current system is leaving too many Americans stuck at the bottom, and better coordination of multiple federal efforts and greater focus on outcomes can lead to an increase in upward mobility. The report does not abandon old truths and successful approaches, and properly focuses on work as the key to escaping poverty. Safety net programs should expect work or preparation for work from capable adults. Unemployment insurance should be reformed to help those who lose their jobs get back to work quickly, before their skills erode. And the child support enforcement program should help the absent parent gain the skills needed to find employment and contribute to raising the child, while remaining true to its core objective of enforcing the payment of child support. The task force also praises government-funded work-support programs, such as the earned income tax credit or food stamp benefits, that make low wages go further and smooth the glide path from welfare to work. The task force report acknowledges that many Americans face a mismatch between their skills and what employers demand, due to an educational system that is not up to the task of preparing children for our modern economy. The Republicans recommend more federally funded research into which types of pre-K programs produce long-lasting gains for children. They advocate for expanded school choice, but with weighted, per-pupil funding that incentivizes schools to better serve low-income students. Like many from both sides of the aisle, task force members emphasize vocational education that is aligned with the state of the local job market and provides sought-after skills. Finally, a clear emphasis is on evaluating programs for success. Those that show positive impacts can expand. Those that dont are phased out. The task force report recommends using administrative data to rigorously evaluate programs, and private financing to direct needed dollars to new initiatives that improve outcomes. Despite preemptive attacks from Democrats Rep. Sandy Levin of Michigan called the plan harmful a week before it was released this report shows a desire to make targeted improvements to governments efforts, rather than taking on more risky approaches. There is no block grant of the food stamp program, no large wage subsidy proposal, certainly nothing as radical and potentially destructive to entry-level employment as a mandated $15 minimum wage. Instead, the House Republicans have put forth serious ideas to address the skill deficiencies that begin in early childhood and are not addressed by either the K-12 or higher education systems. They propose reforming assistance programs to push recipients toward employment and support them when they get a job. They embrace evidence-based policymaking. The report is not perfect. More discussion about promoting better nutrition in the food stamp program should have occurred, for example. But House Republicans are engaged in finding ways to apply conservative principles to the problems facing low-income Americans. It would be politics as usual for Democrats to dismiss this offering out of hand, and some surely will. But the country would be better served if leading Democrats engaged seriously and tried to find a few important reforms that both sides can agree on. Americans stuck at the bottom have grown very tired of waiting for the stalemate to break. CHICAGO Attorney General Lisa Madigan today alerted Illinois business owners to a scam in which scammers send emails, or in some cases social media messages, posing as representatives of the Attorney Generals office in what is likely an attempt to con people into sending money or downloading malware. When we contact businesses about consumer complaints, my office never sends messages via social media and never emails asking businesses to open a web link or attachment to obtain more information. Businesses should never click on such a link or attachment, said Madigan. If you are unsure whether the email or social media message you have received is a scam, contact my office directly. CHICAGO - Ex-Governor Pat Quinn and current Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner agree on one thing - they want to limit the number of terms for elected officials. However, there's a clear difference in their goals: Quinn is focused on limiting the terms for mayors and Rauner is honed in on limiting terms for state lawmakers. Sunday, Pat Quinn told reporters he was initiating a petition drive to get his ideas on the November ballot - namely gathering 53,000 signatures to limit mayors to two terms, while creating an elected consumer advocate position, the Sun-Times reports. Governor Rauner's efforts to limit lawmakers to "eight years and out" was launched during his 2014 campaign against career politicians and Pat Quinn's re-election. Out-of-control spending, record tax hikes, terrible unemployment and a state government controlled by special interests the career politicians are failing Illinois, and Pat Quinn is the worst of all, said Bruce Rauner. Ill put an end to the self-dealing and drive results for taxpayers. Here's an ad Rauner did against Quinn in 2014: Although partisan battles in the General Assembly have dominated headlines in the last week, I was proud to lead a bipartisan effort in the House of Representatives to quietly ensure that rural Illinois communities continue to receive tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue from wind farms. The bill, SB 2612, accomplished what has become a rarity in Springfield these days: it passed both chambers unanimously. I was chief House sponsor of the bill, which will extends a law governing the amount of property taxes that wind farms pay to Illinois communities. The law is scheduled to expire at the end of 2016, and SB 2612 extends it another five years. This means rural areas will have a guaranteed revenue stream into the next decade. Updating the tax code may seem mundane, but wind projects have proven a vital source of revenue for towns in my district, and its critical for balancing their budgets that they continue receiving the revenue they are expecting. My district is home to a diverse mix of energy sources, including 462 megawatts of wind generation. Each megawatt of wind pays between $8,000 and $13,000 in annual local taxes. This amounts to millions of dollars in revenue for Lee, DeKalb, and LaSalle counties. Statewide, Illinois existing wind projects provide over $28 million in annual property tax revenue for rural communities, according to a study by Illinois State University. These tax payments provide funding for important local services such as schools, hospitals, and roads. And with the wind industry becoming a mainstay of Illinois economy and an important source of job creation, it is absolutely imperative that the state continues to enact stable tax policy to support the growth of the renewable energy sector. These benefits are why the bill enjoys support from the wind industry, county officials, Illinois Farm Bureau, and even wind project opponents. This bill is a win-win for everyone in the state, and having consistent tax policy is an important part of growing stable and thriving businesses. With the help of Senate sponsor Dave Koehler (D-Peoria) the passage of this bill demonstrates that bipartisanship is still possible in Springfield. Governor Rauner will soon receive this bill on his desk, and I urge him to sign it immediately. By extending the sunset provision, the Governor can ensure that rural communities will continue to benefit from these funds for years to come. Notice that the former governor doesn't talk about a quarter of our budget going to fund pensions. He doesn't talk about the pension debt that crowds out spending on the mentally handicapped or educating our children. No talk about the fact that Jim Edgar mortgaged our pensions through his infamous "Edgar Pension Ramp"! Jim Edgar has been getting a lot press lately for pushing Speaker Mike Madigan's $7,000,000,000 out of balance spending spree. What Edgar isn't talking about is why Illinois' finances are in such shambles. Twenty-two years ago, both Jim Edgar and Mike Madigan colluded on a plan to allow them both to spend more money than they had. They knew that fully funding pensions was expensive and the legislature, like a pay-day loan store, would allow them to come up with scheme that could pass billions of debt to the next generation. That's right, today's millennials will eventually have to pay off the money Edgar borrowed from the pension funds of teachers, cops, fire fighters, and other civil servants. On the topic of Edgar and pensions, did you know that Jim Edgar contributed only $164k total to his pension plan? He currently collects $13,027.58 per month in pension and it only took him about 13 months into retirement to recoup his entire contribution back. Jim Edgar is a pension millionaire and stands to rake in over $4.7 Million. That isn't a modest pension, that's a lottery payout! For more information on why Jim Edgar is part of problem click here: http://www.taxpayereducation.org/2015/10/former-gov-edgar-is-part-of-the-pension-problem-so-why-should-taxpayers-listen-to-his-solutions/ Allen Skillicorn is Republican candidate for Illinois House in the 66th House District. The event included a political rally, music, dancing, pot luck picnic & barbecue, and a huge fireworks show. The event was organized by Barbara Hinks Babbey with the help of a huge team of volunteers. The next rally here is tentatively scheduled in early September. This past Saturday marked the largest rally to date for Walsh Freedom as Joe and Helene Walsh hosted over 1500 patriots Saturday at their Lake County Farm. Joe Walsh is a former congressman and host of a syndicated radio show on WIND 560-AM. Mark, USofArn blogger Ulysses S. Arn and Breitbart writer Warner Todd Huston The family picnic included elected officials, candidates, and regular concerned Americans. Highlights included the singing of the National Anthem, Proud To Be An American, and God Bless America. At sundown there was a huge bonfire and a sensation fireworks show set to patriot music. The conservative movement is alive and well in Illinois and continues to grow. This Tuesday June 14, 2016 is Flag Day. With the state of current events here, flying the American Flag on Tuesday and every day seems more important then ever. Mark Weyermuller is small business person, real estate professional, and conservative activist in Chicago. He is a citizen journalist and regular contributor to Illinois Review. Mark can be heard weekly on the radio in a "man in the street segment" at 10:31pm as a regular guest on the Stephanie Trussell Show heard Sunday nights 9pm-midnight on WLS 890-AM The A will be offered with a range of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines and a range of manual and automatic transmissions. The new-generation A-class is expected to make its global debut by the end of 2017, quite likely at the Frankfurt Motor Show. (Photo: AutoMedia) By India Today Web Desk: Mercedes is already working on the new-generation version of the A-class (codenamed W177) and it shall be built on an all-new platform. The current third-generation has been designed on the MFA platform, which it shares with the B-Class, CLA, GLA and the CLA Shooting brake. The new one is also a front-wheel and all-wheel drive platform and is at the moment under testing. 2018 Mercedes-Benz A-Class. (Photo: AutoMedia) advertisement The current A class had been a major drift away from the previous two generations and has attracted young buyers on the MB bandwidth. The company is enjoying the a growth in its sales numbers ever since the launch of it. The length of the new-generation A-class will remain more or less the same but will follow a new design language with a larger front grille and swanky looking headlamps. As our exclusive spy-shots prove, the side profile will look similar to today's car but with a new and yet more sloping roofline and a thick C-pillar it has some SUV-like styling. 2018 Mercedes-Benz A-Class. (Photo: AutoMedia) The new hatchback will get a lot of new technologies. Expect adaptive cruise control and maybe even autonomous driving. As the new A-class will be for young buyers, technology will be priority for this new hatchback. The new-generation A-class is expected to make its global debut by the end of 2017, quite likely at the Frankfurt Motor Show. This is when it will be showcased to the world while marketing is said to start in early 2018. 2018 Mercedes-Benz A-Class. (Photo: AutoMedia) 2018 Mercedes-Benz A-Class. (Photo: AutoMedia) The A will be offered with a range of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines and a range of manual and automatic transmissions. --- ENDS --- General Motors will invest $10 million in its Kapuskasing facility, where it will conduct testing for new GM products. The union representing the auto workers said the investment is good for the future of the sector in Canada. By Reuters: General Motors Co said on Friday it will expand its Canadian engineering base to reach a total of about 1,000 jobs in Canada's auto-making province of Ontario as it boosts research spending on connected and driverless cars. The company will also invest $10 million in its Kapuskasing, Ontario cold-weather facility, where it will conduct testing for new GM products, GM announced at its engineering centre in Oshawa. advertisement ALSO READ: Donald Trump criticizes General Motors for Mexico investments The gain of some 700 jobs was hailed as a big win for Canada's manufacturing heartland by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who arrived at the centre with the head of GM Canada in a Chevy Bolt, the automaker's signature electric car. "It's a perfect fit in so many ways, and I'm really glad that GM saw it that way too," Trudeau said. Canadian auto making has been losing ground in recent years to Mexico, where costs are lower, and the country is struggling to fire up innovation and investment in its factory sector to offset the slump in its once-dominant energy sector. ALSO READ: General Motors India rolls out first Beat for Argentina The union representing the auto workers said the investment is good for the future of the sector in Canada. "I'm incredibly optimistic, I mean this is a great news story for Canada. To me this shows General Motors' long term commitment to Canada," said Unifor National President Jerry Dias. Ontario assembly plants produced nearly 15 per cent of North American vehicles over the last five years and the auto industry contributes around $16 billion annually to the province's GDP. ALSO READ: General Motors India to showcase MPV Spin, 2 new concept vehicles at Auto Expo 2016 But growth in auto production in Mexico and the United States has outpaced that of Canada. Mexico's auto production rose 5.6 per cent while exports climbed 4.4 per cent in 2015 over the prior year, the Mexican Auto Industry Association (AMIA) said in January. The auto sector makes up about 30 per cent of Mexico's exports. Ontario's provincial Liberal government and GM's Canadian president, Stephen Carlisle, have been promoting the province as a high-tech hub for connected-car development. Ontario is the first Canadian province to allow on-road testing of autonomous vehicles. ALSO READ: General Motors pitches new product strategy to sceptical investors Still, Unifor's Dias said the driverless-car industry is still marginal, and will not replace manufacturing jobs in Ontario's existing plants. advertisement Unifor's current contract with the Big Three automakers expires in the autumn, and the union fears GM's Oshawa plant risks being closed because it has not been promised new products. Dias warned this week "there will be a strike in 2016" if there is no new product in Oshawa. --- ENDS --- With the JEE (Advanced) results having been declared on June 12, Delhi state topper Animesh Bohara has achieved 19th rank in the examination. By India Today Web Desk: With the JEE (Advanced) results having been declared on June 12, Delhi state topper Animesh Bohara has achieved 19th rank in the examination. Talking exclusively to India Today Education, Animesh Bohara revealed his preparation strategy, "I gave 8 to 10 hours a day for the preparations and I dedicated my whole time to the studies. Whatever was happening in the class, I used to study thoroughly on a regular basis. Studying at FIITJEE helped me get a balanced approach to all subjects." advertisement In an interaction with his father, Anil Kumar Bohara said, "He used to study sincerely and was focused on his goal. We used to monitor his results and asked him to write down his mistakes on a diary and rectify the same for the next exam, which helped him a lot." In case he scored less in the exam, his father had advised him, "Do not worry, there is always a next time." On sharing the future plans, Animesh said that he wants to become a Computer Engineer and presently, he would be taking his admission to IIT Bombay. Around two lakhs students competed in this exam held on May 22, 2016, for approximately 11,000 seats spread across 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in India. We wish good luck to Animesh for his future endeavours. For more updates on education news, follow India Today Education or you can write to us at education.intoday@gmail.com With inputs from FIITJEE, Punjabi Bagh centre --- ENDS --- By PTI: Mumbai, Jun 13 (PTI) Shares of A2Z Infra Engineering settled with nearly 6 per cent gains today after the company won a USD 13.56-million (around Rs 90 crore) contract from the Nepal government for expansion of electricity distribution network. The stock gained 5.65 per cent to end the day at Rs 32.70 on BSE. During the day, the stock gained 11.79 per cent and hit a high of Rs 34.60. advertisement On NSE, shares of the company jumped 6.15 per cent to Rs 32.75. Intra-day, it touched a high of Rs 34.60. On the volume front, 7.75 lakh shares traded on BSE and over 37 lakh changed hands on NSE. A contract has been awarded from the Nepal Electricity Authority, a Nepal government undertaking, on June 10, A2Z Infra had said in a BSE filing. The contract is for expansion of distribution network in the western region of Nepal. The award has been made for a "contract price aggregating USD 1,35,63,420.77", the company said. The award was given on the basis of a global tender, it added. PTI PRJ ARD --- ENDS --- Aakriti Kochar Beauty and make-up expert, Oriflame India, Delhi 1) Use an exfoliator-based cleanser to keep your skin fresh and clean. This will help in keeping your skin supple and polished throughout the day. 2) Use a lightweight moisturiser with Vitamin E to keep your face glowing with health. 3) There is nothing that can beat fresh ingredients from your kitchen. Prepare your own natural moisturiser at home using honey, avocado and fresh cream. Make this using 1/4th avocado, one tablespoon honey and some fresh cream readily available at home; mix well and refrigerate for a few hours before use. This will give your skin an instant boost of nourishment. advertisement 4) While a flawless face is number one priority for every woman, pink-hued lips add to the beauty as well. Exfoliate the lips using honey and sugar scrub made at home and then apply malai on them, leave the mixture on for some time. This will nourish your lips and keep them soft. You can safely apply a lip gloss on smooth lips after this treatment. 5) For fresh dewy look, use a moisturising face wash instead of a gel or water-based face wash. It helps the skin retain its moisture without further drying it. A mousse cleanser is also a good choice as it will not make your face feel dry. 6) When following the cleansing, toning and moisturising (CTM) routine, wait between every step to ensure the product from the previous step is absorbed by your skin. 7) If you have extra dry and dull skin, add an extra step to your day and night skin care drill. Use a face serum or essential oil before applying moisturiser and wait till it gets absorbed before applying day/night cream. This gives an extra boost to the moisturising and skin repair process resulting is fresh, glowing and moist skin. 8) Prepare your skin a night before if you have an important event to go to. I recommend exfoliation, followed by a toner, a face mask, a serum and night cream. This results in even toned, fresh skin the next morning. 9) While working on your face do not forget the eyes. The area around your eyes is even more important than the rest of your face. If you are tired, use eye drops before applying make-up or place frozen green tea bags on your eyelids for about 15 minutes. This should be followed by application of an eye cream and essential oil. Apply a concealer after that and your eyes will look brighter, making the face look completely renewed. 10) While these topical applications do make a difference, I suggest eating well, as it has an effect on your skin; antioxidants and Omega 3 acids help improve skin radiance and glow. Include fish, egg whites, curd, milk, water, green vegetables, coconut water and honey in your diet on everyday basis. advertisement Transform your looks When applying foundation or concealer, add a drop of essential oil-lavender, rose or avocado to your foundation. This gives a healthy glow to your skin without making it look artificial. Essential oil also nourishes your skin and protects it from getting dry. Coconut oil solidifies when cooled; so when it is semi-solid, use it on your cheeks and the centre of your face as a natural highlighter with or without make-up. Coconut oil is known for its nourishing qualities other than the dewy look. It repairs your skin as well. You can also mix your golden, vanilla or rose powdered highlighter with coconut oil to use as a highlighter. Use a protective balm on your lips and eyes. For your cheeks, nose, chin and forehead, use an essential oil such as coconut oil. Applying petroleum jelly to your eyes and lips will give them a glossy look, you can use an eye shadow or lip colour on top as well for a dewy look. Use a damp sponge or beauty blender to apply foundation. This will give your face a smooth finish such that you would not need to use more products. Use skin glow illuminator for an instant glow. I will suggest not to apply it on your complete face but, just dab on some on your highlight areas such as cheeks, brow bone, centre of your forehead, bridge of your nose, centre of your upper lips and chin. advertisement --- ENDS --- By PTI: New Delhi, June 12 (PTI) The Afghan Senate today thanked India for construction of the landmark dam in Afghanistans Herat province at a cost of Rs 1,700 crore which was jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ashraf Ghani on June 4. In its appreciation letter, the Upper House of the National Assembly of Afghanistan hailed India and its people for "effective support and assistance" to the war ravaged nation. advertisement "The Upper House of the National Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, on behalf of the people of Afghanistan, would like to appreciate and thank the effective suuport and assistance of the people and state of the friend and brother country India," the letter, handed over to Indian Envoy Manpreet Vohra in the House, said. The Afghan-India Friendship Dam, earlier known as Salma Dam, on river Chist-e-Sharif in western Herat neighbouring Iran, will help in irrigating 75,000 hectares of land and generate 42 MW of power. Touted as a "landmark" infrastructure project, the dam located 165 km east of Herat town, is expected to significantly boost the agricultural economy of the province. The project has been executed and implemented by WAPCOS Ltd, a government of India undertaking under ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation. Over 1,500 Indian and Afghan engineers were involved in construction of the dam for several years in difficult condition. Earlier India had constructed the swanky Parliament complex in Kabul at a cost of USD 90 million. India has a strategic partnership with Afghanistan and is implementing projects worth USD 2 billion to help rebuild the countrys infrastructure. PTI MPB SK --- ENDS --- Celebrating two years of Indian presence, the Malaysia-based budget airline is offering attractive discounts on both domestic and international flights. By India Today Web Desk: It was on June 12, 2014 that the Malaysia-based budget airlines started its operations in India. In order to celebrate its presence for two years, AirAsia has announced heavy discounts for both domestic and international flights. As announced on its official website on Monday, AirAsia is offering an all-inclusive starting fare of Rs 899 for flights to domestic destinations like Bengaluru, Jaipur, Kochi, New Delhi and Pune. advertisement Also read: You can now upgrade a wait-listed train ticket to a flight ticket; here's how Well, if that makes you excited as a traveller, the offer on the international flights is about to make you feel even better. The all-inclusive fare to popular destinations like Bali, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Perth and Singapore starts at Rs 3,399. The sale will be valid for bookings done till June 19, for travel dates between January and August 2017. We suggest that you plan and book your trip at the earliest. For further details and bookings, visit www.airasia.com --- ENDS --- By PTI: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Jun 13 (PTI) Muslim leaders in the US have strongly condemned the Orlando gay club shooting and described ISIS members as an "aberration" who do not speak for the faith amid reports that the gunman had sworn allegiance to the terror group. Calling for unity, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Nihad Awad requested politicians not to "exploit" the horrific attack in Orlando in which 50 people have been killed. advertisement "This is a hate crime. Plain and simple. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms. It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims. Let me be clear, we have no tolerance for extremism of any kind," Awad said, adding that he had a word for ISIS members and supporters. "You (ISIS) do not speak for us. You do not represent us. You are an aberration, you are an outlaw... they dont speak for our faith. They never belonged to this beautiful faith," Awad said. The community has also launched a fund raiser for the victims of the deadliest shooting in the American history. "We are sickened and heartbroken by this appalling attack. Our hearts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims. There can never be any justification for such cowardly and criminal acts, period," Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR) National Executive Director Nihad Awad said yesterday. CAIR is countrys largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation. "We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence," said CAIR-Floridas Orlando Regional Coordinator Rasha Mubarak. Outraged at the Orlando shooting, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) said it stands with the victims of this senseless act of violence and mourn with the families of the victims and pray for their ease and comfort during this time of difficulty. "ISNA sends its condolences and prayers to the families of the victims. We urge the community to stand united against all acts of violence," said Azhar Azeez, President of ISNA, the largest and oldest Islamic umbrella group in North America. "We stand in solidarity with them and repudiate any group that attempts to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence," said CAIR Maryland Outreach Manager Zainab Chaudry. A crowdfunding campaign launched by American Muslims to support the families of the Orlando shooting victims has raised over more than USD 3,000. PTI LKJ CPS ASK CPS --- ENDS --- advertisement Kejriwal also alleged that both Jung and PM Modi are scrutinising his government's work by ordering random probes by ACB and CBI without any evidence. By India Today Web Desk: Days after accusing Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung of snooping for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has shot a stinging letter with an advice for the LG. Describing himself as his younger brother, Kejriwal said,"No matter how many illegal, immoral and anti-public decisions you take while working for PM Modim, he will never make you the Vice-President." advertisement Will chant Bharat Mata Ki Jai but can't force anyone, says Delhi Lt Gov Najeeb Jung KEJRIWAL'S TAUNTS LG JUNG, PM MODI Kejriwal also alleged that both Jung and PM Modi are scrutinising his government's work by ordering random probes by ACB and CBI without any evidence. "I inaugurated a 100-bed medical college yesterday. I would suggest... why don't you register an FRI and get a probe done by the ACB. Also advise PM Modi to direct the CBI to conduct a raid on Health Minister Satyendar Jain for opening the hospital for the public in record time," the letter stated sarcatiscally. KEJRIWAL ACCUSES JUNG OF SNOOPING FOR PM MODI Last week, quoting news reports about a "confidential" letter written by Jung to principal secretary to the Prime Minister, Nripendra Mishra, Kejriwal had tweeted, "Shocking! LG snooping on CM and ministers. Who visits CM and ministers - LG secretly collecting this information and informing PMO." Exclusive: Modi government wants details of officers from Kejriwal, AAP accuses LG of spying for PMO However, sources from the Lt Governor's secretariat rubbished the "snooping" allegations made by Kejriwal. KEJRIWAL'S TIT-FOR-TAT In a tit-for-tat reaction, Kejriwal had also sought details from Home Minister Rajnath Singh about various consultants hired by the Modi government since coming to power in 2014. Kejriwal's letter to Rajnath Singh, which he wrote last week, was in reaction to the May 24 communication by the Home Ministry to the Delhi government asking for details of all officers on deputation with the AAP government. THE KEJRIWAL-MODI WAR Since coming back to power last year following an election in which the BJP was decimated in Delhi, the AAP government led by Kejriwal has repeatedly accused the Centre of using Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung's office to prevent it from working. Kejriwal, who has had an acrimonious relationship with the Modi government, has been demanding complete statehood for the national capital to ensure that it is not controlled by the Centre. Also Read: Tit-for-tat? Kejriwal hits back at Centre, says give details of consultants hired by Modi govt Kejriwal writes to Modi: Allow Delhi govt to function independently --- ENDS --- advertisement By PTI: From Anisur Rahman Dhaka, Jun 13 (PTI) Over 8,500 people, including 119 suspected militants, have been arrested in Bangladesh, police said today as they intensified their nationwide crackdown on Islamists to halt a spate of deadly attacks on minorities and secular writers in the Muslim-majority nation. Authorities in Bangladesh are under mounting international pressure to halt the violence, which in the past three years have claimed nearly 50 people - Hindus, Chiristians and secular bloggers - many of them by machete-wielding attackers. advertisement Though most of the attacks were claimed by the Islamic State or its affiliates and other similar extremist groups, the Bangladesh government has repeatedly dismissed the claims and said the attacks were carried out by homegrown outfits linked to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday told a meeting of her ruling Awami League party that police would stamp out the violence and she vowed to catch "each and every killer". "Where will they hide in Bangladesh," Hasina had said. On the third day of the crackdown, 3,245 people were arrested until this morning. Of them, 34 were suspected militants, Dhaka Police spokesman AKM Quamrul Ahsan said. Ahsan told reporters that during the clampdown that began on Friday, "we have arrested 8,569 people and of them 119 are suspected militants." During the past two days over 5,300 criminal suspects, including 85 militants, had been arrested. Most of the suspects belonged to banned outfits like Jagrota Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) - one of two local groups blamed for most of the recent killings - or Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). The arrests were made as part of a week-long anti-militant drive launched after a high-level meeting last week. But BNP accused the government of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent. It has rejected allegation that the party and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami were patronising the attacks under an orchestrated plot against the government. The BNP claimed that more than 2,000 of its leaders and activists have been arrested during the anti-militancy drive. Partys Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi alleged that the mass arrests were "an attempt to hide the governments failures and misdeeds." "In fact, the ongoing drive is not to put an end to the serial killings but to repress democracy-loving opposition leaders and activists," he told reporters. Rizvi claimed that the government was yet to identify the "real militants". Last week, a 60-year-old Hindu ashram worker was hacked to death by IS jihadists, days after another priest was killed by the same terrorist group in the Muslim-majority nation. advertisement In February, militants stabbed to death a Hindu priest at a temple and shot and wounded a devotee who went to his aid. In April, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death in Rajshahi city. The same month, a Hindu tailor was hacked to death and Bangladeshs first gay magazine editor was murdered in his Dhaka flat by Islamists. PTI AR ABH AKJ ABH --- ENDS --- The speech had the right punch and context as it showed the future roadmap to party men. In the end it left a deep impact on the members attending the executive. 'Shah has indeed come on his own now ', commented an executive committee member. By Uday Mahurkar: BJP president Amit Shah's rainbow speech at the party's national executive at Allahabad covering almost all crucial aspects for a party preparing to win the UP polls next year enroute to coming back power at Delhi in 2019 was one more indication that the 53-year-old Shah has come of age as party chief. The speech had the right punch and context as it showed the future roadmap to party men. In the end it left a deep impact on the members attending the executive. 'Shah has indeed come on his own now ', commented an executive committee member. advertisement Of note was his appealing idiom while contrasting the UPA rule with two years of NDA rule under Modi Government. He contrasted UPA's policy paralysis with NDA's swift decision making, the earlier confusion between political leadership and bureaucracy with the present finely delineated demarcation between the two besides the dilemma of UPA over reforms and public welfare as against precise connect between the two under NDA. He also highlighted the simmering disconnect between Foreign and defence policies during the UPA regime and the right connect between the two now. To tackle the talk that the NDA hasn't been able to create enough jobs in two years he emphasised on the new aspect of self employment that Modi Government has created through schemes like Mudra , Stand Up India and Start Up India. His description of the economic scenario was also very apt as he rolled out the figures to prove how well the Government had performed despite two consecutive droughts. Plus he played on pride as he described the enhanced stature of India at world level following PM Narendra Modi's superlative performance during his recent five-nation visit. Here he cited the great welcome and ovation he received in every country, particularly the United States, and the support that Modi secured for India's bid for NSG membership from three of these countries. Significantly, keeping in view the Dalit hold of the BSP in UP he skilfully cited how Modi invoked the name of Babasaheb Ambedkar in his US Congress speech and became the first PM to put Ambedkar on such a high pedestal outside India. Looking to the fact that the meet was kept in Allahabad with an eye on the UP polls next year Shah made the right references to UP. He asserted that BJP will get full majority in UP assembly polls next year. While highlighting the complete lack of governance and development agenda in UP particularly the goondaraj, he said 'UP mein vikas ka abhaav, shanti samapt', contrasting the governance of NDA with SP's in UP and asserting that India can't be called fully developed if UP remained under developed. advertisement And here he slipped in the Kairana episode in which a host of Hindu families have left the village due to alleged terror of a section of Muslims in the Western UP village to highlight how common people are suffering as the law and order situation in UP has reached its nadir. So the reference to Kairana so necessary for the BJP politically was made in a measured way without making it much of a Hindu versus Muslim thing. While taking the congress to task he said the party was weakening very fast as many people within the Congress were disenchanted with the party for its policy of obstruction in nation's development and were even leaving it. Here Shah with consummate skill left a door open for those Congress leaders who wanted to leave the party and were acceptable to the BJP. However he added that the rise of the BJP was not rooted in weaknesses of the Congress but sprang from a higher source which was its ideology and dedication and confidence of BJP workers. In a gesture to build the workers confidence he condemned the repeated attacks on BJP workers in Kerala and asserted that the party was strongly standing behind them. advertisement One of the main themes in Shah's speech was exhortation to the workers to take Modi Government's two year rule's achievements to the people and use in the process the Narendra Modi App by downloading the details from it. 'We resolve to come back to power with greater majority in 2019', he asserted. All in all there was no crucial area that remained untouched in Shah's speech. --- ENDS --- By PTI: From K J M Varma Beijing, Jun 13 (PTI) The New Development Bank (NDB) founded by the BRICS countries will raise yuan-denominated funds in China with plans to release bonds in local currencies of its member nations, including the rupee in India, the lenders vice president said today. The NDB founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and headquartered in Shanghai, is preparing its first bond issue, which will be in China and denominated in yuan, its vice president Zhu Xian said at the Lujiazui financial forum in Shanghai. advertisement Zhu said while the bank will raise dollars and other major currencies, it wants more funds in members currencies, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The banks board approved four green energy projects in April, which Zhu claims reflects the banks commitment to sustainable development. Early this month Paolu Nogueira Batista, the banks vice-president for economic research, strategy and partnerships and chief risk officer said more bonds denominated in local currencies of the BRICS countries, including the rupee in India, will be issued if the banks board and local authorities endorse the project plans. The NDB was established with initial subscribed capital of USD 50 billion with total paid-in capital of USD 10 billion. The founding members of the NDB have already brought in capital of USD 1 billion as initial contribution. The NDB announced its first batch of loans in April providing USD 300 million to Brazil, USD 81 million to China, USD 250 million to India and USD 180 million to South Africa. Together with the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the NDB is expected to contribute to infrastructure development specially in Asia along with the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Studies revealed that the Asian region needed over USD 1 trillion in investment in infrastructure development. PTI KJV KUN AKJ KUN --- ENDS --- Last week, NSG members Mexico and Switzerland had voiced support for India's bid during PM Narendra Modi's visits to those nations, raising hopes that momentum was building on the issue. By Ananth Krishnan: China said on Sunday that the informal meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna on June 9 did not discuss the matter of India's entry and some of the group's 48 members were "still divided" on the issue. In a statement on Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry suggested that recent reports indicating India's entry was to be considered at the Vienna meeting were incorrect. MEXICO, SWITZERLAND SUPPORT INDIA advertisement Last week, NSG members Mexico and Switzerland had voiced support for India's bid during PM Narendra Modi's visits to those nations, raising hopes that momentum was building on the issue. The Chinese Foreign Ministry, however, said, "There was no deliberation on any items related to the accession to the NSG by India or any other countries that are not signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)." CHINA FAR FROM READY TO BACK INDIA "The NSG Chair Argentine Ambassador convened an unofficial meeting on June 9. The Chair said this meeting has no agenda and is only convened to heed opinions from all parties on the outreach of the NSG and prepare for a report to be submitted at the NSG Plenary Meeting in Seoul later this month," the statement added, stressing that the question of membership was not on the agenda. Suggesting that China was perhaps far from ready to back India's bid at the upcoming NSG plenary in Seoul, the statement reiterated Beijing's stand that the bids of all non-NPT countries should be considered together, in a criteria-based way that did not make an exception for India. NSG DIVIDED ON NON-NPT NATIONS? "China has noted that some non-NPT countries aspire to join the NSG. When it comes to the accession by non-NPT countries, China maintains that the group should have full discussion before forging consensus and making decisions based on agreement. The NPT provides a political and legal foundation for the international non-proliferation regime as a whole. China's position applies to all non-NPT countries and targets no one in particular," the statement said. Beijing has also suggested it was not the lone opponent of India's entry. Reports say other countries that have voiced concerns include South Africa, Turkey, Ireland and Austria. ALSO READ: #NuclearNaMo: Will Obama snub China to help India enter NSG? --- ENDS --- To the best of my ability, here is the list, after the jump. Complete Listing of Italian DOCG Wines (as of May 2008): 41 Abruzzo (1) M... Authorities in the Defence Ministry and the Intelligence Bureau have told India Today TV that the transgression by nearly 250 soldiers of the Peoples' Liberation Army divided into four groups happened on June 9 in Arunachal's East Kameng district. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: Top defence officials have confirmed yet another transgression by the Chinese army in Arunachal Pradesh's Yangtse region last week, around the same time that India's bid for the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was blocked by Beijing. Authorities in the Defence Ministry and the Intelligence Bureau have told India Today TV that the transgression by nearly 250 soldiers of the Peoples' Liberation Army divided into four groups happened on June 9 in Arunachal's East Kameng district. advertisement CHINESE SOLDIERS SPENT 3 HOURS ON THIS SIDE OF BORDER This was the first transgression by the Chinese army this year in the region, which China claims is part of its territory. The Chinese soldiers spent nearly three hours on this side of the border before going back to their side. INDIAN ARMY TO LODGE COMPLAINT WITH CHINA The Indian Army has decided to lodge a complaint with the Chinese government, which is already in India's crosshairs following its aggressive blocking of India's application for the membership of the elite nuclear club. Both India and Pakistan had applied in May to join the elite 48-member group that regulates global nuclear trade. India has secured crucial backing for its membership from Mexico, Italy and Switzerland and the US, even as Pakistan has been lobbying hard to scuttle India's bid. A transgression is for a short period, unlike an incursion where the troops remain stationed in an attempt to dominate the area, like the three week stand off between the Indian Chinese troops in Dault Beg Oldi area. As per figures available with MHA, there are cases of transgression due to difference in perception of Line of Actual Control (LAC). The transgression by PLA on Indo China Border during the period from 2010-2014 (up to August 4, 2014) are as under: 2010 228 2011 213 2012 426 2013 411 2014 (Up to August 4, 2014) 334 advertisement Recurring incidents of incursions, implementation of an agreement to reduce tensions between border patrols and Sino-India strategic concerns were among the issues that figured in Defence Minister Manohar Parrikars visit to China in April. Also read: China says NSG meeting did not discuss India's entry --- ENDS --- By PTI: Hyderabad, Jun 13 (PTI) In a major setback to Congress, one of its two MPs from Telangana G Sukhender Reddy and former MP G Vivek today decided to join the ruling TRS. "I have taken this decision (to join TRS) to extend full cooperation to the party and government in the interest of (irrigation) projects and the development of our district (Nalgonda)," Reddy, Lok Sabha member from Nalgonda, told reporters here. advertisement The differences among party leaders are hurting Congress in the state, he claimed. The need to work for development of Telangana is a major motivation to take the decision, he said, adding that he would not hesitate to quit as Member of Parliament. Congress won only two Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2014 elections. The other Congress MP is Nandi Yellaiah from Nagarkurnool constituency in the state. Significantly, former MP G Vivek, and his brother and former minister G Vinod, both sons of late Congress leader and former Union Minister G Venkataswamy, also announced their decision to join the Telangana Rashtra Samithi. Appreciating the efforts of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for the development of the state, Vivek said he decided to join TRS to support the former in his endeavour. Vivek also hailed the role played by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the formation of a separate Telangana. He had joined the TRS ahead of the formation of the separate Telangana, but went back to Congress after the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Bill was passed in Parliament. He contested the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket, but lost. CPI MLA from Devarakonda in Nalgonda district Ravindra Kumar said he decided to join TRS in the interest of development of his constituency. A number of MLAs, belonging to opposition parties like Congress, TDP and YSR Congress have switched loyalties to the ruling TRS since it came to power in 2014. The strength of TRS in the Legislative Assembly rose to 82 in the 119-member House. This excludes some Congress MLAs who moved to TRS. TDP Lok Sabha member Malla Reddy and YSR Congress MP P Srinivasa Reddy have also joined the TRS in recent months. PTI SJR RS NRB SRY --- ENDS --- The incident took place on Saturday when a customer identified as Sonali Shetty wished to treat more than half a dozen street children on her husband's birthday but the restaurant allegedly denied service to them. Sonali Shetty, a writer by profession, sits in protest outside the Shiv Sagar restaurant in Connaught Place. By Shashank Shekhar: A high-voltage drama erupted at an outlet of a prominent chain of restaurants in Delhi's Connaught Place when a woman with eight underprivileged children staged protest, a day after being denied service at the food joint. The issue went viral on social media prompting Delhi government to order an inquiry into the matter. DELHI GOVERNMENT ORDERS PROBE advertisement The New Delhi district magistrate visited the Connaught Place restaurant on Sunday morning to investigate the allegations and asked for a CCTV footage of the incident. The children were taken there by a customer identified as Sonali Shetty, a resident of Dehradun and a writer by profession. The incident took place on Saturday when Shetty wished to treat more than half a dozen street children on her husband's birthday. CUSTOMER PROTESTS OUTSIDE RESTAURANT "I had taken eight underprivileged children for lunch at Shiv Sagar restaurant. I was ridiculed at and threatened to keep off the restaurant," she said. After being turned away, Shetty stationed herself outside the restaurant in protest. On Sunday afternoon, she resumed her protest and sought apology from the restaurant. Later, she took a dozen underprivileged kids to the neighboring McDonald's outlet. Reacting to the news, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia ordered a government probe, saying the incident reeks of a "colonial mindset". Sisodia also said if allegations are true, the government will cancel the restaurant's license. RESTAURANT ALLOWS CHILDREN TO ENTER The restaurant, however, clarified that they had allowed the children to enter but later refused service as they were creating a ruckus inside. --- ENDS --- For a man who is believed to be an atheist and for a leader who throughout his political career has advocated against superstition, this has turned out to be a black mark on his stand. By Rohini Swamy: It all started with a black crow sitting on the bonnet of Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah's official car. Now a new car has been bought for him. For a man who is believed to be an atheist and for a leader who throughout his political career has advocated against superstition, this has turned out to be a black mark on his stand. advertisement On June 2, it was reported that a crow perched itself on Siddaramaiah's official car. Twenty minutes later, the crow refused to budge, and had to be physically moved or removed. The twist in the tale came a few weeks later when a new car was ordered. The chief minister though, clearing the air off the camera, said that the new car was bought because the old one needed repairs. PROPOSAL TO BUY A NEW CAR TAKEN 2 MONTHS AGO? Sources from the chief minister's office have said that there was a proposal to buy a new Toyota Fortuner two months ago and it was incidental that the crow sat on the old car. Officials in the chief minister's office have also said under anonymity that the car had run more than 2 lakh kms and developed technical snags. But many believe that it was the crow that drew away the old car. OPPOSITION TARGETS SIDDARAMAIAH However, the opposition is now using this as ammunition to train their guns on CM Siddaramaiah. "The new car exposes the double standard of Siddaramaiah. For a man, who swears to be a rationalist, here is a classic case of not practising what he preaches," said Karnataka BJP general secretary, CT Ravi. --- ENDS --- Almost every week, the villagers spot a bloated body floating in the canal. In 2015, 35 dead bodies were recovered from the water canal. By Mail Today: The Delhi government is in talks with their counterpart in Haryana to construct a wall around Munak canal as it claims around half a dozen lives every month on an average basis. Two parallel water canals that pass through Bawana, Khera, Shahbad and Badli area of North West Delhi connects to Haryana and Delhi and is the Capital's lifeline as it receives 70 per cent of water through it. advertisement KILLER WATER BODY The canals are open from both sides and anyone can take a dip from anywhere making it a 'killer water body'. No fencing or boundary makes it a dangerous stretch. These canals lack safety measures. Almost every day there is a report of drowning. "During summers there are around 30-40 incidents in which close to half a dozen people die, which is relatively lesser during the winters," said Ved Prakash, AAP MLA from Bawana. Almost every week, the villagers spot a bloated body floating in the canal. In 2015, 35 dead bodies have been recovered from the water canal. As many as 49 bodies were found in 2014 while in 2013 the police recovered 47. According to police records, out of the 96 bodies fished out in 2013 and 2014, only five resulted in cases of murder being registered. INFORMATION BOARD TO SCARE LOCALS "As the canal is in Haryana, property of the irrigation department, we cannot construct a boundary around it. The speed of water in new is extremely high which wash away the bodies to several kilometres. We are planning to install information board highlighting number of deaths to scare locals," Prakash said. "We were approached by the locals highlighting the problem. Following which a plan was made and we are in talks with Haryana government. We are optimistic that this will get cleared soon," said Kapil Mishra, Delhi's water minister. --- ENDS --- This is the story of 13 Delhi government divers who have received 63 calls and pulled out 55 bodies from Yamuna this year and also managed to save four lives from drowning. By Shashank Shekhar: They save scores of lives in Delhi but they are themselves a vulnerable lot. This is the story of 13 Delhi government divers who made several deep dives to take out the bodies of two young boys when their boat capsized in Yamuna, near Timarpur, last week. But as they fetch out bodies and save lives, these lifeguards, all of them between 25 and 35 years of age and without any formal swimming training, are forced to dive into the city's toxic waters without body suits or oxygen masks while carrying out these rescue operations. advertisement Last week's rescue operation took them more than 12 hours to find the two bodies as the boat had capsized at the deepest part of the river, which was close to 50ft deep, claimed one of the divers. AAP ENROLLED DIVERS AS CIVIL DEFENCE VOLUNTEERS These divers earlier worked on a contract basis, but the AAP government, in September last year, got them enrolled as civil defence volunteers. This increased their pay structure, but made very little improvement on their safety and health conditions. "We were born on the bank of the river and we are used to it (filth and pollution), but when we enter these dirty drains it raises skin diseases, respirators and eye-related problems," confessed a diver. The health problem particularly aggravates during the summers when the drowning cases are on the rise - and so are the chances of falling ill. "We patrol across the Yamuna on our 13 motor boats during the summer season to check cases of drowning. With no masks and body suits, we definitely face huge health issues," said another diver. This year alone, the lifeguards have received 63 calls and pulled out 55 bodies. And, most importantly, till June 10, they managed to save four lives from drowning. As for the last year, they got as many as 224 calls, out of which 148 bodies were recovered and five people were rescued. INCREASE IN DROWNING CASES "Cases of drowning increase many folds during summers. Most people are on holidays and they go to Yamuna, canals or other bodies to beat the heat. But without appropriate safety measures, they land up in trouble," said Harish Kumar, in-charge of Delhi Boat Club, Club which comes under the revenue department of the Delhi government. Kumar added that as there are no boundaries around Yamuna and the high-flowing Munak canal, it becomes difficult to curb such incidents. "We can swing into action only when we get a call of drowning. But it barely takes two minutes for a person to die in water," he said. These divers claim that fetching body out of Yamuna is not as troublesome as the one in, say, the Munak canal in Bawana. "Water flows at a very high speed here and the depth is close to 15ft. We can go as deep as 40-50 ft but in Bawana due to speed of water, bodies are washed away and we have to check a large area," said diver Intezaar, adding that government should put a net which can stop dead bodies. advertisement These lifeguards, however, don't complain much. "It is a mission for us to fetch dead bodies and rescue people. Life is valuable and we feel blessed saving each soul. Our mission is to take out even decaying dead bodies as it is important for family members and police. There have been instances where hands or legs of bodies come out while pulling them out," said Rayees Ahmed, one of the divers. ALSO READ: Four boys drown in Yamuna canal --- ENDS --- Donald Trump claimed the Orlando shooting incident was the work of an Islamist militant while calling on President Barack Obama to resign and for Democrat Hillary Clinton to exit the presidential race. By Reuters: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave an aggressive response to the deadliest mass shooting in US history, quickly claiming the attack was the work of an Islamist militant while calling on President Barack Obama to resign and for Democrat Hillary Clinton to exit the presidential race. For Trump, it was an attempt to frame the attack in Orlando in a light favorable to his campaign for the November 8 presidential election. advertisement Early on Sunday, when few facts were known about the shooting, he boasted on Twitter that it proved he had been right about his warnings over "radical Islamic terrorism." Trump cancelled a planned Monday evening rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire late on Sunday, because of the shooting, but will go ahead with a major speech at St. Anselm's College on Monday afternoon. In a tweet just hours after the incident, he wrote: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance." Trump has made combatting the threat of groups such as Islamic State a central part of his candidacy. It was last December's attack in San Bernardino, California that killed 14 people that led Trump to propose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump re-visited the proposal on Sunday after at least 50 people died in the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough," Trump wrote on Twitter. THE STATEMENT In a statement late Sunday, the businessman went further than US officials investigating the shootings by asserting that the attack in Orlando was the work of a "radical Islamic terrorist." Islamic State, which controls land in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the shooting but US officials said they had seen no immediate evidence directly linking the militant group to the massacre. The shooter, US-born Florida resident Omar Mateen, was killed by police. Mateen, 29, called 911 on Sunday morning and made comments saying he supported the Islamic State militant group, officials said. A Trump supporter played Trump's speeches on a loudspeaker outside the Port St. Lucie, Florida home of Mateen's parent's. "I'm a Cuban citizen and I'm becoming an American citizen on July 6 and I'm going to vote for the first time in my life for Donald Trump," said Arisley Travieso, 36, who works for a shredding company. Traveiso said he supported Trump because the Republican nominee sees "the problem is Islamic terrorism. He (Trump) has been saying it nonstop." advertisement TRUMP RIPS OBAMA Trump ripped Obama for his long-standing refusal to refer to Islamic State and other extremist groups as in part representative of the religion of Islam. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down," Trump said, adding that, "if Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the presidency." Trump's day-long barrage of tweets and statements contrasted with more cautious approaches taken by Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and her fellow Democrat Obama. In remarks at the White House, Obama said the investigation into the shootings was ongoing and declined to speculate on the motives of the shooter. "We've reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer," Obama said. "The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. Similarly, Clinton, in a statement, called the attack an "act of terror" but did not speculate about the ideology of the gunman. "Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work, and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead," said Clinton, who expressed her sympathy for the victims and said "weapons of war" have no place on US streets. advertisement Trump's campaign said that a speech scheduled for Monday that was to be devoted to criticizing Hillary and Bill Clinton would now be centered on national security and counter-terrorism. Also Read Orlando gay club shooting: What we know so far Islamic State's claim of responsibility for Orlando shooting not confirmed, says Senator 'He's coming, I'm gonna die': Mother received texts from son during Orlando shooting Orlando shooting: 50 dead, 53 injured, gunman identified --- ENDS --- Last month, with about a dozen people in attendance, Hindu Sena had lit ritual fire and held a 'havan' and wished their "hero" Trump victory in the presidential poll. "You are invited to celebrate the birthday of Mr Donald Trump on 12 noon 14 June, 2016 At Jantar Mantar, New Delhi," a poster released by Hindu Sena said. By India Today Web Desk: Right-wing group Hindu Sena, which last month held a puja in New Delhi to pray for Donald Trump's victory in the US election, is now planning to celebrate the presumptive Republican nominee's birthday tomorrow. "You are invited to celebrate the birthday of Mr Donald Trump on 12 noon 14 June, 2016 At Jantar Mantar, New Delhi," a poster released by Hindu Sena said. Trump turns 70 tomorrow. advertisement "Join us and let's celebrate the birthday of the saviour of humanity, the Republican presidential nominee of the Unites States of America," the invitation, signed off by Sena's Vishnu Gupta, reads. Last month, with about a dozen people in attendance, Hindu Sena had lit ritual fire and held a 'havan' at the same venue and wished their "hero" Trump victory in the presidential poll to "save the humanity from Islam and Islamic terror". Also read: Donald Trump says Florida massacre proves he's right on Islamist threat --- ENDS --- Emails exchanged between arrested accused Dr Virendra Singh Tawade and absconding accused Sarang Akolkar has revealed that they used Desi Sahitya and Videshi Sahitya as code words to refer to country-made guns and foreign-made guns, respectively. By Munish Chandra Pandey: Investigations in the emails exchanged between arrested accuse Dr Virendra Singh Tawade and absconding accused Sarang Akolkar has revealed that code word was used to procure gun to kill Social Activist Narendra Dabholkar. While planning to assassinate Dabholkar, the email conversation mentions country-made guns by "Desi Sahitya" and foreign-made guns by "Videshi Sahitya." HOW A "TOUGH NUT" DR VIRENDRA SINGH TAWADE BROKE DOWN advertisement "When we confronted Tawade with evidences, he initially refused to answer. When we asked him to decode the term "Sahitya" he answered Desi Sahitya as Sahityik Books from UP and MP and Videshi Sahitya as books from Assam but when he came to term "Karkhana" he broke down and said guns from UP and MP was termed as Desi Sahitya and foreign made Guns to be procured from Assam was termed as Videshi Sahitya", said a CBI sources. SARANG AKOLKAR IS ONE OF ASSASSINATE OF DABHOLKAR! Engineer by profession, Sarang Akolkar is believed to be man who assassinated Narendra Dabholkar. Sarang is accuse in Goa, Thane and Vashi blasts. A red corned notice was issued by Interpol in 2009 but he was never arrested. CBI sources says that inspite of being a wanted accuse he had visited his Pune residence 2 months back. FAILURE OF INTEL AGENCIES Akolkar was on radar by Intelligence agencies since 2009 but he was communicating through emails with Dr Virendra Singh Tawade since 2013 still none of the agencies noticed. CBI suspects that Tawade and Akolkar had met also before the Dabholkar Murder. CONSPIRACY TO KILL DABHOLKAR HATCHED IN 2008 Dr Tawade was instructed by one of his senior to concentrate only on concentrate only Narendra Dabholkar. Since then Akolkar and Dabholkar were planning to kill Narendra Dabholkar. Earlier the plan was to kill Dabholkar on 18th August 2013 but last minute they changed plan and successfully assassinated Dabholkar after 2 days. TAWADE ARREST MIGHT SOLVE PANSARE AND KALBURGI MURDER CASE Ballistic report given by Banglore Forensic lab suggests that Social Activist Govind Pansare and Narendra Dabholkar were killed by same weapon. The second weapon used to shoot Govind Pansare was used to kill Kannada writer Kalburgi. CBI is in touch with the agencies investigating Pansare and Kalburgi murder case. TROUBLED FAMILY LIFE OF TAWADE An ENT surgeon by Profession, Tawade practised medical only for 3 years then became member of Janjagruti Samiti, a linked association of Sanatan Sanstha. Tawade got married to a Doctor, but from 6 years both are living separately.Tawade's wife also became Sadhak with Sanatan Santha but left few years back. When asked by CBI that why his wife left Sanatan Sanstha,he answered saying " because of some "durjan" (anti Hindu). Tawade's wife and his 6 years old daughter are currently in London. CBI has asked Tawade's wife to appear before them on 20th July. advertisement ALSO READ: Narendra Dabholkar murder: CBI arrests Virendrasing Tawde Same weapon is used to kill MM Kalburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare: CID --- ENDS --- Till June 12, the deadliest mass shooting in the United States was the one that happened in Virginia in 2007, and claimed the lives of 32 people. But yesterday, in the wee hours of June 12, history was rewritten with blood. By India Today Web Desk: Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American, opened fire at over 100 people, killing 50 and injuring more than 53. He held them hostage inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando before he decided to shoot. Orlando shooting, as it's being called, became the deadliest mass shooting in the United States' history. Here are some mass shootings from 2007 to 2015. advertisement One of the deadliest shooting rampages in the US history was when gunman Seung-Hui Cho, 23, killed 32 people and injured many, and then killed himself. Gunman Steve Kazmierczak at Northern Illinois University killed 5 students and injured 16 others after which he shot himself. Gunman Jiverly Wong, 42, entered the immigration center of Binghamton and opened fire. 13 people died. 37 survivors were rescued by the police. An angry employee Omar S Thornton, 34, working in a warehouse killed his colleagues, a company executive and a union president. He killed himself after killing the victims. Killer Scott E DeKraai, 42, shooting down 8 people at a salon, pleaded guilty and could face the death penalty. Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school was again one of the deadliest shootings in the US. Gunman Adam Lanza opened fire and killed 26 people. After that he killed himself, and didn't spare his mother either. Police say the shooter was Aaron Alexis, 34, a former Navy reservist who died after killing 12 victims at the Washington Navy Yard. The gunman, Elliot O Rodger, 22, committed suicide shortly after the rampage in which he killed 6 people. The gunmen fired dozens of shots inside a conference hall full of people with disabilities, leaving at least 14 dead and 17 wounded. --- ENDS --- Water resources minister Girish Mahajan is in soup for hiding ownership of a 4.97 acre land from the election commission in his subsequent poll affidavits. By Kiran Tare: A day after he found himself in a soup over hiding ownership of a land from the Election Commission Maharashtra Minister for Water Resources Girish Mahajan on Monday said that he did not even remember when he purchased the 4.97 acre piece of land. The Congress, on Sunday, had alleged that Mahajan did not mention the ownership of the land in his election affidavits in 2004, 2009 and 2014. The records show that Mahajan had purchased the land at Manpur in Bhusawal taluka of Jalgaon district in 2002 allegedly at a price of Rs 20 lakh per acre. advertisement "I don't even remember when I purchased it," Mahajan told India Today on Monday at his office in Mantralaya. "I only recall that some people had approached me in 1999 to make me director of a sugar factory. They had purchased 100 acre of land. Out of which 50 acre was purchased by a family of four for their personal use. They had asked me to sign several papers. I don't even remember whether I had signed the papers or not," he said. He claimed that there could not be any record of his presence at the registration office because the land registration used to be done without photographs of the seller and the buyer in those days. "I recall the price of the land was Rs 1.11 lakh at that time not Rs 20 lakh per acre as being alleged. I am also surprised to see how someone has brought forward the said land transaction I don't remember," Mahajan said. Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant has demanded that the election commission should take stringent action against Mahajan for concealing property in his subsequent election affidavits. Mahajan is the second BJP leader after Eknath Khadse whose name has cropped in a controversy over a land deal. Khadse had resigned as revenue minister on June 4 following the allegation of conflict of interest while deciding the compensation amount for a land his wife Mandakini and son-in-law Girish Choudhary had purchased at Bhosari near Pune on April 27. Mahajan, known as a close confidant of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, has emerged as a powerful leader in Jalgaon after Khadse's exit. Interestingly, when social activists had raised question why Khadse had not disclosed ownership of land worth of Rs 137 crore in Jalgaon he had retorted, "Why do you ask about my land only. He (Mahajan) also has not disclosed ownership of his land in the affidavit. Why don't you ask the same question to him?" --- ENDS --- Migraines are not exactly uncommon. But what if we tell you that it's some basic vitamins that could be causing them? By India Today Web Desk: Our sedentary lifestyles are slowly creeping up on our health, without us even realising it. You know how we don't send our kids out to play in the sun--because OMG, heat!--well, the harsh truth is that avoiding sun is doing more harm than good. According to a recent study, a lack of sunshine could be triggering migraine attacks in children, teenagers and young adults. advertisement We all know that migraine attacks aren't exactly uncommon. And though medicines have been devised for the condition, they only work for some of the patients. Now, a study has found a lack of vitamin D, vitamin B2 or riboflavin and coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10)--an enzyme the body produces to help energy for cell growth and maintenance--in a high percentage of migraine sufferers. Vitamin D is produced by the skin when its exposed to sunlight and is also found in foods such oily fish and eggs. Riboflavin is found in milk, eggs and rice, and it helps keep skin, eyes and the nervous system healthy, while helping the body release energy from the food we eat. CoQ10 is an enzyme the body produces naturally in the liver and is used to turn glucose from food to an energy-rich compound called adenosine triphosphate, according to Daily Mail UK. Researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center suggested these deficiencies may be involved in patients who experience migraines. The study analysed records of patients with migraines, who had baseline blood levels checked for vitamin D, riboflavin, CoQ10 and folate, all of which have been known to cause migraines. Lead author and headache medicine fellow Dr Suzanne Hagler said more research would be needed to establish the connection. "Further studies are needed to elucidate whether vitamin supplementation is effective in migraine patients in general, and whether patients with mild deficiency are more likely to benefit from supplementation," said Dr Hagler. She found that young women were more likely than young men or boys to have CoQ10 deficiencies. On the other hand, young men were more likely to have vitamin D deficiency, they found. Patients with chronic migraines were more likely to have CoQ10 and riboflavin deficiencies than those with episodic migraines. Previous studies suggested certain vitamins and vitamin deficiencies may be important in the migraine process. Studies using vitamins to prevent migraines, however, have had conflicting success. The findings were presented at the 58th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society in San Diego. With inputs from IANS. --- ENDS --- More than 15 hours after that text, Justice still hasn't heard from her son. She and a dozen family and friends are at a hotel that has become a staging area for relatives awaiting news Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie Justice who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse, Sunday June, 12, 2016, in Orlando. (AP Photo/Tamara Lush) By AP: Mina Justice was sound asleep when she received the first text from her son, Eddie Justice, who was in the gay nightclub when a gunman opened fire, leaving 50 dead and more than 50 wounded. This is the conversation she had over text message with her 30-year-old son: "Mommy I love you," the first message said. It was 2:06 a.m. advertisement "In club they shooting." Mina Justice tried calling her 30-year-old son. No answer. Alarmed and half awake, she tapped out a response. Mina Justice shows a text message she received from her son Eddie Justice at Pulse nightclub during a fatal shooting in Orlando, Fla. (Courtesy of Mina Justice via AP) Mina Justice shows a text message she received from her son Eddie Justice at Pulse nightclub during a fatal shooting in Orlando, Fla. (Courtesy of Mina Justice via AP) "U ok" At 2:07 a.m., he wrote: "Trapp in bathroom." Justice asked what club, and he responded: "Pulse. Downtown. Call police." Then at 2:08: "I'm gonna die." Now wide awake, Justice dialed 911. She sent a flurry of texts over the next several minutes. "I'm calling them now. U still in there Answer our damn phone Call them Call me." The 911 dispatcher wanted her to stay on the line. She wondered what kind of danger her son was in. He was normally a homebody who liked to eat and work out. He liked to make everyone laugh. He worked as an accountant and lived in a condo in downtown Orlando. "Lives in a sky house, like the Jeffersons," she would say. "He lives rich." She knew he was gay and at a club - and all the complications that might entail. Fear surged through her as she waited for his next message. At 2:39 a.m., he responded: Mina Justice hasn't heard from her son since the messages. (Courtesy of Mina Justice via AP) "Call them mommy Now." He wrote that he was in the bathroom. "He's coming I'm gonna die." Justice asked her son if anyone was hurt and which bathroom he was in. "Lots. Yes," he responded at 2:42 a.m. When he didn't text back, she sent several more messages. Was he with police? "Text me please," she wrote. "No," he wrote four minutes later. "Still here in bathroom. He has us. They need to come get us." At 2:49 a.m., she told him the police were there and to let her know when he saw them. "Hurry," he wrote. "He's in the bathroom with us." She asked, "Is the man in the bathroom wit u?" At 2:50 a.m.: "He's a terror." Then, a final text from her son a minute later: "Yes." More than 15 hours after that text, Justice still hasn't heard from her son. She and a dozen family and friends are at a hotel that has become a staging area for relatives awaiting news. Any news. advertisement "His name has not come up yet and that's scary. It's just ..." she paused and patted her heart. "It's just, I got this feeling. I got a bad feeling." Also Read Orlando gay club shooting: What we know so far Islamic State's claim of responsibility for Orlando shooting not confirmed, says Senator Orlando shooting: Donald Trump refers to it as possible terrorismOrlando shooting: 50 dead, 53 injured, gunman identified How Omar Mateen wreaked havoc at Orlando gay nightclub: Timeline --- ENDS --- If you are planning to travel to Himachal Pradesh by bus, HRTC might disappoint you. By India Today Web Desk: In case you have taken leaves to go on a holiday to the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, it's about time you cancel them and head to work instead. Until you are planning to drive down or hire a cab. The employees of Himachal Road Transport Corporation (HRTC) have threatened to go on a two-day strike, starting from Monday night over demands such as regularisation of contract staff and protection of pension benefits. advertisement This would mean that around 8,000 employees will not work and thus 2,500 of the state-run buses will be off the roads, creating a major impact on Himachal Pradesh's tourism. Also read: 6 of the most beautiful homestays in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh The transport employees have also threatened to stop the operations of chartered and other states' roadways buses till Wednesday night. But there's still hope for travellers as Transport Minister G.S.Bali has appealed to call off the strike by assuring the employees that their genuine demands would be accepted. Hoteliers in the mountain state expressed concern as heavy tourist arrivals were predicted this week, considering it's the peak season and people wanting to get away from the searing heat in the plains. On an average, about 10,000 to 15,000 tourists from Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi visit Shimla and nearby destinations during this season. (With inputs from IANS) --- ENDS --- The Communist Party of China and the Pakistan Peoples Party signed a deal on exchanges and cooperation between the two. By Indo-Asian News Service: The Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) signed a deal on exchanges and cooperation between the two on Wednesday. The deal was signed by the CPC Central Committee's international affairs chief Wang Jiarui and secretary-general of PPP Jehangir Bader on the second day of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari's four-day China visit. advertisement "This memorandum is a symbol for more regular exchanges between the two parties in the future, as well as a new starting point to further develop their relations," Wang said during a meeting with Bader before the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the two parties. Wang also hailed the all-weather friendship between China and Pakistan and the cooperation between political parties of the two countries. Bader said he hoped that the China-Pakistan friendship would last for generations. The two sides also exchanged views on other issues of common concern. --- ENDS --- Taking a leaf out of the armed forces' book, the IAS officers have plans to create these elite schools where only their wards would be allowed to study. By Manjeet Negi: At a time when officials are being chided by courts to send their children to government schools, IAS babus are planning to create a chain of elite schools like the Delhi-based Sanskriti school for their kids across the country. Taking a leaf out of the armed forces' book, the IAS officers have plans to create these elite schools where only their wards would be allowed to study. The first experimental Sanskriti School is in operation in the National Capital, which is run by a Trust headed by the spouse of the serving Cabinet Secretary of India as its chairperson. The other members of the Trust are senior civil servants and their spouses. advertisement According to an Office Memorandum (OM) of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) accessed by Aaj Tak, the success of the only Sanskriti school in Delhi "has led to demands from various other regions of the country for setting up of such schools in those locations as well". The DoPT document also says that, "It is, therefore, the view of the government that as a welfare measure it should also encourage and support opening of Sanskriti type schools in other parts of the country." Seeking to justify the need for more such schools, the DoPT claimed that the government is a "model employer" and such a measure has "the potential to impact performance and efficiency of the employees". The babus are also citing examples of the schools run by the Army, Navy and Air Force under the aegis of their respective "Educational and Cultural Societies". --- ENDS --- By PTI: From Abhishek Shukla Accra, Jun 13 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee today made a strong pitch for Indian private sector investment in Ghana, saying economic cooperation between the two countries should move beyond Government funded projects. Addressing the India-Ghana Business Forum meeting here, the President said India is one of the few countries where Small and Medium Enterprises thrive alongside large conglomerates, creating jobs and ensuring wealth distribution on one hand and infrastructure development, indigenisation and external business linkages, on the other. advertisement "Indian entrepreneurs know that developing countries need to prioritise relevant and eco-friendly technologies that are in sync with the state of economic development of the country as well as its social needs," he said. Mukherjee, the first Indian President to visit the West African nation, said we have learned that calibrated foreign investments are the key to rapid growth in a developing nation. "Indian businesses have learned adaptability and would be happy to share their experience with their Ghanian counterparts," he said at the meet organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Association of Ghana Industries and Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The President said he was glad to note that the bilateral trade is in favour of Ghana. "However I would encourage the Ghanian entrepreneurs to diversify and expand their exports to India. During the third India-Africa Forum Summit in October last year in New Delhi, India earmarked USD 10 billion for diverse projects in Africa and capacity building efforts. Government of India looks forward to working with Ghana to identify projects for utilization of these funds in Ghana," he said. MORE PTI ABS ZH AKJ ZH --- ENDS --- By PTI: Kottayam (Ker), Jun 13 (PTI) A 47-year-old Indian national has been reported missing from his workplace in Sunaina near Ibri in Oman, his relatives said here today. Relatives of John Philip, who hails from nearby Manarcadu said they suspected it to be a case of abduction. "We have informed the matter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj," they said. advertisement According to his brother Jacob Philip, John had gone missing from the fuel filling station in Sunaina in Ibri, some 217 km from Muscat since Friday night. John had been working as a supervisor in the station for the last 12 years, he said. His colleagues reported for duty on Saturday and alerted the Oman police after they found signs of disturbance at the station, he added. The CCTV camera and its hard disc was also found missing from the petrol pump, where John was the only person on duty on Friday night, the relatives claimed. PTI COR TGB ROH APR RCJ --- ENDS --- Hemant Brijwasi, who is also the winner of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Little Champs 2009, was allegedly attacked by his two cousins and their accomplices on Saturday. Hemant Brijwasi is currently participating in India's Got Talent. By India Today Web Desk: Hemant Brijwasi, who's currently participating in India's Got Talent, was allegedly attacked by his two cousins and their accomplices over old enmity near Pagal Baba temple in Mathura, police said. The incident took place on Saturday when Brijwasi along with his father Hukum Brijwasi and neighbour Bhura was on his way to Bankey Bihari temple in Vrindaban in a car, police said. advertisement Brijwasi received minor injuries when he was attacked with sticks by his cousins Bhola and Madhav besides two others, they said. The window panes of his car were also broken by the accused, police added. Brijwasi is also the winner of Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Little Champs 2009 and has participated in Star Plus Show Jo Jeeta Wohi Superstar 2. He lodged a complaint against the four with police, on the basis of which an FIR was registered against the accused, they said. "Hunt for the attackers is on," DSP Rajendra Kumar Gautam said. (With inputs from PTI) --- ENDS --- Social activist S Bhaskaran had submitted a petition to the governor seeking his permission to prosecute Siddaramaiah as the issue amounted to nepotism. He had invoked several sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 to justify his petition. By Mail Today: In a major relief to Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Governor V S Vala has refused to grant permission to prosecute the Congress leader in connection with the tender awarded to Matrix Imaging Solutions in which his son was a partner. Social activist S Bhaskaran had submitted a petition to the governor seeking his permission to prosecute Siddaramaiah as the issue amounted to nepotism. He had invoked several sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 to justify his petition. However, Vala, who examined the petition, refused to grant his permission on June 8. The reason for refusing to grant permission for prosecution has not been disclosed. advertisement Siddaramaiah's son Dr. Yathindra was a director of Matrix Imaging Solutions Ltd, which won a bid to set up clinical laboratory and radio diagnosis and imaging services at the government-run Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI). It had led to a controversy, as Opposition leaders alleged that the transaction lacked transparency. But Dr. Yathindra later quit the company on the advice of Siddaramaiah. --- ENDS --- Arjun Santhosh, a fourteen year old student, has been swimming to his school everyday for his villagers. A protest demanding a bridge for his village Perumbalam, an island in Kerala's Alappuzha district. Arjun Santhosh, a fourteen year old student from Kerala's Alappuzha leaves home in the morning like any other student. In his uniform, with a bag. But unlike others he has a swimsuit and water goggles in his bag. While others wait for a boat, he jumps into the Vembanaad waters, swimming 3 km to his school in Poothotta. He has been swimming to his school everyday for his villagers. A protest demanding a bridge for his village Perumbalam, an island in Kerala's Alappuzha district. advertisement Boats too small, too slow "Usually boats are late and I get punished at school for being late. Some boats are very small. And there are too many people. It is a cause of worry," says Arjun. The Perumbalam panchayat houses more than ten thousand people. This ninth class student decided to join his villagers in protest when their 25-year-old demand for a 700-metre bridge was not met. 1.5 hours to reach mainland "Transportation is a major problem. Last year close to 50 people died here due to medical emergencies... like snake bites for example. It takes about one-and-a-half hours to reach the mainland," said Abhilash, a resident. Arjun's protest lasted 10 days for the authorities to acknowledge the villagers' concern once again but no solid assurance have come their way yet. Instead, the authorities have decided to send him a notice asking him to withdraw from the protest. "He is a minor and it is dangerous to swim in this season. If something tragic happens we would be held responsible for not stopping him. Hence we decided to send him a notice," said R Girija, collector, Alappuzha. A bridge too far "Yes, a bridge is a necessity here. We have six boats here which are in a very poor state," said Shobhana Chakrapani, panchayat member. Arjun has agreed to stop his protest hoping the authorities will now take a step towards building a bridge. But he warns them that if they fail, he will go back to taking the route less travelled. --- ENDS --- By PTI: From Lalit K Jha Washington, Jun 13 (PTI) Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama today asked the world to seek inspiration from India which has maintained religious harmony for over 2,000 years, as he prayed for the victims of Orlando shooting that claimed over 50 lives. "A very serious tragedy in Orlando. So lets start with some silent prayer," the Dalai Lama said at the US Institute of Peace, a US-based think-tank established by the Congress. advertisement Asserting that "genuine practitioners of Islam would never create bloodshed", he asked the world to seek inspiration from India which is home to major religions of the world and people live in harmony. "India despite problems, has had religious harmony there for 2,000 years," he said. "If India can maintain religious harmony, why cant the rest of the world?" the Dalai Lama said, a day after an Afghan-origin gunman killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in the deadliest shooting in American history. The shooter was also shot dead by police. "India is an example of live together," he said as he proposed religious leaders from the Middle East to visit India. The Dalai Lama said that he recently told a group of Hindu leaders that "I am ready to come (go back to Hinduism)" if they address the discriminatory caste system. He called upon the Hindu religious leaders to work towards this and create awareness to abolish the caste system. He also suggested that India should hold an international religious conference. The American military power, he said, can crush the enemy, but cant change the mindset of the people. He cited the example of Tibetan people not changing their mindset despite 60 years of use of force by the Chinese government. PTI LKJ UZM ZH UZM --- ENDS --- The woman, who hails from Kolkata and was married to Asif from Phulwari Sharif in Patna, claimed that her husband's family forced her to live in a madarsa for a month to learn Islam, where she was forced to eat beef. The Patna Police has arrested two men after a woman filed a complaint saying her husband and his family members allegedly forced her to adopt Islam and eat beef. She also accused them of blackmailing her after making a porn video of her. The woman, who hails from Kolkata and was married to Asif from Phulwari Sharif in Patna, claimed that her husband's family forced her to live in a madarsa for a month to learn Islam, where she was forced to eat beef. advertisement HERE'S WHAT SHE SAYS HAPPENED Rakhi (name changed) was bowled over by Asif Iqbal's looks when she first saw his photos on Facebook. Soon, phone numbers were exhanged and the two started talking to each other over phone for hours. Soon, Asif started persuading Rakhi to come to Patna from Kolkata. Initially, the girl refused but ultimately she gave in to the consistent demands. Love Jihad: Doctor rapes woman, forces her to convert Asif promised Rakhi to marry her. Soon, the girl was in Patna to meet her "love." ASIF RAPED RAKHI IN PATNA HOTEL, MADE MMS Asif received Rakhi in Patna and made her to stay at a hotel in the Mithapur area. He offered her soft drink laced with sedatives. The accused raped her and made an MMS of the act. Asif started blackmailing Rakhi, who returned to Kolkata but could not gather the courage to report the matter either to the police or her family. Waging war against Love Jihad: Inter-faith couples share their love saga GIRL MADE TO ACCEPT ISLAM After a few days, Asif called Rakhi and promised to marry her and asked her to come to Patna again. She was sexually assaulted yet again. Rakhi pleaded the guy to marry her but he refused. However, after a few days, Asif took her to meet his parents. Asif's parents asked Rakhi to accept Islam. They took her to a madarsa for conversion. Despite her accepting Islam, they continued to torture her. Rakhi was too trumatised to repor her story. She called her mother to Patna from Kolkata. She went to meet Asif's parents but they abused her and kicked her out. POLICE ACTION Finally, Rakhi and her mother approached the police. A case was registered in the Phulwarisharif women's police station. Acting swiftly, the police arrested two men named Rizwi Hassan and Faizal in the case. The prime accused Asif and madarsa maulvi are yet to be traced. Also Read: Sting operation busts the love-jihad bogey advertisement Two get life sentence for murdering Muslim man over love jihad --- ENDS --- Explaining the delay in taking action, Akhilesh Yadav said the presence of a large number of women and children in the Mathura park made the operation difficult. Several hutments put up inside Jawahar Bagh in Mathura caught fire during the clashes. (Photo: PTI) By India Today Web Desk: A week after the clashes in Mathura killed 29 people, including two senior police officers, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav visited the family of slain Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi today in what is being seen as a damage control exercise by the Samajwadi Party government. Talking to India Today TV, Yadav said a probe into the violence has been launched and the truth will soon come out. Here are the latest developments: "We have strengthened the intelligence system... Investigations are on and soon things will be clear," Yadav told India Today TV in Mathura. Explaining the delay in taking action, Yadav said the presence of a large number of women and children in the Mathura park made the operation difficult. Yadav also accused the opposition parties, mainly the BJP, for politicising the issue. "BJP should find a new controversy to attack us," he said. Facing flak for the inept handling of an anti-encroachment drive in Mathura by civil and police officials, Yadav last week ordered a judicial probe into the Jawaharbagh violence in the town. A one-man commission headed by the Allahabad High Court's retired Justice Mirza Imtiaz Murtaza has been set up to probe the violence. The judicial commission, which will have its headquarters at Lucknow, has been asked to complete the probe within two months. The Mathura carnage could hurt the Samajwadi Party the most in the run-up to Assembly polls in the state due early next year. Even Yadav's most ardent admirers admit in private that it has "brought to his doorstep the biggest challenge" to his four-year-old rule. BJP president Amit Shah yesterday attacked the SP government over the "atmosphere of violence" in the state, citing the Mathura clashes and the alleged "migration" of Hindus from a western UP town. The BJP is currently holding a two-day National Executive meeting in Allahabad to fine-tune its UP strategy. PM Narendra Modi attended the meeting on Sunday. advertisement Also Read: Mathura clashes: Mastermind behind violence that killed 24 identified, manhunt on --- ENDS --- By PTI: * Microsoft has set up its online store on Tata groups online platform Tata CLiQ to sell the tech-majors products including tablets, software and phones. "Increasingly consumers are going online to shop for a number of things, including mobiles, devices and software. We therefore are expanding our online presence through our official Microsoft Store (on Tata Cliq) so that our consumers find it easier to experience and buy our products," Microsoft India Country GM (Consumer Channel Group) Priyadarshi Mohapatra said in a statement. advertisement As part of the partnership, consumers will get inaugural discounts and offers on products like Microsoft Surface Pro 4, Lumia smartphones and Office 365 subscription, it said. ******** TCS wins Randstads IT transformation deal * TCS has won a tech transformation deal from Randstad Global IT Solutions. The partnership with the European country is to design and deploy a public cloud marketplaces for IT infrastructure services, a TCS statement said today. "This engagement will enable Randstad to significantly boost the agility and scalability of its global IT services, as well as drive efficiencies and economies of scale," TCS director and head for Benelux, Amit Kapur, said. As part of its IT transformation strategy, Randstad wants to improve its IT Infrastructure operations through assets and vendor optimisation, process standardisation, automation and deriving economies of scale, a TCS statement said. ******** TechM partners with ArisGlobal for serving life science sector * Tech Mahindra has partnered with ArisGlobal to develop solutions for addressing the life science industrys product compliance needs. ArisGlobal is a cloud-based software solutions for life sciences provider and the two partners seek to provide an end-to-end solution for clients. This solution will not only address the regulatory compliance requirement IDMP (Identification of Medicinal Products), but also provide a solution which will enable companies to ensure compliance, improve efficiencies and assure the safety of their products, a TechM statement said. (MORE) PTI SR AA NRB SBT MR --- ENDS --- In the wake of the Orlando shooting that has claimed 50 lives, Bollywood and Hollywood took to Twitter to express their grief. The Orlando shooting is the worst mass shooting in US history. Photo: Reuters By India Today Television: Bollywood and Hollywood celebrities took to Twitter to express their grief for the Orlando shooting that claimed at least 50 lives, making it the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States and the deadliest attack the country has seen since 9/11. Omar Mateen, 29, entered Pulse, a club known for its LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) crowd, around 2am on Sunday (June 12), and began shooting, killing 50 people and injuring 53. advertisement ALSO READ: What we know so far about the Orlando gay club shooting ALSO READ: Orlando gunman called 911 before shooting and pledged allegiance to ISIS Bollywood celebrities, including Priyanka Chopra, Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia tweeted their sorrow and solidarity for the victims. Heartbreaking to hear about the #OrlandoShooting May peace come upon this earth.. Prayers for the victims and their families. #prayerforlove PRIYANKA (@priyankachopra) June 12, 2016 So Sad to hear about the massacre in #Orlando here My prayers n condolences to the families who lost their loved ones,stop this #violence Sidharth Malhotra (@S1dharthM) June 12, 2016 Heartbreaking to hear about #OrlandoNightclubShooting , prayers to the all the family's who have lost their loved ones . Tamannaah Bhatia (@tamannaahspeaks) June 13, 2016 #OrlandoNightclubShooting Prayers to the familys of the victims. The US needs a serious review of its gun control policy. kunal kohli (@kunalkohli) June 13, 2016 Thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, families and the brave police officers #OrlandoNightclubShooting #Orlando Amit Sadh (@TheAmitSadh) June 13, 2016 Hollywood responded to the tragedy with even more passion and fervour. Kim Kardashian West, Seth McFarlane and Madonna, among others, tweeted their anger against gun laws in the United States. Kim Kardashian West was visibly outraged on her Twitter account as she made the US Congress accountable for the tragedy. Screenwriter and LGBT rights activist Dustin Lance Black, known for writing movies like Milk and J Edgar, both dealing with LGBT themes, tweeted from the sets of his upcoming ABC miniseries When We Rise. Madonna, Matt Bomer (actor, White Collar and The Nice Guys) and Seth McFarlane (creator, Family Guy and Ted) were among others who tweeted their solidarity for the Orlando shooting victims. My heart goes out to all those affected by this terrible tragedy in Orlando. There are no words. Sending love and prayers. Matt Bomer (@MattBomer) June 12, 2016 Reagan appointed Justice Kennedy his last year in office, confirmed by Dem Senate. Repub Senate can't do same w Obama? Identical scenario. Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane) June 12, 2016 --- ENDS --- Taslima Nasreen shared a video on Twitter that shows a local mosque Imam advocating 'death sentence' to homosexuals. She says the Orlando killer was brainwashed by the Imam, an expert in Sharia. By India Today Web Desk: Taslima Nasreen is known as much for her severe critique of Islam as for her literary work. Yesterday, a Muslim man - Omar Mateen - held over 100 people hostage at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and opened fire, killing at least 50 and injuring over 53. Rumuors have it that Mateen has claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, and yet again, Muslims around the world are in fear of being subjected to violent attacks as well as increased Islamophobia. advertisement Nasreen tweeted a video yesterday, saying, "Omar Mateen was brainwashed by Orlando Mosque Imam to kill homosexuals." How Omar Mateen wreaked havoc at Orlando gay nightclub: Timeline What does the video say? The caption of the video uploaded by The United West says, "The United West investigative team uncovered a story so disturbing Field Sutton of Channel 9 news in Orlando, FL broke the story on their newscast." The video shows Dr Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar, an expert on Shariah Islamiyya or Islamic Law, speaking at The Husseini Islamic Center, 5211 Hester Ave, Sanford, FL 32773, during an event. He is seen saying "the killing of homosexuals is the compassionate thing to do." In this video from 2013, Dr Seklaeshfar said this about queer people - "Death is the sentence. We know there's nothing to be embarrassed about this, death is the sentence... We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals, it's the same, out of compassion, let's get rid of them now." The caption says, "What's equally disturbing is the response to this call for killing gays from Rev. Bryan Fulwider of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida. Rev. Fulwider said, "These issues around homosexuality and the decrying of it or denouncing of it by religion takes away, often, from our really important task of helping our community to be a better community...and wishes congregations would focus more on helping the homeless, poor , and abused instead of persecuting a group that can take care of itself." The Westboro Baptist Church has always condemned homosexuality and is known for the venomous rhetoric against homosexuals. Post the news of the Orlano mass killing, the Church's Twitter handle was filled with anti-gay tweets and one even said "God sent the shooter." Parodia explica por qu Dios envio al tirador al Pulse Orlando", dice la Iglesia de Westboro https://t.co/nWY0paIlRf pic.twitter.com/SNytynt78n Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) June 13, 2016 That's the problem with this nation, to wit: unmerited & unwarranted UNGODLY pride! https://t.co/biuIVP7k2X pic.twitter.com/rbhKunPazG Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) June 13, 2016 The caption of the video also says, "It would appear the hatred of gays by The Westboro Baptist Church has been eclipsed by Sheikh Sekaleshfar and the Husseini Islamic Center Mosque of Sanford, FL," and demands how both these supposed 'places of worship' should be stripped of their 501(C) status by which non-profit organizations are exempt from federal income tax. advertisement Here's the video of Dr Seklaeshfar advocating death sentence for homosexuals: Also read: Orlando gunman made calls to 911 before shooting, stated allegiance to Islamic State Also read: He's coming, I'm gonna die': Mother received texts from son during Orlando shooting Also read: What we know so far about the Orlando gay club shooting --- ENDS --- Seddique Mateen, whose public records indicate that he is the father of Omar Mateen, had an occasional television show on a US-based Afghan satellite channel for about three years. By Reuters: The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, is a fringe political commentator who rails against Pakistan and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Orlando gunman made calls to 911 before shooting, stated allegiance to Islamic State Seddique Mateen, whose public records indicate is the father of Omar Mateen, had an occasional television show on a US-based Afghan satellite channel for about three years, and has continued to post political commentaries on his Facebook page as recently as Sunday. SEDDIQUE MATEEN HOSTED THE SHOW 'DURAND JIRGA' advertisement Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called "Durand Jirga," which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinent's former British rulers. "WE'RE IN SHOCK, DON'T BRING IN RELIGION IN THIS" In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son's rampage had "nothing to do with religion." How Omar Mateen wreaked havoc at Orlando gay nightclub: Timeline He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, US-born Omar Mateen, 29, of Florida, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," NBC News quoted Seddique Mateen as saying. "We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country." Islamic State's claim of responsibility for Orlando shooting not confirmed, says Senator Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when he came to the United States. He did not return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email. Khatab said Seddique Mateen would show up at his studio in Canoga Park, California, "three or four times a year" to tape his shows. "He'd talk for about two to three hours," Khatab said in a phone interview. "He'd buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day." CRITICAL OF PAKISTAN'S ISI Khatab said Seddique Mateen's political views were largely anti-Pakistan. A YouTube channel under Mateen's name had more than 100 videos posted between 2012 and 2015. One of the videos refers to the "killer ISI" - the acronym for Pakistan's main military-run intelligence service - and says the agency is the "creator and father of the world's terrorism." Orlando killer was brainwashed by local mosque's Imam, says writer Taslima Nasreen, shares video US officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against US targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations. advertisement US officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection between the Florida attack and Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between Omar Mateen and any such group. Fifty three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single US mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. "TALIBAN IS ISIS' SERVANT" Seddique Mateen interviewed Ghani in January 2014, eight months before Ghani became president, according to a video posted on his YouTube channel. The interview touched on economic development and youth unemployment in Afghanistan. Khatab said Mateen conducted the interview in Kabul and brought it to California for broadcast. During the interview Mateen praised Ghani but by the following year had changed his views, apparently angered by Ghani's outreach to Pakistan in his bid to start peace talks with the Taliban. In a 2015 video, Mateen declared his own candidacy for the Afghan presidency, even though there was no election at that time. In the videos, he wears a Western suit and tie and speaks Dari, a dialect of Persian spoken in northern Afghanistan. He harshly criticizes Ghani's policies both at home and abroad and lashes out at Pakistan, its intelligence service, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and some senior Afghan government officials and jihadist figures. advertisement Orlando Shooting: Bollywood and Hollywood express shock, sadness and anger In a February video on his Facebook page, he addresses Taliban members and castigates them for being the "servants" of the ISI. In a June 11 video posted on Facebook, Mateen is dressed in military fatigues and says Afghanistan must "punish the traitors." "I wish a hero one day removes Ashraf Ghani's turban and slaps this crazy man," he said in the video. "This traitor has rolled up his sleeves to destroy our country." On Twitter, Ghani condemned the Orlando attack and called it an "act of terror. Also Read: Orlando shooting: Donald Trump refers to it as possible terrorism Orlando shooting: 50 dead, 53 injured, gunman identified --- ENDS --- Police killed the gunman, who was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan and had twice been questioned by FBI agents in recent years. This undated image provided by the Orlando Police Department shows Omar Mateen, the shooting suspect at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. By Reuters: A man armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to Islamic State militants killed 50 people during a gay pride celebration at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday in the deadliest mass shooting in US history, a rampage President Barack Obama denounced as an act of terror and hate. Police killed the gunman, who was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan and had twice been questioned by FBI agents in recent years, authorities said. advertisement Mateen's former wife described him as emotionally and mentally disturbed with a violent temper, yet who aspired to be a police officer. He also worked as an armed guard for the security firm G4S, the world's largest, according to the company. How Omar Mateen wreaked havoc at Orlando gay nightclub: Timeline Law enforcement officials were probing evidence suggesting the attack was inspired by Islamic State militants, although they said there was no proof that Mateen had worked directly with the group. As the shooting rampage was unfolding, Mateen "made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State," said Ronald Hopper, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge on the case. Shots rang out at the crowded Pulse nightclub in the heart of Orlando, one of the most popular U.S. tourist destinations, as some 350 patrons were attending a Latin music event in conjunction with gay pride week celebrations. Clubgoers described scenes of terror and pandemonium, with one man who escaped saying he hid under a car and bandaged a wounded stranger with his shirt. This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who killed 50 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. "Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that," Joshua McGill said in a posting on Facebook. "Being covered in blood. Trying to save a guy's life." Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It ranked as the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech University in 2007. "We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate," Obama said in a speech from the White House. "As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people." U.S. officials cautioned, however, they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with any foreign extremist group. "So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre," said a U.S. counterterrorism official. "This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody." The attacker was carrying an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. He also had an unidentified "device," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina. The shooting was nearly certain to reignite emotional debates over American gun laws and homeland security in what is shaping up to be a vitriolic U.S. presidential campaign between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. advertisement The attack came six months after a married couple in California - a U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants and a Pakistani-born woman he married in Saudi Arabia, fatally shot 14 people in San Bernardino in an attack inspired by Islamic State. That couple died in a shootout with police hours after their attack on a holiday party attended by the husband's co-workers. 'UNIMAGINABLE' The Florida shooting evolved into a hostage situation, which a team of SWAT officers ended around dawn when they used armored cars to storm the club before killing the gunman. It was unclear when the victims were killed. Officials in Orlando, a city of 270,000 people and home to tourist attractions including the Disney World resort, were visibly shocked at the high death toll, which they had initially put at 20. "We're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. He said 39 people died inside the club, two outside, and nine others died after being rushed to hospital. Orlando Regional Medical Center hospital said it had admitted 44 victims, including nine who died, and had carried out 26 operations on victims. advertisement The city began releasing names of the victims on Sunday, with the first seven identified as Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, Juan Ramon Guerrero, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, Peter Gonzalez-Cruz and Luis Vielma. Mateen had twice been interviewed by FBI agents, in 2013 and 2014, after making comments to co-workers indicating he supported militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity, the FBI's Hopper said. Mateen's former wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters he worked for a time as a correctional officer at a detention center for juvenile delinquents in Fort Pierce, Florida, and had once sought admission to a police academy. (Photo: AP) Hopper said Mateen was questioned in 2014 about his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, a U.S. citizen who also had lived in Florida and became a suicide bomber in Syria that year. Near Boulder, Colorado, Mateen's former wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters he worked for a time as a correctional officer at a detention center for juvenile delinquents in Fort Pierce, Florida, and had once sought admission to a police academy. She said she had been beaten and otherwise physically abused by Mateen during outbursts of temper in which he would "express hatred towards everything." Eventually, she was "rescued" from Mateen by family members who intervened in a stormy marriage that ultimately ended in divorce, she said. advertisement "I know he had a history of steroids," Yusufiy told reporters outside a home where she was staying with a man she identified as her current fiance. She also described Mateen as "emotionally unstable," "mentally ill" and bipolar. Deborah Sherman, an FBI spokeswoman in Denver, confirmed that federal agents had interviewed Yusufiy in Colorado. The imam of the Florida mosque where Mateen attended prayers for nearly 10 years described him as a soft-spoken man who would visit regularly but rarely interact with others in the congregation. CANDIDATES WEIGH IN Within hours of the shooting, the presumptive presidential nominees of both major political parties weighed in with statements on the tragedy. Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, said he was "right on radical Islamic terrorism" and called on Obama to resign because he did not say the words "radical Islam" in his statement responding to the shooting. Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club, in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016. Reuters Clinton echoed Obama's comments calling the attack both an act of terror and a hate crime, adding that the massacre "reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets." If confirmed as an act of terrorism, it would be the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people. The choice of target was especially heart-wrenching for members of the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, said LGBT advocacy group Equality Florida. "Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety," the group said in a statement. "We will await the details in tears of sadness and anger." In an apparently unrelated incident on Sunday, a heavily armed man from Indiana who said he was headed to a Los Angeles-area gay pride festival was arrested in nearby Santa Monica, California, where police found guns and chemicals to make explosives in his car. Also Read: Islamic State's claim of responsibility for Orlando shooting not confirmed, says Senator Orlando shooting: Donald Trump refers to it as possible terrorism Orlando shooting: 50 dead, 53 injured, gunman identified --- ENDS --- Hours after what is believed to be the deadliest mass shooting in the US history, local hospitals have been urgently seeking blood donors for the injured. Amid this crisis, gay men not being allowed to donate blood left many seething with anger. By India Today Web Desk: In the aftermath of the harrowing shooting that claimed 50 lives at Orlando's Pulse, an LGBT nightclub, dozens of injured victims were in dire need for blood. Hoards of people lined up to donate. The subsequent calls from blood donors turned the focus to a brutal irony of many gay men being banned from donating blood, thanks to a restrictive law. disgustingly ironic that gay people can't donate blood to save the lives of their friends and family at the Orlando shooting #LGBT #Orlando The Gays? (@relatablegayboy) June 12, 2016 advertisement Regulations imposed against gay men donating blood came into force in 1983 as a response to the panic surrounding the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Food and Drug Administration's ban came at a time when very little was known about the virus. The FDA had limited facilities to conduct screening tests for contaminated blood during those days. The officials were reluctant to accept blood they thought had a potential HIV risk. How Omar Mateen wreaked havoc at Orlando gay nightclub: Timeline But with the considerable progress in modern technology, many started viewing the lifetime ban as discriminatory and archaic. Blood banks and LGBT rights groups have been lobbying for years to turn the rule around. Rumours about blood ban being temporarily lifted in Orlando Social media platforms saw many rumours that said OneBlood, a donor clinic located in the city, was ignoring the FDA regulations, and that gay and bisexual men would not be turned away from donating blood. But it was soon confirmed that FDA blood ban is still intact. All FDA guidelines remain in effect for blood donation. There are false reports circulating that FDA rules were being lifted. Not true. OneBlood (@my1blood) June 12, 2016 They repeatedly tweeted saying, "Urgent need for O Neg, O Pos and AB Plasma donors following a mass shooting in Orlando." Year of Abstinence Policy The American medical Association called for an end on the ban in 2013 stating that it was discriminatory in nature and was scientifically illogical. In 2015 federal Food and Drug Administration relaxed the law but didn't completely lift the ban. In the revised policy, prohibition on donating blood was to be imposed on any man who has had sex with another man in the past year. People on social media were outraged by the 'cruel irony' behind this rule. Critics point out that, while revised recommendations rule out gay men in monogamous relationships from donating blood, it does not take into account the large number of heterosexual people who had recent unprotected sex with multiple partners to donate blood. The FDA should overturn this legislation based solely on homophobic rhetoric. Gay men should be allowed to donate blood. #Orlando Josh Kolberg (@JoshKolberg) June 12, 2016 Gay and bisexual men are legally banned from donating blood in Orlando as dozens of their peers sit wounded in a hospital in need of it. Chelsea Farrington (@ChelsFarrington) June 12, 2016 advertisement The revised policy falls short of acceptable solutions to prevent the gay community from being sidelined. David Stacy Government Affairs director for the Human Rights Campaign said in a report, "This new policy prevents men from donating life-saving blood based solely on their sexual orientation rather than actual risk to the blood supply." The American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers, and the American Association of Blood Banks have characterized the blood ban as medically and scientifically unwarranted as far back as 2006. The FDA's current policy clubs the US with UK, Australia, Sweden, and Japan, who have all switched to the 12-month abstinence rule. Italy bases blood donations on individual risk assessments, which means they demand donor's history with unprotected sex. Canada and New Zealand have five-year deferral periods while South Africa asks donors to wait six months. --- ENDS --- Usha Sinha was a member of the Sanskrit Shiksha Board. The interrogation of the arrested persons revealed that Bachcha Rai was close to both Lalkeshwar Prasad and Usha and he used to visit their home as well. Usha Sinha (left), former JD(U) legislator and member of the Sanskrit Shiksha Board, has been named the 'non-FIR' accused in the Bihar toppergate scam. By Kumar Abhishek: There was a new twist to the Bihar intermediate toppers scam on Sunday. Special Investigation Team (SIT) chief Manu Maharaj said Usha Sinha, wife of accused Lalkeshwar Prasad, former chairman of Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), was also involved in the racket. USHA'S POLITICAL CONNECTION Usha is a former JD-U legislator who did not get a ticket this time around. The SIT raided several places and arrested Sandeep Jha and Ajit Shaktiman who used to work as agents of Singh. advertisement Interrogation of the two revealed that the racket extended beyond Bishun Rai College to other institutes also. The two arrested who used to manage centres besides changing copies and helping people in providing marks. Usha was a member of the Sanskrit Shiksha Board. The investigation team has named her in the racket. She has been made a 'non-FIR' accused and the police is trying to arrest her. So far eight persons have been arrested in the case. The interrogation of the arrested persons revealed that Bachcha Rai was close to both Lalkeshwar Prasad and Usha Sinha and he used to visit their home as well. The couple is absconding. COPS LAUNCH MANHUNT FOR USHA Police have called for Usha to present herself and have launched a manhunt for her. Police said that Usha's links to the topper scam were revealed by Ajit, one of the two arrested on Sunday. Meanwhile, the debate rages on about Rai's alleged proximity to political personalities. Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav tweeted pictures in which Rai is seen with Union minister Giriraj Singh. The post is in response to another one where Rai is seen with RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav at an election rally. As more revelations are being made in the case, many politicians are being exposed. The father-son duo attacked Giriraj Singh after sources in SIT disclosed that Baccha Rai has admitted that he had links with a central minister and that Rai was planning to open a medical college with the help of the Minister. During searches carried out at Baccha Rai's college, SIT stumped upon a picture of Union minister. ALSO READ: Bihar toppers scam kingpin Bachcha Rai surrenders, taken into custody --- ENDS --- While the BJP national executive meet was held amid the scorching humidity of Allahabad, something hotter was the speculation whether Rajnath Singh would be made the face of the party in the crucial UP polls. (Left to Right) Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, BJP president Amit Shah, PM Narendra Modi & senior BJP leader LK Advani at the meet where speculation was rife about the party's chief ministerial candidate in the critical UP polls. By Siddhartha Rai: While the BJP national executive meet was held amid the scorching humidity of Allahabad, a city known as the holy Hindu land of sangam as much as its relationship to the Mughals, something hotter was the speculation whether Rajnath Singh would be made the face of the party in the crucial UP polls. WHO WILL BE BJP's FACE? advertisement The fire was further fuelled by the number of hoardings and billboards lining up the streets leading to the venue, KP College grounds, the largest ground of Allahabad, known for Jawaharlal Nehru's massive public speeches. All the displays had Singh along with party chief Amit Shah and PM Modi. The speculation was fired due to conflicting occurrences: the main backdrop of the meet only sported Shah and Modi, also former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani but not Singh. However, the booklet which the party distributed yet again showed Modi and Singh in arms but on the last page. Once again, inside the meeting, which was closed to the media apart from a short photo opportunity, Singh was not called on the dais while Finance minister Arun Jaitley was up there with the Prime Minister. However, senior party leader and Telecommunications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tried to parry questions from journalists regarding this issue. "These posters and banners mean nothing and not much should be read into them. People and supporters do put up these, but it must stop at that. President Amit Shah has decided that BJP must and will form a government in UP; who will be the face of the party in the state will be decided by the parliamentary committee. Such decisions are not taken here." VARUN GANDHI VS RAJNATH SINGH Another political figure who added to the confusion was BJP's very own Gandhi scion Varun Gandhi. While speculation had been rife for some time that he could also be in the race to lead the party in UP, if politics of posters is anything to go by, Gandhi remained only second to Singh in terms of numbers. Prasad, who held a press meet at the end of the event, said BJP had taken crucial decisions on the programmes and agenda of the party for the next three months. While Shah inaugurated the event, Modi still remained the centre of attention. The telecommunications minister, who presented excerpts from the presidential speech, said the party was confident of making the next government in the state. advertisement "The president said we have achieved two milestones - completed two years in office and made a spectacular show in recent polls. We have captured Assam, the gateway of the Northeast and increased vote share in Kerala and West Bengal." PRASAD DIVERTS ATTENTION Prasad said the Modi government had put paid to the policy paralysis that afflicted the UPA and there had been no instance of corruption. He added that in the meet Shah underlined that Modi government had resolved crucial dilemmas of the previous dispensation: "between urban and rural; reform and public welfare; bureaucracy and government; and defence policy and foreign policy." The high-profile meet in Allahabad also lauded the government over its achievements in bumping up the gap in India's growth rate, decreasing fiscal deficit as well as current account deficit. "Our achievements in foreign policy can be gauged from the fact that two Muslim nations, Iran and Afghanistan, conferred their highest civilian awards on the PM." ALSO READ: BJP leaders miffed as Varun Gandhi's posters dot Allahabad --- ENDS --- By PTI: New Delhi, Jun 11 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee today greeted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the eve of the Day of Russia as he expressed hope that ties between the two countries will grow from "strength to strength" in the future. In his message to Putin, Mukherjee said India deeply values its special and privileged strategic partnership with Russia. advertisement "The friendship between our two nations has stood the test of time. I share your confidence that our bilateral relations will grow from strength to strength in the years to come," he said. The President extended warm greetings and best wishes on behalf of Indian people, as he said he takes this opportunity to "convey, through you, my best wishes for the continued progress and prosperity of the friendly people of the Russian Federation." The Day of Russia commemorates the adoption of the declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) on June 12, 1990 and it is celebrated every year from the year 1992. PTI NES RG --- ENDS --- The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday accused Congress of failing to take any action when the Election Commission of India had brought the matter to the notice of the then prime minister Manmohan Singh. By Manjeet Sehgal: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday raised eyebrows on Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's Monday Jalandhar visit during which Gandhi and other Congress leaders will protest against the state government's failure to curb the menace of drugs. AAP SLAMS CONGRESS OVER FAILURE AAP accused Congress of double standards regarding the state's drug problem and said Gandhi's protest against drugs is ridiculous. It accused the party of failing to take any action when the Election Commission of India had brought the matter to the notice of the then PM Manmohan Singh. advertisement "Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of India, Dr SY Quraishi had informed Manmohan Singh about the scale of the drug menace in Punjab during the 2012 assembly polls. It had also cited the seizure of 53 kg heroin and 434 kg opium besides other drugs and had requested the union government to take action. The PM did nothing and just acknowledged the letter. Congress should say what action did it take against the Badal government after receiving Quraishi's letter," AAP leader Sanjay Singh asked. CONGRESS AND AKALI ARE HAND IN GLOVE "Congress is helping Akali Dal leaders carry on the drug business. That's why Captain Amrinder Singh did not demand a CBI probe into the `6000 crore synthetic drug case involving state's cabinet minister Bikramjit Singh Majithia who was named by as much as three arrested synthetic drug racket accused," Sanjay Singh said. The AAP leader said that Rahul Gandhi and his senior party leaders completely stand exposed and have no moral right to hold a protest demonstration against the menace of drugs. Lashing out at Badals, the AAP leader said they should be concerned about the "Ujadta Punjab" and not the movie Udta Punjab. ALSO READ: Ask Rahul whether he took drugs in his life ever: Ramdev on Punjab drug menace --- ENDS --- By Rahul Noronha: The BJP suffered a setback during Madhya Pradesh Rajya Sabha polls when party leader Vinod Gotiya fielded as an independent failed to get elected. While BJP leaders Anil Madhav Dave and MJ Akbar won their seats on expected lines, the Congress's Vivek Tankha was declared elected against the third vacancy. The Congress showcased the election victory as an indicator of the times to come. "The bugle for the 2018 assembly elections has been sounded," said former union minister Kamal Nath, after the polls. Kamal Nath had been camping in Bhopal since Thursday, marshaling efforts to keep the Congress flock of MLAs together. The threat of cross voting by Congress MLAs was very clear because that was the only way the BJP could ensure victory of the independent fielded by the party. advertisement HOW CONGRESS WON The BJP candidates polled 58 votes each, the minimum required to get elected while the Congress candidate polled 62 votes. In the final analysis, the Congress not only got all the 57 votes of the party's MLAs, it also got the promised 4 votes from the BSP MLAs and an independent MLA- who was expected to vote for the BJP, eventually also supported the Congress. The independent candidate fielded by the BJP received the remainder of the votes of BJP MLAs and also 2 votes of the independent MLAs totaling 50 votes. Congress candidate Vivek Tankha said that when the BJP did not have the numbers, it is surprising why it was trying to force a contest. "The BJP tried to make me and Kapil Sibal, both lawyers, lose the elections because we are involved in important cases like Vyapam in court," said Tankha after being elected. "I attribute the victory to party leader and MLAs who have proved that they are not a saleable commodity," he added. The RS election brought about a sense of unity in the deeply fragmented Congress unit in the state. While state president Arun Yadav was seen coordinating behind the scenes efforts, senior leaders Digvijaya Singh, Suresh Pachauri, general secretary in charge of MP Mohan Prakash and former union minister Kantilal Bhuria were also present in Bhopal on Saturday. Voting began at 9 am and a total of 227 out of the 230 MLAs cast their vote at the assembly premises. Leader of Opposition Satyadev Katare's vote was secured by postal ballot carried from Mumbai by a special messenger as Katare is admitted in a private hospital there. BJP MLA from Deosar, Rajendra Meshram was denied voting rights owing to an election petition against him while another BJP MLA Rajendra Dadu passed away in a road accident on Thursday. BJP state president Nandkumar Singh Chauhan said that the Congress won inspite of being in a minority as the party only had 57 MLAs. "Whether the Congress did elephant trading or horse trading, the people of MP will decide," he said. --- ENDS --- By PTI: Mumbai, Jun 12 (PTI) Bollywood couple Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh have name their second son Rahyl. The pair, who are already proud parents to one-year-old Riaan Riteish Deshmukh, took to twitter to reveal the new moniker. "RAHYL - The Youngest Deshmukh," he wrote along with an image, where his sons name was written in pink with a black background. advertisement The "Masti" actors welcomed their second child earlier this month. Retweeting her husbands photograph of the babys name, Genelia wrote, "RAHYL RITEISH DESHMUKH". The couple got married in 2012. PTI NDS NDS --- ENDS --- This rancher used his cowboy swag and saved a woman's day. Find out how! By India Today Web Desk: In an incident full of swag, a rancher jumped on his horse and lassoed a man to stop him from stealing a bicycle. In Oregon, an attempt to steal a bicycle was stopped by 28-year-old Robert Borba, who chased the thief and lassoed him until the local police could arrive. Outside a Walmart in Eagle Point, Robert was loading dog food and a camping tent into his truck when he heard a woman screaming that someone was trying to steal her bike. advertisement Robert then immediately brought out his horse, Long John, from its trailer, grabbed a rope and fled to stop the thief. He saw the thief struggling with the bike gears and later trying to flee on foot. Robert lassoed the man around the legs and when he dropped, Robert dragged him to the parking lot. "I seen this fella trying to get up to speed on a bicycle," Borba told the Tribune. "I wasn't going to catch him on foot. I just don't run very fast." When the Eagle Point police came they found the lassoed man and bike on the ground in the parking lot. The thief also tried to get away but Robert kept the rope tight. "I use a rope every day, that's how I make my living," Borba said. "If it catches cattle pretty good, it catches a bandit pretty good." Borba said the man tried to grab a tree and get away, but he kept the rope tight and the man in place. The thief was identified as Victorino Arellano-Sanchez and is jailed in Jackson County. And just in case you want to save your or someone's day in cowboy style, here is a video you must see. --- ENDS --- Romy Gill is the first Indian woman to own and run her own restaurant in the UK. By Shreya Goswami: Here's some exciting news to give female entrepreneurs--especially those in the food industry--a boost! Romy Gill, the first Indian woman to own and run her restaurant in the UK, will be awarded an MBE (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen's Birthday Honours List was recently released and Romy Gill was among 1,149 others to be named for the honour. She is the second Indian-origin chef to make it to the coveted list, the first being Cyrus Todiwala in 2010. advertisement Gill made her mark on the British culinary scene with her restaurant, Romy's Kitchen, located in Thornbury, Bristol. She started out with catering, private dining and cookery classes in 2008, which finally led to her restaurant's launch in 2013. It's the 44-year old chef's unique take on Indian cuisine, which led to her restaurant's popularity. Coming from a Punjabi family, born and raised in West Bengal, Gill doesn't just combine the two cuisines she grew up with. She is also known for her healthy and nutritious approach to Indian cooking and isn't finicky about getting only Indian ingredients for her kitchen. Also read: Queen honours Indian-origin medics,entrepreneurs in bday list Romy Gill celebrated with her team at Romy's Kitchen after the Honours List announcement. Photo courtesy: Twitter/romyskitchen Making the best of the local British ingredients, Gill even demonstrates her food at festivals in both the UK and abroad. She's associated with a number of charity works, most notably Action Against Hunger UK. Shortlisted for the Best Newcomer at the National British Curry Awards, 2014, Gill won the Best Vegetarian award at the Bristol Good Food Awards in the same year. After the announcement of her name in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, Gill celebrated with her restaurant team, husband and two daughters as congratulations poured in from all over the world. Gill, according to the Bristol Post, got the news through a letter about a month back, but kept it a secret till the full list was announced. The same report quoted her remarking: "It's not been too difficult for me to keep it a secret, because I have been so busy in the kitchen, but I knew if I'd told my parents it would have been around their village within minutes. They will be delighted when they hear." Also read: Chef Romy Hardeep Gill's story tells you it's never too late to start Congratulations poured in from all over the world for Romy Gill. Photo courtesy: Twitter/romyskitchen For those who don't know, the British Queen announces two Honours Lists every year, one around her birthday and the other in December before the new year begins. The awards honour the major contributors in the arts and sciences, charitable works and public service. Some of the other Indians who have been conferred with the honours this year are Prof. Usha Chakravarthy (CBE), Bharat Maganlal Mehta (CBE), Sewa Singh Mandla (OBE), Dhanonday Shrivastav (OBE) and Dr. Geetha Upadhyay (OBE). --- ENDS --- advertisement By PTI: Chandigarh, Jun 13 (PTI) Fearing hate crime in the wake of the Orlando gay club shooting, Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) today said that it will ask the Centre to take up with the United States the issue of safety and security of the Sikh-Americans. The apex religious body of the Sikhs said the Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, are fearing a backlash following the incident. advertisement "What has happened in Orlando is an unfortunate incident, it needs to be strongly condemned. As the Sikhs have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack in the past, we urge our Central government to take up the issue with the Obama administration to ensure their safety and security," SGPC President Avtar Singh Makkar said. Makkar said the religious body will be writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take appropriate steps in this regard. He said that they would also urge the US government, through the Centre, to ensure security of the Gurudwaras in that country. The SGPC head said that Sikhs are a peace loving community who have contributed to the US economy. "In US, you will find doctors, scientists, industrialists and entrepreneurs from the Sikh community," he said. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman armed with an assault rifle shot and killed 50 people and injured 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida yesterday. PTI SUN SRY DV SRY --- ENDS --- Riots following the assassination of the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, led to the killing of 3,000 Sikhs. CM Arvind Kejriwal had called the SIT formed by the Centre to probe the anti-Sikh riots an eyewash. By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: The Centre-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) will re-investigate around 75 cases of anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and some other states, a decision that comes months ahead of the assembly elections in Punjab, a Home Ministry official said. SIKH GROUPS DEMAND JUSTICE FOR 1984 RIOT VICTIMS Riots following the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, led to the killing of 3,000 Sikhs. Since the Modi government came in, different Sikh representations have demanded reopening of the 1984 riot victim cases. advertisement Delhi alone accounted for 2,733 deaths and most of those killed were Sikhs, the leading community in Punjab where assembly polls are due in 2017. "Delhi had 237 anti-Sikh riot cases that were closed because of non-availability of victims or lack of evidence. After reviewing their documents, the SIT has decided to reexamine about 75 cases so far. KEJRIWAL CALLS SIT PROBE AN EYEWASH Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had on the first week of June written letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to expedite investigation into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Kejriwal had called the SIT formed by the Centre to probe the riots eyewash. He asked Modi to consider winding up the SIT and allow the Delhi government to set up a special investigation team for "proper investigation and justice for the victims". This year marks the 32nd anniversary of the anti-Sikh massacre. The AAP had alleged that in these 32 years, 10 commissions and committees were formed but eluded the victims. It was a long-standing demand of the Sikh community that an SIT be set up. Home ministry had earlier in May approved increased compensation to as many as 1,020 families, who were hit by the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. ALSO READ: Kanhaiya's comment on Gujarat, anti-Sikh riots divides JNUSU --- ENDS --- "I am not the most flexible person in the world, but I can guarantee my knees were up next to my ears." By India Today Web Desk: This woman's short trip to a departmental store turned into her worst nightmare. It was just another day when Kelly Swisher from Arkansas stepped out to run a few errands. As she drove down the highway, a black rat snake fell out of her dashboard and slithered across her feet. "It was rough and scaly," said Swisher. She could not remember recall happened after the snake fell on her legs."I do not know if I had my hands on the steering wheel or not. I am not the most flexible person in the world, but I can guarantee my knees were up next to my ears." advertisement Rat snakes feed primarily on rodents and birds, however their bites are rarely serious and they don't pose any threat to humans. But, for Kelly Swisher the whole episode gave "nails on a chalkboard" sort of feeling. She tried to keep calm and drive the hoping snake would remain in the dashboard until she could get off the highway. "That did not work out," she said. "Here he comes, and he wound up in my back seat." The Washington County Sheriff's Office, in the end, called on the local animal control agency and was able to catch the snake. --- ENDS --- Ganapathy took his 18-year-old son Rajendra Prasad to the Government Hospital in Madurai only to return with his dead body. All because he refused to bribe the hospital staff. By Pramod Madhav: When Ganapathy took his 18-year-old son Rajendra Prasad to the Government Hospital in Madurai, he was expecting to return home with his son hale and hearty. However, a few hours later, he was left clutching his son's dead body. All because he refused to bribe the hospital staff. WHAT HAPPENED On May 2, Ganapathy's son Rajendra had a fit of convulsions and complained of difficulty in breathing. Ganapathy rushed him to the Government Hospital which handles 26.8 lakh patients in a year. advertisement At the hospital, Rajendra was moved to the casualty ward around 10am where he received first-aid. After that Ganapathy and Rajendra had to wait for nearly 20 minutes to get his admission receipt to the emergency ward. That's where Ganapathy's ordeal began. Soon after Ganapathy got his son's admission receipt, a worker demanded Rs 300 to push Rajendra's stretcher into the emergency ward. Ganapathy refused to pay the amount thinking it would amount to a bribe. At that, the worker left the stretcher there and walked away with Rajendra's admission slip. Not knowing what to do, Ganapathy moved his son to a bed closeby. A few minutes later, his son began bleeding from the mouth. Ganapathy trembled as his son went into uncontrollable seizures. When he asked the ward doctor to check on his son, the doctor refused to help as Ganapathy did not have Rajendra's admission slip. "When I approached the ward doctor to help my son who was spouting blood from his mouth, he said that it's only blood and asked me to wipe it myself," recalls Ganapathy. Ganapathy pulled himself together and rushed to the police outpost and sought help from a sub-inspector to locate the worker. Another worker named Pandi, who heard what had happened offered to help Ganapathy and went in search for the admission receipt. By the time he returned with the admission receipt, Rajendra Prasad was dead. "I roamed the corridors blindly in search of that worker who had my son's admission slip. I really did not have money and for that I lost my son", said Ganapathy. Ganapathy's ordeal did not end there. Rajendra Prasad's body was moved to the morgue. After finishing the formalities, when Ganapathy went to the morgue to collect his son's body, the workers at the mortuary gate demanded Rs 100 for a gate pass which he paid reluctantly. And then a woman employee wanted Rs 200 to bring the body out on a stretcher. Ganapathy did not have that much money and with tears in his eyes told her that he had only Rs 80. She grabbed it and brought the body out. advertisement The last man to demand a bribe from Ganapathy was the ambulance driver who wanted Rs 500 to drive Rajendra Prasad's body to the cremation grounds. HOSPITAL IN DENIAL Dr MR Vairamuthur Raju, the dean of Rajaji Government Hospital had later said that the worker who demanded Rs 300 as bribe was not part of the hospital staff. "If that's the case, how did he have access to a stretcher and how did the other workers knew him well?" asked Ganapathy. Rajendra Prasad was the sole bread winner of the family. He was working in a DTP center and was all of 18-years-old when he died. "He was working hard and supported our family," said Ganapathy. Dr Radhakrishnan, Health Secretary to Tamil Nadu Government said the accused Pal Pandi was a former employee of the hospital and was allegedly working as a broker. "We initiated a detailed enquiry into the matter and have asked the police to detain Pal Pandi who tried to act as a broker. Please remember the fact Tamil Nadu is the only state that the provides free treatment and when such matter comes to our attention, we take stringent action". advertisement But what about the present staffers who demanded bribe to release Rajendra Prasad's body? Ganapathy has filed a petition with Chief Minister's cell and is waiting for delayed justice. --- ENDS --- By India Today Web Desk: Sushant Singh Rajput, who had deleted his official account on Instagram post his break-up with longtime girlfriend Ankita Lokhande, is back on the social platform and how. The 30-year-old actor posted a picture with his Raabta co-star Kriti Sanon after the two wrapped up their Budapest schedule. ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput deletes his Twitter account. Is break-up with Ankita Lokhande the reason? advertisement ALSO READ: Kriti Sanon and I instantly bonded with each other, says Sushant Singh Rajput Ever since the two started working together, there are rumours that Kriti and Sushant have become too close to each other. And the PK actor just added fuel to the fire by posting a picture with Kriti as his comeback on Instagram. It's a wrap..!!!?????? A photo posted by Sushant Singh Rajput (@sushantsinghrajput) on Jun 10, 2016 at 8:18am PDT Kriti, who was last seen in Dilwale, also shared a picture with Sushant on Twitter and wrote, "Bye bye Budapest!! U've been a lovely home for the last 2.5 months!! U shall be missed!! #sentiwalifeeling #Raabta" Bye bye Budapest!! U've been a lovely home for the last 2.5 months!! U shall be missed!! #sentiwalifeeling #Raabta pic.twitter.com/THyY2066ne Kriti Sanon (@kritisanon) June 11, 2016 In a recent interview to Mid-Day, Sushant said he is looking forward to the release of Raabta and is all praise for his co-star Kriti. He was quoted as telling the tabloid, "I have been told that Kriti and I have good chemistry on screen and everyone seems to be excited with what we have shot so far. She has drive to give her best in every shot and I am sure she is going to surprise everybody with the way she has performed in Raabta." Directed by Dinesh Vijn, Raabta is a love story. The music of the film is composed by Pritam, while the costumes are be styled by Anaita Shroff Adjania. --- ENDS --- By PTI: London, Jun 12 (PTI) Fossils resembling miniaturised popcorn that date back millions of years provide the first statistical evidence that number of species on Earth depends on how the environment changes, according to a new study. By analysing the fossil record of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera, the research from University of Southampton in the UK shows that environmental changes put a cap on species richness. advertisement "While the idea of infinite species on a finite Earth is clearly fanciful, the relevance of upper limits to diversity is still a fractious debate amongst evolutionary biologists, ecologists and palaeontologists," said Thomas Ezard, from the University of Southampton. "We are the first to show statistically that this upper limit is environmentally dependent," Ezard said. "Its intuitive that a changing environment alters how many species we see - the spatial gradient of more species in the tropics than at the poles is pervasive evidence for its large-scale impact," he said. "However, analyses of how species numbers have changed over time have assumed that any limit has always been the same, even through periods of massive climate upheaval," Ezard said. "Our data reject this idea of fixed rules for competition among species and instead show that the limit to the number of species that can co-exist on Earth is much more dynamic. Climate and geology are always changing, and the limit changes with them," he added. While previous research typically focused individually on either biological, climate change or geological explanations, this new research examined the co-dependence of these factors on how species interact. Looking at the fossil history of 210 evolutionary species of macroperforate planktonic foraminifera in the Cenozoic Era from 65 million years ago to the present, the study found that the number of species was almost certainly controlled by competition among themselves and probably kept within a finite upper limit. "We used mathematical models to reveal how environmental changes influence both the rate of diversification among species and how many species can co-exist at once," Ezard said. "Our results suggest that the world is full of species, but that the precise fullness varies through time as environmental changes alter the outcome of competition among species," he added. "Scientists have long argued that environmental changes are likely to impact the number of species that can co-exist on Earth, but the fossil record is usually too incomplete for powerful statistical testing," said Andy Purvis from the Natural History Museum. "Microfossils - especially planktonic foraminifera - give us a record with almost no gaps," Purvis said. The study was published in the journal Ecology Letters. PTI MHN NSA --- ENDS --- advertisement You might think a naked restaurant is a free-for-all, but Tokyo's upcoming pop-up restaurant has some restrictions that seem to defeat the purpose of naturism. By Shreya Goswami: You can make a case for and against eating in the buff. While you won't be hampered by a tightening waist band, you might accidentally drop a hot, hot morsel on your lap. But there are those, followers of naturism (a.k.a Nudism, a cultural and political movement for social nudity) and the adventurous who want to try out new things, who would definitely line up outside a 'naked restaurant'. advertisement People in Tokyo will have to make up their minds soon about whether or not they want to give The Amrita a try. Japan's first nude restaurant is opening on July 29, and reservations (for 3 days, suggesting it's a pop-up restaurant and not a permanent one) are now open! Following hotly in the heels of London's first nude restaurant, The Bunyadi, which opened last weekend, The Amrita is hogging all the limelight. Incidentally, both The Bunyadi and The Amrita have a little Indian connection. Amrita comes from the Sanskrit word 'immortality' and Bunyadi comes from the Hindi word 'fundamental'. Also read: London's first nude restaurant to be called The Bunyadi But hold on, there's a small glitch. Entry into The Amrita is quite exclusive and not everyone can walk in and enjoy a meal. According to a report in Time, the patrons will have to be between 18 and 60 years of age and not more than 15 kgs overweight. If you have tattoos or want to keep your phones by your side, forget it. What's more, you won't be completely naked. The Amrita is going to serve organic Japanese food with a side show of male dancers for entertainment. Photo courtesy: Instagram/maiii.gourmet The restaurant will offer hygienic paper underwear to all the diners while they serve delicious organic food. You might say underwear defeats the purpose of nudism and making them mandatory suggests The Amrita won't be a completely 'naked restaurant' like The Bunyadi in London. It's a fair point to make, and no number of G-string donning waiters or male dancers can remove the stipulation that assures a healthy dining experience. Also read: Nude food: London to get a naked restaurant The Amrita is still going to be an interesting experiment and promises to be a good dining experience. While the restaurant is definitely going to body-shame a lot of would-be patrons with its body-image restrictions, it's also asking for advance payment (non-refundable, in case you break their rules). Reservations for The Amrita are as pricey--Yen 12,000 to 80, 000 or INR 7,604 - 50,685--as the experience they offer. So, if you are fit, young and in Tokyo at the end of next month, this not-completely-naked restaurant is the place to be. --- ENDS --- Twitter had a field day at, of course, the CBFC's expense, as Udta Punjab was given a clean chit by the Bombay High Court. By India Today Web Desk: Just as news of the Bombay High Court clearing Udta Punjab with only one cut and an 'A' (Adult) certificate caught on, people took to Twitter to run roughshod over the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), and we cannot stop laughing. ALSO READ: High Court clears Udta Punjab with one cut, says it doesn't defame Punjab or encourage drugs advertisement Here are some of the best Doobta Pahlaj, sorry, Udta Punjab jokes doing the rounds of Twitter. Me : Udta Punjab got A certificate Dad : thodi aur mehnat karta to A+ milta#UdtaPunjabVerdict P*kch**p*k R*j* Babu (@HaramiParindey) June 13, 2016 Because some of us don't need drugs to get high. #UdtaPunjabVerdict pic.twitter.com/rdU6hjFvmJ The-Lying-Lama (@KyaUkhaadLega) June 13, 2016 Me: Udta Punjab has been banned Friend:Why? Me:Drugs problem in Punjab Friend: Punjab mei Drugs problem nahi hai, sab aaram se milta hai P*kch**p*k R*j* Babu (@HaramiParindey) June 10, 2016 "Hello Modi, please send this @anuragkashyap72 to me. I will tell him what North Korea is like" #UdtaPunjabVerdict pic.twitter.com/5aAYGAGXnb The-Lying-Lama (@KyaUkhaadLega) June 13, 2016 Pahlaj ki na rahi koi laaj. #UdtaPunjabVerdict Sagar Kasam (@sagarcasm) June 13, 2016 Supporters of #CBFC when told Pahlaj Nihalani's son is himself involved in the making & promotion of #UdtaPunjab pic.twitter.com/gQXbV9lkS1 The-Lying-Lama (@KyaUkhaadLega) June 13, 2016 Supreme Leader reading Anurag Kashyap's movie-script... pic.twitter.com/PuQi3xVwhu Finger of India (@IndiaFinger) June 13, 2016 I didn't have an iota of interest in Udta Punjab but now I just can't wait to watch this movie. Long live controversies! #UdtaPunjabVerdict Udta Lo*endra (@LOLendraSingh) June 13, 2016 Udta Punjab was caught in a tussle between Pahlaj Nihalani-led CBFC and the producers of the film, Phantom Films and Balaji Motion Pictures, for the past few weeks. While the censor board demanded 89 cuts in the movie, including absurd demands like removing all mention of Punjab from all scenes of the movie, including the title, the makers of Udta Punjab were adamant that it saw the light of the day in its original form. Consequently, the producers took the fight to the Bombay High Court. The court, today, directed the CBFC to clear the film with just one cut which shows Shahid Kapoor's character urinating from a stage. It also asked the CBFC to not act like a grandmother. Udta Punjab, directed by Abhishek Chaubey, is based on the menace of drug abuse in contemporary Punjab. The film stars Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh, alongside Shahid Kapoor. Udta Punjab will release worldwide on June 17 this year. --- ENDS --- The Bombay High Court has cleared Abhishek Chaubey's film Udta Punjab for release.The CBFC had ordered cuts of 13 kinds. The court said it's good to go with just one. By India Today Web Desk: The Bombay High Court today asked the Central Board of Film Certification to give the film Udta Punjab an A certificate with just one cut, saying that there was no blanket ban on Udta Punjab. The film will release on June 17. The court also asked the filmmakers to add new disclaimers. The scene where Shahid Kapoor's character Tommy Singh is shown urinating in front of a crowd needs to be chopped off, ruled the court. The CBFC has been directed to issue an 'A' certificate to Udta Punjab in . advertisement Directed by Abhishek Chaubey, the film Udta Punjab reached the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for a certificate.That's when it began to fly, with wild speculation about the board's intent and the film's content. ALSO READ: Cleared Udta Punjab with 13 cuts and A certificate, says Pahlaj Nihalani ALSO READ: Your job is to certify, not censor, Bombay High Court tells CBFC The high court said the film doesn't defame Punjab, neither was it made with the Punjab polls in mind. Ruling in favour of the Udta Punjab makers, the judge said that no one can interfere if creative freedom is not abused. It was also pointed out that the film doesn't encourage drug addiction. Judge says cuts 3 & 4 justified. Cuts 5 & 6 shot down. 7 is a passing shot and not vulgar.8 does not encourage drugs pic.twitter.com/bTKedLnENS Shilpa Rathnam (@shilparathnam) June 13, 2016 "Cut number 10, about zamneen banjar does not suggest anything about the state. Punjab is a land of warriors,they are not that sensitive," said Justice SC Dharmadhikari, adding, "Extreme responses will not just curb but kill creativity." The high court said the scene with Tommy urinating in front of the crowd was not required. "Cut 9 (the rockstar urinating) justified. Much material for filmmakers to drive home their point even without this scene," ruled Dharmadhikari. The CBFC, however, swallowed the verdict with a pinch of salt. The board told the high court that the final certificate would be given to the film only after 'verification of modification'. To this, Dharmadhikari's response was, "This reflects bureaucratic mindset! What is the need to distrust them so much?" reported India Today journalist Shilpa Rathnam. The Pahlaj Nihalani-headed censor board ordered more than 89 cuts and all references to Punjab be dropped. That would have meant chopping half of the title of the film. The filmmakers moved court against the board. Nihalani said there was no attempt to remove Punjab from the name. Filmmakers said Nihalani's 13 cuts would actually result in as many as 94 cuts. Many filmmakers, including Shyam Benegal, weighed in for the film. advertisement Udta Punjab deals with the menace of drug abuse in Punjab. The sensitive subject led to much drama, including mudslinging between Anurag Kashyap and Pahlaj Nihalani before the former went to court. Rallying behind Udta Punjab co-producer Anurag Kashyap, the film team knocked the door of the Bombay High Court. On Friday (June 10), the Bombay High Court heard the case and asked the CBFC to justify the cuts it had suggested. Justice SC Dharmadhikari asked the CBFC, "Give the film a certificate. What is the need for cuts?" On Monday (June 13) morning, Pahlaj Nihalani told reporters that the CBFC had cleared Udta Punjab with 13 cuts and given an 'A' certificate to the film. Nothing different from what he said on Friday. Nihalani said, "The CBFC's job is now over. It is now up to the producer to go to the court or tribunal. We will implement the order." The film stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh in pivotal roles and is slated for a June 17 release. Udta Punjab, the CBFC pointed out, painted the BJP-SAD-ruled state of Punjab in a negative light. With Punjab set for assembly elections early next year, the Udta Punjab issue took on political hues, with both the BJP and AAP taking turns to blame each other. --- ENDS --- advertisement Speaking at Allahabad's Parade Ground, PM Modi targeted both the ruling Samajwadi Party and Mayawati Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and said time has come for a change in Uttar Pradesh. By India Today Web Desk: The war for Uttar Pradesh has finally begun with Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing a massive rally in Allahabad today, the last of the BJP's two-day National Executive meeting. Speaking at Allahabad's Parade Ground, PM Modi targeted both the ruling Samajwadi Party and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and said time has come for a change in Uttar Pradesh, where Assembly elections are due in 2017. advertisement Revealed: BJP's masterplan for 2017 UP Assembly polls "It is time for vikas yagya ...to fuel this yagya, we must sacrifice nepotism, corruption, casteism, lawlessness," Modi said during addressing the Parivartan Rally. HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS OF PM MODI'S SPEECH There is a 'jugalbandi' between Mulayam Singh and Mayawati. Time has come for this jugalbandi to end. Uttar Pradesh can't progress till this contract is there. How can we watch such a large state getting ravaged by them. No one can stop India from becoming the No.1 country in the world if UP develops. Wherever the BJP has ruled - Goa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand or Haryana - development has gone up considerably. We decided to abolish interviews for recruitment of Class III and Class IV government staff. This is an effort to end corruption. We don't want our youth to face the problems that the older generations faced. I am here to assure the youth that if you have potential, you will get your due. The government of India sends the government of Uttar Pradesh Rs 1 lakh crore. But I am not sure if you receive the money. Every time the country faced a problem, it was the people of Uttar Pradesh who came forward to help. I need your blessings, I need Ganga's blessings to move forward on the path of development. Looking at the stage it is evident what impact UP has on the government at the Centre. Today, I have come to assure you, if you have talent your future wont be slaughtered by corruption. We are committed to giving you what is your right. Also Read: BJP will get full majority in 2017 UP assembly polls: Amit Shah at party's national executive meet With eye on UP polls, BJP national executive meet begins in Allahabad: 10 things to know --- ENDS --- By Prevention: Get the right treatment: Change your mentality. Go to your doctor for "consultation", not "prescription". Most patients are not satisfied unless the doctor hands over a prescription. There are many self-limiting disorders such as cold and cough, viral diarrhoea where no medication is required. Don't hesitate to undergo diagnostic tests because evidence based practice is both safe and sure. But make sure they are required (see below). advertisement Choose a doctor/hospital wisely: Choose your family physician with care. He should be in close proximity (2-3 km radius) and be available 24x7 at least on the phone. The choice can be based on referrals and experience of other residents, friends and relatives. Your family physician should be your first point of contact for any health issue. He will refer you to an appropriate specialist or hospital, if required. For children, you can have a family paediatrician. Avoid the test trap: You should ask the doctor his reasons for ordering the diagnostic tests. Get tests done at a large lab or radiological diagnostic centre in the city. The reports give information on interpretation of results. Always keep your family physician or paediatrician in the loop and seek his/her advice when you consult a specialist to ensure that you're not a victim of overtreatment. Be a responsible patient: Make sure you give info about any past allergic reactions as well as meds, both prescription and OTC that you may be taking, to your doctor. A prescription must state the name, gender and age of the patient and the probable diagnosis. Ask him to explain the same in non-technical terms. It is better to buy all medicines from a known, neighbourhood pharmacy. In case of expensive medicines, ask your pharmacy to suggest a less expensive brand from an equally reputed manufacturer, but cross check with your family physician. Always get an invoice for all purchases. With inputs from Dr Chandra M Gulhati, Editor, Monthly Index of Medical Specialities. --- ENDS --- State Minister for Telecoms Tarana Halim said that not only social media giant Facebook, but the two internet behemoths, too, have also agreed to respond to the government's request within two days. By Press Trust of India: Facebook, Microsoft and Google have agreed to work with Bangladesh government over "inappropriate contents" on the Internet, the Parliament was told today amidst a series of brutal killings by Islamists of secular bloggers and minorities. Speaking at a question-and-answer session, State Minister for Telecoms Tarana Halim said that not only social media giant Facebook, but the two internet behemoths, too, have also agreed to respond to the government's request within two days. advertisement "After intense discussion with Facebook, Google and Microsoft, it has been agreed that they will respond to requests with 48 hours," she said. Last year, the Bangladesh government suspended the use of Facebook, its messenger app, and some other communication apps for 22 days, citing security reasons following the murder of two foreign nationals and the attack on a police check post. Before the 22-day ban, the government had blocked some popular calling and messaging services such as WhatsApp and Viber for several days during a three-month agitation by the BNP-led alliance early last year. Police had said then they were having trouble tracking down saboteurs, as they were using these apps to communicate. In November last year, Halim had written to the Facebook authorities, conveying her wish to discuss with them a gamut of issues related to the social network site and its messenger app. The minister subsequently held a meeting at Facebook's Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore and told reporters about the social media giant's promise to cooperate. Facebook's half-yearly 'Government Request Report' in April this year showed that it had, for the first time, responded to requests from the Bangladesh government. Between July and December last year, the government had sought information on 31 Facebook users. The report said that it had responded to 16.67 per cent of the requests. But between January 2013 and June 2015, government's request on 37 users had failed to evoke any response from the social media site. Replying to another query, Minister Halim said that Google, too, had agreed to remove videos from its YouTube arm following requests from the government. Bangladesh has been witnessing a string of brutal attacks by Islamists. The ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the Indian Peninsula have claimed some of the attacks but government denies the presence of these groups in Bangladesh. The attacks since last year, which has left more than 30 people dead, has put Bangladesh under a global spotlight for failing to prevent such attacks. On Friday, a 60-year-old Hindu ashram worker was hacked to death by ISIS jihadists, days after another priest was killed by the same terrorist group in the Muslim-majority nation. --- ENDS --- Before reviews and previews start flooding in, we give a you detailed look at the innards of the phone and what makes it special at its price tag. By Manish Sain: Lenovo today launched Vibe K5, which is a successor to the A6000 smartphone. The latest smartphone comes after an array of premium smartphones launched by the company. In the last one month Lenovo has launched several smartphones including Zuk Z1, Moto G4 Plus, and earlier this week, Moto Z and Moto Z Force. Unlike the other phones, the Vibe K5 is a budget offering. However, it packs in decent hardware. Before reviews and previews start coming in, we give a you detailed look at the innards of the phone and what makes it special at its price tag. Specifications: Processor: The smartphone comes with a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 415 processor. Interestingly, most of the phones that carry Snapdragon 415 are priced at around Rs 10,000. RAM: The Vibe K5 has 2GB DDR3 RAM. Internal storage: The phone comes with 16GB of memory. The internal storage is expandable up to 32GB using microSD card. Display: The phone has a 5-inch IPS display. The screen has a resolution of 720 X 1280 pixels. The screen has 450nits brightness. Rear camera: The Vibe K5 has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash. Front camera: The phone carries a 5-megapixel camera on the back Weight and build: The phone is built with aviation grade aluminium alloy and weighs in at 142 grams. Total thickness of the phone is 7.99mm, which is slightly thicker than what has become a common trend. Software: The Vibe K5 runs Vibe UI based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. Battery: The phone is backed with a 2,750mAh battery. The company claims it can be put on standby for 15 days. It is also able to give 32 hours of call time on 2G network, 12 hours of music playback, and 6.2 hours of video playback. Price: The phone has been priced at Rs 6,999, the same as its predecessor, A6000. Some other key bits: -- The Vibe K5 supports Lenovo's TheatreMax Technology, which means the phone can be used with ANTVR headset for virtual reality experience. -- The phone has Dolby Atmos support, thus it will offer an enhanced music experience to the user. --- ENDS --- advertisement Intel's modem chips will be in iPhones used on AT&T Inc's U.S. network and some other versions of the smartphone for overseas markets. By Reuters: Apple Inc's next iPhone will use modems chips from Intel Corp, replacing those made by Qualcomm Inc in some versions of the new smartphone, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Intel's modem chips will be in iPhones used on AT&T Inc's U.S. network and some other versions of the smartphone for overseas markets, Bloomberg reported on Friday. advertisement However, iPhones sold in China will use Qualcomm chips, and iPhones on Verizon Communications Inc's network will also stick with Qualcomm, Bloomberg added. Qualcomm's shares fell 1.7 per cent on Friday, while Intel's stock was up 0.3 per cent. Apple shares were down 0.5 per cent in morning trading. On an earnings call in April, Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf said he was assuming that a major customer would switch to multiple suppliers. An Intel spokeswoman declined to comment on the story. Qualcomm and Apple were not immediately available for comment. --- ENDS --- By Priya Pathak: True talent has no age limit and nine-year-old Anvitha Vijay totally proves it. After successfully creating several apps for Apple, Anvitha - an Indian descent living in Melbourne, has made it to Apple's WWDC event and becomes the youngest attendee at the event. According to Fortune , Anvitha, at a tender age of seven, had a dream of building a mobile app. On realising that $130 (her lifetime saving in piggy bank) was not enough to hire a developer who could develop an app for her, Vijay spent a year watching free coding tutorials online and learned the basics of programming. "Coding was so challenging," Vijay told Fortune. "But I'm so glad I stuck with it." advertisement Apple under its scholarship program gives hundreds of free tickets every year to developers from around the world who are creating apps for Apple devices. Vijay along with 119 winners, most of them are under the age of 18, have been selected to attend the event held in San Francisco this year. WWDC is Apple's developer conference, which is organised every year in California and is one of the most important tech conferences held annually. "It's my dream to go to WWDC and meet Tim Cook," said Vijay. Vijay's apps were inspired by her toddler sister, who was learning how to talk and identify animals. Smartkins Animals , an iOS app developed by her, helps to teach children 1000 different animals' names and sound using sounds and flashcards. She later developed another similar educational iOS app for kids to help them learn colours. This is not the first time Vijay has made her parents proud. At a mere age of 3, she won The Student Edge Prize $10,000 Media Kit at OzApp Awards for her app called GoalsHi app , an interactive app for kids to learn and educate. --- ENDS --- While talking about public-private partnership, she raised what appears to be iPhone 6S and said, "federal research, not Steve Jobs or Apple, invented the iPhone." By Manish Sain: "They say Steve Jobs did a good idea designing it (iPhone) and putting it together. Federal research invented it," said Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in the US House of Representatives. While talking about public-private partnership, she raised what appears to be iPhone 6S and said, "federal research, not Steve Jobs or Apple, invented the iPhone." "Anybody here have a smartphone? In this smartphone, almost everything came from federal investments and research. GPS, created by the military, flatscreens, LLD [sic], digital camera, wireless data compression, research into metal alloys for strength and lightweight, voice recognition - the list goes on and on... They say Steve Jobs did a good idea designing it and putting it together. Federal research invented it," said Pelosi. advertisement While the comment may enrage tech enthusiasts across the world, technically, the politician is right. Pelosi suggests that it was federal research and funding that invented technologies, which are now being used in iPhones. For example, GPS technology was developed by the US military, which now plays an essential role in all the smartphones and a great number of online services. Drew Hammill, spokesman for Pelosi, told CNET that Nancy Pelosi knew Jobs well. "The late Steve Jobs and the team at Apple that made the iPhone would be the first to tell you that they didn't invent many of its core technologies we now take for granted," he said. "Leader Pelosi counted Steve Jobs as friend and meant no disrespect to his legacy, but the point she was making is a valid one. Leader Pelosi believes that Steve Jobs and his colleagues at Apple, deserve enormous credit for taking federally-backed innovations off the shelf, refining them, commercializing them and turning them into a beautiful device that changed the world." The world has already started comparing Pelosi's comment with Obama's (in)famous "you didn't build that" speech. The US President tried to explain in 2012 that one person doesn't build a business, there are others involved. However, the speech has been used in and out of context. Here's a complete text of what Obama and said, and it doesn't sound quite offensive. "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet." The comment from the Democratic leader comes months after Apple and the US government engaged in a legal battle over iPhone's encryption. While Apple held its ground and denied the FBI any access to one iPhone's data, the agency went ahead and hacked into it with the help of a third party. --- ENDS --- * 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. [June 13, 2016] TP-LINK Archer C5400 Routers Now Available TP-LINK, a leading global provider of consumer and business networking products, today announced its new Archer C5400 routers are now available for retail purchase. Equipped with Wave 2 Tri-band and XStream processing, Archer C5400 routers are ideal for those who game online at the highest settings, stream 4K video content, or do both simultaneously. Archer C5400 routers support more device connections at the same time and intelligently place each device on the fastest Wi-Fi band for an all-around smoother experience. "TP-LINK brings gamers the fastest Wi-Fi speeds for low latency, stable connections, bandwidth prioritization, expansive coverage and advanced features to deliver the ultimate playing experience," said Lewis Wu, executive vice president of TP-LINK USA. "Overall speeds of 5400Mbps* combined with XStream processing to create incredibly fast performance to give gamers the winning edge." Smart Connect prioritizes network traffic, allowing Archer C5400 routers to create the fastest possible Wi-Fi connection for every device. NitroQAM and 4-Stream enable up to 5400Mbps* of total Wi-Fi throughput over one 2.4GHz (1000Mbps) and two 5GHz (2167Mbps) bands. Equipped with MU-MIMO**, Archer C5400 routers are able to run multiple connections at once for up to three times faster performance than standard AC routers. Eight external antennas with high-powered amplifiers and beamforming deliver maximum range up to 10,000 square feet*. Archer C5400 key benefits at a glance: AC5400 Tri-Band router with 4-Stream and NitroQAM technology delivers up to 5400Mbps* Wi-Fi speeds over one 2.4GHz (1000Mbps) and two 5GHz (2167Mbps) bands Powerful XStream Architecture with a 1.4GHz dual-core CPU and 3 co-processors for smoother performance Equipped with MU-MIMO** ready technology Smart Connect helps devices run faster by connecting them to the best available connection Supercharge your Wi-Fi signal thanks to eight antennas with high-powered amplifiers Set time limits and keep children safe with parental controls Lightning-fast wired connections using four Gigabit Ethernet ports Share fies, photos, music, and video across the network using USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports Guest Network provides visitors with Wi-Fi access separate from your main network Targeted Wi-Fi signals use beamforming Advanced security encryption protects your data Set-up and adjust Wi-Fi settings from your mobile device using the Tether App (Android, iOS) Supports 802.11ac and backwards-compatible with 802.11a/b/g/n Warranty and Support Our team is available 24/7 for toll-free, unlimited technical support by phone (1-866-225-8139) and email ([email protected]), including setup, no matter when you purchased the product. Plus, our two-year warranty delivers worry-free service. Price & Availability Archer C5400 routers are now exclusively available at Office Depot retail stores and NewEgg.com online for MSRP $299.99 (USD). About TP-LINK TP-LINK is a global innovator and provider of consumer and SMB networking products and the world's No.1 provider of WLAN and broadband CPE devices***, with products available in over 120 countries to tens of millions of customers. Committed to intensive R&D, efficient production and strict quality management, TP-LINK continues to provide award-winning networking products in wireless routers, cable/DSL gateways, powerline adapters, range extenders, cloud cameras, smart home and accessories for global end-users. *Maximum wireless transmission rates are the physical rates derived from IEEE (News - Alert) Standard 802.11 specifications. Range and coverage claims are based upon test results under normal usage conditions. Actual wireless transmission rate and wireless coverage are not guaranteed, and will vary as a result of 1) environmental factors, including building materials, physical objects and obstacles, 2) network conditions, including local interference, volume and density of traffic, product location, network complexity, and network overhead and 3) client limitations, including rated performance, location, connection quality, and client condition. **MU-MIMO feature requires free firmware upgrade to enable, currently not available. Once available, firmware upgrade may be found on http://www.tp-link.us/download/Archer-C5400.html#Firmware. MU-MIMO capability requires both router and client device to support MU-MIMO. Two or more MU-MIMO enabled devices must be connected to achieve faster performance. ***According to latest published IDC (News - Alert) Worldwide Quarterly WLAN Tracker Report, Q4 2015 Final Release. For further information visit www.tp-link.us, follow TP-LINK on Facebook (News - Alert) at www.facebook.com/TPLINKNA, Twitter (News - Alert) at www.twitter.com/TPLINKNA, YouTube (News - Alert) at www.youtube.com/tplinktech or the TP-LINK Forum at http://forum.tp-link.com. All information and pricing provided are subject to change without notice. TP-LINK is a registered trademark of TP-LINK Technologies Co., Ltd. All trade names are the property of their respective owners. Maximum wireless signal rate derived from IEEE standard 802.11 specifications. Actual data throughput and wireless coverage will vary. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005055/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Cumulocity, and its Strategic Partner Deutsche Telekom, Simplify Industry 4.0 Deployments with its Unique Cloud Field Bus Solution Cumulocity's Cloud Field Bus solution fundamentally simplifies the real-world concerns of customers connecting their "machines" in an easy and productive way. There is neither a lengthy integration process nor special training required to connect "machines". Cumulocity's unique Cloud Field Bus solution allows users to connect their machines in minutes. With Cloud Field Bus the machine securely registers itself to the Cumulocity platform at power up over any communication connection and allows the Cumulocity platform to assign a predefined data model and protocol configuration. This means that Industrial IoT deployment and operations costs are dramatically reduced through the use of much cheaper IoT modems, commodity communications and increased automation in the deployment process; at the same time the security protection is increasing to A+ carrier grade. It also drastically improves the efficiency of the operations and maintenance of IoT deployments as it allows the field service teams to replace a faulty IoT modem with virtually any other modem they have in their van. Deutsche Telekom (News - Alert) launched the 'Cloud of Things', powered by Cumulocity, in spring 2015 and recently launched the Cloud Field Bus with Modbus TCP support. Cloud Field Bus modems are already available from a range of manufacturers and Cumulocity's open approach allows virtually any compatible IoT device to be used as a Field Bus modem. "The Deutsche Telekom 'Cloud of Things' offering was developed in close collaboration with Cumulocity. The Cloud Field Bus extension has already captured the interest of many customers and first commercial deployments are happening. The solution removed many concerns about the perceived overheads for IoT deployments and allows our customer's equipment to be connected in minutes.", stated Dr Alexander Lautz, Senior Vice Preisdent M2M at Deutsche Telekom. "With today's announcement we improve the simplification of connecting and operating industrial machines including compressors, air conditioning units, trucks, heavy equipment vehicles, pumps, sewing machines etc. Once the machines are connected the wider business benefits can be securely created including cost reductions from field force automation, increased customer satisfaction through predictive maintenance and introductions of new business models. At Cumulocity we strive to remove complexity and costs so that the benefits of IoT to be exploited rapidly, comprehensively and securely by all organisations.", explained Bernd Gross, CEO of Cumulocity. About Telekom 'Cloud of Things' - powered by Cumulocity With Deutsche Telekom's Cloud of Things, machinery manufacturers and operators can monitor and manage their machinery and equipment more easily. Data analytics and device management via the cloud enables companies to provide greatly improved automation and service that is managed remotely. Use cases include remote management and control, condition monitoring, predictive maintenance and big data streaming analytics. http://m2m.telekom.com/our-offering/cloud-of-things/ About Cumulocity Cumulocity is the leading independent Application and Device Management platform for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) since 2010. Cumulocity is an open platform that provides a complete feature set for rapidly deploying IoT solutions. The key features include Data collection and Storage, Big Data Streaming Analytics, Real-Time Visualization and Automation as well as IoT Device Management. Our open and publicly documented APIs and the open UI framework, enable our partners and customers to configure and extend the platform to their unique needs. Scalability, security and reliability are critical in IoT solutions and our origins as part of Nokia (News - Alert) Siemens Networks, the world's mobile broadband specialist, gives us the experience of securely managing millions of devices without service interruptions. Cumulocity can be deployed in a Cloud and On-Premise and enables enterprises to start small and scale out to millions of devices with the deployment model fit for their business. Today Cumulocity software is operated in more than 20 data centers across 5 continents. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005486/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Penton's ResellerClub Presents HostingCon Europe Announces Jamie Woodruff as Conference Keynote WEST CHESTER, Ohio, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Penton's HostingCon, the premier event for the cloud and service provider ecosystem, is pleased to announce the keynote speaker for ResellerClub presents HostingCon Europe. Jamie Woodruff, leading authority on cybersecurity and ethical hacker will address the HostingCon audience in Amsterdam on October 11, 2016. "Excited to speak at HostingCon!" said Woodruff. "People within the hosting industry take cybersecurity seriously not just from a company, but also from an end-user perspective." Woodruff entered the public eye when he successfully hacked Facebook as part of a student competition at Bangor University where he was studying computer information systems. He has since uncovered security holes in numerous high-profile operations, including Kim Kardashian's website, which he hacked in May to reveal that it was putting her fans' data at serious risk. Woodruff is an expert on cyber issues, traveling internationally to talk at global corporations and the industry's most important conferences. He is also writing a book on cyber intelligence and combating terrorism whilst pursuing a PhD in political science at Sheffield University. He often speaks to the importance of system and network security and is known for disclosing world-wide exploits and vulnerabilities within leading security applications such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Apple and Google. Woodruff finds existing exploits by infiltrating the companies in question. He demonstrated this by impersonating a Domino's pizza delivery boy at a large financial institutio and gaining access to their server room via lock-picking. All carried out under fully authorized, ethical penetration testing. Woodruff's keynote presentation at HostingCon Europe will focus on what leaders in the service provider industry need to know to protect both their customers and their business. He'll share his latest research in social engineering and human manipulation methodology as well as provide demonstrations for the audience. "Cybersecurity is always a hot topic in our industry," said Cheryl Kemp, Director and Conference Chair for HostingCon. "Our attendees and exhibitors are affected daily by security issues that cause a real threat not only to customers but to their bottom line. We're excited to have Jamie address the latest trends in cybersecurity and how service providers can better protect themselves and their customers." The show will also feature a panel discussion led by cPanel General Counsel David Snead, addressing a different area of cybersecurity. This session will be focused on how the extent of government access to customer's data fundamentally alters how the internet service provider ecosystem works. "This show will tie a couple of things together that are really important to the market: security, innovation and the growing amount of startups that operate in our market," said Mark Karsch, HostingCon advisory board member. "We want our attendees to come away smarter by understanding the next opportunities the market and technology offers." The conference, held at the Amsterdam Passenger Terminal on October 11-12, 2016, will focus on addressing issues and trends in the cloud and hosting industry. HostingCon is known for its vendor neutral education and opportunities for meaningful networking. ABOUT HOSTINGCON HostingCon is the premier event for the cloud and service provider ecosystem. The conference connects the industry including hosting and cloud providers, MSPs, Telcos, Resellers, ISVs, SaaS, IaaS and other Internet infrastructure providers who make the Internet work to network, learn and grow. HostingCon is a Penton event. ResellerClub Presents HostingCon Europe is being held for the third year in a row. For details about HostingCon, visit www.HostingCon.com. ABOUT RESELLERCLUB The ResellerClub platform powers some of the World's most popular Web Hosts, Domain Resellers, Web Designers and Technology Consultants. ResellerClub provides scalable and secure Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS Solutions, Dedicated Servers, Managed Servers as well a host of Website Security products, in addition to a comprehensive suite of gTLDs, ccTLDs, new gTLDs and other essential Web Presence & Website Security Products. Current Partners: Over 200,000 Domains Served: Over 5 Million Server Locations: US, United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Turkey Team Strength: 100+ www.resellerclub.com ABOUT PENTON Penton is an innovative information services company that empowers nearly 20 million business decision makers in markets that drive more than 12 trillion dollars in purchases each year. Our products inform with rich industry insights and workflow tools; engage through dynamic events, education and networking; and advance business with powerful marketing services programs. Penton is the way smart businesses buy, sell and grow. Headquartered in New York, Penton is privately owned by MidOcean Partners and Wasserstein & Co., LP. For more information, visit http://www.penton.com or follow us on Twitter @PentonNow. MEDIA CONTACT: Cheryl Kemp Director, Community and Conference Content HostingCon 513.322.4789 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377871LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/pentons-resellerclub-presents-hostingcon-europe-announces-jamie-woodruff-as-conference-keynote-300283325.html SOURCE Penton [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] JIPDEC to Adopt Easy Solutions' DMARC Compass for First Time in Japan Easy Solutions, (Headquarters: Florida, USA, Representative: CEO Ricardo Villadiego) the Total Fraud Protection company, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with the Japan Institute for Promotion of Digital Economy and Community (JIPDEC) to provide the DMARC Compass (News - Alert) solution, which complies with the internationally recognized Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) email standard. This is the first time the standard has been adopted in Japan. The JIPDEC, which was founded in 1967, works to advance the safe use of digital information to build an information-rich technological society. "We are pleased that we will be able to help the Japanese business community address increased fraud concerns and incidents with JIPDEC's adoption of DMARC Compass, an important facet of our multi-layered fraud protection solution. Also, we will be making a great effort to build a society where users in Japan and the Asian market can use email and Internet services safely through DMARC with JIPDEC. We look forward to working with and supporting JIPDEC to further their mission of ensuring safe use of digital information," said Masafumi Hatakeyama, Easy Solutions Business Development Manager in Japan. For his part, JIPDEC Business Promotion Office Manager Otaishi Akira said: "JIPDEC has been providing 'ANSHIN Mark,' which is a solution to prevent spoofing activities. We are going to adopt the Easy Solutions product for our email environment, and we believe that the adoption of DMARC Compass will make our anti-email spoofing measures stronger. We will continue to further strengthen the dissemination activities through this experience as a best practice." The international DMARC specification was developed more than a decade ago in order to provide greater identity assurance of the email message sender. It enables email receivers to authenticate legitimate messages and implement the policy of how to handle unauthenticated messages (monitor, quarantine or delete). With the DMARC Compass product from Easy Solutions, enterprises can leverage this intelligence to clearly understand where phishing attacks originate and shut them down in a faster, more targeted manner. DMARC Compass allows organizations to increase their visibility of authorized sending email and ensure that third-party organizations sending emails on their behalf are recognized as legitimate. With DMARC Compass, organizations can: View analytics on all sent emails associated with a specified domain Deny phishers and spammers the ability to spoof a company's domain Identify configuration errors, missing authentication and unauthorized third-party senders Reduce attack takedown times through the proactive identification of new threats Enable DMARC readiness workflow via web-based gap analysis ABOUT JIPDEC Japan Information Processing Development Center (JIPDEC) was established in 1967 as an organization to promote the efforts to resolve the technical and systematic tasks for Japan's information promotion. JIPDEC has been supporting the safe utilization of information environment construction through various projects such as 'Privacy Mark' and the Internet trust business for the realization of the information economy and society. ABOUT EASY SOLUTIONS Easy Solutions is a leading security vendor focused on the comprehensive detection and prevention of electronic fraud across all devices, channels and clouds. Our products range from anti-phishing and secure browsing to multifactor authentication and transaction anomaly detection, offering a one-stop shop for multiple fraud prevention services. The online activities of over 85 million customers of more than 320 leading financial services companies, security firms, retailers, airlines and other entities all over the world are protected by Easy Solutions fraud prevention systems. Head office: 8550 N.W. 33 Street, Miami, FL, 33122. Tel: 1 (866) 524-4782 Japan Asia Pacific office: Daiei Ginza Building 5F 1-16-7 Ginza , chuo-ku, Tokyo, 104-0061 Japan. Tel: 81 (3) 4360-8700 JIPDEC office: Roppongi First Building, 9-9 Roppongi 1-chome, Minato-ku Tokyo, 106-0032 Japan Tel: 81 (3) 5860-7526 View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613005087/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Exiger and Venture Leaders Back Cyber Security Innovator -- RANK Software NEW YORK and TORONTO, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ -- Exiger, the global regulatory and financial crime, risk and compliance firm, together with Generation Ventures, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, Export Development Canada and Trellis Capital announce an equity investment in RANK Software, a Toronto-based company that is pioneering the use of big data analytics for cyber security solutions. One of the first firms to leverage big data analytics to the cyber security space, RANK's core offering is an enterprise security analytics and visualization platform focused on high velocity, real-time contextual and behavioral analytics and malware analysis. Designed to rapidly detect and prioritize threats across a wide range of Internet-connected applications and devices, the RANK solution provides an unrivaled level of forensic and malware analysis while improving the overall efficiency and accuracy of the monitoring and investigation process. "The future of threat monitoring and investigations of all types will depend on our ability to develop and deploy solutions that combine data science, behavioral analytics, and machine learning to identify and prioritize risk quickly," said Michael Beber, Exiger President and CEO. "RANK has shown that it has both the technological and real-orld experience to develop revolutionary solutions that weed out noise and focus critical investigative resources on material threats." Led by a team of technology and data science veterans from Amazon, Blackberry, and Microsoft with extensive experience developing and scaling digital enterprises, RANK has developed industry-specific cyber security solutions tailored for the financial services, healthcare, government, energy and telecom sectors. "In a landscape in which mission-critical services are all reliant upon connections to the Internet, rapid detection and response to cyber intrusion is critical," said Dr. Niranjan Mayya, Founder and CEO of RANK. "We are pleased to partner with such a powerful group of investors who will help catalyze the growth of our solutions not only through their capital investments, but also through their industry expertise and relationships in the risk monitoring and investigations space." Alistair Mitchell, President of Generation Ventures, a Toronto-based venture and growth equity firm, commented: "Mobile, cloud-enabled and Internet of Things are driving an explosion in connected devices, with more than 50 billion devices expected in 2020 compared to 10 billion today. As a result, the surface area for potential attacks will grow 10 times larger in the next five years. Traditional cyber security solutions provide an overwhelming amount of potential intrusion data without context or priority. RANK's application of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize cyber security response by allowing corporations to focus on the highest priority threats." For more information on RANK Software and their investors, please visit their respective websites RANK Software: www.ranksoftwareinc.com Exiger: www.exiger.com Generation Ventures: www.generationcapital.com MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund: www.marsiaf.com Export Development Canada: www.edc.ca Trellis Capital www.trelliscapital.com Contact: John Roderick J. Roderick, Inc. For Exiger 631-584-2200 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378374LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/exiger-and-venture-leaders-back-cyber-security-innovator----rank-software-300283608.html SOURCE Exiger [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [June 13, 2016] Fitch Rates Acts Retirement-Life Communities Obligated Group, PA 'A-'; Outlook Stable Fitch Ratings has assigned an 'A-' rating to $234.9 million of revenue bonds to be issued by various issuers on behalf of Acts Retirement-Life Communities Obligated Group (Acts): --$96.66 million Montgomery County Industrial Development Authority (retirement community revenue bonds), series 2016, --$108.87 million Escambia County Health Facilities Authority (retirement community revenue bonds), series 2016, --$10.95 million Gainesville and Hall County Development Authority (retirement community revenue bonds), series 2016. Fitch also assigns an 'A-'rating to $18.39 million taxable bonds, series 2016 issued directly by Acts. In addition, Fitch affirms the 'A-' rating on approximately $301.4 million of existing revenue bonds issued by various issuers in DE, FL, GA and PA. Bond proceeds and the release of prior debt service reserve accounts will refund all or a portion of Acts' series 2006A PA, 2006B-1 and B-2 PA, series 2006A FL, series 2006B FL, series 2009A-1 PA, series 2009A-2 GA, series 2010 FL, and series 2003 taxable bonds and provide $80 million of new money for construction and renovation projects at several of its retirement communities. About $195.5 million of existing debt will be refunded. The bonds are scheduled to sell via negotiated sale during the week of June 27. The Rating Outlook is Stable. SECURITY The series 2016 bonds are secured by a gross revenue pledge and springing mortgages on Acts' 19 retirement communities. The existing bonds are also secured by debt service reserve funds. The series 2016 refunding and new money bonds will not include debt service reserve funds. KEY RATING DRIVERS BENEFIT OF SCALE AND GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY: Acts' scale and geographic diversity reduce overall operating volatility and actuarial risk resulting in more consistent year-over-year operating performance relative to Fitch's rated portfolio of continuing care retirement communities (CCRC). Overall occupancy has been maintained at improved levels over the past several years and averaged 87.5% in the independent living units (ILU), 87.2% in the assisted living units (ALU) and 87.3% in the skilled nursing facility (SNF) during 2015. CONSISTENT FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: Profitability, liquidity, and debt metrics have been relatively stable over the last several years, despite growth and changes to the organization. While liquidity metrics compare unfavorably against Fitch's 'A' category medians, Acts stable operations and growing net entrance fee receipts have generated improved coverage of pro forma maximum annual debt service (MADS) in each of the last three years and amounted to a healthy 3.0x in 2015. STRONG MANAGEMENT PRACTICES: Acts has demonstrated sound management practices with respect to affiliation activity, capital spending, expense control, and investor disclosure. Fitch notes that the new CEO appointed in August 2014 was promoted from within the organization. Moreover, both the new COO and CFO were also elevated from executive positions within Acts. As expected, given the enduring mission, vision and values of the organization, this transition did not have a material operational or financial impact on Acts. RATING SENSITIVITIES STABILITY EXPECTED: Fitch expects Acts Retirement-Life Communities to continue producing consistent operating metrics, supported by its diverse revenue base and historically stable financial performance. CAPITAL PLANS: Fitch also expects Acts Retirement-Life Communities to successfully construct and occupy its ongoing repositioning and expansion projects without negatively affecting its operating performance and consistent financial position. CREDIT PROFILE The Acts obligated group is one of the largest not-for-profit CCRC systems in the nation, with 19 communities in six states with locations in AL (1), DE (3), FL (4), GA (1), NC (2), and PA (8). Acts' CCRCs are organized into four geographic regions known as the Northeast Region (PA), the Mid-Atlantic Region (PA and DE), the Southeast Region (FL), and the Mid-South Region (NC, GA and AL), each of which is overseen by a three-member executive team. Non obligated affiliates also operate one CCRC in both MD and SC. As of March 31, 2016, the Acts obligated group operated 5,275 ILUs, 851 ALUs) and 1,361 SNF beds. Total operating revenues for the obligated group in 2015 were $372.5 million. The entities outside the obligated group collectively generated excess income of about $1.7 million on revenues of $25.3 million in 2015. Advances to non-obligated entities are mostly limited to a $6.8 million subordinated note receivable relating to the acquisition of Park Pointe Village (rated 'BBB'/Stable) in Rock Hill, SC in 2005. The analysis and figures cited in this report are based on the Acts obligated group. DIVERSE BUSINESS BASE Acts' strong qualitative indicators, including the system's operating and geographic diversification, its size and reputation, and effective management practices have been figured significantly in its rating and can offset concerns around some financial metrics unfavorable to Fitch's 'A' category medians, particularly liquidity metrics. Fitch views the diversity of Acts' geographic locations and revenue generation as core credit strengths, since they reduce the system's overall operating risk. Further, the system's sheer size meaningfully reduces the actuarial risk from its life care contracts, resulting in very consistent year-over-year attrition and unit turnovers. Net entrance fee receipts have improved in each of the last five years growing to $102 million in 2015 from $49.6 million in 2010. In addition, the large revenue base allows the system to achieve operating and cost efficiencies through clusters of communities in each market, and generates a consistent number of unit urnovers annually. At the end of 2013, Acts brought two additional organizations it owned and operated into the obligated group. The transaction reflects management's disciplined acquisition strategy, admitting acquired communities into the obligated only after operations have been improved. The new obligated group entities grew operating revenues by over $50 million and were accretive to Acts' financial profile. An example of Acts' diverse business base that provides operating flexibility and reduced business risk is the ILU occupancy performance among its four regions. While overall ILU occupancy improved to 90.6% at the end of 2015 from 85.7% at the end of 2012, ILU occupancy results lagged in the Southeast. ILU occupancy of 86.5% in the Southeast trailed the Northeast (93.6%), Mid-Atlantic (91.6%), and Mid-South (92.0%) at the end of 2015. This is primarily due to Acts' communities in Boca Raton recovering more slowly from the real estate collapse and overbuilding in southeast Florida. Reflecting its stable and diverse operating profile, Acts' profitability metrics have historically remained consistently sound. Reflecting its Type 'A' life care contract structure, Acts generated an operating ratio of 103.9% and net operating margin of negative 0.1% in 2015, which compare unfavorably against the respective 'A' category medians of 94.0% and 7.0%. However, strong net entrance fee receipts due to healthy unit turnover and mostly nonrefundable contracts produced a net operating margin-adjusted nicely above the median at 25.9%. Fitch believes that Acts' sound budgeting practices and revenue diversification will allow profitability metrics to remain steady. MODEST CASH POSITION Acts' primary credit limitation continues to be its modest liquidity for the rating category. At Dec. 31, 2015, Acts had $227.4 million of unrestricted cash and investments which translated into 267 days cash on hand, a 6.2x cushion ratio and 46.8% of debt; all of which are weaker than the respective 'A' category medians of 681 days, 18.5x and 125.1%. Liquidity balances are down a bit as of March 31, 2016, but that is typical for Acts during the first quarter of each fiscal year. In addition, Fitch notes that unrestricted cash and investments have kept pace with growth of the overall organization, resulting in stable liquidity ratios. Furthermore, the consistency of Acts' operating performance and level of entrance fee receipts serves to moderate the system's moderate liquidity balances. Acts also carries $29.9 million of short-term debt in the form of bank lines of credit as of March 31, 2016, most of which is expected to be repaid with proceeds of the new money portion of the series 2016 bonds. Acts typically uses its short-term bank lines of credit to provide funds for capital projects that are expected to be permanently funded with long-term bonds. Over the next several years, Acts does not expect its bank lines of credit to exceed $20 million outstanding at each respective year-end. CAPITAL PLANS Capital plans from 2016-2019 are moderately high (at about $386 million or a projected 198% of depreciation expense) and are being partially funded with the $80 million of series 2016 new money bond proceeds. Additionally, a $65 million temporary construction loan and the bank lines of credit will fund a portion of the capital spending plans. The most significant project is a multi-phase expansion at Plantation Estates in Matthews, NC that is expected to include 146 ILUs and 100 SNF beds and cost approximately $89.2 million in the first phase. Construction began in November 2015 and the ILU expansion achieved 82.2% presale levels as of March 31, 2016. Initial entrance fees of about $51.6 million from the first phase are expected to repay a portion of the temporary debt or used for the next segments of the project. Permanent debt of about $45 million is projected to be issued in 2019 for the Plantation Estates expansion. The other major project is a $33 million repositioning of Granite Farms Estates in Media, PA that includes ILU conversions to ALUs, larger renovated ILUs, extensive remodeling to the health care center, and common area renovations including dining facilities, lobby and the addition of a pool. The ILU count will be reduced by 60 units to accommodate the larger, upscale apartments and additional ALUs. Additionally, the 40 ALU count increases by 20 units and the SNF will be downsized by 22 beds and include private accommodations. The Granite Farms Estates project is being initially funded with a bank line of credit that is expected to be repaid with a portion of the series 2016 bonds. Fitch views this level of additional debt and project risk to be very manageable for an organization of Acts' size and scope, especially since pro forma MADS only increases by about $1 million. Further, the additional revenues associated with the Plantation Estates project and other modest ILU expansion plans are expected to provide cash flow to support debt service. Fitch expects Acts capital-related and liquidity metrics to be around current levels throughout the construction and fill-up periods. Significant cost overruns or negative variances from expected performance levels would be viewed negatively. MANAGEABLE DEBT BURDEN After the series 2016 bond issues, Acts will have approximately $508 million of long-term debt outstanding (83% fixed-rate and 17% variable-rate that is swapped to fixed-rate), generating MADS of $36.5 million. Acts also has $29.9 million drawn on short-term lines of credit, some of which is expected to be repaid with the series 2016 bond proceeds. As of March 31, 2016, Acts also has $16.7 million of temporary construction loans that are expected to increase to approximately $54 million by fiscal 2018 and then be partially repaid from initial entrance fees and permanently financed into long-term debt. Debt metrics are good for the rating category with 3.0x pro forma MADS coverage and 9.8% pro forma MADS as a percentage of revenues in 2015 compared to the 'A' category medians of 3.1x and 9.2%. Acts is counterparty to four fixed-rate payor swaps with a total notional value of $86.8 million that do not have collateral posted. The fair market value of the swaps was a negative $15.3 million as of March 31, 2016. DISCLOSURE Acts discloses annual financial statements within 120 days and quarterly unaudited financial statements within 45 days through the MSRB's EMMA website. Also, as part of the series 2016 bond issue, an independent consultant was engaged to complete a compliance review to determine whether remedial action and disclosure of past filing failures is necessary in the preliminary official statement. The independent consultant did not find any disclosure issues that are currently outstanding. Additional information is available at 'www.fitchratings.com'. Applicable Criteria Not-for-Profit Continuing Care Retirement Communities Rating Criteria (pub. 04 Aug 2015) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=868824 Revenue-Supported Rating Criteria (pub. 16 Jun 2014) https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/reports/report_frame.cfm?rpt_id=750012 Additional Disclosures Dodd-Frank Rating Information Disclosure Form https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/content/ridf_frame.cfm?pr_id=1005966 Solicitation Status https://www.fitchratings.com/gws/en/disclosure/solicitation?pr_id=1005966 Endorsement Policy https://www.fitchratings.com/jsp/creditdesk/PolicyRegulation.faces?context=2&detail=31 ALL FITCH CREDIT RATINGS ARE SUBJECT TO CERTAIN LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS. PLEASE READ THESE LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMERS BY FOLLOWING THIS LINK: HTTP://FITCHRATINGS.COM/UNDERSTANDINGCREDITRATINGS. IN ADDITION, RATING DEFINITIONS AND THE TERMS OF USE OF SUCH RATINGS ARE AVAILABLE ON (News - Alert) THE AGENCY'S PUBLIC WEBSITE 'WWW.FITCHRATINGS.COM'. PUBLISHED RATINGS, CRITERIA AND METHODOLOGIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM THIS SITE AT ALL TIMES. FITCH'S CODE OF CONDUCT, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, AFFILIATE FIREWALL, COMPLIANCE AND OTHER RELEVANT POLICIES AND PROCEDURES ARE ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE 'CODE OF CONDUCT' SECTION OF THIS SITE. FITCH MAY HAVE PROVIDED ANOTHER PERMISSIBLE SERVICE TO THE RATED ENTITY OR ITS RELATED THIRD PARTIES. DETAILS OF THIS SERVICE FOR RATINGS FOR WHICH THE LEAD ANALYST IS BASED IN AN EU-REGISTERED ENTITY CAN BE FOUND ON THE ENTITY SUMMARY PAGE FOR THIS ISSUER ON THE FITCH WEBSITE. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160613006150/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Itongadol.- The tiny robot looks like your average autonomous vacuum cleaner just another little black box rolling on the floor, until you realize: this Roomba-like creature is packing heat. An Israeli company has created a small remote-controlled robot designed for law enforcement and military use that is capable of firing a pistol, specifically for use in hostage rescue and counterterrorism operations. The Dogo, as the 26.5 pound (12 kilogram) robot is known, was created by the Israeli corporation General Robotics Ltd. and will be formally debuted at the Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris later this month, the company announced in a statement. The gun-toting bot is named after a vicious dog breed, the Dogo Argentino or Argentine Mastiff, a large white hunting dog. However, unlike the canine Dogo, which stands at over two feet (60 centimeters) tall, the robotic Dogo is just 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) tall while in stealth mode and 11 inches (28 centimeters) tall when fully deployed, according to the company. The robot rolls along at a brisk 2.5 miles per hour (4 kilometers per hour) on treads and can travel up stairs and over obstacles. Its battery lasts between two and five hours, and the Dogo comes decked out with an array of sensors and eight video cameras that provide its handler with real-time, 360-degree information from a safe distance. Our slogan is risk the Dogo, not personnel, the companys CEO Col. (res.) Udi Gal told Defense News. However, unlike other robots that can only serve in a passive surveillance capacity, the Dogo has a compartment specially designed to hold and fire a subcompact Glock 26 9mm pistol. The Dogo can hold up to 14 rounds of ammunition and is operated through a literal point and shoot interface, as the company described it in a press release. The operator uses a Panasonic tablet to identify a target, and the robot does the rest. In addition to a Glock pistol, the robot can be equipped with nonlethal pepper spray and a dazzling light module designed to stun its victims, the company said. The Dogo was designed with input from the Defense Ministry and the Israel Polices counterterrorism unit. The comparatively lightweight machine is meant to be easily deployed by security forces and can fit into a backpack. Full-scale production on the remote-controlled robots has yet to begin, nor have any specific deals with law enforcement agencies been announced. The company, founded in 2009 and based in Beit Nehemia south of Tel Aviv, has also not yet released when it expects the pistol-packing machines to turn against us puny humans, but hopefully it wont be for a while. proxima Por primera vez, Israel es elegido para dirigir un comite de la ONU John Coffee John Coffee born on June 2, 1772, was an American plantation owner and state militia general in Tennessee. Coffee commanded troops under General Andrew Jackson in the Creek Indian Wars between 1813 and 1814 and later participated in the Battle of New Orleans. Coffee and Andrew Jackson both being from Tennessee were friends and had been partners in Nashville merchandising. Described as a big awkward man, careless of dress, and slow of speech, Coffee was also said to be kindly, tactful and wise. In October 1813, Coffee was promoted to brigadier-general and placed in command of both the 2nd Regiment and the 1st Regiment of Volunteer Mounted Gunmen to form a militia brigade of mounted infantry. The brigade consisted largely of free Blacks and American Indian warriors from allied Southeast tribes. This group would fight with distinction at the Battle of New Orleans. General Jackson chose General Coffee as his advance commander in the Creek War, in which he commanded mostly state militia and allied American Indians. With Jackson in command, Coffee led his brigade at the Battle of Tallushatchee, the Battle of Talladega, and a couple of other meaningful battles. Following the War of 1812, Coffee failed in some risky business ventures and then found employment as a surveyor, laying out the town of Florence, Alabama. In 1816, he surveyed the boundary line between Alabama and Mississippi. Coffee later moved his family to Florence, Alabama. After Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States, Jackson worked toward removal of Southeast Indian tribes to a territory west of the Mississippi River. Jackson appointed Coffee, along with Secretary of War John Easton, to negotiate treaties with Southeast American Indian tribes to accomplish removal, a policy authorized by Congressional passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Coffee negotiated the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek of 1830 with the Choctaw by which they ceded their lands in the Southeast. Coffee began negotiations with the Chickasaw, but a treaty was not concluded until after Coffee's death. There remains some confusion as researchers often mistake General John Coffee with his first cousin John E. Coffee who was a general in the Georgia militia and elected as the U. S. Congressman from Georgia. The legendary Texas Ranger, John Coffee Hays, was John Coffee's nephew. Hays, became the greatest Texas Ranger in history, leading troops in battle with the Indians in the Southwest. But the story of John Coffee Hays must remain for a future column by this author. CHARLESTON (JG-TC) -- A fishing competition and educational displays are set to be part of an event Saturday at Fox Ridge State Park. The open house event at the park's Ridge Lake is scheduled for 2-8 p.m. and is open to members of the public of all ages, according to a news release. The release said boats will be available for no charge for up to two hours during the event. It said the angler who catches the largest fish in each species will receive a trophy. The release also said displays will be available for viewing the lab at the lake. The event is to promote awareness and use of Ridge Lake as a public resource, the news release said. It said Ridge Lake has the longest-running continuous creel survey in the United States. All fish caught are measured and weighed by Illinois Natural History staff and read for tags, according to the news release. It said fishing is mostly catch-and-release but anglers are allowed to keep fish that are legal size. Fox Ridge State Park is located on Illinois Route 130 south of Charleston. To get to the lake, visitors should take the park's main road after the entrance then turn right onto Ridge Lake Road. The release said parking will be available across from the lake entrance and visitors should take the stairs to the lake. ARCOLA -- The irony of her childhood disinterest in dolls, in general, was not lost on the granddaughter of Johnny Gruelle, the Arcola native who created the Raggedy Ann doll, as she attended the Raggedy Ann Rally on Saturday. When she was a child, Joni Gruelle Wannamaker never really liked dolls, even including Raggedy Ann. She said according to her father, she even threw one out of a car window. I was not a doll person, Gruelle Wannamaker said. I didn't like dolls. My favorite things were stuffed dogs, cats and birds, any kind of little animal. She did, however, fall in love with the stories formed around the red-headed doll. Her parents and grandparents would often read her stories of the doll. I thought, When I grow up, I am going to have a tree with cookies on it, Gruelle Wannamaker said. A lot of the books had cookie trees. Over the years, she saw and understood the fascination people had with the over 100-year-old toy, eventually developing a love for the doll that had been such a large part of her life throughout the years. There is something so magical about Raggedy Ann, she said. Years ago, the doll creator's granddaughter even moved from Atlanta, Ga., to Arcola, the birthplace of her grandfather, helping facilitate the Raggedy Ann festival in the town. Now, she continues to take part in festivals and events geared toward keeping her family's legacy alive, including the Raggedy Ann Rally, a four-day Raggedy Ann celebration. While not as large an attendance from previous years, according to vendors, collectors and fans of Raggedy Ann still filled the Arcola Center over the weekend to share their love of the doll and the beliefs fans say the doll evokes in people, like love and friendship. The rally drew people from across the country to participate in this collective celebration of the doll and what the doll means to collectors coming from as far away as places like Tampa, Fla. Loujean Brittain, avid Raggedy Ann collector from Tampa, has taken the trek up to Arcola since 1993. Her fanaticism for Raggedy Ann grew from the replacement of one of her Raggedy Ann dolls from when she was a child; the doll had been torn up by her dog. Her father got her an old ratty Raggedy Ann doll at a flea market. From there, a love was born, Brittain said. I love what she represents. I love the spirit and fellowship that always follows her. Brittain has collected thousands of items over the years since she started in 1986, filling a room -- once rooms -- of Raggedy Ann merchandise including but beyond just the doll or the books and stories associated with it. Brittain is not alone in her fanaticism for Raggedy Ann. Greta Eber of Dayton, Ohio, decked out in red and white striped socks and dyed red hair, said she has a growing collection of nearly 200 Raggedy Ann items. For Eber, a collector since she was 2 years old, and her family, the Arcola rally has become a family event with her parents, husband, daughter and herself driving from Ohio each year. Eber said at this point her collection has partly become her 9-year-old daughters. Every time I try to get a doll for myself, she usually steals it out from under me, Eber said. Eber said she was drawn to Raggedy Ann because of how relatable and lovable the character is. She is kinda worn, but you love her that much more, Eber said. As a woman, she is kind of how I feel. I am the mom of four kids, so I kind of feel raggedy on some days, but I can relate to that. That just makes her lovable. The new Valentinos restaurant at SouthPointe Pavilions will offer customers something old and something new when it opens Tuesday. The old: a sit-down dining experience its owners hope will remind customers of the original Valentinos at 35th and Holdrege streets, which closed in May 2014. The new: a full-service bar that Valentinos has never offered its customers. Were just trying to get back to where it all started from, said Dennis Bartek, senior general manager for Valentinos. The Valentinos is on the corner of 27th Street and Pine Lake Road, next to Famous Daves. A Valentinos site in a food court at SouthPointe was torn down last month as part of a development project that will bring a much larger Scheels store to the mall. Michael Messineo, vice president for Valentinos, said the company wanted to keep a location at SouthPointe and jumped at the opportunity to open the new site. We wanted to stay in that area because we love it, he said. Valentinos is leasing the new, nearly 4,000-square-foot building, which also features an Express Lunch carry-out and delivery location next door to the dining room. The 115-seat dining area features black leather booths, large-screen televisions and an outdoor dining area that can seat 40. The outdoor dining area includes heaters, fans and televisions. The bar area is separated by a low wall and features several booths. Customers can choose from wine, tap beer, bottled beer and hard liquor. The menu includes pizza, pasta and salads but no buffet, much like the new Valentino's location on Holdrege, across the street from its original home. Customers can also choose from more American fare, such as hamburgers and broasted chicken. The restaurant will offer recommended wine pairings for each dish. Bartek said the restaurant also hopes to eventually offer food specials that will include authentic Italian dishes. No one should go home hungry, Bartek said. Messineo said the company designed the dining room to make customers feel welcome. We think it has a sophisticated look to it but also is a very inviting atmosphere to be in, he said. A judge sent a Lincoln man to prison Thursday for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a van at Holmes Lake in 2014. The state says that Tariq Hamed, now 25, was 22 at the time. But Hamed, who is Sudanese, said he was born in 1997, not 1991 as the state believes, and that his age was wrong on documents when he came to the U.S. If he was born in 1997, he could not be charged for having sex with the teenager. In May, a Lancaster County jury found him guilty of first-degree sexual assault, third-degree sexual assault of a child and misdemeanor child abuse. At about 11:30 p.m. March 20, 2014, a police officer arrested Hamed after finding him in the back seat of a van with a girl naked from the waist down. The girl told officers she was 14 and said she thought Hamed was 18 or 19. Retired Lancaster County District Judge Paul Merritt Jr. sentenced Hamed on Thursday to 10 to 15 years in prison and gave him credit for 452 days hes already served. Hamed also will have to register as a sex offender. Prison escapee Armon Dixon was captured about three hours after a woman and her mother were assaulted in an apartment building in northeast Lincoln. The daughter, 21, was released after treatment for injuries to her face. Her mother, 61, was still hospitalized as of Monday for head injuries, Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said Monday morning. Charges surrounding the escape and assault are pending. Dixon, who has a history of sexually assaulting women in northeast Lincoln, is believed to be responsible for the Saturday attacks, police said. Bliemeister said police think he got into the 21-year-old's apartment through an unlocked door. When he began assaulting her 61-year-old mother, the chief said, the younger woman intervened. During the struggle, both women tried to reach for cellphones to call 911, but he prevented them from doing so, Bliemeister said. Their efforts to fight him off prevented further injury to them and a quick call by the 21-year-old to 911 after Dixon left the apartment led to his capture, the chief said. With the help of the public, the Nebraska State Patrol, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office, U.S. Marshals Service, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Police, Lincoln Fire and Rescue and the city's Public Works staff, he was found in a storm sewer at 49th and Francis streets and arrested, Bliemeister said. Officers recovered a 21-inch-long wooden stick believed to have been used during the assault. There is no evidence he tried to rape them, police said. Dixon apparently threatened to shoot the women, but police have found no evidence he had a gun. Without the help of public works, Bliemeister said, the search would have been much more difficult. In fact, he said, it may have been impossible. Law enforcement radios worked in the tunnels of the drainage system leading from Dead Man's Run, he said, but there were constraints as the tunnels narrowed. And, he said, there was no lighting in them. Bliemeister wasn't able to say exactly where Dixon was found in the tunnels or how far back he had gotten. At a news conference Monday morning, State Corrections Director Scott Frakes apologized to the women attacked on Saturday and to a woman who was hurt when Dixon and fellow inmate Timothy Clausen crashed a stolen truck into a parked SUV at 18th and F streets Friday morning. "And I apologize to Nebraska," he said. "This should not have happened." Clausen, 52, remains at large. Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said he was last seen about 10 o'clock Sunday night in northeast Omaha. He doesn't believe Clausen had access to a vehicle at that time. On Saturday night, police arrested 50-year-old Wanda Minor in north Omaha on suspicion of helping Clausen get from Lincoln to Omaha. Minor, who is being held at the Douglas County jail, was charged in 2013 with tampering with a witness during Clausens sexual assault trial, according to court documents. She got two years probation. Clausen, 52, is black, 5-foot-8, 160 pounds with brown eyes. From Omaha, he is serving 50 to 55 years for first-degree sexual assault of a child and tampering with a juror, according to the Corrections Department. Police encourage anyone with information to call 911 immediately and to not approach Clausen if they see him. Crime Stoppers is offering a $2,500 award for information leading to his capture. Dixon, 37, is serving 158 to 278 years for charges including first-degree sexual assault, robbery, first-degree assault, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, theft by receiving and possession of a controlled substance. Lincoln Correctional Center Warden Mario Peart has been reassigned pending completion of an investigation into the Friday morning escape of two inmates from the maximum-security prison near Pioneers Park. Warden Fred Britten has moved from the state Diagnostic and Evaluation Center to LCC in the interim. Peart, a longtime state Department of Correctional Services employee, will be in the system's central office for the time being, state Corrections Director Scott Frakes said at a news conference Monday morning. Frakes ticked off a number of procedural errors that he said led to the Friday morning escape and said a critical incident review is underway. To start with, he said, it looks like at least two LCC employees failed to follow procedure. Among the mistakes, he said, is that inmates Armon Dixon and Timothy Clausen were allowed into the laundry area after telling an employee they were assigned there Friday morning, and the employee let them through even though they weren't on a list of approved inmates. "If proper procedures had been followed ... we should have known that there was a problem by 9 or 9:30, and that would have allowed the facility to move into a formal count," said Frakes. LCC did a head count at 5:10 a.m. Monday, according to a timeline provided by Frakes. A former LCC employee said Friday a routine 11 a.m. count was discontinued several months ago. Dixon was arrested Saturday night in northeast Lincoln; Clausen remains at large. The Monday morning news conference at the Capitol also was attended by Gov. Pete Ricketts, Col. Brad Rice of the Nebraska State Patrol, Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer and Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister. The No. 1 priority, Ricketts said, is public safety, and all of the officials cautioned people -- especially those in northeast Omaha -- to continue to be on the lookout for Clausen and not to approach him if they see him. Call 911 immediately, they said. Clausen, 52, is doing time for sexual assaults in Douglas County and is considered dangerous. He was last seen about 10 o'clock Sunday night in Omaha, Schmaderer said, adding that he doesn't think he had access to a vehicle at that time. Wanda Minor, 50, was arrested Saturday night and is in the Douglas County jail on suspicion of helping Clausen get from Lincoln to Omaha. In 2013, she got two years probation for tampering with a witness during Clausens sexual assault trial. Monday morning, Frakes handed out a timeline detailing the escape and its aftermath. * Dixon and Clausen left LCC in a prison laundry truck at 9:12 a.m. Friday and were able to cut a hole in the top of the truck, climbing out when it stopped eight minutes later at U.S. 77 and Warlick Boulevard. * At 9:30, a woman called 911 to say she saw two men wearing khakis and gray shirts running and acting panicked near the intersection; deputies from the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office arrived there a few minutes later. * About the same time, the prison switchboard transferred a call from a woman to a caseworker asking if Dixon had a cellphone and saying she got a call from someone saying he was Dixon; she thought it was a joke. The caseworker made a note that she had seen Dixon earlier in his unit and the yard. * At 10:20 a.m., LCC got a call from Lincoln police about the possibility of an escape. Six minutes later, a patrol trooper and sheriff's deputies began chasing a truck stolen by two men who hadn't yet been identified as escapees. The truck crashed at 18th and F streets about 10 minutes later. * At 11:15 a.m., the patrol notified the Corrections Department about the sightings, and an emergency count began five minutes later. When asked why the Corrections Department wasn't notified about the sightings until nearly two hours after the initial call, patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins said: "The timeframe from 9:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. involved a pursuit and subsequent search for the two suspects involved in the pursuit. During this time, law enforcement (to include LPD and LSO) was not only searching for the suspects involved in the pursuit, but working to identify them by reaching out to various entities including the Department of Corrections." Three hours after Dixon and Clausen rode out of the prison in the laundry truck, staff from the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution called LCC to say the truck had a hole in its top when it reached Tecumseh. Corrections Department spokesman Andrew Nystrom said the trucks are driven by department staff members. They're commercial box trucks that can hold more than 20 laundry carts, he said, declining to provide a photo or describe them further for security reasons. Back to the timeline, Warden Peart confirmed the two were missing from the Lincoln prison at 12:53, and the public was notified at 1:38 p.m. The timeline doesn't say if or when sheriff's deputies called state prison officials about the sighting. Sheriff Terry Wagner said Monday his department is still waiting for a record of what calls were made and when. Wagner said his office has procedures in place for what to do if a prisoner escapes from county custody but not from other facilities. On Monday, officials were focused on capturing Clausen but vowed to figure out how the two sex offenders escaped and what should happen next. Frakes acknowledged that LCC is overcapacity, but said the review so far doesnt conclude that was a factor in the escape. The prison, he said, is at 163 percent of design capacity and 108 percent of what he called operating capacity. He also acknowledged that staff at the prison is forced to work overtime. On Friday, he said, four staff members were held over to work additional eight-hour shifts. In all, he said, 11 staffers were on overtime Friday morning. "We had a breakdown and two people got hurt," Ricketts said at the news conference. "What we do in corrections is very, very important. ... Nobody wants to know about how this happened more than I do. So we will have a complete investigation to find out how this all broke down." Said Frakes: "Last Friday, we failed in our mission to keep the public safe. We will make no excuses for our failures. ... Our focus now is to ensure nothing like this happens again." Timothy Clausen remained at large Sunday, a day after law enforcement arrested a woman in north Omaha for helping him escape from prison. Wanda Minor, 50, was arrested Saturday night on suspicion of aiding and abetting a felon, Nebraska State Patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins said. Clausen and Armon Dixon, inmates serving time on sexual assaults, escaped from the Lincoln Correctional Center, a prison for higher security inmates near Pioneers Park, on Friday, hiding in a laundry truck that left LCC at 9:15 a.m., according to court records. They were spotted at 9:30 Friday morning, when a witness told police she saw two men in what looked like prison inmate uniforms acting suspiciously near U.S. 77 and Warlick Boulevard. Soon after, a pickup was stolen from a nearby church. A pursuit ensued, with the escapees crashing into a parked SUV and running from the scene at 18th and F streets. Dixon was picked up Saturday afternoon, emerging from a manhole cover at the roundabout of 49th and Francis streets following an intensive search. Lincoln police said Clausen has not been sighted since fleeing from the stolen pickup Friday morning. The search continues. "Based on investigative leads law enforcement officers from multiple jurisdictions are currently focusing their search for Clausen in the Omaha area, the State Patrol said in a news release. Clausen, 52, is black, 5-foot-8, 160 pounds with brown eyes. From Omaha, he is serving 50 to 55 years for first-degree sexual assault of a child and tampering with a juror, according to the Corrections Department. Police encourage anyone with information to call 911 immediately. Like Dixon, Clausen is considered dangerous. Dixon was taken into custody without incident, but that followed a report of an assault on two women at an apartment complex on the 5900 block of Norfolk Drive, along Dead Man's Run near Lincoln Lutheran High School. The physical assault on the two women, ages 21 and 61, happened inside the apartment building, Lincoln Police Sgt. Jake Dilsaver said. Dixon was armed with a club-like object, according to an incident report. The younger woman was treated and released at a local hospital. The other remained hospitalized Sunday evening, Dilsaver said. Lincoln police continue to investigate the assault and are providing few details. Dixon, 37, is serving 158 to 278 years for charges including first-degree sexual assault, robbery, first-degree assault, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, theft by receiving and possession of a controlled substance. Trenton Green got his scars when he was 2 years old. Green was in the kitchen while his mother cooked when an accident with hot oil left 23 percent of his body with third-degree burns. Doctors told Greens mother he would spend at least three months in the hospital, but recovery was quick and Green was out of the burn unit at CHI St. Elizabeth in six weeks. It took a huge toll on our family at first, but everyone -- all of our friends and family -- came together, Mary Anderson, Greens mother, said Sunday. Several nurses told me it was what helped Trenton heal so much, so fast. Greens support system is still in place, including an annual trip to the Summer Burn Camp. The week-long camp, coordinated by the burn center and staffed by burn nurses, takes place at Kamp Kaleo in Burwell. The camp is open to all burn survivors, ages 7 to 17, not just those treated at St. Elizabeth. Green, now 16, returns every year. Although the camp is dedicated to kids who have suffered a burn injury, camp director and burn center nurse Eric Jensen said it's no different from any other summer camp for kids. We dont want to treat them differently, and they dont want to be treated differently," Jensen said. "We want to give them the same experience all other summer camp kids have. The week is full of activities -- hiking, tanking, tubing and other lake activities, singing songs around a fire. The burn survivors love being around the campfire, Jensen said. Setting overprotective barriers is one thing the camp counselors try to avoid. Its about having fun, Jensen said. Once they have these injuries, kids sometimes feel like that cant have fun anymore. Or if theyre having fun, theyre worried that theyre being judged or looked at differently. This year the burn camp coincides with a junior high camp, giving the survivors a chance to share their stories with others. Its pretty neat watching that interaction -- the first time someone asks about their scars -- you get to see how they handle it, which is so well, Jensen said. Overcoming embarrassment and enduring the daunting process of skin grafting can be a challenge. The storytelling provides a lesson on how to handle comments and how to instill self-confidence. Around 20 kids are attending the burn camp this week, the most ever. The trip to Burwell on Sunday came with an escort involving Lincoln Fire and Rescue and eight volunteer fire departments along the way. The last time some of the kids were around firemen or fire trucks was most likely a tragic time, said Jessica Scherbarth, a burn center nurse. Scherbarth hoped the escort would turn any old, negative views into new, positive ones. Changing perspectives is easy for Green. Positivity is kind of his thing, according to his mother. And the camp and nurses have contributed in ways she considers absolutely amazing. Eventually he said he wants to return to the camp as a counselor. Tim Wei will return to the faculty of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln next month after his appointment leading the College of Engineering was not renewed by Chancellor Ronnie Green. Wei informed faculty and staff at the College of Engineering of Greens decision in an email obtained by the Journal Star. As you are likely aware, when there is a change in the top levels of an organization, the new leader very often elects to place his/her own people in key leadership positions, Weis email reads. It is therefore right and reasonable for Chancellor Green to choose whomever he wants to lead our college. Wei started work at UNL in 2011 after serving as a department head at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. Before that, he was a professor at Rutgers University. As the engineering dean at UNL, Wei worked to merge the UNL-administered Department of Computer and Electronics Engineering at the Peter Kiewit Institute campus in Omaha and the Department of Electrical Engineering based in Lincoln. The proposal, which was approved by the NU Board of Regents in 2014 after several years of study, was a source of contention among faculty who said the merger violated a promise made by former NU President L. Dennis Smith to create a separate engineering college at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Wei will remain dean through the end of the month. Beginning (July 1), I will do everything I can to advance the College as a tenured full professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, he wrote in the email. I have asked (department chair) Jeff Shield to give me a teaching assignment for the fall, and will now have time to commit to the research activities that I have here-to-fore been unable to provide full focus. In a subsequent email to staff of the engineering college, Green outlined the rationale for his decision, which he said came on the heels of UNL's regular five-year review of college deans. After interviewing faculty, staff, students and other stakeholders and engaging an outside consultant to review the college, Green said he decided "a change in College leadership will best open the way to carry out the expansive vision for the college." The strategic vision for Nebraska Engineering, he said, identifies the need to strengthen the college in "research that matters to Nebraska," its education of students and workforce development. Put more succinctly, Green said UNL needs to work toward truly becoming a "Big Ten college of engineering." Although he praised Wei for working to unify the engineering college at its Lincoln and Omaha campuses, making ambitious faculty hires, improving enrollment and student success rates, Green said he believes new leadership is needed. "It is my opinion that the college needs a strong period of interim dean leadership to further advance on its strategic plan, including further unifying the two campuses, further developing faculty growth in signature research areas, building stronger relationships with (National Strategic Research Institute) and planning for facilities renovation and expansion lying directly ahead," Green said. According to UNL, nearly 3,500 graduate and undergraduate students were enrolled in the engineering college during the 2015-16 school year, making it the fourth largest within the university behind the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education and Human Sciences and the College of Business Administration. Green, who took over as chancellor in April, said UNL is finalizing the appointment of an interim dean from within the college that will be announced later this week. It is among several leadership positions the new chancellor will fill in the upcoming months. In May, Green appointed committees to begin the search for an executive vice chancellor -- formerly the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs -- as well as the vice chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Green appointed Katherine Ankerson the new dean of the College of Architecture earlier this month, which had been without a permanent dean since 2011. Wei did not return messages seeking comment. The final totals from a recount of the Public Service Commission District 5 race have been certified, and Mary Ridder of Callaway prevailed in the May primary over fellow Republican and incumbent Commissioner Jerry Vap of McCook. District 5 encompasses 49 counties across central and western Nebraska. That race was the only recount from the primary. Ridder got 21,925 votes, Vap, 21,879 votes, according to information released Monday by the state Canvassing Board. Of 1,165,308 Nebraskans registered to vote in the primary, 27 percent turned in ballots, according to a news release from Secretary of State John Gale's office. Here's the breakdown by party. Republican: 208,954 Democratic: 84,009 Libertarian: 793 Nonpartisan: 19,712 Total: 313,468 The general election will be Nov. 8. SAN DIEGO -- That sound you just heard was Latinos taking yet another slap in the face. No, not from Donald Trump, but rather from the mainstream media. What do you expect from an industry that is stuck in a black-and-white paradigm, suffers from being based in New York and Washington while more than half of Latinos live in the Southwest, and remains clueless about America's largest minority thanks to a combination of ignorance and arrogance? As you've probably noticed, the media have been obsessed with the story of Trump's racist assault on the character of U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who Trump seems to believe is "Mexican" first and a jurist second. Curiel isn't really Mexican; he was born in Indiana. That was just sloppy shorthand by Trump, the kind that I grew up hearing in Central California when folks would talk about the "Mexican part of town." Or when some of my high school friends assured me that I would not have gotten into Harvard if I "hadn't been Mexican." Or the kind that my parents grew up seeing in the Southwest of the 1960s where signs in restaurants read: "No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed." Using a word like "Mexican" (as opposed to something more accurate like "Mexican-American") is how you talk down to people. And that's how Trump intended to talk about this judge who was putting away drug traffickers as a federal prosecutor, and was so good at his job that he wound up with a bounty on his head and spent a year living under the protection of U.S. federal agents -- all while Trump was judging beauty pageants in Atlantic City. Let's not get this twisted. If anyone deserves to be looked down on here, it isn't Curiel. I might have shrugged this off as a harmless oversight had I not read an op-ed by Felix Sanchez, chairman and co-founder of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts in Washington. "While all the major Sunday talk shows -- ABC's 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos; CBS' 'Face the Nation'; CNN's 'Inside Politics,' 'State of the Union' and 'Reliable Sources'; 'Fox News Sunday'; and NBC's 'Meet the Press' -- all tracked the Trump/Curiel controversy, not one Sunday news show [on June 5] included a Latino journalist or political analyst," wrote Sanchez for the Hill newspaper. "Frankly, I don't know who is more irresponsible -- Trump for the horrendous and unjust damage he has inflicted on the Latino community, or the news media, who have failed to accurately report on these events or provide Latino analysts to interpret them to the nation and the world." I saw this failure with my own eyes on the night of the California primary. As the votes were counted in a state where Latinos make up 39 percent of the population and where whites are a statistical minority, CNN convened what turned into a 45-minute discussion on the case of the "Mexican" judge without a single Mexican, Salvadoran, Colombian, Nicaraguan or other Latino on the panel. Led by anchor Anderson Cooper, the segment featured CNN contributors Jeffrey Lord, S.E. Cupp, Van Jones, Paul Begala and David Axelrod along with CNN host Michael Smerconish, CNN political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson and CNN senior reporter Gloria Borger. That's nine people -- two African-Americans, and seven white people. But not one Latino. That's inexcusable. By not reflecting reality, the media compounded the harm that Trump has done, and perhaps -- ironically -- for much the same reason. So what if the New York liberals who run the networks think they're more enlightened than Trump. Both parties seem to be drawing conclusions about which perspectives are valuable and which aren't. And in both cases, the views of Latinos are tossed into the "aren't" file. Trump obviously believes that Latinos -- excuse me, I mean "Mexicans" -- are too culturally biased to offer objective analysis and reach fair conclusions. Do the television networks believe the same thing? Five years ago this month the epic Missouri River flood of 2011 was well underway. Thousands of people already had been evacuated. Many would not return home for weeks. Interstate 29 was under water, snarling traffic in several states. Its important to keep those memories fresh. Scientists say that extreme weather events like floods, drought and heat waves will become more frequent as global warming pumps more energy into the atmosphere. It shouldnt be too difficult to remember. The 2011 flood was a record-breaker in many ways. Consider these factoids. * The amount of water that gushed through the Missouri River system was enough to cover the entire state of Nebraska, plus a few counties in Iowa, with more than a foot of water. * The amount of runoff in the system was the most ever recorded, more than 20 percent greater than any previously experienced in 114 years of record-keeping. * The floods caused more than $1 billion in damage, breaking up highways and bridges, destroying 294 homes and damaging another 890. More than 300,000 acres of crops were damaged. Because the flood was a slow-moving disaster, only one life was lost. Across the Midwest floods are becoming more frequent. There have been three major flood events on the Mississippi in the past eight years. Hydrologist Bob Criss of Washington University told The Guardian that Hannibal, Missouri, birthplace of Mark Twain, has experienced a flood classified as a 10-year event to 50-year event in five of the six years between 2009 and 2014. Our flood frequencies are way off. Its absurd, a tragedy, Criss said. Every time the authorities blame unusual rain events. Its balderdash. We are just in denial. After the 2011 Missouri River flood, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that it could not be linked directly to climate change. Another NOAA study looking at the impact of climate change on runoff in the Missouri River basin is due at the end of the year. One of the simplest and most effective ways to prepare for floods is for authorities to prohibit development in the flood plain. Generally local officials have blocked rebuilding in flooded areas along the Missouri, although in some case they had to fend off lawsuits to prevent it. Lastly, consider this. The Missouri River was at or above flood stage at Omaha from May 31 to Sept. 10. At this point five years ago the flood misery was just beginning. Let history be a guide to future decisions on how humans can coexist with the river. A worker works at a state-owned textile enterprise in Huai'an city, East China's Jiangsu province, Oct 10, 2015. [Photo/IC] Conventional manufacturing models are becoming obsolete as the potential of new materials and high-tech products are realized, Chinese and New Zealand entrepreneurs told an international gathering in Auckland last month. Iain Hosie, technical director of Auckland-based nanofiber developer and manufacturer Revolution Fibres, said the biggest hurdle facing the field of new materials was educating industry as to its possible applications. Much of the company's business involved customization of nanofibers using one-off non-recurring engineering for niche markets that large manufacturers lacked the flexibility to adapt to. Manufacturers were increasingly looking for specialists and increased performance, but were unwilling to take on the costs of development of new materials, said Hosie. "What we're seeing is the big old model of the General Electrics and 3Ms, who have huge R&D teams trying to be all things to all men, those days are gone," he said. "While advanced materials technologies continue to advance at rapid pace, the mechanisms of how they will get into market, how they'll be used by industry and at what price are not being addressed in that type of research, so there's so fundamental gaps sitting here," he said. Derrick Xiong, founder of Guangzhou-based drone maker Ehang, said the drone industry, which was dominated by Chinese companies, was redefining the definition of "made in China." China had the lucky coincidence of timing, location and people, which enabled the industry to take off. Chinese government policies to encourage entrepreneurship and the inflow of investment funds had nurtured a spate of innovation startups, said Xiong. "It's no longer the best option for the fresh graduate in China to go to work in a big corporation, like the Fortune 500. It's a great opportunity for them to go an alternative way and work in a startup or to start their own company," he said. While China's manufacturing had flourished on low-grade production in the last two decades, this had helped preserve large manufacturing bases around the country, particularly in southern China's Guangdong province. "This has brought a great competitive advantage for a company like Ehang. We're making smart drones. That means we're combining both the software and the hardware, so we need hardware, we need manufacturing facilities," he said. The advantage allowed his company to develop a prototype in a third of the time it took companies outside China. China's burgeoning mobile internet market had also created a huge demand for and supply of software engineers, so it was easy for Ehang to find software engineers around its manufacturing base. "We believe that there should be a new definition of 'made in China.' It shouldn't be just about hard work; it shouldn't be just about cheap labor," said Xiong. "It's also about high quality, it's about innovation, it's about creating new things out of what has existed, it's also about how we transform the way we live in the world." A new undercover investigation of a large Nebraska industrial pig farm by the Animal Legal Defense Fund revealed what many Nebraska farmers and ranchers already know; animals on factory farms suffer terribly ("Investigation promised into pig abuse allegations," May 26). Video of the investigation revealed shocking and unacceptable acts of animal abuse and large-scale neglect. How has Big Ag responded to concern about the abuse of animals on factory farms? By working to protect industrial animal agriculture from public scrutiny or oversight. We saw last year that animals at the Meat Animal Research Center in Clay Center suffered horribly ("Meat center says animal care addressed," June 16, 2015), including baby lambs starved to death in the name of science. During the last legislative session, Sen. John Kuehn introduced so-called Right to Farm legislation that was designed specifically to protect the MARC from further scrutiny and shield the very kind of cruelty disclosed by the ALDF investigation ("Right-to-farm resolution debate alive," March 24). Evidence of inhumane industrial factory farming practices is growing. Its time to eliminate the extreme confinement systems that create systemic cruelty, as well as inexcusable abuse and neglect of animals. The Humane Society of the United States and members of its Nebraska State Agriculture Advisory Council are working to promote farming methods that place a premium on the welfare of the animals raised for food and that uphold Nebraskas traditional values. We hope that state and local law enforcement authorities will conduct a full and thorough investigation and that those responsible will be held accountable. We also hope that our states leaders are watching, and, rather than pouncing to protect animal cruelty on factory farms, will instead call for a return to traditional farming methods that provide animals with a better life. Kevin Fulton, chairperson of Nebraska Agriculture Advisory Council of the Humane Society of the United States, Litchfield I am concerned about the individuals I serve with physical and mental disabilities. The public is influenced by the actions of people with status. When they are exposed to the disrespectful treatment of our physically and mentally disabled, they are deceived into thinking that it is an accepted practice in society. We have a presidential candidate who degrades and disrespects the most vulnerable among us. If you feel this behavior is wrong, you can't support Donald Trump. If you endorse him, you also endorse this revolting behavior. Christians don't act this way; they are repelled by it. Christians must unite to end this abomination. Britton Mikkelsen, originally from Lincoln and current student at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota, was honored June 12 in Bloomington, Minn., during the DFL Womens Hall of Fame Luncheon. Mikkelsen, 20, received a Rising Star Award from the Womens Summit Committee, a group who has organized this event for the past 17 years. Mikkelsen was raised in Lincoln, where she accompanied her father, Brian Mikkelsen, to local Democratic fundraisers and doorknocks. She moved to Minnesota to study education at St. Cloud State University and got involved with the SCSU College Democrats and eventually the local Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. Britton worked as lead organizer on the SCSU campus for Minnesota State House campaigns in districts 14A and 14B during the 2014 election cycle. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy On Monday morning, Madison Mayor Paul Soglin addressed the recent shooting in Orlando, pointing blame at the National Rifle Association. We ask if the weapons were obtained legally or illegally. We ask if it was an act of terrorism or of hatred, or of both. These distinctions do not matter, Soglin said, emphasizing that victims were dead due to the obscene firepower available in this country sponsored by the National Rifle Association. In the early hours of Sunday morning, a gay nightclub was the scene of the nations largest mass shooting. The gunman, identified as Omar Marteen, killed 49 people and hospitalized 53. Marteen claimed allegiance to the Islamic State. Soglin listed a range of reasonable steps to take in response that would preserve the Second Amendment, including implementing background checks, waiting periods and weapons registration, saying these limitations had been proven to be effective in saving lives. He also encouraged Madison citizens to voice their concerns about gun availability to their lawmakers. Soglin said Madison has plans in place to respond to similar tragedies. Some 3,000 city employees are prepared to respond to emergencies like a mass shooting, with plans that coordinate local, regional and federal agencies, Soglin said. He added that these plans do not guarantee safety. With the availability of so much firepower in the hands of individuals, it is virtually impossible to create a 100 percent safe community, Soglin said. On Sunday, Madison Police Chief Mike Koval also emphasized that Madison is vulnerable to mass shootings. The worst thing that we can do is sort of rationalize, discount, or minimize that such a tragic occurrence could never occur in a place like Madison, like somehow we could be immune from that, Koval told the Wisconsin State Journal. In response to the claim that concealed firearms can help protect individuals, Soglin was incredulous, calling the belief absolutely insane and convoluted, and stated that greater availability of firearms has been shown to lead to increased fatalities of innocent people. Yesterday, Soglin blamed the NRA for perpetrating the belief that firearms lead to increased safety. A vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting took place in Madison on State Street Sunday night. The candlelight vigil was organized by local LGBT activist Callen Harty, with dozens in attendance. It included a moment of silence and continued as attendees shared their thoughts, grief and hope. Soglin stated that he had expressed the sympathies of the Madison community to the mayor of Orlando. 4th Nepal-Intl Film Festival concludes, various films awarded The Fourth Nepal-International Film Festival concluded here in Lalitpur on Monday. The three-day programme presided over by National Human Rights Commission Spokesperson Mohana Ansari awarded films in various categories. After the party Bhattarais new party Naya Shakti Nepal is an intriguing experiment Arson attack on Ncell tower in Chitwan An unidentified group has set ablaze the Ncell tower in Chitwan on Sunday night. Transport workers vandalise passenger bus, 3 hurt Three persons including a traffic police were hurt when a group of transport workers vandalised a passenger bus of Rukum Yatayat Private Limited at Srinagar in Salyan this morning. Canada provides CAD $ 250,000 to assist Bhutanese refugees in Nepal Canadas Deputy Ambassador to Nepal, Jess Dutton, on Monday announced a contribution of CAD $ 250,000 by the Government of Canada to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nepal to improve access to essential services for the Bhutanese refugees. Code of conduct on anvil to prevent exploitation The government is planning to introduce a code of conduct to avoid exploitation of children in the tourism sector, Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Ananda Prasad Pokharel has said. Conflict of interest Legislators have successfully twisted the Bafia amendment bill to benefit themselves Flood-engulfed Beni incurs loss of Rs 15million The flood that engulfed Beni Bazar on Saturday has incurred financial loss of around Rs 15 million. More than 100 shops are gushed into murky water due to the torrential rain-triggered flood, according to the District Police Office, Beni. Government commitments to tourism safety The government has expressed its commitments to developing tourism sector that remains as the major basis for nation's economy. Govt starts cracking down on Chand-led Maoist cadres In the wake of intensified attacks by Netra Bikram Chand-led CPN Maoist on base stations of telecommunication company Ncell, the government has started taking steps to crack down on violent activities of the party cadres. Indian national found dead A body of an elderly Indian national was found at a bamboo grove in Belauri Municipality 5 of Kanchanpur. Know your core competencies Understanding what you are good at and focusing on the same is absolutely critical LP gas black-marketer nabbed A LP gas retailer was arrested here on Sunday for selling cooking gas in an exorbitant price. More than 80,000 below poverty line in Jajarkot More than 13,000 households are found to be below poverty line in Jajarkot. A survey carried out among 27,407 families showed 13,995 families to be poverty-stricken. Nepal condemns mass shooting in Orlando Night Club The Government of Nepal has condemned the mass shooting incident in a night club in Orlando, Florida on Sunday. Nepal eager to welcome Chinese president: Pun Vice President Nanda Bahadur Pun, who is on a weeklong official visit to China, on Sunday said Nepal and Nepalis are eager to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to Kathmandu. Nepal is Apacs fourth malware-prone nation Nepal is the fourth most malware infection prone country in Asia Pacific region, according to a recent index compiled by Microsoft. Pakistan tops the list followed by Indonesia and Bangladesh. Nepse scales new high; near 1,600 Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) on Sunday scaled its new all-time high, with the benchmark index nearing 1,600 points. The market also posted record daily transaction of Rs1.96 billion. New force here to face challenges Led by a former ideologue of the Maoist party that waged the decade-long insurgency, leaders and activists of the Naya Shakti Nepal formalised their nascent political movement into a party on Sunday amid an oath administered en masse by Baburam Bhattarai at Dashrath Stadium. NGOs vehicle, equipment torched Four self-proclaimed cadres of the Netra Bikram Chand-led CPN Maoist torched a vehicle and office infrastructure of the NGO, World Vision International, at Bidur Municipality in Nuwakot on Saturday night. No talks until PM makes up his mind: Rai Senior leader Ashok Rai of Sanghiya Samajwadi Forum Nepal, a constituent of agitating Sanghiya Gathabandhan, has said that the agitating sides will not join the talks table until Prime Minister KP Oli makes up his mind for an effective dialogue. Obama calls Orlando nightclub shooting an attack on all Americans President Barack Obama on Sunday described the worst mass shooting in U.S. history as "an act of terror" and "an act of hate," saying the massacre of 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida was an attack on all Americans. Orlando shootings: Details of gun battle emerge The authorities in the US city of Orlando have been giving more details of the gun attack on a gay club in which 49 people were killed. Police, ganja smugglers exchange fire in Parsa Police personnel and marijuana smugglers have exchanged fire at Shankarsaraiya VDC in Parsa district on Sunday night. Traders optimistic about boosting exports to China Participants representing Nepal in the China-South Asia Exposition and the China Kunming Import and Export Commodities Fair have expressed optimism about the possibility of increasing exports of Nepali products to China. Upper Karnali Hydro Project: Stakeholders sharply divided Local stakeholders of the Upper Karnali Hydropower Project are sharply divided over the projects development by Indias GMR-ITD consortium. Yes, its hard to to tell when one enters the city limits Yes, they will make the city more inviting Maybe ... does it really matter? No, the signs in place are fine No, it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars Vote View Results A top Myanmarese agriculture policymaker will visit South Korea later this month to possibly discuss Seoul's quarantine regulations often cited as a hurdle for its exports of mangoes and other fruits, officials here said. Aung Thu, Myanmar's farming, livestock and irrigation minister, is scheduled to visit South Korea from June 27-July 2. This will mark the first time for the minister to travel overseas since his inauguration earlier this year, they said. His itinerary includes attending a forum held in the southeastern city of Daegu, making a trip to the Saemangeum reclamation site located in the southwestern part of the country. He also plans to meet South Korea's Agriculture Minister Lee Dong-phil. "One of the major issues to be discussed with South Korea's farming minister will be quarantine regulations," a high-ranking Myanmarese official told a group of reporters here on Wednesday. He said that South Korea's quarantine regulations imposed on fresh products, including fruits and vegetables, are "much stricter" than other countries, which he argued has put a restriction on exports of Myanmar's famous mangoes to Korea. Myanmar is reportedly exporting most of its mangoes to China and trying to diversify export countries. Experts say that Myanmar currently does not have the proper facilities and procedures in place to satisfy Seoul's quarantine rules. More than 70 percent of Myanmar's people work in the farming sector, which accounts for about 30 percent of its gross domestic product and 23 percent of its exports. In a meeting with reporters on Wednesday, Aung Thu said that the government will double the portion of farming in its economy by 2020, saying that Myanmar is a country with a foundation in agriculture. "To increase our GDP and exports, farming is important," the minister said. "Many things should start with farming policy." (Yonhap) Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Showers early, then partly cloudy for the afternoon. High 58F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 32F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. ALBION Two Central Noble students will be competing for top honors at the statewide FFA conference at Purdue University beginning this week. Tyler Meroney and Sarah Akey will take part in the Stars Over Indiana Program during the Hoosier Degree Session of the state convention, which starts today at Purdues West Lafayette campus. The Indiana FFA awards four State Star awards to members for projects in categories, including agribusiness, agriscience, ag placement and farming. Both students won awards for their projects at the district and section level in order to qualify for the top prize at the state convention. Meroney won the Section 1 Star Farmer award, while Akey was named the Section 1 Star in Agribusiness. Both students have worked very hard to develop a program that fits their personal career goals and interests. Their determination and dedication to their SAE programs has allowed them to reach this top honor, Central Noble ag teacher and FFA adviser Jamie Earnhart said. Students submit applications about their projects with information including expenditures, receipts, inventory and skills learned during their programs, as well as FFA leadership and community-service experience. Both students had to interview and conduct site visits with a panel of judges during the section-level competition. Meroneys program is based on his purebred cow/calf herd, working on his familys grain operation, as well as milking cows for a local dairy producer. Tyler has worked very hard to develop his own herd of cattle to sell to local customers for custom butchering, Earnhart said. Akeys program consists of three pieces, all centering around selling products at the local farmers market. Sarah has developed a program including vegetable production, poultry production and recently started her own goat milk soap business, Goat Girl Soaps, Earnhart said. The Indiana FFA convention begins today and runs through Thursday. The State Star award winners will be announced during a program at 7 p.m. Wednesday. A man was arrested Sunday night in Trempealeau County without incident, after an hours-long standoff. The Trempealeau County Sheriffs Department was notified at 7:30 p.m. that a man with a felony warrant, Brandon L. Hanson, 35, was at a residence on Osseo Road in the city of Independence. The Independence Police Department, assisted by the Sheriffs Department, approached the residence. As they did so, Hanson ran into the house. The homeowner stated that Hanson had a gun and was threatening to use it against law enforcement. Officers set up a perimeter and evacuated nearby homes. The Sheriffs Department Emergency Response Team assisted, as well as the La Crosse County Sheriffs Department and its Bearcat armored vehicle. After several hours of unsuccessful attempts of talking the suspect out of the house, the Emergency Response Team deployed chemical agents into the residence. After that was also unsuccessful, the team made entry into the residence. Hanson was located in a crawlspace and did not comply with commands. More chemical agents were deployed into the crawlspace and Hanson eventually surrendered. He was then taken into custody without incident or injury. Hanson was booked into the Trempealeau County Jail on a charge of criminal trespassing, resisting/obstruction and a felony probation warrant. The Independence Police Department was assisted by the Arcadia Police Department, Whitehall Police Department, Wisconsin State Patrol, Tri-County Ambulance, Independence First Responders and the Independence Fire Department. A Viola motorcyclist was injured Sunday night when he crashed into the back of an Amish buggy in rural Monroe County. According to the Monroe County Sheriffs office, 22-year-old Jerrand White was southbound on Hwy. 131 just before 10:30 p.m. when his 1996 Honda hit the buggy northeast of Wilton. White was thrown from the bike, which came to rest inside the buggy, ejecting driver William Borntreger, 22, and passenger Susie Borntreger, 21, both of Wilton. White, who was wearing a helmet, was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and later transferred to Gundersen Medical Center in La Crosse, where he was listed in fair condition Monday. The buggy passengers received minor injuries but declined treatment. The buggy was equipped with rear lights and a slow-moving-vehicle warning. The sheriffs department is investigating. Shawn C.S. Viner was eastbound on Battle Hollow Road, east of Hwy. 35, at about 2 a.m. when his pickup traveled off the left side of the roadway, down a steep embankment, overturned and struck a fence, according to the Vernon County Sheriffs Department. The vehicle came to rest on its left side in a pasture. KENOSHA, Wis. Paul Nehlen walks from house to house in the small village of Pleasant Prairie outside of Kenosha, wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots and a "US" belt buckle, introducing himself as the Republican running against Paul Ryan. That would be House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican in the country, 18-year incumbent and household name in these parts. Everyone knows Ryan he grew up in nearby Janesville, where he still lives, was elected to Congress in 1998, was the 2012 vice presidential nominee, and became speaker in October. But who is Paul Nehlen? Ask Nehlen and he'll say he's David to Ryan's Goliath. "They didn't think David could win," Nehlen says with a grin inside his Kenosha campaign office, "and we all know what happened with that story." Nehlen hopes for an improbable underdog victory by tapping the same voter unrest fueling Donald Trump's rise. In his first political campaign, he's running to the right of Ryan, but he faces huge obstacles in the Aug. 9 primary. Ryan has a massive financial advantage, high approval ratings, and a lifetime in the district where Nehlen has lived just eight years. He's also got history on his side no House speaker in modern political history has lost a primary. Perhaps that explains why Ryan doesn't show much alarm about Nehlen. "I'm really not that concerned about this simply from the fact I think the people here in the 1st District know who I am, what I do, and how and why I fight for them," Ryan said in an interview from his hometown Janesville office. "I don't really stress this stuff too much. I've had primary opponents before." And none of them have posed a real threat. Ryan crushed protest candidate Jeremy Ryan in the Republican primary in 2014 with 94 percent of the vote. The only other time he had a primary challenger was in his first race in 1998 when he won with 81 percent of the vote. Ryan's general election wins in Wisconsin nine of them the past 18 years have averaged 27 points. His favorable rating in the most recent Marquette University Law School poll in March was 81 percent. Curtis Durkee, 67, a retired metal worker and self-described independent in the district, sees Ryan as formidable but beatable. He signed Nehlen's nomination papers but hasn't yet decided who he will support. "A lot of people have a chance this year only because there seems to be a trend throughout the United States they are unhappy with the way things are working in Washington," Durkee said. An Ohio native, Nehlen moved to Wisconsin for work in 2008. He lives in Delavan and works as senior vice president of operations at Neptune Benson, an international manufacturer of water-filtration products. He owns his own consulting firm, Blue Skies Global, and hits Ryan for spending nearly all his adult life in government. "I've been in business going on 30 years. Paul Ryan's driven the Weinermobile," Nehlen said in a jab at Ryan's college job driving Oscar Mayer's hot-dog vehicle often seen around Madison. "That's his depth of business knowledge. ... Who is going to take business advice from Paul Ryan? Who? Nobody, nobody." Nehlen volunteered for Ryan's campaign just two years ago, but now argues that Ryan let down the district by not stopping the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal, which Nehlen argues will ship jobs overseas and hurt U.S. sovereignty, or doing enough to grow jobs in the district and securing the border. Nehlen's Kenosha office is decorated with copies of the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and "Don't Tread on Me" poster, a sign popular among tea party conservatives. His campaign got some attention in May when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin vowed on national television to help in any way she can. She has yet to follow through. Nehlen hasn't yet reported contributions and won't say how much he's raised, or how much of his own money he's spending. Ryan has $7.6 million in the bank. Nehlen cut an online ad where he rides his 2014 Harley-Davidson Street Glide, showing off his bare, tattooed arms. He blasts Ryan for supporting free trade deals that Nehlen says are job killers, and then jokes that if he won't debate him on the issue maybe he'll arm-wrestle instead. When it comes to debating Nehlen, Ryan said he thinks "we'll work something out." And he also defends his support of free trade, saying "We need trade for good jobs in Wisconsin." Nehlen said his campaign is fueled by a sense of betrayal after he once supported Ryan. "He looked me in the eye and made promises to me about policies he would and wouldn't support back in Congress," Nehlen said. "And we have watched as he's broken every one of those promises. ... He gave me a sucker punch. I think he's got one coming." State Sen. Jennifer Shilling gave an impassioned plea Monday to end deadly violence in the wake of the Orlando shootings. As she absorbed the news Sunday, she said: My heart was heavy heavy because of Orlando. She understands the impact of violence. Her parents, Richard and Lynn Ehlenfeldt, and five of their employees were shot to death during a robbery in their suburban Chicago restaurant on Jan. 8, 1993. Shilling, D-La Crosse, looked around the room at the 50 or so people attending The Forum hosted by the La Crosse Area Chamber of Commerce Monday, she said: Today, 50 people will never go back to work. Fifty-three others are in the hospital. She said the usual fare of discussing legislative issues seemed trivial in the wake of such a violent act. What is going to be the point of action? she asked. What will it take? She said there wasnt meaningful reform after U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot at a Tucson, Ariz., shopping center on Jan. 8, 2011 a shooting that killed six and wounded several others, including Giffords, who was critically wounded. From there, Shilling went down the list the shootings at the school in Sandy Hook, Conn., the church in Charleston, S.C., on campuses, in workplaces in San Bernardino, Calif., and on a military base in Texas. That has not moved us to take action against gun violence, she said. This is an act of hate, an act of terror, she said. I dont know how to explain this to my two kids, who have to participate in lockdown training at their schools. More love, less hate, she told the Chamber group. ONALASKA From 1861 to 1865, America was at war with itself a bloody, horrendous series of battles that notched more American casualties than those from the Korean War, the two World Wars, the Spanish American War, the Mexican War, the war of 1812, and the American Revolution combined. While perhaps the grimmest period in the countrys history, the estimated 750,000 who died altered the course of history for generations to come. Piecing together those four years can serve as a portal to defining America as she stands 150 years later. Barb Rouse is up to the challenge. For the past two months, Rouse, a self-declared Civil War buff, has gotten quite familiar with Onalaskas Main Street cemetery. Whenever the weather permitted, she was out in the rows of headstones, searching for civil war veterans shes already found 42 and digging up stories for each veteran. To Rouse, everybody has a story, and its the constant discovery that keeps her going back, day after day, to assemble information. After just two months, she has already filled a manila folder with hundreds of obituaries, photos, discharge notes, census information and other historical artifacts shes copied and printed off. All of the resources she gathers will be donated to the Onalaska Historical Museum when she finishes her research, with the hopes of bettering Civil War education in local schools. This is a huge thing that can have future impact to build on, she said. This is Onalaskas history. Sometimes the research process is easy, other times, not so much. She said there are even some names that take her weeks to research. Ive been hitting this pretty intense, she said. Sometimes Im down at the library for hours. Her process is fairly simple, and shes done the lions share of it without the internet. Onalaskas cemetery marks veterans with a bronze pin-plaque with the words American Legion on the front, which is stuck into the ground next to the headstone. She goes out to the cemetery in search of these veteran markers. When she sees one, she writes down all of the information given on that specific headstone: name, date of birth, and even sometimes what regiment that person fought in. She takes that information with her to the library and scours years of obituaries, which she says uncovers a surprising amount of valuable historical information. Then she cross-references that information with other obituaries and artifacts at the historical society museum, and is able to slowly piece together individual stories that make up Onalaskas history. Its the chase of finding every clue and every little piece that builds the whole story, she said. To Rouse, the individual narratives provide deeper insight than a simple memorization of dates and facts in school. For instance, she pulled from her manila folder a veterans case file. The man first made local papers for badly burning himself on a stove in one of his characteristic spells. The next piece of information she was able to find on him was his obituary, which revealed the man later died from seizures that were brought on by his service in the Army, a tragic, as she put it, example of what would later be diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder. When you get into this depth, its endless, she said. Rouse lives on French Island. She went to a one-room, countryside school in Mohawk Valley as a young girl, was part of the second to last graduating class at the old La Crosse Central High School at the site of Weigent Park and then married into the connection to the Civil War. A great-grandfather of her husband fought for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the siege of Vicksburg, Miss., (1,600 casualties), then travelled with Gen. William T. Sherman on the famous 285-mile March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah, surviving both. And thats just on one side of her husbands family a great-grandfather on his mothers side fought in the battle of Antietam, often considered the single bloodiest day in American military history with more than 3,600 dead and 17,000 wounded. Mid-sentence, she stopped on a gravel path in the cemetery and gazed out to Main Street, pointing at the cars and motorcycles screaming past. Visualize it. Were talking when this street here was just a dirt wagon track, she said. It would have been very peaceful little board-fronted businesses here on Main Street and a little dirt road going through. This is a beautiful city. Thats why these men came back here. They were from Holland, Germany, England, Wales, she continued. They settled in Pennsylvania; they settled in New York. And yet they came here to continue their life, and this is where it ended. Although an upcoming foot surgery will force her to put the project on the back burner, its far from over. As she said, its a lifelong experience of learning what sparked her interest, and may be able to spark the interest of generations to come. The day Im forced to offer trigger warnings before teaching is the day I stop teaching. To insist that I, or any other teacher, warn students that the material in a class might upset them defeats the purpose of education. Colleges and universities must remain institutions that inflame curiosity and, by their very existence, disturb those who enter their gates. But if trigger warnings become a perfunctory, sanctioned and unopposed knee-jerk reaction however well-meaning to precisely the kind of discomfort, dissatisfaction, disruption and disturbance of the peace that is the mission of authentic education, then Ill call it quits. If that day arrives, Ill be done with classrooms and will hold lessons in my house, or in the woods or on the city streets. Education is not designed to reassure; its job is not to soothe but to disturb otherwise intellect and emotion both remain inert and unmoved. If you protect the unexplored intellectual and psychological landscapes within yourself, you end up with a wilderness. In his poem Andrea del Sarto, Victorian poet Robert Browning wrote, Ah, but a mans reach should exceed his grasp, or else whats a heaven for? But instead, are we encouraging todays students to insist that everything be modified in order to be in reach? If somebody cant get it, it should be taken off the shelves? Put it this way: If youre afraid of cats and youre assigned Winnie-the-Pooh, do you need a Tigger warning? I believe its a sign not of fragility but of immaturity to stick your fingers in your ears and say Nyah nyah nyah if youre hearing something you dont like. If you spend your life putting your fingers across your eyes and looking between them because you worry about something disturbing, youre going to miss most of whats going on. Like shutting the window to the sound of distant thunder or shutting your eyes to the sight of a beggar on the street, trigger warnings encourage you to interrupt or suppress responses before you encounter any representation, action, idea or emotion you suspect might make you uncomfortable. By doing so, trigger warnings inhibit a reaction to the essential ingredient of any great work of art or any moment of human connection, for that matter that might arouse pity, empathy, sympathy or connection. The New Yorkers May 30 article, The Big Uneasy, quoted a student from Oberlin who wanted Antigone to come with a trigger warning because, he argued, trigger warnings are like ingredient lists on food. The Oberlin student went on to explain, People should have the right to know and consent to what they are putting into their minds, just as they have the right to know and consent what they are putting into their bodies. Greek drama is not Greek yogurt; college professors are not food tasters. Such a comparison reduces university students to the ultimate consumers. Trigger warnings are the intellectual equivalent of refusing vaccinations: They are misguidedly seen as a way of protecting the young. As my colleague Kristina Dolce argues, the anti-vaccine crowd and the trigger-warning crowd both employ fear of exposure rhetoric, believing that exposure leads to contamination. But as Dolce argues, Vaccines, like great works of art, make one more resilient, not less. Heres a personal example: My mother died of a miserable illness when I was a kid. Had I spent my life avoiding dying female protagonists, Id have stayed away from the Bible, Bambi and all the Brontes. In trying to protect myself, I would have missed out on what I would now call my life. You can cry out about what you dont know, but you cant argue against it. Only those who understand something and have experience with it can wrestle with it, grapple with it, and if appropriate, undermine the authority of it. Trigger warnings are a version of a kind of intellectual eugenics. Theres something sterile, unproductive, and grossly contorted about the process. Their fiercest advocates are poorly equipped not only because they are dealing with their own intolerance but also because what theyre learning to cherish is ignorance. You cant lead if you dont know whats in front of you or whats behind you. You cant lead if youre afraid to look around. Ive read Joe Bidens letter to the Stanford rape survivor a dozen times, trying to put my finger on why it feels like a turning point. Its beautifully written. (We will make lighthouses of ourselves, as you did and shine.) Its unequivocal. (What you endured is never, never, never, NEVER a womans fault.) Its even optimistic. (Your story has already changed lives. You have helped change the culture.) Its all those things, but its more. Its a powerful man with no new office to gain and no new voters to win talking about rape from the second-highest office in the land. Not just talking about rape. Talking to a woman who was raped. Talking to all women whove been raped. Talking to them because their stories and their humanity matter. It feels like a turning point because weve spent the last week watching as the Stanford rapists smile and swim stats shape him into a fully formed, multi-dimensional 20-year-old, even as his victim remains nameless and known for just one thing the awful crime she endured. It feels like a turning point because at this time last year, we were mired in a debate over #YesAllWomen, an attempt by women to share their stories of violence and harassment in response to the Santa Barbara shootings. The stories were shouted down, virtually, by #NotAllMen, a hashtag that missed the point altogether. In one of the best discussions I read about #NotAllMen, Slate writer Phil Plait had this to say: When people are defensive, they arent listening to the other person; theyre busy thinking of ways to defend themselves. Instead of being defensive and distracting from the topic at hand, try staying quiet for a while and actually listening to what the thousands upon thousands of women discussing this are saying. Bidens words are the result of staying quiet for a while and listening. In 2014, I interviewed Anne Ream about her newly released book, Lived Through This: Listening to the Stories of Sexual Violence Survivors, in which she bears witness to 18 stories of rape. For every person testifying in this book, theres nothing to be gained but a sense that theyve been heard, Ream told me at the time. Theres no way to understand this as anything other than people standing up, one by one, and saying, I need you to understand this because whats happening to me is happening to other people. Ream is also a survivor. She was kidnapped and raped when she was 25 and living in Washington, D.C. Being truly heard will change your life, she writes in her book. Which means that someone has to do the listening. Its a hard thing to listen truly listen to another person, she continues. It often means getting so close to their suffering that it breaks our own hearts. But inside our open, broken hearts thats where compassion lives. It feels like a turning point to witness that compassion from a vice president. I hope we use the moment to move in a better, more humane direction. It was inevitable that we would one day seek ways to kill ourselves with societys blessing. California recently joined four other states Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana that allow terminally ill patients to commit suicide using doctor-prescribed drugs. Criteria under the California law include that the patient has a terminal disease, would likely die within six months, and is of sound mind and can self-administer the medicine. Thanks to medical advances that can extend life beyond what some find acceptable, resulting in unnecessary suffering, many think its their right to die with dignity using medications legally prescribed. Its an easy-enough argument to understand. Theres a certain logic and humanity to the option of leaving life gracefully by ones own volition, as long as it really is. Here, I should confess my own ambivalence. Basically, Id like to have the means to end my own life on my own terms when my body has clearly called it quits. Im just not sure I like the idea of the state and doctors lending a hand. At least two problems seem obvious: Death dates cant be predicted with precision and are, therefore, speculative. How often have you heard that someone has three months to live and he or she is still around two years later? And medicine by definition means: (1) a substance to ease pain or other symptoms, and (2) a science to prevent, treat or cure diseases. One could argue that suicide medicine would relieve the pain of living through the final stages of cancer, as an example. But this clearly isnt what Merriam-Webster or the Hippocratic oath intended. The purpose of medicine is to prevent illness and to heal, not to end life when healing isnt possible. Still, what are we to do when medicine can do no more? Or when treatment means prolonging suffering toward inevitable death? We are kinder to our pets, many would argue. Perhaps I read too many dystopian science-fiction novels during my formative years, but theres something disturbing about asking doctors to help their patients die. Then again, weve already asked them to destroy unborn human life, codifying the legal right to terminate a pregnancy. When the continuum of life from conception to natural death is interrupted as a convenience to ones individual concept of time (Im not ready to be a parent; Im ready to die), what else do we also terminate? Gradually inured to the metaphysical considerations of such actions, might we also be denying ourselves access to charity, compassion, empathy and love? Unknowable in our calculations is what happens in the final moments of life. If Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, wasted away with terminal cancer, had decided to leave the party early, we might not have learned from his sister, Mona Simpson, that his final words were, after staring for a long time at each of his family members: Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow. I dont know what Jobs saw, but I think Id like to see it, too. Troubling, too, is the possibility that some patients might feel obligated to commit suicide once the option is available, even though prescribing doctors are encouraged to tell patients they dont have to take the medicine. Many reportedly dont take the pills. But a sick person might want to protect family members and think, oh, well, whats another six months? A lifetime, I should think. Cant life be made tolerable enough during this time to avoid making doctors and family members complicit in suicide? Other questions seize the mind: Will the right to die ultimately be considered as just another facet of health care, as abortion has come to be? And when do six months become a year? A novelist would propose that its just a matter of time before a glut of elderly people in poor health, who are by definition terminal, so overwhelm the health care system that opting out becomes an expectation rather than a choice. This would be satire, right? And satire does not a slippery slope make, but laws do condition values. Oregon, which passed its right-to-die law in 1998, has the highest suicide rate in the country 35 percent higher than the national average, according to an Oregon Health Authority report. As more than a dozen other states consider similar legislation, it isnt irrational to wonder whether, in tampering with our medical culture of healing, we arent inviting unintended consequences that well live or die to regret. The following editorial appeared in Wednesdays Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Humanity has reached a dubious and potentially terminal milestone the last time there was this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, dinosaurs were the dominant species and the first humans were still millions of years in the future. Last month, the U.N. convened a conference in Bonn, Germany, to assess the extent of global warming. The deteriorating state of one of natures greatest creations may begin to persuade even the skeptical that were experiencing something far beyond the typical warming cycle. In recent years, the 1,400 mile Great Barrier Reef of northeastern Australia has been decimated by warming waters. The impact of warmer, more acidic oceans on the worlds reef formations is particularly dramatic. Great stretches of barrier reef are being bleached white because the warmer water is killing the algae that live inside and nourish the coral. The spectacle of ghostly white reef formations in oceans where brimming colors and large clusters of sea life used to be should alarm us all. They represent the death and dying of a major part of the ecosystem. They are white coral skeletons that cant regenerate as long as the water remains warm and acidic. Ninety-three percent of the Great Barrier reef is suffering the effects of bleaching with 81 percent of the northern third completely bleached out. By any standard of measurement this is one of the worlds greatest environmental catastrophes. As images of the devastated coral reefs enter public consciousness in the coming months and years, all of us have to ask ourselves how much of the natural world were willing to sacrifice by our refusal to adjust dramatically downward our burning of fossil fuels. The Legislatures budget committee Monday approved spending $250,000 for a public education campaign on the controversial voter ID law. The campaign, details of which still must be settled by the new Elections Commission, would inform the public about the need to bring a valid photo ID to vote in the upcoming fall primary and general elections. The money would pay for radio and television public service announcements, website ads, online videos and possibly ads at movie theaters, on buses and on social media. The campaign includes English and Spanish ads newspapers can run, but doesnt include funds for print ads, spokesman Reid Magney said. The committee passed the motion unanimously with one member absent after addressing concerns raised by a Republican lawmaker that the campaign would be a waste of money because most people already know about the law. Rep. Dean Knudson, R-Hudson, said a more targeted direct-mail education campaign could be done for half the cost of a television ad campaign. About 1.4 million registered voters have not yet voted in an election where voter ID was required, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. How hard is it to just say lets identify those people and send them a letter? Knudson said. This law is well-known already. Rep. Chris Taylor, D-Madison, disagreed that sending a single letter constitutes a campaign as required by the 2011 voter ID law. Doing one mail piece is not a campaign, Taylor said. Would we ever do our campaigns mailing out one piece of mail? The committee ultimately voted on a joint motion from Knudson and Taylor that specified the Elections Commission could implement a campaign that includes outreach to specific groups who need assistance in obtaining an ID. More than two dozen Assembly Republicans previously asked the Joint Finance Committee to consider approving money to educate the public on the states law requiring voters to show photo identification. The Government Accountability Board requested the funds. On Monday, the state Elections Commission, which replaces the GAB at the end of the month, sent a letter to the committee affirming support for the public service campaign, which would leverage the investment already made in producing public service announcements. The $250,000 will restart a public information campaign authorized when the law passed in 2011, but was halted in 2012 after a lawsuit blocked implementation of the law until the Feb. 16 spring primary election and April 5 spring election and presidential primary. According to the GAB there were 308 provisional ballots cast in the April 5 election because a voter lacked necessary voter ID, half of them in Dane County. Of those ballots 217 were ultimately rejected, most likely because the voter didnt present a valid ID to the clerk by the Friday after the election. The law was recently at the center of a federal lawsuit challenging the voter ID requirement and other recent changes to Wisconsin election law. During Mondays debate, Democrats on the committee said their support for the campaign did not belie their opposition to the voter ID law. Taylor mentioned recent testimony from a former GOP Senate aide who said Republicans were giddy about the prospect of voter ID disenfranchising voters. She noted studies have found virtually no cases of voter fraud that would be prevented by a photo ID. Both Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, and Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, responded that they have never heard in caucus discussion about disenfranchising voters. Rather, Nygren said, its been about making sure every vote counts. Wisconsins voter ID requirement is among the most restrictive of any state. Voters must come to the polls with one of a list of approved photo IDs that include their signature, such as a Wisconsin drivers license, U.S. passport or U.S. military ID. Some student and tribal IDs qualify if theyre not expired. Student IDs also must be accompanied by a separate document that proves enrollment, such as a tuition statement. The GAB has created a website (bringit.wisconsin.gov) to inform the public about voter ID. It also has crafted public service announcements that radio stations may run and has a staffer conducting voter ID presentations to advocacy groups that work with voters. A Chinese mobile phone user uses the taxi-hailing and car-service app Didi Chuxing on his Apple iPhone smartphone in Jinan city, east China's Shandong province, 22 February 2015.[Photo/IC] Didi Chuxing, China's largest mobile transportation solution provider, said on Monday that it has received about $600 million strategic investment from China Life Insurance. The cash infusion, which includes an equity investment of $300 million and a long-term debt investment of 2 billion yuan ($305 million), is expected to bankroll Didi's competition with the United States-based Uber Technologies Inc. With the investment, China's largest State-owned commercial insurance conglomerate becomes the latest in Didi's string of high-profile investors, including Tencent Holdings Ltd, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China Investment Corporation, China Merchants Bank, and Ping An Ventures. The two parties are committed to building a comprehensive partnership on internet-powered financial innovation and other initiatives, according to Didi's statement on Monday. With China Life's advantages in funding, branding, financial product systems and service network, Didi will offer its users a more flexible, reliable and abundant value-added travel service experience, said Liu Qing, president of Didi Chuxing, according to 36kr.com. Wang Junhui, president of China Life Investment, said their cooperation would open up a new industrial development space for "Internet Plus Finance". Didi and China Life will join hands in developing innovative business models for insurance, comprehensive financial services, market development and corporate mobility solutions to build a safer and more diversified mobile financial ecosystem. The two parties will also collaborate on investment opportunities in mobile transportation and related sectors in China and beyond. DiDi works with close to 15 million car owners and drivers on its mobile transportation platform offering taxi-hailing services, private car hailing, hitchhiking, chauffeur services, buses and test drive services to about 300 million users in China. The company said it undertakes as many as 14 million rides per day. The merger between Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache was announced on February 14, 2015, after which the combined company announced it had raised $2 billion in funding from Ping An Ventures, Alibaba, Tencent Holdings Ltd, Temasek Holdings Private Ltd and Hillhouse Capital Group on July 8, 2015. And the amount of the rounds of funding expanded to $3 billion with investment from China Investment Corp and Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China Ltd, said Chen Wei, founder and CEO of Didi Chuxing on September 9, 2015. Funding raised by Didi Chuxing On 12 June Mexicos federal attorney generals office (PGR) confirmed the arrest of Ruben Nunez, the most prominent member of the Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educacion (CNTE), the rebellious teachers union involved in the long-running protests against the federal governments 2012-2013 sweeping education reform.The arrest ofNunez was related to financial irregularities but it looks like an attempt by the federal authorities to remove by far the biggest thorn in the governments side in the education dispute. It bears a remarkable resemblance to the arrest of Elba Esther Gordillo , the leader of Mexicos largest teachers union, Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educacion (SNTE), within weeks of President Enrique Pena Nieto taking office in December 2012. Gordillo was arrested on charges of having embezzled more than US$156m of union funds and organised crime. Nunez is not as big a fish as Gordillo, but he is powerful. The secretary general of Seccion 22, the most militant wing of the CNTE in Oaxaca state, Nunez has been the driving force behind the CNTEs prolonged protest action against the governments education reform. End of preview - This article contains approximately 374 words. Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article Not a Subscriber? Choose from one of the following options Brazil now faces its own Occupy Movement in public schools. High school students have taken over more than 300 public spaces and formed committees to demand meetings with state officials. Students want officials to investigate alleged misappropriation of money that had been earmarked for education. The government has not said how many schools are occupied. But the movement, which started last year in Sao Paulo, has spread to Rio de Janeiro, Ceara, Para, Mato Grosso, and Rio Grande do Sul. Rio de Janeiro In Rio de Janeiro, the host city of the Summer Olympic Games, teachers have been on strike for more than three months. "Rio de Janeiro is broke. Rio is in a situation of despair," said Lucia Adedoyin, a parent and Rio de Janeiro resident. Classroom conditions became so bad, she said, that students decided to occupy their high schools. In a statement to VOA, a Rio education official said the department wants to have a dialogue with students, teachers, and other organizations. "Teachers are not getting paid and these Olympic Games brought the state of Rio de Janeiro into the abyss," Adedoyin said. The price of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro rose 400 million reais, or $99 million dollars, between August and January. The estimated total cost for the Olympics, including large infrastructure projects, is around 39.1 billion reais, or $11.5 billion dollars. Recently, a Brazilian Judge ordered classes to begin immediately in Rio. Judge Gloria Eloiza Lima da Silva said the student movement cannot stop other students and teachers from going to school. The protests are legal, she said, as long as protestors respect court orders. Other regions In Rio Grande do Sul, a state in the southern part of Brazil, more than 170 schools are occupied. Some schools have been closed for more than a month, students say. Rio Grande do Sul officials sent a letter to students in occupied schools telling them to leave the school within 48 hours. The student association then filed a motion in the state's court, says Fabiola Logeurico, a director of communication at the High school union association. Loguerico adds that students believe the state cannot take back the school, because it belongs to taxpayers. This is the first conversation were having with officials the government has presented guidelines and said they would help and accept our demands, but they do not give a deadline, Loguerico said. Rafael Galvao, student and director of another student-led association, said the movement has just begun in the state of Para. There, students demand education reform, pest management to handle pigeon infestations in schools, and a school lunch program to benefit all students. Galvao said officals from the state's Department of Education signed a document agreeing to meet students' demands. So we are waiting. If they dont do what was promised, we will occupy again, Galvao said. Earlier this month, Galvao visited a rural small town in Para. He said he was touched when he visited an occupied school that serves at least 1,200 students. Its sad. It looks like a prison... Without any structure, no food, no transportation. I held tears back when I heard the students account, Galvao said. Brazil's Ministry of Education spokesperson told VOA that because high schools are under the control of state governments, ministry officials prefer to "not comment at this moment." Im John Russell. Aline Barros reported on this story for VOANews.com. John Russell adapted this story for Learning English. Kelly J. Kelly was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story alleged adj. accused of having done something wrong or illegal but not yet proven guilty misappropriation n. to take (something, such as money) dishonestly for your own use earmarked v. to put (money) aside for a special purpose host n. a person (or city) who entertains guests dialogue n. a discussion or series of discussions that two groups or countries have in order to end a disagreement taxpayers n. a person who pays taxes benefit v. to be useful or helpful to (someone or something) Each year, the Tony Awards honor the best actors, entertainers, writers and producers from New York Citys Broadway theaters. James Corden, a white comedian, opened the Tony Awards on Sunday night by saying, think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity. By contrast, Chris Rock, a black comedian, had opened the Oscars show last February by welcoming people to the white Peoples Choice Awards. Of the 40 actors nominated on Sunday night at the Tony Awards, 14 were of color. Black actors won four of the major acting awards. Leslie Odom Jr. is a black actor who plays Aaron Burr in Hamilton. He won the best leading actor in a musical award over his cast-mate Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda created the musical and played the title role of Alexander Hamilton. Miranda is of Puerto Rican heritage. Cynthia Erivo, a black actor from Great Britain, won for her role in The Color Purple. African-Americans Daveed Diggs and Renee Elise Goldsberry also won for their performances in Hamilton. One person following the Tony Awards on Twitter compiled photos of four of the black winners with the hashtag #TonysSoInclusive. Last February, the Oscars were criticized for not nominating any black actors for its major awards for the second year in a row. People protested the awards show and the social media hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was trending. While Miranda lost the best leading actor award to a fellow cast member, his musical Hamilton was the big winner of the night. Miranda won awards for best new musical, best musical book and best original score. The show won 11 awards on Sunday night, only one short of the record held by The Producers. The musical is about the life of Alexander Hamilton, one of Americas founding fathers. Hamilton was not a president, but he fought in the Revolutionary War, persuaded the states to accept the Constitution, and helped create the countrys national banking and economic system. Other well-known actors won awards on Sunday: Frank Langella won for his role in The Father; Jessica Lange won for Long Days Journey Into Night; and Jayne Houdyshell, who has been performing for 40 years, won her first Tony for The Humans. The Tony Awards also celebrated a big year for Broadway shows. Hamilton and 38 new productions helped sell a record 13.3 million tickets for live theater in New York City. Im Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. Do you think the Oscars will be different in 2017 after seeing the success of the Tony Awards this year? We want to know. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story diversity n. the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization compile v. to put together (various songs, pieces of writing, facts, etc.) in a publication or collection protest v. to show or express strong disagreement with or disapproval of something heritage n. the traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc., that are part of the history of a group or nation usually singular argument n. a statement or series of statements for or against something score n. a document showing all the notes of a piece of music The father of the man identified as the gunman in the Florida mass killings says he is "extremely" upset over the incident. The gunman killed 49 people early Sunday at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Over 50 others were wounded. Seddique Mateen says he has no idea why his son, Omar Mateen, carried out such an attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan." "I do not know what caused this, the father said. I did not know he had hatred in his heart. Seddique Mateen lives in Florida. He calls himself the revolutionary president of Afghanistan. He has been communicating with the Afghan people through video messages on his Facebook account. Mateen has appointed a cabinet for his revolutionary government. He also has been releasing orders and policy statements on his Facebook page. Mateen placed a message on Facebook hours before his son attacked the gay nightclub. In it, he spoke to those he called, the revolutionary people of Afghanistan. He said they have the ability to arrest the Afghan president, the Afghan national security adviser and Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan. In his video messages, Seddique Mateen is critical of the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. He said that his revolutionary government will help Afghans get rid of the war and corruption and will guarantee a "prosperous Afghanistan. In a video message Saturday, Mateen criticized individuals inside the Afghan government who he said are plotting against the Afghan people. He accused the national security adviser, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, of helping the Islamic State group. In addition, he accused former President Hamid Karzai of leading the plans and activities of the Iran and Pakistan-backed Taliban. Mateen traveled to Mexico in early June and sent messages to Afghans from a cruise ship. Before leaving, he said he was on an official trip. A VOA reporter spoke with an individual who did not want to be identified. The person said Seddique Mateen launched an organization called Durand Line Jirga for political and financial purposes. Mateen organized a gathering of Afghans a few years ago in Northern Virginia. A number of people objected because he pursued his own political agenda, one person not wishing to be identified told VOA. He wanted to establish contacts with U.S. officials and congressmen, the person said. Mateen spoke to NBC News about his sons actions. This has nothing to do with religion, he said. We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We are not aware of any action he is taking. He added that his son was enraged when he saw two men kissing a few months ago in Miami. Afghan President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah have strongly condemned the Orlando nightclub attack. Targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever, Ghani said. Abdullah said, Terrorism and terrorists, as foes of human being(s), are not representing any faith, religion, ethnicity (or) race. Im Mario Ritter. Noor Zahid reported this story for VOANews.com. Mario Ritter adapted it for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story nightclub n. a place for drinking and dancing usually only open at night circumstances n. conditions that affect a situation upset adj. unhappy, anxious or angry rid v. to remove, to take away prosperous adj. to have gained wealth enraged v. to become very angry gay adj. describing people attracted to the same sex as themselves The CineMAA 2016 awards for 2015 were held in Hyderabad on Sunday, with Baahubali- The Beginning bagging most of the awards. According to NDTV movies, Baahubali won 13 awards including the Best Film Award. While SS Rajamouli, was awarded with Best Director, Rana Dagubatti won the Best Actor in a negative role award for his role as Bhallala Deva in the historical fiction. Also, Ramya Krishna won the Best Supporting Actor (Female) Award for her performance. The film also won several other awards in the music and technical category. The other big winners were Junior NTR, who bagged the Best Actor Award for the film Temper and Anushka, who won the Best Actress Award for her widely appreciated role as Rudramadevi. Kortala Siva was awarded the Best Director (Jury) for his critically acclaimed Srimanthudu, while Allu Arjun was awarded for his role in Rudramadevi. What came as a pleasant surprise was the Best Actress (Jury) Award that went to Charmee Kaur for her performance in Jyothi Lakshmi. The actress was back in the limelight after quite some time. The new comers to watch out from last year were Nagarjunas son, Akhil, who won the Best Debut Actor, along with Pragya Jaiswal who won the Best Debut Actress. According to the IBT, the special part of the show was Chiranjeevis comeback. Many actors, including comedian Sunil, paid their tribute to the star who is set to return to the big screen for his 150th movie. The actor turned politicians performance was tweeted widely as the event took place. Bollywood filmmaker Zoya Akhtar, who came out in full support of the Udta Punjab team, has always believed that censoring a piece of art was bizarre. In an exclusive chat with Firstpost, the director of films such as Luck By Chance, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Dil Dhadakne Do, lashes out at the system and hints that tomorrow it could be her turn. What is your take on the Udta Punjab censorship issue and on the stand that CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) has taken? It is getting crazy. We have been saying for a long time that legally it is a certification board; why are they censoring? It is absolutely ridiculous to say 'take out Punjab', 'take out MLA, MP' or the cuss words. The producer and director are not asking for a Universal certificate, where you need to protect children. We are talking about adults, we are saying give an Adult certificate. Are you trying to say that adults are not fit to watch films and make up their own mind? Do you think there are many discrepancies and inconsistencies in the system? That makes no sense because every time a new CBFC chief comes, the morality of the country cant change. Today somebody sitting there feels this is wrong and it should be cut; tomorrow somebody else comes and has another point of view. The only thing that makes sense is that you certify the film and tell people it is an Adult movie, or it is a U/A movie, or a U movie and everyone goes according to the law. You should hold theatre owners' responsible, see that they do not allow underage children in. For instance, in a bar, the bar owner is responsible that he doesnt serve alcohol to an underage child. You cant say that even the adults cant go into the bar. But the problem here is that the CBFC is censoring adults, and as an adult citizen do you want to be censored? Cant we make up our own mind? Have you had any issue with the CBFC when it comes to your films? No, I havent had any problem with censorship. I had to cut out one word from Luck By Chance. They had asked me about it and I had spoken to them and they were good with me. They allowed me to use it. Then theres a shot in Dil Dhadakne Do where Anushka Sharma shows her middle finger to Ranveer Singh. They asked me about that shot, I explained and told them what I thought and they let it go. I have had good experiences, but I havent made a film like Udta Punjab and I want to make a film like this at some point. I am going to at some point make a film where the reality of the characters or the world that it is set in will be different. It will be much more violent and by violence I dont mean hitting and beating, I mean violence in language. It is a way of communication, it is the currency with which people communicate on the streets or wherever. It is a form of violence... and I would want to make a film that will be set in the world, where that is the language. You cant tell me I cant. It is not about whether my film was in trouble or not. At the end of the day, censorship is across the board. If you censor Udta Punjab, you are not just stopping them from releasing their film, you are stopping me from watching it and thats against my rights. I want to see that film. I dont think it is fair on the audience to be denied a creative piece of work you are telling them that they dont have brains. They do and they will decide for themselves. Before the day comes when I make a film like that, I would like to watch it. You are anyway violating my right, whether I have made the film or not. Your family is the third generation in films and filmmaking. What have you seen and experienced when it comes to censorship? As a kid the issue always came up and went. But from what I remember, it kept changing which is what is weird. Every time some new person comes in, it cant change the morality of the country or what people believe in. That is something odd. Some are more lenient, some are not, dont say this word, people will shut down the theatre, somebody will get offended... If you are getting offended then dont go to the theatre. There are lot of trailers that offend me and so I dont buy the ticket. Because as an artist, I have the right, and on some level I believe that it is my duty to show society a mirror. I have the right to reflect and I must reflect society. Even if people dont want to do that and they make a tacky offensive sex comedy, they should be allowed to do that; I just wont go and buy the ticket. What other people make also reflects society. If people are going to watch it that is also reflection of the society. We cannot ban anything, we just have to give the choice of buying the ticket or not. It is the nature of the job; everybody cant make something that everybody likes. You dont like a particular filmmaker or actor, dont watch their films. If you love the promo, go watch it. It is your choice. No one can decide for you. And once you buy the ticket, you have every right to say you like the movie or you did not. You are the customer; the patron. But one person sitting somewhere cannot decide what you can watch or not. We keep discussing about the films Nihalani has made and then he's being vilified by one and all. Is he the wrong choice for this position? I honestly dont know where Nihalani is coming from because of the kind of films he has made. He knows better. He was allowed to make those films and put them out there. I dont know what he has to say on this. You will have to ask him. The verdict on Udta Punjab is out on Monday. Whatever the decision, do you think the issue will be resolved once and for all? Is it the end of the problem? Tomorrow there can be another Udta Punjab. How many people can afford to go to court and fight? Yes, but the conversation has started. It has got a lot of support. It is like setting a precedent; the industry has come together in large numbers to support. The court, members of the government, all have supported it. So I think we are in a good space. I think conversation on some level has changed. There is also audience support and people are also understanding that no film can be banned or any filmmaker can be told to make changes. But it is not just the film or the producers loss. Every time something like this happens, you are violating the right of the citizen as well. You are telling them you are not fit to watch something. It is not just about the film industry, or the artiste or the filmmaker; it is about every single citizen and people are waking up to that. At the end of the day, freedom of speech is preceded by thought. So are you going to start censoring how people think. If I want to do something, I will start wondering and worrying 'Can I do this? Will someone feel bad, will someone say anything, will I be allowed to?' You are messing with peoples heads, you are actually going to damage imagination. You are not free, if you have to censor how you think. People are beginning to see that and understand. Look at what we are exposed to. Look at the news in our newspapers, look at the language you hear on the streets, read what your trolls say. Are you trying to say that I cant hear it in a movie? We are exposed to this language in the country we are living in. It is not possible to escape it. What are you telling me? You have been exposed to world cinema. What is the censorship like in other parts of the world? Different countries have different ways of censoring and different levels of censorship. They have different things that qualify or dont qualify. Iran has tough censorship obviously because it is an Islamic state. We are not an Islamic state, and we dont want to be one. We are a democracy we claim to be the largest democracy in the world. So let's act like one. Sometimes I have had dialogues with filmmakers in other parts of the world and some felt that it is ridiculous to include Smoking is injurious to health' in the film. They just cant believe it. Nowhere in this world can you do that. If I make a painting and if a woman is smoking in the painting, are you going to make me write that on the painting? It is absolutely ridiculous; people laugh at us. You put it before the film if you need to. And if you are so worried, ban cigarettes. But dont make me put it on my film. There are filmmakers who dont want to release their films in our country. Woody Allen refused to release his film, Blue Jasmine,(2013) in India because he didn't want to put anti-tobacco messages in his movie. It is so offensive. You are putting it on my work. I can walk on the streets and see people smoking. It is insane. Most filmmakers don't want to curb their creativity just because of the censorship issue, but they have to think about their producers' and actors' interest. Some directors, who are into making realistic cinema, wonder if they should start making rom-coms and comedies to play it safe. Or they could even be forced to do so. Comment? It will kill the industry if they do that. Everybody cant make the same kind of movie, that will be boring for the filmmakers as well as for the audience. You cant be in denial of what reality is or what is going on around us and pretend that everything is okay and then expect good cinema. It is not going to happen. I really think that if all the producers, actors, filmmakers, and everybody gets together, you can change this. You dont have to think that this is not my film, so why should I support you, because one day it will be your turn. Everybody just get together and fight it out. If you are united nobody can mess with you. What do your parents (Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani), and Farhan (Akhtar) have to say? My parents are completely liberal and so is my brother. There is no doubt which side they are on. My mother was in Conoor and she texted me saying that she just saw all this on television and wanted to know if I was going to support 'no censorship' and the makers of Udta Punjab. They are obviously in support of 'no censorship'. New Delhi/Bhopal: Udta Punjab has been granted an 'A' certificate with 13 cuts, said censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani, adding that the film's makers were never asked to drop Punjab from the title. "Udta Punjab has been passed with an A certificate (restricted for adult audience)... We have given it 13 cuts," Nihalani told reporters. He said now the ball is in the producers' court. "Whether they are going to the court or tribunal, and what decision is the court giving, that's for them to see. The producer claimed that we had asked for change in the title, but we never asked them for it." "The producers went to the media for publicity," he added. Co-produced by Phantom Films -- one of whose owners is filmmaker Anurag Kashyap -- and Balaji Motion Pictures -- Udta Punjab is a film on the drug menace in Punjab. The Abhishek Chaubey directorial is scheduled to release on June 17. The film has been in news ever since it came to light that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had demanded 89 cuts. Kashyap then condemned Nihalani for his dictatorial ways. The revising committee later brought down the cuts to 13. The producers moved the Bombay High Court, which is due to give its verdict later on Monday. Shyam Benegals recent statement that films that are accorded with the proposed adult with caution (A/C) certificate cannot be shown in multiplexes but only in places like red light areas is unbecoming of a film maker who is known for directing films that deal with burning social issues. More importantly, by making such a statement, the veteran who in 1970s pioneered a new genre of socially relevant and realistic movies such as Manthan and Junoon is taking a moral high ground that is many times away from the reality. It also amounts to disowning one of his own critically acclaimed movies. Before explaining the rationale behind saying this, here is what has happened. The Benegal committee was set up to revamp the Censor Board, whose role in the Indian film industry has always been a matter of debate concerning freedom of expression. The panel submitted its report in April, according to media reports and has recommended certification and classification instead of cutting scenes out. A/C is a new certificate proposed by the panel. Such certificates are to be issued to movies that have excessive adult content. In an interview to The Indian Express on Friday, Benegal said: Films with A/C will have restricted viewing as they cant be screened at cinema halls located near residential areas. We do not want to deny the filmmakers the right to screen their movies. When you do that, the movies go underground An A/C movie can be shown in red light districts or other non-residential areas. He also said such films are not to be shown in multiplexes because they are thronged by families. In an interview to the Business Standard, he repeated this though not in as many words. There are certain kinds of films that may not be suitable for family viewing and they probably have to be shown elsewhere, where there is no chance of a family viewing it, he told the newspaper purportedly about those movies that are to be certified A/C. It is to be noted that he made these statements after watching Udta Punjab, the unreleased movie that has kicked off a political storm after the Censor Board suggested 89 cuts and is now in the court. With the fate of Udta Punjab, one thing is very clear given the recommendations made by the Benegal panel. Regardless of the verdict, there will still be somebody who will decide whether a film is suitable for family viewing or not. More appalling is the moral high ground Benegal takes by stating certain movies are fit to be shown only in places such as red light areas. For Benegal, multiplexes are for families. He also presumes sex workers are family-less and thinks that they are to be kept out of such structures. They are not eligible to enjoy wide choices that consumerism offers. Multiplexes are exclusive. Ironically, Benegals moral high-handedness goes against one of his own movies, Mandi, a social satire released in 1983. The film deals with the issues faced by a brothel situated inside Hyderabad city. Rukmini Bai, the brothel keeper, is forced to move her business to the fringes of the city as politicians and real estate mafia eye the land it is situated on. Just when Rukmini Bai and her women settling down in the new place overcoming the multifarious difficulties they face, the politicians and the land sharks return to drive them out again. For the sex workers, the problems never end. Each time they painstakingly piece together their lives, the society is after them, pushing them further into the margins. Central to the plot is a social worker and feminist Shanti Devi, who views sex work as a moral degradation and joins hands with the politicians and the builder to drive Rukmini Bai out. Interestingly, unlike todays Benegal, the film takes a rather compassionate look at sex workers issues. In one sequence Shanti Devi leads a rally to the kotha. Delivering her speech in front of the brothel, she vows that she will not allow it to function inside the city. Do we destroy 5000 years of civilization? she asks. Women should be worshipped. Would you allow them to be sold in the market? I will go into the kotha today and will tell my sisters to stop doing this dirty work, she says. One of the sex workers retorts asking her how do we have food then. The sequence ends with the photographer, a regular at the brothel, and one of the sex workers trapping an accomplice of Shanti Devi. The activist and her friends are unceremoniously escorted out in ignominy. Hum hain toh samaj hain. Itni fikar hain toh apni mardon ko band karke rakh do gharpe. Mard kahreedta tabhi toh aurat bechti hain apne aapko (The society exists because women exist. If they are so worried about us, they should shut their men up at home as they are the one who make women into prostitutes), says Rukmini Bai. While Shanti Devis portrayal is caricaturish in the film, the directors own views on sex work seem to be expressed through the servant in the kotha, Tungrus, who has a love-hate relationship with Rukmini Bai. Tungrus quietly serves the inmates throughout the day and in the night, after getting drunk, he starts cursing Rimini Bai and her business. Tungrus in the night is the Shanti Devi of the day. By pitting family against the so-called red light areas now, Benegal is revealing the drunk Tungrus inside him. Or rather, the morally high handed Shanti Devi. And it is not at all okay when it comes from an acclaimed film maker like Benegal. Mumbai: Shares of A2Z Infra Engineering surged nearly 12 percent today after the company won a $13.56 million (around Rs 90 crore) contract from Nepal government for expansion of electricity distribution network. The stock gained 11.79 percent to Rs 34.60 on BSE. At NSE, shares of the company jumped 12.15 percent to Rs 34.60. A contract has been awarded from Nepal Electricity Authority, a Nepal government undertaking on June 10, A2Z Infra had said in a BSE filing. The contract is for expansion of distribution network in the Western Region of Nepal. The award has been made for a "contract price aggregating to $1,35,63,420.77," the company said. The award was given on the basis of a global tender, it added. (This is an updated version of an earlier story) Of the 11 companies that were given in-principle nod by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to set up payments banks in August, 2015, three -- Tech Mahindra, Cholamandalam Finance and Dilip Shanghvi-IDFC Bank-Telenor JV, have already dropped out. This leaves only eight applicants in the list India Post, Airtel Money, Reliance Industries, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Aditya Birla Nuvo, Vodafone MPesa, Fino PayTech and NSDL. Why are firms shying away from their plans on payments banks? The reason is simple. Unlike regular banks, which typically do business for interest earnings from the lending business using deposit money, these entities do not have the liberty to lend. Payments bank have to primarily survive on fee-income since 75 percent of their deposits need to be mandatorily invested in government bonds with maturity up to a year. Also, payments banks can only accept deposits up to Rs 1 lakh. To get deposits, competing with regular banks which offer up to 7 percent return on their savings deposits, payments banks will have to offer aggressive rates. However, since payments banks need to invest majority of their deposits in government bonds for a maximum 7.45 percent-8 percent (the approximate yield on one year paper), this would mean no real business for them. The cost to set up and run operations far outweighs the benefits for the payments bank. Of course, these companies arent here for charity. As SBI chairman, Arundhati Bhattacharya, pointed out, there is a big challenge on customer acquisition front too. Why would someone who is using a mobile banking service that is readily available be willing to migrate to a new bank? This too, given that technology, such as unified payments system, would enable cheaper transactions through mobile phones. The cost of rolling out the service will be far lower for companies with an existing telecom infrastructure network than a firm which wants to start from the scratch. India Post the real game changer But, as far as India Post, is concerned, the story could turn out to be entirely different. With existing infrastructure and government-backing, India Post is the giant among payments banks. India Post also has an existing client base through its various deposit schemes. As communications and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said recently, India Post plans to open 650 branches of the payment bank by September 2017. But, besides these full bank branches, India Posts 1.5 lakh offices nationwide, including about 27,000 core banking enabled branches would also be used to roll out payments bank services (in the form of correspondent branches), according to the broader plan of the department. The postal department, which failed to get into the list of full service banks when the RBI gave permits to IDFC and Bandhan in April 2014, has been trying for long to get into the banking business. The department has begun to set up ATMs and connect its offices through core banking solution network. As of 31 March 2015, the outstanding balances under the post office savings scheme stood at Rs 6.19 lakh crore. Backed by its existing outlets across the country, Post Bank can offer a stiff competition to public sector banks in the deposit market as compared with other payments bank aspirants, if it can offer competitive returns. Given the fact that India Post is present in many far-flung areas of the country, where even nationalized banks do not have branches, a Post Bank can change the way people save in these parts. The only question is can India Post operate profitability within the limited scope of operations as laid out by the RBI guidelines? One has to wait and see. Microsoft Corp agreed to buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 billion in its biggest-ever deal, combining the software giant's fast-growing cloud services business with the world's largest online network for professionals. The offer of $196 per share represents a premium of 49.5 percent to LinkedIn's Friday closing price. LinkedIn's shares were jumped 48 percent to $194.28 before the opening bell on Monday. Microsoft's shares were down 3.3 percent. "Today is a re-founding moment for LinkedIn," Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn's board, said in a statement. Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive of LinkedIn, reporting to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "I have always had a great admiration for LinkedIn," Nadella said in a video on Microsoft's website. "I have been talking with Reid and Jeff for a while ... I have been thinking about this for a long time." The deal is expected to close in 2016, the companies said in a joint statement. Microsoft said it would issue new debt to fund the deal. After the deal, LinkedIn will become part of Microsoft's productivity and business processes unit. New Delhi: Driven by addition in equity fund folios, mutual fund (MF) houses registered a surge of more than 7.85 lakh investor accounts in the first two months (April-May) of the current fiscal, taking the total tally to 4.84 crore. This is on top of an addition of 59 lakh folios in 2015-16 and 22 lakh in 2014-15. In the last two years, investor accounts increased mainly due to robust contribution from smaller towns. Folios are numbers designated to individual investor accounts, though one investor can have multiple folios. According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) on total investor accounts with 43 fund houses, the number of folios rose to 48,448,079 at the end of last month from 47,663,024 in March-end, a rise of 7.85 lakh. Growing participation from retail investors, especially from smaller towns and huge inflows in equity schemes, have helped in increasing the overall folio counts, experts said. The equity category witnessed an addition of over three lakh investor folios to 3.64 crore in the first two months of the current fiscal. Mutual funds have reported a net inflow of more than Rs 8,900 crore in equity schemes during the period under review. The net inflow is in line with BSE's benchmark Sensex rising 5.23 percent. Mutual funds are investment vehicles made up of a pool of funds collected from a large number of investors. The funds are invested in stocks, bonds and money market instruments, among others. The Sahara refund account that grew to Rs 11,727 crore but refunds showing a pittance at Rs 55 crore as per Sebis financial statements for 2015-16 has been given a spin by Sahara-- -it vindicates its position that almost every debenture holder who earlier was a depositor has been paid off. Really? The truth is from day one (2012), Sahara has been fighting shy off bringing its ghost investors out in the open because some of them, it apprehends, might sing like a canary and blurt out the names of real owners. The benamis and money launderers have an informal code of omerta practiced by the Sicilian mafia. Therefore while the intrepid amongst them might not spill the beans but the weak ones might. It is this fear that must be gnawing at Sahara and its wily promoter Subrato Roy who unabashedly is now doing a victory lap-- -aabaar yatra-- - across the country to acknowledge the support he has received from his charmed circle of crooks and the devious. It has not occurred to him that he is only on parole and has not been acquitted. Be that as it may. The Supreme Court and the Sebi deserve to be complimented for applying the squeeze on Sahara though the ordeal could have been alternatively brought to an end by simply appointing a receiver for the group. Perhaps the SC wants Roy to stew in his own juice. It is not sadism but a battle of attrition in which Roy is bound to end up a loser. If he and Sahara are really innocent and not nations money launderers, as perceived by people in the know, what prevents them from parading the so-called investors? That there are upwards of 3 million investors (ghosts?) is hardly a mitigating circumstance warranting a reprieve from this arduous task. Let Sahara hire a hall or some other public place where its investors are concentrated. Let them assemble there like shareholders do in AGMs except that in Saharas case such meetings may have to be held in several towns and cities at different points of time. Let the expenses be borne by Sahara. For those unable or unwilling to make it to these meetings, let there be an alternative drill-- -let them send in their documentary proofs about investments and redemption. Sahara has sent truckloads of documents from its end to the Sebi but these are unverifiable mountains of verbiage. The best proof is supplied by the investor like acknowledgement from sundry debtors and bankers an auditor takes for receivables and deposits respectively. Acknowledgement from the source is the real proof. Sahara will never take these steps for the fear of its true colors emerging. Indeed the onus is on Sahara to vindicate its stand that it is innocent. It is no use piling the Sebi with documents even if the documents contain bank details about repayments because it is not difficult for these 3 million investors to withdraw the money and hand them back to Sahara for onward transmission to the real owners lurking behind. Swiss banks mainstay is their secretiveness. Saharas too is to hide the names of real owners of black money. It practices omerta and persuades its benamis to similarly practice the Sicilian law but is not sure whether all of them would adhere to it, come what may. A money launderers hard work would come to a naught if a weak-kneed benami sings like a canary. That would not only send a wrong signal to other benamis but might have the effect of supplying leads to the Sebi and other authorities about the modus operandi of the crooks and their protectors. This is a superb case study on SC monitored investigation on economic offences. If everything goes well, the much-discussed Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement of 2005 between India and the Unites States will take some concrete shape by 2017. This, perhaps, is the most concrete outcome of the just concluded visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the United States. Following the summit meeting between Modi and US President Barack Obama, it was officially stated that Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and US firm Westinghouse have agreed to begin engineering and site design work immediately for six nuclear power plant reactors in India and conclude contractual arrangements by June 2017. It is understood that these proposed reactors worth multi-billion dollars will no longer be stationed in Gujarat as decided earlier because of the land acquisition-hurdles. These will be shifted to Andhra Pradesh now. The NPCIL has already made a down payment for acquiring 2,000 acres (800 hectares) in Shrikakulam district for this purpose. Apart from providing a huge impetus for further cementing of India-US ties, the decision to fulfill the promise of the civil nuclear agreement shows the Modi governments commitment to meet India's growing energy needs while reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The BJPs election manifesto in 2014 had discussed the importance of renewable energy sources such as solar, nuclear, hydel, ocean and wind for clean energy and minimal pollution. And the BJP, or for that matter the Modi government seems to have a point. According to a World Nuclear Association (WNA) study, as of today, nuclear power provides over 11 percent of the worlds electricity as continuous, reliable base-load power, without carbon dioxide emissions. There are around 440 commercial nuclear power reactors operable in 31 countries, with over 380,000 MWe of total capacity. And around 65 more reactors are under construction. According to a June report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), improvements in nuclear construction times are now making climate goals more achievable than previously imagined. The report states that nuclear power plant grid connections 'doubled in 2015'. There are 56 countries that operate a total of around 240 research reactors and a further 180 nuclear reactors power some 150 ships and submarines. Sixteen countries depend on nuclear power for at least a quarter of their electricity. France gets around three-quarters of its power from nuclear energy, while Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovenia and Ukraine get a third or more. South Korea, Bulgaria and Finland normally get more than 30 percent of their power from nuclear energy, while in the US, UK, Spain and Russia, almost a fifth is from nuclear. Over 45 countries both developed and developing are actively considering embarking on nuclear power programmes. The Chinese government plans to increase nuclear generating capacity to 58 GWe with 30 GWe more under construction by 2020. Russia plans to increase its nuclear capacity to 30.5 GWe by 2020, using its world-class light water reactors. Several countries in Eastern Europe are currently constructing or have firm plans to build new nuclear power plants (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey). Importantly, Sweden has abandoned its plans to prematurely decommission its nuclear power, and is now investing heavily in life extensions and updates. Early this year, it abolished Nuclear Capacity Tax on its existing reactors and will allow new reactors to be built to replace them. Hungary, Slovakia and Spain are all implementing or planning for life extensions on existing plants. In Central and South America, countries that are promoting nuclear power include Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, and Paraguay. In Central and Southern Asia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka are setting up nuclear power plants (NPP). And in South East Asia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore and Myanmar are going ahead with plans to set up NPPs. The same is the case with Australia and New Zealand. It is, however, true that in some developed countries there have been demands to revisit the nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 in Japan, Germany and Japan are leading in this campaign for denuclearisation of energy. But then, the fact remains that with each passing day, the nuclear power is becoming safer and safer, thanks to the tremendous advances made in nuclear science. Apart from taking care of the climatic and geographic features of the location of plants (such as earthquake-proneness and tsunami possibilities) into account, we have now what is called the passive safety system for nuclear reactors that keeps the reactors cool in the event of an accident. When a reactor shuts down, the radioactive byproducts of nuclear fission continue to generate heat. Failure to remove that heat can damage the reactors nuclear fuel and cause radiation, something that happened at Fukushima. Here, there was nothing wrong with the nuclear reactor as such; the problem occurred when following the tsunami the plant was shut down and there was no electricity for the safety system to remove the heat. Under the traditional safety system, the vulnerability of the nuclear plants is dependent on the availability of the electric power for cooling operations. However, now we have what is called the Passive Safety System, which relies on gravitational forces to remove excess heat. After all, heat-removal is the basis for safety. In addition, passive safety systems reduce the number of valves and pumps in nuclear plants by at least 50 percent, thereby not necessitating a bigger space for a reactor, which, in turn, is less labour-intensive and vulnerable to sabotage. For instance, in our Kudankulam nuclear plants in Tamil Nadu, there are four channels of safety system, and these are sufficient for ensuring water supply for cooling of the reactor even if there is a black out for 24 hours. Coming back to Indias nuclear energy plan, the target is to have 14.5 GWe nuclear capacities online by 2020. For this purpose, one needs light and heavy water reactors as well as fast reactors. In addition to the 21 online, six power reactors are under construction, of both indigenous and foreign design, including a 500 MWe prototype fast breeder reactor. This will take India's ambitious thorium programme to stage 2, and set the scene for eventual utilisation of the country's abundant thorium to fuel reactors. Of course, there are some bottlenecks on the way. The Modi government seems to have removed one of these bottlenecks Indias unique nuclear liability laws of 2010 that talk of compensation in the event of nuclear accidents in a plant. As India is not self-sufficient in nuclear fuel and technology, it has to import them from outside. The universal practice is that in the event of an accident, it is the NPP that gives the compensation. No nuclear exporting country or farm undertakes the responsibility of safety, operations and maintenance of the NPP it has sold fuel and technology to. There has to be a national law or bilateral arrangement or international liability regime such as the Vienna-based Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC) for Nuclear Damage or Paris Convention on Third Party Nuclear Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy for the exporter and importer to manage liability in case any nuclear accident takes place affecting a third party or the country. Based on this principle, India passed a Liability Act in Parliament in 2010 that places responsibility for any nuclear accident with the operator, as is standard internationally, and limits total liability to around $450 million or such higher amount that the Central government may specify by notification. Operator liability is capped at Rs 1,500 crore ($285 million) or such higher amount that the Central government may notify, beyond which the Central government is liable. However, after compensation has been paid by the operator (or its insurers), clause 17(b) of the Indian Act allows the operator to have legal recourse to the supplier for up to 80 years after the plant starts up if in the opinion of an Indian court the nuclear incident has resulted as a consequence of an act of supplier or his employee, which includes supply of equipment or material with patent or latent defects or sub-standard services. This clause giving recourse to the supplier for an operational plant is contrary to international conventions and undermines the channeling principle fundamental to nuclear liability. Also, no limit is set on suppliers liability. Obviously, all potential nuclear suppliers to India were unhappy. They wanted the law to be suitably amended, even though the fact remains that the stringent provision of 17(b) was incorporated under the pressure of the BJP, then in Opposition. The then Opposition leader in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley was literally on a warpath for this stringent clause. That is why every country doing nuclear business with India, including Russia and France, was apprehensive about whether Modi would retrieve the situation now that Jaitley is his finance minister. But Modi seems to have done that. The Modi government has ratified the CSC that the Manmohan Singh-led government had signed in 2010. The CSC, a free standing international nuclear liability regime, will give India access to international funding, beyond those available through national resources, to pay for damages in the event of a nuclear accident as per international practices. Nationally, the government has been working towards forming a nuclear insurance pool to cover the nuclear facilities. But for these steps, it is doubtful whether Modis visit to the US last week would have been a success story. However, there are still other bottlenecks. These include the powerful anti-nuclear lobby, cutting across the intelligentsia, political class and foreign-funded non-governmental organisations (NGO). The availability of the land for NPPs is equally formidable, with vested interests exploiting the situation through generation of fears over displacement of poor people, degradation of environment and doubts over nuclear safety. NEW DELHI Five Indian men were sentenced to life in prison on Friday for raping a Danish tourist in the heart of New Delhi's tourist district in 2014, in a case that reignited worries about sexual violence against women in India. The men, all in their twenties, were found guilty by a Delhi court on Monday for robbing and raping the 52-year old Dane at a secluded spot close to New Delhi railway station. "All the five convicts have been sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment for their offences," additional public prosecutor Atul Shrivastava, told Reuters at the court. The Dane was walking through an area of narrow lanes near Delhi's Paharganj district, a tourist area packed with backpacker hotels, on the evening of Jan. 14, 2014, when she asked a group of men for directions to her hotel. The men then lured the woman to an area near New Delhi railway station where they raped her and robbed her at knife-point, the prosecution said in its chargesheet. India was shaken into deep soul-searching about entrenched violence against women after the fatal gang-rape in December 2012 of a female student on a bus in New Delhi. The crime, which sent thousands of Indians onto the streets in protest against what many saw as the failure of authorities to protect women, encouraged the government to enact tougher jail sentences for rapists. Police accused nine men of attacking the Danish woman in 2014. Three are juveniles being tried in a separate court while a fourth died during the trial. Lawyer D.K. Sharma, representing the five convicted men, said his clients would appeal against the verdict. (Reporting by Suchitra Mohanty; Writing by Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. A woman and a militant were killed in a shootout between security forces and separatist guerrillas in the Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir, in which five other people were injured on Monday. Three CRPF troopers and two civilians were also injured in the attack on the CRPF camp on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in Kud area of Udhampur District on Monday. The gunfight took place on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway after the forces laid an ambush at Kud town, some 110 km from Jammu city, following intelligence inputs that some militants were travelling in a passenger bus on the national highway. The vehicle was stopped near Kud town which is famous for its sweets shops, and "two militants heavily armed disembarked from a passenger bus and opened fire at the security forces and in an exchange of fire one militant was killed and a woman also lost her life in the cross fire," a security official told IANS here. Security forces have started combing the area and reinforcements have been rushed there to ensure that the surviving militant did not escape, the official added. "Heavy firing is going on in the area and all senior police officers are on their way to the spot," the SSP Udhampur said earlier in the day. Monday's attack has been the second in the last 24 hours. On Sunday, four policemen were injured in a militant attack in south Kashmir's Qazigund. At least five attacks were carried out by militants in the past two weeks in Kashmir valley, inflicting casualties on security forces. On 3 June, 2016, three BSF troopers were killed and 11 others, including three civilians, were injured in a guerrilla attack at a security forces convoy in south Kashmir's Bijbehara town, an attack for which the terror group Hizb-ul-Mujahideen claimed responsibility. However, over the last one month, militants have killed five policemen who were not deployed on counter-insurgency operations, but were doing routine policing like traffic control and management of law and order. Most of such attacks have come against unarmed policemen. With inputs from agencies Jammu: BJP, the alliance partner in Jammu and Kashmir government with PDP, on Monday said people of Jammu region are being neglected and discriminated despite repeated assurances from Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti. "The state government should honour the commitment made by former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and then by his daughter and the incumbent Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti of the equitable development of all the three regions of the state", state BJP leader Virender Gupta said. He said Mehbooba had assured of development of all the regions and that the differences and the alienation existing between people of Jammu and those of Kashmir Valley would be eliminated. "However, the fact of the matter is that the people of Jammu region are still feeling neglected and discriminated in the present regime," Gupta said. He said the renovation work of Mubarak Mandi complex as Dogra Heritage is going on at a very slow pace and the ropeway project linking Mubarak Mandi with Bahu Fort is still in limbo. "In the tourism sector, Jammu got merely 20-25 percent funds allocation and out of 13 newly identified tourist spots for development, Jammu has only four whereas rest are in Kashmir province", he added. Gupta said that Jammu district which has 11 assembly constituencies was allotted Rs 200 crore whereas some of the districts having only one or two assembly constituencies have been provided almost same amount for the development. This act is highly unjustified with no reasonable explanation, he added. He said that the Tawi Lake Project in Jammu which was scheduled to be completed in March, has been extended for two years. Gupta claimed no serious efforts are being made about the diversion of four streams carrying the city garbage in the Tawi river. "In the allotment of indoor stadiums, out of 12 indoor stadiums envisaged only three are allocated to Jammu region and nine to Kashmir province with two in Ladakh. The BJP leader said the discrimination is being faced by the people of the region in the matter of development of roads, infrastructure, irrigation, agriculture and horticulture sector. Gupta cautioned the government of a great resentment brewing among the people of Jammu province and therefore immediate steps need to be taken for the redressal of grievance of the people. Lucknow: Allahabad High Court today dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a CBI enquiry into the recent Mathura violence that left 29 people dead. The Lucknow bench of the court, headed by Justice Shree Narain Shukla and Justice Suneet Kumar, dismissed the PIL filed by BJP leader IP Singh. According to petitioner's counsel Ashok Pandey, a direction was sought to refer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or a Special Investigation Team (SIT). Appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, Additional Advocate General (AAG) Bulbul Godiyal termed the PIL "politically motivated" as the petitioner was a political person and sought its dismissal. She told the court that a judicial commission has already been constituted by the state government for probing the incident. Accepting her contentions, the bench rejected the plea. Violent clashes between encroachers and police at Mathura's Jawahar Bagh left 29 persons dead, including two police officers, on 2 June. Earlier, the Supreme Court had also refused to order a CBI probe into the incident. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday met the families of the policemen killed in the 2 June Mathura clashes and said that a judicial probe is being conducted. The violent clashes led to 24 deaths, including that of Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi and Santosh Kumar, Station House Officer of the local police station. Defending the Mathura police, Yadav said, the police tried to save lives of women and kids. Yadav also met the families of the policemen killed in the violence and assured help to them. "A judicial inquiry will get to the bottom of this. This incident should not be politicised. Those who are doing it, I want to remind them such incidents have happened under their watch as well," he said, reports NDTV. On 3 June, Yadav had admitted that there were some lapses on the part of administration and the intelligence network that led to the incident. "There were some lapses. Police should have gone with full preparation after holding talks, but there was no information that they would be so heavily armed," Akhilesh had told reporters on the sidelines of a programme in Barabanki. Akhilesh said the so called 'satyagrahis' were encroaching upon government land and several rounds of talks were held with them, but they did not vacate the place. He said an inquiry was being conducted by Agra divisional commissioner and warned that those found guilty would not be spared. Massive clash between police and encroachers broke out in Mathura when police tried to evict illegal occupants, believed to be of Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi, from Jawahar Bagh on Allahabad High Court orders. The leader of the cult, Ram Vriksh Yadav, was also killed in the clashes. With inputs from PTI Mathura: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday admitted there had been lapses in evicting squatters from Jawaharbagh. He said there was some delay in police action as the administration did not want to target women, children and innocent people. Jawaharbagh was occupied by thousands of squatters for about two years, till police swung into action to evict them. However, 29 people, including two senior police personnel, were killed in the violence on 2 June. The squatters were led by a cult leader Ram Vriksh Singh Yadav. The chief minister said poverty and unemployment were serious problems, and some people had attracted crowds by promising land and food. These unsuspecting people were used as human shield even as the cult leaders made impractical demands, he said. The government was firm that Jawaharbagh had to be freed from the squatters. "We initiated action after the high court's orders were received," the chief minister asserted. Asked about a CBI probe, the chief minister said investigations were on by a retired high court judge. "A judicial probe is going on and those found responsible will be dealt with firmly." Akhilesh Yadav met relatives of the deceased Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi and assured all help to the family members. He said the Bharatiya Janata Party had no real issue to contest the assembly elections next year and was therefore focusing on such incidents. The chief minister also detailed achievements of his government, saying it was working to improve lives of poor, women, labourers, marginal farmers and businessmen. "New roads have been been built, and our health and developmental schemes are yielding good results," he added. Rourkela: Chief Security Officer (CSO) of National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela, accused of sexually harassing two tribal women security guards, was on Sunday arrested after absconding for about a fortnight, police said. Acting on a specific information, a police team nabbed Balaram Champatiray from Jagada under Jhirpani Police Station jurisdiction when he was proceeding to a relative's house, DSP Zone-1, P K Mishra said. Champatiray was withdrawing money from ATMs and police personnel were trying to keep his movements under surveillance, he said. The accused was produced before a court which sent him to 14 days judicial custody after rejecting his bail application, Mishra said. Rourkela Police had launched a manhunt to nab Champatiray, who had been at large since he escaped from NIT Rourkela on 29 May after complaints were lodged against him by two women security guards of sexually harassing them. A fact-finding team constituted by the NIT director had also found truth in the allegations made by the women security guards, sources said. The incident had come to the fore after a video clipping showing a woman security guard sitting on the CSO's lap in his office room in NIT, police said. The episode had triggered uproar in the prestigious institute as students launched an agitation demanding his immediate dismissal and arrest. Subsequently, the Human Resource Development Ministry had also sent a senior official to probe the matter. Hyderabad: Lawyers in Telangana continued their protest for the seventh day on Monday against the appointment of judicial officers from Andhra Pradesh and to demand bifurcation of the unified High Court. They boycotted courts in Hyderabad and nine other districts of Telangana and staged demonstrations outside the court premises. The Telangana High Court Advocates Association is demanding that the provisional allotment of about 130 judges who are natives of Andhra Pradesh to subordinate courts in Telangana be recalled. The lawyers locked the courts at Nizamabad and Warangal in support of their demand. The protesters also demanded immediate bifurcation of the unified High Court. Meanwhile, the judicial employees decided to intensify the protest by going on strike from 1 July. They served the strike notice on the Hyderabad High Court registrar. The Hyderabad High Court turned into a fortress as police threw a thick security blanket around the premises and imposed ban orders in view of the "Chalo High Court" programme of the advocates association, the joint action committee of Telangana lawyers and federation of bar associations. Police erected barricades on roads leading to the High Court and allowed in only those lawyers whose cases were to come up for hearing on Monday. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Mahender Reddy said no permission was given for "Chalo High Court". Police orders banning processions were put in force around the High Court to foil any protest. The list of provisional allotment of judges to lower courts issued on May 5 contained 335 judicial officers who were allotted to Telangana and 495 to Andhra Pradesh as part of the bifurcation of the lower judiciary. The association said about 130 officers of Andhra nativity were allotted to Telangana after they exercised the option. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh government on Monday ordered a probe in connection with the alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana town in Shamli district in western part of the state. Shamli District Magistrate has asked the SDM and Circle Officer to probe into the allegations that "jihadi elements" had forced migration of Hindus from there, IG (Law and Order) HR Sharma told reporters here. They have been asked to verify the list of 346 families handed over by the local MP who have allegedly migrated, he said. BJP MLA from Kairana Hukum Singh has alleged that 346 families have been forced to flee the town, which has 85 percent of Muslim population. The state government's action came after VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain's on Monday said, "Jihadis are being encouraged to carry out their activities...VHP calls upon the state government to rein in jihadi elements who are responsible for this exodus and tighten law and order in the state." He termed the migration of Hindus from Kairana as "unfortunate" and said the township, which was a Hindu majority 40 years ago, now has only eight percent Hindus left. Sharma said further details will be known only after the report is received from the district officials. Replying to a question, he said the state government is yet to receive the NHRC notice in this connection. Last week, National Human Rights Commission had issued a notice to the UP government in this regard. While observing that the allegations made were serious in nature, the NHRC also directed the state's DIG (Investigation)to depute a team of officers for a spot enquiry in the matter covering all the allegations made in the complaint and submit a report within two weeks. In January this year, the Maharashtra government announced a proposal to amend the Rent Control Act that would free residential properties above 847 square feet and commercial properties above 540 square feet from protection under rent control. This move came under heavy criticism from leaders belonging to opposition parties and tenants who would have been affected. The government blinked and the proposal was withdrawn. What has been a victory for tenants and those in the opposition has come as a blow for the poor in Mumbai. In a recently published paper on rental housing in India, around 82 per cent of the residential area protected under rent control is in South Mumbai. Further, around 30,000 rent controlled residential units in South Mumbai have an area of 50 square meters (538 square feet) or more and these comprise 11 percent of the total number of units under rent control. In the absence of information on incomes of tenants, the size of the property is a good proxy for incomes. This is because at the time of imposition of rent controls, the rich rented larger houses and the poor rented smaller houses. The pagdi system that emerged to circumvent the rental laws ensured that the laws of market prevailed. By paying a pagdi that reflected the market value of the property, new tenants could enjoy protection and thus once again, the rich rented larger houses. Had the amendment gone through, these tenants would be the ones most affected. Although it is fair to say that protection must be removed from those who do not deserve it any proposal to change the status quo must account for the complexity of the present situation that is entrenched in the pagdi system. Removing protection across the board will be unfair to those tenants who have paid pagdi. We recommend that tenants who will lose protection be classified into two groups: those who have paid pagdi and those who have not. Those who paid pagdi may enjoy protection for a specific number of years after which protection may be lifted and for the rest protection may be removed with immediate effect. We also recommend that instead of increasing rents to the prevailing market rates at one go, rents should be raised gradually, with a limit on the number of times they can be raised in a year, until they reach market rates. These steps will have the additional advantage of weakening the opposition to change. Contrary to popular belief, rent control has been anti-poor rather than pro-poor. The Maharashtra Rent Control Act is draconian in nature. It is one of key reasons why investment in new rental housing in Mumbai has all but disappeared and why several existing properties enjoying protection are dilapidated. In 1961, the share of rental and owner occupied housing in Mumbai was around 50 per cent each. However, since then nearly 95 per cent of all residential construction has been owner occupied. Lack of access to affordable rental housing in the formal housing market has led many low-income households to find housing solutions in slums (which, ironically, have a thriving rental market!). The slum population in Mumbai in 2011 was around 50 lakh. The only people the rent act has benefited are incumbent tenants and those who can afford to pay pagdi to get access to the privilege of protection. Reviving rental housing therefore needs drastic changes to the existing rent control regime to make it more responsive to the market while continuing to protect tenants against unfair rent increases and evictions. International experience supports this. Cities like New York and Zurich, which have a more relaxed form of rent control have a flourishing rental market. Attracting investment in new rental housing will require assuring that all new construction will be exempt from rent control for all time to come. Low-income households who wish to rent could be supported through housing vouchers that subsidise rents. If successful, these reforms will provide a fillip to affordable rental housing and will help bring the poor within the formal housing market. The political returns from this should be obvious to any political party. By turning its back on reforming rent control, the government has lost an opportunity to dismantle a system that has for so long protected a few and reap the political rewards from doing so. The author is a Senior Associate at IDFC Institute The proverbial cat had, in fact, jumped out of the bag the moment BJP president Amit Shah expressed his anguish over the "Kairana exodus" openly in front of the ruling partys national executive members at Allahabad on Sunday. Replace the word 'cat' with 'electoral strategy' and you would get a glimpse of what all is in store in battleground Uttar Pradesh. And also reveal why the hell Kairana ranks higher than even Ayodhya or Dadri in the saffron camps current scheme of things? To understand all this in the proper perspective, you need to focus on two things: Kairanas location and socio-religious composition of the population in these parts of the far-flung state. This otherwise obscure, non-descript small town is situated hardly a hundred kilometres away from New Delhi in the heart of Muslim-Jat belt in Shamli district of Western UP. Its this area that had witnessed an informal but well-publicised rebellion against the establishment. Believe it or not, there existed a parallel government in the area under the leadership of Choudhary Mahendra Singh Tikait in the late 1980s. Nobody would pay revenue dues neither taxes nor electricity bills. The writ of the state just didnt run there. And government officials, including those belonging to the police department, thought twice before venturing into this region. Before the Tikait era, Western UP happened to be the political stronghold of former Prime Minister Choudhary Charan Singh of the AJGAR fame. AJGAR was a suggested caste alliance of the Ahir, Jat, Gujar and Rajput castes. These caste groups put together, in fact, made an unbeatable political force. Nobody could beat Choudhary Saabs party during his hay days not even Indira Gandhis Congress. And lets not forget that Mulayam Singh Yadav, who happens to be an Ahir by caste, is an avowed follower of Chaudhary Saab. In the later years, the AJGAR had expanded into MAJGAR with the induction of Muslims into this invincible political force making it even more formidable. But all this is history. The present scenario in Kairana is vastly different for two reasons: First, its no longer a peaceful area with allegations that a section of Hindus, who have been at the receiving end in the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar communal violence, are deserting the area in what is being described even by Amit Shah as an exodus. And second, both AJGAR and MAJGAR have withered away with the passage of time. Taking up the first point first, you may recall that the current strongman of Kairanas politics, Hukum Singh, has already given to the union home minister a list of 346 families which had already migrated to other safer areas because of persistent threat and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community. Singh, who represents the constituency as a BJP MP, further says that there have been at least ten communal killings in the area in the past three years. Its like a mini-Kashmir, he adds. What has added poignancy to the Kairana issue is that even the National Human Rights Commission had issued a notice to the Akhilesh Yadav government in Lucknow seeking a response. The district administration, which is conducting an inquiry into the allegations, doesnt seem to see eye to eye with Hukum Singhs view-point. But the general impression that there cant be any smoke without fire persists. And now with the BJP president raising alarms over the issue in front of the partys national executive members at Allahabad, it would hardly be surprising if Kairana is indeed viewed as a mini-Kashmir. Coming to the second point, much water has flown down the Ganga since the demise of the politically potent AJGAR and MAJGAR groups about 35 years ago. Newer socio-political combinations have replaced them. While Muslims and Ahirs have gravitated towards the Samajwadi Party, the Jat community which had raised a banner of revolt in neighbouring Haryana earlier this year find themselves in doldrums. They are in a fix. The BJP is in no position to take them for granted any longer. How to bring them back into the party-fold is their biggest challenge. Who knows Kairana might polarise the society to their advantage in the Muslim-Jat belt of Western UP in particular and the poll bound state as a whole in general? And it would work as an icing on the cake if the Kairana issue happens to suit Mulayam Singh Yadav too. For, it is no secret that the Samajwadi Party, just like the BJP, does well in a polarised atmosphere thanks to its Muslim-Yadav vote bank. You may recall that in 2014, all the 19 Lok Sabha constituencies in the Jat belt in Western UP from Saharanpur to Fatehpur Sikri had been bagged by the BJP. The Jats had voted almost en bloc with other Hindu castes and sub-castes for the BJP in the aftermath of the Muzaffarnagar communal violence. To be fair to the saffron camp, however, it must be said that Narendra Modis impassionate appeal for a vote for hope and development had also worked wonders. Here comes the question of the day: Have the BJP and the SP discovered a political goldmine a winning formula at Kairana? Nobody knows for sure. Mathura: A day after the BJP raked up the Mathura violence to flay his government, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said the opposition party was homing in on such incidents since it had "no real issue" to focus on before the 2017 assembly elections. Asked about the demand for a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the violence at Jawaharbagh here, Akhilesh Yadav said a probe by a retired high court judge was on. "A judicial probe is going on and those found responsible will be dealt with firmly," he said. Akhilesh Yadav, who met the family members of Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi who died in the violence, assured all help to the bereaved family. He again admitted to the lapses in the anti-encroachment drive in the town and claimed delay in police action was due to the fact that the administration did not want to target women, children and innocent people in the park. Jawaharbagh was occupied by thousands of squatters for about two years, till police swung into action to evict them on 2 June. As many as 29 people, including two senior police officials, were killed in the violence. The squatters were led by a cult leader Ram Vriksha Singh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav said that poverty and unemployment were serious problems, and some people had attracted crowds to the park built on government land by promising land and food. These unsuspecting people were used as human shield even as the cult leaders made impractical demands, he said. Akhilesh Yadav also detailed the achievements of his government, saying it was working to improve the lives of the poor, women, labourers, marginal farmers and businessmen. Leading the protest in Jalandhar on Monday against the drug menace in the state, Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the Punjab government. On one side, Punjab has the drug menace and on the other, theres unemployment and issues with law and order, he said. If Punjab needs a better future, there is no better way but to stop the drug menance in the state. Referring to Amarinder Singhs vow to finish the drug menace in Punjab, he said that if Congress comes to power, this drug problem will be curbed in a month as the Congress intends to give more powers to the state police. Attacking the Akali Dal, Gandhi said that it is important to give powers to the police to eradicate this problem and the Akali Dal leaders are not doing it. "There are good police officers in Punjab police who want to work but SAD Govt isn't giving them the required freedom to function," he added. The mass protest in Jalandhar was organised to highlight rampant drug abuse and collapse of law and order in Punjab in the wake of the controversy around Udta Punjab. Will join the mass protest in Jalandhar on Monday, 13th June, to highlight rampant drug abuse and collapse of law & order in Punjab. Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) June 10, 2016 Punjab has a crippling drug problem. Censoring Udta Punjab will not fix it, Gandhi tweeted before the event. Allahabad: In a two-pronged attack with an eye on the Uttar Pradesh elections next year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday hit out at the ruling Samajwadi Party accusing it of practicing casteism, communalism, nepotism and hooliganism while SP and BSP indulge in corruption in power alternatively. Addressing a public meeting after the two-day National Executive session of the BJP, he also made a veiled attack on the Congress referring to corruption in purchase of helicopter, aircraft, guns and cooking gas subsidy. However, his firepower was directed for most part against the Samajwadi Party. Appealing to the people for an opportunity to rule the state, he invoked the greatness of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati and said the land of Prayag will mark a new beginning by taking to development. "For this, arrogance , casteism, poison of communalism, corruption, nepotism will have to be sacrificed in the holy fire (yagya) to start the new journey of development," Modi said to the cheers of the party cadre and admirers who repeatedly shouted 'Modi, Modi, Modi'. Not sparing the BSP, the other major player in the state, the Prime Minister said Mayawati and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav take turns to accuse each other's government of indulging in corruption but take no action when each one comes to power. "This is their jugalbandi (duet)," he said. Asking people to give BJP a chance to rule Uttar Pradesh, Modi said he will try to do his best for the development of the state. He said that he would try to achieve in five years 'what has not been done in the last 50 years.' "There is no alternative to development. For all ills, there is only one remedythat is development. Give us an opportunity. If you find us hurting your interests for our personal gains, then kick us out," he said. He said, "If you elect us, you will get your full rights. We are fully committed to it." The Prime Minister referred to employment opportunities for the youth and said that the Centre has done away with interviews for class III and IV jobs to eliminate middlemen. "We have told the state governments also to follow suit, but you know what the condition is in UP," he said in an apparent dig at the Akhilesh Yadav government. The incident of a church in Kerala denying burial to Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopras grandmother has raised questions over the rights of the faithful, who have gone out of the state for jobs, to rest in peace after death alongside their near and dear ones. The St. John Attamangalam Church at Kumarakom in Kottayam district refused to bury Mary John, maternal grandmother of the actress, stating that she was not a member of the church. They also cited her marriage with a member of the Hindu religion for not giving her a place in the church cemetery. The 163-year-old church belongs to the Jacobite Syrian sect, which is a constituent of Kerala-centred Malankara Syrian Church, one of the ancient churches in Christendom that traces its origin to St. Thomas, the Apostle. The committee that administers the church dropped the objection regarding her inter-caste marriage after family members informed them that Mary John was a practising Christian and she had even received Holy Eucharist two years ago at the same parish. However, the committee was not ready to relax the rule related to the membership of the church. When the family members told them Mary was baptised at the church and was its member until she left for Bihar in search of a job, they were told that she should have renewed the membership before her death if she wanted to be buried at the cemetery. Though the Kottayam diocese, under which the church comes, pleaded with the panel to allow the burial as a special case, they did not pay any heed to the plea. Finally, the body was buried at the cemetery of another church at Ponkunnam, 55 kms away from her ancestral village, at the instance of Bishop Thomas Mor Themotheos. Priyanka and other family members left the state with a heavy heart over their failure to fulfill the deceaseds last wish to be laid to rest at the cemetery of her home parish along with her parents and grandparents. Mary was born to Kavalapara family under the parish. After completing a nursing course in the state, she migrated to Bihar, where she married Dr. Akhouri and changed her name to Madhu Jyotsna Akhouri. Priyanka is the daughter of Madhu Chopra, Akhouris daughter. She was raised by her grandmother and was very close to her. Therefore, the actress took the initiative to bring the body to Kumarakom after she died on 3 June at the age of 94. When Priyanka, her mother and a few others brought the body from Mumbai on 5 June, the church authorities told them about the rules that did not permit Marys burial in the church. Church vicar Fr. Simon Manuel Kidangath said tradition, rules, and the faith were more important to the church than the individual. He said that the issue regarding burial of Marys body was blown out of proportion because it involved a celebrity. All are equal to us. We do not go by the fame or financial might of the individuals. We would ensure equal justice for all, said Shins Mathew, the church secretary. Bishop Thimothios disagreed with him. The prelate said that the parish authorities should have given importance to humanity that Christianity upholds. He felt that the act of the church was inhuman and against Christianity. The Bishop said that it was unfortunate that the parish did not consider the service Mary and her late husband rendered to the society. The couple were active during the freedom struggle and later in social work. They also served Bihar as members of the Legislative Council. This is not an isolated incident. Families of many people, who have died outside the state and the country, have faced this problem. This has been causing much concern among those who go out of the state for jobs. More than 25 percent of Keralites working outside the state is believed to be Christians. It is impossible for the non-residents to keep their membership in the parent church live since they will not be able to meet the conditions of the membership while they are outside the state, especially abroad. The Church should relax the rule since death is unpredictable, says Mathew Jacob, a member of the Jacobite Church. Even those who are living in the state find the burial rules and practices embarrassing. Such instances are more in Malankara Syrian Church since the Jacobite faction is at loggerheads with the Orthodox faction in the church for nearly a century over not only faith, but also the ownership of churches and its properties, including the cemeteries. The members of these two factions frequently come into arguments with regard to the entry and use of the cemetery. Often, it has gone to the extent of even defaming the corpus brought for funeral. The two sides had recently clashed over the burial of even a senior priest. In many cases, the law enforcement agencies are forced to intervene. In one case, the police resorted to even lathicharge to disperse two groups that clashed over the burial of the body of a faithful belonging to the Orthodox faction in Ernakulam district. The body had to be finally buried in front of the church. Different sects of the Church have different rules for burial. But unlike the church at Kumarakom, most of them do not insist on membership in the parent church if the deceased is a member of a church in their place of residence and practise the faith. This is why the Ponkunnam Church allowed the burial of Mary John. However, almost all denominations of the church are unsympathetic towards those who criticise it. The rebels are excommunicated and when they die their bodies are confined to rogues pit (called Themmadikuzhi in Malayalam) located in a corner of the cemetery. A court in Kottayam had recently fined a bishop and the vicar of a church for refusing burial to a former professor, who wrote a book criticising certain rituals of the church. Terming the action as an infringement of the rights and privileges of the deceased, the court ordered the duo to pay Rs.9.95 lakh to his family. The church is also mostly unkind to the victims of suicide. Most sects of the church neither allow the body of a suicide victim to enter the church building, nor will the priest be allowed to accompany the funeral procession with prayers. With the number of suicides rising rapidly in the state over the years, many have been criticising the church for adopting such an insensitive stand on the victims. As a result of this outcry, several sects have started amending the rules to provide decent burial to the suicide victims if not a proper religious burial. While the Latin Church, the largest of the three Catholic rites in India, has started taking a sympathetic view to the suicide victims, the Syrian Orthodox Church has recently amended its laws to offer "decent burial" to them. Burial is the most important of the three rituals that Christians pass through in their life. It is traditionally considered by the Church as a sacred act but many like the Kumarakom church violate the sanctity citing flimsy reasons as in the case of Priyanka Chopras grandmother. Narayangarh: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to reconsider the decision to reduce allocation of kerosene to the state. "The decision will cause grave distress to the consumers in remote and tribal areas and will adversely affect the poor, SC, ST, minorities and economically weaker sections of the society," Banerjee said in the letter. She said in view of this it would not be appropriate to reduce allocation of kerosene, which was essential for basic needs like lighting and cooking by the poor. "The education of the poor children will also be adversely affected," the letter read. She requested the Prime Minister to reconsider the decision and permit allocation of kerosene to the state as it was in March 2016. Banerjee addressing her first government meeting in West Midnapore district announced various projects. She also said the state government had already canceled around 1.41 crore bogus ration cards in order to ensure that benefits of PDS system reach only genuine beneficiaries. New Delhi: Congress on Monday demanded that the Narendra Modi government apologise for 'misleading' the country that making India a member was on the agenda of the just concluded meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group at Vienna. "Government must apologise to the nation for telling the country that India's membership was on the agenda of the NSG. It was not on the agenda", party's senior spokesman Anand Sharma told reporters claiming that there was "no discussion" on the issue at the meeting. Sending the signal that progress on the Indo-US nuclear cooperation was started by the Congress-led UPA, he recalled that the 123 Agreement was signed by the then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Taking a dig at the government, he said while there has not been any discussion on the issue at the NSG meeting, they say that "the film is ready". Sharma said MTCR is still a "work in progress." He said that opposition from "northern neighbour" is still there. On Sunday, a report from Beijing had it that notwithstanding a US push for India's NSG membership, members of the elite club "remain divided" on the issue of non-NPT countries joining it and insisted that there "was no deliberation" on the bid by India and other nations at the Vienna meeting. "There was no deliberation on any items related to the accession to the NSG by India or any other countries that are not signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei had said in a statement while referring to the Vienna meeting that took place last week. He had said the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) Chair Argentine Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi convened an unofficial meeting of the 48-member group on 9 June. "India must get the Membership of the NSG but please Shri Narendra Modi and Amit Shah - you are less and inadequately informed, on these matters, please do not mislead the people by continuously making false and tall claims about your achievements," he said. Targeting the Prime Minister, Sharama said the just concluded National Executive meeting of the BJP in Allahabad, saw Modi "characteristically indulging in self-praise and attacking the Opposition for being anti-Development." Insisting that the Congress has cooperated with the Government in the passage of important legislation, he said the government should refrain from giving advice to the opposition. New Delhi: The Aam Admi Party today said it has "no links" with 'Udta Punjab' and one of the producers of the film had quit the party after 2014-Lok Sabha polls. "AAP doesn't have even a distant link with the film made by Samir Nair and Anurag Kashyap," AAP leader Sanjay Singh said, referring to the movie. The Shiromani Akali Dal and censor board chief had accused the AAP of funding the film which highlights the drugs problem in Punjab. When asked whether Nair, who is one of the producers of the film, joined the AAP, Singh said he had quit the party after 2014 polls. Batting for film, Singh said, 'Udta Punjab' reflects the "truth of Punjab." Meanwhile, the Bombay High Court today cleared the decks for the release of movie 'Udta Punjab', whose makers were locked in a dispute with the Central Board of Film Certification, after ordering deleting a urination scene and displaying a revised disclaimer. Washington: For Donald Trump, Sunday's mass shooting in Florida was a moment to redouble his call for tougher action against terrorism and to take credit for "being right" about the threat. For Hillary Clinton, it was a time to choose words carefully and reiterate her call for keeping "weapons of war" off America's streets. The responses of Trump and Clinton to the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history were a study in contrasts for the two presumptive presidential nominees one of whom will soon be leading a country fearful of terrorism, gun violence and the often merciless intersection of the two. The motive behind Sunday's early morning rampage at a gay nightclub in Orlando was unknown when Trump and Clinton began weighing in. By day's end, authorities still had far to go in uncovering what led Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen from Florida, to open fire, kill 50 people and critically wound dozens more. As information began trickling out, Trump took to Twitter to say he was "praying" for the victims and their families. "When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?" he wrote. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Within a few hours, the presumptive Republican nominee was back on social media saying that he'd appreciated "the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." After President Barack Obama did not use that same phrase to describe Mateen in his remarks from the White House, Trump released a statement saying the president "should step down" a provocative response that far exceeds the typical Republican criticism of Obama's approach to extremism. Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Reporting that Orlando killer shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. 2nd man arrested in LA with rifles near Gay parade. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Trump is hardly the first politician to try to capitalize on a tragedy, though he's more blatant than most in connecting his electoral prospects to incidents of unimaginable suffering. Shortly after last year's deadly attacks in Paris, Trump said, "Whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country. We have weak, sad politicians." After a deadly December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, Trump stunned many in his own party by calling for a temporary ban on Muslims coming to the US. Rather than sink his political prospects, it helped propel the businessman to his first victories in the GOP primary. For Trump's detractors, his comments can appear jarring and crass. But he's also tapped into a deep frustration among some voters who believe Obama has been handcuffed in his response to terror threats because he's worried about offending Muslims in the US and around the world. "We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Trump declared Sunday. He canceled a rally scheduled for Monday, but planned to go forward with a speech in New Hampshire, changing the topic from his case against Clinton to national security. Clinton, who is more schooled in the political customs of responding to tragedies from her years as a senator and secretary of state, was careful in her initial comments. The presumptive Democratic nominee also made her first remarks on Twitter early Sunday, writing: "As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. -H Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 Like Obama, Clinton prefers to avoid early missteps even if that leaves her looking overly cautious. On Sunday, she waited for the President to declare the shooting an "act of terror" before doing the same. "This was an act of terror. ... This was also an act of hate." Hillary on the attack in Orlando https://t.co/MmaGjrSufr Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 Clinton and Obama postponed plans to campaign together on Wednesday in Wisconsin, a decision driven both by political appearances and an expectation the president would need to spend his week overseeing the government's response to the shooting. Still, Clinton planned to continue with solo campaign stops on Monday in Ohio and Tuesday in Pennsylvania. Clinton didn't avoid the prospect of a link to international terrorism in her statement, though she was vague in her language. She has made stricter gun control legislation a centerpiece of her presidential campaign and was more direct in raising the shooting as an example of the nation's failure to keep guns "out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals." Federal authorities said later on Sunday that Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so. Whether the tragedy in Orlando ultimately sways the trajectory of the general election campaign is unknown. If current trends hold, there will be more deadly mass shootings in the US before voters head to the polls in November. Other unforeseen events will likely also shape the race over the next five months, as the 2008 economic collapse did in the closing weeks of that year's presidential campaign. But as voters begin seriously weighing Clinton and Trump as their next commander in chief, Sunday's shooting left little doubt that the choice between the two candidates is stark. Narayangarh: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said slander campaigns and criticisms cannot stop development work in the state, apparently hinting at her criticism by opposition parties during the Assembly polls. "Our motto is more and more developmental work. If you work and bring in development no amount of criticism or conspiracy can stand in front of it. All the development work that has started in the last five years will continue," she said in her first meeting in West Midnapore district after the polls. During her election campaign, Banerjee had promised to come to Narayangarh if Trinamool Congress candiate was elected from this constituency. CPI(M) state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra, who was the former leader of opposition, had contested from here and was defeated. Banerjee thanked the people of Narayangarh for responding to her appeal of electing the TMC nominee in spite of "slander campaign and conspiracy". "I thank the people of Narayangarh for giving a new ray of hope by giving us such a massive victory ... I will start my administrative review meeting from this district," she said adding the victory of TMC as the victory of the people and good governance. Announcing the construction of a 300-bed multi-super specialty hospital in this area and a new college, she said a new power sub-station and a food grains godown would also be constructed. She also inaugurated 32 new projects for Midnapore area and laid foundation stone for 14 others. The chief minister handed over cycles, tractors, motor rollers, fishing nets, rickshaw vans, 'Kanyasree' and 'Yubasree' scheme cards among other things to 15000 direct beneficiaries. Banerjee directed the party MLAs and representatives of zilla parishad, saying, "You (MLAs and Zilla Parishad represntatives) all have to work for the people and be with the people. Listen to their grievances." Howsoever tasteless or offensive it might be, freedom of expression demands that we should always defend the right of the comedian to deliver a bad joke. A political party isn't a stand-up comedian though. The Indian National Congress, therefore, cannot seek recourse to Article 19 of the Indian Constitution for the cruel joke it sprang Sunday by putting Kamal Nath in charge of Punjab and Haryana. The 69-year-old Nath replaced Shakeel Ahmed while Ghulam Nabi Azad supplanted Madhusudan Mistry as Uttar Pradesh general secretary as a precursor to the redrawing of the AICC secretariat and as part of the much-discussed revamping of the nuts and bolts of the party before Rahul Gandhi, as has been speculated, takes over as Congress president. But it was Sonia Gandhi's move to install the controversial Nath who was indicted by the Nanavati Commission for his alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as Punjab minder that immediately raised the temperatures and made Congress the swift target of Aam Admi Party and BJP, the other stakeholders in the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections in 2017. No sooner had Nath been named, Kejriwal threw a barb at Punjab Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh, asking if he has absolved the veteran leader for his alleged role in the Sikh genocide. Capt Amrinder shud state his stand on Kamal Nath. Does Capt absolve Kamal Nath? https://t.co/746ad6hNQx Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) June 12, 2016 His party took up the cudgel, naming Nath as the man "who (in 1984) instructed policemen to join the attackers and fired several rounds at the historic Rakabganj gurdwara." "Giving charge of Punjab elections to Kamal Nath shows (Congress vice-president) Rahul Gandhi's insensitivity towards the Sikhs. Proves the Congress is unfit to lead Punjab," read an AAP statement. Not to be outdone, BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya tweeted: Appointment of 1984 SikhGenocide accused Kamal Nath,as Incharge of Punjab,is like Rubbing Salt into the Wound.#Shame pic.twitter.com/4KWDLe5S1U Kailash Vijayvargiya (@KailashOnline) June 12, 2016 Beyond the political grandstanding though, the Congress high command's decision accurately simulates the brain freeze that seems to have affected the rank and file of the grand old party. In Saturday's biennial Rajya sabha polls for instance, some of its MLAs in Uttar Pradesh indulged in cross-voting while some in Haryana used the wrong kind of pen while casting their ballots resulting in a victory for BJP-supported independent candidate Subhas Chandra. For a party that is fast losing its national footprint, appointment of Kamal Nath as general secretary of Punjab and Haryana is precisely the kind of message that it didn't need to send. In one fell swoop, the move promises to wipe out whatever anti-incumbency tailwind the Congress may have generated from the controversy in Punjab over a film and drug abuse. Kamal Nath head of murderous mob in '84 Sikh massacre appointed punjab Cong in-charge. their idea of repentance? https://t.co/C7IzIR7yB0 Hartosh Singh Bal (@HartoshSinghBal) June 12, 2016 What exactly is Congress trying to prove by appointing Kamal Nath as the Gen.Secretary of the party in Punjab ? What a shame #1984 Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) June 12, 2016 Either the Congress has a death wish in the upcoming Assembly polls or the high command is so insensitive and callous that it cares little about the decision's impact on people who still nurse in their souls the gaping wounds of 1984 pogrom. Quoting 'party sources', NDTV reported that Sonia Gandhi's move (to appoint Nath and Azad) was apparently aimed at giving preference to faces with "heart and soul in electoral politics" as both leaders have proven that they can take along all the factions. It'd be funny, were it not so desperately tragic that Nath's name was considered while 10 Janpath burnt midnight oil for a leader who could 'take along all factions'. Manoj Mitta and HS Phoolka in their book When A Tree Shook Delhi (Roli Books) point out that Nath may not have been formally charged in a court of law in India, but his "involvement" in the 1984 cases is a matter of much-documented record. Outlook magazine carried excerpts from the chapter titled A Tale of Two Gurudwaras: The attack on Rakab Ganj Gurudwara was also remarkable for the fact that it was probably the first, and so far, the only instance in the history of mass violence in India, where a political leader admitted to being on the spot The leader in question was Kamal Nath. A report in Caravan mentions an excerpt from Suri's book 1984: The Anti-Sikh Violence and After where the then The Indian Express journalist recounted the events he saw unfolding at Gurudwara Rakabganj. According to Suri, who was an eyewitness, Nath led the mob that had gathered in the area and exercised complete control over them. Did I see Kamal Nath physically and obviously leading a mob, commanding them to kill Sikhs? No, I did not. If to that extent the affidavit was weak, so it was and so be it. But it is just as true that what I had seen raised disturbing questions about just what Kamal Nath was doing there... If Kamal Nath was playing a role as responsible citizen and leader, he would have wanted later to follow up with the local police to ensure investigation and prosecution for the murders committed. We have seen no evidence he did that. Is it possible that Nath's appointment is a deliberate attempt by Congress to boost AAP's chances at its own cost to make it a two-way fight between Arvind Kejriwal's party and the ruling SAD-BJP combine? The way punch-drunk Congress has been behaving, not even the wildest conspiracy theories could be ruled out. There seems to be no thorough plan or coordination between two prominent investigating agencies--the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate(ED)--in the case against the absconding liquor-baron, Vijay Mallya, whose airline, Kingfisher, owes Rs 9,000 crore worth loans to 17 Indian banks. This lack of coordination, or rather confusion, is lessening the chances of loan recovery from Mallyathe ultimate aim of the whole witch-hunt--or even bring the industrialist face the Indian law for his alleged unlawful activities. Mallya is probably a happy man with the lack of disconnect, confusion and haste exhibited by Indian sleuths in this case. He probably realises that there is no method in their madness. That gives him more firepower to make his case before a court of law anywhere in the world and play the victim wearing the garb of a failed entrepreneur. If one reads between the lines of his Sunday statement, shortly after the ED attached some of his domestic assets, this strategy becomes increasingly obvious. Beyond the emotion and anger, Mallya raises several crucial points in the statement. These are; 1) The EDs action of attaching his and one of his companys assets in India in the Kingfisher case is legally not valid. 2) The ED action makes raising resources by selling his assets to repay banks even more difficult now. 3) The ED/CBI have already been given all documents including money trail through bank accounts in the Kingfisher loan to prove that the money has been used for legitimate purposes, hence no misappropriation of the funds is done and finally, 4) He never refused to appear before the ED (the premise of the agencys request for NBW against him) but only sought time to sell his assets. Here, Mallya is listing his logical arguments to sway the public opinion in his favour and portray that he is being hunted for no adequate reasons. The investigators inability to nail Mallya in this case on charges of serious financial fraud with rock solid evidence is proven when the UK denied the deportation request of Mallya and the Interpols hesitance to issue a red corner notice on him. So far, the ED has only managed to persuade the Indian government to revoke Mallyas passport using its influence and taking advantage of the public, political and media pressure on this high profile case, but doesnt have a well-woven net yet to catch the big fish. All this is happening when there is a case going on in the Supreme Court between Banks vs Mallya on the loan recovery and when the CBI maintains that it doesnt have a strong case yet against Mallya. Even when the ED is moving on its own in the case, the CBI is initiating another round of investigation by setting up a special team. Mallya is probably clearer in his head than the investigators about the course of the Kingfisher case. His strategy is to make his points through well-timed, point by point presentations and claims, to contest each and every hurried move by the ED that seems to operate under significant pressure. The EDs hurried actions of chasing his assets back home for a significantly smaller amount (compared to the actual loan amount), has given Mallya more reasons to make his case that why it is even more difficult to pay back the money now selling his assets, which is precisely what he did soon after the ED action. The reason why banks rejected Mallyas offer to pay Rs 4,000 crore is that lenders do not want to settle for anything less than the whole amount. The first excuse for Mallya for not returning to the country was given when his passport was revoked after he left for UK on 2 March. Mallya has duly used that opportunity as well. His strategy based on facts, coupled with emotional appeals of a failed businessman (in the Kingfisher case), would eventually sway the public opinion in his favour. The witch-hunting by ED, so far seen as a battle to save the public money, will be increasingly seen with suspicion of bias. Mallya has even questioned the CBI decision to set up a special team to investigate the Kingfisher case. After months of investigation which included personal interviews with me, the CBI is reported to have now constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to further investigate Kingfisher Airlines and myself. It is, indeed, sad and disappointing that the thousands of documents submitted by us and interrogation of several executives seem insufficient to convince them there has been no wrongdoing, Mallya said in the statement. Its not to say that Mallya would have had a change of mind and returned to the country to pay up banks if the ED didnt initiate the actions. It is pretty clear that the liquor-baron wouldnt give an easy win to the banks and investigators anywaysomething he made abundantly clear in his interview with Financial Times saying by arresting me or taking my passport, they arent getting any money. But, cornering Mallya with convincing evidence (such as money trail to prove misuse of funds), would have left him no room to play the victim card before the public and the court of law. This is something Firstpost had noted earlier. In a war, mere strength will not destroy the enemy, the battle of strategy is equally important. Mallya realises this more than his enemies. If getting back the Rs 9,000 crore from Mallya is the primary goal (and subsequently making him face the law on alleged wrongdoings), the investigators should be made aware about something called the time value of the money. In this case, the original loan amount drawn by Kingfisher was about Rs 6,900 crore but the loan outstanding today stands around Rs 9,000 crore on account of the interest accrued. Since the case is now being dealt by the Supreme Court, it would have made far more sense for the ED to furnish evidences of financial crime by Mallya (if they have any) before the court and establish his wrongdoing before moving to revoke his passport and attach his domestic assets. It is doubtful whether they have done so, so far. Remember, only two banks in the 17- lender consortium have so far tagged Mallya as a wilful defaulter. Also, the stance of a section of banks including IDBI Bank that there is evidence of fund diversion by Mallya weakens the case. In this backdrop, Mallya should have then given a final deadline to return and pay back before initiating the final assault. But, the lethal weapons were fired before assessing the weak points and position of the enemy. The target is intact so far. Equally important is to identify the officials (bankers and bureaucrats) who might have helped Mallya flout the rules to get such a huge loan to an airline that has never made profit and against guarantees such as Kingfisher brand, trademarks. Did he receive political help to secure the loan in the first place, get a softer handling by banks for four long years, and finally escape the country just in time before all hell broke loose? There are several unanswered questions. Dhaka: Bangladesh on Monday said that it did not need any foreign help to provide security to its religious minorities despite a recent wave of deadly attacks by Islamists targeting Hindus and other communities along with liberal activists in the Muslim-majority country. "The followers of minority religious faiths are being attacked along with other ordinary citizens as part of an orchestrated plot to embarrass the government but these incidents could in no way affect the interfaith harmony in Bangladesh," Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu said. He added, "We don't need to seek assistance of any foreign country or government for the security of our minority communities the (Bangladesh) government by principle is secular and it is awake 24 hours". Inu heads the left-leaning party which is a partner of ruling Awami League-led coalition government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The minister's comments came in response to a recent media report that said Hindu community in Bangladesh had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention for their protection in the wake of the attacks. "The Hindu community, which is the biggest minority community in Bangladesh, is vulnerable in Bangladesh. Fundamentalist and Jamaat forces are trying to wipe out Hindus from Bangladesh," general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council and noted human rights activist Rana Dasgupta had said in Kolkata. "We feel that India being a Hindu majority country, should do something. We have high hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He should act and take up the matter with Bangladeshi government and ensure the safety and security of Hindus," he said. A wave of recent attacks that left a number of secular or liberal activists and religious minorities dead prompted Bangladesh to launch a nationwide anti-militancy crackdown on Thursday. Police claimed that 8,569 people were arrested till Monday with 34 of them suspected Islamists. According to police, most of the militants detained in the countrywide raid belonged to Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) the banned outfit that is believed to have carried out most of the attacks in the past two years. In June, an elderly Hindu priest, a Hindu monastery worker, a Christian grocer, and wife of a senior police officer, were all murdered. The Islamic State terror group and the South Asian branch of al-Qaeda (AQIS) reportedly claimed responsibility for most of the attacks. But the government rejects the claim attributing the murders to homegrown militant outfits like JMB alleging that main opposition BNP and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami were patronising the attacks under an orchestrated plot against the government. President Barack Obama condemned the "horrific massacre" of 50 revelers at an Orlando nightclub Sunday, an attack that is already fueling rows over guns, gay rights and how to defeat the Islamic State group. Fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded during a late-night assault on 'Pulse,' a nightclub popular with Florida's gay community. Police have pinned the slaughter on 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a son of Afghan immigrants who is said to have pledged allegiance to Islamic State before going on a rampage with an assault rifle. "This was an act of terror and an act of hate," Obama said in a somber White House address to mark the worst mass shooting in US history. "The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance, sing and live." "As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people," Obama said. "In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. We will not give into fear." @POTUS https://t.co/i7fOS38GzH The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 12, 2016 During his eight years in office, Obama has had to appear publicly after more than a dozen mass shootings. He has called the slaying of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the worst day of his presidency. But this latest shooting comes in the middle of a vitriol-filled campaign to see who will replace Obama in the white House next year. An Islamic State-inspired attack in San Bernardino, California in 2015 prompted Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump to call for a blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States. That call was pilloried by many as racist and unconstitutional, but it propelled Trump -- now the Republican party nominee -- to center stage in the 2016 race. The identity of the presumed Orlando shooter, his target and the fact that his weapons were legally purchased, will only fan the political flames. Trump is expected to focus a speech Monday on national security, rather than the alleged shortcomings of his rival Hillary Clinton as planned. Meanwhile, a first joint campaign event between Democratic nominee Clinton and Obama, scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed. In his statement, Obama was careful not to inject too much politics into the issue. "We've reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer," he added, saying that the FBI was nonetheless threating the attack as an "act of terror." "We must spare no effort to determine what, if any, inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups." Trump slams Obama Trump was quick to point out that Obama has repeatedly refused to associate such attacks with Islam. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" he said on Twitter. Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Reporting that Orlando killer shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. 2nd man arrested in LA with rifles near Gay parade. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 The last week had offered Obama a rare glimmer of hope in the fight against the Islamic State, with the group under series pressure in Libya and Syria. Democrats have honed in on evidence that Mateen bought two weapons legally in recent days to call for tighter gun control. "The shooter was apparently armed with a hand gun and a powerful assault rifle," Obama said. "This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub." "We have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well." The flag at the White House was lowered to half-staff and Obama ordered all government buildings to do the same. With inputs from AFP Pretoria: Oscar Pistorius is a "broken" man who should be hospitalised rather than jailed, a South African court heard on Monday, as the Paralympic athlete awaits sentencing for the murder of his girlfriend three years ago. The double-amputee killed Reeva Steenkamp, a model and law graduate, in the early hours of Valentine's Day in 2013, saying he mistook her for an intruder when he fired four times through the door of his bedroom toilet. Looking tired and sometimes resting his head in his hands, the 29-year-old "Blade Runner" attended the first day of the sentencing hearing at the High Court in Pretoria along with members of his family. "He has developed a serious psychiatric condition which has become worse in the past two years," psychologist Jonathan Scholtz, called by the defence, told the court. "Further imprisonment would have a detrimental effect on him as a person, considering his current clinical condition." Scholtz said that during recent interviews Pistorius had displayed signs of "post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder and depressive disorder". "Currently he is not able to testify. His condition is severe," he said. In March, Pistorius's lawyers failed in their legal bid to reverse a Supreme Court of Appeal judgement that upgraded his original conviction from culpable homicide-the equivalent of manslaughter-to murder. The original trial judge Thokozile Masipa is expected to pass a new sentence after hearing arguments from both prosecution and defence. Scholtz added that Pistorius "has almost given up, his spirit seems broken" and he should be sent to hospital. "(He is) a vulnerable, anxious man, extremely uncertain of himself without his prostheses." Pistorius faces a minimum 15-year jail term for murder, but his sentence could be reduced due to time already spent in prison and mitigating factors, including his disability. Steenkamp's parents were both in court today, and her father Barry may take the witness stand to ask the court to impose a lengthy punishment. If he does, it will be the first time one of Steenkamp's parents has testified in the case. WASHINGTON/MANCHESTER, N.H. Hillary Clinton on Monday warned against demonizing Muslim Americans, while Donald Trump again called for banning foreign-born Muslims from entering the country after the Orlando, Florida, nightclub massacre that was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. In speeches scheduled before the slayings at a gay nightclub in which 49 people and the gunman were killed, the Democratic and Republican presidential rivals discussed their starkly differing approaches to national security. "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very strong, and we must attack it," Clinton, the Democrats' presumptive nominee for the Nov. 8 election, said in a speech in Cleveland. Trump was more critical, lashing out at President Barack Obama by questioning his motives for refusing to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" in describing such attacks. He argued that both the president and Clinton were unfit to lead the nation. Omar Mateen, 29, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants, armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to militant group Islamic State, opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday. In proposals for dealing with threats of violence at home and abroad, Clinton called for increased efforts to remove Islamic State propaganda from the Internet, more air strikes in the areas held by the militant group and better coordination with allies in the region. She specifically called out three U.S. allies - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait - for allowing its citizens to fund mosques and schools that train jihadists. She also called for stricter gun control laws, reiterating prior calls to prohibit those on terrorism watch lists from buying guns. She pointed out that while the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of Mateen as a possible threat, he was still able to legally purchase a gun. Clinton has called for a complete ban on assault-style guns. "Its important that we stop the terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attacks, and that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino," California, Clinton said, drawing a standing ovation from the crowd. Clinton called on Americans to come together in the way they did after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. She pointed out that, at the time, she was a Democratic U.S. senator representing New York, while the U.S. president, New York governor and New York City mayor were all Republicans. "Americans from all walks of life rallied together with a sense of common purpose on Sept 12. ... We had each others' backs. We did not attack each other, we worked with each other to protect our country and rebuild our city," Clinton said. "It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, the spirit of 9/12, let's keep looking for the best within our country, the best within each of us." TRUMP LASHES OUT AT OBAMA Earlier, Trump questioned Obama's motives for not using the term "radical Islam" in an interview on Fox News. "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump said. "It's one or the other, and neither one is acceptable." Trump has for years suggested that Obama is secretly a Muslim. In 2011, when the wealthy businessman drew national attention for demanding that Obama produce another copy of his birth certificate, he told Fox News, "maybe it says he is a Muslim." Obama is a practicing Christian. "We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind," Trump said on Fox without being specific. "And the something else in mind. People cant believe it. ... Theres something going on. Its inconceivable." A Trump campaign spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House spokesman Josh Earnest refused to address Trumps comments directly, saying Trumps remarks were small in the shadow of the massacre, and as such, neither he nor Obama would focus on them. When you are focused on something as big as helping the country respond to the worst mass shooting in our nations history, when you are focused on something as big as safeguarding the country and combating violent extremism, its important not to get distracted by things that are so small, Earnest told reporters at the daily news briefing. Trump on Sunday had called for Obama to resign for not using the words "radical Islam" in his comments about the shooting. He also renewed his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump was delivering a speech on national security in New Hampshire. The topic was a change from his earlier plan to criticize Clinton. Trump said on CNN that the United States needed better intelligence gathering to prevent incidents such as the Orlando attack. We have to have a ban on people coming in from Syria and different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible, Trump said on ABC's "Good Morning America. (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Alana Wise in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. WASHINGTON There is no indication that the suspect in the Orlando nightclub shooting had any explosives, FBI Director James Comey told reporters on Monday. Comey added that authorities know what kind of cell phone suspect New York-born Omar Mateen used, but he declined to identify what type it was or whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation has gained access to it. Additionally, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said authorities will reexamine whether to change the policy regarding people previously under FBI investigation buying firearms. Currently, the FBI is not notified when someone formerly on terror watch list tries to buy a gun, Comey said. (Reporting by Julia Edwards; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Washington: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton adjusted their presidential politicking Sunday, first offering prayers and support to the victims of the worst mass shooting in US history. But they both infused their sympathy with statements that favor their presidential aspirations, and the presidential race rolled on. The presumptive candidates made statements hours after a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday, killing at least 50 people before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. Another 53 were hospitalized, most in critical condition. Officials identified the shooter as Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Florida, a US citizen born in New York. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, pushed for gun control and reached out to a key constituency gays and lesbians. "The gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month. To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them," she said in a statement, adding a call to keep assault weapons out of the hands of "terrorists or other violent criminals." Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, also offered words of support. But then spent the day congratulating himself apparently for predicting more attacks inside the US On Twitter, he renewed talk of his plan to ban Muslims from the US for an indeterminate time. And he went after President Barack Obama. As Obama stepped to the podium in Washington to address the nation early Sunday afternoon, Trump tweeted: Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 In his address Obama called the tragedy an act of terror and hate. He didn't talk about religious extremists, nor did others, reluctant to inflame a stunned nation already on edge about attacks inspired by the Islamic State group. Obama said the FBI would investigate the shootings in the gay nightclub as terrorism but that the alleged shooter's motivations were unclear. He said the US "must spare no effort" to determine whether Mateen had any ties to extremist groups. Hours later, a law enforcement official confirmed to The Associated Press that Mateen had made a 911 call from the club, professing allegiance to the leader of Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The official was familiar with the investigation but not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The shootings inspired the candidates to shift their schedules and focus. Clinton's presidential campaign announced it was postponing its first joint event with Obama on Wednesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, because of the Orlando shooting. Trump said he was changing the focus of his speech Monday at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire from his case against Clinton to "this terrorist attack, immigration and national security." He also noted that he "said this was going to happen" and repeated his call for Obama to resign for refusing to use the words "radical Islam." Clinton, Trump added, should drop out of the presidential race for the same reason. Trump has proposed temporarily barring all foreign Muslims from entering the country and has advocated using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods. Trump's first tweet of the day was factual: Really bad shooting in Orlando. Police investigating possible terrorism. Many people dead and wounded. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Tweeted Clinton: Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. -H Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 And then they resumed their plans Sunday. On schedule, Clinton's campaign unveiled its first general election ad Sunday morning. It will run in battleground states beginning Thursday. And Sen Bernie Sanders, still in the contest for the Democratic nomination despite Clinton's claim on it, went on with a round of appearances on the Sunday talk shows. He acknowledged the tragedy then said he would not drop out of the race and endorse Clinton until he's convinced she's committed to fighting wealth disparity. He later issued a statement of sympathy to the Florida victims, with no political overtones. Two hours later, Trump responded to the Clinton ad. Clinton made a false ad about me where I was imitating a reporter GROVELING after he changed his story. I would NEVER mock disabled. Shame! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 The Clinton ad uses footage of Trump onstage, flailing his arms in an apparent attempt to mimic New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who suffers from a congenital condition that restricts joint movement. At the time, Trump was taking issue with a story Kovaleski had written for The Washington Post. Roughly two hours after that tweet, Trump returned to the shootings. Horrific incident in FL. Praying for all the victims & their families. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 An hour later, he followed up with some self-praise: Washington: The worst mass shooting in US history shook the presidential campaign Monday, sending Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump scrambling to position themselves as best-qualified to lead a nation on edge over the dual threats of terrorism and gun violence. In a flurry of morning show interviews, Trump doubled down on his call for banning Muslims from other countries out of the US, despite the fact that the shooter in Sunday's Orlando nightclub attack was an American citizen born in New York. The presumptive Republican nominee also appeared to suggest that President Barack Obama may sympathise with Islamic terrorists a stunning statement about the current commander-in-chief. "He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump said on Fox News Channel's Fox and Friends. ''It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable." Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, warned against demonising an entire religion, saying doing so would play into the hands of the Islamic State group. Like Obama, Clinton has often avoided using the phrase "radical Islam," which has deeply angered Republicans. On Monday, she said "it matters what we do more than what we say." "We can call it radical jihadism, we can call it radical Islamism," Clinton said on CNN's New Day. ''But we also want to reach out to the vast majority of American-Muslims and Muslims around this country, this world, to help us defeat this threat, which is so evil and has got to be denounced by everyone, regardless of religion." She also reiterated her call for an assault weapons ban that would outlaw one of the weapons used by the Orlando shooter. "We know the gunman used a weapon of war to shoot down at least 50 innocent Americans," she told CNN, The attack left 49 people dead and dozens injured. The gunman died in a shootout with police. Clinton and Trump planned to address the shooting further in back-to-back speeches Monday. Clinton was speaking at an event in Cleveland and Trump in Manchester, New Hampshire. Trump's speech was originally supposed to focus on his case against Clinton, as well as her husband, former President Bill Clinton. But he abruptly switched his focus following the attacks on the popular gay nightclub in Orlando. The horrific shooting consumed the White House race just as Trump and Clinton were fully plunging into the general election. It served as a reminder to the candidates and voters alike that the next president will lead a nation facing unresolved questions about how to handle threats that can feel both foreign and all too familiar. Authorities identified the killer in Orlando as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim. FBI officials said they had investigated him in 2013 and 2014 on suspicion of terrorist sympathies, but could not make a case against him. Mateen opened fire at the Pulse Orlando club with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in such close quarters that the bullets could hardly miss. He called 911 during the attack to profess allegiance to the Islamic State, though it was unclear whether he had any direct contact with the terror group. On Monday, Trump said there were thousands of people living in the United States "sick with hate" and capable of carrying out the same sort of massacre. "The problem is we have thousands of people right now in our country. You have people that were born in this country" who are susceptible to becoming "radicalised," the billionaire real estate mogul said on Fox. He claimed there are Muslims living here who "know who they are" and said it was time to "turn them in." Trump's longstanding proposal to temporarily ban foreign-born Muslims from entering the United States has triggered outrage from Democrats and Republicans alike, who see it unconstitutional, un-American and counterproductive. But it has helped him win over many primary voters who fear the rise of Islamic extremism and believe that "political correctness" the fear of offending Muslims is damaging national security. Trump focused much of his ire Monday on Obama, raising questions about whether the president sympathizes with Islamic terrorists. Trump has long suggested Obama is a Muslim or born in his father's homeland of Kenya, despite the president being a Christian who was born in Hawaii. "There are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it," Trump said on NBC's "Today" show. "A lot of people think maybe he doesn't want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn't know what he's doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it." Jerusalem: Israel has reopened Palestinian crossing points from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip following a three-day closure put in place after last week's deadly Tel Aviv shooting, the army said on Monday. Crossings were reopened overnight as planned, an army spokeswoman said, though "security checks are ongoing" in Yatta, the West Bank village where the two Tel Aviv attackers were from. The village had been put on lockdown in the hours after Wednesday night's attack that killed four Israelis and wounded five others. Crossing points were shut on Friday morning, preventing Palestinians from entering Israel and annexed east Jerusalem. An exception was made however for the first Friday prayers of Ramadan, with thousands of Palestinians allowed to visit Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam. The closure also coincided with the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which was celebrated on Sunday. Israel regularly shuts crossing points during major Jewish holidays, when large numbers of Israelis congregate to pray or celebrate, presenting a potential target for Palestinian attacks. Israel announced a range of measures following the Tel Aviv attack, which saw two Palestinian cousins open fire at a busy cafe. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced the cancellation of tens of thousands of permits for Palestinians to enter Israel and east Jerusalem during Ramadan. The moves drew international concern, with France strongly condemning the attack but also warning against further exacerbating tensions. United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein's office in a statement on Friday also condemned the attack but said the Israeli measures may amount to "collective punishment". The Tel Aviv attack was the deadliest in a wave of violence that began in October. One of the attackers was arrested, while the other was shot and underwent surgery. Further details have been placed under a gag order by Israeli authorities while the investigation continues. New Delhi: Keeping the hope alive that Judith D'Souza will be home soon, her family today wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to do his "utmost" in securing her release from abductors in Afghanistan. Kolkata-based Judith's father Denzil D'Souza, mother Gloria D'Souza, brother Jerome D'Souza and sister Agnes D'Souza wrote a common letter to the Prime Minister, whose copies were sent to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress MP from the state Derek O'Brien. In the letter, the family members have said that the "brave, thoughtful, generous and compassionate" Judith had been working in Afghanistan for the well-being of the Afghan people and "as an ambassador of goodwill from India's people, participating in the developmental programmes of that country". Describing her as a "proud Indian", the family said, "as you can imagine, the news of Judith's kidnapping has shocked and stunned us. It has placed a shroud upon our family." They added, "We were eagerly awaiting her arrival home on vacation in a week from now, and do hope she will be back with us soon." Judith, working for an international NGO Aga Khan Foundation as senior technical adviser, was kidnapped by suspected militants in the heart of Kabul two days back. She was scheduled to return to India next week. The family members said the government has reached out to them in "our time of need and anxiety" and the External Affairs Minister as well as an official of the ministry had spoken to them in the past two days. "However, we still await concrete details," they said. "Sir, we appeal to you in your capacity as the leader of our great country and as the custodian of the well-being of our citizens, to please do your utmost to get dear Judith back home, among her family, her friends and her people. Please commit all levers you can bring into play to successfully reunite our family," the family wrote in the letter to the Prime Minister. The letter noted Modi's remarks earlier that 'Afghanistan's success is a deeply-held hope and desire of every Indian' and said it is so critical to India's engagement with the neighbouring country. "...we seek your active support under this noble sentiment as well." The family had words of praise for West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee government. "In Kolkata, where we have lived our lives and where Judith was born and educated, the community, our peers and the government, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, have left us overwhelmed with our warmth and solidarity in this hour of crisis for our family," they said. Los Angeles: Authorities in California said on Sunday they were trying to piece together the motive of a man who had an arsenal of weapons in his car and planned to attend the Los Angeles Gay Pride parade. James Howell, 20, was arrested at around dawn in Santa Monica with multiple weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials in his car, which had Indiana license plates, police said. The arrest came just hours after 50 people were massacred at a gay nightclub in Florida, prompting fears of a similar attack in Los Angeles. Santa Monica police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks initially said that Howell told the arresting officers that he wanted "to harm" the annual LA Pride parade taking place in Hollywood on Sunday. However, officials later said that investigators were trying to determine Howell's intentions and that he had only told police that he planned to attend the parade and made no reference to doing any harm. "It was a misstatement as chief Seabrooks was given the wrong information," Santa Monica police lieutenant Saul Rodriguez told AFP. "(Howell) did not make any additional statements saying he was going to do anything further than attend the parade." He said that Howell was being held on $500,000 bail on state charges of possession of firearms and explosives. Police said in a statement that Howell was arrested after a resident reported a prowler knocking on their door and window at around 5.00 am. When officers responded, they found Howell sitting in a car with three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, the statement said. "Additionally, officers discovered a five-gallon bucket with chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device," it added. Seabrooks said there was no known connection between Howell and the carnage in Orlando, Florida the worst mass shooting in US history. Authorities said they had considered calling off the parade but then decided to go forward while beefing up security, including placing undercover police in the crowd. The march went ahead without incident. The Los Angeles Times, quoting Indiana court records, said Howell was charged in October 2015 with intimidation and a felony count for pointing a firearm at another person. Prosecutors dropped the felony charge after he pleaded guilty in April to the lesser misdemeanor charge of intimidation. As part of his plea deal, he agreed to forfeit all weapons during his term of probation, The Times said. Washington: The gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando gay club was motivated by "extremist information distributed over the internet", but does not appear to be part of a broader IS plot, US President Barack Obama said on Monday, calling it an apparent example of "homegrown extremism". "The one thing that we can say is that this is being treated as a terrorist investigation. It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet," Obama told reporters after receiving a briefing from the FBI on Monday morning. All those materials are currently being searched, exploited, so that the FBI has a better sense of the pathway that the killer took in making a decision to launch this attack, he added. "At this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to IS, but there's no evidence so far that he was, in fact, directed by IS," Obama said with the FBI Director James Comey sitting by his side. "Also, at this stage, there's no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot. In that sense, it appears to be similar to what we saw in San Bernardino, but we don't yet know. And this is part of what is going to be important in terms of the investigation," Obama said. "As far as we can tell right now, this is certainly an example of the kind of home-grown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time," he said. "It also appears that he was able to obtain these weapons legally, because he did not have a criminal record that, in some ways, would prohibit him from purchasing these weapons. It appears that one of those weapons he was able to just carry out of the store, an assault rifle, a handgun, a Glock, which had a lot of clips in it. He was apparently required to wait for three days under Florida law," he said. But it does indicate the degree to which it was not difficult for him to obtain these kinds of weapons, he added. Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old Afghan-origin gunman, killed at least 50 people at the gay nightclub in Orlando in US' deadliest mass shooting incident. In a radio bulletin, the IS claimed that the attack on the "crusader gathering" was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "At the end of the day, this is something that we are going to have to grapple with, making sure that even as we go after IS and other extremist organisations overseas, even as we hit their leadership, even as we go after their infrastructure, even as we take, you know, key personnel off the field, even as we disrupt external plots, that one of the biggest challenges we are going to have is this kind of propaganda and perversions of Islam that you see generated on the internet," he said. The capacity for that to seep into the minds of troubled individuals or weak individuals, and seeing them motivated then to take actions against people here in the US and elsewhere in the world that are tragic, said the US President. Obama said countering this extremist ideology is increasingly going to be just as important as making sure that they are disrupting more extensive plots engineered from the outside. "We are also going to have to make sure that we think about the risks we are willing to take by being so lax in how we make very powerful firearms available to people in this country," he said. "This is something that I have talked about for a very long time. You know, my concern is that we start getting into a debate, as has happened in the past, which is an either/or debate, and the suggestion is either we think about something as terrorism and we ignore the problems with easy access to firearms or it's all about firearms and we ignore the role, the very real role, that organisations like IS have in generating extremist views inside this country," he added. It's not an either/or. It's a both/and, Obama asserted arguing that case of going after these terrorist organisations and hit them hard. "We have to counter extremism, but we also have to make sure that it's not easy for somebody who decides they want to harm people in this country to be able to obtain weapons to get at them," he said. He said the motivation of the shooter is not known yet. "I think we don't yet know the motivations, but here is what we do know, is organisations like IS or Al-Qaeda or those who have perverted Islam and created these radical, nihilistic, vicious organisations, one of the groups that they target are gays and lesbians because they believe that they do not abide by their attitudes towards sexuality. Now, we also know these are organisations that think it's fine to take captive women and enslave them and rape them," he said. "So there clearly are connections between the attitudes of an organisation like this and their attitudes towards tolerance and pluralism and a belief that all people are treated equally regardless of sexual orientation. That is something threatening to them. Women being empowered is threatening to them," Obama said. Washington: Republican White House contender Donald Trump has called on President Barack Obama to resign for not using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" to describe the gay club massacre even as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton backed redoubling of efforts to defeat terror groups. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" Trump said in a series of tweets as he slammed the US President for not blaming radical Islam for the terror attack by the lone Afghan-origin gunman Omar Mateen at a public bar in Orlando that claimed at least 50 lives. In another tweet, Trump claimed that Mateen shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered club goers. The police, however, is yet to corroborate this claim of Trump. The 69-year-old presumptive Republican presidential nominee also stated that a second man was arrested in Los Angeles with rifles near the Gay parade. The police, however, has so far ruled out any linkage with the Orlando shooting, which is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. In a separate statement, Trump also asked Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to get out of the race. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency," Trump demanded. "Last night our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist. It was the worst terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11 and the second of its kind in 6 months. My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded and their amilies," he said. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Trump said. Meanwhile, Clinton, 68, described the Orlando mass shooting as an act of terror and called for redoubling of efforts to defeat international terror groups. ISIS has claimed credit for the mass shooting carried out by 29-year-old Mateen, the New York-born American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan. "This was an act of terror. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad," Clinton said. "That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defences at home," she said. "It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values," Clinton said in a statement. Describing Mateen as a terrorist, Trump said the shooter was the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for President of Afghanistan. According to Pew, 99 per cent of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law. "We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States," he said. "Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalising," Trump alleged. "We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from Radical Islamic Terrorism which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a President for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans. We are going to make America safe again and great again for everyone," Trump said. Describing the Orlando shooting as "an act of hate", Clinton said, "the gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month." "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hate has absolutely no place in America," she said. Clinton said the horrific incidents reflect the need to have strict gun control laws. "We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets," she said. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic party presidential aspirant, said all Americans are horrified, disgusted and saddened by the horrific atrocity in Orlando. "At this point we do not know whether this was an act of terrorism, a terrible hate crime against gay people or the act of a very sick person, but we extend our heartfelt condolences to the victims' families and loved ones and our thoughts are with the injured and the entire Orlando LGBTQ community," he said in a statement. New York: Omar Mateen, the Afghan-origin gunman who killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, was allegedly infuriated over seeing two men kissing in Miami recently, according to media reports. Law enforcement officials have labelled the attack as an act of domestic terrorism, saying Mateen had called 911 once the attacks began and swore allegiance to the Islamic State terror group, the New York Times reported. Mateen's father Seddique Mateen, however, suggested his son was motivated by a different hate. He told NBC News that his son had come across two men kissing in Miami recently and was infuriated that his three-year-old son had seen it too. "They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, 'Look at that. In front of my son, they are doing that,'" the elder Mateen said. Mateen's father said the killing had nothing to do with religion and had apologised for his son's act. "We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country," he had said. The New York Times report said Mateen's father is an outspoken Afghan political activist but had played no part in the investigations of his son that the FBI carried out in 2013 and 2014, a law enforcement official said. The senior Mateen hosted a talk show for a television channel broadcasting to the Afghan diaspora. "Recently, the elder Mateen has taken to posting videos on his Facebook page where, dressed in a military uniform in front of the Afghan flag, he sharply criticises the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani," the report said. Mateen's ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy was equally shocked by the killings but said he had made anti-gay comments when he was angry. "There were definitely moments when he'd express his intolerance towards homosexuals," she said. She said she had first met Mateen online in 2008. Yusufiy described him as a "funny charmer with a decent job and aspirations to become a police officer" but said that he quickly became controlling, abusive and erratic after they were married. After marriage, he made her hand over her paychecks from her daycare job, prevented her from calling her parents and hit her, sometimes as she slept, she said. He also kept a handgun in the house. "I wasn't allowed to go anywhere except work," she was quoted as saying. Mateen was an observant Muslim but never expressed sympathies for terrorist organisations or radical Islamists, she said. Yusify left Mateen in 2009 after her parents flew down from New Jersey and rescued her from the marriage and had no contact with him since, except for one time when he tried to message her on Facebook. Washington: The father of the Orlando gay nightclub shooter had expressed support for the Afghan Taliban and denounced Pakistan in an online video, according to a media report. Seddique Mateen, who was referred to as Mir Seddique in early news reports, hosted the Durand Jirga Show on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California, The Washington Post reported. In it, the elder Mateen speaks in the Dari language on a variety of political subjects. He does not always make much sense. Dozens of videos are posted on a channel under Seddique Mateen's name on YouTube. A phone number and post office box that are displayed on the show were traced back to the Mateen home in Florida, the report said. Seddique's son Omar Mateen, who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando in the wee hours of Sunday and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. Seddique owns a nonprofit organisation under the name Durand Jirga, which is registered in Port St. Lucie, Florida. In a bizarre video he posted on Saturday, Seddique appears to be portraying himself as the Afghan president. In one video, Seddique expresses gratitude towards the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government, the report said. "Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in (the) Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up. Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon," he was quoted as saying. Just hours before the Orlando shooting, Seddique posted a video on a Facebook page called 'Provisional Government of Afghanistan Seddique Mateen'. In the video, he seems to be pretending to be Afghanistan's president, and orders the arrest of an array of Afghan political figures. "I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison (Hamid) Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland," he says, while dressed in army fatigues. The most recent video on Mateen's YouTube channel shows him declaring his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. The timing of the video is strange, as it came a year after presidential elections were held in Afghanistan. Mateen appears incoherent at times in the video, and he jumps abruptly from topic to topic. Orlando: Orlando police have revealed how Omar Mateen, the Florida gunman who killed 50 people in a shooting spree inside a gay nightclub, was finally killed police officers cornered him and then gunned him down as he was trying to flee from a bathroom at the Pulse club. Speaking at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, police said an officer who was present inside the club started shooting back when the Afghan-origin Mateen, 29, opened fire around 2 am, the Mirror reported. More officers arrived and drove the killer into the bathroom where he had hostages. The police believed he was about to explode a suicide vest. It tried to blow a hole through the wall. They used a Bearcat armoured vehicle to crash into his hideaway. Mateen then clambered out through the hole and was gunned down by the police. Orlando police tweeted to clarify the shooter had acted alone, and was killed. The Islamic State (IS) group later claimed responsibility for the attack. "The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in Orlando which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," Amaq News Agency reported. "One of the Caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando," the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan Radio. About 350 people were attending a Latin music event at Pulse, a well-known gay nightspot in the city, where survivors described scenes of carnage and pandemonium as the shooter took hostages inside a bathroom. Accra (Ghana): Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, on a three-nation African tour, has expressed his grief over the Orlando mass shooting that left 50 people dead and has emphasised on the need to coordinate global efforts to fight terrorism. Mukherjee said he was "shocked and deeply saddened" at the killings at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida. "This event is yet another grim reminder that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them," the Indian President said. "India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence." Mukherjee's message to the Ghananian leadership was also on similar lines as he expressed solidarity with the African people wherever they are hit by terrorism. As a victim of the "global menace" for the past three decades, India believed that terrorism knew no religion, no ideology, Mukherjee said at the banquet hosted in his honour by President John Dramani Mahama. Mukherjee applauded Ghana's role in promoting cooperation among the African nations and with India, as Mahamta had underlined during the India-Africa Forum III last year. The Indian President congratulated the Ghanaian leadership for moving the country to the low-middle income group and becoming one of the major African economies. India and Ghana, he said, shared common experiences of the past. He quoted Tagore's famous lines from Ethiopia to underline the Indian empathy for the African people who had freed themselves after years of colonialism. He offered Indian investments and assistance in a whole range of economic and development activities to boost the African endeavour. A number of agreements are scheduled to be signed at Accra where Mukherjee will interact with the businessmen and members of the 10,000 strong Indian community. Mukherjee arrived here on Sunday on the first leg of his three-nation tour that will also take him to Cote D'Ivoire and Namibia as part of India's outreach to Africa to consolidate ties with the continent. Washington: Muslim leaders in the US have strongly condemned the Orlando gay club shooting and described ISIS members as an "aberration" who do not speak for the faith amid reports that the gunman had sworn allegiance to the terror group. Calling for unity, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Nihad Awad requested politicians not to "exploit" the horrific attack in Orlando in which 50 people have been killed. "This is a hate crime. Plain and simple. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms. It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims. Let me be clear, we have no tolerance for extremism of any kind," Awad said, adding that he had a word for ISIS members and supporters. "You (ISIS) do not speak for us. You do not represent us. You are an aberration, you are an outlaw... they don't speak for our faith. They never belonged to this beautiful faith," Awad said. The community has also launched a fund raiser for the victims of the deadliest shooting in the American history. "We are sickened and heartbroken by this appalling attack. Our hearts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims. There can never be any justification for such cowardly and criminal acts, period," Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) National Executive Director Nihad Awad said on Sunday. CAIR is country's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organisation. "We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence," said CAIR-Florida's Orlando Regional Coordinator Rasha Mubarak. Outraged at the Orlando shooting, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) said it stands with the victims of this senseless act of violence and mourn with the families of the victims and pray for their ease and comfort during this time of difficulty. "ISNA sends its condolences and prayers to the families of the victims. We urge the community to stand united against all acts of violence," said Azhar Azeez, President of ISNA, the largest and oldest Islamic umbrella group in North America. "We stand in solidarity with them and repudiate any group that attempts to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence," said CAIR Maryland Outreach Manager Zainab Chaudry. A crowdfunding campaign launched by American Muslims to support the families of the Orlando shooting victims has raised over more than $3,000. WASHINGTON U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday there was no clear evidence that the shooter in Sunday's massacre in Orlando, Florida, was directed by a larger terrorist network. "It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet," the president told reporters in the Oval Office after a briefing by senior officials including Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey. "As far as we can tell right now, this is certainly an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time," Obama said. The shooter, Omar Mateen, expressed allegiance to the radical group Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, in a call to the city's 911 emergency telephone line during a standoff with police while holding hostages in a gay nightclub called Pulse. Obama said there was no evidence that Mateen, who killed 49 people at the club before he was shot dead by police, was part of a wider plot. Administration officials were examining various internet sites that had been visited by the shooter, Obama said. He said the United States had to think about the risks of firearms laws that allow easy access to guns. Police have said the gunman was armed with an assault-rifle-type weapon and a handgun that were purchased legally. The president said he was concerned that the response to the massacre would turn into a debate over whether to toughen gun laws or pursue extremist groups like Islamic State. "We have to go after these terrorist organizations and hit them hard," Obama said. "But we also have to make sure that it is not easy for somebody who decides they want to harm people in this country to be able to obtain weapons." (Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Alana Wise; Editing by Toni Reinhold) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. In the wake of the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, that left 50 people dead and another 50 injured, celebrities and politicians alike took to social media to express their grief over the incident. This incident, one of the worst attacks since 9/11, reiterates the nation's on going struggle against gun violence. The American polity soon after the incident, took to twitter, to show it's support. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, called it a 'horrific act'. Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. -H Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 Just a few days prior to the shooting, Orlando's LGBT community had marked the annual Gay Days celebration, one of the biggest event in the United States dedicated to gay pride. The partying was to go on at Pulse, a club known for its drag shows. Clinton's following tweet was in support of the LGBT community as she declared the shooting to be not just 'an act of terror' but also 'an act of hate'. "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. Hillary Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 Donald Trump too condemned the shooting, but took a far more aggressive stance demanding President Obama's resignation. Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Reports suggested that the attacker, Omar Mateen had called 911 and pledged his support to Islamic State before the shooting incident. Mateen was a US citizen, born in New York to parents who had immigrated from Afghanistan. Trump further tweeted, calling out a 'weak and ineffective' leadership, and reiterating his idea of a 'Muslim Ban'. What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Congressman Paul Ryan too tweeted in support of the victims. We pray for those brutally attacked in Orlando. While we must learn more about the attacker, the victims & families will not be forgotten. Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) June 12, 2016 The Queen of England sent out her thoughts for the victims, as did the Mayor of London. The Queen: "Prince Philip & I have been shocked by the events in Orlando. Our thoughts & prayers are with all those who have been affected" The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) June 12, 2016 I stand with the City of Orlando against hate and bigotry. My thoughts are with all the victims of this horrific attack #lovewins Mayor of London (@MayorofLondon) June 12, 2016 Closer to home, Vasundhra Raje too tweeted regarding the incident. Shocked by the news of #OrlandoShooting incident. Precious lives lost to cowardly act of terror.My prayers are with the families of victims. Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) June 12, 2016 Celebrities too condemned the attack and expressed their solidarity. I pray for all the victims families during this shooting epidemic. That their pain be met with compassion and support from the world. Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) June 12, 2016 My thoughts and prayers are w my brothers and sisters who were at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub. RIP to those who lost their lives. ADAM LAMBERT (@adamlambert) June 12, 2016 My is breaking for you #Orlando! Sending love to all those affected by this ridiculous violence and... (1/2) pic.twitter.com/oQ2mOLzuJN Enrique Iglesias (@enriqueiglesias) June 12, 2016 ... to all my friends in the LGBTQ community. My thoughts and prayers are with you.(2/2) Enrique Iglesias (@enriqueiglesias) June 12, 2016 Heartbreaking to hear about the #OrlandoShooting May peace come upon this earth.. Prayers for the victims and their families. #prayerforlove PRIYANKA (@priyankachopra) June 12, 2016 Celebrating William Shakespeare's work in the 400th anniversary year of the English playwright's death, award-winning British actor Ian McKellen, better known for his portrayal of Gandalf in The Lord of Rings movie trilogy, made his debut on the stage and appeared at various places around China. McKellen appeared on the red carpet Friday night for the opening ceremony of the 19th Shanghai International Film Festival. Together with celebrated Chinese mainland actor Jiao Huang, McKellen staged a performance in remembrance of Shakespeare in which he chanted The Seven Ages of Man, an excerpt from Shakespeare's play As You Like It. Jiao interpreted Hamlet. McKellen's visit to China this time is part of the British Council's Shakespeare Live, a major program of events and activities geared for the 400th anniversary. As part of Shakespeare Live, the British Film Institute screened Richard III on Sunday at the film festival. McKellen starred and codirected the work. As part of his schedule in Shanghai, McKellen went to Shanghai Theatre Academy for a lecture to the students only - professors were shut out. Interpreting the classic excerpts from Romeo and Juliet as well as Hamlet, McKellen shared his experiences performing Shakespeare for decades, highlighting the rich meanings and cultural connections of the text. Adopting a folksy style, McKellen went to some tourist attractions in Shanghai during his stay in the city. A fan showed her picture on Weibo with the 77-year-old actor on Friday night on the Bund. A day later, McKellen was seen in the central People's Park, joining the crowd and holding a small banner with Shakespeare's words: "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind". Unlike the Bund, People's Park is not a traditional tourist attraction but rather is known as a marriage market for residents. Each weekend, parents concerned about their children's marriage prospects post thousands of ads in the park, hoping to find a match. McKellen made a small ad for himself on a piece of paper, writing down key items such as "Cambridge University", "house in London" and "still active". McKellen is a well-known gay activist who came out at the age of 49 during a BBC radio interview and said in a later interview with the Daily Mail that it was the "best thing" he ever did. Before his visit to Shanghai, McKellen was also spotted at attractions in Beijing, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. To promote the British Council's Shakespeare Live program, he carried a small banner with the Bard's lines wherever he went. Zhang Kun contributed to this story. shijing@chinadaily.com.cn Actor Ian McKellen holds a small ad for himself at People's Park in Shanghai on Saturday. The park is known to locals as a marriage market. Screenshot from Weibo of British Council (China Daily 06/13/2016 page4) Washington: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, speaking on Monday after the massacre in a Florida nightclub, said the United States must find a way to keep the country safe without demonising Muslim Americans. Clinton called for "statesmanship, not partisanship" in the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando while Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, urged the monitoring of mosques in the United States and reiterated his calls for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. Fifty people, including the gunman, the US-born son of Afghan immigrants, died in at the gay nightclub in what was the deadliest shooting in US history. Clinton, in several television interviews, said she would support stronger measures to prevent so-called lone wolf attacks and urged closer internet monitoring. She said she was committed to protecting the rights of Muslim Americans at the same time. "We cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous," Clinton said on the MSNBC network. She also called for steps to prevent people who are on the US no-fly list from purchasing guns and said possible restrictions on assault weapons needed to be part of the debate. Trump delivered a speech on national security at 2 pm EDT on Monday in New Hampshire. The topic was a change from his earlier plans to criticize Clinton and what he said was her scandal-prone past. Trump said on CNN that the United States needed better intelligence-gathering to prevent incidents such as the Orlando massacre. "We have to look at the mosques ... and we have to look at the community," he said. "And believe me, the community knows the people that have the potential to blow up." Chandigarh: Fearing hate crime in the wake of the Orlando gay club shooting, Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) on Monday said that it will ask the Centre to take up with the United States the issue of safety and security of the Sikh-Americans. The apex religious body of the Sikhs said the Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, are fearing a backlash following the incident. "What has happened in Orlando is an unfortunate incident, it needs to be strongly condemned. As the Sikhs have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack in the past, we urge our Central government to take up the issue with the Obama administration to ensure their safety and security," SGPC President Avtar Singh Makkar said. Makkar said the religious body will be writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take appropriate steps in this regard. He said that they would also urge the US government, through the Centre, to ensure security of the Gurudwaras in that country. The SGPC head said that Sikhs are a peace loving community who have contributed to the US economy. "In US, you will find doctors, scientists, industrialists and entrepreneurs from the Sikh community," he said. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman armed with an assault rifle shot and killed 50 people and injured 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday. Dhaka: Bangladesh police said Monday they have arrested more than 8,000 people in a nationwide crackdown on militants launched after a series of murders targeting minorities and secular activists. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed on Saturday to catch "each and every killer" as Bangladesh reels from a wave of murders of religious minorities and secular and liberal activists that have spiked in recent weeks. Police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan said 3,245 suspects had been arrested in the last 24 hours, raising the total number to 8,192 since the campaign began Friday. Bangladeshi authorities have come under mounting international pressure to end the attacks, which have left nearly 50 people dead over the last three years. But opposition parties have accused police of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent. Many of those arrested were suspected ordinary criminals with existing warrants against them. "Weve arrested 3,245 people including 34 Islamist militants on the third day of the nationwide anti-militant drive," deputy inspector general AKM Shahidur Rahman told AFP. "Only a fraction of the people who have been arrested are members of Islamist militant groups. "Most of those who have been detained have warrants of arrests against them or they are charged with narcotics, arms and other criminal offences." The week-long crackdown is part of ramped up efforts to halt the killings, with five suspected Islamist militant group members shot dead in gun battles with police in recent days. Among those arrested in the latest sweep were members of banned group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), police said. JMB is one of two local groups blamed for most of the recent killings. The government rejects claims of responsibility from the Islamic State (IS) group and a South Asian branch of Al-Qaeda, saying international jihadists have no presence in Bangladesh. Omar Faruq, an alleged senior official of the banned Islamist outfit Hizb ut Tahrir, was among those arrested, a local police chief told AFP from the northwestern district of the Chapai Nawabganj. "We seized anti-government leaflets, pistol and gunpowder from his possession," Bashir Ahmed said. "Faruk was previously arrested in 2012 and went out on bail. Then he started trying to re-organise the activities of the banned organisation," he said. Islamabad: Pakistan on Monday summoned a top Afghan diplomat after security forces of the two countries exchanged gunfire over the contentious fencing issue at north-western Torkham border crossing. Afghan Charge dAffaires was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey Pakistan's strong protest over "unprovoked firing" by the Afghan forces at Pakistani forces on crossing, foreign office spokesperson said. The Afghan diplomat was told that the overnight firing incident was "contrary to the spirit of friendly relations" between Pakistan and Afghanistan. "The Afghan side was urged to thoroughly investigate the incident and share the findings with Pakistani authorities. It was further emphasised that all steps should be taken for avoiding recurrence of such incidents in the future," the official said. In the firing, an Afghan border guard was killed while two Pakistani soldiers and nine civilians were injured. Pakistan alleged that "unprovoked" firing was started by Afghanistan's security forces when construction work began on a new gate on the Pakistani side. "The gate is being constructed to facilitate the cross-border movement of people and vehicles. It was conveyed to the Afghan side that the regulation of movements at Torkham is part of government's policy to strengthen border management. Therefore, Afghan government's cooperation was needed as it would enhance mutual security and help combat the threat of terrorism," the spokesperson said. Last month, the border crossing was sealed for several days over the construction of the gate, causing hardships to thousands of people who cross it every day. Afghan government does not recognise the border, which is also known as Durand Line, and it opposes permanent structure. Islamabad: Pakistan has closed the chapter of seeking F16 fighter jets from the US and will now opt for Jordan-owned F16 jets, an official said on Monday. Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry, briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Foreign Policy, said the US seemed to be satisfied with Pakistan's decision. Choudhry said that one of the reasons for strained relations with the US were Pakistans close ties with China. Pakistan cannot cooperate with the US on some issues, he said. One of these issues is its sovereignty. He added that strained relations with the US were nothing new for Pakistan. Condemning the US policy of the war on terror he said, the US "has spent 16 years fighting the war on terror. If only it had given six years to the peace process, things would have been different. Fort Pierce, Florida: He was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and who at one point expressed interest in becoming a police officer, though he never pursued it. Early on Sunday, 29-year-old Omar Mateen gunned down 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, police said. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. Mateen attended evening prayer services at the city's Islamic Centre three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. "When he finished prayer he would just leave," Rahman told AP. "He would not socialise with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful." He was also bipolar, Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters in Boulder, Colorado. "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," Yusufiy said. Although records show the couple didn't divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms. Mateen opened fire early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, killing 50 people and wounding more than 50 others before he was gunned down during an exchange of fire with SWAT team members, authorities said. They say Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a call to 911 on the morning of the shooting. Yusufiy said she was "devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying" when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to his mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups. Rahman agreed. "My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with Islamic State," he said. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesman who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. "It's shocking," he said about the shooting. "(Omar Mateen's) father loves this country." Some of Seddique Mir Mateen's shows were taped and later posted on YouTube. During one episode, a sign in the background read: "Long live the USA! Long live Afghanistan. ... Afghans are the best friends to the USA." But a former Afghan official said the Durand Jirga Show appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel that supports ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban, which are mostly Pashtun. Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nation's minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said. The Durand Jirga Show expresses support for the Taliban, has an anti-Pakistan slant, complains about foreigners in Afghanistan and criticises US actions there, the official said. Seddique Mir Mateen lavished praise on current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he appeared on the show in January 2014, but he has since denounced the Ghani government, according to the official, who said that on Saturday, Seddique Mateen appeared on the show dressed in military fatigues and used his program to criticise the current Afghan government. He also announced on that show that he would run in the next Afghan presidential election, said the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be linked to coverage of the shooting. Omar Mateen had no criminal record, but Yusufiy said he owned a pistol. She said he wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Mateen was a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as "the leading global integrated security company". Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The law enforcement official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The shooter in 2013 made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and Mateen was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and at one point wanted to become a police officer but never pursued it, the imam said. He was also into body building. He was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence. The shooting "was totally unexpected," Rahman said. Colombo: Sri Lanka's main Islamic political party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), on Monday called for removing excess military camps in the former war zones in the country's north. SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem said his party does not agree with the proposal that the army should be fully withdrawn from the north, Xinhua reported. He said there is a concern by the public that the army is still occupying property it does not require. He said the army must release property which needs to be given back to the people and have camps in the north which are only required for national security. The Sri Lankan army had earlier said it will not withdraw from the north despite the end of a 30 years civil war in 2009. Sri Lanka government battled Tamil Tiger rebels in a brutal war which saw thousands killed on both sides. However following the end of the war Tamil political parties have been calling for the withdrawal of the army from the north. Accra: Terrorism is a scourge which knows no borders and must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee said in Accra as he expressed solidarity with Ghana which is confronting this challenge. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on Sunday, Mukherjee, who arrived in Accra on a two-day visit, said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghana's concern that it has become a global menace. "It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge," he said. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled Africa in his address. "Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council," Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. "The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs," he said. The elaborate banquet which saw traditional African dishes with Bollywood numbers playing in the backdrop was hosted at the flag staff college which is constructed by a noted Indian builder. Mukherjee presented to Mahama a portrait of India's first President Rajendra Prasad as he stressed that government of India seeks Ghana's continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Indo African Forum Summit held in New Delhi last year. Lauding Ghana's efforts in reducing poverty levels to almost half and crossing the threshold to become a low income country, Mukherjee said India will continue to extend the hand of cooperation as it marches on the path of prosperity. Mukherjee's is the first visit by an Indian President to Ghana and is a part of India's outreach to Africa. WASHINGTON/MANCHESTER, N.H. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump lashed out at President Barack Obama on Monday over the shooting massacre in Orlando, Florida, at the hands of a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State, saying it is possible Obama "doesn't want to see what's happening." Trump, in a series of television interviews, questioned Obama's motivation and said he would never solve the national security problem. "There are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it," Trump said on NBC's "Today" program. "... I happen to think he just doesn't know what he's doing. But there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it, maybe he doesnt want to see whats happening." Trump also chided Obama in a Fox News interview, saying, "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other and neither one is acceptable." Trump has for years suggested that Obama is secretly a Muslim. In 2011, when Trump drew national attention for demanding Obama produce another copy of his birth certificate, he told Fox News, "maybe it says he is a Muslim." Obama is a practicing Christian. "We're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart or he's got something else in mind," Trump said on Fox without being specific. "And the something else in mind. People cant believe it ... Theres something going on. Its inconceivable." A spokeswoman for Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the White House. Trump on Sunday had called for Obama to resign for not using the words "radical Islam" in his comments about the shooting. He also renewed his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Omar Mateen, 29, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants, armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to militant group Islamic State, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Errol Louis, a political analyst with NY1 News, called Trump's comments a "baseless smear" akin to Trump's so-called birther accusations that Obama was not born in the United States, which has been refuted. "It's baseless. It's not something that should be taken seriously or frankly even repeated," he told CNN. Trump plans to deliver a speech on national security at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Monday in New Hampshire. The topic was a change from his earlier plan to criticize Democrat Hillary Clinton, his likely rival in the Nov. 8 presidential election, and what he said was her scandal-prone past. "STATESMANSHIP, NOT PARTISANSHIP" Clinton warned against demonizing Muslim Americans and called for "statesmanship, not partisanship" in the aftermath of the shooting. The presumptive Democratic nominee, in several television interviews, also said she would support stronger measures to prevent so-called lone wolf attacks and urged closer internet monitoring. She said she was committed to protecting the rights of Muslim Americans at the same time. "We cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous," Clinton said on the MSNBC network. "Let's have a very clear rational discussion about what we do right and what we can improve on and how we're going to protect Americans, both from the threats of terrorism and ISIS ... and how were going to try to save people's lives from the epidemic of gun violence." Clinton also said the shooting renews the need to address gun control laws and called for steps to prevent people who are on the U.S. no-fly list from purchasing guns. "Now that were seeing terrorists use these assault weapons, that has to be part of the debate," she said Trump said on CNN the United States needed better intelligence-gathering to prevent incidents such as the Orlando massacre We have to have a ban on people coming in from Syria and different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible, Trump said on "Good Morning America. (Reporting by Washington newsroom; Editing by Caren Bohan, Richard Valdmanis and Bill Trott) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. WASHINGTON/MANCHESTER, N.H. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday that he would suspend immigration to the United States from countries "where there is a proven history of terrorism" against the United States, his strongest reaction yet to the Orlando nightclub massacre. Democratic rival Hillary Clinton warned against demonising Muslim Americans, offering a starkly different approach to national security as the two candidates clashed in speeches reacting to the slayings at a gay nightclub in which 49 people and the gunman were killed and 53 were wounded. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very strong, and we must attack it," Clinton, the Democrats' presumptive nominee for the Nov. 8 election, said in a speech in Cleveland. In Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump said that, if elected, he would use executive authority to better control immigration, emphasizing one of the main themes of his campaign for the Nov. 8 general election. He noted that Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, 29, had parents born in Afghanistan. "I would use this power to protect the American people. When Im elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats," the wealthy businessman said. Trump also challenged Clinton to explain why she is in favour of accepting refugees from the Syrian civil war, and said his policies would better protect American women, gays and lesbians, Jews and Christians. Trump's support among women and gay voters lags far behind that of Clinton. "Radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-American," said Trump. "I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people, and Jewish people are the targets of persecution and intimidation by radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence." Trump also lashed out at President Barack Obama by questioning his motives for refusing to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" in describing such attacks. He argued that both the president and Clinton were unfit to lead the nation. Mateen was a U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants. Armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to militant group Islamic State, he opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday. In proposals for dealing with threats of violence at home and abroad, Clinton called for increased efforts to remove Islamic State propaganda from the internet, more air strikes in the areas held by the militant group and better coordination with allies in the region. She specifically called out three U.S. allies - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait - for allowing its citizens to fund mosques and schools that train jihadists. She also called for stricter gun control laws, reiterating prior calls to prohibit those on terrorism watch lists from buying guns. She pointed out that while the Federal Bureau of Investigation was aware of Mateen as a possible threat, he was still able to legally purchase a gun. Clinton has called for a complete ban on assault-style guns. "Its important that we stop the terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attacks, and that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino," California, Clinton said, drawing a standing ovation from the crowd. Clinton called on Americans to come together in the way they did after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. She pointed out that, at the time, she was a Democratic U.S. senator representing New York, while the U.S. president, New York governor and New York City mayor were all Republicans. "Americans from all walks of life rallied together with a sense of common purpose on Sept 12. ... We had each others' backs. We did not attack each other, we worked with each other to protect our country and rebuild our city," Clinton said. "It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, the spirit of 9/12, let's keep looking for the best within our country, the best within each of us." (Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Alana Wise in Washington; Editing by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. KABUL The United States is asking its allies helping with security in Afghanistan to maintain funding for Afghan forces at a cost of nearly $5 billion a year until at least 2020, a top U.S. military commander said on Monday. The plan extends the international financial commitment for the foreseeable future at a time when Western leaders have been hoping to reduce Afghanistan's reliance on foreign military aid. Military commanders are making the pitch for continued funding ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw in early July, where the alliance's leaders will discuss support for the Afghan government, which is struggling to contain a resurgent Taliban insurgency. "There is strong agreement, certainly from the chiefs of defence, that the support for Afghanistan ... needs to continue," Major General Skip Davis told reporters in Kabul. "I think there is much more consensus on the fact that stemming extremism here, in the region, is a direct contribution to security in the homeland. Theres a willingness to do what it takes." Efforts by Western nations to extract themselves from the war in Afghanistan have been frustrated by high levels of violence. When they gathered at a similar summit in 2012, NATO members and other nations had planned on slowly reducing financial support for Afghanistan as international troops withdrew. "Obviously, conditions have changed since decisions were made back in 2012 and 2014," Davis said. Under the current funding structure, the United States provides a little more than $3.5 billion a year. Other countries contribute another $900 million to $1 billion, while the Afghan government pays more than $400 million, a share Davis said was expected to grow. Commanders say that general level of funding is expected to continue for at least four years. The funding is based on maintaining a goal of 352,000 Afghan soldiers and police. The official roster currently includes about 320,000 members of the security forces, Davis said. Among the factors that coalition commanders are considering as they recommend funding and troop levels are the high rates of Afghan casualties, their struggles in training new troops and replacing damaged equipment, and the continuing "fragility" of the national government, Davis said. "Last year was a big signal that the Afghan army and police need some more time," he said. "They are resilient, they fought well and they took on leadership, but at the same time, they had some significant challenges and the Taliban proved much more resilient than we expected and less likely to come to the table for reconciliation." (Reporting by Josh Smith; Editing by Robert Birsel) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. GENEVA The U.N. refugee agency said on Monday it expects 248,000 refugees and migrants to arrive in Europe via the Eastern Mediterranean this year, far lower than the "up to 1 million" it foresaw at the start of the year. The figure includes 156,000 who have already arrived, UNHCR said in an update of a regional refugee plan first issued in January. The document did not cover the other major migration route into Europe, from Libya to Italy. (Reporting by Tom Miles) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. (Editor's note: this story has content that may upset some readers) By Angela Moon NEW YORK Amanda Alvear's last Snapchat video post begins with a shot of her on the dance floor of an Orlando nightclub surrounded by friends. It ends with gunshots ringing out over the music. Alvear, 25, was identified by police on Monday as one of the 49 people killed by a gunman at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Alvear's friend Mercedez Flores, 26, who worked for Target, also was on the list of 46 named victims released so far by the Orlando Police Department. On Monday, Alvear's sister, Ashley Velez posted a photo of the pair, writing: "two beautiful souls have been taken way too soon. My sister Amanda is on the right and her best friend Mercedez Flores. You girls will be missed." Social media tributes to the victims of the massacre flowed Monday as authorities confirmed their names. Author J.K. Rowling was among the best known to express her grief, mentioning a man with a tangential connection to her "Harry Potter" works. "Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal," Rowling posted on Twitter. "He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying. #Orlando" Vielma, 22, had worked part time as a rides attendant at the theme park while studying physical therapy at Seminole State College, according to his Facebook profile. Rowling retweeted many of the recollections of Vielma's friends, including Twitter user Melissa A. Gibbo, who posted: "@jk_rowling Trust me, you would have loved him. He was the guy in the breakroom you liked four seconds after walking in." Also on the list of victims released by police were Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35, and Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37. The Orlando Sentinel reported the couple fell in love when Perez charmed Wilson-Leon into buying a bottle of perfume at the store where he worked. "That pain so big feels my heart to see their names on that list.... Rest in peace my beloved friends!!!!" wrote Tommy-Emanuel Quinones-Garcia. In the hours after the nightclub shooting and before police had released his name among the dead, friends of student Martin Benitez Torres, 33, had been searching for any sign of his safety. "Please, I need your number it's urgent call me I left my number inbox," a frantic Myriam Torres wrote on Sunday morning at 5:32 a.m., when police were midst a stand-off with the gunman inside the club. (Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bill Trott) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. It was a Saturday night at the Pulse nightclub, which could mean only one thing: a raucous, high-spirited celebration that would not end until the small hours. Strobe lights flashed and music blared at the popular lounge, home to one of the hottest party scenes in Florida and where 50 people died and 53 were injured in the country's worst mass shooting. Just a few days earlier, Orlando's vibrant LGBT community had marked the annual Gay Days celebration, one of the biggest events anywhere in the United States dedicated to gay pride. The partying was to go on at Pulse, a club known for its drag shows and one of several gay-friendly establishments in downtown Orlando's vibrant club scene. US anti-terror strategy was under new scrutiny after the gunman, previously cleared of jihadist ties, launched a hate-fueled rampage in a Florida gay club. As the worst mass shooting in modern US history erupted on Sunday, Orlando police blasted their way into the Pulse nightspot and shot the attacker dead. The murderous assault triggered grief but also defiance in the gay and lesbian community, and more than 100,000 marched in a planned Los Angeles Gay Pride parade. In New York, the Tony Awards for musical theatre went ahead as planned but were dedicated to the victims of the massacre. "We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," President Barack Obama said, as the FBI investigated the shooter. Prominent US Muslim figures, Pope Francis and world leaders condemned the attack, which is being treated as the worst act of terror on US soil since 11 September, 2001. The FBI admitted that 29-year-old Omar Mateen had previously been investigated but cleared for ties to a US suicide bomber. Special Agent Ronald Hopper also said Mateen was reported to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS shortly before the massacre. Meanwhile, the Islamic State-linked news agency Amaq said without providing evidence that one of its fighters carried out the attack. But the group, which has previously been a conduit for Islamic State statements cited only "a source," leading experts to doubt the claim. Terrified survivors described how the gunman raked club-goers with bullets, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue. Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York in 1986 and lived in Port St Lucie, Florida, about a two hour drive from Orlando. His father Mir Seddique told NBC News his son may have been motivated by homophobia, insisting: "This had nothing to do with religion." "Tonight 21 and up is FREEEEEEEE before 11 pm," Kenya Michaels, a well-known Puerto Rican drag queen who was slated to perform at the club, posted on Facebook earlier Saturday. "Come see me show time at 12 am at Pulse Orlando Doors open at 9 pm. My sister Jasmine international is performing with me," posted Michaels -- who escaped the shooting unharmed. Scores of people turned out for the show: A contest of dancing, lip-synching drag queens took the floor one by one, showing their best dance moves, sashaying in high heels, as patrons laughed, nursed their cocktails, tossed dollar bills onto the stage. One dancer with swiveling hips and a Beyonce-like mane slinked around podium, as video footage posted online on Periscope captured the revelry. Sound like drumbeats A crowd of patrons thronged the area just off-stage, drinking and partying, amid a crescendo of laughter. Then, at around 2 am, with the party in full gear, barely discernible under the cheers and the throbbing music, were the sounds of what one reveler said sounded like drumbeats. Christopher Hanson said at first he thought the loud, rhythmic sounds were part of the music "until you heard too many shots. It was like, bang, bang, bang, bang." "I just saw bodies going down and I was ordering a drink at the bar. I fell down. I crawled out. People were trying to escape out the back," he told CNN, adding that he didn't see the shooter. "When I got across the street, there were people blood everywhere." The management of the Pulse club, grasping the gravity of the situation, quickly posted an emergency warning on its Facebook page. "Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running," it wrote. The carnage was so unthinkable that patrons couldn't make sense of it, even as they watched their friends and loved ones falling all around them. "It was like complete chaos. If I can relate it to anything, I would say it was like a scene out of a movie," Janiel Gonzalez told AFP. "People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped'. And people were getting trampled. There was no clear exit sign at the club, so we didn't know which door to take or where to go." Club-goers -- who just minutes earlier were dancing without a care in the world suddenly were simply trying to escape with their lives. Some told US media they were able to crawl out of the front of the establishment. Others ran out the back, while still others scrambled out of windows. Many, however, did not make it out, including some who reportedly sought shelter in club's bathroom. 'I'm trapped' Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revelers with bullets. "It was like complete chaos," he told AFP. "It was like a scene out of a movie. People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped.'" "People were getting trampled. There was no clear exit sign at the club, so we didn't know which door to take or where to go. The massacre -- which coincided with Gay Pride month in the United States cast a long shadow over the parade in Los Angeles. Chillingly, a man was arrested in nearby Santa Monica with weapons and explosives in his car. Police said he had no known connection to the Orlando bloodshed. 'We're looking for him' The shooting eventually became a hostage situation after the gunman barricaded himself in the club with scores of captive patrons. The standoff would not be resolved until more than three hours later, when police used an armored vehicle to ram down part of the building, eventually killing the gunman in a hail of bullets. About 300 relatives had gathered Sunday afternoon in a hotel behind the Orlando hospital where most of the victims had been taken. The family members, many of them Hispanic, were hugging, crying and checking their phones for news in the packed lobby. Angel Mendez, who was outside the hospital, held up his phone and showed a reporter a photo of his brother. "He was inside the club, we're very desperate," he said. "We're looking for him, this is something that has taken Florida by surprise but we know there is a God that can have control over this family." Gonzalez said he was still looking for three friends, while two were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. "A place that we normally go to just to hang out, have fun, dance and normally there's no issues, for something like that to happen is just devastating," he said. FBI probe The suspect's ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told reporters he had been violently abusive to her but was not especially religious. But the FBI's Hopper told reporters Mateen's behaviour had raised red flags well before Sunday's attack. In 2013, he was probed by the bureau after making inflammatory comments to co-workers that suggested terrorist ties. Later, in 2014, he was again questioned by agents investigating his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a fellow Floridian. Abusalha became notorious as the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria, and was reportedly a member of an Al-Qaeda affiliate. "We determined the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time," Hopper said. The Orlando atrocity came at the height of what is already a heated US presidential election campaign, and the main candidates were quick to react. Hostage rescue Democratic flag-bearer Hillary Clinton postponed a joint campaign rally with Obama and tweeted that her "thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Her Republican rival Donald Trump, meanwhile, lost no time in claiming the attack proved he was right to promise a ban on Muslims entering the US. Trump demanded Obama resign for failing to publicly blame the massacre on "radical Islam," and vowed to make a speech on security policy Monday. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore," Trump declared. Events at Pulse unfolded over a three hour period from around 2:00 am (0600 GMT) when shots rang out amid the throbbing music. Police said the gunman was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. A policeman working "extra duties" at the club responded and two other officers exchanged fire with the suspect. Police stormed the venue after the suspect fell back inside, and broke through a wall with a wheeled armored vehicle known as a BearCat. It was unclear whether all the victims were killed by the gunman or if some died in crossfire during the assault to rescue his hostages. With inputs from AFP Amazon will "eat all our breakfasts, lunches and dinners," Wesfarmers boss Richard Goyder warned his fellow retailers in March. As the boss of the conglomerate that owns No. 2 supermarket chain Coles, Mr Goyder best mind his meals. Amazon, the world's biggest retailer, says it is coming. Vegetables for home delivery in Australia might be an Amazon project within the next year or two. Credit:Kerrie O'Brien An Amazon executive says the $US338.7 billion retailer could launch its fresh and frozen food delivery service, known as Amazon Fresh, in Australia as early as next year and could quickly snaffle billions in sales in a grocery market worth $90 billion. "We know there is value in Australia," Amazon's Brittain Ladd told Fairfax Media. "I definitely believe Amazon will be in Australia." Mr Shorten was appearing on the ABC's Q&A program in Penrith, in the Western Sydney seat of Lindsay, when he was asked by audience member Mark McIver if he would reform tough new secrecy laws aimed at preventing independent reporting of events on the remote islands. With that one-word answer Opposition Leader Bill Shorten agreed to let journalists and independent observers to monitor the situation of asylum seekers detained at the offshore camps on Nauru and Manus Island, if elected on July 2. "We'd like to know what's going on, whether it be on Manus Island, Christmas Island or anywhere else," Mr McIver said. Bill Shorten on Q&A Credit:ABC Q&A "If I was prime minister it would have to be an amazing set of circumstances where we're not prepared to tell you what's going on," Mr Shorten responded. "As a general rule this nation operates best if you treat people as smart and intelligent and tell them what's going on, full stop," he said. "I find its the easiest way to get consensus on tough issues, if you treat people like mushrooms and keep them in the dark, well, you can't be surprised if people don't back in government policies." At 2.39am Mr Justice texted his mother to call police. "Hurry," he wrote. Then he sent her more texts: "He's coming. I'm gonna die." Mina Justice shares the texts her son sent her during the shooting. Credit:mftv.com Ms Justice wrote: "Don't do nothing. Stay down. Baby text me". Later, as she stood outside the nightclub looking for her son and talking to reporters, she said her son also told her that the gunman was holding him hostage. "He has us, and he's in here with us," he wrote. Texts from Pulse nightclub patron Eddie to his mother. Credit:wftv.com Some Orlando massacre survivors have started to speak about their struggle to stay alive. About 2am at Pulse nightclub, one of the club patrons, Chris Hansen, thought the popping sound was part of the music. "It went with the beat almost," he said later. A man with a gun, an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, was shooting people. Witnesses described dead bodies littering the ground and people trampling over one another in their struggle to stay alive. Texts from Pulse nightclub patron Eddie to his mother. Credit:wftv.com At 2.09am, someone posted a frantic message to Pulse Orlando's Facebook page: "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running." What happened early on Sunday morning in Orlando was the latest example of "soft-target" terrorism, targeting civilians in locations with minimal security and many potential victims. An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub. Credit:AP The lucky ones were near the exits. But the club was never designed for such a horrifying moment. Alex Choy, a former club employee, told the Miami Herald that the club had two main rooms, one for performances and drag shows to the left of the front door, and a larger dance room to the right that links to an outdoor patio. Ray Rivera, a DJ at Pulse nightclub, is consoled by a friend after the shooting. Credit:Orlando Sentinel/AP "It's a very, very small space," Mr Choy said. "If there was any type of shooting, it wouldn't take much to get everyone. Very close range." Mr Hansen told AP that he escaped through the back of the venue by crawling on his elbows and knees. Omar Mateen killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub before he was shot dead by police. Credit:Myspace "When I got across the street there was blood everywhere," he said. "I was helping somebody because he was lying down and I wasn't sure if he was dead or alive. I took my bandanna off, I shoved it in this hole, the bullet hole, that was in his back. "After everybody was out, the shooting was still going and the cops were still yelling, 'Go! Go! Clear the area, clear the area!' " he added. "I was thinking, 'Are you kidding me?' " he said. "So I just dropped down. I just said, 'Please, please, please, I want to make it out.' And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don't get shot." An officer working at the club exchanged fire with the gunman, authorities said. It was then, according to police, that the incident developed into "a hostage situation". Within minutes of the shooting, police vehicles and a SWAT team descended on the club. "I was there," Ricardo Negron posted on the club's Facebook page several hours later. "Shooter opened fire @ around 2:00am. People on the dance floor and bar got down on the floor and some of us who were near the bar and back exit managed to go out through the outdoor area and just ran. "I am safely home and hoping everyone gets home safely as well." Another man, Jeff Xcentric Lords, posted on Facebook that he'd been shot. "losing blood, love u all" he wrote. Tony Torres, another patron, ran outside and soon posted a video on Facebook showing at least a dozen police cars, sirens wailing, lights flashing, with a helicopter overhead shining a spotlight on the crime scene. "Get back!" police can be heard shouting. Mr Torres can be heard saying, "We barely made it out. That is crazy." A Snapchat video obtained by WESH-TV recorded more than 20 shots fired in just nine seconds, while a man, sounding inebriated, can be heard saying, "Oh my God, people are getting shot, dude" as a woman screams in the background. Hours later, as investigators surveyed the damage, Orlando Police Chief John Mina told reporters that even veteran police officers and members of the SWAT team had struggled to wrap their minds around the level of carnage inside the club. "Just to look into the eyes of our officers told the whole story," he said. "You could tell that they were all shaken by this incident, by what they saw inside the club. They did an unbelievable job in rescuing as many as 30 hostages." The City of Orlando has started to release the names of the victims. So far, six men have been formally identified, including Edward Sotomayor jnr, who was 34. Mr Sotomayor was a national brand manager for ALandCHUCK.travel, a travel agency catering to the gay community. Edward Sotomayor jnr Credit:Courtesy orlandosentinel.com Pharmacy technician Stanley Almodovar, 23, has also been named as a victim. Stanley Almodovar Credit:orlandosentinel.com Donald Trump seized on the worst shooting in modern US history to call for a more muscular response to Islamic terrorism and later noted he had been congratulated "for being right". Hillary Clinton called it an "act of terror" and called for more curbs on guns. The responses illustrated the starkly different approaches the two presumptive presidential nominees could take to governing. Mr Trump, who has made combating Islamic terrorism a centrepiece of his campaign, tweeted on Sunday that he was "praying for the victims & their families" of the Orlando massacre that left 50 dead. But he also added: "When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?" Police in Bangladesh say they have arrested more than 5,000 criminal suspects in the first three days of a nationwide sweep in response to a rash of extremist violence against religious minorities and secular activists. National Police chief Shahidul Hoque, speaking Sunday, said the arrests include at least 85 militants, and that all the detentions were made on specific charges. Militants have been blamed for more than 30 deaths in Bangladesh since early last year, including bloggers, gay rights activists, Christians and Hindus. Islamic State extremists have claimed responsibility for more than 20 of the killings. In the past week, IS militants have claimed responsibility for the deaths of a Hindu monastery worker, an elderly Hindu priest and a Christian merchant. All three were hacked to death. The Muslim wife of a key counterterrorism official was also stabbed and shot dead. Despite IS claims, Bangladesh authorities continue to insist there are no foreign terror groups operating in the country. Instead, they blame home-grown militants - and in some cases the political opposition - for the violence. Though officially a secular country, about 90 percent of Bangladeshis are Muslim. The latest crackdown was launched Thursday, just days after the wife of a senior police official who led raids against drug cartels and militants was stabbed and killed in the southeastern city of Chittagong. A report released in April by the International Crisis Group said the government crackdown, including the arrest and prosecution of suspects "without due process and transparency, is fueling alienation that [extremist] groups can further exploit." Despite the uptick in killings, the Dhaka government has rejected those concerns. In September 2001, Eritrean authorities launched an unprecedented crackdown on the free press. Seven of the countrys independent newspapers were shut down. At least 11 journalists were arrested in the roundup, and several more were jailed the following month. None of them have been heard from since that time, and their whereabouts are unknown to this day. The Committee to Protect Journalists says approximately 17 journalists remain in prison in Eritrea, although it is not known how many of the prisoners are still alive. Although they are gone from view, their colleagues, friends and family want to make sure they are not forgotten. At a recent event in Alexandria, Virginia titled Memory for Forgetfulness, Eritreans shared stories about the journalists and advocated for their release. Among the attendees was Robel Asrat, whose brother Amanuel Asrat was arrested on Sept. 23, 2001 and who has been held incommunicado since then. Amanuel was a celebrated poet and the editor of Zemen, a newspaper covering the arts and literature. His poem The Scourge of War has been translated into 15 languages. Robel, who was a child at the time, recalled the painful memory of pointing out his home address to security officers dressed in civilian clothes who came to arrest his brother. He said for the first six months of his brothers detention he was kept in Asmara, and the family was able to bring him food, although they could not speak to him. After that Amanuel was transferred, possibly to Eiraeiro, a maximum security prison north of the capital, and has never been heard from since. After the six months, we were completely in the dark, and those whom we asked werent able to give us information, and they told us not to look for him anymore, he said. Until today we still hope to see him, and my parents have never stopped praying for his release. Robel remembers his brother as a generous person who never stopped giving to others, even at his own expense. He also wrote poetry for those needing to be cheered up or inspired. Robel says he wishes he could pass on a message to his brother. He always repeated one word...the word he repeated was resilience. I would ask him to be resilient like his word, he said. There is no problem that stays the same, and one day the problems that look like mountains will be lifted and then there is light, the light that God has created. And he will see the light he has been prevented from seeing. Crackdown on journalists The 2001 crackdown on journalists in Eritrea came at the end of a war with Ethiopia that cost the lives of 70,000 to 100,000 people. On Sept. 18, 15 high-ranking officials in Eritreas ruling party, the Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice published an open letter to President Isaias Afwerki calling for reform in government and accusing the president of taking actions that were illegal and unconstitutional. The letter as well as interviews with the dissident members who became known as the G-15 were widely published. What followed was a severe constriction of free speech in the country. Since that time, President Isaias has claimed that there was never an independent media in Eritrea and that newspapers in operation prior to 2001 were funded by outside sources, including the CIA. In a 2003 interview, he told Radio France Internationale that journalists operating in Eritrea had been paid to sow dissent inside the country. You cannot say a spy is a journalist, he said. In the middle of the war we had to check them. We had to say enough is enough." 'Vital watchdog' Yosef Berhe, founder of Reem, one of the first independent newspapers in Eritrea, said that prior to the crackdown, newspapers were playing a vital watchdog role in Eritrea. They were exposing corruption, advocating for reform and offering a venue for readers to voice opinions about the future of the country. One of the good parts of the newspapers is that opinions of regular people were being published, including letters, he said. So they had access. That was a good thing. I feel like it was one of the main benefits If that continued for five to 10 years, how great would that be? Thats the best thing newspapers did for the society, in my opinion. Keep memories alive Abraham Zere, executive director of PEN Eritrea, a co-organizer of the event in Virginia and a former columnist for Hadas Eritrea, said he is not optimistic that space will open up for journalists any time soon. I wouldnt guess that there would be free press in Eritrea in the near future, he said. As long as the regime is there it is not going to allow free press. It is continuing to get worse and there is not a turning point. Unless the regime is no longer in power, I dont expect change or even forgiveness for the ones in jail. We have no hope that they will release those in prison because they are adding crime upon crime, and I dont see any way that they will turn back time. Others hoped that even if the event does not have a political impact, it keeps the memories of the jailed journalists alive. Bereket Stephanos, an IT professional who trained as a lawyer in both Eritrea and the U.S., knew some of the journalists while he was a student at Asmara University. He hopes they understand that their suffering is not in vain. I read this quote from a Martin Luther King speech when the four little kids died in a church in Birmingham Alabama, and he said, unmerited suffering is redemptive and God has a way of making good out of evil, and I personally believe that all this suffering will bring about some good, he said. I personally would like to remind them [that] I did not forget them, and when you look at this maybe 50 years in the future or maybe 100 years in the future, were all going to die, were all going to be dust in history, but they will be the monuments people will remember. None of us will be as big a picture as they are so that should give us some comfort. The New Macau Association (ANM) presented their consolidated suggestions from the consultation period for the Legislative Assembly (AL) Election Law amendment, which concluded on June 5. Yesterday ANM presented three suggestions centered on the idea of greater equality for candidates during the AL election campaigning period. Specifically, these addressed the issue of selective campaigning on the premise of educational institutes, the governments decision to halt the distribution of propaganda material from all groups to the electorate (before the campaign period), and an empowerment of supervisory bodies monitoring the expenditure of candidates. During yesterdays presentation ANM president Scott Chiang and vice president Jason Chao explicitly recognized that the objective on the consultation does not include a revision to the composition of deputies in the AL. As such, although New Macau maintains that neither appointed nor indirectly elected seats should continue to exist, they are not including criticism of the system in their scrutiny of the proposed amendment. We have to make it clear that this is not about the composition of the AL, said Chiang, even though those seats are not good for democracy or for representing the majority of citizens. However, the call for greater democratization in the MSAR was echoed throughout New Macaus other suggestions for the electoral law amendment. With regard to the proposed changes to the expenditure caps of candidates, ANM indicated that they welcome the decision by the government to lower the limit, but insisted that auditors and supervisory bodies need to be both empowered to act, and obligated to investigate. The main idea of having a cap on expenditure is to make it equal for candidates to run for office regardless of the resources that one has one shouldnt get an upper hand in the elections through having more resources, said Jason Chao. The current system of reporting and auditing is too passive in fighting evasion of spending, the New Macau leaders asserted. Under the existing system, candidates are required to register expenditure that has been used for promotional activities during the campaigning period. However, New Macau claim that third parties with connections to certain candidates will often host and fund events which indirectly promote individuals standing for office. The association wants to include such third party events in relevant candidates expenditure allowance, as is the case in Hong Kong, which they suggest should be paired with greater investigative powers for monitoring bodies. Supervisory committees in this respect should have both the duty and the means to investigate, said Chiang. It is too easy to dodge the regulations in Macau right now, and that cant be stopped unless we spell it out in the law. Furthermore, the group argued that if government agencies or the Macau Foundation subsidize any such promotional activity, the host should be penalized for an abuse of public funding. With regard to the alleged selective bias of education institutes, ANM are calling for either an open door policy or a closed door policy. They suggest that education institutes running on public funding may allow activity of candidates in the campaign period on the basis that all candidates can enjoy the same treatment. Alternatively, they suggest that the organization may be permitted to choose not to allow such campaigning activity at all. We want an open door or a closed door policy, but it needs to be equal for all, said Jason Chao. We need to be explicit about a requirement for equal opportunity [in the law] and a criminal penalty should be introduced [for violators]. Chao added that Macau Conscience, an activist organization co-founded by Chao, had previously requested the open door policy, addressing among others, Hou Kong School. However, their letters went unanswered. One school complained to the government, explained Chiang. They [the school] said that the effort to expose the school and its practices was, in itself, an election promotion activity which is hilarious. The third suggestion concerns the governments decision to stop printing and sending to every member of the electorate, the combined political platform of all groups. Campaign groups spend more money and effort trying to reach the same audience without the assistance of the government, which does little to reduce waste in the territory, ANM claim. They propose that either the government restores its previous practice of printing and distributing material from all groups, or they provide the address information for eligible voters. They are keen to stress that other private information would be withheld from the groups in question. Asked about the associations plans for the 2017 Legislative Assembly (AL) election, vice president Jason Chao said it is still far too early for New Macau to make any serious decisions. It is too early to say whether anyone [from the association] will stand in the election you only need to declare candidacy three months before the election, Chao told the Times. In the 2013 AL election, ANM secured two out of the 14 directly elected seats. One of these however, affiliated lawmaker Au Kam San, distanced himself from the organization earlier this year. We [ANM] will have an internal election in a few months where a new president may be elected and the direction and policy of the group will be decided, added Chao. A casino dealer was arrested on Sunday for the possession of two prohibited weapons penknives with blade lengths of 9 and 12 centimeters, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) informed yesterday in press conference. The police received a call from a citizen, calling them to Rua Central of Areia Preta around 5.30 p.m. saying that there was a suspicious man wandering the street. As PSP officers arrived at the scene, they found the man and questioned him about his behavior. As his explanation was not convincing, the officers performed a body search, finding the two penknives in one of his pockets. When questioned about the weapons, the man said he bought them around 3 years ago for MOP400 in a shop of military products. The man claimed to always carry the knives as they were essential for the performing of his job. Further investigation by the police found that the man was in fact a croupier in one of the local casinos, and thus was unable to justify in what way the knives were necessary for performing his job. He was arrested for possession of prohibited weapons and presented to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday. In a separate case, the PSP said they arrested a 27-year-old Macau resident for allegedly employing an illegal worker. The authorities intercepted the man as he was reentering the territory by the border gate cross-point on Sunday afternoon. Questioned by the police, he claimed to be totally unaware that the man he admittedly employed to perform renovation works in one commercial unit was in fact an illegal worker. The resident said the worker was recommended to him by a friend and there was no reason for suspicion, as his requested salary was equivalent to all the local workers in the field. He was also presented to MP yesterday, accused of employing the illegal worker. South Korean prosecutors widened their probes into Lotte Group, searching the conglomerates headquarters and the offices of some of its units, including those of the hotel subsidiary thats preparing for what could be the countrys biggest initial public offering. The raid, which began Friday morning, included Hotel Lotte Co. and Lotte Homeshopping, according to a Lotte spokesman, who spoke on condition he not be named as per company policy. The spokesman couldnt confirm a Yonhap news report that said 200 investigators went to 17 locations related to the group and seven affiliates as part of an investigation involving suspected use of slush funds. An official with the Seoul prosecutors office, who spoke on condition he not be named, confirmed that investigators are pursuing allegations of slush funds and embezzlement by company executives. Yonhap, citing an unnamed prosecutor, reported that homes of some Lotte executives were also searched. The move deepens the crisis at Lotte Group, a conglomerate with 89 Korean units with than 100 trillion won (USD86 billion) in assets, which has been weathering through a power struggle atop the founding family. The turmoil also comes as Lotte seeks to raise $4.5 billion by listing its hotel unit, a plan thats already been delayed and scaled back because of a separate investigation into bribery allegations involving company executives. The IPO may face further delay with the latest investigation, according to Chung Sun Sup, CEO of Chaebul.com, which researches Koreas family-run conglomerates. The markets view on it is negative now, so the possibility for postponing it is also growing, he said. Six of Lotte Groups eight listed units fell in Seoul trading, losing more than 200 billion won in market value. Lotte Chemical Corp. and Lotte Confectionery Co. closed unchanged. Additional delays could be costly. Hotel Lotte, which is also the worlds third-largest operator of duty-free shops, earlier this week cut the IPO price range after prosecutors began the bribery investigation, reducing the maximum size of the sale to 5.26 trillion won from an earlier target of 5.74 trillion won. The sale is being arranged by Mirae Asset Daewoo Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Besides the investigation, the Japanese-Korean conglomerate has been in turmoil since last year, when a power struggle atop the Shin family erupted into public view. Sohee Kim, Sam Kim, Bloomberg The draft law on the Non-Mandatory Central Provident Fund Scheme has been forwarded to the Legislative Assembly for further vote, the president of the Administration Council of Social Security Fund (FSS), Iong Kong Io, confirmed yesterday during a press conference at the FSS headquarters. According to Iong, it is still uncertain when the scheme will become mandatory as the situation after three years is unknown. The draft is expected to be reviewed within three years of its implementation. Last week Leong Heng Teng, spokesman for the Executive Council (ExCo), indicated that 40 percent of local companies already provide a selection of retirement schemes to their employees. Iong Kong Io corrected this yesterday, indicating that there are approximately 11,000 local employees who have a personal retirement fund scheme. He hopes to see these employees, as well as their employers, managing to find a fitting personal scheme through the central non- mandatory central provident fund scheme. Iong also explained that setting the scheme as non-mandatory is going to put great pressure upon SMEs, as Macaus economy is under an adjustment period, and the SMEs are having a hard time for business. In the first three years in which the law will be implemented, employers can enjoy tax concessions from their contributions to the schemes. The draft suggests all Macau residents (aged over 18, or who have already participated in the labor market) are eligible to open a central provident fund account. Employers as well as employees can participate in the scheme voluntarily, based on an agreement reached between the two parties. Contributions to the fund include joint schemes through both the employer, as well as personal contribution schemes made by the individual employee. The draft law indicates that both the employer and employee must provide a minimum of five percent each of the employees monthly salary. As to the personal contribution scheme, the minimum amount is MOP500 per month. If an employees salary is less than MOP6,240 per month the employee will not need to contribute to the joint scheme. Staff reporter According to Instagrams statistics from September 2015, over 400 million people use the social media platform, which shares more than 80 million photos per day. The venture of creating a social media platform based on images took co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger on a journey that they said had already far exceeded their initial expectations. While milestones like this [over 400 million users] are important, what really excites us is the way that visual communication makes the world feel a little bit smaller to every one of us, they said in a official statement. According to Instagram Company, more than 75 percent of people using the app live outside the US, with half of the last 100 million to join coming from Europe and Asia. According to the same source, the countries with more Instagrammers for the time being are Japan and Indonesia. As is also the case with many other social media platforms, Instagram is currently blocked in mainland China under the rules implemented by the Ministry of Public Security, the so-called Great Firewall of China, that prevents access to websites considered dangerous for Chinese citizens. In Macau, the number of Instagram users is growing quickly, with the Macau hashtag reaching around 1.6 million posts on the platform. Among many of the users, especially long-term users, are creative people, designers, photographers, architects as well as some new companies and local businesses. The Times spoke with some local Instagram users, like Varun Thota (username: @vnthota) who is a product designer. Mr Thotas work requires him to move between Macau and Hong Kong and this constant travel makes his lifestyle quite fast-paced; #photography #design #fitness #technology and #innovation are his favorite hashtags. Varun started to use Instagram back in 2010, making him one of the first to try the app. Given the fact that he works in the field and is a self-confessed fan of technology, he was pushed to try it. In 2012, Varun learned about the Instameets, meetings between Instagrammers, usually to develop an idea or to go around together to take photographs. From there, his interest in the platform grew. Although he admits that his account look changed over the time, Varun says that his Instagram is still about the photography and about the place he lives in or he is visiting, mostly Hong Kong and Macau. When he uses the app he tries to capture a moment that he liked and witnessed. At the same time, Instagram for him became a creative tool, and a way to express myself with no constraints. Although there are no constraints in terms of creation, the designer does follow a kind of routine for his posts. Usually I post two times a day in a story telling way. One in the morning on my way to work, and another on the evening on my return home. In the search for better quality and to improve the look of his Instagram feed he also decided to recently put down the mobile phone and start to use a camera. As he mentioned, the fact that he started working for brands was also a decisive factor in that choice for the pursuit of higher quality images. With about 73,200 people following his account, Varun says the reasons for having so many people following are usually related to two things: first, the level of interaction with the community, and second, with the highlight that the same community gives of what you do. There are meetups in Hong Kong, there are meetups in Macau, I talk to people, I share my views in comments and that helps to build up [followers]. The owner of #mytoyplane, a series of photographs where a flying airplane is the center-piece and portrayed like a toy in which a layer effect is used to create the illusion of real interaction, considers his turning point when Instagram started to feature him on their website as a potentially interesting account to follow. That was the boom. Either way, it is really hard to know who is actually following and why, apart from the friends. Most of the other followers are suggestions from other users. I was suggested a couple of times by different users. Regarding the advertising system that is commonly seen in the app, Varun says Instagram is for sure one of the methods of advertising products that companies should look into. Its a very different type of advertising, more targeted and choosing the photographers by their style. I think artistically it can really help the brand to expand. @eloadefly is the account name of another of the popular local Instagrammers. Eloa is an architecture student in Macau with a great interest in photography related to architecture and urban landscapes. Eloa sees himself and a tester, someone that nurtures an interest in new things, exploring new possibilities, in particular on social media platforms. After he heard about Instagram and its growing popularity approximately four years ago, he started to use the app. Like any typical person I started to use it randomly, minus the selfies, he told the Times. I was mostly taking pictures of things that I found interesting until one weekend I was looking for things to do in Hong Kong and I saw there was an Instameet to meet people with this interest and go to a few places to take photos. I decided to attend that meeting where there were about forty people, three of them from Macau. The organizers of these Instameeets found the idea interesting and decided that the next one would take place in Macau. Since then we have been in touch and meeting more people and organizing and attending Instameets everywhere possible, Eloa said. As things get more serious and people start to look more to your account you start to filter things, get rid of things that dont look so good and add new ones with better quality. The more you surround yourself with interesting people the more you evolve, he said. Initially, Eloas account was very private but things evolved as he began to be approached by brands that were interested in marketing him. Things stopped being that personal. Nowadays Eloa considers his account a public platform and a portfolio. The 29,400 followers of Eloas account means little in his opinion: Instagram has the strategy of suggesting users to new accounts or people that might be interested and through that you get easily thousands of followers. How many of these are the so-called ghost followers? Eloa has his own belief on the figures, saying anyone with tens of thousands of followers in reality doesnt have that many. In average you have about 5 percent of the total amount are actually real followers that would probably interact with you or really be interested in what you are doing. Another of the issues regarding followers is that people are actually purchasing followers, which in his opinion is the worst part of the Instagram community. As for his posts, Eloa says that he always tries to portray his side of the story, his view of a place or event, which most of the time does not match with the tourism image of Macau that people are used to seeing. Its a personal perspective. I want people to be able to see what place where Im standing really looks like. That is actually what interests me also in the accounts that I follow. I use other peoples accounts to travel by them maybe, to places that I might never have the chance to visit or live in. I try to get that perspective from a local. Similarly to Varun, Eloa steered away from mobile phone camera and looked for something more professional. He made the decision after his first exhibition of his photographs when he realized that he needed a camera capable of capturing higher quality images. The phone has advantages as it always travels with you, but if you are really interested in getting quality you need to shoot with a real camera, he said. Regarding the advertising on Instagram, Eloa said that there are good and bad sides of it: It is good because people get to be paid for their work and for their skills, many times by the offering of gears and equipment that are expensive if you need to buy them. On the [other] hand, is the fact that all of its becoming [commercial], the passion is disappearing and the idea of being able to share a moment and the passion for photography is disappearing in exchange for such a business. Its getting too commercial [] But I think its mostly good for companies to understand that nowadays things are not always about banners hanging on buildings. Social media is really powerful and is something that you need to tap into. To learn more about the commercial opportunities afforded by social media, the Times spoke to Phoebe Lai, partner at the local shop selling whole foods and cold pressed juices. The shop has its own Instagram account @greensmacau, using it to promote awareness of the products they carry. We have been using Instagram since we opened about 2 years ago and we feel that [it] is really beneficial to have it because our business is all about being fresh, colorful and healthy and that is the idea we convey with our layout being colorful and energetic, Phoebe Lai said. Our feed is much more like a lifestyle, where we show the products in a way of informing about them and interest people to enroll on healthy living and if they do, they will come to the shop to try it, she added. Another of the particularities of Greens Instagram is that the photos try to portray a little of Macau, often being taken in a city landmark. Phoebe Lai explained that this is due to the fact that the shop is so close to Macau heritage that they try to take advantage of that cross-promotion, use of colors, and sunlight. The businesswoman sees advantages in the simplicity of the Instagram feed that shows only images and that can easily be filtered via hashtags. She added that this helps to keep people more focused on what they are looking for and not so messy like in Facebook where everything mixes together. We find it a great tool. The U.S. Consulate General to Hong Kong and Macau has announced that Kurt Tong, from the U.S. Department of State, has been appointed as the next U.S. consul general to both administrative regions, succeeding Clifford Hart in August. Tong, a Mandarin and Japanese speaker, is currently the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Department of States Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, making him a high-ranking official responsible for the Departments economic affairs. Prior to his time in Tokyo where he served as the deputy chief of mission and Charge dAffaires, the diplomat was also the U.S. ambassador to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), where he was responsible for managing U.S. involvement in transnational organization. The incoming consul general who has been a diplomat since 1990, was greatly involved in Taiwans application to join the U.S.-supported Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in addition to earlier postings in Beijing, Seoul and Manila. According to a report by Apple Daily, Tong said Hong Kong should assess whether or not it should join the TPP, as the city had not shown interest in joining the U.S. trade partnership. Tong stressed that TPP member states would be attentive if Hong Kong showed interest, since the region has long been a member of APEC. A Hong-Kong based diplomat from a country which is a close ally of the U.S. thinks Tong is not a China expert, but stressed that the appointment showed that Washington chooses to focus on trade with Hong Kong, due to its acknowledgement of Tongs economic background. Meanwhile, comparisons have already been made between Tong and Hart, stressing that the current consul general had several postings in Hong Kong before taking his post as top envoy, and had represented the U.S. in the six-party talks on North Koreas nuclear program. Hart has also been frequently praised by netizens for speaking fluent Cantonese, most recently at the dragon boat competition in Stanley which he officiated last week. Although Hart has yet to reveal his plans after stepping down from his current post, he revealed to South China Morning Post last year that there is a possibility he will stay in the diplomatic service. Orange juice futures hit a four-year high after tropical storm Colin tore across Florida. June 1 marked the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, and three named storms have already struck this year, worrying citrus growers in Americas most hurricane-prone state. This week, Colin dumped heavy rains on citrus groves, damaging fruit and threatening to further crimp Floridas crop. Floridas groves are already being devastated by a tree-killing disease and the USDA projects this years crop to be the smallest in over 50 years. Meanwhile, the Brazilian orange crop is in trouble as well due to heavy rains. Brazil is the worlds largest orange grower and juice exporter. Other major Brazilian crops such as coffee, sugar, and soybeans are threatened by recent heavy rains, sending those crops to multi-year highs as well. As a result, July frozen concentrated orange juice futures topped $1.72 per pound, the highest price since 2012. USDA Report Boosts Soybeans The U.S. is seeing more demand for its soybeans, tightening supplies. Before this falls harvest comes in, soybean stockpiles will be only 375 million bushels, according to Friday mornings USDA report. This tight supply and fear of more weather problems helped push beans to a 22-month high at $12.08 per bushel on Friday. Natural Gas Rises on Air-conditioning Demand Natural gas prices leaped to an eight-month high this week at $2.63 per million British thermal units. Prices jumped after a government report showed rising demand, primarily from natural gas burning power plants generating electricity to run air conditioning. Forecasts for hot temperatures in the next few weeks could help keep demand strong. Additionally, the recent oil spike to over $50 per barrel has helped to make natural gas more attractive as a cheaper fuel alternative. Some traders also cited an active start to the hurricane season as a bullish factor since storms can knock out natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. Nonetheless, natural gas inventories are more than 20 percent higher than this time last year and threaten to swell to record levels before the winter heating season begins. TWIN FALLS On Monday, the Twin Falls City Council will discuss a proposed ordinance that would require property owners to remove graffiti on their property, and let the city remove it if a property owner doesnt act. Proposed by police Chief Craig Kingsbury, the ordinance would let police serve notice when graffiti is found giving the owner or person controlling a property 25 days to remove it a 15-day first notice and 10-day second one provided the weather permits exterior painting. Property owners would be able to appeal to the City Council to argue why they shouldnt be forced to remove it or pay for it. After 25 days, the city would be authorized to remove it and bill the property owner. Kingsbury said he started to work on the ordinance after being asked to by City Council members who had brought up concerns about graffiti in town, gang graffiti in particular. This proposed ordinance would allow us to work more with the property owners, Kingsbury said. Kingsbury said he understands removing graffiti can be an expense for property owners, and the police department is working with organizations that can help them remove it. We know if we allow graffiti, especially gang graffiti, to stay visible it in essence becomes a billboard for the criminal gang members, he said. We need to make sure we cover that up as soon as possible. The ordinance would create a city code offense for drawing on someones property without their permission, punishable by a fine of $100 plus court codes. This is already illegal under state vandalism laws, though, and Kingsbury said they would still most likely charge people under the state law in most cases even if this passes. That would probably still remain the primary code thats utilized, but this gives us another tool, he said. Idaho law requires readings of an ordinance on three different days to pass it, although a City Council can vote to waive this. The meeting is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. in the City Council chambers, 305 Third Ave. East. The agenda and related materials are available online at tfid.org. TWIN FALLS A weekend that began with a drag shows, a barbecue, parties and revelry for the Magic Valleys LGBTQ community turned to mourning early Sunday as news spread of the massacre at an Orlando, Fla., gay bar. As the sun began to set Sunday, casting long shadows in the dying light of what was a long day for the LGBTQ community, members of that community and their allies gathered again, this time for a candlelight vigil on the Snake River Canyon Rim outside the Twin Falls Visitor Center. We just wanted to provide this opportunity to be together, to show our support, and to feel, said Cody Hafer, a leader in the local LGBTQ community and one of the organizers of Sunday nights vigil. Hafer said hes tired of LGBTQ community being synonymous with violence brought upon them. Todays been awful and devastating, Hafer said. It sucks that this is where were at in 2016. When will the violence stop? Our community is beautiful and vibrant and should be synonymous with love, not violence. The group of about four dozen people stood in a circle and bowed their heads in a moment of silence. Then members of the group stepped forward to share their feelings, including Liyah Babayan, an Armenian immigrant who said shes an ally of the community. As an immigrant, I fled persecution and violence, Babayan said. It shakes me to see this kind of violence on American soil. Mollie Stoddard spoke about the specific challenges of being homosexual in the U.S. and particularly in southern Idaho, calling it a lonely space. Jim Shaff said he knew that loneliness all too well growing up in Twin Falls thinking he was the only gay person. Now 31, he thanked those who had gathered for helping him realize he wasnt alone. Wearing a blue and white trucker hat and a well-trimmed beard, Cory Smith told the group his conservative family in Arizona has had a difficult time accepting that hes gay. But, he said, Sunday was the first time his mother posted a positive message about the LGBTQ community on social media. Im a person, said Sarah Zatica, a leader of the group Magic Valley Pride. Those people at the bar were people. They were hated and killed because of who they were. This vigil isnt going to stop any violence, but take a moment to remember this is real. Wearing a tan hat and a pink bandanna tied around his neck, Curtis Hopfenbeck spoke passionately about not letting the events in Orlando scare him into being quiet. No matter what they do to attack us, I will never be afraid, Hopfenbeck said, his voice rising in volume. Because this is a cause worth fighting for. I dont care what in the hell they bring, it wont stop me. As the sun set, the group moved to a canyon overlook, organizers passed out orange, white, yellow and purple flowers. As the sun set, the group let 103 flowers fall into the canyon, a representation of the 103 people killed or wounded in Sunday mornings shooting. Dogs that dont bark in the night-time tend not to get as much attention as those that do. Same with political conventions. The 2014 Idaho Republican convention got plenty of media splash, and for reasons that made party leaders grimace. That was a convention that ran on ground so bitter that much of its basic, normal work could not be done, and it adjourned in chaos. And led to lawsuits and worse, even a dispute about who was or wasnt the state party chair. This years convention, held in Nampa a week ago, saw none of that. It ran quietly and smoothly, saw the approval of party leaders re-election without dispute of those in place and of party platform and resolutions, with only the mildest of argument. It was closer to the way conventions were run 20 or 30 years ago, apart from the lack of enthusiasm for the presidential nominee. Not that it was entirely an era of good feelings; new ideas were largely blocked and the platform was simply that of 2012. But it still ran far smoother than 2014. Some of that may have to do with care and effort on the part of some of the party leaders. But some other factors were almost surely involved too. One was the relative lack of a big rift within the party. Obviously, the Idaho Republican Party was home to plenty of legislative primary battles, concluded only a few weeks ago. But these were local and generally small in scale, and in many cases specific personalities were key to the battles involved. While both U.S. House members had in-party challenges, they didnt come to much, and many voters probably were surprised even to see the extra names on the ballot. Almost all of the real conflict was at the legislative level, and these conflicts didnt much spill over from district to district, or around the state. If you were a delegate from, say, Pocatello, the recent intense battles in several legislative races up in the Panhandle would have little resonance for you. There were no big sweeping bases for opposition. In 2014, the Idaho Republican Party seemed to contain two parties in one the insurgents and the establishment. It involved not just local races, but many of the statewide and even congressional races, and the rhetoric involved in those contests periodically ran hot. And when the establishment won the primary, the insurgents were left fuming, and had no outlet for their anger, until the convention met. Little wonder the convention that followed a battle ground. I have to wonder if there was another aberrational factor this year, too, by the name of Donald Trump. Trump surely had supporters in Idaho; in the presidential primary earlier this year he came in second and won a bunch of counties in the center of the state. But Idahos Republican eestablishment hasnt exactly attached itself to him. One story in the Spokane Spokesman-Review noted that at the convention, When delegates were urged to rally behind Trump at the close of their morning floor session on Saturday, only a few waved signs and the cheers were noticeably muted. When Rep. Raul Labrador was asked for his thoughts about Trump, he responded, Its a beautiful day in Idaho, isnt it? At this years Idaho convention, there was plenty of willingness to get along with ones neighbors. Maybe they were encouraged in that process by the sounds of unexpected and fearsome creatures outside the doors. Several countries, including the United States and France expressed delight over the military progress of the Libyan regular forces against the Islamic State in Sirte as forces try to weed out the terrorist group. Brett McGur, special envoy of the US President for the anti-IS campaign congratulated militia forces fighting under the Government of National Accord (GNA) for the assault on the terrorist group. I just dont want to get ahead of the situation because it remains pretty fluid. But were encouraged by the progress theyre making, McGurk said. Theyve been able to control Sirte by force. But once you have a credible force on the ground that moves against them, there is a chance that they could crack pretty quickly. France also welcomed on Saturday the advances made by the Libyan pro-government forces in their offensive in Sirte against the Islamic State group. The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the pro-government forces have led a crucial battle against Daech (Arabic acronym for IS) and have progressed rapidly in their offensive against the IS group over the past few days, retaking the port and several neighborhoods. The victory against Daech goes through the political unity of the country, under the authority of the Presidential Council and the GNA, the ministry said, calling on all the Libyan parties to work in that direction, especially in building a united and inclusive national army. Militia forces aligned with the GNA have made since Thursday headways in Sirte; hometown of former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. IS entered the city in 2014 feeding on political rivalries. It turned the city into its command center in the North Africa region. GNA-affiliated forces on Friday pounded IS fighters position in and around the city, reports say. Also on Thursday, the Pentagon put hands together for the GNA forces as they entered Sirte. We certainly are encouraged by the progress we see those government forces making and we will continue to watch it very closely, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said. The fact that they are now under pressure in Libya we think is a good thing and suggests that the Government of National Accord and the forces supporting that government are making progress. GNA forces are not the only military power bearing down on IS. Forces led by Gen Halifer Haftar of the Libyan National Army under the Beida-based rival government are also marching towards Sirte. The advance of Haftar-led forces leaves analysts wary of a likely confrontation which they fear may play in favor of IS. GNA Head, Faiez Serraj, has urged all Libyan forces engaged in the anti-IS combat to unite under his authority. Entercom Acquires Podcorn Platform matches brands with the most relevant podcast creators to scale native branded content and drive higher ROI for advertisers. Read more David Field Joins Cheddar Entercom Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer discusses interest in audio from consumers and advertisers, and the rise of social audio platforms. Read more Entercom Launches BetQL Audio Network Network to Serve as Home of Companys Sports-gambling Content, Will Launch Companion Broadcast Distribution Channels in Denver and Los Angeles. Learn more Power, People and Politics Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer bring listeners inside Washington for an unfiltered, non-partisan look at every major issue of the day. Learn more RADIO.COM The Long Shot A new Cadence13 and ThreeFourTwo Productions podcast with Miami Heat Forward Duncan Robinson. Learn more Entercom Teams up with the Ad Council on Coping-19 Mental Health Campaign Providing bilingual audio assets with resources to help Americans address mental health challenges. Learn more INSIGHTS Industry Trends In Streaming Audio & Podcast Performance Learn more about setting goals, measuring success with data and benchmarking KPIs across multiple industries. Download eBook OUR PLATFORM 24/7 sports conversation from coast to coast As the nations #1 local sports platform, we give fans access to teams they cant get anywhere else. Visit our stations Creating the industrys most compelling, curated content. Connecting through the influential voices and conversation keepers our communities trust and love. Leveraging our integrated broadcast, digital, podcast and experiential platform every day, in every major market across the U.S. Delivering better engagement through audio. This is Entercom. 170 Million Monthly Broadcast Listeners 2 Billion Yearly Podcast Downloads 60+ Million Monthly Digital Reach 500+ Per Year Events and Concerts A platform of influence We are leading the way in helping advertisers connect with audiences in meaningful, engaging ways across our integrated platform of iconic broadcast brands, expansive digital assets, premium podcast network and live events and experiences. Our capabilities Serving our communities We are committed to supporting the health and success of the communities at the heart of our business. We use our voice to unite listeners, brands, and employees, and create positive impact around key causes. Learn more UConn veterinarian says May is a good time to start taking precautions against ticks. Credit: iStock Photo As spring awakens here in UConn country, so do the ticks. UConn veterinarian, researcher, and tick-borne disease expert Dr. Sandra Bushmich recently answered questions about ticks and the diseases they carry in this area, especially some lesser known and emerging diseases. Can you tell us about Borrelia miyamotoi, the 'new' tick-borne disease? Borrelia miyamotoi is an emerging tick-borne disease which is caused by a different Borrelia than the one that causes Lyme disease. It was discovered more than 20 years ago in Japan and was originally thought not to cause disease. However a few years ago, a Russian physician found that it was indeed causing disease in some patients. The first diagnosed case was reported here in the U.S. in 2013. Some people become infected without showing symptoms at all, while others can have mild to severe symptoms. Some of the symptoms are different from those of Lyme disease. Borrelia miyamotoi infections usually have no rash, but the patient may have a fever, severe headache, arthralgia (achy joints), chills, fatigue, low blood platelets, and low white blood cell count. The symptoms are actually closer to those of anaplasmosis, another tick-borne disease. What can you tell us about diagnosis? Diagnosis of tick-borne diseases can be tricky. There are a lot of things that people think are Lyme disease that are not Lyme disease. There are also people who get tested for Lyme disease and actually do have Lyme disease, but the tests don't detect the disease for a variety of reasons. A single tick can carry and transmit many different types of organisms and this can further complicate diagnosis, as each organism requires a different test to accurately diagnose the illnesses they cause. Fortunately, the treatment course for some of these diseases is similar, as is the case for both Lyme and Borrelia miyamotoi disease, where the same antibiotic will treat both. Unfortunately, this is not always the case; for example, Babesia microti infection requires a completely different drug treatment that is more similar to the treatment for malaria. An interesting and important difference between Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb, the Lyme borrelia) and Borrelia miyamotoi is that the mother tick does not pass the Lyme borrelia to her eggs. When the ticks hatch, they become infected by ingesting the Lyme disease-causing organism in the course of their life cycle as they feed on a host carrying Bb. However, Borrelia miyamotoi is passed directly from the mother tick to her eggs. This is not good news, because Borrelia miyamotoi will be easier to perpetuate in the tick population. Data is suggestive that Borrelia miyamotoi is already here and has been here for some time but in small numbers. The numbers of positive samples are growing over time. Why are ticks so bad here in Connecticut? Ticks aren't worse here than they are in surrounding states. But part of the reason they are bad is that Connecticut is a moist area, with the ocean being near, and we have so many trees. We are all essentially in the woods, which is another generally damp area. Ticks really need moisture for survival. Also, our deer population is out of control here, we have deer everywhere. Deer are an important host for the tick's life cycle, and if you decrease the deer population you generally decrease the incidence of disease. With more suburban environments, deer population control by hunting becomes more difficult. What are some other control measures? Another control method is to treat your yard around areas that ticks like, namely perimeters near the woods or rock walls. Minimize tick populations by keeping your grass short, which is dehydrating to ticks. A selective application of permethrin is a good control. The April/May time frame is the best time to treat yards for ticks, and it will help control the tick population all year. The best method is prevention if you can prevent tick bites you can prevent the diseases! Wear long pants and socks. You can spray your boots with permethrin, but don't apply it to the skin! Deet is a tick-repellent product that can be applied to skin if you are in a heavily infested area. You can buy special tick-repellent socks with tight weave, so ticks can't bite through the fabric, and of course check yourself regularly for ticks, especially near the neck and head, which are their favorite areas to feed. Make it a nightly routine to do a tick check. With Lyme disease, the tick needs to feed for 24 to 48 hours to transmit the disease. With Borrelia miyamotoi, the organism is transmitted soon after feeding, therefore frequent tick checks and prompt removal are very important. Also, don't forget tick prevention for your pets. Check your pets and ensure they are treated with tick-preventative collars or monthly topical treatments for ticks. Not much is known about Borrelia miyamotoi infection in domestic animals. With the carrier for Lyme disease being the deer tick, do we still need to worry if we find a dog tick on us? In our area, there are not a lot of diseases transmitted by the dog tick. However, just slightly out of our area there are other diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever (a serious disease), that are transmitted by the dog tick. Still, people should know how to tell the difference between the deer tick and the dog tick, as this will help with diagnosis. The dog tick has white streaks near the head (an area called the scutum), whereas deer ticks are mainly brown. Look up by the head and don't judge based only on size! The size of the tick changes as it feeds. Due to the tricky nature of diagnosing tick-borne illness, a good strategy is to test the tick itself. UConn has a tick-testing service through the Connecticut Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab at the Storrs campus. They can identify the tick and test for a variety of tick-borne diseases common to this area, to help direct health care decisions. Explore further Five ways to protect your pet from Lyme disease Lack of transportation is a hurdle for many families in Texas whose children could benefit from free summer meals from a federally funded program administered by Texas Department of Agriculture, according to a study by Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor University. "This is important work," said Kathy Krey, research director of Texas Hunger Initiative (THI). "For years, we've heard from those who work with the summer meals program that transportation is a barrier. But this is the first published study looking at the Summer Meals program that corroborates this anecdotal evidence: transportation is a problem." Partnering with local public transportation and communities in innovative and alternative ways to provide awareness of and access to the meals sites might increase participation, researchers suggested in the study, published in the Journal of Applied Research on Children: Information Policy for Children at Risk. "That could range from putting advertisements on buses about site locations to distributing maps that people can pick up to find meals sites," Krey said. "Some cities have experimented with using church vans to get kids to meal sites." THI partners with the Texas Department of Agriculture and Texas Department of Transportation Rural Transit to assist underserved areas where transportation is a common barrier to summer meals participation. This past year, THI met with local transit authorities to identify transportation barriers, identify assets and develop next steps. An example is in Lubbock, Texas, where a collaboration between the local Head Start and Spartan Transportation enabled car rides for children to summer meals sites. Hunger is a major problem in Texas, where 17.2 percent of households are "food insecure," compared with 14 percent nationally. Food-insecure households have difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. While participation is high in the United States Department of Agriculture's school-year programs such as the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program, "we see the Summer Meals Program as an underutilized resource," Krey said. The State of Texas requires school districts with 50 percent or more students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals to offer the summer meals program for at least 30 days. If a school does not continue to operate that program after those 30 days, other groups often step in to fill the gap, Krey said. Organizations often need neighborhood locations and volunteers, as well as to create spaces that are attractiveperhaps offering recreation opportunitiesand comfortable in varying weather conditions. For the study, researchers merged administrative program data, including total meals and reimbursement dollars, with Census-tract level demographic data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Tracts vary in physical area and generally have a population size between 1,200 and 8,000 people, with an optimum size of 4,000 people. The study found that: Urban areas have the most summer meal sites, but they also have the most unmet need. Availability of transportation in a Census tract strongly influences the meal site coverage and site density in both urban and rural areas. Urban tractswith more people who carpool, use public transportation or walk to workare more likely to have access to a federally funded summer meals site. Rural tracts with higher numbers of households who walk and take public transport are more likely to have sites than rural areas that relied more on cars. In the suburbs, where more households use cars, people are less likely to have access to a summer meals site. In rural and suburban areas, households with an unemployed primary wage earner are more likely to live in tracts without access to a site. But in urban areas, tracts with more jobless people are more likely to have summer meal sites. Tracts with public housing units were more likely to have a summer meals site in suburban and rural areas, so those may be key areas for outreach for the summer meals program. "Even if you have access to transportation, there can be safety concerns," Krey said. "In an urban area, if you have a site across an interstate from you, the parents may not want a child to walk for safety reasons. In urban areas, you're likely to have a site closer to you, but it may be harder to get to for other reasons. Those are things you have to look at." For those who are some distance from a site, "we've had some parents who said it would cost them more money to go to a meal site for healthy meals than to go to the corner for chips and soda," Krey said. Making people aware of the sites is another issue, she saidwhich is why collaboration with public transportation to advertise could be helpful. Cultural barrierssuch as language differences or distrust of government programsalso play roles in whether children attend the summer sites, the study found. Some families may be reluctant because they fear a stigma for participating. "While urban areas certainly have the largest number of tracts with sites, they also have the greatest need," Krey said. "This isn't surprising, as urban poverty is generally more visible, and residents may have increased access to government programs." Explore further Program puts a dent in summer hunger An improved system for detecting cancers that uses magnetic rather than radioactive tracers has taken a major step towards commercialisation. Researchers at the University of South Australia's Future Industries Institute have joined forces with New Zealand-based nanoparticle specialist Boutiq Science and major IP investor, Powerhouse Ventures. The new technology an ultrasensitive magnetometer probe designed to be about the size of a ball-point pen evolved from the doctoral work of University of South Australia researcher Dr Aidan Cousins who is now overseeing the development of the technology in collaboration with Associate Professor Benjamin Thierry. Radioactive tracers have been a mainstay for detecting the spread of breast cancer and melanoma in lymph nodes, but they have proved less effective in other cancers such as head and neck, gastrointestinal and oesophageal cancers, where nodes are closely packed or clustered. Dr Cousins said although operating in the same ways as traditional gamma probes, the Magnetometer Probe was much more accurate for these complex cancers and cheaper to operate than existing probes. "Doctors will find this product just as easy to use but the results will be superior," he said. "Together the new tracers and the new probe represent cutting edge technology that delivers a much more accurate and affordable system for the staging of deep or complex cancers." The technology also offers logistical benefits for hospitals. The switch to magnetic tracers means there is no need for the specialised rooms, equipment and training currently required for radioactive agents. "Magnetic tracers have a much greater shelf life than radioactive agents years rather than hours reducing storage and supply complications and costs," Dr Cousins said. "Both factors mean it is likely that smaller or regional hospitals and medical services will be able to employ the technology locally, reducing stress and expense on cancer patients who would otherwise have to travel to major city hospitals for treatment." A new company with backing from Powerhouse Ventures, Ferranova Pty Ltd, has been established to take the innovations and develop them into a system that clinicians and cancer patients can benefit from as soon as possible. Powerhouse Chief Operating Officer, Colin Dawson said the collaboration and the technology was very exciting. "Bringing nanotechnology and the magnetometer together has the potential to create a powerful system that will solve a real problem in healthcare, and has an estimated market of between USD$300 million USD$450 million," he said. "Powerhouse has agreed terms with Boutiq and UniSA Ventures, and will shortly be investing directly in the new company; Ferronova Pty Ltd which will develop an enhanced cancer detecting magnetic probe system. Our goal now is to work to get the system in the hands of clinicians for trial with patients by 2017." Explore further Following cancer with tiny magnets Provided by The Lead Marijuana-derived medicines became legal on Monday in Macedonia, which joined over a dozen European countries that have already authorised the products for certain patients. Medicines containing less then 0.2 percent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant's main psychoactive ingredient, can now be prescribed by doctors and bought in pharmacies, the head of Macedonia's agency for medicines Marija Darkovska-Serafimovska told reporters. "This will help a huge number of Macedonian citizens that are fighting serious illnesses and have a need for treatment with nature-based products," Darkovska-Serafimovska said. The medicines are available to patients battling health problems linked with cancer, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. The marijuana-derived products are, however, only accessible under doctors' supervision and with a prescription. "This is not a replacement for medical treatment," Health Minister Nikola Todorov said after parliament passed in May the new law allowing the sales following months of public debate. Other marijuana use remains illegal under Macedonian law. So far 13 European Union nations have legalised marijuana-derived medicines including Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Macedonia applied for EU membership in 2005 but has yet to open accession talks. Explore further Medical marijuana gains ground globally 2016 AFP Regions of the brain associated with stress and posttraumatic stress disorder. Credit: National Institutes of Health Military members who visited a primary care clinic while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression reported fewer symptoms and better mental health functioning a year after enrolling in a treatment program that included specially trained care managers and telephone therapy options, according to a new study. The study focused on primary care as a way of combating the stigma many service members feel about going directly to a mental health specialist. The intervention assigns patients to nurse care managers with special training to help patients remain in care and follow treatment recommendations, coordinate patients' status with the health care team, and help patients to access telephone-based therapy. Researchers found that the approach resulted in significant improvements in recovery after one year, as compared to peers assigned to care managers without the added training and teletherapy options. The findings are published online by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. "Although the improvements were modest, the reach of the program can be large and has the potential to bring more people under a high-quality treatment umbrella sooner," said Dr. Charles Engel, the study's lead author and a senior natural scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "These findings suggest that the military health system might use this strategy to extend the reach of mental health care and reduce time to first treatment for PTSD and depression." The prevalence of mental health issues is relatively high in the U.S. military, with an estimated 13 percent to 18 percent of members suffering from PTSD, anxiety or depression after deployment. Fewer than half of the affected personnel receive military mental health services and when services are received they often are not timely or adequate. Collaborative care models that provide mental health treatment in primary care settings with the support of nurse managers and options to see mental health professionals have been widely shown to provide high-quality care and improve clinical outcomes. However, few studies have examined whether the approach is helpful for PTSD and no previous studies have examined whether the concept can work in the military health care system. The study, conducted by researchers from RAND, RTI International and the Department of Defense Deployment Health Clinical Center, examined the experiences of 666 military members treated in 18 primary care clinics at six large Army bases during 2012 and 2013. Participants, who were mostly men in their 20s, were randomly assigned to one of two different programs that provided care for mental health problems in a primary care setting. The existing Army model, used for test comparison, trained staff at primary clinics to screen for PTSD and depression. Nurses contacted patients monthly to check on symptoms, coordinate care with primary care providers and increase access to mental health professionals. The test model, centrally assisted collaborative telecare, preserved existing Army model and added some key features. The nurses were specially trained in behavioral activation, problem solving and motivational interviewing to help patients remain in follow-up and stick to treatment recommendations. In addition, the test model used psychologists to deliver telephone-based cognitive-behavioral therapy and offered face-to-face psychotherapy in a primary care or specialty setting. The nurse care managers also helped patients access and complete online cognitive-behavioral self-management programs. A centrally located psychiatrist, psychologist and nurse care manager remotely assisted the clinic sites, using a central database of symptoms to review caseloads weekly and suggest changes in treatments as needed. Engel said that while the extra improvement seen among those treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model was not large, it is important given that the original Army approach already is an improvement over usual approaches to treating PTSD in primary care. "Our findings are consistent with what has been observed in nonmilitary health care settings," Engel said. "This approach results in better outcomes and improves access to high-quality care. This is particularly important for a population that has a demonstrated need for mental health services." After 12 months of care, 25 percent of military members with PTSD who were treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model showed a 50 percent improvement in their symptoms, compared to 17 percent for those treated under the first model. Similarly, among patients with depression, 30 percent treated under the second model showed a 50 percent improvement in symptoms after a year, compared to 20 percent for the first model. People treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model also had fewer suicidal thoughts and physical symptoms. In addition, patients treated under the model had more telephone contact with care managers and more months on appropriate medication for PTSD and depression. "The results support the idea that high-quality mental health care can be provided in primary care settings," Engel said. "While many military members are reluctant to seek out mental health specialists, they are more willing to receive primary medical care. So this is a good way to encourage more people to receive mental health care, while also improving the quality of mental health services for military members." Explore further Study finds areas of excellence, need for improvement in quality of mental health care Nearly 15 percent of opioid-naive patients hospitalized under Medicare are discharged with a new prescription for opioids, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. Among those patients who received a prescription, 40 percent were still taking opioids 90 days after discharge. The rate of prescription varied almost twofold between hospitals, with some hospitals discharging as many as 20 percent of patients with a prescription for opioids. Despite growing concern about the public health costs of long-term opioid use, little has been known about how often the painkillers are prescribed. Even appropriate short-term prescriptions can lead to long-term use and, potentially, abuse. "Every day, 44 people in the United States die from prescription drug overdoses, especially opioid overdose," said Anupam Jena, lead author of the study, the Ruth L. Newhouse Associate Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. "It's critical that we understand hospital prescribing patterns so that we can make sure we are prescribing these medications safely and effectively without fueling this deadly crisis." Jena said that the researchers were especially interested to see whether there was a relationship between Medicare incentives to encourage hospital pain management and the rate of opioid prescriptions by hospitals. Currently, hospitals that score well on patient-reported pain metrics receive cash bonuses. Could this policy encourage hospitals to overprescribe opioids? While the study, which analyzed hospitalizations under Medicare in 2011, did find that the hospitals that scored highest on pain control measures also had the highest rates of opioid prescribing, the link was quite modest and did not explain most of the variation between hospitals. While the study did adjust for differences in patient mix, diagnosis and other clinical factors, Jena said, it was possible that some hospitals had a high percentage of patients with more severe pain. However, he said it was more likely that the observed differences in prescribing rates were related to differences in how individual doctors prescribe or to differences in the prescribing culture of different hospitals or geographic regions. Short-term prescriptions for opioids, while well-intentioned, can lead to long-term use. "Opioids have an important role to play in specific forms of acute pain, but the high risks of long-term use mean that adherence to proper prescribing guidelines is critical," said study co-author Pinar Karaca-Mandic, associate professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health Division of Health Policy and Management. Dana Goldman, professor and the Leonard D. Schaeffer Chair and Director of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California also contributed to the study. This research was funded by the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH Early Independence Award 1DP5OD017897-01, National Institute on Aging (grants 5PO1AG033559 and 5K01AG036740) and a University of Minnesota Academic Health Center faculty development grant. Explore further Hospitalists need strategies for providing adequate pain relief The school was established in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College. The current name, Yale School of Medicine, was adopted in 1918. Milton C. Winternitz, who served as dean from 1920 to 1935, was the architect of the schools unique educational philosophy, the Yale system of medical education, which emphasizes critical thinking in a nongraded, noncompetitive environment and requires students to write a thesis based on original research. Harvey Cushing, widely regarded as the father of American neurosurgery and a seminal figure in American medicine, joined the faculty late in his career and donated his extensive collection of books to Yale. The medical school library, which bears his name, is regarded as one of the great medical historical libraries of the world. YSMs historical contributions to medicine include the first X-ray performed in the United States, the first successful use of penicillin in America, the first use of cancer chemotherapy, and the introduction of fetal heart monitoring, natural childbirth and newborn rooming-in. Yale doctors designed the first artificial heart pump and the first insulin infusion pump for diabetes, and it was here that the means of transmission of the polio virus was established, paving the way for the Salk vaccine. Lyme disease was identified by two Yale physicians in 1975. More recent milestones include the first transgenic mouse, discovery of the mechanism of protein folding, which is key to understanding neurodegenerative diseases, and discovery of the mechanism of innate immunity, with major implications for infectious disease and cancer. Additional highlights include the first reliable method for early detection of autism and identification of genes associated with hypertension, macular degeneration, dyslexia, and Tourettes syndrome, among many others. via @learyreports Sen. Bill Nelson on Monday joined fellow Democrats in pushing for a bill that would prevent terror suspects from obtaining guns and explosives. The FBI, Nelson said, was "handicapped" in dealing with the Orlando shooter, who had been investigated before but the cases had closed. The "Denying Firearms And Explosives To Dangerous Terrorists Act" would ban people on a terrorist watch list from getting weapons. Said Nelson: "If the FBI did not have to close those cases, could make a notation, then when that fellow went in last week to purchase an AR-15 and an automatic handgun, he would have come up on their radar." <<< Politifact: "Terrorist watch list no obstacle to buying guns, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy says" >>> The legislation, which Democrats noted began under President George W. Bush, came up last year and was defeated on a party-line vote. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the sponsor, said she hoped Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would support the legislation. Nelson also said he was "disgusted" by some of the politics surrounding the shooting. "What we've got to do is come together as a country," he said. "That's the American spirit." Democrats said it would be the first in a series of gun regulations they would push in light of Orlando. Here is what Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are saying about the Orlando nightclub shooting. Trump: Last night, our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist. It was the worst terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11, and the second of its kind in 6 months. My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded, and their families. In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency. If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore. The terrorist, Omar Mir Saddique Mateen, is the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for President of Afghanistan. According to Pew, 99% of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law. We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States. Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalizing. We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from Radical Islamic Terrorism - which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a President for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans. We are going to make America safe again and great again for everyone. Clinton: I join Americans in praying for the victims of the attack in Orlando, their families and the first responders who did everything they could to save lives. This was an act of terror. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work, and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad. That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home. It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values. This was also an act of hate. The gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month. To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hate has absolutely no place in America. Finally, we need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets. This is a time to stand together and resolve to do everything we can to defend our communities and country. @ByKristenMClark Florida Gov. Rick Scott has activated the Florida Disaster Fund to provide financial support to organizations that will help victims of Sunday's shooting massacre and their families. "We are committed to ensuring that every resource is available to help those in need following yesterdays horrific terror attack in Orlando," Scott said in a statement. "Since the attack, we have seen Floridians unite together and our state has received an incredible outpouring of prayers and support. Activating the Florida Disaster Fund will give individuals across the country the opportunity to assist survivors and the loved ones of the victims. We will continue to work together in the coming days to do all we can to help this community heal." The fund is the state's official private fund to help communities respond to and recover from emergencies and disasters. Scott's office said 100 percent of funds raised will go toward those in need. Donations to the Florida Disaster Fund are made to the Volunteer Florida Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization and are tax deductible. Contributions can be made by credit card online at www.FloridaDisasterFund.org or by check to: Volunteer Florida Foundation, Attention: Florida Disaster Fund, 3800 Esplanade Way Suite 180, Tallahassee, FL 32311. Checks should be made payable to the "Volunteer Florida Foundation" and should include Florida Disaster Fund in the memo line. For more information, email info@volunteerflorida.org or call (850) 414-7400. In Orlando, Gov. Rick Scott received a phone call Monday morning from former President George W. Bush, his office announced. Scott's official Twitter account said: "Thank you President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush for your call today. We appreciate your prayers." Thank you President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush for your call today. We appreciate your prayers. Rick Scott (@FLGovScott) June 13, 2016 Scott's office confirmed Monday that he has not heard from President Barack Obama since the massacre occurred. The president said at the White House Sunday that he has spoken with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. The president said Sunday: "This morning I spoke with my good friend, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, and I conveyed the condolences of the entire American people. This could have been any one of our communities. So I told Mayor Dyer that whatever help he and the people of Orlando need -- they are going to get it. As a country, we will be there for the people of Orlando today, tomorrow and for all the days to come." Here is what some Florida politicians are saying about the Orlando shooting: Sen. Marco Rubio: I am devastated by this heartbreaking act of terrorism in Orlando. Jeanette and I join all Floridians and all Americans in grieving for those who lost their lives and praying for those who were injured in this senseless act of hatred, violence and terror. I want to thank the heroic police officers and first responders who prevented further loss of life, including the officer at the nightclub who first engaged the shooter. I would also like to encourage anyone living in Central Florida to donate blood to help the injured. As local, state and federal authorities investigate the perpetrator of this attack, my Senate office and I stand ready to assist - both by making sure the full weight of the federal government is used to hold anyone responsible for this incident to account, and also with any constituent service needs that arise for the impacted families. Confronting the threat of violent homegrown radicalization is one of the greatest counterterrorism challenges our law enforcement and intelligence community faces. We must do more at every level of government and within our own communities to identify and mitigate this cancer on our free society and prevent further loss of innocent life. Sen. Bill Nelson: Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of all the victims of this horrific attack in Orlando. I have spoken with the FBI and there appears to be a link to Islamic radicalism. I have conferred with additional sources and they think there is likely a connection with ISIS. So as we all mourn the senseless loss of life and investigators continue to learn more, we must remain vigilant and remember that if you see something, say something. via @elizabethrkoh of McClatchy D.C. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has said for months that he will not seek re-election to the Senate once his term expires in January. But Sundays mass shooting that claimed 50 lives in an Orlando gay nightclub may have him reconsidering his political future, radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt said the senator told him Monday. Hewitt, in his tweet, did not elaborate if Rubios potential plans involved returning to the Senate. Rubio has also rejected speculation that he would run for Floridas governorship in 2018. Rubio, if he decided to launch a Senate re-election bid, has until June 24 to file to run for his old Senate seat. More here. News Story not available This story has been published on: 2022-10-26. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. China hopes that the European side grants Beijing's market economy status as promised, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Sunday in Beijing. Wang made the remarks at a bilateral meeting ahead of the fourth round of an intergovernmental consultation between China and Germany, which will start on Monday. "China appreciated that Germany had expressed their willingness to act as a constructive role in improving the relationship between China and Europe several times," Wang said, adding that Beijing hopes the European side duly fulfills its obligations under Article 15 of the Accession Protocol of China to the WTO. Calling for the foreign ministries of the two countries to work as a platform to boost communication between China and Germany in many areas, Wang said the two sides should keep close cooperation to make the G20 summit in Hangzhou a success. "Meanwhile, China and Germany should properly handle their disputes," Wang added. Steinmeier said that Berlin is willing to maintain close high-level exchanges with Beijing and to reach agreements with China through cooperation in economy, trade and international affairs. On Sunday, Wang also invited the German foreign minister, whom Wang called "an old friend" of his, to enjoy the sunset at Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace. @doug_hanks Raquel Regalado criticized Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez's police budget in a campaign email sent out Monday discussing the terrorism attack in Orlando. "As Our Population Has Grown, Our Police Force Has Not Kept Up," read the headline from the two-term school board member's campaign message as she tries to unseat Gimenez in the 2016 mayoral race. "It is with a sad heart that I recognize that what happened in Orlando this weekend is becoming more common...When I am mayor of Miami-Dade County, I promise to make public safety a priority. Because we can do better." Later in the day, the Gimenez campaign sent out a statement from the mayor condemning Regalado's message. "There is a time to politic and there is a time to lead," Gimenez said. "This is why I find so reprehensible the political message sent by our opponent via e-mail using the Orlando massacre as an opportunity to raise money for her campaign and a pretext to attack me." The City of Miami Beach will host a 7 p.m. candlelight vigil tonight to honor the victims, family and friends affected by the Orlando shooting. The vigil will be held at SoundScape Park, 500 17 St. "I know I speak for the entire City of Miami Beach when I say we are all deeply saddened by the act of senseless violence suffered by our neighbors in Orlando," Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine said in a statement. "My deepest heartfelt condolences go out to the families and friends of those killed and injured at the 'hands of hate'. Especially troubling is that the LBGTQ community was targeted, a group we very much support in Miami Beach. We ask for tolerance and love during these very difficult times. In addition to Levine, other politicians expected to join in the vigil include U.S. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, State Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, Miami-Dade County Chairman Jean Monestime and City of Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado. Broward officials held a similar vigil at the Pride Center in Wilton Manors earlier today. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said Monday that Omar Mateen, the gunman in the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, successfully received two security guard licenses from his agency and renewals because he passed every check under Florida law. "All of the normal safeguards, all of the normal checks, were completed, and there was no disqualifying offense to prevent the individual from obtaining his license," Putnam said. "He was fingerprinted, he successfully completed the application, had a criminal background check -- there is nothing in that record that would have disqualified this individual, who was a U.S. citizen, who had a clean criminal record, who underwent a background check and mental health screening, from receiving those licenses." Putnam's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services regulates security guards. Mateen held "D" and "G" licenses with the state, meaning he was a licensed security guard and licensed to carry a firearm. The licenses were valid through 2017. Putnam's agency has not yet responded to public records request from numerous news outlets, including the Herald/Times, for Mateen's file. He said the file "is fairly rich with data that is pertinent to the investigation" and that his agency is working with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to decide "the appropriate timing" of their release. Putnam declined to say whether the FBI had contacted his agency about Mateen. The FBI has confirmed it questioned Mateen on three separate occasions. The Florida Cabinet member and likely candidate for governor met reporters to the state Emergency Operations Center in Tallahassee, activated Sunday by Gov. Rick Scott. Putnam has been a strong supporter of gun rights and he was repeatedly asked if the Orlando massacre has prompted him to rethink his views on the subject, but he did not directly address the question. "This tragedy is a painful reminder of how U.S.-born individuals, neighbors, classmates, co-workers can harbor an ideology so dark that they are capable of using the freedoms and the liberties that this country awards all of our citizens for the darkest possible motives," he said. Putnam also cautioned Floridians to be careful about requests to donate to charities on behalf of the victims and their families. He said it's "fairly common" for people to rip off innocent people at a time of grief by seeking donations to phony charities. Putnam, a Republican, is in his second and final term as the elected agriculture commissioner, and he's widely regarded as a leading candidate for governor in 2018. Opinion is really the lowest form of knowledge. It requires no understanding, no accountability. Bill Ballard I suffered my first bout of cognitive dissonance when I was 6 or 7 years old. It was due to a conflict between the biblical Abraham and the comic book Lone Ranger. It set the tone for the rest of my life. After grade school was out for the summer, a few nuns would come to Helmville for two weeks to teach us catechism in preparation for our first communion and later confirmation. It was during my first or second year in summer school that my doubts about life and what adults tried to teach me began. One afternoon the nun read the parable of Abraham to us. The story went that Abraham heard a voice from God, telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac. As the nun continued the story, I, having read many comic books about the Lone Ranger and other noble cowboys, imagined that Abraham would do the right thing and refuse God's order to murder Isaac. As a reward, I figured Abraham would receive a deific pat on the back and maybe a couple cows for being a man of principle and courage. After all, the Lone Ranger would have stood by his sidekick Tonto, and Roy Rogers would never put a bullet in Dale's head, no matter who gave the order. That was the Western way, and it was so inculcated in me by that young age, I couldn't be swayed into the compliance the parable demanded. The story ended when Abraham acceded to the demand and was ready to sacrifice Isaac when God spoke again, telling him that the whole episode was meant only to test his loyalty. The ending surprised and disappointed me. My comic book heroes were men of high principle and unlimited courage. They never would have given in to a request such as God made of Abraham. But the nun, who knew everything about religion and the church, told us that Abraham was a person to be admired because of his unquestioning obedience to a higher power. I kept my doubts to myself, and decided that I would adhere to the cowboy ethic. Everyone else could hold Abraham in high esteem if they wanted. Other issues arose during summer school, but I never voiced any disagreement or doubt; I just imagined what the Lone Ranger would have done in a similar situation. I was a pre-teen iconoclast, formed by comic book cowboys. That gave me the mindset and approach to living that marked me, I think. I grew from a child who doubted into the full-blown heretic I am now. There was an era of conformity during my teenage years, but the memories of my childhood heroes had made their mark, and it disappeared. I eventually graduated to iconoclasm, which is a lonely refuge from the total acceptance of the masses. Instead of tilting at windmills like the idealistic Don Quixote, I tilted at cows that others held sacred. Age and weariness have softened my propensity for that, so I try to keep my skepticism of accepted beliefs to myself, although it still surfaces occasionally. I've learned that neither I nor the revered icons of the world matter. I harbor little confidence in human nature, including my own. I have complete trust in a very few people, as well as an old dog and an old horse. I regard the rest of the world with mild suspicion, knowing that I'll eventually be disappointed, even though my expectations are few. When Bertrand Russell was asked if he'd die for his beliefs, he replied, Of course not. Maybe I'm wrong. I've gone from a childhood doubter to a Quixotic iconoclast to the heretic I am now. If I were to give a litany of the sacred cows I hold in contempt, a rabble of people would show up at my door with torches, pitchforks and a noose. It's the people who point out that the king has no clothes whom I admire. I don't hold myself above the believers who compose the majority of the world, I just take them with a grain of skeptical salt. I don't see myself as a pariah or an outcast from society. We all feel out of step with the uniformity of the masses at times, but it doesn't take long for public opinion to force us back into the obedient herd. We're just made that way. And it's safer with the herd. But I prefer to keep a distance from the faithful and put my trust in the Lone Rangers of the world and an old dog and an old horse. A triangle of Clark Fork riverbank long in limbo after the removal of Milltown Dam may soon become part of Milltown State Park. I guess none of us anticipated the closure lasting as long as it has, said Bruce Hall of the Bonner Development Group, which owns the 25-acre Bonner Learning Park. We havent even started the discussion yet. The state is being given the opportunity to conduct due diligence on the potential acquisition of the site. The Montana State Parks and Recreation Commission is set to meet Wednesday to consider the possible donation. The site has been closed to the public since 2006, and was used as a staging area for some of the excavation equipment when the state and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were removing thousands of tons of old mining sediments trapped in the Milltown Reservoir. After the Superfund mine waste was removed, the state received much of the newly reconstructed confluence of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot rivers as a public park. The Bonner Development Group property runs along Interstate 90 upstream of the Blackfoot River confluence. Because of how the Clark Forks new channel has been built, one corner of the property now sits on the south riverbank. Were still trying to see how it would fit into the management of the larger state park, FWP Region 2 Parks Manager Chet Crowser said on Friday. We would also work with the Bonner community. That land has been pretty important for the school there. BDG has an agreement to let Bonner Elementary School classes do field trips and science classes on its property. The Missoula County Sheriffs Posse uses the same access road to reach its warehouse and training grounds along the river. Crowser plans progress on a picnic area, boat ramp and other facilities at Milltown State Parks main riverfront area below the mouth of the Blackfoot River. While the BGD property has a picnic shelter as well, Crowser said its too early to consider how it might tie into the larger projects facilities. The Bonner Learning Park discussion is scheduled at about 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Parks and Recreation Commissions meeting in Helena. For more information about the meetings agenda, see stateparks.mt.gov/about-us/parksBoard.html. Im completely in touch with my inner 6-year-old, Rod Beattie said. Beattie, quartermaster sergeant of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Regiment Company H, was one member of the Montana-wide Civil War reenactment group that set up camp at Fort Missoula over the weekend. The reenactment group was set up as one of the stations at this years Cub Scout Day Camp, which was held at Fort Missoula on Friday and Saturday. Melani Best, director of the camp, said about 90 scouts from the Mullan Trail district came to the camp this year. The theme for this year was 'patriotic time warp,' so we have stations on Lewis and Clark and Paul Revere, as well as the Civil War group and a station on the history of flight, Best said. Another camp tradition involves making mesh river cleanup bags for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Best said every year, the campers assemble more than 2,000 such bags. Thomas Huether, captain of the Company H reenactment organization, is also a senior district executive with the Cub Scouts, and said that when they decided on a theme, he thought it would be a great opportunity to invite the rest of the regiment members to Missoula. Beattie brought a period-original commissary wagon to Missoula with him from his home in Forsyth. As quartermaster, he said his job would have been to acquire and store the four tons of goods that would have been loaded onto the wagon. It would have held everything the company would need to walk, shoot, sleep, fight and eat, he said. Near his wagon Beattie had set up an authentic 19th-century Army kitchen, where he let the Cub Scouts try samples of parched corn and potentially tooth-breaking hardtack he had made himself. Thats pretty new still. Its only about six months old, Beattie said, pointing to a Swedish hardtack variant made sweeter with honey. Huether said the reenactment group started a little more than two years ago, after he and Beattie were a part of the reenactment of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg in 2013. Re-enacting isnt a hobby. Its an addiction, and once you get it, it wont let go, he said. Beattie said hes taking part in a reenactment of the Battle of the Little Big Horn scheduled for June 24-26 near Hardin. He said its the 16th time hes been part of Custers Last Stand. In keeping with his role as ordnance sergeant for Company H, Ryan Juers of Helena brought his custom-built field artillery gun. The ordnance rifle, mounted on a wheeled cart, included a reproduction 3-inch-wide, roughly 6-foot-long barrel. Any time we pulled into a rest stop on the way over, you definitely got a few looks, he said. For the weekends demonstrations, Juers was firing blanks from the field artillery, using a half-pound of black powder to create the corresponding boom and blast of smoke. He said the ordinance rifle can take up to as much as a full pound of powder if firing a live round. It would have a range of three-quarters (of a mile) to a mile. With a full load, a max weight shell of nine pounds is leaving the barrel at 1,000 miles per hour and when it hits something, its 200 foot tons of impact, Juers said. During a weapons demonstration on Saturday, Juers three artillery blasts were spaced between shots from the rest of Company H, which lined up across the field from the group of Cub Scouts and fired blanks from their reproduction Springfield Model 1861 rifles. After relocating closer to the scouts and firing another volley, the reenactors ended their session by attaching bayonets to the ends of their weapons and charging across the grass. The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request to take up the case of a Kalispell woman who killed her husband by pushing him off a cliff in Glacier National Park in 2013. Jordan Linn Grahams federal defender Michael Donahoe had filed an appeal to the high court in early May, asking it to review her conviction. In an order issued Monday, the Supreme Court denied the petition. On July 7, 2013, Graham pushed her husband, Cody Johnson, whom she had married eight days earlier, off a cliff near the Loop trail on the Going-to-the-Sun Road after the couple had a scuffle. Graham had then returned home to Kalispell. Days later, after telling law enforcement Johnson had driven away from their house with some friends, she led a search party to his body. A week after that, she confessed to murdering him. Just before the conclusion of her December 2013 trial in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Graham pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a deal with prosecutors, who dismissed a first-degree murder charge, as well as another for making false statements to law enforcement. She was subsequently sentenced to 365 months, or more than 30 years, in prison, and is being held in federal prison in Aliceville, Alabama. During an appeal of her conviction, Donahoe said prosecutors claimed during her sentencing that the murder was premeditated, which he said shouldnt have been allowed after the first-degree murder charge was dismissed. Last November, a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld Graham's sentence. In February, the 9th Circuit denied a petition to rehear the appeal. Christianity is based on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Jesus shed his blood to atone for the sins of mankind. The Bible says, Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, Hebrews 9:22. Jesus willingly shed his blood to save mankind, but many Christians are not willing to donate their blood to save the life of a neighbor. Obviously, when it comes to faith and donating blood, there are many talkers, but few walkers. Hence, the blood shortage in the United States bears witness to a Christian faith that is on life support. The Bible says, Faith without works is a dead faith," James 2:17. It is not enough to boast faith in Jesus. That is why Friedrich Nietzsche said, A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows faith does not prove anything. Even Jesus said, Whatever you do for the least of these brothers of mine, you do for me. Jesus said whatever you do for me, not whatever you say about me. The least of his brothers are the patients in need of blood. The blood supply is low and there are millions claiming to follow Jesus. It is time for pastors to step up, motivate and lead. The blood donation centers and bloodmobiles ought to be overflowing with donors. Every Christian that is able to donate should donate. Pray about it and then be about it. Kevin Palmer, Martinez, Georgia A May trip to Yellowstone National Park by Bryant School fourth-graders just might be the highlight of their young lives. Oh, the cool things and creatures they saw! Erin Finstads fourth-graders could barely contain their excitement when the word Yellowstone came up Tuesday morning. They were delighted to share what they saw and learned. We saw a wolf nursing her cubs, said a very excited Kaydence Ludden. It's so rare, it was the first time the ranger had seen it. We saw a grizzly bear eating far away, added Donevin Vallance. And the group knew just how far away they had to be to safely watch the bear. A bunch of them raised outstretched arms with their thumb up to show this reporter. When an animal fits inside their thumb, they knew they were a safe distance away. In fact, the Bryant kids called the park rangers to report some misbehaving adults who were only a few yards away from a black bear. And then there were the shutterbug adults who were way too close to bison. And the students were upset to see human footprints on the fragile and dangerous crust of geyser basins, where people are supposed to stay on boardwalks. These kids knew their stuff. They prepared for their trip through four Skype talks with park rangers in the months before they left for their May 11-12 trip. At the park, they listened to a series of talks by Yellowstone Association instructors. And each student took a different topic to research and became the classrooms expert on it from grizzlies to mudpots to mule deer. We got to see Old Faithful erupt, exclaimed Mariam Daniels. We saw a mudpot, there was a cone with steam coming up. We saw geysers... and fumaroles. We saw a chocolate pot, interjected Tylor Underkofler. Its actually a hot spring on a big hill and overflows, in colors of red, orange and dark brown, with water inside that is so dark it looks black. We saw a lot of bison, added Jordan OMara, ramming into each other. And they saw red dogs, or bison babies. Boy bison roll in dirt and poop to attract girl bison, interjected Ludden. On top of that surprising fact, theres the amazing running speed of a grizzly bear. They can run up to 35 miles per hour, said Reid Riddle, and they weigh up to 500 to 700 pounds. They knew so much about their topic, said Finstad, that they would tell each other what animals are predators and what they eat. The spark for the trip started with reading a book in class, Rescue Josh McGuire, by Ben Mikaelsen, an adventure story set in Montanas mountains. That whetted the kids appetites to go on an adventure or campout, since many of them had never had the opportunity. So Finstad and Bryant School librarian Joice Franzen wrote a Helena Education Foundation Great Ideas grant application, which was funded by U.S. Bank. They also fundraised on DonorsChoose, a crowd-funding website for classrooms; and got food for the trip donated from Costco and Van's. They also received a scholarship from the Yellowstone Association and stayed in a YA cabin. One reason Finstad and Franzen worked hard to make this happen is that many of the families cant afford trips to Yellowstone. I think for a lot of our families ... the expense of the trip transportation, lodging and food would make it hard for them to do the trip, said Finstad. The Every Kid in a Park federal program, which gives free national park admission to fourth-graders, was another incentive, she said. And going to Yellowstone aligned perfectly with the fourth-grade science curriculum, which covers such fascinating topics as animal adaptations, volcanoes and plate tectonics, added Franzen. Obviously, thats really relevant in Yellowstone. CORVALLIS George G. Simmons left the Bitterroot Valley when he was 18 years old. He served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines during World War II and died at age 25 as a prisoner of war. His remains have been identified and now, 80 years after he left, he is coming home. On Dec. 8, 1941, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines. Army Cpl. George G. Simmons was assigned to Battery H, 60th Coast Artillery Regiment on the Philippine Island of Corregidor. "Simmons and his unit engaged in intense fighting until May 6, 1942, when the U.S. fortress of Corregidor fell," said a press release from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Thousands of American and Filipino service members were taken prisoner, including Simmons, who was taken by ship to Manila, then by train and eventually on foot to the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than 2,800 POWs perished in this camp during the remaining years of the war. On Nov. 19, 1942, 14 Americans, including Simmons, were reported to have died and were buried by their fellow prisoners in Common Grave 717 in Cabanatuan Camp #3 Cemetery. After World War II, American Graves Registration Service personnel exhumed those servicemembers and relocated their remains to a temporary U.S. military cemetery near Manila. In late 1947, the service again exhumed the remains in an attempt to identify them. The individual remains could not be identified due to the circumstances of the prisoners deaths and burials, commingling and the limited identification technologies of the time. The servicemembers were reburied as unknowns in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, a permanent American Battle Monuments Commission cemetery in the Philippines. With advances in technology and the ability to match DNA, in 2014, the Secretary of the Army granted permission to exhume the 10 graves associated with Cabanatuan Common Grave 717, where Simmons was believed to have been buried. The remains were accessioned into the DPAA laboratory on Aug. 28, 2014. DNA was taken from two cousins to match and identify Simmons. To identify Simmons remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used forensic identification tools, including mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome Short Tandem Repeat DNA analysis, which matched the DNA samples provided by two cousins; anthropological analysis; as well as historical and circumstantial evidence, the press release said. Simmons remains are now being returned to his family for burial with full military honors on June 18 in Corvallis. Don Thorson is the director of the Corvallis cemetery. It is a wonderful miracle when you think they are working to return these people to their families, said Don Thorson, director of the Corvallis cemetery. Simmons was a survivor of the Bataan Death March, interred in a prison camp in a city on the east coast of the Philippines. Thats where he died. Thorson said the Army identified the remains after they came to Corvallis and took a DNA sample from his cousin, Al Simmons, of Corvallis. They thought they had found George in a mass grave in the Philippines, Thorson said. They did not have DNA testing at the time, but now there is a way to identify the soldiers. Al Simmons, now 90 and a World War II veteran, said he remembers his cousin. He was eight years older than I was but we werent buddy-buddy. He had his own friends, Al Simmons said. Eight years difference does not make for good playmates. He was drafted in 1941 and served in the Philippines, and he died defending his country. Simmons is synonymous with the Chaffin name," Thorson said. The Chaffin family came to the Bitter Root in 1864 and settled in Corvallis. A Chaffin daughter married a Simmons, resulting in Simmons' offspring, Thorson said. Two of them are living. Al, who lives in Corvallis, and Loyce Teller, who was the Corvallis school secretary for many years, who is now 93 and lives in an assisted living home in Washington. Al Simmons said a number of family members will come for the internment service that will be held in the Corvallis cemetery at 11 a.m. on June 18. George Simmons will be buried beside his mother and father, Thorson said. Fortuitously, his parents bought an extra grave, he said. I presume they had hopes that some day, some way, he would come home. For additional information on the Defense Departments mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at dpaa.mil or call 703-699-1420. BILLINGS - The family of a man who committed suicide while in custody at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility claims that jail overcrowding contributed to his death. On June 6, 2013, Steven Tyler Russo, 34, was found hanging in the shower of the county jail. Though alive when detention officers discovered him, he later died at Billings Clinic. According to the lawsuit against the county, filed on June 2, Russo's family has requested the county pay punitive damages and compensation because jail overcrowding led detention officers to be negligent in their duty to Russo. The lawsuit was brought forth by Russo's mother, Patricia Russo-Wood. Yellowstone County has not received a summons to respond to the lawsuit. Billings Police officers arrested Russo on June 5, 2013, after he led officers on a high-speed chase in a stolen vehicle. Officers and detention facility workers reported Russo yelled goodbye to his friends and family during his arrest and incarceration, according to the lawsuit. Russo was placed on a watch list by detention officers and was ordered checked on every 15 minutes, according to the lawsuit. He was designated a maximum security prisoner, but placed in minimum security due to lack of space, according to the lawsuit. On June 6, 2013, Russo was taken to shower at about 2 p.m. A lock-down occurred at about 2:15 p.m., according to the lawsuit. A detention officer realized Russo had not returned from the shower and went to check on him. The officer saw Russo was hanging from the shower. According to Gazette archives, Russo used clothing to hang himself. Russo was still alive when the detention officer found him and attempted to revive him. The officer also called for assistance. Facility Commander Captain Sam Bofto testified at a coroner's inquest that the housing of inmates from other counties contributed to jail overcrowding, according to the lawsuit. A seven-person jury determined on in October 2013 there was nothing criminal about Russo's suicide, according to Gazette archives. The civil suit is on Yellowstone County Judge Russell Fagg's docket. A response from the county has not yet been filed. In Tuesdays primary election, voters approved the county to borrow up to $9.7 million to help build a 148-bed womens unit and to make renovations to the 29-year-old jail. The borrowed funds will be paired with another $7.8 million from county reserve and capital improvement accounts. Together, the $17.5 million will fund the new womens unit and pay for a new kitchen and laundry and upgrade existing housing units along with other improvements. BILLINGS - The Yellowstone County Sheriffs Office confirmed Saturday night that the person missing after a rafting incident Friday night has been accounted for, safe and sound. Sheriff Mike Linder said that an aerial search Saturday had produced no sighting, but his office received word that the missing person, who was not identified, had been in the water but was safe, according to contacts the sheriffs office made Saturday. Sometimes, people dont even realize that were searching for them, Linder said. The incident occurred about 8:30 Friday night. Three people were rescued after making it to shore. A woman was placed into an ambulance and transported to a hospital, according to Billings Battalion Chief Dave Gilbert. A fourth member of the party was later reported safe, but the whereabouts of the fifth member was unknown, Linder said. According to second-hand information given to a sheriffs deputy, one man who tried to control the raft with a piece of wood fell out of the raft. The craft apparently went under a log, which pushed the other rafters into the water. They had no oars and no life jackets, no way to control the raft, Linder said. On Friday night, Sheriffs Office personnel set up bases at Riverfront and Coulson parks, using boats to search the area and equipped with thermal imaging equipment. A Billings Police Department K-9 unit was also employed during the search Friday. By 11 oclock Friday evening, the search conducted by multiple law enforcement and fire departments had to be called off because of darkness. A Billings Flying Service helicopter allowed Linder and Lt. Kent ODonnell to search by air for about two hours Saturday morning. The helicopter flew low to the water, searching several miles of water, river channels, river banks and islands. The sheriff said they hoped to find what was at the time two missing people stranded but OK. But no luck, Linder said. The woman reported missing was confirmed later on Saturday to be safe, Linder said. On Saturday, the water was running high and fast, which made the river dangerous and the search more difficult. But Linder said the water level seems to be receding. Deputies had been working to pin down the names of all the individuals who were on the raft, Linder said, to try to discover whether the missing rafters had made it out of the river. They just got out of the water and wandered off, not even thinking that we would be looking for them, Linder said. Linder praised the response effort on the part of his department, the Billings Police Department, Billings Fire Department, U.S. Water Rescue and the Lockwood Fire Department. It was a collaborative effort, he said. We used just about every local public agency. Police reports FREE THE PIGS, COWS Michael Robinson, 46, of no known address, was arrested for felony theft and misdemeanor criminal trespass after police determined he had freed pigs and cows from their pens at Ranchland Packing Co., 1201 Centennial Ave., late Saturday. Police say he voiced concern over torturing the animals. The livestock were herded back to their pens. FRAUD Michael Morsette, 31, of Butte was arrested Friday for shoplifting a tent valued at $99 from Walmart. Police say he claimed he didnt have a receipt and tried to exchange the item for a gift card. DUI CHARGE Police arrested Alissa Pesanti, 30, of Butte for allegedly driving erratically and crossing the center line in the area of Hecla Street and Continental Drive about midnight Saturday. She failed sobriety tests and blew over the legal limit. She faces a misdemeanor DUI charge. URINATING MAN Matthew ODell, 23, of Lewistown was arrested early Saturday for public urination in the area of Galena and Colorado streets. He faces a disorderly conduct charge. BLAME THE SNAKES Brendon Heim, 24, of Butte was arrested in separate incidents Saturday morning. About 6:30 a.m. he was yelling and screaming on the 1900 block of Dewey Boulevard and told police he was scared to go inside his home because of snakes. No slithery critters were found by police. Heim then charged police and threatened to beat up a neighbor. Police believe he was under the influence of a drug. About noon police responded to the 200 block of West Granite Street, where Heim was allegedly throwing rocks at the neighbors. He faces misdemeanor charges of criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. BAD CHECKS James Keeney, 45, of Butte faces a felony charge of deceptive practices after he allegedly used checks from a closed bank account. Police say it was a shared account with a woman he had broken up with. DISORDERLY CONDUCT Lori Oldhorn, 53, of Butte may face two counts of disorderly conduct after two weekend arrests involving alcohol use and harassment at Mural Park in Uptown on Saturday and causing a disturbance at St. James Healthcare late Sunday. Shane Reeves, 55, was arrested about 9 a.m. Sunday for refusing to leave the sidewalk outside the Butte Rescue Mission, 1204 E. Second St. He was evicted from the mission due to his behavior. He told police hed rather go to jail than leave his sleeping spot. THAT CAR IS MINE Victoria Lindley, 35, of Butte was arrested Sunday on the 2500 block of Placer Street for allegedly assaulting a Butte woman, 27. Police say the victim failed to return Lindleys car after three weeks. Lindley found the woman and allegedly dragged her from the car and punched her face. MISSOULA Ask anyone in the orchestra and theyll tell you: You just cant be shy while playing the trumpet. The trumpet wants to be heard. And for John Driscoll, who grew up in Butte, playing that particular instrument since the summer before he went into the fifth grade way back in elementary school may have been useful preparation for the work he does now as executive director of the Missoula Symphony Association. I teach trumpet, too, and it is something that my less-extroverted students really need to learn, to become extroverted as trumpet players. They may not be in their personal lives, but when the trumpets up, youve got to become a different person, says Driscoll. Youve got to have a lot of fire in the belly and be very much an extrovert in terms of how you play. It was a useful lesson to have already mastered when he was hired as executive director of the Missoula Symphony Association in 1999. Driscoll was playing trumpet with the orchestra at the time, and he remained principal trumpet player in the orchestra for about 11 or 12 years after becoming executive director. The byproduct, not just the musical side, of playing trumpet probably helped. One has to be a people person and certainly not shy about putting yourself out there as a public speaker, as an asker of money all those different sorts of things, he said. He doesnt play trumpet for the orchestra anymore. But he still blows the orchestras horn in his catch-all position that involves marketing, fundraising, board development, human resources and developing a shared vision for the orchestra. TWO TIMES THE FUN You cant be shy, either, about trying something new, as the Missoula Symphony Orchestra started doing in about the mid-1990s. It was selling out its one-evening concerts, and so its board decided to move to a format of two concerts, adding a Sunday matinee. When Driscoll came on board a few years later, the soul-searching over that decision was continuing. Some board members even wanted to go back to a single performance for each concert because although the concerts had been selling out with one performance, the hall was now only half full for each. Driscoll remembers that he begged board members to stay with the two-evening schedule long enough for him to figure it out. Something I knew is that the Saturday and Sunday audiences were very different people, Driscoll said. He was convinced the Sunday matinee concert was drawing more senior citizens and more people from places such as the Bitterroot who had a bit of a drive easier to do by daylight. Fortunately, Missoula audiences started taking to that two-performance schedule in about 2004, when the Missoula Symphony Orchestra founded in 1954 celebrated its 50th year. The audience has steadily grown over the years since then, Driscoll said partly through the musicianship that Music Director and Conductor Darko Butorac has cultivated since being hired in 2007. In one memorable season four or five years ago, the symphonys concerts were sold out for all but the opening concert. Thats a tough thing to sustain, but since that year, weve been seeing 80 percent capacity on a regular basis, which is amazing, Driscoll said. When I first started working here, we were playing two performances of every concert like we are right now, Saturday night, Sunday matinee, and we were barely doing one house worth of audience between two days. Between the two shows we were probably seeing 1,100 or 1,200 people. Now a standard weekend for us is 1,800. A sold-out weekend is 2,200. Thats partly due to good musicianship, but it may be also the influence of demographics that insulated smaller community orchestras from some of what the classical music scene experienced in some major metropolitan areas, Driscoll suggests. Its turning around now. But I think 10 or so years ago, when orchestras of the larger size were starting to fail in fairly significant numbers, the community orchestras kept going and were maybe not always thriving, but certainly holding our own through really tough times. Driscoll believes its because an orchestra such as the Missoula Symphony can do better at staying in touch with its community, providing great music for ordinary citizens who appreciate what they hear and who know that the quality-of-life surge they get from the arts has a cost. From a contribution standpoint, the majority of our contributions come from folks of relatively modest means, Driscoll said. And in a fun, outdoorsy community such as Missoula, classical music is for audiences from a mix of backgrounds who want to experience it, not for an elite. I think there was a period there where classical music got inside its own head way too much and composers were writing for fellow composers, they werent writing for audiences. The art form needs to progress, no question. Symphony orchestras wont survive if were just 1800s cover bands, Driscoll said. But thats not to say that tonality shouldnt be a part of it. The reason music is important to me is that its a visceral experience however I am feeling, or however I need to feel, I can find it in music. ROOTS IN BUTTE Driscoll knows something about Montanas sense of community from growing up in Butte, home of the states oldest symphony orchestra. The Butte Symphony Orchestra began in 1950, four years before Missoulas symphony orchestra got its start. Butte during its heyday was a very culturally advanced community. It always had a very strong, strong element of rough-and-toughness to it just by nature of the working class, the miners and folks that populated Butte. But there was also so much wealth in Butte, unlike anywhere else in the state at the time, even when my folks were coming up in the 30s and 40s. They used to say that the uniform for Montana was cowboy boots and a cowboy hat; the uniform for Butte was a three-piece suit. I mean, there are photos of my grandpa working on re-roofing his house in a three-piece flannel suit. Thats how Butte was a lot of culture and money was present in Butte. And that culture of culture remained. So when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was still this great core of adults in Butte who fiercely promoted Butte as an arts community. The Butte Community Concert Series was absolutely responsible in addition to my father for my love and knowledge of classical music. "Amazing, incredible world-class acts came to Butte while I was growing up, of all stripes. I fell in love with jazz, big bands, when I saw Woody Herman live in Butte. But I think what really set me on fire is when I heard the Empire Brass Quintet. A FEW GREAT TEACHERS John Driscoll also learned from his father, Jim Driscoll. My dad was a huge classical music lover. He doesnt read music well but he can play anything by ear in the key of C, F or G. So wed go to a movie, and my dad would come home and sit down at the piano and play the soundtrack, instantly. An amazing ear. He had thousands and thousands of albums ever since he was a kid he started collecting opera and symphonic recordings and jazz, everything. I was always surrounded by great music the greatest of the great. Driscoll also learned from his first piano teacher, Helen LaVelle she gave him lessons starting at age 5 and later from piano teacher Ruth Rotondi, who first taught him what it meant for a musician to be an artist. She pushed me to interpret music that the music isnt the black dots on the page, its what you do with them, Driscoll recalled. Hal Estlick, a retired Navy musician who owned a music store in Butte, taught him the joy of playing the trumpet. Later, Bill Pfund, his trumpet teacher at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, taught him to appreciate sound to listen to every instrument and also to appreciate singing. But Montana taught him something, too that you can go home again, and should. It was while John Driscoll was playing in the Knoxville symphony orchestra in Tennessee that his wife, Kathrin, got a job offer in Missoula. It was all they needed to move back to Montana, where, about a year and a half later, John Driscoll applied for and got the post as executive director for the Missoula Symphony Association. The lessons John Driscoll learned growing up in Butte still play well in Missoula. I really feel strongly that regardless of the size of the community that you live in, every town deserves great art. Every resident, young and old, in every town in America deserves to hear the greatest music that can possibly be presented to them, Driscoll said. If this is where we were going to stay, I wanted to have some hand in helping to further that. HELENA A Montana State Prison guard plans to plead guilty in a federal investigation that found he and a laundry worker each smuggled methamphetamine, marijuana and another drug to inmates at the Deer Lodge facility, court documents filed Monday state. Under a plea deal, Martin Reap, of Deer Lodge, will plead guilty to accepting bribes and prosecutors will drop charges of drug conspiracy, possession and distribution, according to the agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Helena. A previous indictment says Reap smuggled methamphetamine and marijuana worth $5,000 or more to prisoners in exchange for payments of $5,000 or more between Feb. 1, 2015, and April 30, 2016. During part of that same period, prison laundry worker Erin Bernhardt also smuggled methamphetamine and Suboxone, an addictive drug used to treat narcotic addiction, a separate indictment says. Bernhardt is accused of receiving about $3,000 for bringing the drugs from suppliers in Tennessee to inmates between April and September 2015. Bernhardt's indictment says she gave the drugs to prisoner Ian Scott Barclay, while Reap's indictment states he delivered the drugs to unnamed co-conspirators behind bars. "They're not connected at this point," U.S. Attorney for Montana Mike Cotter said of the two indictments. He declined to provide further details of the case. Reap's public defender, Michael Donahoe, did not return a call seeking comment. Bernhardt and Barclay have pleaded not guilty to drug and bribery charges. Former inmate Cordero Robert Metzker and two Tennessee women, Rachel Leanna Ross of Collierville and Lauren J. Hoskins of Somerville, have pleaded not guilty to charges related to getting the drugs to Bernhardt. A trial for those five defendants is scheduled for July 25. In Reap's case, prosecutors will recommend he receive a lighter sentence for taking responsibility for the crime. Prosecutors also could move to further reduce the sentence if he provides them with substantial assistance in their investigation, according to the plea agreement. U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen must approve Reap's plea agreement. A hearing has been set for Wednesday. Reap was placed on administrative leave in April and suspended without pay in May, according to Montana Department of Corrections spokeswoman Judy Beck. In 2015, Montanas busiest District Court logged 9,860 new cases, including criminal, civil, probate, child protection and mental health commitments. Thats 41 percent more than were filed in Yellowstone County District Court in 2011. Yet the number of judges hasnt increased. Montanas Judicial Branch has a plan to ease the shortage of judges that is slowing down courts in Montanas largest cities. Members of the Montana Supreme Court voted unanimously last month to ask Gov. Steve Bullock to include five new district court judges in his executive budget proposal. Including an assistant, clerk and reporter for each judge, the states annual cost would be $1.7 million. Montana court data, measured against national standards, show that the District Courts are in need of 21 new judges statewide, not just five. Why ask for only five? Montana Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike McGrath said he and the District Court Council looked at whats viable and what community support is available. Judges have been a tough sell in past legislatures. Nowhere is the shortage more acute than in Yellowstone County. Statistically, each of our six District Court judges is carrying double the workload that a judge should be expected to have in an efficient court. An independent workload study completed in 2014 indicated that, based on 2013 numbers, Yellowstone County needed five additional judges. With increase in case filings since 2013, our District Court now needs six additional judges. If the trend in case filings continues, Yellowstone County soon will need more than six additional judges. The Judicial Branch budget requests just two judges for Yellowstone County, proposing that one start working in January 2018 and that the other take office in January 2019. The other judges requested are one for Missoula/Mineral counties; one for Cascade County; and one for Flathead County. We just really, really need new judges, McGrath said. Those are the districts that have the greatest need. Its a big request, McGrath said. The key is getting the support from the local communities. With legislators and candidates focused on the Nov. 8 election, its time for a briefing on the District Court shortage. Having too few judges causes problems within and outside the courthouse. By law, certain cases must receive top priority in court. Child abuse and neglect cases top the list because the lives and safety of children and their possible separation from family are at stake. The number of those cases doubled last year in our county. Laws guarantee criminal defendants speedy trials. Yellowstone County has seen a big jump in felony cases. That leaves civil matters, such as contract disputes, and complex business issues, which may languish for months or years awaiting a trial date in an overloaded court. Key to adding judges is providing adequate space a courtroom, jury room and offices. Missoula County recently remodeled its courthouse and is ready to house an additional judge and staff. Yellowstone County commissioners are well aware that space will be needed for additional judges, especially with Commissioner Jim Reno serving as the Montana Association of Counties representative on the District Court Council. There has been discussion about converting fourth-floor office space into court space. When Yellowstone County Finance Director Kevan Bryan drew up the plan to finance jail improvements, he took into account expected costs for remodeling the courthouse for additional judges. In the last session, the Legislature created the Judicial Redistricting Commission. That panel is chaired by Yellowstone County District Court Judge Greg Todd. The members include Rep. Nate McConnell, D-Missoula, and Sen. Kristin Hansen, R-Havre. The commission found that people in less populous counties dont want the boundaries changed. Judicial redistricting is not necessary, according to legislative criteria, Todd told The Gazette recently. Judicial redistricting will not solve the need for more judges. The biggest need is in the biggest towns, Todd said. The only way to alleviate that pressure is to add judges in the biggest towns. Obviously, the numbers could justify asking for more, but we thought these numbers are realistic, Todd said of the five-judge statewide request. Bullock should make adding judges a priority in his executive budget. Yellowstone County lawmakers and those seeking to become lawmakers in the November election need to pay attention to the judicial shortage. This is an issue that should unite Republicans and Democrats. Yellowstone County lawmakers should be leaders advocating for additional judges to improve the efficiency of the District Court. Adequate staffing for the justice system is basic to good government. Justice delayed is justice denied. -- The Billings Gazette HAMILTON Bitterroot Valley resident George G. Simmons left the valley when he was 18 years old. He served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines during World War II and died at age 25 as a prisoner of war. His remains have been identified and now he is coming home, 80 years after he left. Army Cpl. George G. Simmons was assigned to Battery H, 60th Coast Artillery Regiment on the Philippine Island of Corregidor. On Dec. 8, 1941, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines. Simmons and his unit engaged in intense fighting until May 6, 1942, when the U.S. fortress of Corregidor fell. Thousands of American and Filipino service members were taken prisoner, including Simmons, who was taken by ship to Manila, then by train and eventually on foot to the Cabanatuan POW camp, said a press release. More than 2,800 POWs perished in this camp during the remaining years of the war. On Nov. 19, 1942, 14 Americans, including Simmons, were reported to have died and were buried by their fellow prisoners in Common Grave 717 in Cabanatuan Camp #3 Cemetery. After World War II, American Graves Registration Service personnel exhumed those service members and relocated their remains to a temporary U.S. military cemetery near Manila. In late 1947, the service again exhumed the remains in an attempt to identify them. The individual remains could not be identified due to the circumstances of the prisoners deaths and burials, the commingling and the limited identification technologies of the time. The service members were reburied as unknowns in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial, a permanent American Battle Monuments Commission cemetery in the Philippines. With advances in technology and the ability to match DNA, in 2014, the Secretary of the Army granted permission to exhume the 10 graves associated with Cabanatuan Common Grave 717, where Simmons was believed to have been buried. The remains were accessioned into the DPAA laboratory on Aug. 28, 2014. The DNA was taken from two cousins to match and identify Simmons. To identify Simmons remains, scientists from DPAA and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used forensic identification tools, including mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome Short Tandem Repeat DNA analysis, which matched the DNA samples provided by two cousins; anthropological analysis; as well as historical and circumstantial evidence, the press release said. Simmons remains are now being returned to his family for burial with full military honors on June 18 in Corvallis. Don Thorson is the director of the Corvallis cemetery. It is a wonderful miracle when you think they are working to return these people to their families, Thorson said. Simmons was a survivor of the Bataan Death March, interred in a prison camp in a city on the east coast of the Philippines. Thats where he died. Thorson said the Army identified the remains after they came to Corvallis and took a DNA sample from his cousin, Al Simmons, of Corvallis. They thought they had found George in a mass grave in the Philippines, Thorson said. They did not have DNA testing at the time, but now there is a way to identify the soldiers. Al Simmons, now 90 and a World War II veteran, said he remembers his cousin. He was eight years older than I was but we werent buddy-buddy. He had his own friends, Al Simmons said. Eight years difference does not make for good playmates. He was drafted in 1941 and served in the Philippines, and he died defending his country. The Army press release issued Friday said, On Dec. 8, 1941 while Simmons was assigned to Battery H, 60th Coast Artillery Regiment on the Philippine Island of Corregidor, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines. Simmons and his unit engaged in intense fighting until May 6, 1942, when the U.S. fortress of Corregidor fell. Thousands of American and Filipino service members were taken prisoner, including Simmons, who was taken by ship to Manila, then by train and eventually on foot to the Cabanatuan POW camp. More than 2,800 POWs perished in this camp during the remaining years of the war. On Nov. 19, 1942, 14 Americans, including Simmons, were reported to have died and were buried by their fellow prisoners in Common Grave 717 in Cabanatuan Camp #3 Cemetery. Thorson said, Simmons is synonymous with the Chaffin name. The Chaffin family came to the Bitter Root in 1864 and settled in Corvallis. A Chaffin daughter married a Simmons, resulting in Simmons off-spring, Thorson said. Two of them are living. Al, who lives in Corvallis, and Loyce Teller, who was the Corvallis school secretary for many years who is now 93 and lives in an assisted living home in Washington. Al Simmons said a number of family members will come for the internment service that will be held in the Corvallis cemetery, 11 a.m. on June 18. Thorson said George Simmons will be buried beside his mother and father. Fortuitously, his parents bought an extra grave, Thorson said. I presume they had hopes that some day, some way, he would come home. For additional information on the Defense Departments mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving our country, visit the DPAA website at www.dpaa.mil or call 703-699-1420. There will be about a hundred of them in all from a dozen or more states, traveling by car or train or airplane, and when they gather in Montana at the end of this month it will be to celebrate another kind of journey the one their families made by ox cart a century ago. As John Gutierrez of Northridge, California, explains, it was exactly 100 years ago, in 1916, that several related Ukrainian families having left their homeland behind when they moved to Canada a few years earlier made the trek across the United States border. They homesteaded on the open prairie some 40 miles from Malta, the nearest town of any size. Weve really got to remember these people and the sacrifices they made so we could have what we have today, says Gutierrez. It was a tough place because youre totally on your own its entirely up to you to succeed or fail. Theres no doctors, no medicine, nothing. Youre 40 miles from the nearest town. You lived in a tent until you built that first two-room house and then youre working in the fields. It just took a lot of stamina and endurance and hope. A centennial reunion of the Obach-Wachula and Ivanovitch-Walchuk families will celebrate the legacy of those immigrants when the descendants gather June 24-26 in Malta. Most of those families arrived in 1916 to join the Walchuks, who had already arrived in 1914. It was the still the homesteading era in eastern Montana, and they had very likely seen the Great Northern posters blaring the promise of lands available for homesteading in places such as Phillips County, Montana. They found land near Frenchman Creek. Its almost a sacred place to me. This is where it all started the homestead, said Gutierrez. He is helping to coordinate the reunion for the Obach family, those descended from Thomas and Anna Obach. Gutierrez, who worked on the Saturn 1B and Saturn V Launch Computer Complex for RCA Radar Systems Division in Van Nuys, California, from 1961 to 1969, said he sometimes marveled at the way that Obach family one in which education was stressed arrived in America. What is amazing to me is that my grandparents immigrated to the United States in 1916 on an ox-drawn cart a two-wheeled ox-drawn cart in which they moved to this promised land. In two generations their grandson, me, John Gutierrez, Im working for RCA Radar Systems Division, Im working on the Saturn IB and Saturn V launch computer complex, which helped launch a man to the moon and return him safely to Earth. My grandparents came here in an ox cart and I helped land a man on the moon only in America could this happen in two generations. It just boggles my mind. Pat Donich of Seeley Lake, who is coordinating the reunion for descendants of the Wachula/Ivanovitch family, said the familys story has echoes of the Mayflower voyage a quest for religious freedom. At that time, there was still a czar in Russia, and thats when the Bolsheviks were working to take over everything. Our family was in favor of the czar, but they were afraid because they were religious. The Bolsheviks, who successfully overthrew the czars government in 1917, were famously opposed to religion. For religious people, it seemed like a good time to leave Ukraine. They were really terrified of the Bolsheviks, who hadnt even taken over yet, said Donich. And Donichs father, John Ivanovitch who was 7 when his family came to Canada in 1914, and 9 when then came to the U.S. in 1916 never forgot the feeling that things would be better in America. I remember my dad saying, Dont ever complain about paying taxes in this country. Just be so happy youre here and you can, Donich said. Donich said the family already knew about the opportunities to homestead before they left home. They saw ads in Ukraine about free land, which was the homestead land. So when they got to Canada, after a couple years they just walked across the border and applied for citizenship and homesteads, and nobody cared if they did that. Well, they actually came in ox carts, because they had goods. The familys tradition also tells that the family stayed one season in Mankota, Saskatchewan, because they needed to raise a crop of potatoes so theyd have something to eat when they came. The land north of Malta didnt exactly drip with milk and honey when they arrived. It was prairie and lots of rocks and never very good land, Donich said. They raised lots of things. They raised wheat and barley and hay and turkeys 500 turkeys at a time and cattle and chickens. They just did anything they could possibly do to make some money. They lived in sod houses. A sod house is like the sod you would put down on your lawn now, only they plowed up the prairie and the walking plows would plow 18 inches wide. Then they would just stack that up like bricks. They would stack it in two rows for one wall and kind of lean them together and the houses were like 30 feet by 40 feet. And theyd have two rooms in them with all those children. The Obach family lived in their sod house 10 years and then they bought a wooden house from some neighbors who left. They then donated their sod house as a school to educate their own children and those of the neighbors. So that sod house became the Obach School from 1924 to 1934. Bonnie OBrien, who came to teach the pupils there are photos of her and her students standing next to the sod walls of that prairie school ended up marrying John Ivanovitch and staying the area as a farm wife, mother and teacher. The Obachs, meanwhile started looking, American-fashion, for new opportunities as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s set in. They looked toward western Montana. They sold the homestead back to the government and the Obach family moved to Charlo. They had a much smaller farm, but it was much more productive. There was rain in the spring and there was water and streams. It became a very successful farm in Charlo, said Gutierrez. But tragedy went with them. For already in September 1935, Michael Obach who had won $20 in May of that year for being the best judge of horses and mules in the state of Montana at a contest in Bozeman was killed in a car accident near Hinsdale. It was at night and he had no lights. Another vehicle driven by the postmaster at Meharry struck the Obach family truck head on. Michael was standing in front of the truck at the time, cranking it to get it started. He was pinned between the two vehicles. He was the fourth-oldest. He was a farmer. He loved it, Gutierrez said. I know my grandmother never got over it how tragedy strikes your family. And three years after they moved to Charlo, my grandfather died of stomach cancer. But immigrants in America long ago figured out that bad things still happen in the promised land. Theres some good stories and some sad stories, Gutierrez said. They will tell both kinds when the descendants of the Obachs and Wachulas, the Ivanovitches and Walchuks, gather in Malta later this month. New owners of the vacant Copper King Hotel in Butte say their planned redevelopment could cost $8.1 million and would include a Rib & Chop House serving steaks, seafood and ribs. The plans include a state-of-the-art convention and event space with lights that can display in thousands of colors to create any type of atmosphere, plus Montanas fourth Rib & Chop restaurant. There are also three locations in Wyoming, two in Pennsylvania and one in Utah. Matt Nistler, one of three new owners, said Monday the lighting and sound system would set the event space apart from any other in Montana. The technology we are putting in there will allow it to be programmed for any event with the push of a button, he said. But the overhaul of hotel rooms and other renovations could depend in part on whether Nistler, his brother Ben, and Rex Leipheimer get project assistance from a trust fund and local tax breaks. Combined, they could save the project more than $483,000. They asked for $800,000 from the county's Hard Rock Development Trust Fund, but Chief Executive Matt Vincents team is only asking commissioners to approve $200,000 from that account. Community Development Director Karen Byrnes also wants the council to approve $200,000 for a possible supermarket and additional retail space on the northwest corner of Harrison and Elizabeth Warren avenues. Nistler said he and his partners, doing business as 3D Properties, would like to receive more in Hard Rock assistance. But he said they might also receive a tax abatement that could help the project proceed. Such an abatement is allowed under state law if remodeling or expansion of an existing commercial building increases its taxable value by at least 5 percent. This request could exempt nearly $284,000 in property taxes that might otherwise have to be paid on a renovated Copper King. It's not a complete forgiveness, however, because an estimated $207,628 would still be owed. A public hearing must be held before such an abatement is granted, and if commissioners agree, it would be July 6. Commissioners are being asked to decide both $200,000 Hard Rock Trust requests when they meet at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday on the third floor of the Butte-Silver Bow Courthouse. The trust includes taxes that mine companies pay the state each year, a portion going to counties with mine operations. There is $400,000 in spendable money left in the trust, but another $600,000 should come in over the next several years as an internal county loan for the water department is repaid. The Copper King, 4655 Harrison Ave., across from Bert Mooney Airport, closed in January 2014. The Cimarron Group Inc. and its president, Ken Burningham of the Seattle area, filed for bankruptcy in federal court last year and averted a public sale of the empty hotel. Burningham initially sought $2.5 million for it. A federal judge approved one sale of the hotel to Scott Haeffner, who runs a financial services business in Butte, but Haeffner later backed out. The judge approved the sale to the new owners last December for about $1.2 million. Nistler, in their proposal for Hard Rock funds, said the Copper King has struggled with multiple owners and operators who did not re-invest in the property. For the past two decades each owner in succession has bled the life out of the property little by little, the proposal said. Each believing that a bit of lipstick would camouflage the need for a major overhaul. This approach to business is the proven path to failure, every time. Commissioners agreed in March to steer $1 million in Hard Rock money to the new $13 million passenger terminal and parking lot planned at Bert Mooney Airport. Nistler said coupling the Copper King and airport developments would give visitors a memorable initial impression of Butte. The equipment and technology for the event space alone would cost $500,000, the proposal said. It would include speakers, LED lighting in up to 4,200 colors and environmental displays that could be projected onto a wall 75 feet wide by 25 feet high, Nistler said. Those who book major events spend big money on production costs, he said, and are more likely to go to places where the technology is already in place. The owners might look to a church to use the event space on Sundays. Outside renovation plans include a new exterior facade, new portico entrances, new roof, new decks, new windows, new parking lot and new courtyard. Interior plans include a renovated pool area with splash park, renovated guest rooms, kitchen and corridors, new elevator, new fitness center, new suites and the new restaurant. The planned restaurant Rib & Chop House operates now in Billings, Livingston and Miles City, Montana; Cheyenne, Cody and Sheridan, Wyoming; Canonsburg, Hermitage and Meadville, Pennyslvania; and St. George, Utah. It serves appetizers, soups and salads, burgers, chicken, steaks and seafood including shrimp, scallops, tuna and salmon. An Idaho-based developer wants to buy one of the most coveted commercial real estate spots in Butte to build a $21.5 million supermarket and retail shops. But Helen ONeill and Sean ONeill who own the land on the northwest corner of Harrison Avenue and Elizabeth Warren Avenue with their family say their property is not currently for sale. Helen ONeill does not want to sell her property, period, at this time, Helen ONeill told The Montana Standard Tuesday morning. A state assessor said Tuesday the value of the acreage alone was increased dramatically this spring because he thought a land sale and the proposed supermarket project was a done deal. Property records show the tax value of the 7.3 acres went from $108,706 in 2015 to $543,376 this year a nearly 400-percent increase. State assessor Jon Kinzle said the increase was largely due to a belief that the land would go from residential use to commercial use, making it much more valuable. But the higher value also was based on the propertys location, which makes it one of the most appealing and valuable commercial spaces in Butte. It also reflected higher values due to a statewide property tax reassessment done last year. That is probably the most high-traffic intersection in Butte, said Kinzle, who works out of Butte for the Montana Department of Revenue. All these developments or non-developments preceded a $200,000 request that Chief Executive Matt Vincents administrative team is making formally to Butte-Silver Bow commissioners this week. Community Development Director Karen Byrnes wants a council OK Wednesday night to tap the money from the countys Hard Rock Mine Trust Account to assist the possible supermarket project. The council meets at 7:30 p.m. in the courthouse. Assistant Planning Director Lori Casey said money from the mine trust would be allocated as a reimbursement for costs accumulated during the project, and would not be given to the company until work is under way. Byrnes, meanwhile, is expected go before the council Wednesday evening to present the proposal, which includes a formal letter from Larry Leasure the chief executive officer of the development company, White-Leasure Development Co. of Boise. In the letter, Leasure said he is proposing the project as a private-public partnership, adding that the supermarket could employ 195 people, would be 60,000 square feet and would include an additional 6,000 square feet of retail space for prospective businesses. Leasure said the property would generate $278,341 in property tax revenue per year based upon discussions with the county assessors office. In a Monday evening interview with The Montana Standard, Leasure said three major retailers are interested in the project, but declined to mention their names citing confidentiality. County officials also declined to name the potential supermarket, saying any deal was contingent on factors including $200,000 from the Hard Rock fund. Tuesday night Leasure spoke with The Montana Standard and confirmed that no current written agreement exists with the ONeill family to purchase the property. Sean ONeill also confirmed in a phone interview that no such agreement exists. However, Leasure added that written agreements did exist in the past and that he and the family have been engaging in ongoing discussions to purchase the property for at least two years. We were under a contract for well over a year plus, said Leasure, noting that discussions ceased because weve been trying to figure out how to make the project work. And thats why we were meeting with the city to see if there could be some assistance to make the project work. Thats the only reason we didnt go forward with the property when we had it under contract. According to the latest property tax records, the overall tax value of the property in question rose from $232,996 in 2015 to $667,666 this year. Those figures include a former motel on the parcel. Kinzle said the owners were able to get the parcel reclassified as residential property many years ago. But the values were increased recently when officials thought the development deal had gone through, he said. It was done that quickly, he said, because taxpayers deserve to know what the increases in tax value and taxes due would be. Those higher tax bills would be due first in November, he said. He said the owners have asked for an informal review of the higher assessments, which is the first step in an appeals process. No decision on an appeal has been made, he said, but the lack of a development deal likely would be taken into account now. Leasure said Monday night that he believes Butte has a favorable economic climate for the kinds of retail developments his company specializes in. He said White-Leasure Development Co. has built about 100 retail developments in eight Western states, which house major tenants ranging from Walmart and national restaurants to other discount department stores. I think (Butte) has a good strong market, he said, adding that building a retail complex in the Mining City makes sense because of the citys slow-but-steady population growth, the presence and growth of Montana Tech, the mining industry and the towns diversified economy. He added that the presence of a major anchor retailer such as those his company has worked with in the past could help keep consumer dollars in the community and abate the leakage of retail sales that occur when residents travel to larger cities for shopping. WAPELLO, Iowa Louisa County Conservation is partnering with local libraries on the summer reading program titled Get Ready, Set, Read! The libraries have a multitude of programs they are offering and conservation personnel will be joining them. The program will be presented at Letts Public Library on at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 12; Keck Memorial Library in Wapello at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 13; Morning Sun Public Library at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, July 14, and at the Columbus Junction Public Library at 1:30 p.m. Friday, July 15. Each of the programs will be approximately one hour long and will include story time, activity, and crafts. Darby Harris, intern naturalist with Louisa County Conservation, will be discussing which animals do not need to be very speedy to survive. She might even bring a couple friends for the children to meet. Pre-registration is not required. The program is sponsored by Louisa County Conservation and the local libraries. For more information, call the conservation office at 523-8381 or contact your local library. MUSCATINE, Iowa HNI Corporation has announced increased earnings guidance for the second quarter and fiscal year 2016 in advance of previously scheduled meetings with investors and analysts next week at the Neocon office furniture trade show. HNI expects to report second quarter non-GAAP net income per diluted share of $0.62 to $0.67 on a sales decrease of 6 to 8 percent over the prior year quarter. This compares to prior guidance of non-GAAP net income per diluted share of $0.54 to $0.59 on a sales decrease of 4 to 7 percent. "We expect to deliver better than projected earnings driven by outstanding operational execution, material and operations productivity, and strong returns on prior investments. Our businesses are competing well and are positioned to deliver significant long-term profitable growth," said Stan Askren, HNI Corporation Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer. The corporation now estimates full year non-GAAP earnings per diluted share to be in the range of $2.70 to $2.90 on a sales decrease of 1 to 3 percent over the prior year. This compares to prior guidance of non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $2.40 to $2.70 on a sales decrease of 2 to 4 percent. The corporation's investor presentation will be available on the Corporation's website at www.hnicorp.com. HNI Corporation is a NYSE traded company (ticker symbol: HNI) providing products and solutions for the home and workplace environments. HNI Corporation is a leading global office furniture manufacturer and is the nation's leading manufacturer of hearth products. The Corporation's strong brands have leading positions in their markets. More information can be found on the Corporation's website at www.hnicorp.com. This release contains "forward-looking" statements based on current expectations regarding future plans, events, outlook, objectives and financial performance, expectations for future sales growth and earnings per diluted share for the second quarter and full fiscal year 2016. MUSCATINE, Iowa The Muscatine High School Class of l949 will meet for lunch at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, June 14 at Pizza Ranch, 106 Ford Ave. A discussion will be held pertaining to the class's 67th class reunion to be held this fall. All classmates, spouses and friends are invited to join the class. MUSCATINE, Iowa In conjunction with the exhibition, 100 Years of Service: The Muscatine Fire Department, Mike Van Wey, retired fireman and author of Muscatine Fire Department: 128 Years of Dedication, will give a talk in the Stanley Gallery exhibition space. Both the June 16 and July 14 talks will start at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. The exhibition is on view at the Muscatine Art Center through August 7. Significant local fires in the mid-1800s were combated by Muscatine citizens who filled countless buckets of water to suppress the flames. A single fire in June of 1865 destroyed fifteen buildings in Muscatine. The high school burned down in 1868 followed by a grain elevator in 1869. Businesses and homes were lost in Muscatine. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 led many to question if a fire could devastate a city with a professional fire department, what would happen to towns with only a bucket brigade? On January 7, 1875, forty-eight men led by Gustav Schmidt formed Muscatines first volunteer fire company. The volunteers took on the name, Champion Chemical Fire Co. Some other well-known volunteer departments included Rescue Hose Co., Relief Hose Co., Excelsior Hose Co., and the Hershey Hose Co. In 1913, P. M. Musser gifted the first motorized fire truck in Muscatine. The city of Muscatine replaced 500 volunteers with a chief and 12 men beginning January 3, 1916. The professional crew was soon tested. On January 15th, a fire broke out at the corner of Second Street and Iowa Avenue. Although the building was lost, the professionals fought heroically to prevent the blaze from spreading to the rest of the block. In the 100 years since the fire on that cold day in January, the Muscatine Fire Department has experienced changes large and small, such as the addition (and eventual closing) of the Central Fire Station at 308 Sycamore Street and the introduction of many technologies. Mike Van Weys talk will explore these changes, historic fires, and important milestones. The Muscatine Art Center is located at 1314 Mulberry Ave. in Muscatine, Iowa. Hours are Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday evenings until 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Donations are appreciated. Visit www.muscatineartcenter.org for more information about programs and events and to download a class brochure. MUSCATINE, Iowa West Liberty is considering using wind turbines to supplement their energy. A public hearing was set for 9 a.m. Monday, June 20, regarding the adoption of a proposed Wind Energy Conversion Systems ordinance by the Muscatine County Board of Supervisors at the board's Monday morning. Planning and Zoning Director Eric Furnas told the board that there are no ordinances currently in place for wind turbines in Muscatine County. West Liberty is working with a developer, I think theyre getting close to making a final decision, Furnas said. The ordinances would not be related to a specific location or specific turbines, but Furnas said the ordinance would ensure the protection of county roads and land from damage due to the installation of the large turbines. Furnas said he will work with County Engineer Keith White to ensure they are satisfied with the language in the ordinances. Keith and I just want to be sure that we have protection for the county roads, he said. The turbines, which Furnas said may be used to supplement energy in West Liberty, are the first to be brought up to the county, which is why no such ordinance currently exists. This ordinance would be a precautionary measure for the county, should other requests like the turbines arise, according to Furnas. It gives us an advantage down the road as we start to become tighter on other types of development, he said. Lawrence McNaul, City Manager for West Liberty, said that the city, which is a municipal electric utility, chose to move forward with wind turbine use after a feasibility study was conducted. "The idea here is the wind would provide us with a more cost-effective method, just shaving costs that we are typically paying out. If we can do it locally with the turbines, the idea is were purchasing it at a lower cost," McNaul said. In other business, the board approved: The Combined Preliminary and Final Plat of Shady Acres Addition, containing approximately 33 acres and located in Fulton Township. Variances granted by the Muscatine County Board of Adjustment on June 3, 2016. Authorizing Community Services to fill one additional Case Manager position. The Chair was authorized to sign a letter of support for the Muscatine Island Levee Districts request for assistance from the US Army Corps of Engineers on a project to raise the Muscatine levee system. The Fiscal Year 2016/17 Salary Schedule, a two percent adjustment to 2015/16 schedule. A revised Muscatine County Salary Administration Program dated June 13, 2016. Supervisors Robert Howard and Scott Sauer were assigned to negotiate a Fiscal Year 2016/17 salary increase with the County Engineer. WAPELLO, Iowa On Saturday, July 30 people from all over the world will be descending on Louisa County, the estimate is between 10 15,000. The visitors will be taking part in The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, lovingly known as RAGBRAI, a week-long trip across Iowa from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River. Louisa County officials are asking residents to get the area ready for the visitors. "Anytime you have guests over, its nice to do a bit of picking up around the home. To that end the Rural Hometown Pride Committee is asking our friends and neighbors to help clean up litter along the course. An hour or two of volunteer time can make a huge difference in the way these riders will remember our county," according to a press release. The riders will be coming from Washington and will enter Louisa County on County Road G-36 and then turn south onto County Road X-17. They will turn left onto Iowa Highway 92 at Wieles Corner and head into Columbus Junction. The folks in Columbus Junction have already started tidying up by the Swinging Bride and the in-town portion of the trek. The cyclists leave by the Eastern Access Road and back on Highway 92. Once across the Iowa River bridge, they will turn North (left) on County Road G-40 passing through Fredonia and on to Letts. The riders will head North at Letts via County Road G-43 and finish the day, dipping their tire into the Mighty Mississippi River in Muscatine. This litter cleanup is being supported by Louisa County Conservation and Keep Iowa Beautiful. Some orange litter bags and safety vests can be obtained from the Conservation Office at 12635 County Road G56, North of Wapello. Contact Katie Hammond at lccb@lccb.org or 319-523-8381. Going out anytime the week before the ride will have the greatest impact on keeping our portion of the route clean. The County Roads department will be sending a truck by to pick up the bags if its too much for you to take with you. A grant from Keep Iowa Beautiful will pay for the litter disposal. Participants are reminded to always wear bright colors, stay alert and walk facing traffic while picking up the litter. "This is a wonderful opportunity for your family, church group, youth organization or civic group to show Hometown Pride in Louisa County," the release states. 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 [] Eskom is moving ahead to power South Africa with Ingulas first unit going into commercial operation, meaning that it can supply 333MW of power to the national grid during peak times. Eskoms Group Capital Division handed over Ingulas first unit (Unit 4) to its generation division for commercial operation at 18:00 on Friday, 10 June 2016, it said in a statement on Monday. It is the first of four units to commercially support the national grid ahead of schedule. All four of Ingulas units are scheduled for commercial operation in 2017. Unit 4 was synchronised to the national grid in March and has been undergoing optimisation while supporting the grid. Ingula is a peaking hydro power station (meaning it can supply electricity during times of peak demand), which consists of an upper and a lower dam or reservoir and a powerhouse located 116 storeys underground in two excavated underground caverns. The R25bn project is situated between Ladysmith and Harrismith in the Little Drakensberg and will be able to provide an additional 333MW capacity once it is fully operational. This moment in time is the culmination of many years and countless hours of work, and (we are) immensely proud and conscious of the significance of the Ingula teams achievement, said Eskom group executive for group capital Abram Masango. Through this effort, Eskoms New Build Programme is on track to deliver the much-need capacity that South Africans require to grow the economy to ensure a better life for all. On completion of all four units, Ingula will be part of Eskoms peaking fleet of power stations. It will be Africas newest and largest pumped storage scheme, and the 19th largest in the world. Ingulas four units are located 350 metres underground in the worlds largest machine hall in mud-rock. To turn the more than 500 ton rotating mass of the generator rotor and turbine, water is released from Ingulas upper dam, Bedford Dam, situated 460m higher and 2 kilometres away. Water flows at high speeds down to the turbines at around 60km per hour with enough water passing through each turbine to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in six seconds. Rotating at 428 revolutions per minute, each unit will produce 333MW, a total for the station of 1 332MW. Ingula unit 3 is currently under repair, based on an incident experienced during the optimisation process post synchronisation. This unit was synchronised to the grid on March 6 2016 and supported the grid until April 6 2016, when the incident occurred. Ingula unit 2 was synchronised to the grid on May 22 2016 and is under optimisation, while Ingula unit 1 is still under construction. Fin24 More energy news Apple has created an energy company Eskom launches project to support nuclear deal In July 2009, something happened which had a massive impact on broadband connectivity and the price of bandwidth in South Africa: SEACOM was launched. Before the arrival of SEACOM, most South African broadband users had to manage restrictive data caps, which were a result of expensive international bandwidth. SEACOM brought competition to the international bandwidth market, and it was not long before affordable uncapped broadband services arrived. The addition of other undersea cable systems EASSy and WACS then helped international bandwidth prices plummet to a fraction of what they were pre-2009. The lower prices filtered down to consumers, with ADSL data prices dropping from around R70 per GB to less than R2 per GB in a few years. How it all changed Speaking at the annual Cloud and Hosting Conference, SEACOMs Chief Development Officer Suveer Ramdhani showed how the international connectivity landscape has changed over the last decade. More on Telecoms How much money South Africas telecoms sector makes We will make communicating cheaper: ANC government Government cost-cutting plan underway: Telecommunications Minister An aerial photo taken on Sept 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua] WASHINGTON - The Philippines' unilateral move to seek arbitration over the South China Sea disputes will hurt the prospect of resolving the issue peacefully through negotiations, a US expert told Xinhua in an interview. China has wanted to resolve the issue through negotiations, but the Philippines, with US backing, felt it could "play hardball" on the issue by taking the disputes to the arbitration tribunal, said William Jones, Washington Bureau Chief of US publication Executive Intelligence Review. "Arbitration normally is a case when two parties cannot successfully negotiate a problem. But that (Manila's action) is not the case at all, because there have been effectively no negotiations between the Philippines and China on this issue," Jones said. China adheres to the position of non-acceptance of and non-participation in the arbitration, a stance that Jones said Beijing has "legitimate reasons" to take according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In his analysis of Manila's intentions behind the arbitration, Jones said the Philippines felt that whatever decision the court would make, the arbitration process itself would give the country a certain amount of leeway in asserting its claims in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, he said, the United States could use the arbitration as a way to limit China's territorial claims and strengthen its allies, as "the growth of China, especially its maritime growth, is seen more, by at least a large section of the United States elites, as a threat." "Both of them gain a certain advantage of that in trying to delimit the rightful claims, I think, of China in terms of its territorial demands," Jones said, adding that he believes China's historical claims to the South China Sea region "really cannot be refuted." Moreover, the expert denounced US support to the arbitration, arguing that it contradicts Washington's position not to take sides on the South China Sea issue. The United States has "in effect taken sides" by encouraging the Philippines to assert its claims "much more forcefully, making it more difficult to get successful negotiations," he said. "The intervention, and really the role of the United States, has become the most aggravating part (of the South China Sea issue)," Jones said. In the interview with Xinhua, Jones also refuted the allegation that China has militarized the South China Sea region with its reclamation and building projects. "You want to count the number of ships and the number of cruises that have been made by the US and allied naval vessels in the vicinity, and I think the militarization is really all on the part of the United States," he said. Jones added that the freedom of navigation in the region has never been threatened, "certainly not by the Chinese." "Chinese trade is very dependent on freedom of navigation in the South China Sea to get what they need to support their population. So they have no reason to threaten that," he said. The XYZ show is still making great political hits. Last week, they released a remix of Swedish House Mafias Dont You Worry Child, featuring President Uhuru and Cord leader Raila Odinga. Their fathers Jomo Kenyatta and Jaramogi Oginga also bring in some input. This is sure going to make your day. Schwartz will come to Blue Oak after seven years as head of school at Baker Demonstration School in Wilmette, Illinois. Prior to this, he served 12 years as Washburne Middle School principal and four years as assistant principal in the Winnetka Public Schools in Illinois. Calistogans Jason Correia and Ron Golden each brought bites for a thousand people to the June 3 Napa Valley Barrel Auction held at Robert Mondavi Winery. St. Helena chef John McConnell brought 1,200 servings of his King salmon in a spiced lemon broth with basil and cucumbers all grown at the Clif Family ranch in Pope Valley. All three ran out of food as did many of the other 37 restaurateurs and food purveyors who served the 2,000 people who attended the event. Calistoga Inn chef Jason Correia said it took the better part of a day to prepare the 1,000 bites of hummus with ratatouille and feta cheese on top. He said Calistoga Inns owners, Rosie Dunsford and her son, Vice Mayor Michael Dunsford, have been in the Napa Valley for a long time and theyre involved in so many things. They just naturally participate, he said. They are connected and this is what they do. Additionally, attending and serving 2,000 people is a good presence for the restaurant. McConnell is the chef for Clif Family Winery. It took him and his staff three days to prepare the 1,200 bites, because the salmon had to be cured. He estimated preparation was seven to eight man hours. Were here to promote our winery, celebrate in a fun way and raise money for Auction Napa Valley, he said. Ron Golden, co-owner of three Calistoga restaurants with Mark Young, was serving sausage and pepper sloppy joes to all comers. Why? Because we believe in the Auction Napa Valley and the charities it supports and its always an exciting time to see our local vintners and fellow restaurateurs, Golden said. The Napa Valley Barrel Auction opened at 11 a.m. and a couple of hours later, it was warm, if not hot, under the white tents on the Robert Mondavi grounds. Calistoga restaurateur Gayle Keller said she was just trying to stay a little bit cool. She and her husband, Alex Dierkhising, have attended every Auction Napa Valley since it began in 1981, either as participants or donors. They opened their first Calistoga restaurant in 1976 and currently own both All Seasons Bistro, established 32 years ago, and Hydro Grill, which opened 10 years ago. Keller said their attendance at Auction Napa Valley began because we were in the process of assembling a big wine list for our first endeavor, the Silverado Restaurant. She said they were determined to buy the first releases from various wineries, so they would not leave the Napa Valley. One of their purchases from one of the first Auction Napa Valley events was a five-liter bottle of 1969 Chappellet Cabernet Sauvignon, which sold for $8,000. Keller said when they opened the Silverado Restaurant they started getting aggressive about our wine list. By 1982, we were one of the first recipients of the Wine Spectators Grand Award for our wine cellar. We were only one of two rural restaurants (to win the award), everything else was in the urban area. Today, Keller said, they participate in the event as a way to see whats out there and support people the way theyve supported us all these years. On Saturday afternoon, at Meadowood Napa Valley, shortly before the live auction began, Cyril Chappellet said $8,000 was the highest price paid for a bottle of wine for about 15 years. Its still in the box, still at the winery, Chappellet said. After Alex Dierkhising bought it, he turned around and gave it to my dad and said, Leave it where it belongs, Ill call for it, Chappellet said. Is it still good? It should be, Chappellet said, as the winery has opened some 750s from 1969, their second vintage, and they were staggering. Despite the temperatures outside, where there some 100 vintners pouring current release wines, inside the To Kalon Cellar, the temperature was a cool 55 degrees. It was there that 100 vintners, including Tim Mondavi, were pouring barrel samples and selling their red wines. He marveled at the 50 years of Robert Mondavi Winery and nearly 100 years for the Mondavi family. Even though our family isnt here, Im still very proud of all the great things we accomplished and we created to help bring California along, Mondavi said. He added that 2015 is his 42nd vintage and added, Im delighted to have our own Continuum to carry on at the very highest level. Continuum is the name of the winery on Pritchard Hill that Mondavi now owns. He said it can been seen from the Robert Mondavi Winery. If you stand at the arch of Robert Mondavi Winery, look through the crown of Opus One, look high on Vaca Range, ours is the highest vineyard youll see there. It is in a straight line. That red, rocky volcanic soil gives wines a verve and personality that I think are fabulous. The top barrel lots included Melka Wines, $62,100 and Shafer Vineyards, $60,050. Winemaker Ted Edwards said Freemark Abbey has been involved in Auction Napa Valley since it began in 1981. My favorite memory was in the early days when it just got started, he said. Chuck Carpy was chairman the first two years and I worked closely with him to help launch Auction Napa Valley. From then, we participated through the years. Initially, he brought the winerys chardonnay to pour but now brings a cabernet sauvignon. Thats how the wineries have evolved, he said. Incidentally, he said Freemark Abbey will have its grand reopening at its Highway 29 location on Saturday, July 9. Today is the best day of the year, said Michael Beauliac, winemaker and GM at Pine Ridge Winery. Its a lot of fun seeing your friends, having great wine and raising money for a great cause, he said. His best memory: We used to do the dinner Friday night. Youd walk in with a big bottle, a three-liter bottle, sit down and it was all about having fun. Vintner Alan Viader said his mother has been involved in ANV for as long as I can remember. He added he loves the energy and the excitement that the barrel auction brings with its festival-type atmosphere. Additionally, Viader said, The auction is such a good time, everyone smiling from ear to ear. Its great youre helping so many people. As a winemaker, he said hes tasting everyone elses 2014 cabernets. Its good to see the 14s are showing strong. Its going to be a nice vintage, he added. Since its founding in 1981, Auction Napa Valley has donated $150 million to Napa Valley nonprofits. In the past few years, proceeds have been directed toward community health and childrens education nonprofits. OAKVILLE A trip to Paris famed La Grande Epicerie by serial entrepreneur and Oakville Grocery owner Leslie Rudd, has inspired the launch of 75 Brooklyn-made products in the specialty shops Oakville and Healdsburg locations. Rudd saw how customers flocked to the offerings from New Yorks hippest borough stocked in the grand Parisian market. He subsequently sent Oakville Grocery director of operations David DiGenova and procurement manager Pilar Garibay to Brooklyn in a bid to capture the same magic. The pair scoured the boroughs diverse neighborhoods. After meeting with dozens of artisans and tasting hundreds of items, they assembled a selection of products now featured in a dedicated section of each Oakville Grocery store. These handmade confections, condiments and consumables are now available for the first time in California. Classic favorites like Joray Fruit Rolls, the original all-natural fruit leather, join new-age creations like Dona Chais spiced organic tea concentrate and Bushwick Kitchens Bees Knees Spicy Honey. Reggae DJ Queen Majesty offers her eponymous hot sauce line alongside minimalist chocolate confections from Fine and Raw. We discovered a food culture more diverse and dynamic than we could have imagined. Weve historically been purveyors of the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, but now were excited to venture further afield, DiGenova said. Many of the Brooklyn-made products available at Oakville Grocery only have limited distribution in New York and are available in California for the first time. It would be great to shed the spotlight on other cities in the future, Garibay said. Paris. Brooklyn. Oakville. It sounds crazy, but were trying something new here in our little store, and I think people are going to take notice, Rudd said. A new way to protect grapevines from disease, delivered from above, is taking flight over Napa vineyards. On May 18, a vineyard owned by Venge Vineyards in Calistoga was the site of the first U.S. commercial crop spraying by unmanned aerial system, according to a news release from Yamaha Motor Corp. The company makes small-sized helicopters that are flown via remote control over vineyards to apply chemicals on the crops below. Yamahas remotely piloted helicopter, called the RMAX, is different from drones that hobbyists typically fly, said Brad Anderson, a market development manager for Yamahas Unmanned Systems Division. Instead of a camera, the RMAX features a 16-liter tank strapped on its side. It hovers around 10 feet above the vines to distribute the chemicals. All our flights are low and slow, said Anderson. In fact, the rotor wash actually helps push the chemicals down into the fruit canopy. The first Napa Valley flight was completed for Napa-based Silverado Farming Co. During its debut the RMAX applied a fungicide to control powdery mildew one of the most common fungal diseases affecting grapes and many other crops. For Yamaha, the U.S. debut of RMAX commercial services for the agricultural industry marks the culmination of several years working with the Federal Aviation Administration to receive appropriate certifications, as well as extensive field research with the University of California at Davis. Brittany Pederson, a professional pest control adviser and viticulturist for Silverado Farming Co., said the RMAX provides a promising solution for grapegrowers. The results of trials and conclusions drawn from work at the Oakville Experimental Vineyards were pretty strong and gave us the confidence to begin our own experiments with the RMAX on privately owned commercial vineyards. With many hillside and smaller acreage plots in Napa County, aerial spraying can be a good alternative to having someone walk vineyards on hills wearing a backpack sprayer, said Anderson. It can be difficult or impossible to drive a tractor on such hills. Tractors can also affect the soil by compacting it. Creating a safety halo, the RMAX operator remains 60 feet away from the helicopter. A second person is stationed at the other end of the acreage. Flights only take place in the daytime and the helicopter always remains within the line of sight. Flights are conducted at least 500 feet from all nonparticipating persons, vessels, vehicles and structures, with certain exceptions. Each of the RMAX units is valued at between $100,000 and $150,000. But customers dont buy them, instead they pay for the spraying service. Those fees have not been finalized yet, Anderson said, but will vary depending on terrain, application, location and number of acres. There are currently two such RMAX helicopters in Napa, he said. Unlike a tractor spraying chemicals, RMAX coverage looks different when applied. Its more concentrated, explained Anderson. For some vineyard managers who arent used to the new way of application, thats a challenge, he said. The technology has been used in Japan for 25 years, but its new to the U.S. Testing of the RMAX unit started in August 2012 at the UC Davis experimental station in Oakville, as well as the nearby Robert Mondavi and Harlan Estate wineries. Its gratifying to have earned support from both the aviation and agricultural communities, said Anderson. A representative from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation was on hand to witness Yamahas inaugural commercial spray application with RMAX. The RMAX has been in service internationally since 1997 and has logged more than 2 million flight hours treating agricultural acres. Today there are 2,500 Yamaha RMAX helicopters in operation worldwide, spraying more than 2.4 million agricultural acres annually. The majority of those in use are in Japan, said Anderson. The helicopter has been used for agricultural spraying with many crops including rice, wheat, soybeans and vegetables. In April, Yamaha opened a new office at the Napa County Airport to support RMAX commercial spray services for growers primarily located in Napa and Sonoma counties. The city of St. Helena is joining Napa County, Calistoga, Yountville, city of Napa and American Canyon in joining Marin Clean Energy (MCE), a not-for-profit Community Choice Aggregator that supplies renewable energy choices to electricity ratepayers. Beginning in September, St. Helena ratepayers will automatically begin purchasing their energy from MCE instead of PG&E. MCE is a public, nonprofit organization that has partnered with PG&E to provide electricity generated from more renewable, non-polluting sources. MCE provides additional choices for electricity ratepayers by replacing PG&E electricity generation with choices for renewable energy generation products. PG&E continues to provide transmission and distribution of the electricity, rebates for energy efficacy upgrades, and monthly billing to customers. By joining MCE, instead of purchasing PG&Es 30 percent renewable electricity, MCE customers will have the choice of choosing MCE electricity programs. These include MCE Light Green (52 percent renewable energy) and MCE Deep Green (100 percent renewable energy) for both residential and commercial customers. MCE also offers a 100 percent local solar program. Electricity ratepayers can opt out of MCEs program at any time and return to PG&E for their electricity generation. Electricity ratepayers in St. Helena should evaluate their options carefully, as MCE rate plans may cost more than PG&E electricity generation, depending on your energy usage and which plan you choose. To learn more about MCEs program to determine if its right for you, visit mcecleanenergy.org/napacounty. Customers may also call MCE at 888-632-3674. Additionally, a representative from MCE will be at St. Helena City Hall, 1480 Main St., on Thursday, June 16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. to answer questions. The city of St. Helena will also post information and updates at cityofsthelena.org/energy. (As delivered) Good afternoon. In less than four weeks, we will meet in Warsaw for our Summit. The Summit takes place at a defining moment for our security. NATO has taken robust action to protect our nations, and to contribute to stability in our neighbourhood. But the challenges we face are enduring. So we need to be prepared for the long-haul. Over the next two days, NATO Defence Ministers will pave the way for the decisions we will take at the Warsaw Summit. First, we will bolster our deterrence and defence across the Alliance against threats from any direction. In February, we agreed to enhance our forward presence in the eastern part of the Alliance. We are now discussing the size, the scope and the composition of that force. Based on the advice of our military planners, we will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland. This will send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any Ally. But of course, our defence and deterrence does not rely on just four battalions. These are part of a much bigger shift in our posture, in response to the challenges we face. We have tripled the size of the NATO Response Force, to 40,000 troops. We have put a new Spearhead Force at its core. Around 5,000 troops ready to move within days. And we have set up 8 new small headquarters in the eastern part of our Alliance, to coordinate planning, exercises, and reinforcements. There will also be more pre-positioned equipment and supplies.All together this strikes the right balance between a greater ability to reinforce, and a boost to our forward presence. We have also taken action so that our troops can move faster across Europe. For exercises and reinforcements, if needed. National governments and parliaments have worked very hard to update procedures and remove hurdles. And we have made significant progress. Last month, the Spearhead Force conducted an exercise which showed how far we have come. One thousand troops and four hundred military vehicles moved from Spain to Poland - within four days. We will continue to work to improve freedom of movement for our troops and equipment. Because when a crisis emerges, speed can make a difference. So we have boosted our forces and increased our speed. But to sustain this shift, we must also spend more on our defence. Two years ago, our nations made a pledge. To stop defence cuts, increase defence spending, and move towards our benchmark of investing 2 % of GDP in defence within a decade. On the spending front, the news is mixed. But today, we have some good news. Im able to share with you our final figures for 2015, and our estimates for 2016. (SLIDE) After the end of the Cold War, there was a long decline in defence spending across European Allies and Canada. 2015 was the first, after many years, when we saw a small increase in defence spending and you can see that form our slide. And our estimates for 2016 show a further increase across NATOs European Allies and Canada. These are only estimates. But they are encouraging. The annual real change currently stands at around 1.5 percent. An increase of over 3 billion US dollars. Twenty Allies plan to spend more on defence in real terms this year. So this is real progress. After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction. I will report on this to ministers, and at the Summit in Warsaw. But we are still far from where we need to be. And we clearly need to do more. Both to increase the level of defence spending towards 2 percent. And to spend on the priorities we have identified as an Alliance. Second, we will focus on projecting stability beyond our borders, by supporting our neighbours and partners. Because a stable neighbourhood will help to keep us safe. At our ministerial meeting, we will discuss how we can expand our efforts to strengthen local forces, enabling them to stabilise their own countries and fight terrorism. For instance in Iraq. We will also consider providing AWACS surveillance planes to support the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL. And we will assess what more NATO could do in the wider Mediterranean Sea. For instance in support of the European Unions Operation Sophia. Our cooperation is proving very effective in the Aegean, where NATO ships contribute to cutting the lines of human smuggling. We will discuss the future of our cooperation and the cooperation between NATO and the European Union, together with High Representative Mogherini and Ministers from Finland and Sweden. Projecting stability is equally important in our eastern neighbourhood. So we will explore additional assistance for Ukraine and Georgia. On Wednesday, we will meet the Ukrainian Defence Minister in the NATO-Ukraine Commission. We are concerned about the security situation, amid continued ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine. We will also discuss the pace of Ukraines reforms, and the support provided by NATO. So over the next two days, we will take a series of important decisions. To strengthen our collective defence, and enhance our cooperation with partners. So with that, Im ready to take your questions. Oana Lungescu (NATO Spokesperson): Well start with Reuters in the fourth row. Q: Thanks. Secretary General, over here. Im just back from the Baltics where I spoke with officials and they would like to see the air policing changed into air defence system. Obviously theyre, theyre willing to do a lot of that on their own but they would like NATO support. Whats your view on that? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: NATO conducts strong air policing in the Baltic Sea region already and allies are committed to continuing to do so and allies contribute forces planes to the Baltic air policing mission. We are constantly assessing the requirements for this mission, we are constantly assessing how we can make sure that our presence in the Baltic region is the best possible presence and we are also at this meeting actually going to take decisions which is increasing our presence in the Baltic region with a more forward presence of NATO troops. We will have a robust battalion, multi-national battalion in each of the Baltic countries. So NATO allies are committed to the air policing mission, we provide the necessary forces, capabilities and we will constantly assess the requirements for the mission into the future. Oana Lungescu: New York Times, in the third row. Yes just behind there, behind, thank you. Q: Yes James Kanter, New York Times. Secretary General NATO is of course a defence, defensive organization so I, in light of what happened in Orlando is there anything concrete that NATO can say at this point about what it might do given indications of a rising threat from this form of terrorism? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: First of all I would like to express my condolences and my sympathy to all those who lost their loved ones, all those who were wounded and I would also like to express my support and my sympathy to the LGBT community and the people of the United States. I think its important to underline that terrorism will not change who we are and we will stand up for our open free societies and exactly the values which NATO is protecting are the values that are attacked by terror, by extremism again and again. To fight violence, to fight terrorism requires many different measures and much of it is about domestic police, domestic intelligence. What NATO can do is to help focus on the root causes and to work with other allies to stabilize our neighbourhood, to address the instability, the turmoil, the violence we see in our neighbourhood because we have seen again and again that this violence, this extremism inspired terrorist attacks in our own streets. We have seen that in Paris, we have seen it in Ankara, weve seen it in Brussels, we have seen it in many other places in NATO alliance. The investigation is ongoing after the horrific attacks in Orlando so I cannot comment on that but I can tell you that NATO and NATO allies stand together, we stand committed in our efforts to fight terrorism, to fight extremism and to stand up for our values of open free societies. Oana Lungescu: NTV Turkey, yeah, no behind, thank you. Q: Secretary General, Secretary General in the last foreign affairs meeting you have underlined that its obviously important to ensure security at the borders of the alliance and therefore I was wondering whether there was somehow an idea to help for example the Iraqi Government on a training mission or in order to reinforce their security or the training of their troops so that they could easily fight in a better way against DAESH and other threats? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: One of the main themes at the Defence Ministerial which starts tomorrow and one of the main themes at the summit which starts in Warsaw the 8th of July will be what we call projecting stability. And projecting stability is how NATO can work with partners, with forces in the south, in our neighbourhood to help them stabilize their own countries, to help them fight terrorism and to help them fight extremism. And of course this has to be done in a tailored way in different countries, thats exactly actually what we do in Afghanistan now. We have ended our combat mission there but we do train, assist and advise, we help the Afghan National Security Forces fight extremism, terrorism themselves. We help them to be able to take full responsibility for security in their own country themselves. We have also started to do that in Iraq meaning that we have started to train Iraqi officers in Jordan. Now we are looking into whether we can expand that training activity into Iraq itself and we have sent an assessment team to Iraq. The team came back some days ago and were now looking into the report from this team and we are discussing with the Iraqi Government how NATO can provide more support for them, enabling them to fight ISIL and to step up their efforts to fight ISIL and to stabilize their own country. I met with Prime Minister Al-Abadi, he asked for more help from NATO, he sent a letter also to ask for help. So we are now in the process where we have started to assist them but we are looking into what more we can do because if they are more stable we are more secure. So its our interest that they succeed in fighting extremism, terrorism in their own country. Oana Lungescu: Second row, Polityka Insight. Q: Marek Swierczynski, Polityka Insight, Poland. Secretary General you did not mention Russia in your remarks whereas at the previous Foreign Ministers Meeting it was, it was emphasized that theres, there was a need to convene in the NATO Russia Council. Does it mean that there are more issues to be discussed before it could be, it could happen? And on the eastern flank for how long ahead are those four battalions or already scheduled? Jens Stoltenberg: We are looking into the possibility of convening a new meeting of the NATO Russia Council before the summit. Of course we have to agree with Russia on the agenda, on the modalities and therefore Im not able to confirm any exact dates or when a meeting will take place. But on the general note I can just underline that for NATO it is important to both be strong but at the same time be open for dialogue and for us there is no contradiction between defence and dialogue, actually we believe that as long as NATO remains strong, as long as we provide deterrence and defence then we can also engage in a political dialogue with Russia. And especially when tensions are high as they are now I think it is of particular importance that we keep channels of political dialogue open with Russia, military lines of communication open to at least be able to prevent incidents and accidents and if they happen make sure that they dont spiral out of control and create really dangerous situations. We will continue to strive for a more constructive and cooperative relationship with Russia and we will do so based on the united and the strength of our alliance and we have to adapt when we see that our security environment is changing and thats exactly what we are doing now. When it comes to the duration of the battalions there is, theyre open ended, theres no particular decision on how long we will have the four battalions in the Baltic countries and in Poland we, the thing is that, is that this is one element of a more comprehensive adaptation of our defence posture where we have some more forward presence with the battalions, we have more pre-positioned equipment and supplies and we have significantly increased our ability to reinforce if needed with tripling the size of the NATO Response Force. So all this together is the response, the adaptation of our defence posture as a response to the more demanding security challenges we are facing. Oana Lungescu: Go to the gentleman in the front row. Q: Thank you very much Mikhail [Inaudible] Kommersant Newspaper. As you mentioned at the beginning of your speech NATO has already done a lot to enhance its presence on the eastern flank but still some countries of Eastern Europe, for example Estonia and Poland and most of the Baltic States, they claim that there must be more NATO troops, more exercises and more of well generally a NATO presence in the region. Do you have any self-imposed limits of this enhancement of presence? Or you will just follow the, all the demands of these East European NATO members? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: What NATO does is defence, it is proportionate and its fully in line with our international obligations and commitments including the NATO Russia Founding Act. We will constantly assess the requirements, we will constantly assess our defence posture but there can be no doubt that what we have done is a response to the actions of Russia in Crimea and in Ukraine. Because before the illegal annexation of Crimea and before Russias destabilizing policies towards Eastern Ukraine there was no one talking about any military presence in the kind we now will have in the eastern part of our alliance, in the Baltic countries and Poland. So what we do is response to the Russian actions but we dont want confrontation with Russia, we dont want a new cold war and we will continue to strive for dialogue and more constructive relationship because we think that is important for us but in the long run also will benefit Russia and all of us living here in the Euro Atlantic area. Oana Lungescu: Belga, in the second row. Q: [Inaudible] from the Belgian Television. I have a question concerning Belgium and our spending in defence. It is pretty low, were very far from the 2 % that youre hoping. Can you give us a comment on that and do you think that were going in the right direction in the long term or do we need to be more active in the short term to actually increase our spending? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: As I said when it comes to defence spending the picture is mixed but the picture is better, meaning that we have different allies spending on defence on very different levels. Some allies spend more than 2 %, the United States for instance spends more than 3 % of their GDP on defence. The UK, Estonia, Poland are examples of European NATO allies which spend more than 2 % on defence and I welcome that. And then we have an increasing number of allies which spend less than 2 % but which have started to increase and move towards the 2 % benchmark. But it is a very mixed picture. I expect all NATO allies to make good on what we agreed at Wales as 28 allies meeting in Wales in September 2014 where all the heads of state and government present there agreed to stop the cuts, gradually increase and then move towards the 2 %. And the first step is to stop cuts and then start to increase and of course I expect also Belgium to do so, I discussed this with the Belgian Prime Minister recently and I actually raised this issue in all the capitals I visit. Defence spending is very high on my political agenda and I discuss this with all the heads of state, governments, ministers I meet because there is no way we can provide the necessary capabilities, the necessary forces to both provide collective defence but also address the security challenges, the turmoil we see to the south of our alliance with the turmoil, the violence in Iraq, Syria and widely the Middle East region and so on. So defence spending is very high on my political agenda, Im welcome that we are moving in the right direction because after many, many, many years of cuts 2015 was the first year with increase. It was not a big increase but it was some increase and its better to go up and down and especially when we continue to increase defence spending in 2016 according to our latest estimates. Oana Lungescu: Okay we had the lady over there in the second row. Q: Mr. Stoltenberg you announced that NATO members are supposed to increase their givings for the defence, up to 2 % of their GDP, will Montenegro have to be one of them when it becomes NATO member? And what are other obligations at this moment regarding the issue? Jens Stoltenberg: Sorry? Q: What are our obligations at this moment regarding the issue, have we got any obligations regarding finding, fundings and is that going to be our obligation when we become NATO member? Jens Stoltenberg: Montenegro will become a member of NATO as soon as all 28 allies have ratified the accession protocol which we signed a few weeks ago. And some allies have already ratified the accession protocol so Montenegro is moving closer and closer to full membership. Of course Montenegro will be committed to the same goals, the same obligations as all other NATO allies meaning that also Montenegro has to increase its defence spending and move towards the 2 % guideline. Some NATO allies are very big, some are smaller but 2 % is the way we measure, so thats a fair way of making all allies responsible to contributing their part. So it matters also what Montenegro does and therefore I expect Montenegro to deliver as I expect Belgium to deliver or all other NATO allies to deliver on the pledge we made. Oana Lungescu: Okay. Lady in the third row, the centre, yeah. Q: Olana Moscow [sp?] Radio Liberty Kiev Bureau. The Government of Ukraine expects that maybe on Wednesday on the 15th of June NATO will approve the final package of aid. Is there any progress on this issue and can you specify what will this package include? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: We will have a meeting on Wednesday in the NATO Ukraine Commission and one of the main issues there will be how NATO can continue to provide both political and practical support for Ukraine and a part of that will be the, the comprehensive package and I expect the ministers to agree this package and that will be yet another example of how NATO and NATO allies provide support for Ukraine. Both political support, support of Ukraines territorial integrity and sovereignty but also practical support and we provide that in many different ways, advice but also helping Ukraine with implementing reforms and I think to implement reforms to fight corruption, to modernize Ukraines defence institutions is of great importance for Ukraine and therefore NATO will continue to help and assist Ukraine with that. More details on the package will be possible for me to address when we have agreed on Wednesday. Oana Lungescu: Wall Street Journal. Q: Mr. Secretary General two questions for you. One is what was, what can you tell us about the command and control of the eastern deterrent force? Will this be under the host nation commands, each battalion, or will this be under the NIFUSE [sp?] or some other NATO structure? And you spoke about the freedom of movement issues in Europe and I wonder what youve identified as a sort of next, the remaining challenges that NATO needs to tackle in order to be able to move troops and material across the continent more expeditiously? Jens Stoltenberg: The NATO, the multi-national robust battalions which we are going to have on a rotational basis in the three Baltic countries and Poland will be under NATO command. And, and they will not then be under national command so they will be under NATO command and we are also as I say strengthening our command related to these forces. We have, were in the process of making the, both the multi-national headquarters, divisional headquarters northeast and also the multi-national headquarters southeast for both of them the core headquarters in northeast and the divisional headquarters southeast are both part of this command which we need to also command the multi-national presence of NATO forces in both the southeast part of Europe but also the northeast part of Europe. The second question was about? Q: Freedom of movement and the challenges. Jens Stoltenberg: What we have done now is that we have addressed all the legal hurdles which we actually discovered were in place and which hampered our freedom of movement. So it was a lot of red tape, a lot of bureaucracy which we had to overcome to be able to move forces quickly across Europe. This has been removed and we have made a lot of progress so now its easy to move forces in a way that we are not faced with a lot of bureaucratic legal obstacles. What remains to be done, which is the next step, is to address actually whether we have all the infrastructure in place. Because one thing is to have as I say the legal right to move tanks or heavy equipment on the plane but the other issue is whether that plane can land on a specific airfield and whether there are roads or railways connected to that airfield which makes it possible to then move that tank further. So there are a number of issues related to capabilities, infrastructure on, and the capabilities of for instance seaports, airports, roads which we now are looking into and where we are asking the nations to provide us with the relevant information so we can also remove those obstacles so we are certain that we can really move forces quickly if needed. Oana Lungescu: Gentleman in the first row. Q: Channel 24, Ukraine, Vladimir Onitz [sp?]. Mr. Secretary General the situation in the east of Ukraine has deteriorated greatly, especially the previous night was very hard. We, never mind how hard Kiev tries to deny that we had serious losses in the east of Ukraine. What is the NATOs vision of the situation in the east of Ukraine and do you see a real war coming? Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: So we are deeply concerned about all the violations, the continued violations of the ceasefire. And we are also of course concerned about the high number of people that have lost their lives in fighting in eastern Ukraine. And for me this just highlights the importance of doing whatever we can to make sure that the ceasefire is respected and also that the monitors are able to monitor the ceasefire and the implementation of the ceasefire. And we have seen that some of the drones they are using, they have been shut down again and again. So we have to use all our influence and all our, we have to support all efforts making sure that the ceasefire is respected and that the monitors can operate. And therefore I welcome the efforts of many countries but in particular two NATO allies, France and Germany are working constantly on how we can implement, strengthen and make sure that the Minsk Agreements are fully respected and implemented. And Russia has a special responsibility because Russia continues to support the separatists in the eastern part of Ukraine with equipment, with other kinds of support and we need to see the withdrawal of heavy weapons and the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. There is no other way to a peaceful negotiated solution in Ukraine than the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. Oana Lungescu: Last question to NPR CBS. Q: Thanks. Teri Schultz with NPR and CBS. Could you just bring us up to date as we head into the meetings on discussions about appointing an intelligence chief? There have been some discussions, I dont, I just dont know where, what kind of progress can be made in the meeting. And also on helping Libya, violence continues, ISIS is losing ground but the status of a possible mission to help the new Libyan Government, where are we on that? Thanks. Jens Stoltenberg: NATO has already done a lot when it comes to strengthening the way we both are gathering intelligence but also the way we are processing and sharing that among NATO allies. So thats something where we already do a lot and I think that one of the great advantages for NATO is that we have an alliance which has proven that we are able to share intelligence, classified information and that is a great advantage for all allies. Now we are looking into whether we can improve that work even more by establishing an Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence, a new position and there is a process going on, we are looking at different ways of doing that. I am, and that we also made some progress so I expect an agreement by the summit but this is not yet fully agreed and in place so I think that we have to see what is possible to reach by the summit but hopefully well be able to have an agreement by the summit related to the establishment of a new Assistant Secretary General for Intelligence. When it comes to Libya we are, we are continuing our dialogue with the new Government of National Accord. I spoke with Prime Minister Sarraj, they expressed interest in NATO support and we are looking into what kind of support we can provide them with. We are not discussing any combat as I say presence of NATO troops but what we are focused on is how NATO can help with institution building because they need institutions like a defence ministry, command structure and so on to be able to organize their work and their efforts to stabilize the country and to fight ISIL. But NATO will only provide assistance to the new Libyan Government if so requested and we will only do it as part of a broader international effort to help the Libyan Government. Oana Lungescu: Thank you very much, thats all we have time for now. I know there were quite a few questions that you werent able to ask now but there will be opportunities over the next two days over the ministerial. Thank you. Jens Stoltenberg: Thank you. Air-raid alarm sirens to be installed in Estonia US State Department: Armenia, Azerbaijan should decide whether Putin's invitation would be useful to them US transfers to Ukraine first 2 NASAMS complexes Armenia parliament speaker: We have 240 casualties as result of Azerbaijan attack Israel president gives US intel on Iran UAVs in Ukraine Copper prices are rising World oil prices falling Armenia MPs approve several changes to laws FM: Armenia has never lost its belief in humanity despite facing many challenges, calamities Canada embassy to soon be opened in Armenia Biden: Russia would be making serious mistake to use tactical nuclear weapon Margarita Simonyan says she is banned from entering Armenia Newspaper: Artsakh Public Council establishment causes concern in political arena First sneakers for horses created in US India fines Google for $113 million Mass dedicated to peace in Armenia is celebrated at Vatican Biden says Russia would make 'serious mistake' if it deploys tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine Romania plans to intensify talks on Black Sea and military purchases Karekin II and Aram I refuse to participate in World Armenian Forum IMF Director: Ukraine's need for external financing could reach $5 billion month Turkey continues to beat out gas discount from Russia and payment deferral from Gazprom Alen Simonyan refuses to participate in fifth meeting of Russian-Armenian Lazarev Club UN Security Council to meet at Russia's request over accusations that Iran is supplying drones to Russia Leading Wall Street bankers warn of recession in US and Europe Armenian FM tells Vatican secretary of state about Azerbaijani aggression Secretary of Armenian Security Council holds telephone conversation with Biden's aide IEA head: World still needs Russian oil to flow into the market Norwegian police arrest man on suspicion of spying for Russia Ambassador-at-Large meets with Personal Representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office EU to offer banks to offer mandatory instant payments in euros Ambassador: Active efforts of Armenian authorities are registering regress in Armenian-Russian relations Saudi minister: Saudi Arabia and US will overcome unjustified spat Zatulin: My ban on entering Armenia coincides with trilateral meeting planned in Russia Rishi Sunak vows to fix 'mistakes' of Liz Truss MFA comments on information about meeting of special envoys of Armenia and Turkey Daily Sabah: Armenian, Turkish special representatives next meeting planned in Turkey The Telegraph: US President Biden mispronounces Rishi Sunak's name Zelenskyy proposes creating platforms for the 'de-occupation' of Transnistria and Abkhazia 'Armenia' bloc deputy: Nikol Pashinyan and Suren Papikyan are lying Dollar falls, euro rises Stanislav Zass discusses with Lavrov situation in CSTO zone of responsibility New British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his wife are richer than royalty Klaar: EU actively engaged in Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process at all levels Nissan reveals updated Juke crossover FM briefs Sovereign Order of Malta Grand Chancellor on Armenia position on normalizing relations with Azerbaijan Azerbaijan prepares for peace with Armenia but dramatically increases military budget North Korea completes preparations for nuclear test Azerbaijan manipulates facts, creates information pretext to encroach on Lachin corridor Azerbaijan military aggression against Armenia is discussed at Francophonie Parliamentary Assembly conference (PHOTOS) Peskov says details of gas hub with Turkey were being worked out Konstantin Zatulin on ban on his entry into Armenia: I see it as insulting move Putin's spokesman says building wall on Russian-EU borders is nonsense Turkey begins its part of work on gas hub agreement with Russia Kremlin responds to Macron's appeal to Pope to negotiate with Putin Millliyet: Turkish and Finnish delegations hold talks on NATO membership in Ankara Zelenskiy: Ukraine receives not 'a single cent' on $17 billion rapid recovery plan Rishi Sunak takes office as Prime Minister of Great Britain Indonesian armed woman tries to break into presidential palace Pashinyan's family newspaper writes that Konstantin Zatulin is forbidden to enter Armenia from now on President Raisi accuses U.S. of information terrorism, organizing riots in Iran AraratBank and 4090 Charity Foundation team up for the education of war participants Ursula von der Leyen: EU to provide Kyiv with 1 billion for urgent restoration of energy supply World Bank to provide Armenia with EUR 22.6 million of additional credit funds Macron asks Pope to call Putin to solve Ukraine crisis PM: Azerbaijan hinders search of Armenian soldiers' bodies in occupied territories German president assures Ukraine of his full support Armenia ruling force MP: Major powers have told us You should sign that agreement by the end of the year WSJ: Saudi Prince Bin Salman mocks Biden in private talks OSCE needs assessment mission is briefed on situation in Armenias Jermuk after Azerbaijan military aggression (PHOTOS) Armenias Pashinyan to Kazakhstans Tokayev: Mutually beneficial cooperation corresponds to our countries interests Driver, 41, dies in hospital 2 days after Armenia car accident US: Former student opens fire at school Turkish Finance Minister says he would seek gas discount from Gazprom US State Dept.: We are interested in seeing stable Caucasus where we work both with Armenia and Azerbaijan US plans to allocate $25M to project to strengthen Armenia economy Copper prices decline Armenia premier: Italy is friendly country, important partner for us Pashinyan to Xi: We will succeed in qualitatively raising Armenian-Chinese political dialogue to new level World Bank allocates Ukraine additional $500 million Zelenskyy: If Moscow says Ukraine is making dirty bomb, then Russia made it Newspaper: Anti-CSTO consolidation initiative group of Armenia sends petition to parliament speaker World oil prices going up Newspaper: Armenia PM forbids political teammates to say anything about Karabakh Azerbaijan opens fire at Armenia positions Largest cruise liner in world 'Icon of the Seas' presented U.S. police officers mistake pet cat for mountain lion Joe Biden gets another Covid-19 booster shot US imposes sanctions on Nicaragua's gold mining industry Kremlin says Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents prepare to meet Leading Party Sponsor: Conservative Party is not fit to run Britain 'From Old Memory': Drivers can't see road signs on section of North-South highway under construction in Yerevan Russian MFA: We are sure that attempts of external forces to split Moscow and Yerevan will not succeed Yair Lapid: Israel is deeply concerned over Russia and Iran's military ties Another school shooting in U.S.: 3 dead, including shooter Azerbaijani Armed Forces shell Armenian positions Kenyan police shoot and kill prominent Pakistani journalist OSCE representatives visit villages affected by Azerbaijani aggression in Syunik Province US presidential adviser calls OPEC's decision to cut oil production political move Lavrov: Russia and Iran gave comprehensive answers about alleged use of Iranian drones Netanyahu's comeback dominates Israel's elections TAMPA BAY, Florida The Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, a chartered caucus of the Florida Democratic Party, has issued scathing remarks against Florida Governor Rick Scott because he opposes Syrian refugees settling in the Sunshine State following the terrorist attacks in Paris. Governor Scotts demand that Congress act to prevent Syrian refugees from settling in Florida, reminds me of another shameful time in U.S. history, said Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida President Susan Smith. Seventy-six years ago, the S.S. St. Louis, carrying almost 1,000 Jews seeking refuge from the Nazis, was refused entry into the United States. Those refugees were forced to return to Germany where many of them did not survive the Holocaust. Republican governors and politicians are feeding hysteria that threatens to poison our country for years to come, said Smith. By falling into this trap, we inadvertently support and further the mission of ISIS to foment hatred and division, and we will once again find ourselves on the wrong side of history. President Obama has remained steadfast in his policy to continue to allow 10,000 Syrian refuges into the U.S. despite the Paris attacks. -- Published: Sunday, 12 June 2016 | Print | Disqus Featured Guests Robert Kiyosaki & Dr. Stephen Leeb Summary Chris welcomes Dr. Stephen Leeb, best selling author and head of The Complete Investor. Ultimately, gold will be recognized as the only reliable money, which is why every investment portfolio must include the yellow metal and or PMs shares. Gold could soar more than 8 fold from current levels, to $5,000-$10,000+ per ounce amid a conflagration of global economic challenges. Silver could outperform gold, climbing well into the triple digits. The duo agree that crude oil prices likely found a bottom at $28, subsequently doubled and "full throttle demand by oil producers" was unable to cap the price. The recent 100% advance may represent just the beginning in a multiyear bull market. A key component of the increasing oil demand / price, stems from China, which is opening oil exchanges to unify control of the Eastern oil supply. With global demographic trends implying a several fold increase in the population, demand for crude oil will explode. The price implications extend to silver, amid peak production, according to a GFMS report. There are only 30 swimming pools worth of silver in the entire world. China has hundreds of nuclear reactors planned for construction - the demand for uranium could ignite a new uranium rush. Robert Kiyoaski, America's 'Rich Dad ' returns to the show - he just added $1 million of gold to his Fort Knox sized stockpile. The author of Second Chance: for Your Money, Your Life and Our World (2015) and the Rich Dad book series author also penned two books with Presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Why We We Want You to Be Rich and The Midas Touch meant to guide the middle and working classes to prosperity. The discussion includes comments from the former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, who noted the US could face martial law. The $700 million to $3 trillion spent to bailout the US financial system in 2008-2009 Credit Crisis was sufficient to payoff the mortgage debt. Our guest refers to the system as a kleptocracy, which takes from the poor and gives to the wealthy, a reverse Robin Hood system. Robert Kiyosaki underscores how the "Magic of compound interest," no longer works, when rates are near or below zero. Show Host Chris Waltzek About Chris Contact Host: gsradio@frontier.com NEW - Hotline - Q&A: 1-206-666-5370 Guest Biographies Dr. Stephen Leeb Leeb Capital Management Stephen Leeb, Ph.D. President, Chairman of Investment Committee 25+ years of investment experience with a focus on growth stocks Editor of The Complete Investor Former editor of Personal Finance, one of the most widely read financial newsletters with over 100,000 subscribers Author of six books - most recent, The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel. Regular guest on CNNfn, Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Radio Ph.D. Psychology & M.A. Mathematics - Univ. of Illinois; B.A. Economics - Wharton School of Business, Univ. of Pennsylvania To visit my website: click here. Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad Poor Dad Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad - the international runaway bestseller that has held a top spot on the New York Times bestsellers list for over six years - is an investor, entrepreneur and educator whose perspectives on money and investing fly in the face of conventional wisdom. He has, virtually single-handedly, challenged and changed the way tens of millions, around the world, think about money. OVER 6 YEARS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER LIST! - November 2007 - In communicating his point of view on why 'old' advice - get a good job, save money, get out of debt, invest for the long term, and diversify - is 'bad' (both obsolete and flawed) advice, Robert has earned a reputation for straight talk, irreverence and courage. Rich Dad Poor Dad ranks as the longest-running bestseller on all four of the lists that report to Publisher's Weekly - The New York Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today - and was named "USA Today's #1 Money Book" two years in a row. It is the third longest-running 'how-to' best seller of all time. Translated into 51 languages and available in 109 countries, the Rich Dad series has sold over 27 million copies worldwide and has dominated best sellers lists across Asia, Australia, South America, Mexico and Europe. In 2005, Robert was inducted into Amazon.com Hall of Fame as one of that bookseller's Top 25 Authors. There are currently 26 books in the Rich Dad series. In 2006 Robert teamed up with Donald Trump to co-author Why We Want You To Be Rich - Two Men - One Message. It debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestsellers list. Robert writes a bi-weekly column - 'Why the Rich Are Getting Richer' - for Yahoo! Finance and a monthly column titled 'Rich Returns' for Entrepreneur magazine. Prior to writing Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert created the educational board game CASHFLOW 101 to teach individuals the financial and investment strategies that his rich dad spent years teaching him. It was those same strategies that allowed Robert to retire at age 47. Today there are more that 2,100 CASHFLOW Clubs - game groups independent of the Rich Dad Company - in cities throughout the world. Born and raised in Hawaii, Robert Kiyosaki is a fourth-generation Japanese-American. After graduating from college in New York, Robert joined the Marine Corps and served in Vietnam as an officer and helicopter gunship pilot. Following the war, Robert went to work in sales for Xerox Corporation and, in 1977, started a company that brought the first nylon and Velcro 'surfer wallets' to market. He founded an international education company in 1985 that taught business and investing to tens of thousands of students throughout the world. In 1994 Robert sold his business and, through his investments, was able to retire at the age of 47. During his short-lived retirement he wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad. "We go to school to learn to work hard for money. I write books and create products that teach people how to have money work hard for them." -- Robert Kiyosaki Website: click here. | Digg This Article -- Published: Sunday, 12 June 2016 | E-Mail | Print | Source: GoldSeek.com Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. comments powered by Disqus Posted by Mark Williams | June 13, 2016 Call it jumping on the bandwagon or just opportunistic marketing, but Honda engineers are pushing their redesigned 2017 Ridgeline straight into the Bed Wars with their own composite bed. Why anyone would dump expensive landscaping rock into an unlined pickup bed is beyond us, but that's where the Chevy versus Ford competition, with steel versus aluminum beds, has brought us. Here's the latest shot fired by Honda. The Ridgeline, like the Toyota Tacoma, uses a bed made of a composite material that acts much like a permanent spray-on or plastic bedliner. We don't expect this to be the end of the "controversy," but just a short detour before we get back to the fact that both Ford and Chevy half-ton sales could like take a hit in June. Manufacturer image 15:11 Changing the offensive over the alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh, local BJP MP Hukum Singh today claimed that he wrote the words 'Hindu exodus' by mistake. Singh said, "I wrote Hindu exodus by mistake. I will ask my workers to verify the list again. If Muslims come and tell me they are victims I will include their names in the list. The people left for economic reasons, so calling it Hindu exodus was a mistake." Singh had last week released a list of 346 people and said they were Hindus who had fled their homes in Kairana, a Muslim-majority town in western Uttar Pradesh, because of "threats and extortion by criminal elements belonging to a particular community". He had also said that the number of families that had to flee can go up to 400-500 even as Shamli District Magistrate Sujeet Kumar said some people left the town not because of "communal activity" but for "economic reasons". "The list (of those who had to flee) will go on further, I believe. It can go up to 400-500. There is not one accused (who forced people to migrate), they are here in dozens," Singh said, adding that from the names of accused, "one can grasp who are these people". Kairana is in Shamli district which witnessed communal riots in 2013. Shamli District Magistrate Sujeet Kumar, however, ruled out any communal and law and order issues behind some people leaving the area. "Till now we have investigated the list of 119 families. Around 10-15 families, mentioned in the list, still live in Kairana and around 68 families have migrated from the area 10-15 years ago. They moved out because of economic reasons. Till now, we have not found any case where there has been a law and order problem. "There is no communal activity, the Karaina town has always been peaceful... During Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, the area remained peaceful, and even during Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013, people here sent a strong message of brotherhood," Kumar said. Top BJP leaders, who were in Allahabad for the two-day national executive meeting, raked up the issue of alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana to attack the Samajwadi Party government in the state ahead of the Assembly election to be held early next year. BJP president Amit Shah, in his address to the National Executive on Sunday, had said, "The migration happening in Kairana due to violence is a matter of serious concern. There is an atmosphere of violence. The lack of development and the lack of governance in the largest state of India, that is Uttar Pradesh, is becoming a matter of serious concern." The requested page is currently unavailable on this server. Back to [RTHK News Homepage] BENGALURU: After opening the first set up In India at Hyderabad, Facebook has established its second office at 1BKC in Mumbai. Additionally, Facebook is planning to set up its another office in Gurgaon by the end of 2016. The social media giant will serve its all similar functions from their second office as they have done earlier from their previous offices. Additionally, Facebook will appear in this scenario with a host of trademark conference rooms for deploying virtual communication functionality that will enable them to be connected with its other locations. The company has decorated its Mumbai zone with the open office culture that includes micro cafeterias and breakout zones. Though, its Menlo Park office considered as the holder of largest open office plan across the world. Facebook has followed their old wall less work culture while making plans for its new office in Mumbai. They developed a confidential ambiance in its conference room only, by giving it a fully room wise look along with walls. It has been acclaimed that the Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook also sits on an open desk like the rest of his crew in MPK 20. The developer of the social network has elegantly fabricated its office atmosphere by arranging casual bean bags, soft toys and stickers all over the place. In the Mumbai office Facebook has crafted funky architecture by sticking decals and hanging boards, among which most of them are filled with Hindi words. Therefore, utilizing the strong wall culture, employees can scribble their thoughts and ideas on the wall or white board which is visible from all over the office. A sweet shop has also added in the work area so, that employees can easily treat each other and it is filled with cookies, ice creams and softies. Read Also: Facebook Pushes Users To Download Moments App Operators To Set Up 70,000 Telecom Towers To Curb Call Drops Siemens has no interest in becoming a white knight for German robot maker Kuka , which is the target of a 4.5 billion euro ($5.06 billion) takeover bid by Chinese home appliance maker Midea , Siemens' chief executive said."If we had been interested, we would have acted on it some time ago," Joe Kaeser told German broadcaster ntv in an interview on Sunday.Midea's bid has fanned a furious debate over Chinese takeovers in Europe, with politicians such as German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel calling for tougher restrictions. It has also prompted Berlin to consider whether Kuka's technology is crucial for the digitalisation of German industry, an economic priority.Kaeser, speaking to the broadcaster on the sidelines of Chancellor Angela Merkel's trade visit to Beijing, said he believed Gabriel, who is also Vice Chancellor, was relaxed about Kuka's situation."I don't believe that Mr Gabriel has a concern," Kaeser said."As Economy Minister, he's looking out for his country... in that sense, it's quite natural that he should look at alternatives," Kaeser added.Gabriel said earlier this month there was an effort under way to develop an alternative offer for Kuka.Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily reported that Gabriel had spoken to German car manufacturers and Siemens about mounting a possible counter-bid for Kuka. But sources close to the government and Siemens told Reuters the idea had met with little enthusiasm.Norbert Roettgen, who heads the German parliament's foreign affairs committee, said legal and economic action was needed to prevent the loss of key technologies and know-how."Germany and Europe are faced with the question of whether there are ... certain business areas that should be protected for strategic reasons and to ensure national and European security," he told the Ruhr Nachrichten newspaper on Monday."Robot maker Kuka may well be such a case."Andy Gu, vice chief executive of Midea, told Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper on Sunday that his company's bid for Kuka was motivated by business interests and aimed at helping the German company target the huge Chinese market. It was a not a political undertaking, he said."We are a private company. It's not important to us what the Chinese government demands," the newspaper quoted Gu as saying.Gu said Kuka would remain independent, adding that he expected Chinese authorities to approve the takeover, according to the newspaper. ($1 = 0.8890 euros) REUTERS SZ JW RAI0942 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0441-782894.Xml SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem said his party does not agree with the proposal that the army should be fully withdrawn from the north, Xinhua reported. He said there is a concern by the public that the army is still occupying property it does not require. He said the army must release property which needs to be given back to the people and have camps in the north which are only required for national security. The Sri Lankan army earlier said it will not withdraw from the north despite the end of a 30 years civil war in 2009. Sri Lanka government battled Tamil Tiger rebels in a brutal war which saw thousands killed on both sides. However following the end of the war Tamil political parties have been calling for the withdrawal of the army from the north. --IANS py/vm ( 183 Words) 2016-06-13-19:44:02 (IANS) The survey said 62.2 percent of the respondents do not believe that the "Abenomics" could improve the country's sluggish economy, while 28 percent of Japanese supported the policy compound, Xinhua reported. Abe earlier this month postponed again the planned sales tax hike from current eight per cent to 10 percent, citing that global economic situation right now is similar to what in 2008 before the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers and weak domestic consumption figures. Also on Monday, rating agency Fitch has slashed its rating outlook on Japanese government bond from "stable" to "negative" for Abe's decision to delay the consumption tax hike by another 18 months. The revision "primarily reflects Fitch's decreased confidence in the Japanese authorities' commitment to fiscal consolidation", the agency said in a statement. Abe aimed at making economic policies a topic during the upcoming upper house election. The election outcome is significant for the revisionist prime minister and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party to launch a motion to revise the country's war-renouncing constitution. --IANS py/vm ( 211 Words) 2016-06-13-19:54:03 (IANS) Live Nation spokesman Mindaugas Paukste told a Russian website that the concert promotion company has received a letter, stating that the poster violates the country's child protection laws and ordered it to be removed, reports The Independent. Paukste further said "Right now we have to decide how to carry on forward but we must also immediately take down the posters." He added that the outcry was surprising as the advertising didn't cause problems anywhere else. The heavy metal band, who is currently touring The Book of Souls, has been using a poster showing their gory monster mascot 'Eddie the Head' holding a bleeding heart in his claws and baring his yellow teeth as one of the promo materials. The ban has come after the locals filed a complaint about the poster to the authorities, with some demanding it to be pulled from the websites and ticketing outlets advertising the gig. Iron Maiden is set to play at Lithuania's Zalgiris Arena in Kaunas later this month.(ANI) As the Bombay High Court on Monday cleared "Udta Punjab" for release with one cut, director Abhishek Chaubey says he is "massively relieved". "Massively relieved today, looking to release the film on the scheduled date," Chaubey told the media here. "Udta Punjab" co-producer Anurag Kashyap's lawyer said the victory is all the more important as the film tells a relevant tale. "The film is relevant about what's happening in Punjab. Our victory is primarily that we based our film on Punjab and we are not shying away from it. That is why we went to court," the lawyer said. He added that there was a "word of caution" for filmmakers in terms of "verbage". "There is a word of caution for filmmakers in term of verbage and its use that can be there... It is left upon us in a sense (that) the industry has to decide what kind of usage we can have." Phantom Films, which has co-produced "Udta Punjab" with Balaji Motion Pictures, had moved the Bombay High Court, seeking a copy of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) Revising Committee order suggesting changes to the film set for a June 17 release. The Revising Committee's order suggested 13 changes, besides deletion of references to Punjab as it was allegedly not in conformity with the Cinematograph Act. Now the High Court has given a verdict that the film can release with an 'A' certificate, with one cut and three disclaimers. The film stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor-Khan and Diljit Dosanjh and deals with the drug menace in Punjab. --IANS ank/rb/bg ( 277 Words) 2016-06-13-17:38:04 (IANS) Bragging about the recognition given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the Islamic countries, Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday said even Muslim nations are with India in fight against terrorism Addressing the media on the sidelines of the BJP's national executive meeting in Allahabad, Prasad said - Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan- accorded Prime Minister Narendra Modi with their highest civilian honour, which shows that India has emerged as a major centre of prominence in Asia. "Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi have spoken in one tone about terrorism that it should be opposed. They all have said that India is a major centre of prominence in Asia," Prasad said. "Few people who are against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and how his international image is, is the recognition of this. Amit Shah said in such a short span, two Islamic countries accorded him with highest national award. This is important from the point of view of India's strategic interest," he added. The BJP national executive meeting began at Allahabad in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening. Prime Minister Modi, who arrived here for the meet earlier today, told the BJP workers not to take the opposition lightly and counter their accusations by working for the people. According to sources, Prime Minister Modi made this assertion during a meeting with the BJP's national office bearers' held ahead of the two-day national executive meet that is going to discuss several crucial issues, including the next assembly polls due next year in five states particularly in Uttar Pradesh. (ANI) Firing a fresh salvo at the Congress ahead of the 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah has said that the grand old party, which is repeatedly posing an obstacle in the development path initiated by the NDA regime, was gradually becoming weaker in Indian politics. Addressing a press conference here on the sidelines of the BJP's national executive meeting, Union Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad quoted the BJP president as saying that the Congress is getting increasingly weakened and its stand before the nation is deteriorating at a rapid pace. "The dedicated workers are leaving the party. He (Amit Shah) said the repeated obstructions in the path of development which has become the hallmark of the Congress' politics in the last two years is also accountable for the increasing weakening of the Congress all over the country," Prasad said while divulging details about the meeting. He further stated that the rise of the BJP was not proportionate to the weakening of the Congress. "The BJP is rising because of its ideologies, the commitment of its workers and the extraordinary conduct of the workers, the leaders and the party," he added. The BJP national executive meeting began at Allahabad in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived here for the meet earlier today, told the BJP workers not to take the opposition lightly and counter their accusations by working for the people. According to sources, Prime Minister Modi made this assertion during a meeting with the BJP's national office bearers' held ahead of the two-day national executive meet that is going to discuss several crucial issues, including the next assembly polls due next year in five states particularly in Uttar Pradesh. According to sources, the office bearers meeting discussed many issues, beside the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, achievements of the NDA government in last two years and organisational matters. Sources said the party leaders also deliberated upon the issues to be included in political resolution. (ANI) Firmly asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government was committed to the state, party chief Amit Shah has said the country cannot develop without the development of Uttar Pradesh. Addressing a press conference here on the sidelines of the BJP's national executive meeting, Union Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad quoted the BJP president as saying the law and order and governance in Uttar Pradesh must be put in place. "Our commitment is for the state of Uttar Pradesh. The country cannot develop without the development of Uttar Pradesh. The law and order and governance must be put in place," Prasad said while divulging details about the meeting. Further quoting Shah, Prasad highlighted the recent unwarranted incidents in Mathura and Kairana, saying the way the Uttar Pradesh Government is working is a matter of concern. "He said there is lack of development and atmosphere of intolerance in Uttar Pradesh and the government has been unsuccessful in stopping it. He said the attempt of forcefully acquiring land in Mathura is very unfortunate. He also expressed dissent on the matter of Kairana. He stated that the Samajwadi Party Government is showing its failure in tackling these matters. He assured of forming a full-majority government in Uttar Pradesh," he added. The BJP national executive meeting began at Allahabad in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening. Prime Minister Modi, who arrived here for the meet earlier today, told the BJP workers not to take the opposition lightly and counter their accusations by working for the people. According to sources, Prime Minister Modi made this assertion during a meeting with the BJP's national office bearers' held ahead of the two-day national executive meet that is going to discuss several crucial issues, including the next assembly polls due next year in five states particularly in Uttar Pradesh. According to sources, the office bearers meeting discussed many issues, beside the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, achievements of the NDA government in last two years and organisational matters. Sources said the party leaders also deliberated upon the issues to be included in political resolution. (ANI) "I welcome you all from across nation to national executive meeting. The meeting was officially inaugurated by our party chief Amit Shah," Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived here for the meet earlier today, told the BJP workers not to take the opposition lightly and counter their accusations by working for the people. According to sources, Prime Minister Modi made this assertion during a meeting with the BJP's national office bearers' held ahead of the two-day national executive meet in Allahabad. He is said to have urged the party workers to ensure that benefits of social schemes reach the people at the earliest. Besides Prime Minister Modi, the national executive meeting would be attended by party president Amit Shah, senior members of the Union Cabinet, Chief Ministers of the BJP-ruled states and Members of Parliament. It is expected that during the proceedings, besides discussing many political issues, strategy will be chalked out for the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. The achievements during two years of the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre will be another highlight of the meeting. (ANI) The Congress has appointed senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad as the state in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and Kamal Nath as state in-charge of Punjab and Haryana respectively. Azad and Nath have replaced Madhusudan Mistry and Shakeel Ahmad, who were earlier state in-charges of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab and Haryana. Several questions are being asked about the Congress' leadership following the party's dismal performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and as well as the recent assembly elections. On Saturday, the Congress won six seats in the Rajya Sabha polls and the BJP-led alliance made significant gains with 12 seats in the biennial elections. The other major gainer in the elections held for 27 seats across seven states include the Samajwadi Party, which won seven seats in Uttar Pradesh. The Bahujan Samaj Party won two seats. Out of the 58 seats that fell vacant in the Upper House this summer, the NDA has now won 23, improving upon the 18 seats it held earlier. The Congress, which held 15 of these seats, now has nine. (ANI) Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain on Sunday asserted that the Medical Council of India was a major road block in the country for medical education, while calling on the course for MBBS to be reduced from five to three years. "The course for MBBS should be reduced to three years from five years and MD course duration must be enhanced from three years to five years," he said after inaugurating Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Medical College- Delhi Government's first medical college. Explaining the reason behind his demand to make the change in the duration of the course, Jain said the students pursuing the five-year MD course will be able to practice simultaneously. "Hence the MCI must double the medical seats for Government medical collages than private, as it deals with more than five to six thousand patients in Government hospitals much higher than private medical collages," Jain added. Terming the MCI as the major road block in medical education, the Health Minister said the Council works less for students education and does 'everything else' instead. "MCI is a major road block in India for medical education and MCI has affected the medical education the worst. Their job is not to approve anything but create obstacles. MCI okays to private hospitals very quickly," Jain added. Speaking on the current situation of city government hospitals, he said all the hospitals will be renewed and no private ward will be there, adding there will air conditioned wards in each hospital. "From CM to common man, all will be given equal treatment," he said. (ANI) Whitman, who is also a republican donor made the comment at a conference hosted by previous Republican nominee Mitt Romney, while she challenged U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan on his endorsement of Trump, the Reuters quoted the Washington Post. Trump has become the presumptive Republican nominee and is likely to run against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the November 8, 2016 U.S. election. Trump on Saturday again targeted Democratic senator from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren on Twitter. "Goofy Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to as Pocahontas, pretended to be a Native American in order to advance her career. Very racist!" Trump tweeted. (ANI) He was seen of by Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On the first leg of his visit, he will reach the Ghanaian capital Accra later this evening, where he will hold talks with his counterpart John Mahama on bilateral, regional and multilateral issues of mutual interest. This is the first ever visit to Ghana by the head of the state and comes as a part of the Government's efforts to deepen ties with the African countries. A number of agreements are likely to be signed between both the countries including on visa waiver and line of credit. Apart from bilateral level talks President Mukherjee will also have engagement with the business community in Accra as India plans to scale up its investment in the mineral and gas rich nation. Indian Investments in Ghana is substantial and amounts to nearly 3 billion dollars in various sectors and trade between both the countries has gone up three times in the last three years. The President's visit is expected to open up new opportunities of cooperation between the two countries. (ANI) Expressing distress at the news of a restaurant in Connaught Place allegedly denying service to street children, Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday asserted that the restaurant's license would be revoked and firm action initiated if all the allegations are proven. "The woman is saying that she wanted to celebrate her husband's birthday by spending time with the street children and feeding them. She was made to wait for two hours and was not served food and was thrown out later, this is very inhumane," Sisodia told ANI here. "I have called on the DM to give me a report in 24 hours and if all the allegations are proved to be true and is found on record, then we will revoke the license of the restaurant and will take action under various sections," he added. Asserting the Constitution talks about right to equality, Sisodia said that every citizen, no matter their clothes, caste and background, was equal, adding that as long as the restaurant is being paid, they do not have the right to deny service to a customer. "If someone gets drunk or gets involved in a brawl and then makes noise, then you can toss them out. But it's ridiculous that you don't serve a person because he is poor. These people are the very same who go to temples and feed the poor kids there, but won't do the same in their own restaurant," Sisodia said. The woman Sonali, who has lodged the case against the Shiv Sagar restaurant, earlier said that the restaurateurs' told her and the children to vacate the premises immediately as it is their right to serve whomever they want. "They clearly told us to get and also threatened to shoot me if I don't clear out from the premises. The owner discriminated with kids and refused service citing that kids aren't well dressed and are look dirty. Nevertheless, I came back and sat down in front of the restaurant in protest. Even the police did not support us," she told ANI. However, the restaurant has flatly refused the charges, saying they had permitted the children to enter but refused service later as they were creating a ruckus inside and disturbing the other customers. "It is completely untrue that we denied entry to the children as we have it on record that we allowed them to sit inside. We also never said that we won't provide service to the children. But then the kids were making a lot of noise, tossing things around and creating a commotion. As a restaurateur, I have the right to deny service to someone who disturbs other customers," Roma Malhotra, an employee of the restaurant said. Sonali has said that she would return to the restaurant today with more street children to carry on with her protest and sit outside its door at 4 p.m. (ANI) Separatists leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were put under house arrest on Sunday ahead of their meeting on the Sainik colony issue. Meanwhile, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik has also been arrested. According to reports, both factions of the Hurriyat Conference and the JKLF are launching a joint effort against the state government's decision to set up separate colonies for Sainiks and Kashmiri Pandits in the valley. Post the 2008 Amarnath land row, this is reportedly the first time in eight years the separatists are assembling at one platform. Though the Jammu and Kashmir Government has reiterated that that it has no plans to set-up a Sainik colony in the Valley, the controversy was raked up after reports that the government is planning to set up shelters for "floating population" and implement a new industrial policy that allows a non-state subject to get land on lease anywhere in Kashmir for 90 years. (ANI) The Delhi Government on Sunday issued a probe into the incident where a restaurant at Connaught Place allegedly denied service to street children. "This is typical Colonial mindset. Can't be tolerated. Have ordered DM New Delhi to enquire & report within 24 hours," Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted. Sonali, who has lodged the case against the Shiv Sagar restaurant told ANI that the restaurateurs' told her and the children to vacate the premises immediately as it is their right to serve whomever they want. "They clearly told us to get and also threatened to shoot me if I don't clear out from the premises. The owner discriminated with kids and refused service citing that kids aren't well dressed and are look dirty. Nevertheless, I came back and sat down in front of the restaurant in protest. Even the police did not support us," she said. However, the restaurant has flatly refused the charges by the woman, saying that they had permitted the children to enter but refused service later, as they were creating a ruckus inside and disturbing other customers. "It is completely untrue that we denied entry to the children, as we have it on record that we allowed them to sit inside. We also never said that we won't provide service to the children. But then the kids were making a lot of noise, tossing things around and creating a commotion. As a restaurateur, I have the right to deny service to someone who disturbs other customers," Roma Malhotra, an employee of the restaurant said. Sonali has said that she will return to the restaurant today with more street children and sit outside its door at 4 pm, continuing her protest. (ANI) Buoyed by victory of its candidates in Rajya Sabha biennial polls despite Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) 'hurdles', the Congress Party on Sunday said its success proves that 'democracy has won'. "Our candidates were nominated for Rajya Sabha but the BJP used money power and unfair means, but all their efforts to buy the MLAs have failed and democracy has won," Congress leader P. L. Punia told ANI. "No matter how hard the BJP tries to place hurdles and conspires to break (Congress MLAs). The Congress MLAs will always remain loyal are to the party," he added. Punia also asserted that in a democracy, the voice of the people is most important, adding that the Congress Party follows it. "The people will never encourage those who use money power. In democracy, voice of the people is most important, and Congress follows it," he added. The Congress leader further said all these parties trying to communalise the society will fail adding that the Congress ideology will prevail. Meanwhile, another Congress leader Salman Khursid also alleged the BJP of using money power and administration to turn the battle on its side. "After every two years these elections come and this time the BJP tried its best to turn the battle on its side, and it is the right of everyone to try their best, but the use of money in the procedure and using the administration against the opposition will destroy the laid structure," he said. "Our MLAs were arrested in Jharkhand before they could vote and the money was also used in other states," he added. Khurshid also said the political parties should sit and discuss the situation, so that the political environment is not polluted. The Congress won six seats in the Rajya Sabha polls and the BJP-led alliance made significant gains with 12 seats in the biennial elections marked by cross-voting and a dramatic rejection of votes for a 'wrong pen'. The other major gainer in the elections held for 27 seats across seven states include the Samajwadi Party which won seven seats in Uttar Pradesh. The Bahujan Samaj Party won two. Out of the 58 seats that fell vacant in the Upper House this summer, the NDA has now won 23, improving upon the 18 seats it held earlier. The Congress, which held 15 of these seats, now has nine. (ANI) The meeting will be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah, senior members of the Union Cabinet, Chief Ministers of the BJP-ruled states and members of Parliament. The meeting is expected to calibrate the party's strategy for the next round of assembly elections in several states, including the electorally important Uttar Pradesh. According to reports, Prime Minister Modi and party president Shah will together inaugurate the meeting. Shah, who will address the inaugural session, will also be convening the inauguration of the national office bearers' meeting. Prime Minister Modi will address the meeting's concluding session on Monday. Later, he will also address a public rally at the Parade Ground. (ANI) On the first leg of his visit, he will reach the Ghanaian capital Accra later this evening, where he will hold talks with his counterpart John Mahama on bilateral, regional and multilateral issues of mutual interest. This is the first ever visit to Ghana by the head of the state and comes as a part of the Government's efforts to deepen ties with the African countries. A number of agreements are likely to be signed between both the countries including on visa waiver and line of credit. Apart from bilateral level talks President Mukherjee will also have engagement with the business community in Accra as India plans to scale up its investment in the mineral and gas rich nation. Indian Investments in Ghana is substantial and amounts to nearly 3 billion dollars in various sectors and trade between both the countries has gone up three times in the last three years. The President's visit is expected to open up new opportunities of cooperation between the two countries. (ANI) A model that predicts outbreaks of zoonotic diseases - those originating in livestock or wildlife such as Ebola, Zika bird/swine flu - based on changes in climate, population growth and land use has been developed by a UCL-led team of researchers. "This model is a major improvement in our understanding of the spread of diseases from animals to people," said lead author Professor Kate Jones, UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment and ZSL. "We hope it can be used to help communities prepare and respond to disease outbreaks, as well as to make decisions about environmental change factors that may be within their control." More than 60 per cent of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic and although Ebola and Zika are well-known, there are many other diseases including Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever which affect thousands already and are predicted to spread with changing environmental factors. "Our model can help decision-makers assess the likely impact of any interventions or change in national or international government policies, such as the conversion of grasslands to agricultural lands, on zoonotic transmission," Professor Jones adds. "Importantly, the model also has the potential to look at the impact of global change on many diseases at once, to understand any trade-offs that decision-makers may have to be make," she says. The study published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution tested the new model with Lassa fever.It was carried out by partners in the Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium, which was funded under the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme. Lassa fever is endemic across West Africa and is caused by Lassa virus passing to people from rats.The model predicts the number of people with the disease will double from 195,125 to 406,725 by 2070 due to climate change and a growing human population. Like Ebola virus and dengue, Lassa virus causes haemorrhagic fever and can be fatal.How many people are affected by Lassa fever each year is unclear as many don't have severe symptoms and those that do are often misdiagnosed with malaria; current estimates range from 100,000 to one million.The team used the locations of 408 known Lassa fever outbreaks in West Africa between 1967-2012 and the changes in land use and crop yields, temperature and rainfall, behaviour and access to healthcare.They also identified the sub-species of the multimammate rat (Mastomys natalensis) which transmits Lassa virus to humans to map its location against ecological factors. The model was then developed using this information along with forecasts of climate change, future population density and land-use change. The approach has already proved successful by predicting the current disease patterns of Lassa fever.The researchers say the model could be refined to consider zoonotic disease transmission within human populations by including the impact of travel infrastructure, human-to-human contact rates and poverty - something that would have been of enormous use in the recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks.UNI YSG SV 0900 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0129-782887.Xml A young woman was allegedly killed by her husband in their house at Amaithi Nagar in Gorimedu today. According to police, the couple Arumugham and Mythili used to quarrel frequently on an illicit affair Mythili having with a youth. Inspite of repeated warnings, Mythili reportedly continued the affair. Irked over this, Aurmugham slit her throat killing her on the spot. D Nagar police seized the body and sent it to the government medical college for post-mortem. Police registered a case and arrested Arumugham. In another incident, a middle aged man Subbrayan of Kutchippalayampet,in Thirubhuvanai near here was beaten to death by one Paramasivam in an arrack shop earlier in the day. Police said that Paramasivam sought money from Subbrayan to consume arrack which was refused by him. ,Paramasivam became furious over thisand beat Subbrayan to death. Thirubhuvanai police are investigating.UNI PAB CS 1027 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0434-782955.Xml Chinese steel futures climbed more than 4 percent to a one-month high on Monday amid production curbs in the top steelmaking city of Tangshan that could limit supply in the short term.China's top steel-making city of Tangshan has ordered mills in and near the area to cut production from June 14-21 to ease air pollution, similar to an order it made in May, according to traders.The most-traded rebar, or reinforcing steel used in construction, on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was up 4.1 percent at 2,165 yuan ($329) per tonne, just off a session high of 2,166 yuan, its strongest since May 11.Tangshan is the biggest city in Hebei province, which accounts for more than 20 percent of China's steel output.The output cuts could limit appetite for raw material iron ore, traders said."No one wants to buy iron ore for their production. Steel production is being curbed due to environmental pressure and various meetings in Tangshan area," said an iron ore trader in Singapore.The events include the Hebei International Trade Fair that runs from June 14-21, a Beijing trader said.Iron ore futures also rose, but the gains were only half that of Shanghai rebar's. The most-active iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange was last up 2 percent at 375 yuan a tonne.The curbs in Tangshan may help limit China's output this month after production rose 1.8 percent from a year ago to 70.5 million tonnes in May, according to government data. That was near the record high of 70.65 million tonnes in March.A rally in steel prices earlier this year spurred once-shut Chinese mills to restart operations. But demand failed to keep pace with rising demand, causing Shanghai rebar to fall more than 20 percent last month.($1 = 6.5856 Chinese yuan) REUTERS SZ JW RAI1038 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0441-782952.Xml With now the BJP national executive too raising the issue of Kairana and Mathura, BJP has started to build up pressure on the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh on the law and order front.Yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah raised the issue of law and order in UP and mentioned about the exodus of Hindus from Kairana besides the slow pace of investigation in Mathura violence.The statement of the leaders, gave a boost to the UP BJP leaders and they have formed an eight-member team to probe into alleged exodus of Hindu families from Kairana. UP BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya told UNI here today that the national executive has too expressed its concern on the law and order situation in UP and the issue would be in the focus for the BJP in run for the 2017 assembly polls.A couple of days ago, NHRC had sent notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on "exodus of 250 Hindu families" from Kairana due to "fear of criminals" belonging to another community, in the communally-sensitive Shamli district adjoining Muzaffarnagar. Mr Maurya said that the 'jungle raj' prevailed in the state and the present Samajwadi Party government has lost control over the administration with criminals and goons taking over the reign."The probe panel comprising of eight senior leaders have been formed and it will reach Kairana later this week. The team will submit its report to the state party which will be given to the central command," Mr Maurya disclosed. The probe team comprises Aligarh MP Satish Gautam, Baghpat MP Satyapal Singh, Aonla MP Dharmendra Kumar Kashyap, Bulandshahr MP Bhola Singh, Saharanpur MP Raghav Lakhan Pal, Gorakhpur MLA Radha Mohandas and former UP DGP Brij Lal. The probe team will be headed by Shahjahanpur MLA Suresh Khanna, a legislator for seven straight terms who is leader of BJP in UP assembly. Meanwhile, Superintendent of Police (SP) Shamli Vijay Bhushan denied the charges of the BJP and claimed that there was no such exodus as claimed by BJP MP Hukum Singh, who claimed that 250 families have left the area in fear of the criminals of other community.The Shamli district administration and police, however, carried out a "door-to-door" investigation in the Kairana town yesterday and found that most families left the small town over a span of 15 years and not during the past two years as claimed by the BJP. Mr Bhushan said that police visited and enquired into the whereabouts of 150 families out of 346 listed by the MP. Of these, four have no living member, 13 families are still living in Kairana while 68 families actually left the area but most over 15 years ,between 1998 and 2011. The remaining families also left the area but over more than five years, not in the last 2-3 years, as claimed by the MP, the SP said."Of the families in the list, we surveyed 150. While 68 families did indeed leave Kairana, many of them left as early as 1998. 65 families left five years ago. Since these people left Kairana over a period spanning more than a decade, it would be inaccurate to say that this was an exodus," he said.The SP claimed that these families left not for fear of another community or crime but purely due to socio-economic reasons. "Most left because Kairana did not have good schools or hospitals. Some left to expand businesses. We will get a clearer picture once the entire probe has been completed," he said.UNI MB ADG VN1120 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-782926.Xml The senior BJP leaders attending the first ever national executive in the holy city, did not leave the opportunity to take a dip in the Sangam, the confluence of Ganga-Yamuna and mythological Saraswati. Though there were speculation last night that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah will also visit the Sangam early today but it did not happend. This morning, chief minister of Goa Laxmikant Parsekar and his Haryana counterpart Manohar Lal Khattar and senior leader Sambit Patra visited Sangam and had a holy dip and worshipped Ganga. Railway minister Suresh Prabhu too went along with them but he did not bath. Gujarat education minister Nitin Patel too took a dip in the Sangam. Former UP BJP president and the invitee member of the national executive Laxmikant Bajpai too was making full use of the opportunity and taking Sangam dip daily for the past two days.UNI MB ADG RAI1119 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-782956.Xml Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today again rejected the demand for a CBI probe into the Mathura violence and claimed that the judicial probe will reveal the real facts behind the incident.Expressing his condolence to marytred Superintendent of Police(City) Mukul Dwivedi at his residence here, Mr Yadav said, "We don't believe in the CBI as demanded by the opposition political parties and others."He said judicial probe headed by Justice (Retd) Imtiaz Murtaza would certainly nail the culprits behind the violence leading to the killing of two police officers at Jawahar Bagh on June 2."The violence in Jawahar Bagh was an unfortunate incident and at any cost government would not spare the guilty ones," he informed the family members of Mukul Dwivedi. He also assured the family of providing all benefits. Already, the family of Mukul Dwivide have been given Rs 50 lakhs besides his widow has been made the OSD of the UP police. The family will also get full salary of the slain official till his retirement date. However, the family of the officer was demanding a CBI probe into the incidents leading to lynching of Mukul Dwivedi by the supporters of Ram Vriksh Yadav.On the occassion, the CM also criticised the opposition for raking up the Jawahar Bagh issue. "As these political parties could not see any lapses in the development projects of the state,hence they are raising up this Mathura incident," he alleged.UNI MB ADG VN1335 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0196-783110.Xml Trinamool Congress leader and Panchayat member Arup Sikdar was today gunned down by some motorcycle borne miscreants in West Bengal's Nadia district, police said. The crime happened at Railbazar under Gangnapur block when the assailants shot at the TMC's block vice-president's head and body from close range.The incident created panic among the residents of the area, where the police has set a temporary camp.UNI XC-PC AD SV AS1414 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-783092.Xml Extremists asked workers to tell kiln owners to pay extortion money of Rs 10 lakh each or face dire consequences. Later, ultras made good their escape unchallenged.Police have recovered few pamphlets left by naxalites at the spot. A massive manhunt has been launched to nab the culprits.UNI XC DH AD SV A1413 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0108-783132.Xml The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday dubbed the Kashmiri separatists as 'Pakistani agents' and blamed them for creating a disorder in Jammu and Kashmir after they conducted a meeting on the Sainik colony issue. Saying that they are following instructions given by the kingpins in Pakistan, BJP leader Ravinder Raina told ANI: "These Separatist leaders are Pakistan's agents. They take money from Pakistan and follow the instructions of their bosses in Pakistan and work on their command." "As far as separatists are concerned, the turmoil that has been created in Kashmir in the past 30 years where lakhs of people lost their lives, these separatists are responsible for that. If Kashmiri pundits return to Kashmir then who will suffer from pain? Not Kashmiris, but Pakistanis," he said. Remembering those Kashmiri soldiers and lakhs of people who have been murdered in the past 25 to 30 years, Raina held the separatists responsible for harboring terrorism in the state. "But Kashmiris don't give them any value. Kashmiris are not with them. And hence, they (separatists) have failed. And they have no credibility. They ask people to not to take part in elections. Still 80 to 90 percent of people come to cast their votes," he added. Raina said neither the Jammu and Kashmir Government nor the Indian Government is soft on separatists. "The perpetrators will be tried in the court as per the law and will be given suitable punishment. Nobody will be spared," Raina further said. Separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq were put under house arrest on Sunday ahead of their meeting on the Sainik colony issue. Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik has been arrested. According to reports, both factions of the Hurriyat Conference and the JKLF are launching a joint effort against the state government's decision to set up separate colonies for Sainiks and Kashmiri Pandits in the valley. Though the Jammu and Kashmir Government has reiterated that it has no plans to set-up a Sainik colony in the Valley, the controversy was raked up after reports said the government is planning to set up shelters for "floating population" and implement a new industrial policy that allows a non-state subject to get land on lease anywhere in Kashmir for 90 years. (ANI) A research found that Britain's men provide only 24 minutes of care for every hour provided by women, putting the UK at the bottom of a list of 15 countries, the Independent reported. Portuguese dads have grabbed the top spot in the list as they spend 39 minutes looking after children for every hour a woman puts in. The Fatherhood Institute's Fairness In Families Index (FIFI) also found that British parents are better at sharing chores than childcare, with men doing 34 minutes of housework and cooking for every hour a woman does, placing the UK fifth out of 15 countries. Fatherhood Institute chair Will McDonald said that the analysis showed that compared to other countries, the UK has failed to create the structures to support families to achieve the greater sharing that they want and that is so important for the children's futures. "This needs to change, or we will continue to fall behind." The UK pay gap between men and women was the 15th worst out of 22 countries, with a 17.4 per cent difference. The country with the fairest pay across the sexes was New Zealand with just 5.6 per cent difference. The findings were published ahead of Father's Day, on June 19, and alongside findings suggested policy changes the government could make to progress gender equality. (ANI) AIADMK Supremo and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi tomorrow and present a detailed memorandum on various issues concerning theState, including speeding up of various projects. Sources said that Ms Jayalalithaa was expected toleave for New Delhi tomorrow morning and return thesame day. This would be her first visit to the National Capital and the first meeting with Mr Modi after her victory in the May 16 Assembly polls in which Ms Jayalalithaa, broke the political tradition, bucked the anti-incumbency trend and became the first incumbent CM in 32 years to win a second successive term, by winning back-to-back elections. Her previous visit was in June 2014, immediately after the victory of the NDA government. She was expected to seek financial assistance for the State to implement various welfare schemes, besides taking up with Prime Ministerthe inter-state issues like the Cauvery and Mullaiperiyar dam row involving Karnataka andKerala respectively. During the meeting, Ms Jayalalithaa was expectedto urge the Prime Minister on the urgent need to set up the Cauvery Management Board and the CauveryRiver Water Regulatory Authority as per the finalaward of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal to ensure that Karnataka release Tamil Nadu's due share of Cauvery waters. Apart from these, she was also expected to takeup the the vexatious fishermen issue and the frequentabduction of Tamil Nadu fishermen by the Sri LankanNavy and the need to retrieve Katchatheevu to protectthe traditional rights of fishermen at the Palk Bay. She would also insist the Prime Minister on theneed to annul the Indo-Sri Lankan agreements of 1974 and 1976 and retrieve Katchatheevu. UNI GV CNR RSS1537 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0414-783402.Xml Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Uma Bharti will visit Moga tomorrow at prime farms, where she will address public meeting and recount the achievements of Modi government during the two years of NDA government. Vice President of State BJP Mohan Lal Sethi and Ashok Bharti, who are overseeing the arrangement for Ms Bharti's visit, said here today that after addressing the public meeting, Ms Bharti would visit the Shaheedi Park, where 22 RSS workers were gunned down by the militants. After paying homage to the martyrs at Shaheedi Park, Ms Bharti will proceed to Korewala village, to address a public meeting.UNI XC RJ 1548 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-783127.Xml Kejriwal in a stinging letter, full of sarcasm, has a note of advice for Jung as "your younger brother". "No matter how many illegal, anti-people and unconstitutional acts you commit on the orders of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji, he is not going to make you vice-president of India". The chief minister asked the lt. governor to also launch a graft probe into a 100-seat medical college he inaugurated here on Sunday. "For your kind information, I inaugurated a 100-seat medical college yesterday to commemorate Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar. I would request you to ask your Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) team to register an FIR and get a probe done," Kejriwal said. "Please ask Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a raid at Health Minister Satyendar Jain's (office and residence) for the crime of completing the establishment of medical in a record time." "We will be keenly waiting for your ACB and Modiji's CBI." The chief minister wrote that "some people on this Earth followed the religion of serving the humanity. We are following our religion." He said others believed in "destruction and blocking good work of others". "You and Modi, follow your faith." --IANS am-sar/vt ( 244 Words) 2016-06-13-16:26:03 (IANS) Charging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah with misleading the people by presenting a false picture of the Indian economy at the BJP National Executive, the Congress today said the Premier must apologise to the people and explain why his Government failed to fulfil promises made to them during the Lok Sabha elections. The party also attacked Mr Modi and the BJP president for terming the Congress 'obstructionist' and 'anti-development'. Talking to reporters here, AICC spokesperson Anand Sharma said,''at the BJP's National executive being held in Allahabad, the Prime Minister has characteristically praised himself. Sadly he has chosen to not accept the reality.Today our nation's path to progress is rocky and India's economy is weak. By juggling the numbers, they can't change the reality. It has been two years since the BJP came to power. Why has Modi ji failed to fulfill his promises to the people of India. The Prime Minister, the BJP president and the Finance Minister must apologise to the people and give an explanation for failing to fulfill promises made to them.'' Expressing concern over the falling state of the Indian economy during the rule of the NDA, Mr Sharma said,''we were promised 4 crore jobs over the last two years. Sadly, only 1.4 lakh jobs have been created. What is more, many jobs were lost. For 18 months, exports have been falling. In one yr, we have lost 60 billion US Dollars (Rs 4 lakh crore) because of the falling exports.This is not a notional loss. If the BJP even maintained the growth rate under the UPA, exports should have been 440 billion US Dollars.''Mr Sharma said in the manufacturing-export sector there had been a loss of 25 lakh jobs. ''From gems and jewellery to handicrafts, all these sectors are struggling,'' he said.He said the IIP was again negative and the Gross Capital Formation was down. ''Non-agricultural credit has fallen to a 20-yr low,''Mr Sharma said. He said that the National Investment rate has fallen below the national saving rate. ''It shows how hollow the BJP's claims are,'' the Congress leader said.Dismissing arguments by the NDA Government that the slowdown in the global economy was responsible for the state of the Indian economy, Mr Sharma said, ''they are blaming the global economy. But, when the UPA faced the Global Economic crisis, we doubled our exports.'' ''In East Asia and ASEAN, trade is growing. Even China, with a hurt economy, has a trade surplus of 600 billion dollars,'' he said.More UNI AR AE RJ 1852 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0092-783919.Xml Independent MLA Er Abdul Rashid today asked the government to impose Public Safety Act (PSA) on the people, who allegedly want to disturb peace of Kashmir valley by undertaking Abhinav Gupt Yatra to a cave in central Kashmir. However, the state government has already made it clear that it will not allow the yatra. "If you can impose PSA on the youth of Kashmir for taking part in a protest rally to maintain law and order situation, why can't you impose the act on the people who are trying to disturb the peace in the valley by undertaking Abhinav Gupt Yatra," he said in the Legislative Assembly today. Meanwhile, hardline Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani had described the proposal to start the Yatra as ridiculous and silly. He said it is a deliberate attempt to disturb the peaceful environment in the state. Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh has said the government will not allow anything that has the potential to disturb peace in Jammu and Kashmir. But the local BJP unit is blaming Hurriyat for the decision to not to allow the yatra. "Yatra was not going to perturb the peaceful environment in the state, it was to reaffirm the faith and belief in the multifaceted cultural and religious philosophical history of Kashmir Valley," BJP state general secretary Harinder Gupta had said.UNI ABS AE RJ VP1832 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-783352.Xml Even as five days of hunt by the Afghanistan authorities for tracing Indian woman worker Judith D'Souza did not yield any result, the family of the abducted victim today approached Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to step in to ensure her early and safe release. Ms D'Souza, 40, working with Aga Khan Development Network was abducted by unidentified persons and went missing on Thursday in Kabul while she was returning from her office. Her Kolkata based parents, her brother and sister wrote a combined letter to Mr Modi, copy of which were also sent to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, asking them to do whatever possible to secure the early release of their beloved. "We appeal to you in your capacity as the leader of our great country and as the custodian of the well-being of our citizens, to please do your utmost to get dear Judith back home, among her family, her friends and her people. Please commit all levers you can bring into play to successfully reunite our family," the letter said. Ms D'Souza was to return to Kolkata to join her family five days later. The Indian Mission in Kabul has been in close touch with Afghan authorities for the release of Ms D'Souza. UNI MK AE RJ 2003 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-784188.Xml Government has constituted a five-member team to study status of irrigation development and implementation of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna (PMKSY) in selected districts of Western Uttar Pradesh. The team has been constituted by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and it will visit selected districts of western Uttar Pradesh particularly Meerut and Muzaffarnagar, the Ministry said in a statement today. The team will visit the villages namely Mukundpur, Kharad, Bhora Kalan, Kuba, Barwala, Mandi and Gangdheli of Muzzafarnagar districts tomorrow and June 15 and submit the report at the earliest. During its visit, the team will assess the existing water bodies, farm ponds and other sources of irrigation in the districts. It will review implementation of various components of PMKSY. The team will suggest various measures for improving ground water recharge in the Dark/Grey blocks. It will study the feasibility of promoting Micro Irrigation and linking with available sources of water; and will assess the irrigation requirement in sugarcane areas, the water use efficiency for sugarcane crop and measures to promote precision irrigation in sugarcane farms.The members of the team are Mr C M Pandey, Addl Commissioner, Deptt Of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; Mr GN Sharma, Consultant, (MGNREGA), Ministry of Rural Development; Dr Pritam Singh, Asst Commissioner, Department of Land Resources; Saroj Singh, Addl Director(Agri) Government of Uttar Pradesh andDr Munish Kumar, SSo(SLUSI), IARI, New Delhi.UNI NY AE RJ 1934 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0099-784107.Xml The Economic Offences wing (EOW) of district police have arrested a cheat Rakesh Kumar ( 40) of chandpur village of Jind district who duped a man of Rs 3. 42 lakh by talking to him in the voice of a girl who posed her self like a rich girl and expressed her desire to employ the victim as her driver . The police has recovered Rs 3. 42 lakh from the accused who was produced in a local court today from here sent to 14 day judicial custody till June 27 . Giving details of this case the police PRO said today that Suraj Bhan of ferozepur village in the district received a call on April 1 last in which the accused identified himself as Neha Gupta of Manimajra. But Suraj Bhan disconnected the mobile as he did not know any Neha Gupta . After few days Suraj Bhan again received call in which the accused posing as Neha Gupta told him that her family was in cloth business and as they knew him they wanted to employ him as driver . On April 3 Neha Gupta called Suraj Bhan and told him that they wanted to go to Goa so he drive them to Goa . Suraj Bhan showed his inability to go with them at such a short notice . On April 6 accused again called the victim and told him that all their clothes , cash and mobile had been stolen from their car in Goa and they immediately needed some money . She gave the bank account number of her driver and asked Suraj Bhan to deposit cash in that account and promised to pay back the same on return from Goa .'' In between April 6 and 17the victim was repeatedly asked by swindler to deposit money in bank on the one pretext or the other and he deposited total Rs 3. 42 lakh. lately the victim realised that he had been cheated and he filed a complaint with the SP who in turn handed over investigation to EOW which arrested the swindler Rakesh kumar posing as a girl. UNI XC JS CJ RJ RK1940 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-784056.Xml Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said more cross-LoC points will be opened in Jammu and Kashmir to facilitate greater movement of people and goods across the Line of Control (LoC) in the region. She said the Government of India has also agreed to set up banking and communication facility to boost the cross-LoC trade. "The State Government has taken up the matter regarding opening of more cross-LoC points with the Centre and I am sure there will be positive movement forward on the issue as serious discussions are on in this regard," the Chief Minister informed the Legislative Council while intervening during the reply to a question regarding the measures taken by the Government to expand the ambit of cross-LoC travel and trade. Ms Mehbooba said during her recent meeting with the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, she pitched for opening of Suchetgarh-Sialkote, Kargil-Skardu, Nowshera-Mirpur, Gurez-Astoor-Gilgit, Chhamb-Jourian and some other cross-LoC routes in Jammu and Kashmir. "The confidence building measures like opening of more cross-LoC points will not only help in consolidating peace efforts but also boost local economy through increased tourism activities in these areas," she said. Ms Mehbooba said the Government of India has also agreed to facilitate banking facility for the cross-LoC trade to institutionalise the existing mechanism. "To begin with the trading will now be done in dollars which is a neutral currency," she said and expressed the hope that the move would go a long way in institutionalizing the cross-LoC trade. Ms Mehbooba said unfortunately no substantive measures were taken by the previous governments in the State and the Centre to build on this major confidence building initiative and expand the ambit and scope of the cross-LoC travel and trade. "Ironically, not even the buses deployed in April 2005 for carrying cross-LoC passengers were changed by the previous regime," she said and added it was only after the present government assumed office that new Volvo buses were deployed on Srinagar-Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh sectors. The Chief Minister said the Government is also planning to promote border tourism activity in the State in a big way. "Given the typical geographical advantage of Jammu and Kashmir, we have immense potential for developing and promoting border tourism activity in the state to attract high-spending tourists for an enriching experience," she said. "Measures have already been taken to build requisite infrastructure for border tourism at Suchetgarh, Chamlyal, Salamabad and Chakan-da-Bagh. We want to develop Suchetgarh as another Wagah and during my recent meeting with the Director General BSF, I flagged the issue of holding march past at the border point the way it is being done at Wagah in Punjab," she said.UNI ABS ASM CJ RJ 1933 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0433-783627.Xml Ahead of the crucial Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting on June 20, India today laid strong pitch for its membership of the elite group, saying its entry to the nuclear trade cartel can help make the clean energy more competitive globally. Addressing at the First Gateway of India Dialogue, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said that nuclear energy was central to India's approach to climate change. "In that regard, we are in a position now to build on the international cooperation openings that have been negotiated in the last decade and confirmed by the settlement of the liability issue," he said. Dr Jaishankar had just returned from five-nation tour during which Prime Minister Narendra Modi did strong lobbying with the US as well as Switzerland and Mexico. During the visit, India was able to get support from all these three nations for its bid for the membership of the NSG. "The path is once again open to a substantial increase in domestically produced nuclear power plants while simultaneously moving forward with foreign partners. These large anticipated investments in the nuclear energy sector can, however, only happen in a climate of predictability," Dr Jaishankar said. He said it would require greater certainty of trading rules and technology access and the membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group can effectively address that concern. "A stronger Indian nuclear industry can help make nuclear power more competitive globally. Indeed, as our own nuclear industry expands and we go rapidly beyond the 140 nuclear-related export licences that we issued last year, it is also in larger interest that our practices are in conformity with global ones," he said. UNI MK RSA 2100 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0090-784290.Xml Bathinda Police has nabbed two main gang members of an Inter district gang of highway dacoits and looters active in districts of Bathinda ,Faridkot, Moga , Barnala and Ferozpur. This gang was involved in extortion, dacoity, murder, possession of illegal arms, and snatchings.This was disclosed here today by Mr Yurinder Singh, DIG/Range, Bathinda and Mr Swapan Sharma, SSP, Bathinda in a joint press conference. They informed that on 23-05-2016 a cash Van (Innova) of OBC Bank Moga which was heading to Bagha Purana, was looted by this gang. They intercepted the innova at T-point Bagha Purana road Moga, with i20 and verna car, fired and killed security guard. The amount of loot was 60 lakhs.They said that after getting a secret information, a case was registered against Ankush Mutneza resident of Jalalabad who was harbouring Gagandeep Singh Gaggna and his friends. Ankush had arranged one flat/accommodation in Chandigarh on his own name for Gagandeep and his friends. During his interrogation Ankush Mutneza revealed that Gagandeep was his old acquaintance. They used to live together at Moga. Ankush was studing at Moga and Gagan worked at Nestle Company Moga. Gagandeep introduced Ankush with Lovepreet, Manpreet, Navdeep Navi, John and few more people. Ankush rented a flat in Sec-63 in Chandigarh on his own name for Rs 36000/- for Gagandeep and his friends, Ankush also helped Gagandeep to buy a car Polo color white @ Rs 3,85,000/- from Kharar and Jewellery worth 1,48,000/- from Kalyan Jewellers from Mohali. Ankush was also looking for other places to harbour members of this gang and his friends near Talwandi Sabo and Haryana border.They said that local police received information that gang members were seen in border areas of these districts and they would meet near Canal Bridge Village Gobindpura. Hence FIR No 114 Dated 12-06-2016 U/s 399, 402, 412 IPC and 25/54/59 Arms Act PS Nathana was registered. Four police teams were formed to raid the spot.Manpreet Singh , Lovepreet Singh were arrested on the spot, Two .32 Bore pistols, 20 live rounds were recovered from them. Gagandeep Singh Gaggna, Navdeep Navi John and Nikku whisked from the spot by I20 and Polo car. During interrogation Lovepreet and Manpreet confessed that their Gang looted 6.5 Lacs from Bank van in Jaitu, 60 lacs from OBC Bank cash van in Moga, Snatched Verna Car near Thermal Bathinda and used this Car in Moga cash van dacoity and flee the spot. Verna car was burnt by them at Darin near village Jalal police station Dialpura, they added.They also committed many more snatching and dacoities. Rs. 11, 50, 000/- out of looted money from Moga cash van wasrecovered U/s 27 Evidence Act from flat no 2078-B, Sec-63 Chandigarh. Police Party from Chandigarh police also accompanied the raiding party. From the looted money they have brought car, flat and jewellery. There is a possibility of more revelations during interrogation.UNI XC RJ BD2015 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-784027.Xml The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Dimapur police investigating into the sensational murder of Ritika Mehta, who was born and brought up in Dimapur and the lady proprietor of a hotel has filed the charge sheet in the case against four persons. According to a release by the additional deputy commissioner of police and PRO of Dimapur police today said that Ritika Mehta, a prominent businesswoman and a socialite, was shot dead after miscreants fired upon her inside her establishment on December 14. 2015. The building where her establishment was located was a subject of dispute following the sale of the property by the stepmother of the victim. The dispute was a matter known widely in the public domain. Following the incident, the SIT was formed to investigate into the aspects related to the case and the perpetrators behind the crime. The investigation was thorough and elaborate. The SIT was able to gather necessary evidences against the accused persons in the form of physical, documentary and digital evidences. The investigation was also assisted by the forensic reports in the form of Narco Analysis Test and Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature profiling (BEOSP) conducted upon two accused persons from the Directorate of Forensic Sciences, Gandhinagar of Gujarat. On January 9,.2016, the SIT arrested one Motsuthung Ngullie, a resident of Boro Lingrijan of Dimapur. He is ascertained to be a 'Tatar (MP)' of the Lotha region of the GPRN/NSCN. The investigations have found him to party in the conspiracy of the murder of the victim. Incriminating evidences of his involvement in the stages of planning and reconnoiter are found against him. Another suspect one Thungkhomo Jungio was arrested on January 12, 2016. He is ascertained to be a deputy Kilonser (minister) of the GPRN/NSCN. He is found to be the main conspirator in the crime. The investigation was also able to establish that he was in receipt of huge sum of money from the members of the family engaged in the dispute with the victim. He had received the money on various occasions with an assurance to have the victim evicted out of the property by any means. Both the suspected accused Thungkhomo Jungio and Motsuthung Ngullie were subjected to Scientific Tests in the form of Narco Analysis Test and Brain Electrical Oscillation Signature Profiling from the Directorate of Forensic Science, Gandhinagar- the best facilities available in the country for such tests. The results corroborated to the findings of the investigations.The stepbrother of the victim Tiachungba Ao has also been arrested and charged with liabilities of the case for being party to the conspiracy ultimately leading to the death of the victim. He was found to be involved in all dealings and payments made in connection to the conspiracy and were in knowledge of the plan. One Thechano Ngullie has also been arrested and charged with the liabilities of the case for being party to the conspiracy and facilitating the deal between the parties of the conspiracy, however, further investigation are on, the release said. UNI AS AKM RSA BD2326 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0213-784385.Xml In continuation of the initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) scheme in January 2015, the Governor of Nagaland & Assam P.B. Acharya has launched the Bank Account for the BBBP Scheme in the state. According to a release from the Raj Bhavan of Kohima today informed that the Prime Minister of India launched the BBBP scheme, an initiative to address issues that affect women in the longer term and to reverse the trend of an adverse and declining Child Sex Ratio (CSR). The decline in CSR is an alarming indicator for women disempowerment. By launching the Scheme by the Prime Minister himself accorded top most priority to this issue. Acharya had a series of meeting with social organisations and various community leaders residing at Dimapur on June 11 and 12 and received a good response from all. About 133 girl child were sponsored by various organisations and an exclusive SBI Bank account has been opened for this purpose. The Governor appealed that those who want to sponsor one girl child for one year, an amount of Rs.2,500 to be deposited in the account opened for the purpose in the State Bank of India in Kohima. The girls and the private schools will be identified and selected by a committee formed for the purpose by the Governor. In this connection, Mr Acharya appealed to the civil societies and individuals and community leaders to come forward and strengthen the scheme. He also appealed to strengthen residential facilities, school uniforms, books, transport and others for such identified girls. The sponsors will be kept informed about the progress of their sponsored child regularly. He has expressed happiness for the spontaneous response and he values the relationship with the NGOs and community organisations, the release said. UNI AS AKM RSA GC2340 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0213-784397.Xml Two people were injured in the explosion that went off near the headquarters of the BLOM bank in Verdun, Xinhua cited a news by NNA quoting the head of the Lebanese Red Cross operations Georges Kettaneh as saying. Preliminary investigations revealed the weight of the explosion device is two kilograms that were hidden in a suitcase left near the headquarters of BLOM bank. --IANS sku/ ( 97 Words) 2016-06-13-05:08:03 (IANS) President Xi Jinping will start an eight-day trip to Serbia, Poland and Uzbekistan on Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday. During the trip, Xi will also attend the Meeting of the Council of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to be held in Tashkent on June 23-24. Xi's visit to Serbia is the first of its kind by a Chinese head of state since Serbia's independence in June 2006. In August 2013, Xi held talks with visiting Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in Beijing where the two presidents exchanged in-depth views on cooperation. Serbia has enjoyed a profound traditional friendship with China and has played a decisive role in China-Central and East European relations. In August 2009, China and Serbia issued a joint statement, announcing the establishment of a strategic partnership, making Serbia the first CEE country to do so with China. On June 6, China and Serbia signed a memorandum of understanding between relevant institutions dealing with cultural trade research during the first China-CEE cultural and creative industry forum. Xi's visit to Poland is his first trip as president to the largest country in the CEE region. The last state visit by a Chinese head of state to Poland was paid by the then president Hu Jintao in 2004. In November last year, Polish President Andrzej Duda paid a state visit to China, during which Xi announced that China will explore a new logistics corridor to reach Central and Eastern Europe through Poland. Poland is China's largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe, while China is Poland's third-largest supplier of imports. China is willing to work with Uzbekistan to boost their strategic partnership and open up new prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said while visiting Uzbekistan on May 23. During a meeting with Uzbek President Islam Karimov, Wang said bilateral relations have made significant progress since the establishment of the strategic partnership between the two countries. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), he said, adding that China will fully support Uzbekistan in hosting an upcoming SCO summit in its capital city of Tashkent and push forward security and economic cooperation for new achievements. For his part, Karimov said he is looking forward to the Chinese president's attendance at the Tashkent summit. Uzbekistan is ready to work with China to further promote the two countries' strategic partnership, strengthen all-round mutually beneficial cooperation, and advance the SCO's new development, he said. Contact the writer at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn. Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) spokesperson Pampha Bhusal, who was speaking during an interaction in Bhaktapur today, expressed confidence that the other Maoist leaders would also join his party in support. "It is only a matter of time before Baburam Bhattarai, Mohan Baidya and Netra Bikram Chand will join the Maoist Centre and work together for everybody's benefits," the Himalayan Times quoted Bhusal as saying. She, however, mentioned that the party would not be recalling its ministers from the government anytime soon. She added the Maoist Centre is competent in taking agitating Madhesis to the government by addressing their legitimate demands. Bhusal also said that there was a presence of foreign interference in the mainstream political course of the country. She urged for implementation of the recently signed Nepal-China agreement regarding the opening of various borders between the two sides. (ANI) China has said that more talks were needed to build a consensus on which countries can join the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) following the United States' push to include India in the elite group. "China notes that some non-NPT States parties wish to join the NSG. For the "non-NPT States parties" to join the issue of how to do this group of countries, China has always advocated a full discussion of this first group to seek consensus and decisions by consensus," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in an statement. With Beijing already leading its stance in opposing inclusion of India in the NSG, reports now suggest that other countries, including New Zealand, Turkey, South Africa and Austria also oppose New Delhi's membership. The Foreign Ministry spokesman in a veiled statement said that many other countries hold similar position on India's entry to the group. "NPT is a political and legal basis for the international non-proliferation system. This position applies to all "non-NPT States parties", which is not for the specific non-NPT States parties. In fact, there is not only within China, many countries in the group, also holds the same position," he clarified. He said that large differences remain over the issue of non-NPT countries joining the NSG. "Since recent times, within the group of "non-NPT States parties" to join this group of countries the problem was some discussion, but there are really big differences," he said. "The next step, China supports the Group continued to discuss this further, to an early consensus on this. China will continue to participate in constructive discussions," he added. The countries, who oppose India's membership, argue that its inclusion in the group would further undermine efforts to prevent proliferation and also infuriate New Delhi's rival Pakistan. Islamabad, which enjoys the backing of its close ally China, has also responded to India's membership bid and asked for its admission as well. The decision on Indian membership will only be decided at the NSG plenary meeting in Seoul scheduled on June 20. While reports surfaced that Beijing would try its best to stop India's entry into the group, Washington has already vouched its full support during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to United States earlier this week. (ANI) "Firecrackers explode at Shanghai Pudong Airport. At least 1 injured. Investigation under way," Xinhua news tweeted. The blast reportedly took place at the airport's terminal 2. CCTV News on its twitter handle posted pictures of the incident which showed medical staff assisting a man on a stretcher. The Special Weapons and Tactics Unit (SWAT) team deployed on duty is presently inspecting the premise. Meanwhile, the investigation is underway to find the exact cause of the explosion. Details to follow. (ANI) The 20th Pamir Army Division in a statement said that in addition fifteen other insurgents were arrested, reports Tolo news. The operation was launched in the area in a bid to prevent insurgent activities in the province. The statement said that there were no civilian casualties during the operation. It, however, did not provide details over casualties of the security forces during the operation. The military operation comes in the wake of the recent abduction of at least 200 hundred bus passengers on the outskirts of the city by the militants. Though most were later released, at least 12 were killed after being accused of working for government security organizations. (ANI) "We are working to make Mukherjee's visit possible within 2016," the Kathmandu Post quoted Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nepal Kamal Thapa as saying. Thapa, presently on a three-day visit to India, held discussions with the Indian officials about President Mukherjee's visit. President Mukherjee's tenure ends in July next year. It is yet not clear whether Nepalese President Bidhya Devi Bhandari will visit New Delhi before her Indian counterpart's visit to Nepal. The relations between the two countries soured after Nepal recalled its envoy Deep Kumar Upadhyay and cancelled President Bhandari's visit earlier in May this year. However, the recent meeting between Thapa and Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj indicates that the bilateral ties between both sides are back on track. It may be recalled here that Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli had on behalf of President Bhandari extended an invitation to Mukherjee to visit Nepal during his India visit in February. (ANI) Gokal Das, a resident of Hayat Pitafi in a remote village of Ghotki district, was beaten by a police constable and his brother while having biryani in public which was given to him in charity on Friday, reports the Express Tribune. Police official Bachal Qazi confirmed that Das was having biryani at around 6 p.m. local time on Friday when Ali Hassan Haidrani and his brother Mir Hassan threw the elderly man on the ground and beat him black and blue. Meanwhile, a case has been registered against Haidrani and his brother, who were subsequently arrested. "We will seek remand of the two accused on Monday for further investigation," Qazi added. (ANI) According to the office of the Chief Executive, the issue was raised during a meeting with the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Olson, reports the Khaama Press. The Afghan CEO asserted there is a need for a sincere cooperation by Islamabad to fight terrorism which is a threat for the region and is the enemy of humanity. He said the Afghan Government did its best to expedite the peace process with Pakistan's cooperation but the authorities there did not fulfill its commitments. He reiterated the Afghan Government expects Islamabad to take practical steps against the Taliban group and Haqqani network in its soil and help bring peace and stability in the region and the world. He added the Afghan forces are engaged in the fight against terrorism across the country and his government is prepared to work on peace process with the insurgent group.(ANI) The secretary-general "extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the government and people of the US," Xinhua quoted a statement as saying. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his horror by the shooting attack. "I'm horrified by reports of the overnight shooting in Orlando. My thoughts are with the victims and their families," he tweeted. Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, also tweeted, "Shocked by shooting in Orlando". He noted that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in contact with the local authorities, adding, "Thoughts are with victims and families." A gunman wielding an assault-type rife and a handgun killed at least 50 people in a nightclub in Orlando on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in the US history. US President Barack Obama decried the tragedy as an "act of terror." The Islamic State-linked news agency, Amaq, said the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. --IANS sku/ ( 210 Words) 2016-06-13-07:02:02 (IANS) President Pranab Mukherjee touched down in Accra, Ghana, on Sunday evening, on the first leg of his six-day three-nation state visit that would include visits to Cote d'Ivoire and Namibia as well. Carrying the presidential entourage, Air India One touched down in rainy weather at Accra's Kotoka International Airport at 3.45 p.m. local time after an approximately nine-and-a-half-hour-long flight. The president was received by Ghana's Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, senior Ghanaian government officials and Indian High Commission officials. The ceremonial reception at the airport included a group of Ghanaian dancers- male and female- performing some of their traditional and popular dances and drum beats. School children from select schools in Ghana were also present on the occasion waving the national flags of Ghana and India. The drive into the city centre was also smooth with streets lined with poles carrying the flags of the two countries and some flags pinned onto massive tree trunks. During his two-day state visit to Ghana, the first by an Indian Head of State, the president will hold talks with his Ghanaian counterpart John Dramani Mahama on issues of bilateral, regional and multilateral relevance to the two countries. This visit will include attending a state banquet hosted by President Mahama on Sunday evening; attending delegation -level talks and the signing of bilateral agreements and addressing the business community on Monday. President Mukherjee will pay his respects at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum; unveil a statue of Mahatma Gandhi and also address faculty and students at the University of Ghana, also on Monday. On Tuesday, he will visit the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence before departing for Cote D Iviore on the second leg of his official visit. Indian Investments in Ghana are substantial and amount to nearly three billion dollars in various sectors and trade between both the countries has gone up three times in the last three years. India's exports to Ghana were USD 680.39 million in fiscal 2014-15 and USD 502.65 million between April 2015 and January 2016. Major exports include pharmaceuticals, agricultural machinery, transport vehicles, electrical equipment, plastics, iron and steel, beverages and spirits, cereals, made-up textiles and self-propelled heavy machinery. India imports Gold, cocoa nuts, timber products, aluminum waste and scrap, ferrous waste and scrap, cashew, coconut, Brazil nuts, cocoa beans and paste and oil seeds etc. Total Indian investments in Ghana are an estimated USD1.02 billion over the past two decades. The estimated number of Indians living in Ghana is about 10,000 persons, out of which about 3000 hold foreign nationalities. Some of these NRIs have established a base in Ghana stretching to over 70 years. The President's visit to Ghana is expected to open up new opportunities of cooperation between the two countries. (ANI) Expressing deep shock over the Orlando terror attack, President Pranab Mukherjee today called for united action by world nations to rein in both the perpetrators and supporters of terrorist acts. The President, who is on state visit to Ghana from today, said there could be no justification for terrorism whatever the reason, and all differences should be resolved through peaceful means. ''This event is just another grim reminder that the world must come together to address comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, the perpetrators and also those who support or harbor them,' the President said. The people of India stand by the people of United States of America in their moment of grief and mourning,'' the PresidentSaid as he heard about the news of the terror stack in which at least 50 people were killed and 53 injured when a gunmen opened fire in a packed night club.UNI NAZ AKC0402 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0432-782818.Xml Islamic State claimed responsibility for the worst mass shooting in US history, but US officials said they had seen no immediate evidence linking the militant group to the massacre in Orlando, Florida.Yesterday islamic State's claim was carried by Amaq, the organization's news agency."The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," said the Amaq statement.At least 50 people were killed and 53 others were wounded in the Pulse nightclub before the gunman was shot dead by police.The shooter was identified by authorities as Omar Mateen, a Florida resident and US-born son of Afghan immigrants who a senior FBI official said might have had leanings toward Islamic State.The FBI official cautioned, however, that proving the suspected link to radical Islamism required further investigation.Three US officials familiar with the investigation into the massacre said that no evidence had yet been found showing a direct link with Islamic State or any other militant group.There is "no evidence yet that this was directed or connected to ISIS. So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre," said a US counter-terrorism official, referring to a 911 call the suspect made yesterday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.A US intelligence official said it was not unexpected that Islamic State would claim responsibility given that the group has been suffering serious losses of fighters and territory in Iraq and Syria."The fact that a website connected to Daesh applauded it doesn't mean anything," said the US intelligence official, using an Arabic language acronym for Islamic State. "They are losing on their home turf, and it's not surprising if they're looking for some kind of twisted victory."Speaking at the White House, President Barack Obama called the attack "an act of terror and an act of hate," and said the FBI would spare no effort to determine whether the suspect had been inspired by any extremist group.The two officials familiar with the investigation said a leading theory was that the suspect somehow was inspired by Islamist militants.One official said early information, the nature of which he did not disclose, indicated that the shooter was motivated by a mixture of "hate" and religion.'ACT OF TERRORISM'US Representative Adam Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement issued after a briefing on the massacre that several factors indicated the attack was an Islamic State-inspired "act of terrorism."He noted that the incident occurred during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, that Islamic State had called for attacks during that period, the target was an LGBT nightclub and it was hit during Gay Pride weekend.Schiff said that, if accurate, "according to local law enforcement the shooter declared his allegiance to ISIS (Islamic State)."An audio message purportedly issued last month by the spokesman of Islamic State called on followers to launch attacks in the United States and Europe during Ramadan, which began on June 5 in the United States."Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad. Get prepared, be ready ... to make it a month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers ... especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America," said the statement allegedly made by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and distributed over Twitter accounts usually associated with Islamic State."The smallest action you do in their heartland is better and more enduring to us than what you would if you were with us. If one of you hoped to reach the Islamic State, we wish we were in your place to punish the Crusaders day and night," said the audio clip, the authenticity of which could not be verified. REUTERS AKC0422 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-782822.Xml The deadliest mass shooting in US history prompted calls by some members of Congress for legislation to tighten control of weapons sales, although there were slim hopes for much change after 50 people were killed at a gay nightclub in Florida.Yesterday democratic Senator Robert Casey said he would announce a bill tomorrow that would ban anyone convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime from owning a firearm.Under current law, those with felony convictions are prohibited from buying or possessing a gun, but those convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes are not.Casey planned to make the announcement in his home state of Pennsylvania after a meeting with members of Pittsburgh's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.Lawmakers, including some Republicans, have sought some gun restrictions after earlier mass shootings, but even minor changes failed to gain enough support to become law. Backed by the powerful gun lobby, many members of Congress see controls of weapons sales as a threat to Americans' constitutional rights.Other Democrats also called for Congress to act after yesterday's attack in Orlando, some in strong terms.Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said the killings would prompt debate but not action. "The bottom line is that we allow dangerous people to buy guns in America and that has got to change," he said.Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said the "epidemic" of gun violence would continue if Congress does not act and also said lawmakers shared responsibility."Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence," he said in a statement. "This doesn't have to happen but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing - again."A gunman killed 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in Murphy's home state, Connecticut, in 2012.The suspected Orlando attacker, identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a US citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan, was carrying an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun, authorities said. The shooter in Newtown also had an AR-15.Many Republicans, including the presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, focused on the threat from Islamist militants after the shooting, citing reports that Mateen was inspired by Islamic State.The FBI said Mateen had twice been interviewed after making comments to co-workers indicating he supported militant groups, but neither led to evidence of criminal activity. REUTERS AKC0436 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-782827.Xml Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave an aggressive response to the deadliest mass shooting in US history, quickly claiming the attack was the work of an Islamist militant while calling on President Barack Obama to resign and for Democrat Hillary Clinton to exit the presidential race.For Trump, it was an attempt to frame the attack in Orlando in a light favorable to his campaign for the November 8 presidential election.Early yesterday, when few facts were known about the shooting, he boasted on Twitter that it proved he had been right about his warnings over "radical Islamic terrorism."In a tweet just hours after the incident, he wrote: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance."Trump has made combatting the threat of groups such as Islamic State a central part of his candidacy.It was last December's attack in San Bernardino, California that killed 14 people that led Trump to propose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump re-visited the proposal yesterday after at least 50 people died in the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida."What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough," Trump wrote on Twitter.In a statement late Sunday, the businessman went further than US officials investigating the shootings by asserting that the attack in Orlando was the work of a "radical Islamic terrorist."Islamic State, which controls land in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the shooting but US officials said they had seen no immediate evidence directly linking the militant group to the massacre.The shooter, US-born Florida resident Omar Mateen, was killed by police. Mateen, 29, called 911 yesterday morning and made comments saying he supported the Islamic State militant group, officials said.Trump ripped Obama for his long-standing refusal to refer to Islamic State and other extremist groups as in part representative of the religion of Islam."In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down," Trump said, adding that, "if Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the presidency."Trump's day-long barrage of tweets and statements contrasted with more cautious approaches taken by Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and her fellow Democrat Obama.In remarks at the White House, Obama said the investigation into the shootings was ongoing and declined to speculate on the motives of the shooter."We've reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer," Obama said. "The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism.Similarly, Clinton, in a statement, called the attack an "act of terror" but did not speculate about the ideology of the gunman."Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work, and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead," said Clinton, who expressed her sympathy for the victims and said "weapons of war" have no place on US streets.Trump's campaign said that a speech scheduled for today that was to be devoted to criticizing Hillary and Bill Clinton would now be centered on national security and counter-terrorism. REUTERS AKC0458 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-782833.Xml China's Premier Li Keqiang said today that the government would take more steps to level the playing field for foreign investors and that it was committed to cutting steel capacity.Li made the comments in a press briefing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. REUTERS SZ JW RAI1101 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0441-782961.Xml Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, facing a tight re-election battle, pledged today a 1 billion Australian dollars (738 million dollars) fund for the Great Barrier Reef, where scientists say mass coral bleaching has destroyed vast tracts of the World Heritage site.A report late last month said mass coral bleaching, caused by climate change, had destroyed at least 35 per cent of the northern and central Great Barrier Reef and that the coral mortality rate would likely rise.The report cast a shadow over the long-term prospects for the reef, which attracts about 5 billion Australian dollars (3.7 billion dollars) in tourism each year. Scientists also believe UNESCO may reconsider its decision not to put the reef on its endangered list.Turnbull, on the campaign trail for the July 2 election in tropical northern Queensland state, the usual jumping-off point for tourists going to the reef, said he would instruct Australia's Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to redirect 1 billion Australian dollars of its 10 billion Australian dollars fund.The money would go to a loans scheme aimed at reducing the agricultural and waste water run-off that is diminishing the reef's ability to withstand rising sea temperatures."Much of this will come in the form of financing solar energy, which of course will reduce emissions but also enable farmers to manage their land more efficiently ..." Turnbull told reporters in Townsville.Pollution from water-borne fertiliser and nutrient-rich run-off limits the ability of corals to withstand higher sea temperatures associated with cyclical El Nino weather events and global warming.Bleaching occurs when the water is too warm, forcing coral to expel living algae and calcify.The findings of the bleaching survey came at a bad time for Turnbull, who was under pressure after Australia's Department of Environment confirmed it had omitted its contribution to a UN report on the impact of climate change on world heritage sites over concerns it might have a negative impact on tourism.Turnbull's conservative coaltion began the seven-weak election campaign with a healthy lead over the centre-left Labor opposition but opinion polls now have them neck-and-neck.Labor, which announced a 500 million Australian dollars ( 369 million dollars), five-year plan for the reef last month, criticised Turnbull for "raiding" the CEFC to fund his pledge."Malcolm Turnbull is misleading Queenslanders and other Australians in saying he's providing any additional funding to the Great Barrier Reef at a time of great crisis," Labor's environment spokesman, Mark Butler, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.Scientists are unsure how much of the damaged areas of the reef will regenerate as winter brings cooler temperatures.( 1 dollar = 1.3554 Australian dollars)REUTERS SZ JW RAI1138 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0441-783002.Xml Expressing deep shock over the Orlando terror attack, President Pranab Mukherjee has called for united action by world nations to rein in both the perpetrators and supporters of terrorist acts. The President, who is on state visit to Ghana from yesterday, said there could be no justification for terrorism whatever the reason, and all differences should be resolved through peaceful means. ''This event is just another grim reminder that the world must come together to address comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, the perpetrators and also those who support or harbor them,' the President said. The people of India stand by the people of United States of America in their moment of grief and mourning,'' the President said as he heard about the news of the terror attack in which at least 50 people were killed and 53 injured when a gunmen opened fire in a packed night club.UNI NAZ AKC ADG 1140 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0103-783013.Xml A man armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to Islamic State killed 50 people during a gay pride celebration at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early in the deadliest mass shooting in US history, a rampage President Barack Obama denounced as an act of terror and hate.Police killed the gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants and was twice questioned by FBI agents in recent years, authorities said.Mateen's former wife said he was emotionally and mentally disturbed with a violent temper, yet aspired to be a police officer.Working for the global security firm G4S during the past nine years, Mateen was an armed guard for a gated retirement community in South Florida, and had cleared two company background screenings, the latest in 2013, according to G4S..Preliminary investigations suggested the attack was inspired by Islamic State militants, though there was no immediate evidence that Mateen had any actual ties to the group, law enforcement officials said.As the shooting rampage was unfolding, Mateen "made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State," said Ronald Hopper, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge on the case.Shots rang out at the crowded Pulse nightclub in the heart of Orlando, about 15 miles northeast of the Walt Disney World Resort, as some 350 patrons were attending a Latin music event in conjunction with gay pride week celebrations. Clubgoers described scenes of carnage and pandemonium, with one man who escaped saying he hid under a car and bandaged a wounded stranger with his shirt."Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that," Joshua McGill said in a posting on Facebook. "Being covered in blood. Trying to save a guy's life."Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage yesterday. It ranked as the deadliest single US mass shooting incident, eclipsing the massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech University in 2007."We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate," Obama said in a speech from the White House. "As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people."US officials cautioned, however, they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with foreign extremists."So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre," said a US counterterrorism official. "This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody."HEAVILY ARMEDThe attacker was carrying an AR-15-style assault rifle and a handgun, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. He also had an unidentified "device," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina.The shooting was nearly certain to reignite emotional debates over American gun laws and homeland security in what is shaping up to be a vitriolic US presidential campaign between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.The attack came six months after a married couple in California - a US-born son of Pakistani immigrants and a Pakistani-born woman he married in Saudi Arabia, fatally shot 14 people in San Bernardino in an attack inspired by Islamic State. That couple died in a shootout with police hours after their assault on a holiday party attended by the husband's co-workers.The precise sequence of events in Orlando remained murky. But authorities said the gunman burst into the club and opened fire at about 2 a.m., then took dozens of hostages that he held at gunpoint inside a bathroom during a three-hour siege that ended when police stormed the building using armored cars and killed the gunman.Officials in Orlando, a city of 270,000 people, were visibly shocked at the high death toll."We're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. He said 39 people died inside the club, two outside, and nine others died after being rushed to the hospital.Mateen had twice been interviewed by FBI agents, in 2013 and 2014, after making comments to co-workers indicating he supported militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity, the FBI's Hopper said.Hopper said Mateen was questioned in 2014 about his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, a US citizen who also had lived in Florida and became a suicide bomber in Syria that year.Mateen and his family regularly attended a Florida mosque. "Not everyone had a friendship with him. He wasn't a people person. He was not extremely friendly but he wasn't rude either," said Mohammed Jameel, 54, a worshipper at the mosque.Another worshipper said she recently saw Mateen dancing at his sister's wedding, a mixed affair that was open to both men and women.STORMY MARRIAGESunday night, federal agents combed through Mateen's apartment in the Atlantic coast town of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando, searching for clues, as numerous evidence vans sat parked outside."The FBI is currently in the apartment. They'll probably be there through the night," said St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara.Near Boulder, Colorado, Mateen's former wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters he worked for a time as a correctional officer at a juvenile detention center in Fort Pierce, and had once sought admission to a police academy.She said she had been beaten by Mateen during outbursts of temper in which he would "express hatred towards everything." Eventually, she was "rescued" from Mateen by members of her family who intervened four months into a stormy marriage that ultimately ended in divorce, she said."I know he had a history of steroids," Yusufiy told reporters outside a home where she was staying with a man she identified as her current fiance. She also described Mateen as "emotionally unstable," "mentally ill" and bipolar.Deborah Sherman, an FBI spokeswoman in Denver, confirmed that federal agents had interviewed Yusufiy in Colorado.The imam of the Florida mosque where Mateen attended prayers for nearly 10 years described him as a soft-spoken man who would visit regularly but rarely interact with others in the congregation.CANDIDATES WEIGH INWithin hours of the shooting, the presumptive presidential nominees of both major political parties weighed in with statements on the tragedy.Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, said he was "right on radical Islamic terrorism" and called on Obama to resign because he did not say the words "radical Islam" in his statement responding to the shooting.Clinton echoed Obama's comments calling the attack both an act of terror and a hate crime, adding that the massacre "reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets."If confirmed as an act of terrorism, it would be the deadliest such attack on US soil since September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people.REUTERS SZ JW RAI1233 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0441-783040.Xml Leaders in the Baltic countries and Poland fear the force NATO plans to deploy on their territory is too small and symbolic to deter an attack by Russia, whose 2014 annexation of Crimea is fresh in the memories of the former Soviet-bloc states.They will this week press other ministers of the western military alliance to help them build an air defence system against Russian aircraft and missiles. But that would be a highly sensitive step, likely to be condemned by Moscow as yet more evidence of a NATO strategy threatening its borders.Asked about the likelihood of Russian aggression in the Baltics, Lithuania's Defence Minister Juozas Olekas told Reuters: "We cannot exclude it ... They might exercise on the borders and then switch to invasion in hours."Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia see themselves on the front line in any potential conflict with Moscow and say they are putting their armies on a war footing, meaning they can be mobilised almost immediately.NATO defence ministers are set to agree this week on a new multinational force of 4,000 troops for the Baltics and Poland.The United States, Germany and Britain are set to lead battalions of about 1,000 troops each. Canada may lead a fourth.While the Baltic nations welcome the deployments, they say the build-up must go further - pointing to Russia's efforts to develop an "anti-access" capability in the Kaliningrad exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland, using missiles and submarines to stop NATO moving reinforcements into the Baltics.The Baltics want NATO fighters to protect their skies and are seeking medium-range missile interceptors from Norway's Kongsberg Gruppen and US defence contractor Raytheon ."We need to stop possible air aggression," said Olekas. "We are discussing creating a regional medium-range air defence system together with the Latvians, the Estonians and the Poles."Olekas expects to raise the matter with NATO colleagues at the ministers' meeting tomorrow and on Wednesday in Brussels.CREDIBILITYThe head of the Estonian defence force Lieutenant General Riho Terras said: "The first and foremost is the defence of our airspace. Air defence is the challenge that needs to solved together with the NATO alliance.""We are not talking about defence of Lithuania, we are talking about the credibility of the whole alliance," said Lithuania's Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius.But such calls would require stretched NATO governments to beef up the so-called air policing mission that regularly intercepts Russian jets flying over international waters close to the the Baltic states.The Baltic nations rely on their NATO allies' quick reaction aircraft to patrol their skies, with no mandate to confront hostile aircraft in a conflict.Four British Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets and four Portuguese F-16 fighter jets are currently carrying out the air policing mission. Officials say a lot more would be needed for air defence.And southern NATO nations, focused on uncontrolled migrant flows and the failing states on Europe's borders, may also be unwilling to grant more resources to the eastern flank.Ben Hodges, the commander of the US army in Europe, visited Vilnius last week. He echoed Baltic concerns about the strength of NATO's deterrence."It is a transition," Hodges said. "I hope that includes serious war fighting capabilities. Just putting garrisons of troops sitting in the countries ... will not deter."Russia insists it poses no threat to the former Soviet states. Top NATO officials say talk of an impending attack is misleading, a view shared by Paris and Berlin.Russia has held unannounced exercises on the borders of the Baltics, including one in 2014 which mustered 100,000 troops, according to Danish Colonel Jakob Sogard Larsen, who heads the new NATO command outpost in Lithuania."You see it differently when you live here," Larsen said."We need to learn to fight total war again," he said, in a sign of the return of a Cold War-style mood.Lithuanian officials accuse Russia of trying to buy off Lithuanian soldiers and business people to become spies for the Kremlin, intimidating diplomats and spreading disinformation on the Internet and television.Prosecutors are preparing to file criminal charges against someone they say is a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer arrested last year trying to recruit informants.Russia denies any such activities.SWITCH TO "CLASSIC WARFARE"The NATO battalions are part of a deterrent to be approved by leaders at a summit in Warsaw in July. That will involve forces on rotation, warehoused equipment and a "spearhead" force backed by NATO's 40,000-strong rapid reaction force.Once the decision is made, Germany could deploy to Lithuania before September. Britain is expected to deploy to Estonia, the United States to Latvia and Canada possibly to Poland.German and Danish soldiers fanned out across swamps and woodland in Lithuania this week in war games to learn the unfamiliar Baltic terrain and test their ability to move equipment and personnel quickly to a possible front.Their tanks and armoured vehicles were recently brought back from Afghanistan, desert-yellow camouflage painted over with the green-and-black colours of Baltic woodlands."We are changing our focus from counter-insurgency tactics back to classic warfare," said German Lieutenant Colonel Marc-Ulrich Cropp from his camouflaged command tent at a Lithuanian military base. "Everyone has to be prepared." REUTERS SZ JW VP1340 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0441-783140.Xml Pakistani and Afghan soldiers clashed overnight at the main border crossing at the end of the Khyber Pass, officials said today, with at least one killed and several wounded, further straining relations between the militancy-plagued neighbours.One Afghan soldier was killed and six were wounded, an Afghan official said. The Pakistani army said one of its soldiers was wounded in the fighting at the Torkham Gate crossing in the mountainous region of northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.Both countries blamed each other for starting the fighting, which broke out at roughly 9 p.m. local time yesterday and continued into the night."We currently have agreed on a ceasefire with #Pakistan. We hope this problem will end through the work by diplomatic addresses," the Afghan government's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, said on Twitter."The current fight Pakistan started doesn't help anyone's interest."Relations between the neighbours have been strained in recent months. Kabul has accused Pakistan of harbouring militants seeking to topple the Afghan government, including the notorious Haqqani network, blamed for high-profile attacks in the capital.Pakistan denies supporting militants and said it was constructing a border gate near Torkham, a Pakistani town close to the frontier, to prevent militants crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan."In order to check movement of terrorists through Torkham, Pakistan is constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement," Pakistan's army said in a statement."Pakistani security forces responded to Afghan firing effectively."Ayub Hussainkhil, border police commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the fighting at the Torkham Gate stopped at t 5 a.m. today."We have received reinforcement and are ready to defend our country until the last drop of blood in our bodies," he said.The Pakistan-Afghanistan border has long remained porous and disputed. Afghanistan has blocked repeated attempts by Pakistan to build a fence on sections of the roughly 2,200-km long frontier, rejecting the contours of the boundary.Last month, Pakistan build a border post between Pakistan's South Waziristan and Afghanistan's Paktika province and handed it over to Afghan officials.Hours later, Afghan authorities shut the post, saying that the actual border lay about a kilometre inside Pakistani territory. REUTERS SZ JW VP1337 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0441-783156.Xml President Pranab Mukherjee, who arrived here yesterday on his first visit to Ghana, is today holding talks with his counterpart Dramani Mahama after which several agreements were expected to be signed between the two countries. This is the first leg of his tour of three African nations which also includes first visits to Cote D'Ivoire and Namibia. Mr Mukherjee will first have one-on-one meeting with President Mahama followed by delegation-level talks.The agreements which might be inked today include setting up of a Joint Commission between India and Ghana and renewal of Cultural Exchange Programme. The President had last night at a banquet speech assured Ghana of all help from India in its journey of development. He had also made strong pitch for India and Ghana working together to ensure a rightful place for India and Africa in the UN Security Council, and for warding off the challenge of terrorism. Mr Mukherjee had said that Indian companies were ready to invest in Ghana. The two countries have seen steady growth in bilateral trade and investments. India's cumulative investments in Ghana till date have exceeded 1 billion dollars and bilateral trade crossed 3 billion dollar mark in 2015-16. NRIs, professionals have invested in IT, Pharmaceuticals and other areas. The bilateral trade has gone up nearly 3 times. Ghana's main trade consists of gold imports, it's nearly 80 per cent of total trade. Ghanaian gold is in great demand in India. India's exports to Ghana are close to around 700 million dollars on an average and consists of a range of products like pharma, plastics, steel products, textiles and to most of the African countries besides cereals including wheat and rice. Besides talks with the President, Mr Mukherjee would be delivering an address at the Joint Business Forum and at the University of Ghana, and interacting with the Indian community at a reception organised in his honour by the Indian High Commission. During the visit, the President will unveil a statue of Mahatma Gandhi gifted by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations and also plant a sapling at the Flag Staff House (Ghanaian Presidential Complex), an iconic building built with the Indian assistance through a Line of credit. He will also pay floral tributes to Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah at his mausoleum in Accra. Besides, the President will visit the India-Ghana Kofi Annan Centre of ICT Excellence in Accra, set up with modest Indian assistance of US $ 2.86 million. An interaction with the India community is also included in his programme. In Ghana, there is a very prosperous Indian community, or Indian origin community actually, roughly around 10,000 of which 7000 have Indian passports. UNI NAZ ADG 1405 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0441-783216.Xml First secretary at the French embassy, Sonia Tebbakh, said Ayrault is expected to meet several high-level officials, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Su Kyi and President U Htin Kyaw, in Nay Pyi Taw on the morning of June 17, reported The Myanmar Times. The foreign minister will also meet Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Minister for Energy and Electricity U Pe Zin Tun in Nay Pyi Taw on the same day. The purpose of the visit is to renew the French support in favour of the democratic transition in Myanmar and announce the financial involvement of French development aid, Tebbakh added. Ayrault is also scheduled to meet U Pyo Min Thein, the Yangon Region Chief Minister, French NGOs and businesses, and Myanmar civil society organisations in Yangon. This will be the first visit by a representative of the French government to Myanmar since the National League for Democracy government came to power in February. (ANI) The organization has also asked the Sri Lankan government to take measures to revoke the draconian Act. "The Sri Lankan government should abide by National Human Rights Commission guidelines on arrest and detention while taking urgent steps to repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA)," said New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) today, reports Colombo Page. PTA has continually been used to detain individuals without charge, despite pledging to abolish the law at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva in October 2015. After the recent arrests in Chavakachcheri in the Northern Province in May this year, the HRCSL issued directives to be followed by designated officials arresting persons under this act. The directives are intended to protect detainees against the security forces powers under the PTA. Asia director Brad Adams said, "Until it is repealed, the government should announce a moratorium on the use of the PTA and instead rely on the criminal code, which does not allow indefinite detention without charge or trial." The government is working on a new bill to replace the PTA but the process is very slow. (ANI) The police headquarters in a message in Dhaka said the total number of detentions made till 6:00 a.m. were 3,245. Apart from the 34 suspected militants, 2,578 were 'wanted', 19 were accused of arms cases, 160 of narcotics-related lawsuits and 454 fugitives of different cases, reports the Daily Star. The special crackdown in the country began with a primary objective of nabbing militants believed to be carrying out targeted covert killings one after another across the region. In the first two days, 5,324 people were detained in the anti-militancy drive across the country, of which 85 were suspected to be militants. Rafiqul Islam, assistant superintendent of police in Natore district, said 64 alleged criminals were arrested and 18 motorcycles seized in the district. In Satkhira district, 52 including eight activists of Jamaat-e-Islami were held. In Chapai Nawabganj district, 32 people including four Jamaat and an alleged regional chief of the banned Hizb-ut Tahrir were arrested, said Mazharul Islam, officer-in-charge of Chapainawabganj Police Station. (ANI) Moroccan authorities have arrested an Italian national who was planning to carry out attacks on targets in the kingdom, the interior ministry said in a statement today.Morocco, a Western ally against Islamist militancy, often announces it has broken up militant cells accused of plotting attacks inside and outside the kingdom.The suspected Italian militant, who lives in Belgium, was arrested on June 8 when landing in the eastern city of Oujda, based on intelligence showing that he had ties to the Islamic State group and was involved in a plan to attack targets in Morocco, the statement said.In 2014, he tried to travel to Syria or Iraq but failed, despite guidance from an Islamic State member, and returned to Belgium, the statement said.Authorities said the suspect has already visited Morocco in 2015, sent by Islamic State, and identified targets in Casablanca, Morocco's biggest city.Moroccan security officials provide information that help their European counterparts in fighting militancy, especially during the recent Paris attacks.Thousands of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb nations, such as Tunisia, have joined Islamist militant forces in the conflict in Iraq and Syria, and also in Libya. Some are threatening to return home to carry out attacks and recruit more jihadis, security experts say.Moroccan officials estimate that 2,000 Moroccan fighters have joined armed groups in Syria and Iraq, including Islamic State and the al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front, and about 200 have been jailed on their return home.The North African state has suffered bomb attacks by suspected Islamist fighters, most recently in 2011 in Marrakesh. REUTERS DUR BL1652 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0442-783590.Xml US law enforcement officials investigated today whether anyone helped the gunman who massacred 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, but said they did not believe anyone connected to the shooting posed a current danger to the public.The FBI and other agencies were poring over evidence inside and in the closed-off streets around Orlando's Pulse nightclub, where a shooter pledging allegiance to Islamic State carried out the deadliest mass shooting in US history.The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club early yesterday morning with armored cars after a three-hour siege.Officials said yesterday the death toll was 50. Today they clarified that this included Mateen, who was killed by police.Law enforcement officials were looking for clues as to whether anyone worked with Mateen on the attack, said Lee Bentley, US Attorney for Florida's middle district."There is an investigation of other persons, we are working as diligently as we can on that," Bentley told a news conference. "If anyone else was involved in this crime, they will be prosecuted."Officials emphasized that they believed there had been no other attackers and that they had no evidence of a threat to the public.Mateen, 29, called emergency services during the shooting and pledged allegiance to the leader of the militant Islamic State group, officials said. His father said yesterday his son was not radicalized, but indicated Mateen had strong anti-gay feelings. His ex-wife described him as mentally unstable and violent toward her.Islamic State reiterated today a claim of responsibility for the attack."One of the Caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando," the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan RadioAlthough the group claimed responsibility, this did not necessarily mean it directed the attack: there was nothing in the claim indicating coordination between the gunman and Islamic State before the rampage.The attack, denounced by President Barack Obama as an act of terror and hate, reignited the debate over how best to confront violent Islamist militancy, a top issue in the November 8 US presidential election campaign. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump both addressed the issue today.Trump has made it a centerpiece of his campaign to get tougher on security and has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. He told Fox News today that the United States should increase its military campaign against Islamic State militants, who hold land in Syria and Iraq, in response to the shooting.The rampage began just after 2 a.m. yesterday at the crowded Pulse nightclub in the heart of Orlando, about 15 miles (25 km) northeast of the Walt Disney World Resort. Orlando is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States, drawing some 62 million visitors a year.Some 350 patrons were attending a Latin music event at the club and survivors described scenes of carnage and pandemonium as the shooter took hostages inside a bathroom.WAITING FOR NEWS OF RELATIVESOrlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said that 48 of the 49 victims had been identified and about half the families of those killed have been notified."I cannot imagine being one of the parents or knowing that your loved one might be among those who are deceased and waiting to find out," Dyer told reporters.Florida Governor Rick Scott asked Obama to declare a state of emergency over the attack, which would free up more federal resources to assist victims."Yesterday's terror attack was an attack on our state and entire nation," Scott said in a statement.Mateen was an armed guard at a gated retirement community, and had worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years. He had cleared two company background screenings, the latest in 2013, according to G4S..Despite Mateen's 911 call expressing support for Islamic State, US officials said yesterday they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with foreign extremists."So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre," said a US counterterrorism official. "This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody."Authorities said Mateen had been twice questioned by FBI agents in 2013 and 2014 after making comments to co-workers about supporting militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activityHis father Mir Siddique, who saw Mateen yesterday afternoon, said in a video posted to Facebook early today that he had not known of his son's plans."I don't know what happened and I didn't know he had hatred," Siddique said. "God himself will punish homosexuality. It is not the job for humankind."In an earlier interview with NBC news, the father described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry.Mateen's former wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said he was emotionally and mentally disturbed, yet aspired to be a police officer.Yusufiy told reporters near Boulder, Colorado, that she had been beaten by Mateen during outbursts of temper in which he would "express hatred towards everything".Mateen and his family regularly attended a Florida mosque. "Not everyone had a friendship with him. He wasn't a people person. He was not extremely friendly but he wasn't rude either," said Mohammed Jameel, 54, a worshipper at the mosque.Yesterday night, federal agents combed through Mateen's apartment in the Atlantic coast town of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles (190 km) southeast of Orlando.HOMEGROWN ATTACKSThe attack in Orlando came six months after a married couple in California - a US-born son of Pakistani immigrants and a Pakistani-born woman he married in Saudi Arabia - killed 14 people in San Bernardino in an shooting rampage inspired by Islamic State. The couple died in a shootout with police hours after that attack.Obama was due to be briefed at the White House by his top national security officials including FBI Director James Comey at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT)Obama said yesterday the Orlando gunman's motivation was still unclear. "We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate," he told reporters. Obama also repeated his frustration over America's lax gun laws.The attacks underlined the inherent difficulties of providing security at open public events."We are determined to continue living in an open and tolerant way even if such murderous attacks plunge us into deep mourning," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a visit to China.The most deadly attack on US soil inspired by violent Islamist militancy was on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people.REUTERS SDR BL1821` -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-783893.Xml A 21-year-old German man shot at a refugee shelter with an air rifle from the window of his third-floor apartment in the northwestern German town of Lingen, wounding two migrants, police said today.A 5-year-old girl from Macedonia and an 18-year-old Syrian suffered wounds in their legs and received hospital treatment, police said yesterday.Police, who searched the suspect's home, said it was not clear if the shooting was politically motivated but an investigation was underway.More than one million migrants arrived in Germany last year and the mood towards them has gradually soured, boosting support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.Police said the man was not arrested but he was being investigated for grievous bodily harm.REUTERS SDR BL1841 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-783959.Xml Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said today he hoped British voters would decide in a June 23 referendum to stay in the EU, saying the bloc needed such a strategically important country with its strong trading and "seafaring" traditions."Britain is a free market economy facing outward, just like the Netherlands. We are both seafaring nations, used to trading and working with open borders. It's of importance that a country with that kind of makeup remain," said Rutte, whose country holds the European Union's rotating presidency."We see a lot of instability in the world. If one of the largest economies in the world from Europe leaves, that would lead to a lot of popping champagne corks in many capital cities outside Europe. I don't want that," said Rutte, speaking on the sidelines of an event in The Hague. REUTERS SDR BL1843 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-783972.Xml India and Ghana today signed three agreements, including one for visa waivers for holders of diplomatic and official passports and one for setting up a Joint Commission, after delegation level talks between visiting President President Pranab Mukherjee and his Ghanaian counterpart John Dramani Mahama. The Joint Commission framework will periodically review various aspects of the multi-dimensional relationship between the two countries. A mutually convenient date for its first meeting will be decided later. The third agreement was for collaboration in diplomatic training between the Indian Foreign Service Institute and a Ghanaian institute of the same standing. The President had on the very first day of his first visit to this West African nation yesterday expressed India's desire to diversify and deepen its engagement with Ghana and assured Ghana of all help from Indian in its journey of development. He had also said that Indian companies were ready to invest in Ghana. The two countries have seen steady growth in bilateral trade and investments. India's cumulative investments in Ghana till date have exceeded one billion dollars and bilateral trade crossed three billion dollar mark in 2015-16. NRIs, professionals have invested in IT, Pharmaceuticals and other areas. The bilateral trade has gone up nearly three times. Ghana's main trade consists of gold imports, it's nearly 80 per cent of total trade. Ghanaian gold is in great demand in India. India's exports to Ghana are close to around 700 million dollars on an average and consists of a range of products like pharma, plastics, steel products, textiles and to most of the African countries besides cereals including wheat and rice. Besides talks with the President, Mr Mukherjee would be delivering an address at the Joint Business Forum and at the University of Ghana, and interacting with the Indian community at a reception organised in his honour by the Indian High Commission. During the visit, the President will unveil a statue of Mahatma Gandhi gifted by the Indian Council of Cultural Relations and also plant a sapling at the Flag Staff House (Ghanaian Presidential Complex), an iconic building built with the Indian assistance through a Line of credit. He will also pay floral tributes to Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah at his mausoleum in Accra. Besides, the President will visit the India-Ghana Kofi Annan Centre of ICT Excellence in Accra, set up with modest Indian assistance of US $ 2.86 million. An interaction with the India community is also included in his programme. In Ghana, there is a very prosperous Indian community, or Indian origin community actually, roughly around 10,000 of which 7000 have Indian passports. This is the first leg of his tour of three African nations which also includes first visits to Cote D'Ivoire and Namibia.UNI NAZ SHK 1938 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-784121.Xml The US Supreme Court today rejected Puerto Rico's bid to revive a law that would have let the US territory cut billions of dollars in debt at public utilities, delivering a setback to the Caribbean island's efforts to withstand a fiscal crisis.The court ruled 5-2 that Puerto Rico's 2014 law known as the Recovery Act conflicts with US federal bankruptcy law, leaving in place a 2015 appeals court ruling that had invalidated the statute. Only seven justices considered the case because Justice Samuel Alito recused himself and Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, has not yet been replaced. REUTERS SDR BL1950 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0431-784182.Xml President Pranab Mukherjee today called upon leaders of business and industry in Ghana to partner with '' Brand India'' in key sectors to push their economic growth. ''Brand India is today a trusted name across the developing as well as the developed world,'' the President said while addressing India-Ghana Business forum on the day 2 of his three-day visit to the West African country. He said that though Ghana was not unfamiliar with the Indian experience, there was still more scope for Indian business and investment in the country. Mr Mukherjee underlined that the Brand India was trusted because it added value to the resources of the country and it was welcomed because it acted as per the need of the local people. He said Indian entrepreneurs very well knew that developing countries needed to prioritise relevant and eco-friendly technologies that were in sync with the state of economic development of the country. ''If a conducive atmosphere is facilitated, the Indian Government would be ready to work with you in key sectors and areas of common interest and encourage private as well as public sector to bring more investment to Ghana,'' he said. The President pointed out that India was one of the few developing countries where small and medium enterprises thrive alongside large conglomerates, creating jobs and ensuring wealth distribution on the one hand and creating infrastructure development, indigenisation and external business linkages on the other. Mr Mukherjee said there was recognition in India of Ghana being the first sub-Saharan nation that marched ahead to become lower middle income country. The President has arrived here yesterday on his first visit to the country as part of the three-African nation tour with focus on deepening both economic and political partnership with the countries of the region.UNI NAZ RSA 2036 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-784205.Xml Ghana is on the same page as India when it comes to their approach on tackling terrorism and it does not believe in distinguishing between a good terrorist and a bad terrorist. The issue came up during discussions between visiting President Pranab Mukherjee and his Ghanaian counterpart John Dramani Mahama here today. Briefing about the talks, Mr Amar Sinha, Secretary (Economic Relations), Ministry of External Affairs said that both the sides felt that the fight against terrorism should be carried with collective global accord.He further said,''In the fight against terrorism, we cannot go ahead by distinguishing between good and bad terrorism.''Mr Sinha said the two sides also recognised that they can co-operate with each other in many new sectors including mining, energy, agriculture and service.He said Ghana showed interest in co-operating with India for developing civil nuclear energy. Ghana has got its own sources of nuclear energy in the form of Uranium which has been unexploited so far.Mr Sinha said Ghana also wants low cost housing and a centre for energy efficiency in which India can help with its experience and technology.UNI NAZ CJ RSA 2112 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0400-784338.Xml US Secretary of State John Kerry today warned Americans against pointing a finger at one religion or another after a gunman who pledged alliegance to the Islamic State militant group massacred 49 people at a gay night club in Orlando."The worst thing we can do is engage in trying to point fingers at one group or one form of sectarianism or another or one religion or another. Those are not the values of our country," Kerry told reporters as he posed for pictures before a meeting with Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides. REUTERS CJ BD2229 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-784436.Xml More than half of the fatal victims from the shooting in Orlando were of Puerto Rican descent, Rolando Padua, deputy secretary of state for the Puerto Rican government, told Reuters today."What they have informed us so far is that 90 per cent of the victims are Latinos and that more than half of the dead victims are of Puerto Rican origin," Padua said in a brief telephone interview. "We are awaiting an official list of the victims this afternoon." REUTERS AKC0007 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0432-784482.Xml The UAE government has banned the Muslim Brotherhood party and designated it a terrorist organisation, Xinhua reported. The 19 suspects include five Emirati nationals and 14 Yemenis. They are accused of trying to overthrow the UAE government and joining the Muslim Brotherhood. Four of the suspects were sentenced to three years in jail followed by deportation, while fourteen others were given six-month jail time. The rest one was acquitted of all charges. --IANS sku/ ( 112 Words) 2016-06-14-01:14:04 (IANS) MOGADISHU, June 12 (Xinhua) -- At least three people including a soldier were killed and six others injured in clashes between a militia and the Somali National Army (SNA) Sunday in Somalia's central Galmudug state. Deputy Information Minister in Galmudug state, Dahir Farah Fidow, told Xinhua by phone that the clashes occurred at the Kafalo military base when the soldiers were being paid their salaries. "One SNA soldier and two from the militia were killed," Fidow said. "The militia too wanted to be paid salary but the army officers told militia that they are not part of the soldiers who will be paid. This standoff led to the deadly fighting that resulted in (the) three deaths," he added. The minister said the Somali security forces intervened to calm the situation, while the militia were told they could get salaries after being recruited by the government to join the army. COLOMBO, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Three Maldivians from Addu City in Southern Malives, have been recruited by an extremist militant group in Syria, Maldivian local newspaper reported Sunday. The three persons left their country on June 3 and entered Syria later, said the report. According to the report, one of the men informed his family before his arrival in the war-torn Middle Eastern country. As what he said, he would contact with his family after completing training. It is unclear for now which group they have joined. Only several days before they recruits for Jihad, Maldivian government had raised the concern on terrorism. President Abdulla Yameen submitted a policy paper on terrorism and violent extremism to the People's Majlis, asking for "further steps to be taken to address the issue." Local media cited the report of Mumbai Mirror saying, about 150 Maldivians have joined extremist organizations, while at least six of them are believed to have been killed in battles. UNITED NATIONS, June 12 (Xinhua) -- To mark World Day Against Child Labor, two United Nations agencies have launched an e-learning course to ensure child labour prevention measures included in agricultural and rural development programs, particularly those targeting poor smallholders. "To achieve zero hunger, we must also achieve zero child labor," said Jose Graziano da Silva, director-general of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which designed the course along with the International Labour Organization (ILO). "Child labor is certainly a complex issue, and it cannot be tackled alone. We need strong partnerships, where everyone brings expertise and resources to the table," da Silva said in remarks to mark the World Day Against Child Labor, which is observed annually on June 12. The End Child Labor in Agriculture e-course covers the sectors of crops, livestock, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture. Specifically, it consists of 15 lessons, ranging from about 30 to 65 minutes each, grouped into seven units: introduction to child labour in agriculture; identifying and coordinating stakeholders; assessing and generating data and knowledge; incorporating child labour in policies and strategies; addressing child labour in agricultural programs; monitoring, evaluating and reporting; and developing capacity and communicating effectively. FAO and ILO noted that globally, nearly 60 percent of all child labourers -- almost 100 million girls and boys -- work in agriculture. The worse forms of child labour include hazardous work that can harm their health and safety. Da Silva highlighted that agricultural policies and programs can play a unique role in addressing the root causes of child labour, and should be combined with adequate education systems that meet the needs of children and youth in rural areas. Together with social protection, and decent work policies for rural youth and adults, "we have the basic ingredients needed to end child labour in agriculture," he said. Along those lines, Guy Ryder, the ILO director-general, underscored that rural children should expect to benefit from quality education and decent work opportunities in their communities. "Our e-learning course sends a clear message that it is imperative to end child labor in agriculture. This tool will help to build the capacity of agricultural stakeholders as well as labour stakeholders -- and others -- to fully engage where they can best contribute," he said. The new e-course addresses the need to implement labour-saving technologies to reduce demand for child labour as well as safer agricultural practices to reduce hazardous working conditions. The agencies highlighted that an action as simple as properly training oxen used to plough can make a difference. In some places, where oxen are not well-trained, children are harnessed in front of them as guides, they noted. In addition, FAO and ILO emphasized that in many countries, children are commonly engaged in weeding. Technologies and practices that save time required for weeding -- for example, systems of rice intensification using row planting combined with mechanical weeders -- can therefore decrease the demand for child labor. The course was co-funded by the government of the Netherlands. It is currently available in English and will soon be available in French and Spanish, the agencies said. ILO launched the World Day Against Child Labor in 2002 to focus attention on the global extent of child labor and the action and efforts needed to eliminate it. Each year on June 12, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers organizations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child laborers and what can be done to help them. Around the world, large numbers of children are engaged in paid or unpaid domestic work in the home of a third party or employer. These children can be particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Their work is often hidden from the public eye, they may be isolated, and they may be working far away from their family home. This year, the focus for World Day Against Child Labor is on child labour and supply chains. With 168 million children still in child labor, all supply chains, from agriculture to manufacturing, services to construction, run the risk that child labour may be present. "Child labour has no place in well-functioning and well regulated markets, or in any supply chain. The message that we must act now to stop child labour once and for all has been affirmed by the Sustainable Development Goals," Guy Ryder, the ILO director-general, said, referring to the 17 global development targets for the next 15 years. "Acting together, it is within our means to make the future of work a future without child labour." NEW DELHI, June 12 (Xinhua) -- At least four Indian policemen were wounded, two of them critically, Sunday after militants attacked their vehicle in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said. The attack was carried out near Qazigund town of Kulgam district, about 72 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. "This evening militants fired upon a police vehicle at village Bonigam here, wounding four policemen," a police official posted in Qazigund told Xinhua. "Of the wounded policemen, the condition of two was stated to be critical." Police officials said the policemen were on a visit to the village in connection with some local dispute, when militants attacked them. The wounded policemen were immediately removed to nearest medical facility, wherefrom they were referred to Srinagar for specialized treatment. "All the four policemen had bullet wounds but condition of two of them was critical," a health official posted at trauma hospital Qazigund said. Police officials said the policemen also fired in retaliation following the attack and the exchange between the two sides continued for about five minutes. Authorities rushed in police and paramilitary troopers to the village to nab militants. However, none was arrested until last reports came in. Reports said militants managed to flee from the spot after carrying out the attack. This is the third militant attack in past nine days in the southern towns. Earlier this month militants attacked a convoy of Indian border guards in Bijbehara town killing three Border Security Force personnel and wounding nine others. Subsequently on June 5, militants shot dead two policemen at bus station in Anantnag town. Last month four policemen were killed in Srinagar and Pulwama and militants also snatched away two service rifles of the slain policemen. A local commander of region's indigenous militant outfit -- Hizbul Mujahideen -- Burhan Wani in a video message has warned of intensifying attacks on policemen. Gunfights between the militants and Indian troops takes place intermittently across the region. Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan is claimed by both in full. Since their Independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir. Enditem KHARTOUM, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Sudan's Higher Coordination Committee of the National Dialogue (7+7 mechanism) has determined August 6 as the date for convening the general assembly of the national dialogue conference to approve the final recommendations of the dialogue. The committee on Sunday held a meeting, chaired by Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. "Contacts will continue with the rejecting parties, whether inside or outside, to convince them to join the dialogue process," Ahmed Bilal Osman, Sudan's information minister and member of the mechanism, told reporters following the meeting. "The period set until the convocation of the general assembly is enough for those willing to join to come on board," he noted. He explained that the general assembly would approve 900 recommendations to become final outcomes to be included in the coming permanent constitution. In October 2015, the Sudanese government launched the national dialogue conference with the participation of a number of Sudanese political parties, civil society organizations and some Darfur armed groups. However, major political parties and armed movements have refused to participate in the conference, including the Revolutionary Front Alliance, which brings together the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)/ northern sector and the major Darfur armed movements. The conference discussed six major issues: peace, identity, rights and freedoms, economy, external relations and governance. In January 2014, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir declared an initiative calling on the opposition parties and the armed groups to join a national dialogue to end the country's crises. Enditem NEW DELHI, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The Delhi government Sunday ordered a probe after a prominent eatery refused to serve food to a group of street children belonging to poor families. Delhi's Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia described the incident as "inhuman" and said that the restaurant in central Delhi would not be allowed to operate if allegations turned out to be true after the magisterial probe ordered by him. "This is typical colonial mindset. This cannot be tolerated. This is inhuman. Our constitution speaks of equality. I guess, the license will also be cancelled," the Deputy Chief Minister said after local TV channels beamed the report. In fact, the street children were taken to the restaurant by a woman who wanted to celebrate her husband's birthday in a unique way. "There is no difference between the rich and the poor. But if you are poor, you are not allowed to sit and eat," she said. However, the eatery has defended its decision, saying that the children were creating trouble and disturbing other customers. Enditem JOHANNESBURG, June 12 (Xinhua) -- A mediation team has been sent to Canada to assist in resolving a wage dispute involving South African firefighters who are on a strike while working in Canada, the government said on Sunday. Hundreds of South African firefighters downed tools while fighting a forest fire in Alberta, Canada to press their demand for higher pay. The Canadian authorities have ordered them to leave the country, but the fire fighters insist that they get their pay first. The standoff prompted President Jacob Zuma to instruct Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa to intervene in resolving the matter. Molewa said on Sunday that she is confident that the matter can be resolved in a mutually satisfactory manner, failing which the fire fighters will be demobilized and return safely back to South Africa. The minister said she concurs fully with sentiment expressed by Alberta Governor Rachel Notley that remuneration for the firefighters should be fair and equitable. The South African side will continue to engage directly with Working on Fire (WOF), the implementing agent that dispatched the firefighters, and with the Canadian government on the conditions under which South African firefighters are deployed both now and in future, Molewa said. The 301 firefighters were deployed to the Canadian province earlier this month to assist with wildfire suppression, as part of a resource sharing agreement with Canadian fire fighting agencies. Established in 2003, WOF has received international recognition for its role in supporting conservation and sustaining ecosystems and community improvement through the provision of job opportunities and skills and training of participants. Enditem WASHINGTON, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Responding to the deadliest single shooting incident in U.S. history, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Sunday he is right for being tough on radical Islamic terrorism. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism," Trump tweeted. "I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart." In an earlier tweet after the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida that left 50 people dead and 53 injured, Trump called it as a "horrific incident" while "Praying for all the victims & their families." "When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?" the tweet said. The brash billionaire was apparently referring to his stance that the U.S. should be tougher on fighting radical Islamic terrorism. Trump had blasted the Obama administration for being too soft on fighting terrorism as demonstrated by its refusal to even use the term "radical Islamic terrorism." Trump has also previously stirred up controversy by vowing to impose a temporary ban on the entry to the U.S. by all Muslims. In a campaign speech in Iowa last November, Trump promised that he will go after the terror group Islamic State (IS) and "bomb the s--- out of them." No group, including the IS, has so far claimed responsibility for the Sunday shooting. And it remained unknown if Omar Mateen, the gunman in the Orlando shooting, was motivated by the terror group, though U.S. news media reports said he called 911 before the shooting to swear allegiance to IS. Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton tweeted earlier than Trump that she woke up to hear "the devastating news" from Florida. "As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act," Clinton said in the tweet. U.S. authorities are working hard to determine whether the shooting attack is an act of terrorism. Danny Banks, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said that the shooting was being investigated as an act of terrorism. "Do we consider this an act of terrorism? Absolutely, we are investigating this from all parties' perspective as an act of terrorism," said Banks. Ronald Hopper, an assistant special FBI agent in charge, said the authorities now had "suggestions that the individual may have leanings toward" ideology held by IS. But he added that "right now we can't say definitively." Reports said the parents of Mateen, a 29-year-old U.S.-born citizen, were from Afghanistan. ABC News quoted U.S. law enforcement officials as saying that Mateen was "on the radar" of U.S. officials for some time, but he was not the target of a specific investigation. BEIRUT, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Two people were slightly injured in an explosion that rocked the western part of Lebanon's capital city of Beirut, the National News Agency (NNA) reported. The NNA quoted the head of the Lebanese Red Cross operations Georges Kettaneh as saying that two people were slightly injured in the explosion that went off near the headquarters of the BLOM bank in Verdun. Preliminary investigations revealed the weight of the explosion device is two kilograms that were hidden in a suitcase left near the headquarters of BLOM bank. Enditem NEW YORK, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in a shooting spree at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which became the worst mass shooting incident in the U.S. history. The following are the major shooting incidents in the United States that caused deadly casualties in the past decades. On June 12, 2016, a gunman killed at least 50 people and injured 53 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. On April 16, 2007, a 23-year-old student from the Republic of Korea went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg of Virginia, killing 32 people and wounding 15 others before killing himself. It was the worst school shooting in the U.S. history. On Dec. 14, 2012, 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 28 people including 20 children and eight adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Lanza first killed his mother at their shared home before taking her guns and driving to the school. The incident was the second-deadliest school shooting by a single person in U.S. history, after the 2007 Virginia Tech University shootings. On Oct. 16, 1991, a 35-year-old gunman crashed his truck through the wall of a Cafeteria in Kileen, Texas, and shot dead 23 people and wounded 27 others. He then committed suicide. On July 18, 1984, a 41-year-old gunman killed 21 adults and children at a local McDonalds in San Ysidro, California before he was killed by a SWAT team sniper. On Aug. 1, 1966, a former U.S. Marine killed 14 and wounded at least 30 while shooting from a University of Texas tower in Austin, Texas. Police officers shot the gunman dead in the tower. Before he went on the shooting, he murdered his wife and his mother in their homes. On Dec. 2, 2015, a married couple shot 14 people dead and wounded 17 in a conference hall at a service center for disabled people where county employees gathered for a celebration in San Bernardino, California. On Aug. 20, 1986, a part-time mail carrier armed with three handguns killed 14 postal workers in Edmond, Oklahoma in 10 minutes before killing himself. On Nov. 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people and injured 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in a shooting rampage. He was convicted and sentenced to death. On April 3, 2009, Jiverly Wong killed 13 people and injured four during a shooting at an immigrant community center in Binghamton, New York, and then took his own life. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before committing suicide in the school library in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. On Feb. 18, 1983, three men entered the Wah Mee gambling and social club in Seattle, Washington, robbed the 14 occupants and shot 13 of them dead. On Sept. 25, 1982, a prison guard killed 13 people including five of his own children in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. On Sept. 5, 1949, a 28-year-old veteran of World War II, shot dead 13 people in Camden, New Jersey. He was found insane and was committed to a state mental institution. On Sept. 16, 2013, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis fired inside the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12. He was also killed in the shooting. On July 20, 2012, a heavily-armed 24-year-old gunman killed 12 people and 58 wounded in a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. On July 29, 1999, a 44-year-old man killed his wife and two children at his home, and then shot dead nine people and injured 12 in two different brokerage houses in Atlanta, Georgia. On March 10, 2009, Michael McLendon of Kinston in Alabama killed 10 people including his mother, grandparents, aunt and uncle, and then committed suicide. An average of about 33,000 people were killed by guns each year in the U.S. in the past five years, according to the data released by the U.S. Center of Disease Control. Reports said that during Obama's seven and half years in office, he has come out to address a major shooting tragedy for a total of 15 times. So far gun violence has not been a major political issue during this election season. It remains unknown if the latest shooting will ignite heated debate on gun control among the presidential candidates. KHARTOUM, June 12 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan's Minister of Minerals Taban Deng on Sunday said his country is rich in minerals wealth, with 44 percent of area contains gold, copper and other precious minerals. "Forty-four percent of South Sudan's area has evidences of a number of minerals, particularly gold, diamonds and other precious minerals," Deng said. He made the remarks following talks with Sudan's Minister of Minerals Ahmed Mohamed Sadiq Al-Karuri in Khartoum. Deng said he visited Khartoum to get acquainted with the geological information of South Sudan, which was part of Sudan before its cessation in 2011. Meanwhile, his Sudanese counterpart told reporters that his country was ready to give the information to South Sudan. "The Geological Research Authority, which belongs to the Minerals Ministry, maintains important geological information when Sudan was united," he said. Deng arrived in Khartoum on Saturday on an official visit, leading a high-level delegation to get acquainted with Sudan's experience in the field of minerals. Enditem CAIRO/DAMASCUS, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS)-linked news agency Amaq said on Sunday that the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting that killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. "The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," said Amaq in a short English statement that went online Sunday evening. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in the shooting at the popular gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida. It is the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. The IS has a recorded history in targeting homosexuals in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq, from tossing them from rooftops to stoning them to death. ALGIERS, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The Algerian capital on Sunday held the 3rd Algeria-U.S. meeting on security, as instability hitting the Sahel region, including Libya and Mali, was in the agenda of the discussions. The meeting was co-chaired by Algerian Minister for Maghreb Affairs, the African Union and the Arab League, Abdelkader Messahel, and the Coordinator for Counter-terrorism at the U.S. Department of State, Justin Siberell. "Algeria plays a leading role in the region and has always worked for stability," Siberell told reporters after the meeting. The U.S. official hailed Algeria's "leadership" in counter-terrorism, recalling that this North Africa nation is a founding member of the Global Counter-terrorism Forum (GCTF). The meeting was "very interesting and fruitful" as members of the two delegations discussed several issues, particularly the recent developments in the region and the "strong" cooperation between the both countries in security and the fight against terrorism. "We are seeking to further strengthen this very strong partnership in the future, through seizing every opportunity like we did today through very interesting discussions," Siberell said. For his part, Abdelkader Messahel said "We have shared analysis and have had extensive discussion about our experiences in the fight against terrorism." "We have also exchanged views on international strategy against terrorism which is a global threat and requires a global response," he said. Messahel said the unstable security situation in Mali and Libya was on the agenda of this meeting, as he urged to restore peace in these two neighboring nations. The peace process underway in Libya must be completed and it is necessary to enable the national unity government to play its role. As for Mali, Messahel called upon Malians to make further efforts to fulfill and make their underway peace process a success. Enditem ALGIERS, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal on Sunday met with visiting Commander of the U.S. Command for Africa (AFRICOM), General David M. Rodriguez, to discuss the security situation in chaos-ridden Libya and the Sahel region. General Rodriguez is visiting the North African nation as part of the 3rd Algerian-U.S. meeting on security, a statement of the Prime Minister Office said. The two officials exchanged views on a number of issues relating to the security situation in Africa, especially in the sub-region, the source said, adding that they discussed the latest developments in the Sahel region, especially in Libya, as well as assessing efforts being undertaken so far for restoring peace and stability there. Earlier in the day, Coordinator for Counter-terrorism at the U.S. Department of State coordinator of the U.S. Department, Justin Siberell acknowledged that Algeria had "a leading role in the region" and has always worked in favor of promoting peace and stability. In late August 2014, General David Rodriguez, who was on a visit to Algeria, had indicated that the North African nation is a key partner and AFRICOM endorses its commitment for a unified Libya and for reconciliation and peace in Mali. AFRICOM and Algeria have been holding recurrent meetings to coordinate counter-terrorism efforts and exchange views over prevailing crisis in Africa. AFRICOM is one of nine Unified Combatant Commands of the United States Armed Forces, responsible for U.S. military operations and military relations with 53 African nations. Enditem LOS ANGELES, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- A police takes photos for evidence in Santa Monica, California, the United States, June 12, 2016. Santa Monica police arrested a man armed with a gun and seized a car with explosives here on Sunday morning hours before a gay pride parade in West Hollywood. (Xinhua/Yang Lei) LOS ANGELES, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Santa Monica police arrested a man armed with a gun and seized a car with explosives here on Sunday morning hours before a gay pride parade in West Hollywood. FBI agents confirmed the arrest hours after the gay club mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. The man told police that he was in town for the pride parade, the Los Angeles Times reported. The 46th annual Los Angeles Pride Parade, one of the biggest public festivals celebrating gay, lesbian and other alternate lifestyles, was to continue along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood Sunday. Normally, about 400,000 people will party at the celebration for freedom in diversified sexual orientation. The parade has been held every year since 1970 in Hollywood and was moved to West Hollywood in 1979. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told media that they were assisting the Santa Monica Police Department with the arrest of an individual, but would not supply any details. Some unnamed police officials noted that there were explosives in the car. "Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said the sheriff's department. "In light of the unfortunate shooting incident in Orlando, Florida, the Sheriff's Department is fully prepared to respond to a similar situation," said Sheriff Lieutenant Edward Ramirez. He said the security forces have been increased to ensure people are safe at the Pride Weekend. "We, as a department, are in heightened awareness, and our Criminal Intelligence Bureau has been activated today to gather and disseminate information, as they receive it." UNITED NATIONS, June 12 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned the "horrific attack" in Orlando in the U.S. state of Florida, in which 50 people were killed earlier in the day. The secretary-general "extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the government and people of the United States," said a statement issued here by Ban's spokesman. A gunman wielding an assault-type rife and a handgun killed at least 50 people in a nightclub in Orlando early Sunday in the worst mass shooting in the U.S. history. U.S. President Barack Obama decried the tragedy as an "act of terror." The Islamic State-linked news agency, Amaq, said the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. Enditem A police takes photos for evidence in Santa Monica, California, the United States, June 12, 2016. Santa Monica police arrested a man armed with a gun and seized a car with explosives here on Sunday morning hours before a gay pride parade in West Hollywood. (Xinhua/Yang Lei) LOS ANGELES, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Santa Monica police arrested a man armed with a gun and seized a car with explosives here on Sunday morning hours before a gay pride parade in West Hollywood. FBI agents confirmed the arrest hours after the gay club mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. The man told police that he was in town for the pride parade, the Los Angeles Times reported. California Highwat Patrol officers provide security for the 2016 Gay Pride Parade June 12, 20116 in Los Angeles, California. Security for the tightened in the aftermath of the deadly shootings June 12 at the Pulse, a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (AFP/ Mark Ralston) The 46th annual Los Angeles Pride Parade, one of the biggest public festivals celebrating gay, lesbian and other alternate lifestyles, was to continue along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood Sunday. Normally, about 400,000 people will party at the celebration for freedom in diversified sexual orientation. The parade has been held every year since 1970 in Hollywood and was moved to West Hollywood in 1979. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told media that they were assisting the Santa Monica Police Department with the arrest of an individual, but would not supply any details. Some unnamed police officials noted that there were explosives in the car. "Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said the sheriff's department. "In light of the unfortunate shooting incident in Orlando, Florida, the Sheriff's Department is fully prepared to respond to a similar situation," said Sheriff Lieutenant Edward Ramirez. He said the security forces have been increased to ensure people are safe at the Pride Weekend. "We, as a department, are in heightened awareness, and our Criminal Intelligence Bureau has been activated today to gather and disseminate information, as they receive it." SAN FRANCISCO, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Two U.S. researchers have foreseen dramatic population declines in Mexico, Central America, Africa, India and other tropical locales due to climate change. Solomon Hsiang, Chancellor's Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Sobel, a professor of applied physics and math at Columbia University, suggest that global warming by just 2 degrees Celsius is likely to force some tropical plant, animal and human populations to relocate hundreds of kilometers from their current homes. Earth's temperature rise of average 2 degrees this century is considered "optimistic" compared to business-as-usual forecasts. Using a model to demonstrate how climate dynamics in the tropics can magnify the consequences of warming as it is experienced on the ground, the pair conclude in a research published in the latest issue of journal Scientific Reports that even small changes can have dramatic impacts. "We're not making specific predictions about migration patterns of individual species, but the geophysical constraint is that, as the tropics get hotter, you'll have to go far, essentially leaving the tropics, to cool off," said Sobel. And because the tropics are uniformly hot, when things get hotter by a small amount, populations will have to move far to find relief. While the researchers describe climate-related displacements in the tropics as "an almost complete evacuation of the equatorial band" that could impact ecosystems as well as human well-being, Hsiang explains it with an analogy: "Imagine you have a fixed budget you can spend on your apartment and rents are the same throughout your entire neighborhood. If all the rents go up, even by just a little bit, you might have to move very far to find a new place you can afford." "We know that people and species of all kinds move for all kinds of reasons, not just to stay at the same temperature," said Sobel. "At the same time, the uniformity of tropical temperatures is a basic fact about the temperature structure of Earth, and still will be as the climate changes." The authors report that some oceanic and continental populations would have to move as far as 1,000 miles, about 1,600 kilometers, or more to stay within their "temperature budget." Simulations suggest the cooler edges of the tropics could get crowded, where populations might theoretically climb by 300 percent or higher. At those densities, disease and conflict over resources, among other issues, would bring their own complications. Cautious in applying their findings to human populations, since moving is only one of many strategies humans will use to cope with warming, the two researchers note that extraordinary human migrations cannot be ruled out. LOS ANGELES, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Santa Monica police said on Monday that a man with a gun and explosives in his car had plans to harm the gay pride parade in West Hollywood. The man identified as James Howell of Indiana was arrested on 11th Street south of Olympic Boulevard on Sunday morning, hours before the parade. The 20-year-old told police that he wants to "harm gay pride event." The suspect's white Acura sedan had Indiana license plates. The location where the car was found and Howell was arrested is about seven miles from the site of the parade. The suspect's car "was full of weapons, long rifles, ammunition and explosive materials -- not explosives but the powder for explosives," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. Police officers meticulously searched the suspect's car throughout the day, setting some items on the sidewalk next to the vehicle, including a gas tank, a backpack, what appeared to be ammunition magazines, a camouflage outfit and other rifle accessories. The front of the car was smeared with insect debris, indicating it had been driven a great distance cross-country. The 46th annual Los Angeles Pride Parade, one of the biggest public festivals celebrating gay, lesbian and other alternate lifestyles, was to continue along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood Sunday. Normally, about 400,000 people will party at the celebration for freedom in diversified sexual orientation. The parade has been held every year since 1970 in Hollywood and was moved to West Hollywood in 1979. "Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said the sheriff's department. "In light of the unfortunate shooting incident in Orlando, Florida, the Sheriff's Department is fully prepared to respond to a similar situation," said Sheriff Lieutenant Edward Ramirez. He said the security has been beefed up to ensure the safety at the Pride Weekend. "We, as a department, are in heightened awareness, and our Criminal Intelligence Bureau has been activated today to gather and disseminate information, as they receive it." A police takes photos for evidence in Santa Monica, California, the United States, June 12, 2016. Santa Monica police arrested a man armed with a gun and seized a car with explosives here on Sunday morning hours before a gay pride parade in West Hollywood. (Xinhua/Yang Lei) LOS ANGELES, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Santa Monica police said on Monday that a man with a gun and explosives in his car had plans to harm the gay pride parade in West Hollywood. The man identified as James Howell of Indiana was arrested on 11th Street south of Olympic Boulevard on Sunday morning, hours before the parade. The 20-year-old told police that he wants to "harm gay pride event." The suspect's white Acura sedan had Indiana license plates. The location where the car was found and Howell was arrested is about seven miles from the site of the parade. The suspect's car "was full of weapons, long rifles, ammunition and explosive materials -- not explosives but the powder for explosives," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. Police officers meticulously searched the suspect's car throughout the day, setting some items on the sidewalk next to the vehicle, including a gas tank, a backpack, what appeared to be ammunition magazines, a camouflage outfit and other rifle accessories. The front of the car was smeared with insect debris, indicating it had been driven a great distance cross-country. Police stand by to provide security for the 2016 Gay PrideParade June 12, 20116 in Los Angeles, California. Security for the tightened in the aftermath of the deadly shootings June 12 at the Pulse, a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (AFP/Mark Ralston) The 46th annual Los Angeles Pride Parade, one of the biggest public festivals celebrating gay, lesbian and other alternate lifestyles, was to continue along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood Sunday. Normally, about 400,000 people will party at the celebration for freedom in diversified sexual orientation. The parade has been held every year since 1970 in Hollywood and was moved to West Hollywood in 1979. "Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said the sheriff's department. "In light of the unfortunate shooting incident in Orlando, Florida, the Sheriff's Department is fully prepared to respond to a similar situation," said Sheriff Lieutenant Edward Ramirez. He said the security has been beefed up to ensure the safety at the Pride Weekend. "We, as a department, are in heightened awareness, and our Criminal Intelligence Bureau has been activated today to gather and disseminate information, as they receive it." TOKYO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo shares opened the trading Monday sharply lower as sentiment here was weighed by the uncertainty of the Britain's referendum on its European Union membership later this month. At 9:15 a.m., the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average plunged 347.81 points, or 2.10 percent, from Friday to 16,253.55. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 28.76 points, or 2.16 percent, to 1,301.96. HAVANA, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The "Germinal" frigate from the French National Navy arrived in Havana's port on Sunday for a four-day friendly visit. The French F-735 light monitoring vessel, with a crew of around 100 sailors, was welcomed by Sea Captain Jose Luis Souto Galindo, second in command of Cuba's Department of the Navy, and French ambassador Jean Marie Bruno. The commander of the "Germinal," navy captain Michel Vaxelaire, said this has been their third visit to Cuba since 2012. They hope the visits will boost ties between the two countries and also help them learn about Cuba's culture. Based in the French port of Fort-de-France in Martinique, the "Germinal" is a Floreal class vessel measuring 93 meters in length and weighing 3,000 displacement tons. It is armed with a multi-purpose 100-millimeter cannon, two Exocet missile launchers, a decoy Dagie launcher system, two 20-millimeter cannons and a full range of electronic detection and countermeasure systems. SINGAPORE, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Singaporean leaders early Monday expressed condolences over the U.S. Orlando nightclub shooting, in which at least 50 people were killed. Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security Teo Chee Hean, who is Acting Prime Minister when Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is on leave this week, said he was "saddened by the loss of lives in the attack." Teo wrote in his Facebook post that "our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones, and to those who are suffering from the trauma of the shooting." He also called on Singaporeans to treasure the peace and harmony in the country and focus on the common humanity, rather than allow those with bad motives to divide Singaporeans or create conflicts. Singapore's President Tony Tan Keng Yam, who is on the way back to Singapore from a visit, also expressed his condolences. Tony Tan said he was "saddened by the loss of so many innocent lives." "Any act of terror is senseless and should be condemned in the strongest terms," the president wrote in his Facebook post. Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan also felt saddened by "the senseless and tragic shootings at Orlando," saying "our deepest condolences and prayers for the victims and their families." The Islamic State-linked news agency Amaq said on Sunday that the militant group claimed responsibility for the mass shooting that occurred earlier in the day at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday called the shooting an "act of terror" and "act of hate." ORLANDO, the United States, June 12 (Xinhua) -- No Chinese national has been found among the victims of the Florida nightclub mass shooting so far, the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston said Sunday. The consulate-general informed Xinhua over phone that U.S. law enforcement has not finished identifying the victims as of 7 p.m.(2300 GMT), but no Chinese was identified as of Sunday night. U.S. authorities have released only six names of the victims killed in the worst mass shooting incident in U.S. history, and are still in the process of identifying the rest of the victims. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer in the incident early Sunday. The Consulate-General in Houston said it has established direct contact with the U.S. authorities, and would be informed immediately if any Chinese nationals were among the injured and killed. YANGON, June 13 (Xinhua) -- A breakthrough has been achieved in revising the framework for political dialogue between the government and the armed groups, official media reported Monday. Tin Myo Win, chairman of the Preparatory Committee for Holding the 21st Century Panglong Ethnic Conference of Myanmar, made the announcement after a four-day meeting in Yangon which ended Sunday. He said non-signatories to the Nationwide Cease fire Accord (NCA) would be invited again to participate in the framework review meeting to allow them to join the Panglong conference. The 21st Century Panglong Ethnic Conference is expected to be held in late July or August. The preparatory committee meeting has set a precedent for the review of the amendment to the framework of the political dialogue, aiming to attract ethnic armed groups who are yet to sign the NCA. Myanmar previous government and eight ethnic armed groups out of 15 signed the NCA on Oct. 15, 2015. Following the signing, a union-level Joint Cease fire Monitoring Committee (JCMC) was formed, along with a tripartite Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee which was to draft a framework for holding political dialogue as part of the implementation of the NCA. YANGON, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj will pay a working visit to Myanmar starting Tuesday, local media reported Monday. During his three-day working visit to Myanmar, Elbegdorj will meet his Myanmar counterpart U Htin Kyaw, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and government officials, a spokesman for the President's Office U Zaw Htay said. A natural resources management- related workshop as well as a joint conference will also be held during the president's visit, spokesman of the Foreign Ministry U Kyaw Zeya said. Elbegdorj will be the second world leader to visit Myanmar after Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as the new government took office in April. In November 2013, President Elbegdorj paid a state visit to Myanmar and the two countries signed an agreement on mutual visa exemption for holders of diplomatic and special passports of citizens of the two countries. The president then addressed a Myanmar-Mongolia business forum in Yangon and also delivered a speech at the Yangon University on experience of reform in Mongolia. BRASILIA, May 12, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer(C), holds the Senate notice promoting him to acting president in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, on May 12, 2016. The Brazilian Senate Thursday voted to continue the impeachment process against President Dilma Rousseff, suspending her from office for 180 days. (Xinhua/AGENCIA ESTADO, file photo) BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The political change in Brazil featuring interim President Michel Temer's government reshuffle and major policy shift has posed a test of the capability of the five-nation bloc of BIRCS to promote economic development through multilateral cooperation. Temer has made a radical reshuffle of Brazil's cabinet and adjusted the country's external policies as of Sunday, one month after President Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office pending her impeachment trial. Analysts said Brazil's interim government is likely to put its cooperation with other BRICS countries -- Russia, India, China and South Africa -- in a secondary place. Whether the BRICS countries stand united and whether their cooperation mechanism functions smoothly will be crucial for the development of the bloc. MAJOR SHIFT IN FOREIGN POLICIES Brazil always valued its cooperative relations with other BRICS countries after the birth of the bloc in 2009. However, the political developments in Brazil since the suspension of Rousseff from office are resulting in readjustment of its foreign policies. Interim Foreign Minister Jose Serra outlined new priorities in foreign policies in his first public appearance on May 18. According to him, Brazil would instead put emphasis on bilateral ties with Argentina and Mexico and, meanwhile, make it a priority to restore the "traditional partnerships" with the United States, Europe and Japan. On cooperation with other BRICS countries, Serra said Brazil will seize opportunities brought about by this mechanism with an eye to enhancing trade and investment cooperation among its members. A subtle difference was noticed from the terms frequently used by Rousseff such as "strategic cooperation" and "diplomatic priorities." Amid the volatile political situation in Brazil, the fate of Rousseff remains to be seen before the last two rounds of vote at the Senate. Zhou Zhiwei, executive director of the Brazil Research Center, a unit of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that no matter what the final result is, the fermenting political crisis could lead to a "backtrack" in the foreign policy of Brazil and affect its dedication to the BRICS mechanism in the short term. BRICS TRANSFORMED The term BRIC, coined by Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O'Neill in 2001, refers to the grouping of the four fast-growing emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In 2006, Goldman set up the BRIC Fund, which generated fairly good returns for its investors in the first few years. However, with sharp declines in prices of commodities since 2013, BRICS experienced a slowdown in economic growth. Brazil and Russia even registered negative economic growths. In November 2015, the BRIC Fund was finally closed. Western media see the closure as a sign of BRICS on the decline, and some even started to talk about the "death of BRICS" and the potential collapse of the cooperative mechanism among the bloc members. Zhou holds a different point of view. The unfavorable external environment might be an incentive for the members of the bloc to boost their cooperation, he said. "The fundamental strengths of BRICS, such as the market and population mass, won't go away for the cyclical downturns of some BRICS members. They still will shine in future economic development," Zhou said. "Since the creation of the BRICS summit, the bloc has been more than just an economic concept. It is a platform for the emerging economies to exert their influence on the global economic arena," said Shen Yi, director of the Center for BRICS Studies at Fudan University. IN-DEPTH COOPERATION KEY TO BRICS' DEVELOPMENT In July 2014, BRICS leaders unveiled plans to establish the New Development Bank (NDB) and a contingent reserve arrangement (CRA). A year later, the NDB was formally established, headquartered in Shanghai. The move, aimed at boosting the independence of developing economies, has been viewed by Western media as an attempt to challenge the existing international financial framework dominated by developed economies. In a sign of its efficiency, the NDB announced in April this year that it will provide 811 million U.S. dollars of financing for four renewable energy projects in Brazil, India, China and South Africa. Zhou said that in the wake of Rousseff's suspension from office, it is possible for Brazil to backtrack in its foreign policy. He suggested that the BRICS countries strengthen their economic ties and optimize the NCB and CRA mechanisms so as to avoid their cooperation being affected by the potential spillover from domestic political changes. It is important for the BRICS members to meet on the sidelines of multilateral conferences to coordinate their policies, Zhou said. Shen said the BRICS countries can further their cooperation in market access, foreign reserves and counter-cyclical long-term loans. Shen said China could play a leading role in prompting BRICS members to strengthen their cooperation mechanism in face of crises. "In this way, BRICS could evolve into a more closely knit community underpinned by common interests and have more say in global economic governance," Shen said. Nepal 's former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai speaks during the formal announcement of his party "Naya Shakti", meaning New Force, in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, June 12, 2016. (Xinhua Photo by Sunil Sharma) KATHMANDU, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Former Prime Minister of Nepal Dr Baburam Bhattarai on Sunday announced the establishment of a new political party under his leadership with the agenda of economic prosperity of the Himalayan nation. Bhattarai's new party is named as "Naya Shakti," which means New Force in English. Addressing the inaugural ceremony at the presence of thousands of well-wishers, party cadres and various political party leaders at Dasarath Stadium here in the capital, Bhattarai declared that his party has given top most priority to economic development of the country. "We can make Nepal one of the richest nations of the world within period of 25 years by developing it as a bridge between the global economies China and India," Bhattarai said while addressing the inaugural session. Bhattarai had announced his resignation as the Vice-president of the Unified CPN Maoist in last September, ending a 25-year-long affiliation with the party, following a serious rift with the party Chairman Puspa Kamal Dahal. Bhattarai, who is regarded as a mastermind of 10-year-long Maoist insurgency from 1996 to 2006, was elected as the country's 35th prime minister in 2011. After administering the 10-point-oath to members of the new party Sunday, Bhattarai said that "New Force Nepal" would work to protect national independence, inclusive democracy and republicanism. Stating that his party is different from other political parties, Bhattarai stressed on ensuring proportional representation of all communities including Arya, Indigenous Nationalities and Madhesis to achieve peace and stability in the nation. Bhattarai further expressed a commitment to respect and promote rights of all social groups and to work for the welfare of next generations. The new political force has claimed of having more than 100,000 members across the nation including intellectuals, experts and civil society leaders. Leaders of major political parties including Nepalese Prime Minster KP Sharma Oli had attended the party announcement ceremony. There have been mixed responses in Nepal over the emergence of the new party under Bhattarai's leadership. On her Twitter Post, Saraswati Subba, a renowned civil society activist in Nepal, doubt over the new party's success on its mission. On his Twitter Post, Former Finance Minister Dr. Ramsharan Mahat has welcomed the party's vision to achieve economic prosperity in the country. ISLAMABAD, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Army said late Sunday that the Afghan forces fired at the Torkham border crossing, injuring a soldier from the Pakistani side. An army statement said the Afghan forces started firing after Pakistan was constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement of terrorists through Torkham. "At about 2120 hrs tonight Afghan Security forces resorted to unprovoked firing on Pakistani side at Torkham Gate," it said. A Pakistani soldier was injured due to Afghan firing. The army said Pakistani security forces responded to the Afghan firing effectively. Torkham is the most frequented crossing point at Pak-Afghan Border and recently even most of the terrorists have been found using this gate for entry, the statement said. Spokesman for Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province Attaullah Khogyani confirmed the exchange of firing. He did not give more details. Afghan media quoted a border official, Muhammad Ayub Hussain Khel, as claiming that both sides exchanged firing around 9 p.m. "The Pakistani forces had first started firing," he said in reported comments. The firing incident occurred days after Pakistani introduced a new mechanism along the border that requires every Afghan to carry travel documents for entering Pakistan. Earlier thousands Afghans living near the border would cross into Pakistan without passports and visas. Pakistan has said the new system is put in place to curb the cross-border movement of the militants who would take advantage of the loose border monitoring system. ISLAMABAD, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Monday condemned the mass shooting at a nightclub in the U.S. city of Orlando, which left at least 50 people dead and 53 others wounded. "As head of government and representative of the people of Pakistan, I am deeply saddened by the gruesome act of terrorism in Orlando, Florida," Nawaz Sharif said. "No innocent man, woman or child should ever feel afraid of being shot or killed for being who they are in a progressive and democratic society," the Pakistani prime minister said in a statement. He said the attack was against every principle of pluralism, tolerance and humanity that "we have been striving for." "It is just another representation of a cancer of radicalization - one that we promise to fight every day of our lives," Sharif added. The Orlando nightclub shooting, which occurred early Sunday, is the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. TOKYO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo shares Monday ended the morning session sharply lower amid cautions and worries over Britain's EU referendum. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average tumbled 432.88 points, or 2.61 percent, from Friday to 16,168.48. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 35.31 points, or 2.65 percent, to 1,295.41. BUENOS AIRES, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Argentina's agribusiness giant owner Gustavo Grobocopatel, better known as the "Soybean King," said he wants to replicate his landless production model network in China. Grobocopatel, president of his family's agroindustrial group Los Grobo, which earns 700 million U.S. dollars a year, said Argentina and China are complementary in agriproduction. "Argentina is a food producer. With 40 million inhabitants, it produces enough food for 400 million and it can likely produce enough for 800 million people," he said during a recent interview with Xinhua. While farming is Los Grobo's business, Grobocopatel and his family are not land owners. Instead they lease the land or work with farmers to cultivate crops, and provide financing, technical or marketing know-how, seeds or other input. "The 21st-century world is a world of flows. It doesn't matter who owns the land, capital and labor force, but how you manage the land, capital and labor," he said. Land can be leased, labor can be outsourced and capital can be borrowed, he noted. Grobocopatel said his agricultural paradigm relies less on ownership of land and machinery, and more on knowledge and technological advance at the service of a network of producers and suppliers working together. "This model can be applied to China," he said. To help replicate the landless production network abroad, he said they have developed a line of consulting and transferring know-how to other governments, which is going to generate more opportunities for the farmers of the 21st century. "I would like to work in China in this area starting now," said Grobocopatel, who has already promoted the concept in Colombia, Mexico and Albania. Each year Los Grobo produces more than 300,000 tons of soybeans, 100,000 tons of wheat, 100,000 tons of corn, and at least 10,000 tons of sunflower seeds. It recently launched a new enterprise to put space technology and robotics at the service of agriculture to attain better information on soils, crops and meteorology. Brazil's acting President Michel Temer takes part in the inauguration ceremony of the new ministers of his government, at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, on May 12, 2016. (Xinhua/Dida Sampaio/Estadao Conteudo/AGENCIA ESTADO) by Xinhua Writers Zhao Hui, Wang Lili BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The political change in Brazil featuring interim President Michel Temer's government reshuffle and major policy shift has posed a test of the capability of the five-nation bloc of BIRCS to promote economic development through multilateral cooperation. Temer has made a radical reshuffle of Brazil's cabinet and adjusted the country's external policies as of Sunday, one month after President Dilma Rousseff was suspended from office pending her impeachment trial. Analysts said Brazil's interim government is likely to put its cooperation with other BRICS countries -- Russia, India, China and South Africa -- in a secondary place. Whether the BRICS countries stand united and whether their cooperation mechanism functions smoothly will be crucial for the development of the bloc. MAJOR SHIFT IN FOREIGN POLICIES Brazil always valued its cooperative relations with other BRICS countries after the birth of the bloc in 2009. However, the political developments in Brazil since the suspension of Rousseff from office are resulting in readjustment of its foreign policies. Interim Foreign Minister Jose Serra outlined new priorities in foreign policies in his first public appearance on May 18. According to him, Brazil would instead put emphasis on bilateral ties with Argentina and Mexico and, meanwhile, make it a priority to restore the "traditional partnerships" with the United States, Europe and Japan. On cooperation with other BRICS countries, Serra said Brazil will seize opportunities brought about by this mechanism with an eye to enhancing trade and investment cooperation among its members. A subtle difference was noticed from the terms frequently used by Rousseff such as "strategic cooperation" and "diplomatic priorities." Amid the volatile political situation in Brazil, the fate of Rousseff remains to be seen before the last two rounds of vote at the Senate. Zhou Zhiwei, executive director of the Brazil Research Center, a unit of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that no matter what the final result is, the fermenting political crisis could lead to a "backtrack" in the foreign policy of Brazil and affect its dedication to the BRICS mechanism in the short term. BRICS TRANSFORMED The term BRIC, coined by Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O'Neill in 2001, refers to the grouping of the four fast-growing emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. In 2006, Goldman set up the BRIC Fund, which generated fairly good returns for its investors in the first few years. However, with sharp declines in prices of commodities since 2013, BRICS experienced a slowdown in economic growth. Brazil and Russia even registered negative economic growths. In November 2015, the BRIC Fund was finally closed. Western media see the closure as a sign of BRICS on the decline, and some even started to talk about the "death of BRICS" and the potential collapse of the cooperative mechanism among the bloc members. Zhou holds a different point of view. The unfavorable external environment might be an incentive for the members of the bloc to boost their cooperation, he said. "The fundamental strengths of BRICS, such as the market and population mass, won't go away for the cyclical downturns of some BRICS members. They still will shine in future economic development," Zhou said. "Since the creation of the BRICS summit, the bloc has been more than just an economic concept. It is a platform for the emerging economies to exert their influence on the global economic arena," said Shen Yi, director of the Center for BRICS Studies at Fudan University. IN-DEPTH COOPERATION KEY TO BRICS' DEVELOPMENT In July 2014, BRICS leaders unveiled plans to establish the New Development Bank (NDB) and a contingent reserve arrangement (CRA). A year later, the NDB was formally established, headquartered in Shanghai. The move, aimed at boosting the independence of developing economies, has been viewed by Western media as an attempt to challenge the existing international financial framework dominated by developed economies. In a sign of its efficiency, the NDB announced in April this year that it will provide 811 million U.S. dollars of financing for four renewable energy projects in Brazil, India, China and South Africa. Zhou said that in the wake of Rousseff's suspension from office, it is possible for Brazil to backtrack in its foreign policy. He suggested that the BRICS countries strengthen their economic ties and optimize the NCB and CRA mechanisms so as to avoid their cooperation being affected by the potential spillover from domestic political changes. It is important for the BRICS members to meet on the sidelines of multilateral conferences to coordinate their policies, Zhou said. Shen said the BRICS countries can further their cooperation in market access, foreign reserves and counter-cyclical long-term loans. Shen said China could play a leading role in prompting BRICS members to strengthen their cooperation mechanism in face of crises. "In this way, BRICS could evolve into a more closely knit community underpinned by common interests and have more say in global economic governance," Shen said. Related: China, BRICS New Development Bank sign documents on headquarters in Shanghai SHANGHAI, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- China and the BRICS New Development Bank signed documents on the bank's headquarters in Shanghai on Saturday, marking the completion of the legal procedures before the operation of the bank. ORLANDO, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Highway-patrol troopers block the way to the mass shooting scene in Orlando, the United States, June 12, 2016. At least fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in a shooting spree at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) For more photo please click here >>> BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Islamist militant group the Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting in the U.S., prompting new scrutiny of anti-terror strategy by President Barack Obama and the presidential candidates. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in the shooting at the popular gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida. It is the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history since the Sept 11 terror attacks in 2001. No Chinese national has been found among the victims so far, the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston said. IS-linked news agency Amaq said on Sunday that the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting. "The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," said Amaq in a short English statement that went online Sunday evening. The gunman, identified by authorities as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida, was found dead inside the nightclub after a shootout with the police. The shooting began around 2:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) inside the nightclub and there once was a confrontation between the suspect and an officer working at the club outside the venue, according to local police. Then the suspect went back into the club to continue shooting and took hostages. About three hours after the shooting first broke out, police shot and killed the suspect during actions to rescue the hostages. "It appeared he was organized and well-prepared," said Orlando Police Chief John Mina at an earlier press conference, adding that the suspect had an assault-type weapon and a handgun. President Obama on Sunday called the mass shooting an "act of terror" and "act of hate." His statement marked at least the 20th time he had addressed the nation on the topic of mass shooting during his presidency. Calling the Florida shooting spree "the most deadly shooting in American history," Obama reminded U.S. citizens of the sober reality that "how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon" that could launch mass killings. The Obama administration initiated stronger gun control laws in 2012 but failed to push through in Congress after staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers and gun-rights lobby groups. In an interview last year Obama called the failure to reform U.S. gun laws "one of the greatest frustrations" of his presidency. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both adjusted their presidential politicking Sunday, offering prayers and support to the victims. Clinton pushed for gun control and reached out to gays and lesbians, a key constituency. "The gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month. To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them," she said in a statement, adding a call to keep assault weapons out of the hands of "terrorists or other violent criminals." Republican nominee Trump also offered words of support. On Twitter, he renewed talk of his plan to ban Muslims from the U.S. for an indeterminate time. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" Trump tweeted. Trump has proposed temporarily barring all foreign Muslims from entering the country and has advocated using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods. The shootings also inspired the candidates to shift their schedules and focus. Clinton's presidential campaign announced it was postponing its first joint event with Obama on Wednesday because of the terror shooting. Trump said he was changing the focus of his speech Monday at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire from his case against Clinton to "this terrorist attack, immigration and national security." Related: U.S. president calls Florida shooting act of terror and hate, shooter legally purchases firearms WASHINGTON/ORLANDO, June 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama on Sunday called the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida earlier in the day an "act of terror" and "act of hate." At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in the shooting at the popular gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida. It is the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. Full story Man with gun, explosives tends to "harm" gay pride parade in Los Angeles LOS ANGELES, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Santa Monica police said on Monday that a man with a gun and explosives in his car had plans to harm the gay pride parade in West Hollywood. The man identified as James Howell of Indiana was arrested on 11th Street south of Olympic Boulevard on Sunday morning, hours before the parade. Full story 50 killed, 53 injured in Florida nightclub shooting WASHINGTON, June 12 (Xinhua) -- U.S. authorities are trying to determine the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida early Sunday is a terrorist act or hate crime. BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday extended condolences to his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on Sunday's deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida. Related: Islamic State claims responsibility for Orlando nightclub shooting CAIRO, June 12 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS)-linked news agency Amaq said on Sunday that the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting that killed at least 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Full story UN chief slams mass shooting in U.S. city of Orlando UNITED NATIONS, June 12 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned the "horrific attack" in Orlando in the U.S. state of Florida, in which 50 people were killed earlier in the day. WELLINGTON, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government on Monday raised its much criticized refugee quota from 750 to 1,000 a year, a rise that was immediately branded "miserable." The rise - to take effect from 2018 - was "appropriate" and demonstrated the government's commitment to meet the needs of some of the world's most vulnerable people, Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse said in a statement. "New Zealand has a strong record in the resettlement of refugees. Last year we committed to resettling 500 Syrians over two years on top of our annual quota of 750. This means for the next two years we are taking 1,000 refugees," said Woodhouse. "We want to ensure the refugees we take settle well and contribute meaningfully to life in New Zealand, while not putting unreasonable strains on social services," he said. "We want to be sure people have the appropriate support and services they need to resettle in New Zealand like housing, health, education and translation services." The annual refugee quota was just one part of New Zealand's total refugee and humanitarian program, which also included 300 places available each year for family reunification and the acceptance of an additional 125 to 175 asylum seekers. The government came under international pressure to double its quota at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis last year, but insisted on sticking to its three-decade-old annual quota of 750 refugees, before it yielded in September and agreed to take extra Syrian refugees over the next two years. On Monday, critics said New Zealand - currently sitting on the UN Security Council - was still failing in its obligations to the international community. Leader of the main opposition Labour Party Andrew Little branded the increase "miserable," adding in a statement, "It is a sad day when the government can't find the basic humanity to double the quota when it hasn't increased for 29 years. "New Zealanders are a big-hearted, generous people who would happily double the quota. It is right that we do our bit on the world stage," Little said in a statement. The Doing Our Bit group, which is campaigning to double the refugee quota, pointed out that neighboring Australia had been criticized for "terrible asylum seeker policies," but actually accepted more than three times more refugees per capita than New Zealand. The government had failed to respond to the greatest humanitarian crisis of the century, Doing Our Bit spokesperson Murdoch Stephens said in a statement. "Instead of offering to be part of the world community and give protection to refugees, they've stepped down from the challenge," said Stephens. NEW DELHI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- At least 11 people were killed in India's eastern state of Bihar due to thunderstorm and rains, officials said Monday. "Five deaths were reported from Muzzafarpur, six from Patna and Siwan districts," an official told media. The downpour also disrupted rail traffic between Siwan and Mairwa for few hours. India's most important weather phenomenon - monsoons (the rainy season) has arrived in India last week. According to Indian Meteorological department, it is likely to reach Bihar by June 20. The monsoon period which brings about 80 percent of annual rainfall in India begins in June and lasts until September. Last month 50 people were killed in thunderstorms and cloudbursts in north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. NEW DELHI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- India is soon going to reopen some of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases in which over 3,000 members of the minority community were killed, sources said Monday. "For the time being, at 75 cases of anti-Sikh riots in the national capital will be reopened by a Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the Indian government in 2015," the sources said. The decision to reopen the cases came in the wake of Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the SIT has failed to reopen even a single case. "I urge you to either get your SIT to do something or kindly wind up this SIT and allow the Delhi government to set up an SIT for a proper investigation and get justice for victims," Kejriwal wrote. The riots had culminated across the country, following India's first woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination by two of her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984. Gandhi's killing at her official residence was triggered in response to her actions authorizing military operation at the holiest shrine of the Sikhs in the northern city of Amritsar. Delhi had accounted for most deaths in the massacre, said to be led by members of the country's then ruling and now main opposition Congress party. It has been 32 years since the riots and 10 special panels have been formed, but so far no one has been prosecuted, despite the known involvement of some leaders of Congress party. KABUL, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani on Monday strongly condemned a shooting incident in United States city of Orlando, which reportedly left 50 people dead and more than 50 others injured. "I unequivocally condemn the horrific attack in Orlando, Florida, USA. Nothing can justify killing of civilians," the Afghan leader said in his twitter account. Afghan president also conveyed his deepest condolences to the U.S. government, families and friends of those who have lost their lives in the attack and wished those injured an early recovery. The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, reportedly of Afghan descent, was also killed in the shootout which occurred at early hours of Sunday local time. Earlier on Monday, Afghan government Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah also expressed condolences over the Sunday attack, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Terming the attack as a heinous act of terror, Abdullah said that terrorism knows no religion, race, boundary and geography. "This attack in Orlando is telling us that terrorism knows no religion, race, boundary and geography. Terrorism must be eliminated," Abdullah twitted. Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also denounced the bloody incident. KUALA LUMUR, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's foreign minister Anifah Aman will attend a special ASEAN-China foreign ministers' meeting on Tuesday in southwest China's Yunnan Province. Malaysia's foreign ministry made the announcement in a statement on Monday. The foreign ministry said the special meeting is a proactive effort by ASEAN to further elevate relations with China. Malaysia's participation will also contribute to improving relations between Malaysia and China as well as reap potential benefits from various fields of cooperation, it added. BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama to offer condolences over the deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida. On behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, Xi expressed deep sympathy and sincere condolences to Obama, the U.S. government and the U.S. people. He also expressed grief to the victims of the terror attack. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in a mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It has been the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the shooting. Related Chinese premier extends condolences to U.S. on Orlando shooting JINAN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Shandong, one of China's most populous provinces, will cease its preferential college admission policy for ethnic minorities next year. Senior high school students of ethnic minorities in the eastern province will no longer enjoy a five-point bonus for the college entrance exam, sources with the provincial education department told Xinhua on Sunday. All Chinese mainland applicants to colleges and universities must take the annual college entrance exam. The points they register from the highly competitive exam, plus any bonus points they qualify for according to certain policies, are the sole basis upon which Chinese colleges accept students. The preferential policies, under which certain applicants can receive bonus points, are managed by each province, municipality or autonomous region where the applicant is based. These policies usually reward offspring of certain people, for example the children of people who have made considerable contributions to society, or applicants with some outstanding achievements, such as in sport. In Shandong, China's third-largest provincial economy with nearly 100 million people, ethnic minority applicants can get five-point bonus in addition to their exam scores. An applicant can score no more than 750 in the exam. Over 4,800 students enjoyed bonus points in Shandong last year, among whom over 4,400 were ethnic minorities. Many provinces have been winding down preferential policies in recent years, as public concerns have risen regarding fairness, and cases of fabricating documents to qualify for the policies have been frequently reported by Chinese media. Most Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, however, will not change their preferential policies for ethnic minorities. ORLANDO, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Highway-patrol troopers block the way to the mass shooting scene in Orlando, the United States, June 12, 2016. At least fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in a shooting spree at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The American society has been buzzing with measures to prevent further gun-related violence in the United States, after a shooting spree in an Orlando nightclub left 50 dead and 53 wounded on Sunday. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said that the 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the U.S. alleged shooter of Afghan descent, had an assault rifle and a handgun. Officials revealed that he had legally purchased guns in days prior to the massacre. U.S. President Barack Obama expressed his frustration over the failure to enact stricter gun control laws, saying that the murder, or "the most deadly shooting in American history," was a further reminder of how easy it was to acquire a deadly weapon in the United States and shoot people in a "school, or a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub". "We have to decide if that is the kind of country we want to be," he said. "And to actively do nothing is a decision as well." Senator Chris Murphy urged Congress to pass a gun control law in a statement, warning "this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing -- again." His Vermont colleague Bernie Sanders also said on TV that "we should not be selling automatic weapons which are designed to kill people." On the Republican' side, the once anti-gun control grounds are breaking, as former South Dakota Senator Larry Pressler endorsed Hillary Clinton who "is anti-(National Rifle Association) -- and remember that these domestic terrorists also buy automatic weapons ... Unfortunately the Republican candidate Trump has pledged total cooperation with the NRA." A day earlier, Trump suggested in Tampa that people be armed to fight back against mass shooters. "Let the bullets go in the other direction. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM." On social media, the division is also explicit. Film maker Dustin Lance Black said "our love and prayers are not enough. GUN. CONTROL. NOW." Famous producer Bradly Bredeweg said that "it is two easy to get a gun -- weapons of mass destruction -- in this country. The laws MUST change ... Anyone who owns a gun should do so under intense scrutiny -- you must pass a test, learn how to properly use it, pay fees to own it, and have your name and address listed on a database." "It's all just so insane to me that it's more difficult to get a damn license to drive and own a car than it is to own and operate a gun. Gun control Now!" he said. However, conservative commentator Dan Bongino on his account bombast Obama for trying to use the tragedy to push for his gun control campaign. "This POTUS never fails to move the bar for leadership lower,"he said. "Obama uses Orlando attack to call for gun control." Such a statement was refuted by Toula Drimonis, who said that "to those saying 'this is not the times to talk gun control,' the number of times you've already had to say this doesn't horrify you?" Netizens also questioned the effectiveness of the U.S. current qualification check of the gun buyers, as Leah the Boss said "he had a background check. He had a license. He also had a security officer license. So tell me some more about 'gun control.'" According to the Mass Shooting Tracker, the United States suffered 372 mass shootings last year, killing 475 people and injuring 1,870 others. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee for president, also said advocated stricter gun control pitch in a statement, noting that the tragedy "reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets." TOKYO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo shares ended the trading Monday sharply lower with its benchmark Nikkei index tumbling over 3 percent on a firmer yen amid concerns about Britain's referendum over its membership of the European Union later this month. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average plunged 582.18 points, or 3.51 percent, from Friday at 16,019.18. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange finished 46.18 points, or 3.47 percent, lower at 1,284.54. All issues on the main section lost ground and were led by mining, iron and steel as well as financial stock issues. The day's turnover was about 1,851.8 billion yen (about 17.47 billion U.S. dollars). SHENYANG, June 13 (Xinhua) -- A Sino-German industrial park in northwestern China's city of Shenyang has pledged to step up intellectual property (IP) protection in canvassing Germany companies. The China-Germany Equipment Manufacturing Industrial Park works with companies such as Siemens and automaker BMW. It won approval from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) at the end of last year. "I understand that German companies prioritize IP protection when coming to China, so we will step up IP protection and law enforcement," said Li Baojun, deputy director of the park management committee. A special IP bureau along with arbitration and mediation committees will be set up to support the companies, he said. "The park will follow some of the most stringent IP protection measures to dispel the concerns of German firms," Li said. The 48-sq-km park has 37 companies. About 100 other companies and joint ventures have registered their interest, Li said. The companies are mainly in automobile manufacturing, electronics, robotics and intelligent manufacturing. BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Natural disasters in May resulted in 113 deaths, 12 missing people and affected the lives of millions across China, according to official figures. The disasters included floods, wind and hail, as well as droughts, earthquakes, freezing temperatures, snow, and forest fires, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Monday in a statement. Natural disasters caused about 17 billion yuan (about 2.6 billion U.S. dollars) in direct economic losses. About 271,000 residents were relocated and some 133,000 needed emergency assistance. About 221,000 houses were damaged, some 15,000 destroyed, and 1.67 million hectares of crops were destroyed, it said. The overall damage from natural disasters in May was generally less than the same periods since 2011. KUALA LUMPUR, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The way that China and Malaysia have developed bilateral relations while managing differences serves an example that amicable consultation is the only right approach to solve the disputes over South China Sea, a Chinese envoy said Monday. In an article published in the local Star newspaper and Sinchew Daily, Huang Huikang, China's ambassador to Malaysia, said the South China Sea disputes have been hyped up as a hotspot issue in regional security and discussed in almost every regional and international forum, resulting from the high-profile interference of and the manipulation by some powers outside the region. Among others, the Philippines-China relationship is experiencing severe difficulties since Manila initiated the illegal arbitration unilaterally. On the other hand, Malaysia-China relationship is "at the best time of history" and on the path to the new era of "Diamond 40 Years." As pointed out by Huang, there is no essential difference between the two pairs of ties. As China's close neighbors, Malaysia and the Philippines have enjoyed traditional friendship with China. Both were the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with China among ASEAN states. "The reason behind such a striking contrast lies in the different ways the two claimants chose to deal with the disputes with China," said Huang. While Malaysia has consistently been committed to maintaining friendly relationship, properly handling disputes, strengthening cooperation, and enhancing comprehensive strategic partnership with China, the Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, on the contrary, misjudged the international situation and acted as a pawn of an outsider's geopolitical strategy, and chose to confront China, he said. Malaysia is one of the claimants in the South China Sea, but this has never hindered the development of the bilateral relations. Both sides agreed to deal with disputes through friendly consultations and dialogues, avoiding the issue sabotaging the bilateral relations, said the ambassador. When the Philippines was unilaterally pursuing the South China Sea arbitration case in May 2014, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak visited China to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. In a Joint Communique signed by the leaders, both sides emphasized that "all sovereign states directly concerned shall exercise self-restraint and settle their differences by peaceful means, through friendly consultations and negotiations, and in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982." Both sides recognized that "intervention or involvement of parties not directly concerned could be counter-productive and further complicate the aforementioned differences." "It is based on such consensus that the two sides have properly managed their differences, pushed forward their relations, benefiting the two peoples and set a good example for regional countries in dealing with disputes," said Huang. He said China and ASEAN states have consistently engaged in dialogues and communication and maintained overall peace and stability in the South China Sea without interference from powers outside the region. The Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) signed by China and ASEAN countries in 2002 has played an indispensable role. Even after the South China Sea issue heats up, China still sticks to settling disputes through negotiation and consultation in a peaceful way, proposing the "Dual Track Approach", which states that the relevant disputes should be solved by the sovereign states directly concerned through consultation and negotiation, and that the peace and stability in the South China Sea should be maintained through joint efforts of China and ASEAN member states. The approach is in full accordance with international laws and practices, and has been supported by most of the ASEAN countries including Malaysia and Brunei which are also claimants in the South China Sea, said Huang. "History will prove again that friendly consultation is the right way to settle the disputes in the South China Sea," he said. Huang stressed China's strong opposition to the unilateral action by the Philippines and that China's position of non-acceptance and non-participation in the arbitration case will not change. "The new Philippine government should discard illusions and return to the right track," said the ambassador, urging the Philippines to cease its arbitral proceedings, stop being a pawn anymore and return to bilateral negotiation with China. For its part, China is standing ready to commit itself to full and effective implementation of the DOC and making continuous efforts with all relevant parties to maintain peace and stability in the region, said Huang. An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea .(Xinhua/Zhao Yingquan) CAIRO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China has Arab nations' support in its position on the South China Sea, said experts and scholars from Arab countries when commenting on the unilateral arbitration initiatives by the Philippines. Manila has been unilaterally pressing ahead to bring a maritime dispute with China to an international tribunal since January 2013. China has rejected this unlawful initiative and refused to take part in the process, or accept any of the arbitration results. "The arbitration is apparently unlawful with China absent. This is common sense in international law," said former Egyptian Ambassador to China Mahmoud Allam. The Philippines is trying to internationalize the issue, and ramp up pressure on China via the arbitration in hopes of forcing it into a certain compromise, said Allam. His opinion was echoed by Yasser Gadallah, director of the Chinese-Egyptian Research Center at the Helwan University in Egypt. "An arbitration is made by a third party in the presence of both parties concerned, and its results have binding power only when both parties are willing to accept results as such," said Gadallah. China and the Philippines, along with other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in 2002 signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties (DOC) in the South China Sea, which should serve as the political framework for solving the issue, said Gadallah. "It's apparent that China and other relevant countries in the region have developed their own effective method in solving the problem through consultations," he said. In a statement issued at a Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in May, the participating Arab countries said they support China's efforts to peacefully resolve territorial and maritime differences with certain nations through friendly dialogue and negotiation. They also stressed that the rights of sovereign nations as well as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) signatories to choose how to solve their disputes should be respected. "Arab countries appreciate China's stance in issues of territorial sovereignty," said Omar al-Hassan, director of the Gulf Center for Strategic Studies. "Similar to the just opinions China has adopted on regional issues of the Arab world, China has Arab countries' support on the South China Sea arbitration," said Hassan. Certain countries have always tried to get involved in other countries' affairs under the pretext of helping solve regional disputes, he said, adding that Arab countries and China should cling to their rights in choosing the way to solve any conflicts. "Increasing attention to the South China Sea goes in parallel with the U.S. strategy of 'Pivot to the Asia-Pacific,' and it also serves Washington's plan of deploying an anti-missile system on the Korean Peninsula," said Allam. "It is simply an excuse for the United States to tighten its grip on Asia and curb China's rise," he said. The Philippines is widely known as a U.S. follower in Asia, and it has been a common ploy for Washington to gain access to a whole region with the support of a certain country, he said. China should toughen its stance and keep any outsiders away from meddling in the issue, said the former ambassador. Related: Interview: U.S. main reason behind South China Sea tension: U.S. university professor HOUSTON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The heightened tension in the South China Sea is not an isolated incident, but the result of the U.S. "pivot to Asia" policy, University of Houston Downtown Associate Professor Peter Li told Xinhua in a recent interview. "To the United States, East Asia in particular occupies a strategic position in American foreign policy. However, we have to understand that the U.S. foreign policy has always been based on a shrewd calculation of the American national interest," he said. Full story Spotlight: Stop playing with fire in South China Sea, says Chinese diplomat LONDON, June 10 (Xinhua) -- Regarding the South China Sea issue, Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming has urged the Philippines to return to a negotiated solution and some countries from outside the region to "stop playing with fire." BEIJING, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Dejiang (1st L), chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), presides over the 70th meeting of chairman and vice-chairpersons of the 12th NPC Standing Committee at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, June 13, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Tao) BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The top legislature will convene its bi-monthly session from June 27 to July 2, according to a statement issued after a chairpersons' meeting on Monday. Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, presided over the meeting. Monday's meeting suggested that legislators at the upcoming bi-monthly session will deliberate on draft laws on asset evaluation and cyberspace security and revisions to the Wildlife Protection Law. Legislators will also deliberate on proposals, including those to review the draft of the general provisions of civil law and revisions to the law on Red Cross societies. Moreover, a report by the State Council on the central government's final accounts in 2015 is expected to be reviewed. Enditem VANCOUVER, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Pizza, pasta and panzerotti. Enjoying them like a true Italian is the charm that brought over 300,000 people to celebrate Italian Day in Vancouver on Sunday. Now into its 7th year, Vancouver's Italian Day celebrates more than 60 years of Italian culture in an East Vancouver neighborhood. Yet for many Canadian food buffs, it is the time of year to get a bite of the best spaghetti and pizza. The festival takes on a special meaning this year, after the city government named the neighborhood Vancouver's Little Italy. The theme of the festival is "Mangiamo," meaning love of eating. Beppe De Lucia, Italian Day Festival president, said on the crowded street that "Mangiamo" is what Italy is best known for -- it encompasses everything from the passion for cooking to the wonderful time when Italians eat, drink and chat at the family table. To live up to this theme, thousands of people spent the day eating pizza, pasta, gelato, espresso and panzerotti. The longest line was seen outside an Italian bakery famous for its cannolis. Cannolis are Italian pastry shells stuffed with ricotta cheese or sometimes custard or whipped cream. Owner Marco Cornale, whose family moved from Italy to Vancouver more than 50 years ago, told Xinhua the Italian Day gives everyone the chance to "become Italian for a day." He expects to sell 6,000 cannolis during the occasion. "I just love how the community comes out and tries to be Italian for the day. I think it's great how everybody comes together and enjoys the aspect of the community and the festival," Cornale said. BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang recently penned a letter on how to best address the issue of campus violence. In the letter, Li asked the Ministry of Education and other related authorities to "improve laws and regulations, strengthen student's awareness of laws and rights, and resolutely put an end to behavior that disregard human dignity and lives." Bullying and violence at schools and colleges have been widely reported in recent years. In late April, a video went viral that showed a school girl being repeatedly slapped by a group of older girls. In June 2014, another video online showed several teenagers in eastern Zhejiang Province burning a first-grade boy with cigarettes. Last year, a junior high student jumped from the fourth floor of a school building as he "just could not tolerate being bullied everyday for any longer." Campus Violence due to Loopholes In China, criminal responsibility begins at the age of 14. Defendants under the age of 16 can only be charged with eight major crimes, including murder, rape and drug trafficking. Since bullying in schools does not often involve serious offences such as these, juvenile offenders are often given lenient sentences, much to the dismay of the victims, according to a report released by the Supreme People's Court in May. The report also pointed out a lack of awareness and understanding of campus violence and the harm it does. Children under 14 who commit intentional homicide or those under 16 who engage in acts of violence may escape punishment entirely due to omissions and loopholes in the current legal system. Though some juvenile offenders were held in police custody, the public are concerned that mild punishment will not teach them a lesson, leaving more kids exposed as potential victims in future. Enhancing Education, Early Intervention A survey by China Youth and Children Research Center (CYCRC) last year showed that juvenile delinquents are getting younger and younger, and crimes linked to cyber abuse are on the rise. The survey also showed in addition to increased incidents, school violence has escalated due to cruelty and randomness. The education supervision committee under the State Council in early May launched a campaign to curb bullying. The campaign, which will last until December, focuses on providing students with legal and mental health education. Police and judicial staff will be invited to schools to give lectures, and education institutions are asked to improve measures for preventing and handling bullying and establish an emergency plan for serious incidents. "The state legislature should begin by lowering the age of criminal liability, given some crimes committed by minors under 14 have already severely endangered and harmed society," said Guo Kaiyuan, a professor specializing in juvenile delinquency with the CYCRC. The virtual nature of the Internet has freed people from the restriction of social norms. Immersing in online games has been linked to violence, and they may blindly solve real-life problems imitating online aggression, said Guo. Although some experts have called for stricter punishment, others suggest early prevention. Children need better moral and legal guidance at home and school, said Pi Yijun, a law professor with China University of Political Science and Law. Juvenile first offenders should learn their lessons through community rectification instead of harsh imprisonment, "otherwise they might be alienated from society and neighborhood, expounding the likelihood of recidivism," said Pi. At the same time, it is equally crucial to teach children how to properly protect themselves from and deal with school bullying, said Tong Lihua, a lawyer specializing in legal aid for teenagers. "Minors under 14 with serious criminal records such as murder, mayhem and rape should be rehabilitated with strict discipline, and professional psychologists and social workers should be encouraged to guide and intervene daily conduct", said Song Yinghui, deputy director of law school under Beijing Normal University. BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang on Monday offered condolences to the United States after a fatal shooting in Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday. "China opposes terrorist action in all forms," Li said in a joint press conference after his talks with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Great Hall of the People. Li expressed condolences for the victims, extended deep sympathy to their families, and hoped for the speedy and safe recovery of those who were wounded. Merkel said she was shocked by the incident, and expressed condolences and sympathy, on behalf of Germany, to the victims and their families. Li and Merkel co-chaired the fourth round of China-Germany intergovernmental consultation on Monday morning. HONG KONG, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong's food safety authorities announced on Monday to ban the import of poultry meat and products (including poultry eggs) from the Province of Friesland in the Netherlands due to an outbreak of low pathogenic H7N9 avian influenza in the province. The ban came after a notification from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) about the outbreak of low pathogenic H7N9 avian influenza there, said a spokesman from the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department. The spokesman said about 3,000 tons of frozen poultry meat and 1.76 million poultry eggs from the Netherlands were imported into Hong Kong in the first four months of this year. "The CFS has contacted the Dutch authorities over the issue and will closely monitor information issued by the OIE on avian influenza outbreaks in the country. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation." the spokesman said. by Ronald Ssekandi KAMPALA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Gunmen on Sunday night attacked a police station in the northern Ugandan district of Gulu in a bid to rescue their colleague who was due to appear in court over an attack on a military installation. The police and the military in a joint operation foiled the attack although the causality figures are not yet known since the incident occurred, according to Fred Enanga, the police spokesperson. In the shootout, according to Enanga, who was speaking to a local television station, a policeman and a military officer were injured. Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda, the military spokesman, said three of the attackers surrendered and five riffles were recovered plus one machine gun. Three vehicles and three motor cycles were abandoned by the attackers as they fled. Gulu is a major town in northern Uganda, and the region has been facing over two decades of insurgency by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army. Earlier during the attack, there were unconfirmed local media reports that the shootout that lasted close to thirty minutes was about a mutiny of soldiers protesting the arrest of their commanders. Police dismissed the allegation. This is not the first incident happening in the east African country in the last six months. In March, an army deserter in the eastern Ugandan district of Kapchorwa led a group that grabbed guns from the Uganda Wildlife Authority Officers at Teryet Parish. The group later attacked Kapchorwa Central Police Station in a bid to rescue their colleague who had been arrested. In the shootout with the police, it left two police officers and one of the attackers dead. The group, which was hiding in the ranges of Mount Elgon, later gave up their rebel activities after President Yoweri Museveni threatened to attack them in the bush and leave them dead. All these incidents are occurring as the country is going through the formation of a new government after the highly contested Feb. 18 general elections in which Museveni was announced leader. Since then, the government has deployed heavy security in the capital Kampala, arguing that the opposition was planning to burn up the city and cause chaos. Kizza Besigye, who was the main challenger to Museveni in the polls, was on May 18 charged with treason after a video in which he swore in as the country's president went viral. This is the second time Besigye is charged with treason, a capital offense which is only punishable by death in Uganda. The first trial in 2005 was dropped. Some of Besigye's supporters and a group of soldiers are the latest suspects who the police allege are involved in subversive activities to topple government. Among those arrested is an opposition legislator, Michael Kabaziguruka. "We got intelligence information that some of these people were planning to carry out attempted assassinations of key government officials and subversive activities," Polly Namaye, deputy police spokesperson told Xinhua on Sunday. She said as police continue to search for other suspects, they already have some under their custody. "It's too early to give the exact number and names of those arrested in this sensitive case. We are going to carry more arrest. We can't tolerate any activities intended to undermine and overthrow of the government," she said. Some local media have put the number to over 30 people arrested, and among them, include military officers and civilians. Namaye said the suspects will be tried in the military court and public courts over several cases. JERUSALEM, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) eased restrictions imposed on a Palestinian village in the West Bank last week, after two of its residents carried a shooting attack killing four Israelis, Israeli media reported on Monday. The IDF imposed a siege on Yatta, a Palestinian village in the southern West Bank, on Wednesday night, after two Palestinian cousins from the village shot and killed four Israelis and wounded five others at a popular Tel Aviv restaurant and retail center. It has been one of the deadliest attacks in the current wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which started in October and had since claimed the lives of 32 Israelis and 205 Palestinians. Palestinian residents can come into the Yatta village and leave after being inspected by soldiers, unless they are between the ages of 15 and 25, the Walla! news website reported on Monday. Shortly after Wednesday's attack, Israeli soldiers mapped out houses of the attackers, in a first step in the controversial procedure of demolishing homes, which Israeli believes may deter future attackers. They also carried out raids and made arrests in the village. The easing of the siege on Yatta took place just as a general closure imposed on Palestinians in the West Bank in the past few days has been lifted. The Israeli defense establishment ordered the closure ahead of the Jewish Shavuot holiday, celebrated on Saturday and Sunday. While the closure was declared amid a slew of other measures in response to the attack, it is customary for Israel to impose closures on the Palestinian territories during Jewish holidays. Other measures Israel ordered after the attack included suspending more than 83,000 permits allowing Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to travel into Israel, to meet their families and pray in Jerusalem, amid the month-long Muslim holiday of the Ramadan. The Israeli military also announced the addition of two battalions to a local division in the West Bank, and revoked working permits from 204 family members of the attackers. Several ministers also suggested not to return bodies of attackers who were killed to their families, and expedite the controversial process of home demolition. The U.S. administration last week warned Israel in an unusual statement against punishing the entire Palestinian community who try to "go about their daily lives" for the heinous attack. Israel occupied the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip territories in the 1967 Mideast War. Israeli leaders accuse the Palestinian Authority of inciting violence amid the wave of unrest, whereas the Palestinians say it is the result of 49 years of Israeli occupation of lands on which they wish to establish a Palestinian state. KAMPALA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan military on Monday said it will consider a request by the African Union (AU) to keep its troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) in the hunt for the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels. Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda, the military spokesperson, told Xinhua by telephone that the high command will meet to decide whether to proceed with the October planned withdraw or extend the mandate of its contingent involved in the AU-led Regional Cooperation Initiative for the Elimination of LRA (RCI-LRA). "We have received the AU request. We will study the merits of their request and respond accordingly," said Ankunda. The AU Peace and Security Council last month requested Ugandan authorities to reconsider their decision to withdraw the over 2,000 soldiers. The Council argued that the withdrawal could create a security vacuum, which the LRA and other rebel forces could exploit to escalate their activities in the region. The Council recommended that the troops' mandate be extended up to May 2017. The Ugandan authorities however believe that the LRA has been degraded and no longer has means to fight. Uganda contributes over 2,000 troops to AU led RCI-LRA, which was launched in March 2012 to help in the elimination of the LRA and the stabilization of areas affected by the activities of LRA. The LRA is a Ugandan rebel group, which was flashed out of the country in 2006 after a two-decade-long insurgency that left tens of thousands of people dead. BEIJING, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (R) meets with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Beijing, capital of China, June 13, 2016. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- State Councilor Yang Jiechi on Monday called on the European Union to stop basing its anti-dumping investigations into Chinese goods on the "surrogate country system." Yang made the comments when meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is accompanying German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her ninth trip to China and for the China-Germany intergovernmental consultation on Monday morning. "The EU should deliver on its obligations -- as stipulated in article 15 of the protocols for China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 -- to ensure the healthy development of trade ties," Yang said. Yang was referring to the surrogate country system, a term used by the EU in anti-dumping investigations, under which production costs in a third country are used to calculate the value of products from non-market economies. The system should be abandoned by Dec. 11, 2016, under an agreement signed when China joined the WTO. However, the European Parliament said in a non-binding resolution last month that China had failed to meet the five EU criteria that define a market economy, thus, Chinese exports should be treated in a "non-standard way." Yang said deepening cooperation between China and Germany will serve the two countries' interests as well as China-Europe relations and the world at large. He said China is ready to work with Germany to make the G20 Hangzhou summit in September a success. Steinmeier said Germany is willing to use the intergovernmental consultation as an opportunity to deepen cooperation with China in all fields. The consultation mechanism, established in 2011, aims to coordinate and enhance cooperation between China and Germany. More than 20 ministers and vice ministers from both sides are expected to attend this year's session. (Xinhua file photo) DAMASCUS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic State (IS) group hailed the gunman behind the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida as a "soldier of caliphate," according to a bulletin over the group's Al-Bayan radio on Monday. The suspect was identified by U.S. authorities as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent, who had reportedly called 911 and claimed allegiance to the IS before going on a spree of shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing and wounding over 100 people. A day earlier, the IS-linked news agency Amaq said that the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting. "The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and that left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," said Amaq in a short English statement posted online Sunday evening. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, in the shooting, the deadliest terror attack in the U.S. since the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001. ORLANDO, June 12, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Photo provided by Orlando Police Department shows policemen gather outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the United States, June 12, 2016. About 20 people were killed and 42 others wounded early Sunday morning in a shooting incident at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida said local police. (Xinhua/Orlando Police Department) ORLANDO, the United States, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Twenty-eight-year-old Ivory McNeil was in the Pulse nightclub on the fateful Sunday morning when Omar Mateen, who was just one year older than McNeil, opened fire with an assault rifle at the crowd, leaving 50 people dead and at least 53 injured. McNeil survived the deadliest mass shooting to date in U.S. history. On Sunday night, at a vigil held by Lake Eola in downtown Orlando, McNeil gave Xinhua an eye-witness account of the tragedy. NEVER-ENDING GUNSHOTS McNeil and his friends were walking into the main room of the nightclub early Sunday when the shooting started. "People were dancing, and all of a sudden you just hear gunshots," said McNeil. They soon realized that a shooting was taking place, and spread out to take cover. McNeil ended up hiding alone at the patio at the back of the club, behind some lawn furniture. "The gunshots were very loud, it just kept coming and coming and coming, and there was a moment it stopped and I almost came out of hiding, and it just started again," he said. Obviously traumatized, McNeil spoke with his voice shaking, choking and sobbing intermittently. "I can't get the gunshot noise out of my head. I can't bring myself to watch the videos. If I hear the noise it just brings so much emotion to me," he said, trying hard to suppress his feelings. "We saw people fall. There was panic everywhere. Everyone is running. There was blood everywhere," said McNeil. WAITING FOR POLICE Not until McNeil and his friends saw so much blood did they realize how serious the situation was. "We thought it was just an issue with someone's boyfriend or something like that, but when the shots just kept coming, we were like 'what is going on? '" he said. McNeil and others who were in hiding waited desperately for the police to come, but it seemed to take too long. "People were calling 911, calling their families, texting them. I've texted people I haven't texted in years," said McNeil. McNeil said after he had been in hiding for almost 20 minutes, the police finally appeared. "I was one of the last that had come out from the patio," said McNeil, adding that it took him forever to come out of his cover even though the police told him the shooter was gone. "IT'S NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME" McNeil hasn't slept since the shooting. "It doesn't seem real to us, and we don't even know who's gone and who's with us," said McNeil. He said many of his friends believed that the time and place the shooter had chosen were a deliberate hate attack against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. Dubbed Pride Month, June was widely celebrated among the LGBT communities. The nightclub Pulse was one of Orlando's most well-known venues that hosts nightly LGBT-themed performances as well as a monthly program of LGBT-related educational events. "I think they are targeting us as a country, but this is their mark because I think this is our pride month, that they thought to make an example out of us," said McNeil. "They took a piece of our community away from us," he said. McNeil believed the community will need a lot of time to heal from this traumatic event. He originally planned to go to New York to attend the annual LGBT Pride Parade, but does not want to go after the shooting. "It's never going to be the same," he said. A crew member takes part in a fire drill on China's largest and most advanced patrol vessel Haixun 01 on the South China Sea, April 4, 2016. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli) MANILA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Philippine experts on Monday urged incoming president Rodrigo Duterte to proceed with direct talks with China on the South China Sea immediately, saying the new administration need not wait for the decision of a tribunal to kick-start the talks. Rod Kapunan, a columnist for the newspaper The Standard, said it may not be wise for the incoming Duterte administration to wait for a decision from an tribunal in The Hague which China will not recognize anyway. "Once the court comes out with a decision, our position to reach a direct and peaceful settlement of our dispute with China would become more difficult," Kapunan told Xinhua in an interview. "China has always been open for direct and peaceful negotiations but the conditions will not be the same after the decision," he said, warning that the decision might even force Beijing to stay away from the negotiating table. "If you are going to negotiate directly and peacefully with China after the arbitration decision comes out, China will surely insist that there must be no reference to the court's decision," Kapunan said. In 2013, the Philippines initiated an arbitration case against China over the South China Sea. China, which has declined to take part in the process, has said it will not recognize the court's decision. For the direct talks to take off, Kapunan said the Duterte administration must scrap its Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed by the Philippines and the United States in 2014. The expert also said that this pact "locks the Philippines in a situation where we would be permanently girding for war with China" and adopt a foreign policy that unmistakably serves the interest of the U.S. in the Asia and the Pacific. "The best solution is first to scrap the EDCA and second to start the direct talks," said Kapunan, adding that EDCA stands in the way "like a wall" between the Philippines and China. "For as long as we have foreign military bases in our soil, the country can never formulate its own independent foreign policy," Kapunan said. "As a lawyer, Duterte could see the implication in allowing the re-installation of the U.S. bases. Other than providing no time limit for the American's stay, the agreement gave the U.S. the blanket authority to select the place and the number with a premium that our Senate would have to ratify it as mandated by our Constitution," Kapunan added. Indeed, Kapunan said, "The abrogation of EDCA is the easiest way (for the Duterte administration) to escape the dilemma." He said, "President Benigno Aquino III knew that by bringing our dispute with China to the PCA (the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague) would give the U.S. the leverage to continue its provocative patrol in the South China Sea." By doing that, "the perception about the naval presence of the U.S. in the South China Sea can never be doubted because the Philippines being strategically adjacent to China would forever seek the protective cover of the U.S.. In short, all these could lead the country to a possible proxy war with China," Kapunan said. This explains why, Kapunan said, Duterte would have difficulty redrawing the foreign policy under his administration. He further said, "A decision to disallow the U.S. bases or to unilaterally drop the case could antagonize the U.S. because that would explode its continued presence in the South China Sea redundant. Nobody would believe that its continued patrol in the area is to secure the freedom of navigation. Rather, the whole military infrastructure it build would be exposed as a facade to contain China." Indeed, retired diplomat Alberto Encomienda told Xinhua in another interview that the new Duterte administration should proceed with talks with China on the sea disputes. "You don't have to wait for the resolution of the arbitration case before starting conversations. You don't have to finish that arbitration. Nobody even knows when that will be finished," Encomienda said. Assistant Foreign Secretary Charles Jose has repeatedly said that the Philippines will really have to go back to bilateral talks, though he pins hope on the arbitration court handing down a favorable decision. In a television interview Monday, Jose said, "we are now in the tail-end of the arbitration process." Duterte, who will be sworn into office on June 30, has said he would wait for the final decision of the court, but at the same time said that he will pursue bilateral talks with China if current efforts do not progress. He even said that he might explore possible joint exploration in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte also said that the Philippines is not going to give up its rights to the Scarborough Shoal, or Huangyan Island. But before 1997, the Philippines had never claimed sovereignty over Huangyan Island, and the international community had never raised any objection to China's sovereignty over the island as well. Related: Spotlight: Experts say China's stance on South China Sea arbitration fully justified BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' unilateral move to bring a maritime dispute with China to an international tribunal won't help resolve the problem and the right way forward is to seek settlement through bilateral talks, several foreign experts told Xinhua in recent interviews. Full story Interview: Manila intensifies tension in South China Sea -- former diplomat MANILA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine government has been behind the intensifying tensions in the South China Sea, a former diplomat of the country told Xinhua on Wednesday. Alberto Encomienda, former secretary-general of Maritime and Ocean Affairs Center of the Philippine Foreign Affairs Department, said: "China has been for the negotiations all along, but from the beginning we are not." Full story How to Bridge the Divide Over the South China Sea The differences between China and the U.S. over the South China Sea issue have become a matter of concern and even anxiety. But some of the perceptions in the U.S. and elsewhere about Chinas policy and intentions in the area are misplaced. A pressing task is to understand the facts and Chinas intentions correctly so as to avoid real danger and consequences as a result of misinterpretation and miscalculation. Full Story China urges Philippines to immediately cease arbitral proceedings BEIJING, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday again urged the Philippines to stop its arbitral proceedings and return to the right track of settling relevant disputes in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiation with China. MOGADISHU, June 13 (Xinhua)-- The Africa Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has called on its troops to protect civilians during their military operations against Al-Shabaab militants in the Horn of Africa nation. Acting AMISOM Chief of Staff Col. Shadrack Othieno Mutacho said the soldiers who have been engaged in the fight with Al-Shabaab should take precautionary measures and protect civilians. "The military of today has to comply with the law. When it comes to gender issues, women and children are considered to be a vulnerable group and therefore whatever we do, we must ensure that this group is protected," Mutacho said in a statement issued by AMISOM on Monday. The remarks came after the AU soldiers mistakenly killed four civilians during a security operation against Al-Shabaab in Bula Marer, Lower Shabelle Region in April. AMISOM forces had set up a roadblock during the operation to flush out the militants when a speeding vehicle approached the roadblock and failed to adhere to repeated warnings to stop. Assuming the car to be a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED), the troops opened fire, resulting in the death of four occupants of the vehicle. Mutacho, who was speaking while closing a three-day training workshop for AMISOM focal persons for the human rights cluster in Mogadishu, called on AMISOM officers to ensure transparency, accountability and responsibility of their actions and operate within the scope of the law during the day-to-day execution of their duties in military operations. The workshop attracted at least 15 participants from the AMISOM contingents of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. Omar Abdulle Alasow, Acting Head of AMISOM Protection, Human Rights and Gender Cluster, urged the officers to apply what they have learned during the training. The training was aimed at enhancing officers' understanding of the international humanitarian law governing the conduct of AMISOM military operations, international human rights law applicable in armed conflicts, issues of child protection, gender, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, and AMISOM rules of engagement. MOMBASA, Kenya, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan authorities on Monday announced elaborate measures following terrorist alert over possible attacks by Al-Shabaab during holy month of Ramadan in the coastal city of Mombasa. Mombasa County Commissioner Maalim Mohamed said the intelligence has been shared among security apparatus to avert any attacks by the militant group that is planning to cause mass causalities in the coastal city. Mohammed said they have activated police operations mainly at vital installations that might be easy target by Al-Shabaab fighters. "We have an alert and we want to assure residents and visitors of adequate security; we have increased surveillance at key installations including airports and shopping malls, Likoni channel, and hotels," Mohammed told journalists. He said they have developed security measures checklist to assist in gathering and sharing of intelligence information among stakeholders due to the threats posed by the terrorist groups. Mohammed disclosed that the government will be having meeting with private firms in the county to sensitize them on safety precautions to ensure live and properties are protected. On May 30, the police circulated the photos and names of eight wanted criminals terrorizing the public within the coastal region. The police said the wanted are suspected Al-Shabaab returnees, and were involved in the killing of three community leaders in Diani, Kwale of the coastal region. The police requested the public to report to the nearest police station should they see or have any information regarding the individuals. RAMALLAH, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Arab League chief's visit to the West Bank has been postponed to be on Tuesday instead of Monday, the Palestinian presidency said, without mentioning the reasons for the decision. During his two-day visit, Nabil Al-Araby is expected to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and visit Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the presidency said in a statement. Meanwhile, the left-wing Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) lauded the stances of Al-Araby, but said his visit "carries many misunderstandings, especially as the U.S. administration, France and other states are pushing Arab countries to initiate normalization with Israel in order to encourage it to accept the French initiative. The front called on the Arab countries to "resist all attempts to normalize ties with Israel and respond to the desire of the Arab public rejecting all forms of normalization." A Palestinian source told Xinhua that Al-Araby will discuss the French moves to hold an international conference for peace in the Middle East and the 2002 Arab peace initiative dubbed "land for peace." On June 3, Paris hosted an international ministerial meeting the was attended by the foreign ministers of 25 countries, including four Arab ones. It discussed the revival of the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians criticized the final statement of the meeting for not including working mechanisms or time frames for the talks. Israel publicly rejected the French initiative and said that the best way to achieve peace is direct talks with the Palestinians. COLOMBO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Sri Lankan government on Monday reiterated that it will not agree to have foreign judges in the domestic accountability process over its civil war and only accept technical assistance. Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister Faizer Mustapha said that President Maithripala Sirisena has been very clear that war crimes did not take place in Sri Lanka. He said that some groups are however attempting to give the impression that a war crime investigation will take place in Sri Lanka with the participation of foreign judges. "The president has said earlier and even now that he will not invite foreign judges but will accept technical assistance," he said. The comment comes as the UN Human Rights Council begins meeting in Geneva where Sri Lanka will also be discussed. Council members had last year urged Sri Lanka to allow the participation of foreign judges in the process to investigate the last stages of a 30 year war between Tamil Tiger rebels and the army. Mustapha said that the resettlement of war displaced people in the North and East will take place as promised. Some political parties have been saying the army will not be withdrawn from civilian property to resettle the displaced families. The Minister said the army should not be used to achieve political goals and added that the army will continue to safeguard the country's National security. ATHENS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Greek Foreign Ministry has condemned the Orlando mass shooting which resulted in at least 50 deaths and injured more than 50 on Sunday, expressing condolences to the victims' families and the American people. "We express our unequivocal condemnation and abhorrence of the deadly attack that took place in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. and which resulted in the tragic deaths of dozens of innocent victims," the Foreign Ministry said in press statement. "We express our condolences and support to the U.S. government and our friends, the American people. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims," the statement said. The shooting at a nightclub in Orlando is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, and the nation's worst terror attack since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. COPENHAGEN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen on Sunday night condemned the Orlando nightclub shooting in the United States that left at least 50 people dead and 53 others injured. "It is clear that we have witnessed a vicious attack on the right to be who you are, on the right to love the person you love," said Rasmussen in a statement. "Too many innocent people have lost their lives in Orlando because liberality and tolerance has been met with hatred." He also expressed his condolences to, and solidarity with, the American people. "Rather than dividing us, it will unite us. We will protect the values our society is built upon: the freedom to live the life you want." Rasmussen said the United States has Denmark's full support, saying that "we Danes stand shoulder to shoulder with Americans in their grief." The Orlando nightclub shooting, which occurred early Sunday, was the deadliest single shooting in U.S. history. BANGKOK, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) signed a memorandum of understanding on tourism cooperation with Chinese internet giant Baidu here Monday, in a bid to make travel easier for Chinese tourists visiting the kingdom. In the signing ceremony, Baidu unveiled the newly upgraded Baidu Map, which is a popular mapping app in China and now also available for Chinese visiting Thailand. As soon as Chinese visitors arrived, there would be a push notification from the Baidu Map on their smart phones welcoming them, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu. With data from TAT, the mapping app in Chinese language can help Chinese tourists visiting Thailand in finding the location of tourist attractions, restaurants, products and services. Baidu, on the other hand, will provide information on tourist trends and characteristics for TAT. Srisuda Wanapinyosak, deputy governor for Asia and South Pacific marketing of TAT, said TAT and Baidu share the same goal of helping Chinese tourists here, so they decided to cooperate. According to Srisuda and Paul Chen, general manager of Baidu Thailand, more and more Chinese tourists chose to come by themselves instead of coming with tour groups, which means the mapping app will be useful for many. TAT and Baidu will work together on the "Amazing Romance in Thailand" in July by compiling the information of locations related to love and romance, and also on the "Women's Journey" project in August, during which information of shops and businesses that participate in will be provided on the app. The duo will also will work together on a "Smart Guide" project. Chinese visitors can use the mapping app on their smart phones to scan the QR-code at some tourist attractions to hear their history and story in Chinese language. "TAT aims to restructure the market by expanding to high-end tourists from various cities of China. This cooperation will allow TAT to reach this target group directly and rapidly," said Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT governor. Although Baidu Map is currently in Chinese, the company also plans to attract local users in the future. "Our first step is to provide our mapping service for Chinese tourists, then for Chinese Thai and finally for Thai people with a Thai version of the app in the future," said Dangen She or Daniel, general manager of Baidu Global Maps product. Baidu Map, accounting for about 70 percent of mapping market in China, has extended its mapping service to about 50 countries and regions outside Chinese Mainland since the Chinese new year in 2016, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu, adding that the information on the app will be updated regularly. According to a statement from organizers of the event, there are 500 million Baidu Map users now. GAZA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Islamic Hamas movement on Monday slammed the nomination of Israel to chair a committee at the United Nations. The move "is a shame for the UN, undermines its laws and encourages the occupation to continue in its terror policy against the Palestinians people," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zohri said in a statement. The movement called on the UN to retract this nomination, describing it as "disastrous." Israel was nominated by the Western European and Others Group (WEOG) for the presidency of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) sixth committee. WEOG is a regional bloc that includes Israel. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) urged bloc to withdraw the nomination of Israel and instead to question "its persistent violations of international law and human rights." ORLANDO, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Highway-patrol troopers stand guard near the mass shooting scene in Orlando, the United States, June 12, 2016. At least fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in a shooting spree at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) ORLANDO, the United States, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The city was in mourning. Flags in front of all venues were flying half-staff, and every electronic billboard on the expressway was showing the same message: Pray for Orlando. Home to the famous Disney World and Universal theme parks, "The City Beautiful" woke up Sunday morning to its worst nightmare. Fifty people were gunned down, and at least another 53 were hospitalized. Orlando had witnessed the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and the nation's worst terror attack since 9/11. "I heard gunshots around 2:05 a.m.(0605 GMT), but thought it was fireworks," said 41-year-old Keaton Chad, who lives just a block away from the nightclub Pulse, where the massacre occurred. Chad told Xinhua that the neighborhood was always nice and peaceful, and never for a moment did he think a horror like this would happen here. Pulse was one of the biggest nightclubs in town and central to the city's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. Gunshots started when the club's weekly "Latin Night" was just wrapping up, and around 320 people were still hanging around for the last call. The "fireworks" that Chad heard were just the beginning of the bloodshed. Armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun, the assailant Omar Mateen opened fire at the people in the main hall. A three-hour standoff and hostage situation ensued, until the SWAT team shot and killed the suspect during actions to rescue the hostages. The police had sealed all entries to Pulse starting from 6:30 a.m.(1030 GMT) Sunday. Looking from a makeshift media center, a white container truck had blocked any possible view of the nightclub. A guarding officer told Xinhua that the club was a lower building and would not be accessible until the roads re-open after the crime scene was thoroughly investigated. Several miles away from the club, the Orlando Regional Medical Center was also on lockdown with a police vehicle blocking the entrance. Many of the casualties were rushed to the center after the shooting. Three regional medical facilities had accepted those who were injured for treatment, and a call to donate types O negative, O positive and AB plasma was made. Several local blood banks were flooded with people wanting to donate blood Sunday evening, despite the pouring rain. At the OneBlood blood bank, dozens of people had been lining up to donate plasma. Some of them came as early as 9 a.m.(1300 GMT). According to a blood bank worker, the blood bank was overwhelmed by more than 2,000 people who had registered to donate on Sunday. The bank had to ask donors to come back later over the next few days. "This is probably the most difficult day in the history of Orlando," said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer in a news conference. "We need to support each other. We need to love each other, and we will not be defined by a hateful shooter. We will be defined by how we support each other," Dyer added. After nightfall, survivors, friends of the victims and members of the city's LGBT community gathered by the city's iconic Lake Eola to hold a vigil for the deceased and injured. People lit candles, wove reed leaves into roses, and put yellow chrysanthemum flowers onto the lake bank lawn. They embraced and consoled one another. "This situation was very tragic for me and a lot of my friends," said Arron Candelaria, who came and spoke at the vigil. "I want to show my faith and support my community, and I feel this community will grow bigger and better than what it already is," Candelaria said. DAMASCUS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The spokesman of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) opposition group, Talal Silou, says his group welcomes any progress Syrian government forces make against the de facto capital of the Islamic State (IS) in al-Raqqa in northern Syria. In a televised interview with a Kurdish TV based in Syria's Qamishili city, which went online Monday, Silou said "we are not racing or conflicting with the regime forces to liberate al-Raqqa, and what concerns us in the end is the result, which is liberating al-Raqqa from terrorism." "If the Syrian army is capable of liberating al-Raqqa from IS, then they are welcome, we are not in a conflict with them," Silou said. However, Silou stressed that his group is not coordinating with the Syrian army and "it's impossible to coordinate or fight by the Syrian army side in the future." He said the SDF's ultimate goal is to eradicate terrorism in Syria, wherever needed, and according to the public demand for their help. It was the first declared stance from the SDF, which is formed from Arab and Kurdish fighters and led by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), toward Syrian government forces. In late May, the SDF started a major offensive in the northern countryside of al-Raqqa, succeeding to capture several towns and villages in that area. Their attack on al-Raqqa was followed by an offensive against the IS-held city of Manbej in northern Syria, on the borders with Turkey, last week. SDF fighters have completely besieged Manbej, the last key stronghold of IS in the northern countryside of Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday that intense battles are still raging between the SDF and the IS near Manbej, amid airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition on IS positions in the city. The London-based watchdog group said over 900 civilians have fled the city from its southern outskirts, reaching areas under SDF control. For its side, the Syrian army continued to advance in the southern countryside of al-Raqqa against the IS terror group. Video footage released by state news agency SANA showed military progress made in the western countryside of al-Raqqa, where the Syrian army captured several villages. The advance of the SDF and the Syrian army against IS reflects the understanding between Russia, which supports the government forces, and the United States, which supports the SDF, on the need to eliminate the threat of IS in Syria, analysts say. COLOMBO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's main Islamic political party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), called for the removal of excess military camps in the former war zones in the north of the country on Monday. SLMC leader and minister in the government, Rauff Hakeem said that his party does not agree with the proposal that the army should be fully withdrawn from the north. He said there is a concern by the public in the north that the army is still occupying property it does not require. Hakeem said the army continues to operate a hotel and conducts other businesses in the north. He said the army must release property which needs to be given back to the people and have camps in the north which are only required for national security. The Sri Lankan army had said earlier that it will not withdraw from the north despite the end of a 30 years civil war in 2009. Sri Lanka government battled Tamil Tiger rebels in a brutal war which saw thousands killed on both sides. However following the end of the war Tamil political parties have been calling for the withdrawal of the army from the north. ABIDJAN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The process of writing Cote d'Ivoire's new Constitution has generated great concerns in Cote d'Ivoire where talks are still ongoing between President Alassane Ouattara and various stakeholders. On several occasions, Ouattara has reiterated that various socio-political actors have an important contribution to make to the process of re-writing the new Constitution. OPPOSITION CALLS FOR RECONSIDERATION After the meeting with opposition political parties on June 7 which marked the first phase of consultations, some leaders of political parties urged the government to "reconsider" the proposed procedure before conducting the constitutional referendum. "Some speakers insisted on the need to reconsider the process and ensure it is democratic," the president of Cote D'Ivoire Popular Front (FPI, opposition) Pascal Nguessan Affi said. "We have all insisted on the need to adopt a consensual approach, because a new constitution is a social contract with the Cote d'Ivoire people and we should give everyone an opportunity to express themselves," head of another opposition party, Republican Union for Democracy (URD), Danielle Boni Claverie, said. Claverie proposed the need to set up a "consultative commission" bringing together all stakeholders in the country. TRADITIONAL CHIEFS CALL FOR THIRD PRESIDENTIAL TERM After the opposition political leaders, it was the turn of traditional leaders to meet with the president on June 8. "Regarding the conditions for eligibility, we believe it is important to simplify it in the interest of peace. We therefore propose that any citizen born in Cote d'Ivoire should be allowed to contest for the presidency," the traditional leaders' spokesman Nanan Desire Amon Tano said. The traditional chiefs also called for the reduction of minimum age for those wishing to run for the presidency from 40 years to 35 years. "In addition to reducing the minimum age, we should also provide the possibility for a president to contest for a third term," the spokesman said. CIVIL SOCIETY CALLS FOR "TRUE" SOCIAL CONTRACT Generally, the civil society which also took part in the talks, did not support the idea of a third presidential term as proposed by traditional chiefs. They instead opted for two five-year terms. As for eligibility, especially concerning provisions of the current Constitution that demands for a presidential candidate to have both parents of Cote d'Ivoire origin, they proposed that a candidate should have at least one parent of Cote d'Ivoire origin. "We do not want a controversial article in our Constitution. We need a true social contract, we want to live together," the president of the Civil Society Platform for Election Monitoring Marie Paul Kodjo said. According to most observers, the Constitution's aspects related to eligibility conditions will be very crucial for the next presidential elections. "This touches on issues of nationality, parentage and term limits. There are many examples in Africa where crises have broken out over a possible third term,"said Michel Konan, a university lecturer in Abidjan. The process of re-writing Cote d'Ivoire's Constitution began in early June with the setting up of a committee of experts by Ouattara. The experts are expected to make proposals that will form part of the new Constitution. The writing of a new Constitution was a promise made by Ouattara during electoral campaigns before he was re-elected in October last year for his second term. A referendum will be organized between the month of September and October to allow Cote d'Ivoire citizens choose whether to adopt or reject the new constitutional document. ATHENS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Greek Coast Guard launched a new rescue operation for a refugee vessel sailing in the southern Mediterranean Sea on Monday, according to a Greek Shipping Ministry announcement. Greek Coast Guard patrol vessels supported by other ships sailing nearby are rushing to the area southeast of Crete island in Libya's waters, responding to a distress call issued by a ship carrying refugees. It is believed about 200 migrants and refugees were on board the vessel. Greek officials were alerted on an SOS call by a Greek tanker sailing nearby, according to ministry sources. Ten days ago, the Greek Coast Guard participated in another major rescue operation for a boat carrying hundreds of refugees that sank in Egypt's waters south of Crete. BUDAPEST, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The European Investment Bank (EIB) opened a mission in Hungary on Monday, welcomed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who said the bank was working towards Hungary's success. Orban noted that Hungary's economic growth was faster than the EU average and would remain so on medium term. Hungary, he said, was capable of doubling the rate of attaining full employment and of boosting domestic industry. Doing so, he added, will require investment and it was counting on EIB support. But Hungary had to construct a financial system for the period when EIB funding went down, the prime minister said. Hungarian National Economy Minister Mihaly Varga predicted that the relationship between Hungary and the EIB would become even closer with the new mission. Varga said the 30 billion forints (108 million dollars) in credit received from the EIB and the Council of Europe Development Bank would be used to improve educational infrastructure. EIB President Werner Hoyer said the new mission would allow the EIB to boost its performance on the credit front as well as its technical and financial advisory services. Last year, he said, the EIB had signed credit agreements valued at 1.42 billion euros (15.9 billion U.S. dollars) in support of investments in Hungary. Dubbed the "southern gate of China", with Hong Kong and Macao as its neighbors, Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, has been one of China's most important port cities and commercial centers since it was the departure point on the Maritime Silk Road during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). (Xinhuanet file photo) by Xinhua writers Yu Fei and Fu Qing GUANGZHOU, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has ambitious plans to reinvigorate the country's economy through innovation. This major shift must be supported by making science and technology a major priority, as the country's most recent five-year-plan emphasized. The city of Guangzhou is well-placed to succeed in this new landscape. Dubbed the "southern gate of China", with Hong Kong and Macao as its neighbors, Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, has been one of China's most important port cities and commercial centers since it was the departure point on the Maritime Silk Road during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Today the city's GDP per capita exceeds 20,000 U.S. dollars, the third highest of the country's large cities after Beijing and Shanghai. In 2015, the value of Guangzhou's high-tech products reached more than 842 billion yuan (130 billion U.S. dollars) and the number of new patent licenses surged past 6,000, a rise of almost 50 percent from 2014. While car manufacturing, petroleum and chemicals are Guangzhou's traditional pillars, emerging sectors such as electronics, biological and pharmaceutical research and new materials have developed rapidly. The city is also home to 13 of China's 50 most innovative companies as selected by U.S. business magazine Fast Company. As well as being a commercial hotspot, the municipal government also wants Guangzhou to become an international science and technology innovation hub. Already home to most of the research centers in its province (79 universities, 141 research organizations and 19 national key laboratories), under local government plans the city could see a doubling of the number of incubators that help accelerate the growth of sci-tech startups. Land and financial support is also being allocated for development of high-tech enterprises and the construction of companies with in-house R&D capabilities. SUPPORTING RESEARCH COMMERCIALIZATION The Guangzhou government spent 7.17 billion yuan (approximately 1.1 billion U.S. dollars) on science and technology projects last year, almost five times the amount spent in 2010. It has committed to increasing the budget to 10 billion yuan by 2017, a significant portion of which will be used to commercialize the city's research effort. Since mid-2015, policies to facilitate research commercialization have been rolled out, with particular emphasis on the role businesses must play. The Guangzhou Science, Technology and Innovation Commission, which is in charge of science and technology affairs under the Guangzhou municipal government, says more than 80 percent of the city's science and technology funding will support projects led by business by 2018. The government will also help more than half the city's industrial enterprises above a designated size establish R&D bases in Guangzhou. "The policies are similar to those of other cities, developed against the backdrop of China's development of an innovation driven economy and implementing the amended Law on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements in October 2015. We will see the effect of the policies this year," says Chen Yanling, vice director of the innovation service department of the Guangzhou Science, Technology and Innovation Commission. Enterprises buying scientific and technological patents can seek government subsidies of 5 percent of the value of research result transactions. Newly-established sci-tech companies can also apply for subsidies of 50 percent of their rent for three consecutive years, according to the commission. "We encourage enterprises to cooperate with universities and research institutes," Chen says. Another new policy also encourages scientists and technology experts in universities and research institutes to commercialize their research. It directs administrators at these organizations to expand the criteria they use to evaluate researchers beyond their publication record, to include commercial achievements such as the number of patents they hold, or their efforts to translate their research. INCUBATING SCI-TECH COMPANIES At the heart of Guangzhou's development district in the city's east sits Guangzhou Science Town. Spread over 20 square kilometers, the town was built in 1998 to facilitate research commercialization by positioning businesses in the same precinct as researchers and entrepreneurs. The science town is home to Guangzhou's first modern business incubator, which helps startups establish themselves by sharing equipment and support staff, as well as offering management training and cheaper office space. The town now boast 45 incubators - including some set up by the government, universities or research institutes - collectively assisting about 3,000 sci-tech companies. "The incubators provide the space and services for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. As researchers and university professors are unfamiliar with commercial registration procedures and legal and financial issues of business, the incubators help solve those problems," says Xia Jian, deputy secretary of the Technological Innovation and Intellectual Property Bureau of the Guangzhou Development District. One recently established incubator set up by the Guangzhou Research Institute of Optical - Mechanical-Electrical Technology, which specializes in bio-medical, financial and laboratory monitoring equipment, has helped launched several science startups or businesses based on the institution's research. One spin-off from the institute, Guangdong Spectrastar Instruments, has successfully commercialized near-infrared spectroscopy technology developed by one of the institute's research teams, led by Chen Xingdan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Chen was responsible for measuring the light radiation of China's first nuclear test in the 1960s. He has spent more than two decades studying near infrared spectroscopy, and is enthusiastic about his research results being used outside the lab. Products made by Guangdong Spectrastar Instruments entered the market in 2015. "Its output value is expected to reach 10 million yuan in 2016," says Ren Hao, deputy director of the institute. He says the corporation aims to list on the stock market in 2017. The incubator is also helping to realize the visions of university graduates developing a new satellite and a group of technicians from Taiwan developing a mini supercomputer. "The research organizations have a responsibility to help transform and upgrade China's small and medium-sized enterprises. Guangzhou is at the frontier of economic and trade activities that provide us with sufficient market and commercial information. We want to find a new development mode together with business," Ren adds. COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION Collaborations between businesses and academic centers are another important source of innovation in Guangzhou. Several alliances have formed between industry and universities or research institutions in fields such as new materials, 3D printing, industrial robotics and biological medicine. The local government has handed out 100 million yuan annually for the last five years to support collaborative innovation and research commercialization in the field of health care. Animal vaccine-producer Guangdong Winsun Biopharmaceutical Corporation is one company that has benefited from alliances with research institutions. Originally a state-owned enterprise established in 1958, the organization was restructured into a private holding company in 2002. At the time, it had no in-house R&D capabilities and competition from other companies threatened to drive it out of business. After restructuring, the company established stronger connections with the China Institute of Veterinary Drug Control, the South China Agricultural University, the Sun Yat-sen University, the Guangdong Ocean University and the East China University of Science and Technology to develop and test new vaccines. "We either buy their research results or jointly develop new vaccines. Our major source of profits comes from cooperation with institutes and universities," says general manager Lin Xuye. The corporation produces 43 different vaccines, with sales revenue exceeding 300 million yuan in 2015. Now it invests about 8 percent of its sales value in R&D every year. Another hotbed of profitable cooperation is the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health of the CAS. In 2009, it set up a drug discovery pipeline to research and develop new medicines and bio-medicine technologies, which aims to combine the resources of research organizations, universities and companies in south China to accelerate development of key drugs. As a result of the platform, AD16, a new anti-neuroinflammatory agent to treat Alzheimer's disease has passed preclinical trials and has been granted a clinical trial approval by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA). An oral kinase inhibitor for the treatment of leukemia is now awaiting CFDA clinical trial approval. (This article was originally published on the international weekly journal of science, Nature, on May 12. Read more at http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj0483?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0) ORLANDO, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- People line up to donate blood for the shooing victims in Orlando, the United States, June 12, 2016. At least fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in a shooting spree at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) ORLANDO, the United States, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Volunteers queued for hours in heavy rain to donate blood at mobile stations in Orlando, Florida, where the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to date took place on Sunday, while politicians argued from the very wording of the incident to ways to prevent the recurrence of such tragedy. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer in the attack early Sunday. The tragedy happened amid a series of events nationwide in celebration of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Pride Month. In several other cities hosting events on Sunday, including block parties in Boston and a festival in Washington, police strengthened security. In Los Angeles, about 100,000 people marched in a planned Gay Pride parade in defiance of the bloodshed. U.S. President Barack Obama denounced the Orlando shooting as an "act of terror and an act of hate," in a national address in Washington on Sunday afternoon. He said the country must spare no effort to determine whether the killer had any ties to extremist groups. In the presidential race, the two hot presidential candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, also aired their views on the killings in hopes of attracting more voters. Trump called for Obama's resignation for refusing to use the words "radical Islam" in his address, adding that his rival Clinton should quit from the presidential race for the same reason. Clinton said in a statement that "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them," adding a call to keep assault weapons out of the hands of "terrorists or other violent criminals." On the other side, Trump renewed talk of his plan to ban Muslims from the United States for an indeterminate time. Mike Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, said that the incident "is a tragic illustration of the legitimate safety fears that those in our LGBT community live with every day." Speaking at the Houston LGBT Caucus event on Sunday, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said that it is the time "when all of us stand together and say to the world that we will not tolerate these types of violence anywhere in this country." "Enough of people talking about other groups as if they have no value and they're not worth anything. And enough of people being silent and letting folks do it and say what they want to say ... Now we must draw the line," Turner said. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city, also said at the event that it is not the first time "our community or many other communities have had to stand and acknowledge a terrible, terrible incident." He said that fear should never drive people's decisions or make them strike out against any other community. LGBT organization Pride Houston said in a statement: "Our thoughts and hearts are with the victims, their families and friends affected by this senseless tragedy." Frankie Quijano, CEO of Pride Houston, said: "Today is a tragic loss for the LGBT community, and we keep the victims, as well as those affected, in our hearts as we move forward together as a community." He said that there will be an increased presence of Houston police and additional security officers throughout Houston LGBT Pride Celebration, which is scheduled for June 25. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading Muslim civil rights advocate group in the United States, said in a statement: "The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence." The suspected Orlando night club shooter Omar Mateen was a security guard in West Palm Beach with G4S. In a statement sent to the Palm Beach Post, the security company said: "We are cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation." Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang (Source: fmprc.gov.cn) BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China on Monday extended congratulations to Peru's newly-elected President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. "China values bilateral relations with Peru, and is ready to work with the country to enhance friendly exchanges and cooperation in all fields and push forward our comprehensive strategic partnership," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang. Calling Peru an important country in Latin America, Lu told a regular press briefing that relations between China and Peru have developed well since diplomatic relations were established 45 years ago. The two countries have witnessed frequent high-level exchanges, successful cooperation in many fields, and good communication and coordination in international and regional affairs, Lu added. Kuczynski, 77, of the Peruanos Por El Cambio Party, won the presidential election last Thursday. DUBAI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Monday condemned a "terrorist" attack on a night club in Orlando, Florida, that killed 50 people and wounded 53 others. In a statement carried by Emirati state news agency WAM, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Abu Dhabi stressed its solidarity with the U.S., reiterating its "condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations." The ministry also stressed its firm stance on the need for concerted efforts of the international community to eliminate the scourge of terrorism that is against all ethical and human values. It extended sincere condolences and sympathies to the U.S. government and people and the families of the victims and wished for a speedy recovery for the wounded. The Islamic State (IS) group hailed the gunman behind the shooting, the deadliest in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, as a "soldier of caliphate," according to a bulletin over the group's Al-Bayan radio on Monday. BERLIN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Thanks to strong domestic demand, some 450,000 new jobs will be created this year in Germany, pushing the country's employment to a new record high, said a leading business group on Monday. The Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) forecast that corporate service providers such as legal and tax consulting firms would offer the most vacancies. In 2016, 130,000 new jobs are expected to be added in this sector, followed by retail, transport, hotel and restaurant companies with 120,000 open positions. Martin Wansleben, DIHK's chief executive, told German Saarbruecker Zeitung newspaper that the increase was mainly due to "high domestic demand which is even stronger than in recent years." The group expected the number of employees in Germany to increase this year for the 11th time in a row and hit the highest level since Germany's reunification. "In construction sector, we see the strongest growth in four years," said Wansleben, adding that the increase could be stronger but was limited by a lack of skilled workers. According to him, more than half of small and medium sized enterprises in Germany see a skilled labor shortage as a risk for their development. "Especially in the booming industries of retail and construction, enterprises have increasing difficulty in finding suitable staff," he said. A crew member takes part in a fire drill on China's largest and most advanced patrol vessel Haixun 01 on the South China Sea, April 4, 2016. (Xinhua/Xing Guangli) BUENOS AIRES, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' ongoing maritime dispute with China over the South China Sea must be resolved through reasoned bilateral dialogue, said a leading Argentine economist and academic. Unilateral measures only serve to damage the relationship between the two countries, Gustavo Girado, head of the Buenos Aires-based Asia & Argentina Consultancy, told Xinhua in a recent interview. In 2013, Manila decided to take its case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, a move that "didn't seem to be the most appropriate, since the decade-old agreements between the two countries have established a proper means to resolve their disputes," said Girado. The unilateral move ran counter to the commitments the Philippines made as a signatory of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), said the academic. "The road the Philippines chose draws attention somewhat due to a number of factors which failed to justify that action, historic and political factors," said Girado. "It's very clear that Chinese inhabitants were the first to name the region," he added. On Wednesday, China again urged the Philippines to suspend its legal proceedings at the PCA and return to the negotiating table. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei made the remarks at a press conference, saying the door to bilateral talks will always be open. "China will continue to be committed to a negotiated solution to the South China Sea dispute with the Philippines, based on historic facts and in accord with international law," he said. Girado believes the dispute "doesn't merit intervention by third parties," such as an arbitration court, which "belongs to the last century." In 2014, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a Position Paper on the arbitration, saying that the essence of the subject matter of the case is territorial sovereignty over several maritime features in the South China Sea, which is beyond the scope of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) under which Manila initiated the arbitration. China has repeatedly noted that since the 1970s, the Philippines has illegally seized by force maritime features of China's Nansha Islands in disregard of the UN Charter and the basic norms governing international relations, and this is "the root and direct cause" of the two countries' disputes over the South China Sea. "It's appropriate for China not to take into consideration the resolution of arbitration, given the previous accord that allows for reaching a mutual agreement through peaceful, responsible negotiation," Girado said. "Law of the Sea legislation precisely says that those who have a previous accord for bilateral resolution of disputes must take that route," he said. With that in mind, said the academic, it seems "clear and wise on the part of Chinese diplomacy not to take into account any eventual decision (issued by the PCA), because it doesn't take into account China's opinion." As to the likelihood of outside powers intervening in the dispute, Girado thought it's "evident." He explained that since U.S. President Barack Obama's first term, a policy has been established for the region, with the U.S. Navy's presence in a certain area in order to exert a degree of influence on matters of interest to the United States. "It's a tremendously rich zone, through which half of the planet's maritime mercantile trade passes. I have no doubt there are concrete interests at play in the Filipino decision, which really calls one's attention," said Girado. The academic underscored the need for a negotiated solution to the dispute, drawing parallels to Argentina's long-running conflict with Britain over the Malvinas Islands, known to the British as the Falklands. Since the islands "were usurped by the world's leading capitalist economy back in the year 1833, different interests have been at play to prevent Argentina, a developing country, from staking a claim to what belongs to it." In early June, China said it hoped the new government in the Philippines would return to the negotiating table. After the Philippines' incoming Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay signalled that bilateral talks with China could help deescalate the dispute, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying noted that successive leaders from both sides have agreed in past meetings and documents to resolve the issue peacefully through direct talks. "We hope the new government of the Philippines fulfills its pledges and resumes talks with China to properly handle disputes in a way that contributes to the sound and stable development of bilateral ties," said Hua. The incoming president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has said he wants to promote friendly ties with China and that he is open to direct talks on the South China Sea dispute. Related: Spotlight: Experts say China's stance on South China Sea arbitration fully justified BEIJING, June 10 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' unilateral move to bring a maritime dispute with China to an international tribunal won't help resolve the problem and the right way forward is to seek settlement through bilateral talks, several foreign experts told Xinhua in recent interviews. Full story Interview: Manila intensifies tension in South China Sea -- former diplomat MANILA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- The Philippine government has been behind the intensifying tensions in the South China Sea, a former diplomat of the country told Xinhua on Wednesday. BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- A book of some of President Xi Jinping's remarks on national defense and the army has been published, military authorities said Monday. The book selects 29 of Xi's statements from January 2015 to February 2016. Xi is also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). The book was published by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Publishing House and upon the approval of the CMC, it will be distributed to regimental and above officers. The Political Work Department under the CMC led the compilation of the book. The department has issued a circular urging all officers and soldiers to study the book. Related: CMC urges troops to study Xi's remarks on military reform BEIJING, May 29 (Xinhua) -- The Central Military Commission (CMC) has released a circular urging troops to carefully study CMC Chairman Xi Jinping's remarks on deepening national defense and military reform. The remarks, selected from speeches on military issues made by Xi between November 2012 and November 2015, were compiled into a book by the group leading military reform under the CMC. Full Story Xi stresses employment of demobilized military officers BEIJING, June 7 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping underscored that the duty of providing demobilized military officers with civilian jobs was a political task, and was closely linked to national defense and military reform. JERUSALEM, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told ministers from his right-wing Likud party on Monday that Israel will not accept the original Arab Peace Initiative as the basis for peace with the Palestinians, Israeli media reported. Netanyahu told members of his Likud party in a closed meeting that the current formulation of the Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia in 2002 and adopted by the Arab League, is not acceptable, and in order for Israel to accept it some changes must be made, the Ha'aretz daily reported. "If the Arab states understand that they need to amend the Arab Peace Initiative in line with the changes that Israel demands, then we will have something to discuss," Netanyahu said, according to the report which cited two sources who attended the meeting. He added that if they propose the original 2002 initiative, and say "take it or leave it," then Israel will go with "leave it." As for the changes Israel demands, Netanyahu told his party members that the positive aspects of the initiative is the Arab states' willingness to normalize ties with Israel, but he denounces the "negative elements" including the demand that Israel withdraw to its borders prior to the 1967 War and the issue of the Palestinian refugees who fled Israel in the 1948 war. Israel occupied the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights territories from neighboring Arab states during the 1967 Middle East War. Under the 2002 Saudi initiative, all Arab states would sign peace deals with Israel and normalize ties with it if Israel reaches a peace deal with the Palestinians and a Palestinian state is established, on the basis of the 1967 borderlines with territory swap and with an agreed solution to the issue of the refugees. Two weeks ago, upon the inauguration of hawkish Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu expressed a positive stance toward the Arab Peace Initiative. "The overall Arab peace initiative includes positives ingredients that can help in recovering constructive negotiations with the Palestinians," Netanyahu told reporters then. He said the initiative must be updated to "reflect the dramatic changes" that took place in the region since 2002, while keeping "the agreed-upon goal of two states for two people." Netanyahu and Lieberman then both welcomed statements made last month by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who supported restarting peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians with the mediation of Arab states, with Egypt chiefly among them. These statements come amid Israel's objection of a proposed French peace summit, which France hopes to conduct later this year, hoping it to be a forum that would lead to the resumption of the peace talks. While Palestinians expressed their support for the French initiative, Israeli officials repeatedly stated that international forums do not lead to direct negotiations, and will give excuses for the Palestinians to avert direct talks altogether. The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, mediated by the United States, ended abruptly in April 2014 without results. The international push to restart peace talks comes following nine months of ongoing violence, which claimed the lives of 32 Israelis and 205 Palestinians, and as Israel is headed by one of its most right-wing governments to-date. GENEVA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Fatalities and injuries among West Bank Palestinians caused by Israeli forces were the highest in 2015 since UN began recording such figures in 2005, and so were casualties among Israelis from attacks by West Bank Palestinians, a UN report said on Monday. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Monday published its 2015 Annual Humanitarian Overview report on the occupied Palestinian territory. According to the report, 171 Palestinians and 25 Israelis were killed during various attacks in 2015, compared with 2,314 and 87 respectively in 2014. The report said that while most of 2015 witnessed a relative calm compared to 2014, tension rose in September in east Jerusalem with protests, clashes and violence spreading to the remaining occupied Palestinian territory. "Due to the upsurge in violence in the last quarter, 2015 recorded the highest number of casualties among West Bank Palestinians since 2005. Israeli casualties in the West Bank and Israel, among both Israeli forces and civilians, were also the highest since 2005," the report noted. In Gaza Strip, the report said that the August 2014 ceasefire has largely held, as reflected in the relatively low numbers of fatalities, although casualties rose in the final quarter of the year, alongside the deterioration seen in the West Bank. Displacement also remained a prominent concern with at least 70,000 Palestinians remaining displaced and facing difficult living conditions, following the destruction of their homes during the 2014 escalation of hostilities. Ten days ahead of a referendum in Britain on the country's membership of EU, Tusk told German Bild newspaper that it would be dangerous if the British people decide to leave the union. "Every family knows: Divorce is traumatic for all," Tusk said, "Economically, everyone would lose out in the EU, especially the British themselves. Politically, it would encourage all radical anti-Europeans from the inside of numerous member states." "As a historian, I'm afraid: the Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the European Union, but also of the entire political civilization of the West," he warned. According to Tusk, it will take at least seven years for Britain to dissolve current contractual connections and to negotiate new relationships with the EU if it leaves the union. Meanwhile, the process would be "without any guarantee of success". He added that the EU would survive even if the Britain leaves, "although the price would be high". (Xinhua file photo) TOKYO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Over 60 percent of Japanese public showed their doubt about the effectiveness of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's economic policy mix dubbed "Abenomics," said the latest nationwide poll released on Monday. The survey conducted by Japan's Kyodo News said that 62.2 percent of the respondents do not believe that the "Abenomics" could improve the country's sluggish economy, while 28 percent of Japanese supported the policy compound. The prime minister earlier this month postponed again the planned sales tax hike from current 8 percent to 10 percent, citing that global economic situation right now is similar to what in 2008 before the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers and weak domestic consumption figures. Also on Monday, rating agency Fitch has slashed its rating outlook on Japanese government bond from "stable" to "negative" for Abe's decision to delay the consumption tax hike by another 18 months. The revision "primarily reflects Fitch's decreased confidence in the Japanese authorities' commitment to fiscal consolidation," the agency said in a statement. Abe aimed at making economic policies a topic during the upcoming upper house election. The election outcome is significant for the revisionist prime minister and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party to launch a motion to revise the country's war-renouncing Constitution. About the Constitution amendment, the Kyodo poll said that 48.2 percent of the public here oppose any revision under the Abe administration, while 35.9 percent showed their support to revise the Constitution. Disapproval rate for the prime minister's cabinet increased 2.2 percentage points to 43.5 percent, compared to the supporting rate of 47.8 percent, a 1.6-percentage-point drop from the previous survey earlier this month. Related: Spotlight: "Abenomics" likely to plunge Japan into "black hole" BEIJING, June 2 (Xinhua) -- As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Wednesday decided to further delay a sales tax hike, "Abenomics" has been labeled a failure. World financial experts believe that the palliative and ineffective "Abenomics" will likely plunge Japan's economy into a "black hole." Abe announced on Wednesday a further postponement of Japan's second round of consumption tax hike to October 2019 from April 2017, explaining that the move was to avoid a further downturn of Japan's domestic consumption. Full story Spotlight: Second delay of tax hike in Japan proves futility of Abenomics BEIJING, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe broke his word Wednesday by putting off the scheduled consumption tax hike, a second delay which he had promised would not happen unless huge economic crises or severe natural disasters break out. But what is to blame is perhaps Abenomics itself.Full story by Xinhua writer Wang Qiang CAIRO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The tombs of Queen Nefertari and King Seti I in the ancient Upper Egyptian city of Luxor, dating back to the New Kingdom era, will reopen to tourists after being closed for several years, Egyptian antiquities officials said last week. The two famous pharaonic sites, both with a history of more than 3,000 years, have been closed years ago for restoration as a result of increased humidity caused by visitors, which is harmful to the exquisite wall paintings in the burial chambers. They are expected to reopen in a month. The authorities plan to limit the number of visitors to a range of 100 and 150 per day. Its setting of the ticket price to 1,000 Egyptian pounds (110 U.S. dollars) is in an apparent attempt to strike a balance between tourism and cultural heritage conservation. "The decision was taken to attract more tourists to Luxor after the decline of tourism in Egypt following the 2011 uprising," Egyptian minister of antiquities Khaled al-Enany told local media. It is the latest attempt by the Egyptian authorities to win back tourists after years of domestic political turmoil and a scad of terror attacks and aviation accidents. Last month, the first pyramid inscripted with "pyramid texts" at Sakkara, an ancient burial ground some 30 km south of Cairo, was reopened to attract tourists after being closed for 20 years. With a history of over 4,000 years, the pyramid of King Unas, 25 km south of the Great Pyramid of Giza, is considered one of the most important pyramids in Egypt despite its small size. Also in May, four tombs of royal butlers of New Kingdom in Luxor have opened to the public after four years' restoration. They contain well-preserved wall paintings showing ancient Egyptian gods including Anubis, who is associated with mummification. The opening of those tombs is also part of the North African country's efforts to rejuvenate its ailing tourism sector. In the wake of the 2011 uprising, the once-thriving tourism industry in Egypt was dealt more heavy blows following the downing of a Russian airliner over North Sinai last October and the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 in the Mediterranean last month. Tourist arrivals in April dropped 54 percent compared with the same month last year, with a total of 425,000 visitors, the sixth consecutive month that tourism declined, the Central Agency of Public Mobilization and Statistics of Egypt said last week. GENEVA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday welcomed China's application for its membership, saying that it is "crucial" for the organization's global significance. IOM Director General William Lacy Swing on Monday met with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao who delivered a letter of application for membership in IOM. "China's membership in IOM is crucial towards growing the organization's global significance," Swing said after the meeting. During the meeting, Swing also discussed global migration and the migrant situation in Europe, as well as preparations for the upcoming UN Summit on large-scale movements of migrants and refugees on September 19. Wang expressed China's recognition of the IOM's role and contributions in managing migration worldwide, stressing three areas for future cooperation with the IOM: capacity building and regional border management, disaster prevention and integration of migrants. IOM was born in 1951 out of the chaos and displacement of Western Europe following the Second World War. From its roots as an operational logistics agency, it has broadened its scope to become the leading international agency working with governments and civil society to advance the understanding of migration issues, encourage social and economic development through migration, and uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants. Enditem ISLAMABAD, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan on Monday summoned Afghan charge d'affaires to lodge protest over cross-border shelling by Afghan troops that injured at least two soldiers and nine civilians, the Foreign Ministry said. Pakistan army said Afghan troops "resorted to indiscriminate firing" at Torkham border point where Pakistan is constructing a gate on own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement. "Today, Afghan Charge d'Affaires was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey Pakistan's strong protest over unprovoked firing by the Afghan forces at Pakistani forces on Torkham border crossing," a Foreign Ministry statement said. "The Afghan Charge d'Affaires was told that the firing incident was contrary to the spirit of friendly relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan side was urged to thoroughly investigate the incident and share the findings with Pakistani authorities," it said. Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said Monday told ministers that Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to observe ceasefire along the Torkham border and solve the problem through diplomatic means. Adullah confirmed that one Afghan border police was killed and six others were injured in clashes. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman said it was further emphasized that all steps should be taken for avoiding recurrence of such incidents in the future. The firing was aimed at disrupting the construction of a gate well inside Pakistani territory at the border which is being constructed to facilitate the cross-border movement of people and vehicles. "It was conveyed to the Afghan side that the regulation of movements at Torkham is part of government's policy to strengthen border management. Therefore, Afghan government's cooperation was needed as it would enhance mutual security and help combat the threat of terrorism," the spokesman said. The Afghan Foreign Ministry said on Monday that it wants to solve border issues with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan considers this tension as unpleasant. Afghanistan adheres to its pervious accords with Pakistan and emphasizes peaceful methods and expects from Pakistani side to tackle this problem through diplomatic channels," a statement said in Kabul. by Valentini Anagnostopoulou MALAKASA, Greece, June 13 (Xinhua) -- About 40 km north of Athens, the Malakasa hot spot hosts approximately 800 people, mostly Afghan families, including 200 unaccompanied minors. On June 8, Afghan migrants in Malakasa launched a protest denouncing the bad living conditions inside the camp. Families, young women with their babies and little children joined their voices in demand of better hygiene, healthcare, food and clothing. Moahid lives in this camp for the last three months and talked to Xinhua about the main problems he faces. "People don't want to stay here because the food they give us is bad. We need clothes. We need shampoo. They don't give us," Moahid said. "We need shoes and stuff and the storerooms are closed. We go elsewhere to take shoes and food. We go to Victoria square (in central Athens) because at the camp the food is not good," he explained. Mustafa is a teacher from Afghanistan and he came to Greece looking for a gateway to Europe. For the last three months he has been stranded in Malakasa. "They give us junk food that is not worthy for animals, but we still eat it," he said. The protest was vivid but peaceful. The migrants marched for a short distance holding their hand-made banners and then stopped and chanted their demands. Twenty-year-old Asef has come from Afghanistan along with his brother's family. He has lived in the camp for about two and a half months. "We don't have toilets. They closed some of the toilets and bathrooms and they told us that they needed to be fixed, but they closed them. Now they have brought in chemical toilets, but they don't use the chemicals they should and the situation is really bad for women and children. It is dangerous for their health," he said. The situation seems to have deteriorated over the last month, refugees and migrants say. "During the last month, they don't give us stuff, like diapers for children, personal hygiene products that women, children and men need, like soda to wash our clothes," Asef added. Hara Stagkou, coordinator of the Malakasa hot spot with the General Secretariat of Migration Policy, said: "The food in this structure is the result of a contract signed by the Army and a catering company. I also understand that they protest about the healthcare that was until recently provided for by the 401 Military Hospital of Athens." Stagkou admitted conditions inside many state-organized camps are far from perfect, but, she pointed out, Greek authorities are doing their best to improve these conditions. With the summer heat about to reach its peak and the Greek state struggling to manage its poor resources, refugees and the camp staff across Greece are expected to tackle a situation that is getting harder every day. BAMAKO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Condemnation by the French defense ministry of the duplicity of Supreme Council for Azawad Unity (HCUA), one of the main rebel groups that signed Mali peace agreement last year, has been received with mixed reactions among Mali observers. "What is worrying us and it has frankly began annoying us, is the doublespeak by HCUA. It is one of the signatories of the Mali peace agreements, but from time to time, it has clearly not hidden its closeness to jihadists like Iyad Ag Ghali who leads Ansar Dine terror group," the French defense ministry said in a statement issued last week. Although for some, it was time that France saw the reality on the ground, for others, the condemnation will not change anything as France will continue providing support to the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), to which HCUA belongs. The Malian government has not yet responded to the French statement, but a source from the national reconciliation ministry who spoke to Xinhua, said "it was good France was seeing the connection between terrorist networks and some armed groups that have blocked implementation of the peace agreement that they signed." Most analysts observed that France's condemnation of HCUA's duplicity was more clear than that of the UN Peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA). "Is it a signal of the breakdown of relations with HCUA? Or is it simply a declaration of war with HCUA," some wondered. "It seems the problem is much deeper and France seems to have evidence that most observers have had for a long time; the military force belonged to Ansar Dine and not to the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) that was being protected by France," said Abdourhamane Dicko, an independent expert on security and development issues. According to other experts, it seems Iyad is the sole master in the northern Mali desert where the governmental authority has not been fully felt since 1990s. "Today, this situation demands that we must seek real solutions with real actors, meaning that we must have the courage to involve Iyad in the peace process," Dicko said. The source at Mali's national reconciliation ministry says "France should not limit itself to condemning HCUA's duplicity, but it should take concrete actions, such as helping the Malian armed forces and administration to be deployed all over the country, especially in the north." "Even though the Malian state has not established its sovereignty in Kidal, the peace process remains threatened by acts of sabotage from terrorist networks," the same source said. However, according to Le Berger, a Malian columnist, "the condemnation of HCUA's duplicity by Paris was simply a smoke-screen by France to push for the extension of MINUSMA's mandate during the Security Council meeting on June 29 this year. "Otherwise, who does not know that HCUA has always been funded by Iyad," Le Berger who is a native of northern Mali posed. HCUA was one of the dissident groups of Ansar Dine, a terrorist group that controlled northern Mali until the French Serval operation was launched in 2013, and which is led by Iyad Ag Ghali, a veteran leader of the Touareg rebels. In a report published in March 2016, MINUSMA said HCUA had between 400 and 600 fighters. Security sources believe the group is militarily and financially funded by a very powerful group in Kidal region. According to a number of observers, the intentions of HCUA leaders have always remained unclear. But what is clear is that the group still works with Ansar Dine group. ANKARA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- At least nine people were injured in a car bomb attack on a residential complex for members of Turkey's judiciary in eastern Tunceli province Monday, Turkish security sources told Anadolu Agency. According to the sources, a Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) suicide bomber detonated a bomb-laden car inside the housing complex, where members of the judiciary, including judges live. Nine people, including one police officer, were wounded in the attack, three of whom are reported to be in a critical condition. Over 470 members of Turkish security forces and thousands of PKK members have been killed in confrontations inside Turkey and in northern Iraq since last July. More than 40,000 people have lost their lives in clashes with the PKK since 1984, when the group first started anti-government attacks. The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Turkey. BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- A total of 96 contracts worth 15 billion U.S. dollars were signed on Monday between Chinese and German companies at the eighth Chinese-German Forum for Economic and Technological Cooperation. There is great room for cooperation between our two countries as both upgrade their economic structure, said Lin Nianxiu, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's top economic planning body. The forum, hosted by the NDRC and Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, attracted nearly 800 attendees to discuss topics including the digital economy and economic structural transformation. BERLIN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel has expressed her shock and condolence on the Orlando nightclub shooting which left at least 50 people dead, said the German government on Monday. The Chancellor has expressed condolence and sympathy on behalf of the German people to the United States President Barack Obama, according to a government statement. Merkel is currently in a visit to China. "Our heart is heavy," Merkel said, she was deeply shocked that hatred and malice of an individual person claimed more than 50 lives. "We are determined, even if such murderous attacks put us in deep sorrow, to continue our open, tolerant life," she added. BRUSSELS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission gave green light to German investment aid to paper manufacturer Hamburger Rieger and opened investigation into German aid to polymer processer Rehau, it was announced Monday. The commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU), has found the 33-million-euro investment aid to Hamburger Rieger, a German paper and plasterboard manufacturer, to be in line with EU state aid rules, it said in a statement. In a separate decision, the commission opened an in-depth investigation to assess whether the 4-million-euro aid to Rehau AG+Co, a polymer business based in Switzerland active amongst other things as automotive supplier, complied with the bloc's regional aid guidelines. Hamburger Rieger GmbH is a large German manufacturer of paper and plasterboard. It has plans to invest 363 million euros (409 million U.S. dollars) to extend its paper production capacity by setting up a new stock preparation process and building an additional paper machine in its existing production plant in Spremberg. Germany plans to grant public funding of 33 million euros to support the project. The commission said it found that without the public funding, the project would not have been carried out in the Spremberg region. The commission therefore concluded that the positive effects of the project on regional development clearly outweigh any distortion of competition brought about by the state aid. Rehau AG+Co is a large processer of polymer, among others for car parts, headquartered in Switzerland. It has plans to invest 50 million euros in replacing its existing paint shop in Germany's Viechtach. Germany plans to grant public financing of 4 million euros in support of the project. At this stage, the commission said it doubted whether the planned production process was sufficiently innovative to qualify as innovation for purposes of the regional aid guidelines. MOSCOW, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Russia and South Korea on Monday called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. "We reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in this regard stressed that both Russia and South Korea will not accept the self-proclaimed nuclear status of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se. Lavrov said that Russia would pursue the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2270 adopted in March to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs. "We consider it unacceptable to turn the region into a confrontation area, as all problems should be settled by negotiations," Lavrov said. Yun said South Korea sees the DPRK nuclear issue as "the largest obstacle" to improving Moscow-Seoul cooperation and enhancing regional peace and prosperity, and a threat to the international community. "The DPRK is moving backwards by not stopping its aspirations to obtain nuclear potential ... We consider it necessary to direct the DPRK into a correct route by joint efforts of the international community to support the full observation of the UN Security Council resolutions," Yun said. The ministers also discussed bilateral cooperation in such fields as energy, nuclear, port infrastructure and fisheries, as well as the prospects of establishing a free trade zone between South Korea and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Yun's visit is the first travel by a South Korean foreign minister to Russia in five years. The South Korean Foreign Ministry described the visit as an opportunity to make diplomatic efforts to put pressure on Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program. by Maria Spiliopoulou ATHENS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- A 25-meter wooden vessel carrying refugees and migrants which had issued a distress call earlier on Monday in Libya's waters southeast of Crete island was not in danger, Greek Coast Guard officers said. The some 200 people on board said they wanted to continue sailing towards Italy, according to Greek officials who had coordinated a rescue operation once they were notified on the emergency signal by a Greek tanker sailing nearby. A Panama-flagged freighter which also rushed to the area before Greek Coast Guard patrol vessels reach the site told Greek authorities that there seemed to be no major problem with the ship, Greek national news agency AMNA reported. According to the same report, refugees said they wanted to continue their journey to Italy. Ten days ago Greek Coast Guard had participated in another major rescue operation for a boat carrying hundreds of refugees that sank in Egypt's waters south of Crete. After the closure of the Balkan route to central Europe in February and the start of returns to Turkey from the Greek islands in spring, smugglers have shifted their operations from the Turkish coasts to the northern African ports and emergencies have increased in the southern Mediterranean Sea. Tourists look at the Temple of Queen Nefertari, wife of Pharaoh King Ramses II on the eve of the anniversary of Pharaoh King Ramses II's coronation, at the upper reaches of the Nile, around 1264 km south of Cairo February 21, 2010. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) by Xinhua writer Wang Qiang CAIRO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The tombs of Queen Nefertari and King Seti I in the ancient Upper Egyptian city of Luxor, dating back to the New Kingdom era, will reopen to tourists after being closed for several years, Egyptian antiquities officials said last week. The two famous pharaonic sites, both with a history of more than 3,000 years, have been closed years ago for restoration as a result of increased humidity caused by visitors, which is harmful to the exquisite wall paintings in the burial chambers. They are expected to reopen in a month. The authorities plan to limit the number of visitors to a range of 100 and 150 per day. Its setting of the ticket price to 1,000 Egyptian pounds (110 U.S. dollars) is in an apparent attempt to strike a balance between tourism and cultural heritage conservation. "The decision was taken to attract more tourists to Luxor after the decline of tourism in Egypt following the 2011 uprising," Egyptian minister of antiquities Khaled al-Enany told local media. It is the latest attempt by the Egyptian authorities to win back tourists after years of domestic political turmoil and a scad of terror attacks and aviation accidents. Last month, the first pyramid inscripted with "pyramid texts" at Sakkara, an ancient burial ground some 30 km south of Cairo, was reopened to attract tourists after being closed for 20 years. With a history of over 4,000 years, the pyramid of King Unas, 25 km south of the Great Pyramid of Giza, is considered one of the most important pyramids in Egypt despite its small size. Also in May, four tombs of royal butlers of New Kingdom in Luxor have opened to the public after four years' restoration. Visitors are seen around an ancient Egyptian artifact "Relief ofKing Seti I" displayed at the opening of the "Repatriated Objects Temporary Exhibition" at the Egyptian museum in Cairo, January 14, 2016. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) They contain well-preserved wall paintings showing ancient Egyptian gods including Anubis, who is associated with mummification. The opening of those tombs is also part of the North African country's efforts to rejuvenate its ailing tourism sector. In the wake of the 2011 uprising, the once-thriving tourism industry in Egypt was dealt more heavy blows following the downing of a Russian airliner over North Sinai last October and the crash of EgyptAir Flight MS804 in the Mediterranean last month. Tourist arrivals in April dropped 54 percent compared with the same month last year, with a total of 425,000 visitors, the sixth consecutive month that tourism declined, the Central Agency of Public Mobilization and Statistics of Egypt said last week. Employees work at Azal Pharmaceutical Industries in Khartoum January 13, 2013. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) KHARTOUM, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Sudanese industries are trying to overcome barriers and challenges and make their products more competitive in local markets and against imported commodities. The Sudanese industries exhibition "Made in Sudan," which is now underway in Khartoum, is a chance for that end. Around 450 different Sudanese factories and industrial companies are taking part in the exhibition, which is convened at Burri Exhibition Ground in Khartoum from June 7 to 17, and is aimed to encourage Sudan's local industries and attract local and foreign investors to invest in the country's industrial sector. "This exhibition is organized annually by the Sudanese Ministry of Industry in partnership with the Sudanese Free Zones and Markets Company and GIAD Industrial Group," Yahya Mohamed Idriss, director of exhibitions division at GIAD industrial complex, told Xinhua on Monday. "The exhibition constitutes an opportunity to inform with the local industries and promote the industrial groups," he noted. He said the local Sudanese industries have been affected by the country's economic conditions and the economic siege on Sudan. "The industrial sector has mainly been affected by the sanctions on Sudan as industrial spare parts are not available, which makes it hard to keep up with the technological development," said Idriss. He went on saying "despite the sanctions, the national industry is establishing itself and producing high quality products that are able to compete with the imported commodities. We have also managed to reach external markets within our Arab and regional surroundings." In the meantime, Idriss commended the standing partnerships between the Sudanese industrial sector and some foreign countries, namely China, to indigenize industry in Sudan, noting that "countries like China provide us with crude materials so that our industry can continue." He said under the current conditions, Sudan is the fourth largest industrial countries in Africa, pointing out that the organizers of the exhibition were seeking to enhance the citizens' trust in their national products and achieve self-sufficiency. Osman Mahmoud Mohamed Omer, head of a wing of Saria, one of the biggest industrial complex in Sudan, said that "it is true that there is some reluctance on the part of the citizens toward local products compared to the imported ones, but through further promotion and provision of necessary guarantees, this negative attitude towards what is locally made can be changed." A worker walks at the ethanol station at Kenana Sugar Company's main plant, 270 km south of Khartoum May 14, 2013. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Sadiya Abdel-Salam, a visitor of the exhibition, told Xinhua that "I was surprised with the products of the Sudanese factories. I believe they are of high-quality, but these industrial complexes need to double their efforts to inform with their merchandises." "Under the current economic conditions and the high prices, people can buy the local products if they are of high quality and reasonable prices. We need to change our consumption culture and encourage the national industry," she noted. Sudan earlier raised many logos to indigenize industry and achieve self-sufficiency, but failed due to many reasons including the deterioration of infrastructure of roads, electricity and water besides multiple fees and levies and the issue of the spare-parts, which pushed many industries outside the production circle. The industrial activity in Sudan focuses on limited fields such as processing industries that depend mainly on agricultural products, where textile, sugar and cooking oil industries are booming with the oil production hitting about three million tons. Sudan is also considered the first Arab ethanol-producing country, and the second African country after South Africa, where Sudan's ethanol production is set at around 50 million liters. Light and heavy industries have recently flourished in Sudan such as cars assemblage at GIAD Industrial Company in Gezira State and aircraft manufacturing at Safat company as well as iron and steel industries and others. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (R) shakes hands with his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se in Moscow, Russia, on June 13, 2016. (Photo by Russian Foreign Ministry) MOSCOW, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Russia and South Korea on Monday called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. "We reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in this regard stressed that both Russia and South Korea will not accept the self-proclaimed nuclear status of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after a meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se. Lavrov said that Russia would pursue the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2270 adopted in March to curb the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs. "We consider it unacceptable to turn the region into a confrontation area, as all problems should be settled by negotiations," Lavrov said. Yun said South Korea sees the DPRK nuclear issue as "the largest obstacle" to improving Moscow-Seoul cooperation and enhancing regional peace and prosperity, and a threat to the international community. "The DPRK is moving backwards by not stopping its aspirations to obtain nuclear potential ... We consider it necessary to direct the DPRK into a correct route by joint efforts of the international community to support the full observation of the UN Security Council resolutions," Yun said. The ministers also discussed bilateral cooperation in such fields as energy, nuclear, port infrastructure and fisheries, as well as the prospects of establishing a free trade zone between South Korea and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. Yun's visit is the first travel by a South Korean foreign minister to Russia in five years. The South Korean Foreign Ministry described the visit as an opportunity to make diplomatic efforts to put pressure on Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program. TRIPOLI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Two people were killed and several others were injured in a suicide bomb attack on Monday in Sirte. The suicide attack occured in Abu Hadi, 18 km south of Sirte, beside a civil registry office. Libya's government presidential guards launched an offensive in May against Islamic State (IS) militants in Sirte, successfully reclaiming most of the city. A further three suicide bomb attacks took place within the vicinity of a government forces field hospital in Sirte on Sunday, injuring several guards, according to a military source. Misrata's hospital announced last week that 130 government troops were killed and over 400 others were injured during clashes with IS in Sirte. The presidential guards service was established by the UN-backed unity government to combat IS's growing influence. Sirte is located 450 km east of the capital city of Tripoli and has been under IS control for over a year now. The IS claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings and the killing of foreign workers in Libya. FALLUJAH, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi army tanks are seen in the frontline in Shuhada district, south Fallujah city in Iraq's western Anbar province, in battles against Islamic State (IS), on June 13, 2016. Iraqi security forces' battles to push into the IS stronghold in Fallujah continued on Monday in southern the city, a provincial security source said. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood) FALLUJAH, Iraq, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces on Monday repelled attacks by Islamic State (IS) militants on military positions in north of the city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's western province of Anbar, while battles to push into the IS stronghold in Fallujah continued in southern the city, a provincial security source said. In the early morning, dozens of IS militants with four suicide car bombs attacked the positions of Iraqi army and allied Sunni paramilitary units, known as Hashd Shaabi, in Jeraishi area in north of Ramadi, some 110 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. The troops fought fierce clashes with the attackers who were forced to withdraw from the battleground after the troops destroyed the four suicide car bombs with anti-tank guided missiles before reaching the first defensive lines, the source said without giving further details about casualties among the IS attackers and the security members. Meanwhile, heavy clashes continued in southern the IS-held city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, as the troops have been pressing to widen their foothold in Shuhada district after they made their first advance on Wednesday in the district and raised the Iraqi flag over some of its buildings, the source said. During the day, U.S.-led coalition warplanes bombarded IS positions near al-Shemary mosque in Shuhada district in southern Fallujah, leaving at least eight militants killed and 14 others wounded, the source added. The advance in southern Fallujah was slowed by IS militants resistance inside the city, with hundreds of hidden bombs believed to be planted by them. The security forces are also avoiding heavy casualties among tens of thousands of civilians who are reportedly trapped inside Fallujah. About 50,000 to 70,000 civilians are expected to remain in Fallujah Earlier, said Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasoul, spokesman for the Joint Military Command. Early in the month, the UN children fund warned that at least 20,000 Iraqi children remained trapped in Fallujah where Iraqi security forces are fighting to drive out the extremist IS militants from the city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on May 23 the launch of a major offensive to claim Fallujah and surrounding towns and areas. Government troops and allied militias have currently been fighting for months to reclaim key cities and towns in Anbar from IS militants, who attempted to advance toward Baghdad after seizing most of Anbar province. Iraq has been witnessing a wave of violence since the IS controlled parts of its northern and western regions in June 2014. Related: UN scales up humanitarian aid to people fleeing from Iraqi city of Fallujah UNITED NATIONS, June 8 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations scaled up humanitarian aid to people fleeing the Iraqi city of Fallujah, currently held by the Islamic State(IS), as the humanitarian crisis unfolds there, a UN spokesman said here Wednesday. "Displacement is dramatically increasing as military operations in Fallujah continue," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here, adding that more than 20,000 people have fled Fallujah, near the capital city of Damascus and its surrounding areas since May 22. Full story Iraqi forces push further into besieged city of Fallujah FALLUJAH, Iraq, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi security forces on Wednesday pushed farther into the besieged city of Fallujah and seized part of a district in the city after fierce clashes with Islamic State (IS) militants, a military statement and a security source said. Photo taken on March 5, 2016 shows red flags on the Tian'anmen Square and atop the Great Hall of the People before the opening of the fourth session of the 12th National People's Congress in Beijing, capital of China.(Xinhua/Xue Yubin) GENEVA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Monday welcomed China's application for its membership, saying that it is "crucial" for the organization's global significance. IOM Director General William Lacy Swing on Monday met with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Chao who delivered a letter of application for membership in IOM. "China's membership in IOM is crucial towards growing the organization's global significance," Swing said after the meeting. During the meeting, Swing also discussed global migration and the migrant situation in Europe, as well as preparations for the upcoming UN Summit on large-scale movements of migrants and refugees on September 19. Wang expressed China's recognition of the IOM's role and contributions in managing migration worldwide, stressing three areas for future cooperation with the IOM: capacity building and regional border management, disaster prevention and integration of migrants. IOM was born in 1951 out of the chaos and displacement of Western Europe following the Second World War. From its roots as an operational logistics agency, it has broadened its scope to become the leading international agency working with governments and civil society to advance the understanding of migration issues, encourage social and economic development through migration, and uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants. BRUSSELS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday said NATO would take important decisions to strengthen collective defense and enhance cooperation with its partners at the forthcoming defense ministers meeting. Addressing a press briefing on the agenda of this week's ministerial meetings, Stoltenberg stressed these decisions would pave the way for the Warsaw Summit in July. "We will agree to deploy, by rotation, four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland," said Stoltenberg, adding these battalions would be part of a much bigger shift in NATO's defense and deterrence posture in the eastern part of the alliance. He stressed that NATO allies must spend more on defense to sustain this shift in NATO's defense posture. Noting 2015 was the first year after a long decline when the alliance registered a small increase in defense spending, Stoltenberg said, "our estimates for 2016 show a further increase." He said NATO defense ministers would also discuss how NATO could expand its efforts to project stability beyond its borders, strengthening local forces in the fight against terrorism. "We will also consider providing AWACS surveillance planes to support the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL," said the NATO chief. He added ministers would assess what more NATO could do in the wider Mediterranean Sea, for instance in support of the European Union's anti-migrant smuggling operation, Sophia. RABAT, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Moroccan authorities said on Monday they arrested an Islamic State (IS)-linked Italian national on suspicion of plotting attacks in Morocco The suspect, who was arrested at the airport of the Eastern city of Oujda, was planning a dangerous terrorist plot against sensitive sites in Morocco, the interior ministry said in a statement. Upon orders from IS leaders, the Italian national, who was ordinarily resident in Belgium, came to Morocco in June 2015, the ministry said in a statement. According to the initial investigation, the arrested man scouted out a sensitive target site in the Moroccan commercial city of Casablanca. The man, who adheres to IS ideology, tried unsuccessfully in 2014 to join the camps of this terrorist organization in Syria and Iraq before returning to Belgium, the statement added. Morocco is facing a growing threat from IS group. Last Month, the director of Morocco's Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation, Abdelhak El Khayam, revealed that Morocco has busted 29 terrorist cells that planned attacks against the North African kingdom in one year. BUJUMBURA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen Sunday night shot dead a woman at Musaga in the south of the Burundian capital Bujumbura, the police spokesman told Xinhua on Monday. "A woman named Anita Nibigira was shot dead by armed people who broke out in her house at the 3rd avenue at Musaga. After the murder, the armed people ran away," said Burundian Police Spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye. He said the assassination may be linked with the imprisonment of the victim's husband, without giving more details. Musaga is one of the neighborhoods in the Burundian capital Bujumbura that faced a tough crisis following the east African country's year-long political crisis that broke out since April 2015 in the aftermath of the announcement by Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza that he would be seeking a third term. Enditem Afghan refugees hold protest over the living conditions at the accommodation center of Malakasa, 40 kilometers north of Athens, Greece, on June 8, 2016. Approximately 1,300 refugees and migrants are hosted at the facility out of 57,000 people stranded in Greece since February, according to the latest data from the Greek government. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos) by Valentini Anagnostopoulou MALAKASA, Greece, June 13 (Xinhua) -- About 40 km north of Athens, the Malakasa hot spot hosts approximately 800 people, mostly Afghan families, including 200 unaccompanied minors. On June 8, Afghan migrants in Malakasa launched a protest denouncing the bad living conditions inside the camp. Families, young women with their babies and little children joined their voices in demand of better hygiene, healthcare, food and clothing. Moahid lives in this camp for the last three months and talked to Xinhua about the main problems he faces. "People don't want to stay here because the food they give us is bad. We need clothes. We need shampoo. They don't give us," Moahid said. "We need shoes and stuff and the storerooms are closed. We go elsewhere to take shoes and food. We go to Victoria square (in central Athens) because at the camp the food is not good," he explained. Mustafa is a teacher from Afghanistan and he came to Greece looking for a gateway to Europe. For the last three months he has been stranded in Malakasa. "They give us junk food that is not worthy for animals, but we still eat it," he said. The protest was vivid but peaceful. The migrants marched for a short distance holding their hand-made banners and then stopped and chanted their demands. Twenty-year-old Asef has come from Afghanistan along with his brother's family. He has lived in the camp for about two and a half months. "We don't have toilets. They closed some of the toilets and bathrooms and they told us that they needed to be fixed, but they closed them. Now they have brought in chemical toilets, but they don't use the chemicals they should and the situation is really bad for women and children. It is dangerous for their health," he said. The situation seems to have deteriorated over the last month, refugees and migrants say. "During the last month, they don't give us stuff, like diapers for children, personal hygiene products that women, children and men need, like soda to wash our clothes," Asef added. Hara Stagkou, coordinator of the Malakasa hot spot with the General Secretariat of Migration Policy, said: "The food in this structure is the result of a contract signed by the Army and a catering company. I also understand that they protest about the healthcare that was until recently provided for by the 401 Military Hospital of Athens." Stagkou admitted conditions inside many state-organized camps are far from perfect, but, she pointed out, Greek authorities are doing their best to improve these conditions. With the summer heat about to reach its peak and the Greek state struggling to manage its poor resources, refugees and the camp staff across Greece are expected to tackle a situation that is getting harder every day. BEIJING, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing, capital of China, June 13, 2016. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei) BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel here on Monday, hailing the China-Germany relations as "very matured." "Sino-German relations have entered a very matured stage of development and pragmatic cooperation has reached a very high level after more than 40 years of joint efforts since the establishment of diplomatic relations," Xi said. Merkel arrived in Beijing on Sunday for the fourth round of China-Germany intergovernmental consultation. Merkel and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang co-chaired the consultation earlier on Monday. Congratulating Merkel on the fruitful consultation, Xi suggested China and Germany enhance mutual trust, take care of each other's core interests and concerns, expand the range of cooperation, strengthen strategic communication in diplomatic and security fields, and innovate the mode of cooperation in international affairs. He also proposed the two governments encourage companies from both countries to carry out projects with the platform built by the governments for conjoining China's "Made In China 2025" blueprint and Germany's "Industrial 4.0" strategy, as well as boost tripartite cooperation with companies from a third country. Xi expressed the hope that Germany and the European Union would view competition and cooperation objectively, appropriately address trade disputes with China and honor their obligation stated in Article 15 of the accession protocol signed when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, to ensure healthy development of the economic and trade ties between China and the European side. During the meeting, Xi said China will support deepening cooperation between the two sides on education, visa facilitation, freedoms of the air and traditional Chinese medicine. Echoing Xi, Merkel said the two sides should work to enhance mutual trust and boost cooperation on the integration of the "Made In China 2025" blueprint and the "Industrial 4.0" strategy. Merkel told Xi that the German side attaches importance to the implementation of the Article 15 of the accession protocol. She said Germany welcomes China's important role in international affairs and stands ready to increase communication and coordination with China over international and regional hotspot issues. During the meeting, Xi and Merkel also agreed to make joint efforts to make success of the Group of 20 (G20) summits of 2016 and 2017 to contribute to global economic growth. China will host this year's G20 summit in September and Germany will host the summit in 2017. Related: China, Germany pledge stronger cooperation BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China and Germany pledged stronger cooperation in the fourth round of intergovernmental consultation held during Chancellor Angela Merkel's China visit. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Merkel co-chaired the consultation here on Monday, in which officials from 26 governmental departments of both countries reported on the latest cooperative progress in their fields. Full Story Premier Li confident about China-Germany ties BEIJING, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang told visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel here on Sunday that China is confident in the future of China-Germany relations, calling on both sides to create new energy for cooperation. STOCKHOLM, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Scandinavian Airlines has cancelled an additional 240 flights scheduled to depart Tuesday in a move that will affect 25,500 travelers around Europe. Negotiations between the pilots' union and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) between Sunday and Monday were fruitless. SAS' decision to ground another 240 flights means that, by the end of Tuesday, a total 100,000 travelers will have been affected by the strike, which started Friday evening. "We are sorry that our passengers are hit by the ongoing pilots' strike in Sweden. Unfortunately, there will be many cancelled flights and delays to and from Sweden on Monday and Tuesday," SAS wrote on its Facebook page. SAS decided on Monday to cancel the following day's flights is because it would be hard to get regular traffic going on time even if the union and the airline manage to reach an agreement before the morning, Karin Nyman, head of communications at SAS, explained. Nyman told Swedish Television: "It is an enormous apparatus to start again, and regardless of how negotiations work out we won't be able to get the flights going again tomorrow." The strike has left thousands of travelers stranded at airports around Europe and particularly at Stockholm's Arlanda airport. Many queued for up to six hours in order to re-book their tickets. Passengers were urged not to go to the airports but to contact the airline from home in order to re-book their tickets. On Friday, the Swedish Airline Pilots Association called the strike for 400 SAS pilots who have Stockholm's Arlanda airport as their base. Among their demands is a common pay scale for all Swedish pilots and a 3.5 percent pay rise. SAS' long-distance flights to the United States and Asia and flights carried out by temporary operators, including some domestic flights, have not been affected by the strike. TEHRAN, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Iranian security forces killed five Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group members in the southeastern provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, reported Press TV on Monday. The terrorists had allegedly planned to conduct terror attacks, police spokesman Saeed Montazer-al-Mahdi said on Monday, noting that Iranian security forces confiscated substantial amounts of ammunition from them. The terrorists were killed during clashes with the police, Al-Mahdi said, adding that a policeman was also killed during the clashes, the report quoted him as saying. Jaish al-Adl, which in Arabic translates to the Army of Justice, is the Sunni rebel group attempting to fight for the rights of Sunni Muslims in the Iranian provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, and were responsible for numerous attacks against Iran's border posts. Earlier in the day, Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said they also disabled a terrorist group in the northwest of the country, killing five terrorists. The five dead terrorists were all members of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan whose acronym is PJAK. PJAK is an Iranian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and the five terrorists were killed in an ambush near the city of Sardasht in Iran's northwestern province of West Azerbaijan along the border with Turkey, the IRGC stated on its website. The IRGC added that the PJAK members were also behind the "martyrdom" of three members from the local Basiji militia forces. A sizable weaponry cache in addition to documents were seized during the operation, the statement said. ORLANDO, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- People mourn the victims of the mass shooting during a vigil at a park in Orlando, the United States, on June 12, 2016. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in a shooting spree at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu) ORLANDO, the United States, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Members of the international community have sent condolences to the American people over the tragic mass shooting in the city of Orlando, Florida, on Sunday and condemned the horrific terror attack. Chinese President Xi Jinping called his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, on Monday to offer condolences over the deadly mass shooting. On behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, Xi expressed deep sympathy and sincere condolences to Obama, the U.S. government and the American people. He also expressed grief to the victims. Authorities said 49 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in a mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, in the southeastern U.S. state of Florida. That did not include the gunman, who was killed in the shootout with the police. It was the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history since the Sept. 11attacks in 2001. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned the "horrific attack." He extended "his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the government and people of the United States," Ban said a statement issued by his spokesman. Condolences also poured in from many countries such as France, Germany, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore and Israel, among others. They also condemned the attack. British Prime Minister David Cameron on Sunday expressed his horror. He tweeted: "I'm horrified by reports of the overnight shooting in Orlando. My thoughts are with the victims and their families." Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond also tweeted, "Shocked by shooting in Orlando." He noted that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in contact with the local authorities. Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen on Sunday night condemned the shooting. "It is clear that we have witnessed a vicious attack on the right to be who you are, on the right to love the person you love," Rasmussen said in a statement. "Too many innocent people have lost their lives in Orlando because liberality and tolerance has been met with hatred," he said. He also expressed his condolences to, and solidarity with, the American people. "Rather than dividing us, it will unite us. We will protect the values our society is built upon: the freedom to live the life you want." Rasmussen said the United States has Denmark's full support, saying that "we Danes stand shoulder to shoulder with Americans in their grief." The Greek Foreign Ministry also condemned the Orlando mass shooting and expressed condolences to the victims' families and the American people. "We express our unequivocal condemnation and abhorrence of the deadly attack that took place in Orlando, Florida, USA. and which resulted in the tragic deaths of dozens of innocent victims," the Foreign Ministry said in press statement. "We express our condolences and support to the U.S. government and our friends, the American people. Our thoughts are with the families of the victims," the statement said. Related: No Chinese national among Orlando shooting victims: official HOUSTON, June 13 (Xinhua) -- There are no Chinese nationals who have been identified by U.S. authorities among the victims of Sunday's mass shooting in Florida, the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston said Monday. At least 49 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in the shooting at a gay nightclub in the city of Orlando. Full story Obama to mourn victims of Orlando shooting Thursday WASHINGTON, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The White House on Monday announced that President Barack Obama will visit Orlando, Florida on Thursday to mourn the victims killed in the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. CHONGQING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China's first cargo train carrying parallel imported vehicles from Europe arrived in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on Monday. The train loaded with 82 imported cars, including some famous brand autos such as Land Rover, BMW, and Audi, left Germany's industrial city of Duisburg about two weeks ago, said Pei Lei, an official with the Xiyong Comprehensive Bonded Area in Chongqing. The train traveled through Poland, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan before entered China via the Alataw Pass in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to Pei. The route cut the transport time by over 30 days compared to shipping. Parallel imported cars refer to cars imported without authorization from carmakers. Such vehicles are usually cheaper than similar models from domestic dealers or simply not available through official retail channels. An imported car trading center is being built in the Xiyong Comprehensive Bonded Area to boost parallel vehicle imports. ACCRA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has assured its numerous customers of resolving anomalies over errors relating to its billing system. "The Electricity Company of Ghana has taken note of various complaints from our customers and stakeholders regarding our meters and billing... the outstanding anomalies, over-billing will be corrected by end of June, 2016." the company said in a statement issued here Monday. Ghana's regulatory body, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) late last year approved an increase of 59.2 percent and 67.2 percent for electricity and water tariffs, respectively. However, businesses and individuals have complained about the new tariffs, saying they are "astronomical and unreasonable". Many Ghanaians also claim they have since May, this year, been over-billed by the company. The statement indicated that the ECG introduced a new billing system, Commercial Management System, to improve the billing system with support from the World Bank under the Ghana Energy Development and Access Project. "Since its inception in May 2015, a total of 8.5 million bills have been produced. Out of this total, some billing anomalies of 7, 823 representing 0.09 percent error have been identified. So far, 4,050 of anomaly bills representing 0.05 percent of the bills produced are yet to be resolved," the statement added. The statement again noted that concerns surrounding the application of the software had been addressed, and that "there is no problem with the CMS software". "The issues are the usual challenges that accompany initial application of every new system," it explained. Meanwhile, the Institute of Energy and Climate Change Policy (IECP), has asked the government to publish the findings made by the task-force it formed to investigate electricity billing anomalies in the country. "A full publication of the reports unraveling the inconsistencies will help bring closure to the matter and rebuild investor and consumer confidence in the institutions involved," it urged. The Ghana government, through the Ministry of Power, set up a special Inter-Agency task force to investigate complaints about bills from the ECG. The task-force has since submitted its findings to the government but these have not been made public. IECP, in a statement, questioned the high tariffs and asked the government to explain to Ghanaians what caused the anomalies and whether it was the new taxes or the metering software used by the ECG. Enditem ABUJA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- A top member of Boko Haram responsible for the supply of arms and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to the militant group has been arrested by security operatives in the country's northeast region, an official said. Ibrahim Abdullahi, provincial commandant of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC) in Borno State, late Sunday told reporters that the unnamed Boko Haram kingpin was arrested last Tuesday in Askira Uba district during a routine security check. "The notorious kingpin, recruiter, as well as supplier of arms and (IEDs) to Boko Haram terrorists, has since been handed over to the Nigerian army for further investigation," the official said. According to Abdullahi, the Boko Haram had confessed that his three children were also arrow heads of the Boko Haram group. Nigeria's security agencies have recently decimated the ranks of Boko Haram, retaking most of the areas previously under the group's control. Enditem UNITED NATIONS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday called upon all countries to "make special efforts" to end discrimination that threatens the well-being, health and even the lives of people with albinism in the world at large. "I call on all countries and stakeholders to recognize that human rights apply to all people everywhere, including people with albinism," the secretary-general said in his message to mark the International Albinism Awareness Day. "I urge them to make special efforts to end the discrimination that threatens the wellbeing, health and even the lives of people with albinism, and to target them with programmes that will enable them to play a full part in society," he said. Albinism is found in every country and society in the world, regardless of people's ethnicity or gender, he noted. "Sadly, discrimination and stigmatization of people with albinism also exists to varying degrees all over the world." "Albinism has often been subjected to mystification, triggering erroneous beliefs and myths," he said. "The completely mistaken belief that potions or amulets made from the body parts of people with albinism have magical powers has given rise in some countries to a demand for such human remains," he said. "This has led to attacks, abductions and killings of people with albinism, and even to the theft of their bodies from graveyards." Thanks to the long history of discrimination and stigmatization of albinism, in some places, people with this condition may live in abject poverty, without access to basic services like accommodation, healthcare and education, he said. "The 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda pledges to leave no one behind," he said. "That includes people with albinism. The cycle of attacks, discrimination and poverty must be broken." Meanwhile, Ban welcomed the appointment of the first Independent Expert on the human rights of people with albinism. In 2013, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution calling for the prevention of attacks and discrimination against persons with albinism. In response to the call from civil society organizations advocating for persons with albinism to be considered a specific group with particular needs that require special attention, the council created the mandate of this Independent Expert in March 2015. On Dec. 18, 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming, with effect from 2015, June 13 as International Albinism Awareness Day. UNITED NATIONS, June 13 (Xinhua) --The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, on Monday expressed his "anger, outrage and deep sorrow for the victims" killed in the Sunday mass shooting in Orlando in the U.S. state of Florida. The president, in a statement issued here by his spokesperson, called the worst mass shooting in U.S. history by a lone gunman "a misguided and despicable act of barbarism." Lykketoft expressed his deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were murdered in cold blood while simply enjoying a night out with their friends, the statement said. "He also expressed solidarity with and extended his deepest sympathies to the government and People of the United States," the statement said. "He called on Governments and people everywhere to get together and commit to support even stronger global, national and local efforts to prevent the spread of hatred and violent extremism," the statement said. On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "horrific attack" and extended his "deepest condolences" to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the government and people of the United States, said a statement issued here by Ban's spokesman. A gunman wielding an assault-type rife and a handgun killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a nightclub in Orlando early Sunday in the worst mass shooting in the U.S. history. U.S. President Barack Obama decried the tragedy as an "act of terror" and "act of hatred." The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. But President Obama said Monday that the Orlando shooting was "homegrown extremism" and there was no clear evidence indicating the shooter was directed from abroad. Enditem LUSAKA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government on Monday defended its decision to increase salaries for traditional leaders, with critics saying it was ill-timed and meant to woo support from the traditional leaders in the run up to this year's polls. Last week, the government announced that it has increased salaries for traditional leaders from 4,000 Zambian Kwacha (about 370 U.S. dollars) to 15,000 Kwacha. But the decision has sparked outrage from stakeholders who are questioning where the government has gotten the money during the time it was facing tight fiscal challenges. Anti-corruption watch group, Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) said the move was ill-timed and that making such a move during an election period may be interpreted as an attempt to manipulate the chiefs. Lee Habasonda, the TIZ president said the salary increments should have been awarded much earlier or after the general election. Opposition political parties have described the move as a desperate attempt by the ruling Patriotic Front to canvass votes and win the support of the traditional leaders ahead of the August 11 polls. But Chiefs and Traditional Affairs Minister Joseph Katema has defended the move, saying it was not a political gimmick to hoodwink chiefs into influencing their subjects to vote for the ruling party. He said the increment of chiefs' salaries was already budgeted for in the 2016 budget but that the implementation was delayed as the ministry was waiting for the availability of funds from the Ministry of Finance. "This increment is not outside the budget. The budget line was formulated and approved by parliament. People ought to realize that the government doesn't cease to function even when there are elections. We are making disbursements now because this is when the money has been released," he is quoted as saying by HOT FM radio. Enditem DUBAI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The General Command of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Armed Forces in Abu Dhabi said on Monday one of its military helicopter crashed, killing the pilot and co-pilot, Emirati state news agency The two were among the UAE forces taking part in the Saudi-led coalition's operation in Yemen, said WAM. No details about the type of helicopter and the cause of the crash were revealed. The UAE is part of a Saudi-led coalition comprising nine Arab states to support Yemen's "legitimate" government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The coalition has been bombing on a daily basis the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi group across Yemen since March 26, when President Hadi fled to the Saudi capital Riyadh to take refuge. Enditem Photo provided by Brazil's Presidency shows Brazilian interim President Michel Temer meeting with women of the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, on May 19, 2016. (Xinhua/Beto Barata/Brazil's Presidency) BRASILIA, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's interim government has concluded its first month in power with a cascade of scandals, which may undermine its reform plans and increase the suspended President Dilma Rousseff's chances of returning to power. Interim President Michel Temer of the center-right Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) was designated to take over on May 12, after Rousseff, of the left-leaning Workers' Party (PT), was suspended from the presidency pending an impeachment trial. While Rousseff was sidelined for the alleged window-dressing of fiscal accounts to make the public deficit look smaller, which she has denied, Temer is experiencing a deeper credibility crisis as his cabinet members face allegations of more serious crimes, including embezzling public funds. People take part in a protest against Brazil's interim President Michel Temer and the suspension of President Dilma Rousseff, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 15, 2016. Michel Temer took over the presidency Thursday from Brazil's first female President Dilma Rousseff, who was suspended from office for 180 days. (Xinhua/Rahel Patrasso) Temer's Minister of Planning Romero Juca, who is also head of the PMDB, was forced to step down last month after leaked tapes indicated he voted in favor of impeaching Rousseff to stop a corruption investigation involving him and other politicians. Political scientist Claudio Couto of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV) noted that in recent weeks Operation Car Wash -- an investigation into graft at state oil giant Petrobras -- has implicated more members of the PMDB and its allied Progressive Party (PP) than members of the PT. Couto said the power shift was in essence removing the middlemen of corruption and "giving power directly to the ultimate interest groups." The scandals, among others, appeared to have terminated the honeymoon period of the new governing party before it even began. The first poll taken since Temer was installed as the interim president showed less than 12 percent of Brazilians approve of his government, and that 50 percent want the 2018 presidential elections to be advanced. Some 75 percent of Brazilians believe that corruption will continue or get worse under Temer. People take part in a protest against Brazil's interim President Michel Temer and the suspension of President Dilma Rousseff, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 15, 2016. Michel Temer took over the presidency Thursday from Brazil's first female President Dilma Rousseff, who was suspended from office for 180 days. (Xinhua/Rahel Patrasso) On Friday, thousands of protesters took to the streets in major cities to demand Temer's ouster, and more protests have been predicted for the new government in the coming months. The low public support forebodes a hard time for Temer's government in convincing Congress to approve economic measures to lower the budget deficit, its main mandate. "The government may find it difficult to get support for proposals such as constitutional amendments to establish a ceiling on public spending that might affect education, health and retirement," Couto said. The Senate is expected to conclude the impeachment trial by mid-August, and while the turnout is yet unpredictable, several senators who had voted in favor of trying Rousseff, such as former Education Minister Cristovam Buarque, later expressed doubts over her guilt. An aerial photo taken on Sept. 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea. (Xinhua/Zhao Yingquan) BUENOS AIRES, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines' ongoing maritime dispute with China over the South China Sea must be resolved through reasoned bilateral dialogue, said a leading Argentine economist and academic. Unilateral measures only serve to damage the relationship between the two countries, Gustavo Girado, head of the Buenos Aires-based Asia & Argentina Consultancy, told Xinhua in a recent interview. In 2013, Manila decided to take its case to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague, a move that "didn't seem to be the most appropriate, since the decade-old agreements between the two countries have established a proper means to resolve their disputes," said Girado. The unilateral move ran counter to the commitments the Philippines made as a signatory of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), said the academic. "The road the Philippines chose draws attention somewhat due to a number of factors which failed to justify that action, historic and political factors," said Girado. "It's very clear that Chinese inhabitants were the first to name the region," he added. On Wednesday, China again urged the Philippines to suspend its legal proceedings at the PCA and return to the negotiating table. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei made the remarks at a press conference, saying the door to bilateral talks will always be open. "China will continue to be committed to a negotiated solution to the South China Sea dispute with the Philippines, based on historic facts and in accord with international law," he said. A fisherman works in his boat on the sea near Zhaoshu Island of Qilianyu Islands, Sansha City, south China's Hainan Province, April 30, 2016. Since Sansha was officially established in 2012, people's lives on Zhaoshu Island have significantly improved by building the power station, seawater desalination plant and the road running around the island. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) Girado believes the dispute "doesn't merit intervention by third parties," such as an arbitration court, which "belongs to the last century." In 2014, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a Position Paper on the arbitration, saying that the essence of the subject matter of the case is territorial sovereignty over several maritime features in the South China Sea, which is beyond the scope of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) under which Manila initiated the arbitration. China has repeatedly noted that since the 1970s, the Philippines has illegally seized by force maritime features of China's Nansha Islands in disregard of the UN Charter and the basic norms governing international relations, and this is "the root and direct cause" of the two countries' disputes over the South China Sea. "It's appropriate for China not to take into consideration the resolution of arbitration, given the previous accord that allows for reaching a mutual agreement through peaceful, responsible negotiation," Girado said. "Law of the Sea legislation precisely says that those who have a previous accord for bilateral resolution of disputes must take that route," he said. With that in mind, said the academic, it seems "clear and wise on the part of Chinese diplomacy not to take into account any eventual decision (issued by the PCA), because it doesn't take into account China's opinion." As to the likelihood of outside powers intervening in the dispute, Girado thought it's "evident." He explained that since U.S. President Barack Obama's first term, a policy has been established for the region, with the U.S. Navy's presence in a certain area in order to exert a degree of influence on matters of interest to the United States. "It's a tremendously rich zone, through which half of the planet's maritime mercantile trade passes. I have no doubt there are concrete interests at play in the Filipino decision, which really calls one's attention," said Girado. The academic underscored the need for a negotiated solution to the dispute, drawing parallels to Argentina's long-running conflict with Britain over the Malvinas Islands, known to the British as the Falklands. Since the islands "were usurped by the world's leading capitalist economy back in the year 1833, different interests have been at play to prevent Argentina, a developing country, from staking a claim to what belongs to it." A boat moves on the sea near Zhaoshu Island of Qilianyu Islands in Sansha City, south China's Hainan Province, April 29, 2016. Since Sansha was officially established in 2012, people's lives on Zhaoshu Island have significantly improved by building the power station, seawater desalination plant and the road running around the island. (Xinhua/Yang Guanyu) In early June, China said it hoped the new government in the Philippines would return to the negotiating table. After the Philippines' incoming Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay signalled that bilateral talks with China could help deescalate the dispute, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying noted that successive leaders from both sides have agreed in past meetings and documents to resolve the issue peacefully through direct talks. "We hope the new government of the Philippines fulfills its pledges and resumes talks with China to properly handle disputes in a way that contributes to the sound and stable development of bilateral ties," said Hua. The incoming president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has said he wants to promote friendly ties with China and that he is open to direct talks on the South China Sea dispute. The Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) Ma Zhaoxu speaks during the Geneva Conference on Preventing Violent Extremism in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 8, 2016.(Xinhua/Xu Jinquan) GENEVA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Speaking in a joint statement on behalf of 136 countries, Chinese diplomat Ma Zhaoxu concerned on Monday the rise in double standards and politicization of the Human Rights Council (HRC), whose 32nd session kicked off on Monday. Compounded by public pressure, naming and shaming and the use of the council to meddle in the internal affairs of sovereign states, Ma warned that such practices not only challenge cooperative efforts but also threaten the interests of affected countries while endangering the HRC's integrity. "We are deeply worried that if these tendencies continue unchecked, the Human Rights Council may run the risk of repeating the same mistakes and failures of the Commission of Human Rights," said Ma, who is China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva. In light of this, the diplomat put forward a number of recommendations in view of putting the Council's modus operandi back on track. Using the UN Charter as the foundation upon which human rights issues should be based, Ma stressed that it is the primary responsibility of states to protect and promote human rights. He also reminded that diverse views and opinions may exist because of differences in historical, religious and cultural backgrounds, social systems and levels of development. "The right of countries to adopt their own paths of human rights protection and promotion in accordance with the principle of national ownership and in line with their specific national and regional conditions and priorities should be respected," Ma explained. The need for genuine and constructive dialogue and cooperation in the human rights field was also emphasised by Ma, as long as discussions are based on the precept of mutual respect. The diplomat furthermore highlighted the need for UN human rights mechanisms to carry of their mandates both objectively and impartially and avoid making condescending and unfounded remarks. Created in 2006, the HRC is an inter-governmental body working to promote and protect human rights around the globe through thematic discussions and structured recommendations. Held between June 13 and July 1, this month's session marks the 10 year anniversary since the council was formed. BEIJING, June 13, 2016 (Xinhua) -- Wang Yongqing, secretary-general of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and Mark Lyall-Grant, National Security Advisor of British Prime Minister David Cameron, co-chair the first China-Britain high-level security dialogue in Beijing, capital of China, June 13, 2016. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) BEIJING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China and Britain have agreed to strengthen cooperation in security, law enforcement and justice issues at their first high-level security dialogue, held in Beijing on Monday. The two sides have exchanged views on the fight against terrorism, cybercrime, organized crime, illegal migration and other security issues. The dialogue was co-chaired by Wang Yongqing, Secretary-General of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and Mark Lyall Grant, National Security Advisor to British Prime Minister. The dialogue was an implementation of the China-UK joint declaration on building a "global comprehensive strategic partnership for the 21st century" issued in October, 2015 and is of great significance in mutual security cooperation. According to a communique on the dialogue, the two countries have agreed that "in the face of ever more serious challenges for the international community in fighting terrorism," it is in both sides' interests to develop their bilateral cooperation in counter-terrorism. They agree to establish cooperation mechanisms and develop effective coordination to protect the two countries' citizens, diplomatic missions and overseas economic interests. They also agree to "share experiences of related measures to cut off the finances of terrorist organizations and to exchange information on legislation effected and implemented." According to the communique, the two sides have agreed not to conduct or support cyber enabled theft of intellectual property, trade secrets or confidential business information with the intent of providing commercial advantage. Furthermore, cooperation in combating online child sexual exploitation will take place through initiatives such as the WeProtect summit, the communique said. It is agreed that both parties will strengthen cooperation in the field of law enforcement in order to "prevent and combat the use of the internet to incite, recruit, finance and plan terrorist activities." On fighting organized crime, China and Britain have agreed to build on the platform of the Annual Working Conference on law enforcement in order to strengthen drug prohibition, fight economic crimes including financial crimes, illegal migration and other mutually important areas of law enforcement cooperation. They agree to strengthen cooperation on the pursuit of fugitives, asset recovery and return, anti-money laundering and related crimes. It is also agreed that both parties will "take forward case by case cooperation on extradition of criminal suspects in line with respective legal processes," the communique said. KUNMING, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Vice Premier Wang Yang has called for intensified efforts to help ethnic groups with small populations shake off poverty. During a visit to southwest China's Yunnan province, Wang said small ethnic groups should not lag behind in the country's endeavor to build a moderately prosperous society. He stressed that local governments should prioritize the task of helping these ethnic groups cast off poverty, and introduce more special poverty reduction measures. Wang asked local authorities to ensure that the poor population have adequate food, clothing and safe accommodation, and have access to compulsory education and basic medical care. People working to help the poor out of poverty should get more support from local authorities, and their real difficulties should be solved. Yunnan is noted for a high level of ethnic diversity. Ethnic groups are widely distributed in the province, with some living in an almost uninhabitable environment and poverty. by Ahmed Shafiq CAIRO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Anxiety, constant tension, sleepless nights, fear, horrible pressure from the family -- these are common features that engulf most of the Egyptian students during high school exams, or Thanaweya Amma as it is commonly referred to in the middle eastern country. From June 5 till 28, some 560,000 Egyptian students have to pass these exams which lead to the Egyptian General Secondary Education Certificate and serve as the entrance examination for Egyptian public universities. "Such exams determine my future and I have to get high marks so I could join a good public university," Ahmed Ibrahim, a science/mathematics student told Xinhua as he reviewed his answers of the physics exam with his classmates near Maadi military secondary school in Maadi district of Cairo. The 17-year-old boy has been living under huge pressure for almost one year because of the high school examinations. "I cannot stand this pressure anymore; I want this nightmare to finish. I have gone through tough pressure from my family, my teachers and even some of my friends and relatives. Everyone wants me to get the highest marks so as to be enrolled at a prestigious college," the boy said as he waited near the school's gate for his classmates. At the end of the final year of secondary school, students sit for comprehensive examinations for each of the five core subjects they took that year. The content of the exams and their relative weight in scoring depends on the students' curricular concentration, either literature, science, or science/mathematics. These scores are turned into a composite and ranked within each track. Thanaweya Amma can also be taken by private school students in national curriculum schools accredited by the Ministry of Education. Additionally, private language schools can teach students the national curriculum but with certain core subjects taught in languages other than Arabic. Unlike many countries, high school exams in Egypt are considered a nightmare for both students and parents. Ibrahim explained that high school program is a curse that hits the family as well as the students, adding the conditions are almost similar at every Egyptian home that has a high school student. "For my parents, it is a psychological and financial burden. It has been almost a must to find some private tutors for all subjects for that students and this costs the family heaps of money," he said. "When the program starts," he said, "a state of emergency is declared at home and the list of the allowed and the forbidden is set." Ibrahim pointed out the Thanaweya Amma are already difficult, adding that the family pressure makes them even harder. "They want to see me frightened of the exams all the time. I'm always urged to study harder because my grades will decide my future, I have always been told this sentence since I was a little child," the boy complained. The family pressure is undoubtedly destructive as Abdel Fattah Mohammed, another high school art branch student, believes. However, he thinks that the educational system in Egypt is the reason behind the family pressure. "The government requires students to score high marks, sometimes over 97 percent to get into a decent university, and families are helping the government by pressuring us in all the ways possible, which make the students fall into depression and sometimes lead them to fail," Mohammed told Xinhua as he just finished an exam and planned to leave the school. Many education experts have complained that Egypt's education system is in need of renovation. However, a few changes happened in the recent decade. The teenager believes that system was made to decrease the number of students joining the country's 22 free public universities. "That's why the government requires high grades to join free universities. Instead of building new universities, they just allow students with highest marks to join free universities, while students with lower marks can join expensive private universities," Mohammed grumbled. Another problem, the boy said, is that the curriculum and the exams are very difficult and students can barely answer all of the questions. "People are not alike, my way of thinking is different from my brother's, so the exams should not be very difficult as if all high school students are geniuses," he added. Enditem MINSK, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Belarus is ready to continue dialogue with the U.S. to fully normalize relations and lift the sanctions. Belarus intends to continue the dialogue with the United States to achieve full repealing of the sanction issued by the U.S. government on June 16, 2006, the spokesman for Belarusian Foreign Ministry Dmitry Mironchik said on Monday, commenting on the extension of the sanction for another year. The ministry said that "it is obvious that the sanction decision made in 2006 by the George W. Bush administration, which has been prolonged by one year, are based on the initially wrong assumption that Belarus may be a source of threat to U.S. security." "In reality, throughout all past years, our country made a real and broadly recognized contribution to regional and international security," the statement said. "We hope that the tenth year of the sanctions will be the last one," the ministry said. On June 10, U.S. President Barack Obama extended the sanctions against Belarusian officials for another year. In his message to the congress, Obama stated that the actions of certain representatives of the Belarusian government "represent an extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the U.S." Enditem CAIRO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Araby condemned on Monday the fatal shooting at a Florida nightclub that left at least 50 people dead on Sunday, Egypt's state news reported. In a statement, al-Araby stressed the need of rallying international efforts to combat terrorism and confront attempts to ignite violence and hatred. A man opened fire on patrons of Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday, killing at least 50 and wounding 53 more in what Orlando police have deemed a terrorist attack. The assailant took hostages shortly after the shooting began and was shot dead by police, who stormed the club three hours later. Meanwhile, Islamist military groups Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack. Enditem Sorry, this news has been deleted. Photo taken on Nov. 27, 2015 shows the Baiyulan Plaza (L) of Puxi and buildings in Lujiazui of Pudong in Shanghai, east China. The Baiyulan Square, made up with main building and hotel, has been roofed and is expected to be completed in 2016. The main building, which has a height of about 320 meters, will be the highest one in Puxi of Shanghai. (Xinhua) by Zhao Xiaona, Grandesso Federico BRUSSELS, June 13 (Xinhua) -- After a five-day visit to China at the end of last month, European Investment Bank (EIB) President Werner Hoyer said the good collaboration with China will be further enhanced, focusing on concrete projects which can bring the European and Chinese economies forward. In an interview with Xinhua in Brussels, Hoyer called China "an interesting partner" for the bank, saying the collaboration by far with China is "good". "I have just returned from China where there is a big interest to cooperate with us," Hoyer told Xinhua, hinting that the trip aiming to strengthen partnership between the two sides was a success. The trip marked the first visit to China by a president of the Europe's long-term lending institution since 2007. "It is important to underline that the Juncker plan was not a fund in the classical sense," Hoyer told Xinhua, "so when we talk about cooperation with Beijing we are talking about co-financing." The Investment Plan for Europe, the so-called "Juncker plan", aiming to bring investments back in line with historical trends was initiated by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in November 2014. China became the first non-EU country to announce its contribution to the plan in September 2015. "Therefore we need to develop projects which are interesting for Chinese investors and to develop platforms in which you can find us together," he continued, "this is what is happening now." Asked about his cooperation with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Hoyer said the EIB has been working closely with the AIIB from its creation, sharing technical and financial experiences. An important issue on the president's agenda was to establish and ensure frequent, regular and strategic dialogues with the AIIB, the China-initiated multilateral bank joined by more than 10 European countries. "This dialogue is crucial for the success of this new bank and other new institutions," he said. "We look forward to working closely with the AIIB in the years to come," he stressed. Another key focus of the visit is to strengthen partnership with China to better tackle climate change. During his trip to China, Hoyer also paid a two-day field trip to north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region where he saw at first-hand how the EIB was supporting reforestation to fight against desertification. The flagship forestation scheme located in Xin Cheng District was the first project of its kind supported by the EIB in China. "We are pleased to support the flagship Inner Mongolia Forestation Project as the leading international financial institution supporting this kind of projects in Asia. Tackling climate change is a global challenge and since 2010 has been the main focus of the European Investment Bank's engagement in China," he said. The president was impressed by the project which covers more than thirty-one thousand hectares of forest. It will provide sustainable forestry products for years to come and benefit the local economy creating thousands of new employment opportunities. "The trees planted in the area will also reduce carbon emissions significantly that benefit the entire planet," he added. Experience gained will be helpful in promoting the clean development mechanism elsewhere in China, Hoyer said, noting the forestation project is supporting sustainable development, increased biodiversity and ensuring more sustainable management of forests. According the EIB, the bank has provided more support than any other international financial institution for forestation investment in China over the last five years, amounting to more than 580 million euros. After that, the EIB has supported a total of 14 forestry projects across China under three Framework loans dedicated to climate action in China, Hoyer introduced. President Hoyer also signed a new agreement with the Ministry of Finance to strengthen joint support for climate related schemes in China. "Our bank works closely with Chinese financial institutions who lend on climate related projects around the world," Hoyer said, adding the two partners plan to support crucial investment across a broad range of sectors. Last year, EIB support for climate finance outside Europe represented 30 percent of overall lending, and the EIB said it is committed to raise the share of climate financing outside the EU in developing countries to 35 percent by 2020. "My colleagues are working on a number of initiatives to streamline cooperation between the EIB and Chinese investors to work together in specific projects," he said. Earlier this month, the EIB has agreed to provide its largest ever single loan for offshore wind investment, the 4 billion British pounds Beatrice windfarm off the coast of Scotland in the North Sea. "We warmly welcome the involvement of the SDIC Power, part of the China's State Development and Investment Corporation Group, who have taken an equity stake in the Beatrice project," the president said. EIB president Werner Hoyer and Vice-President responsible for Asia Jonathan Taylor made an official visit to China from May 26 to 31 intended to strengthen strategic financial cooperation between EIB and China. The EIB is the world's leading international public bank and owned directly by the 28 European Union member states. VIENNA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs Sebastian Kurz on Monday reiterated Austria's position on being able to establish and implement its own measures to curb an influx of asylum seekers. Kurz made the remarks during talks with European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. The two officials met at a meeting to mark the 20th anniversary of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) held in Vienna. Kurz's office confirmed in a statement that he had conveyed the present position of the government that "Austria must set national measures, in order to prevent being overwhelmed," to Mogherini. Additionally, simply "waving through" migrants into Europe could no longer work, a stance the minister said has now become "common sense" in Europe. Mogherini in turn had reportedly acknowledged that the present system "does not function," and that the European Commission is becoming more engaged in this regard. Both officials had also stressed the need for humanitarian aid from the EU and member states in the countries of origin of the refugees in order to address the root causes of the crisis, and for legal avenues for migration to be opened via resettlement programs. Enditem Mogens Lykketoft, President of the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly chairs an informal dialogue for the position of the next Secretary-General, at the United Nations headquarters in New York, June 7, 2016. The United Nations on Tuesday kicked off a second round of public audition with another two new candidates for the position of next UN secretary-general. (Xinhua/file photo) UNITED NATIONS, June 13 (Xinhua) --The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft, on Monday expressed his "anger, outrage and deep sorrow for the victims" killed in the Sunday mass shooting in Orlando in the U.S. state of Florida. The president, in a statement issued here by his spokesperson, called the worst mass shooting in U.S. history by a lone gunman "a misguided and despicable act of barbarism." Lykketoft expressed his deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those who were murdered in cold blood while simply enjoying a night out with their friends, the statement said. "He also expressed solidarity with and extended his deepest sympathies to the government and People of the United States," the statement said. "He called on Governments and people everywhere to get together and commit to support even stronger global, national and local efforts to prevent the spread of hatred and violent extremism," the statement said. On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "horrific attack" and extended his "deepest condolences" to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the government and people of the United States, said a statement issued here by Ban's spokesman. A gunman wielding an assault-type rife and a handgun killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a nightclub in Orlando early Sunday in the worst mass shooting in the U.S. history. U.S. President Barack Obama decried the tragedy as an "act of terror" and "act of hatred." The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. But President Obama said Monday that the Orlando shooting was "homegrown extremism" and there was no clear evidence indicating the shooter was directed from abroad. DUBAI, June 13 (Xinhua) -- China topped Dubai's trading partners with bilateral trade totaling 39 billion dirham (10.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of 2016, Dubai Customs said here on Monday. India followed second with 24 billion dirham (6.5 billion dollars) worth of trade. The United States came third with 22 billion dirham (six billion dollars). China became Dubai's biggest trade partner in 2014, when it surpassed India for the first time with bilateral exchange hitting 175 billion dirham (47.7 billion dollars). Over 4,000 Chinese firms run branches in the UAE, according to official reports. As one of seven sheikhdoms forming the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Dubai harbors the biggest free port in the Middle East and is considered the trade and business hub of the Gulf Arab state. Dubai registered growth of 319 billion dirham (86.9 billion dollars) of non-oil foreign trade commodities in the first quarter, UAE state news agency WAM quoted Dubai Customs figures as stating. The volume of traded goods jumped by 17 percent year-on-year to 24 million tons, resulting from soaring re-export commodities and export goods. Enditem Sagicor moves to Bermuda In a statement, SFC announced that at the 13th annual meeting held last week, shareholders approved the special resolution in connection with the continuance of the company as an exempted company under the laws of Bermuda and the discontinuance of the Company as a company incorporated under the laws of Barbados. The continuance of the company under the laws of Bermuda should have a positive impact on the credit rating of the company without affecting its operations in our various markets, the statement said. At the meeting Shareholders also re-elected L Jeannine Comma, Peter E Clarke and Dodridge D Miller for another three-year term. The incumbent Auditor, PricewaterouseCoopers SRL, was also re-appointed for the ensuing year. The company has been searching for a new home base since its current base, Barbados, was downgraded by the rating agency Standard and Poors. It considered relocating to the United Kingdom, here to TT or to Bermuda, eventually choosing Bermuda as its new home. In a letter to shareholders in advance of the AGM, the companys management said if the move is approved the company could reasonably expect to receive a Standard and Poors rating lift to BB+ unhindered by the restrictions of the current Barbados rating. Improvement in the companys rating would result in reduced cost of capital, increased attractiveness to regional and international investors and all the attendant ancillary benefits flowing therefrom. Bermuda has a Standard and Poors Rating of A+ with a positive outlook while Barbados has a sovereign rating of B with a negative outlook. According to notes to shareholders contained in the notice of the AGM, This is after a series of downgrades (of Barbados) in the period from 2009 to 2014. In order to improve the companys ratings (both corporate and securities), the company is seeking approval to redomicile into Bermuda, which is an investment grade-rated country. This would be achieved via a corporate migration, or continuance, of the company to Bermuda and the discontinuance of the company in Barbados. Point Fortin businessman killed The businessman was identified as Bishnu Singh, 55, of Reid Road Extension. Singh, also called Wackerman and Lallie, lived alone on the compound which also housed his business Lawnmower Services and Repair. According to a police report, at about 1 pm on Saturday, Singh was at his establishment when the gunman entered. Two shots were fired and the assailant fled the scene. Police were unable to say yesterday if anything was taken. Singh sustained a gunshot wound to the pelvic area and fell to the ground. He was rushed to the Point Fortin Area Hospital and later transferred to the SFGH where he died about an hour later. Speaking to Newsday, yesterday his nephew, Ricardo Ramsaran, said Singh was an easy-going man, who was very straightforward. It is very unfortunate. We have been receiving calls from all over and many business people say that incidents like this one would want them to close their businesses. My uncle was a peoples person and was very good with his hands, Ramsaran said. PC Patrice and other officers from the Point Fortin Police Station visited the scene. Up to yesterday no one was arrested and investigations are continuing. Weight loss doctor still in hospital The woman complained of feeling unwell on Wednesday last and was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital for treatment. The doctor who is from the St Augustine area was supposed to be placed on an Identification Parade but due to her sudden illness, the investigation has stalled pending a doctors report from the hospital. Newsday also understands Fraud Squad officers are experiencing difficulty in getting women fitting an almost similar physical description of the doctor to attend and stand in line next to her in the Identification parade. Murder accused found hanging in prison cell According to reports, remand prisoner Peter Hyde formerly of Trou Macaque, Laventille was last seen alive in his cell at about 6.00 pm on Saturday. Another inmate who shared a cell with Hyde said, he awoke around 5.15 am yesterday and discovered Hyde hanging from a metal bar with a bed sheet tied around his neck. The prisoner alerted prison officers. Superintendent Bedoe contacted the prison doctor and the body was later viewed by a district medical officer. The body was taken down and ordered removed to the Forensic Science Centre. A party of officers from the Northern Division led by assistant Commissioner of Police Surujdean Persad, Senior Superintendent Rajkumar and other officers from the Arouca Police Station visited the scene. Several prisoners were interviewed. Newsday understands that Hyde was schizophrenic and was only transferred two weeks ago from the Port-of-Spain prison to the Maximum Security Prison. Prison sources said that because of his condition, he exhibited strange behaviour. Hyde also had two outstanding warrants for two other serious offences. Hyde was the man accused of murdering three children and a woman, as well as causing serious injury to eight others including his two brothers in a fire which ravaged an apartment complex in Trou Macaque, Laventille, in December 2011. He faced an additional 12 charges of unlawfully and maliciously setting fire to Building Two, Trou Macaque, Laventille. Hyde was accused of killing tenmonth- old Destiny Lara, two-yearold Denessya Campbell, 15-yearold Akeem Young, and 46-year-old Lisa Charles continues. Hyde is also charged for causing grievous bodily harm to Campbells mother Delicia Young, 18; Laras mother, Felicia Young, 22; Ashton Young, 16; Beverly Julien-Young, 47, the mother of Delicia, Felicia and Ashton; Julien-Youngs grandson Kadeem Johnson, 11; Charles son Josiah Charles, eight; her common- law husband Curtis Hyde, 34; and Nigel Hyde. Curtis and Nigel are brothers of the accused. Faris on child marriages: Amendments already drafted I am confident that after the round of consultations is finished, the issue of changing the limit of the marriage age is one that will be decided with certainty. Cabinet will make its decision and that will be taken to the Parliament, he said. Al-Rawi told Newsday yesterday that the Office of the Attorney General began consultations two weeks ago on child marriage and other related issues. One was held with religious leaders. For Wednesdays consultations, he said, We have issued invitations to a much wider forum of people including the Opposition and religious sector. Apart from the amendments propose for consideration which include raising the marriage age from as young as 12 for girls and 14 for boys to 18 years, he said, the AGs office will continue to provide statistical information on marriages and associated mischief to be found in the voice of the child issues as it relates to child abuse, child neglect, teenage pregnancies, the issue of abortions and related issues involving the rights of the child. Asked about the feedback he has had to raising the age of marriage, Al-Rawi said, I am very pleased that this approach is bringing results, and I am very pleased to see the response. I have a view there is wide support. Abdulah to Govt Go out and collect your taxes At a media conference yesterday, political leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) David Abdulah said if successive governments had gone after the many errant taxpayers, the country would not have facing a financial crisis today. We are calling on the government to ask the Board of Inland Revenue to address the situation with extreme urgency before budget 2016/2017 is presented, Abdulah said. Now $47 billion is more than the government expects to collect in revenue this year 2015/2016, so a whole years revenue exist somewhere out there in Trinidad and Tobago in uncollected taxes. Abdullah said billions of dollars per year are not collected in tax revenue. Finance Minister Colm Imbert has withdrawn $2.5 billion from the countrys Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HCF) to facilitate the paying of bills. The decision to dip into fund has sparked a debate. Had the Ministry of Finance, through he Board of Inland Revenue, in an aggressive campaign to go out and collect taxes from businesses, particularly, and many persons, professionals and others who are not paying taxes, then we would not be in the difficult fiscal situation we are in today. We would have a problem, but we would not be in the crisis that we are in today. Successive governments have done nothing to address the outstanding tax liability, Abdulah said. We are saying today, that if there is to be equity, fairness in Trinidad and Tobago with respect to the countrys economic problem, then workers must not be sent home when $47 B remain uncollected from persons and companies that are not paying the right taxes. That cannot be right, that has to be wrong, it is unjust and it is placing an inequitable burden of adjustment on the backs of working people, he added. He further slammed Imbert for only speaking on the issue of the HCF withdrawal after the matter was already in the public domain. According to Abdulah, the statement made on Friday in Parliament by Imbert should have been made before the withdrawal took place to clear up the confusion that followed. He noted however that the government has a legal right to make a withdrawal if so needed. Our duty is to the people of TT They havent thought it out properly. I think this is something that is deserving of a substantive motion, Al Rawi said. He also questioned the Oppositions priorities. In his response, Rambachan said what was hollow and disrespectful was the failure of the government to ensure the safety of citizens in what he said was one of the most violent periods in our nations history where the value for life is at the lowest. What is disrespectful is the continued refusal by the Speaker to allow debate on matters of urgent public importance brought by an Opposition which represents 340,000 voters and more when you consider their families. There are PNM members who also want this debate in Parliament and who have been part of the lobby to the Opposition to file these motions, he noted. Rambachan also said the Oppositions role was to bring bring to the attention of the government the real concerns of the people. As an Opposition we must not fail in our duty to the people. The role of the Speaker is to allow fair debate and never to in any way allow perceptions to be formed that the Speaker is protecting Government or Opposition. To fail to allow debate which will cause the government to lay bare its plans for crime will be to fail the very principles for which a Parliament exists and for which democratic elections are held and people vote. And I make this statement with no intention of malice to the Speaker or disrespect for the Office of Speaker, he added. Oregon approves the sale of marijuana edibles to recreational consumers Oregon was the first US state to legalize the possession of small amounts of cannabis and among the first to authorize its use for medical reasons. Cannabis products have exploded on the market in Oregon, with sellers offering everything from cannabis-infused ice cream to craft edibles. Oregon is set to be the leader in cannabis treats. In Oregon, it is legal for adults (21 and over) to possess and use recreational marijuana and it is legal to grow up to 4 marijuana plants, as long as they are out of sight of the general public. It is legal to consume marijuana in the privacy of your home and it is legal to make edible products. Oregon seems poised to issue licenses to hundreds of businesses very shortly and it has set a lower tax rate on the substance. This allows for regulated businesses to compete effectively, without being crippled by high taxes. Oregon also does not intend to cap the number of licenses issued. Right now, medical marijuana dispensaries are able to sell low dose edible products to recreational consumers. Edibles have been available to medical marijuana card holders for some time, but for recreational use, edibles are limited to containing 15 milligrams of THC, which is considered to be a very low dose. One pre-filled receptacle of a cannabinoid extract can be sold to a retail customer per day, as long as it does not contain more than 1,000 mg of THC. Marijuana stores have plenty of products available including concentrates (very potent), edibles such as candies, drinks, ice-creams, seeds, as well as creams, lotions, massage oils for topical use that are infused with cannabis. Prices range between $10 to $30 a gram, which makes the prices lower than other states because the Oregon tax system is lenient when it comes to marijuana. A well-established medical marijuana culture and the prime growing conditions in southern Oregon have transformed the state into a prolific producer of high-grade cannabis, which is attracting locals and tourists alike. Cannabis tourism is poised to become a big industry, with visionaries seeing a future where visitors can wander through cannabis farms, get educated about different strains and watch edibles being manufactured. Oregon in general has a nationwide brand, said Aviv Hadar, who grows medical marijuana and owns Oregrown, a dispensary in Bend. People think our cannabis is better here. Sources: //www.thecannabist.co/2016/05/10/oregon-recreational-edibles-extracts-in-june/53695/ //abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/oregon-races-finalize-rules-marijuana-issue-licenses-39705947 Submit a correction >> Russia will annihilate US and NATO forces in case a conflict in the Baltics occurs Thought exercises were conducted by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for force development David Ochmanek and one of his colleagues at Rand. These thought exercises were designed to determine the outcome of a U.S. shooting war in the Baltics should something go horribly wrong. The results were not promising. Here is the summary of the exercises as reported by the Foreign Policy: In June 2014, a month after he had left his force-planning job at the Pentagon, the Air Force asked David Ochmanek deputy assistant secretary of defense for force development for advice on Russias neighborhood ahead of Obamas September visit to Tallinn, Estonia. At the same time, the Army had approached another of Ochmaneks colleagues at Rand, and the two teamed up to run a thought exercise called a table top, a sort of war game between two teams: the red team (Russia) and the blue team (NATO). The scenario was similar to the one that played out in Crimea and eastern Ukraine: increasing Russian political pressure on Estonia and Latvia (two NATO countries that share borders with Russia and have sizable Russian-speaking minorities), followed by the appearance of provocateurs, demonstrations, and the seizure of government buildings. Our question was: Would NATO be able to defend those countries? Ochmanek recalls. The results were dispiriting. Given the recent reductions in the defense budgets of NATO member countries and American pullback from the region, Ochmanek says the blue team was outnumbered 2-to-1 in terms of manpower, even if all the U.S. and NATO troops stationed in Europe were dispatched to the Baltics including the 82nd Airborne, which is supposed to be ready to go on 24 hours notice and is based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. What is wrong with the picture? Shouldnt the U.S. have the advantage, considering it has more sophisticated toys? In terms of technology, yes. But when you consider conventional warfare and include actual numbers in the picture, Russias army will annihilate their opponents in a Baltic clash. Politico adds more: For those villagers eagerly snapping pictures on the side of a road in the Czech Republic in late September, the appearance of the line of U.S. Stryker armored fighting vehicles must have seemed more like a parade than a large-scale military operation. The movement of some 500-plus soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry Regiment from Vilsack in Bavaria to a Hungarian military base was intended to strengthen U.S. ties with the Czech, Slovak and Hungarian militaries and put Russias Vladimir Putin on notice. But not everyone is convinced. This Stryker parade wont fool anyone in Moscow, says retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor. The Russians dont do many things well, but they have been subverting, destabilizing, invading and conquering their neighbors since Peter the Great. And whats our response: a small unit of light armored trucks. Viewed by many of his colleagues as one of the most innovative Army officers of his generation, Macgregor, a West Point graduate with a Ph.D. in international relations (he can be pretty gruff, a fellow West Point graduate says, but hes brilliant), led the 2nd Cavs Cougar Squadron in the best-known battle of Operation Desert Storm in February 1991. In 23 minutes, Macgregors force destroyed an entire Iraqi Armored Brigade (including nearly 70 Iraqi armored vehicles), while suffering a single American casualty. Speaking at a military lessons learned conference one year later, Air Force General Jack Welsh described the Battle of 73 Easting (named for a map coordinate) as a stunning, overwhelming victory. In the wake of the battle, however, Macgregor calculated that if his unit had fought a highly trained and better armed enemy, like the Russians, the outcome would have been different. In early September he circulated a PowerPoint presentation showing that in a head-to-head confrontation pitting the equivalent of a U.S. armored division against a likely Russian adversary, the U.S. division would be defeated. Defeated isnt the right word, Macgregor told me last week. The right word is annihilated. The 21-slide presentation features four battle scenarios, all of them against a Russian adversary in the Baltics what one currently serving war planner on the Joint Chiefs staff calls the most likely warfighting scenario we will face outside of the Middle East. Macgregor scares the hell out of the Army, says a senior Joint Chiefs war planner. What he has proposed is nothing less than the dismantling of the Big Green Machine, getting the Army to embrace a future of lighter, more agile forces than the big lumbering behemoth which takes forever to spool up and deploy. Ill bet the armor and airborne guys are furious. Reform my ass: Macgregor has walked into the zoo and slapped the gorilla. Well, that was a scenario in the Baltics. Perhaps other methods, factors, and strategies will come in play in other scenarios. What do you think? Sources: Zero Hedge Politico Submit a correction >> The dilemma of Atlantas state police: What to do with 10,000 confiscated guns? 10,000 confiscated guns and counting. The Atlanta state police has been placed into a very uncomfortable spot. They took the guns off the street. The law states that the guns must be disposed within 6 months of confiscation. It is prohibited to destroy the guns. Even city mayor Kasim Reed admits to be undecided on the situation. Its very difficult for me to lead on this, because even in the state of Georgia, when we take illegal guns off the street, under Georgia state law right now, we actually have to return them or make them available to the public in some form. The state law in question is Senate Bill 350. It is a state law that makes destroying confiscated weapons illegal. The law dictates that the confiscated guns should be returned to innocent owners. When it is not possible, the weapons should be auctioned off to the public. Atlanta police Chief George Turner admitted that the police are obligated to return, auction, or sell the firearms, but it would be catastrophic to public safety. So they havent done any of the suggested actions. Former state Senator Don Balfour, one of the laws authors, believes the city is breaking the law. The law says what the law is. I dont know how you go around that. What do you think is the best way to deal with these guns? Source: Government Slaves. info Submit a correction >> Address by the President Shri Pranab Mukherjee at the Banquet hosted in his honour by President of Ghana in Accra on June 12, 2016 Ghana, Mon, 13 Jun 2016 NI Wire 1. It is indeed my privilege to visit the Republic of Ghana on the first ever State Visit by a President of India. I am accompanied by a delegation of Parliamentarians that represent diverse regions of our country. 2. We bring the warm greetings of the people and Government of India. I would, at the very outset like to convey my sincere appreciation for the warm welcome extended to me and to my delegation and the excellent arrangements that have been made for us since our arrival. 3. Excellencies, the goodwill between the peoples of India and Ghana transcends the geographical distance between us. Our affinities - underlined by the trust that we share - defy the traditional logic of diplomacy and foreign relations. It is a bond forged in the hearts and minds of our two peoples. The India-Ghana brotherhood is anchored in our similar experiences, nurtured by the shared aspirations of our peoples and guided by the vision of our Founding Fathers. 4. In 1936, in the context of the impending Second World War, Poet Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who was then in the twilight of his life, raised his voice against the barbarism of the forces of imperialism. Shocked by the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, he expressed his pain in his composition, Africa, from which I quote: Alas, shadowy Africa, Under your black veil Your human aspect remained unknown, Blurred by the murk of contempt. Others came with iron manacles With clutches sharper than the claws of your own wild wolves: Slavers came, with an arrogance more benighted than your own dark jungles. Civilizations barbarous greed Flaunted its naked inhumanity. You wailed wordlessly, muddied the soil of your steamy jungles With blood and tears; The hobnailed boots of your violators Stuck gouts of that stinking mud Forever on your stained history.. (unquote) 5. Tagore had echoed the sentiments of solidarity of the people of India. The principles of Non-Violence and Satyagraha espoused by Mahatma Gandhi, Father of the Indian Nation, had also inspired the Indian peoples support for decolonization of Africa and the anti-apartheid movement. 6. The people of India fondly remember Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of Pan-Africanism. He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs. 7. I am heartened to note that Ghana is the first sub-Saharan African nation to have successfully halved poverty levels and that it has crossed the threshold to become a Low-Middle-Income country. I have no doubt that your dynamic government has already set itself new goals for achieving even greater heights of progress and prosperity for your people. I offer you my best wishes for the success of your endeavours. 8. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, as the Head of State of the world's largest democracy, I would like to congratulate Ghana for its giant strides in strengthening democracy. Not only in Western Africa, but in the entire African Continent, Ghana is regarded with respect - as a nation of robust democratic institutions. Our bilateral relations have expanded and deepened over the years. Both investments and trade have seen rapid growth. The Government of India and the Indian corporate world recognize the rich potential of the Ghanaian economy. Indian companies would be happy to invest in Ghana if the right opportunities are given to them. We look forward to working with you to realise the full potential of our synergies to our mutual benefit. 9. India will continue to extend the hand of co-operation to Ghana as it marches towards prosperity. Ghana can always count on Indias hand of friendship and co-operation. India will be happy to offer assistance and support in all areas where it is required by you. Our scholarship programmes under the Indian Technical Cooperation Programme and Indian Council for Cultural Relations are open to you and we welcome your citizens to avail our schemes for human resource development. 10. I take this opportunity to convey the appreciation of the people of India for your active participation and contribution in the 3rd India-Africa Forum Summit held in New Delhi in October last year. The Government of India seeks Ghana's continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Forum and achieving its common goals for realising the collective aspirations of our peoples. 11. I am aware of the significant advancement made by Ghana in achieving its Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. I take this opportunity to congratulate Your Excellency, President Mahama, on your appointment by the Secretary General of the United Nations as the Co-Chair of the Advocacy group on Sustainable Development Goals. India recognised and appreciated Ghana's active role in the fight against Ebola. We also laud Ghana's dynamism in the Economic Community of West African States and welcome your efforts to promote greater integration within the region and across the African continent. 12. Since India and Ghana became independent States, the world has transformed itself. Today, the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remains out of the UN Security Council. 13. Excellency, India, as a victim of terrorism for over three decades, shares your concern that this has become a global menace. It is a scourge that knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India stands in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge. 14. I take this opportunity to convey my deep gratitude to the Government and the people of Ghana for warmly embracing the Indian Diaspora. I am glad to note that they have become an important bridge linking our two countries. 15. \With these words, I thank you once again for your gracious hospitality. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, May I request you to join me in raising a toast: - to the health and happiness of His Excellency, President John Dramani Mahama and The First Lady of Ghana Madam Lordina Mahama, - to the continued success, prosperity and well-being of the people of Ghana; and - to the enduring friendship between the peoples of the Republic of India and the Republic of Ghana. Thank you! Source: PIB Superstar Shah Rukh Khan speaks out on Finding Nemo ahead of 'Finding Dory's release Bollywood, Mon, 13 Jun 2016 NI Wire "I have watched Finding Nemo 13 times in the last five days, thanks to AbRam." Disney-Pixar's Finding Dory, which is the much awaited animation sequel of the hit Finding Nemo, is just a week away from release and already the excitement has hit fever pitch! Everyone's favorite forgetful fish Dory is back onscreen along with Nemo in cinemas on 17th June and not only audiences all over India, but superstar Shah Rukh Khan too seems to be caught up in the Nemo' fever When recently asked about spending time with his children, SRK said I have watched Finding Nemo 13 times in the last five days, thanks to AbRam. Well, we are sure he along with all of us too can't wait to see finding Dory! Disney Pixar's adorable and much awaited animation sequel FINDING DORY releases on 17th June and features an all-star voice cast, welcoming DeGeneres (The Ellen DeGeneres Show)and Albert Brooks (This is 40)back to the sea as favorite fish Dory and Marlin. Ed O'Neill (Modern Family)lends his voice to septopus Hank, Kaitlin Olson (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)voices whale shark Destiny, and Ty Burrell (Modern Family) gives voice to beluga whale Bailey. PortrayingDory's parents Charlie and Jenny are Eugene Levy (Schitt's Creek)and Diane Keaton (Love the Coopers). And 12-year-old Hayden Rolence (Beta Persei) steps in to help bring Nemo to life. Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain. Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred. For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here. Planetary Resources, the asteroid mining company, announced today that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the banking institution Societe Nationale de Credit et dInvestissement (SNCI). This partnership with Luxembourgs SpaceResources.lu initiative will advance technologies and lines of business toward the exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids. Just as Luxembourg accelerated the satellite communications industry through its investments, this funding for Planetary Resources Luxembourg will accelerate the space resources industry. With the agreement, the Government of Luxembourg is considering a direct capital investment in Planetary Resources Luxembourg. This public equity position will be taken by the SNCI to become a minority shareholder. Planetary Resources Luxembourg plans to conduct key research and development activities. The pathway for identifying the most commercially viable near-Earth asteroids has led to the development of multiple transformative technologies that are applicable to global markets, including the agriculture, oil & gas, water quality and financial intelligence industries. The companys Earth observation business, Ceres, will generate revenue and intellectual property in Europe and around the world which will further develop the technologies and services required for asteroid prospecting missions. We are delighted to begin working with Luxembourg to develop ground-breaking space technologies and services. Luxembourg has a proud history and global reputation in commercial space operations and we are honored to be working with their government, academia, and industry to further develop the limitless potential that awaits in the space resources industry, said Chris Lewicki, President and CEO, Planetary Resources, Inc. Etienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy, Government of Luxembourg, said, We are excited to welcome Planetary Resources, an industry leader, to work in Luxembourg and we look forward to a prosperous future together. The Grand Duchy offers an attractive overall framework for space resource utilization related activities, including but not limited to the legal and regulatory regime. Planetary Resources and its team bring in a wealth of knowledge and experience and will join the existing space sector in Luxembourg. By starting to put all this together, we will make the SpaceResources.lu initiative a success. This partnership will serve to advance and build upon Planetary Resources substantial accomplishments. Core hardware and software technologies developed at Planetary Resources were tested last year when the Arkyd-3R satellite was deployed from the International Space Station. The company has completed its next spacecraft, the Arkyd-6, scheduled for launch later this year. This mission will validate the thermographic sensor that will precisely measure temperature differences of objects on Earth, and when deployed on future asteroid missions it will acquire key data related to the presence of water and water-bearing minerals on asteroids. Earth is finite, but our economic growth need not be Asteroids will fuel a mass-constrained economy in orbit and back on Earth. In orbit, spacecraft propellant is a multi-billion dollar industry with each pound of fuel worth more than an equivalent pound of gold on Earth. Certain asteroids are loaded with hydrogen and oxygen, the components of rocket fuel. These asteroids can provide a fuel source that is 100 times closer energetically to Earth orbit, and thus far less expensive, than the Apollo-Era bring-everything-with-you propellant used today. Back on Earth, platinum group metals are necessary for everything from catalytic converters to jewelry to the construction of electronics, medical devices, glass, and turbine blades. Despite their high price tags, these metals are used to manufacture one in four goods that we use everyday. Today, the major sources of platinum group metals are concentrated in South Africa and Russia, and becoming increasingly hard to access over time. But in space, a single 500-meter platinum-rich asteroid contains more platinum than has been mined in the history of humanity. Planetary Resources is building the technology to access these resources today. Discovery and Quantity Millions of asteroids silently glide near Mars and Jupiters orbital slots and, over time, gravitational perturbations kick some of these asteroids closer to the Sun, creating the class of objects known as near-Earth asteroids. Near Earth Asteroids Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are generally defined as that population of asteroids which spends at least part of each orbit between 0.983 and 1.3 Astronomical Units from the Sun (1 Astronomical Unit is the Earths distance from the Sun). These asteroids were previously part of the Main Belt population or were once active comets. In 1960, only 20 near-Earth asteroids were known, growing to 134 by the year 1990. Today, nearly 13,000 near-Earth asteroids are known to exist, and the number increases daily. Scientists believe the number may actually exceed one million. Of the asteroids currently observed, 981 of these objects are larger than one kilometer in diameter. The majority of the remaining known near-Earth asteroids are believed to be between 100 m and 1 km in diameter, with those smaller than 100 meters wide numbering slightly more than 2,800. Near-Earth asteroids are categorized into three groups based on their distances from the Sun: the Atens, Apollos, and Amors. Some near-Earth asteroids spend nearly all of their time outside Earths orbit, while other objects, known as earth-crossers, have orbits that intersect Earths orbit. Two near-Earth asteroids have been visited by robotic spacecraft: 433 Eros by NASAs NEAR mission, and 25143 Itokawa by Japans Hayabusa mission. NASA is currently working on the OSIRIS-REx mission to visit the carbonaceous asteroid 1999 RQ36 in 2019. Our telescopic capabilities for asteroid observation are also improving. One example is the Large Scale Synoptic Telescope (LSST) that recently received a $20 million gift from Planetary Resources investor Charles Simonyi. Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are the low-hanging fruit of the solar system, the easiest of all space resources to both access and return from. There are over 42 trillion tons of resource that approach within 45 million km of Earths orbit. More than 13,000 NEAs have been identified and studied in some detail, and it is from this group that our first wave of exploration targets will be found. To put 42 trillion tons of resource into perspective, lets take, for example, iron ore. It is one of the most abundant minerals on earth, comprising over 5% of the Earths crust. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that there are 800 billion tonnes of iron ore worldwide. NEAs therefore represent a potential mineral resource at least fifty times larger than the Earths entire iron ore reserve. And what does 45 million km from Earth really mean? The moon is approximately 384,000 km away from Earth, so these resources are within approximately 110 lunar distances of earth. While 110 lunar distances may sound like a long way, it is important to think in terms of energy, not just distance. The majority of energy expended in space travel, over 60%, is utilized in just getting off planet Earth and orbiting at those first 200 km of altitude. Another 30% is needed to escape from Earths gravitational influence, leaving less than 10% of total required energy to navigate interplanetary space and rendezvous with the closest NEAs. Or to put it another way over half of the 13,000 known NEAs are energetically closer than the surface of the Moon. SOURCES- Planetary Resources, Youtube The next generation of nanosubmarines being developed at Rice University has been upgraded with tags that fluoresce longer, which enables the submersibles to be tracked for greater periods while being driven through a solution. The single-molecule vehicles introduced by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour last year may someday be used to deliver drugs or other cargo. The new version built and tested with collaborators at Tel Aviv University in Israel is the subject of a recent paper in the American Chemical Society journal Organic Letters. The first nanosub, USN-1, could be monitored but not imaged by a technique that would irradiate it with light for very short times. But that did not offer information about the submersibles trajectory, according to lead author Victor Garcia-Lopez, a former Rice graduate student. The latest model, the 334-atom USN-2, can be viewed by single-molecule microscopy for at least 1.5 seconds, long enough for 30 frames of video. Rice University scientists have created light-driven, single-molecule submersibles that contain just 244 atoms. Illustration by Loic Samuel Organic Letters Synthesis and Photostability of Unimolecular Submersible Nanomachines: Toward Single-Molecule Tracking in Solution This makes it possible for us to track the trajectory of a single nanosubmersible, Tour said. It should lead to a better understanding of how our vehicles move. The lab attached cyclooctatetraene (COT) to the molecules body and motor to keep them from bleaching, which quenches fluorescence. The light-driven motor developed by scientists in the Netherlands is a tail-like ligand that spins about a million times per second. The new subs, like the originals, are capable of moving 15 meters per second over nanoscale distances, based on the thrust provided by each turn of the rotating motor. Between the frequent collisions that stop their forward motion, Tour said, they are the fastest-moving molecules ever seen in solution. The nanosubmarines still cant be steered in the traditional sense, Tour said. The team is satisfied for the moment with achieving enhanced diffusion that lets them figure out how to move a one-molecule vehicle in a solution of similarly sized molecules. The next step is to track these nanosubmarines in solution and see if we can use them to deliver cargo or interact with cells, Tour said. Co-authors are Rice visiting scholar Shunsuke Kuwahara of Toho University, Japan; Angel Marti, an associate professor of chemistry of bioengineering and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice; and Jonathan Jeffet, a masters student, and Yuval Ebenstein, a senior lecturer in chemistry, at Tel Aviv University. Abstract The synthesis and photophysical properties of a series of photostable unimolecular submersible nanomachines (USNs) are reported as a first step toward the analysis of their trajectories in solution. The USNs have a light-driven rotatory motor for propulsion in solution and photostable cy5-COT fluorophores for their tracking. These cy5-COT fluorophores are found to provide an almost 2-fold increase in photostability compared to the previous USN versions and do not affect the rotation of the motor. 25 pages of supplemental material SOURCES Rice University, Organic Letters Russia is developing a sixth generation hypersonic stealth fighter. The plan is for a prototype to make its first flight between 2022 and 2025. Vladimir Mikhailova former commander of the Russian Air Forcetold the news agency that UAC has already completed the concept definition for the new warplane. Indeed, research on the new sixth-generation fighterto include engineering designis well underway according to Mikhailov. Mikhailov added that Russia plans to equip the prospective new warplane with long-range hypersonic missiles. The Russians have not yet completed with fifth generation stealth fighter and they have funding issues for new military projects. The Russians are not just aiming to equip the new fighter with hypersonic weapons; Moscow is designing its sixth-generation airframe to be capable of hypersonic speeds. It will be hypersonic at several Mach, single-seat, invisible to the enemy, super-maneuverable, multifunctional and made of composite materials, Mikhailov said. The aircraft will have a cockpit, but will be able to fly with both a pilot and without a pilot. That is, it will combine a manned and unmanned variant. The first inklings that the Russians were attempting to develop a new sixth-generation aircraft came earlier this year in March when Col. Gen. Viktor Bondarev, commander of the Russian Air Force, said that work on a sixth-generation fighterthat would be built in manned and unmanned variantswas already underway. At the same time, Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said that Sukhoi had presented him with relatively mature design concepts for a new sixth-generation fighter. SOURCES- Tass, National Interet Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) Company, has successfully demonstrated a 30-mile autonomous flight using a Sikorsky S-76 commercial helicopter to complete Phase 1 of an $8 million award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program. Sikorskys ALIAS system directed the rotorcraft flight demonstration from Sikorskys Stratford, Connecticut, facility to Robertson Airport in Plainville, Connecticut, utilizing autonomous technology capabilities. This flight highlighted the ability for an operator to plan and execute every phase of an autonomous mission with a tablet device. During the demonstration, a ground station crew located at the flight initiation field monitored the progress of the ALIAS-enabled Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft (SARA), an S-76 commercial helicopter. The objective of DARPAs ALIAS program is to develop and insert new levels of automation into existing military and commercial aircraft to enable those aircraft to operate with reduced onboard crew. ALIAS seeks to leverage advances in autonomy that reduce pilot workload, augment mission performance, and improve aircraft safety and reliability. Sikorsky utilized its Matrix Technology introduced in 2013 to develop, test and field hardware and software systems that significantly improve optionally piloted and piloted vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Sikorsky has installed MATRIX on both SARA and a BLACK HAWK helicopter. With the advances weve made, the capability for safe, unobtrusive optionally piloted flight is here, said Mark Miller, Vice President of Engineering & Technology at Sikorsky. ALIAS is expanding the role of optionally piloted helicopters for early entry into established aircraft programs. It has the capability of not only reducing aircrew size, but also changing the type and length of training required for safe operation. With work on ALIAS Phase 1 complete, Sikorsky has begun Phase 2 of the program. DARPA awarded Sikorsky a $9.8 million modification for the competitions second phase, which focuses on continued maturation of the initial ALIAS system with additional flight tests, enhancements to the human interface and transition to additional aircraft to demonstrate ALIAS portability. The current environment limits the creation of new, optionally piloted platforms. What Sikorsky and DARPA are demonstrating is the successful and affordable integration of advanced technology onto existing legacy aircraft to not only set the stage for autonomous operations down the road, but also to immediately improve aircraft performance, reduce maintenance costs, and increase crew and passenger safety, said Chris Van Buiten, Vice President of Sikorsky Innovations, the technology research group for the Engineering and Technology organization. SOURCES- Lockheed, Sikorsky, DARPA, Youtube Below are the other single shootings that claimed the most lives in the US. The Roanoke Times reports (http://bit.ly/1XhGa2u ) that some students will hold a vigil at 9 p.m. Sunday at the April 16 Memorial, which honors the victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. Adam Lanza, 20, killed his mother before shooting 20 elementary school children and six staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In 1991, 35-year-old gunman crashes his truck into a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, TX. July 1984: Gunman kills 21 people at a McDonald's California before being killed by police. The Orlando shooting now surpasses that tragedy as the worst mass shooting in United States history. The previous deadliest mass shooting in the US was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, in which a student killed 32 people before killing himself. December 12, 2015: Syed Farook and his wife Tafsheen Malik opened fire on a meeting and holiday lunch for Farook's colleagues in San Bernardino, killing 14 in a terrorist attack inspired by ISIS. Sgt. Patrick Swanton Waco Police Department spokesman, speaks to the media near the Twin Peaks restaurant where members of a motorcycle gang were shot and killed in Waco, Texas, May 19, 2015. He shot and killed 23 people before committing suicide. One of those killed was his supervisor who had reprimanded him. 13 killed - September 25, 1982 - In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 40-year-old George Banks, a prison guard, kills 13 people including five of his own children. In 1966, an engineering student and former U.S. Marine shot and killed his wife and mother at home, then took rifles, pistols and a shotgun to the clock tower on the University of Texas in Austin where he killed 14 and wounded 32 in a 90-minute rampage. November 2009: U.S. Army psychiatrist kills 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. Littleton, Colo. 13 killed. July 20, 2012: A dozen people were killed when a gunman burst in and opened fire during a midnight screening of the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises". He was sentenced to death but remains behind bars amid questions about his mental competency. Wong killed 13 people and wounded six others, before killing himself. Unruh is found insane and is committed to a state mental institution. 23 killed. October 16, 1991. Both are serving life in prison. For nearly two years, Fallujah, which is just 50km west of the capital Baghdad, has endured a siege imposed on the city after it became the first to fall to ISIL in January 2014. But the complexity of the task quickly became apparent. A huge battle between supporters of the death cult and army and militia forces has been raging Fallujah since May. "We are expecting many more", once inside the city's more urban neighbourhoods, al-Saadi said. Meanwhile, many of those who fled the city two years ago have had to move several times in search for safety and a decent place to live. Fallujah is one of the last IS strongholds in Iraq. The operation involves joint Iraqi forces, including Kurdish peshmerga, as well as a US Marine artillery post based outside Makhmur. Almost 100 U.S. Marines died and hundreds were wounded in a bloody six-week battle for the city 12 years ago, their bloodiest fight of the Iraq War. ISIS has built an extensive network of tunnels to hide from the strikes. The Iraqi source said: "ISIS now have a large number of wounded fighters and is desperate for blood". Ali Hamel of the military's intelligence wing. On Saturday, the Iraqi army also announced that it had recaptured two neighborhoods east of the city. Up to 50,000 civilians were feared trapped in the city, the NRC said. "See the communications tower", he said. "Once we do, it will only be a matter of time". Most of the casualties were women and children who were trying to escape the IS-held city to reach the Amiriyat Al-Fallujah refugee camp, an Iraqi military spokesman told NBC News. Craters from airstrikes left many main roads unusable. Turki spoke Wednesday to reporters invited to question him remotely at the Saudi embassy in Washington which has sharply stepped up its lobbying activities in recent months amid new reports about the kingdom's role in 9/11 attacks. The operation to retake Fallujah has involved tens of thousands of government fighters, including from the police, army, counter-terrorism service and from the Hashed Al Shaabi, a paramilitary umbrella that is dominated by Shiite militias. It was al-Abadi's fourth trip to the area since the operation began. The visit is part of a three-nation African visit by the Indian president, beginning with Ghana followed by Cote d'Ivoire and then Namibia. The visiting president, who will also visit Cote d'Ivoire, will hold discussions with President John Dramani Mahama while on Ghana-India relations. President Mukherjee also stated that if proper opportunities are given by the Government of Ghana, Indian Companies will consider expanding their growth to the West African country as well. Mukherjee will pay tributes at the memorial of the founder of Ghanaian independence, Kwame Nkrumah, a comrade of Jawaharlal Nehru and others of the Non-Aligned Movement, during his visit to Accra. India will be happy to offer assistance and support in all areas where it is required by Ghana. President Pranab Mukherjee during his visit felt that the two countries and the citizens of these two countries share a similar experience and share similar aspirations and dreams. The bilateral relations are marked by mutual respect and understanding on various bilateral and multilateral issues. In addition, the agreement regarding opening of EXIM Bank Representative/Regional branch in Abidjan would be handed over in presence of both Presidents after which President Mukherjee would address a Joint Business Forum and also interact with the Indian Community. Mr. Mukherjee will visit Namibia from June 15-17 at the invitation of Namibian President Hage Gottfried Geingob. The President will also address a joint session of the Namibian Parliament, a business event, and the Namibian University of Science and Technology. India has age-old ties born out of the fight against colonialism with Ghana and Namibia. Over 1000 Namibians have trained in India under the ITEC program. I am accompanied by a delegation of Parliamentarians that represent diverse regions of our country. However, there is tremendous potential to further enhance trade and economic ties. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, as the Head of State of the worlds largest democracy, I would like to congratulate Ghana for its giant strides in strengthening democracy. Even though Mukherjee has toured a number of countries in the continent, he will be visiting these countries for the first time in his long political career. It said Friday that crossings will be open for "humanitarian" cases and for Palestinians to worship at al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Over the course of the weekend, one Israeli was also arrested for employing an undocumented Palestinian worker in his shop, and two additional Israeli suspects were arrested for transporting Palestinians who lacked necessary permits to be in Israel, she added. The year 2015 marked the highest number of deaths and injuries among West Bank Palestinians by Israeli forces in a decade, a United Nations report has said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet on Thursday and announced a slew of punitive and deterrent measures against Palestinians in the wake of Wednesday's shooting in a popular Tel Aviv nightspot, the deadliest attack in a months-long wave of violence. The closure also coincided with the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which was celebrated on Sunday. The house was located in the village of Yata in the West Bank, just three kilometers (1.8 miles) away from the place where Adis killed his victim, the Times of Israel newspaper reported. The assaults were once near-daily incidents but they have become less frequent in recent weeks. Tel Aviv - Israel's army destroyed on Saturday the West Bank home of a Palestinian teenager accused of killing an Israeli settler earlier this year, a military spokesman said. It said police were on high alert in Jerusalem and prayers passed peacefully. The Palestinians consider it a form of collective punishment. The moves drew worldwide concern, with France strongly condemning the attack but also warning against further exacerbating tensions. The plans include extra police on routes used by worshipers to reach the Western Wall, in particular during Shavuot. Analysts said joining the NSG is chiefly a matter of pride for India and its desire to be taken seriously by some of the world's most powerful nations. Hong also said that the NSG Chair, the Argentine ambassador, convened an unofficial meeting on June 9 in Geneva but there was "no deliberation on any items related to the accession to the NSG by India or any other countries that are not signatories" to the NPT. "If you compare it with India, when our neighboring country conducted a nuclear test in 1974, it misused the nuclear supplies given to it for peaceful purposes, which led to the formation of NSG". Most of the hold-outs oppose the idea of admitting a non-NPT state such as India and argue that if it is to be admitted, it should be under criteria that apply equally to all states rather than under a "tailor-made" solution for a U.S. ally. "Last week, I telephoned the foreign ministers of Russia, New Zealand and South Korea, who will in future head the NSG, and our viewpoint was that they should support the criteria-based approach, and we have gathered support for it, China was already supporting it", said the adviser to PM. Pakistan's candidature was being pushed by China, this diplomat said. Prime Minister Modi's Africa visit will also be part of the country's outreach to the African continent, less than a year after the successful hosting of the India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) by his government in New Delhi. "The whole world agrees that the two countries should start dialogue for lasting peace in South Asia". "The fact is that many countries within the group also share China's stance", it added. When asked as to what message did the United States want to send by the May 21 drone strike which killed Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mansour, the adviser said United States authorities could not explain as to what objective they achieved by the act as "their domestic electoral politics had a part in it". Both India and Pakistan applied in May to join the grouping that regulates global nuclear trade. A decision on Indian membership is not expected before an NSG plenary meeting in Seoul on June 20, but diplomats have said Washington has been pressuring hold-outs. He was responding to questions raised by Jahanzaib Ali of ARY News about India's membership application to NSG and opposition to it by Pakistan on the grounds that this would give pace to nuclear arms race in the region. One of the most prominent countries vying for NSG inclusion is India, which is not a signatory of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, the official Chinese position only appears to have hardened against India's bid. However, critics have highlighted China's close relationship with Pakistan as another reason for the decision to block India's bid to join the NSG. A ruling on whether to proceed on PHILLIPPE DAUMAN's attempt to be restored as a SUMNER REDSTONE trustee will come later this month, according to JUDGE GEORGE PHELAN, who heard arguments about leadership issues at VIACOM in a MA court yesterday. Phelan suggested the world of multi-billion dollar trusts was a far cry from his own modest upbringing in a housing project, where he said he was "happy to have a quarter in my pocket". Dauman and Abrams sued to reverse the changes. The dispute is being heard in state probate court in Canton, Mass., about 20 miles south of Boston in the county where the trust was created. In a court filing yesterday, she submitted a statement from lawyer Pierce O'Donnell who had represented the paterfamilias' former girlfriend Manuela Herzer in the California case challenging his competence. "In my professional opinions, Mr. Sumner Redstone did not consider or understand or appreciate the consequences of his actions on Oct. 12 2015 and October 16, 2015 [removing Herzer] and he was in fact in capable of doing so as a result of the above described deficits in mental function", Read said. The trial is being brought by Dauman and lawyer George Abrams, both of whom were replaced as directors of National Amusements and trustees in the trust that will control it when Sumner Redstone dies. Dauman and Abrams have requested an immediate medical examination of Redstone, alleging that their ouster from the trust was orchestrated by Redstone's daughter, Shari, who they say is "isolating" her father. There were 22 lawyers at the hearing, all seeking an opportunity to speak on behalf of Viacom, the Redstones or one of Redstone's trustees. Chief Executive Officer Philippe Dauman to have the media mogul medically evaluated. Tuesday marked the first hearing in the case that will determine if Redstone is of sound enough mind to make business decisions about his sprawling empire. The lawsuit, which seeks to have the dispute heard in California, was filed on the same day Dauman filed his complaint in MA. "In the absence of prompt proceedings, there is grave risk that Sumner Redstone will not be available to provide any evidence in this case", they argued in court documents Monday. Last week, Redstone's attorneys filed court papers saying he has been examined twice recently by a geriatric psychiatrist, who said Redstone is "clearly communicating" his business decisions, which "reflect his own authentic wishes and preferences". In a move that further undermines Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, the company's controlling shareholder says it amended Viacom's bylaws to require unanimous board approval for any full or partial sale of movie studio Paramount Pictures. The ex-Redstone confidants believe that Shari is really the one behind their removals - and they're not alone in that line of thinking. They said Shari Redstone has isolated the mogul from longtime friends and colleagues. Nebraska has recently been hit by a statewide drought. Most of the state, but especially Northeast Nebraska, has experienced little to no precipitation within the past couple of months. Records are being broken as the days without rainfall continue. This drought, however, should not come as We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription. Moroccos exports of fruits and vegetables to Russia will witness a significant rise by the end of this year, Russias Trade Representative to Morocco, reveals. Viacheslav Jrulev was quoted by Russian Sputnik that Moroccos exportation of agriculture produce namely fruits and vegetables will increase by 40 per cent by the end of 2016 Jrulev also told the Russian media that Moroccos vegetable exports to Russia during the first quarter of the year have doubled compared to last year figures while the volume of fruits exports has stagnated. Relations between Russia and Morocco, including in economy and trade, were given a new momentum this year during the state visit King Mohammed VI paid to Russia in March. The leaders of the two countries oversaw then the signing of scores of accords. Morocco would benefit from the embargo Russia imposed on products of a number of countries including EU countries and Turkey, Jrulev said. The United States and the EU have imposed economic sanctions against Moscow following its annexation of the Crimea-forcing Vladimir Putin and his government to diversify Russias economic partners. Morocco has stood as a key partner becoming the second African country with large economic trade with Russia, behind Egypt. Trade exchanges between the two countries have scaled up to reach $2.5 billion per year, huffpostmaghreb.com reports. Out of the $2.5 billion trade exchanges estimate, imports of Moroccos food commodities account for 92 per cent. Future prospects are positive for Morocco as the Kingdom may overtake Turkey which has fallen out with Russia over Ankaras downing of a Russian military jet in November last year on the Turkish-Syrian border. Moscow reacted angrily and imposed economic sanctions on Turkey. The Kingdom of Morocco will launch production of its locally made electric buses next year, Head of the countrys Energy investment Company (SIE,) a key actor in the project, reveals. The project falls into the Kingdoms promotion of the transports facility policy, says Ahmed Baroudi. The industrial project aims at producing last generation of (Ultra-Light) electric buses made in Morocco for the local and international market, Baroudi said. In an interview with Finance News, Baroudi said that the project also falls within the governments plans seeking to reduce the countrys dependence on oil and gas, reduce significantly CO2 emissions and make Moroccan cities air-friendly. The initiative was given official stamp last month during King Mohammed VIs state visit to China during which Moroccos Central Bank, SIE and Chinese Yangtse Ltd; specialized in the production of the bus, signed a $123 million deal. On the economic front, Baroudi indicated that more than 500 direct and indirect jobs will be generated. The SIE Head further announced additional profits including transfer of technology to Moroccan companies associated to the project. More than 1,000 buses will be manufactured each year and oriented towards local and international markets. The future project will also pave the way to other made in Morocco products, Baroudi said. Critics of the project have expressed their concerns over the high number of traffic accidents registered in China, involving electric buses operating on lithium-ion batteries. French-Moroccan scientist Rachid Yazami, known for his research on lithium ion batteries and on Fluoride Ion and inventor of the graphite anode (negative pole) of lithium ion batteries, has reportedly warned against risks of explosion of Lithium-powered integrated batteries, which may cause traffic accidents as seen over recent years in China. Broaden your expertise, enhance patient care, and never worry about another license requirement again with Elite Passport Membership. Available across ten healthcare professions in a variety of options to suit your career goals, Passport Membership propels your career advancement and offers exceptional value to healthcare providers. The view from One57. Photo: S. Jhoanna Robledo Not since the skyscraper boom of the Jazz Age has New Yorks skyline undergone a transformation as it is now. More than two dozen supertall towers and counting are in some stage of planning or construction, and not just for Billionaires Row. These slender 800-plus-foot cloudbusters are springing up in the Flatiron, the Financial District, the Far West Side, and even Downtown Brooklyn and Long Island City. How long before they start sprouting in Riverdale or Tottenville? How about next week? That is the fear that erupted after a legislative package came to light in Albany this week that would remove restrictions on the size of residential buildings in the five boroughs. The bills, quietly introduced by Brooklyn Senator Simcha Felder and Harlem Assemblyman Keith Wright, would remove a 1961 density cap placed on residential buildings. Under the new rules which could be passed before the session ends next Friday residential buildings in most of the city could be far bigger than they are now. And the biggest backer, besides Big Real Estate, is Mayor Bill de Blasio himself. Brooklyns future 1,066-foot tower at 9 Dekalb Avenue. Photo: SHoP Architects The rule change is subtle, affecting the formula called floor-area ratio, or F.A.R., that is used to compute the bulk and size of any building. Right now, residential buildings can have an F.A.R. of up to 12: A 5,000-square-foot lot, say, can be occupied by a 60,000-square-foot building, which usually works out (because of space set aside for setbacks, plazas, and so forth) to 20 to 25 stories. Residential buildings F.A.R. is capped by state rather than city law, and has been since 1961, when it was not only written into the zoning code but also enacted in Albany to ensure that it would stick. The bill as introduced in the Assembly and Senate would eliminate that limit, although developers would have to get anything above 12 approved by the Department of City Planning (as well as the City Council, where public outcry might try to limit things again). That could mean a 40- or 50-story building, or even more, on that same 5,000-square-foot lot. (Yes, we already have residential buildings that are far taller, but building those has required special horse-trading moves, like acquiring the rights from several structures and bundling them.) Many neighborhoods have absolute height restrictions set by the city, but some, like Midtown and Downtown Brooklyn, do not. The de Blasio administration argues that by lifting the cap, developers will be willing to introduce public benefits in their projects, like affordable housing, open space, or infrastructure investment. On The Brian Lehrer Show Friday morning, de Blasio defended both the bills and his administrations push for bigger buildings all through his typical lens of expanding affordable housing at nearly any cost. There are places where we can appropriately build taller, Mayor de Blasio said. There are some specific districts that are already very highly built up, for example Midtown Manhattan, where theres an opportunity to do some more, and to include affordable housing. This is something that is very specific to certain districts that are very dense. Under the new rules passed earlier this year, any public review at the City Planning Commission triggers the mandatory-inclusionary-housing policy, which stipulates that 20 to 30 percent of a building be affordable if a development bonus is sought. Now, 40 or 50 stories is still not very big for New York these days, and considering the mayors argument, big is good; people, and lots of them, have to live somewhere. And what the advocates seem to ignore is that the state is raising its cap on buildings, but the city is not. Every single neighborhood, and every single block, would still be governed by the citys existing zoning code. Skyscrapers buildings will not suddenly start springing up on Pineapple or Cranberry Streets in Brooklyn Heightspartly because those are historic districts, and partly because the neighbors would scream bloody murder. Still, the cap was there for a reason, and removing it would indeed remove one more roadblock to denser development. What it does mean, though, is that developers are likely to propose buildings larger than 12 F.A.R. in neighborhoods that have never seen them before, through rezonings and the like. When this happens, the new mandatory inclusionary housing rules passed in March would kick in. So we get towers, but we also get towers with more affordable housing. Its a tradeoff the mayor is prepared, even eager, to make. Now that theres a requirement for affordable housing in these new types of developments, its a much better equation for New York City, he told Brian Lehrer. The question of whether we ought to be building bigger and denser is a flashpoint among city planners, and city dwellers, right now. We all wring our hands over the unaffordable city; we also tend to be skeptical of the very construction that will, at least in theory, add apartments and ease the lack of supply. Groups like the Municipal Art Society support both reforms to the zoning code and expanded density in the city, but they fear that the development taking place now is too unconstrained. Raising the density cap without careful consideration will only exacerbate that. Giant glass slabs marching up a narrow street are not the sidewalk ballet we idealize. But neither is a low-scale street that looks lovely but is too expensive for any tenant except a designer boutique. Photo: Extell Development Company Much ado about nothing is how Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder of the Partnership for Architecture and Urbanism and former director of the Columbia Universitys Center for Urban Real Estate, describes the proposal. Density is fine if it is in the right place (near transit), is designed well, is responding to social needs, and has a relationship to the fabric of New York City. If it cant meet those tests, not sure it belongs in our city regardless of its scale. While these new buildings may be impossible to miss, the changes making them legal were, to say the least, stealthy. This seems to be the M.O. these days, where people dont talk about things, they just push them through, Gina Pollara, president of the Municipal Art Society, said. This needs a thorough discussion. Lifting the cap would mean more buildings for some of the most crowded places on the planet. Its shaping up as yet another fightas with the MTA and the schoolsover home rule between New York City and Albany. We should let the municipal government control its land use and development patterns, and it is shocking that Albany exerts this much authority over our future, Mitchell Moss, the N.Y.U. planning professor, said. New Yorkers should put their faith in their municipal government. Some of those New Yorkers in Albany do not share that faith. A group of lawmakers, mostly from the city, have risen up in opposition to the legislation in recent days. While the administration remains supportive of the proposal, it now looks like it will have to wait for the F.A.R. caps to be lifted until another legislative session. Like everything that happens in Albany, this was being done at the last minute, out of nowhere, with no discussion, State Senator Liz Krueger said. And big real estate gets exactly what it wants, and the community loses. The Trump doctrine: fear and discrimination. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images In some ways, Donald Trump has hijacked the Republican Party and diverted its attention into populist obsessions with trade, immigration, and identity that are orthogonal to the core interests of mainstream conservatism. But on the subject of Islamic terrorism, Trump has not hijacked orthodox conservatism. He has intensified it, given it a more explicit policy objective, and brought its ideas closer to their logical conclusion. Sundays mass murder in Orlando, and the political response that has ensued, reveal Trump as a true conservative thought leader, and further reveal the ugliness of those thoughts. A dozen years ago, George W. Bush ran for reelection, at a time when the post-9/11 fog of panic that had transformed him into a fearless and admired war leader had not yet dissipated. At that time, when Republicans wanted to depict Democrats as soft on Islamic terrorism, they would accuse them of seeing terrorism as a matter of law enforcement. (To take one of many examples, Bush charged during one debate, My opponent said this war is a matter of intelligence and law enforcement. No, this war is a matter of using every asset at our disposal to keep the American people protected.) The accusation had political force because it conveyed a larger metaphor, that Bush (allegedly) took terrorism seriously, and his weak, intellectual, vaguely French opponent did not. But it was also connected to a real policy idea. Neoconservatives believed that overturning hostile regimes in the Middle East would spread pro-Western democracy and eliminate sources of cultural, political, and financial support for terrorism. Their conviction that the war on terrorism must be an actual, military war, and not merely intelligence and law enforcement, reflected a genuine policy doctrine. Obviously, it failed. And after the Bush doctrine collapsed, Republicans were left groping for a point of differentiation on terror policy. (In 2008, when Barack Obama said he would pursue Osama bin Laden into Pakistan if necessary, John McCain depicted his opponent as overly aggressive: he said he wants to announce that hes going to attack Pakistan. Remarkable.) This did not prove to be a politically fruitful line of attack, especially after the strategy Obama outlined resulted in the killing of bin Laden. And so by Obamas second term, Republicans had retreated to a different line of attack: Democrats are too politically correct, too sensitive to Muslim sensibilities, to identify the source of Islamic terrorism. Only Republicans can defeat the enemy because only Republicans can identify it in sufficiently blunt terms. This is the standard right-wing line on terrorism. We need a President who is serious who will identify the enemy by name and do everything necessary to defeat it, wrote the staunch movement conservative Ted Cruz. As a matter of rigid ideology, far too many Democrats from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton will refuse to utter the words radical Islamic terrorism. The Wall Street Journal editorializes, President Obama could also help if he werent so reluctant to acknowledge the domestic danger from ISIS. Mr. Obama did say in his Sunday remarks that this was an act of terror, though he still cant muster the words Islam or jihad or Islamic State. And it is also Trumps line: Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesnt he should immediately resign in disgrace! But why exactly will uttering the words radical Islamic terror catalyze ISISs defeat? Most Republicans have no answer. It is merely a taunt, meant to signify Obamas alleged lack of spine, without any policy content. Trump, almost alone among his partys leadership, has developed the talking point into an analysis. He opposes not only the handful of words Obama uses to identify the enemy, but the entire strategy of trying to distinguish the minority of dangerous extremist Muslims from the peaceful majority. Rather than focus the scope of government targets, Trump proposes to widen it. This idea undergirds his proposal to ban all Muslim immigrants and refugees. It also animates his lies that Muslim-Americans celebrated the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, and that Muslim-Americans in San Bernardino knew about the impending attack last summer but did nothing to stop it. It is the same thread that allows him to claim vindication in the Orlando massacre for his policies, which putatively would target only immigrants, even though the Orlando attack was carried out by a native-born U.S. citizen. Trump has defended his ban on Muslim refugees not merely as a tool to prevent terrorists from infiltrating the border disguised as refugees, but on the grounds that the entire Muslim population, peaceful and radical alike, is the breeding ground for a fifth column. There is no way to screen [refugees], pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalizing. Extending his rationale to the second generation is an important and chilling expansion of Trumps doctrine. He proposes to treat all Muslims as a suspect class of probable enemies. What Trump calls political correctness is simply the presumption that Muslims are mostly peaceful and, in the absence of evidence of hostile intent, have a right to equal treatment. As with most of his policies, Trump has left the details of his plan vague, but its overall contours are clear enough. The plan is to persecute Muslims. There are two broad grounds for objection to Trumps plan. First, there is the moral objection against discriminating against citizens on the basis of their religion and nationality. Trump would subject the vast majority of innocent Muslims to exclusion and discrimination in order to stop the dangerous minority. It is worth considering the conservative approach to this trade-off in contrast to its approach to gun control. Terrorists have increasingly turned to gun violence as their primary tool of mass murder. Currently, a person on the terrorism watch list is unable to purchase a seat on a plane, but they can buy an assault rifle. It would be possible to at least limit their access to dangerous weapons by strengthening gun laws. But Trump and his entire party reject any such measures out of hand. They will try to exploit this terror attack to undermine the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms of law-abiding Americans, wrote Cruz. Any imposition at all upon the rights of law-abiding gun owners is intolerable, while impositions upon the rights of law-abiding Muslims are fervently desired. The rights calculation of which group should be inconvenienced, and to what degree, is governed by identity politics rather than strategy. Then there is the practical objection: Since radical Islamists recruit allies by presenting the conflict as a division between Muslims and the West, any rhetoric that plays into the war-of-civilizations narrative aids their cause. Whats more, treating the Muslim community as aliens or with suspicion increases the number of radicals, and decreases the number of allies who will help identify extremists. This was precisely the strategy that inspired the Bush administration to carefully and extensively distinguish between Islam and the ideology of the terrorists who claimed to represent it. Six days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush told the world, The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. Thats not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. In succeeding years, Bush repeated this message over and over. Obama has followed the same strategy, identifying terrorists as thugs and killers, and asserting, We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam. The post-Bush-doctrine Republican Party is no longer guided by an idealistic and impractical vision for defeating radical Islam. All it has left is a residue of fear and nationalism, ripe for manipulation by a demagogue. The logic of Trumps conquest of the Republican Party is most glaringly obvious when it is splayed against the backdrop of the terrorist threat. He has taken control of an empty vessel and steered it toward its only possible course. Members of an Israeli ZAKA - Identification, Extraction and Rescue team work at the scene of a shooting outside Max Brenner restaurant in Sarona Market on June 8, 2016, in Tel Aviv, Israel. Photo: Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images Last week, two men dressed in black suits walked into Tel Avivs popular Max Brenner chocolate bar. They sat down and ordered food. Then they pulled out assault rifles and opened fire randomly, killing four patrons and wounding several others and sending a wave of panic through the surrounding shopping complex. The gunmen were a pair of Palestinian cousins who lived near Hebron in the West Bank, and both were apprehended, one after being shot and wounded by police. As the Times reported, the attack reignit[ed] fears of terrorism in Israel just as a recent wave of Palestinian attacks had seemed to be waning. Inside Higher Ed notes that one of the murdered victims was Michael Feige, a sociologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Feige, the universitys announcement explains, was the author of a 2009 book called Settling in the Hearts: Jewish Fundamentalism in the Occupied Territories, which won the Shapiro Prize for Best Book from the Association for Israel Studies in 2010. According to the books description, Settling in the Hearts is a work of ethnography that examines Gush Emunim, a fundamentalist religious movement [that] became a political force by constructing settlements within contested territory and is one of the key players in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. The description continues: In the first section of this volume, Feige explores how the Gush Emunim settlers reinterpret Jewish history, secular Zionist ideology, religious faith, and the Bible to discern the settlers attitudes toward the Jewish exile experience. Feige identifies the crucial principles at work in the settlers attempts to appropriate land, particularly in their use of collective memory, referring both to ancient times and to more contemporary events. In the second section, he presents fascinating case studies of Jewish settlements that Gush Emunim built beyond the green lines, in important symbolic centers such as Hebron, Ofra, and Gush. The concluding section analyzes the contemporary changes, conflicts, and crises that have affected Gush Emunim in the last year. Settling in the Hearts is based on a variety of qualitative sources, including interviews, participant observation, settlers publications, and visual documents. Its novel way of understanding one of the most crucial factors affecting Israeli society and the IsraeliPalestinian conflict will be of interest to Israeli and Middle Eastern studies scholars and readers wanting to learn more about the complex dynamics of politics in the Middle East. In other words, Feige was someone who had devoted his career to studying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and better understanding the motives of the settlers who have, with plenty of help in the form of the Israeli governments settlement policies, played a huge role in exacerbating that conflict. The attackers cant have known this, of course, and surely if they had it wouldnt have mattered to them their goal was to murder as many people enjoying a chocolate snack on a late-spring day in Tel Aviv as possible, and some of their fellow radicals celebrated and justified the shooting spree (hat tip to Will Cubbison for bringing my attention to this tweet): Fatah's official statement says Israel reaped fruits of its violent policy against Palestinians in Tel Aviv attackshttps://t.co/qbYeR5VoIq David Daoud (@DavidADaoud) June 8, 2016 It would be hard to come up with a more depressing symbol of the futility of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of the endless, senseless trauma and loss of life than an Israeli-Jewish scholar who tried to understand why some Jews appropriate and occupy Palestinian land getting murdered by Palestinian radicals who were surely motivated in part by that occupation, all in a city thats not even part of the occupied territories. Two New Yorkers are among the victims of the worst mass shooting in American history. A Brooklyn man, 25-year-old Enrique Rios, was killed in the massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, reports the New York Daily News. Rios worked with senior citizens in East New York while studying to become a nurse. Enrique Rios. Photo: Facebook Rioss mother, Gertrude Merced, told the Daily News that her son had gone down to Orlando for the weekend, to celebrate his friends birthday. A friend had called Rioss family early Sunday morning to say that the two got split up in the chaos that erupted after gunfire started to ring out in the club. No one had spotted Rios since. I am saddened to learn that one of #Brooklyn's own, 25-year-old social worker Enrique Rios, is among those killed in the #OrlandoShooting. Eric Adams (@BPEricAdams) June 13, 2016 Officials called the family late Sunday to confirm the worst: Rios had been identified as one of those killed in the slaughter. Until I view my son for myself I have hope that maybe there was a mistake, Merced said. Maybe it wasnt him. Melissa Delgado Photo: Facebook Another woman in her late 20s, Marissa Delgado, was critically injured in the attack. Delgado lived in Orlando but is originally from Glen Cove, Long Island. She was shot in the barrage of gunfire at the club, reports NBC New York. Details of her conditions are still unknown, but her mother wrote on Facebook that her daughter might have been shot up to six times. One of her friends, Stanley Almodovar III, was killed in the attack. Whole family is sending out prayers to the cousin Marissa Delgado, who was shot 6 times in the night club in Orlando #PrayForOrlando Randy Granados (@_randy_21) June 13, 2016 A vigil for the Orlando victims popped up last night near the Stonewall Inn, the landmarked West Village bar and symbol of the gay-rights movement. Hundreds gathered Sunday to mourn those killed and injured in the rampage. Flowers piled up outside the establishment, and a sign above the memorial read Stop the Hate. Scene outside historic #Stonewall right now in solidarity with #Orlando massacre victims. pic.twitter.com/6TkOA8BRM9 James West (@jameswest2010) June 12, 2016 Some disbanded from the Stonewall vigil and marched up Seventh Avenue and to Union Square. Stonewall demo breaking into march up 7th ave pic.twitter.com/5CuhQ248wN Mary Emily O'Hara (@MaryEmilyOHara) June 12, 2016 Another vigil sprang up in Diversity Plaza in Jackson Heights, Queens. Ar diversity plaza vigil for Orlando shooting victims pic.twitter.com/VD0bRhVsBZ katie honan (@katie_honan) June 12, 2016 Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio both condemned the attacks and expressed solidarity with the victims. The NYPD has also stepped up its presence near LGBT sites across the city as a precaution. We stand in solidarity, as New York City knows so well what it feels like to be the victim of a terrorist attack, de Blasio said. Its an act of terror, theres no question about that, and its an act of hate. He gets it better than anybody understands. Photo: Gerardo Mora/Getty Images, Alex Wong/Getty Images After hearing the terrible news out of Orlando on Sunday, Donald Trump expressed his profound gratitude to all the first responders which is to say, the first people to respond to his tweets about the shooting for congratulating him on having been proven right about Islamic terrorism. The Republican nominee proceeded to call for President Obamas resignation, for Hillary Clinton to end her campaign, and for the U.S. government to implement his Muslim ban. Only weeks ago, Trump had tried to distance himself from the latter, arguing that his proposal to nullify the First Amendment protection against religious discrimination was merely a suggestion. The fact that Trump revived the ban in the wake of the Orlando shooting, which was committed by a U.S. citizen, suggests that the most alarmist interpretation of the GOP nominees proposal that it would not merely restrict Muslim immigration, but the freedom of American Muslims already in this country is correct. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 It would be hard to imagine a more distasteful and dangerous way to respond to the mass murder at the Pulse nightclub. But Donald Trump has a good imagination. One day after calling for Obama to resign in recompense for his failure to say the words radical Islamic terror, Trump suggested there could be an unspeakable motive behind that failure. He doesnt get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. Its one or the other, Trump said of Obama on Fox & Friends Monday morning.Were led by a man who is a very look, were led by a man that either is, is not tough, not smart, or hes got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people cant believe it. People cannot they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the ways he acts and cant even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. [emphasis added] Here, Trump appears to be gesturing toward the far-right conspiracy theory, popularized in Dinesh DSouzas 2016: Obamas America, that the president wishes to undermine the United States so as to fulfill his fathers anti-colonial ambitions. (This was the logic behind Rubios infamous refrain, Barack Obama knows exactly what hes doing.) But even in DSouzas hallucinatory narrative, Obamas means of sabotage are limited to betraying our allies overseas while running up the federal deficit not aiding and abetting the mass murder of American citizens on U.S. soil. By saying Obama may have something else in mind with regard to Orlando, something inconceivable, Trump is winking at the darkest corner of the far-right fever swamp, the one occupied by people who believe Obama is not just a secret Muslim, but a radical Muslim trying to impose Sharia law on the United States. People like Trumps former butler. To appreciate how profoundly irresponsible it is for the Republican nominee to make such insinuations, please review that butlers various fantasies about hanging the first black president on the White House lawn. Oklahoma governor Mary Fallin. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images Last week, the pro-life governor of Oklahoma, Mary Fallin, signed a measure that tasks the state Departments of Health and Education with creating educational materials for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society. Information distributed as the result of house Bill 2797, also known as the Humanity of the Unborn Child Act, shall clearly and consistently teach that abortion kills a living human being. The state would also provide a list of public and private agencies that would help a woman while shes pregnant and after the baby is born, whether she chooses to keep the child or put him or her up for adoption. The Department of Health site would say that The State of Oklahoma strongly urges you to contact them if you are pregnant. The bill also establishes a Public Education on the Humanity of the Unborn Child Fund, which would support an instruction program for public school students in grades 9 through 12. The program should include information on how to access prenatal health care, although neither the program nor teachers can refer students to a medical facility or provider for an abortion. And the program cant mention any component of human sexuality not included in science education standards. Oklahoma Democrats did at least try to include things like comprehensive sex ed and and family planning services in the bill, but both amendments were shot down by Republicans. So, yes, teens will learn that life begins at conception but, curiously, they will not be taught about sex or how to prevent pregnancy. Parents would be given advance notice and have the right to keep their children out of such classes. The bill will go into effect on November 1. Slate points out that Oklahoma doesnt have the budget for any part of this bill, so either the anti-choice pamphlets and classes wont happen or they will, just literally at the expense of some other program. If Oklahoma really wants a society with fewer abortions, perhaps they should call up their neighbors in Colorado, where free, long-acting birth control lowered the teen pregnancy rate by 40 percent and the abortion rate by 42 percent. Doha, Qatar Photo: Matteo Colombo On Saturday, news broke of a 22-year-old Dutch woman who was arrested in March while vacationing in Qatar after she reported being drugged at the W Doha Hotel and raped at a strangers apartment. Her lawyer, Brian Lokollo, said her arrest was on suspicion of adultery, which means having sex outside marriage. Her accused rapist was also arrested and claimed they had consensual sex. On Monday, she appeared in court for the fourth time since she was detained. According to Al Jazeera, she was indeed convicted of having sex out of wedlock and handed down a one-year suspended sentence that involves her being deported to the Netherlands immediately. The man she accused of raping her, Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, is reportedly Syrian; he will also be deported, after receiving 140 lashes. Although its horrifying that she was punished in a court of law for reporting a rape, one court officials statement highlights how such treatment is even worse for women who arent Western: Had she been a Muslim woman, she would have received at least five years in jail. No one can get out of such charges here in Qatar. Lmao Reply Parent Thread Link *looks at title* *looks at OPs icon* Sis, we need to chat. Not even superboy is checking for this dude. Reply Thread Link its ok they WILL BE. I made Bieber famous (i'm so sorry about it) I can make anyone famous. Reply Parent Thread Link So it's you everyone needs to come after. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I like his voice tbh Reply Thread Link lmao of course you like his voice, you made the post. why are you commenting here like you weren't the op? Reply Parent Thread Link I like his voice tbh Reply Parent Thread Link lmao call them out tbh Reply Parent Thread Link Stop this lmao Reply Parent Thread Link The real question is who the fuck is india lee? Reply Parent Thread Link I feel bad because I kept thinking he was doable at some angles and then others I'm like "nope" and now I'm so confused Also his version of Boyfriend sounds like Stevie Wonder's Superstitious Reply Thread Link i think his natural look is his best Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah I dont think he looks bad here, and in other photos but then I see other pics and idk if he just doesn't photograph flatteringly or what His face is befuddling Reply Parent Thread Link Looks like Sam Smith honestly. Reply Parent Thread Link I mean, he's not THAT ugly I guess Reply Parent Thread Link I only find him hot when he looks like this. Reply Parent Thread Link op needs to love themselves <3 Reply Thread Link it's not ironic Reply Parent Thread Link You always seem bothered Reply Parent Thread Link lmao i was gonna say... every comment i read with that icon has been very angry Reply Parent Thread Link mte Reply Parent Thread Link someone stop the OP! Reply Thread Link but hes evil looking just like you like them heux! Reply Parent Thread Link lmaooo hes not evil looking at all~ he looks slow lmaoo but ilu <3 Reply Parent Thread Link Heux the fuck is this ugly Eminem cosplay looking motherfucker, more like.... Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I am crying Reply Parent Thread Link I remember being into him when he had his first hit and I was about 14 and then I thought he looked hot like last year with the facial hair he had but his look right now doing absolutely nothing for me. I probably wouldn't be into any iteration of him if he didn't have such a pleasant voice. Reply Thread Link "i took a pill in Ibiza" is different live. not sure if it's a good or a bad thing. Reply Thread Link The version on the radio is a remix, and I guess he plays something closer to the original with the new beat remixed in a little bit. His voice sounds a lot different live though. Reply Parent Thread Link He should have kept "Boyfriend" for himself. Reply Thread Link Ban the op tbh. Reply Thread Link who are you and why are you so bitter? go eat a protein bar Reply Parent Thread Link it's a joke sweety. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link thinking of standing and performing in front of that many people... ahh. nooo. Reply Thread Link The guy had 2 half hits in 6 years and he's the prince of pop? Reply Thread Link http://michaeldasf.tumblr.com/post/144852436614/johnandersonbooty-ladies-gentlemen-mike saw this on tumblr... Reply Thread Link IA. I got pulled in but kept wondering how they would get by with this going forward. Reply Parent Thread Link I was watching the British version of this show and it was insane the ways in which people try to bypass the law. Fake student documentation, work permit, etc. Reply Thread Link mte. it amazes me when they outright lie to the border guards as if they think they'll just get away with it. Reply Parent Thread Link idk how they do it. border security at heathrow terrifies me, and then these people just lie their asses off as if its nothing. Reply Parent Thread Link I get nervous trying to go through security with a lipstick, let alone fake papers. Reply Parent Thread Link the uk literally doesn't have border security though. i lived there for 2 years and always walked through the "nothing to declare" side and the officers were usually just chilling out. Reply Parent Thread Link in a lot smaller sense, i work in international education and ive gotten fake documents a number of times and Im always like, dont you think we would have figured it out when you got here and couldnt speak a word of English?? Reply Parent Thread Link When you're in a hotel somewhere and a channel had this one, the Aussie one and the NZ one on it was the best. Honestly calmed so much of my anxiety about travelling. Reply Thread Link the aussie and nz are so extra when it comes to some things i remember this older couple had a fruit they got on the plane and forgot to each and customs was all THAT WILL BE $250 FOR SMUGGLING FRUIT AND THREATENING OUR ENTIRE ECOSYSTEM Reply Parent Thread Link they have SO much warning though. Before you get off the plane in Aus and NZ they make an announcement to remember to bin food. Then when you walk through the airport there are HUGE SIGNS in front of HUGE RUBBISH BINS telling people to throw out ANY food they have. Like, there's no excuse. It's not a matter of casually forgetting, because you can't forget it's everywhere. They tell you over loud speakers in the airport. It's people being ignorant, thinking they'll get away with it. So of course they should be charged - its a complete disregard for other countries and their ecosystems. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link they have SO much warning though. Before you get off the plane in Aus and NZ they make an announcement to remember to bin food. Then when you walk through the airport there are multiple HUGE SIGNS in front of HUGE RUBBISH BINS telling people to throw out ANY food they have. Like, there's no excuse. It's not a matter of casually forgetting, because you can't forget it's everywhere. They tell you over loud speakers in the airport. It's people being ignorant, thinking they'll get away with it. So of course they should be charged - its a complete disregard for other countries and their ecosystems. Reply Parent Thread Link u mad u dont have a one of a kind ecosystem sis? Reply Parent Thread Link The fine's $400 in NZ. And bringing fruit in could possibly bring things that come with that, including fruit flies. We've just had to spend $13 million when a couple of Queensland fruit flies were found here in order to make sure they don't spread; you couldn't even take fruit out of the suburb they were found into another because of it. Things like that can literally destroy our export sector since we're isolated and don't get shit like that, so maybe the fine's steep so dumb asses take heed. And if they don't, they will the next time. Reply Parent Thread Link i love these shows, so many drugs Reply Thread Link ok I had no idea this was a show, so I thought that headline meant that Canada was no longer going to have border security Reply Thread Link I thought the same thing. Reply Parent Thread Link lol same Reply Parent Thread Link Same I was about to say... Reply Parent Thread Link same lol Reply Parent Thread Link me too i was like wtf Reply Parent Thread Link Lol same Reply Parent Thread Link Me too. What kinda shit? Reply Parent Thread Link lol same Reply Parent Thread Link Me too. I was so confused. Reply Parent Thread Link omg imagine lol Reply Parent Thread Link lmao same. Between this and the Speidi post, my reading comprehension is a total joke today. I read this like, what, someone in Canada's border patrol fucked up, so they're shutting the whole thing down? Can I just go there whenever I want now??? Reply Parent Thread Link same Reply Parent Thread Link lmao same Reply Parent Thread Link Loooool. That would be interesting, to say the least. Reply Parent Thread Link Same here!! Lol Reply Parent Thread Link lol me too i was so lost Reply Parent Thread Link No, I love this show Reply Thread Link Some of the stuff people would try and bring over was wild. Or people who played dumb. Then there were the disgusting men who had child porn on their computer. The show was kind of addicting but sometimes I felt racist undertones at times tbh so then part of me would feel uncomfortable - I can't remember which country it was now. I don't think it was the Canadian version but I forget. I remember I used to like that reality show Airline too. Edited at 2016-06-13 06:20 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link the child porn stuff made me so sick. that one episode where the guy had a laptop and said he didn't know whether or not he had child porn on it or not. HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THAT. it just made him sound guilty as fuck imo. Reply Parent Thread Link Gross. I remember that show. I still remember them destroying someone's wedding dress. It always stuck with me. Reply Parent Thread Link The Australian version was borderline racist. Pun intended. Edited at 2016-06-13 07:38 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link every time i see ads for it, it's always an asian person Reply Parent Thread Link Yeah it gets iffy sometimes with this kind of shows and the people they feature. Reply Parent Thread Link Uh, yeah, this episode I caught there was a woman who was visiting her boyfriend. She was Asian and the officer was like "she must be smuggling opium, ofc". Reply Parent Thread Link the best was the dude who was a furry and the officers thought he fucked animals too because he was just weird af and they were making sure his furry porn wasn't breaking any beastiality laws Reply Parent Thread Expand Link yeah tbh this show was a perfect excuse for my bigot grandparents to feel comfortable enough to say racist things (about people featured on the show) in a social setting. Reply Parent Thread Link God I love these shows. I just binge watched the Australian version of this on Netflix. One episode had a lady with heroin stuffed into her butt implants. Crazy. Reply Thread Link My husband's cousin's husband (who has a bike) appears a number of times as an officer on this show. We always have a good laugh when we see him. What they did was bullshit IMO. I always got a weird vibe from this show anyway. Bye Felicia. Reply Thread Link yikes, dont they check the legal on that? Reply Thread Link Thank goodness - the show should have never been OK'd in the first place. Have to imagine that 95% of the people signing the consent are doing so out of confusion/fear of pissing off the border agent who has control over your entry to the country/loss of status/deportation. The immigration bar here was pretty dead set against it. Reply Thread Link The first time I went to Canada with my mom, I was 17. They thought my mom was kidnapping me because my dad's signature wasn't on my passport (??). We had LITERALLY just dropped my dad off at the airport because he wasn't going with us on the Canadian part of our trip. It was so odd. Reply Thread Link How long ago was it? for a while there was a bunch of cases of parents kidnapping their kids in and out of the country and it was a big deal in the news they might have been paranoid because of that Reply Parent Thread Link Like 14 years ago. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link i remember those cases, they were so fucked up. for my law class in hs we went to the courts one day to sit in and that's what one of the cases was about. the dad had full custody but somehow the mom got the kids and managed to get them over the border into the us where she wanted to live with them. Reply Parent Thread Link when i went to nyc with my dad when i was 16 he needed a letter from a relative to confirm that he wasn't a kidnapper Reply Parent Thread Link when my coworker goes to the US, she has to carry a letter from her husband stating he's okay with her taking the kids. i think its just protocol now... Reply Parent Thread Link i used to watch this and aiport security: colombia. so many poor and desperate ppl are being tricked to smuggle drugs in their stomach, its crazy Reply Thread Link Awww this and the NZ versions are my faves. It always made me lol when people got snapped going into the country to work with all their gear without a work visa, and they pretended they weren't going to be earning money. Reply Thread Link The Australia version kills me. All of the people with suitcases full of food pretending they don't know the rules lmao Reply Thread Link It takes quite a bit to shock a Russian oil company, especially one operating amid economic sanctions on top of a crude oil price slump. To date, big Russian oil can pretty safely say its ready for anything the government, forex rates or international oil markets can throw its way. The latest evidence of this is Rosnefts and Lukoils first-quarter results and their upbeat attitude for the future. Lukoil was the first to report Q1 figures in June. Russias #2 booked a 59 percent drop in profits and a 32 percent fall in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization. A different outcome from the first quarter of 2016 would have been extremely surprising, given that Brent fell below $30 in January, but even so, Lukoils figures beat the expectations of analysts polled by Bloomberg. At the same time, production rose, albeit modestly, to 214 million barrels of oil, up from 213 million a year earlier. Lukoil is looking to grow its presence in Iran, where oil production is ramping up. Lukoil is also exploring in Nigeria, which is not the best place for such activities right now, although things might be starting to look up. In short, its business as usual for Russias largest privately-owned oil company. State giant Rosneft, which reported Q1 figures two days after Lukoil, also seems to be unruffled by the decline in performance. Rosneft booked a 75 percent drop in profits in rubles (80 percent in dollars) and a 14.4 percent fall in EBITDA (26 percent in dollars). Rosneft was hit not just by low international prices, but also by sluggish demand at home. However, like Lukoil, the company benefited from a weaker local currency, which lowered its costs. Rosneft is continuing with production expansion plans despite the Q1 figures, hiking its Q1 capex by a fifth from a year earlier as per its 2016-17 business plan. Related: Expert Commentary: Volatility Vanishes In The Oil Markets The short conclusion from these reports is that Russias Big Oil is pretty resilient to any crisis. Going forward, the industry is preparing for worse things to come, despite the recent rally in international prices, and so is the government. Russias central bank announced last week that it was assuming a base oil price of $38 for 2016. The worst-case scenario is for oil at $25, although the probability of this happening was estimated as low. According to Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, there are no fundamental reasons for the price rally to persist, so it seems that the overall expectations in Russia are for cheap oil. At the same time, production is set to grow, according to Energy Minister Alexander Novak, as the country looks to cement its place as the worlds top oil exporter. Related: L.A. Fights To Become Greenest City In The U.S. It seems counterintuitive to ramp up production when you expect prices to remain low over the near-term, but its all about market share as Russias main global rival, Saudi Arabia, has made so abundantly clear in the last year or so. Russia does not have the same financial cushion that Saudi Arabia has, but it has trained its oil industry well, enabling it to survive even at low prices, and not just survive but remain in positive territory. Cash flow and rising debt are growing problems for Russian oil companies, but with the governments backing, these problems dont seem unsolvable. Russian oil has learned the hard way to avoid complacency, and thats why it has remained resilient whatever the price of crude. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The mere mention of OPEC is almost instinctively accompanied by an automatic reference to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as if the two are practically synonymous. As an oil producer, Saudi Arabia is in a league of its own within OPEC. It produces over 10 million barrels of oil per day, which is around the same amount of production coming from Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait combined. Needless to say, Saudi Arabia has acted as the unofficial leader of OPEC. Its domestic oil production policy clearly influences and is invariably reflected in the decisions coming out of OPEC meetings. In the midst of the current continued policy of Saudi Arabia and OPEC to keep pumping in order to preserve market share, a developing dynamic within OPEC may cause a dramatic change in both its power and leadership. Irans Recent Emergence For several years Iran was subjected to sanctions, which not only prevented its oil production from reaching the U.S. and Europe, but also created dramatic declines in exports to China, India, and Japan. (Click to enlarge) Even as Iranian sanctions were lifted in 2015/2016, the country remains behind in production growth from its largest OPEC competitors Saudi Arabia and Iraq. While Saudi Arabia and Iraq increased production from 2010 by 15 percent and 90 percent respectively, Iran has lost 17 percent of its production. This meant that not only was Iran losing market share to its closest OPEC competitors, but the country was missing out on growing production in one of the highest priced oil environments from 2011 to 2014. In a battle for market share, Iran has been struggling as it is only just beginning to regain market share around the world. Much of the global fight for market share is occurring in four key markets that make up 36 percent of global oil demand: the European Union (EU), China, Japan, and India. Sanctions imposed on Irans oil exports meant that it was unable to compete with its direct competitors within OPEC. This gave Saudi Arabia the opportunity to ramp up production and grow market share in those four key markets. Additionally, Iraq was able to almost double production from 2011 and gain significant market share in the EU, China, and India. From 2011 to 2014, Iraq increased market share in the EU from 3 percent to 7.5 percent and in China from 4.7 percent to 9.7 percent. Iran Ready to Compete? Since the lifting of sanctions in 2015/2016, Iran has been in the process of making critical oil and gas investment decisions that could not only change its position in the global market, but also make it a much larger competitive threat to the leadership of Saudi Arabia in OPEC. In a departure from the past, a key strategy to building its oil sector back up has been a shift towards embracing foreign investment. Originally, Iran had tried to attract foreign investment in oil and gas fields through a buy back investment model for the exploration and development of Irans fields. Essentially international oil companies (IOCs) would explore and develop an oil and gas block and the IOCs would then hand over the project to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) at production. If successful, the IOCs would be reimbursed for pre-determined funds spent on the project based on a rate of return of 15 to 17 percent, but would not be reimbursed for cost overruns, increases in production, or excess exploration risks. The problem with the buy back model was that IOCs took on all the risk of exploration and development but had limited upside as they could not participate in the production of their projects. Additionally, these exploration and development contracts lasted only 3-5 years. IOCs would not get a stake in the project they explored and developed and could not book reserves on their balance sheet. Irans New Iranian Petroleum Contract (IPC) Iran introduced a new Iranian Petroleum Contract (IPC) model in November 2015 that will result in a major shift away from its original buy back contract model which has been employed for the past 20 years. The new contracting model structures investment in Irans upstream oil and gas sector by way of joint venture (JV) where the NIOC will own at least 51 percent of the JV. This model requires the involvement of the IOCs at the exploration, development, and production stages leading to IOCs participating in the upside of their discoveries and development. Contracts between IOCs and the NIOC will last 20-25 years and provide payment flexibility on the risk taken to explore and develop difficult fields. Related: Utah Oil Sands Set For A Bright And Clean Future Once the JV project is in production, the IOC will receive a payment for its service by a measured volume of production and the NIOC will repay costs during the exploration and development stage. A JV management committee, made up of members of the IOC and NIOC, will review costs from the exploration and development stage annually in order to approve any necessary cost overruns. The participation of IOCs in the production of projects brought through commercial development is a big step for Iran. The new IPC is a modified form of a production sharing contract (PSC) in order to abide by the Iranian Constitution, which does not allow production sharing. PSCs have been implemented in Iraqi Kurdistan, Oman, and Egypt where production is split between profit and cost oil. Profit oil is usually 40 to 60 percent of production and is split 70 to 85 percent toward the national oil company (NOC), with the remaining profit oil going to the IOCs. Cost oil is used by the NOC to recover operating costs and is usually 40 to 60 percent of production any surplus in profit from cost oil is usually shifted to be split from profit oil and any cost recovery shortfall can be recouped in the following years. For Irans new IPC, cost oil is expected to be covered through a maximum of 50 percent of annual production from the JV. Although there is no profit sharing under the IPC, the service fee paid through volumes of production annually can be considered the profit oil from a traditional PSC. The IPCs from Iran are not without faults. The ambiguity of the IPC leads to many questions as it relates to base fees paid to IOCs, the oversight and qualifications of the JV management committee, clarity on the independent sale of production, and whether or not companies can book reserves on their balance sheet. An important issue for IOCs is the booking of reserves as this gives companies increased value and the ability to leverage reserves for financing. Under the Iranian Constitution, all the countrys energy reserves belong to the state. The IPC, however, may maneuver around the Iranian Constitution, much like with the concept of production sharing, by using the long-term production contracts of 20-25 years as a way to book the contract as an asset similar to the booking of reserves this is currently being done in Iraq. Dichotomy within OPEC While Irans IPC has certain ambiguities, the NIOCs Managing Director, Roknoddin Javadi, hopes to clarify these issues as the NIOC plans to have an IPC draft completed by July 2016 so that Iran can open bids for its blocks. This transition from a buy back model to a virtual production sharing contract puts Iran in a unique position within OPEC. Iran holds the 3rd largest oil reserves in OPEC and would be the only country between the top three producers in OPEC to significantly open its markets to foreign investment. (Click to enlarge) Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabias national oil company, has remained a sole proprietor of Saudi Arabias producing onshore fields and Iraq has opened itself to IOCs in a very limited form through service contracts that have seen IOCs reluctant to invest in Iraq unless contracts are changed. Iraq pays its IOCs a fixed value fee equivalent to barrels of production for their service in Iraqi oil fields from the oil the Iraqi government sells. Part of the development costs is split between the Iraqi government and the IOC and both the Iraqi government and the IOC operate the field through a JV. Related: Oil Supply Disruptions Highest In Five Years However, companies like BP and Royal Dutch Shell are requesting better terms on their contracts with Iraq as they prefer a model similar to a production sharing contract. The lower oil price and ongoing threat of Daesh in Iraq is forcing the Iraqi government to miss payment for services to IOCs, cut its oil budget and, in turn, force IOCs to cut their own development budgets. BP, Lukoil, Eni Spa, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell were asked to cut their 2016 development capital by a cumulative 33 percent from 2015 levels. Based on these cuts, BP and Shell have indicated it will be difficult to ramp up production into 2016 and will require more attractive terms to keep investing in Iraq. Irans preemptive shift to an IPC similar to a production sharing contract has put Iran in a unique position. If the IPCs are deemed successful in bringing in foreign investment by IOCs, Irans adoption of global technology and innovation in the oil and gas industry will directly compete with the efficiency of Saudi Aramco. OPEC could see a dramatic shift in power as Iran invites more investment into the countrys upstream, midstream, and downstream segments of the oil and gas industry. The adoption and support of IOCs and the technology they bring to Irans aging fields and infrastructure could catapult Iran into direct competition with Saudi Arabia, surpassing Iraq, and encroach on Saudi Arabias established market share. This could push further opening of oil and gas markets in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq or see a globalized Iranian oil and gas industry as a competitive dichotomy to Saudi Arabias domestically insulated industry. Just as OPEC lost control over global oil production with increased production, technology, and innovation from the U.S. in 2011, Saudi Arabia stands to lose its control over OPEC as Irans oil and gas industry opens to technology and innovation, resulting in increased production. By Omar Mawji via Geopoliticalmonitor.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Northeastern Utah is relatively unknown to the rest of the nation, unless one is an outdoors person, or perhaps a paleontologist. Each summer, tourists descend on the area to raft the river, enjoy world class fishing, and of course to see the fossils at the Dinosaur National Monument. The area is appropriately known as Dinosaurland. But the same life forms that draw the tourists to view their fossils also left their remains in the ground in the form of oil and natural gas. After an energy boom that brought jobs, people, businesses and new homes to the area, the region is now looking at ways to deal with the downturn in oil and gas. But the energy industry is still hanging on. With the negative attention that fracking has received in recent years, companies such as U.S. Oil Sands have sought new approaches to extracting oil. And the oil sands in Utah are plentiful. According to the companys data, Utah is home to over half of the countrys bitumen resources, and it contends that there are some 20 to 32 billion barrels of oil in place, with the bulk of it in northeastern and south central Utah. What sets U.S. Oil Sands apart in terms of extraction is the process. It has developed a process that uses a biodegradable citrus solvent to separate the oil from the sands, which according to the company, is so effective that it avoids the tailings associated with oil sands extractions that have given the resource a toxic name in Canada. The company also notes that it is recycles as much as 95 percent of the water used in the extraction process. In lieu of placing the waste product in tailing ponds, the company is able to return clean, dry sand to the extraction site. Also of note: the company states that because of its high rate of extraction of the bitumen, it can mine less ore for the process, and in its words maximize the potential of the State's resource. Additionally, the company claims that its reclamation process will mean a smaller footprint for operations. As Dr. R. Gerald Bailey of the MCW group mentioned in an interview with Oilprice.com last year, Utahs oil sands lie anywhere from just below the surface to approximately 400 feet down. Bailey contrasts this with the oil sands operations in Canada in which much deeper mining is required, along with steam in the process. That, says Bailey, makes the process much dirtier. So now the question is whether or not oil sands toxic reputation in Canada will be a factor in the success or failure of oil sands extraction in the U.S., despite technological advances that purportedly make it all a lot cleaner. Some contend that public opinion is shifting away from a favorable view of fossil fuels. Attorneys General of various states are turning threatening and litigious eyes toward oil companies, which they suspect of concealing environmental impact data. This is a point in history at which Saudi Arabia is diversifying its economy, Shell is divesting itself of some of its holdings, and oil continues to tease the market by dancing above and below the magic $50/barrel mark. Related: Saudi Arabia To Tax Foreign Residence As Oil Crisis Continues Cameron Todd, CEO of U.S. Oil Sands, finds the sentiment that oil will not be a future part of the worlds energy supplies unrealistic. Citing data from the U.S. Department of Energy, Todd notes that the world is using around 96 million barrels of oil per day, which is the highest rate known in history. That number, says Todd, reflects a one-million-barrel increase from last year. He says that on average, the demand for oil has climbed by one million barrels per year, every year for the last 30 years. People are using more oil than ever before, he says. Another mistake, Todd opines, is to look at oil use and markets through a North American lens. The U.S. is using a little less than 20 million barrels a day while demand has been relatively flat in the U.S. and Canada over the last five years. However, Todd says that in other nations such as China, India, Brazil and some African countries, the demand for oil has gone up. He draws a correlation between the increase in the standard of living in many of those nations with an increase in demand for oil. China, he notes, now buys more cars than the United States. Todd says that on the production side, the world has been producing 1 to 2 million barrels of oil more than it needs over the last two to three years. That oil has been going into storage, which gave the impression of a great oil supply and fueled the dip in prices. That was based on a difference between supply and demand of 1 percent to 2 percent. Related: Lebanon Losing The Levant Basin Battle By Default But now the oil price slide has hit hard at oil sands projects in Utah, rendering many projects financially unfeasible for the time being, though new processes are both simplifying extraction and reducing costsso many would argue that there is a bright future here, once the ball really gets rolling. According to Todd, the construction of the P.R. Springs project is over 95 percent complete and should be in full production by the end of the year, despite delays earlier this year over financial issues. And in the meantime, while oil sands and environmental activists in Utah are for now strangers in the night who fear each other, oil sands companies operating in the area believe they are onto something good and that their new technology can extract cleanly and efficiently. When the two sides meet, Utahs potential 32 billion barrels could render the state a new oil sands hub, missing the toxic trailing ponds. By Lincoln Brown for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and Goldman Sachs began a $1.2 billion court battle this week over claims that Goldman Sachs exploited Libyas Sovereign wealth fund by encouraging it to make risky and worthless investments. The LIA claims that the trades in question took place under what it calls undue influence. In all, the LIA wants the return of some $1.2 billion from nine trades in 2008. Libya created the LIA in 2006 in order to invest funds from its oil reserves and to become a part of the international financial system. The anti-corruption group Global Witness released an internal LIA management report in 2011 showing that the fund has suffered heavy losses, including a 98.5 percent drop in the funds equity and currency derivatives portfolio. As the trial got underway Monday, lawyers for the LIA stated that Goldman Sachs took advantage of the naivete of the LIA, causing the loss. Lawyers for the LIA produced an email from 2008 calling the LIA very unsophisticated. Another note from the banks vice president spoke of delivering a pitch on structured leverage loans to a person living with his camels in the middle of the desert. Related: Iran And India Risk Regional Backlash Following Latest Investment Deal Goldman is disputing the claim, calling it both unusual and ambitious. They claim that the bank chose the underlying stocks via its own research. Lawyers for Goldman Sachs claim that the LIA was instead affected by the credit crisis and the impact it had on the global market, rather than by any wrongdoing on the part of Goldman Sachs. The bank is not the only institution involved in a suit by the LIA. The Authority is also suing French bank Societe Generale for approximately $2.1 billion in relation to trades between 2007 and 2009. By Lincoln Brown for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Last October, Marquette University opened the new Jesuit Residence on 14th and Wells. Designed by Kubala Washatko Architects, its a handsome enough addition to the seemingly ever-evolving campus on the western reaches of Downtown. But reader Roz Rouse knew Id be more interested in the building the 25 Jesuit priests formerly called home. And, thankfully, Marquettes planning and facilities project manager Kurt Young Binter was willing to indulge my curiosity and swing open the cyclone fence that surrounds the four-story red brick tudor building at 1404 W. Wisconsin Ave. and take me inside. Serving as the Jesuit residence home to as many as 44 priests at one time since 1973, when two campus residences were combined at the former womens dorm, the building was originally built as the Stratford Arms hotel and apartments. Miss Harriet Hathaway was the owner of an earlier Stratford Arms building at 179 12th St., which had a restaurant and, in 1914, at least 60 residents, a fact we gleaned from a Sentinel article from November of that year: "Smallpox in Home of Waitress Causes Prompt Action in West Side Apartment House" Wisconsin Avenue entrance. A hundred people were vaccinated by the health department after four cases of the disease were found in the South Side home of Stratford restaurant waitress Miss Ella Puffer. Puffer apparently was not afflicted but four of her siblings were sent to the Isolation Hospital on 20th and Mitchell. But I digress. In 1916, Hathaway hired Martin Tullgren & Sons to design her a new Stratford Arms on 14th and Grand Avenue, with brick and stone cladding over a concrete and steel frame, built at a cost of $100,000 no small figure in those days. While today many of us remember Tullgren and his son Herbert for their more ornate works like the George Watts building on Jefferson and Mason; their own Terra Company building on 60th and North; the Bertelson Building, 2101-2111 N. Prospect Ave. (home to Allium restaurant, among other businesses); the gorgeous duplex Exton Apartments, 1260 N. Prospect Ave.; or the First Wisconsin Garage on Mason and Water the Tullgrens also did a lot of multi-unit residential and hotel work. Among the ones youll likely have seen are the Shorecrest Hotel on Prospect and the Astor Hotel on Juneau. So, Binter and I probably shouldve been less surprised than we were by the attribution of this relatively anonymous Tudor Revival building to the Tullgrens. After all, red and brown brick were not unfamiliar to these folks we cherish for their terra cotta facades. Look at the old Downer Garage on Webster (Starbucks and Boswell Books), for example. Thats the Tullgrens, too. Anyway, the hotel opened and was, for a time, home to a restaurant and meeting rooms and had a few well-known residents, including Spencer Tracy, visiting Japanese poet Yone Noguchi and Al Capones brother Ralph (no, not kidding). An undated image of the Stratford Hotel (PHOTO: Courtesy of Marquette University) A name familiar to the Marquette community, Anthony Weasler who donated the funds to build the campus auditorium that bears his name had a life-altering experience at the Stratford Arms. While attending the university, he worked as a bus boy in the Stratfords restaurant, and one day he delivered a meal to the room of a hotel resident and inventor who, learning that Weasler was an engineering student, asked for his help doing research for a project. The experience spurred Weasler to earn a second degree. "My life career was changed by that lucky encounter at the Stratford Arms Hotel," he later said in a speech at Marquette. In the 1930s, the Stratford kept up with the times by cooking up what it called "Milwaukees newest and finest cocktail bar," with curvaceous couches, table seating, a bar, and garlands plastered (or painted, its hard to tell from the drawing) on the walls. "Milwaukee has never seen a cocktail bar so unique as this," boasted a 1936 advertisement. "Designed for beauty, comfort and quiet, just the place for a quick stopover for the choicest of liqueurs or wines, or the spot for you to enjoy a leisurely evening in a restful environment." By 1942, in addition to the rooms upstairs, the Stratford was home to the Central Tavern and the Varsity Beauty Shop, though its unclear today where those were located in the building. By the late 50s, the Central was renamed the Stratford Hotel Bar, but not long after in 1962 the hotel and bar were closed and the building was sold to Marquette. One of the suites on the second floor. Because it was basically already a dorm, it was quickly converted to a residence hall for women and named Heraty Hall in honor of 1914 grad Dr. John A. Heraty. Renovations were later made and in 1973 Marquette merged its two Jesuit residences into one at the site. It appears there were two main entrances to the Stratford. The one between the two east wings of the H-shaped building, on 14th Street, appears to be where the lobby desk was located and just beyond it, the restaurant and bar. Theres another entry on Wisconsin Avenue that has ornate stonework, including a couple grotesques, around the entrance, which leads to a wide marble staircase flanked by elegant wood-paneled walls. The marble staircase in the Wisconsin Avenue entry. The basement has a couple entrances off Wisconsin Avenue, too, including one that looks like it couldve been for public use. The other is more clearly a service entrance. Down here theres also a spiral staircase, dating to the Jesuit era, that rises two stories through the library. But if you were in that room, youd have to open a closet door to find the "secret" steps. Upstairs, the second, third and fourth floors have identical floor plans filled with rooms. There are studios, a few larger units and even a few suites. Some apartments facing north have three-window bays. Some of the apartments on the north side of the building have window bays. It appears that some of the rooms have been altered in size and shape over the years, as we found evidence of walls moved, though no proof of when those changes were made. Suffice it to say, based on moldings and other details, it didnt appear that the work was done anytime recently. The corridor on the second floor. During the Jesuit era, each residential floor also had a couple small chapels. The building is slated to be dismantled in July, and a wide variety of salvage work has already taken place with much material already on sale at local Re-Store outlets. That means, though, that some of what was there was gone before I arrived. Evidence that a wall was moved at some point, changing room dimensions. What I did see were those gorgeous marble staircases, which couldnt be salvaged. The marble tended to break apart when workers attempted to remove it. The main staircase to the upper floors has a really nice iron railing and wood banister. Some of the bathrooms and the former restaurant space still have parts of their terrazzo floors with marble accent tiles. The main staircase has a nice iron railing and wood banister. In the rooms, some of the molding and corner guards appeared original, or at least quite old. One of the most poignant, though least old, things I saw (and photographed) was the menu from the buildings "last supper" in October on the wall of the dining room. Evidence of the last supper at the old Jesuit Residence in October 2015. For now, Binter tells me, the land will be cleared and greened as work continues on Marquettes master plan for the campus, which includes razing and replacing McCormick Hall nearby, adding onto Schroeder Hall and altering the student union, which sits adjacent to the Stratford Arms building. It looks like the ultimate goal is for the land at 14th and Wisconsin to become part of the unions orbit. It may be a shame to lose the Stratford but not so much for its architecture, which, frankly, isnt all that breathtaking. More so because its one of the last residential hotels on this stretch of Wisconsin Avenue, which used to have many (RIP Biltmore). Fortunately, it is by no means the last. At least three other Marquette dorms are former hotels (four if you count the old YMCA) and two of those date from roughly the same era: the LaSalle (now Cobeen) and Catholic Knights Hotel (Carpenter Tower). 6 6 4 Rate It | View Ratings Rob Kall Social Media Pages: Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect, connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media. Check out his platform at RobKall.com He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity He's given talks and workshops to Fortune 500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful people on his Bottom Up Radio Show, and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and opinion sites, OpEdNews.com more detailed bio: Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet (more...) The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors. OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help. If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership. One of the big topics currently on the minds of those who are concerned about climate change -- from college students to those planning for retirement -- is how to combine concern for the future health of the planet with money issues and economic safety. Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) recently put forth an amendment to the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016. It called for the Secretary of the Treasury to develop a blueprint to initiate Clean Energy Victory Bonds. The goal was to use the example of World War II Bonds to mobilize the American public, and to raise revenue to finance clean energy undertakings. The projected goal was $50 billion. On April 19, a vote tally of 50 yes and 47 no fell short of the requisite 62 votes needed for passage. The concept was simple and positive, yet the usual naysayers were part of the opposition: Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a top Trump endorser; Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who is blocking the Supreme Court nomination process; James Inhofe (R-OK), climate denier. Another option is getting traction, and that is the emphasis on divesting from savings and assets that are tied into fossil fuel companies. The city of Copenhagen announced in February that they would be selling all of its stocks and bonds in gas, oil, and coal. They are positioning themselves to become the first carbon-neutral capitol by 2025. Prince Charles has moved to purge his foundations and private holdings of all fossil fuel assets. So has Leonardo DiCaprio, of Hollywood royalty. And if dealing with money makes you feel anxious, just know that the Rockefeller Brothers Fund has divested from fossil fuels and is proactively seeking solutions to climate change. I listened to a video of a press conference where Justin Rockefeller discussed how that decision was based on both "moral and financial reasons." So where does that leave us common folks? Actually, with plenty to do. A good place to start learning about options is at Divest Invest. They have an extremely robust website with information geared to different groups, including individuals. I spoke with Vanessa Green, who is managing the Divest Invest Individual Campaign, which asks people to take the lead in creating change, "accelerate clean energy for all," while "avoiding unnecessary risk" in their investments. One image showed a father and son with the quote, "What little savings I have is fossil free because my investments are a bet on my son's future." (Image by InvestDivest) Details DMCA Green informed me of an online petition put forth requesting American businesses "to offer fossil free 401(k) options." DivestInvest is part of a coalition of groups driving this agenda. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). "Rape culture hysteria is devastating society, and it does so even as the rate of rape falls sharply," writes Wendy McElroy in the preface to her new book, Rape Culture Hysteria: Fixing the Damage Done to Men and Women. McElroy quotes an anonymous poster: "'Rape culture' did not slip sleeping pills into my drink. One man did. Don't let rapists go free of responsibility by saying their choices are made for them by society." How dangerous is the "rape culture" construct? Convicted sexual assailant Brock Turner ably demonstrates the risks of blaming collective culture for individual behavior by aiming that weapon in the opposite direction. In his pre-sentencing statement to judge Aaron Persky, asking for probation rather than prison time, Turner writes: "I know I can impact and change people's attitudes towards the culture surrounded by binge drinking and sexual promiscuity that protrudes through what people think is at the core of being a college student. Before this happened, I never had any trouble with law enforcement and I plan on maintaining that. I've been shattered by the party culture and risk-taking behavior that I briefly experienced in my four months at school." See what he did there? With a few glib turns of phrase, Turner turns the same logic underlying "rape culture" claims to his own purposes. He ceases to be an assailant and becomes another victim. Brock Turner didn't sexually assault an unconscious woman next to a dumpster outside a fraternity house. "Party culture" did that. Brock Turner didn't penetrate that unconscious woman with a foreign object (Brock Turner's finger). Binge drinking, sexual promiscuity and risk-taking behavior did those things. Blame booze. Blame college. Blame culture. Just don't blame Brock Turner. Poor, poor Brock. Bad culture! Bad! Go stand in the corner, culture! Well, no. In reality, Brock Turner did what he did, and only Brock Turner is responsible for it. His "culture" excuses are just that -- excuses. And how did our REAL culture -- as opposed to the "rape culture" we supposedly live in -- respond to Turner's crime? With universal outrage. More than a million people have already signed a petition calling for the removal of judge Persky, who sentenced Turner to a mere six months for his crime, from the bench. Stanford University has banned him from its campus, and USA Swimming (which controls Olympic trials) from its events, for life. Some "rape culture," huh? Forgiveness is a universal need, among those of us who are not religious and among believers in every religion on earth. We must forgive each other our differences, and we must forgive much more difficult occurrences. Some things we can forgive easily -- by which, of course, I mean eliminating resentment from our hearts, not granting an eternal reward. If someone kissed my feet and poured oil on them and begged me to forgive her, frankly, I would have a harder time forgiving the kisses and oil than forgiving her a life of prostitution -- which is, after all, not an act of cruelty toward me but the violation of a taboo into which she was likely compelled by hardship. But to forgive men who were torturing and killing me on a cross? That I would be very unlikely to succeed at, especially as my nearing end -- in the absence of a crowd to influence -- might convince me of the pointlessness of making my last thought a magnanimous one. As long as I live, however, I intend to work on forgiveness. If our culture truly developed the habit of forgiveness, it would dramatically improve our personal lives. It would also make wars impossible, which would further dramatically improve our personal lives. I think we have to forgive both those who we think have wronged us personally, and those whom our government has told us to hate, both at home and abroad. I suspect I could find well over 100 million Christians in the United States who do not hate the men who crucified Jesus, but who do hate and would be highly offended at the idea of forgiving Adolf Hitler. When John Kerry says that Bashar al Assad is Hitler, does that help you feel forgiving toward Assad? When Hillary Clinton says that Vladimir Putin is Hitler, does that help you relate to Putin as a human being? When ISIS cuts a man's throat with a knife, does your culture expect of you forgiveness or vengeance? Forgiveness is not the only approach one can take to curing war fever, and not the one I usually try. Usually the case that's made for a war involves specific lies that can be exposed, such as lies about who used chemical weapons in Syria or who shot down an airplane in Ukraine. Usually there is a great deal of hypocrisy one can point to. Was Assad already Hitler when he was torturing people for the CIA, or did he become Hitler by defying the U.S. government? Was Putin already Hitler before he refused to join in the 2003 attack on Iraq? If a particular ruler who has fallen out of favor is Hitler, what about all the brutal dictators whom the United States is arming and supporting? Are they all Hitler too? Usually there is aggression by the United States that can be pointed to. The U.S. has aimed to overthrow the Syrian government for years and avoided negotiations for the nonviolent removal of Assad in favor of a violent overthrow believed to be imminent year after year. The U.S. has pulled out of arms reduction treaties with Russia, expanded NATO to its border, facilitated a coup in Ukraine, launched war games along the Russian border, put ships in the Black and Baltic Seas, moved more nukes into Europe, begun talking about smaller, more "usable" nukes, and set up missile bases in Romania and (under construction) in Poland. Imagine if Russia had done these things in North America. Usually one can point out that no matter how evil a foreign ruler is, a war will kill large numbers of people unfortunate enough to be ruled by him -- people who are innocent of his crimes. But what if we tried the approach of forgiveness? Can one forgive ISIS its horrors? And would doing so result in free reign for more such horrors, or in their reduction or elimination? The first question is easy. Yes, you can forgive ISIS its horrors. At least some people can. I feel no hatred toward ISIS. There are people who lost loved ones on 9/11 who quickly began advocating against any vengeful war. There are people who've lost loved ones to small-scale murder and opposed cruel punishment of the guilty party, even coming to know and care for the murderer. There are cultures that treat injustice as something in need of reconciliation rather than retribution. Of course, the fact that others can do it doesn't mean that you can or should do it. But it's worth recognizing how right were those family members of 9/11 victims who opposed war. Now several hundred times as many people have been killed, and the hatred toward the United States that contributed to 9/11 has been multiplied accordingly. A global war on terrorism has predictably and indisputably increased terrorism. If we take a deep breath and think seriously, we can also recognize that the resentment that calls out for forgiveness is not rational. Toddlers with guns kill more people in the United States than do foreign terrorists. But we don't hate toddlers. We don't bomb toddlers and whoever's near them. We don't think of toddlers as inherently evil or backward or belonging to the wrong religion. We forgive them instantly, without struggle. It's not their fault the guns were left lying around. But is it the fault of ISIS that Iraq was destroyed? That Libya was thrown into chaos? That the region was flooded with U.S.-made weapons? That future ISIS leaders were tortured in U.S. camps? That life was made into a nightmare? Maybe not, but it was their fault they murdered people. They are adults. They know what they are doing. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Never have so many wanted to do so much -- and had the means to do so much -- and done so little. That will be the subtitle of the chapter of the future history book covering our lifetime. The internet is teeming with websites (like this one), blogs and videos calling for change, but nothing happens. You may argue with this, but you know in your heart it is true. Are we getting closer or farther away from destroying the planet, either by nuclear war, or by environmental catastrophe? Two years ago I appealed to Paul Craig Roberts and Noam Chomsky to begin a dialogue that could bring together large numbers of progressive people, so-called "radical dissidents," who agree on many issues even though they may disagree amongst themselves on some, the most important of the latter being (still) 9/11. My effort was successful. Both Roberts and Chomsky responded positively, Roberts publicly and Chomsky by email, and Rob Kall agreed to do a podcast with the two of them on OEN. Unfortunately, nothing further developed from this. I had hoped it would catch on, but it didn't, or at least hasn't yet, and not because of the reservations that Paul Craig Roberts quite rightly expressed in his reply to me but simply because, apparently, no one has bothered. Maybe in the frenzy of the current presidential campaign the idea still has a chance. All it needs is one or two people who can write emails and maybe set up a website. Nothing fancy. It can work. If I could do it once with Paul Craig Roberts and Noam Chomsky, it can be done again, over and over, and with other leading figures as well. Robert Parry. Chris Hedges. Russ Baker. Michael Moore. There are many others so I won't try to name them. Paul Craig Roberts used the phrase "council of dissidents" to refer to what I was proposing, and that is fine with me. There doesn't even have to be a website. The VIPS, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, publish their memos on Robert Parry's ConsortiumNews.com. This is a fine initiative that can be taken as a model. What makes it work is not a fancy website but just the names at the bottom of the memos. Consider what it would mean to have such memos written and signed by people like Noam Chomsky and Paul Craig Roberts. Those two names alone would give literally thousands, maybe even millions (globally), of people a single voice. This is different from trying to organize mass protests or petitions, or get somebody elected. Those actions rely on numbers, big numbers, the bigger the better. This would rely only on the "prestige" of the individuals who write and sign the memos, or white papers, or whatever they choose to call them. (By "prestige" I mean the respect that people have for these individuals.) We are used to thinking of significant change as possible only as the result of a popular movement, or mobilization (or as Rob Kall terms it, a "bottom-up" revolution). But movements need leadership. Our argument to our (potential) leaders, as I argued (successfully!) to Roberts and Chomsky, should be simply: How can you (or we) expect to organize thousands and millions of people, when you can't or won't organize yourselves? Set an example for us! They still have to be persuaded, you have to get around their egos (everybody has one!) and be persistent, but it can be done. In the 70's I thought that once people would learn about farm-animal cruelty, big humane changes would be imminent. Of course, I would soon become disillusioned about my naivete. I now realize that knowledge alone about animal cruelty and suffering will not change the world's concern in this matter. I now believe that the all-important missing ingredient is COMPASSION, and I am sorry to say but I feel that not too many people have it in regards to animal suffering. In 2003 when I wrote some 350 Catholic bishops about my concern in this regard and the church's lack of concern for animal suffering, I had hoped for some positive feedback and/or at least some acknowledgement of my letter. Was I ever in for a shock. I believe I received 16 compassionate responses. Clearly, I was not impressed by this seeming lack of compassion then and even today as well as the lack of acknowledgement of my letter. Would I still have taken the time and expense to xerox a 3-page letter to the leaders of the Catholic Church? In a heart beat. I knew that if I truly cared about animal suffering, than I should always do all I can to alleviate it. Sadly, the church was not then or even today receptive to consider the need for compassion to animals. It seems they have forgotten that God also created the animals and expects us to treat them compassionately. Sadly, ditto, and also lack of response from the 80 Cleveland Catholic clergy and the 5 theologians I also wrote to in this regard. Undercover videos revealing animal cruelty is not new, but recently in an effort to galvanize support for a referendum mandating cage-free eggs in Massachusetts, a video depicting chickens packed in tight cages was released. Particularly disheartening was the picture of chickens trampling on the carcasses of dead hens. The Humane Society of the United States said the clip was filmed at a large Maine egg farm that supplies Massachusetts stores. The practices seen on the video were not only detrimental to hen welfare but to public health as well. Revealed at a Boston news conference, the video underscored the battle over the ballot question that requires changes. Starting in 2022, farms and business would produce and sell eggs from cage-free hens; pork from pigs not raised in or born of a sow raised in a confining gestation crate, and veal from calves not raised in confining crates. I can't believe that poor calves are still being placed in crates -- cruel and unusual punishment for a baby cow whose only crime is that his flesh is prized by meat eaters. Paul Shapiro of the HSUS said the video exposed the facility managed by Hillandale Farms, a major national egg producer, as a facility with rampant problems. They found birds in cages dead and decomposing for weeks. This farm was also the subject of a 2015 ABC News investigation. I am always happy when something like this makes it on the world news. Thank you, ABC News. On the other side of the coin, Chad Gregory, president and chief executive of United Egg Producers, decried the press in this regard as a ridiculous stunt. He said the farm in Turner, Maine, had passed an independent United Egg Producers Certified audit last year. Well, I don't know about you -- but I believe videos don't lie. I also believe that the HSUS doesn't lie either. I am also glad that as a vegan, I do not eat the eggs of these tortured hens. And I truly hope and pray that, for the chickens' sake, the referendum mandating cage-free eggs will pass in Massachusetts. These battery cages have been in existence for far too long. When will we get rid of them once and for all? Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Page 1 of 5 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 View All (1 comments) SHARE The War on Youth in the Age of Fascist Politics - CounterPunch.org One of the most important registers in measuring the democratic health of a society can be found in how it treats its youth. By any current standard, which includes the quality of public schools to laws that protect the health and well-being of young people, the United States is failing miserably. Friday, May 13, 2022One of the most important registers in measuring the democratic health of a society can be found in how it treats its youth. By any current standard, which includes the quality of public schools to laws that protect the health and well-being of young people, the United States is failing miserably. SHARE Paulo Freire and the Politics of Critical Pedagogy:A Legacy for Struggle For Paulo Freire, education was the foundation of politics and critical literacy was the emancipatory tool to unlock what it meant to make pedagogy meaningful in order to make it critical and empowering. Sunday, December 26, 2021For Paulo Freire, education was the foundation of politics and critical literacy was the emancipatory tool to unlock what it meant to make pedagogy meaningful in order to make it critical and empowering. (11 comments) SHARE The Right Wing Wants Misinformation and Manufactured Ignorance, Not Democracy Ignorance now thrives in a world of interlacing disasters. This age of consuming catastrophes is part of an age of survival-of-the fittest economics fueled by the rise of right-wing hate, authoritarianism and political extremists. Thursday, July 29, 2021Ignorance now thrives in a world of interlacing disasters. This age of consuming catastrophes is part of an age of survival-of-the fittest economics fueled by the rise of right-wing hate, authoritarianism and political extremists. SHARE Police the People? Just Leave the People Be he words "I can't breathe" were not only uttered by Eric Garner and George Floyd as they were murdered by police. They were also uttered by over 70 others who died in law enforcement custody over the past decade. Wednesday, June 30, 2021he words "I can't breathe" were not only uttered by Eric Garner and George Floyd as they were murdered by police. They were also uttered by over 70 others who died in law enforcement custody over the past decade. SHARE To End Racial Capitalism, We Will Need to Take On the Institution of Policing The words "I can't breathe" were not only uttered by Eric Garner and George Floyd as they were murdered by police. They were also uttered by over 70 others who died in law enforcement custody over the past decade. Saturday, June 19, 2021The words "I can't breathe" were not only uttered by Eric Garner and George Floyd as they were murdered by police. They were also uttered by over 70 others who died in law enforcement custody over the past decade. (1 comments) SHARE The Plague of Historical Amnesia in the Age of Fascist Politics As white supremacy becomes entrenched at the highest levels of power and in the public imagination, the past becomes a burden that must be shed. Tuesday, April 6, 2021As white supremacy becomes entrenched at the highest levels of power and in the public imagination, the past becomes a burden that must be shed. SHARE Downplaying Trumpism Is Dangerous Ten Republicans within the House of Representatives helped bestow on Trump the ignoble distinction this week of being the first president to be impeached twice, charging him with "incitement of insurrection." Friday, January 15, 2021Ten Republicans within the House of Representatives helped bestow on Trump the ignoble distinction this week of being the first president to be impeached twice, charging him with "incitement of insurrection." (1 comments) SHARE The Centrality of Critical Education in Dark Times: a Tribute to Noam Chomsky on his 92nd Birthday Chomsky has made clear that intellectuals, artists, educators, and other cultural workers have a responsibility to use education to address grave social problems such as the threat of nuclear war, ecological devastation, and the sharp deterioration of democracy. Saturday, December 12, 2020Chomsky has made clear that intellectuals, artists, educators, and other cultural workers have a responsibility to use education to address grave social problems such as the threat of nuclear war, ecological devastation, and the sharp deterioration of democracy. SHARE Fascist Culture, Critical Pedagogy, and Resistance in Dark Times Across the globe, democratic institutions such as the independent media, schools, the legal system, certain financial institutions, and higher education are under siege. Monday, October 26, 2020Across the globe, democratic institutions such as the independent media, schools, the legal system, certain financial institutions, and higher education are under siege. (1 comments) SHARE Dystopian plagues and fascist politics in the age of Trump: Finding hope in the darkness In this age of uncertainty, time and space have collapsed into a void of relentless apprehension and the possibility of an authoritarian abyss. The terrors of everyday life point to a world that has descended into darkness. Monday, October 5, 2020In this age of uncertainty, time and space have collapsed into a void of relentless apprehension and the possibility of an authoritarian abyss. The terrors of everyday life point to a world that has descended into darkness. (1 comments) SHARE Trump aligns ignorance with bigotry as he attempts to rewrite history Trump has made clear his attempt to both defend and rewrite the history of racial injustice in the United States while eliminating the institutions that make visible its historical roots. Thursday, September 17, 2020Trump has made clear his attempt to both defend and rewrite the history of racial injustice in the United States while eliminating the institutions that make visible its historical roots. (7 comments) SHARE Trump's "Law and Order" Rhetoric Is a Rallying Cry for State Violence Violence is a term that should be limited to assaults, injuries and harm waged against human beings, not property. When talking about violence, it is crucial to make a distinction between the destruction of property and violence against persons. Wednesday, September 9, 2020Violence is a term that should be limited to assaults, injuries and harm waged against human beings, not property. When talking about violence, it is crucial to make a distinction between the destruction of property and violence against persons. (2 comments) SHARE Lawlessness in Trump's Fascist State: Bill Barr and the Ghost of Fascism Barr places the President above the law, defining him as a kind of unitary sovereign. In addition, he appears to relish in his role as a craven defender of Trump, all the while justifying a notion of blind executive authority in the face of Trump's endless lies, racist policies, and lawlessness, Friday, June 26, 2020Barr places the President above the law, defining him as a kind of unitary sovereign. In addition, he appears to relish in his role as a craven defender of Trump, all the while justifying a notion of blind executive authority in the face of Trump's endless lies, racist policies, and lawlessness, SHARE Racial Domestic Terrorism and the Legacy of State Violence Neoliberal fascism has taken off the gloves and now resorts to outright terror to keep people of color in check. Every space in the U.S. that people of color occupy is militarized. Monday, June 1, 2020Neoliberal fascism has taken off the gloves and now resorts to outright terror to keep people of color in check. Every space in the U.S. that people of color occupy is militarized. (2 comments) SHARE Criminogenic Politics as a Form of Psychosis in the Age of Trump In its late stages, capitalism morphs into a form of neoliberal fascism. One consequence is not merely a criminogenic political and economic system, but a state of barbarism that reflects a death-dealing psychosis among political leaders such as Trump and Bolsonaro. Wednesday, May 27, 2020In its late stages, capitalism morphs into a form of neoliberal fascism. One consequence is not merely a criminogenic political and economic system, but a state of barbarism that reflects a death-dealing psychosis among political leaders such as Trump and Bolsonaro. (1 comments) SHARE The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Exposing the Plague of Neoliberalism The financial crisis of 2008 made visible the plague of neoliberalism that has for over 40 years ravaged the public good and imposed misery and suffering upon the poor and others considered excess, waste or dangerous. Tuesday, April 7, 2020The financial crisis of 2008 made visible the plague of neoliberalism that has for over 40 years ravaged the public good and imposed misery and suffering upon the poor and others considered excess, waste or dangerous. (2 comments) SHARE Cult-Like Ignorance is Death: Trump and the Coronavirus Trump and his merry band of incompetent lackeys are symbols of a necropolitics that is wedded to destruction, violence, greed, falsehoods, and the needs of capital. Terminal idiocy, cult like absolutism, bottomless ignorance, and unbridled arrogance and narcissism have given rise to a form of neoliberal fascism and a culture of cruelty unlike anything we have seen since the 1930s. Saturday, February 29, 2020Trump and his merry band of incompetent lackeys are symbols of a necropolitics that is wedded to destruction, violence, greed, falsehoods, and the needs of capital. Terminal idiocy, cult like absolutism, bottomless ignorance, and unbridled arrogance and narcissism have given rise to a form of neoliberal fascism and a culture of cruelty unlike anything we have seen since the 1930s. (1 comments) SHARE Trump's SOTU Speech Bristled With Fascist Politics The impeachment process speaks not only to Trump's ongoing criminal behavior and pernicious policies, but also to a mass crisis of civic literacy and the inability of the public to understand how society has broken apart, become crueler, and receded from the language of critique, hope and the social imagination. Thursday, February 6, 2020The impeachment process speaks not only to Trump's ongoing criminal behavior and pernicious policies, but also to a mass crisis of civic literacy and the inability of the public to understand how society has broken apart, become crueler, and receded from the language of critique, hope and the social imagination. (2 comments) SHARE The Battle to Impeach Trump Is Part of a Global Struggle for Democracy Trump's impeachment battle is part of the wider historical and global struggle taking place over democracy. In different ways, both parties have hollowed out democratic institutions and cozied up to dictators. Monday, January 20, 2020Trump's impeachment battle is part of the wider historical and global struggle taking place over democracy. In different ways, both parties have hollowed out democratic institutions and cozied up to dictators. (1 comments) SHARE We Must Overcome Our Atomization to Beat Back Neoliberal Fascism Movements in Chile, Colombia and Ecuador have gained momentum by resisting the isolation imposed by neoliberalism. Saturday, December 7, 2019Movements in Chile, Colombia and Ecuador have gained momentum by resisting the isolation imposed by neoliberalism. Page 1 of 5 First Last Back Next 2 3 4 5 View All Articles Listed By Date List By Popularity Search Title Date Between Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 and Any 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Any 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 (38 comments) SHARE The REAL Lesson of Ralph Nader and the 2000 Presidential Election The "take-away" from the 2000 election, at least for Democrats, seems to be, "we can't allow third party candidates because they take votes away from us." Hmmmm. How democratic is it to try to prevent the voters from having genuine choices? Monday, June 13, 2016The "take-away" from the 2000 election, at least for Democrats, seems to be, "we can't allow third party candidates because they take votes away from us." Hmmmm. How democratic is it to try to prevent the voters from having genuine choices? (77 comments) SHARE 10 Reasons EVERY Employee in America Should Support the Fight for $15 Whether you make minimum wage or 6 figures a year, if you aren't self-employed, supporting a living wage for all is in your best interests. Wednesday, September 30, 2015Whether you make minimum wage or 6 figures a year, if you aren't self-employed, supporting a living wage for all is in your best interests. (24 comments) SHARE When Did Christianity Become the Religion of Hate? I've been watching the outpouring of hate from the Christian Right for years, and it just confuses me. How can you claim to be a Christian when you're doing the exact opposite of what Christ taught? Tuesday, September 29, 2015I've been watching the outpouring of hate from the Christian Right for years, and it just confuses me. How can you claim to be a Christian when you're doing the exact opposite of what Christ taught? (37 comments) SHARE "Sorry" Doesn't Pay the Rent: The Murder of the American Middle Class The murder of the middle class is continuing, and it has to stop. Murder is a strong word, but in this case it's also an accurate one. The middle class isn't dying by accident, it's dying because of the greed of American corporations. Saturday, November 9, 2013The murder of the middle class is continuing, and it has to stop. Murder is a strong word, but in this case it's also an accurate one. The middle class isn't dying by accident, it's dying because of the greed of American corporations. (2 comments) SHARE The Answer is JOBS, Jack@$$! If you want to reduce the deficit, try passing a jobs bill and putting people back to work! More people working and higher incomes for working people result in HIGHER TAX REVENUES! You won't have to take food out of the mouths of our children; or force our elderly citizens, who have spent their lives working and paying into Social Security, to choose between food and medicine. Thursday, April 25, 2013If you want to reduce the deficit, try passing a jobs bill and putting people back to work! More people working and higher incomes for working people result in HIGHER TAX REVENUES! You won't have to take food out of the mouths of our children; or force our elderly citizens, who have spent their lives working and paying into Social Security, to choose between food and medicine. (21 comments) SHARE Opiophobia, Restrictive Laws, and the Torture of Chronic Pain Patients Isn't it time to look for solutions to chronic pain that WORK, instead of throwing more time, energy, and money into solutions that HAVEN'T WORKED? Monday, April 15, 2013Isn't it time to look for solutions to chronic pain that WORK, instead of throwing more time, energy, and money into solutions that HAVEN'T WORKED? by Rob Taylor The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. Are you part of the AGENDA? When filmmaker Curtis Bowers hit the road in 2010 with his film AGENDA: Grinding America Down, people began to wake up. AGENDA became one of the bestselling independent documentaries of all time, and grass roots America finally had a tool to connect the dots. As he traveled, Bowers found that people were confronted by an overwhelming myriad of issues. From the promotion of Islam to the propaganda of climate change, from the deceit of Common Core to the manipulation of religion, and from the manufactured economic crisis to the unsustainable debt burden, it seems as if America has a hundred different enemies with a hundred different agendas, or was it all part of one AGENDA. Join Curtis Bowers here in Coos County on Tuesday, June 21, in The Owen Building at 205 N Adams Street in Coquille as he heads out again with his new documentary, AGENDA 2: Masters of Deceit, the film that will expose the communist collaborators and their deliberate, treasonous attacks on our freedoms. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. and more information can be found at www.CoosCountyWatchdog.com. What: Showing of AGENDA 2 & Discussion Panel When: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 6:00 pm Where: The Owen Building 205 N Adams Street Coquille, OR http://goo.gl/maps/jRb7mgapQC12 Contact: [email protected] Meet the Filmmaker: Curtis Bowers is a Christian statesman, husband, father, filmmaker, speaker, and businessman. He served as a State Representative in the Idaho Legislature, started and operated three Award Winning Fondue Restaurants, and produced the $101,000 Grand Prize winning film, AGENDA: Grinding America Down. Curtis and his wife of 27 years, Lauren, home educate their 9 children and operate the independent film and distribution company Copybook Heading Productions. The Bowers have traveled to over 40 states singing and speaking to promote their films. Their new film, AGENDA 2: MASTERS OF DECEIT, recently won Best Documentary at the 2016 Cristian Worldview Film Festival. Google co-founder Larry Page is privately funding two flying-car companies, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Page's plan is far more ambitious than Google holding Alphabet's breakthroughs on driverless cars. Page has invested more than $100 million in a startup named Zee.Aero since its creation in 2010, and also funded another start up named Kitty Hawk, the report said. Terming his interest in flying-car companies as personal ambition, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Page even retained an office at once of the company's headquarters, where he was referred to pseudonymously as GUS - the guy upstairs. Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk have been developing designs for flying cars completely separately, the report said, with Zee.Aero conducting test flights of its prototypes at an airstrip nearly an hour's drive away from Google's Mountain View headquarters. Zee.Aero has reportedly hired aerospace designers and engineers from organizations such as NASA, Boeing, and SpaceX. Exchange of heavy firing at Torkham border PESHAWAR: Exchange of heavy firing at the Pak-Afghan Torkham border was reported late on Sunday over the issue of the installation of security gates on the Pakistani side. At about 2120 hrs on Sunday, Afghan security forces resorted to unprovoked firing on Pakistani side at Torkham gate, injuring a Pakistani soldier. Pakistani security forces responded to Afghan firing effectively, said an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement. According to initial reports, the firing started around 10pm by the Afghan forces, which was retaliated by the Pakistani forces. The Afghan forces reportedly targeted Pakistani security posts near Bacha Mena village. A source in Landi Kotal informed Daily Times that heavy firing could be heard as far as in Landi Kotal. We are hearing continued firing sine 10pm. There is heavy movement of the security forces from Landi Kotal to the Torkham border, he said requesting anonymity. A local journalist said that the mobile phone service was disrupted in the area after the intense firing began and it was difficult to contact anyone in Bacha Mena village. I only heard that panic gripped people as the Afghan forces indiscriminately fired on the civilian population, he claimed. The journalist said that Pakistani forces also targeted Afghan security posts located on Shamshad Ghar Mountain. Huge flames could be seen at Shamshad Ghar from a distance. There were also reports of heavy artillery use from both sides, he said. Sources said that local people were in state of fear as the firing continued till late. It was learnt that security officials of both the countries reached the border to defuse the tension between the two sides. An emergency was declared at the Agency Headquarter Hospital Landi Kotal. Eyewitnesses said there was heavy presence of security forces at the hospital. All attempts to contact security officials and political administration failed as the communication lines disrupted till the filing of this report. Attaullah Khugyani, spokesman of Afghanistans Nangrahar province governor, confirmed there was an ongoing clash at the border between Afghan and Pakistani forces. However, he did not give the reason for the incident. Sources claimed that the Afghan security forces were sending reinforcements to the area. However, they did not given any detail about casualties on the Afghan side. The Pak-Afghan border at Torkham often witnesses skirmishes between the border forces of the two countries, mainly triggered by Pakistans attempt to check the illegal crossing of Afghans into Pakistan. Pakistan believes it is her right to check the illegal border crossing by Afghans, as they are often involved in criminal and terrorist activities in Pakistan. Pakistan is host to more than three million registered and unregistered Afghan refugees for more than three decades. Time and again, security reports have revealed the involvement of many refugees in criminal activities such as kidnaps for ransom and target killings, besides facilitating the terrorist acts. It may be mentioned that Torkham is the most frequent crossing point at Pak-Afghan border and recently terrorists have been found using this gate for entry. In order to check movement of terrorists at Torkham, Pakistan is constructing a gate on its side as a necessity measure to check unwanted and illegal movement, said militarys media wing. Earlier in May, the Torkham border crossing was reopened after Pakistan and Afghanistan reached an understanding to reopen it. The decision to reopen the border crossing was made at a meeting between Army Chief General Raheel Sharif and Afghan Ambassador Omar Zakhilwal. Ghana needs a well-planned city, which will serve as the new capital of the country, and an Independent Peoples Party (IPP) government will make sure it is realised, founder and leader of the party, Kofi Apaloo, has said. Mr Apaloo, who was explaining the details of his party's manifesto on Monday June 13, told Prince Minkah on Class 91.3FMs Executive Breakfast Show that: We want to relocate the capital from Accra to between the Brong Ahafo and Northern Regions, we want to build a new city there. This will not take more than five years to do. When you go to Egypt, they are building a new city just 56 kilometres from Cairo. Nigeria did that; they built Abuja, and Togo and Cote dIvoire did that, so, you should not be surprised if IPP are proclaiming that we are going to build a new city. The opinion of the IPP flagbearer is similar to the view of Deputy Ranking Member of parliaments Works and Housing Committee, Justice Joe Appiah, who had earlier suggested in an interview with Class FM's parliamentary correspondent, Ekow Annan that the capital city be re-designed and relocated. The legislator made the comments in the wake of evacuation of dozens of people from their homes in Adabraka, in the Greater Accra Region, by personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), and the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), after they were trapped in their homes and schools during long hours of heavy rainfall. Other parts of the capital were submerged with the worst places affected recently being Kaneshie, Avenor, Weija, Alajo, the Stanbic Heights area within the Airport Residential Area, the Fiesta Royale area, Teshie Nungua, Santa Maria, and the Graphic Road, among others. According to the presidential aspirant, such a project was necessary to reduce pressure on facilities in Accra and reduce congestion, to build a new city, [and] also create jobs. He said getting funds for such a project should not be a difficult task as a consortium will be put together and they will come out with it. It might not necessarily be government and you can have private investors for this, he added. Source: Classfmonline Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video A governing party-affiliated group has said the failure of three-time opposition flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo to transform his constituency during his tenure as a member of parliament, is indicative that he cannot run Ghana. Nana Akufo-Addo was MP for Abuakwa South in the Eastern Region before taking up the mantle to lead the New Patriotic Party as flagbearer for three consecutive times. According to the Kibi College of Education branch of the Tertiary Educational Institutions Network (TEIN), before Mr Akufo-Addo became MP for the constituency, there were several development projects construction of hospitals, rural electrification, etc., undertaken by his predecessors, but not only, in the groups estimation, did he fail to see the projects through, but also collapsed them. A statement issued by Ekow Paintsil Djan, General Secretary of the group said: He [Nana Akufo-Addo] could not manage his own hometown. If he cannot manage two thousand people, how much more 27 million? Ever since Nana became the leader of the NPP, there has never been peace in their camp. [There have been] suspensions here and there. Is Nana telling us that he cannot manage Kyebi and NPP? Come on, then there's no way he can manage this whole nation. Read the full statement below: AKUFFO ADDO COULDN'T MANAGE HIS HOMETOWN AND NPP. HOW MUCH MORE GHANA? Nana Addo happens to be a native of Kyebi. Kyebi is believed to be one of the banks for the NPP. But this time round the "OPERATIONS KYEMU P3 was set in Kyebi by TEIN executives to make sure President Mahama grabs half of the votes from Nana's hometown. On Sunday 11th June 2016, the four walls of Kibi Presbyterian College of Education was shook by the parliamentary candidate for Abuakwa South constituency and some party executives from the Eastern Region and the Abuakwa South constituency. Hon Owuraku Amofa happens to be a cousin to Nana Addo. He was former deputy communication minister under the Rawlings government. He also served as a deputy Tourism minister before leaving government. He was the guest speaker for the programme. He was the Member of Parliament for Abuakwa Central between 1992 and 1996. He defeated his own relative and entered parliament in 1992. It was during his time that various developmental projects transformed Kyebi. He extended electricity to Kyebi, he lobbied for the Kyebi Government hospital, constructed roads from Suhum to Kyebi. Made sure a senior high school was provided. These and many more projects went on. His cousin, Nana Addo succeeded him and he transformed Kyebi negatively. The kind of transformation he brought we are all aware. Nothing to write home about. Instead of him maintaining what his relative had done, he destroyed them. He couldn't manage his own hometown, If he can't manage two thousand people how much more 27 million people. Ever since Nana became the leader of the NPP, there has never been peace in their camp. Suspension here and there. Is Nana telling us that he can't manage Kyebi and NPP? Come on, then there's no way he can manage this whole nation. These were words from Hon Owuraku Amofa's own mouth..."no Ghanaian should think of voting for my uncle. He will be the worst person for Ghana." He said NDC is for jobs, opportunities, developments, stability. He entreated all TEIN members to make sure that necessary votes are gotten for the NDC. The NPP destroyed all those infrastructures that will put monies into our pockets and it is the president's duty to restore them in order to put monies into people's pocket in his next term of office...he added. A lot was said but his final message to Ghanaians was..."if a crocodile comes out of a river and tells you the fish has only one eye, there's no need to put a challenge to that" He knows Akuffo Addo well and he can never be a good president for Ghana. The entourage was led by the Eastern Regional Deputy youth organizer, Madam Benedicta Lasie. She advised the TEIN members to refrain from evil. She said the NDC is a very peaceful party. So TEIN being the intellectual wing of the party should use intellectual means to win vote for the NDC not radical means. Nana Asare, constituency youth organizer also gave a word of advice to TEIN members. He has been the backbone of the association right from its inception till now. I would use this medium to announce to the general public of our inauguration ceremony which comes of 25th June 2016 at Kibi Presbyterian College of Education. We pledge our support for the NDC party, the president and all NDC parliamentary candidates. "OPERATION KYEMU P3 at Kyebi on our minds. We will also take this medium to advise all Trainees to vote for the President. This scrapping of allowances has paved way for you and me to be in our various colleges. The government feeds us three times a day which is not done in a tertiary institution. Just recently we are all received our 560 cedis and 1200 cedis. This government has done a lot for us. Currently a three storey house is being built in our various campuses. #Colleges of Education support JM #Trainees choose JM Long live KPCE TEIN Long live NDC Long live mother Ghana. Thank you Ekow Paintsil Djan Gen. Secretary Source: Classfmonline Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video President John Dramani Mahama says although Ghana and India have had cordial relations over the years, the two countries would further strengthen the relations in the coming days for mutual benefits. He said while the two countries shared common values in democracy, trade, investment, commerce and business development, others that would lead to job creation would be paramount in their next line of co-operation. President Mahama said this when he hosted Indian President Franab Mukherjee to a dinner at the Flagstaff House as part of his two-day official visit to Ghana. President Mukherjee, who would also be visiting Ivory Coast after Ghana, would, among other things, sign some bilateral agreements with President Mahama. The two leaders are also expected to strengthen the relations in Information and Communication Technology, agro-processing and rural development issues. The Indian President would later hold a business forum, visit the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum, the Kofi Annan ICT Centre of Excellence and plant a tree at the Flagstaff House to symbolise the relations. President Mahama said as part of the relations in trade and business development, Indian investors, over the years, operated their popular supermarkets such as Glamour stores and Chandirams which created job opportunities for Ghanaians. He said the recently revamped Komenda Sugar Factory was also a testimony of the cordial relations that existed between Ghana and India since 1957 when Ghana established her Diplomatic Mission in New Delhi. He said politically, India influenced Ghana and her first President Dr Kwame Nkrumah in the struggle for independence of the country and the entire African continent. President Mahama mentioned former President Nkrumah's policy of Positive Defiance to have had bearings on the Indian principles that Mahatma Ghandhi used in his leadership, particularly in the struggle for supremacy in the international political economy. President Mukherjee said apart from the continental difference that existed between India and Ghana, their political, economic and some social aspirations were similar and there was, therefore, the need to harness their potentials for mutual benefit. He said politically, the people of India remembered Ghana and Dr Kwame Nkrumah as an embodiment of African dignity and the struggle for the rightful place for the continent. He said as the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain the status of lower income status, it was noteworthy that Ghana stood taller among her contemporaries and beyond. He gave the assurance that while India would continue to provide scholarships for Ghanaians to study technology efforts would also be made by Indian companies to step up their investment in Ghana. President Mukherjee said India and Ghana also had a common responsibility to fight against the rise of terrorism in the world that had resulted in the destruction of lives and property. The Indian President, who was accompanied by some members of Parliament, ministers of state and business delegation, would visit the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research of the University of Ghana where he would unveil the statue of former Indian Leader Mahatma Gandhi. President Mukherjee leaves Ghana on Tuesday morning for Ivory Coast. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Chemistry professor Jan Halamek and his team have mimicked crime scene conditions to test their findings. Credit: Carlo de Jesus First it was fingerprints. Now it's blood. Ongoing forensic research led by University at Albany Assistant Chemistry Professor Jan Halamek and his team has revealed a simple way to estimate the age range of a culprit through blood residue left at a crime scene. By analyzing alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels, a biomarker found in all body tissues, his team can tell if the originator is young (under 18) or older, along with the time since deposition (TSD) of the blood spot. ALP levels are age dependent according to Halamek, making the correlation relatively simple. His team is able to determine how many hours the sample has been left behind based on ALP's enzyme activity, which decreases over time. They've tested both discoveries by using "mimicked crime scene conditions" and real human serum samples, finding close to 100 percent accuracy for up to two days. Full results were published recently in Analytical Chemistry. This is the second groundbreaking research paper Halamek has released regarding the use of body fluids biomarkers for identification. Last year, his team discovered a straight forward way to identify whether a culprit was male or female, based on amino acid content left behind in fingerprints. Levels are twice as high in the sweat of women as in that of men. It gained national attention, including features in the New York Times and Chemical & Engineering News. "It's all about the biomarkers, looking for the attributes of a person," said Halamek in a recent interview with Forensic Magazine. "It's pure chemistry." Jan Halamek (left) and UAlbany Ph.D. student Juliana Agudelo (one from right) are working with Averill Park high school students on both discoveries. Credit: Gregory Panzanaro Halamek is hoping both discoveries may soon help investigators obtain key information about suspects. Though not intending to compete with traditional DNA analysis, he believes his tests provide quick results, and are simple to perform. They also can help match individuals who are not found through an existing DNA database. "We would like to see our research packaged as a potential forensic kit and utilized by all law enforcement," Halamek said. "If these tests are made portable, they can be rapidly analyzed at the crime scene by individuals who have minimal scientific training." To prove just how user-friendly his tests are, Halamek has let high schoolers in Averill Park, N.Y., give them a try. Most recently, students in Dr. Gregory Panzanaro's Introduction to Forensic Science class successfully performed the ALP analyzation in order to determine age range. At UAlbany, students are also taking the lead on developing Halamek's research. Those on his team include Ph.D. chemistry students Erica Brunelle, Juliana Agudelo, Crystal Huynh and Leif McGoldrick, along with a number of chemistry and biology undergraduates. "We hope to continue working with students on projects in our lab going forward. It is a great opportunity for them to gain real-world forensic experience," Halamek said. Halamek and his team are currently looking at ways to enhance both the fingerprint and blood residue tests. They are also exploring additional identification methods related to other body fluids. Explore further Chemist's technique can identify a fingerprint as male or female More information: Juliana Agudelo et al. Ages at a Crime Scene: Simultaneous Estimation of the Time since Deposition and Age of Its Originator, Analytical Chemistry (2016). Journal information: Analytical Chemistry Juliana Agudelo et al. Ages at a Crime Scene: Simultaneous Estimation of the Time since Deposition and Age of Its Originator,(2016). DOI: 10.1021/acs.analchem.6b01169 A female Chrysomela lapponica beetle laying eggs on her host plant. C. lapponica is one of four species of leaf-eating beetles monitored in a study of how changes in climate and pollution affect insect population dynamics in a subarctic forest. Credit: Juergen Gross [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) As the world warms, outbreaks of plant-eating insect pests are expected to intensify, largely because warmer temperatures favor the pest's biology while boosting growth of the plants they eat. Several studies suggest that climate warming may be a big benefit to plant-eating pests at high latitudes, especially high in subarctic or arctic ecosystems. But a new study by a University of Michigan ecologist and his Finnish colleagues concludes that other factors, such as changes in the amount of air pollution in a forest, can outweigh the pest-favoring effects of climate warming. "Our study demonstrates that some plant-feeding insect specieseven those capable of outbreaksdo not benefit from rapid climate warming even in subarctic regions, which are traditionally seen as most sensitive to any kind of natural and human-induced disturbances," said Mark Hunter, a professor in the U-M Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "The key message is that some of the negative effects of climate change can be mitigated if we remove other sources of environmental stressin this case, pollution." Hunter and his colleagues explored how changes in climate and pollution affect insect population dynamics in subarctic forests of northwestern Russia. They monitored populations of four leaf-beetle species that feed on willow trees at 13 forest sites, from 1993 through 2014. At the study sites, spring and fall temperatures increased 4.5 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 to 3 C) during the 21-year observation period. During that time, emissions from a nearby nickel-copper smelter decreased fivefold. The study sites are at varying distances (up to about 25 miles) from the Monchegorsk smelter on Russia's Kola Peninsula, which was one of the Northern Hemisphere's largest polluters for decades. Hunter and his colleagues found that none of the four beetle species became more abundant during the study period, despite the warming climate and higher-quality plant food. In fact, densities of two species declined 20-fold during that time. The researchers concluded that the population decline was likely due to increased mortality from natural enemiesmainly predators and parasitesof the beetles. "It turns out that decreasing pollution levels of heavy metals from the smelter allowed the natural enemies of the willow pests to re-establish in the region," Hunter said. "In addition, the predators of the beetle pests benefitted from the warming climate. So the natural enemies are preventing the beetles from taking advantage of climate change." Hunter said the implications of the research extend far beyond the subarctic forests of Russia. "Throughout the world's agricultural and forest systems, if we can maintain or re-establish viable populations of natural enemies, we may prevent pest populations from exploiting climate change," he said. Explore further Moth study suggests hidden climate change impacts More information: Elena L. Zvereva et al. Factors affecting population dynamics of leaf beetles in a subarctic region: The interplay between climate warming and pollution decline, Science of The Total Environment (2016). Journal information: Science of the Total Environment Elena L. Zvereva et al. Factors affecting population dynamics of leaf beetles in a subarctic region: The interplay between climate warming and pollution decline,(2016). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.187 Today, plant and animal biodiversity across the globe tends to be highest at the equator and diminishes as one moves to higher latitudes. This pattern, called the latitudinal diversity gradient, has not always existed, new research finds. Credit: Julie McMahon It's called the latitudinal diversity gradient, a phenomenon seen today in most plant and animal species around the world: Biodiversity decreases from the equator to higher latitudes. A new study of fossils representing 63 million of the past 65 million years reveals thatfor North American mammals, at leastthe modern LDG is the exception rather than the rule. The findings, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, point to the importance of not assuming that the way things are today is the way they've always been, the researchers say. "The LDG says there are more species at the equator than at the poles," said Jonathan Marcot, a University of Illinois animal biology professor who conducted the study with David Fox and Spencer Niebuhr of the University of Minnesota. "This has been considered a first-order pattern of biodiversity, meaning one of the most general patterns in ecology. You find it in mammals, you find it in birds, you find it in insects, you find it in plants, you find it in the ocean and you find it on land." It may seem obvious that more species can thrive in the relative warmth of lower latitudes, but that intuition about biodiversity may not always have been true, Marcot said. A warming planet does not necessarily lead to more diversity everywhere on the planet. It could just as easily lead to an expansion, or shifting, of individual species' ranges, with no corresponding increase in the overall number of species, he said. "If you go back a few thousand years ago, before we lost a lot of the large mammals that we had in North America, and probably for millions or tens of millions of years before this, we had horses in the higher latitudes, we had mammoths, we had rhinoceroses. Things that you find mostly in southern latitudes today, we had in northern latitudes as well," Marcot said. A 2011 study by Marcot, Fox and other colleagues looked at fossils of mammals from many latitudes in western North America between 58 million and 63 million years ago. As in the current study, they used the Paleobiology Database for information about the fossils, the latitudes at which they were found and their ages. "It turns out the mammalian fossil record of North America is the best- or one of the best-sampled terrestrial records for this sort of analysis," Marcot said. That study found no evidence of a latitudinal diversity gradient for North American mammals at that time, only a few million years after the extinction of nonavian dinosaurs. A look at oxygen isotope ratios in the bones, which can be used to determine ancient temperatures, found evidence that the temperature gradient during that time period, the Paleocene, was similar to that of modern times. "There was no biodiversity gradient back then as there is now," Marcot said. "Our question in the new study was, when did it change and how did it change?" To answer this, the team turned again to the fossil record, this time looking at 27,903 fossil occurrences in all latitudes of North America representing 63 million years of mammalian lifefrom the time of the dinosaur extinctions to 2 million years ago. They compared mammalian species diversity at every latitude and every time period for which sufficient data were available. They also analyzed diversity in relation to the record of temperature changes over the same time period. "What we found is that for most of the time that we considered, from 65 million years ago to about 10 million years ago, there was no strong evidence for a gradient," Marcot said. "There were roughly as many animal species in the northern parts of North America as there were in the southern regions." Between 10 million and 4 million years ago, "we start to see a strengthening of a gradient," he said. "And finally, we found strong evidence for a negative gradientthat is, more species in the south than in the northstarting around 4 million years ago." The team also analyzed the gradient in relation to the record of temperature changes over the same time period and found "a statistically significant correlation between temperature and the diversity gradient, meaning that the colder it gets, the stronger the diversity gradient gets for North American mammals," Marcot said. The new findings point to the importance of not only studying living organisms but also considering the fossil record of past life and environments, Marcot said. Humans can learn a lot from life on Earth today, he said. "But given how much we know climates have changed and species have changed, there's no reason to suspect that the patterns we find today necessarily will have applied 10, 20 or 100 million years ago. If we understand what things were like then and what they're like now, we can begin to understand how Earth is connected to life and how they change together." "The fossil record often amazes and intrigues us with the unusual and unexpected life forms we continue to discover, but it also harbors surprising large-scale patterns that are only evident from compilations of the data gathered from field sites by many generations of paleontologists," Fox said. "And sometimes those patterns do not correspond at all to our expectations from the patterns exhibited by living organisms." Explore further Bacterial diversity in soils was shaped by ice ages More information: Late Cenozoic onset of the latitudinal diversity gradient of North American mammals, PNAS, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1524750113 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Late Cenozoic onset of the latitudinal diversity gradient of North American mammals, Aedes aegypti females reject the sucrose solution containing the synthetic peptide. The sugary solution contained a blue dye to trace the meal in their gut. Credit: Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow Major rainfall across most of Texas triggering hordes of mosquitos coupled with seemingly constant mosquito-related Zika virus media reports from around the globe may have set the stage perfectly for what one researcher deems as a very significant discovery in man's war against earth's leading human disease carrier. Dr. David Ragsdale, head of the entomology department at Texas A&M University, College Station, credits Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow in the entomology department at College Station, along with her students and colleagues from other institutions, with discovering a receptor on the legs of mosquitoes that when activated, keeps female mosquitoes from taking a sugar meal and makes them fly away. "This finding could lead to novel mosquito repellents," Ragsdale said. "This is really a big deal, a major achievement." Aedes aegypti females reject the sucrose solution containing the synthetic peptide. The sugary solution contained a blue dye to trace the meal in their gut. (Photo courtesy Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow)Aedes aegypti females reject the sucrose solution containing the synthetic peptide. The sugary solution contained a blue dye to trace the meal in their gut. (Photo courtesy Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow) Ragsdale said Pietrantonio has just had the article, "Leucokinin mimetic elicits aversive behavior in mosquito Aedes aegypti (L.) and inhibits the sugar taste neuron," on the work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "What makes this even more compelling is the work was with Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species responsible for spreading Zika, dengue, yellow fever and Chikungunya viruses," Ragsdale said. "This work is the culmination of over five years of study by Dr. Pietrantonio, her students and collaborators. With Zika a looming threat, this is a timely discovery." Pietrantonio said after mating, Aedes aegypti females immediately search for a blood meal from a human host. "They are highly anthropophilic, meaning they are attracted to humans," Pietrantonio said. "They may even follow people indoors. If female mosquitoes are infected with viruses they may transmit them to humans when they acquire a blood meal." The blood meal supplies the protein source female mosquitoes require to produce eggs, she said. "However, in the field, if human hosts are not present, females will feed on sucrose solutions such as nectar from flowers, though they prefer a blood meal to a sugar meal but male mosquitoes feed only on nectar. Certainly sugar feeding is one of the two feeding modalities for adults of this species." "We found that a synthetic peptide that was designed to mimic a peptide naturally present in mosquitoes triggers an aversive fly away, walk away or jump away behavior in female mosquitoes." If the same aversion could be tied to a blood meal, she said a totally new and effective mosquito feeding deterrent may be in the offing, one that perhaps would cause the mosquito to pass up the required blood meal needed to lay eggs. Doing so would either disrupt the life cycle and/or reduce disease transmission. However, this is far from being accomplished, she said. "One of our team designed a peptide mimetic of the kinin peptides, which are diuretic hormones in mosquitoes, to be resistant to enzymatic degradation," Pietrantonio said. "These mimetics are more potent than those found naturally, because they take longer to be degraded by the insect. These diuretic hormones make mosquitoes lose water after a blood meal, but we also found the peptidomimetic blocked sugar perception. This is a completely new and unexpected discovery." The research team localized these receptors in the feet and mouthparts of mosquitoes. What is really new, they said, is that this type of receptor proteins known as GPCRs, were not previously considered to be important for "taste" in insects and further, contact with the peptidomimetic made the mosquitoes fly away. "In sum, we unequivocally verified this kinin receptor is present in the taste organs of the legs and labella, the pair of lobes at the tip of the proboscis." Pietrantonio said their observation that the peptide blocks sugar perception is interesting because the peptide is insect-specific, therefore, the receptor represents a target for further applied research to find ways to diminish the ability of female mosquitoes to feed. Doing so would likely reduce their lifespan or reproductive capacity. "We had a lot of fun doing this research within the frame of an international, multi-institutional and multidisciplinary collaboration," she said. Institutions involved along with Texas A&M were the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service, Iowa State University and Universite Paris-Saclay, France. Pietrantonio said the team will continue to study the system in the hope of developing an effective mosquito feeding deterrent in order to stop what is arguably the greatest foe to mankind on earth. Explore further Researchers map mosquitoes that transmit Zika and Dengue by county More information: Hyeogsun Kwon et al, Leucokinin mimetic elicits aversive behavior in mosquito(L.) and inhibits the sugar taste neuron, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2016). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Hyeogsun Kwon et al, Leucokinin mimetic elicits aversive behavior in mosquito(L.) and inhibits the sugar taste neuron,(2016). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1520404113 The motions of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects (as illustrated on the right) suggest that there is an unknown planet (left) in the confines of the solar system. Credit: Jose Antonio Penas (SINC) In the race towards the discovery of a ninth planet in our solar system, scientists from around the world strive to calculate its orbit using the tracks left by the small bodies that move well beyond Neptune. Now, astronomers from Spain and Cambridge University have confirmed, with new calculations, that the orbits of the six extreme trans-Neptunian objects that served as a reference to announce the existence of Planet Nine are not as stable as it was thought. At the beginning of this year, the astronomers K. Batygin and M. Brown from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, USA) announced that they had found evidence of the existence of a giant planet with a mass ten times larger than Earth's in the confines of the Solar System. Moving in an unusually elongated orbit, the mysterious planet will take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete one revolution around the Sun. In order to arrive at this conclusion, Batygin and Brown run computer simulations with input data based on the orbits of six extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs). Specifically, these ETNOs are: Sedna, 2012 VP113, 2004 VN112, 2007 TG422, 2013 RF98 and 2010 GB174. Now, however, brothers Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos, two freelance Spanish astronomers, together with scientist Sverre J. Aarseth from the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), have considered the question the other way around: How would the orbits of these six ETNOs evolve if a Planet Nine such as the one proposed by K. Batygin and M. Brown really did exist? The answer to this important question has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). "With the orbit indicated by the Caltech astronomers for Planet Nine, our calculations show that the six ETNOs, which they consider to be the Rosetta Stone in the solution to this mystery, would move in lengthy, unstable orbits," warns Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. "These objects would escape from the Solar System in less than 1.5 billion years, -he adds-, and in the case of 2004 VN112, 2007 TG422 and 2013 RF98 they could abandon it in less than 300 million years; what is more important, their orbits would become really unstable in just 10 million years, a really short amount of time in astronomical terms." According to this new study, also based on numerical (N-body) simulations, the orbit of the new planet proposed by Batygin and Brown would have to be modified slightly so that the orbits of the six ETNOs analysed would be really stable for a long time. These results also lead to a new question: Are the ETNOs a transient and unstable population or, on the contrary, are they permanent and stable? The fact that these objects behave in one way or another affects the evolution of their orbits and also the numerical modelling. "If the ETNOs are transient, they are being continuously ejected and must have a stable source located beyond 1,000 astronomical units (in the Oort cloud) where they come from", notes Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. "But if they are stable in the long term, then there could be many in similar orbits although we have not observed them yet". The orbits of the six extreme trans-Neptunian objects (in magenta) are mysteriously aligned in one direction, a configuration which can be explained by the presence of a Planet Nine (in orange) in our solar system, according to the Caltech Astronomers. / Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) In any case, the statistical and numerical evidence obtained by the authors, both through this and previous work, leads them to suggest that the most stable scenario is one in which there is not just one planet, but rather several more beyond Pluto, in mutual resonance, which best explains the results. "That is to say we believe that in addition to a Planet Nine, there could also be a Planet Ten and even more," the Spanish astronomer points out. International race to discover Planet Nine These studies are only a few of the countless international peer-reviewed articles published or in preparation about the search for Planet Nine with the help of N-body simulations and other techniques. Batygin and Brown are going to present soon new models of the orbit of the mysterious Planet Nine with up-to-date data. On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, Professor Jacques Laskar's team from the Paris Observatory is also attempting to be the first to compute the position of the hypothetical Planet Nine in order to then observe it. This situation is reminiscent of the discovery of Neptune, in which the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier was the first to "discover" a new planet using laborious hand calculations based on the positions of Uranus; later, the German astronomer J. G Galle directly observed it. "If Neptune was the first planet discovered using pen and paper, Planet Nine could be the first to be discovered using entirely computerized numerical calculations." notes de la Fuente Marcos, although he points out that the results of the French team are based on residuals in the tracking data from the Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn, caused by the presence of the hypothetical planet, but NASA has denied it, suggesting that it could simply be statistical noise in the signal. Could Planet Nine be an exoplanet? One of the most revolutionary studies from recent months, also with computational simulations and participation of French institutions, was led by the researcher Alexander Mustill from Lund University (Sweden), who raised the idea that Planet Nine may have come from outside the Solar System, that is to say, that it could be an exoplanet. His hypothesis is that around 4.5 billion years ago, our then young Sun "stole" this planet from a neighbouring star with the help of a series of favourable conditions (proximity of stars within a star cluster, a planet in a wide and elongated orbit,...). Other scientists, however, believe that this scenario is improbable. The debate is on. What all astronomers do agree on is the importance of closely tracking the motions of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects to be able to adjust the calculations that should lead the way to the location of Planet Nine, without forgetting that the best evidence will be its direct observation, a race which several research teams are fighting to win. Explore further Theft behind Planet 9 in our solar system Credit: PLOS Blogs Researchers have a plan to link together chunks of synthetic DNA, making a researcher-created human genome that can control a cell in a lab dish. This, the 25 researchers advocating it in an open-access Science paper say, will be called Human Genome Project-Write. That's in contrast with the first HGP, completed in stages earlier in this century, which they call Human Genome Project-Read. Find a list of the "stepping stone" projects the researchers are proposing at GEN. The paper is in a way an outcome of the "secret" meeting about synthesizing whole genomes held at Harvard a few weeks ago. The meeting got unsecret quickly, making a splash in the MSM. At The Conversation, Harvard grad student Jeff Bessen tried to explain why the meeting was secret. Essentially Science's fault, he implied. According to the very high-profile George Church, a host of the meeting and an author of the paper, the editors had asked for a revision that took account of the "ethical, social, and legal components of synthesizing genomes." That made it impossible for the paper to appear at the time of the meeting, and secrecy was required because of the journal's embargo policy. The published paper spends exactly one sentence on ethical, social, and legal issues. As the not-quite-secret meeting was taking place, Stanford synthetic biologist Drew Endy and Northwestern bioethicist Laura Zoloth blasted it in a post at COSMOS, saying, "When the first people at the table mostly have significant and direct material interests in proceeding, everyone, not just those in the room, risk out-of-control competition between public and private interests, ethical conflicts of interest, and temptations to manipulate human subject consent." THE ORIGINS OF HGP-WRITE HGP-write had its genesis last summer, according to Kelly Servick at Science, when futurist Andrew Hessel made what one scientist called "'this impassioned speech' for a new human genome project that would capture the public's imagination and inspire the field around a single goal." Hessel is a researcher at the San Francisco software company Autodesk, which has committed $250,000 to HGP-write. According to TechReview's Antonio Regalado, Zoloth is concerned that such a monumental proposal is being led by Autodesk, which Regalado calls "a mid-cap software company with rinky-dink biomedical credentials." Drew Endy is also a persistent critic of HGP-write. He has aired his objections, among other places, at a World Science Festival panel early this month, reported by Andrew Joseph at STAT. The panel also featured George Church, key figure in HGP-writeand cofounder with Endy of a synthetic biology company. "I love the specific projects that George and colleagues are proposing, but I also take at face value that this is going to go beyond that," Endy said. He foresees efforts by other, less ethical, researchers to create synthetic humans. Making synthetic people is not such a far-fetched fear. Regalado points out that Church has proposed exactly that project in his 2012 book Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves. Church wants to recode the human genome to make it impossible for viruses to enter. HIV and the common cold, gone. According to Regalado, Church's lab has already replaced 7 out of 64 codons in E. coli, probably making the bug impervious to phage, the viruses that infect bacteria. "In an e-mail, Church agreed that the proposals described in his book could follow if genome-writing technology were developed, even if they aren't the aim of HGP-write. 'Our project is paying attention to these longer-term implications,' he said." Aedes Egypti mosquito, malaria carrier. Credit: US Department of Agriculture THE HGP-WRITE TRAIN HAS LEFT THE STATION Endy wants HP-write halted in its present form. But that's not going to happen. "The train has left the station," Sharon Begley and Ike Swetlitz observe at STAT. Steven Novella summarized some objections to HGP-write at Neurologica: "Critics, however, charge that this work is already being done in many labs, and so one large centralized project is redundant. Others argue that the ethics need to be discussed first, and therefore the project is premature. Still others fear that private companies will have too much control of the project, and therefore call to have everything be open to the public" Novella is most concerned about the cost. It's been estimated at no more than the $3 billion spent on the first Human Genome Project, but that's just a wild guess. With improvements in technology of the sort that have characterized genetics in the past few years, I suppose it might even be cheaper. Fact is, no one knows. The researchers want to begin this year and are hoping to raise $100 million as a start-up fund. Novella isn't worried about ethical issues because "proponents state that the synthetic cells will be unable to reproduce. They will remains[sic] cells, and cannot create a synthetic person." He's actually kinda entranced by the idea of synthetic people. "Done carefully and thoughtfully there can be many benefits to synthesizing humans resistant to certain diseases, for example. Perhaps we will need to engineer humans to thrive in space." ALSO, GENE DRIVES GET A YELLOW LIGHT Gene drives could drive mosquitoes to extinction, in the process wiping out malaria and the Zika virus. Yay, and I wouldn't mind bite-free summers either. But here, in one sentence, is the issue with gene drives. "The emergence of gene-drive systemswhich spread engineered mutations quickly through populationsmeans that a single released organism could eventually alter most of its local population, and quite possibly all populations of the species throughout the world." That from Kevin Esvelt, in a post at Nature. In a profile at TechReview, Antonio Regalado calls Esvelt "the moralist policing gene drives, a technology that messes with evolution." Esvelt worked with the ever-present George Church on the gene-editing system known as CRISPR for genome engineering. Regalado credits Esvelt with bringing the gene drive safety issue to public attention two years ago. One result of that attention is the 200+-page report issued this week by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report recommended proceeding cautiously with gene-drive research, advocating limiting it to controlled field trials and warning against releasing engineered organisms into the wild at this point. For an explainer on how gene drives work, see Brad Plumer's post at Vox. Esvelt told Rob Stein at Shots that he was disappointed that the report didn't urge scientists to disclose their gene drive plans publicly before trying to engineer an organism. From his new post at the MIT Media Lab, Esvelt says in the Nature post that he and others are launching "the Responsive Science Project to enable gene-drive scientists to share their plans and research with one another and with interested communities. We hope that it will become a central repository of ideas and information relevant to gene-drive research that will permit open assessment and critique before experiments begin." Hard to imagine that such an open science project will be embraced by researchers. Also, gene drives may be another case of the train having already left the station. Regalado says gene-drive projects aimed at wiping out malaria by wiping out the mosquitoes that carry it are already in the works. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given more than $40 million to a project planning to spread sterile mosquitoes in Africa by 2029. Explore further Scientists unveil plan to create synthetic human genomes This story is republished courtesy of PLOS Blogs: blogs.plos.org. Panel Discussion Focuses on How Prescriptive Analytics is Replacing Exception-Based Reporting WALTHAM, MA(Marketwired June 13, 2016) Profitect Inc., the leading prescriptive analytics provider for the retail industry, today announced CEO Guy Yehiav will lead a session at the NRF PROTECT 2016 Conference and EXPO in Philadelphia. The panel discussion titled, Research Indicates Prescriptive Analytics is Replacing Exception-Based Reporting (EBR), takes place on Wednesday, June 15 and includes Profitect customers Aaron Winkel, Asset Protection Analyst at Abercrombie & Fitch, and Nick Menges, Asset Protection Specialist at Ahold USA. NRF PROTECT is the largest retail and restaurant loss prevention event in North America for those who protect retail brands, assets, people and profits. Profitect, along with customers Abercrombie & Fitch and Ahold USA (Stop & Shop, Giant Food), will share insights on how prescriptive analytics empowers retailers to reduce operational losses, fraud, and increase sales more efficiently than traditional EBR tools. Attendees will gain a greater understanding of: How prescriptive analytics improves on EBR by adding actionable intelligence and execution Why industry leaders are using prescriptive analytics to detect shrink, fraud and other areas of profit loss How to engage internal business partners to address root causes of shrink including ORC, employee theft and store/vendor compliance About the Session: Who: Guy Yehiav, Chief Executive Officer, Profitect Aaron Winkel, Asset Protection Analyst, Abercrombie & Fitch Nick Menges, Asset Protection Specialist, Ahold USA Where: Pennsylvania Convention Center 1101 Arch St Philadelphia, PA 19104 When: Wednesday, June 15, 10:45 a.m. 11:15 a.m. EST For More Information: About Profitect Since 2012, Profitect has helped companies leverage existing big data investments to identify, resolve, and measure opportunities for improvement by delivering actionable prescriptive analytics to the right person, at the right time. For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser So I've written a few times about how our local trout streams, and those in western Vermont, seem to be lacking in young wild trout. Stream sections where I would regularly catch a half-dozen or more small, non-stocked fish just seem to be empty, and it's not just slow action. I don't see many fish rising to insect hatches, chasing lures or darting away as I walk through streams like the Mettawee, Batten Kill, Black Creek or Castleton River in Vermont, all streams where I typically find plenty of wild fish. I've talked to a few anglers who share the same opinion. Many of us have caught some big fish, but just aren't seeing the smaller ones. So I set out last week to see if the state Department of Environmental Conservation or the corresponding agency in Vermont had any reports or data on the issue. Not so much. I called the DEC's Warrensburg office Tuesday, leaving a message for a fisheries biologist I have spoken to in the past, and I'm still waiting for a call back. So I called the Ray Brook regional headquarters and spoke to fisheries manager Lance Durfey. He said the DEC hasn't done any stream surveying yet this year, but he hasn't heard any anecdotal reports of poor fishing. So I called over to their counterparts in Vermont, got a hold of the biologist for southern Vermont, where the Mettawee, Batten Kill and Castleton River run,. Vermont doesn't stock the Mettawee or Batten Kill, and the Castleton is a wild brown trout stream. He made it clear he didn't have time to discuss the issue, he was too busy "writing." But he said he also hadn't heard any concerns. So there you go. I went to the Mettawee River on Friday night, Hendricksons and smaller bugs were popping all over, and I didn't see a single rise or have a hit as I fished for more than an hour. I did, however, see two fish-eating merganser ducks, which I have written about before and think are on the increase on our local streams, and their droppings were all over the streambanks. Between extremely low water last summer and fall, and more of these ducks, I think they have done a job on these rivers. It's been documented as an issue in western New York. Now I know many will be hesitant to admit there has been a perplexing downturn. Guides and biologists have jobs that are on the line. And streams regularly go through cycles based on weather and other conditions. Hopefully they will bounce back in a year or two. -- Don Lehman This is the latest in a series of posts about the 1916 presidential election between Democratic incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Republican challenger Charles Evans Hughes, a Glens Falls native. Suffrage leaders were among those attempting to meet with Republican presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes on June 13 as he was setting up his campaign headquarters at the Hotel Astor in New York City. Mrs. Laura B. Brick, chairman of the Womens Republican Committee of New York, had a two-minute meeting with him during which he said he probably would make known his view on suffrage in his formal speech of acceptance, The Post- Star reported on June 14, 1916. The report can be viewed in the microfilm collection at Crandall Public Library. Click here to view a previous post about a suffragette that campaigned for Hughes. Click here to read the most recent previous report in the series. Click here to read about Glens Falls celebrating Hughes' nomination. The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a private legal foundation, on Monday asked the federal Department of Defense to investigate whether Democratic congressional candidate Mike Derrick sufficiently included disclaimers in campaign literature, publicity and social media posts. "The rule is clear: retired military members may campaign for political office, but cannot use their military service in a manner that would indicate the Department of Defense approves or endorses their candidacy or political positions," Matthew Whitaker, executive director of the Washington-based organization wrote in a complaint. Drew Prestridge, campaign manager for Derrick, reiterated the campaign has complied with Department of Defense policy. "We have followed the DOD directive. We've clearly complied with it in all of our stuff," he said in a telephone interview on Monday. Derrick, a retired Army colonel from Peru, in Clinton County, is running in the 21st Congressional District against Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro, and Green Party candidate Matt Funiciello, a bread company owner and political activist from Hudson Falls. The Stefanik campaign released a copy of the complaint to The Post-Star on Monday. Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust said it based its complaint on an article on Wednesday in The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative-aligned on-line news site, that alleges the Derrick campaign had not sufficiently used disclaimers. The Free Beacon said, for example, that the Derrick for Congress Facebook page has a disclaimer in its "about" section, but not on each individual post. Prestridge said legal advisers to the campaign have concluded the campaign complies with Department of Defense policy in all of its publicity. "This organization (Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust) is politically motivated. ... They just want to attack Mike because he is a Democrat," Prestridge said. According to Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan education organization, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust primarily call for investigations of Democrats and rarely of Republicans. FORT EDWARD -- A Vermont woman is headed to state prison for cashing numerous stolen checks last year in Kingsbury. Eva M. Young, 56, of Rutland, Vermont, pleaded guilty Friday in Washington County Court to second-degree forgery, a felony. She admitted cashing a stolen check at the Hannaford store in Kingsbury. Police said young cashed numerous checks that had been stolen from their owner in Vermont at the local store. She will be required to make $828 in restitution after she serves a 1- to 3-year state prison term. Young was arrested last October after an investigation by the Washington County Sheriff's Office. QUEENSBURY Authorities are investigating the death Saturday of a weeks-old child at the babys home in Montcalm Apartments, and investigators believe the child likely suffocated in bed with his mother. No criminal charges were planned as of Monday in connection with the death of the 3-month-old boy, according to authorities. No trauma to the child was found during an autopsy over the weekend, and the cause of death had not been determined as of Monday, officials said. The investigation by State Police and the Warren County District Attorneys Office was ongoing as of Monday, however. The parents names are being withheld because no charges have been filed. The mother, who lives with her boyfriend and the couples other young child, had been breastfeeding the infant in bed and was believed to have fallen asleep with the child next to her, officials said. When she awoke at about 5 a.m., the child was not breathing and 911 was called. The father was not in the bed at the time. The babys maternal grandmother, who spoke to The Post-Star on condition her name not be published, said her daughter was devastated by the death, which she said was a tragic accident. She said it was not clear what happened, but her daughter loved the boy very much and he had been happy and smiling hours earlier. The baby was in perfect condition, she said. She fed him at 4 a.m. and he went to sleep and she woke up at 5 and he wasnt breathing. She said she spoke to the pathologist who performed the autopsy and was told there were no injuries to the child and no indication as to what, if anything, could have caused him to stop breathing. He was my birthday present. He was born on my birthday, the grandmother said. Its devastating. Montcalm Apartments resident Dan Beagle, who lives near the babys family, said he awoke Saturday at about 5 a.m. to the sound of people screaming nearby and saw the childs father crying outside the complex minutes later. Other residents saw the mother carrying the child before an ambulance arrived. State Police from the Queensbury station had cordoned off the apartment and had a trooper guarding it to preserve any potential evidence in the home through Sunday morning, with troopers leaving after the autopsy was performed Sunday at Albany Medical Center. On and off the day before, investigators in white Tyvek suits could be seen going through the home to collect and preserve potential evidence as part of the investigation. The childs cause of death and manner of death had not been determined by forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Sikirica, pending completion of laboratory reports. The child had a minor scrape to his head from falling out of a car seat earlier in the week, but the injury was not deemed to have played a part in his death, and police found no evidence it occurred through anything other than an accident, officials said. Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan said her office had no comment Monday on the ongoing investigation, pending final autopsy results. Post-Star intern Justin Trombly contributed to this report. FORT EDWARD Three former employees of the Washington County Department of Social Service have been charged in recent days for allegedly falsifying timecards while they worked for the agency, police said. The three were accused of exaggerating the hours they were at a training session earlier this year, which resulted in a loss of their jobs and the Washington County Sheriffs Office filing misdemeanor counts of falsifying business records, Washington County Sheriff Jeff Murphy said. The discrepancies were discovered before the women were paid for the falsely claimed hours, Murphy said. He said it appeared the falsification was a one-time situation. They were identified as Lecia B. Carpenter, 52, of Hudson Falls; Courtney M. Carlton, 32, of Hudson Falls; and Rhonda M. Irving, 47, of Hudson Falls. Each was issued court appearance tickets for Fort Edward Town Court and released. Sheriffs Senior Investigator Tony LeClaire said the three put in for three hours that they didnt work, indicating they were involved in training until 7 p.m. the night of a conference in central New York when records from the toll receipt that was submitted for reimbursement by one of the women showed otherwise. A staff member at the Department of Social Services spotted the time stamp on the toll receipt and noticed it did not jibe with the hours claimed, LeClaire said. The three worked in the public assistance benefits program of the Department of Social Services, LeClaire said. Carpenter, who was the longest-tenured employee, resigned, while Carlton and Irving were terminated as they had been with the department for less than a year and were on probation. Social Services Commissioner Tammy DeLorme said the three were attending a state-sponsored training session and stayed for the full training, but indicated it ran longer than it did. With the Department of Social Services holding benefits recipients to the letter of the law when they seek assistance, she said her agency had to do the same when its employees were accused of breaking the law. Our staff has to have a high level of integrity, she said. The case was forwarded to the Washington County District Attorneys Office for possible grand jury action and additional charges, police said. Felony counts of falsifying business records are possible when business records are falsified to conceal or further another crime. In this case, potential theft of money could be considered the subsequent crime. It could be felonies, but we sat down with the district attorney and decided this was the best way to handle it, LeClaire said. Washington County District Tony Jordan said his office will decide how to handle the charges after fully reviewing the file, but misdemeanors seemed appropriate at this stage of the case. QUEENSBURY Rachel Seeber, the regions lone Republican National Convention delegate pledged to Donald Trump, would not say Thursday whether she supports some of his key proposals, citing a lack of information, despite having backed his candidacy for months. When she did speak in specifics, the Queensbury at-large supervisor expressed concerns about remarks Trump has made and his challenges in the November general election. Asked whether she supports Trumps proposal to build a wall along the Mexico-United States border, Seeber would not comment either way. Perhaps, I dont know, its tough, she said. Its a very bold perspective and proposal, and Im interested in seeing how hed go about accomplishing it. Building the wall and forcing Mexico to pay for it has been central to Trumps bid for the White House, but Seeber said she would have to see more before deciding whether shes behind the idea. Asked about two other controversial policies Trump has called for banning Muslims from entering the U.S. and registering Muslim refugees in a federal database Seeber also said she hadnt heard enough about either to express support or opposition. She has been focused on local politics, she said. Seeber is considering a challenge to incumbent Democrat John Strough for Queensbury town supervisor in 2017. She is currently a second-term supervisor and Warren County representative to the state Republican Committee, She is looking forward to coming away from the convention with a better understanding of Trumps positions, she said. Trump sometimes lacks a filter and has not always treated people with dignity and respect, she said. She wishes he would take a different approach to addressing women and womens issues, although she has seen no evidence he has discriminated against women based on gender. She called unacceptable Trumps claims that the federal judge handling the lawsuit against Trump University is biased against Trump because of his Mexican heritage. Asked if she agreed with Speaker of the House Paul Ryans statement that Trumps references to the judge were racist, Seeber said she thought Trump was inappropriate and that his comments warranted an apology. Admitting when youre wrong is a tough lesson for anyone, she said. She said Trump will need to choose his words more carefully going forward. As a presidential candidate, what you say matters, she said. Seeber sees difficulties ahead for Trump in trying to unite Republicans and rally enough support to win the general election on Nov. 8. Once you are elected, you better find a way to represent everybody, and I think thats going to be a challenge for him, she said. A handful of Republicans on the national level have rescinded or withheld support for Trump or are considering doing so. Seeber said any such withdrawals would have no effect on her support. Seeber said she understands why people are hesitant about Trumps candidacy, but she believes his message resonates with citizens, especially in this region. He hits a chord with almost everyone, she said. In the April Republican primary in New York, Trump won more than 50 percent of the vote in the 21st Congressional District. Seeber and two other delegates will be representing the district at the convention in July. Trump says what many people are thinking, she said. She welcomes the perspective he brings from the business world into the political realm. She called Trump the American Dream, and said he is preferable to Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee. She also praised his reputation as a man above the fray and artifice of politics. Im tired of politicians spinning something to fit their agenda, she said. GLENS FALLS On Saturday, Mark Petrie, president of The Bridge, the local LGBT group based out of Glens Falls, marched in the pouring rain celebrating the Albany Gay Pride parade and letting everyone there know Glens Falls Pride would be in eight days. On Sunday, Petrie was fielding calls from many people in the local LGBT community, wanting to know about the plans for the local pride event in light of Sunday mornings mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left at least 50 people dead. It was the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Obviously, I have been getting a lot of phone calls all day, said Petrie, one of the leaders of The Bridge, that will be putting on the pride event on June 19, beginning with a Pride Stroll at 11:30 a.m. We are definitely going to increase security for the event. We are really hoping our whole community will come together for pride. We should be strong and stand together. John Anthime Miller, a local composer and musician, said he spent Sunday weeping, because thats what you need to do when something like this happens, before organizing an evening candlelight vigil at City Park. It is horrifying and sad, but in the end it is truly frightening, Miller said. Whats amazing in some ways is that its been almost exactly one year since the nine people were killed in Charleston, South Carolina, and now we have one with more than 50. This one is just so much closer to home. Anthimes vigil, which he first posted to Facebook at 2:30 p.m., drew 40 people to the gazebo in City Park, including Petrie. The solemn group stood with candles covered with Dixie cups and listened as Miller talked about his fears. I am shocked, distraught and, frankly, frightened, he said. I am afraid, Miller said. I am afraid the next victim could be you or me, Jenny Streeter of Hudson Falls attended the vigil and earlier in the day had called for unity. Its really sad, Street said. We must unite as one, especially with pride next week. We must stand with Orlando. Streeter said she grew more upset each time she read more news out of Orlando. With every update on Orlando, my heart breaks a little more. Why? Why did somebody think this was okay? Why did they think killing over 50 people would make their life better? How do we come back from this? How are we not going to be afraid to walk the streets? she asked. This happened in a gay nightclub. That is our safe haven, and it was taken. We, as a community of LGBTQ individuals, must stand together and unite as a solid front, Streeter added. Hug your loved ones a little tighter today because you never know. On March 31, 2015, with great fanfare, state leaders emerged from behind closed doors with a budget bill and a plan for a constitutional amendment that would no longer allow convicted politicians and public workers to receive hefty pensions. Fourteen months later, and with the Legislature scheduled to recess on Thursday, fed-up state residents and sponsors of the bill are wondering why its still up in the air. This should be such a no-brainer, said Assemblyman Dan Stec, R-Queensbury, who originally sponsored a reform bill in 2013. It costs us nothing and, if anything, it saves us money and its wildly popular with the public. And what some residents may not know, Stec said, is if this Legislature doesnt approve it, reform cant happen until at least 2018 because constitutional amendments must be approved by two different legislatures. If it passes this week, the newly elected Legislature in 2017 can pass it as well and reform can be on the books by 2018, he said. If it doesnt, it could be shelved until 2019, he said. Stec said hell know more about the fate of the effort when legislators return to Albany on Tuesday, but on Monday he pegged the chances at about 50-50. But Sen. Elizabeth Little, R-Queensbury, is a little more optimistic. Reached Monday before she headed to Albany for meetings, Little said shes 98 percent sure a pension reform bill will happen this week. We have 32 members in our conference and no one is against it, Little said. She said a deal was done a year ago when the budget passed, but then the Assembly passed a different bill than the one that was agreed upon, and 14 months later the issue is still out there. We get blamed for it, but it was the Assembly, she said. Some members of the Assembly felt the Senate bill was too far-reaching and shouldnt include all public workers. The Assembly has since produced other bills that would exclude the bus driver from losing his pension for stealing from petty cash, Stec said. Stec said that although he and probably most state residents are fine with pulling pensions from any public workers convicted of crimes, hes fine with passing even a watered-down bill. Anything is better than nothing, he said. But he also stressed that the amendment simply sets the framework for legislation, and that future legislators can craft the language of pension reform and that judges are the final arbitrators. Although the state does have a law on the books from 2011 allowing judges to strip pensions from convicted legislators, it doesnt impact lawmakers in office before the law passed. The new bill would impact all current officials, Little and Stec said. With recent convictions on corruption charges by high-ranking state leaders Dean Skelos and Sheldon Silver, state residents seem eager for reform. A recent Siena College poll found 89 percent of New Yorkers feel the state suffers from a serious corruption problem. John Novak, a Travelers Insurance worker on lunch break Monday in Glens Falls, said hes all for stripping pension of corrupt politicians. And I hope theyre not getting pensions while theyre in prison, the Ballston Spa resident said. But Novak, and others like Samanthas Cafe co-owner Liz Wilcox, said they might have a little more sympathy for pensions of non-elected government workers. Novak and Wilcox both said they might be OK with allowing public workers to retain pensions if convicted of crimes unrelated to their work. Wilcox was less generous when talking about elected officials, though. If youre elected to office to serve me and are convicted of a crime while Im paying your salary, I shouldnt have to pay a big pension (down the road), Wilcox said. But Glens Falls resident Bill Kerr said he feels politicians should be treated like others. Do we forfeit our pension if were caught? Do law enforcement officials? I dont believe we do, he said. I dont think they should be treated differently. Bike rallies should try to get along Boos to Americade spokesman Ed Linville for calling the neighboring Warrensburg Motorcycle Rally a parasite. Everyone knows that Americade was here first, and the fact that there is a neighboring rally up the road probably enhances the value of the week-long experience for both of them. There is a reason that competing car dealers congregate next to each other all along Quaker Road it is good for business. Americade organizers need to accept there is another rally nearby without the name-calling. Climate change event being held for 2nd year Bravos to SUNY Plattsburgh professor Stephen Danna and organizers at SUNY Plattsburgh at Queensbury and Green Mountain College for organizing a second conference on climate change. Organizers say they hope residents will do more than just talk about climate change, but get involved to do something about it. The event will be held on June 17 and include feature speakers, breakout sessions and music. To register for the event, go to northcountryclimate.org or call 792-5425. Union should consider giving up plan Boos to the village of South Glens Falls CSEA workers for refusing to give up a prescription drug plan they currently cant use even though it is costing their employer $221 a day. The village is facing some difficult financial issues, and while we understand unions are supposed to negotiate the best deal possible, in this case, some common sense concessions might save union jobs down the road. EMS consortium is a good idea Bravos to Warren County leaders for looking into new ways to provide emergency medical service around the county. They hope to develop a consortium of rescue squads to help deal with staffing problems that have led to critical response delays. With volunteerism on the wane, this project should be a priority. Local family makes important donation Bravos to Jim Himoff and his family for donating the former Suzie Qs Restaurant to the Family YMCA of Glens Falls so the organization can expand its presence into northern Warren County. The YMCA plans to turn the building in Horicon into Adirondack Outreach Center with its first initiative being a summer literacy program for children. Village needs to set agenda deadline Bravos to village of South Glens Falls residents for demanding an agenda for the village meeting earlier so they can do research. That type of attitude is the foundation for good citizenry. And while the village has been proactive in trying to include as many topics of interest as the public wants, we do live in a world of deadlines. The village should make it clear to all residents that the deadline for submitting topics for the agenda is noon the day before the meeting and then make it available by 3:30 p.m. the night before. Board of education fails to finish its business Boos to the Lake George Board of Education for failing to move forward with its policy to protect the rights of transgender students. We have applauded Lake George for being a leader on this issue, but this past week, the board decided not to move the forward with the policy, but to leave that decision to the members of the new board because the issue has been controversial nationally. That was irresponsible. The current board is the one that crafted the policy and vetted it with the community. They will be leaving office having shirked their responsibility to complete the task. Post-Star editorials represent the opinion of The Post-Star editorial board, which consists of Publisher Terry Coomes, Controller/Operations Director Brian Corcoran, Editor Ken Tingley, Projects Editor Will Doolittle and citizen representative Tom Portuese The market is there, the consumers in Europe are interested in buying Ghanaian product but you have to get the quality right, he said. And I referred to one of the problems we have had over the last year that there are few vegetables, not all, just a few vegetables were not meeting the right quality of standards. The ban was imposed after some vegetables could not meet the quality of standards for the European market. The vegetables were reportedly worm infested. He revealed that since the ban was imposed, the EU has been working with local farmers to improve the quality of their product through its trade related assistance and quality enabling programme. Ambassador Hanna said the good news is that we are working together to try and ensure that they [farmers] do meet the standards. The [trade related assistance and quality enabling programme] project is giving assistance to Ghanaian producers to know what the standards are and to be able to meet them.' He said he was hopeful that the assistance project will assist the producers to enable the ban to be removed. The ban has affected foreign exchange inflow, income of vegetable farmers and small farm holders, Alhaji Limuna, Minister of Agriculture has said. The ban on pepper, aubergines and gourd followed an advice by the Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) of the EU. In an audit report, FVO said Ghana stands the risk of a ban from the European Commission as a result of improper documentation for exports and presence of pest on produce. Fiifi Kwetey, former minister of agriculture, now minister of transport, upheld the temporary ban to streamline activities of the vegetable exporters and to make them adhere to the world standards. In May, Limuna commissioned an export inspection facilities at the Aviance Cargo Village in Accra. The facilities are to ensure that vegetables from Ghana met international standards before they are exported to international markets especially to the EU. Stakeholders in the fishing industry have been concerned in the past days after the Minister of Fisheries and Aqua Culture Development, Sherrie Ayittey revealed that the country loses 10 million dollars to illegal fishing, specifically trans-shipment fishing annually. This has prompted fears that the European Commission may place a ban on the country again. According to the Director in-Charge of the Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Division, Godfrey Baidoo, there is the need for government to strictly enforce the fisheries laws. It is important for us to enforce the countrys fisheries laws. It is important that we do this, otherwise we may be blacklisted again. Mr. Godfrey Baidoo, however conceded that his outfit needs logistical support to properly enforce the laws. Caroline Otoo, BoG Secretary, noted in statement that With effect from July 1, 2016 the portion of foreign exchange receipts from the export of minerals and cocoa (other than the proceeds of the cocoa syndicated loan) that was subject to surrender would no longer have to be surrendered to the Bank of Ghana. Exporters would be required from the above-mentioned date to sell the surrender portion of their exports receipts directly to the (commercial) banks. The BoG statement added that all exporters, except exporters who operate in accordance with Retention Agreements and who have been permitted to operate accounts offshore, would be required to repatriate in full all their export receipts to banks in Ghana, for the credit of their foreign exchange accounts (FEA) or to be converted into cedis on need basis. In a separate statement on its website, BoG spelt out additional rules on repatriation of export proceeds. The new rules are to establish the requirements and procedures that govern the repatriation of export proceeds. The statement said, The purpose of these Rules is to establish the requirements and procedures that govern the repatriation of export proceeds. All exporters of goods and services, except exporters with retention agreements as stipulated in paragraph 3, are obligated to repatriate to Ghana all export proceeds on receipt. Exporters who operate in accordance with retention agreements and who have been permitted to operate accounts offshore are allowed, until further notice, to retain in their offshore accounts the portion of export proceeds as provided for under the retention agreements [paragraph 3]. Exporters shall ensure repatriation of export proceeds in accordance with the terms of export, provided that all export proceeds shall be received and repatriated immediately within a period not exceeding 60 days from the day of shipment of goods. Export proceeds shall be repatriated through an external bank to exporters Foreign Exchange Account (FEA) opened with a local bank (hereinafter called the exporter`s bank) which endorsed the export documents. An exporter who has several FEAs in different local banks shall ensure that proceeds are repatriated to the FEA at the bank which endorsed the export documents. The statement added that the exporter's bank shall be responsible for monitoring export proceeds repatriated to the exporter's FEA based on the information provided by the exporter. Export proceeds subject to surrender requirement shall be allowed to be sold by the exporter to any local bank, regardless of where export proceeds are repatriated. The prescribed period during which the above proceeds have to be surrendered is 3 working days from the date when export proceeds are repatriated, according to the statement. ECG inefficiencies are more than not just collecting and tampering and colludingIts a management issue, Awotwi said TV3s Hot Issue on Saturday. He however hastened to add that if we dont have the right incentives on top of ECG, we will struggle. The former Volta River Authority Chief Executive noted that the incentives for revenue collectors of ECG and Northern Electricity Development Company to collude with the public are very high. He added: I think that for me, its a shame when I read in the paper that the President or the minister is worrying about metres. That should be somebody elses job. This is where I think a private sector system is better placed with the incentives to get them to work. He furthered his comments on ECGs managerial challenges, saying better systems, incentives and sanctions must be put in place to achieve efficiency. I am a Christian and as part of my duties, I believe Im to spread the gospel and the best way I can is by using my talent, which is comedy, aside the normal preaching. Basically, it is to launch a ministry as well as raise funds for the less privilege in the society, Foster Romanus has said. According to the comedian, his ministry will look beyond donations and focus on how to solve pressing issues which will be in the interest of societies. We are looking at providing lasting solutions for people. In a region where you have a number of homeless people, we can put up a building in a village which can house as many people as it can so they get shelter. If people are brilliant but needy, you pay their fees for a certain period you can. We are looking outside Accra because there are a lot of people concentrating on Accra but many people outside Accra also need support, he intimated. Foster Romanus mentioned that there will be series of shows after the launch to continue raising funds. These comedy shows, according to him, will have its content from the Bible as he seeks to bring humour from the good books. We will tour churches with Jesus Laughs Too. We hope to put it on a national stage as well. This one, weve named Genesis. We are bringing out fun from the book of Genesis. We will do it till we exhaust the Bible, he noted. I am not going to go as far as to say there is an anti-Chinese bias, though, because I think that would actually give these news organizations too much credit. When people use the word bias, theres an implication that there is an informed agenda of some kind that is being acted upon. The reality is far more depressing. Mediocrity is the culprit here more than any premeditated bias. Ive spent over twenty years working in many of those Western news companies you refer to, including CNN, the Associated Press, Radio France International and FRANCE 24 among others. The vast majority of these news organizations are staffed with journalists, many of who are young and inexperienced, who know a little a bit everything and nothing about anything. They operate in an editorial culture that retains deeply embedded narratives about both China and Africa. These narratives are often the same tired old stereotypes that are unfortunately quite powerful in shaping the worldview of these journalists. So when a story as complex as Chinas engagement in Africa arises, they simply lack the necessary intellectual depth to report the nuance that is so essential. In turn, these journalists then fall back on those outdated caricatures that youve highlighted: Africans are portrayed as the victims of the new neocolonial invaders, while the Chinese are depicted as the villainous aggressors who are there to rape the continent of its resources. The level of ignorance is shocking. Let me give you a couple of examples of how this plays out: when I worked as a producer at Radio France International in Paris, a network incidentally that prides itself on its Africa coverage, I regularly pitched stories to the Africa desk about a Chinese news item on the continent. The reaction from the editors was always immediate and definitive: thats not a story, editor would declare when I suggested that we cover Beijings then recently-announced decision to remove import tariffs on hundreds of African agricultural products, we know what the Chinese are doing, theyre just there to colonize Africa! What was so interesting about his response is that he said it with so much confidence that there was no room for discussion. His mind was made up. Over and over again, that was the kind of reception any China-Africa pitch received from the editorial management at the network during the time that I worked there. News outlets in the United States are often no better. In many instances, their coverage is also threaded with a subtle racial subtext where they will showcase the white NGO worker or wildlife activist doing their best to protect the vulnerable African incapable of protecting themselves from the Chinese like this report by CNNs Arwa Damon from the Republic of Congo. The White Savior Complex is a well-documented phenomenon that remains regrettably common when covering Africa, particularly when it involves the Chinese. More than anything else though, I contend that poorly-trained, inexperienced Western journalists present the biggest problem. Covering the Chinese in Africa is not a story where a reporter can be dropped in for a week, talk to 2-3 NGO personnel, interview a local activist or two and then bounce. Because the Chinese are averse to speaking with the press, it requires sophisticated language skills, an understanding of the culture and time, lots and lots of time, to build the necessary relationships so that Chinese sources will gain the reporters trust. In the new world of low-cost foreign reporting, none of that is possible. So what happens is that a one-sided narrative is conveyed like that on the recent Vice on HBO report (season 4 episode 10) from the DR Congo by Isobel Yeung that not only failed to articulate the Chinese side of the story but when the Chinese were referenced it was under an ominous-sounding music bed that conveyed suspicion and trickery. While its clear that Western news reporting on the Chinese in Africa generally sucks, the Chinese also bear some responsibility here. The Chinese resistance to engaging the news media and the need to control the message does them a terrible disservice. Embassies, companies, activists, scholars, none of them are comfortable speaking with the international press for fear of saying something that could be misconstrued. So while the Chinese shun the press, a dangerous vacuum is created that allows for those anti-Chinese stereotypes to be published and broadcast unchallenged. While this kind of reporting is pervasive throughout much of the industry, it would not be accurate to suggest that all Western journalists covering the China-Africa story are mediocre. Journalists like former New York Times correspondent Howard French, Quartzs Nairobi-based reporter Lily Kuo, Canadas Globe & Mail Johannesburg correspondent Geoffrey York and the Financial Times Tom Burgis are among a number of Western reporters who do an excellent job reporting on the Chinese in Africa. Unfortunately, from my experience and observation, they represent a very small minority. Eric Mahama tweeted "To all BECE Candidates, you're on my mind and in my heart. I pray for God's Blessings & Success for you all." A total of 461,013 candidates from 14,267 public and private junior high schools are expected to participate in the examination at 1,598 examination centres across the country. The examination which begins today Monday, June 13 will last till Friday, June 17, 2016. The candidates; 239,963 males and 221,050 females, would write the examination to be supervised by 15,695 invigilators, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has indicated. Meanwhile, UT Bank president, Prince Kofi Amoabeng and the US Embassy Ghana have encouraged the BECE candidates to make Ghana proud. Amoabeng tweeted "To all BECE candidates, good luck and make us proud." This followed complaints from Customers who use the post-paid meters that they are being overcharged after the new tariff implementation. But in a statement, the ECG said it has taken note of the various complaints from customers and stakeholders regarding meters and billing. The statement added that the ECG with support from the World Bank under the Ghana Energy Development and Access Project (GEDAP), introduced a new billing system, Commercial Management System (CMS) to improve the billing system. Since its inception in May 2015, a total of 8.5 million bills have been produced. Out of this total, some billing anomalies of 7, 823 representing 0.09% error have been identified. So far, 4,050 of anomaly bills representing 0.05% of the bills produced are yet to be resolved, the statement explained. He will do this at a ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection. Already, according to the ministry over a million Ghanaians have benefited from the various interventions under this policy. 146,074 households in 185 districts, as at January 2016, are benefiting from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP). A new category of extremely poor pregnant women and children under one year (7,000 in all), has been implemented and ongoing in the Upper East and Northern region under the LEAP 1000 initiative funded by USAID through UNICEF. 13,015 elderly women and men have already been registered for the Eban Welfare Card which entitles them to 50% rebate on bus fare on the Metro Mass Transit Bus to any destination in Ghana. With the Eban Welfare Card, these registered elderly persons are expected to receive priority access for service at the Banks, Hospitals and other public services. To ensure access to healthcare for the poor under the social protection mandate of the Ministry about 1.3 million poor and vulnerable Ghanaians including the elderly, prisoners and kayaye have received free National Health insurance cards nationwide. The School Feeding Program is currently providing one hot and adequately nutritious meal to 1,728,681 pupils in over 5,000 schools. A total of about 1,915, 590 pairs of school uniforms have been distributed to school pupils all over the country. Also 102,074,160 exercise books have been distributed to all basic public schools. All these social protection interventions need a policy to streamline it. The president rode through several neighbourhoods in the capital on a motorbike without being accompanied by his usual convoy. Presidential Staffer, James Agyenim Boateng had explained that the move was for the President to check the impact of recent rains in Accra. This appears to be the first time a sitting Ghanaian president is engaging in such a move, with some sections of the Ghanaian public describing it as a PR technique. But speaking to Pulse.com.gh, the National youth organiser of the NPP, Sammy Awuku explained that if it was a PR tactic, then whoever advised him is a poor adviser that must be kicked out. There was a bike riding in Accra yesterday. What happened to the state of our cedi after yesterday; what has happened to our Odawna; what has happened to River circle, all of it got resolved after the flooding,? Mr Awuku asked. According to him, the president is totally detached from the realities on the ground, as it looks like the only way he thinks he can get back and connect to the people is by riding on a bike on a rainy day. Sammy Awuku believed that In times like this you show compassion; people have died, people have lost their livelihoods. Now the sound of a rainfall or seeing the rains sends nightmare experiences. What can a leader do to assuade the fears of people in times like this? Mr Awuku asked. It is commonplace to hear reports about presidents in the West engaging in such publicity stunts. In 2009, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin was photographed riding a horse bare-chested, enjoying a back-to-basics camping holiday in Siberia. But Mr Awuku believes Ghanas president should not follow such examples as the countrys living conditions are far different from those of the West. 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! The luxury shoe brand who launched their $50 nail lacquer, $90 lipstick a while back is set to roll out a collection of full coverage lip lacquer in less than a month. Famed shoe designer Christian Louboutin is slowly but surely expanding into beauty. First, there was $50 nail polish, then $90 lipstick, and the brand just announced that an $85 high-shine, full-coverage lip lacquer is coming in July. Set to revolutionize lip gloss, the brand released a statement revealing the Christian Louboutin Loubilaque presented in eight different shades won't be sticky like common glosses and will be pigmented with both colour and shine. The lip lacquer will feature hues from nudes to the patented fiery 'Rouge Louboutin'. The new line is described as an "objet d'art" and not just any other lip lacquer with the intricate bottle carved in a mermaid tail pattern with a glamorous pine cone packaged in a jewelry box. The 'Loubilaque' bottle just like the other beauty products from the luxury brand can also be worn as a neckpiece! Double the product for the price, no? Whats not to love? "Am so hurt. This very sentimental piece was taken or should I say stolen from my home, No I wasn't burgled. A person That visited me stole it and that's why it grieves my heart. It can't be sold to a proper jeweller cause it has security Mark but I suspect it could have been locally sold here in d UK or to some innocent person in Nigeria or may have even been pawned for cash. I pray that someone who has seen it somehow contacts me. it's a limited edition & not common. Plssssss. Thank U". 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! 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! Ike was arrested at the Kilimajaro International Airport on May 11, 2013, and during a search, 7kgs of heroin was found on him with a street value of over Sh300 million. The presiding Judge, Benedict Mingwa, in delivering his sentence, ruled that the evidence by the prosecution against Ike was beyond reasonable doubt. The evidence produced by the prosecution, along with the testimony provided during this case clearly shows that the accused person committed the offence, Judge Mingwa said. According to Jimeta, the young man, Kabiru Ahmed, was almost beaten to death by men of the police force of Adamawa State Police Command, Yola, because he demanded to know what he and other young men they arrested in his area, did. The battered Kabiru Ahmed Photo Credit: Facebook Jimeta, on his posts, asked pertinent questions under the hashtag, #JusticForKabiru: "Over the years, men of Nigerian Police Force have created bad Image as the Violators of Fundamental human right. According to a reliable Source, Kabirus Crime was demanding an explanation on the reason of an arrest about to be launched in his area, only to become the victim. The primary suspects were left and Kabiru was bundled into the police vehicle and conveyed to Double Station here in Jimeta. There, the policemen attached to the station, brutalized the innocent Kabiru to a coma and left him with no medical attention. His family were later in the night called (after denying access to him severally), to report to the station and evacuate their sons lifeless body. Presently, the perpetrators of this dastardly act have continued their usual daily business while the lifeless body of Kabiru lays in FMC, Yola, helplessly hanging between Close to a month now, Kabiru still remains in a deadly coma and there was no single effort either from the perpetrators, their DPO or the state Police Commissioner to show their remorse on this unholy act. The battered Kabiru Ahmed on life support Photo Credit: Facebook Personally, I feel more than sympathy for this innocent young man; in fact, I feel deep empathy for Kabiru not just for his familys financial incapacitation, but for the saddest part of the whole story that Kabiru is presently on the verge of losing his spinal cord. Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Rajiun. "For these and the basic fact that tomorrow might be me or you, we demand Justice for Kabiru. 1- We call on the well to do in our society to come to the aid of Kabiru by supporting his family so as to have better medical attention elsewhere. 2- We insist that the IG and CP must take full responsibility and do everything possible to ensure the recuperation of Kabiru. 3- We further insist that the perpetrators must face the full wrath of the law so as to serve as a deterrent for their likes and ensure Justice prevails. We call on all stakeholders #Media, #Humanrightactivists, to join us in this. Police is not above the law. Nwachukwu, a father of four, who was paraded at the State Police Headquarters in Minna alongside a 22-year-old man, Chinedu Andrew, also raped the girl, confessed to the police that though he did not know that he was HIV positive when he slept with the minor, he did not rape her but made love to her, as she was the one who seduced him. I have tested positive to HIV/AIDS, but before the test was conducted, I did not know I had the virus. I didnt rape the girl, I made love with her. She told me she was about 15 years old one afternoon in November 2015, she came to my residence when I lay on my bed. She climbed the bed and was touching me. I asked what her problem was because I saw her as a young girl, but she responded that I would not understand. She kept on playing with me and when I could no longer hold myself, I made love to her. When I realised that she was wayward, I started telling her that I was going to report her to her mother but she responded that she was going to tell her mother that I was the one that had been making love to her. On his part, the second suspect, Andrew, claimed the girl was his girlfriend and that when he asked her about her love affair with Nwachuwku, she told him the man had been disturbing her for sex and that she did not love the older man. I did not rape the girl. She is my girlfriend and we have been making love for a while. When I asked her about her relationship with oga Emma, she replied that it was the man that was pestering her for sex. She began by starting to touch me in some sensitive parts of my body, after which I stripped my clothes and made love to her. It was Oga Emma who went and informed her mother that I was sleeping with her daughter. The case was reported to the the police and I was arrested. I felt I had not done anything to warrant being arrested because I felt I was innocent as the girl voluntarily agreed that I should be her boyfriend. I also told the police that I was not the only one sleeping with the girl and mentioned Oga Emmas name. Meme, a 22-year-old Delta State indigene, and another man, were nabbed on Saturday, June, 11, after allegedly robbed the couple and the occupant of another car in traffic at the Marine Bridge, Ijora area of the state, leaving the couple hospitalized after the attack. The suspect, a metal scrap collector who was released just in April, in his confessional statement to the police after his arrest, said they were six in the gang, adding that four of the members had, at one time, served different jail terms at the Kirikiri Prisons where they met. We are six in my gang. Four of us were in Kirikiri Prisons and they are Gbenga, Imele, Tontolo and Lateef. I just came back from Kirikiri, where I spent three months. We rob any vehicle where the occupants are busy with phones. We start our operation around 8pm. My plan that night was to operate alone. As I was planning to strike, I ran into my friend, Wasiu, who taught me how to rob. We decided to rob cars together that night. At that time, there was traffic jam, which had extended to the Marine Bridge. During the operation, we opted for a Toyota SUV. The occupants were whites, and I guessed they were husband and wife. Wasiu and I positioned on each side of the car and we broke the two rear glasses. I collected the mans phone, while Wasiu took his wifes phone and purse containing N60,000. The lady pleaded for her drug from the purse and I asked my colleague to give it to her; then we left for another car. The next car in front was a Toyota Corolla, with a lone occupant. We broke the two side glasses too but the lady insisted she had no phone but we collected her bag and jewellery. Wasiu taught me how to rob in traffic and I have mastered the act. I operate alone. Occasionally, when I run into like minds, we robbed whenever there is traffic in Marine Bridge. We sleep under Ijora Bridge and we are many there." The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Dolapo Badmos, confirmed the incident. The Niger State Governor, Abubakar Bello also called on the ex President to continue playing his fatherly role in the nation. A statement issued by the Niger Governor reads: You are a compatriot of immeasurable value, a man whose words are his honour. Though your reign was brief, Nigeria and Nigerians are the beneficiaries of the democratic foundation you laid. Your singular bravery act saw to the enthronement of democracy and the re-positioning of Nigeria in the comity of nations. A committed and loyal officer, your towering credentials in the military saw you to the height of your career when in 1998, destiny placed the leadership of this country on you. A responsibility you delivered creditably well to the admiration of the international community. Even out of office, your track records as a lover and agent of peace saw to your appointment as Ambassador of Peace by the international community. Your strong conviction in peaceful resolution of conflicts has brought peace to Liberia, Niger Republic and Guinea where you have been called upon to mediate. Government and the good people of Niger State are proud of you. We celebrate our icon today and always, as he marks his 74th birthday and pray that Allah (SWT) will continue to preserve his life in good health as he continue to serve Allah his creator and mankind. Abdulsalami Abubakar was military President of Nigeria from June 9, 1998 to May 29, 1999. He handed over power to Olusegun Obasanjo on May 29, 1999. The Governor said I am appealing to them to imbibe the culture of dialogue. We want them to come because we are not quarrelling with labour; we have no dispute that might warrant labour leaders to direct workers to embark on strike. We dont have a problem with them, except for some that are being politically motivated. It is just a few who are using politics and are being influenced by failed politicians who wants to get through the backdoor what they failed woefully to get from the ballot box. We are appealing to them to come and dialogue with us. It is the major ingredient of democracy. Consultation, participation, the rule of law and peace that is all we want. But anybody who breaks the law will be prosecuted. We may be forced to apply for the no work no pay from Tuesday if they ignore my appeal. Ajimobi also called on the workers to call off the strike, adding that labour had no prior dispute with the government. He also said I am not happy with the situation we found ourselves, even though other states in the country, except Lagos and probably one other, are going through similar challenges of delay in payment of salaries and pensions. It is disheartening. I feel for them because I cant imagine somebody working and not being paid. I also empathise with our senior citizens over the pension arrears. We will overcome these challenges because we are working hard to shore up our revenue base. We are plugging the loopholes and leakages at our revenue collection centres because there is a lot of stealing going on. We are also increasing our tax net. And this is an opportunity for me to remind property owners to get prepared for the payment of tenement rate. For the sake of emphasis, the situation with pensioners was brought about by the stealing of over N6bn meant for them. We are prosecuting the culprits now. But we wont say because of that we are not going to pay them. Im optimistic that things will get better in the next few months. The Oyo state government has ordered the immediate closure of primary and secondary schools in the state, following allegations that labour leaders are planning to ask students to disrupt school activities and destroy properties. Ambode, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Mr Tunji Bello, made the assertion at the 23rd anniversary of the annulment of June 12, 1993 Presidential Elections. The programme was organised by the states Office of Civic Engagement under the Deputy Governors Office with the theme: ``Democracy and Inclusiveness -- Basis for Good Governance. ``We still have a long way to go in our country today and that is because we are not practicing true federalism. And for us to achieve that, we need to work really hard. ``We must ensure that we install a viable federalism in Nigeria, that is the only way to build and enjoy our democracy as well as honour the memory of late MKO Abiola, he said. Also speaking, retired Rear Adm. Ndubuisi Kanu, a former Military Governor of Lagos State, said that the practice of true federalism was the solution to the challenges facing the country. ``Whatever is happening now in the country either militancy, IPOD or others will not stop until we go back to the Nigeria that we are expected to build; a federal Nigeria. ``We should brace up and be prepared. Prayers alone will not solve the problem. We have to get back to a federal Nigeria, Kanu said. In his contribution, Mr Ayo Opadokun, Convener of the Coalition of Democrats for Electoral Reforms, said that restructuring was the solution to countrys challenges. ``After 23 years, those who denied Nigerians the opportunity of true democracy are still living and are in government positions. ``But it is sad to note that they have not done anything to correct the mistakes from the lessons of June 12. ``June 12 will continue to be relevant until Nigerians are given the opportunity to decide their fate in the country and that is when Democracy would have been enthroned, he said. Opadokun urged President Mohammadu Buhari to direct the Independent Electoral Commission to announce Abiola as the winner of June 12, 1993 election as well include his name in the names of past presidents of Nigeria. In his lecture, Prof. Olumuyiwa Noah, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, urged elders in the country to narrate the story of June 12 to the younger generation to curb electoral malpractices. ``We owe it a duty to tell the story of June 12 to our young ones who are ignorant of what transpired so that they are aware and in future elections malpractices will be curbed, he said. In his remarks, Mr Kehinde Joseph, Special Adviser to Gov. Ambode on Civic Engagement, said that the anniversary was to keep the essence and lessons of democratic experience alive. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the former Military President retired Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, on June 23, 1993 annulled the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Speaking at the weekend, the cleric stated that "Biafra is dead and buried" adding that the Igbos should seek relevance and not creation of a nation. The Igbo cannot even rule themselves, they should go and sit down. There is , , you can see that they are already having division. You have not been able to rule yourselves and you want to rule a nation, its not possible. They should forget this agenda and seek relevance and not creation of a nation. Its now a mind-set. Its not achievable because the real people who would have fought for Biafra are no longer in existence," he said. Speaking on the attacks by Fulani herdsmen on communities in the country, Apostle Suleman noted that the sponsors will soon be exposed. There is nothing like Fulani herdsmen, its all fake. Those behind it will soon be exposed. In the first place, who armed them? AK-47 look at , its not yet over. What they want to achieve is to put the nation under siege, place Nigeria under the Northern fear. There are people behind them. Now, people were killed in Enugu, Aba, who was prosecuted? When the president was told, he said we shouldn't worry that in 15 months, all these will be over. So the Northerners are free to kill and kill till then? That was the response of a leader. The NDLEA Commandant in the state, Mr Ishaku Kwajafa, made the disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jalingo on Sunday. Kwajafa said the items included 144.012 kg of cannabis and 539.656 kg Psychotropic (Tramadol). He said the command was working round the clock to ensure that the state was free from social vices, adding that 89 people were being prosecuted in various courts over the substances. He identified Wukari, Gassol, Bali and Jalingo Local Governments as the major areas that recorded the highest concentration in illicit drugs sales. Kwajafa said that the substances were suspected to be consumed by members of the dreaded Boko Haram. He recalled that some of the substances were intercepted by the command in February, 2016. The commandant commended the state government for donating a Toyota Hilux van to the agency, this he added, had drastically improve their operations. The Federal Government had signed a tripartite agreement with the United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) and Cameroun for the return of thousands of Nigerian refugees currently taking refuge in that country. Commissioner for Political Affairs and Head of the AU Humanitarian Mission, Dr Aisha Laraba Abdullahi, who visited the Yola IDP camp in Adamawa State over the weekend, was quoted as expressing delight at governments handling of IDPs. The report does not represent the true situation of IDPs in northeast Nigeria. Reports reached us that only yesterday (Saturday) the IDP camp in Biu was flooded by rains. IDPs at Teachers Village, Maiduguri, have died of starvation. Our compatriots from Damasak, who are refugees in Niger are in a horrible condition," spokesman of the #BBOG, Sesugh Akume said. Aliyu made the call on Sunday in Abuja in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the Al-Habibiyyah Islamic Society 2016 national unity Ramadan lecture titled ``Ramadan: Modelling Change. ''For many years we have been talking about the diversification of our economy but we kept on relying on oil. ''Now that oil prices have collapsed and hardship have come, and we need to diversify now; we need to have key economy issues discussed, agreed and implemented fast. ''Let us not leave people in the darkness of thinking that this government caused this, that government caused that, No. ''I think we should look at it that we made a mistake for many years by relying on a mono-economy and mono-culture of oil and this is the time to really diversify, Aliyu said. He called on Muslims to use the Ramadan period to pray for the nation, help the needy and change positively towards nation building. Earlier, the Chief Imam of Al-Habibiyyah Mosque, Imam Fuad Adeyemi, said that the annual lecture was part of Islamic Societys contribution to national development and spiritual awakening of Muslims in the country. He said that the current economic situation in the country had led to difficulty in carrying out the societys annual feeding programme (food bank) for indigent Muslims during Ramadan. ''Our food bank programme that usually feeds about 2,000 fasting Muslims with three course meals everyday during this month has also been negatively affected by the situation in the country, he said. He said Nigerians chose Buhari and not God. Let me tell you this, at times, God can allow you choose what you want. Your child screams I want ice cream; out of pressure, you may give him. You may have even warned him that it will cause diabetes but he wont listen. The outspoken man of God also said God is not happy with Buhari. He also described the President as the sugar that has caused diabetes for the nation. Suleman said Is it that when people were stealing money things were good and now we are recovering and things are bad? I dont understand the irony of the whole thing. I can say it again, there is no hope in this government except on God. I heard the Minister of Labour and productivity, Chris Ngige said that Nigerians should be patient for the future, can I ask? Is it a man who is dying of hunger, starving that will see the future? Adding that By the end of the year, by the grace of God, God will be speaking to us concerning the New Year and if there is going to be change, we shall let you know. But like I said, the immediate problems are what we are handling now, and we need to pray because when we talk about austerity, poverty and those travelling for business meetings in China and the rest of them, can I shock you? They will disappoint him. It would have been better he looks at the challenges of Nigerians, and use the money being wasted to solve them. The truth is this; God will not forgive the present leadership because Nigerians trusted them. Nigerians hoped on them and there is nothing as painful as hope dashed. He also said In the time of Goodluck Jonathan, nobody abused him because they didnt have hope in him, but today, people look at Buhari and they shake their head because they dont even know what to say to him. Recently, I learnt that even the Northerners, his own people dont want to hear anyone mention his name around them. I see his ministers resigning, and this will be as a result of frustration. You will recall that Apostle Johnson Suleiman placed a curse on Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state, because of the controversial religious censorship bill. The idea was conceived by Alhaji Aliko Dangote after he visited the IDPs camps in Maiduguri and was touched by their situation. Yousif also said We are expecting the remaining consignment in Maiduguri as soon as possible. After the official flag-off, the remaining items will be distributed to the IDPs by a team comprising members of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), and other emergency agencies to ensure that only those in need are given. She also revealed that the food items comprise of 50 kg bag of rice, a carton of noodles, a packet of sugar. seasoning and salt. He gave the advice while inaugurating the Mass Meter Deployment programme in Kano on Monday. The minister said such patronage was necessary to encourage the production of meters by the local manufacturing companies in the country and save foreign exchange. Fashola noted that the inauguration of the scheme in Kano was a clear indication that the Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) was committed to ensuring effective service delivery. He commended KEDCO for the initiative and urged other DISCOs to develop their own strategies for mass deployment of meters for the benefit of their customers. In his remarks, the Managing Director of KEDCO, Alhaji Jamilu Gwamna, said the company had purchased more than 63, 000 meters to be distributed to its customers. Gwamma said that the inauguration of the scheme would go a long way in checking the issue of crazy bills, in addition to ensuring effective service delivery. "Our intention is to ensure that by 2020, the company will be the most valuable company to compete favourably with other companies in the country", he said. Also speaking, the Vice-Chancellor, Bayero University, Kano, Prof. Yahuza Bello, called on the minister to use the magic wand he used in Lagos to improve power supply in the country. "The power sector has a lot of challenges, and with low power supply, we are spending N6 million weekly on diesel to power our generators in the university", he said. Bello said that if power supply improved in Kano, the management of the university was ready to pay the money to KEDCO to enable it serve its customers better. He said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration erred for asking state governments for a 40 per cent counterpart funding of the project. The Federal Government is already looking for excuses for the impending failure of the programme by asking states to contribute 40 per cent to the scheme, Fayose said in a statement on Sunday, June 12. The Governor stated that the All Progressives Congress-led government made the school feeding promise to Nigerians without consulting the states, insisting that the party should shoulder the responsibility alone. Were the states consulted before the APC made the promise during the presidential campaign? the governor queried. How can you make a promise and win election on the basis of that promise and now expect states to help you to fulfil the promise? That to me is fraud. He said Ekiti and other states in the country deserve to benefit from the programme without assisting the federal government with any 40 per cent counterpart funding. Fayose further said that the Buhari-led Government should admits failure, adding that proper study was on the practicability of the scheme was not before made promises. Apart from the fact that Ekiti State lacked the financial wherewithal to provide counterpart fund for such a programme, it is the duty of President Mohammed Buhari and his APC that won election on the basis of their promise to give free meal to school pupils to fulfill the promise without placing any burden on other tiers of government, he said. Nigerians should come to terms with the reality that the federal government is already looking for a ready alibi for the impending failure of the school feeding programme. The federal government knows that 80 per cent of the states lack the financial will to be able to contribute the 40 per cent counterpart fund for the programme and the time the programme eventually fails, Nigerians will be told that it failed because states did not key in to it. As for us in Ekiti, we are interested in the programme because Nigeria belongs to all of us. But we wont contribute any counterpart fund because the programme is solely an electoral promise of the APC and we were never consulted before the promise was made." The militants have launched several attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta, the surest way to bring Nigeria to its knees since crude oil is still its biggest export and source of income. However, the strongest clue was provided by the militants themselves, specifically the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF), via a list of demands released by spokesman, General Akotebe Darikoro on Friday, June 10, 2016. The group demanded the immediate release of the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Colonel Sambo Dasuki and Nnamdi Kanu. It said further that the government must direct EFCC to defreeze the bank accounts" of ex-militant leader, Government Tompolo Ekpemupolo. Dasukiis alleged to have supervised the looting of $2 billion in funds which were meant for the procurement of arms for Nigerias fight against Boko Haram. He is also facing charges of unlawful possession of arms after officials of the Department of State Security (DSS) found sophisticated weapons at his Abuja home during a 2015 search. At the start of his trial, prosecution witness, Samuel Ogwu, a DSS operative, told the court that the agency decided to interrogate Dasuki because the weapons were not usually issued to ordinary individuals. Former militant, Tompolo is also facing corruption charges after being accused by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of committing fraud to the tune of N34 billion. Tompolo is alleged to have bled the accounts of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) dry with the help of former Director General, Patrick Akpobolokemi. The ex-militant was also supposedly making about N1.5 billion monthly from a pipeline protection contract awarded to him by former president, Goodluck Jonathan. To understand the connection of corruption to the renewed Niger Delta militancy, one simply has to ask: Who has the most to gain by threatening Buharis government? Who has the most to lose if Buhari is allowed to have a singular focus? Buhari has made it clear that the fight against corruption is his governments priority and he has backed up his statement with action. He and his officials also warned that corruption would fight back, and the Niger Delta attacks show that corruption is indeed putting up a fierce fight. The persons who looted Nigerias public funds have money, plenty of it. This means that they also have the capacity to acquire weapons and the funds to arm militants with them. Buharis administration has arrested many former public officials for corruption, but it is just gearing up to arrest the real bigwigs, the ones who are wealthier than Nigeria, as Information Minister, Lai Mohammed pointed out. These bigwigs obviously dont want to be arrested, and what better way is there to fight the government than attacking its already dwindling source of livelihood? According to reports, the Federal Government signed the agreement with the United Nations High Commission for Refugee, UNHCR, and the Republic of Cameroon for the return of the refugees who fled for safety. The information was disclosed by the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Muhammad Sidi, over the weekend. Sidi made the disclosure when the African Union (AU) Humanitarian Mission, led by Aisha Abdullahi, its Commissioner for Political Affairs, visited the headquarters of the agency. According to multiple reports and investigations by NEMA, over a million Nigerians were displaced from the north-east by the insurgency with majority of them in different internally displaced persons, IPDs, camps within Nigeria. We have moved from the emergency response stage to recovery and resettlement of the IDPs, Sidi said. Meanwhile, Abdullahi noted that the African Union (AU) Humanitarian Mission was in Nigeria to assess the situation of IDPs and to discuss areas of possible support. IPC President, Mr Ekanpou Enewaridideke also accused members of other ethnic groups of trying to cause trouble for Ayakoromo community. Enewaridideke said we hereby refute the false claim by some rumour-builders that some members of the Niger Delta Avengers are hiding in Ayakoromo. The people of Ayakoromo are highly educated and law-abiding who are only passionate about things that move the society forward. Consequently,we want the public to disbelieve and reject any vindictive attribution of membership of NDA to any indigene of Ayakoromo community. The linking of NDA to Ayakoromo is a creation by ethnic champions in search of avenues for blood-letting. Ayakoromo had long been purified by Christians, Muslims and African traditional religionists and so can never be a partner of retrogressive ventures. The CDS and the Chief of Army should take it as a responsibility to investigate this matter and allays the fears of Ayakoromo people and eventually put an end to the daily exodus of indigenes to the forests. The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have warned seven governors in Eastern Nigeriato release the Biafra supporters who are being held in their states within 72 hours. DSP Asinim Butswat, the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yenagoa that superior firepower of the police overwhelmed the kidnappers. He said that assault rifle was recovered from the bandits, who fled the scene on arrival of policemen. ``On Saturday at about 23:50 hours, unknown gunmen attacked the Expatriates Quarters at Onopa and opened fire on security personnel on guard in an attempt to abduct the expatriates. ``The security operatives fired back and the gunmen withdrew, abandoning their assault rifle. ``They escaped through the waterways in a speedboat. ``Manhunt for the gunmen has been intensified and investigation is ongoing, "Butswat said. NAN gathered that the expatriates were oil workers withdrawn from various oilfields shutdown due to attacks by the militant group, Niger Delta Avengers. Ekwueme spoke in Enugu on Sunday, June 12, at the 17th Annual Convention of the Igbo Youth Movement (IYM) with the theme `Nigeria, still in pursuit of true fiscal federalism. The former vice-president, who chaired the event, said that the British colonialists had earlier divided the country to enable each region control and manage its resources without interference. ''The British colonial masters divided the country in such a way that every region will operate within its constitution, he said. The guest speaker and former Information Minister, Prof. Jerry Gana, said that the key solution to Nigerias problem was through true federalism and devolution of powers to states. ''True fiscal federalism is the only form of association that will allow peace and stability in the country and each region should be allowed to manage its resources the way they want it, Gana said. He noted that the formula for allocating revenue made the Federal Government to get richer while the states operated like beggars. ''States should be allowed to manage its resources to enable them govern their people the way they want and allocate some percentage to the Federal Government. ''Government should not be far from the people and the federating unit should be made strong to meet the needs of the people, he said. Gana recommended continuous dialogue and the implementation of the resolutions of national confab by the government as the only means the recent agitation and other national demand could be handled. A Yoruba leader, Chief Ayo Adeabayo, said that the various acts of political instability in the country were because the constitution under which the country was governed was not good for heterogeneous country like Nigeria. ''To put a stop at the various uprising in the country such as Niger Delta Avengers, MASSOB, IPOB etc, our constitution needs to be changed to allow for restructuring of the country under true federalism". In her remarks, a Niger Delta Activist, Ms Annkio Briggs, condemned the blasphemy killing of a woman, Bridget Agbamihe, in Kano as well as herdsmen attacks in Nimbo, Enugu State and other parts of the country. The first batch of 120 beneficiaries received their consignments at Mararaba-Jos, a settlement situated on the Kaduna-Zaria Road in Kaduna State. The Chairperson of the organisation, Rabi Ibrahim, said that the beneficiaries were widows, widowers and indigent persons displaced by insurgents in the North-East. A breakdown of the beneficiaries showed that 120 people were currently at Rafin Guza, 270 people in Kyauta village, 100 people in Hayin Damani, while 300 people were in Jere/Rijina communities in Kaduna State. Ibrahim appealed to wealthy Nigerians to extend similar items to the needy persons to ease the pangs of the economic downturn. She appealed to various levels of governments to deploy teachers to the NGO's orphanage nursery and primary schools to enable the kids to receive quality education. Emmanuel Francis, a carpenter was stabbed severally while eating during fasting hours by some youth in Kakuri. Speaking at a press conference today, Monday, June 13, 2016, the community said Emmanuel Francis was never attacked because he was not fasting but sustained injuries during a fight with his friends. The community during the press conference held at a District head palace at the premises of Kakuri Police station, read by Garkuwan Kakuri, Rabiu Ahmed, said Francis fought with his Muslim friends following a disagreement at a join. "This issue is a case of quarrel that ensued between some young men from Makera community and Iboyi (Francis Emmanuel) who is from Kakuri. All the parties are not responsible people in the society." "The group came and entered a roadside drinking joint along Sokoto by Gora junction. The group were said to have come looking for their brother but could not find him," Ahmed said. In a swift reaction, Francis elder brother, Paul, said the press conference was stage managed because of religion. Paul said the District head has been making efforts to discredit the true story of what happen in Kakuri adding that, The District head was at the hospital and made efforts to discredit the story using on Nasiru Abubakar. But they have failed. When my brother was brought to the hospital by a good samaritan, a civilian JTF, Steven Godwin Sunday, he was unconscious and the medical personnel who treated him testify that he was not under alcoholism. All there plans have fail because my younger brother is a responsible person with a hand work. We have reported the matter to security agencies," Paul said. At the conference earlier, the community through the spokesman, Ahmed, said: "They (Francis and the gang) had several exchange of words with Iboyi who has finished drinking and was sitting, eating opka. Iboyi told them to leave the place and they responded by saying that they were not there to see him. He threatened to deal with them if they did not leave. He pulled out a knife with the intention of stabbing one of the gang members but missed and one of the gang members attempted to hold the knife but cut his hand in the process." The spokesman, Garkuwan Kakuri, Rabiu Ahmed said an eyes witness Nasiru Abubakar was busy making efforts to push away the gang to a nearby electric transformer but they over powered him. "In the process, one of the gang member tried to attack Iboyi with scissors but Nasiru blocked him. Another member had already taken the knife from Iboyi (Emmanuel Francis) and stabbed him severally." Speaking from his hospital bed on Monday, June 13, 2016, Emmanuel Francis said he went to buy food but was attacked by people he has not seen before. "We the Southern Kaduna People who are the aboriginal people of Chikun, Lere, Kagarko, Jemaa, Zangon Kataf, Sanga, Kaura, Kauru, Kachia, Kajuru and Jaba Local Government Areas, reject totally, any plan to implement or make any edict or law or whatsoever action that will lead government to creating or starting or resuscitating any Grazing Reserves in our homelands." "This is after a very serious consideration of the social, religious, political and security implication on the area both in short and long term basis. This is because as people from the grassroots, our present relationship with herdsmen at this time, at best, is suspicious. And we plead that government takes this as our genuine concern in terms of what looks as slowly improving relations, not to assist in shattering it. Our people shall surely resist Grazing Reserves, especially new ones," the statement attached on the online petition said. Southern Kaduna People call on the government of Kaduna state which has been encouraging peace, development and mutual respect for each group in the state to shelve any of the aforementioned plans if it really means well for Southern Kaduna. Its National President, Dr Bassey Umoh, told newsmen on Sunday in Uyo that the bombing of installations in the Niger Delta had crippled Nigerias economy. He stressed the need for the Federal Government to suspend military action in the region, saying it is not the solution to the current crisis. Umoh said dialogue would enable the government and the Niger Delta Avengers come to terms with the problems facing the people. According to him, the Middle Belt and the South-East geo-political zones have also been agitating for adoption of true federalism. ``When you look at the Niger Delta Avengers and their activities, you cannot just wake up and say you are going to crush it. ``Apart from the Niger Delta militants, we also have Indigenous People of Biafra, some groups in the Middle Belt and we have the Fulani herdsmen that are rampaging the country. He said that the people had expressed dismay in the past but added that the present level of agitation was unprecedented. Udovichenko told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in interview in Abuja on Monday that attacks on oil facilities was not pleasant for Foreign Direct Investment into the country. Sure the ongoing attacks on oil facilities are unpleasant for investment, of course. And I wish the Federal Government will solve this problem as soon as possible through talks and negotiations. So it is in the interest of Nigeria to find good solutions for businessmen and for the Nigerian people, he said.The Russian envoy regretted the impacts of the international oil price slump on Nigerias economy. According to him, the attacks on oil facilities had further compounded the countrys economic situation.He, however, expressed the hope that Nigeria, under President Muhammadu Buhari, would come out of the current economic crisis stronger. My position is because Nigeria suffered a lot recently during the fall of oil price. The new government has every option for positive development, for good economic development. So this case of attacks on oil facilities is a very bad one for the country, he said. The Russian envoy, however, assured that Russia would continue to support Nigeria to overcome its security challenges. Udovichenko, who was not categorical about what Russia was doing to support Nigeria to overcome its security challenges, simply said security issues and support are delicate and not always made public. When pressed for specifics he said,I can assure you again that Russia is trying to do everything to support the Nigerian security field. In no distant future, you will be seeing visibly what specifically we have already done. NDLF also condemned the actions of Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force (JNDLF), whom they referred to as a fake group. According to Sahara Reporters, NDLF former spokesman, Mark Anthony said The leadership of the disbanded original NDLF has been receiving series of phone calls from both top security agencies, our family members and friends over the threats from the fake militant organization. We want to categorically warn Niger Delta Avengers not to create fake emails by sending threats to the federal government, posing as late John Togo boys in order to drag us into their selfish fight over lost contracts with the current Government. Adding that We will support President Buhari just as we supported former President Jonathan. The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) has expressed its readiness to begin peace talks with the federal government. In a tweet on Monday, June 13, 2016, the NDA suspended its "Operation Red Economy," which led to the destruction of oil installations in the Niger Delta region since February this year. A statement issued by its spokesman, Brig Gen Mudoch Agbinibo called on its members to ceasefire pending the outcome of the dialogue with the federal government. The statement reads in full: The high command of the is using this medium to restate that there are no new items to put on the table for dialogue, we only want a genuine attitude and conducive atmosphere that will make us commit to any proposed dialogue and last peace talk. "We want the federal government to commit members states of the multi national oil corporations to commit independent mediators to this proposed dialogue; we believed that it is only such environment that will engender genuine dialogue that will be aimed at setting up a framework for achieving the short, medium and long term demands of the Niger delta to de-escalating this conflict and bring about a lasting peace. The NDA high command is restating our commitment to attack the interest of oil corporation and international refineries operators that bring in vessels to the Niger delta territory to buy our oil that every successive government have refused to used and reapply the proceeds towards any development in the region since 1958. "If they refuse be heed to our advice will result to sinking of two their mother vessel as an examples to others They should not undertake any repair of pipeline, oil and gas facilities that is damaged or attacked by our forces during this period of Operation Red Economy until and/or after the dialogue. We are using this medium to warn and condemn the activities of all brands of social media agitators being peddled around by some politicians to promote their criminal ways in affairs of the Niger Delta. This genuine spirit behind our struggle for the Niger Delta cannot be derailed on the basis of connivance by politician, traditional rulers, settled ex- agitators and criminals moving around to fill their pockets. The issues of the Niger delta are as old and as new as the days of Pa , Major , to and the government of President . We are warning this government of President , not to turn the essence of genuine peace talk and dialogue to political jamboree that is prevailing now where all manner of social media agitators and criminals have being sponsored by the job seeking corrupt political class to safe faces before the government of the day. Finally, if need be, we may review our earlier stance of not taking lives. We are going to redirect and reactivate all our activities if the government, oil companies and their services firms dont heed to these modest warnings of not carrying out any repairs works and suspend the buying of crude oil from our region as we await the right atmosphere that will engender genuine dialogue Obasanjo made the plea during a courtesy visit by the management of NIPCO Plc to Obasanjo Hilltop Estate in Abeokuta, on the need by the the Federal Government to promote use of CNG as a vehicular fuel. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that CNG is natural gas under pressure which remains clear, odourless, and non-corrosive. According to Obasanjo , in a bid to promote cleaner environment, the idea why the use of CNG was signed during my tenure as the President in 2006, was to develop gas as a vehicular source of fuel. ``If other government had promoted the use of LPG and CNG in Nigeria, half of the countrys vehicles would have been converted to gas. ``The essence is to provide alternative to Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol at a reduced cost and to boost national socio-economic growth, NAN quotes him as saying. The Managing Director, NIPCO Plc, Mr Venkataraman Venkatapathy, said that Nigeria would have saved government over two billion dollars yearly, if the use of CNG is promoted in Nigeria. Venkatapathy said that globally, the natural gas industry was increasing its focus and efforts to support natural gas transport. He said that the CNG project was between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and NIPCO, through a joint-venture scheme called Green Gas Ltd. Venkatapathy explained that the initiative, which is the first of its kind in West Africa, is ushering in a new era of vehicles running on the CNG in Nigeria with its attendant benefits He said that CNG ``is a superior auto fuel alternation to liquid fuels, mainly petrol and diesel specifically for countries like Nigeria which is blessed with abundant availability of natural gas remains untapped. According to him, to replace 20 per cent of current petrol consumption of Nigeria, Natural gas required is less than five per cent of the total domestic gas consumed currently and less than one percent of the current gas production. ``This will save the country over two billion dollars yearly in foreign exchange. ``In Benin City, Edo State, over 4,000 vehicles run on CNG which resulted in replacing 20 million litres of petrol from 2012 to 2015 and which also saved over nine million dollars for the country, he said. The managing director said that CNG had more benefits than petrol, adding that some of the benefit include low operating costs, lower maintenance costs and it reduces harmful vehicle emissions that cause local air pollution. He said that on mile to mile basis, CNG would be cheaper than petrol by over 50 per cent and as compared to Diesel (on dual fuel mode), it would be over 45 per cent cheaper. Meanwhile, some motorists plying Lagos-Ibadan Expressway described CNG powered vehicles as economical, safer, flexible and eco-friendly. A commercial motorist, Mr Kazeem Odunayo, said that the conversion of his vehicle to CNG in early 2015, had saved him money. I converted my bus to gas early this year and I am happy to tell you that I saved up to N3,500 daily on my fuel consumption. Before now I spent N6, 000 to travel to Ibadan from Lagos but now with just N2, 500, I will travel to Ibadan and come back with ease, NAN quotes Odunayo as saying. Another commercial vehicle operator, Mr Sunday Adeyemi, said that most of the commercial vehicles operating between Lagos and Ibadan had converted to CNG because of its availability and the economy of scale. Most of us here have converted our vehicles to CNG because of the installment payment created by the company. They are aware that we cannot run away once you got converted. What we would have used on petroleum is being used to balance our debt. By next month, I would have completed my debt, he said. Adeyemi said that he used the opportunity of having CNG in his vehicle during the period of petrol scarcity to make more money. Okowa gave the admonition at the Divine Way Baptist Church in Asaba at the thanksgiving service of the Sixth Assembly of the Delta House of Assembly to mark its first anniversary. `` The only way out of the present situation of the country is to look unto God. ``As we continue to partner with God and seek solution from God, things will get better. He also urged Nigerians to repent their sins, saying that with genuine repentance, ``God is able to heal us all of our challenges. In his remarks, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Mr. Monday Igbuya, commended the state executive for its cordial relationship with the house Igbuya noted that in spite of the economic challenges facing the state, the present administration had striven to deliver on its mandate. He assured the governor that the house would not relent in supporting the present administration in passing laws that would improve the living standard of the people. In his sermon, Rev. Dickson Madogwe commended the legislature for its contributions to the growth and development of the state. Madogwe, who took his Bible reading from the Book of Psalm 124:1-8, noted that leadership was a very difficult task. Dickson, who had earlier instructed that the workers be paid, was dismayed that his directive had not been carried out, the statement said. He warned that failure to pay the workers, who have been owed five months salaries, by Monday will attract disciplinary action against the erring officers. Dickson was said to have also demanded an immediate explanation on the reason for the delay. He commended the workers for their patience, and expressed his administrations commitment to their welfare. Ugwuanyi made the donation during the June edition of Enugu State Women Prayer Network held at Okpara Square in Enugu. ``This gesture is my modest contribution to the campaign for safe cooking environment among women especially rural women in the state. ``It is an established fact that the use of gas cookers poses less danger to the health of the women and their family. ``This gesture will continue by the grace of God; it is in fulfillment of my pledge to empower rural women with available resources, she said. Pastor Christian Njoku, who delivered the sermon at the meeting with the theme, `Divine Intervention of God, urged women to pray for Gods intervention in their families. Organisers of the movie calendars most prestigious event were embarrassed by technical failures, which a press release or PR move may not salvage. ALSO READ: undefined The awards night has been branded "lackluster" and "boring" by Tweeters, after performances, speeches and the ceremony itself failed to impress the supposed three billion viewers. Before the big day, organisers of the event seemed desperate to prove their 'number one spot', hence the unnecessary response to critics comparing them to Africa Magic Viewers Choice Award. The big day came, and its 'billion viewers' had expectations - some big, while some low. I simply wanted this to be the edition that would bring back the AMAA I had a little respect for seven years ago. I wanted an edition that would redeem an award show that has gone from good to bad, and racing to worse. 1. Viewing Channels According to the letter released by founder of AMAA, Peace Anyiam Osigwe, undefinedSo, why didn't AMAA air on any Africa Magic channel? A channel available to movie lovers outside Nigeria. They chose NTA, a channel available to just Nigerians. A channel which discontinued broadcast when things got too embarrassing. Probably they saw no need for Africa Magic since they had plans to stream on YouTube. So let's talk about the YouTube streaming that was a total failure. The channel had no sound, constantly went 'offline,' and was a total waste of MB. As usual, AMAA social media accounts were totally dispensable, as there were no updates an hour into the event proper. 2. The Glitz and Glamour There is always this anticipation that comes with the Oscars and AMVCAs - an anticipation that has nothing to do with the winners. People always want to know who will wear what and who. There is also this glamour that should come with an award platform that has been in existence for 12 years, and claims to be the best in Africa. The 12th edition lacked that glitz, and seemed more like a star-studded movie premiere than an awards night considered the second Academy Awards in the world. It had a boring red carpet, with the nominees and very few actors in attendance. 60% of the attendees were nominees, whose trip was sponsored by the organizers. In an industry with over 500 actors, how many non nominees were in attendance? In a recent chat with a veteran, she said the African Awards system could be better. According to her, the organisers are probably handing out the awards to the right people, but the they lack the needed following, glitz and glamour. The veteran further stated that she feels the awards don't carry everyone along. Let's talk about following. AMAA is supposed to be the biggest night in the movie world, but it failed to trend on Twitter or any social media platform. This is obviously because people are not interested in whatever they have to offer. It's rather embarrassing that an event like AMAA would happen without Africa feeling its impact or existence. ALSO READ: undefined 3. That power outage The event was interrupted by power outage for over 30 minutes. For an event that was graced by political figures of Senator David Mark, Governor Nyesom Wike, and Lia Mohammed, organisers of AMAA should be embarrassed. For 30 minutes, nothing happened. For 30 minutes, the social media accounts died. For 30 minutes, nobody considered the '30 billion' viewers important enough to get an explanation or apology for the embarrassing occurrence. ALSO READ: undefined 4. Attention to details Should we talk about how the show changed names and movie titles? From Shaibu Hussein becoming Shuibu Amodu to "The Cursed One" becoming "Cursed One," someone did an unforgettable poor captioning job. ALSO READ: undefined 5. Let's talk about the hosts We could talk about how bad hosts the were, or ignore that as it was probably the least negative thing about the show. It's one thing to sit through a boring show, it's worse when the hosts do nothing to make it better. At least we know what to expect when we see a caption like 'Mike Ezuruonye set to host awards.' It's 12 years, and AMAA has gone from good to bad, continually hosting an award event in states totally inconvenient for industry practitioners, including president of major bodies in the Industry - as they were noticeably missing. It's time AMAA took a break from delivering award ceremonies worse than movie premieres. It's time up for AMAA and its show of shame. It's time for an award that is truly the most transparent Academy - based awards in Africa, and that platform is not Africa Movie Academy Awards. The third round of battles aired on Sunday, June 12, 2016. Watch below, and find out who is still on, who got stolen, and who got to leave. Tobore and Jennifer from #Team2baba performed Awww by Dja. While 2baba saved Jennifer, Timi Dakolo quickly stole Tobore. Michael and Dewe from #TeamWaje performed Against All Odds by Mariah Carey. Waje chose Michael, while Timi stole Dewe. Arese and Flourish from #TeamWaje performed Stronger by Kelly Clarkson. Waje chose to save Arese. Nonso and Shimar from #TeamPatoranking performed Treasure by Bruno Mars. Nonso was chosen as winner. Obass and Cornel from #TeamTimi performed Timis hit song Wish Me Well. Timi decides to save Cornel. Finally, Happiness and Kofo from #TeamTimi performed Irawo by Seyi Shay. Timi saved Koko. Sheriff arrived the party's secretariat a few minutes past 7 a.m. in company of some of the former members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party. He claimed he remains the partys national chairman and had come to resume office in line with a ruling by a Federal High Court in Lagos. However, the police barricaded his motorcade and a horde of his supporters from entering the secretariat. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the supporters came under two groups, "Guardians of Democracy Support Ali Modu Sheriff and "Ali Modu Sheriff PDP Chairman. They were dressed in crested vests, carrying placards with various inscriptions and were drumming and dancing in the front of the secretariat. Sheriff told newsmen outside the secretariat that he was not happy with the action of the police. He said that he was surprised at the action of the police even when the court had ordered the Inspector-General of Police to provide him with adequate security while resuming office. "The party belongs to Nigerians and not the Nigeria Police or the people that were handpicked at Port Harcourt by Gov. Nysom Wike and his cohorts as well as the man (Sen. Ahmed Makarfi), who is purported to be acting as the national chairman of the party. "One thing remains; there was no convention in Port-Harcourt because I cancelled it. "I don't know why the police say we cannot enter our office when we have a valid court order to that effect. "We will take this matter beyond the Nigeria Police, the law will take its course in this matter, Sheriff said. He described the party national caretaker committee led by Makarfi as "illegal. "The caretaker committee is not known to the constitution of the party, while the Board of Trustees (BoT) is only an advisory body to the party. "So, none of them has the power to be running the affairs of our party. Sen. Ahmed makarif led caretaker has no role here; it is an illegal body in the eyes of the law, Sheriff said. Members of the former NWC, who came to the secretariat with Sheriff, are Prof. Adewale Oladipo and Alhaji Adeyanju Adewole, former National Secretary and former National Auditor, respectively. Men of the Nigeria Police Force however barricaded his motorcade and a horde of his supporters from entering the secretariat. Sheriff gained entry into the Wadata Plaza complex at about 1:20pm minutes after policemen stationed in and around the building were withdrawn on the orders of the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase. Addressing journalists few minutes later, Sheriff noted that members of the party begged him to be the chairman he remains the authentic chairman of the PDP unless the court says otherwise. "We put off the Port Harcourt convention on hold because the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos said the office of the National Chairman of PDP was not vacant until 2019, also an Abuja High Court gave a ruling that the office of the National Chairman and seventeen others will not be vacant till 2018. "Again, no convention will take place without the chairman of the party presiding over the convention. That is the constitution of the PDP. The chairman of the party is the chairman of the convention. "A person that we appointed said no, he must go and do some arrangements. But there is nothing like a caretaker committee in the constitution of the PDP. And even if there is anything like that, it is the delegates that will vote for such arrangements but no delegate voted for anybody. "While I was waiting for the court order, Uche Secondus who was even barred by the court went ahead to say that he was standing in for the chairman but I did not give him any authority anywhere. "I remain the authentic chairman of the PDP unless the laws of the land or if the court make a pronouncement that Ali Modu Sheriff is not the chairman, I will obey as I have always obeyed. But as of today till the year 2018, Ali Modu Sheriff is the national chairman of the PDP. "When the police stopped me, I went to the IGP with my principal officers and I told him, that your men are here to protect us not to take the laws into their hands but he said he was protecting the secretariat for us so that nobody will come in. "The IGP directed them and they opened my office today. From today, I will start coming to my office and exercising my power as the party chairman. "Ali Modu Sheriff never wanted to be the chairman but they begged me to be chairman, all of them" he stressed. This is following a call by the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazak Namdaz, urging Nigerians to bear with Buhari in his efforts to transform the country. The PDP on their Twitter timeline, said This is a government that does not know what democracy or rule of law means. The president is an unrepentant tyrant. The party also tweeted saying CHANGE: A bag of rice is now N18,000. Minimum wage is also N18,000. The embattled PDP chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff, who was stopped by policemen from entering the partys secretariat, finally gained entrance. Sheriff says he was begged by the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) to lead the party, adding that his tenure will end in 2019. He made the comments via a statement released by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The statement reads: The Federal Government is already looking for excuse for the impending failure of the programme by asking States to contribute 40 per cent to the scheme. Were the States consulted before the APC made the promise during the presidential campaign? How can you make a promise and win election on the basis of that promise and now expect States to help you to fulfill the promise? That to me is fraud! Apart from the fact that Ekiti State lacks the financial wherewithal to provide counterpart fund for such a programme, it is the duty of President Muhammadu Buhari and his APC that won election on the basis of their promise to give free meal to school pupils to fulfill the promise without placing any burden on other tiers of government. Nigerians should come to term with the reality that the federal government is already looking for a ready alibi for the impending failure of the school feeding programme. The federal government knows that 80 per cent of the States lack the financial will to be able to contribute the 40 per cent counterpart fund for the programme and the time the programme eventually fails, Nigerians will be told that it failed because States did not key in to it. As for us in Ekiti, we are interested in the programme because Nigeria belongs to all of us. But we wont contribute any counterpart fund because the programme is solely an electoral promise of the APC and we were never consulted before the promise was made. Justice Okon Abang gave the order on Friday, June 10, in his ruling. He held that the purported primary election of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) that produced Amadi was illegal, null and void. The judge said PDP primary election held in the constituency on December 6, 2014, was the authentic one, and declared Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi as the winner of the primary. Justice Okon therefore directed the Independent National Electoral Commission, the 3rd defendant, in the suit to immediately withdraw the certificate of return it earlier issued to Amadi. After a careful reading through the submissions of counsel in the suit, I note that the election of the plaintiff was conducted at the designated venue for the Udi/Ezeagu Federal Constituency of Enugu State. The plaintiff has shown that the duly appointed electoral officers were present and declared him winner. I find merit in his request to uphold his election and therefore hold that he be declared the authentic winner of the primaries held on the 6th of December 2014 having duly satisfied the partys guidelines for elections in 2014," the judge ruled. The party has accused the Governor of appointing card carrying members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to his cabinet. An 11 man probe committee led by Senator Dino Melaye was also set up, after a meeting of Kogi state APC leaders in the National Assembly. Punch reports that the APC leaders said Out of the 15 Commissioners he (Bello) appointed, PDP has 13 card-carrying members while APC has two. Out of the 105 members of the Caretaker Committee members for the 21 Local Government Councils, PDP has 72 while APC has 33. Out of the 28 people he appointed as Special Advisers and Senior Special Assistants, PDP has 24, APC has one, APGA has one, Labour has one, Accord has one. The party leaders also threatened to carry out disciplinary measures, if the Governor does not respond to the probe committee. Governor Bello has also been accused of snubbing the APC leaders in the state. The House of Representatives on Tuesday, June 7, 2016 summoned Yahaya Bello to appear before it over allegations that he refused to adhere to resolutions of the National Assembly and a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. Bello announced the change in the name of the 15- year-old university during a statewide broadcast to mark his victory at the state governorship election petition tribunal. He said that naming the university was the ultimate honour that could be done to the memory of the late colourful politician who ruled the state twice as the civilian governor from 1991 to 1993 and 1999 to 2003. Audu himself established the university in 2001 and named it Prince Abubakar Audu University but his successor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris changed the name to Kogi State University in 2004. Justifying his decision to restore the university to its original name, Bello said that Audu laid a solid foundation for the growth and development of the state ALSO READ: "Today, and as always, I celebrate the life and times of the first Executive Governor of Kogi State. It is our hope that those who want to lay claim to his legacy will at least develop the same heart for the growth and development of Kogi State that he demonstrated through his lifetime, he said. According to the governor, an executive bill will soon be forwarded to the house of assembly to formalise the change in the name of the university. Audu, who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 21st 2015 governorship election in the state, died suddenly on November 22nd before the result of the election was announced. The leadership of the APC consequently substituted the name of Audu with that of Yahaya Bello as the candidate in the supplementary governorship election held on December 5th 2015. The governor also used the broadcast to thank the people of the state for their support and understanding since his assumption of office in January . He said that since the five petitions filed against him had been thrown out for lack of merit, the state was now set to witness a new direction and accelerated development. According to Bello, a blueprint of the administration which will kick start creation of one million jobs for the unemployed youths will be unveiled by next week. The students were unable to write the exam due to the fact that their school has been allegedly blacklisted from participating in the on-going examination by NECO authority over its alleged involvement in examination malpractice. A female teacher of the school has, however, denied this accusation, saying that NECO Officials bungled the schools channels during enrolment of the candidates for the Examination. Trouble started last Friday, June 10, when the students who were supposed to have started their examination around 10:00am, disclosed there was no preparation for them and supervisors to conduct the examination were not on hand. It was gathered that the disappointment angered the candidates who demanded to see the principal and the staff who enrolled them for the examinations and explain why the examination could not start. The protesters reportedly took their protest to Isiokolo Divisional Police station of the area where they were urged to keep the peace to enable the school officials handle the matter. Narrating their plight to our correspondent, leader of the aggrieved candidates, Ukoh said they did their enrolment in the school sometime in March, 2016, adding that when they reported in the school for the exams, they were told that the exercise could not. The meeting was attended by such dignitaries as Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs, Senator Binta Masi Garba, a member of that Committee and Chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND, Senator Stella Oduah, Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs. In the meeting, the President, Miss Idongesit Micah commended the dexterous and diligent show of commitment of the female Senators in the Senate. She said that the visit has afforded the opportunity to create awareness of our Anti Sexual Harassment Campaign and commended them for co-sponsoring the Bill against sexual harassment in tertiary institutions which have pass through second reading in the Senate. The President went further to say that, a lot of female students have dropped out of school, some end up with low grades, some fail respective courses intentionally by lecturers and so on, hence she solicited their contacts for other passionate, intellectual and influential women to support the Bill to become law. In response, the wife of the APC National Leader and Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs, Senator Oluremi Tinubu thanked the female students for the visit, she urge their President to receive petitions from victims of sexual harassment in tertiary institutions and submit it to the Committee. Clashes between the militia and the Macina Liberation Front erupted on Saturday in Gourma-Rharous village, in the Timbuktu region of Mali which has long been plagued by Islamist militants, a military source and one from the militia told Reuters by telephone. They had no details of how the clashes started. Mali's government and various separatist groups signed a peace deal last year but it has failed to prevent periodic violence in northern Mali by Islamist militants, who have also staged assaults on high profile targets in the capital Bamako, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed an attack on two U.N. sites in northern Mali at the end of last month, in which a peacekeeper from China and three civilians were killed and over a dozen others wounded. Morocco, a Western ally against Islamist militancy, often announces it has broken up militant cells accused of plotting attacks inside and outside the kingdom. The suspected Italian militant, who lives in Belgium, was arrested on June 8 when landing in the eastern city of Oujda, based on intelligence showing that he had ties to the Islamic State group and was involved in a plan to attack targets in Morocco, the statement said. In 2014, he tried to travel to Syria or Iraq but failed, despite guidance from an Islamic State member, and returned to Belgium, the statement said. Authorities said the suspect has already visited Morocco in 2015, sent by Islamic State, and identified targets in Casablanca, Morocco's biggest city. Thousands of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb nations, such as Tunisia, have joined Islamist militant forces in the conflict in Iraq and Syria, and also in Libya. Some are threatening to return home to carry out attacks and recruit more jihadis, security experts say. Moroccan officials estimate that 2,000 Moroccan fighters have joined armed groups in Syria and Iraq, including Islamic State and the al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front, and about 200 have been jailed on their return home. It's the second such expulsion in about a month and brings the total number of Burundians deported over the period to at least 1,700. One of those expelled, a young man who did not wish to be named for fear he might be targeted, told Reuters Rwandan officials accused some of them of spying for Burundi. Renee Mukandori, a Burundi local government official, confirmed the expulsion to Reuters and said it occurred on Thursday and Friday. Those deported mostly came from the Bugabira district of northern Burundi. Burundi has accused Rwanda of interfering in its political crisis - which has seen Burundian government forces clash with protesters and rebels who say the president violated the constitution by standing for a third term last year. Rwanda has denied Burundi's accusations. But the violence in Burundi has rattled Rwanda and other countries across the central African region were there are still fresh memories of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which like Burundi has a Hutu majority and Tutsi minority. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, has said in the past he would not allow a repeat of the genocide in the region and has been critical of the handling of the crisis by President Pierre Nkurunziza, who led a Hutu rebel group in Burundi's civil war. About a quarter of million people have fled the violence in Burundi and most of them are now in refugee camps in Rwanda and Tanzania. Gille, another man who was sent back to Burundi, said those expelled were not newly arrived refugees and that they had come to Rwanda years ago seeking economic opportunities. "We went to seek for better life. Once we got there, some of us rented fields and cultivated...we were not given time to go to harvest what is on our land," he said. A decision had been expected at or before the summit in Warsaw on July 8-9 on whether to stick to plans to slash the 9,800 troops to 5,500 before Obama leaves office next year. Former commanders and envoys have warned that it would be a mistake. And with preparations in full swing for the summit, the timing of any decision by Obama remains unclear. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter flies to Brussels on Monday to meet NATO counterparts, with Afghanistan expected to be high on the agenda. One reason to decide on slowing the U.S. drawdown before the summit might be to encourage NATO allies to keep their troops in Afghanistan, where President Ashraf Ghani's government is battling a Taliban insurgency that has gathered fresh momentum. NATO allies seem less intent on cutting their troop presence, which could give Obama more time to formulate and telegraph his own plans. "We have been moderately, pleasantly surprised at the willingness to stay at current levels of most other allies, and some willingness to consider increasing," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Just because there is a summit doesnt mean (you) need a decision," he added. To be sure, Afghanistan will be a major issue at the summit and Obama still could make a decision before then. "It does not have to happen by Warsaw but it certainly will be a topic there," said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The size and scope of other nation contributions are a logical consideration in our decision-making." The White House has yet to receive the recommendations from its new commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, who conducted a comprehensive security review during his first 90 days on the job. The review's results have not been made public. In a sign of his willingness to broaden the U.S. role in Afghanistan, Obama last week approved giving the U.S. military greater ability to accompany and to enable Afghan forces in offensive operations, including carrying out air strikes. Speaking on Friday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters the decision to broaden the remit "does not limit in any way our ability to follow through with the plan to draw down our troops at a level of 5,500 troops by the end of this year." Obama would consider changing the troop numbers if Nicholson recommended that, Earnest said. "This approach would also allow your successor to assess the situation for herself or himself and make further adjustments accordingly," the letter read. Cutting the forces to 5,500, in turn, would erode the morale of Afghan government forces and bolster the Taliban, they wrote. Obama has already scaled back the troop withdrawal plans he laid out in May 2014, when he pledged to cut to roughly 5,000 by end 2015 and to "a normal embassy presence ... with a security assistance component, just as we've done in Iraq" by the end of 2016. A Topeka, Kansas, developer proposes a specialty grocery store to replace the former Ruby Tuesday restaurant on 53rd Street, Davenport. City planner Matt Flynn said Equity Ventures Commercial Development is planning to tear down the old restaurant at 3805 E. 53rd St. and erect a 15,000-square-foot grocery store specializing in organic foods. Davenport's Plan and Zoning Commission will hear details of the development at its July 5 meeting. The company is seeking approval of a development plan to construct the building in an outlot of Rave Cinemas. "This is a specialty retailer who has been looking at the Davenport market for quite some time," Flynn said. "They have assembled sufficient land to move the project forward. We're excited about it." The name of the retailer was not divulged. However, Colorado-based Natural Grocers is planning to expand into eastern Iowa with new stores announced for Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls and Iowa City. A representative of the company could not be reached for comment. Mark McPherson with Equity Ventures Commercial Development said the firm will attend Tuesday's meeting. He declined further comment. The Midwest is a hot market for specialty grocery stores, even if the Quad-Cities has been a little bit behind the trend, according to Flynn. He does not see that as a bad thing. "We have lagged behind in that market for whatever reason," he said. "We just seem to be a little bit behind the curve. I think maybe a benefit is these are relatively new companies that are, quite honestly, exploding in terms of sales. Sometimes, the benefit is not at the front end, as we saw with Fresh Market." The Fresh Market, based in North Carolina, announced in 2013 plans to build a 24,000-square-foot store in the northwest corner of the parking lot at Rave Cinemas, 3601 E. 53rd St. But the deal fell apart in 2015 when the developer "had a change of opinion on the site," Susanne Knutsen, lead economic development coordinator for the city, said at the time. Recently, The Fresh Market has announced plans to close 13 stores, including all of its Iowa locations. "Fast growth, if not managed well, can lead to problems with cash flow, and that may have been what happened to Fresh Market," Flynn said. "When it comes to specialty stores, not being at the tip of the spear is a beneficial thing, too." Another specialty grocery store, Fresh Thyme, still is interested in the former Incredible Pizza property at 2100 E. Kimberly Road, Davenport, Flynn said. The former Ruby Tuesday site would be expanded to accommodate the larger grocery store and 84 parking spaces if the deal with Equity Ventures Commercial Development goes through. "They are adding a significant amount of land that will allow them to provide the amount of parking they will need, plus a significantly larger building," Flynn said. Ruby Tuesday closed in 2012. The local owners did not disclose at the time any reasons for closing. The restaurant had relocated there from NorthPark Mall in 2002. The 53rd Street location is what attracted Equity Ventures Commercial Development to the Quad-City market, Flynn said. "Let's keep in mind this is ground zero in terms of retail activity and traffic generation for the whole Quad-Cities," he said. "The activity there has undoubtedly drawn this retailer." A new exhibit about the Wizard of Oz at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport might become a healing experience after a mass shooting Sunday in Florida. The deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history occurred early Sunday inside a crowded gay nightclub when a man with an assault rifle killed at least 50 people before he died in a gunfight with SWAT officers. On Sunday afternoon, one of the owners of the collection talked about the exhibit that includes memorabilia from the Oz books and films, which long have been embraced by the gay community. For decades a friend of Dorothy has been a slang term for a gay man, and some of the Oz books contain LGBT-friendly plot lines. Willard Carroll of Camden, Maine, was on hand Sunday afternoon at the museum to talk about the 110-object collection that belongs to him and Tom Wilhite and is on display at the museum. The movie in particular is about a search for identity, he said, involving a group of eccentric characters that exist on their own terms. Judy Garland plays her non-judgmental character Dorothy realistically, he said. Everybody else is bigger than life. Art does heal, Carroll said. Its not just escape. Its a way of making sense out of all of the randomness out there. Its a happy exhibit, said Debby Stafford of Bettendorf, a member of the Figge Board of Directors. Theres nothing intimidating about it. You cant say The Wizard of Oz without smiling. Stafford thinks the exhibition will bring people to the Figge who otherwise might not visit. She is surprised and pleased by the number of activities connected to the exhibition and how many opportunities there are to really get to know a subject. During his hour-long presentation, Carroll answered question after question about the collection, which he began when he was a child. His first items were hand puppets of several of the characters. The fantasy world of Oz was my first approach to a world larger than myself, he said. I think it helped make me very social. Other tidbits from his talk: In 1900, when the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, author L. Frank Baum was a magazine editor in Chicago who also wrote childrens books meant mostly to entertain his sons. Quite famously, Toto made more money than the Munchkins. As far as the hit stage musical Wicked goes, it just doesnt speak to me, Carroll said. But he is happy that it keeps Oz alive. Cassandra Bowyer of Moline asked several questions about Oz books and memorabilia. She has an indirect family connection: Her grandmothers cousin married one of Baums sons. The couple later divorced, she said, but she got to know their son, who taught law at UCLA. He signed one of the Oz books that remains in the family, she said. She calls the books and the movie light-hearted fare. I think we could use more of that. The exhibition, she said, is excellent. Were gifted to have it here, and for free. The collection pieces include the finest known copy of the first edition of Baums 1900 book, costumes and props from the 1939 movie, including the hourglass the Wicked Witch of the West uses to show Dorothy how much time she has left and Dorothys screen-test dress. This will be the last tour for the collection, he said. The Willard Carroll/Tom Wilhite Collection eventually will become part of a permanent National Oz Museum, Carroll said. The Quad-Cities can honor the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting in vigils scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Quad-Cities will host a vigil at 3707 Eastern Ave., Davenport. The vigil will include music, prayers, a reading of names of the Orlando shooting victims and an open mic for attendees to express their feelings. At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Metropolitan Community Church of the Quad Cities will hold a candlelight vigil at the church, 2930 W. Locust St., Davenport, across from the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds. DES MOINES Roughly 7 percent Iowa students are chronically absent, meaning they miss more than 10 percent of school days. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad on Monday announced the formation of a state advisory council to study and make recommendations on addressing chronic absences, particularly among young students. The advisory council will be composed of 30 education, nonprofit, business and state government leaders. This is a problem that schools cant solve by themselves, Branstad said. They need the involvement and the support of the entire community. Branstad cited a Child and Family Policy Center study that suggests students who are chronically absent are 1.5 times less likely to be proficient in reading. In Iowa, 1 in 4 students cannot read proficiently by the end of third grade. We know that too many children, especially children from families with low income, miss too many days of school, said Jean Kresse, president and CEO of United Way of Story County. If left unchecked, this problem will undermine all of our efforts to end intergenerational poverty, close the achievement gaps and reduce high school dropout rates. The council will meet four times, once a month, starting in August, and will make recommendations to the administration in November. We know schools cant do it alone. And we know chronic absence is a solvable problem, Kresse said. Forming the Iowa Chronic Absenteeism Advisory Council is a critical step in that solution." Kresse noted local projects across the state as examples of work already being done in Iowa to reduce chronic absence, including in the Quad-Cities and Waterloo. Waterloos Bell to Bell program stresses to students the importance of being at school on time in the morning, ready to learn, and it has a staff member dedicated to reaching out to families with students who have had chronic absences in the past. Amy Schmidt, the principal at Waterloos Irving Elementary, said average attendance increased a full percent this year and overall student performance in standardized testing improved. Schmidt and another key Irving staff member attributed much of that success to Bell to Bell. Were definitely seeing a huge difference in what were doing, said Adriane Carlson, a family support worker at Irving Elementary. A similar program also is working in the Quad Cities, said Scott Crane, president of United Way of the Quad-Cities Area. In one Quad-Cities-area school, 80 percent of students who had previous chronic absences improved their attendance this year, Crane said. Its something that schools have really embraced and something were happy to be partner with, Crane said. DES MOINES In the wake of a mass shooting that claimed 49 victims lives and left dozens more injured, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad on Monday called for a more forceful response to terrorists both verbally and militarily and did not rule out support for a law that would prevent individuals on terror watch lists from purchasing weapons. A shooter killed 49 people and injured dozens more early Sunday at a club in Orlando, Florida. A federal official said the shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group in a 911 call moments before the shooting. Branstad started his weekly meeting with Iowa reporters Monday morning by expressing his condolences to the victims and their families, and he called for flags in Iowa to be flown half-staff until Thursday. Branstad deflected questions about public statements and social media posts made by Donald Trump, the Republican Partys presumptive presidential nominee. Branstad instead criticized Democratic President Barack Obama for his handling of the Islamic State. (Trumps) problem, as far as Im concerned, is Obama has consistently denied the seriousness of this threat that has grown and grown, and I believe the leader of this country needs to stand up and have the guts to say we have Islamic extremists that are committed to killing us, Branstad said. I just think the leader of the country ought to have the guts to say what it is. That doesnt condemn every Muslim. But it does say there is a certain radical element of Islam that is committed to destroying our way of life and killing as many people as possible. Branstad also said he thinks the U.S. military should take a more active role in combating the Islamic State. I dont think we can continue to be on the defensive, Branstad said. I think we have to go after them in a much more dramatic way where they are in Iraq and Syria and Libya and other countries. Media reports said the Orlando shooter had been twice interviewed by the FBI prior to this weekends shooting. Branstad on Monday said he did not think more gun control laws are appropriate, but he did not rule out supporting a law that would prevent individuals on federal terror watch lists from purchasing weapons. When asked if such a law should be put in place, Branstad said, I think we do need to seriously review our procedures in dealing with people that are making threats, be it on the internet or in person, just because of the need to protect the safety of our citizens. We put people on a watch list and restrict their travel by airplane, Branstad said. It seems to me that we need to be looking at this very seriously in order to protect the citizens of this country. Branstad also said he would like to see better communication between the FBI and people in charge of gun permits. A man was robbed at gunpoint and assaulted before 10:30 p.m . Friday in Rapid City's Roosevelt Park, according to police. The victim told police he was sitting on a park bench when three males approached and asked for a cigarette. The victim said one suspect then pulled out a handgun and pointed it at him. The victim said the weapon as an "airsoft gun," a replica firearm that shoots pellets. The suspect struck him in the head, and after the victim fell to the ground, the group assaulted him. The victim was later treated for minor injuries. Police say the suspects grabbed the victim's backpack and ran off to the northwest. The male who pulled the gun is described as a Native American between 16 and 18 years old, 130 to 140 pounds, and about 6 feet tall. He wore a red shirt with a Chicago Bulls hat, and possibly black pants and black shoes. The second male, also a Native American, between 16 and 18 years old, was wearing a white tank top with black shorts and shoes, is approximately 5-foot-5, 120 pounds with shaggy hair. The third male, also a Native American, 17 or 18 years old, was wearing a black T-shirt and black pants. Police continue to investigate. Anyone with any information about the robbery should contact police investigations at 605-394-4131. Rapid City law enforcement officials say 22-year-old Lorin Winchester contributed to his traffic death Saturday by speeding on his motorcycle. Winchester collided with a Honda minivan in the 2400 block of Mount Rushmore Road about 9:45 p.m. Police said the van was traveling north and attempted to make a left turn into a parking lot, turning in front of Winchester's southbound Kawasaki. Winchester died of injuries at the scene. The 36-year-old woman driving the van was not injured. Her name was not released. Rapid City Police Department spokesman Brendyn Medina on Monday said Winchester's rate of speed is being determined. Witnesses estimated the motorcycle was traveling 50 mph to 60 mph. The Rapid City Critical Accident Team is investigating the crash. Hunter Widvey didn't have as much experience in the pageant world as some of her fellow contestants. But on June 4, the judges still crowned the Rapid City teen as Miss South Dakota Outstanding Teen 2016. The competition is the Miss America organization's teen division, and Widvey, 17, will go on to represent South Dakota and compete at the 2016 Miss America Outstanding Teen pageant from August 2-6 in Orlando. There, the Stevens High School senior will bring her gifts in interview, poise and talent, the last of which has already won her the Miss SD Outstanding Teen Talent Award for her vocal rendition of the Mozart song, "Als Luise Die Briefe." Widvey spoke to the Rapid City Journal about the pageant and her new title on Thursday, and in doing so became the latest subject in our ongoing Newsmaker 5 Questions series. Question: What made you want to compete in pageants? Widvey: In the past couple of years, there have been people within the pageant world who told me I should try it and said that the various activities I'm in figure skating, dance, debate would make a good combination to be in pageants. I heard that there were really good scholarships in the pageant system and that it could be good for your education overall, so I decided to try it. Q: What does it mean to you to win Miss South Dakota Outstanding Teen? Widvey: It's a huge honor. I'm really excited to see where it takes me this year. I get to promote my platform around South Dakota and on a national level when I go to nationals. Right now I'm doing a lot of prep, getting my wardrobe in Illinois at Bridal Elegance, and making a lot of appearances around South Dakota. I'm really excited to go to Hot Springs next weekend for Miss South Dakota, which will be my first appearance as Miss South Dakota Outstanding Teen. Q: How did you choose your platform, and what will you do to promote it in the coming year? Widvey: My platform is Sewing SEEDS of Kindness. I chose it because I think it's a basic thing everyone needs to focus on in today's society. There's a lot of tension right now with the election, and it's important to treat everyone the way you would like to be treated. I'm promoting it throughout the state and on a national level by going around to schools in South Dakota to talk about it, and I'm also in the process of working on an exact plan to speak to adults about it. Q: What positive things have pageants done for you and for others? Widvey: Pageants help girls a lot with self-confidence. Being able to get out there is an important thing, to be confident on stage. Interview helps with speaking, whether it's in a small group or having to speak in front of a whole audience. It gives you confidence to speak and to get out there. Q: After winning Miss South Dakota Outstanding Teen, where do you go from here? Widvey: I think it's a really good opportunity to get out my message of kindness and to go throughout South Dakota to promote that. I also want to inspire people to go for their dreams and show them that they can do whatever they want when they put their minds to it. The three men charged in the murder of 22-year-old Jessica Rehfeld of Rapid City pleaded not guilty on Monday to the multiple charges they face. Jonathon Klinetobe, 26, Richard Hirth, 35, and David Schneider, 24, appeared at the Pennington County Courthouse Monday morning to formally hear the charges against them. A county grand jury earlier indicted them on first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping in the first degree and conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping in the first degree. Through their defense attorneys, the men entered not guilty pleas to all of the charges, which carry maximum penalties of death or life in prison. Authorities allege that Rehfeld's ex-boyfriend Klinetobe hired Hirth and Schneider to stab her to death on May 18, 2015, and help bury her in the woods south of Rockerville. Police believed Rehfeld was a missing person for close to a year, until a witness came forward last month and led law enforcement to her grave site. The men are scheduled to return to court next week. They remain jailed in lieu of paying release bonds of $1 million to $2 million each. A storm tough enough to flip a recreational trailer, damage roofs, knock down electrical power poles and halt Interstate 90 traffic smacked the region before 5 p.m. Monday. By then, sirens screamed severe weather warnings in Rapid City. And National Weather Service bulletins alerted south-central Meade County and central Pennington County to brace for tennis ball-size hail and 80- to 100-mph winds. Lightning struck a pickup on South Highway 79. And emergency responders investigated scattered reports of structure and pasture fires. No injuries were reported, including the pickup driver. The fires were limited to isolated hay bales. Weather service radar showed a robust storm system positioned across western South Dakota between Nebraska to North Dakota and almost to Wyoming. Ominous clouds in the Hermosa area in northeastern Custer County and south central Pennington County spurred the tornado warning just before 4:30 p.m. Around 4:45 p.m., the weather service canceled the tornado warning. Photos posted on weather service social media later showed damage to five homes northeast of Hermosa. The larger area affected by the severe thunderstorm alert included Rapid City, Rapid Valley, Ellsworth Air Force Base, Rapid City Regional Airport, Box Elder, Caputa, Hereford, Farmingdale, Wicksville and New Underwood. Blinding rain briefly stopped I-90 traffic at Exit 88 east of New Underwood. The Long Valley-Martin area also escaped a tornado warning around 7:30 p.m. The weather service advised people to seek shelter in a sturdy structure, warning that people and animals outside could be injured. The warnings, extending to 9 p.m., also advised people to expect hail damage to roofs, siding, windows, vehicles and trees. BROOKLYN, Mich. Joey Logano plopped into a seat, getting a much-needed break, when the 26-year-old driver found out he was just a part of history. Logano pulled away from the pack to win the FireKeepers Casino 400 and was followed by 20-year-old Chase Elliott and 23-year-old Kyle Larson, the youngest top three in NASCAR Sprint Cup history. "That's pretty cool," he said when informed of the feat Sunday. The trio's average age of 23 was younger than the 24.7 of the top three finishers at a race in 1951 and two races the previous year. "The future of NASCAR is present," Logano said. "It's going to be big. It's amazing to see." Logano, the pole-setter, moved past Elliott on lap 153 and stayed ahead for the 15th Sprint Cup series victory of his career in the 15th race of a year that has included 10 different winners. Elliott finished a career-best second, but wasn't in the mood to celebrate because he blamed himself for poor restarts. "I definitely messed up," he said. "Putting it in the correct gear would be a good start." Larson fell one place short of matching his best performance. Brad Keselowski was fourth and points leader Kevin Harvick finished fifth at Michigan International Speedway. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished 39th out of 40, is the only winner from 2015 that is winless this year. NASCAR's latest aerodynamic package made its debut, part of the sport's plan to create more competitive racing. "We hope it works," team owner Joe Gibbs said, leaving a venue that used to be packed and now has pockets of empty seats in the 72,000-seat racetrack. "We need more people in the stands." The new aero setup included, for the first time in more than a decade, a reduction in the downforce to 1,500 pounds and shortening of the spoiler to 2.5 inches. "It's not a whole lot different than the other package," Earnhardt bristled from the garage after a crash knocked him out of the race. "I think we talk about packages too much." Drivers weren't sure how their cars would handle due to the changes, which will also be implemented next month at Kentucky. That appeared to lead to an uncharacteristically accident-free start on the 2-mile oval about 70 miles west of Detroit. The first caution didn't slow down the race until lap 47, the cleanest start at MIS since 2009. "At the start of the race, everyone was trying to take it easy," Larson explained. Free-flowing racing didn't last long. Yellow flags became frequent before a restart with 30-plus laps left. Logano had a huge lead with 12 laps to go when Denny Hamlin, the Daytona 500 winner, blew out his front right tire to force another restart. Logano sped away when the racing went green again and coasted to the win, seemingly taking advantage of the new aero package. "The cars are out of control, no doubt," he said. "Crazy. It makes it a lot of fun. You're going faster in the straightaway and you have no downforce. Especially three-wide, it's a recipe for disaster." BUSCH BUMMED: Kyle Busch had finished 30th or worse in four straight races since winning his third race of the year last month at Kansas. Busch completed just 52 laps before blowing his engine, causing him to finish 40th and last. "The last four races have been really, really bad," he acknowledged. FAMILY TIES: The Earnhardt family Dale Jr. and his nephew, Jeffrey had a rough day, finishing toward the back of the 40-car race. The right side of Earnhardt Jr.'s car crashed into the wall, ending his race after 61 laps. He bumped against Chris Buescher soon after a restart. "He must have just lost the nose of his car," Earnhardt said. "I hate it, but you try to take care of each other out there." Jeffrey Earnhardt was forced out on lap 107 when a fire started in the front of his car, which became fully engulfed in flames as he steered it on to pit row. Jeffrey Earnhardt, who had to jump from the car, was evaluated at the infield medical center was released. UP NEXT: Sonoma Raceway, June 26. Kyle Busch is the defending race winner. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! Already a Subscriber? Already a Subscriber? Sign in Terms of Service Privacy Policy RAPID CITY | Thomas Joseph Jarding, 63, Hot Springs, passed away June 2, 2016, while in hospice care in Rapid City. Tom was born May 27, 1953, in Mitchell, SD, to John and Marie Jarding and lived his early years on his parent's farm in Alexandria. His family moved to Ethan, SD, for several years before moving to Mitchell, where Tom attended Notre Dame High School before transferring to Mitchell Senior High School after Notre Dame closed its doors in 1970. Tom graduated from Mitchell High School in 1971. After high school, Tom attended the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD. In 1985, Tom married Norma Crosby. Tom and Norma spent much of their lives in California before moving to Utah where they lived until they moved to Hot Springs, SD, in 2005. Diagnosed with a congenital heart defect as a teenager, Tom was told he would never live to see his twentieth birthday. Although his heart condition was always present in his life, Tom lived a full and fascinating life continuing to beat the odds and defy doctors warnings to the day he died six days following his sixty-third birthday. Despite his medical condition, Tom never complained but rather relished every day of his life. He was always quick to offer support to someone in need and he fully understood the responsibility to fight for the least among us. His intellect was deep and expansive, his wit was substantial, and his readiness to laugh and smile was contagious. Among his survivors are his stepson, Lynn Wirth, Layton, Utah; his grandchildren, Aleyssa and Danyail, both of Layton, Utah; his sisters, Susan Wingo and Elaine Verschoor of Boise, Idaho; his sister, Bette Wilkinson of Rapid City; and his brothers, John Jarding and Steve Jarding both of Rapid City, SD. He was preceded in death by his parents, John and Marie Jarding; his wife Norma; his brother, Walt Jarding; and his sister, Mary Walker. Funeral services are pending at Kinkade Funeral Chapel in Sturgis, SD. Upcoming field days in Froid and Sidney, Mont., will have as part of their focus discussions on cross slot no-till drills.Cross slot no-tillage technologies and systems, including cross slot drills, arose from a 30-year research project, which was designed to find out why other technologies and systems had not always worked reliably. A field of alfalfa was established near Luverne, N.D., using a no-till cross slot drill that provided consistent results over a wide range of seeding conditions and seed types, according to Cross Slot No-Tillage Systems.The Froid Research Farm Field Day is set for June 23 from 1-5 p.m. and the Sidney ARS/MSU Eastern Ag Research Center dryland field day is set for June 24 from 9 a.m.-12:30 p.m. The agendas for both field days are not set in stone as yet, but the list of speakers is nearly finalized.MSU EARC also holds an irrigation field day, which is a week later on June 30.Roger Ashley, well-respected retired area Extension agronomist at NDSU Dickinson Research Extension Center, who conducted numerous no-till studies in the region during his tenure, may be speaking at the Froid Research Farm field day in northeastern Montana this month.We are hoping he will be available to talk with us about cross slot drills and conduct a demonstration, said Beth Redlin, technical information specialist at the USDA/ARS Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory in Sidney, Mont.Redlin said the Sidney dryland field day started in 2009 when Ben Larson, former Richland County Extension agent, arranged a private tour of the site for local producers. Around that time, they started doing the tours annually, and the tours grew into actual dryland field days.This year, MSU EARC has joined us to show off their dryland plots as well. These plots are located just across the highway from ours, so its a natural fit to do them together, Redlin said.Froid and Sidney are relatively close to each other, but they attract different producers. Froid attracts northern Montana producers, while more northwestern North Dakota/northeastern Montana producers attend the Sidney dryland field days.The Froid field days is sponsored by the Extension agents/offices in Roosevelt and Sheridan counties. The research farm, where the field days are held, is located eight miles north of Culbertson, Mont, on Highway 16.Pesticide points are pending for both Froid and Sidney field days.Pending but probable agenda for Froid Research Farm field days is: Field soil sampling demonstration by Jeff Chilson, Roosevelt County Extension in Culbertson. (Haney test) Tim Fine, Richland County Extension agent, will speak on marestail identification. Common vetch in lentils. Weediness potential of cover crops Mark Henning, agronomist, NRCS Area Office, Miles City, Mont. Froid Farm Subsurface Irrigation Demonstration Project with Ann Ross, civil engineer, NRCS Area Office, Miles City.Sidney ARS field stops at Froid:1) A cooperative model for preventing resistant weed invasions by Dr. Natalie West, USDA-ARS entomologist/ecologist.2) Camelina seeding rate and depth study by Dr. Reza Keshavarze Afshar, MSU-EARC.3) Warm season legumes (demonstrations plots) by Dr. Brett Allen, USDA-ARS agronomist.4) Cross Slot drill demonstration with Roger Ashley, retired Extension agronomist, NDSU DREC or if not available then Drs. Allen/Bill Iversen, USDA-ARS, Sidney - Crop Sequence Study.5) Fallow replacement study:a) Using cover crops to fight compaction by Dr. Jay Jabro, USDA-ARS soil physicist.b) Identifying pest insects in oilseeds and cover crops / New pollinator studies in canola (with SDSU) and in reclamation cover crops by Dr. Tatyana Rand, USDA-ARS entomologist.At the end of the speakers, Roosevelt and Sheridan County Conservation Districts will provide a steak supper.At the Sidney ARS/MSU EARC Dryland field day on June 24, sponsors are MSU EARC; Sidney USDA-ARS and the Richland County Extension Office.Pending but probable agenda for Sidney dryland field days is: Weed identification exercise (continues throughout the day) with Richland County Extension and Sidney ARS. Tim Fine, Richland County Extension agent, will speak on marestail identification. MSU-EARC field stops:1) Dr. Frankie Crutcher, new plant pathologist at MSU EARC will speak on his research.2) Orange wheat blossom midge trapping update by Sherry Turner, MSU-EARC research associate.3) Winter wheat varieties with Dr. Phil Bruckner, MSU professor and winter wheat breeder.4) Macro- and micro-nutrients study for cereal and pulse crops (pea and spring wheat) by Dr. Yesuf Mohammed, and Dr. Reza Keshavarze Afshar, MSU-EARC post doc associates.5) Herbicide residuals affecting pulse crop germination and growth, Dr. Prashant Jha, MSU-EARC.Sidney ARS field stops at Sidney field day:1) A cooperative model for preventing resistant weed invasions by Dr. Natalie West, USDA-ARS entomologist/ecologist.2) Diversified cereals with pulses and oilseeds study (spring wheat-pea-winter wheat or barley-oilseed) by Dr. Brett Allen, USDA-ARS agronomist.3) Warm season legumes (demonstrations plots) by Allen.4) National Oilseeds Project: includes a yield report by Allen; and a water use and water use efficiency study with Dr. Jay Jabro, USDA-ARS soil physicist.Lunch will be provided by Richland County Extension. Cities across Montana are planning vigils Sunday night for the victims of the Orlando shoots. In Billings, Not in Our Town will host a candlelight vigil at 8 p.m. at Grace United Methodist Church, 1935 Avenue B. Speakers will include Marty Elizabeth Ortiz, board chair of Not in Our Town Billings, Dan Mehrens-Wallace and Liz Welch. Here are the details for other Montana cities. More information can be found at the Big Sky Pride Facebook page. Helena: 8 p.m. on the steps of the Capitol. Missoula: 9 p.m. on the Oval on the University of Montana campus. Bozeman: 9 p.m. at the Gallatin County Courthouse. Great Falls: 8 p.m. at the federal courthouse, 215 First Ave. N. Butte: 8 p.m. on the steps of the Butte-Silver Bow County Courthouse. Myagdi, Nepal: Nepal police have arrested two cadres of the Netra Bikram Chanda led CPN Maoist from Myagdi district for their alleged involvement of attacking Ncell tower located at Jyamarukot in Beni Municipality on Monday. The arrested persons have been identified as Lalu Kishan and Padam Pun, both were the local leaders of the Maoist. Police have also conformed about their arrest. According to police, Pun was arrested from Birendra Chowk on Sunday evening while Kishan from the same place on Monday morning from his shop. AP MYRTLE BEACH, S.C., June 13: Dale "Boomer" Ranney can get in Donald Trump's face like almost no one else. She has nudged her way to the front of 21 of his rallies, passing up book after book, photo after photo for him to autograph, finding success some 66 times. He smiles at her in recognition now. When she made a trip to Trump Tower in New York to be near him for his home state primary in April, he spotted her and told his security guards to let her into his victory party there later that day. A photo snapped that morning shows Ranney and her candidate grinning and giving the thumbs up. He's in his suit and red tie. She's in her sequined American flag vest and matching boots. Ranney is not only a Trump superfan, she's also a forceful advocate and volunteer on behalf of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Since February, she has guided an ad hoc team of 50 volunteers who have made some 75,000 telephone calls to voters to preach the gospel of Trump. The eclectic, unpaid group she calls them the "Trump T-Birds," after her red Ford convertible includes a cancer patient making calls from her bed and 13-year-old who spouts Trumpisms. All candidates count on volunteers to make calls to voters, distribute literature and knock on doors. Few have inspired the kind of passionate dedication that the celebrity billionaire has. For a candidate just now beginning traditional fundraising and woefully behind in building a staff of paid field organizers, this volunteer network could be especially vital when he faces presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton this fall. Ranney, a 62-year-old thrice-married, beach-loving retired industrial engineer, is perhaps Trump's most committed volunteer. "I feel guilty anytime I'm not on the phone calling for him," Ranney said. "I'm not getting paid, but it's a personal responsibility I feel to get him in the White House." She approaches her volunteer work much like Trump approaches his bid, speaking off the cuff with prospective voters rather than reading from scripts the campaign has uploaded to its computerized calling program. She uses social media to build a following and makes her own assignments rather than waiting for directions. "I really think all of us volunteers kind of copy Donald," Ranney said. "It's natural, not rehearsed, kind of ad-libbed." With the primary nomination locked up for Trump, Ranney is starting to organize voter registration drives, acting on her gut instinct that he will inspire scores of people who have never voted to come out for him. Kathmandu, Nepal: The government of Nepal has on Monday officially sent a invitation letter to the agitating parties - Madhesi Morcha and National Muslim Struggle Alliance (NMSA) inviting them for a dialogue. As the agitating parties have united under the name of Federal Alliance, the government of Nepal had sent a letter to Tharuhat/Tharuwan United Struggle Committee urging them for talks on June 5. The agitating parties have been protesting some provisions of the new constitution. Nepal Tarun Dal president and lawmaker Uday Shumsher Rana Kathmandu, Nepal: Nepal Tarun Dal (NTD), the youth organization of the Nepali Congress, has demanded action against murderer of Rajesh Sen. Sen, the Nepali Congress cadre of Kapilvastu district, was murdered by an unidentified gang on January 11, while preparing condolence program in the demise of Nepali Congress president Sushil Koirala. Organizing a press conference, the NTD has demanded immediate action against those involved in the murder of Sen. Likewise, he also demanded the government to provide compensation to the victim family by declaring Sen as a martyr. During the conference Tarun Dal president and lawmaker Uday Shumsher Rana has also warned of launching stern agitation against the government if it did not responded the demands. KATHMANDU: The Government of Nepal has condemned the mass shooting incident in a night club of Orlando in the United States of America on Sunday. Issuing a press statement today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that the government is deeply saddened by the news of mass shooting that killed 50 people and injured dozens. The statement further added that Nepal condemns such barbaric act of violence against innocent people and expressed sympathy to the bereaved family members of the victims. The government also wished for speedy recovery of those injured and expressed hope that the perpetrator will be brought to justice.RSS I give my consent to Sakshi Post to be in touch with me via email for the purpose of event marketing and corporate communications. Privacy Policy SCOTUS finds no Sixth Amendment problems with reliance on uncounseled tribal conviction | Main | Notable new commentary at The Federalist talks through conservative support and opposition to federl statutory sentencing reform June 13, 2016 Intriguing Ninth Circuit ruling about restitution and forfeiture and the Excessive Fines Clause The Ninth Circuit handed down an interesting new opinion dealing with various challenges to various financial sanctions in US v. Beecroft, No. 12-10175 (9th Cir. June 13, 2016) (available here). Here are snippets from the start and heart of the extended ruling: Following her convictions for participating in an extensive mortgage-fraud conspiracy, a defendant was ordered to pay more than $2 million in restitution and to forfeit more than $100 million. We must decide whether either amount was erroneously calculated or unconstitutionally excessive.... As noted, Beecroft has not demonstrated error in the district courts calculation of the amount of losses suffered by the banks injured by Beecrofts actions. Without error in the loss calculation, Beecroft cannot show that requiring her to pay that amount back to the victims was somehow excessive or grossly disproportional to her crimes, which caused the loss in the first place. And we reiterate that Beecroft was not ordered to pay anything approaching the full amount of the banks losses. Uncontroverted evidence was presented to the district court showing that the scheme in which Beecroft participated caused losses in excess of $50 million; requiring her to pay slightly more than $2 million of that back is not an unconstitutional and excessive punishment.... The $107 million Beecroft was ordered to forfeit for the conspiracy (Count 1) stands apart. As with the other counts of conviction, for Count 1 Beecroft could be fined no more than $1 million (with a Guidelines range beginning as low as $20,000). In other words, for Count 1, Beecroft was ordered to forfeit a sum more than 100 times greater than the maximum fine allowable and more than 5,000 times greater than the lower-end of the Guidelines range. Even accounting for the fact that Beecroft faced potentially significant prison time as well, see Mackby, 339 F.3d at 1018, this is a tremendous disconnect between the forfeiture amount and Beecrofts legally available fine. Indeed, such a disconnect stands out even among forfeiture orders which have previously been held grossly disproportional.... The government cites no case upholding a forfeiture order with a disparity similar to the one here, and it has not attempted to argue that the $107 million otherwise corresponds to injuries sustained by the government or the banks.... We have little doubt that the Eighth Amendment allows Beecroft to be ordered to forfeit a substantial sum of money for her participation in such an extensive and damaging conspiracy. But difficulty remains with the exceptional amount of forfeiture the court did impose. Without even an argument supporting the propriety of the $107 million forfeiture, we have no choice but to conclude that an order which so vastly outpaces the otherwise available penalties for Beecrofts criminal activity runs afoul of the Excessive Fines Clause. Even on plain-error review, we must vacate the forfeiture order with respect to Count 1 and remand to the district court for reconsideration of that amount in light of the Eighth Amendments Excessive Fines Clause. June 13, 2016 at 03:54 PM | Permalink Comments Can someone explain to me why this matters? The woman is in jail for 210 months and has a $2 million fine to pay. in what reality does it matter whether the forfeiture is $1 or $107 million? Posted by: Allan | Jun 14, 2016 2:15:48 PM Various people can pay 2M or some reasonable fraction ... 107M tends to be a bit more difficult. She has a long prison sentence too -- if it holds up -- but if she has the funds, others might be able to control it while she is in prison. She might too. Posted by: Joe | Jun 14, 2016 3:49:36 PM Post a comment Thousands of people people turned out last night at a Castro District vigil to honor those killed and injured in Sunday's mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub, an event that turned to a march to San Francisco's City Hall. According to Mission Local, Supervisors Scott Wiener and David Campos, the only queer members of the Board of Supes, emceed the event, which featured around a dozen speakers, from the beds of two trucks "as police guarded the edges of the massive assembly." Hoodline reports that, "An SFPD officer at the event estimated that 10,000 people were in attendance, though that number has not yet been confirmed by authorities." That crowd included visitors like Kat, a woman SFist contributor Joe Kukura (who was reporting from the event) referred to as "Woman Who Handed Out Hundreds Of Free Candles," who was visiting SF as a tourist. My sweetheart told me the news this morning," Kat told SFist. "I just felt completely helpless and I wanted to do something to help. At least this makes me feel like Im doing something. Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist Sister Roma of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, shared Kat's shock, telling SFist that I woke up this morning and, like the rest of the world, I watched in horror as the story unveiled. Im devastated, Im heartbroken, Im shocked, Im disappointed, Im angry." "But this turnout right here, right now in the Castro, this is what our community is about. And it will take more than one gunman or a million gunmen to take our community down. This is who we are. We are a community of love. Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist Speaking at the event, Campos said that It is not shocking to me that the worst mass shooting in the history of this country would target the queer community. And it is not shocking to me that its not just the queer community thats being targeted but also the Latino community. One of the things that my queer Latino brothers and sisters have said to me is David, make sure the Latino community is not forgotten in all of this. However, the first speaker, president of the Latino Democratic Club Lito Sandoval, suggested that Latinos had been initially overlooked by rally organizers, saying Were here because we asked to be here, not because we were invited." Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist My breaking heart joins your breaking heart as we search to find a way to dispel the hatred that was the cause of last nights tragedy, state Sen. Mark Leno said to the crowd. Violence does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs in a context, a social and political context. Interim San Francisco Police Chief Toney Chaplin, speaking to the crowd, called for stricter gun control laws, saying that "The NRA is a powerful group, but I am staring at a more powerful group." Get out there and go show your support for folks. We need to get this legislation in place to change the gun laws in this country." Photo: Joe Kukura/SFist Addressing the crowd, Wiener said that Two diseases that afflict his country came together and murdered 50 of our brothers and sisters." "The disease of anti-LGBT violence that has been in our country for many, many years, from our kids who are getting bullied to people being harassed and attacked on the streets, to our transgender brothers and sisters being murdered in their own communities, and now this mass shooting. The other disease is the disease of guns, and a country that is awash with guns whose only purpose is to kill other people. As the event progressed, "A crowd chant of 'Wheres the mayor?' began from the back" of the crowd "and grew louder and louder until Mayor Ed Lee himself took the stage and attempted to address the crowd only to be immediately booed," Mission Local reports. According to a comment posted to the above video, one rally participant "was so disgusted by the immaturity of this response. I disagree with plenty of Ed Lee's policies, but the man showed up." Former state Assembly member Tom Ammiano, also a speaker, had harsh words for what he described as laissez-faire homophobia and the National Rifle Association. NRA? National Real Assholes. Is that a gun in your pocket? 'Cause I'm not happy to see you." We like gay people, but they cant get married; we like transgender people, but they cant pee next to me. Fuck you, you have blood on your hands. You know, Im old, Im queer, Im weary and Im full of gay blood, he said. But we are going to fight back and continue, and continue and continue. Kukura has provided stage directions for what came next: Ammiano: This [attack] all started with a kiss. A simple but pure act of intimacy. So lets have a kiss. Mayor Lee?" [Actually kisses Mayor Lee on the lips, crowd roars] Ammiano: "Chief of Police?" [Actually kisses Interim Chief Toney on the lips, crowd roars twice as hard]. Ammiano: "Oh my god, I got a little tongue! One commenter on our video from the event also noted that Ammiano "made a big show of kissing Ed Lee and the chief of police--to piss off the homophobes, obviously, but I think it also made a great point that in San Francisco both men laughed and happily kissed him back." After the SF Gay Men's Chorus sang three songs ("Singing For Our Lives," "We Shall Overcome," and "An Irish Blessing"), rally-goers marched to San Francisco's City Hall, which was lit in the colors of the rainbow Pride flag. The candlelight vigil honoring victims of the #OrlandoShooting has turned into a march to San Francisco City Hall. pic.twitter.com/8ySbw3GCMJ Sergio Quintana (@svqjournalist) June 13, 2016 Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist One at City Hall, the group of thousands again sang "We Shall Overcome," as speakers began to read a list of the names of those confirmed as dead in the attack. Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist Photo: Jay Barmann/SFist Heads up: Sierra Nevada of Chico, CA, the nation's third largest craft brewery, is docking at Pier 35 this Saturday for an afternoon of beer and merriment. The festival, in the afternoon from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., will be the first-ever San Francisco stop on a collaborative tour of American craft breweries called "Beer Camp Across America." We're one of six cities favored, and in each region, they've paired with local brewers to create a collaboration beer. In the case of Northern California, which they describe as "the birthplace of craft beer" (take that, SoCal), they've brewed up a session beer with hibiscus that you can geek out about here. Sierra Nevada is also pairing with the SF Brewers' Guild, who do Beer Week, so yeah, you can expect a mini version of that event condensed into one day (127 breweries are participating.) General admission tickets are $50 for all-you-can-drink beer and a commemorative glass. Compared to Beer Week's opening Gala, which was $80 last year, that ain't bad. If you want access to kegs before the hordes arrive, you can pay $70 and arrive an hour early. As you might expect, food trucks will be on site for your drunk business, and local musicians Cracker will be playing. Sierra Nevada Beer Camp Across America Festival, Pier 35, 1454 The Embarcadero, Saturday, June 18, 2016 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Related: Food Festival Season Arrives: A Look At All That You Can Be Eating And Drinking This Summer The "add you to their professional network" jokes are practically writing themselves for tech journalists Monday, as Redmond, WA-based Microsoft announced this morning that they would be acquiring Mountain View, CA-based LinkedIn for about $26.2 billion. According to a joint press release, "Microsoft will acquire LinkedIn for $196 per share in an all-cash transaction" and "LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence," by which they presumably mean that we won't get to stop rolling our eyes every time we're spammed with invitations to join one of LinkedIn's over 400 million users' networks, nor will LinkedIn's unsubscribe functions get any better at actually stemming the tide of persistent emails. The two companies even made a little video about the acquisition, "starring" LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. (Under the terms of the acquisition, Weiner will remain in place, reporting to Nadella.) In an email to Microsoft employees, Nadella said that "this is the biggest acquisition for Microsoft since I became CEO," and closed by demanding that "if youre not on LinkedIn, join up now and start using and learning more." In an email to LinkedIn staff, Wiener did not encourage staff to run out and buy Xboxes or whatever, but did claim that "Todays announcement, that LinkedIn will be combining forces with Microsoft, marks the next step in our journey together, the next stepping stone toward realizing our mission and vision, and in remaining CEO of the company, the next chapter in the greatest professional experience of my life." He also suggested that most but not all! LinkedIn staffers had nothing to fear in the new world order, emphasizing that the company will remain independent even post-acquisition, and that "little is expected to change: You'll have the same title, the same manager, and the same role you currently have." Now for the bad news, for some LinkedInners, according to Wiener: "The one exception: For those members of the team whose jobs are entirely focused on maintaining LinkedIn's status as a publicly traded company, we'll be helping you find your next play." However, "In terms of everything else, it should be business as usual." That includes, one assumes, their 2014 lease of an entire 26-story skyscraper at 222 Second St in downtown San Francisco, described earlier this year by SF Chronicle architecture writer John King as "The biggest thing on Second" and "a brand new black monolith" that was "built by, for New Yorkers." According to a presentation made to investors and reported on by Consumerist, "Microsoft explains that combining the two companies audiences after all, many younger LinkedIn users may not be using tools like Office or a Windows-based PC may expose non-Microsoft consumers to the companys products." They expect the end result to look a little like this: On the news of the deal, reports Bloomberg, "LinkedIn shares surged 49 percent in premarket trading in New York to $194.63. Microsoft fell 3.7 percent to $49.60." CHEROKEE, Iowa | Two lawsuits aimed at stopping an oil pipeline company from exercising eminent domain to obtain private land along the pipeline route were dismissed Monday, the same day hearings to determine the value of the land being sought began. District Judge Nancy Whittenburg ruled that the landowners who filed the lawsuits do not have the right to challenge Dakota Access' exercise of eminent domain and instead must seek a legal challenge to the Iowa Utility Board's final order to grant the company a permit to build the pipeline. "... IUB had the authority to make such considerations and determinations and did so. Therefore, in order to challenge these determinations addressed in the final order, interested parties are required to seek judicial review ...," Whittenburg said in her 25-page ruling, filed in Cherokee County District Court. Last month, landowners Marvin and Bonnie Zoch and Marian Johnson, who own land in Cherokee County in the path of the pipeline, filed suits saying that Dakota Access and the pipeline developer did not meet provisions under Iowa law to use eminent domain because Dakota Access is not a utility and the pipeline is not for public use or public improvement. Dakota Access lawyers responded that the pipeline serves a public purpose and is a utility or company under the IUB's jurisdiction. Whittenburg said the IUB's final order determined that Dakota Access met those requirements to exercise eminent domain. Bill Hanigan, a Des Moines attorney representing the landowners, could not be reached for comment. Dakota Access spokeswoman Lisa Dillinger said the company does not comment on pending legal matters. The lawsuits had also sought to delay county compensation commission hearings to determine the value of land being sought for the project. Those hearings began as scheduled Monday morning and are scheduled to continue through early July. The IUB approved Dakota Access' permit application for the $3.8 billion pipeline in March after more than a year of review. The Houston-based company plans to build a 1,168-mile pipeline that would transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil daily from western North Dakota's Bakken region to a shipping terminal in Patoka, Illinois. The route stretches 348 miles through 18 Iowa counties, including Sioux, O'Brien, Cherokee, Buena Vista and Sac. Last week, the IUB voted 2-1 to allow Dakota Access to begin construction on Iowa land where the company has all the necessary permissions. Dakota Access said in a recent news release that it has voluntary easement agreements with landowners for more than 96 percent of the land along the four-state route. In Iowa, agreements have been reached with more than 90 percent of landowners. A lawsuit filed in Polk County argues that the Iowa Utility Board shouldn't have approved the use of eminent domain for property along the route. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is reviewing the project because it crosses the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, has yet to grant permits for the project. Work on the project is being delayed in Lyon County, where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has notified the Iowa Department of Natural Resources that it has revoked a construction permit for a segment of the pipeline over concerns that the pipeline route may disrupt ancient Indian tribal burial grounds. SIOUX CITY | The City Council Monday will vote whether to proceed with the tubing hill and roadway at the all-seasons Cone Park near IBP Ice Center. Council members are scheduled to vote on construction documents for the tubing hill and roadway of the roughly $4 million project. If approved, bids will be taken July 12, with construction starting at the end of August. Matt Salvatore, the city's parks and recreation director, said the expected completion date for the tubing hill and roadway is July 31, 2017. According to city documents, the base bid for the project will include tree stump removal, site grading, excavation of a pond at Sertoma Park, extending Line Drive, snow-making infrastructures and other utilities. Construction documents also will include three alternates. The first two are options for a magic carpet, or surface lift. The third alternate is the option to build a parking lot west of Line Drive. One of the first two alternates will be considered for award along with the base bid, according to city documents. In other action Monday, the council will vote whether to have Sioux City-based PLaN Architecture design an estimated $750,000 day lodge at Cone Park. "The construction documents are for the tubing hill and the roadway only," Salvatore said. "There's a separate agreement with PLaN Architecture for the day lodge." The 3,000-square-foot day lodge would be one story tall and designed to contain restrooms, an office, storage, concessions and public gathering space. In May, Sioux City was awarded a $300,000 Vision Iowa grant, contingent on the city raising $16,684 from other sources in 90 days. As of Wednesday, the city has raised $5,355, or about 32 percent of the total, according to its website coneparksiouxcity.com. Todays top picks from our online calendar. Find more events at siouxcityjournal.com/calendar. Family Nature Night: Come to the Dickinson County Nature Center, 2279 170th St. in Okoboji, Iowa, for fun lessons and even more fun games and competitions for families of all ages. This weeks activity is fishing for families, where basic fishing techniques and fishing games will be played. Pre-register by calling 712-336-6352. Visit www.dickinsoncountynaturecenter.com for more information. Earth Extremes: A colorful earth science exhibit designed with a comic book theme and fun for all ages. Visitors will be invited to explore each area full of activities, experiments and so much more! This exhibit will be available through the end of August at Sanford Museum & Planetarium, 117 E. Willow St., Cherokee, Iowa. Visit sanfordmuseum.org or call 712-225-3922 for more information. David Lammers Art Collection: The show features student and professional artwork from 2004 to 2014, and all the artwork has a direct connection with Dordt College. On display at Dordt Campus Center Art Gallery, 498 Fourth Ave. NE, Sioux Center, Iowa, through August. Visit www.dordt.edu for more information. SIOUX CITY | The City Council gave the green light Monday for an architect to design a $750,000 day lodge for the all-seasons Cone Park. As of Monday, the city had raised $23,955 in additional private funds for the $4 million park envisioned next to the IBP Ice Center. A state board last month had made a $300,000 Vision Iowa grant contingent on the city raising at least $16,684 more locally. About $15,000 of the additional funds raised is from a Gilchrist Foundation grant, said Angel Wallace, parks and recreation manager. Virginia Anderson, co-chair of the Cone Park Committee, celebrated the council vote Monday, saying the decision was a major step for the long-awaited park. "We have the key indicators now," Anderson said. "We have the financials and the votes. We can move forward now." The council voted, 4-0, to have Sioux City-based PLaN Architecture design the day lodge. Councilman Dan Moore was absent Monday. The decision followed a lengthy discussion on whether the city should budget $750,000, or about $225 per square foot, for a day lodge. "That's too high to spend on a 3,000-square-foot building," Councilman Keith Radig said. Mayor Bob Scott agreed, saying the per-square-foot price was more than a new elementary school in Sioux City. According to city documents, the lodge would be one story tall and designed to contain restrooms, an office, storage, concessions and public gathering space. Councilwoman Rhonda Capron defended the price tag, saying the city would have difficulties building the lodge at a lesser cost. "If we're going to do this, let's do this right," Capron said. Anderson noted the city could use the day lodge as rental space for events such as weddings to generate additional revenue. In other action Monday, the council voted 4-0 to approve construction documents for a tubing hill and roadway at the park. If approved, bids will be taken July 12, with construction starting at the end of August. The expected completion date for the two projects is July 31, 2017. The base bid for the project will include tree stump removal, site grading, excavation of a pond at Sertoma Park, extending Line Drive, snow-making infrastructures and other utilities. The Gilchrist Foundation, a Sioux City-based nonprofit, partners with Security National Bank to provide funding to enable special projects, primarily in Sioux City or Chicago. "We're very excited and thankful for the Gilchrist Foundation coming forward and awarding our city for the project," Wallace said. "We're very supportive of the citizens donating to the general project as well." The award was contingent on raising the minimum amount within 90 days. The additional $7,271 could help fund project alternates or revamped versions of planned amenities at the facility on a hillside in Sertoma Park. SIOUX CITY | Community members gathered Sunday evening at the Unitarian Church of Sioux City for a vigil to honor those who had died in Sunday's mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. About 20 adults attended the vigil, which included readings, a moment of silence and an opportunity for people to share their feelings about the shooting, as well as the reactions they had heard on social media in the hours since. Karen Mackey, co-founder of the Siouxland Pride Alliance, said she and others decided late Sunday morning to have the event. They put out the word on the Siouxland Pride Alliance Facebook page to invite the public. "People were glad to hear that we were going to be doing something locally for the victims," Mackey said. Carter Smith, of Sioux City, said the event was helpful for those who were working through their feelings about the event. He said it also helped him reflect on the support system the Pride Alliance has in Sioux City. I think within Sioux City, its a firm reminder of all the good things that we have going here in the community," he said. "(We have) a lot of different allies in a variety of different fields." Smith, who has friends in the Orlando area, said when he heard the news of Sunday morning's shooting, he was anxious to check on them. "The first thing is you get on your phone and you check to make sure everyone is okay," he said. "Then you kind of just say a quiet prayer." Mackey said she was pleased with the event's turnout, which included not only Pride Alliance members but also four area pastors and several people from the Unitarian Church's congregation. "Today we're all Orlando," she said. I love running my own business because we have the freedom to move fast. When we spot opportunities we dont hesitate we jump on them. Not long ago, late on a Friday afternoon before a big holiday, we got a sales call here at Small Business Trends. I received a text alert about the call. Only problem was, our sales rep was on vacation. Much of my team was already gone for the long weekend. It would have been sooo easy to wait until the following Tuesday after the long holiday weekend for our sales rep to return the call. But I knew there was a reason the client was calling late on a Friday he wanted to get something done. And fast. Business deals have momentum, and Ive learned the hard way they can lose momentum just as quickly. So I picked up the phone, made the connection and concluded the sale with someone on the West coast by 8 p.m. that evening, Eastern Standard Time. Despite the late hour and the fact that the team was out, through the power of technology I learned about the call instantly. So I was able to jump on the opportunity. That kind of agility and ability to pivot and move quickly paid off in dollars and cents for my company. To compete and win today, small businesses have to radically increase their ability to sense and adapt to their operating environment. Businesses that operate with agility pull ahead of the pack. Its important for your business and mine to engage customers, be agile, go everywhere. In a world where every part of business is moving, AT&Ts user-intuitive solutions through the The Power of & can help companies be open AND secure, flexible AND reliable, remote AND collaborative. This June, Im collaborating with AT&T Small Business to attend the first AT&T Small Business Roundtable discussion with entrepreneur Bill Rancic and several small business experts. The goal is to share our perspectives on business agility, how others manage the business of opposing forces, and the role of The Power of &. Bill Rancic was the first winner of The Apprentice competition show. Today he is a restaurateur who runs the super-creative RPM restaurants. And Im delighted to say I will be joining Bill Rancic on Tuesday evening, June 14, in Chicago at one of his restaurants. Its all part of AT&Ts The Power of & program for entrepreneurs and business people kicked off earlier this year. AT&Ts The Power of & is about helping entrepreneurs like you and me engage in continuous learning and solve business challenges. The program is a combination of educational resources and opportunities such as: Community interaction and a forum for getting answers to business challenges; Educational resources including articles; Videos with interesting quick lessons. One 2-minute video, for example, is hosted by Bill Rancic and highlights the business model of Threadless, a marketplace and community for artists to sell their T-shirt designs. Ive embedded the video below. You really have to watch this video because of Threadlesss unique twist on selling T-shirts, proving that even an old business model can have new life breathed into it. Thats business agility! The hub for The Power of & is located at a site called the AT&T Business Circle. Its not a product site. No one will pressure you to buy anything there. Rather, the Business Circle is a community hub of free resources to help you learn and run your business more effectively. And thats what I like about it. Im all about lifelong learning. Remember our motto here at Small Business Trends is small business success delivered daily. That is our mission and I try to live it personally everyday. Its too hard to go it alone. A helping hand is always welcome. Just being able to talk with a peer whos been through similar challenges or someone with more knowledge, has helped me more times than I can say. So I appreciate the value of the Business Circle and the meaning behind AT&Ts The Power of & program. GIVEAWAY DETAILS In honor of the program, we are delighted to hold a giveaway of a Microsoft Lumia 950 smartphone. This is a perfect device for the busy professional on the go and gives you the freedom to get out of the office but still be productive. It includes the new Microsoft Edge Browser for an on-the-go reading view free of distractions. You can save your favorite reads and have them organized for convenient access later. HOW TO ENTER To enter the Lumia 950 giveaway, there are two simple steps. (1) Go check out the Business Circle site. (2) Then jump over to our form, enter your name and email address and identify the color of the header you see on the header or footer of the Business Circle site, to enter the giveaway. Entries are open through June 28, 2016. Winner will be chosen randomly from qualified entrants. Winner must be located in the United States and at least 18 years of age. Limited to one entry per person. Void where prohibited or limited. No purchase necessary. UPDATE JUNE 29, 2016: ENTRIES ARE NO LONGER BEING ACCEPTED. THANK YOU TO ALL THAT ENTERED! NOTE: This is a sponsored article and I am being compensated by AT&T to participate. All thoughts and opinions are my own, however. Traveling internationally can be a great break for business owners. And sometimes, it can even be necessary for facilitating business growth. But theres a lot that goest into organizing and planning for international travel. Here are some international travel tips to help ensure that your next excursion runs as smoothly as possible. International Travel Tips Make Sure Your Passport is Up to Date You likely already know that you need a passport in order to travel internationally. But even if you have a passport that youve used in the past, you need to make sure that its up-to-date. Passports obtained by adults are usually good for ten years. But make sure that yours isnt expired or even within months of the expiration date, as some countries wont accept travelers with passports that are about to expire in case there are issues during your trip. Make Copies of Your Passport When traveling internationally, your passport is your main source of identification. So its very important that you keep it safe. In fact, making color copies before your trip can be a good safeguard. Keep a copy in each of your bags and consider even leaving one at home with a family member just in case. Get Any Necessary Visas Some countries also require you to apply for a visa before entering. Youll need to look up the specific requirements of the country or countries you plan on visiting with the embassy or State Department when planning your trip. Notify the State Department It can also be a good idea to notify the State Department of your travel plans just so there are government officials aware of your whereabouts in case of emergency. Bring an Outlet Adapter Electrical outlets vary in different parts of the world. So you dont want to make it to your destination only to find that none of your electronics work. Instead, purchase an outlet adapter that will work with the outlets in the country or countries you plan on visiting. Check the Voltage of Your Electronics Some outlets also have different limits when it comes to voltage. So make sure that the electronics youre bringing are going to be able to work within those limits. Invest in a Good Pair of Headphones Whether youre waiting around in an airport, on a train or trying to work in a noisy coffee shop or hostel, headphones can be a necessary tool for international travelers. Find a pair that are good at canceling out noise and are also comfortable for long wear. Look Up Monetary Conversions When traveling between countries, conversion rates for money are likely to change. But while you might get different rates at different times or in different locations, its a good idea to at least look up the rates beforehand so you know if youre getting a good deal or if you should possibly try a different location. Check Your Mobile Coverage Even if you dont plan on calling many people during your travels, you should at least have access to a working phone in case of emergencies. So you need to make sure that your phone will work in the locations youre visiting. You may even need to sign up for an international calling plan that covers the area you plan on visiting. Turn Off Your Regular Data Its also likely that your regular data plan isnt set up for use overseas. Unless you have an international data plan, it can be a good idea for you to turn off your data and just use WiFi when its available. Get Any Necessary Vaccinations You may need to get certain vaccinations in order to travel to different countries. The Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have information about which vaccinations are necessary or recommended when traveling to various countries or regions. Get a Letter from Your Doctor for Any Medications If youre bringing over any prescriptions or medications, it can be a good idea to get a letter from your doctor in case you come across any issues while going through security in other countries. Let Your Bank Know Your Travel Plans If you head to a different country and start charging everything to your credit cards, your bank could see that and freeze your cards or accounts due to fraud concerns. To avoid this, just let your bank or card companies know your travel plans ahead of time. Check Entrance and Exit Fees Some countries have fees for entering or exiting that are separate from what you pay for flights. Check to see whether there are any fees involved for the countries you plan on visiting before you leave so that you can be prepared. Have Some Currency Ahead of Time Getting just a bit of currency from the countries you plan on visiting beforehand can also be a good idea. You likely dont want to get too much, because you dont want to have a lot left over and often credit card rates are better than conversion rates for cash anyway. But some places wont accept credit cards. And converting your money in airports isnt always cost effective. Use Credit Cards When Possible Its often more cost effective to use credit cards instead of converting all of your money to the currency of the countries you visit. And since U.S. credit cards are switching over to using chips, theyre more likely to be accepted in other countries than they were in previous years. Set Up Automatic Bill Pay While youre traveling, certain parts of your life at home will continue. Namely, youll still likely have to pay bills. So set up automatic bill pay or schedule all of the payments for a time before you leave in case you cant or dont have time to access your accounts while traveling. Put Your Mail on Hold You can also contact your local Post Office to have them put a hold on or forward your mail so that it doesnt just pile up in your mailbox while you travel. Check Internet Coverage Especially if you plan on getting some work done or being available during your international travels, youll likely need an Internet connection. Check with your hotel to see if they have WiFi available. Or you could search around for local connected cafes. See Also: 20 Travel Etiquette Tips to Mind Your Ps and Qs Grab Hotel Business Cards Even once youve reached your destination, dont let unfamiliar surroundings get you turned around and lost in a strange city. In case you ever need to get back to your hotel and you cant find anyone who speaks English, having a business card for your hotel can help you communicate where you need to go. Get an International Maps App A maps app can also be invaluable when it comes to finding your way around different cities. Just make sure you use one that works in the countries you plan on visiting. Consider Supplemental Insurance Your regular health coverage may not cover you in the event that something happens while youre traveling internationally. But you can purchase supplemental coverage to cover you during your trip. You can even get insurance that will allow you to fly back home in case that becomes necessary. Carry a Translator Guide If youre traveling to countries where you arent fluent in the language, carrying a pocket translator guide with common phrases in that language can be a good idea. Arrange for English Speaking Guides You can also hire guides to show you around and answer any questions in the language that youre most comfortable speaking. Make a List of Must Dos There are so many ways to travel internationally. You can plan out every last minute, or you can be more spontaneous. But its a good idea to at least make a list of the main things that you want to see or accomplish. Then you can make plans to see those things whenever its convenient as long as they dont require you to book ahead of time. Bring an Extra Set of Clothes in Your Carry-on Losing luggage is never a good thing. But if it happens, you want to be prepared at least for the immediate future. A change of clothes and a few basic toiletries can help you make it through until your luggage gets found or you can get to a store. International Relations June 13, 2016 Richard Greeman Weve had enough is the phrase on everyones lips as against all expectations the wave of strikes, blockades, disruptions and mass demonstrations begun on May 17th continues to develop throughout France. Indeed, in the past couple of days, two new strategic groups of workers have joined the protest. Technicians at Frances nuclear power plants are now cutting back on production of electricity, and the railroad workers have massively joined the street protests while cutting back on trains. Meanwhile, there are long lines at the gas pumps as petroleum workers continue to blockade Frances major oil refineries. Surprisingly, most French people take these inconveniences in good humor, and the polls show broad public support for the movements goals and even its disruptive tactics. This popular sympathy is all the more surprising given weeks of blanket negative media coverage, hysterical official statements and police tactics designed to discredit the movement. First the issue was the violence of the casseurs (wreckers) on the fringes of the big, peaceful, well-organized mass demonstrations, and the image of one flaming police-car in Paris kept popping up on every channel for days.[1] Then came the threat of the unions (government-subsidized and generally cooperative) taking over the country and destroying the economy. Next, the talking heads topic of the day the police, what a great job they do and how we should support them! Despite this propaganda campaign, the popular movement continued to grow and public sympathy with it, to the point that the governing Socialist Party split making it impossible for the Francois Hollande administration to push its unpopular Labour Reform Bill through the parliament. The government, which had earlier made a few compromises, became afraid to give in to the majority and loose face, so it evoked paragraph 49-3 of de Gaulles tailor-made Constitution giving the President the power in emergencies to impose laws by edict, without a parliamentary majority. This high-handedness was the last straw for the democratic French, who had come to detest the anti-labour reform bill and the already-unpopular neoliberal Socialist government that was shoving it down their throats. Thats when all Hell broke loose. Brussels-Imposed Legislation Dont ask me to explain the bill, except that it is part of a Brussels-imposed, Europe-wide economic liberalization plan and that it makes it easier for managers to fire workers, close plants, flexibilize work schedules, and cut back on overtime pay and severance pay. Most French people dont understand the technicalities either, but with shrewd class awareness, they understand that the reforms are an attack by the 1% on the protections and regulations they have fought for over generations. They instinctively see them as another attempt to dismantle the Social Republic, officially so named in the Constitution of 1945, written at the time of the Liberation when the collaborationist French industrialists and their political tools were in disgrace while the slogan from the Resistance to the Revolution was still hanging in the air. Todays struggle is, of course, a defensive battle, and so far there have been only a few barricades (blockading the oil refineries) barely recalling the revolutions 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and the general strikes of 1936 and 1968. But apparently the rebellious instincts and radical temperament of the French working people have not changed all that much. Indeed, in 1995, there was also a weeklong runaway national strike among the workers in the public sector, sparked by an earlier government attempt at liberal reform, but according the accepted wisdom in media and governmental circles, the French people had by 2016 supposedly evolved, become normal, and now accepted liberalization as necessary and inevitable like every other nation. Guess not. I am happy (if somewhat ashamed) to report that I was overly pessimistic and somewhat hysterical in my last reports from France,[2] evoking the specter of a coup detat and possible civil war in reaction to Hollandes imposition of the State of Emergency and indiscriminate police raids after the terrorist attacks. So far, the Hollande government has refrained from evoking the State Emergency in todays bras de fer (arm-wrestling contest) between a weak government trying to look tough on one side and on the other the combined forces of a young generation that sees itself being sacrificed on the alter of neoliberalism, an organized labour movement responding to militant pressure from below take a stand, and an independent-minded public that has had enough of being manipulated. Whatever the outcome of May Madness, one thing is clear. There is a new radical awareness on the rise in France and with it a new revolutionary generation that correctly sees that it has no future to look forward to under capitalism. Student agitation, especially in the high schools has been boiling up across the country for months as have the nightly popular assemblies in the squares of Paris and a half-dozen other cities, known as Nuits debout (Stay up all night). These assemblies correspond to a rejection of the pseudo-democracy of the professional politicians and a desire for real participatory democracy and human community. They also function as hothouses for radical ideas, like Occupy and the Indignados of 2011. This intellectual revolution has only just begun, and it is likely to have a long-term effect on consciousness, just as Occupy Wall Street (minuscule in comparison) seems to have had on U.S. consciousness. Meanwhile, the French are not only debout (standing up) talking all night, they are also standing up for themselves and for all of us in the streets and on the picket lines standing up against the 1%s relentless attacks on our living standards, on our rights, and on our lives. Maybe there is an alternative. So allow me to conclude this report by translating a few excerpts from interviews recorded[3] during the big demonstration here in Montpellier (May 26) and then close with a translation of the 2016 Platform of one of the Commissions of the Paris Nuit debout at the Place de la Bastille. Interviews in Montpellier Anais, age 22, works in a school: This is the first time Ive come out to a demonstration. Unfortunately I only have a little time for this Im not an activist, I consider myself apolitical, even if I participate in Nuit debout when my schedule allows it. I dont think demonstrations are enough to get us anything concrete; marching from point A to point B doesnt bother anyone. If we want to be heard, we must totally block the countrys economy. And to succeed, we must get coordinated, even just for one day. I am totally conscious of the annoyances and privations that we might suffer as individuals, but now everybody has the duty to put aside their little personal comforts and to fight for the community. Nicolas, age 39, looking for work: My unemployed situation has an advantage: it leaves time to go into the street to defend our rights. Im neither an activist nor a union member, I come as a citizen and I have only missed two demonstrations since March 9th. I am mobilized both on the street and on social media. The manipulations around pseudo-concessions on the proposed law and then the forced passage via the 49-3 edict have strengthened my motivation. Blocking, thats our 49-3, Citizens. Perhaps we will pay the price, but striking the economy, thats the only thing they understand. And if my help is needed in the blocking, Ill go. The polls show that three quarters of the population is against this law, isnt that enough? Elf, age 16, resident high school student at the lycee Agropolis: I only got political three months ago, since the first blockades, which be the way I help set up. Since then its gone very quickly: Ive been to every demonstration. It was thanks to the high school that I became conscious of the importance of demanding our rights. Today, I have an impression the movement is losing speed, but if we dont stand up its certain we wont get anything! We must continue on to the end. But marches wont be enough, we need to continue and reinforce the blockades, even if we have to suffer for a while: the economy is the only thing that interests them, so better to strike where it hurts! Andree, age 65, osteopath: Ive been going out in the streets for two months and at the same time actively participating in the Nuit debout. The two are linked; it touches me to see these young people who refuse to be a new consumer-generation, who would rather come together, think and discuss the future. I am reliving my 18th year and May 68. Its important to be out here; it shows that we are present and that our disagreement with the government is visceral. But that isnt enough, as our leaders are deaf. They want to make us believe we are a minority, but I see the workers from my office marching. And whatever the profession, the salary, the same malaise and the same unease are found everywhere! Im sorry I have to say this, but obviously under these conditions I can only approve of the blockade, its the only way we can change the power relationship and be heard. Im even ready to go in myself and to tighten my belt for that. Nuit debout, Paris: New Amendments to Plateforme 2016 [4] Hiring the 6 million unemployed by adding one new job for each existing job. A 25-hour week and an adjustable work schedule. Raise the minimum monthly salary to 1,500 ($1,700); a minimum of 1,200 ($1,350 for retirement, student scholarships and unemployment benefits. Public transparency of all salaries; male/female equality of salaries, open the books of all business enterprises. Maximum income ceiling set at 4 times the minimum. Free health, schooling and transportation. Requisition of empty housing, abolition of rents and guaranteed right to housing. Expropriation of the great fortunes, abolition of private property of the means of production and exchange, direct collective self-management of enterprises. All power to the Assemblies of workers/inhabitants for planning production on the basis of social needs and ecological imperatives. Election of delegates with limited mandates and the permanent right of revocation of Assemblies. Free Federation of industrial unions and residential communities. Regularization of undocumented people and international cooperation of workers powers against underdevelopment, imperialism and war. UPDATE: June 11, 2016 Not much change in situation here in France. A long drawn out arm-wrestling struggle. Typical of the bureaucratic unions, especially the most militant, the historically communist Confederation generale du travail (CGT), whos goal is not to win a victory for the working people but to re-affirm their power as the legitimate intermediary between the workers and the government. So instead of uniting the different branches in a single, open-ended general strike, they space out partial confrontations to demonstrate their control and force the government to include them. The students are into finals right now, so there is not that much activity on the youth front, but Nuit debout continues. And the pressure from below continues. The demonstrations are less controlled by the unions and at the end some people may hold a General Assembly or march off in a spontaneous demonstration. Meanwhile, thanks to videos and cellphones, the the evidence of blatant police brutality and especially of police provocation (undercover cops trashing shops, etc) is really public knowledge. And everyone knows they are acting under orders from the Socialist government. Alas, this is a repeat of the way the unions sabotaged the previous movements against reforms (including the 2011 demonstrations agains cutting retirement and raising the age of eligibility, against giving young workers a lower status, etc). Instead of striking and demonstrating all together keeping up the pressure, the leaders claimed that time is on our side, space out the demonstrations over months and then suddenly its June and everyone in France goes on vacation and the reforms are passed in an empty Paris. 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 Damon Franklin Graham, 32, of Lexington Park, Md. (Booking photo via SMCSO) LEONARDTOWN, Md. Maurice Terrell Kent, 33, of Great Mills and Lavonte Devon King, 24, of Lexington Park. (Booking photos via SMCSO) Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: http://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at http://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at http://so.md/expungeme. (June 13, 2016)The St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office released the following incident and arrest reports.DEPUTIES IDENTIFY AND ARREST SUSPECT IN ROBBERY CASE: On June 7, St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office Patrol deputies responded to a parking lot in Lexington Park for a reported robbery. The victim advised he was seated in his vehicle when a subject, later identified as, demanded money, assaulted the victim, and fled with the victim's property. Graham was later located, arrested, and charged with Robbery, Second Degree Assault, Theft Less than $1000, and two counts of Malicious Destruction of Property.MAN KILLED AFTER BEING PINNED UNDER CAR: On June 9, at 11:18 p.m., patrol deputies from the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office and Emergency Medical Personnel responded to an address on Kavanagh Road in Mechanicsville. Upon arrival, deputies and medical personnel located victim, pinned underneath a vehicle he was servicing. The victim was declared deceased by Medical Personnel. Detectives from the Criminal Investigations Division, Crime Scene Technicians, and a Forensic Investigator responded to the scene and assumed the investigation.DEATH INVESTIGATION: On June 11, at 9:20 a.m., patrol officers from the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office responded to an area located in the vicinity of 20995 Point lookout Road (Food Lion store) in Callaway for the report of a subject not breathing. Upon arrival, deputies located a deceased male. It does not appear there are any suspicious factors surrounding the male's death, and officers are attempting to locate the male's next of kin.HEROIN BUST: Vice/Narcotics detectives developed, as a distributor of heroin. Undercover purchases of heroin were conducted and a search and seizure warrant was obtained for his home. The Emergency Services Team, K-9 deputies, and Vice/Narcotics Support Team deputies, executed the search warrant on his Great Mills residence. Detectives recovered numerous baggies of heroin which were pre-packaged for sale and carried a street value of nearly $1,100, more than $3,900 in cash, a handgun and two boxes of ammunition. Additional charges are pending a review with the State's Attorney.HEROIN, COCAINE:, was the target of a drug investigation which led to detectives obtaining a search and seizure warrant for his Lexington Park home. Detectives recovered heroin and cocaine from the home and additional charges are expected pending a State's Attorney's review.BURGLARY: Unknown suspect(s) entered a residence and stole property in the 47000 block of Southhampton Drive in Lexington Park. Deputy Holdsworth is investigating the case. CASE# 29937-16BURGLARY: Unknown suspect(s) entered a residence in the 25000 block of Greentree South Drive in Lexington Park. Nothing appeared to be stolen. Cpl Teague is investigating the case. Teague. CASE# 29956-16BURGLARY: Unknown suspect(s) entered a shed and stole property in the 45000 block of Locust Grove Drive in Valley Lee. Deputy Lawrence is investigating the case. CASE# 30177-16BURGLARY: Unknown suspect(s) forced entry into a business in the 46000 block of Corporate Drive and stole property. Cpl Snyder is investigating the case. CASE# 30006-16BURGLARY: Unknown suspect(s) forced entry into a residence and stole property in the 46000 block of Flower Drive in Lexington Park. Dep. Siciliano is investigating the case.ARSON: Unknown suspect(s) set fire to a vehicle in a driveway in the 23000 block of Three Notch Road in California. The Fire Marshal responded to the scene and assumed the investigation. CASE# 30491-16BURGLARY: Unknown suspect(s) stole property from a victim's yard in the 24000 block of Mervell Dean Road in Hollywood. Corporal Corcoran is investigating the case. CASE# 30593-16 PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. Disclaimer: In the U.S.A., all persons accused of a crime by the State are presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. See: http://so.md/presumed-innocence. Additionally, all of the information provided above is solely from the perspective of the respective law enforcement agency and does not provide any direct input from the accused or persons otherwise mentioned. You can find additional information about the case by searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Database using the accused's name and date of birth. The database is online at http://so.md/mdcasesearch . Persons named who have been found innocent or not guilty of all charges in the respective case, and/or have had the case ordered expunged by the court can have their name, age, and city redacted by following the process defined at http://so.md/expungeme. (June 13, 2016)The Prince Frederick Barrack of the Maryland State Police (MSP) today released the following incident and arrest reports.POSSESSION WITH INTENT TO DISTRIBUTE MARIJUANA: On 6/4/2016 at 7:03 pm, Trooper First Class Lewis stopped a vehicle on Rt. 260 and St. Andrews Dr. in Chesapeake Beach for traffic violations. While speaking with the driver, a grinder was observed in an open armrest. A probable cause search was conducted and 76 grams of marijuana was located.was arrested and incarcerated at the Calvert County Detention Center.FIRST DEGREE ASSAULT: On 6/5/2016 at 9:40 pm, Trooper First Class Barlow and Trooper Backus responded to the Fastop in St. Leonard for a reported stabbing. The victim was being attended to by EMS personal. He advised the incident had taken place in the 4900 block of St. Leonard Rd. in an apartment. He advised he had been stabbed by. The victim was taken to the hospital for additional treatment. Troopers responded to the address in an attempt to locate Ms. Logan. The apartment was secured as a crime scene, however, Ms. Logan was not located. Investigation continues.Christopher L. Lee, 23, of Pr. Frederick, arrested on 06/03/2016 @ 03:12 pm by TFC S. LewisStefan A. Morusiewicz, 22, of Arnold, arrested on 06/05/2016 @ 06:35 am by TPR. J. WarrickAndrew E. Veltz, 38, of Ches. Beach, arrested on 06/09/2016 @ 03:47 pm by CPL. M. NewmanConway G. Savoy, 30, of St. Leonard, arrested on 06/09/2016 @ 08:36 pm by CPL. M. NewmanSergio Murilla-Ayala, 30, of Waldorf, arrested on 06/11/2016 @ 01:33 am by TFC S. BarlowSara G. Mulhern, 43, of Alexandria, Va., arrested on 06/11/2016 @ 09:49 pm by CPL. M. Newman Hundreds gathered in San Francisco's gay-centric Castro District to mourn the loss of LGBT life in Orlando. The vigil tool place at 8 p.m. on June 12, the day news of the mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub made headlines. The vigil was supposed to take place at Harvey Milk Plaza at the corner of Castro and Market Streets, but so many people showed up that the vigil stretched across the street into Jane Warner Plaza, a small parklet named after the late San Francisco police officer Jane Warner, who was a lesbian. People wiped away tears and held candles as the speakers took to the stage. Openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener, who represents the Castro District said that guns were "a disease." "The country is awash in guns," Wiener said, speaking from the podium. "I'm angry. We are here to recommit the fight to end anti-LGBT violence and to force congress to do something about the damn guns." Supervisor David Campos, who is also gay, represents San Francisco's primarily Latin Mission District. "It's a very difficult day," Campos said. "As a gay Latino man this is shocking to me we must make sure that the Latino community is not forgotten in all of this." Most of the victims at Pulse were LGBT Latinos. "We've gotten complacent," Campos continued. "People of color are often marginalized within the LGBT community. We don't want to be remembered just when we're massacred. We want to be remembered every day." Campos reminded the crowd that Congress did nothing after school children were massacred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Pastor Megan Rohrer, the first openly transgender pastor to be ordained as the leader of a Lutheran congregation, also addressed the mourners. "We are Queer, we are fabulous, we are beautiful," the Pastor shouted. "We must act up and stand up. Out of the bars and into the streets. Out of the churches and into the streets!" "The NRA is a powerful group," said San Francisco's interim police chief Toney Chaplin. "I'm looking at a more powerful group. Get out and vote! If you see something suspicious, say something! San Francisco resident Sal Navarrette, who is gay, spoke to SFGN. "The hate that's out there saddens me," he said. "I don't want people who hate to make me fearful. I want them to know they're uniting us." Brandy Jane Rose, a 22-year-old transwoman, said that the killings in Orlando would not make her fearful of attending San Francisco Pride in two weeks. "I cannot not give a shit anymore," she said. "The fight is not over. We cannot back down. We cannot let them win." The vigil concluded with the mourners singing the Civil Rights anthem We Shall Overcome, which was followed by a march down Market Street to San Francisco City Hall. David-Elijah Nahmod is SFGNs correspondent in San Francisco. In the wake of the mass shooting that resulted in the murder of 50 people at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Wilton Manors Mayor Gary Resnick promised that the city would take extra steps to ensure a repeat did not occur at the upcoming Stonewall festival on June 18. He said that the city had been working with the FBI and BSO long before the shooting but that more would be done in the days to come. We cannot allow that kind of hatred. [The shooter] lived in Fort Pierce. He could have come anywhere in Florida one of our bars, Resnick said. More details, he said, would be released later in the week. Resnick pledged more would be done Sunday night at the vigil, held at The Pride Center in Wilton Manors, for the victims who died at Pulse nightclub in Orlando in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 12. Today, we are all LGBT. All of us, said Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who said the country must remain vigilant and focused in the face of terrorism. Wasserman Schultz was joined by other local, county, state and Congressional leaders, including Broward Sheriff Scott Israel and Congressman Ted Deutch. Israel echoed Wasserman Schultz and vowed to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of violent criminals. If you see something, say something. Terry Stone, CEO of CenterLink, an organization that supports LGBT community centers across the country, asked the crowd to shout out the word most on their mind. Love was the overwhelming response. Kristofer Fegenbush, chief operations officer of The Pride Center, said the LGBT community was pissed off and grieving. But we are not bowed, he said to unanimous applause. We will not be shaken. Fegenbush also called for love to be used in response to hate. He wasnt the last. Rabbi Noah Kitty of Congregation Etz Chaim said the response to the event was a show of faith, even for those who arent religious. It takes a deep sense of faith to believe in yourself . . . against all the hatred and ugliness. Wilfredo Ruiz, communications director for the Council of American Islamic Relations, said the Muslim communitys deepest sorrow was with the victims and their families. Today, we are all in grief. These acts do not belong to our religion. It is Muhammad Ali that represents us. [Not this shooter]. God bless the United States. Fort Lauderdale Commissioner Dean Trantalis challenged Muslim leaders to go back to their communities and become better advocates against violence. Im not ready to forgive. It could have been me. It could have been you, he said, pointing to the crowd. He also challenged the crowd to become more involved in their communities and oppose the type of ideas and hatred that lead to violence. Silence equals death. As hundreds lined up to give blood in response to Sunday mornings Pulse nightclub shooting, they discovered that the FDAs rules governing blood donations from gay men are still in effect. Despite rumors, OneBlood, which collects and distributes blood donations, per FDA regulations, is still not accepting blood donations from gay men. All FDA guidelines remain in effect for blood donation. There are false reports circulating that FDA rules were being lifted. Not true, wrote OneBlood on Twitter. HIV/AIDS activist Michael Rajner said the 12-month deferment period is highlighted and made all the more hurtful by the tragedy in Orlando one that prevents healthy gay men from helping their own community when needed or forces them to lie to do the right thing. We are discriminated against unjustly through a homophobic policy by the FDA. Previously, the FDA had instituted a lifetime ban on men who were sexually active with other men but altered that policy in 2015. The American Red Cross and Americas Blood Centers opposed the lifetime ban as being medically and scientifically unjustified. According to the FDA, men are prohibited from donating if they had sex with another man in the past 12 months. Women must also wait 12 months to donate if they had sex with a man who has had sex with another man. The rules put gay men on par with other groups the FDA considers to be high risk for HIV/AIDS, including individuals with a history intravenous drug use and those who have received transfusions of whole blood or blood products. In reviewing our policies to help reduce the risk of HIV transmission through blood products, we rigorously examined several alternative options, including individual risk assessment, said Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., deputy director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in an online statement. Ultimately, the 12-month deferral window is supported by the best available scientific evidence, at this point in time, relevant to the U.S. population. We will continue to actively conduct research in this area and further revise our policies as new data emerge. But while the National Gay Blood Drive, an organization focused on giving the LGBT equal treatment in blood donation opportunities, applauded the move as a step in the right direction but asked the FDA to go further. While this is a big success, there is still a long road ahead and a lot of work to do. We will continue to encourage the FDA to consider all the evidence until they arrive at a non-discriminatory policy and discrimination based on sexual orientation is eliminated from the blood deferral process altogether, reads National Gay Blood Drives December 2015 statement. Visit here for a list of places to give blood. (AP) An Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested in Southern California on Sunday and told police he wanted to do harm to a gay pride parade - an event that annually draws hundreds of thousands of people, authorities said. The early-morning arrest in Santa Monica of James Wesley Howell, 20, came just a few hours after at least 50 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, though authorities said they had found no evidence of a connection between the suspects. Residents called police to report suspicious behavior from Howell, who was parked facing the wrong way in a white sedan, police said. When officers arrived they saw an assault rifle sitting in Howell's passenger seat, Santa Monica police Lt. Saul Rodriguez said. That prompted them to search the whole car. They found two more assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police said. Santa Monica police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks tweeted that Howell told officers after he was arrested that he wanted to harm the gay pride event in West Hollywood that was taking place about seven miles away later Sunday. Authorities would answer no further questions on Howell or his motives. The FBI has taken over the lead of the investigation from the local police. Indiana State Police Capt. Dave Bursten referred all questions about the investigation to authorities in California. A Facebook page that is apparently Howell's is full of pictures of a white Acura like the one he was arrested in, and pictures that appear to match the photo police released of him. The page's most recent public post, from June 3, shows a photo comparing Adolf Hitler to Hillary Clinton. An anti-Clinton, pro-Bernie Sanders photo was posted in February. But it shows no enmity for gays or membership in any movement. The page says he lives in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and he went to high school in nearby Louisville, Kentucky. It says he recently left a job as a security guard, and he now works as an auditor at a company that makes air filtration products. At the scene in Santa Monica, police spent the day searching the white four-door Acura sedan still parked facing the wrong direction on a busy thoroughfare in a mostly residential area of the seaside city west of Los Angeles. There was a red plastic gas can near the car and items laid out on a white sheet next to it. Heriberto Gomez, a lifelong resident who says he watches over the neighborhood, stepped outside at 3 a.m. Sunday and saw the car in the street. Gomez said the man then ran across the street and hid in bushes and overhanging trees. It appeared the man was looking back at him. "I was looking at him for a minute, for a long minute," Gomez said. "He didn't want to come my way because he seen me standing right here." The organizers of the Pride event said in a statement before the parade that "we are heartbroken that so many of our brothers, sisters and allies were lost in this tragic attack." Organizers said the tragedy made them all the more determined to continue with plans with heightened security from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "Our brave founders made this happen to show the world who we are," the statement said. "We will be loud. We will be proud, and we will celebrate in honor of all those lost." Taylor Hudson drove up from San Diego to attend LA Pride with friends. He followed news of the Santa Monica arrest on social media, but he then decided to ignore his phone and focus on the festivities. "Everyone has Florida on their minds, in their hearts," Hudson said. "I just hope we don't have to worry about that kind of thing here." Carl Oliver of Los Angeles attends the parade every year. He said he cried after hearing about Orlando but never considered not coming. "This is about love," he said. "We have to show our love and unity." In a speech made today, Hillary Clinton spoke to the Cleveland audience asserting a need for more gun control following the recent mass shooting at the Pulse gay club in Orlando this weekend. She pointed out the shooter's apparent "rage" against the LGBT community, mixed with his ISIS ties and a push for more anti-terrorism measures. Read her entire speech below. Thank you. (APPLAUSE) Thank you all very much. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you all. (APPLAUSE) Thank you. Thank you. I am Im absolutely Im absolutely delighted to be back in Cleveland and to be here at the Industrial Innovation Center. Ive had a chance to learn about the great work you do here. I especially want to applaud Team Wendy for everything you do to protect our troops, first responders. (APPLAUSE) And others from traumatic brain injury. It is so important that we continue to support those who protect us. AUDIENCE: We want Hillary! CLINTON: Thank you. AUDIENCE: We want Hillary! CLINTON: Thank you all. AUDIENCE: We want Hillary! (APPLAUSE) CLINTON: It is good to be back in Cleveland, I can tell you that. (APPLAUSE) I want to thank I wan to thank your extraordinary senator, Sherrod Brown, for his leadership, for that very kind and generous introduction. You are very fortunate to to have him representing you. I want to thank your congresswoman, Marcia Fudge (APPLAUSE) Who is both indomitable and indefatigable. She is such a tenacious advocate for the people she represents. I want to acknowledge the mayor, Mayor Jackson, who was here, County Executive Budish (ph). And I particularly want to recognize the passing of George Voinovich, and he devoted his life to serving the people of Ohio as mayor of Cleveland, as governor and senator. And we send our prayers and sympathy to his family. I also want to thank Dan Moore, the owner and founder of this company and Team Wendy for his belief in Cleveland, for his commitment to create jobs. I cant wait to work with him to do more of what he has accomplished here. (APPLAUSE) You know, originally, I had intended to come to Cleveland under very different circumstances. We are heading into a general election that could be the most consequential of our lifetimes. But today is not a day for politics. On Sunday, Americans woke up to a nightmare thats become mind numbingly familiar. Another act of terrorism in a place no one expected. A madman filled with hate, with guns in his hands, and just a horrible sense of vengeance and vindictiveness in his heart, apparently consumed by rage against LGBT Americans, and by extension, the openness and diversity that defines our American way of life. We will learn more about the killer in the days to come. We know that he pledged allegiance to ISIS, that they are now taking credit and that part of their strategy is to radicalize individuals and encourage attacks against the United States, even if they are not coordinated with ISIS leadership. But theres a lot we still dont know, including what other mix of motives drove him to kill. The more we learn about what happened, the better well be able to protect our people going forward. In the days ahead, we will also learn more about the many lives he viciously cut short, many of them young people, just starting out in their lives. They were travel agents and pharmacy techs, college students and amusement park workers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and they had one thing in common. They all had a lot more to give. CLINTON: We should take a moment today amid our busy lives to think about them, to pray for everyone who was killed, for the wounded, those who are fighting to regain their lives and futures, for our first responders who walked into danger one more time. As a mother, I cant imagine what those families are going through. But lets also remember the other scenes we saw on Sunday. We saw the faces of some of those first responders who rushed into danger and tried to save as many people as they could. We saw survivors like Chris Hansen who risked their lives to help others. People gathering outside hospitals to comfort anxious family members, waiting for news of their loved ones and waiting, too, to learn more about what they could do to make sure this never happened again. Religion leaders condemning hate and appealing for peace. People lining up to donate blood. Americans refusing to be intimidated or divided. Yesterday I called Mayor Dyer of Orlando and offered my support and my appreciation for the leadership that he and the other officials have shown. This is a moment when all Americans need to stand together. No matter how many times we endure attacks like this, the horror never fades. The murder of innocent people breaks our hearts, tears at our sense of security and makes us furious. Now we have to steal our resolve to respond. And thats what I want to talk to you about. How we respond. The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive. And we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values. (APPLAUSE) I have no doubt I have no doubt we can meet this challenge if we meet it together. Whatever we learn about this killer, his motives in the days ahead, we know already the barbarity that we face from radical jihadists is profound. In the Middle East, ISIS is attempting a genocide of religious and ethnic minorities. They are slaughtering Muslims who refuse to accept their medieval ways. They are beheading civilians, including executing LGBT people. They are murdering Americans and Europeans, enslaving, torturing and raping women and girls. In speeches like this one, after Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino, I have laid out a plan to defeat ISIS and the other radical jihadist groups in the region and beyond. The attack in Orlando makes it even more clear, we cannot contain this threat. We must defeat it. And the good news is that the coalition effort in Syria and Iraq has made recent gains in the last months. So we should keep the pressure on ramping up the air campaign, accelerating support for our friends fighting to take and hold ground and pushing our partners in the region to do even more. We also need continued American leadership to help resolve the political conflicts that fuel ISIS recruitment efforts. But as ISIS loses actual ground in Iraq and Syria, it will seek to stage more attacks and gain stronger footholds wherever it can, from Afghanistan, to Libya, to Europe. The threat is metastasizing. We saw this in Paris. And we saw it in Brussels. We face a twisted ideology and poisoned psychology that inspires the so-called lone wolves, radicalized individuals who may or may not have contact and direction from any formal organization. CLINTON: So, yes, efforts to defeat ISIS on the battlefield must succeed. But it will take more than that. (APPLAUSE) We have to be just as adaptable and versatile as our enemies. As president, I will make identifying and stopping lone wolves a top priority. (APPLAUSE) I will put a team together from across our government, the entire government, as well as the private sector and communities to get on top of this urgent challenge. And I will make sure our law enforcement and intelligence professionals have all the resources they need to get the job done. As we do this, there are three areas that demand attention. First, we and our allies must work hand-in-hand to dismantle the networks that move money, and propaganda, and arms and fighters around the world. (APPLAUSE) We have to flow we have to stem the flow of jihadists from Europe and Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and then back again. The only way to do this is by working closely with our partners, strengthening our alliances, not weakening them or walking away from them. Second, here at home, we must harden our own defenses. We have to do more to support our first responders, law enforcement and intelligence officers who do incredible work every day at great personal risk to keep our country safe. (APPLAUSE) I have seen firsthand how hard their job is, and how well they do it. In Orlando, at least one police officer was shot in the head. Thankfully, his life was saved by a Kevlar helmet, something folks here at Team Wendy know a lot about. (APPLAUSE) It has often been said that our law enforcement, our intelligence agencies, our first responders have to be right 100 percent of the time, but terrorists only have to be right once. What a heavy responsibility. These men and women deserve both our respect and gratitude. And they deserve the right tools, and resources and training. Too often, state and local officials cant get access to intelligence from the federal government that would help them do their jobs. We need to change that. We also need to work (APPLAUSE) We also need to work with local law enforcement and business owners on ways to protect vulnerable, so-called soft targets, like nightclubs and shopping malls and hotels and movie theaters and schools and houses of worship. Now, I know a lot of Americans are asking how it was possible that someone already on the FBIs radar could have still been able to commit an attack like the one in Orlando, and what more we can do to stop this kind of thing from happening again. Well, we have to see what the investigation uncovers. If there are things that can and should be done to improve our ability to prevent, we must do them. We already know we need more resources for this fight. The professionals who keep us safe would be the first to say we need better intelligence to discover and disrupt terrorist plots before they can be carried out. Thats why I have proposed an intelligence surge to bolster our capabilities across the board with appropriate safeguards here at home. Even as we make sure our security officials get the tools they need to prevent attacks, its essential that we stop terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attack. (APPLAUSE) CLINTON: And that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino. (APPLAUSE) I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets and we may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things. If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldnt be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. And you shouldnt be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. And yes, if youre too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America. Now, I know some will say that assault weapons and background checks are totally separate issues having nothing to do with terrorism. Well, in Orlando and San Bernardino terrorists used assault weapons, the AR-15. And they used it to kill Americans. That was the same assault weapon used to kill those little children in Sandy Hook. We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war. And that may not stop every shooting or every terrorist attack, but it will stop some and it will save lives and it will protect our first responders. And I want you to know, Im not going to stop fighting for these kinds of provisions. Now, the third area that demands attention is preventing radicalization and countering efforts by ISIS and other international terrorist networks to recruit in the United States and Europe. For starters, it is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations. And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism. We also have to use all our capabilities to counter jihadist propaganda online. This is something that I spend a lot of time on at the State Department. As president, I will work with our great tech companies from Silicon Valley to Boston to step up our game. We have to a better job intercepting ISIS communications, tracking and analyzing social media posts and mapping jihadist networks, as well as promoting credible voices who can provide alternatives to radicalization. And there is more to do offline as well. CLINTON: Since 9/11, law enforcement agencies have worked hard to build relationships with Muslim American communities. Millions of peace-loving Muslims live, work and raise their families across America. And they are the most likely to recognize the insidious effects of radicalization before its too late, and the best positioned to help us block it. So we should be intensifying contacts in those communities, not scapegoating or isolating them. (APPLAUSE) Last year, I visited a pilot program in Minneapolis that helps parents, teachers, imams, mental health professionals and others recognize signs of radicalization in young people and work with law enforcement to intervene before its too late. Ive also met with local leaders pursuing innovative approaches in Los Angeles and other places. And we need more efforts like that in more cities across America. And as the director of the FBI has pointed out, we should avoid eroding trust in that community, which will only make law enforcements job more difficult. Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric and threatening to ban the families and friends of Muslim Americans as well as millions of Muslim business people and tourists from entering our country hurts the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terror. (APPLAUSE) So does saying that we have to start special surveillance on our fellow Americans because of their religion. Its no coincidence that hate crimes against American Muslims and mosques have tripled after Paris and San Bernardino. Thats wrong. And its also dangerous. It plays right into the terrorists hands. Still, as I have said before, none of us can close our eyes to the fact that we do face enemies who use their distorted version of Islam to justify slaughtering $ innocent people. Theyd take us all back to the Stone Age if they could, just as they have in parts of Iraq and Syria. The terrorist in Orlando targeted LGBT Americans out of hatred and bigotry. And an attack on any American is an attack on all Americans. (APPLAUSE) And I want to say this to all the LGBT people grieving today in Florida and across our country. You have millions of allies who will always have your back. (APPLAUSE) And I am one of them. (APPLAUSE) From Stonewall to Laramie, and now Orlando, weve seen too many examples of how the struggle to live freely, openly and without fear has been met by violence. We have to stand together, be proud together. There is no better rebuke to the terrorists and all those who hate. Our open, diverse society is an asset in the struggle against terrorism, not a liability. It makes us stronger and more resistant to radicalization. And this raises a larger point about the future of our country. America is strongest when we all believe that we have a stake in our country and our future. CLINTON: This vision has sustained us from the beginning. The belief that, yes, we are all created equal and the journey we have made to turn that into reality over the course of our history, that we are not a land of winners and losers, that we should all have the opportunity to live up to our God-given potential. And we have a responsibility to help others do so as well. (APPLAUSE) As I look at American history, I see that this has always been a country of we not me. We stand together because we are stronger together. E pluribus unum. One out of many, one has seen us through the darkest chapters of our history. Ever since 13 squabbling colonies put aside their disagreements and united because they realized they were going to rise together or fall separately, generation after generation has fought and marched and organized to widen the circle of dignity and opportunity. Ending slavery. Securing and expanding the right to vote. Throwing open the doors of education. Building the greatest middle class the world has ever seen. And we are stronger when more people can participate in our democracy. (APPLAUSE) And we are stronger when everyone can share in the rewards of our economy and contribute to our communities, when we bridge our divides and lift each other up instead of tearing each other down. Now we have overcome a lot together and we will overcome the threats of terror and radicalization and all of our other challenges. Here in Ohio and across America, Ive listened to people talk about the problems that keep you up at night. The bonds that hold us together as communities, as one national community, are strained by an economy with too much inequality and too little upward mobility. By social and political divisions that have diminished our trust in each other and our confidence in our shared future. I have heard that, and I want you to know as your president I will work every day to break down all the barriers holding you back and keeping us apart. Were gonna get an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, were gonna forge a new sense of connection and shared responsibility to each other and our nation. And finally, (APPLAUSE) finally let me remind us all, I remember, I remember how it felt, on the day after 9/11, and I bet many of you do as well. Americans from all walks of life rallied together with a sense of common purpose on September the 12th and in the days and weeks and months that followed. We had each others backs. I was a senator from New York. There was a Republican president, a Republican governor, and a Republican mayor. We did not attack each other. We worked with each other to protect our country and to rebuild our city (ph). (APPLAUSE) President Bush went to a Muslim community center just six days after the attacks to send a message of unity and solidarity. To anyone who wanted to take out their anger on our Muslim neighbors and fellow citizens, he said, That should not, and that will not, stand in America. It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, spirit of 9/12. Lets make sure we keep looking to the best of our country, to the best within each of us. Democratic and Republican presidents have risen to the occasion in the face of tragedy. That is what we are called to do my friends and I am so confident and optimistic that is exactly what we will do. Thank you all so much. Kepler-1647b Lynntte Cook If you cast your eyes toward the constellation Cygnus, youll be looking in the direction of the largest planet yet discovered around a double-star system. Its too faint to see with the naked eye, but a team led by astronomers from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and San Diego State University (SDSU) in California, used NASAs Kepler Space Telescope to identify the new planet, Kepler-1647b. The discovery was announced today in San Diego at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal with Veselin Kostov, a NASA Goddard postdoctoral fellow, as lead author. Kepler-1647 is 3,700 light-years away and approximately 4.4 billion years old, roughly the same age as Earth. The stars are similar to the sun, with one slightly larger than our home star and the other slightly smaller. The planet has a mass and radius nearly identical to that of Jupiter, making it the largest transiting circumbinary planet ever found. Planets that orbit two stars are known as circumbinary planets, or sometimes Tatooine planets, after Luke Skywalkers home world in Star Wars. Using Kepler data, astronomers search for slight dips in brightness that hint a planet might be passing or transiting in front of a star, blocking a tiny amount of the stars light. But finding circumbinary planets is much harder than finding planets around single stars, said SDSU astronomer William Welsh, one of the papers coauthors. The transits are not regularly spaced in time and they can vary in duration and even depth. Comparison of the relative sizes of several Kepler circumbinary planets. Kepler-1647 b is substantially larger than any of the previously known circumbinary planets. Credits: Lynette Cook Its a bit curious that this biggest planet took so long to confirm, since it is easier to find big planets than small ones, said SDSU astronomer Jerome Orosz, a coauthor on the study. But it is because its orbital period is so long. The planet takes 1,107 days just over three years to orbit its host stars, the longest period of any confirmed transiting exoplanet found so far. The planet is also much further away from its stars than any other circumbinary planet, breaking with the tendency for circumbinary planets to have close-in orbits. Interestingly, its orbit puts the planet with in the so-called habitable zone-the range of distances from a star where liquid water might pool on the surface of an orbiting planet Like Jupiter, however, Kepler-1647b is a gas giant, making the planet unlikely to host life. Yet if the planet has large moons, they could potentially be suitable for life. Habitability aside, Kepler-1647b is important because it is the tip of the iceberg of a theoretically predicted population of large, long-period circumbinary planets, said Welsh. Once a candidate planet is found, researchers employ advanced computer programs to determine if it really is a planet. It can be a grueling process. Laurance Doyle, a coauthor on the paper and astronomer at the SETI Institute, noticed a transit back in 2011. But more data and several years of analysis were needed to confirm the transit was indeed caused by a circumbinary planet. A network of amateur astronomers in the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope Follow-Up Network provided additional observations that helped the researchers estimate the planets mass. For more information about the Kepler mission, please see: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler A preprint of the paper can be found at: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1512.00189v2 High-resolution artwork can be obtained at: http://go.sdsu.edu/kepler/ Astronaut Tim Peake tries on the Sokol pressure suit he will wear inside the Soyuz spacecraft that will take him home June 18. Credit: NASA/@Astro_TimPeake. NASA A pair of spaceships is getting ready to depart the International Space Station next week. The Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft will be released from the Unity module June 14. Three Expedition 47 crew members will depart June 18 returning to Earth after 186 days in space. Astronauts Tim Kopra and Tim Peake will be at the controls of the Canadarm2 robotic arm when it releases Cygnus at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. Cygnus will orbit Earth for eight more days of scientific tests exploring how materials burn in space and the orbital dynamics of a destructive re-entry into Earths atmosphere. Kopra and Peake will then join crewmate Yuri Malenchenko for a ride home inside the Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft on June 18. The moment the trio undocks from the Rassvet module, Expedition 48 will officially begin with Williams as commander staying behind with Flight Engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin. As always, a wide variety science continues on the International Space Station to improve life on Earth and benefit crew members in space. Peake researched the cause of accelerated skin aging in space and studied plant hormones. Kopra drew a blood sample for stowage in a science freezer and later analysis. Skripochka researched the radiation the station and its crew are exposed to internally and externally. Ovchinin explored plasma physics while Malenchenko and Skripochka partnered up for cardiovascular health studies. On-Orbit Status Report Skin-B Operations: Earlier this morning the crew performed Corneometer, Tewameter and Visioscan measurements on his forearm. The Corneometer measures the hydration level of the stratus coreum (outer layer of the skin); the Tewameter measures the skin barrier function, and the Visioscan measures the skin surface topography. Skin B is a European Space Agency (ESA) investigation that aims to improve the understanding of skin aging, which is greatly accelerated in space. The data will also be used to verify the results from previous testing on the ISS. Improved Payload Ethernet Hub Gateway (iPEHG) Installation: The crew replaced the iPEHG in the EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station (EXPRESS) Rack 5 with a newly designed unit. The rack has been powered and checkout is in work. The new iPEHG design corrects performance limitations often experienced by the older iPEHG. Auxin Transport Run #3-2: The crew retrieved samples that were installed in the Cell Biology Experiment Unit (CBEF) four days ago for incubation and conducted the fixation, sampling and closeout activities which completes the final of four Auxin Transport experiment runs. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Auxin Transport investigation clarifies the role of auxins in pea and maize (corn) seedlings grown in microgravity, leading to new insight into how gravity, or the lack of gravity, affects plant development. This study may contribute to increasing the efficiency of plant cultivation in plant factories. The data obtained from the second experiment run will provide evidence of spaceflight?alterations in auxin polar transport and endogenous levels of auxin, resulting in automorphogenesis. Radiation Dosimetry Inside ISS-Neutron (RaDI-N) Retrieval: A USOS crewmember retrieved all 8 of the Space Bubble Detectors that were deployed last week in the ISS for the Radi-N experiment and handed them over to the Russian crewmember to be processed in the Bubble Reader. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) RaDI-N investigation measures neutron radiation levels in the ISS. RaDI-N uses bubble detectors as neutron monitors which have been designed to only detect neutrons and ignore all other radiation. Material Science Laboratory (MSL) Sample Cartridge Assembly (SCA) Exchange 2B #1: The crew removed the MSL Furnace Calibration Cartridge, installed the new MSL SQF Sample Cartridge, and prepared the facility for a sample run next week. During these operations, debris was found inside the MSL and vacuumed out by the crew. MSL engineers are evaluating, but the operations team is proceeding with preparation for the upcoming science run, pending an engineering decision. The MSL can accommodate one Furnace Insert (FI) at a time for experiment processing. Two ESA-developed FIs are presently available: the Low Gradient Furnace (LGF) and the Solidification and Quenching Furnace (SQF), Sample-Cartridge Assemblies (SCAs) for science programs. Human Research Program (HRP) Operations: The crew continued HRP operations that began earlier the week by collecting saliva and urine samples and processing a set of blood samples for double spin operations using the Refrigerated Centrifuge. The samples will be stowed in the Minus Eighty-degree Freezer for ISS MELFI. Space Headaches: The European Space Agency (ESA) Space Headaches questionnaire wascompleted to provide information that may help in the development of methods to alleviate associated symptoms and improvement in the well-being and performance of crew members in space. Headaches during space flight can negatively affect mental and physical capacities of crew members which can influence performance during a space mission. Cygnus Departure Preparations: Last night Robotics Ground Controllers commanded the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) to grapple Cygnus for release and departure scheduled for next Tuesday, June 14. Today the crew completed an On Board Training (OBT) session to review release procedures. Cygnus Cargo Operations: The crew reported that he needed an additional 45 minutes to complete operations and take closeout photos. Forty-five minutes will be added to the crews timeline over the weekend. Approximately 49 hours have been completed. Todays Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. Samples Collection in a CQ with CDM HRF. Samples Collection and Stowage Preparation HRF. Samples Insertion into MELFI HRF. Urine Samples Collection HRF. Assistance during Blood Samples Collection HRF. Refrigerated Centrifuge Configuration HRF. Blood Samples Retrieval and their Preparation for Cool Stowage Countermeasures System (CMS) Treadmill 2 (T2) Exercise Session Crew Departure Preparations for Return to Earth EML. Experiment Operations HRF. Insertion of Samples into MELFI HRF. Closeout Operations Skin B. Nominal Operations with Downlink VIZIR. Experiment Ops with ????? Hardware r/g 2493 LBNP Training (PRELIMINARY) r/g 2494 ER5. Locker Removal Crew Departure Preparations for Return to Earth ER5. Cables Demating IMS Conference (S-band) STRATA. Hardware Check SHD Questionnaire PLASMA CHRYSTAL Installation of PEHG Hardware on EXPRESS Rack 5 DAN. Experiment Operations r/g 0119 MSL. Replacement of Calibration Cartridges for the First Sample Run Monitoring of ??-1 Sensors Installation OTKLIK. Hardware Monitoring / r/g 1588 HRF. Urine Samples Collection Separation Assembly Operations r/g 2498 HRF. Insertion of Samples into MELFI On MCC Go ISS N2 Pressurization from Section 2 of 62P ???? (DC1) (start) INTER-MAI-75. ??? Hardware Activation r/g 2486 ALBEDO. Observation and Photography with VSS / r/g 2491 Cargo Transfer into Cygnus On MCC Go ISS N2 Pressurization from Section 2 of 62P ???? (DC1) (end) Soyuz 719 Descent OBT. Consultation on the Composition and Location of Return Cargo. r/g 2374, 2495 Installation of PEHG Hardware on EXPRESS Rack 5 MATRESHKA-R. Gathering and Taking Measurements of BUBBLE Dosimeters r/g 2492 [?3] Fan Screen Cleaning in DC1 / Ventilation and Air Conditioning System [????] Cygnus. Cargo Transfer Conference AUT. Hardware Setup RADIN. Radi-N Detectors Retrieval MATRESHKA-R. Takeover of BUBBLE Dosimeters from the USOS r/g 2492 RADIN. RADI-N Detectors Handover to RS MATRESHKA-R. Gathering and Taking Measurements of BUBBLE Dosimeters. Memory Card Replacement r/g 2492 ER5. Cables Mating AUT. MEU-B (2) Detachment ER5. Locker Installation AUT. Samples Fixation AUT. MEU-B (2) Detachment Preparation of fructooligosaccharides (FOS) for Multi Omics Experiment AUT. Samples Fixation Vacuum Cleaning of [??1] and [??2] Air Ducts in MRM2 Transfer of Equipment into Soyuz 719 (MRM1) for Removal / r/g 2446 HRF. Urine Samples Collection AUT. Insertion of Samples into MELFI AUT. Closeout Ops HRF. Insertion of Samples into MELFI OBT. Cygnus Robotics Onboard Trainer (ROBoT) Release ??? Maintenance Measurement of Perforation Holes in SM Inflight Maintenance Intravehicular Activities Outfitting ODF / r/g2497 INTER-MAI-75. Hardware Deactivation and Closeout Ops / r/g 2486 Completed Task List Items iPAD certification update [Active] Ground Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. Cygnus OBT support Nominal ground commanding Three-Day Look Ahead: Saturday, 06/11: Crew off duty, housekeeping Sunday, 06/12: Crew off duty Monday, 06/13: Cygnus egress, REBR activation/installation, CQ deck cleaning, CBEF reconfig QUICK ISS Status Environmental Control Group: Component Status Elektron On Vozdukh Manual [???] 1 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV1) Off [???] 2 SM Air Conditioner System (SKV2) On Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab Standby 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) Standby Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab Off Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 Full Up We can't seem to find the page you are looking for. You may have typed the address incorrectly or you may have used an outdated link. Agribusiness incubation Agricultural incubation is an established approach. Yet in the wake of the start-ups, it benets from a new impetus. An update on agricultural incubation including advice, technical approaches and nancing - with a particular focus on women and youth. Disclaimer This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of CTA and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The UN's envoy for Libya Martin Kobler on Monday condemned the killing of 12 released prisoners in Tripoli on June 9, and called for an investigation. #MartinKobler Strongly Condemns Killing of 12 Prisoners in Tripoli, Urges Joint National-International Investigation:https://t.co/ldl1HMJs94 UNSMIL (@UNSMILibya) 13 2016 . The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Martin Kobler, condemns in the strongest terms the killing of 12 prisoners, which occurred on 9 June 2016 in Tripoli, after their release was ordered by the court. He expresses his deep sympathy and sincere condolences to the families of the victims, UNSMIL said in a statement published on its website on Monday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The man, who is suspected of preparing terror attacks as part of Daesh, was detained in the airport of northeastern Morocco's city of Oujda, according to the Italian Post online newspaper. The Italian national came to the African country from Belgium, the newspaper reported, citing the Moroccan Interior Ministry. The newspaper added that the detained person had been indoctrinated by radical Islamist ideas and had even tried to join Daesh training camps in 2014. As part of an anti-smuggling raid conducted an Istanbul suburb, two suspected accomplices were apprehended along with the businessman. All three suspects have been released pending trial and face possible charges of smuggling and illegal handling of ivory. In 2011, as the civil war broke out in Libya, a multi-state coalition, consisting mostly of NATO members, began a military intervention in the country with the declared aim of establishing an immediate ceasefire. The operation led to the escalation of the conflict in the country and the subsequent killing of the countrys long-standing leader, Muammar Gaddafi. The artists make no efforts to explain this in a rational way. They want people to visualize and experience how grotesque and funny the alienation of heads from bodies is. This is really a metaphor for what European societies are going through, for example via the increasing virtualization of the economy. "With our sculptural performance we try, through carnevalesque practices, to answer something by magnification, alienation, protuberance," Karin Kasbock told Sputnik. "It is a method described by the Russian scholar and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin." The heads of "sleepy Merkel" and of the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, feature prominently in the show. But Merkel's head proves to be the most popular out of all of them. Rather than sleepy, her head appears as though it has fallen down as if it has been vandalized. It's a scene that reminds one of the fall of Rome. Are ruins awaiting Germany, and the EU, because of democratic deficits, financial meltdown, wars and excessive migration perhaps? "We worry about barbarian inequalities, not barbaric invasions," said Kasbock. "Europe is confronted through various crises with a global reality it cannot longer ignore. The unlimited freedom of capital is not what we need to deal with these challenges. Europe must find an answer to barbaric inequalities." And why is Angela Merkel's head immobile? What is it doing there? "During the show, an activist climbs onto the sleeping Angela Merkel. She explores her brain mass and experiences an Odyssey in her skull cavity," Kasbock explained and it would be easy, though wrong, to read this as a joke. "The activist then confronts Merkel's sleepy head with the EU democratic deficits, the capitalist excesses, and suggests to her that another path is possible. It is the path of solidarity between European nations," Kasbock told Sputnik. "We stand for solidarity among European nations," says the other artist, Christoph Maria Leitner, "and that includes Russia." "We are against barriers and borders. Only capital can move freely. This must change." The show is financed by City of Munich Department of Art and Culture, in cooperation with Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater. Having toured Austria, Berlin and now Munich, the Bankleer artistic duo intend to bring their work to other cities as well. So far, they have not failed to attract improvised crowds, to amuse, puzzle and perhaps, even inspire them. "Making the offer for dialogue without any denuclearization steps is only a deceit intended to change the situation [where they are pressured under sanctions]. There can't be any compromise on the issues of security that are directly linked to the lives and safety of our citizens," Park said while addressing the newly elected parliament as quoted by Yonhap news. Last month, Pyongyang urged Seoul to accept its offer to hold military talks and called for joint steps to carry out measures for national unity, citing the need to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula. South Korea rejected the proposal, demanding "a real turn" toward denuclearization. BEIJING (Sputnik) The IOM is supporting Beijing's efforts at developing efficitent migration policies and is working towards broadening its cooperation with Chinese counterparts, according to the organization's official website. "China's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Chao on Monday morning held a meeting with IOM's visiting Director General William Lacy Swing and submitted an application for China's accession to the IOM signed by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi," Lu said at a briefing. MOSCOW (Sputnik) In September 2015, Abu Sayyaf fighters kidnapped a group of people, comprising two Canadians, one Norwegian citizen and a Philippine national. In May, Abu Sayyaf announced that it would kill one of the hostages if it did not receive a multimillion ransom. The Canadian CBC News broadcaster reported, citing a source close to the security situation in the Philippines, that Canada's Robert Hall was killed by Abu Sayyaf. The broadcaster added that John Ridsdel, the second group's hostage from Canada, was killed in April. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Canadian national Robert Hall who has been held hostage in the Philippines was most likely executed on Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement. It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors, Trudeau stated on Monday. While Canadian officials are working closely with authorities in the Philippines to formally confirm Mr. Halls death, we have compelling reason to believe that reports to this effect are, unfortunately, true. Canadian media reported earlier in the day that the militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate Abu Sayyaf jihadist group, which is active in the Philippines, killed the Canadian national. This group earlier stole digital files from South Korean firms and is now prying on targets in India. Suckfly's main goal is to steal the data therefore it might have targeted some top defense personnel. "It has successfully carried out cyber attacks by computers of both government and commercial establishments. Targeting of military officials cannot be ruled out, keeping in mind the sensitive nature of data being handled by them," a statement from the Indian Army said. India's defense establishment has been on the Chinese cyber radar since 2012, when Chinese hackers managed to penetrate the systems of the Navy's Visakhapatnam-based Eastern Command. After that a draft proposal for setting up a Tri Service Cyber Command was prepared but it is yet to see the light of day. Presently all three services have their own space and cyber cell so it was decided that there was a need for a unified command and command structure to deal with the cyber threat in a unified manner. The Indian government's commitment to expedite the formalities of a deal allowing America's Westinghouse Electric to set up six nuclear reactors in India is drawing flak for being commercially nonviable. The proposition was part of the talks between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Barack Obama during the former's latest visit to the US. Many are questioning the rationale behind such a commitment as installing nuclear reactors manufactured by Westinghouse would overshoot the cost of Russian reactors already in operation at Kudankulam of Tamil Nadu. Amit Bhandari, Energy Expert and India's leading think-tank Gateway House told Sputnik, "Considering the cost of a reactor that Westinghouse is building in the US, cost per megawatt works out to $7.5 million while the approved cost of Kudankulam Unit 3 & 4 is $2.9 million. So there seems a strong likelihood that the cost of Westinghouse reactors will exceed that of the Russian reactors in India." Russia's Rosatom operates two reactors at Kudankulam, in Tamil Nadu. Hindu Sena a right wing group in India, has put together a grand celebration to mark US presidential candidate Donald Trump's birthday on June 14. The group has invited one and all to join in the festivities at Jantar Mantar, a popular site for demonstrations. All of you are cordially invited by Hindu Sena to celebrate the birthday of the 'savior of humanity'. No kidding! pic.twitter.com/aDAxqzyoBC Zafar Mehdi (@mehdizafar) 13 2016 . Vishnu Gupta, the president of Hindu Sena, told Sputnik, "Donald Trump is turning 70 years old. So, we have ordered a cake weighing seven kilograms. We have also hired an orchestrato add some music to the celebration. We want to honor Trump on his birthday as he is the one who has taken on the responsibility of freeing the world from Islamic terror." The group says that they have full sympathy for the people killed in the Florida terror attack, but it is equally important for them to celebrate the birthday of the person who is capable of wiping out terrorism from the face of earth. This came in the wake of North Koreas recent nuclear tests. In January, Pyongyang claimed to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. One month later, the North Korean government placed a satellite in orbit as part of a launch which the United Nations condemned as a thinly-veiled demonstration of its ballistic missile capabilities. While the UN placed sanctions on the DPRK over the tests, Pyongyang has vowed to continue its nuclear program. "North Korea will continue to develop its nuclear program because it believes that nuclear weapons are the only insurance for its survival knowing that for the last 15 years the United States was attacking countries and all these countries did not have nuclear arms," Reiner Braun, co-president of the International Peace Bureau (IPB) told Sputnik last week. The United States has also deployed a fleet of F-22 stealth fighters to the peninsula in recent months, as well as new Patriot missile systems. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The oil production expanded mainly in Kuwait, Iran and Saudi Arabia and declined in Nigeria, Venezuela and Iraq. According to the cartel's experts, the demand for OPEC oil will rise in 2016 by 1.8 million barrels per day up to 31.5 million barrels. In 2015, the demand for OPEC oil was at the level of 29.7 million barrels per day. The organization maintained its forecast for global oil demand in 2016, which is expected to grow by 1.2 million barrels to 94.18 million barrels per day. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The United Kingdom's exit from the European Union could weaken the positions of the Swiss financial center and stall negotiations on a wide range of trade deals between Bern and Brussels, a spokesperson for the Swiss Private Bankers Association told Sputnik on Monday. We are afraid that a Brexit would weaken the EU. It would work against the Swiss financial center, as Europe is its main commercial partner. Switzerland needs a strong EU, Fabienne Bogadi said. On Friday, the Swiss Private Bankers Association held a seminar devoted to possible implications of Brexit with most participants predicting many hurdles for Bern in case the UK nationals choose to leave the EU. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Microsoft Corporation will acquire US social networking service LinkedIn in a deal worth more than $26 billion, the company said in a press release on Monday. "Microsoft will acquire LinkedIn for $196 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion, inclusive of LinkedIns net cash," the press release stated. Microsoft said LinkedIn would retain its independence despite the acquisition, which has been approved unanimously by the board of directors of both companies. According to Yun, Seoul expects to intensify the mutual trade, which reached "the highest levels in 2014". "In this regard, I would like to remind that at today's meeting we agreed to take to a new level a synergistic effect between the Eurasian initiative and the policy of the Far East development," the minister said. Yun's visit to Russia started on June 12 and will last till June 14. This is his first official visit to the country since he took office in 2013 and the first such visit by a South Korean foreign minister in five years. The analyst also stressed the importance of studying the barriers that appear at a domestic level between members of the Union, as well as the possibility of reducing the economic gap between them. On the other hand, cooperation with the EEU, as well as in the long term with some members of BRICS, such as, China and Russia can be very advantageous for Iran. The leading role of Russia, given its capacity and capability and those of Kazakhstan and Belarus has been for a long time in the field of view of Iran, the analyst said. He noted that it is obvious that cooperation should not hinder the development of Iran's relations with other important partners as well. Talking about what kind of results Iran expects from the Eurasian Economic Commission analysis and when will it be possible to sign the agreement to establish the free trade zone between Iran and EEU, Koleini said, Cooperation with Iran will help EEU countries to strengthen cooperation on the North-South corridor project. He added that identification of all the nuances of the economic attractiveness of these projects and the process of promoting legal issues takes time as the population of the countries belonging to the EEU together account for more than 180 million people, with an area of 20 million square km, making it a lengthy process. Furthermore, the GDP of these countries amounts to over four trillion dollars a year. These indicators determine stability of economic cooperation with other countries of the Union. No need to look at cooperation between Iran and the EEU as politically motivated. It should be borne in mind, that it is due to Iran, that a vast joint economic bridge from Lisbon to the Persian Gulf may likely be created, Koleini concluded. The tone between Germany and Turkey is becoming increasingly fierce and the political situation is threatening to negatively influence the flourishing economic relations between the two countries, the newspaper wrote. "We may lose one of the last major emerging markets can get lost for us," German economist Volker Treier said cited by the newspaper. According to the expert, the negative change in the spirits between the two countries can be seen right now. Treier referred to decreasing investments, canceled trips to the country and other growing uncertainties. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) One of the largest US defense contractors is joining forces with a British maritime acoustic and sound surveillance company to advance underwater submarine detection capabilities, Northrop Grumman said in a news release on Monday. Northrop Grumman Corporation signed a memorandum of agreement with Ultra Electronics to deliver new maritime domain awareness (MDA) and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities for Northrop Grumman's family of autonomous systems, the release stated. Persistent acoustic surveillance is critical to the ASW mission and maritime intelligence gathering, Northrop Grumman explained. BERLIN (Sputnik) Orlando shooting will not change Germany's policy of openness and tolerance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday. "Our hearts are heavy that hatred and malice of one man took lives of more than 50 people, I think I say this on behalf of all guests from Germany present here. But we firmly believe, even if such serious crimes cause us deep sorrow, in the continuation of our open, tolerant life," Merkel said at German-Chinese intergovernmental consultations in Beijing as posted on her official Twitter account. She expressed her condolences for the families of the victims. BRUSSELS (Sputnik) Relations between Russia and the West deteriorated amid the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. The European Union, the United States and their allies have introduced several rounds of anti-Russian sanctions since the reunification of Crimea with Russia in 2014, accusing Moscow of meddling in the Ukrainian conflict. Russia has refuted any allegations of involvement and advocated for settling the conflict between Kiev forces and southeastern Ukraine's pro-independence militia peacefully. "They [lawmakers] argue the restrictions impose security risks in the fight against terrorism," EUobserver said. Cameron's Conservatives have been split over Britain's membership of the European Union the subject of an historic In-Out referendum on June 23 ever since the signing of the Maastricht treaty in 1992, which created the institutions of the EU as we know it today. So bitter was the acrimony within the party that John Major who signed the treaty lost the 1997 election over the issue and kept the Conservatives out of power for 13 years. In an effort to win the 2015 election, Cameron promised an In-Out referendum on the issue by the end of 2017. The moment the date for it was announced, the rival campaigns began not least the rival camps within the Conservative party, with ex-London Mayor Boris Johnson leading the "Leave" group and Cameron making the case for "Remain." Thus, much of the campaigning has been a slug-out between Cameron and Johnson the co-called blue-on-blue war which has dominated the agenda and the media. KIEV (Sputnik) Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman expressed confidence on Monday in Ukraine's membership in the European Union in the next ten years. "We [Ukraine] will be EU members," Groysman told journalists as asked about Ukraine's future in ten years. In June 2014 Kiev and Brussels signed bilateral association agreement establishing a political and economic association between the parties, as well as cooperation in a broad range of areas, including a possible visa-free regime, the exchange of information by security services, and the modernization of Ukraine's infrastructure. The agreement has been ratified by all EU member states, except the Netherlands who rejected Kiev-Brussels deal by public non-binding vote in April. Its had a huge impact on the French economy, but as I said, this situation wont change in the short run, he noted. Answering a question about how Europeans feel about these sanctions, he said that Europeans feel damaged and fear that they are losing market share in Russia. Meanwhile, Russian producers are benefiting from this embargo as it bolsters certain sectors of the domestic market, namely of dairy products and cheese. Besides, Russia has now switched to fruit and vegetable imports from countries like Morocco, so the Europeans feel the negative effect of the embargo on a daily basis, he added. When asked whether the EU and US sanctions had had any impact on the Kremlins policy, Cyrille Bret said the situation reminded him of Iran. The sanctions [once imposed on Iran] had had little, if any, effect on the Iranians' nuclear development program." Meanwhile, the United States, which has traditionally had much soft power in Europe, wants the anti-Russian sanctions to stay. As for Russia, its influence is notable in the economic field, especially regarding gas supplies to the entire Europe. Europe is a strategic field for the US and Russia. There are several economic sectors, including agriculture, energy, big data, and rare metals, which draw attention of Moscow and Washington. There are real strategic motives behind their turn to Europe. Many analysts believe that numerous flaws of American foreign and domestic policies have damaged the reputation of the US in the global arena. As a result, other countries, including Russia, are now taking advantage of the situation. At the end of June, the EU Council will assess whether or not to renew the anti-Russian economic sanctions, first implemented in 2014 in connection to alleged Russian involvement in Ukraine's crisis. Renewing sanctions against Russia requires unanimous support from all 28 EU members. MOSCOW (Sputnik) On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech university, which claimed 32 lives. "I don't think it is necessary to have extra security precautions, but it is a decision that the police must make," she told TV2 broadcaster on Sunday evening. She also called the Orlando mass shooting, which took place in the early morning hours on Sunday, a "hate crime" aimed at the gay community, adding that Norway was "horrified" by the "senseless brutality against innocent people." PARIS (Sputnik) Some 10 people covered carpets and several exhibit items, including France's Leclerc tank, with red paint, symbolizing blood. Before the guard service succeed to remove the protesters from the exhibition, the pacifist activists hung up a rainbow flag with the word "Paix," which means "peace" in French language. At the moment it is unknown whether the activists have been just removed from the exhibition, or they have been arrested by police. The organized nature and scope of the Volhynia crime has all the hallmarks of an ethnic cleansing and genocide. 100,000 innocent Polish men, women and children fell victim to this crime committed during the Nazi occupation of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1942-1945, the document said. Its authors also mentioned the rising popularity of Stepan Bandera and of his UPA organization in western Ukraine. Similar bills had earlier been submitted for parliamentary approval by members of Kukiz15 and Law and Justice parties. TALLINN (Sputnik) Uranium is a radioactive chemical element used in nuclear industry for both military and civilian purposes. "The metal cylinder was found on Monday night in the woods near the village of Saustinomme located in the Parish of Saku near Tallinn. The find was made by a metal detector while searching for the old shells, the detected radioactive material is uranium. The police has been informed of the discovery. The board carries out the examination of the container," the statement said. KIEV (Sputnik) Germany will provide Ukraine with 6 million euros [$6.76 million] for civilians affected by the deadly conflict in country's east, the press service of the German Embassy in Ukraine said on Monday. "The German Federal Government will allocate for 2016 and 2017 the funds totaling 6 million euros for humanitarian projects of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in the east of Ukraine," the embassy said in a statement. The embassy noted that the funds will be allocated under the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) humanitarian program Emergency Assistance to Civilians affected by the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. The embassy's press service reminded that Germany allocated 4.5 million euros [$5 million] for Ukraine as part of this program in 2015. French President Francois Hollande invoked a little-used part of the French constitution Article 49.3 to bypass the upper house the Senate in order to push through his labor reforms designed to encourage employers to take on more workers on full time contracts to get the economy moving. Having won the support of the lower house, where he has a majority, Hollande was set for a battle with the Senate and invoked 49.3 to the anger of many unions, who immediately began a series of rolling strikes which have affected fuel refineries, depots, trains, the Paris Metro, garbage collection and many other public services, threatening to mar the Euro 2016 tournament, which France is currently hosting. Now the Senate is set to debate the provisions of the labor reforms challenging the proposed working time provisions and put it to a vote, causing another constitutional crisis. The move comes ahead of what the powerful CGT union is calling a "huge" strike on Tuesday (June 14). BRUSSELS (Sputnik) According to HLN newspaper, the Brussels police and security patrol were ordered to be on high alert at the sites where the Euro-2016 competition matches are publicly broadcast as well as around hospitals and schools in the capital. On March 22, two explosions hit Brussels Airport. A third blast hit Maelbeek metro station near the headquarters of the EU institutions. The explosions killed over 30 people and injured more than 300. Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attacks. Due to the lack of foreign correspondents German, Swiss and Austrian media have to rely on information from other sources, the newspaper noted. "Not only texts but also pictures, audio and video files, which we see in our media every day, come from the same agencies. What is perceived by the [] audience as a contribution by the local newspaper [] are actually (translated) reports from New York, London, Paris and Berlin," the study said. The researchers also found that 82% of articles, comments, and opinions are written to support the position of the US, the EU and NATO. Moreover, Western intelligence agencies maintain direct contacts with large media sources and provide them with the "right information," the researchers say. In this case, the articles indicate that the information comes from a source "close to the government or military circles." "Our media from Vienna to Washington often report on the same subjects and even use the same formulations," the study said. Thus, many Western media outlets have become a means for the dissemination of propaganda and disinformation, the researchers concluded. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in June, Ukrainian authorities said that they had detained a French citizen on Ukraine's border with Poland. The suspect was carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenade launchers, explosives and detonators in his car. He was charged with smuggling, illegal handling of weapons and terrorism. The Ukrainian officials said the suspect was planning 15 terror attacks across France during the tournament. According to Le Parisien newspaper, his alleged affiliate, 40-year-old Eric G., was detained at his home in Stainville commune of Frances northeastern Meuse department. According to him, the possibility of visa-free travel to EU countries would give Russian citizens better opportunities to participate in scientific exchanges and educational programs. "We need to increase the number of educational programs for Russian citizens by three, four times We need to remove visa restrictions not only for Turks but also for the citizens of Russia," Ischinger said speaking at a media forum organized by Deutsche Welle. According to the politician, the EU has a lot of educational programs, but they won't be fully implemented as long as "there is no common European media space." MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to the Serbian daily Danas, an unnamed member of the Bundestag from the ruling Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) party said that top Serbian officials were told that Kosovo's membership in the UN will be one of the conditions for Serbia to be accepted in the European Union. "We said that we [Germany] would not ratify Serbia's membership in the EU unless Serbia accepts Kosovo becoming a full-fledged member of the UN. However, it is still an open question in my party, because there are different opinions on this issue," the paper's source said. Kosovo, which is inhabited mostly by ethnic Albanians, declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 after years of conflict with Belgrade. Serbia considers Kosovo to be part of its territory. Dozens of countries, including Russia, do not recognize Kosovo as an independent state. TALLINN (Sputnik) In September 2015, the Alliance activated six NATO Force Integration Units, special command centers designed to facilitate the deployment of the bloc's forces in the region and coordinate the reaching, if necessary, in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria as part of NATO's Readiness Action Plan agreed on at the 2014 Wales Summit. According to Lt. Gen. Manfred Hofmann, the commander of the Szczecin-based Multinational Corps Northeast, the opening of the new command center and the confirmation of its full readiness to operate is a clear signal of NATO's unity and determination to protect both Estonia and the entire European northeastern border region. About 20 officers out of 40, working at the headquarters, are Estonian soldiers, and the rest are members of the Armed Forces of the United States, the Netherlands, Canada, Norway, Poland, France, Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Hungary. The Air France plane, with German soldiers and ammunition on board, took off from Tegel airport in Berlin on May 28. The loss of a plastic crate containing 880 pieces of ammunition was discovered after the plane landed in the capital of Mali, Bamako. "When the soldiers arrived at Bamako, Air France was unable to hand over the ammunition in accordance with the instructions it received from Bundeswehr," a representative of the Bundeswehr told Die Welt newspaper. German military filed a case on missing ammunition with the Berlin police on June 6, and an investigation and search for the lost ammunition is under way. "It happens every election" she said, saying young and oppressed people are often told "what we have to do to get the changes we want is to vote for the Democrats. But we see time and again that that doesnt give us anything, that what we really need to do is build an independent movement that can defeat Clinton and defeat Trump." She also pushed back on the notion that such a youth movement isnt based on realism. "Its not idealistic to say that building that kind of independent movement is something we need, its idealistic to think that this kind of system can last forever, the system that creates so much inequality, so much oppression for so many people." Dominguez noted that worsening living conditions in the US are spurring the same kind of response in the UK. "What you have is people that have had enough of neo-liberal policies, had enough of all this nonsense that only benefits one percent of society, and the 99% wants something different." Hernandez agreed, stating that a feeling of international solidarity is now palpable and that a rising consciousness is helping activists think critically about how to bring about needed change. "It feels like were connected to an entire world of other working class people who are also struggling." he said, "We have a huge working class, we have numbers on our side, what is against us is money and the corporations, but if we organize correctly we can do this, we can fight back, we can win." We have taken all necessary steps to prevent the theft of Iranian assets, and the Iranian government will shortly file a pertinent lawsuit against the US with the UN Court in Geneva, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told lawmakers in Tehran. Mr. Zarif stressed that Iran did not recognize US court rulings concerning the Islamic Republic. SULAYMANIYAH (Iraq) (Sputnik) Iraqi Kurdistan troops, Peshmerga, have lost almost 1,500 fighters with another 8,600 wounded during the two years war with Daesh, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdistan Peshmerga ministry said Monday. "During the war with the Islamic State [Daesh] 1,466 peshmerga soldiers were killed and 62 missed in action. 8610 soldiers were wounded," spokesman said as quoted by Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) media center. At the moment Kurdish fighters are participating in the offensive to liberate Iraqi Mosul. "She was arrested in March on suspicion of adultery, which means having sex outside marriage," lawyer Brian Lokollo told AFP. The 22-year-old woman, who is identified just as "Laura" by Dutch media, has said that she was drugged prior to being raped and reported having realized she had been taken advantage of after she woke up in an unfamiliar flat. #FreeLaura it's a strange world where victims end up in jail Cookie Monster (@NaylaaaAF) June 12, 2016 Charging a woman *because she was raped* is a new low! Our justice system should be protecting victims, not arresting them! #FreeLaura Asma (@Asma_AlJehani) June 11, 2016 The lady in question had been dancing in Doha and when she returned to her table she realized she had been drugged. After the first sip of her drink, the lady felt very unwell. According to the Dutch ambassador to Qatar Yvette Burghgraef-van Eechoud, "Laura" will now be deported back to the Netherlands in the coming days once the ruling has been formalized. Women in Qatar face daily discrimination in law and in practice. They are inadequately protected against when it comes to violence within the family and personal status laws continue to discriminate against women in relation to marriage, divorce, child custody, nationality and freedom of movement. The victim's mother spoke out against the treatment that her daughter has had to undergo. "It is totally inhuman, this is the first time my daughter had been on holiday without me," the woman's mother, Marian, told Dutch television NOS. Maybe its time the few sane countries left make a stand. Jailing a girl for reporting rape?! #qatar #freelaura Jonathan (@jonathan_vdw) June 11, 2016 @MofaQatar_EN Free Dutch Laura. Being raped is not a crime. She is a victim and her attacker a criminal. #FreeLaura #Qatar JacobienB (@JacobienB1) June 10, 2016 "She completely denies these accusations, she and her mother have also been pressured to have her marry her attacker," Lokollo said. Raqqa is a large city with a population of 200,000 people which makes any attempts of an assault very difficult. In addition, Daesh militants have seriously strengthened their positions across the city. Another problem is the lack of troops with the army and popular forces. Currently, the most capable army and popular forces units are deployed to Raqqa, including a tank brigade and the Desert Eagles special operations brigade. However, it is difficult to assess their number as well as their combat capabilities. Previously, the Syrian Army has made attempts to advance along the Itria-Tabaqah highway but sustained heavy losses. The efficiency of Russian airstrikes during the advance on Raqqa is lower than during the active phase of the Russian campaign because aircraft now operate at the maximum of their combat range. The army is also unlikely to take control over the local military airfield. But even if the airfield is recaptured Daesh militants would still be able to shell it. As for Daesh, the terrorists deployed the bulk of their forces from Raqqa to Iraq, in Ramadi and Fallujah. Daesh left only a small garrison in the city but it would be sufficient to repel an assault. KUWAIT CITY (Sputnik) Talks between the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels brokered by the United Nations in Kuwait have brought no results so far. "The envoy is giving the final touch to the document which is nearly completed to be tabled to the delegations at the general session Monday or Tuesday," the source said. Three of those injured in the attack are reportedly in a critical state. An investigation is ongoing, according to the news outlet. Tensions in Turkey escalated in July 2015, after 33 Kurdish activists were killed in a suicide blast in Suruc and two Turkish policemen were later murdered by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, which led to Ankara's military campaign against the PKK which it considers a terrorist organization. GENEVA (Sputnik) Vershbow added that the alliance, at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi, has sent experts to Baghdad to evaluate possible expansion of NATO's mission to train the Iraqi military in the country. "NATO may contribute directly to the coalition in the future, possibly by providing surveillance by NATO airborne warning and control [system] planes, the AWACS planes, to escort the coalitions air operations," Vershbow said at the opening of the International Security Forum in Geneva. MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to the Iranian police, they seized a large amount of explosives and explosive devices during the anti-terror operation. "The members of the terrorist group who had come to the region on a sabotage mission were trapped by the police," Sistan-Balochistan Police Force Commander Brig. Gen. Hossein Rahimi said, as quoted by FARS, adding that one police officer was killed during the raid. The terrorists are said to be part of the Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), a radical Salafi terrorist group active in the south-east of Iran since 2012. MOSCOW (Sputnik) A Russian cargo plane delivered 18 metric tonnes of humanitarian aid, mostly food supplies, to the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor besieged by ISIL (Daesh) terrorists, the Russian Defense Ministry said Monday. "Russian airline's aircraft has delivered humanitarian aid from the UN, food packages and grains, 18 tons overall, to Deir ez-Zor, besieged by ISIL militants," the ministry said in a daily bulletin posted on its website. Moreover, four metric tonnes of humanitarian aid, including grains and flour, were delivered to the residents of a village in the Hama province. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The Afghan government welcomes the changes in US rules of engagement in Afghanistan enabling US forces to strike Taliban fighters, Afghanistans Ambassador to the United States Hamdullah Mohib told Sputnik. This would enable the US troops there to help Afghan troops in offensives against the Taliban, we very much welcome that announcement, Ambassador Mohib said on Monday. Last week, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter confirmed the lifting of restrictions on US troops, allowing them to proactively target Taliban fighters. The change to the rules of engagement follows significant Taliban advances over the past year, jeopardizing Afghan Security Forces and US interests in the country. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Baltic States and Poland are in talks with military equipment manufacturers on potential joint regional air defense system, media reported. "We are in discussions now with the Estonians, the Latvians and the Poles over how we can create some kind of regional air defence system," Lithuanian defense minister Juozas Olekas said as quoted by the Financial Times. He added that the creation of Baltic air defense system is being actively discussed with NATO. PARIS (Sputnik) The company expects to complete its sales plan for 2016 in amount of $13 billion. "We are strictly on schedule, no delays, the plan is due to be fulfilled," Isaykin told RIA Novosti. The director also confirmed that Rosoboronexport's sales plan for 2016 corresponded with a previously announced amount of $13 billion. "The challenges we face are enduring. Over the next two days, NATO defense ministers will pave the way for decisions we will take at the Warsaw summit. First, we will bolster our deterrence across the alliance against threats from any directions," Stoltenberg said. NATO chiefs agreed in February 2016 to base four new rolling battalions in Eastern Europe, but he announced Monday (June 13) the location of the forces to be confirmed in Warsaw. "Based on the advice of our military planners, we will agree to deploy, by rotation, four robust, multinational battalions in the Baltic States and in Poland. This will send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any ally. "These are part of a much bigger shift in our posture in response to the challenges we face. We have tripled the size of the NATO Response Force to 40,000 troops. We have put up a new Spearhead Force at its core around 5,000 troops ready to move within days and we have set up eight new small headquarters in the eastern part of our alliance to coordinate planning, exercises and reinforcements," he said. Increased Spending Stoltenberg also announced an overall increase in military spending within NATO. He said that defense spending around the world had decreased since the end of the Cold War. At its 2014 summit in Wales, NATO members agreed to spend two percent of GDP on NATO, but the results have been "mixed," he said. However, in 2015 there was a 0.5 percent increase in the budget and there would be a further increase of 1.5 percent in 2016, he said. NATO has been gradually building up its forces in Europe for over a decade, but has recently undertaken a huge increase in its presence in the Baltic region and Eastern Europe. The NATO Response Force (NRF) was originally set up following the Prague summit in 2002 as a multinational force made up of land, air, maritime and Special Operations Forces (SOF) that could deploy quickly. MINSK (Sputnik) Joint command-and-staff and territorial defense forces' exercises kicked off on Monday in the Belarusian Grodno Region, the country's Defense Ministry announced. "According to the Defense Ministry's training plan for 2015/2016, the command-and-staff exercises with the territorial defense forces of the Grodno Region were launched on June 13. The drills are mainly aimed at boosting the level of the [military] readiness and ability of the governing bodies and territorial defense forces to carry out the tasks in conditions of rapidly changing situation," the ministry's press service said in a statement. The drills imply testing skills of protection of territorial defense objects, maintenance of a martial law, blocking and destruction of armed gangs. Photos and video published on social media show that Tigr combat vehicles are involved in an offensive on the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of Daesh. The first vehicles arrived in Syria nearly a year ago. Since then, personnel of the Syrian Army highly appreciated the capabilities of the Tigr. The Gaz-2330 Tigr (Tiger) is a family of Russian off-road vehicles, developed in the early 2000s and produced beginning in 2004 at the Arzamas Machine-Building Plant, part of the Military Industrial Company. The vehicle is produced in a variety of configurations, and is available for both civilian and military use. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The V-22 is being tested and evaluated as it is scheduled to become the singular logistics platform on an aircraft carrier for future carrier on-board delivery operations, the NNS explained. "In preparation for the planned replacement of the C-2 Greyhound, USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) received a V-22 Osprey from Marine Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron (VMX) 1 for landings and takeoffs, June 12," the report stated. "With the incorporation of the V-22, I think the fleet will also see additional capabilities because we now have the option of taking cargo and personnel to some of the smaller decks without first having to come to the aircraft carrier," US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Brett Hart told the NNS. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) A second US aircraft carrier strike group arrived in the Mediterranean Sea on Monday in support of US national security interests in Europe, the US Navy announced in a release. "The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (IKE CSG) entered the Mediterranean Sea June 13, 2016 in support of US national security interests in Europe," the release stated on Monday. The Navy said the strike groups arrival to the Mediterranean Sea is part of the Great Green Fleet initiative, which involves a multi-day passing exercise (PASSEX) with the Italian Navys Flotta Verde. "We contacted the US law enforcement agencies in Florida. They do not have such information," Yury Melnik told RIA Novosti on Sunday. On Sunday, US national Omar Saddiqui Mateen killed 50 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech, which claimed 32 lives. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The UK nationals are set to vote on June 23 in a referendum on the country's EU membership, after Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders of the 27 EU member states agreed in February to grant the United Kingdom a special status within the bloc. "The dissolution of all [UK-EU] contractual obligations and ties will be sad, but relatively simple, it will take approximately for two years. The talks on the new relations status will be much more difficult. Each of the 27 EU member states and the European Parliament must approve the overall result. It will take at least five years to complete the process, and, I am afraid, without guarantees of success," Tusk told the Bild newspaper in an interview published on Sunday. TOKYO (Sputnik) On Monday, Abe sent a telegram to US President Barack Obama with condolences over the Sunday's deadly attack. "We share strong commitment to fight against terrorism and we will continue permanent fight against terrorism in collaboration with the United States and international community," the telegram reads as quoted by the Kyodo news agency. "Let us recall that the United States has also imposed sanctions, mainly economic ones, to Russia, but that they never went as far as jeopardizing their security cooperation with the heads of the intelligence service. So, why are we putting so much efforts in this, at the expense of our own security?" they wrote. Despite the fact that intelligence cooperation between Russia and European countries continued, the removal of sanctions would help resume necessary cooperation and dialogue. "Russia, thanks its positions in Syria, has access to valuable information on ISIS [Daesh]. Then, we must learn to act responsibly, in a concrete way and be done with ideals that do not satisfy anyone. This realpolitik is no longer a choice, it is a duty imposed by the world around us," the letter read. Brussels should "go beyond the desire to punish" in order to pursue more important goals and interest, the authors added. According to them, now there is a growing number of European politicians calling to revise or even lift the sanctions. "History will prove right those who find the political courage to make such a statement," the letter read. After the 2014 referendum on Crimeas reunification with Russia, the US and the EU imposed several rounds of anti-Russian sanctions, including economic and personal restrictions. In August 2014, Moscow responded with a food imports embargo. The West has insisted that sanctions will be removed if the Minsk agreements on the Ukrainian crisis are fully implemented. In turn, Moscow has repeatedly said that Russia is not involved in the Donbass conflict. "You can hardly blame the Israeli government for looking north to the Russian Federation for a partnership with the new sheriff in town," Washington Times columnist L. Todd Wood asserted. This blooming relationship looks more like a strategic choice than a tactical shift due to a large extent to the evolving nature of Israel's relationship with the United States. The US still gives "Israel lots of military aid, but the special relationship is gone," he lamented. "Israel can no longer count on the United States for its ultimate security. America is no longer the protector of last resort." "Objectively speaking, in reality, we could expect the process [of the elections] to become more active by October. We are talking about the elections themselves, presentation of the Security Council candidates to the General Assembly," Gatilov said. "This will happen closer to the fall. There is time before that, other candidates may emerge, there is no need to restrict their potential artificially," he added. Russia Thinks Next UN Chief Should Be From Eastern Europe "There is a list of candidates, in particular, from the Eastern European group. Russia has initially supported the idea that the next organization's top official must be an Eastern European group's representative. Representatives of these region have never been appointed to this post. Maybe, this is a historic injustice, which should be corrected," Gatilov told RIA Novosti. According to the diplomat, Russia is open for contacts with all candidates and the UN General Assembly has already held two sessions over potential candidates for the UN chief post. Acting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's term of office expires on December 31, 2016. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Germany is allegedly ready to meet Turkey halfway on visa waiver agreement to overcome the refugee crisis, the Telegraph reported. "[German chancellor Angela] Merkel has begun to paint the deal in humanitarian termsto pre-empt human rights opposition. Officials here have shown some interest, behind the scenes, about possible compromise formulations on the anti-terror law," the Telegraph reported quoting a leaked cable from Britains ambassador to Germany Sebastian Wood. Wood also express his concern that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has an upper hand in the dispute since he is able to "open the floodgates" for the migrant flow into Europe. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Moscow will show no support to a possible NATO military operation in Libya and any talks about it without approval from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) are unfounded, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said. "The talks that we need some NATO operation in Libya are unfounded, obviously, in absence of the respective UN Security Council decision," Gatilov told RIA Novosti in an interview. "We have seen this all a couple of years ago and know the Security Council decision have been used, [namely] in the exact opposite goals than were stated in the document [sanctioning the operation]. Therefore I do not think that this time we will go to bless NATO actions, a military operation in this country," he added. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The relationships with Turkey demand from the European Union both criticism and solidarity, President of the European Council Donald Tusk said. "Nothing in life is for free and neither this agreement is [on refugee redistribution]. But we will not come to terms with any violations of freedom of press or opinions, you can trust me Yes, Turkey is the most reliable partner in the region, and it is in a difficult situation: weekly terrorist attacks, insecure borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. Plus more than two million refugees in the country. Therefore we owe Turkey both: solidarity and criticism," Tusk told Bild newspaper in an interview. He added that visa-free agreement implementation will depend on Turkey's ability to comply with all the conditions, but "the negotiations will certainly take until October." Yet this answer will have major implications for Iraq and Syria This is by far not a matter of idle curiosity, particularly considering repeated calls to send more US forces, including ground troops, to Iraq and Syria. Washington should have learned by now that its counterterrorism strategies cannot solely revolve around the military component. US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan clearly show that what could look like a military victory at first can soon turn into a hotbed of terrorism and sectarian violence in areas where previous grievances were not addressed, where security and efficient governance are also non-existent. Second, having signed an admission protocol with Montenegro, NATO showed that its strategy of expansion lives on. Ukraine and Georgia are now also considered as possible members to the alliance, despite opposition from France and Germany. As a result, Russia now sees the NATO expansion as a threat, rather than just a danger, the author underscored. Third, NATO also wants to involve in its war games traditionally neutral countries, like Sweden and Finland. For example, after Russias alleged violation of Swedish airspace and territorial waters Stockholm adopted a firm stance towards Moscow and intensified its contacts with the alliance, the article read. In turn, admission to NATO has been one of the key issues of the electoral campaign in Finland. Most of countrys residents now support the initiative, so Finland is not as neutral as before, the article read. The result is that buffer states which previously could choose between Russia and NATO are now leaning towards the alliance, the analyst noted. Furthermore, NATO is reviving its project of a European missile defense shield, having crossed a "red line" as the situation is seen by Moscow, the article read. This is a symbolic gesture, drawing a line under 10-year-long debates between Washington and Moscow on deterrence capabilities and Russias influence in Europe, the author wrote. MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to the South Korean minister, Moscow and Seoul agreed that "the fourth nuclear test, as well as a launch of a ballistic missile in the beginning of the year is a serious threat not only for peace and operation in the NEA, but for security of the international community." "Today we agreed with [Russian Foreign] Minister [Sergei] Lavrov that North Korea's nuclear issue is the largest obstacle in strengthening multifaceted cooperation between the two countries in order to make the NEA region [the Northeast Asia] peaceful and prosperous," the minister said. "Trying to solve political issues in Asia using the [black and white] worldview is dangerous for global stability," the newspaper noted. "The problem is that the Americans, like many in Europe are simply incapable of holding talks from the standpoint of treating every participant as equal." This is why Washington and its allies have turned the Middle East and North Africa into "a permanent war zone," the daily observed. If these countries use the same approach to conflict resolution in Asia, they could set the region on fire. For its part, Russia pursues goals opposite to those of the US when it comes to Asia. "We do not need to contain anyone. Our task focuses on mutually beneficial cooperation with China, Japan, Vietnam, both Koreas and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time we have a territorial dispute with Japan. We resolved a similar dispute with China through a mutually beneficial settlement despite an armed conflict that took place" in 1969, the newspaper detailed. In this context, Russia could create a third party arbitration court to resolve territorial disputes in Asia. During a conference organized by the German Chamber of Commerce in Salzburg, Austria, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder demanded a radical change of the EU's foreign policy, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reported In his speech, Schroeder called Brussels' decision to impose economic sanctions against Moscow as "wrong" and said that the EU should work on improving relations with both Russia and Turkey. "Europe needs Russia and Turkey, especially in the field of security policy," the German politician said during the meeting. BERLIN (Sputnik) Relations between Russia and the European Union, including Germany as its member state, deteriorated amid the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. Brussels has introduced several rounds of economic sanctions against Moscow since the reunification of Crimea with Russia in 2014, accusing Moscow of meddling in the Ukrainian conflict. Russia has denied the allegations and introduced a one-year food embargo in August 2014 on products originating in states that imposed sanctions against it. "We have never suspended the dialogue with Russia. This is true for NATO and for bilateral relations, and for any contacts with the Russian government," Schaefer said during a briefing in Berlin. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Lavrov stressed the importance of the prompt separation of the US-oriented Syrian anti-government forces from Nusra Front, which had ties with al-Qaeda and was carrying out attacks under the disguise of the so-called moderate opposition. "The situation in Syria, including the possibility of the Russian-US interaction in the fight against terrorist organizations operating there, has been discussed," the ministry said in a statement. The provision of supplies for the terrorists through the border with Turkey is unacceptable, the Russian foreign minister noted. At the same time, the Turkish military was not aware that it was a Russian aircraft, told the Haberdar news website. Otherwise, the plane would not have been downed. "We have to take a look at the statements that Turkey made following the incident. Military leaders were the first to comment, saying that 'a plane of unknown nationality was brought down.' Then President Erdogan confirmed that it was a Russian jet. Finally, Davutoglu said that he himself gave the order to shoot down the Russian plane," Aydogan noted. Turkey's top brass could have mistaken it for a Syrian plane, he suggested, because they no longer have the means to determine aircraft nationality. The ministry's administration will keep MPs informed about the situation and provide them with new data on the issue in the near future, Foreign Ministry's spokesman Martin Schaefer said during a briefing. "It is true that in the light of the events of recent days the Foreign Ministry is reviewing political and legal conditions that currently exist in Turkey We believe, at least according to media reports, that Turkey put forward criminal charges against the German Bundestag deputies of Turkish origin. How and when Turkish officials will open a criminal case on the basis of these allegations, we don't know. Therefore it is reasonable that the Ministry of Foreign affairs will further consider the situation," Schaefer said. "I know that soon the affected deputies will be informed in written form by the Foreign Ministry on the status of these considerations," the politician added. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Moscow is interested in taking relations with South Korea to a new level and moving further in "all directions," the Russian foreign minister noted. "We are considering Seoul a key partner in the Asia-Pacific region," Lavrov said, beginning the talks with his South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se. Lavrov added that all ministries were undertaking these efforts, notably the foreign ministries of the two countries. "The company's top ranks have enjoyed frequent and direct contact with the top echelons of the Obama White House," the non-profit detailed, describing Google's access to the Obama administration as "extraordinary." These finding prompted the Campaign for Accountability to question Obama's commitment to limit the influence of lobbyists in his administration. "While the lobbyists and industries they represent may have changed, the influence of one company, Google, has arguably only deepened during Obama's eight years in office," the non-profit asserted. Some experts don't think that the Silicon Valley giant used these meetings as a lobbying opportunity. MOSCOW (Sputnik) In April, over 61 percent of Dutch voters rejected the EU-Ukraine association deals ratification in the advisory referendum. "I am totally, totally, totally against referendum on multilateral agreements because it makes no sense as we have seen with the Dutch referendum and the referendum led to this disastrous result," Rutte told the European parliament as broadcast by the NOS news network. The Ukrainian Association Agreement with the EU was signed in June 2014 and ratified by the parliaments of all 28 EU member states. According to the Turkish president, he had placed high hopes on Obama, but, unfortunately, they did not materialize. Unfortunately our expectations did not come true. For example, in the economic fields, the ties declined instead of improving. Our expectations in foreign politics were also not fulfilled, Hurriyet Daily News reported Erdogan as saying. We could not show a strong presence together on Syria and Iraq, he added. The republican candidate went as far as calling on Obama to step down from the presidency and challenged Clinton to step up her language regarding terror threats. President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam,' Trump said in the statement. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency. Earlier, Trump was heavily criticized for his proposal to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US. On the other end of the spectrum, Hillary Clinton, who is a Democratic presidential hopeful called for tighter gun controls in the United States. "We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals." Hillary on the FL attack Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 Reiterating President Barack Obamas words that it was an act of terror and act of hate, Clinton urged to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad, including from international terrorist groups. She expressed opinion that demonizing an entire religion is not an option. We cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous and it plays into the hands of Daesh and other jihadist terrorists," Clinton stated in an interview with MSNBC. She expressed her support to the victims, To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. "This was an act of terror. This was also an act of hate." Hillary on the attack in Orlando https://t.co/MmaGjrSufr Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 US President Barack Obama said Monday that there is no evidence that the Orlando massacre was directed from abroad. The US President said that the attack appears to be an act of home-grown terrorism. He further said that the deadly shooting is investigated as a terrorist attack, and noted that the incident resembles the December shooting in San Bernardino. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US-Russian brokered ceasefire entered into force on ceasefire agreement came into force across Syria on February 27. Terrorist organizations such the Daesh and al-Nusra Front are excluded from the truce. "We presented proposals to the Russian side designed to reinforce the cessation of hostilities in those specific areas north-west of Aleppo, and we are looking to see if Moscow can be responsive to those proposals," Toner said. "If did we have an effective cessation of hostilities in north-west Aleppo, then it would allow the regime and Russia to realign their forces to attack Nusra in regions where Nusra actually controls territory." WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Anne Patterson, hosted trilateral talks with her counterparts from Japan and Korea in Washington, DC on Monday to coordinate policies related to the Middle East and North Africa, the US State Department said in a press release. "The United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea held a trilateral dialogue on the Middle East and North Africa on June 13 in Washington, DC," the release stated. The three governments talked about their views on the Middle East and North Africa, worked on coordinating policy positions, and explored ways to expand cooperation, the release added. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Dozens of people gathered to mourn the lives lost in the most lethal mass shooting in the history of the United States. The territory adjacent to the Embassy is covered with flowers brought by those who came to pay tribute to the victims. In an official telegram to Barack Obama Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that the Russian people share the pain and grief of those who lost their relatives and beloved ones in the 'barbaric' crime and hope for the speed recovery of those injured. On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech university, which claimed 32 lives. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Earlier in the day, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church met for an extraordinary session and offered to postpone the Council to a later date because several Orthodox churches refused to participate since the procedure and documents of the Council had not been worked out properly yet. "Our decision [to postpone the Council] is being reported to the head of the [Orthodox] churches, we will wait for a response of Patriarch of Constantinople," Legoida told Rossiya-24 television on Monday. He added that the Russian Orthodox Church had proposed to postpone the Council earlier, but the Patriarchate of Constantinople had answered at that time that there were no possibility to change the date. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) According to the statement, US Vice President Joe Biden, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Director Nicholas Rasmussen and US Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates are expected to attend the meeting. The officials are expected to provide the information over the investigation of the shooting in Orlando, according to the White House. On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen killed 50 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The shooter was killed by the police at the scene of events. Obama called the deadly shooting in Orlando an "act of terror, act of hate," though the FBI said it had no immediate proofs of any direct ties between Omar and any foreign extremist groups. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen, whose father is from Afghanistan, killed 50 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech, which claimed 32 lives. "We are sickened and heartbroken by this appalling attack. Our hearts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims. There can never be any justification for such cowardly and criminal acts, period." CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement on Sunday. US President Barack Obama on Sunday called the deadly shooting in Orlando an "act of terror, act of hate," though the FBI said it had no immediate proofs of any direct ties between Omar and any foreign extremist groups. MOSCOW (Sputnik) WikiLeaks is planning to publish more emails of ex-US secretary of state and Democratic party frontrunner Hillary Clinton, local media reported. "We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton We have emails pending publication, that is correct," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in an interview on ITV channel declining to reveal how many emails are on the way. Ex-US secretary of state used private email server while she was in the office between 2009-2013, and underway is FBI investigation to find out whether she broke the law doing so. MOSCOW (Sputnik) On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen, killed 50 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech, which claimed 32 lives. "We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence," the Sunday statement of the CAIR Florida chapter read. CAIR National Executive Director also expressed his condolences to the families of the victims adding that "there can never be any justification for such cowardly and criminal acts." It is not yet clear how the gunman managed to get inside as there were security guards posted at the front entrance to the club. Terrified, the people started running out, but the attacker still managed to take a few dozen hostage. Some hid in restrooms, calling police for help. Some guy walked in and started shooting everybody. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance," a woman who has been in the club at the time of the attack told AP. Terrified, the people started running out, but the attacker still managed to take dozens hostage. Some hid in restrooms, calling police and relatives for help. Around 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages. The police commandos set off two diversionary blasts that helped some of the captives to break free. Three hours into the standoff police broke inside and killed the gunman. There is blood everywhere. Specialists will have to collect a great mass of evidence, Rep. Alan Grayson said. Media reported that the attack was conducted by US national Omar Saddiqui Mateen of Afghan descent, who could have links to radical Islamist groups. Several days prior to Sundays attack Mateem, who worked as a security guard, legally bought a Glock pistol and a semiautomatic rifle, both of which were found at the site of the attack. According to NBC News, Omar Mateen called 911 moments before the shooting and swore allegiance to Daesh. Gay hater and a Daesh trace We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country," Mir Seddique Mateen, the father of the Orlando shooter, told NBC. He then admitted that his son had repeatedly voiced his hatred of gays and had gotten really angry a couple of months ago after seeing two men kissing in Miami. Seddique claimed that the attacks had nothing to do with religion. "This had nothing to do with religion." Earlier Adam Schiff, a member of US House of Representatives, said that Omar Mateen had pledged allegiance to Daesh. The FBI said they had previously investigated Mateen for possibly having ties or being a sympathizer to Islamic extremism but did not have enough evidence to press any official charges against him. Daesh, meanwhile, released a statement on Sunday claiming responsibility for the Orlando shooting. The terrorist organization stressed that the armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by a Daesh fighter. Political fallout In a televised address to the nation US President Barack Obama made no mention of Islamic terrorism speaking only about act of terror and an act of hate. He called on his fellow Americans to think again about the role of firearms in their everyday life. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub, Obama said. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well, the president stressed. Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were quick to weigh in on Sundays tragedy. Clinton expressed her sympathy for the victims and called for stricter gun-control laws. We will go after them [terror groups] wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home. It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values, she said in a statement. Donald Trump, for his part, posted a Tweet saying that the Orlando attack is directly linked to radical Islamic terrorism and called for toughness, smartness and vigilance. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 The billionaire also urged President Barack Obama to resign for failing to underscore the problem of Islamic terrorism. Many experts believe that this latest show of Americans vulnerability in the face of terror attack could play into the hands of Donald Trump who has made a crackdown on terrorism a major highlight of his campaign. America may be one major terrorist attack away from Donald Trump as president, Politicos chief editor Blake Hounshell warned back in March. MOSCOW (Sputnik) On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen, killed 50 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech, which claimed 32 lives. "It is no coincidence that this happened in Orlando. Mateen was enrolled in [Robertsons online] Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary," a police source told Fox News. Robertson, a former gang leader and robber, reportedly turned to radical Islamist teachings he preached online after his release from prison in Florida. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The mass shooting in the United States city of Orlando that left 50 dead and at least 53 injured is an act of "hatred", Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in a statement. "Far too many innocent people lost their lives in Orlando because open-mindedness and tolerance were met with hatred," he said in a Sunday statement, calling the massacre "a vicious attack on the right to be who you are". The head of Danish government also expressed his condolences to victims' families. The law is a holdover from the time of the AIDS epidemic. At its height, men who have sex with men (MSM) were banned from donating blood in 1983 as gay men were widely perceived to be one of the greatest risk groups and no screening tests existed for showing contaminated blood. Following the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which left 50 people dead and over 53 injured, there has been an urgent need for blood donations. People took to social media to express anger over the federal government's ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. Official victim count: 49 shooting victims plus suspect. Total 50. pic.twitter.com/wkh6A83fNV Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) 13 2016 . On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech, which claimed 32 lives. FBI: There are 49 victims. We don't count shooter as victim. #PulseShooting pic.twitter.com/cLrZpZEMGu WFTV Eyewitness News (@WFTV) 13 2016 . Orlando police noted that rumors of multiple shooters were unfounded. "The one shooter, Omar Mateen, is dead," police tweeted. Meanwhile, US police identified 48 bodies out of 49 killed in Orlando shooting, city authorities said in a statement. UPDATE: Orlando Police Chief John Mina: Suspect did pledge allegiance to Islamic State, tried to negotiate with police @BreakingNews Conflict News (@Conflicts) 13 2016 . "There was an allegiance to the Islamic State [Daesh]" when the shooter was on phone with 911 during hostage situation. According to the police chief, the gunman tried to negotiate with police, saying he was wearing a vest. negotiators were in contact w/suspect who talked about bombs said he was wearing a vest pic.twitter.com/3iOA52DdA6 Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) 13 2016 . At some point the suspect came out with two handguns and shot at officers, they returned fire and killed the suspect pic.twitter.com/5A7MxoehKa Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) 13 2016 . During hostage negotiations, Omar Mateen "wasnt asking for a whole lot. We were doing most of the asking," Chief John Mina said. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) US national Omar Mateen, killed 49 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. Yesterday was the most horrific day in the history of the city of Orlando, Dyer said. I urge you to declare an emergency under the Stafford Act so that the full resources of the federal government can be made available for the individuals, families, and communities impacted by this horrific massacre, Scott wrote to Obama. The request included federal government provision of health and safety measures as well as measures to manage and reduce immediate public health and safety threats. Another eyewitness, Jay Rivera, a DJ, said that many managed to hide behind the booth he was working at, and eventually managed to get out of harms way. Christopher Hansen was in the clubs VIP lounge when the shooting began. "I was thinking, are you kidding me? So I just dropped down. I just said please, please, please, I want to make it out," he said. "And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don't get shot," he said. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 were injured when Omar Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan descent, went on a shooting spree in the Pulse nightclub. Three hours later he was shot and killed when a police SWAT team stormed the premises. Shortly afterwards, the terrorist group Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Trump was referring to Omar Mateen, who killed at least 49 people in a popular gay nightclub in the US city of Orlando. Many, many people are out there with worse intentions than what this guy had, Trump told Fox News. And people in his community and their community and they know who the people are. In some cases theyre married to them. Almost in every case they know they are. They brag about it, they talk about it, Trump said. People knew that this guy was going to create a bad act. The US president said that the attack appears to be an act of home-grown terrorism. Obama said that the deadly shooting is investigated as a terrorist attack, and noted that the incident resembles the December shooting in San Bernardino. On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech university, which claimed 32 lives. According to Obama, Mateen was influenced by extremist information in the Internet, however, there is no direct evidence proving that the shooting "was directed from abroad" or that it was a part of a larger plot. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The United States should not put the blame for the mass shooting in Orlando on any specific religion, US Secretary of State Kerry said on Monday before his meeting with the foreign minister of Cyprus. "The worst thing we can do is engage in trying to point fingers to one group or one form of sectarianism or another, one religion or another, those are not the values of our country," Kerry stated. Moreover, Kerry said the State Department will continue its deep engagement in the fight against Daesh. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech university, which claimed 32 lives. The 29 year-old shooter was previously investigated by US law enforcement for possible ties to terrorist organization. "We are going into the killers life, especially his electronics, to understand as much as we can about his path and whether there was anyone else involved," Comey stated. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) The US Senate will have a moment of silence on Monday afternoon in honor of the Orlando massacre victims, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on his Twitter on Monday. The #Senate will hold a moment of silence at 4:00 PM this afternoon to honor the victims of the #Orlando tragedy, the message said. The #Senate will hold a moment of silence at 4:00 PM this afternoon to honor the victims of the #Orlando tragedy. Leader McConnell (@SenateMajLdr) 13 2016 . Early on Sunday morning, a shooter identified as US national Omar Mateen, opened fire in a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida killing 49 people and injuring at least 53 others. The 29 year-old shooter was previously investigated by US law enforcement for possible ties to terrorist organization. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Comey noted that the shooter, Omar Mateen, was reported to FBI by his colleagues after he made inflammatory statements about terrorism at work. "We first became aware of him in May of 2013," Comey stated. "First, he claimed family connections to al-Qaeda. He also said that he was a member of Hezbollah, which is a Shia terrorist organization that is a bitter enemy of the so-called Islamic State [Daesh]." WASHINGTON (Sputnik) In his presidential campaign, Trump has advocated monitoring mosques and Muslim communities to identify individuals who are being radicalized to commit terrorist attacks. "We need more intelligence, we need a stronger intelligence community," Trump told Fox News. "Obama wont do that because he doesnt want to single out this group." On Sunday, US national Omar Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 others at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. The Orlando massacre has become the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech university, which claimed 32 lives. Moreover, Clinton said it is clear that because we cant contain this threat, we must defeat it. US citizens who are being monitored by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should not be allowed to purchase firearms, Clinton added. "If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldnt be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked," Clinton said at an Ohio Democratic Party event in Cleveland. Her speech comes just over 24 hours since a lone gunman entered a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killed 49 people, and injured 53 others. The gunman, US citizen Omar Mateen, was previously investigated by US law enforcement for possible ties to terrorist organizations. 2. President Obama On Sunday, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson blamed the "political correctness" of President Obama for the Orlando shooting. "Doesnt the politicization of all of this, the relentless lying by the administration about the Islamic terror threat we face make it harder for people to want to step forward and say that they see?" he asked counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka. "Absolutely, its horrific," Gorka agreed. Donald Trump went further, suggesting that the President may have been involved in the incident. "Look, were led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or hes got something else in mind. And the something else in mind you know, people cant believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and cant even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism,'" he said on Fox News. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 "Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on." These accusations ignore the fact that the Obama administration has tirelessly pushed for gun control reform, only to be consistently thwarted by a Republican-controlled Congress. Only ten days before the Orlando shooting, the President participated in a PBS town-hall meeting in which he expressed his concerns about Daesh-sympathizers having easy access to guns. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 "Were allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, [but not] prohibit those people from buying a gun," he said, placing the blame on the outsized influence of the NRA. 3. Mental Health While mental health certainly plays a role in mass shootings, Republicans often talk about mental illness as a way to avoid discussing gun control. Previously, the White House asserted that they had not ruled out any options regarding the closure of the prison, but sources who spoke to Reuters leaked that the President has now crossed off some action items from his list. According to Reuters, the sources explained that while the President is eager to fulfill his promise of closing the infamous detention center, and could do so under an executive order, it is not an avenue that is currently being pursued. The detention facilities at Guantanamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order, read a statement Obama signed on Jan. 22, 2009. Aside from an executive order, the option for closing Guantanamo rests on convincing Congress to allow the remaining prisoners to be moved to maximum-security prisons in the United States, an action that is currently banned and heavily resisted by Republican lawmakers. Prince Mohammed, 30, who is King Salman's son and third in line for the throne, is said to be visiting Washington to engage in talks with US officials regarding "strengthening bilateral relations and discussing regional matters of mutual interest, the Saudi Press Agency said in a statement. Mohammed is the main voice behind the Vision 2030, a plan to move the Saudi economy away from reliance on oil. The Saudi government recently threatened to sell off US investments if the Senate passed the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, promoted to simplify the process for families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia and other foreign sponsors of terror. President Barack Obama promised to veto the bill should it pass, likely due to the fact that a Treasury Department report in May revealed that Saudi Arabia holds some $116.8 billion in US debt. The bill was passed but an amendment was added at the final moment by Senator Charles Schumer, granting the attorney general and secretary of state the power to stop any litigation against the Saudi government. Sundays shooting left 49 people dead and 53 more injured, making it the deadliest massacre in US history since the Wounded Knee killings. The killer was armed with, among other weapons, an AR-15, a military-grade assault rifle similar to those used in other large mass shootings including Sandy Hook and San Bernardino. The gunman, Omar Mateen, who pledged his loyalty to ISIL (also known as Daesh or Islamic State) prior to and during the attack, had legally obtained the weapons despite the fact that he had been previously questioned and investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Naturally, the ease of killing so many so quickly with a weapon made for military use prompted another event in an ongoing backlash against the National Rifle Association and renewed calls for semiautomatic rifles to be banned from public ownership. Mateens initial questioning by the FBI came after coworkers reported him for making "inflammatory" comments involving radical Islam. The shooter was questioned again after an American man with whom he had ties traveled to the Middle East and blew himself up in a suicide bombing. "We were not made aware of any alleged connections between Mateen and terrorist activities, and were unaware of any further FBI investigations," G4S said in a statement. An ex-coworker however, described Mateen as racist, belligerent and "toxic, in an interview with NBC News. "He was scary in a concerning way," Daniel Gilroy, a co-worker at G4S, told NBC. "And it wasn't at times. It was all the time. He had anger management issues. Something would set him off, but the things that would set him off were always women, race or religion. [Those were] his button pushers." Working with Mateen proved to be so worrying for Gilroy that the latter requested a transfer to get away from him. "I needed to be out of that situation," he said. "I described it as being toxic." MOSCOW (Sputnik) Turkish newspaper Yeni Akit which reportedly supported al-Qaeda in the past and has strong ties with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, described the victims of Orlando shooting as "perverted homosexuals", the Daily Mail reported Monday. "Death toll rises to 50 in bar where perverted homosexuals go!" was the headline in the newspaper as quoted by the Daily Mail. Yeni Akit is also renown for its hateful articles on Jews, Armenians and Christians, according to Turkish think-tank the Hrant Dink Foundation, the newspaper said. Gatilov expressed his confidence that it is up to the international community to act to relaunch the peace talks. "As we all know, High Negotiations Committee delegation left the latest round in Geneva while the government delegation reiterated its participation in the talks and its readiness to continue them. And now the situation [on future talks] is unclear," he concluded. Gatilov also underscored that Russia and the United States have reached a certain progress in military coordination in Syria, though some problems remain unresolved, as it is difficult to set ceasefire regimes in those districts, where terrorists and the so-called moderate opposition are present. "We maintain quite close interaction and conduct consultations on military line. Russian and US military exchange information <> and we have reached a certain progress on the working level. As a result, the silence regime has been set in some districts, many terrorist groups said they ended hostilities and joined the political process. The main problem that we have now is a delimitation issue between Jabhat al-Nusra, Daesh terrorists and the so-called moderate opposition," Gatilov said. According to the deputy minister, the real problem is that it is difficult to draw clear demarcation lines in many districts where people from all groups are mixed with each other. Gennady Gatilov noted that there is a significant progress in the delivery of the humanitarian aid to Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said. "It must be said that there is a significant progress in this regard. Thanks to our work with the Syrian government we managed to achieve a lot," he told RIA Novosti. The deputy foreign minister also said that despite the progress, aid delivery to the populous besieged Damascus suburbs is complicated since militants own anti-air weapons able to shoot down planes and helicopters. He added that "the Russian role in the simplification of the humanitarian aid delivery is acknowledged by everyone, both our partners, including the Americans, and UN envoys, humanitarian agencies participating in the process." Moscow is not planning to stop it's active work with Damascus on getting humanitarian aid to Syria anytime soon. "We continue to work actively in this direction with Syrians, seeking authorization for the supply of humanitarian cargoes. In many issues they are willing to cooperate but at some points they have their limitations. We should look at the situation realistically: a civil war is ongoing and, of course, all of this is linked to the military and political situation," Gatilov said. He added that under the UN principles the delivery of the humanitarian aid without the government authorization is not an option. Earlier, US Department of State spokesperson Mark Toner said that Washington believes that humanitarian aid to the besieged Syrian areas could have been delivered with the help of Russian aviation. The US diplomat also expressed disappointment that Russia allegedly puts no pressure on Damascus to issue permits for the delivery of such aid. Syria has been mired in civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups. The US-Russian brokered ceasefire entered into force on February 27. Terrorist organizations such DAesh and the Nusra Front, both outlawed in Russia, are excluded from the truce. The number of Syrian settlements that have signed up to a ceasefire deal with the government reached 145 on Sunday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The foreign minister stressed that political and democratic approaches were the only way to resolve the current Korean issues. "We reaffirmed the commitment of both countries to the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in this regard stressed that both Russia and the Republic of Korea will not accept North Korea's self-proclaimed nuclear status. We stressed the importance of UN Security Council Resolution 2270 in the interests of influence on Pyongyang, and will pursue its full implementation," Lavrov said. He added that Russia and South Korea also discussed the prospective of high-level bilateral contacts. Prime Minister Modi called Russian President Putin and wished him good will on the National Day and also sought his support for India's bid in the NSG. "The leaders confirmed their intention to continue comprehensive deepening of bilateral relations, which have the character of a very privileged strategic partnership. The discussion focused on practical issues of the two countries' cooperation, including preparations for the top level contacts to be held shortly," a statement from the Kremlin said. Russia has been supportive of India's membership in the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The mass shooting occurred on Sunday at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando. Local authorities confirmed information about 50 killed people, including a shooter, and 53 injured in the attack. "Sergei Lavrov expressed sincere condolences to the state secretary in the context of a bloody massacre in the US city of Orlando, which claimed lives of dozens of people," the statement said. The attack conducted by US national Omar Mateen became the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, surpassing the death toll from the 2007 incident at Virginia Tech, which claimed 32 lives. GENEVA (Sputnik) Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter urged all UN nations on Monday to put human rights at the heart of conflict prevention, in a speech marking a decade since the creation of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. "We call for a strengthening of the links between human rights, development and peace and security. We issue a call to bring these pillars of the UN closer together and to improve the links between Geneva and New York between human rights and security," Burkhalter said. VIENNA (Sputnik) The 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) was signed by 183 nations. It has never been enforced, pending ratification from North Korea, India, Pakistan, China, Israel, Iran, Egypt, and the United States. "It makes you think that the treaty would not be nearly as popular without nuclear tests in North Korea," Russia's Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Vladimir Voronkov told RIA Novosti. Voronkov said Russia saw no use in a partial ratification of the CTBT treaty. MOSCOW (Sputnik) According to The Wall Street Journal, the North Korean hackers have stolen over 40,000 defense industry documents in attacks on two companies beginning in 2014 and were discovered earlier this year. One of these companies, Korean Air Lines Co., reportedly said that the wing blueprints for an F-15 jet fighter, used by the countrys military, as well as pictures of parts of unmanned spy planes, were among the documents stolen from it. "North Korea turns out to have been preparing for a long time to try to launch a countrywide cyberattack," the Korean National Police Agency said, as quoted by the paper. The police reportedly said that by detecting the cyberattack they prevented the alleged start of a larger-scale attack. The attack was carried out from the same Pyongyang internet address that was used in a 2013 cyberattack on South Korean banks and television stations, the paper reported, citing police. Thousands attended, despite the rain, expressing support for those who lost their lives in a shooting massacre on Sunday June 12, 2016, in a gay nightclub in Orlando. Today we reaffirm our commitment to equality for all in Soho and across the world pic.twitter.com/3GtiwQZxXq Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) June 13, 2016 US authorities say the gunman, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to Daesh (also known as ISIL/Islamic State) during Sunday's attack. Leo C. McNamara, 60, a third-generation harness horseman and executive administrator of the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey, passed away during the morning of Sunday, June 12. In addition to his duties at the SBOANJ, McNamara owned and managed Two Gaits Farm in Columbus, NJ, named after his family farm in Carmel, Ind. McNamaras grandfather stood the foundation sire of modern pacers, Hal Dale, and bred the great pacer Adios at Two Gaits Farm. He was a member of the board of directors of the SBOANJ for seven years before becoming its administrator, serving as chairman of the groups breeders committee for three years and as first vice president. From 1973 through 1979, McNamara, an Indiana native, worked in various capacities in Standardbred husbandry, including farm superintendent at Pine Hollow Stud in Pine Bush, NY, while attending Orange County Community College and graduating with an associates degree in applied sciences in business administration. He then was farm manager at Holly Lane Stud and later Almahurst Farm in Lexington, where he managed Nihilators first years at stud, raised Laag and Leah Almahurst, among others, and supervised a 40-man crew. McNamara came to New Jersey to be farm manager of Dreamaire Stud in Columbus, where he raised Camtastic and Fake Left, managed part of Cam Fellas stallion career and then started the new Two Gaits. He is survived by his wife, Cathy; and daughter, Celeste. More information about his family and services will be updated when available. Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Leo McNamara. The SBOANJ has circulated an official obituary for McNamara, which appears below. The obituary was written by harnessracing.com. Leo C. McNamara III, a third generation horseman and executive administrator of the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association of New Jersey (SBOANJ) for the past 15 years, passed away early Sunday morning, June 12. McNamara died of complications following a hard fought battle with cancer, just two weeks short of his 61st birthday. Born June 30, 1955, in Carmel, Ind., Mr. McNamara was the son of Leo McNamara Jr., whose father, Leo, founded Two Gaits Farm in Indiana, where Adios was foaled and the pacing stallion Hal Dale stood at stud. Leo C. McNamara was also a founder of the U.S. Trotting Association, the Hall of Fame of the Trotter in Goshen, N.Y., and at one time an owner of the Red Mile. The McNamara family moved east in the late 1950s and McNamara III spent some time as a youngster at Hanover Shoe Farms, where his father served as farm superintendent. The McNamara family returned to Carmel before selling the family farm and moving east again when Leo McNamara Jr. joined Pine Hollow Stud Farm in New York. While living in Pine Bush, NY, McNamara III began working on the Pine Hollow Stud Farm. After graduating from high school in 1973, he continued on at Pine Hollow Stud Farm, becoming an assistant manager. McNamara III moved to Kentucky's Bluegrass horse country and worked at Dan Hollibaugh's Holly Lane Stud in Lexington, serving as manager there from 1981-1985. McNamara's next stop was Almahurst, where he served as farm superintendent of the breeding nursery's flagship farm outside of Lexington during the era when it was one of the sport's showcase operations. McNamara III left Almahurst in 1988 to run the new Dreamaire Farm nursery in New Jersey founded by Bob Boni and partners. Boni knew McNamara III from their days together at Pine Hollow Farm. Leo's family moved to New York in 1973 when I was the yearling manager at Pine Hollow Stud Farm and as a high school senior he became my weekend and then summer help, said Boni. We forged a great friendship over the next 40-something years, regardless of where our travels took us, and he will forever be one of the most special people I have ever known. Leo was a great advocate for the horsemen and horsewomen of New Jersey in so many ways and always with the fairness and decency that characterized his personality. He loved and adored his wife, Cathy, and his daughter, Celeste, and he will be missed by anyone fortunate to have known him. After Dreamaire closed its operations, McNamara III re-established Two Gaits Farm in New Jersey and bred and boarded horses. In 2001 McNamara III began working for the SBOANJ, becoming executive administrator in 2006. During his years with the SBOANJ, McNamara III worked with racetracks in the Garden State to keep tabs on the purse accounts, becoming an astute expert of analyzing handle from various sources with various percentages going to purses. I've been a director of the SBOA for 10 years, and Leo was invaluable, said Mark Ford, president of the SBOANJ. I don't think the horsepeople in New Jersey can realize how invaluable he was advocating for horsemen and horsewomen and protecting our interests. He always brought knowledge and commonsense to the table and could always come up with a commonsense approach or solution. Because of McNamara's knowledge of the purse account and percentages of handle earned, he played a significant role in Jeff Gural's acquisition of the Meadowlands from the state of New Jersey. Leo was a straight shooter and a great guy to work with, said Jason Settlemoir, CEO and general manager of the Meadowlands Racetrack. He's going to be missed from both an industry standpoint and as a friend. McNamara III is survived by his wife, Cathy; a daughter, Celeste, assistant professor of history at University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom; two stepchildren, Dr. Daniel J. Dooley and Katie Pidge Decker; his mother, Irene; one brother, Joe (Meg Booth); eight sisters, Anne Slosky, Coleen (Frank) Benedett, Bridget (Jeffrey) Fenessy, Kate (David) Smith, Mary Coleman, Kelly (Patrick) Kennedy, Celeste (Brian) O'Neill and Jane (Glenn) Taylor; 14 nieces and nephews; and more than 100 cousins. Visitation will be held Thursday, June 16, from 2-4 and 6-9 p.m. at Peppler Funeral Home, 122 Crosswicks St, Bordentown, N.J., 08505. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Friday at St. Mary's Church, 45 Crosswicks St., in Bordentown. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Harness Horse Youth Foundation, 16575 Carey Rd., Westfield, IN 46074. (With files from Harness Racing Communications and harnessracing.com) Markey isn't Only Victims' Lobby Liar NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 / Standard Newswire / -- Bill Donohue comments on the victims' lobby: The plight of those who have been sexually abused, especially minors, is a condition eminently worthy of our compassion. Unfortunately, many of those who have professionally taken up the cause of these victims are dishonest activists who are not above lying to advance their interests. Last week, NY Assemblywoman Last week, NY Assemblywoman Margaret Markey lied about Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, accusing him of bribery. In 2012, the director of SNAP, In 2012, the director of SNAP, David Clohessy , admitted under oath that he has lied to the press. In 2011, In 2011, Terence McKiernan , founder of BishopAccountability, lied when he told a conference that Cardinal Timothy Dolan was protecting 55 priests. Jeffrey--"I'm suing the s*** out of [the] Catholic Church" Jeffrey--"I'm suing the s*** out of [the] Catholic Church" Anderson --has lied repeatedly about "smoking guns" that never seem to fire, trying to implicate the Vatican in U.S. abuse cases. Last month, Yeshiva University lawyer Last month, Yeshiva University lawyer Marci Hamilton lied to the press when she said the bishops pay my salary. She knows full well that the Catholic League is not funded by the bishops. Attorney Attorney Mitchell Garabedian , whose role was acknowledged in "Spotlight," twice pressed charges against a priest who was never found guilty of anything: In 2011, he blew up at me for simply questioning him; he was even condemned by the Boston Globe for his recklessness. In 2012, author In 2012, author Jason Berry lied when he said that I defended the disgraced priest, Father Marcial Maciel. He knew this was untrue. In short, we are not dealing with honest champions of the abused. We are dealing with liars who exploit the very persons they claim to help. TWO senior members of staff from the Office of the Deputy Governor completed a managing and recruitment programme recently. Tito Lightbourne, Director of the Deputy Governors Office, and Keisha Taylor, HR manager within the Human Resource Management Directorate, both attended the Professional Certificate Training programme in Managing Public Service Recruitment and Selection in London, England. The training was hosted by Public Administration International (PAI), a world renowned and professionally accredited organisation. Deputy Governor Anya Williams said: "The Office of the Deputy Governor is pleased to facilitate these types of continuous learning programmes for staff via the Professional Development Fund. "During the past several years the Turks and Caicos Islands Government (TCIG) has implemented several public sector reform initiatives which lead to a new Public Service Ordinance and handbook. "However, many of our HR procedures and practices had remained unchanged. "It has been and will continue to be a priority for my office to continue to improve the efficiency of the Human Resource Directorate by implementing new and innovative procedures which we hope will result in recruiting the best people into TCIG as well as properly managing our existing staff. "We at the moment are maximising the potential of our vacancies web page, social media job postings and for the first time will be hosting a job readiness fair. "All of these efforts are aimed at attracting greater talent to civil service and in ensuring that we maximise the full potential of the resources made available to us. "Congratulations to our staff members Mr Lightbourne and Ms Taylor, I am certain that this training programme will yield great benefit to the Turks and Caicos Islands Government. The initiative was funded by the Professional Development Fund (PDF) within the Office of the Deputy Governor which was recently established to provide public officers with financial assistance for continuous development programmes. These include short courses or workshops, certificate programmes, secondments, online degree programmes, professional certificate programs such as CPA and ACCA as well as providing financial support for civil servants attending the Turks and Caicos Islands Community College and grants to civil servants pursuing Bachelor or Graduate degree programmes. Participants of the training programme benefited from presentations from various leading UK experts in areas such as civil service reform, recruitment and selection, competency frameworks, HR transformation, increasing the use of technology in HR which includes implementing HR management programmes and using the various social media platforms to assist with recruiting. In addition, participants visited the UKs Civil Service Resourcing Department as well as the Cabinet Office which is responsible for the UKs Fast Stream/Graduate Programme. By Daisy Handfield THE THREE men who were arrested in relation to the Sunny Foods supermarket robbery appeared in the magistrates court in Providenciales on Friday (June 3) for a sufficiency hearing. The judge adjourned the matter until June 22. Wilbert Almonor, Fritzner Prevaus and Reginald Presil were remanded at Her Majestys Prison in Grand Turk until the court date. They could all face prison time for the charge of conspiracy to rob. The three men are all in their early 30s and of Haitian descent. Alboin Williams, owner of Tag Security Services, was the victim of multiple gunshot wounds to his back during a money pick up at the Sunny Foods supermarket heading in the Five Cays area in Providenciales on April 10. Williams has since been discharged from the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre in Providenciales. Police are urging anyone with information about this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1-800-8477 or use the Crime Stoppers reporting page at www.crimestoppers.tc. By Olivia Rose DEPUTY leader of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), Sean Astwood, said an autonomous body that handles the distribution of Crown land already exists, however he believes the system is flawed. Astwoods comments come in response to a suggestion posed recently in the House of Assembly by the Governors appointed House member John Philips. He said the establishment of an autonomous body to deal with the distribution of Crown land in the Turks and Caicos Islands might be the best possible long term solution. Philips explained that the issue of Crown land is a "hot potato for any party in government since they will be undoubtedly accused of distributing land to their friends and family. He said: "It became very clear to me that Crown land is something that ministers or governments should not be involved in because it doesnt matter what they do, if they issue Crown land therell be an opposition saying youre giving it to your friends, if they dont issue it therell be an opposition saying you never give it to us. Philips noted that he is fond of the idea of establishing a Crown land unit since it will avoid blame being cast on the Government. "As in independent body without political motivation, its actually safer from a political point of view to have someone else deal with it. "I personally feel we owe it to future generations to do our utmost to preserve Crown land and to that extent there should be no commercial development other than on a lease for a certain fixed time period and that in case in failure of the commercial venture or expiry of the lease that the land then return to the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands. However Astwood told the Weekly News on Thursday, June 9, that there is no doubt that there were flaws in the system when crown land was under the portfolio of a minister, he pointed to the vast allegations of corruption and abuse of crown land that are alleged to have occurred in the past. However he believes that politicians can create a fair, equitable, and transparent system of the distribution of Crown land. He said: "APDM Government is committed to ensuring this happens. "To paint all politicians with a broad brush, and thereby implying that all politicians are incapable of fair distribution of land is insulting. He said he believes that one day the Turks and Caicos Islands should be governed solely and completely by Turks and Caicos Islanders. "I take deep exception to the suggestion made by Hon John Phillips during his contribution to the debate on a private member's motion on the distribution of Crown land, brought by leader of the PDM Hon Sharlene Cartwright Robinson, which was subsequently featured by this newspaper. "Hon Phillips asserted that the responsibility for Crown land would not best be situated with a government elected by the people. "He further suggested that somehow an independent (non-political) body would be more capable of carrying out this responsibility. "What Hon Phillips failed to realize is that the structure he is suggesting is exactly what we have today and simply put, it does not work. "The last debacle of the distribution of crown land is evident of this and Turks and Caicos Islanders deserve better. Astwood said the last lottery process that was used to distribute Crown land left a bad taste in the mouths of many of our people, who hoped to obtain a piece of land to build their homes. He explained that land division accepted more than 500 applications, which eventually narrowed down to about 300 applications, which resulted in merely 36 pieces of land being available for distribution. He said: "Collecting over $50,000 in non-refundable application fees, from hard working people knowing less than 10 percent of them would eventually be granted land is disgraceful. "Especially since it has been approximately two years since Crown land had been distributed. "The current Crown land distribution process makes a number of parcels available in specific areas every two years, it appears, as there is no set timetable as to when the next land lottery would occur. "There is a cultural aspect that is missing from the current administration of Crown land. "Traditionally a person who was born and grew up in a community for example Five Cays, would prefer to build their home in that community. "That person would apply for an available residential parcel within Five Cays, under the current non-political administration a person wanting residential land in Five Cays could end up having to wait for years until this independent body decides to make land available in the Five Cays community. Astwood contended that this wrong, as there is no evidence that preference to obtain land in the community one in was raised has yielded any negative results. "I am amazed that Hon Philips would advocate for a system that is already in place and has been a total failure. "I am also amazed that this current PNP led government did not find Hon Phillips statement appalling as they sat quietly on this issue. "It is now common knowledge among Turks and Caicos Islanders that when it comes to representing Turks and Caicos Islanders interest, this Rufus Ewing PNP Government is always missing. The Lands Division falls under the auspices of the Attorney Generals Chambers. Daisy Handfield A THIRTY foot blue and white wooden boat carrying 57 illegal migrants from Haiti was captured on Wednesday (June 8) attempting to enter the Turks and Caicos Islands shores illegally. The boat was intercepted by marine police at about 11.49pm that night and all aboard were transported to the immigration detention centre for further processing. Kevin Clarke, press officer for the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force (RTCIPF), said in an interview that the force continues to work along with the radar station to detect illegal sloops. Clarke said that the marine branch of the force is also always patrolling the TCI waters for any intervention that may be needed. He said: "We continue to ask people that if they hear of anything or of a boat planning to enter the country illegally, to please contact the police so that they can be on guard. Last month there was an incident where a security guard was choked and handcuffed to a cell door as 12 Haitian migrants staged an escape from the immigration detention centre in Five Cays, Providenciales. The situation spiralled after one of the detainees began complaining of stomach pains and asked to be taken to the restroom. As the guard began to help the man a struggle took place and the guard was choked and handcuffed to the cell door meaning that 12 male detainees were able to escape before back up arrived. The escapees were aboard an illegal sloop which was intercepted by the RTCIPF Marine Branch on May 1, off the coast of Providenciales. The boat carried 108 illegal Haitian migrants. Clarke is warning residents of the TCI that the harbouring of illegal individuals is a serious offence and if found, they will be dealt with according to the law. FOR the 12th year the Turks and Caicos Islands Tourist Board welcomed premier travel wholesalers, booking companies and media from North America to its annual travel conference. During the Turks and Caicos Conference (TACC) events some $300 million in vacation experiences have been secured for the country. The opening shindig was hosted at the elite Amanyara Resort in Providenciales and launched three days of events designed to introduce or reintroduce the best of the destination. TACC attracts groups from Expedia, Travel Impressions, Costco, Flight Centre (Gogo), Island Destination and many others. With site tours, conference session, cocktail parties, a trade show and a jaunt into South Caicos planned for this years contingent, it is little wonder TACC, running June 7 to 10 is accepted as a major event on the TCI Tourist Board marketing calendar. Add to the travel wholesalers, there is significant media coverage. The Huffington Post, Atlanta Journal, Diplomatic Magazine, Travel Agent Magazine, Resident Media Magazine, Elite Traveler Magazine and Cable News Network (CNN), will all had the opportunity to explore the TCI. Stories of interest will include the rejuvenated North to Middle Caicos Causeway, plans for Provo International Airport expansion and luxury diving in South Caicos. Prior to the event Tourist Board Director Ralph Higgs said: "We look forward to hosting this years event and to hearing from our partners; however our destination is received and perceived in the marketplace. "We will be sharing ideas on how we grow our business to our mutual benefit. "We are particularly excited about attracting such powerful media this year. These efforts are consistent with our strategy to put spotlight on our other islands. hidden Chinese car-hailing app Didi Chuxing said it had received an investment of about $600 million from China Life Insurance Co Ltd, boosting resources to fund its battle with Uber just a month after it raised $1 billion from Apple Inc. The latest fund-raising comes with China's top ride-hailing company locked in a struggle to fend off its global rival's march into China. Uber raised $3.5 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund in new resources earlier this month. The investment by China Life - the largest insurer in the Asia-Pacific region by market value - included equity of $300 million and a long-term borrowing commitment of $305 million, the companies said in a statement. "The two parties will also collaborate on investment opportunities in mobile transportation and related sectors in China and beyond," the statement said. Apple invested $1 billion in May in Didi, a move that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said would help his company better understand the critical Chinese market. Didi and Uber have spent heavily to subsidise fares to gain market share in China, raising speculation in local media that they might ultimately join forces. Didi itself teamed up with a former local rival last year. Prior to the China Life investment, the company had raised about $6.3 billion including funding rounds before and after it became a merged company, according to research firm CB Insights. In May, sources told Reuters that Didi, which completes more than 11 million rides a day, was working towards in initial public offering in the United States that would likely take place in 2018. Reuters tech2 News Staff The Chinese made one passenger autonomous drone Ehang-184 just got approval for conducting tests in Nevada, according to a report in China.org. The state authorities at Nevada and the Nevada Institute of Autonomous Systems are together helping Ehang-184 go through the necessary procedures to get the Federal Aviation Association's (FAA) approval. This is necessary for introducing a finished product in the market. Ehang-184 is a low altitude autonomous drone, that is meant for medium and short range transportation. It can transport one passenger, and is meant as a personal aerial taxi. A smartphone app sets the destination, and there is no control by the passenger. Safety was one of the critical design considerations for the drone. The systems are failsafe and redundant, if there is any component that fails, the drone automatically lands in the closest safe area. There are two sets of power systems, a normal flight can be maintained even when only one is operational. The drone is powered by electricity only. There is a land based command and control center. The drone takes off vertically, flies in a straight line towards the destination, and lands vertically. The take off and landing pads are pre-built with the Ehang logo, and these are used by cameras on board to automatically land the drone. There is a tablet app to define the waypoints, switch between power modes and turn the lights on and off. tech2 News Staff In India, we've seen Facebook activate its safety Check feature during Chennai floods and Manipur quake. Now, the feature has been activated in the US, apparently for the first time, following the shooting at the Orlando gay bar. If you have a loved one in the affected area, you can access the tool here. The feature lets users mark themselves as safe during emergency situation. It will come handy as some of the families are still looking for their loved ones. On the other hand, Safety Check also automatically sends Facebook users in the affected area a note inquiring if they are safe. Facebook activated the tool after a man is said to have killed 50 people inside a gay night club in Orlando, Florida, and more than 50 people are said to be injured. "We hope the people in the area find the tool a helpful way to let their friends and family know they are okay," Facebook reportedly said in a statement. The Safety Check feature received a lot of attention during terrorist attacks that took place in Paris, France last year. Facebook had also activated the Safety Check tool to let family and friends know they are safe when heavy rain had caused severe flooding in Chennai and surrounding areas. However, earlier this year, Facebook has apologised for a bug that sent a Safety Check notification to users around the world following a deadly suicide bombing in Pakistan. The safety Check feature has been activated during emergencies in India, Pakistan, France, Belgium, Nigeria, among other countries. hidden North Korea has hacked into more than 140,000 computers at large South Korean conglomerates and government agencies and planted malicious codes that may have been intended for a massive cyber attack that has been thwarted. The hacking originated from an internet address traced to the North Korean capital and targeted a software used by about 160 companies and government agencies to manage their computer networks, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the police. South Korea has been on heightened alert against the threat of cyber attacks by North Korea after it conducted a nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch last month that led to new U.N. sanctions. In March this year, the South's spy agency said it had intercepted an attempt to hack into the South's computer networks to attack the transport system's control network, blaming the North for the attempt. The internet address was identical to the one used in a 2013 cyber attack against South Korean banks and broadcasters that froze their computer systems for more than a week. South Korea blamed the North for that attack. The South Korean police agency's cyber investigation unit uncovered the hacking and worked with the companies and agencies affected to neutralise the malicious codes and prevent them from being used in a large-scale cyber attack, Yonhap said. The police's cyber investigation unit could not immediately confirm the report. North Korea has worked for years to develop the ability to disrupt or destroy computer systems that control public services such as telecommunications and other utilities, according to a North Korean defector familiar with the effort. The United States accused North Korea of a cyberattack against Sony Pictures in 2014 that led to the studio cancelling the release of a comedy based on the fictional assassination of the country's leader, Kim Jong Un. North Korea has denied the accusation. Reuters hidden By Mahesh Murthy When I first heard about this merger, it was surprising, but on giving it a little thought, it made a significant bit of sense. Sense at second thought Microsoft is, to start with, quite an also-ran player in the internet consumer stakes - one which has basically turned out to be a game ruled by Google and Facebook. Redmond's attempts at search, via Bing; at a news network, via MSN and its other sundry attempts at internet consumer plays have largely failed. Microsoft's DNA is business software. And if you believe, like I do, that the difference between software, and apps on the phone, and websites, have all but obliterated, then LinkedIn is the right kind of buy for Microsoft. It makes it a much stronger player for the future of business to business transactions - and this buy is quite in line with everything else Microsoft makes. Imagine LinkedIn less as a social network and more as an online operating system for businesses and professionals. A platform, and not just a destination, as the jargon puts it. And see what Microsoft can do with it a few years down the line. Link the possibilities Assume Microsoft turns LinkedIn from online destination to a true platform with robust, well-documented APIs. And then assume they get out their traditional strength - bringing out the developer hordes from across the planet - and turn them on to writing applications that work off the LinkedIn API. Apps that can do HR, that can do sales prospecting, that can do better marketing campaigns, that can do niche B2B newsletters, that can do employee satisfaction audits, or even flag for HR which employee is actively being courted by other employers. These would be worth a lot of money to corporate buyers. Almost 100 percent of the workforce of many companies are already on LinkedIn - so can it make for a better HR system than what a SAP offers? One that folks can use as easily as an app? Possibly. A large percentage of your B2B customers worldwide are on LinkedIn. So can it make a better sales and prospecting system than SalesForce and anything Oracle throws at the enterprise? Probably. Google and Facebook can relax. Oracle and SAP shouldn't Pundits are looking for who this merger poses a threat to - and are bringing up the usual suspects, Google and Facebook. I think the deal is neutral to Google, and slightly negative to Facebook, only because Zuckerberg had some dreams about building a professional side to the network and probably will be less motivated to do so now. But I believe the deal is hugely threatening to SAP, Oracle and Salesforce. It can change the very nature of B2B IT strategy - and potentially create a huge barrier that can lock out these mega-billion dollar players from the big buyers. CIOs will be interested to know how it can change their company's life. And if Microsoft plays its cards well, change it can. Startups CEOs can benefit too. Can they have their appointment calendars and email on Outlook auto-filled with data about the people they're meeting and writing to from LinkedIn? Maybe. Can LinkedIn messaging do a better job than Slack can? Foreseeably. Can it be a great plug-in? Sure. Putting the focus back The world's eyes have been on Google, Facebook and Twitter and their numbers. And amidst all this consumer excitement has stood the quiet 400-million strong base of LinkedIn users. Today that gets activated, in a way that LinkedIn perhaps could never do all by itself. I believe this merger is great news to not just both the companies - but also to the hundreds of millions of us on this platform. All the best, Jeff, Reid and Satya. This article was first published on LinkedIn. Mahesh Murthy is an investor and marketer. He tweets @maheshmurthy tech2 News Staff BlackBerry was loved for its smartphones that offered the tactile hardware QWERTY keyboard and the infamous BlackBerry Messenger which helped make it a trend setter. The youth took to it, while the US Government preferred it thanks to the state-of-the-art security and enterprise solutions, making it one of the hottest selling mobile phones. However, times have changed and BlackBerry is no longer the smartphone everyone wants. While the company is still around, it has certainly lost its charm. Interestingly, when President Obama entered office, he was a BlackBerry Boy and was using it until recently when he confirmed that he's ditched his BlackBerry for a new device. While he hasn't confirmed exactly which smartphone he is using, but at a recent appearance on a talk show, he spoke about how he was given a new smartphone this year. Obama had entered office in 2009 as a high-tech president with his BlackBerry and at that time, BlackBerry maker RIM (Research In Motion) was making good money. The coming years saw the development of Android and Apple coming in with iPhone, but Obama stuck to his BlackBerry for obvious security reasons. At the talk show, Obama told Jimmy Fallon, I was the first president to have a BlackBerry, and so years passed and no one else has BlackBerrys. Then finally this year they said Good news Mr. President, were going to give you a state-of-the-art smartphone instead of a BlackBerry. I thought, alright, this is cool Im excited, and I get the thing and theyre like, Mr. President, for security reasons it doesnt take pictures, you cant text, the phone doesnt work, you cant play your music on it. What do you think Obama has been given? Android or iOS? hidden By Asheeta Regidi The Indian government recently refused to grant Google permission to cover India through Google Street View. The widely cited reason for this is security concerns, such as panoramic images available will aid terrorist attacks, and the sensitive areas such as nuclear establishments and defence areas can be exposed. It is suggested that this rejection is temporary, and will be reconsidered once the draft Geospatial Information Regulation Bill is finalised and passed. While the Geospatial Bill itself is widely criticised for the severe restrictions it places on the use of geospatial data, it can only resolve one half of the problem with the case of Street View - security concerns. Street View presents a more widespread issue - the issue of violation of peoples privacy through the taking and worldwide publishing of their images. Geospatial bill can only tackle security issues A mere photograph, particularly of sensitive areas, is dangerous from a security point of view. The 360 degree, panoramic, feet on the ground photograph, as offered by Google Street View, is enough to get any reasonable government concerned. The Geospatial Bill, in its present form, is certainly broad enough to regulate Googles Street View activities. The Geospatial Bill, however, makes no provision for safeguarding individual privacy. The government may, through its provisions, grant Google the permission to photograph Indian locations, but it cannot authorise Google to violate individual privacy. Street Views blurring policy is not adequate The panoramic images as offered by Google obviously capture people, homes and other events at the location. Photographs are often taken without any warning, and certainly without the prior consent of the person getting photographed. Street Views privacy policy states that information based on which a person can be identified, such as a persons face and car license number plates are automatically blurred out. Often despite the blurring, a person can be identified. Street View therefore also allows people to request Google to blur out images which they feel are violative of their privacy. The case of photographing of a home or any other personal property is relatively easy to resolve, since all a person has to do is access Street View, check that image and request blurring. The case of photographing individuals, on the other hand, is not as simple. It isnt possible for a person to constantly check Google Street View to ensure that no compromising images of them have been caught. Images on Google Street View may be from a few weeks to a few years old. It is hardly possible for people to go back that far in time and ensure that their privacy is not infringed. Additionally, the blurring policies do not apply to user-contributed images, which means peoples faces, license plate numbers, etc., will not be automatically blurred out in such images. A persons remedy will be to first try to resolve the dispute with the person contributing the image, and only if he fails can he ask Google to remove it. In the era we live in, any delay in removing such images can result in them being broadcast and viewed by the whole world. Moreover, images from Google Street View can be downloaded, and there will be nothing to prevent a person from saving such images before they are blurred out. Yet another problem is that Google retains the original, unblurred images. A limit of six months was attempted to be imposed on Google, but Google retains them for up to a year. Right to privacy in public places under Indian laws Interestingly, there are no Indian laws governing photography in a public place. The general rule is that in a public place, an individual cannot reasonably expect a right to privacy. For example, if a person is accidentally captured in a photograph of a public place, say a historical monument, taken on a smartphone, then he cannot claim that it violates his privacy. However Street View represents a different case. The photograph is taken without either a warning to the individual or the individuals consent, and can be made available for (literally) the whole world to see, possibly for an eternity. Indian laws provide people with recourse for certain images only. The Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indian Penal Code, 1860, will protect people against the capture and publishing of certain types of images, such as capturing obscene images, private acts, capturing pictures of a woman without her consent, etc. The problem again is, that these laws are designed to protect people from acts such as voyeurism, and are certainly not designed to protect against a violation of privacy. A photograph of a person may simply be embarrassing, or a person may just not want his picture up on the internet. Surely, every individual has the right to decide whether or not he wants an image of his to be taken and published Indias draft Personal Data (Protection) Bill is perhaps better designed to protect this problem. It provides that no personal data, which is any data based on which a person can be identified, can be collected without the persons prior informed consent. Until the Bill is passed, however, the only recourse available to people is under the right to privacy, as guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. This is broad enough to include the right to privacy in a public place as well. Individual privacy must also be safeguarded before Street View is permitted Other countries have begun to impose certain requirements on Street View, such as requiring it to inform the public in advance before it photographs that area, such as through the publication of an ad in a newspaper. Countries have also suggested that people be given the option of opting in to be photographed instead of the current opt-out mechanism available with Google Street View. Any progress in the digital era is invariably involving a conflict between individual privacy and the public good. If Google Street View is for the public good, then the government must take adequate steps to protect not just national security, but also individual privacy. The author is a lawyer with a specialisation in cyber laws and has co-authored books on the subject. tech2 News Staff Just before Apple could tell the world about its big software plans at the WWDC 2016 conference, Microsoft seems to have made an even bigger announcement by telling the world that it will soon be acquiring professional social networking website, LinkedIn. The acquisition is a big deal and Microsoft will soon be sending LinkedIn truckloads of cash (all 26.2 billion of them USDs) which raises the simple question... why? Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella sent out a memo to the staff about the LinkedIn aquisition explaining why the company took the big leap. Turns out its Office 365 that will gain the most of out of this, but you can read the letter for yourself below. Team, I'm excited to share that today Microsoft announced a deal to acquire LinkedIn. You can see how Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, and I envision the opportunity ahead in this public presentation. This deal brings together the world's leading professional cloud with the world's leading professional network. I have been learning about LinkedIn for some time while also reflecting on how networks can truly differentiate cloud services. It's clear to me that the LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business and an impressive network of more than 433 million professionals. Given this is the biggest acquisition for Microsoft since I became CEO, I wanted to share with you how I think about acquisitions overall. To start, I consider if an asset will expand our opportunity specifically, does it expand our total addressable market? Is this asset riding secular usage and technology trends? And does this asset align with our core business and overall sense of purpose? The answer to all of those questions with LinkedIn is squarely yes. We are in pursuit of a common mission centered on empowering people and organizations. Along with the new growth in our Office 365 commercial and Dynamics businesses this deal is key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes. Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world. It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professional's information in LinkedIn's public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you're trying to complete. As these experiences get more intelligent and delightful, the LinkedIn and Office 365 engagement will grow. And in turn, new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising. Jeff and I both believe we have a significant opportunity to accelerate LinkedIn's growth and the value it brings to its members with Microsoft's assets and scale. In fact, when Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, and I spoke about the opportunity for us to come together, he called it a "re-founding" moment for LinkedIn and an opportunity to reach the mission the company set out on 13 years ago. The opportunity for Office 365 and Dynamics is just as profound. Over the past decade we have moved Office from a set of productivity tools to a cloud service across any platform and device. This deal is the next step forward for Office 365 and Dynamics as they connect to the world's largest and most valuable professional network. In essence, we can reinvent ways to make professionals more productive while at the same time reinventing selling, marketing and talent management business processes. I can't wait to see what our teams dream up when we can begin working together once the deal closes, which we expect will happen this calendar year. A big part of this deal is accelerating LinkedIn's growth. To that end, LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand and independence, as well as their culture which is very much aligned with ours. Jeff will continue to be CEO of LinkedIn, he'll report to me and join our senior leadership team. In essence, what I've asked Jeff to do is manage LinkedIn with key performance metrics that accrue to our overall success. He'll decide from there what makes sense to integrate and what does not. We know that near term there will be no changes in who reports to whom so no reporting relationships at Microsoft will change in that regard. This approach is designed to keep the LinkedIn team focused on driving results while simultaneously partnering on product integration plans with the Office 365 and Dynamics teams. During the integration, we'll pick key projects where we can go deep together that will ultimately result in new experiences for customers. Kurt DelBene will lead the overall integration efforts at Microsoft in close partnership with Qi Lu and Scott Guthrie. I'm on the LinkedIn campus today in California and will host a call for investors at 8:45 a.m. PT with Jeff, Brad and Amy - please join if you can. Following that, I'll then spend the day meeting with the LinkedIn team. Tomorrow, I'll host a special Microsoft employee Q&A - I hope you can make it. So far, what I've learned about the LinkedIn team is how much our cultures share many of the same attributes. We both care deeply about individual and collective growth, and find deep meaning in the work we do to make a difference in our world. Together we'll do just that. While I'm in northern California sharing our vision to empower professionals, the Xbox team is in southern California at E3 sharing our vision to empower gamers. I encourage you to check out the E3 press briefing, which starts at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Finally, if you're not on LinkedIn, join up now and start using and learning more. Satya 7 killed in road accidents in 3 dists Seven people including four female workers and a couple, were killed in several road accidents in Kushtia, Bagerhat and Manikganj districts on Monday morning. In Kushtia, four female day labourers were killed and three others injured as a truck hit a human hauler in Bottoil area of the district town on Monday morning. The deceased were identified as Kamala, 40, Sukhijan, 35, Sajiran Khatun, 40 and Rabeya Khatun, 40, all residents of Laxmipur village in Sadar upazila. Proloy Chishim, superintendent of Kushtia Police, said the accident took place in the area around 7:30am when the truck hit the human hauler (locally name as Nasimon) in the area, leaving four passengers of the human hauler dead on the spot and three other injured. On information police recovered the bodies. Police also sized the truck. In Bagerhat, A motorcyclist and his wife were killed as a pick-up van hit the motorcycle in Piljongo area of Fakirhat upazila on Monday morning. The deceased were identified as Sudip Das, 35, a resident of the area, and his wife Sumita Rani Das, 25,. Abdul Farazi, officer-in-charge of Katakhali Highway Police, said, the Bagerhat-bound pickup van from Gopalganj hit the bike riders in the area around 8am, leaving the duo dead on the spot. On information, police recovered the bodies. They also seized the pick-up van, but the driver fled away. In Manikganj, A man was killed and five others injured as a microbus dashed a roadside tree in Mohadebpur area of Shibalaya upazila in the morning. The deceased was identified as Rouf Matbbar, 48, hailing from Komleshrodi village of Boalmari upazila in Faridpur district. Borongail highway police said, the accident took place as the Faridpur-bound microbus from Dhaka hit a roadside tree as its driver lost control over the wheel in the area around 7:30am, leaving the man dead on the spot and six passengers injured. -- Dhaka, June 13 (UNB) 'Those who oppose Bangabandhu Medical City are mass enemy' Chittagong City AL Vice President Khorshed Alam Sujon (5th from left) seen receiving memorandum from the leaders of the CBBMC on Saturday. Chittagong Bureau :Vice President of Chittagong city Awami League Khorshed Alam Sujan said the opposers to the establishment of Bandar Bangabandhu Medical City are the mass enemy.He said Port Authority has taken initiative to establish a cardiac hospital in Chittagong Port area with joint collaboration of internationally reputed surgeon Dr. Debi Sethi of India six year ago but due to opposition of a vested quarters , the initiative remained under red tape . This was disclosed by the AL leader while exchanging views with the leaders of Chittagong Bondar Bangabandhu Medical City Implementation Council on Saturday. CBBMC Parishad leaders led by its Convenor Md. Elias called on AL leader at part office on Saturday. AL leader Sujon apprised the Parishad leaders that this human oriented project could not implemented for the last six years due to oppositions of a vested quarter even after formal signing MoU. He said those oppose such a human related medicare project are obviously the enemy of the mass people.He further said this specialized hospital in the port city proposed after the name of the father of the nation and the opposers are undoubtedly opposers to the image Bangabandhu and the nation. He also said following the opposition to the proposed hospital ,it means tese vested quarter is undermining the great contribution of Bangabandhu. The parishad leaders told the AL leader that a vested group are trying to establish commercial installations in the proposed Hospital sit(former Labour colony field) aimed at personal benefits . The parishad leaders handed over a memorandum to AL leader Md. Khorshed Alam Sujon in connection. Sujon said Chttagong is a international port city where international sea port , airport and two international EPZ located and it is most essential to establish a specialized cardiac hospital in the port city. AL leaders urges Prime Minister for intervention in the matter of Bangabandhu Medical city . Human chain protesting arrest warrants against doctors Chittagong Bureau : Bangladesh Medical Association, Chittagong chapter formed human chain in front of Chittagong Medical College main gate on Sunday morning protesting the issuance of warrant of arrest against two physicians without any prior enquiry to the allegation. Large numbers of doctors participated the human chain . Sources said recently a court in chittagong issued warrant of arrests against Dr. Kajal Rekha Roy and Dr. Debashish Talukder with out investigation of the . allegations. Court sources said wife of Asstt. Judge of Noakhali district court Saima Sikder expires during delivery time at a private clinic on June 3 last due to negligence of the physicians as per case filed by the mother of the victim Salma Begum. Case sources said due to negligence of Dr. KajalRekha , her daughter was s expired. President of BMA , chittagong unit Mr. Mujibul Hoque Khan , President of Commilla BMA unit and civil surgeon Azizur Rahman Siddiqui , organising secretary Dr. Rabiul Kariham, Gyane Specialist Dr. Shahanara chowdhury, Dr. Rosy Siddque, and Joint Secretary Faisal Iqbal spoke on the occasion among others. The speakers in the human chain told that until and unless the allegations against doctors are proved by the probe committee of BMDC , none can be issued arrest warrant . The human chain was told that if these doctors are harassed in the name of arrest warrants, BMA will be compelled to shut down the private practice in chambers and private clinics instantly. US Muslim leaders condemn Orlando attack, slam extremists Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce, Florida on Sunday. AFP, Washington :The head of a prominent US Muslim advocacy group has strongly condemned the nightclub massacre in Florida, calling members of the Islamic State group an "aberration" amid allegations the gunman was inspired by the jihadists.Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also called for unity and urged politicians not to "exploit" the slaughter in Orlando, which left 50 dead and dozens more injured."This is a hate crime. Plain and simple. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Awad told a news conference."It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims. Let me be clear, we have no tolerance for extremism of any kind."The FBI said the American gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who died in an exchange of fire with police, was believed to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS before the shooting.Awad referenced such reporting and said he had a word for IS members and supporters."You do not speak for us. You do not represent us. You are an aberration, you are an outlaw ... they don't speak for our faith. They never belonged to this beautiful faith."With the 2016 race for the White House in full swing, Awad warned that perpetrators of attacks such as the one in Orlando "mean only to divide us" and called for calm on the political front.Meanwhile, the imam of the mosque where the Orlando nightclub shooter worshipped said the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen, 29, attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old, the mosque's imam said."He would pray and his son would play," said Syed Shafeeq Rahman, who has known Mateen since 2003 when he became the imam. Mateen did not socialize, leaving when services ended.He didn't talk but would smile and shake hands, Rahman said.The imam said it was "unbelievable" that a heavily-armed Mateen carried out a rampage at a gay club in Orlando, killing 50 people and wounding 53.It was the deadliest terror attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. US, Russia cutting nuke arsenals, but modernisation on: Study Russian Top ol-M intercontinental nuclear-capable ballistic missiles are seen being driven through Red Square during a military parade in Moscow. AFP, Stockholm : The world's biggest nuclear powers, the US and Russia, are slowly reducing their nuclear arsenals but are modernising their capacities, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on Monday. Nine states -- the US, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea -- had 15,395 nuclear warheads at the start of 2016, including 4,120 which were operationally deployed, the institutes's annual report said. At the beginning of 2015, the number was 15,850. "Global nuclear weapon inventories have been declining since they peaked at nearly 70,000 nuclear warheads in the mid-1980s. The decline has been due primarily to cuts made in the Russian and US nuclear forces," researchers Shannon Kile and Hans Kristensen wrote in the report. The reductions are the result of three arms limitation treaties signed since 1991, as well as unilateral force reductions by the world's two nuclear superpowers. "However, the pace of their reductions appears to be slowing compared with a decade ago, and neither Russia nor the US... has made significant reductions in its deployed strategic nuclear forces since the bilateral New START treaty" entered into force in 2011, SIPRI said. Russia was estimated to have 7,290 nuclear warheads at the start of 2016, and the US 7,000, with the two countries accounting for 93 percent of nuclear weapons in the world, it said. They were followed by France (300), China (260), Britain (215), Pakistan (110-130), India (100-120), Israel (80) and North Korea (10), a reclusive country for which the data is uncertain and therefore not included in the overall totals. "None of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future," SIPRI said, noting that Washington and Moscow have "extensive and expensive nuclear modernisation programmes under way." Two bordering, rival countries are increasing their capacities: India is beefing up its nuclear-capable ballistic missile programme and speeding up its plutonium production, while neighbouring Pakistan is developing battlefield nuclear weapons in a bid to offset India's superior conventional forces. Pakistan's "nuclear arsenal may increase significantly over the next decade," the institute warned. SIPRI concluded that worldwide, "the prospects for genuine progress towards nuclear disarmament remain gloomy." Death anniv of QM Zaman today City Desk : Today is the 17th death anniversary of Businessman, producer, director, and cameraman Q.M. Zaman. In 1958 Q. M. Zaman became the first Chief Cameraman of Film Development Corporation and was the Cameraman of the first commercial film of this country 'Mukh-O-Mukhosh'. He received professional training as cameraman from Belgium, Germany and France. Prior to joining the film industry in this country, he was involved with the film industry in Bombay and Calcutta as part of Deoji Bhai and Murari Mohan's team. He was one of the pioneers in the development of the film industry of the then East Pakistan. He was the cameraman of 70 films during his lifetime. Among these the most renowned films are 'Asia', Akash aar Mati', `E-desh Tomar Amar' and 'Chanda. To mark this day a Milad Mahfil will be held at a mosque near 'Shaheb Bari' at Hajiganj after Asr prayers. CID submits 2nd autopsy report to court UNB, Comilla : The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted the second autopsy report of the slain Comilla Victoria college student Sohagi Jahan Tonu to a court here on Monday. Gazi Mohammad Ibrahim, CID inspector, Comilla, submitted the report to the Senior Judicial Magistrate Court Judge Muntahim Billah at noon. Earlier, on Sunday, the Forensic Department of Comilla Medical College Hospital revealed the second autopsy report of Tonu where the doctors did not find any specific cause of the death of Tonu but got the 'sign of sexual intercourse'. On June 7, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) submitted the full report of the DNA test, conducted on Tonu's body, to the medical board formed for her second autopsy. Earlier, a court here ordered the CID to give the DNA report of the two samples-teeth and spermatozoa-out of total seven samples to the medial board following pleas filed by the board. On March 30, Tonu's body was exhumed from her grave for collecting DNA sample, fresh postmortem and proper investigation into the case. Later, members of Crime Scene Unit of CID brought the DNA and other samples of teeth, nails and body to Dhaka for examination. On April 4, doctors of Forensic Department at Comilla Medical College Hospital in their first autopsy, conducted by Dr Sharmin Sultana, did not find any cause of death or any evidence of rape before Tonu's death. Arrest business? Police turn down allegation Sagar Biswas : More than 8,000 people have so far been arrested in three last consecutive days following a nationwide crackdown on militants launched after a series of murders targeting innocent people, secular activists and minorities. Although the police headquarters claimed that the arrests have been made under specific cases of arrest warrants during the ongoing special drive, there are widespread allegations that most of the arrested were ordinary criminals with no existing warrants. Some of them were also picked up under Section-54 of Criminal Procedure Code [CrPC]. Not only that, some people have alleged that police started 'arrest business' centering the on going crackdown where a number of people were released after taking a fat amount of money from the family members or relatives. A section of dishonest police officials are using the special drive for their personal gain, it is further alleged. "Of the arrestees, the number of Islamist militants is fewer. Most of the arrestees either have warrant of arrests or they are charged with criminal offences, such as drugs and arms," Deputy Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidur Rahman said. The opposition political parties, especially Bangladesh Nationalist Party [BNP], have accused police of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent. BNP yesterday claimed that more than 2000 activists of the party have been nabbed in the meantime. DIG AKM Shahidur Rahman, however, outright rejected the allegation, saying that police were not running any arrest business. "The Police Headquarters are closely monitoring the drive. Most of them were arrested in regular cases. They were also sent to court," he said. The government launched the drive on Friday (June 10) being pressured by the international community to end the attacks, which have left nearly 50 people, including 26 minorities, dead over the last one and a half years. The special drive will continue for a week. Of the total arrestees, 119 have been identified as militants affiliated with different banned Islamist outfits. In the last 24 hours ended at 2:00pm on Monday, the police arrested 3,245 persons, including 34 Islamist militants, conducting raids in different parts of the country. Out of 34 Islamist militants arrested in the latest sweep, 25 were identified as members of banned militant outfit Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh [JMB], three Hizb-ut-Tahrir [HuT], three from Ansar -al Islam and three others were Allar Dal, the police headquarters sources said. JMB is one of two homegrown militant outfits blamed for most of the recent murders. Another one is known as Anarullah Bangla Team [ABT]. Police yesterday netted one more operative of banned outfit of HuT named Omar Faruq from north-western district of Chapainawabganj during the drive. Security analyst and former election commissioner Brigadier General [retd] Sakhawat Hossain differed with the claim of police. "Such types of operations were conducted in the previous years. But there is a question about their success. The militants can flee away, if operation is conducted after an announcement." "There were allegations against police about harassing ordinary people in the past. The allegations are still the same. The operation must be a specific objective of this drive, he said. Police seized anti-government leaflets, pistol and gunpowder from Faruk's possession. He was arrested earlier in 2012 and went out on bail. Then he started trying to re-organise the activities of the HuT. "About 3,245 suspects had been arrested in the last 24 hours, raising the total number to 8,192 since the campaign began on Friday," spokesman of police headquarters Md Kamrul Ahsan said yesterday. Police recovered 13 firearms, seven magazines, eight machetes, 33 rounds of bullet, two petrol bombs, 31 cocktails and 28 extremist books in last 24 hours. Besides, the police seized 586 motorcycles during the aforesaid period. Pvt medical colleges must have basic standard THE New Nation on Monday reported that the Health Ministry has suspended academic activities of three private medical colleges for violating rules and regulations and also for not maintaining high standard of professional education. Marginalizing recruitment criteria and quality of physical infrastructures, the government earlier awarded medical college licenses to party men for big profits. Most private medical colleges have dearth of quality teachers, required physical infrastructure medical equipment, attached hospital and administrative staffs, and producing sub-standard medical graduates. However, it is also true that in the face of inadequate healthcare facilities in the country, private medical colleges are an obvious necessity as we need more physicians and only public medical colleges are not enough to produce the necessary number of medical graduates. But compromising the standard in medical education will only deteriorate the quality of healthcare. Students of the shut down medical colleges --- Northern Medical College in Rangpur, City Medical College at Gazipur and Nightingale Medical College at Ashulia, Dhaka --- will however, be transferred to other private medical colleges under relevant universities in the concerned areas, said the Ministry officials. It is a good step indeed. The decision was taken at a meeting on private medical college policy forum held at the Health Ministry recently. It also decided to suspend admission procedures for the 2016-17 academic calendar of Southern Medical College in Chittagong and reduce the number of seats of BGC Trust Medical College in Chittagong. These medical colleges were warned several times for their low-quality education, inadequate faculties and facilities but they did not pay heed to the warnings. It is welcome that the government took cognizance of the issue. In our view to stop bad doctors from entering the healthcare system, the government should introduce a qualifying exam for all medical graduates. Medical graduates who perform poorly in the pre-qualifying test should be barred from entering the profession. In the developed countries, no one is allowed to practice immediately after medical graduation or MBBS. They have to go through post-graduate degree and an extensive training period before taking up the responsibility of treating patients. National Medical Council regulate physicians and maintain the standard of profession. They place people's health need and safety first and above all. So, we too should put in place a comprehensive training process for medical graduates. Medical education is not education of fine arts, it is related to citizens' life risk. For that, the government should strictly control the standard of medical education in public and private colleges and the suspension of the functioning of the colleges seems to be a proper step in the right direction. Former DU VC Moniruzzaman Miah passes away Staff Reporter :Former Vice-Chancellor of Dhaka University (DU) Professor Moniruzzaman Miah died on Monday at the age of 81.Moniruzzaman Miah, who had long been suffering from old-age complications, breathed his last at Square Hospital about 12 noon. He was admitted to the hospital on Sunday night as his condition sharply deteriorated.His body has been kept at the hospital mortuary.His first Namaz-e-Janaza will be held in front of Geography and Environment Department on the DU campus at 11am. The second Namaz-e-Janaza will be held on the premises of DU Central Mosque after Zohr prayer. He will be buried at Banani graveyard, M Asaduzzaman, brother of Moniruzzaman Miah told the media. A confirmed bachelor Moniruzzaman Miah served as the DU Vice-Chancellor between 1990 and 1992. On October 31, 1992 he was made ambassador to Senegal.Born in 1935, Miah studied at the Rajshahi University before starting his teaching career at the Jagannath College (now university) in Dhaka.In 1961, he went to France for higher studies. Five years later, he joined as a teacher at Dhaka University's Geography Department. BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia and Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir offered condolences for the deceased, who was a pro-BNP intellectual. Hearing on charge framing July 18 Court Correspondent : A city court fixed July 18 for the hearing on framing charge against 41 accused in the murder case filed in connection with the collapse of Rana Plaza building. Dhaka's District and Session Judge SM Kuddus Zaman passed the order on Monday in response to a time petition, filed on behalf of the defense. The judge also denied bail to Sohel Rana, owner of the collapsed building. Earlier on April 24, 2013, eight-storied Rana Plaza that housed five readymade factories, a shopping mall and a bank, collapsed, leaving 1,137 people dead and about 2,000 injured. Savar Police Station Sub-Inspector (SI) Wali Ashraf filed a case 'death due to negligence' and RAJUK officer M Helal Ahmed filed another case with Savar Model Police Station accusing 13 including Sohel Rana citing that the building was not constructed following the relevant rules. On June 1, 2015, Investigation Officer Senior ASP (CID) submitted two charge sheets in connection with the incident. On the day when the complex was collapsed, Rajuk filed a case with Savar Moldel Police Station against Sohel Rana for violating the National Building Code. Police filed another case accusing six persons, including Sohel Rana, on April 25 for committing murder. Police arrested Sohel on April 28, 2013. His parents are among 41 people, who have been made accused in the murder case. Woman remanded over killing of Sunil Gomez UNB, Natore :A court here on Monday placed a woman, who was arrested from Dhaka, on a three-day remand in connection with the killing of Christian missionary Sunil Gomez.The remanded woman was identified as Monowara Begum Moni. Senior judicial magistrate Shamsul Al Amin passed the order in the morning when DB inspector Abdul Hye produced her before the court seeking a five-day remand against her. Earlier, a team of the DB arrested Moni from Badda area of capital on Sunday.Sunil Gomez, 60, a grocer and a former employee of Banpara Christian Missionary, was hacked to death by unidentified assailants at Banpara Christian Palli in Baraigram upazila of Natore at noon on the same day. Easy gun makes easy killing: Orlando killer was a mental case Editorial Desk : We are shocked and our full sympathy lies with the deadly victims of Orlando people for massacre of 49 LGBT persons in the night club. We have not enough word to condemn it and more so when a Muslim man is the killer whether or not he is an IS recruit; it makes us both angry and urge everyone to do everything to protect humanity from terrorism. We cannot deny that he is an American Muslim, it is possible that he was influenced by some extremist groups like ISIS -- a perverted Muslim group. The ISIS people do not abide by Islam. They kept Muslims captive and rape our Muslim women, killed thousands of Muslims. It has come out in US press that the man Omar Mateen is mentally deranged with a chaotic family history that even ended in divorce with his wife. He was on the radar of FBI but found nothing to be serious about him. Muslim leaders in America and elsewhere have been condemning the slaughter in the strongest terms. An American Muslim leader even denounced in CNN that terrorists are not Muslims. It appears that the man bought the assault rifle only few days back from the locality to end the massacre. The incident has renewed the debate again in the US to bring control on the buying of gun. Because without controlling the gun access, incidents of massacre and such other insane killings will not come under control. It is known to all that President Obama is trying to rein in easy access to gun but opposition from a Republican dominated Congress is not making it to happen. Again in his press conference yesterday, President Obama renewed his call for gun control. We also think that it should be the major concern of Americans as dangerous guns are easily available to the extremists or mentally deranged ones. As far the Orlando massacre is concerned, we must say Muslims all over the world and particularly in Bangladesh feel highly disturbed by the act of a Muslim by name. His action and such actions by a handful of others as IS outfits or their cohorts all over the world are seriously damaging the interest of the Muslims as murderers and terrorists. It calls for closer ties and harmony among all religious faith and communities at all levels. We do not want to accept terrorists as Muslims or Christians. They are fanatics and not religious. In every sense the Muslim extremists are in fact pervert anti-Islam elements. All fundamentalists are abnormal. We shall strongly urge Islamic leaders to expose ISIS and other Muslim extremists as not Islamists and they have no right to use Islam for their brand of crimes. But we must also say terrorism is not limited only to a section of the Muslims; there are many violent people in all societies killing people and destroying public safety. We shall insist that when Muslims have to do everything against perverts of Islam, the American people must also accept gun control. President Joe Biden has decided to ban Russian oil imports, toughening the toll on Russia's economy in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine. The United States generally imports about 100,000 barrels a day from Russia, only about 5% of Russia's crude oil exports, according to Rystad Energy. Last year, roughly 8% of U.S. imports of oil and petroleum products came from Russia. Gas prices have been rising for weeks due to the conflict and in anticipation of potential sanctions on the Russian energy sector. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. Should the US ban Russian oil imports over Ukraine war? You voted: 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. The funeral for Deacon William Parker, 87, of 1320 Ridgewood Drive, Orangeburg, will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, June 14, 2016, at Union Chapel Baptist Church, Jamison, with the Rev. James K. Tucker officiating. Burial will be in the church cemetery. The casket will be placed in the church at 10 a.m. William Howard Parker was born Jan. 5, 1929, to Johnny and Grace Parker in Clarksburg, Tennessee. He was the fifth child of 14 siblings, 10 of whom preceded him in death. William leaves to mourn his memory two sisters, Virgilene (Hugh) Butler of Nashville, Tennessee, and Myrtle Holmes of Hermitage, Tennessee; a brother, James Parker of Paducah, Kentucky; many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends. William Howard, as he was so affectionately called by his wife of 53 years, Helen Parker, who preceded him in death, attended Parkers Chapel School. He migrated to Champaign/Urbana, lllinois, as a young man and resided there for several years before relocating to Indiana and then to Savannah, Georgia, where his wife, Helen, taught elementary school. William and Helen later moved to Orangeburg to provide care for her ailing family members. William retired from Illinois Bell Telephone in Champaign, Illinois, but worked as a security guard part-time in Georgia before permanently retiring to Orangeburg. He joined Union Chapel Baptist Church and was a deacon in good standing until his health began to fail. Although he was not able to actively participate in church services, he remained faithful to his church and Gods Word, often praying and singing his favorite spiritual songs and watching church services from his home. William and his wife Helen never conceived children of their own, but took relatives and foster children and cared for them as their own, showing love and kindness to them all. He loved the Lord and was a very giving person. After his wife went on to glory, Williams niece, Trudy Gregg, relocated from Maine to take on the homecare of her uncle until his death. His family is eternally grateful to Trudy for putting her life on hold to take on the responsibility of caring for him until his death. After a courageous battle with diabetes and other ailments, William Howard went to be with the Lord on June 8, 2016. He will be missed by all for his humor and love of life, but his legacy of giving and caring for his fellow man will live on in the hearts of all those who knew him. Visitation will be from 1 to 7 p.m. Monday at the funeral home. Friends may call at the residence and Bythewood Funeral Home. Condolences may be sent to bythewoodfunera@bellsouth.net. Ill never forget that day, Vietnam veteran Cole Haywood said. On April 29, 1970 in Cambodia, Haywood and his squad were ambushed by enemy combatants. He was struck by a bullet in the arm, but the six men serving alongside him paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives. He served in the Vietnam War from 1969 until 1970, starting as a squad leader and later being promoted in the field to staff sergeant in January of 1970. Haywood was one of several local veterans in attendance at the Memorial Day Observance at the Veterans Memorial Park on Sunday afternoon. The event was rescheduled because of the heavy rains on Memorial Day weekend. I wouldnt miss it for anything in the world, Haywood said of the service. He holds a close connection with the outfit he served with, Ace High. Last year, 54 Ace High veterans and their families gathered in Oklahoma to have their first family reunion. Its amazing how I can go back and meet these guys after 50 years, Haywood said. They give me the red carpet treatment when I go out there. Also at the Memorial Day service, Andrew Dallas Green delivered the keynote address. Green, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, said the service was held to remember fallen family, friends, neighbors, brothers and sisters. They were ordinary people who paid the extraordinary price for their country, Green said. Orangeburg County Council Vice Chairwoman Janie Cooper-Smith presented a special tribute to the volunteer drivers of Orangeburg County. The volunteers drive veterans to and from medical appointments and are veterans themselves. Some drivers accumulated up to 5,000 hours of service. Thats a lot of volunteer service and volunteers do not get paid, Cooper-Smith said. Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler recognized the military veterans for their service and honored the fallen saying, We will never, ever forget the ultimate sacrifice that some of them made. They are our heroes, he said. The service at Orangeburgs Veterans Memorial Park concluded with members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars posts 2779 and 8166 Ladies Auxiliary laying a wreath at the monument during the playing of Taps. Sponsors for the event included the Orangeburg County Veterans Council, Orangeburg County Veterans Affairs, American Legion Post 4, Greater Orangeburg Leathernecks Marine Corps League Detachment 1259, Military Order of the Purple Heart 932, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2779 Ladies Auxiliary, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8166 Ladies Auxiliary and Quilts of Valor. Special thanks were given to the Parks and Recreation Department of the City of Orangeburg. WASHINGTON Republicans cant have it both ways: If you say you intend to cast your ballot for Donald Trump, thats an endorsement. You can be for him or against him, but not both. So dont even try to take the untenable position that Rep. Bill Flores of Texas, chairman of the influential Republican Study Committee, tried to outline. I will vote for him, Flores said, but in terms of getting my endorsement, I dont endorse people that bash a judge based on his ethnic heritage. You just did, Congressman. Equally absurd, and even more cynical, is what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing: encouraging Trump to pretend to be something he is not. Using a prepared text last night and not attacking any other Americans was a good start, McConnell said, referring to Trumps teleprompter-assisted speech Tuesday evening. I think its still time for him to act like a presidential candidate should be acting. So I havent given up hope. Face reality, Senator. The old saying about putting lipstick on a pig comes to mind. Why are Republicans gasping as if Trumps racist screed about U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University, came as a complete surprise? You mean theyre just noticing Trumps bigotry? Have McConnell and the rest forgotten that Trump launched his campaign a year ago with a vicious attack on Mexican immigrants? When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best, he declared. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. Those were practically the first words out of candidate Trumps mouth. Then, in due course, came his call to bar all foreign Muslims from entering the country religious bigotry to go along with the ethnic-racial kind. Anyone paying attention must notice how Trump habitually speaks of the Hispanics and the African-Americans as if we were foreign and unknowable, the way a 19th-century British colonialist might have held forth about the Malays. Now, all of a sudden, Republicans are shocked and outraged? It is ridiculous for Trump supporters to hope he will be able to maintain a facade of dignity and decorum until Election Day or even that he will try to do so. First of all, hes not very good at it. His on-message performance Tuesday was wooden and, frankly, boring. Scripted Trump is more likely to put the world to sleep than set it on fire. Moreover, Trump clearly believes his success thus far has come largely because he is so unlike traditional politicians. Politicians are so politically correct anymore, they cant breathe, Trump told The New York Times on Tuesday, hours before his low-key speech. The people are tired of this political correctness when things are said that are totally fine. It is out of control. It is gridlock with their mouths. So how long does anyone think Trump will be able to keep his own big mouth gridlocked? I realize that Republican officials are in an impossible position. Many of them are appalled by Trump. Yet they are also beholden to a GOP base that made Trump its clear choice in the primaries. Only a few have dared to say publicly that they simply cannot vote for this man as president so far. It seems inevitable that there will be more. Trump told Time magazine Wednesday that he was disappointed and surprised at Republican criticism over the Curiel episode. I had just won more votes than anyone in the history of the party, so I was a little bit surprised when they said that. I didnt think it was necessary. But you know, they have to say what they have to say. Im a big boy. They have to say what they have to say. That does not sound like a man who is chastened. That does not sound like a man who is willing to get with the program. At least hes not Hillary Clinton, goes the Republican refrain. That is certainly true. Strip away the party labels, and you have one candidate who objectively is qualified to be president and one who manifestly is not. You have one candidate with a progressive agenda and one with a personal agenda. At the end of the GOP convention, one presumes, balloons and confetti will rain down from the rafters. Republican leaders can stand and cheer the nomination of Donald Trump or they can stay home and denounce it as the travesty it is. They cant do both. Americans are tired of political gotcha games. Yet the scandal engulfing Hillary Clinton about the email system she used while secretary of state isnt just any political food fight: These events exemplify Clintons elitism and her belief that people like her should get to set the laws, but not have to live under them like the rest of us. Americans resoundingly should reject this tired Washington-knows-best attitude. The State Departments Inspector General Report examining Clintons email practice while secretary of state makes clear that Hillary has been misleading the public all along. In contrast to her public assurances, her practice of exclusively using a private email system for her official work in spite of knowledge of the extreme security risks and record-keeping requirements was unique; it wasnt approved by State Department lawyers; and, no surprise, was inconsistent with security protocols and put sensitive information at risk. Colin Powell used a private email address for some correspondence while serving as secretary of state under President George W. Bush, and he didnt follow record-keeping policies properly. But, as the report notes, at that time, the rules for preserving email records were less detailed, and the security risks less understood. Powell worked with the State Department tech departments on his email setup, and they were generally aware of his use of private email. In other words, Clintons everybody does it defense doesnt hold water. In fact, when the ambassador to Kenya engaged in behavior similar to Clinton using a private server in spite of guidance that this practice was against the rules disciplinary hearings were initiated and the ambassador resigned. In other words, Clintons agency was happy to enforce the rules for her inferiors, but naturally the secretary herself didnt have to bother complying with the law. Why did Clinton go to such lengths to break the well-known rules so she could use a private email system? There can be no explanation other than that she wanted to avoid public scrutiny and the legal requirements that her correspondence, while serving as the nations top diplomat, must be preserved and made available to Congress. So much for sunshine, and transparency, and the publics right to know. This attitude of superiority and the rejection of the concept that public officials must be accountable to the people they serve are part of Clintons core. Clinton and her top aides wouldnt even deign to be interviewed by the inspector generals office for this report. Thats for the little people, apparently. Her campaign now is relying on the tried-and-true Clinton tactic of demonizing anyone who dares question her ethic as a partisan hack. They trust that the media and the public will overlook that the inspector general is no conservative firebrand, but a President Obama appointee. Americans should be warned that this attitude trickles in to Clintons policy positions. She promises to promote policies that will crack down on corporate cronyism and too-big-to-fail banks, and regulate every aspect of business life. But you can bet that she and her friends will continue to game the system and rake in their personal fortunes from the very fat cats she claims to want to fight. Shell push to expand Obamacare further, giving government even greater power to dictate what kind of insurance everyone must purchase, what subsidies they can receive, and how hospitals and doctors offices must operate. But dont expect lawmakers to follow those rules. Recall that, in spite the letter of the law that required those working on Capitol Hill to take part in the Obamacare exchange like millions of other Americans, Congress gave itself an exemption, so it could enjoy more subsidies and a better deal than regular Americans get. The rules are for suckers. Americans have had enough of a ruling class that thinks its above the rest of us. We are supposed to be a nation of laws, after all, and those laws are meant to apply to everyone, even those with titles like secretary or senator. During this campaign, of course, Clinton is pretending to be a populist and stand with the little guy. But we know from her past behavior that under a President Hillary, wed have business as usual and the perpetuation of a political system rigged to benefit the politically connected especially those named Clinton. Gov. Nikki Haleys reluctance to sign legislation that will fund road improvements in South Carolina is understandable in light of her stated priorities. But she made the right call in pushing ahead with the plan sent to her by the Legislature. Haley did not get what she wanted as the states chief executive: control of the S.C. Department of Transportation. She contends the DOT reforms by the General Assembly fall far short of what is needed to ensure accountability. The governor is politically savvy. She is aware South Carolinians were going to blame her as much as lawmakers if another legislative session passed with a continuing stalemate on roads. So the plan for an immediate infusion of money for road and bridge improvements will move forward. The bill allows for $2.2 billion in borrowing over 10 years for infrastructure. Funding will come from $200 million annually in existing fees and vehicle sales taxes. Coupled with other money from the DOT, the total package for road and bridge repairs is $4 billion. In a letter to legislators, Haley said: To claim this law as anything close to a victory, to represent it in any way as a true solution to our infrastructure problems would be deceiving the public. For their part, lawmakers have acknowledged the legislation is not a permanent fix, but finding one that is satisfactory to the governor is going to require compromise on the part of the chief executive as well as the Legislature. The key issues are Haley and her allies unwillingness to go along with an increase in the states gasoline tax and their insistence on further DOT reform. Painting the Legislature as the bad guy in this is not fair. Lawmakers signaled a willingness to go along with an increase in the states lowest-in-the-nation gas tax, with the money to be an ongoing source of funds for road and bridge repair. But even the prospect of having out-of-state travelers pay a share of the tab in effect a user fee was not enough to convince opponents. Those foes used to their advantage the governors insistence on no gas tax increase without a corresponding reduction in state income taxes. Coupled with Haleys insistence on DOT control, the opponents had all the ammunition needed to tie up any plan that could be considered a permanent solution for roads. In making changes in DOT governance, lawmakers maintained legislative controls that Haley does not want for her or future governors. But disbanding the commission that governs DOT and handing full control to the governor is a major shift in power one that does not ensure better operation of DOT. To argue that putting the power in the hands of the chief executive ensures political influence will be removed from DOT and its priorities and operations is being naive. What the change would do is consolidate more power permanently in the executive branch. For now, South Carolina gets new money for repairing roads and bridges. That was the top priority one that the governor and legislators wisely decided not to delay any further. Left for resolution and as priorities in 2017 are a recurring source of funding for roads and bridges and how the agency using those funds will be controlled and operated. OK, so the fix is in. In one sense, it's too bad the Associated Press and the TV networks called the Democratic race for Hillary Clinton before New Jersey, California and four smaller states voted on June 7. Judging by my email and Facebook feed, this has enflamed the Bernie-cult's belief that it's been cheated by the "establishment." Whatever the results, they've been rendered illegitimate in some eyes by the news media's premature call. Never mind that news organizations feel a professional duty to report the facts as quickly as they are ascertained. Not much imagination is required to grasp the mischief that could result from their doing it any other way. Never mind, too, that anybody who can do the electoral arithmetic knows that Hillary Clinton has been the inevitable Democratic nominee since April, when she prevailed in New York and Pennsylvania by 16 and 12 points, respectively. There simply weren't enough populous states left for Sanders to catch up -- unless he could win California by an impossible 60 points. Nevertheless, Bernie soldiered on. Doing his best impersonation of Prof. Irwin Corey, the Brooklyn-born comic billed as "The World's Greatest Authority," Sanders and his advisors began to make ever more absurd analyses of how he'd wind up on top. Like Corey, who appeared frequently on the old Johnny Carson show in professorial garb spouting hilariously self-contradictory gibberish, Bernie sought to explain away electoral reality. First came the argument that Clinton's wins in "red state" Southern primaries shouldn't count, because the South is the most conservative region of the country. These strictures did not apply, of course, to Sanders' victories among downtrodden white Democrats in the Cow States -- Kansas, Oklahoma, Utah and Idaho, actually more one-sidedly Republican. Not to mention thinly populated. Notwithstanding the likelihood that several Southern states could be in play come November, as Kansas and Idaho almost certainly won't be, the insult to African-American voters could hardly have been more ill-advised. If it was Sanders' intention to turn himself into the white-bread college kids' candidate, he couldn't have done better. It must be thrilling to be the 74-year-old Pied Piper of the campus set, because Bernie was hard at it during a recent California stadium rally. He interrupted his ritual chant about millionaires, billionaires and Wall Street to favor the crowd with some old-timey Marxist cant. As The Washington Post reports: "'Any objective analyst of the current campaign understands that the energy and the grassroots activism of this campaign is with us,' Sanders bellowed, putting an emphasis on that last word. 'Not Hillary Clinton.'" "Objective," you see, has always been radical-speak for, "in my opinion." Back in his Socialist Workers Party days, I'm sure Bernie won a lot of arguments browbeating people that way. My own scientific view is that 20-somethings go to rallies; older people vote. As New York magazine's Jonathan Chait puts it: "Energy and activism are definitely part of the election process. But the way you determine the winner is by holding elections." Meanwhile, instead of complaining about the complexity of election rules, Sanders would have been wiser to lay off Wall Street and billionaires and explain those rules to his supporters. No, you can't vote in a New York Democratic primary unless you're a registered Democrat. Too bad, but there it is, and it's been that way for a generation. Instead, Sanders and his minions went around kvetching that ineligible voters would have put them over the top. They seized upon every election-place glitch nationwide to complain that they were being cheated. For example, 132,000 mostly black voters in Brooklyn somehow got left off the rolls. Bernie supporters all, they'd have you believe, although Sanders otherwise lost the borough 60-40 -- and African-American New Yorkers worse than that. Probably the errors hurt Clinton, although there's no real way to know. Bernie has won a lot of states, they say. Yeah, 20 as of this writing, exactly 40 percent of them. With several states in play on June 7, this number will doubtless change. No matter, in Electoral College terms, Sanders is nowhere. The rest of it amounts to a shell game. As Chait acidly sums up the Sanders Camp's extended whine: "Clinton has a large lead in pledged delegates, and an even larger lead in superdelegates. You could rely entirely on one or the other, or change the weights between them in any fashion, and Clinton would still win. Sanders simply refuses to accept the combination of the two, instead changing subjects from one to the other. Ask him about the pledged delegates, and he brings up the superdelegates. Ask about the superdelegates, and he changes to the pledged delegates. It's an infinite loop of bullshit." First Bernie denounced "superdelegates" as an impediment to democracy; now he's counting upon them to begin the revolution by overturning the will of Democratic voters. Fat chance. ----- Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can email Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo.com. We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. /By Azernews/ By Fatma Babayeva A foreign company will be involved in the project on creation of a Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in the territory of the Baku International Sea Trade Port located in Azerbaijan's Alat town. The statement was made by Taleh Ziyadov, director general of the Port, during the first meeting of the working group for the creation of the FTZ on June 10. Ziyadov noted that the establishment of the FTZ in the territory of the Baku International Sea Trade Port in Alat will contribute to turning the Port into a transportation and logistics center in Europe. "Negotiations have been held with a foreign company that specializes in the planning and management of free trade zones, and it will soon join the creation of the FTZ in Azerbaijan," he added. Nevertheless, Ziyadov didn't specify the name of a foreign company. Issues like improvement of the legislation, economic feasibility of the creation of FTZ, the concept of development, infrastructure and management of the zone, as well as work on the preparation of proposals relating to the types of entrepreneurial business on its territory were discussed during the meeting of the working group. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Azerbaijans Ministries of Economy, Taxes, Transport, Environment and Natural Resources, Finance, Justice, as well as, State Customs Committee, State Committee for Property Affairs, Executive Powers of Baku, Azerbaijan Caspian Shipping Company JSC and Azerbaijan Railways. President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree on March 17, 2016 on the measures to create special economic area of a free trade zone type in the Alat township of Baku's Garadagh district. The bill on the free trade zone will be discussed at the autumn session of the Parliament of Azerbaijan. This free trade zone will be the first-ever FTZ of Azerbaijan. It is expected to encourage transport-logistical industry, pharmaceutical cluster, and bases for the supply of oil plants, as well as, the spheres of manufacturing, packing and labeling. The FTZ will bring huge revenues to the state budget of Azerbaijan and attract foreign investors. The FTZ is expected to bring up to $1 billion just in the first few years. However, it will not only make a huge contribution to the economy of Azerbaijan but a whole region. Special tax and customs policy, which will be pursued in the territory of the Free Trade Zone will also stipulate further development and simplification of a number of procedures. The privileges can cover the income tax, VAT, tax of profit and property tax. The Baku International Sea Trade Port located in the Alat settlement, 40 miles south of Baku. The construction of the Baku International Sea Trade Port started in November 2010. YARAT Contemporary Art Space presented 300 Words on Resistance - a group exhibition with emerging contemporary artists in conversation with modern Azerbaijani masters. 300 Words on Resistance draws from the belief that resistance is both personal and political. It is an essential social attitude in building civil society. Seven emerging Azerbaijani artists explore their perspective on resistance, introducing themes pre-occupying the youth of the country, such as gender relations, cultural stereotypes and socio-political uncertainty. The newly commissioned works explore both general and individual struggles facing the Azerbaijani society today. These artists carry the voices of their generation, through times of economic turbulence and geo-political unrest, into the new century of capitalism and social awareness. Throughout the exhibition, the new works were marked by and put into conversation with older works of the generation of artists from the 60s. The modern works, many of which have never been exhibited before, defined resistance during the Soviet era by going against the mainstream of Socialist-Realism and subverting propaganda art. These modern masters continue to act as a solid foundation and a source of inspiration for the younger generation of artists throughout the country. Sitara Ibrahimova and Farhad Farzaliyev subvert the prevalent gender specific stereotypes through irony and humour in their video works, Reflector (2016) andWhat a Nice Place to Eat and Drink (2016). A similar urge to break free is expressed in a Non-Conformist painting by Talat Shihaliyev, Portrait of a Young Man (1961). These works are opposed by the seeming stillness of Tahir Salahov's Homage to the Mothers (1986). The passing of time in this work continues in Habib Saher's Waiting for Godot (2016), evoking a slow decay of traditional worldviews through art historical references. Resistance takes a phenomenological turn in Aida Mahmudova's Untitled (2016). Her new work made predominantly with gauze fabric, is a material expression of a personal struggle, which is shared with the viewer through its out of scale presence in the space. The sheer physicality of the installation finds its historical counterpart in the Expressionist work of Rasim Babayev, The Earth is Rich with Oil (1976). The idea of a private mental space breaking through into a public political realm manifests itself in the painting of Anvar Asgarov, To those Disappearing on the horizon (1985). The relation to public space finds contemporary commentary in the photographic works of Ilkin Huseynov, We Apologise for Temporary Inconvenience (2016), reflecting on the superficial facade of a city and society in continuous transition. The identity shifts evident in the architecture of Baku are mirrored in an ideological struggle explored in the work of Zamir Suleymanov,Claim (2016). As an end point of the exhibition, an unidentified black mountain marks a conflict that has defined the political reality of Azerbaijan as a nation-state since its independence in 1991. Further supported by a randomly generated top 20 playlist from Nagorno-Karabakh, Elturan Mammadov's Unidentified Heights(2016) are controversially juxtaposed with a call for peace in Boyukagha Mirzazade's 1945 (1976). This modern masterpiece suggests a timeless form of resistance - "???". This exhibition was curated by Suad Garayeva-Maleki and Bjorn Geldhof. The exhibition was supported by works from Azerbaijan National Picture Galler. Artist Biographies: Eldar Aghamalov (b. 1954) graduated from A. Azimzade State Art College in 1971 and later obtained Monumental Paintings degree at the V.I. Surikov State Art Institute, Moscow in 1974-1980. He has been widely exhibited from 1978 including Baku, Moscow, London and Paris. He is vice-president of Baku Art Center and owner of Yeni Gallery. Aghamalov is a member of Artists Union of Azerbaijan since 1981 and Journalists Union of Kazakhstan since 2005. Anver Askerov (1940-2014) graduated from A. Azimzade State Art College in 1963 and from the Metal Faculty of St. Petersburg's V. Mukhina Industrial Institute of Arts in 1968. Although early stages of his art are related to industrial landscapes, it developed to be lyrical and elegant odes to the capital. Enver Askerov was awarded the title 'Honoured Artist of Azerbaijan' in 2000. Rasim Babayev (1927-2007) graduated from A. Azimzade State Art College in 1949. Pursuing further education, he graduated from Moscow's Surikov State Art Institute in 1956. With a distinct style and a vast oeuvre of paintings and graphics, he is regarded as one of Azerbaijan's most influential artists. Babayev has been exhibited in established institutions and various works feature in institutionalized collections such as The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow; The Museum of Oriental culture, Moscow; and in many others. Farhad Farzaliyev (b.1989) is a multidisciplinary artist devoting his practice to investigating socio-cultural reality of Azerbaijan. He obtained his MFA at the Azerbaijan State Architecture and Construction University in Baku in 2012. Farzaliyev held his first solo show I Am Your Only Tiger at the YAY Gallery, Baku in 2016. Selected group exhibitions include 2015 Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Candy Mountains, Oil Shores, PERMM museum, 2014 Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival among the others. He is a member of the Artists' Union of Azerbaijan. Photographer Ilkin Huseynov (b.1988) predominantly works on prevailing social issues of modern Azerbaijan. He graduated from EFTI School of Photography in 2015 and is currently based in Madrid. Huseynov was a finalist of London Photography Festival, won a second place in the PowerHouse Books competition and was nominated for the Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund. The artist is a co-founder of Riot Books, an independent Publishing House, specialised in Handmade Limited edition Artist's Books. Documentary photographer Sitara Ibrahimova (b.1984) devotes her practice to examining traditions, gender norms, and social pressures within Azerbaijani society. She obtained her bachelor's degree in Psychology from the Baku State University in 2004 and then graduated from the FAMU University in Prague with a diploma in Still Photography (2010). Her work has been exhibited at the 55thand 56th Venice Biennales; 2012 Tbilisi Photo Festival; 2009 Inter Photo Festival Camp in the Czech Republic; Museum of Modern Art, Moscow among others. Aida Mahmudova (b.1982) obtained her bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins College, London. Her paintings draw inspiration from landscape and architecture of Azerbaijan. She has held solo shows at the YAY Gallery, Baku; Leila Heller Gallery, New York; Barbarian Art Gallery, Zurich among others. Group shows include in 55th and 56th Venice Biennales; Louise Blouin Foundation, London; Vienna Art Fair The New Contemporary. Mahmudova is a founder of the non-profit organization YARAT, directed at supporting Azerbaijani arts scene. Elturan Mammadov (b.1990) is a self- taught photographer who draws inspiration from peculiarities of Azerbaijani life. He has participated in exhibitions including To Be Surprised, To Surprise, Artim, Baku; Candy Mountains, Oil Shores, PERMM museum; Moscow International Biennale for Young Art andZavod contemporary art exhibition, Baku Air-Conditioning Plant Building amongst the others. Beyukaga Mirzazade (1921-2007) graduated from the Theatre-Scenery Department of the Baku Art School in 1939, where he was a student of the respected artist Azim Azimzade. He further pursued his education at the Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts. Mirzazade's practice consisted predominantly of paintings, graphics, scenography and large-scale sculptures. From 1946, he began to exhibit internationally and participating in major national, all-union and international exhibitions. The set designer on 20 separate shows, Mirzazade also gained a reputation as an excellent theatre set designer. In 1960, Mirzazade was a laureate of the Azerbaijan Republic's State Prize. Togrul Narimanbekov (1930-2013) trained at the A. Azimzade State Art College and the Vilnius Art Institute - graduating in 1950 and 1955 respectively. The same year he completed his further education, Narimanbekov became a member of the USSR's Union of Artists. Characteristic of his expressionist work was to draw inspiration from traditional Azeri folk tales, depicting them in rich, vibrant colours with an imbued rhythm. In 1980 he was granted with the USSR State Prize and in 1989 with the title of People's Artist of USSR. His monumental murals decorate the Azerbaijan Parliament Hall and Baku Puppet Theatre. Habib Saher (b.1986) is a Baku-based artist of Iranian descendant. He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in Sculpture from the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts. The artist is preoccupied with existential questions that he addresses in sculpture and installation art. In 2016 Saher held his first solo show This Too Shall Pass, ARTIM Baku. His group exhibitions include Semeni, Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku; Zavod, Baku Air-Conditioning Plant Building and Summer Group Show at the Seed Corn gallery, Berkeley, CA. Tahir Salahov (b.1928) graduated from the A. Azimzade State Art College in 1950 and later trained as a draughtsman in Moscow's Surikov Art Institute, graduating in 1957. His diploma piece won him early recognition and he was admitted in 1957 Moscow All-Union Art Exhibition. Regardless, Salahov came to be a pivotal representative of 'Severe Style' in Socialist Realism that aimed to subvert state-imposed cliches. The artist was granted USSR State Prize in 1968. Through 1968 to 1992 he served as the first secretary of the Artists Union of the USSR. Salahov is a member of the CIS Academy of Art, San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid and France Academy of Fine Arts. Talat Shikhaliyev (1928-1987) graduated from the A. Azimzade State Art College in 1951 and pursued further education internationally at the Kiev State Art Academy, which he graduated from in 1960. Two years later, the artist began participating in numerous international exhibitions. Shikhaliyev received his first solo show in 1976 in a gallery named after V.Samadova. In 1964, he became a member of Azerbaijan's and the USSR's Artists Unions and was eventually awarded the title of Honoured Artist. Trained as an economist, Zamir Suleymanov (b.1987) took up photography upon graduating from the university. His photo and video works observe the artist's minute surroundings to offer a commentary on Azerbaijan's socio-cultural reality. Suleymanov has participated in numerous shows both in Azerbaijan and abroad including To Be Surprised, To Surprise, Artim, Baku; Sharjah Biennial of Islamic Arts, the GRID International Photography Festival, Amsterdam; IV Moscow Biennale for Young Art among others. He is a member of the Union of Photographers of Azerbaijan. Moreover, YARAT Contemporary Art Space presented Little Lies - an exhibition with works of David Claerbout (Belgium) and Soren Thilo Funder (Denmark). Little Lies is a journey through a network of white lies, disillusionment and fabricated histories. The exhibition confronts the two main political narratives of the 20th century, with the deception in everyday images, constructed personal stories and false metaphors. Little Lies belong to our everyday; they establish our understanding of a socio-political reality and influence our historical awareness. Through a selection of works of the two artists the exhibition considers the boundaries of our physical reality and how its representation can highlight social ambiguities. This exhibition is a conversation of six works, three of which are continuously looped. Breathing Bird (2012), by David Claerbout, is a poetic and treacherous image that misleads and confuses the viewer. Its small scale is opposed to the monumentality of Oil Workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain (2013). This work subjects the viewer to a soulless gaze, trapped in a constructed mise-en-scene. It questions an economic reality based largely on oil and its social impact on a population in-wait. The lifelessness of the Oil Workers is opposed by effortless vitality in In This Very Moment (Antoine) (2014), by Soren Thilo Funder. Here a young boy obliviously dances on rollerblades on a field in Verdun, a place known as a brutal battlefield of WWI. These works raise a political awareness, while evoking the endlessness and inescapability of time and memory. Sequentially presented throughout the space, the three other works evoke a sense of history through make-belief. The works of Soren Thilo Funder employ cinematic tricks to suggest historical narratives. The Cosmonaut (I don't see any God up here) (2013) uses signifiers from the collective imaginary and deliberately subverts them through false constructions. The same tactics are further complicated in Swerve (You're Gonna Die Up There) (2016) by adding an element of popular associations, through the history of cinema, while exposing the technical mechanisms behind his own storytelling. Funder's works thereby force the viewer to recognise the white lies, which are continuously denied in favour of constructed images and stories. Opposed to Funder, in Travel-1996-2013, David Claerbout allows the illusion to further expand and engulf the viewer. Made over a period of ten years, the work is a digital construction of an ever deepening and elusive forest. The full submersion of the senses is violently broken down as the camera pans out to reveal a plain sub-urban landscape. It voices a critique of a singular perspective, manifested through the inevitability of betrayal. Little Lies enchants and disappoints. It draws from our need for confirmation and exposes our human vulnerability. In a society of false constructs it calls out to our senses and urges us to recognize the white lies embedded in our daily reality. This exhibition was curated by Suad Garayeva-Maleki and Bjorn Geldhof. Produced with the support of Vidi-Square, Belgium. Artist Biographies: David Claerbout (B. 1969) currently lives and works in Antwerp and Berlin. Having developed a technique of pictorial 3D, he is at the forefront of the discourse exploring confluences in representation, photography, film and digital technology. Recent years have seen his work honoured with prizes and numerous solo exhibitions in Europe and North America. Recent shows include a retrospective at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Belgium, and the touring exhibition 'The Shape of Time', which travelled between 2007 and 2009 to the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Massachusetts; the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland; the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, University of British Columbia, Vancouver; and the De Pont Museum for Contemporary Art, Netherlands. Soren Thilo Funder (B. 1979) lives and works in Copenhagen. His works are formal investigations of the power relations of modern day society. He graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and The School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Previous exhibitions include solo presentations at Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Tranen Contemporary Art Center and Overgaden - Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen. He was represented at the 19th Biennale of Sydney, 1st Copenhagen Art Festival, International Biennial of Visual Art - "After The Future", 12th Istanbul Biennial, 2nd International Moscow Biennial for Young Art, Manifesta 8 - Parallel Events and 6th International Liverpool Biennial. YARAT is an artist-founded, not-for-profit art organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan, established by Aida Mahmudova in 2011. YARAT (which means 'create' in Azerbaijani) is dedicated to contemporary art with a long-term commitment to creating a hub for artistic practice, research, thinking and education in the Caucasus, Central Asia and surrounding region. YARAT comprises the YARAT Art Centre, ARTIM project space, YARAT Studios, YAY Gallery and an extended educational programme. YARAT Art Centre, a 2000m converted Soviet-era naval building, opened in March 2015 and is the organisation's main exhibition space. The exhibition programme features new commissions by artists responding to the region. It supports and provides access to artists from the Caucasus, Central Asia and surrounding region, while engaging and introducing established, international artists. The Centre is also home to YARAT's collection, which is exhibited in the space once a year. In October 2015, YARAT opened ARTIM, a central, accessible and dynamic space in Baku's Old City. ARTIM (meaning 'progress' in Azerbaijani) shows experimental practices and new work by emerging Azeri art professionals (selected through open call) and the international artists from the residency programme. It features 12 small-scale projects each year. YAY Gallery is a commercial gallery that opened in 2012 in order to further support arts infrastructure in Azerbaijan. The gallery shows mid-career and established Azerbaijani artists both locally and abroad. Yay (meaning "share" in Azerbaijani) shares all proceeds from sales of work between the artists and YARAT. In 2016 YARAT launched a renewed residency programme. Aimed at developing young Azerbaijani voices and emerging international artists, the focus is on new, innovative practices and artists with an interest in the region. The residency programme is based at YARAT Studios, which has 11 spaces for artists. Education has been at the heart of YARAT's activities since its creation. With a dedicated public programme, including workshops, lectures, screenings and a specific programme for artist residencies, YARAT aims to give access to broad audiences of all ages. The public programme invests proactively in building communities and nurturing a wider understanding of, and participation in, contemporary art. By Eric Barton Taking responsibility for failure is the hallmark of a great leader. Here's how to win when things go wrong. Right before the start of the America 's Cup World Series regatta in Oman in February, Sir Ben Ainslie had a tough decision. Ainslie the most successful Olympic sailor in history, with five medals is captain of the Land Rover BAR sailing team and has a penchant for come-from-behind victories. On the final day of racing in Oman in February, the winds were light. In the first two of three heats, Ainslie misjudged the winds and steered his yacht over the start line too quickly a fault of a mere 12cm the first time and 10cm the second. The penalty meant he had to let the other boats pass him. But the third heat changed everything. With the wind still barely blowing, Ainslie fought from third place to first, and the victory was enough for his team to clinch the entire event. Looking back now, Ainslie said theres a big reason his team managed the win. As captain, Ainslie was quick to take responsibility for the first two faults, and that meant his team could move on to the third heat without blame hanging over them. I could have had a group of guys looking at me in frustration. But we have guys who understand its OK to make mistakes, said Ainslie. My guys know, if you push and fail, it doesnt have to be the end. Thats not an easy task for most leaders. Admitting youre the reason something went wrong, owning up to the fact that your department or company failed is tough. But sucking it up, coming forward and learning from the experience is the hallmark of a great manager. Accepting mistakes Its human nature for people to want to take credit for what went right and shift blame for what went wrong, said Oliver Donoghue, managing director and co-founder of the Nonstop Recruitment Schweiz AG talent agency in Prague . In many companies, that creates a culture where nobody wants to take responsibility for fear of being punished. What you need to learn is that its not the mistakes that define you, Donoghue said, its what you do with them. Nearly every type of team has the same problem with taking responsibility when things go awry, said Jan Hagen, associate professor at ESMT business school in Berlin . Hagen has studied the reactions of different people from office workers to flight crews that are faced with stress. In cockpits, he found that crew members often wont report problems to the captain out of an innate anxiety associated with delivering bad news. In the business world, middle managers often keep their heads down when things go wrong, fearing that reporting a problem means theyll take the blame, Hagen said. Its never easy to admit to a problem, even in a great organisation, he said. The problem with this system of denial is that you lose out on the chance to learn from the mistake, Hagen said. Instead, after admitting to a failure, analyse what went wrong, which will help you figure out how to avoid it next time. When things go right, we talk about it and we learn from it, Hagen said. When theres a fear of failure in an organisation, people lose out on the chance to learn how a problem happened and how to avoid it happening again. It's crucial for managers to learn the right way to take responsibility for a setback, said David Rodnitzky, CEO of 3Q Digital, a media company in California . While admitting to the problem, offer up analysis on how it happened, what youve learned from it, and how youll avoid it from now on. That kind of analysis will help you survive the fallout from your superiors or stockholders. As well, admitting to the mistake will help you with your subordinates, Rodnitzky said. Blaming yourself for the mistake, instead of someone on your staff, breeds loyalty. Good managers will also learn that taking responsibility doesnt always include the successes, Rodnitzky said. When things go well, its time to give credit to someone else. Theres an old adage every manager should live by: accept responsibility and delegate credit, Rodnitzky said. Rejecting your ego Cristina Mariani-May recently experienced firsthand how difficult it was to admit she was wrong. Her family owns New York-based Banfi Wines, which has exported Italian wine worldwide since 1919. Since 1978, it has also owned a Tuscan vineyard. It was her father, John Mariani, who came up with the idea seven years ago of opening a hotel on their seven-acre Italian property. During a meeting in the Montalcino office they share, he suggested the company could run the hotel themselves. Mariani-May argued they needed to bring in an expert. Things got heated, and it seemed like there was no compromise. Mariani-May agreed to study the two options. Two years later, after checking with other winery owners, she came back to her father with a difficult answer: He was right. I had to swallow my pride, and I had to admit I was wrong, Mariani-May recalled. It wasnt easy, but once I took credit for making the wrong decision, we could move on. Five years ago the company opened Castello Banfi il Borgo, a privately run 14-room hotel on the grounds of a 12th Century castle. Since then, Conde Nast Traveler ranked it among the best hotels in Italy , and Fodor's Travel named it one of the 10 best wine country hotels in the world. It wouldnt have been possible, Mariani-May said, if she first hadnt admitted she made a mistake. Thats one of the assets of good management. Dont go into any big project with ego, and be ready to admit when youve made a mistake. /By Azernews/ Azerbaijans President, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Ilham Aliyev reviewed on June 13 a newly-constructed second degree border guard ship and a newly commissioned state-of the art high speed boats at the Shipyard and Repair Center of the Coast Guard of the State Border Service, Azertac reported. Chairman of the State Border Service, commander of the Border Troops, Colonel-General Elchin Guliyev reported to President Aliyev. The head of state watched a film about the activity of the border guard ships of the Coast Guard and viewed a stand reflecting the vessels` technical parameters. President Aliyev was informed that the new ship was supplied with the perfect navigation and radio communication equipment, state-of-the-art weapons, including missiles and rockets against weapons complex, day and night vision surveillance systems and hydro acoustic device. The border guard ship is equipped with high speed boat and is capable of carrying out service duties under the hard swimming conditions. It is 62 m in length. The ship has a helipad. The vessel will be used for the protection of state borders, production and transportation of hydrocarbon resources and the implementation of service duties to ensure the security of infrastructure. The head of state viewed the conditions created in the ship. President Aliyev then inspected the crossing of the border guard ships. Today, the Azerbaijani border service conducts operations in accordance with the requirements of new challenges of the modern era and is capable of resolving security issues at the highest level. Thanks to the reforms, the management system of the State Border Service has been improved, border checkpoints have been equipped with modern technical equipment, the material and technical base significantly has been strengthened, and the service and living conditions of the staff has been improved. The history of the national border service in Azerbaijan dates back to 1918. The Poylu border post was created for the first time in Azerbaijan on June 22, 1918. Azerbaijan has a 765 km border with Iran and 15 km with Turkey in the southwest, 390 km with Russia in the north, 480 km with Georgia in the northwest and 1007 km with Armenia in the west. Five members of the Jaish ul-Adl terrorist group have been killed by Iranian police, Tasnim news agency reported June 13. The group were about to carry out terrorist acts inside Iran, police spokesman Said Montazerolmahdi said. He said the terrorists were killed during a shootout in Khash city of Sistan-Baluchestan Province in southeastern Iran. The spokesman added that the police found the terrorists had been carrying huge amounts of explosives. During the shootout wit the terrorists, one Iranian policeman was killed. Jaish-ul-Adl, known to many as the army of justice in reference to its Arabic name, was formed out of the so-called Jundollah, another terrorist group dismantled by Iranian intelligence forces on February 23, 2010 after its leader, Abdolmalek Rigi, was arrested onboard a flight from the UAE's Dubai to Kyrgyzstan's Bishkek. Jaish-ul-Adl has claimed responsibility for a number of criminal activities in Pakistan and Iran in recent years. On February 6, 2014, the terror group abducted 5 Iranian border guards in the Jakigour region of Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan and took them to Pakistan. On March 23, the terror group claimed that it had killed one of the hostages named Jamshid Danaeifar. The other four were freed and reunited with their families two months after the abduction. On October 25, 2013, Jaish-ul-Adl killed 14 Iranian border guards and wounded six other in the border region near the city of Saravan in Sistan-Baluchestan. Bahrain authorities have started work on the North Town entrance roads revamp project (W-Link) being funded by the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development (as part of the Gulf Development Programme). The BD7.69 million ($20.2 million) project, which will cater to 5,000 housing units in the Northern Governorate of the kingdom, was awarded to Al Ghanim International Company and Haj Hassan Group (who will be in charge of implementation). It is part of the ministrys plan to provide quality infrastructure services across the kingdom, said Essam bin Abdulla Khalaf, Bahrain's Minister of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning, after inaugurating the project. The event was attended by Ahmed Al Khayyat, the Works Affairs undersecretary and Huda Fakhro, the roads assistant undersecretary along with the the supervising team of engineers from the ministry, the project consultant and representatives from Haj Hassan Group and Al Ghanim Kuwaiti Company. The project involves construction of a 1.2-km-long road with four lanes on each direction; connecting Janabiya and Budaiya Interchange to the North Town, he stated. A 135-m-long bridge will be constructed above the marine channel to provide a smooth traffic flow besides increasing the road capacity. According to officials, a building belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture will be demolished to make way for the project. The ministry is presently reviewing the final designs and documents for the project to construct an alternative building, they added. Also, the ministry has recently commenced work on a 2.2-km-long service road along Salmabad Avenue; leading to Road 1206 in Block 712 at the Northern Governorate. The project comprises levelling and asphalting works, implementation of a storm water drainage network and ground channels for future use besides construction of pavements, signage and painting ground markings. The BD309,713 ($814,755) project was awarded to Jahicon Engineering Services.-TradeArabia News Service Haya Water, a major government-owned water reuse company in Oman, is set to start work on its sewage treatment plant (STP) in the Liwa region by the end of this year, said a report. The company is presently evaluating the bids for the construction of the plant, which will boast a capacity of 10,000 cu m per day, reported Oman Observer. Liwa STP, which is likely to be completed in two years, will add a great value to the area by protecting groundwater, enhancing public health, preserving the environment and providing treated wastewater for plantation, productive agriculture and other industrial and commercial purposes, said the report, citing a senior official. The project will also include the establishment of an irrigation network with a total length of about 63 km. This network will be utilised for irrigation and other commercial and industrial usages, stated Said bin Rashid Al Asmi, the projects general manager in Haya Water. As per the agreement signed with the Ministry of Regional Municipalities and Water Resources in July last year, Haya Water will be responsible for the management, operation, maintenance and supervision of all wastewater facilities in the governorates of Oman except Dhofar. The signing of the deal marked Hayas first steps outside its core franchise in the capital city of Muscat. The company has also floated consultancy service tenders for constructing wastewater networks and STPs in Daba and Madha areas in the Governorate of Musandam. Dubai's Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) is set to start work on a new 6,996-sq-m Enterprise Command & Control Center (EC3) building to be built at a cost of Dh335 million ($91 million) ahead of Expo 2020. The RTA announcement comes following the endorsement of the EC3 model's design by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai. Sheikh Mohammed issued directives for the speedy construction and the timely delivery of this unique structure which will be capable of providing integrated management of mobility and public transport systems required for the Expo 2020, said a statement from RTA. The Dubai ruler also called upon the authorities to utilise the latest smart technologies, and ensure that the system remains flexible to accommodate and catch up with the rapid technological advancements. According to RTA, the centre features a design rendering it one of Dubai city landmarks. The building, which is branded EC3 consists of a ground floor and five storeys with a total floor area of 10,900 sq m. The new command centre will help the RTA to provide integrated management of mobility and public transport systems required for mega events like the Expo 2020. It will also ease traffic congestions, reduce transit time and cost, fend off traffic accidents, and curb environmental pollution through adopting smart planning in addressing transport challenges of the emirate, said the statement. The central control room covers an area of 430 sq m and rises 13 m in height. The facilities comprise office spaces, auditorium, press centre and four utility buildings, it stated. Mattar Al Tayer, the director-general and chairman of the board of executive directors of RTA, said: "The EC3 would conform to the green building codes and would be qualified for the Green Buildings Certification Gold Rating." The centre will act as a unified platform linking various control centers of RTAs operational agencies such as Dubai Metro, Dubai Tram, Public Transport, Taxis, and Traffic Systems Control Centers with an integrated central control unit." "Such a unit will be linked with all its agencies in the initial phase, and with all external entities associated with the business of RTA later on," stated Al Tayer. The centre will be the first of its kind in the Middle East in controlling, integrating and co-ordinating various transit modes besides undertaking sound planning of various mobility challenges for RTA," noted Al Tayer. It will also prop up RTAs efforts towards transforming Dubai into the smartest city worldwide in the field of transport, he added.-TradeArabia News Service Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, maker of everything from submarines to nuclear reactors, is seeking to cut costs at its steel-making equipment venture with Germanys Siemens AG in the face of a contracting market, said a Bloomberg report. Primetals Technologies Ltd., 51 per cent-owned by the Japanese company, faces intensifying competition due to a glut of steel on world markets. The venture, formed in January last year by the merger of Mitsubishi Heavy and Siemens units, will speed up integration as its reviews overlapping production and engineering sites, said executive vice president Kazuaki Kimura. Tough times will give us a chance to make a drastic change in the business structure, Kimura said at a briefing late Friday. Slower economic growth in China, maker of half the worlds steel, has cut domestic demand and forced mills to export their surplus, eroding profits worldwide. The global market for steel equipment contracted to 2 trillion yen ($18.8 billion) in the year ended March, from 2.4 trillion yen ($22.6 billion) a year earlier, according to the Tokyo-based company, which warned that its unable to predict when demand will pick up. Primetals is one of the top three producers of steel-making equipment with a global share of 11 per cent, according to Mitsubishi Heavy. Siemens 49 per cent stake allows it to sell products, such as electric furnaces and casting equipment, though Asia, including Japan, where the German company hadnt had a presence prior to the venture. Although partners in steel-making, the two firms compete in the power-equipment market, from which Mitsubishi derives about half of its operating income. The Primetals integration will involve about 1,000 job losses, cutting the workforce to around 7,000, Mitsubishi Heavy reiterated Friday. While the Japanese company expects mid and long-term growth in the steel-making equipment market, its unable to foresee when the rebound might occur, Kimura said. Steel is the foundation of industry and undeveloped and developing countries will need the metal. Well await for a recovery of the market, he said. The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) secretary-general Emeritus, Efthimios E Mitropoulos, will be joining the prestigious line-up of international judges for the 14th edition of the Seatrade Maritime Awards Middle East, Indian Subcontinent & Africa 2016, in Dubai, UAE. The event will be held on October 31, at the Atlantis the Palm. The IMO has long been involved with the Seatrade Awards, both in London and Dubai. The inclusion of Mitropoulos further cements the importance of this awards programme for the maritime and shipping industry and the integrity of the judging procedure throughout the process, said a statement. The judging panel for 2016 will be chaired by Joe Brincat, vice president, Middle East region, ABS, who is also a veteran to the industry and well respected amongst his peers and colleagues, it said. Brincat said: This years judging panel is a testament to the importance of these awards. Amongst them are some of the key leaders in the industry who are dedicating considerable time and effort to ensure the rigorous judging process is adhered to with an end result of rewarding winners with the highest acknowledgement possible in the region. The judging panel includes: Dr Nabeel bin Mohammed Al-Amudi, president, Saudi Ports Authority; Capt Abdulla Al Khanji, CEO, Qatar Ports Management; Eng Abdullah Al-Sulaiti, managing director, Nakilat; Shaikh Daij Bin Salman Al Khalifa, chairman, ASRY; Rene Kofod-Olsen, CEO, Topaz Energy and Marine; Gary Lemke, executive vice president, Abu Dhabi Ports; Vivek Seth, CEO, Halul Offshore Services Company. The technical and operational judges include: Mitropoulos from (IMO); Ashik Subahani, chairman, RINA UAE branch, and managing director, Great Waters Maritime; and Katharina Stanzel, managing director, INTERTANKO. The Seatrade Maritime Awards, held as part of the Dubai Maritime Week which is under the patronage of HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, are considered the regions premier maritime awards. Record numbers of guests are expected as the evening also falls on the first night of Seatrade Maritime Middle East exhibition and conference and as part of Dubai Maritime Week, it added. TradeArabia News Service Post- rock isnt a dirty word, we promise. While being a genre that might summon certain cliches, it also is constantly is expanding and exploring new concepts within and outside the genre. On June 13th at Burts Tiki Lounge, four bands will take ABQ to task, hoping to demolish eardrums and egos. Shoegaze, doomegaze, ambient, post-metal, metal, math-rock are a few genres that come to mind when trying to describe what might be seen this night. It should be noted that all bands are trios A Film in Color hail from New Jersey with a live instrumental soundtrack experience that is beautiful, but can leave you feeling like you fell into a hole. Maybe you want to keep falling. Glasir will make their way in from Texas and deliver their own brand of doomgaze, post-metal and post-rock. Votives is self-describe as a mix of Slayer and Enya with the backline of a 70s country band. Ambience, feedback, and aggression abound. Crttrz has a penchant for making your head spin with fast riffing and faster finger-tapping. A Film in Color and Glasir will soon be releasing Vinyl through the Switzerland-based label, Elusive Sound. Fight your way through a sleepy Monday to find dream, drone, and feel like you are in a movie. https://afilmincolor.bandcamp.com/ http://glasir.bandcamp.com/releases https://everythingisvotive.bandcamp.com/ https://crttrz.bandcamp.com/ Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Steel, the only integrated steel plant in the UAE, in collaboration with Agthia has rolled out phase one of its 2016 corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative during the Holy month of Ramadan. The initiative, named We Give You Smile, is designed to help needy families in the UAE during Ramadan, said a statement from Emirates Steel, owned by Senaat. In line with the spirit of unity and as part of this campaign, the company has engaged its staff to distribute conveniently packed boxes of essential Ramadan food items to families across the country, it said. The aim of this campaign is to strengthen Emirates Steels relationship and interaction with the community and give back to those who are most in need which will contribute towards cementing the values of giving, solidarity and cooperation between the companys staff and society, it added. The company by activating such CSR initiatives further enhances cooperation between various sectors for the benefit of the public, and reflects the Holy month spirit to give to the less fortunate and improve their lives. The food packages contained basic food items used usually during the month of Ramadan and are enough to provide for a full month, said a statement. The We Give You Smile initiative aims to engage with the community and add happiness to peoples lives. It will tackle social, human and educational issues with activities that intend to give back to the community and help improving the quality of life for needy people, it stated. Saeed Ghumran Al Remeithi, CEO of Emirates Steel, said: Our company is committed towards supporting the empowerment of families and society, promotion of stability, maintenance of the social fabric and protection of its integrity, our CSR initiatives aim to contribute towards the development process of the community throughout the country. This years initiative targeted Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and next year we are planning to reach out for more families across the whole country. I would like to thank Agthia for their contribution to the project and look forward to welcoming more partners on board, he added. TradeArabia News Service Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince will fly to the US on Monday for meetings with US President Barack Obama, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and senior officials, Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported. The visit of Mohammed bin Salman, in charge of an ambitious plan to revamp the economy of the world's top oil exporter, comes amid a diplomatic row with the United Nations and policy differences with the United States over the war in Syria and Iran's role in the Middle East. Prince Mohammed also plans to travel to California where he is expected to meet company executives in Silicon Valley, the newspaper said. The royal court said in a statement late on Sunday that the prince would discuss the strengthening of relations with the US. It did not specify who he would meet during the three-day visit. Saudi Arabia, a leading supporter of Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Al-Assad, has been critical of what it sees as foot-dragging by Washington over efforts to end the conflict. It has also urged Obama to take a tougher stand on what Riyadh sees as Iranian meddling in the affairs of Arab states. Iran denies such interference. Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Saudi sources as saying that Prince Mohammed, who is also defence minister, would start his visit in New York, where he was expected to meet the UN chief on Monday. Ban said last week that Saudi Arabia had exerted "unacceptable" pressure on the world body after a UN report blacklisted a Saudi-led military coalition for killing children in Yemen, a charge denied by the kingdom. The prince would then meet Obama as well as Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Washington, the newspaper said. - Reuters If Britons vote to leave the European Union in a June 23 referendum it could be the beginning of the end for the 28-nation bloc and for western political civilisation more generally, European Council President Donald Tusk said. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Tusk said a so-called Brexit vote would provide a major boost to radical anti-European forces who he said would be "drinking champagne". "Why is it so dangerous? Because no one can foresee what the long-term consequences would be," Tusk said. "As a historian I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilisation in its entirety." Everyone in the EU would lose out economically if Britain left, Tusk said. "Every family knows that a divorce is traumatic for everyone. Everyone in the EU, but especially the Brits themselves, would lose out economically," he said. The latest polls show Britons are almost evenly split over whether to stay or go. Although he expressed hope that the EU would survive in the event of a Brexit, Tusk said the price would be high. Ulrich Grillo, head of Germany's BDI industry association, said on Monday that businesses in Europe's largest economy did not want Britain to leave the EU, adding that his message to Britain was: "Stay in". A survey published last week showed that almost two-thirds of German companies are uncertain what the effect of Britain leaving the EU would be on their business. - Reuters Saudi Arabia has kept its crude oil production steady in May, a sign that the world's biggest oil exporter does not plan to flood the market to gain more market share. Saudi Arabia's crude oil production in May was 10.270 million barrels per day, an industry source told Reuters on Monday. This compares with 10.262 million in April, according to Opec. But crude supplied to the market in May was higher than production at 10.450 million bpd, the source said. Supply to the market, both domestically and for export, may differ from production depending on the movement of oil in and out of storage. Saudi-based industry sources told Reuters in April that the kingdom's oil output may edge up close to record highs during the hot summer months to meet domestic power demand but is unlikely to be pushed to the limit. The sources said production would likely stay at 10.2-10.3 million bpd and could rise by some 200,000-300,000 bpd in the hot summer months to around 10.5 million bpd, if there was demand for it. The kingdom pumped 10.56 million bpd, a record, in June last year. Riyadh effectively scuppered plans for a global production freeze aimed at stabilising oil markets in April. It said then that it would join the deal, which would also have involved non-Opec Russia, only if Iran agreed to freeze output. Tehran argues it should be allowed to raise production to levels seen before the imposition of now-ended Western sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme. This raised fears that failure to reach any deal would prompt Saudi Arabia, Opec's largest producer, already pumping near record highs, to raise production further to punish rivals and gain additional market share. But in a shift in oil thinking, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies had tried to propose Opec set a new collective ceiling earlier this month in an attempt to repair the exporting group's waning importance and mend fences within the organisation. The June 2 meeting ended with no new policy or ceiling amid resistance from Iran. Despite the setback, Saudi Arabia, led by its new Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih, showed it wanted to be more conciliatory with Tehran and promised not to flood the oil market. -Reuters Global industry leaders, experts, and decision makers are gearing up for what is anticipated to be the largest Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec) yet as organisers reveal another milestone for the worlds most influential oil and gas event. The Adipec Technical Conference Programme received a total of 2,775 proposals for this years edition of the event, marking a 22 per cent increase from last year, and once again breaking all known records for the number of submitted abstracts in the oil and gas industry, said a statement from Adipec. Technical papers came from 571 organisations across 71 countries, with more than half of submissions from outside the Middle East, underlining Adipecs expanding international reach and its worldwide recognition as the global meeting place for knowledge-exchange in the energy sector. It is anticipated that this years edition of Adipec will be the largest event to date. The Adipec 2016 technical committee, which is comprised of 140 industry leading experts, convened on 22nd May, where 717 quality abstracts were selected following a thorough and rigorous selection process across ten technical categories, representing an acceptance rate of nearly 26 per cent. Sharing industry best practice, knowledge, research, and innovation has never been more important and critical to the industry than it is today, said Fareed Abdulla, senior vice president North East Bab (NEB) Asset at the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations Ltd (Adco), Adipec 2016 Technical Conference chairman, and SPE Middle East Board chairman. The energy sector is currently witnessing a transformation marked by a special focus on efficiency, and stakeholders recognise they need to adapt both their business strategies and on-the-ground implementation to survive. Every year, we not only see an increase in the number of submissions, but also in the quality of papers we receive making the Adipec Conference Programme truly the go-to event for the latest developments in the world of oil and gas. Held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, Adipec 2016 will take place from 7-10 November, and is hosted by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), organised by dmg events Global Energy, and supported by the UAE Ministry of Energy. The Adipec Technical Conference Programme, organised by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), is now one of the largest events focusing on the energy sector, attracting technical engineers from the worlds leading national and international oil companies and service companies, and key decision makers from across the industry. Ali Khalifa Al Shamsi, CEO of Al Yasat Petroleum Operations Company and ADIPEC 2016 Chairman, said: Energy plays a central role in the development of the economy, and with global demand set to increase by one-third over the next two decades, there is a pressing need to create long-term strategies that promote safe and reliable access to energy. The high-level academic discussions that will take place during the Adipec Conference Programme have the potential to shape policies that will pave the way to a sustainable energy future. The overall theme for this years conference is Strategies for the New Energy Landscape, and the event will explore regional and global views, with more than 700 speakers and 8,500 delegates from both technical and non-technical functions within the oil and gas industry. Christopher Hudson, President dmg events, Global Energy, said: The ADIPEC Conference Programme addresses all the different specialties and sub-specialties in the energy sector, enabling industry professionals to acquire valuable information for every aspect of their business. The growing international participation in this comprehensive forum is testimony to the markets thirst for knowledge that will allow organisations to thrive in todays dynamic business environment. The 2016 edition of the Adipec Conference Programme will feature two Ministerial Sessions, 3 Global Business Leader Sessions, 8 Panel Sessions, 5 VIP Briefings within the Middle East Petroleum Club, 3 Breakfast Sessions, and 3 Luncheon Sessions that will tackle some of the most imminent topics in the energy sector. Taking place in a purpose-built waterside theatre, 8 Offshore and Marine sessions will look at industry-specific topics ranging from developing offshore oil and gas fields to new technologies and enhancing safety. Adipecs acclaimed Women in Energy conference will also be back this year to address the challenges and opportunities for women professionals in the industry. The technical categories that will be covered within the Adipec 2016 Conference Programme are: E&P Geoscience, Unconventional Resources, Field Development, Drilling and Completion Technology, Projects Engineering and Management, Operational Excellence and HSE, Gas Technology, Offshore and Marine, and People and Talent. --TradeArabia News Service Tuesday support meetings Alcoholics Anonymous: 6:30 a.m., 917 N. Beech; 10 a.m., 328 E. A St.; noon, 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 5:30 p.m., 456 S. Walnut; 7 p.m., 520 CY Ave., Quick Fix (in back, basement); 7 p.m., 500 S. Wolcott, Ste. 200; 7 p.m., Edgerton, 763 Center St.; 7:30 p.m., Douglas, 628 E. Richards; 8 p.m., 917 N. Beech. Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are open. Casper info: 266-9578; Douglas info: (307) 351-1688. Narcotics Anonymous: Noon, 500 S. Wolcott, 12-24 Club; 7 p.m., 15th and Melrose, at the church. Web site: http://www.urmrna.org. Flag Day ceremony The Natrona County United Veterans Council and Casper Elks Lodge #1353 will conduct a joint Flag Day ceremony on Tuesday, June 14, in the Tom Walsh Chapel, Wyoming State Veterans Cemetery at 11 a.m. Ron Shogren will emcee the program and Chuck Walters, chaplain of the Elks Lodge, will take part. This program is both patriotic and informative. All are welcome to attend. Summer Camp at Nic, Science Zone Leonardo da Vinci: the Artist & the Inventor, will be presented June 14-17, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (9 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Nic, 1 to 4:30 p.m. at the Science Zone.) Educators will walk students from the Nic to the Science Zone. The camp is for 9- to 12-year-olds. For pricing and registration forms, visit www.thenic.org or call 235-5247. Community educator training In conjunction with the Wyoming Center on Aging, the Wyoming chapter of the Alzheimers Association is presenting a class to train volunteers to take information about Alzheimers disease back to their communities. After attending Training the Trainer: Alzheimers Instruction for Volunteer Community Educators, attendees will be able to present classes like The Basics of Alzheimers and Know the Ten Signs in their own communities. The Training the Trainer program will be held on Tuesday at the Agriculture Resources and Learning Center, 2011 Fairgrounds Road in Casper. The free class runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided and scholarships may be available to help defray travel costs. No prior experience is required, although participants are asked to take what they learn back to their communities and present programs provided by the Alzheimers Association. The Association programs include PowerPoint presentations, class handouts and teaching guides. Community Educators from more rural areas are especially encouraged to attend. Space is limited, so those interested should register soon at http://www.uwyo.edu/wycoa Those with questions can also call 307.766.2829 or 307.316.2892. Parkinsons monthly support Join us at 5:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at Rocky Mountain Therapy, 2546 E. Second St., Building 500, Casper. The support group is open to anyone with Parkinsons or caring for someone with Parkinsons. To RSVP, call 577-5204 and ask for Jerri or Shannon. The next meeting will be July 12. JACKSONInterior Secretary Sally Jewell and Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead announced a tentative agreement Monday to sell a $46 million state parcel inside Grand Teton National Park to the federal government, providing a potential conclusion to an issue that has frustrated state and federal policymakers for decades. The planned deal, announced on the sidelines of the Western Governors Associations annual meeting, still faces hurdles. Under the proposal, the Interior Department will contribute $22 million toward the purchase of the 640-acre parcel. The Grand Teton National Park Foundation and the National Park Foundation will raise the remaining sum through private donations. The pair have already raised $5 million. Mondays statements were nonetheless significant because they signaled new resolve by Wyoming and federal officials to complete a deal before a deadline imposed by state lawmakers expires at the end of the year. The Wyoming Constitution requires state lands be managed to generate revenue for local schools. Advocates of the transaction have warned Wyoming might be forced to sell the parcel to a developer should the federal deal fail, raising the prospect that houses or subdivisions could be built in the shadow of the Tetons. When you look at this parcel, you think about mansions, or condos, or parking lots, I dont think any of us feel great, Jewell said during a news conference at the Snow King Resort. Mead spoke in strikingly personal terms about the importance of completing the sale. The governor recalled driving cattle from the family ranch to a grazing allotment in the park as a boy growing up in Teton County. He didnt always appreciate those early mornings, but even then, Mead recalled, he grasped the uniqueness of the place. The governors grandfather, the former U.S. senator and governor, Clifford Hansen, had opposed the creation of the park, Mead said. I think about years after that. My grandfather made clear that he was on the wrong side of that. How he recognized that and how glad he was he lost that battle, Mead said. Not only did he recognize what it meant to him and his family, but the pride he felt being able to say people from all over the world come to Grand Teton. It is the rare person, the governor added, who comes to the park and doesnt develop a special connection with the place. Mead and Jewell expressed hope that in completing the deal for the property in Antelope Flats, they would be able to buy more time from the Wyoming Legislature to complete Washingtons purchase of a second state parcel bordering the Gros Ventre River. Antelope Flats, Jewell said, had been made the priority because it lies in the plains at the base of the Tetons. The two parcels price tag has long been the hang-up to any potential deal. Together they are appraised at more than $90 million. The Interior Secretary said the department would likely rely on Land and Water Conservation Fund money to complete the deal. That fund, financed by royalties on offshore oil and gas leases, goes toward federal land purchases, among other things. Critics have argued that the Interior Department has the money to finance the purchase. Jewell, in response to those concerns, said budgetary constraints prevented her department from paying the full price. The $22 million Interior is prepared to pay is many times greater than the value of in-holdings within other national parks. There are 2,000 acres of in-holdings across the country, she said, adding that other purchases will be forgone because of the Grand Teton deal. Mead noted the opposition to the sale within the state Legislature to the transaction. There is longstanding frustration at the state level after previous deals fell through, he said. Yet the governor said it was imperative for the proposal to reach the finish line. You want to do it, he said, looking at Jewell. I want to do it. We can do it. An oil and gas lease auction near Casper that stirred resident concerns resulted in only three of 12 parcels being sold. About 500 homes fill the area around Cole Creek Road that went to a Bureau of Land Management auction in May. Residents were worried about lower land values, oilfield traffic on residential roads, well placement and potential contamination of water wells, as none of the homes is on municipal water. There were protests against the sale filed by some environmental organizations, including the Wyoming Outdoor Council and Wild Earth Guardians. The objections largely centered on the proximity of potential wells to homes and on smaller acreage rural lots. Local resident Linda Ransom filed a formal protest. With the impact of oil and gas development, residents will be addressing horrific problems, she said. Round-the-clock noise, near-constant truck traffic at all hours, storage tanks, drums of toxic chemicals, inadequately remediated pits, noxious fumes, pipelines, poisoned wells and stock ponds, earthquakes, possible well blowouts, loss of night skies and very possibly disposal of waste on private property. This would be a constant and unbearable nuisance. At its public meetings, Bureau officials said there were safety regulations in place, but it was premature to address specific issues until a lease was issued and an operator submitted a drilling plan. All of the parcels come under federal split estate laws, where the surface ownership and mineral rights are separated. The Bureau did withdraw two of the westernmost parcels at the request of the city. The parcels were located in part of the proposed 6,700-acre Casper Ranch development, which may seek annexation into the city. Natrona County Commission Chairman Forrest Chadwick, while not objecting to the sale, noted with current horizontal drilling/fracking technology the well pads could be located outside of more populated residential areas. This is the second time the area has come up for auction this year. The first lease sale was scheduled for February, but it was cancelled on the day of the sale due to a snowstorm. Only one parcel was sold May 3, the day of the auction. The two other parcels sold the next day. Unsold parcels are available for purchase for up to two years. Moncrief Oil Inc., of Fort Worth, Texas, bought the lease for the 2,400-acre Parcel 54, which runs through a more developed southern portion of the Cole Creek subdivision, for $2 an acre. Moncrief is a family-owned oil and gas company that has operations in central Wyoming, including Natrona County and the Powder River Basin. West State Lands Inc., of Las Vegas, bought the other two parcels. Parcel 49 is a split parcel totaling 440 acres, on the easternmost end of the lease area, while the 720-acre Parcel 57 is in the far west of the lease area near Evansville. West State Lands advertises itself as a firm that acquires lease rights on public lands for average citizens, on an invitation basis, and then markets them to oil companies. CHEYENNE Federal lawsuits filed last year against Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations LLC and FedEx Ground Package Systems Inc. in connection with a triple-fatal collision that happened here on Interstate 80 have settled out of court. James Ednie and his longtime partner, Tanya Gooden, and Goodens adult special needs son, Cameron, all of Cheyenne, died in November 2014 after an out-of-control FedEx tractor-trailer with pup trailer struck the minivan Ednie was driving nearly head-on. The couple left behind their 11-year-old daughter, Jaide, who was not with them at the time of the collision. Ednie was well-known in Cheyenne for being an active advocate for suicide prevention in Wyoming and the full-time caretaker for Goodens son. An investigation revealed that the westbound tractors left front tire failed, sending the vehicle careening through the median near the College Drive exit. The tractor-trailer initially struck a minivan driven by 42-year-old Aaron Richard of Cascade, Iowa. He was taken by ground ambulance to CRMC, treated and released. The driver of the Freightliner tractor-trailer combination unit was 55-year-old Brian D. Kehler of Alpine, Utah. His passenger, 51-year-old Steven Marks of St. George, Utah, was in the sleeper berth of the Freightliner at the time of the crash. Both were taken by ground ambulance to Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, treated and released. After the collision, the tractor-trailer and Ednies Dodge Caravan came to rest locked together in the eastbound lanes. Ednie, 44, and Gooden, 41, who both were wearing seat belts, suffered fatal injuries from the collision. Goodens son, who was 23 years old, was seated in his wheelchair in the backseat area of the minivan at the time of the collision. He was flown to a medical facility in Denver, where he died the next morning. Goodens adult daughter, Alodie Gooden, and Ednies sister, Gina Cubillos, filed wrongful death lawsuits in the U.S. District Court of Wyoming less than a month apart on behalf of their lost loved ones. Alodie Gooden filed her lawsuit in March 2015, and Cubillos filed her lawsuit in April 2015. The complaints named Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations LLC and FedEx Ground Package Systems Inc. and were joined for potential trial. Federal court documents indicate that all attorneys in the case gave the court a verbal notice of a settlement in early April. On May 25, the parties filed a formal motion to dismiss the suits with prejudice, meaning they cannot be re-filed, saying each side agreed to pay its own attorney fees. Both lawsuits said the front drivers side tire of the FedEx tractor failed, causing the tractor and its two trailers to strike Ednies van. Two months before the fatal collision, the passenger side tire on that tractor also failed, the lawsuits said. That tire was purchased at the same time and thus likely from the same lot as the faulty drivers side tire, the complaints continued. Bridgestones tire was in a defective, dangerous condition at the time of its sale, they said. Both wrongful death representatives were seeking damages substantially in excess of $75,000, to be determined at trial, according to their complaints. The actual settlement amounts are confidential. While we cannot comment on the details surrounding the dismissal of these cases, we can reiterate our commitment to safety and our ongoing sympathy for those most affected by this tragic accident, FedEx Ground spokesman David Westrick said Friday by email. Bridgestone did not return a request for comment. Local attorney Kent Rutledge, who represented the company, could only confirm there was a mutually agreeable confidential settlement reached among the parties. Attorneys representing Alodie Gooden and Cubillos did not return requests for comment. Kehler, who was driving the tractor-trailer at the time of the collision, also filed a lawsuit in connection with the incident. His complaint, filed in August 2015, names Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations LLC and Commercial Tire Inc. as defendants. The document says Commercial Tire Inc. sold the two allegedly faulty Bridgestone tires to FedEx and installed them in August 2014. Kehler was employed by CLR Transportation and contracted to drive a FedEx tractor with two trailers, according to his complaint. The lawsuit says Bridgestones tire was in a defective, dangerous condition at the time of its sale and was unreasonably dangerous to Kahler, who was injured in the collision. Kahlers lawsuit says he has suffered emotional stress, shock, trauma and injury to his emotional well-being, all of which has caused, continues to cause, and in the future will cause him mental pain and suffering and emotional distress. The defective condition caused or was a substantial contributing factor in the plaintiffs injuries, it says, adding that Bridgestones conduct in marketing, distribution and sale of the tire was negligent. The case remains active and currently is set to go to trial nine months from now in March 2017. The State Loan and Investment Board is set to make final decisions on $8.8 million in grant and loan requests this week. The Wyoming Business Council board of directors supported providing full or partial funding for five project requests at a May meeting in Rock Springs. The members of the land and investment board will meet at 8 a.m. Thursday in room 1699 of the Herschler Building in Cheyenne. Laramie has requested a $2,685,750 grant as well as a $209,250 loan to build a 12,150-square-foot building that would house a vertical hydroponics manufacturer in the Laramie River Business Park. The project is expected to create 40 jobs in the next three years. The board recommended fully funding the effort. Alpine would like a $1,538,944 grant and $226,683 loan to buy 35 acres from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department as well as extend and upgrade an existing road and water main. The project is intended to improve fire suppression, system reliability and recreational lake access. The property has gained commercial attention, including from two breweries. The board recommended full funding for the project. Greybull, meanwhile, has requested a $1,260,000 grant for road and sewer improvements at its business park. By early June, 11 of 15 available lots were set to have been sold to five businesses expanding in the Big Horn Basin, and this is the last remaining commercial open space in Greybull. The board recommended funding $900,000. The Jackson Hole Airport Board seeks a $1,500,000 grant and $1,000,000 loan to build a pipeline and related improvements to move wastewater from the airport to the town of Jacksons wastewater treatment facility. The board recommended the full grant and a $500,000 loan. Cowley is looking for a $425,600 grant to expand its community center and add a commercial kitchen to expand the kind of events that can be hosted at both the historic log gym and the Rasmussen building. The board recommended funding $12,657, all that was left of the available funds, as a demonstration of its support for the project. VIENNA The world was a more peaceful place when a newly sworn-in President Obama pledged to aggressively pursue a global ban on nuclear arms tests. But as his term winds down, a working test-ban treaty remains a dream and some of Washingtons loudest voices are hostile. Seven years on, the Obama administration continues to publicly back ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Secretary of State John Kerry vowed late last year to re-energize efforts for congressional approval a move that the head of the U.N. organization created to enforce a ban says would lead at least some of the other holdouts to do the same. The U.S. needs to show leadership, treaty organization chief Lassina Zerbo said ahead of the 20th anniversary of the group. We need to keep the momentum on what President Obama said in 2009. But with Obamas days in office numbered, that appears to be a forlorn hope. His deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told the Arms Control Association last week that Republican control of the Senate had left the administration with no viable path forward for ratification. Sens. Tom Cotton and James Lankford argue that signing would allow U.S. rivals to cheat while diminishing Americas security in an increasingly hostile world. Zerbos organization had hoped that Kerry would come to events marking Mondays anniversary, prompting the foreign ministers of the four other permanent Security Council members plus Germany to follow. But Kerry decided to send his undersecretary for arms control, Rose Goettemoeller. And his five counterparts from the six powers that signed a nuclear deal with Iran also are no-shows. State Department spokesman Mark Toner says ratification is still a priority, adding Kerrys absence does not mean that Washington is no longer interested in the treaty. White House officials also say Obama still supports ratification and is providing substantial funds to the effort. Anti-treaty-minded Republicans rejected ratification 17 years ago under President Bill Clinton, with Senate approval falling far short of the required two-thirds majority. But there are also other hurdles. While Hillary Clinton is more likely to endorse ratification than Donald Trump, tensions with Russia and China, Mideast turmoil, terror threats and yet unknown future crises are likely to come first for either of the two. The treaty group already monitors the world for any sign of nuclear tests with a global network of sensing stations that pick up seismic signals and gases released by such events. But it cannot go on-site to inspect for tests. That can happen only if the treaty is in effect. And that will happen only if the holdouts among the 44 countries that are nuclear capable the United States, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan ratify. Treaty backers argue that the United States has nothing to lose by ratification because it hasnt performed a nuclear explosive test since 1992 and computer modeling now appears to make such live tests unnecessary. At the same time, North Korea, the only nation known to be testing, would likely have done so even if the treaty were in force. NEW YORK In the nationwide sweepstakes among federal jurisdictions to put Mexican drug kingpin and escape artist Joaquin El Chapo Guzman on trial, the place currently leading the pack is far from the border: Brooklyn. Justice Department officials in Washington still arent commenting on the closely watched decision involving seven prosecutors offices that have indicted Guzman on drug conspiracy and other charges. But two law enforcement officials familiar with the process told The Associated Press that its likely that if transferred from Mexican to U.S. custody in the coming months, Guzman would be sent to the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. Brooklyn, an office once run by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, has long been rumored to be the front-runner while Guzman has been vigorously fighting extradition, an effort that could drag out indefinitely. But wherever he ends up in United States, Guzman is certain to cause a media frenzy and present a security challenge that has bedeviled Mexican authorities. Last year, the boss of the cutthroat Sinaloa cartel escaped from prison for a second time using a mile-long tunnel, allegedly with help from crooked guards and spent several months on the run before being recaptured in January after a bloody shootout in the coastal city of Los Mochis. His apprehension, along with Mexican authorities decision to transfer him to a jail just across the border from El Paso in Ciudad Juarez, renewed speculation about a possible U.S. prosecution in one of the seven districts Brooklyn, Manhattan, Chicago, Miami, San Diego, El Paso and New Hampshire. U.S. indictments in those cities accuse him of overseeing a drug empire that poisoned American streets by smuggling countless tons of cocaine, heroin and marijuana via tunnels or secret compartments in cars, trucks and rail cars. In a move seen as aimed at smoothing the path to extradition, prosecutors in Brooklyn quietly revised their indictment last month to drop more than a dozen death-penalty eligible accusations of specific murders by his henchmen in Mexico, while preserving murder conspiracy charges that could still result in a life sentence. Around the same time, Mexicos foreign ministry said it had sought and received sufficient guarantees from U.S. officials that Guzman wouldnt be executed. Behind the scenes, its likely that prosecutors from all seven districts have lobbied the Justice Department to land Guzman. Officials would look to pick the one that has the best chance to ... put Chapo in prison for the rest of his life, said Jodi Avergun, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn who has held various high-level positions at the Justice Department. They know they only have one shot at this. In Chicago where a non-governmental crime commission has dubbed Guzman the first Public Enemy No. 1 since Al Capone prosecutors bring to the table a case against Guzman that includes the cooperation of twin brother traffickers who recorded a phone call with the kingpin in 2008 negotiating the price of a shipment of heroin. The U.S. Attorneys Office there also has secured the extradition and convictions of more than a half dozen cartel lieutenants. Weighing heavily in Brooklyns favor is vast experience prosecuting international drug cartel cases, Avergun said. Starting in the 1990s, the office has built several complex cases strong enough to convince distant governments in Asia and South America to extradite defendants now serving lengthy sentences in U.S. prisons. News reports out of Mexico have suggested Guzman may be open to coming to the United States in hopes of a plea deal that would rescue him what he claims are abusive conditions in his current lockup. The Arizona Geological Survey is conducting something akin to a going-out-of-business sale. The surveys new digs at the University of Arizona are one-fourth the size of its current offices in the old wing of the state office building on Congress Street, where it also operates a store that sells its publications, maps and Arizona-themed gift items. So everything must go. The Arizona Experience store, 416 W. Congress St., offered 30 percent off on items in the last week and additional discounts are planned weekly. The survey is also scrambling to find a place to archive its historical records and mineral cores after losing its state budget support in a consolidation proposed by Gov. Doug Ducey and approved by the Legislature. It will now become a center in the College of Science at the University of Arizona, which was not given an appropriation to fund it. It will have offices in the former Office of Arid Lands Studies at 1955 E. Sixth St. Arizona Geologist Lee Allison said he and his staff are going through a process of high-grading the stuff we have to have with us keeping only the necessary furniture and files. It is offering some of its archives to the geological community. The Geological Society of America, for instance, recently accepted a set of bound volumes of its publications that date to 1890. It paid for shipping, which is a big consideration for the Geological Survey, which was not given any money for the move. Materials from its Phoenix office are being boxed by volunteers for moving into storage at the closed Mining and Mineral Museum near the state Capitol. The mineral cores, which represent a record of geological exploration in Arizona, will also be stored there. Allison said the cores, when subjected to modern analytical techniques, have led to discovery. Examination of cores from oil exploration in the Holbrook area aided the discovery of potash deposits which are now being mined, he said. Allison said the UA has arranged for an additional 90 days to move those cores. Everything else must be moved by the June 30 end of the fiscal year. Were going to run out of time, said Allison. In two weeks, whats left goes into the Dumpster. This week, volunteers will load up 800,000 pages of mining reports, 10,000 maps, and 7,500 photos at the Geological Surveys Phoenix office, which is closing. They are also headed to storage at the mining and mineral museum, which was returned to the Geological Survey by legislative action this year, along with a mandate to refurbish the building and reopen it within two years as the Arizona Mining, Mineral and Natural Resource Education Museum. At the end of the night last Friday, as the comedian was finishing his set, Laffs Comedy Caffe owner Gary Bynum walked out of the showroom and went looking for his right-hand man Gary Hood. He didn't think the comic was very good and he wanted Hood's reaction. In the 28 years that they had worked together at Laffs and Bynum's comedy club in New Mexico, he had come to value Hood's opinion. "I came out of the showroom Friday and looked around for Hoodie," Bynum said. "Then I realized, he's not there." Gary "Hoodie" Hood died Friday morning at home of apparent natural causes after years of battling diabetes. He was 67. Bynum's assistant Kimmy Gabany discovered Hood at his home after he failed to show up for his regular Friday morning radio gig with The Frank Show on 96.1 KLPX, Bynum said. Hood was the face and voice of Laffs since 2008, when he came to work for Bynum. But Hood's relationship with Tucson went back to the 1980s, when he moved here from Los Angeles to work the regional comedy circuit that included Laffs and Bynum's club in New Mexico. He left Tucson in 1996 to manage a comedy club out of state, but returned when Bynum took back Laffs from a previous owner. Hoodie would emcee shows and sometimes do sets during open mic nights. In 2011, he co-headlined a show with national touring comic Matt Golightly his first headlining gig in decades, he said in a Star interview. Bynum said Hood developed an audience outside of Laffs with his weekly appearance on the popular Frank Show. But he developed lasting friendship with the stable of Tucson comedians that he mentored. Hood held weekly comedy classes for a handful of would-be comedians, teaching them the art of timing, how to write jokes and encouraging them along the way. For a stretch of time a few years ago, he invited his students to his home for a weekly home-cooked meal that was heavy on vegetables and fiber-rich foods like wheat pasta. "These boys eat so much fiber," Hood said at a dinner in 2013. "I tell these guys, 'You're eating like a 63-year-old diabetic'." Henry Barajas attended Hood's classes and the dinners and forged a deep friendship with his mentor. When Barajas moved to Los Angeles last year, Hood would call him on Sundays "to talk about life, comedy, politics, and comic books," Barajas said. Barajas last saw Hood on June 4, when they played a show together at Laffs. Barajas went on first and had to introduce Hood at the end of his set. "I told the packed crowd, 'Your next comic is the godfather of Tucson comedy, and he's my mentor and friend ... please give it up for Gary Hood'," Barajas recalled. "The crowd goes wild. He walks up to the stage, shakes my hand, pulls me in for a hug, and said, 'I love you, boy'." Tucson comic Josiah Osego described his relationship with Hood as being similar to father and son, and as such "we grew together, bumped heads with each other yet all that fell to the wayside whenever one of us needed help," Osego said. "In that way I believe that Hoodie not only helped to make better comics but I know for a few of us he helped us be better people." Tucson comedian Nancy Stanley recalled how Hood was especially hard on her during her first open mic shows. At one of her early shows in 2011, Hood lectured her "on the evils of exceeding ones stage time, which I then promptly did," she said. A few months later when she was hanging out at the club, Hood surprised her with an offer for a guest set that night. "Do you think I'm ready," she asked him. No, he told her, youre not. But I dont like this crowd very much, so youll be fine for them. Stanley has since become a regular at the club on mic nights and other events. "Youd walk offstage and into the booth and then you would know, from the look on (Hood's) face or the first words from his mouth if you had done a good job," she said. "Its going to be a long walk off the stage and past the booth. In a very real sense, I wont know what kind of comic I am without him." Arizona Daily Star cartoonist and standup comedian David Fitzsimmons shared the marquee with Hood over the years, mostly at charity events. He said Hood was always quick to accept the invitations, using the occasions to try out new material. "He would bring his notes and if (the joke) didn't work, he'd toss it on the ground and the audience would laugh," Fitzsimmons said, recalling that Hood always spun a good tale with the other comedians. "I think I believe none of his stories; they can't be true," he said, laughing as he recalled one story that Hood told about having kids. "I don't think he had any kids." Bynum said Hood had undergone several surgeries over the past year or more to deal with diabetes-related issues in his feet. Eight months ago he had to have the toes removed on one foot and spent time in a nursing home to rehabilitate. Services have not been announced, but Bynum said a memorial event will be held at Laffs at 6 p.m. June 26 a day that Hood had penciled in to hold a memorial for the late and beloved Tucson comedian Walt Maxam, who died in 2014, "He was going to do a memorial for Walt that day, and now we're going to do a memorial for Hood," Bynum said. Ben Nisbet called his mom not long after graduating from Oberlin College in 2003. Mom, what if Im not supposed to play the violin? This is all Ive ever done. Cynthia Nisbet didnt miss a beat. Ben, figure it out, she told him. He made a similar call two years later. Mom, I put my violin down for two years, and I cant go without it, he told her after spending those years playing guitar in rock and electronica bands in Ohio. He had to figure it out because hed been playing his whole life. He found out that that was what he wanted to do, so he did it, says his mother, who teaches math at Tucson Magnet High School. In the 13 years since, Ben Nisbet has learned to navigate the often choppy waters of being a professional musician. In doing so, he has carved out a career that has taken him from the opera house to the symphony stage, from Tucson rock clubs to local recording studios. He has toured China twice with a Tucson ballet company that he helped put together and was part of the True Concord Voices & Orchestra ensemble recording that was nominated for two Grammy Awards last year. I just never have really done anything else, says Nisbet, 36. In two weeks, he will be at the center of what could be his biggest musical challenge to date: hosting a 90th birthday party concert for Tucson arts philanthropist Dorothy Dyer Vanek with more than 60 musicians and vocalists and a trio of soloists. The June 26 concert, spearheaded by the St. Andrews Bach Society and True Concord, is expected to cost tens of thousands of dollars. Its as much as the society spent to put on its last two summer concert series, says Nisbet, the groups artistic director. Nisbet says his organization is reaching out to the community for donations and sponsorships. If hes nervous about making ends meet at the end of the concert he doesnt really let on. Its just one more thing for him to figure out. What were you doing at age 2? Ben Nisbet set his course on music at an age when most kids are in diapers. He was 2 when he started playing violin, following in the steps of his big brother Joshua, who is six years his senior. I just wanted to do whatever he did because he was the big brother, says Nisbet, who also has a younger sister. He begged his mom and dad, Jack Nisbet, to let him take a lesson. They agreed, thinking hed take a lesson and that would be that, his mother recalls. But the one lesson with his brothers teacher turned into a year of lessons, which led to his orchestral debut, at the ripe age of 3, with his brothers elementary school orchestra in Colorado. Jack and Cynthia Nisbet surrounded their family with music. All three, including younger sister Claire, took violin lessons, following in their fathers footsteps. Jack Nisbet had played violin throughout high school. Cynthia sang in the church choir. The family moved to Tucson when Ben turned 4. Cynthia Nisbet spotted a bumper sticker: Tucson Junior Strings builds orchestra players. She immediately thought of Joshua, but when she called Junior Strings Music Director Dennis Bourret, she brought up the idea of enrolling Ben. He said, Ive never done this before, but Ill try, she recalls. Ben Nisbet became the youngest violinist ever accepted into Junior Strings, which is no easy feat. Founded in 1969 by Bourrets wife Anna, the ensemble is now comprised of 10 orchestras with some 200 kids and has fairly rigid requirements. Among them: You have to be able to play and count notes, know the notes and understand sharps and flats. This is not a Suzuki approach that were talking about, explains Bourret, who has led the youth orchestras since 1971. I dont teach that way, and I have difficulty when they learn that way. Ben was technically capable of doing the stuff, and he seemed quite bright and eager to be there. He was a pretty precocious kid, a pretty bright kid. Nisbet was still 4 when he played his first Junior Strings concert. We had to put two phone books on the ground so that his feet could touch the ground when he was playing, Bourret says. Nisbet played with Tucson Junior Strings through high school and with the Tucson Philharmonia Youth Orchestra, the professional-level symphonic training program that tries to prepare students for college and music careers. Nisbet won that groups annual concerto competition when he was in high school, playing the very challenging Dvorak Violin Concerto. But when it came time to play the piece in a concert with the Philharmonia, its director at the time told Nisbet he had to learn a different piece; the orchestra wasnt strong enough to pull off the Dvorak, Bourret recalled. Instead, he had six weeks to learn the first movement of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Bourret knew Nisbet, who graduated from Salpointe Catholic High School in 1998, would figure it out. Hes that kind of player. Were talking talent here, says Bourret, who also worked with Nisbet on his college auditions. Hes the kind of person who wants to do something, and he knows he can, so he puts himself on it. Thats why he takes on these projects. Trying on new shoes After graduating from Oberlin, a selective liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Ohio, Nisbet put his violin on the shelf and hung around, playing mostly guitar in rock and electronica bands while he figured out his place in the world. I just kind of lived a different life for a little while, he recalls. I had played violin for 20 years or whatever it was at that point, and I was a little burned out on it. So I took a different path to see what it was I wanted to do. That path led him back to Tucson and the violin two years later to attend the funeral of a close friend. The family had asked Nisbet to play his violin at the service. The experience helped him reconnect with the instrument and made him realize how much he missed playing. Three months later, he moved home and quickly landed a spot on the Arizona Opera Orchestra. When the Tucson Symphony Orchestra was looking for a violinist the following season, he auditioned and won the job. It was just the beginning. I had already figured out by the time I started with the symphony that that was only going to be one part of my life, says Nisbet, who took on freelance work and taught violin lessons to help make ends meet on his TSO salary. Nisbet immersed himself in the orchestra, becoming a founding member of the local chapter of the American Federation of Musicians union executive board. He represented his musician colleagues in a pair of collective bargaining agreements for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra Musicians Organization. The binding fiber of my life is that I am really hyperactive, and I like to do a lot of things. Im not monogamous to a job, says Nisbet, whose hyperactivity was diagnosed as a teenager. He says that is largely why he has taken so many rewarding and diverse musical paths. Its also why when you see him at a concert you will rarely see him sitting still. He bounces from the stage to the audience, chattaing with audience members during intermissions. Its also why he can easily juggle many hats. A few years ago, that included playing with the TSO and True Concord, running a teaching studio with as many as 20 students and attending graduate school at the University of Arizona Fred Fox School of Music. In 2011, he raced between finishing his UA finals and packing for a tour of China with Artifact Dance, a company he formed with his now ex-wife, Ashley Bowman, and her dance partner, Claire Hancock. That was summer 2011, when he also took the reins of the Bach Society. The group performed the first concert of his first programmed season without him. For Nisbet, one venture begat another. He formed Kingfisher String Quartet, played in Bella Carita ensemble, and was part of True Concords 2015 album Far in the Heavens: Music of Stephen Paulus. He played the record release concert last Sept. 11 at Alice Tully Hall in New York City. The album was later nominated for two 2016 Grammys. (Ben) is always inside the music, and to me that is paramount, says True Concord founder and conductor Eric Holtan, who conducted the recording and the New York concert. He is not just playing the right notes and rhythms; hes into the music. Nisbet has also been a regular session musician in virtually every Tucson recording studio including WaveLab, Jim Brady Studios, Luna and Saint Cecilia. He has recorded with Tucson artists including Naim Amor, Tesoro, Ryanhood, Sweet Ghosts, Katie Haverly and The Aviary and, just this month, Run Boy Runs Grace Rolland. Some of those studio gigs have turned into live performances most notably with Haverly and Sweet Ghosts, with whom he toured last summer. Ben is a really amazing violinist, but he also happens to have great connections with a lot of other musicians in the community, says Saint Cecilia owner Steven Tracy, who has worked with Nisbet on recordings with a number of Tucson bands. Hes a connecting piece with other musicians in the community. He really approaches music holistically so he is not in love with just his own kind of music. He views things in big, broad strokes, Tracy says. Last fall, Nisbet left his seat on the TSO stage after nine seasons to take a behind-the-scenes job as the TSO orchestra and operations manager. I am part of the machine that makes it go, he explains. I wanted to have the opportunity to do it for a large organization with a $4 million budget as opposed to a $40,000 budget, to get the experience to see if that was going to be something that later on in life I was going to want to still be doing. I felt pretty satisfied that I had played a lot of the music I had wanted to play as a member of the orchestra, and I had accomplished a lot of things. So I just decided I wanted a different talent. The biggest challenge yet Nisbet isnt exaggerating when he says the Happy Birthday Dorothy concert June 26 will be his biggest artistic endeavor. It will involve more than 60 musicians instrumentalists and vocalists, including a pair of vocal soloists and a piano soloist. The concert was conceived by Holtan and planned out by him and Nisbet as a joint effort of St. Andrews Bach Society and True Concord. But the Bach Society is on the hook financially to pay the professional musicians and all other costs. Nisbet allows that its a big chunk of money, and the Bach Society, which has solid financial footing, could pick up the tab. But this concert is about much more than making ends meet once the stage lights come back on. We want it to feel like its a gift that comes from the community, that the community is showing the appreciation for what (Vanek) has done for the arts and charitable organizations, he explains. I want her to be able to have the experience of seeing something, receiving something that comes from everybody. Were hosting Christmas, but everybodys bringing gifts. Vanek has been a longtime, regular patron for years of the TSO, True Concord, the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, and Interfaith Community Services. The concert will be held at her church, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Oro Valley. The Bach Society launched a fundraising campaign called Give Dorothy A Gift in which donors can contribute anywhere from $25 to $500 in exchange for concert tickets and their names on a community birthday card for Vanek. The campaign in just a couple weeks old, and Nisbet says he is getting several calls a day about donations. (Ben) is the guy thats getting it done, says Holtan, who will conduct the June 26 performance. Bens the one thats seeing this through. COURT FORCES ROADS TO TAKE SHIPMENTS FOR PERSONAL USE Will Tucson thirsty ones get their cool beer this summer? A surge of hope thrilled through the breasts of numerous lovers of the amber bubble water when a telegram announcing that the federal court at Kansas City had issued an order compelling railroads entering Arizona to accept shipments of intoxicants for personal use arrived in Tucson. The information was contained in the following telegram from Schiller Brothers, who have recently been soliciting mail orders of intoxicants from Arizona and guaranteeing delivery: We secured federal court order compelling Santa Fe to ship by freight to Arizona. Your shipment forwarded yesterday. Will secure federal court order compelling Fargo express to transport goods beginning June 19. Notify your friends to send us their orders. Guarantee immediate shipment and deliver by freight. We are the only firm having this privilege. Schiller Brothers. It is hoped by Tucsonans who have been yearning for the sudsy stuff this hot weather that the information contained in the wire is gospel truth, but a lot more will be convinced when the shipments actually arrive and are safely delivered. The news of the federal court order appears to have escaped the regular news gathering associations. The Bisbee Review, however had the story Sunday morning, as follows: KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 10.The federal court today ordered the transportation companies to deliver beer and whiskey ordered from Schiller Brothers for personal use. This message was received last evening by the Review and if true, it clears up a great amount of advertising done by the Kansas City liquor firm and much other speculation indulged in during the past few weeks in every section of the state of Arizona. Judging from the brief message, received from Kansas City, the decision will affect all shipments of liquor for personal use into the state. The complaining company, some weeks ago, advertised for business in the state of Arizona and guaranteed delivery. They at once mandamused the transportation companies and, according to the telegram, the federal court granted the application. If the decision is as broad as it promises to be the transportation companies will have some definite court action to base their acceptance of liquor for delivery in the state. The Santa Fe officials, recently in Prescott, declared their line would not accept liquor until the federal court had decided the matter. Detailed information as to the effect of the decision is eagerly awaited throughout the state. The Star Sunday morning published an exclusive story to the effect that railroad attorneys in conference at Los Angeles had refused to take the risk of accepting shipments on their own initiative and would await a court order compelling them to do so. Apparently they were in ignorance of such an order as referred to in the story and telegram. None of the local railroad traffic officers in the city knew of the reported court order yesterday. If you go What: Drexel Heights Fire District babysitter safety training. Who: Youth from 12-16 years old. Where: Drexel Heights Fire District Station 401, 5030 S. Camino Verde. When: June 21 and 22 or July 12 and 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., both days required. How: Registration is $35, $25 for Drexel Heights district residents, at drexelfire.org/babysittng-training, by calling 883-4341 or visiting Station 401. The Arizona Daily Herald website reappeared Friday, this time being run by a former staff member of Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller. Timothy DesJarlais announced he had purchased the website domain June 1, shortly after he said he resigned from Millers office. DesJarlais and Miller reportedly filed complaints with the FBI last month about the Daily Herald, arguing someone named Jim Falken was sending emails to county supervisors and supervisor candidates requesting comment on Millers proposed road improvement plan as part of the online news site. The two previously said they hoped an investigation would determine the real identity of the person sending out the emails. Media reports suggested the Herald website may have been set up and the emails sent by DesJarlais. He had repeatedly used the pseudonym Jim Falken in an online role-playing game. After reporters questioned whether he was involved, the website was taken down. At the time, Miller said the fake news site was a political attack, designed to disrupt the business operations in her office and hurt her election chances. Miller said now that she has concerns about DesJarlais previous involvement in the website, but that he is innocent until proven guilty. It is not looking good for Mr. DesJarlais, Miller said Friday. Miller said she wanted to take her young staffers word at the time that he wasnt behind the emails, and warned him of the consequences when they filed an FBI report. On Friday, Miller filed another report this time with the Tucson Police Departments cyber-crime unit in attempt to find the person who sent the emails. County leaders have also requested the sheriffs and county attorneys offices to look into the matter. DesJarlais said he still doesnt know who was behind the first version of the website, but he has essentially ruled out everyone who has been publicly discussed, including a man named John Dalton. All I do know is that it is not John Dalton or Jim Falken, he said. The real owner still is a mystery to me, although I dont necessarily share Supervisor Millers paranoid view about a conspiracy to destroy her office. Registration information does show the site changed hands June 1, but the original registration information an address in Canada didnt change when DesJarlais reportedly purchased the website. The new managing editor says he doesnt believe Miller had anything to do with the creation of the website. Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller, to the best of my knowledge, has no involvement in the site whatsoever under its previous ownership, and to this day, she has no involvement in its content, creation or maintenance, said DesJarlais. In his decision to quit, the recent Pima Community College graduate and candidate for the Marana district school board said he wanted to get back into journalism. He said that since he has resigned from Millers office he plans to use the Arizona Daily Herald to work on journalism and blogging. DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. U.S. Air Force Reservists assigned to the 306th Rescue Squadron returned to from a four-month deployment to the Horn of Africa June 2. They were greeted by their families and members of the 943rd Rescue Group in the maintenance hangar here. The squadron did a fantastic job, said Maj. Anthony Alexander, 306th RQS commander. Our theater responsibilities in Africa were extremely complicated. As the ground force for the personnel recovery task force, we provided combat search and rescue and casualty evacuation to Department of Defense forces operating in an area the size of almost two million square miles. The terrain varied from 19,000-foot mountains to vast, unpopulated desert; thick jungle; and large cities to open ocean. The extremely long ranges between potential crisis areas required the team to be able to get to sites by parachute, helicopter, ground vehicles, or boats and required the pararescuemen to be able to treat multiple injured personnel for hours to days, he said. In preparation for the deployment, the squadron spent almost six months conducting advanced medical training and practicing shooting skills, parachuting techniques, urban combat tactics, technical rescue training, and combat integration with Air Force HH-60 helicopters and HC-130 aircraft, said Alexander. The squadron arrived for the deployment highly proficient and ready and it showed. The team saved six lives during the deployment, flew more than 500 combat hours, conducted 67 parachute deployments, and provided more than 2,600 hours of dedicated alert coverage, he said. I am extremely proud of them and glad they all made it back safely. Col. John Beatty, the 943rd RQG commander, said he is extremely proud of the sacrifices and accomplishments of this group of men and women and pleased to have them re-united with their unit and families. The 943rd Rescue Group is happy to welcome our deployers home from Africa, he said. The work they performed in support of on-going operations there is testament to the dedication and commitment of our reserve Airmen. As citizen Airmen, most of these men and women balance the unique requirements of a civilian career, a military career, and family. For most, this recent deployment to Africa was but one of a number of similar deployments since 2001. Layla Rodriguezs mother has been a mariachi musician since high school. Its been in my life for as long as I can remember, said the soon-to-be Pueblo High School freshman. Naturally, she also took an interest in the music. Rodriguez plays the trumpet and is spending her summer break playing music in the Sunnyside Unified School Districts summer mariachi program. The four-week program, facilitated by the Sunnyside districts musical directors, serves about 20 children from across the Tucson area, said Daniel Dong, the program coordinator and musical director at Lauffer Middle School. Mariachi has deep ties to the Sunnyside community, he said. The program seeks to deepen those ties with the rest of the community. Were hoping to allow students to really gain appreciation for mariachi music, he said. One recent morning, students from third to eighth grades filled the mariachi room at Sunnyside High School, where the program is being administered. The group is in its second week, and some students came to the program not knowing how to play musical instruments, Dong said. But now, the kids have about four songs in their repertoire. By the end of the program, the students will know six to eight songs, he said. Aneisa Jaure had never been in a mariachi group before, though most of her family members in Mexico are involved in mariachi in one way or another. I decided to do it so I can be like them, the soon-to-be fifth-grader said. She is one of the students who didnt know how to play an instrument. Aneisa picked the violin, which she said her mother also plays. When she returns to Gallego Intermediate 4-8 Fine Arts Magnet School for the new school year, she hopes to join its mariachi program. And maybe, she says, a career as a professional mariachi musician is in the future. Rodriguez, the new Pueblo freshman-to-be, said she plans to continue participating in mariachi when she advances to high school. If this experience can continue into a career, thats even better, she said. Former U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and Navy combat veteran and NASA astronaut Captain Mark Kelly are among several Southern Arizona political and community members who expressed sadness and concern in the wake of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, that left 50 dead and 53 injured. Giffords and Kelly, who co-founded the gun violence prevention organization Americans for Responsible Solutions, issued the following statement: "This is a sad and dark day for this country we all love. We want to say that this tragedy is unthinkable. But it is not. Once again, a mass shooting has torn a community apart. Make no mistake: Our country is in the grips of a gun violence crisis. It claimed at least 50 lives early this morning. It claimed 33,000 lives last year. Some will say that our nation must accept this as the new normal. Some will say that there is nothing we can do to make our country safer from gun violence. It's not true. We cannot let armed ambushes become the new normal in our country. We have to do better than this. And we can. We have to do more to ensure hatred doesn't find its evil voice in the crack of a gunshot. We are heartbroken that this attack allegedly targeted our countrys LGBTQ community as they celebrated Pride Month. We are incredibly grateful to the first responders who acted so bravely this morning to save lives and bring this horror to an end. We grieve for those taken and with their loved ones, and we pray for strength for the injured. Our hearts and prayers are in Orlando and with our fellow Americans in the LGBTQ community." Giffords was wounded along with 12 others during the Jan. 8, 2011 shooting at a northwest side grocery store in Tucson, six people were killed. A petition page has been setup on the Americans for Responsible Solutions' website where people can add their name to show support for stronger gun laws. "Tell Congress: Enough is enough, make our communities safer from gun violence by taking action to make it harder for criminals, terrorists, and the dangerously mentally ill to get their hands on guns," Giffords and Kelly said in a press release. You can find the petition at americansforresponsiblesolutions.org Here is what others had to say: "Tucson's heart goes out to the families and friends of the victims of this terrible tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire LGBT community and all of the people of Orlando. We must re-double our efforts to create a society where persons are not hated because of their race, religion, gender, sexual preference, or gender identity. And we must end the insanity of allowing weapons that serve legitimate purpose only in war, to freely roam our streets. All of America should weep today." Jonathan Rothschild, Tucson Mayor "This is absolutely devastating news out of Orlando, where an LGBT nightclub was targeted for a horrific mass shooting. Details are still coming in about this attack, but it is already confirmed as the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. We must stand together in this dark hour and keep the victims and their families in our hearts, but we must also look beyond this terrible moment and decide what we as a nation are willing to do to prevent hatred, gun violence and domestic terrorism. People have strong feelings on all sides of these issues -- but I believe there are sensible solutions we can pursue that both respect the 2nd Amendment and keep our communities safer."Ann Kirkpatrick, U.S. Rep. for Arizona's District 1 "My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families, and all those affected by the terrorist attack this morning in Orlando. While additional facts are gathered about the motivation behind this senseless and devastating carnage, now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S history, reports indicate that radical Islamic ideology played a part. At this time, our hearts are with all those mourning their loved ones and with the people of Orlando." Martha McSally, U.S. Rep. for Arizona's District 2 My heart breaks for the victims of last night's attack, for their families and for those in hospitals now facing a long road to recovery. This was an attack on the LGBT community during Pride Month at an iconic location for the community. Nothing could be more heinous. As our nation comes to grips with the fact that this was the single worst shooting attack in US history, I urge everyone to give law enforcement the time they need to do their jobs, and the families impacted the privacy they need in this unimaginably difficult time. Raul M. Grijalva, U.S. Rep. for Arizona's District 3 "Was it domestic terrorism? Let's not play games with words. If you're in that nightclub, you were terrorized. But absolutely nothing about this incident justifies taking some broad brush action against an entire class of people - muslims. And the fact that the guy bought his guns legally in no way diminishes the validity of our fight for background check legislation. Because you can't solve the whole problem with one legislative action doesn't mean you ignore taking the steps that you can." Steve Kozachik, Tucson City Council member for Ward 6 Last night, a tragic shooting took place in an Orlando nightclub which left at least 50 dead and countless injured. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims' families and friends and we pray for the speedy recovery of the injured. Islam teaches reverence for all human life. This is a time to pray and act to stop such senseless violence in our nation. Umer B. Shahid, general secretary and the secretary public affairs for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Tucson Chapter Shahid attached the following statement from the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA: "The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA urges calm after a shooting in an Orlando nightclub left at least 50 dead and 53 injured. Reports state that the shooter has died following a shootout with SWAT officers. The FBI is looking into whether this was an act of international or domestic terrorism. The shooter has been identified as Omar Mateen. This is really tragic and sad, said Dr. Nasim Rehmatullah, National Vice President of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA, Reverence for all human life is the essence of Islamic teaching. This is a time for prayers and efforts to stop such senseless violence in our nation. We pray for the speedy recovery of the injured and offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims." Tucson drivers have had almost three years to get acquainted with a traffic innovation known as the Michigan left. Also known as indirect lefts, the novel intersections do not allow drivers to immediately turn left from thoroughfares onto intersecting streets. Rather, they direct those drivers through the intersection and onto U-turn lanes that send them back the other way for a right turn. And yes, they were developed and are widely used in Michigan. There are two big ideas behind them: cutting down on both the time left-turners take away from other traffic movements and vehicle collisions, benefits with data to back them up (though the local story is a little more complicated thus far). There are probably traffic engineers that could explain Michigan lefts more succinctly and eloquently, but a traffic engineer this columnist is not. Pima County has two of these intersections currently: one at Ina and Oracle roads that came online in the fall of 2013 and cost about $5 million, and another at Grant and Oracle roads that was finished shortly thereafter. After the first debuted, the Star asked readers what they thought about the concept in action, and the response was overwhelmingly negative (roughly 80 percent of 425 respondents in an unscientific online poll gave it a thumbs down). (Theres another online survey accompanying this column, and wed like to see if attitudes have shifted at all since our last one). Two more such intersections are slated to be built along Grant over the next year, at Stone and First avenues. And a larger roadway project with similar functions is planned at Valencia and Kolb roads, the Regional Transportation Authoritys Jim DeGrood told Road Runner last week. There are also plans to install several more along Grant as the six-phase, RTA-funded improvement project proceeds. This reporters own unscientific and much smaller survey of motorists and restaurant-goers near the Grant-Oracle Michigan left on Thursday found several enthusiastic supporters; two people at nearby businesses who reported little, if any, impact on their operations; and one critic whose tune changed slightly when the logic of the intersections was explained imperfectly, but hopefully accurately, by yours truly. Hey, if it means less accidents, and its a proven fact that it helps, let it be, Benjamin Salcido said after finishing up a lunch at El Guero Canelo, just north of the intersection. However, his immediate reaction to the intersection he drives through regularly was that it was a complicated solution to a non-problem. A few tables over, Kitty Harris said shes gotten used to the intersections and thinks theyre an effective way to cut down on crashes, points that drew nods of agreement from her less-talkative lunch companion. An El Guero Canelo supervisor, Ismael Moreno, said the somewhat-more-complicated route those eastbound on Grant have to take to get to his restaurant has not impacted business, a point echoed by Michelle Frazier, co-owner of the Cafe Marcel creperie just south of the intersection. Ive had some people come from the east who find it really annoying. But has it inhibited business? No, Frazier said. Chris Fanelli, the owner of Sausage Deli near the intersection of First Avenue and Grant, said hes looking forward to the increased exposure for his business that may come as the east-west thoroughfares capacity grows. However, he also said the Michigan left set to be built in front of his shop could compromise one of the entrances. But however many entrances there are, his customer base will find a way to get to the business, he said. If people like it enough, theyll come back and plan their lunch, he added. The Michigan Department of Transportation, which oversees hundreds of the intersections, points to studies that show sizable drops in wrecks and improved traffic flows, as does the local RTA in its public presentations on upcoming plans. A handout on the Grant improvement plan touts a 42 percent decrease in signal wait times and a 30 percent decrease in injury crashes after Michigan lefts are installed. However, DeGrood told the Star there was a slight, statistically insignificant uptick in wrecks at the Ina-Oracle intersection over 2014, which he chalked up to the novelty of the design and wrecks at the entrance to Casas Adobes Plaza. Since then, adjustments have been made, and the turn into the shopping center now basically has a dedicated light, he said. Where there was unambiguous improvement, he said, was in north-south travel on Oracle, now unimpeded by those turning left from Ina. There is no time dedicated to left-turn phases at Ina, he added. All that time was redistributed to other movements. Theres only 60 seconds in a minute, and the more of that time you give to left turns the less time you give to the heavier traffic movements, he said earlier in the conversation. With the lessons learned at the first two Michigan lefts, as well as motorists growing familiarity with the concept, DeGrood said he expects the coming intersections to be designed better and be received better by the public. The traffic impacts of the soon-to-come Michigan lefts on Grant will also be closely studied, he added. Im not hearing the doubts now, DeGrood said. I heard doubts going into it, doubts that it would really improve things. If you don't see the one-question survey about Michigan lefts, click here to answer the survey. More than 700 Tucsonans stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the desert heat in a Fourth Avenue parking lot on Sunday night to remember the dozens of victims of the Orlando mass shooting. The first to take the stage was the nearly 8-foot Tempest DuJour. The current Miss Gay Tucson America quickly let her guard down as she let the friends and strangers alike know she had lost a friend in Orlando. "My friend, Eddie Sotomayor, grabbed his boyfriend who was shot and raced for the door of Pulse nightclub and was shot in the back and killed," said DuJour, also known as Patrick Holt, an associate professor at the University of Arizona. While DuJour mourns her loss, she told the crowd not to answer the horrific mass murder by allowing hatred in their hearts and seeing Muslims in a different light. "Religion did not kill those people. A crazy man with a gun did," DuJour said. The peaceful gathering started before 7 p.m. outside of IBT's Bar & Food, with a number of people carrying printed signs made by the group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Some people carried handmade signs, while others held glow sticks and small candles as they spilled into the street after there was no more room on the sidewalk. Tucson Police Department Police Chief Chris Magnus and University of Arizona Police Chief Brian Seastone walked with the crowds during the candlelight vigil. About two blocks of Fourth Avenue had a large police presence during the vigil, with TPD closing the street briefly to vehicles as well as the Tucson Modern Streetcar. City Councilwoman Karin Uhlich said the Tucson community was in pain again after witnessing such an attack on the LGBT community in Florida. "We know a particular brand of bigotry and hate but we are not alone," she said. "We are here together because we know that if we stand together ... we will prevail." She noted it was only a year ago that the community was celebrating the Supreme Court decision striking down state bans on same-sex marriage. Scott Blades, the executive director of Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network, said all of America should weep over the senseless loss of so many people. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire LGBT community and all of the people of Orlando. We must re-double our efforts to create a society where persons are not hated because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. And we must end the insanity of allowing weapons that serve legitimate purpose only in war, to freely roam our streets," he said. About a mile away, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community held a prayer service. Muhammad Akram Kashmiri, the president of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Tucson, condemned what her called "this senseless and horrific act of violence." Our hearts go out to the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in peace," said Kashmiri. Members were asked to break their Ramadan fasts and instead donate blood. Over 500 people crowd #Tucson Fourth Ave in a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of the OrlandoShooting. pic.twitter.com/VuYHSPVUBW Joe Ferguson (@joeferguson) June 13, 2016 Even though special master Ken Feinberg, who was in charge of the first federal Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, distributed $6 billion to the estates of those killed on 9/11 an average of more than $2 million to the nearly 3,000 victims the House of Representatives passed its new Fairness for 9/11 Families Act to allow additional claims for the deaths inflicted by the terrorists and set aside $2.7 billion for them. Candlelight Vigil The glow from a candle lights the face of Thomas Phelan as he holds a cup that shields it from blowing out before the start of a vigil in front of IBT's on North Fourth Avenue. The vigil was for the victims of the Florida nightclub shooting where a gunman killed 50 people and wounded 53 more. Panama Papers news has emerged with Brussels feeling very embarrassed at the moment, when talk in the policy palace turns to the next European semester. This is due to the fact that as of January 2017, the Presidency of the European Semester will be handed to Joseph Muscat, the Prime Minister of Malta who is a friend of Italys Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The two have been friends since 2013 when Muscat took office as PM and was elected to guide a questionable Labour government on an island that was under siege by the citizens and independent press. The cause of all this was not only the fact that in those three years the Labour government had been distinguished purely for selling passports to wealthy people, for the 650,000euro figure (even censored by Europe) ranks which hide very questionable figures from Russia, Azerbaijan and China- it happens in all business countries with this government, nor for having changed five Police Commissioners who apparently were not in line with the Prime Ministers demands, no, none of the above, the real reason that sparked the ire of the population and of the Nationalist Party, today lead by Simon Busuttil, is the discovery- thanks to the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)- of two further names in the Panama Papers list, one being the Minister for Energy and Health Konrad Mizzi and the other being the Chief of Staff Kheit Schembri. The news of the involvement of representatives of the institutional governments in the Legal & Mossack Fonseca list called The Scandal of Panama Papers has shaken the ground in the international institutions to the extent that the Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson has had to resign as he has been proven guilty of having hidden accounts abroad from his own citizens.He had more luck than English Prime Minister David Cameron who also hid accounts from British citizens and was demanded to resign by the Labour Party, he was forced to publish all his finances, but the English Prime Minister remains and is in a position of facing a possible Brexit which awaits votes in June, Cameron has to fight hard to resist and to not see a shocking victory on the anti-Europe front! However, all of this has not affected the morality of Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who manages to keep face and carry on as if nothing has happened, whether he faces street protests, interrogation from the media or a lack of confidence and demand of resignation from involved politicians presented by Simon Busuttil, the Leader of his opposition. There are Labourists and then there are Labourists, something we should think about. Not only that, the press from The Independent wanted to raise the question of Minister Konrad Mizzi in providing documentary evidence that shows that Dr Mizzis company in Panama had been transferred to New Zealand on 22nd July 2015 on the same day that Gasol sold its entire stake in ELETTROGAS Delimara, the power plant consortium, for a figure that according to financial experts who were interviewed by the newspaper, said would be worth tens of millions of Euros. Prime Minister Muscat, his Minister Mizzi and the Chief of Staff Schembri found themselves under accusation by government agencies who have threatened them with lawsuits instead of responding to this and to other questionable happenings which occurred in other business, a coincidence that the Maltese Government has done in these three years of government with foreign countries and companies. The popular resentment also involves representatives of the Labour Party, historical figures and Maltese personalities who all demonstrated to the Prime Minister expressing the desire for moral enlightenment and transparency within the country- none of which happened! Indeed the Prime Minister clearly saw it fit to change the Police Commissioner (five in three years) and was guilty of only having listened to the publics requests for an open investigation for the sake of money laundering and tax evasion. This occurs in Malta because the power of investigation is in the competence of the Police, which in turn depends on the Government, and as in the countries where there is not a full democracy, rulers are not legally prosecuted, even in obvious cases like this! In this regard, Simon Busuttil, Leader of the opposing party is also thinking of giving the citizens a referendum in order to change the current situation and make the Governments Independent Police under the control of a Warranty Organ made up of magistrates, lawyers and praiseworthy Maltese personalities. The severity of the internal Maltese situation is also mirrored in the world of finance, with involvement of members of the Government in the Panama Papers Scandal, financial operators and professionals, seeing Malta going back in to a sort of Black List, after which the tax and regulatory compliance charged at entry into the European Union, managed to recreate an intertwining transparency in international finance, they are now experiencing uncertainty in the financial world, which in the face of these facts, requires a necessary new line in politics. The institutions in Brussels are asking Prime Minister Joseph Muscat the same question, particularly in the view of the 2017 European semester, it is inappropriate to have the semester lead by a country that has a delegitimized government filled with financial scandals! The stability of the future European Union also passes on feelings of mistrust and immorality to citizens, hence demanding that Joseph Muscat draw up the consequences facing the politicians involved, banishing them from Maltese institutions, requiring them stand in front of the public again and be re-elected at the end of 2016 to be reinvested according to the faith of the Maltese people. Only such a thing would be credible and would present Malta as a President for the new European semester in January 2017! Euclid is a mission from the European Space Agency (ESA) intended to study the hidden nature of dark matter and dark energy. This plan of the mission was proposed first in 2007 and then selected in ESAs Cosmic Vision programme in 2011. Its planned to be launched in 2020 and will be placed at an orbit around earth at langrangian point 2 (L2) 1.5 million km from earth. Euclid This Spacecraft from ESA will be equipped with a telescope 1.2 meters in diameter, which will give functionality to two Science instruments; a camera in the visible light spectrum and a near infrared camera/spectrometer. The mission will extend for six years, during which two billion galaxies will be analyzed in 3-D, including the dark matter and dark energy associated within them. What is dark matter? This type of mater is hypothesized to account for an approximate quantity of 27% of the observable universe. It does not emit nor interact with electromagnetic radiation, thus its not visible. Although even the advanced telescopes cannot see dark matter, its existence is deduced by its interaction with gravity. Its believed that after the Big Bang, the universe was expanding, although slowly and the dominating force, gravity, became weaker as the masses in the universe became farther and farther apart. The weakening of gravity in the universe gradually allow this hidden constituent (dark matter) to begin to appear, although invisible, dark matter is forcing the universe to expand. What is dark energy? Dark energy is an unknown form of energy that abounds in all space and is driving the acceleration and expansion of the universe. Its been estimated that dark energy accounts for approximately 68% of the total energy in the universe. The calculated form of dark energy is the cosmological constant, which is the value of the density of this energy in empty space. Studying the motions, locations and structures of 2 billion galaxies across most of the universe, with the aid of this mission, may allow scientists togather sufficient data to understand the presence of dark matter and dark energy. The accuracies of these measurements will help solve one of the biggest mysteries of the universe. The maximum number of bike locker waitlists a student or staff member may be on at the same time is four waitlists. Parking Services will contact you via e-mail once a bike locker is available. Failure to respond to a waitlist offer will result in removal from the waitlist. Should space be available at the time of submitting a waitlist application, Parking & Transportation Services will advise. If your first choice locker is offered to you, your other waitlist requests will become void. If your second choice locker is offered to you, your first choice request will remain active. Notice Regarding Collection, Use, and Disclosure of Personal Information by the University Your personal information is being collected under the authority of The University of Manitoba Act. The information you provide will be used by the University for the purpose of a waitlist request. Your personal information will not be used or disclosed for other purposes, unless permitted by The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). If you have any questions about the collection of your personal information, contact the Access & Privacy Office (tel. 204-474-9462), 233 Elizabeth Dafoe Library, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2. In 2012 the US Preventive Services Task Force released recommendations against prostate specific antigen (PSA) based screening for prostate cancer, but did not fully address screening via digital rectal exam (DRE). As such, many practitioners continue to perform DRE in attempts to identify men with clinically significant prostate cancer (CSPC). This study seeks to determine the value of DRE in detecting CSPC in the era of PSA-based screening. Data from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Screening Trial, a nationwide population-based study evaluating cancer screening programs and their impact on cancer mortality, was analyzed for PSA, DRE, and cancer status. In the screening arm of the PLCO, 38,340 men received annual PSA and DRE examinations for the first three years. Those with an abnormal test result were referred to their individual care provider for biopsy. The ability of DRE to detect CSPC, defined as intermediate risk or higher based on National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines and age 75, was evaluated in the context of both normal and abnormal PSA. 5,064 men had abnormal DRE in the setting of normal PSA, of which 99 (2%) were diagnosed with CSPC. When both PSA and DRE were abnormal, 218 (20%) participants were diagnosed with CSPC (RR = 2.06 [1.78-2.39] versus abnormal PSA alone). DRE screening in the setting of normal PSA captured an additional 2% of men with CSPC. This incremental gain suggests that routine DRE screening subjects a large number of men to invasive, potentially uncomfortable examinations for relatively minimal gain Key Limitations: Our conclusions are based on data derived from the PLCO study which has been criticized on the basis of inconsistent biopsies following positive screening tests, lack of end of study biopsies to determine population disease burden, and low numbers of black men. Current medical research and opinion. 2016 Jun 04 [Epub ahead of print] Tao Cui, R Caleb Kovell, Ryan P Terlecki a Department of Urology , Wake Forest School of Medicine , Winston-Salem , NC , USA., b Department of Urology , University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia , PA , USA., a Department of Urology , Wake Forest School of Medicine , Winston-Salem , NC , USA. PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27264113 Promoted by Madhava Reddy, the 'Namotel achhe din' is unequivocally the cheapest smartphone phone in the world at Rs 99. The promoters have revealed all the significant details about the phone. Sporting a 4-inch screen, Namotel will run on Android 5.1 (Lollipop). The phone consists of a 1.3 GHz quad-coreprocessor along with One GB RAM. Anticipating a huge demand for this phone, it will be available for booking from May 17-20, 2016. Further, to our surprise, you can also order the phone, and it will be delivered at your doorstep after you pay the reasonable delivery charge. Apparently, the website of the company Namotel.com showed that there has been a huge price-cut from the original price of the smartphone. Price has been dropped down from a modest INR 2999 to a mere 100 INR. The company website is also displaying a message which says,We make this product to show love for India it is a Make in India Initiative. This smartphone is limited, and it is applicable only for Indians who holds Aadhar identity. Only Indian citizens having an identity proof can buy this device. The company has also informed that the picture shown on the website is for display purpose only. Steps to book the device online: Register at official website Namotel.com. Pay Rs. 199 as registration fees. Upload a photo and then the Aadhar number copy. Click 'Register' Button.A confirmation email will be sent The mobile also includes a shipping cost of RS. 150. A brief mention of the features of 'Namotel'-3G Smartphone. 2MP rear and 0.3 MP front Dual Sim. 1325 Mah Battery. Plastic housing available in white & black. Expandable Memory (up to 32GB). Buyers in India had hardly got over the INR 250 (Freedom 251) device which was all over the news a few months back and now, comes the Rs 100 rupees phone. Lets see how the audience reacts to this. The purchasing process might be a little unusual but if you are getting a mobile for just 100 bucks, guess you can manage a little inconvenience. So hurry up! Limited pieces available. Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse nightclub, where people were killed by a gunman, in Orlando, Florida,June 12, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] ORLANDO, Fla. - A gunman armed with an assault rifle killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in US history which authorities described as a possible act of terrorism. Police killed the shooter, who was identified as Omar S. Mateen, a 29-year-old Florida resident and US citizen. A top US congressman said Mateen may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group. US officials cautioned, however, that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or any other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between the gunman and any such group. Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single US mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. "Today we're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said, more than doubling an earlier estimate that about 20 bodies had been found. A police officer working as a security guard inside the Pulse nightclub exchanged fire with the suspect at about 2 a.m. (0600 GMT), authorities said. Pulse was crowded with some 350 revelers at a Latin music night. "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running," the club's management wrote on Facebook as the incident unfolded. China's wool tycoon in rescue act Down Under Updated: 2016-06-13 08:26 (Agencies) An Australian farmer shears a sheep with the help of his Chinese assistant. [Yan Xiangqun/For China Daily] When biting winter winds whip through the paddocks of the 170-year-old Lal Lal sheep farm in Australia's central Victoria this year, a Chinese wool tycoon will be trying to help revive an ailing industry. He's also hoping to overturn skepticism toward foreign investors. Wen Qingnan, who bought Lal Lal in 2014, plans to build shelters for newborn lambs inside an unused hay shed to help boost survival rates by as much as 40 percent. He's also expanded the flock. Such measures may help restore wool profits in a country that is the world's top exporter. Over the past two decades, farmers were hit hard by cheaper alternative fibers and saw output shrink. But not everyone welcomes infusions of foreign cash. A surge in Chinese investments in agriculture is fueling concern about lost local control of prized farm land in Australia, a major shipper of everything from beef to wheat. It's a theme gaining importance among rural voters before a national election scheduled for July. Wen, who runs the largest processor of raw wool in China, is convinced Australians will come around. "The public attitude toward foreign agriculture investments will change once they see more and more investors are making contributions to the local economy and communities," said Wen, president of Jiangsu province-based Tianyu Wool Industry (Zhangjiagang Free Trade Zone) Co. "I feel confident that exchange and sharing of ideas and techniques will be beneficial to everyone." Australia has led the world in fine wool output almost since high quality merino flocks were established there in the 1800s. But exports have declined 44 percent since 1981 and are forecast to slip even further this year, partly because wool is more expensive to produce than cotton or synthetic fibers. Many farmers are losing money. By scanning all ewes to check for multiple pregnancies and by providing additional feed and shelter, Wen aims to improve lamb mortality rates. In Australia, an estimated 10 million die after birth each year, animals that could profitably produce more wool. At Lal Lal, Wen's target is to increase survival rates 30 percent to 40 percent. He also expanded his flock to about 12,000 sheep after purchasing 1,600 animals since October. Wen is seeking to share his techniques with farmers throughout Australia, part of efforts that may help defuse concern over agriculture deals. In the most recent fiscal year, government data show proposed investments by entities in China and Hong Kong jumped almost fourfold to A$2.5 billion ($1.8 billion), based on those approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board. "Where transactions work well and are successful is where foreign investors, particularly Chinese investors, are engaging with their local community," said Meredith Paynter, Sydney-based head of the food and agribusiness sector practice at law firm King & Wood Mallesons. Paynter advised on the 2015 acquisition of an Australian dairy company by a joint venture that included China's New Hope Dairy Holdings Co. Foreign investment is vital to developing agriculture, especially because the estimated shortfall between the capital needed and domestic funds available may reach A$850 billion by 2050, according to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. The lack of local funding hasn't dimmed perceptions that overseas investors will undermine local food security. About 60 percent of Australians oppose foreign deals in agriculture, while 56 percent say the government allows too much investment from China, according to a 2014 Lowy Institute poll. Earlier last month, Shanghai Pengxin Group dropped its A$317-million bid for cattle rancher S. Kidman & Co., amid opposition from the Liberal-National coalition government. Kidman's landholdings span 101,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles), or about 1.3 percent of Australia's land mass. The Labor Party says the government risks sending the wrong signal to overseas investors. The coalition holds a 51 percent to 49 percent lead over Labor, according to a Fairfax-Ipsos poll published May 21 by the Sydney Morning Herald. In a tight election race, the rural vote is crucial for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose junior coalition partner, the National Party, has been a vocal critic of foreign investment in farms. At Lal Lal's red-brick Federation-era homestead, located a 90-minute drive west of Melbourne, wool growers and buyers from as far away as Uruguay have visited to discuss production methods. Wen is also inviting local producers to China. The decline in Australia's wool exports is largely a result of meager farm earnings, Wen said in an e-mailed response to questions. Small sheep farms lost 0.4 percent on their total capital employed in the five years to fiscal 2014, according to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences. "I strongly believe the general public reception will change if we work together and create more wealth in Australia," Wen said. DJI aims for intelligent drone-flying era Updated: 2016-06-13 11:04 By Lia Zhu in San Francisco(China Daily USA) China's DJI Technology Co Ltd, the world's leading consumer drones maker, aims to launch a new era of intelligent flying by equipping its drones with smart functions. In March, the Shenzhen-based company unveiled Phantom 4, the latest model of its Phantom series, in New York, which is said to be the first consumer drone that uses computer vision and sensing technology with new features like Obstacle Sensing System, "ActiveTrack" and "TapFly". The Obstacle Sensing System features two forward-facing optical sensors that scan for obstacles and automatically directs the aircraft around an impediment when possible, reducing the risk of collision while ensuring flight direction remains constant. With the ActiveTrack function, users have the ability to continuously keep the device's onboard camera focused on a selected subject no matter what direction it flies. By using the TapFly function, users can double-tap a destination for their drone on the screen, and the device calculates an optimal flight route to reach the destination, while avoiding obstructions in its path. "With the Phantom 4, we are entering an era where even beginners can fly with confidence," said DJI CEO Frank Wang in a statement. "People have dreamed about one day having a drone collaborate creatively with them. That day has arrived." To help participants build their applications based on DJI's software development kit (SDK) suite and create a more robust application ecosystem for drones, DJI launched SDK 3.0, a new version of its SDK, an open, flexible and user-friendly software platform for both iOS and Android users, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January in Las Vegas. "What we do every year for the last three years is to give developers a challenge to build an app and we give them a theme. This year's theme is search and rescue," said Adam Najberg, DJI's global director of communications, explaining that the app was aimed to help find survivors in natural disasters. "A drone is not just for enthusiastic photographers but now there are practical applications to save lives or make life better because of that," he added. With the new platform, new companies are being created, and DJI is helping seed some of them with SkyFund, an investment vehicle backed by DJI and Accel, according to Najberg. "Companies are coming up that are creating different applications for different commercial and industrial sectors," he said. During the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, DJI also launched Phantom 3 4K, a 4K Wi-Fi edition of DJI's popular easy-to-fly Phantom 3 Series with 4K aerial camera, for the US market. The US is a developed market with people who understand the technology better, and it's a very good market for Chinese drones makers to sell into, said Adam Najberg, DJI's global director of communications. The 9-year-old company has 70 percent of the global market share, with the US being its largest market. liazhu@chinadailyusa.com The walking marriage of Mosuo ethnic group Updated: 2016-06-13 10:07 (China.org.cn) The Mosuo ethnic group [File photo/Xinhua] The walking marriage, in which a man and a woman establish relations after the man's nocturnal visits to the woman's boudoir, has been less prevalent in the Mosuo ethnic group generally residing in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. The traditional matriarchal practice has nowadays been questioned by the modern moral criterion of monogamy underlying loyalty as long as people are married. However, the demand of fidelity doesn't work in the Mosuo minority who can easily change their partners. Generally, a marriage can be ended if a man informs his partner that he will no longer come to visit or refuses to visit her for a long time. If a woman is unwilling to maintain the marriage, she can directly tell her partner in person not to come or stop his visits to her bedroom. Anyone who finds the partner has fallen in love with someone else can send a package stuffed with charcoal, peppers and chicken feathers to warn the partner or directly terminate their relations. In this matriarchal society which began during the primitive ages, the walking marriage, as a custom of the Mosuo minority, has endured the changes of the world. Currently, with the exodus of its young people and influence from the external world, the prospect of the indigenous custom is dimming. "People have followed the call of the government to lead a life with a formal and stable marriage since the 1960s, so the number of walking marriages is diminishing," said a guide from the Mosuo minority. However, despite losing its attraction to many local young people, the walking marriage, which has been preserved and inherited from one generation to another in some villages, is appealing to a number of visitors, who mistake the ritual merely as a one-night stand. Several years ago, a woman's four diaries covering her travels in the towns of the Mosuo ethic group in Yunnan, where she flirted, had sex with Mosuo men and experienced the walking marriage, sparked controversy. Following her blogs which received millions of hits, Chinese online users commented that she, as a woman from modern society, was not eligible for the walking marriage preserved by local Mosuo ethnic people in the primitive milieu where they comply with the tenets of a matriarchal society. However, there were also a number of netizens supporting the adoption of the walking marriage in modern society, saying, the way of the walking marriage is a good option for young people who may fall in love without economic concerns, such as, a house, a car, as well as nuptial and betrothal gifts. Also, a man in this situation can be free from his duties as he will leave the children to the woman in her family headed by the maternal grandmothers. However, experts showed their disapproval of the idea to adopt the walking marriage in modern society. Tao Li, a professor at the Research Center of Folk Culture of China's Minzu University, said that mankind has eventually chosen monogamy as an overwhelming legal system for marriage to ensure the stability of families, clans, societies and social development. With the extension of the monogamous marriages which have been stipulated in the laws of our country, the customs of the walking marriage are gradually fading among the villages of the Mosuo minorities. The professor also said that the walking marriage is a remnant of the primitive social structure of a matriarchal society, so it cannot survive without the pervading local cultures. Therefore, those who misinterpret the marriage as a one-night stand in modern society are perverting the absolute understanding of the historic tradition. In her June 2 speech on national security, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton mocked the Republican presumptive presidential candidate Donald Trump in a manner much like a late-night talk show. The former secretary of state and former first lady described Trump as someone who doesn't understand America or the world, quoting Trump calling the US a "Third World country." For those words alone, Clinton claims that Trump does not deserve to lead the US. A replay of Trump's speeches over the past months shows that when he described the US as a Third World country, he was referring to the dilapidated infrastructure, sometimes in contrast with China's. For example, he said on Feb 20 before the South Carolina primary that "I see airports in different places of the world. You go to some of these Asian countries, you go to some of the Mideast. You go to Saudi Arabia, you go to Qatar, you go to different places in China. You see airports and infrastructure the likes of which you've never seen. They have in China trains that are so modern, so fast, so incredible, you never see that, we don't have anything. We got trains that go bup, bup. They're like from 150 years ago. We've become a Third World country." Trump's words are largely correct. According to the authoritative World Airport Awards by UK-based Skytrax, no US airport made it into the top 20 airports in the world in the 2015 rating announced this year. The only US airport entering the top 30 was Denver's, ranking No 28. Meanwhile, Hong Kong International Airport was ranked No 5, Beijing Capital Airport No 16 and Taiwan Taoyuan Airport No 20. China's Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, Xi'an Airport and Chengdu Airport made it into the top 50 while two other US airports that made it into the top 50 were Cincinnati/Kentucky Airport and San Francisco Airport. In a word, more airports from China made it into the top 100 list than those in the US. For high-speed rail, with speeds of at least 120 mph, China has by far the longest in the world. According to the International Union of Railways, there are 12,000 miles in operation and another 11,300 miles under construction in China, compared with second place Spain, which has 2,000 miles in operation and 1,120 miles under construction. The US ranked 20th in the world, with only a length of 28 miles on the Acela Express, including an 18-mile stretch in Rhode Island and 10 miles in Massachusetts, with a maximum speed of 150 mph. People can argue that the US is really a society on wheels, not on rails. But in terms of airports and trains, the US clearly lags behind Third World China. Speeches by another Democratic candidate, Bernie Sanders, like the one I heard in the Armory Stadium in Washington last Thursday, clearly did not suggest the US was a First World country. "We had the best rail system in the world. No longer the case," Sanders told the roaring crowd. Interestingly, Sanders said that "we can create up to 13 million good-paying jobs rebuilding our infrastructure, which is exactly what I intend to do." That number 13 million was exactly the number of new jobs created in China in 2015. In his speech, Sanders said the US is not supposed to be a country that has more income and wealth inequality than any other major country on earth and the highest childhood poverty of almost any country on earth. "This is the United States of America, we should not be having 47 million people living in poverty," he said. "Why in God's name are we spending $80 billion a year to lock up 2.2 million fellow Americans?" he continued. According to the London-based World Prison Population list by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research, the US has the world's largest prison population of 2.2 million, in contrast to China's 1.7 million even though China's total population is almost four times as big as that of the US. The institute's figures show that the prison population rate, or per 100,000 of national population, was 119 in China compared with 698 in the US. In her 2010 book, Third World America, the conservative-turned-liberal Arianna Huffington painted a picture of the US from its education system and infrastructure to its middle class and political system, which she said has descended from a 21st century superpower to a backwater banana republic. Contact the writer at chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com. Parting of ways roadblock for US high-speed rail Updated: 2016-06-13 11:04 By Paul Welitzkin in New York(China Daily USA) The decision by a Nevada firm to end its relationship with a Chinese company to build a high-speed rail line linking Las Vegas and Southern California is unlikely to halt efforts to bring HSR to the US, according to a proponent. "It's a setback, but the developer in Nevada said it is still committed to the project," Andy Kunz, president of the US High Speed Rail Association, told China Daily. "I still expect the Chinese to participate in US projects. and I don't think they will give up." XpressWest on June 9 terminated its joint venture with China Railway International USA Co Ltd (CRI) to build a high-speed passenger railroad connecting Los Angeles to Las Vegas. An official at CRI said the unilateral announcement violates the cooperation framework agreement signed by the two sides. In 2015, XpressWest, a private company backed by hotel developer Marnell Cos of Las Vegas, and CRI announced a joint venture to finance and develop the rail project . An XpressWest statement said "the decision to end the relationship was based primarily upon difficulties associated with timely performance and CRI's challenges in obtaining required authority to proceed with development activities." The company also cited a federal requirement that high-speed trains be manufactured in the US for ending the agreement with CRI. "High-speed rail is still needed in the US," Kunz said. "It makes sense for economic development and for the environment." Kunz said mandates that the manufacture of train cars in the US should be phased in gradually, to give HSR a chance to develop in the US. "Right now, the US just doesn't have the manufacturing infrastructure to build high- speed rail cars," he said. "All the technology for this comes from overseas companies. You can't expect them to build plants costing hundreds of millions of dollars without a backlog of orders." Kunz said the actual train cars needed for HSR account for only about 20 to 30 percent of the materials and structures required. "These systems need bridges, steel, concrete and other products that can be made in the US right now. "It would make sense to have a five-year scale-up that would eventually result in the cars being made here," Kunz added. "But we need to get some projects off the ground so a demand for high-speed rail cars can be established." Kunz noted that some companies like Germany's Siemens already produce light-rail cars in the US for mass transit systems. "Siemens has been building up this business, and they have factories in four or five different regions," Kunz said. If we get high-speed rail up and running, this would help spread the job creation all over the country." Heng Weili in New York and Zhong Nan in Beijing contributed to this story. paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com No Chinese national among Orlando shooting victims so far: Consulate-General Updated: 2016-06-13 10:59 (Xinhua) Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida, US, June 12, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] ORLANDO, the United States - No Chinese national has been found among the victims of the Florida nightclub mass shooting so far, the Chinese Consulate-General in Houston said Sunday. The consulate-general informed Xinhua over phone that US law enforcement has not finished identifying the victims as of 7 pm(2300 GMT), but no Chinese was identified as of Sunday night. US authorities have released only six names of the victims killed in the worst mass shooting incident in US history, and are still in the process of identifying the rest of the victims. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer in the incident early Sunday. The Consulate-General in Houston said it has established direct contact with the US authorities, and would be informed immediately if any Chinese nationals were among the injured and killed. Rauschenberg solo exhibition is back in China after three decades Updated: 2016-06-13 11:13 By Li Jing(chinadaily.com.cn) UCCA Director Philip Tinari introduces the piece to the audience at the opening of the exhibition. [Photo by Li Jing/China Daily] "Rauschenberg in China", the retrospective solo exhibition of American artist Robert Rauschenberg was unveiled at The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing on June 13. This is the first major exhibition in over three decades to showcase the artist's work to Chinese audiences, since his 1985 exhibition "ROCI CHINA" at the institution now known as the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. Organized in collaboration with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and curated by Susan Davidson and David White, "Rauschenberg in China" is also the first major exhibition after his death eight years ago. On show is a painting called "The 1/4 Mile" or "2 Furlong Piece", which is seen as one of Rauschenberg's most important creations. It stretches for 305 meters and is made up of 190 parts. The piece was completed over a 17-year-period from 1981 to 1998 and reflects major themes from throughout Rauschenberg's oeuvre, ranging from his "White Paintings", "Combines", "Cardboards", and "Gluts" to collages composed with found images as well as the artist's own documentary photographs. White, who has been working with Rauschenberg since the 1980s, said the piece is like his dairy or autobiography, documenting the transformation in his technique and ideology. The first half of "The 1/4 Mile" inaugurated the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1987, staying on view for an entire year. The piece was later shown in its near-entirety as part of the artist's 1997 retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, subsequently traveling to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Guggenheim Bilbao in 1998. Rauschenberg continuously added and revised "The 1/4 Mile" during its extended period of creation, and in keeping with his ideology of non-intention, the work has been presented in various configurations over the years. Its most recent public showing prior to this exhibition opened at Mass MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, in 1999. UCCA Director Philip Tinari said it is the first time to see the work since 2000 and the piece on show is the most complete one. Alongside "The 1/4 Mile", "Rauschenberg in China" also includes "Study for Chinese Summerhall", two portfolios of images taken during Rauschenberg's first trip to China in the early summer of 1982, the only body of color photography the artist ever designated as art. These rarely seen images were made as studies for the 30-meter scroll-like photograph "Chinese Summerhall", one of the centerpieces of his 1985 "ROCI CHINA" exhibition in Beijing. Rauschenberg's interactions with China started in 1982 when he made a trip to an Anhui paper factory to collaborate on an art project. The 1982 trip resulted in "ROCI CHINA" exhibition in Beijing in 1985, which attracted more than 300,000 visitors over its three week run and also inspired an emerging generation of Chinese artists, during a period that would later come to be known as the "'85 New Wave". Accompanying these works is a collection of documentation and ephemera the 1985 exhibition "ROCI CHINA", offering a rare glimpse into that historical moment. Contact the writer at Lijing2009@chinadaily.com.cn. 11 dead in thunderstorms, rains in India Updated: 2016-06-13 14:31 (Xinhua) NEW DELHI - At least 11 people were killed in India's eastern state of Bihar due to thunderstorm and rains, officials said Monday. "Five deaths were reported from Muzzafarpur, six from Patna and Siwan districts," an official told media. The downpour also disrupted rail traffic between Siwan and Mairwa for few hours. India's most important weather phenomenon - monsoons (the rainy season) has arrived in India last week. According to Indian Meteorological department, it is likely to reach Bihar by June 20. The monsoon period which brings about 80 percent of annual rainfall in India begins in June and lasts until September. Last month 50 people were killed in thunderstorms and cloudbursts in north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Arbitration undermines peaceful resolution of South China Sea disputes: US expert Updated: 2016-06-13 14:55 (Xinhua) An aerial photo taken on Sept 25, 2015 from a seaplane of Hainan Maritime Safety Administration shows cruise vessel Haixun 1103 heading to the Yacheng 13-1 drilling rig during a patrol in South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua] WASHINGTON - The Philippines' unilateral move to seek arbitration over the South China Sea disputes will hurt the prospect of resolving the issue peacefully through negotiations, a US expert told Xinhua in an interview. China has wanted to resolve the issue through negotiations, but the Philippines, with US backing, felt it could "play hardball" on the issue by taking the disputes to the arbitration tribunal, said William Jones, Washington Bureau Chief of US publication Executive Intelligence Review. "Arbitration normally is a case when two parties cannot successfully negotiate a problem. But that (Manila's action) is not the case at all, because there have been effectively no negotiations between the Philippines and China on this issue," Jones said. China adheres to the position of non-acceptance of and non-participation in the arbitration, a stance that Jones said Beijing has "legitimate reasons" to take according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In his analysis of Manila's intentions behind the arbitration, Jones said the Philippines felt that whatever decision the court would make, the arbitration process itself would give the country a certain amount of leeway in asserting its claims in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, he said, the United States could use the arbitration as a way to limit China's territorial claims and strengthen its allies, as "the growth of China, especially its maritime growth, is seen more, by at least a large section of the United States elites, as a threat." "Both of them gain a certain advantage of that in trying to delimit the rightful claims, I think, of China in terms of its territorial demands," Jones said, adding that he believes China's historical claims to the South China Sea region "really cannot be refuted." Moreover, the expert denounced US support to the arbitration, arguing that it contradicts Washington's position not to take sides on the South China Sea issue. The United States has "in effect taken sides" by encouraging the Philippines to assert its claims "much more forcefully, making it more difficult to get successful negotiations," he said. "The intervention, and really the role of the United States, has become the most aggravating part (of the South China Sea issue)," Jones said. In the interview with Xinhua, Jones also refuted the allegation that China has militarized the South China Sea region with its reclamation and building projects. "You want to count the number of ships and the number of cruises that have been made by the US and allied naval vessels in the vicinity, and I think the militarization is really all on the part of the United States," he said. Jones added that the freedom of navigation in the region has never been threatened, "certainly not by the Chinese." "Chinese trade is very dependent on freedom of navigation in the South China Sea to get what they need to support their population. So they have no reason to threaten that," he said. Xi's upcoming visit to three countries Updated: 2016-06-13 16:15 By AN BAIJIE(chinadaily.com.cn) President Xi Jinping will start an eight-day trip to Serbia, Poland and Uzbekistan on Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday. During the trip, Xi will also attend the Meeting of the Council of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to be held in Tashkent on June 23-24. Xi's visit to Serbia is the first of its kind by a Chinese head of state since Serbia's independence in June 2006. In August 2013, Xi held talks with visiting Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in Beijing where the two presidents exchanged in-depth views on cooperation. Serbia has enjoyed a profound traditional friendship with China and has played a decisive role in China-Central and East European relations. In August 2009, China and Serbia issued a joint statement, announcing the establishment of a strategic partnership, making Serbia the first CEE country to do so with China. On June 6, China and Serbia signed a memorandum of understanding between relevant institutions dealing with cultural trade research during the first China-CEE cultural and creative industry forum. Xi's visit to Poland is his first trip as president to the largest country in the CEE region. The last state visit by a Chinese head of state to Poland was paid by the then president Hu Jintao in 2004. In November last year, Polish President Andrzej Duda paid a state visit to China, during which Xi announced that China will explore a new logistics corridor to reach Central and Eastern Europe through Poland. Poland is China's largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe, while China is Poland's third-largest supplier of imports. China is willing to work with Uzbekistan to boost their strategic partnership and open up new prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said while visiting Uzbekistan on May 23. During a meeting with Uzbek President Islam Karimov, Wang said bilateral relations have made significant progress since the establishment of the strategic partnership between the two countries. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the founding of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), he said, adding that China will fully support Uzbekistan in hosting an upcoming SCO summit in its capital city of Tashkent and push forward security and economic cooperation for new achievements. For his part, Karimov said he is looking forward to the Chinese president's attendance at the Tashkent summit. Uzbekistan is ready to work with China to further promote the two countries' strategic partnership, strengthen all-round mutually beneficial cooperation, and advance the SCO's new development, he said. Contact the writer at anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn. Talks can help dispel doubts, experts say Updated: 2016-06-13 19:53 By ZHANG YUNBI and LI XINYIin Yuxi, Yunnan(chinadaily.com.cn) A foreign ministers meeting on Tuesday between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be a good opportunity to dispel doubts about China and ease tension in the South China Sea, experts said. Beijing is ready for discussions on further promoting and upgrading China-ASEAN cooperation and "jointly ensuring peace and stability in the South China Sea", Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Monday during a briefing on the meeting, which will be held in Yunnan province. Through the meeting, China hopes for an in-depth exchange of views on topics including China-ASEAN ties and fully implementing the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, Lu said. The declaration is a key document, signed by China and the 10 ASEAN member countries in 2002, that endorses political settlement of maritime disputes. The 11 countries held their 12th senior officials meeting on fully implementing the declaration on June 9 in Hanoi. Jia Duqiang, a senior researcher on Southeast Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the meeting will be a good opportunity for China and the ASEAN countries to sit down for a productive and candid discussion. Jia said the discussions inevitably will consider the potential impact of the Philippines' arbitration case against China on the South China Sea issue. "The ASEAN countries are worried that the peace and stability of the whole region will be at stake," Jia said. This year marks the 25th anniversary of dialogue between China and ASEAN. A commemorative summit to mark the anniversary will be held in September, and Tuesday's meeting will help prepare for it, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu said. The meeting is expected to show "emphasis and expectations by both sides on advancing China-ASEAN cooperation", Lu said. Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Chinese People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Science, said the South China Sea issue is "not between China and all the ASEAN countries". He said some ASEAN members not directly involved in the issue "have displayed their willingness to downplay the disputes" at recent international events. Sweet Potatoes, come and see what Im seeing oh! You remember the woman that kissed Ada Verastic on the lips? Well, she has struck again. And no, she did not kiss Ada Verastic on the lips again; she did worse! Come closer, let me gist you. So we were at an event. Remember I said that we have mutual friends with this woman. Ehen, so we were at an event of our mutual friend, and this woman was there again. I had Ada Verastic with me, and the woman came again, all smiles, calling Ada Verastic her baby. No wahala, everyone does this. Then she carried her. Toh! I know, I know, why did I even let her carry her? Well, remember the last time, she kissed Ada Verastic and handed her right back, so I didnt really have a chance to react, so it would have been strange for me to say she could not carry her because of what she did last time (which she probably would not have remembered). This time, however, I was watching her like a hawk. In my mind, I had tied a scarf on my hips, rubbed Vaseline on my lips, removed my wig, earrings, and shoes. Today na today. But in reality, I was sitting still on the outside and pacing around on the inside. She took Ada Verastic and was carrying her on her laps, while Ada Verastic curiously searched the room with her eyes. The lady was then about to eat some finger foods chicken wings to be exact. I wondered why she wanted to hold Ada Verastic with one hand and struggle to eat chicken wings with the other hand, instead of just handing her to me. But then I noticed she had taken a pinch of the chicken wings and was mashing it up between her thumb and index finger, and I wondered where this food was going to enter. She has a child, too, by the way, but her child isnt a baby, so I knew it was not for her child. My people, it happened in slow motion. I saw her pick a piece of that meat she had done nyama nyama in her hand, and I saw that nyama nyama going slowly toward Ada Verastics mouth. Ahhh!!! I jumped up from my seat and dashed to save my daughter. No! No!! DO. NOT. FEED. HER! DO NOT! That was how I was yelling as I was coming closer. All my yelling and cat-like reflexes helped to stop that nyama nyama from entering Ada Verastics mouth. Instead, the woman was looking at me as if I was the crazy one. It was all in her facial expression, and I did not care. When I got to her, I said, Give me back my baby. And that was the end of that. I took my Ada Verastic back, and we walked off into the sunset. Or back to our seat a couple feet away. I dont know why our Nigerian people can sometimes be oblivious to boundaries and personal space. Who told this woman that she could feed someones baby? First of all, she didnt ask for permission to feed her. Secondly, Ada Verastic is a baby, and as a mother herself, I know that she knew that it was possible that Ada Verastic did not even eat solid foods yet. Lastly, I do not appreciate anyones nasty hands in my babys mouth. I dont know where that womans hands had been. She could have just finished scratching her ass, for all I knew. And then she wanted to put those fingers in Ada Verastics mouth? I have admitted before that Im a bit of a germaphobe, and Im not even denying it. Im not on Howie Mandels level, but Id say Im above average. I dont like peoples hands on/in my food; this is why I have a problem with fruit salads sometimes. I keep imagining the bare (and dirty) hands that cut them. There are people in whose houses I cannot eat or sleep, but they dont know this, of course. When I go to their house, I just do a good job of pretending not to ever be hungry. Or sleepy. My hope now is that the next time I see this woman, she would not try to carry Ada Verastic because I have made up my mind that I will not let her carry Ada Verastic again. This woman is a Yoruba woman in her forties, so I know she must think of me now as a rude and disrespectful Igbo girl, which is fine with me because I have already been called that before anyway, and it meant nothing to me. But what matters is that she will not be kissing or feeding Ada Verastic again. Because who knows what next she will try to do. Thats how Ill blink now and shell be trying to put tribal marks on my babys face. NO! Maybe I am an overprotective mom. Maybe Im the way I am because I am a first-time mom. Or maybe this is just the mom that I am now and will continue to be. Im suspecting the latter because this is exactly what my mom is still like. Whenever Igwe laughs at me for being anal, I tell him that hes lucky Im not my mommy. Also, if my mom or grandmom were there when this woman tried this feeding nonsense, they would have both used their tongues to bury her. She should consider herself lucky because Im nice. Also, long before I became a mom, I have always known especially here in America sef that you do not go around feeding a child, and you especially do not feed a baby without asking the mom for permission. If for nothing else, the child/baby could be allergic, and you will be gifting yourself an expensive law suit. But lets take America and law suits out of it, its still very inappropriate to feed a child/baby without first asking the mom, if its okay. Preferably, dont feed the baby at all. Dont even ask mom if you can feed the baby. If its a child that can talk and he/she asks you for something, like candy or cookies, then sure, you can ask mom/dad. Otherwise, pocket your food. Feeding my baby is no for me. Feeding her intimate foods with your hands like pounded yam or anything you have to nyama nyama between your fingers is a fuck no. DONT. FUCKING. DO. IT. Please turn JavaScript on and reload the page. Loading... Checking your browser before accessing the website. This process is automatic. Your browser will redirect to your requested content shortly. Please wait a few seconds. Hanoi, June 12 (VNA) - Tran Quoc Khanh, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, spoke to Thoi bao Kinh te Viet Nam (Vietnam Economic Times) about what Vietnamese exporters should do to secure a firm foothold in foreign markets. Q: Some people have expressed worry that our non-tariff barriers to trade are not strong enough to help Vietnamese goods compete against foreign made goods in our domestic market. How do you respond to this complaint? A: All Vietnamese enterprises want strong non-tariff barriers to trade in the competition with the influx of foreign made goods in our territory. But that is not a good approach. We accept decreasing tariff barriers to allow fair competition with foreign commodities. We dont have any intention to introduce preventive measures to limit the flow of foreign commodities into our country. This is a philosophy of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). As a signatory to several FTAs, we have committed to not introducing any trade barriers to limit the flow of foreign made products into our country. But under the FTAs, all countries have the right to introduce measures to protect their consumers health, animal welfare, plants and the environment. Under the FTAs, all countries are allowed to adopt their own measures to protect the environment, ensure healthy competition and fairness, such as anti-dumping measures, preventive measures and anti-subsidisation policy. Such measures have already been applied by our government. Q: Preventive measures have become the biggest worry of Vietnamese exporting firms. The European market has adopted very strong non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs). Do you have any suggestions for Vietnamese exporters? A: Psychologically speaking, most Vietnamese exporters think NTBs are measures to prevent the influx of foreign goods into their countries. In reality, many of the NTBs introduced by importing countries are aimed towards information disclosure, transparency and fairness. These rules apply to both exporting and importing firms. In the Vietnam-EU FTA, if EU importers adopt NTBs towards Vietnamese exported goods - to protect consumer health, animal welfare and the environment - there is no reason for Vietnam firms to reject their demands. Q: What do you think about the NTBs the European Union has introduced? A: All NTBs introduced by the EU are geared towards the goal of protecting consumer health. These NTBs are good for consumers, both inside and outside Vietnam. So such quality standards should be upheld. Vietnamese exporters should carefully study technical requirements of each foreign importer, be they in the EU, the US, Japan, or elsewhere. If Vietnamese exporters are well prepared in advance, they will be in a good position to be successful exporters. Q: In your opinion, what should Vietnamese enterprises do to confront the NTBs imposed by importers from major markets? A: The Ministry of Industry and Trade recommends that any enterprise wanting to do business with big markets - like the EU, the US, Japan and others - should create a special task force in their enterprise to study technical requirements from importing countries. Such information is already contained in the FTAs Vietnam has signed with them. Only when we understand technical requirements from importing countries, will we be able to enter the markets and become their sustainable clients. VNA/VNP HCM City has asked the Government for a bonus of VN10 trillion (US$450 million) for exceeding its tax revenue target last year. Photo thesaigontimes.vn HCM City HCM City has asked the Government for a bonus of VN10 trillion (US$450 million) for exceeding its tax revenue target last year. The target was VN234 trillion ($10.5 billion) and the city achieved VN255 trillion ($11.4 billion). The target for this year is set at VN298 trillion ($13.4 billion). HCM City will achieve the target though it is 9 per cent higher than last years collection, Politburo member and city Party Secretary inh La Thang told Viet Nam News Agency. To achieve stronger growth, HCM City will need a special mechanism with more powers vis-a-vis finance and human resources. [Then], human resources and production capability will significantly improve and help the city grow in double digits. The city is collaborating with central agencies and leading experts to create a comprehensive mechanism to improve the business environment. Peoples Committee Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong said economic growth in the first five months has been strong and would ensure the Governments goals are achieved. The Government should give back to the city a part of the import and export tax revenues for 10 years and allow the city to collect taxes from certain industries, he said. Le Thanh Van, a member of the National Assemblys Finance and Budget Committee, said: HCM City has already sent many petitions related to the special mechanism. Some can be approved but others do not comply with current laws. HCM City should submit a comprehensive mechanism to the Politburo and National Assembly to consider and approve. Tran Du Lich, a member of the National Monetary policy Consultancy Council, said, HCM City is asking for a normal mechanism like other cities around the world: more independence and more responsibility for its activities. We should not treat HCM City like other provinces around the country. The city must be treated like other developed cities in the neighbourhood. Nguyen uc Hai, chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee, said, We support the citys requirement but we need to find a sustainable and proper mechanism. VNS Farmers harvest flowers in Central Highland Da Lat City. With vast areas suitable for growing flowers, Viet Nam has the potential to become one of the world's largest flower exporters. Photo nld.com.vn HCM CITY With vast areas suitable for growing flowers, Viet Nam has the potential to become one of the worlds largest flower exporters, according to experts. Prof Dr Nguyen Quoc Vong of RMIT University said the area for flower growth in Viet Nam is equal to that of Spain, the EUs fifth largest flower producer. Flowers can be grown in every part of the country, and areas like Moc Chau and a Lat, with an average temperature of 200C, are ideal for growing them for export, he said. Tran Xuan inh, deputy head of the Crop Production Department, said flowers would play a key role in restructuring agriculture. Last year ornamental flowers were grown on more than 23,000ha and yielded an income of VN300 million (US$13,452) per hectare, 10 times higher than from rice. High-end flower cultivation models in some places yielded bewteen VN800 million to VN2.5 billion, he said. According to the department, in the past 10 years the area under flowers has increased 2.3-fold and output, 7.2-fold. The value of the output was VN6.5 trillion. But exports remain modest at just $50 million a year, way below the countrys potential, inh said. A majority of farming households have been slow to revamp their farming techniques and flower plantations mostly remain small-sized, resulting in low value addition. Since farmers and companies are not closely connected, there is no value chain to enhance flower quality and output to boost exports, experts said. Dalat Hasfarm is the countrys largest flower producer and exporter. To penetrate the global flower market, the company has invested in modern glasshouses to grow flowers. Thailand is the worlds largest orchid exporter, earning $200 million a year. Viet Nam imports a large number of seedlings and cut orchids from Thailand. The agricultural sector has enacted policies to develop technology-based flower farming, but these have not proved effective. ong Thap story Sa ec in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province of ong Thap, a town that has long been famous for its flowers, aspires to become one of the deltas leading tourist cities and a major flower exporter, according to provincial authorities. It is planned that all rice growing areas will switch to flowers by 2020, meaning there will be more than 1,000ha under flowers. To achieve the targets, the province government has chosen a Dutch partner. The Netherlands will build a research zone in the Hi-Tech Agricultural Application Centre in Sa ec, offer training to local agricultural staff and farmers, transfer technologies for making nets and glasshouses, preliminary processing, packaging and help find outlets for flowers. The centre is expected to supply Sa ec flower village 300,000 seedlings this year and 1.5-2 million every year by 2020 to grow flowers for exports. The province has signed an agreement with a French company specialising in urban planning to redesign Sa ec on the lines of the deltas leading tourist cities but with its status as a major flower exporter and the regions characteristics in mind. VNS The Ministry of Finance has planned to boost the equitisation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) through rating the publicity and transparency of the enterprises' financial statements. Photo thanhnien.vn HA NOI The Ministry of Finance has planned to boost the equitisation of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) through rating the publicity and transparency of the enterprises financial statements, a finance ministry official said. Deputy General Director of the ministrys Corporate Finance Department ang Quyet Tien said that his department is working with securities exchanges and other relevant agencies to be able to implement the plan this year. Independent agencies and mass media would be also invited to take part in the rating to make it more transparent, Tien said. He said that the plan is aimed at affirming that SOEs are also equal to other firms in the economy, besides making investors secure. It, therefore, would help accelerate the SOE equitisation process. If information is vague investors cannot be expected to feel secure, Tien said. He expected the new plan to create a leap in the countrys SOE restructuring. The finance ministry made the move as a number of ministries and agencies still want to be dominant stakeholders of some their subsidiaries. He gave the example of the Viet Nam Machinery Installation Corporation (Lilama) - a subsidiary of the Ministry of Construction. The Ministry of Construction currently still holds 90 per cent of Lilamas stakes while some investors expected to have a higher ownership. Meanwhile, without reforms, especially in corporate governance, it would be difficult for Lilama to compete against foreign rivals the next time. According to Tien, when investors pour their money into enterprises they would also like to make decisions related to the enterprises. Therefore, the opportunities to equitise the SOEs would be missed if the State still holds a majority stake in the enterprises. The Ministry of Finance on Monday announced that 37 SOEs received approvals for their equitisation plans in the first five months this year, including Machines and Industrial Equipment Corporation, Viet Nam Engine and Agricultural Machinery Corporation, Viet Nam National Construction Consultants Corporation, and Corporation 36, in addition to the Viet Nam Forest Corporation, and Vietnam General Corporation of Agricultural Materials. The SOEs sold shares worth more than VN2.08 trillion (US$92.85 million) in book value for VN4.17 trillion in the period. The State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) also offloaded its shares in a number of companies during the period, earning more than VN2.8 trillion from a total book value of VN985 billion. VNS NGHE AN A fire broke out yesterday in the forest bordering Thanh Chuong Districts Thanh Lam Commune and Nam an Districts Nam Loc Commune in this central province, destroying several hectares of forest. Local residents told the Cong An Nhan Dan (Peoples Police) newspaper that the fire started on a pine-covered hill in Nam Loc Commune at 11:30am on Sunday. The blaze became uncontrollable and spread to other hills. Local authorities have mobilised over four hundred people, including police, soldiers, fire-fighters and local residents, to put out the fire. Hot weather, fuelled by hot winds from Laos, set ablaze the highly flammable pine and acacia forest, making it harder to extinguish the fire. It took more than 10 hours to get the fire under control, local authorities said, warning that the risk of new flare-ups remains high. There are currently no statistics available on the losses incurred, but at least 20ha of pine forest, including trees that are over a decade old, have been destroyed. VNS To mark the National Day of the Russian Federation on June 12, Viet Nam News presents an article by Konstantin V Vnukov, ambassador of the Russian Federation to Viet Nam On June 12, our country celebrates its national holiday the Day of Russia. This important date not only marks the anniversary of major political and economic reforms, but also reflects the centuries-old history of the Russian state. The Day of Russia demonstrates peace and accords that exist between all citizens, regardless of their ethnic or religious backgrounds. Today, the successful development of our country is impossible without her active participation in global affairs. Willing to strengthen mutually beneficial co-operation with the entire world, Russia, as the largest Eurasian power, pays special attention to the Asia-Pacific region, which is the centre of contemporary politics and economy. At the same time, one of our main goals in the region is advancing comprehensive strategic partnership with Viet Nam, Russias closest ally in the AsiaPacific region. The leaders of the two countries hold regular political dialogue and closely work together in the international arena. Recently, Russia and Viet Nam reached breakthrough agreements in practical spheres, including the FTA between the Eurasian Economic Union and Viet Nam, the automobile assembly deal, mutual efforts in the field of nuclear energy and hi-tech projects in the oil and gas sphere, as well as bilateral initiatives in investment and agriculture. At the same time, the main feature of the 66-year RussiaViet Nam relations have been not only advanced political and economic ties, but also close friendship between the two peoples, and kind feelings of the Russian and Vietnamese peoples for each other. The other day, we witnessed the opening of an exhibition of Vietnamese painter Le Lam, who studied arts in our country and dedicated many of his pictures to her. His life, the major parts of which were spent studying in the Soviet Union and participating in Viet Nams struggle for liberation, reflects the destiny of a whole generation of Vietnamese people, who harbour extremely special feelings for Russia. It is to be noted that his exhibition was timed to coincide with an important date for anyone who speaks Russian, the event being the birth anniversary of great poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837). It is also symbolic that some time ago Saint-Petersburg hosted an exhibition of works of distinguished Russian painter Alexey Kuznetsov who lived in Ha Noi in the early 1960s and devoted many of his works to Viet Nam, including the picture of its first President Ho Chi Minh. Lately, Russia and Viet Nam have intensified cultural exchanges. Last year, we held in Viet Nam a Russian films week, a Feel Russia festival, and a concert of Kuban Cossack Chorus. Two music bands from our country also participated in the Hue arts festival. Vietnamese artists performed at the ASEAN cultural festival in Sochi, while the Days of Ha Noi event took place in Moscow. A real present for our national holiday is the organising of the Days of Vietnamese Culture in Moscow and Volgograd, during which Russians can enjoy an exhibition of traditional silk paintings and folk music concerts. Another opportunity to learn more about each other is certainly tourism. We appreciate the efforts being taken by the Vietnamese government to attract our people to Viet Nam. We are also happy to receive guests from all over the world, including Viet Nam. For the purpose of promoting Russian hospitality in the region, a Visit Russia Asia national tourist office was opened in Ha Noi in April. The two countries traditionally pay great attention to education. In the next academic year, the Russian government will provide 855 scholarships to Vietnamese students, with the aim of raising this figure to 1,000 in the near future. Russian and Vietnamese study programmes in both countries play an important role in promoting mutual understanding between the two peoples. We value the support the Vietnamese government provides to the Ha Noi branch of the Pushkin Institute of Russian language and the Russian centres in the Ha Noi State and Ho Chi Minh Pedagogical Universities, financed by Russkiy Mir Foundation. The most well-known centres of Vietnamese studies in Russia are in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Vladivostok. There one can learn literally everything about Viet Nam, such as its ancient and medieval history and philology to contemporary politics and economy. Moreover, Saint-Petersburg has the Institute of Ho Chi Minh, the only one of its kind outside Viet Nam. The Russian Centre of Science and Culture in Ha Noi, the doors of which are always open to those who want to learn more about the rich Russian culture, plays an important role in broadening humanitarian ties between the two countries. VNS Chemicals selling at the Kim Bien market in HCM City. Chemical markets that are endangering food and public safety must be moved out of residential areas and criminal charges filed against violation of trading rules in toxic substances. Photo baophapluat.vn HCM CITY Chemical markets that are endangering food and public safety must be moved out of residential areas and criminal charges filed against violation of trading rules in toxic substances. According to Phan Hoan Kiem, head of the HCM Citys market watch department, the city has about 600 organisations and individuals engaged in producing, importing and trading chemicals. Kim Bien market in District 5, for example, also known as the death market, has 16 stalls selling chemicals, including pigments, dairy and food additives. In addition, there are 93 chemical retailers around the market trading in industrial chemicals, flavours, and food additives. Local authorities have discovered numerous violations of chemical trading rules such as products without labels, products of unknown origin and expired dates, and illegally imported substances. To get big profits, traders ignore the rules, selling illegal toxic chemicals which endanger the quality of food and badly affect peoples health, said Kiem. Just this year, the market control agency has uncovered 15 violations. Last year, eight violations were found involving nearly 28,000kg of illegal chemicals. Meanwhile, Nguyen Ngoc Hoa, deputy director of the citys Industry and Trade Department, told the Tin Tuc (News) Newspaper that supervision of chemical trading is insufficient. The sellers do not care why the buyers buy chemicals. A buyer can get a can of acid easily despite shocking instances of acid attacks on people, Hoa told the paper. Monitoring the chemical trade is complicated by the overlap of authorised agencies. At present, the industrial and trade sector is responsible for controlling industrial and agricultural precursor substances, while the healthcare sector is assigned to supervise pharmaceutical chemicals and anti-bacterial substances, and the agriculture sector takes responsibility for monitoring chemical substances used in planting and animal breeding. However, no sector takes responsibility of monitoring the trading sites. Strict monitoring of acid sales In order to improve supervision in this sector, retailers must also adhere to the rules of product labeling and include information of origin, expiry date and intended use. Meanwhile, deputy chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee, Tran Vinh Tuyen, suggested that for dangerous chemicals like acid, buyers be required to show their identity cards and explain the purpose of the purchase to the sellers. If the sellers do not elicit this information, they would bear responsibility for the use of chemicals in criminal acts. Chemical warehouses in residential areas must be strictly punished, he added. At present, the fine for violations in the chemical trade is still light compared to the profits and thus punishments should be toughened, he said. In order to properly enforce the law, a centre for trading of chemical products must be set up. The Sai Gon Trading Group has recently started a pre-feasibility study for a chemical trading centre covering an area of 7-10ha. The centre would house more than 100 chemical trading shops relocated from Kim Bien market and other parts of the city. VNS Forest is destroyed in Quang Nam Province. The province has seen a number of forest destruction cases recently and provincial authorities determined management overlap and loose inspections led to the problem. Photo baotainguyenmoitruong.vn QUANG NAM Quang Nam Province has seen a number of forest destruction cases recently and provincial authorities determined management overlap and loose inspections led to the problem. Nguyen Nhuan, deputy chairman of the Bac Tra My District Peoples Committee, said late last week three different organisations manage the Song Tranh Protected Forest, including the Song Tranh Management Board, the Song Tranh Forest Ranger Unit, and the Bac Tra My Forest Ranger Unit. This overlapping management led to the tardy discovery of forest destruction. So Nhuan suggested only one organisation to manage the forest. Phan Tuan, director of the Quang Nam Forest Management Department, told Lao ong (Labour) newspaper that from the beginning of last year through now, the department discovered more than 120 cases of illegal forest destruction affecting more than 273ha. Most of the cases affect protected forests. Several forest managers did not keep close watch on areas they were responsible for, Tuan said. And authorities did not perform regular inspections of forest management. Huynh Tan uc, director of the Quang Nam Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the department plans to re-arrange the system of forest management boards to improve protection effectiveness. For now, the forest would be managed by forest ranger divisions, he said. Recently, the Quang Nam Economic Police seized Nguyen Cuong, deputy director of the ac Mi Protective Forest Management Board in Phuoc Son District, for making corrupt use of his position to appropriate properties. Cuong used 45cu.m of wood in the forest, worth more than VN252 million (US$11,200), for his personal purposes. He sold part of the wood, and used the remainder to build a house for himself and to build offices for the board. By the end of last year, provincial authorities discovered a number of forest destruction cases, affecting hundreds of cubic metres of the Song Tranh Protective Forest in Bac Tra My District. Some forest management board workers co-operated with the investigation. Some employees of the Song Tranh protective forest management board were discovered to have collaborated with forest destroyers. These workers were temporarily suspended from their work for further investigation. VNS Vice President ang Thi Ngoc Thinh delivers her speech at the closing ceremony of the 26th Global Summit of Women in Warsaw, Poland. VNA/VNS Photo WARSAW Vice President ang Thi Ngoc Thinh asserted the importance of women in building stable and sustainable societies during her speech at the closing ceremony of the 26th Global Summit of Women in Warsaw, Poland. She called on countries to exert greater efforts to allow women and girls to live in peace and prosperity, while engaging in dialogue and cooperation to manage differences and disputes by peaceful measures and on the basis of international law. Women worldwide should unite for peace, friendly cooperation and development, the Vice President said on Saturday. Other delegates also stressed the role played by women in economic development, saying booming information and technology will make it easier for women to pursue success, provided they believe in themselves and work hard. During the three-day event, the Vietnamese delegation contributed to the agenda, where they shared the countrys experience relating to public-private partnership projects, scientific-technological applications in business startups and development, as well as policies and programmes aiming to remove barriers to women in Vietnamese localities. On the sidelines of the womens summit, the Vietnamese delegation also met with the Polish Economic Minister to discuss economic and trade ties between the two countries. They also organised a seminar on cooperation between Vietnamese businesses at home and in Poland. On Saturday, June 11, 2016, the Vice President met with the advisor to the President of Kazakhstan, Abdykalikova Gulshara. She affirmed that Vietnam always attaches importance to consolidating and enhancing the time-honoured friendship with Kazakhstan. She commended Kazakhstans ratification of the free trade agreement between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and said she believed the deal would open up new cooperation opportunities for the two countries, as well as for Viet Nam and other EAEU nations. The two sides agreed to increase the exchange of all-level delegations and to increase collaboration between the two countries businesses, while stepping up their coordination at bilateral forums. Vice President Thinh also met with the Vietnamese Womens Association in Poland, where she praised its role in building the Vietnamese community in the host country and in organising activities with their homeland. VNS Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc visits My Xuong Cooperative in Cao Lanh District, ong Thap Province. VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat HA NOI Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged ong Thap Province to mobilise and boost diversification of investment models in agricultural development. The prime minister made his request at a meeting with authorities of the Mekong River Delta province yesterday, after listening to and analysing the provinces agricultural restructuring plan. ong Thap is the first locality in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta to participate in the Restructuring the agricultural sector until 2020 and vision to 2030" government project to enhance sustainable development. Prime Minister Phuc commended the provinces past achievements in agriculture restructuring, saying it should be considered a pioneer and a bright example for other provinces to follow. Phuc also expressed confidence the province will become a model of agricultural production efficiency and sustainability in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta and the whole country. ong Thap province is known as the countrys granary. It is the best region for growing fruit trees, such as mango Cao Lanh, Chau Thanh longan, Lai Vung mandarin, Phong Hoa grapefruit, and many other short-term crops. Like other Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces, the province is suffering from climate change, particularly in agricultural production. But with strong determination and unity among local authorities and people, the province has maintained its economic growth target in the first six months of the year at 6.02 per cent. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc met with authorities of the Mekong Delta province of Vinh Long on Saturday to discuss overcoming saline intrusion and restructuring agricultural production. With its economy relying on agriculture, Vinh Long suffered greatly from drought and saline intrusion during the first half of 2016. Rice yield and output in the period fell 10.6 per cent year on year, while tra fish (catfish) production dropped 8.3 per cent, resulting in a 3.9 per cent reduction in the total agro-forestry-fishery production value to VN9.4 trillion (US$423 million). At the function, local leaders appealed for aid from the State to build irrigation systems, including those in Tra On and Vung Liem districts, in response to saltwater intrusion. Nodding his approval, PM Phuc said Vinh Long should focus on natural disaster prevention and global economic integration. As the El Nino phenomenon persists, Vinh Long needs to come up with more creative measures, he said, suggesting changing agricultural production towards plants and animals adaptive to saline environment. He also highlighted the importance of employing advanced farming technologies to increase productivity. The Prime Minister reminded the province to prepare for the implementation of several free trade agreements that Vietnam is participating in, particularly the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He requested Vinh Long to improve its business climate, alongside overhauling administrative procedures and facilitating start-ups. PM Phuc visited and presented gifts to the heroic mother Phan Thi Hong, whose only son sacrificed his life for the country. He also talked to workers at the Taiwanese-funded Vinh Long footwear company, which has operated in the locality for ten years and employs 18,400 people. VNS HA NOI Some 5,000 children and adults in Bac Binh and Ham Thuan Bac districts, afflicted by the severe drought in Binh Thuan Province, will receive support from World Vision. The organisation will address the urgent water, sanitation and hygiene needs in these areas. The relief package worth US$150,000, entrusted to World Vision by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will be distributed from June until the end of July 2016, offering 20,000 bottles of drinking water and 1,250 plastic water tanks to the needy. Each family will receive sixteen 20l bottles, estimated to be a 40-day supply, and one 1,000-litre water tank. Our immediate aim is to contribute to containing the diseases arising from the lack of adequate water supply for human use, Le Van Duong, World Visions National Coordinator of Humanitarian & Emergency Affairs in Viet Nam, said. Were seeking additional funding opportunities to leverage our support for people in need of food aid, hygienic water supply facilities and early economic recovery in the Binh Thuan and ak Nong provinces, Duong said. Previously, World Vision was part of the initial response, using its own resources of $80,000, assisting more than 5,000 residents in the Ham Thuan Bac and Bac Binh districts since early June 2016. From mid-June until July, World Vision will also provide food aid and domestic water supplies to nearly 2,000 people who have faced crop failures in Bac Binh District. The prolonged drought and saline intrusion as a consequence of El Nino in the Mekong Delta, South Central Coastal and Central Highland regions has led to serious groundwater depletion in water-scarce districts. Some two million people are suffering an acute water shortage, including over 1 million women and 520,000 children, according to World Vision. VNS Last year, Jack Ma-led e-commerce giant announced it was strengthening its India business as it launched a reseller platform. However, the scaling down of the Chinese companys physical presence in the country, that came alongside the reseller plan, remained unsaid. President today embarked on a six-day visit to three African nations Ghana, Ivory Coast and Namibia to boost trade ties with these countries known for having "solid political system, where democracy has taken roots". This is the maiden visit of any Indian President to Ghana and Ivory Coast whereas to Namibia, such a visit comes after two decades. Even though Mukherjee has toured a number of countries in the continent, he will be visiting these countries for the first time in his long political career. He was given a traditional send off at Rashtrapati Bhavan by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag, among others. "All these countries we look at as good countries in terms of a solid political system, where democracy has taken roots and these are all doing reasonably well in their regions," Secretary (ER) Amar Sinha has said. The President is accompanied by Minister of State in the PMO Jitendra Singh and MPs S S Ahluwalia and Mansukh L Mandaviya. "It's a very important visit of the President. He is visiting two countries for the first time Ivory Coast and Ghana, besides Namibia where an (Indian) President will visit after 21 years. He is having a number of engagements. This is not a ceremonial visit. It has an educational component, economic component and a community component," MoS Singh said. The President's first stop will be in Accra, capital of Ghana, where there will be delegation level talks at the President's House, which is called Flag Staff House, tomorrow. The imposing building has been built by a renowned Indian builder, Shapoorji Pallonji. There are likely to be discussions on some agreements on visa waiver and line of credits is also in the pipeline. Mukherjee will pay homage to Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah at his mausoleum in Accra. He will also be unveiling a statue of Mahatma Gandhi which has been gifted by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, besides planting a sapling. "Investment in Ghana is substantial, nearly three billion dollars in various sectors. NRI's, professionals have invested in IT, pharmaceuticals and other areas. If you look at last three year figures, our trade has gone up nearly three times," Sinha said, adding, "Ghana's main trade consists of gold imports, it's nearly 80 percent of total trade. Ghanaian gold is in great demand in India." The President will also be visiting the India-Ghana Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, set up by India, and will meet its faculty and alumni. About three suspected Al-Qaeda militants were killed in a in Yemen, a military official said. "A four-wheel drive vehicle was struck by missiles fired from a US drone in the tribal area of Haban in Shabwa province, killing three Al-Qaeda militants at the scene," Xinhua quoted the Yemeni military source as saying. The official said that all the three dead militants were known for their links to the latest terror attacks that struck southern Yemeni provinces. Residents said that vehicle was completely destroyed in the area and no one escaped from the American attack. On Saturday, a US drone attack killed two members of the al-Qaeda group in their vehicle in Marib province east of the Yemen's capital Sanaa. AMES Ethanol producer Flint Hills Resources has donated $5,000 to Iowa Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit organization that offers educational programs and outreach, including presentations to local schools, community groups, truck drivers and industrial facilities that rely heavily on the rail industry. Flint Hills Resources has donated nearly $20,000 to Iowa Operation Lifesaver since 2013. The new donation also will support Iowa Operation Lifesavers participation in this years Iowa State Fair, where they will engage more than 50,000 individuals in important railroad safety lessons. The store, also known as Moo Roo, will host an anniversary event from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. June 18. A $4 meal featuring local foods will be served, including choice of hot dog, brat, hamburger or pork patty, chips and salsa, caprese salad with cheese curds, milk and a small ice cream cone. There will be free samples from Grubbs Popcorn and balloons and games for kids. WATERLOO Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa will honor three area business leaders and one young entrepreneur for their outstanding achievements in the community at the 21st annual Junior Achievement of Eastern Iowa Business Hall of Fame event Oct. 27 at the Park Place Event Centre in Cedar Falls. Honors will be given to Laureates Bob Heaton of Cedar Valley Wealth Advisors; Bob Beach of University Book and Supply (retired); and Stephen Jackson of Cedar Valley Corp. LLC. The Young Entrepreneur will be Andy Van Fleet of Visual Logic Group and ID8 Workspace. For tickets or additional details, call Junior Achievement at 274-0760 or e-mail Heather Arnold at harnold@jaeasterniowa.org. Base security When Triston Chase, 20, missed his court date in April in Harnett County, N.C., on financial fraud charges, it was revealed that his arrest in December had come when he had been found residing illegally, as a civilian, in a barracks at Fort Bragg in a facility housing the Armys 3rd Special Forces Group. According to a prosecutor, Chase had been posing as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist for months. The official investigation of Special Forces barracks security was still underway at the time of Chases court date. Propelled for life As an alternative to the more costly in vitro fertilization, researchers at a Dresden, Germany, institute announced (in the recent Nano Letters journal) that they had developed a motorized device tiny enough to fit around a sperms tail and which could be commanded to propel it to swim faster toward the target egg, increasing the chances of fertilization. A prototype is still in the works. Pick the lock As Libyas central bank struggles to stabilize a halting economy, it could surely use the estimated $184 million in gold and silver coins Moammar Gadhafi minted but left buried in an underground vault in the coastal city of Beyda, but the treasure is inaccessible because central bank officials dont know the locks combination. The latest plan is to have a locksmith squeeze through a 16-by-16-inch hole in the outer vaults concrete wall and once inside to try his hand. If unsuccessful, the governments bureaucrats likely cannot get paid, but even if successful, various anti-government factions may go to extremes to snatch the coins. Incompetent criminals James Kinley III, 27, was charged in York County, S.C., in May with dealing marijuana. He apparently had the (unfounded) belief that York County deputies do not monitor Craigslist because that is where Kinley advertised (I Sell Weed), in a notice with his photo, address and price ($200). Grady Carlson, 58, went to the Carolina Title Loans office in Spartanburg, S.C., on May 25 to apply for a high-interest payday loan, and nervously paced while answering questions. The Carolina employee asked if anything was wrong, and Carlson allegedly disclosed he needed money fast to purchase methamphetamine. A subsequent police search turned up a glass container and drugs. Problem solved For years, India has been concerned about the gas-release problem posed by its nearly 300 million cows and 200 million more gas-intensive animals. But researchers in Kerala state revealed a promising breeding answer in May: Dwarf cows, which are about a quarter the size of standard cows and produce one-seventh the manure and a tenth of the methane. Pound for pound, methane traps 25 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. WATERLOO Melba Shank has touched countless lives during her 100 years. Her family, her students, the retirees who delighted in her piano playing and the congregation at Zion Lutheran Church, to name a few. Zion Lutheran, the church she called home for most of her life, made a point of showing Shank just what she has meant to them Sunday with a celebration of her century on earth. Shank, who turned 100 on June 8, lives with her daughter Paula Tann in Indianola now, after having a stroke in 2012. But she came back to Zion in Waterloo on Sunday for the celebration. Ive been so blessed with so many dear friends and love, Shank said Sunday morning before the church service and celebration. I guess the century really is of love and faith. Thats what kept me going. And music, Shank added. Shank, a native of Hawkeye, doesnt remember what led her to a love of music, only that she played violin in her youth for barn dances. But her love of music ultimately brought her to the piano. She played at Zion during her time as a congregant, even penning words and music for a song to celebrate the churchs 50th anniversary. Now, she plays the organ daily at her daughters home. Shank returned to her once regular bench before a black Baldwin piano at Zion to play a medley during the peace offering Sunday. We see Melba at the place we love to see her at the piano, the Rev. Gary Heidt-Johnson said during the service, just before the offering began. When she finished, the congregation gave her a standing ovation. While Shank downplayed her skills to her successor at the bench, her family said she has real talent. Aside from writing music and lyrics, they said she simply has an ear for song. Shanks granddaughter Traci Scheumann said Shank has a gift for being able to hear a song once and being able to play it. And Shank herself acknowledged she can remember hundreds of songs to play off the top of her head. Shanks granddaughter Teri Kobussen said its not just a gift for music, but Shank can recall the names of not just her many friends and acquaintances but also their family and friends. Shank said since her stroke she sometimes cant find the words shes looking for, but its clear her memory is strong. She lists all the places she and her husband worked, where they moved and important dates with ease. Shank married her husband Edwin on April 26, 1941. They moved to Waterloo about 1950 for her husbands work and joined Zion Lutheran shortly after. They raised their daughter, Paula. And both Shank and her husband ultimately worked at the Dunkerton School District; she retired from there in 1979 after 25 years as a third-grade teacher. Her husband passed away in 2003. After retirement, Shank stayed active through church and through service. She played piano regularly at retirement communities and other functions. She served in womens organizations. And she helped out in myriad ways at the church. During the service, before the choir sang a favorite song of Shanks, they had the congregation raise hands to say the ways theyd had a connection to Shank hands went up as they listed circle, Bible study, rainbow choir, Sunday school, widows group, book club, brown baggers, key club and as a teacher. Members of the congregation expressed nothing but joy at seeing Shank return to her old perch. She was described as magical, as something else and praised by the pastor as someone who humbly shared her gifts. She takes all the praise in stride, of course. Ive been blessed all my life. I realize that, Shank said. Shank has one daughter, two granddaughters and six great-grandchildren, who got together to celebrate her 100th birthday. Shank said she also received umpteen cards with well wishes. WATERLOO When Cindi Knox participated in her first Relay for Life several years ago, she felt deeply touched as she watched survivors make their honorary lap around the track. Her mother had died at 27 from breast cancer. Now she walks that lap herself, as a brain cancer survivor. There are no words for it. Im inspired by the other survivors around me. There is a bond between us, Knox said. The annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life is from 2 to 10 p.m. Friday at Hawkeye Community College. There will be music, childrens activities, bounce houses, food vendors, silent auction baskets and raffles, a hot wing eating challenge, games and fireworks at 10 p.m. Knox, 45, was chosen as this relays honorary cancer survivor. Errol Brown was selected as the honorary cancer caregiver. Knox was diagnosed with a brain cancer in 2013. Surgery removed as much of the tumor as possible, and she underwent chemotherapy and radiation. The only symptom was that I smelled cigarette smoke when it wasnt there. I let it go for a long time until it increased in intensity. It was an olfactory hallucination, she explained, and not uncommon. Chemo was halted after Knox suffered an adverse reaction, including a small stroke and infections. Radiation continued after her health improved. Brain cancer is more common than you might think, but there arent a lot of treatment options or advances in the last 40 years. I keep track of research and developments because brain cancer tends to return. Knox will captain the eight-person FUNC Cancer Crushers at the Relay, hoping to raise close to $2,000. My life was given back to me. God didnt want me to sit on the couch, Knox said. Ive also learned to trust my instincts. You have to be your own advocate about your health. Honorary caregiver Errol Brown and wife Bonnie participate in Relay for Life in remembrance of their daughter Shelly. She lost her battle with cancer in 2008. Brown had cared for Bonnie when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1969. Bonnie was 32 then and had a radical mastectomy. At that time, they didnt do chemotherapy and everything has been fine ever since. The Browns expected a similar outcome when Shelly was diagnosed in 2002. A West High School 1985 graduate, Shelly had been a standout softball player and later taught in Waterloo Schools. She underwent a double mastectomy and chemo, but cancer returned in 2005, attacking her liver and bones. She battled up to the end. She was a couple weeks shy of her 41st birthday when we lost her, Brown said. Shelly started the Shellys All-Stars Relay for Life Team after her initial diagnosis. She believed there was a cure. Weve gone with that same belief, that if we could raise enough money and fund enough research, sooner or later a cure is going to be found, Brown said. WATERLOO The Americans for Democratic Action Iowa will hold a peace vigil and march Wednesday evening to honor the lives lost in Sundays mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The vigil will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Lincoln Park at East Fourth and Franklin streets in Waterloo. The vigil will last for one hour before the attendees will march from the park to Kings and Queens Club, 304 E. Fourth St., in Waterloo, to toast to a future free from hatred and violence. The vigil will not only recognize the lives lost but also call for an end to gun violence, homophobia, transphobia and religious fundamentalism. We cannot remain silent in the wake of such hateful violence, said ADA Iowa organizer Chris Schwartz. We as Americans must own our problem with gun violence. It is time for policy makers to stop with the excuses and start taking meaningful action. He said he was full of sadness and rage at the mass-shooting incident. The shooting in Florida has killed at least 50 people as of Sunday, with as many wounded from the shooting that took place in the early morning hours at a club that caters to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clientele. It also occurred as the LGBT community celebrates pride month. The Associated Press has called the incident the worst mass shooting in United States history. More information about the event is available at https://www.facebook.com/events/16966334705 88815/ WATERLOO The city has been asked to extend development incentives for PDCM Insurances relocation of its corporate headquarters. Waterloo City Council members are scheduled Monday to vote on a development agreement providing five years of 50 percent property tax rebates for a projected $600,000 renovation of companys new location at 3022 Airport Blvd. The tax rebates only would be granted on the taxable property value added beyond the buildings current $1.37 million assessed value. PDCM, which celebrated its 100th anniversary this year, moved in February from twin buildings on University Avenue into the 18,000-square-foot building on Airport Boulevard. The new location, formerly the United Healthcare call center, has been vacant since 2011. Other scheduled council business includes: A preliminary plat from XL Colt Farms LLC for the 35-lot Audubon Hills First Addition, a planned development of single-family and twin homes between existing Audubon Hills and U.S. Highway 20. Members of the Waterloo Planning, Programming and Zoning Commission endorsed the plat despite concerns from some nearby home owners concerned the lots and minimum home requirements were not compatible with the neighborhood. A public hearing and reading of bids for the street reconstruction, parking lot improvements and streetscaping around the new Single Speed Brewing Co. project and Waterloo Public Library downtown. The work rebuilding streets, sidewalks, a parking lot and decorative elements is being funded by the city and Single Speed based on a development agreement to turn the former Hostess bakery building into a production brewery and tap room. The meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the council chambers on the second floor of City Hall. A 4:20 p.m. work session is slated to discuss flood levees and eventual replacement of City Clerk/Human Resources Director Suzy Schares, who is resigning in the fall. SHEFFIELD - A Rockwell motorcyclist was taken to the hospital in an accident after trying to avoid a dog in the road near here. The Iowa State Patrol said Martin John Menken, 62, was taken to Franklin General Hospital in Hampton for non-life-threatening injuries after the 3 p.m. Saturday accident in the 2200 block of Olive Avenue. Troopers said Menken, southbound toward Chapin, slowed and moved into the opposite lane to avoid the dog, which then became frightened and ran back across the road into the motorcycle's path. Menken was unable to avoid he dog and was thrown from his motorcycle. TRAER Its been just over a year since Raymond Berner, a dentist practicing in Reinbeck, passed away. Now, the city of Traer is honoring his life in perhaps a unique way a memorial silhouette of an American Bison. Although Berner was well-known locally for his practice, hes equally remembered for his passion for nature. It has made him a proud son of Traer, who developed and sustained the towns Wilson Nature Preserve the two-acre prairie restoration project located in the southwest area of town. He had a strong interest in preserving nature, said Ned Vaughn, friend and neighbor who assisted Berner with the prairie work. And the memorial is to honor Ray and all the work he did on the prairie. The memorial, erected May 26, is an 8-foot by 5 1/2-foot silhouette, roughly the size of an average American Bison, made from steel. It was constructed by George Schimek of Custom Blacksmithing and Manufacturing in Waterloo. Berners work began in 1990 when he helped secure the initial prairie seeds for the preserve, which was established to memorialize longtime residents Carl and Evelyn Wilson. Vaughn said Berner was the driving force behind the prairie from the get-go, even when the initial seeds were washed away by torrential rains and the grasses and had to be replanted. He had a passion for nature and history, and he wanted to share that with others, Berners son, Andy, remembered of his father. Vaughn remembered Berner was partial to bison due to what historians have described as a symbiotic relationship between bison and the prairie the grasses and the grazers depended on one another for survival, according to the National Bison Association. Following Berners death, the WNP board knew a bison silhouette would be a proper memorial. This is exactly what he wouldve loved, Andy said of the bison memorial. To look out on the prairie and see at least the shape of a bison. An ironic testament to Berners all around influence on the preserve can be seen, Vaughn said, by the funds for the bison memorial. Vaughn said Berner technically paid for his own memorial because WNP money was used. Seed sales made up a large portion of money for the WNP, and those sales were almost exclusively secured by Berner. Vaughn also suggested the bison silhouette may be the first erected since the American Bison became the countrys first national mammal, after a May 9 congressional bill was signed into law by President Obama. Andy said Berner, a skilled woodworker, had once constructed a bison out of wood but ultimately kept it indoors and out of the elements. It was one of the few projects he never quite finished, Andy said. Berners passion for nature wove its way into his entire philosophy of life, Andy said. Berner was an avid reader, but one his favorites was Henry David Thoreaus Walden, as he felt it expressed the true spirituality of nature. Berners decision to build a house by hand in the woods outside of Traer may have been influenced by the book, Andy said. Berners love of nature seems to have passed on through the family. Andy built a house of his own in the backwoods of North Carolina, without really knowing why. It was just something he just had to do; he says it was probably the Berner blood. Further, and perhaps the most definite, proof of Berners appreciation for nature and the prairie can be found in his devotion to maintaining the WNP. Andy said his father poured hours and hours over 20-plus years into the land; collecting seeds, constructing informational booths and clearing walking trails. Largely self-trained in tending to prairie grasses, Berner sought out the occasional help from experts at the University of Northern Iowa. Berner passed away while doing his prairie work. It was difficult early on, but I suppose its nice to think about, after the fact, that it was a beautiful day in May, and he was out clearing the paths, Andy said of his father. He was sweating, doing the same good work hed done for years and keeping busy like he loved. I guess thats not a bad way to go. Its high school graduation season, and there will be a lot of speeches. Heres one youll probably never hear: Congratulations graduates. You have cleared your first major life hurdle, but dont get overconfident. About anyone who wants to can manage this one. Theres still a long road ahead. Some of you may choose to go directly to work and get a job. Never mind you will make thousands of dollars less than those who get more training and education, just go to work early, stay late, work hard while there and above all keep your mouth shut when your bosses talk. They know far more about the company and job than you do. For those who seek training for skilled positions in high-demand areas to become a plumber, electrician, welder, carpenter or any of so many fields that are crying for craftsmen, remember to prepare well. What you are learning is not something irrelevant to your life. It IS your life. Make every lesson count so when your time comes youre prepared to step up and do the job. There are not a lot of do-overs on a job site. Get it right or get gone. And above all remember there is nothing bad about making your living with your hands. Its an honorable occupation. For many, going to the university will be your choice. Remember what Dorothy Gale says: Toto, Ive got a feeling were not in Kansas anymore. The university is not a continuation of high school. You will be given enormous freedom and attend class only about fifteen hours a week. Since you are now paying to go to school, few professors will track your attendance. If you dont want your moneys worth thats your decision. In class you will be evaluated far more on what you know and not much on what you do. Homework counts only modestly toward your grade. Its usually assigned to direct your study to help you learn the material. Extra credit is virtually nonexistent. And make no mistake: You are responsible for teaching yourself. You will not be spoon-fed. Professors give you material not readily available elsewhere. They serve as expositors and clarifiers and help as much as possible, but the job of learning is yours. Finally to you parents. Your students are no longer children but adults. As much as you want to protect them, they must find their own way and learn from their mistakes just as you did. You should be available for guidance and advice when it is needed, but you have to cut the strings. Students are growing up so you have to let go. Please remember the law prevents professors from talking to parents about student performance without expressed, written permission even if you are footing the bill. Thats how much we want students to grow up. So, class of 2016, go out and do a better job than we have. Learn well, work hard and make the world a better place. Good luck! Please let me know if you ever hear a commencement speaker say this. Id pay money to be there. At least 50 are dead and 53 injured after a shooter opened fire at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning. The shooting is now considered t By The Associated Press By The Associated Press Jun. 08, 2016 | 12:29 PM | FRANKFORT, KY The Kentucky Department of Corrections has dropped a policy that let wardens ban mail to inmates if they thought the items promoted homosexuality. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that Corrections Commissioner Rodney Ballard sent a statewide memo to prison staff last week, issuing the revised inmate mail policy. The policy previously allowed prison wardens to ban materials that depicted homosexuality, sadism, masochism, bestiality and sexual acts or nudity with children. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky challenged the policy's reference to homosexuality in March, citing free speech and free press rights by the First Amendment. When the policy was revised, the specific reference to homosexuality was removed. Legal director of the Kentucky ACLU William Sharp says the old policy was discriminatory. ___ Information from: Lexington Herald-Leader, http://www.kentucky.com past daily news Sep 13 (1) Sep 09 (15) Sep 06 (12) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (10) Aug 31 (17) Aug 29 (14) Aug 26 (13) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (12) Aug 19 (21) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (10) Aug 10 (10) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (10) Aug 06 (10) Aug 05 (8) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (14) Jul 29 (1) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (10) Jul 22 (11) Jul 19 (16) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (10) Jul 15 (13) Jul 12 (7) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (11) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (8) Jun 28 (7) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (8) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (9) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (9) Jun 18 (8) Jun 15 (9) Jun 13 (13) Jun 11 (11) Jun 09 (19) Jun 06 (10) Jun 04 (10) Jun 03 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (5) May 30 (5) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (7) May 26 (6) May 25 (4) May 23 (6) May 22 (6) May 21 (4) May 20 (7) May 19 (9) May 18 (4) May 17 (6) May 16 (5) May 15 (7) May 14 (3) May 13 (3) May 12 (9) May 10 (3) May 09 (7) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (5) May 05 (8) May 03 (9) May 02 (1) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (8) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (2) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (2) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (2) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (7) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (6) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (10) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (5) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (7) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (8) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (12) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (8) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (8) Feb 28 (7) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (6) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (1) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (2) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (6) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (2) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (8) Jan 30 (2) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (1) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (4) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (2) Jan 20 (2) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (6) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (1) Dec 31 (5) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (2) Dec 17 (1) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (2) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (2) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (1) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (5) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (10) Nov 28 (6) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (6) Nov 19 (2) Nov 18 (5) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (5) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (9) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (6) Oct 22 (4) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (1) Oct 06 (10) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (1) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (6) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (5) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (8) Sep 05 (6) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (5) Aug 31 (8) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (6) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (7) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (7) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (8) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (8) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (8) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (10) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (1) Jul 16 (10) Jul 14 (7) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (7) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (7) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (2) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (5) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (8) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (10) Jun 05 (14) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (6) Jun 02 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (7) May 30 (2) May 29 (7) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (4) May 25 (5) May 24 (4) May 23 (5) May 22 (5) May 21 (5) May 20 (3) May 19 (10) May 18 (6) May 17 (3) May 16 (6) May 15 (2) May 14 (3) May 13 (5) May 11 (1) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (4) May 07 (2) May 06 (4) May 05 (6) May 04 (5) May 03 (5) May 02 (1) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (7) Apr 28 (8) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (14) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (1) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (1) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (1) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (2) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (6) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (9) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (9) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (13) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (6) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (9) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (9) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (10) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (2) Feb 03 (8) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (5) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (7) Jan 26 (8) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (6) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (12) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (8) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (7) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (9) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (8) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (4) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (1) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (10) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (12) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (6) Dec 08 (7) Dec 07 (12) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (13) Dec 04 (6) Dec 02 (8) Dec 01 (8) Nov 30 (6) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (8) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (11) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (6) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (5) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (14) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (11) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (10) Nov 01 (8) Oct 31 (12) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (13) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (8) Oct 22 (5) Oct 21 (11) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (10) Oct 12 (11) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (10) Oct 09 (7) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (14) Oct 04 (9) Oct 03 (12) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (9) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (7) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (10) Sep 21 (12) Sep 20 (12) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (11) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (8) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (10) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (9) Sep 07 (8) Sep 06 (11) Sep 05 (2) Sep 04 (8) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (9) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (4) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (2) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (6) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (6) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (7) Aug 06 (7) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (11) Aug 02 (6) Aug 01 (9) Jul 31 (11) Jul 28 (7) Jul 27 (11) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (2) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (7) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (5) Jul 06 (6) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (3) Jun 30 (8) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (7) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (7) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (7) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (9) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (8) May 30 (7) May 29 (5) May 28 (5) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (3) May 23 (5) May 22 (2) May 21 (3) May 20 (7) May 19 (11) May 18 (1) May 17 (7) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (4) May 11 (11) May 10 (2) May 09 (6) May 08 (6) May 07 (2) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (8) May 02 (4) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (13) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (2) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (9) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (2) Apr 19 (2) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (2) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (9) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (6) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (8) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (6) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (6) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (9) Feb 24 (11) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (7) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (6) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (2) Feb 12 (5) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (10) Feb 08 (9) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (2) Feb 05 (9) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (7) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (7) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (14) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (10) Jan 18 (11) Jan 17 (9) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (10) Jan 06 (8) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (5) Jan 01 (14) Dec 30 (13) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (5) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (7) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (5) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (9) Dec 16 (8) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (17) Dec 09 (8) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (10) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (7) Nov 30 (9) Nov 29 (6) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (15) Nov 24 (7) Nov 23 (15) Nov 22 (9) Nov 21 (6) Nov 20 (11) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (13) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (7) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (13) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (8) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (8) Nov 01 (6) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (15) Oct 26 (10) Oct 25 (10) Oct 24 (13) Oct 23 (9) Oct 21 (8) Oct 20 (13) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (8) Oct 16 (14) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (13) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (15) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (11) Oct 05 (18) Oct 04 (14) Oct 03 (1) Oct 02 (10) Sep 30 (11) Sep 29 (11) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (15) Sep 26 (7) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (17) Sep 20 (20) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (11) Sep 16 (10) Sep 15 (12) Sep 14 (9) Sep 13 (12) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (8) Sep 09 (9) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (13) Sep 06 (15) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (10) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (12) Aug 31 (14) Aug 30 (14) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (8) Aug 27 (9) Aug 26 (12) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (6) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (11) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (5) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (9) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (8) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (6) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (6) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (15) Jul 15 (14) Jul 14 (5) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (12) Jul 11 (8) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (10) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (10) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (7) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (11) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (14) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (8) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (11) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (16) Jun 03 (8) Jun 02 (12) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (7) May 30 (15) May 28 (7) May 27 (5) May 26 (21) May 25 (14) May 24 (10) May 23 (7) May 22 (8) May 21 (11) May 20 (5) May 19 (4) May 18 (10) May 17 (11) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (7) May 13 (12) May 12 (10) May 11 (7) May 10 (13) May 09 (4) May 08 (7) May 07 (3) May 06 (6) May 05 (9) May 04 (14) May 03 (7) May 02 (10) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (8) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (14) Apr 22 (16) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (16) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (11) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (8) Apr 10 (12) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (13) Apr 07 (9) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (15) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (15) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (11) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (10) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (12) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (8) Mar 24 (7) Mar 23 (15) Mar 22 (17) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (8) Mar 19 (4) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (19) Mar 15 (13) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (20) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (13) Mar 08 (13) Mar 07 (7) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (16) Mar 02 (16) Mar 01 (13) Feb 29 (8) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (16) Feb 26 (10) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (12) Feb 23 (14) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (12) Feb 18 (12) Feb 17 (11) Feb 16 (8) Feb 15 (9) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (10) Feb 12 (11) Feb 11 (13) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (13) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (19) Jan 31 (21) Jan 29 (11) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (13) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (2) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (13) Jan 21 (11) Jan 20 (9) Jan 19 (13) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (11) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (13) Jan 13 (9) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (7) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (7) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (8) Jan 01 (5) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (9) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (1) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (6) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (13) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (10) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (11) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (9) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (10) Dec 08 (13) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (8) Dec 04 (11) Dec 03 (12) Dec 02 (16) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (11) Nov 28 (15) Nov 27 (16) Nov 26 (11) Nov 25 (9) Nov 24 (13) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (1) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (10) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (10) Nov 13 (14) Nov 12 (8) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (12) Nov 05 (17) Nov 04 (12) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (12) Oct 31 (11) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (10) Oct 28 (18) Oct 27 (16) Oct 26 (11) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (12) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (12) Oct 20 (17) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (15) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (10) Oct 14 (16) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (12) Oct 09 (21) Oct 08 (22) Oct 07 (19) Oct 06 (18) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (17) Oct 03 (13) Oct 02 (14) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (14) Sep 29 (15) Sep 28 (12) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (15) Sep 25 (13) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (10) Sep 22 (12) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (12) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (16) Sep 16 (21) Sep 15 (14) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (10) Sep 11 (16) Sep 10 (7) Sep 09 (8) Sep 08 (10) Sep 07 (7) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (9) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (10) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (14) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (13) Aug 20 (9) Aug 19 (13) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (8) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (12) Aug 11 (9) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (14) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (1) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (2) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (6) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (6) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (9) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (1) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (13) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (7) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (9) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (3) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (7) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (11) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (8) Jun 03 (9) Jun 02 (6) Jun 01 (4) May 30 (7) May 29 (9) May 28 (13) May 26 (8) May 25 (5) May 24 (2) May 23 (8) May 22 (9) May 21 (7) May 20 (4) May 19 (6) May 18 (7) May 17 (8) May 15 (9) May 14 (5) May 13 (8) May 12 (6) May 11 (6) May 09 (7) May 08 (6) May 07 (11) May 06 (7) May 05 (4) May 04 (11) May 03 (5) May 02 (4) May 01 (9) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (9) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (10) Apr 22 (8) Apr 21 (9) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (4) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (6) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (5) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (2) Apr 05 (2) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (7) Apr 02 (7) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (2) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (6) Mar 20 (9) Mar 19 (9) Mar 18 (8) Mar 17 (9) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (11) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (12) Mar 11 (9) Mar 10 (12) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (5) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (11) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (8) Feb 27 (9) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (8) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (10) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (7) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (2) Feb 14 (8) Feb 13 (12) Feb 12 (8) Feb 11 (10) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (2) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (12) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (8) Jan 26 (13) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (12) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (10) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (11) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (8) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (9) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (10) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (10) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (9) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (10) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (1) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (9) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (7) Nov 25 (12) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (6) Nov 18 (10) Nov 17 (12) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (12) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (7) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (9) Nov 03 (6) Nov 02 (14) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (9) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (8) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (2) Oct 19 (11) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (7) Oct 15 (7) Oct 14 (8) Oct 13 (5) Oct 12 (8) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (5) Oct 09 (11) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (8) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (10) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (7) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (8) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (11) Sep 24 (15) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (10) Sep 17 (10) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (8) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (7) Sep 02 (7) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (9) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (12) Aug 19 (8) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (8) Aug 11 (7) Aug 10 (12) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (4) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (12) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (8) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (8) Jul 20 (6) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (8) Jul 17 (2) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (9) Jul 13 (10) Jul 11 (9) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (7) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (7) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (15) Jun 26 (10) Jun 25 (9) Jun 24 (16) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (12) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (13) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (14) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (16) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (18) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (8) May 31 (3) May 30 (6) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (6) May 23 (4) May 22 (8) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (2) May 18 (9) May 17 (1) May 16 (5) May 15 (5) May 14 (7) May 13 (7) May 12 (7) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (5) May 08 (10) May 07 (4) May 06 (13) May 05 (4) May 04 (10) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (9) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (9) Apr 24 (7) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (10) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (7) Apr 14 (11) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (9) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (6) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (10) Apr 03 (9) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (8) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (8) Mar 22 (7) Mar 21 (14) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (11) Mar 17 (12) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (8) Mar 14 (13) Mar 13 (8) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (8) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (3) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (15) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (12) Mar 02 (20) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (11) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (14) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (8) Feb 16 (11) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (7) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (2) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (2) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (7) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (5) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (7) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (4) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (3) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (1) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 27 (1) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (8) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (1) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (7) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (9) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (2) Dec 01 (8) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (12) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (12) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (9) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (11) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (7) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (7) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (2) Oct 21 (7) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (7) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (20) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (21) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (34) Oct 04 (24) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (7) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (5) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (5) Sep 26 (6) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (2) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (9) Sep 19 (11) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (6) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (11) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (6) Sep 06 (10) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (5) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (8) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (7) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (8) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (7) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (4) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (6) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (7) Jul 23 (10) Jul 22 (8) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (7) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (10) Jul 16 (11) Jul 15 (5) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (12) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (8) Jul 03 (10) Jul 02 (12) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (23) Jun 27 (18) Jun 26 (12) Jun 25 (14) Jun 24 (15) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (15) Jun 20 (9) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (11) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (6) Jun 15 (6) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (9) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (3) May 30 (5) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (8) May 24 (7) May 23 (6) May 22 (9) May 21 (6) May 20 (5) May 19 (6) May 18 (9) May 17 (10) May 16 (11) May 15 (5) May 14 (11) May 13 (6) May 12 (7) May 11 (7) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (10) May 07 (8) May 06 (11) May 05 (5) May 04 (9) May 03 (3) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (5) Apr 29 (8) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (10) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (10) Apr 16 (8) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (11) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (9) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (2) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (9) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (10) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (2) Mar 10 (1) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (9) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (2) Feb 17 (1) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (7) Feb 11 (2) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (5) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (9) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (10) Feb 01 (9) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (5) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (8) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (1) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (1) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (2) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (8) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (8) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (7) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (7) Dec 02 (1) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (16) Nov 27 (7) Nov 26 (5) Nov 25 (2) Nov 24 (6) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (15) Nov 19 (8) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (5) Nov 08 (8) Nov 07 (9) Nov 06 (9) Nov 05 (1) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (8) Nov 02 (6) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (8) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (1) Oct 22 (6) Oct 21 (1) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (10) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (15) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (7) Oct 10 (1) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (8) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (8) Sep 24 (8) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (9) Sep 20 (7) Sep 19 (8) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (7) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (9) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (10) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (15) Sep 04 (5) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (7) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (11) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (15) Aug 24 (6) Aug 23 (8) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (7) Aug 19 (2) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (9) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (7) Aug 07 (9) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (11) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (5) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (6) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (8) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (14) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (8) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (14) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (12) Jun 15 (12) Jun 14 (10) Jun 13 (10) Jun 12 (9) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (12) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (12) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (3) May 25 (5) May 24 (9) May 23 (16) May 22 (12) May 21 (11) May 20 (7) May 19 (10) May 18 (8) May 17 (8) May 16 (10) May 15 (8) May 14 (5) May 13 (1) May 12 (6) May 11 (9) May 10 (9) May 09 (10) May 08 (9) May 07 (6) May 06 (5) May 05 (7) May 04 (10) May 03 (7) May 02 (9) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (12) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (9) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (2) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (10) Apr 14 (7) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (7) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (8) Apr 05 (8) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (11) Mar 30 (12) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (9) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (12) Mar 20 (14) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (8) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (12) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (8) Feb 29 (11) Feb 28 (5) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (13) Feb 25 (10) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (10) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (18) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (5) Feb 16 (9) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (8) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (10) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (12) Jan 30 (7) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (7) Jan 27 (12) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (11) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (12) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (11) Jan 16 (9) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (9) Jan 10 (10) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (10) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (10) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (7) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (9) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (8) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (1) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (6) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (13) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (7) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (7) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (9) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (7) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (8) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (10) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (10) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (8) Nov 17 (9) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (12) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (8) Nov 06 (10) Nov 05 (8) Nov 04 (7) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (11) Nov 01 (10) Oct 31 (5) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (8) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (5) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (11) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (7) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (9) Oct 14 (7) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (8) Oct 09 (9) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (12) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (13) Oct 04 (11) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (14) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (12) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (7) Sep 25 (10) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (8) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (7) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (14) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (11) Sep 14 (13) Sep 13 (11) Sep 12 (9) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (13) Sep 08 (11) Sep 07 (11) Sep 06 (16) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (8) Sep 01 (7) Aug 31 (1) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (5) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (7) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (12) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (13) Jul 28 (10) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (12) Jul 22 (14) Jul 21 (6) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (12) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (6) Jul 15 (8) Jul 14 (15) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (6) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (9) Jul 06 (15) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (10) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (11) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (11) Jun 24 (9) Jun 23 (10) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (8) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (15) Jun 17 (8) Jun 16 (13) Jun 15 (15) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (6) Jun 12 (15) Jun 11 (7) Jun 10 (7) Jun 09 (18) Jun 08 (20) Jun 07 (17) Jun 06 (9) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (12) Jun 03 (13) Jun 02 (14) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (13) May 30 (8) May 29 (6) May 28 (8) May 27 (17) May 26 (8) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (9) May 22 (4) May 21 (4) May 20 (11) May 19 (14) May 18 (6) May 17 (10) May 16 (4) May 15 (5) May 14 (28) May 12 (9) May 11 (17) May 10 (15) May 09 (12) May 08 (5) May 07 (4) May 06 (10) May 05 (8) May 04 (10) May 03 (5) May 02 (6) May 01 (8) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (12) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (10) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (13) Apr 19 (11) Apr 18 (11) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (11) Apr 14 (17) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (16) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (18) Apr 08 (14) Apr 07 (6) Apr 06 (10) Apr 05 (21) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (13) Apr 01 (8) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (11) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (10) Mar 23 (12) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (8) Mar 20 (4) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (9) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (14) Mar 11 (13) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (17) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (7) Mar 05 (13) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (14) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (18) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (2) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (13) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (13) Feb 22 (12) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (16) Feb 18 (17) Feb 17 (15) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (15) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (8) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (15) Feb 10 (11) Feb 09 (13) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (15) Feb 04 (15) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (14) Feb 01 (15) Jan 31 (11) Jan 30 (9) Jan 29 (19) Jan 28 (9) Jan 27 (9) Jan 26 (16) Jan 25 (19) Jan 24 (17) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (15) Jan 21 (9) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (12) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (14) Jan 12 (11) Jan 11 (13) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (20) Jan 07 (11) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (14) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (14) Dec 30 (15) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (10) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (11) Dec 24 (9) Dec 23 (9) Dec 22 (15) Dec 21 (12) Dec 20 (11) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (12) Dec 15 (14) Dec 14 (11) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (17) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (12) Dec 07 (16) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (12) Dec 03 (15) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (12) Nov 30 (16) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (13) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (15) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (8) Nov 19 (9) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (9) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (10) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (7) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (14) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (13) Nov 01 (9) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (18) Oct 28 (13) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (12) Oct 25 (14) Oct 24 (20) Oct 22 (18) Oct 21 (18) Oct 20 (19) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (18) Oct 15 (8) Oct 14 (11) Oct 13 (9) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (27) Oct 08 (14) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (10) Oct 03 (6) Oct 02 (9) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (13) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (9) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (14) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (14) Sep 22 (20) Sep 21 (11) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (14) Sep 17 (8) Sep 16 (17) Sep 15 (6) Sep 14 (11) Sep 13 (9) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (14) Sep 09 (12) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (9) Sep 04 (20) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (16) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (13) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (11) Aug 25 (10) Aug 24 (14) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (13) Aug 21 (10) Aug 20 (13) Aug 19 (15) Aug 18 (8) Aug 17 (10) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (11) Aug 13 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (10) Aug 10 (17) Aug 09 (6) Aug 08 (13) Aug 07 (11) Aug 06 (13) Aug 05 (11) Aug 04 (11) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (10) Jul 30 (21) Jul 29 (14) Jul 28 (13) Jul 27 (16) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (15) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (15) Jul 21 (19) Jul 20 (17) Jul 19 (9) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (26) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (20) Jul 14 (16) Jul 13 (19) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (13) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (16) Jul 05 (9) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (15) Jul 02 (11) Jul 01 (14) Jun 30 (13) Jun 29 (19) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (9) Jun 26 (16) Jun 25 (22) Jun 24 (17) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (15) Jun 21 (14) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (17) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (10) Jun 16 (17) Jun 15 (13) Jun 14 (14) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (13) Jun 11 (15) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (10) Jun 08 (23) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (20) Jun 05 (10) Jun 04 (11) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (21) Jun 01 (14) May 31 (10) May 30 (14) May 29 (8) May 28 (23) May 27 (20) May 26 (16) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (10) May 22 (18) May 21 (14) May 20 (12) May 19 (18) May 18 (14) May 17 (13) May 16 (4) May 15 (7) May 14 (16) May 13 (13) May 12 (8) May 11 (18) May 10 (8) May 09 (7) May 08 (13) May 07 (11) May 06 (15) May 05 (18) May 04 (17) May 03 (7) May 02 (5) May 01 (11) Apr 30 (19) Apr 29 (21) Apr 28 (18) Apr 27 (16) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (20) Apr 22 (23) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (16) Apr 19 (13) Apr 18 (6) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (16) Apr 15 (18) Apr 14 (13) Apr 13 (14) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (14) Apr 08 (12) Apr 07 (18) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (11) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (16) Mar 31 (16) Mar 30 (22) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (19) Mar 26 (31) Mar 25 (25) Mar 24 (26) Mar 23 (27) Mar 22 (22) Mar 21 (22) Mar 20 (13) Mar 19 (21) Mar 18 (20) Mar 17 (24) Mar 16 (18) Mar 15 (9) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (29) Mar 12 (15) Mar 11 (11) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (20) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (6) Mar 06 (21) Mar 05 (22) Mar 04 (19) Mar 03 (9) Mar 02 (20) Mar 01 (11) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (27) Feb 26 (15) Feb 25 (18) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (19) Feb 22 (24) Feb 21 (10) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (25) Feb 18 (16) Feb 17 (19) Feb 16 (23) Feb 15 (8) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (16) Feb 11 (12) Feb 10 (18) Feb 09 (12) Feb 08 (14) Feb 07 (8) Feb 06 (27) Feb 05 (28) Feb 04 (24) Feb 03 (17) Feb 02 (20) Feb 01 (23) Jan 31 (16) Jan 30 (20) Jan 29 (26) Jan 28 (17) Jan 27 (21) Jan 26 (24) Jan 25 (16) Jan 24 (14) Jan 23 (16) Jan 22 (17) Jan 21 (19) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (17) Jan 18 (13) Jan 17 (14) Jan 16 (10) Jan 15 (21) Jan 14 (16) Jan 13 (19) Jan 12 (30) Jan 11 (14) Jan 10 (11) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (23) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (21) Jan 05 (15) Jan 04 (18) Jan 03 (9) Jan 02 (12) Jan 01 (15) Dec 31 (18) Dec 30 (7) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (6) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (28) Dec 23 (12) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (17) Dec 20 (19) Dec 19 (19) Dec 18 (22) Dec 17 (24) Dec 16 (17) Dec 15 (29) Dec 14 (22) Dec 13 (12) Dec 12 (22) Dec 11 (24) Dec 10 (25) Dec 09 (18) Dec 08 (15) Dec 07 (21) Dec 06 (24) Dec 05 (30) Dec 04 (28) Dec 03 (26) Dec 02 (22) Dec 01 (33) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (9) Nov 28 (18) Nov 27 (25) Nov 26 (17) Nov 25 (23) Nov 24 (27) Nov 23 (12) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (15) Nov 20 (23) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (24) Nov 17 (21) Nov 16 (20) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (15) Nov 13 (27) Nov 12 (23) Nov 11 (19) Nov 10 (21) Nov 09 (13) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (16) Nov 06 (32) Nov 05 (24) Nov 04 (20) Nov 03 (29) Nov 02 (12) Nov 01 (15) Oct 31 (20) Oct 30 (22) Oct 29 (27) Oct 28 (20) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (21) Oct 25 (15) Oct 24 (23) Oct 23 (26) Oct 22 (27) Oct 21 (28) Oct 20 (24) Oct 19 (13) Oct 18 (9) Oct 17 (30) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (20) Oct 14 (14) Oct 13 (17) Oct 12 (16) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (19) Oct 09 (22) Oct 08 (16) Oct 07 (18) Oct 06 (23) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (15) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (22) Sep 30 (25) Sep 29 (20) Sep 28 (17) Sep 27 (13) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (15) Sep 24 (24) Sep 23 (23) Sep 22 (18) Sep 21 (20) Sep 20 (11) Sep 19 (24) Sep 18 (25) Sep 17 (25) Sep 16 (19) Sep 15 (21) Sep 14 (15) Sep 13 (10) Sep 12 (23) Sep 11 (23) Sep 10 (25) Sep 09 (25) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (17) Sep 05 (14) Sep 04 (24) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (19) Aug 31 (20) Aug 30 (11) Aug 29 (24) Aug 28 (24) Aug 27 (16) Aug 26 (26) Aug 25 (21) Aug 24 (15) Aug 23 (19) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (25) Aug 20 (27) Aug 19 (19) Aug 18 (24) Aug 17 (14) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (15) Aug 14 (16) Aug 13 (21) Aug 12 (30) Aug 11 (19) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (12) Aug 08 (17) Aug 07 (21) Aug 06 (26) Aug 05 (23) Aug 04 (21) Aug 03 (12) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (19) Jul 31 (21) Jul 30 (25) Jul 29 (29) Jul 28 (23) Jul 27 (17) Jul 26 (11) Jul 25 (21) Jul 24 (14) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (19) Jul 21 (15) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (10) Jul 18 (15) Jul 17 (22) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (21) Jul 14 (20) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (29) Jul 10 (19) Jul 09 (17) Jul 08 (26) Jul 07 (21) Jul 06 (18) Jul 05 (14) Jul 04 (20) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (24) Jul 01 (23) Jun 30 (23) Jun 29 (18) Jun 28 (16) Jun 27 (16) Jun 26 (17) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (32) Jun 23 (29) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (17) Jun 20 (25) Jun 19 (28) Jun 18 (19) Jun 17 (25) Jun 16 (23) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (14) Jun 12 (22) Jun 11 (19) Jun 10 (17) Jun 09 (15) Jun 08 (16) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (29) Jun 05 (27) Jun 04 (24) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (22) Jun 01 (13) May 31 (9) May 30 (26) May 29 (19) May 28 (15) May 27 (15) May 26 (23) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (24) May 22 (13) May 21 (21) May 20 (18) May 19 (16) May 18 (7) May 17 (12) May 16 (25) May 15 (24) May 14 (23) May 13 (19) May 12 (17) May 11 (8) May 10 (6) May 09 (14) May 08 (21) May 07 (26) May 06 (14) May 05 (14) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (24) May 01 (13) Apr 30 (15) Apr 29 (24) Apr 28 (24) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (13) Apr 24 (27) Apr 23 (15) Apr 22 (21) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (17) Apr 19 (8) Apr 18 (20) Apr 17 (27) Apr 16 (27) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (8) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (22) Apr 09 (15) Apr 08 (15) Apr 07 (17) Apr 06 (14) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (19) Mar 31 (25) Mar 30 (13) Mar 29 (9) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (23) Mar 26 (22) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (25) Mar 23 (16) Mar 22 (13) Mar 21 (24) Mar 20 (27) Mar 19 (20) Mar 18 (24) Mar 17 (17) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (20) Mar 13 (28) Mar 12 (30) Mar 11 (20) Mar 10 (21) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (8) Mar 07 (17) Mar 06 (20) Mar 05 (19) Mar 04 (15) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (12) Feb 28 (16) Feb 27 (17) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (23) Feb 24 (15) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (10) Feb 21 (24) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (24) Feb 18 (19) Feb 17 (27) Feb 16 (13) Feb 15 (11) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (13) Feb 12 (13) Feb 11 (21) Feb 10 (16) Feb 09 (15) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (17) Feb 06 (21) Feb 05 (17) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (23) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (8) Jan 31 (17) Jan 30 (22) Jan 29 (23) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (24) Jan 26 (12) Jan 25 (9) Jan 24 (12) Jan 23 (19) Jan 22 (19) Jan 21 (14) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (12) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (20) Jan 16 (14) Jan 15 (23) Jan 14 (8) Jan 13 (20) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (18) Jan 09 (11) Jan 08 (18) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (12) Jan 05 (12) Jan 04 (11) Jan 03 (10) Jan 02 (9) Jan 01 (9) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (13) Dec 26 (15) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (8) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (14) Dec 19 (17) Dec 18 (14) Dec 17 (14) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (9) Dec 14 (9) Dec 13 (11) Dec 12 (16) Dec 11 (18) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (24) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (19) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (26) Dec 04 (15) Dec 03 (20) Dec 02 (17) Dec 01 (11) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (18) Nov 28 (21) Nov 27 (10) Nov 26 (22) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (18) Nov 21 (9) Nov 20 (17) Nov 19 (16) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (21) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (20) Nov 12 (16) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (9) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (15) Nov 06 (18) Nov 05 (19) Nov 04 (16) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (17) Oct 31 (17) Oct 30 (21) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (16) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (16) Oct 24 (18) Oct 23 (14) Oct 22 (17) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (6) Oct 19 (8) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (12) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (19) Oct 14 (15) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (10) Oct 10 (23) Oct 09 (13) Oct 08 (15) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (13) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (16) Oct 03 (17) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (20) Sep 30 (17) Sep 29 (9) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (14) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (19) Sep 24 (13) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (21) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (20) Sep 16 (16) Sep 15 (10) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (18) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (24) Sep 10 (17) Sep 09 (16) Sep 08 (16) Sep 07 (10) Sep 06 (20) Sep 05 (13) Sep 04 (23) Sep 03 (14) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (11) Aug 31 (11) Aug 30 (13) Aug 29 (18) Aug 28 (14) Aug 27 (21) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (8) Aug 24 (10) Aug 23 (17) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (14) Aug 20 (20) Aug 19 (20) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (9) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (12) Aug 14 (14) Aug 13 (19) Aug 12 (14) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (12) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (18) Aug 07 (16) Aug 06 (16) Aug 05 (20) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (12) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (16) Jul 30 (16) Jul 29 (11) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (9) Jul 26 (17) Jul 25 (20) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (11) Jul 22 (18) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (14) Jul 18 (11) Jul 17 (15) Jul 16 (12) Jul 15 (10) Jul 14 (8) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (17) Jul 11 (18) Jul 10 (16) Jul 09 (13) Jul 08 (10) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (8) Jul 05 (16) Jul 04 (14) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (13) Jul 01 (16) Jun 30 (19) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (19) Jun 27 (21) Jun 26 (27) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (23) Jun 23 (12) Jun 22 (9) Jun 21 (18) Jun 20 (15) Jun 19 (24) Jun 18 (21) Jun 17 (13) Jun 16 (9) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (18) Jun 13 (24) Jun 12 (18) Jun 11 (23) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (24) Jun 08 (27) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (25) Jun 05 (30) Jun 04 (23) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (16) Jun 01 (17) May 31 (18) May 30 (19) May 29 (17) May 28 (23) May 27 (15) May 26 (10) May 25 (19) May 24 (16) May 23 (16) May 22 (27) May 21 (20) May 20 (26) May 19 (6) May 18 (8) May 17 (20) May 16 (8) May 15 (18) May 14 (5) May 13 (21) May 12 (9) May 11 (8) May 10 (12) May 09 (18) May 08 (11) May 07 (27) May 06 (12) May 05 (16) May 04 (19) May 03 (14) May 02 (18) May 01 (18) Apr 30 (25) Apr 29 (27) Apr 28 (11) Apr 27 (10) Apr 26 (18) Apr 25 (10) Apr 24 (29) Apr 23 (29) Apr 22 (14) Apr 21 (15) Apr 20 (20) Apr 19 (22) Apr 18 (16) Apr 17 (32) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (21) Apr 13 (15) Apr 12 (13) Apr 11 (14) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (20) Apr 08 (36) Apr 07 (22) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (28) Apr 04 (20) Apr 03 (29) Apr 02 (32) Apr 01 (18) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (15) Mar 28 (22) Mar 27 (24) Mar 26 (17) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (13) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (15) Mar 20 (18) Mar 19 (19) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (10) Mar 16 (6) Mar 15 (18) Mar 14 (24) Mar 13 (18) Mar 12 (18) Mar 11 (17) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (18) Mar 07 (25) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (16) Mar 04 (22) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (23) Feb 29 (19) Feb 28 (25) Feb 27 (26) Feb 26 (23) Feb 25 (12) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (15) Feb 22 (26) Feb 21 (31) Feb 20 (12) Feb 19 (21) Feb 18 (15) Feb 17 (10) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (19) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (20) Feb 11 (9) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (28) Feb 08 (20) Feb 07 (22) Feb 06 (20) Feb 05 (19) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (16) Feb 02 (28) Feb 01 (37) Jan 31 (27) Jan 30 (31) Jan 29 (18) Jan 28 (14) Jan 27 (10) Jan 26 (18) Jan 25 (26) Jan 24 (34) Jan 23 (21) Jan 22 (21) Jan 21 (18) Jan 20 (18) Jan 19 (18) Jan 18 (26) Jan 17 (24) Jan 16 (23) Jan 15 (30) Jan 14 (20) Jan 13 (18) Jan 12 (24) Jan 11 (11) Jan 10 (23) Jan 09 (22) Jan 08 (17) Jan 07 (17) Jan 06 (9) Jan 05 (18) Jan 04 (15) Jan 03 (19) Jan 02 (14) Jan 01 (6) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (15) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (7) Dec 26 (10) Dec 25 (16) Dec 24 (13) Dec 23 (16) Dec 22 (11) Dec 21 (26) Dec 20 (28) Dec 19 (14) Dec 18 (25) Dec 17 (23) Dec 16 (19) Dec 15 (22) Dec 14 (38) Dec 13 (26) Dec 12 (25) Dec 11 (27) Dec 10 (31) Dec 09 (15) Dec 08 (30) Dec 07 (31) Dec 06 (27) Dec 05 (38) Dec 04 (25) Dec 03 (27) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (36) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (17) Nov 28 (23) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (16) Nov 25 (14) Nov 24 (18) Nov 23 (21) Nov 22 (21) Nov 21 (24) Nov 20 (20) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (17) Nov 17 (17) Nov 16 (34) Nov 15 (25) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (21) Nov 12 (18) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (12) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (4) Oct 29 (1) Oct 01 (1) Jul 29 (1) May 11 (1) Jul 11 (1) 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. Do they offer games from different software providers? Some casinos just use one software provider and limit your selection. This is fine if you like playing those types of games but you may want to check other casinos as well. What does their payout percentage look like? The payout rate refers to how much money you can expect to win after every bet. A high payout rate means youll be able to play more often without having to worry about losing all your money. Its also important to know the minimum and maximum bets allowed on each game. If youre going to play roulette, for example, then you probably dont want a casino with a minimum bet of less than $2.50 or even lower than that. The players used to play the game slot online in the land based casinos in the past time. But now with time after the invention of the online casinos players play the game slot online. Online platform provide the players with the convenience in playing and even better winning. Even after keeping a good percentage of the profits, they distribute good funds to players. How many games do they offer? There are lots of different types of games to choose from. Roulette, blackjack and poker are some of the most popular options, but you might find slots, video pokers, video bingo and others as well. You can usually filter these games down to only show the ones that interest you best, so make sure that your list isnt too long! Is there a bonus offer? Many online casinos offer free bonuses as part of their welcome package which includes new players being awarded 100% up to $10 instantly, for example. These offers are great but not everyone has access to them all the time (and some require you to deposit real money). If youd prefer to avoid paying a fee, some casinos offer no-deposit bonuses where you can get a certain amount of funds before you need to put any actual money into the account. These are usually offered alongside welcome bonuses, so make sure you read both parts of the terms and conditions carefully before signing up. Does it offer live dealer games? Live dealers are much preferred by many over regular virtual versions, so it pays to check this option out too. Most online casinos now offer live dealer games in addition to their regular offerings, allowing you to experience the thrill of the real thing without needing to leave home. Now that youve got an idea of what to look for when choosing an online casino, heres some tips for making the right choice It really comes down to personal preference. No two people are exactly alike, so everyone has an opinion on what they like and dislike about each casino. That said, here are some things to consider in order to narrow down your choices Popularity. Check out reviews, forums and Facebook pages to see what other people think of the casino. Also, ask around at work or friends houses who they would recommend to you. You could always take a look at the casinos website too, to see what kind of information they provide about themselves. Reputation. Find out what the general public thinks about the casino. Check out any customer reviews on sites like Trustpilot, Amazon and Google Play to find out more. As far as gaming goes, you can also check out the Better Business Bureau to see whether there have been any complaints against the casino. Security. Make sure the casino uses SSL encryption to secure its transactions, meaning that your private data stays safe during transactions. Other than that, look for security seals on the site itself and verify that theyre legitimate. You can also check out the casinos privacy policy to see how they handle confidential information. Payment methods. Its good to have multiple payment options available, especially if you plan to play frequently. Its also nice to find a casino that accepts cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. If youre worried about safety, you can always opt for a credit card or PayPal instead. With all those criteria in mind, heres our top picks Betway: Betway is a relatively new UK casino offering online gambling to residents of the United Kingdom and European Union. They offer hundreds of games across both land based and digital platforms, with plenty of top software providers like Net Entertainment, Microgaming and Yggdrasil Gaming Network. With a generous welcome offer that gives players 100% up to 100, you really cant go wrong with Betway. Coral Casino: Coral Casino is operated by the same company that runs the famous Caribbean casino, Grand Reef. Like many casinos, Coral Casino offers a wide variety of games, including plenty of video slots and table games. New players can benefit from a huge 100% match bonus up to 1000, while existing customers enjoy 25% cash back on deposits made within 48 hours of opening an account. Ladbrokes Casino: Ladbrokes Casino is owned by the same company as the famous bookmaker that started life in 1921. With more than 500 games from leading software providers such as Amaya, NetEnt and Microgaming, you wont be disappointed by the quality of the games here. New players get a 200% match bonus up to 500, while existing customers can claim 35% cashback on their first three deposits. Paddy Power Casino: Paddy Power is another Irish-owned casino that operates throughout Europe. Not only does Paddy Power Casino offer traditional casino games like blackjack, roulette and slots, but it also provides a full range of sports betting, including football, tennis, boxing and horse racing. New players can receive a massive 100% match bonus up to 200, while existing customers can claim 35% cashback on their first three deposits. William Hill Casino: William Hill Casino is one of the biggest names in the industry, operating in Europe, Asia and North America. Founded in 1984, this online casino has more than 400 games to choose from, including slots and table games, with a wide array of software providers like WagerLogic, Big Time Gaming and Rival. Bonus: 100% Match Bonus up to 100 Register Now Betway: 100% Match Bonus up to 100 Claim Now Coral Casino: 25% Cash Back on Deposits Claim Now Ladbrokes Casino: 35% Cash Back on First 3 Deposits Claim Now Paddy Power Casino: 100% Match Bonus up to 200 Claim Now William Hill Casino: 100% Match Bonus up to 200 Claim Now If youre interested in trying out an online casino but arent quite ready to commit to one, why not try out one of the many no deposit casinos weve reviewed? You can test drive various casinos completely risk-free, so you can feel confident about your choice before you make a single penny deposit. Massimo Dutti Online 26 - - - 95 58 ? - : 2023 2 2 XIII Yemali: : . : , , - , - - , 80- - Jun 13, 2016 | By Alec Researchers from the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi have just filed a remarkable 3D printing patent for a new method for 3D printing ultra-strong lightweight architectured foam structures that can be made from a variety of metals, plastics and composite materials. Thanks to unique cellular geometries, these 3D printed structures have the potential to make machines used in aerospace, medical, and automotive industries far lighter and stronger. The new structures can even be programmed to exhibit excellent thermal, electrical or mechanical properties, paving the way for a large number of applications. This remarkable breakthrough has been realized by a research team led by Dr. Rashid Abu Al-Rub, the institutes Associate Professor of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. The teams study has already been featured in five peer-reviewed journals, including Composites Science and Technology, and is now ready for a patent application. Whats more, its developers went as far as arguing that their 3D printed structures can make any industry that relies on strong, lightweight and conductive materials more efficient, including the energy, water, and oil and gas industries. As Professor Abu Al-Rub explained, the key to their remarkable foam structures is their internal 3D printed geometry, or what we refer to as internal architecture," Dr. Abu Al-Rub said. Similar to the Eiffel Towers clever lattice of steel beams and struts that provides strength and balance, these cellular structures achieve strength through their geometric internal structures, which consist of more than 90 percent air. We are not creating new materials. Rather, we are re-architecting a given material, such as steel or plastic, by manipulating its internal geometry so that we can deliver the desired properties, whether stiffness, electrical conductivity, or porosity, to the material, the professor explained. They have already used a computer model to generate thousands of different foam structures, each with unique geometric properties. Thanks to their accompanying computer model, the platform is also easy in use. Researchers simply select the desired properties for the foam, such as enhanced thermal or electrical properties, stiffness or a desired weight. The algorithm subsequently selects the most suitable geometry, which is fabricated on a 3D printer. The 3D printed results can subsequently be used to enhance the properties of existing materials, or as standalone foam structures. Even the porosity of a structure can be manipulated through the computer model, making it a perfect option for controlling the flow distribution of gasses and liquids. This should, the researchers expect, make it a perfect option for oil and gas operations, seawater desalination, and wastewater treatment. The foam structures could be used to maximize gas flow, and increase the conversion efficiency of catalytic converters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from car engines, PhD student Oraib Al-Ketan added. Of course the architectures made with these foams are extremely complex, and are thus difficult to manufacture. 3D printing is already changing geometry conventions, but this foam 3D printing technique takes that even further. 3D printed at anywhere from nano-scale, at a hundred-thousand times thinner than a human hair, to macro-scale (measured in millimeters), anything is possible. We have introduced a paradigm shift in how materials are being designed. Currently, people design materials based on a materials existing chemistry, structure and its corresponding properties. Our vision for material design instead looks first at the desired properties you are targeting in a material for a product application and then applies our proprietary design methods to optimize the structure and its internal geometry so that it will give you those desired properties, Dr. Abu Al-Rub argued. This new technology is obviously very timely, and the Masdar Institutes Vice President for Research Dr. Steve Griffiths believes it will have a huge impact on numerous industries. The foam structures have the potential to become a platform technology, driving innovations across key industries and markets, he explained. This project demonstrates how Masdar Institutes strong advanced materials research capabilities support disruptive technology-based innovations in the Institutes core research areas of water and energy while benefiting other sectors of importance to the UAE. The Institute is currently looking at commercialization options, initially within the United Arab Emirates. Posted in 3D Printing Technology Maybe you also like: Charly wrote at 9/16/2016 10:12:41 PM:Hello, could you specify when you have filled the patent application? Thanks in advance.Oraib wrote at 7/31/2016 3:59:22 PM:Dear All let me clarify some thing. what has been patented is not the architected cellular materials , nor the fact that it can be 3D printed. the patent actually deals with an application where architected 3D printed cellular materials designed using mathematical functions is used as a catalytic carrier for reducing (converting ) emissions resulting from a combustion process. the new catalytic carriers have properties ( reduced back pressure, enhanced turbulence, increased surface area, interpenetrating volumes ..etc) that qualify them to be more efficient than the currently used ones. At the time of writing the article we were protective, and could not share much info. and it was harder to explain this to non-technical reporter. no we haven't been living under a rock, and it wasn't done to please any supervisor or sponsors. I believe you should dig deeper before through your comments in such an under estimating way.Andy wrote at 6/15/2016 11:01:44 AM:Have these guys been living under a rock?Bob the Builder wrote at 6/15/2016 10:55:26 AM:This is nothing new. Its already been done...many, many years ago..and its a commercially available software....http://withinlab.com/ I suspect that this was a sponsored project by the Abu Dhabi establishment and it has been hyped-up to please their superiors, in the pretence of innovation !3der wrote at 6/15/2016 12:14:18 AM:Lan, the page doesnt existJoe wrote at 6/14/2016 6:36:56 PM:Yes, not new. There in a decade-old field known as Architected Materials that does this, including 3D printing them for the past several years.Ian wrote at 6/14/2016 5:01:11 AM:Hello, this is not new and probably not patent worthy. see : http://empoweredplastic.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/todays-result-3d-cellular-fill-patterns.html And: http://garyhodgson.com/reprap/2012/01/thoughts-on-fill-algorithms/ But the accolades never came. In fact, not long after, her manager absconded with the famous barrel and began touring the country with a much younger woman he claimed was Annie. Annie kept on trying to make ends meet. She posed for photographs at a souvenir stand, tried her hand at the stock market, began a novel and worked as a clairvoyant. Looking at her efforts, you really get the sense that she was keeping her dreams of success alive. Why did Annie never receive acclaim? Joan Murray, who has written a narrative poem about Annies exploit, may have put her finger on the problem: She didnt look right. She didnt look like a heroShe was your grandmother. Id like to think that nowadays a grandmother would be as much lauded as, say, a younger woman or even a man for such an adventurous act. Perhaps she would. But in many important ways, older women still have the cards stacked against them and still fall prey to stereotyping that holds them back. I see Annie as a hero. And I see heroism in the efforts of so many older women who are struggling to support themselves and their families. Their resilience, like Annies, is an inspiration. It wasnt easy for Annie, and it still isnt for many like her. For example, older unemployed women are having a particularly rough time getting back into the workforce. Before the Great Recession, unemployed women 50 and older accounted for only a quarter of the long-term unemployed those who have been out of work for six months or longer. Now, they account for fully half of the chronically unemployed. The reasons arent entirely clear. It may have to do with the fact that jobs traditionally held by women, like public school teaching, havent bounced back as much as other forms of employment. Women also tend to shoulder most of a familys caregiving responsibilities, which gives some employers pause, unfair as that may be. Women who took time off earlier in their careers to raise children may also find themselves falling behind on the necessary sets of skills that todays technology-driven jobs demand. Unfortunately, too many employers dont give them the chance to learn those skills. Hughes State Attorney finds no facts to support investigation into Noem airplane use The Hughes County States Attorney found Tuesday that there were no facts to support a criminal prosecution" for Noem's alleged misuse of the state airplane. Business owners often face a challenging task of selecting the form of operating the business. A sole owner can choose to operate in his or her own name (a proprietorship), through a corporation or through a limited liability company (LLC). A proprietorship files on IRS schedule C. An LLC with one owner is treated the same as a proprietorship unless the owner elects to treat the LLC as a corporation. A corporation can be a regular (C) corporation or the owner may elect to treat it as an S corporation. C corporations can be subject to tax and distributions to the owners may be taxed a second time. An S corporation typically is not itself subject to tax, so all income is reported by and taxed only to the owner. A business with more than one owner can operate as a corporation (C or S) or as a partnership, which can include an LLC or a limited liability partnership (LLP). A tax partnership is not itself subject to tax. Like an S corporation, the income and expense passes through to the owner and is reported on his or her personal return. The single level of tax offered by a partnership or an S corporation has led to a significant, and growing, preference among business owners to choose one of those forms. S corporations are the most commonly used business entity, but more than half of those entities have only one owner. For a business with two or more owners, the LLC, taxed as a partnership, is the preferred form. What is not popular is the C corporation form, which not only has lower numbers, but also has experienced a fairly pronounced decline in numbers over the past 10 years. The reason for the decline in the use of C corporations is the potential for two levels of tax. Two levels of tax can be put off for a while by not paying dividends. Avoiding dividends requires that owners receive corporate cash flow in the form of interest payments on debt, compensation for services or rent for use of property. Each of these payments is deductible by the corporation so that only one level of tax results. But the second level of tax will be triggered when the corporation ends its life, typically when the operating assets are sold. New Mexico business owners should now consider that Congress has permanently extended a complete exclusion of gain for the sale of Section 1202 stock. This exclusion applies only to C corporations. With the exclusion, the C corporation may be operated in a manner that results in less overall tax than the partnership or S corporation. The 100 percent gain exclusion also applies to the alternative minimum tax and the gain is not subject to the 3.8 percent surtax on investment income of high-income taxpayers. Section 1202 stock means qualified small business stock. The corporation may have as much as $50 million of gross assets and still qualify as small. The allowed tax exclusion will be at least $10 million. The corporation must be actively engaged in a qualifying business. A business that produces an end product of services, such as accounting, law, consulting, architectural and so on, will not qualify. The stock must be held for more than five years to qualify for the exclusion and the shareholder must be the original holder of the stock that is sold. Now, this is a column and columns are not the best vehicle to analyze sophisticated tax planning. So I return to the deliberate use of the word might when I stated above that the exclusion may allow the C corporation to pay less overall tax than other business forms. Even with the exclusion, the C corporation may not reduce the overall tax burden. And one cannot be certain that the qualifications for the exclusion will be met when the entity choice is made. The 100 percent exclusion applies only for stock acquired after Sept. 27, 2010, but that means someone deciding on an entity type today should consider the exclusions impact on that decision. Im still not a big fan of C corporations, but this permanent 100 percent gain exclusion makes the choice a bit more interesting. James R. Hamill is the director of Tax Practice at Reynolds, Hix & Co. in Albuquerque. He can be reached at jimhamill@rhcocpa.com. Theres not enough money, theres not enough staffing and its not sexy. Talk to people in charge of bringing jobs to the state and those are just some of the problems they say they face. Their success, they say, is a key part of pushing New Mexicos bottom-of-the-list economy into the recovery that other parts of the country started seeing several years ago, advocates say. Most people thought that, after the recession, we would recover, said Mark Lautman, lead consultant for the New Mexico Jobs Council. But the tide isnt going in our direction. You can point to civic endeavors that have been important but, overall, were not going in the right direction in the rankings. A group of experts recently came up with a list of recommendations for revamping how the state pursues economic development. The ideas emerged as part of the recent New Mexico First town hall on the economy. The groups recommendations and a host of others that got consensus at the town hall will be published and circulated, after which leaders will decide which ones to pursue, whether through the Legislature or other levels of government, or in the private sector. One key proposal envisions a restructuring of the New Mexico Partnership, the 13-year-old nonprofit, public-private group that works for the state on attracting new business. The proposal also foresees a stronger network of local and regional groups to work with the Partnership and the state, and it calls for increased and more stable funding. Challenging proposition Its an ambitious undertaking. In a state with one of the highest poverty rates in the country and a poor economy, job-attracting efforts are not a priority, said Tom Taylor, interim COO of the nonprofit Four Corners Economic Development who is a former state legislator and former mayor of Farmington. Its a big challenge, trying to grow economically, Taylor said. Its not sexy. Many people look on it as corporate welfare. The Partnership has a budget of about $1.4 million, the bulk of which is public money, and five staffers. The state Economic Development Departments budget is about $6 million with 55 employees who oversee other functions like the state film office. Working at the local and regional levels are about 30 government and nonprofit entities, although a few of them are nothing more than a contact within a county government. For whatever reason, the state has never chosen to focus on economic development, Taylor said. We like to say that we do, but New Mexico spends less than a lot of cities in the United States. Its not a matter of doubling the funding, its a matter of moving the decimal point to be competitive. He said he does not think there are too many organizations working on attracting jobs because we have so many different situations in the state. However, the efforts must become more efficient, avoiding duplication and competition, said Jami Grindatto, president and CEO of Sandoval Economic Alliance. The proposed revamping is based on the belief that the Partnership should do only marketing promoting the state and seeking out businesses that might be willing to move to New Mexico or expand their current operations here, Lautman said. The Partnership would then turn prospects over to local groups to do the selling and to close the deal with the help of the state Economic Development Department. Lautman said the problem with having a single entity do both of those jobs is that they require different skills. And the usual practice is that, once a prospect is found, staffers must spend so much time and effort closing the deal that marketing efforts take a back seat, he said. State Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela said the New Mexico First recommendation is pretty much being done now, although he said he agrees the Partnership should refocus its energies and improve efficiency. He said that, once a new director is named, the Partnership should focus on recruiting in states where businesses are looking to leave. Steve Vierck, the previous head, left in February to become president and CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Lea County. Barela, who was among a recruiting contingent in Chicago last week, said Illinois and California are among the places that could be ripe picking for New Mexico. He said he also wants the Partnership to focus on marketing the business sectors in which New Mexico could be best competitive. Among those are aerospace and defense, advanced manufacturing, film and digital media, and back office and technical support operations, such as call centers. Barela said local economic development organizations have been cooperating with each other and the state very well since hes been in office, adding that, I will say thats not always been the case. The future is in regional efforts where counties join forces, including those in neighboring states, Taylor said. For example, the economic region in the Four Corners includes four states, 17 counties and 26 communities that have more in common with the Farmington area than other areas of New Mexico have with it, he said. Not on board with the proposed Partnership restructuring is Vierck, who called it a throwback process that was popular decades ago. He said marketers are the ones who establish a relationship with a business prospect so they should remain involved, rather than handing off the deal to others. NORC sets the example Look to NORC for an example of how to do economic development correctly, Grindatto said. NORC at the University of Chicago its full name opened a survey research center in Albuquerque earlier this year and now employs more than 300 people, with plans to add more. The operation conducts surveys for clients that include governments, corporations and nonprofits. Its housed at Copper Pointe near Eubank and Interstate 40, but the company started out with an interest in Sandoval County, Grindatto said. The initial tip came from a real estate broker who told the Sandoval Economic Alliance the company was looking at a few buildings in the county. Once discussions were underway, though, NORC wanted to see other sites in the area, so the Sandoval group contacted Albuquerque Economic Development. Those two entities joined forces to find NORC the best available site regardless of where it was located. AED head Gary Tonjes could not be reached for comment. In the past, it used to be very competitive, Grindatto said. We need to get past that. We dont have enough to compete for. Now, who were competing with are all 49 states and the world. Save Save Save Recently, I wanted to mail a box of old family photos to my cousin, but discovered I had only his phone number and not his address in my phones contacts. Luckily, I remembered the name of the street he lived on. By entering his and the streets names into a search engine, I instantly received results from multiple websites giving me the house number. Plus his wifes name, their ages, the appraised value of their house and the number of bedrooms it contained. For a fee, I could get the real scoop on him. The house number was accurate and the box arrived just fine. But what happens when a website provides incorrect information about a person? Spokeo describes itself on its website as a people search service that organizes information about people into simple and comprehensive online profiles that are accessible to consumers, businesses and nonprofits. If you dont mind getting a little creeped out, try searching your own name on Spokeo. If, like my cousin, you own your house, youll find a nice little map showing its precise location, as well as the names of all its residents. Also your birth year and astrological sign. You might learn new things about yourself, too. Im a little curious to know how Spokeo associated me with two landlines in Florida, a state Ive never visited. Also, it turns out Im 94, but only in one of my two Spokeo profiles. Thomas Robins looked at his Spokeo profile and, according to the lawsuit he subsequently filed, read that he was married with children, had a graduate degree and a job in a technical field, and was in the nations top 10 percent by income. None of that, alas, was true. He was, in fact, single, unemployed and looking for work, and he thought his life was difficult enough without prospective employers thinking he was overqualified. And as for prospective dates? Robins could have asked Spokeo to delete his public profile, as I did with both of mine. Doing so, however, requires giving Spokeo an email address to which they can send a link for you to click on and so, by opting out, you contribute to their file on you. Presumably, Robins could also have sent Spokeo corrected information about himself, but one might as well undress in public. Instead, he chose to sue under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, which applies to companies that disseminate information about a persons credit worthiness and character, general reputation, personal characteristics, or mode of living. Thats pretty broad language, even though Spokeo isnt anything like a traditional credit reporting agency. Perhaps in response to the suit, the Spokeo website today is plastered with warnings that its information shouldnt be used to determine a persons credit. The fact that Robins had to sue under a statute intended for another purpose reveals the absence of any more specific law governing the online dissemination of personal information. The federal courts didnt need to decide whether the Fair Credit Reporting Act applies to Spokeo because Robins complaint foundered on the even more basic issue of standing. A person has standing to sue if he or she has been injured. Thats a simplification, but its not wrong. You have no standing to sue for someone elses injury. Robins was faced with the immediate problem that he couldnt prove he had been harmed by all the false, if somewhat flattering, information Spokeo supposedly included in his profile. After all, he wasnt privy to the decision-making processes of prospective employers who fed his resume into the shredder, or dates who no longer picked up when he called. All he could claim, really, was that Spokeo had violated a federal statute and that the statute allows people to sue for its violation. That wasnt enough, the Supreme Court held last month. The Constitution limits the jurisdiction of the federal courts to all cases, in law and equity, arising under the laws of the United States. While the naive might think a case arising under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a law of the United States, meets that test, its not so simple. As a 6-2 majority of the justices explained, a case exists only if three elements are met, the most important of which is that the person bringing the suit has suffered an injury in fact. That term, in turn, breaks down into two sub-elements: the injury in fact must be both concrete and particularized. The first of these terms, in turn, breaks down into sub-sub-elements, among them that the injury be de facto (which apparently is different from in fact, although Justice Samuel A. Alitos opinion didnt explain how). That entire flow chart, Justice Alito solemnly assured us, unfurls from the Constitutions use of the simple word case. There could be no clearer illustration that much of what we call legal reasoning is really just a system of classification. Down at the level of the sub-sub-category, the Supreme Court thought Robins complaint was deficient. It wasnt enough to allege that Spokeo violated federal law. He also had to allege he was concretely injured by it. The court gave no clue how he could meet that pleading requirement, but presumably he would need to allege that he lost a particular job as a result of the Spokeo profile. (I dont think a lost date would qualify.) Joel Jacobsen is an author and has recently retired from a 29-year legal career. If there are topics you would like to see covered in future columns, please write him at legal.column.tips@gmail.com. Less than two years ago, New Mexicans honored me and my Republican colleagues with a majority in the New Mexico House of Representatives. We take that responsibility seriously, and we have worked hard during this time to make a number of changes so that New Mexicos economy can compete with other states and internationally. In order for the state to have a vibrant and diversified economy, we have to do a number of things: create sound tax policy, provide funding of targeted incentives, develop a regulatory environment that encourages entrepreneurship, and ensure students get a good education. In addition, we must have strong, smart public safety laws so that innovative businesses and families have a chance to thrive. During the past year, it became clear that New Mexicans were suffering terrible consequences from violent acts committed by repeat offenders. Violent crime destabilizes communities, scars victims and their families, and makes meaningful economic development impossible. I have heard from countless chambers and business groups that a high rate of violent crime is a major deterrent to companies looking to expand. New Mexicos ranking as second in the nation for violent crimes is a huge problem for so many reasons. Recognizing this, the House Majority made it our priority to pass good public safety legislation. We passed Jaydons Law, which now gives judges access to juvenile records when making pre-trial decisions. We repealed the law that gives undocumented immigrants drivers licenses. A bill that requires individuals with severe mental illness to participate in court-ordered treatment and medication was passed and signed into law. We voted to give New Mexicans the chance to vote on a constitutional amendment this November that will give judges the ability to deny bail to dangerous offenders. These are important improvements, but they are only one piece of the economic development puzzle. A good education system is critical to our states success. Funding for public education in New Mexico has never been higher. However, we cannot simply spend our way to success. In the past couple of years, we have also enacted several reforms and programs aimed at giving teachers the resources to be successful, while adding accountability. Early childhood education is also crucial to helping kids in tough situations get a head start, and as a result we have increased funding to early childhood programs by more than $100 million, as well as doubled the amount of state resources to early childhood programs in the last six years. Of course, we also need to ensure that our tax and regulatory environment is attractive to businesses. In the last four years, in a bipartisan fashion, the Legislature and the governor have worked to make New Mexicos tax code competitive with neighboring states. We have increased funding for our economic development closing fund that meets or exceeds our neighboring states, we have continued funding the Job Training Incentive Program that helps companies hire new employees, and we continue to take recommendations from the bipartisan Jobs Council on innovative ways to create economic-based jobs in New Mexico. To create sustained economic growth in New Mexico it will take thoughtful polices with proven success. I am dedicated and proud to work every day to make New Mexico a better place to work and raise a family. At 2:02 a.m. on a muggy night in central Florida, a gunman traded shots with an off-duty police officer, slipped into a nightclub with a rifle and killed at least 50 people in the most lethal mass shooting in U.S. history. At 5:05 a.m., a tactical unit stormed the club and the shooter was killed. The intervening three hours required responding officers to choose a strategy: Do they charge in on a barricaded suspect, risking hostage lives? Or do they negotiate with a mass shooter, hoping to save those still inside? Police training on the subject has evolved since 13 people were killed by a pair of teenage gunmen at Colorados Columbine High School in 1999. At that time, many officers were taught to respond to a mass shooting by simply containing the scene, preventing violence from spreading. But for many departments, the high death toll at Columbine prompted a re-evaluation, with officers often opting to confront a shooter on the rampage as soon as possible, before he or she can inflict further carnage. When the Bataclan theater in Paris was attacked by three heavily armed gunmen in November, tactical police units raided the hall within 35 minutes. Now, the Orlando, Fla., Police Department is facing questions about the length of time it took to end a shooting at the Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. Police said they treated the incident as a hostage situation for two hours before a police tactical unit arrived. When they first arrive at an active shooting scene, police face a quick decision, said Suffolk County, N.Y., Chief of Patrol Stuart Cameron, who has written several academic journal articles about police protocol when faced with an active shooter. If police rush in on a barricaded suspect, they risk the lives of their officers and the hostages. But if they delay in responding to an active shooter, that can also be risky: Analyses of past shootings suggest that one person is killed every 15 seconds in a typical mass-casualty shooting, Cameron said. The onus for early action falls on the first officers to arrive. According to FBI statistics, in 57 percent of active shooting incidents, police were at the scene before the shooting ended. The intent of the shooter is also critical, Cameron said, and he teaches officers to distinguish among suspects looking to knowingly commit a crime against an individual or small group; the mentally ill; and terrorists. If the shooting crosses into terrorism, Cameron said, that changes the equation. Terrorism suspects are less likely to let their hostages live, and may tell police during a mass-casualty incident such as those in Mumbai in 2008 and in Paris last year that they are willing to negotiate, only to prolong the media exposure of a terrorist attack. An important initial decision is, what are the consequences of taking action (or) not taking action, wrote Leroy Thompson, paramilitary trainer and author of The Hostage Rescue Manual. Unless hostages or bystanders are being killed, once the incident is contained, the initial responders should try to slow things down. The guideline to officers Cameron trains is to run toward gunfire, Cameron said. But when the gunfire stops, you stop, Cameron said. You dont know whats going on inside there. He could have hostages, he could have killed himself or he could be waiting for you to come charging in without a plan. Orlando police referred questions about their protocol for responses to an active shooter to the FBI, which then referred specific questions back to the Orlando police. The first reports of a shooting came at 2:02 a.m., when suspect Omar Mateen is alleged to have fired on an off-duty Orlando police officer working security, and then ran into the club, which held more than 200 people. After the initial gunfire, police made contact with Mateen while he was inside the club, but police have not said what was discussed. At 3 a.m. Sunday, the nightclub posted on its Facebook page: Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running. Details about exactly what happened inside the club were unclear, but police waited outside. Some media reports suggested that police were waiting to get armored vehicles on the scene and to make sure they had enough personnel to storm the nightclub. At 5:05 a.m., police distracted Mateen with an explosive device and plowed into the building with a vehicle. Inside, they found 53 injured people, and 50 dead. Conversations! Glorious conversations! What more can you ask for? The other day, former CBS News darling Katie Couric was speaking at an event organized by something called TheWrap. Specifically, at its Power Women Breakfast in New York. It is exactly the kind of event Id expect Couric to be at, and I dont even know what it is. She was asked about the scandal swirling around her anti-gun-documentary specifically, the fact that she deceptively edited a gun rights groups response to a question to make the members seem like dangerous idiots. I wrote about all that in a recent column (in the June 5 Journal), so theres no need to repeat myself beyond noting that Couric and her producer are guilty of outright deception. But I thought her response was amusingly revealing. I can understand the objection of people who did have an issue about it, Couric said. The it here is the deliberate falsifying of the truth. Having said that, I think we have to focus on the big issue of gun violence. It was my hope that, when I approached this topic, that this would be a conversation starter. Well, OK then. After all, who denies that starting conversations or, as they often call them in academia, dialogues is the highest aspiration there is? For instance, a Central Michigan University professor claimed last year that she was punched in the face at a Toby Keith concert for being a lesbian. She later admitted that she actually punched herself but said it was worth it because she wanted to start a dialogue. As the Washington Examiners Ashe Schow recently chronicled, this sort of thing is common on college campuses. Students and professors initiate or exacerbate a hate-crime hoax or a false rape accusation. The orchestrators are perfectly happy to pretend the fraud is real and demonize anyone who casts doubt on the claims. Then, when the facts come to light, instead of apologies were saturated with a fog of pomposity and self-justification: We were just trying to start a conversation. Raising awareness of the larger issue is more important than the mere facts. That was the excuse offered by a herd of academics on the 10th anniversary of the Duke University lacrosse rape hoax. Professors there had taken out ads suggesting the exonerated attackers were racists. In response to criticism, they insisted that they just wanted to get a good discussion going. Weve heard similar prattling about the University of Virginia rape hoax and many other fabricated events on college campuses, and off, going back decades. I started writing about such instances of lying for justice 20 years ago, and it has only gotten worse. I dont think people appreciate how pernicious and widespread this crowdsourced totalitarianism really is. Routine lies in the service of left-wing narratives are justified in the name of larger truths, while actual truth-telling in the other direction is denounced as hate speech or triggering. Even when liberals call for an honest conversation about this, that or the other thing, what they really mean is they want everyone who disagrees with the prevailing progressive view to fall in line. Almost invariably, when I hear calls for frank talk, honest dialogue or a new national conversation, I immediately translate it as, Let the next chapter of indoctrination begin. Its a way of luring dissenters from political correctness out into the open so they can be smashed over the head with a rock. Remember, behind every obvious double standard is a hidden single standard. For instance, earlier this year, The New Yorkers Jane Mayer came out with a book attacking libertarian philanthropists Charles and David Koch called Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. When asked by NPRs Steve Inskeep what the nefarious supervillains of her screed were really up to, she ominously explained, What theyre aiming at is changing the conversation in the country. Well, so are left-wing billionaire George Soros and his minions. So is Mayer herself. So are all of these campus fraudsters and activists. And so is Katie Couric. But when someone on the other side of the ideological chasm questions the official narrative, they must be demonized or otherwise silenced. Why? Because the last thing progressives want is to start an honest conversation. They want to have their conversations and only their conversations. Copyright, Tribune Media Services Inc.; e-mail to JonahsColumn@aol.com. Right now, the taxpaying owners of the Sabinoso Wilderness have an amazing vacation home they cant get to from here. Or anywhere. The 16,030 acres of wilderness area, a dramatic piece of the high plains east of Las Vegas that borders the Canadian River, and features cliffs and 1,000-foot-deep canyons, is landlocked by private land holdings. But the donation of most of an adjacent ranch by The Wilderness Land Trust would change that. It will require the BLM to purchase the rest of the ranch property and eliminate two federal grazing allotments that are not being used. Public comment on the plan is being accepted at the BLM Taos Field Office until July 6 and New Mexicans who want access to what they own should be in favor of it. New Mexicans used to be able to get to the Sabinoso, but the surrounding land was slowly sold off to private interests until the wilderness was landlocked, creating a gloriously private hunting/fishing/camping/hiking heaven for those lucky neighbors. The New Mexico Wildlife Federation and the New Mexico chapter of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, among others, have long decried locking out the public. The BLM explains access would allow one of the primary purposes of the Wilderness Act of 1964 to be fully realized at Sabinoso Wilderness the enjoyment of the area by present and future generations through hunting, hiking, horseback riding and other recreational opportunities. Considering the Gila Wilderness Area was the first protected wilderness area in the nation and New Mexico is home to at least 25 protected wilderness areas, residents here have a real stake not only in marking wilderness areas off on a map, but also being able to take in their beauty, responsibly recreate and ensure they are protected for generations to come. While it is wonderful to have the Sabinoso in our relative back yard, it will be even better to be able to go there. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. The Albuquerque Police Department is closing in on its assignment of rewriting policing policies under a court-ordered agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Last week Chief Gorden Eden clarified the departments process that previously has been described as confusing by a court-appointed monitor. The perception that the department has lagged and is behind schedule is to some extent due to the timing of reports and statements by James Ginger, the independent monitor overseeing department reforms. Gingers most recent report only covers work through last November, and his scheduled next report in July will only cover the departments progress during a time period in which the monitor had approved just six of 37 policies. But City Attorney Jessica Hernandez said in an interview last week that they are on track and have received approvals for 36 policies. Getting them written and approved is just the first step; implementation and training will be a greater challenge. APD recently was criticized in a letter from the citys Police Oversight Board for not including members in developing the use-of-force policy, the first one to be rewritten. In a written response, Eden said that was due to time constraints to meet deadlines in the settlement agreement, but now board members have had the ability to participate and register comments throughout the process. Since the first of the year, officers have been trained to comply with the new use-of-force policy. In a letter last week to board chairwoman Beth Mohr, the chief laid out the multi-step process, which starts in the newly created Office of Policy Analysis. Drafts then go to the Standard Operating Procedure Committee, then to the PowerDMS, an internal police communication system, back to the SOP committee, then to the Policy and Procedure Review Board and finally back to the Office of Policy Analysis. Some final adjustments may be made during negotiations, primarily between the DOJ and former federal Magistrate Judge Lorenzo Garcia, who has been hired to assist the city in policy writing. This update was a smart move on the part of Eden and Hernandez, clearing the air and ensuring feedback from appropriate stakeholders is welcome as the process winds down. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. Copyright 2016 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE A political contest that promises to be among the most contentious of the general election season got underway just as the primary election polls were closing. Bernalillo County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, began airing television ads last week for the office of Secretary of State, a race that pits her against Republican state Rep. Nora Espinoza of Roswell. Its not the normal election cycle for choosing a secretary of state, but voters must select someone to fill out the remaining two years of the term of Dianna Duran, who resigned last year as she pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds. Durans appointed successor, Albuquerque City Councilor Brad Winter, has filled in since December but isnt running for election to the position. Duran was front and center as Toulouse Olivers ads went up Tuesday evening. Two of them begin, Our last secretary of state went to jail. Duran spent 30 days in lockup and was fined after pleading guilty to embezzlement and other charges for illegally diverting donations to her campaign in order to finance her gambling addiction. Toulouse Olivers three ads one in Spanish will air at least through this Tuesday on network, cable and satellite television as well as digital and social platforms. They cost about $23,000, according to her campaign manager, Alan Packman. Theyre the start of what Toulouse Oliver told the Journal would be an aggressive campaign. Espinoza responded in an email to the Journal : My opponent appears to be running against Dianna Duran. But Duran is not on the ballot. I am on the ballot. Toulouse Oliver ran against Duran, and lost, in 2014, when Duran the first Republican elected to the job in 80 years was elected to a second term. We are not going to play defense this year, Toulouse Oliver said in an email to supporters sent out last week. The Democratic candidate said that, as Secretary of State, she would push the Legislature to create a statewide ethics commission and strengthen disclosure laws for independent expenditure groups, and she would clarify the rules on how campaign funds can be spent. Voters in New Mexico need to have someone in that office they can trust, said Toulouse Oliver. Espinoza said in her email that the secretary of states job is to administer elections, ensuring fairness, accuracy and transparency not continuously advocating for social issues, and taking on the role of a legislator, and an ideological activist, as she contends Toulouse Oliver does. The GOP nominee said she plans to do TV ads, but based on what she hears from voters as she travels the state. Her Democratic opponent is telling New Mexicans what the issues are, and I am letting voters tell me what they believe is important, she said in her email. One of Espinozas main issues is voter fraud. She says that enacting a voter ID law would secure New Mexicans votes and protect the integrity of elections, as well as increase turnout as voters gain more confidence in the system. Espinozas campaign manager is former state Sen. Rod Adair, R-Roswell, who was hired by Duran in 2013 to administer one of two divisions in the Secretary of States office. He took a leave in 2014 to help Duran get re-elected, returned to the office, then left in 2015. As of campaign finance reports filed June 2, Toulouse Oliver had raised about $285,900 for the campaign, and Espinoza had raised nearly $154,300. Save Save Jason Martinez, the former Albuquerque Public Schools administrator whose missing background check brought down Superintendent Luis Valentino nearly a year ago, will begin retrial on child sex assault charges Tuesday in Denver. Martinezs first trial for allegedly sexually abusing two relatives, both boys under age 12, ended with a hung jury in October. He also faces assault charges in a separate case involving a boyfriend who reported that Martinez attacked him and struck another man with his car in a domestic violence incident. Before his legal issues, Martinez had been a respected technology and curriculum expert at Denver Public Schools and publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In spring 2015, newly appointed APS Superintendent Valentino handpicked Martinez to become his deputy superintendent giving him a $160,000 annual salary. Martinez worked at APS for about six weeks but dodged a mandatory criminal background check that would have revealed his Denver charges. He resigned Aug. 18 when they came to light. Valentinos role in the background check issue has never been clear. The superintendent insisted that he had no prior knowledge of Martinezs legal battles and that interim associate superintendent for human resources Karen Rudys told him about the missing background check only twice. Valentino said both times he pressed Martinez to get it done. But Rudys disputed that account in a letter from her attorney, claiming she spoke to Valentino six times and he deflected her by simply stating that he was aware of the issue. The Board of Education debated Valentinos future during three closed door meetings that culminated in his resignation on Aug. 31. He received an $80,000 contract buyout and positive letter of reference. APS has worked to move on from the controversy. Longtime district administrator Raquel Reedy became acting superintendent when Valentino stepped down, earning broad support for her calm, professional demeanor and listening skills. She was named permanent superintendent on April 20. Federal and local politicians from both parties swiftly condemned Sundays mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub, although within hours of the incident their reaction split largely along partisan lines. As the federal probe got underway, politicians suggested that the underlying motive would probably ignite a new debate on at least one of several hot-button topics: gay rights, terrorism or gun control. Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Barack Obama called on Americans not to give in to fear or turn against each other even as authorities investigated what they are treating as a domestic terrorism incident. Hillary Clinton postponed her planned joint rally with Obama in Green Bay, Wis., which was scheduled to be held Wednesday, citing the tragic attack. In a statement, she decried the shooting as both an act of terror and an act of hate. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad, Clinton said. That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home. It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values. Trump, who tweeted that it was horrific and he was praying for all the victims & their families, also questioned why it had not been prevented. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant? he tweeted. An hour later, he reiterated his criticism of the administrations national security stance. About an hour after that, Trump called some attention to his own warnings about terrorism, tweeting: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Amid the quickly politicized moment, Libertarian presidential nominee and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson said politics should stay out of the tragedy. In this immediate aftermath of what is clearly a tragic and despicable attack, our thoughts must be with the victims, Johnson said while he monitored events from New Mexico. Regardless of what the motivation is ultimately found to be, this violence against innocent people simply going about their lives is both cowardly and infuriating. We must allow the authorities to do their jobs, understand how this attack came about, and then respond accordingly. It is not a time to either politicize or jump to conclusions. Republican New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez released a statement Sunday afternoon, which said she was heartbroken by the outrageous, vicious, and horrific attacks. I ask all New Mexicans to join me and Chuck in keeping the victims and their families in our thoughts and prayers, she said. New Mexico Democratic Sen. Tom Udall said he was grief-stricken by the news of another mass shooting. But its clear that it was an act of terror, that the killer was filled with hatred and had a powerful assault weapon and the intent to massacre innocent people, he said in a statement. Its all the more horrifying that this tragedy occurred in an LGBT business during Pride Month, at a time when we celebrate our diversity and triumph over hate. An attack motivated by hate is an attack on us all. New Mexico Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich hoped the families of the victims could feel the support of the entire nation. As we learn more about this attack, it is clear we will all be seeking answers to what more can be done to make our communities safer, Heinrich said in a statement. Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, said she questioned how an act of hate and terror could take place so soon after Albuquerque joined together for a joyous celebration of love for one another. That celebration of love defines us as Americans, not the hate and terrorism that is meant to divide us. No doubt, we must grieve for the tragic victims of this mass shooting, she said in a statement. New Mexicos two other representatives, Steve Pearce, a Republican, and Ben Ray Lujan, a Democrat, also condemned the killings. Journal staff writers contributed to this report Hundreds gather at Morningside Park in Albuquerque to mourn for those killed in the Orlando massacre Sunday. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Adelina Cruz carries a pride flag while paying homage to the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting during a candlelight vigil at Morningside Park in Albuquerque. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Leah Messick-Gover, right, and her girlfriend, Apalonia Vidaucci, raise their fists in the air while paying homage to the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting during a candlelight vigil at Morningside Park. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Hundreds take part in the candlelight vigil in Albuquerque for the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shootings. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Ricky Billie joined hundreds in paying homage to the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting during a candlelight vigil at Morningside Park. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Adriana Ortiz pays homage to the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting at the site of the former Albuquerque Pulse nightclub at Montclaire and Central SE. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Jaysa Jones blesses an altar and pay homage to the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting at the site of the former Albuquerque Pulse nightclub at Montclaire and Central SE. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) People stop to grieve and pay homage to the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting at the site of the former Albuquerque Pulse nightclub at Montclaire and Central SE. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Zack Snyder, left, his son Ayden Snyder, 4 , brother Zeke Snyder and son Zuri Snyder, 3, observe a minute of silence in memory of the Orlando nightclub massacre victims before the Isotopes game against the Las Vegas 51s. (Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Albuquerque Journal) Chris Davin of Albuquerque recently moved here from Orlando and knew the Pulse nightclub where the worst mass shooting in U.S. history occurred. He attended the Albuquerque PrideFest at Expo New Mexico on Sunday. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal) Marcos Saucedo of Dallas is hugged by Omar Narvaez, also from Dallas, during the moment of silence for the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting, at the Albuquerque PrideFest at Expo New Mexico on Sunday. The two are with Lambda Legal, a nonprofit national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV. (Greg Sorber/Albuquerque Journal) Prev 1 of 11 Next Candlelights flickered in Morningside Park on Sunday night as hundreds of Albuquerqueans gathered to mourn those gunned down in a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. Several local political and religious leaders and activists spoke messages of resilience, tolerance and love as they mourned the 50 people killed in the Florida club. It is not weak tonight to come together and mourn, to cry and to pray, openly gay Sen. Jacob Candelaria, D-Albuquerque, said. That is not weakness, that is strength. To turn to each other and to turn inward and to turn toward love to respond to such hate is America. It is American strength. That is who we are as a people. As night fell on Nob Hill, the Gay Mens Choir sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow and the crowd of about 500 people lit white candles. A moment of silence revealed quiet crying. Many wiped tears as the group sang Amazing Grace. Earlier in the day, members of the Blessed Oscar Romero Catholic Community set up a descanso at the site of Albuquerques own Pulse nightclub, which was located on Central and Montclaire before it closed in 2007. Prayer candles sat atop a folding table, and visitors wrote messages of support on large cutout letters spelling Orlando. Some speakers, including Albuquerque City Councilor Pat Davis, took a moment to condemn gun violence and plead for tougher gun laws. One mentioned the fatal shooting that took place in Downtown Albuquerque late Saturday, just a block from the local club where many were celebrating pride. Another reminded the crowd that New Mexico was host to a mass shooting Saturday five family members were shot to death in their home in Roswell. Among the crowd were Albuquerque Police Chief Gordon Eden, U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry, state Rep. Deborah Armstrong, state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto and others. Speakers also focused on the need for tolerance and a hope that the attack would not lead to anti-Muslim sentiment. Abbas Akhil, president of the New Mexico Islamic Center, told attendees that the person responsible for the attack did not represent his faith. Sayrah Namaste said her daughter woke her up Sunday morning with news of the tragedy. Her childhood is that people get killed, she said. Mass shootings happen. She said she thought the vigil was a showing of solidarity, and she appreciated the fact that so many religions were represented. It was so beautiful, she said. A real sense of coming together, which is a great way to respond to tragedy. The attack came just as the 40th annual Albuquerque PrideFest was wrapping up. Pride organizers made time during an afternoon of music at Expo New Mexico to remember the victims with a moment of silence. I ask you today to be out, to talk to people, to share your feelings, share your thoughts and find those allies and begin to tell your story, said Pat Baille, president emeritus of Albuquerque Pride. That night in Orlando brings us together, but it reminds us why we have so much more to do. Spokesman Craig LaBerge-Esparza reminded the crowd that this was not just a tragedy to the LGBTQ+ community, but a human tragedy. Even if you do not identify with being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, gender fluid, straight, whatever, if you dont identify with any one of the groups I mentioned, you do identify with being a human, LaBerge-Esparza said. You do identify with experiencing love and experiencing loss. Chris Davin recently moved to Albuquerque from Orlando to work with the Red Dress Party, an event that raises money to benefit local HIV organizations. He said he spent many weekend nights at the Pulse one of two gay clubs in Orlando which often offers free drinks to locals for a couple of hours on Saturday nights. Members of the LGBTQ+ community head there to hang out, have fun, unwind, Davin said. On a Saturday night, it would be very packed, he said. Especially for Latino night. It was Latino night when the shooter took hostages. The incident left at least 50 people dead and about as many more critically wounded. Davin said he knew several of the clubs employees and has many friends who were at the club during the attack. Weve been checking in on Facebook making sure everyone is accounted for, he said, adding that many still werent. Standing near the stage during Sundays Albuquerque Pride festivities, Davin said the shooting left him feeling terrible on Sunday. Im 1,500 miles away, and its not like I can hop on a plane to go there and be with them, he said. Davin said his friends who made it out of the club unscathed remain in shock. Theyre like, Did this really happen? he said. Was this really what happened last night? You know, I was having fun, and now my friend is dead. They just dont understand it. He feels the same way. Even though Im here, I know the club. I know the people, he said. I know the outlining of the club, so I know what they were probably seeing trying to get out. LAS CRUCES About 200 people gathered at Pioneer Womens Park in Las Cruces on Sunday evening for a vigil to honor the Orlando nightclub shooting victims. The vigil was sponsored by PFLAG of Las Cruces, who noted that the attack took place at a prominent gay nightclub. Sundays vigil was for, not only last night, but for all of our community members who were killed for who they are and who they love, said local PFLAG President Carrie Hamblen. Speakers had two messages. They urged both prayers and support for the victims, as well as unity with Muslims and a rejection of attacks on Islam. The shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State. Its OK to be angry, because this was an attack on the LGBT community, said Myra Lleremas of Equality New Mexico. This violence effects all of us. During this time, we cant be divided. That means not spewing any anti-Islamic rhetoric and not finger-pointing. We stand in solidarity with the Muslim community. District Court Judge Lisa Schultz, who is openly lesbian, noted that it was Latino Night at the nightclub when the shooting took place. The discrimination was against them too, she said. Schultz said that FBI crime statistics listed 6,000 hate crimes in 2013, and said that 20 percent of those were regarding sexual orientation. Thats 1,200 people a year, she said. A tragedy against one of us is a tragedy against all of us. 2016 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. _____ PHOENIX The producers behind a movie about the elite firefighting team that lost 19 members in a 2013 Arizona wildfire assure the story focuses on the firefighters dedication, not the way in which they died. Granite Mountain is slated to start production Monday with a cast that includes Josh Brolin and Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly, The Arizona Republic reported (http://bit.ly/28ohzgg). The movie will be filming in Santa Fe, Los Alamos and several other cities in New Mexico through early September. It is slated to open in theaters in September 2017. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said the plot will focus on Eric Marsh, who led the crew, and Brendan McDonough, the only surviving hotshot crew member. He said it will not focus on tragedy or the exact details of the fire. This movie is about the lives of these people and what they were trying to put on the line, and what it meant to them to do what they were doing and what it meant to the community to have them doing it, he said. Brolin will play Marsh, who was superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew, with Connolly playing his wife, Amanda Marsh. Other cast members include Miles Teller, Jeff Bridges, Taylor Kitsch and James Badge Dale. Director Joseph Kosinski said it is a story of true heroism. The more I discovered about these men, their families, their relationships and where they came from, the more I was drawn into it, he said. The real Amanda Marsh said it is important that the hotshots are portrayed as people, not just a tragedy. I want the world to understand what it is like to be a hotshot and what it is like to be a hotshot wife, she said. Neither is easy. Both come with their own sense of deep responsibility and commitment to the job. I hope Erics personality comes through and that people get a sense of who Eric was. ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that Brendan McDonough survived the 2013 wildfire, though 19 other members of his crew did not. ___ Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com The 2016 Miss New Mexico pageant will be hosted at Eastern New Mexico University this week. Girls from 13 to 17 years old participate in the Miss Teen contest, while participants 17 to 24 participate in the Miss New Mexico contest. The Miss New Mexico Scholarship Organization allows young women throughout the Land of Enchantment to earn scholarship money for college, cultivate their individual talents and speaking skills, develop self-confidence and poise, as well as the opportunity to serve their local communities, said Greg Smith, executive director of the Miss New Mexico Scholarship Organization. Fifty-six girls from across the state will be participating in this years pageant, according to Marissa Livingston, who was crowned the 2015 Miss New Mexico at last years pageant, along with Miss New Mexicos 2015 Outstanding Teen Sasha Butcher. One of the participants is Alexa Vigil, 20, who won the title of Miss Portales at the Miss Portales pageant last November. She was also crowned Miss Eastern New Mexico in 2014. Local residents Madison Belcher of Texico (Miss Portales Outstanding Teen), Kara Young (Miss Eastern New Mexico Outstanding Teen) and Haley Baca (Miss Roosevelt County Outstanding Teen), both of Portales, also won teen titles in the Miss Portales contest. These girls have been really working hard these past couple of months, even years, said Livingston, discussing the effort that the participants put forth in the pageant. Its not about their performance, said Livingston. I know what the job entails, and it really is a full-time job. The competition is very tough, and we would like for everyone to come out and see the show, said Smith. Participants will be arriving today and Monday for the event with the Crown the Town event taking place in the Portales town square at 3 p.m. Monday with pageant participants visiting Portales businesses and local residents to kick-off the event. Livingston said she always looks forward to the event in Portales. Its a fantastic event that will bring fanfare to the city, said Livingston, adding that she also looks forward to mentoring this years Miss New Mexico winner. The girls who win are in for the most amazing, fun adventure, said Livingston. I am very honored and proud to have served as Miss New Mexico in 2015 and very excited to watch the girls this year. The participant crowned Miss New Mexico will be participating in the Miss America competition in September. It was an honor representing New Mexico on the national stage at Miss America, said Livingston of her experience last year. A meet and greet event will be held at 6 p.m. Monday at the Campus Union Building at ENMU, and Miss New Mexico pageant contestants will also be part of the Heritage Days parade at 9 a.m. Saturday. Pageant participants will be competing Thursday through Saturday with the Miss New Mexico Teen competition at 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday at the University Theatre Center, and the Miss New Mexico competition at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday at the theater. The Miss New Mexico Teen will be crowned at 2 p.m. Saturday while the 2016 Miss New Mexico will be crowned at 6 p.m. the same day. Tickets for the events can be purchased for $30 Thursday and Friday at the door at the ENMU theater for entrance to both the teen and Miss New Mexico events. The public can also attend the Miss New Mexico Ball at 9 p.m. Saturday at the ENMU Campus Union Building. Tickets for the competition finals Saturday are $40 for the teen competition and $50 for Miss New Mexico with prices including admission into the celebration ball. 2016 The Portales News-Tribune (Clovis, N.M.) Visit The Portales News-Tribune (Clovis, N.M.) at www.pntonline.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. _____ In addition to housing one of the nations only nuclear waste repositories, New Mexico may eventually be on the cutting edge of nuclear energy technology. State Rep. Cathrynn Brown spoke at the International Small Modular Reactor and Advanced Reactor Summit in Atlanta in April, promoting the idea of making New Mexico one of the first homes of small modular reactors. Small modular reactors, essentially miniature nuclear power plants, are a technology currently being tested by NuScale Power in Oregon and other areas around the country and globe. Idaho will be the first state to receive one, but Brown hopes New Mexico wont be far behind. My thought is that maybe the first ones in the country will serve military installations, Brown said. According to a May 31 article in Power magazine the Utah Associated Municipal Power and the Department of Energy entered into a use agreement that allows UAMPS to explore potential locations for plant development at the Idaho National Laboratory site. The state representative said New Mexicos rural nature makes it the perfect place for an SMR, though she said one of the benefits of reactors is that they take up much less space than a full scale one, around 30 acres. They are ideal for smaller markets where you cant really justify building a full scale nuclear facility, she said. Another advantage Brown touted is the cost. While a full scale reactor costs around $10 billion, an SMR is $1 billion. The components of SMRs are manufactured in factories, sent to the site and assembled there. Brown said she also hopes to see some of that manufacturing done in New Mexico, as well. Ultimately, I would like to see some of the manufacturing of the components in New Mexico, she said. These are good, high paying jobs. Brown also touted one of the key arguments for all nuclear energy. The number one selling feature is that they create no greenhouse gas emissions, she said, adding that solar and wind power technologies just cant provide enough energy for our society. In 2014, Brown presented a memorial in the New Mexico Legislature asking the state to perform research on the feasibility and economic benefits of bringing one to the state. Maddy Hayden can be reached at 575-628-5512. 2016 the Carlsbad Current-Argus (Carlsbad, N.M.) Visit the Carlsbad Current-Argus (Carlsbad, N.M.) at www.currentargus.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. _____ FARMINGTON A woman molested by former Bloomfield High School teacher Benjamin Griffith when she was his student has filed a lawsuit against the Bloomfield School District alleging negligence and civil rights violations. The woman, identified in the complaint as S.M., alleges in the lawsuit that the district failed to adequately investigate Griffiths background before hiring him as an English teacher in 2013. The woman further alleges the district ignored warning signs of Griffiths inappropriate behavior toward female students before he groped her breasts in a school computer lab in October 2014 when she was 17. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in the Eleventh Judicial District Court. Griffith was charged Dec. 16, 2014, with two counts of second-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor in connection with the girls allegations. He pleaded guilty to a fourth-degree offense on April 11 and faces up to 1 1/2 years in prison when he is sentenced later this month. Griffiths criminal defense attorney, Tyson Quail, could not be reached for comment Friday. S.M. names Griffith, the Bloomfield School District and several district employees as defendants in the lawsuit. She seeks unspecified damages on claims of civil rights violations, civil battery, equal protection under the law, negligence and sex discrimination. Chuck Culpepper, director of operations and assessment for the Bloomfield School District, said Friday the district has not yet been served a notice of the lawsuit, and he was therefore not aware of the allegations contained in it. Culpepper said the New Mexico Public Education Departments Educator Ethics Bureau conducts background checks on all teachers employed by the district. You dont work here until we have the results on a background check, he said. However, a review by the New Mexico Public Education Department in January found 81 newly hired employees in school districts and charter schools throughout New Mexico didnt have required background checks. At the Bloomfield School District, three out of 83 of its newly hired employees were missing background checks, according to the review. A USA Today Network investigation in February faulted the state Public Education Department for failing to share information online about teacher disciplinary actions and for failing to communicate with other states regarding teacher misconduct. S.M., represented by Albuquerque attorney Shannon Kennedy, alleges in the lawsuit that Griffith was previously accused in 2005 of repeatedly punching a 16-year-old girl at a coffee shop in Las Cruces. The girl was a member of a Christian group where Griffith served as a counselor, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit states the girls father filed a police report for unlawful battery against Griffith, but he was not charged with the offense, according to court records. The lawsuit states the girl was sexually assaulted by Griffith a few weeks later, after she moved to Farmington to live with him and his wife. No charges were filed in connection to that alleged incident, records state, but S.M. argues the allegations should have come to light during the background check. Any competent background investigation into whether to hire Defendant Griffith as a teacher would have shown that Defendant Griffith is a foreseeable danger to any teenaged female, both in public and private investigations, the lawsuit states. Griffith was also disciplined by the school district several times before he groped S.M., according to the lawsuit. Griffith was placed on administrative leave on Oct. 18, 2013, after he allegedly grabbed a student by the collar, pushed her back, and said, Im not afraid to slap you, according to the lawsuit. After an investigation, Griffith was told to refrain from physical contact with students, the lawsuit states. Four months after that incident, Griffith was formally reprimanded by the district after he allegedly pressed down on a students shoulders to force her to stop talking in class, according to the lawsuit. Bloomfield High School Principal Cody Diehl again placed Griffith on paid administrative leave and told Griffith in a letter he did not believe his teaching contract should be renewed for the 2014-2015 school year, according to the lawsuit. Despite the principals opinion, Griffiths contract was renewed. Griffith was then accused on Oct. 15, 2014, of touching S.M.s breasts. Griffith is expected to be sentenced for that offense on June 30. San Juan County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dustin OBrien has said Griffith is eligible for a conditional discharge, which would allow him to avoid a felony conviction on his criminal record if he successfully completes a term of probation. However, OBrien said his office opposes the conditional discharge and will request that Griffith be ordered to register as a sex offender. Steve Garrison covers crime and courts for The Daily Times. He can be reached at 505-564-4644. 2016 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. _____ ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. New Mexico residents are holding candlelight vigils around the state in the wake of the Orlando shootings that killed 50 people in the worst mass shooting in modern American history. From Las Cruces to Albuquerque, mourners gathered to honor the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub. The shooting occurring during Pride celebrations in many cities across the country. Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales announced on Facebook that the states Capitol would hold a public event honoring the victims on Monday. At President Obamas request, Gov. Susana Martinez ordered flags in New Mexico to be lowered to half-staff until Thursday. HOBBS, N.M. A southeastern New Mexico man is facing charges in connection with an April fatal crash that killed a Lovington newlywed couple. The Hobbs News-Sun reports (http://goo.gl/oAUSk1) that 19-year-old Oscar Martinez Zamora of Lovington, New Mexico, was arrested last week on multiple felony charges stemming from the death of Joseph Cole Wier and Tymplaire Tympe Wier. According to a criminal complaint, Zamora went through a southeastern New Mexico intersection and stop sign at about 90-91 mph. The complaint says the speed limit at the intersection is 45 mph. Twenty-five-year-old Joseph Cole Wier and 20-year-old Tympe Wier died shortly after being transported to Nor-Lea Hospital. Zamora faces two counts of homicide by vehicle and is being held on a $100,000 bond. It was not known if he had an attorney. ___ Information from: Hobbs News-Sun, http://www.hobbsnews.com PHOENIX In a story June 13 about vaccines in Arizona schools, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Arizona health officials said about three in every 10 kindergartners who enrolled during the most recent school year without measles vaccines didnt have exemption forms. That information came from ADHS data that was analyzed by a Phoenix newspaper and not from any official. A corrected version of the story is below: ADHS data: Many kindergartners enrolled without measles vaccines didnt have exemption forms ADHS data: About three in every 10 kindergartners who enrolled during the most recent school year without measles vaccines didnt have exemption forms PHOENIX Arizona Department of Health Services data shows that about three in every 10 kindergartners who enrolled during the most recent school year without measles vaccines didnt have exemption forms. According to the data, hundreds of Arizona schools did not require all parents to turn in signed waivers when they enrolled their unvaccinated children in 2015, The Arizona Republic reported (http://bit.ly/1ZLbHrI ). The newspaper analyzed schools with kindergartens with 20 or more students. The numbers were similar to an analysis a year and a half ago. State law requires schools to suspend students who are not vaccinated and do not have exemptions. When parents choose to opt-out of immunizations, they are required to sign a waiver denoting that they understand the risks. Schools use the exemption papers to track unvaccinated students so they can be sent home if another student contracts measles. Department of Health Services official Jessica Rigler said the state began sending letters to schools that included their exemption-form compliance rates this year, but that the immunization law does not have enforcement measures. Schools are told to suspend non-compliant students, but the state has no system to penalize schools. In the last school year, 37 percent of kindergartens had low enough vaccination rates to be breeding grounds for a measles outbreak. The state data also shows that for the past five years, schools have seen a steady 5 percent to 6 percent of kindergartners show up to school without vaccines. Vaccine exemption data may be incomplete because schools send reports by November. Students missing vaccines or exemption forms may have turned them in after the deadline. Some schools also dont report accurate information. Rigler said some portion of students with exemption forms may actually have been vaccinated, but parents find it easier to sign the waiver than find medical records. ___ Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com Albuquerque police have arrested a 23-year-old man accused of shooting and killing a 22-year-old on a busy Saturday night in Downtown Albuquerque. Edward Chavez, 23, was arrested as he was trying to flee from Albuquerque to Mexico, according to Albuquerque police spokesman Tanner Tixier. A woman accused of trying to help him, 41-year-old Leslie Mora, has also been arrested, and police are looking for a third possible conspirator. The motive for the killing remains unclear, and Tixier said police are still investigating whether Chavez knew the victim or whether it was a random crime. Officers were called to reports of shots fired near Sixth and Central just after 10 p.m. Saturday. When they arrived, they found a young man dead in a parking lot, shot in the back of the head and in his chest, according to the criminal complaint filed against Chavez. Police have tentatively identified the victim as a 22-year-old man, but family members had not been notified Monday, Tixier said. Surveillance footage shows the victim running and falling in the parking lot, according to the complaint. Two men then go up to his body and shine a light, possibly from a cellphone, apparently looking for something on the victims body. Then they leave. The day after the shooting, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told detectives he had spoken with a source who is not identified in court records who had information about the shooting. The source said Mora and her son, Dominick Mora-Solis, 24, were trying to get a friend down south because he had shot someone. On Sunday evening, police got a break Mora and Chavez were arrested in a stolen car around 7:45 p.m. Chavez told officers the victim was trying to stab him but didnt go so far as to say that he shot the victim, according to the complaint. Edward stated he was sorry for what he did, an officer wrote in the complaint. Chavez was charged with an open count of murder and booked into the county jail on a no-bond hold. Mora was also arrested, charged with harboring a felon. And on Monday police were still looking to arrest Mora-Solis, who has a warrant out for his arrest charging him with harboring a felon for his alleged role in trying to help Chavez escape. PCM, a California-based IT services provider, said Monday it will open a sales center in the Hewlett-Packard building in Rio Rancho this summer, with the first group of more than 200 employees coming on board in August. Gov. Susana Martinez, who was joined by state and city officials and PCM representatives, made the announcement of the firms expansion to New Mexico at Rio Rancho City Hall. The governor and other state officials went on a recent trade mission to California, where they asked the companys CEO to consider New Mexico. That helped economic development officials cinch the deal with the El Segundo-based firm. The state will contribute $700,000 in LEDA funding for infrastructure improvements to accommodate PCM. LEDA is New Mexicos closing fund. Also, the company will get more than $568,676 from the states Job Training Incentive Program to help it hire and train the workforce it needs. Martinez said more private-sector companies are in the recruitment pipeline to relocate to the state, which will result in an improved economy. We are willing to go anywhere to grow jobs in New Mexico, said Martinez. We want to make sure the private sector is growing not just government employment. We want these companies to see that New Mexico is open for business. These incentives help the state remain competitive as it vies with other states recruiting new employers, she said. PCM, which will lease 30,000 square feet in the HP building, provides technology support to clients that include the NFLs Cincinnati Bengals and Green Bay Packers, Sea World, Wendys, GE, and other international organizations, according to a news release. Salaries of the sales positions will range between $45,000 and $65,000. We are honored that PCM chose to locate its sales center in Rio Rancho, Mayor Gregg Hull said. PCM is an established, proven company that will create high-quality, well-paying jobs for New Mexicans. Frank Khulusi, CEO and founder of PCM, said, Meeting with Gov. Martinez and her team in California was a game changer. Learning about New Mexicos improved business environment and talented workforce was a deciding factor in expanding our operations to this state. The publicy traded company, which will generate $2.2 billion in sales this year, provides access to over 300,000 IT products like tablets, slate, notebooks, desktops, servers, storage and networking from leading manufacturers like Cisco, HP, Apple, Adobe, Lenovo, and Microsoft. Tom Ducatelli, executive vice president of commercial sales for PCM, said the campaign to bring the company to New Mexico was so compelling, that the company scrapped plans to staff up in another facility. When we look at expanding our sales team, these are more than jobs they are careers, he said. The company has an extensive training and career development program for staffers to move up the ladder. We will be here for a long, long time, he said. SANTA FE Two Santa Fe police officers suffered minor injuries Monday morning after being stabbed with an ink pen by a man who has a history of assaulting officers. Christian Barney, 55, was charged with aggravated battery on a peace officer and is being held in the Santa Fe County jail without bond. A Santa Fe police spokesman said about 7:30 a.m. Monday police received a complaint about a panhandler who was bothering people outside the Hobby Lobby, 2020 Cerrillos Road. Officers asked him to take his hands out of his pockets and he wouldnt do it, SFPD spokesman Greg Gurule said. As the officer approached him, he pulled his hands out and stabbed him near the eye. Another officer was stabbed in the arm when he stepped in an pressed a stun gun against Barney to subdue him. Gurule said police found a notebook in Barneys bag that contained anti-police and racial comments. He said police know Barney to have mental issues due to previous encounters with him. In 2010, was charged with aggravated battery on a police officer, assault on a peace officer and resisting and obstructing an officer stemming from an incident in which he allegedly bit, scratched and cut an arresting officer. In 2013, he was charged with the same crimes plus criminal damage to property after police apprehended him for jaywalking across Cerrillos Road. The Journal reported then that Barney allegedly punched an officer with a closed fist, tore the police badge from the uniform of another officer and stabbed him with the badges pin. ANGLETON, Texas A man has been arrested in Colorado in connection with the slaying of a Southeast Texas man whose decapitated body was found about six weeks ago in his truck near a boat ramp. The Brazoria County Sheriffs Office said Monday 24-year-old Zachary Lyn Foyt is being held on $5 million bond in Lakewood, Colorado, pending extradition to Texas. The victim is 24-year-old Jubal Alexander of Port Arthur. Alexanders headless body was found May 3 outside Angleton, south of Houston. He was last heard from on April 27. Investigators say Alexander worked at a nearby chemical plant and was living in his truck to save money. Police received a tip May 24 tying Foyt to the slaying and that he fled to Colorado. No motive has been determined. The head of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and a current member of the Islamic Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque both issued statements of sympathy for victims of the Orlando mass shooting and their profound condolences for the families. Archbishop John C. Wester, in his statement, said, On behalf of all of us in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, I express our deepest sympathy and profound condolences on learning of the death of 49 people and more than four dozen more injured in Orlando, Fla. We are all reeling from this senseless, cruel and horrific attack on innocent people, our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters. Once again our country has been grievously wounded by violent hatred and terrorism, a wound felt by all of us and in particular by the gay community. We are earnestly praying for all those who are plunged into such awful suffering. We also recognize that this latest attack on innocent people has nothing to do with any one religion or ethnic group and we pray that the sickness of one individual does not spark further hatred by inappropriately placing blame where it does not belong. The statement finished with: May those who have died rest in peace. AbdurRauf R. Campos-Marquetti, with the Islamic Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque and former Imam of Taha Mosque in Santa Fe, said in a separate statement and letter to the Journal that, Our prayers and condolences are with the victims and families and friends of this unspeakable act. My condemnation of this horrible act I squarely put on those misguided and twisted individuals and organizations who have shown that they have no respect for the sacredness of all life, and who use the sacredness of Islam as an iron fist to implement their twisted and corrupted interpretation of Islam and their political agendas. The true justice of Allah will fall on your heads for this unforgettable and inexcusable act on innocent human beings. I ask our American community that just finished celebrating the life of a true Muslim and man of peace, justice and tolerance to see the difference between a true Muslim (Muhammad Ali) and the majority of Muslim community throughout the world; and these lost corrupted terrorists and criminals who are not faithful to the teachings of Islam in word or action. In times like these it is more important for us to come together as an American community a World community of all faiths in peace and understanding, remembering and sharing our brotherhood and sisterhood so that we can progress forward into the future as faithful citizens of this world we share. Our hearts are broken by this foul act. The Muslim community must remain vigilant for those from within and without who wish to steal the minds, hearts and souls of our youth and fellow citizens from the corruption of terrorist and criminal groups like ISIS and al Qaeda. We pray for the victims and families of this unspeakable criminal act and ask Allah to soothe the broken hearts of those family and friends that must endure the taking of their loved ones. The New Mexico film industry is recognized as one of the best in the country. And the New Mexico Film Office is taking it international with a strategic partnership with Panda iMedia, one of Chinas top online media holding companies. On Monday, discussions began on how to create digital media jobs in the state. Chen Shen, chairman of Panda iMedia Group and founder of Weibo, Chinas largest social media outlet, other industrial investors and key federal government officials, began a four-day tour of New Mexico this week. Panda iMedia specializes in the production of digital content and online promotion for Chinas top 500 enterprises, including Lenovo, TCL, Xiaomi, China Telecom, and others. The company also operates a number of business incubators and is well versed in e-commerce. Recognizing the wave of Chinas fast-growing film and digital media market, we are excited about this long-term partnership, said Nick Maniatis, state Film Office director. It will not only facilitate collaboration and cultural exchange between American and Chinese film and media professionals, but will also aid in diversifying New Mexicos economy and extend the reach of its significant and growing talent pool. This inaugural event, foreseen as the first of many, will include training in digital media and cultural exchanges of ideas. The partnership raises the bar for us to an international level, said Maniatis. It puts us in a great position to tell a New Mexico story in China. Irene Ran, Panda iMedias partner in North America, said Albuquerque was chosen over many cities in the United States. Ran used to live in Albuquerque and became aware of the booming film and TV industry. Most Chinese people think production of all film and TV is done in Hollywood, she says. I told my guys about the city and state. We had been seeking a partnership for some time and found a perfect home for this partnership in Albuquerque. Panda iMedia co-founder Tony Ki said a lot of companies wanted to work with Panda iMedia in the United States. We have begun the first step in this long-term partnership, Ki said. We are not in this for the short term. This is something we plan to be a part of for many years. Ki and Ran aim to have the partnership focus on digital content for Internet, TV and film. They also want to push into the post-production realm to create high-quality content. Animation is very big and we want to capture that, Ki said. The sky is the limit. FOR THE RECORD: This story incorrectly described AbdurRauf R. Campos-Marquetti as the head the Islamic Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque. His voicemail identified him as imam, but the story should have said he is a current member of the Islamic Center and former imam of Taha Mosque in Santa Fe. Shafi Abdul Aziz is the imam at the Islamic Center of New Mexico, and Abbas Akhil is the centers president. The head of the Islamic Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque issued a statement of sympathy for victims of the Orlando mass shooting and condemned the perpetrator of this horrible act. Imam AbdurRauf R. Campos-Marquetti, with the Islamic Center of New Mexico in Albuquerque, said in a separate statement and letter to the Journal that, Our prayers and condolences are with the victims and families and friends of this unspeakable act. My condemnation of this horrible act I squarely put on those misguided and twisted individuals and organizations who have shown that they have no respect for the sacredness of all life, and who use the sacredness of Islam as an iron fist to implement their twisted and corrupted interpretation of Islam and their political agendas. The true justice of Allah will fall on your heads for this unforgettable and inexcusable act on innocent human beings. I ask our American community that just finished celebrating the life of a true Muslim and man of peace, justice and tolerance to see the difference between a true Muslim (Muhammad Ali) and the majority of Muslim community throughout the world; and these lost corrupted terrorists and criminals who are not faithful to the teachings of Islam in word or action. In times like these it is more important for us to come together as an American community a World community of all faiths in peace and understanding, remembering and sharing our brotherhood and sisterhood so that we can progress forward into the future as faithful citizens of this world we share. Our hearts are broken by this foul act. The Muslim community must remain vigilant for those from within and without who wish to steal the minds, hearts and souls of our youth and fellow citizens from the corruption of terrorist and criminal groups like ISIS and al Qaeda. We pray for the victims and families of this unspeakable criminal act and ask Allah to soothe the broken hearts of those family and friends that must endure the taking of their loved ones. When it comes to retail, whats old might just be new again. With the internet changing the way the world shops, consumers increasingly want more from a brick-and-mortar shopping trip and developers and retailers themselves must evolve to survive sometimes in ways that hearken back to the past, according to industry experts who spoke Monday in Albuquerque. Speaking to the New Mexico chapter of NAIOP, the commercial real estate development association, Tommy Miller of the Fort Worth, Texas-based Trademark Property Company used the term return on experience, and said shopping centers should prioritize authenticity and a sense of community. That could mean park-like seating areas, expanding food and beverage options and including more local artisan vendors and merchants. Considering the experience is much more important than it ever has been, said Miller, whose real estate firm manages about 6 million square feet of property, much of it concentrated in Texas. Customers are different today less rooted, more focused on experiences than goods and with wider-ranging interests, said Melina Cordero, CBREs Washington D.C.-based head of retail research for the Americas. And yet what they seek in a retail environment might actually have a basis in history. At one point, Cordero even drew comparisons between the merchandising at a modern-day candy store in Miami and Istanbuls centuries-old Grand Bazaar. Is it a transformation to something new and different? she asked the audience, noting the similarities between images of both. Or is it a return to the fundamentals the fundamentals of experience and community building that started retail in the first place? Retail real estate broker Bob Feinberg of Colliers Internationals Albuquerque office moderated Mondays discussion and referred to the larger retail trend as a desire to village. He said in an interview that Albuquerque has seen some of it, citing ABQ Uptown. It doesnt have parks and it doesnt have open space, but you know it was the first step in the right direction, he said. And there will be others to follow and theyll continue to improve it. The next phases of Winrock Town Center should reflect the movement, he said, and he said even the more traditional malls, like Coronado Center, have responded to the shifts. ACAs library of educational tools help members improve their business practices. ACA also holds the most popular industry conferences and offers credentialing for collectors, attorneys, and more. ACAs Training Zone subscription gives agencies access to almost all of our education for one low cost. IMGCAP(1)]This week I digress from my autobiographical stories. I understand that Ben Affleck will be playing an accountant in a movie he is now filming, but until then here are my top 10 movie roles of accountants. 1. Dave Daves accountant, played by Charles Grodin, helps the President, played by Kevin Kline, trim costs so the First Ladys homeless project can be funded. 2. The Producers Accountant Leo Bloom, played by Gene Wilder, hatches the plan for a Broadway flop. 3. Prizzis Honor The cover for Kathleen Turners mob assassin character was as a tax expert. 4. Schindlers List The real-life person, Itzhak Stern, played by Ben Kingsley, who typed and maintained the list was an accountant. 5. The Untouchables Oscar Wallace was a tax accountant, played by Charles Martin Smith, who figured out how to get Capone on tax evasion charges. 6. Mobsters A 1991 movie with Patrick Dempsey playing Meyer Lansky, who was known as the Accountant for the Mob. 7. Its a Wonderful Life An accountant appears at the end of the movie tallying up the collections for George Bailey on an adding machine (perhaps this might be a stretch). He is Georges Cousin Eustace, played by Charles Williams. 8. The Shawshank Redemption Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, gave estate tax advice and prepared tax returns. He also helped the warden hide his graft money and figured out how to steal it from the warden. 9. Midnight Run - Charles Grodin, playing accountant Jonathan The Duke Mardukas, is on the lam with ledgers that would send his bosses up the river, and also with $15 million he embezzled from them. 10. Same Time, Next Year Accountant, played by Alan Alda, has a once-a-year affair with Ellen Burstyns character when he travels to the West Coast to get his clients tax information. There are others, but these get my kudos. Note that Tom Clancys Jack Ryan passed the CPA exam, but I never read about him doing anything accountant like, so I do not feel he qualifies as playing an accountant. You can also do a web search for accountant movie roles and come up with a lot more. If you have favorites not listed here, enter them as a comment. Enjoy! Edward Mendlowitz, CPA, is partner at WithumSmith+Brown, PC, CPAs. He is on the Accounting Today Top 100 Influential People List. He is the author of 24 books, including How to Review Tax Returns, co-written with Andrew D. Mendlowitz, published by www.CPATrendlines.com and Managing Your Tax Season, Third Edition, published by the AICPA. Ed also writes a twice-a-week blog addressing issues that clients have at www.partners-network.com. Art of Accounting is a continuing series where Ed shares autobiographical experiences with tips that he hopes can be adopted by his colleagues. Ed welcomes practice management questions and can be reached at (732) 964-9329 or emendlowitz@withum.com. A roundup of recent hires, promotions, awards and other personnel news from firms across the country. COLORADO Jessica Martin has joined the franchising team of Payroll Vault, Greenwood Village, as director of marketing and executive project manager. CONNECTICUT The Connecticut Society of CPAs presented two Connecticut accounting educators with Educator of Excellence Awards: Ross A. Riskin, CPA/PFS, CCPS, an assistant professor of accounting and finance at Albertus Magnus College and a vice president of Riskin & Riskin PC; and Jennifer M. Oliver, CPA, a professor of business and accounting at Quinebaug Valley Community College. FLORIDA Teri M. Kaye has been appointed to the Executive Committee of Daszkal Bolton, Boca Raton. Kaye joined Daszkal Bolton as a principal in October 2010 and was named a partner in January 2012. Debie Leonard, a shareholder with Thomas Howell Ferguson PA CPAs, Tallahassee, has received a Women to Watch Experienced Leader Award from the Florida Institute of CPAs. She sits on the Investment Policy Committee, Estate and Financial Planning Conference Committee, and the CPA Elder Planning and Support Services Committee of the institute. ILLINOIS Brian Pitera has joined the transactions services practice of Grant Thornton LLP, Chicago, as a principal and operations leader, while William Hickey has been named a senior manufacturing advisor in the manufacturing industry practice. INDIANA Scott Norbot has joined McGuire Sponsel, Indianapolis, as a tax consultant for the cost segregation practice, while Jamie Skerston is joing the firm as a tax consultant for the R&D tax credit practice. KENTUCKY Adam Campbell has joined the tax team of Dean Dorton Allen Ford PLLC in Lexington as a supervisor. LOUISIANA Postlethwaite & Netterville APAC promoted five professionals to director: Aaron Cancienne as an audit director in New Orleans; Rodney Combs and Tommy Naquin as audit directors in Baton Rouge; and Keith Crews and Jon LeBlanc as tax directors in Baton Rouge. MASSACHUSETTS Marc Montpas has joined XCM Solutions LLC, Quincy, as vice president of sales. He will be responsible for building out and leading the companys sales organization as the company broadens its market position in North America and expands into new markets and solution areas. He brings over 15 years of experience in the industry, most recently at CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, where he served as director of strategic alliances and vertical strategy. MINNESOTA Ulrike Harrison has joined Baker Tilly Virchow Krause LLP as chief sales officer. She will lead the firms sales and business development organization and align sales objectives with the firms strategy and marketing capabilities. MISSOURI Kristin M. Carter has joined Central Trust Co., Springfield, as its first tax officer. MarksNelson LLC, Kansas City, announced five new hires: Brianna Akers, Brandon Bowman, Bethany Zimbelman and Elsa Zhu have joined the firm as staff accountants, and Jon Roberts as a market research analyst. NEW JERSEY Darren Burton has been appointed vice chair of human resources at KPMG LLP, succeeding Bruce Pfau, who is retiring after 12 years in the position and joining the advisory practice in a senior consulting role. Burton joins KPMG from Raytheon Co., where he most recently served as vice president of HR and security. NEW YORK The American Institute of CPAs honored 19 young CPAs for their contributions to the areas of information management and technology assurance with the first annual Standing Ovation, which recognizes the best young CPAs in various specialty credential areas. The recipients, all CPAs age 40 and under who hold the Certified Information Technology Professional credential, include: Sundeep Bablani , 37, Austin, Tex. , 37, Austin, Tex. Jim Boomer , 39, Manhattan, Kan. , 39, Manhattan, Kan. Kelly Cassidy , 33, Englewood, N.J. , 33, Englewood, N.J. Jeffrey Cook , 36, Vienna, Va. , 36, Vienna, Va. Troy Fine , 29, Pittsburgh, Pa. , 29, Pittsburgh, Pa. Julie Gustavsson , 35, Glen Allen, Va. , 35, Glen Allen, Va. Justin Harmon , 37, Eastman, Ga. , 37, Eastman, Ga. Marie Hibbert , 35, Debary, Fla. , 35, Debary, Fla. Apoorve Jain , 31, Phoenix, Ariz. , 31, Phoenix, Ariz. Dale Livezey , 39, San Francisco, Calif. , 39, San Francisco, Calif. Matthew OLeary , 27, New York, N.Y. , 27, New York, N.Y. Chris Pinell , 31, Covington, La. , 31, Covington, La. Elizabeth Pittelkow , 33, Chicago, Ill. , 33, Chicago, Ill. Ketul Raval , 37, Shelton, Conn. , 37, Shelton, Conn. Brent Reese , 32, Columbia, S.C. , 32, Columbia, S.C. Donny Shimamoto , 39, Honolulu, Hawaii , 39, Honolulu, Hawaii Mike Skinner , 34, Memphis, Tenn. , 34, Memphis, Tenn. Kyle Viele , 33, Midlothian, Va. , 33, Midlothian, Va. Su Wah, 37, Houston, Tex. In addition, Denise Miller, an information assurance associate with Macpage LLC, in Amesbury, Mass., received this years IMTA Young CPA Scholarship from the AICPAs Information Management and Technology Assurance Section, which the registration fee and travel expenses to the AICPA Practitioners Symposium and Tech+ Conference. PwC US announced that seven people in its power and utilities practice have been admitted into the partnership: Amanda Herron, Kyle Long, David Sands, Holly McKenzie, Dan McGill, Geoff Plese and Todd Knapp. Brenda M. Mauro has joined Grassi & Co. as a director in the financial services practice based out of the New York City office. Linda Orton has joined Alvarez & Marsal, New York City, as a managing director and chief marketing officer, while Stuart Greenberg has joined the firm as a senior advisor. Terry Pomerenk has joined Gettry Marcus CPA PC, Woodbury, in the newly created position of director of recruitment and career development. OHIO Christopher M. Allegretti has been re-elected to the position of managing principal and CEO of HBK CPAs & Consultants. He has been with HBK since 1985 and was named one of its principals nine years later. Allegretti is the only principal to serve as MP/CEO in HBKs 67-year history. He was elected by a unanimous majority in 2004 and has served in the role ever since, and his next term will run through Aug. 31, 2020. PENNSYLVANIA Andrew D. Kehl has joined the Lancaster office of Reinsel Kuntz Lesher LLP as a manager in the Audit Services Group. Send your personnel announcements to AcToday@SourceMedia.com. The International Advertising Association (IAA), India Chapters Young Professionals (YP) presented by MTV hosted Anuj Rakyan yesterday. Talking about the session, Anuj Rakyan said, It was an engaging session and a great initiative by IAA. I had a fantastic time interacting with the young professionals, entrepreneurs and students and sharing insights from my journey." He talked about the challenges faced in team building and how digital marketing is really about identifying the right target audience. He also emphasized on not investing in marketing activities that do not have a measurement matrix. Srinivasan Swamy, President, IAA India Chapter & Vice President Development, IAA Asia Pacific said, We were delighted to host Anuj Rakyan. He brought fresh perspective on a brand that actually helped create a category in the country. The young professionals who attended had takeaways that they can now apply to their own businesses." Janak Sarda, Jt. MD of Deshdoot Publications, said, "The way he described his brand was the most interesting and very engaging for all the YP members. These interactive sessions are now becoming a way for young people to learn from their peers in a business scenario thats dynamic. In the past, the Young Professionals Interactive Session has hosted Sam Balsara, Managing Director, Madison World, Deepak Kapoor, Chairman, PwC India and Dr. George Watts, behavioral scientist and author. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) has framed a New Print Media Advertisement Policy for Directorate of Advertising & Visual Publicity (DAVP) with the objective to promote transparency and accountability in issuing of advertisements in print media. The policy focuses on streamlining release of Government advertisements and to also promote equity and fairness among various categories of newspapers/ periodicals. The key highlights of the policy are as follows: Promoting Transparency & Accountability For the first time the policy introduces a New Marking System for newspapers to incentivise newspapers who have better professional standing and get their circulation verified by ABC/ RNI. This will also ensure transparency and accountability in the release of advertisements by DAVP. The marking system is based on six objective criterions with different marks allotted to each criterion. The criterion includes Circulation certified by ABC/ RNI (25 marks), EPF subscription for employees (20 marks), number of pages (20 marks), subscription to wire services of UNI/ PTI/ Hindustan Samachar (15 marks), own printing press (10 marks), annual subscription payment to PCI (10 marks). Advertisements shall be released by DAVP to newspapers based on marks obtained by each newspaper. The policy framework includes circulation verification procedure for empanelment of newspapers/ journals with DAVP. The procedure involves certification by RNI/ ABC if circulation exceeds 45,000 copies per publishing day; for circulation up to 45,000 copies per publishing day certificate from Cost/ Chartered Accountant/ Statutory Auditor Certificate/ ABC is mandated. The policy states that RNI circulation certificate shall be valid for a period of two years from the date of issue and in case of ABC, the current certificate shall be used for circulation certificate. It is stated in the policy that DG DAVP reserves the right to have figures of circulation checked through RNI or its representative. The policy also stipulates the empanelment procedure for multi-editions of a newspaper. It states that, as per the PRB Act whenever copies of one edition of a newspaper are printed from more than one centre and if the content of newspaper is different they would be treated as different editions. Each edition of a newspaper is required to have a separate RNI registration number and RNI shall treat each edition as separate entity while verifying the circulation. However, the policy guidelines mention that, if a newspaper for sake of convenience is printing its copies of an edition in more than one printing press without adding any additional content, DAVP may take the circulations of such printing centres into consideration for giving rate of that edition. For payment and adjustment of bills, the policy framework mandates that DAVP will release payment of advertisement bills in the name of newspaper/ company account directly through ECS or NEFT. Also, it is mentioned that newspaper will publish DAVP advertisement only on receipt of the relevant Release Order by DAVP. All Release Order issued can be accessed electronically at DAVP website. Incentivising all categories of newspapers The policy stipulates that the rate structure for payment against advertisements released by DAVP will be as per recommendations of the Rate Structure Committee. The policy framework provides a premium for prominent placing of ads in newspapers and journals whose circulation is certified by ABC/ RNI. DAVP would pay a premium of 50 per cent above DAVP rates for colour/ black & white for front page, 20 per cent premium to third page, 10 per cent premium to fifth page and 30 per cent premium for back page to only those newspapers whose circulation is certified by ABC/ RNI. The policy also incentivises big category newspapers which are willing to publish the advertisements of educational institutions at DAVP rates by giving additional business of 50 per cent in volume terms, compared to those which are not willing to accept. The policy has classified newspaper/ journals into three categories namely, Small (<25,000 copies per publishing day), Medium (25,001-75,000 copies per publishing day) and Big (>75,000 copies per publishing day). Ensuring Equity and Fairness in release of Government Ads The new policy in pursuance with the broad social objectives of the Government has structured the empanelment procedure to ensure fairness among various categories of newspapers/ journals. The policy also mentions relaxation in empanelment procedure to provide special encouragement for regional language/ dialects small and medium newspapers, mass circulated newspapers (circulation >1 lakh), newspapers in North Eastern states, Jammu & Kashmir and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The policy emphasises that DAVP shall make efforts to release more social messages and related advertisements which are not date specific to periodicals. To promote equity based regional outreach, the policy emphasises that the budget for all India release of advertisements shall be divided among states based on total circulation of newspapers in each State/ Language. The policy mentions that PSUs and autonomous bodies may issue the advertisements directly at DAVP rates to newspapers empanelled with DAVP. However, they all have to follow the criterions laid down by DAVP for release of all classified and display advertisements in different categories of newspapers, viz., small, medium and big. Ensuring Quick and Timely payment by client Ministries to DAVP The policy directs all clients of DAVP to issue Letter of Authority/ Cheque/ DD/ NEFT/ RTGS up to 80 per cent of the actual expenditure in the previous year within the first month of the new financial year and clear all the remaining payments before February 28 of the financial year. Alternately, the client Ministries may provide 85 per cent advance payments of the estimated expenditure of the advertisements. DAVP is the nodal agency of the Government of India for advertising on behalf of various Ministries/ Departments/ PSUs/ Autonomous organisations which are funded by the Government. Neo@Ogilvy has brought on board Deepankar Kapoor as Vice President and Head of Strategy India. He will be based in Gurgaon. He joins Neo@Ogilvy from Havas Media, where he was leading the digital strategy function while working with brands such as Star TV, Sun Pharmaceuticals, LG, Amway, Xolo, and Clovia, among others. Kapoor comes to Neo@Ogilvy with work experience that is richly diverse and spans eight years in digital strategy and planning. He has worked on multiple aspects of this business creative, content, media, technology and CRM providing solutions for a roster of blue chip brands. Commenting on Kapoors appointment, Rajesh Bhatia, President & Country Head, Neo@Ogilvy, India, said, I have always emphasised on the need and importance of sophisticated strategy and planning talent this skill is often compromised by digital agencies. I am fortunate to have worked with some of the best talent in the industry who have reinforced that belief. I am delighted to have Deepankar join us in our journey to help establish our thought leadership and provide digital strategic direction to the brands we partner. Before Havas Media Group, Kapoor has led digital strategy at the Grey Group and Digitaslbi, where he drove digital transformation journeys for brands such as Tata Motors, Volkswagen, Quikr, Cadburys, Vespa, ITC, Dell, Johnson & Johnsons portfolio, Indian Army, Network18, Wipro Corporate, etc. A few prominent digital exercises under his belt are the digital brand launches of Tata Bolt & Zest, Tata Safaris CRM initiative famously known as SOUL and the very recent buzziest campaigns of 2015 called Tardis Day (for Doctor Who fans) for Star FX. Option Designs, one of Indias leading fully integrated advertising and digital branding agencies has been appointed the 360 degree branding, advertising and digital marketing mandate for Bluebird Pure. Bluebird, a company known for its trust in making voltage stabilizers, has recently entered into the healthcare product segment with its range of Water Purifiers, Water Softeners and Air Purifiers under the name of Bluebird Pure. As a part of the mandate, Option Designs will be responsible to create and manage the creative campaigns and brand strategies for Bluebird Pure while working closely on both ATL and BTL marketing collaterals. As the agency on board, Option Designs will also build and implement a 360-degree advertising campaign with ace Bollywood and Hollywood actor Anil Kapoor who has been roped in as the brand ambassador by Bluebird Pure. Expressing his expectation from the agency, Aditya Mittal, Founder, Bluebird Pure said, We chose Option Designs because of their keen understanding of Bluebird's business needs, additionally their passionate, irresistible energy and unconventional creative approach is noble. He further added that, Association with Option Designs will create a better and stronger brand positioning via innovative solutions and in turn will give mileage to the brand in reaching to its target customers. Japneet Singh, M.D & CCO, Option Designs, said, "It is an honor to work on Bluebird. We as an agency are excited with an opportunity to work in the healthcare segment as it has a lot of scope in terms of creativity, communication and also in terms of building the brand as a trustworthy and reliable brand for purity. It will be quite interesting to work in this industry as there is a lot, which has not been covered yet by the advertisers. Through our strategic advertising campaigns we will try to bring out some clutter breaking advertising in this segment" Augmenting its reputation as a firm supporter of equality for all, UrbanClap has launched its LGBT campaign, championing their cause for the greater good of the community as well as the society. Known for its stance on social issues like women empowerment and education, UrbanClap strongly felt the need to come out in support of the LGBT community in India, promoting their right to love anyone they want irrespective of caste, creed, religion, or gender. With this campaign, UrbanClap supports the right to love anyone you choose. As part of this campaign, UrbanClap has tied up with a Delhi-based startup agency called Ufaan, which has worked on a number of social films in the past. Together, they have launched a short film titled Show your Love with Pride, which portrays a fathers struggle to accept his daughters relationship with another woman. With her supportive mother, the daughter proves to her father that her love is genuine, via a photoshoot organised by UrbanClap. The photos of his daughter make him realise the dynamics of modern day relationships and reminds him of the barriers he had to counter in his interfaith marriage. This realisation leads him to believe that love has no boundaries and finally accepts his daughters relationship. Commenting on this empowering initiative, Abhiraj Bhal, Co-founder, UrbanClap, said, We at UrbanClap are a simple bunch of people. We believe that everyone should have the right to love whoever they want to as its the most basic human right. We firmly stand with the LGBT community in India as they fight for their equal rights in the eyes of law, or society. Our past efforts with the Naz Foundation, and this film, are very small gestures towards furthering the cause of the LGBT community. The social film is an attempt to make people realise that love has no boundaries and should be accepted without judgment. To further the impact of this campaign, UrbanClap is offering to sponsor five photoshoots across the country for any same sex couple who wish to opt for this service. They can easily reach out to the team at UrbanClap through its Facebook or Twitter channels. UrbanClap promises to maintain all confidentiality if that is what the participants wish for. Founded in November 2014, UrbanClap is a leading mobile services marketplace. It provides services across 80+ categories, including photographers, salon at home, home cleaning & repairs, yoga & guitar instructors, and many more. Client Speak When asked about the need to bring in the LGBT element in the campaign, Abhiraj Bhal, Co-founder, UrbanClap, said, It is important to understand that essentially UrbanClap is a brand that envisages empowerment of a new strata of society. The unassuming plumber, electrician and pest control provider is brought at par with other service professionals like beautician, wedding planner, yoga instructor, interior decorator, etc., through our bouquet of service offerings. By weaving the LGBT element in the campaign, we wanted to reiterate our brand philosophy of equality, acceptance and empowerment. About 10 per cent of our users hail from this community (about 10 per cent of Indias total population belongs to the LGBT community). Therefore, through this campaign we wanted to say that we value and treasure them as much as we value our other customers. He further said UrbanClap was against any kind of discrimination and segregation. This ad highlights an inherent hypocrisy of society while most people endorse the right to love for everybody, sadly many among them deny this very understanding/ right to homosexual couples in love. In this campaign the mother of the homosexual woman reminds her husband that because they followed two different religions, they too had to face family opposition and dissent. Many industry veterans are of the view that the theme of same sex love has been overdone in recent campaigns. However, we believe that there is an urgent need to bring out more and more campaigns along this theme. This is the only way through which, our country can hope to sensitise even the uneducated masses about homosexuality, Bhal added. Agency Speak Speaking on the brief received from UrbanClap, Raj Jain, Founder, Ufaan, said, UrbanClap is a Pro LGBT brand. So the LGBT mandate was clearly pronounced in the brief. It was actually a clear two-line brief that required us to highlight the LGBT angle in the context of the services provided by UrbanClap. But there was a conscious attempt (as communicated by UrbanClap) to depict the services very subtly. Commenting on the creative thought process behind the campaign, he said, We at Ufaan make a lot of viral videos. These videos are targeted at the maximum number of people who can influence or have a stake in something (be it an object or an ideology). So we wanted to make a video for the campaign that would strike chords not just with the LGBT community but with their parents as well. We did not want to stop at saying that it is cool to express your sexuality and sexual preferences. We wanted to go a step further and involve the parents of homosexuals. This campaign is a way of telling them to let go off their biases and prejudices because true love and its challenges cannot be different for anybody. It is the same everywhere and for everybody. He further said, I would like to add that a tagline for previous campaigns of UrbanClap has been Everybody deserves happiness. So the LGBT element was also an expression of our creative endeavour to highlight this tagline. Peer Comments Satbir Singh, Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Thinkstr, commented, Brands like consumers are getting braver and engaging with issues that they might not have a few months ago. This one is a nice try, but reminded me of something similar sometime back. I didnt quite get what they do though. And that is what advertising should do, isnt it? Mangesh Mulajkar, Account Management Head of Mumbai Office, Scarecrow Communications, also felt that LGBT as a subject had been spoken in recent times by many brands, and the UrbanClap take somewhere felt like a rather opportunistic one. In fact, their earlier Mothers Day film has a better message and a brand fit, he added. When asked whether the brand connect come through in the campaign, he replied, Although the brand has been actively making communication on various social issues in the past, this film is unable to bring out the Freedom of love idea. The emotions are too subtle and dont touch you in the manner they should. And considering it is more of a CSR initiative, one can negate the brand fit. He felt that the campaign could have been handled better in terms of bringing out the emotions. The fathers realisation and change of heart towards his beloved daughter could have been handled better, Mulajkar concluded. Gear yourself up for an enriching beauty experience with YBP Cosmetics, cosmetic brand by Thaker Cosmetics Pvt Ltd., co-founded by Mrs. Payal Thaker and Mr. Satyen Thaker. The brand was launched by celebrity makeup artist, Namrata Soni on 8th June 2016 at Asilo, Lower Parel. They started with a product called Makeup Perfector. It is a washable and reusable sponge, shaped to fit all contours of the face and allows for precise, cushion blotting. The particular Makeup Perfector by YBP Cosmetics is made of high-quality material, is latex-free, hypoallergenic, soft and great for sensitive Skin. The Makeup Perfector is a newer product for Indian market and can be used for applying liquid and cream-based makeup products such as foundation, concealer, contour, highlight, and cream blush. The sponge comes in two variants, "Naked" (white) Sponge is preferable for use with Foundation, Concealer, Serums, and Highlighters. The "LUST" (Black) Sponge is preferable for use with Darker Makeup products like Bronzers and Blushes. It can also be used for Body Contouring. Dry Sponge can also be used for applying any Powder-based Makeup. Whats more exciting about this product is the user-friendly and multi-functional container it comes in. This container is unique to YBP cosmetics. The size is of the container is big enough to hold a fully wet sponge, providing an easy and convenient way to store the wet sponge after use. The container has holes on both sides which allows sufficient airflow for drying the sponge. Storing the sponge in the container also keeps it safe from Bacteria covered surfaces. It is also great for On-the- go use and traveling. When cap is on, the holes will still allow the sponge to breathe. The cap can also be used as a convenient place to put Liquid Makeup, like foundation and concealer, for use with the sponge. On the launch of YBP Cosmetics, an ecstatic Ms. Payal Thaker said, Having lived abroad most of the time we realized the dearth of quality beauty products in India. We have the prettiest of women here and all they need are some high quality products to make them look impeccable. With this thought we set to make high-quality user-friendly products widely and easily available to Indians. We had a strong desire to spread awareness about Beauty and Style in India and thats the main motivation behind starting the brand YBP Cosmetics. Congratulating Payal and Satyen at the launch, Namrata Soni said, As a makeup artist I use a variant of this product regularly and finding good quality was close to impossible here. I had to stock it from my foreign visits. I was extremely delighted when I first heard that someone has thought of producing this amazing product for our market and even more excited to use it. Its an absolutely fantastic and high quality product which can be used for applying both liquid and cream-based makeup products. It also comes at an affordable price. Payal Thaker, Founder and Director at Thaker Cosmetic Pvt Ltd., is a well travelled beauty geek. Born in Ahmedabad, lived in Dubai, Payal has had passion for the beauty world since her early days. Payal is also a beauty blogger and has a beauty blog by the name of yourbeautypal.com. On her blog everything she discusses is geared towards making lives easy when it comes to beauty, and gives accurate knowledge of how one can be gorgeous without damaging skin. A backseat view of combat airstrikes Throughout the month of May, the air coalition has been able to strike lucrative targets including: logistics lines, command and control and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant financial resources through more than 1,800 strike sorties. My goal as the air component is to actually put pressure on (ISIL) wherever they are, said Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the U.S. Air Forces Central Command commander, during a recent press briefing in Washington D.C. Im always pressing pretty hard to use our airpower as much as possible. The air coalition has an array of precision capability available to strike targets and defend the region. Weapon systems officers assigned to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing discussed their combat role and the importance of teamwork when flying and employing precision ordnance from the vantage point of the two-seat F-15E Strike Eagle. The great thing about a two-seat aircraft is that we can divide out duties and be more effective, said Capt. Dan, a WSO assigned to the 380th AEW. The pilot in the front seat can coordinate for airspace and refueling, while the WSO in the backseat can talk to the joint terminal attack controller on the ground, find a target and have a weapon ready to drop. Maj. Justin, also a WSO assigned to the 380th AEW, explained how various organizations work together to successfully destroy a target. JTACs determine target locations from strike cells, while unmanned aerial vehicles and intelligence personnel deliver imagery and situation updates. Weather personnel provide updated briefings, maintainers work day and night to prepare the jets to fly, and airfield management Airmen clear the airfield for appropriate munitions, according to Justin. The aircrew specifically will talk to a half-dozen agencies before even getting to an area where a strike can take place, Justin said. In the end it is a very complicated process that takes everyone doing their part to get the bomb on target. According to Dan, once in flight, a WSO has several things running through their mind in preparation for strike operations. There are a number of checklist items that must be calculated to ensure precision and accuracy. There are dozens of what ifs you must consider as well, Dan said. You must always be prepared and thinking ahead because it can go from zero to 100 in a split second. Justin also discussed the precision and care that is taken when employing targets. The targets Im assigned to destroy have been vetted through the most professional members of our armed services, and (I know) that others are taking their jobs as seriously as I am, Justin said. Dan said destroying critical targets that diminish the capabilities of terrorist organizations and protecting ground troops are critically important mission areas. We are here to provide support to (indigenous) troops on the ground, Dan said. So it is a good feeling to know that we can help keep them safe. Editors note: Due to safety and security concerns, some names were removed. A Dutch woman, who has been in jail in Qatar since mid-March after she reported being raped, has been found guilty of illicit consensual fornication and being drunk in a public place. The woman, 22, was ordered to be deported to the Netherlands once the ruling was formalised, which is expected over the coming days, the ambassador to the Netherlands Yvette Burghgraef van Eechoud said at the courthouse. The accused man in the case, identified as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was also convicted of having sex outside of marriage a serious offence in this conservative Gulf state. A court official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said that the man was from Syria. We will do everything to get her out of the country as soon as possible to where she wants to go, she said. Court officials said she would be deported once the fine was paid. The woman was arrested by Qatari police immediately after reporting that she had been raped on the night of 15 March, as was the alleged assailant. During a holiday in the emirate, she went out with a friend for drinks at a hotel where the sale of alcohol was permitted, according to her lawyer Brian Lokollo. She went dancing but when she returned to the table after the first sip of her drink, she realised someone had added something to her glass, he said. The woman did not feel very well and she later woke alone in an unfamiliar flat and realised to her great horror that she had been raped, Mr. Lokollo added. Those who are sad to see that Hindu organisations are being targeted in spite of a Hindu government being in power should be aware that the law has no religion and it is above the government in power also. A man who kills another human being is a murderer, plain and simple, and he is liable for the same punishment regardless of his religion. Of course, it is characteristic that Hindutva people should expect to be above the law, when their people run the government. Last week, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials raided the houses of Dr. Virendra Tawde at Panvel, Sarang Akolkar in Pune and recovered several SIM cards, cell phones and data from computer linked to the murder. CBI officers have claimed to have found several e-mail exchanges between the two, which established their close association. Hailing from Devgad in the Konkan, Tawde lived in Satara for the past eight years, and is alleged to be a Sanatan activist for the past 15 years. This is not the first time that the Sanstha has come in controversy, earlier Sanatan Sanstha member were arrested in four bombings in Vashi, Thane, Panvel (all in 2007) and Goa (in 2009) and in the murders of Narendra Dabholkar (in 2013), Govind Pansare and M. M. Kalburgi both in 2015. This has led to calls for Sanatan Sanstha to be banned. However, such claims are ruled out by Maharashtra Minister of state for Home, Karnataka CID, Goa chief minister and Central Home Ministry. On 2nd December 2015, Minister of state for home for Government of India informed in Rajya Sabha that, no links could be found among the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M. M. Kalburgi and there is no proposal to ban Sanatan Sanstha. In 2008, six persons owing allegiance to Sanatan Sanstha were arrested for planting bombs at auditoriums in Thane and Vashi and a movie theatre in Panvel. In 2011, two of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to ten years incarceration. Ramesh Gadkari and Vikram Bhave were acquitted of the terror charges under the stringent Unlawful Activites (Prevention) Act (UAPA), however, the state governments appeal against the removal of this act is still pending in the High Court. On 30th August 2011, Ramesh Gadkari and Vikram Bhave were found guilty in Sessions Court of the Thane blasts and received the maximum sentence of ten years rigorous imprisonment. Judgement of the trail court is further challenged in the Bombay High Court and on 2nd May 2013 court ordered to release the accused on bail. The Maharashtra government has sought to ban the organization and has pressed the case for a ban to the central government as well. The outfits image in society is sullied due to allegations of involvement in unlawful activities. Six members of the Sanstha arrested in the Goa blast case under UAPA were acquitted by the Special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court for want of evidence, while UAPA remains in force against three Sanstha members who are absconding. Rudra Patil and Sandeep Akolkar or Sarang Akolkar alias Kulkarni have been declared absconders by the National Investigation Agency, with a red corner notice issued against Patil. A member of the Sanatan Sanstha was arrested for the murder of Govind Pansare. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the murder arrested Sanstha member Sameer Gaikwad and was on the lookout for another member Rudra Patil, who is absconding since the 2009 Goa blast. The prosecution stated in the court that Sameer Gaikwad was in different city (Thane) around the time of the murder of Govind Pansare. Minister of state for home, Ranjit Patil claimed that the arrest of Sameer Gaikwad was based only on suspicion, and that the only proof is a cellphone conversation about killing Pansare. Indian investigative agencies believe that the Sanatan Sanstha is implicated in the murder of Narendra Dabholkar. Goa BJP MLA Vishnu Wagh has said that there is an evidence of the Sansthas involvement in the murder of Kannada scholar M. M. Kalburgi. In September 2015, Wagh demanded that Sanatan Sanstha be banned, stating that there was evidence of the involvement of the outfit in the Pansare and Kalburgi murders. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has stated that he would not hesitate to ban Sanatan Sanstha. Residents of Goa have been agitating for a ban on the organisation since 2009. This demand of the people for a ban also reflected online and on social media, with a petition on Change.org and a page on Facebook. The daughter in law of Govind Pansare also called for the organisation to be banned. In Maharashtra, the Congress and NCP had earlier demanded that a ban be imposed on Sanatan Sanstha. Meanwhile, Dr. Hamid Dabholkar, son of Narendra Dabholkar termed that Tawdes arrest shows the wheels of justice have started to spin, even if its a bit too late. He also said that, it is the first big step in the right direction by the CBI. Had the action been taken immediately after the murder, the subsequent deaths of Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi could have been avoided. Sanatan was founded in 1999 by Jayant Balaji Athavale with the blessings of Bhaktaraj Maharaj and is based on the study of spirituality as a science. The stated main aim of the organization is to present spirituality in a scientific language for the curious (Jidnyasu) and to guide seekers. The organization has a chain of centres in different parts of India and abroad. The spiritual sanatan, recently turned towards extremism and whosoever stood against superstition or evils in the Hindu religion have been targeted by the outfit. Anyway, one recent arrest may open many secrets and I hope BJP dont help the accused to get scot free. (Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com) [inlinetweet prefix= tweeter= suffix=]Americas deadliest mass shooting in Orlando, in which 50 people were killed by a gunman pledging allegiance to ISIS[/inlinetweet], reignited the debate on gun violence, war against terror and homegrown terrorism, with lawmakers calling for stricter gun control laws. Confronting the threat of violent homegrown radicalisation is one of the greatest counter-terrorism challenges our law enforcement and intelligence community faces, Florida Senator Marco Rubio said. [inlinetweet prefix= tweeter= suffix=]We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists. Theirs is a repressive, hateful ideology that respects no borders.[/inlinetweet] It is a threat to our people at home and abroad, House Speaker Paul Ryan said. Congressman Robert C Bobby Scott, a vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and member of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus called for a strong gun control laws. These tragedies are far too common and we cannot continue to sit idly by as these incidences continue to happen. Congress must review every available proposal to determine what we can do to reduce all forms of gun violence. Americans are understandably frustrated at our inability to come together to address this problem in a meaningful way. I will continue to fight for evidence based policy proposals to address this issue. I just hope that the leadership in Congress will finally agree that enough is enough. Meaningful action is long overdue, Scott said. Senator Tom Carper, top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said this horrific attack reminds that the US must remain vigilant at home against threats of terrorism. It is critical that federal, state and local law enforcement officials work together to get to the bottom of this attack, he said. As we learn more information about this tragedy, we must remain steadfast in our commitment as a nation to acknowledge the threats we face and do everything we can to root out terror, Senator John McCain said. Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator Susan Collins described this as worst attack on the US since 9/11 and the worst mass shooting in our history. If the FBIs investigation confirms allegations that the attacker pledged his allegiance to ISIS or if he proves to have been a lone wolf, this attack is yet another stark reminder that the US is not immune from the threat of violent extremism, she said. Senator John Boozman said ISIS and radical Islamic terrorists have repeatedly called on supporters to attack Americans here at home. This act of terrorism is an attack on our freedoms. Our country must have the resolve to defeat ISIS. As a country, we need to do whatever it takes to destroy ISIS using whatever means possible to protect Americans at home and abroad, Boozman said. Senator Jack Reed said while investigators are still gathering all the facts, the shooter was clearly a hate-filled individual. Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera said this terrible crime is an attack on the core value of equality for all. This is the deadliest mass shooting in our nations history, yet occurrences like this are far too common in our society. We must do a better job of keeping our communities safe with common-sense background checks, and I will continue to fight to prevent these mass casualties like this in Congress, he said. The Senates inaction on commonsense gun violence prevention makes it complicit in this public health crisis. Prayers and platitudes are insufficient, said Senator Richard Blumenthal. We must do everything in our power to stamp out these cowardice acts of terrorism and we must not feed the negative energies of hate and intolerance, said Congressman Tim Ryan. We must also look beyond this terrible moment and decide what we as a nation are willing to do to prevent hatred, gun violence and domestic terrorism, said Congressman Ann Kirkpatrick from Arizona. It is absolutely infuriating to read reports that this shooter used an assault weapon to murder 50 innocent people and wound 53 more, said Congressman David N Cicilline. It just should not be this easy for someone to walk into a gun store and walk out armed with a weapon of war that is designed to kill as many people as quickly as possible, he said. Congresswoman Kathy Castor said this horrendous circumstances remind that the Congress can act to reinstate the military, high-capacity assault weapons ban and pass legislation to prohibit any person on the national terrorism watch list from being able to purchase a firearm. Data from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) show that between 2004 and 2010, people on terrorism watch lists tried to buy guns and explosives more than 1,400 times. They succeeded in more than 90 percent of those cases, or 1,321 times, she said. By Natalie Palumbo Recently, I spent nearly four hours discussing autism with someone functioning at the high end of the spectrum. This person could not grasp how my older brother Anthony, 21, could have low verbal autism with no conversational skills. I am 18, a rising senior in high school, and Anthonys only sibling. While this persons verbal skills seemed impressive, I could not make myself understood. To this individual, merely being verbal implied conversational skills. I did my best to explain Anthonys limited ability to formulate spontaneous speech citing many examples, but I could not sway their opinion. This was a sobering experience that left me in tears. Many times in my life, I had been asked to explain my brothers condition, usually with scrutiny. This lack of understanding makes me afraid for Anthony, and the societal expectations placed upon him. I was asked to respond to a news article from the Washington Post dated March 13, 2011: In VA. Assault Case, Anxious Parents Recognize 'Dark Side of Autism' by Theresa Vargas. In this article, Reginald Neli Latson, 19 with Aspergers syndrome, was found guilty of assaulting a law enforcement officer, and it was recommended that he spend 10 years in jail. This article described the concerns of parents who have aging children with autism, and described the aggressive tendencies many families suffer through. Parents were fearful that their adult children with autism would fall victim to a justice system that they do not fully comprehend. The article described an unfortunate scenario where some elementary school children saw Latson waiting alone outside a public library, which was closed. They thought he looked suspicious and might have a gun, and alerted a crossing guard. The school went into lockdown, and School Resource Officer Deputy Thomas Calverley approached Latson. There was no gun, and the children later reported they never saw one. Calverley testified that Latson refused to give his name several times, and became aggressive when the deputy grabbed him and said he was under arrest. Calverley bent Latson over the hood of a car, and the two began wrestling and fell to the ground. During the struggle, Latson flipped Calverley hard on his back hitting his head on the pavement. According to reports, Latson hit the deputy several times, took his pepper spray, and shattered his ankle. Latson's attorneys offered an insanity defense stating that Latson was diagnosed with explosive disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and could not control his behavior because of an "irresistible impulse." The jury found Latson guilty of four charges including assault of a law enforcement officer, and wounding in the commission of a felony. According the official blog for Autism Speaks, the judge accepted the plan proposed by the defense for hospitalization at a Virginia psychiatric facility for several months followed by intensive services at the residential school. The jurys sentence of more than 10 years was set aside in favor of an imposed two year period of incarceration, with the remaining eight years suspended. That meant that the remaining 8 years could be imposed if Neli did not cooperate with the terms of his probation. Reading this story made me horrified to think that people with autism could be locked away for as much as 10 years and may or may not understand what they had done. As more people with autism are aging into adulthood, this scenario will become more common. With autism numbers rising, law enforcement needs to be knowledgeable about the spectrum of autism, sensory and communication challenges, and not be so quick to arrest someone that resists giving their name. Law enforcement officers need to identify a person with autism more readily, and approach the situation more delicately. Many people with autism suffer sensory issues, and would resist being grabbed. My brother Anthony is mild mannered and not especially aggressive, but I could imagine him fighting to escape an officer if suddenly grabbed. While Anthony has a young childs view of what a police officer does, he does not understand the concept of being arrested, and the consequences of resisting. Even if not normally aggressive, a person with autism could become agitated and physical in an overwhelming situation. While simply trying to escape something unpleasant, they might be perceived as resisting arrest. Managing Editor's Note: In the aftermath of the massacre in Orlando, I'm brought back to the feelings we had one day after the shootings by Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut, just miles away from my home. How is this carnage possible? Both shooters [seemed] to suffer from serious mental illness. Both had access to weapons of war, not just hunting or personal protection or sport shooting. We're an autism-centric news site. But I see a thread connecting the mass shootings that occur all too often and the autism epidemic. Shots. With bullets. Shots. With syringes. Injury. Inaction. Action. When measles popped up in California, laws were written across the country and many passed (SB277 for instance) despite the fact that no Americans died. Industry profited. With the shootings, it's the opposite. Lawmakers do not rush to pass new laws. Industry profits. Neither media nor lawmakers are willing look to the pharmaceutical industry for their role in the mental health of our citizens. Industry is bulletproof. God bless those killed and wounded and their families and friends. KRS WASHINGTON, June 5, 2016 - The food and agriculture industrys hopes for blocking Vermonts first-in-the-nation GMO labeling requirements are hanging on Senate negotiations that suddenly became serious late last week. Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts said on Friday the talks were making good progress, and ranking Democrat Debbie Stabenow described them as very positive. The Vermont law takes effect July 1 , although private citizens wont be allowed to sue for violations until July 2017. Roberts, R-Kan., said that failing to reach agreement would produce an apocalypse for the industry, a reference to the potential for food companies to quit using genetically engineered ingredients because of state labeling laws. But Roberts expressed confidence that he and Stabenow would cut a deal. Were going to be OK, he said. The food industry has tentatively agreed to mandatory disclosure of biotech ingredients, according to sources, but negotiations have continued on a series of other issues, including the Agriculture Departments role in developing the disclosure requirements. House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway, R-Texas, hasnt been part of the negotiations and told Agri-Pulse that he reserved the right to reject a Senate deal, a position that could provide Roberts leverage in the negotiations. The looming Vermont law, combined with the need to have 60 Senate votes to move a bill in the Senate, means that Democrats have had the upper hand in the talks. The industry is in a jam, said Conaway, R-Texas. The Senate Dems are using this sword of Damocles that is Vermont to get everybody to capitulate to their way. I'm not going to do that. The House approved a bill, 275-150, last July that would simply block state GMO labeling requirements while setting up a process for labeling foods as non-biotech. The Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food, the industrys public advocacy arm on the issue, pledged to keep the pressure on the Senate: Until a bipartisan solution is announced, we wont let up. This issue is the most immediate threat facing the food and agriculture industries, and if the Senate fails to find an immediate agreement - American agriculture will be forever changed. Meanwhile this week, appropriators in both the House and Senate will advance their respective Interior-Environment bills, which fund the Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Forest Service. The House version, which the House Appropriations Committee will debate on Wednesday, includes a provision to block the Obama administration from implementing its waters of the United States (WOTUS) should a court stay be lifted. The Senate version, which will be marked up in subcommittee on Tuesday, may not include a similar rider. If it doesnt, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., will be ready with a proposed amendment, an aide said. A similar amendment failed earlier when Hoeven tried to add it on the Senate floor to the Energy-Water bill. Farm groups and other opponents of the rule will seek to include the provision in whatever funding legislation is eventually enacted. The White House last year successfully blocked the rider. The House Interior-Environment bill also includes riders to prevent the EPA from carrying out its carbon-reduction plan for electric utilities, which also is under a court stay, as well as new regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas production. The bill also would provide an increase of $12 million in 2017 for the conservation of sage grouse. Do you find the information on Agri-Pulse helpful? See even more ag, rural policy and energy news when you sign up for a four-week free trial Agri-Pulse subscription. Its not clear whether the bill will get to the House floor. The House managed to pass its Legislative branch funding bill last week but only after the leadership decided to block consideration of any amendments that Republicans defined as poison pills, including a gay and transgender rights measure that led to the defeat in May of the Energy-Water bill. The House is debating the Defense bill this week. A senior appropriator, Tom Cole, R-Okla., told Agri-Pulse he was unsure the full House would take up the Agriculture bill, which he noted is typically a frequent target of amendments. Keeping the bill off the floor would prevent critics of farm bill spending from forcing votes on issues such as crop insurance. The Interior-Environment bill is typically even more controversial, as is the Labor-HHS measure. The Farm Credit System celebrates its 100th celebration on Wednesday and Thursday. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is expected to speak at a Thursday luncheon. Heres a list of agriculture- or rural-related events scheduled for this week in Washington and elsewhere: Monday, June 13 4 p.m. - USDA releases Crop Progress report. Tuesday, June 14 9:30 a.m. - Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations subcommittee markup of its fiscal 2017 bill, 124 Dirksen. 10 a.m. - House Agriculture subcommittee hearing to review the impact of G-20 clearing and trade execution requirements, 1300 Longworth. 10 a.m. - House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the U.S. public health response to antibiotic resistance, 2123 Rayburn. 10 a.m. - House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing on agricultural trade, 1100 Longworth. 10 a.m. - Senate Energy and Natural Committee hearing on oil and gas pipelines, 366 Dirksen. 10 a.m. - Senate Finance Committee hearing on energy tax policy, 215 Dirksen. Wednesday, June 15 Farm Credit Centennial Celebration, through Wednesday Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Land OLakes President and CEO Chris Polinski discuss challenges facing the farming and agriculture sector in a live broadcast Fair Oaks, Ind. Acting Deputy Agriculture Secretary Michael Scuse speaks on global food security at the opening ceremony for a Bunge oilseed crushing facility in Mykolaiv, Ukraine 9:30 a.m. - House Appropriations Committee markup of the fiscal 2017 Interior-Environment bill, 2359 Rayburn. 10 a.m. - Senate Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee markup of FY17 bill, 138 Dirksen. Noon - Heritage Foundation forum on enforcement of the Clean Water Act and WOTUS after the Supreme Court decision in Army Corps of Engineers vs. Hawkes, 214 Massachusetts Ave NE 1:30 p.m. - Farm Credit System panel discussion on rural infrastructure, 2168 Rayburn. 2:30 p.m. - House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on state perspectives on BLMs draft planning 2.0 rule, 1324 Longworth. 6 p.m. - Congressional celebration for Farm Credits 100th anniversary, Library of Congress, Madison Building. Thursday, June 16 8:30 a.m. - USDA releases Weekly Export Sales report. 8:30 a.m. - American Enterprise Institute forum with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on the U.S.-China economic relationship, 1150 17th St. NW. 10 a.m. - Farm Credit panel discussion on the future of agriculture, 902 Hart, 902 Hart. 10:30 a.m. - Senate Appropriations Committee markup of the Interior-Environment and Financial Services bills, 106 Dirksen. Friday, June 17 #30 For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com The US Department of Transportation has named six carriers that will be allowed to operate services from the US to destinations in Cuba for the first time in over half a century. The airlines American, Frontier, JetBlue, Silver Airways, Southwest and Sun Country will fly up to 155 round-trip flights per week from Miami, Chicago, Philadelphia, Minneapolis and Fort Lauderdale, Florida to the Cuban destinations of Camaguey, Cayo Coco, Cayo Largo, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Manzanillo, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba. Services are expected to start in autumn, although approval is still needed by the Cuban government. A decision on which carriers will be allowed to operate to Havana is expected later this summer. Matters have been complicated because airlines have requested far more services than are available under the agreement between the two governments. Forwarders have urged the Department of Transport to consider freight when selecting which airlines to provide with licences. Share this story Hamas official: If one of our rockets were to kill a gorilla, we would completely alienate our core support base of 18 to 22-year-old left-wing American Facebook commenters. Looking to raise awareness and concern over the flood of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip for the past decade, Israel has decided to place gorillas throughout the communities and neighboring towns surrounding Gaza. For years weve highlighted the deaths of innocent men, women, and children from these rockets, but people throughout Europe and on college campuses in the U.S. continued to support Hamas, a spokesman for the Israeli government told The Mideast Beast. After seeing the outpouring of anger over the death of Harambe the gorilla, we realized weve been doing it all wrong. Israel will now place a handful of gorillas in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Sderot and other communities in the south that have seen a high number of rocket attacks. While Hamas publicly insists the move wont change its military approach, some Hamas commanders expressed concern in private conversations. If one of our rockets were to kill a gorilla, we would completely alienate our core support base of 18 to 22-year-old left-wing American Facebook commenters, one senior Hamas official told The Mideast Beast off record. Thats not a risk we can take lightly. In response, Hamas has announced plans to acquire relatives of Cecil the Lion to place in Gaza neighborhoods in order to encourage Israeli airstrikes. Using Cecils relatives as human shields will certainly work to help us convince the international community to ostracize Israel, as it has the dentist who killed Cecil. Plus, well have more children around whose spare hands we could use to dig tunnels. So, you know, winwin! This article originally appeared on The Mideast Beast here. June 11, 2016 From his office in Jerusalem, Uri Taub is "dealing with half of humanity," as he describes it in a conversation with Al-Monitor. As director of the Asia and Pacific Marketing Desk at the Tourism Office Marketing Administration, he is in charge of Asia and countries where there is no Israeli diplomatic representation. He's responsible for marketing Israel to countries such as India (1.25 billion potential clients) or China (1.36 billion potential clients). China is considered the holy grail of international tourism. The middle class there is flourishing, and as it gets financially stronger, it adopts Western tourism habits. The number of Chinese tourists worldwide has grown from just a few million individuals to about 120 million in 2015, said Taub. Obviously, Israel wants a slice of that pie. It has been trying for years to increase the number of Chinese tourists visiting the country. Current Tourism Minister Yariv Levin said back in 2015 that almost nothing was done about the issue in the years before he took office. Taub is no longer alone. After considerable efforts, Israel sent its first tourism attache to China this year. Taub said, What is needed there is the presence of a professional, a person with status who gives off an air of dignity. It is not yet at the same level that it is in North America, but it is a beginning. He claimed that the appointment of the attache was just part of the many efforts that Israel is investing in the Chinese market, in addition to encouraging tour guides to learn Chinese, encouraging hotels to offer Chinese breakfasts and posting Chinese signage in central locations. Israel is also busy removing obstacles to Chinese tourism by granting visas for 10 years instead of just a few months. There are now direct flights from Beijing to Tel Aviv by China's Hainan Airlines. Taub believes that granting an automatic visa would also help. Taub says that as part of the efforts to recoup the damages from 2014s Operation Protective Edge, the Ministry of Tourism's general marketing budget increased by more than 100 million shekels ($25.9 million), and now stands at 300 million shekels ($77.7 million). Of that sum, 15 million shekels ($3.8 million) are devoted to the Chinese market, a leap up from years at 1-2 million shekels ($259,000-518,000). Taub does the calculations. Chinese tourism accounts for 1.5% percent of all tourism to Israel, but it [now] gets 5% of the budget. The Tourism Ministry hopes to bring 100,000 Chinese tourists to Israel in 2018 to help pull the industry out of its slump. This target represents a relatively slow rate of growth, as in 2015 alone, the number of Chinese tourists visiting Israel increased by 45%. Taub estimates that if Chinese tourism continues to grow over the next three years at the same rate, almost 150,000 Chinese tourists will visit in 2018, including business tourists, Chinese Christian pilgrims and regular recreational tourists. Taub says that the 2015 growth was considered sensational. It almost made up for an otherwise awful year for tourism resulting from Operation Protective Edge and the eruption of a new wave of terrorism toward the end of the year. It appears that the Chinese are less concerned than other groups about security issues. In contrast, their Japanese neighbors are super-sensitive to the security situation here, according to Taub. Despite the impressive increase in Chinese tourism, the 47,000 visitors represent a tiny drop at about 0.04% of all of China's overseas tourism. The first few months of 2016 have seen a moderate rise in the number of Chinese visitors to Israel. There were some 13,600 Chinese tourists from January to March, an increase of just 21% compared to last year, "which was the record for Chinese tourism, and which included the Chinese New Year," Udi Gimmon, the owner of the tourist site Yama va-Kedma (East and West), told Al-Monitor. His site specializes in tours for Chinese visitors. Taub said, "You have to think about the number of tourists who come but also about the growth potential and amount of money that they spend here. Chinese tourists are among the most profitable tourists in the world. They are known for spending lots of money. But not everyone is optimistic. Noaz Bar-Nir, president of the Association of Israeli Hotels, reportedly believes that the industry will not recover from Chinese patronage alone. Instead, he recommends focusing on the bread and butter of Israeli tourism: Jews and Christians. Gimmon agrees with him. We shouldnt rely on them to be our saviors, he said. It is a nice slice of the market, but it wont replace North American or European tourism. What is needed is a real long-term plan. What Gimmon means is that Chinese tourism requires an enormous investment "because of the demands of the Chinese tourist." He said that workers in the Israeli tourism industry are already familiar with these demands. The Chinese tourist wants a local guide who speaks Chinese, signage in Chinese and Chinese food. As local hoteliers have discovered, they even expect to find a comb in their hotel rooms so that they dont have to bring one from home. "Most Chinese tourists visit nearby countries," said Gimmon. Chinese recreational tourism to the United States, South America and Europe does not add up to 120 million people. Besides, Israel is expensive, and that deters people from coming. Then, even if 200,000 Chinese visit Israel tomorrow, where exactly will they sleep? There arent enough hotel rooms in Israel. Gimmon suggested focusing on two things. The first is encouraging students of Asian studies to join the tourism industry, not just as tour guides in Chinese, though they are certainly in short supply. But they are also needed as agents, clerks and concierges. Even more important than that, he continued, is planning for their visits. Chinese recreational tourists get more or less the same tour that Chinese Christians get: Nazareth, around the Sea of Galilee and countless churches in Jerusalem. The Chinese see it as a waste of Israels potential. So what do the Chinese really want to see? "Kibbutzim," said Gimmon. "The Chinese come from a communist country, and they are delighted to see the cooperative model work, at least on paper. They want to see historical geography such as Mount Bental. They can experience the stories there with Syria right in front of them. Also, a lot more nature: Hula Lake with its cranes, Ein Gedi, the Banias. We dont bring them to these kinds of places enough. June 13, 2016 Egypts economy has been seriously weakened as a result of the successive political events triggered on Jan. 25, 2011, and on June 30, 2013, when revolutions sparked terrorist attacks, domestic economic crises and the exhaustion of sources of income especially tourism. This weakness was also felt by Egyptian citizens, who were forced to struggle to survive. The state apparatus imposed taxes and cut subsidies on some goods, such as the cut of fuel subsidies imposed in 2014. Some such as businessmen, economic experts and people running websites affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood fear that this dire economic situation may push citizens to have reactions with serious consequences such as uprisings or revolutions sparked by hunger. Within the scope of its endeavors to help citizens, the Ministry of Supply announced May 20 the implementation of the initiative known as Ahlan Ramadan (Welcome, Ramadan), to be launched with the beginning of the month of Ramadan (which started June 6) and offering basic commodities at discounted prices. Indeed, 90 Ahlan Ramadan temporary storefronts were opened across Egypts governorates between May 25 and June 13. Al-Monitor compared prices listed on news websites and newspapers of basic commodities featured in Ahlan Ramadan stores with prices of the same commodities purchased from the regular market. It was noted that Ahlan Ramadan is offering basic commodities at discounted prices. A 25% discount was given on sugar and rice, 41% on meat, 33% on chicken, 38% on edible oil, in addition to discounts on the prices of vegetables, fruits and Ramadan commodities, especially yameesh (Ramadan nuts). Al-Monitor met some citizens in front of one of these Ahlan Ramadan stores in the Social Fund for Development Hall in Nasr City to ask for their opinions on this initiative. One of the citizens told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Prices are reduced and most basic commodities are available. I hope the store lasts till the end of Ramadan. Another citizen said such stores should be open throughout the year since the citizen is unable to withstand the greed of merchants. Another citizen accompanied by his family told Al-Monitor, These stores fall within the scope of attempts by the state, the armed forces and President [Abdel Fattah al-] Sisi to help out the poor citizens and control the traders greed. It is worth noting that the armed forces began opening outlets in 2015 some of which are still open today for the sale of meat and some staple goods at discounted prices, in light of the hike of market meat prices. Al-Monitor attempted to communicate with Mahmoud Diab, the spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Supply, to inquire about the number of citizens benefiting from these stores, but he did not answer his phone. Faraj Abdel-Fattah, a professor of economics at Cairo University, told Al-Monitor, The Egyptian market has become based on monopolies, and the state's attempts to break these monopolies will surely help the impoverished citizen. This is an appropriate policy, especially in that it creates competition in markets plagued by recession and deterioration of quality. The emergence of the state as a competitor would cut prices in general and improve quality, but this will require more time and effort by the state apparatus. Khaled El-Shafie, an economic expert, told Al-Monitor, It is good that the state is trying to help the citizens, but [opening temporary stores] for basic commodities is not a radical solution. The solution is to create a system for prices and a consumer protection system while increasing production. In the context, it should be noted that Egypt Prime Minister Sherif Ismail issued a decision May 24 to open an operations room at the Information and Decision Making Support Center to follow up on adjusting and reducing prices of food commodities in the market before the start of Ramadan. This operations room included representatives of the Ministry of Supply, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Local Development, the General Directorate for the Investigation of Supply, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the Information and Decision Making Support Center, the Council of Ministers, the Administrative Control Authority, Consumer Protection Department, Food Control Division, the General Authority for Exports and Imports Control, the Principal Bank for Development and Agriculture Credit, and the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce. The operation room will receive citizens' complaints about high prices and would immediately intervene to resolve them. Several landline telephone numbers were allocated to the operating room, in addition to hotline No. 16528. Despite positive feedback on the stores, the reactions to the operating room and hotline on social networking sites were negative. Social media users criticized this operations room mainly for not answering any of the allocated landlines and the hotline. Al-Monitor spoke with a number of these social media users via their accounts on social networking sites. One of them told Al-Monitor, I called the hotline more than once and no one answered. It is not the first government attempt that turns into a mere show. Many government agencies do not answer hotlines and do not receive any complaints. However, when Al-Monitor contacted the hotline, one of the operations room representatives answered the call within minutes. Another commenter told Al-Monitor, I did not negatively criticize the idea, but I talked about the need for a list of the maximum prices of staple goods so that the citizen is aware of the cases in which he can complain about high prices. The page of the Information and Decision-Making Support Center promised to communicate with me on my comment, but so far no contact has been made. The Ministry of Supply approved in 2013 guiding pricing for some goods such as fruits and vegetables, but Khaled Hanafi, the current Minister of Supply, canceled it in March 2014, saying in a press conference that it implies the approval of the black market, without giving further explanation. Guiding prices are a range of prices for each good, agreed upon between the Ministry of Supply and representatives of wholesalers and retailers. Guiding prices give merchants the ability to decide the goods prices within this specific range according to the circumstances of, for example, competition, quality and place of distribution. The ministry may have decided to cancel these guiding prices in light of their rejection by numerous merchants, since it feared they would resort to illegally bringing in and selling goods on the black market, which could raise the prices and allow the entry of spoiled goods, as the black market would not be under the governments supervision. Medhat Nafei, an economy professor at the American University of Egypt, told Al-Monitor, Guiding pricing does not lead to the creation of a black market unless in light of a weak market supervision. The minister may be right. The problem is not about pricing; a controlled supervision system must be created. The adoption of the government-imposed prices was proposed until 2013 during the reign of Minister of Supply Mohammed Abu Shadi; however, when Khaled Hanafi took over the Ministry of Supply in 2014, the guiding prices system was canceled and the imposed prices system was rejected by the ministry. On Feb. 20, Hanafi expressly stated in a press statement that the government-imposed price was no longer an option for reaching a solution for the crisis of prices because it conflicted with the Egyptian Constitution. The proposal advanced by the Egyptian government may come as a solution to the soaring prices crisis in general. Many citizens have appreciated this as an achievement by the Egyptian government, but it does not seem to be a radical solution. Some citizens and experts stress the need to set prices on the basis of which the performance of traders may be assessed and to establish a supervision system that curbs the traders greed and holds them accountable. June 13, 2016 The anti-government movement led by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr along with secular young people seems to be headed for violence and clashes with the Iraqi security forces, especially if Haider al-Abadis government fails to meet the protesters demands that include appointing a technocrat government and eradicating corruption. The protesters have started preparing for a potential confrontation with riot police by buying gas masks, especially after security forces used tear gas to disperse protests May 21. A number of young people posted photos on social media (the pages of which have been taken offline now) showing protesters wearing gas masks in a defiant message to the government after Iraqi riot police used tear gas to disperse a crowd May 27 as protesters tried to break into the Green Zone for the third time. They had already been successful on May 20 and in larger numbers on April 30 when they stormed the parliament building. Protesters said that the security forces resorted to rubber and live bullets during the protests on May 21, claiming that four people were killed as a result of the security forces' brutality. Al-Monitor interviewed a young man in his early 20s from Sadr City who had acquired a gas mask. Revealing only his first name, which he said was Haider, he said that he regularly participates in the demonstrations held in Baghdad every Friday. Like other demonstrators his age, Haider expressed his indignation toward the government for failing to provide Iraqis with adequate services and job opportunities. In fact, Haider represents a large section of Iraqi young people 40% of the total population who have grown frustrated with the situation in the country. Their anti-regime sentiment can be heard in the streets, in cafes and on public transportation. They are part of the Iraqi community suffering from unemployment, poverty and inadequate services such as the delivery of electricity; power outages only add to the frustration with the governments empty promises. Some say that such a state of despair could cause Haider and his peers to turn to violence as a last resort. However, Rezan Shex Dler, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament, doubted this, saying, Protesters are highly unlikely to resort to violence. Dler, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told Al-Monitor, Protesters are keen on remaining peaceful. He visited Tahrir Square in February to witness one of the demonstrations that have been ongoing since July 2015 and to listen to the peoples demands as a member of Iraqs parliament. The demonstrations are not likely to escalate, he said. The higher coordination committee organizing the protests, which includes secular Iraqis and Sadr followers, has already taken the decision to expand the rallies, announcing at a press conference June 6 that further demonstrations will be held after sunset during Ramadan on weekdays, in addition to those organized on Fridays. Although Abadi and Hadi al-Amiri, a leader in the Popular Mobilization Units and the head of the Badr Organization, have called for postponing the demonstrations, the committee organizing the protests remained determined to continue the movement. Abadi and Amiri are opposed to demonstrations because Iraqi forces are currently engaged in a fierce battle with the Islamic State (IS) in Fallujah, 62 kilometers (38 miles) from Baghdad. They argue that demonstrations will drain security forces who have to protect the protesters and fight IS at the same time. However, the demonstrations coordination committee considered in its statement June 6 that postponement is an unacceptable evasion of responsibility. In an interview with Al-Monitor, a member of the security committee at the Baghdad Provincial Council, Saad al-Muttalibi, said, Demonstrators have clearly started rioting. Violent discourse is growing among the protesters. He added, By monitoring the protesters social media posts and press statements, one can easily discern violence or the decision to resort to it. But cleric Iyad al-Kaabi, a Sadrist student at the Shiite seminary of Najaf and one of the Islamic leaders of the demonstrations, told Al-Monitor, Protesters are armed with flowers, peaceful expressions [on their faces] and Iraqi flags. However, he added, These demonstrations might turn into a general revolution if the government continues to ignore the peoples demands. Still, referring to the protesters response to the potential future use of violence by security forces who have already used brutal actions to disperse the protests, Kaabi said, The demonstrations will remain peaceful. Jassim al-Hilfi, a member of the high coordination committee, deplored the security forces recent use of violence against protesters. The authorities think that violence can bring an end to protests. But we believe that it cannot solve anything. He told Al-Monitor, Imposing tighter security measures will only complicate the issue. The authorities use of violence would justify any recourse to it by the crowds who would then be convinced that their peaceful demonstration is ineffective. Hilfi said, The country is already plunged in violence. Violence is in nobodys best interests. The government must be aware of the stakes and understand the peoples indignation. The Iraqi government must take the protesters demands into account and prevent any recourse to violence by the security forces in this wave of demonstrations, as that could open the door to further violence and counterviolence, dragging the country into the unknown. June 13, 2016 At a June 13 news conference, a spokesman for Irans Foreign Ministry condemned the terrorist attack at an Orlando nightclub. The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its principles of condemning terrorism and its determination to completely and seriously confront this phenomenon, condemns the latest terrorist attack in Orlando, said Hossein Jaber-Ansari. The attack early June 12 by a man who reportedly pledged allegiance to the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) left 49 people dead and 53 wounded. The coverage by Iranian media of the shooting has been revealing, as the attacker targeted a gay nightclub. Homosexuality is illegal in Iran and is usually tried under the crime of sodomy, rape or adultery and usually carries the punishment of flogging and even possibly the death penalty. While Iran has outlawed homosexuality, it has a different view of transgender issues and even subsidizes sex change operations. Because of this, it has one of the highest sex change rates in the world. Iranian media still has a complicated relationship with covering homosexuality. Kayhan newspaper, perhaps the countrys premier conservative outlet, put the attack on the front page of its June 13 edition. However, the newspaper did not mention that the attack was at a gay nightclub, an important distinction given that, according to family members, the attacker was motivated in part by hatred of homosexuals. Vatan-e Emrooz, another well-known conservative outlet, acknowledged that the attack took place at a gay nightclub but used a derogatory term for homosexuals in its subheadline. Reformist Shargh Daily referenced that the attack was at a gay nightclub and used the correct term for homosexual. However, the divide cannot be broken down into a Reformist-conservative split. Reformist Ghanoon Daily wrote about the attack but did not reference that it was at a gay nightclub, while conservative Bultan News used the correct term for homosexual. Conservative Javan Online, which is believed to be linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), not only mentioned that the attack was on a gay nightclub but also referenced that it took place during Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month. In another development, Iran faced clashes on its southeastern and western borders June 13. According to Iranian officials, five members of Jaish al-Hadl (Army of Justice) and one Iranian soldier were killed in the Sistan-Baluchistan region during clashes. The group has been responsible for a number of attacks in the economically deprived region. According to police spokesman Saeed Montazeralmehdi, the group was caught with explosives and had planned attacks inside the country. During clashes with IRGC ground forces, five members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) were reportedly killed in Sardasht, in Iran's West Azerbaijan province. According to the IRGC statement, the PJAK members were part of a team behind the assassinations of Iranian security officials and an engineer. In February, the head of IRGCs ground forces, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, warned of instability on the other side of nearly 60% of Iran's borders. IRGC forces have often taken over for the military or border guards in volatile regions. June 13, 2016 Foad Shams is an Iranian journalist who supports US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and has written about him in the Iranian press. When asked what is it about the Democratic hopeful that interests him, Shams told Al-Monitor, The image of an alternative America is the most attractive feature of the Sanders campaign. Sanders is an alternative voice. In fact, he has managed to change the general narrative about the United States. We Iranians have two different but equally wrong images in our heads regarding the United States. Shams explained, On the one hand, we have the image that is propagated by Iranian state television and other official media outlets inside Iran that depicts the United States as the absolute evil. The other image is the one propagated by Hollywood and some foreign media outlets that present America as heaven on earth and a place where everyone is happy. He added, However, the image that Sanders presents of the United States its people and their demands is real. Al-Monitor spoke about the upcoming US presidential election with an adviser to President Hassan Rouhani. He said on condition of anonymity, [Hillary] Clinton is the candidate who has a real chance of getting elected. Sanders is unlikely to succeed. However, we have an old saying in Iran which goes, If it does turn into doogh [an Iranian yogurt drink], it will be great! referring to an impossible scenario that can only be realized in a dream. The Iranian presidential adviser added, We are closely monitoring the presidential election in the United States. We have spent many sessions at research centers discussing the election and its possible outcomes with the experts. At this point, the administration is not planning to make any comments about any of the candidates, considering that we are still in the primaries. However, we have made our own predictions. In regard to Sanders, the senior Iranian official told Al-Monitor that while Sanders is of course a long shot we had predicted that if he ever makes it to the White House, he could perhaps solve many of the problems between Iran and the United States the same way [President Barack] Obama has managed to solve some of the United States problems with Cuba, and that he could help tear down the wall of distrust in Iran-US relations that the supreme leader had talked about. His presidency could have been a historic opportunity for peace in the world. With regard to the Republican front-runner, the adviser said, Compared to Clinton, [Donald] Trump is less problematic for Iran since he is for the most part an isolationist. Of course, Clinton has softened her tone on Iran during the past few weeks, something that we attribute to the news we have recently received regarding a few pragmatic advisers joining her campaign. Nonetheless, we believe that the nuclear deal might not have gone through if she had remained as secretary of state. Al-Monitor also spoke with Ali Abdi, an Iranian journalist residing in the United States who has volunteered for the Sanders campaign. He said, Sanders and Trumps campaigns have had the highest number of volunteers, mobilization and citizen engagement. As part of Sanders campaign, some of the most important things we've done was calling voters, going to the voters' doors and being active on social media networks. Abdi added, Sanders is the best option for the Iranian-American community and the immigrant population in general. Sanders has a much better position toward Iran. He is less of a warmonger. He has been fighting for freedom and justice for the past 40 years. A person with such a vision can capture the interest of the immigrant population. It is this vision that engages Iranians interest and draws them toward Sanders. Among the Persian-language materials of the Sanders campaign is a poster with the slogan A Future to Believe in in Persian. Prior to the June 7 California Democratic primary, 3,000 Iranians residing in California were invited to a Facebook event encouraging them to vote for Sanders. A poster designed for Persian-speaking supporters of Bernie Sanders was circulated online. (photo by Mohammad Reza Tayfeh) Karim Yavari is a leftist student activist in Tehran who supports Sanders. Al-Monitor asked him whether he backs Sanders because he sees similarities between the Democratic hopeful and the head of Irans Green Movement, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011, and whether the Sanders campaign is similar to the Green Movement. Sanders campaign managed to attract millions of youths in a period of only a few months. He shares many similarities with Mousavi, and therefore we are interested in his campaign and his plans. He talks about peoples social and economic demands in one of the most advanced societies in the world. His campaign showed the democratic, fresh and happy side of socialism as opposed to the angry, undemocratic and brutal images that have been associated with socialism in the past." Al-Monitor asked Shams whether Sanders' supporters in Iran are realistic about what they can achieve. Of course I know that as an Iranian journalist living in Iran, my support for Bernie Sanders has no bearing on the outcome of the US election. We do not have any illusions in this regard. However, introducing Bernie Sanders to Iranian readers is certainly a positive thing to do. We cannot remain indifferent to a campaign that has sparked the interest of millions of Americans. There are Iranians who have US citizenship and thus the right to vote in the US election. Although their number is not large enough to have any meaningful impact on the election, they can play a more active role in Sanders campaign, he said. Shams also brought up the American Studies Program of Tehran University, saying, At Tehran University, the United States political developments are being academically studied. In addition, there are research centers and institutes that are monitoring the election process. A while back, at a convention in Iran called 'Branding the Elections,' Donald Trumps campaign model was studied. June 7, 2016 When Jabhat al-Nusras influence began to grow in northern Syria in general in early 2014, and in the city of Idlib in particular, a number of clandestine groups secretly set out to document and publish the militant group's attacks on journalists and activists. This led in January 2015 to the launch of the Jabhat Nusra Violations campaign, primarily undertaken by young people from Idlib province who had been arrested in or displaced from areas under the group's control. One of the campaign founders, Assem Zeidan, met with Al-Monitor in Gaziantep, Turkey, to discuss the effort he described as aimed at resisting Jabhat al-Nusra intellectually and humanistically through civilian and legal means. As a result of Jabhat al-Nusra expanding the scope of its attacks against civilians, journalists and Free Syrian Army [FSA] factions, the need arose for a campaign to document these actions and record associated names and dates through all possible legal means, Zeidan explained. Toward that end, a group was formed consisting of young people living outside of Syria, who can easily move about and are not located in areas controlled by al-Nusra. Campaign members, who now number about 25 in Syria and abroad, conduct activities clandestinely, such as distributing outreach posters and tagging walls with graffiti in Idlib city and the countryside. They also conduct surveillance on Jabhat al-Nusras daily activities against the Syrian populace, such as taking photos of the execution of a woman or the arrest of a journalist, using a hidden camera to document the group's actions. No one would dare to openly film such for fear of being accused of opposing Jabhat al-Nusra, which, more often than not, is punishable by death. The goal of these campaigns is to educate people about the dangers of al-Qaedas ideology as al-Nusra pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda on April 10, 2013 and distance them from it as far as possible, said Zeidan. This is although we know the risks associated with such activities, as most of the activists arrested are not charged with any crimes, but apprehended as revenge for shunning Nusras actions. People are often arrested because of critical Facebook posts or as a result of press statements that contradict Jabhat al-Nusras policies. For those reasons, we decided that the main core of campaign activists be located outside Syrian territory, supplemented by some on the inside, who, for their safety, are given pseudonyms, and with whom we communicate using encrypted information exchanges. Despite the group's security measures, campaign members still get arrested. Some apprehended in Idlib were later released as a result of mediation by influential people in the area or the payment of ransoms by family and friends. Some remain detained, awaiting an unknown fate in light of the absence of anything resembling a fair trial. The campaign is particularly active on social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, where Jabhat al-Nusra members vehemently attack campaign members. This has led to the closure of a number of the extremist group's pages on those sites and loss of information and followers on social media. Jabhat Nusra Violations began in early 2015 with three people coordinating intermittent posts on social media about daily events in Jabhat al-Nusra-controlled territory. These areas were under media blackouts, and even media outlets that were allowed to operate there, like the Orient TV, were under Jabhat al-Nusras control and could only report about the movements advances against the regime. Daily field reports that ignored rights violations by the group or otherwise did not put the group in a bad light were also permitted. Less than a month after Jabhat Nusra Violations was launched, however, messages began to appear on the pages of the campaign website from untraceable accounts providing alleged details about arrests by the movement and its breaches against citizens. At first, we were careful, because we did not know the accounts or their admins, said Zeidan. But we would check the news from friends inside to see if they were true. The photos were taken through hidden cameras on the field. This is how trust was built, and we organized ourselves under one group. We are currently close to being a proper media and documentation organization. Zeidan further stated, The members of the campaign are chosen by the founders based on recommendations from current members to make sure that it is safe to have them on board and that they really are against Jabhat al-Nusra, not spies for them. We also work to restrict our external relations with the media and individuals to a minimum of campaign members to avoid disclosing the identity of the remaining ones. Syrian groups seek funding from supportive parties directly and through mediators, like the Liaison Office, Syria, which assists nongovernmental organizations. The support typically covers salaries and operational expenses. Jabhat Nusra Violations has not managed to attract funding. Each time we ask for funding from the supportive organizations, our demand is refused for different reasons, sometimes because such projects are not supported and other times for vague reasons, Zeidan explained. But, we know the real reason is the unwillingness to support activities that might anger Jabhat al-Nusra and endanger other organizations in Syria. Jabhat Nusra Violations aims at holding Nusra members accountable if they commit breaches against Syrians. The campaign uses the available legal methods at its disposal. For example, if a Jabhat al-Nusra member leaves the battlefield and seeks asylum in Europe, the campaign submits any documentation it might have on him to the state where he resides. The campaign maintains files on members still fighting in Syria in anticipation of the day when an independent judiciary can punish them. Jawdat Malas, campaign leader, head of the campaigns foreign media department and media activist, spoke with Al-Monitor in Gaziantep and via Skype. In many instances, we unveiled the practices of some Jabhat al-Nusra emirs or relatives, and the organization put on a show, pretending to punish them, said Malas. But, these were mere acts that usually led to changing the position of the perpetrator without imprisoning them or dismissing them. The members of the campaign vow to continue their work against Jabhat al-Nusra, despite their scarce resources and the risk involved. This they do along with providing media and legal support for the activities of the moderate forces of the FSA and civil society organizations that share the same vision of making Syria a democratic country for all Syrians. June 12, 2016 Several hours after the June 8 terror attack that killed four people in Tel Aviv, and even before the city returned to business as usual, social networks began buzzing with posts and reactions by right-wing Israelis ecstatic that the very heart of Tel Aviv had been targeted in the murderous incident. They didnt seem to be a bunch of crazies letting off steam. Rather they appeared to reflect an array of people for whom Tel Aviv is the capital of the left-wing that supports a two-state solution and an end to the occupation, or, as they see it, the capital of the Arab lovers. As far as the right is concerned, it seems, the left is the worst enemy of the Jewish state. A young woman named Emily Moghrabi, for example, wrote, The important thing is that it happened in Tel Aviv. Such a pleasure. After her incitement got lots of shares, Facebook removed the post, but not to be deterred, she then posted (since removed as well), One of those killed in the attack was a Peace Now activist [referring to Michael Feige]. Stop. I cant stand this happiness Elor Azarya [the soldier who shot dead an injured Palestinian attacker in Hebron on March 24], this is for you. That post got 130 shares. Moghrabi is by no means alone, as evidenced by the dozens of supportive comments and praise for her posts, some of which dubbed her a queen. A guy by the name of David Benayoun wrote, Being a leftist is being a German, and another named David Eliran said that leftists are sick and ugly creatures; Hamas is welcome to kill all the leftists. And so it went. Zionist Camp Knesset member Merav Michaeli, stunned by the unbelievable wave of hatred by Israelis happy about the murder of other Israelis, posted a video in seeking to appeal to the reason of the revelers: I refuse to believe that you [Emily Moghrabi] and Nick Vassat [who also celebrated the murder of the Israelis] really think that Israeli women and men deserve to be murdered in a terror attack, even if they are leftists. It would seem that many Israelis, among them Michaeli, refuse to understand that the point of no return was passed a long time ago. It is not a case of stray weeds, the sobriquet applied to those at the margins of society whose incitement led to the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. This is a widespread phenomenon reflected in Israel's daily public discourse, including in newspapers on the right. It is reinforced and encouraged by right-wing politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has turned hatred of the left into a self-serving tool. In October 1997, while I was diplomatic correspondent for Channel 1 TV, Netanyahu visited the Jerusalem synagogue of the kabbalist Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri. Israel Radio reporter Haim Rivlin and I stood near the prayer podium and saw Netanyahu lean toward the rabbi and whisper something. No one heard what Netanyahu said, and it is highly doubtful that Kaduri, 99 at the time, could have heard anything either in the noisy room. Netanyahu's remark, however, was quite audible on a tape recording, which was overlaid on the footage shot by the television cameras: Those on the left have forgotten what it means to be Jewish, he had said. Its been almost 20 years, and the consequences continue to be suffered to this day. Netanyahu has consistently depicted the left as seeking to undermine the foundations of the state, and if the head honcho says it, why shouldnt others? Netanyahu as prime minister signposted the way for many on the right, including politicians, rabbis, analysts and activists. As far as they are concerned, the left is an enemy to be vanquished, and indeed, they often use the terminology of battle and war to goad the left. They unabashedly describe the left as colluding with the enemies of the state to destroy it. Right-wing activist Haim Shine is a senior analyst for the popular freebie newspaper Israel Hayom, owned by the American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a close Netanyahu associate. On May 23, Shine penned an article headlined The left cut itself off from society. He states that the left had better understand that the Jewish nation has been reinstated in Israel for eternity. Let them [the left] not waste their despair, they will need it for many years to come. Heres another example: In the 2015 election campaign, the state-backed Council of Samaria Settlers aired a video clip comparing the Israeli left to traitors being led to the gallows. The clip is titled The Eternal Jew, like some 1940s Nazi propaganda film. In it, a European man is seen in his office reading a newspaper called The Left, as his secretary, who calls him Herr Sturmer (as in the Nazi weekly Der Sturmer), tells him theres a Jew who wants to see him. There are numerous such examples. In other words, the expressions of hatred for the left after the attack in Tel Aviv are not by way of being writing on the wall. They are a huge warning sign. A civil war seems to be underway in Israel, and the next political assassination is just a matter of time. Every political assassination has been preceded by incitement and demonization, turning a political opponent into a dangerous foe who must be stopped at all cost, even the cost of murder. That is how Rabin came to be assassinated after being portrayed by the right as a traitor, a Nazi. His assassin, Yigal Amir, pulled the trigger of a gun loaded with the hateful remarks of rabbis and politicians. Then, too, no one believed a Jew would kill a Jew. June 13, 2016 A recent photo of the Turkish town of Nusaybin and its Syrian neighbor Qamishli across the border was circulated widely on social media June 5, and it went viral in no time. The photo appeared only in daily Cumhuriyet under the headline "Nusaybin leveled." In the background of the photo, which was taken from a high building in Nusaybin, an abandoned city was captured with buildings full of holes caused by artillery rounds and roads blocked by rubble. In the foreground about 30 Turkish soldiers are seen moving through a town square covered by dust and debris, protected by six armored vehicles and massive Turkish flags hanging from the destroyed buildings lining the square. If someone had seen the photo without knowing of the destruction caused by the war Turkey has been waging in the southeast since July 2015, he would have assumed it was a Syrian town occupied by Turkey. Any sane person would have thought the photo depicted a scene from Syria, which after all is a country destroyed by war, and not a city in Turkey destroyed by the national army and decorated with Turkish flags. But as we know it is actually a photo of Nusaybin, the first thing that comes to mind is that a part of Turkey is being "Syrianized." The caption of the photo read, Yuksekova, Sur [Diyarbakir], Cizre, Sirnak and now Nusaybin. The same scenes all over. Operations, clashes and rubble left behind. The Mardin governorate announced that 70 security personnel were martyred and 495 PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] militants were killed in the operation that concluded at Nusaybin. There are two main reasons why on March 14 the security operation, which included tanks, artillery and assault helicopters, against the PKK was launched in this town of roughly 113,000 residents and where the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) had received about 90% of the votes in two general elections in 2015 first, because hundreds of armed PKK militants had deployed to Nusaybin to achieve the PKKs ambition of autonomy, and second, faced with a surge in casualties because of the booby-traps PKK used extensively in buildings. As a result, almost all buildings in the zone of operation were destroyed by tank fire. This applies to the other towns and cities destroyed in the military operations, too. But what made the destruction so extensive and loss of life higher in Nusaybin was the Kurdish Democratic Union Party's (PYD) control of the Syrian neighboring town of Qamishli. Some reports claim that because of the control of Qamishli by the PYD, which is depicted as the PKKs extension in Syria, Nusaybin received logistical support from across the border. Hence, the resistance lasted longer, which resulted in more violence and destruction. The more profound reasons of the "Syrianization" of Turkeys southeast that is dominated by a politicized Kurdish majority can be summed up as follows. First, the political culture of the PKK based on guns and violence could not keep in step with the change in the Kurdish movement that became more popular-based and its focal point shifted from the mountains to the towns, parallel to the politicization of the Kurdish issue a transformation that began in the early 2000s. Under these circumstances it was natural for the Kurdish movement to demand autonomy. But because this Kurdish politicalization was not backed by a true and dynamic peace process, it was not possible to disarm the Kurdish movement; the political culture of the movement that retained its arms did not change all that much. In the end, the demand for autonomy was the consequence of building de facto alternative power structures backed by the armed strength of the PKK, which did not hesitate to use weapons to back these structures against the Turkish security forces. The digging of trenches and erecting barricades against the security operations in the towns and cities where the politicized Kurdish base is dominant was an accumulation of all these conditions. Second, the war launched by the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2015 as a political choice against the PKK did not yield the desired results with police operations. Thus, heavily armed army units were deployed. The PKK said in September 2013 that because of Ankaras unwillingness to take concrete steps in the peace and solution process, it was in turn suspending the withdrawal of its armed elements from Turkey. The dramatic dimensions of the war reached today confirm that from that point on the PKK intensified its efforts to organize the resistance in the towns of the southeast and began massing weapons and explosives. It is highly unlikely that the Ankara-based intelligence services were not aware of the PKK's arms collection. The Erdogan regime, meanwhile, noted that the "peace and solution process" with the PKK had lost nationalist votes for the party while strengthening its Kurdish opponent HDP in the southeast. After the severe losses in the election on June 7, 2015, the Erdogan regime took the political decision to wage a war against the PKK. As a result of sending tanks into the towns to restore state authority, a Pyrrhic victory was won but without town centers and residents left behind to submit to this authority. Towns all over the southeast have been left devastated and residents displaced. As clashes are expected to intensify in the rural areas of the southeast, the PKK is shifting its focus to the larger cities in the west of Turkey. On June 7, in the crowded Vezneciler district of Istanbuls historic center, a bomb attack against a police bus killed 11 people, six of them police, and wounded 36. On June 10, the attack was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK). It is well known that TAK is the acronym used by the PKK when claiming responsibility for terror operations. None of the political actors in Turkey above all Erdogan is in a position to extricate the country from the spiral of terror and civil war it is caught in. It doesnt look likely that the president can sustain the war he launched against the PKK and minimize the strength of that organization to manageable levels. When the massive human resources, strategic depth and foreign support potential the PKK enjoys are taken into account, a military solution to the PKK problem is almost impossible. To end the war with political means is unattainable as long as Erdogan remains attached to his goal of an executive presidency. Erdogan cannot possibly give the PKK the political concessions needed, or risk nationalist votes if he makes an agreement with the PKK. Hence, he is telling voters, in preparation of a war that will not end soon, Combating terror will continue until doomsday and The martyrs hills will never be vacant. Meanwhile, Murat Karayilan, a PKK military-political leader, calls on his organization to treat the revolutionary popular war more seriously, while warning not to have any expectations for a cease-fire. Since there is no cease-fire on Turkeys horizon, the most realistic expectation is increasing instability with the risk of ethnic conflict. The only powers that can halt the war in Turkey are foreign actors that have the capacity to exert pressure on both sides. But for those actors to intervene meaningfully, unfortunately one would have to wait for the war in Turkey to spread even more and become destructive enough to seriously threaten the interests of these major foreign powers. June 10, 2016 Thousands of young people among Turkey's 3.2 million unemployed are dreaming of getting a government appointment as a bankruptcy trustee. Since October, thousands of people have Googled the question How can I become a trustee? That in itself is enough to illustrate Turkey's economic problems not to mention the unusual wave of bankruptcies the government has been involved in. Turkey's economy has been shrinking for two years. The gross domestic product, which was $823 billion in 2013, was down to $720 billion at the end of last year. Turkey, which had the 17th-largest economy of the world, as of last year dropped to No. 19. Economic data for the first five months of 2016 are not all that promising, either. Turkeys exports declined 6.5% to $57.4 billion in the January-May period as compared with the same period in 2015. The government had set an export target of $155.5 billion for 2016 that isn't likely to be achieved. A crisis reigns in the tourism sector, which is of vital importance to Turkey's economy. According to the official figures, compared with April 2015, 28% fewer tourists visited Turkey in April of this year. That was the most drastic monthly drop of the past 17 years. The tourism sector is expecting a $5 billion revenue loss for this year. Alongside attacks by the Islamic State and the Kurdistan Workers Party, the crisis with Russia also has affected commercial life as much as the tourism sector. Istanbuls majestic Grand Bazaar is far from its days of glory. You dont see many tourists in the once-tourist-infested areas of Eminonu, Sultanahmet and Taksim. Usually animated, cheery shopkeepers in major shopping hubs of Laleli, Osmanbey, Merter and Kadikoy are not smiling nowadays. Another major problem for the economy is the continuing violent clashes in the southeast that have cost the lives of more than 500 police and soldiers and 7,000 Kurdish militants. Clashes have displaced more than 200,000 people, and commercial activity in the region has come to a standstill. Many businesses have closed, and others are having problems procuring goods from other parts of the country. The number of companies that have filed for deferred bankruptcy during the first four months of this year has broken an all-time record. According to the Ministry of Justice, commercial courts last year granted deferrals to 492 companies. In the first quarter last year, 112 companies applied; in the same period this year, 184 had already applied. Bankruptcy deferral is a legal measure to protect the assets of companies, similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. When that ruling is obtained, all legal proceedings against a company's assets cease. All debts, including public debts, are restructured and spread over time so companies can continue operating. The courts, however, appoint new management to companies when it's determined the firms have not been run properly. This is where our story begins. From January to April of this year, courts appointed more than 800 trustees to companies that have filed for bankruptcy protection. What has made the idea of a trustee career popular is the relentless war President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has launched against his foe, the Gulen movement, which is accused of trying to set up a parallel state. Courts of peace, which have become the spearhead of the ruling party, last year made rulings to detain 4,011 teachers, academics, businessmen, police and soldiers accused of being part of the Gulen movement. More than 800 of them were subsequently arrested, and new management was installed at more than 350 organizations, including educational institutions, hospitals and companies of varying sizes. The government appointed 1,200 people it favors to be trustees to run these organizations. The 5th Criminal Court of Peace of Ankara took the first step in this campaign. That court in October appointed a trustee to run the largest gold producer of the country, Koza Ipek Holding, citing "strong suspicions of providing financial assistance to Fethullah Gulen movement." In an expert report that constituted the basis of the court ruling, the fact that Koza Ipek Holding "has an outstanding accounting system" was cited as a reason for suspicion. The court seized all properties of Akin Ipek, the owner of Koza Gold Cos. and reputedly one of the highest corporate taxpayers in the country, and appointed pro-government names to take over the company's media holdings. Also in October, when a trustee was appointed to publisher Kaynak Holding in a similar move, Google searches such as how to become a trustee and how a trustee is appointed" surged. Anadolu Court of Peace in Ankara appointed Imran Okumus as the trustee of Kaynak Holding and decided he would be paid 5,000 Turkish liras ($1,700) each month for every company his holding controls. Okumus, who found himself with a salary of 105,000 Turkish liras a month for managing 19 companies and two foundations of the holding, ended up with even more 129,000 Turkish liras a month when some companies that had indirect links to Kaynak Holding were also seized. Okumus, who suddenly became the highest-paid CEO in the country, became the most-discussed name in Turkeys social media. Appointments of trustees became a flurry that defied any logic. The Zonguldak Court of Peace broke new ground by appointing a trustee for Vera Patisserie, a bakery that had five outlets in Zonguldak province. Sami Karahan, chairman of the commercial law department of Marmara University, said it is unprecedented in the republic's history to seize companies and private educational institutions through rulings of courts of peace, rather than commercial courts. Karahan said this practice, which the government is using to discipline its opposition, is in clear violation of constitutional rights to property and expropriation. These rulings by courts of peace are not only in violation of our constitution, but also contravene the European Human Rights Convention. Dont forget, one day Turkey will be penalized by the European Court of Human Rights and the bill will have to be paid by Turkish taxpayers, Karahan said. With 2,000 trustees being appointed over the past six months and being paid monthly salaries that vary from 5,000 to 100,000 Turkish liras it's no wonder the unemployed are interested. The minimum monthly salary in Turkey is 1,300 Turkish liras. June 13, 2016 The efforts of Turkey to prove itself capable of leading the Islamic world are frequently knocked down by punishing blows. One of these was struck at Muhammad Alis funeral last week. It all started when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to give a eulogy June 10 at Ali's funeral in Louisville, Ky. His request initially was accepted, but later declined in a strike to Erdogans reputation. King Abdullah of Jordan, whose request to deliver a speech was also accepted and then turned down probably to discourage Erdogan called off his trip to the United States. Erdogan, however, did not change his plan, though his request to have Turkish Director of Religious Affairs Mehmet Gormez recite the Quran by Alis casket was also declined. Erdogan also brought with him a piece of cloth from the holy Kaaba Mausoleum to place on the casket, but Imam Zaid Shakir, who was leading the prayers, rejected the request, saying it would violate the sanctity of the ceremony. That wasnt all. Erdogan was unable to deliver the gifts he had brought for Alis family. Erdogan waited for 15 minutes in a room at the Muhammad Ali Center to deliver his gifts before the center's director Donald Lassere stopped Ali's daughter Jamillah by his second wife, saying she could not represent the family in receiving Erdogans gifts. The confusion was attributed to Ali's fourth and last wife, Yolanda Williams. Rumors circulated wildly that Erdogans eulogy was canceled because of the Authentic Brands Group, which owns the rights to all licensed Muhammad Ali products. According to daily Hurriyets Washington correspondent Tolga Tanis, the company did not want Alis Muslim identity to dominate the funeral and made it clear it did not consider Erdogan a world leader, but a Turkish leader with a problematic image. As a result, Erdogan apparently did not appear in a single photo with anyone from Alis family. There was a scuffle between Erdogans bodyguards and local security personnel, now a tradition of Erdogans foreign travels. After all these developments, Erdogan decided to cut his visit short and returned to Turkey. In Rabbi Michael Lerners speech at Louisville's arena, he called on Turkeys leaders to stop killing Kurds and on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the occupation of the West Bank. The pro-government Turkish media branded the rabbis choice of words about Erdogan "impertinence." Unusually for him, Erdogan preferred to keep quiet about what led him to cut his trip short, saying only, "Our first reason for coming here was to perform our religious duty." He said it wasn't clear what subsequent ceremonies would involve, and "that is why we decided not to stay any longer. Erdogan had thought Alis funeral was an attractive opportunity to deliver his messages. Instead, Erdogan became Ali's last knockout. There is no question that Ali was an athlete whose exciting bouts had kept Turks up late many nights. Many officials, including Erdogan, recalled how they had spent long nights in front of their TVs to watch Alis matches. Erdogan said, "We used to watch at 4 oclock in the morning. His punches knocked out the oppressors. He was the fist of the deprived. That Alis strongest opponents were sometimes themselves "deprived blacks" did not matter because Ali was a Muslim and had declared war against racism. The political Islam movement that Erdogan belongs to made use of Ali's fame 40 years ago. On Oct. 1, 1976, when Ali was at the zenith of his career, he became an instrument of Turkish politics. According to newspaper reports, Ali was invited to Istanbul by the deputy prime minister, National Salvation Party leader Necmettin Erbakan. Political posters announced Alis coming. People poured into Sultanahmet Square in Istanbul. Erbakan received Ali at the airport and prayed with him at Sultanahmet Mosque. The famous boxers first meeting with the people of Istanbul turned into a political rally. It was later understood that Ali was invited to Turkey not by Erbakans party but by the Culture Ministry's Deputy Undersecretary Kemal Baytas. Baytas was introduced to Ali by Adil Ozkaptan, who was cooperating with Saudi weapons trader Adnan Khashoggi and working as a producer in Hollywood. The visit was not organized by the National Salvation Party, but by the Ministry of Tourism. Erbakan, who was a partner of the coalition government, seized the opportunity and turned it to a political affair. The trip lasted 24 hours. There are many others who have tried to grab a snippet of glory from Alis life. Nevzat Yalcintas, a former Justice and Development Party deputy, claims he is the one who taught Ali how to pray like a Muslim. Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, went to London in 1963 to fight Henry Cooper. According to Yalcintas, Ali visited the London Islamic Center and announced he had decided to become a Muslim. Yalcintas then taught him how to pray, according to the story. While Ali did not formally announce his conversion to Islam until 1964, he had been attending Nation of Islam meetings for some time. Yalcintas was indeed instrumental in Alis second trip to Istanbul in 1993, when he came for the opening of TGRT-TV. That was the last time Turkish leaders crossed paths with Ali, who was by then suffering from Parkinson's disease. Erdogan never misses a platform to make his case, and his wish to speak at the funeral was seen as exploitative. Erdogan's associates declared him the true heir of Ali's efforts to champion the cause of the oppressed. Nuh Albayrak, the Star editor-in-chief who accompanied Erdogan on the Louisville trip, said, Muhammad Ali changed many things in the United States. Now Erdogan, who has taken up Ali's mantle, will be joined by millions of the oppressed to reject the exploitation they are subjected to. Ali had refused to fight in the Vietnam War, something Turkeys dominant political and social culture cannot identify with. Opposing war is very costly in Turkey. Erdogan is a part of the culture that considers avoiding war treasonous. Remember, Erdogan made life miserable for scores of academics for signing a communique calling for peace. Ali might have readily endorsed Lerner's sermon instead, a message well-received by peace-loving people. This is the reality, but those who try to promote Erdogan as Alis successor cannot see it. Amsted Rail is laying off 155 workers as it idles its Bessemer wheel facility, according to records from the Department of Commerce. The Chicago-based railway wheel designer and manufacturer citing a reduction in new railcar demand and improved efficiency of American railroads. "Amsted Rail is focused on ensuring our capacity is closely aligned with our key customers' requirements," Amsted Rail John Wories said in a statement. "Bessemer became an important contributor to meeting these customer requirements during peak demand and we are especially thankful to the hard-working, skilled and dedicated employees who contributed to that success." The facility will be fully idled before the end of September. Employees will begin to be affected Aug. 1, according to the Department of Commerce. Some employees can transfer to other Amsted Rail locations and the company will provide relocation assistance. Amsted will resume production at the facility if customer demand improves, according to a press release. North Alabama residents in need of a new job will have an opportunity to meet with more than a dozen employers this week in Huntsville. Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net. The Alabama Department of Labor said a job fair will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Huntsville Career Center on 2535 Sparkman Drive N.W. Randstad, Home Instead, Office Pride, Verizon, Durham, Kroger, Buffalo Rock, J.F. Drake and other employers are expected to attend. "We are excited to work with our local employers and help them find quality employees for their positions," said Mike Fowler, manager of the Huntsville Career Center. "There are good jobs out there in the Huntsville area, and we're here to help make sure those positions get filled." ADOL encourages attendees to bring their resume and dress professionally for the multi-employer event. For information, call 256-851-0537. Moana.jpg Disney's "Moana," starring Dwany Johnson, opens in theaters on Nov. 23, 2016. (Disney) After the smashing success of "Frozen," "Big Hero 6" and "Zootopia," Walt Disney Animation Studios will travel across the Pacific Ocean for this Thanksgiving's In ancient Oceania in the South Pacific, the young Moana (Auli'i Cravalho) is a born navigator who sets sail in search of a fabled island. During her journey, she teams up with her hero and legendary demi-god Maui (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson). The film will surely benefit from featuring the vocal talents of a gifted performer like Johnson, and the animation looks as gorgeous as expected (partially thanks to its Hawaiian setting). It will also feature music from music by Opetaia Foa`i, Mark Mancina, and Tony-winner for his Broadway phenomenon "Hamilton," Lin-Manuel Miranda. It also marks the second time in as many years that we got a Disney story set in the Pacific after Pixar's 2015 short film "Lava," which preceded "Inside Out" last summer. We'll see if Disney's red-hot streak continues this Thanksgiving with "Moana." The film opens in theaters Nov. 23, 2016. Watch the first trailer below: Driving through the sparsely populated communities of Jackson County at the northeastern tip of the state, it's easy to see why this area was a favorite of deserters and guerilla fighters during the Civil War. Just feet from highways 35 and 79 are heavily wooded and mountainous areas that appear untouched by modern humans. But the route is dotted with signs of once-bustling towns, the oldest of which is Woodville, a 200-year-old incorporated town that had a population of about 200 people in the late 1800s. Following along the roads are the tiny burgs of Lim Rock, Skyline and Hytop. Today, Woodville has a population of about 730, slowly dwindling from a high of 761 in 2000. Before we get to the history of Woodville, here's a brief look at the other communities: Lim Rock, or Limrock Skyline Hytop About Woodville Woodville residents celebrated the 200th anniversary of the town's settlement in 2015. Woodville, named for early settlers Richard and Annie Wood, was designated as a town by the state Legislature on Dec. 13, 1819, one day before Alabama became a state, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. Its location between Huntsville and Scottsboro made it an important trading site. At the time, it was the seat of Decatur County, a county that was absorbed into Jackson County in 1822 and no longer exists. In the 1870s, the Memphis and Charleston Railway came through the town. Today, residents have preserved some of the town's early history, including the town well, a 1909 barber shop, a 1911 store, two churches and several historic homes. According to JChistory.com, the town well was "the gossiping place for loafers and merchants when in need of a fresh bucket of water, and others who depended on the town well for water." 1869 gun battle In 1869, residents of Woodville were still reeling from the effects of the Civil War and the guerilla fighting near their community. In some ways, lawlessness had become a way of life. In June of that year, members of two feuding families were involved in a shootout that left two men dead. According to JChistory.com, James "Jim" Whitecotton (born 1849) and Hiram "Hy" Whitecotton (born 1831), two ne'er-do-wells, were gunned down at a Masonic picnic. They were killed by David Riley Woodall (born ca. 1844) and his father, Pleasant Woodall (1807-1881). "In 1869, they met about half-way between Woodville and Paint Rock. At this meeting a great fight broke out between the Woodalls and the Whitecottons. Jim and Hy Whitecotton were killed. As the Whitecottons were turbulent, dangerous men, the people of the Woodville community felt greatly relieved at knowing these men had been killed." "Scenes from ..." is a photo feature of small towns throughout Alabama. To suggest a town to be featured, email Kelly Kazek at kkazek@al.com. Follow her Scenes from Alabama Towns on Pinterest. Cherokee County authorities are still investigating a vehicle collision they say at first looked like an accident but proved to be intentional. Sheriff Jeff Shaver said state troopers and deputies responded to a wreck Friday on Alabama 35 near Gaylesville. A woman and her children were in one car, while Jeremiah William Elkins, 21, of Cedar Bluff, was the driver of the second vehicle. Shaver said the incident began at a motel in Cedar Bluff, where a couple was having a child custody dispute. The woman left with the children in her car, headed toward Gaylesville. Shaver did not say how many children were in the car. Shaver said the father persuaded Elkins, a friend, to chase the woman's vehicle. "Elkins attempted multiple times to forcibly stop the vehicle occupied by the woman and children and eventually forced them off the road and into a ditch," he said. The mother of the children was transported to Floyd Medical Center in Rome, Ga., for minor injuries sustained in the crash. Elkins has been charged with first degree criminal mischief and four counts of reckless endangerment. He is being held in the Cherokee County Detention Center. People with albinism often face discrimination and ridicule within their own families and communities. Durban, South Africa Albinism, a congenital disorder in which people lack colour pigmentation in their skin, hair and eyes, affects about one in every 20,000 people [PDF] worldwide. It is most common in sub-Saharan Africa, where there remains great misunderstanding about people with the condition. In some parts of southern and eastern Africa, body parts of those living with albinism are believed to hold magic powers, and so they are hunted and killed by albino hunters. In 2016, there have been attacks in Tanzania, Burundi and Malawi. But even when they are not hunted, people with albinism often face discrimination and ridicule within their own families and communities. Here Nombuso Cele, a 24-year-old financial management student from Durban, South Africa, describes the challenges that people with albinism endure in their day-to-day lives: READ MORE: Malawi failing to protect albino community Myths about albinos need to end As much as some family members accepted me from birth, it took my parents some time to truly accept me. It affected me because I needed them at that time, and I didnt have their support. But I couldnt blame them because they didnt understand what was going on with me. I have experienced a lot of discrimination from our society and people who are uninformed about albinism. When I was in primary school, other kids stayed away from me because I was different from them and it affected my self-esteem. I was called different names; some would call me white spooky, and others would always tease me and call me ugly. I myself didnt understand what and who I was until, one day, a girl from my class reached out to me. She asked me why I was casting myself aside from other kids, and I had to explain to her that it was because I was different. She was so young, and I was amazed with her mindset. She told me that people will always talk no matter what, but its up to me to change their perception of me. In high school, I started gaining more confidence and claimed my position and my right to be part of the so-called normal society. Since then, I have always had confidence and have not let anyone treat me as though I were different from the rest of the people. People have a crazy idea that albinos are not human enough to be part of society. READ MORE: Albinism in Malawi People need to accept us for who we are, and if that means I have to associate myself with them and exist in the same space as them, then so be it. I have had challenges at school with my eyes, but that did not stop me from following my dreams. I have friends who have been helpful throughout the past two years of my studies, and I am very grateful for having such people. I have had my fair share of challenges and faced a lot of discrimination, but I chose not to let that determine who I am. Its funny how dark-skinned people think they are better than albinos, but we are all black. I have come across people who would make derogatory remarks when they see me, especially old men who would refer to me as isishawa (cursed). Sometimes I laugh and brush it off because I understand where they come from: They were born during an era where there was no information about albinism. But when young people make derogatory remarks, it really frustrates me because it shows how ignorant we as the youth can be. Within the university Durban University of Technology there are people who still look at me with resentment. That alone shows how uninformed and socially illiterate young people can be. I am OK with the fact that our university doesnt have any organisation specifically for people with albinism because we are well informed about it. It is the society that needs to be informed, and the organisations advocating for people living with albinism should take a different approach when raising awareness. Instead of mobilising each other, they should involve the society and provide necessary information to them. I am very grateful that my mother did not take me to the special schools that accommodate those living with disabilities. As much as the government declares albinism to be a disability, I dont allow myself to be treated as a disabled person because I am able in every way. Myths about albinos need to end. Men need to understand that albinos are human too, and [not believe] the myth that having sex with a person with albinism will cure HIV and Aids. People need to stop being gullible and ridiculous. We have the same blood; it is just the skin pigmentation that is different. Many people are brainwashed and believe that those with albinism have a certain magic. Yes, we are special, and there is something special about us. That doesnt make us animals to be preyed upon and brutally killed. We should not be made to feel self-conscious about who we are because thats how isolation begins. I am impressed by the fact that our government has begun considering us for employment opportunities because we are just as capable as others, regardless of our condition. As told to Khadija Patel and Lizeka Maduna. I watched and listened, often with tears, as Muhammad Ali was eulogised. I cried when the service opened with a reading from the Quran, because it was the first time in the history of the United States that a recitation of the Quran was read and heard in reverence on major national American television networks. I thought, even in death, he is a revolutionary. Although some spoke of his life as a radical revolutionary, it seemed almost tangential to the overarching message that Ali was a beloved champion boxer, the greatest there was. Of course, he was that. Yet, I couldnt help but recall the words of Cornel West, who has spoken of the Santa Clausification of Dr Martin Luther King. With the exception of two or three speakers, it felt as if Muhammad Alis legacy was undergoing a similar softening and rounding of the edges of his life, the Santa Clausification of Muhammad Ali. So much of Muhammad Ali was left unsaid and untouched at his funeral service. A critical part of him, mostly ignored, is that he was an organic and public intellectual. He spoke truth to power. His words, ideas, actions and positions changed the world. He is one of the few intellectuals whose production of knowledge was accessible to the masses in such a way that it provoked immediate thought. He was instrumental in spurring moral evolution and moral advancement among whole generations, worldwide. Critical thought and introspection His refusal to be drafted, saying No Viet Cong ever called me nigger became an anthem of critical thought and introspection, especially among black men facing the draft. READ MORE: Muhammad Ali Rumble in heaven as you did on Earth Thousands of miles away, the Vietnamese heard him, too, and, as a result, often refused to fight or kill black US soldiers during the Vietnam War. Ali was an instigator of brotherhood and the political establishment, as well as mainstream media, tried to destroy him for it. Ali was an instigator of brotherhood and the political establishment, as well as mainstream media, tried to destroy him for it. by So, it seemed incongruous with his legacy to witness moments in the funeral service that seemed like campaigns for Hillary Clinton. Ali was one of the few and first notable Americans to voice unqualified support for Palestinians in our struggle against Zionisms settler-colonial project in Palestine. Many of those who got up to praise and eulogise him would be among the first to persecute a contemporary athlete if he/she would dare to embark on the moral path Ali walked decades ago when he went to a Palestinian refugee camp and said openly, I declare support for the Palestinian liberation struggle. In fact, the current political establishment is doing exactly that with unfolding anti-BDS (the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign) legislation. Were an athlete today to criticise Israel as Ali did, he or she may well find his or her name on an emerging anti-BDS blacklist. No one at his funeral mentioned this, with the exception, perhaps, of Rabbi Lerner in his general statement about injustice to Palestinians. In fact, Billy Crystals eulogy probably made people believe that Ali was a supporter of Israel because they apparently raised money for some programme at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. An honest reflection of Ali Had he wanted to give an honest reflection of Ali, that would be the point where Billy Crystal should have noted that Muhammad Ali was an unabashed supporter of the Palestinian struggle against Israeli colonialism, including the annexation of Jerusalem. But he didnt, and I believe it was an intentional omission. Alis insistence on morality, however unpopular; his defence of justice, however obscure; his defiance of power, whatever the personal cost; and his ability to communicate his positions clearly and convincingly in a language grounded in integrity, honour and principle, are all among the hallmarks of a transforming public intellectual. He was all that. READ MORE: Why we mourn Ali He touched us all in different ways, but touched us nonetheless. His influence on my life was profound. I never met or spoke to him, but his presence in my thoughts feels personal, almost intimate. Incredibly, there are millions who feel as I do. He performed that miracle of taking residence in the hearts of people he had never met, millions of us. And though he was indeed The Peoples Champ who gave of himself to all peoples, especially the oppressed, Muhammad Ali was a black man, produced by blackness, in all that entails of 400 years of raw and human struggle. As a public intellectual, athlete and revolutionary, he belongs to the legacy of the people from whence he came. The Prettiest and the Greatest, was in fact, a proud, principled and defiant black man in America. Susan Abulhawa is an international bestselling novelist, poet, and essayist. Her latest novel, The Blue Between Sky and Water (2015), is translated into 26 languages. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Omar Siddiqui Mateens attack was more of a hate crime than an act ordained by his religion. Mehammed A Mack is assistant professor of French Studies and SWG (Study of Women and Gender) at Smith College in the US. Khaled A Beydoun is a law professor, and author of American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear. On early Sunday morning in Orlando, Florida, a lone gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub. The shooter, Omar Mateen, killed 53 people the overwhelming majority of whom were Latina/o, Black and Brown members of the LGBTQ community, enjoying an evening in Orlandos premier gay club just south of the citys downtown corridor. The media instantly turned to the routine terrorism, the Islamic State and radicalisation narratives once the culprits religion was identified and, as a result, gradually diverted attention from the specific racial and sexual identity of the victims, and moreover, the broader context of reactionary homophobia sweeping through Americas South. The Orlando massacre, dubbed the deadliest mass shooting in US history, led to the instant repositioning of Islam as the civilisational enemy of the West. Considering the target of the attack, media coverage redeployed the trope that Muslims are inherently and irredeemably homophobic. This coverage glosses over the existence and disproportionate vulnerability of LGBTQ Muslims, and, as illustrated in the immediate aftermath of the Orlando massacre, labels the tragedy an act of terror instead of what it truly is a horrific and unprecedented hate crime. Muslim and LGBT Americans Muslim Americans and LGBT Americans share the common experience of being on the defensive when news outlets and world events put their lives under the microscope. ALSO READ: The myth of the moderate Muslim This moment of mourning, however, was singular and acutely personal for me (Mack) because it tied together these two identities, so often placed in opposition on our TV screens and in repetitive, stale stories reinforcing the message that one cannot be both gay and Muslim. For Muslims all along the LGBT spectrum, whether they identify as such or not, the Orlando shooting results in deep spiritual and physical pain because they are being literally torn apart ... by For Muslims all along the LGBT spectrum, whether they identify as such or not, the Orlando shooting results in deep spiritual and physical pain because they are being literally torn apart, asked to choose between the communities that structure their daily lives. Queer people of Islamic heritage have often been erased, by both allies and enemies, homophobes and homophiles: those who rightly fight against Islamophobia have not always been aware or inclusive of the many LGBT individuals in their midst, and the LGBT mainstream and its allies have not always condemned xenophobic Islamophobia, and have in certain cases contributed to it. Yet, there are thousands if not millions who belong to both LGBT and Muslim communities, who refuse to choose between supporting gay rights and battling Islamophobia, often paying a heavy price in terms of alienation from friends or family. These people are today mourning twice, some apologising for a crime they played no part in, some bracing themselves for the inevitable Islamophobic backlash and news cycle that will present them as victims of their culture. Enhanced vulnerability The Pulse clubs Saturday night party was not just gay but also Latin-themed, drawing from Floridas bustling Latino community. Many queer folks of Arab, Central Asian, and North African descent have developed solidarities with Latinos, through physical and cultural similarities as well as shared histories, which intertwined in Islamic Spain. This communal bonding often happens in nightlife spaces. As the national epidemic of murders targeting trans people of colour has shown, queer Blacks and Latinos are especially vulnerable in public space. Queer people of colours vulnerability is one that brings up the unavoidable issue of gun control, as their spaces of assembly are more often located in or next to under-secured neighbourhoods where they may be more easily targeted. ALSO READ: Speaking Arabic while flying It is quite telling that the attack against Pulse, which is located in a residential neighbourhood, was so murderous, while the attack against gay West Hollywoods highly visible LA Pride, undertaken by James Howell, a non-Muslim white man carrying explosives, was not. Mateen, already under official surveillance, had been interviewed by the FBI and was still able to buy an assault weapon, while Howell did not even register on the radar: both were sexists capable of mortal violence. A homophobic hate crime Judging from Omar Mateens media portrait, which can only be incomplete at this stage, he seems to have dabbled in superficial religiosity in the couple of years leading up to his heinous act. His sexism, however, was longstanding and violent, leaving the lasting impression that his was more of a hate crime than an act ordained by his religion. As countless Muslim progressives have explained, Islamic theology contains a culture of tolerance, even sexual permission, which must be nurtured. by This sexism was nurtured in a Southern US context where homophobic laws are being pushed by politicians and pundits following recent LGBTQ civil rights strides, spaces where queer People of Colour sit at the dangerous intersection of armed homophobia, xenophobia and racism, and occasionally, hostility toward LGBTQ people and lifestyles present within, but not exclusive to, Muslim American communities. These communities however are changing, growing increasingly accepting of homosexuality according to the Pew Research Center, especially among the young. American Muslim tolerance levels equal or surpass other US religious groups, the demographics Muslim Americans are most appropriately compared with. As countless Muslim progressives have explained, Islamic theology contains a culture of tolerance, even sexual permission, which must be nurtured. We must refrain from presenting Muslims with a false choice between Western sexual liberty and Eastern sexual modesty, and demanding a too simple allegiance. It is our profound hope that Muslim and LGBT communities do not turn on each other after this crisis, but rather, build upon their shared status as victims of intolerance. Khaled A Beydoun is an assistant professor of law at the Barry University Dwayne O Andreas School of Law. He is a native of Detroit. Mehammed A Mack is an assistant professor of French Studies and SWG (the Study of Women and Gender) at Smith College in the US. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. In the run-up to the Chilcot report, Tony Blair still thinks Iraq would have been worse off without the invasion. It is an unfortunate metaphor, in the context of a man who sent his country into a disastrous, US-led war on Iraq in 2003. But nonetheless, one of Tony Blairs allies told the British press this week that the former Labour party leader is planning to come out all guns blazing in response to the long-delayed and long-awaited Chilcot report. Named after its chairman Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry was set up seven years ago to look into the legality of Britains involvement in the Iraq war and at the lessons that can be learned from it. The 2.6 million-word report is to be published on July 6. Last week, an anonymous source told The Sunday Times (UK) that the report would be absolutely brutal in its verdict on Blair and other government officials. As a preview of those blazing guns, Blair has been giving interviews on the subject. He has already claimed that Iraq would be worse off had the military invasion of 2003 not removed Saddam Hussein. And in an interview with Bloomsburg on June 8, Blair lambasted the Labour party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who opposed the Iraq war and has said that Blair could face a trial over it, should the evidence suggest that he broke international law. The current Labour leader, according to Blair, represents the politics of protest and would not be able to make difficult decisions. War criminal Im accused of being a war criminal for removing Saddam Hussein who by the way was a war criminal and yet Jeremy is seen as a progressive icon as we stand by and watch the people of Syria barrel-bombed, beaten and starved into submission and do nothing. READ MORE: Blair, the Iraq War and me So, to recap: the Iraqi people dont know how lucky they are, while everyone else should really learn to spot the progressive: because he is the one that keeps on pushing military interventions that unleash death, turmoil and devastation, turning functioning societies into a daily living hell. Not content with watching this happen in Afghanistan, Iraq and then Libya, Blair wants to add to the nightmarish horrors of the situation in Syria assaulted both by Bashar al-Assads barrel bombs and by the brutal death cult Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) by sending British ground troops there. Since that worked out so well every other time. In truth, it is difficult to decide which iteration of Tony Blair trying to justify the war on Iraq is more offensive. Late last year, he made what was then described as a qualified apology for mistakes made in Iraq among them our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime. Iraq, its infrastructure, social structures and systems of government utterly hollowed out by that war, was quickly plunged into violence and chaos but this was all foretold and Blair knew about it. Iraq, its infrastructure, social structures and systems of government utterly hollowed out by that war, was quickly plunged into violence and chaos - but this was all foretold and Blair knew about it. by Specifically, he was told by the six wise men Middle East experts who counselled Blair about the aftermath of an invasion. One of those experts, Professor George Joffe of the University of Cambridge, who also gave evidence to the Chilcot panel, last year told a UK newspaper: The errors of judgment were so blatant, there is no way they can whitewash this. This process by which Blair actively decided to ignore expert advice is what he describes as a mistake in understanding. Pre-emptive spin operation Now, in what has been described as a pre-emptive spin operation before Chilcot, Blair has hit out against the Labour party leader, dismissing him as a guy with a placard. It is part of a wider political assault, since the current leader represents a decisive break with Blairism, which to no small extent explains his popularity. But it is not just the Labour leader that, with these latest insults, is dissed as a placard-carrier; its everyone else who opposed the war, including prominent politicians, legal and security advisers, religious figures, academics, campaigners and Middle East experts, as well as a sizeable chunk of the British population. READ MORE: The enduring legacy of Operation Desert Storm But to my mind, the greater insult is the suggestion that Blair may defend himself by pushing the claim that, as awful as things in Iraq have become post-war, the situation in the Middle East would have been worse with Saddam still in power. For the half a million lost lives, for the families left grieving loved ones, for the physical and emotional injuries of the war and its aftermath, for those forced to flee their country, for the women whose hard-won freedoms evaporated because of those UK/US bombs, for the Iraqi people now living under the daily misery of ISIL, or the daily fear of bombing, or the daily repression of sectarian-led, Western-backed governments, for all those whose daily lives have become a daily misery, Blair apparently wants to let them know that things could have been worse, had the West not intervened to remove Saddam. Because when your country, your life and all that you love has been destroyed by a Western intervention, it must be comforting to know that one of its chief advocates believes you are still better off than you could have been. At a time when you really ought to be trying to heal wounds, Blair has effectively thrown salt into them. Now, we can only hope that Blair and his supporters have run out of spectrum and cannot hit a new low hit when the Chilcot report finally emerges next month. Rachel Shabi is a journalist and author of Not the Enemy: Israels Jews from Arab Lands. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. Two soldiers killed and 22 others wounded after border forces exchanged fire at Torkham crossing. One Afghan soldier and a Pakistani army major have been killed after border forces exchanged gunfire at the main crossing point between the two countries. Pakistan shut the border with Afghanistan for the second day in a row on Tuesday due to the continued clashes. Twenty-two others were wounded in the fighting, ten of them were civilians, including children, Chief Administrator of Khyber Agency, Khalid Mehmood, told Al Jazeera. Sundays overnight clashes at the Torkham crossing began shortly after 9pm (16:00 GMT). Al Jazeeras Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said tensions have been brewing for a while over Pakistans attempts to erect a gate on the border. Afghanistan has long opposed this idea as it does not recognise the gate as a legitimate dividing line. The guns have fallen silent but the situation is extremely tense, said Hyder. Everything is suspended. A curfew has been imposed and many families have been forced out of that area to seek refuge in other places. The curfew has been declared at the Pakistani Landi Kotal town, which lies at the edge of the Khyber Pass, the main entrance to Afghanistan. Both countries blamed each other for starting the fighting, which reportedly stopped at 5am (00:00 GMT) on Monday. The government of Pakistan expresses its deep concerns about the security of Pakistani soldiers near the border, in relation to the reports of unprovoked attacks that are unhelpful in Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs office said in a statement. The prime minister urged Afghanistan to investigate the incident. READ MORE: Torkham restrictions stir Pakistan-Afghanistan tension We currently have agreed on a ceasefire with Pakistan. We hope this problem will end through the work by diplomatic addresses, said the Afghan governments chief executive Abdullah Abdullah on Twitter. The current fight Pakistan started doesnt help anyones interest. Pakistans moves towards fencing a 2km area at the Torkham crossing, was opposed and stopped by Afghanistan. The row led to Pakistans closure of the crossing last month, affecting thousands of people who commute across the border each day. Pakistan says there is an infiltration of fighters from the Afghani side, and fencing of the border was the only immediate solution to keep a check on the people crossing. Kabul has accused Pakistan of harbouring fighters seeking to topple the Afghan government, including the Haqqani network, blamed for high-profile attacks in the capital. The Pakistan-Afghanistan border has long remained disputed. Afghanistan has blocked repeated attempts by Pakistan to build a fence on sections of the roughly 2,200km-long frontier, rejecting the contours of the boundary. With additional reporting by Alia Chughtai: @AliaChughtai Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, arrested during raid on his home. Bahraini police have arrested a prominent activist during a raid on his home early on Monday, rights groups and his family said, part of a wide crackdown on dissent more than five years after the Arab uprising. It was not immediately clear why authorities arrested Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights. However, his arrest comes after Zainab al-Khawaja, another prominent activist, fled the Gulf island nation for Denmark in recent days over fears of being imprisoned again. Police seized electronic devices and other items from Rajabs home as they detained him, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. Rajabs wife, Sumayia, also confirmed his arrest and said on Twitter that their home was searched. Bahraini officials could not be immediately reached for comment. Rajab helped lead protests during Bahrains 2011 demonstrations as the islands majority Shia population and others demanded more political freedom from its Sunni rulers. Bahrain, home to the US Navys 5th Fleet, crushed the protests with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. READ MORE: Bahrain frees dissident Nabeel Rajab for health reasons In the time since, the island has faced low-level unrest, protests and attacks on police. Other prominent opposition figures and human rights activists remain imprisoned, while some have had their citizenship stripped by the government and been deported. Rajab has been detained by authorities several times. In 2015, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa pardoned Rajab over health concerns following imprisonment for three months on charges related to comments he made online criticising the treatment of political prisoners at a prison in the country. READ MORE: Bahrain five years after the protests Rajab at the time also faced a six-month sentence for insulting defence and interior ministries on Twitter, when he alleged that Bahrains security institutions were incubators for hardline ideology after several former members of the countrys security service apparently joined Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Brian Dooley, director of the Washington-based group Human Rights First, said Rajabs detention appeared timed to come before a planned United Nations meeting on human rights. He said other activists were prevented from leaving Bahrain to attend the conference in Geneva. Nabeels arrest is a forceful, frightening message from the Bahraini government that it is moving against even activists with strong international connections, Dooley said in a statement. Police officials say 3,245 arrested in last 24 hours and 8,192 held in total since crackdown began on Friday. Police in Bangladesh have arrested 3,245 people in the past 24 hours, as security forces continue their crackdown on those suspected of involvement in the slayings of secular activists and religious minorities. The total number of suspects arrested since the campaign began on Friday stands at 8,192, police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan said on Monday. At least 103 of those arrested were tied to the spate of killings targeting religious minorities and secular activists, with about 6,000 on other charges related to firearms, drugs, and other offences, police said. Over the past week, an elderly Hindu priest, a Hindu monastery worker, and a Christian shopkeeper were hacked to death in attacks for which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility. The Muslim wife of a counter-terrorism police official was also stabbed and shot dead in a separate attack. ISIL claims The attackers have killed more than 30 people in Bangladesh since early last year, with atheist bloggers, liberal academics, gay rights campaigners, foreign aid workers, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups among the victims. ISIL (also known as ISIS) has claimed responsibility for 21 of the attacks since its first claim in September last year and al-Qaeda has claimed most of the rest, according to Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service. The government denies that either group has a presence in Bangladesh and says home-grown activists are responsible. Last month, junior foreign minister Shahriar Alam told Reuters that ISIL was trying to ride a wave of violence by falsely claiming killings and said there was enough evidence implicating domestic groups. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has vowed to track down the killers, blaming the growing violence on political opponents linked to Islamist parties. The main opposition party, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, dismisses such accusations and said the mass arrests were a ploy to suppress political opponents. At least nine people wounded after explosion hits housing for civil servants in the volatile east. A car bomb has wounded nine people in the eastern Turkish province of Tunceli, according to the security services. The explosion on Monday happened in Ovacik district, about 800km east of the capital Ankara, near a housing block for civil servants working at a local courthouse. Turkey has been frequently targeted over the past year by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and Kurdish separatists. It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack. A splinter group of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), claimed a car bombing last week in Istanbul, which killed 11 people including several police officers. The PKK claimed another deadly blast last week in Midyat town in the Kurdish-majority southeast, which killed six people, including a pregnant policewoman. Israels occupation is the main trigger of humanitarian needs among Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the UN. The year 2015 marked the highest number of deaths and injuries among West Bank Palestinians caused by Israeli forces in a decade, a United Nations report has said. Israeli casualties soldiers, civilians and settlers in the West Bank and Israel were also the highest in that same period, according to the report. Entitled Fragmented lives: Humanitarian overview 2015, the report has been released each year by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in the occupied territories since 2011. It provides an overview of the causes of the humanitarian vulnerabilities in the occupied Palestinian territory in a given year. The 2015 report found the Israeli occupation to be the main trigger of humanitarian needs among Palestinians in the occupied territory. This month, Palestinians enter their 50th year under Israeli occupation. Fragmented Lives shows clearly the devastating impact of this ongoing situation, mainly on 4.8 million Palestinians who are increasingly vulnerable due to violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, said David Carden, head of UNOCHA in the occupied Palestinian territory, on Monday. We need a fundamental shift in the approach to the [occupied territory], particularly far greater respect for international law and concrete efforts towards accountability for those who violate it, he said. What this report highlights is that the years of coddling Israel through diplomacy have only created a sense of impunity in Israel whereby it can do whatever it wants and not pay a price. by Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer The UN attributed the death of 146 Palestinians and 25 Israelis to the policies and practices related to the Israeli occupation, including settler violence, and an upsurge in violence marked by a sharp rise in stabbing, ramming, and shooting attacks by unaffiliated Palestinians against Israeli civilians and forces, and widespread clashes. The last quarter of 2015 saw a wave of lone-wolf attacks, largely by young disgruntled Palestinians, leading to the highest number of casualties among Israelis since 2005. The majority were killed in the West Bank, the rest in Israel proper, the report said. But these incidents also raised concerns, the UN said, about Israels excessive use of force and arbitrary deprivation of life, both in the context of clashes and in response to Palestinian attacks, including multiple cases where perpetrators and alleged perpetrators were shot and killed on the spot by Israeli forces. Among the Palestinian deaths were 30 children killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers, the highest figure recorded since 2006. The report showed that the absolute majority of Palestinian injuries took place during clashes, mainly from tear gas inhalation, rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition shot by Israeli forces. What this report highlights is that the years of coddling Israel through diplomacy have only created a sense of impunity in Israel whereby it can do whatever it wants and not pay a price, said Diana Buttu, a lawyer and former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization. This serves to highlight the need to press for sanctions against Israel and to hold it accountable for these human rights abuses. While the number of settler violence incidents resulting in Palestinian deaths or damage to property dropped compared with in 2014, an arson attack by Israeli settlers left three members of a Palestinian family dead, and the lone survivor a five-year-old boy with burns over 60 percent of his body. The number of damaged, stolen or uprooted trees in 2015 was the highest since 2006, the UN found. It is clear that Israeli state action as manifested by killings, demolitions and imprisonment of children is also matched by Israeli state inaction, namely the impunity granted to Israeli settlers to terrorise Palestinians, Buttu said. READ MORE: Relative calm at al-Aqsa compound is deceiving By the end of 2015, more than 6,000 Palestinians were incarcerated for security offences, the highest such number since 2010. More than 420 children were also imprisoned, including six held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Most of the offences were related to stone-throwing. The report documented that Israeli practices in Area C which covers 60 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, have helped to create a coercive environment that undermines a Palestinian physical presence and exacerbates the risk of individual and mass forcible transfers. It said that the Israeli authorities planning system in Area C favours settlement interests, as it denies Palestinians from obtaining building permits: Between 2010 and 2014, Israel approved only 33 out of more than 2,000 applications submitted for building permits in Area C. A similar system is in place in East Jerusalem, which has resulted in only 13 per cent of the municipal area zoned for Palestinian construction, most of which is already built up. The report recognises the Israeli intention of displacing Palestinian inhabitants of Area C, which is a step forward by an international organisation to unmask the real colonial objectives of the Israeli occupation towards expelling the Palestinians from their lands, said Tariq Dana, a senior research fellow at Birzeit University. But generally speaking, such reports dont end up in conclusions that blatantly call for the end of the occupation, Dana added. For example, the report recommends Israeli authorities to review the rules of engagement, which may give a false impression that there are two relatively symmetric parties in conflict, or for calling for halting the expansion of settlements rather than entirely dismantling them [for] violating international law. At least 70,000 Palestinians remain displaced after their homes were destroyed in the 2014 Israeli war, with Egypts closure of the Rafah crossing and the inter-Palestinian political feud contributing to the dire humanitarian situation. The UN said there were positive increases in the movement of people and goods in and out of the Gaza Strip, but that access is still being impeded by permit requirements, with the nine-year-long blockade continuing to undermine livelihoods and prevent the realisation of a broad range of human rights. Eid al-Fitr is celebrated for three days, but holidays range from four days in Pakistan to 11 days in Saudi Arabia. Update: this article is about Eid al-Fitr. Click here for Eid al-Adha 2016 dates. The Eid al-Fitr festival will be celebrated by Muslims around the world once again this week, marking the end of holy month of Ramadan 2016. Eid al-Fitr in Arabic literally means festival of breaking the fast. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have announced that Wednesday, July 6, will be the first day of Eid. As per Muslim tradition, the beginning of the Eid can only be confirmed based on sightings of the new moon every year. In the United States, the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) announced that Eid al-Fitr will be observed on July 6, based on astronomical predictions. The charity groups in Canada and the United Kingdom, the Islamic Relief Canada and Islamic Relief UK, also predict the Eid to be on July 6. In the UK, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan will host an Eid food festival in Trafalgar Square on Saturday July 9. Holiday tradition Traditionally, Eid al-Fitr is celebrated for three days and is an official holiday in all Muslim-majority countries. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim had announced that Turkey would observe a nine-day public holiday for Eid, from Saturday July 2 until Sunday July 10. Bangladesh and the UAE also announced a nine-day public holiday, effectively starting from July 1. In Saudi Arabia, the public holiday for Eid will be the longest, lasting 11 days and starting from Thursday, June 30. The public sector holiday will also be 11 days in Qatar, but starting on Sunday, July 3. Oman will start Eid from Tuesday July 5 and it will last five days. Meanwhile, Pakistan has announced the shortest Eid holiday, starting from Tuesday July 5 and lasting for only four days. Eid is also a public holiday in Philippines since 2002 as mandated by the Republic Act 9177. Public holidays To recap, the following public holidays have been officially announced so far: Saudi Arabia: 11-day Eid holiday, from Thursday June 30 until Sunday July 10. Qatar: 11-day Eid holiday, from Sunday July 3 until Monday July 11, including the July 1-2 weekend. UAE and Bangladesh: Nine-day Eid holiday, from Friday July 1 until Saturday July 9. Oman: Five-day holiday, from Tuesday July 5, until Saturday July 9. Pakistan: Four-day holiday, from Tuesday July 5, until Friday July 8. Turkey: Nine-day Eid holiday, from Saturday July 2 until Sunday July 10. Clashes erupt between Ethiopia and Eritrean troops in disputed border region, raising fears of renewed violence. Ethiopia and Eritrea have traded blame over fresh clashes in a disputed border region that triggered a bloody war in 1998-2000 and killed thousands of civilians. Ethiopia said the situation was calm around the border town of Zalambessa on Monday, and government spokesman Getachew Reda alleged that Eritrean soldiers had been promptly repulsed by Ethiopian troops. A resident in the Ethiopian town of Zalambessa, across the border from Tsorona, told Reuters news agency by telephone that he had heard the sound of shelling on Sunday and into Monday morning. Eritrea disputed this account, saying Ethiopia started the fight. The TPLF regime has today, Sunday 12 June 2016, unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front, Eritreas Information Ministry said in a statement. The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear, it added. TPLF refers to Ethiopias Tigrayan Peoples Liberation Front, one of the four parties making up the ruling coalition. Eritrea, which won independence from Ethiopia in 1991, fought a bloody border war with its larger neighbour between 1998 and 2000 which killed about 70,000 people. Both routinely accuse each other of backing rebels trying to destabilise and topple the others government, a legacy from the earlier war. Eritrea, which is under UN sanctions, says world powers have failed to push Ethiopia to accept an international arbitration ruling demarcating the boundary. Ethiopias government has said it wants talks on implementation. Bomb explodes outside Lebanese Blom Bank in central Beirut, causing damage but no deaths. A bomb has exploded in Beirut outside the headquarters of the Lebanese Blom Bank, inflicting heavy material damage but no deaths. Two people were slightly injured in the attack, which occurred in the upmarket Verdun area in the centre of the Lebanese capital on Sunday. The explosion took place at 8pm, a time when many were at home breaking their Ramadan fast for the day. Although there was no immediate claim of responsibility, there has been speculation of the attack being linked to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group. The Lebanese banking sector has been at the centre of an escalating crisis since the United States passed a law requiring banks to take steps to target the finances of the group. Politically, it is clear that the target was Blom Bank only, Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk told Reuters news agency. READ MORE: Lebanon braced for fallout of US law on Hezbollah Lebanon decided to apply the controversial Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act, passed in the US in December. The law threatens sanctions and account closures against individuals who are found to finance Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group. Blom Bank has recently been involved in shutting accounts linked to Hezbollah, according to local media. The US classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist group, despite it being strongly supported by the Lebanese Shia community. Its members include government ministers, legislators and local councilors. READ MORE: Lebanon minister quits over Hezbollah domination Hezbollah initially responded to the countrys decision to apply the law by saying that it would lead to bankruptcy and a rift between a large segment of the Lebanese population and the banks. Central Bank governor Riad Salameh responded to the groups concerns by saying that the bank would review requests for the closure of any Hezbollah-affiliated accounts before taking any action, which seemed to ease the groups worries. A Hezbollah connection to the attack, however, could mean a potential heightening of political and sectarian rifts in Lebanons polarised political scene split roughly between a bloc led by Hezbollah and another headed by the Sunni Hariri bloc. Engineer complained about Boeings lightning-strike protection on the Dreamliner warning it could be lethal. The US aviation authority has outed a whistleblower who raised the alarm about what he felt were flaws in the lightning protection system on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jet. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) released documents following a freedom of information request, but failed to fully redact the name of the whistleblower in the papers. As a result, Al Jazeeras Investigative Unit was able to track him down. We are releasing the files, correctly redacted, and are protecting the whistleblowers identity at his request. He declined to be interviewed for this article. The FAA also declined to comment. Read original documents here: The former Boeing engineer sent documents to the FAA to support his allegations just two days after the 787 made its first ever commercial flight for Japanese airline ANA. He later wrote to Senator Patty Murray, who represents Washington state, in April 2012, alerting her to what he claimed were lightning strike safety violations on the 787 Dreamliners. He warned that Boeing was making lethal 787 flying passenger airplanes with scant regard to passengers safety, and had failed to recognise a safety flaw, failed to implement a solution to it, and had used fraudulent documents and illegal data representations in testing. Experts, managers and engineers who sign off the fraudulent documents simply lost their ingenuity, credibility, and integrity in its entirety. by A whistleblower at Boeing Experts, managers and engineers who sign off the fraudulent documents simply lost their ingenuity, credibility, and integrity in its entirety. They did so to support the ill-devised dictum of [Boeing] management, he said. As an engineer, I cannot allow this deliberate aversion to passenger safety. Both Boeing and the FAA investigated the allegations and concluded there was no problem. The whistleblower lost his job at Boeing. After receiving the letter, Senator Murray wrote to the FAA, who told her no unsafe condition exists and the Boeing 787 design is in compliance with regulations. Design challenge With a fuselage made from a composite material known as carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP), the 787 presented a particular challenge to engineers seeking to protect the Dreamliner from lightning strikes. Older passenger planes are built with metals that can conduct the electricity from a lightning strike around the fuselage, protecting the fuel tanks from any sparks or flames. Carbon fibre does not conduct electricity as easily and so presents a complicated engineering challenge. From the moment it was first announced in 2003, there was concern about protecting the Boeing 787 from a lighting strike. By 2006, the Seattle Times was reporting that a top safety-engineering team had expressed serious concern about the issue. Senior engineers wrote in an internal review that, it cannot be shown that the current wing-lightning-protection approach will preclude ignition sources in the fuel tank. A year later, another Boeing whistleblower appeared in a television special presented by Dan Rather, expressing a number of safety concerns, including lightning protection. Boeing rejected his allegations. Al Jazeera has now found another engineer who voiced his concerns as late as 2012, after the FAA had approved the Boeing 787 and after it had begun making regular commercial flights. Special condition Lightning protection on the 787 also presented a challenge for FAA specialists, who decided in 2009 to loosen their traditional regulations and replace them with a one-off rule what they call a special condition. FAA documents from two years earlier, released to Al Jazeera, reveal officials were struggling to come up with a solution. FAA engineer Mike Dostert, who works on fuel tank regulations, wrote in October 2007 that, we do not know what rules will ultimately be applied to lightning protection on the 787. The FAAs special condition ultimately required Boeing to prove that the chance of a Dreamliner crash from a lightning strike was extremely improbable, defined as one catastrophic failure in every one billion flight hours, a one-in-a-billion chance. Boeings 787 battery: Problems from the start The same standard was applied to the lithium-ion battery designed for use in the Dreamliner. That failed twice in two weeks, leading to a grounding in January 2013. The Boeing 787 fleet had flown just 52,000 hours, leading observers to note that was a one-in-52,000 chance and far short of the stated probability. However, Boeing had greater success with its lightning protection design than the lithium-ion battery. The FAA approved the 787 for flight in 2011 and since then 787s have survived a number of lightning strikes. The solution was to embed a wire mesh within the composite fuselage, which conducts any electrical charge away from the fuel tanks, which it supplemented with a number of other safety features. Boeing told Al Jazeera the 787 was designed with special lightning protections and meets all FAA requirements. The 787 during flight test and since beginning commercial operations has been involved in a number of lightning strikes [as would any airplane], and those protections have worked as designed. Forty-eight of the 49 victims identified as vigils are held across the US after shooting at gay nightclub in Orlando. Vigils have been held across the United States after the deadliest mass shooting in its history targeted a gay nightclub in the state of Florida. At least 49 people died and 53 were wounded in Sundays shooting in Orlando with the rampage only coming to an end after perpetrator Omar Mateen was shot dead in a gun battle with police officers. Forty-eight of the 49 victims have been identified. Twenty-four of the next of kin have been notified with more to come, Buddy Dyer, the mayor of Orlando, said on Monday morning. We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater. We will be defined by how we respond, how we treat each other and this community has stepped up to do that, Dyer added. Orlando Police chief John Mina described the shooting as one of the worst tragedies we have seen, adding that police officers were shaken by what they have seen inside the club. Its a tragedy not only for the city but the entire nation, he said. Just a look into the eyes of our officers told the whole story. The injured, many in critical condition, were transferred to nearby hospitals. Among those injured was one police officer, whose kevlar helmet was hit by a round from the suspect. The suspect exchanged gunfire with a police officer working at the club, which had more than 300 people inside. The gunman then went back inside and took hostages, Mina said. At around 5am, authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages. Ron Hopper, special FBI agent in charge of the Orlando office, confirmed that Mateen was interviewed twice by the agency in 2013, after he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties. In 2014, authorities interrogated Mateen anew for possible ties to an American suicide bomber. In both cases, the FBI closed the investigations as they turned out to be inconclusive at that time, Hopper said. Hopper also confirmed media reports that Mateen made 911 calls to police early on Sunday, and referred to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL also known as ISIS) group. Honouring the victims Late on Sunday, mourners gathered near the target of the attack, the Pulse nightclub, as well as landmarks in other cities. In New York, the Empire State Building went dark to honour the victims, while One Trade Center lit up its spire in the colours of the gay pride flag. READ MORE: Who was Omar Mateen? New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all flags would be flown at half-mast in the city and that security measures have been strengthened, in particular around places associated with the LGBT community. De Blasio told reporters that the shooting, which also left dozens injured, was against our values. But youll see a lot of additional police presence on the streets of the city, he added. No city in the world is better prepared to stop terror, to stop hate. Hundreds of people gathered on Sunday evening in Greenwich Village to reflect on the violence and leave flowers, candles and letters beside a sign reading Stop Hate. A person filled with hatred Earlier, US President Barack Obama condemned the shooting as an act of terror and an act of hate, calling the shooter a person filled with hatred. As Americans, we are united in grief and outrage, he said, adding that the attack was a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon and commit violence in the US. Florida Governor Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency in Orlando. Al Jazeeras Patty Culhane, reporting from Orlando, said politicians from opposite sides of the spectrum would be reacting in very different ways. Its been less than 24 hours but this is going to become a political issue what were going to see is Democrats wanting to put the emphasis on [banning] semi-automatic weapons, Culhane said. The Republicans are going to try taking advantage of the fact that people are scared of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant so were going to see [Democrats and Republicans] put the emphasis on two very different things. The nightclub shooting came just a day after a man thought to be a deranged fan fatally shot Christina Grimmie, a rising singing star who gained fame on YouTube and as a contestant on The Voice, while she was signing autographs after a concert in Orlando. The attacks were the worst in the US since the September 11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda in 2001. Tourist who said she was drugged and raped in Doha to be sent back to the Netherlands after fornication conviction. Doha, Qatar A Dutch woman who alleged she was raped after being drugged in an upmarket nightclub in Doha was convicted of having sex out of wedlock by a Qatari court on Monday and given a one-year suspended sentence. The woman, 22, was ordered to be deported to the Netherlands once the ruling was formalised, which is expected over the coming days, the ambassador to the Netherlands Yvette Burghgraef- van Eechoud told Al Jazeera at the courthouse. The accused man in the case, identified as Omar Abdullah al-Hasan, was also convicted of having sex outside of marriage a serious offence in this conservative Gulf state. A court official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said that the man was from Syria. Hasan will receive 100 lashes for illicit sex acts and another 40 lashes as punishment for public drunkenness, and will be deported. Hasan and the Dutch citizen, identified as Laura, were not present as the judge read out the verdicts. The court official described the one-year suspended sentence as lenient. Had she been a Muslim woman, she would have received at least five years in jail. No one can get out of such charges here in Qatar, he said. Qatar: Dutch woman who alleged rape to appear in court Van Eechoud said the woman had asked her to convey the message to the media and the public to respect her privacy at this time. We will do everything we can to get her out of the country as soon as possible. Under the circumstances, Laura is doing fine, she said. Laura said she was drugged during a party in March at the Crystal Lounge nightclub at the W Doha Hotel, and woke up in an unfamiliar apartment when she realised she had been sexually assaulted. She had been on holiday at the time, and reported the incident to Qatari police. She was arrested on March 14, and has been held ever since on charges of committing illicit sex acts. Hasan has acknowledged having sex with the woman but said it had been consensual, according to Dutch media reports. The Dutch embassy told Al Jazeera that officials have been in close contact with Laura and her family in the Netherlands of the past few months. The victims mother was quoted by Dutch media describing the ordeal her daughter was going through as a nightmare. Im shaking in my legs. I cant believe it, the womans mother, Marian, told the Dutch news programme EenVandaag after learning she would be deported. She has been sentenced. I dont know for what but I dont care. This is the best I could have wished for. Follow Ali Younes on Twitter: @ ali_reports Fighting persists in Islamic holy month of fasting, with many women and children among the dead. At least 224 people were killed in the first week of Ramadan in Syria, with the majority of the deaths resulting from bombings by Syrian and Russian warplanes, according to a monitor. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said on Monday that between 6 and 12 June the first week of the Islamic holy month of fasting at least 148 civilians, including 50 children and 15 women, were killed as helicopters dropped explosive barrel bombs. It added that at least 12 people were killed in shelling by rebels and fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group. At least one man was executed by ISIL in the same period, the Observatory said. We renew our condemnation of the international community for its continued terrifying silence about the crimes committed against the Syrian people, the monitor said. The death toll includes casualties from air strikes on a market in Idlib city, in which at least 40 civilians died on Sunday. Activists say most of those victims were women and children. Several monitoring groups, as well as Turkish authorities, accused Russia of conducting the air strikes in Idlib, but Russian authorities denied any involvement. The area is controlled by a coalition of rebel groups called The Army of Conquest, which includes al-Nusra Front. The coalition is not included in a partial ceasefire, which was negotiated in February. The Observatory report comes as hundreds of civilians are fleeing the ISIL stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria and as fears grow for the thousands who remain trapped in the city, which is besieged by US-backed Kurdish and Arab forces. The Syrian conflict, which began with peaceful protests in March 2011, has escalated into a multi-sided civil war. The death toll has risen to more than 280,000 people, while half the countrys population have been forced from their homes, according to UN estimates. White House hopeful says he will suspend immigration from countries with a proven history of terrorism. Donald Trump has renewed calls for a ban on Muslims entering the United States following the deadly Orlando shooting and said if elected president he will suspend immigration from countries with a proven history of terrorism. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee on Monday redoubled calls for temporarily banning Muslims, saying that they would only be allowed in if they were properly and perfectly screened. When Im elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats, Trump told supporters in New Hampshire. Trump is basically saying that my parents shouldn't have been allowed to enter this country, because of nothing more than their religion. Shadi Hamid (@shadihamid) June 13, 2016 He did not specify what countries would be affected or whether the suspension would apply regardless of religion. We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer. In his fiery address, Trump incorrectly referred to the Orlando shooting suspect Omar Mateen as an Afghanistan native. Mateen was born in New York City to parents who emigrated from Afghanistan. Trump claimed the Orlando shooter was foreign-born. Actually, he was born in the same NYC borough as Trump.https://t.co/CMTYW6Tg6p Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) June 13, 2016 Despite the years-long vetting process refugees must go through to arrive in the US, Trump labelled Americas immigration system as dysfunctional, adding that authorities were unaware of who was in the country. Each year, the United States permanently admits more than 100,000 immigrants from the Middle East, and many more from Muslim countries outside the Middle East. Our government has been admitting ever-growing numbers, year after year, without any effective plan for our security, he said. He accused his likely opponent, Hillary Clinton, of trying to expand immigration and refugee programmes to allow more Syrians in, calling the move a Trojan horse. Trump just blamed violence in the U.S. on Syrian refugees. But are they really dangerous? https://t.co/0TzTgu7gKC AJ+ (@ajplus) June 13, 2016 The White House hopeful delivered a withering critique of US President Barack Obamas foreign policy, saying that intelligence agencies trying to stop attacks were being held back by the president. Earlier on Monday, Obama said there was no clear evidence that the attack at a nightclub, which left 49 dead, was directed from abroad, pointing out that the killer had been influenced by extremist propaganda over the Internet. Trump has been increasingly virulent in his remarks targeting Muslims since the deadly Paris attacks, and again after the San Bernardino shooting attack in California. Gainesville locals turned to love and community strength Sunday in the wake of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. The gunman, who authorities identified as Omar Mateen, was a 29-year-old security guard from Port St. Lucie, Florida. He targeted the club, Pulse, early Sunday morning, and he died in a gunfight with police officers there. He shot and injured 103 people, and at least 50 of those people have been confirmed dead, according to the Associated Press. As the investigation continues at the club, families have been waiting to hear the names of those injured or killed. In response, the Pride Community Center of North Central Florida, located at 3131 NW 13th St., hosted a safe place for Gainesville residents Sunday afternoon. Some attendees said they felt discriminated against, while others said this would make them stronger and would continue to support the community by going to pride parades. There was no discussion of current gun laws. The hate is the weapon, one LGBTQ+ identifier said. The co-president of the center, Terry Fleming, said he is particularly disturbed the attack happened in what was supposed to be a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. When that is shattered, its difficult to deal with, Fleming said. To put on the event, Fleming partnered with the director of the Alachua County Crisis Center, Ali Martinez. Fleming and Martinez said they created the safe space so people could talk openly about their feelings. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Martinez said she recognized the LGBTQ+ community was feeling that much more vulnerable today. People need a chance to express all their difficult feelings, the 39-year-old said. Martinez said anyone can share his or her feelings at the Alachua County Crisis Center, which offers free crisis services and has a hotline open 24 hours each day at 352-264-6789. In order to get through this, she said, people need to turn toward community, connection and healing. We need to keep talking; we need to hold each other, Martinez said. When your skin is either dry or oily, taking care of it is a pretty straightforward process. But when you've got a little bit of both, things start to get complicated. Hydrating creams are too hydrating, oil-absorbing masks are too absorbing, balancing lotions never seem to do much balancing. And that's bad news for a lot of people. "Many of my patients have combination skinit's supercommon," says Ranella Hirsch, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine. If many of the following statements sound familiar, you officially have combination skin. The good news is that we've put together the most comprehensive guide to treating combination skin yet. 1. Twenty minutes after washing your face, you see oiliness in certain parts of your face and not in others. In the morning, wash your entire face with a gentle cleanser, like Cetaphil Skin Cleanser. Then go over only the T-zone with a Clarisonic cleansing brush. The physical motion is enough to remove the dead skin and debris. At night, wash your face with the same mild cleanser and use the brush again only if your T-zone is very oily. 2. When you use a moisturizer for normal skin, it makes your cheeks feel good, but your T-zone looks like an oil slick. Yes, you still need to moisturize, but use a lotion that combines mattifying ingredients (salicylic acid, silica) with oil-free hydrators (glycerin, hyaluronic acid). Try Vichy Normaderm Daily Anti-Acne Hydrating Lotion. 3. The pores on your nose are visibly larger than the pores on your cheeks and jawline. Though nothing has been proven to actually shrink pores, there is a way to make them look smaller. Alexa Boer Kimball, an assistant professor of dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine, recommends applying products containing retinol, alpha hydroxy acid, or beta hydroxy acid, which help keep pores from getting clogged. 4. You have dandruff. "This isn't a definite indicator, but it is very common for women with combination skin to have dry, flaky patches on their scalp as well," says Francesca Fusco, an assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and an assistant attending dermatologist at Mount Sinai in New York City. Try Head & Shoulders Instant Relief Shampoo and Conditioner, which will minimize flakes after just one wash. 2005 .. POINT DE VUE India: After 6/12, USA should eliminate Jihadi terrorism by roping in India through CW by BREXIT Alwihda Info | Par Hem Raj Jain - 13 Juin 2016 My condolence for killed and prayers for early recovery of injured in terrorist attack in Orlando, USA on June, 12 in which 50 have been killed and 53 injured for which, as per prominent media, ISIS has taken responsibility. Dear Editor Sub:- (i)- Merely military and economic power will not do, political power too needed (ii)- Muslim countries (especially in NAME) finding difficult to stop breeding of Jihadi terrorism (iii)- SAARC region also a ticking bomb and will be conducive for Jihadi terrorism (iv)- Muslims cannot be allowed to live without others (v)- Practicing secular democracy of ~ 1.28 billion India can be used (vi)- Realized Common Wealth the easiest alternative (vii)- Later on by assimilation, remaining Muslim countries can be brought in Common Wealth (CW) ---- My condolence for killed and prayers for early recovery of injured in terrorist attack in Orlando, USA on June, 12 in which 50 have been killed and 53 injured for which, as per prominent media, ISIS has taken responsibility. This Orlando terrorist attack (after ~ 6 months of San Bernardino terrorist attack) has once again proved that unless USA changes its policy, as given below, the leader of free world, USA will not be able to eliminate global Jihadi terrorism which is bringing shame to / damaging the credibility of USA:- (1)- First and foremost USA has to understand that merely military and economic power will not do rather political power too will be needed to eliminate global Jihadi terrorism which is emanating from Muslim countries (especially at present from NAME region) (2)- USA should also understand that given the nature of Islam especially its militancy the Muslim countries (especially in NAME) are finding it difficult to stop the breeding of Jihadi terrorism [that is the reason even US led coalition of 65 countries (including Muslim countries of NAME) has failed to eliminate Jihadi terrorism]. What makes the matter worst is that SAARC region is also a ticking bomb and will be conducive for Jihadi terrorists if this matter is not addressed urgently by world community / USA (3)- In SAARC region it is not merely chronic & gory Kashmir problem between two nuclear countries India and Pakistan but new developments in N-E (Especially after elections in Assam) things have become explosive due to problem of Bangladeshi illegal immigrants as explained at: http://www.alwihdainfo.com/Explosive-development-in-India-has-huge-potential-of-attracting-ISIS-in-SAARC_a33775.html (4)- In a nutshell USA should understand that Muslims cannot be allowed to live without others (who believe in and practice secularism). In the given situation this can be achieved if practicing secular democracy of ~ 1.28 billion India is used for this cause by making Muslims and others (who believe in and practice secularism) to live under one political arrangement which can be achieved by Realized Common Wealth as mentioned at: http://www.alwihdainfo.com/Brexit-good-for-UK-if-Common-Wealth-realized_a34940.html (5)- USA may think that present establishment of India may not agree for Realized Common Wealth sponsored by UK, against which India fought independence struggle but situation is not so for three reasons:- (i)- Indians are not ungrateful people. How can India forget the political genius of UK which in addition to many other laws gave four major laws to British-India namely [Civil Procedure Code (CPC), Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Evidence Act] which are successfully running present India of ~ 1.28 billion people ? (ii)- India did not raise guns against Britishers for independence and provided ~ 2 million people including soldiers to UK during each of World War I & II. Hence in view of such goodwill for UK in India, the UK should endeavor to realize Common-Wealth by opting out of EU (the Brexit) as explained above which will go a long way in eliminating global Jihadi terrorism. (iii)- Presently India is suffering fatally from caste and communal politics as explained below:- (A)- Just to give only few recent examples and which is evident from mass scale violent agitation (unchecked by State) for reservation by Jats in Haryana and what happened in Mathura where a Yadav (from a caste of Hindu order) was allowed to raise private army of over 3,000 by Yadav government in U.P. (and both in the vicinity of Indias capital Delhi) (B)- Communal politics has come in the fore especially after PM Modis BJP government in Power where Ghar-Wapsi (re-conversion now from Islam to Hinduism), Love Jihad, anti-beef-eating, compulsory chanting of Bharat-Mata (otherwise expulsion from Legislative assembly), Ramzade v/s Haramzade, Muslim-free- India, construction of Ram Temple (demolished in 1992 despite Supreme Court) etc by BJP office-bearers, Legislatives and Ministers are fast spreading communal poison in the polity of India --With the result India is fast moving towards anarchy hence well-meaning majority of Indians will rather welcome Realized Common Wealth. And in order make it feasible a political party with the name Common Wealth Party can be launched in India which will contest elections for Local Bodies, State Legislative Assemblies and Union Parliament. (6)- Once Common Wealth of 53 countries is realized remaining Muslim countries (of NAME and Pacific region) can be brought in CW by assimilation. Therefore without wasting any further time the USA should persuade UK to take the lead for realizing CW by BREXIT and by motivating remaining 52 member countries of CW so that global Jihadi terrorism can be eliminated effectively. Regards Hem Raj Jain (Author of Betrayal of Americanism) Bengaluru, India Dans la meme rubrique : < > Tchad : "une cuisante defaite" pour "les pessimistes" du Dialogue national (Abdelmanane Khatab) Tchad : lechec de la politique de lemploi, une opportunite entrepreneuriale ? Tchad : aller au federalisme dans ce contexte, cest cautionner leclatement (Dr Oguelemi) Pour toute information, contactez-nous au : +(235) 99267667 ; 62883277 ; 66267667 (Bureau N'Djamena) Asserts the BBC promotes genocide ideology: Yes, yes, absolutely. She says, I don't see what's wrong with staying in office, on the subject of President Kagame being allowed to stay in office until 2034. Denies supporting fighters in Burundi: Rwanda has better and more effective ways of causing trouble In a heated interview with Al Jazeera Englishs current affairs show UpFront, Rwandan foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo denied a wide range of allegations including human rights abuses, suppression of press freedoms, and extrajudicial killings brought forth against Rwanda by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and countries Rwanda is allied with. Let me put it this way, Rwanda, as any other country that I know of, has its own way of doing things, Mushikiwabo said in response to the remark that Rwanda seems to be on its own in defending itself. And not everybody should be agreeing with what the government of Rwanda is doing. On Rwandas intolerance for opposition voices and government criticism, UpFront host Mehdi Hasan asked Mushikiwabo if she really believed the BBC was banned from Rwanda because it promoted genocide ideology. Yes, yes, absolutely. The BBC produced a documentary film which is a total denial of the history of Rwanda, particularly the history of the genocide, she said. In Rwanda that is not acceptable. Mushikiwabo also commented on the alleged murder in 2014 of exiled Rwandan intelligence officer Patrick Karegeya, who was found dead in his hotel room in Johannesburg. Hasan asked Mushikiwabo if defense Mmnister James Kabarebes response to the killing When you choose to be a dog, you die like a dog" suggested the governments complicity in Karegeyas death. Let me again put it this way: I don't know anybody who betrays a country that gets rewarded, she said. In an intense exchange with Hasan, the foreign minister asserted that Karegeya, who was allegedly killed while in exile despite never having been convicted of a crime, threatened Rwanda. Why should I be unhappy about my enemies and people who threaten? she asked. When it came to Rwandas involvement in the violent political crisis in neighbouring Burundi, Mushikiwabo insisted her countrys only association was in taking care of Burundan refugees. She commented on the crisis, saying, When people make wrong choices then they have to live with the consequences. Mushikiwabo, however, denied the UN Panel of Experts report from earlier this year that accuses Rwanda of recruiting and training Burundan refugees in Rwanda with the goal of ousting Burundan President Pierre Nkurunziza. If I wanted to overthrow I would use my own army; I would not pick up children in a refugee camp, she said. Rwanda has better and more effective ways of causing trouble if that is what the Rwandan government wanted. Discussing President Kagames recent comments that no one in the media, the UN, or human rights organisations has the moral right to criticise him or Rwanda at all, Mushikiwabo said, What the president is saying is what he believes. President Kagame is a very accountable man, and everything he's done for Rwanda is out in the open. Last December, President Kagame (who came into power in 2000) supported a constitutional amendment that would allow him to run for a third seven-year term and seek two additional five-year terms, potentially staying in office until 2034. When asked if she supported it, Mushikiwabo said, Absolutely. President Kagame has responded to what the people of Rwanda wanted, and there is nothing wrong with that, she contended. I don't see what's wrong with staying in office. I think what we need to be worried about is what people do while in office. Watch and embed the 3-minute clip of Mushikiwabo talking about Rwanda's relationship with Burundi at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2z47tmnKYk . Watch and embed the full 12-minute interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FELiweMi4tA . UpFront, hosted by Mehdi Hasan, airs on Fridays at 19.30GMT. For more information, visit www.aljazeera.com/upfront and follow @AJUpfront on Twitter. On June 16, the Financial Stability Oversight Council is due to file arguments on why the federal courts should uphold the council's designation of MetLife as a "systemically important financial institution." The FSOC is appealing a lower court's decision that overturned the MetLife designation, in a severe rebuke to the council of regulators created under the Dodd-Frank Act. While that battle rages in the courts, it's vital that we do not lose sight of the need to reform FSOC. Even if the initial decision against FSOC is upheld, there remains a compelling case to pursue legislation like the bipartisan Financial Stability Oversight Council Improvement Act, sponsored by Reps. Dennis A. Ross, R-Fla., John Delaney, D-Md., and 58 other Republicans and Democrats. The ruling by Judge Rosemary M. Collyer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is welcome. But it does not guarantee any procedural protections for the next company that the council targets for SIFI designation. That is because FSOC could still move a financial institution toward SIFI designation without first having to spell out for the company what the risks are, or giving the company any chance to restructure or address those risks itself. Nor would the council be required to give the company's primary regulator a chance to address those risks before FSOC designates the company as a SIFI and turns it over to the Federal Reserve for extra regulation. Instead, the next designee would have to retrace MetLife's steps to the courthouse to get due process. The FSOC Improvement Act would provide the missing safeguards. But its impact would go beyond mere process: The bill's reforms would actually make FSOC more effective in reducing systemic risk. Under the bill, the oversight council would be required to spell out clearly the risks that a prospective SIFI poses. That common-sense step is missing now, but isn't understanding a risk the first step toward mitigating it? The legislation would also give the company's primary regulator a chance to address any identified risks before FSOC designates. Fixing specific risks is more effective than wrapping a company in costly red tape. The bill would also give the company itself the chance to restructure or change its practices to reduce FSOC-identified systemic risks. If the goal is to reduce risk in the system, companies should be given a chance to do so before they're designated not after, as has been the case with some SIFIs. Collyer's ruling put the council on notice that it needs to raise its game. But is there any evidence that a chastened council might heed that warning and reform itself? Unfortunately, the signs are not encouraging. Instead, FSOC officials and their supporters are digging in, warning that any change to the Dodd-Frank framework whether from the courts or from Capitol Hill will undermine financial stability. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said that the court's decision "overturn[ed] the conclusions of experienced financial regulators imposed new requirements that Congress never enacted, and contradicted key policy lessons from the financial crisis." One wonders whether Secretary Lew actually read Judge Collyer's opinion. The decision didn't bar FSOC from designating SIFIs in fact, the court rejected claims that FSOC lacked authority to designate the insurer. But the council has to follow its own rules and Judge Collyer found it failed to do so with MetLife. The judge's opinion notes that the council's explanation of MetLife's designation "hardly adhered to any standard when it came to assessing MetLife's threat to U.S. financial stability. This Court cannot affirm a finding that MetLife's distress would cause severe impairment when FSOC refused to undertake that analysis itself." Lacking the necessary analysis to show that MetLife met the standards the council itself established, the court rendered its designation "arbitrary and capricious." The judge also found that FSOC ignored the potential consequences of its actions. The council "intentionally refused to consider the cost of regulation, a consideration that is essential to reasoned rulemaking," the opinion states. Applying the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, Collyer dismissed the council's claim that Dodd-Frank exempted designation decisions from cost-benefit analysis. Collyer's decision is firmly rooted in well-established principles of administrative law. The judge noted that FSOC's determination to designate MetLife was so flawed that she didn't need to address MetLife's other powerful arguments against the council including constitutional concerns. I believe MetLife should prevail against the council's appeal. But we shouldn't wait to reform the council through legislation. The courts could address a few of the many flaws in the council's SIFI process, but there's still a need for the bipartisan FSOC Improvement Act. It's the better route to the ultimate goal: a sounder and more stable financial system with more accountable regulation. Paul Schott Stevens is president and CEO of the Investment Company Institute, a leading global trade association for regulated funds, including U.S. mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. U.S. Bancorp in Minneapolis has a new chief financial officer. The $429 billion-asset company said that Terry Dolan will take over the job Aug. 1. Dolan currently serves as vice chairman of wealth management and securities services. He has been with the company for 18 years and has previously served as controller. In his new role, he will report directly to Richard Davis, the chairman and chief executive. Dolan succeeds Kathy Rogers, who is stepping down due to "changing family circumstances," as well as a desire to be in Cincinnati full time, the company said. Rogers took over as CFO just over a year ago, in January 2015. "Executive development is an ongoing conversation at U.S. Bank," Davis said in a press release on Monday. "We are fortunate to have a board of directors that demands bench strength and leadership versatility." Rogers plans to stay with the company where she has worked for nearly three decades as head of stress-testing. She will also participate in the company's second-quarter earnings call on July 15. Rogers was honored last year as one of American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking. She was No. 3 on the list of 25 Women to Watch. Like many of its competitors, U.S. Bancorp has recently struggled to increase profits, as rates remain low and losses from bad oil loans increase. Profits declined 3% in the first quarter, to $1.4 billion, compared with a year earlier. The company said in May that it expects expenses to increase in the second quarter. A portion of those costs stem from compliance-related activities. U.S. Bancorp last fall was hit with a consent order tied to deficiencies in anti-money-laundering controls. Looking at the morning paper last Monday gave me a start, and not just because color photos of a wild-eyed Hillary Clinton with a pasted on smile still shock. The Washington Post headline screamed that Hillary had won the Democratic nomination, with stories following on the "historic" achievement. What's this? I thought did I sleep for three days? Is it Wednesday, with the results from the California primary already in? The Post along with the rest of the mainstream media anointed Clinton the winner without giving poor Bernie Sanders a last-gasp West Coast chance. And, generally speaking, what critical analysis there was about Hillary's sudden historic victory assumed that it was created by unallocated superdelegates to pre-empt a possible Sanders victory in California. That is almost certainly true. The other thing Clinton and her supporters in the media want to do by anointing her as early as possible is to pre-empt Hillary's other nemesis, the FBI. There was never much doubt that Hillary would win the nomination even if Sanders pulled out a victory in California. So whatever damage control the early victory announcement produced would have been cosmetic in any event. However, with respect to the FBI's ongoing investigation of Clinton's home-brewed email server, the stakes are far higher and the early claim of victory more significant. The FBI is investigating likely violations of federal laws governing official record-keeping, maintaining classified information, evidence-tampering, obstruction of justice, and possible pay-for-play bribery through the Clinton foundation. Prosecution of any one of these infractions could reroute Hillary's march to the Oval Office into a penitentiary. Hillary knows that actual prosecution by the Obama administration's Justice Department is a very long shot, even assuming that the FBI refers charges. Nonetheless, the mere referral of charges by the FBI to Justice would damage her campaign and increase doubt among a voting public that already overwhelmingly regards her as dishonest. What FBI director James Comey intends is perhaps the greatest conundrum in Washington these days. Is he playing Hamlet to Hillary's Claudius, introspective, doubtful, and unwilling to strike the killing blow? Is he just being a careful apolitical policeman? Or is he a political hack who will do what's best for Jim Comey? Perhaps it's a bit of all three. Whatever the truth, it is in Hillary's best interest to discourage Comey as much as possible. Her early claim to be the Democrat nominee serves that purpose. If Comey is an honest policeman, the best time for him to have acted was before Hillary claimed the nomination. Then he would only have been referring charges against another albeit notorious private citizen. After the nomination, Hillary becomes not only the standard bearer of one of America's two great political parties, but a "historic" figure as the first woman to do so. As such, it behooved both Hillary and her backers in the media to reach that point ASAP. As far as Hillary, the mainstream media, and the Democratic Party are concerned, that has now happened, even if the convention is still many weeks away. As a political and media matter, an FBI referral at this point will be against not only the Democratic Party's presidential nominee, but also a historic figure, an affront to the American political system and women everywhere. Hillary is now well positioned to play the old Clinton game, one she perfected long ago in defense of her husband's transgressions: that of the "vast right wing conspiracy" that through a Republican FBI director would derail the first female nominee of a major political party in American history. No matter what Comey does with this case, he will face accusations of political motivations. But such charges are more effective when the race is down to a one-on-one Democrat vs. Republican, and suddenly a Republican FBI director (no matter that he was appointed by a Democrat president) drops a criminal referral on the "historic" Democrat nominee. Was Comey planning to refer the charges before the convention and thinking he had a few more weeks to get it done? Did Hillary get wind of it and then get the last few super-delegates she needed to declare, so that she would not only dampen the effect of a Sanders victory in California, but make it more difficult for Comey to refer charges? Both suppositions, though unprovable, are reasonably likely. That Obama quickly weighed in and endorsed Clinton supports this view. Josh Earnest's ridiculously cynical and dishonest answer to a question about it at a recent new conference confirms this. When asked if Obama's endorsement compromised the FBI investigation by telegraphing his view on the matter to the agents involved, Earnest spun out a long-winded lie that amounted to "no," but what he really said was this: "yes, of course they know the president's views, and the president's opinion has not changed he has no intention of allowing the Justice Department to prosecute Mrs. Clinton. So those agents are wasting their time and risking their careers." So what happens now? If Comey is an honest policeman, he has to refer charges to Justice against Hillary eventually, and the sooner the better. That may mean that some matters remain under investigation (e.g., the Clinton Foundation) while others relating to the mishandling of federal records and classified documents (and possibly obstruction of justice) should be ready to go. The closer to the election, the better the Democrat case that the referral is politically inspired. There has been a fair bit of speculation lately that an FBI referral will send tremors through the Democrats, and they will dump Hillary in favor of a Biden/Warren ticket or suchlike. While anything is possible particularly in this strange election year this is still highly unlikely. The future tends to resemble the past, and if the past is any indication, Clinton, the Democrats, and their media enablers will react with fury to such a referral and attack Comey rather than abandon Hillary. Obama, the Democrats, and the mainstream media are armoring up Clinton (against the FBI and other threats) for a final, brutal, knock-down-drag-out fight for the presidency. The Clintons do not back down, admit wrongdoing, or give up, and Obama is unlikely to force the issue. Everyone knows that Hillary is a weak and corrupt candidate, but Obama, the Democrats, and the media think the Republicans are worse off. Unless Trump and the Republicans get their act together, the their enemies will probably be proved right. The majority of the United Kingdom's people currently understand that they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by leaving the European Union. They refuse to be bullied by Eurocrats, such as German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande, who advocate a single European government being forced on all EU members, along with a dysfunctional, multiracial, multiethnic, multicultural, and multilingual progressive vision for society. They seek to regain the U.K.'s lost sovereign power. And they will take measures to strengthen their democracy, national security, and economy by taking an enormously beneficial step toward reshaping their future and marking their vote to leave the European Union on June 23. A federal Europe, a powerful centralized government for Europe, was never a British dream. The EU has steadily worked toward that end, even though it began as an economic partnership only. The EU now maintains its own parliament and supreme court, and more often than not, the U.K.'s demands are dismissed by this "economic partnership," since Britain holds a small minority of voting rights within the EU. The EU makes 60% of the U.K.'s laws in corporate business, manufacturing, farming, oil exploration, medical research, transportation, and real estate. It has also forced Britain to accept millions of people from other EU nations into its country, and too often, it has been at Britain's expense, when poor Europeans take advantage of the U.K.'s welfare system. Any properly led nation should not desire membership in the business-inhibiting EU, a political entity that mandates 2,009-word regulations on matters like growing and processing walnuts for sale. There are only 66 words in the Lord's Prayer and 270 words in the Gettysburg Address. In a desperate attempt to force Britain to remain in the EU, Prime Minister David Cameron has even sought allies in the Labor Party, such as former union chief Brendan Barber and former Labor Minister Harriet Harman. Both the Conservative and Labor Parties are split on the Brexit issue, and about half of the Labor Party sees Brussels as a protector for strikes without ballots and an ally in the courts. Noting that Conservative budget cuts are dwarfed by payments to the EU, the Labor member of Parliament Kate Hoey has stated that the EU backs big business and tramples down British workers' wages, even as it exploits Eastern European wages. Her view is supported by RMT, the left-wing labor union, and their assessment just happens to be accurate in this case. In a recent Ipsos Mori poll, 58% of Britons don't believe that Brexit will harm their standard of living, and if the Telegraph's May 31 report on EU fraud is accurate, the U.K. is certainly heading for greener pastures by leaving. More than $955 million (670 million) was lost to fraud last year, and although four in ten EU officials were implicated in these crimes, only a few have been fired. Compounding its economic funk, the EU is also trying to force Britain and the entire EU membership to follow German chancellor Merkel's example, the worst foreign policy decision in Europe since 1945, by opening up its country to millions of Muslims, who do not qualify as "refugees" in any classical definition. Thousands of these "refugees" are aggressive young able-bodied men, of fighting age, who enter Europe chanting, "Allahu akbar." The EU has zero respect or concern for its members' national sovereignty. Its recent threat to fine Poland $1.5 billion for refusing to accept Muslim refugees/invaders illustrates this perfectly. It also shows how much power it believes it holds, and it will not leave the U.K. unscathed from its tyrannical shenanigans if Britain remains. A fierce and relentless critic of the EU, Poland has its own "Polexit" movement underway. Several other nations, such as Sweden, Switzerland, France, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, have similar movements ongoing. They all have one thing in common: they want a Europe comprising free nations. Also, some countries, like Poland and Hungary, assert that the current massive wave of Muslim migrants threatens both their national security and their countries' Christian identity. Ironically, Polish foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski pointedly suggested that hundreds of thousands of Syrian male "refugees" of fighting age should be in Syria fighting, rather than being dispersed throughout the EU nations. He stated: "They expect us [the West] to send our troops to fight and die for Syria, while hundreds of thousands of Syrians sip coffee ... at the old town square, chatting up our women, and watch us fight for their security." In April, Nigel Farage, UKIP leader, noted that the Muslim migration is "a fifth column living within our communities, that hates us, and wants to kill us and ... overturn our complete way of life." Continuing further, Farage stated: "[T]he Christians of Syria and Iraq ... only 10% of what they were a few years ago ... qualify for refugee status because they've been persecuted for who they are. I want us to welcome genuine refugees, not the disaster that is engulfing much of Europe today." Britain already leads Europe's intelligence community, and much of Britain's national security concerns are handled through NATO, so Brexit will cost Britain next to nothing. The gains will be substantial. The U.K. can exit the anti-nation-state European Convention on Human Rights, making it easier to extradite and deport terrorists, and more importantly, the U.K. will be able to assert and enforce its own immigration policy without EU interference. Chris Grayling, leader of the British House of Commons, drives home the case for Brexit with the most important point in his May 23 Washington Post editorial, stating: "It is much more accurate to consider the differences between parts of the European Union in terms of a comparison between the United States and Bolivia, rather than one between Nevada and Maryland. Different countries, different cultures, different economies, with huge gulfs between them[.] ... The United States would never accept a situation in which the countries of Latin America could join together and decide what laws should apply in Washington. It rightly expects to be a strong, independent country. That's what I want for Britain too." Britons, rally for God, country, family, and queen, and reject the EU's globalist designed tyranny that has no regard for your struggles to secure a council flat, a doctor's appointment, a seat for your child in a good school, and the harm caused by the greatest wave of immigration in U.K. history. Reject the EU's, the Bank of England's, and the International Monetary Fund's failed crap economic experiment that has created unemployment rates of 38% to 48% in many EU nations. And if you love England and wish her to survive as a unique nation, reject the dark night the EU has planned for her and embrace control of your nation and your destiny on June 23 by embracing freedom. Vote leave. As we are inundated with its the gun misdirection following last weekends terror attack in Orlando, lets look at what has recently come to pass on the left for acceptable political action. After all, what leftists hate to admit is that before one of their own engages in violence, whether on a street in Chicago, or at a Republican campaign event, or a nightclub in Orlando, myriad other deviations from psychological-normal must have had to occur. Well-adjusted, intellectual people do not default to violence to achieve their goals. Its hard to know where to start, but lets start with an interesting confluence. The Orlando shooter was both a radicalized Muslim and a Democrat. Has anyone else noticed that it is getting increasingly difficult to tell the difference between the two in terms of methods and tactics in pursuit of their ideological goals? Perhaps it is not coincidental that leftists, who are practiced apologists for militant, violent Islamism, appear to have become increasingly open to the use of violence by their own street-level followers in advancement of their agenda of dismantling this country and its founding principles. That is, they are increasingly using violence as a tool to subvert our incompatible American culture in order to implant their own. Sound familiar to anyone aware of radical Islam? Have you also noticed how leftist members of academia, and even some politicians, are more comfortable musing about how their political opponents deserve to be tortured or killed for rejecting the goals of these fascists, who would murder them for disagreeing? In a civilized culture, rational people refrain from even broaching a discussion of who should be imprisoned or killed for political disagreement. The left has begun to step more fully over that forbidden line, albeit much more recently than Islam and Sharia, and it should concern every American who has read a speck of history that leftists are becoming more comfortable both advocating and publicly ignoring acts of violence by their fellows against their opponents. History is replete with political movements which progressed from whispering of such things, to speaking openly of them, to then putting them into practice as soon as they believed they could do so safely, that is, without fear of retaliation. Even Hillary Clinton, whose sole redeeming quality used to be that she seemed to have some vague sense of American values, has spoken openly of how she will eradicate those Constitutional rights she and her followers simply cannot permit. She is promising a totalitarian dictatorship because she no longer fears punishment or rejection, and it is being applauded by like-minded zealots. In an uncivilized culture, where coercion and violence are acceptable tools of governance, such talk is common among the mental defectives who have declared themselves the cultural and political winners. To them, their opponents are the literal embodiment of all of the propaganda they have ever been fed, even when they cannot see or identify a single person in their own experience who demonstrates in person what they claim to abhor. When the individual they seek to injure or kill is just an illusion they have imposed upon that fellow human being, practicing evil as only they have defined it, then everything they do can be justified to their theology/ideology. Welcome back to Germany in the late 30s, or ISIS at present, and Orlando last weekend. Increasingly, both radical Islamists and radical Democrats appear to share the mindset that it is their right to injure or perhaps kill those who oppose them. They cant admit this, of course, so they must offer up other excuses. The fault always lies with the victim or the weapon, but never with the radical who does the harm. After all, they rationalize, he or she was pushed to act, so any action they were forced to take was understandable, at least to the offended radical. They blame the woman who was raped, or the gun the killer used, but not their radical compatriot. As if to prove this point, in response to the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida Imam Muhammad Musri equated the terrorist event with mass shootings generally, purposefully ignoring the ideology of the shooter. Similarly, uber-liberal Sally Kohn tweeted, Every religion has sub-groups of intolerant extremism. You cant tell me the problem is religion. The problem is intolerant extremism. Indeed. As an anti-American leftist, Ms. Kohn marinates in a cult of intolerant extremism in its unhinged rejection of all forms of disagreement. Adherents to her ideology, her secular religion of anti-American multiculturalism, are becoming more brazen and fearless in their verbal and physical attacks on those who express support for this countrys tradition of individual rather than collective rights, or support for a certain presidential candidate who says he will slow the lefts wreckage. It is her ideology of increasingly intolerant extremism, rooted deeply in her political party, that has led us to fear the ability of other Americans to do us harm. It is shared among millions of deluded liberals, who pretend that we can stuff this country as full as possible of incompatible cultures, traditions, values, languages and beliefs, or force any other cultural aberration upon an unwilling populace without national discussion or unity, and that violence and threats of death are appropriate methods of persuasion should we disagree. As we have seen at recent political rallies and gatherings, leftists are increasingly adopting the Islamist perspective that violence against nonbelievers in the advancement of their intolerant extremism is perfectly acceptable, because their opponents deserve it for their apostasy. This often takes the form of actual physical violence, but it can also take the form of an entire police force, lets say in San Jose, standing passively by while those citizens who support an accountable government are pursued, assaulted, and beaten by a radical mob with whom the local government shares its political beliefs. By refusing to intervene, the radical local establishment uses like-minded, violent leftists as a form of goon squad, carrying out the political punishment the politicians still dont feel they can enforce against defenseless citizens. Not yet, anyway. The hatemongers, whether religious or politically liberal, prefer we assume theirs is a religion or ideology of peace for as long as possible. However, as we see violence on the rise around the world and at home, practiced by those who share a hatred for an America which resists totalitarianism and servitude to radical ideologies, we do ourselves a disservice by not admitting that all radicals eventually resort to violence. They cannot otherwise convince nonbelievers to surrender all they have to the invaders. Eventually, should radicals get the war that comes from social overload and collapse, the war they always appear to seek, it will be necessary to deal with them as coldly as they deal with us. Pray that it isnt necessary but prepare as if it will be. In the end, ideology is enforced or defended against only by those who can still defend themselves. When an Islamic terrorist gunned down defenseless US servicemen at Fort Hood in 2009 we were told it was workplace violence. When Islamic terrorists gunned down local government employees at a picnic in San Bernardino in 2015 we were told to withhold judgment until the facts were in even though minorities and women were hardest hit. But now that an Islamic terrorist has killed 50 at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, our rulers are calling it terrorism, even President Obama, even on the first day after the shooting. Now I define government as an armed minority occupying some territory, and taxing the inhabitants thereof to reward its supporters. It is interesting to me that the government apparently was not too exercised when a bunch of soldiers were killed, even though soldiers are the actual men with guns that keep the rulers in power. It is interesting that the government wasnt too exercised when its local minions were gunned down, even though they are the functionaries that keep us inhabitants thereof properly subordinated to the rulers and that make us legible to the rulers by counting us and taxing us as James C. Scott writes in Seeing Like a State. But this time it looks as though ISIS or its associates have really gone and done it. It demonstrates, I suppose, just how central gays are to the identity and the throbbing heart of the Democratic Party. You can kill a few soldiers, or wipe out minorities and women at a government agency picnic, but youd better not mess with gays. Because this means war. If the Democrats cannot protect gays from rampaging Islamic terrorists, what are they for? Hey gays! Maybe your support of the Democratic Party is not such a good thing after all. Maybe the gay Hispanic Republican, Juan Hernandez, who supports Donald Trump and got beaten up for his trouble in San Jose a while back, is on to something. According to my instinct, governments operate in two modes. In wartime mode they are ruthless killers, mobilizing the people and the economy of the nation to fight the foe and not rest until they have defeated the evildoers and received their abject surrender. In peacetime mode governments are working hard to reward their supporters with pensions, subsidies, and general free stuff. Of course, governments all originate in war, just like our own U.S. government that began as a bunch of hotheads that werent going to take those British taxes any more, and that determined to do something about it. But once they switch to peace, governments find it hard to switch back to war. At least our rulers do, especially our current Democrat rulers that dont believe in nation states, dont believe in western civilization, and dont believe in winning. So President Obama responds to the shooting by blaming assault weapons. (Ahem. Did you know that powerful assault rifle[s] are illegal in America, Mr. President? You seem to have got confused with the gun-control lobbys notion of assault-style rifles that merely look like the real thing.) So governments -- certainly democratic governments, especially peace-and-justice governments -- find it hard to deal with the fact that the world is a dangerous place and governments are all about men with guns defending us from enemies foreign and domestic. I wonder if we are reaching the point where ordinary Americans -- including ordinary Democratic voters -- are going to want a president that does not speak in meaningless platitudes about our values. Americans might want to think about a president that proposes to halt immigration from Muslim lands until we can figure out what is going on. Its a wonderful thing to have a government pumping out free stuff to its citizens. Its a wonderful thing to have a government that gives meaningful employment to people that want to save the planet from climate change. Its a wonderful thing to have a government dedicated to fighting the rape culture on college campi. But none of that is really the job of government. The job of government is to defend us from enemies foreign and domestic. In return, we the people recognize that the government needs to take money from us by force, and put young men into harms way in order to do this. If it takes the foul murder of 50 gays in a bar in Orlando, Florida, to finally get our ruling class serious about its fundamental task, then so be it. But I would ask our gay friends, after grieving for their dead compadres, to lay off on the Christian bakers and pizza parlors for a while. If we are to fight Islamic terrorists it does no good to be punishing your domestic enemies for WrongThink. We need to come together. And that means putting off our little local quarrels until later. Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also see his American Manifesto and get his Road to the Middle Class. As I hoped would happen, American Thinkers series on TWA Flight 800 has prompted individuals with first hand knowledge to come forward. Mark Johnson is one. An air traffic controller (ATC), he worked the night of July 17, 1996 -- the night TWA Flight 800 was destroyed -- at the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) located in Westbury, New York. Johnson has provided me with his real name, and I have confirmed that he was in a position to know what he says he knows. He requested that I use an alias because he has children who depend on him. The federal government, he believes, will seek revenge, retribution and/or any other remedy they feel like. I would be fearful my pension would be at risk. I have heard this sentiment voiced by many people involved in this incident. Although Johnson was not responsible for tracking TWA Flight 800, he spoke directly with the ATC who did. In fact, he asked him plenty of questions to prepare myself for the suits who were beginning to arrive. Along with several other ATCs, he viewed the radar tape of the incident. According to Johnson, A primary radar return (ASR-9) indicated vertical movement intersecting TWA 800. An advanced radar system, the Northrop Grumman ASR-9 is able to detect a target in severe clutter even when the target has no transponder. The absence of a transponder is what distinguishes a primary radar return from a secondary one. In others words, the radar picked up a small, unidentified, ascending object intersecting TWA 800 in the second before the 747 disappeared from radar. After Johnson and his supervisor watched the video tape replay with audio, they turned to each other and said in unison, What the f***!" Asked by his supervisor if he had ever seen anything like this before, Johnson said yes -- while in the Navy days doing missile test fires at sea. A day later, now knowing the full scope of the tragedy, Johnson asked if he could take another look at the radar tape. Cant, its gone, said his supervisor. We had better say nothing, said Johnson, or the f***ing government will make us disappear. The supervisor agreed. I asked Johnson what he and his colleagues thought in the days and weeks to follow. He answered in one word, cover-up. As he explained, in incidents involving fatalities, the FAA demands that the tapes be preserved as evidence of fault or no fault. So -- no tape, no fault. What a sham! Word spread quickly from TRACON. Within a half hour of the crash, Clinton anti-terror czar Richard Clarke was summoning a high level meeting at the White House. A civilian plane crash never before prompted this kind of response. The eyewitness accounts had yet to come in. The radar tape had set the wheels in motion. CNNs Christine Negroni provided the most detailed account of the radars reception in Washington in her book Deadly Departure, an otherwise predictable rehashing of the government position. Negronis primary source was Ron Schleede, then a deputy director of aviation safety at the NTSB. On the morning after the crash, July 18, an FAA official showed him a radar plot that got his complete attention. Holy Christ, it looks bad, he said at the time. He told Negroni, It showed this track that suggested something fast made a turn and took the airplane. That same morning, said Schleede, The FAA was working with people at the top secret level. They were in a crisis room with intelligence people and everybody else. That same day, before the story could be suppressed, authorities were telling the New York Times about a mysterious radar blip that appeared to move rapidly toward the plane just before the explosion. Enter the CIA. Its analysts were tasked with explaining away not only the eyewitness testimony, but also, apparently, the radar. In a July 20 internal memo, a CIA analyst reported no evidence of a missile in the radar data. By July 21, experts were telling the Times that the radar blip was actually an electronic phantom image. Not everyone was buying the spin. Jim Holtsclaw, a deputy regional director for the Air Transport Association (ATA), arrived in Washington soon after TWA 800 went down. There, a friend put Holtsclaw in touch with an ATC in New York (not Mark Johnson) who had gotten hold of a copy of the tape. The ATC promised to send it. You decide what you are seeing, he told Holtsclaw. Holtsclaw knew something about radar. He served as LAX Control Tower manager and ATC manager with American Airlines before moving on to the Air Transport Association. As he would later testify under oath, his copy of the radar tape showed a primary target at the speed of approximately 1200 knots converging with TWA 800, during the climb out phase of TWA 800. About a month after the TWA 800 disaster, retired United Airline pilot and accident investigator Dick Russell received a phone call from Holtsclaw. Russell wrote down what Holtsclaw had to tell him verbatim, the gist of which was that TWA Flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy guided missile ship which was in area W-105. It has been a cover-up from the word go. Russell emailed this information to some select friends in the industry. Although recipients had vowed to keep the information among them, one of them posted the information on the Internet, and it somehow found its way through French intelligence on to Pierre Salinger. Although a former U.S Senator and press secretary to JFK, Salinger proved no match for the Clinton administration and its friends in the media. In the month of November 1996 alone the New York Times ran four articles with headlines that mocked Salinger. A year later, the FBI closed its case. Thanks to the expertise of the CIA, the FBIs Jim Kallstrom was able to assure America that the 258 eyewitnesses to a missile strike could not tell up from down and that the vertical movement Mark Johnson saw intersecting TWA 800 was nothing more than a ghost of Jet Express 18 which was at a different location. It is all so easy for the White House that has the New York Times in its pocket. To learn more, please read Jack Cashills new book, TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover-Up, The Conspiracy (Regnery: July 5). A couple of attorneys who work for the ACLU are blaming the political environment created by anti-gay Christian conservatives for the shootings in Orlando. The shooter, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to ISIS and was a known extremist to the FBI. Daily Caller: Chase Strangio, a staff attorney with the ACLUs LGBT and AIDS Project, claimed the social and political environment cultivated by Christian conservatives in recent months was to blame for the shooting at Pulse, a nightclub popular with Orlandos LGBT community. The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this. No. #PulseNightclub Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) June 12, 2016 I would love to know how Barrister Strangio defines "anti-LGBT bills." I bet it's not quite the same definition we would use. But he's right. Why blame Islam when Christians throw gays off the top of buildings, burn them alive, throw them in jail...oh, wait. Fact is, Strangio is an ignoramus if he can't figure out for himself that many Muslims don't need an excuse to murder gay people. Strangio also called for solidarity between American Muslims and LGBT communities, arguing both are maligned and oppressed by the religious right. Federal law enforcement officials have identified Omar Mateen, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., as the alleged shooter. Mateens father told NBC news his son harbored anti-gay sentiments, and said his son gave voice to those feelings recently during a trip to Miami, where he saw two men kissing. Another ACLU attorney, Eunice Hyon Min Rho, who specializes in election and religious liberty law, impugned the motives of Republican lawmakers who expressed sympathy for the victims, by pointing out many were sponsors of the First Amendment Defense Act, legislation the ACLU considers anti-LGBT. She further characterized expressions of solidarity as useless, as many of the victims could be people of color, who she contends are regularly stigmatized by Republican legislators. Little demographic data is currently available about the victims, as many have not yet been identified. She went on to retweet a user who claimed many public officials would use the auspices of an LGBT tragedy to pursue an anti-Muslim agenda. The ACLU did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundations request for comment. People of color are "regularly stigmatized" by Republicans? Now there's a gratuitous smear. Define "regularly" and tell us how the GOP "stigmatizes" minorities. It sounds real good but ends up being an empty political hack job. That's the problem with using a tragedy to attack your political opponents. People just might ask you to prove your attacks. And when you can't, you look not only silly, but morally corrupt and inhuman. It's telling that this came from those associated with the ACLU, who, more than any other organization, has put roadblocks in the way of the government to keep us safer. They are absolutists besotted with ideology and hatred, who feel no compunction about actively assisting the enemies of the U.S. CAIR is wrapping itself in victimhood to divert attention from the scriptural sources of lethal attacks on homosexuals, as carried out by Omar Mateen on Orlando and by countless Muslims in the Middle East. "Homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia are interconnected systems of oppression and we cannot dismantle one without dismantling the others," Yeah, right You want a system of oppression? How about the sacred scriptures of Islam, the Hadith? The Religion of Peace summarizes: There are several lesser hadith stating, "if a man comes upon a man, then they are both adulterers," "If a woman comes upon a woman, they are both Adulteresses," "When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes," and "Kill the one that is doing it and also kill the one that it is being done to." Abu Dawud (4462) - The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, "Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Loot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.". Abu Dawud (4448) - "If a man who is not married is seized committing sodomy, he will be stoned to death." (Note the implicit approval of sodomizing one's wife). Bukhari (72:774) - "The Prophet cursed effeminate men (those men who are in the similitude (assume the manners of women) and those women who assume the manners of men, and he said, 'Turn them out of your houses .' The Prophet turned out such-and-such man, and 'Umar turned out such-and-such woman." al-Tirmidhi, Sunan 1:152 - [Muhammad said] "Whoever is found conducting himself in the manner of the people of Lot, kill the doer and the receiver. " Reliance of the Traveller, p17.2 - "May Allah curse him who does what Lot's people did." This is also repeated in three other places. Bridget Johnson at PJM reports on the CAIR jiujitsu: The Council on American-Islamic Relations pulled together leaders of Muslim groups to condemn the Orlando terrorist and tie their sympathies to the LGBT community. Nihad Awad, national executive director of CAIR, told reporters he "could not believe" the news when he woke up today and began to "worry about what kind of crime" it was. "Our hearts, thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families," Awad said, calling Omar Mateen's massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse "a hate crime, plain and simple." "We condemn it in the strongest possible terms -- it violates our principles as Americans and Muslims. Let me be clear -- we have no tolerance for extremism of any kind. We must not tolerate hateful rhetoric that incites violence against minorities. Religious freedom is the cornerstone of our beliefs as Muslims and as Americans," he said. Awad noted that "for many years" member of the LGBT community "have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim community against any acts of hate crimes, Islamophobia, marginalization, and discrimination -- today we stand with them, shoulder to shoulder... we cannot fight injustice against some groups and not against others." "Homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia are interconnected systems of oppression and we cannot dismantle one without dismantling the others," he continued. "Homophobia and other forms of phobias take lives in this country every day and we must stand up for the victims and for their families. The criminals, the terrorists, and extremists behind these kinds of attacks mean only to divide us and turn us against one another. We cannot afford to let them succeed." Theres somebody who cannot be allowed to succeed, all right. Hat tip: Ed Lasky After such a horrific terrorist attack, the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, one might think the left would put their disarm everyone so only the criminals have guns agenda on hold for a day or two. No such luck. Obama and all of his minions, including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, immediately jumped on the gun control bandwagon and blamed this monstrous event on the guns! Not the shooter. Not Islamic terrorism, those two words Obama refuses to utter. This is beyond pathetic. By now it should be obvious to every person on the planet that this is insane! What if this piece of pond scum had used a bomb or his Ford F150 pickup, or had wielded a Samurai sword to kill and maim all those people? Oh dear. What would Obama have had to say about that? He would have had to rely on his hate crime mantra and would not have been able to juice up his speech with his anti-gun nonsense. When will the left get it through their thick skulls that the bad guys will get, will always, always, always have guns? It is only an armed citizenry that can stop the lunatics with murder in mind. It is the unarmed citizens who are, by government mandate, the sitting ducks, cannon fodder for the likes of Omar Mateen, Nidal Hasan, and the countless other monsters like them. Had Pulse Orlando had even one armed security guard, something like an air marshal, a sober, armed expert sitting at the bar, the terrorist calling out his allegiance to ISIS might have been taken out in the first thirty seconds. Instead, the police waited three hours before entering the club to take him out. While anyone can understand not wanting to put law enforcement at risk, three hours seems an awfully long time to dilly-dally, discussing options with a homicidal psychopath. Many of those who had been shot initially might have been saved were it not for an attempt to negotiate with the madman. So afraid to kill perpetrators are the politicians who set the rules of engagement for our law enforcement personnel, they are forced to err on the side of protecting the criminal rather than his victims. Would the Israelis wait three hours to rescue hostages held by a murderous thug? Not on your life. No way such a situation would have lasted three hours in Israel. Israelis have an absolute grasp on the word murderous and what it means. For the left to make this gruesome event about guns betrays their shallow, callow capitulation to their own ideology. We already knew they place no premium on human life. This was not about guns! It was about pure evil. In the end, it is about denying the obvious: radical Islamists mean to kill us all, and Obama and his ilk are paving the way for them to succeed. The Orlando massacre by an American Muslim ISIS supporter, shooting 150 people while yelling "Allahu akbar" ("Allah is supreme"), has definitively and tragically proved Trump right. We need to halt Muslim immigration until the jihad threat is resolved, or Americans will be killed at home by Muslim terrorists. Obama and Hillary still think they can shame the public into silence by accusations of Islamophobia and racism. Trump knows how to handle them. He is taking the need to halt Muslim immigration and tying it to both saving lives and his populist theme of helping all Americans, white, black, and Hispanic. In response to the racism libels, he is stressing how Democrat policies hurt black and Hispanic Americans. As I wrote elsewhere on these pages today: After over 50 Americans were brutally slaughtered and over 50 wounded on their own soil in the latest Islamic terrorism attack, its utterly shameful that President Obama cannot bring himself to say the words radical Islam. Equally abhorrent are Muslim Brotherhood groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), sending out their taqqiyah deception squads to feign sympathy for victims of Islamic terrorist attacks and referring to this most recent bloodbath as a hate crime. President Obama, not to mention Bernie Sanders, is calling for more gun control. Most Western world leaders and politicians are living in fantasyland when they blindly claim that guns are evil rather than condemn the supremacist ideology behind radical Islam, which believes that gays, non-believers, apostates, and others must die, as mandated in the Koran and other Islamic doctrine. We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate, stated President Obama. Not a peep about radical Islamic terrorism. Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton also refers to the Orlando jihadist attack as an act of terror and hate. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism, Hillary tweeted in November. If Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, then why was only an imam and not a rabbi, priest, or swami invited to speak at the first press conference after the Orlando slaughter at the Pulse Nightclub? Mujammad Musri, president and senior imam of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, also mentioned nothing about radical Islamic terrorism. The imam did, however, warn the media to refrain from rushing to judgment and from sensationalizing the story, because we do not want the story to be shifted from the focus of what it is. It is a horrible tragedy. But again, nothing about a jihadist attack. Is it any wonder that attacks against American citizens are being perpetrated when funding and ideology are being exported from radical Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran to Islamic centers and schools in the U.S.? When radical imams from abroad are welcome to speak at U.S. universities and mosques? Three years ago, British-born radical sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar, residing in Iran, was invited to speak at an Orlando mosque. He called for the killing of gays: Death is the sentence. We know. Theres nothing to be embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence. One need not look beyond ones own backyard in efforts to thwart radical Islam, especially as Westerners continue to flood their countries with unvetted Muslim refugees. If CAIR and ISNA both unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation conspiracy back in 2008 to funnel millions of dollars to jihadist organizations truly stand for the Orlando victims and mourn with their families, as these groups claim they do, and if they truly are outraged at the Orlando jihadist, then they must take a firm stand against the Koranic verses that view homosexuals as contemptible and that call for their death. They must speak out against those Muslims who advocate the death penalty for gays, who hang, stone, and throw them off roofs in countries run by sharia law. They must stop referring to jihadists as mentally imbalanced individuals or lone wolves. A more strident condemnation of radical Islam begins with the White House. Americans are fed up with the Islamophilic and gun-control rhetoric coming from the White House. Jihadist foot soldiers have been implanted throughout the U.S. and the West with the intent to kill and maim non-believers, and to subvert the rest to Islam. Jihadist attacks are gaining momentum throughout the West, especially with the recent re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate by the Islamic State. After the worst U.S. attack since 9/11, its past time for the Obama administration to tear off the blinkers, stop betraying American citizens, and properly address the issue of radical Islamic terrorism once and for all, especially with American Independence Day fast approaching. This is a war against the U.S. and not a hate crime. This is an ideological movement that seeks to destroy the entire Western world, its culture, and its values. This is Islamic jihad. Furthermore, it is important for Westerners to understand that during the Islamic month of Ramadan, jihadists do what they do best, following in the footsteps of their prophet Mohammed, who waged most of his caravan raids and most significant battles during this month. Yes, it is a time for introspection, as Obama reassures American citizens. Ramadan is a time for jihadists to give Allah what he wants, as mandated in Islamic scripture, that being the death of gays, infidels (recent Bangladesh and Tel Aviv attacks of Hindus and Jews, respectively), apostates, and more. According to Robert Spencer, Ramadan is a time when Muslims increase their devotion to Allah; Jihad in the Koran is taught as a meritorious act that increases ones devotion to Allah and it involves waging war against unbelievers. The Islamic State is accelerating its operations and activating its sleeper cells worldwide as its tentacles are reaching into North Africa, Yemen, and Pakistan. Radical Islamic terrorism must be countered and squashed, not by law enforcement, but by the U.S military. And until Obama treats the Orlando attack as an act of war and not a crime or act of hate, more and more victims will fall prey to Islamic jihad on U.S. soil. Donors to nonprofit organizations of all stripes are at risk of harassment, unless a bill to be introduced this week by Rep. Peter Roskam is by passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law. If you have the means and are generous enough to contribute $5,000 or more to a homeless shelter or food bank, a charity to help abused spouses and children, an animal rescue, an organization protecting life, a group advocating for constitutional rights, or any other charity or social welfare nonprofit organization, your contribution, name, and address currently must be reported by the recipient organization to the IRS -- even if the donation is not tax-deductible. By law, this contribution information is supposed to be treated and guarded by the IRS as confidential. Unauthorized access to and use of that information by government officials is prohibited under post-Watergate reforms to the tax code. Its unintentional disclosure is subject to civil remedies, albeit ones without enough teeth in an age of careless bureaucrats. Criminal penalties are supposed to apply to officials who willfully disclose or review your private information unless expressly authorized under a rigid privacy regime in the tax code. Information about Americans private generosity, however, is not safe with the IRS. And, there are those people who attribute sinister motives to generosity, calling beneficence for even deeply held convictions of conscience dark money. Worse, even, two highly partisan state attorneys general with proven track records of using government power to try to silence the speech of those who dont share their leftwing views -- Kamala Harris of California and Eric Schneiderman of New York -- are using dragnet licensing methods to evade the tax code by obtaining directly from charities what was reported to the IRS under laws and expectations of confidentially. Harris and Schneiderman are in the news this year for targeting climate speech for investigation and possible prosecution. They not only disrespect First Amendment rights of those with opposing views, they are lawless and arrogant enough to believe the federal tax confidentiality laws dont apply to them. This week the U.S. House of Representatives will consider a bill introduced by Congressman Peter Roskam that would end the collection of most private contribution information by the IRS. HR 5053 does more than end the IRSs collection of this private information currently reported on Schedule B to Form 990, the tax return filed by charities and social welfare organizations; it corrects a mistake by a prior Congress that created a federal exception to the right of private association expressed in the landmark civil rights case from 1958, NAACP v. Alabama. In the 1950s, Ku Klux Klan-backed Democrat Alabama Attorney General John Patterson sought to obtain the list of financial supporters of the NAACP in his state. His objective was to shut down the civil rights movement there through intimidation that would dry up the organizations funds. In holding against Patterson, the court said: It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association as the forms of governmental action in the cases above were thought likely to produce upon the particular constitutional rights there involved. This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one's associations. Unlike liberals such as Harris and Schneiderman, who wish to use government power to impose their personal intolerance of dissent, others such as my friend and liberal activist legend Roger Craver know history and how the power pendulum swings both ways. Roger is in the American Association of Political Consultants Hall of Fame, and was described by The Wall Street Journal as an assassin of all things right-wing. Writing at his blog The Agitator, Roger says, "[w]hen it comes to protecting the privacy of members and donors, all nonprofits should be fighting mad regardless of ideology. Michael Moore and the Koch brothers. Were all in this together. A whos who of over 100 top conservative leaders and lawyers recently sent members of Congress a letter about the need to conduct hearings into whether the IRS was derelict by not protecting confidential donor information from the unseemly clutches of Harris and Schneiderman, and to inquire whether these two AGs violated the criminal laws about donor privacy in the tax code. Meanwhile, the IRS has been asked in private correspondence to explain why it did not enforce the unauthorized access laws and protocols, called UNAX, against Harris and Schneiderman. The Roskam bill is an important step in protecting the right of private association. A group of state charity regulators whose ranks include members of the offices of Harris and Schneiderman, however, are protesting the Roskam bill. One of the more vocal charity regulators once claimed now-disgraced former IRS official Lois Lerner as their partner in the regulation of charities. Their poor judgment goes beyond keeping bad company. Four times since 1980 these state bureaucrats have been scuttled at the U.S. Supreme Court for their attempts to violate the First Amendment under their loose theories of consumer protection and fraud. Like recalcitrant and habitual offenders often do, Harris and Schneiderman have continued looking for ways to violate laws and constitutional guarantees so they may intimidate and silence speakers. For now we can only wonder whether the IRSs failure to stop them was a matter of turning its head the other way for Lois Lerners partners. The Roskam bill restores certain important protections articulated in NAACP v. Alabama. The key is that government officials not insert themselves into our right to associate privately with causes. Too many of these officials simply cannot be trusted with routinely possessing such private information. Reuters is reporting that the Obama administration is reluctantly giving up the idea that it can close the prison at Guantanamo by issuing an executive order under his authority as commander in chief. The White House has said repeatedly that Obama has not ruled out any options on the Guantanamo center, which has been used to house terrorism suspects since it was set up in 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Obama is eager to fulfill his 2008 campaign pledge to close the prison and could still choose to use his commander-in-chief powers, but the option is not being actively pursued, the sources said. Without executive action, the chances of closing the prison would hinge on convincing a resistant Congress to overturn a long-standing ban on bringing possibly dozens of remaining prisoners to maximum-security prisons in the United States. White House lawyers and other officials studied the option of overriding the ban but did not develop a strong legal position or an effective political sales pitch in an election year, a source familiar with the discussions said. "It was just deemed too difficult to get through all of the hurdles that they would need to get through, and the level of support they were likely to receive on it was thought to be too low to generate such controversy, particularly at a sensitive (time) in an election cycle," the source said. Republicans in Congress are opposed to bringing Guantanamo detainees to U.S. prisons and have expressed opposition to transfers to other countries over concern that released prisoners will return to militant activities. They have vowed to challenge any potential Obama executive action in court. At its peak, the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba housed nearly 800 prisoners, becoming a symbol of the excesses of the "war on terror and synonymous with criticism of detention without trial and accusations of torture. Obama has called it a recruitment tool for terrorists. We are learning a lot about the Orlando shooting. We will probably know a lot more by the time this post is published. We hear that he pledged allegiance to ISIS and may have shouted a few words in support of his fellow terrorists. To my knowledge, he didn't say a word about Gitmo. Over the last few years, we've heard a lot about how Gitmo recruits. We heard it from President Obama over and over again. However, Gitmo did not inspire the shootings in Paris or San Bernardino or now in Orlando. What evidence do we have that Gitmo is a recruiting tool? We don't have any, except a president who does not have the courage to admit he was wrong about Guantanamo in 2008. In fact, Politifact looked at the controversy and concluded this: Analyses of jihadist propaganda materials show that Guantanamo is rarely mentioned, especially compared to other grievances against the United States, like military airstrikes. Al-Qaida uses Guantanamo less frequently now than it used to, though it was never a primary focus of their propaganda. Orlando demonstrates that we are losing this war and it is a war. Our soldiers are not losing it. Our political class invested in political correctness is losing it and putting Americans at risk. P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter. This list of really bad academic papers that never should have seen the light of day is just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands of papers published by less-than-mediocre professors who are forced to "publish or perish" in our system of higher education. Hence, some of the most obscure articles are badly written by people whose unfamiliarity with English grammar and syntax becomes painfully obvious. Daily Caller: Twitter lost one of its leading lights earlier this month when user @Real_PeerReview, who chronicled ridiculous, useless, and unintelligible academic papers, shut down their account in an apparent effort to avoid having their real-life academic career ruined. While @Real_PeerReviews tweets have been deleted from Twitter, they fortunately are not gone entirely, and can still be read here. The list of the 13 worst academic papers is hysterical - not only the subject matter but the writing as well. Here are a few examples: 1. A poetic mycology of the senses: four poems on mushrooms John Charles Ryan, a cultural studies professor at the University of Western Australia, is very worried that poems about mushrooms are the forgotten ecopoetry, which is even worse than being the ecopoetry people remember. So he wrote about it, and got published: As the third f in contemporary biodiversity conservation, languishing behind fauna and flora, fungi occupy a comparably liminal and, possibly, marginal position in literary history and ecocritical studies. In particular, fungi straddle a largely unnavigated terrian between the recent human-animal studies and its literary counterpart zoocriticism and the emergent critical plant studies and its budding complement vegetal ecocriticism. As a consequence, even amongst ecocritics, fungi have been grouped into the latter category, mirroring a tendency in the history of the biological sciences to aggregate fungi and plants. Standing up for fungi when no one else will. How heroic! 3. Picturizing the scattered ontologies of Alzheimers disease: Towards a materialist feminist approach to visual technoscience studies Jennifer Lum of the University of California, Berkeley, along with Cecilia Asberg of Sweden are convinced we need an intervention of feminist technoscience to properly grasp the way Alzheimers is portrayed on television. Or something: The recent reconfiguration of Alzheimers disease is due to expanding ageing populations, an aggressive biopharmaceutical industry becoming a fast-growing material-semiotic realm that is providing powerful images of both gendered and racialized embodiment. Such a visual, and yet highly material, realm is in need of feminist interventions, engaging with the images and ideas that circulate around ageing, medicine, human and non-human embodiment. Sorry, I don't speak stupid so I can't decipher this mess. I'd ask Jenny what this means except I'd be afraid of the answer. 7. Exposing the white avatar: projections, justifications, and the ever-evolving American racism Forget the Klan: A team of three researchers of Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness Studies find that the hegemonic power of whiteness is entrenched by the avatars people use while playing Xbox: I got "hegemonic power" when I play "Call of Duty"? Who woulda thunk it? According to her bio, Melissa Click, the Mizzou professor who was fired for threatening the press. is now writing about "50 Shades of Grey, Lady Gaga's social media strategies, male fans of pop musicians, and class in reality television programming." Can't wait until they come out in paperback. There is a lot of chatter in the #NeverTrump echo chamber that the presidential candidate they love to hate will lose Utah to Hillary Clinton, or at the least it will be a nail-biting race. It won't be close. Utah will easily go to Donald Trump in the general election, and polling trends are headed in that direction. The poll that started off the hysteria was released March 20 by Deseret News/KSL, showing Clinton narrowly ahead of Trump by 38% to 36%. But a more recent poll released May 16 in the same media outlet had Trump with a large lead, 13% over Clinton at 43% to 30%. Over the last two weeks, a couple more polls have been released supposedly showing a tight race again. The most recent, which came out Saturday from the Salt Lake Tribune, has Trump and Clinton tied at 35% in a three-way race with Gary Johnson, who has 13% of the respondents' support. A Gravis Marketing poll conducted on June 1 puts Trump over Clinton by 36% to 29% in the head-to-head, and by 29% to 26% when Johnson (who gets 16%) is included. The problem, as discussed many times previously in this column, is that demographics is destiny when it comes to polling accuracy. What we see time and again when it comes to polling data involving Trump versus the liberals is that there is a strong liberal bias in the demographic composition of those being surveyed. Rarely, if ever, is there bias that would favor Trump, and certainly not to the extent regularly seen against Trump. Only the Gravis poll appears to provide some limited demographic data, and it suggests a problem. A full 70% of those surveyed were Mormons, many of whom don't like Trump because of Mitt Romney's continued opposition, while just 55% of all adults in the state are Mormon. Some may argue that 2012 exit polls suggested that 75% of Utah voters in the last presidential election were Mormon, so we should aim for this percentage in polling data this time around. Wrong. Exit polling data is notoriously incorrect , to such a degree and in such unpredictable ways that it is effectively useless for developing high-quality demographic profiles of the likely voting base in future elections four years down the road. Polling demographics should always be matched to the potential voter base, and in this case, that would have involved just 55% Mormons. Another problem involves the level of education of the polling respondents. When asked about their highest level of education completed, 54% said bachelor's degree or higher. But according to the U.S. Census Bureau , just 30.6% of those 25 years and older in the state have completed a bachelor's degree or more. Only 2% of those surveyed did not complete high school, whereas the census data has this at about 9%. The age demographics in the poll also appear to be way off. Just 17% of respondents were 65 years and older, while 72% were between 30 and 64 years of age, for a ratio of 30-64:65+ of more than 4:1. By comparison, the actual ratio between these two age groups is about 2:1. Probably of greatest importance is the political orientation of those polled: 51% were Republicans, and 21% were Democrats. Work by Brigham Young University's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy suggests that while the percentage of Democrats in the survey matches with reality (20%), the percentage of Republicans is likely far too low (should be 65%, not 51%) if this 2012 data still holds. So it looks as though the poll may be biased strongly in favor of Mormons, toward those with high levels of education, against older voters, and against Republicans in favor of Democrats. Put all these together, and one might reasonably suggest that the survey base is stacked heavily against a fair assessment of Trump's real level of support in the state. With no detailed demographic data for the other polls, we can't make a first-cut assessment of their reliability, but if we attempt to correct the Gravis poll for possible bias, Trump's lead looks to be in the range of 15%, which is roughly consistent with the May 16 Deseret News poll. Unless another poll backs up the Salt Lake Tribune outlier suggesting a Clinton-Trump tie, Trump's support is probably stable with a healthy advantage over Clinton, and this is likely to hold until the general election. Full disclosure: I was a strong Ted Cruz supporter. I am getting genuinely happy about Donald Trump. I think his supporters were right in choosing him. Voters agree with Trump that we should stop Muslim immigration to this country. Even a local poll in liberal California showed that 59% of voters strongly or somewhat agree with Trump. So Trumps detractors have largely stopped calling him anti-Muslim and switched to the shorthand racist. Being labeled racist is not unique to Trump, of course. Democrats call all Republicans racist. Race-baiting their black voting bloc, and pandering to their white voters smug sense of moral superiority, is Democrats single most important electoral advantage. What is unique is that we finally have a candidate who can fight back, and fight back hard. At the Faith and Freedom Summit last Friday (which was very poorly reported), Trump didnt counter the racist charges; he did jujitsu with them, using the Muslim immigration issue to appeal directly for black votes. Thats the way you dominate the conversation and win elections. Donald Trump challenged Hillary Clinton to replace her support for increased refugee admissions with a new job program for our inner cities. Clinton wants a 500% increase in Syrian refugees to come into our country. Clintons plan to resettle 65,000 Syrian migrants would cost U.S. taxpayers over $42 billion over the course of the migrants lifetimes, based on projections from Heritage Foundation We have to take care of the people who are here, Trump explained. We have to temporarily stop this whole thing with whats going on with refugees, where we dont know where they come from We have to take a rest. We have to take a time out. We have to use the money to take care of our poorest Americans and work with them, so they can come out of this horrible situation that theyre in. Why is this brilliant? Republicans have tried to ignore the racist label or laugh it off. That doesnt work. When someone libels you, being defensive is fatal. Trump is smarter. He goes on the offensive. Talk to black voters yourself, directly, and with heart. Republicans have made the answer be no by writing off the black vote. Republicans fail when they talk in bromides about opportunity and think blacks will feel included. Trump wasnt just promising money; he went on to attack the failure of inner-city Democratic regimes and offer a conservative critique of black suffering. From his speech: Regulation, bureaucracy, government control and open borders have economically destroyed our inner cities. Her [Clintons] policies will be a crushing blow to all poor people in this country. Her education policies, her economic policies, her immigration policies and her trade policies will plunge our poor African American and Hispanic communities into turmoil and even worse, despairbelieve me, you look at whats going on. Critics accuse Trump of not learning and growing on the campaign trail. At Fridays Christian rally, Trump announced a new theme: I have the theme, 'Make America Great Again.' And I've added a couple of things. I'm adding right now, I'm adding it, Make America Great Again for everyone," said Trump. "Because it's really going to be for everyone. Not going to be a group of people. Its going to be for everyone. It's true. At the same time, Trump is not backing up on his truth-telling about Islam. This March, he said in an interview: "I think Islam hates us," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper, "it's radical, but its very hard to define. It's very hard to separate. Because you don't know who's who." Asked if the hate was "in Islam itself," Trump would only say that was for the media to figure out. "You're gonna have to figure that out, OK?" he told Cooper. "We have to be very vigilant. We have to be very careful. And we can't allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States - and of people who are not Muslim."Asked if the hate was "in Islam itself," Trump said that was for the media to figure out. "You're gonna have to figure that out, OK?" he said when asked if there was hatred in the religion itself. "We have to be very vigilant. We have to be very careful. And we can't allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States," Trump said. Notice that Trump deflected Coopers gotcha question. Cooper wants to know if the hate is in Islam? Let him figure it out for himself. Trump leaves the question out there. He hammers in the reality that a dangerous number of Muslims hate us. President Trumps job will be to protect Americans from the jihadi menace. His sole focus is on what Islam is to us, in practical terms in the real world. Trump is certainly not going to propagate the lies from Republican and Democrat alike that Islam is a religion of peace. Trump plays the media to carry his commonsense message. Trumps website statement is very logical and strong, something new among American leaders: a moratorium on Muslims is justified by the popularity of jihad amongst Muslims in America. His December 2015 statement: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on. According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing "25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad" and 51% of those polled, "agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah." Shariah authorizes such atrocities as murder against non-believers who won't convert, beheadings and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to Americans, especially women. Frank Gaffneys Center for Security Policy is a terrific outfit. It reflects well on Trump that he has gone to Gaffney for information on the Islamic threat. The report cited is not about jihadi infiltrators, but about Muslims living in the United States. It states: a significant minority embraces the supremacist notions that could pose a threat to Americas security and its constitutional form of government. As quoted by Trump, 51% of Muslims here want the choice of sharia law. Only 63% agree that the U.S. Constitution protects speech that offends Muslims. And a whopping 25% agree that violence should be used to impose sharia law on all Americans. Trump is both informed and fearless re: jihad in America. When libeled as a racist, he goes on the offensive. He is not cowed by Democrat or Republican mudslinging, whether from Hillary Clinton, Paul Ryan, or Mitt Romney Being independent and politically incorrect is not trivial, but crucial to appeal to voters and to protect our safety and our freedoms. Hat tip: Breitbart.com When Ivan the Terrible, the Grand Prince of Moscow and the first Tsar of Russia, ascended the throne in the middle of the 16th century, he decided to put an end to the Khanate of Kazan, a medieval Bulgarian-Tatar Turkic state occupying the territory of former Volga Bulgaria, and ruled by the descendants of Genghis Khan. The Khanates and the Muscovites had been at conflict for the last hundred years. The bone of contention between the two was Kazans strategic location on the Volga River near its confluence with the Kama, the major river in the western Ural Mountains. As long as Kazan existed as a threat, Russian movement into and beyond the Urals, as well as south toward the Caspian Sea, was blocked. Photo credit: vershinatur.com Between 1545 and 1550, Ivan led several campaigns against Kazan, the capital of the Khanate, but failed to seize the city. While returning from one such unsuccessful seize of Kazan, in 1550, the Tsars troops camped on the banks of the Volga near the confluence with the Sviyaga River, about 30km away from Kazan. This was when Ivan noticed a small wooded promontory, rising above the waters on the banks of the Volga. Ivan realized that in order to conduct a successful seize of Kazan he needed a base closer to the city from which he could launch his attacks. The promontory provided Ivan the perfect place for his base. It was both accessible and defensible, and its location in the Volga allowed him to keep under control the waterways and roads leading to Kazan, and eventually Kazan itself. Ivan ordered the construction of a massive fortress, but not at the chosen site. Building a fortress on the promontory under the nose of the enemy would have been foolhardy. Instead, construction took place at Uglich, about 700 km upstream, where Ivans engineers could carefully design, build and test without the lingering threat of enemy attack. After a trial assembly, the builders marked each log, disassembled the fortress and sent it floating down the river. Photo credit: travel123.ru At the mouth of Sviyaga River, the rafts of logs were captured and reassembled like Lego bricks into a large fort whose territory exceeded that of the Moscow Kremlin. The fort was a full fledged town with walls, towers, gates, civilian buildings and even churches, and it was completed in just four weeks, thanks to its pre-fabricated design. It must have been a magnificent fort because pretty soon large segments of the local population started coming to the new town and requested Ivan to give them citizenship. In return, the locals swore their allegiance to the Tsar. Ivan named the new island town Sviyazhsk, and it serve as a strong point for the capture of the city by the Muscovite army. After the defeat of Kazan, Sviyazhsk continued to grow as an outpost of Christianity and the center of Russian culture and orthodoxy among neighboring peoples. The dark days of Sviyazhsks history started in the first half of the 20th century after the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks destroyed about half of Sviyazhsk's churches. The remaining buildings and monasteries became cells for prisoners of a forced labor camp and later a Gulag prison. The culmination of Sviyazhsks story came in 1957 after the construction of the Kuibyshev Water Reservoir when the entire area around Sviyazhsk was flooded. More than three-fourth of the town was wiped out, leaving only the historic downtown above water. Sviyazhsk became a small island, connected to the mainland by a serpentine road. Its population decreased from 2,000 to just 250. Fortunately, in 1960 Sviyazhsk was declared as a monument of Russian history and culture, and was added in the tentative list of UNESCOs world heritage sites. The historic city is currently being revived with restoration of old churches and construction of new houses. Tour operators are also promoting Sviyazhsk as a tourist destination. Life is slowly getting back to normal. Sviyazhsk before the flooding. Photo credit: fund.cyrillitsa.ru Photo credit: osobnyak-t.ru Photo credit: travel123.ru Photo credit: www.tatarstanheritage.ru Photo credit: dimabalakirev.livejournal.com Photo credit: fund.cyrillitsa.ru Photo credit: travel123.ru Trinity Church in Sviyazhsk, Russia. Photo credit: Insider/Wikimedia Holy Trinity Church (left) and Church of the Theotokos Joy of All Who Sorrow (right) in Sviyazhsk, Tatarstan, Russia. Photo credit: Kazaneer/Wikimedia Sources: yanarysh.tatarstan.ru / Russia Beyond the Headlines / Wikipedia / www.tatarstanheritage.ru When Google released the Nexus 4, it included support for Qi wireless charging. Although the Nexus 4s implementation of Qi charging was imperfect, Google appeared to refine the technology and it was included in the 2013 Nexus 7 tablet, the Nexus 5 and the Nexus 6. Unfortunately, Google dropped Qi wireless charging from the 2015 Nexus line up and neither the Nexus 5X nor Nexus 6P have standard wireless charging. By this time, a number of other manufacturers had incorporated wireless charging into their devices most notably Samsung as both the Galaxy S6 family and S7 include multi-standard wireless charging. Samsung also developed their own high-speed wireless charging standard, because normal Qi charging is slow. Weve even seen IKEA design, manufacture and sell a range of wireless charging lamps and accessories. Chipset developers, such as MediaTek and Qualcomm, have also invested money into wireless charging with products such as cross-compatible chips and the ability to wirelessly charge devices through a metal chassis. The source website, which cites unnamed industry sources, reports that LG Electronics has developed its own wireless charging standard based around magnetic resonance. This is slightly different to current magnetic induction technologies and it is easier to increase the range. LGs implementation of the technology allows charging to be performed at a range of around 7cm, a little under three inches. Furthermore, the technology is able to charge at a rate of 7 watts. Unfortunately, LG is only considering releasing it to the market. The source website also explains that the technology could be applied to the LG Pay Smart Card too in some form of portable electronic device, set to be released some time later in the year. Advertisement It is unclear why LG are only considering releasing the technology into the market. It may be that the necessary charging infrastructure is cumbersome, unreliable, or runs too warm for comfort. It may also be that LG wishes to wait for other competitor systems to be released we are aware that a number of Chinese manufacturers are developing their own wireless charging technology as well as belonging to the AirFuel Alliance. Perhaps LG wish to jointly develop a technology with a number of partners to ensure that it gains traction in the market? One of the risks of multiple wireless charging standards being developed and released is that it creates confusion and frustration for consumers: customers want to buy a standard wireless charger for all of their devices rather than multiple standards, each requiring a unique charger. Where large companies are concerned, there are few other technology businesses that can compete with Microsoft. A rich history combined with software, and more recently hardware solutions, for practically everything and everyone, Microsoft has ended up with a lot of money in the bank. They might not be as cash rich as Apple, but theyve got more in the bank than Google, and now theyre putting a large portion of it where their mouth is. Thats because today, Microsoft and LinkedIn have entered an agreement for the former to acquire the latter in an all-cash deal. This all-cash deal is worth no less than $26.2 Billion. This deal sees LinkedIn stock valued at $196 a share and has been fully-approved by both parties and their shareholders. This seems to be a deal that must have been in the works for a long time now, as theres a short interview between Microsofts CEO, Satya Nadella, as well LinkedIns CEO, Jeff Weiner, enthusing over the new deal. While this is an all-cash deal, Microsoft will be financing the deal primarily through the issuance of new indebtedness and by the close of the deal which Microsoft seems to think will happen quite quickly LinkedIns financials will become part of Microsofts. The professional social network will become part of Microsofts Productivity and Business Processes segment, with the network staying an independent company under Microsofts umbrella. Nadella said of the deal that together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet. Advertisement Weiner will retain his position as CEO of LinkedIn, and rather than be rebranded a Microsoft entity, LinkedIn will remain its own entity. The timing of this new deal is interesting, as Apple takes to the stage today for their WWDC event. For Microsoft, this will be a way of creating even more connected products to take on the collaboration that Google has been offering users for free with Drive and Google Docs products. For LinkedIn meanwhile, it will mostly be business as usual, save for some new products integrating with Microsofts offerings. This will also give LinkedIn a parent company with the sort of cash and cloud platform to ensure their longevity without relying on their own steam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89PWn0QaaY Its been a pretty rough road for Yahoo these past years, culminating in essentially shutting down their moonshot department, losing an important deal with AT&T and finally, deciding to sell off their core web business. After the sale, Yahoo will be left barebones, having only a 15 percent stake in e-commerce giant Alibaba and a 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo Japan left to their name. All of their U.S. operations and assets, including the real estate for their headquarters, will become the property of the highest bidder, though everybody in the running has their own private reasons for bidding. A fairly large crop of entities, from private equity funds to the founder of Quicken Loans, backed by Warren Buffett, are in the running to bid, but only a few have made it into the final run of bidding. Among them are AT&T and Verizon. The two largest carriers in the U.S. will be competing for Yahoos top spot for fairly similar reasons, but coming from different scenarios. Verizon, through their purchase of AOL, got their hands on new search and ad tech, as well as a fairly large stable of exclusive media. This led them to be able to launch their new GO90 video content service, among other things. Though their bid was a bit on the low side of the spectrum last time, Yahoo has seen fit to let them into the final round, where they will be vying for a chance to increase their stable of ad tools, as well as expand their media and internet presence to a near-monolithic level. Advertisement AT&T, on the other hand, can boast no such platforms and services, and hopes to take Yahoo for their own in order to catch up with Verizon. With Yahoo having hosted their web portal for some time, AT&T knows a thing or two about Yahoos search and ad tech, as well as their many exclusive services like Yahoo Answers, the long-defunct GeoCities web hosting outfit, and Yahoo Mail, which AT&T could keep intact or gut to form a backbone for their own, more cohesive and, of course, customer-exclusive services. Other bidders are mostly in it for the real estate, or to seize control of Yahoo at a fairly low price to engage it in strategic mergers or sell it off piecemeal to turn a profit. Yahoo is hoping to have the sordid affair over with before August. Back in September of 2015, the government of South Korea put a plan in place to help wearables gain traction in the country, as well as to help with local development of wearable devices. The plan entailed a government budget of roughly $110.6 million being available to device developers for the creation of wearables from 2016 to 2020. As well as helping to spur this segment of the local economy, the plan has helped to popularize wearables in general, particularly smartwatches, based on the latest carrier figures. Back in April of 2014, there were 50,237 registered users of wearable devices in the country. In just over two years, that number has jumped tenfold and then some, bringing the total number of wearable owners reported up to 510,066, not counting owners of unregistered wearables such as simple fitness trackers and cheap, minimally functional smartwatches like those typically found for less than $50 on most e-commerce outlets. While the new budget plan is a big help, the wearable space in South Korea is still complicated to navigate at best. Software and hardware must meet stringent guidelines during development, despite the fact that there are still a relatively low number of developers on the scene to help with creating the kind of technological webs, so to speak, that would aid in increasing developers ease of creation and overall output. Many are pushing for the government to help with the current regulation framework, as well as to develop new measures that would support convergence markets that would increase the profitability of the wearable market, such as helping to get more smartphones out there for cheaper or to help carriers adopt more smartwatches that can pull double-duty as phones. Although Samsung and LG call South Korea home, the market finds itself a bit sparse outside of their mega-popular products, mostly due to lack of developers and lack of funding. Advertisement Future plans for the growth of wearable devices in the country include, for the most part, taking the government out of the equation when it comes to making the wearables, besides helping to provide funding. The government will get involved, however, in a new quality certification plan. Wearable devices that make the mark will receive official government endorsement to increase the publics faith in the product, and could even end up on government procurement lists, being bought up en masse for government use. When something shows up on import website Zauba, it often brings with it a very tiny amount of information that can be used to decipher its nature, if any at all. The latest import listing from Samsung is no exception. A model number of SM-G1600 is shown on the listing, with destinations in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi. The value of a single unit is listed as Rs. 15,176, or about $226. The screen size is listed as 3.8-inches. The closest model number to this one in Samsungs current stable, eliminating the trailing zero as a likely placeholder, is SM-G150, the Galaxy Folder flip phone. With the other specs matching up nicely, its not hard to figure that the listing is probably for a Galaxy Folder sequel. Samsung has shown the flip phone format some love with its Galaxy Folder, as well as the higher-end Galaxy Golden lineup. While the Zauba listing is about all the info thats out there regarding the possible new Galaxy Folder for the moment, some basic inferences can be made about it based on the information thats there and the specs of the previous Galaxy Folder. For starters, the 3.8-inch screen matches the size of the first Galaxy Folder, nailing this as a sequel and telling us that the design will likely be about the same. The model number changes by a somewhat small increment and the price is still decidedly budget, meaning that the internal components will likely see a very small bump, though nothing conclusive, as stated above, is out there at the moment. Advertisement Since the Galaxy Folder featured an 800480 screen, 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of storage and a Snapdragon 400-series processor, it logically follows that the Galaxy Folder 2 will likely feature specs along the same lines, but with slight improvements. A reasonable screen size may be 1280720, along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage and a Snapdragon 600-series processor, or at least the latest in the 400 series, the Snapdragon 425 or the upcoming Snapdragon 430, which will up the ante to an octa-core setup and an Adreno 5-series GPU. Nothing is set in stone for now, of course, but the new smartphone is likely to see a steady series of leaks leading up to the official reveal just like any Galaxy device does. The Copycat Effect: Omar Seddique Mateen ups the massacre kills stakes What do we know of Omar Seddique Mateen, 29, from reading the newspapers? The Sun: Mateen is the laughing gunman who slaughtered 50 clubbers. He is an IS maniac who murdered 50 people at gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida. We learn that Mateen shot an armed doorman on his way inside Americas Bataclan. He has driven his van 120 miles to Orlando from his home in St Lucie, Florida. Over pages 4 and 5 of the report, readers are told the FBI freed Mateen three times. He was not considered a threat. Before he killed he called 911 and stated his allegiance to Islamic State. We hear of Mateens father, also called Seddique Mateen, 59. The Sun says he declared himself president of Afghanistan on Facebook. His page, Provisional Government of Afghanistan. calls on Afghan soldiers to attack Pakistan. He says the massacre was nothing to do with Islam. Daily Express: Omar Mateen is an Extremist on the papers front page. The Express says he was investigated twice not three times by the FBI. Whatever the real number, the fact is they missed him. Indeed, there are reports he worked as security guard for a company that protected get this federal buildings. The Express then tells readers Orlando is known as The City Beautiful and is the worlds theme parks capital. It hosts the 25th Florida ilm Festival in April. Does the Express have a deal with the Orlando tourism board? Daily Mirror: Mateen is the ISIS MANIAC. Inside Mateen is the lone wolf, although surely known wolf is more apt. On page 7, the Mirror quotes Pat Robinson, a TV evangelist, who said, I totally get the guy who did this. I understand what drove him to such an act. This establishment was a lair of fornication I think its a good thing it happened here. In Voice of the Mirror, the paper uses the world Muslim for the first time. The paper says Mateen is not representative of Muslims. All of them, no, of course not. The paper cites Mohammad Ali, a convert to Islam, saying he and Mateen represent the best and worst of all religiously driven men. What does a boxer have to do with the mass murderer? The link is pathetic. The West was not at war with heavyweight boxers, even the charismatic and pretty ones. The paper treats its readers as idiots who cant spot the difference between a sporting champion and mass murderer. What the Mirror does note, as do all papers, is that it was was the worst massacre in modern US history. He nails it: I wish that TV talking heads would quit calling this officially the worst mass shooting in US history. Will you people quit keeping a leaderboard? There are sick f***s watching you that take that as some sort of challenge as they update their .xls spreadsheets. Its called The Copycat Effect . The Gun First up, Barack Obama: Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is, therefore, a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well. He did not mention Islam in his address. The man who would be his successor as US President, one Donald Trump, is unimpressed, tweeting: Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesnt he should immediately resign in disgrace! The Telegraph When Omar Mateen entered an Orlando, Florida, nightclub on Sunday to carry out the deadliest mass shooting in US history, he wielded a weapon that has been used in massacres from California to Connecticut: a military-inspired semi-automatic rifle. Though so-called assault rifles account for a small fraction of the United States 30,000 annual gun deaths, they have been used in at least 10 mass shootings since 2011, according to a database compiled by Mother Jones magazine. The AR-15 was developed from the US militarys M-16 rifle, used in the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Unlike the military version, the AR-15 is not fully automatic, meaning users must pull the trigger each time they want to fire a shot. Like the military version, many AR-15s combine light weight with a relatively modest recoil. But Wikipedia tells us: An assault rifle is a fully automatic selective-fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. He didnt use an assault rifle, then. Anorak Posted: 13th, June 2016 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink To Bellevue, Ohio, where the local Police Department bring news of Ashley England (right above), Mary Jordan (left above), and Sammie Whaley. The trip were arrested on June 8 for allegedly assaulting a female McDonalds worker because she was working too slowly when dealing with three woman and their family and friends from Sandusky Ohio. Thanks to the use of security video, three arrests have been made in a physical altercation yesterday, 6/8/2016 at McDonalds here in Bellevue involving a female employee being assaulted in the parking lot because she was working too slowly when dealing with three woman and their family and friends from Sandusky Ohio. This afternoon Ashley England, Mary Jordan and Sammie Whaley were arrested and taken into custody by Bellevue Police. England was charged with assault, theft and child endangerment. Jordan was charged with assault and child endangerment. England and Jordans child endangerment charges are due to the fact they had their children present with them and participating in the incident. Whaley was also charged with assault. (ANSA) Kunming, June 12, 2016 - With the Artimondo Italian Lifestyle Experience, all of the quality and beauty of authentic Made-in-Italy artisan goods will be playing a lead role at both the 4th China-South Asia Expo (CSA Expo) and the 24th edition of the Kunming Import and Export Fair, which will run until June 17. The theme of the Italian contribution is 'friendship, honesty, reciprocal benefit, inclusiveness and a winning collaboration beneficial for all'. The Artimondo Italian Lifestyle Experience, the only participant from Italy or anywhere else in Europe (Hall 10, booth 41-64), will provide visitors and buyers with the opportunity to discover and purchase unique products - ranging from food to fashion, furniture and furnishing - representing the best of Italy's traditions. It will showcase goods of the finest quality at accessible prices, in particular: Food: oil, pasta, preserves, jams, marmalades, pastries, wine and liquors, complete with documents certifying their origins, the genuineness of the ingredients and an explanation of how they should be used. Fashion, beauty and wellbeing: clothes, shirts, cashmere and woollen sweaters, jackets, leather shoes and belts, jewellery, bijoux, and natural beauty products based on extracts obtained from officinal herbs. Furniture: innovative design furniture produced by master craftsmen using the finest raw materials. Home accessories meticulously handcrafted down to the smallest detail that add an extra touch of style and elegance to any environment. The fair's first two days will be reserved exclusively to industry professionals, buyers and Chinese investors interested in the quintessentially Italian concepts of 'well-made, beautiful, good' production. The showcase features products from different sectors (where everything, including the furniture which the goods are displayed on, will be available for sale), visuals projected in the background showing Italy's stunning natural landscapes and architectonic masterpieces enhanced by captivating music and footage of artisans at work in their workshops, as well as a tasting area serving traditional Italian food with engaging cooking shows. Buyers will be able to purchase and order all the products that take their fancy. This original approach also gives a first taste something else offer: the opportunity to set up stores at locations in high-visibility areas with big flows of people (high-streets, shopping malls, train stations and airport duty-free zones). In addition to display areas and sales points for food products, fashionwear and furniture, the space also host a coffee house, a patisserie, an ice-cream parlours, an Italian restaurant-bistrot serving pizza and pasta and Italian gourmet restaurants - enabling the Chinese to enjoy an authentic 'Italian experience'. Chinese consumers will be also able to experience this first-hand during the fair's last four days, which will be entirely dedicated to the general public. It is a chance for them to sample top-of-the-range Italian quality at affordable prices. The Artimondo Italian Lifestyle Experience project is promoted by Ge.Fi. - Gestione Fiere Spa - an agency whose aim is to take the finest Italian artisan-made goods to the rest of the world. "For the first time ever, an International fair showcasing the best of China and South-East Asia will be hosting such a wide range of goods embodying all the creativity, quality and positive work culture that define true Italian artisanship," said Ge.Fi. President Antonio Intiglietta. "The incredible job done by our staff together with our artisans marks the beginning of a new chapter in which we will empower the process of internationalisation of artisan enterprises. "With this undertaking we also aim to intensify the collaboration with the Chinese delegations that already take part to Artigiano in Fiera fair so that a real friendship is established - the basis of a solid and long-lasting relationship, including from an economic point of view. "We are humbled yet extremely proud to be part of this experience, which will once again bring together China and Italy on the path of the common history that we have shared since the times of Marco Polo and the great missionary Matteo Ricci". (By Denis Greenan). (ANSAmed) - Rome, June 14 - Fresh traces from the era of Constantine the Great, Rome's first Christian emperor, may have been found at the Bethlehem church he commissioned with his mother Helena in 327 AD, experts said Monday. The traces, which are yet to be dated scientifically, were found during a major restoration project on the Church of the Nativity being carried out by Italian company Piacenti, the experts said. The traces may be seen on reused, decorated wooden material, found a week ago inside an architrave built by a later emperor, the sixth century's Justinian, and dating back to before that, the experts said. The dating, which has to be confirmed with carbon-14, is viewed as "possible" by archaeologists. Meanwhile an appeal was launched in Rome for the restoration of the 50 columns of the Nativity Church. Minister Ziad Albandak, head of the presidential committee for the restoration of the basilica, said 2.3 million euros was needed to fund the restoration, to be carried out by Italy's Piacenti company. The invitation to "adopt a column" is open to governments, private companies and individuals and aimed at restoring to their former glory the two lines of columns from the time of Justinian with their 30 capitals and paintings of saints as well as red, yellow and blue decorations. "The Basilica of the Nativity," Albandak said, "is holy to all, Christians and Mulsims, and all have great respect for it, quite aside from its exceptional artistic and archaeological interest. "That's why so many have already answered the call, with 10 million dollars collected". The donors include the King of Morocco, Belgium, Russia, and Italy (with 347,000 euros). To complete all the restoration, up till the mosaics of Helena under the top of the nave, it will take "another two and a half years and seven and a half million dollars". "The Basilica," added Palestinian ambassador to the Holy See, Issa Kassissieh, "is the place where Jesus Christ and his message of peace were born. "Adopting a column is launching a message of unity to the world. "And in a way it is to adopt a piece of Paradise". The Church of the Nativity is a basilica located in Bethlehem, West Bank. The church was originally commissioned in 327 by Constantine the Great and his mother Helena over the site that is still traditionally considered to be located over the cave that marks the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth. The Church of the Nativity site's original basilica was completed in 339 and destroyed by fire during the Samaritan Revolts in the 6th century. A new basilica was built in 565 by Justinian, the Byzantine Emperor, restoring the architectural tone of the original. The site of the Church of the Nativity has had numerous additions since this second construction, including its prominent bell towers. Due to its cultural and geographical history, the site holds a prominent religious significance to those of both the Christian and Muslim faiths. The site of the Church of the Nativity is a World Heritage Site, and was the first to be listed under Palestine by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The site is also on UNESCO's List of World Heritage Sites in Danger. Libyan militias advance, 'ISIS surrounded in Sirte' 12 of Gaddafi's men killed after release from prison (ANSAmed) - CAIRO, JUNE 13 - Libyan militias involved in the liberation of Sirte from the Islamic State (ISIS) have made significant progress on all fronts and secured the areas taken away from the jihadists, a Facebook page for the operation to regain the city conducted by militias linked to the UN-backed government reported on Monday. The post underscored that ISIS is now surrounded inside Sirte in an area with a five-kilometer diameter. In clashes on Sunday evening, at least four were killed and 17 injured, the MENA news agency quoted a military source as saying. Among those injured is a journalist who was hit by the explosion of a car bomb and whose leg had to be amputated. Clashes are taking place in the Al-Sawawa area, the Al-Bahr road and the Al-Taweela and Al-Dollar zones. ISIS snipers are shooting from the rooftops of buildings, the military source said. On Sunday, three ISIS suicide bombes blew themselves up in Sirte, including one who attacked a field hospital and killed a doctor, Libyan sources say. The Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) under Fayez Al-Sarraj condemned the killing of 12 men who had previously been soldiers under ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The men were killed immediately after their release from jail, which had been ordered by a Tripoli court last week. An investigation has been launched into the incident. The bodies of the 12 victims, who had been shot in the head and tortured, were found on Friday in different locations throughout the capital. UN Special Envoy to Libya Martin Kobler condemned the incident on Twitter and urged that a rapid, transparent investigation be conducted into it. The incident has raised polemics and accusations abound. The Libya Herald has reported that Sarraj's presidential council has been accused of legitimizing some militias that are suspected of having been involved in murders. Grand mufti Sadik Ghariani has also been accused of being responsible for it, since last week he criticized the decision to release those linked to the previous regime, saying that it was against Islamic law. (ANSAmed). Dutch woman released by Qatar but found guilty of adultery Suspended sentence. 140 lashings for man she accused of rape (ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 13 - The young Dutch woman arrested in Qatar for denouncing that she was raped a few months ago was released on Monday after being sentenced to one and a half years in jail for adultery. The court suspended the prison sentence. The young woman was also ordered to pay a fine of about 720 euros and will be expelled. The man accused of rape was sentenced to 100 lashings for adultery and 40 for alcohol consumption. (ANSAmed) Adopt a column appeal launched for Bethlehem Nativity Church For column restoration. Costantine era traces perhaps found (ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 13 - An appeal was launched in Rome Monday for the restoration of the 50 columns of Bethlehem's Nativity Church. Ziad Albandak, head of the presidential committee for the restoration of the basilica, said 2.3 million euros was needed to fund the restoration, to be carried out by Italy's Piacenti company. The invitation to "adopt a column" is open to governments, private companies and individuals and aimed at restoring to their former glory the two lines of columns from the time of Justinian with their 30 capitals and paintings of saints as well as red, yellow and blue decorations. Fresh traces of the Roman Emperor Constantine era may have been found at Bethlehem's Nativity Church during the major restoration project underway by the Italian company, experts said Monday. The traces may be seen on reused, decorated wooden material, found a week ago inside Justinian's architrave and dating back to before that. The dating, which has to be confirmed with carbon-14, is viewed as "possible" by archaeologists. (ANSAmed). TAP: Gentiloni, challenge is Azeri gas by 2020 Minister at fourth inter-government meeting Italy-Azerbaijan (ANSAmed) - ROME, JUNE 13 - ''The creation of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is strategic for the diversification of provision sources'' not just for ''the EU and the Balkans'' but also ''for Italy'', said Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni. ''After the inauguration of the project in Thessaloniki, about one month ago, a challenge has opened: seeing Azeri gas reach Italy by 2020'', said Gentiloni, opening Monday morning at the foreign ministry in Rome the fourth session of the inter-government commission on economic cooperation between Italy and Azerbaijan. ''Now we can look at new horizons'', he said. The objective, recalled the foreign minister, is to boost economic and political relations between Rome and Baku, considered a ''strategic regional partner''. BEIRUT - Two people were wounded last night in a dynamite attack in Beirut's Verdun area. The target of the attack were the headquarters of the Blom Bank, one of Lebanon's leading banks, Interior Minister Nuhad Machnouk told reporters. He visited the site of the attack. According to initial reports by local broadcasters, the blast was caused by a bomb with a small quantity of explosives, which had been placed under a car parked in a side road behind the bank, not far from the interior ministry. Pro-Iranian Shiite group Hezbollah had been threatening for weeks to retaliate against the Central Bank's decision to order local banks not to allow transactions on Hezbollah accounts, thus implementing a decision of the US Department of the Treasury. PALERMO - Some 257 migrants are expected to arrive in Porto Empedocle on Monday morning. They were rescued at sea over the last few hours by the Dignity Ship of Doctors Without Borders. Overall, 1,230 people were rescued in the Strait of Sicily, and one body was found, in nine operations yesterday. Over 1,000 migrants are also expected to land on Monday on the eastern coast of Sicily: some 400 aboard merchant ship Topaz are awaited in Augusta while 652 others are expected to arrive in Catania on the Coast Guard's Dattilo vessel. Orlando killer went to same mosque as Syria suicide bomber Had visited Saudi Arabia twice, reported to FBI in 2013 (ANSAmed) - NEW YORK, JUNE 13 - The Orlando attacker Omar Mateen, who killed about 50 people in a nightclub early on Sunday, went to the same mosque as the first US suicide bomber in Syria: Florida-born Moner Mohammad Abusalha. Reports were from CNN, which said that the mosque spokesman was not sure whether the two actually knew each other. Abusalha was part of a group affiliated with Al Qaeda and was reportedly killed in a suicide attack in the Syria's northwestern province of Idlib in 2014. A video shows him blowing himself up in a truck. CNN and NBC quote investigative sources as saying that Mateen had visited Saudi Arabia in 2011 and 2012. The Saudi interior minister told NBC that Mateen had taken part in a pilgrimage to Mecca. Mateen was reported to the FBI for the first time in 2013 by work colleagues. (ANSAmed). Bahrain: human rights defender Nabeel Rajab arrested NGos demand immediate release of BHRC president (ANSAmed) - ROMA, 13 GIU - Bahrain security forces arrested leading human rights defender Nabeel Rajab early this morning, Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) said. Rajab is the president of BCHR, founding director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and Deputy Secretary General of FIDH. A group of NGOs condemn the arrest of Nabeel Rajab and stress that all human rights defenders must have the freedom to operate in their country. Bahrain police, led by the Cybercrime Unit, surrounded Rajab's home in Bani Jamra, in the north west of Bahrain. The authorities' reason of arrest is not yet known, and it is unknown if new charges have been brought against him. In 2015, police brought two charges against Rajab, together carrying up to thirteen years prison term, both in relation to statements he made on twitter. Rajab was not prosecuted on these charges, nor were they dropped. It is possible that he has been arrested on these old charges. The arrest comes on the first day of the UNHRC's 32nd Session. According to BHRC, in his opening comments Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, criticised recent rights violations in Bahrain and warned: "Repression will not eliminate people's grievances; it will increase them." Last week, under extensive pressure from the government, human rights defender Zainab Al-Khawaja, left Bahrain to begin her effective exile in Denmark. (ANSAmed). Israel reportedly planning another Jerusalem neighborhood City council denial; PLO 'to fight with everything in its power' (ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, JUNE 13 - The Jerusalem town council has begun planning another neighborhood in the far north of its municipal area, where the disused airport Atarot stand, reports the Walla website. The website said that the project is expected to take a year to complete and that the building of it - 15,000 residential units for Jews and 2,600-3,000 for Arabs - would begin in 2019. The Jerusalem council told the Haaretz newspaper that the project is an obsolete one and that the area would instead be used for ''job creation'', according to mayor Nir Barkat. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has announced that it will use any and all means at its disposal to prevent the project from being built. (ANSAmed). Effective August 1, 2016, the airline will increase weekly frequency to Qatars capital city to 37 services. The new daily morning flights as well as the early evening departures on Thursdays and Saturdays provide more flexibility and greater convenience and have been timed to cater for the needs of business travellers both in Abu Dhabi and Doha. The extra frequencies will provide travellers to and from Doha with greater choice and travel options on Etihad Airways network across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, Asia, Indian Subcontinent and North America. The new services are also timed to coincide with the peak summer travel months. Since the Doha route was launched in 2006, Etihad Airways has steadily increased frequency to meet demand, and to offer more connectivity to the growing number of global destinations served from its Abu Dhabi hub. Daniel Barranger, Etihad Airways senior vice president global sales, said: Qatar is a key market for Etihad Airways. Since 2006, we have progressively developed the Abu Dhabi Doha route to four daily flights, and what better way to celebrate our 10th anniversary linking the two capital cities than by upgrading this important route with nine new flights each week, further demonstrating our commitment to the Doha market With an improved schedule to and from Doha, greater network reach and more connectivity, we look forward to giving our guests increased choice and access to even more destinations we fly to via our Abu Dhabi hub. No specific name or formal unveiling has yet been disclosed. Oman Air is in the process of spinning off its ancillary operations so as to focus on its core airline business. At the moment, its cargo-handling operations have been transferred to Oman SATS Cargo LLC, a new joint venture with Singaporean-owned SATS Investments Ptd, while its ground-handling operations will partner Menzies Aviation to establish a new nation-wide presence. The Global Communications Services and FlightLink solutions, when used with the companys AirMap application, meets the requirements of ICAOs Global Aeronautical Distress and Safety System definitions for normal and abnormal tracking. Today, we can seamlessly enable flight tracking on over 1,500 aircraft, and we expect to extend this capability to over 3,500 aircraft over the short term, said Paul Margis, president and chief executive officer, Panasonic Avionics. Panasonic has deployed ground and aircraft communication solutions to support the satellite systems, allowing for efficient aircraft tracking. AirMap provides an airline portal into operations and provides a graphical way to monitor, track and receive alerts on the aircraft. The flight tracking is based on Panasonics Ku-band eXConnect broadband and Iridium satellite communications solutions, allowing airlines to integrate tracking into cockpit and crew communications and use messaging to contact an aircraft. With only incremental cost to add the AirMap application, they will have an elegant and cost-effective solution without having to spend even more capital on a separate tracking technology, said Margis. Royal Jordanian customers will now have access to Dhaka, Muscat, Karachi, Colombo, Perth, and Singapore. The agreement will expand service between Doha and Amman to 18 flights a week. In joining forces with Qatar Airways, we are able to extend our customer experience beyond our existing destination network, to include several new destinations around the world, said Royal Jordanian president and CEO, Captain Suleiman Obeidat. Our code-share agreement enables Royal Jordanian to benefit from connectivity to some of our most popular routes, including Perth and Singapore amongst our more than 150 worldwide destinations, said Qatar Airways Group, chief executive, Akbar Al Baker. SaudiGulf has already received three out of four Airbus A320s and plans to take 16 Bombardier CSeries aircraft from 2017, according to Flightglobal. The airline was one of two new carriers to have been awarded a licence for domestic flights in Saudi three years ago the other was Al Maha, a subsidiary of Qatar Airways . The Al Maha A320s have been operating on behalf of Qatar Airways on short-haul flights around the Gulf for the Doha airline. There are doubts about whether the appetite for Saudi Arabian operations remains for Qatar after many delays in the award of an AOC. Another Saudi airline, Nesma, has also recently begun operations in the Kingdom, to take on the national carrier Saudia and the budget airline FlyNas. Saudi Gulf will operate as a full-service carrier, offering first and economy class on domestic routes.According to ch-aviation it will operate multiple daily flights between Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh initially before expanding its network to include Abha, Madinah, Gassim and Tabuk. International flights have also been touted though this is contingent on GACA's consent. GACA said the start-up will be conferred its documentation at a ceremony to be held on June 22. Wael Marjeh, chief operations officer at Success Aviation Services, said We have recently recognised the enormous business aviation potential in Africa, along with the current operational difficulties. We have now requested by our trusted operators to expand our vital services and expert strategies in Africa. After careful consideration, we decided to address this issue by implementing privately based supervisory ground handling services at key areas. Khaled Shurbaji, Success Aviations chief executive officer, added: Conakry is a port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is known to serve as the economic, financial and cultural center of Guinea. We expect more business aviation traffic to operate over there. Services provided in Guinea Conakry will be as follows: 1 - Customised on-site coordination of all operational requirements to exceed passenger expectations; 2 - Foreseeing any regulatory challenges and providing quality control to all third-party services in advance of operators scheduled arrival/departure time to help ensure a seamless experience on the ground; 3 - Supervising any particular or last-minute requests from crew or passengers and; 4 - Making use of Success Aviations world-class resources whenever and wherever needed. Our Senior expert and professional representatives will be present at the airport 24/7 to provide our clients with impeccable services and to enhance their experience upon their arrival. Our reliable ground expert will be present at all times to handle on-site coordination and last-minute requests with an advance full backup of all Success Aviation Services resources, added Shurbaji. UAE Space Agency Chairman Dr. Khalifa Al Romaithi and NASA administrator Charles Bolden formalized and signed the agreement on Sunday at a meeting in Abu Dhabi. Since its founding, the UAE Space Agency has been emphasizing the importance of cooperating and collaborating with international partners in the fields of space science and the peaceful exploration of outer space. This agreement opens the door to the creation of a wide range of mutually beneficial programs and activities involving numerous organizations within the UAE and the USA, said Al Romaithi. The reason why cooperation and collaboration are important to the UAESA is because we believe that working alongside international partners is the best way to accelerate the development of space technologies and the space sector within the UAE. The space sector serves as a catalysts for economic development and diversification, creating job opportunities and enabling scientists and engineers to become leaders of an industry that can bring huge benefits to our daily lives, added Al Romaithi. Both parties recognise the mutual benefit to be gained from working together in the exploration and peaceful use of outer space, and this agreement facilitates and strengthens the long-standing relationship between the United States and UAE. The agreement covers cooperation and collaboration in space science, operational Earth observation and Earth science, aeronautics, space operations and exploration, education, technology, safety and mission assurance, and other areas with potential benefits to both nations. NASA is leading an ambitious journey to Mars that includes partnerships with the private sector and many international partners, said Bolden. I am confident this new framework agreement with the UAE Space Agency will help advance this journey, as well as other endeavors in the peaceful exploration of outer space. Already, technical experts from our two countries are engaged in discussions on several areas of mutual interest, and I believe our two agencies will collaborate for years to come through a common interest in aeronautics, exploration and discovery. The two countries will continue to identify additional areas of mutual interest for possible future cooperative programs or joint activities on Earth, in airspace, or in outer space. These activities may include the joint use of aircraft, scientific instruments aboard spacecraft, ground-based research facilities, spacecraft and space research platforms, as well as ground-based antennas for tracking, telemetry, and data acquisition. Additionally, the two countries will aim to collaborate on the creation and implementation of education and public outreach programs and joint workshops, with the goal of facilitating the exchange of scientific data, scientists, engineers, and views and experiences on relevant regulatory frameworks and standards. The United Arab Emirates and the United States of America are long-standing allies and have deep economic, cultural and diplomatic ties, said Al Romaithi. We at the UAE Space Agency genuinely welcome the opportunity to collaborate and work with the USA and NASA in the fields of aeronautics, space science, and the peaceful exploration of outer space toward the common goal of fostering the well-being of humankind. Martin Burger, Ph.D., Project Scientist, Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis June 16, 2016 Cal EPA Headquarters, 1001 "I" Street, Sacramento, CA Introduction Presentation Video Research Project Interview Overview Agricultural soils are a major source of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (NO) in California, contributing 53% of the State's total NO emissions. Production of NO in soil is mainly a microbial process involving transformation of various nitrogen (N) species, which can be affected by many soil variables governing soil microbial activities. It is possible, therefore, to minimize NO emissions from soil through proper management practices that would shun soil conditions known or suspected to stimulate NO emissions. As this seminar will demonstrate, this project examined effects of different N fertilizer types and placements, use of nitrification inhibitors (NIs), subsurface drip irrigation (SDI), and organic management on NO emissions from crops of tomato, corn, and lettuce. Overall, the use of NIs, SDI instead of furrow irrigation (FI), and incorporation of N fertilizer into two instead of one band most consistently reduced NO emissions in tomato or corn. SDI effects in lettuce were inconclusive. Organic management in tomato showed slightly higher direct NO emissions than conventional management, due to the FI associated with organic systems. NO emissions in different fertilizer sources were in order of ammonium N > mixed ammonium and nitrate N > nitrate N, indicating that nitrification contributed more NO than denitrification in the systems tested. The results of this study provided experimental evidence for mitigating NO emissions from California cropping systems. More analyses, however, would be required to assess the economic and other environmental impacts as well as the total carbon footprint of the management options. Speaker Biography Martin Burger, Ph.D., is currently a Project Scientist at the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California, Davis (UCD). Dr. Burger's research is focused on developing sustainable agricultural management practices that increase nitrogen use efficiency, conserve water, and minimize greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. His research has addressed questions of fertility, cover crop and irrigation management, and plant nitrogen use under elevated carbon dioxide. Dr. Burger has conducted numerous field studies in a variety of cropping systems, including row and orchard crops, and dairy forage production systems. Most of his study sites were in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, but he has also participated in projects in Minnesota, Brazil, and China. Martin Burger received a Ph.D. in ecology from UCD. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefed media on 13 June 2016 on the agenda of this weeks meetings of NATO Defence Ministers. Over the next two days, we will take a series of important decisions to strengthen our collective defence and enhance our cooperation with partners, said Mr. Stoltenberg. He stressed that these decisions will pave the way for the Warsaw Summit in July, Armenpress reports, citing the official website of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. We will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland, said the Secretary General. He underlined that these battalions are part of a much bigger shift in NATOs defence and deterrence posture, including a larger NATO Response Force, a new Spearhead Force and 8 new small headquarters in the eastern part of the Alliance. All together this strikes the right balance between a greater ability to reinforce, and boost our forward presence, he added. NATO has also taken action to ensure that Allied troops can move faster across Europe, for exercises or reinforcements, if needed. Last month, the Spearhead Force conducted an exercise which showed how far we have come. One thousand troops and four hundred military vehicles moved from Spain to Poland within four days, said Mr. Stoltenberg. He stressed that NATO will continue to work to improve freedom of movement for Allied troops and equipment, because speed can make the difference when a crisis emerges. The Secretary General underscored that Allies must spend more on defence to sustain this shift in NATOs defence posture. He highlighted that, following a long decline in defence spending, 2015 was the first year after many when the Alliance registered a small increase in defence spending. Our estimates for 2016 show a further increase, said Mr. Stoltenberg. The annual real change stands at around 1.5 percent, an increase of over 3 billion dollars, with twenty Allies planning to spend more on defence in real terms this year. So this is real progress. After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction, he said. This week, Defence Ministers will also discuss how NATO can expand its efforts to project stability beyond its borders, strengthening local forces in the fight against terrorism. We will also consider providing AWACS surveillance planes to support the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, said the Secretary General. He added that ministers will assess what more NATO can do in the wider Mediterranean Sea, for instance in support of the European Unions Operation Sophia. On Tuesday, Ministers will discuss the future of cooperation between NATO and the European Union, together with High Representative Mogherini and Ministers from Finland and Sweden. Mr. Stoltenberg noted that ministers will also explore additional assistance for Ukraine and Georgia. On Wednesday, we will meet the Ukrainian Defence Minister in the NATO-Ukraine Commission. We are concerned about the security situation, amid continued ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine, said Mr. Stoltenberg. Photo by EPA YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan on June 13 held a meeting with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Germany to Armenia Matthias Kiesler, press service of the Ombudsmans Office informed Armenpress. Issues related to strengthening the legislative and practical guarantees for the human rights protection, as well as the development of Ombudsmans staff and regional divisions were discussed. The sides expressed their willingness to strengthen and expand mutual cooperation over the human rights protection issues. Ambassador Kiesler expressed his readiness to discuss issues of bilateral cooperation. Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan, stressing the importance of the protection of human rights and the strengthening of the democratic values in Armenia, also showed his willingness to implement joint projects and expand cooperation in the human rights protection field. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry held a phone conversation during which they discussed the opportunities of mutual cooperation between Russia and the US in fighting against the terrorist groups operating in Syria, Armenpress reports, the Russian MFA informs. Issues related to the situation in Syria, as well as the Russian-American possible cooperation in the fight against the terrorist groups in Syria were discussed. Lavrov stressed the necessity to differentiate between Al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra and other Syrian anti-governmental forces which are directed towards the US. The sides also highlighted the necessity not to let the transportation of terrorists via the open border with Turkey, the Russian MFA says. Other international issues, including the Ukrainian crisis, and a number of bilateral issues were touched upon at the phone talk, reports TASS. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission Tigran Sargsyan on June 10 held a meeting with President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia Alexis Rodzianko, press service of the EEC informed Armenpress. The sides discussed cooperation prospects of the American business community with the EEC. Tigran Sargsyan highlighted the EECs willingness to establish institutional cooperation both with the US business-community and the Russian state bodies responsible for trade and economic cooperation. He ensured that the Commission is ready to cooperate with foreign partners and entrepreneur unions on a wide range of issues and formats. Dialogue with the EEC is a necessity. We create economic zone in compliance with the best international practices. Our cooperation and willingness are useful for establishing a regular dialogue. Since if there is no dialogue, of course, there will be a confrontation. Many say in Europe and the US they would like to see the EEC as a predictable partner. However, the problem is that if there will be no cooperation and dialogue between us, we will be considered unpredictable for our partners. The dialogue is a step aimed at strengthening the market institutions which make the world economy stable and unpredictable. The EEC is ready for dialogue, Tigran Sargsyan stated. He offered to start cooperation with the American governmental and business circles over technical aspects. The talk is especially about starting dialogue in a field of technical regulation. Currently there is a great opportunity to create strong market institutions, to make the Eurasian zone predictable for business, as well as for the US business. Without dialogue, it means not to take into account the interests of the US business in this zone. Tomorrow will already be late, he stated. At the end of the meeting the sides agreed to continue the business contacts. YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. The NKR Police inform that the Court of First Instance of NKR has approved the motion for detention of Sergei Avanesyan and Mikayel Sahakyan for a two month period as a preventive measure. They are accused of abducting NKR MP Hayk Khanumyan. As Armenpress was informed from the press service of NKR Police, during the investigative operations carried out in the period of June 10-13, the transportation vehicle used for the abduction, as well as the uniform the accused wore during the crime were discovered and confiscated. Preliminary investigation is underway. Best Technology Products and Services Would you like to submit an article in the Technology category or any of the sub-category below? Click here to submit your article. Would you like to have your product or service listed on this page? Contact us. British audiences are no longer scared of European theatre. It has taken us years decades to feel relaxed about non-representational stagings, actors stripped of plummy tones, the fourth wall not only breached but blown to smithereens. Ivo van Hove and Thomas Ostermeier are our adorable foreign uncles who visit every couple of years with cool gifts. Katie Mitchell, Simon Stephens and Lyndsey Turner are boho relatives with charming foreign ways. And were pretty much down with that. And the comes Phaedra(s), visiting LIFT (the London International Festival of Theatre) from lOdeon in Paris, and it is so massively European, so uncompromisingly, horse-frighteningly French, that the waters of the English Channel might rise in alarm to repel the invaders. Most versions of the Phaedra myth in which Theseus wife falls catastrophically in lust with his son Hippolytus are beyond British comfort zones. Classical texts by Euripides or Seneca are testing; more so the lapidary torment of Racine, challenging instinctively sardonic actors like Glenda Jackson or Helen Mirren to discard irony as they enter the verse tragedy. Isabelle Huppert stars in Phaedra(s) which, as the title suggests, takes several versions of the story by Wajdi Mouawad, Sarah Kane (out of Seneca), JM Coetzee and, finally, Racine. The production by Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski is mighty meta it opens with Hupperts raucous Aphrodite discoursing on the origins of democracy in a Cicciolina wig, and closes with her arch academic whimsically describing the erotic power imbalance between gods and mortals. It all makes for an unassimilable 220 minutes, from the stunt philosophy texts and hooker deluxe costumes (Warlikowski doesnt believe in woman who dont wear heels) to the disconcerting take on gender: an exotic dancer in big shoes and small pants performs endless routines figuring Phaedra as the immigrant woman of uncomfortable sexuality, perhaps, but in a crude fashion. Hate me now? But what seals the Anglo-Euro divide in this production is Hippolytus sock. In Sarah Kanes 1996 play Phaedras Love, the centrepiece of this production, the prince (Andrzej Chyra) does not cling to his chastity, but rather to his shame. Hes a mucky pup, stuffing his face with burgers, his eyes with movie violence, his dick into the nearest hole or hand. Or, frequently, sock. Now, a British audience will always snigger at an adolescent wanking into a sock: you could probably show a montage of Men Behaving Badly, The Inbetweeners and Fresh Meat at an immigration hearing and offer citizenship to anyone making the appropriate fnarr noises. I wont claim Phaedras Love for farce, though Kane did describe it as my comedy. Hippolytus is the ultimate disillusioned youth skulking in his bedroom, and his refusal to reciprocate the narratives of desire, faith or power that he is offered is blackly funny. This snotty, selfish boy brings down a dynasty without even trying Hate me now?, he asks repeatedly. And, yes, the fetid wankpit is a grossly comic setting. Hosiery is a minor player in classic British drama. Hamlets downcast stockings are the first signs of his supposedly wavering wits; Malvolios yellow stockings an index of unhinged aspiration. The male lower leg is, on stage, an undignified appendage, and if you notice what its wearing, then its probably letting someone down. Not so here. Theres wit in Hupperts dry readings of Kanes increasingly baroque stage directions (a vulture descends and starts to eat his body), but Warlikowski smooths over the twitchy self-disgust and depression. Kanes gross prince is tucked into a nice little suit, and the play is staged in a chic cube (photo above by Pascal Victor), the shower scene from Psycho playing on a loop, and a water-torture reverberation filling the air with portent. The socks into which this Hippolytus snots and spunks arent the terrible novelty items or greyed-out M&S standards of the British bedroom; from a distance, they looked soft, slender numbers, sashaying onto the stage straight from the Place Vendome. Its perhaps surprising that a smutty gag could conduct us to the heart of a play about depression, male rage and pointlessness. But there you are: a sticky sock is key. Huppert is a blazing presence, but you cant help anticipating the next in that series of smug books: French women dont get smut. Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays Flash back to 1984, and to this excerpt from an articleno, a brief, really, which in itself says somethingin The New York Times: Also of interest this week: The Flame and the Lotus: Indian and Southeast Asian Art From the Kronos Collections (Metropolitan Museum, Fifth Avenue and 82d Street): Reflecting a rise in collector interest throughout the country, the more exotic art outside the pale of Western civilization is beginning to get its due in American museums. And at the Met, Indian and Southeast Asian art, once neglected, is coming along nicely, thanks partly to its cultivation by Martin Lerner, curator. This, the museums first loan exhibition in the field, was borrowed from a collector, Stephen M. Kossak, who with his family has already given the Met significant objects. The 86 works of painting and sculpture from India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia form a rambling miscellany, ranging from 1500 B.C. to the late 18th century. If theres an overall rationale, its that the objects were chosen for their esthetic, rather than historical, interest, with an emphasis on spirituality and refinement of craftsmanship. And while not everything here is of equal quality, it is obvious that Mr. Kossak, aided by Mr. Lerner, has a very discriminating eye. The first loan exhibition in the field! We have come a long way. Today the Met is again the beneficiary of that eye. On June 14, it will open Divine Pleasures: Painting from Indias Rajput Courtsthe Kronos Collections, another exhibition made possible by Kossak. These works, nearly 100 of them, are a promised gift to the Met from Kossak and his family. I tell the story of Kossak and his collecting ways in an article for The Wall Street Journal that was published in the May 31 edition, headlined A Personal Collection Goes Public: Rajput Paintings at the Met. I have seen many of the works at Kossaks home and I am eager to see them in an exhibition setting. These works are, as I wrote, playful paintings, which were made in the small kingdoms of northern India from the 16th to 19th centuries. Inspired by Hindu myths and poetry, the imaginative, detailed scenes of love and life among the gods are painted on paper in opaque watercolors and ink. They are not Mughal paintings, which the Met owns many of. These works have more of an indigenous feel, higher colorationthey complement the Mets holdings of Mughal works. Regarding the Rajput works, I wrote: Their vibrant huesreds, yellows, blues, golds, whites raised to simulate pearls and greens made with beetle-wing casings to sparkle like emeraldsare matched by their colorful titles. They include Krishna and the Gopas [Cowherds] Huddle in the Rain, Krishna Swallows the Forest Fire and Rama and Sita in the Forest: A Thorn is Removed From Ramas Foot (above right). Each one, [Kossak] said, was bought because it evoked a visceral emotional response. Its lightning-bolt recognition across the board, he said. As the former head of the Asia Society Vishakha Desai told me, The quality is at a very high level and there are only one or two Indian paintings collections like this that have been formed in the last 20 years, formed with the idea of getting absolutely the best. I think it will be a treat! Photo Credits: Courtesy of the WSJ and the Met I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met. *This is the fourth and final essay in a series of We the Audience posts designed to introduce my readers to the citizen artists working in some of South Africas most challenged areas. [For a look at all four essays, start reading here.] Todays essay focuses on Malcolm Purkey, who, of course, does not actually need an introduction. As a key figure in the anti-apartheid theatre scene in Johannesburg in the 1970s and 80s, Purkey remains one of the citys cultural leaders and an important voice for social change through arts activism. One of the first things Malcolm Purkey tells me as we drive toward the city center is that Johannesburg is the worlds largest urban center with no natural waterway as part of its topography. Joburg was established in 1886 not by colonists looking for a logical settlement site (water being both the source of life and the most effective means of travel), but by treasure hunters looking for the next El Dorado. The city sits on the Witwatersrand, a 56-kilometer slice of sedimentary rock filled with a variety of precious metals, among them gold and diamonds. He points out what remains of the gold mining industry as we zoom up the highway. I am lucky to be getting one of Malcolms famous cultural tours of Joburg. Lucky for two reasons: one, Purkey is a native and knows the city intimately; and two, he is an utterly fascinating person with such a rich professional story that I feel like Ive been dropped inside one of the history of theatre textbooks I use in my college classrooms. Throughout his forty + year career, Malcolms artistic life has been indelibly tied to his political consciousness as a South African citizenthere is no separating the art from the politics or his artmaking from his social practice. He began his career at the Nunnery and Junction Avenue theatres in the 1970s, where he worked with other activists to challenge apartheid and developed a workshop methodology for mixed race ensembles to create socially engaged material. Now in his mid-60s, he currently serves as Dean of the Johannesburg branch of the AFDA School of Film, Television and Performance while continuing to write and direct new work. His list of awards is too long for this essay, but you can check it out here. Our first stop is the internationally renowned Market Theatre in the Newtown section of the inner city. The site is a former produce market built in the late 1880s soon after the city was first settled; today the space retains the original Edwardian three-cornered roof and iron facade, but the unrestricted interior of the eastern side of the market has given way to three theaters (proscenium, thrust and a flexible configurations) and a series of lobby, lounge and dining venues. As we wander through the building Malcolm greets former colleagueshe was the Artistic Director here from 2005 to 2013 and is still actively involved as a visiting director. In between greetings he offers me two important facts about the Market Theatres history: It began as a non-racial theatre, meaning that black, colored and white audiences inter-mixed in open defiance of the apartheid regimes separate amenities regulations. It continued as the countrys major struggle theatre during the apartheid era, with the mission to stage original South African material, including a canon of now-famous protest plays such as Woza Albert, Bopha, Purkeys own Sophiatown, and a host of Athol Fugard premieres. From Newtown we head toward Soweto. On the way we talk about the current state of theater in South Africa. Malcolm is critical of the commercial turn the industry has taken; he wonders aloud about the efficacy of socially progressive theatre in the post-apartheid era. Now that the revolutionary moment is past, what kind of role should a new era of critically engaged theater take? Is there still enough interest in plays that dramatize social change to keep the lights on in a place like the Market Theatre? By this time weve arrived in Soweto (an acronym for Southwest Township) and are driving slowly along the narrow streets lined with small, government built houses and jerry-rigged shacks. Soweto was established as part of the apartheid governments forced removal of all non-white Johannesburg residents, and it is of course famous for the student uprising in 1976 that brought the reality of apartheid to the worlds attention. Malcolm points out Mandelas house (he lived in Soweto from 1946 to 1962), now a museum and heavily traveled tourist destination. We continue past and park at the Hector Pieterson Museum and Memorial. Pieterson, one of the first casualties of the Soweto Uprising, was killed on June 16, 1976 and became a symbol of the brutality of the governments armed response to a student-led protest march. Malcolm and I take in the outside memorial stone, and then I spend some time looking at the exhibit material outlining the apartheid governments policies leading to the uprising. As most of us know, the protest began when the government imposed a regulation that only Afrikaans could be spoken in the public schools. Its not a big mental jump to thinking about the present-day reactionary discourse in the U.S. over immigration policy. Its lunchtime. Malcolm takes me to the Maboneng precinct, a newly chic inner-city neighborhood (really just a few square blocks) engineered by a local property developer who is following the now familiar recipe for gentrification: start with the arts, add restaurants and clubs and a boutique hotel, then finish off with rich people moving in. Its a bit surreal to be moving so quickly from the small houses and self-rigged tuck shops that line the streets of Soweto to these densely packed city blocks filled with hip hotels and restaurants, art galleries, a cinema and a fancy food market. Once we finish the free-for-all parking exercise that is distinctly South African (featuring the impressively creative use of all available surface space) and start walking along the main drag, I feel like we could be in any big city in Europe or North America. We eat barbeque and fish at one of the restaurants, sip some Pinotage (a delicious local red blend), talk more politics and more art. The conversation turns to the current South African political landscape, from the daily headlines about the malfeasance of Jacob Zumas government to the overwhelming levels of violence in the major cities. What is the next revolution?, I ask. Economic, he responds without hesitating. He talks about the dismal status of the rand and the threat of junk bond status hanging over the countrys financial system. I talk about my shock at first seeing the level of poverty in the townships and informal settlements around Cape Town [go here for my essay on Frygrond and here for my essay on Langa, Philippi and Delft]. Malcolm listens for a minute before his eyes take on an interesting glint; he says he has one more neighborhood to show me. We finish our coffee quickly and get back in the car. Within just a few minutes were driving down a wide boulevard walled in by high-rise buildings. Windows are broken, pipes hang lifelessly, trash climbs the outside walls. The sidewalks are filled to bursting with ad-hoc street vendors and pedestrians. So is the boulevard itself. Malcolm steers the car in, around and through various groups of people and objects blocking the street. No one is paying any attention to the traffic lights (robots) or the signs. To my left I see scores and scores of women, dressed in robes and head ties, sitting along the sides of the buildings. They appear to be waiting, or lining up, but Im not sure for what. We pass a man holding the legs of a few newly decapitated chickens. Rap music blares from multiple sources. Young women in fashionable western clothing move in groups along the sidewalks while talking on cell phones. Children run in and out of the dilapidated apartment houses, or stand on shaky balconies yelling down to the street. People move in and out of the many storefront businesses. Conversation. Laughter. Horns honking, engines idling. This is the Hillbrow section of inner city Johannesburg: a vertically populated neighborhood with an estimated 50,000 residents, 95.6 percent of them Black African. The majority of residents are migrants from the S.A. townships or from other parts of Africa. In the 1960s Hillbrow was a wealthy whites only section of apartheid-era prosperity. It began going gray in the 1970s as it became known for its progressive politics and openly gay and lesbian residents. Hillbrow is now notorious for what happened after apartheid ended and street soldiers armed with AK47s took over many of the high-rises, literally high-jacking them for the rent. It has a reputation as a lawless place. Police are scarce. Landlords hire commercial security companies to come in and reclaim their buildings. I am overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of these few city blocks. The car is quiet as we continue to drive, and soon were heading up Constitution Hill on the western edge of Hillbrow. Today its the site of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the nations supreme court. Fascinatingly, it used to be the site of the infamous Old Fort Prison, where Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and thousands of other dissidents were held while they awaited trial. When the prison was torn down, some of the bricks were used to construct the new court building. Its been a day of distancesfrom gold mines to theaters to halls of justice. Im grateful to Malcolm for his time, his thoughts, and the chance to better understand his city. Robert Hall was killed because his country did not pay the ransom demanded by the Islamic terrorist group. A Filipino woman and a Norwegian man are left in the latters hands. Manila announces military operations against the extremist Muslim stronghold. Manila (AsiaNews) The Abu Sayyaf Islamic terror group has killed Robert Hall, a Canadian they abducted in September 2015, after no ransom was paid. Mr Hall was killed on Monday after a deadline for a ransom expired, security sources told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Filipino news website Rappler. Meanwhile, the Philippines have launched military operations against the militant group, whose stronghold is the south of the country. Mr Hall, his Filipina partner Marites Flor, Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, and fellow Canadian John Ridsdel were kidnapped from a marina near the city of Davao last September. They were taken to an Abu Sayyaf stronghold on the remote island of Jolo, and Mr Ridsdel was killed on 25 April. Abu Sayyaf is small but makes up for it as the most dangerous and violent Islamist groups fighting for the secession of southern Philippines. It is very active in the provinces of Basilan and Sulu (whose capital is Jolo). Kidnapping for ransom is their largest source of income, which is why the Philippines and Canada are opposed to paying ransoms for hostages. "In Zamboanga (which is near Basilan), Abu Sayyaf is increasingly present, a Catholic source, anonymous for security reasons, told AsiaNews. As long as the army is present, its members melt away into the background, living among family and friends. Everyone knows it. This has become their modus vivendi. by Sumon Corraya The government has ordered security operations after a series of religiously motivated murders committed in recent days. Those arrested include 85 militants of illegal Islamist groups. The opposition party accuses Dhaka of exploiting the situation: "They arrested 20 of us." Dhaka (AsiaNews) - In a nationwide anti-terrorism operation Bangladeshi police have arrested 5320 people, including some militant Islamists. The raid, conducted in recent days, is a response to the recent string of killings that bloodied the country. In a press conference held yesterday, authorities stated that "our counterterrorism teams have arrested 85 militants," some of them members of Islamic fundamentalist groups Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Ansarullah Bangla Team, both banished from Dhaka. The police chiefs ordered the arrests five days after the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the murder of a Catholic man of 71, Sunil Gomez, slain on June 5 last in his Bonpara shop, in the diocese of Rajshahi. The same day, in Chittangong (in southeast Bangladesh), Islamic extremists shot dead Mahmuda Khanam Mitu, the wife of a well-known police superintendent involved in the fight against Islamic terrorism, killing her in front of their child. Since last year, there have been about 40 victims, including students, professors, bloggers and activists in the LGBT community, targeted for their liberal ideas. The police operation was applauded by civil society, although with some reservations. Human rights activist, Sultan Kamal, says: "These mass arrests can also be a danger to innocent people. The police should be more cautious with detentions, but in any case I welcome this crackdown against terrorists. Catholic Hilary Gomes believes welcomes the authorities measures, although "the police should not reveal these counter-terrorist operations, because that puts on alert militants who hide". However, the opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), claims that the arrests are being exploited by the government to incarcerate 20 party members. Speaking to the press the leader of the movement denounced the state of fear in which local BNP activists live. World Refugee Day will be celebrated on 20 June. Migrants from Southeast Asia and the Middle East live in a limbo in the city-state. The Jesuit Refugee Service is active in the country and sends volunteers to refugees countries of origin. Singapore (AsiaNews/Agencies) Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Singapore has been working on projects that educate and serve migrant workers and refugees who make their way to the city-state where they usually find themselves in a legal limbo and unable to work. Together with the local Church, JRS Singapore is preparing to mark World Refugee Day, on 20 June, with two days of initiatives on 18-19 June, starting with a Mass at the Church of St Ignatius, and including an exhibition on refugees in Southeast Asia and on Mercy in Motion. Present around the world, JRS works on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees. It plans to expand its educational services globally to serve an additional 100,000 refugees by 2020. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are nearly 55 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide, people who have been forced to flee their homes due to war, conflict and persecution. JRS Singapore works mainly with people from Myanmar and Indonesia, but thousands have also come from the Middle East and the Philippines. In addition to providing free education in refugee camps, JRS has sent volunteers to the migrants' home countries. In several JRS projects in late 2014 and early 2015, volunteer made separate short trips to Myitkyina, the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar, where they trained teachers, aged 17 to 25 years, in the use of group work in the classroom, as well as project-based learning. The aim of this training module was to empower these trainees to help educate preschool and primary school-aged children return to their communities. In another education project last year, four volunteers from Singapore were involved in a joint initiative between JRS Indonesia and JRS Singapore. They conducted basic English classes for the immigration officers at the Immigration Detention Centre in Manado, Indonesia, in North Sulawesi province. The objective was to teach the immigration officers English in order to help them communicate with the detainees at the centre. It was almost like feeding baby birds, they were so hungry, they so wanted to learn, said JRS Singapore member Thomas Flinchum who prepared the course curriculum and lesson plans. In Singapore the refugee situation is very difficult. People who end up in the city-state without a permit are detained and sent back. Seeking asylum is long and complex process. Without a steady job, refugees cannot send their children to school. Fortunately, JRS is not alone. Other organisations are also involved with asylum seekers. In recent years for example, the parish of St Francis has become the home of thousands of migrants from South-East Asia who receive support, and in turn help hand out meals to the neighborhoods poor. by Fady Noun Beirut (AsiaNews) - The Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Rai, yesterday renewed the consecration of Lebanon and all the Middle East to the "Immaculate Heart of Mary" (pictured). The devotional act comes within the framework of the Fatima apparitions (1917), during which the Blessed Virgin had explicitly asked for the consecration of Russia to her "Immaculate Heart". The Cardinal presided at the rite in the Basilica of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa. He asked [the Virgin] to "seek the intercession of her son, the Redeemer, to reveal the strength of redemption and salvation, the power of his merciful love, to stop evil and convert consciences". The Patriarch spoke of the evil that is presented in the forms "of conflicts and wars, death and displacement, the language of arms, fanaticism, violence and terrorism." The act of consecration took place in the context of a solemn mass, concelebrated by the Syrian Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan, and numerous bishops and priests. Also present was the apostolic nuncio in Lebanon, Mgr. Gabriele Caccia: present the Superiors of male and female religious orders and a crowd of faithful. "With this double consecration - he continued the Patriarch - and through our personal dedication, we turn to God to implore Him to enter into our consciousness and that of our nation, with His salvific plan". The Patriarch then explicitly mentioned the presence of evil in the Church, and not only outside. In his homily the Cardinal said that "evil easily takes root in our hearts of men, and affects the Church, its pastors and its institutions inside and outside." He therefore linked the act of consecration to a " movement of prayer and penance ", speaking out against "immorality, the desecration of religion and the churches, and the disappearance of decency in the way we dress and behave. "Through this act of consecration, the Maronite Church renews for the third consecutive year - added Cardinal Bechara Rai our entrusting of Lebanon and the countries of the Middle East under the protection of our Mother, Mary, Our Lady of Lebanon. We did it for the first time in June of 2013, in response to a solicitation of the Synod for the Middle East which was held in the Vatican in October 2012, under the leadership of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI ". "It was a consecration similar to that of Russia, by John Paul II, in June of 1981". This consecration, he continued, "was followed by another, in May 1982, and then by a third, 25 March 1984, in union with all the Catholic bishops of the world", as required by Virgin in 1917. The act of consecration accomplished yesterday for Lebanon was the culmination of three processions and novenas of prayer promoted in three shrines dedicated to Mary those of Maghdouche, Zahle and Miziara, as from 22 May. These activities were held in collaboration with the patriarchal committee in charge of monitoring the act of consecration, the Marian priest movement, with women from many associations including the Sisters of the Heart of Jesus and the Family League of the Marian community. These devotional gestures and the consecration of individuals, parishes and dioceses have touched the hearts and consciences of tens of thousands of faithful. Kim Jong-uns regime needs foreign remittances from its workers abroad, but fears they might disappear and show up in South Korea. Sources note that hundreds of N Korean soldiers are working on constructions sites in Kuwait and Qatar. They tend to be more loyal and more easily controlled than civilians. Seoul (AsiaNews) North Korea is sending active servicemen as construction workers to the Middle East because it does not have to pay them for their work, Radio Free Asia reported. Soldiers are told to grow their hair so that they appear as civilians and not to talk about it once home. A source said increasing numbers of soldiers are sent to the region through North Korean construction firms Namkang and Cholhyon. Namkang has about 800 workers in Kuwait and 750 in Qatar who come from the Army corps of engineers. Of Cholhyons 3,200 workers in Kuwait, 30 per cent are soldiers. The regime is using soldiers because it does not have to pay them and they are easier to control than civilian labourers. At the same time, more and more North Koreans working abroad are disappearing, and this has set off alarm bells in Pyongyang. At least 30 North Koreans working in restaurants in China have defected asking for political asylum in third countries. Pyongyang relies on foreign remittances in foreign currency that are withheld" from workers salary. Some 590 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea in the first five months of this year, 16 per cent more than in the same period last year, South Koreas Unification Ministry said. This is the first time since Kim Jong-un took power in the North in late 2011 that there has been a notable increase despite more stringent controls. In the morning the police raided his home, detaining him. All of his electronic equipment and other items seized. Authorities make no comment or explanation on the reasons for detention. In recent days, another well-known activist fled the country in fear of being arrested. The man works for human rights in the country. Manama (AsiaNews / Agencies) - This morning Bahraini security forces once again arrested human rights activist Nabil Rajab, who had been arrested in the past and sentenced to prison. The activists family and colleagues broke news of the arrest with a message on Twitter, saying his home was raided in the early hours of the morning. His arrest is part of a wider operation launched by the authorities against internal dissent, five years after the Arab Spring. There have been no official announcements on Rajabs arrest - he is president of the Center for Human Rights in Bahrain however, it comes just a few days after another leading human rights figure, Zainab al-Khawaja, fled to Denmark. According to sources close to him, he left the country in fear of re-arrest. Police also seized electronic equipment and other items from Rajabs home according his wife, Sumayia. In contrast, so far there have been no official statements of Bahrain or the police authorities, who maintain a line of absolute secrecy. Released last July after having benefited from a royal pardon for "health reasons", he had already been arrested and convicted several times in the past. In August of 2012, Nabil Rajab was sentenced to three years in prison for provoking and participating in demonstrations against the government. Rajab, has guided many a Shiite protests, originally from the village of Bani Jamra, near the capital Manama, against the power of Al Khalifa, calling for greater democracy and civil liberties. On June 6 of the same year the activist was arrested for insulting the Sunni community online. Bahrain is a Gulf monarchy ruled by a Sunni dynasty in a country where the majority of the population (at least 60-70%) is Shiite and has long been calling for constitutional changes and social and economic rights. In 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring, there were riots that the king of Bahrain - ally of Washington and supported by Riyadh - defeated with armed troops sent by Saudi Arabia. America's Worst Mass Shooting In History Has Turned Into A Profane, Political Mess Trending News: How So Many People Got The Orlando Shooting Wrong Why Is This Important? Because some people cant just accept a horrifying slaughter of innocents for what it was. They have to make it about them. Long Story Short The reaction online to the Orlando shooting was predictable. Among the outpourings of grief and shock were countless vile, hateful and stupid tweets and social media posts. Among the most polarizing was Donald Trumps. Long Story Its a ritual now familiar to people Americans especially and their political leaders following a mass shooting: go on Twitter, express your outrage and your sadness at another senseless loss of human life, offer thoughts and prayers, and do little else. Its been tried and tested, and it seems to accomplish what it sets out to do, which is nothing. And then along comes Donald Trump. The presumed GOP nominee did the predictable, which was blowing the playbook out of the water, and he did so in starting with this tweet. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 He doubled down a few hours later: What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 The tweet did not go over well. Once again, Donald, you have shown why you cannot lead us. 50 people are dead, and you bask in congratulations. https://t.co/pUN7ceAff7 George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 12, 2016 Donald Trump tweets disgusting humble brag after Orlando massacre https://t.co/FGMQ1ii9Z7 pic.twitter.com/Ye0giiu4zg Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) June 13, 2016 You get the idea. But Trump isnt the only person getting into trouble over his post-Orlando comments. Texas Lt.-Governor Dan Patrick was either the victim of extraordinarily bad timing or was going out of his way to infuriate the LGBTQ community when he posted a now-deleted tweet quoting this verse from Galatians: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. You reap what you sow. Again, George Takei sums it up: TX Lt. Governor @DanPatrick, you are a disgrace to your state in this time of national sorrow. You should resign. https://t.co/zOD2oi1XWD George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 12, 2016 Patrick said the quote was chosen and scheduled in advance and was not meant to be taken as a commentary on the Orlando shooting. Not everyone believes him. .@danpatrick Your actions, speaking intolerance and hatred in the face of terror and tragedy, are unconscionable. https://t.co/lEXiL1sRwW Wendy Davis (@wendydavis) June 12, 2016 .@DanPatrick I don't believe this was a scheduled tweet for a second. Don't worry. I saved it for you. #ResignNow pic.twitter.com/YDnhT5Cz3t Scott Springer (@scott_springer) June 12, 2016 Meanwhile, a lot of gay Americans arent buying the sudden outpouring of sympathy from politicians who have made their antipathy to the LGBTQ community a policy platform. And over at the Center for American Progress, Igor Volsky presents this handy list of Republican who voted against even the most basic form of common sense gun control. Two weeks ago, Obama warned that something like Orlando could happen: https://t.co/uiS1MYQ3Pq pic.twitter.com/H5lnlrgFFD (((Andrew Berg))) (@NickBaumann) June 13, 2016 Yet curiously, Obama has not taken to Twitter to humble-congratulate himself for foresight https://t.co/rxqmHFElBc David Frum (@davidfrum) June 13, 2016 Own The Conversation Ask The Big Question: Is it now impossible to be united in the face of a national tragedy, or are we destined to be split along partisan lines? Disrupt Your Feed: If it wasnt before, gun control will likely be a huge issue in the coming elections. Drop This Fact: Sunday marked the 14th time President Obama addressed the nation following a mass shooting, and the sixth time within the past year. By Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University Shutterstock The nature of the early Earths crust prior to about 4 billion years ago about half a billion years following formation of the Earth is shrouded in mystery. Currently there are conflicting theories as to the structure and composition of the Earth during 4.56 and 4.0 billion years, a period referred to as Hadean. Theories range from a primordial continental granitic crust to a basaltic oceanic crust, to an asteroid-cratered crust. Precious few traces remain today of that ancient crust for geologists to examine, with the oldest crustal rocks dating back to about 4 billion years. The discovery in the early 2000s of grains of zircons (zirconium silicate) dating back to 4.4 billion years, found in sediments in Western Australia, has not yet fully resolved this mystery. This is because zircons are resistant to erosion but other minerals and rock fragments are more easily weathered and eroded. The silica-rich rocks from which the zircons were derived may have come from early granitic crust or they could have crystallised from silica-rich volcanic melts or melt sheets produced by asteroid impacts. So we need more information about what their origin might be. A dominant theory suggests the Earth collided with a Mars-size asteroid approximately 100 million years after it formed, and that the moon accreted from the material ejected from this colossal impact. The Apollo missions indicate 3.95-3.85 billion years ago was a period of peak large asteroid impacts, aptly called the Late Heavy Bombardment. The scars can be readily seen on the moon today as large dark basins, for example Imbrium, Crisium and Serenitatis. In order to shed light on the effects of such impacts on Earth, it is necessary to research the early impact records and study how these impacts affected the primordial crust. However, the scars from the Late Heavy Bombardment impacts on Earth have been entirely eroded, and the material in the original craters were ejected and scattered around the globe. Digging up the past Since the mid-1980s, teams of geologists from the United States and Australia have found the remnants of impact ejecta in sediments in the Barberton Mountains in South Africa and the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia, yielding evidence of impact clusters from around 3.5 billion to 2.5 billion years ago. This research has so far identified nearly 17 asteroid impact ejecta units older than 2.5 billion years, which have shed new light on the role of extraterrestrial impacts and the evolution of the early Earth crust. One of the best preserved early geological terrain for discovering ancient impact ejecta is the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. Since the early 1980s detailed geological investigations in the Pilbara Craton, led by Dr Arthur Hickman of the Geological Survey of Western Australia, have uncovered a wealth of information on the early Earth which allowed investigation of its asteroid bombardment history. When an asteroid impact occurs, a large part of the fragmented, fused and evaporated material is ejected into the atmosphere and falls back to Earth, including into the seas and oceans, where it is incorporated in sediments. The fused and evaporated fractions contain chemical traces of the exploded asteroid. In particular, they contain trace metals and platinum group elements, notably iridium, which are enriched in meteorites. Condensed impact-ejected vapour forms melt globules and glass spherules referred to as microkrystites. While the original impact craters were long ago destroyed by tectonic, volcanic and erosive processes, rare relics of the ejecta can still be found in nearby sediments. To date, only a small part of the impact record has been uncovered, due to the difficulty in identifying traces of impact ejecta in the field. Evidence has been slowly pieced together showing a cluster of asteroid impacts occurred around 3.2 billion years ago, triggering an abrupt transition in the structure and composition of the crust in parts of the Earth. This transition is seen in both South Africa and the Pilbara. This suggests that very large asteroid impacts had a major effect on the evolution of the early Earth crust. Ancient impact In 2014, Arthur Hickman of the Geological Survey of Western Australia and I searched for further evidence of asteroid impacts in a drill core from the Marble Bar region in the Pilbara Craton, finding traces of ejecta associated with an ancient tsunami triggered by the impact. The age of the ejecta was determined to be 3.46 billion years thanks to the knowledge of the isotopic ages of underlying and overlying volcanic layers. The oldest known impact ejecta deposit is a 3.47 billion years old spherule unit located in the Miralga Creek area about 40 kilometres west of Marble Bar, discovered by Don Lowe and Gary Byerly. The newly discovered unit is thus the second oldest known to date. Geochemical analyses used a range of techniques, including electron microscopy and mass spectrometry, to confirm that the spherules we found contain chemical components of extraterrestrial origin. This discovery of traces of Earths second oldest impact helps connect the dots with other evidence of impacts around the world, and thus piece together the early evolution of the Earths crust. Andrew Glikson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above. Originally published in The Conversation. By Leon Sterling, Professor emeritus, Swinburne University of Technology Shutterstock/Olga Nikonova The final in our Computing turns 60 series, to mark the 60th anniversary of the first computer in an Australian university, looks at how intelligent the technology has become. The term artificial intelligence (AI) was first used back in 1956 to describe the title of a workshop of scientists at Dartmouth, an Ivy League college in the United States. At that pioneering workshop, attendees discussed how computers would soon perform all human activities requiring intelligence, including playing chess and other games, composing great music and translating text from one language to another language. These pioneers were wildly optimistic, though their aspirations were unsurprising. Trying to build intelligent machines has long been a human preoccupation, both with calculating machines and in literature. Early computers from the 1940s were commonly described as electronic brains and thinking machines. The Turing test The father of computer science, Britains Alan Turing, was in no doubt that computers would one day think. His landmark 1950 article introduced the Turing test, a challenge to see if an intelligent machine could convince a human that it wasnt in fact a machine. Research into AI from the 1950s through to the 1970s focused on writing programs for computers to perform tasks that required human intelligence. An early example was the American computer game pioneer Arthur Samuels program for playing checkers. The program improved by analysing winning positions, and rapidly learned to play checkers much better than Samuels. But what worked for checkers failed to produce good programs for more complicated games such as chess and go. Another early AI research project tackled introductory calculus problems, specifically symbolic integration. Several years later, symbolic integration became a solved problem and programs for it were no longer labelled as AI. Speech recognition? Not yet In contrast to checkers and integration, programs undertaking language translation and speech recognition made little progress. No method emerged that could effectively use the processing power of computers of the time. Interest in AI surged in the 1980s through expert systems. Success was reported with programs performing medical diagnosis, analysing geological maps for minerals, and configuring computer orders, for example. Though useful for narrowly defined problems, the expert systems were neither robust nor general, and required detailed knowledge from experts to develop. The programs did not display general intelligence. After a surge of AI start up activity, commercial and research interest in AI receded in the 1990s. Speech recognition In the meantime, as computer processing power grew, computer speech recognition and language processing by computers improved considerably. New algorithms were developed that focused on statistical modelling techniques rather than emulating human processes. Progress has continued with voice-controlled personal assistants such as Apples Siri and Ok Google. And translation software can give the gist of an article. But no one believes that the computer truly understands language at present, despite the considerable developments in areas such as chat-bots. There are definite limits to what Siri and Ok Google can process, and translations lack subtle context. Another task considered a challenge for AI in the 1970s was face recognition. Programs then were hopeless. Today, by contrast, Facebook can identify people from several tags. And camera software recognises faces well. But it is advanced statistical methods rather than intelligence that helps. Clever but not intelligent yet In task after task, after detailed analysis, we are able to develop general algorithms that are efficiently implemented on the computer, rather than the computer learning for itself. In chess and, very recently in go, computer programs have beaten champion human players. The feat is impressive and clever techniques have been used, without leading to general intelligent capability. Admittedly, champion chess players are not necessarily champion go players. Perhaps being expert in one type of problem solving is not a good marker of intelligence. The final example to consider before looking to the future is Watson, developed by IBM. Watson famously defeated human champions in the television game show Jeopardy. Dr Watson? IBM is now applying it Watson technology with claims it will make accurate medical diagnoses by reading all medical research reports. I am uncomfortable with Watson making medical decisions. I am happy it can correlate evidence, but that is a long way from understanding a medical condition and making a diagnosis. Similarly, there have been claims a computer will improve teaching by matching student errors to known mistakes and misconceptions. But it takes an insightful teacher to understand what is happening with children and what is motivating them, and that is lacking for the moment. There are many areas in which human judgement should remain in force, such as legal decisions and launching military weapons. Advances in computing over the past 60 years have hugely increased the tasks computers can perform, that were thought to involve intelligence. But I believe we have a long way to go before we create a computer that can match human intelligence. On the other hand, I am comfortable with autonomous cars for driving from one place to another. Let us keep working on making computers better and more useful, and not worry about trying to replace us. Leon Sterling receives funding from the Australian Research Council. Originally published in The Conversation. By Rod Tucker, Laureate Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne As hinted in earlier announcements by Shadow Communications Minister, Jason Clare, Labors much-anticipated policy for the National Broadband Network released Monday commits the party if elected to move away from the Coalitions fibre to the node (FTTN) network and transition back to a roll-out of fibre to the premises (FTTP). This was the central pillar of Labors original NBN. The FTTN roll-out will be phased out as soon as current design and construction contracts are completed. This is a major shift away from the Coalitions focus on FTTN technologies, which was a key part of their election platform in 2013. After a number of delays, FTTN equipment is now being rolled out around Australia. Labor will continue with the Coalitions plans to deliver NBN services on upgraded versions of Telstra and Optus hybrid fibre coax (HFC) infrastructure. No doubt Labor would like to move away from HFC, but the contracts for the HFC network are already signed, and it is probably too late to remove HFC from the NBN. Apart from a commitment to deliver FTTP rather than satellite services to western Tasmania, there are no significant changes to the fixed wireless and satellite parts of the network. Labor forecasts that its revamped NBN will be completed by June 2022, with FTTP being available to 2 million more homes and businesses than would have been the case under the Coalitions current plans. At the completion of Labors NBN rollout, approximately 39% or around 5 million homes and businesses will have access to FTTP, compared to 20%, or 2.5 million, under the Coalition. A 39% FTTP coverage is considerably less than the 93% target in Labors original NBN plan. But in a significant longer-term policy initiative, Labor has promised to commission Infrastructure Australia to develop a plan to upgrade the 2.5 million premises served by FTTN to FTTP. This will mean that all fixed-line connections in Australia will eventually be either FTTP or HFC. Labors new policy recognises the possibility that new fibre-to-the-distribution-point (FTTdP) technologies might become attractive in the future, but has reserved judgement on FTTdP until the technology is more mature. NBN Co is already looking at this technology. Significantly, FTTdP is compatible with FTTP and offers a straightforward upgrade path to FTTP. Can NBN Co deliver Labors new network? Labor has pointed out that NBN Co has an in-house FTTP design and construction capability as well as the IT systems necessary to manage FTTP. In addition, legal agreements in place with Telstra to provide access to Telstras ducts and pits. In fact, in recent months, NBN Co has been rolling out FTTP (including fibre to the basement in multi-dwelling units) at a rate of about 10,000 premises per week. This has been underway at a time when NBN Co has been focusing on ramping up its FTTN and HFC rollout. With a shift away from FTTN construction, and a shift of resources to FTTP design and installation, it is entirely feasible that NBN Co could double the rollout rate to around 20,000 premises per week. This would be more than enough to serve the 5 million premises targeted over the five-year time-frame of Labors roll-out plan. Are Labors costings sound? Labor has not published a detailed budget for its NBN plan. But the total estimated cost ($49 billion to $57 billion compared to the Coalitions budget of $46 billion to $56 billion) appears to be plausible. There are a few key factors that support this: The cost of installing FTTP has decreased significantly over recent years, aided by new efficient construction techniques and new fibre cables with smaller diameter. The ongoing operational expenditure needed to keep an FTTP running is considerably lower than for FTTN. FTTP will remove the need to be repair and maintain Telstras ageing copper network, a cost that NBN Co currently bears. As the demand for higher-speed services over FTTP grows, NBN Co will receive higher revenues from its FTTP network than its FTTN network. Labor claims this will increase the rate of return on the NBN investment from 2.7% under the Coalition to 3.9% under Labor. What will be the impact of Labors policy? Many critics have highlighted the severe limitations of the Coalitions slow-speed FTTN network and its relative inability to drive digital innovation. The pace of FTTP roll-outs around the globe is increasing as other countries recognise the critical importance of super-fast broadband to economic growth. AT&T, a major United States telco has essentially stopped constructing FTTN networks, and has announced a major increase in FTTP deployments in response to customer demands for higher speed. In Australia, the Coalitions FTTN exacerbates the digital divide, the gap between broadband haves and have-nots. Heres how. Those homes and businesses lucky enough to be served by FTTP can access very-high-speed internet now and even higher speeds in the future. Meanwhile, those premises stuck with FTTN will struggle with lower speeds and find that their connection is obsolete within a few years. For those customers with FTTN connections, the speed of their service will be affected by their distance from the node. The greater the distance, the lower the speed. The Coalitions technology choice program enables FTTN customers to pay for an upgrade to FTTP, but at a cost depending on the distance from the node. A business that needs FTTP and is some distance from the node may have to pay $5,000 or more for an upgrade, while another business close to the node would pay considerably less. The NBN has been a key issue in the past two elections, so will Labors new policy be a vote winner? The policy to move back to FTTP provides a clear differentiation from the Coalitions FTTN-centric strategy. Many Australians recognise the importance of super-fast broadband as a driver of innovation in the digital economy, and will no doubt think of this on July 2. Rod Tucker has received funding from the ARC and a number of telecommunications companies. He was a member of the Panel of Experts that advised the Labor Government on the establishment of the original FTTP-based NBN. Originally published in The Conversation. Here is my story. Last September I contacted an agent to get my PR started. I filled out the forms, sent them off and waited for my case officer. After a few weeks of hearing nothing I got in touch and was told my boss hadn't sent their side of the paperwork. I immediately contacted my boss who had said he had sent it. I was heading back to the UK for over a month, and left with them both agreeing to get in touch. I came back to Australia late in November to find no progress still and both agent and boss blaming each other. In January I moved to another agent and everything seemed to be going perfectly until 3 weeks ago when my boss has decided to apply for liquidation. I've already been told he will start up again and it's to clear debts. My question, is there anything I can do to continue my PR. I have been on this visa for 3 years. Thanks in advance for any help My fiance is from Vietnam and I'm an Australian citizen and it looks like the 'Prospective Marriage Visa (300)' is the most logical choice for her to move to Australia and live together but I have some basic questions I can't seem to find answers to. It does appear that it will take on average 12 months to process the 'Prospective Marriage Visa (300)' application and I know that she needs to be in Vietnam to make the application and for the moment it is granted but my question relates to the many months in between. Is she able to come to Australia at all during that time? on any other visa? or does the 'application' of the 'Prospective Marriage Visa (300)' allow a sort of bridging visa? I have tried to much to find an answer on the border.gov.au website. Thanks ACS assess both qualifications and work experience. They have a document you can download from its website that sets out the combinations depending on the level and relevance of you qualification and the work experience required to be deemed skilled. Suggest you read that. You find from there that your Bachelor Degree plus 6 years work experience is worth more for you skill assessment than you Master plus 1 year or less work experience. You can't earn employment points until you are deemed skilled, so be wary when computing your total points . HP The new Clio facelift comes with a little advancement of the design language shown on the ongoing model, launched in 2012 with the brands new styling identity. The latter was developed by the current design boss of the French brand, Laurens Van Den Acker.From a design point of view, the first changes introduced in the Renault Clio 4 lineup include the availability of full-LED lighting.Some versions come with C-shaped daytime running lights. The front grille has been redrawn around the brands logo, while the lower part has been widened.The rear of the Clio has received a redesigned skirt for the bumper. The design package of the Clio has been enhanced with more colors, as well as a selection of wheel designs, as well as more personalization options.Once inside, customers will find new upholstery patterns and materials, as well as plastic materials with a grain-effect finish. The faux-chrome trim elements now have a matte finish for less glare, and the colors have been modified. Other interior components have been refined for enhanced quality and durability.Tech-wise, the Clio facelift is now available with three different multimedia units: Media Nav Evolution, Renault R-Link Evolution, and R&Go system. The latter is available for all equipment levels. The French brand has also introduced the availability of a Bose sound system in the range. Depending on the version chosen, the new Clio is available with front parking sensors, a reversing camera, and a parking assistance system called Easy Park Assist.Concerning powertrains, Renault has introduced a six-speed manual gearbox option for the 1.5-liter dCi 110diesel engine, both being fresh introductions in the range. Furthermore, the 1.2-liter turbocharged gasoline direct injection unit called TCe 120 is now available for order with a six-speed manual unit. In total, the Clio facelift range is now available with 11 engine/transmission combinations, one of the broadest in the segment.Unlike the previous version of the Clio, Renault has decided to launch the high-end Initiale Paris version with the standard model. It comes with an exclusive body color, a steering wheel covered in Nappa leather, specific trim elements, LED lights, and the most powerful engines in the range. As the news anchors say in the opening of their report, this story is hard to believe. Just by reading the title, you can't help but go "WTF?" Is this another one of those titles that seem to say one thing, when in fact what really happened is completely different. How should we put this? No.Meet Robert Borba, a champion bull rider who was down at his local Wal-Mart to get some food for his dogs. Exactly why he had his horse , Old Grey (weird name to give to a horse that wasn't born old), with him in the trailer is anybody's guess. It's probably a cowboy thing we don't get, but whatever the reason, it turned out to be a very fortunate decision.As Bob was getting ready to leave, he heard a woman scream that somebody had stolen her bike . Noticing the suspect was getting away, Bob realized the only way he could get him was to mount Old Grey and give chase. With all the rodeo practice, he threw his lasso at the thief, snatching his feet from the first try. I just roped him and the rope went down around his feet, and I just rode off like I would if Id roped a cow or something by myself, Borba told NBC.The suspect remained tied up until an Eagle Police unit arrived on the scene and detained him on suspicion of theft. Bob was finally free to return home and see to his chores. His little stunt has earned him the nicknames of Lone Ranger or "John Wayne of Southern Oregon," but Bob keeps his feet on the ground. When he's not riding horses, that is. Like the other automakers that were asked if they will depart the country if the UK leaves the EU, Toyotas official response was that they decline to endorse either side of the campaign.However, Toyota Motor Manufacturings representatives have explained that it would be best for its operations for the UK to remain in the European Union.Except for Vauxhall , which only sells its cars in the United Kingdom, this is also true. In the case of Opel s sister brand, leaving or staying in the EU might not make a difference in business, but things might change if they import many components or materials required to build their vehicles.Coming back to the case of Toyota, the trademark infringement happened on a nationwide leaflet that was edited, printed, and distributed for Vote Leave, the side which wants to convince UK residents to leave the European Union. Obtained by Autocar , the leaflet can bee see in the photo gallery.Toyotas logo is present in the Eu Myth Buster section, along with Vauxhall Nissan , General Electric, Unilever, and Airbus. The name of the Honda brand has also been included on the list, but its logo is not present. We expect the other companies to show similar dissatisfaction with their inclusion on this flyer, if their permission was not requested.The British branch of the Japanese corporation has announced it has commenced communication with Vote Leave about the trademark issue, but has refused to comment on the outcome. Toyota representatives considered optimal to address the issue before it is too late, and warned the campaigners about a potential legal action for using its trademarked logo without permission.We would also like to remind you always to think twice when reading flyers for political promoting purposes, as well as fact-checking information and claims made by politicians. The same goes for suspicious news outlets and any websites that promise to sell products with impressive abilities. Being informed is worth it. Use your brain and common sense. Photo courtesy of HLDI. Insurers made increasingly higher payouts for hail damage to vehicles in three of the four years ending with 2014 than in the earlier three years of a seven-year study completed by the Highway Loss Data Institute. Members of the institute's database paid $5.37 billion for hail-related claims between 2008 and 2014, the insurance industry organization announced. The biggest payouts were in 2014 ($968.9 million) and 2011 ($948.3 million), HLDI reported. But the actual payout by all insurers is likely higher and estimated to be $7.26 billion, including $1.33 billion in 2014 and $1.28 billion in 2011. This estimated total takes into account that not all companies are represented in HLDI's database, and not all data suppliers submit weather information, HLDI said. The hail claims data are from the 31 companies that specify weather as a cause of loss when supplying information to HLDI. These companies exposure represents 87% of the comprehensive coverage exposure in HLDIs database. Results for the latest analysis were based on more than 491 million insured vehicle years and more than 1.5 million claims. Losses were concentrated in the countrys midsection. HLDI has been studying the frequency, severity, and cost of these claims for several years. Using information from insurers about weather-related losses under comprehensive coverage, HLDI analysts matched the dates of those claims to hail events recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to determine which vehicle claims were for hail damage. The analysis excluded any hailstorms that accompanied tornadoes since it isn't possible using HLDIs data to determine which weather event caused the damage that led to the claim. Motorcycle claims also were excluded. Source: HLDI The results showed a frequency of 3.2 claims per 1,000 insured vehicle years during 2008-2014, a claim severity of $3,428, and overall losses of $11 per insured vehicle year. Across the study period, 2011 had the highest claim frequency of 4.3, while 2014 had the highest claim severity at $4,169 and overall loss at $15 per insured vehicle year. The states with the highest claim frequencies during 2008-2014 were South Dakota (26.5), Nebraska (19.1), Oklahoma (18.4) and Kansas (16.5). Other states in the top 10, by order, were Wyoming (15.2), Montana (11.8), Colorado (10), Missouri (9.3), Iowa (7.6), and Texas (6.7). HLDI periodically does studies to document the effects of weather on insurance losses, said Matt Moore, HLDI vice president. Hail storms can be devastating events for vehicle owners. Given the recent news from Texas, as soon as the final numbers are available, we will be updating this study. So far in 2016, severe thunderstorms have pummeled Texas, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma with large hailstones. Vehicle damage estimates for three springtime Texas storms alone top $1 billion, according to the Insurance Council of Texas. Some of these losses may be due to other weather factors, such as high winds. 2011 and 2014 were bad years for hail storms, but it looks like 2016 may be worse, Moore said. Although Great Plains and Midwestern states predominate HLDIs hail claims list, the most extreme hail events often occur in other regions. This was the case in five of the seven years examined. While its true that spring is prime time for destructive hail events, HLDI analysts uncovered another outlier. During the study period, the worst hail storm measured by vehicle insurance losses occurred in the fall in the Southwest. Vehicle damage from the Oct. 5, 2010, Arizona storm was concentrated in three counties: Gila, Maricopa, and Yavapai. Of the three counties, Maricopa had the highest hail-loss tally for the day, with nearly 39,000 claims and more than $157 million in payments, according to HLDI. Rentalcars Connect, a division of Rentalcars.com, has partnered with Etihad Guest, the loyalty program for Etihad Airways, Air Serbia, Air Seychelles, and Etihad Regional. This new partnership means that Etihad Guest members will now earn miles every time they book a car with Rentalcars.com. Members can be rewarded a higher number of miles depending on their membership tier level and how much they spend on their rental. Additionally, holders of Etihad Guest co-branded credit cards will also be awarded 15% bonus miles on each booking, according to the company. "Our objective is to provide our members with fresh new offerings from quality providers, said Yasser Al Yousef, managing director of Etihad Guest. Rentalcars Connect is the perfect fit for our members who will benefit from attractive mileage rewards as well as an efficient car rental service. We strive for ever closer engagement with our membership and to partner with brands whose benefits complement our members' lifestyles." "We are delighted to offer our customer-loyalty-driven platform to Etihad Guest, which has been recognized as one of the best loyalty programs in the world, said Ady Guthrie, global director of Rentalcars Connect. We already partner with more than 70 airlines, and now look forward to providing members of Etihad Guest with easy and enjoyable rental experiences." The CRX booking engine and distribution networks (such as Kayak, Kayak Global, Skyscanner, and more) have been serving the independent community with the connections to list their inventory globally since 1999. Two major airports suspended operations briefly over the weekend after drones were spotted flying in the area. Landings at Warsaws Chopin Airport were stopped for 30 minutes after two drones were seen in the area. At Dubai International Airport, 22 flights were affected by a 69-minute closure when a drone was spotted. Polish officials said the drones were deemed to be a danger to the planes and called the police. Like all other aviation regulators, Poland and Dubai have banned unmanned aircraft near airports. Polands rules call for a 12-nautical mile buffer. The United Arab Emirates required owners to register drones and also banned equipping the aircraft with cameras or lasers. There have been drone problems at both airports in the past. Pull the mixture or condition lever and the propeller comes to a stop. Turn off the switches and what had been saturated with noise and vibration becomes still and quiet. After removing your headset and while sitting in the momentary silence that follows a flight, perhaps youll hear the engine ticking as heat dissipates. Its time to pack up and leave the cockpit: Your work is done, right? No, not quite. To get the full benefit of the experience you just had, to learn from every flight, you need to spend just a few moments debriefing your flight. Your post-flight debrief doesnt have to be detailed. Just ask yourself a few questions, and provide honest answers. Your briefing also can be very structured, with a personalized debriefing form and lists of the myriad tasks you performed or planned, plus a scoring mechanism to fairly and objectively judge your performance. The most effective way to debrief, and the most likely system that actually will get used is probably somewhere in between. Regardless of how you debrief, the objective is to review the manner in which you conducted the just-ended flight so you can learn from your actions and be even better next time you fly. To the Books Most pilot and flight instructor texts give a passing nod to the post-flight briefing. Virtually all declare it to be a highly important part of the flight-training process. Most decry the lecture method, in which the instructor tells the student what he or she did right and in what areas he or she needs to improve. The consensus is that better results come from asking the student to critique his or her performance, with the discussion guided, but not totally led, by the flight instructor. The biggest obstacles to making this technique work, according to the FAAs Flight Instructor Handbook, are the students lack of experience and objectivity, which result in an inability to properly assess his/her performance; the fatigue state of a student after a lesson, especially in the early stages of pilot training; and an instructors lack of familiarity with good debriefing techniques. Another factor is the instructor or students unwillingness to spend the time necessary to conduct a useful post-flight debriefing. Ive not yet found any FAA guidance on extending the concept of a post-flight briefing to a pilot who is critiquing his or her performance following a day-to-day, non-instructional flight. Yet the vast majority of our flying happens without an instructor by our side, and available to review the flight afterward. Although instructors present us the training needed to earn certificates and ratings, and occasionally provide a refresher in the form of a flight review, an instrument proficiency check (IPC) and other recurrent training, we learn most from our own experiences as pilot-in-command in real-world situations. Psychologist and flight instructor Dr. Janet Lapp is a proponent of the post-flight self-brief. What happens during the crucial period of time immediately following a behavior, or set of behaviors, can either reinforce (make stronger), punish (eliminate temporarily), or help extinguish (aid in forgetting) that behavior, according to her November 2008 article in AOPAs Flight Training magazine. The best time to learn may be in the few moments right after a flight, in an organized and controlled manner, she wrote. Actions completed by self, rather than by other, are more meaningful and memorable; memory traces are more indelibly etched; and content is more internalized. We become responsible for what we do[and] we take more responsibility for our actions. Get it in Writing Dr. Lapp suggests we commit our debriefings to writing, building a journal of our growing experience. If we dont measure it, she writes, we cant change it. Lapp also says her personal research suggests that a written review makes pilots open up to the process and give self-debriefing the attention it deserves. The central purpose [of a written review] is to increase self-correction, reflection, and tracking of attitude and behaviors. The goal is to create pilots who reflect on emerging issues immediately after every flight. The students make the entries, specify what they did well and what they could have done better, what they will work on next time, and what knowledge gaps were discovered. These are accompanied by a self-rating system that creates its own system of improvement. Dr. Lapp makes her suggested debriefing form available to the public, and invites pilots to adopt it and customize it to their needs. It allows the pilot to identify the major areas of critique, and to answer a few broad questions that identify the overall tenor of the flight. Although Dr. Lapps research focused on students receiving instruction (which was, after all, when she was present to introduce the concept of the post-flight debrief and judge the results), she notes in the Flight Training article she created the form originally to reinforce her own need for post-flight debriefings as a certificated and active pilot, and has told me several times her intent is for pilots to use the form as a self-debriefing tool. Some pilots have suggested reluctance to create a written record of the mistakes theyve made while flying an airplane. They seem to fear the journal could fall into the wrong hands and be used in some way against them in an FAA enforcement action or a liability lawsuit. Sad to say, they may be right. If you choose not to maintain a written record, but you find the act of writing about and scoring your flights indeed does focus your attention on continual improvement, theres nothing to prevent you from critiquing your performance in writing and then destroying the record when youre done with it. The Highly Qualified Pilot If you want to develop an even more detailed type of self-debriefing, you might do what I do as a result of my military experience. Back in the Bad Old Days of the Cold War, I served as a Minuteman nuclear missile launch control officer for the U.S. Air Force. The pressure-cooker environment of potential total nuclear war, 60 feet under the Missouri plains, strangely did much to prepare me for the single-pilot cockpit of an airplane. One thing the missile business did for me as a pilot was to teach the debriefing concept of minor, major and critical errors. Air Force missileers train and are evaluated relentlessly. At least once a month we spent four hours in the boxa functional simulator reproducing the hardware and operation of a missile launch control center. No less than once a year we were evaluated in the box (I personally had eight annual checks during a four-year tour of dutygo figure). We also were evaluated in the fieldobserved while on actual alertmuch like a line check for an airline pilot. Every evaluation assumed from the beginning that the missile combat crews performance was perfect earning 5.0 points on a five-point scale. Of course, from there, things can go only one direction: downhill. Certain functions, if performed incorrectly, were considered minor errors. These were items that were missed or performed incorrectly, but which did not directly impact the primary mission. Commit a minor error, and youd have one-tenth of a point lopped off your beginning, perfect score. A major error might delay getting a missile repaired correctly, allow unauthorized access to a missile site (but no direct access to controls, boosters or warheads), or cause (by action or inaction) one component of the hardware to become inoperative. A major error cost one full point off your final score. In some cases it was possible to recover from a minor or even some major errors, and not be charged the adverse pointsif you caught the error in time, and undid what you had done. A critical error in missiledom cost five points, an automatic failure of the evaluation. Examples of crits included attempting to launch missiles when not ordered, launching at a valid order but at the wrong time, or launching to the wrong targets, all of which are highly undesirable events (this was, of course, all in the box). In the field, critical error might be tuning a radio or satellite receiver incorrectly (meaning you would not receive emergency messages). Another critical error was to shut down your launch capsule when not called for, thereby degrading your squadrons ability to launch missiles (usually, when dealing with a simulated fire in your tiny underground command center). Error points were additive. A major error and two minor errors resulted in a 3.8 score, etc. A crew was deemed qualified if its final score was 2.5 or higher. Crewmembers were awarded highly qualified (HQ) status for a 4.6 or better score (no more than four minor errors, and none of the major ones). You could crit out on a combination of major and minor errors. And sometimes an action that would ordinarily only be a minor error (such as setting a clock or tuning a radio) might become major if that act led to missing some other task, or it might even be critical if it adversely affected alert status or a simulated launch later on. Great woe fell upon the combat crew that critted out and had to go through the entire crew certification procedure to regain their mission-ready status. Whats this got to do with flying airplanes? Since were not talking nuclear Armageddon here, most pilots who crit out (i.e., have an accident) do so by letting minor and major errors snowball. Heres an example from several years ago: I was flying a Beechcraft Bonanza from Wichita to Tullahoma, Tenn. This was my first long trip in the rented Beech, and I was still getting the hang of its Garmin GX60 IFR-qualified GPS. Somewhere over southwestern Missouri, I was assigned a vector around a newly hot MOA, and was told to expect direct to the Walnut Ridge VOR and then the rest of my route as filed. I made the heading change and began fiddling with the GPS. Still not fully proficient with the interface, I put the Bonanza on autopilot while I loaded the new waypoints. Satisfied, I activated the flight planand watched as the Bo turned directly toward Walnut Ridge, about five degrees to my left. Minor error! I realized my mistake and returned to my assigned heading. I never penetrated the MOA, and ATC never said a word about it. I was now flying on a 4.9 score. I made a quick note to include the event after I landed, when Id have time to learn from it. If Id have accidentally penetrated the MOA, or if ATC had needed to divert traffic to avoid me as a result, it would have been a major offense. And if Id hit something because of my originally minor transgression, well. Some examples of minor errors: missing a radio call; failure to tune backup navcoms; improper setting of altitude alerters; misprogramming or failing to confirm the autopilots operating modes; one dot from center on course guidance or glidepath at the missed approach point; etc. A few examples of major errors: Missing a handoff; flying a destabilized approach; deviation from your fuel management schedule; more than 100 feet off altitude; etc. In addition to actual crashes, critical errors include: busting minimums; deviations from an instrument procedure, cleared route or altitude that would result in failure of the IFR Practical Test; failing to brief for the missed approach; failure to follow an obstacle departure procedure; etc. You could list possibilities all day long. Its easier and more effective to quickly note the transgressions in flight, then rank errors against the minor/major/critical scale after you land. The trick of flying is to minimize the minor errors and avoid the major offenses, and thereby not crit out, or have an accident. We will make mistakes. Its almost always possible to recover from a minor error in the plane and keep your score in the HQ range. Even if you pull a major, as we said in the Air Force, you can fly the rest of the trip in perfect safety if you monitor your position, use your checklists and watch your performance. Put the emotion of making a mistake behind you, and fly the rest of the trip to HQ standards. After you land, review your in-flight notes and score yourselfto become a highly qualified pilot. Post-F light Debrief Whether you answer a few brief questions or complete a detailed, point-by-point reviewin your head, aloud with a fellow pilot or in writingto fully benefit from the experience of every flight its extremely helpful to do a post-flight debriefing. The sooner after you land the better, because more information will be fresh in your head. Most of us shut down, get out of the airplane, and get on with our busy liveslikely the reason we flew in the first place. Taking a few moments, however, to review the lessons of every flight will help prepare you for the next ones. This article originally appeared in the June 2014 issue ofAviation Safetymagazine. To get more great content like this, subscribe toAviation Safety! 13 June 2016 11:16 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov Observers and opposition have criticized the Armenian government for ineffective actions and unwise policy that has lead the country into a deeper economic crisis. Last week, inaccurate execution of the 2015-state-budget and shortcomings in the 2016-state-budget have become a serious topic of debates in Armenia, while some urged the authorities to amend the budget of 2016. Mher Shahgeldyan, Secretary of the Orinats Yerkir Faction, announced that the 2015-budget failed to prevent the growing unemployment in the country. The unemployment rate is18 percent and due to the wrong structure of national economy, new vacancies do not seem to come up soon, he said. The opposition forces are also skeptical about the anti- corruption fight launched by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan. Shahgeldyan said that corrupt officials cannot combat corruption, adding that the reduction in the number of cars and personnel cannot give obvious results, because more radical measures are needed. Mikayel Melkumyan, member of the Prosperous Armenia Party Faction, also voiced that he does not believe the anti-corruption fight will give tangible results, stressing the need for radical measures. Meanwhile, MP Tevan Poghosyan noted that, for many years, the Armenian government allocated money for about 500,000 books, and now it turns out that the books do not exist at all. Nobody knows where these books are, but significant funds were annually allocated to publish them. At the same time, the government reduces the number of cars of officials and work places that have never existed, he complained. Secretary of the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) Faction Aram Manukyan, for his part, spoke about the miserable economic situation in the country. The Armenian budget deficit of 2015 has increased by 3 percent (from 1.9 percent to 4.8 percent), and the external trade turnover conversely decreased by 20 percent. In 2014, GDP amounted to $11.6 billion, and in 2015 it reduced to $10.1 billion. The revenues of the state budget for 2014 were $2.7 billion, and in 2015 they also dropped down - $2.44 billion, said Manukyan, noting that these are the result of the unwise economic policy. He also spoke about the national debt, which will soon grow to the level of $5.3 billion. The ratio of external debt to the Armenian GDP is 51%. It means that the debt per capita will be $1, 750, Manukyan said, warning that this is the above all limits. Despite the governments reiteration that the debt is controllable, last year's data showed a gradual rise in external debt and it exceeds the red line. Overall, it does not seem that Armenians will enjoy the wealth until their government amends its policy or leaves the office at all. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 16:36 (UTC+04:00) By Rashid Shirinov For over the past decades, those living in the frontline zones close the contact line of the Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces have learned that the Armenian bullet can come not only from the Armenian military but also from a river. Armenia, following several days of heavy raining, opened the Hachinchay reservoir located in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan thus allowing water into the Hachinchay river. However, Armenian terrorists didnt forget of putting mines and bombs in the rivers flowing to Azerbaijan in order to hurt the civilians in front-line Azerbaijani regions. Residents of the front-line regions reported about frequent blasts in the river, which was dried for over 8 years. Tavakkul Mammadov, a resident of the Hasanli village in Tartar region, said that last time the Armenians provided water for the Hachinchay river 8 years ago. Heavy precipitation in mountainous and foothill areas of mountains over the last days caused a mudflow, which raised the water level in the reservoir. Thus Armenians opened the reservoir, but also filled it with mines, he said. Hanchinchay flows through the territory of Terter, Agdam and Barda regions of Azerbaijan. The length of Hachinchay is 119 kilometers, while catchment area reaches 657 square km. In 1964, the Hachinchay reservoir was built on the river. Following the occupation of Agdam region by Armenians in 1993, Azerbaijanis were deprived of the river Hachinchay and the reservoir. Children, women or elderly, just innocent people who had nothing to do with war are a target of Armenian militaries every day, as this is not the first time when Armenians chose such a inhumane way to hurt Azerbaijani civilians. The ammunition, thrown by Armenians into the river, hit the rocks and explode due to the strong flow of the Hanchinchay river, residents of the frontline villages complained. Overall, several mines were found in the Hachinchay river in recent years. In May 2010, the law-enforcement agencies of Azerbaijan neutralized 10 anti-personnel mines, which were detected in the Shahvalilar village of Barda region of Azerbaijan. Another three Armenian mines were discovered on July 1, 2010, in Ayag Gervend village and a grove in Agdam region. Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action could detonate all mines. On February 9, 2011, a mine was again found in the Shahvalilar bank of the river. The most horrific fact of Armenian passive aggression to Azerbaijan is the accident with a 13-year-old Azerbaijani girl, who died due to a bomb-toy she gathered from the Tovuzchay river in the Alibeyli village of Azerbaijan in 2011. Back in 1994, another two Azerbaijani children died for the same reason. --- Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 10:26 (UTC+04:00) The Romanian Embassy, which fulfills the mandate of NATO Contact Point Embassy to Azerbaijan for the fourth time in a row, organized a NATO presentation stand at EuroVillage event in Ganja on June 11. The EuroVillage event has been held in Heydar Aliyev Park by the delegation of the European Union to Azerbaijan in cooperation with the embassies of European Union member states and in partnership with the Executive Power of Ganja. The NATO presentation stand was part of the public diplomacy efforts done by the Romanian embassy with a view to disseminate information about NATO agenda in the light of the summit to be held on July 8-9, 2016 in Warsaw. The EU is regularly invited to attend NATO summits. European Council President, Donald Tusk, European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, and High Representative Federica Mogherini will represent the European Union at the Warsaw summit. The European Union is a unique and essential partner for NATO. Both organizations share common values. North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union now have 22 member countries in common. As a NATO and EU member, Romania actively supports Azerbaijan to enhance its relations with the European and Euro-Atlantic institutions. Romania, which has been the second country in the world to recognize Azerbaijans independence, considers that Baku is a reliable and highly valued partner of the North-Atlantic Alliance. Romania acts in the position of a NATO member that can share its recent experience of Euro-Atlantic integration, presenting best practices and providing expertise on the implementation of reforms in the security and defense sector in accordance to NATO standards. Romanian diplomatic mission in Baku started its 1st NATO Contact Point Embassy mandate in Azerbaijan in January 2009 and nowadays is already performing its 4th successive mandate. Embassy of Romania operates as a channel for disseminating information in Azerbaijan about the role and policies of the North-Atlantic Alliance. Within its activity Romanian diplomatic mission pays a constant attention to promotion of Euro-Atlantic values, principles and standards in Azerbaijan. A large public, including the head of Executive Power of Ganja, Elmar Veliyev, visited the NATO presentation stand organized by Romanian diplomatic mission. NATO promotional materials have been widely distributed. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 13:29 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijan condemns the heinous shooting perpetrated in Orlando, the U.S., on June 12, which resulted in numerous human causalities and injuries, said Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry. Azerbaijan extends heartfelt condolences to the people of the US and the families of those who lost their lives, and wishes a speedy recovery to the wounded, Hajiyev told Trend on June 14. Fifty people were killed and 53 wounded in shooting at the crowded Pulse gay nightclub in the heart of Orlando, Florida, June 12. The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club with armored cars after a three-hour siege. This became the deadliest mass shooting in US history. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 12:37 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova Azerbaijan and Iran are considering three options for financing construction of the Rasht-Astara (Iran) railway section, Head of Azerbaijan Railways CJSC Javid Gurbanov said while talking to ANS TV channel. Being a part of the North-South transport corridor the project is aimed to connect northern Europe to South-East Asia. "We have asked Iran to provide us with the documentation on the project, and we will submit it to the ministries of finance, economy and emergency situations of Azerbaijan," Gurbanov said. "An evaluation will be conducted, and its results will be presented to the president of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani side expressed its readiness to provide financial support to Iran in the construction of this section. President of Iran Hassan Rouhani is expected to visit Azerbaijan on August 8-10, and until that time, we will try to prepare the necessary documents and protocols to provide financial assistance regarding this section, and these protocols will be signed between the two countries if the president of Azerbaijan approves them. Commenting on the form of financing sources, he mentioned that it depends on the outcome of the negotiations. "It will depend on the conditions of the agreement whether the sources of financing will be in the form of a loan [which will be provided by Azerbaijan] to Iran, whether Iran will attract a foreign loan or it will be a loan attracted within the country," Gurbanov added. "All the three options are being considered, and the one which suits the two sides will be chosen," he said. "Iran wants the companies of the two countries to work together and on equal rights. However, there are options of working within a joint venture or holding an international tender." Being a part of the North-South Transport Corridor, the Rasht-Astara railway is constructed with aview to integrate the main transportation lines of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia. The railway is expected to facilitate and expedite exchange of good and trade between the countries. The volume of freight which is expected to be initially transported ranges from three to five million tons per year and rise up to 10-12 million tons in the future, according to preliminary estimates. The creation of a direct railway communication along the western coast of the Caspian Sea is expected to contribute to the growth and further development of the transportation market in the region, and become a good motivation for the expansion of foreign economic relations between regional states and European countries. Gurbanov also touched upon the issue of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway construction mentioning that the process is under completion. "The work is being conducted in difficult climatic conditions. In fact, the work has been completed in Georgia. In Turkey the work has been completed by 80 percent," he added. "The railway will stretch 85 kilometers on the territory of Turkey and this is not a big problem for the country," he said. "The rest work is likely to be finished by late 2016 and we will be able to transport the cargo by diesel locomotives." Gurbanov stressed that he intends to hold a meeting in connection with the project with Turkish Minister of Transport, Shipping and Communications Ahmet Arslan. Previously the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway route was reported to be commissioned and start cargo transportation in November 2016. The peak capacity of the corridor is expected to be at the level of 17 million metric tons of freight per year. Being constructed under a Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement, BTK is expected to expand multi-modal transportation opportunities and ensure the growth of passenger and freight transportation. The State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) which is financing the project has already allocated two loans worth $775 million for the construction of the Georgian section. Commenting on the Great Silk Road project, Gurbanov stressed that while crossing the territory of Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, this route is expanding the way to Europe. "The Europe-China trade turnover hits about 100 million tons. But this index will increase," he said. While commenting on the North-South International Transport Corridor project, the head of the Azerbaijan Railways stated that the first cargo train from India to Russia passing through the territory of Azerbaijan will be launched in late August 2016 "The freight train will take off from India's Mumbai city, then it will be transported by ferry to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in late August. Then by railway the train will arrive in Iran's Rasht city" he added. Gurbanov added that the goods will be transshipped to trucks in Rasht city and delivered to Azerbaijan's Astara city. Gurbanov also stressed that then the cargo will be delivered to Moscow by railway from Astara city. "This multimodal transportation will be carried out together with the railways of Azerbaijan and Russia," he said. The North-South corridor, from India to Helsinki, with a length of 7,200 kilometers is designed to carry more than 20 million tons per year. It is a multimodal route for transportation of passengers and cargo from Russia's St. Petersburg to the Mumbai port. It is designed to carry transit cargo from India, Iran and other Persian Gulf countries to the territory of Russia (the Caspian Sea) and further - to Northern and Western Europe. The agreement among Russia, Iran and India on the North-South International Transport Corridor was signed in Saint Petersburg (Russia) on September 12, 2000. Azerbaijan joined the agreement in September 2005. The main objective of the project which is considered to serve as a link for connecting the railways of Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia is to connect the Northern Europe with South-Eastern Asia. The corridor is expected to reduce the cargo delivery period and transport five million tons of cargo a year in the first phase and over 10 million tons of cargo in the future. Gurbanov also said that two cargo trains, which will become part of the international railway project 'Viking', will be sent to the Georgian port of Poti from China through the territory of Azerbaijan in late July - early August 2016. He said that major logistics company DHL will be involved in cargo transportation. "Two trains will be sent from China to Kazakhstan's Dostyk station in late July-early August 2016. From there, the trains will arrive in the Georgian port of Poti via the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, that is, across the sea and the territory of Azerbaijan, Gurbanov said. Combined transport train project Viking was launched in 2003. Participants of the project are Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Bulgaria joined the project in 2012. The total length of the route Ilyichevsk (Ukraine) - Minsk (Belarus) - Draugyste (Lithuania) is 1,766 kilometers. In February 2016, Ukraine and Lithuania signed a memorandum on the accession of the container train 'Viking' to the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route from Europe to China through Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The participation of Azerbaijan Railways in the Viking project is considered to extend the container train route to more distant Asian countries. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 10:43 (UTC+04:00) Fans of the royal races will be able to meet the Formula 1 drivers and get their idols autographs on all four days of the Grand Prix of Europe race weekend in Baku. All the meetings with the drivers will be held on the F1 village stage, which is behind the Absheron Grandstand. The autograph sessions begin on Thursday 16 June, when all fans will be able to meet drivers from the Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull Racing and Toro Rosso teams, which promises to get the whole 2016 FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX OF EUROPE off to an excellent start. Autograph session schedule: Thursday, 16 June: Ferrari 16:50 - 17:10 Red Bull 18:00 - 18:20 Mercedes 18:20 - 18:40 Toro Rosso 18:40 - 19:00 Friday, 17 June: Haas F1 Team 11:00 - 11:20 Saturday, 18 June: Renault 12:20 - 12:40 Force India 12:40 - 13:00 Sunday, 19 June: Manor 12:40 - 13:00 Sauber 13:00 - 13:20 Williams 13:20 - 13:40 *McLaren the time of this autograph session will be announced separately. As time is limited, all fans are advised to arrive at the sessions early so that they manage to collect the autographs. We look forward to seeing you at the 2016 FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX OF EUROPE, which begins this Thursday, 16 June! -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 13:21 (UTC+04:00) Baku City Emergency and Urgent Medical Aid Station have made all the brigades of doctors fully ready for the upcoming Formula 1 race. Some 27 brigades of doctors will be available during the race, chief physician of Baku City Emergency and Urgent Medical Aid Station Rauf Nagiyev told Azertac. Some12 brigades are intended for athletes, 6 for spectators and guests. 9 brigades of doctors will operate on an ambulatory basis. Doctors will offer medical service at 9 medical stations in places where the race will be held. Moreover, a common station has been created for athletes in the area. Highly qualified surgeons, traumatic surgeons, and neurologists will operate there, the chief physician added. Formula 1 race fans will gather in Azerbaijan on June 17-19, as its capital will host the eighth stage of the 67th season of Grand Prix of Europe for the first time. With a length measuring at slightly over six kilometers, the 20-corner track will be lapped 51 times, with cars reaching potential speeds of up to 340km per hour, marking the circuit out as the fastest street circuit on the existing F1 calendar. The circuit offers a number of challenges for drivers, including an extremely narrow uphill section along the old town walls that will require pinpoint accuracy, and it has an acceleration section of almost 2.2 kilometres along the seaside promenade, which will see the cars running flat out at very high speed - something that will create an incredible show for race fans. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 09:59 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli Fighting diseases was a challenge of mankind since the ancient times, but the most remarkable results in this regards have been achieved thanks to development of medical science. Azerbaijani doctors could make a breakthrough in this regard, fully eliminating rubella and measles, mostly observed among children, in the country. Azerbaijan was ranked 10th among the 53 European countries for the prevention of the spread of measles and rubella, according to the WHO Regional Office for Europe. WHO experts have come to this conclusion after examining the situation in the country in this sphere for the past few years. Rubella and measles also called childhood infection is highly contagious infections, that can be very unpleasant and sometimes lead to serious complications. Measles starts with fever, runny nose, cough, red eyes, and sore throat. Its followed by a rash that spreads over the body. Measles virus is highly contagious virus and spreads through the air through coughing and sneezing. Despite being considered primarily a childhood illness, measles can affect people of all ages. Fortunately doctor say that these two diseases have not threatened Azerbaijan for several years. Currently, three regions of Europe target to eliminate rubella and measles. Throughout Europe some 21 countries achieved the elimination of measles and 20 states succeeded in preventing rubella this year. Infectious Disease Specialist at the WHO Azerbaijan Office Javahir Suleymanova said that Azerbaijan succeeded to eradicate both diseases. Indeed, this is an important success for the national health system, since compared to 20 countries, where only one of these diseases have been eliminated. Azerbaijan has managed to achieve the elimination of both, thanks to the timely vaccination. In 2002-2005, the country experienced the outbreak of measles and rubella diseases, involving more than 10,000 people. More than 50 percent of affected were people above 15 years old. Later, Azerbaijan held the campaigns for mass immunization of the population. Cases of rubella have no longer revealed in the country since 2008, thanks to the measures taken by the Health Ministry, in particular, a large campaign carried out in 2006 and aimed at combating these diseases, which covered people aged from 7 to 35 years. However, these diseases still remain endemic in 18 European countries. These are countries neighboring Azerbaijan. Moreover, Russia, Georgia, Iran and Armenia are among the carriers of the virus. That means that the disease can appear in the country again. Thats why vaccination will continue, Suleymanova said. Earlier, Health Ministrys chief pediatrician Nasib Guliyev said that the last outbreak of measles and rubella in the country was reported in 2008. After the vaccination campaigns among the population, measles and rubella disappeared in the country, he said. Despite some parents believe that the vaccine can harm their children's health, Guliyev noted that immunization is very important. The fact is that, the vaccine has virtually no side effects. Side reaction can happen in one of a million vaccinated children. But the benefits of vaccination are clear when you consider that measles mortality reaches up to 8 percent. In case an adult was not vaccinated at the time, he/she is likely to be ill in future, but note of that in adulthood this disease carries much heavier than in childhood. Measles remains one of the leading causes of death among young children globally, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine. Approximately 114,900 people died from measles in 2014 mostly children under the age of 5. The disease is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus. In 1980, before widespread vaccination, measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year. --- Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 12:54 (UTC+04:00) By Fatma Babayeva Oil prices experienced a decline in the global market three days in a row amid the increase in a number of oil rigs in the U.S.. July futures of WTI crude plummeted to $48.54 a barrel in NYMEX on June 13 [3:08 am], whilst Brent crude dipped to $50.09 a barrel in London ICE on the same day. Price of Azeri Light crude which Azerbaijan sells through Turkish Ceyhan and Georgian Supsa and Batumi ports also recorded a decrease by standing at $50.97 a barrel on June 11. Meanwhile, the average price for Urals (Ex-Novo) that Azerbaijan exports via Russian Novorossiysk port amounted to $47.64 per barrel last week. Price of OPECs oil basket is also going down. It equaled to $47.05 on June 10, according to the official website of the organization. The surge observed in the oil prices during the recent month was seen as temporary by some energy experts. Supply disruption in several major oil producing countries like Nigeria, Canada, Libya and Venezuela trimmed the oil glut in the global market for a while. In April-May, the market sent signals of rebalancing. Nevertheless, prices around $50 a barrel brought a number of oil rigs back online in the U.S., which was expected to affect the overhang in the market in the second half of 2016. Moreover, OPEC abandoned production ceiling by allowing its members to pump oil in the volume at will. Additionally, it is a question of time when supply outages from above mentioned countries will return to the market. The global economic growth, particularly in China is also gloomy. The demand growth does not look like to able to absorb the additional supply in the market. Strengthening USD is also having a negative impact on the crude prices. Brent price will average $44.27 a barrels this year and $55.6 a barrel - next year, according to the forecasts of different international organizations and companies. The WTI price is expected to average $43.7 and $55.6 a barrel in 2016 and 2017 respectively. --- Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 14:54 (UTC+04:00) By Fatma Babayeva Iran has signed its first ever contract with a foreign partner in the petrochemical sector during the post-sanctions period. Iranian Sadaf Petrochemical Assaluyeh company and Swiss Welding Engineers Ltd. concluded a contract for the construction of a finishing unit of a petrochemical company, Shana news agency reported on June 12. The Swiss firm will help Iranian company to build a plant for the production of the synthetic polymer ESBR which is a strategic product used in the petrochemical industry and rubber manufacturing, said Ahmad Jazayeri, Managing Director of Sadaf Petrochemical Assaluyeh Company. Jazayeri noted that the ESBR will be produced for both domestic and foreign markets, including Europe. Welding Engineers Ltd will be responsible for drying, wrapping and packaging process at the final stage of production of the ESBR before presenting to the market, according to Jazayeri. As much as 136,000 metric tons of finished products in five categories will be manufactured annually with the launch of this production line. Two types of these products will be used in the production of tires and the rest in the plastic industry. Iran controls the second largest oil refining capacity in the Middle East region after Saudi Arabia. Its current crude oil refining capacity, including gas condensate, equals almost to 1.8 to 1.85 million barrels per day. The Islamic Republic envisages boosting its oil refining capacity to 3.2 million barrels a day by 2020. The country plans to upgrade its refineries in Tabriz, Tehran, Isfahan, and Abadan. It will build three new refineries - Bahmangenoo, Anahita and Pars refineries as well. In the meantime, Iran plans to decrease gasoline imports to zero in 2016 with the implementation of the first phase of the Persian Gulf Star Refinery, according to the countrys officials. Previously, Iran expressed an interest in buying shares of existing refineries or building new ones abroad, and held talks with Spain, Indonesia, and Brazil. The removal of anti-Iran sanctions following a nuke deal signed with the world powers has helped Tehran to pursue a rapid boom in its oil industry. --- Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 17:58 (UTC+04:00) By Fatma Babayeva The construction of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is strategic for the diversification of the gas supply sources not only for the European Union and the Balkans, but also for Italy, Italian ANSAmed news network reported on June 13 citing country's Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni. Following the inauguration of the TAP project in Thessaloniki, about one month ago, a challenge has opened: seeing Azerbaijani gas reach Italy by 2020, said Gentiloni, while addressing the fourth session of the inter-government commission on economic cooperation between Italy and Azerbaijan in Rome. Italy and Azerbaijan can look at new horizons, the Italian minister said, further adding that the objective is to boost economic and political relations between Italy and Azerbaijan, which is considered a strategic regional partner. TAP project, European leg of the Southern Gas Corridor, envisages transportation of the gas extracted from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas and condensate field to the EU countries. The construction of TAP pipeline was launched in May 2016. The overall construction phase will take about three years and is expected to finalize in 2019. Its initial capacity will be 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year, expandable to 20 billion cubic meters. The 870-kilometer pipeline will be connected to the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italy's south. Italy has remained Azerbaijan's main trade partner over the recent years. The trade turnover between the two countries stood at $567.54 million in January-April 2016, according to Azerbaijan's State Statistical Committee. This is while $443.47 million of this volume accounted for the export of Azerbaijani products to Italy. --- Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 14:32 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova UK's oil and gas companies are currently examining Turkmenistan's alluring market for further cooperation in this industry. The issue was on the highest agenda during the business talks in Ashgabat with the delegation of the UK's leading companies specialized in the field of oil and gas. The discussions focused on opportunities and forms of mutually beneficial cooperation with the enterprises of Turkmenistan's oil and gas industry The meeting was attended by representatives of Perkins, Petrofac, Seetru, Mabey Bridge, Aggreko, Willis Towers Watson, Industrial Power Group, Tensar companies which are considered to be leaders in the oil and gas production and processing industry. Representatives of the companies emphasized their interest in establishing partnerships in the promising Turkmen oil and gas market, presented their capabilities in the supply of new equipment and innovative technologies for the oil and gas industry, and the provision of services in this sphere. Perkins company, which is considered to be one of the worlds leading providers of diesel and gas engines, has offered to adjust supply of gas generators, engines and spare details for local oil and gas enterprises. Tensar Company has expressed its readiness to implement work on designing, transportation of large-size equipment and render its assistance in the installation and assembly of modular-type bridges. Turkmenistan which has substantial reserves of oil and gas seeks for cooperation in the field of exploration, mining and processing of hydrocarbon resources, for the construction of gas processing facilities, and implementation of major and large-scale infrastructure projects to transport oil and gas. Being the world's fourth country for gas reserves the country is considering European market as one of the most promising areas of gas supply and is looking to diversify its gas export portfolio, eyeing up new markets. The Turkmen government is aimed at reaching ambitious production figures in the production of natural gas the volume of which amounts to 250 bcm, and export 200 bcm by 2030. The Governments National Socio-Economic Development Program for 20112030 and the National Rural Development Program are focused on the sustainable economic growth while preserving economic independence, modernizing the countrys infrastructure, and promoting foreign direct investment. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 16:29 (UTC+04:00) By Fatma Babayeva Iran and Russia will expand a bilateral cooperation in the sector of nanotechnologies. The two countries clinched an agreement on 16 cases for nano cooperation during the 3rd Iran-Russia High Commission on Nanotechnology Cooperation held in Moscow earlier this June, Saeid Sarkar, Head of Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC) told Iranian Mehr news agency on June 13. Sarkar noted that the sides also took decisions about 12 cases for nano cooperation. Both sides will benefit from this cooperation, he said, highlighting the progress Russia has made in the technology sector and Irans achievements in the field of advanced technologies such as nano, bio, cognitive sciences and technological convergence. Russia agreed to provide Iranian researchers with its infrastructures, said Sarkar, adding that this is actually a very special opportunity for them. Russia has requested for Irans carbon nanotubes and will begin the technology transfer from Iran after evaluation, he added. In addition, a number of technologies such as anti-corrosion coatings will be transferred to Iran, Sarkar said. In May, Iran and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on providing standards for labeling of nano products in Tehran. Iran-Russia High Commission on Nanotechnology Cooperation was established last year and comprises 10 specialist committees and sub-committees in the fields of space and aeronautics, nanotechnology, biological and medical technology, energy, and information technology. Cooperation between Russia and Iran covers many fields including various economic sectors, military, railways, etc. Tehran and Moscow also share the same stance towards various regional issues including the ongoing crisis in Syria. --- Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 13 June 2016 17:54 (UTC+04:00) By Nigar Abbasova Turkmenistan should accelerate the pace of privatization process, stated Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov while addressing a meeting with the Cabinet of Ministers. He mentioned that share placing, organization of stock exchange market and conduct of tenders should become main tools for the privatization activities. The list of objects which will be subjected to the privatization is expected to include enterprises operating in the sphere of energy, transport, communication, and infrastructure. This will create a good opportunity for the development of mutual cooperation among investors, he said adding that the proposals should be included in the new edition of Constitution. Berdimuhammedov also underlined the importance of taking measures for reducing the number of state enterprises and agencies, and development of the private sector. Turkmenistan headed for the switch to market economy which stands for the economic system in which economic decisions and the pricing of goods and services are guided solely by the aggregate interactions of a country's citizens and businesses with little government intervention. The country has already taken a number of measures such as denomination of the national currency, unification of exchange rates for this purpose. The country has adopted a state program for privatization of state enterprises and facilities in 2013-2016. The main objective of privatization is transforming as many enterprises as possible into a joint-stock company. The project on privatization is expected to create favorable conditions for the successful development of the socially oriented market economy. The country actively carries out privatization in the spheres of construction, communication and services. -- Nigar Abbasova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @nigyar_abbasova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz Bidvest Foodservice has won four British Frozen Food Federation (BFFF) Awards: Best New Bakery Product, Best New Dessert and Best New Main Course, with products from their own brand Premium Selection range. The BFFF Awards has seven categories, which are judged by members of the Craft Guild of Chefs they recognise quality and product development in the frozen food market. Bidvest Foodservice won with its Premium Selection range Gold for its Premium Selection Tarte Aux Poires and Premium Selection Farmhouse Cheddar Savoury Muffin with Tomato and Spinach; Silver for its Premium Selection Farmhouse Cheddar & Onion Savoury Muffin; and Bronze for its Premium Selection British Turkey Paupiette with Pork, Sage, Onion & Chestnut Stuffing. Holly Marrero Easson, own brand manager at Bidvest, said:These award wins highlight the sheer determination and dedication of our product teams to have created innovative, quality products which are worthy of winning awards. In April Bidvest expanded its Premium Selection range with the launch of its first savoury muffins. Bakery firm Genesis Crafty has set up the first bakery academy in Northern Ireland. In a bid to develop the next generation of talented bakers, Genesis Crafty has established a bakery academy at the companys bakery in Magherafelt. It aims to recruit its first batch of students over the next few months, so that training can start in September. Genesis Crafty, run by six baking brothers, is a supplier of morning goods and cakes to UK retailers including Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda. The company has teamed up with the College of Food, Agriculture and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) in Loughry, Cookstown, Co Tyrone to develop a relevant curriculum and deliver relevant training programme modules. The vast majority of the year-long course will be delivered at the bakery in Magherafelt, and will provide successful students with an industry-recognized qualification, an FDQ Level 2 Diploma. The course will cover all aspects of baking within a successful bakery including hot plate baking, operation of automated machinery, handling ingredients, and health, hygiene & safety requirements. Brian McElroy, the companys HR manager, said: Its a response to the growing difficulty being experienced in bakery and other sectors in finding qualified bakers, and so weve decided to develop our own. Our focus is on baking everything we offer our customers in a truly artisanal way, creating the very best taste and texture. Birmingham-based 2 Sisters, which runs Hollands Pies and Foxs Biscuits, has signed a five-year contract with Sheffield-based Gunstones Bakery, and elsewhere at the company there are further BFAWU strikes planned. A spokesperson for 2 Sisters told British Baker: We can confirm we have secured a new five-year bakery contract at Gunstones. 2 Sisters acquired Gunstones from Northern Foods in 2011, and recruited around 200 extra staff two years later (the site already employed around 1,400 people) to meet demand. The company said at the time shoppers were switching to more fashionable lines such as flatbreads, and demand had increased as a result. Elsewhere, 2 Sisters is in dispute at two of its other plants. Members of the Bakers and Allied Food Workers Union (BFAWU) staged a 48-hour walk out last week (5 June) at its Pennine Foods factory, over plans to change their employment contracts. A week-long strike is also planned to begin at the factory from 16 June, (correct at the time of going to press). BFAWU members at RF Brookes factory in Rogerstone, Newport also conducted a 48-hour strike from 2-4 June over changes to their working conditions. The union is in talks with the company and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service at the Rogerstone factory. Last month Birmingham-based 2 Sisters said avian influenza impacted its financial results for the year ending 1 August 2015. At Bankrate, we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. To help readers understand how insurance affects their finances, we have licensed insurance professionals on staff who have spent a combined 47 years in the auto, home and life insurance industries. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity , this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation of how we make money . Our content is backed by Coverage.com, LLC, a licensed entity (NPN: 19966249). For more information, please see our Insurance Disclosure . All providers discussed on our site are vetted based on the value they provide. And we constantly review our criteria to ensure were putting accuracy first. Our insurance team is composed of agents, data analysts, and customers like you. They focus on the points consumers care about most price, customer service, policy features and savings opportunities so you can feel confident about which provider is right for you. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy , so you can trust that were putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. Weve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrates editorial team writes on behalf of YOU the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether youre reading an article or a review, you can trust that youre getting credible and dependable information. We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information youre reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy , so you can trust that were putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. Were transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout lifes financial journey. Coverage.com, LLC is a licensed insurance producer (NPN: 19966249). Coverage.com services are only available in states where it is licensed . Coverage.com may not offer insurance coverage in all states or scenarios. All insurance products are governed by the terms in the applicable insurance policy, and all related decisions (such as approval for coverage, premiums, commissions and fees) and policy obligations are the sole responsibility of the underwriting insurer. The information on this site does not modify any insurance policy terms in any way. Earthquakes can happen anywhere at any time. If you do not have earthquake insurance, you could be responsible for paying for your losses out of pocket. Standard homeowners insurance typically does not cover earthquake losses, with many insurance companies requiring an additional policy endorsement or rider for earthquake damage. Savings Compare rates and save on home insurance today! Get quotes Close X Advertising Disclosure This advertisement is powered by Coverage.com, LLC, a licensed insurance producer (NPN: 19966249) and a corporate affiliate of Bankrate. The offers and links that appear on this advertisement are from companies that compensate Coverage.com in different ways. The compensation received and other factors, such as your location, may impact what offers and links appear, and how, where and in what order they appear. While we seek to provide a wide range of offers, we do not include every product or service that may be available. Our goal is to keep information accurate and timely, but some information may not be current. Your actual offer from an advertiser may be different from the offer on this advertisement. All offers are subject to additional terms and conditions. Mortgage Compare home insurance rates Answer a few questions to see personalized rates from top carriers. Zip code Location-Icon Created with Sketch. Your information is kept secure What brings you to Bankrate? Caret Down Caret Up Do you own or rent this home? Own Rent Square Footage Caret Down Caret Up Field is required Continue Powered by Coverage.com (NPN: 19966249) Insurance Disclosure Coverage.com, LLC is a licensed insurance producer (NPN: 19966249). Coverage.com services are only available in states where it is licensed. Coverage.com may not offer insurance coverage in all states or scenarios. All insurance products are governed by the terms in the applicable insurance policy, and all related decisions (such as approval for coverage, premiums, commissions and fees) and policy obligations are the sole responsibility of the underwriting insurer. The information on this site does not modify any insurance policy terms in any way. Quick Facts Moneybag $382/year average savings through Bankrate Two Thirds 2 out of 3 homes are underinsured Insurance Home 1 out of every 20 insured homes makes a claim each year Circle Check 100% of homes need insurance before getting a mortgage View my quote Arrow Right Bankrate See more providers in Choose from insurers in View my quote Arrow Right Show More Mortgage Leaving so soon? Your custom quotes are just minutes away. Return to form Advertising Disclosure This advertisement is powered by Coverage.com, LLC, a licensed insurance producer (NPN: 19966249) and a corporate affiliate of Bankrate. The offers and links that appear on this advertisement are from companies that compensate Coverage.com in different ways. The compensation received and other factors, such as your location, may impact what offers and links appear, and how, where and in what order they appear. While we seek to provide a wide range of offers, we do not include every product or service that may be available. Our goal is to keep information accurate and timely, but some information may not be current. Your actual offer from an advertiser may be different from the offer on this advertisement. All offers are subject to additional terms and conditions. Mortgage Compare home insurance rates Answer a few questions to see personalized rates from top carriers. Zip code Location-Icon Created with Sketch. Your information is kept secure What brings you to Bankrate? Caret Down Caret Up Do you own or rent this home? Own Rent Square Footage Caret Down Caret Up Field is required Continue Powered by Coverage.com (NPN: 19966249) Insurance Disclosure Coverage.com, LLC is a licensed insurance producer (NPN: 19966249). Coverage.com services are only available in states where it is licensed. Coverage.com may not offer insurance coverage in all states or scenarios. All insurance products are governed by the terms in the applicable insurance policy, and all related decisions (such as approval for coverage, premiums, commissions and fees) and policy obligations are the sole responsibility of the underwriting insurer. The information on this site does not modify any insurance policy terms in any way. Quick Facts Moneybag $382/year average savings through Bankrate Two Thirds 2 out of 3 homes are underinsured Insurance Home 1 out of every 20 insured homes makes a claim each year Circle Check 100% of homes need insurance before getting a mortgage View my quote Arrow Right Bankrate See more providers in Choose from insurers in View my quote Arrow Right Show More Mortgage Leaving so soon? Your custom quotes are just minutes away. Return to form On March 18, 2020, Salt Lake City, Utah, suffered a 5.7 magnitude earthquake. Dubbed the 2020 Magna Quake, this disaster caused $629 million worth of losses to private and public buildings. Although earthquakes are relatively common in Utah, some residents may incorrectly assume that the damage is covered by their home insurance. Experiencing an earthquake without the proper coverage can be devastating. To avoid high out-of-pocket costs, learn more about earthquake insurance and how it can help you prepare for the unexpected. Lightbulb Bankrate Insight Earthquake insurance typically requires the purchase of an additional rider, or endorsement (in California, however, coverage is offered as a separate policy through the California Earthquake Authority). The cost of earthquake insurance depends on factors like the type of home you have, its age and the materials used in construction. A thorough risk assessment can help you determine what coverage you need and how much. What is earthquake insurance? Earthquake insurance is a policy or endorsement that covers direct damage from specific seismic events. The coverage will specify a time period, usually 72 hours, for what constitutes a single event. Earthquake insurance will cover damage to your home and possibly, depending on your policys specifics, other structures on your property, such as a detached garage or pool. Youll also be covered for personal property up to a limit you chose when purchasing the policy. It is important to know that your standard homeowners insurance policy doesnt cover earthquakes. The best it may do is cover the damage caused by the fires that frequently occur after earthquakes. Still, for damage caused by the seismic activity itself, youll need an additional rider, or endorsement, on your policy. If you live in an especially high-risk area, like California, you may need a separate earthquake insurance policy. Emergency repairs needed to prevent further damage, necessary building code upgrades and required land stabilization are typically included in earthquake home insurance coverage. Earthquake coverage also includes loss of use coverage for additional housing expenses while your home is being repaired. As mentioned previously, fire damage caused by earthquakes will generally be covered by your standard homeowners policy. Earthquake policies wont cover damage to your land, except for where it supports your house, or your vehicle, which should be covered if you have comprehensive car insurance. Do I need earthquake insurance? In most cases, lenders dont require earthquake insurance as they do homeowners insurance. That doesnt mean you shouldnt have it, though. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Americans in 84 percent of states are at risk of experiencing an earthquake. That means, for most of us, a risk assessment is essential. A study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey found that the following five states are most at risk for an earthquake: Alaska Arkansas California Hawaii Idaho Although many Americans could benefit from extra earthquake protection, people in these five states especially should consider purchasing an earthquake endorsement or policy to bolster themselves against what could be a significant financial loss. The table below shows the magnitude 5.0 and stronger earthquakes recorded worldwide from 2016 to 2021. While the total number of earthquakes varies, there was a significantly higher number of earthquakes in 2021 than in years past. These numbers may drop back to baseline, but this data could indicate increased earthquake activity in the future. Earthquake insurance may be more important now than ever. Recorded earthquakes worldwide (magnitude 5.0 or greater), 2016-2021 Year Magnitude 5-5.9 Magnitude 6-6.9 Magnitude 7-7.9 Magnitude 8-8.9 Total 2016 1,550 130 16 0 1,696 2017 1,455 104 6 1 1,566 2018 1,674 117 16 1 1,808 2019 1,492 135 9 1 1,637 2020 1,312 112 9 0 1,433 2021 2,047 140 16 3 2,206 Source: U.S. Geological Survey, Earthquake Hazards Lists, Maps, and Statistics To understand your risk, combine historical data with predictive maps and expert assessments. When it comes to earthquakes, past performance is not necessarily a good predictor of the future. Some states like California are known to have a high active risk for earthquakes. Even states such as Texas and Oklahoma see more activity from fracking, so risk levels are on the rise in those areas. Understand the rates and deductibles The rate you pay for earthquake insurance is determined by your insurance company using specific data about your house and location, including the likelihood of earthquake damage. The NAIC cites rating factors that include the following: Your homes proximity to a seismic zone Your homes age Your foundation and construction type (masonry will be more expensive to insure) The deductible you choose The cost to rebuild your home Any additional coverage (such as secondary structures) Just as with your standard policy, your coverage should insure the total rebuilding cost of your home, also known as replacement cost coverage. This is different from your homes sale or appraisal value. It factors in the costs of construction materials and labor if your home were to need a complete rebuild. Risk of an earthquake will have the biggest influence on your premium. For instance, a Missouri resident of New Madrid County, situated right on a major fault, would pay 328% more than a resident of Jackson County, Missouri where Kansas City is located, far from the New Madrid fault line. Your deductible also plays a significant role in your rate, more so than with a traditional homeowners policy. Your standard policy has a predetermined deductible that may range from a low of $250 up to several thousand dollars. But most earthquake insurance deductibles are indicated as a percentage of the rebuild cost, usually between 10% and 15% of the total rebuild value of the home, so on a policy with $300,000 in dwelling coverage, you might face a deductible as high as $45,000. If your home doesnt incur enough damage for a full rebuild, you could be responsible for the entire repair cost, even with insurance. And thats just on the home itself you also need to consider your personal property and protection on any other structures. How much does earthquake insurance cost? Earthquake insurance cost varies greatly, depending on your location and other factors. As you might imagine, the closer you are to a significant fault or fracking site, the higher your premium. This means that homeowners in lower-risk areas will pay significantly less than homeowners in high-risk areas. If you live in California, which has frequent earthquakes, the California Earthquake Authority has resources to help you determine how much earthquake insurance costs, including an earthquake premium calculator. Is earthquake insurance worth it? Not everyone needs earthquake insurance. In some areas of the U.S., the risk of an earthquake or volcanic event is almost nonexistent. Paying even a low annual premium, when compared to the limitations of your coverage and the significant deductible, may not be worth it. But many Americans live in high- or moderate-risk zones, and those zones are increasing as fracking becomes more common in areas such as Oklahoma. All it takes is one major event in these areas to cause major or even catastrophic damage to your home. Consider what it would cost you to replace your home in the event of an earthquake. Could you afford it? Further, could you absorb the costs of temporary housing or potential damage to your personal property? The price of your premiums may be high if you live in a high-risk area, but they wont be higher than your replacement costs. To know if earthquake insurance is worth it for you, weigh those costs and seek a thorough risk assessment. Frequently asked questions At Bankrate we strive to help you make smarter financial decisions. While we adhere to strict editorial integrity , this post may contain references to products from our partners. Here's an explanation for how we make money . Buying or selling a home is one of the biggest financial decisions an individual will ever make. Our real estate reporters and editors focus on educating consumers about this life-changing transaction and how to navigate the complex and ever-changing housing market. From finding an agent to closing and beyond, our goal is to help you feel confident that you're making the best, and smartest, real estate deal possible. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy , so you can trust that were putting your interests first. All of our content is authored by highly qualified professionals and edited by subject matter experts , who ensure everything we publish is objective, accurate and trustworthy. Founded in 1976, Bankrate has a long track record of helping people make smart financial choices. Weve maintained this reputation for over four decades by demystifying the financial decision-making process and giving people confidence in which actions to take next. Bankrates editorial team writes on behalf of YOU the reader. Our goal is to give you the best advice to help you make smart personal finance decisions. We follow strict guidelines to ensure that our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers. Our editorial team receives no direct compensation from advertisers, and our content is thoroughly fact-checked to ensure accuracy. So, whether youre reading an article or a review, you can trust that youre getting credible and dependable information. We value your trust. Our mission is to provide readers with accurate and unbiased information, and we have editorial standards in place to ensure that happens. Our editors and reporters thoroughly fact-check editorial content to ensure the information youre reading is accurate. We maintain a firewall between our advertisers and our editorial team. Our editorial team does not receive direct compensation from our advertisers. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy , so you can trust that were putting your interests first. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. Bankrate.com is an independent, advertising-supported publisher and comparison service. We are compensated in exchange for placement of sponsored products and, services, or by you clicking on certain links posted on our site. Therefore, this compensation may impact how, where and in what order products appear within listing categories. Other factors, such as our own proprietary website rules and whether a product is offered in your area or at your self-selected credit score range can also impact how and where products appear on this site. While we strive to provide a wide range offers, Bankrate does not include information about every financial or credit product or service. Were transparent about how we are able to bring quality content, competitive rates, and useful tools to you by explaining how we make money. Bankrate follows a strict editorial policy , so you can trust that our content is honest and accurate. Our award-winning editors and reporters create honest and accurate content to help you make the right financial decisions. The content created by our editorial staff is objective, factual, and not influenced by our advertisers. You have money questions. Bankrate has answers. Our experts have been helping you master your money for over four decades. We continually strive to provide consumers with the expert advice and tools needed to succeed throughout lifes financial journey. If you turn to HGTV on any given day, youll likely come across programs where people sometimes professional real estate investors, but sometimes ordinary individuals take homes that are eyesores and transform them into jaw-dropping abodes. They then sell these properties, turning a tidy profit. Welcome to the world of house flipping. It keeps growing in popularity, encouraged of late by the pandemic-fueled rapid rise in home prices. According to real estate data firm ATTOM, nearly one in 10 homes sold in the first quarter of 2022 were flipped the highest level since 2000. Year over year, the number of flipping transactions has doubled from Q1 2021 to the same period of 2022. Lets be real, though: Its not as easy as it looks on TV. In fact, that same ATTOM first-quarter 2022 U.S. Home Flipping Report noted that while home sales by flippers spiked, profit margins on those sales dipped to their lowest point since 2009. Heres a crash course on what it takes to become a house flipper hopefully, a successful one. What is house flipping? House flipping is when someone buys a property, holds onto it for a short time and then sells it (the flip part) for a higher price. Instead of buying a home to live in as a residence, youre buying a home as a real estate investment in effect, speculating in it as you would a stock. Sometimes, flipping a house means you (as the new, short-term owner) takes a fixer-upper and renovates it to make it market-ready; other times, it means just holding the property until you can sell it for more than you paid for it. Either way, the goal is to buy low and sell high, earning a profit in a relatively short amount of time usually within months or a year. House-flipping advantages and disadvantages Some people actually enjoy putting sweat equity into improving a residence. But there are some other rewards along with plenty of risks in becoming a house flipper. Pros Could make a decent profit. Among all flips nationwide, the typical gross profit (the difference between the median purchase price paid by investors and the median resale price) was $67,000 in the first quarter of 2022, according to ATTOM. Matt Aitchison, real estate investor and founder of educational platform 6 Figure Flipper, says hell pocket $40,000 to $50,000, on average, per flip. The most hes earned from a house flip was $453,000, but thats an extreme outlier. Among all flips nationwide, the typical gross profit (the difference between the median purchase price paid by investors and the median resale price) was $67,000 in the first quarter of 2022, according to ATTOM. Matt Aitchison, real estate investor and founder of educational platform 6 Figure Flipper, says hell pocket $40,000 to $50,000, on average, per flip. The most hes earned from a house flip was $453,000, but thats an extreme outlier. Find a new part- or even full-time job. Some people start house-flipping and eventually move into it full-time, while others use it as a secondary income to earn more money towards vacations, savings or their retirement fund. Some people start house-flipping and eventually move into it full-time, while others use it as a secondary income to earn more money towards vacations, savings or their retirement fund. Help improve neighborhood values. Flipping homes might help turn around home values in areas where decayed properties are eyesores and dragging down prices. Most of the houses I buy are in a distressed condition or coming from a distressed seller, Aitchison says. The ability to truly solve someones problem while making a significant profit that can be used to build wealth is an amazing thing that I love about flipping. Flipping homes might help turn around home values in areas where decayed properties are eyesores and dragging down prices. Most of the houses I buy are in a distressed condition or coming from a distressed seller, Aitchison says. The ability to truly solve someones problem while making a significant profit that can be used to build wealth is an amazing thing that I love about flipping. Diversify your investments. Investing in different types of assets is generally a good way to reduce risk. As an alternative to stocks and bonds, real estate is one of the most popular long-term investments: Property values tend to move counter to the equity markets, and increase in value over time. Adding real estate to your investment portfolio can help diversify your holdings and flipping properties is a great opportunity to cash in those investments. Cons Homes will likely have significant issues. Oftentimes, home flippers have to sink a good amount of money into fixing up the homes they buy and they could be looking at much higher-than-anticipated costs if unexpected issues with the house arise. What if you open things up and you find asbestos? Mold? Termites? Those are just a few, says Amanda Pi, who runs Pi Home Solutions, a design concierge service in Ridgewood, New Jersey. There are tons of different things you could find when you do renovations. Oftentimes, home flippers have to sink a good amount of money into fixing up the homes they buy and they could be looking at much higher-than-anticipated costs if unexpected issues with the house arise. What if you open things up and you find asbestos? Mold? Termites? Those are just a few, says Amanda Pi, who runs Pi Home Solutions, a design concierge service in Ridgewood, New Jersey. There are tons of different things you could find when you do renovations. Potential for legal issues. If you buy a home that doesnt have a clear title, or sell it and it has issues you didnt fix or address appropriately, theres always the potential for lawsuits. Thats why having a solid team looking out for your interests is so important, says Aitchison, whos seen a lot of lawsuits on both sides. Having a great real estate attorney is part of having the right team members in place. If you buy a home that doesnt have a clear title, or sell it and it has issues you didnt fix or address appropriately, theres always the potential for lawsuits. Thats why having a solid team looking out for your interests is so important, says Aitchison, whos seen a lot of lawsuits on both sides. Having a great real estate attorney is part of having the right team members in place. The home might not sell quickly. If the property youre trying to flip sits on the market, youre responsible for paying all of its costs (including the mortgage payment, if youve financed it, property taxes and homeowners insurance). Dont forget other homeownership expenses, like maintenance and potential homeowners association dues, too. For this reason, its important that you have some capital set aside in case the flip is a flop. If the property youre trying to flip sits on the market, youre responsible for paying all of its costs (including the mortgage payment, if youve financed it, property taxes and homeowners insurance). Dont forget other homeownership expenses, like maintenance and potential homeowners association dues, too. For this reason, its important that you have some capital set aside in case the flip is a flop. Lots of pressure. The uncertainty involved in house flipping can lead to potential financial loss, as well as a toll on your well-being. It can be financially draining, Aitchison says. Emotionally, it can be draining if you dont have the right team, mindset, and discipline in place. How to get started with house flipping Since flipping homes isnt something you can get into overnight, youll want to make sure you have your finances in order and the right properties in mind first. Set a budget. A big financial drain is not having enough money to finance your project. Dont go in conservatively; Pi suggests multiplying your current budget by five times. Whatever you think is enough, probably isnt. Especially if this is your first time. Find the right property. If you dont have a massive budget, look for properties that best fit your current finances. Browse through foreclosures, auctions and short sales to see which ones best match up with your budget and renovation ability. Dont hesitate to seek the guidance of a real estate agent who has experience working with house flippers. This agent can help you research comps and price-growth projections to find neighborhoods and homes that will give you the best ROI. Make an offer. With your financing in line and the right property to take on, you can make an offer. Professional flippers often calculate a homes after-repair value (a specific equation to determine its ultimate worth) to determine how much to bid. Its OK if an offer falls through; you can have multiple properties in mind if one doesnt work out. Set a timeline. Not all property renovations require the same amount of money, which means they dont require the same amount of time, either. Whether its one month or six, give yourself enough time to make the appropriate repairs and upgrades, and factor in time for building inspections (if needed). Hire trusted contractors. Unless youve got the chops to handle repairs and renovations yourself, youll want to hire reputable tradespeople to do the necessary work. Some contractors have full teams to work on all areas of the home, but not all. Check licenses and references for contractors you want to hire, and also make sure their quotes are in line with your budget and they can meet your timeline. Sell your property. After the updates have been made, its time to put your property up for sale. While you could sell it yourself, a real estate agent can help you market the home to the right buyers and widen your reach. Common house-flipping mistakes While there might be financial opportunity in flipping houses, dont get into it without significant capital, guidance and preparation. To be profitable, here are some common mistakes house flippers should avoid. Not having enough money. Your project will determine your budget, and not every home is a reality show-style renovation. There are full renovations, properties you can simply clean up and sell as-is, or homes that need basic repairs which you can then put on the market for the next investor. Whatever your original budget is, double it and then double it again, then add your original budget on top of that, Pi says. Everything adds up quickly when you dont know what youre doing, and contractors take advantage if youre a novice. Your project will determine your budget, and not every home is a reality show-style renovation. There are full renovations, properties you can simply clean up and sell as-is, or homes that need basic repairs which you can then put on the market for the next investor. Whatever your original budget is, double it and then double it again, then add your original budget on top of that, Pi says. Everything adds up quickly when you dont know what youre doing, and contractors take advantage if youre a novice. Thinking its easy. While you dont need a license to flip homes, its not a fly-by-night business, and no one should take their cue from friends or TV shows. It takes time and money and (you) shouldnt go in blindfolded, Pi says. There are lots of amateurs. They see it on TV. They get burned and lose a lot of money. While you dont need a license to flip homes, its not a fly-by-night business, and no one should take their cue from friends or TV shows. It takes time and money and (you) shouldnt go in blindfolded, Pi says. There are lots of amateurs. They see it on TV. They get burned and lose a lot of money. Not setting up the right team. You have to work with experienced, reputable people, Pi says. Your team can include an experienced house flipping mentor, a real estate agent, construction/remodeling company, home inspector, a real estate attorney and an accountant to help you prepare your taxes, especially if you plan to turn house flipping into a business. You have to work with experienced, reputable people, Pi says. Your team can include an experienced house flipping mentor, a real estate agent, construction/remodeling company, home inspector, a real estate attorney and an accountant to help you prepare your taxes, especially if you plan to turn house flipping into a business. Trying to do it part-time in the long term. Pi says it might be more difficult to become a house flipper if you have a regular job. If youre working full-time and issues come up on-site, someone needs to be there, she says. Its not a good side-hustle. If youre going to do it, do it full time. Final word on house-flipping Before jumping into house-flipping, get your funds in order. There are plenty of home loans you can look into for financing investment properties, like home equity loans, a home equity line of credit or even construction loans. There also are personal loans available for home-related renovations, but compare the interest rates and terms to those of home loans first. Remember that theres a huge potential for loss: in time, energy and money. Save your future self by keeping a solid emergency savings in case you lose money. While Pi says house-flipping wouldnt be a good side hustle, you may want to start out that way. That way, you still have your day-job income in case house flipping isnt your true calling or if the real estate market turns on you. Oregon Coast Scientists' Remarkable Discoveries on Sea Stars, Underwater Vents Published 06/12/2016 at 8:51 PM PDT By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff (Oregon Coast) A stunning set of finds from scientists lately regarding undersea hydrothermal vents and sea stars have the marine world abuzz. Researchers from the Oregon coast and its Hatfield Marine Science Center are largely responsible, along with their inland counterparts at Corvallis' Oregon State University. It seems the wowing array of underwater hot gas vents and the methane that regularly seeps up from the ocean floor are connected to the greater climate of the entire planet, according to some new findings. Researchers from Oregon including OSU and Newport's Hatfield Marine Science Center first discovered these underwater oddities some 40 years ago. It was a big surprise to the scientific world, filled with hot oozing gases, sulfide chimneys, bizarre tube worms and giant crabs and mussels life forms that were later found to eat methane and toxic sulfide. Recent research has revealed that these spots are not really anomalies, however. They are prevent throughout the world's oceans, and they provide about 13 percent of the energy coming into the sea, making all kinds of marine life possible. Photo above courtesy Hatfield Marine Science Center: tube worms that live off of thermal vents. Now, scientists like Andrew Thurber, an assistant professor in the OSU College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, headed up a recent report that shows the hydrothermal vents create an integral habitat for forms of phytoplankton who are in turn integral to Earth's climate. They live on the gases and minerals that come out of the vents, and then these life forms in turn consume some 90 percent of the methane released by the ocean floor. This keeps it from entering the atmosphere, where as a greenhouse gas it is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. These vent areas also create a rich habit of extensive mussel and clam beds, and mounds of shrimp and crab. They create some prime fishing habitat and literally fertilize the ocean as zooplankton biomass and abundance increases. These particular kinds of habitats can exist for tens of thousands of years, according to Thurber and his team. A large group of Oregon State University and Hatfiled scientists also released some promising finds on the recovery of sea stars (often known as starfish), after the population here was severely impacted by a form of wasting disease. Photo above courtesy Hatfield Marine Science Center: sea star wasting disease this past year. An unprecedented number of baby sea stars have been observed all around the Oregon coast in recent months, signaling a possible recovery. But it's not guaranteed, and scientists such as Bruce Menge, from the Wayne and Gladys Valley Professor of Marine Biology at Oregon State University, say it does not mean the disease is over. Menge said 2014 survey of the sea star population showed a definite drop in juveniles. That changed not long after, however. But a few months later, the number of juveniles was off the charts, Menge said. Higher than wed ever seen as much as 300 times normal. Menge cautions on what this means, however. He said it's not that there were more sea stars being born, but simply that more many, many more made it from the larval stage into the juvenile stage. If these are able to later become adults is another question. The reason for so many new young ones is surprising as well: it's all about the sudden abundance of food. The young sea stars feed on larval and juvenile mussels and barnacles, competing with adult sea stars for the same food source. The scarcity of adults provided a temporary smorgasbord for the juveniles. Because of the disease, some parts of the Oregon coast saw their sea star populations drop by 63 percent of its normal numbers all the way down to 84 percent. Scientists from Cornell University believed the epidemic was due to a sea star-associated Densovirus, and researchers from Washington chimed in saying that warmer water in the region may have triggered that. Menge's group had different findings, noting the epidemic hit its peak when waters of the Oregon coast had gotten colder. Ocean acidification is one culprit Menge's group is looking at, but they believe it will come down to several factors. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging..... More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining..... Coastal Spotlight LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles Back to Oregon Coast Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Skilled job-seekers in Southeast Texas can expect to earn above what's considered a "livable wage" related to the area's cost of living, according to a new CNN Money report that ranked the Beaumont-Port Arthur area as No. 1 for jobs that pay well. That doesn't mean every job here is going to pay above the region's $16.46 per hour necessary to support basic living costs like housing, utilities, transportation, food and other necessities of daily life, but about two-thirds of the new jobs created in Southeast Texas do, according to the report. List-making seems to be a popular pastime of internet-based information aggregators, which have a long history of labeling Beaumont-Port Arthur as having high crime, or being the best place to raise a family. One list even called the region the dumbest in terms of how few bachelor's degrees its residents earned. The CNN Money report specifically referred to the number of jobs here in the petrochemical and refining job sector, which also extends outward to allied industries like industrial construction, with projects such as the Natgasoline plant on Texas 347 south of Beaumont and the Cheniere Energy LNG terminal export conversion in Cameron, Louisiana, on the east bank of Sabine Lake. These multi-billion-dollar projects are soaking up local crafts workers and are attracting others from around the country and internationally. Henry Venta, dean of the College of Business at Lamar University, said the CNN report doesn't address the overall job or wage conditions in Southeast Texas. How much can you earn here? Typical annual salaries for the Beaumont-Port Arthur metro area, according to a living wage calculator designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Management: $86,600 Business and Financial Operations: $62,550 Computer and Mathematical: $64,330 Architecture and Engineering: $91,020 Life, Physical and Social Science: $61,030 Community and Social Service: $38,010 Legal: $57,690 Education, Training and Library: $42,880 Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports and Media: $34,530 Healthcare Practitioners and Technical: $53,730 Healthcare Support: $25,610 Protective Service: $39,120 Food Preparation and Serving: $17,980 Building and Grounds, Cleaning and Maintenance: $19,350 Personal Care and Service: $17,930 Sales and Related: $23,550 Office and Administrative Support: $29,330 Farming, Fishing and Forestry: $35,410 Construction and Extraction: $43,260 Installation, Maintenance and Repair: $45,410 Production and Repair: $44,060 Transportation and Material Moving: $30,310 See More Collapse "Beaumont-Port Arthur has a larger percentage of people working in those (petrochemical) jobs than other cities and the percentage of new jobs created are the ones that are higher-paying. It's not surprising that they don't tell what the other jobs are," Venta said. He said the report doesn't imply that Southeast Texas as a whole pays more than the suggested living wage. "There's not enough data to say what it means," Venta said. "It doesn't say that we have more people earning a living wage than other areas." The CNN Money report said since 2010, there are 28 U.S. metropolitan areas where at least half of the new jobs created pay a living wage, according to analysis from CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists. The report noted that recovery from the deep recession of mid-2000s is uneven and contributed to a widening income inequality and sluggish consumer spending, which drives two-thirds of the U.S. economy. DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/dwallach Graduates fresh out of college looking for their best chance to find jobs and affordable living arrangements: Head east. Looking to make some big bucks (if youre lucky enough to find work): Head west or to Texas. Real estate site Trulia worked with LinkedIn to find the most grad friendly markets. The analysis looked at average wages, how much of your paycheck goes to rent and job opportunities for people between the ages of 22 and 30. The result: The East and Midwest might be the best places to start your career. But you might not live in the most exciting city. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A "reap what you sow" tweet from Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick that went out hours after approximately 50 people were killed at a Florida LGBT nightclub has been deleted amid backlash. At precisely 7 a.m. Sunday Dan Patrick tweeted a photo with the words of Galatians 6:7. The verse reads, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." READ MORE: Obama calls massacre an act of terror and hate The Twitterverse circled the tweet, commenting that it was inappropriate and insensitive considering the context of the day's events. The Texas Democratic Party called for Patrick to apologize. "Tweeted as new breaks of mass casualties at a gay nightclub. Vile," one Twitter user said. "Have you no shame?" Patrick's adviser Allen Blakemore issued a statement explaining that the tweet was an unfortunate coincidence. READ MORE: After shooting, Trump says he appreciates congrats for being right on terrorism "Lt. Governor Patrick and every Texas is stunned and saddened by the outrageous act of domestic terrorism that has occurred in Orlando," Blakemore said. "... Regarding this morning's scripture posting on social media, be assured that the post was not done in response to last night's tragedy. The post was designed and scheduled last Thursday." A Bible verse is tweeted from Patrick's account every Sunday at 7 a.m. Another verse was tweeted from the account 30 minutes later, this time from Psalm 37:39, which reads, "The Salvation of the righteous come from the Lord; He is their stronghold in time of trouble." Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa issued a statement offering thoughts and prayers to the LGBTQ community. READ MORE: A timeline of mass shootings in the United States "Hate and violence have no place in America," he said. "Unfortunately, Texans in mourning for our families in Florida woke up to an embarrassment from their lieutenant governor. Lt.Gov Dan Patrick, please apologize immediately. Make this right. We are better than this." Orlando Police Chief John Mina says authorities have not determined an exact number of people killed, but that "approximately 50" have died. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Danny Banks says the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism. He says authorities are looking into whether this was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was a lone wolf. Mina says the shooter was armed with an assault-type rifle, a handgun and some type of suspicious device. Police had said previously on Twitter that there was a "controlled explosion" at the scene of the shooting at Pulse Orlando. Mina says that noise was caused by a device intended to distract the shooter. The Associated Press contributed to this report. An armed suspect Port Arthur police shot dead on Thursday night was at least the 63rd person killed by law enforcement in Texas since a new law tracking police shootings went into effect nine months ago. Details of the death were sparse Friday as a district attorney's office investigation was underway, and the police department declined to answer specific questions about the man's shooting. The male suspect was killed at close to 10 p.m., outside Walgreens at Texas 365 and Ninth Avenue in north Port Arthur, Maj. Raymond Clark said. Officers responded to a robbery call and arrived as the man ran from the store, Clark said. One officer gave chase, and the suspect "displayed the weapon and shots were fired," Clark said. No other injuries were reported. Clark declined to name the officer, who is on paid leave, which is routine for officer-involved shootings. The Jefferson County district attorney's office is investigating the Port Arthur shooting, assistant DA Gary Reaves said. Reaves declined to comment further. Justice of the Peace Tom Gillam III ordered an autopsy. Gillam said Friday afternoon officials did not know the man's identity and declined to discuss where and how many times he was shot before the preliminary report is returned. The store's manager referred questions to the Walgreens corporate office, which declined to comment. Across Texas, at least 74 people have been injured and 63 killed by police gunfire since Sept. 1, 2015, according to reports kept by the Texas attorney general's office under a new state law. Thursday night's shooting marked the second time Southeast Texas police officers have killed someone with gunfire this year. In early March, Beaumont police shot 22-year-old armed suspect Herbert Ballance IV at a trailer park. The last time a Port Arthur police officer shot a suspect was in 2015, when an off-duty cop shot a 52-year-old man allegedly in the act of breaking into the officer's home. The man was injured but survived the shooting. EBesson@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/ericbesson_news BScott@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/brandonkscott This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Long before Continental Airlines called the Lone Star State its home, a truly Texas-flavored carrier existed going by the name Texas International Airlines. The airline started in 1944 as Aviation Enterprises and later changed to Trans-Texas Airways. In the 1960s, the company outgrew its small-town roots and adopted the name Texas International. On YouTube, you can find a 1967 commercial introducing the name change. The ad boldly proclaims: Weve become a big airline, even bigger than Texas. The carrier at the time flew to 66 cities and several destinations in Mexico. Some 2.5 million passengers used the airline based out of Houston Municipal Airport (the future William P. Hobby Airport). Not everything went smoothly with the Texas jets, however. In 1973, a crash killed all 11 passengers on a Texas International flight between two cities in Arkansas. CHRON 115: The decades-long, sometimes-turbulent journey of Continental Airlines Almost a decade later, in July 1982, Texas International voted to merge with Continental Airlines. The effort was led by Texas International boss and notorious union buster Frank Lorenzo. In fact, it was Texas International Airlines that took over Continental, but the parent company assumed the latters name. Continental moved its headquarters from Los Angeles to Houston. In spite of the takeover, Texas no longer had its own namesake airline. Continental faced turbulent years ahead. It filed for bankruptcy in 1983 and then fought to save itself. The company eventually reported an annual net income of $224 million in 1995. For the 115th anniversary of the Houston Chronicle, Andrea Rumbaugh recounts the remarkable rise and fall and rise again of Continental Airlines before its merger with United in 2010. See the gallery above for a look back at Texas International Airlines and Continental Airlines. Some Texas lawmakers are looking at ways to eliminate the toll roads scattered across the state, and their concern is commendable. Unfortunately, it also appears to be futile. Texas Department of Transportation officials recently estimated that the 23 toll systems in the state have $32.5 billion in debt, payable between now and 2035. The state budget clearly doesn't have that kind of money lying around. Even with a healthy economy and strong tax revenues, lawmakers are struggling to fund all state agencies. That doesn't even include the increases that are probably inevitable for responsibilities like public education or child protective services. A tax increase is also politically unpopular, though legislators could level the playing field so that all businesses are paying their fair share instead of taking advantage of questionable loopholes. The one option that the Legislature could have on toll roads is paying off the debt for the smaller number of them that are state-controlled. Highway officials estimate the state has $6.9 billion in debt service from those toll roads and $3.5 billion more that is anticipated. That's a more manageable number for a state that had a $210 billion budget in 2015, though even setting aside that much money would still be difficult. State Rep. Joe Pickett, D- El Paso, chairman of the Texas House Transportation Committee, said one way to phase out those toll roads would be to simply stop collecting the revenues at some agreed-upon point in the future. While toll roads can help ease traffic on our overburdened highways, most motorists don't like them. They figure, with some logic, that these roads could be funded by the many taxes they already pay. At least when the next session of the Legislature convenes in January, the focus should be on fewer toll roads and more pay-as-you-go funding, which is supposed to be the state budgetary practice anyway. In the wake of submitting its certificate-of-need application on March 15, Kernersville (N.C.) Outpatient Surgery is facing opposition from three North Carolina competitors, including Greensboro-based Cone Health, Surgical Center of Greensboro and Greensboro Specialty Surgical Center as well as Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, according to Winston-Salem Journal. Here are seven things to know: 1. The Kernersville ambulatory surgery center is projected to cost $9.8 million, and Novant Health is aiming to have the center operational in April 2018. 2. In the plan, Novant Health proposed moving two operating rooms from Winston-Salem-based Forsyth Medical Center to Kernersville Outpatient Surgery. 3. Cone Health, Surgical Center of Greensboro and Greensboro Specialty Surgical Center and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center separately filed comments opposing the ASC's application, citing unnecessary duplication of services. 4. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services required Novant Health to participate in a public hearing on May 12 because the center surpassed the $5 million threshold. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services expects to have a decision about the ASC's CON by September 2016. 5. Cone Health said the center does not cite which surgical specialties it will offer or how many cases the surgeons will perform at the ASC. Novant Health had projected procedural charges of $10,529 in year one of the center, $10,950 in year two and $11,388 in year three, which Cone Health said "are higher than other, recently approved freestanding ambulatory surgical center CON applications by up to 50 percent." 6. The three healthcare groups all claim: Novant's CON does not support the need for adding two operating rooms in Kernersville. The project fails to "materially improve" access to ASC services as most of the potential patients live in Guilford, N.C., as opposed to Forsyth (N.C.). Novant's application does not take into consideration the availability of other similar services in the market. Kernersville Outpatient Surgery represents an unnecessary duplication of services. The ASC will adversely impact existing ASC providers. 7. Recently, High Point, N.C.-based Premier Surgery Center opened an ASC to serve patients in Kernersville. In April 2013, Wake Forest Baptist obtained state permission to build a $38.7 million surgery center off its main campus. However, the N.C. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Novant concerning Wake Forest's facility. More articles on surgery centers: AmSurg, Envision Healthcare consider merger to form $9B+ company 8 things to know Kaiser Permanente to construct $7.6M ASC: 4 key points Georgia Eye Institute opens 2nd ASC: 4 points Here are seven updates: Kaiser Permanente to construct $7.6M ASC Kaiser Permanente, headquartered in Denver, plans to build an ambulatory surgery center in Honolulu. The $7.6 million surgery center will house two surgical suites for eye and plastic surgeries. Ambulatory care spending rose 7.4% in Q1 2016 A U.S. Department of Commerce Quarterly Services Survey found ambulatory care spending increased 7.4 percent in the first quarter of 2016, compared to the first quarter of 2015. Within the ambulatory care industry, outpatient centers saw a spending increase of 11 percent in the first quarter, compared to the first quarter of 2015. Physicians' offices experienced a 7.4 percent increase from the first quarter of 2015. GAO: Medicare failing to control appeals; wait time increases 8%+ A Government Accountability Office report found the number of appeals from physicians and patients challenging denied claims is escalating and the backlog "shows no signs of abating." In the fiscal year 2009, the average wait time for a Medicare appeal decision was 94.9 days. That figure has increased to 819.4 days in fiscal year 2016. AHIP undergoes significant transformations: 4 things to know On June 7, America's Health Insurance Plan reported it is scrutinizing its membership fees and will undergo "major restructuring." Despite UnitedHealth Group and Aetna leaving AHIP, the lobby group appointed two chairman including Anthem CEO Joseph Swedish for 2017 and Kaiser Permanente CEO Bernard Tyson for 2018. Top 5 states with the highest ASC patient burn rates CMS released the results for its 2014 Ambulatory Surgical Center Quality Reporting Program, which cited the states with the highest rates and lowest rates for patient burn. The national average in 2014 for these sentinel events was 0.364, up from the 2013 average of 0.247.The states with the highest rates include Colorado, Connecticut, Washington, D.C., Delaware and Florida. Employee found dead in Bronx hospital An employee at NYC Health + Hospitals/North Central Bronx Hospital was found dead in the hospital last week. The 48-year-old man was found deceased at about 10 a.m. Police sources told New York Daily News that the employee may have died of a heart attack, and no foul play is suspected. Dr. David Cohen named NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center's GI chief Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City named David E. Cohen, MD, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center recruited Dr. Cohen from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where he currently serves as director of hepatology. More healthcare news: 3 ASCs lay out successful marketing strategies Top 10 states with the highest & lowest ASC patient burn rates 27 key points on AmSurg, Nobilis, SCA, & Tenet's Q1: Which ASC giant came out on top? Here are the five most popular Becker's ASC Review gastroenterology and endoscopy stories for the week of June 6 to June 10, 2016. 1. 16 Huntington Hospital patients infected due to tainted duendoscope use from 2013 to 2015: 6 key notes Click here 2. Physicians accept blame for Joan Rivers' death: 8 key notes on the Yorkville Endoscopy settlement Click here 3. GERD & the physician-focused 3rd generation of Stretta: Q&A with Dr. Mark Noar Click here 4. Gastroenterology Associates adds 4 physicians: 5 things to know Click here 5. Dr. David Cohen named NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center's GI chief 5 highlights Click here Culture. Productivity. Strategy. Execution. These ideas will never go out of style for hospital and health system leaders. The following leadership articles were published by Becker's Hospital Review in the last week. 1. This company banned email and increased productivity, profitability Email is often regarded as both a blessing and a curse. While its instantaneous relaying of messages makes it an effective communication system, most working people who use email hate the endless tasks of sorting through, reading and responding to emails. 2. Warren Buffett says every organization must do this one thing If an organization merely tries to satisfy its customers, it will fall prey to the clutches of mediocrity. Instead, all companies should strive to "delight" their customers, according to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, Fortune reported. 3. Can a CEO be too nice? Being kind, compassionate and supportive are important traits for a CEO, as the job entails working with tens to potentially thousands of people. But sometimes, a leader's desire to be nice can get in the way of his or her responsibilities as the head of an organization, and can even lead to dysfunction, according to the Harvard Business Review. 4. 2-way communication, the challenge of nurse retention and more: Q&A with Cleveland Clinic's CNO With three Magnet-designated hospitals as well as other well-noted areas of excellence, Cleveland Clinic is one of the premier healthcare systems for nursing in the country. At the helm of the system's nursing program is Executive Chief Nursing Officer Kelly Hancock, DNP, RN. 5. 6 thoughts from MidMichigan Health CEO Dr. Diane Postler-Slattery As hospital systems navigate the turbulent waters of the post-reform era of healthcare, leaders are tasked with maintaining a culture of positivity, engagement and collaboration among their workforce while also ensuring quality and financial success. Diane Postler-Slattery, PhD, who has served as president and CEO of Midland-based MidMichigan Health since 2013, has emphasized the importance of addressing physician burnout and employee engagement since entering her role. 6. Do direct-to-consumer drug ads undermine efforts to cultivate 'thrifty' healthcare consumers? Critics have been railing against direct-to-consumer ads for prescription drugs since the 1990s. Opponents of the ads, many of whom are medical providers, argue they contribute to unnecessary anxiety and self-diagnosis among patients, inflate demand for expensive brand name drugs that may not be medically necessary and contribute to a culture of over-utilization. 7. Why don't more CEOs endorse presidential candidates? Presidential candidates receive plenty of support from various individuals, organizations and companies. But why don't many CEOs openly support the presidential frontrunners? It's because it's too risky, according to The Washington Post. 8. It's time for hospital executives to pay attention to social media When the CIO of a large health system said during a healthcare conference he didn't care that patients complained of certain banalities on Twitter, such as hospital food or parking at the health system's facilities, he elicited surprise, confusion and disappointment among listeners. Furthermore, this CIO's dismissive attitude about patient complaints on social media presents a sorely missed opportunity. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 were injured in a shooting at Pulse, an Orlando, Fla.-based LGBT nightclub early Sunday morning. A SWAT team killed the gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, at the scene. Orlando Health, a six-hopsital system with two affiliated hospitals, led the emergency response. Here are five things to know about how the health system handled the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. 1. Orlando Health's Orlando Regional Medical Center took in most of the victims. ORMC is the only Level I Trauma Center in central Florida. "We take care of a number of critically ill patients on a daily basis, but not to this extent. We usually see six gun shot wounds at a time," Orlando Health tweeted Monday morning. The hospital usually has one trauma surgeon on staff at that time, but had to call in a total of six surgeons when staff saw the volume of victims coming in. It doubled its number of operating rooms and called a pediatric surgeon, the hospital tweeted Monday. 2. The hospital treated 44 victims. Nine died from their injuries Sunday morning, but no other patients have died since. As of noon Sunday, ORMC had operated on 26 victims. It had six operations scheduled for Monday. As of 11:30 a.m. Monday, five patients were still in grave condition. Including those five, the hospital still has 29 victims and has discharged six victims. Many of the victims are still in critical condition and in shock. The health system tweeted that the victims had wounds from an assault rifle to the trunk, extremities and abdomen, and that many had multiple high-velocity gunshot wounds. 3. Orlando Health put its facilities under lockdown for visitors early Sunday morning. It tweeted at about 4 a.m. that only essential workers were allowed access to ORMC in order to keep patients, families and staff safe. The lockdown was lifted at 1:45 p.m. Sunday afternoon and operations returned to normal. The hospital did continue to accept and treat other patients during the lockdown, it said. 4. The hospital allowed family members of confirmed patients to visit during the lockdown. It said it had as many as 200 family members of victims in the emergency room. "One thing that has struck me about this is the impact this has had on the families," said Michael Cheatham, MD, chief surgical quality officer, as quoted by health system. The hospital also provided family members with multiple ways to access information about loved ones it provided information at a local senior center and established a victim hotline, 407-246-4357. For its staff members, the hospital is now providing counseling. 5. The hospital is not accepting in-kind donations due to the nature of the incident. It also asked those who wished to donate blood not to come to the hospital, but to go to a blood center. On Monday morning Orlando Health tweeted, "We have experienced a huge outpouring of support. Local blood banks have over 600 units of blood on hand. Thank you, everyone." Editor's Note: Updated information was added to this report at 4:30 p.m. CT on June 13. This information includes 11:30 a.m. Monday morning victim counts, ORMC's strategy to double the number of ORs, its counseling resources and details on the patients' "high velocity gunshot wounds." More articles on leadership and management: Theranos movie starring Jennifer Lawrence in the works Mischievous kids likely to be big earners as adults, study suggests This company banned email and increased productivity, profitability The following healthcare mergers, acquisitions and general partnerships took place or were announced in the past week. 1. CHRISTUS Health expands further into North Texas Irving, Texas-based CHRISTUS Health finalized a joint venture agreement with Hopkins County Hospital District, a one-hospital system in Sulphur Springs, Texas. 2. UPMC's takeover of WCA Hospital moves forward The Public Health and Health Planning Council within New York's Department of Health approved a plan to merge 317-bed WCA Hospital in Jamestown, N.Y., into Pittsburgh-based UPMC. 3. Prospect Medical Holdings to pay $300M for Crozer-Keystone Prospect Medical Holdings, a for-profit hospital operator based in Los Angeles, will pay $300 million to acquire Springfield, Pa.-based Crozer-Keystone Health System. 4. Cuba Memorial Hospital affiliates with Kaleida Health Cuba (N.Y.) Memorial Hospital and Buffalo, N.Y.-based Kaleida Health entered into an affiliation agreement. 5. Oaklawn Hospital, Borgess Health partner to create new organization Marshall, Mich.-based Oaklawn Hospital and Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Borgess Health Alliance created a new organization called THINK Health. 6. Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire to become Dartmouth-Hitchcock affiliate The Visiting Nurse and Hospice for Vermont and New Hampshire approved an affiliation agreement with Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock. More articles on healthcare industry transactions: Kaufman Hall: Hospital M&A activity up 13% in Q1 5 recent hospital transactions and partnerships 5 imperatives to consider when starting a health conversion foundation The following healthcare organizations shared plans to hire workers since May 19, starting with the most recent. 1. Healthcare jobs coming to Cincinnati as a result of Medicaid grant Cradle Cincinnati, a nonprofit based at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, aimed at reducing infant mortality, plans to create two dozen jobs to reach pregnant women in local neighborhoods, according to a Cincinnati Business Courier report. The jobs 18 community health workers and six home visitors will be funded through a $1.4 million grant from the Ohio Department of Medicaid. 2. University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital seeks to fill more than 250 positions The new University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital in Iowa City is seeking to fill more than 250 positions in the $360 million facility, slated to begin treating patients Dec. 10, The Gazette reports. The job openings include 227 staff positions, such as housekeeping, pharmacists, nurses, clerks and technicians, as well as approximately 27 faculty posts physicians and practitioners. 3. UCHealth to add more than 200 jobs in Colorado Aurora, Colo.-based UCHealth will add more than 200 jobs as the organization and partner Lewisville, Texas-based Adeptus Health prepare to open two community hospitals, according to a report published by the Greeley Tribune. The 22-bed UCHealth Broomfield (Colo.) Hospital will open this month via a partnership with Adeptus Health, while Colorado Springs, Colo.-based UCHealth Grandview Hospital, also 22 beds, is expected to open in August. Each community hospital is expected to create approximately 100 new jobs. 4. Parallon seeks to fill 60 entry-level jobs at Louisville call center Health IT consulting and services company Parallon seeks to fill nearly 60 entry-level roles at its call center in Louisville, Ky., Insider Louisville reports. The open jobs are in both day and evening shifts. 5. St. Elizabeth Healthcare seeks to fill more than 500 jobs Edgewood, Ky.-based St. Elizabeth Healthcare will hold a career fair next month to help fill more than 500 jobs, according to a report on cincinnati.com. The open jobs are clinical and non-clinical, experienced and entry level. 6. Theranos to grow workforce nearly 20% Palo Alto, Calif.-based blood test startup Theranos is seeking to fill 200 positions, based on its job ads representing 20 percent growth over its current staff of 1,000, as reported by STAT. It is hiring for a host of positions, from administrative to creative to information technology to supply chain, and plans to open a lab in Harrisburg, Pa. More articles on workforce and labor management: Hospitals and unions: 11 recent conflicts, agreements Massachusetts nurses union: Steward Holy Family Hospital refuses to bargain new contract Indiana Regional Medical Center nurses to picket From the Department of Justice and North Carolina Attorney General filing an antitrust lawsuit against Charlotte, N.C.-based Carolinas HealthCare to an appeals court vacating a $30 million settlement in a suit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines. 1. 81-year-old former pediatrician pleads guilty to fraud An 81-year-old former pediatrician who opened a pain management practice in 2009 pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud. 2. Chicago hospital accused of illegally transferring pension obligations to an order of nuns A group of former employees accused Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago of improperly classifying its pension as a "church plan" exempt from federal law. 3. Appeals court vacates $30M BCBS antitrust settlement The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a $30 million settlement in a suit against Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, holding that the fairness of the settlement cannot be determined due to court orders sealing most of the filings in the antitrust suit. 4. Feds: Carolinas HealthCare forced steering restrictions in top payer contracts The Department of Justice and North Carolina Attorney General filed an antitrust lawsuit against Carolinas HealthCare, alleging the Charlotte, N.C.-based system drove up costs in the region by imposing steering restrictions in contracts with commercial health insurers. 5. NY physician gets prison time for taking bribes in $100M fraud scheme A physician who admitted taking bribes as part of a long-running test referral scheme operated by Parsippany, N.J.-based Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services was sentenced to 37 months in prison. 6. BCBS of Oklahoma dismissed from hospital's lawsuit U.S. District Judge Claire Eagan ruled that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma be dismissed from a lawsuit involving Bristow (Okla.) Endeavor Healthcare and network coverage. 7. Owner, CFO of Louisiana healthcare company get prison time for fraud Barbara Sadler, the 63-year-old owner of Extraordinary Care Network, a Baton Rouge, La.-area attendant care services company, was sentenced to 44 months in prison for her role in a scheme to defraud the Louisiana Medicaid program of more than $1 million. 8. Cardiothoracic surgeon claims discrimination in lawsuit against Oregon hospital A cardiothoracic surgeon filed suit against St. Charles Health System, accusing the Bend, Ore.-based system of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act when he was fired in November. 9. Physician charged with fraud accuses FBI, DOJ of routinely spying on defense strategy Lawyers representing a physician accused of fraud filed court documents alleging that prosecutors secretly gained access to files assembled by the defense team. 10. Additional conspiracy charge tacked onto Martin Shkreli case Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, who was made famous by a 5,000 percent price hike on a cancer and AIDS drug, now faces an additional conspiracy charge. 11. Former Pacific Hospital CEO and son guilty in $600M fraud scheme Michael R. Drobot, former CEO of Pacific Hospital in Long Beach, Calif., and his son are two of nine defendants that have admitted participating in a massive fraud scheme that involved physicians receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks. 12. Pharma companies to pay $67M for misleading physicians about cancer drug Pharmaceutical companies Farmingdale, N.Y.-based Genentech and South San Francisco, Calif.-based OSI Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay $67 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations. 13. Former MedStar security guards plead not guilty in patient death Two ex-security guards from MedStar Washington Hospital Center pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of involuntary manslaughter before Superior Court judge in Washington, D.C. 14. Transgender nurse sues Dignity Health for refusing to cover gender reassignment costs A transgender Dignity Health employee filed suit against the San Francisco-based hospital chain, alleging the system wrongfully denied him coverage for hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery. 15. MLK Hospital sues BCBS of Ga. for giving reimbursement money to patients Los Angeles-based Martin Luther King Hospital filed suit against Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, alleging the insurer sends reimbursement money for emergency room services directly to patients as a means of retaliation against out-of-network hospital prices. More articles on health law: 14 latest healthcare industry lawsuits, settlements Lee Memorial wants to evict another patient Cigna ordered to pay $13M to physician-owned hospital An 81-year-old former pediatrician who opened a pain management practice in 2009 pleaded guilty to healthcare fraud Wednesday, according to the Department of Justice. According to his plea agreement, Nicola Tauraso, MD, practiced as a pediatrician between 1972 and 2007. In 2009 he opened a pain management practice in Frederick, Md. Dr. Tauraso saw an excessive number of patients at his clinic typically about 80 per eight-hour day and wrote prescriptions for Oxycodone and Ocycontine without determining if a medical need existed for the prescriptions. In June 2011, the Maryland State Board of Physicians revoked Dr. Tauraso's medical license for prescribing Oxycondone, Oxycontine and other drugs to 17 patients without taking sufficient history or performing a physical. At least five of the patients were prescribed Oxycontin, Ocycodone, Xanax and Tramadol, which is a deadly medical combination, according to the DOJ. An insurance investigator found that patients did not use insurance for visits with Dr. Tauraso. He deposited approximately $821,358 in cash into his bank accounts in 2010, of which approximately $575,000 was transferred to a bank in Panama. Dr. Tauraso was indicted in 2014 and arrested at an airport in Virginia in July as he was returning from Panama, according to The Frederick News-Post. As part of his plea deal, Dr. Tauraso has agreed to forfeit the funds held in his bank account in Panama, which now total approximately $100,000. He faces up to 10 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 8. More articles on healthcare industry lawsuits: Feds: Carolinas HealthCare forced steering restrictions in top payer contracts NY physician gets prison time for taking bribes in $100M fraud scheme Cardiothoracic surgeon claims discrimination in lawsuit against Oregon hospital A group of former employees have accused Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago of improperly classifying its pension as a "church plan" exempt from federal law, according to Bloomberg BNA. The 12-count complaint alleges that Holy Cross retroactively claimed church plan status in 1993. The plan was then exempt from the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which requires pension plans to have adequate funding to pay their promised benefits. In 2013, when Holy Cross merged with Chicago-based Sinai Health System, the plan was allegedly underfunded by $31 million. At that time, the hospital allegedly illegally transferred liability for the pension plan to an order of nuns called the Sisters of Saint Casimir of Chicago. Two years later, the Sisters of Casimir announced that the pension plan would be terminated. The benefits were paid out in lump sums, which were calculated using discount rates that would not have been available under ERISA, according to the report. In their lawsuit, the former Holy Cross workers are seeking class treatment for about 2,000 participants in the pension plan. They also seek a declaration that the plan is governed by ERISA and damages for the allegedly improper termination of the plan. Holy Cross is one of many healthcare organizations across the nation accused of misclassifying pension plans as church plans. According to Bloomberg BNA, 30 similar lawsuits have been brought against religiously affiliated healthcare companies over the past three years. In May, Hartford, Conn.-based St. Francis Hospital, part of Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health, agreed to pay $107 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it mismanaged its pension plan by classifying it as a church plan. More articles on healthcare finance: 4 Louisiana hospitals land in bankruptcy This nonprofit aims to eliminate $1B in medical debt for the nation's poorest 5 healthcare CFOs in the headlines The state of Louisiana saw 200,000 new Medicaid enrollees during its first week of the program's expanded eligibility, The Advocate reported. Effective June 1, Louisiana became the 31st state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to hundreds of thousands by lifting the program's economic threshold. In doing so, adults who make below 138 percent of federal poverty level $33,500 annually for a family of four or $16,200 individually qualified for Medicaid. Staring June 1 through next year, the state expects to enroll 375,000 adults in Medicaid. The state surpassed its goal of having half of those enrollees signed on before July 1, when coverage kicks in, according to The Advocate. Louisiana also became the first state to determine Medicaid eligibility using existing food stamp information, turning one application into two. Former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius discussed possible consequences of Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana mergers last week with the International Business Times, raising questions about how the deals would affect consumers. Ms. Sebelius, a key advocate for the Affordable Care Act, said one of the law's preemptive goals was to foster competition between insurers to decrease prices and increase choice for consumers. She told IBT that mergers between the largest insurers could do just the opposite, hindering competition and heightening consumer costs. "To go from five major insurance companies to three insurance companies is a dramatically different playing field across the board, so this will impact every state, every population, just given the size of these mergers," Mrs. Sebelius told IBT. Contrary to these comments, insurance company executives said mergers will make insurance more efficient and cost saving. For example, last year Cigna CEO David Cordani defended the Anthem-Cigna merger, stating it would "increase choice, not decrease choice." Mr. Cordani would personally gain $58 million if the merger succeeds. To this, Mrs. Sebelius responded that "the shareholders have signed off on this with all four companies, and so they clearly are confident that these mergers will produce more profitable insurance companies," she said. "What the regulators want to know and it sort of gets flipped is what happens to consumers? Is this bad or good for consumers? And they are not necessarily the same answers," she told IBT. Prior to working in President Obama's cabinet, Mrs. Sebelius served as the insurance commissioner and governor of Kansas. In 2002, she blocked Anthem's acquisition of Kansas Blue Cross Blue Shield in a "precedent-setting case," according to IBT. More articles on payer issues: ACA Assister Programs see smoother enrollment period, but continue to face challenges: 9 survey findings Feds discuss ACA success, ponder its long-term viability UnitedHealthcare to reimburse kidney donors' travel expenses To continue following the latest news and information for Bedfordshire and surrounding areas, simply enter your full postcode below Enda Kenny with Professor Alastair Adair and Professor Paddy Nixon new Vice-Chancellor of University of Ulster before delivering a keynote speech at Ulster University, Belfast campus in Northern Ireland. Pic: Pacemaker Arthur Allison. Taoiseach Enda Kenny says a Brexit is the biggest challenge and greatest risk Ireland is facing and the outcome of the EU referendum would be "as important for Ireland as Good Friday Agreement". He said the forthcoming poll was a "truly momentous decision". The Irish premier was speaking during a visit to Ulster University in Belfast on Monday afternoon. He said the decision was "as important for Ireland as the Good Friday Agreement". Mr Kenny told a packed room that a Brexit is a vote which "we would very much wish to avoid". "If the UK decides to leave the EU I will be the only person from these islands at the European council meetings," he said. He said there would be "no voice" at the "top table" to speak for the UK and Northern Ireland if it votes to leave the EU. Mr Kenny is due to meet Prime Minister David Cameron amid growing Irish concerns about the outcome of the June 23 referendum. Enda Kenny last month urged Irish people living in Britain to vote Remain, saying the Republic would be one of the worst affected countries should the UK leave the European Union. He warned custom controls could have to be set up at the Irish Republic's border with Northern Ireland in the event of a Brexit vote. Speaking in London, Mr Kenny said Irish people make up a "substantial" part of the electorate and urged them to vote. Boris Johnson has reiterated support for the Leave campaign's central claim that 350 million a week goes to Brussels, and said the figure is an "underestimate" of what the UK hands over. Mr Johnson said "about half" of the money comes back from the European Union, but that cash is "under the control of EU bureaucrats". He added that claims the key economic statement, which is painted on the side of Vote Leave's battle bus, is misleading are not true. Mr Johnson also claimed the European Court of Justice had made "some very, very erratic judgements" banning the UK from deporting criminals, which he said was "wholly wrong". His comments came after a senior Tory backbencher came out in favour of staying in the 28-country bloc, and branded Leave's key economic argument a "disgraceful" falsehood. Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the influential Commons Treasury Committee, said Vote Leave's often-repeated claim that Britain hands 350 million to Brussels each week which could instead be spent on national priorities is "bogus" and should be discounted by voters. When Mr Johnson was asked on local BBC Hereford and Worcester radio on Monday whether the figure is correct, he replied: "Well it is, and in fact that is an underestimate of the amount we give every week, or the amount we cannot control every week. "The last figure I said was about 365 million." He said the Leave campaign had been "clear" that "about half" the money comes back to the UK, but claimed it is the EU which dictates how that cash is spent. Mr Johnson said: "We get money back from the EU, about half of it comes back, but that is at the behest - at the control, under the control - of EU bureaucrats." Asked if it is a misleading claim, he added: "You are spending the money on my behalf, you're deciding what you think I should be spending that money on. "We don't control that money anymore and a huge quantity of it is simply wasted." Mr Johnson claimed "European officialdom" is making "many decisions" on how the UK is run. He said: "For me that's only part of the problem, for me the real issue is the absence of control generally. "That manifests itself in all sorts of ways, lack of control of our borders, over our security. "The role of the European Court of Justice which has been growing so much in the last few years, which is now supreme over our entire legal system, and is now making some very, very erratic judgements." The Tory MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip said: "What matters to people in just 10 days' time is the future of this country and who governs this country. "Is it going to be other European countries getting together? "Actually if it were that simple it would be good, but it's the European officialdom that is taking so many decisions, and I mentioned the Court of Justice. "It seems to me wholly wrong that a sovereign country should find itself in matters of security having decisions taken in that way on who we can have in this country, who we think is safe to have on our streets, by a foreign court. "It cannot be right." Leslie Odom Jr accepts the award for leading actor in a musical for Hamilton, at the Tony Awards in New York (AP) Theatre fans will be able to sign up for priority booking for Hamilton The Musical in London from midday on Monday. The Broadway show, which won 11 Tony Awards on Sunday evening including best musical, will premiere at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London in October 2017. Tickets will not go on sale until November 2016, but theatre-goers will be able to register their interest and put their name down for priority booking at the website hamiltonthemusical.co.uk from 12pm on Monday June 13. The critically-acclaimed musical tells the life story of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, and has been a Broadway sensation. Rapper Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote and starred in the show, said: "The support Hamilton has received from our British fans has been incredible - I have been reminded of their love, which is just as our King George would want it to be! "I'm thrilled the show will be shared with UK audiences starting in the fall of 2017 at the beautiful Victoria Palace Theatre." The US production is sold out for the rest of the year, and tickets online have been selling for thousands of pounds. Boosting the production's already very high profile, Sunday's Tony Awards ceremony saw Hamilton pick up 11 gongs after scooping 16 nominations overall. In a pre-recorded video message, US president Barack Obama said Hamilton was "not only a smash hit but a civics lesson our kids can't get enough of", while rapper Common described the show as a "cultural phenomenon". In the wake of the deadly mass shooting in Florida, the cast of Hamilton opted to perform without their Revolutionary War muskets at the awards. Miranda said the shooting was "heavy in my heart and heavy in my mind". Hamilton will be the first show at the Victoria Palace Theatre when it re-opens after undergoing a multi-million pound refurbishment. Producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh, who is bringing the show to the West End, said: "Just occasionally in life the stars align as they have now, and I have the perfect theatre available for one of the most brilliant, original and entertaining musicals I have ever seen. "The moment I saw Lin Manuel's remarkable Hamilton I knew that this was a musical with a phenomenal story and score which will be performed somewhere in the world as long as people want to go to the theatre. "To be working with my friend Jeffrey Seller again is an added bonus. My major redevelopment of the Victoria Palace will bring new life to a much loved building and I have no doubt Hamilton will do the same for the musical theatre." Co-producer Seller said: "Hamilton is pure joy and I can't wait to share it with London audiences." The musical is based on Ron Chernow's biography of Hamilton, an immigrant from the West Indies who was George Washington's aide and helped shape the US constitution. Zayn Malik has blamed "anxiety" for his last-minute decision to pull out of a Wembley Stadium concert. The Capital FM Summertime Ball would have been his first live UK solo stage performance. In a message on his Instagram account, the former One Direction star apologised "to everybody I've let down", adding: "Unfortunately my anxiety that has haunted me throughout the last few months around live performances has gotten the better of me... with the magnitude of the event, I have suffered the worst anxiety of my career." The 23-year-old stated: "I promise I will do my best to make this up to everybody I've let down." Belfast-based author Tara West, who'll be talking about her depression on Wednesday as part of the Belfast Book Festival, writes about her experience of the illness and how we all need to talk about this taboo subject. Can you really call something a battle, when you don't even know that you're fighting? My 'battle with depression' was never such, because for me, depression is insidious and nebulous and slow. It's more like a war, fought over a lifetime, with some decent wins, but many ambushes. It's not something I had, then got over. I monitor my mood constantly, and when I feel the warning signs, I protect myself. But I didn't always know to do that. My memoir of depression and recovery, Happy Dark (Liberties Press, Sept 2016), focuses on my most severe episode of depression, which followed the launch of my first novel in 2002. I had a loving husband, a kind mother, fun-loving siblings, good friends, a successful career in advertising and my first novel had just been published. And yet, every day I suffered the rawest kind of anguish. I was beyond unhappy. I'd get random glimpses of slicing open my own flesh, like a flashback to something that hadn't happened yet. I could see my skin peeling back like loose sheets of leather, revealing my workings, releasing my guts, opening me up and spilling me out. I wanted to peel myself to death. I couldn't bear myself, inside or out. I told my husband I wanted to die. He was terrified and didn't know what to do. Neither did I. We knew nothing about depression and we didn't recognise it. We cowered in bed, eyes open, terrified of what was happening, of what we didn't understand. This was unlike anything we had ever experienced or even heard about. It had never been discussed. We were cast into the dark together. Years later, when reading round the subject, I realised that our reticence to talk about depression has been a fairly recent development. The ancient Greeks discussed it openly: they called it melancholy, or black bile, and they believed it made up a quarter of everyone's physiology (the other parts being yellow bile, phlegm and blood). Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1621 and was read and discussed widely. The Romantics made melancholy their own in the 19th century, and had a substantial fan following. I don't know why we stopped talking about depression. Perhaps, in the late 19th, and 20th centuries, feelings of alienation became associated with artistic expression and perhaps ordinary people, because they were not artists or writers, did not, or could not, admit to feeling depressed. They were sensible and productive citizens, or soldiers. They were not poets or pretenders. Maybe our forebears felt it was unpatriotic to admit to feeling depressed, having been advised to keep calm and carry on. Or maybe depression just fell out of fashion. For whatever reason, we rarely talk about depression, and when we do, it is in hushed tones. It's been around longer than Western society, but it says something about the UK and Ireland that we have almost no vocabulary for describing how we feel beyond the terms we learned in childhood. Where other cultures have developed words like Weltschmerz, saudade and mono no aware, we have no language to address the subtleties of feeling we experience as adolescents and adults, which puts us at a disadvantage. We do not share the fact that sometimes we feel mental pain, that sometimes it can really hurt, that it can become unbearable, and that we might think about suicide. But depression is part of being human. Think back to the Greeks: they thought a quarter of you was filled with melancholy. That's like one of your legs. Imagine carrying round a leg filled with depression. Of course you're going to give into it sometimes. You certainly won't be able to ignore it. And others will understand when it plays up. Depression, according to research, is a physical and mental response to the prolonged release of stress hormones. Stress can be caused by your work, family situation, illness, social pressures or even how you think about yourself. Depression occurs when your synaptic circuits are overloaded by cortisol - it's like blowing a fuse, and the brain chemicals that keep us functioning normally, like serotonin, can't get through the way they should. We're lucky today to have drugs to prop up our synapses when they break down, and we have therapists to help us sort out our thinking, but wouldn't it be great if we took the talkability and familiarity of melancholy in previous centuries and merged it with modern research and treatments? Would the number of suicides drop? My guess is yes. As it is, we hide depression, and we hide from it. That means many people don't recognise when they have it, which can be dangerous. It is not feeling sad or blue. It is not dressing in black and looking a bit gothic. Depression feels like the most searing kind of grief - the kind you feel at the loss of a loved one - but it is directed at nothing in particular. It is pain you experience every moment you are awake and it stains everything. It makes you paranoid, distrustful, desperate, angry, limited, lost, enervated and frustrated. It is how I felt in 2002, and I had no idea what was happening to me. The only relief my brain could offer was the thought of switching myself off, and my husband was panic-stricken. That's why we all need to talk about it. Families are shocked and scared when their loved ones develop depression. They don't know what it means or how to manage it, but if it was something we talked about openly, we would recognise it in others and in ourselves. We would encourage our friends and family to see a doctor. We would not be afraid to admit it, we would treat ourselves and others with compassion and kindness, we could protect ourselves from it, and we would know how to help. There is no real reason why we don't talk about it. When I attended weekly cognitive behavioural therapy sessions, I was quite happy for my colleagues to think I was having treatment for mysterious lady problems, rather than tell them I was going to a psychiatric hospital to get my head sorted. At the same time, I found that frustrating. I wanted to share what I was doing. There were so many people I thought therapy could help (and that's not sarcasm). I wanted to talk about it. I just couldn't. Perhaps our reticence is just habit, and habits can be hard to break. New behaviours take a while to embed and can be painful to introduce, but I think it would be worth it. By talking openly and freely about depression, we would educate our loved ones, and with education comes protection. With exposure comes acceptance, which would make it easier to talk about. It's a virtuous circle, a win-win. We have nothing to lose by opening our mouths. No one should be cast into the dark. So talk about it, please. Treat it like it's a normal, every-day thing - because that's what it is. Depression happens, it's more common than you think, and people can and do recover. They can laugh and love and think and work again, but they can't even begin to 'battle' depression if they don't understand what is happening to them, or what they can do about it. We all have a responsibility to talk about depression, and I've done my bit. Over to you. Tara will join co-speaker Dr Harry Barr at The Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast on Wednesday at 1.15pm as part of the Belfast Book Festival to talk about her struggle with depression. Tickets cost 7 (including light lunch) or 5 (event only) from crescentarts.ticketsolve.com/venues/25544418/shows An award winner Tara (44), whose books include Fodder and Poets Are Eaten as a Delicacy in Japan as well as her memoir Happy Dark, lives in Belfast with her husband Dave and their daughter Farha (9). She has an MA in Creative Writing from Queen's University, Belfast, is a member of the Society of Authors, and has received a number of Arts Council Northern Ireland Awards for her writing. A vote to leave the European Union would wreak havoc on Northern Ireland's economy, according to a former head of the World Trade Organisation A vote to leave the European Union would wreak havoc on Northern Ireland's economy, according to a former head of the World Trade Organisation. In an outspoken defence of the EU, Peter Sutherland said Brexit would be "an act of wanton destruction" as far as the province is concerned. It would suffer much more than the rest of the UK, the former European Commissioner and past director-general of the World Trade Organisation added. "Those who invest in Ireland, north or south, are doing so because it provides them with the manufacturing base to sell to the European Union," Mr Sutherland told the BBC's Sunday Politics show. "The uncertainty, the borders created by Britain leaving and the inevitable period of prolonged negotiation will lead to a drying up of investment. "It is, to me, incredible that any political force in Northern Ireland could conceivably consider (the UK leaving the EU) could be a good thing for Northern Ireland." Mr Sutherland also said leaving the EU would "create a border control requirement that we had thought banished to history". He added: "If in some perverted way there is an ideological desire to recreate that border, it's an act that would be incredibly foolish and very damaging." Former Alliance minister Stephen Farry also warned that a vote to leave the EU would make any moves to lower the rate of corporation tax pointless. Mr Farry described it as 'a cruel irony' that just when Northern Ireland was on the brink of lowering corporation tax, a Brexit vote would automatically cancel out any expected benefits. He said: "In all the meetings I have had with a range of potential investors, both large and small, I have never come across anyone arguing that Northern Ireland and the UK would be better off outside the European Union. For some, it was not a huge issue, but for others it was fundamental." "The notion that the UK would quickly create its own trade and access to market agreements with Europe and indeed the other main global economies is extremely naive." However, Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers said a Brexit would be "great for Northern Ireland". "It enables us to take back control of our own trade policies so that we can make deals not just with the European Union, but also with countries around the world where they have huge markets," she told Sunday Politics, "those could create jobs and opportunities for young people. "There's no reason why we can't press ahead pretty rapidly with trade deals with the rest of the world. It is the EU that's failing economically, not us." A Co Antrim man has offered to donate his kidney to a complete stranger to save his wife's life. James Nash has added his name to the national transplant pool in the hope that a suitable kidney donor match can be found quickly for his wife of eight years, Libby. "I didn't have a second thought about doing it," said the 35-year-old from Randalstown, Co Antrim. "I've been tested to donate one of my kidneys directly to Libby but we already know it can't happen because of our blood types. "But if there's a match out there for Libby and a kidney is donated to her, then I will ultimately do the same for someone else. "It's so hard to see your loved one suffering so much. "You feel like you can't do anything, so if it means that will save Libby's life then I will donate my kidney." Libby (32) has cystic fibrosis and has endured a lifetime of hospital appointments, medication, physiotherapy and surgery just to stay alive. Four years ago she was fighting for her life in the intensive care unit at the City Hospital in Belfast and it seemed likely the disease would kill her. She had been on the waiting list for a double lung transplant for six years when her condition took a dangerous turn for the worse. She woke on the morning of June 11, 2012, and James knew immediately that she wasn't well so the pair got into their car to drive to hospital. While on the way, Libby stopped breathing. At the hospital, a machine called a Novalung ventilator was used for the first time in Northern Ireland to keep her alive. Libby and her family continued to pray for a miracle but it took several weeks before the call finally came through that a lung donor had been found. The transplant operation was a success and Libby was once again well enough to enjoy normal activities. The couple were even finally able to enjoy their dream honeymoon in Florida - five years after their wedding. And Libby is currently fulfilling another dream, studying beauty, which was not possible before her transplant. However, her health began to deteriorate again in March and last week doctors at the Freeman Hospital, where she had her lung transplant, told her she now needs a kidney transplant. "They did warn me that I may need a kidney transplant somewhere down the line, so it wasn't a complete shock," she said, "although it would be nice to have a wee steady run of good health for a change. They're really keen that I don't go on dialysis which is why we're looking at a live donor. Everything is a bit more complicated because of my lungs but hopefully I will be able to have the surgery in the next few months." James said: "When Libby was so ill before, I couldn't bring myself to go home as it just made me think what it would be like if she didn't make it. I just don't want to imagine that happening and that's why I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep her with me." Every year, 15 people in Northern Ireland die while awaiting a transplant. Only 35% of the population is on the Organ Donor Register, yet 78% of people say they would accept an organ if they needed one. The victims of the Buncrana tragedy: (clockwise from top left) Louises partner Sean McGrotty, their two sons Mark and Evan, sister Jodie Lee Daniels and her mother Ruth Louise James and Davitt Walsh (right) took part in the marathon to rise money for Muscular Dystrophy UK. Photograph By Declan Roughan Louise James - the woman whose partner, two sons, sister and mother died at the Buncrana pier tragedy - has thanked the thousands who gave their support in the aftermath of the tragedy. Speaking to the Irish News, Louise described how the thousands of messages of sympathy, goodwill and hope she has received in the three months since the March tragedy have helped her during her grief. Louise said she was not yet ready to talk about the terrible tragedy but felt the need to publicly thank people from all over the world who have contacted her. Louises 48-year-old partner Sean McGrotty, sons Mark (12) and 8-year-old Evan, her 14-year-old sister Jodie-Lee and mother Ruth Daniels (58) all drowned when Mr McGrottys car slid on algae into the waters of Lough Swilly after a family day out. The sole survivor was Louises baby daughter Rioghnach. The four-month-old baby was passed out the window of the sinking vehicle to Donegal man Davitt Walsh who swam out to the family. Louise said Sean gave her a sign that she should speak to the Irish News. She said: "Im still receiving messages on a daily basis. Its nice because I have read every single one and it makes you feel sometimes like youre not the only one grieving. "Even though Ive had the biggest loss, you sort of feel that you are not on your own. Louise said she was particularly moved by countless children who sent their pocket money to support her. Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close The victims of the Buncrana tragedy: (clockwise from top left) Louises partner Sean McGrotty, their two sons Mark and Evan, sister Jodie Lee Daniels and her mother Ruth Louise James two sons Mark and Evan Louise James sister Jodi-Lee Louise James mum Ruth Sean McGrotty Pacemaker Belfast / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The victims of the Buncrana tragedy: (clockwise from top left) Louises partner Sean McGrotty, their two sons Mark and Evan, sister Jodie Lee Daniels and her mother Ruth Ans she paid tribute to the scores of people who helped at the scene and those who supported her in the aftermath of the tragedy. I want to say a big thanks to everyone, starting with the people who were there that night, all the emergency services, the RNLI, all the staff at Letterkenny hospital, Davitt (Walsh) and (his girlfriend) Stephanie (Knox). "I want to thank Connie and Theresa (McIntyre) because Connie and Theresa helped Davitt and Stephanie - they were there that night but have not really come into the picture. I want to thank Kay and Francis Crawford. I want to thank Fr Paddy OKane. He has been a tower of strength to me, he really has. Hes been at the door, hes been at the house, he been at the other end of the phone. She also thanked undertakers Willie OBrien and his staff and the police for their help with the funeral. And she paid a special thanks for her native Derry. I am so, so proud to be from Derry, all the businesses and all the clubs and everybody who put on events to help us. It means so much," she added. For such a small town, it came together, city side and Waterside. I got books of condolences from everywhere and a particularly lovely one from Nelson Drive (a unionist area of Derrys Waterside). That was lovely. "It proved that our town can come together, whether youre Catholic or Protestant, nothing matters in a time of need. Louise said she hoped that by extending her deep, deep thanks through The Irish News, people would know how much the fact that they took time out to write meant to her and will mean to Rioghnach in the years and decades to come. Obviously my greatest thanks must go to Seans family and my family and our close friends who have been with me every step of the way," she added. The new Education Minister, Peter Weir, has said he will not force his personal political beliefs on schools. Mr Weir is the first DUP politician to take on the job, previously held by Sinn Fein since devolution. He told the Belfast Telegraph his immediate priorities just days into the role are to review several decisions taken by his predecessor John O'Dowd, including a controversial new teacher recruitment programme. The North Down MLA has also vowed to do all he can to ease pressure on children going through the unregulated transfer procedure from primary to post-primary school. One of Martin McGuinness' first acts as Education Minister in 1998 was to abolish the official transfer test, the 11-plus. The final official test was in 2008. Since then children have been faced with sitting up to five unregulated tests to gain a place at a grammar school. Mr Weir said he will work to encourage the two separate test systems for State and Catholic schools to reach agreement. The former Education committee chairman said he would not criticise Mr O'Dowd, but intimated his own style as minister would be very different. "I want to see a degree of freedom given to schools generally. The idea of 'I have a particular ideology, I want to force that on schools' is an alien concept to me," he said. "There would be different areas where ideologically John and myself would take a different attitude; even if there were issues I will disagree with, I wouldn't suggest there was any form of disregard of education. "I think people do things out of a good motivation, even if at times different ministers will come to different solutions." Currently more than 14,000 children sit unofficial transfer tests set by AQE or GL to gain a place at a grammar school. For children who sit both systems this means having to take five tests. Mr Weir said he is keen to see a single system agreed. "The issue of academic selection is largely settled in that it is legally allowed and clearly there is a strong desire amongst both schools and parents to continue with that," he said. "Clearly it is an issue where there is a wide gulf between different political parties - there is not going to be a consensus on academic selection. "Different schools will use different ways, and many parents will not want their children to sit the tests. From that point of view I am not going to force anything on anybody. "Within that context I would see myself as trying to be a persuader for those involved with it. I think we should try and make it as easy for parents and children as possible - moving towards ultimately a single system of tests would be desirable, but it doesn't lie entirely within my gift." One of the other urgent issues Mr Weir said he is looking at is the Investing in the Teaching Workforce scheme, which proposed encouraging older teachers to retire, to be replaced by newly qualified teaching graduates. It sparked anger from teachers who have been qualified for more than three years, claiming they would be discriminated against. "I want to make sure whatever decision is taken is on the basis of robust data - it has been fairly controversial so far, and whatever decision I take will not please everybody," Mr Weir said, adding that whichever decision he takes is unlikely to lead to changes in the workforce before 2017. Addressing the budget cuts, the minister stated he is "acutely aware" of the pressure on school budgets and confirmed his department had made bids for extra cash in the June Monitoring Round, when unspent funding is allocated. "Whatever broad direction the Executive takes, I think we have to work on an assumption there is not going to be a massive amount of additional money across the system and that will translate into a tough financial situation for education," he said. Mr Weir added that among his priorities as minister will be focusing on educational opportunity and addressing educational under-achievement. "As we move forward on issues, I want to make sure they are done on careful consideration. Occasionally you have to make snap decisions, but it's not great development of policy if you have to make policy on the hoof," he commented. "I want to try and be thoughtful about issues and try and see what the best actions are that can be taken." Fingerprints from a stolen car that may have been used by gunmen who killed a Catholic salesman over 40 years ago were destroyed, a coroner's court has heard. A print and print fragments were lifted from the vehicle after the shooting of Daniel Joseph Carson in the Shankill area of Belfast in November 1973. But, because they were not directly linked to the murder, they were discarded in line with police policy. Coroner Mr Justice Adrian Colton told a preliminary inquest hearing at Laganside Court: "Unless linked to a murder at the time, the file would not be kept." Mr Carson, from Brooke Drive in Dunmurry, Co Antrim, was shot as he left work at a hardware merchants in the Shankill area of Belfast in November 1973. According to papers from now the defunct Historical Enquiries Team (HET) a car had been stolen a short distance away in the Agnes Street area and was recovered three days later at Aberdeen Street. It was examined by scenes of crime officers but records were not retained. The court also heard that a police sergeant spoke to a young boy who claimed the gunmen fled towards Boundary Way where they got into a car and were driven off in an unknown direction. No other witnesses referred to a motor vehicle, it was claimed. Barrister Sean Doran QC, counsel for the coroner, said: " There was no direct linkage made at the time of the investigation. "Because of that, in the interim period, all records relating to the fingerprint have been destroyed." The lawyer said recent correspondence from the Crown Solicitors' Office confirmed no records were available. Karen Quinlivan QC, representing the next of kin, called for a police representative to explain why the file was destroyed; if the suspects' fingerprints were ever taken and what searches were carried out to try and locate the relevant files. She said: "It is an issue we cannot bottom out in so far as locating the fingerprints but we are anxious to pursue in terms of the search perspective." Earlier, there were calls for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to put forward a representative to give evidence on disclosure during a pre-inquest hearing.. Judge Colton said he was "sympathetic" to the idea which could prevent potentially embarrassing errors where evidence is produced at the eleventh hour. He said: "Recent experience shows relevant material has been produced in the middle of an inquest. "It is in the interests of the MoD and PSNI not to be embarrassed by having to say, in the middle of things or shortly before, 'look we have some of this material'." Meanwhile, it also emerged that a soldier, known as M2, who was on the scene minutes after the shooting, has been traced and is willing to give evidence. Efforts to track down another former Lance Corporal, M3, have so far proved fruitless while a third serviceman, M1 is dead. Three police witnesses are also dead but six retired officers have been traced and are in the jurisdiction, according to barrister Peter Coll, representing the PSNI and MoD. "Any public servant would be expected to come forward and give whatever evidence they can," said Judge Colton. A full inquest has been listed for next February with a further review hearing scheduled for September. A man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Stephen Carson. The 35-year-old was arrested on Monday in the Belfast area. Mr Carson (28) was killed in February when gunmen burst into his home on Walmer Street off the Ormeau Road in south Belfast. He was shot dead in front of his partner and nine-year-old son. Read More At that time the officer leadi ng the investigation, Det Supt Kevin Geddes, said the murder was "brutal and cold-blooded". "Our main line of enquiry, but not our only line of enquiry, is that Stephen was shot as part of a criminal feud," he said. "We do not believe at this stage there was any paramilitary involvement nor do we believe this was sectarian." On Monday evening the PSNI revealed that a 35-year-old man has been arrested, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Dickson said: Detectives investigating the murder of Stephen Carson at Walmer Street in south Belfast on Thursday 25th February have arrested a 35 year old man on suspicion of murder. He was arrested in the Belfast area. He is currently in police custody. Update: The man was released pending a report to the Public Prosecution Service. Ian Paisley has raised serious concerns over the leniency of a sentence in a case of animal cruelty with the Attorney General for Northern Ireland. The North Antrim MP slammed a decision not to jail a man who allowed his pet dog to starve to death and he called for this specific case to be reviewed after the 46-year-old from Portglenone walked away with a fine. Jeffrey James Greer was given a conditional discharge at Ballymena court after pleading guilty to failing to ensure the welfare of his rottweiler cross. The dog, an eight-year-old called Bailey, was found dead at Greer's Hitonstown Road property in the Co Antrim town in November 2013. Mr Paisley said he sent a letter to Attorney General John Larkin last Friday after reading a report of the animal cruelty case in the Belfast Telegraph. "To treat an animal like that is utterly atrocious and it has to be dealt with," he said. "Most people would agree that someone who treats an animal under their care like that really needs to be made an example of. "A small fine and a non-custodial sentence is not being made an example of. "I've written to the Attorney General telling him that this is a classic case where there should be a review of this specific sentence. "I've also asked him to pass this on to the relevant authorities and seek a review of the sentence imposed because I think it's far too lenient." Greer was convicted on June 2 after pleading guilty to one charge of animal cruelty at Ballymena Magistrates' Court. Mid and East Antrim Borough Council confirmed that it had initially brought two charges against him under the Welfare of Animals Act (NI) 2011 but said the first charge of causing unnecessary suffering to a rottweiler cross-type dog was dismissed. Greer did plead guilty to failing to ensure the welfare of the dog, which was found dead during an investigation by the council's animal welfare department. He was given an 18-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay 274 costs to the council, while a previous interim disqualification order granted in October 2015 was revoked. Mr Paisley called for tougher sentencing in animal cruelty cases in general and he said he hoped the ruling in this particular case would be overturned and replaced with a punishment that fitted the crime. "We need to send a signal to anyone who has animals under their care that they have a moral duty to raise that animal properly and to show that animal respect so that it has enjoyment of its life," the DUP man said. "There needs to be a review of this sentence to see if it was too lenient and I sincerely hope they would recognise that it needs to be changed." He added: "People need to be shown that they can't get away with being cruel to animals." Mr Paisley said that he hopes to have a response from Mr Larkin within four weeks. This is the first significant animal cruelty case to come up since last month's Northern Ireland Says No To Animal Cruelty demonstration in Belfast - attended by UUP leader Mike Nesbitt - during which the campaign group called for stiffer sentences for animal abusers. Referring to its outcome, Mr Nesbitt said he would be pressing for a meeting with the Director of Public Prosecutions, Barra McGrory, given his new power to refer sentences considered to be unduly lenient to the Court of Appeal. He added: "There should be zero tolerance of those who commit cruelty against animals in our society." Geraldine Finucane, widow of murdered Belfast lawyer Pat, has begun her bid to overturn a ruling that Prime Minister David Cameron acted lawfully in refusing to hold a public inquiry into the killing. Murdered Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane was the victim of an army-run death squad normally associated with Latin American dictatorships, the Court of Appeal heard on Monday. Counsel for the solicitor's widow claimed his assassination was due to covert, state-sponsored terrorism and represents a "horror story" for the British Government. The allegations were made as Geraldine Finucane began her bid to overturn a ruling that Prime Minister David Cameron acted lawfully in refusing to hold a public inquiry into the killing. But the challenge was dramatically adjourned after it emerged that one of the three appeal judges had been involved in a separate civil action she issued more than 20 years ago. With Lord Justice Weir agreeing to step aside from continuing to hear the appeal, proceedings were put on hold until November. Mr Finucane was gunned down by loyalist paramilitaries in front of his wife and their three children at their north Belfast home in February 1989. His family have campaigned for a full examination of alleged security force collusion with the killers. Mrs Finucane took the Prime Minister to court after he ruled out a public inquiry in 2011. Read More Instead, Mr Cameron commissioned QC Sir Desmond de Silva to review all documents relating to the case and produce a narrative of what happened. Sir Desmond's report confirmed agents of the state were involved in the murder and that it should have been prevented. However, it concluded there had been no overarching state conspiracy. The Finucane family rejected the findings as a whitewash and accused the government of unlawfully reneging on previous commitments. Pledges to set up such a tribunal, based on the recommendation of retired Canadian judge Peter Cory, were made by a former Labour government in 2004 and reaffirmed in the following years, it was contended. Last year a High Court judge ruled that Mr Cameron acted lawfully in refusing to hold a public inquiry. Read More He found that Mrs Finucane had received a clear and unambiguous promise of an inquiry, but backed the Government's case that other public interest issues, including political developments in Northern Ireland and the potential financial pressures of a costly inquiry, were enough to frustrate her expectation. Despite throwing out Mrs Finucane's legal bid to force the authorities to publicly examine her husband's killing, the judge also said the State has not fully met its human rights obligation to investigate. Opening an appeal against that verdict, Barry Macdonald QC claimed the case was about an abuse of power. He said the 500 page de Silva report, which highlighted the connection of law enforcement elements to the murder conspiracy, contained only five pages on the role of the Government. No responsibility has been attached to any government minister or official, and no charges have been brought against any police officers, soldiers or security service personnel, the court heard. Referring to Ken Barrett, the loyalist gunman convicted of the killing, Mr Macdonald said: "The only person held accountable was one of the UDA puppets used to pull the trigger." He quoted correspondence from one of Mr Cameron's closest advisors which described the killing as far worse than anything alleged in Iraq or Afghanistan. Another internal Government memo described the Finucane case as "something of a horror story for the security forces". Questioning why the authorities appeared to regard the murder as the most difficult from Northern Ireland's troubled past, the barrister continued: "The answer is because in this liberal democracy where the rule of law is supposed to be paramount, the army is running death squads of a kind normally associated with Latin American dictatorships of the era." Rather than a few renegade, low-ranking soldiers being involved, Mr Macdonald alleged that a dedicated unit was established by military hierarchy. Investigations into the assassination carried out by former Scotland Yard chief Sir John Stevens was obstructed at the highest levels of the army and RUC, it was claimed. The court was told that the Stevens team was denied access to intelligence and had its offices set on fire in an attempt to destroy evidence gathered. "This was not just something of a horror story for the security forces, it was something of a horror story for the government ministers and officials who exercised or ought to have exercised control of the state's law enforcement agencies, and who knew or ought to have known was was going on," Mr Macdonald contended. He claimed that commissioning the de Silva review instead of a full public inquiry insulated government ministers from any further scrutiny. It also meant soldiers, police officers and security service staff allegedly involved in the murder collusion and in perverting the course of justice have been granted continued impunity, according to Finucane family's counsel. Only a public inquiry will satisfy their Article 2 rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, he insisted. However, the planned three-day hearing had to be adjourned after counsel for the Government, James Eadie QC, applied for Lord Justice Weir to recuse himself. It emerged that while a barrister in the early 1990s he had endorsed a writ issued by Mrs Finucane in a civil action over her husband's killing. Mr Eadie explained: "If ever there was a case in which the decision of the courts in this jurisdiction should not merely be, but be seen to be, entirely unimpeachable this is it." It was stressed that there could be no suggestion of any actual bias on the part of the judge. Even though Lord Justice Weir confirmed he has no memory of involvement in the earlier case, he agreed to have no further involvement in the appeal. Adjourning proceedings to November when another judge will join the panel, Lord Justice Gillen told the legal teams: "We express in no uncertain terms our profound disappointment that this has been allowed to happen." A Belfast councillor is so disillusioned with the official campaign to remain in the EU that he is putting up his own posters in an attempt to sway voters. The SDLP's Declan Boyle, has erected posters all over south Belfast promoting what he claims are the huge economic benefits to Northern Ireland of remaining in the EU. The posters show a slice of bread with a knife beside the slogan: "Make sure you know what side your bread is buttered on. Vote Remain on June 23rd." Mr Boyle said: "I believe that people could be sleepwalking into a Leave vote in 10 days' time. "The official campaign to remain in the European Union hasn't been vigorous enough nor has it presented its message in simple terms. "For me, it's a very black and white matter. "We will be an awful lot worse off if we leave the EU. "We are bottom of the pile in the UK already. "Being on the other side of the Irish Sea, we are far off London's radar. "When it comes to allocating funds, does anybody seriously think that the British Government will choose Newcastle, Co Down, over Newcastle upon Tyne or that Fermanagh will triumph over Finchley? "Not a chance." Mr Boyle, a councillor for the Botanic area, claimed that the closure of the motor tax offices in Coleraine in 2014 proved that Northern Ireland would lose out when resources are being distributed. "The Driver and Vehicle Agency buildings were closed here as the service was centralised in Wales," he told the Belfast Telegraph. "It was a prime example of priority being given to a location on the UK mainland." Last year, Mr Boyle erected controversial anti-burglary posters across south Belfast following a dramatic rise in the number of break-ins. The posters, advising people to increase their home security, brought him into conflict with TransportNI which said that, under Article 87 of the Roads Order, he had acted unlawfully. Two men and one woman arrested over money laundering offences. Two men and one woman have been released as the PSNI continue an investigation into money laundering and counterfeit currency. The trio - all aged in their 40s - were arrested by detectives from the Economic Crime Unit of Reactive and Organised Crime Branch of the PSNI following searches in the Carryduff, Belfast and Dromore areas on Monday. Detective Chief Inspector Ian Wilson said: Two men, aged 43 and 45 and one female aged 46 were arrested on suspicion of money laundering offences." The investigation is not believed to be terrorist related. They were released around 9pm on Monday on bail pending further police enquiries. Major flash flooding on the Holywood road in Belfast on February 12 amid heavy afternoon showers , 2016 in Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye) Major flash flooding on the Holywood road in Belfast on February 12 amid heavy afternoon showers , 2016 in Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye) Major flash flooding on the Holywood road in Belfast on February 12 amid heavy afternoon showers , 2016 in Belfast, Northern Ireland ( Photo by Kevin Scott / Presseye) Flash flooding struck parts of Belfast last night, turning some roads in the east of the city into rivers. Parts of Holywood Road became waterlogged after torrential rain lashed Belfast, and vehicles struggled through the waters. There were also reports of flooding in the Stranmillis area of south Belfast. Fortunately the worst of the deluge came after 10,000 Northern Ireland supporters had left the Titanic Quarter fanzone, where they had gathered to watch the Euro 2016 game against Poland. Today, the Met Office has predicted showery outbreaks of rain spreading north east across most parts of the province during the morning. However, it's expected to brighten up with some showers in the afternoon. The Taoiseach has described the EU referendum as the biggest decision since the Good Friday peace agreement, claiming Brexit would create instability and uncertainty and the likely return of border checkpoints. Enda Kenny said it was not credible to suggest nothing would change at the Irish border if the UK left the EU. "The re-establishment of customs checks on the border, or indeed of any customs arrangements, would be a regrettable and backward step for North-South trade and cooperation," he said. In a speech in Belfast stressing the Government's strong support for a Remain vote, Mr Kenny said, as the peace process came of age, people should take account of the "risks and challenges" that lay ahead. "My address today is about what I firmly believe is the biggest challenge and the greatest risk - the forthcoming referendum on UK membership of the European Union," he said. Mr Kenny added: "Later this month the people of Belfast, of Northern Ireland, of the UK as a whole, are being asked to make a momentous decision. "That decision is as important for the future of this island as when we all voted for the Good Friday Agreement (in 1998)." Mr Kenny said there was "no doubt" leaving the EU would involve changes to the trading rules between Britain and Ireland. He said such a change would deliver "bad news" for the Northern Ireland economy. "We are standing here today less than 50 miles from the United Kingdom's only land border," he told an audience at the University of Ulster. "Can anyone credibly suggest that nothing would change if that became the western border of the European Union? "We remember when it was a hard border. We remember the delays, the cost and the division. "One of the most beneficial effects of the peace process and our common membership of the EU has been the virtual elimination of that border." Mr Kenny said the decision on the future arrangements at the border would be up to the remaining 27 EU member states. He said he would do his utmost to preserve the common travel area that allowed people to move freely. But, in terms of trade, he said: "It is difficult to imagine a situation where there would be no controls or checks on the movement of goods if the UK left the EU. "Those who advocate for Leave simply cannot guarantee otherwise." He added: "No matter how successfully we negotiate any new arrangements, we all know that cannot be good for this island." Mr Kenny said the continued stability of Northern Ireland depended on the continued success of the peace process and access to the support and markets the EU provided. He said it was important to highlight the support the EU had given the peace process, both through funding and by providing a context through which the UK and Irish governments had built trust by working together on common goals. The Taoiseach said the economies on both sides of the border would be negatively impacted if there was a Brexit. "Continued membership of the European Union offers stability and certainty," he said. "The alternative - by definition - cannot, does not and will not." He noted he would be the only representative from Britain and Ireland at the European Council table. "There will be nobody there - no voice at the most powerful table on our continent - to represent or speak for Britain, for Scotland, for Wales or for Northern Ireland," he said. "That is why I am here today - to speak up for what I sincerely believe to be in the best interests of everyone on these islands." He stressed the decision rested with the people of the UK. "Nonetheless, it is no secret that the Irish Government very much wants the UK to stay as a member of the EU and work with us to make it better," he added. "The prospect of Northern Ireland being outside the EU is one we very much wish to avoid." Mr Kenny said whatever the outcome of the referendum, Ireland would continue to be a "committed member" of the EU and of the eurozone. "Our position on that is clear and unambiguous," he said. The common travel area has been in operation since 1923 and many Brexit campaigners have insisted the agreement will not be impacted if the UK leaves the EU. Mr Kenny said he would like to see it continue, but warned its future could not be guaranteed. The Taoiseach acknowledged the CTA had worked when both countries were outside the EU and when both were inside the EU. But he added: "It's never been tested with one outside and one inside and I think that's a problem." Eritrea's government accused Ethiopian troops of carrying out attacks against Eritrean positions in a disputed border area. Ethiopia "unleashed an attack against Eritrea" on Sunday in the Tsorona Central Front, Eritrea's Information Ministry said in a statement. Ethiopia and Eritrea have been in a stalemate situation since the end in 2000 of a border war in which tens of thousands of people were killed. The two neighbouring countries do not have diplomatic relations. Ethiopian officials were not immediately available for comment, but Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn recently said that his forces will act against Eritrea if Ethiopia is provoked. He called the Eritrean government an "arrogant and very stubborn regime". It remains unclear what sparked the latest clashes, although Ethiopia often accuses Eritrea of training and deploying armed groups that are banned in Ethiopia. Relatives of people who live in the affected area said their families are fleeing following heavy shelling at dawn on Sunday. "My father lives in the area and told me by phone of heavy shelling in the area. One heavy artillery shell has landed very close to a school and this has scared many," said Yared Tewolde. The Canadian Prime Minister says his government has "compelling reason to believe" that a second Canadian held hostage in the Philippines has been killed by his captors. Justin Trudeau said in a statement that Robert Hall was likely killed, and the Canadian government is working with authorities in the Philippines to confirm his death. The apparent death comes less than two months after Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded Canadian John Ridsdel in the southern Philippine province of Sulu after a ransom demand of 300 million pesos (4.4m) was not paid. Mr Trudeau reiterated on Monday that Canada will not pay ransom that would endanger the lives of more Canadians. The Abu Sayyaf group has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the Philippines. Mr Hall and Mr Ridsdel were abducted from a marina on southern Samal Island along with a Norwegian and a Filipino, and were taken by boat to Sulu. In the Philippines, the military said it had received intelligence reports that the Abu Sayyaf had beheaded Mr Hall after failing to receive a ransom by a new deadline of mid-afternoon on Monday. Troops were attempting to validate the reports, and the military would not confirm the killing in the absence of any clear evidence, regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan said. "While we're not seeing any evidence, we can't conclude anything and we can't confirm or deny," Maj Tan said by telephone. "The government of Canada will not and cannot pay ransoms for hostages to terrorist groups, as doing so would endanger the lives of more Canadians," Mr Trudeau said. "We are more committed than ever to working with the government of the Philippines and international partners to pursue those responsible for these heinous acts and bring them to justice, however long it takes." Mr Trudeau recently urged leaders of the other members the Group of Seven rich countries to reiterate their opposition to paying ransoms. The Prime Minister extended his "heartfelt condolences" to Mr Hall's family and friends. "They have suffered a terrible loss, and this is a devastating moment for them. Our thoughts are with them as they mourn this tragedy," he said. George C Wolfe wears a silver ribbon on his lapel as he arrives at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York (AP) James Corden, left, and his wife Julia Carey arrive at the Tony Awards (AP) Police officers stand guard outside the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre (AP) The shooting at a gay Florida nightclub cast a shadow over the Tony Awards, with organisers dedicating the ceremony to the victims. The Tony show created a silver ribbon for stars to wear in solidarity, and B roadway performers rushed to embrace the LGBT community. "My heart is saddened by it," said Jeffrey Seller, producer of Hamilton, which goes into the night with a leading 16 Tony nominations. "The celebration tonight is tempered by it." At least 50 people died when a gunman opened fire inside a crowded nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Organisers did not say how the evening's Tony broadcast would be affected, but Hamilton - the musical about Founding Father Alexander Hamilton that is expected to be the big winner - will drop its use of muskets in its performance. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the star and creator of Hamilton, said the shooting was "heavy in my heart and heavy in my mind". He added: "Today's a day of tragedy. At the same time, I'm in a room of people who made new art and new music this year and I'm happy to be celebrating that. I feel like we need it more than ever." There was an obvious stepped-up security presence outside the Beacon Theatre on New York City's Upper West Side, with explosive-sniffing dogs and a critical response team at the ready. The shooting was close to home for Christopher Fitzgerald, a nominee for the musical Waitress who went to school in Orlando. "I'm heartbroken. I think everybody is feeling it, so we are at least all coming together to celebrate and not live in fear," he said. Performers who have strong ties to the gay community like Donna Murphy and Audra McDonald took to Twitter to express their outrage over the attack. At rehearsal, new host James Corden led a show that was endearing, respectful and not at all edgy. The The Late Late Show host sang and danced and encouraged others in the audience to pick songs and join him in a bit of karaoke during breaks. No official mention was made of the Orlando attack. An hour before the show, Corden came out to quickly greet the audience dressed in a terry cloth bathrobe and socks and a towel turban on his head. Hamilton and the 38 new productions this season helped Broadway's attendance figures hit a record high, up 1.6% to 13.3 million ticket buyers. The show began with Corden, his back to the audience, dedicating the night to celebrate the diversity of Broadway. "Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. Tonight's show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle," he said. In the opening number he performed a head-spinning medley of tunes from famous Broadway musicals, including donning a mask for The Phantom Of The Opera, a leather jacket for Grease, and a curly red wig for Annie. The cast of Hamilton performed their opening number with the lyrics altered to have them all wondering why Corden - "chatting with Hollywood phonies" - had earned the honour of hosting the event. Corden, who was returning to the Beacon Theatre stage where he won a Tony for One Man, Two Guvnors, had some quips for the theatre-loving audience: "This is like the Super Bowl for people who don't know what the Super Bowl is," he said at one point. He also said "think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity," and made a dig at Donald Trump for wanting to build a wall around the theatre. A woman says a quiet prayer near Pulse nightclub after the attack An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub in Florida, America The moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland has condemned the shooting of almost 50 people at a gay nightclub in Florida as an "unspeakable act". The Rev Frank Sellar, expressed his shock and sadness at news of the shootings in Orlando, Florida at the weekend. A gunman massacred 50 people at the gay nightclub Pulse in what is believed to be the worst mass shooting in American history Omar Mateen was armed with a powerful assault rifle and handgun when he sprayed revellers with bullets at the popular venue, Pulse, in Orlando, Florida. The Rev Sellar has offered his prayers to the families and friends of those killed and injured, "It is heart-breaking for families to lose their loved ones in such a tragic and unnecessary way. In the fallen world in which we live, Orlando has joined Paris, Ankara, Baghdad and Brussels, as the latest place to experience an evil act of terrorism," he said. "In offering my condolences on behalf of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, I pray for those who have been bereaved and that they would know Gods peace and comfort at this time of terrible loss. "May this unspeakable act renew our resolve to pray for governments and all those engaged in working to end violence across the world, including those places where such acts so often go unreported." A books of condolence was opened for the victims in Belfast City Hall on Monday morning. Omar Mateen was known to US authorities, it has been revealed. The FBI said the 29-year-old killer, born in New York, was an American citizen who legally purchased two firearms within the last week. Despite being aware of Mateen since 2013, following inflammatory comments made to co-workers and over ties to an American suicide bomber in 2014, he was not under surveillance. Authorities deemed his link to the bomber to be minimal so did not view him as a threat and, after interviews and an investigation, dropped the probe into his comments. It has been revealed that 911 calls involving the shooter from Port St Lucie, Florida and featuring conversations about the Islamic State before the massacre, have now become federal evidence. US president Barack Obama called the killings at the gay-friendly establishment an "act of terror" and an "act of hate" and said they are being investigated as terrorism. More than 300 people were inside the building at the time of the attack; as well as 50 dead, 53 people have also been taken to hospital. President Obama praised the emergency services' response and described the gunman as a person "filled with hatred". He said the massacre is a reminder of how easy it is for someone to access a weapon like a gun, enabling them to shoot people. "We have to decide if that is the type of country we want to be. To actively do nothing is a decision as well," Mr Obama added. Names of some of the victims have now been released by the police - Edward Sotomayor Jr, Stanley Almodovar III, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo and Juan Ramon Guerrero are among the many dead. Mir Seddique, the father of the shooter, told NBC News he thinks a recent experience in which his son saw two men kissing might be related to the shooting. He apologised for the whole incident, said he was not aware of the actions of his security guard son and claimed "this had nothing to do with religion". The killer, who also held hostages in a three-hour stand-off, later died in a gunfight with Swat officers in the Florida city. He exchanged gunfire with 14 officers at the club. Mr Obama has also ordered flags at the White House and federal buildings to be flown at half-mast as a mark of respect for the victims. Belfast City Council opened a book of condolence for those killed in the mass shooting. Belfast Ulster Unionist councillor Jeff Dudgeon - who successfully challenged laws criminalising homosexuality in Northern Ireland - said he was "deeply shocked to hear of the sheer scale of the casualties". "It is hard to comprehend the enormity of the act and the awful nature of the suffering of the members of the LGBT community. Those who survived will never be the same again, while the lives of so many, mostly young, victims out enjoying themselves on a Saturday night have been cruelly and abruptly ended. "The people of Belfast will, I know, express their solidarity with the people of Orlando, a city in Florida many of us know well and have visited." He has asked City Hall officials to make arrangements to allow citizens to show their sympathy. Afghanistan's president Ashraf Ghani said "targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever", while Prime Minister David Cameron said he was "horrified" by the shooting. The Queen also sent a message of condolence to Mr Obama. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have offered drastically different proposals for stemming the threat of terrorism and gun violence following the fatal shootings at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Mr Trump focused heavily on the nation's broken immigration system in his fiery address, although the Orlando gunman was born in the United States. The presumptive Republican nominee redoubled his call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States, saying he would lift the ban once the government could "properly and perfectly" screen immigrants. Going further, Mr Trump said he would also "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there's a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe and our allies". Mrs Clinton said she would prioritise stopping "lone wolf" attackers as president - those who may be radicalised without having direct contact or orders from a larger terror network. Overseas, the presumptive Democratic nominee called for ramping up the US air campaign targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and pointedly called out US partners in the region by name, saying Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar must stop their citizens from funding terrorism. Mrs Clinton also vigorously reiterated her call for banning assault weapons, like one of the guns the Orlando attacker used. "I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets," she said. Mrs Clinton's address was measured and sober. While she drew implicit contrasts with Mr Trump, she never mentioned him by name, declaring: "Today is not a day for politics." Mr Trump felt differently, hammering Mrs Clinton repeatedly in his remarks. He accused her of wanting to abolish the Second Amendment - in connection with her proposals for tougher gun laws - and said she cannot claim to be supportive of gays and lesbians when she supports allowing immigration from countries where they are discriminated against. "Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community," he said. The businessman robustly defended the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, saying he would be a "better friend" to the community than Mrs Clinton. The assault at a gay nightclub was "an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity," he said. Mr Trump's embrace of gay and lesbian Americans was at odds with many in his own party, who oppose gay marriage and other legal protections. The Orlando attacks were the worst mass shooting in American history, leaving 49 people dead and dozens more injured. Authorities say Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, was probably inspired by foreign terrorist organisations, though there was no evidence that he had been directed by any network to carry out the attacks. Mr Trump said Mateen was "born an Afghan" despite having been born in New York. The gunman's parents came to the US from Afghanistan before he was born. The Republican did not repeat suggestions he had made in earlier television interviews that US President Barack Obama may not be taking tougher action against terrorism because he sympathises with the perpetrators. "He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Mr Trump said. "It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable." It was the feminist movement that coined the phrase "the personal is political", and when it comes to the looming Brexit vote in just over two weeks' time, the personal will indeed be political as I enter that voting booth (where I have a vote, in deepest Kent). I am acutely aware that it is in the Republic of Ireland's interest that the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union. All the top economic specialists have said so, and anyone involved with cross-border relations with Northern Ireland has voiced their concerns about reimposing border controls. I certainly feel the pull of loyalty towards Republic's interest, and for such a reason I should place my 'X' in the box marked 'Remain'. But then there is another loyalty which pulls me the other way: family loyalty. Both my sons are ardent Brexiteers, and passionately believe that it is in Britain's interest - and perhaps, in the long term, in everyone's interest - that we should all vote 'Leave'. My elder son has even put a 'Vote Leave' banner on the window-pane. These Brexiteer arguments are, contrary to what I read and hear so much in the media, not from a 'Little Englander' point of view (although this is a misunderstood phrase: the 'Little Englanders' of the 1900s were anti-Imperialists, such as GK Chesterton, and were against British colonialism). My sons are, I would say, internationalist and indeed European in their outlook - speaking French and Italian, some German, even some Catalan - and embracing the culture and history of continental Europe. We all adore France, worship Italy and see Germany as an awesome source of music and philosophy. But, they argue, Britain cannot keep building a city the size of Cardiff every year to accommodate the sheer number of migrants who arrive on these shores: that is, more than 300,000 people who move to the UK annually. The NHS may benefit from migrants, but it is also struggling: half the maternity units last year had to close their doors to women in the throes of labour because they couldn't cope. Schools are under enormous pressure. The conflicts between parents to get their children into local schools - sometimes any schools - can get incredibly fierce. House prices are reflecting the pressure of population growth that can be ascribed to immigration. It's not the people themselves. They're nearly always terrifically nice. Visit the Polish and Latvian and Italian cafes in Dover, and see how much they've lightened the dinginess of this ancient port. It's not the individuals: it's the numbers. And the numbers are directly linked to the European Union's failure to generate prosperity across the board. There's "50% youth unemployment in Greece, 49% in Italy, 40% in France", is what I hear. In direct consequence of Europe's blatant failures, there's a huge 'pull factor' to attract migrants to Britain. And because of free movement, which is a central tenet of the EU, everyone from the 27 other countries has the right to come. The imbalance in economic criteria is relevant. If the average wage in Bulgaria is 1 an hour, and the minimum wage in Britain is now 9.50 an hour, why wouldn't you migrate from east central Europe to Boston, Lincolnshire (which now has the highest percentage of European migrants of any location in the UK)? But the GPs in Boston, including doctors who are themselves immigrants, say they just cannot cope with the pressures. And then, migrants from countries with a lower standard of living usually do depress wages - though it's not their fault. I hear it said that it's "the toffs" who want to keep within the EU, because it suits the boss class: the working class are drifting to Ukip because of lower wages and higher housing costs. We have been here before. Friedrich Engels argued fiercely against allowing Irish immigrants free entry to the British labour market in the 1840s, because what an English worker would do for a penny, the Irishman would do for a halfpenny. His tone was awfully hostile, but you could see the point he was making. From personal experience, I've always been in favour of the free movement of peoples. I remember the time, back in the Sixties and Seventies, when it was hugely difficult for an Irish person to get a job in France, without a special 'permis de travail'. Living as a student in France, you had to present yourself at police headquarters every six months, where a gendarme might ask, using the familiar form of address which could signify contempt, "Tes papiers, alors." How wonderful it is that young Irish - and British - people can live and work anywhere within the 28 members of the EU without being questioned by the authorities for their "papers". And yet, the 28: that's another problem I'm lobbied about. Gisela Stuart, the very sensible Labour MP for Birmingham, and herself born in Germany, says of the EU: "It worked very well with six: it worked pretty well with 12 and even 15. But 28 countries? It's too many." Even leaving aside the question of Turkey, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania being in line to join the EU. Oh Lord - the Balkans. That power-keg of the European south. Again, quirkily, I absolutely loved Albania; even under the worst excesses of Enver Hoxha's communism, I thought the people were sweet and the landscape Virgilian. But how many Cardiffs would need to be constructed to accommodate the many poor old Albanians? And what about the Republic? My sons love the Republic too, but they believe that Ireland is robust enough to survive, and that it could even be a magnet for investment after a Brexit (and all those "b***** bankers" like the JP Morgans who threaten they'll pull out of the City of London may bring their, ahem, gifts to Dublin's banking sector). As for the border - isn't this the best case ever for a United Ireland? Less than two weeks to go and I'm still struggling with my conscience and my loyalties. There is a third way - which is to abstain. It is some consolation that I meet many people - particularly Irish people - who are in the same boat. They hear the arguments on both sides. They're worried about jobs, housing, strains on schools and hospitals. They don't want to put the future of Ireland - or Britain - at risk: but isn't the future always a risk anyway? The personal and the political have seldom represented a more troubled, and historic, decision. A Bangladeshi man arrested during a nationwide crackdown looks out of a prison van outside a court in Dhaka, June 13, 2016. Bangladeshi authorities said Monday they were holding 8,192 suspects at jails nationwide after their arrests during a weeklong crackdown against militant groups and criminals, but the political opposition complained that many of its supporters were swept up in the operation. Police launched the crackdown on Friday after suspected militants hacked and shot to death the wife of a top counter-terrorism police officer in Chittagong on June 5. We have arrested 8,192 criminals including 119 suspected militants, Police Deputy Inspector-General (DIG) A.K.M. Shahidur Rahman told BenarNews on Monday. The suspected militants belong to Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Ansar al-Islam (the Bangladeshi wing of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent), Allahar Dal and other radical Islamic groups, and most of the suspects were still in jail because they have been denied bail, he said. The crackdown was needed but its scale has raised concerns that it could violate peoples rights, according to Mizanur Rahman, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission. In the wake of serious killings, people of all walks welcome the police crackdown on the militants and terrorists. But our fear is that human rights violations take place when herds of people are arrested, Mizanur Rahman told BenarNews on Monday, pointing out that the courts had instructed police to respect the rights of the accused. The commission has received complaints that police in many cases do not arrest the people who pay them money, but that officers arrest others on false charges who refuse to bribe them, he said. Our position is the police must stop such practices, he said. Meanwhile, at a news conference in Dhaka on Monday, a senior leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party accused the ruling Awami League of arresting as many as 2,100 BNP activists and officials under the pretext of the anti-militant and anti-criminal crackdown. Instead of busting the militants hideouts, the police have been arresting innocent people. The purpose of such a crackdown is to suppress the opposition, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, the BNPs senior joint secretary general, told reporters. DIG Rahman rejected the oppositions allegation. We launched several special drives against the criminals and militants. This is an ongoing process. The police are not arresting any innocent people. Only people with criminal records or facing warrant orders are being arrested, the deputy inspector-general told BenarNews, adding that police had no information on the political affiliations of those taken into custody. UN concerned over killings The crackdown followed the killing of Mahmuda Akter, the wife of senior police officer Babul Akter, who had led raids that dismantled suspected JMB dens in the Chittagong area. Bangladeshi authorities suspected that JMB killed her in retaliation. Akters killing took place amid a string of deadly attacks by suspected Islamic radicals who have targeted religious minorities, secular writers, gay-rights activists, intellectuals and others over the past three years. Since February 2013, at least 36 people from these groups have been killed, mostly in machete-attacks by suspected Islamic militants, according to the Home Ministry. On Monday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern about the spate of killings in Bangladesh but called on police to respect human rights during their crackdown. I am very concerned about the dramatically increased number of brutal murders in Bangladesh that target freethinkers, liberals, religious minorities and LGBT activists, High Commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. I note recent reports of police arrests, and I urge that investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of these vicious crimes be made a priority, with full respect for human rights. I also urge all government officials and political and religious leaders to unequivocally condemn these attacks on freedom, and to do more to protect affected groups, he said. Members of the LGBT community in Thailand place candles near the U.S. embassy in Bangkok during a vigil for victims of a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., June 13, 2016. Leaders from across South and Southeast Asia on Monday joined an international outcry against the weekend shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida that killed 50 people and was carried out by a gunman allegedly inspired by radical Islamic ideology. Officials and leaders from Asian countries that represent the top four nations with the largest Muslim populations Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as Malaysia and Thailand, sent condolences to the American people over the killings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. I condemn this dastardly act of terror in the strongest possible term and reiterate my governments zero tolerance policy against any form of terrorism and violent extremism, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said Monday through her press secretary, Ihsanul Karim. Lets redouble our collective efforts to eradicate these hateful menaces from our peace-loving societies, added Hasina, whose government Friday launched a nationwide crackdown against suspected Islamic militant groups, in the aftermath of a spate of killings that have targeted secular writers, members of religious minorities and others. The victims of those attacks included a gay-rights activist, Xulhaz Mannan, the editor of Bangladeshs first magazine devoted to the coverage of LGBT issue in the country, who was hacked to death with another man by suspected Islamic extremists in Dhaka on April 25. Since the double-killing, the countrys lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community has reportedly gone underground out of fear that its members could be targeted in more homophobic attacks. My government and people stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your government and the friendly people of the United States of America at this difficult hour, and renew our commitment to work together with you as partners to counter terrorism and violent extremism that have emerged as threats to human civilization, said Hasina, who has not officially condemned the killing of Xulhaz Mannan. The lone gunman in the Orlando shooting, who was killed in the incident, was identified by U.S. officials as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan heritage. He pledged allegiance to the extremist group Islamic State (IS) in a 911 phone call moments before carrying out the attack that also injured 53 others at the nightclub in the early morning hours of Sunday morning (local time), reports said. IS, through its media arm Amaq, has since claimed responsibility for the attack in Orlando the deadliest shooting in U.S. history CBS News reported, but it remained unclear whether Mateen was directly linked to the Middle Eastern-based extremist group. I feel very sad, angry and shocked by the shooting in Orlando. I feel, that as a gay person from Indonesia the country with the largest Muslim population a place like a gay club is a safe place for our fellow gays to get together and socialize, but with this incident, we as LGBT people do not feel safe anymore, Adamo Conners, a 32-year-old Indonesian who works as a nurse in Washington, D.C., told BenarNews. The incident reminds me that our struggle as an LGBT group is still long, he added. I am really angry with the perpetrator of this incident, regardless of the ethnicity, religion or race of whoever was behind this tragic event. Perversions of Islam American officials have declared the attack a terrorist act and a hate crime that targeted a group of people because of their sexual orientation, saying the gunman appeared to have been influenced by radical Islamic ideology disseminated online. [A]t this stage we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. It does appear that, at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL, but there is no evidence so far that he was in fact directed by ISIL. And there also at this stage is no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot," U.S. President Barack Obama told reporters at the Oval Office on Monday, using another acronym for IS. At the end of the day, this is something that we are going to have to grapple with making sure that even as we go after ISIL and other extremist organizations overseas ... that one of the biggest challenges we are going to have is this kind of propaganda and perversions of Islam that you see generated on the Internet, and the capacity for that to seep into the minds of troubled individuals or weak individuals, and seeing them motivated then to take actions against people here in the United States and elsewhere in the world that are tragic, the president added, according to a transcript released by the White House. Cancer of radicalization In India and Pakistan, both countries that outlaw gay sex, the prime ministers voiced shock over the killings in Florida. Shocked at the shootout in Orlando, USA. My thoughts & prayers are with the bereaved families and the injured, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said via Twitter. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the act as just another representation of a cancer of radicalization one that we promise to fight every day of our lives. The shootings In Florida went against every principle of pluralism, tolerance and humanity. This does not represent the will of a vast majority of Muslims, state-run Radio Pakistan quoted Sharif as saying on Monday. Senseless deaths Elsewhere, officials and leaders from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand issued similar statements. Horrified by Orlando shootings. Our prayers are with families & friends of the victims. Islam abhors killing of innocent people, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak tweeted. However, according to the Associated Press, a few Malaysians posted messages on social media that voiced approval for the attack because the victims were sinners, but many of their countrymen quickly condemned those messages. In Jakarta, the foreign ministry issued a statement saying Indonesia has condemned the Orlando shooting incident. We expressed our deep sympathy to the families of the victims, the government, and the people of the United States, according to the state-run Antara news agency. But Fahri Hamzah, the deputy speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR) tweeted that the mass killing happened because LGBT people are too visible, AP reported. Meanwhile in Bangkok on Monday night, members of Thailands LGBT community joined American Ambassador Glyn T. Davies at a candlelight vigil outside the U.S. embassy to remember victims of the Florida massacre. Other vigils were held in other major cities across the globe from San Francisco to Berlin to Sydney and Wellington, New Zealand. Thailands King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) sent his condolences to President Obama and the American people via a statement issued by the royal palace. The Queen and I are deeply distressed by reports of the brutal shooting at the nightclub in Orlando, resulting in senseless deaths and injuries of so many innocent people, the king said in conveying our deep sympathy for their irreparable loss. Ika Inggas in Washington, Kamran Reza Chowdhury in Dhaka, Rohit Wadhwaney in Pondicherry, India, Razlan Rashid in Kuala Lumpur, Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok and Nurdin Hasan in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, contributed to this report. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses a news conference at the United Nations in New York, April 22, 2016. On Monday, he announced the unconfirmed execution of Canadian citizen Robert Hall by Abu Sayyaf militants in the southern Philippines. Southern Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf Group militants have apparently executed a second Canadian citizen after a ransom deadline passed, Canadas prime minister announced Monday. It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since Sept. 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors, Justin Trudeau said in a statement posted online. While Canadian officials are working closely with authorities in the Philippines to formally confirm Mr. Halls death, we have compelling reason to believe that reports to this effect are, unfortunately, true, the prime minister added. In Jolo, in the southern Philippines, the local police chief told The Philippine Inquirer that police on Monday night found a decapitated head in a plastic bag. Hall, 50, was executed shortly after the 3 p.m. Monday deadline to pay a ransom of 600 million Philippine pesos (U.S. $13 million) for his release along with two fellow captives, Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, 56, and Filipina Marites Flor, 40, Agence France-Presse reported. Their fate is not known. Second execution since late April The reported execution came seven weeks after Abu Sayyaf beheaded Canadian hostage John Ridsdel, 68, a former mining executive, on April 25. He was killed five hours after a similar ransom deadline had passed. Ridsdel, Hall, Sekkingstad and Flor were abducted from a resort on Samal Island, in the Philippine province of Davao, in September. In November, the Islamic militant group beheaded Bernard Then, a Malaysian citizen whom it had abducted from a seaside restaurant in Sabah in May 2015, after ransom talks failed. Halls execution occurred just days after Abu Sayyaf, which is aligned with the extremist group Islamic State (IS), freed four Malaysian sailors held since April 1. Malaysian officials said no ransom was paid, adding that negotiators from Malaysia and the Philippines had secured their freedom on Tuesday after several rounds of negotiations with the militant group. Previously, Abu Sayyaf released 10 Indonesian sailors on May 1 after holding them for 36 days. The owner of their tugboat had agreed to pay a ransom for their release, but officials have not said if any money was paid to secure their freedom. One of the freed sailors later told BenarNews that he saw militants carrying sacks which, he believed, contained ransom money for their release. Trudeau: Canada will not pay ransom With the tragic loss of two Canadians, I want to reiterate that terrorist hostage-takings only fuel more violence and instability. Canada will not give into their fear mongering tactics and despicable attitude toward the suffering of others, the Canadian prime minister said. This is precisely why the Government of Canada will not and cannot pay ransoms for hostages to terrorists groups, as doing so would endanger the lives of more Canadians. Trudeau also pledged to work with the Philippine government and other allies to bring those responsible for the killings to justice. ein Google-Unternehmen Google-Dienste anzubieten und zu betreiben Ausfalle zu prufen und Manahmen gegen Spam, Betrug und Missbrauch zu ergreifen Daten zu Zielgruppeninteraktionen und Websitestatistiken zu erheben. Mit den gewonnenen Informationen mochten wir verstehen, wie unsere Dienste verwendet werden, und die Qualitat dieser Dienste verbessern. neue Dienste zu entwickeln und zu verbessern Werbung auszuliefern und ihre Wirkung zu messen personalisierte Inhalte anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen personalisierte Werbung anzuzeigen, abhangig von Ihren Einstellungen Wenn Sie Alle ablehnen auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies nicht fur diese zusatzlichen Zwecke. Nicht personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung werden u. a. von Inhalten, die Sie sich gerade ansehen, und Ihrem Standort beeinflusst (welche Werbung Sie sehen, basiert auf Ihrem ungefahren Standort). Personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung konnen auch Videoempfehlungen, eine individuelle YouTube-Startseite und individuelle Werbung enthalten, die auf fruheren Aktivitaten wie auf YouTube angesehenen Videos und Suchanfragen auf YouTube beruhen. Sofern relevant, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auerdem, um Inhalte und Werbung altersgerecht zu gestalten. Wir verwenden Cookies und Daten, umWenn Sie Alle akzeptieren auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auch, umWahlen Sie Weitere Optionen aus, um sich zusatzliche Informationen anzusehen, einschlielich Details zum Verwalten Ihrer Datenschutzeinstellungen. Sie konnen auch jederzeit g.co/privacytools besuchen. First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain. Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that. And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details. If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices For Immediate Release, June 13, 2016 Contacts: Justin Augustine, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 844-7102, jaugustine@biologicaldiversity.org George Sexton, Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center, (541) 488-5789, gs@kswild.org Susan Britting, Sierra Forest Legacy, (530) 295-8210, britting@earthlink.net Tom Wheeler, EPIC, (707) 822-7711, tom@wildcalifornia.org Greg Loarie, Earthjustice, (415) 217-2000, gloarie@earthjustice.org Lawsuit Initiated Over Politically Motivated Decision Denying Protection to Pacific Fishers Rare Carnivore Has Been Reduced to Two Populations in California, Oregon SACRAMENTO, Calif. Four conservation groups filed a notice of intent today to challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services decision in April to deny Endangered Species Act protection to Pacific fishers, the latest species to fall victim to the Services efforts to cater to industry. Closely related to martens and wolverines, Pacific fishers are severely threatened by a number of factors, including habitat loss caused by logging and the use of toxic rodenticides on illegal marijuana growing sites. Although the Service had recently proposed federal protections for Pacific fishers, the agency reversed course at the last minute in a bow to the timber industry. Fishers are staring extinction in the face, so its deeply disheartening to see Fish and Wildlife deny them the protection they need to survive, said Justin Augustine, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. Science, not politics, is supposed to drive these kinds of decisions, and that didnt happen here. Fishers once roamed from British Columbia to Southern California, but due to intense logging and trapping, only two naturally occurring populations survive today: a population of 100 to 300 fishers in the southern Sierra Nevada and a population of 250 to a few thousand fishers in southern Oregon and Northern California. They have been reintroduced in three populations in the northern Sierra, southern Cascades and Washington state. The decision to deny protections to the Pacific fisher is the latest in a string of politically motivated decisions from the Fish and Wildlife Service, in which regional staff overruled decisions by Service biologists to protect species. Two months ago a federal judge in Montana criticized the Service for bowing to political pressures in illegally reversing a proposal to protect the estimated 300 wolverines remaining in the lower 48 states. And in December 2015 conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the Service for inexplicably denying protection to Humboldt martens, another rare West Coast carnivore on the brink of extinction. A survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists last year indicated many Service scientists believe that increasingly there is inappropriate interference with science within the agency. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services denial of their own stated concerns and threats to this rare forest carnivore strongly suggests the agency has lost its professional courage to uphold its mission to protect biodiversity due to political pressure. Politics has no place in listing decisions, said Susan Britting, executive director of Sierra Forest Legacy. Service scientists recently found that Pacific fishers are on the brink of extinction and face increasing threats from logging, climate change and especially from the indiscriminate use of toxic rodenticide poisons on marijuana grow sites, said George Sexton, conservation director for the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center. The Service acknowledged these challenges supported the need for federal protection before deciding that politics was more important than the survival of the species. Today the Pacific fisher has been isolated to just two locations in the United States, said Greg Loarie, an Earthjustice attorney who drafted the notice. If this doesnt justify the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service using our bedrock environmental law the Endangered Species Act to protect an animal that needs our help to survive, then I dont know what does. Efforts to protect the West Coast fisher have been going on for decades. The Center for Biological Diversity first petitioned to protect the fisher in 1994, and the four conservation seeking protection for the species today filed a second petition with allies in 2000. In 2004 the fisher was finally added to the candidate waiting list, when the Service determined that the fisher warranted protection but was precluded by higher priority species. In 2010 the Center sued over the delay in protecting the fisher and the Service agreed under a subsequent settlement decision to issue a decision this year. In 2014 the Service announced a proposed rule that would have protected Pacific fishers as a threatened species. But the Service abruptly withdrew its proposed rule in April of this year. The fisher has waited long enough for protection, said Tom Wheeler, program director for the Environmental Protection Information Center. No amount of agency delay, political pressure or obfuscation of science can change the truth: The fisher is threatened with extinction. The groups issuing todays notice are the Center for Biological Diversity, Environmental Protection Information Center, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center and Sierra Forest Legacy. They are represented by Earthjustice. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. For Immediate Release, June 13, 2016 Contact: Katie Davis, Center for Biological Diversity, (801) 560-2414, kdavis@biologicaldiversity.org Greg Dyson, WildEarth Guardians, (503) 730-9242, gdyson@wildearthguardians.org Sandy Bahr, Sierra Club Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter, (602) 999-5790, sandy.bahr@sierraclub.org Andy Laurenzi, Archaeology Southwest, (520) 882-6946, andy@archaeologysouthwest.org Forest Service Fails to Protect Tonto National Forest From Excessive Off-road Vehicle Use Agency Documents Show Plan Likely to Result in Death of Endangered Species, Damage to Habitat, Rivers, Streams PHOENIX The Tonto National Forest released a final draft of its long-awaited Travel Management Plan on Friday that ignored members of the public and conservation groups who highlighted the need to minimize and repair damage caused by excessive motorized use on the forest. The Forest Service made few changes to the original proposed action, which had generated outcry among concerned users of the forest, which is one of the most heavily visited national forests in the country. The final draft of the plan authorizes public motorized use on more than 3,600 miles of roads and trails and includes more than 100,000 acres of off-road vehicle recreation areas. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the plan is very likely to result in annual deaths of endangered narrow-headed and northern Mexican garter snakes, and the allowed motorized use will damage critical habitat for many imperiled species, including the southwestern willow flycatcher and yellow-billed cuckoo. While some routes within critical habitat will be slated for closure and decommissioning, no timeline or funding source has been identified by the Forest Service to complete those actions. With this decision the Forest Service is not only abdicating its responsibility to assist in the recovery of listed species on the Tonto National Forest, its causing the continued loss of native wildlife and habitat, said Katie Davis, public lands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. Preservation of the status quo at the expense of endangered species is an unacceptable approach to public land management. One of the primary reasons the Tonto National Forest was created in 1905 was to protect the watersheds of the Salt and Verde rivers. Off-road vehicles and user-created roads have devastating long-term impacts on streams and rivers even a single vehicle driving through these areas can destroy river banks and result in the death of tortoises, snakes and other animals. However, under the new plan, the Forest Service has granted big-game hunters special privileges, allowing them to drive off-road on more than 1.9 million acres. Motorized cross-country travel causes severe damage to watersheds and wildlife habitat, said Greg Dyson of WildEarth Guardians. The Tonto was required to close motorized cross-country travel, which they did, but they then used the big game retrieval exception an exception that must be used sparingly to allow OHVs to maraud across half the forest. Its a loophole that places most of the forest at risk to damage and abuse. Many of the roads in the plan would also provide motorized access to fragile ancient and historical sites. While the proposal would restrict most motorized use away from designated roads and trails, greatly reducing inadvertent vehicle damage to archaeological sites, it would leave 3,600 miles of roads open, even though the Forest Service estimates the cost to maintain this system will be 2.5 times its current allocated budget. A study by Archaeology Southwest showed a greater risk of vandalism for rock art and habitation sites in close proximity to roads open to motorized travel. Without proper oversight, highly visible archaeological sites will likely continue to be the targets of acts of vandalism. The Tonto's decision appears to indicate that natural and cultural resource management on the Forest is secondary to motorized recreation, said Andy Laurenzi, Southwest field representative for Archaeology Southwest. The Tonto National Forest provides many important benefits to our communities clean air, clean water, opportunity for quiet recreation and significant habitat to a diversity of plants and animals, said Sandy Bahr, chapter director for Sierra Clubs Grand Canyon (Arizona) Chapter. Irresponsible off-road vehicle activity and the excess of user-created roads associated with it have devastating long-term impacts on streams and rivers. The Forest Service has failed miserably in developing a plan to limit damage to the land, its waters and its wildlife. Much has been said and written about how person-to-person mobile money transactions are transforming Kenya's economy, but the technology also has the potential to help entrepreneurs take their businesses to the next level. Dr Rutendo Hwindingwi Thats according to Dr Rutendo Hwindingwi, divisional director for Sage East and West Africa, who says that the explosion in mobile money across Kenya is helping to drive entrepreneurship and efficiency for small businesses. The single biggest benefit of mobile money, he adds, is that it allows smaller businesses even informal, microbusinesses without banking accounts to take advantage of the benefits of digital payments. He notes that mobile money has changed Kenyans lives by making it quick and easy for people to pay each other. Now, it promises to also make it simpler and safer to do business for entrepreneurs, and potentially even open up new markets for them. Kenya, one of the worlds pioneers in the mobile money space, racks up Sh3billion in mobile transactions each day, according to statistics from the Communications Authority of Kenya. The country has Africas highest level of mobile money penetration at 58%. Yet, despite the impressive numbers, there is still plenty of room for mobile money in Kenya to grow. According to one Nielsen study, 95% of Kenyans still pay with cash in a retail environment, 12% make use of mobile money, and just 2% use credit or debit cards. Small and medium businesses, particularly those in the retail and transport environment, could benefit significantly by driving more transactions through mobile money, said Hwindingwi. In Kenya, cash still dominates transactions between many small and medium businesses and their customers, he added. Many small businesses still like cash because they are reluctant to pay card transaction fees. However, cash has many disadvantages, and we expect more and more entrepreneurs to start opting for digital, mobile payments. Hwindingwi noted that cash has a range of drawbacks for businesses: it is expensive to manage, exposes them to the danger of theft, and means that they need to keep a float to give customers change. Mobile and digital payments are easier to track in a financial system; whats more, someone who lives in another town or city can easily pay you without physically being there. He said mobile money and payments solutions for merchants are maturing all the time, thanks to companies such as Kopo Kopo, which use mobile money systems as a platform for merchant services such as mobile payment acceptance and merchant cash advances. The result is that mobile money is slowly moving beyond the person-to-person arena into the business-to-business and business-to-consumer spaces. The future is mobile and we at Sage are giving our customers the power to control their businesses from the palm of their hand. Likewise, our customers consumers are mobile and want to use convenient mobile services to pay and interact with the companies they interact with. Mobile money is a game-changer for companies and customers because it makes it so simple, safe and convenient to transact, concluded Hwindingwi. Kigali's population is expected to nearly double to 2 million people by 2020. The influx of people, from within Rwanda and abroad, bring new ideas, foods, businesses, and art to the city. A new campaign, dubbed "I am Kigali" seeks to celebrate the city's changing landscape and growing diversity. Image by 123RF The campaign, which launched in May, uses videos, social media, poetry readings, movie screenings, panel discussions, and other events to create a city-wide conversation on what it means to be a resident of Kigali. As cities around the globe struggle to deal with migration, the campaign planners hope to highlight Kigali's inclusiveness as an example for others. AkilahNet caught up with Ara Nashera and Jon Stever of Impact Hub Kigali, which is co-running the campaign, to learn more about "I am Kigali" and what we can expect next: Who's behind the campaign? This project was launched by Impact Hub Kigali and the International Organization for Migration, and we are actively bringing on board more people and organizations to sponsor, collaborate with us, and appropriate this campaign. But, ultimately, this is not just a campaign - it's a movement! And, it belongs to everyone in this city. How did you come up with the idea and slogan? We have two objectives: As [Nigerian author] Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche said, "Culture does not make people, people make culture." People may take many aspects of our social organisation as fixed, yet our institutions and norms are the consequence of human action! Kigali, like many global cities around the world, is changing very rapidly. We want to reflect on that change. We want to celebrate and reconsider the city we live in and question how we want our city to evolve and where we want to be in 10, 20, and 50 years. At this moment, roughly one in seven people around the world are migrants. It's happening everywhere. Europeans may call it a "crisis", but ultimately we believe that diversity and inclusiveness are the building blocks of a better society. Kigali is in many ways an example of tolerance and inclusiveness, and we want to showcase ourselves as a model. Our campaign will juxtapose migrants and diaspora and "locals", and show that each of these communities have the same feelings of belonging in our city, the same hopes and dreams to contribute to its growth. What outcomes can we expect from "I am Kigali"? Expect more videos, more events, and even bigger collaborations! This month we are planning an all-day Creative Umuganda event at the end of the month with the Art House and many other cultural supporters and activists across Kigali. And, we will host engaging events every single month building up to a celebration of Kigali on World Migrant's Day in December! How do you think the campaign will benefit tourism in Rwanda and the country's push to position itself as a top MICE destination? The Rwandan government is doing an incredible job to position Rwanda as a world-class destination for conferences and has hosted some impressive events - such as the recent World Economic Forum on Africa. But, there are still a lot of people abroad who don't appreciate how cosmopolitan and exciting Kigali has become, and our campaign will definitely help to show the city for what it is! What has the response to the campaign been so far? We've been overwhelmed by the amount of interest we've had. We only launched the campaign in partnership with Spoken Word Rwanda last week, and the reception was amazing. People are starting to pick up the #IamKigali slogan, and we only expect that to increase! How and where can people get involved? As with everything we do at Impact Hub Kigali, we invite everyone to participate! Take note: I am Kigali belongs to you! Please feel free to appropriate the slogan, support us in hosting events, sponsor our activities, share our videos, film your own videos, come join our workspace, tweet at us, tweet for us, comment on our videos, send us your stories, and engage in any and every other way you know how. Source: Akilah Net With the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity kicking off soon, we picked the brains of SA's nine judges for 2016 on what creativity means to them, as well as how they ensure they don't get overwhelmed by all the work they see when judging. The SA Cannes judges for 2016, from left to right, top to bottom: Reddy, Gordhan, McLennan, Glover, Welsh, Carpenter, Beggs, Luckin, Taback. Live-judging is a stand-out feature of Cannes Lions, but personal process differs vastly. The South African judges unpack their individual process below, and as the theme of Cannes Lions 2016 is based on thanking creativity, they also shared the way creativity has enhanced their lives. Nathan Reddy, chief creative officer and founder of Grid Worldwide: Design Lions Creativity has always been his license to feel sane as his thoughts are truly twisted, so the ability to use this license has given Reddy much that hes grateful for. His simple way of judging goes from: Damn! I wish I had done that, to questioning whether its a great idea, whether it is well-executed and crafted, and finally whether its relevant. Suhana Gordhan, creative director at FCB Africa: Direct Lions Creativity is a lot about wearing your skin inside-out, being able to notice the things not easily noticeable, and finding ways of expressing strange and beautiful human truths in unusual ways. Gordhan is thankful to creativity for letting her learn new things all the time as it offers meaning and purpose, and even though the search for a great idea is often elusive, sweaty and madding, it is her sanity and where she makes herself at home. The judging process can thus be quite overwhelming, not only because of the volume of work, but also because you feel a weight of responsibility on your shoulders. As creatives themselves, the judges are conscious of how much work and sacrifice goes into an entry, so want to give each piece the respect it deserves. Great work that moves people has an emotional impact on you and makes you feel something, whether its pathos, empathy, laughter or love. Gordhan waits for her instinctive reaction to a piece of work, then looks at the work from a deeper, more critical angle. She then measures it against factors such as simplicity, authenticity, previous work that has won in that category, relevance, sheer wow factor, results achieved and the envy factor Reddy referred to. Gordhan also likes to develop a scale of brilliance and imagine the Cannes Lions Winners Reel, questioning whether the piece of work deserves a place in the company of the other outstanding work. Rob McLennan, creative founding partner of King James II: Film Lions McLennan has been on the receiving end of over 30 Cannes Lions awards and says creativity has exposed him to so many different things and experiences over the years. He elaborates, We get to work on everything and anything, and interact with so many awesome creative people from diverse creative industries. Were very lucky. Its the ideal industry to be in if youre a little attention deficit. This will be his third time judging at Cannes last time around he was president of the radio jury. While he anticipated it would be really daunting which the sheer amount of entries was he also found it to be such an awesome experience as you dont often get the opportunity to take a peek into the worlds best creative brains and let them peek into yours. He advises to always look at everything with a fresh eye and trust your gut. Jenny Glover, executive creative director for TBWA/Hunt/Lascaris: Radio Lions Her reason for thanking creativity ties back to the fact that, like so many creatives, she grew up as a bit of an outsider, because she had a set of skills and abilities that werent necessarily mainstream, so she developed a love-hate relationship with her creative talent. Ultimately creativity enabled her to build a successful career out of doing what she loves, as well as an outlet for her somewhat unusual sense of humour and puts her lateral brain to work on solving real business problems, particularly in an industry that recognises creativitys power. The fact that Glover has personally written and produced so much radio really helps her as a judge as she knows all the shortcuts and formulas, as well as whats hard to write and what isnt. This means she spots poor craft and sloppy production a mile off. As radio is something she understands intimately, shes neither easily fooled nor impressed and is quite disciplined about how she judges, with a system that keeps her focused and consistent: Conceptual strength and overall originality are her first filters. If the idea is strong and the piece is fresh, shell generally mark it through to the shortlist and in the next judging phase expects executional perfection as a hygiene factor for a piece to advance past shortlist and receive metal. She generally separates bronze, silver and gold based on her initial filters of concept and overall originality. Eoin Welsh chief creative officer of Havas Worldwide Johannesburg: Promo & Activation Lions Creativity has gifted Welsh with a career thats thrilling, challenging, terrible and wonderful all at the same time as it allows in fact demands that I indulge my passions, use my brain and test myself every day, forcing an emotional response. On his judging process then, Welsh says it may sound like a cliche, but he puts the idea at the core of every piece, looking mainly for beautiful simplicity, brilliant insight, amazing execution and if it surprises in a good way, as something he didnt see coming. Overall, hes looking for everything in the communication to reinforce and complement the idea rather than overwhelm or obscure it. Emma Carpenter, creative director at Accenture Interactive South Africa: Mobile Lions Carpenter thanks creativity for providing her with the ability to empathise with people, explaining: To stand in someone elses shoes and create something that makes their life easier is a real pleasure and makes you a more patient person as a result. As a practical person, she says she divided the number of entries allocated to her on the Cannes judging system by the days available, then aimed to watch that number of case films per day. She explains, Having been on the other side putting the entries together, Im painfully aware of the days, or rather weeks, it takes to gather the results, storyboard the film, write the supporting material and wait for client approval, so I make sure I take my time reading and watching everything provided. She adds that its been fun reviewing each piece of mobile work through the eyes of its intended audience and that the sheer number of different cultures and environments represented from around the globe has been inspiring. Jonathan Beggs, chief creative officer for Saatchi & Saatchi: Print & Publishing Lions Creativity has enhanced Beggs life in everything from survival to escapism. Hes very grateful for creativity, going so far as to place it right up there with language and opposable thumbs. When judging, Beggs digests the range of work before settling on his favourites. While the big winners are easy to spot, its the stuff in the middle thats more subjective. The first thing a print ad needs to do is stop you from turning the page. With thousands of entries, therell be a lot of jaded page-turning. Hes on the hunt for innovation across the board work thats impossible to ignore, with fresh and provocative ideas. Fran Luckin, chief creative officer of Grey Africa: Outdoor Lions Luckin says creativity enhances all of our lives in more ways than were aware of. It manifests itself in those obvious ways, like in great music or beautiful photography, but can also be present in the most mundane interactions, such as when she ordered a cappuccino the other day and was told by the waitress who handed it to her that it would change her life. While it didnt really change her life, the smile changed her morning. Thats why she says: Creativity is probably one of the most democratic powers in the world. Actually, its not a power. Its more like muscle. Something everyone has, that gets stronger the more you exercise it. Luckin adds that its impossible not to get overwhelmed by the work when judging as there are so many entries to get through, which is why live judging is so important: While she relies on gut feeling in the early rounds, where its just about deciding if something gets considered for a finalist or not, in the later rounds, the discussion becomes valuable as sometimes theres a perspective she hasnt seen that makes her reassess the merit of the work, which is especially important with work from other cultures. Marc Taback, CEO of Initiative Media South Africa: Media Lions Taback agrees with Luckin that we most often think of creativity in terms of just art and music, but creativity is part of our everyday lives. Creativity has helped him solve problems, change behaviour, entertain himself and made him more social, enabling him to grow and mature. He has done live-judging many times before so knows the key is to focus, immersing yourself in the work and enjoying it. Theyll certainly enjoy it, but time will only tell how they judge! Click here for more on this years South African Cannes Lions judges. Established and emerging African economies - especially South Africa - can potentially leapfrog more manufacturing-focused countries by providing mass 3D printing in the future - especially as it has the potential to revolutionise the healthcare sector with fast, cost-effective solutions. Getting to scale This is according to Paul Fotheringham, the founder of 3D Life Prints, who says it is always rewarding to see how lives can be improved through the use this technology. We want to make a difference to hundreds of thousands of people, but its about how you get to that scale. For example, it is possible to print a prosthetic in two days as compared to two weeks with traditional methods, at a fraction of the cost, which is crucial, especially in low-income regions. A child who receives a prosthetic at the age of five will need to change the prosthetic limb 17 times over the course of a lifetime as he or she grows. Prosthetics can also be made with additional functionality, such as the gripping of a hand, with materials that can be locally sourced. This is important, especially in rural areas. Donation His company donated a 3D-printed hand and forearm to Mpho Maduwane, who was born without lower legs and forearms, who says she did not fully understand what a 3D printed arm would look like until she saw it in person. It will help me to write neatly, says Maduwane, and it will help to push myself [in my wheelchair] because it is difficult to go up and down ramps. Im thankful, really thankful. Beyond prosthetics However, Fotheringham explains that 3D printing also goes beyond prosthetics. The potential for surgical tools and equipment such as scalpels and incubators for premature babies is massive. He points to the fact that 3D-printed drones are being used in Rwanda to deliver medical supplies. These aircraft can also locate missing people in hazardous search and rescue operations, where every second counts to save someones life. He says in order to reach a point where 3D printing is rolled out to public health, however, there needs to be collaboration and buy-in from the top levels of governments. The 2015 Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism, held in Johannesburg on 9 June 2016, announced Financial Mail editor, Rob Rose as the 2015 Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year. Rose wins the coveted award for the second time, having won it in 2009. This year he also scooped awards in the 2015 Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year, Rob Rose Business/Companies, Economy and Financial Markets categories. The Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year award is presented to a journalist who most significantly influenced the way perceptions are formed through the media on financial matters in our country in the particular year. The annual Awards carry a total prize purse of more than R300,000 for 12 categories and have recognised and celebrated excellence in financial journalism since 1974. African Growth Story winner Kenyas Business Daily journalist, Allan Odhiambo took home one of the main accolades of the night, the African Growth Story Award. Established in 2013, the African Growth Story category is open to journalists who practice in Africa and whose work is published and/or broadcast on the continent. The Award is presented to the financial journalist whose entry highlights the continents economic awakening as well as the obstacles and challenges to growth in terms of investments, infrastructural development and economic progress. Congratulating all the winners, Sanlams chief executive: brand, Yegs Ramiah says that the group is proud to continue its support of the annual Awards. Well done to all the winners and journalists who consistently support the Awards through their entries. We established these Awards 41 years ago as a platform to recognise and celebrate excellence in financial journalism. We believe this is important, because there is seldom recognition of the critical role of financial journalists, not only as watchdogs, but also as message carriers who ensure that various stakeholders are well informed. As a Pan-African brand and corporate citizen with a footprint in over 30 countries on the continent, we are committed to ensuring that these Awards keep growing and include more journalists practising and publishing or broadcasting in Africa. Lifetime Achievement Award The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to the now retired journalist-turned-media executive, Salie de Swardt. A Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year winner in 1977 and Nieman Fellow (1982), de Swardt began his career in 1968 as a reporter for Die Burger, was editor of Beeld and founding editor of the business weekly magazine, Finansies & Tegniek (now Finweek). In 1993, he took an executive management position as CEO of the Magazines division of Naspers before becoming the first MD of Media24, which owns News24, among other titles. Peter Vundla, convener of the judging panel, says, The entries received for the 2015 Awards were of a very high standard and impressed the judging panel showing in-depth subject understanding, journalistic skill and integrity. Each entrant can be proud of the work they have done over the last year and we congratulate all the deserving winners tonight. The judging panel felt that de Swardt had distinguished himself in his contribution to not only journalism and financial journalism specifically, but to the media as a whole. Best Newcomer Award The Best Newcomer Award went to Ancillar Mangena of Forbes Africa Magazine. The award is presented to a journalist with experience of three years or less, whom the judges believe displays the most potential and will make a powerful contribution to financial journalism in the future. In addition, the judges also decided on the best performers in each medium (online, print, radio and television) across all five categories. The 2015 Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism winners with Sanlam representatives Full list of 2015 winners Sanlam Financial Journalist of the Year: Rob Rose, Financial Mail Best Newcomer: Ancillar Mangena, Forbes Africa Magazine Lifetime Achievement: Salie de Swardt Business/Companies: Rob Rose, Financial Mail Economy: Rob Rose, Financial Mail Financial Markets: Rob Rose, Financial Mail Consumer Financial Education: Maya Fisher-French, MayaonMoney.co.za, City Press and Fin24.com African Growth Story: Allan Odhiambo, Business Daily (Kenya) Radio Financial Journalist of the Year: Bruce Whitfield, 702/Cape Talk Television Financial Journalist of the Year: Joy Summers, M-Net/Carte Blanche Print Financial Journalist of the Year: Carol Paton, Business Day and Financial Mail Online Financial Journalist of the Year: Ryk van Niekerk, Moneyweb.co.za The judging panel included retired editor Charles Naude; the editor of The Conversation Africa, Caroline Southey; adjunct professor of journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand, Prof Franz Kruger; CEO of Tangaza Africa Media, Prof Nixon Kariithi; chairperson of Kagiso Media, Maud Motanyane; independent economist, Ulrich Joubert; and the deputy editor of The Conversation Africa, Jabulani Sikhakhane. For more information, click here. The flurry of new listings, mergers and acquisitions in the JSE's R450bn listed property sector continues unabated. But not all deals are garnering initial market support. Rebosis Property Fund's planned acquisition of three regional shopping centres from unlisted sister company Billion Group, in a deal worth a huge R6bn, is a case in point. The empowerment fund's share price fell nearly 7% in the week after the deal was announced on May 23, bringing the stock's total decline to about -14,5% over the past four weeks. That compares with a 2% rise in the SA listed property index over the same time. Rebosis plans to buy 100% of the Eastern Cape's largest mall, the new Baywest City in Port Elizabeth, 100% of Forest Hill City in Centurion and a 50.1% stake in BT Ngebs City in Mthatha. The three malls, sized at 87,707m, 73,952m and 60,163m respectively, are each valued at between R1.7bn and R2.3bn. The R6bn transaction also includes the acquisition of two property services businesses - Billion Asset Managers and Billion Property Services - for a combined R589m. The rationale for the deal is that Rebosis gets the opportunity to bulk up assets more than 60% in one fell swoop and to nearly double the number of malls in its portfolio, from four to seven. Existing properties include another Eastern Cape regional centre, Hemingways in East London, as well as Sunnypark Shopping Centre and Bloed Street Mall in Pretoria. Rebosis was listed in May 2011 by well-regarded lawyerturned-developer Sisa Ngebulana, positioning it as the JSE's first black-managed property fund. While management has indicated it is confident that the transaction will get the go-ahead from the required minimum 50.1% of shareholders, it seems unlikely that the deal will be a shoo-in. Some fund managers believe that Rebosis is paying too much for the three malls, particularly as it is a related party deal - Rebosis CEO Ngebulana is also the founder and chairman of developer Billion. It is not uncommon for listed property funds to have first right of refusal on the pipelines of unlisted development partners. For instance, Attacq has a tie-up with Atterbury and Pivotal with Abland. But related party deals understandably invite more scrutiny to ensure there is no undue benefit for the parties involved. In a Sens announcement issued last week to address initial market concerns about pricing and funding, Rebosis said the three malls had been independently valued at R5.418bn, which represents an estimated acquisition yield of 7.4% (excluding land for future development). Acquisition yield - the first year's rental income expressed as a percentage of the purchase price - is the general metric used by the commercial property industry to determine value. Catalyst Fund Managers portfolio manager Zayd Sulaiman says that based on current information the transaction appears expensive. "We don't believe Rebosis will create value for shareholders by overpaying for new, immature malls that will take several years to bed down." Sulaiman says the concern is the extent to which the deal will dilute long-term earnings and thus dividend growth by overpaying for assets. Rebosis is trading at a forward yield of more than 11% versus the sector's average 7.2%, and at a discount to net asset value of more than 30%. Sulaiman says the potential R1bn capital raised to help fund the acquisition will be at a substantial discount to net asset value, which can also have a negative effect on the share price. While Catalyst in principle supports the plan to internalise the asset management company as part of the R6bn deal, Sulaiman says it doesn't make financial sense to simultaneously acquire Billion's property management business. "There's no way the property management business is worth R250m. You don't need to acquire a business to collect rent and pay expenses, as most companies simply outsource this function." The two-year rental guarantee that Billion will provide to Rebosis as part of the deal is also potentially problematic, as there is likely to be a drop in income if the malls aren't fully let once the guarantee lapses, as no centre is 100% let all the time, says Sulaiman. Nesi Chetty, head of property at MMI Investments & Savings, agrees that the deal appears expensive given that one can buy shopping centres in Europe and the UK for similar yields of 6%-7%. He also notes that the valuation of Forest Hill and Baywest at R30,000/m and R26,500/m respectively seems high if one compares it with the R32,000/m that a well-established shopping centre such as Rosebank Mall in Johannesburg is valued at. The rent-to-sales ratio at Forest Hill of 8.3% and at Baywest of 8.7% also seems full, says Chetty. "It's hard to see upside from those levels in a weak consumer market." However, Ngebulana argues that the proposed acquisition yield of 7.4% is fair and compares well with recent shopping centre acquisitions typically concluded at yields in the 6.5% to 7.5% range. "Besides, large, dominant centres such as Baywest and Forest Hill are becoming scarce assets," Ngebulana says. He concedes it takes three years for a new centre to settle down, but dismisses suggestions that Forest Hill and Baywest are not trading as successfully as initially expected. Ngebulana says that for any new shopping centre to be feasible, a trading density (turnover/m) of around R16,500/m/ month is required. "Baywest, which opened about a year ago, is already achieving R24,308/m while Forest Hill, which was opened less than two years ago, is close to R26,000/m, up a substantial 27.4% on the prior year." He notes that the market is seemingly fearing a much bigger dilutionary impact on dividend growth than warranted. He stresses that the deal will affect dividend payouts only in the year to August 2017, with a forecast 9.1% dilution in dividend growth. "Effectively that means the dividend for the 2017 financial year will show zero growth on 2016. But we should resume the projected 8%-10%/year dividend growth in the 2018 financial year. So the dilution will be short-lived." Ngebulana says it would have been ideal to acquire the malls only once the Rebosis share price had rerated so that the deal wouldn't be dilutive. "But it's a chicken-and-egg situation, because the stock probably won't rerate until we have bought the right assets, which makes it very difficult to find the right time to do a deal like this." Ngebulana says while the company won't push through a deal that key shareholders are unhappy with, the reality of being a listed company is that "you can't please everybody". He acknowledges that matters are complicated because it is a related party deal. "Yet shareholders have always known, since listing, that there was an agreement that Rebosis would have first right of refusal to Billion's assets." Meago Asset Managers director Jay Padayatchi says Rebosis's intention from the outset to acquire the better-quality properties from Billion eventually was the initial attraction of its proposition. "It removed the development risk for investors but provided the upside from pre-emptive access to these assets." But the challenge, says Padayatchi, was always going to be the fact that acquiring regional malls from Billion into a high-yielding Rebosis portfolio was going to be dilutive. "The belief was that Rebosis would rerate over time so that the eventual acquisition of these assets from Billion would not be significantly dilutive. "This has, however, not materialised." Padayatchi says Rebosis shareholders now need to decide what an acceptable dilution to earnings is and to what extent a potential capital re-rating, as well as other benefits such as increased size and liquidity following the completion of the deal, will compensate for the inevitable income dilution. Other key shareholders, including Stanlib and Arrowhead, declined to comment given the complexity of the deal. "There are a lot of things to consider. We are not able to comment or commit to anything at this stage until the circular is published," says Stanlib head of listed property funds Keillen Ndlovu. Rebosis is expected to provide a more detailed circular on the terms of the deal in the next week or two. The market will no doubt keep a close watch on developments. Source: Financial Mail Even in the best of economic times it takes confidence and nerve for a company to present a five-year forecast. The Foschini Group (TFG) has done just that. CFO of The Foschini Group, Anthony Thunstrom.Picture: Supplied TFG has set itself stiff targets for growth in the five years to March 2021. The retailer is looking to increase sales by 85% to R39bn, to lift operating margin from 17% to as high as 19% and return on equity from 23.9% to 28%-30%. If TFG achieves its 2021 sales target and a margin of 18% it implies an average annual 14.4% rise in operating profit to just short of double its level in the year to March 2016. "Barring an economic calamity we view our targets as very attainable," says TFG financial director Anthony Thunstrom. "They are derived from projections made by each brand and are probably conservative. Targets set over the past eight years have all been exceeded." TFG showed its form in its latest year, lifting headline EPS (HEPS) 17.6%. It put TFG marginally ahead of Mr Price, which reported a 17.1% HEPS rise over the same period. For TFG, its past year was one of bedding down UK-based fashion retailer Phase 8 (acquired for 140m in January 2015). "Integration is the make or break of an acquisition," says Thunstrom. "Phase 8s management has done everything we asked them to do. The integration could not have gone more smoothly." While Phase 8 contributed R3.6bn (17%) to group retail sales of R21.1bn, its contribution to HEPS growth was minimal. "We expected to only break even in the first year," says Thunstrom. "Phase 8 turned out to be mildly earnings accretive." TFG has big plans for Phase 8, which has 542 stores and concessions in department stores in 21 countries. Targeted for 2021 are 820 outlets excluding those of Whistles, a UK-based high-end fashion retailer with 121 outlets, acquired by Phase 8 in March for 4.6m. Thunstrom sees Whistles as a brand with long legs. "It is an aspirational brand with a far higher market profile in the UK than Phase 8," he says. "Before we disclosed its purchase price many people thought we had paid R1bn. It shows how big its brand equity is." TFG intends running with that brand equity. "We know all the department store groups and countries we can take Whistles into," says Thunstrom. Big growth plans are also in place in SA, where TFG wants to grow the 2,286-store footprint of its 20 brands to 3,090 by 2021. Independent retail analyst Syd Vianello says: "They have too many brands to manage them all effectively." Thunstrom disagrees. "Our brand diversity gives us flexibility," he says. "We can put as many as 15 brands into a mall and often do." It will, arguably, not be brand diversity that counts in a constrained SA market. It will be success in attracting cash customers at a time when the ability to extend credit has been curtailed by recently introduced affordability regulations. "With reduced access to credit, consumers are turning to cash purchases and even lay-by," says Thunstrom. "Cash customers can spend anywhere they want to. It is all about gaining cash market share, which we are doing." In its latest financial year TFG upped SA cash sales by a hefty 18.4% to take them to 48.3% of total sales. TFGs cash sales growth was double Mr Prices 9.1% cash sales growth. Truworths is also pushing cash sales. Excluding its recent UK acquisition, Office Retail, cash sales lifted by 16% in its half year to December. But they did so off a low base, cash sales remaining a modest 29% of total SA sales. As matters stand TFG is something of an underdog, rated on a 13.9 p:e against Truworths 14.7 p:e and Mr Prices generous 18.9 p:e. TFGs management will be out to prove the market wrong. They stand a strong chance of doing just that. At the beginning of the new millennium the South African textile and clothing sectors faced serious challenges. Following China's inclusion in the World Trade Organisation in 2001, local textile and clothing manufacturers suffered because of the cheaper imports of Chinese fabrics and finished products. Employment in the sectors slumped dramatically and more than 100,000 textile and clothing jobs were lost. The ETON Material Handling System implemented at Canvas and Tent. The government and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) stepped in to revive the industry with the introduction of the Clothing Textile Competitiveness Programme (CTCP), a programme managed by the IDC and the CTCP Desk, which was structured to drive competitiveness and increase productivity and employment opportunities in the South African textile and clothing sectors. Realising the opportunity for growth under the DTIs new CTCP programme, the South Africa Technical Textile Cluster (SATTC) was formed in 2011. The SATTC is a vertically integrated value chain cluster with an interlinked and innovative product offering, which is currently participating in the CTCP initiative. This market-driven public-private partnership cluster currently includes Gelvenor Consolidated Fabrics, Canvas and Tent, Stepahead Military Headwear Distributors, Fields Wear, Parachute Systems and Durban Overall, all of whom share a collective vision to become recognised global suppliers who set the standards for quality and innovation in the technical textiles sector and to make South Africa a preferred global supply source. Ground-breaking technological developments Over the last five years the SATTC has introduced a number of ground-breaking technological developments that have both increased productivity and product quality output. These developments include the installation of the Eton Material Handling System, a productivity improvement system, which was implemented by Canvas and Tent and yielded significant improved productivity results. Other technological advancements by SATTC include Gelvenor Consolidated Fabrics investment in multi-axial machinery for energy-efficient fabric applications, which has created new product avenues, opened new international markets and has benefitted both Parachute Systems and Fields Wear in new innovative product applications. The Multi-axial machinery for energy efficient fabric applications at Gelvenor Consolidated Fabrics. These innovations and developments have resulted in the SATTC achieving a 12% increase in employment, a 54% growth in total sales and 126% growth in total export sales since 2012, while also increasing export markets from 13 to 25 countries globally and from one to 14 countries in Africa. The cluster also achieved a comprehensive manufacturing value add (MVA) growth, which further supports their high performance outcome. The significant growth achieved over this period would not have been possible without the collaborative efforts from the CTCPs Competitiveness Improvement Programme (CIP) and Production Incentive Programme (PIP), along with the SATTCs own commitment to realising their growth potential. The main objective of the CTCP is to assist industries in upgrading production, product and people developments to re-position it to compete effectively against other low cost producing countries; a goal which the SATTC is achieving as it continues to increase the competitiveness of South African technical textiles in the global market. Innovative, visionary approach As the SATTC looks towards the future, it is committed to continuing to grow the position of the technical textile sector both in South Africa and abroad through an innovative, visionary approach which improves competitiveness, integrated value and enhanced quality output at every stage of the chain; from fabrics to finished textile and apparel products. SATTC is also focussed on steadily increasing the number of manufacturers participating in the cluster, both as core members and incubation members, and aims to develop BBBEE and women-owned SMME manufacturers in their own supply chains to facilitate their growth into full members of the cluster. In terms of support for black industrialist development, the cluster has been instrumental in the establishment of two black-owned businesses, one on the supply side and one on the demand side of the value chain. The combined turnover of these businesses is already in excess of R14 million per annum. The SATTC is also in the process of expanding the South African Technical Textile Sector into the digital realm by developing a Technical Textile National Digital Resource Portal, which is focused on building an international community of technical textile connections and customers that will benefit from sourcing South African technical textile products. Finally, the SATTC is dedicated to evolve into a sub-national cluster, with a mandate of growing the sector to increase export opportunities, innovative product development, employment opportunities and sustainability in the sector. The SATTC participation in the DTIs Clothing Textile Competitiveness Programme (CTCP) and the accomplishments, which have come as a result of such, are evidence that the public-private partnership is a rewarding business approach that can yield meaningful and sustainable growth for South African specialist textile and clothing sectors. For quotes/references, contact executive director Martin Viljoen: tel: +27 (0) 21 702 4140 / cell: +27 (0) 82 455 3263 / email: az.oc.bewm@worg.ceitas Conservation activists on Thursday, 9 June, showed undercover video they say suggests that a "huge loophole" in Japanese law enforcement is hindering efforts to rein in illegal ivory trading. Experts say most illegal ivory heads for China, where it is seen as a status symbol. By some estimates the country accounts for as much as 70% of global demand. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, banned international ivory trade in 1989. Japan also prohibits cross-border trade and authorities say ivory bought and sold inside the country was legally obtained before the ban or under special arrangements with African countries. But the US-based Environmental Investigation Agency, a campaign group, covertly filmed four ivory traders in different cities in Japan who showed no hesitation in selling ivory to Chinese buyers. The Japanese traders acted "knowing the tusks would be illegally exported to China", EIA said in a statement. An undercover EIA investigator presented himself as a Chinese buyer and explicitly showed that he was willing to send ivory to China, EIA president Allan Thornton told reporters as the group showed the footage. "You came too late," a trader in Osaka is shown saying. "We sold so many ivory tusks that ivory has been vanishing from Japan." Another trader in the central Japanese city of Gifu said: "I don't care, Okay? Illegal is okay." Japanese laws create a "huge loophole" partly because traders do not have to register all the tusks they have unless they intend to sell them, and because no registration is required for cut pieces of ivory, Thornton said. "Traders know that it is illegal to export the tusks, but they don't have any concern about selling the tusk to people who say they are going to illegally export them," Thornton said. "In the United States and other countries that would be conspiracy to break a law and that would be illegal." The release of the footage comes weeks after the United States announced a near-total ban on the trade of African elephant ivory in the world's second-largest market for it after China. Africa is home to between 450,000 to 500,000 elephants, but more than 30,000 are killed every year on the continent to satisfy demand for ivory, largely in Asia where raw tusks sell for around $1,000 a kilo. "While China is busting criminals smuggling tons of illegal ivory tusks from Japan, no enforcement action is taken by Japan to prosecute ivory traders facilitating illegal ivory exports," said Danielle Grabiel, EIA senior policy analyst. An environment ministry official was not immediately available for comment. An official at Japan's trade ministry, however, said authorities are closely monitoring registered traders while "such (illegal) cases fall under the category of criminal investigation". Source: AFP To halt climate change and prevent dangerous warming, we ultimately have to stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere . While the world is making slow progress on reducing emissions, there are more radical options, such as removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and storing them underground. In a paper published today in Science my colleagues and I report on a successful trial converting carbon dioxide (CO) to rock and storing it underground in Iceland. Although we trialled only a small amount of CO, this method has enormous potential. Heres how it works. Turning CO to rock Our paper is the culmination of a decade of scientific field and laboratory work known as CarbFix in Iceland, working with a group of international scientists, among them Wallace Broecker who coined the expression global warming in the 1970s. We also worked with the Icelandic geothermal energy company Reykjavik Energy. The idea itself to convert CO into carbonate minerals, the basis of limestone, is not new. In fact, Earth itself has been using this conversion technique for aeons to control atmospheric CO levels. However, scientific opinion had it up to now that converting CO from a gas to a solid (known as mineralisation) would take thousands (or tens of thousands) of years, and would be too slow to be used on an industrial scale. To settle this question, we prepared a field trial using Reykjavik Energys injection and monitoring wells. In 2012, after many years of preparation, we injected 248 tonnes of CO in two separate phases into basalt rocks around 550m underground. Most CO sequestration projects inject and store supercritical CO, which is CO gas that has been compressed under pressure to considerably decrease its volume*. However, supercritical CO is buoyant, like a gas, and this approach has thus proved controversial due to the possibility of leaks from the storage reservoir upwards into groundwater and eventually back to the atmosphere. In fact, some European countries such as the Netherlands have stopped their efforts to store supercritical CO on land because of lack of public acceptance, driven by the fear of possible leaks in the unforeseeable future. Austria went even so far as to ban underground storage of carbon dioxide outright. Dom Wolff-Boenisch, Author provided Our Icelandic trial worked in a different way. We first dissolved CO in water to create sparkling water. This carbonated water has two advantages over supercritical CO gas. First, it is acidic, and attacks basalt which is prone to dissolve under acidic conditions. Second, the CO cannot escape because it is dissolved and will not rise to the surface. As long as it remains under pressure it will not rise to the surface (you can see the same effect when you crack open a soda can; only then is the dissolved CO released back into the air). Dissolving basalt means elements such as calcium, magnesium, and iron are released into pore water. Basaltic rocks are rich in these metals that team up with the dissolved CO and form solid carbonate minerals. Through observations and tracer studies at the monitoring well, we found that over 95% of the injected CO (around 235 tonnes) was converted to carbonate minerals in less than two years. While the initial amount of injected CO was small, the Icelandic field trial clearly shows that mineralisation of CO is feasible and more importantly, fast. Storing CO under the oceans The good news is this technology need not be exclusive to Iceland. Mineralisation of CO requires basaltic or peridotitic rocks because these types of rocks are rich in the metals required to form carbonates and bind the CO. As it turns out the entire vast ocean floor is made up of kilometre-thick oceanic basaltic crust, as are large areas on the continental margins. There are also vast land areas covered with basalt (so-called igneous provinces) or peridotite (so-called ophiolitic complexes). The overall potential storage capacity for CO is much larger than the global CO emissions of many centuries. The mineralisation process removes the crucial problem of buoyancy and the need for permanent monitoring of the injected CO to stop and remedy potential leakage to the surface, an issue that supercritical CO injection sites will face for centuries or even millennia to come. On the downside, CO mineralisation with carbonated water requires substantial amounts of water, meaning that this mineralisation technique can only succeed where vast supplies of water are available. However, there is no shortage of seawater on the ocean floor or continental margins. Rather, the costs involved present a major hurdle to this kind of permanent storage option, for the time being at least. In the case of our trial, a tonne of mineralised CO via carbonated water cost about US$17, roughly twice that of using supercritical CO for storage. It means that as long as there are no financial incentives such as a carbon tax or higher price on carbon emissions, there is no real driving force for carbon storage, irrespective of the technique we use. The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Des van Rooyen's announcement to declare eight provinces as drought disaster areas together with the motion adopted by parliament to declare the drought as a national disaster lay the basis for comprehensive financial humanitarian aid by the government. This is now of critical importance to ensure food security for every household. In this regard government and organised agriculture have an instrumental role to fulfill to optimise sustainable food production by and retention of jobs in the agricultural sector of these provinces as well as to protect producers' production base and thereby retaining South Africa's food security status. The next planting season is around the corner and government assistance is urgently required to enable farmers to plant on a large scale during the new planting season. Livestock losses have also occurred and it is also important to rebuild livestock herds over the next 12 to 18 months. Financing is also required to assist farmers with their carry-over debt. This will enable them to recover quickly and to start with production after the drought. A major concern is the Western Cape, where the expected rainfall in the Swartland and West Coast region have not materialised yet. A shortage of fodder during the winter in summer rainfall areas pose an additional challenge which can be mitigated with the government assistance. Agri SA, therefore, calls on the government to provide financial assistance to farmers as soon as possible. Organised agriculture wants to be part of these efforts to get fodder and other forms of humanitarian aid to farms as effective and efficiently as possible. Agri SA has been actively mobilising the general public and private sector since November 2015 to donate fodder and other forms of humanitarian aid. 20,000 commercial and emerging farmers were assisted thus far. With the help of the retail sector, food hampers and bottled water were also distributed to farm worker communities. A well-coordinated effort and cooperation between all stakeholders are now needed to mitigate food shortages and socio-social crises. Farmers should however not lose hope because a notable weakening of the El Nino weather phenomena is forecasted by weather experts. In terms of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) signed in Kasane, Botswana, between the European Union (EU) and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), the country's present annual duty-free quota of 48 million litres wine that can be exported to the EU, will rise to 110 million litres. Michael Mokhoro Although South Africa exports worldwide, the EU is by far the wine industry's biggest export destination, accounting for 74,8 % of annual off-shore sales volumes, worth R5,01 billion. Michael Mokhoro, the stakeholder relationship manager for the South Africa's wine and brandy industries, said the EPA, which was finalised in July 2014, needed to be ratified before the end of September, in order to take effect from October this year. He said each of the SACU countries - South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana - would first have to individually ratify the agreement through their respective Parliamentary processes. The EU Parliament would ratify the deal on behalf of its 28 member states. Assuming that this went ahead as scheduled, the duty-free quota for the remainder of this year would be allocated on a pro rata basis, he explained. Sparkling wine did not form part of the duty-free quota under the EPA agreement, as it already qualified as duty-free under the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) treaty previously concluded between South Africa and the EU. Mokhoro said that in the interests of promoting South Africa's wine reputation and the sustainability of its exports, initially 70% of the 110 million litre quota would be directed to packaged wines, which were those in bottles or other containers of 2 litres or less. Thereafter, it was likely that the packaged quotient of the allocation would be further increased. Mokhoro stressed that the EPA offered a much-needed boost for the industry that had been besieged by drought and a tough global climate. "We hope to see winemakers capitalise on this opportunity to build Brand South Africa, as well as the reputation of their own brands. The deal offers an additional springboard for growing our credentials for excellence in quality and originality." The poor state of the country's water infrastructure, water losses and a failure to implement strict water-saving measures has worsened the effects of the drought leading to a state of disaster being declared in eight provinces. Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen confirmed this at an interministerial drought task team meeting on Thursday, 9 May. "The drought situation is still gloomy. Disasters do not happen in a vacuum, but in communities where people stay," he said. "Among the measures that should be considered in addressing the drought conditions are disaster management plans and other seasonal-related contingency plans. Our people do not have much information. There should be increased communication of drought-related information to all communities." He said that drought conditions experienced in most parts of the country were a result of natural phenomenon, characterised by below normal rainfalls and increased temperatures and heatwaves. But the situation had been compounded by the poor state of water-related infrastructure, water losses and the lack of implementation of stringent water conservation measures in affected areas. "These conditions have resulted in eight provinces being declared states of disaster, with the exception being Gauteng. However, we have intervened in many parts of the country, with the assistance of state-owned entities, (the) private sector and nongovernmental organisations. This assistance included the drilling of boreholes and distribution of millions of litres of drinking water," he said. He said that some affected provinces were not availing resources quickly enough to deal with the crisis and chose, instead, to rely on national government for help. Department of Water and Sanitation figures show dams levels to be critically low. Western Cape dams were at about 30% capacity, Northern Cape at 57%, Limpopo at 59%, KwaZulu-Natal at 49% and Free State at 54%. Gauteng remains the exception, where dam levels this week were at 86% of capacity. Source: The Times Liane McGowan, founder of Happy Monday CC recently opened her address at the South African Facilities Management Association (SAFMA) Conference with a quote from Richard Branson. There is no magic formula for a great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated. Liane McGowan A few years ago, I was sitting in a spacious reception, at a large corporation's head office in Sandton, when four employees huddled around the reception desk and began bickering about something that had happened that morning at work, recalled McGowan. I turned to my colleague and said; People are so unhappy at work. I wish HR would start focusing on these issues. This was the catalyst that drove McGowan to begin researching mental wellbeing focused strategies in corporate South Africa. I quickly discovered how essential this focus is, and how far behind the rest of the world we are. What is happiness? Various research groups, including positive psychology, are employing the scientific method to research questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained. Happiness is a fuzzy concept and can mean many different things to many people, confirmed McGowan. Part of the challenge of the science of happiness is to identify different concepts of happiness, and apply them practically to a corporate environment - incentivising staff over and above remuneration. Current Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are failing, and many companies are striving to change the culture of corporate South Africa, challenging the status quo. The EAP is no longer enough and should not be considered the way forward when it comes to implementing effective, proactive, emotional-based wellness campaigns. In a complex, stressful and operationally involved business environment, staff must be mentally equipped to deal with various demanding situations while managing subordinates, suppliers and clients. This is crucial to success, confirmed McGowan. As an employer, ensuring your employees are motivated and able to work productively, as well as eliminating staff turnover, are necessities. Unfortunately, reactive, tired and poorly attended campaigns will not achieve these objectives. Employees are humans. The development of their skills, their commitment and their pursuit of happiness is vital - not only for a successful workforce, but also for a successful business. Proven science This focus on happiness is based on proven science. As people we love what we do if it; makes us happy, highlights our self-worth, gives us a sense of purpose, allows us to be creative, and provides social interaction. Do you know whether your employees emotional needs are being met? Do you know them well enough to answer that question? asked McGowan. When companies start focusing on these aspects of their employees wellness, research proves that happiness raises nearly every business and educational outcome; increases sales by 37%, productivity by 31%, accuracy on tasks by 19%, as well as a myriad of other life and health improvements. A physically healthy employee does not equal a happy employee, and happy employees are the ones that cultivate good work and drive businesses. McGowan cautioned against the assumption that the focus on happiness is all about esoteric nonsense and too many feelings getting in the way of business. In fact, the measurement of happiness is a scientific process and has been categorically proven to work. Why people work In the 1980s, when the notion of happiness at work was beginning to appear in corporate spaces, two researchers, Deci and Ryan, provided breakthrough findings in terms of why people work. The researchers identified six reasons why people work. Three of these increase performance, while the other three hurt it. The three positive motivators are play, purpose and potential, confirmed McGowan. The indirect motives that hurt performance are emotional pressure, economic pressure and inertia (when staff lose sight of why they are doing the work, they merely 'do it' to get through it). More recent research has discovered that high performance corporate cultures are those which tend to focus on the enablers of play, purpose and potential and minimise the others. The benefits? Happier, productive workforces and increased business. The science of happiness is changing the way we work, think and live, concluded McGowan. We need people to own it, accept it and manage it. An essential piece of advice, one that we tend to forget in this wild, crazy, busy world of ours; happiness is not found out there, it lies within you. The SAFMA Conference was held on 1 June 2016, at the Gallagher Convention Centre. The complaint to the Competition Commission against Uber by eight regional taxi companies and members of the South African Meter Taxi Association alleging that Uber has engaged in predatory pricing and other anti-competitive behaviour may prove to be more complex than the complainants anticipate. Fierce resistance A few hurdles stand in the way for the complainants, argues TGR Attorneys associate in competition law, Maphanga Maseko and candidate attorney, Crystal Davids. What started as a convenient option for travellers wishing to get from point A to B in San Francisco in 2009, has now been transformed into a service that has been exported to a number of countries, including South Africa. But the technology-based transport service has been met with fierce resistance by the local competition, primarily by the meter taxi service providers nationwide. The proliferation of smartphones has created a new product market that allows users of the service to obtain a taxi ride conveniently, cheaply and in a safe manner by initiating the service through the application software on their phones. This trend has allegedly left the common meter taxis in the cold, resulting in the complainants exploring a legal route to secure their stake in the commuter services market. Competition Act The Competition Act encourages a much more competitive and transparent economy and promotes consumer choices as a centrepiece to competition in a market. The Competition Act envisages markets in which consumers have access to, and can freely select, the quality and variety of goods and services they desire, says Maseko. Implicit in the preamble to the Competition Act is the recognition that while low prices are generally good for competition, sometimes, a price that is 'too low' may be adverse to competition and force other competitors to exit that market. Section 8(d)(iv) attempts to address the above issue by prohibiting a dominant firm from selling goods or services below their marginal or average variable cost, unless that firm can show technological, efficiency or other pro-competitive gains that outweigh the anti-competitive conduct alleged. This is what predatory pricing is about, says Maseko. It is premised on the dominant firm keeping prices so low for a certain period, which has the effect of driving its competitors out of the market as they cannot compete with such low prices. Upon exit by the competitors, the dominant firm then raises those prices presumably to recoup its investments preceding the exit of competitors. Predatory pricing is seen as exclusionary as it disincentives actual or potential competitors from entering or expanding into that market. The dominant firm can raise efficiency defences to rebut the allegation of predatory pricing. For the allegation of predatory pricing to be sustained, the complainants must provide evidence of actual harm to consumer welfare or prove that the exclusionary act is substantial or significant in terms of foreclosing the market to its rivals adds Maseko. A tall order Proving the allegation against Uber is likely to be a tall order for the complainants as they first have to identify the geographic and product market in which the alleged contravention took place. They must prove that Uber is the dominant firm in the relevant market identified, before even engaging the merits of the predatory pricing argument, if any, says Davids. If the complainants are not successful with identifying the geographic and product market concerned, this should be the end of the matter when one regards case law, Maseko adds. Even if the Commission refers the matter to the Tribunal for adjudication, by their nature, pricing abuses such as predatory pricing are difficult to prove and may take a long time to conclude, before a determination is made by the Tribunal. The controversial uproar around Uber is not unique to South Africa. Uber currently operates in just over 400 cities globally with a number of complaints being noted against it in different jurisdictions. In France, for example, striking taxi drivers marching on a major highway were tear-gassed by police earlier this year, when their protests turned violent. In Mexico, there has been a common occurrence of violent attacks on Uber drivers at the international airport in Mexico City, an approach that has now been adopted by local metered taxi drivers to display their dismay with Uber. It is early days in the matter but we hope that the Commission expedites the investigation before there is more violence between the Uber drivers and the complainants and that the law enforcement authorities will ensure that the rule of law is maintained, regardless of the findings of the Commission and/or Tribunal, concludes Maseko. Cathy Yeulet via 123RF Pearson South Africa is a subsidiary of Pearson plc, the worlds largest education company. Sphere is an established black-owned and managed investment holding company with a highly successful track record as an active long term investor in local and multinational companies providing critical infrastructure, and social and industrial goods and services to South and southern Africa. The combined cash and vendor financed transaction will also see Sphere CEO Itumeleng Kgaboesele, and Sphere executive director Marang Denalane, join the Pearson South Africa board. Commenting on the transaction, Michael Ogden, interim managing director of Pearson South Africa, said: Spheres strong track record as professional investors, and proven capacity to work with multinational boards and management to deepen local client relationships and deliver winning South African strategies made them ideal investors and empowerment partners. Sphere has a clear commitment to South Africa that is closely aligned with our own values. Sphere also has the vision, credentials and technical skills necessary to advance our broad-based black economic empowerment goals and to help us take advantage of new opportunities. Digitally enabled learning environments Sphere director and new Pearson SA board member Marang Denalane said: While South Africa is making massive investments in education as a national priority, we are not seeing the quality outcomes we should expect. This can and must change fast. Already, the so-called 4th industrial revolution the digitised economy - is becoming a reality for our workforce. So its vital that we mobilise the best education content and teaching practices to equip millions of South African learners with the education they need to get jobs, compete globally and reindustrialise our economy. This starts with traditional textbooks, teaching and systems, and will evolve into increasingly digitally enabled learning environments as we develop the classrooms of the future. We look forward to working with Pearson to adapt their unparalleled global education expertise, content and services to meet the needs of South African learners, teachers, education departments and schools. Supporting education Denalane added that Sphere would work with Pearson SAs board and management to develop and deliver a sustainable growth strategy, to build deeper relationships with key clients and education stakeholders, and to bring new leadership talent into the business while supporting their mentoring initiatives. Commenting further on the partnership, Ogden said: Although publishing forms a core part of our business, we are looking to expand and enhance our managed services and digital offering particularly in the public education sector. This partnership with Sphere, as a home-grown investment company, will enable us to continue to grow our business in this sector and to positively impact many thousands of learners across the country. When Sphere was formed, one of the key strategic pillars was supporting education, empowerment and development in South Africa and we are confident that we will bring the same commitment and drive to our partnership with Pearson, concluded Denalane. Brendon Crew Few places welcome the diversity of visitors to the promenade, and Strolla fills that niche. Its more of a rendezvous spot than a typical eatery and I wish to position it as a restaurant brought to locals by locals, says Crew, who has been in the restaurant business for more than 14 years. Brendons culinary journey started at the age of 19, studying at the Hotel School in Granger Bay, Cape Town, after which he travelled abroad to work alongside some of the worlds best chefs. Upon his return home, Crew gained experience in hospitality management, going on to open a number of restaurants. My love and passion for food and cooking came from my moms side of the family. We dont eat to live, but we live to eat. So food and family have always been a strong part of my upbringing, says Crew. In opening Strolla, Crew has contributed greatly to the already popular Sea Point platinum mile, and, acknowledging latest restaurant trends, caters to both social and working lives as well as providing a safe space for children (a playroom keeps the little ones busy while parents relax by the fireplace or soak up sundowners on the deck). Keeping things local, Strolla supports a number of Cape Town brands, including Bootlegger coffee, which has a strong presence on the Atlantic seaboard, and craft beers from Devils Peak Brewery. The Brewery was a preferred choice for Brendon who, as one of the partners of the Cape Town Festival of Beer, has watched the Brewery grow into a prime example of local craft beer. We are very proud to support local guys who are producing excellent products in our own backyard. These particular brands are based on quality and relationships made through my time spent in the industry, adds Brendon. We are proud to be serving @bootleggercoffeecompany coffee at our cafe. A photo posted by @strollact on Jan 29, 2016 at 4:58am PST For Brendon, a great establishment is also measured by its staff empowerment and Strolla staff with the right attitude and character are given the opportunity to study specific, certificated short courses on hospitality through Lobster Ink. Skywise, the low-cost carrier that was grounded in 2015 after failing to pay airport fees, said it had secured a domestic private investor and would be flying again before the end of 2016. The cash-strapped company has made a number of attempts to secure funding to pay off its debts and fund its operations. The airline was grounded in December 2015 by the Airports Company SA (Acsa) for its failure to pay about R4m in airport fees relating to the landing, take-off and parking of aircraft and related service charges. Acsa owns and operates nine commercial airports in the country. This was not the first time Acsa had grounded Skywise. In October, the airline was also prevented from taking off over unpaid airport fees. The carrier has not been flying since its grounding in December. At the time, the airline said it had a "pay-as-you-go" arrangement with Acsa that allowed it to clear its arrears and had missed only one payment of R1.6m, for which it had sought an extension from the airports company. Skywise, which launched its Johannesburg to Cape Town flights in February 2015, is still hunting for backing from domestic financial institutions. On Thursday, Skywise joint chair Javed Malik said the airline had always had a pool of foreign investors, but the challenge was finding a domestic investor. This was due to stipulations in the Air Services Licensing Act that limited foreign shareholding in a domestic airline to 25%. "At the moment, everything looks bright, said Malik. "We will be flying before the end of this year, and we will give all details in July." Speaking on the sidelines of the Infrastructure Africa conference in Sandton on Thursday, Skywise joint chairwoman Tabassum Qadir said while the airline had secured a "private local investor", it was still looking to obtain funding from an institution such as a bank. She said other airlines in the country were backed by such institutions, facilitating growth in the business. In other countries, airlines were backed by larger foreign airlines, but foreign shareholding was limited in SA. "There is a real gap between financing institutions and entrepreneurs," Qadir said. "But we still want to get that institutional funding like the other airlines," she said. Industrial Development Corporation senior project manager Tapiwa Dube said it was important to understand the different objectives of entrepreneurs and financiers. "Entrepreneurs are driving something, while financiers are looking at risk mitigation. "It is useful to understand different institutions' risk appetites. There are also mandate issues that make it difficult to fund certain projects," Dube said. Source: Business Day The Competition Commission has confirmed that it is investigating Emirates Airline for abuse of dominance under the Competition Act, after claims that it offered incentives to travel agents to divert sales from competitors. Julian Herzog via Wikimedia Commons The airline industry is particularly cut-throat and operates on low margins, giving dominant players much advantage. Section 8 of the Competition Act prohibits a dominant firm from "inducing" a customer to not deal with a competitor, or to engage in any other conduct that impedes or prevents its competitors from entering into or expanding within a market. Emirates, which is the world's largest airline and operates a fleet of at least 251 aircraft, confirmed on Friday that it was the subject of a probe. The investigation centres on allegations that between 2010 and 2014 Emirates offered travel agents incentives to lock out competitors. Emirates Southern African manager Fouad Caunhye said the airline had not been informed who laid the complaint. This information would become available only should the matter progress to the Competition Tribunal, Caunhye said. Itumeleng Lesofe, the spokesman for the Competition Commission, said the investigation had been running since April 2015. "Unfortunately, I am unable to tell when the investigation will be completed, but substantial work has been done," Lesofe said. This is not the first airline abuse of dominance case of this sort to be brought before the commission. In 2005, South African Airways (SAA) was found to have contravened the Competition Act by providing travel agents with incentives to divert traffic from the now bankrupt Nationwide and Comair, and fined R45m, at the time, the largest fine levied under the act. In 2010, the aggrieved parties took SAA to the commission again, to win a declaratory order to open the way to pursue damages in the high court. Both airlines are in the process of suing SAA for damages. Liquidators for Nationwide are demanding R325m in damages, while Comair is suing for R1bn. Both are awaiting judgment. Internationally, Emirates and other Gulf airlines are frequently the target of complaints by competitors for unfair business practices. In the US, three domestic airlines - Delta, American and United - are lobbying the American government to impose restrictions on Gulf airlines, claiming that they receive government subsidies that are enabling their rapid expansion into the US market. Domestically, Emirates Airline has also faced opposition over its expansion, with an attempt by the Department of Transport to block the airline's plans to introduce a fourth daily flight from Johannesburg to Dubai in October 2015. Source: Business Day In a recent article I read, a woman explained how, after coming across an Instagram post of one of her favourite bloggers, she rushed to the stores in search of the very doormat she saw in the post. After searching high and low she eventually got hold of the doormat and felt compelled to share the news on social media. In the above-mentioned case, not only did the blogger influence the womans decision to buy the mat, but she also got her to talk about it online, further contributing to the digital conversation around the product.The fact that the influencer got her to get into her car and rush to the stores for something as boring as a doormat is remarkable. Another article discussed how beauty vloggers have become more influential and credible than top makeup artists. By having daily interaction and engagement with their fan base, these vloggers/bloggers have a significant influence on the purchasing decisions of their followers. A great example would be Zoella, fashionbi explained how after mentioning a Topshop blusher in one of her blog posts, there was a 40% click through rate to the brands site. With vloggers/bloggers providing brands with a significant return on investment, there is no doubt that they have helped smart brands embrace the digital potential of influencer marketing. Through influencer marketing, brands are able to connect with the right target audiences in a much more organic way. By using social media, as well as native advertising and influencer marketing, brands are able to take advantage of predominant industry trends - for example the shift from TV to digital, display advertising to sponsored content, and online video traffic. Essentially, influencer marketing is a term that separates successful brands from those being left behind. While traditional advertising models embrace concepts such as celebrity endorsements, we are living in a digital world where popular vloggers, bloggers and social influencers have more influence on the purchasing decisions of consumers, than celebrities. This could be that a lifestyle similar to that of a blogger/vlogger seems more attainable than trying to keep up with the lifestyle of a celebrity. We see our favourite vloggers/bloggers as ordinary people, as our peers rather than someone superior to us and our lifestyle. But how can this all be measured? At the end of the day brands need to see a return on investment and influencers need to be able to prove to brands that their marketing efforts were, in fact, successful. To allow influencers to show brands the success of their work and campaigns featuring their brands, Webfluential provides influencers with the tools to accurately track, measure and report on an online campaign. Brands can see whether the influencer did in fact meet the brands objectives. By simply inputting the links of social posts, YouTube videos, blog posts, Tweets, Instagram and Facebook posts, the tool is able to track a host of data. The tool tracks the number of posts published, total engagements and how many people had the opportunity to see the posts. To test the tool on a vloggers post I added some social posts into the report. Have a look at what I found: SPARK Media has seen a few changes in its strategy, leadership and key customer care in the Cape. SPARK Media returns to its core business Gill Randall, CEO of SPARK Media From 1 July 2016, SPARK Media aim to be the go-to-people for retail and location-based marketing solutions. SPARK Media will represent local traditional and digital media platforms, namely Caxton owned local newspapers and online assets as well as current and future partners that are in line with their clear objective of delivering locally relevant, effective audiences for our advertising clients. SPARK is also well aware of the important role that news and lifestyle content offerings play within the print and digital space, and will continue working with key partners, both owned and 3rd party. For this reason, SPARK Media will not be renewing contracts with major partners, such as Vodacom Please Call Me, BBM and LinkedIn. Partnering with platforms that do not fit could potentially distract us from what we know best, said Gill Randall, CEO of SPARK Media. Read more about this development here. SPARK Media COO, John Bowles, starts Turn Left Media John Bowles, current chief operating officer at SPARK Media, will relinquish his role and relocate to Cape Town to start Turn Left Media with co-founder, Marius Greef. While in the Cape, Bowles will also assist with maintaining key customer relationships for SPARK Media. Turn Left Media is an independent, boutique digital media sales house that will help brands (with their relevant agencies) to reach the right, high-value and quality audience across key digital platforms. Focused on presenting a niche of sought after, 3rd party channels, Turn Left Media will launch with representation of LinkedIn. Also included in the TLM portfolio will be the digital audiences of The Washington Post. "While the digital industry continues to fragment and diversify, being able to offer a concrete business proposition to brands, with the right audience, on the right channels allows us to cut through the clutter, said Bowles. Read more about John Bowles and Turn Left Media here and here. This week's Wine Wrap takes us to the Czech town Becov nad Teplou, the International Volcanic Wine Forum in Italy, an archaeological dig in south-eastern Georgia's Kvemo Kartli region, and then circles back to Vrede en Lust wine farm outside of Paarl where local winemaker Susan Erasmus is making giant strides on the local and international wine front. 19th-century fine wine turns up at Czech castle The gist of it: Discovered under the floorboards of a Czech castle in a treasure hunt that pitted communist-era police against aristocrats, a veritable treasure trove of 133 bottles of 19th-century wine was found 40 years after being hidden by its then owners. The wines include Chateau d'Yquem vintages from 1892 (valued at up to 750,000 crowns per bottle) and 1896. According to early estimates the whole collection is worth at least 30 million crowns. The original owner, the Beaufort-Spontins, hid the wines under the floorboards of the castle when they fled Austria at the end of WWII after being labelled Nazi sympathisers. Read more here. Master sommelier John Szabo pushes for 'Volcanic Wine' category The gist of it: Canadian master sommelier John Szabo has spent years researching wines from volcanic soils and announced at the recent International Volcanic Wine Forum in Italy that he believes there is enough sensory data to justify a volcanic wine category, despite a lack of sufficient scientific data to support his claim. Vines grown in volcanic soil tend to produce wines that boast bouquets with intensely flinty mineral cores and surprisingly floral top notes, depending on varietal. Other frequently noted flavour elements include pepper, herbs, and concentrated dark fruit. Read more here. Image sourced from the www.thedrinksbusiness.com Bonus factoid: Highly volcanic areas have some of the most fertile farmland in the world. Volcanic eruptions bring nutrients such as potassium and phosphorus to the Earths soil. The weathering of volcanic rocks also releases nutrients. Archaeological dig confirms Georgia as the cradle of winemaking The gist of it: The Georgian National Museum (GNM) announced this week that grape seeds and vine dust dating back to 6000 BC had been discovered at the Gadachrili Gora archaeological site in south-eastern Georgia's Kvemo Kartli region. Digs at the Gadachrili Gora site have been giving up ancient winemaking artefacts since 2014, when the international project was initiated by the GNM, the Georgian Wine Association and the National Wine Agency of Georgia. Some of the materials uncovered included grape skins and pips inside old qvevri (clay) vessels, as well as vessels that contained dusty remains of cultivated vines that date back to the 6th millennium BC. These findings have strengthened the country's claim of being the original cradle of the art of winemaking. Read more here. Image sourced from the www.wine-searcher.com Vrede en Lust charters a new course for Cabernet Franc in South Africa Image sourced from www.vnl.co.za The gist of it: 2016 Juliet Cullinan Standard Bank Wine Festival exhibitor Vrede en Lust recently received a coveted Old Mutual Trophy for its 2014 Artisan Cabernet Franc. The winery was also crowned as one of the top 10 most successful producers. Trophy status is the shows highest honour and reserved for only a select few of top performing wines that are subjected to a second round of judging after Gold medals have been awarded. Making this award even more special, is the fact that it is the first time in the 15-year history of the competition that a trophy has been awarded for Cabernet Franc. The varietal is still relatively unheralded in South Africa, but Vrede en Lust Estate has become known for cultivating lesser-known wine gems and unlocking their full potential through its popular Artisan Range. Read more here. This weeks Weekly Wine Wrap-Up was brought to you by Juliet Cullinan Wines. The 26th annual Juliet Cullinan Standard Bank Wine Festival will be hosted on 12 and 13 July 2016 at Summer Place, Hyde Park. Tickets are available at Webtickets. Webtickets | Email | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram The connected car is set to revolutionise the automotive experience, according to a new industry report from Ipsos Business Consulting. Traditionally, car ownership brings with it high costs and stress levels, as well as significant commuting times. But the automotive industry is in the early stages of radical transformation that will see the connected car becoming the most advanced computing device that we own. The extent of business re-engineering faced by automotive companies should not be under-estimated said Per-Henrik Karlsson, country head for Korea at Ipsos Business Consulting. Effectively, automotive manufacturing companies are extremely large industrial companies, yet they must now seek to transform themselves into data analytics companies. The car will become a mobile device, much the same as your tablet or smartphone except more literally in this case. The challenge is immense and there is a possibility that we see some existing companies being marginalised or disappearing from a marketplace in which they are currently a major player. Karlsson commented. Lynn Morgan, head of Europe for Ipsos Business Consulting agreed with Karlsson, adding: The advent of the connected car, connected healthcare and the Internet of Things marks the dawn of some of the most exciting times since the Industrial Revolution. Manufacturers have never experienced this level of transformational change in the past. We are already seeing the traditional players forming alliances with data companies, retailers and app developers. Some are buying technology companies as part of their strategy to get ready for the change. This is all very exciting for the consumer who is about to witness technological developments on a large scale developments that were considered to be in the realms of science fiction not so long ago. Benefits for consumers 1. Safety: Automated driving will greatly reduce the chance of accidents and remove the need for traffic lights. 2. More 'me time': Cars will be able to drive and park themselves, enabling commuters use drive and park time as they choose.. 3. More money: Insurers will never worry about driving history again; and cars can be readied for 'ubering' or ride sharing. 4. Less visits to the doctor: Cars will become the most advanced mobile device in use, capable of becoming a 'clinic' through its healthcare apps. 5. Commuting more often: Connected cars will be part of a network that provides a commuting service, making travel a stress-free and enjoyable experience. Bevan Ducasse, founder and CEO of wiGroup, is the overall winner of the 2016 FNB Business Innovation Awards. He was honoured and recognised for using innovation to drive business growth and having potential to scale significantly through the Endeavor network. FNB Endeavor Winner, Bevan Ducasse He will be sponsored by FNB and flights provided by Swiss International Airlines to attend the Endeavor International Selection Panel (ISP) in Boston in September this year, to stand a chance to be selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur. Endeavor Entrepreneurs are part of a global network of founders; they gain access to influential business leaders as mentors and an advisory board to help them achieve their business goals. I am excited and feel privileged to be recognised as the winner of the FNB Business Innovation Awards. This accolade is testament to the hard work and dedication that has gone towards establishing wiGroup as a trusted and reputable brand. Innovation and excellence have always been at the centre of our business. We will continue breaking boundaries while still delivering quality products and services to our clients, said Ducasse. Access to a global platform of leading business luminaries and a peer group of highly ambitious founders at the Endeavor ISP is something I am excited about. Beyond that, I feel the journey must be of scale and innovation that challenges the status quo in the sector we operate in. Michael Vacy-Lyle, CEO of FNB Business, congratulated Ducasse on a well-deserved accomplishment. It was certainly a closely contested challenge with all finalists demonstrating great potential to scale up their businesses. I wish all of them the best on their journey ahead. The FNB Business Innovation Awards have undoubtedly proven that South Africa has a lot of potential to create high-impact global businesses. We need more platforms of this calibre to unearth and recognise innovative businesses with the capability to create sustainable jobs. Congratulations to Ducasse on a remarkable journey in founding and building the business to this point. Through Endeavor and the exposure at the ISP, we are confident that he will be even more motivated to think bigger and engage with a network of like-minded ambitious entrepreneurs that are driven to build a business with a global footprint, said Catherine Townshend, MD of Endeavor South Africa. The selection criteria for the FNB Business Innovation Awards 2016 focused on businesses that: Exhibited high growth potential and the capacity to add substantial economic value by creating a number of high-value jobs Demonstrated innovation that has the potential to change the way an industry operates locally and/or internationally Were interested in accepting advice and support from FNB and Endeavor, as well as contributing to the Endeavor network Factors such as brand and reputation, stakeholder relations and goodwill, environmental sustainability, social responsibility and quality of governance were all taken into account. Opera ambassadors are preparing for an exciting online campaign that they hope will bring attention to important issues and make a real impact in their respective communities, during Youth Month in South Africa. The internet has given youth around the world a bigger voice to share their thoughts and views about anything, on a global platform. It has also provided an important platform to bring together communities with collective beliefs to drive social change, create conversations and encourage active citizenship. This is why Youth Month is the perfect time to get that online voice heard! Dont complain, campaign! Jan Vasek via Pixabay The Opera ambassadors are calling upon their South African peers on Twitter, Facebook and beyond using the hashtag #YouthOnline and @Opera. Through Operas Facebook and Twitter pages, which reach millions of fans around the world, it hopes to help give the youth a boost in their efforts of effecting social change. Young people often dominate social media platforms, but have expressed frustration that sometimes their digital voices do not carry over into the physical world. It is hoped that #YouthOnline with Opera, can help young people work together to focus conversations on a single, important topic. This will be an effective first step in making the voices heard and turn online discussions into real conversations that positively affect the country. Via #YouthOnline @Opera, the ambassadors hope to zero in on the most talked-about topics of their peers and from those, create a collective and digital charter. This physical document will be presented to the national decision makers reflecting the solutions presented by youth community members. For more information, click here. This development-oriented agreement between the European Union and Southern African countries is the first of its kind with an African region, pursuing regional economic integration. The European Union and six countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) last week signed the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), in Kasane, Botswana. Image by 123RF The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland the so-called SADC EPA group is a development-oriented free trade agreement. The agreement was signed by commissioner for trade Cecilia Malmstrom on behalf of the EU. In addition to this agreement, other regional agreements could also soon be signed with West Africa and the East African Community. At the signature ceremony in Botswana, Commissioner Malmstrom gave a speech on the benefits of the agreement. Commissioner Malmstrom said: "Trade is a tool to spur economic growth and sustainable development. It's also an important factor for integrating regions and forming stronger bonds between countries. With the Economic Partnership Agreement that we are signing today, we want to base our trade relations with our partners in the Southern African region on commonly agreed, stable rules. Trade has helped lift millions of people from poverty throughout the years. Thanks to agreements like this one, we are preparing the ground for that process to continue." Commissioner for international cooperation and development, Neven Mimica, added: "Fully utilising the economic potential of the private sector and further strengthening trade is critical for the new global development agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals. Today's agreement can help us to tap this potential." The EPA takes into account the different levels of development of each partner. It guarantees Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and Swaziland, duty-free, quota-free access to the European market. South Africa will also benefit from enhanced market access, going beyond the existing bilateral arrangement. Protective measures Furthermore, the agreement increases the flexibility of Southern African producers to put together products from components from various countries, without the risk of losing their free access to the EU market. It also provides for a number of protective measures, for instance for nascent, fragile industries or for food security reasons. The Southern African markets will open gradually and partially to EU exports, in an asymmetric way. In the process of diversifying their economies and broadening production, imports of certain goods are important for Southern African countries certain industrial parts, seeds and machinery, for instance. The import duties on many of these so-called intermediary goods will be significantly reduced, making the products more easily accessible to Southern African entrepreneurs. For the South African market specifically, particular advantage has been granted to EU producers of traditional quality products with a worldwide reputation for example wines and food products that will now get the exclusive right to use their traditional names, or 'geographical indications', in South Africa. Correspondingly, several South African geographical indications will, from now on, be protected on the EU market, such as different types of South African wine such as Stellenbosch and Paarl, along with Rooibos tea and other products. Sustainable development By signing the agreement, all participants commit themselves to work towards sustainable development, including by upholding social and environmental standards. The EPA also establishes a consultation procedure for environmental or labour issues and defines a comprehensive list of areas in which the partners will cooperate to foster sustainable development. Civil society will have a special role in monitoring the impact of the agreement. In addition, a detailed chapter on development cooperation identifies trade-related areas that could benefit from EU financial support. The EPA creates joint institutions to support dialogue, the smooth handling of all trade issues, and the monitoring of the impact of the trade deal. The EU will work with its SADC partners to ensure the smooth implementation of the agreement, together with regional and national development cooperation bodies. The agreement will now be submitted for approval to the European Parliament, and for ratification in the 28 EU Member States according to national ratification procedures and in the Southern African countries. Background Trade and Economic Partnership Agreements are an essential pillar of the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement. The SADC EPA Group consists of six out of 15 members of the Southern African Development Community (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and South Africa). Angola has observer status and may join the agreement in the future. The EU is the largest trading partner of the SADC EPA group. In 2015, the EU imported goods worth almost 32 billion from the region, mostly minerals and metals. The EU exported goods of the nearly same value, consisting mostly of engineering, automotive and chemical products. Suhana Gordhan, Emma Carpenter, Fran Luckin and Jenny Glover will be four of 387 judges at the 63rd Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. They come together as senior creative professionals who are recognised for their achievements, valued for their vision, admired for their passion and trusted for their integrity. Visit www.canneslions.com for more information. For more: Got a question or tip? Contact us at bizmojoidaho@gmail.com. While the country continues to focus on improving the education system for boys and girls, approximately 50 percent of secondary school aged children drop out, according to UNICEF. Many of them choose to work, others are compelled to work by the family due to economic reasons, and some are even forced to work, including in hazardous environments. This year, the Day Against Child Labour on June 12 aims to draw attention to childrens work in supply chains. Child labour occurs in many occupations, in particular in the rural and informal economies. With a growing economy and increased production of internationally and locally traded goods and services, tackling child labour in supply chains is becoming of key importance for Myanmar. UNICEF is encouraged by efforts currently underway by the government to address this important issue across sectors. The draft Child Law, which is currently under revision and will soon advance to Parliament, will strengthen legal protection for children, namely by establishing 14 as the minimum age of entry to employment. In addition, the Ministry of Labour has revised the Factories Act and Shops and Establishments Act, raising the minimum age of employment in those sectors, and is now training labour inspectors on child labour. The most effective strategy to combat child labour is to prevent children from working in the first place, by tackling poverty and by increasing childrens access to quality education. The Governments social protection strategy envisages universal cash transfers to pregnant mothers and children, and the development of 6000 trained social workers deployed across the country. Resourcing this strategy would help to reduce the number of children being sent to work out of economic necessity and equip the country with the social workers needed to respond to various household vulnerabilities. UNICEF further encourages the Government of Myanmar to allocate the necessary resources to the social sectors. Together we can achieve the UN sustainable development goal on decent work and economic growth, which calls for immediate measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, and to end child labour in all its forms by 2025. The other EAO that was invited but wasnt able to make it due to the fact that it coincided with its own long planned meeting was the Chin National Front (CNF). The purpose of the meeting was to review the 1947 Panglong Conference and what it meant for the non-Burmans as a whole, before joining the Union Peace Conference (21st Century Panglong) sometime in August, as planned by Naypyitaw. Putting it another way, it was a meeting to look back before moving ahead. Burma, Chin, Kachin and Shan were co-signatories to the Panglong Agreement (12 February 1947) that led to the formation of the Union of Burma, now restyled the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (RUM). Day One. Tuesday, 7 June 2016 The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) The meeting begins with a friendly banter from Dr Laja: The Chins were late during the 1947 Panglong. They are doing that again now. The first topic on the agenda is to explore the reasons why non-Burmans need to return to the original Panglong before embarking on the 21st Century one. The following is the summing up of their discussions: If we refuse to consider the 1947 Panglong, and start a completely new Panglong, all the trust that has been accumulated throughout the past few years will be wasted. Just adopting the name Panglong but not its substance will render the whole effort meaningless Among the non-Burmans, Chin, Kachin and Shan, as original co-founders of the Union, bear primary responsibility Because there was the 1947 Panglong, there is the Union. If we are not going to honor it, the Union will only fall apart Panglong is essential not only for the signatories, but also for the non-signatories. Because it was through Panglong and the resultant Union, new member states came into being. (Before independence, Karen, Arakan and Mon were part of Ministerial Burma. Only the Karenni or Kayah was an independent state.) How Panglong came into being That is the next topic on the agenda, and the following are their conclusions: Before Panglong, Chin, Kachin, Shan, and others were separate political entities from Burma, then also known as Burma Proper or Ministerial Burma. Each had its own constitutions called regulations or acts. Due to the Atlantic Charter, signed on 14 August 1941, that promised the right of self determination and restoration of self-government to those deprived of it, each and all were aspiring to become independent nations. However, Aung San wanted to convince them it would be better together, which is one reason he came to Panglong, where Chins, Kachins ans Shans were holding a conference. Another reason which was imperative was the terms of his agreement in London on 27 January required him to be there to ask the leaders and representatives of the people of Frontier Areas (as non-Ministerial Burma areas were known) to express their views upon the form of association with the government of Burma which they consider acceptable The Panglong Agreement was the outcome of a historic necessity. It is collectively owned Its main objective was to achieve independence at the same time with Burma, which had been guaranteed within one year, and not later Panglong Agreement The 9 article Panglong Agreement, to summarize, contains 5 key points: The people of Frontier Areas shall be responsible for the affairs of the Frontier Areas Full autonomy in internal administration Creation of a Kachin State Democracy and human rights Financial autonomy Panglong promises Other than the agreement, Aung San had also agreed, during the conference, to a 5 point demand by the Chin-Kachin-Shan committee that had formed the first non-Burman alliance in modern history the Supreme Council of the United Hill Peoples (SCOUHP): Same status, rights and privileges Self rule in respective internal affairs and Shared rule in common subjects A distinct separate Kachin State Aung San-Atlee agreement not binding on Chin, Kachin, and Shan The right to secede if and when we choose The meeting takes note that the right to secession, which was later enacted by the 1947 constitution, has been a constant specter over successive Burmese governments. The rights come first, says a participant.If the rights were honored, there should be no fear of secession, whether or not its in the constitution. The meaning of Bamar One Kyat, Shan/Kachin One Kyat, as promised by Aung San, is also discussed. Tun Myint Taunggyi had explained in his 1957 Shanlands Grievances: According to the 1952-53 Fiscal Year statistics: Population Expense per capita Expense per capita (by percentage) Burma Proper 14.7 million 15.63 Kyat 1 Kyat Shan State 1.6 million 7.55 Kyat 0.48 Kyat Which clearly demonstrates that even in the 14 year democratic days, it was Bamar one Kyat, Shan half a Kyat in practice. The Panglong Spirit The following is the interpretation as agreed by the meeting: The Panglong Spirit means the deep wish to abide by and fulfill the Panglong Agreement and the mutual promises solemnly made between Gen Aung San and the ethnic leaders. One who has the spirit will not go back on ones promises. And one who keeps ones promises will honor the Agreement, remarks Gen Yawdserk. Hail to the 21st Century Panglong The afternoon session begins with a statement by Gen N Banla, leader of the KIO, saying: We heartily welcome and support the planned 21st Century Panglong We hope it will be the Conference that sets out to bring about the substance of the 1947 Panglong Agreement Another leader speaks of lingering questions for the State Counselor, who first coined the 21st Century Panglong: Who will be the owner (s) of this conference? Shall we be joint owners or just participating there as invited guests? How should the representatives be chosen? The role of the international and regional community One other leader,, who is better versed in legal matters, speaks about whether the Panglong Agreement is a voidable contract, meaning one which can be made null and void by a party if the said party so chooses. Unfortunately, there isnt anyone else in the meeting who can answer this. But everyone agrees it is a matter to be pursued further. The meeting adjourns with a decision to draft a Panglong Handbook to be consulted by all those concerned with peace in Burma. It looks like you have reached this page in error ... The content you are looking for has either moved, or if you typed in the address there might have been a mistake. If you believe there has been a technical error please let us know. Most Popular Destinations Each review score is between 1-10. To get the overall score that you see, we add up all the review scores weve received and divide that total by the number of review scores weve received. In addition, guests can give separate subscores in crucial areas, such as location, cleanliness, staff, comfort, facilities, value for money and free Wi-Fi. Note that guests submit their subscores and their overall scores independently, so theres no direct link between them. You can review an Accommodation that you booked through our Platform if you stayed there or if you arrived at the property but didnt actually stay there. To edit a review youve already submitted, please contact our Customer Service team. We have people and automated systems that specialise in detecting fake reviews submitted to our Platform. If we find any, we delete them and, if necessary, take action against whoever is responsible. Anyone else who spots something suspicious can always report it to our Customer Service team, so our Fraud team can investigate. Ideally, we would publish every review we receive, whether positive or negative. However, we wont display any review that includes or refers to (among other things): Politically sensitive comments Promotional content Illegal activities Personal or sensitive information (e.g. emails, phone numbers or credit card info) Swear words, sexual references, hate speech, discriminatory remarks, threats, or references to violence Spam and fake content Animal cruelty Impersonation (e.g. if the writer is claiming to be someone else) Any violation of our review guidelines. To make sure reviews are relevant, we may only accept reviews that are submitted within 3 months of checking out, and we may stop showing reviews once theyre 36 months old or if the Accommodation has a change of ownership. An Accommodation may choose to reply to a review. When you see multiple reviews, the most recent ones will be at the top, subject to a few other factors (what language a review is in, whether its just a rating or contains comments as well, etc.). If you like, you can sort and/or filter them (by time of year, review score, etc.). We sometimes show external review scores from other well-known travel websites. We make it clear when weve done this. Guidelines and standards for Reviews These guidelines and standards aim to keep the content on Booking.com relevant and family-friendly without limiting expression of strong opinions. They are also applicable regardless of the sentiment of the comment. Contributions should be travel related. The most helpful contributions are detailed and help others make better decisions. Please dont include personal, political, ethical, or religious commentary. Promotional content will be removed and issues concerning Booking.coms services should be routed to our Customer Service or Accommodation Service teams. Contributions should be appropriate for a global audience. Please avoid using profanity or attempts to approximate profanity with creative spelling, in any language. Comments and media that include 'hate speech', discriminatory remarks, threats, sexually explicit remarks, violence, and the promotion of illegal activity are not permitted. All content should be genuine and unique to the guest. Reviews are most valuable when they are original and unbiased. Your contribution should be yours. Booking.com property partners should not post on behalf of guests or offer incentives in exchange for reviews. Attempts to bring down the rating of a competitor by submitting a negative review will not be tolerated. Respect the privacy of others. Booking.com will make an effort to obscure email addresses, telephone numbers, website addresses, social media accounts, and similar details. The opinions expressed in contributions are those of Booking.com customers and properties and not of Booking.com. Booking.com does not accept responsibility or liability for any reviews or responses. Booking.com is a distributor (without any obligation to verify) and not a publisher of these comments and responses. By default, reviews are sorted based on the date of the review and on additional criteria to display the most relevant reviews, including but not limited to: your language, reviews with text, and non-anonymous reviews. Additional sorting options may be available (by type of traveller, by score, etc.). Translations disclaimer This service may contain translations powered by Google. Google disclaims all warranties related to the translations, express or implied, including any warranties of accuracy, reliability, and any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Less than 1 mile from the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, this Kansas City hotel offers spacious rooms with free WiFi and flat-screen TVs. A seasonal outdoor pool is featured on-site. Sonesta Select Kansas City Airport is situated off I-29, just 3 miles from Kansas City Airport. It features an indoor swimming pool and fitness suite. Free airport transfers are available. Minutes from Kansas City International Airport and a short drive from the downtown area, this hotel provides exceptional on-site facilities along with first-class services, including free 24-hour... AC Hotel by Marriott Kansas City Westport is located 3.2 km from National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial. Free WiFi access is available and rooms come equipped with a flat-screen cable TV. Situated next to Country Club Plaza, this Missouri hotel features a restaurant, outdoor pool and 24-hour gym. It offers in-room safety deposit boxes and cable TV with pay-per-view movies. Sonesta Select Kansas City South Overland Park is located 4 miles from the Overland Park Convention Center and 8 miles from Overland Park city centre. This hotel features an indoor pool and free... Located in Kansas City, 700 metres from Kansas City Convention Center and 800 metres from Sprint Center, Luxe DT 2BR with City View by Zencity offers free WiFi, a fitness centre and air conditioning. Connected to the KC Convention Center via enclosed walkway, Kansas City Marriott Downtown offers rooms with a flat-screen TV. The indoor rooftop pool boasts expansive views of the city. This Marriott overlooks Country Club Plaza, Kansas Citys entertainment and shopping district. It offers a full-service restaurant and rooms that feature modern decor with 49-inch LCD TVs. Next to the Bartle Hall Convention Center in the Power & Light Entertainment District in central Kansas City, Missouri, this hotel offers guestrooms with free high-speed internet access. Featuring 3-star accommodation, Holiday Inn - Kansas City - Northeast, an IHG Hotel is set in Kansas City, 16 km from Kauffman Stadium and 17 km from Union Station Kansas City. Located in Kansas City, within 6.1 km of Kauffman Stadium and 16 km of National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial, Charmer-King Bd/Soaker Tub/Air Hockey on Quiet St! Attractively located in the Midtown - Westport district of Kansas City, Quality Inn & Suites Kansas City Downtown is situated 2.1 km from National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial, 2.8 km from... Located in the heart of the Country Club Plaza Shopping District and less than 6 miles from central Kansas City, The Fontaine offers guest rooms with free Wi-Fi and 40-inch flat-screen TVs. This hotel is only 3 miles from Kansas City International Airport. The hotel offers a daily hot breakfast with waffles and biscuits and a seasonal outdoor swimming pool. Situated within 14 km of Kauffman Stadium and 18 km of National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial, Hampton Inn Kansas City Southeast, Mo features rooms with air conditioning and a private... Located on Country Club Plaza and 10 minutes drive from the centre of Kansas City, Missouri, this hotel features both indoor and outdoor pools. Free Wi-Fi is available in all areas. Located across the street from Kauffman and Arrowhead Stadiums, Best Western Premier Kansas City Sports Complex Hotel features an on-site restaurant. Free Wi-Fi access is available. Located within 26 km of Kansas City Convention Center and 27 km of Sprint Center, Best Western Plus Kansas City Airport - KCI East features rooms in Kansas City. Holiday Inn - Kansas City - Downtown, an IHG Hotel is located in Kansas City, within 3.7 km of Union Station Kansas City and 4.6 km of National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial. This Kansas City Hampton Inn offers rooms with free Wi-Fi and cable TV, just steps away from the shops and restaurants of the historic Country Club Plaza. Facilities include an indoor pool. Commission paid and other benefits may affect an accommodation's ranking. Find out more. This is a Preferred Partner property. It is committed to providing guests with a positive experience thanks to its commendable service and good value. This property may pay Booking.com a bit more to be in this Programme. HYDERABAD (PTI): Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar will attend the commissioning ceremony of three women officers as the fighter pilots for the first time in the IAF history on June 18 at Air Force Academy in Dundigal near Hyderabad. On the occasion, Parrikar will review the Passing out Parade and confer the 'President's Commission' to 129 graduating trainees of various branches, including 22 women trainees. The graduation parade, which will be held as part of successful completion of the pre-commissioning training by the flight cadets of various branches of Indian Air Force will be a landmark event in the history of IAF, as the first three women pilots will be commissioned in the fighter stream of the flying branch, a defence release stated. The women to be inducted as fighter pilots are Bhavana Kant, Mohana Singh and Avani Chaturvedi. They will go to Bidar in Karnataka for their stage-III training for a year on Hawk advanced jet trainers, before they get to fly supersonic warplanes. Six female cadets were competing to become fighter pilots after the government, in a landmark move, approved an IAF plan in October to induct them as fighter pilots. However, only three female trainees were selected for the fighter stream. Parrikar will also present the 'wings and brevets' to the newly-commissioned officers of the flying branch and to the officers from sister services i.e. Navy and Coast Guard who have successfully undergone the flying training. The reviewing officer will present the President's Plaque and the Sword of Honour to the flight cadet standing first in the order of merit in 'flying branch' who will have the privilege of commanding the parade, stated the release. The reviewing officer will also award the President's Plaque to the toppers (first in overall merit) in the navigation and ground duty branches of the graduating course. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A local artist got a warm welcome when he travelled halfway across the world with his Prairie-centric paintings earlier this spring. Art Oscar recently returned from Mol, Belgium, where his 40-piece show Prairie Variations was on display in a local gallery for five weeks. Oscar and his wife have friends in Mol and have made the international trip numerous times. Recently, those friends pitched the artists work to curators at the Kristallijn gallery, and extended the invitation to put on a show. Colin Corneau/The Brandon Sun Landscape artist Art Oscar recently had a show in Belgium, where he received rave reviews and a visit from Canadian ambassador Denis Robert. I thought, Sure why not, Oscar said. However, the process of getting his artwork most of which are large pieces across the Pacific Ocean was slightly less straightforward. It horrendous, Oscar said. There was nobody you could phone up and ask what you had to do. Everybody had a different idea. When the paintings were finally en route to Mol, the shipment had to be rerouted when terrorists attacked the Brussels airport at the end of March. At the time we were going to send them the terrorists hit Brussels airport, Oscar said. (The paintings) were supposed to be there in three days it took 10 days. We were cutting it pretty fine. When the art finally made it to the gallery walls, the reception was better than most of Oscars local shows. We had 196 people at the opening. I was really happy with the turnout, he said, adding that the Canadian ambassador to Belgium, Denis Robert, also stopped by the show. Oscar attributes the high turnout to cultural differences. In Europe, theres art all around, Oscar said. When we were down in (France), there was kids running around the whole town with teachers, experiencing Van Gogh from kindergarten we dont have that, so theyre more tuned up to the arts. Before retiring, Oscar spent 16 years developing the local high school art program offered by the Brandon School Division, and art education remains one of his passions. He has shown his paintings, sculptures and ceramics at numerous local shows and just completed an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba before heading to Belgium. Its been a busy year, he said. Many of Oscars impressionist-style paintings feature buildings and places from around rural Westman. I have an idea of what I want to do, but its really open ended and very rarely maybe even close to never do I end up with what I originally thought because I bounce off the material, Oscar said, adding that he plays with the subject matter until he gets something visually striking. Although I like working from nature, it doesnt always provide perfect composition and you just have to take what you can and make it your own. ewasney@brandonsun.com Twitter: @evawasney Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. TORONTO Premier Kathleen Wynne promoted seven backbenchers to an expanded 30-seat Ontario cabinet table Monday while demoting the minister responsible for the autism file that created a public relations nightmare for her Liberal government. Tracy MacCharles, who bore the brunt of parental anger over changes to autism therapy programs, lost her job as minister of children and youth services to be minister without portfolio responsible for womens issues and accessibility. Glenn Thibeault, the former New Democrat MP lured by Wynne to run as a provincial Liberal in a 2015 byelection in Sudbury, was rewarded for crossing party lines with the biggest promotion of the day to become Ontarios energy minister. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne (centre left) and Ontario Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell (centre right) pose for a photo with the new cabinet after it was announced formally announced at Queen's Park in Toronto on Monday, June 13, 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Power Mitzie Hunter, who had been overseeing the new pension plan, is the new education minister, replacing Liz Sandals, who becomes president of the Treasury Board. Sandals came under fire for spending millions to cover some teachers unions negotiation costs, but ultimately reached central deals with them under a new bargaining framework, so her promotion to the office controlling the provinces purse strings is seen as a reward. Yasir Naqvi was promoted to attorney general from Community Safety and Corrections, leaving that ministry in the midst of a major sector transformation. David Orazietti takes over that fraught file as the government also implements new carding regulations for police and is under pressure to ban or severely curb jail segregation. Aside from Thibeault, other new faces in cabinet are: Eleanor McMahon in Tourism, Culture and Sport; Kathryn McGarry in Natural Resources and Forestry; Marie-France Lalonde in Consumer Services; Laura Albanese in Citizenship and Immigration; Chris Ballard in Housing; and Indira Naidoo-Harris as associate minister of finance responsible for the Ontario pension plan. The cabinet shakeup comes with just two years until the next election in June 2018, as the Liberals shift from planning to implementing their $8.3 billion climate change action plan, a cap-and-trade scheme for polluters and a new Ontario pension plan. The plan is in place, and now, at the mid-point of our mandate, our focus is on implementing our plan so that we can continue to deliver on our top priority creating jobs and growth, Wynne said at the swearing-in ceremony. Michael Chan lost the Citizenship and Immigration portfolio but retained International Trade, Reza Moridi lost the post-secondary education file but kept Research, Innovation and Science, while Dipika Damerla was moved from associate minister of health to minister responsible for seniors affairs. But the main demotion is that of MacCharles amid defunding of an intensive therapy for autistic kids over four. Kristen Ellison, one of the parents who has spearheaded the protest movement, said she is unsure about Michael Coteau as MacCharles replacement, but hopes he brings change. Everybody deserves a chance and a bit of benefit of the doubt, so I will give him that, but Im really hoping this will be their chance to really make it right, Ellison said. It would have been very hard for Tracy MacCharles to stand up and say, Were doing a reversal, or Were changing our plan, after they sold it for so long. Forty per cent of the cabinet is now women. Wynne said its difficult trying to balance skill sets, geographic considerations as well as gender politics when forming a new executive council. Putting a cabinet together is one of the most personally difficult tasks required of a premier, and I can tell you as I name my third cabinet it does not get easier, she said. Health Minister Eric Hoskins, Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Environment Minister Glen Murray kept their portfolios, while Bob Chiarelli moved from Energy to Infrastructure, which became a stand-alone ministry. Chiarelli advised his successor in Energy to remember that electricity generation is a complicated business. I think the biggest advice is to look at the system and realize that its like a Rubiks cube: you make a decision in one aspect of the energy sector, and it impacts everything else, Chiarelli said. I hope hes good at puzzles. Deputy Premier Deb Matthews takes on the post-secondary file, rebranded Advanced Education and Skills Development. Four cabinet veterans resigned last week to make way for the new blood, including Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur. Follow @CPnewsboy on Twitter Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. As is tradition, the 61st annual Travellers Day Parade went off without a hitch or a drop of rain on Saturday morning. Its come close but the weathers always held out for us, event organizer Norm Joss said just before the floats, cars and bands hit the street. This year, 55 floats Colin Corneau/Brandon Sun Brandon Wheat Kings players (from left) Duncan Campbell, Tanner Kaspick and James Shearer ride with the Ed Chynoweth Cup during the 61st annual Travellers Day Parade on Saturday. The parade featured 55 floats and many more vehicles. and many more individual vehicles paraded from Rosser Avenue to Queens Avenue while spectators of all ages waved them along. The event was started in 1955 by two local service clubs and runs annually in conjunction with the Manitoba Summer Fair. Joss has been volunteering with the parade since the 1980s, but also has fond memories of attending the event as a child. I was at the second parade, sitting on the corner at 13th Street getting hotcakes coming off the float it was an annual family outing, he said. Colin Corneau/The Brandon Sun Young clowns, including Faith Adetudinu (second from right), prepare to hand out candy at the start of the parade. His favourite part of parade day is seeing the young clowns taking part. Im a former teacher and this is the 16th year the clowns have come from J.R. Reid School, where I used to teach, he said. On Saturday, one such clown was looking forward to her role in the parade. Just seeing the little children and handing out candy to them, Grade 8 J.R. Reid School student Faith Adetudinu said while holding a big bucket of lollipops. This years floats represented a wide swath of local charities, businesses, clubs and cultural groups. Ahead of the parade, the Brandon Shriners Car Patrol was putting the final touches on its tiny car routine. Colin Corneau/Brandon Sun Perennial fair favorite Doodles the Clown greets Brandonites during the 61st annual Travellers Day Parade along Rosser Avenue Saturday morning. Its amazing when we go through and all of a sudden you hear the kids yelling, There come the cars, Car Patrol Capt. Bob Dennis said, adding that the small white cars are easy to drive. The hard part is getting out. Richard Barrett and his neighbour Gerry Fontaine got up early on Saturday to get a good spot at the beginning of the parade route on Rosser Avenue. I always come early Its a nice parade, theres different floats, the musics a little bit different, Barrett said. The people on the floats are really friendly and its just a good community effort, Fontaine added. Ive been in Brandon for 30 years, and I dont think theres too many (parades) that Ive missed. Colin Corneau/Brandon Sun Bob and Angela Pappas watch the 61st annual parade from their storefront window. ewasney@brandonsun.com Twitter: @evawasney Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. HAMILTON The fate of two men accused of killing Tim Bosma and burning his body in an animal incinerator three years ago is now in the hands of a Hamilton jury, which will continue deliberations on Tuesday. Justice Andrew Goodman concluded his instructions to the 12-member jury Monday in the first-degree murder trial of Dellen Millard and Mark Smich. The trial began more than four months ago and heard from more than 90 witnesses as the Crown presented a mountain of evidence. Dellen Millard (left) and Mark Smich appear in court in front of Justice Andrew Goodman in Hamilton, Ont. on Monday, Jan. 18, 2016. A jury in Hamilton begins contemplating the fate this week of two men accused of killing Tim Bosma and torching his body in an animal incinerator dubbed "The Eliminator." THE CANADIAN PRESS/Alexandra Newbould Bosma, 32, disappeared on May 6, 2013 after taking two men for a test drive of a truck he had listed for sale online. His remains were found days later burned beyond recognition. Millard, 30, of Toronto, and Smich, 28, of Oakville, Ont., have both pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges in Bosmas death. The Crown alleges Millard and Smich planned for more than a year to steal a truck, kill its owner and incinerate their body. Smich testified that Millard shot, killed and burned Bosma. Millard did not testify, but his lawyer told court that Smich accidentally shot Bosma on a nearby highway in an attempt to steal his truck. But the judge told the jury to disregard Millards version of events because it was not supported by evidence presented in the case. There is no foundation whatsoever that the location of the shooting was on Highway 403 and that the shooting of Bosma was accidental, Goodman said. The judge earlier explained that both can be found guilty of murder regardless of who shot and killed Bosma if the non-shooter helped or encouraged the act. We do not have any reliable evidence at time of death or the actual position of the shooter or the deceased, Goodman said. The judge also said that the jury must decide on each of the accuseds fate separately and that either accused may have acted alone. The jury can return a verdict of not guilty, guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of second-degree murder or guilty of manslaughter. Follow @liamdevlincasey on Twitter Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. VANCOUVER The University of British Columbias new president is promising greater transparency while listening to students and faculty, as he joins the institution at a tumultuous time in its history. Santa Ono, 53, who was born in Vancouver and has served as president of the University of Cincinnati since 2012, will take the reins amid ongoing criticisms of UBCs governance and its handling of campus sexual assaults. The renowned biomedical researcher told an enthusiastic crowd inside the universitys law school that leading UBC is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he could not pass up. Dr. Santa Ono poses for a portrait following an event at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, B.C., Friday, June, 13, 2016. Dr. Ono was named the university's 15th President and Vice Chancellor.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward I view myself as a servant leader, he said. I see my job as working on behalf of the entire UBC community. I am working to serve you, not vice versa. The university has been gripped by a governance crisis since last August, when former president Arvind Gupta abruptly resigned. In the months that followed, the board chairman stepped down amid an academic freedom controversy and the faculty association passed a resolution declaring it had lost confidence in the board. Ono, the son of a Japanese-born professor who taught math at UBC in the 1960s, said he wasnt scared off by the events of the past 10 months. In fact, it made me even more interested in coming here to contribute to this university that is so dear to my family, and doing everything in my power to help the institution become even more outstanding, he said. He told reporters he met with the board of governors and new chairman Stuart Belkin and he felt confident that work to improve transparency and accountability had already begun. The university has also faced accusations that it delayed taking action on multiple sexual assault allegations against a PhD student. Ono said he had handled similar problems in Cincinnati. Im very experienced in dealing with these sorts of issues, he said. We can move forward. Faculty association president Mark Mac Lean said Onos opening remarks showed he is well aware that addressing UBCs governance matters will be critical to regaining the confidence of professors. He has given strong signals that he desires to be a president that engages well with the faculty and that he sees himself as a member of the faculty, Mac Lean said in an email. Belkin praised Onos extraordinary life and accomplishments and said the board unanimously appointed him to a five-year term. Ono will earn $470,000 annually. Its a pay cut from his salary of US$525,000 at the University of Cincinnati, where in recent years he donated his bonuses to charity. He holds a biology degree from the University of Chicago and an experimental medicine PhD from McGill University. His research has focused on the immune system and eye disease, and he has held prestigious positions at Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Ono drew praise last month when he spoke frankly about his experiences with depression, reminding students that mental illness can be treated. He revealed that he first tried to kill himself at 14 and his second attempt came in his mid-20s. He is married to Chinese-Canadian lawyer Wendy Yip and the couple have two daughters, ages 11 and 18. His unusual first name is a shortened version of Santaro, a samurai from Japanese folklore. He lived in an apartment on UBCs campus for the first few years of his life, and he said he expects his parents to make an emotional visit to his new home, the 6,400-square foot Norman Mackenzie House. Thank you for making it possible for this Vancouver boy to return home, he told the crowd. You have honoured me greatly by giving me the chance to serve you. Follow @ellekane on Twitter. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 13/06/2016 (2326 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. As Canadas finance ministers prepare to meet in Vancouver, what seemed like long-dead anti-CPP arguments are starting to rear their heads. Whether its you, your parents or your grandparents, chances are you know someone who is struggling in retirement. But groups such as the Fraser Institute are trying to downplay the issue of seniors poverty. Turns out the Fraser Institute uses the outdated measure of low income cut-off (LICO), which has not been re-based by Statistics Canada in 24 years. LICO measures compare the incomes of seniors to levels deemed acceptable in the early 1990s, and not to the incomes of other Canadians today. Using Statistics Canadas internationally recognized Low Income Measure, we find that one in nine Canadian seniors is low-income, based on our most recent (2013) data. The trend is clear: more Canadian seniors are living in poverty it has nearly tripled since 1995. In addition, one in every three Canadian retirees counts on the Guaranteed Income Supplement a last-ditch benefit for seniors without adequate retirement incomes to keep them afloat. Statistician Richard Shillington recently analyzed Canadian seniors income and retirement savings. He found that only a small minority (less than 20 per cent of middle-income Canadians retiring without an employer pension) have saved anywhere near enough for retirement. The CPP, as it stands, is not enough to bridge the gap. Its hard to imagine working your entire life and being asked to get by on the average monthly CPP benefit of only $550. Historically, CPP benefits were set low on the assumption that most Canadians would have another pension plan through work. But looking at the retirees of tomorrow, only two in five Canadian employees (and only one in four private-sector employees) have a pension at work. Even for those who do, workplace pension coverage has been declining for years and the plans that still exist are under constant threat. As a result, millions of Canadians are on track to retire with more debt and low or significantly lower incomes. Along with affected seniors, businesses and local economies will suffer the consequences. Universal expansion of the CPP is the best way for our country to turn things around and avoid a serious retirement-savings crisis. According to Shillington: There should be no debating the fact that the CPP delivers a defined benefit and indexed pension at a reasonable cost a cost that few individuals could ever match by investing on their own, or through anything but the largest employer pension plans. The CPP is already cost-effective, sustainable and universal. It follows workers from job to job across the country, something thats increasingly important for younger generations. It just needs to be better. Thats why we are calling on our provincial and federal governments to work together to make that happen. Hassan Yussuff is the president of the Canadian Labour Congress, which represents 3.3 million workers in Canada. His column recently appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press. Former Tesco boss Terry Leahy has urged the British people to vote to stay in the European Union, reiterating his warning that food prices will rise as a result of Brexit. With just 10 days to go until the crunch vote, he said that the UK faces the prospect of a "major recession", higher tariffs and capital flight should Britons opt for exit. As planes packed with Irish fans head to France, one Ryanair flight had a special guest, writes Claire Anderson. Ruby Walsh was spotted by other passengers and they proceeded to burst into song. He looks a tiny bit mortified, but Walsh and the other passengers were certainly feeling Irish pride on what looked like a great flight. Walsh went to France to ride Un De Sceaux in the French Champion Hurdle in Auteuil and claimed victory with Footpad in the Grade One Prix Alain du Breil. He will surely be supporting the boys in green as well. We hope he didn't think he'd go unnoticed! We're sure the journey continued with the Kaiser Chiefs' Ruby and maybe some of Christy Moore's The Ballad of Ruby Walsh. A guest on Sky News last night stormed off after a heated debate over the motives of the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen who shot and killed 50 people and injured 53 in the LGBT nightclub attack in the early hours of Sunday morning. Guardian journalist Owen Jones, who is also gay, joined presenters Mark Longhurst and Julia Hartley-Brewer on the newspaper review segment last night to discuss the devastating shooting in Orlando which President Obama described as "act of terror and an act of hate". Speaking to the US press, Mateens father claimed that his son, an American citizen, became enraged at the sight of two men kissing in Miami, and that this may have played a role in his targeting of the popular LGBT club, Pulse. Longhurst and Hartley-Brewer played down that link, saying that it wasn't certain the clubgoers were targeted because of their sexuality, drawing comparisons between Pulse and the Bataclan venue which was attacked in Paris in 2015. Jones argued that it was clear that Mateen was a homophobic terrorist": People rationalise their hatred. This guy, apparently, according to his dad, saw two men kissing and he was repulsed by it. And people know this who are gay, that there are people out there who are sickened and repulsed by our very existence and this guy, however he dresses up his bigotry and hatred, is somebody who hates gays. Comparing the attack to the Bataclan, Longhurst said that they were just "human beings who were trying to enjoy themselves, whatever their sexuality." Tensions rose when Jones disagreed, saying Im sorry, but you dont understand this because youre not gay. Visibly upset, Jones said, Im sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing Ive ever been involved in on television. If he walked into a synagogue and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldnt be saying what youre saying now. "You would be talking about it as an anti-Semitic attack. This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people. He then decided to walk off, saying Ive had enough of this, Im going home, There has been widespread support for Jones' stance on Twitter. Amazed @OwenJones84 lasted 7 minutes before walking off @SkyNews. Astonishing that presenter downplayed homophobia https://t.co/Eo6qvOSzBE Matt Wells (@MatthewWells) June 13, 2016 No idea why people seem confused about why @OwenJones84 walked out of this. https://t.co/1afdgWduZE Alan White (@aljwhite) June 13, 2016 And Julia Hartley-Brewer tweeted the following. 50 people were murdered simply for being gay. I think we should all be angry about THAT, not about some contrived offence taken on a tv show Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) June 13, 2016 While Jones himself tweeted his thanks but reminded everyone that the focus shouldn't be on him. Stanford University has been no stranger to media attention of late, over 20-year-old Brock Turner who will likely serve only three months for the rape of an unidentified unconscious woman during his freshman year, writes Claire Anderson. Stanford's graduation was marked by protests against Turner at the California school. At the commencement speech, things began to heat up further as Ken Burns took to the podium. Burns, a known historical documentary filmmaker, spoke out against Donald Trump to rapid applause, without even mentioning the candidates name. One viewer seemingly thought Burns' attack on Trump was more thorough than what most other politicians had offered. "After a certain point, I was expecting Hillary to appear from backstage and declare Ken Burns as her running mate." Read a stinging extract of the speech or view an 11 minute clip below. You can also access the full speech HERE. Ken Burns definitely brought the fire. For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and character of candidates who were clearly qualified. That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified. So before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house, to fight against, no matter your political persuasion, the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance; who is against lots of things, but doesnt seem to be for anything, offering only bombastic and contradictory promises, and terrifying Orwellian statements; a person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesnt seem to matter; who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything but himself and his own enrichment; who insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants and all Muslims; a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan; an infantile, bullying man who, depending on his mood, is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties and long-standing relationships. I feel genuine sorrow for the understandably scared andthey feelpowerless people who have flocked to his campaign in the mistaken belief thatas often happens on TVa wand can be waved and every complicated problem can be solved with the simplest of solutions. They cant. It is a political Ponzi scheme. And asking this man to assume the highest office in the land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747. The number of men surviving cancer is said to be on the rise, according to the Irish Cancer Society. New figures released as part of Men's Health Week show that five year survival rates for prostate cancer were at 90.6% from 2008 to 2012. David Mahon has been sentenced to seven years in jail for the manslaughter of his partners son, Dean Fitzpatrick. The Dubliner was found guilty last month of killing the older brother of missing teenager Amy Fitzpatrick. The 45-year-old was cleared of murdering the father of one with whom he did not get along on May 26, 2013. He had pleaded not guilty. The 23-year-old received a stab wound to the abdomen outside the apartment that his mother, Audrey Fitzpatrick, shared with Mahon at Burnell Square, Northern Cross. Mr Justice Heneghan heard submissions on behalf of the State and Mahon at his sentencing hearing two weeks ago. She also heard victim impact statements prepared by his father, partner and his mother, who is now married to David Mahon. She noted this morning that Mahon had said he accepted the jurys verdict and would not appeal his conviction. She also noted that he had offered a plea to manslaughter and that she was bound by the superior courts to take this into consideration in sentencing. She noted that he had a number of previous convictions, but took into consideration only one conviction for dangerous driving. This was because he had received a suspended four-month prison sentence for that offence and killed Mr Fitzpatrick during the currency of the suspension. The court views this as an aggravating factor, she said. She outlined a number of other aggravating factors, including the inherent gravity of the crime, the fact Mahon had a knife in his possession, the production of the knife and the fact that Mr Fitzpatricks death was caused by the man describing himself as his stepfather. She also took into consideration his disposal of the knife and the circumstances of that disposal. She took into account a number of mitigating factors, including his early plea of guilty to manslaughter, early admissions, cooperation with gardai, expressions of remorse and his apology through his counsel. She said she considered his previous good character and the fact that he had no history of violence. She also considered his medical and personal difficulties as mitigation. She said she also took into account all of the victim impact statements as well as testimonials furnished by three different people on behalf of the accused. I assess the gravely serious offence as meriting 10 years in prison, she said. Taking into account the mitigating factors, I sentence David Mahon to seven years in custody. She backdated the sentence to the date of his conviction, when Mahon went into custody. She said he would also receive credit for the time he spent in custody after being charged and before being granted bail. There was little reaction in court. The judge moved straight onto Mahons application for leave to apply for a notice of motion against three newspapers; among other complaints, he claimed they were in contempt of court for their reporting of his case between conviction and sentencing. My decision in sentencing has not been influenced by any of the material published, she said, refusing the application and awarding costs against Mahon. Mahon was then taken into custody to begin his seven-year term. His wife, Audrey, moved to the back of the court, where she sat and cried silently, being comforted by Mahons father and legal team. Victim Impact Statements from sentence hearing During the sentence hearing two weeks ago, Dean Fitzpatricks father described how his "world came crashing down" after hearing that his son had been "brutally killed" by David Mahon. Christopher Fitzpatricks victim impact statement was one of three read to the court during Mahons sentencing hearing. The Dubliner was found guilty earlier this month of killing his partners son, the older brother of missing teenager Amy Fitzpatrick. Mahon has said he will not appeal his manslaughter verdict. The 45-year-old was cleared of murdering the father of one with whom he did not get along on May 26, 2013. He had pleaded not guilty. The 23-year-old received a stab wound to the abdomen outside the apartment that his mother, Audrey Fitzpatrick, shared with Mahon at Burnell Square, Northern Cross. His sentencing hearing heard that Mahon had been caught for dangerous, drunk and careless driving on New Years Day that year. Hed received a four-month sentence, which had been suspended for a year, and it was during this suspension that he killed Mr Fitzpatrick. Remy Farrell SC, prosecuting, read three victim impact statements to the court. These were prepared by Mr Fitzpatricks father, Christopher Fitzpatrick; his partner and the mother of his son, Sarah ORourke; and his mother, who is now Audrey Mahon, having since married the accused. On the 9th of March, 1990, Dean took his first breath into the world. I was full of joy, happiness and love to have a son so small and precious, wrote Christopher Fitzpatrick in his report. He mentioned his daughter, Amys, disappearance in 2008 while in the care of her mother on the Costa Del Sol, after Audrey took my children on a two-week holiday to Spain in 2004 and didnt return. I thought Amys disappearance was the worst thing that would happen in my life, he said. In 2013, my world came crashing down once again. He wrote about being called to Beaumont Hospital and led to a room to identify his son, Dean. He said that the medics had done all they could but that the single stab wound was so deep that he could not survive. When Dean was brutally killed, I realised I was never going to see Dean see his son grow up, he said. He said that, following his death, he was faced with a High Court case over his funeral and he secured the right to bury his son in his own plot. In the time since Deans death, I've been admitted to hospital because of the stress, he said. He said that it was upsetting that some of the media had portrayed Mahon as Dean and Amys stepdad. It was also upsetting to read about Mahon going on holidays to Spain following the killing. He said he still had a hope that Amy would be found alive. I cannot have the same hope for Dean, he said, adding that all he had now were visits to his resting place. There are no words to describe the pain, anger and despair, he added. Dean was a loving father son, brother, nephew, and cousin, who is sadly missed. Sarah ORourkes was the next statement read out. On the 25th of May, 2013, my life changed forever, she wrote. This was the day Dean was killed. I cannot describe how it felt when two guards came to my home to tell me the most devastating news. My world fell apart. She said she struggled to take it in. It didn't feel real, she explained. Knowing Id never see Dean again was soul destroying, she said. She explained that they had their "ups and downs like most couples but, no matter what, we made our relationship work". She said they were planning their future together. To think Dean wont be here to share all those plans is devastating, she said. She said she had struggled after her partner died. Even now, three years later, I cant fully accept that Dean is gone, she added. Im moving on slowly with my life. I cannot forget Dean. She said she would cherish the memories of the three years they had together. Ms ORourke then moved on to the impact her partner's death had on their son, who was only 18 months old when his father died. He was a little young to understand why his Daddy wasn't here, she said, recalling that he was saying: Dada at that stage. That broke my heart, listening to my son looking for his Dad, she said, adding that he had loved his father so much. I had to tell him that his Daddy was a star in the sky and angels took him. She said that it was only in the last year or so that her son had become aware that he did not have a father like other children. She said that he would start school in September, and that he would not have his father to see him off on that or any other day. He has a right to his Dad, she said. His only two male role models in his life are his grandads. The final statement Mr Farrell read to the court was prepared by Audrey Mahon, who had the position of both mother of the deceased and wife of the accused. She said her husband was forgiven but not forgotten. Since I received the tragic news of my sons death, my life has been like a living nightmare, she wrote. Dean and I shared a special bond like only a mother and son can. She said that despite her sons difficulties, he had a cheeky grin and a heart of gold. Ive lost everything, she wrote. This is not a single tragedy. Its losing both of my children. She said that all of it had affected her physically, mentally and emotionally. Dave, too, has lost everything, she wrote. He did everything in his power to find his beloved stepdaughter, Amy, and he still does and will continue to do so. She said she had an ongoing illness. Dave has been there to literally pick me up off the floor, she said, adding that he had been by her side during blood transfusions and being resuscitated twice. She noted that her son was also there for one of the resuscitations. I would not be here only for Dave, she said. For my part, I cannot disagree with the jurys verdict. David did produce a knife, she said. I have forgiven Dave but not forgotten. He will always be my husband, carer and best friend. The State argued during his trial that Mahon was drunk, angry and agitated when he thrust a knife into his stepson with deadly intent. Mahon claimed his death was an accident or possible suicide and that Mr Fitzpatrick had "walked into the knife" while they had been arguing. Children's Minister Katherine Zappone has described the Orlando murders as an "attack" on both LGBT people and humanity itself, writes Elaine Loughlin. Ms Zappone, a US citizen, has said people must stand up against such a terror attack - which has claimed the lives of more than 50 people - and hoped that it would force the American Government to tighten gun laws. "I am just extremely distressed, I suppose, both as someone who has been an advocate for LGBT issues here but especially now I speak personally as an American citizen. "It's a terrible, terrible day for America," she said. The US flag flies above Cork's City Hall in memory of the Orlando shooting victims. A book of condolence will open in City Hall tomorrow at 9.15am. Speaking at the launch of the 'It's Good to Talk' campaign in conjunction with the LGBT Helpline and Eir, Ms Zappone said people should "stand tall and resist" such attacks which took place at a gay nightclub. She agreed that the LGBT people would feel under attack as a result of the mass murder which has been linked to ISIS. "Yes of course they would feel under attack, I feel it, I think it is something to do with our identity but at the same time we live in a country where we are freer today than we were a year ago." She added: "Obviously LGBT people don't have freedom throughout the world and that's why it's so critical and important that those of us who do and experience equality stand up in solidarity and say 'no' and resist that, and express our horror in relation to what has happened." Irelands three National LGBT Organisations BeLonG To, GLEN and TENI expressed their shock and horror at the shooting. They said: "Speaking on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Ireland, our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to the survivors and friends, families and loved ones of those who died. "The gay club, the beating heart of many LGBT+ peoples social lives, is a sanctuary for LGBT people all over the world. For generations, many LGBT people fleeing rejection, oppression and abuse have found the gay club or bar to be a refuge where they can feel safe, where they can be themselves without worrying about the repercussion they may experience in the home, in school or in the streets. "As well as the unspeakably tragic loss of 50 of our family, that very sanctuary came under attack on Sunday morning. But we are proud. The LGBT+ community is no stranger to violent attacks and we will, as we have had to do before, harness the aftermath, the grieving, the anger, into something positive that has made the next generations lives better." They went on to urge the LGBT community to not be afraid. They said: "Let us remember that LGBT Muslims are equally as terrified of an indiscriminately homophobic killer as anyone else, but are now likely to face increased racism as a result of this attack. One of the most powerful acts of solidarity we witnessed in the wake of the attack came from The Council on American-Islamic Relations in the US, an Islamic civil rights group, urging Muslims in the area to donate blood. "Lets make this tragedy bring our diverse intersectional communities together, not tear it apart. "We know that Irish LGBT people can and do experience verbal and physical attacks because of who they are, or are perceived to be. No right thinking person in Ireland would justify those, and it is now a moment for all of us to commit to ensuring that we wipe out homophobia, transphobia and biphobia from all corners of Ireland. " The groups said they are holding a rainbow vigil at 6.45pm tonight at Barnardos Square, beside City Hall on Dame Street in Dublin for the victims of the shooting. They have urged anyone feeling distressed since the incident to reach out to the National LGBT Helpline on www.lgbt.ie/ or 1890 929 539. Health Minister Simon Harris has said the current laws governing abortions relating to fatal foetal abnormality are unacceptable, writes Daniel McConnell of the Irish Examiner. He said the legal advice the Government has received is that the issue is a constitutional matter, meaning it would need to be resolved by way of a referendum. Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Mr Harris insisted that the issue surrounding a decision whether or not to repeal the Eighth Amendment will be the first item on the agenda for the new citizens assembly. The Wicklow TD denied the citizens assembly was a stalling tactic. The current situation is utterly unacceptable, he said unambiguously. He said: This Government will address the issue. It is not up to me or Enda Kenny, it is for the Irish people. It is not for me to dictate the terms of the citizens assembly. If we jumped straight to a referendum, it could be very polarised. With the citizens assembly there will be an informed position. On Sunday, former Health Minister Leo Varadkar said term limits for abortion should be considered in the event of the eighth amendment to the Constitution being repealed. However Mr Varadkar defended the Governments position that a citizens assembly should first take place before any decision is taken to hold a referendum on whether to repeal the eighth amendment, which guarantees the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn. The Minister agreed that his personal views could be characterised as wanting abortion law in Ireland liberalised, but not by too much. Last week, Taoiseach Enda Kenny told a gathering of political correspondents that there is a need to gauge a consensus for change among Irish people in relation to abortion. This is something that is so traumatic and sensitive and personal for some people and families, he said. It has divided Irish society for a long time. I myself have struggled with this. Its a profound issue. He said: This is really about understanding that change to Constitution requires a measure of understanding. In this case its my view its important to determine what level of consensus there is for change, he said. The Taoiseach Enda Kenny will take part in a panel discussion on the UK's EU Brexit vote in Belfast this afternoon. Mr Kenny will address the event at Ulster University. A vigil is taking place in Dublin city centre this evening to remember the victims of yesterday's mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida. A book of condolence has been opened at Dublin's Mansion House, and a vigil is being held beside City Hall this evening, from 6.45pm. Gunman Omar Mateen, who killed at least 50 people in a gay nightclub in Florida, was mentally unstable and had a history of using steroids, his ex-wife said. The 29-year-old, who wielded an assault-type rifle and a handgun, opened fire inside Pulse, in Orlando, spraying clubbers with bullets in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. He was later killed in a shoot-out with police officers after taking hostages. The police were investigating the attack - which left at least 53 other people in hospital, most of them critically ill, leading to fears the death toll would rise - as an act of terrorism. Mateen made a 911 call from the club in which he professed allegiance to the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a law enforcement official said. The extremist group did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, but the IS-run Aamaq news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the attack was carried out by an IS fighter. Even if the perpetrator supported IS, it was unclear whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateen was known to law enforcement. In 2013, he made inflammatory comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent Ronald Hopper. He said in 2014, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber, but the agent described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Mr Hopper said authorities had "suggestions that individual has leanings towards that". His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters that her former husband was bipolar and "mentally unstable". The couple were together for only four months because he was abusive, she said in remarks televised from Boulder, Colorado, and the two had no contact for the last seven or eight years. Mateen was short-tempered and had a history with steroids, she said. Ms Yusufiy described him as religious but not radical, and said he wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy. "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," she said. Mateen would not let her speak to her family, and relatives had to come and literally pull her out of his arms, she said. Ms Yusufiy said she was "devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying" when she heard about the shooting, and she attributed the violence to his mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups. Mateen, an American citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida, struck at around 2am local time on Sunday, shortly before the club was due to close. His father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. Mateen's family was from Afghanistan, and he was born in New York, with his family later moving to Florida. He had held a firearms licence since at least 2011 and worked as a security guard with G4S. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. President Barack Obama called the shooting an "act of terror" and an "act of hate" targeting a place of "solidarity and empowerment" for gays and lesbians. He urged Americans to decide whether this is the kind of "country we want to be". In a separate incident, an Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested on Sunday in Southern California and told police he wanted to do harm to a gay pride parade. The previous deadliest mass shooting in the US was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself. Update - 1.45pm: The gunman who massacred 49 people at a US nightclub pledged his allegiance to Islamic State as he spoke on the phone to negotiators, police have confirmed. Officers blasted a hole in the wall of the Pulse club in Orlando, Florida, in a desperate effort to save revellers as Omar Mateen held hostages in a toilet at the gay nightclub. John Mina, chief of police at the City of Orlando Police Department, said Mateen barricaded himself in a toilet with around four or five hostages after shooting some of his initial victims and called the police, speaking in a "cool and calm" voice with crisis negotiators. When he spoke about "bomb vests, about explosives" and made threats of an "imminent loss of life", police made the decision to blast through the wall with an armoured vehicle, which Mr Mina said saved "many, many lives". Mr Mina also confirmed that when Mateen was on the phone to officers "there was allegiance to the Islamic State". Some of the victims of the shooting Authorities in Orlando confirmed that 49 people were killed in the shooting in the early hours of Sunday, with 53 others injured. All but one of the victims have been identified and the families of 24 have been informed. Mateen, the 50th person to die, was killed by Swat officers when he opened fire at police after himself crawling out of the hole made to rescue the nightclubbers. Update - 10.55am: Islamic State radio calls Orlando mass killer Omar Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America". Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the IS extremist group, hailed the attack that left 50 people dead, saying it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it is the worst attack on US soil since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Authorities say Omar Mateen opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at a gay nightclub early on Sunday before being killed in a shootout with police. Another 53 people were wounded in the shooting. As yet, IS has not officially claimed responsibility for the Orlando attack. Earlier: Doctors fear the death toll from the deadliest mass shooting in US history will rise, as the identities of the 50 people who were gunned down began to emerge. Seven men and one woman have been named as victims of security guard Omar Mateen, 29, who massacred revellers and at least one employee at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. According to reports the body builder telephoned police and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before he opened fire on the crowds with an assault rifle and handgun. The caliphate has since claimed responsibility for the attacks described by President Barack Obama as an "act of hate". Meanwhile it emerged that the New York-born killer, who worked for security giant G4S, had come under the gaze of counter-terror investigators several times in recent years. More than 300 people were inside the Pulse nightclub at the time of the attack in the early hours of Sunday morning. Suspect identified as Omar Mateen, 29. An American citizen born in New York. @FBI first became aware of him in 2013 pic.twitter.com/gt18lhTM4G Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) June 12, 2016 The killer, who also held hostages in a three-hour stand-off, died in a gunfight with Swat officers after they stormed the building. He had mortally wounded at least 50 victims and injured dozens more. Officials said 39 people died in the venue and 11 at hospitals in the city where 53 people remain, most in a critical condition. Orlando Mayor, Buddy Dyer, described the scene saying there was "blood everywhere". The majority of the patients were taken to the Orlando Regional Medical Centre. Trauma surgeon Dr Mike Cheatham warned: "I think we will see the death toll rise." Edward Sotomayor Jr, 34, Stanley Almodovar III, 23, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, and Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, were among the first victims to be named. Peter O Gonzalez-Cruz, 22, and Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera 36, and Luis S Vielma, 22, were later added to the grim list along with Kimberly Morris, a 37-year-old who reportedly worked as a bouncer at the club. Friend Lo Anthony wrote on Facebook that she "always had a smile on her face" and was "loved and adored by all". Mr Obama earlier called the killings at the LGBT club as an "act of terror" and an "act of hate", describing Mateen as being "filled with hatred". However the massacre served as a reminder of how easy it is for someone to access a weapon like a gun, allowing them to go on and shoot other people. "We have to decide if that is the type of country we want to be. To actively to do nothing is a decision as well," the president said. Mateen was known to the FBI after making inflammatory comments made to co-workers about extremism in 2013. He was questioned twice and investigated again in 2014 over potential links to an American suicide bomber, but the probe was dropped after he was deemed to be low-risk. However he was not under surveillance and the FBI said he had legally purchased two firearms within the last week. The 911 calls involving the shooter from Port St Lucie, Florida that featured conversations about the Islamic State before the massacre have been handed to investigators. Mateen is believed to have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during the call. The Islamic State's Amaq news agency is understood to have issued a statement saying the massacre was "carried out by an IS fighter". However US officials said it was possible that he was self-radicalised but not "under the command and control of ISIS." An ex-wife described Mateen, reportedly a regular at an Islamic centre in the city, as a violent body builder who had a history of abusing steroids. Meanwhile his father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC news that his son had recently been angered after seeing two men kissing while out with his young son and denied the killings had a religious motive. On Sunday evening vigils were held in Orlando and a group of around 100 people gathered in Paris in a show of solidarity. British comedian James Corden, who hosted the Tony Awards in New York on Sunday evening, paid tribute to the victims and their loved ones saying "your tragedy is our tragedy". British Prime Minister David Cameron earlier said he was "horrified" by the shooting, while Afghanistan's president, Ashraf Ghani said "targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever". French president Francois Hollande said he "expresses the full support of France and the French with America's authorities and its people in this difficult time". And Buckingham Palace said a personal message had been sent to President Obama, saying the Queen and Prince Philip were "shocked by the events in Orlando. "Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been affected." Mr Obama ordered flags at the White House and federal buildings to be flown at half-mast as a mark of respect for the victims. The Empire State Building in New York was left in darkness as a mark of sympathy on Sunday evening. In the wake of the slaughter, a heavily-armed Indiana man was arrested on his way to a southern California gay pride parade. Police stopped James Wesley Howell, 20, and discovered an arsenal of weapons in his vehicle including three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device. Traffic in a British city centre has been brought to a standstill by a man who climbed a lamppost and refused to come down. The young man scaled the post outside The Queens hotel and main railway station in Leeds at 9.10am on Monday morning, police said. He stood on a light fitting in City Square about 20ft (6m) above the busy loop road - the three-lane road which carries all traffic around the city centre. Police, paramedics and fire crews were called to the scene and the loop road was completely closed, causing tailbacks between the city centre and the M621 motorway. Crowds of people stood watching the man, who occasionally shouted to the people below. Inspector Richard Clarke, of West Yorkshire Police, said: "The safety of the man involved is our priority and we will be continuing to do everything we can to ensure his safe removal. "This incident is on a main route through the city centre and is clearly causing significant disruption to traffic. We would advise people to plan their journeys accordingly. "Specially-trained officers are speaking to the man and we hope to bring this incident to a safe conclusion as soon as possible." Meanwhile, in Leicestershire, the southbound M1 has been closed for 24 hours due to a man on a gantry over the motorway. Leicestershire Police said they had closed the road between junctions 23 and 22 in the parish of Copt Oak after the man scaled the information board gantry on Sunday lunchtime. Chief Superintendent David Sandall said: "We are working hard to resolve the situation but to ensure the safety of the man and the public it is necessary to keep the motorway closed. "We have trained police officers communicating with the man in order to reach a safe conclusion but this may take some time. We will continue to keep the public updated and will of course reopen the road as soon as possible." The gunman in the Orlando nightclub attack that killed 49 people had "strong indications of radicalisation" and was likely inspired by foreign terrorist organisations, the head of the FBI has said. Director James Comey told reporters that Omar Mateen spoke with a 911 operator three times early on Sunday morning. Mateen also pledged loyalty to the head of the Islamic State group on his last call, Mr Comey added. The FBI investigated Mateen for 10 months beginning in May 2013. Mr Comey said investigators later introduced him to confidential sources, followed him and reviewed details of some of his communications. The early Sunday attack marked the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. Mateen died in a gun battle with police. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama said there was no clear evidence that Mateen was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot. He said it appears Mateen was inspired by extremist information disseminated over the internet. President Obama said the investigation is at the preliminary stages and is being treated as a terrorism investigation. He said the attack appears to be similar to last year's shooting spree in San Bernardino, California. The added investigators were still looking into the motivations of the shooter, including the fact that the shooting took place at a gay venue. President Obama spoke in the Oval Office after being briefed on the investigation by FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other officials. Omar Mateen was a bodybuilder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and wanted to become a police officer. But early on Sunday, the 29-year-old opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in an attack that left 50 people dead and 53 others wounded, police said. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear. A former Afghan official said the programme was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. Mateen attended evening prayer services at the city's Islamic Centre three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Mr Rahman added. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. "When he finished prayer he would just leave," Mr Rahman told the Associated Press. "He would not socialise with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful." He was also bipolar, Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters in Boulder, Colorado. Sitora Yusufiy. "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," she said. Although records show the couple did not divorce for two years after the marriage, Ms Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that relatives had to come and literally pull her out of his arms. Authorities immediately began investigating whether Sunday's attack was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Ms Yusufiy said she was "devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying" when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to Mateen's mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups. Imam Rahman agreed. "My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with Isis," he said. The gunman's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, is a life insurance salesman who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga Inc, according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. "It's shocking," he said of the shooting. "(Omar Mateen's) father loves this country." Some of Seddique Mir Mateen's shows were taped and later posted on YouTube. During one episode, a sign in the background read: "Long live the USA! Long live Afghanistan ... Afghans are the best friends to the USA." But a former Afghan official said the Durand Jirga Show appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel which supports ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun. Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nation's minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said. The Durand Jirga Show expresses support for the Taliban, has an anti-Pakistan slant, complains about foreigners in Afghanistan and criticises US actions there, the official said. Seddique Mir Mateen lavished praise on current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he appeared on the show in January 2014, but he has since denounced the Ghani government, according to the official, who said that, on Saturday, the presenter appeared on the show dressed in military fatigues and used his programme to criticise the current Afghan government. He also announced on that show that he would run in the next Afghan presidential election, said the official. In 2013, Omar Mateen made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and he was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Mr Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Mateen had no criminal record. Ms Yusufiy said he wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Mateen was a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as "the leading global integrated security company". Imam Rahman said he had known Mateen and his family since the gunman was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, he said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and was into bodybuilding. He was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence. "It was totally unexpected," Mr Rahman said. Oscar Pistorius will be back in court today to be sentenced for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steeenkamp. It is expected the South African athlete will be given more jail time, after his original manslaughter conviction was upgraded to murder by the Supreme Court last December. A senior French police officer and his partner have been killed in a night-time attack by a knife-wielding man in a suburb of Paris, officials said. The attacker was also killed in the incident while a young boy was rescued from the scene. The police commander was stabbed to death outside his home in Magnanville, about 35 miles west of Paris, the interior minister's spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters at the scene. The attacker then retreated indoors before elite police commandos stormed the residence. The woman and the attacker were found dead, and a young boy was found unharmed. "The toll is a heavy one," Mr Brandet told reporters, his voice shaking with emotion. "This commander, this police officer, was killed by the individual ... (and) we discovered the body of a woman. The assailant, the criminal, was killed. Thankfully, a little boy was saved. He was in the house. He's safe and sound. He was saved by police officers." The identity and the motive of the assailant were not immediately clear. France, like other countries in Europe, has seen a wave of jihadist violence - often stabbings - aimed at police officers and soldiers. Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement that the man who was killed was a police commander and that his wife worked for the Interior Ministry. Mr Cazeneuve's statement said an investigation was under way. At least 50 people were shot dead when a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday. Here are the names of some of those who were killed. :: Luis S Vielma, 22, worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal Studios, according to author JK Rowling, who said she could not "stop crying" after hearing the news. Friends told the Orlando Sentinel that Mr Vielma was a "true friend", and he had hoped to become an emergency medical technician. One, Olga Glomba, described him as "a funny, sweet, nerdy guy without a mean side. He just wanted to make people smile." :: Edward Sotomayor Jr, 34, was a brand manager at a gay travel company. He lived in Sarasota, Florida, and was described by his cousin as a caring and energetic man who often travelled to promote his company's events. David Sotomayor told the Associated Press: "He was just always part of the fun." Several hundred supporters, led by Laura Kanter, at right, marched to Sasscer Park in Santa Ana, California, after a vigil at Calle Cuatro Plaza in support of the Orlando shooting victims. Pic: AP :: Pharmacy technician Stanley Almodovar III, 23, from Clermont, posted a Snapchat video of himself singing and dancing in the nightclub moments before he was killed. His mother, Rosalie Ramos, told the Orlando Sentinel she wished she had the video to "remember him forever". :: Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, described himself as a dancer on his Facebook account. Following the terrorist attack at the Bataclan theatre in Paris last year, he showed solidarity with the victims by adding a tricolour filter to his profile photo. A former teacher described him as a "ray of sunshine", the Daily Beast reported. :: Telemarketer Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, had recently started college at the University of Central Florida. His cousin, Robert Guerrero, said he was an "amazing person" who was more likely to stay at home to care for his nieces and nephews than go out partying. :: After moving to Florida from Puerto Rico for the chance of a better life, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, a merchandise manager, was said to have "sacrificed himself a lot for his family", the Orlando Sentinel reported. Abismel Colon Gomez, a former roommate of Mr Ortiz-Rivera, told the newspaper: "Eric was always willing to help everybody. He loved his brother, and he was always being generous." :: Peter O Gonzalez-Cruz, 22, worked for logistics company UPS in Orlando after graduating from Colonia High School. Originally from South Africa, Mr Gonzalez-Cruz's cousins paid tribute to him on social media. One wrote: "Rest in peace to my wonderful cousin," and another posted: "May you rest easy in Heaven." :: Kimberly Morris, 37, worked as a bouncer at the Pulse nightclub. Originally from Connecticut, friends told NBC she had only moved to Orlando a few months ago. She had also lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she worked as a drag king and bouncer at the gay club Divas. :: Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30, an accountant who lived in Orlando, texted his mother Mina Justice to say he loved her and asking her to call for help as gunman Omar Mateen opened fire at the club. Trapped in a toilet, he desperately texted his mother and begged her to call the police, saying: "Hurry. He's in the bathroom with us ... He's a terror." :: Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25, graduated from university in Puerto Rico before moving to Orlando. His family were said to have gone out searching for him after he failed to return home, local radio station Rumba said. From left, Jeremy Dubach, Gigi Greaves and Joe Greaves pray for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where the mass shooting took place the night before in Orlando. Pic: AP :: Amanda Alvear posted a video of her night out at Pulse to Snapchat. Clips initially show her having fun with friends, but later on the sound of gunfire rings out loudly. Ashley Velez, sister of the 25-year-old Puerto Rican, said: "I love you baby girl. You were and will always be my baby sister. I'm so heartbroken ... You could make anyone's day with the smile of yours." :: Mercedez Marisol Flores was at Pulse with her best friend Amanda Alvear, who also died. The 26-year-old worked at the retailer Target and lived in the Florida city of Davenport. Josean Garcia said: "She was the one I fought with the most ... but somehow we understood each other. We did everything together." Republican Donald Trump is to further address the deadliest shooting in modern US history in a campaign speech which was originally intended to attack presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The change of plan comes a day after Mr Trump called for Mrs Clinton to drop out of the race for president if she did not use the words "radical Islam" to describe the Florida nightclub massacre. Mr Trump had planned to deliver remarks on Monday outlining his case against Mrs Clinton's potential presidency, but will instead alter his focus to "further address this terrorist attack, immigration and national security", his campaign said. A gunman wielding an assault-style rifle and handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday, killing at least 50 people before dying in a gunfight with police. Another 53 people were taken to hospital, most of them in a critical condition. Authorities identified the killer as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old US citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida. Mr Trump's hardline approach to fighting Islamic terrorism was a hallmark of his primary campaign. The presumptive GOP nominee has proposed temporarily barring foreign Muslims from entering the country and advocated using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods to try to stave off future attacks. In the hours after the Orlando shooting, he issued a statement calling on President Barack Obama to resign for refusing "to even say the words 'radical Islam'" in his response to the attack. He said Mrs Clinton should exit the presidential race if she does the same. In an address from the White House, Mr Obama called the tragedy an act of terror and hate. He did not talk about religious extremists. He said the FBI would investigate the shootings in the gay nightclub as terrorism, but added that the gunman's motive was unclear. Like Mr Obama, Mrs Clinton called the shootings acts of terror and hate, but did not use the words radical Islam in a statement released by her campaign. Instead, she said the country must "redouble our efforts" to defend itself, including "defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defences at home". Hours after Mr Obama spoke, a law enforcement official confirmed to The Associated Press that Mateen made a 911 call from the club during which he professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. While some Republican leaders have encouraged Mr Trump to abandon his proposed Muslim ban in an effort to broaden his support among voters before November's general election, the Orlando attack appeared to harden the billionaire businessman's position. "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning," he tweeted on Sunday. "Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough." It was one of several tweets that drew criticism online for their told-you-so tone. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" he had written earlier. Mrs Clinton's statement and tweets on Sunday made no mention of Mr Trump. She did make the case for gun control and reached out to a key constituency - gays and lesbians. "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them," she said. On Friday, Mr Trump accused Mrs Clinton of failing to understand the gravity of the risk posed by Syrian refugees in a speech to a conservative Christian group. "Hillary will bring hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom have hostile beliefs about people of different faiths and values and some of whom absolutely and openly support terrorism in our country," he said. "We don't need that ... We have enough problems right now." Mrs Clinton has said she would support allowing more refugees from the war-torn Middle East to come to the US, as long as they are carefully screened and vetted. Mr Trump will deliver his speech at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, a possible battleground state, which gave him his first primary win. He cancelled a rally planned for Monday night in nearby Portsmouth. Mrs Clinton's campaign postponed what would have been her first joint event with Mr Obama in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday because of the shooting. She will campaign in Ohio on Monday. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have offered drastically different proposals for stemming the threat of terrorism and gun violence following the fatal shootings at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Mr Trump focused heavily on the nation's broken immigration system in his fiery address, although the Orlando gunman was born in the United States. The presumptive Republican nominee redoubled his call for temporarily banning Muslims from the United States, saying he would lift the ban once the government could "properly and perfectly" screen immigrants. Going further, Mr Trump said he would also "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there's a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe and our allies". Mrs Clinton said she would prioritise stopping "lone wolf" attackers as president - those who may be radicalised without having direct contact or orders from a larger terror network. Overseas, the presumptive Democratic nominee called for ramping up the US air campaign targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and pointedly called out US partners in the region by name, saying Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar must stop their citizens from funding terrorism. Mrs Clinton also vigorously reiterated her call for banning assault weapons, like one of the guns the Orlando attacker used. "I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets," she said. Mrs Clinton's address was measured and sober. While she drew implicit contrasts with Mr Trump, she never mentioned him by name, declaring: "Today is not a day for politics." Mr Trump felt differently, hammering Mrs Clinton repeatedly in his remarks. He accused her of wanting to abolish the Second Amendment - in connection with her proposals for tougher gun laws - and said she cannot claim to be supportive of gays and lesbians when she supports allowing immigration from countries where they are discriminated against. "Hillary Clinton can never claim to be a friend of the gay community," he said. The businessman robustly defended the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, saying he would be a "better friend" to the community than Mrs Clinton. The assault at a gay nightclub was "an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity," he said. Mr Trump's embrace of gay and lesbian Americans was at odds with many in his own party, who oppose gay marriage and other legal protections. The Orlando attacks were the worst mass shooting in American history, leaving 49 people dead and dozens more injured. Authorities say Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, was probably inspired by foreign terrorist organisations, though there was no evidence that he had been directed by any network to carry out the attacks. Mr Trump said Mateen was "born an Afghan" despite having been born in New York. The gunman's parents came to the US from Afghanistan before he was born. The Republican did not repeat suggestions he had made in earlier television interviews that US President Barack Obama may not be taking tougher action against terrorism because he sympathises with the perpetrators. "He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Mr Trump said. "It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable." Meanwhile, it seems the Republican nominee has revoked the press credential of the Washington Post to cover his campaign events. A statement on Trumps official Facebook page criticised what it said was inaccurate coverage of his campaign. Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post, read the statement. LONDON: Copper prices fell on Monday as investors worried about the pace of economic growth in top consumer China ... MANILA: The use of LNG imports for power generation in the Philippines next year should not be a disincentive for... WASHINGTON: Kevin McCarthy, who could soon be second in line to the White House, startled US allies when he warned... LAGOS: More than 600 people are now known to have perished in the worst floods in a decade in Nigeria, according to... Rebels bikies have broken their code of silence to protest against the ACT government's moves to introduce anti-consorting laws, warning they threaten the rights of ordinary Canberrans. The government last week published its proposed model for anti-consorting laws in the ACT, a move that all but confirms it will follow others states and territories and introduce the controversial measures. A patched Rebels member who was among riders protesting bikie laws at Parliament House in Canberra in December 2014. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The laws seek to dismantle and disrupt bikie gangs by banning certain individuals from meeting or communicating together, regardless of whether they have criminal convictions. Human rights experts and lawyers have described it as an assault on the right to free association, and as a significant overreach, particularly given the comparatively low level of bikie activity in the territory. Clive Palmer is pressing on with plans to reopen his troubled Townsville nickel refinery and says he's on the look-out for workers. Queensland Nickel Sales is seeking expressions of interest for future job vacancies, with Mr Palmer announcing he is "taking steps" to reopen the Yabulu operation. Clive Palmer says 40 people are working at the Queensland Nickel refinery. Credit:Glenn Hunt "We have more than 40 people working at the refinery who are ascertaining the steps required to open the plant and additional work is being carried out to set a detailed reopening schedule," Mr Palmer said in a statement on Monday. General manager Ian Ferguson said those interested in future employment opportunities could fill out an application form from the company's website. Meanwhile, the country's anxieties have been rekindled. "In one sense, all of this seems so far out of control, you just wonder if there's any way of ever getting it under control," said George Pettice, an insurance agent from Charlotte, North Carolina. "Do we now start locking ourselves up in our houses, afraid to go anywhere?" The Pulse nightclub the day after the worst shooting in US history. Credit:AP Not since September 11 has a moment like this brought the nation together, and that evaporated quickly. Since then, calamity seems only to drive the left and the right further apart, while faith in the nation's institutions deteriorates further. Across the ideological and partisan divide, it no longer seems possible to even explore much less agree upon causes and solutions. So the response has been to do nothing, except wait for the next tragedy. Omar Mateen who opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub early on Sunday. Credit:AP "Although it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," President Obama said Sunday. "And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people." Immediately after Obama left the White House briefing room, however, GOP nominee-in-waiting Donald Trump tweeted: "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" While Obama refrained from speculating about whether Mateen's religious beliefs might have been a factor in the rampage or even saying the word "Islam" he did make an appeal for tighter gun control. "The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle," the President said. "This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theatre, or in a nightclub." "And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be," Obama added. "And to actively do nothing is a decision as well." Obama's comments reflected his frustration over the failure of his efforts to tighten the nation's gun laws following the Newtown massacre. Recent polling suggests that support for gun control is on the decline. Critics, however, would argue that Obama's observation about doing nothing could also apply to failing to face up to the religious component of many acts of terrorism. If Muslim beliefs were behind the attack, said Senator Marco Rubio, "common sense tells you he specifically targeted the gay community because of the views that exist in the radical Islamic community with regard to the gay community." "I think it's something we'll have to talk about some more here, across the country," Rubio said. Others pointed out that many other religions have no claim to moral superiority, when it comes to their attitudes towards gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. "We want to get on the moral high ground when it comes to policing homophobia in other religions," ESPN commentator Jamele Hill, a former Orlando resident, said in an interview. "We're not the ones to be engaging in this, as if we have always been supportive of these issues. History says just the opposite." Tough and intolerant rhetoric has often been a winner for politicians at times when Americans are worried about their security. Trump, who advocates putting a temporary ban on Muslims entering this country, saw his poll numbers rise significantly in the wake of the San Bernadino attack, as well as after a series of them in Paris last November. That may be why presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton struck a purposeful tone in her response to the Orlando mass shooting, although she, like Obama, did not make reference to a specific religion. "For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad," she said. "That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home." The Labor Party's federal election chances in Queensland have received a significant boost with confirmation the Greens would preference the party head of the Coalition in every lower house seat. The Labor Party would also feature "in some way" on the Greens' Senate how-to-vote cards, along with the Arts Party, Animal Justice Party, Cyclists Party, Glenn Lazarus Team, Marriage Equality Party and the Renewable Energy Party. The Greens in Queensland attracted 6.22 per cent of the primary vote in lower house contests in 2013. Credit:Natalie Grono Queensland Greens convener Penny Allman-Payne said the party's members had decided to preference Labor ahead of the LNP in all 30 House of Representatives seats in the state. "In line with our commitment to grassroots participatory democracy, the suggestions to be put to voters on Greens how-to-vote cards in Queensland are informed by the membership by way of a party-wide ballot," she said. Advertising experts are predicting a "tsunami" of election campaigning on TV screens in the three weeks to July 2, warning viewers to expect millions of dollars' worth of ads as early voting gets under way. Figures from advertising monitoring firm Ebiquity found that by last week, the major parties had spent less than 20 per cent of their total 2013 campaign advertising outlays. In the past two election cycles, 75 per cent of all ad spending happened in the final two weeks of campaigning. With up to a third of voters expected to cast ballots early, the major parties are saving their biggest spending for the end. Child care centres at three hospitals in south-western Sydney are set to be closed or put into the hands of private operators. Health officials will shut a child-care centre at Fairfield Hospital at the end of the month, while they negotiate with private operators to run centres at Liverpool and Bankstown-Lidcombe hospitals. A new car park on the site of the child care centre is due to be completed at Royal Prince Alfred by September next year. Credit:Michele Mossop The move comes as Royal Prince Alfred Hospital told staff last week that its child care centre will shut its doors in August, and be demolished to make way for a 1000-space car park. The decision at RPA has split parts of the hospital workforce because, while the new car park provides doctors and nurses what they desperately wanted, it has created headaches for staff whose children attend the Lucas Street Child Care Centre at the hospital. Public transport fares went in the "wrong direction" when Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was transport minister, one of her cabinet colleagues has conceded. The current transport minister, Stirling Hinchliffe, was asked on Monday about Labor's consecutive 15 per cent annual fare increases, which occurred when Ms Palaszczuk was minister in the Bligh government. "We've seen LNP governments of the past, ALP governments in the past, take our transport system - in terms of fares - in the wrong direction," Mr Hinchliffe said on Monday. "What I certainly believe is those governments in the past had gone in the wrong direction." George Street ephemeral traces - Outside Supreme Court 2016 Credit:George Street ephemeral traces South Bank was yet to become South Bank. It was still South Brisbane. Brisbane still had the sweeping heritage-listed Roma Street Station and the misguided Brisbane Transit Centre (1986) was yet to be built over the Roma Street Station. Jeanelle Hurst 1988 Highrise Wallpaper Credit:George Street ephemeral traces It was the time of the real birth of Brisbane as a New World City, but no-one knew it at the time. Suddenly artist-run galleries in Roma Street, George Street, Little Roma Street, Charlotte and Elizabeth streets were where Brisbane's young, creative and restless began a Friday night. The Observatory 1985 - clothes, fashion, design, photographs. Credit:George Street ephemeral traces What happened in George Street It became home to Brisbane's performance art world; where sculptors, musicians, poster-printers, clothes designers, fledgling 3-D artists and where street artists would bring 1980s New York street artists to meet Brisbane street artists. Those artist-run spaces spawned artists with big ideas. It was similar to punk in its 'do-it-yourself attitude', but different people (with exceptions), with different ways of delivering the product. George Street ephemeral traces exhibition looks at Brisbane's emerging art scene 1982-1992 Credit:George Street ephemeral traces Some created huge images that were projected onto city buildings, bought advertising spaces on public roads, created photocopy artworks, wrote art newsletters, held art forums, lectures and talks, protested the impact of World Expo 88 on local art. Weird and wonderful music was created. Some became small legends; some grew to become big legends. Most flared brightly, briefly and burned out. George Street Ephemeral traces Credit:George Street Ephemeral traces Performances were videotaped, lost and found. Posters were kept and stored. Film clips made. And then in 1986 the George Street buildings were demolished. By the mid-1990s, Charlotte Street changed. The times changed again. Matt Mawson's Keep in Step poster, 1979 Credit:George Street ephemeral traces Today's George Street art is static. Sombre. Heavy. Down near Roma Street is now a dead zone. Daniel Templeman's sculpture, Confluence (2004), outside the new magistrates building and Fiona Foley's sculpture Witness to Silence (2004), cry for attention. Lettering on Fiona's showing 94 indigenous massacres is already wearing away. The modern architecture is George Street is its most striking art form. But some should go. 1986 - Malcolm Enright poster invites New York street artists to Brisbane 30 years ago Credit:George Street ephemeral traces The influences Ephemeral Traces curator Peter Anderson talks about a famous piece of graffiti scrawled in 1982 on billboards surrounding a large construction site that became Queensland's Cultural Centre. "95% of artists leave Brisbane. Why don't you?" it read in big, black letters. George Street ephemeral traces - the Demolition Show poster 1986 Credit:George Street ephemeral traces "While this figure was not statistically accurate, it often seemed that way," he said. "The graffiti was a fleeting gesture, but one that left its traces in the archive." Ephemeral Traces focuses on five of Brisbane's first artist-run initiatives and the artists; One Flat (1982), A-Room (1984), THAT Space (1985) and John Mills Himself (1986). Others then followed. There were a hundred influences. In 1975 Brisbane's first Institute of Modern Art opened, radio station 4ZZZ began transmitting and Griffith University had its first students. By 1976, The Saints had recorded I'm Stranded last weekend 40 years ago - and there was an exhibition called Brisbane Painters Today at the new Institute of Modern Art. In 1977, 400 people - mainly students - were arrested at a single street march protest about civil liberties in Brisbane. Artist Matt Mawson part of the emerging Zip Collective - captured the time in a police-blue poster (1979) called "Keep in Step", in a widely-copied poster style that pushed the image of punk, pop and new exhibitionism that was taken up by 4ZZZ. Screen print artist and musician John Willsteed's band and gig posters were already the musical Facebook of their time. By 1980 automatic teller machines were introduced, the first personal computers were introduced, more students were arrested and buildings were demolished (1981-1982, 1986) and Madonna, The Saints and The Clash had shaken the world by appealing to different parts of the body. And by 1982 big new art museums were built at South Brisbane, while on the other side of the river Brisbane was dancing to artists (Tim Gruchy) with ironing boards strapped to their backs in tiny little galleries. Brisbane's artist-run spaces were underway. The impact University of Queensland's digital curator Sebastian Moody said the biggest impact of the Ephemeral Traces exhibition was on young artists. "The really strong reaction is from young cultural practitioners today getting to see a part of Brisbane's history that might have known existed, but they did not know anything about," Mr Moody said. "So that has been amazing for them to put themselves in a cultural lineage," he said. Young artists Naomi Blacklock and Annie Macindoe are part of 2016's Clutch Collective artists group, now exhibiting at Brisbane's BoxCopy artist-run space on Petrie Terrace. Mainly, they exhibit their new artworks inside a truck which is driven to the location because it is cheaper, faster and more immediate than exhibiting in a gallery. Social media lets their fans know where they will exhibit. It is the 2016 version of 1986's flyers, posters and leaflets. Their exhibition at BoxCopy allows their artwork to be the catalyst for the next ARI, which will then act as the catalyst for the next artwork at the gallery. "It is like this ongoing conversation with the space, with us and other ARI's and how we work around the space together." Both young artists went to the opening of ephemeral spaces. "It was really special, just to know that we are developing along this long history in Brisbane," the pair said. Sunshine Coast businesses and residents are being urged to remain vigilant after several reports of counterfeit currency distribution. Police said they were aware of at least six instances of fake $50 notes being distributed at local businesses, including a bank, on the Sunshine Coast in the past week. Fake $50 notes have been circulating on the Sunshine Coast. Credit:Queensland Police Service A police spokesman said the Sunshine Coast bank had found a fake $50 in a bundle of other notes. Ths uburbs of Wurtulla, Currimundi, Aroona and Kawana Waters had been targeted so far, Detective Senior Sergeant Darren Edwards said. Cruise ships will generate more than $4.5 million for the Sunshine Coast economy over the next 18 months, while the Gold Coast stumbles in its attempts to lure cruise ships to their shores. Latest research shows more than one million Australians took a cruise in 2015. Eighteen cruise ships lined up for Mooloolaba over the next 18 months. Credit:Roberto A Sanchez On Wednesday, the P&O cruise ship Pacific Aria will make its maiden visit to the Sunshine Coast and again stop offshore at Mooloolaba. It is the first of 18 cruise ship stopovers scheduled for the Sunshine Coast between June and the end of 2017. More than $70 million will be spent overhauling senior assessment as the State Government powers ahead with plans to scrap the OP system. In a "record" spend on education, which makes up about 25 per cent of the overall Queensland budget, Curtis Pitt's second budget will include $24 million over the 2016-17 financial year to replace the current overall position assessment system, for the more commonly used ATAR regime. Over the forwards, $72.4 million will be spent on developing the new system, which will be used for the first time for students who enter Year 11 in 2018. "This funding will support the replacement of current senior assessment systems that have been in place for more than 20 years," Education Minister Kate Jones said. Treasurer Curtis Pitt, while adding a little bit of clarity on how Labor planned to carry out its ambitious plan, couldn't say where the money was coming from. Credit:Bradley Kanaris "It is a co-investment, we will provide them an incentive to come here," she said. "We don't have a huge amount of money, we have a small amount of money, a small amount of money." So companies would receive money to spend how they like? "No, it's all done on a business case. For example, with Southern Oil they provided their business case to the Queensland government, there was a treasury analysis that was done in relation to that and we were able to attract them to Gladstone." So it's a grant? "Yeah, it's a grant. It is an amount of money," she said. "It varies on the company. You would have seen that in the past, for example when Virgin was attracted here to Queensland, the former government provided them an incentive grant for them to come here. What it means is they keep their business here in Queensland and they grow here in Queensland and that fundamentally means jobs here in Queensland." What it also meant, the Treasurer said, was tax-break incentives. "It is a combination of factors and in terms of bringing people to our state, we need to ensure we are providing the optimum settings for them to do so," Mr Pitt said. "We already have a very competitive group of taxes, we already have the lowest payroll tax rate in the country and we, of course, we have the second-highest threshold in the country, the highest of any mainland state. "These are attractive propositions for business. "But what they need to understand, and one of the missing pieces, has been a government they can work with. "This is a government they can work with. We have sent the message out very clearly, that Queensland is open for business and we want to make sure that we make them feel as welcome as possible, give them all the incentives they need so they set up here in Queensland." But where that money was coming from was another matter altogether. "It doesn't mean that we are cutting spending. What it means is we are taking that whole-of-government, balance-sheet approach that we started in last year's budget," Mr Pitt said. "Budgets are always about priorities. From our perspective we need to ensure we are making our money go as far as possible. "It has been clear that we are going to explore taking, repatriating, funds out of the defined benefits scheme. "We will be working with that, as we've talked about in terms of both having a focus on infrastructure as well as debt stabilisation and pay-down." Which means finding funds in a budget that has almost $5 billion less than expected, without cutting funding in other areas. There's little sign that the Country Fire Authority is being ripped apart out here at a large brigade in south-eastern Melbourne. Manned by a mix of paid and volunteer staff, Cranbourne CFA is similar to many others on the edge of the city or in bigger regional centres. Crews here insist they are sticking together. They are angry at being caught up in the political row engulfing the state government and featuring prominently in the federal election campaign. It's a critically endangered native bird that's been likened to the character Mr Bean, because of its looks and somewhat awkward manner. But while the clumsy Mr Bean has a high profile in both film and TV, the Plains-wanderer has had such a low profile in recent years that researchers have been worried about its future. The critically endangered Plains-wanderer. Credit:Dr Mark Antos But after a number of difficult years after floods hit northern Victoria, hopes have been raised that the Plains-wanderer, one of the nation's most critically endangered birds, is bouncing back. During survey work in the native grasslands of the Terrick Terrick National Park near Bendigo last month, researchers and volunteers found seven birds in one night. According to Parks Victoria, it is the biggest number of birds detected in a single survey for several years. Handing over now to www.theage.com.au. For the full report on how the Monash Freeway was closed see Age reporter Daniella Milletic's fine story. We will be back on deck tomorrow. Thanks for reading. Melbourne's Monash Freeway has re-opened after traffic chaos during Tuesday's peak-hour caused by a police standoff with a protester on a footbridge. Traffic was at a standstill for almost two hours both ways on the Monash between Warrigal Road and Toorak Road after a woman stepped onto a footbridge about 6.30am. Police arrested the woman, in her 50s, after she threatened to harm herself after hanging a sign over the bridge, which read "VicPol corrupt". Inspector David Blencowe said the woman, who was known to police, had fuel containers, matches, a truck's wing mirror, and rope with her on the footbridge. Community outcry over charges laid against two men who police claim used 'excessive force' while performing a citizen's arrest on a man alleged to have broken into their business, has sparked an online petition. The Greenfields father and son, who are due to face court on July 1, were jointly charged by Mandurah police with grievous bodily harm. An online petition has been published after Mandurah police charged two men over using excessive force to detain a man alleged to have broken into their business. Credit:change.org On April 3, about 7.20pm, a stolen Isuzu utility was allegedly used to force entry to a business premises on Rouse Road, Greenfields. A number of items were loaded into a trailer attached to the utility. An Islamic criminal group has executed the second of three foreigners kidnapped from a resort in the southern Philippines, despite a relentless hunt by the Philippine military. A spokesman for the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf group told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that Canadian sailor Robert Hall was beheaded on Monday afternoon after the expiry of a deadline to pay a US$13 million ransom for three hostages. The body would be dumped in a town, he said. Philippine media also quoted multiple sources confirming the killing because ransom demands were not met. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government has "compelling reason to believe" that Mr Hall is dead. Latest News Westpac joins Home Guarantee Scheme Help for home buyers starts mid-2023 CBA-owned stockbroker acknowledges court decision relating to systemic compliance failures A total remediation of $6.5 million has been paid to affected customers An award-winning Adelaide-based broker has expanded her business and launched a conveyancing arm, after a huge amount of feedback from clients.Speaking to Australian Broker, Leah Busby, owner of Blackfish Finance said the decision to launch Blackfish Conveyancing was a natural step.We were referring out so many clients each month to a third party and clients were still running everything past us and coming to us for updates. I constantly get feedback that we should just do it ourselves; so decided to do it this year.Conveyancing is a natural expansion of the client offerings for a broker team. The opportunity and timing was right for me.Blackfish Conveyancing is a joint venture between Busby and a registered conveyancer. Busby will remain the managing director of Blackfish Conveyancing, while the conveyancer will be the working director for the day to day transactions and advice. She told Australian Broker this will ensure the process, advice and client service is consistent with Blackfish Finance.Its an exciting time to launch too with the changes to electronic conveyancing here in SA, Busby said.Whilst the venture was created in response to feedback from her clients to make their home loan experience smoother, Busby said it will be targeting new clients too.Blackfish Conveyancing is available to anyone doing a property transaction in South Australia, she said.We already have had clients make contact directly with our conveyancing arm who arent necessarily finance clients. The businesses will be run separately and confidentially so a client can be a client of one or both of the businesses.We already have agents wanting to refer to us that already have a relationship with a broker, so well protect that, as I would want if the roles were reversed.Busby said she is already looking at further plans to diversify her business.There are so many services that are natural add-ons as long as it really will benefit my clients and not take my focus away from being the finance expert.Im currently looking at a property management add-on to the business as that is a service that clients are always asking for. I want the right person for the position, so will wait until the person is right. Client service, trust and expertise are vital, so I can wait for that, she told Australian Broker. Latest News Westpac joins Home Guarantee Scheme Help for home buyers starts mid-2023 CBA-owned stockbroker acknowledges court decision relating to systemic compliance failures A total remediation of $6.5 million has been paid to affected customers The Finance Broker Association of Australia ( FBAA ) has said it is committed to educating the broader public on the benefits of mortgage brokers, in light of a number of negative media articles in the mainstream press.The FBAAs Peter White said a recent opinion piece in the Herald Sun, which claimed brokers are up to their eyeballs in murky backhand commissions and sweetheart deals from the major banks, showed that the industry cannot rest on its laurels.He said the association has already reached out to the Herald Sun journalist and will continue to be a positive voice for the industry across all media platforms.It is clear that some columnists have an anti-broker agenda, but other journalists simply dont understand our role and the advantages to the consumer of using the services of a finance broker, White said.However, White said it is pointless getting upset at every misinformed article that appears in the media.Our work to inform, educate and present the facts is ongoing and overall, it must be noted that the vast majority of public information about the broking sector is positive, he said. Latest News Westpac joins Home Guarantee Scheme Help for home buyers starts mid-2023 CBA-owned stockbroker acknowledges court decision relating to systemic compliance failures A total remediation of $6.5 million has been paid to affected customers All states on the eastern seaboard of mainland Australia are set to become less inviting to foreign investors after the Queensland government announced it will levy additional taxes on buyers from outside the country.Following the lead of governments in Victoria and New South Wales, who recently announced additional stamp duty charges and higher land tax rates for foreign buyers of residential real estate, Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt yesterday announced foreign buyers in his state will face an additional 3% stamp duty surcharge.Speaking at the Queensland Media Club yesterday, Pitt was reported as saying that the tax hike would ensure foreign investors are providing their fair share of infrastructure funding and that it would have little impact on demand for Queensland real estate among overseas buyers."This will ensure foreign purchasers of residential property, who benefit from government services and infrastructure, make a contribution to their delivery as local buyers do," Mr Pitt told the Queensland Media Club in Brisbane on Thursday, Pitt said."We welcome mutually beneficial foreign investment. We are confident this surcharge that does not affect Queenslanders will also not affect the interest foreign investors have in sharing our state's economic strengths, he said.But the Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) has criticised the move and said it could be disastrous for the states property market.The State Government has failed to consult with industry groups on this matter and if they had, we would have told them how fragile the market is at the moment, REIQ chief executive officer Antonia Mercorella said.This is potentially disastrous news for our apartment market where some estimates have foreign buyers at around 15% to 20% across Brisbane in the new apartment market, she said.The Gold Coast apartment market also relies on foreign investment levels and this could be a significantly negative impact on that market.The REIQ claims the 3% surcharge would almost double the stamp duty payable on a $600,000 purchase from $20,000 to $38,000 and said there needs to be more clarification around who is considered a foreign buyer.Thats not a small amount it almost doubles the stamp duty, Mercorella said.Its not necessarily someone living overseas. It could be a foreign national whos been living here for many years.Mercorella and the REIQ arent the only ones to criticise tax hikes for foreign buyers. Gavin Norris , head of Australia for Juwai.com, an online portal that markets real estate to Chinese buyers, has previously said the moves could have wide ranging negatives for the Australian property market and broader economy.For domestic investors and first-time buyers, a new tax on foreign buyers could be a challenge, Norris said.When the government discourages one buyer, it loses tens of thousands of dollars in other benefits. Foreign investors bring construction jobs, government revenue, retail and services spending, education spending, tourism spending and often ultimately become skilled citizens of Australia who help grow our economy and pay Australian taxes, he said. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams Hes hoping for a Hollywood ending. The owner of an imperiled Gowanus film studio is making a last-ditch plea to the DeBlasio administration to spare his soundstage from the wrecking ball, after the Feds on Thursday signed off on the citys plan to seize the property for use in the Canal cleanup effort. If the city really cares about the $9-billion local film industry it is so fond on touting, he said, DeBlasio and film czar Julie Menin will step in and call cut. Weve heard a lot of recent talk from Commissioner Menin about the importance of the local film industry, and now its time to see some action, said Scott Levy, who is the owner of Eastern Effects on Nevins Street between DeGraw and Sackett streets. Heres a golden opportunity for her to do the right thing and save one of her own. Levy has been leading a campaign to save his studio best known as where cable network FX films its Cold War spy drama The Americans since last month, when he learned of the citys plan to take it via eminent domain and use it as a work site for a giant sewage tank it is building on an adjacent lot over DeGraw Street. Many residents, local pols, and Hollywood honchos joined his crusade, but the federal Environmental Protection Agency which is forcing the city to build the tank but letting it decide where to stick the thing last week dealt a blow when it approved the proposal. Levy has identified three other lots nearby that the city could use instead two that are already vacant and one that has been on the market for years. But a city spokesman told the New York Times they arent ideal it would have to shut parts of Nevins Street for years to use those sites, while using Eastern Effects only means closing a relatively quiet cul-de-sac at the end of DeGraw Street. Levy claims his business would likely not survive the studios closure. He owns several other properties along the Canal, but none are as large or lucrative as the lot in question, and it would be difficult to find an appropriate replacement, he claims. He has already pumped $5 million into building the studio there and is only five years into a 20-year lease on the property, but wont get any compensation if the city takes it from the landlord, he says. A spokesman for the citys Department of Environmental Protection said it is continuing to look at all alternative sites and is in talks with Eastern Effects, but refused to say whether there is any chance it will actually change its mind. If it does, though, the Feds say they are also happy to sign off on a different site. EPA would be supportive of such approaches and would work closely with NYC to realize them, the Environmental Protection Agency wrote in its response to the influx of public comments. Reach reporter Lauren Gill at lgill @cngl ocal.com or by calling (718) 2602511. Follow her on Twitter @laurenk_gill Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams A Brooklyn man was one of 49 people a gunman shot dead during a terror attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday morning, and now his family are raising money to bring his body back to Brooklyn. Twenty-five-year-old Enrique Rios was at Pulse nightclub during a vacation in Florida when Omar Mateen opened fire, according to a crowd-funding page his mother set up to cover the costs of bringing her son back home for a funeral. My family is torn apart and all I would like is to have my son with me so he can the funeral he deserves, wrote Getrude Merced, who lives in the Marcy Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where Rios also lived, according to an NBC report. My son was a good kid. He was just having a great time on his vacation, until this deranged man came in. Rios worked at True Care, a home health-care provider based in Kensington, and was studying social work at St. Francis College, according to his Facebook page. As of publishing, 181 people have donated to the funeral costs, raising $10,120. Florida authorities have so far released the names of 36 of the 49 victims of the attack. Fifty-three more are in hospital. Park Slope gay bar Excelsior is also hosting a vigil on Monday night at 8 pm, and Public Advocate Letitia James is hosting a candlelight vigil with religious at Grand Army Plaza on Tuesday evening at 7:30 pm. Candlelight vigil at Excelsior [563 Third Ave. between 15th and 16th streets in Park Slope, (718) 7882710, www.excel siorb rookl yn.com ]. June 13 at 8 pm. Candlelight vigil at Grand Army Plaza (between Plaza Street West and Plaza Street East in Prospect Heights). June 14 at 7:30 pm. Higher taxes, trash pickup? Many special questions await voters Nov. 8 They're sometimes easy to miss, but many South Jersey communities have special questions before voters on their Nov. 8 ballots. The Make In India initiative launched by the government in 2014 seems to be taking shape on the ground. Last month, state-owned Cochin Shipyard and Chennai-based Global United Shipping India proposed a joint bid under the buildoperatetransfer model for six new liquefied natural gas (LNG) vessels for gas utility firm GAIL, making it the only Indian bid for the countrys biggest shipping tender. Ever since it set up shop in India, has been lobbying with the government to convince it that inventory-based format, where the platform owner directly sells to the customer, was the essence of its business model and that its investment would flow if that was permitted. According to a report in The Economic Times, founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos is said to have lobbied with Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week in Washington DC to allow hybrid ecommerce models (combination of inventory-led and marketplace). Individuals and families in south India will now be able to take annual subscriptions for helicopter ambulance services, to be airlifted to a health hub in a medical emergency. The three big boys of Indian telecom Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea continued to dominate the market-share sweepstakes in the March quarter. All three large incumbents increased their revenue market-share (RMS), mainly because of new subscribers. The smaller players like Reliance Communications, Tata Tele and Aircel continued to lose RMS during the quarter. Thinkphi, a clean-tech company, has raised money from angel investor Nimmagadda Prasad an early backer of including Matrix Laboratories, Maa TV, and Care Hospitals. Most recently he invested in Sachin Tendulkar's ISL team Kerala Blasters. The company has made some early sales of its patented Rainwater and Solar harvesting product to key customers such as Godrej Interio and Rustomjee. At a time when aviation players are going through turbulent times, Coimbatore-based CMC (Coimbatore Marine College) group is venturing into the aviation industry by launching a low-cost carrier (LCC) under the brand . The company has stated that the airline's first flight would be ready for take off by the end of this month or early next month. To begin with, the airline will focus only the southern markets during the first one year. The airline would focus on short haul services and deploy ATR-72-500 aircraft for the same. The promoters are infusing around $12 million and plan to take three aircraft on lease. The logo of Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, is seen on top of the company's headquarters in Tucheng, New Taipei. Photo: Reuters Unlock 30+ premium stories daily hand-picked by our editors, across devices on browser and app. Full access to our intuitive epaper - clip, save, share articles from any device; newspaper archives from 2006. Curated newsletters on markets, personal finance, policy & politics, start-ups, technology, and more. Pick your 5 favourite companies, get a daily email with all news updates on them. 26 years of website archives. All the major political parties in rejected the demand for a separate state,'Twipra land' raised by Indigenous People's Front of Twipra (IPFT), a tribal-based party. Secretary of the state Committee of ruling CPI-M, Bijan Dhar said, "we oppose this demand because it is divisive, irresponsible and politically motivated. This demand for Twipra Land is aimed at creating a separate state by dividing the small state, which would increase the sufferings of the people." The IPFT, in a statement earlier, called for blockade of the Assam-Agartala Highway on June 22 for 24 hours to press for their demand. "This demand is aimed at destabilising the communal harmony between tribal and non-tribal communities of the state and against peace and development of the state," the CPI-M leader told reporters here. The IPFT demanded to carve out the Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC), home to the tribals, who constitute one-third of the state population and occupy two-third of the state territory to form the new state. Mrinal K Deb, spokesman of BJP said, "We are not against the demand of small states, but oppose this demand strongly, because it would create geographical isolation to people. The tribal council area, which they want to convert into a full-fledged state is spread all over the districts of the state, which is not feasible." However, he said, "we are in favour of giving more autonomy to the tribal council and demand to elevate the council like Boro Territorial Council in Assam. Tripura tribal council was formed under sixth schedule of the constitution." Chairman of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) Committee and former state minister Ratan Chakraborty said his party did not support the demand for a separate 'Twipra land'. "It would simply divide the state and spoil communal harmony," he told reporters. The TMC got shot in the arms recently in the wake of six dissident MLAs of the opposition Congress of the total ten having joined the party. Leader of the dissident Congress MLAs, Sudip Roy Burman wrote a letter to the Speaker of the state assembly, Ramendra Debnath on June 6 last informing him that they joined have TMC. Ratan Lal Nath, an MLA of opposition Congress said, his party's stand was not to support the demand for separate state. The censor board has cleared the controversial drug-themed Bollywood film 'Udta Punjab' with 13 cuts under the 'A' category, its chairman Pahlaj Nihalani said today. "We have today cleared Udta Punjab under A (restricted for adult audience) category after 13 cuts," Nihalani told reporters on the sidelines of a function here. Nihalani, who was in the eye of the storm over suggesting a very large number of cuts, said nine members of the Central Board of Film Certification watched the film and "unanimously" cleared it after the proposed 13 cuts. "The CBFCs job is now over. It is now up to the producer to go to the court or tribunal. We will implement the order," Nihalani said. The Abhishek Chaubey-directed film is tentatively scheduled for release on June 17. The CBFC's revising committee had suggested a number of changes in the movie, which stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor-Khan and Diljit Dosanjh, and deals with the problem of drug addiction among youth in Punjab. Meanwhile, responding to a query, Nihalani, who has been criticised by the film fraternity for his "dictatorial attitude" said, "those call me cheap are themselves 'ghatia' (lowly)". Nihalani clarified that he never called himself as "chamcha" (sycophant) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "There is nothing wrong in admiring the Prime Minister. I never said (I am) a chamcha," he said. The makers of the movie, Phantom Films had approached the Bombay High Court against an order of the revising committee of CBFC that suggested certain changes in the film. A string of changes proposed included removing a signboard mentioning Punjab and other suggestions. The Bombay HC had on Friday said that the makers of Udta Punjab should tone down expletives and vulgar scenes as these alone cannot make a film work. A division bench had concluded hearing arguments on the petition and is expected to pass order in the case tomorrow. Kashmiri activist Susheel Pandit on Monday dubbed Syed Ali Shah Geelani's remark, that construction of Sainik colonies will be a cancer for the whole nation, as an 'unfortunate and vexatious statement', saying that separatist leader should think before he speaks. "Geelani Sahab saying that Kashmiri Pandits and Sainik colonies are a cancer for Jammu and Kashmir is a very unfortunate and vexatious statement," he told ANI. Pandit said that Geelani is bearing the sins of numerous innocent lives and the disposition of lakhs of people. "He perhaps doesn't know how big a cancer he himself has proved to be for the valley," he added. Hinting at the diminishing clout of BJP Government in Jammu and Kashmir, Pandit said that in the wake of forming a government in the state, BJP gave up all their rights, adding that their issues have become loose and they are in a lamentable state themselves. "Kashmir is continuously slipping and sinking even deeper into its problems," he said. Meanwhile, pro-freedom leaders in Kashmir unanimously reiterated not to allow construction of Sainik colonies, stating that they would form a committee along with civil society members to establish people-to-people contact with Kashmiri Pandits. Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq in a joint seminar here at the residence of the former, stated that construction of Sainik colonies and new industrial policies were aimed at "settling non-state subjects in the Valley and change the demography of the state." "Let New Delhi give every Kashmiri Pandit Rs 30 lakh to resettle in Kashmir. We don't have any issues. We will welcome them in our neighbourhoods, but not in exclusive colonies," said Geelani. Coming down heavily on sale of products near educational institutions, particularly schools, Madras High Court on Monday directed the Tamil Nadu government to immediately form special squads to conduct surprise raids on shops located near them. Justice N Kirubakaran, who passed the order on a petition by one TC Sharath, directed the state Health and Welfare Department, Director General of Police and Commissioner of Police, Chennai, to form the squads immediately to conduct surprise raids of shops located within 100 yards of the institutions and seize products. The petitioner had sought a direction against shopkeepers who sell products to students and action against smokers in public places. The judge directed the authorities to confiscate the products seized as per Section 14 of Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution Act, 2003 , COPTA ACT). He also directed them to remove and confiscate advertisements of tobacco products placed near schools, book those persons who smoke in public places as per section 21 of the Act and to file a report in court by June 20. The judge referred to an observation by King James I of England that smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain and dangerous to the lungs and said it was shocking to know that there is extensive use of tobacco products among school going children. He said though statues and rules mandate that shops located within 100 yards of educational institutions should refrain from selling tobacco products, it is found that many such shops sell tobacco products, violating rules. The judge referred to surveys by various authorities and organisations and said these showed that among 13 to 15 year old school going students in Chennai, tobacco usage is high and in line with those found in studies done in Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and North Eastern States. He observed that cigarette smoking outside school campus was reported to be high proportion among the youth. He referred to a Supreme Court order, prohibiting smoking in public places like auditoriums, hospital buildings and health institutions and said that in view of the above order, "it is necessary and it is the bounden duty of all concerned to safeguard the people, especially children, from the evil effects of smoking, tobacco use and passive smoking." The Judge also directed that steps be taken to punish those who sell cigarettes or other tobacco products to persons aged below 18 years as per Section 24 of the act. He then posted the matter to June 20. The Prime Minister Narendra Modis Lahore visit to reach out to Pakistan has apparently not gone down well with whose senior leader Dattareya Hosabale on Monday suggested that sincerity aspect of the other side needed to be kept in mind while making attempts to improve ties. He said Modis unannounced visit to Lahore on December 25 last year had ended up in Pathankot terror attack, just like former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee's bus yatra to the Pakistani city had met a similar fate. "I am not opposed to maintaining good ties ties with Pakistan but while making the attempts (we have to see) how sincere the other side is in taking it forward," Hosabale said. "The Lahore bus yatra (of Vajpayee in 1999) ended at the Agra Summit. The visit of Prime Minister to meet Pakistan Prime Minister at his Lahore residence ended in Pathankot. Whatever attempts you make, the problem is Pakistan's anti-India and anti-Hindu sentiment," he said. Speaking at an event to launch "Pakistan Watch", a quarterly journal by Sangh-linked India Policy Foundation, Hosabale said that despite many talks, there has not been any movement of "even an inch" in resolving the problems between the two countries as Pakistan considers India as its "enemy". "Atal ji started a bus to Lahore, but within 24 hours, there was a reversal (of the effort)," the leader said in an apparent reference to Pakistani incursion in Kargil Similarly, he said, Modi went to Lahore to improve ties with Pakistan but Pathankot happened. He said India has no cultural ties left with Pakistan as it turned into a theocratic state, which he asserted that India "can and will never be". When a nation's feelings are against another country, "then no nation can progress", Hosabale said. "It has been rightly said that it is a nation-less state because its nation-hood could not develop for last so many years. That is why Pakistan remained a nation-less state, it is not a nation state. "In that Pakistan, where street power overpowers the state power, State power where it buckled under the rogues' power, obviously it becomes a terror state... "For so many years, Pakistan never developed manufacturing sector and never moved forward. It manufactured only Taliban terrorists and could not run any other factory," Hosabale said. (Reopen DEL87) Hosabale encouraged research on Pakistan as the need of the hour and important for India's foreign policy. He said for years there has been an allegation that India's foreign polcy has been Pakistan-centric, as if other countries do not exist. "For being Pakistan-centric is due to the links with India since its inception," the leader noted, adding that since its birth till today not a single day has passed when problems have not been there. He said he would not give blessings for carrying this work of 'Pakistan Watch' for a long time as he cited the example of a similar journal 'USSR Watch" brought out in 1980s which had to shut down due to disintegration of USSR. Earlier, retired diplomat Vivek Katju expressed apprehension over Modi government carrying out the same policies as that of UPA regime while dealing with Pakistan. "It is not Nawaz Sharif who formulates policies in Pakistan with regard to India, it is (Pakistan Army Chief General) Raheel Sharif and we should focus on what he thinks and he considers India as an enemy," he said. "I hope there is consistency in our foreign policy towards Pakistan," said Katju, who had headed the Pakistan Division in the External Affairs Ministry. He said when Modi took oath as Prime Minister, there was great worry in Pakistan as he was a bold and strong Prime Minister. Katju said after two years, the Pakistani generals have come to the conclusion that Modi is pursuing the policies that his predecessors did and they are quite comfortable with it. "They feel that he is no different from his predecessors because he has also pursued the path of flexibility," he said. "There are a great number of successes in foreign policy, but I regret to say that on Pakistan, we don't see the same success. That is an obvious fact and the last two years have demonstrated that. "In dealing with Pakistan red lines are drawn and then those red lines are vacated. Then the message that goes to Pakistani generals is that of weakness and such a message should not go to Pakistanis generals," Katju said. Lauding Modi's initiative in not allowing Pakistanis to meet the Hurriyat leaders, he said that was the standard international practice as "no country allows foreigners to meet with their separatists" but lamented that it was reversed. Retired Army Major General G D Bakshi said Pakistan should be dealt with in the same language as it understands and that is military language. India Policy Foundation director Rakesh Sinha also spoke and spelt out the need for bringing out the journal. Tramp Shipping (Bahamas), one of the four companies that Amitabh Bachchan was linked to in the Panama Papers, bought a ship from another Bahamas company co-owned by his brother Ajitabh, The Indian Express reported Monday. President will be on a daylong visit to Uttarakhand on June 22 to pay obeisance at Kedarnath. He will arrive at Jollygrant airport early on that day and will head straight for the Himalayan shrine. He will return to Dehradun where he will stay for few hours before leaving for Delhi, said Chief Secretary Shatrughna Singh who on Monday reviewed preparations for the President's proposed visit at the secretariat with senior officials. Governor K K Paul, Chief Minister Harish Rawat, Chief Secretary Shatrughna Singh, DGP M A Ganpati and Dehradun Mayor Vinod Chamoli will receive the president at the airport. The President's aircraft will be landed at Gauchar if the weather In Kedarnath happens to be bad. President touched down in Accra, Ghana, on Sunday evening, on the first leg of his six-day three-nation state visit that would include visits to Cote d'Ivoire and Namibia as well. Carrying the presidential entourage, Air India One touched down in rainy weather at Accra's Kotoka International Airport at 3.45 pm local time after an approximately nine-and-a-half-hour-long flight. The president was received by Ghana's Vice President Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur, senior Ghanaian government officials and Indian High Commission officials. The ceremonial reception at the airport included a group of Ghanaian dancers- male and female- performing some of their traditional and popular dances and drum beats. School children from select schools in Ghana were also present on the occasion waving the flags of Ghana and India. The drive into the city centre was also smooth with streets lined with poles carrying the flags of the two countries and some flags pinned onto massive tree trunks. During his two-day state visit to Ghana, the first by an Indian Head of State, the president will hold talks with his Ghanaian counterpart John Dramani Mahama on issues of bilateral, regional and multilateral relevance to the two countries. This visit will include attending a state banquet hosted by President Dramani Mahama on Sunday evening; attending delegation -level talks and the signing of bilateral agreements and addressing the business community on Monday. President Mukherjee will pay his respects at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum; unveil a statue of Mahatma Gandhi and also address faculty and students at the University of Ghana, also on Monday. On Tuesday, he will visit the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence before departing for Cote D' Iviore on the second leg of his official visit. Indian Investments in Ghana are substantial and amount to nearly three billion dollars in various sectors, and trade between both the countries has gone up three times in the last three years. India's exports to Ghana were $680.39 million in fiscal 2014-15 and $502.65 million between April 2015 and January 2016. Major exports include pharmaceuticals, agricultural machinery, transport vehicles, electrical equipment, plastics, iron and steel, beverages and spirits, cereals, made-up textiles and self-propelled heavy machinery. India imports gold, cocoa nuts, timber products, aluminum waste and scrap, ferrous waste and scrap, cashew, coconut, Brazil nuts, cocoa beans and paste and oil seeds etc. Total Indian investments in Ghana are an estimated to be $1.02 billion over the past two decades. The estimated number of Indians living in Ghana is about 10,000 persons, out of which about 3000 hold foreign nationalities. Some of these NRIs have established a base in Ghana stretching to over 70 years. The President's visit to Ghana is expected to open up new opportunities of cooperation between the two countries. President Pranab Mukherjee has expressed shock and sadness over the deadly attack "against innocent civilians" in Orlando, US. In a message to US President Barack Obama on Monday, Mukherjee said, "I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the deadly attack against innocent civilians in Orlando. I offer my deepest sympathies to all those who have been affected by this terrible tragedy." He said that India condemns terrorism in "all its forms and manifestations" and that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence. "This event is yet another grim reminder that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them," Mukherjee added. He said the people of India "stand by the people of the US" in their "moment of grief and mourning". "We pray for the families that have lost loved ones and for the swift recovery of the injured," he said. After topping the Smart City Challenge competition, Bhubaneswar is striving to retain its position with a robust implementation plan. The capital city of Odisha was also the first to constitute a special purpose vehicle (SPV) - Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL). Terrorism is a scourge that knows no borders and it must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President has said while pledging India's support to Ghana for combating the menace. Mukherjee, who is here on a two-day visit the first by an Indian President said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghana's concern that it has become a global menace. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on Sunday, Mukherjee said, "It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge." Mukherjee's visit is a part of India's outreach to Africa. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled 'Africa' in his address. "Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council," Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. "The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs," he said. The elaborate banquet which saw traditional African dishes with Bollywood numbers playing in the backdrop was hosted at the flag staff college which has been constructed by a noted Indian builder. Mukherjee presented to Mahama a photograph of India's first President Rajendra Prasad meeting Nkrumah in Rashtrapati Bhavan as he stressed that government of India seeks Ghana's continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Indo African Forum Summit held in New Delhi last year. Lauding Ghana's efforts in reducing poverty levels to almost half and crossing the threshold to become a low income country, Mukherjee said India will continue to extend the hand of cooperation as it marches on the path of prosperity. Veteran filmmaker Ashok Pandit on Monday said that he feels pained when veteran actors like Shatrughan Sinha speak against the freedom of expression of the film industry. Pandit told ANI, "I am surprised with the statement of Shatrughan Sinha ji where he is backing the CBFC chairman. The whole industry is tensed with the whole episode of 'Udta Punjab' and Shatrughan ji said that whatever Nihlani did was correct." "I feel pained that a senior actor like him is making a statement against freedom of expression. It would be better if Shatru ji keeps his personal equations separate," he added. Actor-turned politician Shatrughan Sinha earlier on Monday defended the CBFC chairman, saying he is only following the guidelines laid down by the government. "The filmmakers, who are attacking him (Nihlani), forget that he has not made the rules. He is only following the guidelines laid down by the government. Don't shoot the messenger if you don't like the message," Sinha told ANI. Defending his 'close friend' Pahlaj Nihlani, the Patna Sahib MP said the former is dutifully and beautifully playing his part as the CBFC chairman. "Why there is a huge outcry to sack Pahlaj Nihlani? He is only doing his duty. One should ask the government to change the guidelines," he said. The Bombay High Court on Monday effectively quashed the numerous cuts ordered in the film 'Udta Punjab', ordering its release with only one cut, and a modification in the movie's disclaimer. In an order that reviewed each of the cuts recommended by the so-called Censor Board, the court ordered the Central Board for Film Certification to give an 'A' certificate to the film within two days. An 'A', or adults, certificate restricts viewership of the film to those over 18 years of age, and is the Indian equivalent of an 'R', or restricted, rating in Hollywood. The only scene that needs to be removed (cut number 9) is where Tommy Singh is urinating in front of a crowd, which the High Court said was not necessary. In a move that is expected to have far-reaching consequences for protection of forests while ensuring ease of doing business for mining sector, realty sector and industry, the Union has defined what constitutes a forest under the Forest Conservation Act 1980 (FCA). Having announced a dedicated policy in agro business, Gujarat expects about Rs 10,000-15,000 crore investment in sector in next five years. The state government on Monday announced the 'Comprehensive Agro Business Policy 2016-21' which focuses on value addition of agriculture produce. Peak power demand in Odisha is projected to touch 5,641 Mw by 2018-19, up from the current level of 4,050 Mw as the number of electricity consumers is going to add up with the progress in implementation of schemes like Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY), Biju Gram Jyoti Yojana (BGJY) and Biju Saharanchala Vidyutikaran Yojana (BSVY). The count of electricity consumers in the state is tipped to reach 9.6 million in FY19, from 5.8 million by the end of 2014-15. The state added around 2.5 million BPL (below poverty line) under RGGVY, BGJY and BSVY schemes. The average annual growth rate of electricity consumers was the highest during 2010-15 at 19.52 per cent. During 2015-19, the growth is expected to be 16.27 per cent. The power supply network did not grow commensurately with the growth in electricity consumers, prompting the state government to beef up its distribution network. Pitching as a new start-up haven, India's youngest state Telangana has been trying to emerge as a base for budding companies in the country. Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor S S Mundra on Monday said a few people might not have thought through fully before applying for bank licences. His Excellency Mr. John Dramani Mahama, the President of the Republic Ghana hosted a Banquet in honour of the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee in Accra yesterday (June 12, 2016). . . In his banquet speech, President Mukherjee said the India-Ghana brotherhood is anchored in our similar experiences, nurtured by the shared aspirations of our peoples and guided by the vision of our Founding Fathers. India will continue to extend the hand of co-operation to Ghana as it marches towards prosperity. Ghana can always count on Indias hand of friendship and co-operation. India will be happy to offer assistance and support in all areas where it is required by Ghana. . . The President said bilateral relations of India and Ghana have expanded and deepened over the years. Both investments and trade have seen rapid growth. The Government of India and the Indian corporate world recognize the rich potential of the Ghanaian economy. Indian companies would be happy to invest in Ghana if the right opportunities are given to them. We look forward to working with you to realise the full potential of our synergies to our mutual benefit. . . The President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee expressed shock and deep sadness over the deadly attack against innocent civilians in Orlando, USA. . . In a message to the President of USA, His Excellency Mr. Barack Obama, the President had said I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the deadly attack against innocent civilians in Orlando earlier today. I offer my deepest sympathies to all those who have been affected by this terrible tragedy. . . India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence. . . This event is yet another grim reminder that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them. . . The people of India stand by the people of the United States of America in their moment of grief and mourning. We pray for the families that have lost loved ones and for the swift recovery of the injured". . . The Vice President of India, Shri M. Hamid Ansari has condemned the mass shooting in Florida, USA. He said that there can be no justification for such barbaric and reprehensible acts and pluralist and open societies that stand for peace and share values of humanism have to work together in dealing with this scourge. . . Following is the text of the Vice Presidents message: . . I am shocked by the horrific attack against innocent civilians in Orlando, Florida. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those whose loved ones have been killed and injured. . . There can be no justification for such barbaric and reprehensible acts. Terrorism today has global reach, no city remains safe. Pluralist and open societies that stand for peace and share values of humanism have to work together in dealing with this scourge. . . We, in India, stand with the people and Government of the United States of America in their moment of grief and pray for the bereaved families and early recovery of the injured." . . First secretary at the French embassy, Sonia Tebbakh said, is expected to meet several high-level officials, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Htin Kyaw, in Nay Pyi Taw on the morning of June 17, reported The Myanmar Times. The foreign minister will also meet Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Minister for Energy and Electricity U Pe Zin Tun in Nay Pyi Taw on the same day. The purpose of the visit is to renew the French support in favour of the democratic transition in Myanmar and announce the financial involvement of French development aid, Tebbakh added. Ayrault is also scheduled to meet U Pyo Min Thein, the Yangon Region Chief Minister, French NGOs and businesses, and Myanmar civil society organisations in Yangon. This will be the first visit by a representative of the French government to Myanmar since the National League for Democracy government came to power in February. The Islamic State group today claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate." Considered to be the worst mass-shooting in the history of the United States, it left 50 people killed and 53 injured. "God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... In Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them," a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio said. Omar Mateen, a 29 year old U.S. citizen was the man behind the shooting. He had been investigated by the FBI on two occasions but there was no criminal history found against him. The jihadist group which declared its "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in 2014 has also claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris (2015) and Brussels (2016). Omar Mateen's life seemed to be on a successful trajectory a decade before he carried out one of the worst cases of mass murder in American history. The US President Barack Obama today said the "horrific" mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 50 people, is an act of "terror" and an "act of hate", as he reminded the countrymen of the easy access to firearms people enjoy in America. "This was an act of terror, and an act of hate," Obama said, adding that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating this as an act of terror. However, nothing is definitively known about the motivation behind this mass shooting, he told reporters at the White House this afternoon. "This is a heart breaking day for gays and lesbian's community," a grim looking Obama said. "Today marks the deadliest shooting in American history," he added. In the wee hours of Sunday morning at a gay nightclub in Orlando, a lone gunman - identified as Omar Siddique Muteen, who came to the US from Afghanistan -- killed 50 people and injured 53 . This was the 15th time that Obama has come out to address the nation after a mass shooting. "This is the deadliest shooting in the American history," Obama said, adding that this is further reminder of how someone can easily get fire arms for such violence. Americans have to decide if having easy access to firearms is "the kind of country we want to be," he said. "We will not give into fear," Obama asserted, and assured the nation that he would take action against those responsible for this. The President came into the briefing room soon after having met with the FBI Director and Secretary of Homeland Security. A State of emergency has been declared in Florida. The Florida Governor, Rick Scott, has also declared the overnight mass shooting as an act of terrorism. The US President, however, did not mention Islam or Islamic terrorism, as being blamed by some of his political opponents. In an interview to CNN, Congressman Peter King alleged that the gunman was radicalised and an supporter of Islamic State. Quoting unnamed law enforcement official CBS said Muteen pledged loyalty to ISIS in a 9/11 call before the shooting. He was also under FBI investigation for some time. His father Mir Siddique has apologised for mass shooting while stressing that the incident has nothing to do with religion. "We are saying we are apologising for the whole incident. We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country," he told NBC news channel. "This had nothing to do with religion," he added. The Republican presidential presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, condemned the horrific incident in Florida. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness and vigilance. We must be smart!" he tweeted. "Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act," said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. In a proclamation, the US President ordered that the national flags at all military posts and naval stations, be flown at half-staff. Obama said this is a mark of respect for the victims of the act of hatred and terror perpetrated in Orlando, Florida. "Although, it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate. And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people," Obama said in his remarks. He said investigating agencies are still learning all the facts. "This is an open investigation. We've reached no definitive judgement on the precise motivations of the killer. The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism," he said. "And I've directed that we must spare no effort to determine what -- if any -- inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups. What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred. Over the coming days, we'll uncover why and how this happened, and we will go wherever the facts lead us," he said. Obama said this is an especially heartbreaking day for all fellow Americans -- who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. "The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub -- it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights," he said. This is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American -- regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation -- is an attack on all and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define as a country, he said. "And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans," he asserted. "This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theatre, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well," the US President said. Early reports on the background of the gunman who slaughtered at least 50 people at a Florida nightclub paint a picture of a violent and prejudiced young man. The suspect, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is a Muslim American of Afghan descent and police are investigating whether he may have had a terrorist motive. US law enforcement is investigating whether he had links to -- or was inspired by -- Islamist terrorism. And US media, citing law enforcement sources, reported that he called police during the massacre to claim allegiance to the Islamic State group. But relatives interviewed by US media say Mateen, who worked as a security officer, was not overly religious but had anti-gay views and had regularly assaulted his ex-wife. Mateen's shocked father, Mir Seddique, said his son had recently been offended to see two gay men expressing affection on a Miami street. "We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music," the father told NBC News in the immediate aftermath if the shooting. "And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry," Seddique said. The attack, which became the worst mass shooting in modern US history, was carried out in the Pulse nightclub, a well-known gay hangout. "We are in shock like the whole country," Seddique added. "This had nothing to do with religion." In a separate interview, a former wife of the suspect who left him in 2011 fearing for her life, said he was violently abusive. "He was not a stable person," the ex-wife told the Washington Post, which did not identify her because she fears for her safety. "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that," she told the Post. According to the wife's account the pair had met in New York but in March 2009 had moved in together in Fort Pierce, Florida. The woman's parents later rescued her from the relationship and the pair were later divorced, according to a court document seen by AFP. She described him a "private person" but not especially expressive about his Muslim faith. He owned a small caliber handgun and worked as a guard at a secure facility for juvenile delinquents. Republican White House contender Donald Trump has called on President Barack Obama to resign for not using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" to describe the gay club massacre even as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton backed redoubling of efforts to defeat terror groups. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" Trump said in a series of tweets as he slammed the US President for not blaming radical Islam for the terror attack by the lone Afghan-origin gunman Omar Mateen at a public bar in Orlando that claimed at least 50 lives. In another tweet, Trump claimed that Mateen shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered club-goers. The police, however, is yet to corroborate this claim of Trump. He also stated that a second man was arrested in Los Angeles with rifles near the Gay parade. This is not the first instance where the 69-year-old presumptive Republican presidential nominee has brought up this issue of 'Radical Islam,' which he has also used to support his idea of a "complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" on a temporary basis. The police, however, has so far ruled out any linkage with the Orlando shooting, which is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. In a separate statement, Trump also asked Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to get out of the race. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency," Trump demanded. "Last night our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist. It was the worst terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11 and the second of its kind in 6 months. My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded and their families," he said. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Trump said. Horrific incident in FL. Praying for all the victims & their families. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Reporting that Orlando killer shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. 2nd man arrested in LA with rifles near Gay parade. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Meanwhile, Clinton, 68, described the Orlando mass shooting as an act of terror and called for redoubling of efforts to defeat terror groups. ISIS has claimed credit for the mass shooting carried out by 29-year-old Mateen, the New York-born American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan. "This was an act of terror. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad," Clinton said. "That means defeating terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defences at home," she said. "It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values," Clinton said in a statement. Describing Mateen as a terrorist, Trump said the shooter was the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for President of Afghanistan. According to Pew, 99% of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law. "We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States," he said. "Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalising," Trump alleged. "We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from Radical Islamic Terrorism which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a President for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans. We are going to make America safe again and great again for everyone," Trump said. Describing the as "an act of hate", Clinton said, "the gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month." "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hate has absolutely no place in America," she said. "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. Hillary https://t.co/MmaGjrSufr Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 Clinton said the horrific incidents reflect the need to have strict gun control laws. "We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets," she said. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic party presidential aspirant, said all Americans are horrified, disgusted and saddened by the horrific atrocity in Orlando. "At this point we do not know whether this was an act of terrorism, a terrible hate crime against gay people or the act of a very sick person, but we extend our heartfelt condolences to the victims' families and loved ones and our thoughts are with the injured and the entire Orlando LGBT community," he said in a statement. Pope Francis condemned as "homicidal folly and senseless hatred" a massacre at a gay nightclub in the US in which at least 50 people died. The attack "has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation... Before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred", said a statement from the Holy See. The attack in which a gunman opened fire at the packed nightclub in Orlando, Florida, is the worst mass shooting in US history. "We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence," the Holy See statement added. The FBI said they were investigating the possible radical Islamic "leanings" of the suspect, identified by US media as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan descent. Afghanistan's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Abdullah Abdullah on Monday condemned the overnight attack on the border police by Pakistani forces and said that a ceasefire had been agreed upon. Abdullah said that his government and Pakistan had an agreement that they would hold discussions before building any new installations at and mutually agree upon according to law. "We currently have agreed on a ceasefire with Pakistan. We hope this problem will end through the work by diplomatic addresses," Tolo News quoted him as saying. He said that Pakistan wanted to build new installations and the Afghan Border Forces didn't allow it which led to the clash between the two forces. "One of our border soldiers was martyred and six wounded in the clashes against Pakistan last night. The other side had casualties too," he added. Praising the Afghan security forces, he said, "We have the right to protect ourselves and no one should look down at us when it comes to defending our sovereignty and integrity." "We have proved that we are able to protect our homeland and our people. The current fight that Pakistan started doesn't help anyone's interest," he added. Mohammad Ayoub Hussainkhil, executive officer of the border police forces, said the clashes between both security forces on Sunday night continued for more than seven hours. He added that the clash began after Pakistan border police wanted to build installations at . Meanwhile, the Pakistani officials confirmed that two of their border policemen were injured in the clash. This comes after the Pakistani border police recently closed the border gate to Afghans without visas. The people in Torkham protested a week ago over the continued closure of the Torkham border citing that 'Torkham' was not recognised as the border between the two countries and Islamabad does not have the right to close the gate. The revelation that the 29-year-old man who opened fire on Sunday in a gay nightclub had dedicated the killing to the has prompted a now-familiar question: Was the killer truly acting under orders from the Islamic State, or just seeking publicity and the group's approval for a personal act of hate? For the terror planners of the Islamic State, the difference is mostly irrelevant. Influencing distant attackers to pledge allegiance to the and then carry out mass murder has become a core part of the group's propaganda over the past two years. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Income Tax (IT) department will probe the over Rs 1,000-crore scam in export of high-quality to Iran which was fraudulently diverted mid-sea to Dubai. Both the agencies have been asked by a Supreme Court- appointed Special Investigation Team to track the money which has been laundered through the export besides zeroing in on its beneficiaries, official sources said today. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), which has unearthed the scam, has shared relevant details of the case with the SIT, which is now monitoring the probe, they said. The SIT, headed by former Supreme Court judge M B Shah, is responsible for investigating cases of black money stashed within and outside the country. Over two lakh metric tonnes of was illegally offloaded in Dubai, during 2014-2015, instead of Bandar Abbas in Iran, the sources said. At least 25 big exporters from Haryana and Punjab are under the scanner of probe agencies for their involvement in the multi-crore scam. Both ED and IT have been asked to look into the case, they said. Explaining the modus operandi, the sources claimed the rice would be taken to Gujarat's Kandla Port by these exporters. They would then file shipping bills--documents filed with customs authorities carrying details of goods to be exported, consignor and consignee--for export to Iran. Instead of the consignment reaching Iranian shores, it would be diverted mid-sea to Dubai allegedly with connivance of cargo ship operators carrying the goods. Surprisingly, payments were also made from Iran to these exporters in India. Importers and port officials would allegedly acknowledge the receipt of rice and allow payment to be made against it here, they said. Agencies are clueless about the end-use of rice off-loaded in Dubai and suspect misuse of the proceeds through the commodity to fund some illegal activity like terror financing, the sources said. Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha had recently informed the Parliament about the scam. "Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has detected cases of diversion of export wherein consignments of rice meant for Iran were diverted to Dubai. "The payments for the said goods were received in Indian Rupees instead of freely convertible foreign currency, by misusing the facilities granted to the goods actually exported to Iran," Sinha had said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. Whatever delight the 2015-16 gross domestic product (GDP) growth might offer, India's steelmakers are destined to remain in the woods till the global steel industry gets rid of surplus capacity estimated at about 600 million tonnes (mt), of which half rests in China. In a situation of steel margins remaining under pressure, one good development for steelmakers here without iron ore mines linkages is the decision by the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) to cut prices of both lump ore and fines for two months in a row. But why did NMDC, the country's largest merchant miner and price setter for the steelmaking ingredient, go for price cuts when production of the metal here rose 2.3 per cent to 31 mt in the first four months of 2016? The only answer is that iron ore is a highly globalised commodity and the size of its seaborne trade is next only to crude oil. Last year, 1.3 bt of ore (out of two billion tonnes (bt) of world production) were moved by sea. Some days earlier, the National Stock Exchange Clearing Corporation (CC) refunded around Rs 250 crore of clearing members contribution that they had made to the Core Settlement and Guarantee Fund (CSGF). The first tranche of sovereign gold bonds issued last November, are trading at a huge premium to their issue price, quoting at the price prevailing in the spot market here. A little less than 10 years earlier, a Reserve Bank of India committee on fuller capital account convertibility, headed by S S Tarapore, passed a death sentence on Participatory Notes (P-notes). Stop new issues and wind down everything in a year, it had said. The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces have been put on alert following reports of clash between the Afghan and Pakistani border forces in Torkham. The clash reportedly occurred yesterday over the installation of a gate by Pakistan and continued for several hours. Gen. Ayub Hussain Khel, a commander of the Afghan Border Police in east, confirmed that the clashes erupted over the installation of a door by the Pakistani border guards, reports Khaama Press. An Afghan soldier lost his life while five others were wounded during the clash, though the exact number of Pakistani casualties is yet unknown. Stating that National Security Adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar has reviewed reports regarding the indiscriminate move by the Pakistani forces in Torkham, National Security Council spokesman Tawab Ghorzang said that all forces in the east, including the Afghan border police and 201st Corps of the Afghan National Army, have been put on alert to defend against the aggression of the enemy and those supporting them. Taking a strong exception to Giriraj Singh's alleged involvement in the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) toppers scam, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Monday sought a clarification from the Union Minister and demanded his resignation. "Giriraj Singh ji should give a clarification. It was all going good for them when they were putting blame on us. Now, when we have put all the evidences, it is pinching them. They have always misled the people and they do politics by insulting others. We strongly object to this. Whoever will be found guilty will not be spared," Yadav told ANI. Backing his father and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav's assertion that Bachcha Rai had no connection with the party, he said the Vishun Roy College principal was not their associate. "In a newspaper, it came out he has revealed that a central minister is also involved in this and wanted to open a medical college. We got the photo and by tweeting it we tried to show when anyone comes in a rally, you cannot ask for probe. But when someone comes in your personal programme and gives awards to toppers, this means you know the person. When he (Bachchai Rai) is saying a central minister is involved and with him you want to open a medical college, that means it's a serious issue," he added. The Deputy Chief Minister further said that he would have been called as the chief guest and not Giriraj Singh if his family indeed had close relations with Bachcha Rai. "The Chief Minister had gone in a personal programme. The gate was open on Lalu ji's birthday and many people clicked photos with him. Giriraj Singh had gone to the college in 2013 and when his money was stolen that included foreign currency.that incident also took place in 2013 and the photo that I posted was also of 2013," he said. Further escalating his attack on the BJP-led NDA Government, Yadav pointed out that even the central ministers were not coming out in Singh's support. "The BJP ministers know how much honest Giriraj Singh is. No one gave any clarification on his behalf, be it Sushil Modi, Mangal Pandey, Nand Kishore Yadav or Prem Kumar. The BJP ministers are not supporting him. The way Giriraj Singh has always been into controversies.he should resign," said Yadav. "They were sending us to Pakistan. Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi can only tell their actual place," he added while taking a jibe at the BJP top brass. In the wake of the recent controversy surrounding the BSEB toppers scam, the Deputy Chief Minister yesterday attempted to corner Girijaj Singh while alleging that the BJP leader is a family friend and business partner of the mastermind. Yadav shared a picture on his Twitter handle of the Union Minister along with the Vishun Roy College principal, who is said to be the mastermind behind this scam. Amid mounting pressure with regard to alleged irregularities in the 10+2 examinations, Bachcha Rai surrendered before the police earlier on Saturday. An FIR was registered against four students and the director of the college in connection with the scam. The four students against whom the case has been registered are Sourabh Shrestha, Rahul Kumar, Ruby Rai and Shalini. Following the furore over the Bihar Board examination toppers being unable to answer basic questions related to their stream eventually leading to a re-examination, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had earlier said the guilty won't be spared, adding the investigation into this matter will be done with a criminal angle. The BSEB earlier on June 4 cancelled the results of two toppers, including Sourabh Shrestha, of the Intermediate (Science) examinations after they failed to prove their merits in a re-test. The board had on June 3 asked Sourabh and his college mate Rahul Kumar, who were among the 13 toppers from the arts and science streams in the Class XII examinations, to reappear in a re-test following a controversy over their merits. Saurabh Shrestha from the science stream, who had secured 485 out of 500, was caught on camera failing to answer basic questions. Ruby Rai, the arts topper, from the same college failed to take the re-test earlier on Friday citing health reasons. Rai had secured 444 marks out of 500 in the arts stream. However, on camera she did not even appear to know the number of subjects in her course. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) patriarch and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav appeared before a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court in Ranchi Jharkhand in connection with the case. "The case is pertaining to RC38A/1996, in which there are a total of 48 accused and most of them were evading personal appearance. That is why all the accused had been ordered by the court to appear before it," said Lalu's counsel Prabhat Kumar. "So far 15-17 accused have marked their presence in the court, and more are expected to visit. The court will take legal action against those who failed to comply with its order," Kumar added. The relates to fraudulent withdrawal of around 1,000 crore rupees by the Animal Husbandry department from various districts when Lalu was the Bihar chief minister from 1990 to 1997. On October 3, 2013, Lalu was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in another case of by a special CBI court, which had disqualified him from membership of Parliament and also rendered him ineligible for contesting elections for 11 years. Besides Lalu, six other politicians and four retired IAS officers were also sentenced to prison terms for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa treasury (now in Jharkhand) when Lalu was heading the Janta Dal government in the early 1990s in erstwhile Bihar. Meanwhile, with important files related to the fodder scam reportedly missing from the animal and fisheries resources department office in Patna, Union Minister and BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy alleged that this was all being done to get a clean-chit for RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav by his partner in crime Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Rudy said this is all being done by the incumbent grand alliance government in Bihar to facilitate Lalu's acquittal. "The missing files signify there are people in the system trying to get a clean-chit for Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav. Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar are friends and they are partners in crime," he said. Rudy recalled that the RJD boss had to quit as the Bihar chief minister in 1997 because he was charged and sentenced in the fodder scam. "Thereafter, the CBI chargesheeted him. He was put behind the bars. He had to quit his position as the chief minister," he said. "There are reports that the file pertaining to the Fodder scam has been stolen. And it clearly emphasises that there are people in the system who possibly would be working to give a clean-chit or to assist or facilitate the acquittal of Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav," he added. Continuing his tirade against the Nitish-Lalu duo, Rudy said crime has increased in Bihar, adding the state government has begun to protect the criminals. "It seems it's a part of that very same chain. We are all very concerned that the process of law and the process of justice will stand vitiated if such incidents happen where the files pertaining to fodder scam are stolen," he added. Meanwhile, an FIR has been registered at the Old Secretariat police station in this regard. The fodder scam involved the embezzlement of about Rs. 9.4 billion from the government treasury of Bihar. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said that the popularity of the NDA government is growing with each passing day, adding it has retained its popularity in the last two years. "The 2014 Lok Sabha elections were a major turn for the country when the BJP emerged as the single largest party in the country. This year the Narendra Modi government completed two successful years," Jaitley said on the sidelines of party's Executive meet in Allahabad. "Earlier the government was characterised by a policy paralysis. However now, India is seen as a bright spot," he added. The Union Finance Minister further praised Prime Minister Modi, saying the BJP has proved itself in all aspects by satisfying the citizens of India. "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has put forth seven-point 'mantras' for party workers, including service, balance, restraint, empathy and dialogue," he added. Jaitley also said the main objectives of this executive meet were to analyse the current political scenario and to increase the country's economic growth amid the global slowdown. "From a geographical perspective, the party is growing stronger in places where we have historically been weak such as Kerala, Assam, Bengal. And we have identified seven states where we want to make the party stronger," he added. The BJP began its two-day executive meet on June 12, targeting the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections in 2017, but the party's chief ministerial candidate for the UP elections is yet to be announced. With the mass migration of Hindu families from in western Uttar Pradesh grabbing the nation's attention, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Monday said it's unfortunate that people are forced to leave their village in their own country, adding that the state government should take the responsibility. "If people have to leave their village in their own country, then the state government should take the responsibility. If the state government seeks any help from us, we will definitely provide them," said Kiren Rijiju, Minister of State for Home. "The Uttar Pradesh government should take a note of the deteriorating law and order situation and comprehend over it. Hooliganism, hostility and looting, land-related problems etc are rampant in the state, which is adding to people's resentment against the government. The law and order situation has deteriorated to a greater extent and the government must ponder on it. For the development of the state, the government needs to ensure people's safety, which is not happening in Uttar Pradesh," he said, while replying to a question on deteriorating law and order problem in the state. When asked if the Uttar Pradesh government had sent its report to the MHA, Rijiju said, "We have not received a report from the state government. The state government should have sent its report." "The Government of India has announced a package for the settlement of Kashmiri Pandits in the valley. The work is going on. There are some problems on the ground, which everybody knows," he said in response to opposition raised by separatist Syed Ali Shah Geelani to the proposed Sainik colonies in the Kashmir Valley. Dispelling the notion that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) is re-opening the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases in view of the upcoming Punjab polls, he said, "the government has nothing to do with it. SIT officials are professional, they know their work. The government has nothing to do with it." According to reports, Delhi had 237 anti-Sikh riot cases that were closed because of non-availability of victims or lack of evidence. After reviewing their documents, the SIT has decided to reopen around 75 cases. The SIT will issue advertisements regarding these cases and ask victims and witnesses to join the probe. Maintaining that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) can't see Uttar Pradesh getting ravaged by the current government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the time for a change has come in the state. "Every time the country faced a problem, it was the people of Uttar Pradesh who came forward to help. We don't want our youth to face the problems that the older generations faced. I am here to assure the youth that if you have potential, you will get your dues," Prime Minister Modi said addressing a public rally in Allahabad. Prime Minister Modi pointed out that the time has come for a "Vikas Yagya" adding that to fuel this, one must sacrifice nepotism, corruption and casteism. Taking a jibe at the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, Prime Minister Modi said there seems to be a contract between both of them in Uttar Pradesh. "The SP and BSP make serious allegations against each other but do nothing about them when in power. There is a 'jugalbandi' between Mulayam Singh and Mayawati. Till this contract is not broken, there won't be any development in Uttar Pradesh," he said. The Prime Minister further credited the formation of a majority government in Centre to the people of Uttar Pradesh. "Looking at the stage, it is evident what impact Uttar Pradesh has on the government. The Prime Minister, Home Minister, Defence Minister all are from UP," he said. The Prime Minister further praised the previous BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh, saying the state still calls the tenures of Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh as it developed greatly under both of them. Prime Minister Modi also highlighted the rural electrification project undertaken by the NDA-government, saying 1352 out of 1529 villages have got power within 400 days of his government. "Only 177 villages in Uttar Pradesh do not have electricity now," he added. The Prime Minister further credited his government for providing the most farmers friendly crop insurance scheme, since independence. The United States has warned against the risk of a nuclear conflict in South Asia, following China's proposal for more talks on India's application seeking membership to the on Sunday. A senior US official, disagrees with China's suggestion that India's entry into NSG would affect strategic stability in South Asia, reports the Dawn. The official however, did acknowledge the risk of a nuclear conflict in South Asia region and said "we are concerned by the increased security challenges that accompany growing stockpiles and the increased risk that a conventional conflict between India and Pakistan could escalate to include nuclear use." China argues that if India should be exempted from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) then so should be Pakistan as both the countries have not signed the NPT. US has already backed India's bid to join the NSG and has urged other NSG members to admit India during the annual plenary session scheduled later this month. The US official also added that improvement in relations between India, Pakistan and China would greatly enhance prospects for lasting peace, stability and prosperity in the region. A woman biker who embarked on an anti-suicide mission by riding solo across India reached her hometown Hyderabad on Sunday after a successful stint. Sana Iqbal embarked on a solo countrywide ride on November 23 last year from Goa. After having suffered from depression herself, she wanted to encourage others to never give up in life. As people cheered the young mother returning home, she recounted the positivity she had encountered during her journey. "It's a wonderful feeling, and I have covered 38,000 kilometers in India, all the states and union territories. So it's a fantastic experience. Wherever I went, I met a lot of people who were very helpful, who really wanted to, you know, do something for the betterment of the society. I mean, I just came across a lot of positivity wherever I went," she said. During the campaign, Iqbal conducted seminars in several universities on how to combat depression. "There are two options: one is, we discuss an issue but don't do anything constructive, only keep pointing out the negativities. The second option is when people choose to correct the wrongs. So that's exactly what I thought. I love riding. I was interested in it. I thought, if I ride and someone is benefitted because of it, then why not," he added. Iqbal has been counseling patients with depression even in the past and plans to continue doing so in the future as well. According to the Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 15 persons in India committed suicide every hour in 2014. More than 800,000 people each year worldwide commit suicide - around one person every 40 seconds - the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in September 2014. A2Z Infra Engineering rose 7.59% to Rs 33.30 at 10:50 IST on BSE after the company said it won a contract worth $13.56 million from Nepal Electricity Authority. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 290.50 points, or 1.09%, to 26,345.25. On BSE, so far 5.39 lakh shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 85.20 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 34.60 so far during the day, which is also a 52-week high for the counter. The stock hit a low of Rs 31.60 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 12.10 on 12 June 2015. The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 10 June 2016, rising 28.69% compared with 3.28% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 53.98% as against Sensex's 7.76% rise. The small-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 126.89 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. A2Z Infra Engineering announced after market hours on Friday, 10 June 2016, that a contract has been awarded from Nepal Electricity Authority (a Government of Nepal Undertaking) for expansion of distribution network in the Western Region of Nepal for contract price aggregating to $13.56 million. A2Z Infra Engineering reported net profit of Rs 6.53 crore in Q4 March 2016 as against net loss of Rs 109.54 crore in Q4 March 2015. Net sales rose 453.48% to Rs 349.58 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. AZZ Maintenance & Engineering Services is an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC). Powered by Capital Market - Live News At meeting held on 13 June 2016 Bombay Wire Ropes announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on 13 June 2016, has approved the following matters: 1. Approved Split/ Sub-division of Equity Shares of the Company of the face value on of Rs. 10/- (Rupees Ten Only) to face value of Rs. 1/- (Rupees one Only) each subject to approval of the shareholders through Postal Ballot. 2. Approved Consequential Alteration of Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association to give effect to sub-division of Face value of the Equity Shares of the Company. 3. Approving and finalizing the notice of postal ballot for obtaining approval of the shareholders for the above referred matters. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Coal India rose 1.01% to Rs 310.25 at 10:11 IST on BSE after the company said that two of its subsidiaries will buyback total shares worth around Rs 1978 crore from their shareholders. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 284.89 points, or 1.07%, to 26,350.86. On BSE, so far 52,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 3.28 crore shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 310.70 and a low of Rs 304.80 so far during the day. The stock hit a record high of Rs 447.25 on 5 August 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 272.05 on 12 April 2016. The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 10 June 2016, rising 8.17% compared with 3.28% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 3.73% as against Sensex's 7.76% rise. The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 6316.36 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. Coal India announced on Sunday, 12 June 2016, that two of its subsidiaries - Mahanadi Coalfields and Northern Coalfields - will buyback total shares worth around Rs 1978 crore from their shareholders. The board of directors of Northern Coalfields (NGL) approved buyback of 4.01 lakh fully paid equity shares, or 22.62% equity, of face value of Rs 1000 each from the members of NGL on a proportionate basis through tender offer for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 948.72 crore. The shares will be purchased at Rs. 23,610.04 each. The board of directors of Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL) approved buyback of 4.43 lakh fully paid equity shares, or 23.82% equity, of face value of Rs 1000 each from the members of MCL on a proportionate basis through tender offer for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 1028.77 crore. The shares will be purchased at Rs 23,171.89 each. Coal India's consolidated net profit rose 0.2% to Rs 4247.93 crore on 0.7% decline in total income to Rs 22904.36 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. Coal India is an organized state-owned coal mining corporate. The Government of India held 79.65% stake in Coal India (as per the shareholding pattern as on 31 March 2016). Powered by Capital Market - Live News Dr Reddy's Laboratories rose 0.55% to Rs 3081.50 at 9:37 IST on BSE after the company signed pacts to acquire a portfolio of eight abbreviated new drug applications in the US for $350 million in cash. The announcement was made on Saturday, 11 June 2016. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 254.55 points, or 0.96%, to 26,381.20. On BSE, so far 4,217 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 19.48 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 3,095.90 and a low of Rs 3,073 so far during the day. The stock hit a record high of Rs 4,382.95 on 20 October 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 2,750 on 21 January 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 10 June 2016, rising 3.05% compared with 3.28% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, falling 4.59% as against Sensex's 7.76% rise. The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 85.30 crore. Face value per share is Rs 5. Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) inked a definitive agreement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and an affiliate of Allergan plc to acquire a portfolio of eight Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) in the US for $350 million in cash. The acquired portfolio consists of products that are being divested by Teva as a precondition to its completion of the acquisition of Allergan's generics business. The portfolio being acquired is a mix of filed ANDAs pending approval and one approved ANDA. The portfolio comprises of complex generic products across diverse dosage forms. The branded versions of these drugs had aggregate sales of about $3.5 billion in the United States for 12-month period ended April 2016, according to IMS Health data. DRL is acquiring this portfolio of drugs on a cash-free, debt-free basis and expects to finance the transaction using a combination of cash on hand and available borrowings under existing credit facilities. The acquisition of these ANDAs is contingent on the successful completion of the Teva/Allergan generics transaction and approval by the US Federal Trade Commission of DRL as a buyer. Dr Reddy's Laboratories' consolidated net profit fell 85.6% to Rs 74.60 crore on 2.4% decline in total income to Rs 3792.80 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. Dr Reddy's Laboratories is an integrated global pharmaceutical company. Through its three businesses - Pharmaceutical Services & Active Ingredients, Global Generics and Proprietary Products - Dr Reddy's offers a portfolio of products and services including active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), custom pharmaceutical services, generics, biosimilars and differentiated formulations. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Fortis Healthcare fell 3.21% to Rs 162.80 at 9:56 IST on BSE after the company said its subsidiary has received an order to deposit Rs 503.36 crore for non-compliance of conditions of land allotment lease. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 286.31 points, or 1.07%, to 26,349.44. On BSE, so far 33,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 53.38 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 163.80 and a low of Rs 160.10 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 199.20 on 5 August 2015. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 141.10 on 12 February 2016. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 10 June 2016, rising 0.18% compared with 3.28% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had also underperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 0.30% as against Sensex's 7.76% rise. The mid-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 463.17 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. Fortis Healthcare announced after market hours on Friday, 10 June 2016, that one of its subsidiaries, Escort Heart Institute & Research Centre (EHIRCL), has received an order from The Directorate General of Health Services (DHS). The DHS has ordered to deposit Rs 503.36 crore towards recovery of unwarranted profit made by EHIRCL for alleged non-compliance of the conditions of allotment/lease of land since its allotment in 1982. EHIRCL believes that the impugned order in its view is legally flawed and untenable. The EHIRCL management will challenge the same in the High Court of Delhi or such relevant authority to seek suitable legal remedies available to it under law. On a consolidated basis, Fortis Healthcare reported net loss of Rs 90.86 crore Q4 March 2016 as against net loss of Rs 17.53 crore in Q4 March 2015. Net sales rose 1.13% to Rs 1061.32 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. Fortis Healthcare is a leading integrated healthcare delivery service provider in India. The healthcare verticals of the company primarily comprise hospitals, diagnostics and day care specialty facilities. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Held on 13 June 2016 Mahabir Metallex announced that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on 13 June 2016, inter alia, has taken the following decisions: 1. The board has decided to take over the Housing Project of approximately 2 million sq.ft named as Gulmohur Vatika situated at NH-24, Wave City, Ghaziabad from SVP Builders (India) who have entered into an agreement with Uppal Chadha Hi-Tech Developers, subject to the approval of the shareholders. 2. To increase the authorized share capital of the Company from Rs. 10.50 crore to Rs. 25 crore divided in to 1,50,00,000 Equity shares of Rs 10 each and 1,00,00,000 Preference shares of Rs 10 each subject to the approval of the shareholders. 3. To file INC-1 with the ROC for seeking again availability of the name 'SVP Housing', (as the sixty days time period for the earlier availability of name has been expired ) 4. To call an EGM of the Company on 12 July 2016 at the Registered Office of the Company A-3, NDSE, Part-1, New Delhi at 2.30 p.m. to discuss the matters as set out in the Points (1) & (2) above. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Premier Explosives was up 0.18% to Rs 354.25 at 13:18 IST on BSE after the company said it bagged an order worth Rs 72.95 crore for supplying explosives at the open cast projects of the Singareni Collieries Company for 2 years. The announcement was made during trading hours today, 13 June 2016. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 272.35 points, or 1.02%, to 26,363.40. On BSE, so far 17,000 shares were traded in the counter, compared with an average volume of 7.05 lakh shares in the past one quarter. Trading was volatile in the counter. The stock rose 4.64% at the day's high of Rs 370. The stock fell 2.43% at the day's low of Rs 345. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 519 on 7 January 2016. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 222 on 12 June 2015. The stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 10 June 2016, falling 4.38% compared with 3.28% rise in the Sensex. The scrip had, however, outperformed the market in past one quarter, sliding 8% as against Sensex's 7.76% rise. The small-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 8.86 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. Premier Explosives said it has bagged an order worth Rs 72.95 crore for the supply of SMS/SME explosives, LDC explosives and accessories for blasting at all the open cast projects of the Singareni Collieries Company for a period of 2 years i.e. from 2016 to 2018. Net profit of Premier Explosives rose 68.32% to Rs 3.40 crore on 39% rise in net sales to Rs 58.45 crore in Q4 March 2016 over Q4 March 2015. Premier Explosives (PEL) is one of the major companies in India manufacturing the entire range of commercial explosives and accessories for the civil requirement. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Tata Motors lost 3.6% at Rs 440.35 and Tata Steel shares 3.6% at Rs 322.90 at 12:40 IST on BSE on concerns over the 23 June 2016 referendum that could see Britain exit the European Union. Recent polls have suggested that momentum is growing for the Britain's campaign to leave the bloc. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has warned that Britain's leaving the EU -- the so-called Brexit -- could send shocks through global financial markets. The OECD said on 1 June 2016 that a United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union (EU) would trigger negative economic effects on the UK, other European countries and the rest of the world. Brexit would lead to economic uncertainty and hinder trade growth, with global effects being even stronger if the British withdrawal from the EU triggers volatility in financial markets, the OECD said. By 2030, post-Brexit UK GDP could be over 5% lower than if the country remained in the European Union, the OECD said. Shares of Tata Motors have dropped 5.64% from its close of Rs 466.70 on 9 June 2016. The Tata Steel stock has lost 5.59% from its close of Rs 342.05 on 9 June 2016. Stocks across the globe have fallen over the past two trading sessions on Brexit fears. Both Tata Steel and Tata Motors have large operations in UK and Europe. Tata Steel is Europe's second largest steel producer, with steelmaking in the UK and Netherlands, and manufacturing plants across Europe. Tata Steel Europe has initiated the process to sell its UK business viz. Tata Steel UK. Tata Steel Europe has invited seven short listed potential investors to submit binding bids for Tata Steel UK. Tata Motors derives majority of its revenue from its British luxury car unit Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). JLR is the largest automotive manufacturer in Britain. It is one of the UK's largest exporters and generates over 80% of its revenue from exports. Meanwhile, another trigger for the fall in the Tata Steel counter was downgrade of the stock from a foreign brokerage to "sell" from "neutral" citing expensive valuations. The brokerage has reported said in a research note that fall in steel prices in Europe would further weigh on Tata Steel counter. The brokerage has reportedly said that the Tata Steel stock is currently pricing in most of the potentially positive drivers such as higher profitability and sale of UK assets. Powered by Capital Market - Live News Yes Bank will be in focus after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the ceiling on investment by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to 74% of the private sector bank's paid up capital from earlier 60%. RBI's nod for higher ceiling on investment by FIIs came after Yes Bank's board of directors and shareholders approved the proposal. The RBI has capped the total foreign shareholding from all sources in Yes Bank at 74% of the bank's equity. Last month, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs cleared Yes Bank's proposal for increase in foreign investment limit in the bank's equity capital to 74% from 41.87% without any sub-limits. Coal India announced on Sunday, 12 June 2016, that two of its subsidiaries Mahanadi Coalfields and Northern Coalfields will buyback total shares worth around Rs 1978 crore from their shareholders. The board of directors of Northern Coalfields (NGL) approved buyback of 4.01 lakh fully paid equity shares, or 22.62% equity, of face value of Rs 1000 each from the members of NGL on a proportionate basis through tender offer for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 948.72 crore. The shares will be purchased at Rs. 23,610.04 each. The board of directors of Mahanadi Coalfields (MCL) approved buyback of 4.43 lakh fully paid equity shares, or 23.82% equity, of face value of Rs 1000 each from the members of MCL on a proportionate basis through tender offer for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 1028.77 crore. The shares will be purchased at Rs 23,171.89 each. Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) may edge higher after the company inked a definitive agreement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and an affiliate of Allergan plc to acquire a portfolio of eight Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) in the US for $350 million in cash. The acquired portfolio consists of products that are being divested by Teva as a precondition to its completion of the acquisition of Allergan's generics business. The portfolio being acquired is a mix of filed ANDAs pending approval and one approved ANDA. The portfolio comprises of complex generic products across diverse dosage forms. The branded versions of these drugs had aggregate sales of about $3.5 billion in the United States for 12-month period ended April 2016, according to IMS Health data. DRL is acquiring this portfolio of drugs on a cash-free, debt-free basis and expects to finance the transaction using a combination of cash on hand and available borrowings under existing credit facilities. The acquisition of these ANDAs is contingent on the successful completion of the Teva/Allergan generics transaction and approval by the US Federal Trade Commission of DRL as a buyer. Tata Power Company announced on Sunday, 12 June 2016, that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Tata Power Renewable Energy (TPREL), has signed a share purchase agreement to acquire Welspun Renewable Energy (WRE). The acquisition is made at an enterprise value of Rs 9249 crore, subject to closing adjustments. Tata Power said that acquisition will enable it to expand its renewables energy portfolio. WRE, part of the Welspun Group, is engaged in the business of power generation in renewable sector. It has one of the largest operating solar portfolios in India spread across ten states. It has about 1,140 megawatts (MW) of renewable power projects comprising of about 990 MW solar power projects and about 150 MW of wind power projects. Out of 1,140 MW renewable portfolio, nearly 1,000 MW of capacity is operational and balance capacity is under advanced stages of implementation. TPREL currently operates 294 MW of renewable power capacity and 500 MW of renewable assets are being carved out of Tata Power into TPREL through a court process In addition, almost 400 MW of solar and wind power projects are under implementation. Thus, TPREL with all these assets, would have renewable assets portfolio of about 2,300 MW making it the largest renewable power company in India. Stocks of public sector companies will be in focus after the Ministry of Heavy Industry & Public Enterprises announced the setting up of 3rd Pay Revision Committee which will give its recommendation on the revision of salaries of the executives of the Central Public Sector Undertakings (CPSEs). The committee will provide its recommendations on the matter to the government, covering board level functionaries, below-board level executives and non-unionized supervisory staff of CPSEs. While submitting the final recommendations to the government, the committee will take into account the report of the 7th Central Pay Commission. The Pay Revision Committee will make its recommendations within 6 months. The decision of the government on the recommendations of the committee will take effect from 1 January 2017. Stocks of aviation firms will be in focus after the Ministry of Civil Aviation said in its proposed draft amendments to Civil Aviation Requirements (CARs) that airlines shall refund all statutory taxes and User Development Fee (UDF)/Airport Development Fee (ADF)/Passenger Service Fee (PSF) to the passengers in case of cancellation of tickets/non-utilisation of tickets/no show. In no circumstances, the cancellation charge shall be more than the basic fare. In case of denied boarding, flight cancellation and flight delays, the ministry has proposed that an amount equal to 200% of booked one way basic fair plus airline fuel charge subject to maximum of Rs 10,000 would be paid to passengers in case airline arranges alternate flight that is to depart after one hour but within 24 hours of the booked scheduled departure. The ministry has proposed that an airline shall refund an amount equal to 400% of booked one-way basic fare plus airline fuel charge subject to maximum of Rs 20,000 in case where the airline arranges alternate flight that is scheduled to depart beyond 24 hours of the booked scheduled departure. In case passenger does not opt for alternate flight, the airline shall refund full value of ticket and compensation equal to 400% of booked one-way basic fare plus airline fuel charge, subject to maximum of Rs 20,000. With regard to checked-in baggage charges, the ministry has proposed that the airline should restrict additional baggage charge at Rs 100 per kg for baggage between 15 to 20 kg. Director General of Civil Aviation M Sathiyavathy was quoted as saying on Saturday, 11 June 2016, that the changes in excess baggage fee norms will be implemented from 15 June 2016. Fortis Healthcare announced after market hours on Friday, 10 June 2016, that one of its subsidiaries, Escort Heart Institute & Research Centre (EHIRCL), has received an order from The Directorate General of Health Services (DHS). The DHS has ordered to deposit Rs 503.36 crore towards recovery of unwarranted profit made by EHIRCL for alleged non-compliance of the conditions of allotment/lease of land since its allotment in 1982. EHIRCL believes that the impugned order in its view is legally flawed and untenable. The EHIRCL management will challenge the same in the High Court of Delhi or such relevant authority to seek suitable legal remedies available to it under law. Powered by Capital Market - Live News President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the Delhi government's bill to exclude the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the office of profit, sources said on Monday. "The president did not give assent to Delhi government's bill and sent it back to the Lt. Governor's office on Monday. This has been forwarded to the Law Secretary of the Delhi government," sources at the LG's office told IANS. Mukherjee is on a three-nation six-day visit to Africa. The rejection of the bill has put the fate of 21 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, who have been appointed to the posts of parliamentary secretary, in jeopardy. These 21 legislators might lose their house membership. The Delhi Government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. This Bill was aimed at exclusion of the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the office of profit. Petitions had been filed with the President seeking disqualification of these MLAs on the ground that they occupied office of profit in violation of the Constitution. Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai on Monday said he was "ready to go to jail" if corruption was proven in the city government's app-based premium bus service scheme. The service couldn't take off following allegations that a particular aggregator was favoured. "No corruption took place in this scheme. I am ready to go to jail if anyone proves corruption in the app-based premium bus service," Rai told reporters here. The Delhi government during the second phase of the odd-even scheme in April announced the premium bus service would be made operational from mid-June. Registrations for the same were to be started on June 1. But the scheme could not be launched because Lt. Governor Najeeb Jung did not give his assent to the service and asked the transport minister to review it. A complaint was filed with the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator Vijender Gupta, alleging that the city government was favouring an aggregator and no norms had been followed. Rai said he would be visiting the ACB office on Tuesday to answer Gupta's allegations. The city government led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is in a tiff with Lt. Governor Jung, accusing him of creating hurdles in its development plans. --IANS am-sar/vt A contractual worker employed by the Delhi University was on Monday allegedly assaulted by Delhi University Students Union president Satender Awana and six other students, police said. Victim Vineet Mehta is incharge of the swimming pool at Sri Ram College of Commerce in north Delhi, police said. "He was assaulted by the DUSU president and few of his friends over the issue of entry to the swimming pool," a senior police official told IANS. He said police is probing the matter after receiving a complaint. Mehta said Awana was accompanied by six to seven unidentified students when he was beaten up around 4 p.m. --IANS aks/tsb Curfew was imposed near a Pakistan-Afghanistan border point on Monday after firing and bombardment by Afghan forces was reported in which three Pakistani security personnel were injured. Due to the tense situation, all transportation was banned. The residents of the area have started moving to safer places, security sources told Geo News. The skirmish began when Pakistan constructed a gate at Landikotal and Torkham in a bid to curb the illegal flow of people along the border. The Afghan forces allegedly began unprovoked firing that injured a Frontier Corps officer and two Khasadar forces men. In the retaliatory firing by the Pakistani security forces an Afghan checkpost caught fire. Mortar bombs fired by the Afghan forces injured six people including two children. The injured were shifted to the Landikotal hospital. According to the army's Inter-Services Public Relations, in recent days several militants were found crossing the Torkham border. "At about 9.20 a.m tonight (Sunday) Afghan Security forces resorted to unprovoked firing on Pakistani side at Torkham Gate. A Pakistani soldier was injured due to Afghan firing," an ISPR statement reads. After the clash, a curfew was imposed in the area for an indefinite period of time. The Torkham border was evacuated and the Pakistan- Afghanistan transit trade was stopped and the vehicles were sent back to Peshawar in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Islamabad has often accused Afghanistan of harbouring terrorists who carry out attacks in Pakistan time and again. Recently, Pakistan called for increased surveillance and monitoring of the Afghan border to prevent infiltration of terrorists into the country. --IANS ahm/bg President Pranab Muhkherjee on Monday said the United Nations should be reformed to keep pace with world developments and pitched for India's candidature for permanent seat on the Security Council. He said it was so because with India's size and civilizational depth, the country cannot remain to "be watching from the sidelines as the Security Council dispenses solutions to global issues". Similarly, President Mukherjee said, "the continent of Africa of over a billion people cannot be bystanders while its fate is defined". Addressing the students of the University of Ghana as part of his two-day visit to the country, he said: "Reform and change of the United Nations is inevitable and the youth should be at the vanguard of this call for change." "Outdated structures cannot resolve problems of today," the visiting president said, adding that "positive transformation cannot be brought about by archaic systems and concepts". "The United Nations established in the wake of the Second World War cannot effectively respond to the evolving international challenges that we face today," he said. President Mukherjee said the growth of India into a robust and a confident nation is not an overnight phenomenon, adding that it took "decades of toil and the sacrifices of our leaders and strengthened by the momentum generated by hundreds of thousands of students and scholars". "It is their innovations, discoveries, rock-solid determination and self-belief, and more importantly a burning desire to serve the nation, which has contributed to India's success," he said. President Mukherjee said after Independence, India did not "follow blindly the models of development that might have been successful elsewhere". "We recognised that natural and financial resources were only one side of the coin of development," he said, adding that "the other side is the quality of human resource that alone can transform the natural resources into prosperity and happiness of the people". President Mukherjee leaves Accra to Cote d'Ivoire on Tuesday on the second leg of his three-nation African tour which will also take him to Namibia. (Francis Kokutse can be reached at fkokutse@gmail.com) --IANS francis/tsb Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi following presidential rejection of his government's bill to exclude Parliamentary Secretary's post from the office of profit. "Modi ji does not respect democracy; he only fears Aam Aadmi Party... he is terrified with the good works being done in Delhi," Kejriwal said in his one of the tweets. Rejection of the amendment proposed to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997, has put the fate of 21 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, who have been appointed as parliamentary secretaries, in jeopardy. Kejriwal said no MLA appointed to the post was given money, car, bungalow or anything else by his government. "Every MLA was working for free. One MLA was dedicated for power issues, one for water issues, one for hospitals and one for schools," Kejriwal tweeted. Blaming Modi for not letting the party MLAs work, the Chief Minister said: "Modi ji says neither he will work nor let others do. He says stay at your home and do not work." "Our one MLA used to spend his own money on petrol and visit hospitals. Tell us what wrong he used to do?" Kejriwal asked and added, "Modi ji forced him to sit at home." Earlier, petitions were filed with the President to seek disqualification of these MLAs on the ground that they occupied the office of profit in violation of the Constitution. --IANS am/tsb Hollywood celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Beyonce Knowles and Madonna took to social media to express their love and condolences for the victims of the mass shooting at Pulse gay nightclub on Sunday in Orlando, Florida. In the worst mass shooting in US' history, at least 50 people were killed and 53 others injured when a "lone wolf" gunman opened fire early on Sunday at the nightclub. The gunman, named by officials as Omar Mateen, 29, was killed by a SWAT team after he took hostages at Pulse. Following the incident, the "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" star sent her "thoughts" and "prayers" for the victims, reports aceshowbiz.com. "I'm truly at a loss for words. To everyone in Orlando affected by this massacre, my thoughts, love and prayers are with you," Kim Kardashian wrote on Twitter. Knowles posted on Instagram a photograph of a peace sign made of flowers and branches which she captioned, "Condolences and prayers to Orlando". Madonna also paid tribute to the victims of the shooting by uploading on Instagram an image of her quote which read, "You cannot use the name of god, or religion, to justify acts of violence, to hurt, to hate, to discriminate". Other celebrities like John Legend, Milla Jovovich, Ty Dolla $ign, Amy Schumer, Mindy Kaling and Ariana Grande also offered condolences to the victims on social media. --IANS ank/nv/vt With an eye on next year's assembly polls in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, and on "Mission 2019", Prime Minister on Sunday exhorted BJP party workers to preserve the massive goodwill the party received in 2014 till the next general elections. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah, in his speech, trained his guns at the state's Samajwadi Party government and raised the issue of alleged "migration" of Hindus from Kairana, in Shamli district, and the recent Mathura violence. The Prime Minister, addressing a meeting of party office bearers in Allahabad before the official inauguration of the party's two-day National Executive meet, said: "The need of the hour is to preserve the massive goodwill that the party got in 2014, like a monsoon downpour," according to a BJP leader, who attended the office bearers meet. The Prime Minister also asked the party leaders to preserve its 11 crore members. Reminding party leaders of "Mission UP" and the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, Modi said the party needs to preserve these 11 crore people as "voters and members" of the party by involving them with social initiatives and campaigns of the BJP government. Modi also gave tips to party leaders to change in accordance with technology, time and age, keeping in mind the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh which are due next year. However, Amit Shah targetted the Samajwadi Party and the Congress in his speech. He attacked the SP government over the "atmosphere of violence" in Uttar Pradesh. "The incident at Kairana where a large number of people are migrating is very unfortunate. The Mathura violence was also very unfortunate. The SP government has been unable to control the situation," Shah said in his presidential address. "There is no peace. Here, the atmosphere is of violence and the state government has failed to control all these," the Bharatiya Janata Party president said. Shah also directed his ire against the Congress, saying its of obstructionism had become the hallmark of the main opposition party in the last two years. This is also the reason for the weakening of the Congress, Shah maintained. Providing to the media highlights of the party president's address, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad later said that Shah compared the performance of the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre with that of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. "While there was policy paralysis in the Congress-led government, our government has made progress with clear policy decisions -- where policy decisions are taken by the political leadership and the executive implements them," Prasad quoted Shah as saying. "The previous government was marred by policy paralysis. Our government has been a decisive government that has ended a lot of dilemmas of the previous regime," he said. The BJP president pointed out that the two years of the Modi government have been corruption-free. He also asserted that the NDA government's two years have been exceptionally good and a lot has been achieved. "This year, two important things have happened. First, our government, led by Narendra Modi, at the Centre has completed two years. And second, the performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party has been very good in the state assembly elections," he said. Referring to the recent polls, Shah said: "The victory in Assam has opened the gates to north-east India for the BJP." "From Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Kutch to Guwahati, the BJP is expanding," he said at the meeting, which was attended, among others, by senior ministers, BJP chief ministers, party MPs and state unit chiefs. He said: "The Congress-led UPA government was in a dilemma whether rural development should take precedence over urban development. Whether there should be reforms or social welfare?" "Our government has overcome all such dilemmas by striking a fine balance between rural and urban development, reforms and social welfare and issues of governance," Prasad quoted Shah. The party chief also said that unlike in the past the "disconnect between the foreign and defence policy" has also been done away within the last two years. He also expressed confidence that the party will return to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 and the Centre in 2019 as well. Shah referred to the top civilian honours accorded to Modi by two prominent Islamic countries, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, in a clear message to Muslims who continue to be wary of BJP due to its Hindutva agenda. Nani-starrer Telugu thriller "Gentleman", which is slated for release this Friday, will have a record number of release in 127 screens in the US. According to Gaatri Media, the overseas distributor of the film, this is biggest US release for Nani. In an official statement, the company confirmed that the film releases in 127 screens, with special premieres planned on Thursday. Apart from releases in regular cities, "Gentleman" will also make it to the tiniest of US cities such as Tallahassee, Maryville and Poughkeepsie among others. Outside of US, the film will also release in countries such as Africa, Germany and Mauritius. Directed by Indraganti Mohan Krishna, the film also stars Nivetha Thomas, Surbhi and Srinivasa Avasarla. --IANS hp/nv/vt The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Monday issued notice to the Rajasthan government on the plight of women branded as witches in the state's Bhilwara district. Taking sou motu cognizance of the issue through media reports, the commission has learned that most often widows or women without any family support have been branded as witches. "Some of them were tortured brutally or even killed. Some of them were forced to leave their homes, and their properties were grabbed by powerful people," a statement from the commission said. The state authorities have allegedly not taken effective action against either the offenders or to curb this menace. Accordingly, the commission has observed that the issue if true, raises serious violation of human rights of the hapless and helpless women in Rajasthan. "The notice has been issued to the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police, Government of Rajasthan calling for reports in the matter. They have been asked to indicate the action taken by the law enforcement in each such incident and the steps taken by the State authorities to address the issue," said the statement. --IANS rup/rn/vm When it comes to smartphones, the world is moving fast. So has US President Barack Obama who has bid goodbye to his "increasingly rare" BlackBerry device which he was using since before he took office. Appearing on the "Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon on a TV channel, Obama said he has been given a brand new device (currently unnamed) which is "so locked down for security reasons that I can't call, play music, send texts or take pictures," The Verge reported on Monday. "It's like one of those 'play phones' you'd give to a three-year-old," Obama told the TV host. Since BlackBerry devices are gradually been shown the door by Android and iOS-based smartphones and many app developers are leaving its platform in the past few years, the US authorities feel the new Android and iOS devices have strong security measures like end-to-end message encryption. The New York Times reported in April this year that some White House staffers were upgrading to Apple iPhones. The National Security Agency (NSA) first set up the extra-secured BlackBerry for Obama in 2008. It has a special security software called SecureVoice. The device was stripped of every built-in feature -- even no selfie-camera or texting functionality -- that was at the risk of hacking. According to media reports, the Blackberry was limited to calling only about 10 numbers also packed with same encryption, including Vice President Joe Biden, Obama's Chief of Staff, his press secretary, First Lady Michelle Obama and a few other family members. --IANS na/vt Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was not the first employee of British security giant G4S to go on a rampage. Sunday morning's attack in Florida has raised questions over the quality of vetting procedures among the firm's recruits. The Orlando killer was believed to be 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an Afghan-American G4S security guard. The killing spree, carried out with apparently legally acquired automatic rifles, claimed the lives of 49 partygoers and injured 53 according to the latest figures. The gunman was shot dead after police stormed the club in a bid to rescue 30 hostages being held there. The British firm is one of the world's biggest military and security providers. It employs more than half a million people -- many of them ex-military -- in 110 countries including conflict zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been rocked by repeated controversy. The firm's shares plunged to a seven year low in the wake of its admission that Mateen was an employee, losing over $285 million (200) million. Orlando may be the worst atrocity attributed to a G4S employee, but it was not the first. In 2009 former paratrooper Danny Fitzsimons -- an employee of Armour Group, a division of G4S -- was convicted of killing two colleagues and sentenced to life in prison. According to human rights NGO Reprieve, Fitzsimons was employed by the mercenary firm despite having been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in May 2008 -- the same month G4S took over Armour Group. He was thought to have developed the condition after exposure to a number of brutal events as a combatant in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Some 36 hours after arriving in Baghdad as a mercenary in 2009, Fitzsimmons killed fellow security operators Paul McGuigan and Darren Hoare following what was reported to have been a drunken brawl. It emerged in 2012 following a BBC investigation that emails had been sent to Armour Group by G4S warning them not to employ Fitzsimons. RT asked G4S about current vetting process used by the firm in reference to both the Mateen and Fitzsimons cases. A spokesman said given the radically different operating environments in Iraq and the mainland US it is important not to conflate the two cases. However, he said all staff undergo thorough tests including criminal records, right to work, identity and the Minnesota multiphasic personality inventory test -- a well-regarded psychometric assessment process. The spokesman also restated the G4S position that Mateen was "re-screened" in 2013, the first year in which he was reportedly questioned by the FBI. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Orlando attacks, though Mateen's connection with the terror group was not yet clear. --IANS ahm/rn/vm BJP President Amit Shah on Monday made a strong pitch for the party's return to power at the Centre in the 2019 parliamentary polls which, he said, was linked to a change of government in Uttar Pradesh in assembly elections early next year. "The road to Delhi in 2019 will be via Lucknow. You bring about change of regime in Lucknow. Modi will come back as the Prime Minister in 2019," Shah told a rally organised on the sidelines of the party's two-day National Executive meet here. The Bharatiya Janata Party chief urged the voters in Uttar Pradesh, the country's most populous state that will go to the assembly polls early next year, to be cautious about the of two state-based parties -- the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). "The monopoly of these two parties (SP and BSP), going on for the last 20 years, should end," he said. Since the '90s that was marked by the beginning of Mandal politics, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party have been ruling the state alternatively. Shah told the gathering that when the BJP last ruled Uttar Pradesh with the likes of Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh at the helm of affairs, there was "good governance" in the state. "When the BJP ruled the state, industry was coming. There was water for agriculture and women and young girls were safe," he said. --IANS nd/tsb/vt SBI Life Insurance is eyeing to achieve a growth of 30-40 per cent in the new business premium in 2016-17, a top company official said. "We are targeting to achieve 30-40 per cent growth in new business premium in the current fiscal and intending to grow by 25-26 per cent in the gross total premium including new and old," said company's Managing Director and CEO Arijit Basu. The life insurer will remain focused on banking and agency channel to achieve the growth, he said. The company achieved 29 per cent growth in total new business premium in 2015-16 and 37 per cent growth in the rated Individual new business premium as compared to 8 per cent for the industry, he said. "This was attributed to performance of banking and agency channel. Sales through agency channel grew by 12-13 per cent in the last year while banking channel also had a fantastic growth," Basu said. "We intend to grow by 20 per cent in the current fiscal in agency channel while our banking channel growth is expected to over 50 per cent," he said. The life insurer will strengthen its banking channel by increasing the number of licensed specified persons who are SBI staffs having licence to sell life insurer's product. "We have about 28,000-30,000 specified persons adding 3,000 in the last year. We will increase the number," he said. Banking channel contributes about 55 per cent of products sales while agency has a share of about 39 per cent, the remaining comes from other channels. The company plans to launch a new ULIP product for high net worth individual by end of this month, he said. The company reported the gross total premium received in FY 2015-16 was Rs 15,825 crore, of which the new business premium accounted for Rs 7,107 crore and renewal premium accounted for Rs 8,719 crore. Corresponding figures for last financial year were Rs 12,867 crore, Rs 5,529 crore and Rs 7,338 crore respectively. The company has about 27 products in individual platform while group platform has about 20 more. --IANS bdc/ksk/vt The opposition in Goa on Monday flayed the BJP-led coalition government over what they said is a "systematic campaign" to get Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar's brother-in-law Dilip Malvankar off the hook in a corruption case. "The sudden transfers of Anti-Corruption Bureau officers, including Superintendent of Police Bosco George and Inspector Nolasco Raposo, were just preparatory procedures for the reinstatement (of Malvankar). It is shocking and very unfortunate that a person arrested red-handed accepting bribe gets reinstated in service," Congress spokesperson Sunil Kawthankar said. Malvankar, a state government employee attached to the Goa Industrial Development Corporation, was arrested in October last year on charge of accepting a bribe of Rs 1 lakh to facilitate allocation of an industrial plot. Since his arrest, both the investigating officer Nolasco Raposo and the Anti-Corruption Bureau chief have been transferred and Malvankar reinstated last week. "The speedy reinstatement of Malvankar is a prime example of the complete failure of the Bharatiya Janata Party's election mantra of zero tolerance to corruption," Kawthankar said. Goa Forward Party President Prabhakar Timble also accused the state government of failing to act against corruption. "Malvankar's reinstatement is a clear statement by the BJP-led government that the corrupt will be rewarded," Timble said. --IANS maya/tsb/vt Lawyers in Telangana continued their protest for the seventh day on Monday against the appointment of judicial officers from Andhra Pradesh and to demand bifurcation of the unified High Court. They boycotted courts in Hyderabad and nine other districts of Telangana and staged demonstrations outside the court premises. The Telangana High Court Advocates Association is demanding that the provisional allotment of about 130 judges who are natives of Andhra Pradesh to subordinate courts in Telangana be recalled. The lawyers locked the courts at Nizamabad and Warangal in support of their demand. The protesters also demanded immediate bifurcation of the unified High Court. Meanwhile, the judicial employees decided to intensify the protest by going on strike from July 1. They served the strike notice on the Hyderabad High Court registrar. The Hyderabad High Court turned into a fortress as police threw a thick security blanket around the premises and imposed ban orders in view of the "Chalo High Court" programme of the advocates association, the joint action committee of Telangana lawyers and federation of bar associations. Police erected barricades on roads leading to the High Court and allowed in only those lawyers whose cases were to come up for hearing on Monday. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Mahender Reddy said no permission was given for "Chalo High Court". Police orders banning processions were put in force around the High Court to foil any protest. The list of provisional allotment of judges to lower courts issued on May 5 contained 335 judicial officers who were allotted to Telangana and 495 to Andhra Pradesh as part of the bifurcation of the lower judiciary. The association said about 130 officers of Andhra nativity were allotted to Telangana after they exercised the option. --IANS ms/lok/bg UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and British Prime Minister on Sunday condemned the "horrific attack" in Orlando in the US state of Florida, in which 50 people were killed and 53 were left injured. The secretary-general "extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the government and people of the US," Xinhua quoted a statement as saying. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his horror by the shooting attack. "I'm horrified by reports of the overnight shooting in Orlando. My thoughts are with the victims and their families," he tweeted. Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, also tweeted, "Shocked by shooting in Orlando". He noted that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in contact with the local authorities, adding, "Thoughts are with victims and families." A gunman wielding an assault-type rife and a handgun killed at least 50 people in a nightclub in Orlando on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in the US history. US President Barack Obama decried the tragedy as an "act of terror." The Islamic State-linked news agency, Amaq, said the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. --IANS sku/ Unhappy over Varun Gandhi's blatant attempt to project himself as probable chief ministerial candidate during BJP's two-day National Executive conclave here, the party on Monday issued show cause notice to two party workers, who allegedly were found to be involved in the goof-up. Hundreds of posters of BJP Sultanpur MP Varun Gandhi were put in the the city to make sure that Varun Gandhi's candidacy is not missed, if the party is looking for a face to project in Uttar Pradesh assembly elections early next year. However, the move did not go down well with the party's central leadership. After noticing the posters on Sunday, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah asked for a report on the issue from party cadres, and it was found out that two local party workers, who supported Gandhi, were involved in the act of putting hundreds of hoardings and posters in the city. The posters also had images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. Shah had also taken a note of some party workers shouting slogans in support of Varun Gandhi at the entrance of the party National Executive meeting. UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya, on thedirection of the party's central leadership, issued the notice to the party workers, party sources said. The party leaders had gathered in Allahabad to brainstorm the strategy for the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, which are due next year. The National Executive meet was attended by Modi, Shah and other senior leaders of the party. The party had almost painted the city saffron with its posters and hoardings on both sides of the roads -- from railway station and airport to K.P. School ground, where the BJP conclave was held. --IANS bns/sk/lok/vm A woman and a militant were killed in a shootout between security forces and separatist guerrillas in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir in which five other people were injured on Monday. Three CRPF troopers and two civilians were injured in the attack. The gunfight took place on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway after the forces laid an ambush at Kud town, some 110 km from Jammu city, following intelligence inputs that some militants were travelling in a passenger bus on the national highway. The vehicle was stopped near Kud town which is famous for its sweets shops, and "two militants heavily armed disembarked from a passenger bus and opened fire at the security forces and in an exchange of fire one militant was killed and a woman also lost her life in the cross fire," a security official told IANS here. Security forces have started combing the area and reinforcements have been rushed there to ensure that the surviving militant did not escape, the official added. The attack comes nearly a year after militants ambushed a Border Security Force convoy in Udhampur, killing two personnel and injuring a dozen troopers. On Sunday, four policemen were injured in a militant attack in south Kashmir's Qazigund. At least five attacks were carried out by militants in the past two weeks in Kashmir valley, inflicting casualties on security forces. --IANS sq/ahm/bg Can one tiny part of the country feel so very different from the rest? Can it seem almost like a foreign country? And what makes it so different? I am just back from 10 days in rural western Sikkim a beautiful area called Richenpong and I am still trying to get over how this tiny state manages to stand totally apart from the rest of India. There is nothing India-like about Sikkim and nothing Sikkimese about, well, large parts of India. Standard Chartered's new ethics crusade shows how much banking has left to do to clean up its act. The emerging markets lender is clamping down after discovering some employees' personal financial dealings violated its conduct policies. In response, it fired several bankers in Dubai, is expanding its internal investigations team, and has clarified the rules. Finance Minister today expressed hope that legislative activity in the Rajya Sabha would proceed "much more" in the forthcoming sessions of Parliament. He said the changed Rajya Sabha numbers, after the recent biennial elections to 57 of the Upper House seats, have weakened those who are known to obstruct. He also confirmed that the government will reach out to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa-led All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) for the passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) constitution amendment Bill. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to resolve its confusion on who would be its chief ministerial candidate for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls and whether at all it should announce one. But the aggression in Prime Minister and party chief Amit Shahs speeches at a public rally here underscored the importance of a good performance by the BJP in UP elections, slated for early 2017, if Modi is to return as the prime minister in 2019. Odisha government today issued "Leave India" notices to ten Chinese nationals who were working on an expansion project of the Adani Group-controlled Dhamra Port Company Limited in Bhadrak district of the state, a government official said. "The state government has asked the Director of Intelligence and the Superintendent of Police, Bhadrak district to execute Leave India notices on the Chinese nationals," Home Secretary Asit Tripathy told reporters here. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had informed the state government last week about the presence of 10 Chinese nationals in Bhadrak district where sensitive defense establishments were located. "We are taking required steps as per the law to ensure their departure from the state and also the country," Tripathy said. Stating that the notices were issued as per the suggestion of the foreigners division of the MHA, he said the Chinese nationals were engaged by a Thai company at the port since a few months. Though the Chinese nationals were holding business visas, they worked as employees of the Thai company, official sources said. "Initially 19 Chinese nationals came to Bhadrak and worked under the Thai company on DPCL's expansion project. Meanwhile, nine of them have already left the state. Therefore, we are serving notices to 10 Chinese nationals," Bhadrak SP Nihar Ranjan Das told PTI over phone. They were mostly working on soil testing for the expansion project of the Port and staying outside the Dhamra Port Company Limited (DPCL) campus. They were staying in a rented house in Bhadrak district, a port insider said. The government action in this regard came as the foreigners were found engaged in work at a place close to the missile-launch facility at APJ Abdul Kalam Island, earlier known as Wheeler's Island. Gunmen have killed 12 Libyans after their release from jail for taking part in acts of repression during the 2011 revolt against Moamer Kadhafi, officials said today. A Tripoli court ordered the conditional release of the former regime officials on Thursday, and on Friday their bullet-riddled bodies were found in the capital, the prosecution said on its Facebook page. An investigation into the murders has begun, it added. The victims had been imprisoned on charges of committing abuses during the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed Kadhafi. They were freed on condition that they report to the prosecutor every two weeks. The UN special envoy to Libya Martin Kobler condemned the murders and called for a prompt and "transparent" investigation. Kobler tweeted that he was "shocked and dismayed by the reports of murder of so many detainees released by a Tripoli court". The Government of National Accord also denounced what it called a "despicable crime". A statement on its Facebook page called on security and judiciary authorities to find the assailants and bring them to justice. Seddiq es-Sour, of the prosecutor's office, told Libyan television the bodies were found in various parts of the capital and confirmed that all were former prisoners. He said they had been arrested between 2011 and 2014. The identities of the victims were not immediately released. Earlier this month, es-Sour had said the supreme court had ordered the release of six Kadhafi regime officials pending an appeal, for reasons linked to their health and age. Dozens of people are on trial in Libya for their role in the violent suppression of the revolt, including two sons of Kadhafi and ex-government officials. In July 2015 several people were sentenced to death, including Seif al-Islam, Kadhafi's son and one-time heir apparent. As many as 19 minor children brought to the metropolis from Bihar to work as labourers were rescued today, Railway police said. These children, aged 10 to 16, were brought to Mumbai from the Northern State in a train and 14 people accompanying them were booked under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, a Railway police official said. The rescue operation was conducted by the police in collaboration with Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children (PCVC), a wing of NGO Pratham. "Our team in Bihar got a tip off that about 40-50 (minor) children boarding Mumbai-bound Jan Sadharan Express from three stations in East Champaran district. We passed on the information to the Railway police in Mumbai," said Kishore Bhamre, Director of PCVC, told PTI by phone. The train, which starts from Raxaul (Bihar), terminated at Thane instead of its original destination (Lokmanya Tilak Terminus), where the children were rescued, he stated. The children are below the age of 17 with the youngest one being 10 and brought here to work as labourers, he added. Two cadres of a hardline Maoist faction in Nepal were today arrested on charges of setting on fire towers of a private telecommunication company apparently for refusing to pay taxes it owed to the government. Police arrested the two cadres of CPN-Maoist led by Netra Bikram Chanda for their alleged involvement in the attacks on Ncell towers in Myagdi district on Saturday. The two Maoist activists were arrested from the district headquarters, police said. The arrest came a day after Home Minister and Senior Maoist leader Shakti Basnet warned of strict action against those involved in attacking telecommunication towers. Chand-led Maoist faction has reportedly set on fire 10 telecom towers belonging to NCell across Nepal. Equipment worth thousands of rupees were destroyed in the arson attacks. More than 250,000 people of the remote villages of Nepal were deprived of telecom services due to the attacks in Salyan, Dang, Kaski, Jhapa, Myagdi, Dhankua, Morang, Baglung and Gorkha districts. Ncell is under attack from various quarters for refusing to pay the capital gains taxit owed to the government when Swedish telecom giant TeliaSonera sold the private firm for 143 billion rupees (USD 1.40 billion) to Axiata Group in December last year. An group counter-attack on Syrian regime forces advancing towards a jihadist stronghold today left 28 combatants dead, a monitor said. Dozens of IS fighters early today attacked government positions south of the town of Tabqa, an IS stronghold on the Euphrates River, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said fierce clashes broke out, but that regime forces were able to maintain their positions and were still 15 kilometres (10 miles) from the IS-held Tabqa airport. "Eleven regime fighters and 17 Daesh fighters were killed in the attack," said Abdel Rahman, using the Arabic acronym for IS. Earlier this month, government fighters backed by Russian air power began pushing north towards Tabqa, held by IS since 2014. The town lies some 50 kilometres (31 miles) east of the jihadist group's Syrian de facto capital of Raqa city, and recapturing it would sever the supply road from the west. Last week, IS fighters had sent reinforcements of fighters and weapons into Tabqa in anticipation of a fierce battle to defend the town. Abdel Rahman said a total of 37 government fighters and 101 IS militants have been killed since the regime launched its offensive for Tabqa. The war in Syria, which began with the brutal repression of anti-government demonstrations in 2011, has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions. It has evolved into a brutal, complex civil war among the government, rebels, jihadists, and Kurds, each carving out zones of control. Former Union Aviation Minister and senior NCP leader Praful Patel today met a key aide of Hardik Patel here and expressed solidarity with the jailed quota agitation leader while extending support to the Patel community over their demand for reservation. Notably, the Assembly elections in Gujarat are due next year. Recently, the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had lent support to the Hardik Patel-led agitation for the inclusion of Patel community under the OBC quota. Praful Patel along with Gujarat NCP chief and party MLA from Umreth in Anand district Jayant Patel had a courtesy meet with Dinesh Bambhaniya, who is a key aide of Hardik Patel and one of the accused in the sedition case, here. He had recently come out of jail on bail. "NCP is political party which believes in taking along all the classes and communities not just one particular community. As far as Patel community is concerned, only time will tell as to how we will give due recognition and respect to their feelings," he told mediapersons after the meeting, when about NCP's plans of getting support of Patels for the 2017 elections. Commenting on the ongoing quota stir by Patels, the NCP leader, without taking any names, slammed the BJP-led Gujarat government for being "insensitive". "It does not suit a political party to hurt the feelings of a community by rejecting their demands. A political party must take along all the communities. NCP is ready to support Patel community over their legitimate demand (of reservation)," said Patel. Earlier, senior Congress leader Shankersinh Vaghela had extended his party's support to Hardik, who is lodged in Lajpore jail of Surat under sedition charges. He promised that his party will try its best to accord 20 per cent Economically Backward Classes (EBC) reservation for non-reserved category, double than what Gujarat government has given, if Congress comes to power in the state. Recently, AAP, which has announced to contest on all the 182 seats in 2017, also lent support to Hardik and his agitation, as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal came out in support of Hardik through a video clip. In the clip, which was shown to media here on June 4, Kejriwal sympathised with Hardik and termed him innocent. Kejriwal also slammed Gujarat government and said that Hardik only raised his voice for his community. Malaysia's AirAsia Group chief Tony Fernandes has been given the status of Overseas Citizen of India (OIC) by the Indian government, amid concerns in certain quarters over control at budget carrier AirAsia India. Fernandes, whose father was of Goa origin, announced this at a time when AirAsia India is celebrating its second anniversary. AirAsia India is a joint venture between AirAsia and Tatas, each holding 49 per cent stake. The remaining shares are with the carrier's two directors -- S Ramadorai and R Venkataramanan. "I am also delighted to share that I have been granted the OIC status. India has always been close to my heart as my father was from this country and Goa is my ancestral homeland," Fernandes said in a statement today. He also posted a picture of his OIC passport on his Twitter handle. "My father's posting brought him to Malaysia, but he never stopped talking about Goa and the rest is history. I landed in Goa for the first time during the inaugural flight of AirAsia India from Bengaluru to Goa and I take immense pride in that," he noted. Fernandes, group CEO of AirAsia Berhard, getting OIC status assumes significance as there have been concerns about control and ownership of AirAsia India. The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), the grouping of of four established domestic carriers--Jet Airways, IndiGo, SpiceJet and GoAir--had raised concerns about control and ownership at AirAsia India. Allegations that AirAsia India was indirectly controlled by the Malaysian entity gained momentum after erstwhile stakeholder Arun Bhatia had expressed unhappiness over the state of affairs at the budget carrier last December. About AirAsia India completing two years, Fernandes said it has been a challenging journey for the team in India. Noting that AirAsia's commitment to India has only kept growing stronger, he said it has a long term goal of linking India to ASEAN and beyond. As part of its second anniversary celebrations, AirAsia has come out with fares starting from Rs 899 across its network of 10 domestic and more than 120 international routes served by AirAsia and AirAsia X Groups. "The promotional seats are available for booking from 13 to June 19, 2016 for the travel period January 4 to August 21, 2017," the statement said. All telecom operators, except 2G network of Airtel and Vodafone, failed to meet call drop benchmark in an independent drive test conducted by the regulator Trai. "Other than Airtel & Vodafone in 2G, all operators failed to meet the Call Drop Rate benchmark," the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in a report released today. Airtel too failed to meet the 2 per cent call drop benchmark for its 3G network. The 2 per cent call drop benchmark means that not more than 2 per cent calls made from a network should automatically disconnected in a telecom circle. The regulator found call drop as high as 22.2 per cent on state-run BSNL's 3G network in Bhopal. "Idea, Reliance & BSNL all have Call Drop Rates in the range of 10 per cent or above. These are exceptionally high and clearly indicate urgent need for improvement in order to deliver reasonable levels of service," the report said. Trai also found Airtel, BSNL and Videocon Telecom using high level of Radio Link Timeout technology, which has been alleged being used for masking call drops, but said that the high parameters did not impact consumer experience in a substantial manner. "Radio Link Timeout (RLT indicates how long the call can sustain during poor quality - Higher the value the longer it will sustain the call). Airtel, BSNL and Videocon have set higher RLT Values. However, as the adjoining table shows, the impact of RLT in the Call Drop Rate is minimal in Bhopal," Trai said. Telecom operators have committed to investing about Rs 12,000 crore to install around 60,000 mobile towers in next 100 days to improve call drop problem in the country. Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh today promised a new dawn for Punjab with the revival of its lost glory and return of smiles on people's faces if the party was voted to power in 2017 Assembly polls. "We have to take them (SAD) head on and we will ensure they are thrown out of Punjab. I promise you a new dawn with a new government," he said at a protest dharna which was led by party Vice President Rahul Gandhi. "I want to see the smiles back on your faces and I want to retrieve and revive our lost glory," he said. He accused the Akalis, particularly Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the family for "destroying a whole generation". There are so many villages where every young man has died of drug use, he said. "Today the situation is such that 78 per cent people are believed to be involved in drugs and the entire blame lies on the Badals," he said, while expressing concern over the "alarming rise" of drug addiction. There was a direct link between drug addiction and petty crimes as addicts can commit any crime to buy drugs. When they have no money, they resort to snatching to buy doses for themselves, he said. "People are too scared to venture out of their houses," he said, claiming it was never like this in Punjab. The former Chief Minister also referred to the alleged deterioration of law-and-order situation in the state. "Never in my 47 years of political life have I seen such anarchy and lawlessness in Punjab," Amarinder said. Namdhari Mata was killed about two months ago and then Sikh preacher Ranjit Singh Dhadarianwale was attacked, he said, pointing out that in Jalandhar a Congress worker was shot dead in broad day light. He also referred to the death of an electrician who succumbed to his injuries in Jalandhar after he was allegedly beaten up by a BJP leader. Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who is one of the co-producer of "Udta Punjab," has thanked the High Court for giving its verdict in the favour of the movie. The 43-year-old "Bombay Velvet" helmer, who was vocal in his criticism of censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani, also thanked his fans for supporting the team. "Thank you To the honourable Judge, thank you all for the faith and support.. Time to get back to work.. Two back to back releases," Kashyap tweeted. The HC today cleared the release of "Udta Punjab", but directed the filmmakers to delete a urination scene from the movie and opt for a revised disclaimer. The HC said it did not find anything in the film's script that shows the state in bad light or affects the sovereignty or integrity of India as it was claimed by CBFC. The court also said that CBFC is not empowered by law to censor films, as the word censor is not included in the Cinematograph Act. The film, based on the drug problem in Punjab, has been in since the board had asked the makers to edit close to 30 minutes of the movie citing the use of cuss words and remove references to Punjab. The producers finally decided to move the Bombay High Court ahead of film's release on June 17. Ten militants and a police officer have been killed in separate armed clashes in Iran, local media reported today. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards killed five Kurdish rebels near the country's northwestern border with Iraq, an official statement said. "A team of five from the PJAK terrorist splinter group... has been identified and destroyed in the Sardasht region" on the Iraqi border, a Guards statement said on its official website. It said the group was responsible for the death of three members of Iran's Basij militia more than a month ago. No further details were provided about the operation. The last reported clashes between Kurdish rebels and the Revolutionary Guards were in September, when two rebels and two Iranian soldiers were killed. State television later today reported six more deaths in armed clashes in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province. One police officer and five militants were killed in the fighting, which pitted Iranian forces against the Sunni militant group Jaish-ul Adl. Officials recovered "large amounts of explosives" after the clashes, state television website said. Tehran accuses Jaish-ul Adl of having links with Al-Qaeda. The group has conducted several armed attacks inside Iranian territory in recent years. PJAK-the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan-is an Iranian Kurdish party with close links to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Kurdish rebels periodically attack Iranian armed forces near the border with Iraq's Kurdish region. A man whose car contained a cache of weapons and bomb-making materials was arrested after telling police he wanted to "harm" the Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles, authorities said. James Howell, 20, of Indiana, was arrested on Sunday in nearby Santa Monica where police found multiple weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials in his car, police said. The arrest came just hours after 50 people were massacred at a gay nightclub in Florida. Santa Monica police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said on Twitter that Howell told officers about "wanting to harm Gay Pride event," in reference to the annual LA Pride parade that took place in Hollywood yesterday. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told local radio that the suspect's car was "full of weapons, long rifles, ammunition and explosive materials not explosives but the powder for explosives." Seabrooks said there was no known connection between Howell and the carnage in Orlando, Florida the worst mass shooting in US history. Army Chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag today met Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra here and briefed him about some important security-related aspects concerning the state. Officials said Gen Suhag called on Vohra at the Jammu and Kashmir house here. They said the two discussed various important matters relating to internal and external security management in the state. European aviation major Airbus will deliver three single-engine H130 helicopters to Bengaluru-based Aviators Air Rescue for its proposed air ambulance service. The company plans to launch the service from October and has collaborated with Air Medical Group Holdings (AMGH) of the US and Airbus Helicopters for this purpose. "It is an honour for us that Aviators and Air Medical Group Holdings have put their faith in our helicopter to rescue Indian lives threatened by emergency medical situations," India President of Airbus Helicopters Xavier Hay said in a release. The three air ambulances are scheduled to be delivered to Aviators from October, it said, adding AMGH and Aviators have options to acquire additional helicopters for use in this venture. The service will be offered to state governments, rescue groups, hospitals, clinics, public and private companies, and to individuals through subscription, the release said. Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has recently notified stringent guidelines for offering Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) in India, allowing single-engine helicopters for day-time operations. According to the release, all three H130 will be put to use for medical missions only and will come equipped with specialised equipment for emergency transportation of patients, organs, neo-natal and other critical medical missions. As part of the trilateral tie-up, Airbus will provide the service rollout, including the training of pilots and medical personnel, and these will be supported by Air Medical Group Holdings Inc. "With the support of Airbus Helicopters and Air Medical Group Holdings, we will provide India with top-notch air medical services that will be affordable and accessible for everyone. These services will be on par with the established HEMS operations in the US and Europe," Arun Sharma, Managing Director of Aviators Air Rescue, said. The H130 can accommodate a stretcher and seat three more attendants or para-medical staff in the cabin. (REOPENS DES19) "India will soon benefit from affordable world class helicopter ambulance services provided by Bengaluru-based Aviators Air Rescue with a fleet of three Airbus H130 helicopters," Aviators Air Rescue Managing Director Arun Sharma told reporters in Bengaluru. He said the company's primaryplan is to foray into the five southern states. They might go in for one and twin engined helicopters in thesecond phase beginning April 2017, depending on capability requirements. "We will start discussions in the next couple of months because delivery of the helicopters are roughly about eight or 10 months or so. So we have to plan much ahead oftime," he said. The company also wants to include rescue missions, including sling operations and winch to pull out people, Sharma said. The service rollout, including training of pilotsand medical personnel and definition of practices and procedures, will be supported by Airbus Helicopters and AMGH, he said. The makers of "Udta Punjab" and Bollywood celebrities today hailed the Bombay High Court's verdict setting aside the cuts suggested by CBFC, calling the judgement a victory for the entire film industry. Anurag Kashyap, one of the co-producers of "Udta Punjab," has thanked the High Court for giving its verdict in the favour of the movie. The 43-year-old "Bombay Velvet" helmer, who was vocal in his criticism against censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani, also thanked his fans for supporting the team. "Thank you To the honourable Judge, thank you all for the faith and support.. Time to get back to work.. Two back to back releases," Kashyap tweeted. Film's director Abhishek Chaubey said, "The hard work of the lawyers has paid. I am terribly pleased with the verdict. I hope films will be viewed in context and there won't be a blanket on cinema." Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who is heading a committee for revamp of the censor board, welcomed the ruling. "I think this is a very mature verdict. It's a good verdict. It shows that the court has taken note of the seriousness of the subject as well as the ability of the film to address the subject. Running a disclaimer and cutting out a scene are not a problem for the makers," Benegal said. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had earlier sought 89 cuts in Shahid Kapoor-starrer "Udta Punjab". The HC today cleared the release of "Udta Punjab", but directed the filmmaker to delete a urination scene from the movie, and also asked for a revised disclaimer. The court said it did not find anything in the film's script that shows the state in bad light or affects the sovereignty or integrity of India as it was claimed by CBFC. It also said that CBFC is not empowered by law to censor films, as the word censor is not included in the Cinematograph Act. "A judgement for the whole film industry not just us, its awesome," said co-producer Madhu Mantena Verma. Actor Shahid Kapoor, who plays a drug-addict rapper in the film, called it a "landmark judgement". Meanwhile, CBFC's CEO Anurag Shrivastav said, "We acknowledge the verdict of the Bombay High Court. We work as per the guidelines. We work in difficult conditions and try to be honest with a film." The film, based on the drug problem in Punjab, has been in since an examining committee, headed by CBFC chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani, asked the makers to edit close to 30 minutes of the movie citing the use of cuss words. The makers decided to challenge the examining committee's decision and approached the revising committee. The revising committee then asked the filmmakers to effect 89 cuts, including the removal of word "Punjab" from the film. The NDA-ruled Punjab, incidentally, goes to polls next year. Bahraini police detained a prominent activist during a raid on his home early today, rights groups and the activist's family said, part of a wide crackdown on dissent more than five years after the Arab Spring. It wasn't immediately clear why authorities detained Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights. However, his detention comes after Zainab al-Khawaja, another prominent activist, fled the island nation for Denmark in recent days over fears of being imprisoned again. Police seized electronic devices and other items from Rajab's home as they detained him, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. Rajab's wife, Sumayia, also confirmed his arrest and said on Twitter that their home was searched. The raid was not immediately reported by the state-run Bahrain Agency nor by police. Officials could not be immediately reached for comment. Rajab helped lead protests during Bahrain's 2011 demonstrations as the island's majority Shiite population and others demanded more political freedoms from its Sunni rulers. Bahrain, home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet, crushed the protests with the help of troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the time since, the island has faced low-level unrest, protests and attacks on police. Other prominent opposition figures and human-rights activists remain imprisoned, while some have had their citizenship stripped by the government and been deported. Rajab has been detained by authorities several times. In 2015, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa pardoned Rajab over health concerns following imprisonment for three months on charges related to comments he made online criticizing the treatment of political prisoners at a prison in the Arab Gulf country. Rajab at the time also faced a six-month sentence for insulting defense and interior ministries on Twitter when he alleged that Bahrain's security institutions were incubators for extremist ideology after several former members of the country's security service apparently joined the extremist Islamic State group. Brian Dooley, director of the Washington-based group Human Rights First, said Rajab's detention appeared timed to come ahead of a planned United Nations meeting on human rights. He said other activists were prevented from leaving Bahrain to attend the conference in Geneva. "Nabeel's arrest is a forceful, frightening message from the Bahraini government that it's moving against even activists with strong international connections," Dooley said in a statement. Over 8,500 people, including 119 suspected militants, have been arrested in Bangladesh, police said today as they intensified their nationwide crackdown on extremists to halt a spate of deadly attacks on minorities and secular writers in the Muslim-majority nation. "During the anti-crime clampdown we have arrested 8,569 people and of them 119 are suspected militants," Dhaka Police Headquarters spokesman AKM Quamrul Ahsan told reporters. On the third day of the crackdown by Bangladesh authorities, 3,245 people were arrested until this morning. Of them, 34 were suspected militants, the spokesman said. During the past two days over 5,300 criminal suspects, including 85 militants, had been arrested. Most of the suspects belonged to banned outfits like Jagrota Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) - one of two local groups blamed for most of the recent killings - or Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT). The arrests were made as part of a week-long anti-militant drive launched after a high-level meeting held by Inspector General AKM Shahidul Hoque last week. It involved the paramilitary Border Guard Bangladesh and the elite Rapid Action Battalion. Bangladesh has been witnessing a string of brutal attacks by Islamists. Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the Indian Peninsula have claimed some of the attacks but the government denies the presence of these groups in Bangladesh. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Friday told a meeting of her ruling Awami League party that police would stamp out the violence and vowed to catch "each and every killer". The government attributes the murders to homegrown militant outfits like JMB, saying key-opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e- Islami were patronising the attacks under an orchestrated plot against the government. The attacks since last year, which has left more than 30 people dead, has put Bangladesh under a global spotlight for failing to prevent such attacks. Last week, a 60-year-old Hindu ashram worker was hacked to death by IS jihadists, days after another priest was killed by the same terrorist group in the Muslim-majority nation. In February, militants stabbed to death a Hindu priest at a temple and shot and wounded a devotee who went to his aid. In April, a liberal professor was brutally hacked to death in Rajshahi city. The same month, a Hindu tailor was hacked to death and Bangladesh's first gay magazine editor was murdered in his Dhaka flat by Islamists. Actor Siddhanth Kapoor, who will be essaying the role of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim in the biopic on the gangster's late sister Haseena Parkar, says the film is challenging both for him and his sister Shraddha. The film "Haseena - The Queen of Mumbai" will have Shraddha Kapoor playing the title role. The movie, to be directed by Apoorva Lakhia, will chronicle Haseena's life from the age of 17 to 40. "I am really happy to be working with Shraddha. It is going to be the most challenging film for both me and Shraddha and I am sure both of us will pull it off," Siddhanth told PTI. "The film spans from 1970s to early 2000 (and) there will be a transformation in our looks. Besides this, we have to get the diction, accent right. We both will soon start with the workshop," he said. For his role as Dawood, Siddhanth will have to gain 10 kilos of weight and he is also tying various looks. "It's an interesting story to be told. It's a hard hitting fast paced film so it is difficult in a way. I have been to Dongri (an area in South Mumbai), when I was shooting for 'Shootout at Wadala'. It will be a new space for Shraddha," the 31-year-old actor added. Initially, it was Sonakshi Sinha who had agreed for the role but she later opted out. "I was part of the film much before Shraddha came on board. Sonakshi (Sinha) couldn't be part of the film due to date issues and (director) Apoorva (Lakhia) felt (that) Shraddha was the right choice," Siddhant added. The film will go on floors in November this year. The National Executive of the BJP today showered encomiums on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for setting new dimensions for government's transparent functioning even as it accused Congress and Left of resorting to "petty" and "negative'' politics, "This National Executive of the BJP congratulates our Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Central Government on achieving incredible success and fulfilling public aspiration within the first two years in power. The party said it deeply acknowledged Modi's steps towards the provision of an accountable and transparent governance environment and the timely initiation and completion of schemes. "The Central Government, keeping in mind the interests of all the classes of society has, through aims for inclusive progress and objectives of national interest increased the respect for the social and cultural symbol of the values of an Indian life. It is due to this that the Nation is progressing towards a qualitative change," the party said in its political resolution passed at the two-day meet. Training guns on the main Opposition party, it said that in the light of such inclusive progress, the protests by Congress have been unfortunate. "Diverse political ideologies and views should help in strengthening of the country and in the evolution of new and better policies but the Opposition has not been able to get above petty political issues and views which are affecting the country's development and better and just distribution of its resources. Congress party has not honoured the decisive mandate of the people of this country and the Left is also propagating negative policies along with the Congress party," the resolution said. Lauding the government's initiatives in different spheres like opportunities and progress for the poor, making villages prosperous, cleanliness, it said that the BJP has laid the foundations of a historic and futuristic India through good governance, innovations and a reformist vision. The resolution also lauded the Prime Minister for adding respect in the country's image in the world through his visits. Reaching out to Dalits, which are in sizeable number in Uttar Pradesh, the resolution said that it is worth mentioning that the Prime Minister also presented the human values of Ambedkar during his speeches in the United Nations and the American Congress. Seeking to present the government as pro-poor, the resolution said that the poor, the labourer and the farmer of the country were now getting a sense of security and of being in the mainstream of development while the youth was now getting more confident. A prime accused wanted in connection with the bomb blast near BJP office here in 2013 has been arrested from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, police said today. Daniel Prakash, who is suspected to have supplied the explosive materials, was picked up from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu and was produced before a court there, Central Crime Branch said in a statement here today. It said CCB sleuths after obtaining his police custody, brought him to the city and he is being questioned. Fifteen persons have so far been arrested in connection with the case. At least 16 people, including 11 policemen, were injured in a bomb blast on on April 17, 2013 near the bustling Karnataka BJP office in a crowded residential area of Malleshwaram, ahead of the assembly election. The bomb was strapped to a motorbike parked between a van and a car. A 12-year-old boy was injured when a gang of local goons, upset with his elder brother, indiscriminately fired at his residence in east Delhi's Geeta Colony area on the wee hours today. A bullet hit Asgar Ali on the right side of his chest when he went to close the main gate of his house and the goons, who were in an inebriated state, arrived looking for his elder brother, Mukhtar, a police official said. Asgar was rushed to GTB Hospital and his condition is stated to be critical. During investigation, it came to light that last evening Mukhtar had gone to an eatery where he met local criminals, identified as Manni, Billa and Shivam. He had an argument with Manni after he refused to address Billa as Bhai (the slang for a don), the official said. Mukhtar then left for Chandni Chowk and the trio followed till they lost track of him. The three accused, along with three others, struck again in the wee hours. All accused have been identified. One of them, who was jailed in connection with a murder case, was recently released on bail. Efforts are on to nab them, the official added. A group campaigning for Britain to leave the EU briefly posted a tweet today warning that EU membership could lead to an "Orlando-style atrocity", prompting outrage from "Remain" supporters. "Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long," read the slogan on a picture featuring what appeared to be Islamic State fighters. The tweet on the @LeaveEUOfficial account said: "The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists. Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote Leave". The tweet was taken down around an hour later. Forty-nine people were killed yesterday when gunman Omar Mateen burst into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and opened fire. Mateen later died in a shootout with police. In the wake of the recent Paris and Brussels attacks, anti-EU campaigners in Britain also issued warnings about the free movement of arms and fighters in the bloc. Their opponents say that Britain is not part of the EU's Schengen free movement zone and therefore has the border checks to prevent such activity. Education minister Nicky Morgan, who supports Prime Minister David Cameron on staying in the EU, reacted on Twitter saying: "This is really shameful". Hilary Benn, foreign affairs spokesman for the opposition Labour party which also supports "Remain", called the tweet "shameful and cowardly". "Our best protection against terror is standing together, whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels," he tweeted. Ten days before the referendum, opinion polls indicate that the "Leave" and "Remain" campaigns are neck and neck. The New Development Bank (NDB) founded by the BRICS countries will raise yuan denominated funds in China. It plans to release bonds in local currencies of its member nations, including the rupee in India, the lender's vice president said on Monday. The founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and headquartered in Shanghai, is preparing its first bond issue, which will be in China and denominated in yuan, its vice president Zhu Xian said at the Lujiazui financial forum in Shanghai. Zhu said while the bank will raise dollars and other major currencies, it wants more funds in member's currencies, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The bank's board approved four green energy projects in April, which Zhu claims reflects the bank's commitment to sustainable development. Early this month Paolu Nogueira Batista, the bank's vice-president for economic research, strategy and partnerships and chief risk officer said more bonds denominated in local currencies of the BRICS countries, including the rupee in India, will be issued if the bank's board and local authorities endorse the project plans. The was established with initial subscribed capital of $50 billion with total paid in capital of $10 billion. The founding members of the have already brought in capital of $1 billion as an initial contribution. The NDB announced its first batch of loans in April providing $300 million to Brazil, $81 million to China, $250 million to India and $180 million to South Africa. Together with the China backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the NDB is expected to contribute to infrastructure development specially in Asia along with the Monetary Fund, World Bank and Asian Development Bank. Studies revealed that the Asian region needed over $1 trillion in investment in infrastructure development. A three-member delegation of the city-based Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Co-operative (Campco) commenced its week-long tour of China today. It is aimed at proceeding with their plan to export processed tender arecanut fruit to the country for manufacture of mouth fresheners. The team is headed by Konkodi Padmanabha, former president of the multi-state co-operative. A Chinese team had last month visited Campco and villages from where arecanut was being procured by the co-operative. The China visit would provide a boost to the 'Make in India' concept mooted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Campco release said here. The mouth freshener could be an alternative to chewing addiction in India also, with government banning gutka. Being one of the major producers of arecanut in the world, India could meet the increasing demand for arecanut in the Chinese market, it said. Campco should be able to procure adequate raw material for mouth freshener and utilise the opportunity to create an advantageous atmosphere for export of arecanut, Padmanabha said. The visit would also be helpful as documents could be collected on the medicinal values of arecanut which had been recognised by China and countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, he said. Keeping its promise to provide relief to minorities from neighbouring countries, the NDA government is holding special camps for granting them Long Term Visa (LTV) or citizenship. The special camps are being held in seven states -- Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi-- for the benefits of Hindu and Sikh refugees from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The first two camps were held in Thane and Mumbai today and similar camps will be held in other places till July 27, a Home Ministry official said. The move to grant citizenship rights to minority Hindus is in consonance with the BJP's declared aim of positioning India as a refuge for Hindus fleeing persecution anywhere in the world, much like Israel's stance towards Jews. In its election manifesto before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had declared India as "a natural home for persecuted Hindus" who "shall be welcome to seek refuge". The special camps will examine the applications for LTV and citizenship and dispose off as much as possible, the official said. The Home Ministry will also facilitate the refugees open bank accounts, purchase of dwelling units for self-occupation and self-employment, get driving licence, PAN card, Aadhar card. The special camps will also be held at Pune, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Rajkot, Kutch (Bhuj), Patan, Bhopal, Indore, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Lucknow, Raipur and West Delhi. There are an estimated two lakh refugees, belonging to minorities communities, from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh living in India. The Home Ministry has extended several facilities to these minority communities like submitting the application for registration as citizen of India in the offline mode in case they are not able to file these applications online. Also permission to submit an affidavit for the Renunciation Certificate for citizenship and grant of initial LTV for a period of five years at a time, instead of one year. Children of such Pakistani nationals on LTV are allowed to take admission in schools/ colleges/ universities/ technical and professional institutions under foreigner quota without permission from the state government/UT administration. State governments/ UT administration are empowered to grant permission to such Pakistani nationals to engage themselves in employment of purely private nature. State governments/UT administration delegated powers for services like grant of visit to additional places, grant of No Objection to Return to India (NORI) and grant of permission to change in mode of travel and port of exit. The Home Ministry also organised 26 special camps at district level in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and NCT of Delhi in 2015. During these camps, 2,307 applications for LTV and 1994 applications for citizenship were received. Police today foiled the bid of advocates to march towards the High Court here as part of the 'Chalo High Court' programme by taking 230 of them into preventive custody. The police had yesterday denied permission to the programme, wherein the Federation of Bar Association had appealed to all advocates practising in various courts in the districts of Telangana and Hyderabad to march towards High Court. "Though the city police denied permission for organising any such programme, advocates in large number gathered at City Criminal court complex to proceed towards the High Court," Telangana Advocates Joint Action Committee (JAC) co-convener T Sriranga Rao said. In view of the prevailing situation, as per the orders of the Registrar General of the High Court, only those practising advocates of HC, whose cases were listed in the cause list for today were allowed to enter into the premises, a senior police official said. "About 230 advocates were taken into preventive custody when they tried to go towards the High Court. They were later let off," the official said. However, no untoward incident was reported, police said. A senior official of the High Court said judges attended to respective cases which were represented by the advocates. Advocates and judicial employees across Telangana under the banner of Telangana Advocates' JAC, High Court Bar Association and others had launched a week-long protest from Monday last in the form of lunch-hour demonstrations outside courts protesting against the provisional allocation of judicial officers between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. "We will intensify our agitation until our demands are met," Sriranga Rao told PTI. The JAC submitted a memorandum to the Acting Chief Justice of the High Court Dilip Bhosale demanding recall the provisional allocation list of judicial officers and to allocate the officers based on their nativity, among other demands. A man fired shots with an air rifle at a refugee shelter in western Germany, leaving a five-year-old girl and an 18-year-old lightly wounded, police said today. The 21-year-old man targeted the shelter from his third-floor apartment just 40 metres away in the shooting on yesterday, police said in a statement. The mother of the Macedonian girl had noticed that her child was hurt in the leg but initially thought someone had thrown stones or sand at her. But shortly after, a witness saw the suspect shooting from his apartment, wounding an 18-year-old Syrian in the leg. Police searched the man's apartment and removed an air rifle and munition. The suspect was however not detained as "there were no grounds for arrest", a police spokesman told AFP. "It is unclear if the act was politically motivated," added police, adding that investigations were ongoing. Hate crimes and attacks against migrants have exploded since arrivals spiked to 1.1 million in 2015, mostly from the Middle East and Africa. Germany recorded nearly 1,000 far-right offences targeting refugee shelters last year, a five-fold annual rise. Some 923 offences against refugees and refugee facilities were recorded in 2015, against 175 the previous year, according to Interior Ministry statistics on political crime in Germany. China's first high orbit remote sensing satellite, Gaofen-4, said to be the world's most sophisticated, became operational after six months in-orbit testing, it was announced today. Gaofen-4 is China's first geosynchronous orbit high- definition optical imaging satellite, state-run Xinhua agency quoted the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) as saying. Unlike from Gaofen-1 and Gaofen-2 in low orbits around the earth, Gaofen-4 is orbiting at 36,000 kilometers. High orbit satellites have the advantage of being able to snap "grand scenarios". Low orbit satellites, in contrast, can see more detail at faster speed. Low orbit satellites cannot always follow natural disasters, but Gaofen-4 can continuously observe a disaster because it moves synchronously with the earth, the report said, adding that it was the world's most sophisticated satellite. It improves the response to disasters like earthquakes, landslides and typhoons with its high-precision sensors. Gaofen-4, which was launched in December 2015, has a designed lifespan of eight years, compared to other remote sensing satellites which remain in service for less than three to five years. During the in-orbit test, Gaofen-4 has been used to collect imageries of flood-hit areas in south China and monitor fires that occurred in southwest China's Sichuan Province and in Russia. China started the Gaofen project with the launch of Gaofen-1 in April 2013. It aims to launch seven high-definition observation satellites before 2020, designed for disaster prevention, surveillance of geological disasters and forest disasters and weather forecast. Gaofen-3 is set to be launched in August 2016, according to the SASTIND. Chinese maritime police prevented 15 Filipinos, along with a US citizen, from hoisting the national flag of the Philippines on an island in the South China Sea, the latest flashpoint between the two nations locked in a UN arbitration over maritime disputes in the strategic region. The group was intercepted by two motor boats driven by Chinese maritime police on June 12, state media here reported today. The group belonged to the Kalayaan ATIN ITO ((Freedom It's Ours) and wanted to land onthe Huangyan Island- claimed by China and the Philippines - to celebrate their Independence Day. The fishing boat they took was spotted and intercepted by two motor boats from the Chinese maritime police who asked the "interlopers" to go back, state-run china.Org.Cn reported. The confrontation there lasted for four hours, it said. Five Philippine citizens onboard were trying to swim to the Huangyan Island to place their national flag as well as the UN flag. Two Philippine citizens swam to the surrounding area of the island raised their country flag and left, the report said. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reiterated that the Huangyan Island is an integral part of China's territory and any actions that China launches there are within the country's sovereign rights for legitimate concerns. The Philippines has initiated and pushed forward with international arbitral proceedings regarding the dispute with China in the South China Sea. China claims virtually all of the SCS and rejects the court's authority in the case, which is widely expected to go in favour of the Philippines. China claims all most all of South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims. The white paper attacked the Philippines saying that Manila turned a blind eye to bilateral consensus, has repeatedly taken moves that complicate the relevant disputes, gradually intensified them between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea. The Philippines built military facilities on some islands and reefs of China's Nansha Qundao (the Nansha Islands/Spratly islands) it has invaded and illegally occupied. The Philippines deliberately destroyed survey markers set up by China and attempted to illegally occupy China's Ren'ai Jiao by using a military vessel illegally run around it. The Philippines also has territorial pretencions on China's Huangyan Dao and attempted to occupy it illegally, deliberately causing the Huangyan Dao Incident, it said. The Philippines has intruded into relevant maritime areas of China's Nansha Qundao to carry out illegal oil and gas exploratory drilling and bidding. The Philippines has repeatedly harassed and attacked Chinese fishermen and fishing boats conducting routine fishing operations, according to the white paper. In January 2013, the then government of the Republic of the Philippines unilaterally initiated the South China Sea arbitration. By doing so, the Philippines has violated its standing agreement with China to settle the relevant disputes through bilateral negotiation, has violated China's right to choose means of dispute settlement of its own will as a State Party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and has abused the UNCLOS dispute settlement procedures, it said. "The Philippines has distorted facts, misinterpreted laws and concocted a pack of lies, in an attempt to deny China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea," it said. The Arbitral Tribunal established at the Philippines' unilateral request has no jurisdiction over relevant submissions, and awards rendered by it are null and void and have no binding force, the white paper said. China's territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea shall under no circumstances be affected by those awards. China does not accept or recognise those awards. China opposes and will never accept any claim or action based on those awards, it said. Chiragh Kumar was unable to provide a final flourish and ended with a modest even par 72 that saw him finish tied 51st in the Lyoness Open, powered by Sporthilfe Cashback Card. Chiragh, who was the only Indian to make the cut out of four in the fray, was tied-15th after the second round but was unable to maintain the tempo over the weekend and scored 75-72. This was his fifth successive cut on the European Tour, but his best finish was only tied-19th at the Thailand Classic. Meanwhile, China's Ashun Wu claimed his second European Tour title after winning the Lyoness Open by a single shot. The 30-year-old, whose previous victory came at the Volvo China Open last year, finished the week on 13 under after carding a closing 69 on Sunday. Spain's Adrian Otaegui finished second on 12 under, with Englishman Richard McEvoy another stroke back after dropping his only shot of the day at the 18th. Top officials of the Cochin Port Trust met Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and sought his intervention to resolve issues related to land acquisition for completing the multi-crore natural gas pipeline project in the state. Noting that a failure to do so may put the loss-making Cochin Port in deep stress, the Chairman of the port, G Senthilvel said the time-bound completion of pipeline project will help the Port come out of its losses. "Senthilvel has requested the Chief Minister to resolve the pipeline issue for the LNG terminal as the terminal constructed at cost of Rs 4,000 crore is operating only at 8 per cent capacity and the under utilisation is affecting the Cochin Port Trust's revenues," a Cochin Port Trust said in a release. "With the pipeline connectivity to Mangalore (via Thrissur, Malappuram) and Bangalore (via Palakkad), the port will earn an additional Rs 100 crore which will make it come out of its losses and will make profit," it said. He also informed Vijayan that if the project is completed, the state government will also earn revenue through VAT. "The Chief Minister has assured full support of the state government to resolve the pipeline issues of the LNG terminal as it is one of their priority," the release added. He meeting took place at the CM office in Thiruvananthapuram along with senior Port Trust officials Unnikrishnan Nair and G Vaidyanathan on June 10. The meeting came a week after Union Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari, urged the new LDF government in Kerala to complete land acquisition for the natural gas pipeline project, adding that failure to do so may lead to closure of the loss-making Cochin Port. "I am requesting the Chief Minister and people of Kerala that if the line is not completed, then it is a big loss for the Cochin Port. If we complete the line, we will get a profit of more than Rs 150 crore," Gadkari had told reporters here from Mumbai via video conferencing. "Today we are in loss. If this situation goes on...If the state government cannot cooperate in completing the gas pipeline project, then we will have to think about closing the Cochin Port," he had said. The pipeline project envisages connecting the Petronet LNG terminal at Puthuvype in Kochi to the northern part of Kerala, from where two separate lines are to join it from Mangaluru and Bengaluru. Congress today demanded that the Narendra Modi government apologise for 'misleading' the country that making India a member was on the agenda of the just concluded meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group at Vienna. "Government must apologise to the nation for telling the country that India's membership was on the agenda of the NSG. It was not on the agenda", party's senior spokesman Anand Sharma told reporters claiming that there was "no discussion" on the issue at the meeting. Sending the signal that progress on the Indo-US nuclear cooperation was started by the Congress-led UPA, he recalled that the 123 Agreement was signed by the then External Affairs Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee. Taking a dig at the government, he said while there has not been any discussion on the issue at the NSG meeting, they say that "the film is ready". Sharma said MTCR is still a "work in progress." He said that opposition from "northern neighbour" is still there. Yesterday, a report from Beijing had it that notwithstanding a US push for India's NSG membership, members of the elite club "remain divided" on the issue of non-NPT countries joining it and insisted that there "was no deliberation" on the bid by India and other nations at the Vienna meeting. "There was no deliberation on any items related to the accession to the NSG by India or any other countries that are not signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei had said in a statement while referring to the Vienna meeting that took place last week. He had said the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) Chair Argentine Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi convened an unofficial meeting of the 48-member group on June 9. "India must get the Membership of the NSG but please Shri Narendra Modi and Amit Shah - you are less and inadequately informed, on these matters, please do not mislead the people by continuously making false and tall claims about your achievements," he said. Targeting the Prime Minister, Sharama said the just concluded National Executive meeting of the BJP in Allahabad, saw Modi "characteristically indulging in self-praise and attacking the Opposition for being anti-Development". Insisting that the Congress has cooperated with the Government in the passage of important legislation, he said the government should refrain from giving advice to the opposition. Tearing apart the claims of boost to the economy, he challenged the Prime Minister to release the list of all youth from tehsil to the state level who have got jobs in the last two years. "The BJP promised 2 crore jobs a year. In 2 years, we were supposed to have 4 crore jobs. But, they managed a mere 1.4 lakh jobs", he claimed. With advent of monsoon around the corner, Delhi Congress today hit out at the state government over its "poor" pre-monsoon preparedness, claiming only 18 per cent of drains have been de-silted and accused it of not being serious about tackling health issues which may surface later. "Despite monsoon rains knocking at the door, only 18 per cent de-silting works have been carried out by PWD to prevent water-logging. "This shows how serious the AAP government is in tackling water-logging during monsoon rains," a statement quoted Delhi Congress chief spokesperson Sharmistha Mukherjee. Mukherjee claimed that among the few areas where de-silting works have been satisfactory are Flag Staff Road in Civil Lines where Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's official residence is located and Patparganj constituency represented by his deputy Manish Sisodia. She noted that areas other than "these two places" however saw no progress as far as de-silting works were concerned. "Kejriwal has no time to spare except clashing with the Centre and is more concerned about Punjab. This is the reason he is spending crores of rupees of the tax payers' money for putting out advertisements in Punjab newspapers to bolster his personal image at the cost of Delhi people," she alleged. Mukherjee accused the government of not learning any lessons from last year's dengue epidemic and raised questions about its seriousness for this season as well. "The number of dengue cases has been going up year after year, but the AAP government seems to be oblivious to such problems," she said. Mukherjee said during the Congress regime, plans would be worked out in March itself to prevent water-logging in parts of the national capital. "Review meetings used to be held in June and a week before the monsoon rains start to ascertain the progress, but no such meetings have been held by the Kejriwal government," she claimed. A number of people including some police personnel, were injured when workers protesting against city mayor here today clashed with the police after after which cops allegedly cane charged them. The alleged cane charging prompted the sub-divisional magistrate to order a probe into the incident, a senior police officer said. "The Mayor, Abhay Dare has created an artificial water crisis in Sagar so that he can get additional funds, whereas reality is that the water scarcity is manageable," claimed Madhya Pradesh Committee's Sagar division Spokesman, Sandeep Sablok. As part of the protest, the workers, led by Sagar district unit party president Rekha Choudhry and the opposition leader in the local civic body Ajay Parmar started a demonstration carrying empty water pots outside the Municipal Corporation office. However, as the Congress workers started breaking the pots as part of the protest, the police without any provocation cane-charged them causing injuries to nearly three dozen party workers, Sablok alleged. However, police denied any cane-charging, saying they only used mild force to restore order. "Police used only mild force against the protesters. We have not can-charged them. Nearly half a dozen policemen also sustained injuries in the incident. The allegations of Congress will be proved wrong in the magisterial probe that was ordered by the sub-divisional magistrate," said City Superintendent of Police Gautam Solanki. Sablok, who got six stitches on his head, claimed that 16 Congress cadres were admitted in the district hospital while around 36 party workers, including six women, suffered injuries in the incident. Pradesh Congress Committee president Arun Yadav constituted a five-member committee comprising senior party leaders Prabhu Singh Thakur, Brajendra Singh Rathore, MLAs Harsh Yadav, Nishank Jain and Pratap Singh to probe the incident and submit a report. Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has issued notice to Public Works Department (PWD) and BSES over non-functioning of street lights in Vasant Kunj area which is prone to crime against women, especially during night. Station House Officer of Vasant Kunj police station wrote a letter to the Commission requesting its intervention for ensuring proper functioning of street lights at Nelson Mandela Marg and Aruna Asaf Ali Marg. "The SHO informed that the area is prone to crimes against women, especially at night time and unavailability of street light in the area is increasing the risk of crimes against women," said a senior DCW official. The SHO also informed the commission that despite repeated letters written and calls made to BSES and PWD to repair the street lights on these roads, no action has been taken so far on the issue, which is preventing police from discharging its duty properly. "The Commission has taken cognisance of the complaint has issued notices to BSES and PWD asking about the status of the action taken and reasons for non functioning street lights," the official said. They have been asked to file a reply within 48 hours. A 31-year-old Dera Sacha Sauda follower was seriously injured today when three unidentified persons opened fire at him in Jawahar Singh Wala village here following which tension prevailed in the area, police said. The assailants came in a car and shot at Gurdev Singh, leaving him seriously injured, they said. Singh was running a grocery shop in front of a Gurudwara in the village where a theft of religious scriptures had taken place around six months ago, police said. The victim was admitted to a hospital in Ludhiana, police said, adding a case has been registered in this connection and a search is on to nab the attackers. New York's Empire State Building went dark while the spire of One World Trade Center lit up in the colours of the gay pride flag in memory of the victims of the Orlando massacre. The symbolic move yesterday came as the United States mourned the 50 victims of the worst mass shooting in modern US history, gunned down at a gay club in the Florida city. In the wake of the attack by a heavily armed assailant, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all flags would be flown at half-staff in the largest US city and that security measures have been strengthened, in particular around places associated with the LGBT community. De Blasio told reporters that the shooting that also left dozens injured was "against our values." He said there were no credible threats directed at New York City. But "you'll see a lot of additional police presence on the streets of the city," he added, stressing: "No city in the world is better prepared to stop terror, to stop hate." Hundreds of people gathered yesterday evening in Greenwich Village to reflect on the violence and leave flowers, candles and letters beside a sign reading "Stop Hate." The Tony Awards, which honour the best of Broadway, opened in New York dedicated to victims of the shooting, the deadliest terror attack in America since September 11, 2001. To address Delhi University students' concern about their results being delayed in wake of the evaluation boycott by teachers, DUTA today urged students to understand their position and need for the agitation. "We understand your anxiety about the likely delay in results caused by the evaluation boycott protest of teachers and we have also received your requests to withdraw this particular form of protest," Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) President Nandita Narain said in an open letter to students. "Let me assure you that we are equally keen to get back to evaluation and to work overtime to bring out your results at the earliest. "Please also understand that the majority of evaluators are precisely these ad-hoc and temporary teachers, who stand disengaged from employment as a result of the gazette notification," it added. The teachers have been boycotting evaluation of undergraduate exams since May 24 in protest against amendments to UGC regulations that, they argue, will lead to job-cuts to the tune of 50 per cent and drastically decrease pupil-teacher ratio in higher education. "Legally, they cannot be asked to evaluate University scripts, when they are no longer employed by the university. Without them, it would be impossible to complete the evaluation process and declare results within a reasonable time. "The ongoing battle against degradation of public-funded higher education cannot be won without active participation by students. In particular, to ensure the early resumption of evaluation, students must put pressure on the MHRD and Government in every way possible, to give a clear written assurance that their negative decision has been reversed," the letter said. The new gazette notification has increased the workload for assistant professors from 16 hours of "direct teaching" per week (including tutorials) to 18 hours, plus another six of tutorials, bringing the total up to 24 hours. Similarly the work hours of associate professors have been increased from 14 to 22. Following protests, the HRD ministry had directed UGC to review the same. The commission had yesterday organised consultations on the issue with various stake holders including representatives of teachers associations from across the country. The protesting teachers had, however, claimed that the consultations did not yield any results. With India seeking entry into the NSG, China today said the 48-nation body will have "extensive discussions" about admission of new members ahead of its plenary meeting to be held in Seoul on June 24. "As to how non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) countries can join the NSG, the group shall have extensive discussions," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kong told a media briefing here replying to a question whether the group is likely to take a decision at the Seoul meeting. China yesterday said no discussion about admission of new members was held at the June 9 meeting convened by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) chair Argentine Ambassador Rafael Mariano Grossi in Vienna. "The Chair said that this meeting has no agenda and isonly convened to heed opinions from all parties on the outreach of the NSG and prepare for a report to be submitted at the NSG Plenary Meeting in Seoul later this month (June 24)," the ministry said yesterday. While the US and a majority of the 48 members back India's admission, China along with New Zealand, Ireland, Turkey, South Africa and Austria are reportedly opposed to India's entry. China which is reportedly backing Pakistan's entry into the club maintains that there should be consensus about admitting non-NPT members into the grouping. Asked how China views Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent visit to the US and the absence of the mention of South China Sea issue in the Indo-US joint statement, Lu said, "India always upholds diplomatic policy of independence. We believe that it is independent choice India made in light of its own interests," he said outlining efforts by China and other east Asian countries to resolve the maritime dispute. China claims almost all of the South China Sea while Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the waterway believed to be rich with oil and minerals. About the completion of the formalities of India and Pakistan's admission into the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) at its forthcoming summit in Tashkent later this month, Lu said, "I can't predict the outcome of the summit. But I am sure that this will be an important agenda". "All the leaders will have in-depth discussions on the issue and ensure steady progress of the enlargement of the SCO," he said. SCO Secretary-General Rashid Alimov told Russian agency TASS here on June 9 that India and Pakistan have reached agreements in principle for joining SCO, a Beijing- based regional security body. The SCO approved a decision on India's and Pakistan's entry as new members at the summit in Ufa in 2015. This year's summit is due to be held in Tashkent on June 23-24. The SCO currently has six member states - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, with Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observers, and Belarus, Turkey and Sri Lanka as dialogue partners. India and Pakistan are expected to be elevated as regular members. Fitch Ratings has downgraded city-based realty player Lodha Developers by a notch due to its inability to reduce debt. The downgrade reflects Lodha's inability to reduce its leverage, as measured by net debt or adjusted inventory, to a level appropriate for its previous rating, the rating agency said in a statement here. Fitch has also downgraded the long-term rating on Lodha's USD 200 million senior unsecured notes due in 2020 to 'B' from 'B+'. According to Fitch, the company's leverage had increased to 80 per cent by December 31 last year from 76 per cent at March 31, 2015 and 65 per cent at 2013-14, as the company continued to ramp up the pace of construction in its property projects in spite of lower-than-expected pre-sales and cash collections over the last 12-18 months. "The negative outlook reflects the heightened liquidity risk that Lodha may face in the short-term together with the risk that leverage will continue to remain high at above 80 per cent - if pre-sales and cash collections continue to under-perform our expectations, or if there are significant cash calls from its 40 per cent-owned London joint venture," it said. "We do not expect Lodha to be able to deleverage significantly over the next 12 months using its internally generated cash flow. The company has continued to lend money to its London joint-venture, which is in the very early stages of development and has a high project-debt burden. A substantial amount of the London project debt falls due in the next six months, mostly in December," it added. Fitch believes that Lodha may choose to support London project-debt maturities (although it has no obligation to do so) if it is unable to secure offshore refinancing, given the significant investments it has already made. Lodha's contractual debt maturities balloon to over Rs 3,500 crore in 2017-18, and could significantly increase liquidity risks if not addressed early, it said. "However, in 2016-17 only Rs 80 crore out of Lodha's total debt of Rs 14,400 crore at December 31, 2015 falls due, which we expect the company to be able to meet in light of access to domestic credit markets which is still satisfactory. The company also had over Rs 1,500 crore of undrawn credit facilities at 2015-16," the report noted. The company is currently developing around 43 million sq ft of prime residential real estate globally with the largest land reserves in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. In 2013, it extended its international footprint with the acquisition of the landmark MacDonald House at 1 Grosvenor Square in Prime Central London from the Canadian Government for a consideration of over Rs 3,100 crore. Fortis Healthcare's stock declined over 2 per cent today as its subsidiary has received an order from the Directorate General of Health Services (DHS) to deposit Rs 503.36 crore for non-compliance of conditions of land allotment lease. The company's stock dipped 2.02 per cent to settle at Rs 164.80 on BSE. Intra-day, it dived 4.81 per cent to Rs 160.10. On NSE, it went down by 2.4 per cent to end the day at Rs 164.50. Fortis Healthcare on June 10, said its subsidiary Escort Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRCL) has been ordered by the DHS to deposit Rs 503.36 crore for non-compliance of conditions of land allotment lease. The company will challenge the order for the recovery of 'unwarranted profit' made by Escorts by not following conditions of land lease since its allotment in 1982. "EHIRCL has informed us that in a long disputed case pertaining to the period 1984-2007, it has today received an order from DHS for the deposit of an amount of Rs 503.36 crore towards recovery of unwarranted profit made by it for alleged non-compliance of the conditions of allotment/lease of land since its allotment in 1982," Fortis Healthcare said in a BSE filing on Friday. A French police officer has been stabbed to death in front of his home in the Paris suburbs by a man who then holed up in the house, a police source said. Elite police have surrounded the residence in Magnanville, which is northwest of the French capital, the source said yesterday. It was not immediately clear if the suspect was holding any hostages. The fresh phase of the Jat quota agitation continued in various parts of Haryana for the ninth consecutive day today. The state remained peaceful and no untoward incident was reported, officials said. Activists of All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangarsh Samiti have been staging dharnas at various places, mostly in Rohtak, Sonepat, Jind and Hisar districts, in support of their demands. Some khaps of Jind district have also supported the demands of the Samiti. Those khaps which have extended support to the fresh phase of Jat stir include Kandela khap. Some Jat activists also started relay fast today to press for their demands. Three months after their violent agitation left 30 people dead, Jat leaders owing allegiance to AIJASS, have been holding dharnas at various places, amid tight security by the BJP government which had drawn severe flak over its handling of the protest last time. The protesters are demanding quota under the OBC category, withdrawal of cases registered against community members during the previous stir in February, status of martyr for those killed and jobs for their next of kin, besides compensation to the injured. After the agitation, which had paralysed normal life in Haryana and affected Delhi and other neighbouring states too, the state government recently brought in laws to provide reservation for Jats and five other communities under a newly carved Backward Classes (C) category. However, the high court stayed it, acting on a public interest litigation, after which some Jat groups announced the fresh stir. A special round-the-clock control room has been set up in Chandigarh to monitor the situation. The Gambia has banned music, dancing and drumming during the Muslim holy month of Ramzan, on pain of being arrested and people are complying, police said on Monday. Ordinary citizens in the small west African country whose President declared it an Islamic state in December are being urged to report anyone seen engaging in the activities to authorities, said a spokesman. "People are complying with the police order banning drumming and dancing during the month of and so far no one has been arrested by the police for violating it," police spokesperson Lamin Njie told AFP. A police statement published last week warned that "all ceremonies, festivities and programs that involve drumming, music and dance during the day or at night are prohibited". "All those engaged in the practice are therefore warned to desist from such acts otherwise they will be eventually apprehended and face the full force of the law without compromise," it said. President Yahya Jammeh announced in December that the Gambia had become an Islamic state, but stressed that the rights of the Christian minority would be respected and that women would not be held to a dress code. A few weeks later it emerged that female civil servants had been ordered to cover their hair at work, according to a leaked government memo, although the presidency subsequently announced the measure had been dropped. An impoverished former British colony famed for its white-sand beaches, the Gambia has a population of nearly two million, 90 per cent of whom are Muslim. Of the remainder, eight per cent are Christian and two per cent are defined as having indigenous beliefs. Jammeh, 50, a military officer and former wrestler has ruled the country with an iron fist since he seized power in a coup in 1994. Critics regularly accuse him of making unilateral decisions and controversial statements, notably about other countries, migrants and homosexuality. The next presidential election in the Gambia, for which Jammeh is a candidate, is scheduled in December. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation announced in April that its next summit will be held in the Gambia, although a date has not yet been fixed. During the holy month of Ramzan, observant Muslims abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours. Musician Eddie Vedder joined forces with director Judd Apatow to pay tribute to late comedian Garry Shandling at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee. "The Larry Sanders Show" star died in March after suffering a heart attack, and he was remembered onstage during an unexpected appearance by Vedder at the festival's Comedy Theatre, reported Contactmusic. Taking the stage during Apatow's set, which took place before his band Pearl Jam's headlining gig, Vedder debuted a special song he had created from Shandling's writings as he strummed on an acoustic guitar. The "Knocked Up" filmmaker filled in the gaps by recounting quips from the late actor's own journals, which included lines like, "My friends say I have an intimacy problem, but they don't really know me," and, "My mum wants me to have kids - just not with other people," according to The Tennessean. Apatow also shared footage from a short video created for the veteran funnyman's memorial service in Los Angeles in April, when he served as host for the event for his late mentor. Jharkhand Governor Droupadi Murmu today stressed on igniting imagination and creating an enabling environment for the Start up India campaign. Addressing a Start up India campaign workshop, Murmu said Start-Up as a concept was as old as human civilization -- from pastoral activities like hunting and gathering to today's Supercomputers and space shuttles were all start ups. "A tea stall or vegetable vendor is as much a start up as also the big companies like Google or Apple... All these huge companies began from country-side garages," she said. Stating that everyone calls Jharkhand a rich state, she asked then why is there so much poverty and inequality and why is Jharkhand a fertile ground for Left Wing Extremism? "The answers to these questions must come from our collective conscience. People in Jharkhand may be poor but as you showed me in your presentation, they are rich in their enterprise and imagination," she said. The job of the government and the job of the civil society was to ignite that imagination and create an enabling environment for the start up option, she added. "This is what our Hon'ble Prime Minister dreams about. India can be vibrant only when every Indian is vibrant. Every Institution is vibrant," she said. "What I saw in your presentation today is extremely fulfilling to me. Extremism is in the wane. That throws up an opportunity to be encashed. The time has come for a thousand flowers to bloom. The MUDRA scheme of the Government of India has come at the right time," the Governor said. Saying that time has come for the Government to stand up for entrepreneurs by going the extra mile, she said it was an entrepreneur, who creates job and wealth for our society. Rajya Sabha member Harivansh said there had been historic turnarounds and he saw some reflection (in Start Ups) and in future more could be seen of it, helping development in Jharkhand and the country. Industry Director Ravi Kumar said the government was ready to support start-ups and there was a venture of hundred crore rupees to fund start-ups and it would be completed in this fiscal. The Circle Head of Punjab National Bank, P K Pradhan, extended all support, including soft rate of interest for Start-Ups. The Jharkhand governor felicitated start-ups like Pitstop Street, ABCD Kart, Jharkhand IT Solutions, Unique Collection, HFHC, Milestone Brand Promotion & Advertisement and Bholeshankar Cargo Mover, a press release said. To encourage fuel-efficient cargo transportation and minimise pollution, the government today said efforts are on to ensure LNG barges commence navigation on National Waterway-1 (Ganga) by 2018-end. "Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) and Petronet LNG have been asked to plan and coordinate their work plans in a manner such that LNG barges could commence navigation on NW1 by December 2018," the Shipping Ministry said in a statement. Petronet LNG Limited will design, construct and operate LNG unloading, storage, bunkering and reloading facilities on the National Waterways (NWs), it said. Four of the top public sector companies in the hydrocarbon sector of the country, viz. ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL and GAIL own 50 per cent of the equity in Petronet LNG, while 10 per cent is held by GDF SUEZ and the balance 40 per cent is held by the public. Action has already been initiated for preparing detailed feasibility report and it is expected to be completed by December 2016. Petronet LNG plans to set up a base depot at Haldia and fuelling stations at Sahibganj (Jharkhand), Patna (Bihar) and Ghazipur (UP). IWAI will facilitate the switchover of bunker fuel from diesel to LNG by persuading the barge owners and the operators about the benefits of LNG. IWAI will also provide land, wherever possible, for the setting up of LNG storage and will develop jetties to facilitate bunkering, the statement said. The Ministry said there is a potential for 17.5 MT of cargo on NW-1 by 2020. IWAI was requested to explore the feasibility of seeking funding for the introduction of LNG barges under the Ganga Action Plan. As National Waterways in Goa offer immense opportunities in transportation of iron ore and are closer to LNG storage facilities, the introduction of LNG Barges is being considered for that region too, the statement said. The agencies responsible for framing and enforcing regulations related to the navigation of LNG barges have been asked to study best practices and regulations on the subject for implementation in India, it added. Both the options of switching over from the existing diesel to LNG barges and introduction of new LNG barges are being considered, it said. It said that though the switching over from traditional fuel (diesel) to LNG will entail an initial capital expenditure, the investment is likely to be recovered in four to five years at current prices. "Higher fuel efficiency and negligible pollution are major attendant benefits of the new fuel. As per the present pricing, operating LNG barges will be much cheaper than diesel as fuel. LNG Barges would be a step towards achieving the commitments made by the country at COP 21," the statement said. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between IWAI and Petronet LNG for providing an LNG based alternative, fuel efficient and environment-friendly mode of transport on National Waterways 1 during the Maritime India Summit in Mumbai in April 2016. India may impose anti-dumping duty of up to USD 168.76 per tonne on imports of a chemical, mainly used in textile and packaging industry, from five countries including China and Iran to protect domestic players. MCC PTA India Corp and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had jointly filed an application seeking anti-dumping investigations. In its final findings, the Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), under the ministry, has found that 'Purified Terephthalic Acid' has been exported to India from China, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan below its normal value which has resulted in dumping. The DGAD said that it considers it necessary to impose the duty on the imports. "The authority recommends imposition of anti-dumping duty...So as to remove the injury to the domestic industry," it said in a notification. It has recommended an anti-dumping duty in the range of USD 83.08 per tonne to USD 168.76 per tonne on the imports. While DGAD recommends the duty, the Finance Ministry imposes it. Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by a surge in below-cost imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multi-lateral WTO regime. Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry. They are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products. At least 40 clerics of Barelvi school of thought in Pakistan have issued a fatwa (religious decree) against honour killing, declaring it 'un-Islamic and unpardonable sin'. The clerics under the banner of Sunni Itehad Council (SIC) told a conference here yesterday that honour killing is kufr (infidelity). "Burning women alive for marrying of their own choice is against Islamic injunctions," the fatwa said. It condemned recent honour killings in Lahore, Abbottabad and Murree, saying such incidents have shaken the whole society as we are moving towards social and societal degradation. It said killing in the name of family honour is based on ignorance and waywardness. The fatwa urged the government to implement proper legislation to curb such crimes, and declare heinous acts such as burning or killing of woman as an unpardonable crime as it is an Islamic government's responsibility to protect women rights. At least 1,100 women were killed in the name of honour in Pakistan last year. Leading water pump maker Grundfos is eyeing 6 per cent sales growth for the next year from its operations across the globe, including India. The company, which has set aside capital for business expansion in India, is also looking at manufacturing its products in the country. As of now, Grundfos India operations are based in Chennai, where it runs an assembling plant of water pumps. The components for water pumps in this plant are imported. Grundfos India is responsible for sale of Grundfos products in India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives. "We have an overall ambition to grow our sales by 6 per cent per annum," a company spokesperson told PTI. According to Grundfos Group President and CEO Mads Nipper, Indian economy is best positioned to have growth compared to other economies as it is not over-dependent on resources from other parts of the world, particularly China. "The Indian economy is not super dependent on raw material and energy exports. You do have rising democratic profile with many educated people as well as improvement in infrastructure," he said. "India unlike many countries is less dependent on trade with China," he noted, adding that China's shift from becoming an export- and import-driven economy to a consumption-based economy can have negative implications for China's trade partners. He also noted that the Narendra Modi government should stick to its reform agenda which would help sustain the country in the face of global volatility. "(There is) willingness of India to make reforms even though it is complex... The two economic challenges are swing in Chinese economy and availability of fossil fuels. India is less dependent on that. So, I am optimistic on Indian economy," Nipper said. "The Modi government has taken the right steps, but it has also found that it is harder to do that. I think the courage to make reforms is right and they should not give up. The Modi government needs to stay stubborn on reforms agenda," he said. He also observed that India does not hit the top of the list for ease of doing business and things should get easier from the trade perspective. With primary focus on new forms of energy and sustainable production, Grundfos is continuously working on high efficiency water pumps and plans to steer its business towards digitisation. The company, which sees an organic growth of 10 per cent every year, invests about 5 per cent of its turnover into research and development projects. Targeting April 2017 for the rollout of Goods and Services Tax, the government is betting on support from smaller regional parties to pass the national sales tax legislation in the Parliament session from next month, and expects approval for supporting laws by year-end. GST was earlier planned to be introduced from April 1 this year, converting 29 states into a single market through the new indirect tax regime, but the deadline was missed as the bill to roll it out remains stalled in the opposition- dominated Rajya Sabha. "If we can pass it in the monsoon session (of Parliament beginning next month), then we can implement it in April 1, 2017," Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha told PTI. The government has enough backing from smaller regional parties to pass the Bill in Rajya Sabha without support from the main opposition Congress party, he said. Congress, which first proposed the constitutional amendment in 2006, is demanding capping the overall rate at 18 per cent and scrapping an additional 1 per cent tax designed to compensate manufacturing-heavy states that fear losing revenue once the measure is implemented. After Parliament approves the constitutional amendment to allow GST, it needs to be ratified by more than half of states. Then Parliament must pass another bill to implement the GST, Sinha said. "First the Constitution Amendment will have to be ratified by 50 per cent of the state assemblies, then the GST Bill will be passed by all the state assemblies," he said. After the Constitution Amendment Bill is passed in Parliament, there are three more legislations - Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) - which are required to be passed. "Of course, there is a complicated legislative calendar that we have to work through. Then there are implementation issues which are working, but we feel that we can get all of that done in time," he said. Meanwhile, the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers will deliberate on the model GST law at a two-day meeting in Kolkata beginning tomorrow. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will participate in the meeting and try to iron out differences with the states over the new regime. The GST bill -- which will help create a single national sales tax to replace several state and central levies -- has already been approved by the Lok Sabha or Lower House of Parliament and is pending in the Upper House where the government doesn't have a majority. Sinha hoped to get support of most of the parties on GST Bill so that it is passed with national consensus. "Our expectation is that we will get support from many parties. We would like it to be passed with a national consensus, so we would like all parties to approve it. In the Lok Sabha when the Constitution Amendment was passed, it was passed unanimously. So we would like it to be passed in Rajya Sabha unanimously as well," he said. Blockbuster hip-hop musical "Hamilton", about America's founding father Alexander Hamilton, scored an impressive 11 trophies at the 2016 Tony Awards, including best musical. It was nominated for a record-breaking 16 awards during Sunday's prizegiving. In addition to the top award presented to them by Barbra Streisand, the show's star, creator and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, took best book of a musical and best original score. Miranda lost the best leading actor in a musical trophy to his co-star Leslie Odom, Jr, while other acting prizes went to Renee Elise Goldsberry (best featured actress in a musical) and Daveed Diggs (best featured actor in a musical). The creative team had a near clean sweep, winning best direction of a musical (Thomas Kail), best choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler), best orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire), best costume design (Paul Tazewell), and best lighting design (Howell Binkley). Although "Hamilton" went home with 11 trophies, it did not break the record for the most wins in one night, which is held by "The Producers." The musical was honoured with 12 Tonys in 2001. Meanwhile, acclaimed show "The Humans" scored the most trophies in the play categories, for best play, best featured actor and actress prizes for its two stars Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell, respectively, and best scenic design of a play for David Zinn. Frank Langella earned his fourth Tony for best leading actor in a play for "The Father", while Jessica Lange won her first Tony for best leading actress in a play for "Long Day's Journey Into Night". Arthur Miller's "A View From The Bridge" was given two Tonys, for best revival of a play and for its director Ivo van Hove. Casts from each of the best musical contenders - "Bright Star", "Hamilton", "School of Rock", "Shuffle Along" and "Waitress" - treated viewers to song and dance numbers, while stars from best revival of a musical nominees, "The Color Purple", "Fiddler on the Roof", "She Loves Me" and "Spring Awakening", also hit the stage to perform. Bebe Neuwirth also led a 20th anniversary tribute to the revival of long-running musical "Chicago", the show which earned her her second Tony Award in 1997. The ceremony held at New York City's Beacon Theatre, was hosted by James Corden, who in his monologue, addressed the tragic Orlando shooting. Also during the show, the American Theatre Wing - which hands out the Tonys - announced its new Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative, which is being funded with a USD 1.3 million, three-year grant from Lloyd Webber, that will support theatre education opportunities for under-resourced public schools around the United States. Diversity reigned at Tony Awards 2016 with black actors winning big in four major acting categories, while blockbuster hip-hop musical "Hamilton", about America's founding father Alexander Hamilton, scored an impressive 11 trophies at the ceremony. The subject of diversity in Hollywood has long been a topic of debate, with the lack of nominations for black stars at this year's Academy Awards prompting the #OscarsSoWhite campaign. The Tony Awards, however, seemed to have set a new benchmark in diversity. Three of the acting wins came for the cast of "Hamilton". Leslie Odom Jr took home the trophy for best actor, while Daveed Diggs (best featured actor) and Renee Elise Goldsberry (best featured actress) nabbed awards for their work in the acclaimed musical. "There's so much diversity on Broadway. I'm very proud to be part of it," Diggs said after his win. Cynthia Erivo won for her performance in the revival of "The Color Purple", a victory that prompted tears from producer Oprah Winfrey. Before any awards were handed out, host James Corden praised the diversity among the nominees - while taking a dig at presidential hopeful Donald Trump. "Think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity. It's so diverse, Donald Trump has threatened to build a wall around this theater," he said. After the ceremony, Tony Awards tweeted, "For the first time in #TonyAwards history, all four musical acting awards have gone to people of colour." "Hamilton", which was nominated for a record-breaking 16 awards during Sunday's prizegiving, also won best musical. The show's star, creator and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, took home the best book of a musical and best original score honour. The creative team had a near clean sweep, winning best direction of a musical (Thomas Kail), best choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler), best orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire), best costume design (Paul Tazewell), and best lighting design (Howell Binkley). Although "Hamilton" went home with 11 trophies, it did not break the record for the most wins in one night, which is held by "The Producers." The musical was honoured with 12 Tonys in 2001. Meanwhile, acclaimed show "The Humans" scored the most trophies in the play categories, for best play, best featured actor and actress prizes for its two stars Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell, respectively, and best scenic design of a play for David Zinn. Frank Langella earned his fourth Tony for best leading actor in a play for "The Father", while Jessica Lange won her first Tony for best leading actress in a play for "Long Day's Journey Into Night". Arthur Miller's "A View From The Bridge" was given two Tonys, for best revival of a play and for its director Ivo van Hove. Casts from each of the best musical contenders - "Bright Star", "Hamilton", "School of Rock", "Shuffle Along" and "Waitress" - treated viewers to song and dance numbers, while stars from best revival of a musical nominees, "The Color Purple", "Fiddler on the Roof", "She Loves Me" and "Spring Awakening", also hit the stage to perform. Bebe Neuwirth also led a 20th anniversary tribute to the revival of long-running musical "Chicago", the show which earned her her second Tony Award in 1997. The ceremony held at New York City's Beacon Theatre. Corden, in his monologue, also addressed the tragic Orlando shooting. Also during the show, the American Theatre Wing - which hands out the Tonys - announced its new Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative, which is being funded with a USD 1.3 million, three-year grant from Lloyd Webber, that will support theatre education opportunities for under-resourced public schools around the United States. Jailed Patel quota agitation leader Hardik Patel today told the Gujarat High Court he was ready to accept any condition, including staying out of the state for six months, that it may deem fit for granting him bail. Justice A J Desai reserved his order on the bail plea after the prosecution and defence counsels concluded their arguments. Hardik, an accused in two separate cases of sedition registered against him in Surat and Ahmedabad, has been lodged in a Surat jail since his arrest last year in the wake of the violent stir by Patels seeking reservation under OBC category. Opposing the bail plea, government pleader Mitesh Amin told the court that government is apprehensive that Hardik may repeat the offence and his presence outside jail may endanger the law-and-order situation in the state. Countering the argument, Hardik's lawyer Zubin Bharda said Hardik is fine even if the high court grants him bail on the condition that he stays out of Gujarat for another six months. On this, Amin said keeping Hardik outside Gujarat would not serve the purpose as the latter can continue to incite his community members through social media platforms for which his physical presence in the state won't be required. During earlier hearings, the government had declined to accept Hardik's offer for a written undertaking for bail. The quota leader had stated he will refrain from activities that may affect law-and-order situation, but will "continue to agitate for grievances of the Patidar community in a peaceful and democratic manner". Hardik had earlier approached the high court for bail after the lower courts in Surat and Ahmedabad (where separate sedition cases are registered against him) refused him any relief. The young Patel leader and his three associates are facing charges under IPC sections 124(A) (sedition), 121 (A) (conspiracy to wage war against government) and 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy). They are accused of inciting violence to put pressure on the government to accept the demand of OBC reservation for Patels. Pakistan has closed the chapter of acquiring eight F-16s from the US and will now opt for Jordan-owned F-16 fighter jets, foreign secretary Aizaz Chaudhry said today amid the strains in bilateral ties over the scuttling of the deal and a US drone strike on its soil. Chaudhry, briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Foreign Policy, said "the US seemed to be satisfied with Pakistan's decision." "The chapter of receiving F-16 fighter jets from the US has been closed. Pakistan will now opt for Jordan-owned F-16 fighter jets," he was quoted as saying by the Geo . Choudhry said one of the reasons for "strained relations with the US was Pakistan's close ties with China." "Pakistan cannot cooperate with the US on some issues. One of these issues is its sovereignty," he said. He said that strained relations with the US were nothing new for Pakistan. Condemning the US policy on the war on terror he said, "The US has spent 16 years fighting the war on terror. If only it had given six years to the peace process things would have been different." The Pak-US ties strained after Congressional restriction on financing of F-16 fighter jet's sale from Foreign Military Financing programme, due to which Pakistan could not buy the jets. The relationship further suffered when the US carried out a drone strike in Balochistan, killing Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, which was termed by Pakistani leadership a violation of the country's sovereignty. The Gauhati High Court has directed the Assam Government to make a rule as empowered under section 64 of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 in respect to filing of cases by police officers for violation of the Act. After hearing a criminal petition filed by one Yaksum Nobeng, Justice Dr Indira Shah today directed the state government to make a rule in respect to filing of cases by police officers for violation of the Wildlife Protection Act before the appropriate court under section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). The petitioner challenged the police report (charge sheet) against her before the 1st class Magistrate, Diphu with the contention that under section 55 of the Act, the court can take cognizance only of a complaint filed by high level forest officers under section 55 of the Wildlife Protection Act and not of the police. Justice Shah, after hearing the case, passed judgement setting aside the police report filed against the petitioner, but directed the state government to make a rule under section 64 of the Wildlife Protection Act in respect of filing of cases by police officers also under section 173 of Criminal Procedure Code. Senior Advocate C Baruah appeared for the petitioner, against whom the police charge sheet was filed alleging a gecko lizard was in her possession about a year ago, while public prosecutor K Munir appeared for the state government before the court. Ahead of the International Yoga Day celebrations, the HRD ministry is holding a national level seminar on Yoga on June 18, where Vice Chancellors of all central Universities would be present. According to sources, HRD minister Smriti Irani would also be present in the seminar where apart from senior officials of her ministry, VCs, UGC top brass and yoga experts would be present. "The ministry is organising a national level conference on Yoga on Saturday," a senior official said. The seminar comes not only comes days before the International Yoga Day celebrations but also at a time when the ministry is considering a report submitted by a panel of experts led by Dr H R Nagendra, who is also referred to as the Prime Minister's Yoga guru, on setting up of Yoga departments in Universities across the country. Nagendra is likely to be present in the seminar where presentation will be made and discussions will be held. The committee has worked out details of yoga courses that can be taught at higher levels of education and also given a list of Universities where they can be rolled out this year itself. President Pranab Mukherjee today made a strong pitch for Indian private sector investment in Ghana, saying economic cooperation between the two countries should move beyond Government funded projects. Addressing the India-Ghana Business Forum meeting here, the President said India is one of the few countries where Small and Medium Enterprises thrive alongside large conglomerates, creating jobs and ensuring wealth distribution on one hand and infrastructure development, indigenisation and external business linkages, on the other. "Indian entrepreneurs know that developing countries need to prioritise relevant and eco-friendly technologies that are in sync with the state of economic development of the country as well as its social needs," he said. Mukherjee, the first Indian President to visit the West African nation, said we have learned that calibrated foreign investments are the key to rapid growth in a developing nation. "Indian businesses have learned adaptability and would be happy to share their experience with their Ghanian counterparts," he said at the meet organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Association of Ghana Industries and Ghana Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The President said he was glad to note that the bilateral trade is in favour of Ghana. "However I would encourage the Ghanian entrepreneurs to diversify and expand their exports to India. During the third India-Africa Forum Summit in October last year in New Delhi, India earmarked USD 10 billion for diverse projects in Africa and capacity building efforts. Government of India looks forward to working with Ghana to identify projects for utilization of these funds in Ghana," he said. Recalling ties between the two countries, the President said relations between the two countries transcend political ideologies and geographical space. "Government of India has been happy to extend assistance to Ghana through grants and Lines of Credit, despite her own resource constraints. Our economic cooperation can be extended further-beyond government funded projects. "With the active involvement of Government of Ghana and organisations such Ghana Investment Promotion Council, we could together identify viable projects for the Indian private sector to invest in Indian multi-national companies are active and successful in several countries in Africa and would be more than happy to come to a friendly country like Ghana. "They recognise that Ghana is the first sub-saharan nation that marched ahead to become a lower middle income country," he said. Mukherjee said Indian private sector appreciates the peaceful, secure and stable environment of Ghana, which is a critical requirement for any investor. "The Indian private sector is equipped with funding capacity as well as appropriate technologies. They stand ready to work with their Ghanian counterparts as partners for mutual benefit. The private and public sectors on both sides should take advantage of the desire and commitment of the two governments to deepen their mutual economic stakes," he said. Investment in Ghana is substantial, nearly three billion dollars in various sectors like IT, Pharmaceuticals and other areas which is up by nearly three times. Ghana's main trade with India consists of gold imports, it's nearly 80 per cent of total trade. (Reopens FGN 36) Lauding India's prowess in business, Mukherjee said: "Brand India is a trusted name today across the developing as well as the developed world." "It is trusted because it adds value to the resources of the host countries; it is welcomed because it works and grows together with the local companies; it brings appropriate technologies which create jobs and has the adaptability to absorb local talent; it rejuvenates and invigorates local industry without constraining their growth in any way," he said. The president said wherever there is a possibility for public-private-partnerships, the Indian government will not hesitate to support such projects to further strengthen the excellent bilateral relations between our two countries. He said with the active involvement of Government of Ghana and organisations such as Ghana Investment Promotion Council, we could together identify viable projects for the Indian private sector to invest in. "Indian multi-national companies are active and successful in several countries in Africa and would be more than happy to come to a friendly country like Ghana," he said. India has pledged a financial assistance of Rs 48.84 million to Nepal for the construction of a college building in the capital Kathmandu. Ambassador of India to Nepal Ranjit Rae laid foundation stone of the building for Koteshwor Multiple Campus in Kathmandu district. The campus building is constructed with financial aid from India and the project is being implemented through District Development Committee of Kathmandu. Established in 1990, Koteshwor Multiple Campus is a non-profit, non-governmental, service-oriented community college situated at Koteshwor on the outskirt of Kathmandu. The current infrastructure of the college is inadequate and is being run from an old school building. The college has enrolled more than 2000 students. The new campus building will provide much needed classroom space and create an improved environment for learning and contribute to the development of education in the area, said a statement issued by Indian embassy here. India has provided a financial aid of nearly Rs 501 million to Nepal in the financial year 2015-2016 to help the quake-struck country renovate, restore and upgrade its various religious, cultural and educational institutions, it said. The India-Nepal Economic Cooperation Programme has an outlay of over Rs 76 billion with more than 529 large and small development projects completed or being implemented in almost all the districts of Nepal. These development projects, mainly in the sectors of education, health and infrastructure development have been undertaken in response to local needs and in partnership with the Government of Nepal, the statement said. An Indian-origin employee claims he has been sacked for speaking out against his employer's attempts to dodge paying staff the new "National Living Wage" in the UK. Kumaran Bose, an employee with Kettleby Foods for 12 years, has been backed by his Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) this week over his whistle-blowing. "What his managers particularly disliked was his brave decision to stand up for his rights and refuse to accept that he and his fellow workers should be treated so appallingly," BFAWU regional organiser George Atwall said. The Leicester-based firm owned by Samworth Brothers is at the centre of a scandal in which companies have reacted to the introduction of the higher minimum wage in the UK from April 1 this year by cutting workers' terms and conditions. The food giant has allegedly slashed overtime, night shift and Sunday rates - even cancelling paid tea breaks. The strict rules are set to be highlighted in a television expose by Channel 4's investigative 'Dispatches' programme, which will be broadcast next week. "I was the voice of the union, they set me up as an example. This is what will happen to you [if you join]. I feel I've been dismissed for union activities," Bose told The Times. Bose and union officials say that in some cases workers could be denied up to 2,000 pounds a year in wages. An employee working from Friday to Sunday, they say, would lose 27 pounds per week simply by being docked pay for taking an hour's break each day. A disciplinary investigation by the company concluded that Bose was guilty of gross misconduct for mentioning the 2,000 pounds figure, which they said was misleading. "Kumaran Bose was dismissed for two reasons and neither of them have anything to do with his union activity. As he has lodged an appeal and therefore the process is continuing it would be unfair on Mr Bose to make any further comment," a spokesperson for Samworth said. "We are investing more than 5 million pounds extra in the pay bill every year for the next three years to support our recent pay review, a process that we launched more than 18 months before the national living wage was announced. The vast majority of staff are seeing a pay increase as a result of these changes," she added. Since April 1 this year, all UK employers are required to pay their staff who are over 25 at least 7.20 pounds per hour. This will rise to 9 pounds an hour by 2019 in what the UK government has branded as the 'National Living Wage', as opposed to the minimum wage of the past. The Islamic State group today claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... In Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them," a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio said. The jihadist group declared its "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The IS-linked agency Amaq said yesterday that the attack on the gay night club had been "carried out by an Islamic State fighter". US media reported that the gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, a 29-year old American citizen, had pledged allegiance to the jihadist group IS. The FBI has admitted that Mateen - who was born to Afghan parents in New York - had previously been investigated, but cleared, for ties to a US suicide bomber. The worst mass shooting in US history left 50 people dead, in addition to the shooter, and wounded 53 others. Events unfolded over a three-hour period from around 2:00 am (local time) when shots rang out amid the throbbing music at the Pulse Orlando club near closing time. Police said the suspect was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings "as an act of terrorism". The father of the suspect said his son may have been motivated by homophobia. Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, dubbed the murders "the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11." The attack coincides with gay pride month in the United States, with festive events all over the country, including in Orlando last week. Jammu and Kashmir Bank today entered into an agreement with Staragri, a post-harvest solutions company for agricultural business, for providing affordable financing to farmers and agri-traders. The partnership will primarily focus on collateral management services and warehousing receipt financing. The agreement was signed by J&K Bank Senior President S K Bhat and Staragri Regional Head Vishal Pathak at the bank's Corporate Headquarters here. "With increased focus on agricultural sector, the tie-up is literally a shot in the arm as it will facilitate easy access to secure low-cost credit for the farming community and improve their output in markets thereby realising higher incomes," Bhat said. Through this partnership, the bank will deliver post-harvest credit facility to farmers and players in agri-business chain across India, he said adding the aim is to empower farmers through affordable finance, scientific storage facilities and fair price discovery of their produce. The two companies aim to reach farmers and agri-traders across India with fair cost funding, warehousing, quality storage facilities through J&K Bank's rural and semi-rural branches and Staragri's offices spread across India. As a part of the tie-up, J&K Bank will provide post-harvest credit facilities while Staragri will offer warehousing and other value-added services through its wide spread network of warehouses to farmers and agri-traders. "The produce stored in Staragri's state-of-the-art warehouses will act as collateral for the finance extended by J&K Bank," General Manager Staragri Rajesh Gupta said. The collateral management services provided by Staragri will help farmers in realising a better price, a J&K Bank spokesperson said. Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council today adopted a resolution demanding that the Centre sanction an IIT and an IIM for the Valley. The private member resolution was moved by opposition National Conference (NC) legislator Qaiser Jamsheed Lone and passed by the House despite the government appealing to the MLC to withdraw it. "The government is pursuing these issues. It would be better to withdraw this resolution," Law Minister Abdul Haq Khan told Lone while discussing the resolution in the Upper House. He said the government does not reject outright the resolution on IIT and IIM for Kashmir but it is not the "proper time" to pass this resolution. If the resolution, once passed by the House, is rejected, it will be a disgrace, he said, adding "so, my suggestion to the member is to withdraw the resolution." The NC MLC, however, did not withdraw the resolution, saying almost all the members of the House endorsed it. Chairman Anayat Ali then put the resolution to vote and it was passed by a majority in the House. Some members from Jammu region did not vote in favour of the resolution. Earlier, while seeking the support of all parties, Lone said Kashmir too should be given an Indian Institute of Technology and an Indian Institute of Management so that people here get better career opportunities. This demand is aimed at bringing prosperity and development to all the regions of the state, he said, adding if we can have two AIIMS, we should also have two IITs and IIMs. The House also adopted a resolution for filling the post of Tehsildars only with the Urdu knowing officers. The private member's resolution was moved by Congress lawmaker Naresh Gupta. All the members, cutting across the party lines, who spoke on the resolution, supported it. The government also supported the resolution. Some of them insisted that Urdu should be made a compulsory subject in schools. Meanwhile, PDP MLC Firdous Ahmed Tak had to withdraw his resolution wherein he sought creation of separate Chenab Valley Development Department or an advisory board for the region for formulating and coordinating plans for the development of the remote mountainous region. Tak withdrew his resolution after assurance from the government that the hilly area would be the "focus of development". Private full-service carrier on Mondayannounced launch of an additional flight on the Hyderabad-Dammam Mangaluru-Sharjah route from August. Dammam will be the second city in the Gulf region to be connected with Hyderabad by after Abu Dhabi, the airlines said in a statement. said it will deploy narrow-body Boeing 737-800 Next Generation aircraft in a two-cabin class premiere (business) and economy for the new flights, which will be launched on August 7. With the addition of Sharjah, Jet Airways will operate to three cities, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi being the other two, in the Gulf region from Mangaluru, it said. Following the launch of these new flights, Jet Airways will operate around 640 weekly flights between India and 12 destinations in the Gulf, making it the largest operator connecting India to this region, the airline said. The travel demand to the Gulf regions is growing rapidly with over 32 lakh flyers travelling to various countries in this region from India between January-March 2016 while a similar number returning to India during the same period, Jet Airways said. "Jet Airways is delighted to offer these new flight options and great service to travellers to the Arabian Gulf. With economic ties between India and the Gulf region flourishing, Jet Airways recognises the need to provide more flight options to its passengers," Jet Airways Whole Time director Gaurang Shetty said. The addition of these new services will bolster Jet Airways' offering to the Arabian Gulf region, further strengthening the airline's growing network and significantly enhancing connectivity for passengers, the statement said. In the wake of attack on Kashmiri Pandit pilgrims to Kheer Bhawani temple, Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) today held a protest accusing the BJP-PDP government in the state of following the separatists' agenda in the Valley. Decrying Saturday's attack, the JKNPP slammed the government for encouraging such activities. "This government led by PDP and BJP is encouraging anti-national elements and following their agenda. Attack on the buses carrying pilgrims and not allowing Abhinav Gupt Yatra demonstrate the government following the separatists' agenda", JKNPP Chairman Harshdev Singh said. Singh said the attack on pilgrims depict "parochial psyche" of the separatists who are hell-bent on vitiating peace and erasing the centuries-old heterogeneous diversity of Kashmir. "The BJP has develop a soft corner for the secessionist forces which have further emboldened the anti-national elements to execute their nefarious designs," he said. Terming the coalition government as a "sinister alliance", the JKNPP leader said the situation in the state has drastically worsened. "The way, tight security had to be provided to Kheer Bhawani pilgrims depicts that situation in Kashmir has returned to the dark era of the 1990s", he said. Questioning the silence of the BJP, JKNPP leader said the party which once raised hue and cry in the Assembly against the separatists, became a mute spectator and allowed them to hold anti-India seminars in Kashmir and other parts of the country. Singh said that the denial of permission for Abhinav Gupt Yatra demonstrates that the government was interfering in the religious affairs of the Hindus. He claimed that disallowing religious yatras and changing the name of Hindu shrines in Kashmir were attempts to push the Valley towards radicalisation and it was sheer irony that BJP along with its ally was endorsing the communal mission of Hurriyat and other separatist leaders. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president on Monday appeared before a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Ranchi in connection with a fodder scam case. The RJD president appeared before the special court of Shivpal Singh in connection with the case number 38A/96 pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.31 crore from Dumka Treasury in undivided Bihar during the 1990s. Former Members of Parliament Jagdish Sharma and R K Rana also appeared before the court. The case was registered against 47 accused, including Lalu Prasad. Presently, there are only 29 accused left as 15 others had died, two turned approvers and one accused got relief from the high court. Earlier Lalu was convicted on September 30, 2013 and sent to Birsa Munda Central Jail in Ranchi in RC case number 20A-96 before being granted bail by the apex court after he spent about two and half months in the jail. The incarceration led to his losing his Lok Sabha membership. Glaring financial discrepancies, irregularities and wasteful expenditure in various departments and undertakings of the Delhi government resulted in losses amounting to thousands of crores, apex auditor comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has observed in reports tabled in the Delhi Assembly on Monday. The also flagged irregularities to the tune of about Rs 160 crore, including loss of revenue and under-assessment of taxes, in various revenue sector departments in the financial year 2014-15. The current Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, led by Arvind Kejriwal, was in power in the state only for one-and-half month duration of the period under the review as it assumed office in February 2015. RECEIVING FLAK The flagged irregularities to the tune of about Rs 160 crore in various revenue sector departments in the financial year FY15 The Delhi Transport Corporation suffered a staggering loss of Rs 5,022 cr on operations during 2010-15 The current AAP was in power in the state only for one-and-half month duration of the period under review The Delhi Transport Corporation suffered a staggering loss of Rs 5,022 crore on operations during 2010-15, the CAG observed in its performance audit report and added that it could not procure a single bus despite availability of funds. In a severe indictment of the health department, it said that hospitals under the Delhi government procured items and consumables without assessing the actual requirement, which lay unused in stock for prolonged periods resulting in the blocking of Rs 3.16 crore. It added that in spite of incurring an expenditure of Rs 37.82 lakh on installation of water harvesting systems, seven Delhi government hospitals failed to avail rebate of 15 per cent on their water bills, resulting in excess payment of Rs 2.76 crore to Delhi Jal Board during the same period. The portion dealing with power bodies under the state government held that Indraprastha Power Generation Company s failure to avail MAT (Minimum Alternate Tax) credit, while computing self-assessment tax resulted in a blockade of funds of Rs 8.1 crore and consequent interest burden of Rs 0.95 crore. Similarly, Delhi Power Company incurred an additional liability of Rs 0.46 crore on account of interest due to late deposit of MAT of Rs 3.54 crore, it said. Delhi Transcos delay in payment of licence fee resulted in creation of avoidable liability of Rs 3.2 crore on account of interest, the report added. Failure in assessing and discharging advance tax liability resulted in avoidable expenditure of Rs 8.62 crore on account of interest, it said. On implementation of the projects by the Delhi Jal Board, the report said the capacity utilisation of sewage treatment plants (STPs) was only 66 per cent due to lack of adequate conveyance systems to bring sewage from command areas to the STPs. Water Treatment Plants and allied infrastructure for 150 Million of Gallons Per Day (MGD) were developed at Dwarka, Bawana and Okhla without ensuring availability of raw water... Penalty withheld for delay in execution of 12 works by contractors was short by Rs 104.20 crore. A contractor was allowed to change the technology from confined trench to micro-tunnelling method for laying sewer line that resulted in avoidable expenditure of Rs 15.33 crore, it said. Meanwhile, the Delhi Fire Services is grappling with an overall manpower shortage of 42 per cent and still requires 12 more fire stations as against its sanctioned target of 70 as the force was not adequately equipped with fire fighting vehicles and equipment, the report pointed out. The laxity on the part of the 'Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board' in identifying and registering construction workers resulted in cess funds of Rs 1,691 crore lying idle, depriving the workers of intended benefits, the report said. The part on compliance audit, dealing with the preparedness for implementation of the Food Security Act, 2013, said there was delay in identification of beneficiaries and that the beneficiaries list included ineligible and unverified persons. "GPS devices were not installed for monitoring the movement of vehicles used for transporting food grains. Database under End-to-End Computerization of Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) was incomplete," it said. The same portion mentioned "irregular expenditure" of Rs 1.64 crore in violation of conditions of the contract by the Public Works Department and "unfruitful expenditure" of Rs 95.15 lakh due to its failure to carry out a proper feasibility study before awarding a work. An "inadmissible" payment of Rs 8.54 crore was pointed out by the CAG report involving work of resurfacing of various roads while the report also mentioned an "avoidable" extra expenditure of Rs 1.71 crore due to "injudicious" decision of the department. "Observation Homes (OHs) in Delhi lacked adequate infrastructure. Rs 2.81 crore incurred on construction of a new building was rendered unfruitful, as it was not conducive for juveniles. "Timely grants were not released to NGOs, creating problems relating to supply of items of clothing, bedding, medicines and payment of salary to staff," it further said. The UN envoy to Libya today condemned the torture and killing of 12 people after their release from a militia-run prison in the North African country. The 12, who were tried on charges of killing protesters during the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, were released last week and their bodies were found a day later, bearing signs of torture. The incident illustrates the lawlessness that still permeates Libya, months after the formation of a UN-brokered government aimed at unifying the country's rival factions and restoring security. The unity government is also overseeing a large offensive against Libya's Islamic State affiliate in the militant group's stronghold of Sirte. After an initial push into the coastal city, the pro-government militias, mainly from the western city of Misrata, have been slowed down in the face of IS suicide bombers. Brig Gen Mohammed al-Ghosri said yesterday forces were advancing "carefully to ensure less casualties" while using long distance artillery to break IS ranks and avoid street battles. He blamed the international community for the slow-down, saying, "we are left to fight alone." IS militants had barricaded themselves in a densely built-up area in the city center, with their snipers taking positions on rooftops. Nearly 140 fighters were killed and hundreds wounded in the month-long anti-IS offensive. Libyan Justice Ministry spokesman Wessam al-Saghir said the 12 were freed last Wednesday and that their bodies were found in different parts of the capital, Tripoli, with bullet wounds to their heads and bearing signs of torture. UN envoy Martin Kobler urged authorities to investigate. He said Monday he was "utterly shocked and saddened by this heinous and vile crime. A major fire today broke out in Union Bank of India's building on court road here. Fire Department officials said while furniture, computers, printers, electronic items and some record were gutted, the blaze did not spread in ATM and locker chambers of the bank. Two fire tenders were pressed into service to douse the flames that lasted for three hours, they said. The incident could have occurred due to an electric short circuit, the officials said. According to a bank official, a bank employee turned on the main power switch of the bank premises in the morning after which the fire started. She, however, managed to escape. After getting information about the incident, the manager of the bank and other senior officials rushed there. ACP Ambala, Hitesh Yadav said police are probing the incident. Delhi Chief Minister on Monday alleged that a person related to the murder of NDMC legal advisor Mohammed Moin Khan was being shielded due to his "proximity" to an Union minister. "Had the police been with us, the killers would have reached the gallows. I am not saying the individual is accused but at least call the person concerned. At least probe the case. Get call records. Even camera footages have been deleted. "Police has no courage to call him as he is friends with Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Fair probe is not being done in the case," Kejriwal claimed during a short discussion in the Delhi Assembly on alleged negligence of Delhi Police in investigating the death of Khan. He desisted from taking any name, although it was an apparent reference to NDMC Vice-Chairman Karan Singh Tanwar. A resolution was passed in the Assembly hailing Khan as a "martyr" while Delhi government has also taken a similar decision in this regard. Khan's family members, including his two daughters, who were present in the House during the discussion broke down as the chief minister spoke. Kejriwal demanded that the case be referred to "an appropriate" House committee. Two minutes silence was also observed in the memory of Khan. Later, Kejriwal and Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta sparred over compensation to Khan's family. Kejriwal asked Gupta to ensure that the Home Ministry releases an amount of Rs 25 lakh, as declared earlier, by Tuesday. Khan was shot dead last month, a day before he was scheduled to pass the final order on the lease terms of hotel 'The Connaught' which was functioning on a property leased by the civic body. A Chinese man, who was taking photos of a woman's undergarments using his cellphone at a metro station, has been detained. He was caught by passers-by when he was taking pictures under a woman's skirt on an elevator using his cellphone. He was detained by the police from Metro Line 1's People's Square Station in Shanghai, China's most populous city and a business hub, yesterday. The man has been taken for questioning by the police. He will receive administrative detention according to the law, Shanghai Daily quoted police as saying. A video of the man being roughed up at the metro station has gone viral on Chinese social media. Allahabad High Court today dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a CBI enquiry into the recent Mathura violence that left 29 people dead. The Lucknow bench of the court, headed by Justice Shree Narain Shukla and Justice Suneet Kumar, dismissed the PIL filed by BJP leader IP Singh. According to petitioner's counsel Ashok Pandey, a direction was sought to refer the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or a Special Investigation Team (SIT). Appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, Additional Advocate General (AAG) Bulbul Godiyal termed the PIL "politically motivated" as the petitioner was a political person and sought its dismissal. She told the court that a judicial commission has already been constituted by the state government for probing the incident. Accepting her contentions, the bench rejected the plea. Violent clashes between encroachers and police at Mathura's Jawahar Bagh left 29 persons dead, including two police officers, on June 2. Earlier, the Supreme Court had also refused to order a CBI probe into the incident. Marijuana-derived medicines became legal today in Macedonia, which joined over a dozen European countries that have already authorised the products for certain patients. Medicines containing less then 0.2 per cent of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant's main psychoactive ingredient, can now be prescribed by doctors and bought in pharmacies, the head of Macedonia's agency for medicines Marija Darkovska-Serafimovska told reporters. "This will help a huge number of Macedonian citizens that are fighting serious illnesses and have a need for treatment with nature-based products," Darkovska-Serafimovska said. The medicines are available to patients battling health problems linked with cancer, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. The marijuana-derived products are, however, only accessible under doctors' supervision and with a prescription. "This is not a replacement for medical treatment," Health Minister Nikola Todorov said after parliament passed in May the new law allowing the sales following months of public debate. Other marijuana use remains illegal under Macedonian law. So far 13 European Union nations have legalised marijuana-derived medicines including Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. Macedonia applied for EU membership in 2005 but has yet to open accession talks. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today paid rich tributes to shikarwala (boatman) Ghulam Mohammad Guroo, who died rescuing a group of tourists in river Jhelum, saying his sacrifice symbolised the real essence of "Kashmiriyat". She said his demise symbolised the real spirit of compassion and valour where a Kashmiri can give the extreme sacrifice of his life to safeguard the lives of his guests. The body of the 55-year-old boatman was fished out of Jhelum today. Guroo jumped into the river after his Shikara carrying the tourists capsized near Fateh Kadal bridge. While he managed to rescue all the tourists, he himself drowned while retrieving their personal belongings from the river. Expressing solidarity with the bereaved family of Guroo, Mehbooba prayed for eternal peace to the departed soul. She also ordered disbursement of Rs one lakh in cash and assured the family of all possible help from the government. A new memorial on the Minnesota Capitol grounds honours soldiers of the "secret war" in Laos. Hundreds gathered on Saturday for the dedication of the memorial to the US and Alliance Special Forces in Laos, Minnesota Public Radio reported. The 10-foot-tall bronze monument commemorates those who served in the southeast Asian country, from 1961 and 1975. Laos was neutral during the Vietnam War, but the CIA recruited Hmong soldiers to carry on a covert campaign. After the US pulled out of Laos and Vietnam, tens of thousands fled and lived in refugee camps in Thailand. Many refugees eventually resettled in the US. An estimated 66,000 Hmong live in Minnesota. Lt Gov Tina Smith praised the veterans at the dedication ceremony. "More than four decades ago, Hmong, Lao and southeast Asian soldiers served during the Secret War, saved American lives and helped to advance the cause of freedom and democracy," Smith said. "Your service embodies the ideal of sacrifice." The memorial resembles a sprouting bamboo shoot, with its leaves bearing images of daily life, war and relocation. The ceremony featured Hmong music, a gun salute and the playing of "Taps." Several officials including St Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and US Sen Amy Klobuchar spoke as well as veterans. The Americans recruited Gen Vang Pao to encourage many in his country to fight. The general, who died in 2011, was represented by his son, Wang Chong Vang. Vang said it was a "special day for all of us to honour the Lao Hmong soldiers who served as the US secret army in Laos. In a two-pronged attack with an eye on the Uttar Pradesh elections next year, Prime Minister today hit out at the ruling Samajwadi Party accusing it of practising casteism, communalism, nepotism and hooliganism while SP and BSP indulge in corruption in power alternatively. Addressing a public meeting after the two-day Executive session of the BJP, he also made a veiled attack on the Congress referring to corruption in purchase of helicopter, aircraft, guns and cooking gas subsidy. However, his firepower was directed for most part against the Samajwadi Party. Appealing to the people for an opportunity to rule the state, he invoked the greatness of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati and said the land of Prayag will mark a new beginning by taking to development. "For this, arrogance , casteism, poison of communalism, corruption, nepotism will have to be sacrificed in the holy fire (yagya) to start the new journey of development," Modi said to the cheers of the party cadre and admirers who repeatedly shouted 'Modi, Modi, Modi'. Not sparing the BSP, the other major player in the state, the Prime Minister said Mayawati and SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav take turns to accuse each other's government of indulging in corruption but take no action when each one comes to power. "This is their jugalbandi (duet)," he said. Asking people to give BJP a chance to rule Uttar Pradesh, Modi said he will try to do his best for the development of the state which has not been done in the last 50 years, in five years. He repeatedly asked the people whether they have not been troubled by the ills of casteism, corruption, communalism and nepotism. "There is no alternative to development. For all this ills, there is only one remedy that is development. Give us an opportunity. If you find us hurting your interests for our personal gains, then kick us out," he said. He said "if you elect us you will get your full rights. We are fully committed to it." The Prime Minister referred to employment for youth and said how the Centre has done away with interviews for class III and IV jobs to eliminate middlemen. "We have told the state governments also to follow suit, but you know what is the condition in UP," he said in an apparent dig at Akhilesh Yadav government. Attacking the SP government, Modi said while nepotism gave power to some, it "destroyed" Uttar Pradesh. In an obvious reference to alleged cases of corruption during the UPA regime, Modi said even a small house takes a week to clean. "I was cleaning up the entire country. What all was lying here. The cleaning up job raked up so much dust that people could not see our good work," he said. He said after two years of rule, various media surveys have given the government a thumbs up and he has secured a "first class" in his examinations due to the people. "Some states gave me distinction and your state is one of them," he said. In yet another veiled reference to the alleged 'policy paralysis' during the UPA regime, Modi said "who says work can't be done. If you have public good in mind, things can be achieved...We have got work done." Listing out the achievements of his government, he said today urea is freely available to people due to good production. The Prime Minister said 1,529 villages of Uttar Pradresh are living in "darkness of 18th century". "But I took it upon myself to ensure that people get power. Today, 1352 villages have been provided with electricity and only 177 are remaining," he said. He claimed that BJP-ruled states are high on the development rankings but UP is yet to enjoy the benefits of development. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today took a swipe at Lt Governor Najeeb Jung, saying notwithstanding the "obstacles" put by him at the "behest" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he will never be made the Vice President of India. On his part, Jung responded saying, "I feel sorry for his paranoia." In an acerbic letter to the LG, Kejriwal took on Jung and Modi for allegedly putting spanners in every small initiative of the AAP government by getting them probed by the Anti- Corruption branch and CBI. "I want you to know that only yesterday the government has inaugurated a 100-seater medical college. I want to request you to ask your ACB team to lodge an FIR and get it investigated. "Kindly also tell Prime Minister Modi to get a raid done on Health Minister Satyender Jain for committing the crime of completing the medical college in a record time," Kejriwal wrote. The AAP chief and Jung have clashed repeatedly on matters of jurisdiction in governing the national capital since the party stormed to power in 2015. Seeking to offer a "small suggestion" as Jung's "younger borther", Kejriwal went on to write, "Do as much unconstitutional, illegal and anti-people work as you want at the behest of Modiji, but he will never make you the vice president." Kejriwal stated that he was among a few people who are meant to serve the mankind, "struggle and construct" while the rest are tasked with destructing and putting spanners on every good work. "You and Modiji fulfil your duties. We will be awaiting your and Modiji's ACB and CBI," he said. With the Bombay High Court clearing the decks for the release of 'Udta Punjab', the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said it has no objection to the release of the film, adding that the people will decide the fate of the Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt starrer. "The state government has no intention of stopping the release of the film," Punjab Education Minister and SAD secretary and spokesman Daljeet Singh Cheema said here today. "It is the people who will decide whether to see it (the film) or not," Cheema said while asserting that the Akali government was never opposed to freedom of expression. He was asked to comment on the court verdict. The Bombay High Court today cleared the decks for the release of 'Udta Punjab' whose makers had locked horns with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) over multiple cuts demanded by the board. The High Court ordered the makers to delete a scene where Shahid Kapoor was seen urinating on the audience at a rock concert and display a revised disclaimer. Cheema said it was up to the censor board now whether to allow the release of the film or challenge the verdict. "We have not seen the film. Whatever the court has done is right. It is up to the censor board what decision it takes. We, as government, are nowhere in the picture," he said. Alleging AAP's "hand" in the making of 'Udta Punjab', SAD had earlier asked the party's convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to accept AAP's role in the making of the film as "his own tweets to welcome the film's co-producer Sameer Nair had exposed the truth that the producer was an 'active member' of the Aam Aadmi Party". Meanwhile, reacting to Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh's statement that he would eradicate the drug problem in the state within a month of Congress forming the government in the next Assembly elections in 2017, Cheema said, "It means, he knows there is no drug problem in the state. When Amarinder stops raking up the drug issue, the problem will end. Till elections, both Amarinder and Kejriwal will continue to raise this issue. With Bombay High Court today clearing decks for the release of "Udta Punjab", which was caught in censorship row, Punjab government said they had no objection to the movie's release. "There is no intention of the state government to stop the release of the movie," Punjab Education Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Secretary and Spokesman, Daljeet Singh Cheema said here today. "It is the people who will decide whether to see it or not," Cheema said while asserting that Akali government had never created any obstacle in the freedom of expression. When asked to comment on the court's decision, he said they are nowhere in the picture. "We have not seen the story. We do not know about it and whatever (Bombay High) court has done it is right. It is up to the censor board what decision they take. We as government are nowhere in picture," he said. Rival political parties had accused Nihalani of trying to subotage the release of the movie, which highlights the drug problem in Punjab, under pressure from the state government as Punjab goes to polls next year. Cheema, however, maintained that SAD had already said that there was AAP's "hand" in the making of movie, aimed to "defame" Punjab. Notably Shiromani Akali Dal on June 11 had asked the AAP Convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to accept his party's role in making of the film 'Udta Punjab' as his own tweets to welcome movie's co-producer Sameer Nair has exposed the truth that the producer is an "active member" of the party. AAP today said it has "no links" with 'Udta Punjab' and Nair had quit the party after 2014-Lok Sabha polls. Reacting to Punjab Congress Chief Amarinder Singh's statement that he would eradicate drug problem within one month if Congress came to power after next elections, Cheema said, "It means he knows that there is no drug problem in the state. When Amarinder stops raking up the drug issue, this problem will end. "Till elections, both Amarinder and AAP's Arvind Kejriwal, will continue to raise this issue." Kejriwal, on his part, welcomed the court's verdict on the movie. "Udta Punjab judgment is a tight slap on Modi regime's intolerance," Kejriwal tweeted. Meanwhile, Congress and AAP today welcomed the court's decision. "I am glad that the Court has cleared the film with a single cut. Otherwise, left to a partisan censor board, the film would have been bereft of its soul," Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh said in a statement here. The HC verdict, he added, has vindicated all who stood by the makers of the film as it reflected "the harsh reality of Punjab". Besides, he hoped, it will open the eyes of those who have always "preferred to keep them shut and live in denial". The former Chief Minister said this should come as a "lesson" for the likes of Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Badal who, in their "characteristic denial mode", instead of admitting and acknowledging the problem, had accused the filmmakers of defaming Punjab, like the way they had accused Rahul Gandhi when he had raised the issue four years ago. AAP MP from Sangrur Bhagwant Mann and party leader Gurpreet Singh Ghuggi said, the film seems to "depict the reality of the drug menace" in Punjab and needs to be released without any delay. Mann in a statement said, "As the Bombay High Court has cleared the film for release with one cut, it clearly shows that all the hue-and-cry was being made for political purposes. Now, the Akali-BJP leaders should watch the film closely so that they could know the reality of Punjab." "Art is the reflection of any society, there should be no politics in that. The Akali-BJP should abstain from politicising institutions related to art and culture," said Ghuggi. "How can you dictate a maker about the context and plot of any film? Is the Akali-BJP alliance above the Constitution which guarantees the freedom of speech and expression," he added. has signed a $1.53 billion frame agreement with China Mobile to create a "cloud network" for the Chinese operator, the Finnish telecom equipment giant said on Monday. The deal would entail "seamless connectivity that will more efficiently meet the ever-growing data demands of its subscriber base," said in a statement. is to deliver a new type of base station which allows the use of multiple radio technologies simultaneously and is scalable to support all connection speeds from the oldest to the upcoming, ultra-fast 5G networks and connected objects. China Mobile is the world's largest mobile operator and one of three public operators in the Chinese market. Nokia, the world's former number one in handsets, now concentrates on network equipment. The deal was signed in Beijing at the Sino-German Economic Forum by Li Huidi, China Mobile's Vice President, and Hans-Juergen Bill, head of Nokia Networks in Germany, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel and China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang present. It "strengthens Nokia's position as a leading provider of next-generation technologies in China," said Nokia's Mike Wang who leads operations in China. Listed both in the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges, China Mobile had around 835 million mobile clients in April. Opposition National People's Party (NPP) in Meghalaya today demanded CBI inquiry into the alleged anomalies in the supply of sugar through the Public Distribution System in the state. Accusing Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister Clement Marak of being involved in the scam, NPP also demanded his resignation pending inquiry by a Central agency. Marak, considered closed to Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, denied the allegation. The demands came in the wake of several anomalies the party said it detected in the monthly supply of 1704 MT of sugar acquired from open market since last year. NPP spokesperson James K Sangma alleged that the government this year has allotted the supply tender to Beta Edibles Processing Pvt Ltd (BEPPL) at the rate of Rs 54,270 per MT which was more than what another firm, Kendriya Bhandar, supplied at the rate of Rs 43,270/MT in 2014. The additional amount paid by the government comes to around Rs 2.72 crore per month, he claimed, demanding an explanation as to why the BEPPL was given the supply order at such an 'exorbitant rate'. The NPP spokesperson went on to allege that the same government had in 2014 forced two bidders - Sanna Enterprises and Tatyasaheb Kore Warna SSK Ltd, which quoted as the first and second lowest bidders at Rs 37,850 and Rs 40,701 per MT, to withdraw from the tender process by delaying to finalise the tender. James said, "Instead, the third lowest bidder - Guwahati based Kendriya Bhandar, who quoted the rate at Rs 43,270 per MT was allotted the supply order." Clement Marak, however, denied the charges levelled against him and his department stating that everything was done in a transparent manner through online bidding. "The charges are baseless. The tenders were made as transparent as possible and the matter was handled by a committee headed by principal secretary and other senior officials of the department while I am not part of it," Marak told PTI. After due processes of tendering, three suppliers were found to be qualified and the lowest bidder among them was given the supply order, he said. Opposition National People's Party (NPP) in Meghalaya today demanded that the Meghalaya immediately release Rs 267.40 crore sanctioned by the Centre to the three autonomous district councils (ADCs) in the state. NPP president and newly elected MP Conrad K Sangma, said, "It has been five months, yet the state government is not releasing the amount meant for development of the ADCs." "We demand that the state government immediately release the money along with five-month interest due to the ADCs," he said. The Centre had in February sanctioned Rs 1000 crore 'special assistance grant' for the upkeep of tribal councils in Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura and Assam. Of the Rs 1000 crore, the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council in Meghalaya will be receiving Rs 133.12 crore, the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council Rs 100.71 crore and the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council Rs 33.57 crore. Taking a serious view of non-compliance of DPCO, 2013, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) has issued notices to major drug firms for failing to register products on online database IPDMS and not filing mandatory returns through it. The authority also plans to issue notices to other firms as well that have not furnished information so far. "We have issued notices to top 10 firms that have not registered their products under IPDMS and will be also be issuing notices to others," NPPA Chairman Bhupendra Singh told PTI. NPPA had asked all pharma firms to register themselves with the Integrated Pharmaceutical Database Management System (IPDMS) in September 2014 and had extended the last date to submit the requisite information repeatedly. The authority has issued many price notifications, especially during March-June 2016, but many pharma companies have not submitted the forms as required under DPCO, 2013, in IPDMS, NPPA said in a notice on its website. NPPA has taken a serious view about the willful violation of the Drug Prices Control Order (DPCO), 2013, by some of the companies, it added. "In this regard, NPPA is now constrained to issue show-cause notices to individual companies for not having their pharmaceutical products under IPDMS and not having filed mandatory returns in form II, III and V through IPDMS," it added. Toughening the stance, it added that "NPPA shall also be constrained to take necessary legal action against the companies including exercises of its powers under para 29, para 30 of DPCO 2013, including prosecution under the EC Act under unavoidable circumstances". Form II is submitted for revised prices for scheduled formulations while Form V is to be filed for all formulations under IPDMS after registration. The pricing regulator has also asked industry associations to sensitise their members on this compliance urgently. NPPA had asked all pharmaceutical firms to register themselves under IPDMS for online filing of returns for monitoring, fixing and revision of drug prices. India's exports went up 33% to Rs 2,362 crore in the first 11 months of 2015-16 on higher realisation of sales. exports stood at 9,80,566 tonnes during the 11 months of 2015-16 as against 9,70,442 tonnes in the same period of the previous financial year, according to data compiled by the National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation (NHRDF). In value terms, the exports increased to Rs 2,362 crore from Rs 1,771 crore in the year-ago period on the back of higher sales realisation, the data showed. The average price realisation worked out to Rs 28,215 per tonne in 2015-16 as against Rs 18,507 for the whole of 2014-15. Last year, the government had hiked the minimum export price (MEP) to $425 per tonne in June and then to $700 per tonne in August after prices skyrocketed on lower output due to unseasonal rains. On December 25 last year, the government had scrapped the MEP to push exports as domestic prices crashed. MEP is the rate below which no trader is allowed to export. India had exported 10,86,072 tonnes of onion for Rs 2,010 crore in 2014-15. Onion output stood at 189 lakh tonnes in 2014-15 crop year (July-June). In the 2015-16 crop year, production is estimated at 206 lakh tonnes. Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh are the top three onion-producing states in the country. Onion prices are currently ruling at Rs 20-25 per kg in the retail market of the national capital. The Afghan father of Orlando gay nightclub shooter Omar Mateen had expressed support for the Afghan Taliban and denounced Pakistan in an online video, according to a media report. Seddique Mateen, who was referred to as Mir Seddique in early reports, hosted the 'Durand Jirga Show' on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California, the Washington Post reported. In it, the elder Mateen speaks in the Dari language on a variety of political subjects. He does not always make much sense. Dozens of videos are posted on a channel under Seddique Mateen's name on YouTube. A phone number and post office box that are displayed on the show were traced back to the Mateen home in Florida, the report said. Seddique's son Omar, who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando in the wee hours of Sunday and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. Seddique owns a nonprofit organisation under the name Durand Jirga, which is registered in Port St. Lucie, Florida. In a bizarre video he posted on Saturday, Seddique appears to be portraying himself as the Afghan president. In one video, Seddique expresses gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government, the report said. "Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in (the) Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up. Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon," he was quoted as saying. Just hours before the Orlando shooting, Seddique posted a video on a Facebook page called 'Provisional Government of Afghanistan - Seddique Mateen'. In the video, he seems to be pretending to be Afghanistan's president, and orders the arrest of an array of Afghan political figures. "I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison (Hamid) Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland," he says, while dressed in army fatigues. The most recent video on Mateen's YouTube channel shows him declaring his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. The timing of the video is strange, as it came a year after presidential elections were held in Afghanistan. Mateen appears incoherent at times in the video, and he jumps abruptly from topic to topic. The gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando gay club was motivated by "extremist information distributed over the internet", but does not appear to be part of a broader ISIS plot, US President Barack Obama said today, calling it an apparent example of "homegrown extremism". "The one thing that we can say is that this is being treated as a terrorist investigation. It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet," Obama told reporters after receiving a briefing from the FBI this morning. All those materials are currently being searched, exploited, so that the FBI has a better sense of the pathway that the killer took in making a decision to launch this attack, he added. "At this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL, but there's no evidence so far that he was, in fact, directed by ISIL (ISIS)," Obama said with the FBI Director James Comey sitting by his side. "Also, at this stage, there's no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot. In that sense, it appears to be similar to what we saw in San Bernardino, but we don't yet know. And this is part of what is going to be important in terms of the investigation," Obama said. "As far as we can tell right now, this is certainly an example of the kind of home-grown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time," he said. "It also appears that he was able to obtain these weapons legally, because he did not have a criminal record that, in some ways, would prohibit him from purchasing these weapons. It appears that one of those weapons he was able to just carry out of the store, an assault rifle, a handgun, a Glock, which had a lot of clips in it. He was apparently required to wait for three days under Florida law," he said. But it does indicate the degree to which it was not difficult for him to obtain these kinds of weapons, he added. Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old Afghan-origin gunman, killed at least 50 people at the gay nightclub in Orlando in US' deadliest mass shooting incident. In a radio bulletin today, the ISIS claimed that the attack on the "crusader gathering" was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "At the end of the day, this is something that we are going to have to grapple with, making sure that even as we go after ISIL and other extremist organizations overseas, even as we hit their leadership, even as we go after their infrastructure, even as we take, you know, key personnel off the field, even as we disrupt external plots, that one of the biggest challenges we are going to have is this kind of propaganda and perversions of Islam that you see generated on the internet," he said. The capacity for that to seep into the minds of troubled individuals or weak individuals, and seeing them motivated then to take actions against people here in the US and elsewhere in the world that are tragic, said the US President. Obama said countering this extremist ideology is increasingly going to be just as important as making sure that they are disrupting more extensive plots engineered from the outside. "We are also going to have to make sure that we think about the risks we are willing to take by being so lax in how we make very powerful firearms available to people in this country," he said. "This is something that I have talked about for a very long time. You know, my concern is that we start getting into a debate, as has happened in the past, which is an either/or debate, and the suggestion is either we think about something as terrorism and we ignore the problems with easy access to firearms or it's all about firearms and we ignore the role, the very real role, that organisations like ISIL have in generating extremist views inside this country," he added. It's not an either/or. It's a both/and, Obama asserted arguing that case of going after these terrorist organizations and hit them hard. "We have to counter extremism, but we also have to make sure that it's not easy for somebody who decides they want to harm people in this country to be able to obtain weapons to get at them," he said. He said the motivation of the shooter is not known yet. "I think we don't yet know the motivations, but here is what we do know, is organisations like ISIL or Al Qaida or those who have perverted Islam and created these radical, nihilistic, vicious organizations, one of the groups that they target are gays and lesbians because they believe that they do not abide by their attitudes towards sexuality. Now, we also know these are organizations that think it's fine to take captive women and enslave them and rape them," he said. "So there clearly are connections between the attitudes of an organisation like this and their attitudes towards tolerance and pluralism and a belief that all people are treated equally regardless of sexual orientation. That is something threatening to them. Women being empowered is threatening to them," Obama said. Republican White House contender Donald Trump has called on President Barack Obama to resign for not using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" to describe the gay club massacre even as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton backed redoubling of efforts to defeat terror groups. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" Trump said in a series of tweets as he slammed the US President for not blaming radical Islam for the terror attack by the lone Afghan-origin gunman Omar Mateen at a public bar in Orlando that claimed at least 50 lives. In another tweet, Trump claimed that Mateen shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. The police, however, is yet to corroborate this claim of Trump. The 69-year-old presumptive Republican presidential nominee also stated that a second man was arrested in Los Angeles with rifles near the Gay parade. The police, however, has so far ruled out any link between the incident in Los Angeles and the Orlando shooting, which is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. In a separate statement, Trump also asked Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to get out of the race. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency," Trump demanded. "Last night our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist. It was the worst terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11 and the second of its kind in 6 months. My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded and their families," he said. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Trump said. Meanwhile, Clinton, 68, described the Orlando mass shooting as an act of terror and called for redoubling of efforts to defeat international terror groups. ISIS has claimed credit for the mass shooting carried out by 29-year-old Mateen, the New York-born American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan. "This was an act of terror. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad," Clinton said. "That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defences at home," she said. Police in California found weapons, ammunition and bomb-making material in a car belonging to a man who told them he was planning to attend Gay Pride festivities on Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported. The discovery came hours after the deadliest mass shooting in US history, which took place at a gay nightclub on the other side of the country in Orlando, Florida. Fifty people were killed and 53 wounded after a gunman identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan descent, opened fire in a shooting that US President Barack Obama was calling a terror attack and hate crime. The LA Times cited a law enforcement source as saying police discovered the weapons cache after responding to a complaint about a prowler in the beach side city of Santa Monica, west of downtown Los Angeles. The man, who was arrested, told police he was waiting for a friend. Santa Monica Police spokesman Saul Rodriguez told the newspaper that man was from Indiana but that authorities "were not aware of what the suspect's intentions were at this point." The FBI was investigating possible links between the man and the Gay Pride event, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said in a statement. Sheriff's officials noted that there were no "specific or credible" threats against the greater Los Angeles area, but had stepped-up security at the Gay Pride event. Some 400,000 people had been expected to attend a Gay Pride parade on Sunday before the took place. It went ahead, but with a slightly somber mood. Attorney Perry Handy, 48, was watching the parade with friends but said he had thought twice about coming out after hearing about the car full of weapons and ammunition. "We're all still in shock. I've been coming to the parade for 20 some years and last night's event was clearly a step backward in our culture," he told AFP. Alice Stanford, 46, who was marching in the parade with a union representing hotel employees, said participants were "heavy-hearted" but would not be kept away. "Our lives go on and we are not going to be stopped by fear and violence. We celebrate who we are in spite of events like this," she said, wearing a T-shirt that read "Love has no borders. Pakistan today claimed that its credentials for NSG membership are "stronger than India" if the elite club agrees on a uniform criteria for non-NPT states to join the group. Pakistan's Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said Pakistan has diplomatically engaged numerous countries over the criteria-based approach for the countries that are not signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "If the group forms such a uniform criteria, then Pakistan has stronger credentials for NSG membership than India," he told Dawn . Pakistan has bright chances of getting membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on merit, he claimed. "Our strategy was to apply after India did, after which we would have immediately followed. We have had our application in an advance state of readiness for the past three months for this purpose," Aziz said. He claimed that Pakistan has gradually gathered support for the criteria-based approach. "Last week, I telephoned the foreign ministers of Russia, New Zealand and South Korea, who will in future head the NSG, and our viewpoint was that they should support the criteria- based approach and we have gathered support for it, China was already supporting it," Aziz said. He expressed hope that due to "Pakistan's efforts and its strong credentials", if India gains entry into the 48-nation club, Pakistan will also not be left behind. Responding to a question about nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's proliferation network, Aziz said Pakistan has come a long way since then and everyone has witnessed Pakistan safeguarding its nuclear assets. "If you compare it with India, when our neighbouring country conducted a nuclear test in 1974, it misused the nuclear supplies given to it for peaceful purposes, which led to the formation of NSG. After that nuclear fissile material was stolen from India, but such an instance has never occurred in Pakistan," Aziz claimed. He said the US has formed a policy to 'build up India' as "their entire attention is towards containing the Islamic world and China". "We cannot question them but we repeatedly tell them that you (US) are a sovereign country and can maintain any level of relations with any country, but if you increase the strategic and conventional imbalance in South Asia, our problems will increase," the foreign affairs adviser said while referring to the US support for India's inclusion in NSG. The US has been pushing for India's NSG membership while China has been reportedly backing Pakistan's bid to join the nuclear trading club. India, though not a member, enjoys the benefits of membership under a 2008 exemption to NSG rules for its atomic cooperation deal with the US. The NSG looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector and its members are allowed to trade in and export nuclear technology. The NSG works under the principle of unanimity and even one nation's vote against a country could scuttle its bid. (Reopens FGN 11) Talking about Pakistan's relations with India, Aziz said things have changed as the Narendra Modi administration wants to normalise ties but according to its "preferences" and claimed that India does not wish to discuss the Kashmir issue. "The whole world agrees that the two countries should start dialogue for lasting peace in South Asia," he said. Replying to a question about alleged "Indian spy" Kulbhushan Jhadav, Aziz stated that India raises the issue of Pakistan's non-state actors and their subversive activities in India repeatedly but "Jhadav is a state-actor as he is a RAW operative". "What is more important is that his (Jhadav) documentation is correct and we are preparing a proper dossier about his activities and network, so we can share it with friendly countries, the UN and the P5 countries," Aziz said. Pakistan is raising a 17,280- strong force to provide security to the ambitious USD 46 billion dollar China-Pakistan economic corridor project that passes through the restive Balochistan province. Minister of State for Interior Muhammad Balighur Rehman told the lawmakers in the Senate today that recruitment was going on to raise the force of 17,280 personnel. Twenty-two additional wings of Civil Armed Forces will be raised to guard the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Project (CPEC), the minister said. Responding to a calling attention notice moved by Senator Abdul Qayyum, he said 17,280 personnel will be hired for this purpose, while over 3,000 personnel have already been hired. He said funds have also been allocated for the procurement of arms and ammunition for these wings. Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif last month met top Chinese leadership in Beijing and had assured them to provide full security to the project as well as Chinese nationals. A Chinese engineer was injured in a roadside blast in Karachi on May 30 claimed by a little-known separatist group that vowed to derail CPEC. Earlier, the Convener Special Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, senator Taj Haider, laid the second interim report of the committee on CPEC in the House. The ambitious 3,000-kilometre CPEC project was launched last year to link western China to southern Pakistan through a network of roads, railways and pipelines. Pakistan on Monday summoned a top Afghan diplomat after security forces of the two countries exchanged gunfire over the contentious fencing issue at north-western Torkham border crossing. Afghan Charge d'Affaires was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey Pakistan's strong protest over "unprovoked firing" by the Afghan forces at Pakistani forces on Torkham border crossing, foreign office spokesperson said. The Afghan diplomat was told that the overnight firing incident was "contrary to the spirit of friendly relations" between Pakistan and Afghanistan. "The Afghan side was urged to thoroughly investigate the incident and share the findings with Pakistani authorities. It was further emphasised that all steps should be taken for avoiding recurrence of such incidents in the future," the official said. In the firing, an Afghan border guard was killed while two Pakistani soldiers and nine civilians were injured. Pakistan alleged that "unprovoked" firing was started by Afghanistan's security forces when construction work began on a new gate on the Pakistani side. "The gate is being constructed to facilitate the cross-border movement of people and vehicles. It was conveyed to the Afghan side that the regulation of movements at Torkham is part of government's policy to strengthen border management. Therefore, Afghan government's cooperation was needed as it would enhance mutual security and help combat the threat of terrorism," the spokesperson said. Last month, the border crossing was sealed for several days over the construction of the gate, causing hardships to thousands of people who cross it every day. Afghan government does not recognise the border, which is also known as Durand Line, and it opposes permanent structure. A nine-year-old Indian-origin girl has earned the distinction of being the youngest app developer at Apple's annual developer conference with her apps for children and she now dreams of meeting the tech giant's CEO Tim Cook. Anvitha Vijay from Australia is the youngest attendee at WWDC 2016 in San Francisco and has already built several apps for iPhone and iPad, a report in Fortune said. Vijay spent a year watching free coding tutorials on YouTube and the web, and learned how to program. "Coding was so challenging. But I'm so glad I stuck with it," she said. Vijay, who has been developing apps about empowering children, hopes to meet Cook during the conference. "It's my dream to go to WWDC and meet Tim Cok," she said. Vijay is attending WWDC as part of Apple's scholarship program, which gives hundreds of free tickets to developers from around the world who are creating apps for Apple devices. Out of 350 recipients this year, 120 are students under the age of 18, Fortune said, adding that the number of women who applied for the scholarship tripled this year, and this year, 22 per cent of scholarship winners are women, which is an increase from last year. The report said Vijay's apps were inspired by her toddler sister, who was learning how to talk and identify animals. Her brainchild was the Smartkins Animals app, which uses sounds, and flashcards to help teach children 100 different animals' names and sounds. She then developed another similar interactive iOS app for children to help them learn colors and is now already working on her next app, which wants to help kids her won age with setting goals. "Turning an idea for an app involves a lot of hard work," Vijay said. "There are so many components to building an app, including prototyping, design and wirreframing, user interface design and then coding and testing." With WWDC, like most tech conferences, overwhelmingly dominated by white and Asian males, the company has been making efforts to diversify the attendance at the annual event. Scott Lilly, who is vice president of programs at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, said that Apple approached his organisation to offer scholarships to WWDC last year. "I think they are making sure that diversity is represented," Lilly said. Under that programme this year, Lilly is sending two female African American college students and three African American men to WWDC. In the wake of the toppers' scandal in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said a probe is underway to ascertain if the degree awarded by B.Ed colleges in the state are genuine or not. "All B.Ed colleges are being probed to ascertain if classes are held in these colleges or degrees are distributed illegally," he said at an event in Purnea district. Asserting that his government will work to improve the education system gradually, Kumar said, "I took the intermediate exam scandal not as a subject of inquiry but as a subject of criminality and that's why I ordered the police to immediately investigate the irregularities." After the Intermediate examination scandal came to the fore, following a media expose of the dubious toppers, the Chief Minister ordered registration of FIR into the matter. The police crackdown resulted in resignation of Bihar School Examination Board Chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh and arrest of eight persons including the alleged kingpin of the toppers' scandal, Bachha Rai of Vishun Roy College in Vaishali, from where Arts and Science toppers Ruby Rai and Saurabh Shrestha belonged to. At the event on prohibition organised by women self-help group "Jeevika", Kumar presented Rs one lakh cheque to each of the nine women, belonging to SC category, for starting cattle rearing after closure of their liquor trade and said the initiative by Purnea district administration "is a noble example for the entire state. The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal today hit out at Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi alleging he was "shedding crocodile tears" over the drug menace in Punjab. "It is clear you have no love lost for Punjabis or their sentiments so please stop shedding crocodile tears over drugs in Punjab," SAD spokesman Daljit Cheema said in a statement here. At a rally in Jalandhar earlier, Gandhi, hitting out at the 9-year-old SAD-BJP government in the state, accused the Akalis of "protecting" drugs trade and said there was "ease in doing only one business in Punjab which is of drugs". Cheema asked Gandhi to explain his remarks over the issue of drug addiction in Punjab. The Congress vice-president at the rally said, "The hands and feet of Punjab's youth are chained and without breaking these chains, Punjab cannot move forward. Punjab's people will have to accept this truth and only then we can wage a war against drugs. Nothing will happen by hiding it." Cheema also alleged that the truth of the matter was that the drug trade "flourished" during Congress rule in Punjab. "Your government was in power at the Centre also for 10 years but did not do anything about the matter. It was only when the SAD- BJP government started taking sweeping steps to end this menace that you woke up about the problem and tried to score brownie points by wrongly quoting a survey report", he added. Cheema claimed Rahul was fond of reading verbatim from scripts handed over to him. He (Gandhi) did so when he claimed 70 per cent Punjabis were drug addicts four years ago and again today when he said police officers were sent on 'Khudeline' (unimportant) job by Punjab government, he said. "It would have been better if he had listed how much employment had been provided by the previous Amarinder Singh's government in Punjab while speaking about unemployment." "If you do a Google search on this issue you will come to know that the Amarinder government had banned recruitment. The SAD- BJP government on the other hand has recruited 1.30 lakh youths and recruitment processing for providing jobs to 1.25 lakh more youths is already on", he added. "Defaming Punjabis is akin to cutting the sword arm of the country and weakening India", Cheema said (MORE). Talking about the controversy over "Udta Punjab" film, the SAD leader alleged that Gandhi is deliberately fanning sentiments on the issue when it was clear that the movie was an AAP-sponsored show with the co-producer of the movie, Sameer Nair, turned out to be a close associate of Arvind Kejriwal and also a senior member of the AAP communication wing. Further attacking Aam Aadmi Party, the ruling SAD leader alleged that the party's record on drug menace is clear from its inability to take action against its Punjab campaign committee chairman Bhagwant Mann, who he claimed was perpetually under the influence of liquor or other deadly intoxicants. "Starting from Chandigarh Press Club where he came to address a press conference in a drunken condition to appearing before the Guru Granth Sahib as a drunkard to getting into a brawl at a toll plaza in Dera Bassi under the influence, Mann has done it all", he claimed. Tributes poured in from across the world today for the victims of the Orlando massacre, with global landmarks swathed in rainbow colours as people rallied behind the stricken gay community. In the outpouring of solidarity similar to that seen after the Paris and Brussels attacks, political and religious leaders lined up to condemn the worst mass shooting in US history and to reject homophobia. US President Barack Obama condemned the shootings in the Florida city as "an act of terror and an act of hate" and ordered flags at half-staff. Pope Francis voiced shock at the "homicidal folly and senseless hatred" of slain gunman Omar Mateen, who gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Joining the chorus of tributes, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that the Eiffel Tower would be lit up Monday night in the colours of the rainbow in memory of the victims. "Paris is with Orlando," the mayor of the French capital, which is still recovering from the November jihadist attacks in which 130 people were killed, tweeted along with a rainbow-coloured heart. On Sunday, the spire of One World Trade Center in New York was already dyed red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, as was a sign in giant letters spelling Toronto in a square in the Canadian city. "This is pride. Toronto stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community around the world," Toronto Mayor John Tory tweeted. Social media were flooded with messages condemning the attack using anti-homophobia hashtags #loveislove or #lovewins. Some posted images of a black ribbon or a ribbon combining the US and rainbow flag colours. Following the latest in a string of mass gun killings in the United States that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in the past two years, Obama said the FBI was "appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism". "Although it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said tolerance must prevail. "Although such deadly attacks cause profound sadness in us, we are resolved to continue with our open and tolerant lifestyle," she told German television on the sidelines of a visit to China. While most leaders avoided polemical statements, the foreign minister of Lithuania, Linas Linkevicius, tweeted that the attack posed a "challenge for us all & #Muslims of the world. Sebi Chairman U K Sinha today said Reserve Bank had "internal hesitation" when it came to supporting the idea of Local Area Banks (LABs). "The Reserve Bank had some internal hesitation about giving a lot of support that LABs did (require)," Sinha said. The comments by chief of the capital markets regulator were made during a speech at the launch of journalist Tamal Bandyopadhyay's book 'Bandhan: The Making of a Bank' here, in presence of Reserve Bank Deputy Governor S S Mundra. The privately-run LABs were introduced in 1996 and only 10 of such highly localised and small-sized lenders were operational. They can be called as a prelude to the upcoming Small Finance Banks (SFBs) which are to operate in a similar way. It can be noted that one of the entities given an in- principle nod to operate as an SFB was the Capital Local Area Bank, which was also the first to get the final approval. Sinha, however, said he expects the SFBs to be successful, and will address the long-time problems which have been hurting the deepening of finance. The Sebi Chairman said there should be an analysis as to why the Regional Rural Bank experiment did not have the desired results. Speaking before Sinha, Mundra claimed it was RBI's decision to stop Peerless, a Kolkata-based NBFC, from accepting deposits in 2006 that led to the mushrooming of the fraudulent Collective Investment Schemes. "Probably the move by RBI in 2006 to stop Peerless from accepting deposits was one of the reasons that so many unregulated entities, particularly in West Bengal and the north-east, got into the business of collecting unregulated deposits. (This is) may be something for us to think," he said. A 66-year-old retired manager of Bank of Maharashtra has been sent to four years in jail in a corruption case by a special court, which termed him as the "kingpin" of the fraud. The court awarded the jail term to Vinay Kumar Jain after holding him guilty for various offences including criminal conspiracy, forgery, cheating, falsification of accounts, using as genuine forged documents under the IPC and abusing his official position by obtaining pecuniary advantage. Special CBI Judge Sanjeev Aggarwal also sentenced Praveen Kumar Gupta, proprietor of M/s Pragati Conductors and partner in M/s Kamal Enterprises to three years imprisonment for various offences, calling him "cohort" of Jain in the crime. Gupta was granted bail for two months to file an appeal against his conviction and sentence. "Accused number 1 (Jain) was working as Branch Manager, Mukherjee Nagar Branch of Bank of Maharashtra, Delhi in a position of trust i.E. He was in fiduciary relationship with regard to the funds of the bank of which he was the custodian. "By abusing his official position as a public servant in conspiracy with accused number 4 (Gupta) and other accused persons (who are proclaimed offenders) allowed them to enjoy the bank funds to the tune of Rs 20 crore without any sanction thereby causing loss of interest to said bank branch," the court said, adding that interest of justice shall be met, if Jain, the "kingpin of this fraud", is sentenced rigorous jail. The court imposed a fine of Rs 34,000 and Rs 15,000 on Jain and Gupta respectively. According to CBI, a case was lodged in August 1994 on the allegation that Jain in conspiracy with Gupta debited the clearing house receivable (CHR) account of the bank against banking norms by debiting and honouring the cheques of Gupta and other accused, who are absconding, when there were insufficient funds in the accounts. It said when the cheques were received through clearing house for clearing, instead of debiting the party account..., Jain debited the CHR account which is an office account of the bank in which no entry pertaining to any customer can be made. Later, when sufficient funds were available in Gupta's firms' account, Jain credited the CHR account by reversing the earlier debit entry, thus causing loss of interest to the bank, CBI said. During trial, Jain claimed he was falsely implicated in the case. Gupta also claimed that he was dealing with the bank honestly and had never conspired with Jain or any other person for preparing false documents. Amid reports of alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh, the Centre today blamed the Akhilesh Yadav government for "deteriorating" law and order situation in the state saying it must act upon on such incidents. "The law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh has deteriorated to a great extent and the state government must act on it. For the development of the state, the state government must ensure safety and security of people," Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju told reporters. Rijiju said it was unfortunate that people were allegedly forced to leave their homes in their own country. "If people have to leave their homes in their own country, then the state government should take the responsibility. If the state government seeks any help, we will definitely give them, he said. There have been allegations that Hindus from Kairana village in Shamli district in western Uttar Pradesh were forced to leave their homes by people from another community. However, UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav accused BJP leaders of being "dishonest" and "lying" on the issue. Yadav claimed that most of the people left the village about 10 to 15 years back while others left in search of jobs about seven or eight years ago. Ringing Bells, a little-known company that ran into controversy after announcing a Rs 251 'smartphone', today claimed it will start deliveries of the handset to customers from June 28. Deliveries will start to customers who have registered for buying the phone, Noida-based company's Director Mohit Goel said. "We will start shipment of Freedom251 from June 28 to customers who paid for it earlier on COD (cash-on-delivery) basis," he told PTI. began selling the handset, Freedom251, via its website in February. But the launch of the smartphone, touted to be the world's cheapest, swirled into controversy, with some calling it a ponzy scheme. Also, the website of the company crashed during two-day sale due to huge response from prospective buyers. The company claimed that around 30,000 customers had booked the phone despite the glitch. The company, however, withdrew the product and refunded the payments to customers following a close scrutiny by government agencies. The company had said about 30,000 people paid for booking the phone and over 7 crore people registered for it. Later, the company said that it would deliver the phone on cash-on-delivery mode to those who placed the order. Goel said that has a foolproof plan to support the price but did not disclose it. President Ashok Chaddha had explained earlier that the manufacturing cost of the phone was about Rs 2,500, which had to be recovered through a series of measures like economies of scale, innovative marketing, reduction in duties and creating an e-commerce marketplace. He had said that the company would make phones in India that would lead to 13.8% savings on duties and further save on cost by selling it online. The phone was to be manufactured in Noida and Uttaranchal. "Two plants will be set up for Rs 250 crore each with a capacity of 5 lakh phones. The money will come in the form of debt and equity (1.5:1)," Chaddha had said. However, industry players had expressed doubt over the claim. Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad too had asked the Department of Electronics and IT to look into the matter. The company had also come under the scanner of Excise and Income Tax Departments amid debate over the feasibility of a 3G-enabled handset for Rs 251. Hospitals under Delhi government procured items and consumables which lay unused in stock for prolonged periods without assessing their requirement resulting in blocking of Rs 3.16 crore, observed the CAG in its audit of the years 2010-2015. The audit is part of the report tabled today in Delhi Assembly that covers the procurement, maintenance and use of medical equipment in government hospitals. Audit scrutiny of stock registers of Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, Govind Ballabh Pant Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Guru Gobind Singh Government Hospital, Guru Nanak Eye Centre and Lok Nayak Hospital showed that they procured 110 items costing Rs 1.91 crore, much in excess of the actual requirement. It was established by the fact that items were lying unused in stock for long periods ranging from 5 months to 14 years as on March 31, 2015. In GTB hospital, four items--post operative multi- parameter monitors, emergency recovery trolleys, cardiac monitors and clamp IV pole--purchased at a cost of Rs 62.79 lakh remained unutilised for almost five years. Lok Nayak hospital purchased 14 items worth Rs 60.40 lakh (including mayus/metzbaum scissors costing Rs 18.97 lakh) between January and March 2001. However, 5,349 mayos/metzbaum scissors were lying idle in the store after 15 years of their purchase for want of indent from any department of the hospital. "It points to the unwarranted purchases that were made without assessing the actual requirement, resulting in unfruitful expenditure of Rs 1.91 crore," the report stated. Similarly, in Govind Ballabh Pant Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, audit observed that Cardiology Department procured 87 consumable items of Rs 1.25 crore between March 2013 and April 2014, which were not used as of August 2015. Out of 87 items, 73 items worth Rs 1.06 crore were purchased in bulk in July 2013 and March 2014, but not used as of August 2015. "This showed that procurement of items and consumables was made without assessing the actual requirement and unjustified and resulted in blocking of Rs 3.16 crore," the report said. The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council today witnessed a ruckus over Chairman Anayat Ali's decision to drop a resolution condemning the presence of the Chinese army in Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan from the proceedings of the house. As soon as the House met this morning, BJP MLC Ramesh Arora raised the issue of his resolution being dropped and sought to know under what rules it had been done. He was soon joined by his party colleagues and also the members of opposition Congress and National Conference (NC). Law Minister Abdul Haq Khan intervened, saying the powers of the Chairman cannot be questioned. "The Chairman has unlimited powers and he can remove it (the resolution)," Khan said. The members, however, continued to disrupt the Question Hour despite the Chairman's repeated pleas to not waste the time of the House. However, the members did not budge and continued to demand answers from the Chair and the government. Defending the Chairman, Khan said, discussing foreign affairs and defence-related issues was not in the domain of the Legislative Council. "How can we discuss foreign and defence affairs here? It is not in our domain to discuss such affairs," Khan said. There was calm for some time after the Chairman asked the members to let the Question Hour function and, following its conclusion, a discussion could be taken up on the issue. After the Question Hour ended, the uproar resumed. Arora and Congress legislator Ghulam Nabi Monga said, it was against the rules to omit a listed resolution. The minister, however, intervened, saying the resolution was removed from the agenda on Saturday and this was mentioned in today's bulletin. Khan also invoked House rules, saying only those resolutions could be submitted in the House which are of general public interest. He said, the issue of Chinese army's presence in Gilgit-Baltistan is the concern of the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Defence and urged the members to refrain from commenting on such sensitive issues. Arora said, through his resolution, he wanted the House to seek Centre's intervention in the issue of Chinese presence in Gilgit-Baltistan which he said are "integral parts of Jammu and Kashmir and India". However, the government and the Chairman rejected the demand and the resolution was not taken up. Scotland Yard plans to create a back-up squad of firearms officers by training some of its riot police to be equipped with handling guns. Around 200 officers from the Territorial Support Group (TSG) of the Metropolitan Police are to get firearms training to hike London's armed capacity in the event of a massive terrorist attack. The officers will not carry weapons in their normal public order duties or while on patrol in London, but will be called on if all the Met's firearms capability is committed to dealing with a coordinated multiple attack, the 'Evening Standard' reported today. A Met Police spokesperson said, "There is no change in the plan to raise the number of armed officers by about 600. Of those, 400 will be officers in the Force Firearms Unit (SCO19) and the remaining number of officers within other roles across the Met, and one of those options includes officers from the TSG". The TSG group is being described as a "second wave" of armed officers to be called upon in extreme scenarios. It will form part of the extra 600 firearms officers announced by Scotland Yard Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe in January after multiple attacks in Paris last November. The police force is spending around 25 million pounds on equipping the units, which patrol in three-man teams, carrying Sig Sauer semi-automatic carbine rifles and Glock pistols. The TSG is in the front line of policing violent protests and disorder in the city and carries out routine patrols of crime hotspots in the British capital. Fearing hate crime in the wake of the Orlando gay club shooting, Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) today said that it will ask the Centre to take up with the United States the issue of safety and security of the Sikh-Americans. The apex religious body of the Sikhs said the Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, are fearing a backlash following the incident. "What has happened in Orlando is an unfortunate incident, it needs to be strongly condemned. As the Sikhs have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack in the past, we urge our Central government to take up the issue with the Obama administration to ensure their safety and security," SGPC President Avtar Singh Makkar said. Makkar said the religious body will be writing a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take appropriate steps in this regard. He said that they would also urge the US government, through the Centre, to ensure security of the Gurudwaras in that country. The SGPC head said that Sikhs are a peace loving community who have contributed to the US economy. "In US, you will find doctors, scientists, industrialists and entrepreneurs from the Sikh community," he said. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman armed with an assault rifle shot and killed 50 people and injured 53 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida yesterday. President Pranab Mukherjee today condemned the worst mass shooting incident in the US that killed 50 people and said India condemns terror in "all its forms and manifestations" while calling for immediate collective action to check the scourge of terrorism. In a condolence message to President Barack Obama, Mukherjee, who is here in Ghanaian capital on the first-leg of his six-day visit to three African nations, said the attack was yet another "grim reminder" that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them. "I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the deadly attack against innocent civilians in Orlando earlier today. I offer my deepest sympathies to all those who have been affected by this terrible tragedy. "India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence," he said in his message. "The people of India stand by the people of the United States of America in their moment of grief and mourning. We pray for the families that have lost loved ones and for the swift recovery of the injured," the President said. Mukherjee is on the six-day visit to Ghana, Ivory Coast and Namibia, beginning yesterday. At least 50 people were killed and 53 were injured in a massacre at a gay nightclub in the US yesterday. Bollywood actor Sidharth Malhotra today said his will be a "new screen character" in the remake version of "Ittefaq". He will be seen next in the remake version of the 1969 murder mystery movie in which actors Rajesh Khanna and actress Nanda had played the lead. The remake is being produced by Red Chillies, Dharma Productions and BR films. "I am really excited to work on this project. The script is brilliant and it will be a new screen character for me," Sidharth told PTI. The "Student of the Year" actor is currently shooting in Miami along with Jacqueline Fernandez for Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK's action film which is yet to be titled. Arch-rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea traded blame today for a border battle in which "significant" casualties were reported, one of the worst clashes since the end of a 1998-2000 border war. "There were significant casualties on both sides, but more on the Eritrean side," Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda told AFP. He said the battle that began Sunday was one of the most serious in recent years, noting that while the two sides had exchanged gun fire in the past, this clash was on a far larger scale. The fighting had reportedly calmed on Monday. "We used to take precautionary measures against this regime, but this time was much more important in terms of magnitude than the measures that were taken so far," Getachew added. Both sides blamed the other. Ethiopia yesterday "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front," Eritrea's ministry of information said in a statement. Getachew instead claimed the fighting started when Eritrean artillery fired shells across the border. "Eritrean forces started shelling our positions, including civilian ambulances, and we responded," said Getachew, who had initially claimed no knowledge of the fighting. Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after three decades of war, but returned to battle in 1998-2000. The two remain bitter enemies, with their troops still eyeing each other along the fortified frontier. Tensions are never far from the surface. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," Eritrea said, adding it "will issue further statements on the unfolding situation." Eritrea and Ethiopia have long traded accusations of attacks and of backing rebels to needle each other. In March 2012, Ethiopia attacked an Eritrean military base, accusing the country of supporting "terrorist activities" on its territory. In February, Ethiopia accused Eritrea of being behind anti-government protests in the Oromia region last year which led to a violent clampdown by the government in Addis Ababa. The two countries remain at odds over the flashpoint town of Badme, awarded to Eritrea by a United Nations-backed boundary commission but still controlled by Ethiopia. It was not immediately possible to verify independently the scale of the clashes and exact reason they started. Eritrea's media is ranked below North Korea as worst in the world for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders. However, opposition Eritrean websites, run from abroad but with contacts inside the country, reported there were clashes along the border. Singapore today destroyed nearly 8 tonnes of seized illegal ivory, worth USD 9.6 million, sending a strong signal of the country's zero tolerance as a conduit to smuggle endangered species and their parts. The ivory was seized from illegal shipments dating back to January 2014, said the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) which is also in-charged of such matters. It was crushed by an industrial rock crusher and was incinerated at an eco-waste plant, with the ashes to be used as landfill at an offshore island, said the AVA. The AVA crushed 7.9 tonnes of elephant ivory - estimated to be worth about Singapore Dollars 13 million - seized from illegal shipments dating back to January 2014. "Today's important event serves to raise local, national and global awareness about the devastating impacts of illegal trade in elephant ivory and of the unwavering determination of Singapore and the global community to put an end to it," said John E, Scanlon, Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). "Destruction of confiscated elephant ivory will not in itself put an end to the illegal trade in elephant ivory. However, when coupled with enhanced enforcement and demand reduction efforts, it sends a very powerful message that Singapore does not and will not tolerate this illegal trade, and illegal traders now face significant risks along the entire illegal supply chain -- in source, transit and destination States," said Scanlon. Singapore's Senior Minister of State for National Development and Home Affairs, Desmond Lee, along with foreign diplomats from the British High Commission and US Embassy attended the event. "The public destruction of ivory sends a strong message that Singapore condemns illegal wildlife trade. By crushing the ivory, we ensure that it does not re-enter the ivory market. Tackling this illicit trade requires close international cooperation, and also the assistance of the public and non-governmental organisations," said Lee. "We will continue our enforcement efforts, to prevent Singapore from being used as a transit point," he said. The largest and most valuable illegal shipment of ivory was seized here in May 2015. Authorities here intercepted and seized 1,783 elephant tusks weighing about 4.6 tonnes and worth about Singapore Dollars 8 million million. These were bound for Vietnam from Kenya. Last December, the authorities seized 851 elephant tusks, weighing about 2.25 tonnes, at Changi Airfreight Centre. Congress President Sonia Gandhi and her daughter Priyanka Gandhi are on a private visit here during which they also went to oversee the construction work of the latter's house in Chharabra. They flew to Chandigarh from Delhi today in a special aircraft and reached here by road and checked in at a hotel in Chharabra, 15 km from here, from where the duo went to the site and remained there for about two hours. The NSG had cordoned off the entire area in the vicinity of the villa which is close to the summer residence of the President, the Retreat, in a high security zone from where the media was barred. The architect, contractor and president of District Congress Committee (Shimla Rural), Kehar Singh Khachi were also with them. Sonia and Priyanka will stay here till tomorrow and leave for Delhi on June 15. In a gruesome accident, two persons, including an elderly man, were killed and another was critically injured after they were knocked down by a speeding car allegedly driven by a 21-year-old student in a highly inebriated state in west Delhi's Janakpuri area today. The accused, Rishabh, a student of business administration in a college under a prominent government university here, is the son of a businessman, a senior official said. The incident was reported around 6.30 AM when Rishabh, a resident of Janakpuri, was returning from a party at a friend's house in west Delhi's Hari Nagar area. He was driving his father's Honda City car at a speed over 100 Kmph. He allegedly hit three persons, including two who were out for morning walk, one after another in a stretch less than 1.5 Km in Janakpuri, the official said. The deceased persons have been identified as Kameshwar Prasad (40) and Ashwani Anand (67). The injured person, Santosh (40), is not in a condition to get his statement recorded, DCP (West) Pushpendra Kumar said. Rishabh, who was intercepted by a police patrol team, was arrested immediately and slapped with charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder among others under IPC and Motor Vehicles Act, Kumar said. According to police, Prasad, an employee at a union ministry, was the first man to be hit. He was out for morning walk. The impact of the crash threw him several metres away. Rishabh did not stop and then he hit Santosh, who was cleaning cars in a residential area. He sped away, driving on the wrong lane, and ended up hitting 67-year-old Anand, a property dealer who was taking a stroll with another neighbour. Anand's case was the most brutal of all. In a CCTV grab, which surfaced later in the day, Anand can be seen noticing the car and trying to escape by running towards a pavement, when he is hit by the vehicle. A police patrolling team witnessed the commotion caused by the incident and started chasing the accused. He was intercepted once he pulled over after covering quite a distance. Rishabh in such a state that he couldn't even manage to stand erect when he was apprehended. The car, which is registered in his father's name was also impounded by the police who found liquor bottles inside the vehicle, the official said. He further said Rishabh's records were checked but the police have so far found no cases of traffic violation or criminal matter against him in the past three years. British star James Corden has revealed he underwent three months of therapy to control his partying lifestyle. The 37-year-old actor and TV presenter said he sought out professional help, reported Female First. "I'd been going out a lot. The truth is, I had to learn how to stay in on my own. Because I was only really going out to not be on my own and then what you realise is, until I just get used to coming in, shutting the door, silence, what should I have for dinner?" he said. "Sitting down, TV on, eating that - done now, I'll go to sleep, maybe I'll try and read something. Falling asleep and waking up. I realised that's just not something I've ever done or been good at," he added. Corden feels seeking therapy was a necessary step at that stage of his career. "I did a bit of therapy. Three months. I still did go out sometimes, I wasn't a monk! It wasn't even about women, it was just going out and being around attention which I don't think is necessarily good for you. Welsh rockers Stereophonics have advised controversial rapper Kanye West to "tweet less". The 39-year-old rapper's last-minute gig at Webster Hall in New York was axed last week after thousands of fans flocked to the streets outside the venue, causing chaos in the East Village, and Stereophonics blamed West for tweeting about it, reported Contactmusic. Speaking at the Isle of Wight Festival, frontman Kelly Jones said: "I think it would be impossible for him to do anything secret wouldn't it? Maybe tweet less and then people don't know where you are." And Jones admitted that his band had their own trouble when they staged a secret gig recently as none of their equipment was working. "I think it was even secret to us because we got there and nothing was working but it was a good laugh. It just reminded us of playing the gigs that we always played to be honest - we always used to play pubs," he added. Amidst India's aggressive bid for entry into the elite NSG, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar today said a stronger Indian nuclear industry can help make nuclear power more competitive globally. He said "large anticipated investments" in nuclear energy sector can only happen in a climate of "predictability". Delivering keynote address at the inauguration of the two-day 'The Gateway of India Dialogue' on 'Where geopolitics meets business' here, he said India's membership to Nuclear Suppliers Group can "effectively" address concerns regarding certainty of trading rules and technology access. "We are in a position now to build on the international cooperation openings that have been negotiated in the last decade and confirmed by the settlement of the liability issue. "The path is once again open to a substantial increase in domestically-produced nuclear power plants while simultaneously moving forward with foreign partners," the Foreign Secretary said. "These large anticipated investments in the nuclear energy sector can, however, only happen in a climate of predictability. In particular, it would require greater certainty of trading rules and technology access. "It is our expectation that membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group can effectively address that concern. A stronger Indian nuclear industry can help make nuclear power more competitive globally," Jaishankar said. While the US has been pushing for India's NSG membership, China has been opposing it. "Indeed, as our own nuclear industry expands and we go rapidly beyond the 140 nuclear-related export licences that we issued last year, it's also in larger interest that our practices are in conformity with global ones," he said. He said the Ministry of External Affairs is pleased to support this event, which has been organised by the Gateway House and MEA. The Foreign Secretary said of all the global challenges, none has captured the world's attention more than the threat of terrorism. "Whether it is its orthodox version that this city knows only too well, or the more recent cyber manifestations, the intention remains one of dominating through disruption. National resilience and systemic hardening are obviously part of the answer," he said. Stating that the preemptive and responsive policies are "equally important", he said international cooperation in that regard has consequently come to occupy a significant place in our diplomatic agenda. "While this is a subject in itself, let me just state that events have shown that a reputational downgrade is as damaging for nations as for companies. "A comparison of statements and outcomes of Indian diplomacy over the last many decades will bring out how much more central economic and developmental issues have become to our external engagements," he said. Underlining the importance of business, Jaishankar said, "No high-level visit is complete today without a business event. Ensuring market access and responding to investors' concerns are taken as a given. The advancement of flagship programmes is clearly a key thrust. Enhancing national branding is a major preoccupation". He said a more global business outreach has widened the horizons of Indian diplomacy. "A new normal is in the making, one where the business of Indian diplomacy is increasingly business," he said. Stating that the connection between business and diplomacy is self-evident, Jaishankar said, "This is a very different foreign service from the one I joined four decades ago". Replying to queries of the audience, Jaishankar said he was expected to go to Pakistan but then the Pathankot attack happened. To a query on when will "Made in China" will give way to "Made in India", he said, "This is not an objective and not reasonable also. I don't subscribe to this thinking". On the occasion, Sri Lankan deputy Foreign Minister Harsha de Silva thanked the government for having his country as a major stake-holder in this foreign policy dialogue. He recalled a lecture by President Pranab Mukherjee, the then foreign minister, in Sri Lanka in 2009 where he spoke of enhanced bilateral cooperation. "By 2030 Asia is projected to become world's largest economic region," de Silva said. He said, "Sri Lanka is a small but increasingly powerful island in this neighbourhood. As we reset our foreign policy we are gearing up to improve relations with India". Underlining that India and Sri Lanka share "ancient civilisational ties", he said, "Sri Lanka's success depends on maintaining healthy ties with India." "We are now engaged in reclaiming our identity beyond South Asia. Sri Lanka airlines earn almost 40 per cent of revenues from Indian routes," he added. Industrialist Adi Godrej said this is the first time that Mumbai is hosting such a conference. "Our macro-economic fundamentals are on a sound footing," Godrej said. Hundreds of students who could not clear 10th and +2 exam from different boards recently in Bihar are queueing up in the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) to save their one year. "More than 800 students have applied in Stream 2 so far in which examination would be conducted in September- October this year," NIOS Regional Director Sanjay Kumar Sinha said. The last date for applying under Stream 2 is June 30, 2016, he said in a statement here. "This innovating scheme to save one year of a student who failed to clear the board exam and keep them in the main stream of academics is the brainchild of NIOS Director K B Sharma," he said. Besides, the NIOS is also providing "On demand exam" facilities to failed students who are prepared to face the test immediately, Sinha said. "Under stream 2, the NIOS is also providing facility of TOC (Transfer of Credit). Under this, a failed student has to appear in at least three subjects including the subject he/she has failed. The original marks of rest two subjects in the previous exam would be credited in the new marksheet," the NIOS Regional Director added. Forms for Stream 2, 3 and 4 are available on website www.Nios.Ac.In and there is facility of applying on line, he said. Sinha said that for convenience of students, the NIOS has opened four new centres in Purnea, Gaya, Ara and Darbhanga in addition to Patna for On-demand examination. NIOS, formerly known as National Open School, was established in 1989 as an autonomous organisation by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Arunachal Pradesh government today suspended the officer-in-charge of Tawang police station along with a sub inspector and five constables who were held responsible for negligence of duty during the police firing at anti-dam activists there on May 2 that claimed two lives. The state government suspended the police personnel after the report of the one-man committee was submitted by Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) of Jang. The government had constituted a magisterial committee to probe into the circumstances which led to the police firing on protesters who gheraoed Tawang police station on the day demanding release of anti-dam activist Lama Lobsang Gyatso. Deputy Chief Minister Kameng Dolo in a statement here said the police personnel were suspended as they were held responsible for negligence of duty during the firing incident by the inquiry officer. The firing was unjustified as the force had failed to follow all the standard operating procedures for using firearms in dispersal of the group who attacked the police and tried to forcefully take away Gyatso from police custody. Dolo, who also holds the Home portfolio, said deployment of paramilitary forces should continue for some time till the situation becomes normal in Tawang. US anti-terror strategy came under fresh scrutiny after a gunman previously cleared of jihadist ties launched a hate-fueled rampage in a Florida gay club that left 50 people dead, including the shooter. The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed it was behind Sunday's carnage at the Pulse nightclub, the worst mass shooting in modern US history. It said in a radio bulletin today that the attack on the "crusader gathering" was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". World leaders joined in condemning the murderous assault, which triggered grief and shock but also defiance in the gay and lesbian community as monuments from New York to Paris were being lit up in memory of the victims. Terrified survivors described how the gunman raked clubgoers with bullets, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue and shoot dead the attacker, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen. The FBI admitted that Mateen had previously been investigated - but cleared - for ties to a US suicide bomber. Special Agent Ronald Hopper also said Mateen was reported to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS shortly before the massacre. "We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," US President Barack Obama said. The Orlando assault is being treated as the worst act of terror on US soil since the September 11, 2001 attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda. Today's claim on Al-Bayan radio followed a report by the IS-linked agency Amaq on Sunday that the attack had been "carried out by an Islamic fighter". Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York in 1986 and lived in Port St Lucie, Florida, about a two-hour drive from Orlando. His father Mir Seddique told NBC his son may have been motivated by homophobia, insisting: "This had nothing to do with religion." The suspect's ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told reporters he had been violently abusive to her but was not especially religious. But Hopper told reporters Mateen's behavior had raised red flags well before Sunday's attack. In 2013 he was probed by the bureau after making inflammatory comments to co-workers that suggested terrorist ties. In 2014 he was again questioned by agents investigating his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a fellow Floridian. Abusalha became notorious as the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria, and was reportedly a member of an Al-Qaeda affiliate. "We determined the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time," Hopper said. The Orlando atrocity came at the height of what is already a heated US presidential election campaign. Democratic flag-bearer Hillary Clinton postponed a campaign rally with Obama and tweeted that her "thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Her Republican rival Donald Trump lost no time in claiming the attack proved he was right to promise a ban on Muslims entering the US. Trump demanded Obama resign for failing to publicly blame the massacre on "radical Islam," and vowed to make a speech on security policy Monday. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore," Trump declared. Paul Ryan, speaker of the House of Representatives, echoed Trump's line: "As we heal, we need to be clear-eyed about who did this. We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists." Events at Pulse unfolded over a three-hour period from around 2:00 am (0600 GMT) Sunday, when shots rang out amid the throbbing music. Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revelers with bullets. "It was like complete chaos," he told AFP. "It was like a scene out of a movie. People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped!'" "People were getting trampled. There was no clear exit sign at the club, so we didn't know which door to take or where to go." Police said the gunman was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. A policeman working "extra duties" at the club responded and, along with two other officers, exchanged fire with the suspect. Police stormed the venue after the suspect fell back inside, and broke through a wall with a wheeled armored vehicle known as a BearCat. It was unclear whether all the victims were killed by the gunman or if some died in crossfire during the assault to rescue hostages. Relatives of victims gathered at a hotel near Orlando Regional Medical Center to hear authorities read out the names of those hospitalized. People broke down when names of loved ones names were not read out, suggesting they had died. The massacre -- which coincided with Gay Pride month in the United States -- cast a long shadow over a parade in Los Angeles parade where more than 100,000 marched. Chillingly, a man was arrested in nearby Santa Monica with weapons and explosives in his car. Police said he had no known connection to the Orlando bloodshed. In New York, the Tony Awards for musical theatre went ahead as planned but were dedicated to the victims of the massacre. The Empire State building went dark, while the spire of One World Trade Center was lit in the rainbow colors of the gay pride flag. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was also to be illuminated TOnight in rainbow colors. Terrorism is a scourge which knows no borders and must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee said here as he expressed solidarity with Ghana which is confronting this challenge. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama yesterday, Mukherjee, who arrived here on a two-day visit, said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghana's concern that it has become a global menace. "It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge," he said. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled 'Africa' in his address. "Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council," Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. "The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs," he said. The elaborate banquet which saw traditional African dishes with Bollywood numbers playing in the backdrop was hosted at the flag staff college which is constructed by a noted Indian builder. Mukherjee presented to Mahama a portrait of India's first President Rajendra Prasad as he stressed that government of India seeks Ghana's continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Indo African Forum Summit held in New Delhi last year. Lauding Ghana's efforts in reducing poverty levels to almost half and crossing the threshold to become a low income country, Mukherjee said India will continue to extend the hand of cooperation as it marches on the path of prosperity. Mukherjee's is the first visit by an Indian President to Ghana and is a part of India's outreach to Africa. With the aim of developing self-sufficiency among women artisans from the Lambadi tribe, Titan Company has started Porgai Artisan Association Centre at Sittlingi Valley of Dharmapuri district in Tamil Nadu. The tribe is practicing the traditional Lambadi hand embroidery. The company's support to the group extends to three years of holistic partnering in a customised approach based on the group's requirements. The interventions include design and product development, skill development, training of new artisans, support for marketing and online retailing, participation in fairs and exhibitions. Titan has also helped in setting up of a facility where women can work, train, exhibit and store their products, a company release said. "At Titan, we believe it is important to encourage the growth of Indian arts and crafts. The handicrafts industry reflects the social, cultural and economic life of the country and it is necessary for such small-scale industry to develop and grow," the company's Managing Director Bhaskar Bhat said. "We are proud to support the Porgai Artisan Association for the revival of this unique tradition of embroidery that would otherwise have been lost. We are delighted to celebrate these women who are now able to renew those practices," he added. The Lambadis migrated from North India several hundred years ago. 'Porgai' means pride in their dialect. Lalitha Regi of Tribal Health Initiative (THI) helped women's groups revive their traditional craft of Lambadi embroidery. "...Titan's support for this community has provided those women with a sense of confidence through the practice of their traditional craft," Regi said. A transgender was shot multiple times in Pakistan for allegedly resisting sexual advances by a group of armed men who barged in her house, The transgender was at her home when three armed persons barged in and started making sexual advances towards her which she resisted, police said. Following which they shot her multiple times. The attackers managed to escape from the scene. The victim has been shifted to a nearby hospital for treatment. She is said to be in a critical condition, police was quoted as saying the Express Tribune. The incident took place yesterday in the country's northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The shooting incident sparked unrest among the transgender community which took to the streets to condemn the murder attempt and criticised the police for not providing them security, the report said. A case has been registered against the three accused men, police said. The attack comes weeks after a transgender activist succumbed to her injuries after being shot multiple times in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's provincial capital Peshawar and denied treatment at the hospital. Floral tributes were paid to the mortal remains of Sep Venkata Rao Kolla on its arrival at the city airport late last night. Rao, serving in 521 ASC Battalion, died in "battle causality", a PIB (defence wing) release said here today. His body was brought to Visakhapatnam from Guwahati. Military honour and wreath laying ceremony was conducted at "Shradhanjili Sthal" at the airport, the release said. Representatives of the district administration, Zilla Sainik Welfare Officer of Visakhapatnam and Ex-Servicemen Association also paid tributes to Rao, who hailed from Kollavanipeta village in Srikakulam district. The Canadian government has "compelling reason to believe" that one of its citizens kidnapped by Islamic militants in the southern Philippines nearly nine months ago has been killed, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today. "It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors," Trudeau said in a statement. Members of the notorious kidnap-for-ransom Abu Sayyaf gang had said they would murder Hall if they did not receive 300 million pesos (USD 6.5 million) ransom by today. "While Canadian officials are working closely with authorities in the Philippines to formally confirm Hall's death, we have compelling reason to believe that reports to this effect are, unfortunately, true," Trudeau said. "The vicious and brutal actions of the hostage-takers have led to a needless death. Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder." Hall was among four people abducted in September last year from aboard yachts at a tourist resort in the southern Philippines. Another Canadian who was abducted at the same time, John Ridsdel, was beheaded in April after a similar ransom demand of 300 million pesos was not paid. In the Philippines, authorities would not confirm Hall had been killed. "No formal report has reached me. I cannot confirm that," regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan told AFP. The fates of the two other people abducted at the resort on Samal island -- Hall's Filipina girlfriend Marites Flor and Norwegian resort manager Kjartan Sekkingstad -- were not known. Listed by the United States as a terrorist organisation, the Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of Islamic militants that was founded in the early 1990s with money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. It is regarded as one of the most radical offshoots of a Muslim separatist insurgency in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since the 1970s. The Abu Sayyaf is believed to have just a few hundred armed followers but authorities regard it is as one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the Philippines. Its leaders have in recent years declared allegiance to the Islamic State group that holds vast swathes of Iraq and Syria. Republican presidential presumptive nominee Donald Trump today called for vigilance on Muslims and mosques in the US, a day after an Afghan-origin gunman killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in the deadliest shooting in American history. "We need much better intelligence gathering information. We need intelligence gathering centers, because the people in the communities where these people are, they know there's something off. They know there's something going on," he said. "We need intelligence gathering. We have to look at the mosques. We have to look at the community. And believe me, the community knows the people that have potential for blow up," said Trump, who has been criticised for advocating a ban on Muslim immigrants. Citing the example of last year's San Bernardino shooter, Trump said there were bombs all over his apartment floor. "You're going to find that with this mad man (Orlando shooter). People in the area, the people in the neighborhood, they know there's something off with him, and they don't report them to the police," he told CNN. "This is much different, than when we fight a war with Germany or with Japan, and they have uniforms," Trump said. "It's an enemy without a uniform, George. It's very dangerous. We're fighting an enemy without a uniform," Trump told ABC. In response to a question, Trump told the CNN that this is going to be "pure intelligence gathering, and people... Muslims, where they are, they have to report these people. Otherwise it's going to be a bigger, bigger problem." Defending his view on right to carry fire arm, Trump said things could have been different if there were other people in the club carrying guns. "If you had some guns in that club the night that this took place, if you had guns on the other side, you wouldn't have had the tragedy that you had," he said. "If people in that room had guns with the bullets flying in the opposite direction right at him... Right at his head, you wouldn't have had the same tragedy that you ended up having. And nobody even knows how bad that tragedy is, because I think probably the numbers will get bigger and bigger and worse and worse. I hear the injured are so gravely injured," he asserted. Pushing for increased surveillance, he said this is the case of intelligence gathering, information. "Many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job, he something like this would have happened. I already hear it starting to happen of people that knew him, the ex-wife and other people," he said. "They don't report them. For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this. So, we do have two different standards. We have people that live here and have become radicalized and have been radicalized," he said. Uttar Pradesh government today ordered a probe in connection with the alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana town in Shamli district in western part of the state. Shamli District Magistrate has asked the SDM and Circle Officer to probe into the allegations that "jihadi elements" had forced migration of Hindus from there, IG (Law and Order) H R Sharma told reporters here. They have been asked to verify the list of 346 families handed over by the local MP who have allegedly migrated, he said. BJP MLA from Kairana Hukum Singh has alleged that 346 families have been forced to flee the town, which has 85 per cent of Muslim population. The state government's action came after VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain's today said, "Jihadis are being encouraged to carry out their activities...VHP calls upon the state government to rein in jihadi elements who are responsible for this exodus and tighten law and order in the state." He termed the migration of Hindus from Kairana as "unfortunate" and said the township, which was a Hindu majority 40 years ago, now has only eight per cent Hindus left. Sharma said further details will be known only after the report is received from the district officials. Replying to a question, he said the state government is yet to receive the NHRC notice in this connection. Last week, National Human Rights Commission had issued a notice to the UP government in this regard. While observing that the allegations made were serious in nature, the NHRC also directed the state's DIG (Investigation) to depute a team of officers for a spot enquiry in the matter covering all the allegations made in the complaint and submit a report within two weeks. A US drone attack in southern Yemen killed two suspected Al-Qaeda members, the second deadly strike in as many days, security sources said today. The drone yesterday targeted a car driving in Habban, killing "two Al-Qaeda fighters and wounding their driver," one of the sources said. The strike comes after an American drone attack on Saturday killed two other presumed Al-Qaeda members in their vehicle in Marib province, east of the capital Sanaa. Washington, which views Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch as its most dangerous, acknowledged on May 7 that a "very small number" of US military personnel have also been deployed in support of the operation to retake former Al-Qaeda stronghold of Mukalla. Al-Qaeda exploited the civil war in Yemen between Shiite Huthi rebels and government forces to expand its presence in the south and southeast. The United States regularly conducts air strikes against Al-Qaeda. A March strike on a training camp west of Mukalla killed more than 70 fighters. The US Embassy in Banjul reopened for normal operations today after the Gambian government redeployed police guards it withdrew last week. The mission closed for all but essential services on Thursday after the protection force was withdrawn and Washington said it had "raised concern" with the Gambia over the matter. It was not clear why President Yahya Jammeh's government had taken this step, but Washington has criticised its rights record. Yesterday the embassy announced on its Facebook page that it would resume normal operations on Monday. On Monday members of the elite Police Intervention Unit were seen guarding the mission. A State Department official in Washington confirmed to AFP "that that operations are back to normal and the guards have returned to their posts." The Gambian and US authorities have however not explained the circumstances leading to the redeployment of the police guards. The spat comes amid controversy over Gambia's arrest and prosecution of a US citizen who was detained while visiting relatives in the country. The Delhi government has recovered over Rs 2 crore from more than 200 dealers who were doing business "illegally" in the capital with the help of its 'Bill Banvao Inam Pao Scheme'. Commissioner S S Yadav said the bills uploaded by people under the scheme have helped in detecting more than 200 people doing business on cancelled TIN or evading tax. "The department has recovered more than Rs 2 crore from the tax evaders caught through the bills uploaded by people. After collecting evidence, the department is now planning to file criminal cases against them in the court of law. On conviction, these evaders may be sentenced to imprisonment for a period of six months," he said. Under the scheme, DVATBILL app was launched in January this year to encourage people to upload the bills of their purchase. Yadav said till May, over 55,000 bills were received under the scheme and in May, over 11,000 bills were uploaded out of which 8,200 bills were found eligible for prize. Meanwhile, the Department of Trade and Taxes has conducted draw of lots to decide the winners of its 'Bill Banvao, Inam Pao Scheme' for May and 82 participants will get cash awards. A department's release said the awards will be given by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia later this month. It said the award amount under the scheme is five times the amount of bill subject to a maximum of Rs 50,000 and this time, a record nine participants have won the maximum amount of Rs 50,000. It also said since its launch 330 participants have received cash prizes under the scheme and an amount of Rs 20 lakh has been distributed as prize. "By doing this, people of Delhi can not only win attractive cash prize but also contribute to the development of the city by catching tax evaders and increasing tax compliance," Yadav said. Vin Diesel has shared an emotional tribute to "Fast and Furious" star Paul Walker on social media. Paul was a passenger in a Porsche driven by his friend Roger Rodas, who also died, when it hit a pole and burst into flames in November 2013. He was 40 years old. Diesel, 48, has publicly grieved the loss of his close friend and "Fast & Furious" franchise co-star on numerous occasions, and paid another tribute to Paul on social media. The actor shared a photo of himself smiling while holding his daughter Pauline - named after Paul - up in the air. However, the snap has been altered to include the late actor smiling down on the pair, and Diesel captioned the shot "Always". The 48-year-old actor has shared several photos of Paul on social media recently as filming for eighth movie in the franchise, "Fast 8", began. He posted a snap of the pair laughing and smiling together on Instagram back in May (16), and wrote a touching tribute to the late actor. "Many of the crew members who have worked on several of the past Fast films are here again to help us make something special. One of them at the end of the week came up to me and said wow what we are capturing on film is excellent... And then looked at me and said Paul would be proud. #wemakethemwithourhearts," the action star captioned the snap. A high percentage of children, teens and young adults with migraines may have mild vitamin D deficiencies, a new study suggests. The findings showed that mild deficiencies in vitamin D, riboflavin and coenzyme Q10 - a vitamin-like substance found in every cell of the body that is used to produce energy for cell growth and maintenance - may be involved in patients who experience migraines. Suzanne Hagler and colleagues from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Centre in the US conducted a study on patients with migraines who had baseline blood levels checked for vitamin D, riboflavin, coenzyme Q10 and folate, all of which were implicated in migraines, to some degree, by previous and sometimes conflicting studies. Many were put on preventive migraine medications and received vitamin supplementation, if levels were low. Researchers found that girls and young woman were more likely than boys and young men to have coenzyme Q10 deficiencies at baseline. Boys and young men were more likely to have vitamin D deficiency. Patients with chronic migraines were more likely to have coenzyme Q10 and riboflavin deficiencies than those with episodic migraines, researchers said. Amid demands that Priyanka Gandhi lead the party's campaign in Uttar Pradesh, Congress today signalled it could declare a chief ministerial candidate ahead of the key Assembly polls early next year. "I am sure before elections, the plan is, there will be a face...", newly appointed party General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad said, when asked whether the party would project a CM candidate in Uttar Pradesh. "We will project a Congress face", he said when reporters persisted with their question about whether it would be Priyanka or would she be projected as party's face in the 2019-Lok Sabha polls. Maintaining that he has not discussed the issue with either the state or national leaders, the Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha said the party would opt for a leader who takes everyone along. "If we strengthen the party at every level, it will throw up a leadership", he said when asked whether the CM candidate will be from forward or backward castes. Asked whether the Congress would go for alliances like in Bihar, he said as of now the party's plans is to go it alone. "Bihar is Bihar.UP is UP", he said discounting the possibility of any tie-up with BSP. "At the moment, we are not thinking or talking of alliances", Azad, who has been appointed the party General Secretary in charge of UP for the third time, said. At a time when BJP president Amit Shah is raising the issue of "migration" of Hindus from the western UP town Kairana, Azad said the "biggest challenge" is how to defeat the "great design of communal polarisation". He said the "biggest challenge" is how to stop communal tensions being generated by some national and state parties to divide the people on communal lines as part of a "great design" to seek electoral dividend. Azad who will be visiting Lucknow on Thursday remained non-committal on questions whether he planned to have changes in the PCC. On Prashant Kishor, the poll strategist who has been roped in by the party to aid and assist its UP and Punjab units, he said Prashant's role is "very important" and his team and the party should "supplement, complement and support each other". In UP, Congress had secured just two seats in the last Lok Sabha elections with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi emerging victorious from their traditional seats of Rae Bareli and Amethi respectively. The Congress is in political wilderness in UP since 1989 following emergence of divisive 'Mandal-Mandir' politics and rise of the BSP, which took away its crucial dalit vote base. The state government today assured the High Court that the bio-data of newly-appointed TNPSC members will be made available to the court for its perusal. A submission to this effect was made by state Advocate General AL Somayaji, when the PILs challenging appointment of TNPSC members came up today before the First Bench,comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan. The matter relates to a batch of petitions moved by DMK, Puthiya Tamizhagam and PMK challenging the appointment of 11 persons, including a former IAS officer, as members of Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) by Governor K. Rosaiah on January 31 last alleging that they had been chosen as they owed allegiance to ruling AIADMK. Today after the completion of pleadings, the bench directed all parties concerned to file a synopsis not more than two pages and directed to list the matter for further hearing to August 4. AwomanNaxalwas today gunned down in an exchange of fire with security forces in a forest pocket of Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, police said. "The skirmish took place between the ultras and a joint team of Special Task Force (STF) and District Reserve Group (DRG) in aforest near Gorkha village under Konta police station limits," Sukma Superintendent of Police Indira Kalyan Elesela told PTI. The security personnel, while carrying out an anti-Naxal operation in the interiors of Konta forests, around 500 km from here, spotted a group of ultras following which an encounter broke out between the two sides. However, Maoists soon fled taking the cover of dense forest, he said. Later, during search, the body of awomanNaxal was found and a muzzle loading gun seized from the spot, he said. The killed ultra was identified as Madkam Hidme, a member of Kistaram area platoon number 8 of Maoists, he said. The operation was still underway in the region, the SP added. BJP Karnataka President B S Yeddyurappa has landed in a controversy after a video purportedly showing him telling a police official not to harass some Hindu youths in a murder case in Hassan district went viral. "You have already arrested 14-15 Hindu youths. A few more are being tortured. Please don't do such things in future. It won't be nice, situation in Arsikere may getdisturbed, peace may get disturbed," he is seen speaking to Hassan district Superintendent of Police Rahul Kumar Shahapurwad in the video footage. Congress Spokesperson Brijesh Kalappa, who posted the video on his Facebook, has accused Yeddyurappa of trying to "influence" the course of investigation into the murder case. Kalappa also charged that Yeddyurappa was giving a threat to the SP, who was only trying to do his job. As a public servant the BJP leader was doing a "wrong thing." "It is a clear indication that Yeddyurappa wants to influence the course of investigation," he alleged. Violence had erupted in Arsikere following the murder of 24 year-old Emanuel Varun, who was stabbed to death on May 29 with some shops being attacked in the fallout of the incident. The video of the murder had gone viral. Police said differences between two groups of youths had led to the murder and there was no communal angle to it. According to police, Varun's friend had differences with one of the arrested persons in the murder case regarding running of a gym in the town. When Varun and his friend raised the issue with another person, the latter's friend allegedly stabbed him. 11 persons have been arrested in connection with the murder and another 13 over the violence that followed the crime. Among those arrested, a few are said to be associated with Hindu groups. "We have made all arrests based on the evidence available. We have the video footage of violent incidents in which the arrested accused participated," the SP said. A delegation of BJP leaders led by MLC Bhanu Prakash had met Shapurwad recently and complained that police had arrested a few innocent people in the case. Exiled tycoon Vijay Mallya said on Sunday that Indian authorities trying to recover about $1.4 billion from his collapsed Kingfisher Airlines had no legal grounds for sequestering certain assets in a money laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) tweeted on Saturday that it had "attached" properties worth 14.11 billion Indian rupees ($210.78 million) in the case involving a loan from state-owned IDBI Bank to Kingfisher to buy properties abroad. The assets were purchased several years before Kingfisher was launched, Mallya said in a statement to the media on Sunday. "There is no rationale nor any legal basis for the series of actions initiated by the ED which is now making it more difficult to raise resources to pay the banks," Mallya said. The ED says Mallya's United Breweries Group used 4.3 billion rupees of Kingfisher bank loans to buy property overseas. Mallya's statement said Kingfisher had provided evidence that the funds were used for legitimate business purposes. Creditors, led by State Bank of India, have rejected an offer of partial repayment by Mallya, who had given a personal guarantee for the Kingfisher loan. They want the former billionaire, who is living in Britain, to attend a hearing in India's Supreme Court. The foreign ministry in April revoked a diplomatic passport that he carried as a member of parliament's upper house. A judge in Mumbai has non-bailable warrant for his arrest. Soon, you won't have to worry about the purity of the gold jewellery you buy. The government is in the process of making the purity stamp, popularly known as hallmarking, must for all the jewellery shops in the country. Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said that once it becomes mandatory, jewellers will be made accountable and jewellery shops will have to sell hallmarked, certified gold jewellery. "The main purpose is to protect consumers. There have been instances where people are duped on the quality of gold making hallmarking mandatory in coming times," said Paswan. While sharing his experience with MAIL TODAY over hallmarking in gold jewellery, Paswan said once he was misled while purchasing gold jewellery for his mother. "Consumers are entitled to quality assurance. Generally, people know about jewellery items of 18K to 24K gold. But, we have received information of lower standard of gold jewellery being sold. The purpose is that consumers could easily understand what they are getting so that they could not be misled. There should be clear distinctions if someone visits a shop to buy gold jewellery," the minister said. Provisions Paswan said that in order to protect the consumers, an epoch-changing BIS Act, 2016, has been passed by Parliament having provisions for simpler self-certification mechanism, mandatory hallmarking, product recall and product liability for better consumer protection. Welcoming the move, Praveen Khandelwal, national secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), said, "This is a good step for consumers. But, proper workshop and training for small-time jewelers will be needed to make it successful. Otherwise, the small-time jewellers will remain dependent on big jewellers for the hallmarked stuff. Moreover, there should be variable standards of hallmarking so that even poor people can get jewellery of their choice." Purity Officials said that there are tests for the purity of gold and the hallmark guarantees the quality assurance. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) identifies hallmarking centres and gives recognition. "The ministry is working out to make hallmarking mandatory," said a senior ministry official. Under the new Act, BIS can order recall of products not conforming to standards, in addition to cancellation of licence of the manufacturer. It can also order compensation to consumers in case goods and services do not conform to the standards. It also empowers BIS to cancel licences, order product recall if it does not conform to the set standards. Hallmarking of gold jewellery, which assures customers of the purity of gold, was introduced in 2000 whereby jewellers are required to get licences from the BIS and get goods hallmarked by one of 400 odd BIS-authorised centres. Licence According to the standards authority, there are almost 13,000 licensed domestic jewellers. The sellers can be penalised through a fine or having their licenses revoked if they are found to be misusing the license. Officials said that more hallmarking centres will be needed so that jewelers can get the hallmarking done easily. "We have only about 400 centres in the country. This will not be sufficient to cater to all jewellers. Many states have very few centres and jewellers from remote places need to travel to the state capital for hallmarking. This needs to be resolved," said an official. (In association with Mail Today Bureau) The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has not yet taken a decision on allowing insurers to invest in the additional tier-1 (AT-1) bonds due to risks associated with the instrument, according to an IRDAI official. "There is a debate and we have not yet agreed. As of now, we are not permitting them (insurers) to participate," said IRDAI's Member (Finance and Investment) V.R. Iyer, when asked whether the regulator will allow insurers to invest in AT-1 bonds or not. There is risk associated with the instrument, she said. Meanwhile, sources said the IRDAI board is likely to meet on June 30 and may accord the final approval to some foreign investors to set up branches in India. "The regulator has received six applications from foreign reinsurers to set up branches and up to three applicants could get the final approval in this phase," the sources said. The UK-based Lloyds, Germany's Munich Re and Hannover Re, Swiss Re from Switzerland are looking to foray into Indian market. Thanks to new revolutionary technology, airline passengers could soon be able to travel through airports and borders with just a 'secure single token' eliminating the need of carrying multiple travel documents. Airline solutions and technology provider SITA is exploring the potential of newly-emerging 'blockchain' technology to provide travellers with a 'secure single token' which was previewed at the 2016 Air Transport IT Summit here in this Spanish city. The revolutionary technology provides the opportunity to allow secure biometric authentication of passengers throughout the journey across borders which could remove the need for multiple travel documents without passengers having to share their personal data. SITA's technology research team, SITA Lab, is researching how using virtual or digital passports in the form of a secure single token on mobile and wearable devices could reduce complexity, cost and liability around document checks during the passenger journey. Jim Peters, CTO, SITA, said, "Our vision is for seamless secure travel. But the underlying design of today's computer systems means that there are multiple exchanges of data between various agencies and multiple verification steps, which reduces the ability to have a single global system". "Now blockchain technology offers us the potential to provide a new way of using biometrics. It could enable biometrics to be used across borders, and at all airports, without the passenger's details being stored by the various authorities," he said. SITA's researchers are investigating a versatile and secure system to make the single travel token work globally, across all borders. Blockchain technology allows 'privacy by design' so that passenger data can be secure, encrypted, tamper-proof and unusable for any other purpose. It also eliminates the need for a single authority to own, process or store the data. The crypto-led computer science of blockchain provides a network of trust, where the source and history of the data is verifiable by everyone. "This is a whole new way of working but ultimately 'The Blockchain' is simply a database where transactions are recorded and confirmed anonymously. Whether it is used for currency or travel it is simply a record of events that is shared between multiple parties but most importantly once information is entered, it cannot be changed, and privacy and security are by design," Peters added. Power tariff is likely to increase by 8-10 per cent in the country after Coal India decided to hike the commodity's prices, Tata Power CEO and Managing Director Anil Sardana has said. He also warned against early exuberance over the UDAY scheme and claims of electricity surplus by the government. Coal price has increased from 13 per cent to 19 per cent. So the minimum increase that will happen, will be 13 per cent for thermal. If the variable price will go up by 13 per cent, then the average price of power will go up by 8 to 10 per cent," Sardana told PTI in an interview. Last month Coal India had increased weighted average coal prices by 6.2 per cent over the current price to garner additional revenue of Rs 3,234 crore this fiscal. Commenting on UDAY scheme, meant for the revival of debt ridden discoms, he said: "At this stage nothing has changed. It is too early to assume they (discoms) will come out of their challenges and start to buy more power. They just got bonds. They are paying for arrears. You have to give them more time." "In past also we had many schemes, which always attempted and assumed that they will reduce their losses and improve their performance. If that does not happen then rest part of UDAY will sequentially has a challenge. One has to wait and see how actually they change their performance." On the recent Appellate Tribunal for Electricity (APTEL) order setting aside compensatory tariff allowed by Central Electricity Authority (CERC), he explained, "CERC adjudicated under removal of difficulties. It is not the right way to do but force majeure is the right way to do." He further said, "They (APTEL) have reverted it back to CERC saying you please determine the compensation with force majeure. You cannot envisage impact under force majeure. What we could not envisage was change (increase) in coal prices." Sardana was also of the view that it is time to change gears and talk about consumers, which is not happening for last many years. "Our per capita consumption has not changed in many years. We are still at 1,000 Kwh per person in a year. Has consumer started to consume more. If that has not happened then scratching my back, saying I have improved, I am surplus... I think we should wait in making such claims." The Centre has planned to be power surplus nation by having overall energy surplus of 1.1 per cent with a target of generating 1,178 billion units during this fiscal. On the plan to provide energy efficient air conditioners to consumers through state-run firm EESL, he said, "Good part is that they are bringing a lot of awareness. The bad part is, I always say that government should not be in business of business." It will take 30 years at the current pace of change for women to attain just 30% of the seats on executive committees in the financial services industry globally, an Oliver Wyman report said on Monday. Globally women account for only one-fifth of boards and 16% of executive committees in financial services, the management consultancy said. Thirty percent is the level at which research suggests a minority's voice can be heard and a separate initiative called The 30 Percent Club campaigns for a similar global target for company boards. "The industry is far from where it should be on gender balance," "The low representation of women on executive committees in particular is a problem," said Ted Moynihan, managing partner of Financial Services, Oliver Wyman. "An organization's key business and strategic decisions are made by its Executive Committee and they are also highly visible, both internally and externally, making them effective as role models and sponsors - and driving business success." The global financial services industry has long been seen as male-dominated. Female executives in financial services are 20 to 30% more likely to leave their employers than their peers in other industries, citing inflexible working hours, inequalities in promotion and pay, and unconscious bias, the report found. There are also marked differences in the executive jobs awarded to women, who take largely HR, marketing and compliance roles. Only 8% of CEOs are women whilst 50% of HR heads are women, according to the report. In banking and insurance, women make up only 14% of executive committees compared to 22% and 18% in the public sector and asset management sectors respectively. The report analyzed 381 financial services organizations in 32 countries and surveyed 850 financial services professionals. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie A&L Goodbody are celebrating after being recognised as Irish Law Firm of the Year by the prestigious American Lawyer magazine in the annual Transatlantic Legal Awards at a ceremony held in London last night. The Awards recognise law firms for excellence in handling transatlantic matters across the key areas of corporate, finance and disputes, as well as highlighting law firm innovation. The award received by Alan Casey, Head of A&L Goodbody's New York office and John Whelan, Head of A&L Goodbody's San Francisco and Palo Alto offices, acknowledges the complex and high profile transactions that A&L Goodbody advise on. This includes some of the most significant global transactions involving U.S. corporations doing business with Ireland including Johnson Controls Inc.'s proposed $18.5bn merger with Tyco International plc. The award also recognised A&L Goodbodys continuing growth in attracting U.S. clients. To support this, A&L Goodbody recently appointed another partner to its New York office. Managing Partner at A&L Goodbody, Julian Yarr commented, "A&L Goodbody maintains a strategic focus and investment on both the East and West coasts of America. As the first Irish law firm to open an office in the US in 1978, the strong trade corridor between the U.S. and Ireland is an important and growing market for us and the wider Irish economy." He added, "Winning this award is a great affirmation of the excellent calibre of the work that we do for clients in the U.S. who do business in Ireland." Source: www.businessworld.ie It was announced today that Starbucks has raised 71,000 for the St. Michaels House, 'My Life, My Way,' project as part of a three year partnership with the charity. St. Michaels House is one of Irelands largest providers of community based services for children and adults with an intellectual disability. In 2012, Starbucks appointed St. Michaels House as its charity of choice. The relationship included a long-term fundraising target towards St. Michaels House My Life, My Way project, which has been achieved through donations from coffee sales. Over the past three years, Starbucks has collected 10 cent per cup on the first day of each month, donating all proceeds to the charity. Funds were also collected from coin boxes, in-store events such as festive raffles and seasonal choir singing. The final figure raised over the three year period is 71,000. Marketing Manager at Starbucks, Celine Gilmer commented, "Starbucks is committed to supporting youth focused projects across Ireland which include St. Michael's House as one of our charity partners. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with the St. Michael's House team and their service users and look forward to further support in community youth based projects." She added, "I would like to thank St. Michael's House for all the work they have done over the past few years and also a special thanks to our customers and partners for their generosity." Source: www.businessworld.ie The Teeling Whiskey Company is today celebrating the first anniversary of its award winning distillery and visitor centre. In the last year the Teeling Whiskey Distillery has hosted over 30 events and has served over 25,000 measures of whiskey and 40,000 cocktails to domestic and overseas visitors. Today, one year on from officially opening, its a double festivity for the company as it welcomed its 60,000th visitor through the doors. The distillery which was named Worlds Best Whiskey Attraction at the 2016 World Whiskies Awards is the vision of brothers Jack and Stephen Teeling who wanted to bring back the tradition of distilling to Dublin. Their ancestor Walter Teeling had a distillery on Marrowbone Lane in the 18th century. Founder and Managing Director of the Teeling Whiskey Company, Jack Teeling commented, "This is a really exciting time for Irish whiskey as the industry continues to evolve. Looking ahead to the next year, we will continue to innovate and release new expressions of Teeling whiskey as well as further expand on our presence overseas." Source: www.businessworld.ie Microsoft Corp agreed to buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 billion in its biggest-ever deal, combining the software giant's fast-growing cloud services business with the world's largest online network for professionals. The offer of $196 per share represents a premium of 49.5% to LinkedIn's Friday closing price. LinkedIn's shares were jumped 48% to $194.28 before the opening bell on Monday. Microsoft's shares were down 3.3%. "Today is a re-founding moment for LinkedIn," Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn's board, said in a statement. Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive of LinkedIn, reporting to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "I have always had a great admiration for LinkedIn," Nadella said in a video on Microsoft's website. "I have been talking with Reid and Jeff for a while ... I have been thinking about this for a long time." The deal is expected to close in 2016, the companies said in a joint statement. Microsoft said it would issue new debt to fund the deal. After the deal, LinkedIn will become part of Microsoft's productivity and business processes unit. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie SALT LAKE CITY (AP) A vigil to honor the victims of a mass shooting at a Florida gay nightclub is being planned for Salt Lake City. LGBT-rights group Equality Utah is organizing a candlelight vigil for Monday at 7 p.m. on the steps of the Salt Lake City and County Building. More than 800 people have already signed up to go through Facebook. Gov. Gary Herbert has ordered flags fly at half-staff through Thursday. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has a fraught relationship with the LGBT community, called the shooting shocking. In a statement, church officials said they are playing for the victims, their families as well as community leaders and law enforcement. Authorities say a gunman opened fire in an Orlando club, killing and wounding more than 100 people. Catch cups in use on USUs Quad. The Slow the Flow Water Check program provides a team of trained irrigation system evaluators who conduct an on-site analysis of in-ground, automatic sprinkler systems. This can help determine where water is being wasted, and the team provides education to homeowners and groundskeepers so they can improve the efficiency of water distribution. Approximately two-thirds of Utahs drinking water is used to water lawns. In addition, it is estimated that the typical homeowner irrigates approximately twice as much as is needed. With those two factors in mind, it is important for residential water users and landscape managers to know how to efficiently use water to conserve this precious resource and also save money. According to Kelly Kopp, USU Extension water conservation and turfgrass specialist, many thousands of gallons of water are used every time a sprinkler system completes a cycle, but most homeowners arent aware of waste and where it occurs. Kopp said most homeowners are doing what they think is best, but educating them can go a long way to improve efficiency and save money. USU Extension, along with the Metropolitan Water District of Salt Lake and Sandy and the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District, cooperate in a program that has been of huge benefit to homeowners, she said. Our Slow the Flow Water Check program provides a team of trained irrigation system evaluators who will come to peoples homes to conduct an on-site analysis of in-ground, automatic sprinkler systems. This can help them determine where water is being wasted, and the team provides education to homeowners and groundskeepers so they can improve the efficiency of how water is distributed. In the Salt Lake City and Sandy areas alone, more than 175,427,000 gallons of water have been saved since 1999. Kopp said the Water Check program currently provides assistance in Cache, Carbon, Davis, Iron, Morgan, Salt Lake, Summit, Washington and Weber counties. In addition, catch cups that measure how evenly water is applied across the landscape and information on how to do a water check are available to homeowners through every USU Extension county office in Utah. Homeowners are not the only ones concerned about water conservation. The Utah State Legislature showed that water conservation is a high priority and a critical part of future water management and planning by approving ongoing funding for the USU Extension Water Conservation Initiative at the 2016 session. By approving the initiative, legislators cleared the way for increased applied research and outreach education for water conservation. Kopp said the funding will enable the university to better collaborate with the Utah Division of Water Resources, water conservancy districts and agricultural and urban water users throughout the state to more efficiently use water resources. We were very pleased this initiative was funded, she said. It will be of tremendous long-term benefit to the state in helping us all preserve our water resources. To participate in the Water Check program, visit slowtheflow.org or call 877-728-3420 (SAVEH20). The program runs through mid-August. On May 12, a new round of talks on the new legal framework between Armenia and the European Union kicked off in Yerevan. The delegations, headed by Armenias Deputy Foreign Minister Garen Nazarian and Dirk Schuebel, Head of Division for bilateral relations with the Eastern Partnership countries in the European External Action Service, discussed the provisions of the chapters pertaining to political dialogue, reforms, and cooperation in the fields of justice and freedoms. In 2013, Armenia refused to initial the Association Agreement with the EU. However, as stated in the declaration of the Vilnius EaP Summit on November 28-29, 2013, the EU and Armenia have reconfirmed their commitment to further develop and strengthen their cooperation in all areas of mutual interest within the Eastern Partnership framework, stressing the importance of reviewing and updating the existing basis of their relations. At the EaP Riga Summit on May 21-22, 2015, Armenia and the EU took a step further and underlined that they had reached a common understanding on the scope for a future agreement. Armenias Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian expressed his appreciation of the recent progress in EU-Armenia relations at the meeting of Eastern Partnership and Visegrad Four foreign ministers meeting in Prague on May 3-4, 2016. On May 23, the 7th Annual Eastern Partnership Foreign Ministers meeting took place in Brussels. In his speech, Nalbandian welcomed the fact that due to the EU Councils revised policy towards the EaP countries, the principle of differentiation and tailor-made approach will be applied. Regarding the new agreement to be signed between Armenia and the EU, Nalbandian noted that it will reflect the depth and essence of our bilateral relations and set new guidelines for a mutually beneficial comprehensive deep partnership. In Brussels, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics raised the necessity of deepening relations with the EaP countries. He mentioned that the EU needs to reinforce its cooperation with the EaP countries through implementation of Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements (DCFTAs), visa liberalization and closer sectoral cooperation. The Latvian Foreign Minister also called for negotiations on new agreements with Armenia and Azerbaijan. Armenia took another step towards closer cooperation with the EU by joining Horizon 2020, the EUs research and innovation funding program as an associate member. The agreement was signed on May 19 by Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, and Levon Mkrtchyan, Armenias Minister for Education and Science. As Johannes Hahn, the EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations noted, this was a concrete example of the EUs commitment to further enhance its relationship with Armenia. Another issue that was high on the EU-Armenia agenda was the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. On April 27, Nalbandian received the ambassadors of EU member states accredited to Armenia and presented the situation caused by the unprecedented military escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh in early April. This meeting was followed by a visit of EUs Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, Herbert Salber, to Yerevan. On May 10, he met with Nalbandian and President Serzh Sargsyan. Along with Armenia-EU relations, the interlocutors also discussed the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Salber expressed his intention to visit Nagorno-Karabakh as soon as it is agreed among all parties. On May 16, the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev, met in Vienna to take part in a discussion initiated by OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, also attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Russias Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov and Frances State Minister for European Affairs Harlem Desir. In Vienna, Sargsyan also met with the EUs High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini. Mogherini expressed readiness to support measures aimed at confidence building in the conflict zone. This point was also emphasized by the head of the EU delegation in Armenia, Piotr Switalski, the day prior to the meeting in Vienna. Image attribution: www.news.am, accessed on June 10, 2016 Some Texas counties show drop-off in first-day early voting numbers Texas could be reverting to the normal low-turnout status for midterm elections this cycle after the high-excitement election of 2018. Beatriz Alvarado/Caller-Times La Hacienda Clinic and Nursing Home may house a ICE detention center in the future. SHARE By Beatriz Alvarado of the Caller-Times Allowing a family detention operate out of San Diego isn't a decision that can be made hastily, Jim Wells County officials said. So when a second public hearing on the matter was shot down by the company that would run the center, the county passed on about 200 jobs to the area. "With the insecurity of our residents we didn't want to move forward without having a town hall in San Diego," County Judge Pedro "Pete" Trevino Jr. said. "Unfortunately, Serco was under a time constraint." County commissioners on Monday voted against continuing negotiations for the opening of a family detention center in San Diego. It was a 3-0 vote against plans to continue, with Precinct 1 Commissioner Margie H. Gonzalez absent. Precinct 4 Commissioner Emede Garcia made the motion, which was seconded by Precinct 2 Commissioner Ventura Garcia Jr. Commissioners first voted June 6 to authorize County Judge Pedro "Pete" Trevino Jr. to begin negotiations with Serco Inc. and last Thursday held a public hearing to gather community input before solidifying plans with Serco and the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The decision comes after public backlash that included comments against the planned facility by a bishop, local immigration organizations and others. As a result of the hearing Trevino said Monday negotiations would not move forward unless a similar gathering was hosted in San Diego, where the facility was planned. On Wednesday, San Diego city officials noted they learned about the plans through media reports. The Virginia-based company's representatives weren't able to stick around for a second hearing, he added. Serco is an international contracting firm focused on the public sector with contracts in the U.K. and Europe, North America, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand, according to the company's website. "We are disappointed in the Jim Wells County Commissioners' decision to not move forward with a family residential center that would have provided over 200 local jobs," Alan Hill, the senior vice president for corporate communications and government relations for Serco said in an email Monday. "Throughout this process, Serco has been considering various site locations." Hill did not specify how many or where. Requests for information for potential family detention centers in South Texas was posted by ICE in April and March. The requests, for which Serco was partnering with Jim Wells to respond by a July 15 deadline, is solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a request for proposal or a promise to issue such a request in the future, according to the post. "ICE is still developing its acquisition strategy based on the responses the agency received to the request for information posted on FedBizopps.gov for a detention facility in South Texas," Palmore said last week in an email. "The decision to move forward with a request for proposal is pending. As part of prudent management, ICE routinely considers and plans for various operational options to accommodate the dynamic and frequently unpredictable detention needs and trends." Palmore did not say how many responses were received to the request. The facility could have housed undocumented immigrant families in San Diego at 4410 E. Highway 44, the location of the now-shuttered La Hacienda Nursing Home. The nursing home was licensed for 114 beds, according to the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services. It closed in January 2014. It's priced at about $524,000 and owned by a San Antonio-based developer. About 50 people attended last week's public hearing. Bishop Michael Mulvey, who leads the Diocese of Corpus Christi, issued a statement before the hearing urging county officials to reconsider allowing Serco to operate the facility, saying its existence goes against human decency. Families detained at such centers are asylum seekers, said Mohammad Abdollahi, a spokesman for the pro-bono legal group RAICES that represents detained families. Asylum is a federal protection granted to those who meet the international definition of a refugee. The group is among several that have rallied against family detention and continue to push to close privately-owned detention facilities. The organization Tuesday started a petition against Jim Wells County moving forward with plans to open the facility in San Diego. "We're glad the town made the decision they made; It sends a big message for private detention companies in that these small towns are realizing its not in their benefit to allow family detention in their town," Abdollahi said. Twitter: @CallerBetty SHARE By Natalia Contreras of the Caller-Times Officials have identified the body of a man who was found Saturday in an overflow parking area near a boat ramp in Rockport. About 7 a.m. Saturday, Rockport police responded to the 300 block of Cove Harbor South after the body of Lanny Beckham, 43, was found with multiple stab wounds, according to a Rockport police news release. An autopsy on Beckham, of Meridian, Mississippi, will be conducted next week, the release states. The incident is being investigated as a homicide due to the signs of trauma found on Beckham's body, police said. Anyone who has information about the incident can contact the Rockport Police Department at 361-729-1111 or 361-790-1105. Twitter: @CallerNatalia Natalia Contreras/Caller-Times An LGBT community gay pride flag stood at half mast Sunday at the Hidden Door in Corpus Christi. About 30 people gathered Sunday at the bar on South Staples Street to pray for the victims of a shooting that killed 50 people and injured at least 50 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. SHARE By Natalia Contreras of the Caller-Times Jim Garst, 48, stood next to his friends while he tightly held their hands. He took a deep breath and tried to hold back tears during a prayer and moment of silence Sunday. He couldn't. Garst and about 30 others gathered at the Hidden Door, a gay bar on South Staples Street, to pray for those who were killed in an early Sunday shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. He frequents the Hidden Door every week, to relax and to catch up with friends, he said. "This place was packed last night. It could have happened here," Garst said. "Taking a human life for whatever reason is wrong. But we cannot allow ourselves to live in fear." The shooting began about 2 a.m. at Pulse, a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, according to news reports. About 50 were killed and another 53 people were injured. The shooter, who was gunned down by Orlando police, called 911 shortly before the shooting and referenced the Islamic State group, a terrorist organization according to the FBI. Two local organization will host vigils in memory of the victims of the attack this week. The Metropolitan Community Church of Corpus Christi will host a vigil Monday night at the church, deacon Andy Wilcox said. "That nightclub was a safe place, the church is a safe place, but there's some underlying fear now that our safe places are being invaded," Wilcox said. "It's almost like we are going back in time. "It's important for the community here to keep positive and to remember that we are all humans." The Corpus Christi LGBTQIA+ community also will host a vigil Tuesday night at Cole Park, officials said. Hidden Door manager James De La Garza said he heard about the shooting when he got to work about noon Sunday. Although the shooting did not happen in Texas, he said the gay community everywhere in the nation was targeted and is affected. "It is horrifying. We hear about shootings all the time and this time it's happening to us," De La Garza said. "It's almost like we took two steps forward and three steps back. We need to stand together." Twitter: @CallerNatalia IF YOU GO WHAT: Vigils to honor victims of Pulse night club shooting in Orlando WHEN: 7 p.m. Monday at Metropolitan Community Church of Corpus Christi, 501 S. Staples St. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Cole Park, hosted by the Corpus Christi LGBTQIA+ community. INFORMATION: www.cclgbt.com Ekouma Zephyrin told gendarmes he shot an animal late at night only to discover that it was a fellow hunter. ADS Tragedy struck on June 10, 2016 at about 3 am in Mebole Village, about 25 km from Nanga-Eboko, the headquarters of Upper Sanaga Division in the Centre Region. The town is located 160 km from Yaounde. A local hunter, Ekouma Zephyrin, 41, shot dead Essimi Paul Clement, 46, another hunter from the same village. Senior Warrant Officer Djietcheu Raphael, Head of the Nanga-Eboko Gendarmerie Post, told Cameroon Tribune on phone on June 10, 2016 that Ekouma, who had gone on a hunting expedition alone at night, claimed he saw what he thought were the eyes of a wild animal. After firing on the target, he approached it only to discover to his horror that it was after all a human being - Essimi Paul Clement, a fellow hunter. Meanwhile, Ekouma had earlier bade farewell to Essimi Paul at about 5 pm in the village on June 9, 2016, before taking off for the forest. Djietcheu Raphael said the victim died where he was shot. Following the accident, Ekouma Zephyrin, reported himself to gendarmes in Nanga-Eboko. Accompanied by his men and a nurse from the Nanga-Eboko District Hospital, Senior Warrant Officer Djietcheu and the team trekked to the site, located beyond River Sanaga. He told Cameroon Tribune that they found the body lying on the ground and facing upwards, with the impact of the bullets clearly visible on the side of the head. The gendarmerie officer added that by the body of Essimi Paul Clement was his hunting rifle, sack and torch. Where the body lay appeared well arranged as if the victim was resting before he was shot, the officer suggested. Meanwhile, the corpse was moved to the Nanga-Eboko District Hospital Mortuary while investigations continue. In the meantime, Ekouma Zephyrin is in gendarmerie custody. ADS Monday, June 13, 2016 at 2:46PM By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla Apple focused on macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS the four pillars of its software platform for 2016's World Wide Developer's Conference. The 27th yearly developer event was held at the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco kicked off with Apple CEO Tim Cook condemning the terrorist attack in Orlando and then segueing to the business at hand. WWDC has 5000 total attendees from 74 countries. Cook didn't run down the numbers or talk about sales, device adoption which are staples of his keynotes. Instead he gave up the stage to various Apple Executives to introduce the new features. Hit jump for a hot take on what was revealed. macOS Sierra Retiring the Mac OS X nomenclature that's over 15 years old, Apple's desktop operating system is now simplified as macOS and this year's version is Sierra. Among the features are Auto Unlock, which unlocks your desktop by simply wearing an Apple Watch, there are better continuity features, better iCloud Drive integration, the addition of Siri personal assistant and a Universal Clipboard for sharing information across Mac and iOS devices. The inclusion of Siri on macOS devices mirrors Cortana's omniscience in Windows 10. Apple is coming from behind in this respect but it will be interesting to see how the integration works and if it will be more elegant or proactive to what millions of Windows users have on their devices but which few reportedly use. Apple is angling Siri as a sort of voice-enabled multitasking feature allowing users to send messages or make appointments and run searches while they're typing, checking out Facebook or working on applications. Apple Pay, the company mobile payments platform is now integrated within the OS, making it easier to purchase items online. macOS Sierra is coming this fall but is available to developers today and will be offered as a public beta in July. watchOS3 Its been over a year since the Apple Watch started shipping but Apple still hasn't released sales figures. What it has done, however, is tackled some of the issues facing the Apple Watch and its watchOS operating system, namely that some apps are terribly slow and simply quicker to access on an iPhone than having to deal with them in the watch. watchOS3 promises to run apps up to seven times faster and also offers an all new dock to quickly access open applications instead of having to pinpoint tiny icons on the tiny watch home screen. watchOS3 also brings new watch faces and complications, an Activity Sharing feature in the activity app and more granular health and workout metrics. Of note is a new feature on the Apple Watch called SOS that will dial 911 wherever you are in the world, provide your location as well as notify your emergency contacts. Watch how owners can initiate a call with emergency services through their iPhone or while on Wi-Fi, and notify their emergency contact by simply pressing and holding the side button. iOS 10 The most important reveal at WWDC, which impacts the most number of users is iOS 10, the latest version of the operating system that runs iPhones and iPads. iOS 10 promised to be a 'massive update' but Apple touched on 10 specific features of the new OS. These included updates to Messages, a new Home App for HomeKit devices, improvements to the Photos, Music and News apps as well as smarter Siri, Maps, Phone and Messages applications with a lot more ways to communicate with emoji, text effects and animations. Interoperability within Apple's apps is also better in iOS 10. Maps now gives traffic information and can be used to hail a ride sharing service as well as paying for this through ApplePay right within the app without needing to multi-task or leave the app. More importantly, this year saw Apple open up apps like Siri, Maps, Phone and Messages to developers for them to integrate more functionality with their apps. After the year Apple has had with the highly publicized conflcit with the FBI on unlocking iPhones, security and encryption are very much highlighted features of iOS 10. iMessage, FaceTime and HomeKit now use end-to-end encryption to protect data by making it unreadable by Apple and others. iOS 10 uses on-device intelligence to identify the people, objects and scenes in Photos, and power QuickType suggestions. Services like Siri, Maps and News send data to Apples servers, but this data is not used to build user profiles nor is it sold, shared or monetized. Starting with iOS 10, Apple is using technology called Differential Privacy to help discover the usage patterns of a large number of users without compromising individual privacy. No new hardware was announced at WWDC which focused on software, developers and future features coming in the fall. "Even though the building might be a really nice place, with really good facilities otherwise and even though it might be possible to overcome some of the problems such as the heating and cooling, it is not possible without a valid and recognised address, to overcome those emergency services, mail delivery, insurance and internet and phone problems," the tribunal said. "We talked to a few of our friends who work for the Vinnies night patrol vans and they said a lot of homeless people who get their meals at the vans are also asking for spare socks, gloves, beanies and scarves and we were like, 'we should do that'." "Our priority now is to come together as a community to support those who are suffering today. Our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones and friends in this senseless tragedy." "If such a law is enacted here, it will mean that some people may not even be able to meet to have a coffee or a beer without committing a criminal offence even if they have never been in trouble before," he said. According to documents filed in the ACT Supreme Court, the Opposition Leader said: "Do we want people like Dean Hall, who runs the CFMEU, or others who potentially are facing charges or have been convicted of charges, ah, given access to, ah, company documents?" "If and when the carp are removed, we will get to see whether it is the carp that are responsible for all the maladies in the rivers, or general land management is at fault as well," he said. "There's a range of factors about why that is but some of it can come down to culture of workplace in Australia, some of them are very male-dominated workplaces here in Australia and that could be a reason why." Spanning about 25,000 km, the AAE1 is the third longest submarine cable, said to connect 18 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe via Oman. It claims to provide an alternative and low latency route between the east and the west. Today we are actualising yet another embodiment of our new strategy Omantel 3.0 witnessing the milestone landing of the AAE-1 cable in Oman. As one of the longest submarine cables in the world, this achievement for Omantel and the Sultanate is undoubtedly making us feel proud, said Talal al Maamari, CEO of Omantel. The AAE1 cable represents another step in enhancing our position as a truly international telecommunications player. Already over half of the international submarine cables that connect to the Arabian Gulf are connected through Omantel here in Oman. In the coming years, further extending our reach internationally is a key focus for Omantel, and a central goal of our 3.0 transformation strategy. Omantel claims to provide more protection and diversity to the AAE1 cable system through other systems like EPEG, another high capacity system consisting of redundant undersea cables to Iran and terrestrial cable via Azerbaijan and Russia to Frankfurt. The operator recently landed the AAE1 cable in Marseille, becoming the first GCC operator to land the cable in the region. Earlier in February, it announced plans to launch a cable system to East Africa. The trial, called 5Groningen, will focus on logistics, healthcare, the environment, energy and agriculture. The first series of tests will be launched before the end of the year at Zernike Campus, Groningens large research complex. Groningen is the only rural area in Europe where 5G tests are being carried out. Today, the Netherlands enjoy fast mobile connectivity. We need to ensure that our country continues to benefit from the latest developments of mobile technologies such as 5G, said Henk Kamp, the Dutch minister for economic affairs. This will bring added value for citizens, as well as businesses not only from an economic perspective, but also by enabling key innovations in fields such as healthcare and agriculture. The testbed is supported by 10 partner organisations, which signed an agreement at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. Supporters include KPN and Vodafone plus Huawei and Ericsson, as well as Agentschap Telecom, the Dutch telecommunications agency, and TNO, the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research. The agricultural sector is set to be among the leaders of 5G innovation. Farmers are at the forefront of technological innovation; not only with regard to the efficiency of their business operations, but also, importantly, with a view to ensuring sustainability and environmental protection, explained Peter Rake, 5G programme manager at Economic Board Groningen, one of the projects supporters. Other sectors in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe are paying close attention to agricultural innovation in the fields of sensors, drones and other technologies that will benefit from 5G development. [Your Business Name] Contact Info Phone: Fax: Email: Web: CAPITOLHILLCUBANS.COM Business Overview Geographic Area Line of Business Brands We Carry Products and Services Discounts Offered Additional Information Business Hours Timezone We Accept 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. Lack of infrastructure or lack of interest to maintain the available infrastructure has been on the rise in government run educational institutions. This very reason has been forcing parents to pull out their kids from government schools and admit them in private schools. Compared to government schools, the private schools always stand a chance to emerge favourites among the parents and their children due to their state-of-the art facilities and their determination towards keeping pace with the new technological developments. The present scenario in government schools as per ASER report Government schools are facing a huge set back recently because of hi-tech private schools. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014, the percentage of enrolment in government schools in rural areas has decreased from 72.9% in 2007 to 63.1% in 2014. Whereas the private schools registered a considerable rise in enrolment from 20.2% in 2007 to 30.7% in 2014. ASER also mentions that in addition to the need to increase the percentage of enrolment substantially in order to achieve universalization of education, concerns about the decline in enrolment in government schools need to be identified and addressed. Decline in enrolment in government schools and some shift to private schools might be largely related to the poor quality of education offered in government schools because it is free or offered at a nominal fee. Every Cloud has a silver lining As the government has been seriously considering of closing thousands of government schools due to the reasons given above, there is one government school at Kallambella in Sira of Tumkur district that would make the government rethink over its decision. It has emerged a successful school in terms of hi-tech education. The aforementioned government school has beaten all odds to stand out from many other schools of its kind. The students here use tablets and teachers deliver lectures using LCD screens. With the help of generous donors, the school is now a proud owner of computer lab, well equipped library, smart class and laboratory. The students of class 5 to 7 can view their syllabus on their tabs. According to Kannada Prabha, the school expected to admit 250 children but the number has doubled, and now there are 530 children studying in this school. Another astonishing development is that close to 120 children from different private schools have joined this technologically advanced government school and are benefiting from its hi-tech infrastructure just as they would do in their private schools. Introspection Alert! The quality of education determines the quality of human capital and a lot more effort needs to be invested in order to improve the propagation of education in India through enrolment and improvement in the quality of education in both government and private schools. A related issue is professional qualification and training received by the teachers. According to the latest report by the Unified-District Information System for Education (U-DISE) on 'School Education in India', for the country as whole, only 79 percent of teachers are professionally qualified. In order to meet the expectations of parents, children and achieve maximum literacy, there is a dire need of training both qualified and under-qualified teachers. Delhi, June 13, 2016: True to their basic DNA where winning has become a habit, FIITJEE is proud to announce the dominating Success of their Students in JEE Advanced, 2016. FIITJEE congratulates all their successful students for their consistently excellent results and wishes them Success and Excellence in their new endeavor. Delhi City Topper, Animesh Bohara AIR - 19 is a student of Two Year Classroom Program of FIITJEE Punjabi Bagh Centre. Another successful student Ritesh Goenka, AIR 23 is a student of Three Year Classroom Program of Punjabi Bagh Centre. Soumya Sharma from FIITJEE South Delhi's Two Year Classroom Program has been declared AIR 24. The Results still being under compilation, FIITJEE is claiming to produce a lions' share of Top 10 City Ranks, second consecutive year in a row. Considering this unprecedented success, FIITJEE South Delhi centre conducted a felicitation ceremony 'Utkarsh' in which the faculties along with the parents were present at Siri Fort Auditorium, Khel Gaon. Top performers in JEEA, KVPY, NTSE and Olympiads etc were felicitated. The felicitation and interaction with JEE Advanced 2016 Top Rank Holders and top ranke holders of past years, provided valuable insights to students for obtaining the best results in JEE Main, JEE Advanced and other competitive exams like KVPY, NTSE, Olympiads etc. The felicitation program was attended by more than 2000 students. This is not the first time that FIITJEE students have excelled at JEE and other prestigious examinations. In fact, FIITJEE is the only institute that consistently produces excellent results across all its centres countrywide and not like other institutes which are a one centre wonder story. This in itself is a proof of the efficacy of FIITJEE way of preparation and teaching and proves the superiority of the faculty, and the unique pattern-proof teaching modalities at one of India's most trusted institutes. The topper Animesh Bohara is understandably thrilled. "Making it to the IIT has been my dream since childhood and I am grateful to FIITJEE for helping me accomplish this dream. FIITJEE's unique teaching methodology has helped me tremendously with the preparations of JEE in a Pattern Proof manner. FIITJEE's well trained faculty facilitated in strengthening my fundamental concepts of Science and Mathematics that helped me in creatively resolving complex and tricky problems in JEE Advanced successfully," said Animesh Bohara Delhi State Topper. "Preparing students in a fundamental way and focusing on clearing their basics have yet again paid off for our students. At FIITJEE, our aim is to train serious aspiring students in such a way that they are ready to scale JEE or any prestigious competitive examination successfully. FIITJEE's early edge programs are designed for students to start early in their preparation for JEE and help them adapt to the quantum jump in level of difficulty and secure a Top Rank in JEE. The success of our students at JEE year after year bears testimony to the fact that our way of teaching has succeeded in bringing the best in students. We congratulate all our successful students as well as our teachers for their hard effort to make it possible," says Mr. R L Trikha, Director, FIITJEE. "We in FIITJEE follow total success approach enabling students to develop positive personality traits to be able to face all examinations of life," he added. Since 1992, FIITJEE has been providing valued services in the field of Entrance Exams Training and churning out toppers across different competitive entrance exams such as JEE Advanced, JEE Main, NTSE (National Talent Search Exam), KVPY (Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana), SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and various Olympiads including International Physics/ Chemistry/Mathematical Olympiad. FIITJEE has been at the helm of innovations, pioneering various educational systems and processes, one of them being the concept of Integrated School Programs. The Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research has postponed the results of JIPMER MBBS 2016. Candidates who have taken up JIPMER 2016 entrance exam will have to wait until June 17, 2016 to view their results. Repotedly, the results have been delayed by the institution owing to 'technical reasons'. The results for the same was supposed to be declared on June 13, 2016. However, the wesbite was down and students were not able to check their results. Anxious students and parents were kept waiting due to rumors stating that the results would be declared at different stages yesterday. The lack of official confirmation about the results not being available only resulted in students and parents being more apprehensive. JIPMER put up a notice postponing the results to June 17, without any specific reason assigned for the same. How to check JIPMER 2016 Results? Candidates can visit the official website of JIPMER to view their reuslts. JIPMER entrance exam is held by the institution every year for admissions into over 200 medical seats available in the institution. JIPMER 2016 was held on June 5, 2016 at 275 centres in 75 cities across the country. Over 1.5 lakh students have applied for the limited 200 seats available in the institute. The Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) is a medical school in India, and the oldest to teach European medicine in Asia. Also, the JIPMER entrance test is one of the toughest and highly competitive examination held in the country. The counselling process for 200 seats available in the institute will begin from June 20, 2016. The counselling is said to conclude on June 22, 2016 while the seat allotment will be done on the next day. Classes for the MBBS for the academic sessions in JIPMER will begin on July 1, 2016. JEE Advanced 2016 Results About JIPMER Entrance exam: JIPMER is a national level under graduate medical entrance exam, conducted by Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) for the admission to MBBS programmes. JIPMER does not have any specific syllabus pattern. The questions will be based on the class 11 and 12 text prescribed by the state board higher secondary and CBSE. The examination comprises of 5 sections: Chemistry, Physics, Biology, English, Logic & Quantitative Reasoning, English and Comprehension. The total number of questions will be 200 and are based on multiple choice. Each correct answer shall be awarded with 1 mark. There is no negative marking for the wrong answers. The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) has released the official calendar for the civil services examination conducted for the recruitment of IAS/IFS/NDA/CDS/CMS and several other posts for the year 2017. UPSC is a constitutional body that is responsible for conducting exams and interviews for the civil services posts under the Government of India. The UPSC conducts the civil services examinations every year to fill the vacant posts that include Civil Services Examination; Engineering Services Examination; Combined Defence Services Examination; National Defence Academy Examination; Geologists' Examination; Indian Statistical Service Examination/Indian Economic Service; Central Armed Police Forces (Assistant Commandant); and Combined Medical Services Examination. The UPSC Calendar for the year 2017 is as below. The calendar gives details about the notification date, last date for application, commencement of the examination. The calendar for UPSC 2017 is given below: Name of the Examination Notification Date Last Date to Apply Date of Examination Duration of Examination Engineering Services Preliminary Exam 2017 September 28, 2016 Ocotber 21, 2016 January 8, 2017 1 Day Reserved for UPSC RT/EXAM January 22, 2017 1 Day C.D.S. Exam (I), 2017 November 9, 2016 December 2, 2016 February 5, 2017 1 Day Reserved for UPSC RT/EXAM March 19, 2017 1 Day N.D.A. & N.A. Exam(I), 2017 January 18, 2017 February 10, 2017 April 23, 2017 1 Day I.E.S./I.S.S. Exam 2017 February 8,2017 March 3, 2017 May 12, 2017 3 Days Combined Geo Scienties and Geologist Exam 2017 February 8,2017 March 3, 2017 May 12, 2017 3 Days Engineering Services Main Exam 2017 May 14, 2017 1 Day Civil Services Preliminary Exam 2017 February 22, 2017 March 17, 2017 June 18, 2017 1 Day Indian Forest Service Preliminary Exam 2017 Central Armed Forces (ACs) Exam 2017 April 12, 0217 May 5, 2017 Junly 23, 2017 1 Day Combined Medical Services Exam 2017 April 26, 2017 May 19, 2017 August 13, 2017 1 Day Reserved for UPSC RT/EXAM August 27, 2017 1 Day N.D.A. & N.A. EXAM.(II), 2017 June 7, 2017 June 30, 2017 September 10, 2017 1 Day Reserved for UPSC RT/EXAM September 24, 2017 1 Day Civil Services Main Exam 2017 October 28, 2017 5 Days C.D.S. EXAM.(II), 2017 August 9, 2017 September 8, 2017 November 19, 2017 1 Day Reserved for UPSC RT/EXAM November 26, 2017 1 Day Indian Forest Service Main Exam 2017 December 3, 2017 10 Days S.O./Steno (GD-B/GD-I) LTD. DEPTTL. Competitive Exam 2017 (written) September 13, 2017 October 10, 2017 December 16, 2017 2 Days Also read: Are you enamored of the new Jaguar F-Pace, and been wondering how much youll need to drop in order to put one in your driveway? Well now we have our answer. Jaguar Land Rover has just announced pricing for its 2017 model line in the United States, including the F-Pace, which starts at $40,990. Thats for the 20d base model, which comes with a 2.0-liter diesel four rated at 180 horsepower. Gasoline power starts just a touch higher at $42,390 for the F-Pace 35t with the 3.0-liter supercharged V6 good for 340 horsepower. The top-spec F-Pace S packs that same engine rated only slightly higher at 380 hp, but commands a considerable premium at $56,700. (All prices subject to an additional $995 destination charge.) Of course, the F-Pace is substantially less expensive than the other new luxury performance crossovers coming from European automakers that have never delved into the territory before. But the Maserati Levante, Bentley Bentayga, and forthcoming entrants from Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce arent the territory Jag is going after here. Instead of targeting the Porsche Cayenne like many of those will, the Jaguar is positioned closer to the Macan which also starts (a little) higher at $47,500. You can, however, get a Mercedes GLC for less (starting at $38,950). The BMW X3 ($38,950) and X4 ($45,250) split the difference in starting prices, but the Audi Q5 starts at a remarkably similar MSRP of $40,900. Alongside the F-Pace, Jaguar has also revealed pricing for the all-new XE, which starts at $34,900 and tops out at $41,700, making it the cheapest new Jag you could get your hands on since the lamentable X-Type. The mid-range XF introduced last year also gets the diesel option as its new point of entry at $47,450. Jaguar also priced the F-Type range, with the new SVR model commanding $125,950 or a good $20k more than the F-Type R that boasts 25 fewer horses. PHOTOS Italian supercars are known for their neck-twisting designs, mind-blowing performance and, occasionally, for bursting into flames for no obvious reason. The latest exotic engulfed by flames is a Lamborghini Aventador, which managed to bring traffic to a stop at the junction of Southwark Street and Blackfriars Bridge, in the middle of Londons rush hour traffic, after its engine decided to start a barbecue. This chap was sitting in traffic and I heard the car revving, then someone shouted your car is on fire, said a witness, quoted by Express. It started off as a small flame on the side and then it escalated very quickly, getting close to the engine. At the start, it just looked like the exhaust was flaming like some supercars do. Emergency services arrived at the scene in no time, closed the road and kept people away from the burning wreckage, while six firefighters took 10 minutes to extinguish the blaze. The driver was unharmed, as he made a lucky escape from the fireball moments before the authorities took control of the situation. Chances are the Aventador is a complete loss. This isnt the first time that the Raging Bulls flagship is involved in a flame-eating incident, as another example ruined part of its rear end earlier this year, with a valet parker behind the wheel, in Miami. Four years earlier, another Lamborghini was completely destroyed by flames, on the California State Route 73, and London has also witnessed a similar, although lighter incident, in 2014. VIDEO At CalArts, I studied in both Jules Engels Experimental Animation program and the newly-formed Character Animation program. Jules saw what I hungered for and showed me more works from the other worlds: Frank Film by Frank Mouris; The Hand by Jiri Trnka; Labirynt by Jan Lenica. And one day he introduced me to the work of Jan Svankmajer with the short film Jabberwocky. Jabberwocky grabbed my attention right away with head credits that change with slaps on a babys bottom. While inspired by Lewis Carrolls poem, Svankmajers film is not an illustration its a literal cabinet of wonders, a series of strange and funny and dark vignettes, astoundingly inventive and fueled by strong ideas that dont need slick animation to make their point. Ive never forgotten some of the images: flying, dancing clothes; a doll giving birth to baby dolls that burst through her clothes; a happy dancing jack knife that snaps shut and bleeds blood. And theres an emotional through-line, stronger than a simple story, that, when it ends, leaves you knowing youve never seen or felt anything like this before. I watched it over and over and even tried to buy my own 16mm copy of the film from the distributor (this was before video and digital files). Being a student, I just didnt have the money. I dreamed I would make independent films like Svankmajers but, when I graduated from CalArts, I needed a job to eat. I was happy to get hired at Disney, but my path would never be the same again. I continued to see Svankmajers films as time went byfilms like the brilliant Dimensions of Dialogue with heads of clay that consume each other; the groundbreaking feature Alice where living socks use false teeth to speak; and then, in 1996, I got to meet and introduce Jan Svankmajer at the San Francisco Film Festival for the premiere of his Conspirators of Pleasure. Conspirators seemed a very good film at first (theres an astonishing scene where a live-action newscaster reads the news while, hidden beneath her desk, actual fish suck on her toes in pans of water.) But then at the end of the film, all the disparate characters and their stories coalesce and the film becomes a masterpiece. Svankmajer had done it again. Jan Svankmajer is the real deal, a brilliant artist who has always remained true to his vision, making films that are as entertaining as they are challenging, brimming with images and ideas and characters and stories that burn in the mind, never to be forgotten. And now he needs our help to make his final movie, Insects. Were living in a great time now, a time that, with the internet and digital files, lost things can be found again. Young people are discovering Svankmajers early work for the first time and loving it. My son Harry the musician doesnt care about how new something is, he only cares how good it is. Good will out, and Svankmajer is GREAT. And hes ready to make another masterpiece that will be found again and again. Please dig as deep as you can. Jan Svankmajers crowdfunding campaign for Insects is currently live on Indiegogo. To help with the campaign, Henry Selick is offering bug props that were used in the production of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The props, which will soon be available on the Indiegogo campaign, come with a certificate of authenticity signed by Selick. (Photo at top: Jan Svankmajer at the entomological auction in Prague, 2016. Photo: Lukas Bucman.) Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer Cpl. Don Wrigglesworth makes an arrest at last year's Jail n' Bail event Downtown Penticton will be the place to be in the week ahead. There are several events lined up, starting Wednesday and continuing through the weekend. On Wednesday, June 15, Jail n' Bail is taking place from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Main Street and Westminster Avenue. People can have their favourite co-worker, boss or friend arrested by the RCMP and help raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society. A 50s-themed block party is happening from 5 to 8 p.m., Friday, June 17 in the 300 block of Main Street. Saturday will be a busy day, with the grand opening of the newly revitalized 200 block of Main Street at 10 a.m. and the OneWorld Welcome at Gyro Park from 7 to 10 p.m. More information is available on the Downtown Penticton Association website. Photo: Contributed The Penticton Channel is a lot cleaner thanks to the efforts of a small army of volunteers. Some 60 people gave up their Sunday to haul trash out of the popular South Okanagan waterway. Duane Jordan of the Pasta factory and Tugs Taphouse, who organized the event, said the volunteers removed 60 pounds of glass alone. They also took away a tire, a shopping cart, children's hospital coin collector, GoPro camera and tripod, glasses, numerous bags of garbage and recyclables and lots of junk." Photo: CTV Fire alarms helped a mother and son escape their burning home overnight. The single-family home in South Surrey's upscale Morgan Creek neighbourhood went up in flames about 1 a.m. It was fully engulfed by the time fire crews arrived. The occupants were unharmed. A mother and son, they both got out, Battalion Chief Brian Carmichael told CTV. They heard the smoke alarms, and when they exited the house, it was fully involved. But theyre both fine, and theyve gone to a family members home. The fire did significant damage and caused most of the roof to collapse. The cause yet to be determined, but firefighters say it may have started in a hedge behind the home. with files from CTV Vancouver Photo: The Canadian Press British Columbia's representative for children and youth is calling for an inquest into the police-involved shooting death of a young Victoria man. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond says the family of 20-year-old Rhett Mutch faced many difficulties because of his mental health challenges. She says the mental health system must be held responsible for his treatment. Mutch was shot and killed by Victoria police in November 2014 after his mother called 911 saying her son had broken into her house and was threatening to harm himself with a knife. The Independent Investigations Office has cleared officers who shot Mutch when he suddenly advanced with a knife as they tried to arrest him. Turpel-Lafond says that while she understands police are not responsible, law enforcement could learn from the tragedy and that an inquest could force the mental health system to recognize its role in the death. Photo: Instagram Operators of a Christian retreat say they are doing all they can for the family of a South Korean teenager who drowned while attending the camp north of Vancouver. A post on the website of the Malibu Club Young Life camp thanks the RCMP, coast guard and camp staff who scoured the waters of the Malibu rapids in Jervis Inlet. Searchers using sonar located the body of the 16-year-old on Friday, two days after he fell into the water. The RCMP has confirmed in a news release that the teen's body was recovered at slack tide, when the powerful rapids between Jervis and Princess Louisa inlets were at their least turbulent. The victim was an exchange student attending high school in the central Idaho community of Challis and was at the camp with other students. A post on the school's Facebook page says counsellors were on hand at the school over the weekend to support grieving students. UPDATED: 4:35 p.m. The University of British Columbia's new president is promising greater transparency while listening to students and faculty, as he joins the institution at a tumultuous time in its history. Santa Ono, 53, who was born in Vancouver and has served as president of the University of Cincinnati since 2012, will take the reins amid ongoing criticisms of UBC's governance and its handling of campus sexual assaults. The renowned biomedical researcher told an enthusiastic crowd inside the university's law school that leading UBC is a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity that he could not pass up. "I view myself as a servant leader," he said. "I see my job as working on behalf of the entire UBC community. I am working to serve you, not vice versa." The university has been gripped by a governance crisis since last August, when former president Arvind Gupta abruptly resigned. In the months that followed, the board chairman stepped down in amid an academic freedom controversy and the faculty association passed a resolution declaring it had lost confidence in the board. Ono, the son of a Japanese-born professor who taught math at UBC in the 1960s, said he wasn't scared off by the events of the past 10 months. "In fact, it made me even more interested in coming here to contribute to this university that is so dear to my family, and doing everything in my power to help the institution become even more outstanding," he said. He told reporters he met with the board of governors and new chairman Stuart Belkin and he felt confident that work to improve transparency and accountability had already begun. The university has also faced accusations that it delayed taking action on multiple sexual assault allegations against a PhD student. Ono said he had handled similar problems in Cincinnati. "I'm very experienced in dealing with these sorts of issues," he said. "We can move forward." Faculty association president Mark Mac Lean said Ono's opening remarks showed he is well aware that addressing UBC's governance matters will be critical to regaining the confidence of professors. "He has given strong signals that he desires to be a president that engages well with the faculty and that he sees himself as a member of the faculty," Mac Lean said in an email. Belkin praised Ono's extraordinary life and accomplishments and said the board unanimously appointed him to a five-year term. Ono will earn $470,000 annually. It's a pay cut from his salary of US$525,000 at the University of Cincinnati, where in recent years he donated his bonuses to charity. He holds a biology degree from the University of Chicago and an experimental medicine PhD from McGill University. His research has focused on the immune system and eye disease, and he has held prestigious positions at Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Ono drew praise last month when he spoke frankly about his experiences with depression, reminding students that mental illness can be treated. He revealed that he first tried to kill himself at 14 and his second attempt came in his mid-20s. He is married to Chinese-Canadian lawyer Wendy Yip and the couple have two daughters, ages 11 and 18. His unusual first name is a shortened version of Santaro, a samurai from Japanese folklore. He lived in an apartment on UBC's campus for the first few years of his life, and he said he expects his parents to make an emotional visit to his new home, the 6,400-square foot Norman Mackenzie House "Thank you for making it possible for this Vancouver boy to return home," he told the crowd. "You have honoured me greatly by giving me the chance to serve you." Photo: Contributed An inspector with British Columbia's work safety agency has found a film production company failed to ensure the safety of workers on the set of "Maze Runner: The Death Cure" when actor Dylan O'Brien was injured in March. A WorksafeBC report says a change to an action sequence was made without a meeting to review those changes, resulting in serious injuries to the star of the series. The report that was completed in May and redacted to withhold the names of those involved says that Fox US Productions 49 contravened a section of the provincial Workers Compensation Act. O'Brien was hurt while filming the dystopian science-fiction series at the Cache Creek airport, about 340 kilometres northeast of Vancouver. Celebrity website TMZ and Hollywood trade publication Variety reported that O'Brien was hit by a car and suffered multiple injuries. WorkSafe has ordered the company to prepare a notice of compliance report by Wednesday, outlining the steps to be taken to correct the infraction. Photo: Contributed A stray bullet narrowly missed residents in a Prince George home after a targeted shooting Friday. RCMP say shots were fired at a home that was likely targeted on Freeman Street at about 5:40 p.m. A stray bullet also hit a neighbouring home. Luckily, nobody was injured. "One bullet broke a neighbours window and narrowly missed occupants," said police. "Three persons exited the (targeted) residence without incident and were detained as part of the investigation. No other occupants were located and it appears no one was injured." Prince George RCMP said they have no reason to believe that the public is at any further risk. "Police are in the early stages of this investigation and are looking for information from the public that could assist investigators." Photo: The Canadian Press A Crown lawyer says a controversial undercover police sting was the only way for officers to investigate a couple later found guilty of plotting to murder people at Canada Day festivities in Victoria. Closing arguments are being heard in B.C. Supreme Court into whether John Nuttall and Amanda Korody were entrapped by Mounties into planting explosives at the provincial legislature in 2013. A jury found the pair guilty last summer following an elaborate sting, but the verdicts have not been entered while lawyers argue whether police manipulated them into carrying through with a bomb plot. Crown lawyer Peter Eccles says the question is no longer whether Nuttall and Korody are guilty, but whether reasonable people in their position would have followed through with what he describes as "ideologically inspired mass murder." Eccles describes the operation as "innovative and effective." Defence lawyers have said police exploited the couple's vulnerabilities as isolated former drug addicts living on welfare to draw them into what was portrayed as a shadowy terrorist organization. Photo: Contributed Vancouver restaurateur and culinary inventor Hidekazu Tojo is being honoured as a Goodwill Ambassador for Japanese Cuisine. The appointment has been made by the Japanese government's Ministry of Agriculture, Forest and Fisheries. Tojo came to Vancouver in the early 1970s and his restaurant's website says he the creator of the first California roll, named not for the state, but for the origin of the avocado inside the seaweed and rice wrapped sushi. His Vancouver restaurant has garnered international attention and numerous awards including an annual Zagat extraordinary rating from 2007 to 2012. A news release from the Japanese Consulate says the appointment distinguishes Tojo as belonging to the top tier of Japanese chefs and makes him one of 13 such ambassadors outside Japan. The Consul General of Japan in Vancouver will formally present a certificate to him in a special ceremony planned for Thursday. Vietnam's new Master Plan ICR Research By Published 13 June 2016 Vietnam is having to rebalance its cement output with expected market demand. While there have been limitations on the creation of new plants, there is now strong evidence for the government to encourage the construction of larger plants while phasing out the less economical smaller units. By Hai Khieu, StoxPlus, Vietnam. The overheated expansion of Vietnams cement capacity before 2013 continues to haunt the industry, which is strongly affected by the current supply surplus. Low capacity utilisation rates and cement prices are leading to low EBITDA and net profit margins. To continue reading this story and get access to all News, Articles and Video sections of the CemNet.com website, please Register for a subscription to International Cement Review or Login Bangladesh: MI Cement opts for Loesche slag grinding mill 13 June 2016 MI Cement Factory Ltd, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has awarded Loesche the contract for the Munshigonj cement plant. The Munshigonj cement plant is a brownfield project. To grind the blast furnace slag to a fineness of 4000 cm2/g Blaine, the customer will use a Loesche mill. For the main components of the scope of supply, a lead time of seven months after signing the contract is scheduled and the gearbox is to be supplied to Bangladesh in nine months. Commissioning of the Loesche mill is scheduled for May 2017. Published under USA: union workers reject contract 13 June 2016 According to union representatives, union workers at a northern Nevada cement plant have rejected a contract proposal from the Nevada Cement. The previous contract expired 28 February 2016, but was extended to allow time for negotiations. The latest extension will expire on 30 June. Richard Daly, business manager for International Union Local 169, said the two sides are scheduled to meet on 22 June. According to Mr Daly, the biggest dispute with the new contract is over pension benefits. He said the union members votes 25-4 against the proposal offered by Nevada Cement. Published under Semen Indonesia to sell 49% stake in unit ICR Newsroom By 13 June 2016 Indonesia's largest cement producer, Semen Indonesia, plans to sell a 49 per cent stake in one of its units to help fund the company's future expansion, according to Investor Daily quoting the firms Finance Director, Darmawan Junaidi. The strategic investor will hold the stake for a limited period, tentatively 10 years. However, which subsidiary's stake will be sold remains currently undisclosed. Semen Indonesia has four subsidiaries PT Semen Gresik, PT Semen Padang, PT Semen Tonasa and Thang Long Cement Joint Stock Co. Semen Indonesia is also considering the acquisition of 1-2 overseas firms this year. The company is looking to spend up to US$100m to acquire one or two foreign cement companies as it plans to expand overseas to boost revenues. In addition, it plans to buy a cement company in southeast Asia in 2017. "We have pressure domestically. If we don't do something (overseas), our revenue will be flat or down, Agung Wiharto, the company's corporate secretary, told Reuters. "We have to have another revenue source. That is why we are thinking about taking some cement plants outside the country," he added, declining to say which countries the company was looking at. Published under 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 Average retail gasoline prices in Chattanooga have fallen 3.3 cents per gallon in the past week, averaging $2.16 per gallon on Sunday, according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 170 gas outlets in Chattanooga. This compares with the national average that has increased 2.4 cents per gallon in the last week to $2.38 per gallon, according to gasoline price website GasBuddy.com. Including the change in gas prices in Chattanooga during the past week, prices Sunday were 33.9 cents per gallon lower than the same day one year ago and are 13.7 cents per gallon higher than a month ago. The national average has increased 16.8 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 41.8 cents per gallon lower than this day one year ago. The national average has increased 16.8 cents per gallon during the last month and stands 41.8 cents per gallon lower than this day one year ago. According to GasBuddy historical data, gasoline prices on June 13 in Chattanooga have ranged widely over the last five years: $2.50 per gallon in 2015, $3.35 in 2014, $3.29 in 2013, $3.11 in 2012 and $3.44 in 2011. Areas nearby Chattanooga and their current gas price climate: Knoxville- $2.14, down 1.6 cents per gallon from last week's $2.15. State of Tennessee- $2.18, down 1.9 cents per gallon from last week's $2.20. Huntsville- $2.15, up 0.4 cents per gallon from last week's $2.15. Gasoline prices have continued a mild run higher across much of the country, though in the Great Lakes, gas prices have been on a tear," said Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com. "In the last month, no one has seen close to the pain exhibited throughout the Midwest. Average gas prices in Michigan are up 50 cents in the last month, followed by Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, who have seen a jump of over 30 cents in a month, largely at the hands of various refinery woes and insatiable demand for gasoline. However, as kinks are ironed out and production of gasoline ramps up, we expect gasoline prices to cool in the next few weeks in much of the country, barring any unforeseeable events. We're sticking by our January forecast that told of an average U.S. gas price of $2.41/gallon during the summer driving season." The Tennessee Valley Authority is proposing a long-term storage solution for its coal ash and other coal combustion residuals that TVA said "would safely keep these products on TVA property permanently." The recommendation for closure-in-place is part of a Final Environmental Impact Statement released this week addressing options for CCR impoundments at its coal-fired power plants. The documents can be found at www.tva.gov/nepa . The EIS is divided into two parts; Part 1 is a programmatic analysis that should generally apply to any CCR impoundment in the TVA system. Part 2 is an analysis of 10 site-specific ash impoundment closures, which integrates the findings and conclusions of Part 1. The proposed and preferred closure method for the specific sites is the closure-in-place alternative, but the document also considers the impacts of closure-by-removal. CCRs are byproducts produced from the combustion of coal or the control of combustion emissions and include fly ash, bottom ash, and other materials. The EIS supports TVAs goal to eliminate all wet CCR storage at its coal plants and to help TVA comply with EPAs CCR Rule. TVA conducted extensive public outreach in preparing this document, including a public comment period that lasted more than 60 days and 10 open house meetings in communities near its fossil plants to allow the public to discuss the draft EIS and provide comments in person and online. TVA has addressed all substantive comments received during the comment period in the Final EIS. Although not required, TVA will accept comments on the Final EIS through July 9. To ensure students and families have the support they need to make literacy a priority this summer, the Georgia Department of Education is working to get books in the hands of as many students as possible, through summer reading events, resources, and the donation of more than 100,000 books. Literacy is a top priority for my administration and a core focus in our agencys strategic plan, State School Superintendent Richard Woods said. Summer reading is critically important for maintaining and growing reading abilities, so we strongly urge every Georgia student to read this summer. However, we didnt want to make that recommendation without providing the resources to make it a reality and Im grateful that, with the help of many generous partners, well be able to get books into the hands of Georgias kids this summer. I also encourage students and parents to go to their local library and take advantage of the resources they have available and read all throughout the summer. Students can visit summerreading.gadoe.org to log the books they read this summer. Well keep track of books read and recognize winning students, schools, and districts. Georgias public libraries also have summer reading programs and activities throughout the summer, and we encourage students to utilize this resource and sign up for a library card. Click here to find your local library. For those who have access to a digital device, students also have access to more than 10,000 free e-books all summer, thanks to a partnership between myON and Get Georgia Reading. Visit getgeorgiareading.org/myon2016 for directions on how to access these books. Thanks to a partnership with Change 4 Georgia, Better World Books, and Scholastic, the GaDOE is donating 100,000+ books to Georgia students this summer. Of that total, 25,000 books will go to Georgias 21st Century Community Learning Centers, community centers that operate outside of school hours, including during the summer. The remainder will be distributed through the Georgia Food Bank Association and other organizations, as well as through summer reading events hosted by the GaDOE. The GaDOE is hosting summer reading events for students at several public libraries throughout the state this summer. Members of the public are encouraged to attend these events, which will feature summer reading activities and programming along with an opportunity to receive free books Thursday, June 2 in Macon 10 to 11 a.m. Washington Memorial Library 1180 Washington Avenue Macon, GA 31201 Wednesday, June 15 in Dalton noon to 1 p.m. Dalton-Whitfield County Library 310 Cappes Street Dalton, GA 30720 Friday, June 24 in Fitzgerald 10 to 11 a.m. Fitzgerald-Ben Hill County Library 123 North Main St. Fitzgerald, GA 31750 *This event will also feature information on summer meals through GaDOE and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) Friday, June 24 in Bainbridge 1 to 2 p.m. (Bookmobile) Bainbridge Middle School 1301 East College Street Bainbridge, GA 39817 1:00 2:00 pm The GaDOEs summer reading events and initiatives are possible thanks to the collaboration of generous partners throughout the state, including Change 4 Georgia, the Get Georgia Reading Campaign, the Georgia Public Library Service, and the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning. The Superintendents Student Advisory Council, a group of 120 middle and high school students from across the state, is helping to coordinate this summers events so they are truly by students, for students. Sandra Whitted, left, talks with Oneal Clash while waiting in line at an open casting call for "Shark Tank" on Monday. (Keri Wiginton / Blue Sky ) "Shark Tank" wants entrepreneurs with passion and it just met Sandra Whitted, who slept in her car for two nights to make sure she was first in line for the show's Chicago casting call Monday. Whitted, of Homewood, arrived at sponsor Comcast's Studio Xfinity on the North Side at 10 p.m. Friday, determined to get a chance to pitch her KomfieKare seat cushion. Advertisement "I was here by myself for 10 whole hours, then somebody else showed up," Whitted said. She dashed to a nearby Starbucks to freshen up in anticipation of the the one-minute pitch she'd give Monday morning. Her product is a patent-pending transforming seat cushion for stadium chairs and bleachers. She is seeking $150,000 in exchange for 15 percent of her company, which she started a month ago. Advertisement Whitted and more than 600 other entrepreneurs lined up at 901 W. Weed St. for a chance to convince casting directors to send them through to the next round of casting. By early Monday, more than 380 groups had signed up to pitch. Among them was Nuclassica, an electric violin and DJ band from Detroit that arrived Sunday afternoon. The group tried out for "Shark Tank" two years ago but never heard back. This time, they are seeking $100,000 for 10 percent of the company. "We're trying to get funding to expand the show," said music director Jordan Broder. During casting, the group gave a brief introduction then played Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" for 45 seconds. Afterward, DJ Zac Carter said he thought the casting director loved the pitch from the moment they started. Another hopeful, Christabel Agbonkonkon, created Ganix Naturals, an organic skincare company for people with dry skin and eczema. She drove from Pittsburgh to seek $150,000 for 15 percent of her company. She said she has sold $5,000 of product since March. Scott Salyers, the supervising casting producer, said Monday's casting call was the largest he'd seen on this year's tour, which already stopped in Honolulu, Philadelphia and Raleigh, N.C. He said his team is looking for entrepreneurs for Season 8, which will be filmed this fall and next year. Some 40,000 people apply online or at casting calls to appear on "Shark Tank" each year. About 150 companies make it to filming, Salyers said. "People think it's going to be 'American Idol' when they show up for these things, and it's not that big," Salyers said. "Yes, we have a big open call, but we're going to see everybody." On Monday entrepreneurs got about five minutes each, including questions from casting agents, to pitch, Salyers said. He added that that's enough time to know if someone is worth putting through to the next round. Advertisement Salyers said "Shark Tank" is looking for great companies but also wants to highlight passionate entrepreneurs. He said he tells nervous founders to remember that before pitching. "Whatever they're pitching today, more than likely we've seen it already," Salyers said. "So don't focus so much on what your product is. Focus on why you do it, why are you the person that gets up every morning at 5 a.m. to do it?" aelahi@tribpub.com Twitter @aminamania Stephani Becker, a senior policy specialist at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, is photographed June 3, 2016, at the center's offices in Chicago's Loop. Becker said advocates would like to be part of a discourse on health insurance rate plans. "Right now there is no public discourse," she said. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune) More than half of the states have disclosed just how much higher their health care premiums could be next year under the Affordable Care Act, and some of the potential increases are jaw-dropping. But Illinois residents won't get their first look at proposed 2017 premiums until Aug. 1, and that has consumer advocates frustrated. Advertisement Insurance companies had to submit rate plans for Illinois in April, but the state doesn't require the proposals to be made public upon filing, according to the Department of Insurance. In addition, the director of the department considers health plan filings confidential and exempt from Freedom of Information requests. The Aug. 1 publication date is about a month before the Insurance Department has to complete its review of rate information, giving policyholders and consumer groups little time to review health plans and challenge any proposed premium hikes. Greater transparency has helped roll back requested rate increases, even in states that, like Illinois, have limited authority to push back on insurers, consumer advocates said. Advertisement "We would like to participate in a public discourse about rate plans," said Stephani Becker, a senior policy specialist at the Chicago-based Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. "Right now there is no public discourse." Kathy Waligora, director of the health reform initiative at EverThrive Illinois, added, "We have opportunities to have more transparency in the rate review process. We think people will benefit if they have information earlier." Insurance Department acting Director Anne Melissa Dowling declined to be interviewed for this story. In response to emailed questions, department spokeswoman Anjali Julka said that until a health plan has been approved by the federal government, the state agency considers rate proposals and related documents to be preliminary and "pre-decisional," and therefore withholds such filings. Twenty-eight states have disclosed rate proposals to the public as of Monday through ratereview.healthcare.gov. Several, including Indiana, Oregon and Washington, also post the information on their insurance websites. Some of the filings contain trade secrets that are blacked out but rate information is available. The spotlight is more intense on state insurance regulators as consumers seek protection from soaring insurance premiums on ACA policies. Heading into the fourth year of coverage under the health law, insurance companies in some states have proposed rate increases of 20 percent or more. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, one of the nation's largest plans, requested an average hike of 53.7 percent. When asked about 2017 rate proposals, the Illinois Department of Insurance would only confirm that 11 companies have submitted a total of 470 health plans 321 individual and 149 small group. States historically have had exclusive authority to regulate rates for private health insurance, and the 2010 Affordable Care Act did little to change that authority. But the law requires review of proposed premium increases of 10 percent or more to make sure they are reasonable and fair to consumers. The provision included the public disclosure of such rate hikes. Advertisement Since Illinois doesn't have its own disclosure law, the Insurance Department follows the federal government's timeline for making rate information publicly available. And this year, Illinois rate filings will made available Aug. 1 on the federal website. The Aug. 1 federal deadline was pushed back two months this year after insurance commissioners in some states said they didn't have enough time last year to prepare rate filings for public disclosure. The later publication date, though, is a disservice to policyholders in some states like Illinois where regulatory review is already well under way, said Dena Mendelsohn, a staff attorney at Consumers Union, the advocacy and policy division of Consumer Reports. Consumer groups would like more transparency in Illinois' rate review process because health insurers hold all the cards in the state. Unlike about three dozen other states, Illinois does not have the legal authority to reject excessive health insurance rate increases. Illinois is what is known in regulatory jargon as a "file and use" state. Under this framework, rates will go into effect after a certain period of time, but a state can take action later if the rates are found to be unreasonable. States that have the power to approve and deny proposed premiums are using their authority to hold down rate increases, according to a study of 2015 ACA rates by PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute. States with prior approval authority saw a median drop of 2.9 percentage points between the proposed and approved rates, while carriers' rates in file-and-use states dropped less than half as much, with a median 1.3 percentage point decrease. Advertisement In 2011, the Illinois Department of Insurance pursued a bill to strengthen its oversight authority over health insurance premiums. But the legislation didn't receive enough support and died without being called for a vote, said Rep. Greg Harris, D-Chicago, who introduced the bill. Legislation in 2014 that would have made rate-related information public after it is submitted to the Insurance Department didn't make it out of the rule committee. Under the ACA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provided $250 million in grants to state insurance departments to strengthen their regulatory capabilities and make rate filings more accessible and understandable to consumers. Illinois received two grants totaling $4.5 million in 2010 and 2011. The Insurance Department used the funds to start actuarial review on all premium increases of more than 10 percent and hired additional staff, including one staffer dedicated to making rate information available to the public, Julka said. Even as a file-and-use state, the Insurance Department is able to negotiate rates with insurers, Consumers Union's Mendelsohn said. She pointed to the example of another file-and-use state, California, where the department's actuaries analyze rate filings. The insurance commissioner has criticized health plans for imposing "excessive and unreasonable" rate increases. While such findings are not binding on insurers, the scrutiny and public shaming has pushed carriers to reduce or withdraw rate increases. The California Department of Insurance estimates that it has saved consumers $316 million in health insurance premiums since 2011. Advertisement "It's not as if Illinois does not have to power to protect consumers," Mendelsohn said. According to consumer advocates, Illinois considers the rate review process as a confidential time of negotiation with insurers. "I do think that this (regulatory framework) comes from a well-intentioned perspective of wanting to help consumers," said Waligora of EverThrive, a health advocacy organization. But she also says it's time for consumers to have more input in the rate review process. And that starts with making the rate proposals public earlier in the review. Consumer advocates in Illinois acknowledge that in the first three years of the health law, their top priority was enrolling residents in coverage either through Medicaid or private insurance, not reviewing rate filings. The Sargent Shriver center, for example, helped train enrollment counselors to assist consumer in buying insurance. "Now that we have more than 1 million people enrolled, we're more focused on the quality of the plans," said Becker of the Sargent Shriver center. "I think you're going to see a groundswell occurring of people demanding more transparency and consumer input." Advertisement asachdev@tribpub.com Twitter @ameetsachdev In the latest episode of what has become one of the most gripping Silicon Valley sagas in recent memory, Walgreens officially announced Sunday night that it has terminated its partnership with troubled blood testing startup Theranos, effective immediately. The large drugstore chain had already halted Theranos testing at its Palo Alto, California, location in January, and the new announcement means that Walgreens will now shutter its other 40 Theranos Wellness Centers, all in Arizona. Advertisement The move follows Theranos' unusual decision to void two years' worth of test results from its proprietary "Edison" machines, issuing tens of thousands of corrected reports -- a move first reported by the Wall Street Journal last month. Regulators are also weighing whether to impose sanctions on the company, among them a potential two-year ban of its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, from running a laboratory. "In light of the voiding of a number of test results, and as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has rejected Theranos' plan of correction and considers sanctions, we have carefully considered our relationship with Theranos and believe it is in our customers' best interests to terminate our partnership," Brad Fluegel, Walgreens senior vice president, said in a statement. Advertisement Walgreens said it would work over the coming days to help Theranos customers transition. Theranos spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan said that the company continues to expand despite the setback. Theranos has five independent locations where it offers testing in Arizona and California, with plans to expand through Arizona and Pennsylvania later this year. "Quality and safety are our top priorities and we are working closely with government officials to ensure that we not only comply with all federal regulations but exceed them. We are disappointed that Walgreens has chosen to terminate our relationship and remain fully committed to our mission to provide patients access to affordable health information," Buchanan wrote in an email. Theranos was a media darling in its early stages, a highly secretive tech company seeking to disrupt the blood testing industry that had gained major financial backing. Its charismatic young founder, Holmes, had a fascinating backstory: a college dropout with an aversion to blood draws and an unusual cast of Washington heavyweights willing to sign on to her company's board. The Wall Street Journal began to unravel the tremendous hype around the company, revealing that Theranos was not using its proprietary technology for many of its tests and raising questions about the accuracy of the tests' results. Regulators have been scrutinizing the company and uncovered numerous deficiencies. Theranos has pledged to battle on, but success may not be as simple as persuading regulators. In order to be successful, Theranos will have to win the business and trust of physicians and patients. That may be easier said than done. Several lawsuits have been filed by patients against Theranos because of the voided results. The company has said those lawsuits are without merit. Holmes this summer will present scientific information about Theranos' technologies at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry's conference -- something she has been invited to do at least once in the past and declined, according to AACC President Patricia Jones. The announcement that Holmes would appear at the conference to explain how her technology works came April 18, the same day that the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was the subject of a criminal probe. As far back as October, Holmes said her company would publish data showing how the technology works. Advertisement "I think I am learning, we are engineers and scientists and we have our views of how to create technology and how to invent things, and I think doing so in this medical space, we have to publish our data, and so we are," Holmes said at a medical innovation summit at the Cleveland Clinic. Theranos has not yet published data providing insight into how the technology works. Instead, an outside team of researchers used Theranos' testing service and compared it to the two dominant blood testing laboratories in the United States and found it was far more likely to flag abnormal results than its competitors. Like most of us, Chicagoan Tram Nguyen and her best friend Lucy Madison authors of food blog Pen & Palate look back at their 20s as a decade of twists and turns. But the pals found at least two constants among the chaos: their friendship and food. Now in their early 30s, the two recount how they navigated their lives, loves and careers in the years after college in a new book named after their blog. Part memoir, part cookbook, "Pen & Palate" (Grand Central Life & Style, $26) is a collection of personal essays by Madison (who lives in New York) and Nguyen, anchored by recipes and original illustrations by Nguyen. The book has echoes of Nora Ephron's "Heartburn" and the works of authors like Ruth Reichl and M.F.K. Fisher. We talked to Nguyen and Madison about their book, and their mishaps. Advertisement What was your impetus for starting the blog Pen & Palate? LM: We were writing to each other a lot, and then we started the blog for fun. At that point, I hadn't written about food before, but I thought the recipes were a great hook into the stories. It was just a more natural way to approaching the recipe and the food. Because we weren't expecting people to read it, I thought of my audience as Tram. Advertisement Lots of blogs are now being run like businesses: Pinterest pages, sponsored posts, Instagram takeovers and media kits. Pen & Palate doesn't do any of that. TN: We never considered audience building. Honestly, we were just writing for each other. We didn't think anyone would read it. Once, someone told me "I tried this recipe on your site and loved it," and I was surprised. "Really?!" Tram Nguyen and Lucy Madison write personal essays about their adventures in and out of the kitchen. (Tram Nguyen) A big thing I noticed is the book, unlike other cookbooks, doesn't feature any photographs of gorgeously composed food. Neither does your blog. LM: People responded well to Tram's illustrations, and that it was so different from everything out there. Those blogs that do focus on photography are so beautiful and special, but we do something so different. We wanted something we could read. When we found people responding to that my neighbors told me they discovered the blog it was so terrifying! I remember feeling like, it's not just my mom, and it's not just Tram. Personally, I feel like I have to turn the blinders on and just write. I'm not super over-share-y, but here I am on the blog being super personal. TN: The illustrations weren't much of a choice; it was what felt natural. I like to infuse a little humor in my work, whether it's writing or illustration. It gives it a little more personality and feels more authentic. In the book, I've used gouache paints in a hybrid of digital painting and watercolor collage. I think it's interesting to have that tension of organic and geometric shapes. Your stories are really revealing, but your recipes at the end of each chapter are just as conversational. For instance, Tram, you recognize that some people making your cream puff recipe aren't going to want to cut a tiny hole in the bottom of each puff to pipe in the cream, so you wrote: "If this is too fussy for you, simply slice the tops off and pipe the layers like a sandwich." TN: On a practical level, we wanted the recipes to be easy to follow. We wanted them to read like you're talking to your friends on the phone. In the Ottolenghi cookbook, there was an aside [for roasted goose] that told you to line your stove with foil, to protect it from splattering fat. You don't often see things like that, taking into account practical things like not wanting to dirty up too many dishes. Now that you've written the blog for a few years, and now the book, how would you rank yourself in the kitchen? Advertisement TN: I definitely consider myself a home cook. LM: Me too. I freelance at a food magazine [Food & Wine] and I'm in awe of all these people I work with who have this wealth of knowledge and went to school for it. I'll always consider myself a home cook. A new cookbook--filled with colorful illustrations--melds memoir and recipes to tell a story about growing up. (Tram Nguyen) Your hilarious blog post, "How to Start a Grease Fire" was rewritten as a chapter in the book, but with a totally different take. A little more humble, but no less funny. LM: I updated it to go with the tone of the book, and to revisit the mistake. I love the mistakes; they make stories. I feel like a story is much less fun when it's perfect. I had never gotten around to learning about frying, since I'd never before had a kitchen where it was a good idea to fry. So the fire happened and I was just terrified to try again. Then I flew out to Chicago, and Tram and I did it together. Now, I'm much more confident. That said, I have always been pretty cavalier about mistakes. The thing about grease fires is that one mistake can actually be dangerous. How much of the blog made it into the new book? LM: Most of the book is original, with some adaptations and retellings of stories we may have mentioned on the blog. Advertisement TN: If it was a story we've told before, we expanded upon it, gave more details. Since you both learned your way around the kitchen through trial and error, do you have any tips for people who may be inspired by your experience of just diving in and experimenting? Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > TN: I think when you're trying new recipes, consider the source. A lot of recipes say they're simple, or very minimalist, but that's because they assume you know more than you do. I think if you're starting out, read a lot of reviews of the recipes. How have people who have tried the recipe responded, or tweaked it? LM: At one point, Tram said I should get Cooks Illustrated. I never feel like I'm in safer hands than when I have a book that is super-tested. I think learning the basics from Food Lab or Cooks Illustrated or Epicurious, these are key. I tailor my recipes to their instructions. TN: If you do make mistakes, that's how you learn for next time. What are you cooking right now? Advertisement LM: Leading up to getting married and being pregnant, I discovered I really like to bake. I find it very relaxing. I've been baking a lot in the last six months. I've felt less inclined to go out, so I bake when I'm listening to music. One thing I eat a lot of now is chocolate chip cookies. It's very cliche, but something about the last six months of pregnancy, I've had to have chocolate chip cookies every day. TN: In recent years, I've become more confident in my abilities, so I have been trying to recreate the dishes of my Vietnamese childhood. I never thought it was something I could possibly do. I've been slowly tackling these projects. ... [One thing that's great about the blog is that] there's no pressure. If I'm obsessed with dumplings, I can just make some and get to [writing about] it when I feel like it. It's nice to have something just for you, with no constraints, so you can be as creative as you want. jbhernandez@chicagotribune.com Twitter @joeybear85 Childhood and, in fact, the very act of being human involves a certain level of loneliness. The great news is, you can make money off it. For close to 80 years, if you go by Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" making history in 1937, all sorts and achievement levels of feature animation have preyed upon the fears, insecurities and isolating circumstances of growing up. The best Pixar features, like those pre- and post-digital from Pixar's parent company, Disney, have exploited that loneliness brilliantly, and the lesser Pixars have tried to do the same. "Finding Dory," the satisfying follow-up to the 2003 smash "Finding Nemo," amplifies the defining characteristic short-term memory loss of the blue tang fish voiced, then and now, with subtle warmth and unerring comic timing by Ellen DeGeneres. Advertisement What began as comic gold, with a delicate, bittersweet undercurrent, is now a sensitively handled disability. Flashbacks to Dory's childhood (Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton voice Dory's parents) reveal her barely recalled family life as a truly enviable and loving one. "Finding Dory," which more accurately would be titled "Nemo and Marlin Help Dory Find Her Folks," manages to raise its newly central character's emotional stakes without wiping out the comedy altogether. If the movie's good, not great, well, there it is. This would be an apt time to remember Pixar's track record when it comes to providing stockholder-friendly sequels to its properties. Besides "Toy Story 2" and, to a lesser degree, "3," "Finding Dory" is the only Pixar sequel to qualitatively justify its existence as a movie. "Cars 2" and "Monsters University" are best considered karmic payback for the glorious "Ratatouille," "WALL-E" and "Up" getting made in the first place. Advertisement "Finding Dory" takes place a year after "Finding Nemo." Dory fin-twists, gently, Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence of Aurora, Ill.) into aiding her in her search for the parents she only periodically recalls. The quest takes the trio to the coast of California and the Marine Life Institute, based visually on the Monterey Bay Aquarium. There, Dory meets her newest comrades. They include the misanthropic but redeemable "septopus" (octopus minus one tentacle) named Hank, voiced by Ed O'Neill, whose mission in life is not to leave captivity, but to stay in it. Beluga whale Bailey (Ty Burrell) and whale shark Destiny (Kaitlin Olson) join forces, and they're pleasant comic company. Andrew Stanton co-directed, with Angus MacLane, and co-wrote, with Victoria Strouse. The visual personality of the movie is fantastically vivid and bright, the story itself, less so. I think Stanton and company erred in confining so much of the action to the marine institute and on dry land. There's a typically complex and inventive action climax for a Pixar project, this one all around the hills and highways of what appears to be the coastal Bay Area. The open ocean is the reward for Dory, along with reuniting with her parents, and I felt slightly jerked around in getting to the reward part. Still, and this is a big "still": We're a long way from the contrivances of a "Cars 2" or "Monsters University." Will we ever again hit the Pixar heights of the early 21st century? Who knows. And technically it's still early in the century. Michael Phillips is a Tribune Newspapers critic. mjphillips@tribpub.com Twitter @phillipstribune "Finding Dory" 3 stars Advertisement MPAA rating: PG (for mild thematic elements) Running time: 1:43 Opens: Thursday evening RELATED STORIES: How writer-director Andrew Stanton found 'Dory' 13 years after 'Finding Nemo' Dear Mr. Miranda: Please read before 'Hamilton' goes to big screen Watch the latest movie trailers. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 126 Woody introduces the gang to a homemade spork toy with self-esteem issues in "Toy Story 4." Read the review. (Pixar / AP) Carlos Rodriguez, of Madrids Nuevo Ballet Espanol, rehearses "Iroko." The dance, by Rodriguez and Angel Rojas, will be a centerpiece of Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theater's annual "Flamenco Passion" at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts this weekend. (Dean Paul) When Dame Libby Komaiko started Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theater with a few student-dancers in 1976, "I wasn't thinking it was going to be like this! I had no idea it would grow into this huge eh!" she says, lost for words. "It's developed the way it's supposed to, but usually people have their business plan first, and then they have their company. This was the other way around." Marking 40 years, Ensemble Espanol offers its annual "Flamenco Passion" performances, part of the 2016 American Spanish Dance & Music Festival, Friday through Sunday at Skokie's North Shore Center for the Performing Arts. The program features works choreographed over the last 30-plus years, among them Komaiko's signature piece, "Bolero" (1993), plus four new dances, including a world premiere by Paloma Gomez and two U.S. premieres, one apiece by Spanish dancer-choreographers Angel Rojas and Carlos Rodriguez. Advertisement MOST READ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS THIS HOUR But the show's centerpiece by Rojas and Rodriguez, directors of Madrid's Nuevo Ballet Espanol is "Iroko," titled after an African tree and honoring the roots and branches of Spanish dance in Europe, Africa and the Americas. Spanish folk dance, which includes flamenco as well as less percussive styles like the sevillanas, grew out of a rich stew, including the influence of the Gitano (Romani) people, African Moors and the Celts, particularly in northern Spain's Galicia. These days, more contemporary, balletic Spanish dances have gained ground. Advertisement Yet "Iroko" choreographer Rodriguez maintains that Spanish dance today is essentially unified. To a question about American versus Spanish troupes, he says (via email), "There is no difference between companies that work with the heart and from the passion for Spanish dance and flamenco." He describes the original "Iroko" score, by Spanish composer Juan Parrilla, as "music to dance with poise, elegance and flow 'soniquete,'" a flamenco term roughly translatable as a passionate "groove." Like the proverbial mighty oak, Ensemble Espanol grew from a little acorn of passion. Komaiko, who first trained in ballet and modern and only later in flamenco (with Jose Greco), found her earliest dancers among the students at Northeastern Illinois University, where she taught until 2011. Though the seeds of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago were similarly modest basically, a few jazz-dance students performing in senior centers Komaiko suggests that Ensemble Espanol faced somewhat different challenges: "Those were styles that people think are American dance. But when you come to a rhythmic form, something different there are 26 nationalities that come to Northeastern. People don't seem to get that these are really American." At the same time, the fact that she is not of Hispanic descent sometimes proved an issue for the Spanish-dance troupe. Among Komaiko's earliest dancers were Jorge Perez, now Ensemble Espanol's executive director, and Irma Suarez Ruiz, now artistic director. Asked what she saw in Perez, a student aide totally untrained in dance, Komaiko says, "First, he was promising just as a human being." Once he started taking dance, "I saw the way his brain worked, his processing. "I can see in an instant," Komaiko explains. "I can tell from the eyes, and the way (students) work, right from the introductory class you can see who (has) dance inside of them, who wants it." At this point, Komaiko says, she's most proud of the Ensemble Espanol dancers and "that the (Spanish dance) tradition will be carried on. I'm excited to see what they'll do next." Though Perez and Suarez Ruiz are still performing some roles in Komaiko's "Bolero," for one Perez says that now most of the parts "created for us or that we created for the repertoire are being passed on at a wonderful higher level. Right now there's such excitement in watching these dancers embrace these roles." Simultaneous continuity and innovation are the lifeblood of most dance companies, especially those devoted to traditional forms; students and budding choreographers are crucial. At this point, Perez says, community classes and performances reach 26,000 people annually, thanks in part to the company's current four full-time dancer-teachers. "We're up to four (city-sponsored) After School Matters programs," he says. Classes for adults and children include a curriculum for ages 4 through 12, "and they get to audition for our youth company," Perez says, now so large it's divided into two age divisions. Advertisement "We want to reach out more to the Hispanic community" in terms of both students and audiences, says Perez, a native Puerto Rican. Recently tapped for "2016 Who's Who in Hispanic Chicago" by Negocios Now, a business publication, he notes that "the marketing sector of Ensemble Espanol needed to meet the company's artistic quality." To that end, he worked with Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses, and this year collaborated with another of its alumni, Chicago-based marketing firm Gameplan Creative. Clearly, forming alliances is crucial. And later this summer, Ensemble Espanol will perform in Spain for the first time. "It's not the company's mission to bring Spanish dance to Spain," says Perez. "But I said, 'Let's do it. Let's show them what Chicago has been home-growing these 40 years.' " Laura Molzahn is a freelance critic. When: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday Where: North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie Tickets: $26-$46 at 847-673-6300 or northshorecenter.org Advertisement RELATED STORIES: Giordano Dance honors all that jazz, past and present 'Rhythm Fest' brings Chicago neighborhoods together Watch the latest movie trailers. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 122 Sophie Turner as Jean Grey, anger management student, in "Dark Phoenix." The film, the latest in the "X-Men" franchise, costars James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Jessica Chastain. Read the review. (Twentieth Century Fox) Researchers report that paid family-leave laws that support father-infant bonding have made headway in the past decade, with both New Jersey and Rhode Island passing legislation. (Sally Anscombe / Getty Images) Elk Grove Village, IL Seven years ago, when he was a newly minted stay-at-home dad, Lance Somerfeld looked for a New York dads group that was holding meet-ups at playgrounds and kiddie classes. "It didn't exist," he says. Advertisement Today, the City Dads Group (www.citydadsgroup.com) meet-up Somerfeld started with a friend has expanded into a network of 6,000 dads in 22 cities, including Chicago (www.ChicagoDadsGroup.com), with offerings ranging from Dads' Nights Out to workshops on the nuts and bolts of parenting. RELATED: TRENDING LIFE & STYLE NEWS THIS HOUR Advertisement "Dads are just as interested in potty training, introducing solids, how to install car seats as moms," says Somerfeld. "So (we thought), wouldn't it be nice for experts to come and school us and be able to do it in a circle, with other men?" Fathers are more involved in their children's lives today than they were even 10 years ago, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics that draws on census data, surveys and a new wave of academic research. Among the findings: The number of stay-at-home dads increased by more than 60 percent from 98,000 in 2003 to 159,000 in 2012, according to the U.S. Census. Fathers spent 17 hours a week on child care and housework in 2011, up from 6.5 hours in 1965. Paid family-leave laws that support father-infant bonding have made headway in the past decade, with both New Jersey and Rhode Island passing legislation. "There is a shift," said Dr. Craig Garfield, a co-author of the report. "There's a palpable shift in what men's expectations are as they start to build families, and how that balances with work." City Dads Group co-founder Lance Somerfeld with his daughter, Jade, 1, and son, Jake, 7. (Lance Somerfeld) Garfield, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said research on fatherhood is a fairly recent phenomenon, so it's difficult to compare dads of today with fathers in the '60s, for example. But he said change is in the air, as evidenced not only by formal studies, but by cultural phenomena such as the rise of 'dad-vertising,' in which fathers are portrayed as capable, hands-on parents, rather than workaholics or bumbling oafs. "Madison Avenue understands what's happening on Main Street," Garfield said. "They know dads are out there and involved." Advertisement Moms still do more child care than dads, but the gap is narrowing. "Women are getting more advanced degrees, more women are entering the workforce and dads are being asked to take more of a role in child care," Garfield said. The report, published online June 13 and slated for publication in the July edition of the journal Pediatrics, also explores a wave of recent research focusing on the father's role in child development. A 2006 study found that, at 3 years of age, father-child communication was a significant predictor of advanced language development, while mother-child communication was not. (Fathers are more likely than mothers to introduce new words when talking to young kids.) Another study indicated that, when fathers were more engaged in infant care and play, children had better mental health at age 9. And several recent studies have found that adolescents with more involved fathers took part in fewer risky behaviors and experienced less depression. Garfield's interest in the role of fathers in their children's lives dates to 2000, when he took a year off work as a pediatrician to be a stay-at-home dad to his then-18-month-old son. Advertisement Garfield noticed that his son's pediatrician didn't pay much attention to him, the dad, focusing instead on his wife. Later, when Garfield was back at work and doing research, he started looking at the role of the father in the family. The report recommends that pediatricians make fathers feel welcome and encourage their involvement in their children's care. Other suggestions: Communicate with fathers, and stress the unique role dads can have in a child's development, especially when it comes to play. (Dads' so-called rough-and-tumble interactions may lead to better behavior and social skills.) Doctors should also consider screening fathers for postpartum depression, which has been found in 2 to 25 percent of new dads. Involved dads still face some barriers try to find a diaper-changing station in the men's restroom but Somerfeld, 42, sees signs of progress. When he told the principal at the school where he used to teach that he was taking a leave of absence to take care of his first child, the principal got on the speaker system and made an announcement to all 2,000 students and staff members: "I've got Mr. Somerfeld in my office here," the principal said, "and he's leaving us next year to become a modern man." nschoenberg@tribpub.com Twitter @nschoenberg Advertisement RELATED STORIES: The perception of Asian dads and masculinity Father's Day gifts with style Dads who yell have more aggressive teenagers Make sure you don't have athlete's foot or warts before getting a pedicure. (Emilie van Outeren / CNS) Warmer weather means its time for pedicure season. But take a peek at your feet ankles, toes, heels before you step into a pedicure chair. Advertisement Podiatrist Jacqueline Sutera, who practices in New York and New Jersey, said she sees people coming in post-pedicure who might have gotten infections or had untreated foot issues worsened by a pedicure. For example, athlete's foot can be disguised as dry skin on the bottom of the foot, and warts as calluses. Advertisement "It gets a lot worse in the summertime because of sweat," said Sutera of athlete's foot. A pedicure, moisture, foot filing or a pumice stone can make it worse, she said. And you don't want to risk infecting the person who comes after you. Warts can spread and shouldn't be in water touched by other people. They can hide in files, buffers and instruments, Sutera said. Shaving your legs before a pedicure is not recommended. "People can get an infection from the openings, the little micro scratches," Sutera said. "They don't think of it at all, and they're like, 'What happened to my legs? Did I get bit by something?'" Pay attention to any splinters or small cuts on your foot. Ingrown toenails don't pair well with a pedicure either. The color of your nails may also be an issue. If you have yellow toenails, it could be a fungal infection, and you should consider checking with a doctor. Sutera suggests not leaving polish on for longer than two weeks. Advertisement "Take it off, preferably wait a day or two, and let it breathe, and then put it back on," she said. And if you are in the pedicure chair, don't hesitate to take charge. Sutera suggests bringing in your own tools. The One Simple Thing series offers specific and small ways to improve health. abowen@tribpub.com Twitter @byalisonbowen The U.S. flag flies at half staff on June 12, 2016, above the White House following a Presidential order in observance of the mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. (MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EPA) Flag Day falls on Tuesday during the period of national mourning for the victims of the Orlando, Fla., massacre, which raises questions about how to observe both if you have a flag that can't be lowered to half-staff. President Barack Obama has ordered that flags fly at half-staff at the White House and all public buildings, military posts, naval stations and vessels, U.S. embassies and consular offices in the U.S. and abroad until June 16 "as a mark of respect for the victims of the act of hatred and terror perpetrated," just as he did after shootings in San Bernardino and after the recent deaths of former first lady Nancy Reagan and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Advertisement But there are instances when a flag cannot be lowered to half-staff like outside a home where the pole, with an affixed flag, sits in a bracket at a 45-degree angle. In those cases, displaying the flag normally is not considered disrespectful to those in mourning, flag experts said. Advertisement It is also an accepted tradition to attach a black ribbon or streamer to the top of the flagpole as a sign of mourning if a flag can't fly at half-staff though that is not spelled out in the U.S. flag code, experts say. Flying the flag still would honor those victims of the tragedy, said John Hartvigsen, president of the North American Vexillological Association, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study of flags, and flag historian for the Colonial Flag Foundation in Sandy, Utah. "It was not just an attack on the gay community and people in Florida, it was an attack on every American," he said of the shooting carried out by Omar Mateen, who went on a rampage at a gay nightclub, killing 49 people and injuring dozens more. Flag Day commemorates the day the flag was adopted in 1777. While it is meant to recognize the history and importance of the flag, the holiday takes on greater meaning during times like this, offering a moment of reflection, said Tim Lankford, assistant director for education and scholarships at the American Legion National Headquarters in Indianapolis. "We would hope, or I would hope, the flag symbolizes everything America stands for and its Constitution," Lankford said. "The flag has a much deeper meaning than simply a banner we run up on schools or federal buildings. It's a symbol of the freedoms fought for and guaranteed in our founding documents, from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the amendments that came down (over) the years, and the system of freedoms we enjoy and the way we enjoy them." lvivanco@tribpub.com Twitter @lvivanco Forty-four people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, seven of them fatally, bringing the total number of gun violence victims in the city this year to more than 1,650. At least 282 of them died of their wounds, nearly 100 more than the year before, according to data kept by the Chicago Tribune. The deadliest stretch of the weekend was between 6 p.m. Saturday and 5:25 a.m. Sunday, when three people were killed and at least 17 others were wounded, according to police. A 17-year-old boy was killed in Back of the Yards around 10:20 p.m. Saturday, and two men were slain around 1 a.m. Sunday on the front steps of a home in the Brainerd neighborhood. One of the men was in town from Wisconsin to attend the funeral of a friend who was shot to death earlier, according to a family member. Three more men were killed and at least 13 people, including a 5-year-old girl, were hurt in shootings between Friday evening and Saturday morning, according to police. A stray bullet hit the 5-year-old in the foot while she was in front of a home with a 34-year-old woman in Marquette Park around 8:10 p.m. Friday. A 26-year-old man was shot to death around 8:45 p.m. Friday and, less than an hour later, a 27-year-old man was killed, police said. An 18-year-old Hazel Crest man was shot dead in West Chatham at 1:30 a.m. Saturday. From Sunday morning to early Monday, a man was killed and seven others were wounded. The 32-year-old man, a father of three, was discovered shot to death around 8:35 a.m. Sunday in the driver's seat of a BMW in the Englewood neighborhood. Police are asking for help in finding an 18-year-old woman who has been missing from her West Rogers Park home for six days. Darnesha Gordon has been missing from her home in the 6200 block of North Francisco Avenue since Tuesday, according to a news release from the Chicago Police Department. Advertisement Gordon has had no contact with family and has not shown up for work, the release said. Gordon is 5-foot-7 and weighs about 150 pounds. She has a medium complexion and black hair. Gordon also has a tattoo on her upper back that says "RIP Corey Brown," according to the release. Advertisement Anyone with information about Gordon's whereabouts should call Area North detectives at 312-744-8200. Mary White served on La Leche League International's board of directors for several decades. (Provided by family) In October 1956, Mary White opened her suburban Franklin Park home to a group of mothers wanting to learn more about breast-feeding. A mother of six at the time, White had opted to breast-feed her last three children at a time when many considered breast-feeding unsafe and impolite. Advertisement "We would practically smother our babies with blankets to avoid showing any breast," said White's sister-in-law, Mary Ann Kerwin. "At that time, it was seen as a shameful act, which has since changed." Nearly 20 women gathered that evening for what became the first official meeting of what is now La Leche League International, a global organization based in Chicago. White, Kerwin and five other women formed the nonprofit organization to educate the public on the benefits of breast-feeding and to provide mother-to-mother support. Advertisement "They never thought it would be as big as it is," said her daughter Clare Daly. "They just wanted to help their neighbors learn more about breast-feeding. It was a grass-roots thing, and it spread." White, 93, a Chicago native who served on La Leche's board of directors for several decades, died of natural causes June 2 in her River Forest condo. The eldest of eight children, White was born Mary Kerwin on April 3, 1923. She earned a bachelor's degree in drama from Rosary College in 1944 and married Dr. Gregory White, a family practitioner, that same year. White began practicing natural childbirth and breast-feeding after giving birth to her third child but received little support from the medical community. "In the hospital there was a lot of resistance. Fathers weren't even allowed in the delivery room," Daly said. "But faith was so important, and that was part of what led her to these conclusions that God has a plan for us, and nature comes from God and we should trust it." Before the meeting at her home in 1956, White, who was breast-feeding at the time, was approached at a church picnic by several curious mothers who wanted to learn more about the safety and benefits of the practice. "They realized there was a need for other people to have support and information about breast-feeding," Daly said. "They invited anyone over who was interested and just talked about it. She was always counseling people on the phone from all over the place. She was pretty busy." Kerwin was 25 years old when she attended La Leche's inaugural meeting. The youngest founding member, she said she would not have succeeded at breast-feeding without help from White and her physician husband. Advertisement "I appreciated the help and support they gave me, so I was happy to help start this neighborhood club," she said. "I can't say enough about how important Mary was. We wouldn't have survived without her persistence and her help." White eventually had 11 children and well over 100 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. "She welcomed every new baby, every grandchild," Daly said. "She just loved life." White also is survived by three sons, Joseph, William and Michael; six other daughters, Mary Catherine Thornton, Anne White, Mary Regina Stirton, Mary Dooley, Maureen Smillie, Elizabeth Dillon; 61 grandchildren and 109 great-grandchildren. Another daughter, Margaret White, died in 1969; her husband died in 2003. Services were held. Advertisement nmoreno@tribpub.com Twitter @nereidamorenos Santina "Sonny" Litturi was one of just two women in her dental school's graduating class in the late 1940s and became the first female appointed to the Illinois State Board of Dental Examiners in 1979. "Sonny was a trailblazer in dentistry, doing what very few women of her generation did back then," said Frank Maggio, an Elgin periodontist and longtime colleague. "She had a long, successful career. She paved the way for so many others." Advertisement Litturi, 91, of Elmwood Park, died of heart failure on May 22 at MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn. "She was a wonderful dentist, smart and very dedicated to her patients," said Tom Powell, an Evergreen Park orthodontist. "She was confident, caring, opinionated and outgoing. When she spoke, it came straight from her heart." Advertisement The daughter of Italian immigrants, Litturi was born and raised on West Taylor Street in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood. Her parents, who spoke only Italian, lost their grocery store during the Depression and struggled to make ends meet. "She used to tell me how hard it was growing up," Powell said. "That there was very little money." A bright student, Litturi was awarded a Vito Marzullo Scholarship, named after the late Chicago alderman, and earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. With help from that same scholarship, she later graduated from U. of I.'s College of Dentistry in 1949. "She became a dentist against all odds," Powell said. "It's mind-boggling, but even her parents had no idea she was about to become a dentist until right before she graduated." Litturi started her own practice in Chicago then opened a new one in Park Ridge that she operated for nearly 40 years. During that time, she was tapped by former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson to serve on the Illinois State Board of Dental Examiners, helping to oversee the licensing of dentists, being the first woman to do so. "When she joined the board, there were only seven of us serving on it," said Powell, who at the time was chairman of the Illinois State Board of Dental Examiners. "She was a delight from day one." Litturi also served as the state's dental examiner for the North East Regional Board for more than 30 years. She retired from dentistry about 10 years ago but remained active taking adult education courses at Triton College in River Grove. "Sonny was a woman way ahead of her time, a real pioneer," Powell said. "She'd have given Hillary (Clinton) a run for her money." Advertisement There are no immediate survivors. Services were held. Joan Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter. With Dump Trump talk continuing and continuing and continuing, here are common questions about what the Republican National Convention could do in Cleveland next month, and why it probably won't act. Q: Can the Republicans' convention dump Donald Trump and pick another candidate? Advertisement A: Absolutely. The convention, when it meets, is the formal Republican Party, and can do whatever it wants, including setting and changing the rules as it sees fit. Q: Trump has more than 1,400 bound delegates and needs only 1,237. So what do rules have to do with it? Advertisement A: At least some Trump delegates were allocated to him based on election results, but the actual delegates selected were chosen by state parties or by a separate process, not by Trump. If convention rules allow the delegates to vote their personal preferences, he might not have 1,237. Right now, no one has a good count. In practical terms, if a majority of the convention supported rules to "free" the delegates (that is, allow them to vote their personal preferences), then we would know that a majority opposes Trump. Q: How would this happen? A: There are several possible options. Convention rules basically don't exist in advance. The convention's rules committee will determine what they are (based on what a Republican National Committee panel has issued in most cases) just before the convention meets in Cleveland on July 18-21. Then the full convention will have to approve them, as drafted or with amendments. Technically, the rules can be anything anyone can imagine as long as they get the votes. Q: How would the delegates be freed? A: The easiest way for the convention rules committee to do that is by eliminating language binding the delegates to vote as the states allocated them. If the committee did that, and if the full convention adopted that set of rules, then no delegate would be bound. Q: Aren't some delegates bound by state law as well? A: Yes, some states bind their delegates by law. But those laws are probably not practically or legally enforceable. No state is going to send law enforcement personnel to Cleveland to remove disloyal delegates. A lawsuit would probably fail based on current precedents. And besides: A nomination lost at the convention and restored by the courts afterward would hardly be worth having. For better or worse, what the convention chooses to do is going to be the final word. Q: How likely is any of this to happen? Advertisement A: First, someone has to offer an amendment. Fortunately for the Dump Trump group, North Dakota delegate Curly Haugland will push for freeing the delegates in the rules committee because he's a longtime opponent of bindingthem. So we can expect a vote. Q: Who will win that vote? A: The New York Times reported that "Trump can now count on about half" of the rules committee. But the conservative anti-Trump activist Erick Erickson counts "about 30% for Cruz, 25% for Trump, and 45% willing to go in the direction that saves the party destruction." Either could be correct. Q: But if fewer than half are for Trump, won't he lose? A: Not necessarily. Unbinding the delegates could easily result in chaos, given that there's no clear Trump alternative so far. And even if a likely alternative does emerge, some delegates who support still a different candidate might prefer Trump to that alternative. What's more, dumping Trump would also look undemocratic to some. Not only would delegates have to oppose Trump. They would have to oppose him so strongly that they would be willing to accept the significant downside. Q: What's the next step? Advertisement A: The full convention votes on the proposed rules and amendments. The same conditions apply if there is a specific vote on freeing the delegates: Those voting for it would not only be opposed to Trump, but so strongly opposed they too were willing to accept all the consequences of a convention revolt against the candidate who won the most votes and the most primaries. Q: Are there other ways to Dump Trump? A: Sure. As I said, the convention can make any rules it likes, and interpret them however it likes. For example, the current precedent is that if a delegate who is bound to vote for Trump abstains, his or her vote would still be registered anyway. But the convention chairman House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin could choose to overrule that precedent and allow bound delegates to abstain. Q: Which party leaders besides Ryan might have an important role? A: These leaders are important only to the extent delegates listen to them. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have delegates allocated to them at the convention, but those delegates aren't required to follow their candidates on procedural votes. Q: Coordinating all those individual delegates sounds like a nightmare. Advertisement A: Maybe. But we know the rules committee is going to vote regardless. Getting everyone who wants to Dump Trump to vote for unbinding the delegates doesn't seem all that hard to coordinate except that some might not vote with Dump Trump without a consensus alternative candidate. Q: None of this sounds very likely, does it? A: It all comes down to how many delegates oppose Trump so much that they're willing to accept the consequences for ridding the party of him. In normal circumstances, no one would consider it. Will this year be different? Most likely not, but if it is considered, this is how it will happen. Bloomberg View Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist covering U.S. politics. More than 25,000 art lovers gathered in Arlington Heights last weekend for the village's 14th annual Promenade of Art. (Karen Ann Cullotta / Pioneer Press) More than 25,000 art lovers gathered in downtown Arlington Heights last weekend for the village's 14th annual Promenade of Art. Featuring the works of more than 110 juried artists from across the U.S., this year's event honored acrylic painter Karina Llergo, a Mexico City native and Chicago resident, with the Best of Show award, the event's spokeswoman Elana Cohen said. Advertisement As one of 41 summer festivals orchestrated by Amdur Productions, the two-day event located on Vail Avenue and Campbell Street, in the heart of the village's downtown, also featured an array of children's art activities, live music, and food from the village's Tuscan Market, Cohen said. "We started planning the event last November, putting out calls to artists, who needed to upload four images of their work to be reviewed by our jury members," Cohen said. "We got tons of people applying to display and sell their art work, everything from paintings and photography, to ceramics, blown glass, handmade jewelry and sculptures." Advertisement "The event draws not just Arlington Heights residents, but art enthusiasts from across the suburbs and the city," Cohen said. kcullotta@tribpub.com Twitter @kcullotta Docent Dave Orleans shows visitors to Fermilab's annual Family Outdoor Fair what lies in the pond where kids skimmed the water looking for wildlife. (David Sharos / The Beacon-News) The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia usually invites the public indoors to attend expos and science demonstrations, but Sunday afternoon was a day to be outside for the ninth annual Family Outdoor Fair. The fair took place from 1 to 4 p.m. near the Lederman Science Center, where families could experience more than a dozen activities staged within the 6,800-acre complex. Highlights included a prairie scavenger hunt as well as a visit with Fermilab's herd of bison. The Northern Illinois Raptor Rehabilitation and Education Center, working in conjunction with local raptor trainers, gave kids the opportunity to interact with birds of prey including hawks, falcons and owls. Advertisement Sue Sheehan, of Fermilab's Education Office, said this was an opportunity "to experience all that Fermilab has to offer." "We have 1,100 acres of restored prairie here and the chance for people to see animals in their natural habitat," Sheehan said. "We have invertebrates in our ponds, and insects and a variety of activities where kids can just experience nature." Advertisement A Bird of prey exhibit was one of at least a dozen activities visitors could enjoy Sunday at the 9th annual Family Outdoor Fair at Fermilab in Batavia (David Sharos / The Beacon-News) Sheehan said over the years about 5,500 people have attended the fairs, with an average that ranges from 500 to 900 per year. The event, she said, is staffed using on site personnel as well as local volunteers who work as part of the "Docent" group. "These are field guides that lead trips here and we have people that come in like a Naperville group who are bringing telescopes so people can see sun spots," she said. "We also have people that are going to talk about 'chimney swifts' bird that are decreasing in numbers because there aren't as many factories or people using chimneys anymore. They are building artificial residences for them." Dave Orleans served as a docent Sunday and was helping kids skim life from a nearby pond using a fishing net. Orleans said he "worked as a park naturalist in another life" and that working with kids "is the most fun thing I know how to do." "There are a lot of weeds and algae in this pond and you may not think there is a lot of life here, but a lot of critters survive," Orleans said as he helped kids extract bugs and small fish from the net. "It's good that kids get to know that even if a body of water doesn't look that great, there is life there and a way for that pond to connect with nature. And kids will know now that something is there." Ana and Francisco Yumiceva brought their two daughters, Nadia, 7, and Ada, 13, to the pond exhibit and each took turns hauling weeds and pond life out of the water. Ana Yumiceva explained that the family lives in Florida but that her husband was here for a short time to work at Fermilab. "We love coming here and I found out about this event weeks ago," she said. "My older daughter Ada used to fool around with ponds when she was young, but when she came out today she said she wasn't going to try anything but she's changed her mind." "I'm actually happy we came," Ada said as she examined her net. "You get to find different kinds of animals that you don't often see there is a lot more wildlife than you think." Docent Dave Orleans shows visitors to Fermilab's annual Family Outdoor Fair what lies in the pond where kids skimmed the water looking for wildlife. (David Sharos / The Beacon-News) Kids were also drawn to the chance to look at the sun and sun spots through telescopes provided by the Naperville Astronomical Association. Eric Claeys of Naperville was one of at least three club members who brought his equipment to the Fermilab campus Sunday. Advertisement "When it's not too cloudy we show kids the sunspots, which are actually two to five times bigger than the earth," Claeys explained. "With these telescopes, you can see the sun spots and also solar flares." Ed and Mary Sotiroff of St. Charles said they were just looking forward to being outside with their granddaughters Hannah, 9, and Leia, 6, who both said they were looking forward to seeing some birds. "They've not been to this before, so I'm not sure they know what to expect, but we talked about stopping at a store and picking up some buffalo food," Ed Sotiroff explained. "We just want them to enjoy looking at nature and learning more about creation. There are all kinds of insects and things to catch in a butterfly net and we're just going to explore." David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News. Evacuations are taking place in Brookfield where a gas main was broken, officials said. According to a notice on the village's website, a large gas main was struck in the 4100 block of Deyo Avenue, near Ogden Avenue. Advertisement The police and fire departments are responding, and people in that area are being asked to evacuate, according to Village Manager Keith Sbiral. Residents will be informed by public safety personnel if they should evacuate, the notice said. People are asked to refrain from going near the 4100 block of Deyo to allow Nicor and public safety personnel to attend to the situation. Advertisement Traffic is also being rerouted in the area, according to Sbiral. Nicor estimates it may take up to six hours to repair the gas main. Check back for more information. A group of LGBT allies from the south suburbs say they aren't going to let a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. early Sunday morning deter them from marching in Chicago's Pride Parade later this month. Members of PFLAG's Tinley Park chapter, which held its regular monthly meeting Sunday afternoon at Zion Lutheran Church in Tinley Park, said it was important for the LGBT community and its allies to pull together in the face of unspeakable tragedy. Advertisement "We just need to go out there and show our solidarity," said Luis Medina, president of PFLAG's Tinley Park chapter and the father of a 23-year-old daughter who is gay. "We're a resilient group and we cannot sit and be afraid." "Otherwise," added a mother who wished to remain anonymous out of concern for the safety of her 27-year-old transgender daughter, "we're allowing that one person to terrorize all of us. We can't let that happen." Advertisement PFLAG members said they constantly fear their children will be targets of ridicule and even violence, but were shocked by the scale of Sunday's attack, which left 50 people dead and 53 others wounded in what is being described as the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent, had called 911 and pledged allegiance to ISIS prior to committing the attack, authorities said. "Usually we're worried more about if someone is going to say nasty things or maybe throw a punch or something," said a south suburban woman who asked to be identified only as "S," for fear of outing her 16-year-old transgender son. "This is a whole other level beyond that." Daily Southtown Twice-weekly News updates from the south suburbs delivered every Monday and Wednesday > Tinley Park resident Diane Kaffka said she believes the LGBT community is a particularly resilient one, and that while this event may initially sow confusion and fear within its ranks, it will ultimately respond with solidarity, pride and defiance. "Initially people are going to be like this, where you're just sad and shaking your head and not knowing what the hell could have happened that made somebody want to do this," she said. "But then out of that, somehow, the phoenix rises. "I'm almost thinking that there's going to be more people that come together, more celebration during Pride, more, 'Yeah, you think you got us down, but you don't.'" The father of a 23-year-old transgender son who asked to have his name withheld said he hoped the depravity of the incident would make people who are skeptical of or unsympathetic to LGBT lifestyles an opportunity to reassess their beliefs. "Now that this is bringing a big spotlight to the community, people are going to have to decide," he said. "Do you want to be one that hates everybody? Do you want to side with that idiot? Why?" Medina said he hadn't yet heard of any coordinated actions being taken by PFLAG in Northern Illinois in response to the mass shooting, but that he expects something will be organized in the coming days and encouraged allies in the Chicagoland area to attend Pride events over the course of the next two weeks. Advertisement The Associated Press contributed. Andy and Veronica Hunt, co-owners of Elevele in Highland Park, hold an open house at their dispensary on March 18, 2016. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press) Medical marijuana sales got off to a sluggish start for Lake County entrepreneurs who invested heavily in winning state licenses and setting up shop. Physicians have been reluctant to recommend marijuana to patients and initial registration for identification cards had been slow. Advertisement Adding to sellers' worries, Gov. Bruce Rauner's administration had been rejecting all of the new qualifying conditions recommended by the state's Medical Cannabis Advisory Board. Sellers' worries are now giving way to optimism in light of a compromise struck by the governor's office and lawmakers in late May. Advertisement "I think we are finally in a position to grow the program," said Joseph Friedman, a pharmacist and chief operations officer of PDI Medical, a Buffalo Grove dispensary with about 120 registered patients, up from 19 when it opened in December. Ben Kovler, a founding partner of Green Thumb Industries, conceded that patient numbers have not been as large as first expected. "We had to reset expectations early, but the industry is still growing at a strong pace," said Kovler, whose firm operates The Clinic Mundelein, which now has several hundred patients. The dispensary opened Nov. 9, the first day medical marijuana became available in Illinois. "The most recent action out of Springfield is positive for the industry and a great sign of compassion something that's come as a result of a lot of hard work and compromise," Kovler said. The legislative deal extends the pilot program until July of 2020. It also adds post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the list of qualifying conditions, and allows any terminally-ill patient with six months or less to live to be quickly approved as a registered patient. Doctors no longer will need to vouch that medical marijuana is likely to have therapeutic and palliative benefits for the patient when signing the eligibility form. "Rather than sticking their necks out about the benefits, all physicians will have to do is say, 'This is my patient and, yes, he has this condition,'" said Friedman, who believes the change should ease some physician concerns. The changes passed the Illinois House May 30 and the Illinois Senate May 31, but have not yet been signed into law. Advertisement The extension was agreed to by Rauner and the Republican leadership, according to a Rauner spokesman. Dr. Leslie Mendoza Temple, who chairs the state's Medical Cannabis Advisory Board, noted the pilot program arrived before doctors were educated about medical marijuana. "As a group, [doctors] tend to be conservative until we know what we're doing," said Temple, a Glenview physician who specializes in integrative medicine. "Physicians are a slow group to pick up on new practices right away." Friedman said patients who've bumped into resistance from their own physicians have found knowledgeable doctors willing to certify patients. But they're leery about gaining a reputation as a medical marijuana practice, he added. "Nobody wants to be coined Dr. Doobie," Friedman said. Joseph Wright, director of the Medical Marijuana Pilot Program in Illinois, reported June 1 that retail sales had totaled $10.8 million since the first dispensaries opened Nov. 9. In May alone, retail dispensaries sold nearly $2.3 million worth of marijuana to 5,186 patients. Illinois has 37 registered dispensaries and about 7,000 registered patients, according to Wright. Advertisement A medical marijuana patient holds a bottle of his medication on Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, in Mundelein. (Brian Nguyen / Chicago Tribune) Elevele, a Highland Park dispensary that opened in late March, has seen the number of patients grow by about 50 percent each week since opening with a half-dozen registered patients, said Andy Hunt of Lake Forest, who co-owns Elevele with his wife Veronica Hunt. The clinic's numbers now stand at about 80. Neighboring Deerfield also has a dispensary, Greenhouse, which opened in early January. Elevele's later opening meant some patients already had registered elsewhere. The state requires patients to choose a dispensary before making their first purchase so quantities can be easily tracked to prevent abuse. The state limits purchases to 2.5 ounces every two weeks. However, patients can switch dispensaries at any time. Kovler said the Mundelein clinic lost some of its original patients as they found dispensaries closer to home. "Being one of the first facilities to open we had a large number of patients early on," Kovler said. "Many patients don't realize how easy it is to switch dispensaries," Andy Hunt said. "It is as simple as changing the designation and e-mailing the form to the state." Advertisement Hunt said the 2 1/2-year extension of the state's pilot program will give businesses more time to realize a fair return on their investment. The extension, he said, also will give the state more data on which to fairly assess the program and its impact on factors like crime. The four-year program was set to expire at the end of 2017. Hunt also is heartened that PTSD will be added to the list of qualifying conditions, after the governor declined to approve PTSD and 10 other conditions last September. "It is not just huge for the industry, it is huge for the veterans," Hunt said. "In my opinion, Governor Rauner stepped up. I don't think he is a fan of medical cannabis, but he did it for the veterans and the patients" The bill adding PTSD to the list of qualifying conditions notes that on average, 22 veterans commit suicide each day, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs. Temple said there is strong evidence that marijuana is useful for pain, neuropathy, nausea, multiple sclerosis and vomiting from chemotherapy treatments. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, fewer people have died from using prescription opioids like Vicodin, OxyContin and morphine in states with medical marijuana laws, Temple said. "The gateway drug to heroin is opioid medicine, not marijuana," Temple noted. Advertisement Temple herself has written 186 letters certifying patients as having a qualifying medical condition. Of those patients, she's collected feedback from 42 patients that she has seen again. "I'd say 80 percent have had a good response, about 15 percent are still figuring out the right dose and about 5 percent didn't like it so they quit," Temple said. Kovler believes the industry has plenty to celebrate seven months after the start of medical marijuana sales in Illinois. The creation of safe supply chains has allowed patients to benefit from marijuana treatments, he said. "I'm super-optimistic," Kolver said. "And I think everyone on all sides should feel good about where we're at and what the future looks like." Pioneer Press reporters Rick Kambic and Mark Lawton contributed. kberkowitz@pioneerlocal.com Behold, the Imperial Superintendency of Public School District 60 and its many splendored thrones. But all dynasties fall to inertia and better ways. France's Bourbon monarchy fell to Robespierre's guillotine and Revolution. Bad things happen to the best and worst of kings. Advertisement Into District 60's convoluted, imperial management built lovingly for a decade by Donaldo Batiste now comes Chicagoan Theresa Plascencia, who will assume the throne next month. If all the signs now being sent by Plascencia are as they seem, the regal grandeur of District 60's upper management will exit with Batiste. Advertisement Not all at once, of course, because there are contracts, protocols and manners about leaving. But you can hear the ruffle of resumes being collated. It's the sound of change. Fired people who earn minimum wage are told to pack up and leave now. Those making 100 G's must be gently nudged out the door with pride intact. There are proper ways by which school administrators are shown the door by a new boss. No use being cruel. But someone is going. And they won't be coming back. Perhaps that alone won't resurrect a low-performing district, but you have to start somewhere. Without saying so directly, Plascencia implies that for District 60 and its 17,000 students to succeed, the guidance controls needed new software. There are three legs to the plan. First, she made a loud, organized effort to listen to all those who have complained for years about the district's inadequacies, in particular cocooned upper management that coagulated power. Advertisement Entrenched authority accumulates power and money in comparable ratios, and even Plascencia noted the isolation of different school functions. So, 11 senior managers will reapply for their jobs now. If you have ever gone through such a corporate reordering Plascencia calls it "structuring for success" some will rise, some stay in place in redefined roles and others exit because it was not clear what they did worth their salary. It's career Musical Chairs. Institutions pay for what they value. Waukegan schools apparently spend more money on their top 10 staff psychologists and pathologists than on their top teachers. If jangling the nerves of 11 administrators seems inconsequential, consider that among the top 30 earners in District 60, only a few are experienced teachers. The Top 12 earners under Batiste apparently did no teaching. They are the district's Millionaire Management Club, all making more than $100,000. Advertisement Two assistant superintendents make $330,000 together and lead a byzantine maze of jobs, titles and pay grades that are undecipherable except they all reported directly to Batiste. Four more designated as "coordinators" made $100,000 each and four more similarly compensated "directors" added to the salary scrum. Those totals, of course, do not include supplied health insurance, pension benefits and free cars. Everyone in District 60 except those at the top thought "the top" was a bloated oligarchy. If the district were exceptional, then scuffling about who made too much might be dubious quibbling. But District 60 has not graduated a high percentage of life-ready graduates in this century. Statistics shout. Parents, teachers and community leaders told Plascencia that District 60 had atrophied, and they were not getting nearly enough for their $170 million a year. Taken at her word, she will push unproductive salaries down into the schools into classrooms where the money always belonged. The new boss' plans include a third initiative that might seem obvious. Advertisement Lake County News Sun Twice-weekly News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday > There will soon be the first glimmerings of a "strategic plan," a management document that holds the greatest hope for transformation. The Strategic Plan adopted in many struggling districts nationwide is an all-encompassing, specific set of tailored standards that define the district's path to success. And most of all, the achievement of those rules will be measurable and measured. Every initiative is continually assessed and adjusted. With a "strategic plan," no one will doubt that District 60 is succeeding when it does, or avoid accountability for failure. The "plan" will show who is performing and who is not that includes students, teachers and administrators. Until this moment, management rules were so opaque that fixing flaws was lost in the fog. Specifically designed "strategic plans" guide how Toyota, Google and McIntosh make the world hum. It's the way really smart people manage their work product. Everyone from the superintendent to rookie elementary teachers would play with the same rules of success. It's a new era. Change has arrived, finally. The emperor is dead. Long live the queen. Advertisement David.Rutter@live.com Jay Miller may be one of the most wanted men at Stevenson High School after recently deciding to retire as director of special education, effective at the end of the 2019-20 school year. Even with a four-year advanced notice, school board members at Stevenson debated during a meeting last month whether they could bring themselves to accept Miller's retirement, a routine matter for the board when accepting most staff members' retirement paperwork. Advertisement Miller, who has educated hundreds of students with special needs during a 20-year career, has oversaw many changes to special education accomplishments board members didn't want to see end. When Board President Bruce Lubin asked for a motion to accept Miller's retirement, no member made a sound. Superintendent Eric Twadell said he also didn't want to lose the influential school leader, but he also noted how he did not want to prevent him from retiring. Advertisement "No one wants to let him retire?" a joking Twadell asked the board members. The board eventually made a motion and Miller's retirement was accepted, although one member expressed his sadness about Miller's eventual departure and voted against it. Another member abstained from the vote. Even though Miller did not attend the meeting, he said he regretted missing the debate over his 20-year career in special education. "It's flattering, there's no question," he said. "It's so flattering." After helping educate hundreds of teens with numerous special needs, Miller oversaw a major change in 2015, when Stevenson, Lincolnshire-Prairie View Elementary District 103 and Kildeer-Countryside Elementary District 96 left the Special Education District of Lake County and formed its own special education district. Called "The Exceptional Learners Collaborative," the new special education district recently completed its first year, saving residents of the three school districts money and the time spent to bus students during the school day to SEDOL facilities in Grayslake, according to the school districts. Miller started a career in banking, where he consulted for firms in Chicago, but he said he found the work meaningless. He spent weekends teaching a Sunday school class for special-needs students at a church work that motivated him to return to school and earn a master's degree in communication science from Northwestern University. He accepted a job teaching a special education class, and he said he found that he loved working with the kids. Advertisement Miller also was one of the first to talk with Twadell and other nearby schools about pulling students out of SEDOL and creating its own local special-education system. "He's a great guy and highly respected throughout the school and by the school board," Stevenson spokesman Jim Conrey said. "He's been a wonderful advocate for special ed students, and especially in his efforts to have as many as possible stay in the school during the day to learn rather than being bused elsewhere. He was a major force behind our decision to leave SEDOL and to create the ELC." Miller said he feels the end of his career coming. He noted that the remainder of his teaching career could be bumpy with the budget uncertainties in Springfield threatening K-12 education funding in general. But he said the future of Stevenson and his new special education district are positioned well financially. "We would not have gone forward with this if we didn't feel we were on good footing," he said. rwachter@pioneerlocal.com Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer The owners of a new breakfast eatery in Lincolnshire realize many first-time customers will question whether they made a typo in the restaurant's name, Strawberry Field. But co-owner Gus Romas said the name is spelled correctly, and it isn't a reference to the recognizable song created by The Beatles in the 1960s. Rather, the name is intended to make customers think about the business' food origins while they eat at the newly opened Strawberry Field Pancake and Cafe in the village, Romas said. Advertisement "When you name a business, you want something that people will remember," he said. "It's crazy, everybody over 60, they know the name of that song." Both under 60, Romas, 56, with his brother Sam Romas, 54, opened the breakfast-and-lunch diner, 410 N. Milwaukee Ave., Lincolnshire, at the former Simon Lin's Asian Bistro. The menu at Strawberry Field Pancake and Cafe features French toast, fruit smoothies, hamburgers and more, along with omelettes and their own original coffee blend. Advertisement The pancakes come with fruit compote. No preservatives can be found, Gus Romas said, and that's why the restaurant's name includes Strawberry Field. It is designed to prompt customers to think about unprocessed food, he said. "We wanted to be associated with something fresh, and something that comes from the ground," Romas said. "Our slogan is 'field to the table.'" The two brothers also own the Canteen breakfast-and-lunch restaurant in Barrington and Bo-Bo's Gyros in Vernon Hills. Gus Romas said they've worked for 30 years with a produce buyer who collects from farmers in the area. But the brothers also are entering a competitive area for breakfast places. To carve out their own space between the nearby Walker Bros Original Pancake House and Egg Harbor Cafe, the brothers are working the recipes of their native Greece into the menu, including Kalamata olives, egg-lemon soup, frittatas and more. The new restaurant also serves a "Strawberry Field" house coffee blend, along with a Greek-inspired blend. For that, Romas said he and Sam settled on Columbian beans and a mix ground by a firm in Wisconsin. Both are available by the cup or by the pound for customers to make at home. Raised in Greece, the Romas boys moved to Chicago as teenagers. "I came here on a Friday, and on Monday, I was picking up dishes in my uncle's place," Gus said, recalling how he started working at his uncle's 14-stool diner. The outside to Strawberry Field Cafe in Lincolnshire is pictured. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press) He said he wanted to start a restaurant at his new location in Lincolnshire 13 years ago, when he looked into leasing space at the former Denny's along Milwaukee Avenue in Lincolnshire. Simon Lin's Asian Bistro eventually filled the spot but when the restaurant closed in February, the Romas brothers decided to make a second push for the location, Gus Romas said. Advertisement Village officials were relieved to see a business repopulate a vacant building so quickly, said economic development director Tonya Zozulya. "We feel fortunate," Zozulya said. "It is very rare a commercial space doesn't sit vacant for a period of time between tenants." Romas described the move into Lincolnshire in a larger way. "It feels like a dream," he said. "So, 13 years later, here we are. What is it called? Destiny." rwachter@pioneerlocal.com Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer Declan Kampwirth, 5, of Niles, has his bike helmet fitted by Alix McNulty, coordinator of the Injury Prevention Program at Advocate Children's Hospital at Bike Niles Fest in Niles at Notre Dame College Prep at 7655 W. Dempster St. (Karie Angell Luc / Pioneer Press) Organizers called attendance at this weekend's Bike Niles Fest a record-breaker with more than 300 patrons at Notre Dame College Prep on Saturday. Attractions at the free event included BMX bike stunts, Safety Town, snacks, gymnastics demonstrations, giveaways and more. Advertisement Carl Maniscalco of Norridge, director of the Niles Family Fitness Center quoted John F. Kennedy in reference to the popularity of the event. "Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride," Maniscalco said. Advertisement Cyclists enjoyed the Robert W. Amling Memorial Route bike path. Niles Mayor Andrew Przybylo brought his bike and welcomed people during a presentation. "This builds community," Przybylo, who rides a Rocky Mountain Latitude, said to the audience. "We are becoming Bike Town USA." Other sets of wheels seen around the bike bonanza included recumbent bikes and mobility chairs. "You get paid in smiles," said Don Godshaw of Wilmette who serves on the board of directors of Adaptive Adventures, a non-profit entity based in Elk Grove Village and Lakewood, Colorado. Godshaw was among those on wheels who took a spin or a straight shot on a steamy day through a blacktop water circle created by an aerial truck sprinkler, courtesy of the Niles Fire Department. Katie Schneider of the Niles Chamber of Commerce Dollars for Scholars program recognized six area students with scholarships. "The cost of education has been rising," Schneider said, noting that the greater Niles area includes students from lower to middle income families. The half-dozen scholarships, $1,000 each for eighth-graders and $3,000 each for high school seniors, total a $12,000 disbursement for 2016. Advertisement "So the need is growing," Schneider continued. "Our program helps with that." Marguerite Bambic, a 2016 Evanston Township High School graduate, said she will study theatre at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. "I'm really excited and I'm really grateful for this scholarship," Bambic said. "I'm going to use it ($1,000 scholarship) to get all of the supplies I need in high school to do the best I can," said Tayanna Lilly, 14, of Cary and an incoming Cary-Grove High School freshman. "I'm so proud of her," said Tayanna's mother Jennifer Lilly. "She's an amazing, young, beautiful lady." Other learning opportunities included the importance of bike helmet and safety precautions. Advertisement "We must have a proper fit," said Alix McNulty, coordinator of the Injury Prevention Program at Advocate Children's Hospital in Evergreen Park. "Children without a helmet are at a higher risk of injury or fatality," McNulty said. Cafe Descartes intends to open its newest coffee shop in downtown Oak Park after signing a lease at 1018 Lake St. (David King & Associates, Inc. / Handout) Years after losing its Starbucks coffeehouse, downtown Oak Park will get a new coffee shop later this year. Officials announced Chicago-based Cafe Descartes has signed a lease to occupy the vacant storefront at 1018 Lake St., steps away from the Lake Street Theatre. The new coffee shop will be just east of Fannie May Chocolates. Advertisement Cafe Descartes owner Sony Javid said he will be meeting with a contractor this week to discuss construction at the location, with hopes of opening later this summer. "It's very important when I was looking for a location," Javid said of expanding into Oak Park. "I think in a couple of months, we should be open." Advertisement Anthony Gamez of David King & Associates Inc. said the location was home to Oak Park's first Starbucks, and later became Cheryl's, a former cookie shop. "Starbucks used to do very well there, but they outgrew the space," Gamez said. "We knew coffee did very well, and we wanted to move back to that similar type of use. We're very excited to bring a cafe back into this space." According to a press release announcing the move, the new 910-square-foot location will be Cafe Descartes' seventh location in the Chicagoland area. Founded in 1991, Cafe Descartes serves coffee, tea and cafe-style food items, including its signature Oatmeal Latte. sschering@pioneerlocal.com Twitter: @steveschering Lawrence McIntosh, 64, a Gary native who had recently returned to his hometown from Arizona, was found stabbed to death Sunday morning, on a grassy bank of the Marquette Park lagoon in Gary, police said. Just three days earlier, McIntosh's 89-year-old mother made a report to Gary police, saying she received an apparent threat from involving a large amount of missing cash, Deputy Chief Derrick Cannon said Monday. Advertisement Her information wasn't clear, just that she "felt uncomfortable" after the call, which originated in Arizona, regarding her son and perhaps $20,000 that her the caller claimed was missing, Cannon said. Investigators wouldn't say what McIntosh, whose home address is listed in the 1100 block of Morton Street on the city's west side, might have been doing on the north side of Lakeshore Dunes apartments when he was apparently stabbed to death. Police said McIntosh recently moved to Arizona. Sources said it appeared his assailants tried to roll his body down the embankment into the lagoon. Advertisement Detective Cpl. Edward Gonzalez is leading the homicide investigation. Gonzalez and Detective Cpl. James Bond also investigated the shooting death of McIntosh's son, Lawrence Z. McIntosh, who was 28 when he was killed outside Rico's Pizza in the city's Black Oak section on Aug. 2, 2012. In that case, McIntosh was shot by a man who pestered him for money at the liquor store next door to the pizzeria. Daryl Henderson was convicted of murder in a jury trial that concluded on Nov. 24, 2013. Police don't believe the two deaths are related. Anyone with information about the most recent homicide can call the homicide task force at 219- 755-3852. lcaldwell@post-trib.com Adam Clough, left; Rose Fier and Frank Huttula comfort Marcy Clough, center right, as she mourns the loss of Edward Sotomayor Jr. during a prayer vigil in Munster Sunday evening. Sotomayor was one of the first people identified as deceased in the Orlando shooting that killed at least 50 people and injured 53 more. (Michelle L. Quinn, Post-Tribune) (Michelle L. Quinn / Post-Tribune) Members of Northwest Indiana's LGBTQ community had a message Sunday evening for those who continue to wish them harm: Only love is real. More than 20 people gathered in the parking lot of Reiki Energetix in Munster to pray for those who were killed or otherwise harmed during the nightclub shooting in Orlando earlier that morning. Several of them said they knew one of the first men identified Edward Sotomayor Jr., a Florida travel agent who worked with the RuPaul Drag Cruises and emotions ran the gamut from stunned to horrified to deeply saddened. Advertisement Sotomayor, or "Tophat Eddie," as he was known to cruise goers, was remembered as an effervescent force of nature who could always be counted upon for one simple, yet meaningful thing: hugs. "He would walk around (the cruises) with a sign that said 'Free Hugs,'" said Adam Clough, of Portage, who attended the vigil with his mom, Marcy Clough. "We just lost a student of ours (Jeremy Dabney, of LaPorte) from the Lake Station Boys and Girls Club this week, and he was a hugger, too. Knowing both of them are in heaven now ... this has been a horrible, horrible week." Advertisement A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday, killing at least 50 people and shooting more than 50 others before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Marcy Clough said when she awoke this morning to the news on social media, one of he first things she saw was a video Sotomayor had posted from the club. Her stomach dropped when she saw it was posted 24 minutes before the shooting occurred. "We knew he was in there, and we'd just hoped he'd gotten out," she said, her eyes welling up. "His boyfriend made it out. "He'd already been planning our next cruise to Cuba and had found a school that we were going to sponsor. That's who he was. I'm angry that this happened." Jeremy Gregson, of Griffith, said he too was grief-stricken over the shooting. He knew Sotomayor only peripherally, but he'd been to Pulse, the club in which it took place. "I'm enraged. I'm truly enraged," Gregson said. "Not in a million years would I think that club would be the site of a terrorist attack, especially after discovering the guy in L.A." Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 94 Omar Mateen, right, with his wife, Noor Zahi Salman, and their son. (Facebook) Jim Brilmyer, a member of the LGBTQ community center Rainbow Serenity, asked when the hatred was going to end. "We're all human," Brilmeyer said. "I don't care about your religion. My blood pumps through my veins just like everyone else's, and you have no right to take my life." Advertisement Life will continue on even as the thought of danger hangs over their heads, said Josh Wagman, also of Rainbow Serenity. "Honestly, we just keep on," Wagman said. "There's negativity in the world and coming from our own government, but we have to keep moving forward no matter what. People still need our support." Tribune Wire Services contributed to this story. Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune. The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band recently was named winner of the the 2016 Skokie Award For Artistic Excellence. (Mike Isaacs / Pioneer Press) Anyone familiar with McCracken Middle School in recent years knows that awards, recognitions and accolades are no stranger to band director Chip De Stefano and his student musicians. To give but one example, few middle school bands have performed at the international Midwest Clinic, but McCracken's Symphonic Band under De Stefano has been there twice. Advertisement This month, De Stefano, along with the popular Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, were awarded with the 2016 Skokie Award For Artistic Excellence. Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen said he has attended several McCracken Middle School Symphonic Band performances. Advertisement "How Chip can get such wonderful music out of such young people is just truly a wonder," the mayor said. "If you close your eyes, and you listen, you would think you're listening to the Chicago Symphony. I'm not exaggerating." The Skokie Fine Arts Commission presents the individual and group award to artists every year. Fine Arts Commission Chairwoman Andrea Siegel noted that De Stefano has different students every year so he is unable to build from the same musicians one year after another. "You have a new group of kids every year where you're best kids have just left and gone to high school," she said."He is truly gifted." De Stefano is currently in his 20th year at McCracken Middle School. A few years ago, before the Symphonic Band headed to the Midwest Clinic, he told the Review he never intended to become a middle school band director. "For me in my mind, it was high school all the way," he said. "I would get my doctorate and teach college." But De Stefano admitted he fell in love with teaching students of this age and has never looked back. According to the Fine Arts Commission, the Symphonic Band under De Stefano has received first division ratings at all division and state organization contests of the Illinois Grade School Music Association, performed multiple times at the Illinois Music Educators Association All-State Conference and the University of Illinois Super State Band Festival and more. Advertisement The leader of the band was presented the award June 6 at a Skokie Village Board meeting at which his family, District 73.5 faculty, and students and alumni were on hand. "For the Fine Arts Commission to recognize my work as contributing to improving the arts in Skokie is really humbling and really special," he said. "It does mean a lot to me." De Stefano said the award for him, though, is really about the kids. "I don't make a sound," he said. "I stand up there and wave my arms. The kids make the music." The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, founded in 1983 by Lori Lippitz, is named for Chicago's old Sunday morning Jewish marketplace, according to the band. "In the years since, Maxwell Street has become the Midwest's most popular klezmer band, touring seven times in Europe and performing throughout the (United States), including Carnegie Hall," according to the band web site. Advertisement "Who hasn't heard this world class music?" Van Dusen said. "Wherever the band plays, it brings enormous credit on the village of Skokie." While the band has performed in many prestigious venues in the country and even globally, Siegel noted, it is headquartered in Skokie, and many members including Lippitz live here. The band also continues to perform at major local events in the village. "Without our arts, Skokie would be just another suburb instead of the thriving hub of creativity that it is," Lippitz said. "When an American population assimilates, as the American Jewish population has been doing, the music that used to provide the soundtrack to our lives begins to fade away." The award winners are added to a plaque that permanently hangs at the North Shore Center For the Performing Arts. misaacs@pioneerlocal.com Twitter @SKReview_Mike Mark McDonald, the former information technology director of the DuPage County Forest Preserve District who faced corruption charges related to his government post, has died, according to court files. (DuPage County sheriff's office) The former information technology director of the DuPage County Forest Preserve District, who had been facing corruption charges related to his government post, has died, according to court files. Mark McDonald, 56, of Wheaton, died May 25, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, according to the death certificate filed in his DuPage County criminal case. The certificate did not list a cause of death other than to say it was from natural causes. Advertisement Attorney Ernie DiBenedetto, who represented McDonald for much of the criminal case, said McDonald suffered from scleroderma, which is an autoimmune disorder. DiBenedetto said McDonald's health had deteriorated over the last several years. McDonald had become so ill that it was almost impossible for him to assist in his own legal defense, DiBenedetto said. Advertisement DuPage County prosecutors formally dismissed the felony charges against McDonald on Friday at a previously scheduled status hearing. McDonald, a subordinate of his and an outside contractor were charged in 2012 with dozens of charges of kickbacks and misconduct related to district contracting for computer and telecom services. The other two men had gone on trial together last fall. McDonald had been scheduled to be tried with them but was excused for health reasons. He had been expected to plead out in March but instead he came to court with new legal counsel, which further delayed his case. McDonald and IT department employee David Tepper were charged in 2012 with failing to disclose outside business interests that conflicted with their jobs with the forest district. Authorities also alleged that Tepper and McDonald received kickbacks from the outside contractor in return for their aid in procuring a district contract. At the bench trial, though, the judge acquitted the outside contractor. Tepper was found guilty of illegally participating in a government contract and official misconduct for failing to disclose his outside business interests, but the judge found him not guilty or dismissed other corruption counts. He was sentenced to six months in the county jail and is appealing his conviction. Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter. Elizabeth Pattara is the new president of Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. She is the first president of the Catholic girls' high school to be chosen from outside the congregation of the Adrian Dominican Sisters who founded the school in 1958. (Kathy Routliffe / Pioneer Press) Elizabeth Pattara, the new president of Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette, has no doubt the education she received at a Jesuit high school in Scranton, Pa., helped shape the woman she is today. Now Pattara Regina's first non-Adrian Dominican Sisters president since that Catholic religious community opened Regina in 1958 said she wants to help pass its rigorous, faith-based tradition to new generations of girls. Advertisement "I think education is the solution to every problem. I went to a college prep Catholic school and I came out of it with a strong foundation, with values and morals, knowing how they apply in real life," Pattara, 39, said on June 2, a day into her new job. Regina Dominican, with its roughly 300 students and more than three dozen teachers, administrators, and staff, was nowhere on her horizon when she learned in February the school was looking for a new president, following the decision by former head Sister Mary Margaret Pachucki to leave the office in order to join the Adrian Dominican Sisters' national General Council. Advertisement Pattara had some teaching experience with AmeriCorps shortly after university graduation, but returning to education didn't figure into her plans, she said. She'd already had one career change, spending 15 years in the financial services industry after initially studying retail fashion marketing. She'd had a successful decade-long career with the Vanguard Group, and had started her own company, Samadhi, a yoga-based stress management consultancy for business people. But she was intrigued when a fellow board member of the Kellogg Alumni Club of Chicago told her about the opening. "He knew all the right buttons to push when he called me and said 'Hear me out' about the school," Pattara said, of hearing from a friend about the opening. "He knew I was all about empowering girls." Sarah Thorrens and Robert Cerone, co-chairs of Regina Dominican's search committee, said last week they knew shortly after Pachucki announced her retirement in mid-2015 that the Adrian Dominicans had no one ready to step into her shoes. For the first time, the school would need to look outside the religious community for its leadership, which was itself a big decision, Thorrens said. Pattara's business background, and her grounding in faith-based education, convinced the search committee that she fit the bill, she said. "We felt she really got it," Thorrens said. "She had a wonderful demeanor. She's very, very intelligent and very much of a good listener; she's someone who is quietly strong, but who can get up in front of a group and deliver a message. "She is truly the epitome of what we want a Regina girl to be." Cerone said he was looking for "a game changer" and knew Pattara would be perfect for the job the moment he met her. He and Thorrens both said Regina's next president needed to be someone who could navigate the challenges a small, single-gender Catholic school faces not least of which is financial, Cerone said. Advertisement "Fundraising in these small schools is so, so important," Cerone said. Thorrens said Pattara had the skills to sell Regina to parents and donors alike. "We need to make sure people understand just how important an option it is for young women to have this school," Thorrens said. Pattara said Regina must stand out in a North Shore landscape that already includes top-quality public and private high schools like New Trier and Loyola Academy. Selling a single-gender Catholic girls' school is a challenge, Pattara said, but Regina's low teacher-student ratio, quality of teaching, community, and the values girls get from a faith-based school are great selling points. Regina won't become a 4,000-student school, nor should it, she said. Advertisement "There is a value in a boutique approach to education. I think people understand that," she said. Pattara has familiarized herself with Regina's "Vision 2020" strategic plan, which launched in the 2011-12 year. She said the school has met many goals in the program, which aims to help rebrand Regina as a molder of leadership in young women with the help of business, university and other school partners, "but we're not done yet." "There's still work to do on stating what leadership in Regina looks like. There's still work to do on communicating our vision," she said. In the next 60 to 90 days, she'll meet with school staff, including Principal Meg Bigane, and with school supporters to plan ways to raise Regina's profile, she said. Pattara also wants to meet with Regina students, and with the parents of seventh and eighth grade girls who may ultimately choose Regina as their high school. "This is a growth process. But what it means to me is helping children, young women, learn to think and process, to become leaders, and I'm excited to start the job," she said. With the scope and penalties of Chinas social credit system being further clarified in 2021, legal and regulatory compliance has become more important than... You are here: Home Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has purchased two vineyards in the famed Bordeaux winegrowing region in France the Chateau Guerry and the Chateau Perenne for nearly 12 million euros ($13.56 million), the Agence France-Presse reports. The news agency says the 64-hectare Chateau Perenne produces about 500,000 bottles of red and white wine annually, while the smaller, 20-hectare Chateau Guerry produces 84,000 bottles of red a year. Their owner, French wine magnate Bernard Magrez, confirmed the sale to AFP after the transaction was reported by British magazine Decanter. It comes four months after the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba bought the Chateau de Sours vineyard in Bordeaux, which includes an 18th century castle and an 85-hectare property, producing 500,000 bottles of wine a year. AFP reported more than 100 properties in France's southwest wine-producing area are owned by Chinese tycoons. This makes up 1.5 percent of the region's 7,000 vineyards. Wine exporters toasted an upturn in Chinese wine consumption in 2015 after a two-year decline, according to data from the International Vine and Wine organisation. Chinese imports jumped 44 percent to 5.5 million hectoliters, while overall consumption in the country grew by 3 percent to nearly 16 million hectoliters. Pakistan's Minister of Commerce Engr. Khurram Dastgir Khan addresses the China-South Asia Business Forum organized on the sidelines of the 4th China-South Asia Expo in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in Southwest China on 12th June 2016.[Photo / China.org.cn] Pakistan's Minister of Commerce Engr. Khurram Dastgir Khan has said that the visionary "Belt and Road" initiative, which aims to revive the fabled Silk Road of yesteryears, will bridge social, economic and cultural gaps within regions, equally, fairly, and in an open and inclusive manner. The Minister said this Sunday in Kunming during his keynote speech at the China-South Asia Business Forum organized on the sidelines of the 4th China-South Asia Expo. Mr Dastgir is leading the Pakistan delegation at the Expo in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in Southwest China. The Commerce Minister further said that the stage had been set for an unprecedented economic integration between China and South Asian countries in the days to come, which would help fight the menace of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, malnutrition and disease in South Asia and offer people a better standard of life and economic opportunities. The Minister of Commerce also spoke in detail on the significance of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as a flagship project of the Belt and Road" initiative. CPEC will combine China's financial and industrial capacity and technological prowess with Pakistan's plentiful resources, hard-working labour force and potential market. He said that the Government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif attached the highest priority and importance to this project and its timely implementation, for which viable mechanisms had been put in place. The Minister expressed the confidence that CPEC will serve as the strongest pillar of economic, commercial and cultural connectivity between the two countries for many decades to come. He pointed out that Industrial and investment cooperation, especially the establishment of industrial zones in Pakistan, was an important aspect of CPEC. He also stressed the regional impact of CPEC as it will herald a new era of regional development and prosperity, benefitting billions of people in the process. The Minister also attended the opening ceremony of the Expo today, which was attended among others by high ranking dignitaries from China and other South Asian countries. The Minister visited the Pakistan Pavilion and interacted with the Pakistani exhibitors. He expressed satisfaction on the overall layout of the Pakistan pavilion and the facilities provided to the exhibitors. He also expressed appreciation for the organizers for allocating 234 booths to Pakistan, which is much higher than last year and makes Pakistan Pavilion the largest country Pavilion in the Expo. The China-South Asia Expo (CSAE) originated as South Asian Countries Trade Fair in 2007, which was held in Beijing. From 2008 onwards, the South Asian Countries Trade Fair was held annually in Kunming along with the China Import and Export Fair, Kunming. In 2013, the South Asian Countries Trade Fair was renamed as China-South Asia Expo (CSAE). The 4th CSAE is being held in Kunming from 12-17 June 2016. TDAP, FPCCI and KCCI are participating in this year's Expo. Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) signed a memorandum of understanding on tourism cooperation with Chinese internet giant Baidu in Bangkok Monday, in a bid to make travel easier for Chinese tourists visiting the kingdom. In the signing ceremony, Baidu unveiled the newly upgraded Baidu Map, which is a popular mapping app in China and now also available for Chinese visiting Thailand. As soon as Chinese visitors arrived, there would be a push notification from the Baidu Map on their smart phones welcoming them, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu. With data from TAT, the mapping app in Chinese language can help Chinese tourists visiting Thailand find the location of tourist attractions, restaurants, products and services. Baidu, on the other hand, will provide information on tourist trends and characteristics for TAT. Srisuda Wanapinyosak, deputy governor for Asia and South Pacific marketing of TAT, said TAT and Baidu share the same goal of helping Chinese tourists here, so they decided to cooperate. According to Srisuda and Paul Chen, general manager of Baidu Thailand, more and more Chinese tourists chose to come by themselves instead of coming with tour groups, which means the mapping app will be useful for many. TAT and Baidu will work together on the "Amazing Romance in Thailand" in July by compiling the information of locations related to love and romance, and also on the "Women's Journey" project in August, during which information of shops and businesses that participate in will be provided on the app. The duo will also will work together on a "Smart Guide" project. Chinese visitors can use the mapping app on their smart phones to scan the QR-code at some tourist attractions to hear their history and story in Chinese language. "TAT aims to restructure the market by expanding to high-end tourists from various cities of China. This cooperation will allow TAT to reach this target group directly and rapidly," said Yuthasak Supasorn, TAT governor. Although Baidu Map is currently in Chinese, the company also plans to attract local users in the future. "Our first step is to provide our mapping service for Chinese tourists, then for Chinese Thai and finally for Thai people with a Thai version of the app in the future," said Dangen She or Daniel, general manager of Baidu Global Maps product. Baidu Map, accounting for about 70 percent of mapping market in China, has extended its mapping service to about 50 countries and regions outside Chinese Mainland since the Chinese new year in 2016, said Zhang Jing, Marketing Consultant of Baidu, adding that the information on the app will be updated regularly. According to a statement from organizers of the event, there are 500 million Baidu Map users now. Top political adviser Yu Zhengsheng restated the mainland's stance on Taiwan affairs on Sunday to firmly uphold the 1992 Consensus and oppose "Taiwan independence". Adhering to the political foundation of the 1992 Consensus, which states that both the mainland and Taiwan are parts of one China, cross-Straits relations will enjoy a prosperous future, he said, adding that the key for peaceful development is to uphold the consensus and strongly stand against secessionist activities. Yu made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the eighth Straits Forum in Xiamen, Fujian province. He also urged people from both sides of the Straits to continue to deepen their communication. "The more complicated cross-Straits ties become, the more we need to deepen people-to-people exchanges," he said. The stance was outlined by the highest-ranking leader on the mainland after Taiwan's newly elected leader, Tsai Ing-wen, took office on May 20, said Zhu Songling, director of Beijing Union University's Institute of Cross-Straits Relations. Tsai has not yet explicitly endorsed the 1992 Consensus. However, most Taiwan residents support peaceful development between both sides of the Straits, said Jason Hu, vice-chairman of the Kuomintang. "There have been ups and downs in past decades, sunny days and rainy days," Hu said of cross-Straits relations, adding that people from both sides want peace. "The achievements we've seen in the past have not been easy tasks." Hu added that it is important to develop mutual trust at this sensitive time. "It may be difficult to promote political exchanges now, but exchanges in trade, commerce and nongovernment fields never stop, benefiting people from both sides," he said, proposing that politics be put aside to promote trade and commercial exchanges. Although he conceded that political exchanges have cooled, Huang Hai-lung, president of the Overseas Chinese Association based in Taipei, said he has no concerns about nongovernmental communication. "Nothing can stop people's communication. No matter what stance politicians take, nongovernmental communication continues, which enhances mutual understanding," he said. Zhang Zhijun, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said he is optimistic about cross-Straits relations and added, "Nongovernmental communication has not only continued, but should be reinforced and deepened. The main force to drive peaceful development between the mainland and Taiwan is not from the government, but from the people." Chang Yung-chiang, speaker of Taiwan's Lienchiang county council, said Tsai's ambiguous attitude may affect communications between both sides of the Straits. "A leader should take a stance," he added. You are here: Home An entrepreneur is to attempt China's first solo globe-circling flight. The Chinese-American entrepreneur Zhang Bo. [File Photo: china.com] Zhang Bo, a Chinese-American entrepreneur, will embark on the adventure alone from Beijing on August 7 in his own SOCATA TBM 700 light aircraft. Details were given at a news conference in northwest China's Gansu Province on Sunday. Zhang will fly approximately 40,000 kilometers by way of 20 countries, on a route which includes the first ever flight along the ancient Silk Road. The entire trip is expected to take 58 days, with Zhang making 50 stops along the way. Several media companies have reportedly already signed contracts with the entrepreneur to make documentaries and other television programs of his journey. You are here: Home Premier Li Keqiang on Monday offered condolences to the United States after a fatal shooting in Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday. "China opposes terrorist action in all forms," Li said in a joint press conference after his talks with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Great Hall of the People. Li expressed condolences for the victims, extended deep sympathy to their families, and hoped for the speedy and safe recovery of those who were wounded. Merkel said she was shocked by the incident, and expressed condolences and sympathy, on behalf of Germany, to the victims and their families. Li and Merkel co-chaired the fourth round of China-Germany intergovernmental consultation on Monday morning. Photo provided by Orlando Police Department shows a FBI officer (C) speaks to the media about the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, the United States, June 12, 2016. About 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday morning in a shooting incident at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, according to Orlando mayor. [Xinhua/Orlando Police Department] Fifteen years from the first time the War on Terror was declared, the United States had the biggest terror attack since 9/11. A club, famous among the LGBT crowd in the United States, in downtown Orlando, Florida, was attacked by an individual with assault weapons and grenades. There were conflicting reports, initially about the number of deaths, and the hostage situation, but after the smoke has cleared, so to speak, the death toll stands at 50, with over 53 injured. The suspect is dead, as he was engaged by the first response team. This brings us to the suspect, who was identified as Omar Mateen. He was an Afghan American, but was born in the U.S., and not a refugee or migrant. According to primary reports by the FBI, the suspect was "known" to harbor Islamist jihadist tendencies and sympathies. New sources claimed that his family reported he got terribly angry when seeing men being close, during the month of Ramadan, and was in a disturbed state ever since. The rifle that was used for this massacre is an AR 15, which is frequently used in the U.S., and common due to the availability of guns in U.S. culture. Unfortunately, this shooting comes at a time, extremely sensitive for the U.S. presidential election and the effect on the World. Fifteen years since George W Bush declared the War on Terror, it is evident that Islamism and extremist Jihadist ideology remains a potent force. However, it has morphed into a completely new phenomenon, very different from the early jihadism seen at the start of this century. Within minutes of this massacre, there were social justice warriors on twitter railing against American gun culture, as it was presumed that this particular atrocity was also carried out by an ultra-right wing, pro second amendment and mentally unstable person, as has been the norm in the U.S. Those voices quickly became defensive and then died down, when news started to pour in that the perpetrator was an Islamist with known hatred for American culture, and especially the LGBT crowd. While this portrays the polarized debate within American political discourse about the right to bear arms and have guns, it also shows how Islamism is a polarizing factor in American politics. The impact of the debate will have a major effect on the American elections. Let's get this straight, younger Americans, especially the millennial generation, don't want to constantly fight an unending war against Islamism. They are also significantly liberal in their ideas, and are serious about their right to privacy. This gives rise to a contradictory set of principles. On one hand, they are tired of interventions and spending money in the Middle East and this is what is perceived as a civilizational and unending struggle against radical Islam. On the other hand, they are extremely tolerant of LGBT culture, and don't want regular monitoring and surveillance of their personal life, by American intelligence agencies and state governments. Naturally, the American government, especially in recent days, while tackling these so called lone wolf attacks, has failed repeatedly. In YouTube videos, there is evidence that Islamic jihadists are calling for attacks on U.S. soil as are there in the ISIS published Dabiq magazine calling for gays to die in the West. Surprisingly enough, Christian conservatives, who are against Gay rights as well, are also mute when it comes to Islamic jihadism against the LGBT community. This single incident might or might not change the course of the U.S. elections, which we shall see in the next one or two months in the election cycle. Donald Trump as we know is a unilateral isolationist, who has strange contradictory ideas about Islamic terrorism. On one hand, he wants to wind down from wars and make the U.S. focus on domestic economics. On the other hand, he wants to bomb ISIS and take their oil and ban Muslims from entering the U.S. Needless to say, the person responsible for the recent attack was born in the U.S. and grew up in the U.S. and the root cause of his terrorist act was as much radical Islam as it was psychological. Most of these shooters, whether Islamic or lone wolf, right wing and gun crazy people, have deep psychological issues and monitoring and surveillance is the only option to deal with this threat. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is a hawk in terms of foreign policy that will double down on the interventionist policies, which will give rise to the Crusader West stereotypes. Now, it remains to be seen, if this attack changes the Election swing in favor of either candidate, as the U.S. tries to disentangle itself from the Middle East and Islamic terrorism, and focus on the China and Asia-Pacific region as well as Eastern Europe and Russia. Whatever happens, there will be consequences for the further grand strategy of the American foreign policy community. Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. On May 30, 1956, Egypt became the first Arab and African nation to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic of China. Fifty years later, in November 2006, the half-century anniversary of the establishment of China-Egypt and China-Africa diplomatic relations was commemorated at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), where eight initiatives to reinforce China-Africa cooperation were proposed. Fittingly, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of China-Egypt diplomatic relations, Chinese President Xi Jinpings first state visit in 2016 included Egypt, indicating a new historical starting point from which bilateral relations will be further deepened. Friends in need The friendship between China and Egypt dates back to the Bandung Conference in 1955, when then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser laid the foundation for the relationship. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, bilateral cooperation has been reinforced and has withstood the test of changing international situations. Sixty years ago, China supported Egypts fight against British and French military interference to restore Cairos sovereignty over the Suez Canal. When Egyptians were fighting for stability and development after the turbulence of the "Arab Spring," China gave the nation its strong support. Facts are the best indicators of true friendship. Bilateral trade increased by 26.5 percent year on year, totaling $8.8 billion in 2011 even when Egypts economy was severely damaged by political instability. In the same year, Chinas direct investment in Egypt amounted to $82.8 million, an increase of 60.4 percent from the previous year. As a regional power in the Middle East and North Africa, Egypt has been playing a significant role in promoting Chinas relations with the African continent and Arab nations. A collective dialogue platform between China and Arab countries was initiated when the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum was established at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo in 2004. In November 2009, Egypt presided over the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the FOCAC at its coastal city of Sharm el Sheikh. China and Egypt established a comprehensive strategic partnership at the end of 2014. In September 2015, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made his second visit to China during his presidency and attended the commemorative military parade at the 70th Anniversary of Victory of Chinese Peoples Resistance against Japanese Aggression and World Anti-Fascist War. Egyptian soldiers formed the only African and Arabian formation at the victory day parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, showcasing the enduring and staunch friendship between the two countries. New start, new chapter Chinese President Xi Jinpings visit to Egypt at the beginning of 2016 opened a new chapter in China-Egypt friendship by reinforcing political and diplomatic mutual trust and strengthening economic cooperation. Politically and diplomatically, the two sides exchanged views on state governance as well as policies and positions on major international and regional issues of common concern. Both the presidents reiterated that they would support each other to safeguard mutual core interests, adhere to a comprehensive strategic partnership and maintain the political consultation mechanism between the foreign ministries of the two countries. Xi also invited Sisi to attend the G20 Summit to be held in Hangzhou, capital city of east Chinas Zhejiang Province, in September. During his visit to Egypt, President Xi delivered a speech at the Arab League headquarters, elaborating Chinas policy on Arab states. The policy focuses on fostering regional peace and stability, conducting win-win cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, and contributing to solving the Palestinian issue in a just and reasonable way. Xi stressed that China will promote peace talks in the region. He also said China will neither seek any sphere of influence nor attempt to fill any "vacuum" in the region, but promote building a cooperative partnership for the reestablishment of a prosperous Arab region. China will also promote cultural exchanges and mutual learning with Arab states. Chinas stand was welcomed by Arab countries and the international community. Economic cooperation was highlighted under the framework of a comprehensive strategic partnership and the Belt and Road Initiative. During Xis visit, 21 bilateral deals totaling $10 billion were signed to strengthen cooperation in areas like power supply, infrastructure construction, trade, energy, finance, aerospace, culture, technology and climate change. The deals include a $2.7-billion package to build Egypts new administrative capital, a $1-billion loan, and bilateral cooperation in infrastructure through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. These will spearhead future China-Egypt cooperation and take bilateral trade and economic cooperation to new heights. As ancient civilizations with long histories, China and Egypt have splendid cultures. President Xi said these two great civilizations should strengthen people-to-people exchanges and consolidate public support for bilateral ties in his speech at the ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of China-Egypt diplomatic relations. An exemplary model As a transcontinental country spanning Asia and Africa, and facing Europe across the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt is a key nation along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. Chinas Belt and Road Initiative can be well conjoined with Egypts Suez Canal Corridor Project. Egypts demand for economic development and Chinas economic restructuring can create opportunities for bilateral cooperation in infrastructure and industrial development. China and Egypt are complementary in terms of natural resources, industrial structures and industrialization, creating great potential for economic partnership. The two sides, therefore, can be frontrunners and exemplary models of cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative. Egypt has rich labor resources, an advantageous geographic location and a well-educated population, but is poor in infrastructure, weak in manufacturing, and insufficient in industrial capacity and foreign exchange reserve. In comparison, China, as the second largest economy, has abundant foreign exchange, powerful investment ability and rich experiences and expertise that can be shared with Egypt to promote industrialization. The two sides pledged to deepen cooperation on increasing industrial capacity and determined the first batch of key projects during Sisis visit to China in September 2015. On January 21, 2016, the State Grid Corp. of China and Egyptian Ministry of Electricity and Energy wrapped up a 5.1-billion-yuan ($784 million) deal to increase Egypts power supply in the Nile Delta and the region south of the delta. It is the first project under the framework of China-Egypt cooperation on industrial capacity. When the project is completed, Egypts national power supply network and safety will be strengthened. Egypt announced its Suez Canal Corridor Project in 2014. It will build the area along the 190-km canal into an international economic hub integrating harbor, logistics, trade zones and industrial parks. The China-Egypt Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone, located at the Gulf of Suez, is part of the project and will play a significant role in promoting bilateral strategic cooperation, facilitating industrial transfers, and fostering Egyptian economic development. The zone has attracted most of the Chinese businesses investing in Egypt, including Jushi Egypt for Fiberglass Industry, which has invested $223 million. From the establishment of a power supply network to fiberglass production, from promoting traffic connectivity to strengthening industrial cooperation, China and Egypt show common ground in their strategic goals and development philosophy. In the future, more economic momentum will be injected into the bilateral ties. The author is a senior research fellow at the Charhar Institute and a research fellow at the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Flash Premier Li Keqiang told visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday that China is confident in the future of China-Germany relations, calling on both sides to create new energy for cooperation. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her visit to China for the fourth round of China-Germany intergovernmental consultation in Beijing, capital of China, June 12, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] Li met with Merkel, on her ninth visit to China from Sunday to Tuesday, at the Summer Palace in the suburb of Beijing. During the visit, the two heads of government are scheduled to co-chair the fourth round of China-Germany intergovernmental consultation. Hailing the progress of bilateral ties, Li stressed that both countries should use innovation to expand their common interests and create new areas of cooperation. In the upcoming meeting, China is ready to make in-depth exchanges of views with Germany on the integration of China's "Made In China 2025" blueprint and Germany's "Industrial 4.0" strategy, bilateral cooperation in the third-party market, intelligent manufacturing, innovation, entrepreneurship and other fields, Li said. China welcomes more investment from Germany and other countries, Li added. The premier also called on the two countries to enhance communication and collaboration in the Group of 20 (G20) to jointly promote global economic growth as well as safeguard world peace and stability. Merkel spoke highly of the sound development of bilateral ties with China. As an important mechanism between the two countries, the intergovernmental consultation has promoted the comprehensive development of bilateral cooperation in various fields, said Merkel. She said Germany is willing to work with China to implement the Program of Action for China-Germany Cooperation issued during the third round intergovernmental consultation in Germany in 2014, and to hold a successful fourth round of consultation in Beijing. Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a meeting with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier on a series of issues of shared interest. You are here: Home Flash Jordan's Islamic Action Front (IAF) said Sunday it will take part in the upcoming parliamentary elections slated for September 20, according to IAF leader. Mohammad Zyoud, secretary general of Jordan's Islamic Action Front (IAF), speaks during a press conference in Amman, Jordan, June 12, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] Mohammad Zyoud, secretary general of the IAF, which is the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, said the decision was taken after calls on the party to engage in the political life in Jordan. The Islamists boycotted two previous elections on accusation of vote rigging by the authorities. "We stress on the need that the elections are partial and objective," Zyoud said in a press conference Sunday. The government has recently set September 20th as the date to elect the 130-member lower house. The IAF is the only legitimate entity representing the seven-decade-old group that has been labeled illegal recently after authorities shut down its offices across the country. Flash At least three people including a soldier were killed and six others injured in clashes between a militia and the Somali National Army (SNA) Sunday in Somalia's central Galmudug state. Deputy Information Minister in Galmudug state, Dahir Farah Fidow, told Xinhua by phone that the clashes occurred at the Kafalo military base when the soldiers were being paid their salaries. "One SNA soldier and two from the militia were killed," Fidow said. "The militia too wanted to be paid salary but the army officers told militia that they are not part of the soldiers who will be paid. This standoff led to the deadly fighting that resulted in (the) three deaths," he added. The minister said the Somali security forces intervened to calm the situation, while the militia were told they could get salaries after being recruited by the government to join the army. Flash Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal on Sunday met with visiting Commander of the U.S. Command for Africa (AFRICOM), General David M. Rodriguez, to discuss the security situation in chaos-ridden Libya and the Sahel region. General Rodriguez is visiting the North African nation as part of the 3rd Algerian-U.S. meeting on security, a statement of the Prime Minister Office said. The two officials exchanged views on a number of issues relating to the security situation in Africa, especially in the sub-region, the source said, adding that they discussed the latest developments in the Sahel region, especially in Libya, as well as assessing efforts being undertaken so far for restoring peace and stability there. Earlier in the day, Coordinator for Counter-terrorism at the U.S. Department of State coordinator of the U.S. Department, Justin Siberell acknowledged that Algeria had "a leading role in the region" and has always worked in favor of promoting peace and stability. In late August 2014, General David Rodriguez, who was on a visit to Algeria, had indicated that the North African nation is a key partner and AFRICOM endorses its commitment for a unified Libya and for reconciliation and peace in Mali. AFRICOM and Algeria have been holding recurrent meetings to coordinate counter-terrorism efforts and exchange views over prevailing crisis in Africa. AFRICOM is one of nine Unified Combatant Commands of the United States Armed Forces, responsible for U.S. military operations and military relations with 53 African nations. Flash The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday issued a statement on settling disputes between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiation. Following is the full text of the statement: Statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China on Settling Disputes Between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea Through Bilateral Negotiation (8 June 2016) China and the Philippines are neighbors facing each other across the sea, and the two peoples have enjoyed friendship over generations. Before the Philippines' unilateral initiation of the South China Sea arbitration on 22 January 2013, the overall situation in the South China Sea had remained stable despite certain disputes between China and the Philippines therein. Thanks to China's efforts, China and the Philippines carried out friendly consultations on, among others, establishing dialogue mechanisms and engaging in practical cooperation and joint development, and have achieved positive outcomes in this regard. However, ever since its initiation of the arbitration, the Philippines has unilaterally closed the door of settling the South China Sea issue with China through negotiation, and has, while turning its back on the bilateral consensus regarding managing differences, taken a series of provocative moves that infringed upon China's legitimate rights and interests. This has led to dramatic deterioration of China-Philippines relations as well as of peace and stability in the South China Sea. China is firmly opposed to the Philippines' unilateral actions. China adheres to the solemn position of non-acceptance of and non-participation in the arbitration, and will stay committed to settling the relevant disputes with the Philippines in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiation. I. It is the common agreement and commitment of China and the Philippines to settle their relevant disputes in the South China Sea through negotiation China has all along stood for peacefully settling territorial and maritime delimitation disputes through negotiation with States directly concerned on the basis of respecting historical facts and in accordance with international law. On issues concerning territorial sovereignty and maritime delimitation, China never accepts any recourse to third party settlement, or any means of dispute settlement that is imposed on it. Territorial sovereignty issues are not subject to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). With regard to maritime delimitation disputes, China made, pursuant to Article 298 of UNCLOS, an optional exceptions declaration in 2006, excluding disputes concerning, among others, maritime delimitation from the UNCLOS third party dispute settlement procedures. It is not only the Chinese government's consistent policy, but also a clear agreement reached between China and the Philippines, to settle their relevant disputes in the South China Sea through negotiation. The 10 August 1995 Joint Statement between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of the Philippines concerning Consultations on the South China Sea and on Other Areas of Cooperation states that "[d]isputes shall be settled in a peaceful and friendly manner through consultations on the basis of equity and mutual respect", and that "a gradual and progressive process of cooperation shall be adopted with a view to eventually negotiating a settlement of the bilateral disputes." Afterwards, China and the Philippines reaffirmed the consensus on settling the South China Sea issue through bilateral negotiation and consultation in a number of bilateral documents, such as the 23 March 1999 Joint Statement of the China-Philippines Experts' Group Meeting on Confidence-Building Measures and the 16 May 2000 Joint Statement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines on the Framework of Bilateral Cooperation in the Twenty-First Century. On 4 November 2002, China and the ten ASEAN Member States signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), in which the Parties concerned solemnly "undertake to resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign States directly concerned, in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea". Afterwards, China and the Philippines reaffirmed this solemn commitment they had made in the DOC in a number of bilateral documents, such as the 3 September 2004 Joint Press Statement between the Government of the People' s Republic of China and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the 1 September 2011 Joint Statement between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of the Philippines. II. China and the Philippines have never conducted any negotiation on the subject-matters of the arbitration initiated by the Philippines According to the Philippines, China and the Philippines have engaged in a number of exchanges of views since 1995 on the subject-matters of the arbitration initiated by the Philippines but the disputes have remained unsettled, and the Philippines has good reasons to believe that it is meaningless to continue the negotiations and it therefore has the right to initiate the arbitration. The fact, rather to the contrary, is that the two States have by far never engaged in any negotiation on the subject-matters of the arbitration. China and the Philippines have held multiple rounds of consultations on the proper management of disputes at sea, but have by far had no negotiation designed to settle the relevant disputes in the South China Sea. China has on a number of occasions proposed with the Philippines the establishment of a China-Philippines regular consultation mechanism on maritime issues; however, to date, there has never been any response from the Philippine side. On 1 September 2011, the two countries issued the Joint Statement between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Philippines, reiterating the commitment to settling the disputes in the South China Sea through negotiation. Thereafter, China, for many times, proposed restart of the China-Philippines consultation mechanism for confidence-building measures, but this proposal has once again fallen on deaf ears. It is completely groundless for the Philippines to claim that it is meaningless to continue the negotiations, and that the Philippine side has had to initiate the arbitration. III. The Philippines' unilateral initiation of arbitration goes against the bilateral agreement on settling the disputes through negotiation and violates the provisions of UNCLOS The South China Sea arbitration was unilaterally initiated by the Philippines. In doing so, the Philippines has turned its back on the agreement reached and repeatedly reaffirmed by China and the Philippines on settling the relevant disputes in the South China Sea through negotiation and violated its own solemn commitment in the DOC. This is a violation of the principle of Pacta sunt servanda and an abuse of the UNCLOS dispute settlement procedures. It goes against international law, including UNCLOS. First, by unilaterally initiating the arbitration, the Philippines has violated its agreement with China to settle the relevant disputes through bilateral negotiation. In relevant bilateral documents and the DOC, China and the Philippines have agreed to settle through negotiation their disputes in the South China Sea and reaffirmed this agreement many times. The above bilateral documents between China and the Philippines and relevant provisions in the DOC are mutually reinforcing and constitute a binding agreement, by which both sides have chosen to settle the relevant disputes through negotiation. The Philippines' breach of its own solemn commitment is a deliberate act of bad faith. Second, by unilaterally initiating the arbitration, the Philippines has violated the right, as provided for in UNCLOS, of a State Party to UNCLOS to choose the means of dispute settlement of its own will. Article 280 of Part XV of UNCLOS stipulates that: "Nothing in this Part impairs the right of any States Parties to agree at any time to settle a dispute between them concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention by any peaceful means of their own choice." Article 281 of UNCLOS provides that: "If the States Parties which are parties to a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention have agreed to seek settlement of the dispute by a peaceful means of their own choice, the procedures provided for in this Part apply only where no settlement has been reached by recourse to such means and the agreement between the parties does not exclude any further procedure". Given that China and the Philippines have made an unequivocal choice to settle the relevant disputes through negotiation, and have excluded third party settlement procedures, including arbitration, the third party dispute settlement procedures stipulated by Part XV of UNCLOS is thus non-applicable in this regard. Third, by unilaterally initiating the arbitration, the Philippines has breached Article 283 of UNCLOS regarding the duty of exchange of views. The Philippines deliberately misrepresents certain consultations with China on maritime affairs and cooperation, all of a general nature, as negotiations over the subject-matters of the arbitration, and uses this as an excuse to claim that bilateral negotiations have been exhausted. This is despite the fact that the two States have never engaged in any negotiation on those subject-matters. Such claim made by the Philippines is fundamentally contrary to facts, and must have been made with ulterior motives. IV. China will adhere to the position of settling the relevant disputes with the Philippines in the South China Sea through negotiation China is a major force for upholding peace and stability in the South China Sea. China is a staunch supporter of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. It is committed to upholding and promoting international rule of law and shall always respect and act in accordance with international law. While firmly safeguarding its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, China adheres to the position of settling disputes through negotiation and consultation and managing differences through relevant rules and mechanisms. China endeavors to achieve win-win outcomes through mutually beneficial cooperation, and is committed to making the South China Sea a sea of peace, cooperation and friendship. On issues concerning territory and maritime delimitation, China does not accept any means of dispute settlement imposed on it; nor does China accept any recourse to third party settlement. The door of China-Philippines bilateral negotiation is always open. China will remain committed to settling through negotiation the relevant disputes with the Philippines in the South China Sea on the basis of respecting historical facts and in accordance with international law. China urges the Philippines to immediately cease its wrongful conduct of pushing forward the arbitral proceedings, and return to the right path of settling the relevant disputes in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiation with China. Flash A total of 13 Taliban militants were killed after Afghan special police force launched a night raid operation in eastern Logar province overnight, the Interior Ministry said on Monday. "Last night, Police Crisis Response Unit (CRU) conducted an anti-terrorism operation to clear some of the areas from terrorists and enemies of peace and stability of Afghanistan. The operation was conducted in Pirokhil and Babus villages, Pul-e-Alam city capital of Logar province, as a result, 13 armed Taliban were killed," the ministry said in a statement. The security force has confiscated one PK machine gun, one AK-47 rifle and some amount of ammunition as a result of the operation in the province, 60 km south of Afghan capital Kabul, according to the statement. "One vehicle and one machine gun destroyed as well," it said. The Afghan security forces have beefed up security operations against militants since early April after Taliban militants started their so-called annual spring offensive and stepped up attacks across the country. The Taliban has yet to make comments. Flash Philippine experts on Monday urged incoming president Rodrigo Duterte to proceed with direct talks with China on the South China Sea immediately, saying the new administration need not wait for the decision of a tribunal to kick-start the talks. Rod Kapunan, a columnist for the newspaper The Standard, said it may not be wise for the incoming Duterte administration to wait for a decision from an tribunal in The Hague which China will not recognize anyway. "Once the court comes out with a decision, our position to reach a direct and peaceful settlement of our dispute with China would become more difficult," Kapunan told Xinhua in an interview. "China has always been open for direct and peaceful negotiations but the conditions will not be the same after the decision," he said, warning that the decision might even force Beijing to stay away from the negotiating table. "If you are going to negotiate directly and peacefully with China after the arbitration decision comes out, China will surely insist that there must be no reference to the court's decision," Kapunan said. In 2013, the Philippines initiated an arbitration case against China over the South China Sea. China, which has declined to take part in the process, has said it will not recognize the court's decision. For the direct talks to take off, Kapunan said the Duterte administration must scrap its Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed by the Philippines and the United States in 2014. The expert also said that this pact "locks the Philippines in a situation where we would be permanently girding for war with China" and adopt a foreign policy that unmistakably serves the interest of the U.S. in the Asia and the Pacific. "The best solution is first to scrap the EDCA and second to start the direct talks," said Kapunan, adding that EDCA stands in the way "like a wall" between the Philippines and China. "For as long as we have foreign military bases in our soil, the country can never formulate its own independent foreign policy," Kapunan said. "As a lawyer, Duterte could see the implication in allowing the re-installation of the U.S. bases. Other than providing no time limit for the American's stay, the agreement gave the U.S. the blanket authority to select the place and the number with a premium that our Senate would have to ratify it as mandated by our Constitution," Kapunan added. Indeed, Kapunan said, "The abrogation of EDCA is the easiest way (for the Duterte administration) to escape the dilemma." He said, "President Benigno Aquino III knew that by bringing our dispute with China to the PCA (the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague) would give the U.S. the leverage to continue its provocative patrol in the South China Sea." By doing that, "the perception about the naval presence of the U.S. in the South China Sea can never be doubted because the Philippines being strategically adjacent to China would forever seek the protective cover of the U.S.. In short, all these could lead the country to a possible proxy war with China," Kapunan said. This explains why, Kapunan said, Duterte would have difficulty redrawing the foreign policy under his administration. He further said, "A decision to disallow the U.S. bases or to unilaterally drop the case could antagonize the U.S. because that would explode its continued presence in the South China Sea redundant. Nobody would believe that its continued patrol in the area is to secure the freedom of navigation. Rather, the whole military infrastructure it build would be exposed as a facade to contain China." Indeed, retired diplomat Alberto Encomienda told Xinhua in another interview that the new Duterte administration should proceed with talks with China on the sea disputes. "You don't have to wait for the resolution of the arbitration case before starting conversations. You don't have to finish that arbitration. Nobody even knows when that will be finished," Encomienda said. Assistant Foreign Secretary Charles Jose has repeatedly said that the Philippines will really have to go back to bilateral talks, though he pins hope on the arbitration court handing down a favorable decision. In a television interview Monday, Jose said, "we are now in the tail-end of the arbitration process." Duterte, who will be sworn into office on June 30, has said he would wait for the final decision of the court, but at the same time said that he will pursue bilateral talks with China if current efforts do not progress. He even said that he might explore possible joint exploration in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte also said that the Philippines is not going to give up its rights to the Scarborough Shoal, or Huangyan Island. But before 1997, the Philippines had never claimed sovereignty over Huangyan Island, and the international community had never raised any objection to China's sovereignty over the island as well. Christians from Yingmochen Church deter a demolition team from demolishing their churchs building. (Photo: China Aid) China Aid Reported in Chinese by Qiao Nong. Translated by Carolyn Song. Written in English by Brynne Lawrence. (Ningbo, ZhejiangApril 22, 2016) Public outcry broke out against the government-backed persecution of Christians after officials failed to demolish a church in Chinas coastal Zhejiang province on Monday. When Christians from Yingmochen Church, a house church in Ningbo, Zhejiang, heard that authorities had ordered the demolition of their church building on April 18, they rushed to the scene to pray and sing Christian songs. An estimated 100 church members showed up and successfully deterred the demolition team from carrying out their plan. Afterward, many church attendees decried the governments advances against Christians. One church member said, We are very disappointed in the government. What should we do in confronting this type of government? How [loud] must we shout? How much must we pray to God? We have been plundered and coerced, and our lives are full of all kinds of danger. There was a [Christian] sister who was buried alive We really hope the authorities will pay attention to us and be concerned about us. The government does not take our pain, helplessness and misery into consideration, another Christian, surnamed Wu, said. Likewise, Sun, a Christian who attends Yingmochen Church, told a China Aid reporter that if Christians do anything that displeases the government, officials will suppress them regardless of the results. By exposing abuses, such as those experienced by Christians attending Yingmochen Church, China Aid promotes religious freedom and rule of law in China. China Aid Contacts Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985 Email: [email protected] Website: www.chinaaid.org Interior view of YOU+ International Youth Apartment in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on November 30, 2014. [Photo/CFP] Residential communities specially designed for China's younger generation are popping up in China's big cities, offering a place to live, start a business, and make friends. You+ International Youth Community is considered one of the first companies to offer this type of accommodation service to renters across China. Graffiti adorns walls around the community, and the rental rooms are all tastefully decorated and equipped with all the trappings of modern life. More than 400 young people live and work at one of the You+ communities in downtown Beijing. Its founder and chairman Liu Yang has worked and lived in six cities around the country. A crew member salutes to passengers on a sightseeing submarine made by the Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co in Hubei province. [Deng Jia/For China Daily] State-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corp or CSIC, the primary contractor for China's naval force, is transferring the assets of its subsidiary Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co to Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group Co, another of its subsidiaries, to enlarge the latter's capacity in building both military and commercial vessels. The Hubei-based Wuchang Shipbuilding is one of China's manufacturing bases to build conventional submarines and frigates, as well as maritime defense equipment and law-enforcement vessels. Subsequent to the asset transfer, it has restructured the management of Shandong-based Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding, whose main business is ship maintenance and building bulk ships with an annual capacity of 3 million deadweight tons. It is also capable of repairing 212 vessels per year. The CSIC's press office in Beijing told China Daily that Wuchang Shipbuilding specializes in building warships, law-enforcement vessels, offshore engineering ships and large-scale steel structures, but it needs to improve its ability in building large surface warships and long-distance commercial carriers. "Even though Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding has a strong ability in building large-scale bulk ships, it has a narrow product pipeline," said the CSIC press office. "The integration (of Qingdao and Wuchang) would have complementary advantages. The new shipyard would be capable of producing not only military ships, including the next-generation frigates and amphibious warfare ships, but a wide range of commercial ships such as chemical tankers, mega-container ships and wood-cargo vessels." In 2015, Wuchang Shipbuilding pulled in 12 billion yuan ($1.83 billion) in sales revenue, while Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding netted 4.05 billion yuan. With a total investment of 3.9 billion yuan, Wuchang Shipbuilding also operates a manufacturing facility to produce offshore engineering products in Qingdao. Dong Liwan, a shipbuilding industry professor at Shanghai Maritime University, said Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding's three large dock facilities in Qingdao can prove a solid foundation to support the merged company's maintenance support ability. "Merger is an effective method of cutting surplus in oversupplied industries, said Dong. "So I'm not surprised to see more restructuring going on this year, as the government deploys more resources into State-owned enterprise reform," he said. Sun Bo, CSIC's president, said the group is eyeing more market growth points as China embarks on supply-side reform with gusto. It also wants to improve its ability in 10 areas, including power and underwater defense products, electronic information and intelligent equipment, and mechanical and electrical equipment to integrate its civilian and military businesses over the next five years. The supply-side reform includes a series of policies to improve the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, public services, environmental protection, quality and scale of production and further opening up of Chinese markets for foreign investors. With a workforce of about 150,000 employees, CSIC is one of the country's two major shipbuilding behemoths. It operates more than 50 industrial subsidiaries and 30 research institutes, including Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co, Bohai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co and the China Ship Research and Development Academy. It has exported various types of vessels to more than 70 economies. China State Shipbuilding Corp, the other State-owned shipbuilding giant, also has more than 50 subsidiaries and research institutes. Two people pass by the branch of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) in Paris, France. [Paul Boursier/For China Daily] As Western banks withdraw, Chinese counterparts, with abundant capital, are providing new loans Chinese lenders are fast becoming global leaders in ship financing, while Western banks are reducing or exiting their shipping loan portfolios. That disengagement is due to increasingly strict capital requirement regulations being enforced as the world's shipping industry faces its worst downturn in three decades. In 2014, the last year for which statistics are available, three out of 15 of the world's largest shipping lenders were Chinese banks, together providing $45.3 billion of financing. That is just under 20 percent of the $258 billion total shipping finance debt of the top 15 lenders' combined, according the US-based intelligence firm Marine Money. In 2007, before the financial crisis and consequent shipping market downturn, none of the Chinese banks made the global top 15 shipping lenders. The three banks are Bank of China, the Export-Import Bank of China, and China Development Bank, ranking sixth, eighth and 15th, providing loan volumes of $18.5 billion, $15.8 billion and $11 billion respectively. Industry insiders cite Chinese lenders' abundant capital and long-term perspective as key reasons behind their emergence, adding that they have entered the shipping finance market at an opportune time because ship asset valuations are already at a historical low, hence risks for a further fall in value are minimized. "Chinese banks' increasing level of activity is very helpful for the entire shipping industry's dynamics in a difficult time," said Nigel Thomas, a partner at the law firm Watson Farley & Williams, who specializes in shipping finance. "Despite the current low valuation on shipping assets, over the long term at least some sectors of shipping are expected to generate solid returns. Currently, many shipping assets, which are fundamentally sound from a longer-term perspective, are competing for sources of financing, so it is a good opportunity for Chinese banks to select more solid shipping assets to finance." The global shipping industry has suffered from severely slashed commodity demand in recent years. The Baltic Dry Bulk Index, the most common measure of shipping activity levels, touched 290 points in February, marking the lowest level since records began in 1985. In May 2008, the index reached a peak of 11,793 points. As of March 1, 2016, the global order book for new vessels totaled 4,461 ships of 283.2 million deadweight tons, down 11 percent year-on-year. Meanwhile, banks globally face increasingly strict capital requirements. Under Basel III, the latest rules for improving regulation, supervision and risk management, for example, banks are required to set aside more capital for shipping finance compared with other types of financing such as property loans or business loans, meaning many Western banks now view shipping finance to be unprofitable. Elena Donio, President, Concur A shimmering satin dress, matching Chanel jewelry, a radiant smile on a lovely face... Elena Donio looks like a fashion icon at first glance. Only, she isn't - she is, in fact, president of Concur, a Bellevue, Washington-based firm that specializes in travel and expense management solutions, and is part of SAP, the software multinational. When Donio holds forth on her passion - it is, of course, technology, not fashion - you begin to comprehend the impact it makes on the business world. Your inner focus shifts away from her external glamorous looks to the substance of her incisive views on technology. Donio believes transparency and efficiency are key advantages that Concur's solutions offer to clients. Those are, incidentally, key to her leadership style as well. Over the past 18 years, Donio has served in various leadership roles at Concur. She helped Concur grow and evolve into one of the world's largest providers of integrated travel and expense management solutions. "Currently, employees in China might spend much time each month manually creating expense reports and pasting receipts. Our goal is to expand into China so we can make the experience better - enhancing productivity while managing travel and expenses with higher compliance and accuracy. "At Concur, we want to make things effortless for our clients with the entire process of travel management, from booking to reimbursement. It will be worry-free so they can focus on the most important things during travels," said Donio. Despite being raised in California, where businesses have always been aware of the importance of technology, Donio is familiar with China's shifting economic growth patterns, national initiatives, the 13th Five Year Plan and other policies. All these, she believes, will bring more opportunities to Concur. "The China market, with its focus on transparency and efficiency, will present Concur more challenges against the background of the new normal (of slowing economic growth)," she said. Policymakers have been encouraging open procurement, more disclosure on spending of public funds, and have launched electronic invoice programs that will benefit providers of travel management solutions in the long run. At the same time, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Going Global initiative of many State-owned and private enterprises, mean that the China market demands more travelling services, thus travel-and-expense management becomes important. To better meet this demand, Concur is setting up a data center in China, and will double its employee numbers from some 30 to 60, said Donio. China has overtaken the United States as the largest business travel market in the world in 2015 with annual market size of some $ 250 billion, according to the latest joint research of Amadeus and Forest & Sullivan. The market size will double by the end of 2028. Concur has over 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies as its customers. This has given the 23-year-old company a dominant position in the market. Given the growth of the China market, which is the third largest in the Silicon Valley-based company's global operations, Concur aspires to grow its footprint continuously, said Donio. So far, Concur has a fast-growing base in China. Its clients include multinational enterprises such as BMW Automotive Trading, Daimler China, Beijing Mercedes-Benz Service, Minth Group, Starwood Hotels and C&A Sourcing. Market observers said China's business travel market is still quite fragmented. Many of China's enterprises, organizations and institutions use various platforms when booking tickets and accommodation for travelling staff. But such systems are not said to be transparent and easy for data management and analysis. Some still use glue sticks and paper forms in expense management procedures, according to a research note from Shanghai Bosi Commerce Consultancy Ltd. However, Donio said she believes the situation will change. "As compliance continues to be a key factor in corporate governance, Concur empowers businesses in China to comply with international and local laws through integration of spend policy to reduce risks. Concur systems will enable travelers to focus on things that matter the most, and let expense managers get clear details of expenses at a glance," said Donio. This, along with cloud computing and big data analysis, will help Concur to win more local clients in China, she said. "Concur works with a local food product manufacturer in China that has seven factories and over 10,000 employees. Since implementing Concur systems in China in July 2014, the company has been able to reduce its travel and expense labor costs by half and improved reimbursement from 30 days to 16 days," she said. CLOSE-UP Elena Donio President, Concur Nationality: American Career: President, Concur since December 2014 Executive Vice President and General Manager of Worldwide Small and Mid-sized Business sector, Concur between January 1998 and December 2014 Senior Manager, Deloitte Consulting between January 1995 and January 1998 Senior Consultant, Andersen Consulting (Accenture) between 1992 and 1995 Education University of California, San Diego Economics, BA, 1988 to 1992 Hobbies and interests: Working as a volunteer, philanthropy, reading, fitness, travel, mentoring, fashion A Chinese man works amid orange robot arms at a factory in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, Aug 21, 2015. [Photo/IC] European-Asian equity fund Agic Capital has agreed to buy Gimatic, an Italian supplier of robotic end-of-arm tools valued at 100 to 150 million euros ($112-169 million), the Financial Times reports. Agic Capital, which focuses on European industrial technical investment, was founded last year by Henry Cai, a former Deutsche Bank senior executive. Gimatic, founded in 1985, is an Italian supplier of robotic end-of-arm tools. The company has seen its annual sales grow by more than 20 percent over the past three years, with four fifths of its business coming from Europe. Asia, although accounting for less than a tenth of sales, is seen as the market with the biggest potential. In January, Agic Capital, together with China National Chemical Corp and Chinese state fund Guoxin International Investment Corp, purchased Germany's KraussMaffei Group for 925 million euros. KraussMaffei, an equipment manufacturer that processes plastics and rubber, is one of Germany's largest machinery suppliers. The deal, at the time, ranked as the biggest outbound investment from China into Germany, according to data provider Dealogic. China is speeding up investment in industrial robots. Last month, China's biggest maker of home appliances Midea Group made an offer to buy German factory robot manufacturer Kuka AG. The 115 euro-per-share offer valued Kuka at around 4.5 billion euros and Midea said it was seeking to become the largest shareholder by raising its stake beyond 30 percent. Jin Xing, a home appliance analyst at CITIC Securities, said in a report the robotics industry was hot in China, with rapid growth and huge development room. According to the Frankfurt-based International Federation of Robotics (IFR), annual robot sales, between 2005 and 2015, rose 9 percent worldwide, while China experienced a growth of 25 percent. The logo for LinkedIn Corporation is shown in Mountain View, California, US. Photo taken on February 6, 2013. [Photo/Agencies] Microsoft Corp agreed to buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 billion in its biggest-ever deal, combining the software giant's fast-growing cloud services business with the world's largest online network for professionals. The offer of $196 per share represents a premium of 49.5 percent to LinkedIn's Friday closing price. LinkedIn's shares were jumped 48 percent to $194.28 before the opening bell on Monday. Microsoft's shares were down 3.3 percent. "Today is a re-founding moment for LinkedIn," Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn's board, said in a statement. Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive of LinkedIn, reporting to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "I have always had a great admiration for LinkedIn," Nadella said in a video on Microsoft's website. "I have been talking with Reid and Jeff for a while ... I have been thinking about this for a long time." The deal is expected to close in 2016, the companies said in a joint statement. Microsoft said it would issue new debt to fund the deal. After the deal, LinkedIn will become part of Microsoft's productivity and business processes unit. An intelligent car attracts attention at the Beijing Internet High-tech Expo on May 19, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] China's industry warned over the potential problem posed by 'intelligent future' The Chinese authorities and stakeholders have called on domestic carmakers to push the pedal to the metal in concerted efforts in new technologies, as leading global automakers accelerate towards an intelligent future, leaving the local industry in their dust. The consensus by automotive insiders is that every carmaker needs to transform itself into a smart mobility solution provider, as the industry is developing rapidly thanks to the introduction of disruptive technologies. "The future 10 years of transformation to be made in the automotive industry may overtake that of the past five decades," said Wang Xia, chairman of the automotive committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, at the seventh Global Automotive Forum in Chongqing on June 6. He said: "The connected intelligence technologies have been developing much faster than people's expectations. The cars are becoming more and more powerful, autonomous driving vehicles are now a reality ... intelligence, connection and electrification have evolved to be a clear trend." Michael Ableson, General Motors' vice-president for strategy and global portfolio planning, said autonomous driving, connection and electrification are forces to change the future. Wang Ruixiang, president of the China Machinery Industry Federation, agreed with the future direction of intelligence and electrification, but pointed out that the Chinese automotive industry "is weak in independent innovation". The automotive intelligence competence of China lags behind the world's auto powers in terms of development levels, professional expertise and other related criteria. The nation's intelligent vehicle development ranked eighth among the nine surveyed countries, according to a Roland Berger Strategy Consultants report released in February. Roland Berger found China and Italy scored the lowest in intelligent vehicle technology, while Germany and the United States topped technology development, followed by Sweden. Xin Guobin, vice-minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in April that the ministry has been working on top-level design and a standardization system for connected intelligent vehicles. The government body is also planning cross-ministries and cross-fields cooperation for data service platforms and the connection environment. Connection Li Keqiang, director of the automotive engineering department at Tsinghua University, said: "The intelligence of vehicle development requires the technologies of big data cloud computing, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication." Vehicle intelligence is based on the real-time calculation of big data collected by sensors and radars in the vehicle. The current solution uses a combination of an in-car computer and cloud computing system. The computer in the car reacts instantly to emergent safety threats. A lot more traffic information is uploaded through wireless connections to a cloud server for further processing, and the results are downloaded to command the vehicle. The solution requires fast wireless connections to transmit big data in a flash, and powerful enough servers to process the information in a brief period. General Motors demonstrated its Vehicle to Everything technology, or V2X, including V2V, Vehicle to Infrastructure and Vehicle to Pedestrian communications, on June 7 in Shanghai. The US carmakers' V2X technology supports Intersection Collision Alert and Emergency Brake Alert, 11 years after its prototype V2V system that gave the vehicle a "sixth sense" in 2005. Tests at the National Intelligent and Connected Vehicle Test Demonstration Base have full access to Wi-Fi, LTE-Vehicle and dedicated shortrange communications. When driving outside of the base, however, carmakers have to join with communications operators and internet service providers. The State-controlled mobile operators are working on 5G mobile communication networks to fix the bandwidth bottleneck for data exchange. The 5G data transmission, 100 times faster than 4G, is capable of transferring more data within a shorter period of time, and 1 million access points are planned to be built in each square kilometer, making V2X communication possible, according to China Mobile. Electrification Experts expect that all connected intelligent cars and autonomous driving vehicles would be electrified in the future. Wang Ruixiang said: "The chances for China may lie in the transformation towards a green and intelligent trend, so as to boost international competitiveness." However, not a single Chinese company owns world-leading advanced technology, although several have some ,technologies that will be obsolete soon, according to Jia Xinguang, a senior analyst with the China Automobile Dealers Association. Most profits make their way into international suppliers' pockets, because the domestic companies don't own core technologies, composed of electric motors, control units and traction batteries. Jia said: "There are many NEVs, claimed to be self-developed, that have so many purchased parts installed as research and development were done superficially on indifferent things. "For example, fitting the purchased electric motor, control unit and traction battery into the shell of a gasoline model." Wang Xia expected new-energy vehicles to become mainstream in China and lead the globe, as the domestic market sold 331,092 units of NEVs in 2015, the highest in the world. Visitors arrive for the founding ceremony of Dasheng Technology Co, a 45-40-15 partnership among carmaker GAC Group, internet company LeEco and insurance company Urtrust, in Guangzhou on June 8. [Li Fusheng/China Daily] A joint venture named after the literary figure Monkey King is planning to bring innovation to the automotive industry in 2016, which is the Year of the Monkey according to the Chinese zodiac. The venture is the 1.4 billion yuan ($213.5 million) Dasheng (which in English literally means "Monkey King") Technology Co, a 45-40-15 partnership among carmaker GAC Group, internet company LeEco and insurance company Urtrust. The partnership aims to make it easier to purchase, sell and insure cars online. There are already several carselling websites in China, such as Tmall.com and bitauto.com, but Dasheng, which is expected to come online in November, is the first to have an automaker among its shareholders. "We will make the most of our advantages - GAC's industry chain, LeEco's online fanbase and Urtrust's expertise - to build a reliable online platform for customers to purchase, repair and sell cars," said Zeng Qinghong, general manager of GAC Group, at the joint venture's founding ceremony in Guangzhou on June 8. Instead of making the online platform the automaker's exclusive domain, the three shareholders decided to make it as open as the internet itself: anyone wishing to sell a car or spare parts is welcome, as are investors. Ding Lei, co-founder of LeEco's Super Car project, said: "The partnership heralds a completely new business model, and based on such an innovative model, it will bring something transformative to existing car selling and service platforms." Feng Xingya, GAC's deputy general manager and Dasheng's chairman, said the joint venture is the first major move by GAC to implement its 2016-2020 strategy that was proposed last year. Under the strategy, the company plans to become more adaptable to customer habits and integrate into the internet age. GAC is not alone in exploring possible growth mechanisms by partnering with a dotcom company. In early April, Shanghai-listed JAC Motors clinched a 10 billion yuan deal with NextEV on new-energy and smart cars as well as connectivity technologies. NextEV is a Chinese startup aspiring to make electric and smart supercars and is backed by Tencent Holdings and investment firm Hillhouse Capital. In February, British automaker Aston Martin signed a Memorandum of Understanding with LeEco towards the creation of a new concept electric vehicle called the Aston Martin RapidE. It is reported that the car will hit the market in 2018, with LeEco providing powertrain and connectivity technologies. The first model from the partnership between SAIC and Alibaba will be unveiled in September, said SAIC President Chen Zhixin at the recent Chongqing Automotive Forum. In March 2015, the two companies established a 1 billion yuan 50-50 joint venture called Zebra to develop internet-based cars. A busy Changan Ford 4S store in Chengdu, Sichuan province. [Mo Xiao/For China Daily] China is set to play a more prominent role in Ford Motor's global growth strategy following one of the automaker's biggest management reshuffles in the country. John Lawler, who served as Ford China's chairman and CEO since December 2012, has left Shanghai to serve as Ford Motor's vice-president and controller in the United States. Ford's operations in China are now directed by Dave Schoch, group vice-president and president of Asia-Pacific. Schoch will add the title of chairman and CEO, Ford China. Alvin Liu, vice-president of Asia Pacific for legal and government affairs, has been appointed vice-chairman of Ford Greater China in addition to his current responsibilities. Schoch will work with Liu on strategies in China, including the import business, passenger car joint venture Changan Ford and commercial vehicle joint venture Jiangling Motors Corp. "As our growth plans in China have developed, this market is delivering an increasingly important portion of our revenue and profits globally," said Ford President and CEO Mark Fields. "Elevating the reporting of this business right now reflects China's importance in our profitable growth plan going forward." Ford China's performance has been growing steadily. Annual sales in 2015 grew to 1.12 million from 582,467 units in 2010. It sold 479,542 cars in China in the first five months of this year, a 5 percent increase year-on-year. The lineup of cars in the country has been enriched with a series of cars such as the seven-seat Edge SUV and Taurus sedan, and Lincoln has made a successful comeback to the Chinese market. President of Changan Ford, Marin Burela, will step down from his post on July 1 to be replaced by Nigel Harris, current head of Ford India. Schoch said: "Marin has made significant contributions to our operations globally, including leading the development of our global small car portfolio and building Changan Ford into a very successful business in the world's largest car market." The six years Burela has spent at the joint venture since 2010 can be counted as a highlight of his 32-year career at Ford. During his term, the joint venture's sales more than doubled to 836,000 units in 2015, with many new models introduced into the Chinese market. Harris is an auto veteran with extensive experience in sales and marketing. Most recently, he served as president and managing director of Ford India. It will not be the first time Harris has worked in China. He served as general manager for sales at Changan Ford from 2007 to 2012. A salesman talks with a customer at Auto China 2016 in Beijing in May. [Zhang Haiyan/For China Daily] German auto giant sets out strategy to consolidate its leading position in the world's largest market Volkswagen AG's CEO Matthias Muller has made clear the company's commitment to rolling out more cars specifically designed for Chinese drivers, in a move to consolidate the German automaker's position amid increasingly fierce competition in the world's largest auto market. Speaking in Beijing last week, Muller said the company's regional operations would work to get a better understanding of the demands of customers in specific markets, including China, as part of Volkswagen's "Strategy 2025". "China is the most important market for us and it will determine both our future competition and development," said Muller. He said that Volkswagen is currently seeing fiercer competition in China, not only from traditional competitors but also Chinese brands which "have shown great capacity and courage". Statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that Chinese carmakers seized a 44.32 percent market share in the first four months of this year, a 1.53 percentage points increase year-on-year. In addition, four out of the five most popular SUVs in the Chinese market are domestic brands, with the only non-Chinese model being Volkswagen's Tiguan. According to Muller, Volkswagen will launch at least five SUVs in China over the next three years and offer more choices including the Phideon in the sedan segment, in which the top-four bestselling models of the first four months of this year were all made by the German automaker. "You will see the results of our efforts in the coming years," said Muller, who said that Volkswagen will continue its investment to enrich its lineup in China, with the amount earmarked for this year reaching 4 billion euros ($4.5 billion). In addition to empowering important regional markets, the new strategy also focuses on building safer, more comfortable and more environmentally friendly cars. Muller said: "The Strategy 2025 sets out what we will achieve between 2025 and 2030. I hope Volkswagen can find its new direction through the new strategy. We will continue to build on our traditional advantage of technological strength and meanwhile we will try to eliminate the negative aspects of being tech-centric." Making mobility matter Besides making cars, Volkswagen is also planning to turn itself into a provider of mobility solutions, having identified strong growth momentum and huge earnings opportunities in the sector in the coming years. Late last month, it inked a $300 million deal with Israeli ride-hailing provider Gett, which is available in more than 60 cities worldwide. Muller called the partnership with Gett the "first milestone" for Volkswagen to provide integrated mobility solutions. "Alongside our pioneering role in the automotive business, we aim to become a world leading mobility provider by 2025," he said. He said that while Volkswagen will remain largely focused on the traditional automotive business over the coming 10 to 20 years, it will also look at developing mobility services, as more and more young people want mobility but do not want to buy cars. "There are many, many new trends, but instead of merely reacting to them, Volkswagen will be proactive in offering innovative solutions to our customers." Premier Li Keqiang and German Chancellor Angela Merkel visit Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace in Beijing. WU ZHIYI / CHINA DAILY Li receives Merkel at the start of her ninth visit to China since taking office Against the backdrop of a glowing summer sunset in Beijing, Premier Li Keqiang received his visiting German counterpart Angela Merkel on Sunday at the Summer Palace. It was Merkel's second visit to a World Heritage site in Beijing after she toured the Temple of Heaven in 2014. She is making her ninth trip to China since taking office. Li welcomed the German chancellor at the Summer Palace's east gate before showing her around several ancient sites. He later hosted a banquet for Merkel near the Summer Palace, where they also held an informal meeting. Li said both countries are steadily implementing the guidelines of the third round of China-Germany government consultations in 2014. China is willing to hold in-depth discussions with the European Union during the fourth round of the consultations, scheduled for Monday, the premier said. Areas for discussion include linking the Made in China 2025 strategy with Germany's Industry 4.0 strategy, cooperation in third-party markets and smart manufacturing. Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, refers to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. "China welcomes foreign investment from all countries, in particular Germany, and I hope China and Germany will strengthen communication and cooperation among G20 member states, dedicated to boosting global economic growth and maintaining world peace," the premier said. Merkel said bilateral relations have developed smoothly and Germany will enhance exchanges and cooperation with China in various fields. Li said: "This calls for innovative ways for deepening bilateral cooperation between China and Germany, expanding common interests, and building new momentum ... in bilateral relations. China will have in-depth discussions with Germany on cooperation in relevant fields during the fourth round of China-Germany governmental consultations." Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Beijing that China hopes the EU can fulfill its promise to recognize China as a market economy. Wang made the remarks at a bilateral meeting ahead of the fourth round of the intergovernmental consultation between the two countries. "China appreciates that Germany has expressed its willingness several times to play a constructive role in improving the relationship between China and Europe," Wang said. He stressed that Beijing hopes the EU can fulfill its obligations under Article 15 of the Accession Protocol of China's entry to the World Trade Organization in 2001. Article 15 specifies that the maximum time limit for China as a nonmarket economy should be 15 years. Earlier on Sunday, Merkel received an honorary doctoral degree from Nanjing University before delivering a speech at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Chen Jun, president of Nanjing University, said, "In a complicated political and economic environment, Merkel devotes herself to resolving issues including legal dialogues, regional conflicts, climate change ... and makes a great contribution to bilateral relations." In her speech, Merkel emphasized the importance of creating a free and open atmosphere for academic discussions. By the end of last year, more than 36,000 Chinese students were studying at universities in Germany, and more than 7,500 Germans were studying in China. Zhou Wa and Wang Xu contributed to this story. Actor Ian McKellen holds a small ad for himself at People's Park in Shanghai on Saturday. The park is known to locals as a marriage market.[Photo/Screenshot from Weibo of British Council] Celebrating William Shakespeare's work in the 400th anniversary year of the English playwright's death, award-winning British actor Ian McKellen, better known for his portrayal of Gandalf in The Lord of Rings movie trilogy, made his debut on the stage and appeared at various places around China. McKellen appeared on the red carpet Friday night for the opening ceremony of the 19th Shanghai International Film Festival. Together with celebrated Chinese mainland actor Jiao Huang, McKellen staged a performance in remembrance of Shakespeare in which he chanted The Seven Ages of Man, an excerpt from Shakespeare's play As You Like It. Jiao interpreted Hamlet. McKellen's visit to China this time is part of the British Council's Shakespeare Live, a major program of events and activities geared for the 400th anniversary. As part of Shakespeare Live, the British Film Institute screened Richard III on Sunday at the film festival. McKellen starred and codirected the work. As part of his schedule in Shanghai, McKellen went to Shanghai Theatre Academy for a lecture to the students only - professors were shut out. Interpreting the classic excerpts from Romeo and Juliet as well as Hamlet, McKellen shared his experiences performing Shakespeare for decades, highlighting the rich meanings and cultural connections of the text. Adopting a folksy style, McKellen went to some tourist attractions in Shanghai during his stay in the city. A fan showed her picture on Weibo with the 77-year-old actor on Friday night on the Bund. A day later, McKellen was seen in the central People's Park, joining the crowd and holding a small banner with Shakespeare's words: "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind". Unlike the Bund, People's Park is not a traditional tourist attraction but rather is known as a marriage market for residents. Each weekend, parents concerned about their children's marriage prospects post thousands of ads in the park, hoping to find a match. McKellen made a small ad for himself on a piece of paper, writing down key items such as "Cambridge University", "house in London" and "still active". McKellen is a well-known gay activist who came out at the age of 49 during a BBC radio interview and said in a later interview with the Daily Mail that it was the "best thing" he ever did. Before his visit to Shanghai, McKellen was also spotted at attractions in Beijing, including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven. To promote the British Council's Shakespeare Live program, he carried a small banner with the Bard's lines wherever he went. Zhang Kun contributed to this story. ( The Mosuo ethnic group [File photo/Xinhua] The walking marriage, in which a man and a woman establish relations after the man's nocturnal visits to the woman's boudoir, has been less prevalent in the Mosuo ethnic group generally residing in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. The traditional matriarchal practice has nowadays been questioned by the modern moral criterion of monogamy underlying loyalty as long as people are married. However, the demand of fidelity doesn't work in the Mosuo minority who can easily change their partners. Generally, a marriage can be ended if a man informs his partner that he will no longer come to visit or refuses to visit her for a long time. If a woman is unwilling to maintain the marriage, she can directly tell her partner in person not to come or stop his visits to her bedroom. Anyone who finds the partner has fallen in love with someone else can send a package stuffed with charcoal, peppers and chicken feathers to warn the partner or directly terminate their relations. In this matriarchal society which began during the primitive ages, the walking marriage, as a custom of the Mosuo minority, has endured the changes of the world. Currently, with the exodus of its young people and influence from the external world, the prospect of the indigenous custom is dimming. "People have followed the call of the government to lead a life with a formal and stable marriage since the 1960s, so the number of walking marriages is diminishing," said a guide from the Mosuo minority. However, despite losing its attraction to many local young people, the walking marriage, which has been preserved and inherited from one generation to another in some villages, is appealing to a number of visitors, who mistake the ritual merely as a one-night stand. Several years ago, a woman's four diaries covering her travels in the towns of the Mosuo ethic group in Yunnan, where she flirted, had sex with Mosuo men and experienced the walking marriage, sparked controversy. Following her blogs which received millions of hits, Chinese online users commented that she, as a woman from modern society, was not eligible for the walking marriage preserved by local Mosuo ethnic people in the primitive milieu where they comply with the tenets of a matriarchal society. However, there were also a number of netizens supporting the adoption of the walking marriage in modern society, saying, the way of the walking marriage is a good option for young people who may fall in love without economic concerns, such as, a house, a car, as well as nuptial and betrothal gifts. Also, a man in this situation can be free from his duties as he will leave the children to the woman in her family headed by the maternal grandmothers. However, experts showed their disapproval of the idea to adopt the walking marriage in modern society. Tao Li, a professor at the Research Center of Folk Culture of China's Minzu University, said that mankind has eventually chosen monogamy as an overwhelming legal system for marriage to ensure the stability of families, clans, societies and social development. With the extension of the monogamous marriages which have been stipulated in the laws of our country, the customs of the walking marriage are gradually fading among the villages of the Mosuo minorities. The professor also said that the walking marriage is a remnant of the primitive social structure of a matriarchal society, so it cannot survive without the pervading local cultures. Therefore, those who misinterpret the marriage as a one-night stand in modern society are perverting the absolute understanding of the historic tradition. Undated file photo of Liu Xiaohua, deputy secretary-general of the Communist Party of China's Guangdong provincial committee. [Photo/IC] A senior official was found hanged at his home in Guangzhou, Guangdong province on Sunday, local media reported. Police confirmed the death of Liu Xiaohua, deputy secretary-general of the Communist Party of China's Guangdong provincial committee, and ruled out the possibility of homicide. However, no further details were revealed and Guangdong's top anti-graft body refused to comment on Liu's death on Monday. Before being appointed to what would be his final posting in March, Liu was deputy Party chief and mayor of Heyuan city until 2011 when he became Party chief director of the People's Congress of Zhanjiang, a port city in western Guangdong. Born in 1959, Liu was a native of Xingning, a county-level city which is under the administration of Meizhou city in the eastern part of Guangdong province. Xingning has been the birthplace of more prefecture-level Party and government officials than any other city in the whole province, local media reported. Three of its sons Luo Ou, former secretary-general of Guangdong provincial government, Li Zhujiang, head of the Guangdong provincial Oceanic and Fishery Administration, and Liu Zhigeng, former deputy governor of Guangdong have all been dismissed from their posts recently on suspicion of corruption. Another former official with connections to the city is Wan Qingliang, former Party chief of Guangzhou, who worked in Meizhou city for 15 years. Reported to have had mistresses and sought an extravagant and wasteful life, Wan was expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office for corruption in 2014. He pleaded guilty to charges of accepting bribes at a public hearing held in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in December. JINAN - Shandong, one of China's most populous provinces, will cease its preferential college admission policy for ethnic minorities next year. Senior high school students of ethnic minorities in the eastern province will no longer enjoy a five-point bonus for the college entrance exam, sources with the provincial education department told Xinhua on Sunday. All Chinese mainland applicants to colleges and universities must take the annual college entrance exam. The points they register from the highly competitive exam, plus any bonus points they qualify for according to certain policies, are the sole basis upon which Chinese colleges accept students. The preferential policies, under which certain applicants can receive bonus points, are managed by each province, municipality or autonomous region where the applicant is based. These policies usually reward offspring of certain people, for example the children of people who have made considerable contributions to society, or applicants with some outstanding achievements, such as in sport. In Shandong, China's third-largest provincial economy with nearly 100 million people, ethnic minority applicants can get five-point bonus in addition to their exam scores. An applicant can score no more than 750 in the exam. Over 4,800 students enjoyed bonus points in Shandong last year, among whom over 4,400 were ethnic minorities. Many provinces have been winding down preferential policies in recent years, as public concerns have risen regarding fairness, and cases of fabricating documents to qualify for the policies have been frequently reported by Chinese media. Most Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, however, will not change their preferential policies for ethnic minorities. Tangshan, a city of North China's Hebei province, is going to host the third China-Central and Eastern European Countries Local Leaders' Meeting on Thursday and Friday. Hao Jiecheng, deputy director of the General Office of Hebei province, made the announcement on Monday. The meeting, including five forums and a trade fair, will attract representatives from all 16 Central and Eastern European countries, according to Hao. Also, 58 governors and mayors from these countries will lead their delegations to attend the meeting. Others attending the meeting will include officials from the Chinese government as well as from 15 Chinese provinces. First held in Chongqing in 2013, the China-CEEC Local Leaders' Meeting is a platform for local regions in China to enhance their cooperation with their counterparts in the CEE countries. The second such meeting was held in Prague in 2014. Wang Wengang, counselor of the Department of European Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, said the meeting held in Tangshan will not only promote cooperation between China and the CEE countries, but also help the development of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the European Union. Cooperation between Hebei and the CEE countries goes back more than five decades ago, when China established a farm in Cangzhou, a city of Hebei in the 1950s with farming machines presented by Czechoslovakia. In recent years, Hebei renewed its cooperation with the CEE countries through a number of projects, including an agreement the Hebei Iron and Steel Group signed with the Serbian government in April to buy a Serbian steel company. Hao, the official of Hebei, said all the procedures of the acquisition are expected to be finished by the end of this year. China's LGBT community offered its condolences on Monday to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, which left 50 dead and at least 53 injured. The tragedy could be related to hatred of homosexuals, demonstrating that homophobia was still prevalent worldwide, even in the US, where same-sex marriage has been legalized, said an open letter widely circulated online. The letter was cosigned by more than 100 non-governmental organizations committed to LGBT rights and support in the country. All humans are entitled to right of life regardless of sexual orientation and such extreme violence towards the LGBT community must not be tolerated anywhere, it said. In China, as the letter stated, discrimination and violence against the group also exists in daily life such as the "gay conversion therapy," and bullying of homosexuals at schools. Such emotions were reflected in comments left by Chinese internet users in reaction to the tragedy across the Pacific. "It's horrible but gay men are disgusting," wrote an online writer named "smoking cessation is hard" on Netease, one of the popular news portals in China. "Such open hatred is disappointing," said Geng Le, CEO of Blued, a Chinese gay social-networking app that cosigned the letter to show support as well. "We LGBT people in China denounce any violence against the community and stand with Orlando," added the letter. Alfredo Russo [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Michelin-starred chef Alfredo Russo will come to The Ritz-Carlton, Beijing on June 18 and 19 to present the renowned combination of authentic pan-Italian cuisine at Barolo and Aroma. Let us take your palate on a true culinary journey. Russo is from Piedmont, Northern Italy, where there is no sincerer love than the love for food. He carries out an ancient Italian cooking tradition and continuously hones his craft, conveying through his cuisine a new way to look at the world. Aroma Restaurant [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Feeling the benefits of training and with a touch of enthusiastic self-confidence, at the age of 22, Alfredo opened Dolce Stil Novo in Piedmont, the first and the only one restaurant in Venaria Reale Palace. Three years of resolute work earned him his Michelin star and less than 12 months later he met the criteria to enter Jeunes Restaurateurs d'Europe. In 2004, the leading Italian culinary guide "L'Espresso" awarded Alfredo the title "Italy's Best Young Chef" thanks to the unquestionable culinary excellence at his restaurant "Dolce Stil Novo". In 2011, The American Academy of Hospitality Sciences awarded Alfredo Russo and the Dolce Stil Novo Restaurant with the International Five Star Diamond Award. In 2013, the Italian Touring Club has declared Alfredo one of finest Italian chefs. Barolo Restaurant [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Risotto Pizza Margherita with Buffalo Mozzarella Fresh Oregano and Tomatoes [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] Oyster ice Cream [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn] "The foodies travel around the world to look for the international level cuisine," said Tark Temucin, general manager at The Ritz-Carlton, Beijing. "We are delighted to invite Michelin-starred chef Alfredo Russo to bring authentic pan-Italian cuisine and create unforgettable dining experience for you." If you go: Barolo Restaurant 7-Course Set Dinner: 6:00 pm 10:00pm, June 18 and 19, 2016 Price: RMB1,188* per person RMB1,588* per person (include wine pairings) Limited seats Reservation hotline: 010 - 5908 8151 *The above prices are subjected to 10% service charge and 6% VAT. Classic Italian cuisine with a modern twist is served in quiet elegance and cozy ambiance of Barolo, where dining provides an exceptional Italian experience, defining the Italian lifestyle in Beijing. Aroma Restaurant Father's Day Brunch: 11:30am 3:00pm, June 19, 2016 Brunch: RMB538* per person Limited seats Reservation hotline: 010 - 5908 8161 *The above prices are subjected to 10% service charge and 6% VAT. All day dining restaurant, offers international gourmet experiences featuring Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Southern Asian, Western dishes, and exciting desserts for sweet endings. China on Monday urged Germany and the European Union to halt anti-dumping probe against China before December 11, as agreed when China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. President Xi Jinping made the remarks when meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Beijing Hotel. "Hope Germany and the EU to objectively view the relations between competition and cooperation and properly handle China-Europe trade conflicts," he said. He demanded an in-time implementation of article 15 of the duties in the protocol China signed when it joined the WTO, which stipulates that all WTO members should stop following the subrogate country measures in anti-dumping cases against China before December 11, 2016. The discriminatory practice adopted by some countries to gauge cost of Chinese products has resulted in huge loss on the Chinese side in anti-dumping cases against China. Beijing's relations with Berlin have entered a "very mature" phase, Xi said, adding both sides should look after core interests and concerns of each other to keep the relationship on healthy development. He said the two countries should strengthen strategic communication in the diplomatic and security fields, and be innovative in cooperation models on international affairs. China is willing to deepen cooperation in areas including visa issuing, education and Chinese traditional medicine, he added. Merkel said her country attaches importance to the implementation of the article that Xi raised. The two countries should speed up matching Germany's "Industry 4.0" strategy and the Chinese plan of "Made in China 2025", and deepen cooperation in fields such as trade, financing, innovation and third markets, she added. Merkel is on her ninth visit to China as Germany's chancellor, from Sunday to Tuesday, to attend the fourth round of China-Germany Inter-governmental Consultations. 'We can work together' to tackle problems such as steel, premier tells German leader Premier Li Keqiang and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on Monday. WU ZHIYI / CHINA DAILY China and Europe should collaborate constructively to resolve trade conflicts, such as excess capacity of iron and steel products, Premier Li Keqiang told a news conference on Monday. Li was referring to the European Union's complaints that China is selling its excess iron and steel to the region, a topic in the spotlight during the visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday. "Overcapacity of iron and steel is a global problem, not China's alone. We should separate trade conflicts between China and the EU from the bilateral trade, as the conflicts are a very small part of trade," Li said. "Chancellor Merkel and I have agreed not to expand and complicate trade conflicts," he added. "We can work together frankly toward the same direction to properly tackle conflicts and increase common interests." Li and Merkel co-chaired a meeting of the China-Germany Economic Advisory Committee on Monday to meet with enterprises from both countries. Last year, only 7 percent of China's production of iron and steel was exported to other countries, far lower than that of countries such as South Korea and Japan, said Chen Derong, general manager of Baosteel Group, which is based in Shanghai. He dismissed the idea that China dumped cheap goods in Europe. "I hope the EU can loosen restrictions on Chinese iron and steel products. The EU also subsidized iron and steel companies during the crisis in the 1970s," Chen said. Nick Veasey, Lanvin Dress, 2011. Courtesy of Bluerider ART, Taipei. [Photo provided to China Daily] Photofairs Shanghai, an annual international fair dedicated to photography, will return to the Shanghai Exhibition Center from Sept 9 to 11 for its third edition. The fair, previously called Photo Shanghai, will continue to serve as a launch pad for Chinese artists doing contemporary photography, exposing them to international gallerists, dealers and collectors. It also hopes to further cultivate the interest of Asian collectors, especially a younger generation, in not only vintage photographs but in experimental works in which photography is merged with other media, notably video art. The highlights this year include a section displaying celebrated artists works focusing on photography and the moving image, as well as a section for artists who have not exhibited before on the Chinese mainland. In violation of an agreement, XpressWest Enterprises of the United States has unilaterally announced to cancel its high-speed rail project with China Railway International. The Las Vegas-based company said the deal was called off primarily because of "difficulties associated with timely performance and CRI's challenges in obtaining required authority to proceed with required development activities". According to a cooperation framework agreement the two parties signed, one party had to obtain the prior consent of the other before publishing news on the high-speed rail project, which was supposed to link Los Angeles to Las Vegas. As a matter of fact, CRI has been holding patient talks with XpressWest on a variety of issues raised by the latter. The Chinese side understands US people's eagerness to have their own high-speed railway and thus extended active support to the high-speed rail project in the US. However, China's sincere cooperation does not mean it will always unconditionally agree to "exorbitant requirements" from the other side. The fact that more than half of the world's high-speed rail lines were built in China in the past decade is proof the country is more than capable and qualified to execute such projects anywhere in the world. Honesty is a cornerstone of commercial cooperation. What XpressWest's unilateral termination of the contract has sabotaged is not only its cooperation with another company, but its own credit. "High-speed railway" is not only a dream of the Chinese people, but also a dream of the US people. By unilaterally calling off the deal, XpressWest has delayed the fulfillment of the "high-speed rail" dream of the US people. In the context of rigorous global climate change, the opening of high-speed trains can effectively reduce carbon emissions while offering people greater travel convenience. China is not expected to always face an even road while pushing its high-speed rail projects to go global. But despite facing resistance from those with ulterior motives, China will continue promoting high-speed rail cooperation with other countries, in order to make train journeys eco-friendly.--Xinhua News Agency German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) receive an honorary doctorate from President of the University of Nanjing, Chen Jun (R) at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) in Beijing, China, 12 May 2016. The German Chancellor is in China 12-14 June to attend the 4th Sino-German government consultations.[Photo/IC] German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ongoing visit to China is focused on how the two countries can deepen economic relations and help boost a flagging global economy. The visit takes place two weeks after the G7 summit in Japan and just over two months before the G20 summit in China, where global economic issues are expected to dominate the agenda. Merkel will be accompanied by a large business delegation, and apart from talks in Beijing, she will also visit a Chinese-German joint venture in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning province. On the bilateral front, Merkel will bring several ministers for the regular China-Germany intergovernmental consultations. Top of the agenda is likely to be trade and investment, market access, innovation and cyber security. German companies such as Siemens have been vocal in criticizing China for failure to open markets and protect intellectual property rights. The European Chamber of Commerce also criticized Chinese restrictions in a report last week highlighting a drop in European Union investment in China due to "an increasingly hostile business environment". Although German investment in China has stalled, an increasing number of Chinese companies are seeking a foothold in Germany. Chinese investment in Germany rose more than 35 percent last year. These investments were often in high-tech areas as China seeks to benefit from German expertise and technology. This has raised some questions about whether Chinese enterprises should be allowed to take over companies with the latest technology. For example, the Midea Group is currently trying to buy Kuka, a German manufacturer of industrial robots and a flagship company for "Industrie 4.0"the fourth industrial revolution. This has provoked a debate in Germany on whether such technology should be protected. German law allows the government the right to veto the takeover of companies in sensitive sectors but so far the law has been rarely used. Merkel herself has adopted a hands-off approach to foreign takeovers of German enterprises. Already this year ChemChina has bought the machinery giant KraussMaffei; Beijing Enterprise Holdings plans to acquire a major German waste management company, Energy from Waste; and Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund LP plans to buy the German semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron. Merkel is also likely to raise the sensitive issue of excess capacity, especially in steel production. This issue has now become linked with the debate over granting China market economy status later this year. Germany says it will wait for the impact assessment by the European Commission in July before taking a stance. On the positive side, an agreement on cyber security is due to be signed that aims to protect companies from economic espionage. The German chancellor is also expected to press Chinese leaders on the pace of internal economic reform, something Berlin strongly supports. Germany also has considerable experience in helping areas reliant on heavy industry to reform and change course. On the multilateral front, Merkel may seek to establish a link between the G7 and G20 summits. In Japan, the G7 called for "a more forceful and balanced policy mix, in order to swiftly achieve a strong, sustainable and balanced growth pattern". This phrase covered up differences between Germany and the UK on the one hand, which are determined to continue with their austerity policies, and other G7 countries wanting to pursue greater public spending to boost economic growth. Merkel may press China not to follow those countries ready to further increase public debt. There will be an exchange of views on trade issues against the background of the stalled major deals (Trans-Pacific Partnership and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership). And Merkel will push for an early conclusion of the EU-China bilateral investment treaty negotiations. She is also expected to push forward other issues on the G20 agenda, including financial sector reform agenda and tax transparency. For Merkel, her trip to China will be a break from internal problems (finding a successor to President Joachim Gauck) and European difficulties (UK referendum, migration, Ukraine). The author is director of the EU-Asia Centre in Brussels. LUO JIE/CHINA DAILY This year's national college entrance examination, or gaokao, has ended but discussions on it continue. Among the questions for gaokao, the one that got the most attention was perhaps the writing test, which required students to write a 800-word essay in Chinese in 60 minutes. The essay carried 60 points out of a total of 750the highest among single questions. It won't be an exaggeration to say that the essay was the most decisive question in the exam and examinees' total scores were largely determined by it. It plays a key role in deciding whether they can go to a college and which one they will go to. The subjects for the essay varied from province to province. Yet this year the essay's subjects in some provinces had some problemssome could lead to inequality or cause other "side effects" among candidates. For example, the essay's subject in East China's Zhejiang province this year was: "Are you for or against virtual reality (VR) technology? Why?" Such a question might have been aimed at encouraging students to be more creative and learn more about advanced technologies. But the problem is, VR is a rather new concept and many people, especially high school graduates from rural areas, might not even be aware of what it is. Besides, given the advanced nature of VR devices, some analysts say, they remain a luxury for students from not-so-well-to-do families. Therefore, forcing them to answer such questions would be unfair, both socially and financially. Some may argue that a short paragraph after the question paraphrases the issue. But since VR is a highly complicated subject, we cannot expect all fresh high-school graduates to understand it by just reading the paraphrase. Another problematic essay topic was seen in the question paper in Southwest China's Sichuan province. It tells a rather illogical story of the suffering of a business start-up because other companies have copied its brands. Following this, the start-up streamlines its operations and makes its patent public, allowing everybody in the industry, including the counterfeiters, to benefit. To make matters more complicated for the examinees, the whole story was written in a chickensoup-for-the-soul style. Isn't it absurd to select such a story for gaokao? The start-up's intellectual property rights were violated, yet no one helped it get compensation. And instead of receiving their deserved punishment, the counterfeiters make profits because of the absence of IPR protection. Other controversial topics included "promotion of soft power and giving more attention to the Chinese language", which is too big and complex an issue for fresh high school graduates. That people are discussing gaokao questions shows they care for justice. For most high school graduates, gaokao decides whether they can attend college. As such, tens of thousands of rural students could unfairly lose valuable scores if they are forced to answer questions on VR devices, because most of them have never used them. Moreover, gaokao is organized by the State and the value it promotes should not be skewed. Data show that 9.4 million high school graduates took this year's gaokao, of which 570,000 were in Sichuan. If the essay question sends a wrong message on IPR protection, how could anyone trust China's determination to fight piracy? Actually, people are not excessively critical of gaokao. Instead, they welcome good topics in question papers. The question in Shanghai's paper is a good example, because it asked examinees to write on talking about others. It is an open question, allows examinees to write freely, and is in accordance with the shared value of the contemporary world. Hence, it is time gaokao examiners set more considerate questions, because on gaokao hangs the destinies of millions of youths. The author is a writer with China Daily. zhangzhouxiang@chinadaily.com.cn Yamato Tanooka, a 7-year-old Japanese boy who miraculously survived six days alone in a mountain forest, leaves hospital in the Hokkaido city of Hakodate on June 7, 2016, with his parents making a deep bow.[Photo/IC] The rescue of seven-year-old Japanese boy Yamato Tanooka after he survived six nights alone in Hokkaido's woods prompted the whole of Japan to deliberate on how to properly disciple children. Tanooka's parents forced him out of their car and left him on a mountain road in the bear-inhabited forest on May 28 as punishment for throwing stones at cars and people. While Japanese rescue workers and Self-Defense Force personnel were scouring the forest for Tanooka, he had walked almost 7 kilometers to a SDF training facility. He kept himself warm by sleeping between two mattresses and drank water from a tap he came across in the SDF training camp (he didn't get anything solid to eat). The second grader's endurance and survival skills awed the whole of Japan. And his parents were condemned for treating their son too harshlysome people called for understanding of parental frustration, though. Many Japanese parents consider disciplining children an important part of their children's development. As an old Japanese saying goes, there are four things to be feared in life: earthquakes, thunder, fire and fathers. In old times, Japanese fathers were regarded as strict and men of authority. But it seems their authority (when it comes to raising a child) has diminished over the past generation. HAVANA - The "Germinal" frigate from the French National Navy arrived in Havana's port on Sunday for a four-day friendly visit. The French F-735 light monitoring vessel, with a crew of around 100 sailors, was welcomed by Sea Captain Jose Luis Souto Galindo, second in command of Cuba's Department of the Navy, and French ambassador Jean Marie Bruno. The commander of the "Germinal," navy captain Michel Vaxelaire, said this has been their third visit to Cuba since 2012. They hope the visits will boost ties between the two countries and also help them learn about Cuba's culture. Based in the French port of Fort-de-France in Martinique, the "Germinal" is a Floreal class vessel measuring 93 meters in length and weighing 3,000 displacement tons. It is armed with a multi-purpose 100-millimeter cannon, two Exocet missile launchers, a decoy Dagie launcher system, two 20-millimeter cannons and a full range of electronic detection and countermeasure systems. NEW DELHI - At least 11 people were killed in India's eastern state of Bihar due to thunderstorm and rains, officials said Monday. "Five deaths were reported from Muzzafarpur, six from Patna and Siwan districts," an official told media. The downpour also disrupted rail traffic between Siwan and Mairwa for few hours. India's most important weather phenomenon - monsoons (the rainy season) has arrived in India last week. According to Indian Meteorological department, it is likely to reach Bihar by June 20. The monsoon period which brings about 80 percent of annual rainfall in India begins in June and lasts until September. Last month 50 people were killed in thunderstorms and cloudbursts in north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. BEIJING - Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called his US counterpart Barack Obama to offer condolences over the deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida. On behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, Xi expressed deep sympathy and sincere condolences to Obama, the US government and the US people. He also expressed grief to the victims of the terror attack. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in a mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It has been the deadliest terror attack in US history since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the shooting. BEIJING - Premier Li Keqiang on Monday offered condolences to the United States after a fatal shooting in Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday. "China opposes terrorist action in all forms," Li said in a joint press conference after his talks with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Great Hall of the People. Li expressed condolences for the victims, extended deep sympathy to their families, and hoped for the speedy and safe recovery of those who were wounded. Merkel said she was shocked by the incident, and expressed condolences and sympathy, on behalf of Germany, to the victims and their families. Li and Merkel co-chaired the fourth round of China-Germany intergovernmental consultation on Monday morning. President Xi Jinping meets German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing on Monday. PANG XINGLEI/XINHUA Xi looks for anti-dumping decisions to end against domestic enterprises China expects Germany and the European Union to stop resorting to an unfair practice of making anti-dumping investigation decisions against Chinese enterprises before Dec 11, President Xi Jinping said on Monday. "I hope Germany and the EU can objectively view the connection between competition and cooperation and properly handle China-Europe trade frictions," he said. During a meeting in Beijing with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Xi called for the timely implementation of Article 15 of the Accession Protocol of China's entry to the World Trade Organization, as agreed when China joined the WTO in 2001. This stipulates that all WTO members should stop following subrogate country measures in anti-dumping cases against China before Dec 11, 2016. According to Chinese media reports, the WTO doesn't clearly define so-called subrogate countries, leaving loopholes allowing the EU to exploit its anti-dumping policies against Chinese exports. Merkel said Germany attaches importance to the implementation of Article 15. Chen Fengying, a world economy research fellow at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said the discriminatory practice adopte by some countries of using prices in other nations to gauge the cost of Chinese products has caused unnecessary losses for Chinese enterprises in anti-dumping cases. Xi also said Beijing's ties with Berlin have entered a "very mature" phase, adding that the two countries should look after the core interests and concerns of each other to continue the healthy development of the relationship. China and Germany signed more than 20 cooperation agreements on Monday in a dozen fields after the fourth China-Germany intergovernmental consultations, co-chaired by Premier Li Keqiang and Merkel. During the consultations, Li and Merkel listened to reports by heads of 26 departments from both countries, including finance, commerce, education, transportation and healthcare, who later signed the agreements. More than 100 cooperation agreements have been signed during four consultations since 2011. Li said the two nations should strengthen high-level exchanges and strategic trust, and oppose trade protectionism amid a sluggish global economy. He called on Germany to accelerate negotiations and sign the China-EU bilateral investment treaty. The premier said, "Both countries should reinforce policy coordination under global frameworks such as the G20 Summit, link their national strategies and boost industrial cooperation in smart manufacturing and sustainable development." He also said China is willing to advance academic and research exchanges with German universities, research institutes and enterprises. Merkel said Germany is willing to work with China on smart manufacturing and new energy vehicles, and to tap into business opportunities in other markets. Contact the writer at huyongqi@chinadaily.com.cn (Photo : Getty Images/Feng Li) China is unwilling to let India join the group without signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the admission may set a wrong precedence. Advertisement China has emphasized the importance of building consensus for the Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) to grant membership to applicants. Beijing is opposing a bid made by India for inclusion into the 48-nation exclusive group. The bid is supported by the United States. China's statement comes ahead of a vote to select new members that will join the group. One of the most prominent countries vying for NSG inclusion is India, which is not a signatory of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Apart from China, India's bid is being opposed by other countries such as Austria, South Africa and Turkey on the grounds that New Delhi is not a signatory of the NPT. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement In an online statement released on Sunday, Hong Lei, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said, "With regard to what to do on the issue of non-NPT signatories joining (the NSG), China consistently supports having ample discussion on this to seek consensus and agreement and come to a unanimous decision." Hong emphasized that the NPT is important for maintaining an international system for non-proliferation in place. He said that while there are 'large differences' over the issue of non-signatories of the NPT joining the Nuclear Supplier Group, China is willing to engage in talks to reach a consensus. China has voiced unwillingness to let India join the group as the admission may set the wrong precedence for future applicants. However, critics have highlighted China's close relationship with Pakistan as another reason for the decision to block India's bid to join the NSG. The Nuclear Supplier Group is likely to make decision about India's application for membership on June 20 at a plenary meeting in Seoul, South Korea. The NSG aims to regulate the trade of items which may be used for building nuclear arms. Advertisement TagsNuclear Supplier Group, china, India (Photo : Getty Images.) Chinas ambitious railroad project in Brazil is being hindered by political uncertainties. Advertisement Last year, China made the most ambitious move in its Latin American diplomacy by joining hands with Brazil and Peru to construct a railroad project stretching from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. China on its part committed billions of dollars towards the dream project that is estimated to cost $10 billion. Experts hailed China's decision to become a part of the railroad project as a masterstroke that would finally help China in replacing America as a major ally to the Latin American region. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement However, China's ambitious venture seems to have gone astray as the rail-road project has hit a stumbling block. The project has already missed its first deadline due to the non-completion of a feasibility study, which was initially expected to be finished in May. Reports suggest that Brazil's current political turmoil has taken a toll on the railroad project. The nation's President, Dilma Rouseff, was recently suspended over an impeachment trial. "The political situation in Brazil makes it very difficult for a project of this nature to receive attention," says Manuel Ruiz, director of Peruvian Society of Environmental Rights. Industry experts are of the opinion that Brazil's current economic woes and global economic uncertainty are also hindering the project's implementation. Meanwhile, in the neighboring country Peru, political scenario is equally uncertain, which has made matters worse for China's rail-road project. Peru welcomed a new president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who won after a closely fought election earlier this week. Kuczynski has still not stated his views on China's pet project. "Any new administration introduces a degree of uncertainty to the project," says Margaret Myers, director of the China-Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue. Analysts claim that even though the railroad project is crucial for China's diplomatic ambition in Latin America, any potential deal in the project will not affect China's long-term pursuit and Beijing will continue with its ambition. Experts cite that China is already making progress in other important areas in this pursuit. It has already become one of the biggest trading partners of Brazil, Chile and Peru. Its export to the Latin American region increased from $6 billion in 2000 to a whopping $130 billion in 2014, according to IMF data. China is also closing on U.S. to emerge as one of the biggest financial donors to South American countries. Advertisement Tagschina, Brazil, China and Latin America, China and Brazil, China rail road project (Photo : Getty Images.) German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated her three day visit to China on Sunday. Advertisement German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Beijing to uphold the rule of law and create a level playing field for foreign companies as she began her three-day visit to China on Sunday. This is Merkel's ninth visit to China since assuming office in 2005. Speaking to students at Beijing University on Sunday, Merkel underscored the importance of independent judiciary for strengthening social stability in the society. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "This means the judiciary decides according to the laws and legislation of the country independently of politics, and everyone is equal before the law. That means court procedures and rulings have to be transparent," the German chancellor said. "If interpreted in this way, rule of law strengthens the trust of citizens in state institutions and its decisions. And thereby also strengths the social stability of a country." Merkel's critical statement was directly aimed at China's communist government, which has been constantly accused of interfering in judicial processes. However, experts say that President Xi has taken many positive steps to improve the country's judicial system in order to quell street protests. The German chancellor and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Sunday also agreed to hold future discussions on controversial law-banning NGO's from receiving finance and engaging in political activities. The discussion on the issue would be held through foreign ministries and other organizations. On the issue of foreign firms, Merkel urged Beijing to shed their policy of trade protectionism and allow foreign companies to operate more openly in the Chinese market. "As we see it, a legal framework for companies also has to be designed in such a way that foreign companies enjoy the same rights and privileges as domestic companies, for example as regards public tenders, the effective protection of brands and patents and data," she said. Trade experts have been criticizing China not only for non-implementation of economic reforms, but also for introducing a slew of tough regulations for foreign firms. Experts claim that these regulations have made it further difficult for foreign companies to operate in the Chinese market. Merkel also raised the issue of China's excessive steel dumping in the international markets, which has taken a toll on profits of several major steel companies in the international markets. "We have to ensure that we have a level playing field," Merkel said on the steel overcapacity issue. She added that no one wants to see a prolonged trade war between the European Union and China, stressing that the issue of steel dumping needs to be solved through proper negotiations. Advertisement Tagsangela merkel, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Angela Merkel China, china, China and Gremany, Angela Merkel China, Angela Merkel China visit, Germany (Photo : Joe Raedle/Getty Images) FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub where Omar Mateen allegedly killed at least 50 people on June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. The mass shooting killed at least 50 people and injuring 53 others in what is the deadliest mass shooting in the countryOs history. Advertisement The three candidates in contention for U.S. presidency in the 2016 elections have reacted to the tragic mass shooting at an Orlando gay bar that killed 50 people and injured several others. A gunman opened fire at patrons at a gay club called Pules in Orlando early Sunday morning. The shooting claimed 50 lives and injured 53 others, making it the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The gunman, identified as U.S. citizen Omar Mateen, was reportedly radicalized by the militant group ISIS. The 29-year-old, who was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, was fatally shot on the scene. In the wake of the tragic incident, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton took to social media to comment on the shooting. Clinton wrote on Twitter that she was devastated by the news of the shooting and that her thoughts and prayers were with those affected by the "horrific act." Presumptive Democratic nominee later released a lengthier statement on the attack, calling it an "act of terror" and an "act of hate." "For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad," the statement read. "That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home." She also voiced her support for the LGBT community and noted Clinton noted that guns like the one used by the attacker should be kept out of the hands of terrorists and other violent criminals. GOP presumptive nominee, Trump, also took to Twitter to say the following: "Really bad shooting in Orlando. Police investigating possible terrorism. Many people dead and wounded." Trump followed up his post with another tweet, saying that he was praying for the victims and their families. "When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?" he asked. He later released another statement denouncing President Barack Obama for refusing to say the words "radical Islam." He also said that if people won't get "tough and smart real fast," Americans will lose their country. The presumptive Republican nominee also reiterated his stance on immigrants, adding that they have been implicated in terrorism. Following suit, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders released a statement of his own. "Our thoughts are with the injured and the entire Orlando LGBTQ community," he said. The presidential candidate addressed the shooting during his Meet The Press appearance later, stating that the shooting was unthinkable and that the U.S. should do everything in its power to prevent guns from falling into the "hands of people who should not have them." The Orlando shooting comes a day after The Voice contestant Christina Grimmie was fatally shot by a supposed stalker during a meet and greet after her concert. Also, a day after the deadliest mas shooting in U.S. history, a man planning an attack on the Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles was arrested in Santa Monica after officials allegedly found weapons in his car. Advertisement Tags2016 presidential elections, United States, Orlando mass shooting, gay pride, gay club, pulse, Orlando, Orlando shooting, Omar Mateen, Pulse gay (Photo : NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) This enhanced color view from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft zooms in on the southeastern portion of Pluto's great ice plains, where at lower right the plains border rugged, dark highlands informally named Krun Macula. Advertisement it's been almost a year since the epic Pluto flyby of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, capturing the unprecedented views of the dwarf planet with high resolution images of its complex surface. Now, Pluto reveals its canyons, mountain ranges and hills of nitrogen ice in this newest series of photos. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement More specifically, NASA released this enhanced color image of the complex, alien surface of Pluto taken from three different observations last July, revealing the southeastern region of the great ice plains of Pluto that lies near the borders of its dark highlands, known as Krun Macula. NASA scientists explain how this image is named after the lord of the underworld, Krun, that is originally taken from the ancient Mandaean religion where macula is named after a dark feature on the surface of the dwarf planet. NASA describes this image as Krun Macula that stretches for about 1.5 miles above the surrounding plain known as Sputnik Planum, that is also pockmarked with bizarre clusters of rough circular pits that are measured between five to eight miles across and 1.5 miles deep into surface. Sputnik Planum's boundaries are filled with these pits and deep valleys that can reach about 25 miles long and 12.5 miles wide, deep into the surface of the dwarf planet at two miles, which is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in Arizona, where its pit floors are covered in nitrogen ice. Mission scientists believe that these strange, deep pits were formed when the surface collapsed, however the original cause of this collapse is still unknown. These images are also the highest resolution images ever captured by New Horizons of the Pluto system. Apart from Pluto's surface, New Horizons also obtained the first ever observations of its moon system, that includes Charon, Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. Advertisement TagsNASA New Horizons, Pluto, Pluto new horizons, krun macula, pluto surface, high resolution images pluto (Photo : Getty Images) President Barack Obama said the Orlando mass shooting was an "act of terror and an act of hate" as he addressed the nation hours after the worst mass shooting in US history unfolded during the early hours of Sunday Advertisement 50 people were killed and 53 others injured after a gunman, armed with an automatic assault rifle and a handgun, opened fire at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida early Sunday morning in what is being described as the worst terror attack in US history since 9/11. President Barack Obama, in a message he delivered hours after the shooting, condemned the tragic and horrific incident at Orlando's Pulse nightclub describing, it as both an "act of terror" and an "act of hate." Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate," Obama said. "And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people," he added. The shooter, who was gunned down by the police during an exchange of fire at the scene, has been identified as Omar Mateen - a 29-year-old U.S. citizen born to Afghani immigrants. Mateen, who was born in New York, was fatally shot by police who stormed the club almost three hours after the shooting erupted. The police said he was a Florida resident and worked as a security guard before committing the heinous act, which according to the police was "planned and organized." "It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State," said FBI officials in charge of the case. Anti-terror officials, however, cautioned that they have yet to determine if Mateen acted on the Islamic State's instructions or was just "inspired" by the ISIS ideology, which prompted him to plan his deadly attack at the club. "This was an act of terror. This was an act of hate," the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton tweeted in the early hours of Sunday after learning of the tragedy. Reports said the FBI interviewed Mateen in 2013 and 2014 upon complaints from his ex-wife and neighbors that he was espousing the Islamic State's ideology but found no concrete evidence to support that he was a part of the extremist group, leaving authorities with no choice but to let him go. LGBTQ groups across the country have also voiced their support to the families and relatives of the Pulse victims saying that the LGBTQ community will not be cowered by any threats to their advocacies. Meanwhile, the world continues to pay tributes to the Orlando shooting victims, with members of the LGBTQ in Paris, Canada and other nations lighting candles, singing and chanting slogans like "love overcomes hate." More than 300 people packed the cavernous gay nightclub when the lone gunman entered the venue and opened fire. Advertisement TagsOrlando terror attack, Omar Mateen, President Barack Obama, LGBTQ community, Orlando shooting, Orlando Pulse, Orlando (Photo : Getty Images.) Taiwanese authorities have barred former president Ma Ying-jeou from visiting Hong Kong. Advertisement Taiwanese authorities have rejected former President Ma Ying-jeou's request to visit Hong Kong later this month to attend an award ceremony organized by the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA). Ma was invited as one of the keynote speakers for the event where he was hoping to speak on cross-strait relations. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The office of President Tsai Ing-wen sated that Ma would not be allowed to visit Hong Kong as the former president may still be possessing some sensitive documents and classified information. "As Ma submitted his request just 13 days after he left office, at such short notice, it is unlikely that the new government could discover what kind of classified information he'd accessed and whether he had returned all those documents and completed clearance procedures," said presidential spokesman Alex Huang. As per Taiwan's Classified National Security Information Protection Act, ex-government officials with access to classified information and sensitive documents are subjected to travel restrictions for at least three years after resigning from the office. Ma left office on May 20 after the Kuomintang Party lost January's presidential election to Tsai's pro-independent party Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). If Ma's visit to Hong Kong had been cleared, then he would have become the most senior ex-leader from Taiwan to visit Hong Kong since 1949. Ma's office immediately expressed regret over the decision. A spokeswoman said that the decision not only showed disrespect to the former president but caused damage to Taiwan's democratic credentials in the world. However, the decision was welcome by members of DPP. A DPP lawmaker said that former president was planning to promote the "one China" principle during his Hong Kong visit. During his eight years as president of Taiwan, Ma was widely criticized for his moderate policies towards China. Many political experts had feared that his "pro-China" policies would one day steer Taiwan towards unification with China. Advertisement TagsTaiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, China and Taiwan, Cross-Strait relation (Photo : Getty Images.) To beef up internet infrastructure in Nepal, Chinese government has successfully connected Nepal with an optical fiber network to mainland China. Advertisement In order to improve the internet infrastructure in Nepal, the Chinese government has successfully linked its neighbors to mainland China with an optical fiber network, according to state media outlet Xinhua. Nepal's state-owned Nepal Telecom (NT) announced on Saturday that its optical fiber network has been linked with China Telecom Corporation Limited. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement "After establishing connection, we conducted technical test about two weeks ago," Dilliram Adhikari, joint spokesperson of NT was quoted as saying in the report. Nepal can now be directly connected to Hong Kong Data Centre, which is one of the biggest data centers in Asia. The direct connection to the data centre is likely to end Nepal's search for high-speed internet connectivity. The Himalayan kingdom can now also purchase internet bandwidth from from Chinese companies, for which it had to rely on India and other countries. "This will create a competitive environment for purchasing internet services which could reduce the cost of Internet service here," Adhikari said. For China, this is another shot in the arm to reduce Nepal's dependency on its traditional ally India. Over the years China has been ramping up all its infrastructure projects in Nepal, which has brought the two Himalayan neighbors closer. More importantly, this has given China an opportunity to beef up its presence in India's neighborhood, according to experts. Nepal's Prime Minister K.P. Oli, who paid a state visit to China earlier this year, was given a red carpet welcome by the Chinese Government. Apart from signing several MOU's for infrastructural projects, Nepal was also promisedf financial aid and unrestricted fuel supply. Nepal's overture towards China has raised serious concerns in New Delhi, which is already overwhelmed by China's presence in other neighboring countries including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Advertisement TagsChina and Nepal, china, Nepal, China and India, India, optical fiber cable network, optical fiber network, Internet After Orlando massacre, faith leaders decry politics and remind it is a time to mourn & comfort terror victims 13 June, 2016 by Gregory Tomlin , | ORLANDO (Christian Examiner) If the terror attack in an Orlando, Fla., gay bar is confirmed to be the work of an Islamic State loyalist and all indications so far are that the shooter pledged allegiance to ISIS before the incident and had been investigated by the FBI for ties to radical Islam the shooting will offer another look at the key difference between Islam and Christianity, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas said in a video announcement via social media. "We don't know all of the details about this shooting, but if, perchance, as some have suggested, this is tied to radical Islam, it is yet another demonstration of the difference between Christianity and Islam," Robert Jeffress said after the attack. "Radical Islam says, 'kill your enemies.' Jesus said, 'Love your enemies.'" We don't know all of the details about this shooting, but if, perchance, as some have suggested, this is tied to radical Islam, it is yet another demonstration of the difference between Christianity and Islam. ... Radical Islam says, 'kill your enemies.' Jesus said, 'Love your enemies.' Jeffress expressed his condolences to the victims' families and said Christians are commanded by Christ to love their neighbors, even "those who are living a lifestyle with which you disagree." "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted," Jeffress said, adding that the violence of this age will end when Christ returns to bring peace to the earth. What is known so far is that 29-year-old Omar Mateen went to the club intending anything but peace. He reportedly exchanged gunfire with an off-duty police officer before entering the Pulse nightclub. Exactly when all of those killed were shot is still not clear, but at the conclusion of the hostage crisis which lasted three hours Mateen was among the 50 dead. He was shot by SWAT officers who breached the wall of the building. Aamaq, the media arm of the Islamic State, said the attack was "carried out by an Islamic State fighter." The terror group had also reportedly named Florida among its targets just days before the incident. SENSELESS SHOOTING, TERRIBLE MASSACRE Evangelist Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse, said via social media this his prayers were with the victims of the "senseless shooting now being called an act of terrorism." "Life is precious, and we only have one chance to live our lives here on earth," Graham said. The Vatican also responded to the shooting. According to Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardia, Pope Francis called the shooting a "terrible massacre" that left a "dreadfully high number of innocent victims." Lombardia said the pontiff had condemned the attack and all of the Catholic faithful would be praying for the people involved in "this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred." "Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion," the statement from Pope Francis said. "Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort." "We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity." Bishop John Noonan of Orlando, who was out of state for a conference, wrote in a letter to the city's religious leaders that "a sword has pierced the heart of the city." He said he would be working on ways to help minister to the community in the wake of the attack. CAIR CALLS OUT ISIS The communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also issued a brief statement seeking to distance mainstream Islam from the extremism of the Islamic State. Ibrahim Hooper said the attack "is a hate crime, pure and simple." He admitted, however, that Mateen was acting out of loyalty to the Islamic State. "As Muslims, as Americans, now is the time to speak out and make it clear, we will not give in to hate and we will not give into fear," Hooper said. "I have a word for members of ISIS. How will you stand before God and answer for the crimes of the deaths of thousands of people? You do not speak for us or represent us. You are an aberration, an outlaw." HOMOSEXUALITY PUNISHABLE BY DEATH IN ISLAM However, the belief that homosexuality is still punishable by death is a part of many different streams of Islam, both Sunni and Shiite. In March an Iranian-based imam at an Orlando-area mosque said that homosexuals should be killed out of "compassion." "Death is the sentence. We know. There's nothing to be embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence," Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar said at the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford. "We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals. It's the same. Out of compassion. Let's get rid of them now." PRAYERS FOR FORGIVENESS, FAMILIES At least one church seems to have assumed after the attack that the shooting was the result of "our fearful xenophobia" or anti-gay intolerance on the part of the church and American society at large. Rev. Laurie Ann Kraus, associate missions director with the Presbyterian Missions Agency of the PC (USA), published a prayer on the denomination's website calling the act one that stains "the floors of our places of fellowship, community and learning." She asked the "God of the rainbow" to forgive "our society which tolerates violence." She also asked for prayer: "For those who have been lost: brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends, Your [God's] children, enjoying an evening of music and friendship, Whose lives were ended or maimed in a hail of hatred and gunfire." A less political call to prayer was voiced by Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Moore wrote that Americans, deeply divided over political, religious and cultural issues, should take time to mourn the loss of life without inserting partisan politics into the discussion. While he wrote that he understands that people will see the situation as a time to score political points on issues like gun control, there is time for those discussions after the victims and their families are cared for. "Families who were waiting to see their loved ones are finding out today that they will never see them again in this life. That ought to drive us to mourn," Moore wrote. "Let's call our congregations to pray together. Let's realize that, in this case, our gay and lesbian neighbors are likely quite scared. Who wouldn't be? Demonstrate the sacrificial love of Jesus to them. We don't have to agree on the meaning of marriage and sexuality to love one another and to see the murderous sin of terrorism. Let's also pray for our leaders who have challenging decisions to make in the midst of crisis. Let's mobilize our congregations and others to give blood for the victims. Let's call for governing authorities to do their primary duty of keeping its people safe from evildoers." "And let's bear patiently with those who jump the gun, in arguing about the politics on social media. For many of them, the jump to talk about gun control or Islam or military preparedness or any other issue isn't so much about pontificating as it is about frustration. They, like all of us, want this horror to end, and they want to do somethingeven if that's just expressing themselves on Twitter." Moore continued: "As the Body of Christ, though, we can love and serve and weep and mourn. And we can remind ourselves and our neighbors that this is not the way it is supposed to be. We mourn, but we mourn in the hope of a kingdom where blood is not shed and where bullets never fly." The first residents from Fallujah to greet humanitarian aid workers were mostly in tears. They were absolutely traumatized, absolutely fearful, said Jeremy Courtney, president of the Preemptive Love Coalition. As the Iraqi army and the Iraqi governments affiliate militias fight to take back the city, captured by ISIS in January 2014, Preemptive Love became the first and so far only non-governmental organization to penetrate the militarized zone. Starting June 2 the group delivered by truck 150,000 pounds of food and water, enough to support 1,500 needy families who have been caught in the fighting. As Iraqi forces pressed their campaign against the Islamic militants, entering the Fallujah city limits on Wednesday, the UN quickly revised its estimate of the number of civilians trapped therefrom 50,000 to more than 90,000. The aid response has been overwhelmed already with the steady flow weve seen over the past few weeks, Courtney told me from Iraq. No one was even remotely prepared for 50,000. Fallujah sits 40 miles west of Baghdad, and it became the first city in Iraq to fall to ISIS. Its residents endured two years of Islamic State brutality before Iraqi forces imposed a six-month blockade to weaken ISIS controlahead of the military offensive that began May 22. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, died of starvation, even before ISIS drafted many locals, using them as human shields, in recent weeks. Survivors report they have gone without power, water, food, and medicine. Some families who hid out in their houses existed on dates and yogurt for months, they said, speaking to one another only in whispers so Islamic State fighters wouldnt discover them. I could spend all day talking about our life under the control of ISISat the end you wont believe it, one survivor told an NBC News crew that reached the area alongside Preemptive Love. As the battle with Iraqs army got underway, residents who defied ISIS were executed. Snipers fired on civilians who tried to run away, including hundreds who used inner tubes and makeshift rafts to cross the Euphrates River. Despite the danger, tens of thousands made their way in the last two weeks to desert camps on the citys outskirts. They arrived with lots of tears, said Courtney. Preemptive Love quickly realized almost no men were among Fallujahs newly displaced. That meant no one to help carry the 100-pound food parcels back to makeshift shelters. The UN arrived to distribute tents, but according to Courtney, Youd see women giving up, sitting on top of the tents in the desert for hours with no protection, no help, literally living on sand. Most males over age 13 not forced to serve ISIS have been taken into custody by the Iraqi army or Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), the Shia militia groups deployed by the Iraqi government, according to Courtney. The men from Fallujah are being screened for ties to ISIS. Thamer al-Tamimi, deputy chairman of the PMU Commission, said the men among the displaced would undergo routine investigations that usually dont last more than 48 hours, then released. He said 603 men from Fallujah had been transferred to Anbar provincial government custody, presumably because of suspected terrorist ties. Getting rid of ISIL [or ISIS] is the goal, and the sooner its destroyed the better, said Max Primorac, president of the Institute for Stabilization and Transition and a former U.S. State Department official in Baghdad. But it will be ugly and messy. With the Fallujah battle, Iraqi forces and their allies, like the United States, are gaining an up-close look at the serious challenges ahead to liberate areas from the militants control. Military strategists particularly expect the liberating the northern city of Mosul and the surrounding areainvolving more than 1 million residentsto come at a great cost. Expect more Khmer-Rouge like atrocities to be exposed as the counteroffensive frees more and more lands, Primorac predicted. In Anbar province, besides using human shields, ISIS has destroyed or rigged with explosives many buildings. The physical destruction, together with the trauma and humanitarian needs, said Primorac, means everyone is overwhelmed. That makes arrival of non-government aid via Preemptive Love more remarkable. Four years ago, Preemptive Love began sending medical teams to Fallujah, helping to expand the work of Fallujah General Hospital with hard-to-get care and surgery, in particular for children. ISIS fighters destroyed modern equipment provided by Preemptive Love and others and much of the hospital itself. But Courtneya Christian who lives in Iraq with his wife, 10-year-old daughter, and 8-year-old sonhas held on to relationships with local sheikhs and government officials in Anbar and elsewhere. Courtney insists his groups effort canand shouldbe replicated: We are not miracle workers. But we did not pop on the scene in 2014. We have a history here. When I asked him what it took to get his supply convoy into Fallujahs militarized zone, Courtney listed half a dozen entities needed to gain clearance. They ranged from the prime ministers office in Baghdad to local Sunni sheikhs and a religious endowment in Anbar province. Delivering weighty items like food and water may be a challenge for many NGOs, but its also whats currently needed most. Preemptive Love plans to send another aid delivery to Fallujah within several days and currently has only one to one and a half weeks of money left for these kinds of deliveries, Courtney said. But the group hopes to do more as the humanitarian fallout from ISIS continues to unfold. Courtesy: WORLD News Service Publication date: June 13, 2016 Parents of a teenage girl is facing a potential lawsuit for sending their daughter to a Christian camp, according to recent reports. The lawsuit was filed by the teen's cousin, Joey Jordan, an actor who plays the role of Winn Schott on the show, 'Supergirl.' Jordan claims that his cousin, 17-year-old Sarah, was sent to the Christian camp in East Texas by her parents in an attempt to take away her same-sex attractions. Jordan started a GoFundMe page on June 4 called 'Save Sarah' to raise $100,000 to file the lawsuit. Within five days, it had reached $64,252. Instead of preparing for college and competing in the state debate tournament, [Sarah will] be doing forced labor every day and enduring Bible-based therapy for her disease, Jordan said. According to the post, her parents were described as folks who believe that homosexuality is a sin and abnormal. Patrick Von Dohlen, president of the San Antonio Family Association, told local news Station KENS 5 that Sarahs parents' method of discipline were for her own good and safety. Dohlen stated, In this case, its natural for her to like boys. Its not natural for her to like girls. Sarah "tried to run away [from the camp], but she was caught by the staff and returned to the facility," Jordan described in the GoFundMe page. The camp, called Heartlight Ministry, countered such accusations, stating that the counseling facility is for teenagers who are troubled with a wide range of behavioral and emotional issues. Mark Gregson, Heartlights founder and executive director stated, It is disheartening to see that this young woman has had elements of her story made widely public without her consent. The assertion that this teen was held at Heartlight Ministries against her will, or that Heartlight provides any treatment services for sexual identity, are categorically untrue. Sarah no longer attends Heartlight Ministries, and the GoFundMe page has since stopped receiving donations. A legal hearing is still set for July and attorney Christine Andresen of the CHA Law Group, which is known for prosecuting LGBT cases, was hired to pursue the case. If the lawsuit is dropped, the remaining donations will go towards Sarah's college tuition, according to the GoFundMe page. A man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State went on a shooting spree at a gay nightclub in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Sunday morning, killing 50 and wounding another 53 before he was gunned down by SWAT team. The assailant was identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a resident of Fort Pierce, which is about 120 miles from Orlando. He entered the nightclub armed with an assault rifle, a pistol, and many rounds of ammunition. He called up 911 in the middle of the attack to pledge his allegiance to ISIS. The IS radio on Monday called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." Mateen was suspected of terrorist ties in the past, but investigators have not yet found any evidence of his direct link with the militant group. The shootout at Orlando Pulse nightclub began at around 2 AM on Sunday, and after a three-hour standoff, the police managed to overpower the gunman. About 350 people were at Pulse at the time of the shootout. The Pulse posted a message on its Facebook page at 2:09 am, which said: "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running." After the attacker was downed, the victims were carried to the Orlando Regional Medical Center. Doctors operated on about 26 people, who were severely wounded. "Many of the gunshot wounds were fairly severe," said Dr. Michael Cheatham, chief surgical quality officer for the Orlando Regional Medical Center. "Many trunk, abdomen and extreme gunshot wounds. Our operating room has been quite busy all day long with those injuries." "Our hearts are broken and we share in our community's grief," the hospital said in a statement. "We mourn for those killed in this horrific incident, and we are praying for their loved ones, as well as for healing for the wounded." Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital, waiting for updates from their loved ones who were at the club during the shootout. Mateen had worked with a private security company, G4S Secure Solutions, since 2007. He was interviewed by FBI twice on suspicion of links with terrorists in 2013 and 2014, but sufficient evidence was not found against him. He had purchased the assault rifle and handgun in the last two weeks before the attack. "He is not a prohibited person. They can legally walk into a gun dealership and acquire and purchase firearms. He did so. And he did so within the last week or so," said ATF Assistant Special Agent in Charge Trevor Velinor. President Barack Obama expressed grief over the incidence, and offered condolences to the victims of the families over a special address from the White House. "Today, as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder -- a horrific massacre -- of dozens of innocent people. We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand with the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city." "In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. We will not give in to fear or turn against each other," he added. "Instead, we will stand united as Americans to protect our people and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us." A Catholic church in Chile was attacked and ransacked as a student protest in Santiago proceeded to become increasingly violent. The protesters from the country's left-leaning student body also destroyed a three-meter Jesus statue and took other religious iconography. Masked protesters entered the Gratitud Nacional church and left it in shambles. The church said that they will file a complaint against the student group. The students are demanding "a free and equal education system," so that students could pursue a debt-free education. The protests were one of the most violent in the recent years, and students started fires and threw Molotov cocktails at police, according to media reports. About 150,000 students participated in the ongoing protest which is organized by the Student Confederation of Chile (Confech). "What we have just seen there is a very disturbing symptom of what some people, some young, apparently are coming to perform in our country. I want to first express this concern and also the solidarity of the Government in this case for homeowners, the pastor of this place," said Chile's Interior Minister Mario Fernandez. The student body says that President Michelle Bachelet had promised greater reforms in education, but failed to deliver them. Confech has criticized the attack, and said that the attack on the church was uncalled for, and was carried out by a group which was not well-versed with the movement's principles. Head of security and public order, General Aldo Vidal said that "investigations are underway to find those responsible for this crime." In the wake of the shooting in Orlando that killed 50 on Sunday morning, church leaders expressed grief over one of the worst massacres that occurred in the U.S. The shooting began approximately at 2 AM on Sunday at a gay nightclub called Pulse, and resulted in a three-hour standoff. The gunman, who claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, was also killed in the standoff. Several prominent Christian leaders across the nation took to the Internet to express grief, as well as how they interpret the meaning of the gospel to apply in such circumstances. "Praying. Mourning. Grieving," wrote Eugene Cho, pastor of Quest Church, on Facebook. "The deadliest mass shooting in modern United States history. Each person created in the image of God. Lord, in your mercy..." Cho posted again on Monday afternoon, with a link to a Wall Street Journal article detailing the stories of 49 victims who were identified. "49 names. 49 victims. Real people. Real stories. All and each created in the image of God. May we learn a glimpse of their stories. May our hearts not grow numb and desensitized to the real violence in our world - including to the LGBTQ community," he wrote. "Let it be said again. Through tears. Followers of Jesus lay down their lives to save others, not to slaughter," wrote John Piper, founder of Desiring God, on Facebook on Sunday afternoon. "While politicians debate guns and terror, the church can be clear on this: there is a Savior, and he calls us to love our neighbors," tweeted Kevin DeYoung, author and pastor of University Reformed Church. "My prayers are with the many victims and family members who lost loved ones in the senseless shooting -- now being called an act of terrorism -- at a gay nightclub in Orlando early this morning," said Franklin Graham, the CEO and president of Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. "Life is precious, and we only have one chance to live our lives here on this earth." "It is with deep sadness I read of the heartless and cold-blooded killings planned and implemented in Orlando, Florida by a cruel mind. How can any rationalizing justify that in any mind? How tragic for the parents, how ruthless of the killer," Ravi Zacharias, founder and president of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, wrote in a blog. "As a nation we mourn this loss. All of them are in our prayers at RZIM. We stand with the families in this time of grief. 'Lord please help us to be wise on how we speak of or treat our fellow human beings! We need You more than ever.'" "What a terrible tragedy. Orlando, our hearts and prayers are with you. #prayfororlando," wrote Joyce Meyer, author and speaker, on Facebook. "Our hearts grieve with all the family and friends of those affected by today's tragedy in Orlando," said Miles McPherson, pastor of The Rock Church in San Diego. "May America's most deadly shooting be matched by America's most focused prayers for peace and unity." "When we're accustomed to seeing news in real time on our television screens and on our phones, it is sometimes easy to forget the news we are viewing is real. At least fifty people -- created in the image of God -- were slaughtered in cold blood," wrote Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, on his blog. "Families who were waiting to see their loved ones are finding out today that they will never see them again in this life. That ought to drive us to mourn." We at Christianity Today are deeply grieved by the shooting in Orlando that killed 49 people. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to friends and family of the victims. In this case, the attack was targeted at one group, and so our prayers go up for gays, lesbians, and other sexual minorities who now live with a heightened sense of fear. We are glad to hear of so many Christians, from many theological persuasions, reaching out to comfort them in their grief. This weekends murders unfortunately remind us of the LGBT communitys place among the many groups who have been singled out for mass killing by hateful people. Just five examples since 2000: African Americans: The most recent attack we are remembering just this week: On June 17, 2015, nine people were murdered at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Sikhs: On August, 5, 2012, six people were killed and three injured at a Wisconsin Sikh temple. Christians: On December 9, 2007, two people were killed at a Youth With A Mission training center in Arvada, Colorado, and another two at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Jews: Surprisingly, Jews have been regularly subject to a number of murderous rampages since 2000, with fire bombings at synagogues in the Bronx and Syracuse New York in October 2000, the LAX shooting at the El Al ticket counter on July 4, 2002, the Seattle Federation shooting on July 28, 2006, and the Overland Park, Kansas, attack on April 13, 2014. Mexican Americans: No, they have not been murderously attackedbut there was a serious plan afoot. On May 1, 2007, five members of an anti-immigration militia in Birmingham, Alabama, were arrested for planning to mow down Mexicans with machine guns. And ... 1 We were on our third date when Billy told mehinted, reallythat he was an undocumented immigrant from Central America. I remember thinking, "Well, that's not ideal." Truth was, I had no idea what that admission really meant. I was a Kentucky girl who'd recently relocated to Los Angeles. I vaguely knew that immigration was an issue," but I didn't pretend to have a working knowledge of the ins and outs of the policies and politics behind it. My basic philosophy was that vulnerable populations like migrants should be treated with dignity and respect and that everyone should work hard to honor and follow the laws of the land. I thought to myself, "I hope if this relationship gets more serious, he goes and gets that fixed." But getting it fixed wasnt really a possibility. While he had entered the States legally with a tourist visa, he had not left when he was mandated to leave. There was no "line" for him to get in. Worker visas and residency cards from a poor country like Guatemala were essentially impossible to obtain. So when we married, we became a "mixed status" family. Living in a vulnerable situation, with the knowledge that on any given day my husband could be deported, was brutally stressful. All over the US, there are families in similar circumstances. In 2012, it was estimated that 16.6 million people currently live in mixed-status familieswith at least one unauthorized immigrant. Many are children with US citizenship living with undocumented parents. These kids live with the ever-present fear they will come home from school to any empty house, their parents having been deported. Yes, it happens. Actress ... 1 Demonstration and Prayer Vigil as Late-Term Abortionist Gives Deposition at U. S. Capitol Building on Monday Contact: Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director, Christian Defense Coalition, 540-538-4741 WASHINGTON, June 12, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Pro-life activists will stage a demonstration and prayer vigil as late-term abortionist, Leroy Carhart, gives a deposition at the U. S. Capitol Building on Monday, June 13, 2016. Carhart will be giving a deposition before the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives investigating the sale of fetal body parts. The pro-life activists will be gathering Monday, June 13, at 11:00 A.M. on the southeast portion of the lawn at the U. S. Capitol Building. The House will be investigating the sale of fetal body parts by Leroy Carhart as well as other aspects of his practice which could include the birth of "live" children from his late-term abortion practice. The failure of Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party to address the issue of late-term abortion and the sale of baby body parts will be a major issue in the upcoming national elections this November. Leroy Carhart has sent 6 women to the hospital in a 4 month period and 9 altogether, as well as taking the life of a 29-year-old teacher, from late-term abortions he performed since his practice began in Germantown, Maryland. Here is a link to the Facebook Event Page: www.facebook.com/events/285952831746742/ Here is a link for more information on Leroy Carhart: prayforgermantown.com Chairwoman Marsha Blackburn, a leading pro-life Congresswoman, said she was disturbed to learn how many women Carhart's abortion facility appears to have injured in the past few months. "We have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable at all stages of life," Blackburn said. "Reports regarding the Germantown clinic are deeply troubling, both for the sake of babies whose lives are ended so close to--and possibly even after--birth and for the sake of the women who have been rushed from that clinic to the hospital with increasing frequency." Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Director of the Washington, D.C. based Christian Defense Coalition adds, "We are gathering on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol to pray for the House Select Panel as well as stand against the brutal and barbaric practices of late-term abortionist Leroy Carhart. We cannot be silent while he continually sends women to the hospital and takes the lives of viable innocent children. "Our hope is that the House Select Panel will uncover the truth of Carhart's corrupt practice as well as exposing the extremist pro-abortion/anti-women agenda of Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party leading up the national elections this November. It is clear that Americans are growing uncomfortable with abortion on demand, the sale of baby parts for profit and the brutal and unsafe practices of Leroy Carhart performing abortions on women who are 7 and 8 months pregnant." For more information contact: Rev. Patrick Mahoney 540.538.4741 Markey isn't Only Victims' Lobby Liar NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Bill Donohue (photo) comments on the victims' lobby: The plight of those who have been sexually abused, especially minors, is a condition eminently worthy of our compassion. Unfortunately, many of those who have professionally taken up the cause of these victims are dishonest activists who are not above lying to advance their interests. Last week, NY Assemblywoman Last week, NY Assemblywoman Margaret Markey lied about Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, accusing him of bribery. In 2012, the director of SNAP, In 2012, the director of SNAP, David Clohessy , admitted under oath that he has lied to the press. In 2011, In 2011, Terence McKiernan , founder of BishopAccountability, lied when he told a conference that Cardinal Timothy Dolan was protecting 55 priests. Jeffrey--"I'm suing the s*** out of [the] Catholic Church" Jeffrey--"I'm suing the s*** out of [the] Catholic Church" Anderson --has lied repeatedly about "smoking guns" that never seem to fire, trying to implicate the Vatican in U.S. abuse cases. Last month, Yeshiva University lawyer Last month, Yeshiva University lawyer Marci Hamilton lied to the press when she said the bishops pay my salary. She knows full well that the Catholic League is not funded by the bishops. Attorney Attorney Mitchell Garabedian , whose role was acknowledged in "Spotlight," twice pressed charges against a priest who was never found guilty of anything: In 2011, he blew up at me for simply questioning him; he was even condemned by the Boston Globe for his recklessness. In 2012, author In 2012, author Jason Berry lied when he said that I defended the disgraced priest, Father Marcial Maciel. He knew this was untrue. In short, we are not dealing with honest champions of the abused. We are dealing with liars who exploit the very persons they claim to help. home US Ben Carson on LGBT community: Jesus died for everyone, including gays and lesbians; equal rights but not extra rights Retired neurosurgeon and former presidential candidate Ben Carson said on Saturday that Jesus died for everyone, and that includes gays and lesbians. Likewise, members of the LGBT community are protected by the Constitution like every citizen of the United States; however, no one should get extra rights. "Another reason that we must be informed and understand our Constitution is so that people don't manipulate it," he said, as quoted by The Christian Post. "For instance, look at the LGBT community. Now, I don't have anything against gays and lesbians. You know, Christ died for them just like he died for everybody else. Our Constitution protects them just like it protects everybody else. ... Everybody gets equal rights but nobody gets extra rights. Nobody gets to change everything." According to the report, Carson was speaking during the Road to Majority conference gala dinner, attended by a number of social conservatives like Michele Bachman, former Republican presidential candidate; author Johnnie Moore, a religious freedom activist; and Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America. He told his audience that Christians should defend the Constitution from being manipulated by those who are fighting not for equal rights but for extra rights. "I personally believe that many people in the LGB community don't feel comfortable with what they are doing and that is why it is so important for them to get affirmation from everybody else and that is why they try to enforce everybody else to accept them and to say that this is what needs to be done," he said. "But there comes a time when people of faith have to be able to stand up for the word of God." He said that the Bible says what needs to be done, and Christians need to have the courage to take a logical stance, "not against anybody, but for the word of God." He also asked his audience if the United States has lost trust in God -- if the point has been reached when one does not dare mention the name Jesus. "The president says that we are not a Christian nation," Carson said. "He doesn't get to decide. We get to decide what kind of nation this is. It means that we get to define our values and our principles." During the event, Beverly LaHaye, founder of Concerned Women for America, was given the 2016 Faith & Freedom Coalition's Lifetime Achievement Award. She said that she founded the organization in 1979 so that Christian women can have a voice in the national abortion debate. home Faith Are horoscopes against christianity? Billy Graham warns against using horoscope signs to predict future Billy Graham said horoscopes should not be used as a guide for day-to-day living or for predicting the future. In a column for an online publication, the renowned evangelist and founder of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association responded to a question about whether it is right to seek the stars for guidance, as it is God who made them anyway. "God did make the stars (as well as everything else in the universe), but he intended them to be a witness to his power and glory, not as a means to guide us or foretell the future," Graham wrote for The Kansas City Star. He explained that God "explicitly commands" believers in the Bible to not consult the stars, talk with spirits of the dead, or use omens, sorcery, magic and other methods to foretell the future. These things, Graham said, were not trustworthy and were "deceptive" and can open people to the occult, which is "hostile to God." He pointed to Deuteronomy 18:9a13, which says, "Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead." Such things are detestable to God. He cited the story of King Saul in 1 Samuel 28a31, wherein he consulted the spirit of the dead regarding his future and did not turn to God, and he eventually committed suicide. Billy Graham urged believers to put their trust and confidence in Jesus, reminding them of the Father's great love by sending His only Son to give His life as a ransom for their lives. Graham said God is trustworthy and will guide His children even when the future seems unclear. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association website answers a similar question about consulting horoscopes to discover God's plans for our lives. It says doing such things offends God because "it attributes to planets and stars the power that belongs to God alone." Using astrology for future direction also opens people to methods that God has not approved. The article emphasized that believers can turn to the counsel of God's Word. God has consistently promised in the Bible that He Himself will guide His people. home World Desmond Tutu's reverend daughter chooses lesbian marriage over priesthood Mpho Tutu van Furth, the reverend daughter of the South African Nobel peace prize winner and rights champion, Desmond Tutu, was well aware that she could be losing her priesthood license if she married her woman partner. She decided to marry her, anyway. "The choice was I can be priest or I can be with the person I love and I don't get to have both," Tutu van Furth shared in an interview with BBC released on Thursday, June 9. She explained that her decision was simply a matter of choosing love. "Everything else will fall into place somehow. When in doubt, just do the most loving thing," she advised. In a marriage she described as much like her coming out party, she married Marceline van Furth, a Dutch atheist academic, in a private civil ceremony in the Netherlands in December followed by last month's public celebration at a vineyard in Franschhoek near Cape Town. Claiming that her falling in love with a woman came also as a surprise to her, Tutu van Furth conceded to being labelled as a bisexual a if needed. She was formerly married to a man whom she had two children with. Her daughters, Tutu van Furth shared, are adjusting just "like any family that goes through a reconfiguration." However, the South African Anglican church are not as supportive of the union as she obliged to hand back her license. Tutu van Furth admitted that she was incredibly saddened by this but added that she's also received an incredible outpouring of support in her country. She also noted that Charlotte Bannister-Parker, the British clergywoman who officiated their ceremony at Franschhoek "has been subject to horrific attacks" mostly coming "from other parts of Africa, and from the UK surprisingly enough." "You can pray with a rapist, a murderer, a torturer a but heaven forbid that you pray with two people in love," she said, as quoted by The Guardian. Tutu van Furth is hoping that the church will recognize the need for a "theological conversation about the nature of marriage" just as her father before her, who championed the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, claimed that he does not worship a homophobic God and would refuse to go to heaven if God is homophobic. home US Donald Trump promises to uphold Christian values; reiterates stance on 'radical Islamic terrorism' following Orlando shooting Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump said that he is with conservative Christians in their stance on core values and issues, such as religious freedom and abortion. "We will work together to rebuild and restore and lift up everyone, not a certain group," he said on Friday, according to Post Gazette. "Everyone in the whole country." Trump, who was speaking in front of around 1,400 members of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, said that he would appoint judges who are opposed to abortion as well as give parents more control when it comes to schools. He also promised to defend Christian values, saying that he would "restore faith to its proper mantle in our society." "He says he's pro-life. He's pro-marriage. He's for religious freedom. He supported the Hobby Lobby decision. He supports the Little Sisters of the Poor. He opposes the Iran nuclear deal. And he's strongly pro-Israel," Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, told Bloomberg Politics. Reed believes that Trump will have massive support from evangelical Christians during elections in November. Jill Coward, acting North Carolina state director for Concerned Women for America, said that the businessman did his homework and knew who was speaking to. While she preferred Ted Cruz over Trump, she has become more open to voting for the candidate. "I really like to think he's not pandering, just speaking to a group and emphasizing what it stands for," Coward said. "I can't say I trust him yet because I've heard him say different things depending on the day." In his speech, Trump also promised to tackle radical Islamic terrorism. He reportedly said that the presumptive Democratic nominee, "Crooked Hillary Clinton," is one who does not want to use the term "radical Islam" and is unfit to become president. He further emphasized his stance following the shooting at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida at around 2 a.m. on Sunday. Considered as the worst in U.S. history, 50 people were killed and 53 were injured. The New York Times reports that the suspect is Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man who called 9-1-1 before the shooting to declare his allegiance to the Islamic State terror group. Mateen was killed during a shoot out with the police. If new SU eps are staying up on the CN app, you should check them out! Let's stop talking about how they were released & just enjoy them. Matt Burnett (@Matt___Burnett) January 5, 2017 "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning," Trump tweeted. "Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough." Clinton, meanwhile, was more cautious in saying anything about the shooting until more information had been gathered. Following President Barack Obama's statement that called it an "act of terror and an act of hate," the presumptive Democratic nominee also called it such in her statement. She said that efforts must be redoubled "to defend our country from threats at home and abroad." She also called for better restrictions on gun ownership. home Life 'Elephant Man' should be given Christian burial, campaigners say It has been more than a century since the death of Joseph Merrick, aka the Elephant Man, and there are now calls for his remains to be buried in his hometown in Leicester, England. However, the university in London where his skeleton is being kept does not agree. "It is understood that Joseph Merrick expected to be preserved after his death, with his remains available for medical education and research," a spokesperson for the Queen Mary University of London said, as quoted by the BBC. "As custodians of his remains, the university regularly consults with his descendants over their care." Merrick, who suffered from a condition in which his skin became lumpy and thick, his feet became significantly enlarged, and a bony lump grew on his forehead, died in April 1890 at the age 27. His skeleton was mounted and is now placed inside a glass case. It is not for public display, however; it is kept in a private room and can only be viewed by medical professionals and students, and this is only by appointment. This is to "allow medical students to view and understand the physical deformities resulting from Joseph Merrick's condition." However, there are those who believe that while Merrick agreed to have himself put on display while he was alive -- he was called the Elephant Man as part of a traveling show -- he did not necessarily agree to have his remains put on display after his passed away. "As Joseph Merrick was a devout Christian we know for a fact he would have wanted to be laid to rest," Jeanette Sitton, founder of the Friends of Joseph Carey Merrick, told the BBC. "It's an almost certainty. We know he was a devout Christian and we know he did have a strong faith." Sitton's group was the one that previously discovered the unmarked graves of Merrick's mother and siblings at Leicester's Welford Road Cemetery. She, however, noted that the lack of security in the cemetery makes it inappropriate as Merrick's final resting place. Likewise, Valerie Howkins, the granddaughter of Tom Norman, one of Merrick's former managers, said that Merrick ought to be returned to Leicester. "There was just no question when he died that he would go back to Leicester to be buried," Howkins said. "It's just so sad that he had his flesh stripped from his bones and has been mounted in a glass cabinet for 120 years against his will. He was Christian and would have expected a Christian burial." While the council in Leicester acknowledges Merrick's connections with the area, they said that it is not for them to make the decision as to where his skeleton would be buried, should the concerned parties decide to do so. "We are proud to acknowledge Merrick's connections to Leicester in this way, but the question of where his bones should be buried is a matter for the relevant parties," a spokesperson said. home World Christian leaders express solidarity with persecuted Shia Muslims in Pakistan Leaders of Christian churches in Pakistan announced that they are in solidarity with the Shia Muslims. Father Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, national director of the Pakistani Catholic bishops' National Commission for Justice and Peace, urged government leaders to "protect all religious minorities." "The government must take notice of Shia killings. Nobody has the right to force their beliefs upon others," Mani told UCA News. Mani also addressed the leaders of Sunni Muslims and told them to condemn violence against the Shia Muslims. An estimated 95 percent of the country's population are Muslim. The other five percent belong to other religious minorities including Christians and Hindus. Shias are a minority among the Pakistani Muslims, comprising only 20 percent of the total Muslim population in the country. Sunni Muslims consider them as heretics. Thus, they are often persecuted and harassed. Shias have set up roadside camps and have gone on hunger strike, enduring the heat and refusing to eat for 12 hours to protest the persecution and killings. In May, nine Shia Muslims were killed in targeted attacks. In the same month, four Shias who joined a protest in Parachinar were killed by paramilitary police. "We always blamed terrorists for the bloodshed but now a state institution has proven to be biased against us," said Syed Muhammad Raza, a spokesman for the Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen party, which represents Shia Muslims, UCA News reported. Since 1986, around 80,000 Shias have been killed because of persecution, Raza said. "Leaders of religious minorities and opposition parties have visited our camps because they believe our demands are genuine," Raza shared, adding, "But the federal government is still silent." No one understands the condition of being persecuted more than Christians, according to Rev. Majid Abel from Naulakha Presbyterian Church. Being a religious minority in Pakistan, Christians are often targets of attacks, which are rooted from "a history of conflict," Abel said, according to UCA News. Pakistan is listed as a country where Christian persecution is "extreme." It ranks number six among the countries where Christians are most persecuted, according to Open Doors. World Minority Alliance party founder Julius Salik encouraged the country's leaders to speak out against the attacks on religious minorities. "Targeting any religious faction is against the dignity of the state," Salik said. home US Orlando nightclub shooting news: Texas governor criticized for Bible verse Twitter post The lieutenant governor of Texas is taking the heat for an ill-timed tweet that was posted on Sunday, June 12, just hours after the shooting at an Orlando gay club, which left 50 people dead. As the nation mourns for the tragic loss of lives from what many consider to be the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick tweeted at around 7 a.m. a photo with the verse Galatians 6:7, which reads, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows," Chron reported. After 30 minutes, another tweet was posted. It reads from Psalm 37:39, which says, "The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; He is their stronghold in time of trouble." Patrick took flak for the tweets, which many considered as insensitive and anti-LGBT in light of the recent mass shooting at Pulse nightclub. The same posts were said to have been shared on Facebook as well, according to The Texas Tribune. Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa addressed Patrick and asked him to "apologize immediately" for the social media posts. "Make this right. We are better than this," he said, as reported by Chron. Patrick's representatives said the lieutenant governor often posts Bible verses especially on Sundays. His posts are said to be pre-scheduled, and Sunday's tweet was not a reaction to the Pulse nightclub shooting. Patrick's spokesperson Allan Blakemore said the tweet was "not done in response to ... last night's tragedy." Blakemore explained that the tweets had been scheduled as early as Tuesday last week. He said the lieutenant governor is "stunned and saddened" by what happened in Orlando. "We regret the unfortunate timing of these posts and ask everyone to join us in praying for the people of Orlando in this awful time," Blakemore said in a statement. The social media posts have since been deleted. Patrick has openly spoken against transgender people being allowed to use bathrooms based on their gender identity. On his website, a petition for campaigning against the transgender bathroom policy can be found, Daily Mail reported. home World China residents must submit DNA samples to obtain travel documents in Xinjiang Authorities in Xinjiang, China announced that the residents of Ili prefecture need to submit blood samples for DNA profiling as a requirement for their travel documents. Ili residents also need to provide a voice print sample, fingerprints and a 3-D body scan. Local police authorities said these are all part of a change in the requirements for travel document applications including passports, travel passes and exit permits, which took effect starting June 1. Last year, Ili residents were ordered to turn their passports over to the police without informing them of the new requirements. "We can take DNA samples here in the police station. We take blood samples, fingerprints, voice prints and photos. We take some blood samples from applicants for a DNA record. Then one can go to local passport office to apply," a police officer told Radio Free Asia. The biometric data are required for all ethnic groups, the police officer added. Some groups are crying foul against the new requirements, saying that taking DNA samples is a violation of human rights. Umit Hemit, vice chairman of World Uyghur Congress, said obtaining DNA samples from the residents is not normal procedure. "Controlling resident's biological data through an inappropriate way is not matter of national security. We don't see it as a normal procedure. We are against it and see it as a violation of human rights," he told Radio Free Asia. Activist Liu Qing said collecting DNA samples is a breach of privacy and is not something "that can just be ordered as part of administrative regulations." Qing said the new rule was put in place to give the people a sense of fear. "If they want to collect citizens' DNA, then they should at least ask people for their opinions, and then pass legislation," he said, according to Radio Free Asia. The tension between authorities in Xinjiang and the predominantly Muslim Uyghur population in the region have persisted for many years. A report from the BBC said that one cause of the discord between the two parties could be that authorities show favor to the Han Chinese over the Uyghurs in terms of jobs and other opportunities. The state also imposes strict regulations against the Uyghurs' religious practices, which fuel the tension between them. Archbishops Welby and Sentamu: It is 'absolute call' on Christians to support LGBTI people The two most senior Anglican clergy have called on Christians to "speak out in support of LGBTI people" and said it is an "absolute call" on Christian discipleship to support persecuted gay people around the world. The statement in response to the Orlando shootings was released on Monday by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and says Christians must "love without qualification". The archbishops said: "The obligation to object to these acts of persecution, and to support those LGBTI people who are wickedly and cruelly killed and wounded, bereaved and traumatised, whether in Orlando or elsewhere, is an absolute call on our Christian discipleship. "It arises from the unshakeable certainty of the gracious love of God for every human being." The intervention came after the Church of England was criticised because at first it did not acknowledge the victims of the Orlando shooting were gay in a prayer released immediately after the attack. The Church tweeted a "prayer for Orlando" in the aftermath of the tragedy, which left more than 50 dead after a gunman rampaged through a gay nightclub in Florida. However the Church was attacked for its broad-brush wording. Jayne Ozanne, an LGBT activist and member of the Church's general synod, called on it to "show a lead" in the response. "I think it is very telling the way the Church has responded," she told Christian Today before the archbishops' statement was released. "We have to recognise these are all God's children. Independent of what we think and our theology our first response as Christians has to be to come alongside and pray specifically for those affected." Ozanne called on the Archbishop of Canterbury's official residence in London to fly its flag at half mast in response to the attack. "I think it would symbolise solidarity with all those affected and all those who feel a deep revulsion at what has happened," she said. @JustinWelby @lambethpalace Please could flag at Lambeth be flown at half mast (like others are doing) in response to the Orlando massacre? Jayne Ozanne (@JayneOzanne) June 13, 2016 A spokesman for Lambeth Palace told Christian Today the Palace follows government guidelines for flying flags at half mast on public buildings and was "currently awaiting guidance". Richard Cattley, a retired CofE vicar, accused the Church of "not wanting to address the issue and recognise it was an attack on the LGBT community. "It is as if we're saying 'it is awful' but not actually admitting what is happening here," he told Christian Today before the archbishops' statement. Others criticised the Church's prayer on social media. The prayers used by the Church for tragedies are chosen from the CoE's website under a section of "prayers for peace and all those affected by violence". The same three prayers have been recylced for a number of events over the past two years including the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the Ferguson shootings, the Paris attacks, the Pakistan bombings and more. However a number of hours after the Church's first official prayer, the @c_of_e twitter account tweeted an alternative prayer written by Rachel Mann, a transgender Anglican vicar, who called for "furious solidarity with queer people". Mann prayed the Church would be "joyous in our celebration of your Rainbow People". Arun Arora, the CoE's director of communications, told Christian Today: "Our prayers of lament focus on those who have lost their lives and their loved ones. All three of the prayers we have tweeted over the past 24 hours reflect that focus." You can see the Church's full prayer below. Disturbing abuse of children in 'living hell' Calais camp - Unicef Life is a "living hell" for children in French refugee camps, and they may have been spared if the Home Office had acted faster to process their move to the UK, Unicef has warned. A report co-produced by Unicef UK and Unicef France to be published on Thursday will reveal the "dire situation for children" living in camps such as Calais and Dunkirk, who are subject to sexual violence and forced crime by traffickers. "It shows a frank and disturbing picture of the abuses happening to children right on our doorstep," Unicef said. "And the hard reality is that some of the children in Calais might have been spared if the Home Office had acted." Hundreds of children, many of them unaccompanied, are currently living in camps in Northern France. At least 157 unaccompanied children in the Calais 'Jungle' camp have the legal right to live with family in the UK, and Unicef is campaigning to have them reunited by the start of the school year in September. "We believe this could be done if the Home Secretary approved the extra resources needed for reuniting families resources for identification, assessment, screening and processing, and transfer," Unicef said. "Just ten more officials would be enough to speed up the process for children stuck in the camps in Northern France." Home secretary Teresa May pledged last month to speed up the process, but "people on the ground in Calais tell us nothing has changed and these children are still waiting, facing another uncertain night in a dangerous camp they repeatedly describe as a 'living hell'," Unicef said. May is expected to face questions on the issue during Home Office Questions on Monday. Bilal, a 16-year-old boy from Daraa in Syria, has led Unicef's campaign. He now lives with his brother in the UK, but spent months in the Calais camp before they were reunited. "Even though the law says I can be with my brother, I ended up stuck in the Jungle in Calais for seven months. It took more than a year from escaping Syria, to finally reach my brother in the UK," he said. "The worst part of my journey was being in Calais because most people there were subjected to violence and humiliation. Every day people would try to find ways of leaving. My friends and I tried to get onto a train to get away I saw two friends die under that train." According to the Guardian, an open letter written by Syrian children now living in the UK describes their "horrific" experiences in French refugee camps, and urges May to "take our friends [still living in the camps] out of danger". "The government has said that unaccompanied children should be brought to the UK if they have family here, yet these children's cases are moving far too slowly. It's time for the government to turn its promise into a reality now, and get these children to their families," said Unicef's UK deputy executive director, Lily Caprani. "The children in Calais are the nearest and most visible cases of children who are fleeing conflict and making dangerous journeys in search of safety, yet have a legal right to live in safety with their families in the UK. "I've met some of the unaccompanied children in Calais and have seen the terrible conditions they are living in. By taking immediate action for these children, the government can take a crucial first step to show it is serious about its recent commitments to refugee children." Several bishops and dozens of rabbis last month led calls for the most vulnerable children in Europe to be fast-tracked into the UK. A letter in the Times signed by faith leaders including the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams offered to help as they said more than 300 children who are most at risk should be "brought to Britain by the start of the next school year". The call came after Number 10 said on May 9 that Britain would not be able to accept any refugee children from Europe for another seven months. "It is a new scheme so we need to work with councils to get it up and running and that is why we expect we will have the first children arriving by the end of this year," said the Prime Minister's spokesman. Do we need to talk about 'radical Islam'? Radical Islam. Two simple words that are packed full of weight and meaning. Donald Trump couldn't even wait 24 hours before he turned the Orlando shooting into a political opportunity. In a statement released on Sunday he savaged President Barack Obama's response to the attack. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down," said Trump. "If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. "We can't afford to be politically correct anymore." Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 It is highly unlikely this will cause either Clinton or Obama to use the phrase and even more unlikely Obama will see the need to resign off the back Trump's call. But the frustration at Obama's refusal to use "radical Islam" to describe terrorist attacks is longstanding and Trump harnessed a lot of discontent to his advantage. Grassroot Republicans and a number of right-wing journalists see a flippant political correctness in the refusal to name and shame Islam. Obama wouldn't even admit it's radical #Islam when the frickin' terrorist admitted it. https://t.co/WsuHstCqqg Dan Gainor (@dangainor) June 12, 2016 No mention of Islam. https://t.co/b1G7jaqZFC Monica Crowley (@MonicaCrowley) June 12, 2016 OMG, now he's talking about the ease w which people can get weapons. Has not mentioned Islamic terrorism. Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) June 12, 2016 Trump's statement is actually a re-hash of a statement issued by his former rival Ted Cruz in the wake of the San Bernadino attack last December. Obama "literally will not utter the words 'radical Islamic terrorism'" said Cruz, "and as matter of policy, nobody in the administration will say the words 'radical Islamic terrorism." This is true. Obama has described Islamic State as "thugs", "killers" or "terrorists", but has specifically distanced the jihadist group from the Muslim faith. And the resentment runs raw among those who want politicians to 'say it how it is'. But this isn't particular to Obama's administration. Republican bastion George W. Bush never once used the phrase "radical Islam". In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 Bush said: "The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace, they represent evil and war." Then again in an address to Congress after 9/11, Bush said the terrorists were "traitors to their own faith". He added: "I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world: We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah." "Radical" means it relates to the fundamental or root nature of something. So by describing terrorist attacks as originating from "radical Islam", the implication is that violence and terrorism is inherent to Islam's teaching. While some theologians might be happy to say violence is inherent to Islam, it's obvious why politicians are less relaxed about it. In order to defeat Islamist terrorism, governments need the support of the majority of Muslims. Not to mention that Wahhabism, which is the same strand of Islam supported by al-Qaeda and to some extent ISIS, is a dominant presence in America's key ally in the Middle East. "There is a two-ton elephant in the room, and that is Saudi Arabia," said Emile Nakhleh, a former CIA expert on political Islam, according to Bloomberg View. Presidents know that in order to win the war on terrorism, Saudi Arabia as well as the majority of Muslims must be kept on side. So what about the rest of use who aren't politicians? Should we use the term "radical Islam" in reference to terrorist attacks? Well, I'm not sure. We may not have the pressure of having to court the Saudis, but by its definition terror is an attack on the West's freedom and way of life. And so we as Western citizens each have a responsibility in ensuring its defeat. Many theologians and some politicians will take great delight in quoting passages from the Qur'an that appear to advocate violence and killing in the name of Allah. But what's the point in that? Anyone can Google verses in holy books that make uncomfortable reading. But does it bring us any closer to an answer? Does it serve any purpose other than to say these verses exist? There is a genuine debate to be had around certain suras in the Qur'an and some of the hadith, just as there has been and continues to be rigorous debate around certain passages in the Bible. There is no doubt troublesome passages exist and need to be wrestled with. But that is a sideline event compared to the battle against terrorism. Millions of Muslims live in our cities, towns and communities and thankfully there's nothing Trump can do about it. So we have a choice. We can either welcome them and allow them to join our side against terror. Or we can tar them with the same brush and say their religion is fundamentally violent. When it comes to defeating terror, I know which tactic I prefer. Egypt: Christian girls kidnapped, forced to marry and convert to Islam Teenage girls in Egypt are being kidnapped and being forced to convert to Islam and marry, according to new reports. International Christian Concern says the local Christian community in Egypt is "paralysed" by the spate of disappearances of the young girls. They include Amal Shaky, 19, kidnapped presumably on her way to Cairo University, according to International Christian Concern. Her family thought at first she had gone to her party but when she did not appear, went to the police, who suggeted to her father that he had killed his daughter and thrown away the body. After harassing Zakaria, the officer refused to file a report and asked for a few hours to investigate the matter. Amal had also been kidnapped in 2011. "More than 40 days have passed since my daughter was kidnapped, and they say that the matter is under investigation," Amal's father told International Christian Concern. "I don't know how long I should wait. Wait until they tell me that my daughter is killed or got married?" Human rights abuses in Egypt are causing increasing international concern. Human Rights Watch recently reported that Egyptian security forces arrested tortured 20 people, including eight children. World Watch Monitor detailed how a few weeks ago, a Christian boy was kidnapped in Upper Egypt and released days later after a large ransom was paid. Anthonius Farag, 13, was taken outside his school in the village of Mansheyyit Manbal, off Matay. A Muslim child was released at the same time after the kidnappers established his religion. According to the Coalition of Coptic Egypt, a Coptic advocacy group, the Upper Egyptian province of Qena saw 72 cases of kidnappings, extortion and related violence against Copts in the period from 2011 to 2014, the most recent figures it has. Franklin Graham tells President Obama: The root cause of violence is sin, not guns Evangelist Franklin Graham belittled the gun control executive actions announced by President Barack Obama on Tuesday, saying they will not help in addressing the problem of gun violence in America. "Mr. President, you're looking at the wrong place when it comes to the root cause of gun violence. Your executive actions will do nothing to change this horrific problem. You can take all the guns in America and put them in a pile on the Mall in Washington D.C., and those guns will stay there and will eventually rust and decay," he wrote on his Facebook page. "Not one gun will crawl out of that pile and shoot or harm anyone." The root of the problem, according to Graham, is the evil intent of sinful people. "A human heart bent on evil will pick up any gun, load it, then pull the trigger," he said. "The problem we have in this country is sin," he said. "We have a government that has taken God out of society. Our Founding Fathers certainly did not intend this to happen." Graham told Obama that his executive actions will not stop the violence that is being "glorified by Hollywood." The evangelist cannot help but shake his head at how TV networks, video game and film companies make movies and games that make using guns to kill people look cool. "There needs to be legislation to curb this. I would propose starting with a heavy tax on the manufacturers of any film or game that graphically depicts violence. If violent films and games were taken off the shelves, I believe we would see a dramatic drop in gun violence over the next few years," he says. Because people have turned their backs on God, violence and bloodshed have ensued. Graham then shared the Bible verse Jeremiah 17:9 to help people reflect on their actions: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Hundreds gather in Florida church for Orlando shootings vigil Hundreds of mourners including Florida State Governor Rick Scott and Lt Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera packed a church in Orlando last night in vigil for the victims of yesterday's mass shooting. Omar S Mateen killed 50 people in a packed gay nightclub and wounded 53 others before being killed by police. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said the attack was the deadliest single US shooting incident, eclipsing the 32 people killed in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech university. "Today we're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Dyer said. Yesterday's vigil began at 6.30pm at the Hispanic Iglesia el Calvario, according to the Miami Herald. The church's Pastor Pastor Gabriel Salguero said the congregation would embrace the hurting families, as well as the gay community, and would continue to pray and try to help in any way they can. Scott led a minute of silence for the victims in which the house lights were dimmed and congregants lit up their mobile phones in place of candles. A vigil also took place at Orlando's Islamic Centre. Imam Azhar Subedar condemned the attack and said: "It's only in America that we continue to successfully thrive as a unit despite our intellectual differences, our faith differences, our cultural differences or our lifestyle purpose. This is the sole reason why the world envies America. And we're not going to allow anyone to break that from us. We're not going to allow anyone to hijack that from us. "So at this moment the call of the moment is for us all to come together in solidarity and in unity to show what an American family is about." Mateen declared his loyalty to Islamic State during the attack and the terrorist organisation claimed responsibility for his actions. However, the current thinking among security officials is that the links between him and IS were tenuous or practically non-existent. King of Bahrain bans mixing of religion and politics Religion and politics in Bahrain cannot mix according to an official edict from the king on Saturday. Amendments to the law by King Hamad Bin Eisa Al Khalifa ban anyone engaged in politics from giving religious speeches, sermons or guidance. The change means the political sphere in Bahrain will be out of bounds for anyone who has an active religious role. The amendment was endorsed by the two chambers of the Gulf state's parliament last month after debates from politicians. The law reinforces a previous change made in 2005 shortly after King Hamad became ruler. That reform banned political societies that had sectarian agendas and banned the use of religious meetings to promote political ideas. On top of that judges, diplomats as well as security and military personnel were barred from joining a political society. However Saturday's ruling comes after criticism the 2005 law did not go far enough and has several loopholes. The amendment now means any religious figure will have to stop any religious activity, even if its on a voluntary basis, before they are able to enter a political role. Several parliamentarians who supported the change said it would mean political decisions were not given a religion dimension, according to gulfnews.com. They said religion and politics should have their own separate prerogatives. Shaikh Khalid Bin Ali Al Khalifa, the justice minister, said the law would mean places of worship could no longer be used by people with political interests or by candidates running for election. Muslims getting baptised in churches 'to avoid deportation from the UK' Muslim asylum seekers may be converting to Christianity to avoid being deported, a senior Church of England cleric has claimed. According to the Dean of Liverpool, Rev Pete Wilcox, "mixed motives are not unheard of" when it comes to asylum seekers choosing to be baptised. Liverpool Cathedral has baptised some 200 asylum seekers over the past four years. Wilcox told The Times: "Holding a baptism certificate significantly enhances the strength of their claim for asylum. Once you are a baptised Christian it is really not conceivable that you would be deported to a Muslim country." In a number of countries conversion to Christianity is punishable by harsh penalties, including the death penalty. However, Wilcox also insisted that it is not as simple as an individual simply turning up for a baptism service. The Cathedral holds a mandatory five-week course for candidates, and they are expected to attend services. He also said it was a similar situation to parents who baptise their children to secure a place at a Church school. "God alone knows the person's heart and we try to be consistent about that and not to set the bar at one height for middle-class aspiring parents seeking the best for the education of their children and the bar at another height for converts from Islam looking for asylum," Wilcox said. "Refuse Jemima baptism and she goes to school somewhere else. Refuse Mohammed baptism and he gets deported." The Times spoke to a number of churches across England which confirmed that they had also baptised hundreds of Muslims over the past few years. Rev Lionel Canter, pastor of the Liverpool Iranian Church, part of the Elim Pentecostal movement, said around 300 Muslims had been baptised since 2010, a third of of whom used their baptism to gain asylum in the UK. "I can understand people questioning how genuine it is because they can be integral to being able to stay in the country. It's a valid question," he said. However, he also added that his church had "quite a good grip on that". The Home Office told The Times: "A document such as a baptism certificate would not automatically lead to a conversion claim being accepted as genuine but is given appropriate weight when considering all the evidence." The Church of England told the newspaper that baptism is "open to all of whatever background, class, nation, sexuality or age." Last week, allegations were made that Christian asylum seekers are being rejected from the UK if they can't answer Bible trivia questions such as reciting the Ten Commandments. A report by the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion and belief into how refugees' religious claims are assessed said immigration officials lack a basic understanding of religion and so questions intended to judge the genuineness of someone's faith revolve around trivia rather than probing what an individual actually believes. One asylum seeker said he was asked what colour a Bible was in his interview for asylum in the UK. Mohammed, an Iranian Christian convert, told the BBC: "I knew there were different colours. The one I had was red. They asked me questions I was not able to answer for example, what are the Ten Commandments. I could not name them all from memory." Mohammed is now fighting to stay in the UK after his claim for asylum was refused. "The problem with those questions is that if you are not genuine you can learn the answers, and if you are genuine, you may not know the answers," said Baroness Berridge, the head of the parliamentary group behind the report. "When the system did move on to ask about the lived reality of people's faith, we then found that caseworkers, who are making decisions which can be life or death for people, were not properly supported and trained properly." Nigerian Christians warn Buhari: 'Stop paying lip service to our security' Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari merely pays lip service to Christians' security, according to a statement from leaders in the Muslim-majority northern states. Rev Yakubu Pam, chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), signed the statement from Christian leaders in 19 northern states and called on the government to ensure protections for persecuted Christians in the north after a spate of attacks and killings. Released on Sunday, the statement cited two particular attacks on Bridget Agabahime, a Christian woman in Kano, and Chimaije Emmanuel, a Christian man in Niger State, for blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad. Pam said murder under the guise of protecting a religion was never acceptable. "The recent ugly incidents in Kano and Niger states are regrettable and uncivilized and should not be tolerated by people of good will in this country," read the statement. ''The perpetrators of these evil acts must be fished out with their gangs and made to face the full wrath of the law to serve as deterrence to others who might be nursing such ambition to carry out dastardly act in the nearest future." "This period in the history of this nation calls for prayers and understanding among the diverse people of this country for peace to reign in all parts of the country." The warning comes after Buhari met with several Nigerian bishops last week to discuss the killing of Christians by Fulani herdsmen in northern Nigeria. "We are here to offer our advice as church people from our own perspective to the president on the current national situation", Archbishop Nicholas Okoh told Anglican News following the meeting. "We told him many things. We are all looking for solution to issues of the herdsmen, issue of vandalism, security in one way or the other because the people are asking us and we want to have explanation for the people whom we lead." Okoh said he was optimistic the situation would improve over the next year. "We believe that so far it's been okay because of the difficulties of the times and between now and the next one year we are looking forward to something more direct now, something that will get to the people easily," he said. "The next one we know will be better." Orlando shooting: why Christians must not stay quiet Most atrocities provoke a natural, instinctive response. Horror, outrage, sympathy for the victims and those that love them. Whether it's a school shooting in America or a factory collapse in Bangladesh, most of us travel that same journey each time, and Christians are often at the forefront of the practical response: praying, grieving, lending practical support. When Gunman Omar S Mateen walked into an Orlando nightclub on Saturday night and opened fire on those inside, he committed the worst attack on American soil since 9/11. 50 people died, scores more were injured. Yet for Christians, this didn't simply represent another opportunity to stand beside the broken; for many it created a moment of extreme internal conflict. Because this was a gay nightclub, and this was a direct assault not just on the victims, but on the entire LGBT community; on who those people were and what they represented. In fact, it was more complicated even than that. Mateen was a Muslim, committing an act of mass murder in America against a climate of rising nationalism and religious intolerance, and some Christians have been at the forefront of promoting a Donald Trump-esque ideology of segregation and fear. And Mateen's weapon was of course, a gun, the sacred cow of American culture, exercised through that 'constitutional right to bear arms' that the rest of us hear so much about without ever sympathising. A Muslim, using a gun to kill 50 gay people. This awful, awful tragedy couldn't be more loaded with agonizingly uncomfortable meaning. Just one night earlier, former Voice contestant and popular blogger Christina Grimmie was gunned down in a separate incident in the same US State. Christians responded swiftly and vocally, not least because Grimmie was a Christian. In the wake of Orlando, the responses were much more measured. Pastors tweeted that they were #praying for the families of victims. Many including Donald Trump used the massacre as an opportunity for political point scoring, issuing 'I told you so's' about the dangers contained in America's Muslim population. Few recognised the atrocity for what it was a targeted attack on the LGBT community. Orlando should make us sick. Sick to our stomachs at the depravity of Mateen's actions, at the unspeakable pain that he will have caused for hundreds of parents, siblings, friends and partners. As with any other atrocity, we should be horrified; we should feel outrage; we should feel enormous sympathy. But that's not all we should do. Because if we're really honest about some of our natural responses to Saturday night, then we can also take this opportunity to allow God to challenge and change us. And just as he might when there's a flood or a famine, we can ask him to use us to help those who suffer and bring change where it's needed. There are five elements to the response I believe the church all of us can and should make in the wake of Orlando. Mourn - Paul writes in Romans 12:15 that we should "mourn with those who mourn" (anyone worried about my proof text exegesis can relax; this comes in the middle of vv14-21, which applies to the whole community, not just the church). He wants to see Christian love in action, because like Jesus he knows that this is how we truly love, and also how others will know that we're different. Practically that means putting aside any conflicted feelings we may have around people's sexuality or 'lifestyle choices', and simply allowing us to feel as God does; a sense of utter devastation at this tragic waste of life. Naturally our response becomes to offer compassion, support and understanding to those involved, and indeed to the entire LGBT community. Pray - Talk is cheap, and so is that generally misleading Internet hashtag, #praying. Instead, Christians should do what Christians have done best for two thousand years; to invoke the help and intervention of the almighty. Pete Greig, the founder of 24-7 prayer, posted a simple list of prayer responses the day after the massacre, writing: "Would we #PrayForOrlando more if the terror had taken place in a church this morning instead of a gay club? If so, we know very little in our heart of hearts of Christ's true mercy. Let's pray together: comfort for the grieving, strength for the medics, peace for the city." These are excellent, worthy prayers and a great starting point; I'd also add that we should pray for justice (even if we don't yet know what that looks like), for good legislative change to come as a result, and for the news story itself not to become hijacked by those who'd seek to misuse it for political ends (see next point). Most importantly though, we should simply pray God's peace and presence in Orlando, and not just think or talk about doing so. Respect - We need to call this what it is: a targeted hate crime. We must not allow this story (as Sky News and The Sun already seem to have done in the UK) to become subverted into a story about terror, ISIS and general American safety. We should call out the harmful idea that this could have been any nightclub; it just happened to be a gay one. This was no coincidence, and suggesting that it was only increases the pain and sense of injustice that the LGBT community is feeling. Welcome - For years campaigners within the church have been pointing to the number of gay Christian teenagers who've committed or attempted suicide because they were unable to reconcile their faith and their sexuality. That in itself hasn't been enough to help many churches become welcoming to and accepting of LGBT people, although of course, many are. There is no argument for churches actively rejecting any people on the basis of their sexuality or gender, and perhaps that is even clearer in the light of this attack upon those who don't fit the neat heterosexual male/female mould. Of course 'welcome' and 'acceptance' will look vastly different between different churches, but we need to get better at managing the tension between strong and respectfully held theological beliefs on certain behaviours, and unconditional love. And the love must come first. Rethink. It's time to change the narrative on Gun Control. Christians who still represent a huge and awesomely powerful political lobby in the US simply have to take the lead on cutting back, and perhaps eventually stamping out personal gun ownership. Most of the arguments against that are wounded every time America suffers another of these regular gun massacres; the rest are simply pragmatic (the bad guys already have guns, so we must have them too), but Jesus was an idealist who called people to a better way of living. I do not underestimate how hard this is, or how entrenched this right and value feels for my American cousins. But incidents like this should act as a prompt to offer every area of our thinking to God and ask: is it possible that I could be wrong on this? Christians haven't been silent in the hours following this atrocity, but we have been subdued. So perhaps it's worth reminding ourselves: we're supposed to be the light of the world. When evil strikes, as it does, and it will, we should be among the first responders every time, and not just when the victims fit our profile of those who are somehow most worthy of our grief. It's not enough simply to agree that the human loss is tragic; we must be part of creating a world where the kind of hatred and intolerance which motivated Omar S Mateen simply cannot prevail. For the church, this is the perfect moment to stop standing against the LGBT community, and start standing alongside them. Otherwise not only do we miss a huge opportunity to build bridges and demonstrate our saviour's love, but we risk getting caught on the wrong side of history. Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. You can follow him on Twitter: @martinsaunders Orlando shootings: There's only one answer to people who peddle hate I can count the number of times I agree with Pastor Steven Anderson on the fingers of one foot. He's the minister of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, who has made something of a name for himself attacking gay people from his pulpit, in the most objectionable terms. In his latest offering, in a YouTube video, he reflects on the deaths of 50 people in an Orlando nightclub at the hands of Omar Mateen. He's not, he assures us, a vigilante himself: "Obviously, it's not right for somebody to just, you know, shoot up the place, because that's not going through the proper channels. But these people all should have been killed, anyway, but they should have been killed through the proper channels, as in they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed." However, he's really worried about the consequences of Mateen's crime not for the victims, but because it might be used to advocate gun control. Not only that, but and here's where I totally agree with him "I'm sure it's also gonna be used to push an agenda against so-called 'hate speech'. So Bible-believing Christian preachers who preach what the Bible actually says about homosexuality that it's vile, that it's disgusting, that they're reprobates you know, we're gonna be blamed. Like, 'It's all extremism! It's not just the Muslims, it's the Christians!'" Anderson has nailed it. Yes, you are going to be blamed, and rightly so. People who use language like that, who fill their supporters' hearts with hatred in the name of a perverted faith that's come completely adrift from its religious moorings, have turned to the spiritual dark side. They have become, in the scriptural sense, demonised. Under the influence of Satan, who was a liar from the beginning, they are peddling lies. And this is true whether they are Muslims, Christians, Hindus or whatever. Anderson is not alone. Westboro Baptist Church is at it too. The "church" that has picketed the funerals of dead soldiers and celebrated the deaths of gay people tweeted: "God opened His armory to deal with proud fag america (in mass shooting at #Pulse nightclub)." God opened His armory to deal with proud fag america (in mass shooting at #Pulse nightclub). https://t.co/rgaDScoM2f@Drews_Views Westboro Baptist (@WBCSaysRepent) June 12, 2016 And the usual array of haters and trolls have come out to play on the internet: here's 'Cavalier', opining: "Faggots getting shot is perfectly right and good. God be praised for #OrlandoShooting." 'Lit Pino' was more conflicted, saying: "Yea Fags are disgusting. its terrible what happened to them in Orlando tho." Faggots getting shot is perfectly right and good. God be praised for #OrlandoShooting. Cavalier (@SaltyOFP) June 12, 2016 We need to be absolutely clear about this. Christians who call for the deaths of gay people are abhorrent. They don't speak for the Church. They have denied the gospel of grace. When they are face to face with Jesus he will say, "Depart from me, I never knew you." They have betrayed their calling. They need to repent. It's not enough for Christians to condemn the Islamist ideology that led Omar Mateen to kill those people in Orlando. We need to recognise that some of our own co-religionists have the same dark and twisted ideology. They have divided the world into the righteous and unrighteous, based on nothing but their own blind prejudice. They feed on hatred, and they feed hatred. Nevertheless: there's a difference between someone who'll pick up a gun and kill people he doesn't like and someone who argues that the state should do it for him. It's that rather fine point that makes Steven Anderson slightly morally superior to Omar Mateen. But their attitudes spring from the same place. It's hate; though why homosexuality should provoke such hatred in them is anyone's guess. Here Muslim and Christian, Mateen and Anderson, are on common ground. They find in their respective faiths a justification for their beliefs, and they find it because they deliberately go looking for it. There is a difference between loathing what someone does and loathing that person. But it's a difference that can easily shade over into indifference. There are many Christians who loathe homosexuality. They are decent and kindly people. But the transition from loving the sinner and hating the sin to hating both of them is far too easy. So how about removing hate from our vocabulary altogether? How about becoming the sort of people who simply do not use that sort of language, and who publicly call out anyone who does? Evangelicals, particularly in America and particularly during this election period, have won a reputation for themselves so unenviable that one prominent member of the tribe, Russell Moore, has said he's come to disown the word. Evangelicals are the people who hate transgender people, gays and lesbians. Even the notorious 'bathroom wars' of North Carolina and other states, where the only argument that counts is the one about public safety, have become poisoned by religious ideology. The Church has one answer to Steven Anderson, Westboro Baptist Church and the rest of them, just as it has one answer to Omar Mateen and to Islamic State. It's to stop hating hating anyone and start loving. We disown Anderson and his ilk, just as Islam disowns Mateen and his. They don't speak for Christians, and if they represent us, they represent the worst of us rather than the best. And now comes the hard part: we have to love them too. Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods Orlando: US Church leaders urge prayer for victims US Church leaders have expressed their horror at the massacre in Orlando and called on Christians to pray for survivors and their families. The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Archbishop Michael Curry, released a video message from Vicksburg, Mississippi, where churches were commemorating the murders of Civil Rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner in 1964. He said: "We are very aware there are other innocent victims in Orlando, Florida at the shooting there. We pray for the repose of the souls of those who have died. We pray for those who were wounded, that they may have healing. We pray for the families and those who grieve. We pray for our communities, our nation and our world. Indeed, we pray for the entire human family." Rev Nancy Wilson, global leader of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), which reaches out specifically to LGBT people and their families, told Reuters: "We're heartbroken and we're in shock that 50 members of our community, young people at a night club having a good time, were just mowed down in this way, and we know now that this was definitely a hate crime, which always proceeds from fear. "Our community has experienced violence and oppression before, but this is of such a scale that I think we can't take it in yet." MCC's Joy Church in Orlando held a vigil yesterday evening attended by one of the shooting victims, identified only as 'Orlando'. According to the Orlando Sentinel, he told the congregation, "God was not ready to take me." He said he had hidden in a bathroom at the Pulse nightclub for three hours. "Every time I heard a shot, I thought, I hope that's not one of my friends," Orlando said. The Roman Catholic Bishop of Orlando, John Noonan, tweeted yesterday: "We pray for victims of the mass shooting in Orlando this morning, their families & our first responders. May the Lord's Mercy be upon us." He is to lead a vigil this evening to "dry the tears" of the community at St James' Cathedral. Palestinian Christians in Gaza: Facing extinction within a generation? The lifeblood is beginning to drain from Gaza's historic but tiny Palestinian Christian community. Numbering more than 2,300 at the time of Israel's occupation of the Gaza strip in 1967, the Christian community should have grown in line with the rest of Gaza's population to around 10,000 today. Instead the figure has halved, to barely 1,200. Emigration is the driver of this precipitous decline. Christians are voting with their feet to escape 40 years of Israeli military occupation, followed by almost 10 years of an Israeli and Egyptian blockade which has left the tiny territory and its 1.8 million inhabitants on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. As a result of the hardships caused by the blockade, including chronic food and water shortages, a collapsing health system, increasing infant mortality and the highest unemployment in the world, Palestinian Christians are now leaving Gaza at the rate of between 50-100 a year. I personally know some of those who have left, or who are thinking of leaving. The irony is, the exodus happens at the very time, Easter and Christmas, when the indigenous Christians of Palestine should be celebrating their connection with the land, and to the story of Jesus. After all, if one assumes that St Philip continued his angel-inspired evangelistic journey to Gaza after baptising the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40), then some of the earliest followers of Jesus would have been found in the small coastal territory. Whether there are any Christians left in Gaza within a generation remains to be seen. The festive exodus is occurring because Easter and Christmas are the only times when Israel allows Gaza's Christians to leave the territory, other than for urgent medical reasons. Even then, a third of medical-related applications from Gaza are denied by Israel, according to a recent report from the United Nations. In March this year the Washington-based news website Al-Monitor told the story of Karam Qubrosi, a 28-year old Palestinian Christian from Gaza who was given a permit by Israel to pray at the holy sites in Jerusalem for Easter. He was surprised to receive such permission, since Israel had previously only rarely allowed Palestinian men under the age of 35 to leave Gaza. But having obtained his permit, he was not going to lose his chance: he told Al-Monitor that he planned to stay outside Gaza and settle in the occupied West Bank. Another Palestinian Christian will have left. Israel seems to have shifted its policy towards the Palestinian Christians of Gaza. This Easter a record number of 847 permits were issued to the Christian community, that is to some two-thirds of the total Christian population. Writing on the website of the Latin (Roman Catholic) Patriarchate of Jerusalem in March, the Brazilian parish priest in Gaza City, Fr Mario da Silva, said this meant that nearly all of the 890 applications to travel received through his church had been allowed. Fr Mario praised God for His grace, but the long-term implications for his tiny flock, and that of the Greek Orthodox parish which is the other main Christian community in Gaza, are worrying. I understand from local sources that this year some 40 Palestinian Christians left Gaza for the Easter celebrations in Jerusalem with no intention of returning. The Palestinian Christian community is at risk of a slow death from a thousand cuts. The reason for Israel's changed approach to exit permits is unclear. But in many ways the existence of a historic Palestinian Christian community in Gaza is, for Israel, an inconvenient truth. It undermines the narrative which suggests that Gaza consists of almost two million hard-line Islamists who want to sweep the Jews into the sea. It would certainly suit Israel's long-term purposes, which are to place a hermetic seal around Gaza and separate it from other parts of Palestine, if all the Christians left for Ramallah or Bethlehem in the West Bank, or further afield (anywhere but Israel itself). Islamist extremism is the elephant in the room. The Hamas regime in Gaza has generally been tolerant towards the Christians, recognising their wider contribution to the community through education and healthcare. And it is true that the Christian community punches way above its weight in terms of its involvement in society: the Palestinian Christian witness in Gaza includes five excellent schools, a general hospital, four primary healthcare clinics, two vocational training centres, a YMCA community centre and several other social projects. The beneficiaries of these projects are nearly all Muslims. But as the humanitarian situation in Gaza gets worse, and the United Nations has predicted that the territory will be 'unliveable' within 3-4 years, so the risk increases that more extreme Islamists gain a foothold. Hamas has so far managed to suppress any signs of the so-called Islamic State emerging in its territory, but the Christians are not taking this for granted. They only have to see what happened to their co-religionists in Iraq and Syria. Hence the need to keep all options open. When you talk to the Palestinians Christians of Gaza, as I do on my trips to the territory, what strikes you is how proud they are of their Palestinian identity. And they feel deeply for their fellow Gazans, 99.9 per cent of whom are Muslims, who do not receive such apparent munificence at the hands of the Israeli permit regime. For these Palestinians, driven to despair by their desperate situation, there seems no way out. No wonder the suicide rate in Gaza is on the increase. The Palestinian Christian witness in Gaza offers hope in the face of such desperation. Embrace the Middle East is the biggest UK funder of such projects. We support this historic witness not because we want to preserve some quaint Biblical museum piece, but because the Christian hospital, clinics, training centres and schools are a vibrant expression of faith and provide vital services in a community which is suffering grievously. A community which has been devastated by regular wars and by the privations caused by a blockade which next year sees its 10th anniversary (alongside the 50th anniversary of Israel's occupation). The Palestinian Christians of Gaza are the quintessential 'salt and light' in the very land where Our Saviour called us to be such. It would be a tragedy if that powerful witness were to come to an end. Jeremy Moodey is chief executive of the Christian development charity Embrace the Middle East, which supports the social witness of the historic Christian communities of the region. Embrace has launched a summer appeal highlighting the work of the Palestinian Christians in Gaza. The Holy and Great Collapsing Council: Why Eastern Orthodoxy is in trouble Eastern Orthodox Churches are gathering shortly in Crete for a highly significant 'Holy and Great Council' aimed at ironing out knotty problems that have accumulated over the last few centuries. It begins on Saturday and supporters hope it will be something like the Second Vatican Council that blew away the cobwebs from the Roman Catholic Church and brought it into the 20th century (it started in 1962). However, the 'Pan-Orthodox Council' it means all the Orthodox Churches has run into problems. Several have said they won't be coming after all, and it looks as though it will be a bit of a damp squib. I thought there was only one Orthodox Church, like the Roman Catholic Church. It would certainly make life easier. No; there are 14 'autocephalous', self-governing Churches based on national boundaries or historical precedent. There are also some 'autonomous' Churches that are linked to a parent Church but run themselves. Orthodoxy is a tradition rooted in the Eastern, Greek tradition of the early Church Fathers, whereas Roman Catholicism looked to the West. Both accept the historical creeds of the Church, but they have developed in different ways. And the Pan-Orthodox Council was designed to do what? It was hoped that all the Orthodox Churches would come to a common mind on six contentious areas: the mission of the Orthodox Church in today's world, the Orthodox Diaspora, autonomy and how it is proclaimed, the sacrament of marriage and its impediments, the importance of fasting and the relations of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the world. It's hard to see what could go wrong with all that. They are all very complicated issues involving a huge amount of Church politicking. One of the main problems is that there is a fundamentalist wing in Orthodoxy that sees itself as being in a culture war with liberals, not just in society but in theological terms as well. So the preparatory document on the Church's mission in the world has a bit about peace and social justice, which is too liberal for some; and it talks about "inter-Christian cooperation", which too liberal for others. The 'Diaspora' is a sore point, too: it refers to Orthodox Christians living in places where there isn't really an Orthodox Church. So which Church has authority over them? Marriage is another difficulty; the preparatory document isn't remotely liberal on same-sex marriage, but some think it is. And several Churches think the council will give away too much to other Christian communions, which they don't think are Churches at all. But surely all this could have been foreseen? You'd think so. But this council has been a long time in the preparation, and some events have moved quite quickly. For instance, Russia's annexation of Crimea and incursion into Ukraine has outraged Ukrainians and helped split the Orthodox Church there. And the meeting between Russia's Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis in Havana infuriated Russian conservatives, who accused him of selling out. Are there other pressure points? Qatar is one. Antioch and Jerusalem are at loggerheads because Antioch thinks it has jurisdiction over Qatar and the Qataris have given permission to a cleric from Jerusalem to build a church there. Another is the desire of the Bulgarian Church to get back the bones of King Samuel, who died in 1014. They are a present in a Greek museum, and the Greeks say they aren't giving them back. Then there's a row between the Serbian and Romanian Churches. There's a Romanian minority in Eastern Serbia, and the Romanians send their priests to minister to them; the Serbs say they will break communion with the Romanian Church unless they stop. What next, an argument about the seating plan? Funny you should mention that. At the moment there are two possible seating plans for the 500 participants. One emphasises the equality of all the Churches, and is the one preferred by Russia. The other emphasises the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarch, based in Istanbul, the former capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. It's a very big issue for some Churches. And though the Ecumenical Patriarch is first in prestige among Orthodox Churches, it's tiny. The Russian Orthodox Church has many times its numbers and much more influence. But presumably all this was known when it was decided to hold the council? Yes, and perhaps in retrospect it was the triumph of hope over experience. But it looks as though these Churches want to use the council to make a point about their own local difficulties rather than putting them on one side for the greater good. The latest Church to announce its non-participation is the Georgian Church, joining the Bulgarians, Antiochenes and Serbs. Russia is still thinking about it. Whatever happens, it will not have the status of a true ecumenical council and Orthodox Churches will not be bound by what it says. It may be downgraded to a consultative meeting aimed at holding talks about talks. Does this matter to anyone who isn't an Orthodox Christian? Yes, it does, for three reasons. First, we are all members of one body, and these turf wars don't do the Church as a whole any credit. Second, in some cases religion is being co-opted for nationalistic purposes at just the time it's needed to be a voice for peace. And third, when there there is a crying need for Churches to make themselves fit for purpose in the 21st century, this looks like an opportunity missed. Many of those involved in planning for this council are men of huge wisdom, virtue and insight. We should pray that their voices prevail, even at the last minute. Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods Thousands arrested in Bangladesh crackdown after gruesome murders of Christians and others Police in Bangladesh have arrested more than 5,000 suspected militants after dozens of brutal killings of Christians, atheists and others, many hacked down by men on motorcycles using machetes and swords. More than 80 of those arrested are believed to be Islamic extremists. The arrests have been made on suspicion of firearms, drugs and other offences. Every non-Muslim who takes to social media, the blogosphere or other media espousing a less-than-extremist view, as well as non-extremist Muslims as many in the Sunni community are, are now feared to be targets of the killers. Killings this month alone include: Nitya Ranjan Pandey, 60, a Hindu monastery worker stabbed to death in Pabna just a few days ago. Hindu priest Ananta Gopal Ganguly, 70, whose throat was slit as he was on his way to temple in the Jhenaidah district, west of Dhaka. Christian grocery store owner Sunil Gomes, murdered in his shop after leaving morning prayers in his home in the village of Bonpara. In May, a Christian family's home in Baghadanga Girjapara was targeted with homemade bombs. In April, Islamic State claimed responsibility for the murder of Rezaul Karim Siddiquee, 58, a professor of English north-west Bangladesh who was hacked to death. Islamic State and Al Qaeda have claimd responsibility between them for most of the murders. As the thousands of militants were arrested and 1,000 motorcycles seized, Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pledged that all the murderers will be caught. She said: "It may take time, but God willing, we will be able to bring them under control. Where will the criminals hide? Each and every killer will be brought to book." Those arrested include Shahjahan Robin, a suspect in the murder of the wife of an anti-terror officer, Mahmuda Begum. Some of those detained belong to organisations such as the banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, or the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh. U.S. President Obama blasted for refusing to link Orlando terror attack to Islam; Donald Trump calls for his resignation The mass murderer reportedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS) supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi before mowing down his victims while screaming "Allahu Akbar!" He was also born to parents from jihadist-infested Afghanistan and previously had a wife from Uzbekistan, another jihadist hotbed. All these were clear indications that Orlando shooter Omar Seddique Mateen was a Muslim fanatic. And yet U.S. President Barack Obama never once mentioned "Islam," "Muslim" or "Islamic terror" in his televised address to the nation condemning Sunday's terrorist attack that killed at least 50 people and wounded 53 othersthe worst act of terror in America since 9/11, WND reports. Once again as in previous terror attacks perpetrated by Muslim radicals, Obama refused to link the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday to Islamic terror, arguing that "no definitive judgment" had been made on the motive. "We know enough to say this is an act of terror and an act of hate," Obama said. He then used the attack to promote his gun-control policies. "What is clear is he is a person filled with hatred," Obama said, referring of the Muslim terrorist Mateen. Following Obama's speech, the ISIS claimed responsibility for the Orlando terror attack. Critics immediately pounded on Obama for his refusal to link terror to Islam. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump issued a statement following the terror attack, calling on Obama to resign for his refusal to even say the words "radical Islam." Trump said, "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Newsmax reports. Former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton for his part said the U.S. will never be able to stop terrorism as long as the Obama administration attempts to treat the attacks solely as a law enforcement matter, not as a struggle against an Islamic ideology that despises America's entire way of life. If Obama continues to omit any linkage between "the cold-blooded murders, the terrorists' ideology and the broader international threat that motivated the killer," there will be no way to defeat the enemy, Bolton wrote in an op-ed published by Fox News. "When you see an act of war like this committed against us, don't tell me about gun control, tell me about how we are going to defeat these people who are motivating terrorists" to act against the United States, he said. "The facts don't seem to matter to this administration," former CIA Director James Woolsey told Fox News. "The president's speech today is a national and international disgrace," said former federal prosecutor Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch. "Being born to a Muslim father and schooled in madrassa schools in Indonesia, and having as his friends and supporters domestic Muslim terrorist sympathisers like Rev. Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, President Barack Hussein Obama refuses to fight much less address Islamic terrorism in any meaningful way," Klayman said. 100 years of English beauty defined by four artist muses How portraits by Reynolds, Rossetti, Leighton and Freud all offered in the Defining British Art sale on 30 June reflect Keats sentiment: A thing of beauty is a joy forever Infatuation with arresting beauty has always compelled artists to produce masterpieces, and four superb works inspire Christies celebratory sale, Defining British Art, to be held in London on 30 June. A thing of beauty is a joy forever, wrote John Keats in Endymion: A Poetic Romance, his words echoing through the centuries and rippling through the world of art. As Keats described beauty so perfectly in his poetry, so generations of British painters have been entranced by the most beautiful women of their day, states Jussi Pylkkanen, Global President of Christies International. These muses inspired many of our finest British artists to execute their greatest works. Unwittingly these muses have shaped the history of British painting from the beginnings of great English portraiture in the 18th century when Christies was founded. Never previously offered for sale, Sir Joshua Reynolds Portrait of Lucy Long, Mrs. George Hardinge (1820) epitomises the concept of the society beauty, and is one of the finest works by the artist to come to the market in a generation. Lucy Long is seen gazing pensively sideways with an elegant demeanour, accompanied by her pet spaniel, and this portrait of her is a superb example of why Reynolds was regarded as the dominant artistic figure of the late 18th century. Dante Gabriel Rosettis pursuit a new aesthetic is evident in his depictions of his enigmatic muse, Jane Morris. As seen in Portrait of Jane Morris, bust-length (circa 1870), Morriss appearance was strikingly at odds with conventional notions of feminine grace, yet Rossetti captured her with a tasteful and irresistible intensity to create a breathtaking portrait of his flawless lover. Rossetti, surprisingly perhaps, inspired L.S. Lowry, the painter of northern industrial scenes. Lowry, a life-long bachelor, declared himself fascinated by Rossettis women, and formed a significant collection of them. This drawing was sold by Lowrys heirs. Sir Frederic Leightons flirtatious and alluring Pavonia portrays a very different kind of beauty that of Roman model Anna Risi, known as La Nanna and broke new ground when it was first shown at the Royal Academy in 1858. In contrast to the work of his contemporaries, Leighton captures a sensuality in the serene but confident sitter. Focusing on the physicality of his striking Mediterranean model, we are gripped by her exotic beauty, juxtaposed with the magnificent display of a peacock fan, a timeless symbol of vanity. Pavonia was selected as the cover for the Leighton retrospective at the Royal Academy in 1996, and the The Cult of Beauty show staged by the V&A in 2011. Over the years the work has become the defining image of British Aestheticism. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate There may be an abundance of Houston places serving up Southern comfort food. Still, the rumor that famed Memphis-based Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken might be coming to Houston managed to cause a commotion on Facebook. The popular fried chicken restaurant that has earned a place in the world of Southern comfort food legends is now confirmed to be putting down roots in Houston. Local food blog In The Know was the first to report that the restaurant, which already has an Austin outpost, would be debuting at 1815 Washington, just steps away from where Austin-based Tacodeli will be launching. MONTROSE SHUTTER: Longtime Montrose Mexican restaurant Maria Selma's closing July 2 "Per (a) tipster, Texas All Fry LLC, a subsidiary of Austin AllFry LLC operating Gus's Fried Chicken in Austin, signed a lease with Braun Enterprises as new tenants of 1815 Washington Avenue," the blog reports. Braun Enterprises will also be redesigning the 1940s, 4,000-square-foot space. "We had our sights on Houston, because we lived here for 15 years. We know the potential is huge, because everyone likes fried chicken," owner Brad Blodgett told CultureMap. Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken has a number of locations throughout the country, including restaurants in Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, and Kansas. SEE ALSO: Anthony Bourdain tapes at Burns Original BBQ The secret family recipe has drawn accolades from around the country and was once named "one of the top ten meals in the United States worth flying for" by GQ Magazine. Look for more locations to crop up around the U.S. We'll update with more information, including prospective opening date, as it becomes available. Since its inception in 1986, Be An Angel's mission has been to improve the quality of life for children with multiple disabilities or profound deafness. Earlier this spring, the organization raised a record-breaking $350,000 towards the cause during the 2016 awards ceremony and gala honoring Dot Cunningham, Roger & Debbie Clemens, Charlie Bolden, and Dr. Joan Shook. Chair Carmina Zamorano enlisted the help of dinner chairmen Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and his wife, Jan Patrick, to host 350 supporters at Hotel ZaZa. Guests gussied up Texas-style for the "Boots & Bling"-themed soiree. Gold-painted "living statues" welcomed the crowd into the ballroom where "Great Day Houston" host Deborah Duncan put on quite a show as mistress of ceremonies. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, on Sunday called for the federal assault weapons ban to be reinstated in light of the massacre in Orlando, Fla. She said she plans to introduce legislation Monday with Orlando congresswoman Corrine Brown to bring back the ban and tighten rules for civilian purchases of bullets. In a separate piece of legislation, she said, she plans to assess how persons of interest are evaluated by the FBI. "This has impacted us in Houston very deeply," Jackson Lee said in a news conference where she was joined by Muslim, Christian, Hispanic and LGBT community leaders. M.J. Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, appealed to fellow Muslims to support the LGBT community after the Orlando massacre. "We stand by our fellow Americans, we stand by the LGBT community in difficult times," Khan said. "I must remind fellow Muslims that since 9/11 the LGBT community has always stood with Muslims." Deacon Sam Dunning, of the Archdiocese of Houston-Galveston, spoke on behalf of the Catholic community. "Regardless of what you may think of someone's lifestyle, regardless of what you may think of LGBT, of Hispanics," Dunning said, "these are children of God." Brandon Wilke spoke on behalf of the GLBT Caucus. "We have never been silenced and we will not be silenced," he said. Also present were Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen, Houston Democratic leader Lane Lewis and several other Muslim and Christian community leaders. A Nigerian woman admitted to a federal judge in Houston Monday she had conspired with others to commit marriage fraud in order to attain permanent residency status. Ifeoma J. Adamolekun, 40, of Houston, told U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy in her guilty plea that she was still married to her husband in the Federal Republic of Nigeria in November 2014 when she married an American citizen named Charles R. Warren. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The 41st president of the United States, George H.W. Bush, spent his 92nd birthday on Sunday hanging with his young great-granddaughter, the daughter of granddaughter Jenna Bush Hager. Poppy, as he's known to his family, held the 10-month-old Poppy Louise in a photo shared on Instagram by Hager. RELATED: President George H.W. Bush throws out first pitch at Houston Astros-Kansas City Royals game She's named after her great-grandpa, of course. Hager also posted a picture of her and her sister Barbara Pierce Bush giving their grandpa a birthday kiss. Former President Bush is wincing in the photo and its quite funny. The Bush brood spent the weekend at the family's Kennebunkport, Maine compound. A Bush staffer told the Associated Press that the family had planned a low-key birthday event, including dinner. Former president George W. Bush was also on hand to celebrate with his father. RELATED: George H.W. Bush parachute jumps for 90th birthday The staffer noted that the elder Bush is doing well after a scare last summer when he broke a bone in his neck in a fall at his home. Bush was born on June 12, 1924 in Milton, Massachusetts. His wife Barbara Bush turned 91 years old late last week. In other Bush 41-related news, a picture of the heartfelt, endearing letter he left incoming President Bill Clinton at the White House on Jan. 20, 1993 as he was leaving and the Clinton family was moving in went viral after a college student took a snapshot of it at Bush's library in College Station. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate ANGLETON A 24-year-old man has been arrested in the mysterious death of a Port Arthur man found decapitated in his pickup at a boat ramp more than a month ago, the Brazoria County sheriff's office announced. Zachary Lyn Foyt was arrested in Lakewood, Colo., and charged with murder after investigators received a tip that he may have been involved in the death of Jubal Dee Alexander, also 24, of Port Arthur. Foyt is awaiting extradition to Brazoria County in the Jefferson County, Colo., jail. His bail has been set at $5 million. READ MORE: Man's headless body found at Brazoria County boat ramp Brazoria County Sheriff Charles Wagner said investigators had not determined a motive, but that the killing may have been an effort to hide evidence. Wagner declined to provide further details. The sheriff said there is no indication that Foyt and Alexander knew each other. Investigators discovered that Foyt had fled to Colorado and went there to question him. Other witnesses were questioned in Texas while Foyt was being questioned, giving investigators enough information to charge him with murder, Wagner said. Deputies discovered the body of Alexander on May 3 in a blue Chevrolet pickup parked at the Austin Bayou Boat Ramp on FM 2004 near the Austin Bayou Bridge in Angleton. Wagner said Alexander was employed as a contractor at the Ineos chemical plant on FM 2004 near Chocolate Bayou. Although employed, he lived in his truck, normally parking it under the Austin Bayou Bridge. "The investigation determined that Alexander was living out of truck in order to save money," Wagner said. His body was identified throuugh fingerprint analysis, the sheriff's office said. Wagner said officials still have not determined whether he was dead before he decapitated. Officials still have not found the man's head. 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. Warriors end season with win over Rebels SIOUX RAPIDS - The Alta-Aurelia football team traveled to face Sioux Central for their final game of the season and... Cherokee takes down Generals to finish season CHEROKEE - The Cherokee football team hosted Sibley-Ocheyedan on Friday and won 35-28 to finish out their season. The... Warriors suffer heartbreaking end to season ALTA - The Alta-Aurelia volleyball team hosted Lawton-Bronson last Wednesday and suffered a nail-biting 3-2 loss to end their season.... Unity ends Cherokee volleyball season ORANGE CITY - Out of sync early, Cherokee's volleyball squad fell hard in the first set 25-8 to ranked Unity... Nordson Dage Opens Seoul Demo Lab Published: 13 June 2016 by Mike Buetow by Mike Buetow SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA Nordson Dage has opened a clean room demonstration facility here, the company announced today. The new site, located south of Seoul and close to Incheon International Airport, features an 1,100 sq. ft. clean room, plus a conference center and various equipment. Tools on site include the 4800 automated wafer-level bondtester and XM8000 automatic wafer x-ray metrology tool. This new state-of-the-art demonstration facility allows our customers from all over the Asian region to come and bring their samples for full metrology testing under optimum clean room conditions," said Mark Norris, AT-ES Asia vice president. "In particular, it provides them with the opportunity to use our XM8000 tool for nondestructive measurement of voiding and critical dimensions." On CNN and Fox News, one politician after another professed to be shocked by the massacre in Orlando. Who would have expected such a thing? people kept asking. Actually, Ive been expecting just such a thing for years. The only shock was that it took this long for some jihadist to go after a gay establishment. Islamic law, after all, is crystal clear on homosexuality, though the various schools of sharia prescribe a range of penalties: one calls for death by stoning; another demands that the transgressor be thrown from a high place; a third says to drop a building on him. In Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, Mauritania, Pakistan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, as well as in parts of Nigeria, Somalia, Syria and Iraq, homosexuality is indeed punishable by death. Nor do Muslims magically change their views on the subject when they move to the West. As long ago as 2005, the head of the Netherlands leading gay rights group said that, owing to the growth of Islam in Amsterdam, tolerance of gay people was slipping away like sand through the fingers; over the last 10 or 15 years, Dutch gays have fled the cities in droves to escape Muslim gay-bashing. In Norway, several high-profile Muslims have refused publicly to oppose executing gays, and when challenged on their views have gone on the offensive, demanding respect for orthodox Muslim beliefs. This past April, a poll established that 52 percent of British Muslims want homosexuality banned. Many on the left (and some on the right, too) refuse to face these facts. In 2004, when gay activist Peter Tatchell urged Londons then-mayor Ken Livingstone to rescind an invitation to Koranic scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawiwho supports the death penalty for gaysLivingstone issued a report calling Qaradawi a liberal and Tatchell a racist. Yes, there are self-identified Muslims who harbor no antigay prejudice; I suspect that more than a few of them are actually apostates whoaware that Islam considers apostasy, too, a capital crimechoose to keep quiet about their infidel status. Some gays who were born into Islam claim that theyve worked out for themselves a version of their faith not inconsistent with their homosexuality; good luck to them, but theyre in a tiny minority. Whenever a Muslim commits some atrocity, were reminded that the world contains some 1.5 billion Muslims, the great majority of them tolerant, peace-loving, etc.; the fact is that the great majority of those 1.5 billion Muslims also belong to varieties of Islam that preach contempt for, and severe punishment of, homosexuals. Incredibly, many gays still dont get thisor refuse to get it. They clingmindlessly, one wants to sayto leftist ideology, which tells them that Muslims, like gays, are an official victim group, and thus their natural allies. They see Christians as their enemiesthough even the most aggressively antigay Christians in America, namely the God hates fags crowd at the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, dont go around killing anybody. Perversely, some gays support the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement, which demonizes the only gay-friendly country in the Middle East. Some even buy into the concept of pinkwashingthe inane assertion, promoted by radical lesbian playwright Sarah Schulman, that Israel advertises its own gay-positive values as a means of covering up its supposed oppression of Palestinians. On this day of horror, lets hope that the jihadist massacre of 50 people in a gay club in Orlando finally awakens gay Americans to the brutal reality of Islams hatred for them. Photo by Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images BNM anunta concurs pentru postul vacant de expert principal, pe durata determinata, responsabil de elaborarea/actualizarea cerintelor metodologice de reglementare a procesului de raportare la BNM In early 2015, the Chicago Tribune reported on a spike in shootings in the nations third-largest citythe start of more than a year of grim news about crime and policing. Much of the violence and the subsequent coverage was concentrated in the predominantly African-American south and west sides of the city, including the Englewood neighborhood, one of Chicagos most dangerous. Lolly Bowean, a general assignment reporter at the Tribune, was also reporting from Englewood around that time, but not about the uptick in crime. Instead, she delivered a gem of a story about a local man who had gone on to become a lecturer at Harvard but didnt want to sell his family home to a railroad company expanding its yarda tale, she wrote, that highlights the unique relationship African-Americans have with their property, since at one time so few were allowed to buy and own land and so few could afford to purchase houses. It was a classic Bowean piece, the type of story the self-described old-fashioned community reporter came to the Tribune more than a decade ago to tell. Bowean covers a wide range of breaking news for the Trib, but, as her bio on the papers website notes, she has carved out a niche reporting on urban affairs, youth culture, housing issues, and the citys minority communities. Those are topics Bowean, who is African-American, assigned to herself. In a recent interview at a downtown coffee shop near the Tribune Tower, she joked that it was her way of going rogue. I look for whats missing, she says. In doing so, shes found rich, and often surprising, stories. At a ceremony this spring, Bowean received the Studs Terkel Award, one of the highest honors for journalists covering Chicago. A few weeks later, she was awarded a coveted Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, where she will spend the 2016-17 academic year researching the cultural differences between the African-American descendants of American slavery and the children of black immigrants. Lolly loves to explode other peoples stereotypes, says Mark Jacob, the Tribunes associate managing editor for metro news. She loves to write stories that broaden peoples views of others. It makes her a delight to read. Sign up for weekly emails from the United States Project Bowean, 37, has been developing those skills since she was a student journalist in high school in Knoxville, Tennessee. Sometimes, for a laugh, she pulls up one of her first stories, about a man hired to wear a chicken costume at a chicken restaurant. She went on to write for Howard Universitys acclaimed student newspaper, the Hilltop, where Natalie Moore, now the South Side reporter for WBEZ, was her editor. Moore remembers sending Bowean out on vague assignments to find something to write about. She never failed. She was always really good about finding interesting stories off the beaten path, Moore says. Bowean worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune before joining the Tribune in 2004. From the papers Lake County bureau, in the affluent suburbs north of Chicago, she found stories about the growing number of African-American families who were choosing to home-school their children, and about the countys largest African-American church. She later moved to the South Side bureau and then came downtown five years ago. Along the way she earned a reputation for being a workhorse, constantly reporting or writing on deadline, even self-imposed ones. In addition to following breaking news about a police officer facing disciplinary action or the latest developments in the Laquan McDonald murder trial, Bowean delivers enterprising coverage of city residents struggles with the local housing authority, along with a steady stream of moving features. Shes written about the elaborate prom send-offs African-American families give to their children, about Easter hairstyles, about a black beauty blogger who lost her hair to cancer. I try to write about the joys of life in the African-American community, she says. All too often, there isnt that balance. Its about violence. Its about crime. Boweans work, Jacob says, is a testament to the importance of diversity in a newsroom. The Tribune is an old newspaper run by white men for a very long time, he said. Its just important for us to reflect the entire community. According to a survey conducted by the American Society of News Editors, black journalists accounted for about 7 percent of the Tribunes newsroom, and Hispanic journalists about 6 percent in 2014, the most recent year for which figures are publicly available. By comparison, the city of Chicago is about 33 percent black and 29 percent Hispanic, according to 2010 Census data. Those numbers put the Tribune in the same general company as most other big-city papers around the country. Nationally, the percentage of all minority journalists at daily newspapers hasnt moved much over the past two decades, even as the country has grown increasingly diverse. Theres a saying in diversity circles that you have to see it to be it, says Margaret Holt, the Tribunes standards editor. Which, of course, makes Lollys success here all the more important to us, because shes inspiring other talented young minorities every day. That matters. It can be a tricky thing for reporters of color to find their place in a traditionally white newsroom. Sheila Solomon, who was a senior editor for recruitment at the Tribune from 2002 to 2011 and brought Bowean to the paper, says many young journalists of color who interviewed at the paper wanted to make sure that they wouldnt be pigeonholed into writing only about their own communities. That was not a concern for Bowean, says Solomon, now manager of recruiting and interns at Rivet Radio in Chicago. Her ideas still are about writing stories about people who you arent usually going to meet in a publication. She has held firm to that. Flynn McRoberts, now the Chicago bureau chief for Bloomberg News, was the mentor the Tribune to Bowean when she came to the Tribunethe first time in her career she wasnt assigned an African-American woman to guide her, Bowean says. McRoberts taught her how to navigate the power structure, helped her with her writing style, and showed her how to sell a story to editors, she says. For his part, McRoberts says he merely tried to be a good advocate for Boweans stories. She had a combination of bulldog relentless reporting instinct but a huge heart, he says. Often times the most empathetic and big-hearted people can be the amazing feature reporters and the investigative unit is full of hard-bitten, hard-core, skeptical-to-the-point-of- cynical people, and Lolly bridged that and exhibited the best qualities. Those who know Bowean say that empathy stems from her relationship with her twin brother, Ronald, who died two years ago. Ronald, whom the family called PoPo, was disabled and lived at home his whole life. Says Solomon, the former Tribune recruiter: That experience of watching her mother raise her brother and attend to him has a lot to do with the compassion that you not only see but feel. You can feel Lollys emotions and the emotions of the people she writes about. After her Nieman fellowship, Bowean plans to return to the Tribune, which she calls her destination paper. In many ways, Im still doing what I started out doing, she says. Looking around neighborhoods and trying to identify stories. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Jackie Spinner is CJRs correspondent for Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin. She is an associate journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago and a former staff writer for The Washington Post. Follow her on Twitter @jackiespinner. Prosecutors introduced a new theory as a murder trial started for a Baltimore, Md., police van driver charged in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man whose neck was broken in the back of the wagon. Not only was Officer Caesar Goodson negligent when he didnt buckle Gray into a seatbelt, prosecutors said, he intentionally wanted to injure Gray by giving him a rough ride blowing through a stop sign and making a sharp turn at such a high speed that he crossed a double yellow line. With his hands cuffed and his legs shackled, Gray was thrown helplessly against the rear compartment, the prosecutor said. Goodson, 46, who is black, faces second-degree murder, manslaughter, assault and other charges. Prosecutors had hinted earlier that Gray was subjected to a rough ride. But opening statements Thursday marked the first time they accused the driver of intending to hurt Gray, whose death in April 2015 touched off the worst riots in Baltimore in decades. A rough ride is police lingo for putting a prisoner in a police wagon without a seatbelt and driving so erratically that he or she is thrown around. Goodson is the third officer to stand trial. So far the state has not won a conviction. Officer William Porters trial ended in a mistrial in December. The judge acquitted the second officer last month. Schatzow was unequivocal about the states position during opening statements. There was no good reason for the defendant not to belt him in, except to bounce him around, he said. Goodson attorney Andrew Graham flatly disputed the notion that Gray was deliberately bounced around, saying: There was no rough ride. It simply didnt happen. He said Grays injuries were self-inflicted when he stood up inside a moving vehicle and that officers virtually never belt prisoners in. Goodson is such a slow and cautious driver that he sometimes lulls his prisoners to sleep, he said. Graham said Goodson a good officer, a gentle man, a nice guy didnt belt Gray in because of his violent and erratic behavior that included screaming and kicking with such force that the wagon shook. Gray continued thrashing around in the van for several stops, the attorney said. Graham said Goodsons supervisors never directed him to seek medical attention for Gray, and that Gray wasnt exhibiting symptoms of distress. He did his job, and he followed instructions, Graham said. Freddie Grays death was a tragedy, but convicting a good officer just to assign blame would make a tragic situation worse. Graham told the judge that the assistant medical examiner who performed Grays autopsy and ruled his death a homicide initially told an investigator it was a freakish accident before meeting with prosecutors and changing her mind. It was the result of a pressurized investigation, Graham said. On Friday during cross-examination, Dr. Carol Allan contradicted defense attorneys assertion that she initially thought Grays death was accidental. I had an open mind, and after reading the medical records and performing the autopsy, thats when I said, this is not an accident, she said. The word accident never crossed by lips. Goodsons wagon stopped six times altogether. Allan conceded that medical evidence by itself doesnt prove that Gray suffered his spinal injury between the second and fourth stops. But she said when she reviewed witness statements and other investigatory materials, she stood by her conclusion. Without the recorded statements I can tell you it happened in the van, but not when, she said. She also said Grays spinal injury could have occurred because the van sped up or slowed down but because Gray wasnt belted and, in her opinion, was standing up, he could have suffered his injury even if the van hadnt been speeding or moving erratically. Rough rides, nicknamed nickel rides after rides at an amusement park, have been the subject of lawsuits in Baltimore and other cities. Dondi Johnson died of a fractured spine in 2005 after Baltimore police arrested him for urinating in public. Police put him in a van without a seatbelt, his hands cuffed behind his back. His family said he was thrown into the opposite wall. The family won a $7.4 million judgment, though a cap reduced that to $200,000. In Philadelphia, police in 2001 barred transportation of prisoners without padding or belts after The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the city had paid $2.3 million to settle lawsuits over rough rides that paralyzed two people. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Federal safety experts say errors by a Houston Ship Channel pilot likely caused the 2015 collision between two 600-foot vessels that led to a chemical spill. The Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday that the National Transportation Safety Board has urged Houston officials to improve channel safety especially during heavy fog. The report called on Houston pilots to emphasize better bridge management and more timely communication. The NTSB concluded that the pilots failure to communicate as he guided the Conti Peridot through thickening fog contributed to the collision with an outbound chemical tanker, the Carla Maersk. The report also says that the pilot failed to adequately control he vessel. The March 9, 2015, accident caused about 88,000 gallons of a flammable chemical to spill. Nobody was hurt. Houstons port is one of the busiest in the world. Vessels of all shapes and sizes must successfully share the waters of the Houston Ship Channel, NTSB chairman Christopher Hart said. The report also specifically calls on the ports Lone Star Safety Committee, a Houston-based group that includes pilots, government officials and industry representatives, to study how to improve safety in heavy fog or other potentially hazardous weather conditions. The NTSB recommended measures, including considering increased vessel separation, one-way traffic and/or anchoring A spokesman for the Houston Pilots Association welcomed the recommendations and said the report will be reviewed. Port of Houston commissioners, who also act as the Board of Pilot Commissioners, voted to defer action in regards to the collision until the NTSB released its findings. Port spokesman Lisa Ashley, said Wednesday that the pilot board will meet to consider the full NTSB report whenever it becomes available. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. At least one broken bolt holding the rail in place caused the fiery derailment of a Union Pacific train moving volatile crude oil through the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon-Washington border, railroad officials say. Union Pacific spokesman Justin Jacobs said Saturday that the company filed a report Friday with the Federal Railroad Administration citing one or more broken bolts as the cause of the June 3 derailment. We are unaware of any time when this has happened in the past, Jacobs said. This is an unusual failure. He said theres no evidence of malevolent activity by anyone to damage the tracks. Theres nothing to indicate that would be the case, he said. The type of bolt that broke is unique in that its only used on curved sections of track, Jacobs said. He noted the train was going 26 mph in a 30 mph zone so its not clear why the bolt failed. As a result, he said, the company is now in the process of checking similar bolts in curved sections of its 32,000 miles of track in 23 states. No one was injured in the derailment, but the tiny town of Mosier, Oregon, was evacuated after four cars caught fire. Of the 96 cars all loaded with crude oil, more than a dozen derailed. Mosier Fire Chief Jim Appleton, who fought the blaze after the derailment, said he appreciated Union Pacifics maintenance and safety procedures but the risk of one broken bolt resulting in such a disaster or potentially worse disasters means regulators should not allow shipments of crude oil to travel by train through the area. We have to accept that there are going to be failures in the rail system, he said. But we have to recognize that there are some risks that are unacceptable. Officials have said 42,000 gallons of crude oil were released in the derailment of the unit crude oil train, called such because it hauled only one type of commodity. About 10,000 gallons were recovered in wastewater systems, while the rest was burned off, captured by booms or absorbed into soil. Jacobs said bolts in that section of track, following the derailment, have been replaced with heavier duty bolts. He also said inspections have been increased in the Columbia River Gorge from once every 18 months to four times a year. He said the broken bolt possibly escaped detection because the break occurred out of sight. He said the testing going on now on the companys network of tracks is much more labor intensive and will detect broken bolts. Union Pacific has temporarily halted sending unit crude oil trains through the area, and its not clear when they will resume. We will notify the community before we start running unit crude oil trains through the gorge, Jacobs said. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. BEREA, Ohio -- Berea City Schools Board of Education members received during their June 6 meeting a facilities update and more specifics about possible building renovations. They also talked about a 4.25 mill bond issue they are pursuing for the Nov. 8 ballot. Latest figures suggest operational savings of $2.1 million per year if the tax issue passes and after extensive facilities changes are made. Upgrades, renovations and new construction would be part of the $112.5 million proposed package. A new high school would be built on its current location, and "a middle level complex with separate spaces for students in fifth grade from students in grades six through eight," would be created after renovating the current junior high and Middlebrook Education Center, according to a flyer distributed at the meeting. A new elementary school would be constructed in Brook Park. Brookview and Brook Park Memorial elementary schools would close, as would Ford Intermediate School. The possibility exists of converting Ford Intermediate School's auditorium into a district performing arts center. Grindstone Elementary School would receive upgrades and Big Creek Elementary School would be renovated. Some buildings were built as early as 1928. If the bond issue does not pass, "Plan B" would entail consolidating Brook Park's elementary schools and re-purposing Ford Intermediate School. Fifth-graders would move to the Middlebrook Education Center, while sixth-graders would relocate to the current Middleburg Heights Junior High. Ninth-graders would move into Berea-Midpark High School, most likely by 2018. "If we're not successful, we're going to have to find ways to get the additional dollars to invest into our schools," Superintendent Michael Sheppard said. "The question would be, where do you get the money to be able to do (the consolidation). There's obviously a cost savings from the district's perspective ... even with the up-front investment in getting those buildings up to speed." Board President Ana Chapman said she wants more specifics about Plan B before the district embarks on a "full-fledged campaign" for bond passage, while board member Cori Farris stressed the public needs to know how much and from where the money would come if the issue fails. "We have to be able to quantify that," Farris said. Lev Gonick Lev Gonick, an educator, technologist, and smart city architect who co-founded nonprofit Internet provider OneCommunity, just launched Digital C. It's a new civic tech collaboration aimed at creating new programs and services that will hopefully make Northeast Ohio a more tech-inclusive community in the next five years. (DigitalC) CLEVELAND, Ohio - If Lev Gonick has his way, Cleveland will become a leading advocate for transforming communities built with a 20th century manufacturing base, into a 21st century digital economy. The long-time educator, technologist, and smart city architect just announced DigitalC, a new civic tech collaboration aimed at creating new programs and services that will hopefully make Cleveland a more tech-inclusive community in the next five years. It's the second time that Gonick spearheaded a big technology push for change in the community. Twelve years ago, he and other civic-minded visionaries started the nonprofit OneCommunity, in order to bring super-high-speed Internet service to Cleveland. Last fall, venture capitalists invested $50 million into OneCommunity, the organization that created a fiber-optic network across Northeast Ohio from Sandusky to the Pennsylvania line, hooking up major nonprofit institutions such as Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University. In the past six months since venture capitalists invested $50 million to spin off OneCommunity's for-profit subsidiary, Everstream, into a separate company, Gonick has focused on creating DigitalC. He and his new team have been talking to people in digitally-adept cities and to local leaders, residents and businesses, trying to find ways to leverage technology and data to solve community challenges. "We spent 25 years worrying about how to build the pipes and how to actually connect ... and now it's like what can we do together to actually make a difference and attend to the communities priorities with the technology that's evolved," said Gonick, co-founder and CEO of OneCommunity, a nonprofit Internet provider based downtown. DigitalC's new team, includes Lev Gonick, Digital C's chief executive officer, far left, and Jennifer Thomas, chief strategy officer, seated next to him. Digital C is a civic tech collaboration that catalyzes technology for community impact. So far DigitalC has identified three priorities: bringing together technology leaders to create regional digital strategies; harness the power of data to reshape priorities and solve problems; and develop inclusive programs in neighborhoods not normally considered as participants in the digital economy. "Every community that's working through a transition from post industrial to digital needs an agenda. And we're calling it a new civic agenda, because our version is, don't leave it to the usual suspects to create the civic agenda. On the other hand, technology folks can't just keep talking to each other." In the 20th century, Gonick said Cleveland's civic agenda got set by CEO's at the private Union Club and other exclusive organizations. "It was what it was. It's very clear that the technology community never found it's way into those circles. This is not about us imposing ourselves. It's kind of a dating or a waltz. Let's see what it would look like if we come together," he said. The idea behind DigitalC is to bring together the business sector, nonprofits and residents to form collaborations in order to create smarter, connected, and inclusive communities. "We would act as a catalyst," said Jennifer Thomas, chief strategy officer at DigitalC. "Everyone talks about new jobs, but what we're discovering is that it's not about whether you get a job, it's about whether or not you get a career, and some form of that career will involve digital literacy." A major push is to make the region more digitally literate. "Last spring, 17 graduates from Cleveland State was the sum total of all the undergrad graduates in computer science. That's our largest public institution in the region. If you back out from there, how do we improve?" he asked. Lev Gonick, talking up technology to students. DigitalC is developing technology-driven programs and services to help organizations make better decisions. They're starting off with a "Data Smart Bootcamp," where employees such as nurses, sales people or people in social services can become more data savvy. Plans include helping organizations achieve their goals using data, and creating a platform with public data made available to anyone in a digitized format. "It doesn't matter if its magic or its data, these organizations just want their problems solved," said Thomas. "Our job is to help them behind the scenes." "Having a robust digital economy will be necessary for any community to remain competitive in the 21st century," Gonick said. "DigitalC is committed to developing sustainable strategies that are aligned with the needs and priorities of communities for the public good." Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save CLEVELAND, Ohio - President Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in Ohio by 288,000 votes in 1996 en route to winning re-election to the White House. Ross Perot, for the second consecutive race, ran as a third-party candidate. He grabbed 10.7 percent of the Ohio vote in 1996, down from 21 percent in 1992. Clinton's strongest showings were in Mahoning County (61.5 percent) and Cuyahoga County (60.8 percent) in Northeast Ohio. Dole did best in Butler County (59.9 percent), north of Cincinnati. Results by county Scroll over the map to see the vote in each county of Ohio. The darker shades on the map are counties won by at least 20 percentage points. Counties shown in red voted Republican; blue counties voted Democrat. This is part of a series detailing presidential election history in Ohio. See results for 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 at these links. The counties shaded in below were won by Dole. tajtalkington.png Taj Talkington, of Elyria is accused of using a badge, handcuffs and a toy gun to try and arrest a woman while impersonating a Cleveland police officer. His case is headed to a Lorain County grand jury. (Elyria Police Department) ELYRIA, Ohio -- A Lorain County grand jury will consider the case of an Elyria man accused of using a badge, handcuffs and a toy gun to try and arrest a woman all while pretending to be a Cleveland police officer. Elyria Municipal Court Judge Lisa Locke Graves signed the order to bind the case over minutes before the court closed at 4:30 p.m. Monday after the defense attorney and prosecutors talked behind closed doors for more than two hours. Taj Davidlee Talkington, 22, is charged with felony abduction and several misdemeanors, including receiving stolen property and impersonating an officer, court records show. Locke Graves reduced the bond from $50,000 to $25,000. Talkington was still in the Lorain County Jail on Tuesday afternoon. He is ordered to have no contact with the victim, and cannot have a gun. Talkington got angry June 2 when a bartender at Boomers Bar told him he couldn't take beer outside the bar, Elyria police reports say. The bartender told him to leave, and Talkington flashed a badge and told her that she was going to jail, according to the report. He pulled out a gun when the 34-year-old bartender pulled away. The bartender thought the gun was real, police said. The woman told Talkington he couldn't handcuff her because he was drunk. Talkington told the woman he was an undercover Cleveland police officer, according to reports. A customer in the bar called 911. Talkington ran out of the bar. He was arrested across the street in a bank parking lot. Officers found a Cleveland police badge in Talkington's pocket. They also found a toy gun in the parking lot and another Cleveland police badge and handcuffs in bushes about 10 feet away. A witness later told police that Talkington was showing badges and handcuffs in a Berea bar a week before the Elyria incident. The witness said that Talkington told her that he stole the handcuffs and badges when he broke into a house, according to reports. The badges were reported stolen from a car in a Chestnut Street parking lot May 22, Elyria police reports say. The owner of the car told investigators he worked for Cleveland police for 15 years and bought the badges when he resigned. Cleveland police have no record of the man who reported the badges stolen ever working for the department, spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia told cleveland.com last week. One of the badge numbers was last used in 1972, but she could not verify its authenticity. Cleveland police have no record of the other badge number. Police are looking into the stolen badges, Elyria police Capt. Chris Costantino said. If you wish to discuss or comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section. Like Chanda Neely on Facebook. Follow me on Twitter: WASHINGTON - Collinwood native George Voinovich restored financial stability to a troubled Cleveland and sparked a downtown renaissance as the city's mayor during the 1980s. That's one reason so many Cleveland fixtures are named after him, from Voinovich Bicentennial Park, to the George V. Voinovich (Innerbelt) Bridge, to the George V. Voinovich Atrium at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And why a strongly Democratic town continuously re-elected a Republican as its mayor. "It is impossible to overstate the incredible influence he had on things going on today," said Tim Cosgrove, a local attorney who spent 15 years as a Voinovich aide. "He loved Cleveland. I think being mayor was the job he was most proud of in his career. He never stopped being mayor of Cleveland when he was senator and governor." Here are five of Voinovich's achievements in Cleveland: 1. Restoring fiscal solvency Voinovich was elected mayor soon after Cleveland became the first major city since the Great Depression to default on its bank loans. That meant Cleveland couldn't sell bonds to finance local improvement projects, and the city required financial supervision by the state of Ohio. After taking office, Voinovich assembled a $36.2 million refinancing plan to pay off the $14 million in defaulted notes. By the time he left office, Cleveland had cleared its debt and been repeatedly named an "All America City" by the National Civic League. 2. Overseeing downtown redevelopment While serving as mayor, Voinovich encouraged several big companies to build major downtown projects, including BP America, Ohio Bell, Eaton Corp. and Key Bank. He also oversaw the development of Tower City, and the transformation of the Erieview Tower from just office space to the Galleria at Erieview, a mixed use shopping and business center. After becoming governor, Voinovich continued helping Cleveland development by helping to secure financing for the Gateway project and Cleveland Browns stadium. 3. Improving government operations Voinovich created an "Operations Improvement Task Force" where local business leaders examined the functioning of city operations and suggested refinements. "It was impossible to imagine how bad it was," says Cosgrove. "The average police car had over 100,000 miles on it. All kinds of operational things were needed." 4: Bringing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland: Voinovich forged a public private partnership to bring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to Cleveland. It opened in 1995 and soon became a symbol of Cleveland civic pride. "George Voinovich was a visionary who got the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame built in Cleveland, established it as a cultural icon, and laid the foundation for the museum as economic engine for Ohio," Hall of Fame CEO and President Greg Harris said upon learning of his death. "Our condolences to the family for this major loss." What do you remember most about Voinovich, as county commissioner, mayor, governor or senator? NOTE: An earlier version of this story listed five Voinovich efforts A woman who lives next door to the company, Vickie Griffin, said she heard a loud explosion before the fire. "I thought it was an M-80 firecracker," Griffin said. "I looked out the window and the whole factory was in flames." Walker said the company was started in the World War II-era. The company makes lubricants and rust-prevention solutions. His father bought the company in 1967 and he's been working there ever since. Walker said he took over the company in 1989 after his father died. He said he'll assess the damage and try and rebuild. "We're going to have to regroup and do what we can to stay in business," Walker said. "I don't have a plan yet. I have a lot of friends that I've helped over the years. We'll see if some of them help me in my time of need." Cleveland police car 3.jpg A man and woman were shot dead early Monday morning outside a gas station at East 93rd Street and Harvard Avenue in Cleveland's Union-Miles Park neighborhood. (File photo) CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A man and woman were killed early Monday morning when someone opened fire at a gas station in Cleveland's Union-Miles Park neighborhood. The gunshots erupted about 2:50 a.m. at the Valero station at East 93rd Street and Harvard Avenue, police said. The man, 24, and the woman, 18, were standing outside the gas station when the man got into an argument with another man, police said. The other man pulled a pistol and opened fire. Several bullets struck the 24-year-old man. One bullet hit the woman in the back, police said. The 24-year-old man collapsed in front of the door of the gas station. The woman ran down Harvard Avenue and collapsed in front of a home, police said. Police and firefighters gave the victims emergency aid until paramedics rushed them to MetroHealth, where they were pronounced dead. Detectives have yet to identify the shooter. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office has not released the names of the victims. Police ask anyone with information about the shooting to call homicide detectives at 216-623-5464. If you want to comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments section. uakron1.JPG University of Akron officials are working to regain the trust and support of university constituencies following the resignation of President Scott Scarborough. (Karen Farkas, cleveland.com) AKRON, Ohio - University of Akron officials are trying to regain trust, support and students as they work to put the two tumultuous years under former President Scott Scarborough behind them. "We have to play the hand we were dealt," said interim senior vice president and provost Rex Ramsier, who is handling the duties of the president until trustees appoint an interim president. "We can't gnash our teeth and worry how we got here. We have to move on." Ramsier and vice president and chief financial officer Nathan Mortimer have spent the two weeks since Scarborough resigned reaching out to faculty, staff, alumni others who had lost confidence in Scarborough's leadership. "We have to rekindle efforts to rebuild relationships that have become strained, Ramsier said. "We have to go back to the community to re-establish the trust we had in the past, that it is a good institution to send students to." Ramsier and Mortimer are moving quickly because the university faces serious enrollment and budget troubles. A need for students The university's main priority is contacting students who were admitted to the university and encouraging them to enroll, which they can do almost up to the first day of classes Aug. 29. "Significant efforts continue across the campus to do everything possible to help those admitted prospective students who have not yet confirmed to see the benefits of attending UA," UA said in a statement. UA enrolled 4,278 freshmen in 2015. This year the university admitted 11,741 students. The number of new freshmen students who say they plan to attend UA this fall is 22 percent lower -- or 1,000 students fewer -- compared to this time last year, officials said. Ramsier said total enrollment is expected to decline 9 percent from last year, when undergraduate enrollment on the main campus was 19,828. Fewer students are returning to campus because it awarded 3,016 degrees in May in one of the school's largest ever classes. Tuition and fees fund the bulk of the university's budget. "It is not a spending problem, it is a revenue problem," Ramsier said. "We have the facilities and people to serve more students than we currently have. The challenge is on the revenue side -- which is tied to enrollment." A budget deficit Trustees are expected to pass the fiscal year 2017 budget on Wednesday, but it will continue to be revised, Mortimer said. The overall general fund budget of about $300 million will be short about $20 million, based on the enrollment decline, he said. The tuition and general fee revenue for the Akron and Wayne campuses is estimated at $206 million for the upcoming fiscal year. In the last fiscal year, tuition and general fee revenue for the two campuses was $224 million, Mortimer said. That budget was balanced by transferring approximately $7 million from reserves. In fiscal year 2015, tuition and fee revenue for the two campuses was $232 million. The revenue in fiscal year 2014 was $236 million. The school needed about $6 million from reserves to balance the budget. Mortimer has been meeting with deans and other campus officials to explain the budget. "They have to view and understand the flow of resources," he said. "Options are to fully fund the difference with cash reserves or look for opportunities to trim the edges on expenses. The future is about enrollment." UA will post updates on the budget, which is expected to be finalized in mid-September. "The goal is to ensure that the full campus community is informed about the budget preparation process, the issues that exist and the plans that are being developed," officials said in a statement. A team to address the issues Ramsier, who received his undergraduate and master's degrees from UA and has taught there since 1996, said he has been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have said they want to help. He is establishing a "Tiger Team," comprising members from the Faculty Senate, University Council, deans, department chairs and directors and the American Association of University Professors, to address the challenges. The team will develop plans to assist in enrollment, university governance, finances and other subjects. "We want to pull the main governing groups and determine goals to achieve, near and longer term," he said. "We are all in this together." He said he is not yet working with community members and alumni but they will be involved in the future. Ramsier and Mortimer are optimistic about the future of the university. "I respect history," Ramsier said. "You learn from that and have got to move forward." LMMperformsatTonys.JPG Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of "Hamilton" perform at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) CLEVELAND, Ohio - It's official, sort of. "Hamilton" - the hottest Broadway show well, like maybe ever, and winner of 11 Tony Awards including best musical - is coming to Cleveland. At least that's what inquiring minds gleaned from a tease emailed to Playhouse Square season ticket holders at about 11 p.m. Sunday night as the 70th Annual Tony Awards were winding down. The tantalizing image, currently being splashed across the digital billboards dotting Playhouse Square in downtown Cleveland this morning, features the sepia toned, parchment-like background of the "Hamilton" promos and a giant, black exclamation point with the date 6/27/16 written inside. "Join The Revolution," the tease reads. The tantalizing teaser released by Playhouse Square is rather "Hamilton-esque" don't cha think? Playhouse Square is keeping mum about what that date means, but that's likely the day we'll learn when the national tour will put down stakes in downtown Cleveland. Naturally, we're thrilled, but not surprised. During the gala launch of the 2016-17 KeyBank Broadway series in March, Playhouse Square executive producer Gina Vernaci broadly hinted that the revolutionary hip-hop musical about the life and times of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton - the guy on the $10 bill and America's first treasury secretary, who rose to fame despite his beginnings as a penniless immigrant - was bound for Cleveland. (The tour kicks off in San Francisco in March 2017.) So stay tuned to this space on the big day for updates, cuz you don't wanna throw away your shot . . . at tickets. AX108_4FC7_9.JPG Sen. Bernie Sanders and his wife, Jane, arrive onstage for a rally in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, June 9, 2016. (Cliff Owen, Associated Press) Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that he will go to the Democratic National Convention, despite Hillary Clinton's lead, reports The New York Times. "We are going to take our campaign to the convention with the full understanding that we are very good at arithmetic and that we know, you know, who has received the most votes up to now," Sanders said Sunday after meeting with about 20 key supporters and advisers at his home in Burlington, Vermont. Sanders added that he will continue his efforts of "transforming the Democratic Party into the convention." When asked by Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press" about whether he was an "active candidate," Sanders replied that he wanted to see Donald Trump defeated. He also said that he plans to meet with Clinton on Tuesday, the day of Washington, D.C.'s primary, which marks the end of the nominating contests. He said that he will ask her "whether she will be vigorous in standing up for working families in the middle class, moving aggressively in climate change, healthcare for all, making public colleges and universities tuition-free." Read more at The New York Times. On "Meet the Press," Sanders also addressed gun regulation after this weekend's deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida, reports Breitbart. "It's horrific. It's unthinkable. Our hopes go out to all those who were shot that they can recover," Sanders said. "Over 25 years ago, I believed that in this country, we should not be selling automatic weapons which are designed to kill people. We have got to do everything that we can on top of that to make sure that guns do not fall into the hands of people who should not have them, criminals, people who are mentally ill." Read more at Breitbart. In addition to calling for a ban on assault weapons, Sanders highlighted his support for District of Columbia statehood, reports CNN. "I think it is morally wrong for American citizens who pay federal taxes, fight in our wars and live in our country to be denied the basic right to full congressional representation," Sanders said in a statement Saturday. At a campaign rally there on Thursday, Sanders said, "I hope the next time I'm back, we're going to be talking about the state of Washington, D.C." Sanders co-sponsored legislation on the issue of D.C. statehood in June 2015, and has also supported the people of Puerto Rico deciding whether they wish to become a state, an independent nation, or continue the current Commonwealth agreement. Read more at CNN. has tumbled over the past few market sessions in response to the leave-leaning polls, dropping from around $1.45 last week to around $1.4190 at 10:26 a.m. SIN/HK. A poll published Friday by the Independent newspaper showed that 55 percent of respondents believed Britain should leave the EU, versus 45 percent who favored staying. The publication said it marked the largest portion of respondents who favored exiting since research firm ORB began polling the issue for it last year. The Brexit referendum will be held on June 23, and while betting spreads have suggested a landslide win for the remain camp, opinion polls indicated a closer call. A version of the City Risk index for 2015-2025, created in partnership with the University of Cambridge, put a human pandemic as the second-biggest risk to key global economies. Beale noted that the index was being updated for this year. She said the Lloyd's City Risk Index, which analyzed the potential economic impact of risks to the world's major cities, put the Brexit in the top three, noting that a market shock or crash was the top risk to global gross domestic product. The risk the U.K. would vote to exit the European Union, an event dubbed the "Brexit," was one of the biggest risks to the global economy, Lloyd's of London CEO Inga Beale told CNBC. From a company perspective, Beale said she was the remain camp. "Because we are part of a European market, we've actually got access to one of the world's largest insurance markets, [which, with] 27 countries together, is one of the world's largest insurance markets," she said. "With those passporting rights - the ability to trade all of the other countries in Europe - that gives us a huge advantage." Although Lloyd's underwrote insurance business in more than 200 countries and already had its own strong, existing network, Beale said that EU-wide trade deals benefited the historic market. "We've benefited also from the trade agreements that the EU has been able to negotiate and are in the midst of negotiating a trade agreement with the U.S.," she said. Concerns over the U.K.'s trade outlook in the event of a Brexit were echoed by Mark Boleat, chairman of the policy and resources committee for the City of London. "It would lead to years before we could negotiate satisfactory arrangements to replace what we now have, not only with the European Union, but with the 50 or so countries with which the European Union currently has trade deals," Boleat told CNBC's "Squawk Box." Beale also said that other cities globally could step in to take advantage if exiting the EU hamstrung London's long-held status as a financial center, of which Lloyd's is a key part. "Whether it's competitive cities [or] competitive firms, we're always on the lookout for some way that we can make it an opportunity for ourselves," she said. "So I can assure you that's not just in Asia and here in Shanghai, but also many of the cities in Europe are thinking about how they can make the most of it." Boleat was less certain that other financial cities would be able to take advantage, though. "I don't think any part of the world would benefit from a possible Brexit. It would cause disruption," he said. "There are centers in Europe that think they're going to capture all the business. I think we [will] keep most of it and to the extent we lost it, there's no guarantee any business would actually go to the rest of Europe," Boleat said. "I'm sure Singapore and New York would also be expecting to pick up any business that London lost." Drugstore chain Walgreens said on Sunday it would end its relationship with Theranos, in another blow for the blood-testing company that was once lauded for its innovative approach but has increasingly come under scrutiny. Walgreens said it would shutter all 40 Theranos Wellness Centers at its stores in Arizona, having already stopped Theranos laboratory testing services at its location in Palo Alto, California. The latest announcement meant Walgreens would no longer offer Theranos services at any of its stores. "In light of the voiding of a number of test results, and as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has rejected Theranos' plan of correction and considers sanctions, we have carefully considered our relationship with Theranos and believe it is in our customers' best interests to terminate our partnership," Brad Fluegel, Walgreens senior vice president and chief health care commercial market development officer said in a statement. Square shares popped while Intuit shares dipped after a big day in technology news. Microsoft and LinkedIn announced a merger, a move that is likely to impact Square and Intuit's small business customers. Meanwhile, Apple announce peer-to-peer iMessage payments via Square Cash. Square competes with Intuit's payment division. Shares of Baidu tumbled after the Chinese internet search provider slashed revenue projections for the second fiscal quarter amid regulatory pressures. The company expects revenue of between $2.81 billion and $2.82 billion in the second quarter, compared to the previously stated range of between $3.12 billion and $3.19 billion, as authorities review the firm's online marketing practices regarding healthcare, a company statement said. Walgreens Boots Alliance edged lower in light trading, paring some of the day's gains after it terminated its relationship with embattled blood-testing start-up Theranos. Walgreens had said Sunday that it will immediately close all 40 Theranos Wellness Centers at the drugstore chain's Arizona locations, according to the Associated Press. Zimmer Biomet 's stock fell after the healthcare company announced a secondary offering of 11 million shares. Stockholders KKR, Goldman Sachs and TPG are among those offering shares of the company, which specializes in musculoskeletal products. Other healthcare stocks like Stericycle and Mylan also sank, while Universal Health Services and Quest Diagnostics shares rose. Tractor Supply shares edged lower in extended trading, even though an analyst initiated coverage with a '"buy" writing. Tractor Supply, a lifestyle company for recreational farmers and ranchers, dominates the need for a specific group of customers, creating customer loyalty, Guggenheim Securities wrote in a research note. The analysts put a $110 price target on the stock, while the stock closed at $91.27. The Associated Press contributed to this report. As investigators look into the mass shooting that erupted at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend, killing 49 people and injuring dozens more, security experts are working to determine how these types of tragedies can be prevented. "What bar owners need to realize is that this not a new puzzle to solve," Robert Smith, CEO of Nightclub Security Consultants, told CNBC. Smith, who spent 20 years with the San Diego Police Department, runs a premises liability consulting firm out of California that specializes in training bouncers and security guards. While his company covers the typical training courses for narcotics recognition and sales, identifying a fake ID and problem solving, it also provides a course on how to deal with an active shooter. Smith said traditional training protocols following events like the 1999 Columbine High School shooting have taught people to "hunker down and hide and wait for the good guys to come." However, he recommends another mantra: Run. Hide. Fight. "If you can run away do it and take others with you," Smith said. "If you can't run, find a good hiding place and try to barricade yourself. If the attack on you is imminent, seriously consider fighting back with any and all means." Smith noted that during the attacks on Paris last year, when more than 100 people were killed, suspects were able to empty and reload their weapons without interference from bystanders. He suggests that citizens don't need specialized training to take down a gunman they just need to use their instincts. For the U.K., the exit would mean leaving the 28-nation EU, and untangling a host of complex trade and other deals that tie the country to the European bloc. Those agreements were not easy to make, and they would be exceedingly difficult to redesign or renegotiate. The hot button issue for British voters has been the EU policy on immigration, with waves of refugees entering Europe from the Middle East. The Sun newspaper Monday evening threw its substantial weight behind the leave cause, telling readers the future looks bleaker if the U.K. stays in and worse for immigration, jobs wages and "our way of life." The so-called Brexit vote June 23 has been hanging over markets for months, and the consensus view is that U.K. citizens will ultimately listen to their government and choose to remain in the European Union. But an undercurrent of fear is beginning to show up across financial markets, as recent polls show a shift toward a majority favoring an exit from Europe. If the U.K. votes this month to exit the European Union, the world's worst fear is that it could lead to the demise of the 28-nation economic bloc itself. And that could bring an end to the single euro currency leaving the continent and much of the world beyond in chaos. There will always be an England, but what's not clear is whether there will always be a European Union. Brexit really punches above its weight. It's not just Europe, not just the UK, but the whole global financial system. "The issue is if the U.K. leaves, it will be the first country to leave, and that would seem to lower the barrier of exit for other countries. Many people are afraid if the U.K. leaves, it will trigger a U.K. political and economic crisis. The government is campaigning to stay. It's like a vote of no confidence in the government if they vote to leave," said Marc Chandler, chief currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. "People are worried if the U.K. were to leave, it would trigger an EMU (European monetary union) crisis." European Council President Donald Tusk became the latest official to voice those concerns. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Tusk said a Brexit vote to leave would be a boost for anti-European interests who would be "drinking champagne." "As a historian, I fear that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also of western political civilization in its entirety," he said in the interview. Tusk said the long term consequences are difficult to see but that every nation in the EU would be hurt economically, particularly the U.K. Polls have been extremely close and have been fluctuating. The latest Financial Times poll of polls Monday evening showed 45 percent would like to leave and 43 percent want to remain. The poll of polls been at a dead heat earlier in the day, but had favored exiting over the weekend. The latest ICM poll Monday showed an increase by those that want to leave. Another poll, the ORB in The Telegraph, showed 49 percent want to leave, and 48 percent would prefer to remain remain, while a third poll in The Times YouGov poll had 46 percent voting to leave with just 39 percent for remaining. Immigration is also an issue for other nations in the European Union, and recent terror attacks by Middle Easterners or people of Middle Eastern descent have made it an even a bigger issue. "The worry in the market is that the U.K. is just the tip of the iceberg. Who would be the big winners? Russia and the nationalist forces, especially in France," Chandler. A recent survey of Europeans by Pew Research showed that just 51 percent have a favorable view toward the European Union, while 70 percent see a UK exit as negative. But when it comes to sovereign powers, 42 percent said some powers should be returned from Brussels to individual national governments. According to Pew, the biggest issue in every country was Brussels's handling of the refugee issue. Of the Greek citizens surveyed, 94 percent disapproved of how the EU handled the situation, as did 77 percent of Italians. The EU's handling of economic issues was another point of contention, with two-thirds of respondents in France, Spain and Italy all disapproving. Leaving the EU would create a period of uncertainty while the U.K. negotiates a separation agreement involving trade and a host of other issues. Britain could have reduced access to the European market, and there could be uncertainty surrounding its trade relationship with not just the EU, but other nations. "London is the financial capital of the world. Unknown is how much an ability there will be for London to be the conduit of all financial transactions in the world. Brexit really punches above its weight. It's not just Europe, not just the U.K. but the whole global financial system," said Boris Schlossberg, managing director with BK Asset Management. While many experts see an initial period of uncertainty in the event of a pro-exit vote, they predict that the U.K. would stabilize in the longer term. However, it's possible that it would not stabilize or that a Brexit would lead to a wider exodus of countries from the European Union. That fear has resulted in recent flight-to-safety trades in world financial markets. "The ultimate crash scenario is England pulls out and everybody looks around and says: 'They managed to survive. Why do we need this?' and then they all decide to pull the strings apart and that creates a lot of volatility," said Schlossberg. If the UK does leave, there is concern that the Scottish could vote to split form the UK, another fissure for the British economy. The UK's exit is thorny, but more problematic would be if some of the 19 countries within the European Union that are linked to the euro currency were to leave. Then, there could be an unraveling of the premise for the single currency that was established in 1999. That has been part of what is driving investors to both sell euros and buy gold and safe haven currencies, such the Swiss franc. Schlossberg said the fact that Brexit worries are beginning to spill over into financial markets may be a positive. "If more financial assets melt down ahead of time, the more it will scare the people into staying," he said. "The worst-case scenario is that everything's complacent, and people can vote for it." Hufeld said the European Central Bank planned to closely monitor the situation and the banks themselves had internal groups looking at the possible consequences. If not, "the biggest banks would have the biggest problems," the newspaper quoted Hufeld as saying. "They have the most activities in, and with, London," he said. Bafin President Felix Hufeld told the newspaper in an article to be published on Monday that he hoped Britons would vote to remain in the European Union. A British vote to leave the European Union would hit large German banks, given their heavy exposure to London, the head of German financial watchdog Bafin said in an interview with German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are the German banks with the largest business dealings in Britain. Britons are due to vote in a June 23 referendum on the country's membership in the EU, a choice with far-reaching consequences for politics, the economy, defense and diplomacy in Britain and elsewhere. British support for leaving the EU stood at 43 percent in a poll published Saturday by The Sunday Times, marginally ahead of the 42 percent who want to remain part of the bloc. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, told the German newspaper Bild in a separate interview that it could take seven years to revamp Britain's ties to the European Union. He said each of the then remaining 27 members of the bloc, and the European Parliament, would have to agree to new terms. Hufeld told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that Bafin was continuing to look intensively at 11 German banks involved in setting up offshore companies disclosed by the "Panama Papers" investigation, but cautioned it would take some time for the watchdog to reach a conclusion. Four decades of documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specializes in setting up offshore companies, showed widespread usage of those companies by thosewho want to hide their wealth, triggering investigations across the world. Bafin in May said it had asked banks named in the Panama Papers for all original documents linked to the affair. With the averages taking a tumble on Monday, Jim Cramer wants investors to use the weakness to buy technology stocks. After all, the tech sector is desperate for consolidation. As soon as he saw the news of Microsoft 's $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn at $196 per share, Cramer knew tech was back. With tech representing more than 18 percent of the , this was big news. "Tech is back in a big way that makes me feel like the kind of oil-related overseas imported decline we had to day is giving us some excellent buying opportunities," the "Mad Money" host said. Many analysts described the deal as an aggressive overpay on Microsoft's part, but Cramer didn't agree. With more than $100 billion of cash in its offers and a stock down almost 10 percent for the year, that cash hoard was doing nothing for Microsoft, Cramer said. Therefore the deal was additive to the company. After months of tough debates, the presidential candidates have finally been whittled down to Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. And now that the primaries are over, Jim Cramer expects a significant amount of money to be spent in order to attract votes. "This election has broken records in terms of ad spending, and that was just during the primaries. Now that we are moving into the general, I expect this trend to continue," the "Mad Money" host said. Regardless of investors' political beliefs, there is no denying that the election season represents a huge windfall for companies selling advertising space. Additionally, the biggest beneficiaries from spending tend to be local television stations, particularly those with a presence in key swing states. "Presidential election years are a gold mine for companies in the broadcast television business," Cramer said. (Tweet This) The difference between the primary and general elections is that it is easier to gauge where the candidates will advertise in order to try to win in November. It is also easier to know where the Senate will be advertising as well, so Cramer determined what players are in a position to make the most from political ads. Cramer pointed to Tegna , E. W. Scripps , Gray Television , Entravision Communications and Nextar Broadcasting Group as the biggest potential election beneficiaries. He analyzed each one to determine the winners. European stocks closed sharply lower on Monday amid a global selloff, as uncertainty over a possible "Brexit" and looming central bank meetings shook markets. European markets The pan-European STOXX 600 index ended down 1.6 percent. The U.K.'s benchmark FTSE 100 provisionally closed 0.9 percent lower. It outperformed the French CAC 40 and the German DAX , which both closed unofficially 1.5 percent lower. Several polls published on Friday and the weekend showed a small majority of Britons in favor of leaving the European Union (EU), ahead of a referendum on membership on June 23. This rattled global markets. "The risk that the U.K. votes to leave the EU next week is the dominant force in the capital markets," BBH analysts led by March Chandler said in a note on Monday. Bank of England and Swiss National Bank policymakers will meet this week, but neither central bank is expected to announce policy changes. The Bank of Japan's policy meeting on June 15 may be of more interest, with analysts saying the bank could announce additional easing measures. Plus the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee begins its two-day meeting on Tuesday. Expectations for a June interest rate hike by the Fed have waned following a lower-than-expected May nonfarm payroll number in recent weeks that cast doubts on the health of the U.S. economy. U.S. stocks opened slightly lower on Monday, following sharp declines in overseas markets, but received a boost from a 45 percent jump in LinkedIn shares on the news that the platform will be purchased by Microsoft . watch now Gold prices rose as investors put money into safe-haven assets. Precious metals miner Randgold Resources was one of a handful of companies in the black as a result. Amid the negativity, some defensive stocks such as GSK also found support. Adding to the grim mood in Europe was the weekend massacre in the U.S. at an Orlando nightclub that killed around 50 people. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was an employee of security firm G4S and shares in the U.K. security firm closed around 5 percent lower on Monday. German insurance firm Hannover Re was sharply lower after Credit Suisse initiated coverage of the stock with an "underperform" rating. Credit Suisse put an "outperform" rating on Hiscox , sending shares in that insurance firm higher. Shares of Nokia closed around 1.6 percent higher after the Finnish network equipment maker signed a 9.9 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) network infrastructure deal with China Mobile. Satellite firm Inmarsat saw shares in the black after signing a deal with SpeedCast to roll out broadband on boats. Banks under pressure America's momentous 2016 primary season ended June 7 with two atypical events: struggling Hillary Clinton had a great night, and maverick Donald Trump sounded presidential, (in the traditional sense). Though Trump struck all the right notes in a speech that many Republicans hope will set the tone for the rest of his campaign, the evening belonged to Clinton. Not only did she lock down the Democratic nomination, but she turned back a strong challenge from Bernie Sanders in California. Though recent polls showed Sanders only two points behind, Clinton took the state by double digits. With that, Clinton became the first woman, and the first spouse of a former president, to earn a major party nomination for the presidency. The centrality of these "firsts" to the Clinton narrative is hard to overestimate. At the October Democratic debate, when Anderson Cooper asked: "Secretary Clinton, how would you not be a third term of President Obama?" Clinton replied: "Well, I think that's pretty obvious. I think being the first woman president would be quite a change from the presidents we've had up until this point, including President Obama." At the February debate, when Sanders suggested that the former First Lady, New York Senator, presidential candidate, and Secretary of Statehaving spent a quarter-century at the center of national attentionwas an establishment figure, Clinton responded: "Well, look, I've got to just jump in here because, honestly, Sen. Sanders is the only person who I think would characterize me, a woman running to be the first woman president, as exemplifying the establishment." And immediately following the California victory, her campaign blasted out an email with a handwritten note from Clinton thanking supporters who helped "put a crack in that glass ceiling." Thus, Hillary Clinton assumes the helm of the Democratic Party as the ultimate role model for women. The role Clinton models, however, foregoes Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's advice to Lean In and redefines traditional masculine and feminine roles in favor of "Princeton Mom" Susan Patton's advice to Marry Well. Patton, who achieved national notice with a viral letter in The Daily Princetonian, advised Princeton women to spend three-quarters of their time on campus looking for a husband, noting that smart, qualified, capable men are over-represented among Princeton's students, and that the odds of finding a quality husband would never again be quite as good. Though Hillary Rodham did her undergraduate work at Wellesleya women's collegeshe did find her man at Yale Law School. The political and financial partnership that Bill and Hillary Clinton forged has been documented and discussed widelyand it was one for which Hillary's sacrifices far exceeded anything that Patton recommended. The smart, ambitious, but politically wooden Wellesley/Yale grad set off for a life in Arkansas, riding the coattails of the smart, ambitious, politically gifted Lothario she had married. Excepting her aide and acolyte Huma Abedin, it's unclear how many women want to follow the path that Clinton has blazedexplaining in part Sanders's strong showing among young Democratic women. Nonetheless, on Tuesday June 8, Hillary Clinton did make history. The first First Lady to accept and fail at an important policy role (overseeing an overhaul of the nation's health care system that even a Democratic Congress could not swallow) and the first Cabinet member to list copious airplane travel as one of her primary accomplishments, has moved within striking distance of becoming our nation's first female President. The only things now standing in her way are a lack of substantive accomplishments, a charisma deficit, a likely contested convention, an FBI investigation, and Donald Trump. Trump, the ultimate showman, branding genius, and political neophyte, has shown himself to be a resourceful adversary. His deft references to Bill Clinton's mistreatment of women has already turned Clinton's gender issue against her, and he has begun to dredge up the many scandals that have plagued the Clintons since their earliest forays into simultaneous politicking and moneymaking. He has reached out to Sanders's supporters to exploit the divisions within the Democratic caucus. He will make use of the FBI investigation whether or not Obama's Justice Department allows it to proceed to an indictment. Clinton, in turn, will contrast her long experience in and around government, and her fluency with policy, to Trump's preference for platitudes and promises over policy details. The contrast is likely to prove illuminating. P.J. O'Rourke endorsed Clinton because "she's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters." That very normalcy makes it possible to contemplate her presidency in normal terms: We expect it to combine the consensus building of Barack Obama, the personal rectitude of Bill Clinton, and the integrity of Richard Nixon. While Trumpwill be Trump. It's going to be an interesting five months. watch now In an ordinary political year, the horrific massacre in Orlando, Florida, would be a defining moment, offering candidates a chance to elevate their message and present credible plans for reducing the threat of such devastating violence. In 2016, it's likely to be just another opportunity for people to yell past each other. Donald Trump, who grabbed the GOP nomination in part by calling for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States in the wake of the December San Bernardino rampage, used the latest attack as an opportunity to pat himself on the back for "calling" the fact that there would be more acts of domestic Islamic terrorism. Never mind that following the San Bernardino attacks, the head of the CIA said on national television that similar acts of violence by radicalized Muslims on U.S. soil were essentially inevitable. No serious person denied the problem. Trump's claim of prescience is much like someone claiming credit for predicting the sun would rise. Investigators work the scene following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, U.S. June 12, 2016. Carlo Allegri | Reuters And this is Trump's chief political problem. Polls suggest Americans are wary of the administration's approach to combating domestic terror, which includes refusing to use the words "Islamic terrorism" for fear of alienating moderate Muslims in the U.S. and our allies in the Arab world. But Trump's first instinct is to make events like Orlando all about himself and not the American people. So what could be an opportunity to offer a comprehensive and credible strategy to combat a grave internal threat becomes just another exercise in braggadocio and self-congratulation. And Trump has a massive hill to climb to convince Americans he is a plausible commander-in-chief. The real estate magnate has double-digit leads over HIllary Clinton on dealing with terrorism. But in the last Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll only 12 percent of Americans said he had the "temperament" to be president. Events like Orlando offer Trump the opportunity to improve this devastatingly bad number by showing compassion for the victims and their families and demonstrating a steely resolve to execute a new plan to reduce the risk of more Orlando-style attacks. Instead he slaps himself on the back and tweets stuff like this: "I will be interviewed on @foxandfriends at 7:00 a.m. Sadly there is a very bad event to talk about." A bad event? Really? Perhaps Trump, or someone in his campaign, realized how silly and self-promotional the tweet sounded because it was deleted not long after it appeared. The next tweet only said "I will be interviewed on the @todayshow at 8:10 a.m." It still started with "I" but at least he adopted a more somber tone. Still, Trump is likely to revert back to the self-aggrandizement because it is who he is. Thus far Trump has not shown himself capable of rising to a new level of seriousness that might elevate him beyond support among white Republicans and angry independents. Trump is also continuing to press for his ban on Muslims entering the United States as if it would have done anything to stop an attack by an American citizen born in New York. In fact, a compelling case can be made that the kind of religious test Trump wants to apply to entrants to the country is both a constitutionally dubious affront to American values and the perfect recruiting tool for groups like ISIS. watch now Darkness is disappearing from Earth, and that is a bad thing. More than 80 percent of the world and more than 99 percent of the U.S. and European populations live under nighttime skies that glow with unnatural light, according to a study released last Friday. Artificial light from buildings, streetlights, and other human sources prevents more than one-third of the world's people from seeing our Milky Way galaxy at night, including 60 percent of Europeans and close to a staggering 80 percent of North Americans. "Light pollution needs to be addressed immediately because, even though it can be instantly mitigated (by turning off lights)," the authors write in the study, "its consequences cannot (for example, loss of biodiversity and culture)." A group of researchers drew up an "atlas of light pollution" using images from NASA's Suomi NPP satellite, and published their research in the journal Science Advances. The map gives a clear, and startling picture of how much of the Earth cannot see the stars. But can light really "pollute?" Why does having darkness at night matter? Recent research has suggested the disruption of natural darkness has been bad for all sorts of living things, affecting coral reefs and other marine life, bird migrations, and plant life (as well as food for plant-eating animals.) But bright night skies can also be bad for human health and well-being. On these images, black or dark grey indicates a nearly pristine sky, blue indicates some light pollution near the horizon, green and yellow indicate far greater light pollution, and red means the Milky Way is not visible due to artificial light. Source: Fabio Falchi et al The science examining the effect of glowing skies on health is understudied, said study author Christopher Kyba. But some research suggests light has the capacity to disrupt sleep by disturbing the circadian rhythms that determine when we feel tired and when we feel wakeful. Disrupted circadian rhythms have been connected to depression, insomnia, cardiovascular disease, and even cancer, according to comments from Paolo Sassone-Corsi, chairman of the Pharmacology Department at the University of California, Irvine in a 2009 paper on light pollution in Environmental Health Perspectives. "Studies show that the circadian cycle controls from ten to fifteen percent of our genes," he said. "So the disruption of the circadian cycle can cause a lot of health problems." And unless you have blackout curtains, it is likely that at least some light is filtering through the window at night. It can even mess with scientific research, and local economies. Astronomers say that it makes it harder to study the skies, and visitors to tourist destinations, such as the National Parks, say they do not see as many stars at night as they would like. So what to do about it? For one thing, some have advocated reducing unnecessary light. This would include shutting lights off in unoccupied buildings, for example. Other solutions might be a bit harder to implement. Some crime prevention advocates maintain that more streetlighting reduces crime and makes people feel safer, while some dark sky advocates question the connection between bright lights and safer streets. Some criminologists point out the seemingly obvious, but easily missed point that streetlights help criminals see as much as they do victims. watch now If the next president and Congress repeal Obamacare as many Republican elected officials want to do there could end up being more people without health insurance than before the law went into effect, a new study says. A total of 24 million more people would lose health coverage by 2021 if the Affordable Care Act was repealed, according to the study issued Monday by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute. That tally would be added to the 29.6 million who would still be uninsured even if the ACA's various programs had remained in place, for a total of 53.5 million uninsured people. As a result, the uninsured rate would nearly double, to 19.4 percent of the U.S. population by 2021, according to the study. "Thus, the uninsurance rate would be higher in 2021 without the ACA than it was in 2013," the year before the Obamacare law began taking full effect, a report on the study said. In 2013, there were 47.5 million people, representing 17.6 percent of the population, who lacked insurance. Matt Buettgens, senior research associate at the Urban Institute, and a co-author of the report, said, "It would be an unprecedented disruption of coverage." At the same time, however, federal spending on health care for the nonelderly would be reduced by $927 billion from 2017 to 2026, the report found. But state spending would increase by $68.5 million during the same time frame as the reductions in Medicaid spending "would be more than offset by increases in uncompensated [medical] care," for people who lack health coverage. The ACA implemented three broad programs that are credited with dramatically driving down the uninsured rate since 2013: expansion of Medicaid programs to more poor adults; online marketplaces that sell government-subsidized private health insurance; and allowing younger adults to remain on their parents' health plans. At the same time, nearly all Americans are now required by law to have some form of health coverage or pay a tax penalty. Of the 24 million projected to become uninsured in the event of a full repeal, the bulk, or 14.5 million, would lose coverage they currently have through Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Another 8.8 million who would have been enrolled in private individual health plans would be uninsured after a repeal, the study found. And about 1 million adults under age 26 who would otherwise be on their parents' health plans will be uninsured. The study also broke down who those uninsured people would be. More than 80 percent of those losing coverage would be in working families, and about 66 percent would have a just a high school degree or less. About half of the people who would lose coverage would be white, and 40 percent would be young adults. About 9.4 million people who would have gotten subsidies, or tax credits, to pay for their Obamacare plan premiums would no longer get that aid, the report said. Buettgens noted that last year, people were very concerned about and Republicans struggled to draft a proposal to deal with the possibility that about 8 million or so people would lose health coverage if the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not issue subsidies to customers of the federal Obamacare exchange HealthCare.gov. "That would be about a third of what we're talking about here," he said of that case, which ended up being decided in the government's favor. "And it would start to happen immediately." Buettgens said the potential for dramatic reductions in coverage likely would give lawmakers pause even if they were offered a veto-free path toward repealing Obamacare. He cited the example of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who won election last year after promising to repeal Medicaid expansion in the state, only to backtrack on that once in office. watch now Americans examined by the FBI over alleged terrorism concerns should be flagged when purchasing firearms, retired ATF Special Agent Jim Cavanaugh said Monday, after it was revealed the shooter in the Orlando gay nightclub rampage was interviewed twice by federal authorities in 2013 for making "inflammatory" comments about radical Islamic propaganda. American-born Omar Mateen used a legally purchased AR-15-style weapon in the massacre that left 49 other people dead at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Mateen also was killed. "Here's a glaring example, let's make sure anybody who came to the interest of the Joint Terrorism Task Force for whatever reason, even if the file was closed, if they're going to be buying a firearm and lots of ammunition ... [we should] know that," Cavanaugh told CNBC's "Squawk Box." "We're not going to arrest the guy. We're not going to kick his door in. Just want to know, tell us he's buying a gun today," he continued. "It took a week for him to then kill. ... We can tighten that up through process. But it doesn't mean we can arrest him." Mateen had security and firearm licenses. Law enforcement sources told NBC News the 29-year-old swore allegiance to the leader of ISIS in a 911 call moments before the attack. watch now Bernard Kerik, former New York City police commissioner, agreed with Cavanaugh, expressing shock Mateen was able to buy guns with no "flagging mechanism" to federal or local authorities. Kerik said it's one thing to investigate alleged terror connections, but it's another to keep on top of previously interviewed individuals. "There's no consistent follow-up," he added, suggesting local authorities could help keep tabs of people who were of interest to the feds. "We have ticking time bombs of people who are inspired but not necessarily directed by this nefarious terrorist group," said Brian Levin, criminal justice professor at California State University, San Bernardino. San Bernardino was where 14 people were killed in the December attack by a husband and wife team, who also used AR-15-type assault rifles and other weapons. "Even if you consider the Second Amendment to be a fundamental right ... it can be regulated. And there are reasonable regulations including wait periods ... and issues with magazine size," Levin said. Cavanaugh said limiting capacity of ammunition magazines was the most effective part of the 10-year 1994 federal assault weapons ban signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton. "The magazine capacity back during the assault-weapons ban was limited to 10 rounds," he said. "We saw during the 10 years of the assault weapons ban that [magazine limit] was starting to have an effect as the years went by." watch now Michael German, former FBI counterterrorism officer and ex-policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told CNBC: "Part of the problem is ... we're looking at too many people who we really don't have a reasonable basis to be looking at." "It diverts law enforcement resources from real threats," he said. "Our counterterrorism is constantly ringing false alarms so often that it's hard to respond and to acknowledge what is a real threat." Frances Townsend, an advisor on Homeland Security and counterterrorism to President George W. Bush, said the failure after interviewing Mateen several times was realizing his transformation from "aspirational" and acting on the "disruption opportunity" when he bought weapons. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, while expressing empathy for the victims and their loved ones, told CNBC Monday: "This is just absolutely terrorism. ISIS has to be destroyed." The Republican governor told "Squawk on the Street" he declared a state of emergency Sunday in Orange County, Florida, where Orlando is located, to direct state resources to the investigation and support for the families those killed and wounded in the attack. Scott called on President Barack Obama to do the same: "The president needs to declare a state of emergency to make sure we have all the federal resources we need." Facebook has turned on its "Safety Check" feature for the first time in the U.S. in the wake of the Orlando shooting in which 50 people were killed in a nightclub by a gunman. The feature allows people to use the social networking site or app to notify people that they are safe in the wake of a crisis or disaster. Users can check to see if friends are safe. When a person selects the option to say "I'm safe," friends will be notified. "Waking up this morning, I was deeply saddened to hear about the shooting in Orlando. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families and the LGBT community," Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his official page on Sunday. The move comes after a gunman stormed a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 50 people and wounding more than 50 others. Authorities identified the shooter as Omar Mateen, aged 29. He was engaged in a shootout with law enforcement and was killed after a three-hour siege. It's the first time that the safety check feature has been activated in the U.S. since it was launched in October 2014. Safety Check has been turned on for other incidents such as the series of terrorist attacks in Paris in November and Typhoon Ruby in the Philippines in 2014. Facebook has been criticized for not turning on the feature more frequently in the wake of attacks like in Paris. Around the same time as November's Paris attacks, a pair of suicide bombings had taken place in Beirut, but Safety Check was not activated in that area. Shortly after, Facebook vowed to activate Safety Check more often for such events. Scowsill said in general, when city centers experience isolated acts of violence not aimed directly at tourists, "things go back to normal very quickly." He pointed to the 2005 London transit bombings as an example. In contrast, the tourism industries in Egypt and Tunisia have recently struggled, as they've both suffered from attacks aimed specifically at travelers, Scowsill said. "The travel industry is always having disruptions," said David Scowsill, president and CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Council. "In general terms, [it] is incredibly resilient." Yet as residents focused on supporting one another during a state of emergency, experts said the crux of the city's economy the tourism industry is unlikely to deliver the state a second blow. The city of Orlando, Florida, has banded together following Saturday night's devastating attack at Pulse nightclub, which left 49 victims dead and dozens more injured. Paris, where more than 100 people were killed in November, has likewise not been immune to fallout from the recent attacks. Data compiled by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies found that overnight stays among foreign travelers declined 6.3 percent there during the first quarter, as compared with the prior year. Separate data from the Paris Convention and Visitors Bureau found the hotel occupancy rate there fell 6.2 points during the first quarter, to 61.7 percent, compared with the first quarter of 2015 (when the attacks against Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine, took place). Yet such drops are often short-lived, Scowsill said. Back in 2002, when a nightclub bombing in Bali killed more than 200 people, the tourism industry initially cratered; but it began to recover roughly a year later. Likewise, a spokesman for the Paris tourism bureau said the organization "could feel there was a slow recovery" in the city during the first quarter. Still, he cautioned April is expected to be weak due to the shift of Easter into March and the city's proximity to Brussels, where three coordinated nail bombs went off in April. Though Scowsill predicts there will be a few weeks of people hesitating before booking a trip to Orlando, he does "not expect a huge amount of cancellations" for already planned trips, he said. That's because law enforcement and the local government quickly and effectively communicated information about the shootings, which were put to a stop when the suspect was killed. Damian McCabe, CEO of McCabe World Travel, said her firm does not have "any comment beyond that we don't anticipate this sad event effecting tourism to Orlando in the long run." A spokesman for Delta Airlines said the company has not had a change to its Orlando flight operations since the shooting. At JetBlue Airways , a spokesman did not say whether the airline has seen any cancellations on flights to Orlando, but said it is providing free seats on available flights to and from the area for immediate family and domestic partners of victims who were killed or injured. A spokesman for Universal Studios , which like CNBC is owned by NBCUniversal, said "the safety of our team members and guests is always our top priority but we do not discuss the specifics of our security plans and procedures." Walt Disney World said in a statement, "Unfortunately we've all been living in a world of uncertainty, and during this time we have increased our security measures across our properties, adding such visible safeguards as magnetometers, additional canine units, and law enforcement officers on site, as well as less visible systems that employ state-of-the-art security technologies." Long lines of people wait at the OneBlood Donation Center to donate blood for the injured victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting on June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. Thousands of people packed OneBlood donation centers in Florida for the second day in a row in an effort to help replenish the blood supply for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, which killed 49 victims and injured dozens more. But one group of willing volunteers continue to be left out: gay men. OneBlood, a non-profit with blood donation centers in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, released a statement Sunday clearing up circulating false rumors that the Food and Drug Administration's rules regarding blood donations for gay men were temporarily being lifted. FDA guidelines allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood only if they have remained abstinent for a year. Many took to social media to express their confusion and anger over the FDA's continued ban on donations from sexually active gay and bisexual men, in the face of need for blood after Orlando's events. In response, the FDA said there is adequate supply to meet current needs. Yet for Kelsey Louie, CEO of Gay Men's Health Crisis, even if the FDA had issued a temporary lift, it would not be a strong enough solution. "That might have been a short-term solution," he told CNBC. "What needs to happen is there needs to be a policy change. We really need to push the FDA for a science-based policy." Tweet1 In December 2015, the FDA lifted its lifetime ban on accepting blood donations from gay men in light of the culmination of new scientific evidence and criticism from both the medical and LGBT community. Gay and bisexual men have been ineligible to donate blood for more than 30 years, beginning in 1983 at the start of the AIDS crisis when little was known about the disease. Louie said the current policy is discriminatory because it promotes a stigma that HIV is inherently a gay disease and that only gay men receive it, which is false. Technology has progressed enough for others to prevent the disease and detect it early, he added. After donations, blood is tested for several infectious agents and the FDA inspects all blood facilities at least every two years. Prevention methods like PrEP, for example, can help reduce the risk of transmission of HIV. PrEP is a pill used to prevent HIV taken by people with partners who have HIV or those at risk. But the FDA is concerned about recent, sometimes undetectable infections, according to their website. watch now On Friday, a poll for the Independent newspaper gave a massive 10-point lead to the British voting public that want to leave the European Union. Over the weekend, another poll for The Times newspaper gave leave vote a small lead. A Financial Times Poll of Polls gives leave a lead as well 46 percent, versus stay at 44 percent. And yet, the British pound is still above its 2016 lows, which were hit in late February shortly after David Cameron set the date for the in/out referendum at June 23 of this year. Furthermore, while Great Britain's vibrant wagering markets have shown the momentum build on the leave side, they still show a significant preference for remain. The latest odds on Monday 4-7 for stay vs. 7-4 for leave imply a Brexit probability of 36 percent. So the money is saying remain, while the latest polls are starting to say leave. The big question: Why? A man leaves a shop in London, June 13, 2016. Stefan Wermuth | Reuters The main reason is that it's thought that there will be a swing on the day of the vote toward stay as some voters, who may only marginally favor Brexit, will lose faith due to all the uncertainty encompassed by a departure from the EU. Voting for the unknown takes higher conviction that voting for the status quo. "The experience in referendums in Britain and around the world is that when you get these kind of constitutional, almost constitutional referendums, toward the very end, in the final days, or the fortnight, people who make up their mind late make a judgment as to which is the risky option and which is the safe option," Peter Kellner, a former president of UK polling company YouGov, told CNBC's "Worldwide Exchange" on Monday. "And there's a lot of talk about the economic risks of Brexit to jobs, to investments (and) to prosperity. If that pattern holds this time, then one would expect the remain votes to pick up in the last week or 10 days, but we can't be certain." Kellner highlighted that the headline-grabbing poll on Friday that gave leave a 10-point lead was an online poll, and they "slightly overstate the Brexit position and understate the remain position." Either way, the leave camp has been gaining momentum. "There has been a slight shift to leave, and I'll tell you one of the things that I think is happening, which is that in order for David Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister to win the referendum, he needs the votes of a lot of non-Conservative voters: Labour, Green, Scottish National, Welsh Nationalists." watch now An attendee tries out an M&P 15-22 Sport rifle at the Smith & Wesson booth at the 2016 National Shooting Sports Foundation's Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show at the Sands Expo and Convention Center on January 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Shares of gunmakers Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger gained 6.9 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively, Monday following the massacre in Orlando, Florida. Authorities said Sunday 50 people were killed, including the gunman, and 53 were wounded during the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Jerry Demings, Orange County sheriff, said the massacre "could definitely be classified as domestic terrorism." James Hardiman, a Wedbush Securites analyst covering Smith & Wesson, said the stock prices of gunmakers generally rise after such attacks due to increased demands for gun control. "History would suggest the more awful and tragic the event, ... and as the rhetoric of gun control rises, the stocks go up," he said. SWHC (blue), RGR (green) Dec. 2-Dec.5 Source: FactSet Entering Monday's session, Smith's shares were down 2.6 percent year to date, while Sturm's stock had fallen 3.7 percent in the same time period. Disclosure: Wedbush makes a market in Smith & Wesson. Sterling fell to a two-month low against the U.S. dollar on Monday as concerns grew about the threat of the U.K. voting to leave the European Union in 10 days' time. The pound traded as low as $1.412 on Monday, after polls at the weekend showed the "leave" vote in the lead. These included one conducted by the Sunday Times newspaper and market research firm YouGov that suggested 43 percent of voters wanted to leave the EU, while 42 percent wished to remain. Later on Monday it pared some losses to trade at $1.428. Some traders attributed this to rumors that a poll yet to be published by The Guardian newspaper would show a five-point lead for the "remain" vote. Doug Armand | Photographer's Choice | Getty Images The pound was also at a two-month low against the euro which itself has been hit by "Brexit" uncertainty and the Swiss franc . "Whether these polls are accurate is irrelevant at least in currency terms, with investor confidence in the U.K. remaining in Europe being sufficiently dented as to see the pound drop immediately," Paresh Davdra, co-founder of RationalFX, a foreign exchange service, said on Monday in a note. Analysts expect sterling to continue to underperform ahead of June 23's referendum and the Swiss franc to rally. Some also see the euro weakening ahead of the vote. "The risk that the U.K. votes to leave the EU next week is the dominant force in the capital markets," BBH analysts led by March Chandler said in a note on Monday. "In the week through last Tuesday, speculators piled into short sterling positions by the most in five years. Short-dated implied sterling volatility is soaring," they said later in the note. RationalFX's Davdra forecast June 24 would be a day of "extremes" for the pound, whatever the outcome of the referendum. "If Britain votes to stay in the EU, I would expect the pound to spike to its highest level this year. If Britain were to vote out, all signs suggest a massive and immediate drop in the pound in all likelihood sinking to its lowest point of the 21st century," he said. In a report on Monday, Deutsche Bank forecast European equities could rise by around 5 percent if the U.K. voted to remain in the EU, driven by lower uncertainty and tightening spreads on European peripheral bonds. If the U.K. voted to leave, Deutsche forecast 10 percent downside for European equities, but said this could be offset by a swift policy response. "We think U.K. equities are set to outperform Europe in this case, given likely GBP (sterling) weakness," analysts led by Sebastian Raedler said. Major Currency Pairs Call it the triumph of the indexers: The whole world is moving toward investing using indexes and ETFs most of which are pegged to these indexes. More than $10 trillion in assets are pegged to MSCI's global indices. This includes passive investments like ETFs and active management. Inclusion of mainland China stocks would be an important development. China's mainland market is roughly $6 trillion nearly a tenth of the world's stock market capitalization, which stands at roughly $69 trillion. China's authorities have made inclusion in global indices a major priority. On Tuesday at 5pm ET, MSCI, the largest indexing firm in the world, will announce whether they will include mainland China stocks in their global indices. Right now, only Hong Kong and China shares that are listed in overseas markets (like the U.S.) are included. Let's just take one index the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. Last year, there was $1.6 trillion benchmarked to that index (active and passive). This includes the largest emerging markets ETF in the world, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF , with roughly $22 billion in assets under management. Right now, China accounts for roughly 25 percent of the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. South Korea is roughly 12 percent, Taiwan 11 percent, India 8 percent and the remainder (Brazil, South Africa, etc.) 44 percent. But that weighting only includes Hong Kong and Chinese stocks that are listed in overseas markets like the U.S. If the index included all of mainland China,the weighting of China would go from 25 percent to 40 percent. That is a huge difference. What will MSCI do? Much of the debate in the last year has centered around whether mainland China is truly ready for prime time. MSCI passed on including the mainland shares last year. Chinese authorities have worked to address the specific concerns of MSCI, which is simply reflecting the concerns of the global investing community. Among the major issues: Too many trading halts. During China's stock market meltdown earlier this year, more than 1,400 stocks were halted for anywhere from a few days to a few months, many at the whim of the company's management. This caused havoc with foreign investors who had to deal with redemption requests. Chinese authorities have now set the maximum period for a stock halt at three months still ridiculously long but at least there's progress. Beneficial ownership: Do foreign investors actually own the stocks?Chinese authorities have confirmed that foreign investors do own the stocks they buy, even if the stocks are held by a local asset manager. This was a critical clarification. Can foreign investors get enough to invest (quotas), and can they get the money out when they want to? This is a critical question for mutual funds and ETFs, which have to deal with daily demands for investments and redemptions. Chinese authorities have clarified that they will be able to get adequate allocations of stock based on the size of their firm, and are now allowing daily repatriation of money. Still, given the occasional authoritarian outbursts from Chinese officials, MSCI has clearly implied that even if they say yes, this will be a gradual process. Why? Because they want to maintain leverage with the authorities: Keep up the reforms, or we don't go all in. This isn't a big departure from previous emerging market practice. MSCI did a similar "carrot and stick" routine with Taiwan and South Korea some twenty years ago. It makes sense. Why would Chinese authorities put up with this? After all, they are notoriously prickly about outside interference in anything, but particularly about their capital markets. They will put up with it because they have no choice. China desperately needs foreign investment. They need it because they need to: broaden their investor base; institutionalize the onshore market, which is very retail focused; reduce market volatility, and have more capital inflows to offset capital outflows from their citizens. So, what's going to happen? With Chinese authorities working hard for inclusion, and pressure on MSCI to include the missing one-tenth of the world's market capitalization, I would expect MSCI to adopt the gradualist approach. The index they will use, the MSCI China-A index, has 420 stocks with a free-float market cap of $800 billion. MSCI has already indicated that if they say yes, they will limit the initial inclusion of the China A-shares (as mainland shares are called) in the Emerging Markets Index to only 1.1 percent of the weight of the index and gradually increase the weighting over a period of several years. But even that is a lot of money initially: With $1.5 trillion indexed to the Emerging Markets Index, for example, 1.1 percent of that would be roughly $16 billion in stock that outside investors would need to buy likely within a few months. Of that $1.5 trillion, roughly 20% is purely passive investing, so even that would require $3.2 billion in buying. And that's only 1.1 percent. Remember, the mainland market will be about 15 percent of the Emerging Market Index with a full weighting. How many years before full inclusion? That depends on how fast Chinese authorities continue to open up their markets. Michael Rothman, whom many consider to be the best energy analyst on Wall Street, predicts oil prices will surge above $85 a barrel by the end of the year. His comments came during an in-depth strategy session exclusive for CNBC PRO subscribers. Rothman is president of Cornerstone Analytics, a research firm where he advises governments, the Saudi royal family, and a range of domestic and international institutional clients including Boone Pickens. Previously, Rothman was head of energy strategy at ISI and Merrill Lynch. Since closing at a 13-year low Feb. 11, oil has rallied more than 85 percent, closing above the $50 mark last week for the first time since July. Here are some of the other topics discussed during the strategy session hosted by CNBC's Mike Santoli : His views on the global demand-supply picture and why the consensus may have it all wrong. How investors can stay ahead of the curve by looking at one factor that tells the real story on actual oil demand. North American crude production and whether it will be enough to move the needle. Future of alternative energy and electric cars. Role of speculators in energy markets. Michael Rothman, whom many consider to be the best energy analyst on Wall Street, predicts oil prices will surge above $85 a barrel by the end of the year. His comments came during an in-depth strategy session exclusive for CNBC PRO subscribers. Rothman is president of Cornerstone Analytics, a research firm where he advises governments, the Saudi royal family, and a range of domestic and international institutional clients including Boone Pickens. Previously, Rothman was head of energy strategy at ISI and Merrill Lynch. Since closing at a 13-year low Feb. 11, oil has rallied more than 85 percent, closing above the $50 mark last week for the first time since July. Here are some of the other topics discussed during the strategy session hosted by CNBC's Mike Santoli: His views on the global demand-supply picture and why the consensus may have it all wrong. How investors can stay ahead of the curve by looking at one factor that tells the real story on actual oil demand. North American crude production and whether it will be enough to move the needle. Future of alternative energy and electric cars. Role of speculators in energy markets. Presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that if he is elected president, he would ban immigration from areas of the world with a history of terrorism ties. Trump made his comments in a Monday afternoon speech in New Hampshire in the wake of a early Sunday massacre in which a man armed with an assault rifle and pledging loyalty to the Islamic State group attacked a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. At least 50 people died, including the gunman. "The immigration laws of the United States give the president powers to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons. ... I would use this power to protect the American people. When I'm elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats" Trump said, adding that "we have no choice." Trump called for immigration reform that "serves the interests and values of America." "We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer," he said, adding that "many of the principles of radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and institutions." "We're importing radical Islamic terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system and through an intelligence community held back by our president. Even our own FBI director has admitted that we cannot effectively check the backgrounds of people we're letting into America," Trump said. The New York billionaire also said that the U.S. has to "stop the tremendous flow of Syrian refugees" into the country. But so far just more than a quarter of the 10,000 Syrian refugees President Barack Obama pledged to admit have been allowed into the country. As of May 31, 2,805 refugees have been admitted since October, according to the State Department. In an interview Monday morning, Donald Trump seemed to accuse President Barack Obama of being complicit in the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend, the worst in American history. "Look, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind," Trump said in an interview Monday morning on Fox News. "And the something else in mind you know, people can't believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on." After the shooting, which left 49 people and the shooter dead and 53 injured, Trump issued a statement calling for Obama to step down. When asked on Fox News to explain why he sought for the president to resign, Trump answered in part that Obama, "doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands it's one or the other and either one is unacceptable." Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has been a loud critic of Obama in recent years, raising repeated questions about the president's citizenship and religion despite evidence to the contrary. After his Fox News interview, Trump was later asked to clarify his earlier comments during a phone interview on NBC's "TODAY" show. "Well there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it," Trump said. "A lot of people think maybe he doesn't want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn't know what he's doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it. He doesn't want to see what's really happening." When further pressed on the program to explain his line of thinking, Trump said Obama is "not addressing the issue. He's not calling it what it is. This is radical Islamic terrorism." Trump also singled out his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, who earlier Monday on "TODAY" called for an assault weapons ban. "She's the wrong person at the wrong time," Trump said of Clinton. "She doesn't understand the issue, she's weak, she's ineffective." The shooting was carried out by Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old who had previously been investigated by the FBI for terror ties, and was ultimately killed by a SWAT team. Mateen had called 911 and swore allegiance to the leader of ISIS before he began his attack on Sunday, law enforcement officials told NBC News. The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The uncertainty surrounding the vote next week in the U.K. over whether it remains part of the European Union is a "significant issue" for car manufacturer Ford, the U.S. automaker's European chief executive told CNBC. "We're the number one brand in the U.K. and for us the uncertainty which we've seen in the currency is a significant issue for our 14,000 employees," Jim Farley, EMEA CEO of Ford, told CNBC on Monday. Sterling fell to an eight-week low Monday, reported Reuters, on the back of the latest polls which suggested a lead for the "Brexit" camp. "The U.K. is our biggest market. The certainty on what will happen in the case of 'Leave' has significant issues for us as a business. This is an unprecedented situation, for us a really critical one for the future of our business," added Farley. Farley did not expand on whether the vehicle maker would have to downsize its operation in Britain, should U.K. voters opt to leave the EU on June 23. "We don't want to speculate about such things because we really don't know how this is going to play out. It's unprecedented. For us, the most important thing is stability and export/import and around the currency markets... that's what we're focused on, looking at contingency planning from hedging the currency and all the other things that we should be preparing for," he said. "The most important thing is dealing with that uncertainty." The most recent YouGov poll showed the Leave campaign ahead by 10 points. Sylvia Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Getty Images The United States said Monday it will collaborate with Cuba on health issues, the latest step in an historic rapprochement between the one-time bitter adversaries. An agreement between the U.S. and Cuba calls for "coordination across abroad spectrum of public health issues, including global health security, communicable and non-communicable diseases, research and development, and information technology," according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell signed a memorandum of understanding outlining the agreement with Cuba's minister of health, Dr. Roberto Tomas Morales Ojeda, who began a two-day visit at HHS on Monday. "Cuba has made significant contributions to health and science, as evidenced by their contribution to the Ebola response in West Africa and becoming the first country to eliminate mother-to-child HIV transmission," Burwell said. "This new collaboration is a historic opportunity for two nations to build on each other's knowledge and experience, and benefit biomedical research and public health at large," Burwell said. Walmart Canada stores will stop accepting Visa cards because the credit card provider charges merchants "unacceptably high" fees, the retailer said on Saturday. Walmart has been unable to agree with Visa on an "acceptable fee" and will no longer accept the company's credit cards starting July 18, it said in a statement. The company added it still hoped to reach an agreement with Visa. The decision will not affect the U.S. stores of parent Wal-Mart Stores . "Walmart made this business decision despite Visa offering one of the lowest rates available to any merchant in the country, a Visa spokeswoman said in a statement. "We are disappointed that Walmart chose to put their own financial interests ahead of their own consumers' choice." Representatives of Walmart Canada and Visa declined to address questions on specifics of payment terms. A Walmart Canada spokesman said the retailer pays more than C$100 million ($78 million) in credit card fees every year, but specific transaction fees are part of "confidential agreements." The Orlando mass shooting highlights the need for greater coordination between federal, state and local law enforcement. Government's responsibility to provide for the common defense is written explicitly in the preamble of our constitution. It identifies protecting our homeland as the most important responsibility of the federal government. When I was 22 years old, I had the honor of directly participating in this role as an undercover officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). While collecting intelligence in the back alleys in places like India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, I experienced first-hand the true nature of the threats that our country faces. I saw the commitment and determination of the men and women in the military, diplomatic corps, intelligence agencies and law enforcement who put themselves in harm's way every single day to keep us safe. I also witnessed the direct impact of ill-conceived policies that made us less safe. In the 17 months that I have been in Congress, I've witnessed the Obama administration's "lead from behind" foreign policy contribute to more global insecurity and instability than it has mitigated. The unfortunate reality is that many of the challenges we face today are the direct result of years of failed policies that have decreased American leadership around the world. Fortunately, those policies are reversible. There is a better way. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan recently released our plan to restore America's international position to its former level of prominence. Our vision is predicated on these tenets: protecting the homeland, defeating terrorists, tackling new threats, and defending freedom. These pillars served as the foundation of successful U.S. foreign policy throughout the 20th century, and they will do so again in the coming decades. Keeping Americans safe inside the homeland is our absolute number one priority. It is the cause that motivated me to serve my country in the CIA, and is shared by all men and women who serve this nation abroad. As a member of Congress, I now have the ability to protect the homeland in a different way: by supporting legislation that authorizes necessary changes to the way our security sector operates. For instance, our growing use of cyber technology has advanced our economy but also rendered us extremely vulnerable. Cyberattacks have the potential to totally disrupt critical infrastructure like power grids, communication systems, and economic facilities. Russia and Iran have already demonstrated they have such capabilities. While this Congress has taken action to address the gaps in our country's cybersecurity, more work needs to be done. This problem is complex and will only become more so as time goes on. If we focus on it now, we will be better prepared to face new cyber challenges in the future. The U.S. must develop a long-term strategy that addresses every way terrorist groups increase their global influence: their recruitment and radicalization strategies, their sources of income, the ways they acquire weapons. The unfortunate reality is that the terrorist threat is not going away any time soon, and increased dramatically when countries like Iraq, Syria, and Libya destabilized. This was a direct result of the U.S.'s decision to slowly pull away from our global responsibilities over the past eight years. ISIS took advantage of a crumbling Syria, which we did little to stop. They took over the city of Fallujah in Iraq in January 2014, and President Obama discounted the threat they posed. If there's anything we should take away from the Obama administration's tenure, it is that disengagement is positively correlated with the rise of the terrorist threat. The U.S. must lead a broad coalition of countries to uproot terrorist groups from wherever they control territory. Radical Islamic extremism is a global phenomenon and it will require a global strategy to mitigate. The U.S. has not kept up with the rapidly changing nature of the threat environment. While our military is more likely to continue engaging in nonconventional conflicts, the structure of the Department of Defense (DoD), the way our forces are trained, and the types of equipment the department purchases all reflect preparation for conventional warfare. Insurgent groups discovered quickly the advantages of fighting this kind of asymmetric conflict. There is a need to reexamine the way the DoD operates to ensure it is the most flexible and efficient military force in the world. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, raw power does not determine military victory flexibility and efficiency does. America is the country people around the world look to as the shining example of liberty. They consider us the global champion for human rights and to act when those rights have been violated. Shirking from this responsibility has damaged our international credibility immensely. We must restore American leadership by speaking up when countries violate the principles of international order. We must demonstrate our commitment to make this world a more free and prosperous place by upholding the promises we have made to our allies. We will only overcome the new challenges that have emerged in the opening years of the 21st century when we reassert our international influence. Our foreign partners are concerned about our waning engagement. Our enemies have taken advantage of the vacuums our withdrawal has opened up. There is a better way and the House Republican's plan is about strength, engagement and reform. This plan cannot be implemented quickly enough. The stability of the world and the security of our nation depend on it. "Both the pro-leave the E.U. forces and Trump voters are willing to embrace a decidedly risky choice as opposed to those who say leaving the E.U. or voting for Trump would be too risky." In Britain, the line is drawn along generational lines: Younger Britons from every political party and economic background are much more likely to favor remaining in the "big government" E.U. One recent poll shows an eye-popping 75 percent of U.K. voters aged 18-24 are "pro-stay." Meanwhile, 67 percent of voters 65 years and older want out. It turns out the younger generation in the U.K. isn't so sold on the benefits of more liberty and accountability, even when the government controls almost every conceivable aspect of their lives from single-payer health care to sales tax. Older Britons certainly don't show any desire to weaken public services, but perhaps the rise of terrorism in Europe and their memories of the Soviet Union and other tyrannical regimes in European history have aroused their nationalism and desire for more local government sovereignty. You'll notice that these issues have nothing to do with money; they're about freedom and how comfortable different generations in Britain are with the idea of trading that freedom in return for a large multi-national body that promises to "take care" of everyone. Sound familiar? When it comes to the U.S. presidential election, you can't open a newspaper, turn on the TV, or even log on to CNBC.com these days without reading and hearing loads of market experts and corporate leaders warning us about the immediate economic dangers that would result if Trump wins the White House. They're betting that everyone has already accepted that Trump is a risky proposition and that most voters will consider him too risky no matter how much they're suffering economically at the moment. The Trump supporters believe the system is so broken, they're willing to take a big risk and they're not about to be bought off by promises of better mutual fund returns. And, just like the pro-stay forces in Britain, younger voters made up the bulk of Bernie Sanders supporters during the primary process. They were attracted to his promises to expand big government "protections" and entitlements similar to the promises of greater riches the pro-stay campaigners have made in Britain. But older voters make up the bulk of Donald Trump's supporters as they mirror the older voters in Britain who value nationalism and border security above most other issues. It's important to remember that the older "pro-leave" voters in Britain and the older voters supporting Trump in the U.S. are still very concerned about economic issues. It's just that they can't be won over with the "stick" of threats about GDP numbers or the "carrot" of promises of free college and housing. Even though it's usually the older voters who want to protect the status quo and younger voters who want to tear down an existing system, in both the Brexit vote and our American presidential election that stereotypical dynamic has been flipped on its head. That's why, if the pro-leave campaign wins the referendum later this month, the Trump camp should feel more confident that a global movement to blow up the status quo is gaining steam. This kind of thing has happened before, as it did in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher became Britain's prime minister on a domestic and foreign policy platform quite similar to Ronald Reagan's winning formula in the U.S. one year later. But if the pro-stay forces triumph on the 23rd, it could be a great sign for Hillary Clinton supporters who are hoping the worldwide desire for extreme change isn't so strong after all. It all comes down to risk and the free world's appetite for it. Either way, how the British feel is very likely the same as we feel in America right now. And unless there's a big change in sentiment here between the months of June and November, the Brexit vote results will be repeated in our presidential election. Commentary by Jake Novak, supervising producer of "Power Lunch." Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny. For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion on Twitter. Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO, on Thursday spoke at SRC, Inc. (the former Syracuse Research Corporation) in Cicero in announcing the upcoming UTM convention at sites in the Syracuse area and at Griffiss International Airport in Rome this November. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN) CICERO, N.Y. Various sites in the Syracuse area and at Griffiss International Airport in Rome will host the 2016 UTM convention in November. UTM stands for unmanned-aircraft system (UAS) traffic management (UTM), a NASA-led research effort that seeks to safely integrate low-altitude unmanned aircraft (such as drones) into the national airspace. Robert Simpson, president and CEO of CenterState CEO announced the convention during a Thursday event at SRC, Inc. (the former Syracuse Research Corporation) in the town of Cicero. The 2016 UTM Convention is set for Nov. 8-10. Onondaga County, Oneida County, CenterState CEO and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), in partnership with Empire State Development and the Air Traffic Control Association (ATCA), are partnering to bring the convention to the region, according to a news release issued during the event at SRC. AUVSI, which is the worlds largest trade association for unmanned systems and CenterState CEO together are going to be putting on this conference, Simpson said in his remarks at SRC. Organizers expect the convention to attract attendees representing the systems integration, unmanned-aerial vehicle, and unmanned traffic-management industries from around the world. As the only UAS test site in the state of New York, Oneida County is pleased to see the annual UTM convention here in our region, Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente, Jr. said in the news release. When Oneida Countys Griffiss International Airport applied for and became the UAS test site these are the type of opportunities we had planned to see and be a part of. This is an integral step in developing the UAS industry throughout all of Central New York and the Mohawk Valley. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in August 2014 authorized the NUAIR Alliance and Griffiss International Airport in Rome to conduct drone testing. The NUAIR Alliance is short for Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance. The application approval for the certificate of authorization (COA) cleared the way for testing under the FAA-designated Griffiss International Airport UAS test site. SRC is a partner with the NUAIR Alliance, according to the NUAIR website. SRC and Gryphon Sensors develop products that allow unmanned air systems to fly in national airspace safely, Paul Tremont, president of SRC, Inc., said to open Thursdays announcement. Gryphon Sensors is a subsidiary of SRC, Inc. Participants The list of industry and public officials expected to participate include representatives from the FAA, NASA and other federal agencies, as well as industry and academic organizations. The program will feature a number of workshops on developing beyond visual line of site (BVLOS) operations in New York, as well as flight demonstrations in Syracuse and the Griffiss International Airport. The convention will also include keynote briefings from NASA on technical-capability level demonstration 2, in which industry collaborators will participate this October. Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com "Radical beliefs have been around since the beginning of mankind," said Tahir Rahman cq , an assistant professor of psychiatry at MU and the lead researcher. "What has changed is how people radicalize. If you can make friends online, then you can radicalize online. As a society, we need to confront how these beliefs are amplified." Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission form CPS Foundation hires Harris as first executive director For the first time since it formed 26 years ago, the Columbia Public Schools Foundation has a paid staff member with the hiring of Katie Harris as executive director. 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. Go Eat If you want personality, you gotta #GoMemphis SHARE Paletas from La Michoacana/Photo by Nikki Boertman By Jennifer Biggs of The Commercial Appeal Summer Avenue's paleta/ice cream joint, La Michoacana, is getting ready to expand in French Village Square. But it's still open now, so you can get all the mango chili pops your heart desires. The new place is basically in the same place, but will be three times larger and should be open sometime around the first of July. I'm all about the paletas give me a Popsicle or a snow cone any hot day, but the ice cream here is also fabulous. Love the pistachio. June 12, 2016 - Several hundred mourners gathered at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center for a candlelight vigil in honor of the the victims of mass shooting at gay nightclub in Orlando, Fl. A heavily armed gunman entered a packed nightclub near closing early Sunday morning, in the deadliest shooting spree in U.S. history. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal) By Jody Callahan of The Commercial Appeal On a typical weekend, Steve Murphy has one person working the door at the Pumping Station, his Midtown bar that largely caters to the city's gay community. That's augmented by security cameras and an alarm system, but after the horror in Orlando Sunday, Murphy acknowledged that such measures simply may not be enough. "We don't have external security guards. We've never felt the need for it," said Murphy, a co-owner of the pub on Poplar. "We are thinking about changing that policy and possibly hiring external security guards and installing a panic button." It's likely other clubs in Memphis and across the country gay, straight or otherwise may be considering similar changes after Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire at the Orlando gay club Pulse early Sunday morning after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group. "The men and women of the Memphis Police Department send our thoughts and prayers to the victims of the senseless killings in Orlando and the entire Orlando community," Interim MPD Director Michael Rallings said in a prepared statement. "Although this incident did not occur within the City of Memphis, nor have we received any threats, the Memphis Police Department is monitoring this situation as details unfold." Local Muslims also released a statement condemning the attack: "The Tennessee Muslim community joins with our neighbors and all people of goodwill as we pray for the victims, their families and all of their loved ones. We also pray for and thank the first responders and law-enforcement professionals whose duty it was to respond to this terrible attack for their lifesaving service." The rainbow flag at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center in the Cooper-Young neighborhood was lowered to half-staff Sunday morning after the shooting. At 8:30 p.m. Sunday, an estimated 300 to 400 people, including Mayor Jim Strickland and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, gathered at a vigil in front of the center to mourn those lost in the attack. Memphis police shut down parts of Cooper and had a strong uniformed presence to ward off any trouble. "It's hard for me to understand the level of hatred and violence that was shown this morning," Strickland said. "But I know there's more love than hatred in this world, there's more hope than terror in our world. And I get a sense of comfort being here with you tonight." At the vigil, Center Executive Director Will Batts noted the importance of gay clubs to the LGBT community, calling them a place of acceptance when such havens were rare. That's part of why Sunday's massacre was so galling, so outrageous, he said. "They were a place where I could be myself, where I could be who I was," Batts said. "I remember that (first) moment (there), thinking these are people like me. I'm not the minority here. I found my people." But while there was a strong police presence at the vigil, Batts knows that's not going to be a daily occurrence. He also knows that hiring armed security on a regular basis for the center which has a warning sign outside saying no packages may be left on the porch for fear one could contain a bomb is too much of a financial hit for a place with a limited budget. "It's a small agency. It's tough to make those calls," Batts said. "We certainly value the people who come into the center, and we want to make it as safe as possible." Ellyahnna Hall, a transgender woman who came to the center Sunday, said the shooting makes her want to be "more cautious." "He comes into our place, what should be a safe place for us. It's disturbing. It's scary," she said. "It's kind of like being in the (Memphis) center. The last thing I would expect would be someone to walk in here and start shooting." June 13, 2016 Paige Edgar (right) and Dennis Belski follow an ongoing news report on television about the mass shootings in Orlando while talking to bartender Dan Miller (left) at the LGBT friendly Dru's Place on Madison. (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal) SHARE June 13, 2016 Will Batts, executive director of the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center, poses for a portrait at the facility on Monday. Batts shared his thoughts about the tragic Orlando massacre where 49 people were killed in a gay night club Sunday morning. "Thinking specifically about the month that this happened, it happened in June and June is what we call Pride Month," Batts said. "For this mass murder of LGBT people to happen in June is even more disturbing, it's even more unnerving, it's even more hurtful than it might have been at any other time. This is the month when we talk about our movement and our pride and who we are and our being out and open." (Yalonda M. James/The Commercial Appeal) By Katie Fretland and Sydney Neely Cooper-Young resident Jonathan Cole awoke around sunrise on Sunday at Methodist University Hospital where his mother was recovering from surgery. One of his best friends in Orlando texted him. "It was a simple message," Cole said. "It said: 'We're OK.'" Cole didn't know what the message meant until he went on Facebook and saw the news of the mass shooting at a Orlando gay nightclub. His friends, a lesbian couple, are frequent patrons of Pulse, the nightclub where dozens were killed. "All I could think about all day (Sunday) was, had they gone, I have no doubt that they would have been shot," he said. "I spent the day just holding back tears knowing how close they came. I've been to that club with them." Cole, a board member of the Tennessee Equality Project Foundation, said bars and nightclubs are historically safe places for the LGBT community. "Every LGBT person in this country when they think about what to do on a Saturday night is going to think about Pulse," Cole said. "They're going to wonder, 'Should I risk going out and having a good time and just being?' To that I would say you have to go. We can't live in fear because of terrorists like the shooter and the people who lay the groundwork for all this hate and fear. They win if we change how we live. " On Monday, Steve Stolzer sat on a stool inside Dru's Place, a neighborhood bar that welcomes all people and hosts karaoke and drag shows. "These days it's happening more and more often," Stolzer said. "Unfortunately, shocked is not a word anymore. I'm a little more outraged that this is going on." The gunman in the Orlando attack, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, saw two men kissing each other in Miami earlier this year before the shooting and became angry, his father Seddique Mateen, told NBC News. Omar Mateen talked to emergency dispatchers and claimed support for the Islamic State, USA Today reported. Cole emphasized Mateen had access to deadly weapons and an intolerance shared by other religious radical groups. "Radicalism is the problem," Cole said. "It's not that man's religion." The Memphis Islamic Center in Cordova condemned the mass shooting and encourages people to support the victims' families. "We stand with the victims of this senseless act of violence and mourn with the families of the victims and pray for their ease and comfort during this time of difficulty," the Islamic Center said in a statement. The center's statement said the late Muhammad Ali represented the best of being an American Muslim, "not some mentally deranged shooter who killed innocent people. No religion, and especially our Islamic faith, condones such senseless violence." "We encourage all people, of all faiths, to donate to help with the immediate, short-term needs of the grieving families, ," the center said. Dr. Mohammed Moinuddin, senior adviser to the Muslim Society of Memphis, said the Orlando shooter was not considered a "good" Muslim. "We are saddened and angered by what happened to these people," Moinuddin said. For attorney Maureen Holland, June is a time to celebrate Pride Month and the anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's decision on marriage equality for same-sex couples nationwide. Holland of Memphis represented plaintiffs in the historic case. "We didn't think it was going to be the month to mourn," she said. "Now this is going to be a part of our history for this month. I think we will try to heal and move forward and try to figure out how to stop this violence. I think it's important people not be afraid to be who they are, to love and be out about that. "I think it's going to take everyone to continue to be brave and live their lives." Rep. Andy Holt, R-Dresden (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig) By Joel Ebert, USA TODAY NETWORK Tennessee One day after the worst mass shooting in American history, Rep. Andy Holt, is firmly standing behind his decision to give away a semi-automatic rifle similar to the one used in the Orlando shooting. While announcing his plans last week to hold his first annual "Hog Fest and Turkey Shoot," Holt, R-Dresden, said he will give away an AR-15 as a door prize to an attendee of his June 25 fundraiser. The event is also scheduled to include a turkey shoot participants are encouraged to bring their own rifle and ammo. Holt said despite Sunday's massacre in Orlando that left 50 people dead and 53 wounded, he remains stalwart in his belief that the weapon used in the mass shooting is not to blame. "It has nothing to do with the style of weapon. It has everything to do with who's behind the weapon," said Holt, who has sponsored several gun bills, including one recently enacted law that allows full-time employees at Tennessee colleges and universities to carry weapons on campus. Holt said the weapon is the type that can be used for multiple purposes including hunting, target shooting and self-defense. He said the only thing wrong with the AR-15 is that "it's black and it looks real scary" adding, "If I beat somebody to death with a hammer that's just a hammer. But if I was to take and wrap it up in electrical tape and make it black I guess that would make it an assault hammer." Holt said there is no functional difference between any semi-automatic weapon and an AR-15, and argued that it didn't matter that an AR-15 had been used in various American mass shootings in recent years, including the 2012 shooting in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater and last year's mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif. "It's not about the gun. It has everything to do with the position and condition of that person's heart that's behind the gun behind pulling the trigger," he said. When asked how someone could determine whether a person has a good or bad heart while trying to obtain a weapon, Holt said, "Ultimately we don't know the answer to that question. But what we do know is that the vast majority of weapons that are used are not used for those unlawful purposes. They're used for lawful purposes of defending one's self." Turning to the issue of background checks, when Holt was asked if he believes there needs to be additional steps taken, he said, "I believe there needs to be decreased amounts of that for lawful citizens. The Constitution is very clear that all Americans, all U.S. citizens, have the right to keep and bear arms." In March, Rep. Mike Stewart, D-Nashville, brought an AR-15 style rifle he purchased in a parking lot to the Tennessee legislature to argue for additional background checks. Stewart's efforts failed to make it out of committee. Holt said mass shootings frequently occur in gun free zones, a point which defenders of the 2nd Amendment frequently make. According to Florida state law, a person cannot carry a gun openly or concealed while in any establishment that sells alcohol on the premises. "When we deprive people of their opportunity to defend themselves, this is what happens," Holt said. "Innocent individuals are sitting ducks." Holt argued that gun free zones should not exist in any public spaces in Tennessee, while standing behind his plan to introduce a bill next year that will allow students to carry guns on college campuses. He said Omar Mateen, the New York-born gunman responsible for Sunday's shooting at a gay nightclub, was a "crazed Islamist" and an "ISIS devotee." Supporters of the Islamic State have praised the massacre on social media but it remains unclear if the organization had any knowledge of the attack before it occurred. Initial reports suggest Mateen called 911 in the midst of the attack and pledged allegiance to ISIS. Holt said Mateen should have never been able to obtain the weapons he used during the shooting, given the fact that he was interrogated by the FBI in separate incidences. "There were some very clear indicators not once but twice or three times this man had pledged himself to ISIS," Holt said. "Guess what? If you do that, I don't think you should have any guns." Holt said there was a clear difference between Mateen and the average law abiding Tennessean who wants to purchase an AR-15, adding that the Orlando massacre is further proof that "Islam is at war" with the United States. In an effort to stave off future massacres, Holt said the best way to stop a "crazed individual who is wielding a firearm" is to have armed citizens who can take action. "I would encourage everyone in the state of Tennessee today if they don't have a firearm to go out and purchase one. And if they have a firearm, go out and purchase another one to be trained in the execution of using that weapon in a dangerous situation," he said. In a post on Facebook, Holt said he was "furious" because the federal government has not recognized the threat of radical Islam and lawmakers like Congressman Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, have blamed the 2nd Amendment. In a statement issued on Sunday, Cohen called for House Speaker Paul Ryan to bring a bill to the chambers' floor that would ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Holt said he was also furious that he received an inquiry about his AR-15 giveaway but wasn't asked "how many extra firearms I'll be handing out to ensure people can protect themselves. After all, it was a bullet that stopped the terrorist." "I want you to arm yourselves and learn to shoot with deadly accuracy should the need arise. Protect your family. Protect yourselves. Protect your friends. Our government has made it quite clear that it is incapable of doing so. At the end of the day, it's your responsibility anyways," he concluded. In the late afternoon, Holt announced on Twitter that he planned on giving away two AR-15s at the fundraiser. Giving away two AR15s now. See you all there! https://t.co/QI3meb24iA Andy Holt (@AndyHolt4TN) June 13, 2016 Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini immediately ripped into Holt, saying, "Were furious that in the wake of this tragedy, state Rep. Andy Holt is being such a reckless and irresponsible gun owner. "Andy Holt doesnt know if hes putting the winning raffle ticket in the hands of the next mass shooter," Mancini said. Late in the day, Holt's legislative assistant, Michael Lotfi, says he fielded a series of phone calls from an anonymous Memphis-based male caller who said he would come to Nashville on Tuesday to "beat our a--es," Lotfi said in a statement. Lotfi, who said the caller said he had multiple guns, and Holt reported the incident to state troopers. Holt blamed the threats on the "left wing," saying, "Here we are trying to ensure that people have the right to protect themselves, and were getting death threats over it? These liberal activists are threatening to bring their guns to the Capitol and harm people. It makes zero sense, but its what we have come to expect. Id sure like to see where Democrat leaders are on condemning this type of behavior from members of their party rather than letting it go unchecked." It is unclear whether the caller identified himself as a Democrat. Barney Sellers/The Commercial Appeal files The Memphis Cook Convention Center was still below ground when this early construction photograph was taken on June 16, 1971. SHARE June 13 25 years ago: 1991 Loretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is scheduled to help dedicate the National Civil Rights Museum, which is being built at the site of her husband's assassination. Mrs. King, comedian and activist Dick Gregory and Memphis actress Cybill Shepherd are the latest announced guests for a week of dedication activities beginning June 30. The Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was fatally shot on April 4, 1968, is undergoing a $9.25 million conversion to a civil rights museum. It will be the nation's first comprehensive look at the civil rights movement in exhibit form. 50 years ago: 1966 Washington Dr. James L. Goddard, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said Sunday that he is satisfied that the birth control pills now being used by millions of American women are "relatively safe." In an interview, Goddard also said that the FDA is training a special corps of undercover investigators to combat the illicit manufacture, sale and use of the "extremely dangerous" drug LSD. Increased vigilance by Government agencies and more careful farming methods have resulted in a reduction of pesticide residues on food supplies entering the market. He added that most drug manufacturers are co-operating with the FDA's drive against false and misleading advertising claims for prescription drugs. As a result, doctors are getting more reliable information about the new medicines they are urged to try. 75 years ago: 1941 The Memphis campaign to raise $51,000 for the United Service Organizations forged toward its goal yesterday as the Memphis Trades and Labor Council urged all affiliated local labor unions to support the movement. 100 years ago: 1916 "The Rivals," Richard Brinkley Sheridan's comedy that has enjoyed perennial youth through exactly seven score of years, will be the offering of the Coburn Players on the campus of the State Normal School June 17. 125 years ago: 1891 The little village of Bartlett has not yet ceased discussing a sensational scene that occurred there day before yesterday in which four belles, with switches in their hands, administered to a well-known young man a severe chastisement for certain reports said to have emanated from him. Vehicles involved in a fatal accident are seen crashed in Selmer, Tenn., Saturday. The Tennessee Highway Patrol said a two people were killed when a vehicle drove through a barricade at the Rockabilly Highway Revival Festival. (C.b. Schmelter/The Jackson Sun via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT SHARE By Associated Press SELMER, Tenn. The Tennessee Highway Patrol has released the names of two pedestrians killed after a vehicle drove through a barricade at the Rockabilly Highway Revival Festival. Lt. Brad Wilbanks said in an email Sunday that 62-year-old Michael L. Johnson of Selmer and 51-year-old Sherri R. Duncan of Henderson were killed Saturday at the festival about 90 miles east of Memphis. Wilbanks said the driver of the vehicle, 91-year-old Aaron D. Stamey of Hornsby, and an 86-year-old female passenger were injured. Wilbanks said the vehicle went through a barricade and struck Johnson and Duncan at a Selmer intersection before striking three other vehicles. Media outlets report the pair was engaged to be married. After the investigation is complete, Wilbanks said, a decision on possible charges will be made after a district attorney is consulted. The accident caused some to remember another tragedy in Selmer nine years ago. In June 2007, a dragster slammed into a crowd of spectators on a street during a charity car show in the McNairy County city, killing six and injuring 22. SHARE By Clay Bailey of The Commercial Appeal A suspect is in custody after a Monday morning robbery at the Bartlett Prescription Shop where a man demanded all of the pharmacy's Percocet. Bartlett police said Patrick Owens was arrested shortly after the holdup at the Prescription Shop near Stage and Shelby. Owens, according to Bartlett police, "is a convicted felon and has an extensive history and numerous warrants out of Shelby County." No one was injured in the holdup. According to the police, officers were sent to the business at 5675 Stage Road, just inside the suburb's western city limits about 9:16 a.m. The suspect was gone and the employees were in the back of the store. The suspect ordered them to the rear of the business after demanding the Percocet. When the robber fled from the store, he tried unsuccessfully to steal an employee's car. He then ran to a wooded area near Shelby and Stage. A resident on Marbry Street one street west of Shelby called police dispatchers to report they found a bag with items a man dropped as he walked from behind a fence on the resident's property. A short time later, police found a man fitting the robber's description at McCulley and Marbry. The resident identified the man as the one who dropped the bag. The bag contained a revolver, a mask, gloves and Percocet pills, leading the suspect's arrest. SHARE By Ron Maxey of The Commercial Appeal The Saturday night of violence in downtown Memphis June 4, which left police officer Verdell Smith dead and three other people wounded, touched many throughout the Memphis metro area in one way or another none more than Chris Dickens of Olive Branch. The Northwest Mississippi Community College student was one of the three shooting victims. Dickens, 21, was shot as he was gathering shopping carts in the parking lot of Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid, where he works. Justin Welch has been charged with shooting Dickens, along with two other victims outside the nearby Westy's restaurant, before the car the suspect was driving allegedly struck and fatally injured Smith. Dickens, recovering at home, talked about his harrowing experience with reporter Daniel Connolly. If you haven't already done so, take the time to read Welch's account. PROBLEMS IN THE CLASSROOM The jury is still out on whether a civil-rights complaint lodged against DeSoto County Schools over its disciplinary practices will find wrongdoing. In any event, federal education officials leave little doubt there's a problem in the nation's schools. Data released by the Department of Education last week shows African-American students in grades K-12 are nearly four times more likely than white students to receive out-of-school suspensions. As soon as the findings were out, a coalition of groups called for changes in disciplinary practices at schools nationwide to address the disparity. One of the groups was the Washington-based Advancement Project, which worked with DeSoto County parents over the local complaint. Judith Browne Dianis, Advancement Project's executive director, said the new report shows "persistent racism" in schools. It's easy to turn the argument to a need for discipline in homes and a better family structure, which in many cases is certainly true. Still, the evidence seems too clear and too widespread to simply dismiss all charges of inequitable treatment. All indications are that we can do better. What they're saying: There is no justification for excessively policing Black and Brown students since we know from years of research that children of color arent behaving any worse than their white counterparts, but are disproportionately punished due to implicit, and sometimes, explicit bias. -- Luke Risher, a student at Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, Pa., and a member of the Philadelphia Student Union, speaking about alleged disparities in disciplinary practices in the nation's schools QUICK RESPONSE Southaven Mayor Darren Musselwhite wasted little time responding to an investigative newspaper report that questioned the safety of the city's water supply. The Guardian, a British newspaper, said more than 30 U.S. cities used various methods in water testing that could have potentially led to false readings on the amount of lead in the water. Southaven is one of the cities mentioned, the only area city on the list. Shortly after the report circulated online, Musselwhite issued a statement strongly denying the charge. "It is very disheartening, at the minimum, to see a media organization paint a misleading picture with inaccurate information," Musselwhite said, "but it is unacceptable to make a completely false assertion." Musselwhite said Southaven has not been required to submit a water test since changes recommended by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to state officials were instituted. He said the city's next test will be 2018. "Therefore," Musselwhite said, "the suggestion that we 'cheated' the sampling process is completely false." Musselwhite says he's confident no problem has developed in the city's water since the last test, and he doesn't think the "minor change" suggested by EPA will alter the results. In the meantime, Musselwhite said he wants it made clear the city has followed the state's testing guidelines -- the same ones used by other Mississippi cities, even though Southaven seemed to have been singled out. View Our Latest Annual Water Quality Report: https://t.co/NO5fxTkUX4 SouthavenMississippi (@Southaven_MS) May 11, 2016 SENIOR CENTER Speaking of Musselwhite and Southaven, he was able to check a major item off his mayoral to-do list last week with the opening of a senior citizens center at Snowden Grove Park. The opening finally brings to a conclusion a loose end from former Mayor Greg Davis's tenure, giving the city's senior population the center for which it had been lobbying hard. And it didn't hurt that Musselwhite was able to brag about getting it done at considerably lower cost. Using revenue from the city's Penny For Your Parks tourism tax, Southaven was able to renovate existing space in the Parks Department building for about $2 million only a fraction of the $9 million estimated for a stand-alone facility Davis had proposed for city-owned property on Getwell. "We made a commitment, and we've met it," Musselwhite said during the center's opening Thursday, smiling for obvious reasons. QUICK TAKES July 4: It's not too soon to start thinking about July 4. Southaven has announced its annual Independence Day celebration will begin with music at 7 p.m. at the BankPlus Amphitheater at Snowden Grove Park. Fireworks should begin about 9 p.m. Pharmacy opening: Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto will open a retail pharmacy at the Southaven hospital at 10 a.m. Thursday, offering what the hospital says are some unique benefits. The idea, the pharmacy says, is "to reduce hospital readmissions by allowing patients to leave the hospital with prescriptions in hand along with several options for continuing treatment." For more information, visit ProxsysRx.com. AND FINALLY ... Closing with some Mississippi music seemed to work well last week, when we finished with a tribute to Bobbie Gentry and her "Ode to Billie Joe." So let's try it again -- this time, with Johnny and June Carter Cash singing one of my favorites, "Jackson." It's not entirely clear whether the song refers to Jackson, Mississippi, but since this column is about the Magnolia state, we're going to believe that's the case. SHARE Dr. Willie Herenton's proposal to build two 200-bed juvenile detention centers in Shelby County is admirable, but the facilities would be bucking a nationwide trend, including in Tennessee, to reduce the number of juveniles who are incarcerated for crimes. Because of that trend, Herenton's proposal likely will not receive much support from the state officials who deal with juvenile offenders. Last month, Herenton, a former Memphis City Schools superintendent, Memphis mayor and current charter schools operator, presented his NewPath plan to the Shelby County Commission. The proposal calls for two facilities on 40 acres in Frayser and Millington that would provide wraparound services that include medical and mental health care, and educational and vocational training. The commission, on an 8-2 vote last week, adopted a resolution supporting the plan. Herenton said he will ask the Tennessee Department of Children's Services to send children adjudicated in Shelby County to his proposed nonprofit NewPath Restorative Campuses. We wonder, however, if Herenton and the commission took into account that DCS over the past several years has been moving away from incarcerating juveniles, unless the offenders are deemed dangerous to the community. We agree with the former mayor, backed by numerous studies, that teens sentenced to the state's prisons for teenagers are housed under conditions that are not conducive to rehabilitation. Rehabilitation should always be the goal, since many of these teens will be released back in the community when they turn 19. Juveniles housed closer to home have a better chance at rehabilitation because of increased support from family and the likelihood that the teens will have greater access to services that can help with their rehab. From that standpoint, Herenton has the right idea. It is the scope of what he wants to do. Four hundred beds are a lot. That point was noted in a guest column on this page Saturday by Craig Hargrow, director of the Juvenile Justice Division for the Tennessee Department of Children and Youth (TCCY), a state agency that advocates to improve the quality of life for children and families. Hargrow pointed out that early June data from DCS reports 201 children with a juvenile delinquency adjudication from Shelby County in state custody, 123 of them in secure placement. "Two 200-bed facilities for juvenile justice youth in Shelby County would be significantly 'widening the net' at the expense of appropriate programming for youth, especially youth of color," he wrote. He added that Shelby County needs "more ... effective programming for youth who commit delinquent offenses, but the focus should be on evidence-based alternatives. Two 200 bed facilities would be unwise." It is hard to disagree with that point, plus it raises the question if the DCS numbers are the norm of how Herenton expects to fill 400 beds. If it is with teens from outside Shelby County, that would seem to contradict Herenton's argument for the centers. The goal with DCS and the federally mandated goal with Juvenile Court here is to find alternatives to incarcerating juveniles. But for the teens who should not be released, there must be services and programs in place to guide them toward rehabilitation. Herenton is on target with that goal, but his plan for 400 beds is worrisome when the push is to have fewer teen offenders behind bars. SHARE By Cass Sunstein There is not much evidence that Donald Trump respects the independence of the federal judiciary, or that he appreciates constitutional limits on the power of the president. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. On one legal issue, Trump raises a legitimate question: Have courts gone too far in protecting libelous speech? Here's what Trump said: "I'm going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We're going to open up those libel laws. So when the New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they're totally protected." It's predictable that journalists would hate that statement, which is not exactly a model of clarity or statesmanship. But Trump is onto something. He is evidently complaining about the Supreme Court's 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan. For well over 150 years, everyone understood that the law of libel would be established by the states, which did indeed allow people to sue newspapers for "purposely negative and horrible and false articles." The court had never ruled that the First Amendment stands as an obstacle to such suits. The Sullivan case changed all that. The court ruled that under the First Amendment, public officials are entitled to damages only if they demonstrate that the writers (or speakers) acted with what the court described as "actual malice." That term means officials must show that the writers actually knew that the statement was false, or that they acted with "reckless indifference" to the question of truth or falsity. (The court soon extended its ruling to all public figures, including famous movie actors, musicians and television stars.) That's a tough standard to meet. Under the court's ruling, a "purposely negative and horrible" article is usually protected, even if it is clearly false (and devastatingly harmful). The requirement of reckless indifference means that writers can get away with a lot of falsehoods claiming, for example, that a politician or a movie star is a cocaine addict, a tax cheat or a Communist sympathizer. It's hardly illegitimate for a presidential candidate to criticize a free-speech decision of the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama himself did exactly that and in a state of the union address no less, with six of the justices sitting right in front of him. In 2010, Obama said that the court's decision in the Citizens United case "will open the floodgates for special interests including foreign corporations to spend without limit in our elections." He called on "Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems." Trump's criticism of the Sullivan decision can be taken to fall in the same general category. Unlike his unconscionable attacks on the "Mexican heritage" of Indiana-born Judge Gonzalo Curiel, Trump's objection to the court's libel ruling didn't cross any lines of decency and propriety. But is he right? Though he raises a fair concern, the answer is probably no at least if he really wants people to be able to sue for "lots of money" whenever there is a "purposely negative and horrible and false" statement or story. In fact, Trump should hesitate before embracing that standard. Trump has claimed, for example, that Obama was born outside of the U.S., and that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Both claims are purposely negative and horrible (and false). But under New York Times v. Sullivan, the First Amendment might ultimately protect them. Trump should be grateful. Still, Trump isn't wrong to question current law. Suppose a newspaper makes an unambiguously false statement, is negligent in doing so, and seriously damages someone's reputation. You could make a good argument that at the very least, states should be allowed to give people a right to a retraction and perhaps to some kind of nominal damage award (say, $100). In that respect, it might well make sense to "open up" the law of libel. Would it be so terrible to say that newspapers should be held accountable for negligent and libelous falsehoods, and that they should have to correct the record? Any right to "lots of money" would raise different issues, because the prospect of crippling damage judgments would likely create an excessive chilling effect on the press. Those who believe in freedom of speech are right to object to that prospect. But it remains legitimate for Trump to suggest that without violating anyone's freedom, states should be allowed to do more to protect people's reputations. Cass Sunstein, a Bloomberg View columnist, is director of the Harvard Law School's program on behavioral economics and public policy. SHARE By Heidi Stevens I've read Joe Biden's letter to the Stanford rape survivor a dozen times, trying to put my finger on why it feels like a turning point. It's beautifully written. ("We will make lighthouses of ourselves, as you did and shine.") It's unequivocal. ("What you endured is never, never, never, NEVER a woman's fault.") It's even optimistic. ("Your story has already changed lives. You have helped change the culture.") It's all those things, but it's more. It's a powerful man with no new office to gain and no new voters to win talking about rape from the second-highest office in the land. Not just talking about rape. Talking to a woman who was raped. Talking to all women who have been raped. Talking to them because their stories and their humanity matter. It feels like a turning point because we've spent the last week watching as the Stanford rapist's smile and swim stats shape him into a fully formed, multidimensional 20-year-old, even as his victim remains nameless and known for just one thing the awful crime she endured. It feels like a turning point because at this time last year, we were mired in a debate over #YesAllWomen, an attempt by women to share their stories of violence and harassment in response to the Santa Barbara shootings. The stories were shouted down, virtually, by #NotAllMen, a hashtag that missed the point altogether. In one of the best discussions I read about #NotAllMen, Slate writer Phil Plait had this to say: "When people are defensive, they aren't listening to the other person; they're busy thinking of ways to defend themselves. Instead of being defensive and distracting from the topic at hand, try staying quiet for a while and actually listening to what the thousands upon thousands of women discussing this are saying." Biden's words are the result of staying quiet for a while and listening. In 2014, I interviewed Anne Ream about her newly released book, "Lived Through This: Listening to the Stories of Sexual Violence Survivors" (Beacon Press), in which she bears witness to 18 stories of rape. "For every person testifying in this book, there's nothing to be gained but a sense that they've been heard," Ream told me at the time. "There's no way to understand this as anything other than people standing up, one by one, and saying, 'I need you to understand this because what's happening to me is happening to other people.'" Ream is also a survivor. She was kidnapped and raped when she was 25 and living in Washington, D.C. "Being truly heard will change your life," she writes in her book. "Which means that someone has to do the listening." "It's a hard thing to listen truly listen to another person," she continues. "It often means getting so close to their suffering that it breaks our own hearts. But inside our open, broken hearts that's where compassion lives." It feels like a turning point to witness that compassion from a vice president. I hope we use the moment to move in a better, more humane direction. Heidi Stevens is a columnist at the Chicago Tribune. Contact her at hstevens@tribpub.com. SHARE By Kathleen Parker WASHINGTON It was inevitable that we would one day seek ways to kill ourselves with society's blessing. California recently joined four other states Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana that allow terminally ill patients to commit suicide using doctor-prescribed drugs. Criteria under the California law include that the patient has a terminal disease, would likely die within six months, and is of sound mind and can self-administer the "medicine." Thanks to medical advances that can extend life beyond what some find acceptable, resulting in unnecessary suffering, many think it's their right to die with dignity using medications legally prescribed. It's an easy-enough argument to understand. There's a certain logic and humanity to the option of leaving life gracefully by one's own volition, as long as it really is. Here, I should confess my own ambivalence. Basically, I'd like to have the means to end my own life on my own terms when my body has clearly called it quits. I'm just not sure I like the idea of the state and doctors lending a hand. At least two problems seem obvious: Death dates can't be predicted with precision. How often have you heard that someone has three months to live and he or she is still around two years later? And "medicine" by definition means: (1) a substance to ease pain or other symptoms, and (2) a science to prevent, treat or cure diseases. One could argue that suicide medicine would relieve the pain of living through the final stages of cancer, as an example. But this clearly isn't what Merriam-Webster or the Hippocratic oath intended. The purpose of medicine is to prevent illness and to heal, not to end life when healing isn't possible. Still, what are we to do when medicine can do no more? Or when treatment means prolonging suffering toward inevitable death? We are kinder to our pets, many would argue. Perhaps I read too many dystopian science-fiction novels during my formative years, but there's something disturbing about asking doctors to help their patients die. Then again, we've already asked them to destroy unborn human life, codifying the legal right to terminate a pregnancy. When the continuum of life from conception to natural death is interrupted as a convenience to one's individual concept of time (I'm not ready to be a parent; I'm ready to die), what else do we also terminate? Gradually inured to the metaphysical considerations of such actions, might we also be denying ourselves access to charity, compassion, empathy and love? Unknowable in our calculations is what happens in the final moments of life. If Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, wasted away with terminal cancer, had decided to leave the party early, we might not have learned from his sister, Mona Simpson, that his last words were, after staring for a long time at each of his family members: "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow." I don't know what Jobs saw, but I think I'd like to see it, too. Troubling, too, is the possibility that some patients might feel obligated to commit suicide once the option is available, even though prescribing doctors are encouraged to tell patients they don't have to take the medicine. Many reportedly don't. But a sick person might want to protect family members and think, oh, well, what's another six months? A lifetime, I should think. Can't life be made tolerable enough during this time to avoid making doctors and family members complicit in suicide? Other questions seize the mind: Will the right to die ultimately be considered as just another facet of "health care," as abortion is? And when do six months become a year? A novelist would propose that it's just a matter of time before a glut of elderly people in poor health, who are by definition "terminal," so overwhelm the health care system that "opting out" becomes an expectation rather than a choice. This would be satire, right? And satire does not a slippery slope make, but laws do condition values. Oregon, which passed its right-to-die law in 1998, has the highest suicide rate in the nation 35 percent higher than the national average, according to the Oregon Health Authority. As more than a dozen other states consider similar laws, it isn't irrational to wonder whether, in tampering with our medical culture of healing, we aren't inviting unintended consequences that we'll live or die to regret. Contact Kathleen Parker at kathleenparker@washpost.com. SHARE By Ruth Marcus WASHINGTON Somehow, it's always the parents' fault. We are too lax, except when we are too helicoptery. We coddle the kids too much, except when we drive them into neurotic overachievement. We are enablers. No, we are Tiger Moms. The societal urge to blame is matched only by the parental instinct to second-guess ourselves as much as our fellow parents. And so, two big and otherwise unrelated news stories of the last few weeks the killing of a silverback gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo and the lenient sentence imposed on a former Stanford student for sexual assault arrive with an unavoidable overlay of debate over proper parenting. The first reaction to the zoo story, and the decision to shoot the gorilla to protect the toddler who fell into the animal's enclosure, was entirely unsurprising: Blame the mommy. Not just blame her prosecute her. Surely no responsible parent could have allowed her child to escape her watchful eye. Call Child Protective Services. "Parental negligence" that "may be reflective of the child's home situation," thundered a change.org petition with more than 500,000 signatures. It demanded "an investigation of the child's home environment in the interests of protecting the child and his siblings from further incidents of parental negligence that may result in serious bodily harm or even death." Except that, it turns out, there was no evidence of negligence. "Our information is that the mother turned away for a few seconds to attend to another one of her young children and this is when the 3-year-old was able to climb into the gorilla enclosure," concluded Hamilton County prosecutor Joseph Deters. "Any parent who is honest with himself or herself would have to understand how this could happen to even the most attentive parent." Indeed. How often have any of us turned away, taken a call, lost track in a way that, but for luck, could have ended in tragedy? Might I suggest that schlepping your four children ages 7, 4, 3 and 1 to the zoo is prima facie evidence of responsible, not neglectful, parenting? Might I suggest, oh so gently, that the fact that the allegedly inattentive mother is African-American contributed to the ensuing uproar? In the Stanford case, there is no defending Brock Turner, or his father, Dan, who wrote a tone-deaf letter to the judge pleading for probation. His son's prosecution, Dan Turner wrote with an exquisitely offensive turn of phrase, was "a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-plus years of life." He lamented that his once "happy go lucky" boy had lost his appetite for a juicy rib-eye. Disgusting, especially in its failure to recognize the true victim. Yet, parents, ask yourself: If this were your son, would you not ante up whatever you could for the best defense possible? Would you not do what you could to spare him from the terrors awaiting him behind bars? Would you not argue for the lightest possible punishment, no matter how much you reviled his behavior or berated him in private? I know I would. Say all you want about logical consequences and taking responsibility. The parental urge to protect is primal and instinctive, activated by the imagined sound of a clanking cell door. Of course there are too many examples of outrageous parental attempts to shield their little darlings from the fallout of misbehavior. We have witnessed one such episode where I live, in suburban Maryland, where a high school principal made a valiant effort to deter drinking at the prom. Students, she warned, would be barred from graduation ceremonies if caught, which, not surprisingly, they were. Which, predictably, happened. And then, even more predictably, squealing ensued. What, no march across the stage to ecstatic clapping? Talk about enabling: The school superintendent overruled the principal. Where were the parents who should have been backing up the principal's efforts to ensure their children's safety? Knowing our suburb, hiring lawyers if they weren't lawyers themselves to strong-arm the superintendent. Other parents rallied to the principal's defense, and I'd like to think I would have been among them, even if my child were among those being punished with the ultimate sanction: no graduation video to post on Facebook. But maybe not. We are fallible creatures, we parents, Mama and Papa Grizzlies who inevitably err. We take an eye off the cub. We swat at perceived danger. Could you maybe give us a break? Could we give ourselves one? Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com. You'll never "drive" a "flying car." The phrase "flying car" is code for a futuristic vision of transportation. The dream is that, instead of traveling in earth-bound vehicles, everyday people will be able to avoid gridlock by taking off and soaring above traffic. We got this idea from mid-20th century futurists who imagined a world where technology would advance to the point where cars would fly. Flying cars were popularized in science fiction, TV and movies and entered into the public imagination as an expectation for the future, along with jet packs and quasi-futuristic silver uniforms. The flying Delorean in Back to the Future represents the quintessential flying car idea. "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads!" says the inimitable Dr. Brown. The flying car vision isn't about a type of vehicle, but a kind of lifestyle. That lifestyle looks like this: In the future, ordinary people in middle-class neighborhoods will get into their flying cars, take off from their driveways and zip over to the supermarket. The press keeps asking: "Where's my flying car?" But actual flying cars are a banality. They've been designed since the 1920s, prototyped since the 1930s and built for many decades. For example, in 1934, an inventor named Waldo Waterman built what was considered the world's first flying car. In 1949, a company built a series of working prototypes called the Taylor Aerocar. In fact, it built six models, but never sold them to the public. The aviation industry doesn't like the term "flying car" and instead uses the more accurate designation "roadable aircraft." The vehicles that some people would call flying cars are really airplanes that can be driven on roads. Some roadable aircraft have wings that fold out of the way so they can be driven down a road without slicing SUVs in half. With most roadable aircraft, the idea is that you can land at the local airport and then drive home and park in your garage. Or you can fly to a remote airport and drive to a nearby diner to grab what private pilots call a "$100 hamburger" (the meal you eat when you pretend to fly to dinner but your real purpose is just to fly somewhere). In either case, the driving on roads part is minimal and exceptional. Today's flying cars are just airplanes that can leave the airport on public roads. They're not family cars that can fly. The imagined flying car lifestyle will never exist because it should never exist. Airplanes are designed to fly, and cars are designed for roads. So when you combine the two, you get a horrible airplane and a lousy car. As airplanes, roadable aircraft tend to be heavy, bulky and slow. As cars, they're unsafe, handle poorly and, again, are slow. And you pay a premium for the engineering. For the same money, you can buy a great airplane and a great car. So that's what pilots tend to do. Still, the press never tires of misinforming the public that the era of the flying car is just around the corner (it always seems to be two years away, according to the media). Truly innovative ideas for so-called flying cars these days, some of which are already available for purchase, involve aircraft like, in no particular order, the PAL-V, Skycar, AeroMobil 3.0, Maverick LSA, Icon A5, Switchblade, Lilium Jet, Volocopter, Pegase Mk2, Skyrunner, Volante Joby S2 and the Terrafugia TF-X. Some of these are extremely advanced, technologically. But you'll note that none of these projects ushers in anything like the flying car lifestyle envisioned by futurists. They don't represent the future of the family car. They're either impractical dune buggies suspended by kites or high-tech roadable aircraft toys for billionaires who want to spend thousands of hours earning the certification necessary to fly such complex aircraft. The market for these aircraft is tiny. Ultimately, they're all just airplanes that will involve licensing, airports, weight-and-balance calculations, flight plans, air traffic control and all the rest. Nobody's landing in the driveway unless they have a mansion in the countryside or a private heliport. Not one of these so-called flying car projects will result in a vehicle that will be used as a family car. Another problem with the flying car vision isn't about the vehicle. It's about you and me. The public won't ever be skillful enough to be trusted by society to navigate complex aircraft in unpredictable weather into populated neighborhoods without hitting telephone poles and crashing into apartment buildings. That's why consumer airplanes are coming, but they'll be self-driving. As Tesla Motors and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told Neil deGrasse Tyson in an interview last year, if a flying car is to become popular, "it's got to be autopilot." Larry Page's airplane company Zee.Aero, which is headquartered next door to the Googleplex in Silicon Valley, is a secretive, six-year-old aviation company reportedly working on an electric airplane that can take off and land vertically. Company representatives had previously told the press that Zee.Aero is not affiliated with Google. But Bloomberg reported last week that Google CEO and co-founder Larry Page is actually the owner of Zee.Aero. As part of the secrecy protocol, according to the report, employees were supposed to refer to Page as "GUS," which stands for the "Guy Upstairs." Page initially used the second floor of the Zee.Aero building as an office and playground. Zee.Aero's first aircraft is a strange creature. It has wings at the very back of the fuselage that curve way down at the edges, as well as two rear propellers that provide forward thrust. Two additional wings grace the very front of the plane. Here's the strange part: Between the front and back and on either side of the fuselage are four small propellers on each side. Combined with the two at the back, the Zee.Aero plane has 10 propellers. These propellers aren't powered from a central engine. Each propeller has its own independent electric motor and controller system. Page reportedly wants the Zee.Aero's plane to be "downmarket" -- an affordable aircraft for ordinary people. Astonishingly, everything we know about Zee.Aero suggests that it's making all the right decisions. The design is brilliant. A consumer airplane for the masses absolutely requires electric power, and for two reasons. The first is safety: If one or two of the propellers fails, for whatever reason, the rest can safely continue to operate. The second reason is that if consumer airplanes are to be flying around in large quantities near or over residential areas, they have to be relatively quiet. Zee.Aero has a handful of patents for the innovative multiple propeller system, battery technology and for the airplane itself. One patent says that in "an alternative embodiment, aircraft 100 is an unmanned vehicle that is capable of flight without a pilot or passengers" and that "embodiments without passengers have additional control systems that provide directional control inputs in place of a pilot, either through a ground link or through a predetermined flight path trajectory. Zee.Aero's prototypes are already flying at a nearby airport. Yes, they're flying, but they're not flying cars. Zee.Aero is working on an airplane, and not even a roadable one. Page has also invested in another Silicon Valley-based aviation startup called Kitty Hawk, which is reportedly working on an enormous quadcopter drone that's capable of carrying passengers, according to Bloomberg. The company's board president is former Google researcher Sebastian Thrun, who spearheaded Google's self-driving car initiative. The passenger drone concept was also trotted out at the CES trade show in the form of the Ehang 184, a one-person conveyance controlled with a tablet or by computers -- a self-driving passenger "drone." The Ehang 184 is called a flying car by some, though it doesn't have wheels. There's no such thing as a flying car, and there never will be. It's simply a bad idea. The great news, though, is that safe, quiet, affordable and eco-friendly self-flying aircraft are landing, and soon. Microsoft announced early Monday that it will acquire enterprise social network LinkedIn for approximately $26.2 billion in cash. In a press release announcing the news, Microsoft said that LinkedIn will retain its brand, culture and independence as part of the deal. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner will remain in power there, and will report directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as a member of his senior staff. This is the largest acquisition in Microsoft's history, worth more than its acquisitions of Nokia and Skype combined. The deal is supported by Reid Hoffman, the co-founder and controlling shareholder of LinkedIn. It's expected to close by the end of 2016. Cybersecurity would seem to be a top priority for enterprises, but there are still breaches and apparent gaps in their defenses and the way that companies respond to attacks. In separate announcements on Monday, both AT&T and Samsung drew attention to the dilemma. They recommended new enterprise security assessments that build on the services already offered by both companies. Samsung announced a new partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton to help enterprises find and address gaps in their mobile security. This approach includes a two-day, on-site mobile security assessment for each client, using a model based on security standards from the bodies like the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, among others. Samsung and Booz Allen Hamilton will then deliver an action plan tailored to a company's unique needs. No pricing was announced, however. Meanwhile, AT&T released a blog and a report noting an increase in cyberattacks across its global data network. In 2015, AT&T said, it logged 245,000 Distributed Denial of Service alerts on that network and as many as 30 billion malicious scans per day. In a global online survey of 800 enterprises conducted by IDC for AT&T, 60% said they had a security breach in 2015. Of that group, 42% said the breach had a significant negative impact on the business. These incidents caused large enterprises an average of 23 hours of downtime and medium-sized businesses an average of 14 hours. AT&T used the report to recommend that companies hold regular crisis management exercises to test their incident response planning. AT&T's survey found that fewer than 10% of companies review their incident response plans two or more times a year, and one-third said they had not reviewed or updated the incident response plans since they were initially developed. "Too many companies are prone to let incident response remain a back-burner issue," AT&T said in its report. "CEO's are playing a high-stakes game of security poker in which the odds ultimately favor the cyberattacker." This story, "AT&T and Samsung detail security gaps" was originally published by Computerworld . The U.S. government wants to intervene in an Irish court case that has already disrupted the transatlantic flow of European Union citizens' personal information on which many businesses rely. And one of the parties to that case, Austrian Facebook user Max Schrems, is looking forward to the opportunity to have U.S. authorities questioned under oath on a matter that could determine the future of European privacy law. The U.S. government, the American Chamber of Commerce, an Irish business lobby group, and an international software alliance told the Irish high court on Monday that they want to be added to the case as "amicus curiae" or friends of the court. "The court adjourned the matter for two weeks to allow them each file a motion in this regard," a court spokesman said Monday evening. Schrems took the Irish data protection commissioner (DPC) to court because he was unsatisfied with its handling of a complaint he made about Facebook Ireland transferring his personal information to the U.S. for processing, something he felt was in breach of EU data protection law. That law says that such processing may only be performed in countries providing a level of privacy protection equivalent to that required within the EU, but Schrems said that, in the light of Edward Snowden's revelations about U.S. intelligence operations, the U.S. did not meet EU privacy standards. However, the European Commission ruled in July 2000 that the Safe Harbor Agreement between the EU and the U.S. did meet those standards. To find out whether the DPC could challenge the Commission's decision, the High Court of Ireland referred a question the Court of Justice of the European Union -- which in October 2015 ruled not only that the DPC should investigate Schrems' complaint, but also that the Safe Harbor Agreement was inadequate. That decision prompted thousands of businesses to look for alternative legal mechanisms such as model contract clauses or binding corporate rules to legitimize their transatlantic data transfers while EU and U.S. officials worked out a replacement for Safe Harbor. The details of the replacement, Privacy Shield, are still being negotiated, making the alternative mechanisms essential to many companies' activities Last month, though, the Irish High Court was asked by the DPC to refer another question to the CJEU, this time regarding the legality of model contract clauses. If they too are ruled inadequate, then many U.S. businesses would suffer, perhaps explaining the U.S. government's interest in giving the court its views. Schrems said he welcomed the U.S. government's request to intervene, because unlike in the negotiations over Privacy Shield, a U.S. representative to the Irish court will not be protected by U.S. laws on confidentiality. "This is a huge chance to finally get solid answers in a public procedure," he said in a posting to the website of the Europe-v-Facebook campaign group. "I am very much looking forward to raising all the uncomfortable questions on US surveillance programs in this procedure. It will be very interesting how the US government will react to the clear evidence already before the court." Apple CEO Tim Cook and a small battalion of his lieutenants took to a stage today in a fast-paced keynote that pushed back against talk that the company lags behind rivals in artificial intelligence (A.I.) and opened some of the company's crown jewels to third-party developers. Monday's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote focused on software and, to a lesser extent than last year, on services, touting small and not-so-small improvements to all four of its operating systems: macOS, iOS, tvOS and watchOS. Cook spent relatively little time holding court, and the keynote was much more structured, and clearer, than last year's event, said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research. "Last year was rough and a bit of a mess," said Dawson of 2015's WWDC keynote, which went long. "It felt unstructured, as if they crammed too much in. They learned from that this year. Today's was very structured, but yet covered more ground and never felt out of control. And each presenter handed off to the next, rather than have [Cook] back out to introduce each." Throughout, Dawson said, Apple made two major statements to developers, and peripherally, to customers as well. "They pushed back on the narrative that Apple is handicapped in A.I.," said Dawson. "But not directly. They dropped in the right terms here and there, but really, what they did is show, not tell." Dawson was referring to the talk circulating among pundits that Apple is behind rivals -- including Facebook, Google and Microsoft -- in the battle to bring more intelligence to technology. "What Apple did was show how their products were getting better" with more intelligence, Dawson added, citing improvements to Siri as the prime example. Siri -- Apple's digital assistant -- arrives on the Mac with macOS Sierra. Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, concurred. "Apple responded nicely to the threat put in front of them by Google and Microsoft," said Moorhead, "and showed that they've been working on A.I. improvements for a long time." Like Dawson, Moorhead called out Apple's "show me" strategy of the keynote. "Apple didn't exactly show how a conversational bot would work, but what they did show was how three people could order food from the same menu without having a bot." Dawson, Moorhead and Carolina Milanesi, an analyst with Creative Strategies, all also identified a second thread in the presentation: Apple opening up important APIs (application programming interfaces) to outside developers. "They opened up the crown jewels," said Moorhead, ticking off Siri, Maps and Messages, three first-party apps that until today were only available to Apple's engineers. "Now they're creating a messaging platform that's open to commerce and voice." "They opened up domains that were Apple's exclusive playgrounds," Dawson added. "That will create some new business models for developers and new types of apps." "But they did that in a smart way, the way Apple normally does things," Milanesi said. "They didn't open it totally, but by domains. So Siri will know where she is, and she'll be smarter because of that. The access is controlled, so that the user will have the best experience." iOS turns 10 Craig Federighi, who heads OS X and iOS development, unveiled 10 improvements and additions to iOS 10. But while he ticked off 10 items, some were more equal than others. As rumored, Siri will be opened to third-party developers to expand the assistant's capabilities on iOS. Out of the box, iOS 10's Siri will work with several of the most popular apps, letting users say, "WeChat Nancy that I'll be five minutes late," as Federighi demonstrated, to hand off the task to WeChat. Siri will also integrate with other apps, including Skype, Pinterest and Uber for specific chores such as calling, pulling up photos and requesting a ride. On the photo side, iOS 10 will use facial, object and scene recognition to categorize, then locate images. With the stress lately on artificial intelligence by rivals Microsoft and Google, it wasn't surprising that Federighi said "A.I." more than once to talk up, and then demonstrate, new features in iOS's Photos apps. Dubbed "Memories," the feature brings specific images to the forefront, those selected by algorithm to highlight, for example, individuals' faces or certain locales. Memories also auto-assembles photographs into a collection, a recognition that people take stills and video, but rarely put them into any kind of organization. iOS's most-used first-party app -- Messages -- also got a whirlwind of new tools, including customized text balloons, obscured images that appear with a slide of the finger, larger emojis, rich links and Digital Touch, the draw-on-the-screen feature brought from watchOS. "Apple's enhancements to Messages acknowledges [the] fun that has driven messaging apps, but stakes out own ground," argued Ross Rubin, an analyst at App Annie, in a tweet during the keynote. Apple will open Messages' APIs to developers. And Apple will open Messages' APIs so developers can, for instance, craft animated "stickers" for use in texts, or send payments and order food via Messages. iOS 10 will support devices as far back as the iPhone 5 and iPad 2, the former from 2012, the latter from 2011, and both now discontinued. OS X is dead, long live macOS Federighi also introduced OS X ... er, macOS. As expected, Apple recast OS X as macOS today, putting the Mac's operating system into the same format as the company's other operating systems. Federighi also tagged the upgrade as "Sierra" -- the long form as "macOS Sierra" -- to keep with the cadence of California place names. Blitzing through the new features, Federighi introduced Siri -- Apple's digital assistant -- on the Mac, a migration that many have expected for years. Siri will respond to searches and commands, just as it does on the iPhone. Also new in Sierra, said Federighi, are Continuity enhancements that include a link between an Apple Watch and a Mac for authenticating the user, eliminating the password necessary to log on to the machine; and a universal clipboard shared between multiple Macs as well as iOS devices. iCloud Drive, Apple's online storage service, got some attention in Sierra as well, with an extension of the auto-copy feature -- previously only able to update the Documents folder -- to the Desktop folder, too. Another new feature, which Apple called "optimized storage," sweeps old-but-still-useful data and files into the cloud and dumps no-longer-needed data into the dustbin. Like last year's El Capitan, macOS Sierra will go into public preview in July and ship this fall. Registered developers can grab the new operating system today. What's up with the Watch, and tuning Apple TV Apple also introduced watchOS 3, an upgrade to the year-plus-old Apple Watch, with several user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) tweaks, including Scribble, which lets owners trace letters on the watch face with their finger, one at a time -- say, C-A-L-L J-O -- to reply to an incoming message. Scribble works in both English and Chinese, the latter an obvious nod to Apple's critical market in the People's Republic. Apple Pay can also be embedded within third-party developers' Watch apps with Version 3. WatchOS 3 was released to developers today, and will be available as a free upgrade to all Watches this fall. Eddy Cue, Apple's top internet software and services executive, touted improvements to the Apple TV and its tvOS. Apple will release an iPhone app that duplicates the functionality of the Siri-powered remote, including gameplay, implemented via the iPhone's sensors. Also getting some serious applause from developers was single sign-on, which with one set of credentials logs users on to all of their network apps, whether DirecTV, HBO or Hulu. Cue also briefly covered a revamp of Apple Music on the iPhone and called the remodeled UI "more intuitive" than the original. Cue then passed the baton to Bozoma Saint John, an Apple Music executive who brought some energy to the presentation -- and demonstrated that the audience wasn't willing to get up and dance -- as she stepped through the streaming service's changes. With LinkedIn under its belt, Microsoft will own one of the largest social networks in the world. The move could help the company reconnect with both business and individual customers. "I can see plenty of ways how LinkedIn can help Microsoft fulfill its promise to increase productivity and streamline business processes," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. "I've always felt that LinkedIn was an overlooked social network that has an amazing potential for business use. Microsoft sees this too and, if they execute correctly, should see a great return on their hefty investment." Olds added that with one fell swoop, this move could vault Microsoft into the top ranks of global social networks. "This is a hugely bold move for Microsoft," he said. News hit early Monday morning that Microsoft is looking to drop nearly $26.2 billion in cash to acquire LinkedIn, a business-focused social networking service. The acquisition will be the largest in Microsoft's history. In an email to employees today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella called the purchase key to the company's "bold ambition" to reinvent productivity and business processes. "Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world," Nadella wrote in the email, made public on Microsoft's site. "It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professional's information in LinkedIn's public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences, such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you're trying to complete." With more than 433 million members in 200 countries, LinkedIn is the self-proclaimed largest professional social network in the world. Judith Hurwitz, an analyst with Hurwitz & Associates, said the acquisition is meant to bring Microsoft back to the center of the enterprise, where it held reign for decades. "It is definitely an expensive move," she said. "Microsoft wants to use LinkedIn in conjunction with Office365, especially, to create a unified environment for building business linkages. For customers who are very Microsoft centric, it could be potentially very effective... I think Microsoft wants to return to a model where they control the entire customer experience. It is an ambitious play." Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, said that for Microsoft, operating LinkedIn could go beyond having a social networking entity. "It is part of a comprehensive strategy to focus back on users and line managers and position against new competitors," he said. What will this mean for LinkedIn's millions of professional users is, at this point, unclear. Microsoft has said LinkedIn will continue to operate as a separate entity. If that is the case, LinkedIn users shouldn't see much change to their profiles or relationships. However, for Microsoft users, they're likely to see LinkedIn integrated into their business apps. "I expect Microsoft will integrate LinkedIn into Windows, unless regulators block it," said Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst. "This would be a natural process." Olds agreed that he doesn't see any major impact on LinkedIn users "in the short or even medium term," he said. "I don't see Microsoft doing much of anything to interfere with a model that's currently working well. We might see some advertising sneaking its way into the product in various places, plus more and different membership options as well, but no sweeping changes." Olds also noted that he doesn't see LinkedIn users being freaked out that Microsoft will soon have access to all of their information and professional contacts. "I don't think Microsoft is seen as the same evil company they might have seemed like back in the 1990's," he said. "All Microsoft really wants to do is sell software and a little bit of advertising -- not rule the world, a la Google. I don't think that most users will have a problem with Microsoft having the kind of personal information they'd post on LinkedIn." John Bald is a former Ofsted inspector and has written two books on the teaching of reading and spelling. Will Bickford Smiths Conservative Teachers website has led to a revival of the Conservative Education Society. This is open to any Party member with an interest in education, whether as governor, parent, councillor, teacher, member of a related profession, or indeed, none of the above. Nick Gibb set the tone at a well-attended relaunch meeting at the Commons last month, greeting every member personally, making sure that everyone had a chance to contribute, and answering questions frankly and honestly. There will be more such meetings throughout the coming year, with speakers to include Nicky Morgan, Sir Anthony Seldon, Tom Sherrington and Katharine Birbalsingh. We will have a fringe event at the Party Conference on 2 October (first Sunday evening) at the Hyatt hotel, which is outside the secure zone, so you do not need to attend the full conference if you wish to take part. We are confident that our panel will include a minister and trade union representation, alongside some of the young talent that has driven this revival. This includes a brilliant light jazz pianist and comedian, Ed Clarke, who writes textbooks on Latin and Greek. I was pleased to be co-opted to the committee, and will act as a point of contact for anyone wishing to know more (johnbald@talktalk.net). One of the Societys functions is to act as a source of advice for ministers, for which recent events have shown the need. Fallout from the primary tests continued last week with David Crystal, doyen of linguistics, questioning the grammar test for eleven year olds on the matter of punctuation. The issue was lists. Professor Crystal maintained that, tall, dark and handsome; and tall, dark, and handsome were equally correct. The underlying issue is the Oxford comma which is inserted wherever the writer chooses in order to help with the phrasing of a sentence. Professor Crystal is correct, but, like many other critics, he has not chosen an example from the test itself which is, overall, less obscure than our critics were expecting. The big problem with the tests came where it was least expected, in reading. We have decades of experience in designing reading tests, much of it reflecting Oscar Wildes aphorism that Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. The mistake on this occasion was to design a test from a grid containing a wide range of aspects of reading, without taking account of the equally wide range of pupils who were to take it. This means putting some easier questions at the beginning, so that everyone who has made an effort can feel they have got something right, and the more difficult questions in the middle and later stages, so that everyone is challenged. Instead, the reading test threw everyone in at the deep end, with the predictable consequence that too many sank. Similar errors were repeated in the other tests algebra, for example, had two questions of very similar difficulty, which should have been preceded by a simple question along the lines of find x if X+3= 5 to see if children had grasped the initial point of finding an unknown quantity from information that we do know. Running the test past experienced, expert teachers not the usual suspects would have avoided a good deal of bad press, much of which was fully justified. Finally, a long-promised note on Dr Adam Perkins book,The Welfare Trait How State Benefits Affect Personality. Dr Perkins, who spent several years as an unskilled labourer, and at times claimed benefits, puts forward the familiar theory that over-generous welfare payments contribute to employment-resistant personality characteristics. What is new is his collation of evidence in support of it. Professor Philip Corr of City University, suggests that this is sure to spark high voltage debate, but the good professor has reckoned without the intolerant and ignorant student Left. An invitation to Dr Perkins, a lecturer in neurobiology at Kings College, to speak at LSE, was withdrawn earlier this year following threats of disruption by students concerned at the invasion of their safe zone by inconvenient truth. Dr Perkins last word, to The Telegraph, was that the validity of a scientific idea is determined by the test of time, not the opinions of a bunch of baggy-jumpered trustafairian nitwits. Quite right. Nadhim Zahawi is a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and MP for Stratford On Avon. It is often said by those who wish to remain a member of the European Union that some of the current problems plaguing the organisation are temporary. There is a belief that the refugee crisis, immigration and eye-wateringly high unemployment on the continent will, at some point, come to an end. The idea is that we just need to tough out these difficult few years, but when these problems are solved, the balance of positives and negatives of our membership of the European Union will shift. Perhaps this would be true, if these problems were to be fixed but I do not share the optimism that they will be. In reality, I believe that this organisation is incapable of providing a swift or lasting solution to problems. The Euro has been an almost continuous disaster since the financial crisis struck. Almost a decade on from the start of the financial crisis, the Eurozone has only ever been able to achieve momentary recovery before a new disaster is created. The Italian economy has barely grown in years and there are renewed concerns about their banking system. May saw the fourth month in a row of deflation across the Eurozone. Meanwhile, Greece continues to limp along, with a debt mountain that the IMF has described as highly unsustainable. Our Government took difficult decisions and made efforts to fix the roof while the sun was shining: we have seen good growth in GDP and outstanding growth in employment. But other economies of Europe, constrained by a failing currency, remain extremely vulnerable to further shocks. There is a recognition that the European Union needs to take urgent steps to tackle these problems, but what faith can we have that it will? Fast-paced, decisive action is difficult, when you have 28 countries with their different priorities and domestic political requirements. Again and again ,this has led to a half-hearted proposal that will gives momentary relief, but no long term solution. This difficulty of reaching agreement amongst these 28 countries only looks like getting harder, when you consider the various political movements shaking up democracy around Europe, that either have a chance of gaining power, or of influencing those already in position. Look at the rise of the Front National in France. If Marine Le Pen were President, would her government be more likely reach common agreement with other European leaders? Would governments influenced by Podemos, Alternative fur Deutschland or the Five Star Movement? Political polarisation is increasing in Europe, and as countries diverge from the centre agreement will surely become more difficult. This will lead to the EU, and the Eurozone struggling to reform in the way that will be required, whether or not Britain decides to leave on the 23rd. This matters for two reasons. Firstly, because the economic failure on the continent has kept unemployment staggeringly high. Almost one in four people is out of work in Greece, one in five is out of work in Spain. The unemployment rate is 12.6 per cent in Portugal, almost 12 per cent in Italy, and over 10 per cent in France. With free movement strongly defended during the renegotiation period, this means that every unemployed person on a continent of half a billion people are able to search for work in the UK. And this is not some parochial arrogance about the attractiveness of our country; in the last Parliament we created more jobs than the rest of the European Union combined. We were truly the jobs factory of Europe. While the continent faces stingy growth and high unemployment, immigration will remain impossibly high. The Government cannot plan to deliver services according to need, both because we cannot know exactly what number will arrive, and schools, hospitals and houses cannot be built overnight large influxes can only create scarcity. The argument put forward by Jeremy Corbyn that it is the Governments responsibility to provide enough for everyone, without knowing how many will come, is either not fully thought through, or signifies an individual entirely departed from reality in favour of an idealistic fantasy world. The second issue that an ailing Europe hurts our economy. Purely due to geography, it will always be rational for a lot of our trade to be done with Europe, even though digital services will always be global. So whether or not we leave the EU, we will be affected if they fail to reform and rejuvenate their economies. The concern comes if we are locked into a relationship with them that puts barriers between us and diversifying our trade with the rest of the world. We cannot have independent trade deals with the faster growing, world leading economies of the future, because this is an EU responsibility. And the problem is that the EU is spectacularly bad at it; again because all 28 countries have different priorities. France has led a rebellion against the potential free trade deal with Latin American bloc Mercosur, because of concerns about the impact it will have on their farmers. Spain described this position as a great error, but cant do anything about it. France is also leading opposition within Europe to the free trade deal with the USA. The arduous process of resolving competing priorities delays some deals and scuppers most. You dont even have to take a view of whether the content of these deals is good or bad to agree that it would be better if it were our government, accountable to the British voters, who decides whether or not they go ahead, rather than another countrys interest group. The arduous process of resolving competing priorities delays some deals and scuppers most. If we were set free to conduct our own trade negotiations, then we will surely be much better at sealing deals. Our negotiators will only be working in the interests of the British people, rather than trying to negotiate in the interests of 28 countries, with economies and industries that vastly differ from our own. Arguments that we can only negotiate as Europe, when you look at the success Switzerland has had, with an economy and a population a fraction of the size of ours. I cannot see a realistic scenario where these problems are going to be solved, with lasting solutions put in place. In a globalised world we will never be able to fully insulate ourselves from problems our near neighbours experience, but that does not mean we must then be in a group that forbids us from reducing immigration or diversifying our trade with fast growing areas of the world. Our democratically elected Government, accountable to the voters of the United Kingdom must be able to do this, and must be in control. The only way for that to happen is to vote to leave next week. Fifty-two people were murdered in the tube terror attack on 7/7, over ten years ago, roughly the same number as those slaughtered in Orlando yesterday. But reasons why Islamist terror takes place were then much more contested. One version, held by some in the most prominent organs of the state Parliament, the security services, the police, the civil service was that it was a direct response to western foreign policy. Britains armed forces had been in Afghanistan since 2001, and in Iraq since 2003, only two years before 7/7 took place. It was the era of neo-conservatism. It is a statement of the obvious that foreign policy can be a contributor to Islamist terrorism or perhaps it would be better to say foreign affairs. The first British suicide bomber, Asif Sadiq, died in Srinagar in Indian-held Kashmir. He drove a car packed with explosives into an Indian army base in 2000, before those deployments of British troops abroad and before 9/11 had taken place. Britain had no real foreign policy engagement in Kashmir at all, and has not done so for three-quarters of a century. But the legacy of our disengagement from the one-time princely state was enough to drive a young man to kill himself and to massacre others. The dispute over why Islamist terrorists act as they do divided the Conservative Party no less than it did those other institutions. A group of Tory Shadow Ministers (including Michael Gove, Pauline Neville-Jones and, on a lower rung of the ladder, myself) argued that the sum of the evidence was obvious: that such groups as Al Qaeda were part of a wider Islamist movement that hates, and wants to end, western liberal democracy altogether and see it replaced by a system of pre-modern law, and which people are treated on the basis of religion rather than as equal citizens of secular states. Ten long years on, it is striking how foreign policy as the be-all-and-end-all explanation of Islamist terror and extremism has faded away. And no wonder, since it has been comprehensively debunked. Debunked by the Danish cartoons row, which saw death threats issued against those who had drawn them and the papers that had carried them. Debunked by the Charlie Hebdo murders, a bloody response to illustrators who had drawn satirical illustrations of Mohammed. Debunked by the terror attacks in Belgium, whose military footprint abroad is tiny. And now, horribly, debunked by the atrocity in Orlando. It is too early to know if Omar Mateen, the murderer in America, acted as a lone wolf killer or not. There is a pattern of Islamist terrorists first being identified as such but later turning out to have had links with terror groups abroad, and Mateen was reportedly investigated by the FBI twice. But it seems clear that the assault was an act of Islamist terrorism: Mateen had not only been subject to police enquiries but had apparently pledged allegiance to ISIS, the last during the terror attack itself. A picture is emerging of a terrorist charateristic of such terrorists: a wild boy separated from an ex-wife and living apart from others, in this case eking out an existence as a security guard. Mateen was apparently entitled to carry a gun in the course of his work, and there will be questions about how he was able to pass security checks, given the police investigations, and wider ones about Americas gun laws and gun culture: after all, this is scarcely the first mass killing in that country in recent years. But it is the one that has claimed the most lives and one for which the apparent motive was unusual and which has deep implications. Mateen deliberately targeted a gay bar. According to his father, he was angered recently by the sight of two men kissing each other in public. The father went on to say that the attack had nothing to do with religion. By this, he doubtless meant that mainstream Islam does not sanction attacks on civilians. This is right. But in another sense it seems to have had everything to do with religion thats to say, with Islamism itself, which seeks to make religious law rather than secular democracy the governing principle. One report notes that a British-born preacher, Farrokh Sekaleshfar, recently urged the death of all gay people. Death is the sentence. Theres nothing to be embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence, he said. He was speaking just outside Orlando as recently as March. We speak of culture wars. It does not usually occur to us as we do so that these can be real wars with real casualties. Orlando is the very worst of what can happen when two cultures indeed clash: the modern one of secular rights, of which gay rights are a part, and the pre-modern one of religious government, in which no rights exist save those that are divinely given. There are many examples in history of peoples having different conceptions of how they should be governed. But it is hard to think of two visions of human conduct that are so irreconcilably different and yet co-exist within the same countries. Most of the time, they rub along together not exactly peacefully, but at least with an absence of conflict obvious conflict, anyway. But now and again, the second assails the first by violence, and people die. Orlando is a warning to all of us, but perhaps most to the Left. Some equality provisions have come from the centre-right it was a Conservative Government that introduced a Disability Discrimination Act but their driving force (lets face it) has usually come from the Left. Over the last 50 years, the Left has done more than the Right to own the slogan Absolutely Equal, and this conservative blog should acknowlege that this is so. But if it is true that the Left has been foremost in pushing the cause of equality, including gay equality, it is also true that parts of the Left are in cahoots with those who would destroy it. A far left-Islamist alliance is struggling to dominate the Left, and has already chalked up some victories including the presence within the Labour Party, one of the great public institutions of British life, of an anti-semitism so vicious that even its present leadership could not deny an official inquiry. Those who come for Jews today will come for gays tomorrow. This is a truth more comprehensively grasped on the Right of politics now than on the Left. It was a Conservative politician who wrote of two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each others habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws. Disraeli was writing about the rich and the poor, but there is another application of his words from Sybil. If he survives this turbulent EU referendum, David Cameron wants to return to his One Nation project. The slaughter in America is a grim reminder of why we need it here. Photo-Voltaics Is Not An Energy Sink In Switzerland By Luis De Souza 13 June, 2016 At TheEdge Of Time Energy Policy recently published a study conducted on the EROEI of Photo-Voltaics (PV) technologies installed in Switzerland. The end result is a remarkably low figure of 0.8:1, well below any EROEI assessments ever conducted on this energy technology. Such a figure naturally made the delight of those campaigning against renewable energy, who take at face value any hints of negative performance. However, from this study a number immediately stands out: average lifetime energy yield of 106 kWh/m2/a. As it turns out, a closer look at this single figure is enough to disprove the hypothesis of PV being an energy sink in Switzerland. Basic check The first check one can conduct on this EROEI study is to compare it with previous assessments. Pedro Prieto and Charles Hall produced what is possibly the most conservative EROEI study on PV, concluding on a figure of 2.4:1 for Spain. There is much to question in this study, in particularly the arbitrary translation of non physical requirements of a PV system into energy inputs, but for the purpose of comparison let this low figure be taken at face value. Yearly solar radiation at the latitude of Madrid (40 N) is in the range of 2 000 kWh/m2. At the latitude of Bern (47 N) this value is down to 1 500 kWh/m2. Assuming the extraordinarily high energy inputs computed by Prieto and Hall for Spain also apply to Switzerland one can directly apply the rule of three to compute an EROEI figure of 1.8:1. Mind here that EROEI is a logarithmic measurement. Therefore 1.8:1 is considerably closer to 2.4:1 than to 0.8:1. These simple figures start showing that something is fundamentally awkward with the results presented by Ferroni & Hopkirk. Why energy per unit of area? The article in itself is not very detailed and leaves much for the reader to guess. However, there is a key figure that plays into this EROEI study that immediately stands out: an average lifetime energy output of 106 kWh/m2/a for solar panels installed in Switzerland. Upfront, it appears a strangely low figure, but there is something more problematic with it. Each solar panel model is designed and built differently, with cells distributed in different ways; even among those produced by the same manufacturer the capacities per unit of area can be quite different. The graph below shows capacities per unit of area for different models presently on sale by various manufacturers, including the world's top three. While Ferroni & Hopkirk never indicate what energy output per installed capacity they use, this sample of panel capacity per unit area allows for some investigation into it. The figure below presents this calculation for these same panel models. Again, the figures vary widely, with the average under 700 Wh/Wp/a. Comparison with PVGIS PVGIS is a web application developed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) that calculates the energy output of a PV system taking into account yearly solar insulation, panel orientation and system losses to cabling, the inverter, temperature, angular reflectance and more. PVGIS has not been updated in a few years and for the most recent systems I have been involved with it underestimates first year output by 5% to 10%. But for this exercise its results are taken at face value. The table below is the result produced by PVGIS for an hypothetical system rated at 1 kWp, optimally oriented and installed around where I live, in the Canton of Zurich (47 N, in the Northwest of Switzerland). The most relevant figure in this report is the energy output estimate: 1090 Wh/Wp/a. While this is an estimate for an optimally oriented system, it provides a good measure of where the annual energy yield figure used by Ferroni & Hopkirk actually lays. PVGIS European Communities, 2001-2012 Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged See the disclaimer here Comparison with Swiss statistics Ferroni & Hopkirk cite the statistics compiled by Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) as the source of their 106 kWh/m2/a figure. There are a number of different documents available from the SFOE website covering all matters of energy generation and consumption. In recent years the SFOE has produced a yearly report of renewable energy with a series of important figures. The report for 2015 is not available yet, therefore the figures used here refer only up to 2014. These are all aggregate values, but are already enough to provide another investigation path into Ferroni & Hopkirk's figure. After going through these reports, one thing becomes evident: the SFOE does not use the energy output per unit area measure cited by Ferroni & Hopkirk. As expected, average electricity generation figures are rather provided in energy output per installed capacity (Wh/Wp/a). Secondly it is important to note that PV is something relatively new in Switzerland, installed capacity has picked up only recently, almost tripling from 2012 to 2014. At the end of 2014 there were 1060 MWp of PV panels installed in Switzerland, a figure that grew 40% that year alone. During 2014 electricity generation from PV reached 841 GWh. Assuming that all the new systems installed in 2014 were connected to the grid on the 1st of January a figure 794 Wh/Wp comes out for the year. This is already on the high side of the possible generation per installed capacity figures used by Ferroni & Hopkirk. However, assuming that these new systems where connected to the grid at a regular pace throughout the year, this number rises to 927 Wh/Wp. This is less than 15% off the PVGIS estimate, and possibly explainable by non optimal orientation of some systems and a small fraction of older and likely less efficient systems. Usually, systems tend to be installed towards the end of the year, to take up the most favourable legislative framework. Possible causes The first cause that comes to mind for such low energy yield figure is an erroneous cell efficiency factor. PV cells are rated in control experiments where their energy output is assessed at a temperature of 25 C and a constant radiation of 1 kW/m2. This assessment is very useful to compare different cell technologies. Modern day wholesale crystalline cells reach efficiency factors between 14% and 16%, i.e. they convert that fraction of incident radiation into electrical current. Since Ferroni & Hopkirk present average lifetime yield in energy per unit area, these authors might have converted incident radiation in Switzerland directly into an energy yield. However, instead of using the figures above, the efficiency factor they used must have been in the order of 8% to 9% to result in an energy per installed capacity value around 690 Wh/Wp/a. Such low conversion factors are more common with thin film technologies. A second hypothesis is the employment of an unusually high cell degradation rate. PV cells loose their properties over time, both to the heat they are exposed to, as to the solar radiation itself. While tools such as PVGIS can easily model system losses, they usually leave this degradation rate out. Research centres such as the JRC have assessed PV technologies for decades, concluding on an energy yield degradation rate in the order of 0.5 %/a. Moreover, these long term studies also indicate that cells tend to degrade in a linear fashion. The following figure presents two hypothetical degradation rates that bring down a PV panel from 1090 Wh/Wp/a to an average yield of 690 Wh/Wp/a over a 25 year lifetime: a liner degradation of 33.5 Wh/Wp/a and a logarithm decline of 4 %/a. In both cases the energy yield dives under half before the end of system life. While this latter hypothesis is my favourite, it does not explain the employment of the strange energy per unit area figure. Also, these degradation rates would assume that in the face of a fast collapse in energy output owners would never activate panel warranty. Final remarks Replacing the inexplicably low energy yield figures used in this study by those available from the SFOE is already enough to bring the Swiss PV park into positive net energy territory. However, such result is still far from previous PV EROEI assessments, even the highly conservative estimate produced by Prieto & Hall. Just as the energy yield assumptions proved problematic in this study, I expect similar awkwardness to be found on the energy input side of the equation. However, I leave this aspect to be assessed by someone else. The publication of such a study by a relatively renowned outlet begs for deep reflection. The last article I authored in a scientific journal was over two years in review; this is usually a slow and painstaking process. Being myself an editor and reviewer at scientific publications, I am at a loss to explain how could such a problematic figure of 106 kWh/m2/a have possibly made through the peer review process. It should have immediately raised a red flag to whoever is slightly acquainted with PV technology and economics, calling for close scrutiny by reviewers and editors alike. Something fundamental has failed in the review process at Energy Policy. The Take Away The EROEI figure concluded by Ferroni & Kopkirk for PV is the lowest ever and far below any previous studies. These authors use awkward units that largely obfuscate their assumptions on yearly energy yield. A sample of various panel models points to an energy yield under 700 Wh/Wp/a used in this study. Official statistics point to an average yield well above 900 Wh/Wp/a for the Swiss PV park; this is in line with values from assessment tools like PVGIS. The peer review process is not functioning properly at Energy Policy. Luis de Sousa is a researcher at the Public Research Institute Henri Tudor in Luxembourg. Save Judith DSouza: Open Letter To The President of Afghanistan By William Gomes 13 June, 2016 Countercurrents.org To, Ashraf Ghani President Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Dear President Ghani, I am William Nicholas Gomes, Human rights defender and Freelance journalist. I am writing to voice my deep concern regarding the abduction of human rights activist Judith DSouza. According to the Indian express, Judith DSouza was abducted in Kabul, Afghanistan, on the 9th June night from the vicinity of Qala-e-Fatullah area of the city. According to her LinkedIn profile, DSouza had been working with the NGO, Aga Khan Foundation in Kabul as a senior technical adviser since July 2015. Before moving to Kabul, she had close to fifteen years of experience as a social and environmental specialist in West Bengal, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and Odisha. DSouza hails from Kolkata where she went to Loreto Day School. She completed her Bachelors in English Honours from St. Xaviers college, Kolkata and followed it up with a Masters in Social Work from University of Mumbai. Since 2000, DSouza has been working actively on gender issues, poverty and environmental conservation with reputed non-profit organizations in India. Some of the names she has worked with include International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), MS Swaminathan Research Foundation and Gram Vikas, Orissa. She has also authored a number of research papers on water management systems. Before having joined the Aga Khan Foundation in Kabul, DSouza had been working as an independent consultant. She provided advice and developed assessment tools on rural development and gender strategies to the Ministry of Rural Development in India and international organizations such as WorldFish, Malaysia, IFAD and International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), Afghanistan. As part of the Aga Khan Foundation in Kabul, DSouza had been working towards conducting research and developing strategies for women empowerment. The abduction of Judith DSouza illustrate not only the dangers faced by women in Afghanistan, but the governments failure to take concrete action to protect women under threat. I express grave concern for the fate and whereabouts of Judith DSouza. I believe that her abduction is directly linked to his peaceful and legitimate human rights work. I urge the authorities in Afghanistan to: Immediately take all necessary measures to locate human rights defender Judith DSouza and to ensure his physical and psychological integrity and security. Carry out an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation into the abduction of Judith DSouza, with a view to publishing the results and bringing those responsible to justice in accordance with international standards. Conform with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, especially: Article 1, which states that everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels; Article 5, which underscores the right of every individual to form, join, and participate in non-governmental organizations; and Article 12.2, which provides that the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of his or her rights; Yours sincerely, William Nicholas Gomes is Human Rights Defender & Freelance Journalist Twitter @wnicholasgomes Email: william@williamnicholasgomes.com The Orlando shooting, Omar Mateen, Terrorism And Islamophobia By Binu Mathew 13 June, 2016 Countercurrents.org The Orlando shooting in a LGBT bar which left 50 dead and 53 injured is an American tragedy of momentous proportions. America with its gun culture and the dominant, vociferous and influential gun rights advocates, Orlando was a tragedy waiting to happen. Lets mourn the victims. More than that lets take it as a moment to make sure that no such tragedy happens in the future. Is that whats happening right now? I doubt. The CNN headline screams Orlando shooting: 50 killed, shooter pledged ISIS allegiance. Within hours of the tragedy President Obama addresses the nation and says "We know enough to say this was an act of terror and act of hate". Lets take Obamas statement first. How does he know, that too within hours of the shooting, with the alleged shooter shot dead by the police enough to say this was an act of terror? Well, the public doesnt know enough to know that it was an act of terror. How did the police gather enough information within hours and pass on to Obama to say that it was an act of terror? According to police sources, as reported by the media, the alleged shooter is Omar Mateen a 29-years-old of Afghan descent. Is that enough to say that it was an act of terror? Does Obama has more information on the alleged shooter that he doesnt want to share with the public? Now that the alleged shooter is dead isnt it in public interest that he shares that information with the world so that we should avoid any such tragedy in future? Obama further said that there was no definitive judgment on the killer's motives, including whether he was affiliated with any terrorist groups. "What is clear is he was filled with hatred". Filled with hatred? How did Obama read the mind of a dead shooter? This speech of Obama is irresponsible and is deliberately fanning hatred. This is only going to raise further the tempo of Islamophobia in American society and elsewhere which Donald Trump raised to a crescendo in his campaign speeches. Now coming back to the CNN headline Orlando shooting: 50 killed, shooter pledged ISIS allegiance. All that one can say is that how convenient! Its like so many similar terror attack stories where the alleged terrorist, in 99.99% cases a Muslim, leaves his I.D in the spot for the investigative agencies just to pick up and prove the identity of a Islamist terror network behind the attack. In the Pulse Night Club Omar Mateen didnt leave an I.D card, but called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS. It was a very kind of the shooter to have called 911 while he was busy shooting down people at random, holding at least 50 people hostage and being surrounded by hundreds of police men firing at him. The same CNN report says, Omar Mir Seddique Mateen was born in 1986 in New York. Most recently he lived in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando. Fearing explosives, police evacuated about 200 people from the apartment complex where he lived while they looked through his residence for evidence. Mateen's parents, who are from Afghanistan, said he'd expressed outrage after seeing two men kiss in Miami, but they didn't consider him particularly religious and didn't know of any connection he had to ISIS. He was married in 2009 to a woman originally from Uzbekistan, according to the marriage license, but he filed documents to end the marriage in 2011. Sitora Yusufiy, interviewed by CNN in Boulder, Colorado, said she and Mateen were together about four months, though it took a long time to complete the divorce because they lived in different parts of the country after separating. Mateen was a normal husband at the beginning of their marriage but started abusing her after a few months, she said. She said Mateen was bipolar, although he was not formally diagnosed. She also said Mateen had a history with steroids. He was religious but she said she doesn't think his religion played in to the attack. The same CNN report further says, At a Sunday afternoon news briefing, FBI Assistant Special Agent Ronald Hopper said the agency was aware of Mateen. The FBI interviewed him in 2013 and 2014 after he expressed sympathy for a suicide bomber, Hopper said. "Those interviews turned out to be inconclusive, so there was nothing to keep the investigation going," Hopper said. Well, the NSA which keeps a tab on our every fart, as revealed by Edward Snowden, couldnt keep track on a potential terrorist! Does it sound credible? Why can't Obama see the obious? It's as clear as day light that the act was a homophobic attack on LGBT community. The responsibility of President of America is to find out where lies the origin of homophobia in American community and work towards ensuring the protection of rights and life of LGBT community rather than putting blame on a particular community by calling it a terrorist attack before clear evidences emerge. To conclude, its the responsibility of President Obama and FBI to make their story credible and not put a whole community under suspicion. Binu Mathew is the editor of www.countercurrents.org and can be reached at editor@countercurrents.org Printer Friendly Version Genetically MODIfied Babies In Gujarat? By Shobha Aggarwal & Dr. P.S. Sahni 13 June, 2016 Countercurrents.org If there are two daughters born in the home, and the third child born is also a daughter, then she is told, now I want a son, so get another wife. Even if the fault is with the man, the entire burden of the fault is on the womans head, and so our government and I have decided that for all such problems, there should be a special hospital, where families can come and there would be research on why, for what reason, back-to-back daughters are born there are some families that have two sons and the home wants a daughter There are physically deformed children being born and miscarriages that are stressful. I keep listening to these stories. But today, there is technology. I can assure you that this can be treated in the womb All such women who are pregnant families who give birth to speech- and hearing-impaired and physically challenged children On the one hand, there will be a hospital where such mothers can go and by sonography they can be treated, and on the other hand there can be research on such families to find out what is the reason behind this? Whose DNA should be changed to get rid of these problems? Therefore in this years budget, a woman and child care hospital will be ready in Ahmedabad in eight months which will solve these problems. (emphasis provided) - Anandiben Patel, Chief Minister of Gujarat, India told a MahilaSammelan in PaviJetpur in ChhotaUdepur on the occasion of Gujarat Foundation Day. (Indian Express, May1, 2016) Genetically modified babies in Gujarat? Thats a bombshell! There has been neither any national debate on the issue; nor any consultation with stake-holders; Parliament is being by-passed as no corresponding law on the subject has been enacted;the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is taken by surprise;so too, the Indian Medical Association of allopathic doctors. No scientific-ethical studies have been undertaken before going ahead with genetically modified babies. With just one country (U.K.) in the whole world having legislated on this issue in 2015, is India being projected as the second country to start genetic modification of babies. Is this part of Make in India policy? There is deathly silence of the so called national press on the issue; there are no op-ed articles or editorials in major national English language dailies. A duly elected Chief Minister of a State swearing by the Indian Constitution ought to follow a policy whereby boys and girls are treated equally. It should not be the business of the government to enter the bedrooms of citizens and ensure birth of a boy (or rarely girl) in a family! Let Nature perform its role. On the other hand equal respect should be accorded to couples who opt not to have a child or are infertile. The cause of infertility lies in the female (1/3rd cases), male (1/3rd cases) and both male and female in the remaining 1/3rd of the cases. It should be the duty of the government to hammer the point so that there is no blame-game within the family. As females have XX chromosomes and the males have XY chromosomes, it is the Male Y chromosome that is responsible for the gender of the foetus and women are not to be blamed. Such information needs to be widely and publicly disseminated. This is the job of the State government. Besides, adoption should be encouraged amongst infertile couples, LGBTQ community and single people. If as the Chief Minister of Gujarat has expressed the services of the medical establishment are used to ensure a couple gets a son after one or two daughters, then the bias against the girl-child is all too patent. There is no need to expend resources to diagnose why couples continue to have daughters only. This, anyway, cannot be part of state policy.In any case as per the 2001 census report there were 920 females to 1000 males in Gujarat; this was brought down to 919 females to 1000 males as per 2011 census report. Of course both the figures are less than the national average of 940 females to 1000 males as per 2011 census report. The concern should be to have more females. The Chief Minister of Gujarat has cleverly talked of a situation where a couple desperately wants to have a girl after one or two boys. This is an exceptional/isolated case. It has been juxtaposed in her publicly aired comments to hide the real purpose of ensuring a boy is born after one or two girls which strengthens the stigma against the girl-child. In the early 1980s the ICMR the apex medical body for conducting medical research started amniocentesis and ultrasonography (USG) tests on pregnant women to detect congenital defects/anomalies in the foetus. The side-effect of this project was the emergence of large scale, unregulated use of USG on a commercial basis to detect the gender of the foetus; of course female foetuses got aborted. Around 0.7 million cases of female foeticide occur annually in India!So much for the hum-bug of detection of congenital anomalies in the foetuses! Earlier during the Internal Emergency period 1975-77 under the then Prime Minister of India, Mrs. Indira Gandhi a programme of population control through vasectomy emerged as the brain child of Sanjay Gandhi the son of the PM and an extra-constitutional body. Millions of forcible vasectomies were performed; even un-married or very old men were operated upon. Michael Egnor in his post The Inconvenient Truth About Population Control, Part 2; Science Czar John Holdren's Endorsement of Involuntary Sterilization writes: The Indian sterilization program, based on principles that Holdren explicitly endorsed in his textbook, sterilized 8 million people -- 6.2 million men and 2 million women against their will. There were 1,774 deaths due to botched sterilization procedures, according to the government's own statistics. Strong legal penalties were instituted against people who resisted, including denial of irrigation water to farmers, denial of food rations, electricity, and medical care. The principle of the Indian socialist government's sterilization program was, "Who refuses sterilization shall not eat." Popular outrage at the population control atrocities played a major role in the fall of the government in elections in 1977, and it continues to play a significant role in Indian politics to this day. Dr. Holdren, who is now President Obama's top science advisor, explicitly endorsed the Indian government's forced sterilization of millions of men. Lessons from history of eugenics Hitler was to some extent inspired by forced sterilization program of California which by 1933 was in the forefront amongst all other U.S. states combined in undertaking maximum number of forceful sterilizations. The Nazis targeted prisoners, dissidents, physically disabled persons, deaf and blind, and homosexuals. Over four hundred thousand people were forcibly sterilized; and more than three hundred thousand killed under a euthanasia program. Nazi Germany had enacted the Law for the Protection of Hereditarily Diseases Offspring on July 14, 1933. Under this law the duly constituted Genetic Health Court could decide if a citizen suffered from a genetic disorder the vast majority of which were not even genetic and to forcibly sterilize such a citizen. The financial support of the Rockefeller foundation and the technological inputs of Dehomag a subsidiary of IBM in that period of history is well documented. Once the Nuremberg laws were passed in 1935, it was mandatory for marriage partners to get tested to exclude hereditary diseases. All this was undertaken to ensure the alleged purity of the Aryan race. A progressive section of western scientists and thinkers have lately drawn attention to the following significant facts, observation and opinions: i. Genetically modified crops/animals already exist; but in the large number of trials that failed, the results of the unwanted crops/animals could just be thrown away without much ethical consideration. ii. The uncertainty which genetic modification involves prevention of one genetic disease may trigger another one. iii. The importance of environmental influence on health deserves to be addressed; once the environmental factors are improved the DNA would function in the best possible ways. iv. For a stable community, diseases and variability in a population are a must as emphasized by Thomas Malthus in the eighteenth century. While presently the research is reportedly confined to genetically modifying the mitochondrial DNA, but sooner rather than later the nuclear DNA would also be subjected to manipulation. This would in the long run lead to crash of human population. The state of Gujarat stands completely polarized along religious lines. One of the most violent anti-reservation stir took place there in the early 1980s. The anti-Muslim pogrom of 2002 has been compared to genocide of Muslims. If the socio-political environment is suffused with biases and hatred towards the subordinate castes and religious minorities and people are at tenterhooks all the while, the chance of infants being born with congenital anomalies, as also still-births and abortions is increased. True, the genetic factors are important. The Gujarat government should ensure peace and tranquility; treat all citizens as equal; provide security to the vulnerable sections of society. The plan to have a hospital for genetically modifying babies in Gujarat should be shelved. In India the caste-system actually translates to a primitive eugenic concept. Even the political leaders, who were in the fore-front of movement against the British rulers, were wary of dismantling the caste-system. There is no reason why present-day politicians should be allowed to get genetic modification program operational in India. Instead inter-caste, inter-religion, inter-racial marriagesshould be encouraged to have a healthy genetic pool in the general population. [Shobha Aggarwal & Dr. P.S. Sahni are members of PIL Watch Group and can be contacted at: pilwatchgroup@gmail.com] Tweet WhatsApp Share Share on Tumblr Comments are moderated SHARE NAMI Evansville friends and families support group about mental illness: Meeting 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Mulberry Place, 410 Mulberry St. Alzheimer's Association Programs: "Know the 10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer's disease," 5-6 p.m. Tuesday; and "Healthy Living for Your Brain and Body," 5-6 p.m. Thursday at the Alzheimer's Association, 701 N. Weinbach Ave. Registration is required by calling 800-272-3900. Sjogren's support group: Meeting at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Newburgh Senior Center, 529 Jefferson St. Information: Sally Dekarske at 812-490-6580. NAMI Dubois County family support group: Meeting 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday at Jasper Memorial Hospital. FA (Families Anonymous): a 12-step fellowship for the family and friends of those individuals with drug, alcohol or related behavioral issues. Meetings are at 10 a.m. Saturdays at Methodist Temple, 2109 Lincoln Ave. Use the Kelsey Avenue entrance, second floor. Information: 812-550-5777. Bereavement support group: Meeting 5:30-7 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of each month in the large group meeting room, second floor of Central Library, 200 SE MLK Blvd. Men's bereavement support group: Meeting 9-10:30 a.m. the second Monday of each month in Room 204 at Deaconess VNA Plus, 610 E. Walnut St. Support group for bipolar/manic-depressive disorder: Meeting 7 p.m. the first and third Wednesday of each month, Kempf Bipolar Wellness Center, third floor of St. Mary's Rehabilitation Institute, 3700 Washington Ave. Information: 812-485-4934. Survivors of Suicide support group: Meeting 6:30 p.m. the first and third Monday of each month, Methodist Temple, 2109 Lincoln Ave. Information: Mental Health America at 812-426-2640. Mending Hearts pregnancy loss support group: Meeting 6:30 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month, Gift Conference Room, off the lobby of St. Mary's Hospital for Women & Children, 3700 Washington Ave. Information: 812-485-4204. Men's cancer support group: Meeting 5:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month, St. Mary's Epworth Crossing Community Conference Room, 100 St. Mary's Epworth Crossing, Newburgh. Information: 812-485-5725. Stroke support group: Meeting 10 a.m. the fourth Wednesday of each month, St. Mary's Community Education Room at Washington Square Mall, 5011 Washington Ave. Information: 812-485-5607. ALS support group: Meeting 6:30 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month, Meeting Room E, Deaconess Gateway Hospital. The support group is for patients, caregivers and survivors who have lost someone to Lou Gehrig's disease. Women's cancer support group: Meeting 5:30 p.m. the second and fourth Monday of each month, St. Mary's Epworth Crossing Community Conference Room. Information: 812-485-5725. Pulmonary fibrosis support group: Meeting 4 p.m. the second Tuesday of each month, Room 1420, Deaconess Hospital, 600 Mary St. Information: 812-450-6000 or deaconess.com/calendar. COPD/asthma support group: Meeting 4 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of each month, Room 1420, Deaconess Hospital, 600 Mary St. Information: 812-450-6000 or deaconess.com/calendar. Parkinson's support group: Meeting at 5:30 p.m. the first Tuesday of each month, Room 350, Deaconess Physician Center, 600 Mary St. Information: 812-450-6000 or deaconess.com/calendar. Tri-State Multiple Sclerosis Association support group meetings: 10 a.m. the second Saturday of each month, Tri-State MS Association Office, 971 S. Kenmore Drive, Evansville (contact Nita Ruxer at 812-479-3544 or Sharon Omer at 270-333-4701); 10 a.m. the fourth Saturday of each month, Gibson General Hospital, fifth floor, first room on the right, 1808 Sherman Drive, Princeton, Indiana (contact Alice Burkhart at 812-782-3735); 11 a.m. the second Tuesday of each month, Twilight Towers, in the cafeteria, 1648 10th St., Tell City (contact Terri Hasty at 812-649-4013 or Gayle Taylor 812-719-2417); 10 a.m. the third Saturday of each month, Daviess Community Hospital, Washington, Indiana (contact Cindy Kalberer at 812-254-6735 or Fran Neal at 812-259-1565); 10 a.m. the first Saturday of each month, Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, 2360 Green River Road, Henderson, Kentucky, (contact Meg Burnley at 270-826-9507 or Debbie Whittington at 270-827-8298); 6 p.m. the second Monday of each month, Owensboro Health Healthpark, 1006 Ford Ave, Owensboro, Kentucky; and 11 a.m. the first Saturday of each month, Fairfield Memorial Hospital in the board room of Horizon Clinic, 303 NW 11th St., Fairfield, Illinois (contact Kathie Hill at 618-847-8452). Compiled by Leah Ward, leah.ward@courierpress.com. SHARE By Len Wells of the Courier and Press A Wayne County, Illinois man has been jailed on charges he stabbed two men during an argument early Sunday morning. Michael L. Brothers, 33, of Geff, has been jailed on felony charges of aggravated battery and unlawful use of a weapon. Wayne County sheriff's deputies were called to the emergency room of Fairfield Memorial Hospital around 12:20 a.m. Sunday, where 39-year-old Donnie A. Simms and 28-year-old Michael L. Weccele were being treated for stab wounds. Simms told police Brothers was at his house in Geff when an argument ensued. Brothers is accused of stabbing Weccele in the forearm and Simms in the back of the head. After the incident, Brothers allegedly threw the knife down and fled the scene. Police found Brothers later Sunday morning and recovered the black folding knife allegedly used in the stabbing. Both victims were treated and released from the hospital. Brothers remains in the Wayne County jail at Fairfield pending the filing of formal charges and setting of bond. ALEX SLITZ / COURIER & PRESS Sabrina Woolsey, of Newburgh, listens to the music of The Honey Vines with three-month-old Araiyah Grace Franklin, of Princeton, during the Tri-State Alliances 37th Annual LGBT Pride Picnic at Burdette Park, Sunday, June 12, 2016. SHARE ALEX SLITZ / COURIER & PRESS Amber Kirkpatrick, (left) hugs A.J. Butler, both of of Evansville during the Tri-State Alliances 37th Annual LGBT Pride Picnic at Burdette Park, Sunday, June 12, 2016. ALEX SLITZ / COURIER & PRESS Michael Lee, of Evansville, blows bubbles during the Tri-State Alliances 37th Annual LGBT Pride Picnic at Burdette Park, Sunday, June 12, 2016. By Zach Evans of the Courier and Press It's usually a celebration of one's self, but Sunday's 37th Annual LGBT Pride Picnic became something different after 50 people were killed Sunday during a shooting at a gay night club in Orlando. "It's a weird kind of providence, the fact Orlando happened right before this," Trevin Jones said at the Tri-State Alliance's event at Burdette Park. "Because our goal grows tenfold. It's almost an effigy. This is our fight back." Jones, an 18-year-old member of the Tri-State Alliance Youth Group, said he's not necessarily concerned something like this could happen in Evansville, because he sees Evansville as welcoming of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Jones hopes the LGBT community and allies respond to the attacks without becoming hateful. "We can interpret the events of the world in any way we want to however they come at us, however beat up we get but the only thing that's really important is how you interpret your reactions to those events," he said. "And if we react to those events with hate, then we become no better than what they are." Skylar Julian, 17, said the pride picnic is a gathering where the LGBT community and allies can be themselves without fear. While being LGBT and living in Evansville isn't as threatening as it was decades ago when the Tri-State Alliance was founded, fear still exists, and the attack in Orlando reminds people of that. "It's reinstilled fear that there are people who want to harm us," Julian said. The slayings in Orlando hung over the event, with moments of silence and remembrance of the Orlando victims throughout, but Julian said it's a reminder for the LGBT community to be strong. "We can't live in fear because of what has happened," he said. "We have to show them that they aren't going to get to us, that we can take a hit like that, and we will come back stronger." Tri-State Alliance President Wally Paynter said the political debate around LGBT issues isn't helping the social climate. "They act like we aren't three-dimensional people. They just act like we're the other, we're wrong, we are the thing that shouldn't be," he said. The LGBT community is not alone, he said. The media and political dialogue paints Muslims and Mexicans in the same light. "We are all three-dimensional people. We are Americans trying to live our lives, have families, have a good job and trying the whole life, liberty and pursuit of happiness thing," he said. The Tri-State Alliance and Zion United Church of Christ in Henderson, Kentucky, plan a candlelight vigil for the Orlando victims and all other victims of hate crime at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the church, 437 First St. in Henderson. SHARE By Len Wells of the Courier and Press Two people from Chandler were injured Sunday morning when the pickup truck they were in was hit by a motor home at an Interstate 64 rest area in Jefferson County, Illinois. The impact caused both vehicles to burst into flames. The driver of the motor home died at the scene. According to Illinois State Police, the motor home, driven by a Knotts Island, North Carolina resident, entered the rest area at a high rate of speed, struck several trees, then crashed into a parked 1986 Chevrolet pickup truck towing a camper trailer. In the pickup truck were married couple Patrick and Jacqueline Outler, both 47, of Chandler. The Outlers were injured and taken to Crossroads Hospital in Mount Vernon, Illinois. The driver of the motor home, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of relatives, was pronounced dead at the scene. A passenger in the motor home was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Mount Vernon and later transferred to a hospital in St. Louis. The collision occurred at 9:55 a.m. The rest area, located at mile marker 85 in Jefferson County, was closed for more than 10 hours for cleanup and investigation by Illinois State police. Like ramen? Here's how to learn about it, and eat more of it, in Evansville Sussex News Story Saved You can find this story in My Bookmarks. Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right. Cloud News Partners Have Opportunities At The Juncture of Cloud Security And Analytics Sarah Kuranda Share this Cloud security presents a big opportunity, but analytics capabilities pose an added revenue bonus that solution providers should make sure they don't miss, security experts said. As more mature customers adopt more cloud solutions, data and cloud metrics are becoming a "big factor" in their security operations center and security information and event management (SIEM) strategies, said JD Sherry, vice president of strategy and innovation at Denver-based Optiv Security. In particular, he added, companies are looking to leverage emerging machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies to automate and orchestrate threat intelligence information. "We are fundamentally seeing the evolution of the security operations center as it pertains to incorporating cloud security data and metadata in security decisions," Sherry said. [Related: Netskope: Malware On The Rise In Cloud Apps Blessed By Enterprise IT Departments] In cloud security, two kinds of opportunities pertain to analytics, said Doug Cahill, senior analyst for cybersecurity at the Enterprise Strategy Group, Milford, Mass. The first involves user behavior through cloud access security broker solutions, he said, which allow companies to identify anomalous behavior on cloud applications. The second, Cahill said, is an opportunity for partners to leverage the cloud as a platform for greater analytics capabilities, particularly around SIEM as a service solutions, which he said help democratize SIEM for businesses of all sizes. As customers look to close the gap between moving to the cloud and looking to secure that adoption, Cahill said, these types of analytics solutions are key. "Organizations are closing the gap between their adoption of cloud technology and their readiness to secure that adoption," Cahill said. "Channel partners that have a core competency in security can engage and consult their clients on how to close the readiness gap." Because of that consultation and engagement, it's much more than just a revenue-builder, he said. "It's certainly a revenue opportunity, but I think it's a strategic consulting and trusted adviser opportunity, said Cahill. Erin Malone, vice president of North American channel sales at Abingdon, England-based Sophos, agreed, saying that while there's a "large revenue opportunity" around cloud security analytics, the bigger opportunity is for partners to establish themselves as trusted advisers. "It makes [partners] become a trusted adviser and gives them another tool in their belt to retain that customer and provide exceptional value to them," Malone said. "I think that's what customers are expecting of partners now." Rick Caccia, chief marketing officer at Exabeam, a security services provider based in San Mateo, Calif., said the trusted adviser position is more important as customers move to the cloud. Partners have a key role, he said, in helping customers make the most of their cloud solutions through analytics, as well as securing them to prevent blind spots created by growing cloud usage. "Customers are trying to figure out how to integrate cloud security and cloud security analytics into their overall IT strategy," Caccia said. "The opportunity for partners is not just on the product side -- its much more important to bring expertise around cloud security strategy, best practices and how to operationalize cloud security. The partner that can become the trusted adviser for cloud security strategy has a much larger opportunity than the partner who simply sells cloud security products." For managed service providers, there is an added opportunity in the midmarket, which is seeing higher demand for analytics technologies but might not have the same in-house capabilities that an enterprise might, said Thom Bailey, senior director of product marketing at Sophos. Customers are looking to outsource those functions for better efficiency, lower costs and better capabilities, he said. "I think there's a huge revenue opportunity for partners to not only provide security tools that can help protect, but to provide analytics, to provide data and that level of forensic investigation," Bailey said. "I think people will pay for it and I think the market is showing that people will pay for it." Julian Martin, vice president of product marketing at London-based solution provider Mimecast, agreed. He said he sees "thriving" partners that understand the shift and can help customers balance between on-premise and cloud environments through managed services, he said. "Nothing has changed for the end user, and they still want to sign off the responsibility to a third party," Martin added. "This post-infrastructure era delivers a wealth of opportunity for the partner if they understand where that opportunity now sits, and with what vendor partner. Nothing has changed for the client; their business still runs the same. It still faces the same threats. The same security, resiliency and business principles still apply but now in a cloud or [Software-as-a-Service] world." However, as partners help their customers maximize the security opportunity around the cloud, its important to ensure that a strong security foundation is in place before taking it to the next level with enhanced analytics, said Rene Bonvanie, chief marketing officer at Palo Alto Networks, Santa Clara, Calif. Bonvanie said partners should focus on learning traffic and user patterns to better understand the environment. Then, that information can be used to look at potential threats and anomalies. "The security will eventually end up giving you enforcement and prevention, whereas the analytics gives you the hope that you understand more things, but in reality it doesn't necessarily give you better security," Bonvanie said. "You have to start with enforcement at the core of what you do, with analytics to help you improve your enforcement." "The analytics never come before security," he said. Optiv's Sherry agreed, saying that analytics has to be put in place "thoughtfully and pragmatically" to make sure it improves the security posture, instead of potentially leaving visibility gaps between existing investments. However, there's a huge opportunity for partners that can accomplish that successfully, he said, and remove the complexity of analytics for customers. "To take the incredibly complex but make it abstracted and make it incredibly simple -- that is our whole goal," Sherry said. Follow all of CRN's Cloud Security Week 2016 coverage. Cloud News Microsoft To Acquire LinkedIn For $26.2B Kyle Alspach Share this Microsoft will acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion, the two companies announced Monday. The $196 per share price represents a hefty premium over LinkedIn's closing price Friday of $131.08. In a news release, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella cited LinkedIn's success at engaging professionals, the core users of Microsoft's products. "Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet," Nadella said. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, who will remain in the position after the acquisition, said that "this relationship with Microsoft, and the combination of their cloud and LinkedIn's network, now gives us a chance to also change the way the world works." Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft plans to finance the acquisition of the Mountain View, Calif.-based social networking site for professionals largely by taking on new debt. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of 2016, pending the approval of LinkedIn shareholders, Microsoft said. Bar Harbor, Maine, has earmarked $9,420 to study the economic impact of cruise passengers visiting. The survey will be conducted by the University of Maine. The University will distribute around 3,000 surveys to passengers over the 2016 cruise season. The surveys will be returned by mail; with the University estimating it will get 1,000 surveys back, according to an official filing from the Bar Harbor Cruise Ship Committee. A final report will come before February 1, 2017. Bar Harbor last did a similar study in 2002, and noted in prior Committee filings that last year was down for retailers. The Maine Port Authority is involved with the survey and is splitting the cost with Bar Harbor, according to a spokesperson. WESTPORT A New York couple have been charged with producing fake credit cards and attempting to use them to purchase large amounts of cigarettes from local stores. Police also found more than 20 cartons of stolen cigarettes in the trunk of their vehicle, said Lt. David Farrell, the department spokesman. 50 people killed in mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando Submitted by: Juana international United States 06 / 13 / 2016 At least 50 people were killed and more than 50 others were wounded when a gunman opened fire and took hostages at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday morning. The shooter, identified by several law enforcement sources as Omar Mateen, 29, was killed in a shootout with law enforcement after a three-hour siege. The massacre the worst mass shooting in the history of the US began when the gunman stormed the Pulse Nightclub about 2 a.m. ET wielding an assault rifle and a pistol, officials said. Law enforcement authorities said that Mateen stormed the club and called 911 from inside to declare his allegiance to the Islamic State and he was heard shouting "Allah Akbar" while engaging officers. The gunman had been investigated in the past for possible terrorist ties, but the F.B.I. ultimately found no evidence. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack Sunday afternoon via its Amaq news agency, Reuters reported. Amaq said an "Islamic State fighter" carried out the assault. However, it was not clear if the shooting was actually directed by the terror group or only inspired by it. "We know enough to say this was an act of terror and an act of hate," President Obama said in a speech from the White House on Sunday, cautioning that it was still early in the investigation. Pulse posted on its own Facebook page around 2 a.m.: "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running." It's owner later said in statement that she was "devastated by the horrific events that have taken place today. Related News Ben Rhodes says that the embargo will be lifted "sooner than people think" Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser of President Barack Obama said at a forum on "cultural diplomacy" with Cuba held on Thursday June 9 at the Meridian International Center in Washington DC, that reopening of relations with Cuba is "irreversible. The senior White House official said remaining legislative restrictions on relations between the two countries including a U.S. travel ban and trade embargo are likely to be lifted by Congress sooner than people think. The fact of the matter is that the American people and the Cuban people overwhelmingly want this to happen, Rhodes said. Frankly, whatever the political realities in either country, for somebody to try to turn this off, they would have to be working against the overwhelming desires of their own people. That ship has sailed, he said. Obama has used his executive authority to implement all of the Cuba actions he has taken thus far. But only Congress can repeal the embargo and other sanctions adopted through legislation over the past half-century. His optimistic words were corroborated even by Republican (Minnesota), Congressman Tom Emmer, one of 22 members of both parties who belong to a House working group on the issue, told the Meridian House audience that 73 percent of Americans are in favor of lifting the embargo. Its no longer a question of if, but when. Thursdays conference included a number of U.S. business and cultural leaders who have taken advantage of the opening and are pressing to widen it. Some were critical of the slowness with which the Cuban government has opened its own doors to economic reforms that would allow greater participation there. source: www.cibercuba.com Cuba and Vietnam to strengthen relations in construction Cuban Construction Minister Rene Mesa, who is on an official visit to Vietnam, held talks with his counterpart Pham Hong Ha in Hanoi. The two ministers discussed the possibility of strengthening the relations in the field of construction, which is of paramount importance to Cuba in order to develop its infrastructure. The Cuban minister explained that Cuba needs access to construction materials to face their growing demand due to the investments made in tourism and to develop industrial areas. Cuba and Vietnam are working to create a joint venture company to produce toilets, wall and floor tiles in Cuba. It is also studying Vietnamese experiences in cement production, with some 90 million tons output annually, he said. Teams and players to watch in the District 5 boys soccer playoffs Check out the teams and players to watch and the District 5 Class 1A and 2A boys soccer playoffs open. Opinion Wordle The next day I woke to find myself in a WhatsApp group titled Quordle is Awesome!! A small group of three. There was no getting out of it now. Once they no longer felt hot, she inserted one inside of her though when it was in, it was much hotter than she'd imagined A New York writer aiming to strengthen her pelvic muscles got off to a rough start when the Kegel-enhancing eggs she used burned the inside of her vagina. Rebecca Jane Stokes, 32, was testing out the very personal exercise tool for the first time, and thought she was following the directions to a T. But as she explained in an essay for YourTango, she was a bit too hasty to get started after cleaning them, and ended up suffering an incredibly painful experience. Lady weights: Writer Rebecca Jane Stokes used one of these stone eggs to enhance her Kegel exercises but wound up in terrible pain 'I decided it would be a good idea to strength train my vagina prior to meeting my current bedfellow, Buddy,' she explained. While some people do Kegel exercises with no tools at all they can be done by repeatedly tensing and relaxing the muscles inside the vagina it's become popular to enlist a little outside help by way of ben wa balls or yoni eggs. Becca felt pretty confident about the strength of her pelvic muscles, but was also aware of the dangers of growing complacent. So, she turned to Etsy, where there are about a thousand listings for pelvic-floor-pumping eggs and balls. She herself picked out a kit of three stone marble eggs in various sizes, which arrives in a 'small pink Chinese-inspired silk bag'. 'It contained three dark green marble eggs ranging from quail-sized to full-on Jumbo chicken. A plastic string was connected to each,' she explained. Picking the medium-sized egg, Becca followed her colleague's advice for cleaning the egg first: She let them sit in a pot of boiling water. At the instructions of a colleague, she boiled them to clean them first and waited until they were no longer hot to use them; however, they stored more heat inside than she imagined She ordered the eggs, which have strings on the bottom for pulling out, from Etsy The suggestion is often made about Kegel eggs, and sometimes comes with the instructions. BOILING allows users to clean their new purchase and re-clean it in between uses without using any chemical disinfectants that could be harmful. 'I treated them pretty much like you would treat an actual egg you were boiling. They went for about 4-5 minutes. I waited another 4-5 before using them,' she told Daily Mail Online. 'This was foolhardy.' Imagine you have shoved a boiling hot marble egg up yourself for purposes of vanity In hindsight, Becca realizes she should have probably waited longer in between boiling the egg and inserting it. But because it didn't feel hot to the touch, she assumed the comfortably warm egg was ready to go. 'They felt warm but not abnormally so,' she added. 'If anything I thought it might even be pleasant.' It wasn't: 'Imagine sipping hot chocolate too quickly and that terrible peeling on the top of your mouth. Now imagine that there is no hot chocolate and that instead you have shoved a boiling hot marble egg up yourself for purposes of vanity.' The inside of a vagina is much more sensitive than fingertips, so the egg that was just warm enough for her fingers felt scorching inside her. The material also likely stores more heat on the inside. But though she called it a 'life-altering ordeal', she wasn't ready to give up on the eggs just yet. After overreacting and placing them in the freezer, she tried them once again a full day later. If a bit too cold, they were, at least, unharmful this time around, and she went on to use the eggs for a week and things they actually helped her muscles. Advertisement Home-brewed beer, responsibly foraged flowers, recycled chairs and a wedding cake made by the bride herself. When Kat Kleu, 30, and Michael Malone, 27, said they wanted a low-key wedding, they definitely weren't understating their intentions. Somewhat unusually for a wedding day, the couple, who were married in Tasmania earlier this year, focused less on celebrating themselves and more on enjoying a day with family and friends. And in the process they produced one of the most beautiful organic weddings you'll see - just how they both intended. Newlyweds: Kat Kleu, 30, and Michael Malone, 27 were married in a low-key ceremony in Tasmania earlier this year Special Day: Ms Kleu is walked down the aisle before being greeted by her husband-to-be under their homemade arbour Nuptials: The couple were engaged for just three months before the wedding and made many of the wedding features themselves 'It was super relaxed, because we had a lot of people flying in from the mainland it was basically about seeing family and friends and showing them where we'd been for the last two years,' Ms Kleu told Daily Mail Australia. 'We werent really into being the centre of attention and just wanted something that was a nice, chilled out celebration. The lush, green bushland of the Tasmanian forest provided the perfect back drop for the completely au naturale ceremony. 'I do': The happy couple seal their marriage with a kiss under their homemade arbour in front of close friends and family Showered with love: The newlyweds are showered with confetti in the form of dried flowers, which in keeping with the wedding's style they dried themselves Stunning: Ms Kleu looked a picture of elegance in a long-sleeved cotton dress designed by Alice McCall Organic: The couple's close family and friends enjoy some food treats beneath the hand made decorative moss balls El Naturale: The couple's organic style shone through on their wedding day, with recycled blackboards and old school apple crates a feature Homemade treats: 'I did the cakes and Michael did all of the homebrew. We foraged the flowers, dried the confetti, made the arbour and made the straw bales' Ms Kleu said In addition to the homebrew, flowers and their wedding cake, the couple even had a hand in making blackboards from recycled paintings, creating moss balls for decorations and even building the arbour under which they said 'I do'. 'We did almost everything ourselves,' Ms Kley said. 'I did the cakes and Michael did all of the homebrew. We foraged the flowers, dried the confetti, made the arbour and made the straw bales. Pretty much everything we made or got from family or friends.' In keeping with the theme of the day, the couple both dressed simply, opting for bare feet throughout most of their special day. Relaxed: The couple both dressed simply in white and opted for bare feet throughout most of their special day Sweet treats: Friends and family baked most of the cakes, however Ms Kleu made her own incredible wedding cake (far left) Recycled treasures: Hand made moss balls, recycled paintings turned into blackboards and a wedding cake made by the bride were the order of the day Chilled vibes: The couple said they didn't want their wedding day to be about them being the centre of attention but rather wanted to see family and friends and show them the sights of Tasmania where they'd been living for the last two years Celebration: A four-piece band played as the couple and their guests celebrated with the beautiful Tasmanian forrest as their surrounding Mr Malone looked suave in rolled-up chinos, an open white shirt and tan suspenders, with his beard adding to his dapper look. While the bride looked a picture of elegance in a long-sleeved cotton dress from Alice McCall. After being together for three years, the pair were engaged just three months before they got married Having recently returned from their two-month long honeymoon in South East Asia, the nature-loving couple have moved back to the main land, again going bush with a home in the Blue Mountains. Nature lovers:The couple have left Tasmania and moved back to the main land, again going bush with a home in the Blue Mountains Hipster honeymoon: After their wedding the couple jetted off for a two-month honeymoon in South East Asia Gorgeous: The beautiful Ms Kleu has her make up done on the morning of her special day, before changing into her designer dress (pictured hanging) Ms Kleu said their stunning wedding photos will be life-long reminders of the couple's special day. 'Mitch Pohls just the best, he actually photographed my sister-in-law's wedding and I knew since then that if I was to get married he would be the one to do it,' she said. 'The whole day was just great. Yes, we got a little bit too drunk in the end but that's fine. Everything went just as we'd hoped.' As seen in issue 13 of Hello May Magazine. Guests enjoy the chilled out atmosphere as they relax on rugs and hay bales with the beautiful bushland as their surrounds Memories: Ms Kleu said she was thrilled with their stunning wedding photos which will be life-long reminders of their special day A woman who had a routine operation to replace her breast implants feared she would die after a flesh-eating bug left her fighting for her life. Lianne Young, 41, from Bristol, was told she had just a 50 per cent chance of survival after undergoing the botched surgery in Bangkok, suffering blood poisoning and necrotising fasciitis. The retired pornstar was so terrified she wrote heart-wrenching goodbye letters to her two children and even planned her own funeral. Lianne Young, 41, from Bristol, was told she had just a 50 per cent chance of survival after undergoing the botched surgery in Bangkok, suffering blood poisoning and necrotising fasciitis - she has now recovered after having the implants removed (pictured) However eight operations and 50,000 later, she has made a good recovery - although she says physical and emotional trauma of her ordeal put her into early menopause at the age of 37. Lianne was 27 when she first had breast implants. She had already enjoyed a successful career as a world famous pornstar and had always been happy with her natural chest. But after having two children, it was not as firm as it used to be. She said: As well as needing a bit of an uplift, my boyfriend at the time preferred women with large breasts so he told me to go bigger. He offered to pay for my boob job and I contributed 500. Lianne, a sex and relationship writer for House of Ardent, went under the knife to take her from a 34D to a 30FF. Over the years she never had a problem with her implants, but in 2013 - ten years after the initial procedure - she knew they would have to be replaced. She said: I was excited because I was going to have my oversized breasts reduced to much more manageable 30Cs. Lianne was 27 when she first had breast implants. After having two children, her chest wasn't as firm so she went under the knife to take her from a 34D to a 30FF (right) After 10 years her implants needed replaced. Lianne did her research thoroughly and chose a clinic in Bangkok, Thailand which came highly recommended Lianne did her research thoroughly and chose a clinic in Bangkok, Thailand which came highly recommended. She said: I had carefully researched the overseas procedures available in both the UK and Australia I was living in Australia at the time and was told a lot of Australians and Brits travel to Asia for surgery, so I settled on a clinic there. The surgery cost 5,000. In April 2013, Lianne travelled to Bangkok with her friend Carl and, at first, was excited about the whole process. She recalled: The hospital entrance looked more like a luxury hotel, with gold-coloured pillar surroundings, lots of curtain-walls and long-run escalators. 'But when I saw my assigned surgeon, he stuck a needle into one of my breasts without warning and started draining the fluid from my implant. At first Lianne was excited about going down to a more manageable 30Cs (pictured a week before the op, left). She felt no pain after the procedure and took a tuk tuk back to her hotel (after, right) However at Lianne's follow up appointment a week later she knew immediately something was wrong. Pictured with her friend Jay 'I was quickly left with one full breast and one that looked like that of a 90-year-old woman. When I was sent to the waiting room afterwards I thought, theres no backing out now. Lianne was then taken to a room where she was given a gown to change into and taken to surgery. On coming round after the operation, she felt numb and wondered if the procedure had even taken place. There was no pain at first but when I saw my bandaged chest I knew the surgery had been done, she said. I was still high on morphine. Lianne was taken to her hotel in a tuk tuk, helped into her bed and given a Rohypnol tablet. Seven days after the procedure she returned to the clinic to have a follow-up examination. I removed my top and lay down, she said. The doctor cut through the first layer of bandage wrap and pulled it away. She said: 'Right away I could see blood and a yellowish substance, which had soaked through and made the dressing stick to my skin.' She flew back to the UK where her implants were removed, right 'Right away I could see blood and a yellowish substance, which had soaked through and made the dressing stick to my skin. I asked if I could see my new breasts but I was told to lie still. 'So, when the doctor looked away, I took the opportunity to take a photo using my phone. Thats when I felt the blood drain from my face. What I could see in the picture did not look good at all. The specialist confirmed Lianne had blood poisoning, necrotising fasciitis and a blood clot from her upper arm to the top of her chest Liannes breasts were badly bruised and infected, with pus oozing from the unhealed wounds. Her left breast was more badly damaged than her right. I should have screamed but I couldnt find my voice, let alone catch a breath, she said. I was hoping to wake up from the nightmare at any moment but of course, it was all real. 'The examination room was spotless, but it may as well have been a sleazy and dirty back street surgery. Desperate to escape, Lianne got on the next flight and flew home in agony. There, she went straight to the doctors and was seen by a specialist. I asked him if I was going to survive but he simply couldnt give me an answer. I couldnt believe there was a chance I could die from this botched boob job. The specialist confirmed Lianne had blood poisoning, necrotising fasciitis and a blood clot from her upper arm to the top of her chest, so she was admitted to hospital immediately. Two days later she was given two operations to save her life, which involved removing both implants along with breast tissue. Afterwards I couldnt bring myself to look at my chest, Lianne said. I was in shock that my life had done a complete U-turn, Id gone from someone who had always been concerned with their appearance and looking good, to a sick patient who was literally falling apart. Lianne was left with a flat 30A chest, which she found a relief knowing everything had been removed. But over the next few weeks she lost two stone and a tooth, along with half her hair and nails: a side effect of blood-thinning medication and a depleted immune system. She lost two stone and a tooth, along with half her hair and nails: a side effect of blood-thinning medication and a depleted immune system, left. Given just a 50% chance of survival she began planning her own funeral, making notes of the songs she wanted, and wrote goodbye letters to her children Things went from bad to worse when I suffered an internal bleed, she said. My consultant took one look at me and immediately identified the 800cc interna bleed as one of the biggest he had ever seen in his long career. 'Then before my surgery he told me it was official - I was the owner of the worst boob job he has ever witnessed. Lying in her bed, Lianne refused to let her two children, then 17 and 19, come and visit her. She spent hours crying, regretting ever having had a boob job in the first place. At one point her breast filled with blood despite the implant having been removed She even began planning her own funeral, making notes of the songs she wanted, and wrote goodbye letters to her children. My body wasnt coping and nor could I, she said. Knowing I only had a 50 per cent chance of survival sent me into a nervous breakdown. I just had no idea how things had got so bad. Eventually though, Liannes health improved and she had reconstructive surgery. However it was unsuccessful as her left breast implant would not stay in place and three months later she had another operation. Again her breasts rejected the implants and so they had to be removed. I was left with immense scarring and deformed breasts, one with half a nipple, she said. I couldnt live looking like that so I went under the knife again for scar removal and reconstruction without implants. 'Luckily it worked. I am now implant free and have had scar removal and tattooing for my remaining nipple. Altogether, Lianne had eight operations to keep her alive and spent spent a total of 50,000 to get her breasts looking normal again. Since then, she has discovered the surgeon who replaced her implants was not properly qualified. Unfortunately, lawyers have told me its impossible to sue a clinic once youve left Asia and that the countrys authorities simply wont cooperate, she said. Altogether, Lianne had eight operations to keep her alive and spent spent a total of 50,000 to get her breasts looking normal again (pictured now without implants) Ive also learnt that theres a difference between cosmetic and plastic surgeons. Ive been told that the latter require a minimum of 12 years specific training and must be registered under a specialist medical board, whereas cosmetic surgeons dont and may have received no training at all. Now Lianne has got a new partner and built up enough confidence for him to see her body. She has also written about her experiences in a biography, which she hopes will make other women think twice before having cosmetic surgery. 'This whole ordeal has affected my life in many ways and is ongoing both physically and mentally,' she said. 'Having the boob job resulted in me entering premature menopause at 37 and I have recurring seromas that need draining several times a year. Making her balcony debut to celebrate her grandmother's 90th birthday, 13-month-old Princess Charlotte charmed the nation on Saturday. Adorably dressed in a head-to-toe pink outfit, Princess Charlotte certainly stole the show and - much like her mother - proved she is becoming quite the style icon. Whilst her mother, Kate, chose to dress in a high-end Alexander McQueen coat dress and Philip Treacy hat, she turned to the high street for daughter Charlotte. Scroll down for video Adorably dressed in a head-to-toe pink high street outfit, Princess Charlotte certainly stole the show during the Trooping the Colour, marking the Queen's official 90th birthday Whilst it is still unknown where Princess Charlotte's dress is from, her accessories cost just 34.50. Her pink bow, which had the crowds cooing, was from one of Kate's favourite brands, Amaia Kids. The 2.50 bow is hailed 'the perfect accessory to any outfit' and 'the final touch to a cute look'. The label is one that Kate has turned to on many occasions, most notably for her daughter's first official portrait. The little princesss pretty little blue and pink hair bows cost just 2.50 each from Amaia. Her ribbed tights (both pink and blue) were also by Amaia, and cost 11 each. Kate also dressed Prince George in the brand for his first official portrait in 2014. In his charming Christmas portrait, the 16-month-old wore a pair of corduroy shorts and socks by Amaia Kids. Charlotte's shoes are by another brand that Kate has stayed loyal to; Children's Salon. The 29 Girls Pink Leather 'Emma' Pre-Walker Shoes are described on the website as 'very pretty pink leather shoes by Early Days' and are hailed as very durable The little princesss pretty little blue and pink hair bows cost just 2.50 each from Amaia, left, whilst her socks are from Spanish brand, Barcelona CND, and cost 3.10, right The co-owners, whose shop is located in Kate's stomping ground of Chelsea Green, at the time said they were 'delighted' that the Royal chose to dress her son in their designs. Speaking to MailOnline about George wearing the 36 Griotte shorts and 7 socks, Amaia Perso, the shop's co-owner, said: 'The Duchess of Cambridge has been visiting our shop regularly ever since George was a little baby. 'We feel really proud and honoured. We are a small brand and she could have taken her pick of any brand, so we are really really grateful to her for picking us.' Her socks are from Spanish brand, Barcelona CND, and cost 3.10. The socks were no doubt a gift from her Spanish nanny, Maria Borrallo, who often seemingly snaps up clothes for the Princess on trips home to her native Spain. Her shoes are by another brand that Kate has stayed loyal to: Children's Salon. The 29 Girls Pink Leather 'Emma' Pre-Walker Shoes are described on the website as 'very pretty pink leather shoes by Early Days.' Whilst Princess Charlotte's dress is yet to be identified, many brands offer similar styles, such as this 44 offering by Feltman Brothers, left, and this 99 dress by Spanish brand, Irulea Whilst it is still unknown where Princess Charlotte's dress is from, her accessories cost just 34.50 Trooping the Colour may have impressed the crowds yesterday but it was the open and obvious happiness of the Cambridge family that delighted The pale pink dress had pink smock stitching across the front and short puffed sleeves In a traditional, feminine 'mary jane' style, they have a bar strap with a little button fastening and a scalloped edge. The sole is made from synthetic suede, which the brand say is very hard wearing and perfect for toddling. Charlotte has a blue version of the shoes and wore them for her adorable birthday shoot in May this year. With every one of their outings, it becomes clear that Kate prefers to dress her tots in traditional, understated clothing, which, say experts, is deliberately chosen by the Duchess so as not to create an inappropriate frenzy around their outfits. Amaia Kids is a label that Kate has turned to on many occasions, most notably for her daughter's first official portrait, left, when she wore a blue bow by the brand. She also wore a blue version of her pink Children's Salon shoes for the occasion. Kate also dressed Prince George in the brand for his first official portrait in 2014, right. In his charming Christmas portrait, the 16-month-old wore a pair of corduroy shorts and socks by Amaia Kids Children's style guru Suzanne Peters agreed that there's more to the nostalgic style Kate has chosen for her children than just personal taste. 'Prince George and Princess Charlotte clearly have a very defined style that almost makes them look identical from one image to the next that we see of them,' she said. 'Some might say its nostalgic or old fashioned. Yes, it does look like we did when we were kids, in fact, even generations before us but I would say their style is traditional, timeless and classic. 'The Duchess actually dresses her kids the way the Spanish dress their kids today in fact a number of the brands they wear are actually from Spain, like Amaia Kids and M&H. 'It must be hard for the Duchess as she is such a style icon and I guess she doesnt want that pressure on her kids. Its almost opting out for them fashion-wise. 'They dont wear the latest greatest designer kids gear from Gucci or Dior, for example they wear under the radar, inoffensive clothes that hopefully encourage people to look at the children and their smiles, rather than what brand they are wearing. 'These children are public figures and have formal occasions to attend even at such a young age. So they need clothes that are appropriate and can work for those occasions, whilst standing the test of time. Its not something any child other than a Royal one would ever have to contend with. 'Though of course, by choosing to dress her kids in this style, the Duchess has triggered a big revival in the buying of more traditional kids clothing.' A mother-of-three has written a plea to M&S in a bid for them to ditch their 'perfect' models like Alexa Chung and let her advertise their clothes instead - warts and all. Blogger Alison Stankard, from Timperly, Gtr Manchester, approached the 'bastion of British style' claiming her non-threatening size 12 frame would be a better fit for the job than current model Alexa Chung. The 43-year-old, who runs fashion and parenting blog 'Totes Inappropes', said she would love to work with the high street brand as she shops there all the time and feels she is a more realistic icon. Alison Stankard, a blogger from Timperly, Gtr Manchester, 43, has posted a plea to M&S to model their clothes, in a bid for them to ditch their 'perfect' models like Alexa Chung - claiming she'd be a better fit for the job, warts and all Her social media plea to be the next Alexa Chung or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley - women she said are 'too perfect' and 'unrealistic' - has since gone viral, racking up more than 2,000 likes and shares. Estate agent Alison said: 'I though M&S might like to use the pictures I model for on my blog. 'Alexa is just too perfect, I mean she's lovely isn't she? But I think people get jealous of how good looking she is. 'She pulls off any type of clothing but the rest of us don't do it so well - you could put her in a bin bag and she'd look good. 'I shop in M&S quite a lot and would love to work with them. 'If M&S don't come back to me I'd like for somewhere like Chanel or Mulberry to get in touch. I want them to name one of their handbags after me.' Estate agent Alison, left, showing off her style credentials, said: 'I though M&S might like to use the pictures I model for on my blog. 'Alexa Chung, right, is just too perfect, I mean she's lovely isn't she? But I think people get jealous of how good looking she is' The 43-year-old said she would love to work with the high street brand as she shops in there all the time and feels she is a more realistic icon - and her Facebook post garnered thousands of likes Alison often posts about life with her children, pictured are Oscar, 6, Ted, 4, and Bella, 8 Alison's social media plea is to be the next Alexa Chung or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, pictured modelling her lingerie and clothing ranges for the store - women she said are 'too perfect' and 'unrealistic' Alexa Chung recently unveiled and modelled the archive collection for the high street stalwart Alison has been keeping her blog, which focuses on style ideas, fashion and her love of wine and gin, for about a year and has now racked up more than 41,000 likes. She also shares regular updates on the trials and tribulations of bringing up her three children Ted, four, Oscar, six, and Bella, eight. Her blog takes a more honest approach to parenting - involving a lot of swearing - but gets great reaction from her fans. The 43-year-old runs fashion and parenting blog 'Totes Inappropes' and often posts about alcohol and the realities of parenting The mother posted the letter on social media in a bid to be the next Alexa Chung or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley - who are just 'too perfect' and 'unrealistic' to most women Alison's blog takes a more honest approach to parenting - involving a lot of swearing - but gets great reaction from her fans Alison posts funny snaps on her blog, such as this one with sons Ted, 4, and Oscar, 6 Alison said: 'My blog was set up about a year ago and it just started as a fashion blog and developed from there. 'It's just the ramblings of me really and whatever mood I'm in that day. 'I swear on it a lot and post pictures of alcohol, I shout at my kids a lot on it too. 'It's my way of having a whinge really, I say what a lot of people are thinking but won't say and wanted to show the realistic side of parenting as opposed to the perfect pictures people normally put on Facebook. 'I've had a couple of posts that have gone viral before and now I've got thousands of followers which is amazing.' A spokesman for Marks & Spencer said: 'We're always listening to our customers' feedback and it is great to hear Alison enjoys shopping in our Manchester Store and likes our popular Archive by Alexa collection. 'As one of the UK's largest retailers, we cater for a very broad audience and our campaigns feature a diverse selection of models.' Alison said: 'My blog was set up about a year ago and it just started as a fashion blog and developed from there. It's just the ramblings of me really and whatever mood I'm in that day' Alison says her blog is her way of having a whinge and she says what a lot of people are thinking but won't say The stylish mother claims that she wanted to show the realistic side of parenting as opposed to the perfect pictures people normally put on Facebook Advertisement A couple celebrated tying the knot with a spectacular Alice In Wonderland-themed wedding reception. Natalia Kurzawa, 26, and her husband Rafael, 29, of Wroclaw, Poland, spent a year planning their Lewis Carroll-inspired celebration. The couple wed at a catholic church in Wroclaw before celebrating in the Polish city at the Art Hotel, which was transformed into the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Natalia Kurzawa, 26, and her husband Rafael, 29, of Wroclaw, Poland, spent a year planning their Lewis Carroll-inspired celebration Natalia said: 'Alice In Wonderland is magical, evocative and unforgettable, making it the perfect inspiration for a wedding, in our opinion' The venue featured brightly coloured flowers, mismatched teacups, grass covered tables, a topsy-turvy cake and playing cards. Following the tea party in April, Natalia and Rafael enjoyed an Alice in Wonderland-themed photoshoot and the couple were joined by their pet white rabbit, Bobo. Natalia, who met Rafael in a tearoom four years ago, said: 'We both decided to have an Alice In Wonderland theme because the book means a lot to us. 'On the day that we met, the Alice In Wonderland book was lying on the bookshelf next to our table. The couple wed at a catholic church in Wroclaw before celebrating in the Polish city at the Art Hotel, which was transformed into the Mad Hatter's Tea Party 'From that day on, we decided to 'go down the rabbit hole' together, and we haven't looked back since. Following the tea party in April, Natalia and Rafael enjoyed an Alice In Wonderland-themed photoshoot and the couple were joined by their pet white rabbit, Bobo, left 'Alice In Wonderland is magical, evocative and unforgettable, making it the perfect inspiration for a wedding, in our opinion.' The newlyweds spent a year collecting Alice In Wonderland trinkets for their wedding reception, including vintage tea pots which were filled with fresh flowers, keys and clocks. Natalia, a make-up artist, even hand made some 'this way' and 'wrong way' signs to add to the Wonderland theme. Rafael, a business consultant, said: 'Our greatest inspiration when we planned the wedding was the Mad Hatter and his colourful tea party. The newlyweds spent a year collecting Alice In Wonderland trinkets for their wedding reception, including vintage tea pots which were filled with fresh flowers, keys and clocks Natalia, a make-up artist, even hand made some 'this way' and 'wrong way' signs to add to the Wonderland theme Natalia said: 'We chose pink, purple and blue flowers which looked beautiful against the green of the grass covered tables' The venue featured brightly coloured flowers, mismatched teacups, grass covered tables, a topsy-turvy cake and playing cards 'We chose pink, purple and blue flowers which looked beautiful against the green of the grass covered tables. 'We wanted to take our guests on an extraordinary journey and show them our idea of a real wedding wonderland. 'Our reception venue even had a huge mirror which reflected the room, making it look like we were entering another world.' The couple, who wed this April, invited 15 friends and family members to their wedding and enjoyed an intimate celebration. The couple, who wed this April, invited 15 friends and family members to their wedding and enjoyed an intimate celebration Natalia said: 'We wanted to take our guests on an extraordinary journey and show them our idea of a real wedding wonderland' The reception venue even had a huge mirror which reflected the room, making it look like the guests were entering another world Natalia said: 'We wanted a whimsical feel at our Mad Hatter's Tea Party and a mystical wonderland for the photoshoot, which I think we achieved' A pair of playing card cuff links for the groom, while the bride wore shoes inspired by the Queen of Hearts Natalia said: 'We wanted a whimsical feel at our Mad Hatter's Tea Party and a mystical wonderland for the photoshoot, which I think we achieved. 'Our guests thought that the wedding was beautiful and really enjoyed themselves. Our wedding is a proof that every idea is possible. 'You only need a little bit of courage to break out beyond the standards and make your dreams come true.' Rafael added: 'We hope that our wedding will help to inspire other couples to make their wedding dreams come true too.' The bride poses with her Wonderland-themed trinkets. The couple hope their wedding will inspire others to 'break out beyond the standards' and make their dreams come true Natalia said: 'We wanted to take our guests on an extraordinary journey and show them our idea of a real wedding wonderland' The couple pose in their Wonderland-inspired wedding outfits. Rafael added: 'We hope that our wedding will help to inspire other couples to make their wedding dreams come true too' Natalia in her Wonderland scene. On the day the couple met, the Alice In Wonderland book was lying on the bookshelf next to their table A former anorexic won her fight with the eating disorder so she could jet off to Australia to work on an avocado farm. Sophia Jansson, 25, from Stockholm, Sweden, started battling the life-threatening illness when she was just 12-years-old. The beautiful blonde, who now lives in Queensland, Australia, was a competitive gymnast and felt the pressure to stay slim for her sport. After a back injury left her immobile for a month she restricted food to compensate and her weight dramatically dropped. Scroll down for video Sophia Jansson, during her battle with anorexia, which the former competitive gymnast developed at age 12 after injuring her back an becoming bedridden and tried to reduce her food intake because she wasn't exercising Sophia Jansson after recovery and winning her fight with the eating disorder so she could jet off to Australia to work on an avocado farm Ms Jansson is now happily living in Queensland, having beaten the eating disorder after years of trying Ms Jansson was taken out of school and to a day care clinic where she was diagnosed with anorexia in 2013, even though she'd been suffering for years. She said: 'I wanted to be the best at everything I did. I compared myself to everyone else and I started to cut out certain food from my daily life. 'I was so stressed and so anxious all the time, constantly thinking about my weight, appearance, training and food. 'My intention was never to lose a lot of weight, I just wanted to eat a bit less so I wouldn't gain any weight while not being able to train. 'But I miscalculated big time, and my weight dropped drastically. 'By the time my back was healed, my body was so weak from the big weight loss, and I couldn't do anything anymore. Ms Jansson would repeatedly recover only to crash again and be remitted to the clinic - until she decided to move to Australia for the first time Ms Jansson has now recovered from the disease which she struggled with for more than a decade With the help of a dedicated team, Ms Jansson decided to give recovery another go and to learn from her past 'In my mind I believed this was because I was too fat, and I needed to punish myself with not eating.' Over the next few years, Ms Jansson would slowly get better only to crash again and be remitted to the clinic - until she decided to move to Australia for the first time. Determined to live the dream down under, she convinced everyone she was recovered. However, she was still sick and by the end of a year in Australia, her past demons had returned with a vengeance. She spent four months in hospital, being watched around the clock. She described the time as 'both the worst and the best months of my life. It totally changed me. 'It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my whole life. I was screaming and crying, I even escaped a few times. 'I was going insane. I wasn't allowed to move more than absolutely necessary. 'I cheated all the time as my demons were too strong and I couldn't resist following anorexia's voice.' 'I was still in such a bad place at that time, I could not see any positive thing with life which resulted in serious thoughts about ending my life.' Ms Jansson travelled to Queensland for a second time - when she had recovered - to work on an avocado farm Ms Jansson pictured after recovering from anorexia. She says she's now living her life to '110 per cent' With the help of a dedicated team, Ms Jansson decided to give recovery another go and to learn from her past. She said: 'I followed every single little step my case managers and nutritionist told me to do. 'I put myself on autopilot for a while. Both my physical and mental health improved and I decided to go visit my best friend in America. 'I came back to the clinic with so much more energy and for the first time, I was determined to get better. My case manager and I still talk about that trip as my fresh start. She recalled the summer of 2014 as the first she was truly happy. To round off her recovery she moved back to Australia with a different mind-set. She said: 'The Australia trip has helped me in so many ways - I wanted to show everyone, including myself, I could take care of me. 'I also want to spread my story around the world, to show that there is hope. 'I am now living my life to 110 per cent, doing everything I have ever wanted. 'There are too many places I want to visit, so many fabulous people I want to meet, so many jobs I want to try, courses at university I want to take. 'I will never let anorexia control me or my life again.' She said her trip to Australia was a chance to prove she could take care of herself after recovering Princess Charlene stole the show last night as she attended a red carpet event with her husband Prince Albert in Monte Carlo. The Princess of Monaco showcased her signature elegance as she rubbed shoulders with the stars at the 56th Festival De Television de Monte Carlo. The mother-of-two oozed sophistication in a floor-length white gown as she stepped out on the arm of her husband yesterday. Princess Charlene channelled Hollywood glamour at the 56th Festival De Television de Monte Carlo last night The 38-year-old added some Hollywood glamour to her ensemble pairing her outfit with a glitzy diamond necklace and matching earrings. The royal finished her look with a slick of classic red lipstick while the rest of her makeup was kept natural and understated. Her husband Prince Albert, 58, looked dapper in a black suit and added a touch of colour to his outfit with a blue silk tie. The mother-of-two joined husband Prince Albert at the annual festival which celebrates the small screen. Pictured: The couple greet actress Marg Helgenberger The royal pair happily posed with the CSI Miami actress, who joined them on the red carpet last night The prince and princess were greeted by a flurry of other A-listers during last night's event in Monte Carlo. American actor and director Danny Glover beamed as he posed for photos with Charlene and Albert, who were also joined by Canadian actor Jason Priestley. Both Charlene and her husband seemed especially thrilled to meet the acquaintance of CSI actress Marg Helgenberger, who shook hands with the pair before posing for photographs. American actor and director Danny Glover (left) beamed as he posed for photos with Charlene and Albert who were also joined by Canadian actor Jason Priestley (right) The couple's appearance at the festival should come as no surprise as the event itself has a royal heritage. Created in 1961 by Prince Rainier III, the Television Festival of Monte-Carlo brings together producers, policy makers and a host of celebrities in celebration of the small screen. The event, which runs from 12-16 June, will see more than 3000 interviews at the famous Grimaldi Forum, covered by 250 journalists from the press. Princess Charlene stunned in her white floor-length gown while Albert looked dapper in a black suit The couple's appearance at the festival should come as no surprise as the event itself has a royal heritage, created in 1961 by Prince Rainier III The royal couple have been married for four years and have 19-month-old twins Gabriella and Jacques. The births of the young Prince and Princess were greeted with cannon fire and an excited outpouring of joy from locals, as well as sighs of relief within the Monegasque royal family. The arrival of Prince Jaques meant that a legitimate male heir to the throne had finally arrived, putting an end to one of Europe's longest-running dynastic sagas. It was part of the flag renovation for the Regiment of Engineers She was given the honour of delivering the Spanish flag to Salamanca She and her husband also sent a telegram of Queen Letizia paid an emotional tribute to the victims of the Orlando night club massacre during an official visit to Salamanca today. The 43-year-old royal looked sombre during a ceremony to deliver the Spanish flag to the Regiment of Engineers. During her visit to the town in the north west of Spain Letizia took the opportunity to say a few words in support of the victims of the Orlando massacre that has shocked the world. Scroll down for video Queen Letizia of Spain today paid tribute to the victims of the Orlando massacre during a visit to Salamanca The monarch made a speech where she condemned the deaths of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and said that such atrocities can only be combated by 'working together'. Earlier today Letizia and her husband King Felipe VI sent a telegram of condolence to President Barack Obama where they expressed 'in the strongest terms' that this was an attack 'against all principles', La Vanguardia reported. Letizia was not joined by the king for her engagement this afternoon where she was given the honour of delivering the nation's flag to the Engineer's Regiment. The mother-of-two wore a sombre expression as made a speech condemning the deaths of 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and said that such atrocities can only be combated by 'working together' The queen joined members of the Regiment of Engineers (one of which is pictured right) as she was given the honour of delivering the Spanish flag to the town The flag renovation event was held at the Plaza Mayor square. Upon delivering the flag, the queen stood proudly on a plinth while members of the regiment saluted. She was joined by members of the regiment, decorated in all of their medals, who accompanied the queen throughout the day. Letizia, who was wearing an embroidered blush coat with matching dress, also found time to greet well-wishers who had lined the streets in a hope to catch a glimpse of the royal. The royal wore a solemn expression throughout her engagement with her mind clearly focused on the harrowing events of the weekend. The flag was delivered as part of a flag renovation held the Plaza Mayor square in Salamanca Upon delivering the flag, the queen stood proudly on a plinth while members of the regiment saluted Earlier today the queen and her husband King Felipe VI sent a telegram to President Obama where they expressed 'in the strongest terms' that this was an attack 'against all principles' The queen also found time to greet well-wishers who had lined the streets in a hope to catch a glimpse of her Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded more than 50 others after he opened fire inside and outside gay club Pulse in Orlando early Sunday morning. According to the FBI, Mateen, 29, of Port St. Lucie in Florida, reportedly laughed as he sprayed bullets into the crowded club before he was shot dead by a SWAT team several hours after launching his horrific massacre with a legally bought assault rifle and pistol. She even holds an editorial meeting at a table in the back before welcoming Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld to the store She goes there in a limo and has her assistant make her a container of hot food from the buffet As Anna, she says that no place is 'more New York' than her favorite deli and bodega Maya plays the editor-in-chief in a sketch for her NBC show Maya & Marty In real life, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour holds editorial meetings at the magazine's incredible One World Trade Center headquarters, dines at Manhattan's most high-end restaurants, and runs into Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld at his star-studded fashion shows in Paris. But in funny lady Maya Rudolph's reimagining of the Vogue boss' life, Anna has a few unexpected and unglamorous guilty pleasures. In a sketch from her new NBC sitcom Maya & Marty, the 43-year-old plays Ms. Wintour as we've never seen her before, nipping into her favorite bodega for imitation crab, green jello, and pilfered packets of hot sauce. She's so funny: Maya Rudolph plays Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour in a new sketch from her NBC show Maya & Marty She is seen driving around in a limo with her assistant, who silently types on a phone next to her They then pull up to Han's Deli Bodega, which she says is the most 'New York' place in Manhattan 'I'm Anna Wintour and this is my New York,' Maya says in a perfect imitation of Anna's soft English accent. The actress is then seen sitting in the back of a limo, dressed as Anna in a white Chanel-like suit, a stiff bob, and sunglasses. Next to her is her assistant, plugging away silently on a smartphone. A designer bag sits between them. 'New York is fashion. It's refinement. It's luxury.The city, if it were a garment, would be a silk men's blouse. Loose, and too big,' she says, sounding just like the fashion boss. She then gets distracted looking alongside the inside of the car, explaining: 'I had them put a button on here so I can honk the horn.' Finally, she finds it and honks the horn. The faux-Anna says she loves the deli, which the real Anna Wintour would likely never step foot in Inside, she points out food she wants to her assistant, who loads up a container for her She mixes watermelon, which she calls 'red fruit', with tuna, jello, and dumplings She says that the imitation crab there is the best in the city, though the real Anna eats at New York City's nicest restaurants 'To me, there is no place more New York than Han's Deli Bodega across from Church's Chicken,' she then says unexpectedly, pulling up outside the unassuming deli. The bodega, which is actually in the trendy Soho neighborhood and nowhere near a Church's Chicken, is the last place a person would naturally expect to find Anna yet there she is opening the door and making her way inside. Once in the bodega, she immediately walks over to the hot food display, where a pay-by-weight buffet is lined up for the taking. Her assistant walks behind her, filling up a plastic container as foods are pointed out to her. Maya-as-Anna gestures to the 'red fruit' watermelon first, before adding: 'They have tuna. You can never have too much tuna.' The wealthy fashion boss stocks up on hot sauce packets, remarking that customers can take as many as they want Unlikley spot: She even holds an editorial meeting at a table in the back of the store Maya does a perfect impression, down to Anna's signature bob and accent Behind her, the assistant piles the canned fish on top of the watermelon before adding dumplings and green jello. The rather disgusting meal seems hilarious considering Ms. Wintour really eats at such pricey hot spots and dining institutions as ABC Kitchen, Minetta Tavern, and Balthazar. 'This is the best crab in the city. It's immigration crab but you literally cannot tell,' she then says before surreptitiously stuffing a piece in her mouth. As she pays for her unlikely lunch, she stuffs dozens of hot sauce packets from the counter in her designer bag, remarking that 'they don't even check' while the store's staff eye her unhappily. After chowing down, she sits down to hold an editorial meeting at a table in the back of the bodega, where sunglasses-wearing fashion editors look incredibly out of place pouring over proofs next to the groceries. She says that Karl Lagerfeld, who is played by Martin Short in the clip, loves the bodega, too, because the bathroom doesn't require a key They kiss hello as Karl asks about whether the bodega has restocked the lo mein He tells her he loves her outfit except for her necklace, after which Anna becomes uncomfortable The real Anna and Karl are obviously much unlike Maya and Martin's funny reimagined versions 'Fire this model. Find the photographer and slap him. And send me the proof that you've done it,' she tells the group. 'Occasionally I run in to Karl Lagerfeld here,' she says as the camera cuts to her once again at the front of the bodega. 'He comes because you don't need a key for the bathroom. That's when Karl played by Martin Short comes in, telling his assistants that he is looking forward to the turkey jerky. He and Anna greet each other with a series of cheek kisses that go on for an awkwardly long amount of time/ 'So have they refilled the lo mein noodles yet today?' Karl asks Anna. 'You're going to love what you see,' she answers. Medics fought to stop the illness from spreading to other areas of her body A young mother has spoken of her horror after a tiny 'bruise' on her daughter's chest turned out to be life-threatening meningococcal B. Jazmyn Parkyn, was hospitalised for a month following her brush with the potentially fatal infection which can lead to meningitis and sepsis. Thankfully, the four-year-old survived but the youngster's legs have been left ravaged after she had 15 skin grafts to remove the dead tissue the illness left behind. Her parents have now released harrowing images of their daughter to warn how meningitis can invade a body in just a matter of hours. Scroll down for video Four-year-old Jazmyn Parkyn's legs have been left ravaged following 15 operations to remove dead tissue the devastating illness left behind Jazmyn pictured with her father, Aaron, who is campaigning for vaccinations against the condition that almost claimed his daughter's life 'When doctors told us Jazmyn had meningococcal B, it was a complete shock,' said Mrs Parkyn Now, her parents Sarah, 32 and Aaron, 35, are campaigning for vaccinations against meningococcal B the strain of the disease that almost claimed their daughter's life to be added to the immunisation list. Currently where they live in Renmark, South Australia, the jab is only available privately something they say they were never told by doctors. 'When doctors told us Jazmyn had meningococcal B, it was a complete shock,' said Mrs Parkyn. 'She was completely up to date with her immunisations, but we had no idea that this didn't include being covered against the B strain. 'At the moment, you have to pay for it privately, which we would have done, had we known. 'All those times we'd been to the doctors to discuss immunisations, and nobody ever mentioned it. 'This disease can cost people their lives or limbs, or cause major scarring. Shouldn't that be enough of a reason to put it on the national immunisation programme?' Currently where the family live in Renmark, South Australia, the jab is only available privately something they claim was never made clear to them by doctors Prior to contracting the devastating disease, little Jazmyn had appeared fit and well. Then, on the evening of August 26 2015, she woke late at night with a fever. As the family had previously been suffering with the flu, Mrs Parkyn initially put her daughter's symptoms down to that. But the next morning, the toddler appeared groggy and lethargic. Then, when her mother tried to pick her up, she began to scream in pain. 'She couldn't stand anything touching her legs. She just kept screaming,' said Mrs Parkyn. 'I noticed a couple of marks on her legs, but it just looked like a heat rash.' Concerned, Mrs Parkyn took Jazmyn to her GP. Whilst assessing her, he noticed a tiny bruise-like spot on her chest, and immediately told them to go to Renmark Paringa District Hospital. There, she was plied with fluids to try and bring down her soaring 40 degree temperature. Then, mere hours after she had arrived, she suffered a terrifying seizure. From there, doctors officially diagnosed her with meningococcal B and she was rushed to Adelaide's Women's and Children's Hospital. Hooked up to a tangle of drips and wires, she lay in the paediatric intensive care unit for three days as medics battled to stave the spreading infection. In that time, dark spots began to spring up all over her body. The four-year-old spent three days in an intensive care unit at Adelaide's Women's and Children's Hospital as medics battled to prevent the infection from spreading 'We just want to make sure nobody else goes through what we have,' said her mother about the awful condition her young daughter had to endure Skin was removed from the little girl's upper thigh to replace the vast amounts of dead tissue the illness left behind during 15 surgical operations Mrs Parkyn continued: 'The morning we got to Adelaide, Jazmyn only had one tiny spot on her chest but by 10pm that night, they were everywhere. 'Slowly, the medicine started to work. I remember saying to the nurse, 'Is she out the woods now?' But she replied, 'Not quite' and told me that, with this disease, things can take a sudden turn for the worse. 'That's when it hit home how serious things were. It was really scary to hear.' Eventually, having grown a little stronger, Jazmyn was moved out of intensive care and sent to another ward to recover. There, she underwent a series of scans and blood tests to assess if there was any major organ damage which thankfully all came back clear. In total, she remained in hospital for four weeks. She also had to undergo a series of skin grafts, during which flesh was taken from her upper thigh to cover the deep welts of dead tissue the illness had left behind. Now, except for some leg pain and nerve damage, Jazmyn is more or less fully recovered from the illness 'I thought the spots on her legs were just bruising, and that they'd go away,' said Mrs Parkyn. 'But they were actually dead tissue. She's had about 15 skin grafts in total, but she's a very tough, resilient little girl.' Now, except for some leg pain and nerve damage, Jazmyn is more or less fully recovered. She regularly returns to hospital in Adelaide where she attends a scar clinic to make sure her legs are healing. Her parents have recently sent off a petition to Australian parliament urging them to introduce a vaccine against strain B as standard. They are documenting their progress on a Facebook page called 'Jazmyn's meningococcal b journey,' which is followed by more than 2000 people. 'People seem very glad to hear our story,' said Mrs Parkyn, who is also mother to Rihanna, nine and Elise, five. 'We get people telling us they thought they were fully vaccinated, but have now realised that strain B isn't covered. 'The word is getting out there. We just want to make sure nobody else goes through what we have. 'We'll always be grateful to the GP that first saw Jazmyn. If he hadn't seen that bruise on her chest and realised what it meant, this could be a very different story.' I take warfarin due to atrial fibrillation and therefore cannot take conventional anti-inflammatory drugs for arthritic pain. A Daily Mail article covered the advantages of turmeric, but did not mention the risks that I gather exist if used with warfarin. How severe are those risks when taking 4mg a day of warfarin? Are there other options? I am 80. Derek Darwent, Cuddington, Cheshire. While turmeric is generally safe and rarely causes side-effects, it has been proven to interact with warfarin - a blood-thinning drug prescribed to patients at high risk of blood clots This is a fascinating question, relevant to the many people who are on anticoagulant medication given to those at high risk of blood clots who, like you, also suffer from arthritic pain. If youre on anticoagulants, you cant take anti-inflammatories which include diclofenac, ibuprofen, naproxen, and even aspirin, because the latter carry a risk of bleeding from the stomach and duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. As an anticoagulant stops the blood from clotting properly, when these two types of drugs are taken together there could be serious consequences namely, uncontrollable bleeding. This applies to older anticoagulants, such as warfarin and heparin and newer blood-thinning drugs: apixaban, dabigatran and rivaroxaban. Known as novel oral anti-coagulants (NOACs), these are simpler to take because unlike warfarin, patients do not need regular blood tests to check theyre getting the correct dose, which can vary according to what youve been eating. While there have been suggestions that regular testing might effectively improve the safety of the novel anticogulants, the real issue with them was that they could not easily be reversed which could be dangerous in an emergency. But antidotes are now becoming available. For example, dabigatran (also known by the brand name Pradaxa) can be reversed by idarucizumab (Praxbind), which takes these modern anticoagulants into a new era. There has been some research into turmeric as a treatment for arthritic pain. The active component of this spice is curcumin, which in animal studies has been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects However, as with warfarin, the new anticoagulants still carry an increased risk of bleeding, and therefore cannot be taken alongside certain drugs. As you know, there has been some research into turmeric as a treatment for arthritic pain. The active component of this spice is curcumin, which in animal studies has been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects. I have seen a simple study where it was compared with ibuprofen in two groups of patients who took one or the other for six weeks, and in both groups their pain levels improved. Write to Dr Scurr To contact Dr Scurr with a health query, write to him at Good Health Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email drmartin@dailymail.co.uk - including contact details. Dr Scurr cannot enter into personal correspondence. His replies cannot apply to individual cases and should be taken in a general context. Always consult your own GP with any health worries. Advertisement However, there arent enough well-designed studies to reach any firm conclusions about the benefit in humans. And while turmeric is generally safe and rarely causes side-effects, unfortunately it has been proven to interact with warfarin and the novel anticoagulants. This is because curcumin reduces the ability of platelets (cells which help blood to clot) to clump together so the risk of dangerous bleeding is greatly increased in patients taking blood-thinning medication. For that reason you must not self-medicate with turmeric. As for other ways to treat arthritic pain, there is no one-size-fits-all option. If a patient is particularly affected by painful osteoarthritis of the knee, there is some evidence that acupuncture may help, as may the supplement glucosamine, though the best that can be expected from either is modest pain reduction. Another option for knee osteoarthritis pain is AposTherapy, a biomechanical device worn on the feet which corrects the way you walk, taking pressure off the knee. This has been shown to be effective for some patients. In terms of other aches and pains such as osteoarthritis of the hands or hips there is very little to offer. Even paracetamol, long relied upon by many taking anticoagulants, has recently been subject to questions over effectiveness. But there is nothing to stop you trying it. However, talk to your doctor about the dosage. As well as never exceeding the recommended dose, you must avoid taking it with other remedies that include it, such as cold and flu remedies, to avoid any risk of overdose. If a patient is particularly affected by painful arthritis of the knee, there is some evidence that acupuncture may help. Pictured are X-rays of a patient with arthritic knees My wife has Bells palsy. She cannot close her right eye, eat on that side of her mouth or smile. When the symptoms appeared, she was told it was caused by pressure on the facial nerves possibly from a virus and given antiviral tablets. They also said it would last three months that was more than three years ago. If it is a nerve problem, should she be referred to a neurologist? Eric Dodd, Walton-on-Thames. I am sorry to hear about your wifes experience. For the sake of other readers, I should explain the nature of Bells palsy, which should also help you understand what happened. The condition is named after Sir Charles Bell, a Scottish surgeon and neurologist who first described it in 1821. Bells palsy causes the muscles of one side of the face to become weak or paralysed, leaving the patient unable to close the eye or mouth properly. It occurs as a result of inflammation causing swelling in the facial nerve, which controls these muscles. This nerve passes through a tunnel in the temporal bone, which is part of the middle ear. When the nerve swells, the nerve itself and the blood vessels around it become compressed in this tunnel, impairing its function. We dont know exactly why this inflammation happens. Bells palsy causes the muscles of one side of the face to become weak or paralysed, leaving the patient unable to close the eye or mouth properly (file photo) Some cases are thought to be due to the herpes simplex virus (which causes cold sores) or the herpes zoster virus (chicken pox and shingles), but viral infection may not always be the underlying cause. Treatment usually involves steroids, such as prednisolone, to reduce the nerve swelling, which may improve the chances of full recovery. Anti-viral medicines such as valacyclovir may also be used, as in your wifes case. Most affected patients recover completely studies show 85 per cent of patients show signs of recovery by three weeks, and 71 per cent ultimately have full recovery. But 16 per cent of patients have obvious continuing weakness thats likely to be permanent (the remainder have minimal symptoms). As your wife suffered the symptoms three years ago, I fear this is likely to be the case with her. Thats why, as you tell me in your longer letter, she had surgery to have a gold weight inserted in her eyelid to help it close properly (otherwise the eye can become too dry, which can lead to damage). Unfortunately, you tell me the weight had to be removed, as she could no longer open her eye. Your question about referral to a neurologist is relevant because a nerve is involved in the condition. But at this stage I regret to inform you there is no treatment that can be offered treatment only helps in the first few days of the illness. Any improvement after that is down to natural recovery. At this stage, all efforts must be directed at further eye care and psychological support for you both As a young health journalist in the Eighties, I fancied becoming a war correspondent, so went to Afghanistan to travel with the mujahedin, who were fighting the Russian army. The mujahedin turned out to be my biggest mortal threat. They were paranoid and trigger-happy. They were also likely to be brutally offended if I quailed at their food hygiene. As a result, I returned to London riddled with exotic forms of dysentery, along with post-traumatic stress disorder. Id also developed crippling arthritic inflammation in my hips that made even the shortest walk excruciating the stomach infections had caused my immune system to become hyperactive, and it was attacking my joints. Studies suggest that a lot of pain is in the mind, in which case meditation can be a good solution Visits to my GP and A&E resulted only in long-term prescriptions for high-strength ibuprofen. But I knew if I took this for years on end, it could damage my stomach irrevocably. In desperation, I consulted some suspiciously hippy alternative-therapist colleagues, who said I should try meditating, go veggie and stop living on a drip-feed of caffeine and adrenaline. Faced with lifelong pain, I was willing to try anything. After a month on the new regimen, my symptoms abated significantly. But it wasnt until I tackled deeper unresolved problems suppressed rage about my father dropping dead when I was three, and my mother having near-fatal cancer when I was seven and tried to reduce my stress further, that the chronic pain went away. Of course, my experience could have been a one-off, or merely coincidental with the pain resolving itself. But it left me shunning painkillers and pondering the psychological factors that can underlie chronic pain. And now it seems that my old hippy colleagues are being vindicated. Scientists are increasingly casting serious doubt on the effectiveness of using painkillers to cure chronic pain, while there is a growing body of research showing that psychological and lifestyle changes are effective cures. This is not to say all pain is in the mind. Anecdotal evidence shows ditching meat and eating vegetables can help ease the symptoms of pain But as Dr Austin Leach, a consultant anaesthetist at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital who has run a pain clinic for more than 20 years, explains: A lot of chronic pain is to do with whats going on inside the patients heads. Everything is integrated; body and mind. Its not about just one medical fix for a physical problem its also about the patient gaining a deeper understanding of the causes of their pain. Chronic pain is defined as continuous long-term pain that either lasts more than 12 weeks, or persists for an unusual length of time following trauma or surgery. It is widespread: almost ten million Britons suffer almost daily, according to the British Pain Society. PAINKILLERS MAY ACTUALLY CAUSE PAIN The mainstay treatment is normally painkillers. However, a swathe of new studies shows that our most frequently used strong pain medications are not only ineffective for common conditions, they are also dangerous and may even themselves cause chronic pain. Last month, it was reported that opioid painkillers prescription drugs that include morphine, tramadol and oxycodone provide only minimal benefit for lower back pain. Prescribed to around 40 per cent of back pain patients, they do reduce pain, but not enough to be effective, according to a review of studies published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Paracetamol, which is frequently prescribed by GPs for arthritis, is actually ineffective, a recent study found The same would be true for codeine the mildest opioid, which is available over the counter said the study leader Chris Maher, a professor of muscular disorders at the George Institute for Global Health in Sydney. He also warned that, taken long-term, the drugs can have severe side-effects, including dizziness and falls, as well as deaths from overdose. We know of no other medication routinely used for a non-fatal condition that kills patients so frequently, Professor Maher said. LEARNING TO LIVE WITH PAIN GAVE ME BACK MY LIFE Antony Chuter, 45, chair of the charity Pain UK, lives in Haywards Heath, West Sussex. Until I was 21 Id been fit and active. Then I developed kidney problems, which caused a constant, often excruciating, ache across my lower back it changed my personality and energy levels completely. My GP initially diagnosed kidney stones and prescribed opiate-based painkillers, which helped but left me completely spaced out, unable to function. Within a year Id lost my job as an IT engineer, my home and my relationship. I became depressed and agoraphobic only leaving the house once a week. Antony Chuter suffered from excrutiating kidney problems causing him constant pain. But he came across an NHS self-management programme, which showed him ways he could ease his pain himself After seeing endless doctors over the years, it finally emerged that I had calcification tiny stones of calcium were forming a type of sludge in my kidneys, partially blocking the passage of urine and triggering intense pain. There is no treatment. As if that wasnt enough, in my early 30s I developed hypermobility joint pain, starting in my feet and later in my knees, hips, elbows and shoulders. I also had problems with facial pain related to migraines. Im in some form of pain most of the time. Then about ten years ago I came across an NHS self-management programme: a six-week course with two-hour classes each week. Instead of looking fruitlessly for a medical cure that didnt exist, it taught me how to live with my pain. This was a huge turning point. One of the biggest things it taught me was there were ways I could ease my pain myself, such as by learning to relax more. When youre in pain your body tells you to stop, but with chronic pain that would mean lying in bed every day. Pain self-management programmes teach you how to get up when your bodys telling you to do the opposite. But its also vital not to do too much the key is pacing yourself. I still have good and bad days, but I manage the whole issue so much better now. To find a pain self- management course near you visit Self Management UK. CAROLINE JONES Advertisement Perhaps still more disturbingly, new evidence this month suggests that opioid drugs may actually cause chronic pain in patients prescribed them for short-term pain. A study of rats, by neuroscientists at the University of Colorado Boulder in the U.S., showed that a short course of morphine can spark a chain reaction in the bodys immune system which makes it produce dangerous amounts of inflammatory proteins. These cause nerve damage that can cause chronic pain. The researchers warn in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that prolonged pain is an unrealised and clinically concerning consequence of the abundant use of opioids in pain. Meanwhile, even paracetamol, which is frequently prescribed by GPs for chronic pain, is also being exposed as ineffective and dangerous. New studies show that our most frequently used strong pain medications are not only ineffective for common conditions, they may themselves cause chronic pain (file photo) In March, a study of more than 58,000 patients published in The Lancet concluded that it does little to ease hip and knee pain caused by osteoarthritis paracetamol has been the main treatment for the joint condition. Other research has shown that its long-term use is linked to heart, kidney and intestinal problems. Prompted by such findings, NICE the clinical guidelines watchdog has advised doctors to stop prescribing the pills for long-term treatment of osteoarthritis. And last month the authoritative U.S. body, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, advised doctors to try non-drug therapies for pain first. Indeed, there is now plenty of research showing that the answer to chronic pain lies not with (ineffective and potentially harmful) drugs, but instead often inside our brains and changing patients expectations about pain. Movement can help patients to reduce their pain by unfreezing their bodies, as well as preventing them from becoming isolated The potential of changed attitudes to alter pain levels was highlighted last month by a study at Julius-Maximilians University in Germany. Psychologists subjected a group of male volunteers to heat stimuli via a band on their forearm, then asked them to rate the pain. The next day, some volunteers were informed that men are more sensitive to pain than women; the others were told women were the more sensitive gender. The experiment was then repeated. Those who had been told men were less sensitive rated their pain as much less intense than on the previous day. Those told men were more sensitive now felt more pain, reported the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. As the psychologists explained, the effect of changes in attitude can actually be measured physiologically. WORRYING ABOUT IT MAKES PAIN WORSE Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain has an MRI scanner so powerful it can show how a person's mood, attitudes and beliefs all determine how people experience pain This new understanding about pain is revolutionising treatment. To see how, I visit the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain. Here, Irene Tracey, a professor of pain research, is busy applying small burns and pinpricks to my hand. She is also looking into my brain I am in an MRI scanner to see what happens when she makes me go ouch. The centres MRI machine is so powerful that it can scan the brains functions and show how my mood, attitude and beliefs all determine how I experience pain. My responses seem perfectly normal pain stimuli spark off the normal pain region. But in someone with chronic pain, the story can be completely different, with widespread reactions firing up across the entire brain. Our work shows that being anxious or depressed can make pain worse, explains Professor Tracey. Your beliefs can override the most powerful painkillers. In one experiment we told chronic pain patients we had stopped giving them a strong opioid, when actually we were still giving it suddenly they said their pain levels were rising. Long-term negative beliefs may create a devastating spiral: the more anxious and depressed you become about your pain, the more you may physically rewire your brain so that it becomes hypersensitive. As a result, even normal touch can piggyback on to the pain system, firing off widespread pain responses across the brain. Even putting on clothes can cause burning sensations, says Professor Tracey. Dr Leach sees similar cases in his pain clinic. One patient came in who was convinced that his terrible back pain was cancer, he recalls. After talking through his problems he realised that a relatives recent death from cancer had convinced him of this. It was intensifying the pain in his mind. Understanding this helped to reduce his pain. The more anxious and depressed people become about pain, the more they may physically rewire their brain so that it becomes hypersensitive IS IT TIME TO TRY MEDITATION? This understanding is central to the work of the specialist clinics that help patients trapped in chronic pain. With psychologists, physiotherapists and doctors often on staff, these take a biopsychosocial approach combining biological, psychological and social factors. But while treatment may include prescribing pain medication (for instance, stronger forms of pain relief such as nerve blocks) and specialist physiotherapy (to teach patients how to move with their pain), the psychology of pain and coping with it are also key. Dr Amanda Williams, a reader in clinical health psychology at University College London, has worked in these clinics for 30 years, and much of her work involves changing patients attitudes. If a person is under stress, theyre not going to manage their pain well. It is going to make it worse, she explains. Mindfulness meditation - where patients are taught to become aware of their breathing, thoughts and physical sensations and view them without judgement - has been shown to help patients with chronic pain The traditional view that pain has only physical causes that require drugs can make patients resistant to psychological therapy. When patients are told the answer is in their mind, too often they think they are being told they are faking or malingering, she says. But many are relieved to hear there may be a psychological element to their pain, and are open to talking about their emotions. It would be a help for GPs to teach patients to manage their pain early on by, for example, distracting themselves with something as simple as watching comedy programmes on TV Unfortunately, as an audit of pain clinics sponsored by the British Pain Society concluded recently, provision of these services is patchy and waiting times are often 18 weeks. This is a problem in itself, says Dr Leach. Often by the time patients finally get seen, their pain syndrome has consolidated in their brains and is significantly harder to treat. Given this, Dr Williams believes GPs could be doing more. It would be a help for GPs to teach patients to manage their pain early on by, for example, distracting themselves with something as simple as watching comedy programmes on TV. Another option is mindfulness meditation, where patients are taught to become aware of their breathing, thoughts and physical sensations and view them without judgement. This can help people learn to stop fearful thoughts of pain running amok. Two recent trials of more than 600 patients, published in the journal JAMA by the University of Pittsburgh and the Group Health Research Institute in Seattle, showed that mindfulness meditation can help reduce chronic lower back pain. LISTEN TO MUSIC AND DONT SLOUCH Pain stops people from moving. This sedentary behaviour may explain why people with chronic pain have a much higher level of cardiovascular disease and premature death from all causes. However, movement also helps patients to reduce their pain by unfreezing their bodies, as well as preventing them becoming isolated, another factor that feeds into the negative psychology of chronic pain. To address this, experts such as Joanne Marley, a clinical specialist in physiotherapy at the University of Ulster, are developing exercise programmes for people with chronic pain. The aim isnt to make them athletes, but to make small steps that stop them being frozen by pain. Sedentary behaviour and bad posture may explain why some people experience more pain than others Its about improving activity levels, she explains. For some that may be simply getting out of bed in the morning and sitting down less during the day. Getting patients to stand up and march on the spot every time the adverts come on the television can actually get them up to 3,000 steps a day. Researchers are discovering simple ways to trick pain-prone brains into calming down. One of these is simply to stand straight: a boldly upright posture rather than weakly slouching actually makes you less pain-sensitive. Research by the University of Southern California in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2011 shows that adopting more dominant poses makes people feel more able to handle pain. Changing your language may also help. Brain scans by psychologists at Jena University in Germany found that words such as tormenting, gruelling or plaguing fire up the pain-processing areas in your brain. Researchers at York University found that listening to the complex melodies of Bach or Mozart was more effective at reducing pain levels than other sorts of music Using more positive terms may dampen down the responses, suggests the study in the journal Pain in 2010. You could try listening to classical music. In 2011, researchers at York University reported in the journal Music and Medicine that listening to the complex melodies of Bach or Mozart is more effective at reducing pain levels than other sorts of music. To find your nearest pain clinic (you will need to be referred by your GP or hospital consultant go to the National Pain Audit. Soon, you wont have to worry about the purity of the gold jewellery you buy. The Indian government is in the process of making the purity stamp, popularly known as hallmarking, a must for all jewellery shops in the country. Union Consumer Affairs Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said that once it becomes mandatory, jewellers will be made accountable and jewellery shops will have to sell hallmarked, certified gold jewellery. By making hallmarks mandatory, the Government hopes to inform consumers and protect them from paying too much for poor-quality gold The main purpose is to protect consumers. There have been instances where people are duped on the quality of gold jewellery. Considering this, we are working on making hallmarking mandatory in coming times, said Paswan. While sharing his experience with Mail Today, Paswan said he was once misled while purchasing gold jewellery for his mother. Consumers are entitled to quality assurance. Generally, people know about jewellery items of 18K to 24K gold. But, we have received information of lower standard of gold jewellery being sold. The purpose is that consumers could easily understand what they are getting so that they could not be misled. There should be clear distinctions if someone visits a shop to buy gold jewellery, the minister said. Paswan said that in order to protect the consumers, an epoch-changing BIS Act, 2016, has been passed by Parliament with provisions for simpler self-certification, mandatory hallmarking, product recall, and product liability for better consumer protection. Welcoming the move, Praveen Khandelwal, national secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), said: This is a good step for consumers. But, proper workshop and training for small-time jewelers will be needed to make it successful. Otherwise, the small-time jewellers will remain dependent on big jewellers for the hallmarked stuff. Moreover, there should be variable standards of hallmarking so that even poor people can get jewellery of their choice. Purity Officials said that there are tests for the purity of gold and the hallmark guarantees the quality assurance. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) identifies hallmarking centres and gives recognition. The ministry is working out to make hallmarking mandatory, said a senior ministry official. Under the new Act, BIS can order the recall of products which do not conform to standards, in addition to cancelling the manufacturer's licence. It can also order compensation for consumers. Hallmarking of gold jewellery, which guarantees customers that the gold is pure, was introduced in 2000. Now jewellers are required to get licences from the BIS and get goods hallmarked by one of 400 or so BIS-authorised centres. Licence According to the standards authority, there are almost 13,000 licensed domestic jewellers. The sellers can be penalised through a fine or having their licenses revoked if they are found to be misusing the license. Officials said that more hallmarking centres will be needed so that jewellers can get the hallmarking done easily. Gunman Omar Mateen attacked a club in Orlando on June 12, killing 50 innocent people Self-radicalised jihadis drawing inspiration from ISIS by following its activities online could carry out a lone wolf attack similar to the one witnessed in Orlando, intelligence agencies fear. Central intelligence agencies have warned security forces and states about the possibility of a lone wolf attack in the country. While there is heightened online surveillance to combat the growing threat of digital jihad being practised by ISIS, monitoring the entire gamut of its activities remains a daunting challenge. Our biggest concern as of now is a lone wolf-type strike. If a person decides to get a weapon and go on a killing spree or plant explosives somewhere without involving others, chances of detection are minimal, said a senior intelligence official. Inspired by ISIS, Omar Mateen killed 50 people in an Orlando club in the US and wounded several others as he went on a shooting rampage on Sunday. According to assessments made by intelligence agencies, the biggest hurdle in national security and increased radicalisation is the internet as there is limited domain knowledge on the subject. While intelligence agencies claim ISIS has not yet established a base in India, several youths have been attracted to the group and have even made efforts to travel to Syria. The possibility of piggybacking on terrorist groups operating in India has opened up the possibility of ISIS-sponsored terrorist action on Indian territory, the Intelligence Bureau had earlier warned all state governments. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has been interacting with state governments, drawing up a strategy to tackle the threat of ISIS. The strategy needs to keep pace with the rapidly-changing dynamics of the global jihadi group, which has lured thousands of young men and women from across the world - including non Muslims. According to the strategy paper on ISIS, a special team needs to be set up that will work on the challenges of digital jihad. Intelligence agencies have failed to check the growing online radicalisation of the youth who are getting a free flow of ISISs venomous ideology on cyberspace. There are close to 200 people being monitored across the country. Youths between 17 and 25 years of age spend hours on the internet, and this needs intervention with an effective counter-radicalisation plan, the paper on ISIS says. The government has planned a 24x7 situation room exclusively meant for monitoring cyberspace to tackle the threat of digital jihad. Earlier in 2015, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) busted an ISIS-inspired terror module called Janood-ul-Khalifa-e-Hind or "the Army of Caliph in India", carrying out countrywide arrests. Investigations have also revealed that the group was making efforts to establish a channel to procure explosives and weapons, identify locations to organise terror training camps, and motivate new recruits to target police officers and foreigners in India, as well as to carry out terrorist activities in various parts of India. The NIA claimed that those arrested were found to be in contact with some active members through chatting applications in order to motivate them to join ISIS. Veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi has launched his bid for the Rashtrapati Bhavan, lobbying the RSS and the BJP leadership vigorously for the partys presidential nomination, insiders told India Today. Elections for the presidency are due next year, when incumbent Pranab Mukherjees term expires. Joshi recently met PM Narendra Modi, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and several other senior BJP and Sangh leaders, party sources said. Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi has launched his bid for the Rashtrapati Bhavan On May 22, Modi and Joshi met at 7, RCR over dinner. They discussed various matters, including the presidential candidacy, sources said. The Sangh's advice will play a key role when the prime minister and BJP chief Amit Shah decide on the BJPs nominee for the head of state. Sources also revealed that in the first week of June, Joshi held a long discussion with Bhagwat at the RSS Hq in Nagpur. He also met several other RSS leaders in Mumbai on June 6-7, they added. RSS ideologue Devendra Swaroop has already thrown his weight behind Joshi for the post of the countrys next president. He described Joshi as a leader of Deendayal Upadhyays tradition, a reference to the late president of the former Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Yoga guru Ramdev has spoken out on black money Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of effective steps being taken by the Centre to bring back the black money stashed abroad. Because of the lack of effective steps on the black money issue, people of the country are dissatisfied, Ramdev said. I have spoken with PM Narendra Modi, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP President Amit Shah on this issue, he added. However, the yoga guru praised the Centre for carrying out development projects and for its zero tolerance policy on corruption. Gamochas for BJP netas Gamocha, the traditional Assamese scarf often used in the Northeast for welcoming guests as a mark of respect, was given to each of the delegates attending the BJP national executive to celebrate the partys victory in Assam. Around 400 Gamochas were bought by the BJPs Uttar Pradesh unit from Assam to felicitate the attendees coming from across the country. Assam Education and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma helped the partys Uttar Pradesh unit procure them. President goes out on tour President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday embarked on a six-day visit to three African nations - Ghana, Ivory Coast and Namibia - to boost trade ties with these countries. This is the maiden visit of any Indian President to Ghana and Ivory Coast. For Namibia, such a visit comes after two decades. The President is accompanied by Minister of State in the PMO Jitendra Singh and MPs S S Ahluwalia and Mansukh L Mandaviya. IGNCA to hold courses on culture As part of the Centres Skill India Mission, Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) plans to commence specialised courses on culture such as Museumology and Cultural Management. The New Delhi-based institution is also in talks with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) to introduce culture as an elective subject for higher classes in a bid to provide skilled man-power for efficient handling of various cultural components. Congress crosses million on Twitter The Congress has finally crossed the million followers mark on Twitter. Thank you everybody for making us reach one million. This is just the beginning, the party tweeted. China has said that the informal meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna on June 9 did not discuss the matter of Indias entry, and some of the groups 48 members were "still divided" on the issue. India has been seeking entry to the elite group of nations permitted to control the global trade in nuclear materials, equipment and technology. In a statement on Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry suggested that recent reports indicating Indias entry had been approved were incorrect. Prime Minister Narendra Modi talks with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto as India continues to seek entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group Last week, NSG members Mexico and Switzerland had voiced support for Indias bid during PM Narendra Modis visits to those nations, raising hopes that momentum was building on the issue. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said: There was no deliberation on any items related to the accession to the NSG by India or any other countries that are not signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The NSG Chair Argentine Ambassador convened an unofficial meeting on June 9. The Chair said this meeting has no agenda and is only convened to heed opinions from all parties on the outreach of the NSG and prepare for a report to be submitted at the NSG Plenary Meeting in Seoul later this month, the statement added, stressing that the question of membership was not on the agenda. Suggesting that China was perhaps far from ready to back Indias bid at the upcoming NSG plenary in Seoul, the statement reiterated Beijings stand that the bids of all non-NPT countries should be considered together, in a criteria-based way that does not make an exception for India. China has noted that some non-NPT countries aspire to join the NSG. When it comes to the accession by non-NPT countries, China maintains that the group should have full discussion before forging consensus and making decisions based on agreement. "The NPT provides a political and legal foundation for the international non-proliferation regime as a whole. Chinas position applies to all non-NPT countries and targets no one in particular, the statement said. Beijing has also suggested it was not the lone opponent of Indias entry. While the BJP national executive meeting was held amid the scorching humidity of Allahabad, the hot topic of conversation was Rajnath Singh's likely role in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh polls. Speculation was fuelled by the sheer number of hoardings and billboards lining the streets leading to the venue, which showed Rajnath Singh alongside party chief Amit Shah and PM Modi. But the rumour-mill swung the other way when the main backdrop poster at the meeting showed only Shah and Modi - with former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani - but not Singh. (From left): Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, BJP President Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Senior BJP leader LK Advani during the party's national executive meeting in Allahabad However, the booklet which the party distributed yet again showed Modi and Singh together - although on the last page. Inside the meeting, which was closed to the media apart from a short photo opportunity, Singh was not called onto the dais, while Finance minister Arun Jaitley was up there with the Prime Minister. However, senior party leader and Telecommunications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tried to parry questions from journalists regarding this issue. These posters and banners mean nothing and not much should be read into them. People and supporters do put up these, but it must stop at that. President Amit Shah has decided that BJP must and will form a government in UP; who will be the face of the party in the state will be decided by the parliamentary committee. Such decisions are not taken here. Another political figure who added to the confusion was the BJPs very own Gandhi scion Varun Gandhi. Politician and BCCI chief Anurag Thakur (right) with other BJP leaders at the party's national executive meeting in Allahabad While speculation had been rife for some time that he could also be in the race to lead the party in UP, if the politics of posters is anything to go by, Gandhi remained second only to Singh in terms of numbers. Prasad, who held a press meet at the end of the event, said the BJP had taken crucial decisions on the agenda of the party for the next three months. Home Minister Rajnath Singh has been heavily linked to a role in Uttar Pradesh While Shah inaugurated the event, Modi still remained the centre of attention. The telecommunications minister, who presented excerpts from the presidential speech, said the party was confident of forming the next government in the state. The president said we have achieved two milestones - completed two years in office and made a spectacular show in recent polls. We have captured Assam, the gateway of the Northeast and increased vote share in Kerala and West Bengal. Prasad said the Modi government had put an end to the policy paralysis that afflicted the UPA and there had been no instance of corruption. He added that Shah underlined that the Modi government had resolved crucial dilemmas of the previous dispensation: Between urban and rural; reform and public welfare; bureaucracy and government; and defence policy and foreign policy. The high-profile meet in Allahabad also lauded the government over its achievements in bumping up the gap in Indias growth rate, decreasing the fiscal deficit as well as current account deficit. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has taken a retrograde step by rejecting a research paper on mortality due to air pollution in India, written by scientists from one of Indias best research centres - the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, (IITM), Pune. This has serious implications not just for IITM, but for scientific research in the country as a whole. The research paper on estimated loss of life expectancy due to pollutants was published in a reputed journal, Geophysical Research Letters, after due process of peer review. The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change recently rejected a research paper on mortality due to air pollution in the country Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar went overboard by calling it unscientific and alleging a conspiracy to defame India at a time when the Prime Minister was visiting America. He then got the environment ministry to issue a statement saying the government has rejected the study. The statement claimed that the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) - under which IITM functions - has also completely rejected the study. The episode has sent shockwaves through the scientific community across the country. IITM scientists feel it is an attack on academic freedom. At the behest of the MoES, the institute's authorities (IITM does not have a full-time director at present) - have issued a gag order, warning the scientists not to speak to the media about their research work. In the present case, it was not scientists who approached the media, but they only explained their study after it was published in a scientific journal, as is the standard global practice in science reporting. The way two ministries - environment and earth sciences - meekly submitted to the whims of a politician is surprising. If the environment ministry did not agree with the findings of the IITM study, it should have come up with a scientific rebuttal instead of resorting to political posturing. Despite being an independent scientific ministry (under another minister, Harsh Vardhan) with its own mission and agenda, MoES buckled under pressure and failed its own scientists. The feeling of betrayal is particularly great for IITM because the present MoES secretary was its director till a few months ago. Gagging scientists is not new in India or elsewhere in the world. China suppressed scientific information about the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003, causing the silent spread of the epidemic. In 2010, when I wrote the story about scientists reporting on super-bug, NDM-1, in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the Indian government not only summoned researchers who wrote the paper, but also warned experts whom I had quoted and told them to keep mum. Much like Javadekar, the then health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad rejected The Lancet study as it would hurt medical tourism in India. His junior, Dinesh Trivedi, attributed ulterior motives to the researchers. The result of such political interference in science can be devastating. Research on NDM-1 and anti-microbial resistance in India took a back seat. Even today, scientists working on antibiotic resistance dont want to talk about it, or pretend NDM-1 has ceased to be a problem. I shudder to think of a similar fate for research on air pollution now. Arab world aims at Mars After Indias low-cost mission to Mars, there has been renewed interest in this planet globally. An unlikely player to enter the race to the red planet is the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency, which was founded in 2014. The agency is working on an unmanned probe to be sent to Mars, and is firming up scientific and technical alliances. An unlikely player to enter the race to the red planet is the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency which was founded in 2014 On Sunday, it signed a framework agreement with the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and UAE Space Agency Chairman Khalifa Al Romaithi inked the agreement in Abu Dhabi. The two agencies have also formalised a separate Implementing Arrangement for cooperation in exploration of Mars as the first field of collaboration. A joint steering group will be established to discuss future projects that contribute to exploring Mars. In addition, US-UAE activities will include joint use of aircraft, scientific instruments aboard spacecraft, ground-based research facilities, spacecraft and space research platforms. Since its inception, the UAE space agency has gone on an agreement signing spree with space agencies from China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Kazakhstan and Italy. The Mars probe named Hope is slated for launch in 2021 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of UAE. Formula food sales are a cause of worry Rising sales of formula food can harm the health of infants in the long run Nutrition scientists are worried that while global trends relating to exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months are not showing any improvements, sales of milk-based formulas or baby foods are sky-rocketing. The total sales volume of baby foods worldwide has grown by a massive 40.8 per cent from 5.5 to 7.8 kg per infant/child in the period from 2008 to 2013. This figure is projected to increase to 10.8 kg per infant/child by 2018, according to a new analysis published in journal Public Health Nutrition. The growth is mainly in infant foods (06 months) and follow-up foods targeted at 712 month-olds. Sales of formula foods have zoomed in middle-income countries like China, Thailand and Vietnam. The rapid growth being witnessed currently in formula sales cant be explained solely by factors like rising incomes and urbanisation, like in the past. The current trend has more to do with aggressive marketing, pointed out JP Dadhich, one of the co-authors of the paper. It will be entirely in consonance with the atmosphere of promise being built around developing India-US ties to declare Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent visit to Washington a notable success. Modis address to the US Congress was impressive. Such addresses are normally an occasion to vaunt US democracy and America's global role of promoting human freedom, and to outline national goals and foreign policy priorities, embellish the quality of bilateral ties, and emphasise shared goals. This, Modi did effectively. PM Modi (bottom) in front of US Vice President Joe Biden (back left) and House Speaker Republican Paul Ryan (right), addresses a joint session of the US Congress in Washington Divergent The PM pressed the right buttons on all these counts. Many of his rhetorical flourishes may not stand the scrutiny of reality, but he was provided an occasion to make his points, which he did with panache. The tenor of his address would surely have surprised the gathered Congressmen and shaken some of their assumptions, as it was not in tune with the general understanding the Americans have of Indias foreign policy. India is known for being sensitive about preserving the independence of its foreign policy, rejecting military alliances, pursuing undeterred its strategic programmes, and refusing to play by the US book in international trade negotiations, or on global issues in general. On Russia, Iran, West Asia, and issues involving Pakistan, positions are divergent. Modi sweepingly referred to Capitol Hill as the temple of democracy that had encouraged and empowered other democracies the world over, overlooking the history of decades-long technology sanctions imposed by the US Congress on democratic India, including the restrictive provisions of the 123 Agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation and pressure on our Iran ties. The USs record in empowering non-democratic regimes across continents, including its role in Chinas rise and in bolstering Pakistan, stands out. It might also have caused surprise (albeit pleasant) that Modi, the leader of a non-militarist country espousing non-violence as a political philosophy, should visit the Arlington Cemetery and honour the US war dead, especially those involved in wars that India opposed like Vietnam or Iraq. That Modi could say that they sacrificed their lives so that the world could live in freedom and democracy would have been music to US ears - but not to those critical of America's readiness to use military means to solve political problems, a propensity that has lately caused so much human tragedy in West Asia. The claim that our soldiers too have fallen in distant battlefields for the same ideals is not true of sovereign decisions in the past or the present, as independent India has not sent soldiers to distant lands to fight battles. Relationship Comfort, candour and convergence are certainly defining our conversations with the US today. But whether today our relationship has overcome the hesitations of history is doubtful on both sides, as political, security and economic faultlines still mark our relationship. India-baiting in sections of the US establishment can jolt ties even against the government's volition because of public opinion. Modi was tactically astute in giving credit to the US Congress for putting its protective arms around the India-US relationship, as this recognises the role of the India Caucus in the two houses - but one should recall the constant fire-fighting in Capitol Hill in the past against moves to sanction India on various issues. Similarly, there was the recent Congressional decision to investigate Indias trade, investment, and IPR policies prompted by corporate lobbies, the censuring of India for curbing religious freedoms, and the approval of military aid to Pakistan. PM Modi shakes the hands of US politicians as he enters the House chamber The Congress has not stood by us in times of sorrow, and the sense of solidarity exhibited on the occasion of the 2008 Mumbai attacks has still not been translated into any biting legislative action against Pakistan. Lately, Congressional opinion has turned palpably in Indias favour, and therefore Modi was not wrong in exaggerating a reality - but the reality itself needs recognition. Reminder Modi was right to remind the Congressmen of the expansion of our defence ties with the US as this resonates with them. However, the belief that a strong India-US partnership can anchor peace, prosperity and stability from Asia to Africa and from Indian Ocean to the Pacific suggests a level of collaboration that India may find politically unfeasible. Our counter-terrorism cooperation is increasing, but we are a long way yet from such cooperation securing our cities and citizens from terrorists, as the most recent Pathankot attack would show. Yet, Modi made some very salient points about the incubation of terrorism in Indias neighbourhood, exhorting the Congressmen to send a clear message to those who preach and practice terrorism for political gains. Amid the sweep of Modis outreach to the Congressmen, calling the US an indispensable partner and remarking that its embrace extends from the depths of the oceans to the vastness of the space, his caveat that the autonomy in decision making and diversity in our perspectives can only add value to our partnership was required. Modi ended his well-crafted speech with the lines of Walt Whitman: The Orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments, the baton has given the signal, and added that there is a new symphony in play. But all orchestras have only one conductor - and the US will always hold the baton. That is the ultimate reality. A little more power, new leather, updated infotainment and a 'new sense of elegance and civility'. Thats a brief description of the 2017 model Nissan GT-R and one that utterly fails to capture the feeling of a car that was extraordinary when it was launched nine years ago and is still extraordinary today. But can Nissan make Godzilla, the supercar-slaying saloon with a boot big enough for a pushchair and a fortnight's worth of shopping, even better than before? We had to find out. Godzilla: The Nissan GT-R MY17 can accelerate from 0 to 62mph in 2.8 seconds - that's quicker than any Ferrari on sale We got a chance to spend some time behind the newly slimmed-down steering wheel of next years model well ahead of release. Some time in this case meaning enough six laps of the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium with an overly helpful instructor sitting alongside. It never bodes well when an instructor adjusts the seat and wheel for you, releases the handbrake for you, and adjusts the steering angle mid-corner for you. But despite the mollycoddling we were able to get some decent impressions of this remarkable car. The first of those impressions, as it seems to be on each new GT-R encounter, is just how blooming fast it is, even on a big circuit like Spa. We had six instructor-accompanied laps of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit to examine the potential of next year's GT-R super saloon Eau Rouge: One of the most feared and recognisable corners on the entire F1 calendar - the Nissan GT-R and its all-wheel-drive system made it look easy Theres an extra 20bhp, which Nissan says makes itself noticeable at higher revs, but in all honesty the current model never exactly felt under-powered with 550bhp. In a race to 0-62mph, Godzilla's 2.8 second time means it will eat every Ferrari out there for breakfast - and for a fraction of the cost. Nissan describes the 2017 GT-R as more plush, but thats all relative: the full throttle noise through the new titanium exhaust is hair-raising and invigorating. The car does have Active Sound Enhancement to boom the twin-turbo V6 chorus into the cabin but we didnt realise that until it was mentioned in the press conference. FACTS & FIGURES: NISSAN GT-R (MY17) Engine: 3,799cc V6 twin-turbo Transmission: 6-speed dual-clutch auto, four-wheel drive Power (hp): 570@6,800rpm Torque (lb ft): 469@3,300-5,800rpm 0-62mph: 2.8sec Top speed: 196mph Weight: 1,752kg (minimum kerbweight) MPG: 23.9mpg (NEDC combined) CO2: 275g/km Price: 79,995 (Pure spec, 81,995 for Recaro, 82,495 for Prestige with Black leather seats or 83,495 with Tan, Ivory or Red leather seats) Increased body rigidity work centring around the windscreen frame and the back end are said to boost handling balance and crisp up the turn-in. Theres a bigger difference now between R and Comfort modes and the whole equation is said to add up to greatly enhanced stability at 155mph and a four per cent improvement in the cars speed through a slalom test. The GT-R has always been surrounded by stats and graphs but the feeling of incredible solidity at speed that comes through your pants is thankfully unquantifiable. For a 1800kg car the precision of control is frankly unfeasible. Traction is huge and the brakes are unfazeable. We didn't like the relocation of the gear paddles from the column to the wheel but thats about it on the cons side of the GT-R sheet. Fans will be delighted to hear that Nissan hasnt turned this technological tour de force into a cushy cruiser. Its still a bullying bruiser, and all the better for it. The 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6 engine has been given an upgrade - it now produces a massive 570bhp Damned? Angry AA union members targetted Damon Buffini at his local church Private Equity tycoon Damon Buffinis knighthood, conferred in the Queens Honours, marks a commendable image turnaround for the ex-Permira boss. Shaven-headed Buffini, 53, once dubbed Britains most powerful black male, was famously hauled in front of MPs in 2007 to answer queries over his industrys opaque deals and low tax payments. Following a bust-up over his ownership of motoring firm AA, union officials interrupted his attendance at his local South London church by arriving with a camel, suggesting it would be easier for it to pass through the eye of a needle than for him to get to heaven. He has since served on the Prince of Waless estimable charity, The Princes Trust. Or Project Ermine, as its jokily known among public relations types over the baubles often bestowed on its benefactors. City grandee Lord Rothschilds unassuming daughter Hannah, chairman of the National Gallery, is tipped to one day take over the familys 2.45billion investment trust, RIT Capital. Whats Hannah, 54, like? A divorced mother of three, she hates yachts, drives a Mini, goes to work on the Tube and always turns right on aeroplanes, i.e joins the peasantry in cattle class. Worlds apart from her flamboyant, Gulfstream-owning brother, hedge fund boss Nat, 44, in other words. City Lawyers Kirkland & Ellis announce they will now pay newly qualified lawyers most of them barely out of short trousers starting salaries of 125,000 a year. Well deserved, Im sure. The company certainly arent short of work. They are advising German car manufacturer Volkswagen over its mounting emissions scandal. It previously represented BP during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BPs lawyers fees were over 650million. Publicity-prone Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson will partake in a charity swim from the southern tip of Italy over to Sicily in September. To promote this latest stunt, Beardie, 65, poses bare-chested, squeezed into a turquoise come hither mermaid outfit. Decency prevents me from sharing it. Spotted last Friday reclining among the rococo furnishings at 10 Castle Street, an exclusive Dorset private members club: posturing BHS braggadocio, Dominic Chappell, 49. I hope he wont mind me describing him thus, but Peter Scott is a veteran of the advertising and marketing industry. He started his working life with Ogilvy and Mather (I wont embarrass him by saying exactly when) and co-founded WCRS, which to quote his biography morphed into Aegis under his tenure as boss. The business was eventually sold to Japanese rival Dentsu for 3.2billion. After that he created Engine Group, which was sold to private equity for 100million in 2014. Cue retirement and a focus on family (he has been married to Jan for 35 years and has three children) with more time to concentrate on his growing herd of pedigree shorthorn cattle. New hit: Advertising heavyweight Peter Scott started his working life with Ogilvy and Mather, and co-founded WCRS, which morphed into Aegis under his tenure as boss. Now he is chairman of AIM-listed Be Heard Nope, not a bit of it. Scott, it seems, enjoys a challenge, and as if to underline the point he has come to the junior market (never an easy ride for even the most experienced business founder) with his latest baby, Be Heard. The company, which made its debut on AIM last November following a reverse into Mithril Capital, is currently valued at 22million. The short-to-medium term plan is to turn it into a 100million turnover business focused on digital marketing be that user experience (UX), driving traffic to sites, content or data analytics. 'The big picture thinking was we had a big gap in the marketplace,' Scott told Proactive Investors. 'If you look at what has happened there was a centre ground of mid-size digitally based marketing services groups one by one these have been taken out by the Big Four.' In other words, there is little choice for marketers, but also there are limited options for business owners who are looking to take their agencies to the next level. The options are: be acquired by one of the major holding groups and become just a tiny cog in a huge machine or struggle on subscale, never quite reaching full potential. Scotts approach to his buy and build programme is to offer companies a leg up. Okay, it isnt a purely altruistic gesture. He is acquiring businesses with a mix of cash (around 65 per cent of the initial consideration) and equity along with an earn-out, usually over three years. Be Heard followed this structure with the acquisition of MMT Digital in March. It agreed to pay up to 20.5million if the company hits all its financial targets, but is handing over only 5.1million initially (3.3million of this in cash). MMTs team stays engaged and incentivised over the next three years with 15.4million still up for grabs. The targets that must be achieved are exacting and are tied to top line growth rates and margins. The latter point is a crucial one in the Scott formula, because it prevents the business founder growing revenues at the expense of profitability. 'Everyone has to think and behave in the interests of the group, not just themselves as individuals,' said the Be Heard chairman. MMT, which designs user-friendly web sites and apps for companies such as ComparetheMarket, Scope, the charity for the disabled, and publishing company Hodder Education, is one of two firms in the Be Heard stable currently. The other is media buying agency Agenda 21. Already, the two businesses have identified sales synergies and the crossover opportunities will grow along as more acquisitions roll in. BE HEARD AT A GLANCE Ticker: BHRD Value: 22million Share price: 3.25p Year high: 6p Low: 2.9p Scott and the team will, using their experience and Be Heards deeper pockets, help businesses flourish. 'Well get them to the next level,' said Scott. With money in the bank and a reputation for not paying over the odds, theres enough in the coffers to fund the short term deal flow. The company has said it is comfortable doing four deals a year and it has the support of a pretty impressive roster of institutional investors (which includes Gresham House, Artemis and Schroders) if it wants to come back to the market to top up its cash pile. Entrepreneur, investor and Saracens owner Nigel Wray is also a backer. As the business grows so its ability to conclude bigger and bigger takeovers will increase. That said, Scott wont be doing deals just for the sake of it. Transactions must fit his four pillars strategy (in other words be in the hot areas of UX, digital marketing, content and data analytics), and, crucially, the management must be ready to commit to staying with the businesses they are selling. 'We dont want people who just want to pack up and go,' said Scott. 'It is about a three to four year plan. They [the vendors] do well if they deliver strong growth from the businesses. 'Our job is we are there to support and encourage them to get the maximum.' There is deal flow there, so you suspect 100million turnover is a just a staging post to something a lot larger. 'We have set our sights at a level where people dont think we are completely insane,' Scott said with a smile. As Be Heard grows and fully forms as a diversified business it will be interesting to see how the market values it. Ten to 15 times underlying earnings (EBITDA) seems to be the range for the sector, although a pure digital play might expect to command a premium to the average. Lets be clear, Be Heard is currently work in progress; its just two acquisitions into a much more ambitious buy and build programme. So, theres a way to go before the investment benchmarking starts in earnest. Soco International was in demand as one Americas biggest brokers predicted Britains independent oil and gas exploration industry is likely to see another wave of mergers. Michael Alsford, an analyst at Citigroup, said: Deal activity, particularly in North America, has started to accelerate, helped by the recovery in oil prices. He said mergers remain a strategic option for independent exploration and production companies to increase their scale and relevance. Alsford suggested one of the best deals could be a combination of Soco International which looks for oil and gas in Vietnam and the Republic of Congo with Ophir Energy, as they both have Asian operations. Soco International was in demand as one America's biggest brokers predicted Britain's independent oil and gas exploration industry is likely to see another wave of mergers. Pictured: One of Soco's Vietnam operations Although Ophir is well known for its African assets it also has operations in Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. Soco International rose to the top of the FTSE small cap leaderboard, climbing 6.4 per cent or 8p to 132.25p. Ophir, meanwhile, dipped 1.7 per cent or 1.2p to 71.3p. Another likely transaction, according to the Citigroup analyst, could be a combination of Premier Oil, down 3 per cent or 2.25p to 73p, and EnQuest, which slipped 4.4 per cent or 1.5p to 32.5p. Elsewhere in the sector, BP said it will combine its Norwegian exploration and production assets with Det norske, a company focused on the Norwegian continental shelf. BP, which fell 0.5 per cent or 1.85p to 368.9p, will receive 135.1million shares (around 30 per cent) of the new business, which will be listed in Norway. Overall, the FTSE 100 shed almost 1.2 per cent, or 70.79 points, to 6044.97 amid renewed jitters about Britain leaving the European Union and a mild sell-off in the US. The blue-chip indexs fall came despite bullish remarks from two of the Citys top stockbrokers. Deutsche Bank strategists said: In the case of a Leave vote in the UK referendum, we expect UK equities to outperform the European market, given the likely pound depreciation in such a scenario as well as the markets defensive sector structure. JP Morgan also declared British shares are cheap and will benefit from a bounce back in emerging markets because so many Footsie companies have exposure to developing economies. The broker concluded: Brexit remains a clear concern, but [the pound] is a natural hedge for UK stocks, with 72 per cent of sales derived from abroad. We believe that UK equities will hold out relatively better than continental ones in the event of UK leaving. Lloyds Banking Group took the wooden spoon, retreating 4.2 per cent or 2.82p to 64.23p despite a push from JP Morgan. The broker argued the bank remains our highest conviction UK idea into second-quarter results. Sky also drifted 3.7pc or 34p lower to 891.5p as both Barclays and Citigroup cut their target prices on the stock. Barclays reduced its target price from 11.25 to 11 while Citigroup reduced it from 14 to 13.50. BT Group was another faller, retreating 2.75 per cent or 11.6p to 410.95p, as broker Berenberg cut its target price on the stock. On a more positive tack, satellite operator Inmarsat announced a strategic partnership with Australian broadband provider Speedcast International to offer better data connection at sea. In the next five years, Speedcast will roll out Inmarsats maritime high-speed data service Fleet Xpress for roughly 2,000 vessels. The news helped Inmarsats shares gain 1 per cent or 7p to 710.5p. Otherwise, defensive stocks, such as gold mining companies and pharmaceutical businesses, peppered the FTSE 100 leaderboard. Randgold Resources, for example, perked up 0.68pc or 45p to 6670p while GlaxoSmithKline put on 0.18 per cent or 2.5p to 1416p. Among the mid-caps, Ocado tumbled 8 per cent or 19.7p to 224.3p as traders continued to worry about the impact of Amazons launch into fresh grocery in the UK. Restaurant Group, which has seen interest from private equity firms Apollo and Cinven, dipped 0.6 per cent or 2p to 356.6p despite an upgrade from Citigroup to neutral. Aveva shares jumped 10 per cent after it emerged that French industrial giant Schneider Electric is back in talks with the software engineer about a merger deal. Aveva said it had received a revised conditional proposal from Schneider to combine their software businesses. The offer comes after the companies held talks last year but the deal was called off by mutual consent. The boss of struggling Asda has left just one week after promising to stay to kick-start sales. The supermarkets US owner Walmart said Andy Clarke would leave at the end of next month. It marks a humbling end for Clarke, whose six-year tenure as chief executive has been marked by one calamity after another as sales fell off a cliff in the face of competition from Aldi and Lidl. Just seven days earlier Clarke said he planned to see through a three-year turnaround plan to reverse the sales slump. Im in no rush to do anything else, he declared. Coming and going: Departing Asda chief executive Andy Clarke, left and incoming boss Sean Clarker, right He had even chosen his successor, Roger Burnley, a former Asda supply chain director recruited from Sainsburys. But yesterday Walmart kicked these plans into touch with the announcement that not only was Clarke to leave, but that his successor would be Sean Clarke, Walmarts boss of its China business. A senior source said Walmart, which bought Asda in 1999, had changed its mind quite dramatically and quite recently on strategy. A Walmart spokesman said: Andy Clarke has decided the timing is right to step aside from his role with the company. With Clarkes exit, all the major grocers have changed their bosses in the wake of the turmoil sweeping the industry. Clarke, who has been with Asda for 20 years in total, will step down at the end of July. He will stay on as an adviser for the rest of 2016. Sean Clarke, a Brit who began his career with Asda in 1996, will start in a month. Two years ago Andy Clarke launched a turnaround strategy announcing plans to invest 1billion to bring down prices. But this has failed to transform trading. In August sales fell 4.7 per cent, which Clarke said was a nadir. Six months later they worsened, falling 5.8 per cent. Clarke, 53, the son of a policeman, grew up in Grantham, Lincolnshire. After leaving grammar school with one O-level he worked for his local Fine Fare supermarket, which morphed into Somerfield. After ten years at Morrisons, he joined Asda. After a spell with Matalan and Iceland, Clarke returned to Asda in 2005 as retail director under chief executive Andy Bond. The source said Walmart appears happy with the strategy but just wanted someone fresh at the top. Dave Cheesewright, president and chief executive of Walmart International, said: Theres lots of work going on at Asda but we are pretty dissatisfied with performance at the moment. Britain is getting older. By 2030, those lucky enough to live in some of the UKs most affluent areas can expect to live to the ripe old age of 90. As wonderful as more time with the grandkids, - or even great grandkids - might be, our increased longevity means were likely to be living in our homes longer and may need to adapt them to make them more suitable as we age. From stairlifts to remote control gates, there are all sorts of clever gadgets on the market to help future-proof your home and keep you, or your loved ones, living independently and safe. Here are five that can make a real difference. 1. Create an easy-access bathroom suite Stylish solutions: you don't have to choose comfort or practicality at the cost of style As we get older, our mobility can deteriorate. You may find it harder to climb into the bath, for example. The good news is that there are plenty of solutions on the market to make it easier, such as walk-in baths that have a door or access panel and bath lifts that have a seat to help you get in and out of the water. You may think it best to remove the bath altogether to free up some space and create a more modern wet room instead. Yours could be complete with adaptations such as a shower seat and more adjustable shower pole, so you can vary the height of the shower head for when seated. There's a wide range of styles and products to choose from for all budgets and tastes so you don't have to choose comfort or practicality at the cost of style. Safe access: fit a key safe to allow controlled entry 2. Fit a key safe You could find yourself needing to be visited by carers, as well as the family, in later life and having a simple and secure way of them being able to come and go without requiring you to keep getting up can make life easier. It can also bring you and your family peace of mind, knowing that should anything happen and you need urgent assistance, those coming to help can let themselves in. Key safes are small boxes that can contain your house key that are usually fitted discreetly to the outside of your property. To access the key, the person trying to gain entry to your home needs a code set by you. There is a wide range of retailers selling key safes and good quality models tend to start at around 40. 3. Make it easier to get upstairs To make sure none of your home becomes out of bounds, you could consider fitting a stairlift or even a lift. Stairlifts can be installed on a range of stairways - from straight to curved - and the quality of the seat, experience and design has improved considerably over the years. Safety features have improved too and some even come with seatbelt sensors. Nowhere's off limits with a stairlift - make the most if your entire home by fitting the right gadget The cost of a stairlift varies and is based on factors including the staircase type, the features required and the custom specification you choose. Up and away: lifts aren't just for the rich and famous It's a good idea to get several quotes from suppliers - who will send an assessor out to your property to take you through your options - to compare prices. An elevator-style homelift may sound rather grand but they're no longer the preserve of the rich and famous who haven't got the inclination to take the stairs to a far flung corner of their mansion. There are plenty of styles to choose from and they can help you get from your living room to an upstairs study, or from a hallway to a landing. There's a wide range of modern solutions that don't require any major structural work. 4. Get smart Never forget to turn the lights, heating, TV or music off again by fitting a series of 'smart' gadgets. As long as you've got broadband and a smartphone, there's a whole host of smart plugs and apps you can use to control household appliances. Smart plugs are particularly easy to set up and use. You simply insert them into an existing wall socket or extension lead and then you plug the appliance into them. Get smart: fancy plugs allow you to control your appliances from anywhere in your home - or away from it The smart bit comes into play by connecting the appliance to your smartphone through your broadband wifi connection. You'll usually need to download the manufacturer's app, which will allow you to control the smart plug wherever you are - in or away from home. Some come with accessories such as sensors and timers. Sensors allow the smart plug to switch the power on or off automatically when it detects people in the room or when it falls empty. And the timer functions enable you to set a control program - this can make for a useful burglary deterrent by setting a changeable timer sequence for lights when you are away. Prices start from around 15 on Amazon. 5. Check up on your visitors Turn Big Brother: There's a huge range of simple to use and inexpensive security systems on the market If you would like some forward notice of someone coming to call at your home, you could make your entrance more secure. There are all manner of simple to use and inexpensive security devices on the market - from CCTV you can access through your smartphone, to intercoms and electric gates. For example, rather than fork out on an expensive pay-monthly monitored alarm, as long as you've got a broadband internet connection, you could take advantage of a wireless security system. For a one-off cost, you could buy a system that comes with a camera and sensors you install around your property - inside or out - and which connect to your wireless router. The camera function enables you to check what's going on in the room you place it in from wherever you are - whether that's upstairs or on holiday. An intercom with a built-in camera can bring peace of mind too - as you can visually and audibly identify visitors before you open your front door. Electric gates can be a very useful addition to a property, particularly if your driveway is quite a distance from your front door and isn't easy to see. Sophisticated systems include remote access so that when you or your family are coming or going, you can activate sensors to open or close the gates from the comfort of your car - usually by activating the mechanism via a key fob. Prices for all these security systems vary enormously but there's a huge variety of products and providers to chose from so you're sure to save by shopping around. WHAT THINGS COULDN'T YOU DO WITHOUT TO MAKE HOME LIFE EASIER? Tell us what YOUR favourite gadgets are for making life easier around the home in reader comments below. The best suggestions will be added to our list. Asda-owner Walmart has said its business boss in China will take the helm at the embattled UK supermarket chain when current chief executive Andy Clarke steps down in July, The appointment of Walmart China business boss Sean Clarke to turn around the British supermarket chain's fortunes comes as a surprise since Asda's outgoing boss indicated last week that he would be replaced by former Sainsbury's executive Roger Burnley. Andy Clarke will remain with the business until the end of July, after which he will serve as an adviser for the remainder of 2016, Walmart said. In and out: Incoming Asda boss Sean Clarke (left) and departing chief executive Andy Clarke (right) Walmart said Burnley who quit Sainsbury's last October to take up the appointment of chief operating officer at Asda, will also become the UK firm's deputy chief executive. Mr Burnley has worked with Andy Clarke at both Asda and fashion retailer Matalan. Regardless of who takes on the top job at Asda, they face an uphill struggle to get the supermarket back on form. Last week, top bosses at Walmart blasted Asda for its continuing sales slump, admitting they had no idea when the UK-based chain would enjoy an upturn in fortunes. Asda posted its seventh consecutive loss last month, reporting a 5.7 per cent drop in like-for-like sales in the 13 weeks to March 30. Over the crucial Christmas period, the supermarket posted a 5.8 per cent drop in quarterly sales. Second in-command: Asda's incoming COO Roger Burnley will also become deputy chief executive Commenting on Sean Clarke's appointment, Walmart's boss David Cheesewright, said: 'Actively managing our global business portfolio is a key element of our international strategy, and we must have the right talent in place to lead our businesses through times of change. 'Sean is one of our most experienced global executives, and through his leadership we will build upon the momentum of Project Renewal to reposition Asda in a very competitive market place.' Refering to Roger Burnley's appointment, Mr Cheesewright said: ''Im also excited about Roger coming back to Asda, as we view him as a top talent and a future CEO.' Sean Clarke started his retail career at Asda in 2001 and has also worked for Walmart in Japan and Canada. Outgoing CEO Andy Clarke has been Asda's boss for six years. Over the same time-frame discount grocery rivals Aldi and Lidl have enjoyed ever-increasing sales growth, as a supermarket price war has raged. In a bid to revive its financial fortunes, Asda is undergoing 'Project Renewal', which involves pumping 500million into cutting prices for shoppers. Anger: Torex Retail boss Neil Mitchell claims that RBS deliberately pushed teh firm into administration For a scandal-hit firm reeling from the effects of massive fraud, it was meant to be a fresh start. Software company Torex Retail had collapsed after accounting crimes that saw three executives jailed. So when a crack turnaround unit at Royal Bank of Scotland stepped in to help, chief executive Neil Mitchell might have assumed the worst was over. But now, nine years later, amid bitter recriminations and a 128million lawsuit, those hopes of a bright new future lay in tatters. Mitchell claims that RBS's global restructuring group deliberately pushed Torex into administration and then sold it for a knockdown price. And during the financial crisis, he believes scores of other struggling companies were asset-stripped by the bank after turning to it for help. 'I am seeking justice not only for myself, but also in the public interest of the hundreds of viable British businesses, thousands of employees and their families which have been destroyed by greed,' he said. 'The fight to expose the alleged corruption at the highest level of RBS continues.' Torex's woes began long before RBS became involved. In January 2007, the firm was riding high. Mitchell who had taken up the reins a few months earlier had boasted it was a company with a 'solid business platform'. Bosses issued a triumphant update to the stock market revealing 80million of contract wins, securing major clients including the owner of Homebase and Argos. It was further evidence of growth for a business with bold ambitions and a high profile on the AIM stock market. But days later, investors were stunned by a shock profit warning. Trading in shares was suspended, the firm announced debts were 23million higher than expected and an investigation was opened by the London Stock Exchange. Chaos reigned behind the scenes. Mitchell had uncovered irregularities in the company's accounts. By the end of January he had been suspended himself a consequence, he said, of his decision to blow the whistle and issue the profit alert. Evidence he handed to Serious Fraud Office investigators led to a series of raids on the properties of other executives. Mitchell claimed to be in fear of his life after an encounter with two heavily built men at a London Underground station and became 'a man on the move' from one hideout to another. This dramatic boardroom clash culminated in a series of criminal court cases which saw three executives jailed for falsifying documents in a 6.5million accounting scam to make the firm appear more profitable than it was. Rescue squad: A crack turnaround unit at Royal Bank of Scotland stepped in to help Torex after it collapsed following accounting crimes that saw three executives jailed Finance head Mark Woodbridge, former chief executive Chris Moore, and chairman Robert Loosemore were sentenced to a combined eight years behind bars. Mitchell said he was delighted at this 'just outcome'. But it came too late for his own career. The disastrous debt update he had given to the market back in 2007 meant Torex had violated its loan agreement. And that gave its banker RBS the owner of NatWest the green light to get involved. S till suspended, Mitchell watched helplessly from the sidelines as his company passed into the hands of the restructuring group and was sold for in his view significantly below its market value. This was launched in the 1990s as a way of rescuing troubled businesses. Staffed by experts, the idea was it would operate as a sympathetic turnaround group to save the bank's debtors from collapse. But just as Torex was in its hour of greatest need, RBS was experiencing problems of its own. After years of growth which had seen it become a symbol of City wisdom and prudence, the bank was teetering on the brink of collapse. It was forced to beg for a 46billion bailout in 2008 and its actions were later blamed for helping trigger the financial crisis. The bank was led by notorious boss Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin at the time of the sale of Torex The bank was led by notorious boss Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin at the time and the sale of Torex happened on his watch. It has since been alleged that the restructuring group was increasingly used as an opportunity to make profits. The claims, which RBS denies, suggest that far from trying to save firms in difficulties, the bank was looking to run them into the ground and seize their assets to shore up its own flagging balance sheet. In 2013, a report by Government-backed entrepreneur Lawrence Tomlinson argued executives at many companies were 'forced to stand by and watch an otherwise-successful business be sunk by the decisions of the bank'. Mitchell claims this is the position in which he found himself, when, six months after first blowing the whistle, he was fired while still on suspension. To the chief executive's impotent rage, Torex's assets were then sold to US private equity giant Cerberus for 204million. RBS and other lenders got most of their money back but shareholders were left with nothing. Mitchell had 425,000 shares which were worth around 177,000 when trading was suspended. The whistleblower, who has repeatedly confronted RBS about the deal, claims Torex was worth 600million. He said rival bidder Golden Gate Capital had made a 390million offer but this was rejected due to collusion between RBS, Cerberus and consultant KPMG. Mitchell is pursuing all three through the civil courts for 128million of damages. While Cerberus declined to comment, KPMG said: 'We strongly refute the allegation that KPMG or its members have acted improperly; there is no substance to the claims that have been made. The courts have previously dismissed similar allegations and we have applied to have the current proceedings struck out.' An RBS spokesman said: 'We have thoroughly investigated Mr Mitchell's allegations and believe them to be entirely without merit. Mr Mitchell has chosen to issue legal proceedings which will be met by a full defence.' RBS commissioned a 1.5million report from law firm Clifford Chance to investigate its restructuring unit. This found no evidence customers were systematically defrauded. Scam: Former Schroders trader Damian Clarke was jailed for two years A trader at one of Britains most prestigious investment houses impersonated members of his own family in an insider trading scam. Damian Clarke, a former equities trader and assistant fund manager at Schroders, made at least 155,000 from illicit gambling on stocks. He was jailed yesterday for two years, and during his trial Southwark Crown Court heard he used secret information about upcoming deals to make a profit. The 40-year-old was arrested at his desk in the City following an investigation into nine years of illegal trading. He mostly carried it out in the office moments after being sent advance information on deals involving companies in which Schroders was a shareholder. Clarke used his own name and the names of family members to buy and sell shares. He set up accounts in their names to cover his tracks and he even pretended to be one of them on the phone. His deception meant four of his family were arrested during the probe by the Financial Conduct Authority, before the investigation against them was discontinued. Clarke, who lives in Lincolnshire, was charged with nine counts of insider trading on firms including housebuilder Swan Hill Group and plumbing and heating firm BSS Group. Prosecutors said these were sample counts and his profits could have been as high as 363,000. He admitted seven of the counts in July last year after initially denying them, then pleaded guilty to the final two less than a week before his trial was due to start. Clarkes lawyer Anthony Bell said he had needed psychiatric help since his arrest and had even contemplated suicide. He cried as the sentence was read out yesterday. Witness Alan Day said he believed police were right to pull the trigger She and two other victims Three elderly women were injured by police bullets during the incident Patient report said he should not be released under any circumstances This is the innocent bystander who was caught up in police gunfire as officers shot a knifeman at Westfield Hornsby. Grandmother Anne-Marie Petitfils, 70, was yesterday recovering in Royal North Shore Hospital following surgery to remove shrapnel from her left calf, according to the Daily Telegraph. Ms Petitfils is one of three elderly women to be hit by police gunfire during the shooting on Thursday. Grandmother Anne-Marie Petitfils, 70, (pictured) was yesterday recovering in Royal North Shore Hospital following surgery to remove shrapnel from her left calf The retiree and two other elderly victims Lorraine Pendleton, 82, and Elaine For, 65, have been offered $30,000 each as part of a NSW Government the Victims of Crime scheme, according to the newspaper. Officers opened fire on Jerry Sourian after the 23-year-old allegedly lunged at them with a carving knife at Westfield Hornsby in Sydney's Horsnby on Thursday, reports Sydney Morning Herald. Witness and businessman Alan Day told the Daily Telegraph that police were right to pull the trigger. The 54-year-old, who watched the police shooting take place, said: 'The bullets hit him but he kept on walking. I couldn't believe it. 'He just kept on coming, he wasn't going to stop.' A man carrying a carving knife, 23, was shot by police at Westfield shopping centre in Hornsby, north-west Sydney after appearing to lunge at police (pictured) Sources have revealed Mr Sourian had recently been admitted to an intensive mental health unit after allegedly harbouring 'homicidal tendencies towards police' but was released on the day he was shot. Mr Sourian is now under police guard in hospital. His patient report said he should not be released under any circumstances, however a senior doctor overruled the report by letting him leave for one hour a day. Last week he fled the facility and somehow flew to Melbourne, but was still granted day release when he returned to the hospital. On Wednesday - the day before the attack - he had fiery argument prior to his hour of release and managed to escape in an aggressive state. The hospital has reportedly been calling for a bolstered mental health security presence at the hospital for years, Jerry Sourian was granted day release from a mental hospital before he shot, it has been revealed His patient report said he should not be released under any circumstances, however a senior doctor overruled the report by letting him leave for one hour a day Three women aged between 60 and 80 struck by police bullets have been offered $30,000 each as part of a NSW Government scheme 'Having only two staff on for a major metropolitan hospital with seven mental health units is just untenable. We desperately need more staff,' said Nathan Sing Hornsby Hospital security guard. Hornsby state liberal MP Matt Kean personally called Ms Petitfils from Hornsby, Ms Pendleton from Thornleigh and Ms For from Waitara to offer the payment. Ms Petitfils and her partner are concerned about the cost of her two operations, and are yet to hear if NSW Police will be covering them. Witnesses to the traumatic incident are also eligible to seek support services, including counselling, through the Department of Justice. One witness, who was grazed by shrapnel, said police did the right thing when they shot the knifeman. Witnesses said the 23-year-old man was barefoot and appeared 'really depressed' before the shooting Witnesses to the traumatic incident are also eligible to seek support services like counselling Blood is seen smeared on the tiles outside of the shopping centre as police tape cordons off the area Forensic police look over the scene at Westfield Hornsby to gather evidence in the shooting People were going about their day, having coffee or lunch, when the incident happened. Above is a forensic officer at the scene The body of a fourth victim suspected of being killed by a bear that's 'developed a taste for human flesh' in the past three weeks was found in a forest in northern Japan on Friday, reports said. The badly mauled corpse has yet to be identified, but police in Akita prefecture were searching for a 74-year-old woman named as Tsuwa Suzuki, who was reported missing a day earlier, according to local media. Hunters killed a bear just 10 metres (32 feet) from the spot where the woman's remains were discovered in a mountain forest in Kazuno city, in Akita, although it remained unclear if she was killed by that animal, reports said. The body of a fourth victim suspected of being killed by a bear that's 'developed a taste for human flesh' in the past three weeks was found in a forest in northern Japan (file image) Last month, three men, two in their seventies and one in his sixties, died in apparent bear attacks while out harvesting bamboo shoots in three separate incidents. The severity of their wounds have led experts to suspect bears were responsible. A local veterinarian said that as the attacks happened within the same area and in such a short timeframe, the same bear was likely responsible. 'After tasting human flesh, the bear may have learned it can eat them,' Takeshi Komatsu told Japan's Kyodo News agency. City officials warned locals not to go into the mountains and have set bear traps. Hunters killed a bear just 10 metres from the spot where a woman's remains were discovered in a mountain forest in Kazuno city (pictured) The total number of fatal bear attacks in Akita between 1979 and 2015 was just eight, the local Kahoku newspaper said, citing a prefectural official, who added that the recent spate of killings was 'unusual'. Suzuki, who lives in Towada city in neighbouring Aomori prefecture, is believed to have gone to the area to pick edible wild plants, according to Japan's public broadcaster NHK. A car, thought to be hers, was found close to the scene. Bear sightings in Japan's rugged north have already surpassed 1,200 this year, almost double that of last year, with some even spotted near residential areas. Earlier this month, a seven-year-old boy was found safe after being abandoned by his parents in a bear-inhabited forest on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. The leader of the far-right group United Patriots Front stalked his ex-girlfriend's new partner with tomahawks before setting his house on fire three years before launching his anti-Islam crusade. Blair Cottrell, 26, was jailed in 2013 for a string of offences including stalking, arson, burglary and damaging property. During his time in Port Phillip Prison near Melbourne he participated in a documentary film called Stories From The Inside to detail his violent past. Appearing under the pseudonym Bruce, he told how he would wait outside the pair's house with knives stashed in his jacket before pouncing on the man his girlfriend had left him for. Scroll down for video Blair Cottrell spoke using the name 'Bruce' from Port Phillip Prison, near Melbourne, in a 2013 documentary about prison life (seen above) 'I started obsessing about this guy. I used to walk past this guy's house like ten times a night,' he said in a clip shared by Media Direct. 'I had a little tomahawk that I used to put inside my jacket and in the middle of the night I would go out the front of his house and just hover around. 'They used to always stay up really late and the lights would always be on so I would sleep behind this little picket fence across from his house and as soon as the door would open, my heart would skip.' The film was produced by inmates at the prison 'to stop other young people from making the same mistakes they themselves made,' its website said. Cottrell was jailed for four months in 2012 for stalking, throwing a missile and intentionally damaging property. He later spent more time behind bars for arson and aggravated burglary, The Herald Sun reported. He shot to notoriety as the face of the far-right group United Patriots Front last year, condemning Islam in scathing social media posts. The group has also been involved in clashes with anti-racism protesters. In October last year Cottrell sparked controversy when he said that a portrait of Hitler should be hung in classrooms across Australia and schoolchildren ought to read Mein Kampf, the dictator's anti-semitic autobiography. The 26-year-old revealed in the footage how he stalked his ex-girlfriend's new partner with knives and tomahawks Cottrell is the leader of the United Patriots Front (UPF) and is the voice behind many anti-mosque protests. He is seen above at a rally for the group Earlier this year Cottrell was left red-faced after being spotted at the counter of a halal-kebab shop in Melbourne despite campaigning to have the food certification abolished in Australia. He later insisted he was merely ordering a 'juice from an Australian woman'. He also once staged an ISIS-style beheading using a dummy and fake blood to protest against the spread of Islam. United Patriots Front had intended to form a political party and call themselves Fortitude. It was reported earlier this month by the ABC that the group had missed the deadline to register in time for the July 2 federal election. Earlier this month members of the group were involved in violent clashes against anti-racism protesters at a rally in Coburg, Melbourne. Late last year Mr Cottrell became the face of anti-Islamic rallies, going so far as staging a fake beheading with a dummy (above) 'There should be a picture of this man in every classroom and every school, and his book should be issued to every student annually,' Cottrell wrote on Facebook alongside an image of Adolf Hitler Cottrell regularly appears in social media videos for the group including this one (above) shared on Sunday Demonstrators were met by around 500 anti-riot police during the event last week during activists hid their faces behind scarves and bandanas to avoid being pepper sprayed. Some carried weapons and wore masks, a move the Acting Premier James Merlino said was cowardly. Members of Cottrell's UPF carried banners reading 'No refugees. Our home, our future'. Cottrell threatened rivals by saying 'force and terror' would be used and boasted afterwards that the anti-racism protestors had been 'smashed'. On Sunday Cottrell appeared in a video shared by United Patriots Front after being 'blocked' from social media. 'Facebook blocked me from posting for a while, but I'm back,' a message accompanying the footage said. It was titled Basic Philosophical Re-education by Blair Cottrell. A New Mexico man is accused of fatally shooting his wife and four daughters in their family home and then fleeing in his car, authorities said Sunday. All five victims are dead. They are identified as his wife, 34, and their four daughters, ages 14, 11, 7 and 3. Their names have not yet been released. Juan David Villegas-Hernandez remained at large but may have been apprehended in Mexico on Sunday, Roswell police said. However, they cautioned that they have been unable to confirm since dealing with two countries is difficult. Police say they may not know if Mexico has the same man they are seeking until Monday. Juan David Villegas-Hernandez, 34, is wanted in connected with the shooting deaths of his four daughters, ages 14, 11, 7, and 3, and his wife, 34. Their names have not been released Villegas-Hernandez may be driving this red, four-door Ford pickup with New Mexico license plate KJS479 The family was found dead when relatives couldn't reach them on Saturday, one went to check on the house around 11:15pm and discovered the bodies, police spokesman Todd Wildermuth said. Officers responded and found all five had suffered gunshot wounds. The family lived in the 2300 block of Davis Avenue, according to KOAT. Cops believe they were murdered sometime that day. A medical examiner will conduct autopsies to confirm the victims' identities and cause of death. But police believe they are Villegas-Hernandez's wife and the couple's children, Wildermuth said. Investigators say the suspect and his 34-year-old wife share four daughters ages 14, 11, 7 and 3. The shooting likely occurred earlier in the day, Wildermuth said. Villegas-Hernandez may be driving a red, four-door Ford pickup with New Mexico license plate KJS479. Police said the toddler had suffered 'some Paramedics and police 'sobbed in the street' after finding the body of a 21-month-old boy at a home in Caboolture, north of Brisbane, on Saturday morning, it has been claimed. Emergency services were called to the home of Andrew O'Sullivan shortly after 12.30am where they discovered his stepson, Mason, had died. According to neighbours one worker sat on the quiet residential street and cried after finding his tiny body inside. 'Two police and two ambos did their jobs and then they all just dropped to the gutter. There were ambos sobbing,' they told The Courier Mail. Andrew O'Sullivan (left) was at home with 21-month-old Mason (right) in Caboolture, north of Brisbane, when the toddler died in the early hours of Saturday morning 'They had to be taken away. They couldnt deal with what they had seen.' It comes as the boy's stepfather says he does not know what may have caused his death. Mr O'Sullivan, who also goes by the first name William, was at home with his partner Ann's child, Mason, when he died in the early hours of Saturday morning. The 35-year-old was released without charge by Queensland Police on Saturday night after being questioned over the 21-month-old's death. He told AAP he does not know what caused the death, which is being treated by suspicious as authorities, insisting it was merely a 'normal night' at home. Mr O'Sullivan, who has four children from a previous relationship, said he gave Mason a bottle and put him to bed earlier in the evening. 'It was just a normal night,' he said. At around 12.36am he found him 'blue and gasping for air' in his bed. 'We kept on doing CPR but it wasnt working.' Paying tribute to the child, he added: 'He was my son and I loved him.' Mr O'Sullivan, 35, was questioned by Queensland Police over the child's death but has been released without charge The child's mother, known only as Ann, was at another home 1km away at the time, the newspaper reported. She reportedly told 7 News her son was 'a beautiful boy' who loved his 'family and siblings'. Police will not give details of injuries suffered by the boy before his death, simply telling media on Sunday he had sustained 'some'. Results from a post-mortem examination and toxicology on the child's body are expected to be revealed later today. 'In the early hours of the morning police received a call in relation to a deceased 21-month-old child. 'Police are conducting an investigation into the circumstances of that. The child has sustained some injuries,' said Detective Senior Sergeant Stephen Windsor. Mr O'Sullivan and Mason's mother, known only as Ann (seen above together) are expecting their first child together Queensland Police said the toddler died after suffering 'some injuries'. His mother was reportedly 1km away at another house at the time Police were called to the house shortly after 12.30am on Saturday. Neighbours have since set up a GoFundMe page to pay for the toddler's funeral Neighbours have set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the child's funeral. 'We are a group of neighbours that would like Mason to have the farewell he deserves. To help his mum to cope with her pain and grief. 'The money raised will be used for Mason's funeral and other expenses that may incur in helping the family. 'The death of Mason should never have happened, an innocent little man taken from this world too early. 'We would like to see Mason given a funeral befitting his happy nature,' a description accompanying the page said. They were unable to get mail and could not sign up for an internet service Tenants signed up to live at a Canberra address that did not officially exist A pair of landlords were ordered to pay almost $5,000 in compensation to their tenants after they signed up to live in a home that had an address that did not exist. The property in Franklin, in Canberra's north, was leased out as two addresses - one upstairs and the other downstairs - but they had never been approved as separate residences. The upstairs tenants, who were living in '77B', were unable to have their mail delivered as Australia Post did not recognise their home as an official address. A pair of landlords were ordered to pay almost $5,000 in compensation to their tenants after they signed up to live in a home (pictured is the back of the home) that had an address that did not exist They were also unable to get insurance for the contents of their home, which they signed a tenancy agreement for on November 23, 2015, and their car or sign up for internet and telephone services as it was not a valid address. 'After trying to get phone line and internet connection by myself, by contacting various service providers, I found out that none of the providers can allocate service to me,' one of the tenants told the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a written statement. 'The reason was "None of the providers are able to find the property I am living in".' Further the home had one heating and cooling system for the house, which could only be controlled from one panel. The property in Franklin (pictured is the front of the home), in Canberra's north, was leased out as two addresses - one upstairs and the other downstairs - but was never approved as separate residences The upstairs tenants, who were living in '77B', were unable to have their mail delivered as Australia Post did not recognise their home as an official address. Pictured is the kitchen inside the home The house involved in the dispute is described as a 'four-bedroom home and with a self-contained two-bedroom unit' that is spread over two storeys. The landlords of the home had tried to rectify the mailing issue by suggesting their tenants either change their mailing address to number 77 or a PO Box be set up for them at the lessors' expense. But the tenants rejected these proposals as they did not want to share a mailbox with the renters downstairs due to privacy reasons and the PO Box would be an inconvenience. The landlords also offered a solution to the airconditioning problem, saying they would install a split system, but this was also scrapped as its installation would disrupt their living arrangements. In correspondence between the parties, the tenants stated they did not agree to these changes as they had into an agreement that made no mention of these changes, and the ducted heating and cooling system had been one of the reasons they had decided to sign up to live in the home. The house involved in the dispute is described as a 'four-bedroom home and with a self-contained two-bedroom unit' that is spread over two storeys. Above is one of the bedrooms The landlords of the home had tried to rectify the mailing issue by suggesting their tenants either change their mailing address to number 77 or a PO Box be set up for them at the lessors' expense But the tenants rejected these proposals as they did not want to share a mailbox with the renters downstairs due to privacy reasons and the PO Box would be an inconvenience They also expressed concern the address would not be able to be located by firefighters, paramedics or police in cases of emergency. The tenants were represented by ACT Tenants Union's Vanessa Faulder who said her clients were looking for a termination of their tenancy agreement, and a refund of the rent paid, payment of the internet, the costs of the internet usage and payment of moving costs. Senior Member Jann Lennard ruled in the tenants' favour, saying the landlords had 'caused direct or indirect interference with the reasonable peace, comfort or privacy of the tenant in the use by the tenant of the premises'. 'In this instance, the tenants have been unable to make full and proper use of the residence as their home, and the lessors are not in a position to remedy the breach,' Ms Lennard said. 'The tribunal takes into account the distress, inconvenience and lack of peace, comfort and privacy that they have suffered over an 18-week period.' The body of a young boy has been found after he fell to his death from a waterfall in an Upstate New York park. Search and rescue had been looking for the boy since Saturday night after he and several others fell over the lower falls at Letchworth State Park. Seven people went over the lower falls at around 7 p.m. Saturday. Five were rescued and transported to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, state police said. Their injuries varied from serious to minor, troopers said, however two boys, aged six and and nine, remained missing. Authorities have recovered the body of one of the two young boys who fell into the gorge at Letchworth State Park on Saturday. The other boy is still missing as of Sunday New York State Police say that a total of seven people, all members of an extended family, went over the falls Saturday evening around 6:30 p.m. as they were playing in the river One of those boys was found dead on Sunday afternoon. Police say one person slipped, which created a domino effect and caused a total of seven people to fall into the gorge, according to WHAM reported. 'The group, which consisted of two adult males and three juvenile females were in a restricted area at the time of the incident.' New York State Park Police Major David Page said Sunday it appears the group left a designated trail and entered the water somewhere above the lower falls. 'We've got beautiful state parks and there's so much to enjoy,' Page said, 'but we really need people to stay in authorized areas for their own safety.' Swimming in the river is prohibited throughout the park. It appears one person slipped and the others followed as they tried to help. Five people, two adults and three children, were rescued and taken to Strong Memorial Hospital on Saturday. Their injuries were minor Two boys, ages six and nine, were unaccounted for. Crews, including an underwater recovery team, continued to search. They recovered the body of one of the boys Sunday afternoon. Pictured, Letchworth Lower Falls State Park Police, state police and Wyoming County sheriff's deputies responded to the scene. State police helicopters and its Underwater Recovery Team have also been helping with the search for the two young boys. The search continues for the second boy.The names of the victims are not being released at this time as it remains an ongoing investigation and search. Areas near and around the lowers falls at the State Park are closed at this time. According to police, there is no reason to believe the children were neglected or left alone before they went missing. No charges are being filed. Heartbreaking: It comes on the same weekend that Ryan Almeter, a married father-of-three, fell to his death in a hot air balloon accident in the same State Park The tragedy comes on the same weekend a married father-of-three fell to his death in a hot air balloon accident in the same State Park. 34-year-old Ryan Almeter was holding onto the basket of his hot air balloon allowing passengers to get off when wind caused the balloon to take flight, on Friday night. The balloon climbed to about 100 feet when Almeter let go of the basket and fell to his death. He was pronounced dead the scene. Australian mother Lisa Donovan has no fear when it comes to letting a giant huntsman spider crawl all over her. In fact, the spider is Ms Donovan's friend and companion - a pet called Cuddles. In a video posted to YouTube, the giant grey huntsman can be seen crawling on Ms Donovan and exploring her surroundings before returning to the lid of her cage. Ms Donovan, who lives in Hervey Bay, Queensland, said the spider is 'full grown' at 18 months old. Lisa Donovan (pictured with spider) allows her giant grey huntsman, affectionately named Cuddles, to stroll on her hand and arm. She says the one and half year old was fully grown and slowing down with age She said: 'She's moving a bit slower these days, and I thought I'd let her out for a stroll on my hand.' The grey spotted creature that has a distinctive brown stripe down its abdomen can be seen moving carefully across Ms Donovan's hand. Extending its long legs it feels around her skin cautiously before moving from the lid of her cage and onto Ms Donovan's wrist. Cuddles then makes her way back onto the lid reaching out to get back into her enclosure. The video which was posted May 31 has garnered 76 views and users have commented on how impressed they are by Ms Donovan's cool demeanour when handling the arachnid. 'That is a large one. I like your calmness, show no threat and you'll see no danger,' one viewer commented. In a video posted to Ms Donovan's YouTube page viewers are able to watch as the grey spotted creature that has a distinctive brown stripe down its abdomen carefully make its way across Ms Donovan's hand (pictured) The mother-of-three said she loved nature as a child and that when she moved to Australia almost nine years ago with her husband she was blown away by the types of insects and spiders she saw. Ms Donovan told the Daily Mail Australia: 'You guys have so many insects and spiders that are just gigantic.' She likes to tickle the feet of her Huntsman spiders but it yet to allow one crawl on her face like a Golden Orb Spider she once allowed to do just that late last year. After exploring her wrist Cuddles makes its way back onto her enclosure lid extending its long spotted legs The silver-grey bodied spider with yellow banded legs can be seen climbing up Ms Donovan's face before settling back into her hand. She said Golden Orb Spiders are the sweet natured 'puppies' of the spider community. Ms Donovan added: 'I love a lot of insects but I especially love spiders.' Grey huntsman spiders (pictured) can span up to 23 centimetres and can often be found in open forests and venturing into houses and cars Grey huntsman spiders can span up to 23 centimetres and can often be found in open forests and venturing into houses and cars, according to Queensland Museum. Black pads on their legs enable them to walk on vertical surfaces although they prefer narrow flat spaces like under bark in the corner of walls or behind paintings. Ms Donovan said that when she was pregnant with her son when she picked up a Huntsman spider she believed was dead as it lay on her front veranda. She likes to tickle the feet of her Huntsman spiders but it yet to allow one crawl on her face like a Golden Orb Spider she once allowed to do just that late last year (pictured) The spider, who only had four legs on one side of its body, sunk his fangs into her and wrapped itself around her thumb. Ms Donovan said she probably only felt sick briefly and avoided any serious problems because the spider was sick and wouldn't have had the amount of venom to harm her. The entomology student and blogger for Wannabe Entomologist has a collection of five huntsman's four different species and several stick insects that she posts videos of on her YouTube channel. They have long been the last big blowout of the husband-to-be. While the great British stag do may still conjure thoughts of boozy weekends in Benidorm or drunken nights in strip clubs, it seems the reality may now be quite different. The traditional stag do is dying out. Men are now said to be swapping tequila shots in heaving bars for more sedate activities such as life drawing classes and cookery workshops. The death of the stag do? While the great British stag do may still conjure thoughts of boozy weekends in Benidorm or drunken nights in strip clubs, it seems the reality may now be quite different (file photo) Men are now said to be swapping tequila shots in heaving bars for more sedate activities such as life drawing classes and cookery workshops (file photo) With the average age of stags rising to the mid-30s, men on the cusp of marriage are now shunning alcohol-fuelled activities in favour of pottery classes and historical city tours, according to some of the countrys largest stag events companies. And activities that do involve a tipple are more likely to be wine or ale tasting events than copious amounts of lager during a weekend in Newcastle. A reason behind the shift is believed to be the fact that young people now drink less alcohol than previous generations. Of those in the 25-44 age bracket, the number who are tee-total has increased from 15% in 2005 to 20% in 2013. Coupled with the fact that the average age for a man to get married is now 33 up from the mid-20s from the previous generation its perhaps no surprise that increasing numbers of stag dos are altogether more wholesome affairs. Lauren Troughton, of Britains largest stag celebrations company Chilli Sauce, says that only 30% of their bookings now involve alcohol or strip clubs, down from 50% in 2011. With the average age of stags rising to the mid-30s, men on the cusp of marriage are now shunning alcohol-fuelled activities (file photo) Of the activities that are related to alcohol, pub crawls are still popular, but more in-depth activities, such as distillery tours or wine tasting, are appearing more and more, she told The Observer. Many grooms are now men in middle-management or about to see their career reach the next level, so they want to be kept out of the pub, rather than pushed into it, according to another events company. Another popular new stag do activity is a treasure hunt, where the group take in a historical city and learn about the local history and culture by collecting facts and trinkets along the way. Escape rooms, where participants have to solve puzzles to get out of a locked room, are also said to be very popular. Mike Wood, founder of stag events company Freedom Ltd, believes the new stag do trends reflect a change in the typical groom over the last 20 years. When we established the business in 1996 the average age of stags was about 27, he told The Observer. Its now about 35 and those people are in the middle of their careers, maybe middle management. A man has died in a pool of a blood in front of his girlfriend after an altercation outside their home. James Beel-Endycott, 27, died on the way to hospital with a suspected stab wound to his chest after an argument with another man at his home in Beaudesert, west of the Gold Coast, on Friday night. The father-of-one reportedly burst through a window and onto his neighbour's driveway after a heated conversation with a friend turned physical, according to the Gold Coast Bulletin. His girlfriend of four months Kamahla Baker, told the publication that the friend drove off and Mr Beel-Endycott collapsed in the driveway as she desperately dialed for an ambulance. 'He said 'Help me, help me babe'. The (triple-0 operator) was asking questions like 'How old is he, what is he wearing?'. I said 'Who cares? He can't breathe and he's going blue,' she said. James Beel-Endycott (left) begged his girlfriend Kamahla Baker (right) to help him as he lay in a pool of his own blood in their Beaudesert driveway, west of the Gold Coast The father-of-one, 27, died on his way to hospital after suffering a suspected stab wound to the chest 'It took about half an hour for the ambulance to get there,' Ms Baker added. 'The police told me the most likely cause of death will be that he bled out so if we got him to the hospital earlier, we may have (saved him).' As of Monday morning no charges have been laid. On Saturday, Queensland Police confirmed a man was assisting them with their inquiries, and on Monday morning a police spokesman told Daily Mail Australia that the same man was still assisting them with their inquiries. Friends and family have paid tribute to Mr Beel-Endycott, a qualified butcher who left behind a seven-year-old son. 'Taken way to early my brother can't believe this is even real I can't comprehend all of this going to miss you not a day will go by that I won't be thinking of you,' his sister wrote. Police have established a crime scene at Ms Baker's house. Police have established a crime scene at Ms Baker's house (pictured) His girlfriend said Mr Beel-Endycott had ended up in their driveway after a heated conversation with a friend turned physical Advertisement A series of photos shows the devastating scene left after Omar Mateen opened fire inside an Orlando gay night club killing 49 innocent people and injuring dozens more. Mateen, who became the worst mass shooter in American history, shot more than 100 people with an AR-15 assault rifle and handgun on the dance floor at Pulse night club early Sunday morning. Investigators are examining evidence at Pulse nightclub in an attempt to uncover exactly what happened at the nightclub. Sunday night, workers were removing bodies four at a time on stretchers out of the club and loaded them into white vans. The action was repeated over and over until all of the bodies were removed and taken to the County Medical Examiner's office. On Monday, officials said they had identified 48 of the 49 victims, and are working to inform their families. Once their families have been informed, the names will be released online. So far, 36 of those names have been released. Scroll down for video Police forensic investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting, as bodies are removed at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016 Investigators work the scene following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, U.S. June 12, 2016 Overnight on Sunday, dozens of bodies were pulled from the bullet-ridden Orlando nightclub four at a time On Monday, officials said they had identified 48 of the 49 victims, and are working to inform their families Workers on the scene were grim-faced as they worked through the night on Sunday to remove the bodies from the Pulse nightclub Grim task: Law enforcement officials have erected forensic tents at the Pulse gay nightclub where Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people on June 13 in Orlando, Florida Tragedy: The scene at the Orlando mass shooting that killed at least 49 people and injuring 53 others at the Pulse nightclub Investigation: Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando on June 12. At least 49 people were killed when Omar Mateen opened fire inside Three forensic investigators are pictured above working the crime scene as the windows at the nightclub are completely broken out The broken windows at the gay night club are pictured above as investigators work the tragic scene Investigators from the office of the medical examiner investigate on the west side of Pulse nightclub, as bullet holes and large holes can be found throughout the building Mateen's ex-wife said he was unstable and physically abusive. He had a son with another woman, Noor Zahi Salman (left), who was listed as his wife on a 2013 mortgage and appears to have left him Pictured: US citizen Omar Mateen, 29, the suspected Islamic extremist who slaughtered at least 49 people inside a gay club in Orlando early Sunday morning PULSE KILLER 'SHOT DEAD AS HE EMERGED THROUGH HOLE IN WALL' Police officers crashed an armoured vehicle into a wall of US nightclub Pulse in a desperate bid to save hostages. Gunman Mateen was killed when he crawled through the wall firing his weapons at waiting officers. John Mina, chief of police at the City of Orlando Police Department, told how his officers handled the tense standoff with the terrorist who carried out the worst mass shooting in US history. Mateen shot some of his initial victims at the Orlando club before taking the rest hostage. He barricaded himself in a toilet with around four or five hostages and called 911. FBI Director James Comey added in a statement on Monday that the shooter was involved in precisely three calls to a 911 dispatcher at approximately 2:30am. Comey said: 'He (Mateen) called and hung up. He called again and spoke with the dispatcher and hung up. 'And the dispatcher called him back and they spoke briefly. 'During the calls he said he was doing this for the leader of ISIS, who he named, and pledged loyalty to. But he also appeared to claim solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings and solidarity with the Florida man who died as a suicideb bomber in Syria for Al-Nusra Front - a group in conflict with the so-called Islamic State. 'The Boston bombers and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by ISIS, which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives', Comey concluded. Police chiefs chose to act when he boasted to the 911 call handler about bomb vests, explosives and said he would murder more young people. Officers first laid explosives on the wall to create a space which those held hostage could escape through. Officers then drove the vehicle at speed crashing into the wall when the first plan failed. Mateen then wriggled out of the hole and fired before he was shot down. Police said the action saved the lives of dozens of people. Advertisement Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. Jon Alamo had been dancing at the Pulse for hours when he wandered into the club's main room just in time to see the gunman. "You ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? That's how he was shooting at people," he said. 'My first thought was, oh my God, I'm going to die," Alamo said. "I was praying to God that I would live to see another day.' Mateen, who purchased the weapons legally, had been investigated by the FBI three times but the bureau did not take further action. Concerns about homophobic remarks he made whilst at work did not stop him from being employed as a security guard at G4S for nine years. The company offers security advice and personnel to countries around the world and also secures some US nuclear sites. The gunman exchanged fire with an officer working around the club at 2am before going back inside, according to Orlando Police Chief John Minia. Writing on Facebook, Pulse, which described itself as the most prominent gay club in Orlando, urged party-goers to 'get out and keep running' as bullets started to fly. There were about 320 people inside the club at the time of the shootings and about 100 people were taken hostage. 'He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance,' said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next to her get shot. 'I just tried to get out of there.' At 2:09 a.m., Pulse posted on its Facebook page: "Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running." Mateen went on to exchange gunfire with 14 police officers at the club, and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, the shooter also had a handgun and some sort of 'suspicious device,' Police Chief John Mina. About 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the remaining club-goers, Mina said. At first, officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to the dead after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body, Mayor Dyer said. The robot was sent in after SWAT team members put explosive charges on a wall and an armored vehicle knocked it down in an effort to rescue hostages. Nine hero officers used a 'controlled explosion' to distract the shooter before fatally shooting him and were able to rescue about 30 hostages who were hiding in the bathroom of the club. During the gunfire, an officer was shot, but he was saved by his helmet. It was thought that at least one hostage had been locked in a bathroom with gunshot wounds. Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a press conference: 'Many were saved by the heroic efforts of the men and women of the OPD, the Orange County Sheriffs, Seminal County Sheriff's office.' At around 6am local time police tweeted: 'Pulse Shooting: The shooter inside the club is dead.' Local and federal authorities are tasked with what is expected to be a lengthy investigation into the shooting. Photos taken both on the ground and overhead show forensic investigators at the scene working to piece together exactly what happened, as huge holes can been seen left in the walls. Authorities said on Sunday that Mateen, who was from Port St Lucie in Florida, was quizzed three times by the FBI for terror links and concerns. The shooter, who had no criminal history, was licensed to work as an armed security guard in Florida, law enforcement sources said. An FBI spokesman said at a press conference later in the day that Mateen purchased multiple guns in the past few days. The spokesman said that the investigations by the FBI were closed and that's why the 29-year-old gunman was able to purchase the weapons. The federal agency said Mateen was first interviewed in 2013 after he made 'inflammatory remarks' to a colleague. 'The FBI first became aware of Mateen in 2013 as he made inflammatory comments to coworkers, alleging possible terrorist ties,' Ron Hopper an FBI special agent said during a press conference. The 2013 investigation came after he told his co-workers he knew the Tsaranev brothers who were responsible for the Boston bombing. MATEEN WAS 'DISTRESSED' WHEN HE BOUGHT ST LUCIE PROPERTY IN 2013 Further details about Mateen's property arrangements have come to light. Police officers have removed evidence from 519 and 937 south-west Bayshore Boulevard, St Lucie. The four and three-bed homes are a four minute drive between each other. Mateen was said to be in a 'distressed' state when he bought number 937 for $95,000 in September 2013. Today it is thought to be worth about $190,000. The Palm Beach Post reported that he took out a $76,000 loan to finance the home. It was advertised as a 'spacious pool home' which needs 'a little TLC'. The second home at 519 was bought for $160,000 in 2010, having been built two years earlier. His father Mir Seddique, also known as Seddique Mateen, has his company The Durand Jirga, registered at 519. It has 10 rooms and is built over two stories and is worth about $250,000. Advertisement Federal and local law enforcement remove evidence from two Treasure Coast homes that are linked to Orlando nightclub shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen Mateen's name was registered at two homes in Orlando which police raided on Sunday for evidence as their investigation continues Edward Sotomayor Jr. (left) and Stanley Almodovar III (right) were the first victims identified in the aftermath of the worst mass shooting in American history Police forensic investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando Police forensic investigators examine large holes on the side of the building which holds Pulse nightclub Police forensic investigators work at the crime scene on Sunday after 49 people were killed at the Orlando club COLLEAGUES COMPLAINED ABOUT MATEEN'S 'FREQUENT' RACIST AND HOMOPHOBIC COMMENTS AND SAID HE WAS 'UNHINGED' Mateen led what many would consider a normal life: he was married, had a child and worked as a security guard. But he was really an 'unhinged' extremist who regularly made homophobic and racist remarks at work. That's the account of former police officer Daniel Gilroy who worked alongside Mateen, 29, for security firm G4S. Gilroy said he complained to bosses but they did nothing because of Mateen's Muslim faith. 'I quit because everything he said was toxic,' Gilroy told Florida Today. '...and the company wouldn't do anything. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.' Gilroy said Mateen would take over from him on shift at PGA Village between 2014-15. Mateen began stalking him, sent up to 30 messages and made around 15 calls to him a day, Gilroy added. Advertisement Investigators are facing a difficult task, as 49 people were killed inside the club during the shooting The inside of Pulse night club appears to be heavily damaged as glass from broken windows is likely inside FBI agents investigate the severely damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub after the shooting on Sunday FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub in what is the deadliest mass shooting in American history AR-15 RIFLE MATEEN CARRIED HAS OFTEN BEEN USED IN MASS SHOOTINGS IN US HISTORY The AR-15 rifle is the civilian model of the M-16 and is capable of firing a large number of rounds in seconds The type of AR-15 rifle that terrorist Omar Mateen used to kill 49 people and wound dozens more at the nightclub in Orlando has become the weapon of choice for mass murderers in the U.S. and is one of the common links between the shootings. Even though it has caused carnage and left dozens of people dead in multiple shootings this decade alone, the military-inspired semi-automatic rifle designed for civilian use is perfectly legal in most states. There were calls for a nationwide ban after the same type of firearm - capable of firing dozens of rounds in less than a minute without being reloaded - was used in the Sandy Hook school shooting, but it remains readily available at gun shops and was purchased just last week by Mateen before he went on his killing spree. The AR-15 rifle is the civilian model of the M-16 and is capable of firing a large number of rounds in seconds Mateen, 29, was armed with a .223-caliber AR-15-type rifle and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol both legally purchased when he opened fire at the Pulse gay club in Orlando early Sunday morning. Called a killing machine or 'weapon of war' by those who want to see it banned, the AR-15 rifle is the civilian version of the fully-automatic M16 used by soldiers in the Vietnam War. Unlike the M16, users must pull the trigger every time they want to fire a shot. The most common versions of the AR-15 have been banned in a handful of states, including California. When it is used against humans it is intended to cause maximum carnage in a brief amount of time, said experts. Advertisement 'The FBI thoroughly investigated the matter including interviews of witnesses, physical surveillance and records checks. 'In the course of that investigation, Mateen was interviewed twice.'Ultimately we were unable to verify the substance of his comments, and the investigation was closed.' In 2014, Mateen came to the FBI's attention again and agents interviewed him about a potential connection he may have had with American suicide bomber Moner Abu Salha, who lived about 30 minutes away in Vero Beach, Florida. 'We determined that contact was minimal and didn't to constitute a substantive relationship or threat at that that time,' Hopper said. In addition, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said that Mateen purchased two weapons legally within the last week. 'He is not a prohibitive person so he can legally walk into a gun dealership,' the representative from the ATF said. 'He did so within the last week or so.' FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the nightclub on Sunday afternoon Large holes were left in the brick wall at the rear of the nightclub after the horrific shooting 'He's a known quantity,' another source said. 'He's been on the radar before.' Global security firm, G4S, confirmed that he worked for the company since 2007. 'We are shocked and saddened by the tragic event that occurred at the Orlando nightclub,' a statement by the company reads. 'We can confirm that Omar Mateen had been employed with G4S since September 10, 2007. We are cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the friends, families and people affected by this unspeakable tragedy.' An FBI spokesman said Sunday's mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism, adding that they are looking into whether it was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the Mateen was a lone wolf. The FBI believe Mateen, who was shot dead by officers, may have 'leanings to radical Islamic terrorism'. A group of authorities stand near the rear of the nightclub as they conduct an investigation into the shooting But his father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News his son became angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami several months ago. 'This has nothing to do with religion,' he said. 'We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.' Twitter accounts which claim to be affiliated to the Islamic State have hailed the shooting, although DailyMail.com cannot confirm whether the terror group was behind the attack. Mateen, a Muslim and father to a three-year-old son, was born in 1986 in New York and married Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy, who was born in Uzbekistan, in 2009. His father told NBC News: 'We were in Downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry.' 'They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, 'Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that'. And then we were in the men's bathroom and men were kissing each other.' Investigators take photos and examine the outside scene of the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Florida Seddique said Mateen attended Indian River State College, as well as having an associates degree in criminal justice. Manteen had a Statewide Firearms License and was trained in firearms, according to Fox News. Hopper said Mateen made 'threats in the past that he has ties to terrorist organizations'. Police were at his apartment in Port St. Lucie this morning. Ken Mascara, Sheriff of Port St. Lucie County, told DailyMail.com: 'We have sealed the apartment where Mateen was living. The FBI is bringing bomb diffusing equipment.' Since the news of the horrific shooting emerged, celebrities and politicians are calling for stricter gun control laws. President Obama furthered his gun control message today when addressing the massacre in Orlando. 'Although it's still early in the investigation we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate,' Obama said, making no reference to ISIS or Islamic terror in his brief remarks. Obama called the shooting spree, at the gay nightclub Pulse during Pride month in the United States, a reminder of how easy it is for someone to get a hold of a weapon that could kill people in a 'school, or a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.' The forensic investigators dressed in white jumpsuits with covers over their shoes in order to not contaminate the tragic scene Dozens of police and emergency personal have surrounded the area around the nightclub in Orlando as the investigation continues 'And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be,' Obama said. 'And to actively do nothing is a decision as well,' the president added. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton took to Twitter on Sunday morning to give their initial reactions to what's now being called the most deadly shooting in United States history. 'Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act,' Clinton wrote on Twitter, signing it with her trademark 'H' to show that the message was actually penned by the Democratic candidate. In a statement made by her campaign later, Clinton also called for gun control. 'This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets,' Clinton said. Trump made Twitter followers aware of the shooting, then went back to attacking Clinton this time for a new general election ad before penning another tweet about the tragedy in Orlando, in which a gunman entered a gay nightclub and mowed down 49 people, with another 53 left injured. 'Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!' Trump later wrote. It appears the street where the nightclub is on is completely closed as police and federal authorities investigate the incident The coalition twice tried to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Plans may help reduce the toxic runoff from fertilisers and sediment The money comes from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) The $1billion will help protect the reef over the next 10 years The Turnbull government will create a $1billion fund to help protect the Great Barrier Reef from coral bleaching, climate change and poor water quality. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull pledged the money on Monday to help protect the reef over the next 10 years. The money is from a $10billion special account owned by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation - an organisation Mr Turnbull's predecessor promised to abolish. The funds will go towards an improvement in water quality and a reduction in emissions like the toxic runoff caused by fertilisers and sediment. The money will also help improve energy and water irrigation systems and coastal sewage plants. Mr Turnbull said clean energy initiatives in the local catchment will be a focus, along with finance for solar panels for nearby farms and more efficient agricultural equipment. The government believes improving water quality will bolster the reef's resilience to climate change, coral bleaching and outbreaks of the coral-destroying crown of thorns starfish. The pledged investment comes on top of $461million spent by the coalition on the reef since coming to power in 2013. Malcolm Turnbull's $1billion CEFC fund investment should help to improve water quality by reducing toxic fertiliser runoff The devastating effects of coral bleaching on the reef mean that once vibrant corals are left deathly white The combination of sewage runoff, water pollution and fertiliser has decimated once lively populations of coral Climate change and an increase in water temperature has also destroyed much of the coral on the reef The pledged investment comes on top of $461million spent by the coalition on the reef since coming to power in 2013. The government believes improving water quality will bolster the reef's resilience to climate change and coral bleaching The money pledged by the Government may help protect the vibrant corals of the reef from further bleaching and water toxicity A fortnight ago, Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shorten pledged $500million for the reef, including $377 million in new funding. His plan included $50 million for the CSIRO, as well as funding for improving water quality and reducing sediment run off. Photographs from the ARC Centre of Excellence and the CSIRO show the devastating consequences of water pollution and coral bleaching on the reef. The Government believes that protecting the reef from further bleaching will protect it as an important tourist attraction Sewage runoff from coastal sewage plants has destroyed much of the delicate reef ecosystem Clown fish depend on vibrant coral for habitable space, but their habitat is endangered by poor water quality German politicians of Turkish descent have been placed under police protection after receiving death threats over parliament's decision to recognise the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as a 'genocide'. Security officers have been assigned to accompany 11 MPs since Saturday. The measure came following a round of 'security discussions' with federal police. The Bundestag vote last week over the World War 1-era massacre has sunk ties between Turkey and Germany to a low, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacting furiously over the parliamentary decision. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (pictured) reacted furiously over the parliamentary decision Erdogan charged that the 11 German MPs with Turkish roots who backed the resolution supported 'terrorism' by the banned Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), and demanded that they undergo 'blood tests' to see 'what kind of Turks they are'. Parliament speaker Norbert Lammert had during the vote itself revealed that MPs had received death threats. Greens chief Cem Ozdemir, who counted among those who initiated the resolution, had earlier already been given police protection. Armenia has led a decades-long campaign to have the bloodshed characterised as genocide, which Turkey rejects as a gross injustice. Ankara argues the killings were a collective tragedy in which equal numbers of Turks and Armenians died. Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old who murdered 49 people in cold blood early Sunday morning, legally bought the handgun and assault rifle used in the killings days before the shooting - despite being quizzed three times by the FBI over his possible terror links. Mateen purchased the .233-caliber AR-15-type assault rifle and a 9mm pistol earlier in the week, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) confirmed via Orlando police Sunday. However, it also emerged that Mateen had been the subject of two FBI investigations and quizzed three times in total. In 2013, Mateen made inflammatory comments to co-workers and suggested he may have had terrorist ties. He was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. 'The FBI thoroughly investigated the matter including interviews of witnesses, physical surveillance and records checks', Hopper said. Scroll down for video Licensed: Omar Mateen, who killed 50 people and injured 53 more at a gay club in Orlando Sunday morning, legally purchased the guns he used in the kllings - even though the FBI had investigated him Weapons: Mateen used a .233-caliber assault rifle similar to the AR-15 pictured left, as well as a 9mm handgun that the ATF said was similar to a Glock 19 (right). The AR-15 has been used in multiple mass murders Legal: The ATF confirmed that Mateen's weapons were legally purchased. Florida doesn't require a gun license to buy a firearm, although Mateen did have one due to his job as a security guard 'Ultimately we were unable to verify the substance of his comments, and the investigation was closed.' Then, in 2014, the F.B.I. discovered a possible connection between Mr. Mateen and Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who lived about 30 minutes away from Mateen's Port St. Lucie home in Vero Beach, Florida and became the first American suicide bomber in Syria. The F.B.I. closed its inquiry after finding minimal contact between the pair. 'We determined that contact was minimal and didn't to constitute a substantive relationship or threat at that that time,' Hopper said. The closure of the two investigations led to Mateen being removed from the FBI's watch list. A Florida government website also confirmed that Mateen had been issued a license to work as an armed security officer. Trevor Velinor, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,said: 'He is not a prohibited person. They can legally walk into a gun dealership and acquire and purchase firearms. He did so. And he did so within the last week or so,' he said. According to the NRA, under Florida law, anyone can buy a long gun such as the AR-15 or handgun without a license, although a license is required to conceal-carry a handgun. There is also a three-day background check that looks for convicted felons, those with histories of domestic assault and those who have been registered as a danger to themselves or others. Investigated: Mateen was investigated in 2013 for making suspicious remarks about terrorism and in 2014 for an alleged connection to Moner Abu Salha (pictured) a U.S. suicide bomber. The FBI ruled him not to be a threat Massacre: With the cases against him closed, Mateen was taken off the FBI watch lists. But even if he had been on there, he would still have been able to buy the guns he used in the shooting Sunday night (pictured) As well as his time as an FBI 'person of interest,' Mateen also had a history of violence and instability. His ex-wife, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, told The Washington Post that he would regularly beat her. 'He was not a stable person,' said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. 'He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasnt finished or something like that.' And Daniel Gilroy, who worked with Mateen as a security guard for G4S security at PGA Village golf resort in St. Lucie, Florida, said he was 'unhinged' and 'homophobic', and had stalked him for a time. 'I quit because everything he said was toxic,' Gilroy told Florida Today Sunday, 'and the company wouldn't do anything. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.' Gilroy said Mateen had been sending him 20-30 text messages and 13-15 phone messages a day before he quit. Violence: Mateen has a history of violence, having beaten his ex-wife. His fellow security guard also said he was 'homophobic' and 'unhinged' and quit after he was sent 20-30 text messages a day by Mateen Even if Mateen had remained on the list, he would still have been able to legally purchase the weapons, thanks to a GOP-led victory last year. In December 2015, Senate Republicans blocked a motion to stop those on the watch list from buying guns, in a 54-45 vote. One Republican and one Democrat voted against party lines, MSNBC reported at the time. The NRA had been against the bill, saying it wanted to protect the constitutional rights of those wrongly placed on the watch list - even though the bill provided routes to challenge those claims. The guns were identified by the ATF HQ Sunday as being a .233-caliber assault rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. In a Tweet they pictured an AR-15 rifle and a Glock 19 pistol. The AR-15, a semiautomatic assault rifle, was also used in the Colorado movie theater, Sandy Hook and San Bernardino massacres, among other mass murders. It's not known precisely where Mateen, who lived in Port St. Lucie - around an hour and a half from the Orlando club where the murders took place - bought the weapons. The Orlando Sentinel spoke to Alan Schwartz, owner of Guns Plus More in Port St. Lucie, who said he would have recalled Mateen's name but 'no one has said they knew him.' He added that when he heard of the shooting, he thought to himself: 'Damn, another jerk gets his hands on a gun.' Amazon expects to take significant market share from the retail giants It is the latest challenge to market players Coles, Woolworths and Aldi Internet giant Amazon is planning a fresh and frozen food delivery service in Australia that is a direct challenge to big supermarket companies Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. Amazon Fresh could be available to Australian consumers as early as next year, with the $339billion company expecting to be 'embraced' by shoppers, according to Sydney Morning Herald. Amazon Fresh has been operating in the US for seven years and launched last week in England. The company is reportedly looking toward markets in China and India. Amazon Fresh could be available to Australian consumers as early as 2017, with the $338.7 billion company expecting to be 'embraced' by shoppers. Pictured is an Amazon Fresh grocery delivery van in New York Amazon Fresh has been operating in the US for seven years and launched last week in England. The company is reportedly looking toward markets in China and India Consumers use an upgraded Amazon account to order fresh and frozen products that are delivered from local shops and markets Consumers use an upgraded Amazon account to order fresh and frozen products that are delivered from local shops and markets. Amazon's supply chain and business strategy expert Brittain Ladd said the company would be 'embraced' by consumers and would allow it to gain a foothold on Australia's $90 billion grocery market. 'Amazon Fresh, once it was rolled out and had reached a level of maturity in Australia, certainly would have the potential of generating billions of dollars in Australia in terms of grocery sales. And I fully believe that's achievable,' Mr Ladd told the newspaper. Mr Ladd reportedly said Australia is 10 years behind in grocery business and supply chain and that the company's launch would likely see Coles, Woolworths and Aldi lose market share. Amazon's supply chain and business strategy expert Brittain Ladd said the company would be 'embraced' by consumers and would allow it to gain a foothold on Australia's $90 billion grocery market 'Coles and Woolworths would certainly lose market share' - Amazon fresh analyst Brittain Ladd expects the service to be embraced by Australians Mr Ladd reportedly said Australia is 10 years behind in grocery business and supply chain and that the company's launch would likely see Coles, Woolworths and Aldi lose market share '(It would) be embraced, I believe, at such a level in Australia that Coles and Woolworths would certainly lose market share, but I believe Aldi would also lose market share.' A Woolworths spokeswoman said the company welcomes all competition and would endevour to improve its online offering. Shocking security footage has captured an attack on a taxi driver at a petrol station before two brave teenagers rush to his aid. Footage shows a man trying to tear off the door of a taxi at a 7-Eleven store in Woolooware, south of Sydney, on Saturday night. Taxi driver Nadeen Usman, 46, fled the car but fell to the ground before he was set upon by a man and a woman. Shocking security footage has captured the alleged attack of a taxi driver Nadeen Usman before two brave teenagers rush to his aid. Above, a motionless Mr Usman appears to kicked in the had The defenceless driver fled his taxi but fell to the ground before he was allegedly set upon by a man and a woman Footage shows the defenceless driver repeatedly kicked to the head and face. Ryan Barrett, 18, and Bailey Cooper, 19, were inside the store when Mr Usman was allegedly attacked. 'The fella has pulled the cab driver out of the car and started laying into him, he was stomping him in the head with so much force,' Mr Barrett told The Daily Telegraph. 'His girlfriend was joining in too. The driver was unconscious and hyperventilating, he'd gone into shock and his face was all swollen.' The brave youngsters came to Mr Usman's aid, but the teenagers were themselves set upon by the alleged attackers. Ryan Barrett, 18, (left) and Bailey Cooper, 19, (right) were inside the 7-Eleven store when Mr Usman was allegedly attacked The youngsters came to Mr Usman's aid and called police, but they too were allegedly attacked Mr Cooper ran from the pair as he was on the phone to police, before a woman appeared to punch Mr Barrett in the face. Police allege that the man then kicked Mr Barrett in the head. Before fleeing the scene the man seemed to stomp on the head of the motionless Mr Usman. As the alleged attackers got into another taxi, Mr Cooper gave chase. 'The fella has pulled the cab driver out of the car and started laying into him, he was stomping him in the head with so much force,' Mr Barrett told The Daily Telegraph Mr Cooper ran from the pair as he was on the phone to police, before a woman appeared to punch Mr Barrett in the face. Above, Mr Barrett braces as he appears to be kicked to the head 'I was on the phone to triple zero saying they're in this cab... trying to get the location the police as quick as possible,' he told Nine News. A man and a woman were arrested at nearby Sylvania McDonalds less than 10 minutes later. Jay Belgrove, 21, was charged with grievous bodily harm with intent, assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, assault and destroy property. A 20-year-old woman was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and assault. She was granted strict bail while Belgrove's application was refused. They will both appear in court next month. Mr Usman suffered severe head injuries, a fractured jaw and a fractured eye socket, Nine News reported. They wanted fries with that, quickly. Three women were arrested for assaulting a woman who worked at McDonald's because she was too slow in fulfilling their order. Police said the troublesome trio were identified on video after they fled the scene with their children, who also reportedly participated in the assault. Ashley England, Mary Jordan, and Sammie Whaley of Sandusky were arrested after they were filmed in an attack at the Bellevue, Ohio, McDonald's on Wednesday. Scroll down for video Mary Jordan (above) was charged with assault and child endangerment because police said the children were involved in the attack Ashley England, above, was also arrested and charged with assault and child endangerment because police said her child was involved in the attack on a McDonald's employee Sammie Whaley, above, was also not happy with her McDonald's service and allegedly attacked a 'slow worker' because of it Police say they attacked the female employee because 'she was working too slowly when dealing with three woman and their family and friends,' according to NBC 24. The Bellevue Police Department wrote on their Facebook page that both England and Jordan were charged not only with assault but child endangerment, since they not only had their children with them during the assault, but the children were 'participating in the incident.' Whaley was charged with assault. Mary Jordan, above, is one of three women arrested after cops say they attacked a McDonald's worker - and their children were involved in the fracas Jordan was also already on probation. In their booking photos, Jordan and England don't appear to be taking the charges very seriously, and grinned impishly for the camera. The 42-year-old was allegedly clocked at 138km/h in an 80km/h zone An Adelaide man has tested positive to methamphetamine after being caught driving almost 60km/h over the speed limit, police say. The 42-year-old was allegedly clocked at 138km/h in an 80km/h zone on Tapleys Hill Road near Adelaide Airport on Sunday night. He was fined $1035 and stripped of his licence for 12 months and is likely to face court once forensic testing of his drug sample is completed. An Adelaide man has tested positive to meth, or ice, after being caught driving almost 60km/h over speed limit, police say Methamphetamine, a stimulant drug known as 'ice' in Australia, speeds up the messages between the brain and the body and increases up the pleasure hormone dopamine by up to 1,000 times. Research shows that drivers under the influence of the damaging drug are more likely to speed, swerve and engage in other risky behaviours. Just hours later, a separate Adelaide driver was allegedly caught with a blood alcohol reading of 0.237 - over four times the legal limit. The 27-year-old was pulled over by police on Sydenham Road, Norwood, just after 4am when his car swerved towards the kerb. He lost his license for a year and had his vehicle impounded for 28 days. He will appear in court at a later date. Rye Hunt's 'heartbroken' family is preparing to cremate his body in Rio de Janeiro and bring it back to Australia. Brazilian authorities returned Mr Hunt's body to his family on Monday and he was taken to a local funeral home as his girlfriend and uncle prepare to bring him back to Tasmania. The 25-year-old backpacker, from Hobart, went missing on May 21 after he became separated from his travelling companion Mitchell Sheppard at the Rio airport. Scroll down for video The family of Australian backpacker Rye Hunt said they were disappointed with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. They said Ms Bishop announced his death before they could tell their closest friends They had an argument after the two took what is suspected to be a highly potent hallucinogen known as NBOMe. Clinical tests have confirmed a body that washed ashore at Marica on June 8 was Mr Hunt. His uncle Michael Wholohan, who has been searching for him in Rio for the past two weeks, lodged an application with a Rio court to have his remains cremated and repatriated. Mr Wholohan provided the Rio Police Forensic Institute of Genetics Expertise and Research a DNA to compare. 'Rye has previously made clear his wish to be cremated and for his ashes to be scattered in his home state of Tasmania,' the family said in a statement on Monday. If the application is granted, Mr Wholohan and Mr Hunt's girlfriend Bonnie Cuthbert will bring his remains to Australia on June 15. Mr Hunt's uncle and girlfriend Bonnie Cuthbert (right) is expected to bring his remains to Australia on June 15 Mr Hunt, 25, was last seen on CCTV leaving an apartment in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro This comes as Mr Hunt's family lashed out at Foreign Minister Julie Bishop for unexpectedly telling media of his death before they could tell their closest friends. Ms Bishop confirmed the identification of Mr Hunt's body on Saturday after DNA results were released by the Australian embassy. But in a statement released on Facebook his family said they were 'disappointed' they had not been given the opportunity to share the news first, reported Fairfax Media. The family said Ms Bishop announced the identification of Mr Hunt's body before her department officially notified them. The family's post said: 'We are disappointed that we were not given the opportunity to share this sad and important news with our closest friends and family directly. Ms Cuthbert searched for her boyfriend in Brazil by showing photos of him to locals 'We apologise that some may have heard this for the first time in the media. 'At this stage we still await official notification from DFAT. However, we can confirm that the body found belongs to our Rye. 'We appreciate your support and sensitivity at this time.' Brazilian authorities called off a 72-hour sea search for Mr Hunt's body after a fishermen reportedly spotted a body floating off Rio's coast in clothes similar to those worn by Mr Hunt when he vanished. Following the identification of Mr Hunt's body, his family spoke of a 'generous, cheeky' person who will be missed. Following the identification of Mr Hunt's body, his family spoke of a 'generous, cheeky' person who will be missed 'I feel so blessed to have shared the last five years with my beautiful 'Big Bear',' his girlfriend Bonnie Cuthbert said in a statement. 'We have been so lucky to have found and loved each other so deeply. The love Rye and I shared will remain within both of us, forever.' His sister Romany Brodribb said the thought of life without her brother was 'unfathomable'. 'We are understandably heart broken. Rye was the youngest member of our family and was known for being loyal, loving, generous, cheeky, and as a brother, totally infuriating!' she said in a statement. Counterfeit $50 notes are in circulation in Queensland, prompting police to warn the public not to be fooled. Several people reported fake notes made of paper instead of the plastic being used in Wurtulla, Currimundi, Aroona and Kawana Waters - areas of the Sunshine Coast. Detective Senior Sergeant Darren Edwards urged business owners and community members to be mindful and check the quality of the $50 notes in particular. Scroll down for video Counterfeit $50 notes (pictured) are in circulation in Queensland, prompting police to warn the public not to be fooled Several people reported fake notes made of paper instead of the plastic being used in Wurtulla, Currimundi, Aroona and Kawana Waters - areas of the Sunshine Coast. Pictured is the other side of the note 'In many of the transactions involving counterfeit notes we are seeing use of paper, rather than the proper polymer,' Det Snr Sgt Edwards said. 'The notes will rip easily and there may be some businesses who have received the notes and are yet to notify police.' HOW TO SPOT A FAKE Is the note made out of plastic? Does a coat of arms appear when it is held up to the light? Are there diamond patterns printed inside a circle on both sides? Is there a clear window? Does the white image printed on it rub off easily? On the clear window, is there embossing? Is the special dark ink raised on the note? Is the printing on the note sharp? Look for micro printing on the note Put it under a UV light and look for fluorescent patches Advertisement There are a number of ways people can tell whether or not a note is fake such as checking if it is plastic, if there is a coat of arms when it is held up to the light, if diamond-shaped patterns are printed inside a circle on both sides, and if it has a clear window. Further the white image printed on the window should not be easily rubbed off and there is a wave pattern embossed on it as well as the value on notes starting from $20. Other security features to feel whether or not the special dark ink is raised, the print quality, micro printing and looking at it under a UV light as most of the note should not be fluorescent - except for the serial numbers and a patch on the notes showing the value. If people suspect a note is counterfeit, the Reserve Bank Australia recommends to handle it as little as possible and put it in an envelope to hand over to police. Also try to remember any relevant information about the note, such as how it came into their possession. Shocking new allegations reveal that not only did at least 24 police officers sleep with the same prostitute, they also tipped her off about undercover operations. The woman, who goes by the name of 'Celeste Guap', said that she slept with three of the two dozen officers when she was just 17. She turned 18 last August. Now, text messages from Guap shown to KPIX reveal exchanges with Oakland officers, who appear to warn her about undercover operations while she was working as a prostitute. Underage: Celeste Guap (left) started having sex with Officer Brendan O'Brien (right) in 2015 when she was underage, after he saved her from her pimp. He was the first of 21 police officers she would have sex with Text messages from the young prostitute shown to KPIX reveal exchanges with Oakland officers, who appear to warn her about undercover operations while she was working as a prostitute In one exchange, Guap asks for details about undercover sting to which the officer acquiesces While in another text conversation with a different Oakland officer, Guap sent a picture of herself having sex with someone else. One text exchange with a man saved as 'Superman' begins: 'Be safe today. Want some advice?' Before continuing: 'Stay off east 14, from Fruitvale to 42 tonight. There's a UC operation.' Another exchange with a different Oakland officer begins with Guap asking: 'Is it gonna be hot in Oakland tonight?' The officer then replies that it will be and asked who told her, to which she says: 'Nobody, that's why I'm mad.' He then replied: 'I told you last night, or I tried to. But you were drunk.' While in another text conversation with a different Oakland officer, Guap sent a picture of herself having sex with someone else and told the man: 'I'm sure you'd be better'. Out of the two dozen officers she had sex with, she says she slept with three of them when she was a minor and that all three of those worked at Oakland Police Department. Guap also gave a break down to KPIX, where she revealed she had sex with 14 officers from Oakland Police Department, five from the Richmond Police Department, three from Alameda County Sheriff's deputies and one Livermore cop. The woman, who goes by the name of 'Celeste Guap', said that she slept with three of the two dozen officers when she was 17. She turned 18 last August. Resigned: Oakland police chief Sean Whent (pictured) resigned Thursday after 14 of his officers - including O'Brien, whose suicide note last September started the investigation - were revealed to have slept with Guap Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent resigned Thursday after a sex scandal that began in his department spread to four other cities. She also said two Oakland officers provided her with confidential police information, including tips on scheduled anti-prostitution stings and arrest records, The Mercury News reported. At the announcement of Whent's resignation on Friday, Mayor Libby Schaaf said: 'I'm extremely angry about the alleged misconduct in this department.' Despite this, both Schaaf and city administrator Sabrina Landreth claimed Whent's departure was nothing to do with the scandal, the East Bay Express reported. But sources told both The Mercury News and the East Bay Express that Whent was pressured to resign by the department's federal overseer, Robert Warshaw. Whent's resignation came after his superiors discovered that both he and his wife had found out about the misconduct by various officers long before it became public, and refused to escalate the information, the East Bay Express claimed. At least 14 of Whent's officers had been sexually involved with Guap, whose mother is an Oakland police dispatcher. She also told Mercury News she had slept with five Richmond police officers, four Alameda County Sheriff's deputies, one Livermore officer and a law enforcement worker based in Stockton. One of the sheriff's deputies had sex with her in his personal automobile while his K-9 dog sat in the back, she said. The investigation into the officers' relationship began in September 2015, after married Officer Brendan O'Brien, who had been having an affair with Guap since she was 17, killed himself and named her and several officers in his suicide note. Since then, two-dozen officers have been revealed to have slept with Guap, some of whom provided her with confidential information. 'I think cops are fine. They're cute and all, but it's like one less officer that's gonna arrest me,' she told the East Bay Express. Under the screen name 'Superman,' one officer wrote: 'Want some advice? Stay off E14 from Fruitvale to 42(nd Avenue) tonight. There's a UC (an undercover) operation.' She replied: 'Thank u daddy I appreciate it (I don't) wanna go to jail lol.' Guap told the East Bay Express that 'Superman' had put her in a taxi after she approached him drunk and lost. She began having sex with him a week later. Underage: Guap started working as a prostitute when she was 12, but didn't meet O'Brien until she was 17. He was the first cop she had sex with. Her mom works as an Oakland police dispatcher She also identified Officer Terryl Smith, one of the two officers who resigned from Oakland PD earlier this year, as someone who gave her arrest records and other confidential information. 'I would hook up with [Smith] like every Saturday night for three months straight,' Guap said. 'He had a mattress in his back seat and slept in his car in the OPD parking lot, so we would hook up after work.' In addition, she said, a retired Oakland police captain in his 80s contacted her on Facebook in 2015, when she was underage, and eventually paid $250 to have sex with her in a motel after she turned 18. The captain, who draws a $125,000 pension from the city, admitted to sleeping with the girl and said he found her because she was friends with lots of other officers on Facebook. But he warned the Express: 'Please don't publish my name. I will die. I have a heart condition.' The paper left him anonymous. The Express also says that according to text messages it obtained, Guap would have frequent late-night text conversations with Officer Luis Roman while he was on duty; he would send her texts and she would send him pictures of her naked body. Roman told the paper that he knew of other officers' relationships with Guap but denied any wrongdoing himself. Information: Guap had sex with police for protection from arrest, and also because they would give her info about undercover stings. Her tattoo reads 'Dios, Patria, Libertad', which means 'God, Homeland, Liberty.' Barry Donelan, president of Oakland's police union, said he was 'mortified and deeply embarrassed' by the allegations. 'If any of this is true, it is an absolute betrayal of what we stand for,' he said. The scandal is a blow to a department that has been under federal oversight because of failures to adequately hold officers accountable for misdeeds. Guap, who began selling herself on the streets of Richmond at age 12 and eventually ended up in Oakland's International Boulevard, a well known sex-trafficking hub, said many officers knew she was underage. 'They nicknamed me 'juve,' which is short for juvenile,' said Guap. She said O'Brien was the first officer she met. The two began a sexual relationship after he defended her from a pimp and others soon followed. Police opened up an investigation after O'Brien committed suicide on September 25, 2015, at the age of 30, leaving a note naming officers involved with the woman. His wife had died a year earlier. 'They were my protectors,' she said. 'I didn't have a pimp at the time. It did make me feel safer, having them.' Guap, who is now 18 and lives in Richmond, California, started revealing details on Facebook, suggesting she had illicit encounters with officers - calling the relationships 'harmless' but insisted that she did not 'snitch' on anyone. Guap made several suggestive posts on Facebook hinting at sexual affairs with police officers Last year, Guap shared a post suggesting an Oakland police officer had dropped her off near her home in Richmond, California Last year, she posted on the site: 'The only officer I ever messed with underage is sadly gone now, so I don't know why this is still being brought up.' That remark referenced O'Brien, but since then two more officers have been named as having had sex with Guap while she was underage. At least one of those officers, who has not been named, is facing a statutory rape charge in a criminal investigation that is also underway. In April 2015, the teenager posted a picture of an Oakland PD vehicle after claiming to have been dropped her off near her home, writing: 'Took me back to Richmond in style.' She also shared a Facebook status in which she - alongside a police officer emoji - wrote: 'Calls me his Mrs Undercover that's cuz we always undercover.' O'Brien's wife, Irma Huerta Lopez, died in June 2014, according to the East Bay Express. President Obama and Hillary Clinton won't be appearing together this week after all, with the planned Wednesday campaign event in Wisconsin being put on hold indefinitely after Sunday's massacre in Orlando, Florida. Both the White House and the Clinton campaign announced in tandem that because of the mass shooting the event was off for now. 'Because of the tragic attack in Orlando, the June 15 Hillary for America campaign event with President Obama will be postponed,' read a release from the Clinton campaign. 'Details on rescheduling the event will be provided as soon as possible.' Scroll down for video President Obama will not be campaigning this week with Hillary Clinton after all - as the two Democrats decided to put the overtly partisan event on hold after Sunday's massacre in Orlando Hillary Clinton responded to Sunday's tragedy in Orlando by sending out several tweets, issuing a statement and cancelling a joint appearance on Wednesday with President Obama Obama had been eager to get back on the campaign trail to take on the Republicans' presumptive nominee Donald Trump, who was a thorn in the president's side for years, stoking the 'birther' conspiracy theories that suggested Obama had been born in Africa and not in the United States. The president was born in Hawaii to a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya and was forced to produce his long form birth certificate in 2011 to silence this Trump-infused birther 'distraction,' as the president called it. Five years later, Obama had to wait until the Democratic primary was essentially over before he could fully take on Trump, careful not to look too partial to Clinton, who served in his administration. Last week, after Obama held a D.C. meeting with Clinton's Democratic rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the president quickly threw his support behind his former secretary of state, despite the fact that Democrats in Washington, D.C. have yet to go to the polls. Shortly thereafter, Obama and Clinton announced their joint appearance in Wisconsin, scheduled one day after the final Democratic primary. Today, with the news that a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando would become the nation's most deadly Obama and Clinton both made statements. Obama took to the podium at the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, named after President Ronald Reagan's press secretary, who was shot and left disabled during an assassination attempt. 'Although it's still early in the investigation we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate,' Obama said today at the White House. He sent his condolences to the victims and talked about how this shooting would hit the LGBT community particularly hard. The president also made a veiled pitch for gun control, an issue that he has pushed unsuccessfully throughout his two terms, stalled by a wall of Congressional Republican opposition. 'And to actively do nothing is a decision as well,' the president said. Clinton repeated Obama's words that the Orlando massacre was an 'act of terror' and an 'act of hate.' She, too, called out to the LGBT community. 'Please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them', she tweeted. And she was on the same page on gun control as the president too. A gunman who took his brother and elderly father hostage in a Brisbane home with a homemade weapon has surrendered himself to police. Almost 10 hours after the siege began, the man was taken into police custody without incident. It is not yet known if charges will be laid. Queensland Police were called to the property in Redcliffe about 10am on Monday where the man, who has not been identified, was keeping two members of his family. He released one, an elderly man, shortly after 1pm and the second at around 4pm after threatening police with a homemade gun. Scroll down for video Police cordoned off a suburban street in Redcliffe, Brisbane, where a man held his family hostage in a residential address. Above, emergency workers at a house on the street About 6pm, Energex workers were brought to the residence. The Courier Mail reported at least one was wearing a bulletproof vest and the men cut power to the house. Officers spent the hours of the siege in continued talks with the man. 'Negotiators are talking with the man and we're grateful for that,' Inspector John Hallam said on Monday. According to the ABC the second man was released at 4pm. A police vehicle was then seen breaking down a gate at the property while the man remained inside. A cordon is in place for surrounding streets though no one in the area has been evacuated. The man told police he was using a 'homemade firearm' to control hostages. A faculty member at the nearby Redcliffe High School said its students were safe on the premises but that the surrounding roads had been closed. A Queensland Police spokesman said shortly after midday: 'Police have declared an emergency situation at an address in Redcliffe this morning. 'Officers were called to a residence on Klingner Road at 10am following reports of a disturbance. 'Police declared the emergency situation after establishing that a man, who is believed to be armed, had barricaded himself inside the house. Fire trucks and an ambulance were sent to the street where police are reportedly attempting to negotiate with the man A situation of emergency was declared after officers were sent to the address at approximately 10am on Monday Inspector John Hallam said police were grateful the man was speaking to them as they awaited the release of the second hostage 'It is believed there may be others inside the residence.' According to by-passers the area was 'blocked off' with a heavy police presence. An ambulance is also at the scene. Local business owners told Daily Mail Australia helicopters were flying overhead but that they had not been warned of any danger by police. 'Normally there are kids running around everywhere because it's lunchtime but right now I don't see anyone,' said one worker at a hardware store on the street. Another resident said there had been helicopters flying overhead. The rainbow flag is flying above the Sydney Town Hall in solidarity with the LGBTI community in following the horrific massacre at a gay nightclub in the US city of Orlando. Fifty people were killed and more than 50 others were injured when a gunman opened fire early on Sunday inside crowded the Pulse nightclub. 'Around the world, places like Pulse are a refuge and a solace to their tight knit communities - I'm horrified and appalled by the ugly evil violence that's caused this attack on the gay community,' Lord Mayor Clover Moore said in a Facebook post. The rainbow flag is flying above the Sydney Town Hall (pictured) in solidarity with the LGBTIQ community in Florida following an horrific nightclub massacre Fifty people were killed and more than 50 others were injured when a gunman opened fire early on Sunday inside crowded Orlando club Pulse In Canberra, the Greens said they were cancelling a Queen's birthday cake-eating stunt at Parliament House planned as part of a push to make Australia a republic. A spokeswoman for the party says the event was cancelled out of respect for the victims of the Orlando shooting. Sydney Town Hall will be lit up pink on Monday night. There were also people seen at the town hall on Monday morning handing out free Quran books, urging people to understand the 'true teachings' of the book. Six men were handing out the literature outside Town Hall, and said they were trying to get the message out that a small minority of Muslims are extremists. 'I'm horrified and appalled by the ugly evil violence that's caused this attack on the gay community,' Lord Mayor Clover Moore said in a social media post that announced the flag (pictured) would be flown Six men were handing out the literature outside Town Hall, and said they were trying to get the message out that a small minority of Muslims are extremists One of the men, Habib, said he entirely disagreed with what happened in Orlando and wanted to spread the Quran's true message One of the men, Habib, said he entirely disagreed with what happened in Orlando. A candlelight vigil is set to take place in Newtown to show solidarity for victims and their family and friends. 'Stand up against homophobia, transphobia, bigotry and hatred. Actions are being taken all over the U.S.A, let Sydney show our rainbow colours,' event organisers posted on Facebook. A memorial is also being held in Melbourne on Monday afternoon, with people invited to meet on Smith Street, Fitzroy, at 2pm. People are seen walking on the street near Sydney Town Hall, where a rainbow flag flew over the city There have been memorials held across the world, including New York (pictured). There are two planned in Sydney and Melbourne for Monday A father who allegedly doused his two daughters in petrol and set one of them on fire is waiting psychiatric assessment to see if he can plead not guilty due to insanity. Edward John Herbert, 43, is accused of throwing fuel on his then three-year-old and seven-year-old daughters before setting his younger child on fire in her own cot at their home in Doubleview, in Perth's north-west, last year. Mr Herbert appeared from Hakea Prison via video link on Monday and his lawyer, Mara Barone, told the court they were waiting on a psychiatric assessment to see if her client would enter a plea of not guilty due to insanity, the ABC reported. Edward John Herbert, 43, is accused of throwing fuel on his then three-year-old and seven-year-old daughters before setting his younger child on fire in her own cot at their home in Perth last year The lawyer said she would be applying for a judge-only trial for her client if the case was going to go down that route. Mr Herbert has been charged with one count of threatening to kill and two counts of unlawful act with intent to harm or endanger life. In August last year, his then three-year-old daughter suffered burns to her face and upper body just hours after she had an early fourth birthday day party. To lessen the extent of her injuries, an off-duty police officer put Mr Herbert's youngest daughter in her bath as she waited for paramedics to arrive at the scene. Mr Herbert will reappear in court next month. His then three-year-old daughter suffered burns to her face and upper body just hours after he allegedly set her fire Real estate agent Chris Couper, pictured, refuses to apologise for his comments and says the girl was out of control A real estate agent who said an autistic six-year-old girl shouldn't have been brought to an open house inspection is standing by his comments. Agent Chris Couper, who owns Chris Couper Real Estate in Hervey Bay, Queensland, has Korinna and Douglas Edwards fuming over comments made about their severely autistic daughter. Six-year-old Indigo became distressed during a house viewing run by Mr Couper, and Mr Edwards overheard a passing comment from the agent. 'My partner overheard the real estate agent talking to another person and saying "fancy bringing a child like this into a place like this,"' Ms Edwards told Seven News. But Mr Couper has hit back at the couples' angry reaction and said that Indigo was out of control. 'I noticed a girl smash some pool balls and started running through the house screaming but I never had the chance to do anything about it,' Mr Couper told Daily Mail Australia. 'When I got a chance to make an observation to a lady standing next to me I said "fancy bringing a child like that to a home like this," so I actually did say those words.' Indigo, (pictured with her father Douglas) who has severe autism, became distressed during a house viewing run by Chris Couper Real Estate in Hervey Bay Ms Edwards, pictured, told Seven News: 'My partner overheard the real estate agent talking to another person and saying "fancy bringing a child like this into a place like this"' Mr Couper has refused calls to apologise to the family and said his comments were not based on the girl's disability. 'I wasn't apologising because I didn't know that the child was autistic and I never actually said anything to them. That's the long and the short of it,' he said. Mr Couper added that he had received widespread support from the community and the real estate industry. Mr Couper said that he had received widespread support from the community and the real estate industry Real estate agent Chris Couper admits to making the comment about Indigo but says he has done nothing wrong and refuses to apologise Mr Edwards said he wanted his daughter to be treated like any other child. 'They should be able to do anything the same as anybody else, we should be able to go anywhere, do anything with them,' he told Seven News. Daily Mail Australia approached the Edwards family for comment. A collection of the world's best chefs will make the journey Down Under in 2017 as Melbourne prepares to host the prestigious 'World's 50 Best Restaurants' awards. The competition, which takes on votes from 1,000 international culinary leaders, is described as a 'celebration of global gastronomy' and will bring out some of the industry's biggest names. The annual awards are judged by a selection of acclaimed chefs and food critics, who make a decision based on their favourite restaurant experiences across the last 18 months. The only Australian restaurant to make it to the list in 2015 was Attica in Ripponlea, Melbourne. Melbourne will host the prestigious 'World's 50 Best Restaurants' awards in 2017 (pictured is a Candy mandarin from Tenku Ryu-Gin, ranked number 24 in Asia) The competition takes on votes from almost 1,000 international culinary leaders (pictured are chefs at Spain's 'El Celler de Can Roca' - ranked 1st in the 2015 list) Looking to place highly in the prestigious list for fine dining excellence will be Sydney's 'Quay' (pictured), which overlooks the harbour and slipped from 58th to 98th from 2015 to 2016 Chef's illusion: 'Biko', in Mexico City earned itself 37th in the 2015 list for its explosive Spanish and Mexican flavours (pictured is one of their colourful dishes) Attica chef and owner Ben Shewry told the Herald Sun he was excited that the competition was branching out from London, where it has run for the past 16 years since its inception. 'I think it's going to be really inspiring for the hospitality industry to have 50 of the best chefs in the world here at one time, eating their way around and exploring our city,' he said. 'On a personal note I'm really excited to show so many of my international chef friends around our great city, to share all the things that make this one of the best places in the world to be a chef. It's going to be like a huge week-long party.' Tourism Australia Managing Director, John O'Sullivan, said the competition would be a great chance to show off Melbourne's exotic culinary landscape. 'Hosting such a prestigious event as this provides us with another excellent opportunity to bring the world's most influential food and wine people to Australia to inspire, inform and advocate our country's world class food and wine scene,' said Mr O'Sullivan. The annual awards are judged by almost 1,000 international chefs and food critics, who make a decision based on their restaurant experiences across last 18 months (dish is from QBARA, in the United Arab Emirates) William Drew, Group Editor of The World's 50 Best Restaurants, said he was looking forward to seeing what Australia had to offer next year. TOP 10 RESTAURANTS IN 2015 1. El Celler De Can Roca - Girona, Spain 2. Osteria Francescana - Modena, Italy 3. Noma - Copenhagen, Denmark 4. Central - Lima, Peru 5. Eleven Madison Park - New York, USA 6. Mugaritz - San Sebastian, Spain 7. Dinner By Heston Blumenthal - London, UK 8. Narisawa - Tokyo, Japan 9. D.O.M. - Sao Paulo, Brazil 10. Gaggan - Bangkok, Thailand Advertisement 'There's so much international interest in Australia as a food destination, it's exciting for us to have the opportunity to take the events program to this unique country,' he said. While the 50 best restaurants of 2016 are yet to be announced, last week two Australian restaurants made it onto the second-tier 51-100 list. 'Brae', in Victorias Otway district, was named 65th best restaurant in the world (a jump of 23 places from last year) while Sydney's 'Quay' slipped from 58th to 98th. In the list's 14-year history, other notable Australian restaurants including Rockpool, Tetsuya's, Marque and Momofuku Seiobo have featured. Pictured is a dish from restaurant 'The Test Chicken', in Cape Town, South Africa. It was ranked 28th in 2015 A tomahawk-wielding vandal wearing a plastic bag over his face has smashed up the shopfront of a Melbourne cafe. The cafe on Lakeside Boulevard in Pakenham, south-east of Melbourne, was left in ruins after the attack at 4am on Thursday. A man can be seen approaching the shop shortly before 3am and tapping on one of the windows. The cafe on Lakeside Boulevard in Pakenham, south-east of Melbourne, was smashed up by a man with a tomahawk at 4am on Thursday A man wearing a black plastic bag over his head with holes cut out for his eyes approaches about an hour later with a hatchet in hand. CCTV footage shows the man smashing all the front windows of the cafe before calmly walking away. Police believe the man who earlier approached the cafe might be able help them with their investigations. A police spokesperson said: 'Investigators would like to speak to a man who was seen loitering out the front of the cafe about an hour before the damage was caused. A police spokesperson said: 'Investigators would like to speak to a man who was seen loitering out the front of the cafe about an hour before the damage was caused' CCTV footage shows the man smashing all the front windows of the cafe before calmly walking away A man, pictured, can be seen approaching the shop shortly before 3am and tapping on one of the windows 'The man is described as being aged between 40-50 years of age with a medium build. He was wearing a black top, light-coloured pants and a dark short-brimmed bucket hat. 'Detectives have released images and footage of a man they believe may be able to assist with their enquiry.' The last time this mother and son were in high school together, the mother was 18 and the son wasn't born yet. Now they will be giving dual speeches at their graduation from the same high school. Enjoli Harris-Carter, 37, and her son Elijah, 17, are both due to get their diplomas from Renton Technical College in Renton, Washington on June 23. Elijah will be graduating with honors, but he's even more honored to be graduating with his mom, who dropped out of high school when she found out she was pregnant with him in her senior year. Scroll down for video Enjoli Harris-Carter, 37, and her son Elijah, 17, are set to graduate from high school at the same time Carter-Harris dropped out of high school when she became pregnant with Elijah - now they'll graduate together 'I always find it cool that my mom is grabbing this opportunity,' he told Fox Q13. 'Always doing the best she can with it.' Elijah was born with severe asthma problems that kept him in the hospital for much of his babyhood. Then Harris-Carter was involved in an abusive marriage, which she finally escaped. Then she had another child. But eventually she met her second husband, Damon, and got married and had two children. None of this left her much time to think about going back to school, though she often thought about dropping out. Enjoli Harris-Carter's husband, Damon, wrote Fox Q13 to say how proud he was of his wife getting her diploma 'Whenever I'm asked about my biggest regret in life, I say hands down, I always say it was dropping out of high school,' she said. When Elijah began having problems with high school as well, and his grades slipped, he transitioned to a part homeschool part classroom instruction program at Renton Tech. There, he flourished, and will graduate with honors and a GPA of 3.62. At first, when Elijah began encouraging his mother to go back and get her diploma, she resisted because she was so proud of her son's good grades and didn't want to steal his spotlight. 'I wanted him to have his moment to shine,' she said. But Elijah kept encouraging her, so she relented. She finished the last six courses she needed online and is on track to graduate with her son in June. Both of them will be speaking at commencement in front of 6,000 people. They're also planning a double graduation party, of course. 'I'm so happy, accomplishing this is amazing,' Harris-Carter said. Elijah added: 'And kind like the way my mom is proud of me, I'm also proud of her.' An Islamic preacher who has called for gay people to be executed gave sermons in Orlando just weeks before the Pulse nightclub massacre. Farrokh Sekaleshfar - a British-born doctor and Muslim scholar - has gained a following by urging Muslims to 'get rid of' homosexuals. And in April, he took his speech titled 'How to deal with the phenomenon of homosexuality' to the Husseini Islamic Center in Sanford, just outside Orlando, Florida. Two months later, 29-year-old Omar Mateen carried out the worst massacre in US history by opening fire on a gay club in the same city. Mateen's father has said he believes the attack was motivated by his son's homophobia. Scroll down for video Controversy: Farrokh Sekaleshfar - a British-born doctor - has gained a following urging Muslims to 'get rid of' homosexuals. In April, he took his speech 'How to deal with the phenomenon of homosexuality' to Orlando Seddique Mateen told NBC his son was enraged after seeing two men kissing in front of his wife and son during a visit to Miami a couple of months ago. The father then condemned the shooting - but shocked many as he said: 'God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. This [killing] is not for the servants.' It is not clear whether Port St Lucie-based Omar Mateen attended Sekaleshfar's event in Orlando in April. Previous versions of Sekaleshfar's speech have been posted online, showing him say that gay people should die. 'Death is the sentence. There's nothing to be embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence,' Sekaleshfar says in one sermon, dated in 2013. 'We have to have that compassion for people. With homosexuals, it's the same. Out of compassion, let's get rid of them now.' Sekaleshfar has not been linked to the Pulse nightclub massacre. He also says 'forgiveness is possible' for homosexuality and that 'executions' should only be carried out in countries where Islamic law exists. On Monday morning, Sekaleshfar posted a statement on his Facebook page offering his 'sincere condolences to the friends and families of those massacred'. 'The killing of innocent life is never justified by religion,' he said. 'The perpetrator of this shooting has directly violated this holy commandment and displayed a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life and divine values.' The Sheikh went on to address claims he has been the subject of abuse since the shooting, and that he has received death threats by people attempting to link his sermon with the shooter's motives. Previous versions of Sekaleshfar's speech posted online show him saying that gay people should die Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the Pulse Nightclub where 49 people were killed in a shooting on Sunday Jermaine Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford (right) wait down the street from Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, after the mass shooting on Sunday 'Such a connection is impossible, because had the shooter listened to my lecture, he would have clearly heard me condemn hate and violence multiple times and endorse compassion towards all humankind,' the statement read. 'I invite my friends to help in supporting the humanitarian needs of the families of the victims of the shooting during such a period and share with their grief. 'This is an Islamic value in all cases where people are being oppressed - whoever they are.' Sekaleshfar is currently in Australia on a speaking tour. He arrived on June 7 to speak at the Imam Husain Islamic Centre at Earlwood, in Sydney's south-west, according to the centre's website. 'His Eminence Sheikh Dr Farrokh Sekaleshfar. Speaking the entire month of the topic of: Stories of the Quran and testaments of the Mystics,' it read. Daily Mail Australia contacted the centre to confirm Sekaleshfar was still scheduled to speak, but received no comment. An officer is seen standing outside the gay nightclub where 49 people were killed when a gunman opened fire ISIS had been trying to inspire 'lone wolf' attacks in America for months before the Orlando massacre, including publishing a kill list with the names of at least 600 Florida residents on it. Accounts linked to the terror group published the list back in April on anonymous messaging app Telegram, which contained the names of thousands of targets, mostly Americans. Three days ago, as the list continued to circulate, former FBI agent-turned lawyer Stuart Kaplan warned that it was likely intended to inspire lone gunmen into carrying out attacks. Scroll down for videos Former FBI agent Stuart Kaplan warned three days ago that a kill list published by an ISIS-affiliated group was likely intended to inspire lone wolf attacks, such as the one carried out by Omar Mateen (left and right) He also warned that there is little authorities can do to protect those on the list. Kaplan told CBS12: 'If in fact a sympathizer gets hold of this list and is readily able to identify you as being his neighbor and, then, decides to go out and do something horrific to you, there is no way to calculate the potential or to prevent that.' The list, published on Telegram by the United Cyber Caliphate, is believed to contain the names of more than 8,000 people, mostly American citizens. Vocativ first brought the existence of the list to light, noting that it contained 43 names of people linked to the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the departments of defense, energy, commerce and health and services. While it is not known who the 600 Florida residents are, Kaplan said they are likely public figures, possibly the heads of hospitals, courts and schools. It is not known whether the list was the inspiration behind the massacre in Orlando on Sunday morning, which left at least 50 people dead and another 53 wounded. But gunman Omar Mateen did call 911 shortly before his attack at the Pulse nightclub in order to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the spiritual leader of ISIS, while the terror group has since claimed responsibility. Mateen massacred 50 people in Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning, though it is not known if any of their names were on the list Mateen was also investigated for links to American suicide bomber Moner Abu Salha, who blew himself up in Syria in 2014, though he was not affiliated with ISIS. ISIS has pledged attacks across America and Europe during the holy month of Ramadan. Spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani called on followers of the terror group to carry out a 'month of conquest and jihad' in a video posted online two weeks ago. Adnani implores followers to 'get prepared, be ready to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelieversespecially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America.' The State Department issued a warning over the message ahead of Ramadan, which begins on June 5, because Adani's previous message preceded three major attacks last year. No Australians are thought to have been killed in the shooting of 50 people at a gay club in Orlando, Florida. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed on Monday that it had not yet been informed of any Australian casualties but was continuing to work with its embassy in Washington. Dozens were slaughtered by ISIS fanatic Omar Mateen as they partied at Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is the most deadly shooting in US history. 'The Australian Embassy in Washington remains in contact with local authorities to determine whether any Australians have been affected by the shooting incident in Orlando, Florida.' No Australians are thought to have been killed in a shooting at a gay club in Orlando which saw 50 people murdered by an ISIS fanatic on Sunday morning Above, mourners grieve after the atrocity which is the deadliest shooting in US history 'At this stage, the Embassy has not received any advice of Australians affected,' a Department spokesman told Daily Mail Australia. They urged anyone concerned for family or friends to contact its 24 hour hotline on 1 300 555 135, or +61 2 6261 3305 from overseas. Earlier in the day Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shared his sympathies for all those killed in the gruesome attack. 'All Australians today convey our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of those who have been killed or injured in the shooting in Orlando, Florida overnight,' he said in a statement. 'An attack like this is not simply an assault on the people who have been killed and injured, it's an assault on every one of us.' The attack unfolded at Pulse nightclub shortly after 2am when the gunman forced his way in to the busy nightclub after opening fire on a plain-clothes police man outside Omar Mateen, 29, sprayed the crowd with bullets before terrorising hostages for three hours before he was shot by a SWAT team Describing the atrocity as 'an assault on freedom', he said the nation was united 'with the people of the United States in defending our freedom against extremists who seek to destroy it'. Mateen, 29, opened fire on party-goers in the busy nightclub on Saturday after phoning 911 to pledge his allegiance to the monstrous terrorist group. He first attempted to enter the nightclub at around 2am but was stopped by an plain-clothes police officer outside. The pair shot at one another before Mateen was able to get in to the nightclub where he held dozens hostage for three hours, opening fire on crowds of people stuck inside. A swat team finally stormed the club at 5am, killing the man whose wife has since told how he used to beat her for not completing housework. Officers detonated a controlled explosion so to distract the man before entering the club to shoot him, it has since emerged. Police used a controlled explosion to distract the gunman before storming the nightclub to kill him. Above, the scene at Pulse nightclub on Sunday after Vigils across the world have seen mourners share their sympathies for all those killed. Above, they lay candles at Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull interrupted campaigning on Monday to release a statement of support for the US. He is seen above in Townsville, Queensland, with Environment Minister Greg Hunt Mateen was an American citizen who called the Florida town of Port St Lucie home. He was known to authorities and had been interviewed over suspected terrorist activity twice by the FBI. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has sparked outcry after calling for sitting President Barack Obama's resignation over his handling of the tragedy. Mr Trump condemned him for not including the words 'Radical Islam' in his address of the atrocity, writing in a statement: 'In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words "Radical Islam". 'For that reason alone, he should step down.' He said he had 'called it' by demanding a ban on Muslim immigrants to the US despite the fact that Mateen was a US citizen. President Obama said that 'no act of terror will change who we are' in a defiant address in which he also discussed gun reform. 22 million jars are made annually for fans of the salty condiment 80 per cent of Australian homes have the product in their pantries A history of colourful advertisements and catchy jingles made it an icon Vegemite was first produced in Australia 93 years ago and for a nation of 'happy little Vegemites' it is as iconic as meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars. The dark-coloured yeast spread is a staple for pantries across the country since it was first produced in 1923 as a replacement for Marmite. Its distinctive and polarising taste, along with catchy jingles, has made it an Australian success story to the extent that 22 million jars are produced each year. Scroll down for video This advertisement from 1974 focused on Vegemite helping children 'grow stronger'. The spread became synonymous with health and well-being since its earliest days in the First World War Vintage vegemite jars mark the history of a product that was first introduced as a replacement for Marmite during WWI and later became a national staple among Australian families across the country Known for its distinguishable taste, Vegemite celebrates 93 years since being introduced to Australia The spread was invented by a chemist named Cyril P Callister. Before that Marmite a British alternative was being manufactured in New Zealand and shipped to Australia. However, exports were interrupted when German U-boats attacked merchant ships during WWI. Dr Callister was employed by Fred Walker & Co. to come up with a similar spread from yeast dumped by Carlton and United Breweries. A national competition with a 50 ($70AUD) prize to name the new substance was announced and the word Vegemite was picked out of a hat. It made its debut on Australian grocery shelves on June 13. Slow sales actually caused a name change to Parwill before Vegemite was eventually brought back. Just as important to the success of Vegemite were the advertising campaigns - first linking the product to the national interest during war-time. One of the first advertisements from the 1920s shows a teacher telling a student not to worry about how much Vegemite is left in a jar and that it is 'half full'. Sales were initially sluggish but took off during war time By the end of the 1930s (pictured) the condiment had been endorsed by the British Medical Association as a good source of Vitamin B A decade later the product was introduced in Australian Army rations and found in nine out of 10 homes The most memorable Vegemite jingle arrived in the late 1950s when anyone consuming it was considered a 'happy little Vegemite' Vegemite was often advertised with famous celebrities like racing car legend Peter Brock (left) to encourage people to continue eating it like their idols do. This 1980 poster featuring Brock says 'I'm still a Vegemite kid' Posters with the slogan Vegemite: Keeping fighting men fighting fit were introduced to the public eye and in the 1940s it was included in army rations. But it was jingles like the memorable 'happy little Vegemites' version that caught the attention and lifted sales to the point where 90 per cent of homes stocked the spread. The catchy tune released in the late 1950s also came with the promise of the essential vitamins helping children to be 'growing stronger every single day'. More than 22 million jars of Vegemite are produced each year and up to 80 per cent of households across Australia have Vegemite in their pantries. A row between traditionalists and modernisers within the Bronte Society boiled over at its annual meeting with one member accusing the ruling body of behaving like the Stasi secret police. In the absence of new president Dame Judi Dench, the long-running rift boiled over at the meeting, held at the West Lane Baptist church in Haworth, Yorkshire, opposite the Bronte Personage Museum. The row has already claimed a president, a chairman, an executive director and almost half of its trustees, and is in danger of overshadowing a series of events marking the bicentenaries of the Bronte siblings. A row between traditionalists and modernisers within the Bronte Society boiled over at its annual meeting with one member accusing the ruling body of behaving like the Stasi secret police. Pictured are members arriving for the meeting at the West Lane Baptist church in Haworth, Yorkshire At the meeting on Saturday, members arrived to be told that five trustees had quit the society's council, and staff from the Bronte Museum, who had formed a senior management committee to help run the society because it was so light on trustees, had also gone back to their day jobs. As a result they have handed their responsibilities back to the council. The Bronte Society, the oldest literary Society in the world having been founded in 1893, has been at war with itself for two years over how to best preserve the legacy of the sisters. A modernising movement which seized control last year wants the Society, which has around 1,500 members, to become much more business minded and ambitious. In the absence of new president Dame Judi Dench (pictured), the long-running rift boiled over at the meeting They believe that the Haworth parsonage and moorland nearby has the potential to become a tourist attraction akin to Stratford-upon-Avon, and had warned that the society was trapped in a timewarp under a 'snooty' leadership, and risked losing out on the Bronte legacy. But traditionalists fear the Society will over extend itself, and lose sight of its ideals as it becomes more commercial. There have also been rows over the Society's links to the local community. Calls to split the organisation so that one half took care of the literary side of the society, and the other in charge of the museum have already been discounted after consultants said the Society was too small to sustain two separate charities. The infighting is threatening to put a dampener on the 200th anniversaries of the births of the Brontes. Charlotte's bicentenary was marked with the laying of a wreath at Westminster Abbey in April, brother Branwell's birth will be remembered next year, Emily in 2018 and Anne in 2020, while 2019's events will focus on the siblings' father, Patrick. The latest round of resignations followed last year's AGM when the then-president, author Bonnie Greer tried to keep order by using her Jimmy Choo shoe as a gavel. Tired of the row between the warring factions, she announced to shocked members that she would be quitting her post, saying 'malevolent lamebrains' had been leaking private material from society meetings, and taking it out of context. Tweeting after the meeting, she said: 'Lot of Council gone because for many last year has not been fun. Thus my Jimmy Choos. Levity desperately needed.' Dame Judi, who played Rochesters housekeeper Mrs Fairfax in the 2011 film adaptation of Charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre, was appointed as her successor in April, but was absent at the weekend's meeting due to filming and stage commitments. Society bosses have claimed that the rift has been healed since Greer left her post, but there were even uglier scenes at this year's meeting when one member passed a note to the platform objecting to the press being present. Treasurer, Rev Peter Mayo- Smith proposed a vote to exclude freelance journalist Mark Branagan, even though he was a Society member. The local vicar said the presence of the media represented a 'conflict of interests' and the meeting was supposed to be private. A squabble then broke out as the ruling counsel sought to silence the audience until the vote was taken. At the meeting on Saturday, members arrived to be told that five trustees had quit the society's council, and staff from the Bronte Museum, who had formed a senior management committee to help run the society because it was so light on trustees, had also gone back to their day jobs But Alexandra Lesley, who quit as Chairman after only six months, said she was determined to be heard. Vice President Patsy Stoneman, chairing the meeting in Dame Judi's film absence, said she was concerned whatever Mrs Lesley said would be reported. During the uproar, Ms Stoneman was sneeringly referred to as a 'Cambridge'. She is the author of Cambridge Companion text books on the Brontes' works. The infighting is threatening to put a dampener on the 200th anniversaries of the births of the Brontes. Charlotte's bicentenary was marked with the laying of a wreath at Westminster Abbey in April As Mrs Lesley struggled to be heard over the din one man screamed 'Let her finish' over and over as Ms Stoneman visibly flinched. Ms Stoneman told the man, who was by then shouting at the top of his voice: 'If you continue in this manner I will ask you to leave the room. I'm in charge of this meeting.' Another woman yelled: 'When I read all these rules and regulations we had put together I felt like I had come into the Stasi. We need fresh air and openness.' She had been sitting at the back of the hall and when initially mistaken for man by the Vice Chairman snapped: 'Should have gone to SpecSavers.' Mrs Lesley said it was unfair the council was trying to gag her. 'You don't even know what I'm going to say yet,' she stormed. 'We have a long history of arguments and a lot of the time feelings are left to faster because they are not properly explained. 'I had to resign because I felt there had been a lot of bad behaviour.' She claimed decisions had been taken which contravened the articles of the society and best practice. She continued: 'It's impossible to explain properly because it would take too long. 'The leadership team stepped down because they felt their position had become untenable.' Me Stoneman then cut her off again, saying: 'Alex - you've had your three minutes.' Mrs Lesley retorted: 'I may have had my three minutes but I have not had my say.' Members voted 56 to 46 for Mr Branagan to remain with 35 abstentions. All the council voted for the press exclusion. The latest round of resignations followed last year's AGM when the then-president, author Bonnie Greer (pictured at the Labour Party International Womens Conference in 2013) tried to keep order by using her Jimmy Choo shoe as a gavel Member Bob Geddes, from London outside West Lane Baptist Church, Haworth, where the Bronte Society annual general meeting was held Forced to deliver his report including the resignations with the reporter present, new Chairman John Thirwell was clearly rattled. When interrupted again by a female member he snapped: 'I'm just trying to deliver my report of that's all right with you.' Members were aghast at the sheer number of resignations and wanted to know why they had stepped down. There was fury when the reply from the platform was: 'You will have to ask them.' Member Richard Wilcox said: 'I'm looking at this big swathe of resignations and wondering why is this? 'Why have so many people resigned? It's not entirely a mystery but can we have an explanation?' There were also cries that the new counsel has been elected to find a 'harmonious way forward' but had instead 'presided over a catastrophe'. Mr Thirwell said the resignation had been for a number of different reasons. A helicopter pilot who barricaded himself into his home in a bid to stop his ex-wife winning it as part of their divorce settlement has said he 'is not going anywhere'. Peter Elliott, 49, from Appleby in Cumbria, told his estranged wife Leonie Butler, 45, that he will not give up the 495,000 farm, warning 'The only way I will leave is in a body bag'. Mr Elliott now faces jail as he is defying the judge's order to give up the 70-acre farm, which he has surrounded in barbed wire in a bid to 'increase security'. Helicopter pilot Peter Elliott, 49, from Appleby in Cumbria, told his estranged wife Leonie Butler, 45, that he will not give up the 495,000 farm and added 'the only way I will leave is in a body bag' 'I am going nowhere, I have said all along,' Mr Elliott told MailOnline today. 'I am going nowhere. There is no reason why I should be evicted.' The former couple have been engaged in a bitter 6million divorce battle since November 2012, when Mr Elliott was ordered to leave the farm, which is solely in Ms Butler's name. The court heard how he piled up tree branches and built a 'big rock pile' in front of the property in a bid to keep out a security firm sent to serve his eviction notice in March. Ms Butler has now won an order to have Mr Elliott 'committed to prison' for six months. A judge suspended the term for two months last Thursday, giving Mr Elliott one last chance to leave. The former couple have been engaged in a bitter 6million divorce battle since November 2012, and Ms Butler has now won an order to have Mr Elliott 'committed to prison' for six months According to the Sun, Mr Justice Moylan said: 'It is now four years since the financial remedy order and she is still waiting for its enforcement. 'Mr Elliott is wilfully obstructing the order by refusing to vacate the property and enable its sale.' Speaking today, Mr Elliott, who rarely leaves his home, branded the decision 'unfair' and pledged to continue to fight for the property. He said: 'She can have all of it but not my home. Why can't we buy my home out of it? I am not going. They either do sell it to me or we are having a big bun fight about it.' Mr Elliott said he put up the barbed wire as a means to protect himself, adding: 'I am prepared for a siege'. Remains: King Henry I has historically been seen as a usurper because he had himself crowned while his elder brother was away on a crusade The search for the missing remains of Henry I around the ruins of Reading Abbey has begun as surveyors hunt for the 12th century king under a playground and school car park. Four years after Richard IIIs grave was also found under a car park in Leicester, investigators in Berkshire have launched a search project using ground-penetrating radar. It will establish the 900-year-old abbeys layout and any potential coffin sites, followed by test trenches to look at their archaeological potential. Henry, who reigned from 1100 to 1135 and died in France after eating fish, is said to be buried in the grounds of the abbey with his second wife Adeliza and great-grandson William of Poitiers. But the abbey was destroyed in 1539 during the dissolution of the monasteries and it is unknown whether Henrys ruins have been scattered around due to the redevelopment of the area. John Mullaney from the Hidden Abbey Project told the Daily Telegraphs Patrick Foster: We are hoping to find out the real footprint of the abbey. It was one of the largest in the country. Unlike Richard III, we know within a few yards where it is likely that Henry was buried. What we dont know is whether he is still there. Research: The investigation with ground-penetrating radar at Reading Abbey (pictured) will establish the site's layout and any potential coffin sites, followed by test trenches to look at their archaeological potential There has been so much development in the area over the years that his bones could be scattered everywhere. But theres a chance hes still there. The search was instigated by screenwriter and amateur historian Philippa Langley and is being backed by Historic England, formerly known as English Heritage. The abbey was founded in 1121 as a mausoleum for the king, but there are claims his grave may have been raided by workmen centuries later who stole his silver casket and discarded his remains. Ms Langley told BBC History Magazine last year: We know that Henry was buried in front of the high altar, with members of his family buried in specific locations around him. Stunning discovery: Richard III's remains were uncovered in August 2012 under a city council car park in Leicester, with archaeologists finding the bones in the first few weeks of the dig Monrach: The world's only facial reconstruction of Richard III is unveiled in 2013 - 528 years after his death - by Philippa Langley, the screenwriter and amateur historian who has also instigated the search for Henry I KING WHO HAD HIMSELF CROWNED Henry I was the fourth son of William the Conqueror. His eldest brother William II followed his father to become king but when he was killed in a hunting accident in 1100, Henry had himself crowned while his brother Robert was on a crusade. Their other brother had died. He later gave Robert territories in Normandy in return for his giving up his claim to the throne, but five years later invaded, capturing his brother and holding him prisoner for the remaining 28 years of his life. Henry married Mathilda of Scotland and had two legitimate sons and a daughter, as well as several illegitimate children. But his sons died and the crown passed to his nephew, Stephen, on his death Advertisement The thinking in Reading, using current estimates of the size of the abbey, is that this burial spot is located beneath a school. 'If the abbey is larger, it could be situated underneath either what is today a playground or car park. That option is considered less likely but if Henrys tomb is beneath the car park that will be interesting. Richard III's remains were uncovered in August 2012 under a city council car park in Leicester, with archaeologists finding the bones in the first few weeks of the dig. Like Richard III, Henry I was a youngest son who rose to become king. Historically, he has been seen as a usurper because he had himself crowned while his elder brother Robert Curthose was away on a crusade. He was described as cruel he once cut the noses off two of his illegitimate granddaughters but was also credited with bringing stability to Norman England and establishing the Charter of Liberties, a forerunner to the Magna Carta. However he is careful throughout to never He called him a 'liar', a 'child' and 'an insult to our history' as well as his campaign Legendary filmmaker Ken Burns used his commencement speech at Stanford University to deliver a blistering attack on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. While the documentary expert never explicitly mentioned Trump's name, there was no room for doubt in his 10 minute diatribe at the ceremony in Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto yesterday. Burns began his rousing speech by stressing that he strives for 'conscious neutrality' in his work - unlike some of his colleagues - but the powerful words that followed might suggest otherwise. Scroll down for video While the documentary expert never explicitly mentioned Trump's name, there was no room for doubt in his 10 minute diatribe at the ceremony in Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto yesterday There is certainly nothing restrained in Burns' rhetoric as he branded Trump a liar, disinterested in the truth and anything or anyone that can't personally benefit himself 'and his own enrichment' 'For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and character of candidates who were clearly qualified,' he said, 'That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified.' The speaker urged the students to put aside their political leanings and fight against 'the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance.' He accused the Republican of being 'against lots of things, but doesnt seem to be for anything, offering only bombastic and contradictory promises, and terrifying Orwellian statements.' There was certainly nothing restrained in Burns' rhetoric as he branded Trump a liar, disinterested in the truth as well as anything or anyone that can't personally benefit himself 'and his own enrichment'. He refers to the presidential nominee as a man who 'insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants and all Muslims.' He continues: '[Trump is] a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan; an infantile, bullying man who, depending on his mood, is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties and long-standing relationships.' A particularly scathing comment comes later: 'Asking this man to assume the highest office in the land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747.' Burns also blasted Trump's campaign, in which we see: 'An incipient Proto-fascism, a nativist anti-immigrant Know Nothing-ism, a disrespect for the judiciary, the prospect of women losing authority over their own bodies. The speaker (centre) urged the students to put aside their political leanings and fight against 'the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance.' He refers to the presidential nominee as a man who 'insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants and all Muslims' 'African Americans again asked to go to the back of the line, voter suppression gleefully promoted, jingoistic saber rattling, a total lack of historical awareness, a political paranoia that, predictably, points fingers, always making the other wrong.' However the filmmaker also blamed the media for giving 'this charlatan' so much coverage to boost their own ratings. He goes so far as to say that the 'media circus' revolving around Trump 'has actually worn down our natural human revulsion to this kind of behavior.' Burns states with conviction: 'He is an insult to our history. Do not be deceived by his momentary good behavior. It is only a spoiled, misbehaving child hoping somehow to still have dessert.' Calling the topic 'an American issue' rather than a 'red state, blue state divide', Burns pleaded with 'those Vichy Republicans who have endorsed him' to reconsider. He adds: 'We must remain committed to the kindness and community that are the hallmarks of civilization and reject the troubling, unfiltered Tourettes of his tribalism' - a sentiment that is greeted with cheers and applause from the assembled crowd. Burns also took this opportunity to beg for sexual assault to be taken seriously in the wake of the outrage over the six-month jail sentence handed to former student, Brock Turner, who was convicted of this crime on June 2. 'If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them,' said the filmmaker, who is the father of four girls. 'Maybe someday we'll make the survivor's eloquent statement as important as Dr. (Martin Luther) King's letter from the Birmingham jail.' Burns also took this opportunity to beg for sexual assault to be taken seriously in the wake of the outrage over the six-month jail sentence handed to former student, Brock Turner, who was recently convicted of this crime 'If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them,' said the filmmaker, who is the father of four girls' A protest was held during the school's 'wacky walk', a Stanford tradition where students in costumes hold celebratory signs as they head toward graduation ceremonies Several graduating seniors at Stanford also used their celebratory day to express their horror at the sentencing. A protest was held during the school's 'wacky walk', a Stanford tradition where students in costumes hold celebratory signs as they head toward graduation ceremonies. Some read: 'Stanford protects rapists' and 'Brock Turner is not an exception'. While other placards declared: 'To girls everywhere I am with you' and 'Celebrating 125 years of rape culture'. A plane carrying a banner that read: 'Protect Survivors. Not Rapists. #PerskyMustGo' was spotted as it flew over the campus. Brock Turner (pictured), who was found guilty on three counts of rape, is currently incarcerated in Elmwood Jail, a minimum to medium security facility, in Milpitas, California The tag refers to Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, who handed down what many consider to be an extraordinarily light sentence against former Stanford student-athlete Turner, 20, for his conviction in a 2015 sexual assault. Women's rights group, UltraViolet, said earlier in the week that they had commissioned the plane and to fly over the stadium just ahead of the university's graduation ceremonies. Turner, who was found guilty on three counts of rape, is currently incarcerated in Elmwood Jail, a minimum to medium security facility, in Milpitas, California. A 12-year-old boy shot two family members with a loaded shotgun in a remote community in the Northern Territory. The two boys, aged 14 and 19, were airlifted from Bathurst Island to the Royal Darwin Hospital for treatment about 12:30pm on Sunday, reported the NT News. The 19-year-old came close to losing his left arm after he was shot with the 12-gauge shotgun, and required emergency surgery. A young boy shot two of his family members with a loaded shotgun in a remote community in the north of Australia. Bathurst Island is located off the coast of the Northern Territory - 109km from Darwin (stock image) The other boy received gunshot wounds to his stomach. Senior Sergeant Gary Smith told Daily Mail Australia that detectives were still in the area on Monday evening, though it appears the shots were an accident. 'Initial indications are that the 12-year-old had gotten hold of the firearm, which was loaded, and not knowing much about firearms, he's pulled the trigger and injured a 19-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy,' he said. 'At this stage, it seems to be a complete accident by a young boy, and it's unlikely at this stage he will be facing any charges.' The boys who were shot remain in hospital, receiving treatment for non-life threatening injuries. Police will be speaking to the owner of the firearm about safe storage of the gun and ammunition. A furious journalist stormed out of a heated television discussion about the Orlando gay club massacre after clashing with the host and another guest over the motives of gunman Omar Mateen. Left-wing writer Owen Jones was discussing the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which left 50 people dead and at least 53 wounded, as part of the Sky News paper review last night. But he became increasingly angry as the segment's host Mark Longhurst and fellow guest Julia Hartley-Brewer appeared to distance the atrocity from being an attack on LGBT people. Left-wing writer Owen Jones (right) stormed out of a heated television discussion about the Orlando gay club massacre after clashing with the host and fellow guest Julia Hartley-Brewer (right) over the motives of gunman Omar Mateen Jones accused Hartley-Brewer and Longhurst of trying to deflect the homophobic element of the attack, adding that Longhurst did not understand because he isn't gay Jones later removed his microphone and walked off set, saying 'Ive had enough of this, Im going home, sorry' Political commentator and gay rights campaigner Jones described the massacre as a 'homophobic terrorist attack', only to be questioned by broadcaster and journalist Hartley-Brewer as to whether he, as a gay man, had 'ownership of the horror'. Tensions mounted further when the attack was compared to that on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in November in which 90 people died, eventually leading to Jones ripping off his microphone and walking off set. The incident has prompted 57 complaints to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom, with complainants alleging that Hartley-Brewer was dismissing and offensive the LGBT issue, and to Jones. The trio had been talking about newspaper coverage of yesterday's attack when Hartley-Brewer said: 'Clearly there is the question about whether there is a hate crime or whether somethings been done in the name of religion.' Jones, 31, responded: 'Its both. This guy apparently saw two men kissing and he was repulsed by it. People know this who are gay, that there are people who are sickened and repulsed by our very existence and this guy, however he dresses up his bigotry and hatred, is somebody who hates gays. 'He hates LGBT people and he had a gun and because of Americas gun laws he used that to murder LGBT people. Omar Mateen, 29, (pictured) sprayed the crowd with bullets before terrorising hostages for three hours before he was shot by a SWAT team Police used a controlled explosion to distract the gunman before storming the nightclub to kill him. Above, the scene at Pulse nightclub on Sunday after the horrific attack Mourners grieve after the atrocity which is the deadliest shooting in US history 'Lets be clear, if he went into a synagogue and killed innocent Jewish peoplewe would call it out for what it is. This person is a homophobic terrorist whatever else he is. 'On Sky News and other news channels theres not been many LGBT voices that Ive personally heard myself and people have to understand, LGBT people watching this and elsewhere, they look at something like this and it is one of the worst atrocities committted against LGBT people in the western world for generations and it has to be called out for what it is.' Mateen, 29, of Port St. Lucie in Florida, reportedly laughed as he sprayed bullets into the crowded club before he was shot dead by a SWAT team several hours after launching his horrific massacre with a legally bought assault rifle and pistol. Jones (right) became increasingly angry as the segment's host Mark Longhurst (left) and fellow guest Julia Hartley-Brewer (right) appeared to distance the atrocity from being an attack on LGBT people Jones described the massacre as a 'homophobic terrorist attack', only to be questioned by broadcaster and journalist Hartley-Brewer (left) as to whether he, as a gay man, had 'ownership of the horror' Although US officials do not know if the attack was directed by ISIS, Mateen was inspired by the terror group and had been investigated by the FBI twice over his suspected terror links. He also attended the same Mosque as an American suicide bomber. His father, Seddique Mir Mateen revealed his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. Jones accused Hartley-Brewer and Longhurst of trying to deflect the homophobic element of the attack, adding that Longhurst did not understand because he isn't gay. When Hartley-Brewer added that the gunman would be equally horrified at her as a gobby woman, Jones replied: 'Im sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing Ive ever been involved in on television. When Longhurst later mentioned a spokesman from gay rights group Stonewall saying people would be 'feeling vulnerable', Jones said: 'Oh youre going to have an LGBT voice talking about it, interesting.' He then removed his microphone Jones walks off set, while his fellow presenters continue to discuss the media coverage of the attack 'If hed walked into a synagogue and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldnt be saying what youre saying now. 'You would be talking about it as an anti-semitic attack. This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people.' When Longhurst later mentioned a spokesman from gay rights group Stonewall saying people would be 'feeling vulnerable', Mr Jones said: 'Oh youre going to have an LGBT voice talking about it, interesting.' As Hartley-Brewer said: 'Owen seriously', Jones removed his microphone, stood up, and muttered: 'Ive had enough of this, Im going home, sorry.' The presenters continued to discuss the newspapers' coverage of the killing without him. An Ofcom spokesman told MailOnline: 'We will assess these complaints before deciding whether to investigate or not.' This morning, Jones said his decision to walk off set was 'an instinctive reaction to an unpleasant situation'. Taking to Twitter, he also reiterated that massacre had been a homophobic hate crime as well as a terrorist attack, and asked his followers not to direct any abuse towards Hartley-Brewer. He wrote: 'Thanks for all the lovely comments: but it really was just an instinctive reaction to an unpleasant situation, this isn't about me. This morning, Jones said his decision to walk off set was 'an instinctive reaction to an unpleasant situation' Taking to Twitter, he also reiterated that massacre had been a homophobic hate crime as well as a terrorist attack Jones also asked his followers not to direct any abuse towards Hartley-Brewer 'Orlando was both a terrorist attack and a homophobic attack on LGBT people - this really isn't hard.' Hartley-Brewer also reacted to last night's discussion during her show on talkRADIO this morning, telling listeners that she had been deluged with abuse on Twitter since Jones walked off the set. 'I was on Sky News last night debating this with a leading gay rights campaigner Owen Jones, someone I consider to be a good friend, we do a lot of work together,' she said. 'I have spent most of the night getting abuse from people who claim that Im homophobic for stating repeatedly that this was a homophobic attack and how awful it was but apparently I didnt use exactly the right form of words. Hartley-Brewer added: 'Just a small point here, people. This is a free country. We dont live under Islamic state. And I, as a straight woman, am as entitled to talk about the horrific massacre of my fellow human beings, whether they are men, straight, American, British, black, white or anything. 'And I will continue to say whatever I darn well want to say and what I believe as long as I have breath in my body and Im not going to be told by anybody that Im not allowed to say what I want to say because Im the wrong sexuality, the wrong sex, the wrong colour, whatever. Former police officer Clare Stretton, 49, has admitted misconduct after failing to pursue offences reported to her over seven years during her time as a family liaison officer for West Mercia Police The female police officer dubbed 'PC Strumpet' for allegedly seducing a grieving pensioner for his murdered son's fortune now faces jail for ignoring other crimes which had been reported to her. PC Clare Stretton is said to have groomed 82-year-old Charles Foulkes in a bid to fleece him of the 180,000 he inherited after his son Colin was hacked to death with an axe. Now it has emerged the former police officer, now aged 49, has admitted misconduct in a public office after failing to pursue offences reported to her over seven years during her time as a family liaison officer for West Mercia Police. Among the reports she ignored was a statement from a vulnerable 13-year-old teenager who had been abused, reports of historical sexual abuse, fraud and domestic abuse. She admitted misconduct at Worcester crown court and will be sentenced at a later date. The incidents only emerged after Mr Foulkes family repeatedly reported her. The family's solicitor Nick Turner, of Russell and Co, Malvern, Worcestershire, said: 'These other cases only came to light as a result of Charles' daughters doggedly doing their best to expose the appalling breach of trust Stretton was responsible for. 'WPC Stretton it transpired instead of helping them, helped herself to the victim's father and his inheritance from his son's horrific murder.' He added a 'sickened' Chief Inspector Jerry Reake-Williams told him that Stretton's behaviour 'destroyed everything we stand for'. 'He pulled no punches when he told me and the family 'she is a disgrace to the service', but only now several years on will she face prison time as a result of her appalling misconduct.' Last year Stretton was dismissed from West Mercia Police for misconduct after being found to have had an 'inappropriate relationship' with the elderly man - who died in 2011 - over a ten-year period. The hearing found that she had breached standards of professional behaviour in the areas of honesty and integrity. But at the time Ms Stretton insisted she had done nothing wrong and that she had simply been a 'scapegoat' after complaints from Mr Foulkes's three daughters over her behaviour. Michele Pugh, 57, Charmaine Jones, 57 and Carla Kelly, 51, had appealed to the police watchdog for action to be taken against the officer before winning a High Court case against the force for 'serious distress'. They received an undisclosed payout following the case. But speaking from her home in Telford, she insisted that she had given the elderly man 'a reason to live' and that she would do the same again if she had the chance. She told MailOnline: 'He was a mentor and a father figure to me. I helped him, and he helped me PC Clare Stretton is said to have groomed 82-year-old Charles Foulkes (pictured) in a bid to fleece him of the 180,000 he inherited after his son Colin was hacked to death with an axe 'There was no sexual relationship. There was nothing romantic. The only thing I did inappropriately was to have contact with him when I shouldn't have, but I did it as a friend and as a human being. 'I was cleared of any criminal activities, but the force wanted a scapegoat - and I'm it.' The retired painter and decorator met Miss Stretton when she was assigned as his family liaison officer after Colin, 49, was killed by schizophrenic lodger John Latus, then 31, in 2001. She was meant to guide Mr Foulkes and his terminally ill wife Dorothy - who died a few months later - though the traumatic death and subsequent court case. But, in papers lodged at the High Court, the family claim the officer apparently set about trying to get her hands on the fortune and encouraged Mr Foulkes to start buying condoms and Viagra. They claim she arrived wearing a short skirt, low-cut top and high heels, smelling heavily of over-powering perfume and fawning over their father. Even his dying wife began to refer to PC Stretton as his 'bit of fluff', they said. But Miss Stretton rebutted those allegations and said his daughters had been against her from the 'get-go'. Because the conduct hearing was heard in private, it is near clear whether those allegations were proved. 'I supported Charlie, he felt very responsible for his son's death and he felt a lot of guilt,' she said. 'The daughters didn't like the fact that I was supporting him. They got jealous because we were close. But the girls are wicked and they're just after money.' The family had claimed that, as the relationship developed, the pair began exchanging text messages, with one from Stretton allegedly reading: 'I love you so very much darling.' In another, she reportedly said: 'You have made my life special in so many ways.' At his son's funeral, 16 weeks after the murder, PC Stretton, who was not in uniform, was at Mr Foulkes's side at all times with an arm around him, the High Court claims said. Mr Foulkes's three daughters, who asked the Independent Police Complaints Commission for action to be taken against the officer. Pictured: Daughters Charmaine Jones, Carla Kelly and Michele Pugh Then, after his wife died, a besotted Mr Foulkes allegedly raided his bank account to wine-and-dine the police officer. His family alleged that Mr Foulkes transferred at least 11,500 into the police officer's bank account, as well as frittering away more than 60,000 in cash. His three daughters say they told West Mercia Police about the 'inappropriate' affair in 2002, 2006 and 2007. After no action was taken, they contacted the IPCC, who ordered a hearing to take place. Daughter Michele Pugh of Craven Arms, Shropshire, said: 'We know that strumpet persuaded and encouraged our father to spend large amounts of money on her.' But Miss Stretton told today how she and Mr Foulkes had 'a lot in common' and enjoyed walks and browsing antique shops. She added that she had kept the relationship 'a secret' because his daughters 'didn't want' them to be in touch. 'In hindsight it probably made things worse, keeping it a secret, but Charlie was trying to protect me and my job,' she added. Speaking about her sacking, she said her colleagues were 'devastated'. 'The job has been my life, it was my vocation and I lived for it. I gave my all and it's been for nothing, it's like my heart's been torn apart. 'Those girls have ruined my life for no reason at all, they tried to destroy me - I just want them to leave me alone. 'But I don't regret my friendship with Charlie - I'd do the same thing again, he needed help and I was there for him, that's just me.' She added: 'I want to help people - it's an old-fashioned notion but that's why I went into the police to begin with.' In a statement, West Mercia police said: 'Following a two day misconduct hearing, a West Mercia Police Officer was dismissed from the force with immediate effect for gross misconduct. 'The hearing follows a professional standards investigation that commenced when an allegation was made against the officer that s/he had formed an inappropriate relationship.' Detective Superintendent Gary Watson, head of professional standards added: 'The misconduct hearing found that the behaviour of the officer fell below the standards we expect from our officers and staff and amounted to a breach of the standards of professional behaviour, namely discreditable conduct and a breach of honesty and integrity. The 15-year-old boy who was placed in an induced coma remains in a critical condition after a car exploded at an RSL carpark when a faulty gas bottle in the boot ruptured when a cigarette was lit. Winston Lay, 15, was passing by with his family on their way to see the Vivid light show in Sydney when a car exploded about 5.30pm on Sunday at Fairfield RSL in the city's south west. It's believed the flames were sparked when the male driver of the car, 50, lit a cigarette after purchasing a nine kilogram LPG tank for a long weekend barbecue not realising it was faulty, Nine News reports. Scroll down for video Winston Lay, 15, is in a critical condition at Liverpool Hospital. He was walking past when a car exploded at Fairfield RSL in southwest Sydney Family said they were walking through the carpark when Winston dropped his phone, turned back to pick it up when the car exploded. He was rushed to Liverpool Hospital and placed in an induced coma and remains in a critical but stable condition. The driver is in a stable condition with serious burns at Liverpool Hospital. Brave witnesses had risked their own lives - pulling the driver from the car engulfed in flames, and pulling Winston away to keep him from further injuries. He was placed in an induced coma on Sunday night at Liverpool Hospital, where he remains in a critical but stable condition The car that exploded about 5.30pm on Sunday outside Fairfield RSL was destroyed in the blaze It's believed the flames were sparked when the male driver of the car, 50, lit a cigarette after purchasing a nine kilogram LPG tank for a long weekend barbecue not realising it was faulty Footage of the explosion reported by Nine and Seven News shows flames billowing from the car. Officers from Fairfield Local Area Command established a crime scene and are investigating the incident. Inquiries are continuing, NSW police said in a statement on Sunday. 'It's believed a gas bottle, which was in the boot, exploded after the driver lit a cigarette,' police said. Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Winston's family comfort one another outside Liverpool Hospital after the explosion on Sunday 'It's believed a gas bottle, which was in the boot, exploded after the driver lit a cigarette,' police said A LPG gas tank has exploded in the boot of a car at Fairfield RSL in Sydney's west on Sunday night Two people have been injured in the flames. One was rushed to hospitalised in a critical condition while a passerby was treated at the scene Footage of the explosion shows flames billowing from the carpark The carpark at Anzac Avenue in Fairfield in Sydney's west, where the explosion took place outside the RSL Children were forced to scramble to safety after a tornado lifted a bouncy castle slide 30ft into the air during a village show. The two youngsters were playing on the inflatable when the twister-style wind hit Friskney village show in Lincolnshire and whipped it up into the sky. The freak flash storm, which lasted just a minute, then swept across the fete, battering the coconut shy stand and picking up pieces of the marquee. Scroll down for video Children were forced to scramble to safety after a tornado lifted a bouncy castle slide 30ft into the air during a village show (pictured) The two youngsters were playing on the inflatable when the tornado-style storm hit Friskney village show in Lincolnshire and whipped it up into the sky (pictured) The bouncy castle (circled) travelled through the air before crashing down in the village hall car park Guests were then forced to clutch onto the remaining tents and shelters in a desperate bid to stop them being blown away.The bouncy castle later crashed down in the village hall car park. Show chairman Trish Hunters described the incident as 'pandemonium'. 'The bouncy castle was there - and then it wasn't,' she said. 'It came down the showground, picked up bits of marquee and caused damage. It plunged the bouncy castle slide 30ft into the air - the castle went across the road before coming down in the village hall car park.' The funnel cloud hit just minutes after a scheduled flypast from a World War Two Spitfire from RAF Coningsby. Emergency services, including the fire brigade and first aiders, rushed to the scene but noone was injured. Mrs Hunter said: 'The Spitfire flew over five minutes before. The pilot rang me once he was back in Coningsy and I told him we had just had a tornado. He was absolutely gobsmacked. The freak weather, which lasted almost a minute, then swept across the fete, battering the coconut shy stand and picked up bits of the marquee. Guests are pictured trying to hold down the marquee Guests were then forced to clutch onto the remaining tents and shelters to stop them being blown away (pictured) 'The damaged stalls did pack up but everybody has been supportive and the event carried on as planned with people enjoying themselves.' One van was left with a smashed window after the metal stake went through it while the community radio station, County Linx Radio, suffered 500 worth of damage to its radio bus and speakers. Radio co-founder Doug Lunn said: 'We have lost a window and our canopy. It was an extremely scary 45 seconds. 'We were holding on to the canopy for dear life but the twister just took it. It was just far too strong and one of our windows went too. It also damaged a pair of speakers. 'Replacing what has been damaged is going to cost a fortune - the canopy on its own is going to cost around 500 to replace.' Show chairman Trish Hunters described the minute-long incident as 'pandemonium' as guests rushed to get shelter and tried to stop everything being destroyed Experts at the Met Office have since confirmed the incident was caused by a funnel cloud (pictured) The shocking images were taken by photographer Stephen Willmer. Mr Willmer, 56, said: 'The rain was coming down quite forcefully and we had a fly past from a Spitfire and the funnel came from the same direction. 'It was only a matter of seconds but the inflatable slide flew well in excess of 30 feet high in the air. 'People were holding onto marquees and children were screaming. I looked in the sky and saw three or four other funnels in the sky. It was very surreal and I would be surprised if I saw anything like it again.' Fran Bates tweeted: 'A twister hit Friskney Show and blew the bouncy castle into a tree and over the road. At least the two kids made it off.' The Met Office has since confirmed the incident was caused by a funnel cloud. It is one of several twister-style storms which have been filmed in towns and villages in Lincolnshire last month. Tornadoes are caused by warm air and cold air colliding during storms. University of Manchester scientists put together a map of UK tornado strikes, finding that the Thames Valley is the most likely area in Britain to be hit. Lord Green, Migration Watch chairman, said the new report was a 'final wake up call' over mass migration A major think tank today warned net migration to Britain would continue to run at more than 250,000 a year for the next two decades even if Turkey does not join the EU. If Turkey did join, another 100,000 people could come to Britain each year by the early 2030s, the think tank said. Migrant Watch chairman Lord Green said the findings were a 'final wake up call' about runaway immigration that would see Britain's population his 80 million within 30 years. Vote Leave champion Boris Johnson has repeatedly demanded David Cameron's Remain campaign spell out its vision for how Britain would adapt to a rapidly growing population if it wins on June 23. A secret plan to open Britain's borders to 1.5million Turks was revealed yesterday after British diplomats said the move would act as a 'symbolic gesture to Turkey'. The new research today will reignite the immigration debate at the heart of the referendum battle with just 10 days to go. Official statistics in May revealing net migration from the EU had returned to record highs turned around the referendum campaign and turned the focus from the economy to borders. Lord Green said: 'This report is a final wake up call. 'Even leaving aside the prospect of Turkey joining the EU, it shows that net migration could still be running at 265,000 a year in 20 years time. 'This would bring our population to 80 million within 30 years. If we remain in the EU there will be nothing to stop a continuing rapid increase in our population. 'This would change our country for ever against the express wishes of a very large majority of our fellow citizens.' In its report, Migration Watch today said its 'central, but cautious, estimate' for total net migration in 2035 was 265,000 people. It forecast 60 per cent of the people entering Britain would be EU citizens, with the remainder made up of people coming from elsewhere in the world or ex-pat Britons returning home. The report warned of 'widespread complacency and denial' about the 'likelihood and the impact' of rapid population. The figures in the report do not include any impact from Turkey joining the EU, a possibility which has been hotly disputed during the referendum campaign. Leave campaigners have insisted Turkey joining the EU is inevitable but Mr Cameron has said it will not happy for decades - or even 'the year 3,000'. Vote Leave campaigner Priti Patel today seized on the report's warnings of higher migration levels in Britain over the next two decades Migration Watch estimated around 100,000 Turks a year might come to Britain in a scenario where Turkey did join in 2024 and transitional controls expired in 2031. And the think tank warned: 'Looking still further ahead it is hard to see how these numbers might come down until the level of East European economies becomes much closer to our own and until the problems that the Eurozone is now facing are overcome. 'Alternatively a serious economic downturn in the UK would reduce the attraction of our labour market.' Vote Leave campaigner Priti Patel today seized on the figures and said: 'Turkish membership would mean an additional 100,000 people coming to the UK every year enough, on its own, to break David Cameron's manifesto pledge to reduce migration to the tens of thousands.' But former PM Gordon Brown dismissed the Migration Watch findings today, telling the BBC: 'Anybody can produce figures 20 years from now; youve got to look at the real world as we are now. 'I believe that in Britain we have managed migration, it is not uncontrolled immigration. I also believe that the biggest problem is going to be illegal immigration. 'Im not going to give predictions because youve got to know the weight of growth of the economy, youve got to know what the employment opportunities are, youve got to know the level of border control, youve got to know how they policings going to work, whether were going to have boats in the Channel to stop illegal immigrants. 'These are all issues that have got to be taken into account.' Official immigration statistics out at the end of May revealed net migration to Britain was still running at near all time highs despite Government promises to cut numbers to the tenss of thousands Mr Cameron yesterday moved to dismiss the concerns about Turkey, telling the BBC: 'It's simply not an issue, it's a total red herring and the Out campaign know that. 'Some of them have admitted to it, so they should stop frightening people because it's not going to happen.' In diplomatic cables revealed by the Sunday Times, senior diplomats advised ministers that the EU's proposals to grant visa-free travel to Turkey's 75million population in the borderless Schengen zone could lead to the UK giving the same status to 1.5million 'special passport holders'. This is the moment a father with a baby in a pushchair runs under the closing barriers at a level crossing before a train hurtles past. The footage, which was captured on a dashcam, shows cars coming to a stop at the level crossing in Mortlake, South West London, as the lights begin flashing in warning. Seconds later the barriers start to close, preventing people from encroaching on the track and indicating that at least one train will soon be travelling past at speed. Reckless? The dashcam video shows the man running towards the level crossing as the barriers start to close A man is then seen running towards the closing barriers with a baby in a pushchair. He ignores the warnings and decides to cross the track. He just about makes it under the barrier before reaching the other side of the level crossing and disappearing from view. The dashcam footage shows that moments later a high speed train hurtles through the station. According to the ABC Rail Guide, around 350 trains travel through Mortlake station every day and the line speed is 60mph. Network Rail has published guidelines on its website regarding safety at level crossings. Decision: The father ignores the flashing lights and the closing barriers and chooses to run across the track Dangerous: Around 350 trains travel through Mortlake station every day and the line speed is 60mph Pedestrians are told to concentrate and 'think train' when approaching a track, to stop, look and listen, to check both ways before crossing and to understand the warnings. The warnings include flashing lights, sirens and barriers - all of which indicate an approaching train and require pedestrians to stop and wait. The website also states: 'It can be tempting to run over the crossing or jump the barriers rather than wait for a train to pass. Don't do it - you're putting lives at risk.' In April of this year a man was killed by a train at the same level crossing in Mortlake. Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service attended along with the Metropolitan Police and the man was pronounced dead at the scene. A reformed sex addict who is running for senate linked the Orlando massacre to the dangers of gay marriage in a 'disgusting' Twitter rant on Monday. Tasmanian Family First candidate Peter Madden said Australian children parented by gay couples were at risk of being targeted in a similar attack. On Sunday morning a gunman stormed a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, shooting at least 50 people dead and injuring 53 the worst mass shooting in US history. Scroll down for video Australian senate hopeful Peter Madden was slammed for linking the Orlando gay club massacre to the dangers of Australia's 'marriage-equality agenda' In a tweet the day after the massacre, Mr Madden said: 'Though Orlando is abhorrent, it doesn't change the real and present dangers of the gay marriage agenda to Australian children.' Outraged twitter users responded almost instantly to the post, calling it 'absolutely disgusting', 'sick', 'abhorrent' and 'dangerous'. In follow-up posts, Mr Madden attempted to defend his statements, saying: 'As already stated, I condemn the Orlando massacre and grieve for the victims. 'My tweet was a response to one person criticising my campaign trailer.' He later added: 'This undue response to my reply to a critic is extraordinary. 'Both sides need to be heard as we head to a plebiscite.' A day after the Orlando massacre, Mr Madden posted this tweet which sparked instant outrage on social media Mr Madden's tweet was met with outrage on social media, with one user calling it shameful and abhorrent Mr Madden campaigns on an anti-marriage equality platform and has previously called gay and lesbian people 'immoral'. Earlier in June he said on Twitter: 'The gay rights flag is dripping with the blood of the unborn. A day later he posted: 'Research proves a large portion of gays were molested as children. Another user took it upon herself to edit Mr Madden's tweet, leaving nothing but the phrase 'Orlando is abhorrent' In his response to Mr Madden's statement, twitter user Bernard Keane called the senate hopeful a 'sick piece of garbage' 'Safe Schools [a government-backed diversity campaign] = a social Marxist agenda to molest children's minds.' In 2011 while campaigning for parliament in Sydney, Mr Madden told News.com.au how he had regularly visited brothels and struggled with a porn addiction in the past. He said: 'I am a former sex addict. 'It was something I found profoundly difficult to overcome, it was through Christianity that I overcame that.' Mr Madden posted this cryptic explanation for his first tweet, after it was labelled 'disgusting', 'sick', 'abhorrent' and 'dangerous' In a follow-up, Mr Madden said the criticism he had copped for his 'anti-marriage equality' stance was 'undue' Mr Madden, a church pastor and Family Values MP, has a history of posting controversial statements to Twitter BT has written to its more than 80,000 employees to warn a Brexit vote in 10 days would damage the telecoms giant. Chairman Sir Michael Rake co-signed a letter with CWU deputy Andy Kerr and Prospect national secretary Ben Marshall setting out the firm's position on the referendum. Employer endorsements are seen as critical in persuading undecided voters which side to back at the referendum in 10 days. The Remain campaign suffered a blow last week when JCB chief Sir Anthony Bamford wrote to his 6,000 staff to explain why he supported a Brexit vote on June 23. Sir Michael Rake today joined with union representatives to advise BT's 81,000 staff he backed a Remain vote in the referendum in 10 days time Over the weekend, vacuum cleaner entrepreneur Sir James Dyson also made a strong endorsement of the campaign to leave the EU. In today's letter, Sir Michael told BT staff: 'We have a very good work force, we have a lot of people working in our global services business who are international who come and work here in London. 'So this is a great benefit to the company, great benefit to the UK economy. It's not the only factor which our employees must weigh up. 'There are other factors that concern them, but we have an obligation to at least write. 'Our trade unions share that view and we just write in very factual terms around those issues.' In response, Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of Vote Leave, said: 'Sir Mike Rake backed the euro and opposed a referendum as did Gavin Paterson. They never even wanted their employees to have a say on this issue. 'Likewise their talk of a reformed Europe is meaningless and hollow - everyone knows that renegotiation was an utter failure that achieved nothing. 'If we really want to take back control of our economy, our democracy and our borders then we have to Vote Leave.' Former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy today also urged the British people to vote to stay in the European Union, reiterating his warning that food prices will rise as a result of Brexit. With employer endorsements seen as crucial, last week's decision by JCB chief Sir Anthony Bamford (pictured left with David Cameron) to endorse Brexit was seen as bad news for the Remain campaign With just 10 days to go until the crunch vote, he said that the UK faces the prospect of a 'major recession', higher tariffs and capital flight should Britons opt for exit. Speaking from the International Festival for Business in Liverpool, Sir Terry told the Press Association: 'The message is, don't take a leap into the unknown. There is a major risk of recession that the UK cannot afford, we could see capital flight and the pound fall. 'Food prices will go up if we vote for Brexit as the supply chain would be severely disrupted and we would be paying tariffs. Consumers are a big part of the recovery, and we should protect that recovery, not risk it.' Seddique Mateen, the father of the terrorist who massacred at least 49 people and wounded more than 50 others at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, has reportedly claimed his son was seeking retribution against the gay community. In a video posted on Facebook early this morning, Seddique Mateen said his 29-year-old son, Omar Mateen, shouldnt have gone on the killing spree because God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality, according to a translation by the Washington Post. In an earlier interview, he said there was no sign of any trouble when he saw his son just hours before the mass shooting, and he denied suggestions his son was radicalized or an ISIS sympathizer. Seddique Mateen has condemned the actions of his son Omar who killed 49 people in an Orlando gay club The father, pictured at home in Port St Lucie, Florida, said he had no idea that his son had been radicalised and was shocked by his actions In a video posted on Facebook early this morning, Seddique Mateen (pictured) said his 29-year-old son, Omar Mateen, shouldnt have gone on the killing spree because God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality In the Facebook video, posted shortly after midnight, Seddique Mateen, standing in front of Afghanistan's national flag, expressed shock that his good son was responsible for the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and said he was saddened by the rampage. Speaking in Dari, he said: I am deeply saddened and announce this to the people of America. He said he doesn't know why his son launched the attack. The video ended with him expressing disbelief that his son took it upon himself to seek retribution against the gay community, the Washington Post reported. God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. This is not for the servants, he said, according to the translation. Orlando police said officers shot and killed Omar Mateen when a SWAT team stormed the nightclub Authorities at the home of Seddique Mateen, the father of Omar Mateen, in Port St. Lucie, Florida Florida home of Seddique. On Sunday, cops and federal agents were seen entering the property as they continue their investigation into the worst mass shooting in American history In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen said his son was enraged after seeing two men kissing in front of his wife and son during a visit to Miami a couple of months ago. Later, in his first on-camera interview, Seddique Mateen, who moved to the U.S. from Afghanistan, told ABC News his son wasn't radicalized or a sympathizer of ISIS, and was a loving and caring husband and father. Investigators havent revealed a motive for the massacre, but Omar Mateen was involved in three calls with a 911 from inside Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning during which pledged allegiance to ISIS and claimed solidarity with the Boston Bombers and the Florida man who became a suicide bomber for Al-Nusra Front in Syria - a group in direct conflict with ISIS. 'The Boston bombers and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by ISIS, which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives', Comey concluded. Seddique Mateen, who lives in Fort Pierce, Florida, revealed he saw his son at 3pm on Saturday, around 12 hours before the mass shooting started. He came in here, paid respect and he went, like around 3 o clock. Everything was normal, he said. Seddique Mateen speaks to ABC News after his son, Omar, killed at least 49 people in an Orlando nightclub. Seddique Mateen revealed he saw his son at 3pm on Saturday, around 12 hours before the mass shooting A photo from Facebook shows Seddique Mateen wearing Army fatigues while saluting and holding a flag Seddique Mateen said he was stunned and saddened when he received a phone in the middle of the night and learned his son was responsible for the worst mass shooting in American history. He said he had no idea his son was planning the attack and he would have done something to stop it if he had. Seddique Mateen, a political activist who is running for president of Afghanistan and has expressed gratitude towards the Afghan Taliban in videos posted online, said his son was not radicalized, adding: He wasnt because he had no beard, and he was just a regular person going to work and coming back and taking care of his wife and his kids. The father said he has no idea why the attack occurred and he didnt notice anything irregular in his sons behavior. I couldnt believe that was my son because my son got an education, hes born in the United States in New York and he finished high school here in Florida, and he got his associate degree in criminal justice, he told ABC News. He had a lot of love and care, and I couldnt believe that this is what he was doing. And if he was alive I would ask him one question: Why? Mass shooter Omar Mateens father, Seddique Mateen, visited Congress, the State Department and met political leaders during a trip to Washington, D.C., in April Seddique Mateen hosts the Durand Jirga Show on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California Armed with a .223-caliber AR-15-type rifle and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun legally purchased within the last week, Omar Mateen began shooting his victims inside and outside the nightclub around 2am on Sunday. He engaged in a gun battle with an off-duty police officer who was working security at Pulse, and then went deeper into the nightclub. He took hostages and continued to kill his victims until police raided the bar at 5am in order to rescue the remaining survivors. In the ensuing gun battle a SWAT team rescued 30 hostages and shot and killed Omar Mateen, who was also from Fort Pierce in central Florida, said Orlando police. Last April, Seddique Mateen, who regularly writes open letters to President Barack Obama, visited Congress, the State Department and political leaders during a trip to Washington, D.C. Seddique Mateen has expressed gratitude towards the Afghan Taliban in videos posted on the internet Seddique Mateen posts open letters to President Barack Obama on Facebook, primarily focusing on Pakistan and Afghanistan He hosts his own show, called the Durand Jirga Show, which is broadcast from California, where he discusses politics in the Dari language. In videos posted online, he has expressed gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government. Posts include topics such as 'Rise Afghan people against Pakistan' and 'Intelligent service and Military of Pakistan real Enemy of the USA (sic)'. In one video the elder Mateen holds up a sign that reads: 'ISI Pakistan and Military is Destroying 14 years of US work in Afghanistan to cut AID to killers'. And in another, according to the Washington Post, he tells the camera: 'Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up. Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon.' Only hours before the massacre in Orlando, Seddique posted a video called Provisional Government of Afghanistan on a Facebook page, which he describes as 'social activity for communities to develop a good relationship'. A 76-year-old man was stabbed in the back by a robber in a Sydney convenience store. CCTV footage shows a man in a hooded jumper walking down a laneway before charging in to a Glenfield shop and trying to steal money from the till on Monday morning. After hearing the commotion from inside, an elderly man steps in to try and stop the thief just after 10am, reported Channel 9. Scroll down for video Grainy CCTV footage shows the elderly man being stabbed by a robber wearing a hood He was seen walking down a laneway in Glenfield on his way to the shop about 10am on Monday Immediately after the 76-year-old was stabbed, the shopkeeper ran to his side The shocking footage shows the two men tussle before the 76-year-old is stabbed in the lower back. He hunches over, clearly shaken, as the shopkeeper rushes to his side. This is not the first time the shops on Railway Parade have been targeted. An employee at a nearby store told reporters he felt 'tense and scared' every time he worked. The elderly good Samaritan was taken to Liverpool Hospital in a stable condition. It is not known how much money the thief escaped with, if any. Anyone who has information on the identity or whereabouts of the robber is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 The good samaritan was taken to Liverpool Hospital in a stable condition A raver dying from a suspected drug overdose lay helpless in a car as festivalgoers continued to party around him after organisers of an illegal bush doof refused to shut it down. The body of 24-year-old man David Gallagher, from the northern New South Wales town of Green Pigeon, was found inside a parked car at Omega Festival on a property in Newtown Boyd, west of Grafton, at about 2pm on Sunday. He lay dead in the car for up to 12 hours as hundreds of revellers danced only 200 metres away at the festivals main stage, The Daily Telegraph reported. The body of 24-year-old man David Gallagher (pictured)( was found inside a car at Omega Festival on a property in Newtown Boyd, west of Grafton, at about 2pm on Sunday The body of a 24-year-old man was found inside a car at Omega Festival on a property in Newtown Boyd, west of Grafton, New South Wales, at about 2pm on Sunday (Pictured: Past Omega Festival) Mr Gallagher lay dead in the car for up to 12 hours as hundreds of revellers danced only 200 metres away at the festivals main stage, it was reported Police will investigate if a drug overdose caused Mr Gallaghers death. They will try to determine if the he used a cocktail of drugs- including cannabis, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. It is understood that evidence of drug use was found in the car, according to The Daily Telegraph. Ravers refused police requests to stop the party after Mr Gallagher's death, with people still revelling at 1.30pm on Monday. Det Insp Jameson said he was disgusted by the attitude of the partygoers and event organisers. 'In my 26 years in the force I've never seen such a strong disregard for human life than to continue an event when someone has died in front of you,' he said. It has been reported that authorities were forced to obtain a scene warrant before they could enter the property. Kylie Walker, Mr Gallagher's aunt paid tribute to her nephew on Facebook. 'Sorry my dear nephew. I wish I had known you better,' she wrote. Ravers refused police requests to stop the party after Mr Gallagher's (pictured) death, with people still revelling at 1.30pm on Monday Around 2,500 people flocked to the unauthorised rave, also known as a 'bush doof', despite police and the local council insisting organisers shut the event down. Tickets were sold for $185 each. Police said the event started on Saturday afternoon and continued after the body was found as it was too difficult to re-locate the thousands of 'drug affected' partygoers, the ABC reported. 'They're already aggressive towards police because they're affected by drugs and alcohol,' Detective Inspector Darren Jameson said adding that it looked like the death could be drug-related. 'The crime scene was processed, and some items of interest associated with drug use and particularly cannabis use were located,' he told the ABC. Detective Jameson said that drugs and alcohol are known to fuel events such as the Omega Festival, with the mainstay drug of choice being cannabis. 'The difficulty arises when cannabis is mixed with other drugs and alcohol, and in particular other drugs, what is known as "poly-drugging".' Around 2,500 people flocked to the unauthorised rave, also known as a 'bush doof', over the long weekend after police insisted organisers shut the event down A ticket holder stands in front of a colourful crocheted web at the Grafton site where a man was found dead The dance party was initially going to be held at Tabulam, a rural village NSW's far north east (pictured) He said police were continuing to monitor for noise pollution but had little power to shut down the event until those complaints came through. The dance party was initially going to be held at Tabulam, a rural village NSW's far north-east, but the Tenterfield Shire Council made a last minute application to NSW Land and Environment Court to cancel the event. They said organisers did not get permission from the land owners to use the space for an event. There was a heavy police presence at the site but organisers used social media to redirect party-goers to the new location on Blacksmith Shop Road. 'Please do not head to the location released yesterday because this event has been moved,' organisers wrote on Facebook. 'Despite our best efforts police have forced us from the property. We are left with no option but to relocate the festival, directions for the new site will be emailed to ticket buyers during this evening, please do not post the new directions to Facebook.' Detectives have established a crime scene at the property which continues to be forensically examined. But the Tenterfield Shire Council made a last minute application to NSW Land and Environment Court to cancel the event There was a heavy police presence at the site but organisers used social media to redirect party-goers to the new location on Blacksmith Shop Road The scene is often associated with drug use and is not as regulated as common music festivals (Pictured: Past Omega Festival) WHAT IS A BUSH DOOF? The term doof or bush doof is used to refer to an outdoor dance party in Australia and New Zealand. The parties are generally held in a remote country area and boast live DJs who play electronic music. The scene is often associated with drug use and is not as regulated as common music festivals. Advertisement Richmond Local Area Command Chief Inspector Nicole Bruce said authorities had been aware of the event for around a week but only found out the location on Thursday, according to the Northern Star. She said there were a number of reasons authorities wanted to shut the event down, including a lack of facilities and concerns that ambulances would not be able to get to the remote location in case of an emergency. 'Usually drugs are synonymous with dance parties so there's always the underlining concern with drugs and particularly at this isolated location, it would take some time for ambulance assistance to get there.' Chief Inspector Nicole Bruce said there were a number of reasons authorities wanted to shut the event down, including concerns that ambulances would not be able to get to the remote location in case of an emergency Police tried to shut the event down adding that organisers did not get permission from the land owners A report on the man's death will be prepared for the coroner which will confirm if drugs were involved, a police spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia. Advertisement Two orangutans have braved a 52-hour drive and a boat ride through treacherous rapids to be released into the wild after they were rescued from devastating forest fires. Adult orangutans Mata and Mynah will begin their new lives in the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya national park in west Kalimantan, Indonesia, after their stay at the International Animal Rescue (IAR) centre in Ketapang. 'The journey to the release site involved two days on treacherous roads, several hours on a raging river and then a trek on foot into the national park,' Alan Knight, CEO of IAR said. Adult orangutans Mata and Mynah have been released from the International Animal Rescue (IAR) centre in Ketapang into the wild after they were rescued from a forest fire The transport crates had to be fitted with large floats in case the boats capsized in the raging rapids He called it 'a momentous event' for the team, adding: 'They have been planning and preparing for the launch of this reintroduction programme for the past two years.' Mata and Mynah are the first orangutans to be released back into the wild under the reintroduction programme. After an arduous 52-hour drive from Ketapang to the village of Mengkilau, Mata and Mynah were moved into wooden, motorised boats, known as keletok, and taken up stream to the release site. The transport crates had to be fitted with large floats in case the boats capsized in the raging rapids. The orangutans braved a 52-hour drive and a boat ride through treacherous rapids (pictured) to be released into the wild They will begin their new lives in the Bukit Baka Bukit Raya national park in west Kalimantan, Indonesia Finally the cages were lifted from the boats by a team of eight porters and carried several hundred metres, deep into the forest. To celebrate their release back into the wild, the people of Mengilau and Juoi villages held traditional Dayak Ransa tribe ceremonies. The area of Mentati, within the national park, was chosen because of its undeveloped state and low orangutan population. IAR programme director Karmele Llano Sanchez said: 'Mentatai has a very low population of orangutans and is far from any human settlement, reducing the likelihood of conflict between local communities and orangutans.' Finally the cages were lifted from the boats by a team of eight porters and carried several hundred metres, deep into the forest Mynah and Mata have lived at an IAR centre in Ketapang since they were rescued from destructive fires The IAR worked in collaboration with the Conservation of Natural Resources Agency and the Buki Baka Bukit Raya National Park. Bornean Orangutans are classed as endangered species, with an estimated 45,000-69,000 individuals in the wild. As their natural habitat comes under threat from illegal logging, fires, oil palm plantations and mining the number of orangutans is at increased risk of falling - the population has already declined by 50% in 60 years Lis Key, from IAR England, said: 'Every individual like Mynah and Mata counts and every orangutan that we return to the wild can contribute to the conservation of the population as a whole.' Bornean Orangutans are classed as endangered species, with an estimated 45,000-69,000 individuals in the wild (one of the orangutans pictured at IAR centre) Mata and Mynah were taken from the IAR centre (pictured) and taken on a 52-hour drive and boat ride up rapids to be released To celebrate their release back into the wild, the people of Mengilau and Juoi villages held traditional Dayak Ransa tribe ceremonies (pictured: the team who helped release the two orangutans) Mata and Mynah were moved into wooden, motorised boats, known as keletok, and taken up stream to the release site The IAR worked in collaboration with the Conservation of Natural Resources Agency and the Buki Baka Bukit Raya National Park The area of Mentati, within the national park, was chosen because of its undeveloped state and low orangutan population (pictured: the two orangutans are released into the wild) U.S. officials said Monday that they are investigating whether anyone helped Omar Mateen, 29 (pictured), plot the Orlando nightclub massacre U.S. authorities are investigating whether anyone helped the gunman who massacred 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, but said they did not believe anyone connected to the shooting posed a current danger to the public. The FBI and other agencies are looking at evidence inside and in the closed-off streets around the Pulse nightclub, where a shooter pledging allegiance to Islamic State carried out the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, and the worst attack on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001. The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club early Sunday morning with armored cars after a three-hour siege. Shortly after noon on Monday, FBI Chief James Comey gave a press conference, explaining the agency's investigation into the shooting and their past probes into Mateen. Comey said that while Mateen pledged an allegiance to ISIS before the shooting, there was so far no evidence that the 29-year-old Muslim man was in any way connected to the Islamic State or any other terror group for that matter. However, Comey said that it did appear Mateen had become radicalized in his Islamic faith, and that may have played a role in the deadly shooting. Comey also went into detail about the two investigations the FBI had launched into Mateen before the shooting. Scroll down for video Investigators work the scene following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, U.S. June 12, 2016. Mateen was shot dead after crawling out of this hole in the side of the club that authorities made to let hostages escape Investigators worked through the night on Sunday taking inventory of the scene and removing the dozens of bodies from inside the club He said that the agency was first informed about Mateen in May 2013, when his coworkers at security agency G4S made a complaint about his comments about terrorism. Mateen allegedly told his coworkers at a courthouse where he worked as a security guard that he had family in al-Qaeda and that he hoped cops would raid his home and assault his wife and child so that he could martyr himself. The FBI launched an investigation into Mateen after hearing about these statements, and for the next 10 months they tried to determine whether he had any credible links to terrorist organizations or aspirations to launch an attack. In the course of the investigation, they had confidential sources speak to Mateen, they recorded conversations and even had him followed. FBI Director James Comey spoke about the Orlando mass shooting on Monday, updating the nation on the agency's investigation into Omar Mateen He was interviewed twice during those 10 months and admitted to making the inflammatory statements, but said he only said the in anger because he thought his coworkers were being discriminatory over his Muslim faith. The FBI found no evidence that Mateen was planning an attack or working with a terror group and closed the investigation. But just a few months after that investigation ended, Mateen's name came up in yet another FBI probe - this time into the American suicide bomber from Florida who blew himself up in Syria after joining the al-Nusra front. Above, a look inside the For Pierce Islamic Center in Florida where Mateen worshipped on Sunday. Officials say there is no evidence he was connected to any terror group Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce, Florida on June 12, 2016. Rahman says he has spoke out against groups like ISIS in the 11 years he has led the group Moner Mohammad Abusalha and Mateen attended the same Florida mosque and authorities determined that they were no more than acquaintances there. However, when interviewing other attendees of the mosque, agents asked if there was anyone else who worshiped there who might be inclined to commit a similar act of terror and someone mentioned Mateen's name. The person who brought up Mateen said that he had once been worried about him radicalizing, but was no longer as concerned since Mateen had married, had a child and found a job. Mateen called emergency services during the shooting and pledged allegiance to the leader of the militant Islamic State group, officials said. President Barack Obama speaks about the investigation into the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida during a meeting with top officials in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, June 13, 2016 Comey went into more detail about the phone calls on Monday, saying that Mateen spoke with 911 dispatchers a total of three times the night of the massacre. The first time Mateen called, but hung up before speaking to a dispatcher. He then called back and spoke briefly to a dispatcher before hanging up again. The third call was initiated by the dispatcher who called Mateen back and the two spoke again briefly before Mateen hung up. During the calls, Mateen expressed loyalty to the leader of the Islamic State, while also claiming solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon and Abusalha. Authorities say its unclear whether he was actually inspired by ISIS since the Boston Marathon bombers and Abusalha were not working in concert with ISIS. Islamic State reiterated on Monday a claim of responsibility. 'One of the Caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando,' the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan Radio Mateen's ex-wife said he was unstable and physically abusive. He had a son with another woman, Noor Zahi Salman (left), who was listed as his wife on a 2013 mortgage and appears to have left him Although the group claimed responsibility, this did not necessarily mean it directed the attack: there was nothing in the claim indicating coordination before the rampage between the gunman and Islamic State. Officials said on Sunday the death toll was 50. On Monday they clarified that this included Mateen. By Monday morning, all but one of those killed had been identified and about half the families of the dead had been notified, officials said. Julissa Leal, 18, and her mother drove down to the Florida city from Lafayette, Louisiana in search of her brother, 27-year-old Frank Hernandez. They knew he was at the club with his boyfriend, who lost him in the chaos. 'We haven't heard anything, don't know anything,' Leal said said, fighting back tears. 'I'm going to see him again. I'm going to see him again.' Law enforcement officials were looking for clues as to whether anyone worked with Mateen on the attack, said Lee Bentley, U.S. Attorney for Florida's middle district. 'There is an investigation of other persons, we are working as diligently as we can on that,' Bentley told a news conference. 'If anyone else was involved in this crime, they will be prosecuted.' Officials stressed they believed there had been no other attackers and that they had no evidence of a threat to the public. The attack, denounced by President Barack Obama as an act of terror and hate, reignited the debate over how best to confront violent Islamist militancy, and immediately became a sharp point of disagreement in the campaign for the November 8 presidential election. Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, speaking on MSNBC, said the United States should walk a fine line in bolstering security without demonizing Muslims, and also called for tougher gun safety measures. Trump, in CNN and Fox News interviews, criticized the U.S. Muslim population for not reporting suspicions to authorities, and reiterated his call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. The rampage began just after 2am on Sunday at the nightclub in the heart of Orlando, about 15 miles northeast of the Walt Disney World Resort. Orlando is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States, drawing some 62 million visitors a year. Some 350 patrons were attending a Latin music event at the club and survivors described scenes of carnage and pandemonium as the shooter took hostages inside a bathroom. The FBI believe Mateen, who was shot dead by officers, may have 'leanings to radical Islamic terrorism'. The investigation to the worst mass shooting in America is sure to last months as police will be on the scene for days to come Police said on Monday that the officers who responded to the attack saved 'dozens' of clubgoers and eventually used explosives and a heavy vehicle to punch a hole in the building's wall through which more people escaped. Mateen also emerged through the hole and was shot dead, police said. Mateen was an armed guard at a gated retirement community, and had worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years. He had cleared two company background screenings, the latest in 2013, according to G4S.. Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters on Monday that he was angered by his son's actions. 'I am sorry,' the father said. 'If I did know, 1 per cent, that he was committing such a crime myself, I would have arrested him myself, I would have called FBI.' In an earlier interview with NBC news, the father described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry. Mateen's former wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters near Boulder, Colorado, that she had been beaten by Mateen during outbursts of temper in which he would 'express hatred towards everything'. The attack came six months after a married couple in California - a U.S.-born son of Pakistani immigrants and a Pakistani-born woman he married in Saudi Arabia - killed 14 people in San Bernardino at an office holiday party in an shooting rampage inspired by Islamic State. The couple died in a shootout with police hours after that attack. The type of AR-15 rifle that terrorist Omar Mateen used to kill 49 people and wound dozens more at a nightclub in Orlando has become the weapon of choice for mass murderers in the U.S. and is one of the common links between the shootings. Even though it has caused carnage and left dozens of people dead in multiple shootings this decade alone, the military-inspired semi-automatic rifle designed for civilian use is perfectly legal in most states. There were calls for a nationwide ban after the same type of firearm - capable of firing dozens of rounds in less than a minute without being reloaded - was used in the Sandy Hook school shooting, but it remains readily available at gun shops and was purchased just last week by Mateen before he went on his killing spree. The AR-15 rifle is the civilian model of the M-16 and is capable of firing a large number of rounds in seconds Omar Mateen, 29, was armed with a .223-caliber AR-15-type rifle and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol Mateen, 29, was armed with a .223-caliber AR-15-type rifle and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol both legally purchased when he opened fire at the Pulse gay club in Orlando early Sunday morning. Called a killing machine or 'weapon of war' by those who want to see it banned, the AR-15 rifle is the civilian version of the fully-automatic M16 used by soldiers in the Vietnam War. Unlike the M16, users must pull the trigger every time they want to fire a shot. The most common versions of the AR-15 have been banned in a handful of states, including California. When it is used against humans it is intended to cause maximum carnage in a brief amount of time, said experts. 'It was designed for the United States military to do to enemies of war exactly what it did [in Orlando]: kill mass numbers of people with maximum efficiency and ease, said lawyer Josh Koskoff, who is representing families of the Sandy Hook victims in a lawsuit, in an interview with the New York Daily News. Richard Frankel, an ABC News contributor and former counterterrorism special agent for the FBI, told the TV network that mass shooters may be choosing the AR-15 because it is easy to operate and easy to obtain, as its sold by many gun retailers in the U.S. Its easy to load, point and shoot, he said, adding that an AR-15 can hold 30 rounds at a time and fire off those rounds in less than a minute. Firearms expert David Dyson told Daily Mail Online said: Really, it just depends on the speed with which someone pulls the trigger. The cycling of the round is very quick, its an automatic system that reloads another round as soon as the previous one has been discharged. Commonly, you would expect a gun like this to be used when youre shooting from a distance.' AR-15-type rifles have also been used the mass shootings in San Bernardino and Newtown, Connecticut Authorities at the home of Seddique Mateen, the father of Omar Mateen, in Port St. Lucie, Florida A database compiled by Mother Jones magazine found that AR-15 rifles have been used in at least 10 mass shootings since 2011, Reuters reported. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents gun manufacturers, said there are five million to 10 million AR-15 rifles in the U.S., a small percentage of the 300 million firearms owned by Americans. Last October, gunman Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, used an AR-15-style firearm to kill nine people before he killed himself at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. An AR-15 model was used by married couple Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 29, when they killed 14 people and wounded nearly two dozen others at a work Christmas party in San Bernardino, California, last December. Police recovered two .223-caliber AR-15-type semi-automatic rifles after the couple died in a shootout with officers. An AR-15-type firearm was used by 20-year-old Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, which shocked the nation in December 2012. Lanza fatally shot his mother, Nancy, who legally obtained the firearms, at their home before he killed 20 children and six adult staff members at the school. That shooting renewed the gun debate in the U.S. and led to calls for a ban on sales of AR-15-type firearms. However, sales went through the roof. Residents of San Francisco mourn the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando Some of the Newtown victims' families have filed a lawsuit against Remington Outdoor Co., which manufactured the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle used by Lanza, who committed suicide after the killings, even though a federal law excludes gun manufacturers from such court proceedings. Last April a judge ruled the lawsuit can go ahead, saying the 2005 law does not prevent lawyers for the victims' families from arguing that the semi-automatic rifle is a military weapon and should not have been sold to civilians. Less than a year before the Newtown tragedy, James E. Holmes, then 24, used the same kind of weapon to kill 12 people and injure more than 50 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012. The first AR-15 was introduced for U.S. military use by ArmaLite in 1959, and was modified and rebranded 'M16' after the design was sold to Colt. Colt began selling a civilian version known as the AR-15 in 1963 and today variants of it can be purchased from a number of manufacturers, including Remington and Smith & Wesson, under different names. Most AR-15 models were banned in the U.S. in 1994, but the ban was allowed to expire in 2004 and has never been restored. In a blog post, the National Rifle Association (NRA), which has been criticised for its opposition to tougher restrictions on firearms, said the AR-15 is similar in appearance to the M16, but rejected claims that it is the same as fully-automatic military firearms. Backers have argued owners of AR-15 models are law-abiding citizens who use the firearm for shooting targets, hunting or home defense. In its blog post, the NRA wrote: 'There is a vast difference between fully automatic and semi-automatic firearms. 'In order to fire a semi-automatic firearm, you must pull and release the trigger after each shot. You cannot hold the trigger for rapid fire. 'Semi-automatic firearms are functionally no different on any platform, whether it be a pistol, rifle or shotgun.' A man accused of scaring his neighbour to death in a confrontation over loud party music went on trial in a Supreme Court on Monday. Christopher Malcolm Carkeek pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of neighbour Brian Burgess, who he allegedly assaulted after Mr Burgess asked him to turn the music down during a 7am party. The court was told the stress of the confrontation triggered Mr Burgesss fatal heart attack, reported The West Australian. Brian Burgess (pictured) died of a heart attack last year after he was allegedly assaulted by neighbour Christopher Carkeek Mr Burgess, 45, rang Carkeek in May last year and asked him to turn the music down when his all-night party ran on to 7am, the Western Australia Supreme Court was told. In response, Carkeek, 37, allegedly marched round to his neighbours house in Brown Crescent, south east Perth, and assaulted Mr Burgess when he opened the door. Giving evidence at the trial, Mr Burgesss wife Denise said she ran out of the house to find her husband having a heart attack on the driveway. Mr Burgess was rushed to Perths Armadale Hospital but died a short time later. Prosecutors allege that the confrontation with his neighbour triggered Mr Burgess's (pictured) fatal heart attack Prosecutor Amanda Burrows said Mr Burgess had an underlying heart condition and his confrontation with Carkeek played an aggravating role in causing his heart attack. In reply, defence counsel Judith Fordham said Mr Burgess was very unhealthy and any stress could have set off the attack. She said Mr Burgess was not scared to death and was in effect a walking time bomb that could have had a heart attack at any time, reported PerthNow. The trial continues. A guide abandoned a party of 60 hikers on a mountain in Austria because he was drunk, forcing them to call emergency services for help. The group of Hungarian tourists were climbing in the Rax mountain range in Lower Austria at the weekend when they realised their guide had gone missing. The hikers had apparently noticed in the morning that the guide appeared to be drunk and, after stopping for lunch, he vanished. The Rax mountain (pictured) is in eastern Austria, close to the Hungarian border, and overlooks Hollental (Hell Valley). It is a popular area with hikers Unsure of which path to take and with bad weather looming, they had no alternative but to call emergency services. The Local reported that one man rang the Austrian Mountain Rescue Service to say his family was lost and the drunken guide was nowhere to be found. Rescuers guided them down off the mountain and when they got to the bottom they found the tour guide, who had made his own way down. In a separate incident a German hiker called the emergency services after his 53-year-old wife fell ill during a long hike in the Styria region. The couple had planned an 11-hour hike through the mountains but only got an hour into the walk before she became weak. She had to be rescued by helicopter and taken to a hospital in nearby Graz. The founder of a trendy frozen yoghurt chain downed eight pints as he celebrated a new business deal then crashed his Land Rover into a row of cars. Martyn Pollock, 34, was three times over the limit when he drove his grey Defender in the middle of the road in Kensington, west London, in May this year when he ploughed the 4x4 into the vehicles. Pollock, the founder of Frae Frozen Yoghurt - a chain of upmarket 'fro-yo' parlours in central London which counts Keira Knightley among its customers - had been out drinking to mark becoming a partner in a separate venture. Martyn Pollock (left, with co-founder Donald Murray) 34, founder of Frae Frozen Yoghurt, crashed his Land Rover into a row of cars after drinking up to eight pints on a celebratory night out Despite telling police he had not drunk recently, the lawyer-turned-businessman was found to have a reading of 121 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 micrograms. His lawyer Matthew Humphreys told Hammersmith Magistrates' Court that it was a 'high reading'. 'Mr Pollock is a business man, he runs his own frozen yoghurt operation. He previously, ironically, worked as a lawyer,' he told the court. 'On the evening of the incident he had been celebrating having been made a partner in a further, separate business venture. Pollock, the founder of Frae Frozen Yoghurt - a chain of upmarket 'fro-yo' parlours in London (pictured) - had been out drinking to mark becoming a partner in a separate venture The low-fat, frozen yoghurt trend - which includes flavours such as green tea and honey - is one of a number of fads which has taken the high street by storm 'By his own admission he had drunk in the region of six to eight pints and, by his own admission, he was extremely foolish in getting into his car and driving.' Simon Stanyer, for the prosecution, said Pollock (pictured) was 'driving in the middle of the road and the accident occurred' Simon Stanyer, for the prosecution, said Pollock was 'driving in the middle of the road and the accident occurred'. The court also heard he had been given six points on his licence in January for driving without insurance. Pollock, dressed in a blue suit with a blue tie when he appeared at Hammersmith Magistrates' Court, spoke only to plead guilty to drink-driving and confirm his name, age and address. The entrepreneur, from west London, ditched a corporate job in the legal industry and set up the company in 2009 with friend Donald Murray, who he studied with at Glasgow University. The first shop opened in Islington, north London, and there are now five stores across London, including in Notting Hill, Oxford Circus and a pop-up in Heathrow Airport. The low-fat, frozen yoghurt trend - which includes flavours such as green tea and honey - is one of a number of fads which has taken the high street by storm. Simon Cowell, Carmen Electra and Taylor Swift are among the celebrities who have endorsed the 'guilt-free' trend. Chairman of the bench, Janette Dalgleish, said: 'It is very serious, there was a crash and we have an entry point of 12 weeks custody.' The airline apologised to Yingluck, (pictured, centre), after she flew with them from Phrae in northern Thailand to Bangkok A budget airline in Thailand has apologised after three friends of a pilot joked in a group chat about crashing the plane he was going to fly with former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on board. Yingluck, who was deposed by the Thai Army in a coup in 2014, was walking with her son towards the Nok Air aircraft in the provincial town of Phrae when the first officer on the plane took her picture. He posted it on a group chat with the comment: 'There are victims on board.' One of his friends, believed to be another pilot, then commented: 'Oooh, go for it.' Then another friend wrote: 'please do a CFIT.' In aviation jargon CFIT stands for 'controlled flight into terrain' - in other words a controlled crash. Yingluck is a polarising figure in Thailand. Her opponents claim she is a puppet whose strings are pulled by her brother Thaksin, another former prime minister, who now lives in exile as he faces corruption charges in Thailand. But her supporters - including the notorious 'red shirts' - point out she and her brother were both democratically elected by the people and were only removed from power by the military. Yingluck Shinawatra greets an elderly supporter during a stop at a snack shop as part of Yingluck's 'fighting with smiles' tour in the northern Thai province of Lampang Yingluck is popular in rural parts of northern and eastern Thailand where she is perceived as helping poorer people at the expense of the rich. But she is often mocked by middle class Thais for her lack of intelligence and her inability to speak English. The screenshot of the group chat was somehow was leaked on social media at the weekend and provoked widespread criticism of Nok Air. Nok Air chief executive, Patee Sarasin, reacted angrily and wrote in a tweet: 'This kind of behaviour is intolerable.' He said: 'I will personally call Yingluck and apologise, Nok Air has no politics, I won't stand this.' On her Facebook page Yingluck said she hoped this incident would be an example of 'not bringing in personal attitudes into professional services. Especially when it is about life and safety'. Nok Air posted an apology on its Facebook page, which attracted hundreds of comments. Yingluck Shinawatra's tour included visiting a Buddhist temple (pictured) where she rang the 'Bell of Freedom' Yingluck came to power in a landslide election victory in 2011, but her government was ousted by the military in May 2014 after protracted political turmoil in Thailand. The Thai Army is rewriting the constitution before calling fresh elections but they have banned political campaigning. Yingluck has gone on a 'fighting with smiles' tour, which she claims is to celebrate getting five million followers on Facebook. The gunman who killed 49 people after opening fire in an Orlando gay club was a homophobe and a racist who was both anti-Semitic and misogynistic according to a former co-worker. Daniel Gilroy worked with Omar Mateen, the man responsible for Sunday's brutal massacre, at G4S Security in Port St. Lucie, Florida for several months in 2014 and 2015, during which time he observed how 'unhinged' and filled with rage the man was at all times. Mateen would use 'horrible words' whenever he saw a 'female or black person' according to Gilroy, and on one occasion said 'I would just like to kill all those n******.' He also frequently launched into tirades against gay people and members of the Jewish faith said Gilroy, and often talked about killing people. Gilroy eventually complained about Mateen's 'toxic' behavior to his employer but they did nothing to remedy the situation, forcing him to request a transfer so he could get away from his co-worker. He believes that their employer did nothing because of Mateen's religion, describing the man as a devout Muslim who brought his prayer mat to work every day. Scroll down for videos Not surprised: Daniel Gilroy told ABC News that his former colleague was frightening to work with Place of employment: G4S, a British security services company (Crawley headquarters above), said in a statement that Mateen twice passed a background check when he joined the firm 'He was scary in a concerning way,' Gilroy said in an interview with NBC News. He did not like women at all. He did like women in a sexual way, but he did not respect them. 'And it wasn't at times. It was all the time. He had anger management issues. Something would set him off, but the things that would set him off were always women, race or religion. [Those were] his button pushers.' Gilroy added that Mateen always spoke about members of different races, religions or genders in a 'derogatory' manner. 'He did not like black people at all. That was mentioned once or twice, but more so was women,' said Gilroy. 'He did not like women at all. He did like women in a sexual way, but he did not respect them.' Gilroy worked the community security gate at the PGA Village South in Port St. Lucie for several months in 2014 and 2015, covering the 7am to 3pm shift. Mateen would then take over for him, working from 3pm to 11pm at the resort. 'Everything he said was toxic and the company wouldn't do anything,' Gilroy told Florida Today. 'This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people.' Gilroy said that Mateen also began to stalk him a few months after they started working together, and that he would receive 20 to 30 text messages a day from the man and another 10 to 15 voicemails on his phone. Mateen (above) killed 49 people in the gay club Pulse and injured 53 others before being shot dead Those messages, coupled with Mateen's behavior and beliefs, ultimately led to Gilroy requesting a transfer he revealed as he was unable to continue working with the man. Gilroy claims that prior to that he voiced his issues with Mateen to their employer on several occasions, but that they refused to do anything about the situation. He believes that G4S never took action because Mateen was Muslim. G4S issued a statement on Sunday admitting that Mateen twice passed a background check when he joined the firm in September of 2007 and that he was not fired because the FBI interviewed him about links to Islamic extremism. They also said that they are now 'cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation.' These damaging revelations come as shares in G4S, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, lost up to eight percent of their value during trading on Monday. The world's biggest security company said he worked as a staff member at a gated retirement complex called PGA Village, in Port St Lucie, South Florida. It is not the first time the FBI is looking into Mateen, who was a 'known quantity' to federal law enforcement officials. I'm not surprised at what he did. I always knew he had something in him like that. And if I had to pick one person that would be capable of that, it would be him. In 2013, Mateen was interviewed twice by the FBI after making comments to co-workers that seemed to indicate sympathy for militants according to agent Ronald Hopper. Cooper called those interviews inconclusive. Then, in 2014, the FBI discovered a possible tie between Mateen and Moner Mohammad Abusalha, who had grown up in nearby Vero Beach and became the first American suicide bomber in Syria, where he fought with the Nusra Front. Once again however the FBI closed its inquiry after finding minimal contact between the pair. Those two interviews by the FBI and their inquiry into his relationship with Abusalha all occurred in the span of just two years, yet Mateen still managed to keep his security job with G4S. He was also able to legally purchase the two guns he used in his attack, including an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle which he bought just last week. Gilroy said he lost contact with Mateen in March of last year when he left PGA South and is not shocked by the news that he killed 49 people and injured 53 at the gay club Pulse in Orlando on Sunday morning before being shot dead by police. 'When I say that he was unstable or unhinged, I mean this is a man who would lose his temper for no reason,' Gilroy said to ABC News. 'He would kick walls, slap desks. I've seen him throw the chair across the room one time.' Gilroy also admitted he was glad to never see Mateen again. 'I didn't want to be around him anymore,' said Gilroy. 'I'm not surprised at what he did. I always knew he had something in him like that. And if I had to pick one person that would be capable of that, it would be him.' Gilroy revealed he is now wondering though if he could have done more to have somehow stopped this violent attack. 'I kind of feel a little guilty that I didnt fight harder,' said Gilroy. 'If I didnt walk away and I fought, then maybe 50 people would still be alive today.' Former love: Sitora Yusufiy (above on Sunday), Mateen's ex-wife, spoke about his violent temper in an interview shortly after the shooting Rage: Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen (above), said on Sunday that his son was homophobic, recalling an incident that happened years ago in Miami. Other individuals who were close to Mateen seem to confirm many of the claims being made by Gilroy about the man's behavior. Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, said on Sunday that his son was homophobic, recalling an incident that happened years ago in Miami. 'We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid, and he got very angry,' said the elder Mateen. 'They were kissing each other and touching each other, and he said: "Look at that. In front of my son, they are doing that."' He also stated that the brutal massacre committed by hos son had 'nothing to do with religion.' Sitora Yusufiy, Mateen's ex-wife, spoke about his violent temper in an interview shortly after the shooting. 'He would be perfectly normal and happy, joking, laughing one minute. The next minute his temper ... his body would just [go] totally the opposite,' said Yusufiy, who married Mateen in 2009 and filed for divorce just two years later. 'Anger, emotionally violent - and that later evolved into abuse, to beating.' Yusuify, who claims she was abused throughout her relationship with Mateen, also said that he was not a stable person. There are some however who are painting a far different picture of Mateen, with one resident at the PGA Village South saying Mateen was 'always smiling' and 'a very nice, positive person.' Eleanora Dorsi, who has lived at the resort since 2011, said that Mateen was a gentleman and 'not creepy,' mentioning that he once helped her fix her car when she needed a hand. 'You would never ever think that he would have done anything like this,' said Dorsi. 'Scary, scary. Very scary. I think everyone feels like that right now. 'It hits too close to home.' A former classmate of Mateen's who is openly gay and knew him before 2009 also said that he regularly interacted with him and other homosexuals and did not seem to have any issue with their sexuality. He 'treated us all like the individuals we were' said Samuel King. 'He clearly was not anti-(gay) at least not back then. He did not show any hatred to any of us.' Advertisement Tony Abbott's sister has held her partner's hand while carrying rainbow gay-pride flags as hundreds turn up to candlelight vigils across the country to mourn the victims of a massacre at an Orlando nightclub. Vigils were held on Monday night at Taylor Square and Newtown in Sydney and Fitzroy in Melbourne, while landmarks such as the Harbour Bridge were lit up to show support for the 50 killed and 53 injured by a gunman inside the crowded LGBTI club Pulse in the early hours of Sunday morning, local time. Tony Abbott's sister Christine Forster and her partner Virginia held hands alongside hundreds of others who surrounded a nature strip at Taylor Square that was covered in flowers, rainbow flags and the word 'Orlando' spelled out by candles. Scroll down for video Tony Abbott's sister Christine Forster (right) and her partner Virginia (left) held hands and rainbow gay-pride flags at Sydney's Taylor Square Hundreds comforted one another at the nature strip at Taylor Square which was covered in flowers, rainbow flags and the word 'Orlando' spelled out by candles Town Hall in Sydney is illuminated in pink in memory of the victims of the massacre, with a rainbow gay-flag waving in the wind About 400 people mourned at the vigil in Newtown in Sydney's inner-west, while about 500 bowed their heads at Melbourne's Fitzroy for 50 seconds of silence one second for each victim, ABC reported. About 500 people bowed their heads at Melbourne's Fitzroy for 50 seconds of silence - one second for each victim, ABC reported. Chris Pycroft of the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby told the crowd of about 400 at Newtown that gay clubs had been 'one of the places where you feel safe and supported'. Australian political leaders have united to offer support to the gay community, with Malcolm Turnbull calling the attack a 'murderous hatred of gay people'. About 400 LGBT people and allies attended a candlelight vigil at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre on Monday night 'Stand with Orlando, don't blame Muslims,' a sign alongside candles at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre read A man sits with rainbow flags, candles and a bouquet of flowers in Newtown to remember the 50 people killed and 53 injured About 400 people mourned the massacre outside Newtown Neighbourhood Centre in Sydney's inner-west on Monday night 'This is a vile attack on freedom ... an attack on every single one of us,' Mr Turnbull told reporters on Monday. The prime minister said he had spoken to US ambassador John Berry to offer condolences, both in a diplomatic capacity and as a friend. Mr Berry and his partner Curtis Yee have friends in Florida whose safety is yet to be confirmed. Bill Shorten also offered his condolences, extending his sympathy to people in the LGBTQI community while condemning the attack as a strike against humanity. 'It was an attack on the right to be proud of who you are and who you love,' Mr Shorten said. Hundreds of people gathered at Taylor Square, Sydney, for a candlelight vigil with rainbow gay-pride flags NSW state member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich (right), attends the vigil in solidarity for the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting People hug and comfort one another on Monday night at Sydney's Taylor Square as they surround the nature strip with rainbow flags, flowers and candles People gather at the Taylor Square, Sydney, vigil to place rainbow gay-pride flags and candles on the nature strip along Oxford Street People gather at the vigil in Taylor Square, Sydney, in solidarity for the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting Greens leader Richard Di Natale was devastated to hear news of the violent and senseless shooting and added his sympathies. 'Violence and hate have no place in our communities and now more than ever we must stand together against these hateful acts,' he said in a statement. Former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer called on America to tighten its gun control. 'This is the agony of America, today in failing to fix dysfunctional gun laws due to the lock of the National Rifle Association on the US congress,' he told AAP on Monday. 'They now must get their gun laws sorted, or otherwise expect more massacres. The rainbow flag few above the Sydney Town Hall in solidarity with the LGBTQI community in Florida as Lord Mayor Clover Moore said she was 'horrified and appalled by the ugly, evil violence that's caused this attack'. Tony Abbott's sister joins hundreds at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club Tony Abbott's sister Christine Forster and her partner Virginia held hands, candles and a rainbow gay-pride flag at a vigil at Sydney's Taylor Square on Monday night People comfort one another at Taylor Square to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at an Orlando LGBTI club In Canberra, the Greens said they were cancelling a Queen's birthday cake-eating stunt at Parliament House planned as part of a push to make Australia a republic. Sydney Town Hall was also lit up pink on Monday night. 'Stand up against homophobia, transphobia, bigotry and hatred. Actions are being taken all over the U.S.A, let Sydney show our rainbow colours,' event organisers posted on Facebook. NSW Premier Mike Baird said the attack was a crime against the gay community and the whole of humanity. 'None of us could put words in any way to console those that are going through this awful, awful tragedy,' Mr Baird told reporters in Sydney. Pictured: Omar Mateen, 29, killed 50 people and injured 53 at Pulse gay-nightclub in Orlando in the early hours of Sunday morning Pulse Orlando nightclub wrote on their Facebook page during the shooting: 'Everyone get out of pulse and keep running' Friends and family embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Friends and family comfort one another outside the police headquarters during the investigation of the shooting where 50 were killed and 53 were injured 'Love will save us': rainbow flags, bouquets of flowers and candles are left at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre with messages of love 'No to homophobia, no to Islamophobia': About 400 people gathered outside Newtown Neighbourhood Centre to remember the victims 'Stand with Orlando, don't blame Muslims' a banner reads at the candlelight vigil at Newtown on Monday night A woman lays candles at King Street in Newtown for the victims of the Orlando massacre at Pulse LGBTQI nightclub A woman makes the word 'LOVE' with candles in Newtown to remember the victims of a massacre in Orlando which targeted an LGBTQI club LGBTI people and allies gather at Newtown Neighbourhood Centre to remember the victims of Orlando in Florida, US A man stops to mourn, honour, and remember the victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre at Newtown in Sydney on Monday night Pink lights light up Sydney's Town Hall to remember the victims of the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando The Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit up in rainbow colours by the Vivid light show to honour the victims of the massacre at a LGBTI club Landmarks such as the Harbour Bridge were lit up in rainbow colours by Vivid to show support for the 50 killed and 53 injured by a gunman inside the crowded LGBTI club Pulse in the early hours of Sunday morning, local time People gather at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club People gather at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club People gather at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club People hug at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club People hug at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club People gather at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club People gather at a candlelight vigil at Taylor Square in Sydney to remember the 50 killed and 53 injured at a massacre at an LGBTI club Emergency services on the scene outside Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning with victims of the shooting Pulse patrons carry a victim injured in the shooting at Pulse nightclub, where 50 were killed and 53 were injured Agencies failed to spot several warning signs dating back nearly 50 years which showed 'multi-generational' abuse in Poppi Worthington's family and showed she was at risk from birth, a report has found. Tragic Poppi, who died in 2012 after what a judge said was a sexual assault by her paedophile father at her home in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, was born into a family where three generations - including her mother - had been taken into care. Poppi's mother had been groomed by a couple at the age of 15, before falling pregnant and having her first child taken away from her for adoption. Her grandparents had also been brought up in care, while Poppi's grandfather was a self-proclaimed 'jail bird'. Poppi's father was also known to the authorities, after allegations were made against him in a child abuse investigation. Alarmingly, he had fathered a child with the woman suspected of grooming Poppi's mother when she was a teenager. Scroll down for video Poppi (pictured), who died in 2012 after what a judge said was a sexual assault by her paedophile father at her home in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, was born into a family where three generations had been taken into care Yet a report into the circumstances of Poppi's death has found that several agencies - including midwives and child safety experts - failed to spot the warnings signs and did not protect the little girl during her short life. Despite this, none of the health or social workers - who are not named in the report - have been sacked as a result of their failings. Some have since moved on, meaning they are now likely to be responsible for the welfare of vulnerable children elsewhere in the country. And chairwoman Gill Rigg still concluded that Poppi's death 'could not have been prevented or predicted'. The damning report by Cumbrias local safeguarding children board - which only refers to Poppi as Child N - said that Poppi's life may have been blighted by her mother's own 'traumatic' childhood and that alarm bells should have been ringing years before the tragedy. Her 'vulnerable' mother - who cannot be named for legal reasons and is referred to in the report as MCN - was groomed, sexually exploited and put into care, all 'clear indicators' that her parenting 'may have been compromised and that her children could be at risk'. But instead of triggering a 'comprehensive and ongoing multi-agency assessment' of her parenting, these risks were all-but ignored, the report found. Health workers then failed to show the necessary 'professional curiosity and sceptisim' when Poppi's father - referred to as FCN - began a relationship with her mother, who was 17 years his junior. The report found there was no assessment over Mr Worthington's parental abilities. The report says: 'There is no information that health visitors or midwives working with the family recognised or assessed the trauma of MCNs own childhood, or, given her vulnerability to further abuse, or her relationship with FCN, a man 17 years her senior, as potential sources of risk to the children.' Agencies failed to check Paul Worthington's parental credentials when he began a relationship with Poppi's mother The report reveals how Poppi's mother had grown up in a dysfunctional household, with both her parents having been in care. Poppi's mother and her four siblings were later deemed to be 'at risk', twice being put on the Child Protection Register before Poppi's mother was even a teenager. After 'witnessing domestic violence', Poppi's mother was then 'sexually exploited' by an older couple, whom she met when she began dating their lodger. At the age of 15, she left the family home and moved in with the couple, referring to them as 'mum' and 'dad' and changing her surname to hide from social services. The following year, she gave birth to her first child and was taken into care. The father of that child is unknown but there were fears the baby belonged to the man with whom she lived. But, less than 18 months later, the child was taken away from Poppi's mother, when she was found to be drunk and unable to care for the baby. By the time she was 19, her baby had been adopted - becoming the third generation in Poppi's mother's family to be taken into care. In another alarming revelation, it emerged that Poppi's mother fell pregnant with another baby while those adoption proceedings were ongoing. But, shortly after that birth, social services stopped their check-ups, believing Poppi's mother was capable because of her pretence of being a 'good parent'. She subsequently had three more children, including one with Mr Worthington, whom she met when she was 23 and he was 40. The report reveals how Mr Worthington, who used to be homeless, was the former partner of the woman with whom Poppi's mother lived when she was missing from care. Then, when her fifth child was six weeks old, Poppi's mother became pregnant again, this time with twins. The report described how the repeat pregnancies 'may have been a symptom of unresolved loss' - something which was not investigated by any practitioners. It also says that she did not have a medical check-up until she was 21 weeks' pregnant, something she later blamed on the death of her father. The report: 'There were elements of MCNs own childhood that had been difficult and traumatic. Her family had intergenerational experiences of neglect and abuse and frequent contacts with childrens social care and other services. The report is the latest in the tragic tale, which saw officials attempt to cover up the circumstances of Poppi's death. She is pictured above 'There were indicators that MCN may have been sexually exploited by an older couple. 'Her reluctance to leave the couple after having run away to be with them indicates her attachment to them and is a possible indicator of her own poor parenting experiences. 'All of these unresolved significant and traumatic life events were indicators that at the very least, MCNs parenting capacity and possibly her ability to protect herself and her children from harm could be compromised.' The report describes how health visitors, midwives and the GP who came into contact with Poppi also believed her to be a 'happy and thriving baby', an outward appearance which was 'not questioned', even when her twin appeared withdrawn and 'sad'. In another blunder, the report says Poppi's 'non-accidental' injuries - which were highlighted to medics on 'several occasions' - were treated in isolation. Today's publication is the latest in the tragic tale, which saw officials attempt to cover up the circumstances of Poppi's death. The local authority spent two years trying to stop the full tragedy of Poppi's death being published amid criticism that they had failed to protect her siblings for almost a year after she died. Even when X-rays revealed Poppi had died with two broken bones in her legs - and that the cause of death could not be ascertained - the other children were allowed to stay in her parents' care. A High Court judge found that Poppi's father Paul Worthington (pictured) sexually assaulted his daughter and that she later died of either suffocation or cardiac arrest as a result of the assault The council simply asked Poppis grandparents and mother to supervise Mr Worthingtons contact with the children. This continued even after March 2013, when Poppis parents separated for a time and Mr Worthington moved out. When social services became aware that Mr Worthington had moved back into the family home a few months later, a polite letter was written to the family asking that unsupervised contact between father and children should not be permitted. Then, in March 2014, a two-week fact-finding hearing was held at the High Court in London in which Justice Peter Jackson found that Poppi died as a result of a penetrative assault inflicted upon her by her father. The judge also criticised police, social workers and the coroner. But the findings were kept secret, incase of a criminal prosecution. Two months later, the council applied for draconian order in an attempt to cover up the failings. In a legal bill that cost taxpayers 12,000, the councils lawyers argued that disclosure of alleged shortcomings by agencies might be unfair to the agencies. The order would have been in place for 15 years, meaning Poppi's name could not be published in that time. It was only in January this year - after more hearings and court proceedings - that the full details surrounding Poppi's death were published. Even her inquest which took place three years after her death - which usually allows details of a death to be made public - presented no evidence and took only seven minutes to conclude that her death was 'unexplained'. Mr Justice Jackson later described the council's application as being scattergun in its approach and not in the public interest. Today's review said that several lessons should be learned from Poppi's death, including the way professionals working with new mothers consider the long term impact of unresolved childhood trauma on future parenting capacity. It also says professionals should use family history, chronology and genealogy to identify patterns of risk - particularly when there is a pattern of 'accidental injuries'. There also needs to be a full and complex history of all partners and adults in the family home, it says. Commenting on the review today, Gill Rigg, the chair of Cumbria Local Safeguarding Children Board, said: 'Our deepest sympathy is with Child Ns family and those who knew her. 'Child N had very limited involvement with agencies during her lifetime, and when she did she appeared well cared for. 'While the review has identified important learning regarding working with families with complex histories, there is nothing to suggest that her death could have been predicted or prevented. 'People will be aware of events which followed Child Ns death and there remain important matters which are yet to be concluded. If there is further learning from how agencies worked together post Child Ns death, the LSCB will ensure this is acted upon. I am, however, confident that much has already changed in all of the agencies involved.' But John Woodcock, Labour MP for Barrow-in-Furness, said: It is alarming to hear such a key figure apparently still clinging to the idea that nothing could have been done to prevent Poppis death despite this damning report. Former MP John Hemming, who campaigns for open justice, said of officials: They habitually use the maximum amount of secrecy to avoid any scrutiny of their decision-making. Separately, police have been criticised for failing to take vital items for forensic analysis, including Poppi's nappies, her father's laptop and the paramedics gloves. Cumbria Police conducted no real investigation for nine months as senior detectives thought a pathologist may have jumped to conclusions in her belief the child had been a victim of abuse. Mr Worthington was arrested but never charged. The CPS is reviewing the decision. He denies any wrongdoing. Austrian officials have hinted for the first time that the house where dictator Adolf Hitler was born might be demolished, with the Interior Minister keen to stop it being used by Nazi sympathisers. The suggestion follows years of debate about what to use the house for. The building has been empty since 2011, although the owner, Gerlinde Pommer, earns rent from the government to keep it unused. Austrian officials have hinted for the first time that the house where dictator Adolf Hitler was born (pictured) might be demolished The building has been in her family for more than a century. Hitler was born there on April 20, 1889. After decades of debate in which Austrian officials continue to pay over the market rates to rent the property to keep it out of the hands of undesirables, Austria announced last year that they were planning to introduce legislation to allow them to confiscate the property. This has not yet happened, but while the procedure is ongoing the country's Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka announced for the first time that instead of looking for a suitable way to use the property, they might simply demolish it. The house, located in the small town of Braunau am Inn, near the German border, was very nearly blown up after World War II, but in the end it was left as is, before eventually being given back to its former owners. A stone outside the house has an inscription that reads 'for peace, freedom and democracy, never again fascism, millions of dead are a warning' Hitler was born at the house in Braunau am Inn on April 20, 1889 Despite the fact that the family were Nazi sympathisers, they managed to persuade the court that they had been victims of the Nazis and that the property, which they sold, should never have been taken away from them. Sobotka said that expropriation was necessary, adding that 'we have tried to clear up all possibilities for using it and buying it from the owner, but with no results'. He added: 'For me, a demolition... would be the cleanest solution.' A spokesman for the Interior Ministry clarified on Sunday that the remarks were the personal opinion of the Minister, and did not necessarily reflect official policy, in that the legality of a demolition order remains to be determined. The Minister has invited a commission of historians to make a recommendation on what to do with the house. According to Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck: 'We are currently examining the creation of a law which would force a change of ownership and pass the property to the Republic of Austria. 'We have come to the conclusion over the past few years that expropriation is the only way to avoid the building being used for the purposes of Nazi sympathisers.' The latest round of legal problems began five years ago, when Pommer refused to allow renovations to the building, in a dispute over its use. She also turned down offers by the government to buy the house. Prior to the dispute, the house had been used for many years as a centre for people with mental disabilities. The Interior Ministry has been the main tenant of the building since 1972, subletting it to various charitable organisations. A pro-Brexit campaign poster warning of an 'Orlando-style' terror attack in Britain if we stay in the European Union has been condemned as 'shameful and cowardly'. Leave.EU - one of the groups campaigning for Britain to leave the EU in next week's referendum - drew links between the killing of at least 49 people in a US nightclub and the referendum debate. It contained an image of what appeared to be ISIS militants brandishing guns in a desert, with the warning: 'Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long.' Pro-EU campaigners accused the group - which is backed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage - of using yesterday's deadly shootings in Orlando, Florida as part of its bid to persuade voters to back Brexit. And Theresa May, the Home Secretary, said it was 'utterly irresponsible' to attempt to link the attacks in Orlando to the EU debate in the UK. Leave.EU - one of the groups campaigning for Britain to leave the EU in next week's referendum - published a poster telling voters to back Brexit because 'Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life' She told MPs in an urgent statement on the Orlando attacks this afternoon: 'This is a terrible and horrific homophobic terrorist attack that is taking place and I think attempts to link it into the issue of membership of the European Union should rightly be condemned on all sides of this House.' The attack was carried out by US citizen Omar Mateen, who swore allegiance to ISIS before killing 49 people with an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun. The official Leave.EU tweeted the poster along with the warning: 'The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists,' adding: 'Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote #Leave. The tweet was deleted after causing outrage but remarkably the official Leave.EU Twitter account re-posted it this afternoon. Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign, condemned the poster, with Iain Duncan Smith, a leading Vote Leave campaigner, telling the BBC: 'We have nothing to do with that organisation'. 'I think it is completely pointless to try and make something out of what is a tragedy in America. 'It has nothing to do with this debate at all, and I abhor anybody who tries to make capital out of that.' Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn hit out at the 'shameful and cowardly poster' and said: 'Our best protection against terror is standing together whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels' He added: 'All I would say to you is that Europol has made the point to the Home Secretary quite recently that unless we control migration there are threats to security, that's a fact of life, but I'm not going to get involved in peculiar tweets that go out from other organisations that I don't sign up to.' Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn hit out at the 'shameful and cowardly poster' and said: 'Our best protection against terror is standing together whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels.' He added: 'It takes courage to stand by your principles and your friends when they are attacked, whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels. 'Doing so makes us stronger and shows our resolve to stand up for our values and our way of life in the face of those who hold both in such murderous contempt.' Nicky Morgan, Britain's Education Secretary and equalities minister, demanded an apology from the Leave.EU group and called on the Vote Leave campaign to issue a statement making clear that hte shootings in Florida have 'nothing whatsoever to do with the EU debate in this country'. 'Using the tragic deaths of innocent people to make a political point is simply shameful,' she said. 'Leave.EU must apologise for the hurt they have caused and apologise immediately.' The Leave.EU poster shows that the group - backed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage - is using yesterday's deadly shootings in Orlando, Florida as part of its bid to persuade people to vote to leave the EU In an urgent question to MPs this afternoon Mrs May said UK police forces had been asked to review security at LGBT and other public events across the UK. The Home Secretary condemned the attack on a gay night club in Florida as 'utterly evil' and blamed ISIS for the 'act of homophobic hatred'. In a message to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities across the world, she said: 'We will not tolerate such bigotry and violence.' Extra security is expected at events across the UK for Gay Pride celebrations that take place over the next fortnight - in particular the main Pride Festival event on the weekend of June 25-26 in Trafalgar Square in central London. But she said the police have not advised any organisers to cancel or postpone any LGBT-related events. No British victims have been identified to the Government so far, she added. Mateen became the worst mass shooter in American history after he killed 49 people and injured more than 100 more on the dance floor at the Pulse night club early on Sunday morning. The attacks have triggered yet more calls for gun laws to be tightened in the US and President Barack Obama made another appeal to Congress to pass his much-sought after gun control reforms when addressing the massacre in Orlando. Omar Mateen, the man who murdered 50 people in Orlando, Florida in a mass shooting in a gay club Mateen was allowed to purchase the deadly weapons legally despite having been investigated by the FBI on three occasions. And concerns about homophobic remarks he made whilst at work did not stop him from being employed as a security guard at G4S for nine years. Although Mateen declared allegiance to ISIS before he was shot dead by police on the scene in Orlando, Obama made no reference to the Islamic terror group in his brief remarks last night. Obama said: 'Although it's still early in the investigation we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate.' He called the shooting spree, at the gay nightclub Pulse during Pride month in the United States, a reminder of how easy it is for someone to get a hold of a weapon that could kill people in a 'school, or a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.' 'And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be,' Obama said. 'And to actively do nothing is a decision as well,' the president added. Both Presidential candidates - Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton - took to Twitter on Sunday morning to give their initial reactions to what's now being called the most deadly shooting in United States history. 'Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act,' Clinton wrote on Twitter, signing it with her trademark 'H' to show that the message was actually penned by the Democratic candidate. In a statement made by her campaign later, Clinton also called for gun control. 'This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets,' Clinton said. Trump made Twitter followers aware of the shooting, then went back to attacking Clinton this time for a new general election ad before penning another tweet about the tragedy in Orlando. He was criticised for writing: 'Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!' British police to review security at LGBT and other public events following Orlando attacks, Theresa May tells MPs British police forces have been told to review security at LGBT and other public events across the country following the mass shootings in Orlando, Theresa May announced this afternoon. The Home Secretary condemned the attack on a gay night club in Florida - which killed at least 49 people - as 'utterly evil' and blamed ISIS for the 'act of homophobic hatred'. In a message to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities across the world, she said: 'We will not tolerate such bigotry and violence.' Mrs May told MPs in an urgent statement in the Commons this afternoon that UK police forces will be 'further reviewing plans for large scale and other public events over the coming days and weeks'. The Home Secretary Theresa May (pictured today in the House of Commons) condemned the attack on a gay night club in Florida as 'utterly evil' and blamed ISIS for the 'act of homophobic hatred' Extra security is expected at events across the UK for Gay Pride celebrations that take place over the next fortnight - in particular the main Pride Festival event on the weekend of June 25-26 in Trafalgar Square in central London. But she said the police have not advised any organisers to cancel or postpone any LGBT-related events. No British victims have been identified to the Government so far, she added. The attack in the Pulse gay club in the early hours of Sunday morning was carried out by US citizen Omar Mateen, who swore allegiance to ISIS before killing 50 people with an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun. President Obama said today there were no signs the attack was ordered or organised by ISIS but was instead another example of homegrown extremism - similar to the San Bernardino attacks in December, which killed 14 people. Extra security is expected at events across the UK for Gay Pride celebrations that take place over the next fortnight - in particular the main Pride Festival event on the weekend of June 25-26 in Trafalgar Square in central London - following the deadly attacks in a gay night club in Orlando, Florida on Sunday morning He said the gunman's motives were still being investigated but it's likely he was influenced by ISIS. In her statement to MPs this afternoon, Mrs May said there were 'clear' signs the attack was inspired by ISIS. 'It is clear that such an attack has its root in a twisted ideology which counts homophobia as a cornerstone of its warped world view,' she told MPs. 'This was not just an act of terror, but an act of homophobic hatred and I want to make clear to all LGBT people in Britain and around the world that we will not tolerate such bigotry and violence. 'We will work closely with the United States and we will continue to offer them our assistance and support. Lance Williams Sr, 35, was arrested after his six-month-old son died in a hot car while he was inside a Des Moines, Iowa barbershop An Iowa father is behind bars after his six-month-old son died in a hot car while he was at work inside a barbershop. Lance Williams Sr, 35, has been charged with child endangerment resulting in death. Authorities said interviews with witnesses and Williams indicate that he left his son in the car and was inside the Barbershopfresh USA shop in Des Moines for an 'extended period of time'. Williams in the owner of Barbershopfresh USA and works as a barber stylist, according to his Facebook. When Williams returned to his car and found his son, he immediately drove to the Broadlawns Medical Center. The baby was determined to be dead on arrival. His StyleSeat page describes Barbershopfresh USA as a 'family oriented barbershop' that focuses on 'traditional services and good values'. Sgt Paul Parizek said it is unclear how long the child was left in the car, but said the boy appeared to 'have been dead for some time' when he was examined at the hospital. The child's name has not been released. Police were called to the hospital just before 8pm on Saturday to investigate a suspicious death of a child, according to the Des Moines Register. The temperature at the time of day the boy was left in the car was around 95 degrees F, according to Parikez. But the car's internal temperature could have climbed well into the triple digits. The temperature inside a car rises 19 degrees within the first 10 minutes and 34 degrees within just half an hour, said Jan Null, a San Jose State University professor who has been researching vehicular heatstroke for 15 years. Williams in the owner of Barbershopfresh USA and works as a barber stylist, according to his Facebook. He posted a photograph of his infant son (pictured) sleeping soundly at the shop just weeks ago Williams was booked into Polk County Jail Sunday morning and is being held on $25,000 cash-only bond Null said all it takes is 'half an hour' for a child to die in a hot car, noting that their internal body temperature heats up three to five times faster than that of an adult. 'You and I could probably sit in a 106-degree car for quite a while,' Null told the Register. 'Wed be really uncomfortable, but we could do it. Not an infant.' The Des Moines metro area was under a heat advisory from noon Friday until 7pm Sunday. Parizek said although other people were in the barbershop with Williams while he was inside, it does not appear they knew a child had been left in his car. 'The thing that's frustrating is that in all these cases, we often find that a parent can remember to grab their cellphone,' Parizek told KCCI. 'They can remember to grab their purse, but they forget their child. It's really hard to wrap your brain around.' Williams was booked into Polk County Jail early Sunday morning and is being held on $25,000 cash-only bond. The Polk County Medical Examiner's Office will perform an autopsy within the next couple of days to determine the child's official cause of death. Claire Riley admitted keeping the 'dangerously, out of control' dog which killed her daughter The mother of a baby girl who was mauled to death by a banned American pit bull dog has admitted responsibility for the death. Claire Riley, 23, had been due to go on trial over the death of six-month-old Molly-Mae Wotherspoon at their rented new-build home but sobbed in the dock as she admitted owning the 'dangerously out-of-control' dog, called Bruiser, which caused her daughter's death. The animal - which was said to be 'jealous' of the little girl - was described as the most aggressive dog one vet had ever seen. At the time of Molly-Mae's death in October 2014, neighbours told how two pit bull-type dogs were constantly fighting at the property, while at the opening of an inquest into the tragedy later that month, coroner Anne Pember said the family had paid the 'ultimate price' for owning a banned breed under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Riley had also previously given a magazine interview describing how a 'Staffie' she owned called Pups was 'nuts' and so destructive, she had been forced to drop out of a college hair and beauty course to look after the animal. She was pictured cuddling up to the animal, which she said had destroyed two laptops, a mobile phone and chewed an armchair, and couldn't be left alone. Following her guilty plea at Northampton Crown Court yesterday, the case against Riley was adjourned for sentencing at a later date, without the facts of the case being outlined in court. The defendant left court surrounded by a group of well-wishers and did not comment. She is understood to have gone out for the evening on the night her daughter was killed, leaving the child in the care of her maternal grandmother, Susan Aucott. Paramedics from East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) rushed to the scene and tried to stabilise the baby, who was declared dead at Northampton General Hospital. She died from severe blood loss caused by head wounds. Neighbours described seeing Riley return to the property at around 1am following the dog attack, 'screaming and crying hysterically', although relatives said Aucott had only been minding the dog for 30 minutes while Riley popped out. Friends said Riley continued to keep dogs following Molly-Mae's birth for protection, having previously called police to the address after a window was smashed. Riley had previously spoken about the dog in an interview when she said he was 'nuts'. Pictured, another of the family's dogs. Grandmother Susan Aucott previously admitted being in charge of an dangerous dog Aucott, 56, from Northampton - who was injured trying to save her granddaughter from the dog - had also been facing trial but last week admitted being in charge of an out-of-control dog which caused injury resulting in death. The American pit bull was described as 'the most aggressive dog' a vet had ever seen, which saw tragic Molly-Mae 'as prey.' Prosecutor James House said: 'Susan Aucott has claimed the dog was effectively jealous of the child. 'Whether it was jealous does not matter, and we are not in a position to be able to prove that. 'On the issue of Aucott's long standing problem with alcohol, Riley did not believe her mother to have been drinking [on the night of the attack]. 'But sober or not, the mother would not have been capable of dealing with that dog.' Mr Johashen said the dog was not stimulated, given insufficient water and kept in a crate which was too small for it. The dog - which was said to be jealous of the little girl - had previously destroyed furniture Riley had told how the animal had chewed her laptop when she spoke about it in a magazine article He added: 'Regarding Susan Aucott, there is her knowledge of the dog's aggressive behaviour. 'She was there at the vets when the vet described it as being 'the most aggressive dog in her experience'. 'From Aucott's lack of injuries, a dog expert claims the dog would have seen the child as its prey. 'It would only have attacked Aucott if she got in between the child and the dog, and her lack of injuries suggest she did not do this. 'In terms of knowledge of the breed, Riley claims she only knew it was a pit bull cross. She owned a legal pit bull. 'But her lack of knowledge of it being a banned dog is superseded by her knowledge of it being a dangerous dog. 'It does not matter what type of dog it was once she knew its aggressive nature.' Molly-Mae Wotherspoon died from blood loss after she was savaged by the dog called Bruiser in Daventry In a statement released at the time of Molly-Mae's death, the family said they were 'totally devastated and in complete shock for the tragic loss of our little princess'. Daventry District Council admitted they officers had been called to Riley's address five months before Molly-Mae's death after complaints about her dogs, but said no further action was taken. Northamptonshire Police said it had not previously attended any dog-related calls at Riley's house. OK, I have a question. I know this guy. Hes a nasty piece of work who regularly physically abused his wife until she fled seven years ago after a short-lived and horrifically violent marriage. She said he was mentally ill and hateful, especially towards homosexuals. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasnt finished or something. He was not a stable person. Sometimes he attacked her as she slept. His ex-wife fled their short marriage, and says he's mentally ill and hateful - especially towards gay people. He would even attack her while she slept This guys a bodybuilder who pumps himself full of steroids which make him very agitated and aggressive. In 2013, he started making highly offensive, inflammatory and dangerous comments to his co-workers at a security company which suggested he had Islamic terrorist ties. The FBI were alerted to his extremist views and interviewed him twice, but didnt charge him. In 2014, he was linked to Moner Abu Salha, a radicalised American who became an Islamic suicide bomber in Syria. Again, the FBI interviewed him but took no action. He became a member of the Timbuktu Seminary, an educational website run by former U.S. marine turned radical Muslim cleric Marcus Dwayne Robertson, also known as Abu Taubah. He began attending a mosque 3 or 4 times a week, never speaking to anyone. In 2015, one of his co-workers, a former police officer, quit the security firm where they both worked because he couldnt stand this guys endless verbal racism and homophobia. He was unhinged and unstable, he talked of killing people, said the employee who left. I quit because everything he said was toxic. He was always shaken, agitated and mad. A former co-worker, Daniel Gilroy, pictured here, says Omar was unstable, racist and homophobic. He had to quit because he couldn't stand working with the guy After leaving, that employee was subjected to a daily barrage of 20-30 texts from the mad, agitated guy. A few weeks ago, this guys father, an outspoken Afghan political activist, saw his son venting his fury at the sight of two gay men in downtown Miami. They were kissing and touching each other and he said, In front of my (3-year-old) son, they are doing that. Now, heres my question: Would you let this guy buy a gun? No, that would be ridiculous, right? I mean, he sounds like the very last person who should be allowed to legally purchase firearms in America, doesnt he? The kind of human being who screams DANGER: DO NOT GIVE HIM A GUN! everywhere he goes? Yet this violent, hateful, bigoted, racist, threateningly extremist guy went down to a gun store two weeks ago and bought not one but two guns. Omar was wielding the same gun used in Aurora and Sandy Hook and San Bernardino - the AR-15 assault rifle, which the man who was known the FBI was able to buy legally The first, a pistol. The second, an AR-15 assault rifle of the type used in almost all recent mass shootings in the U.S. including Aurora, Sandy Hook, Oregon and San Bernardino. He then took those guns to a gay nightclub in Orlando and shot over 100 people as they partied on Sunday morning, killing at least 49. He was laughing as he did so, and even took time out to call 911 so he could tell police he supported ISIS. Police later shot him, thankfully before he could slaughter any more. But it was still the deadliest mass shooting in American history, which when you think how many there are is quite a record to break. This guy was Omar Mateen, 29, a U.S. citizen born in New York to Afghani parents. Its not difficult to work out his motivation. Mateens a twisted, enraged crackpot who hates gays, loves violence, and thinks ISIS are cool. But this creature of hate, known the FBI, was able to go buy two guns and use them in a massacre I doubt he had any formal link to the Islamic State. More likely he just liked what they stand for, especially their fanatical hatred of all things homosexual, and fancied his day of infamy after the groups recent call for attacks during Islams holy month of Ramadan. However, his deadly spree is hugely significant, far more than a regular mass shooting. Why? Because it conflates the two most feared and lethal scourges of American society: guns and home-grown Islamic terror. And, of course, it brings with it this tremendous irony: the very same people who are most vocal in their determination to get rid of the latter Republicans - are equally desperate to keep the former. Last week, President Obama took part in an astoundingly prescient townhall for PBS. During the debate, he revealed hed spent that very morning in the Situation Room at the White House being briefed on various U.S. citizens who were known to have visited and participated in ISIS websites. Were allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, he said, but because of the NRA, I cannot prohibit these people from buying a gun. This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer, and if he wants to walk into a gun store or a gun show right now and buy as many weapons or ammo as he can, nothings prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is. A week later, thats exactly what happened. Not with that particular suspect, but with someone very similar. Obama has been impotent on guns. He's accomplished nothing, but at least he wants to effect change Isnt it absolutely incredible that the President of the United States, the supposedly most powerful man in the world, has no way of stopping known hate-filled persons of FBI terror-related interest legally buying guns in America? In fact, isnt it just a bloody scandal of epic proportions? Obamas been hopelessly impotent on guns. He looked the Sandy Hook parents in the eye and promised them hed get action on gun control, then failed miserably to achieve anything meaningful. But at least he wants to effect change. The Republican politicians leaping up and down with fury at Islamic terror today are the same Republicans whove systematically blocked every attempt by Obama to introduce any new gun laws which might have stopped Omar Mateen arming himself to the teeth and committing his sickening outrage. They do so because if they dont, the NRA will punish them and possibly get them kicked them out of office. Such is the repulsive power that the countrys most repellent lobby group wields in Washington. So we have a situation where this latest mass murderer was inspired by ISIS, freed by the FBI and enabled by the NRA. And as things stand, there is absolutely nothing anybody can do to stop this happening all over again tomorrow. This is utterly insane. Republican politicians leaping up and down with fury at Islamic terror today are the same Republicans whove systematically blocked every attempt by Obama to introduce any new gun laws. Will their nominee Trump finally suggest some gun control laws? Are he and the NRA on my side - or with the terrorists? Right now, it is highly probable there are many more radicalised US-born Islamists like Omar Mateen, who are known to the FBI and who might be currently plotting to kill fellow Americans on American soil. Surely, we can all agree that its in Americas vital national interest for it to be made as difficult as possible for these people to legally acquire the weaponry to do so? So how, exactly, does the NRA and its pathetically supine Republican politician fan base including, I regret to say, my old friend Donald Trump - who all claim to care so much about the safety of U.S. citizens - suggest we achieve this without any new gun control laws? They cant and they dont. But how about this for an idea? I want every known ISIS sympathiser in America on FBI files, including every name on the no-fly list, to be banned with immediate effect from buying a gun, so we can try to save American lives. Nato defence ministers are set to give the go-ahead this week to a new multi-national force of 4,000 troops to bolster the defence of Poland and the Baltic states. The United States, Canada, Germany and Britain are set to lead battalions of 1,000 troops each. Last month Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu urged Nato not to go ahead with the move and warned that Moscow would respond by posting three new divisions of its own close to the frontier. The US Army's 2nd Cavalry Regiment take part in military exercise near Kupiskis, 100 miles north of the Lithuanian capital Vilnius at the weekend Russia's annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and its support for ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine has made Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia increasingly anxious about their own security. Asked about the possibility of an Russian attack, Lithuania's Defence Minister Juozas Olekas told Reuters: 'We cannot exclude it...They might exercise on the borders and then switch to invasion in hours.' Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia say they are putting their armies on a war footing, meaning they can be mobilised almost immediately. A quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War a new arms race is under way in eastern Europe with Poland and the Baltic states having switched sides Around 30,000 Nato troops are currently involved in the Anakonda-16 exercise in Poland. Nineteen NATO members and five partner nations are contributing troops to the exercise that will train and test their swift joint reaction to threats on land, sea and in the air. Russia meanwhile is building up a new base at Klintsy, 750 miles to the east. German, American and Polish troops take part in this week's unprecedented manouevres, the largest exercise in eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War The Baltic states have welcomed the deployment of Nato troops but they say the build-up must go further and point to Russia's efforts to develop an anti-access capability in the Kaliningrad exclave, which could cut off the Baltic states from Nato reinforcements in the event of a conflict. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are reportedly requesting Nato fighter planes and medium-range missile interceptors. Mr Olekas said: 'We need to stop possible air aggression. We are discussing creating a regional medium-range air defence system together with the Latvians, the Estonians and the Poles.' He said he would be raising the issue with Nato colleagues at the ministers' meeting in Brussels tomorrow. The sight of US troops on the streets of towns like Daugavpils, Latvia (pictured) raise the hackles of Russian nationalists, who remember the days not so long ago when the Baltic states were part of the Soviet Union The head of the Estonian defense force Lieutenant General Riho Terras said: 'The first and foremost is the defense of our airspace. Air defense is the challenge that needs to solved together with the Nato alliance.' Lithuania's Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said: 'We are not talking about defence of Lithuania, we are talking about the credibility of the whole alliance.' Four British Typhoon fighter jets and four Portuguese F-16 fighter jets are currently policing the skies over the Baltic. We are not talking about defence of Lithuania, we are talking about the credibility of the whole alliance Linas Linkevicius But in the event of a conflict Russia would soon have massive air superiority. The US Army commander in Europe, Ben Hodges, visited Vilnius last week and voiced concerned for the Baltic states. He said they needed 'serious war fighting capabilities' and said 'garrisons of troops' alone would not deter the Russians. Russia insists it poses no threat to the former Soviet states. Around a million ethnic Russians live in the Baltic states, with more than half of them in Latvia. The shooter who massacred at least 49 people inside a Florida gay nightclub is believed to be connected to a former US Marine who turned into a radical Muslim cleric that was released from prison last year. Omar Mateen, who was shot dead by a SWAT team who stormed inside the Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning, is believed to be a radical Muslim who followed Marcus Dwayne Robertson. Robertson, who is also known as Abu Taubah to his thousands of followers, converted at least 36 people to his version of Islam while he was imprisoned for four years in jail. Early Sunday authorities brought Robertson, who was living in Florida, along with several other associates in for questioning. According to Fox News, a law enforcement source said: 'It is no coincidence that this happened in Orlando. Mateen was enrolled in (Robertson's online) Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary.' Police believe that Robertson's Timbuktu Seminary is used to dispense his radical teachings, sources told Fox News. Scroll down for video Connected?: Omar Mateen (left) is believed to be connected to Marcus Dwayne Robertson (right), a former US Marine who turned into a radical Muslim cleric that was released from prison last year Mateen, 29, the Islamic extremist who slaughtered at least 49 people and injured dozens more inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning. The FBI interviewed Mateen twice in 2013 and a third time in 2014 Mateen was a member of the Timbuktu Seminary, an educational website run by Robertson (above) that police believe is used to dispense his radical teachings Robertson, who was a former US Marine and undercover FBI agent before turning into a radical Imam, was released from prison last year despite warning from officials and prosecutors that he would recruit people to carry out horrendous acts of violence. He was considered so dangerous that he was kept shackled with his own security detail away from other inmates. Whenever he was transported to court, authorities had a seven-car caravan of armed federal marshals escort him. He was eventually moved to solitary confinement after prison officials discovered that he was trying to radicalize his fellow inmates. After serving as a Marine for six years, Robertson, 47, went on to become a bank robber, before turning FBI informant after his arrest in exchange for a short prison sentence. He was dismissed by the FBI in 2007 after allegedly attacking his CIA handler, and then began preaching Islamic extremism. Robertson (pictured), who is also known as Abu Taubah, converted 36 people to his version of Islam while he was imprisoned for four years in jail. He was brought in for questioning early Sunday The FBI interviewed Mateen in 2013 and closed the investigation and then opened another in 2014 when he came to the FBI's attention again. Agents interviewed him about a potential connection he may have had with American suicide bomber Moner Abu Salha (pictured above) Authorities say both Mateen and Abu Salha attended the same mosque, Fort Pierce Islamic Center (pictured), in Orlando, Florida He was thrown in jail for tax fraud back in 2011, prosecutors attempted to have ten years added to his sentence last year after discovering documents preaching terror among his possessions. However, a judge released him. Robertson has openly preached against homosexuality, as wiretaps from 2011 proved that he instructed one of his students to file fake tax returns to get a refund to pay for travel to Mauritania for terror training. According to Fox News, federal law enforcement officials have been familiar with Robertson since as early as 1991. Robertson became the leader of a New York gang known as 'Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves' and robbed more than 10 banks, private homes and post offices at gunpoint. They shot three police officers and also attacked an officer after he suffered injuries from a homemade pipe bomb. In that same period, authorities claimed that Robertson, who was known as 'Ali Baba,' also 'served as a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman, who led the terrorist group that carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center,' Fox News reported. When he was arrested in 1991 he cut a deal with prosecutors who let him serve four years in prison before he went to work undercover for the FBI in 2004 to document terrorists' plans in Africa and the United States. Attack: A woman sits on the ground outside the club while another party-goer, whose legs are covered in blood, stands beside her Mateen, from Port St Lucie in Florida, shot more than 100 people, killing 49 and injuring 53 others with an AR-15 assault rifle and handgun on the dance floor at Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. The shooter, who had no criminal history, was licensed to work as an armed security guard in Florida for global security firm G4S. In addition, Mateen was also at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce with Imam Shafiq Rahman two days prior to the horrific nightclub shooting, The Washington Post reported. Rahman told the Post he didn't know Mateen well, but he brought his son with him two days before the shooting to the mosque. 'He was the most quiet guy, he never talked to anyone,' Rahman said. 'He would come and pray and leave. There was no indication at all he would do something violent.' In 2014, the FBI discovered a possible tie between Mateen and Abu Salha, who had grown up in nearby Vero Beach and became the first American suicide bomber in Syria, where he fought with the Nusra Front. The FBI closed its inquiry after finding minimal contact between the pair, though they frequented the same mosque. In 2013, Mateen made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and was was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. Response: Emergency services are pictured at the scene outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida following Sunday morning's shooting Mateen kept his job with a global security firm, G4S, and was able to legally buy guns that were used in the worst mass shooting in American history. Once inside Pulse nightclub, Mateen was involved in three calls with a 911 dispatcher at approximately 2:30am. Director of the FBI James Comey said in a statement Monday: 'During the calls he said he was doing this for the leader of ISIS, who he named, and pledged loyalty to. But he also appeared to claim solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings and solidarity with the Florida man who died as a suicideb bomber in Syria for Al-Nusra Front - a group in conflict with the so-called Islamic State. 'The Boston bombers and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by ISIS, which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives', Comey concluded. The shooter, who is a Muslim and father to a three-year-old son, was born in 1986 in New York and married Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy, who was born in Uzbekistan, in 2009. Mateen's father, Seddique Mateen, told NBC News: 'We were in Downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry. 'They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, 'Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that'. And then we were in the men's bathroom and men were kissing each other.' Seddique said his son attended Indian River State College, as well as having an associates degree in criminal justice. Manteen had a Statewide Firearms License and was trained in firearms when he legally purchased the guns used in the mass shooting. An FBI spokesman said that Mateen made 'threats in the past that he has ties to terrorist organizations'. The stepmother who allegedly left her children home alone while she travelled overseas says she left them behind because their passports were lost in the post. She allegedly left the two children, aged four and six, alone in a Perth house while she travelled to Bali, until they were discovered 'screaming and crying'. Through an interpreter, the 28-year-old woman told 9 News Perth Australia Post was to blame because they lost the children's passports. Scroll down for video The step mother (blurred) of the two children she allegedly left alone in Perth while she travelled overseas says she had to leave them behind because their passports were lost in the mail The 28-year-old mother (blurred, right) spoke to media through an interpreter (left) on Monday The woman blamed Australia Post for losing the childrens' passports and said if people were concerned about her children they should help her fix issues with their passports Through an interpreter (left), the woman said the issue of allegedly leaving the children behind was between them and herself 'If you are really concerned about my children, can you please help me sort out this post office and locate passports because without passports my children will not be legal here. So only when I get back the passports my children can be legal,' she said. The stepmother said the issue of the children being left alone in an unlocked house was 'between myself and the children'. The woman could not say when her husband, who was also overseas, was due to return to the country. Her two young stepchildren were 'screaming and crying' when police arrived at their house in Cloverdale, Perth's east, on Wednesday, two days after she allegedly left them home alone so she could travel overseas. A neighbour said she had no idea the children were left to fend for themselves and only learned they were alone after hearing their cries when police arrived. 'The kids were crying and screaming,' she told the West Australian. 'Had I'd known I would have called the police,' she added. A 28-year-old woman is facing two child neglect charges after police found her two step children, aged four and six years, 'screaming and crying' at a Cloverdale house (pictured) in Perth's east, without supervision The young children were left unsupervised inside the home (pictured) for two days The woman was arrested by Child Abuse Squad detectives at Perth International Airport when she returned to the country on Thursday. She had reportedly travelled to Bali to renew her visa while the children's father was also away. The young children were unsupervised for two days. The children's father was expected to be detained by Australian Border Force personnel for questioning when he returned to the country on Sunday night, 7News reported. It is not yet known if he has touched down in the country. Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for comment. West Australian Police said both guardians were overseas at the time police entered the Perth property on Wednesday. The mother was arrested after getting off a flight at Perth International Airport on Thursday evening The woman will face child neglect charges and appear in appear in the Perth Magistrates Court on June 22 'The children were subsequently removed from the property and placed into appropriate care,' they said in a statement. Child Protection Minister Andrea Mitchell said she was 'horrified' after learning that children of such a young age were left at home without any supervision. 'Any specific chance where there [are] children of this age, or in fact any age, being left alone is extremely concerning,' Ms Mitchell said. The woman, believed to be in a de-facto relationship with the children's father, faces two charges of engaging in conduct which could result in harm to a child. Congregants gathered as usual at the Fort Pierce Islamic Center for prayers on Sunday, the day after one of their members murdered 49 people and injured more than 50 more at a gay club in Orlando. Omar Mateen, 29, is the second extremist to be tied to the small Florida mosque, which has about 200 regular attendees. In 2014, Moner-Muhammad Abu Salha carried out a suicide bombing in Syria and is believed to be one of the first Americans to commit such an act overseas. Before joining the jihad, Salha lived in Vero Beach and attended the same Fort Pierce mosque as Mateen. Congregants pray at the For Pierce Islamic Center in Fort Pierce, Florida on Sunday, a day after a former worshiper killed 49 at injured more than 50 at an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub After prayers on Sunday, the men of the mosque gathered for a nightly meal. This month, Muslims around the world fast during the day as part of the holy month of Ramadan While communal meals like this are common during Ramadan, members of the church said Omar Mateen would not attend these social events The imam of the mosque says that Mateen, 29, attended night prayer services with his young son about four times a week Before opening fire at Pulse nightclub Saturday night, Mateen called 911 and pledged an allegiance to ISIS and claimed solidarity with the Boston Bombers and the Florida man who became a suicide bomber for Al-Nusra Front in Syria - a group in conflict with ISIS. He's pictured above in a photo posted to Facebook In 2014, Moner-Muhammad Abu Salha carried out a suicide bombing in Syria and is believed to be one of the first Americans to commit such an act overseas. Before traveling to Syria Salha lived in Vero Beach and attended the Fort Pierce mosque On Saturday, Mateen followed in Salha's footsteps, killing 49 people partying at Orlando gay club Pulse, before he was shot dead by a SWAT team. Fort Pierce Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman refused to call either Salha or Mateen 'members' of the mosque, saying they only worshiped there. Rahman says his mosque is not a radicalized one, and that he has spoken out against extremist groups like ISIS in the 11 years he has led the congregation. This is a coincidence. There is no teaching given about extremism in this mosque. There is nothing coming in the sermon on the speeches. 'This is a coincidence. There is no teaching given about extremism in this mosque. There is nothing coming in the sermon or the speeches,' Rahman told WPTV on Sunday. Once inside Pulse nightclub, Mateen was involved in three calls with a 911 dispatcher. 'During the calls he said he was doing this for the leader of ISIS, who he named, and pledged loyalty to. But he also appeared to claim solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings and solidarity with the Florida man who died as a suicideb bomber in Syria for Al-Nusra Front - a group in conflict with the so-called Islamic State', FBI Director James Comey said on Monday. 'The Boston bombers and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by ISIS, which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives', Comey concluded. But Rahman said he is skeptical of Mateen's actual ties to the terrorist organization, and says he may have made the statement for publicity. 'The mosque did not radicalize him,' Rahman added. 'If something radicalized him, it might be the Internet.' Rahman invited the press into the mosque on Sunday as his congregants gathered for prayers during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month. Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman says he's skeptical about Mateen's actual ties to ISIS. Rahman, who is a doctor by day, speaks to reporters at his mosque on Sunday Rahman says that Mateen did not talk with the other congregants much, instead showing up last minute and leaving immediately at the end of prayers. Above, the basin where Muslims wash their feet at the church before prayers The mosque is regularly attended by about 200 people. Above, a prayer service for the men of the mosque on Sunday Since the attack, Rahman has had to call the local police for protection since they have received threats on their Facebook page. Above, a prayer service on Sunday During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast during the day and then gather for communal meals after the sun sets and before the sun rises. Pictures from inside the mosque Sunday night show the men of the congregation seated on the floor for their evening meal, which is spread out on a plastic sheet. Rahman says he knew Mateen since he was a young boy, when his Afghan-born parents moved to Florida from New York. He described Mateen as energetic as a boy but quiet as an adult. While he attended night prayers about four times a week with his three-year-old son, Rahman says the gunman rarely socialized with any of the other men in the service - including his own father and brothers-in-law. 'As a grown-up he did not talk to anyone,' Rahman told the Sun-Sentinel. 'He was really quiet. He came at the last minute and did not talk to anybody. He would shake hands ... and take his son on his shoulders and leave.' As a grown-up, he did not talk to anyone. He was really quiet. He came at the last minute and did not talk to anybody. He would shake hands...and take his son on his shoulders and leave. Mateen's family, on the other hand, were more involved in the community. Rahman says that Mateen's three sisters attend the mosque and regularly help clean the building. Since women and men pray in separate services, Rahman says he doesn't know the women very well, but that his wife speaks highly of them. Since the attack, Rahman has had to call the local police for protection since they have received threats on their Facebook page. Someone else was also seen standing outside of the building wearing an offensive T-shirt, while neighbors have started a petition to close the religious center. Rahman also said he did not know that Mateen was on the FBI watch list, but that the FBI had come to the mosque before to ask questions during other investigations and that they complied with authorities. Above, the scene inside the mosque Sunday night after the evening Ramadan feast Above, another shot of the plastic sheet that was laid out on the floor for the evening Ramadan feast Above, a description of a Muslim scholar hung up at the Fort Pierce Islamic Center on Sunday In retrospect, Rahman says there were some aspects about Mateen that were suspicious, such as the fact that he had married and divorced at such a young age - something that is rare in their culture. Mateen's first wife has claimed she was physically abused by Mateen during their brief marriage. During interviews, Rahman also addressed the interview from Mateen's father, who said that his son had recently gotten very upset seeing two men kissing in the street. Rahman acknowledged that homosexuality is indeed a sin in the Muslim religion, but he said that doesn't exclude gays from the faith. 'There is nothing outside the door that says you can't come in and worship God and be here and pray if you are gay,' he told the Palm Beach Post. A San Diego mother has faced the daycare worker who shook her son to death in court as the man was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Eleven-month-old Louis Oliver was in the care of James Nemeth on May 23, 2012 when he suffered head and spine trauma. Nemeth had texted Lou's mother, Cristina Oliver, telling her to 'come quickly, Lou did not wake up from his afternoon nap'. The child died later that night. However prosecutors said that Nemeth abused the baby boy and had shaken him to death at his in-home daycare facility, KTLA reported. 'Youre not fit to be anywhere but prison. You are evil': Cristina Oliver read a statement in court at the sentencing hearing of James Nemeth, 39, who fatally shook her son Prison: James Nemeth, a former daycare operator, was sentenced to 29 years and 8 months in prison for shaking and fatally injuring Louis Michael Oliver Killed: Eleven-month-old Lou Oliver died in Rady Children's Hospital from head and spine trauma On Thursday Nemeth was sentenced to 29 years and 8 months in prison for shaking and fatally injuring Louis Oliver. The 39-year-old pleaded guilty in January to seven felony counts, including corporal injury to a child and child abuse. In court for Nemeth's sentencing, Cristina Oliver read out a statement listing the things she will never to get to experience with her son. 'Making the decision to remove him from life support. Holding him for his last breath and heartbeat. Planning his funeral,' she said tearfully. '[These are] memories a mother should not have of her baby boy.' 'You're not fit to be anywhere but prison,' Christina Oliver said. 'You assaulted and shook my son to death. I'm fairly confident Louis wasn't the first baby you shook. These innocent babies and toddlers left in your care have silent voices who are too young to cry out for help. You are evil.' Mike Oliver, the boy's father, said: 'Until a few decades pass and you get institutionalized, I wish you hell and all its amenities' Nemeth entered guilty pleas to a total of seven serious charges with a 29-year-prison term attached Mike Oliver, the boy's father, said: 'Until a few decades pass and you get institutionalized, I wish you hell and all its amenities.' Nemeth had a lengthy history of serious violations, NBC San Diego reported. Before his sentencing, Nemeth made a motion to withdraw his guilty plea, saying his lawyer did not give him enough information before he agreed to it. San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Weber denied the request. Nemeth must serve at least 85 percent of his prison term before he's eligible for parole Almost four million people have been granted EU citizenship and the right to travel freely to Britain since 2009, official data revealed today. New figures from Eurostat - the official statistics agency at the European Commission - revealed in 2014 alone citizenship was given to 890,000 people. Vote Leave said more than 760,000 of those people were granted citizenship on the continent and insisted the figures illustrated the lack of control Britain had of its borders. It said in the five years from 2009 to 2014, it totalled 3.96million people given citizenship in the other EU states. EU citizenship grants access to freedom of movement rules but because Britain is not part of the Schengen borderless zone all EU citizens go through passport control at British ports. The Eurostat data today revealed almost 900,000 people were given EU citizenship in 2014 - more than 750,000 by countries other than Britain. The EU stats agency said the biggest group came from the African continent, followed by European countries outside the EU Vote Leave Chief Executive Matthew Elliott said: 'These figures show how little control we have over our borders while we stay in the EU. 'Since 2009, close to four million people have been given the right to come to the UK, with Moroccans, Albanians and Turkish citizens the main beneficiaries. 'The number of people coming to the EU is increasing each year and it is becoming unsustainable. 'This level of migration puts a strain on our invaluable public services, as well as jobs and wages. The British people are absolutely right to be concerned. 'However, today the Prime Minister's EU campaign chief endorsed comments referring to those that want to take back control of our borders, and leave the EU, as 'idiots'. I think that's appalling. 'The only way to take back control of how our country and our economy is governed is to vote to leave the EU on the 23 June.' Today's Eurostat release revealed fewer people were granted EU citizenship in 2014 than in 2013, at 890,000 to 981,000. Overall, including people granted citizenship in Britain, more than five million people were granted citizenship between 2009 and 2014 - almost 90 per cent of whom came from outside the EU. In 2014, Moroccans benefited the most, with 92,700 people becoming citizens - mostly in Spain, Italy or France. There were 41,000 Albanians, almost all of whom became citizens of Greece or Italy, and 37,500 Turks - 60 per cent of whom are now German. The fourth biggest group in 2014 were Indians and almost two thirds of the 35,300 people became British. The rate of citizenship in the UK is fractionally below the EU but higher than that of Germany. Sweden creates proportionally more new citizens than any other EU nation A major think tank today warned net migration to Britain would continue to run at more than 250,000 a year for the next two decades even if Turkey does not join the EU. If Turkey did join, another 100,000 people could come to Britain each year by the early 2030s, the think tank said. Migrant Watch chairman Lord Green said the findings were a 'final wake up call' about runaway immigration that would see Britain's population his 80 million within 30 years. Vote Leave champion Boris Johnson has repeatedly demanded David Cameron's Remain campaign spell out its vision for how Britain would adapt to a rapidly growing population if it wins on June 23. A secret plan to open Britain's borders to 1.5million Turks was revealed yesterday after British diplomats said the move would act as a 'symbolic gesture to Turkey'. Ukip leader Nigel Farage seized on migration against today to warn Britain had to 'get a grip' of the numbers coming in to the United Kingdom The new research today will reignite the immigration debate at the heart of the referendum battle with just 10 days to go. Official statistics in May revealing net migration from the EU had returned to record highs turned around the referendum campaign and turned the focus from the economy to borders. Lord Green said: 'This report is a final wake up call. 'Even leaving aside the prospect of Turkey joining the EU, it shows that net migration could still be running at 265,000 a year in 20 years time. 'This would bring our population to 80 million within 30 years. If we remain in the EU there will be nothing to stop a continuing rapid increase in our population. The parents of a boy with brain cancer are seeking legal advice about how to prevent further court-ordered chemotherapy. Oshin Kiszko, 6, from Perth, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in November 2015 but his parents opposed the treatment recommended by doctors due to the side effects. A court ordered he had to undergo chemotherapy but not radiotherapy, however, after three rounds of treatment, his parents are asking for his quality of life to be considered, Perth Now reported. Scroll down for video Perth boy Oshin Kiszko, six, (pictured) was forced to undergo chemotherapy by a Judge after his parent's didn't want him to have the treatment Oshin's parents, Angela Kiszko (left) and Colin Strachan (right), who declined treatment for their son because they didn't want his brain 'fried with radiation' A court order in March forced Oshin (pictured) to receive chemotherapy - but not radiotherapy - which his parents have agreed to continue So far, Oshin has had three rounds of chemotherapy, and has ulcers in his stomach, can barely eat or use a toilet, and is lashing out at his family to avoid treatment. His mother Angela believes he'll be 'treated until death'. A court order in March forced Oshin to receive chemotherapy. As he gave the order, Family Court Chief Judge Stephen Thackray admitted the chances of Oshin surviving more than five years even with treatment were slim. Justice Thackray said rather than dismissing the hospital application, he would adjourn it without fixing a further hearing date to allow the matter to return to court if the hospital considered intervention was required. 'I acknowledge Oshin's parents, who have done what they thought was right,' he said. Oshin (pictured) was diagnosed with medulloblastoma in November last year. Now, after receiving chemotherapy, he is weak and 'lashing out' at his family He had originally been given a 50-60 per cent chance of surviving five years if he began both chemotherapy and radiotherapy The parents have kept up their objections, despite Oshin's mother (left) admitting in a 60 Minutes interview last month she 'didn't understand' chemotherapy The decision was delivered a week after it was reported Oshin's chance at survival had already declined due to delay in treating him with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, WA Today reported. He had originally been given a 50-60 per cent chance of surviving five years if he began both treatments immediately. Because of the delay, a Princess Margaret Hospital doctor told the WA Family Court combining treatments would give Oshin just a '40 per cent chance of survival'. The Perth boy could have died in a matter of months without chemotherapy. The doctor said he was not convinced that treatment alone could save the boy and recommended radiotherapy. The parents had expressed concern over the possible side-effects of chemo and radiotherapy, which can carry high long term risks of intellectual disability in medullablastoma patients, particularly young children. Ms Kiszko said she didn't want her son's brain 'fried with radiation'. She said she would have preferred to treat him in an alternative clinic in Asia, despite the facility having no scientific backing. 'I don't want my son's brain fried with radiation, the effects are too harsh, too damaging, and I find it really difficult to even call it a treatment,' she told the program. 'As parents we know our child better than anyone.' 'I would like to offer Oshin peace, love and some fun times while we still can,' Oshin's mother said Oshin's parents are seeking legal advice about his treatment despite it being ordered by a judge earlier this year Ms Kiszko (pictured) said she did not want to put her son through the treatment after seeing what it had done to her mother and step-mother - both of whom died of cancer Professor Brian Owler, a neurosurgeon from the Australian Medical Association, said the risks of the treatment were present, however, many children 'survive not only the tumour but get treatment and go on and live happy and fulfilled lives.' 'Children with medulloblastoma go through years of what I see as torture, medical treatments, relapses, just to get this maybe five years,' Ms Kisko told the Sydney Morning Herald. She told the newspaper: 'I would like to offer Oshin peace, love and some fun times while we still can.' Ms Kiszko said she did not want to put her son through the treatment after seeing what it had done to her mother and step-mother - both of whom died of cancer. 'I have watched and learned what all these children and their families go through and it is nothing short of toxic hell,' she said. 'The children are not really alive, they are completely drugged and exhausted and on the verge of death. 'It almost feels like Nazi Germany and I am honestly sickened by the treatment of all these children.' The courts had been called in when the ethics committee of Princess Margaret's Hospital split on whether they could support palliative care. 'I have watched and learned what all these children and their families go through and it is nothing short of toxic hell,' Ms Kiszko (middle) said A mother who ripped out the heart of her young son while on a 'mission from God' has been snapped alongside unwitting shoppers. Farai Chirashi was captured buying a pastry from Greggs and visiting other shops during a shopping trip in Edinburgh, Scotland - 18 months after murdering her five-year-old boy Scott. The 33-year-old was escorted by a female nurse on the day-trip, having been found insane following the murder and incarcerated at the Orchard Clinic at Royal Edinburgh Hospital. Farai Chirashi (left) was captured buying a pastry from Greggs and visiting other shops during a shopping trip in Edinburgh, Scotland Scott's mutilated body was discovered by paramedics on December 5, with emergency crews describing the boy as having suffered a 'sickening and violent death The Zimbabwe national was detained indefinitely in April 2015 after killing her son four months earlier at the family's flat in Alva, Clackmannanshire. Scott's mutilated body was discovered by paramedics on December 5, with emergency crews describing the boy as having suffered a 'sickening and violent death'. His murderous mother had sent messages to friends in the lead up to Scott's death saying: 'The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and return to God and give your life to Jesus.' David Hines, of the National Victims' Association, told the Daily Record: 'This is disgraceful. The public are promised safety and security but there is no such thing. 'For her to be walking about on the streets 18 months after such a horrific act is outrageous 'First she was insane and now she is allowed to walk the streets. If she is sane, she should be charged with murder.' The pair, who are originally from Zimbabwe, had lived in the town for years along with Scott's father, Tichakunda and sister Natasha. Sleeping peacefully in his cot, this is the 'miracle baby' who was born 107 days after his mother was declared brain dead. Lourenco Salvador Faria was delivered by doctors at a hospital in Lisbon more than three months after his mother Sandra Pedro, 37, suffered a fatal stroke due to a brain haemorrhage. He weighed a healthy 5lb 2oz last week and the staff who brought him into the world cheered as he was born. Little Lourenco Salvador sleeping in his cot after being born 107 days after his mother was declared brain dead However, the moment was bitter sweet as doctors knew they would have to switch off the ventilator keeping his mother alive. Ms Pedro was 17 weeks pregnant at the time of falling ill and it was initially thought that her baby had also died. But when doctors in the intensive care unit found signs of life, they decided to keep her body alive as a 'living incubator'. Ms Pedro with her partner Miguel in the weeks before she fell ill while pregnant at 17 weeks with Lourenco Ms Pedro was hooked up to tubes to feed her, keep her breathing and to supply her with essential hormones. Nurses and doctors then watched in amazement over the next 15 weeks as her bump grew as they nurtured the child inside her. Staff at Lisbon's San Jose Hospital also cuddled her stomach, massaged it, whispered to baby Lourenco and even sang songs and nursery rhymes in a bid to replicate the love he would have got from his mother. Nurse Nuno Camilo told the Daily Mirror: 'He liked the singing best, that's when he moved the most. She was in a room on her own so we sang songs from our own childhood. 'We would cuddle the tummy to feel the baby moving and stimulate him.' While Nuno Gomes, another nurse, said: 'We were all elated and all crying. We talked a lot about it and we said she'd given her life to the baby - literally. He was getting her soul. 'Something strange was going on and it was different from anything we'd ever seen before. It was a miracle.' Dr Susana Alfonso, 40, who delivered the baby, said: 'It was a surprise because she was dead and normally when the mother dies the baby dies also. 'The nurses provided the love the mother could not. They were the first to tell us the baby was still moving in the morning. Of course it was like our baby.' Lourenco's father, Miguel Angelo Faria, 30, a factory worker, said: 'He managed to save himself. This baby is going to give meaning to my life.' Sandra's death was a tragedy but the staff at San Jose Hospital (pictured, left to right, nurse Nuno Gomes, Dr Susana Alfonso and nurse Nuno Camilo) managed to bring about a miracle Sandra was buried the day after Lourenco was born and at her funeral her distraught mother sobbed: 'I want my daughter back. My dear daughter.' Sandra's parents are planning to raise the child but Miguel says he will see him every day. The social networking sites Facebook and Reddit were accused of censorship over the weekend after pages discussing the terrorist attack in Orlando were deleted or blocked. The moderators of the Reddit forum r/News, a page where users post and discuss breaking news, appeared to be overwhelmed by the influx of content in the wake of Sunday's shooting, which left 50 dead, including the gunman Omar Mateen. Users reported that threads and comments discussing the shooting were being deleted, and accounts banned from the r/News forum in the hours after the attack. This screenshot of the discussion forum r/News, taken hours after Sunday's attack in Orlando, shows scores of comments were deleted A moderator posted an explanatory note, saying Orlando-related threads were heavily edited because they were 'being filled with hate speech, vitriol, and vote manipulation' Forty-nine people were killed by terrorist Omar Mateen in a shooting rampage at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando on Sunday A screenshot of the 'Orlando Nightclub Shooting - Megathread' - a consolidated discussion thread -showed the majority of comments were marked as '[deleted].' By Sunday evening, moderators began opening threads back up and responded to criticism that they were 'censoring' discussion of the terrorist attack. In an explanatory post, a moderator said that Orlando-related threads were heavily edited because they were 'being filled with hate speech, vitriol, and vote manipulation.' Reddit content is displayed based on a voting system by which the most 'upvoted' posts and comments become the most visible. R/news is a 'default subreddit,' which means it's one of 49 topical forums that appear on every new user's front page. Reddit users can customize their front pages based on their personal interests. There are over 800,000 forums, known as 'subreddits,' from which to choose. The moderator also said Orlando threads were being 'brigaded' - a process by which users band together to down or upvote a given topic or opinion ('It's the Reddit form of a lynch mob,' according to one user's explanation). 'We did a poor job reacting to the brigades and ultimately chose to lock several threads and then consolidate other big threads into a megathread,' the r/News moderator wrote. 'While we understand that there is a lot of disdain for our mod team right now, please try to keep your messages and comments civil. We are only human after all.' But some users were not satisfied with that explanation. Multiple users reported they were banned from the forum after pointing out that the shooter had suspected ties to Islamic terrorism One user said that a post containing information about where to donate blood was deleted in the wake of the attack A Reddit moderator came under fire for writing 'kill yourself' in response to criticism related to the editing of Orlando shooting discussions Multiple users reported they were banned from the forum after pointing out that the shooter had suspected ties to Islamic terrorism. One user said that a post containing information about where to donate blood was deleted in the wake of the attack. And an individual moderator came under fire for writing 'kill yourself' in response to criticism related to the editing of Orlando shooting discussions. Meanwhile, the political commentator Pamela Geller said her Facebook page 'Stop the Islamization of America' was deleted shortly after the terrorist attack. '@FACEBOOK REMOVES OUR PAGE in the wake of JIHAD SLAUGHTER IN #Orlando,' Geller wrote on her Twitter page. Political pundit Pamela Geller complained on Twitter that her anti-Jihad Facebook page was deleted after Sunday's attack 'The group Stop islamization of America has been removed because it violated our Terms of Use. Among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed,' Facebook wrote She posted a screenshot of a message from Facebook that read, in part: 'The group Stop islamization of America has been removed because it violated our Terms of Use. Among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed.' In an interview with the conservative opinion website Breitbart, for which Geller is a regular contributor, she accused Facebook of deleting her page because the company is 'committed to... making sure people remain ignorant and complacent about the nature and magnitude of the jihadi threat.' Geller's Facebook page was online as of Monday morning. Advertisement The Queen was joined by senior members of the Royal Family as she continued her gruelling programme of public engagements with an appearance at the annual Garter Day service. Accompanied by Prince Philip, the monarch arrived in a chauffeur-driven car after the traditional procession of carriages through the grounds of Windsor Castle was cancelled due to the wet weather. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were also in attendance, as were Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex, and Prince Andrew. Kate's vibrant red Catherine Walker coat and Lock & Co hat brought a splash of colour to an overcast day. The poor weather did not dampen the spirits of the hundreds of well-wishers who had gathered on the streets of Windsor in the hope of catching a glimpse of the royals and their guests, some of whom arrived by mini bus. Scroll down for videos The Queen and Prince Philip arrive for the Order of the Garter service at St George's Chapel in Windsor this afternoon The Duchess of Cambridge, who attended with her husband Prince William, right, brightened up a dull day in her striking red ensemble Prince Charles arrived in a car with his son, Prince William, ahead of the traditional Order of the Garter service in Windsor The Duchess of Cambridge shared a joke with Order member Lord Ashburton, left, and waits for a car with the Duchess of Cornwall, right Hundreds of people braved the rain in the hope of catching a glimpse of the Royal Family on their way into Windsor Castle The Duchess of Cambridge looked radiant as she stepped out of her car, left. Right, Camilla and the Countess of Wessex Dressed in his finery, Prince William, a member of the Knights and Ladies, arrives for the Order of the Garter service at St George's Chapel The Order of the Garter is the oldest and most senior Order of Chivalry in Britain, established by King Edward III nearly 700 years ago. Knights of the Garter are chosen personally by the Sovereign to honour those who have held public office, who have contributed in a particular way to national life or who have served the Sovereign personally. The Queen and Prince Charles, as sovereign and heir, are automatically given membership of the Order and are considered 'ex officio knights' with the power to admit new members. The Garter is open to British and Commonwealth citizens, with former Prime Minister Sir John Major and Lord Sainsbury numbered among the 23 current members. Field Marshall, the Lord Bramall, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, the Duke of Abercorn, the Duke of Westminster and Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former Director-General of MI5, are also Knights of the Garter. There are also two orders of 'extra' knights. Members of the Royal Knights and Ladies include Prince Philip, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Prince Charles, the Princess Royal and Prince William. Relentless schedule: The Queen and Prince Philip were pictured arriving for the annual Garter Day service at Windsor Castle today The Duchess of Cornwall, right, and the Duchess of Cambridge arrived together, waving to waiting crowds as they stepped out of the car Sophie, the Countess of Wessex opted for an elegant floral dress for the occasion. Her husband, Prince Edward, also attended The Duchess of Cambridge looked radiant in a vibrant read coat, while the Duchess of Cornwall opted for a pink, gold and cream ensemble Hundreds of well-wishers stood beneath umbrellas on the streets of Windsor as they waited to see the Royal Family arrive The Queen, who, as the monarch is automatically given membership of the Order, waved to crowds. Right, the Duchess of Cambridge Spectacle: Crowds of well-wishers waved as the Royal Family drove past them in cars on their way to St George's Chapel, Windsor A ROYAL HONOUR: THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF THE GARTER Recognised: Sir Winston Churchill was a Knight of the Garter The Order of the Garter is the oldest and most senior Order of Chivalry in Britain, established by King Edward III nearly 700 years ago. Knights of the Garter are chosen personally by the Sovereign to honour those who have held public office, who have contributed in a particular way to national life or who have served the Sovereign personally. As sovereign and heir, The Queen and Prince Charles are automatically given membership of the Order and are considered 'ex officio knights'. The Prince of Wales is known as a Royal Knight Companion of the Garter. The sovereign, known as the Sovereign of the Garter, is the only one with the power to admit new members. The Garter is open to British and Commonwealth citizens. Notable former members include Sir Winston Churchill, Stanley Baldwin and Sir Edmund Hillary. Field Marshall, the Lord Bramall, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, the Duke of Abercorn, the Duke of Westminster and Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former Director-General of MI5, are among the current Knights and Ladies of the Garter. There are also two orders of 'extra' knights. Members of the Royal Knights and Ladies include Prince Philip, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward, Prince Charles, the Princess Royal and Prince William. A second order, the Stranger Knights and Ladies, is bestowed on foreign rulers such as Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and Harald V of Norway. Although new additions are named on St. George's Day, the 23 April, the initiation ceremony takes place in Junmantle during the traditional Garter Procession, which sees members parade through Windsor wearing their blue velvet robes, known as mantels, and traditional black velvet hats. Once at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, there is a short service in which new Companions, if any, are installed by the Queen. This year, the two new knights were admitted during the service - former Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, Sir David Brewer, and Charles Kay-Shuttleworth, chairman of the Association of Lord Lieutenants and the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster. Advertisement A second order, the Stranger Knights and Ladies, is bestowed on foreign rulers such as Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and Harald V of Norway. Although new additions are named on St. George's Day, the 23rd April, the initiation ceremony takes place in June during the traditional Garter Procession, which sees members parade through Windsor wearing their blue velvet robes, known as mantels, and traditional black velvet hats. The service for the Most Noble Order of the Garter takes place in St George's Chapel at Windsor following a private lunch in the castle. Once at St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, there is a short service in which new Companions, if any, are installed by the Queen. This year, the two new knights were admitted during the service - former Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, Sir David Brewer, and Charles Kay-Shuttleworth, chairman of the Association of Lord Lieutenants and the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster. Paige boys held the Queen's mantel as she stepped out of the car, after the carriage procession was cancelled due to rain The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge chatted as they waited to be collected from the service at St George's Chapel The Duchess of Cambridge was careful to look elegant as she stepped out of the car, right, before waving to the waiting crowds, left Prince William and Prince Charles, pictured arriving at Windsor Castle, are both members of the Royal Knights and Ladies The Duchess of Cambridge, who has made a number of public appearances this weekend, arrives for the Order of the Garter service today Prince Philip, pictured, who is a member of the Royal Knights and Ladies, waved to well-wishers as he arrived at St George's Chapel Hundreds of well-wishers gathered outside Windsor Castle in the hopes of seeing the Royal Family, who traditionally arrive for the service in a procession of carriages. The Duchess of Cambridge, who arrived in a car with the Duchess of Cornwall, looked radiant as she waved to well-wishers on her way into the castle. Camilla also looked elegant, opting for a champagne gold silk dress and champagne and green embroidered coat by Anna Valentine. She completed the look with a cream hat by Philip Treacy. The Countess of Wessex, who attended alongside her husband Prince Edward, looked ready for spring in a floral-print Alexander McQueen dress Jane Taylor hat. The Royal Family's appearance at the service comes after a weekend filled with engagements to mark the Queen's official 90th birthday. Celebrations started with a star-studded thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral on Friday. The following day, Princess Charlotte made her public debut as she joined senior royals on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to watch a fly-past by the RAF. Thousands also turned out for the Trooping the Colour, which is held each year to mark the monarch's official birthday. The festivities will culminated on Sunday with a street party on The Mall, where some 10,000 people enjoyed a picnic lunch and a special parade. The Duchess of Cambridge with the Duchess of Cornwall, speaks with Garter Knight Lord Ashburton as they leave the service The Duchess of Cambridge appeared in good spirits as she arrived at the service, left, and chatted to the Duchess of Cornwall The Duchess of Cambridge accessorised her all-red ensemble with a delicate diamond necklace and drop earrings Downpours meant the royals were forced to abandon their traditional carriage procession in favour of cars, pictured Guests were forced to shield themselves with umbrellas as they arrived by golf buggy to the traditional service in Windsor this afternoon Rain did not dampen the spirits of well-wishers who waited on the streets of Windsor in the hope of seeing the royals arrive Union flag bunting was strung above the streets of Windsor as well-wishers turned out to greet the Royal Family Members of the Order traditionally parade through Windsor wearing their blue velvet robes, known as mantels, and traditional black velvet hats, but this year they arrived by cars and mini buses because of the rain. Pictured, crowds still waited on the streets of Windsor A federal appeals court on Monday threw out a $1.8million judgment awarded to former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who says he was defamed in the late author Chris Kyle's bestselling book 'American Sniper.' The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the jury's 2014 award of $500,000 for defamation and $1.3million for unjust enrichment against Kyle's estate. Kyle, a former SEAL who was the deadliest sniper in US military history with 160 confirmed kills, died in 2013. The majority of the three-judge panel reversed the unjust-enrichment award, saying it fails as a matter of law. Scroll down for video A federal appeals court threw out a $1.8million judgement awarded to former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (left). He claimed that he was defamed in late author Chris Kyle's (right) bestselling book 'American Sniper' Kyle (above), a former SEAL who was the deadliest sniper in US military history with 160 confirmed kills, died in 2013. The majority also vacated the defamation award, but sent that portion of the case back to court for a new trial. Messages left with Ventura's publicist and attorney were not immediately returned Monday. A message left with an attorney for Kyle's estate also did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Kyle claimed in a subchapter called 'Punching Out Scruff Face,' to have decked a man, whom he later identified as Ventura, during a fallen SEAL's wake at a California bar in 2006. He wrote that 'Scruff Face' had made offensive comments about the elite force, including a remark that the SEALs 'deserve to lose a few' in Iraq. Ventura, a former Underwater Demolition Teams/SEAL member and ex-pro wrestler, testified at trial that Kyle's story was a fabrication. Ventura said he never made the comments and that the altercation never happened. He said the book ruined his reputation in the tight-knit SEAL community. The hit movie based on the book did not depict the alleged incident. The book was made into a movie staring actor Bradley Cooper (pictured) as Chris Kyle Kyle claimed in a subchapter called 'Punching Out Scruff Face,' to have decked a man, whom he later identified as Ventura (above), during a fallen SEAL's wake at a California bar in 2006. Ventura denied those claims Kyle, who was killed on a shooting range in 2013 by a troubled fellow veteran, gave sworn videotaped testimony before his death that his story was true. Kyle's widow, Taya Kyle, appealed the $1.8million judgment, asking the appeals court to throw out the verdict or at least order a new trial on First Amendment and other grounds. Ventura's lawyers, however, argued that jury got the verdict right, and that the judge properly applied the law and correctly instructed the jury. A key issue in the appeal was whether Kyle acted with 'actual malice,' a demanding legal standard laid down by the US Supreme Court in the landmark Times v. Sullivan case in 1964. It means a plaintiff who's a public figure must prove that a defendant knew that the statement in question was false or made it with reckless disregard for whether it was false. The hit movie based on the book did not depict the alleged incident. Above Bradley Cooper is pictured in the American Sniper movie as Chris Kyle Kyle's estate argued that the judge gave the jury faulty instructions on that point. A separate issue was the $1.3million award for unjust enrichment. Ventura's attorneys argued that 'American Sniper' shot to the top of the best-seller lists only because Kyle's statements about Ventura thrust him into the national spotlight. The Kyle estate argued that no other court had awarded damages for unjust enrichment for allegedly defamatory speech. The Kyle estate also said the judge improperly let the jury hear that publisher HarperCollins had an insurance policy to cover a defamation award and attorney fees. A simple smartphone app could diagnose patients with respiratory conditions just by the sound of their cough. ResApp, developed by Associate Professor Udantha Abeyratne at The University of Queensland, was created to diagnose and measure the severity of a number of lung and respiratory diseases. The app claims to be able to detect pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease simply by recording and analysing a patient's cough. Scroll down for video ResApp diagnoses respiratory conditions by recording a patient's cough and sending the audio to a lab for analysis Results come back through the app and are cross referenced with blood tests and scans for accuracy It will be trialled by 400 people at one of Queensland's busiest emergency departments, Wesley Hospital in Brisbane. A patient is asked to cough five times, and the app will record the sound and send it off to a lab for testing after which the program will provide a diagnosis. The results are then cross checked with scans and blood tests for accuracy. Wesley Emergency Centre Director of Emergency Medicine Dr Sean Rothwell said the app could have huge healthcare benefits. 'This diagnostic app could also potentially be used in poorer health care systems, providing nurses and doctors in remote regions with a diagnostic tool for respiratory conditions,' he said. Wesley Hospital doctor John Feenstra told 9News the app would help to prioritise patients who have a simple cough or upper respiratory infection versus patients with pneumonia. A recent trial of the app among 524 children at the Joondalup Health Campus Princess Margaret Hospital in Perth, Western Australia proved to be more than 90 per cent accurate. Author J.K. Rowling took to Twitter on Monday to remember one of the 49 victims of the horrific gay nightclub shooting in Orlando early Sunday on morning. Victim Luis Vielma worked at Universal Studios at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and on the Forbidden Journey ride. 'Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal,' she tweeted with a photo of Vielma giving two thumbs up. 'He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying.' Rowling also retweeted several people who shared memories of the young man, as some of the met him while he was working. Scroll down for video Heartbreaking: Author J.K. Rowling took to Twitter on Monday to remember Luis Vielma, one of the 49 victims of the horrific gay nightclub shooting in Orlando on early Sunday morning, in the post above Victim Luis Vielma (left) worked at Universal Studios at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is modeled after Rowling's (right) successful book series. He also worked on the Forbidden Journey ride A woman named Melissa A. Gibbo tweeted: '@jk_rowling Trust me, you would have loved him. He was the guy in the breakroom you like four seconds after walking in.' Another person named Sarah Moore on Twitter wrote: '@jk_rowliing @JMuniz822 had the pleasure of meeting him last week on my holidays, he was SO nice to my son, such a lovely guy' High school friend Eddi Anderson told the Tampa Bay Times that Vielma loved his job at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and was known for his pleasant attitude and warm demeanor. Josh Boesch, who worked with Vielma at Universal, told the Orlando Sentinel: 'He was always a friend you could call. He was always open and available.' Vielma 'just wanted to make people smile,' another co-worker, Olga Glomba, said. He was an Emergency Medical Services student at Seminole State College of Florida, according to the Sentinel. Rowling also retweeted (above) people who shared memories of the young man, as some of the met him while he was working Josh Boesch, who worked with Vielma (above) at Universal, told the Orlando Sentinel : 'He was always a friend you could call. He was always open and available' In addition, he was taking a CPR class this summer and also enrolled for classes to start in the fall semester. 'We offer our condolences to the families and friends of all those who were killed and injured,' according to the college's statement. 'These events have shocked and saddened the Central Florida community.' Vielma's family could not be reached for comment, but many of his Facebook friends are mourning his death on their profiles. 'Can't believe Luis Vielma is really gone,' wrote Jaime Bustos on Facebook. 'RIP my friend. Your memories, jokes, laughter, and personality well never be forgotten. Always meant to catch up with you but... it seems that moment has passed.' Bill Davis, president and chief operating officer of Universal Orlando, said in a statement via social media that 'we are deeply saddened over the loss of our Team Member. US citizen Omar Mateen (left), 29, slaughtered at least 49 people, including Luis Vielma (right), inside Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning in Orlando 'We are working to support his friends and colleagues here at Universal Orlando. Our thoughts and prayers are with Luis, his family, and all the victims of this tragedy.' Tom Williams, the chairman of Universal Parks & Resorts said in a statement that the park is ready to help the community. 'Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this morning's tragedy,' Williams said. 'We stand ready to help our community in any way we can.' The horrific attack on Pulse nightclub has been deemed the worst mass shooting in American history. At least 50 people, including the gunman Omar Mateen, were killed as dozens more were hospitalized from injuries. Hours after the attack, President Barack Obama made a statement from the White House about the tragic incident. 'We stand with the people of Orlando who have endured a terrible attack on this city,' President Obama told reporters in a speech given after news broke of the attack. 'Although it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say this is an act of terror and an act of hate.' A woman sits on the ground outside the club while another party-goer, whose legs are covered in blood, stands beside her Bill Shorten has given Tony Jones a taste of his infamous 'zingers' when he locked horns with the QandA host in a sassy election special. The Opposition Leader was the sole guest on Monday night, but still managed to win the 'debate' on ABC with some fiery exchanges with host Tony Jones in Penrith, western Sydney. Mr Shorten had begun to answer a voter question on whistleblowers and border protection secrecy, when 'running interjections' from Jones brought out a zinger: 'Sorry, mate. I don't want to interrupt your question with an answer.' Scroll down for video Bill Shorten has given Tony Jones a taste of his infamous 'zingers' when he and the QandA repeatedly bickered in an election special from Penrith in Sydney's west When asked by an Indigenous man whether he agreed Australia had been invaded, and not settled, Mr Shorten and Jones again bickered. 'Hang on, you asked me six questions,' Mr Shorten bit back to Jones. 'I asked you one question,' the QandA host replied. 'Yeah, six times.' Mr Shorten received laughter and applause from the live audience and virtual high-fives over social media ahead of Malcolm Turnbull's appearance next week from Brisbane. Mr Shorten had begun to answer a voter question on whistleblower protection and border protection secrecy, when 'running interjections' from Jones brought out a zinger: 'Sorry, mate. I don't want to interrupt your question with an answer' 'Bill Shorten is winning this debate with Tony Jones,' one viewer wrote on Twitter on Monday night Another joked the QandA score had Bill Shorten in front of Tony Jones 1-0 after the pair repeatedly went head to head Many on Twitter said Mr Shorten had won the 'debate' against Jones who was 'heckling' his guest with 'running interruptions' Many on Twitter joked Mr Shorten had won the 'debate' against Jones who was 'heckling' his guest with 'running interruptions'. 'ABC cleaners given night off after Bill Shorten mops the floor with Tony Jones,' one viewer joked on Twitter. 'I will admit that Bulb Shortbread didn't do a horrible job talking over Tony Jones tonight,' another said. 'Seems like Twitter is giving it to @billshortenmp and voting out Tony Jones.' 'Bill Shorten is winning this debate with Tony Jones,' others said on Twitter. The pair had also locked horns when voters asked about the NBN, Great Barrier Reef and small businesses. Other questions regarded budget management, housing affordability, health funding, pensions and public transport. QandA has confirmed the Prime Minister will be the sole guest on next Monday's show. The pair had also locked horns when voters asked about the NBN, Great Barrier Reef and small businesses 'Seems like Twitter is giving it to @billshortenmp and voting out Tony Jones,' one viewer wrote Another joked: 'ABC cleaners given night off after Bill Shorten mops the floor with Tony Jones' 'I will admit that Bulb Shortbread didn't do a horrible job talking over Tony Jones tonight,' one said An Australian journalist who made an accidental election blunder on live TV has been forced to apologise to viewers. Leigh Sales, host of ABC's 7.30 program referred to Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen as Treasurer Scott Morrison's 'deputy' as she ended the show. 'I hope you can join me tomorrow night when I'll host an election campaign debate between the Treasurer Scott Morrison and his deputy Chris Bowen,' she said. Scroll down for video Leigh Sales, host of ABC's 7.30 program made an accidental election blunder on live TV has been forced to apologise to viewers. Ms Sales referred to Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen as Treasurer Scott Morrison's 'deputy' as she ended the show Ms Sales made embarrassing TV gaffe on Monday After the program had finished, Ms Sales - and many twitter users - realised her mistake and she tweeted an apology to viewers. 'Oh could I be a bigger nincompoop - Scott Morrison and his counterpart Chris Bowen I meant to say, not deputy! Apologies all,' she wrote. This comes as Scott Morrison says Labor's budget strategy is a 'complete lottery', changing from one day to the next. Labor released its 10-year economic plan last week, which involves greater deficits over the four-year budget estimates but still brings a surplus in mid-2021 - the same as the coalition government - a strategy economists fear threatens Australia's triple-A credit rating. Under new savings measures announced by Labor on Thursday families on a combined income of over $100,000 a year will lose out by $366 per child. Labor said the Family Tax Benefit A supplement would be halved for families earning $100,000 a year or more, in an effort to save $500 million over the next four years. 'I hope you can join me tomorrow night when I'll host an election campaign debate between the Treasurer Scott Morrison (left) and his deputy Chris Bowen (right),' she said Bernie Sanders is still sending out policy missives and vowing to go all the way to the Democratic Convention even as he alludes to 'arithmetic' that makes makes his race effectively over. 'Reminding ordinary people that government can work for them and can speak with their voice is, I believe, the hope for America's future,' the Vermont senator tweeted Monday, the day before the D.C. primary. As presumed nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were already facing off with their conflicted responses to the Orlando massacre, both on Twitter and with planned speeches, Sanders' message was completely off topic. On Saturday, before a deranged gunman shot up a nightclub in Orlando, Sanders tweeted, 'Its baffling that even with overwhelming scientific consensus, leaders of this country still deny the existence of climate change.' Still running: Bernie Sanders wants to take his campaign 'into the convention' He also sent out Saturday messages consistent with his main campaign theme that the 1 percent class is getting all the breaks. 'The question of our time is whether we will take on the enormous power of the billionaire class, or do we slide into political oligarchy,' he tweeted. 'Strong unions are the reason why America once led the world in wages in benefits. We must rebuild the trade union movement in this country,' Sanders wrote in another missive. 'We must invest in the young people today, because they are our nations future doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and senators,' he tweeted Saturday. 'The best function for banks is to reinvest in America so that we can build affordable housing, factories and small businesses,' he mused in another message. Sanders spoke at a rally in D.C. Thursday in advance of the city's primary Sanders tweeted Monday morning as the nation was focused on the Orlando attack He sent out a missive on Climate change Saturday Unity tcket? He also tweeted about standing together The union forever: Sanders tweeted about stagnant wages It's about time: Clinton also wrote about the 'billionaire class' He also wrote about 'socialism for the rich' 'We are going to take our campaign to the convention with the full understanding that we are very good at arithmetic and that we know, you know, who has the received the most votes up to now,' Sanders said in Burlington Sunday after meeting with supporters. Clinton leads Sanders by 3.7 million votes. D.C.'s population is less than 700,000. Sanders also seemed to point to what would be a miraculous change in circumstances after he met with President Obama on Thursday when he said he looked 'forward to the full counting of the votes in California, which I suspect will show a much closer vote than the current vote tally." He made reference to the final California tally during his Thursday night rally in D.C. when he told cheering supporters that "the results have not yet come in from California." The final total according to the Associated Press had Clinton winning California by 56 to 43 per cent of the vote. California was counting more than 2 million outstanding ballots when Sanders made his statements, but election experts have said he would have had to have won outstanding ballots by two-to-one in order to make up Clinton's lead. NBC's Chuck Todd tried to pin down Sanders on whether he was a candidate on 'Meet the Press' Sunday. 'Well, let me just say this, I am doing everything that I can and will continue to do everything that I can to make sure that Donald Trump does not become president of the United States,' he responded. Hard choices: Sanders meets with Clinton on Tuesday for the first time since she crushed him in the California primary Pressed again on whether it was fair to say he was winding down his campaign, he responded, 'Well, no. What's fair is that what our campaign has always been about are addressing the many crises facing this country. And there are millions of people who want bold change in this country.' 'And what we have got to determine between now and the Democratic convention, and by the way Chuck, we're going to have well over 1,900 delegates at that convention, is what kind of platform and what kind of agenda there will be if Secretary Clinton gets elected, if she wins the election,' Sanders said. What Sanders hasn't done is said he would campaign after Tuesday which would imply an active effort to contest Clinton at the convention by somehow prying away a large number of her superdelegate supporters. I simply want to get a sense of what kind of platform she will be supporting, whether she will be vigorous in standing up for working families and the middle class, moving aggressively on climate change, healthcare for all, making public colleges and universities tuition-free, Sanders said on Sunday about his planned meeting with Clinton Tuesday. British police forces have been told to review security at LGBT and other public events across the country following the mass shootings in Orlando, Theresa May announced this afternoon. The Home Secretary condemned the attack on a gay night club in Florida - which killed at least 49 people - as 'utterly evil' and blamed ISIS for the 'act of homophobic hatred'. In a message to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities across the world, she said: 'We will not tolerate such bigotry and violence.' The Home Secretary Theresa May (pictured today in the House of Commons) condemned the attack on a gay night club in Florida as 'utterly evil' and blamed ISIS for the 'act of homophobic hatred' Mrs May told MPs in an urgent statement in the Commons this afternoon that UK police forces will be 'further reviewing plans for large scale and other public events over the coming days and weeks'. Extra security is expected at events across the UK for Gay Pride celebrations that take place over the next fortnight - in particular the main Pride Festival event on the weekend of June 25-26 in Trafalgar Square in central London. But she said the police have not advised any organisers to cancel or postpone any LGBT-related events. No British victims have been identified to the Government so far, she added. Mrs May also condemned a pro-Brexit campaign for its 'utterly irresponsible' attempt to link the Orlando shooting to the EU referendum. The Leave.EU group - an unofficial Brexit campaign group backed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage - published a poster today warning of an 'Orlando-style' terror attack in Britain if we stay in the EU. Mrs May said: 'This is a terrible and horrific homophobic terrorist attack that is taking place and I think attempts to link it into the issue of membership of the European Union should rightly be condemned on all sides of this House.' Extra security is expected at events across the UK for Gay Pride celebrations that take place over the next fortnight - in particular the main Pride Festival event on the weekend of June 25-26 in Trafalgar Square in central London - following the deadly attacks in a gay night club in Orlando, Florida on Sunday morning The attack in the Pulse gay club in the early hours of Sunday morning was carried out by US citizen Omar Mateen, who swore allegiance to ISIS before killing 50 people with an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun. President Obama said today there were no signs the attack was ordered or organised by ISIS but was instead another example of homegrown extremism - similar to the San Bernardino attacks in December, which killed 14 people. He said the gunman's motives were still being investigated but it's likely he was influenced by ISIS. In her statement to MPs this afternoon, Mrs May said there were 'clear' signs the attack was inspired by ISIS. 'It is clear that such an attack has its root in a twisted ideology which counts homophobia as a cornerstone of its warped world view,' she told MPs. 'This was not just an act of terror, but an act of homophobic hatred and I want to make clear to all LGBT people in Britain and around the world that we will not tolerate such bigotry and violence. 'We will work closely with the United States and we will continue to offer them our assistance and support. 'We stand shoulder and shoulder with our allies and friends in the global fight against terrorism; against fear and against hatred.' The attacks have triggered yet more calls for gun laws to be tightened in the US and President Barack Obama made another appeal to Congress to pass his much-sought after gun control reforms when addressing the massacre in Orlando. Mateen was allowed to purchase the deadly weapons legally despite having been investigated by the FBI on three occasions. And concerns about homophobic remarks he made whilst at work did not stop him from being employed as a security guard at G4S for nine years. The Leave.EU poster shows that the group - backed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage - is using yesterday's deadly shootings in Orlando, Florida as part of its bid to persuade people to vote to leave the EU Omar Mateen, the man who murdered 50 people in Orlando, Florida in a mass shooting in a gay club Although Omar Mateen declared allegiance to ISIS before he was shot dead by police on the scene in Orlando, Obama made no reference to the Islamic terror group in his brief remarks last night. Obama said: 'Although it's still early in the investigation we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate.' He called the shooting spree, at the gay nightclub Pulse during Pride month in the United States, a reminder of how easy it is for someone to get a hold of a weapon that could kill people in a 'school, or a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.' 'And we have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be,' Obama said. 'And to actively do nothing is a decision as well,' the president added. Both Presidential candidates - Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton - took to Twitter on Sunday morning to give their initial reactions to what's now being called the most deadly shooting in United States history. 'Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act,' Clinton wrote on Twitter, signing it with her trademark 'H' to show that the message was actually penned by the Democratic candidate. In a statement made by her campaign later, Clinton also called for gun control. 'This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets,' Clinton said. Trump made Twitter followers aware of the shooting, then went back to attacking Clinton this time for a new general election ad before penning another tweet about the tragedy in Orlando. He was criticised for writing: 'Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!' Brexit group condemned for warning of 'Orlando-style atrocity' and 'free movement of Kalashnikovs' if Britain stays in the EU A pro-Brexit campaign poster warning of an 'Orlando-style' terror attack in Britain if we stay in the European Union has been condemned as 'shameful and cowardly'. Leave.EU - one of the groups campaigning for Britain to leave the EU in next week's referendum - drew links between the killing of at least 49 people in a US nightclub and the referendum debate. It contained an image of what appeared to be ISIS militants brandishing guns in a desert, with the warning: 'Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long.' Pro-EU campaigners accused the group - which is backed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage - of using yesterday's deadly shootings in Orlando, Florida as part of its bid to persuade voters to back Brexit. Leave.EU - one of the groups campaigning for Britain to leave the EU in next week's referendum - published a poster telling voters to back Brexit because 'Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life' The attack was carried out by US citizen Omar Mateen, who swore allegiance to ISIS before killing 50 people with an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun. The official Leave.EU tweeted the poster along with the warning: 'The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists,' adding: 'Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote #Leave. The tweet has now been deleted but Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign, condemned the poster. Iain Duncan Smith, a leading Vote Leave campaigner, told the BBC: 'We have nothing to do with that organisation'. 'I think it is completely pointless to try and make something out of what is a tragedy in America. 'It has nothing to do with this debate at all, and I abhor anybody who tries to make capital out of that.' Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn hit out at the 'shameful and cowardly poster' and said: 'Our best protection against terror is standing together whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels' He added: 'All I would say to you is that Europol has made the point to the Home Secretary quite recently that unless we control migration there are threats to security, that's a fact of life, but I'm not going to get involved in peculiar tweets that go out from other organisations that I don't sign up to.' Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn hit out at the 'shameful and cowardly poster' and said: 'Our best protection against terror is standing together whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels.' He added: 'It takes courage to stand by your principles and your friends when they are attacked, whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels. 'Doing so makes us stronger and shows our resolve to stand up for our values and our way of life in the face of those who hold both in such murderous contempt.' Nicky Morgan, Britain's Education Secretary and equalities minister, demanded an apology from the Leave.EU group and called on the Vote Leave campaign to issue a statement making clear that hte shootings in Florida have 'nothing whatsoever to do with the EU debate in this country'. 'Using the tragic deaths of innocent people to make a political point is simply shameful,' she said. A soldier has gone to great lengths to return home from service and surprise his daughter for her high school graduation. Master Sgt. Derrick Morris arranged a plan with the principle of his daughter's school, Rancho Bernardo High School in San Diego, to be able to surprise his little girl and keep it a secret. Morris was not due back from serving in Kuwait until September and told his daughter, Camille Morris, that he would not get to see her graduate. But when the day came, Morris made a huge entrance in front of the entire school. Big surprise: Master Sgt. Derrick Morris arranged a plan with the principle of his daughter's school, Rancho Bernardo High School in San Diego, to be able to surprise his little girl and keep it a secret Camille Morris is overcome as her father shows up at the graduation ceremony recently in San Diego Morris was not due back from serving in Kuwait until September and told his daughter, Camille Morris, that he would not get to see her graduate 'I wanted to tell her I was coming, but I'm glad I didn't,' Morris told Fox 40. In video taken of the ceremony, Camille bursts into tears at the sight of her father. 'I didn't want to let go, I wanted to hold on to him,' she said afterwards. 'It would've been a year in September since I'd seen him, probably would've missed my 18th birthday, too.' 'That was a whole year of emotions exploded at on': Morris spent nine months planning the surprise Graduation: Morris was not due back from serving in Kuwait until September and told his daughter, Camille Morris, that he would not get to see her graduate RB High Principal Dave LeMaster announced that Master Sgt. Morris was making a brief visit so he could witness his daughter's graduation in person. 'It was breathtaking and so surreal,' Camille Morris said. Sgt. Morris said the big surprise took nine months to plan. 'That was a whole year of emotions exploded at once, so it's unbeatable,' the father told Pomerado News. The Morris family will now spend a few days together before he has to return to Kuwait A Baltimore police officer testified on Monday that black detainee Freddie Gray asked for help while being transported in a police van, where he suffered a broken neck. The officer, William Porter, took the stand in the trial of Officer Caesar Goodson, 46, the van's driver. Prosecutors contend Goodson gave Gray a 'rough ride' and he is accused of second-degree depraved heart murder and other charges in Gray's death in April 2015. Accused: Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 46, is seen leaving the courthouse after the first day of his trial. He was driving the police van in which Freddie Gray sustained fatal injuries - including a broken neck - on April 12 Dead: Freddie Gray (left), 25, was arrested for fleeing police unprovoked in a high-crime area. His injuries (right) lead to his death on April 19 at a Baltimore hospital. His death in police custody sparked protests His death triggered protests and rioting in Baltimore and stoked a U.S. debate on police treatment of minorities. Goodson is the third of six officers to go on trial, and his attorneys argue that Gray caused his own fatal injuries. Porter testified in Baltimore City Circuit Court that he responded to a call to assist Goodson at the fourth stop the van made while transporting Gray. He found Gray, who was shackled, lying on his stomach on the van's floor, his head toward the front of the vehicle. 'What if anything did Mr. Gray say?' asked prosecutor Michael Schatzow. 'I said, "What's up?" He said, "Help,"' Porter said. '"What do you need help with?" "Help me up."' Arrest: Goodson, who faces a murder charge, among other charges, is the third of six officers to be tried in the death of Gray, whose arrest is pictured here. Prosecutors say he drove dangerously, not caring if Gray died No medical aid was sought, and Porter, whose trial on a manslaughter charge ended in a hung jury in December, helped put Gray onto a bench inside the van. Gray was not buckled into a seat belt, a violation of department procedures. Schatzow read from a statement that Porter gave internal affairs investigators in which Porter said he had told Goodson that Gray should he taken to a hospital. Asked if Goodson had agreed, Porter paused, then said: 'Sure.' On trial: The six officers implicated in Gray's death, clockwise from top right: Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Garrett E. Miller, Edward M. Nero, Alicia D. White, Brian W. Rice, William G. Porter A medical examiner's report concluded that Gray was fatally injured between the second and fourth stops that Goodson made. Prosecutors had been expected to call Porter to help establish a timeline on Gray's transport. Goodson's charge of second-degree murder is the most serious one against the officers accused in Gray's death. He also faces manslaughter and other charges. Goodson waived a jury trial and Judge Barry Williams will decide the case. The trial began on Thursday. Porter's testimony in a case in which he also faces trial was the result of a lengthy legal battle that reached Maryland's highest court. Foreign investors with residential real estate in NSW will be hit with a four per cent stamp duty surcharge from next week and an annual 0.75 per cent land tax from next year. State Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian on Monday announced the land tax and stamp duty surcharge, which is similar to new Victorian policy, ahead of next week's Budget. The taxes will raise $1 billion in revenue over four years, though Ms Berejiklian admitted the change is unlikely to ease off foreign investment, Daily Telegraph reported. 'If you asked most economists, they would say people who are going to invest in these houses who are foreign investors are going to do it anyway,' Ms Berejiklian said. Scroll down for video State Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian on Monday announced foreign investors with residential real estate in NSW will be hit with a four per cent surcharge from next week and 0.75 per cent annual land tax from next year 'If you asked most economists, they would say people who are going to invest in these houses who are foreign investors are going to do it anyway,' Ms Berejiklian said 'We assume they're going to invest anyway; we [want to] ensure [they are] paying tax revenue for our services. This is one way for us to ensure a strong revenue [stream] into the future.' The stamp duty surcharge will come into effect next Tuesday, while the land tax will begin on January 1 next year the latter of which will be retrospective, taxing all foreign owned residential properties in NSW. It will only affect people who are not Australian citizens or permanent residents, and will also not affect New Zealand citizens who've been in the country for more than 200 days over the past 12 months. It will add approximately $1000 to the median price of a unit in Sydney on stamp duty bills, or $1600 to the median price of a Sydney house. Foreign owners with residential real estate in NSW will be hit with a surcharge on stamp duty from next week and an annual land tax from next year (stock image) Mortgage duty, share transfer duty and non-real transfer duty, worth up to $1.8 billion over the forward estimates, will be scrapped when the budget is delivered next Tuesday (pictured: NSW Premier Mike Baird and Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian on Monday) Ms Berejiklian also announced the NSW state budget would scrap three business taxes to cut down on administration and operating costs, the Treasurer claimed. Mortgage duty, share transfer duty and non-real transfer duty, worth up to $1.8 billion over the forward estimates, will be scrapped when the budget is delivered next Tuesday. 'This is a decision we've been able to take because we're a responsible government,' she said. 'By supporting business we're supporting jobs, we're supporting economic growth.' The government says the taxes were responsible for 250,000 transactions last year and cost the state's businesses $400 million. Sydney Business Chamber Executive Director Patricia Forsythe said the taxes, which have been slated to be axed for years, were inefficient. 'They don't raise in any one year a lot of money for the government but they do tie businesses in red tape,' she said. Labor said it wants to know how other schools and hospitals are going to be paid for. 'What is missing here is the delivery of sustainable funding to the education and health sectors,' Shadow treasurer Ryan Park said. 'Those funding shortfalls are not only going to hit services but also weaken the budget over the next few years.' The taxes' abolition completes the state's repeal obligations under a 2008 intergovernmental agreement. A GoFundMe page set up for victims of the terrorist massacre in Orlando is the site's most successful fundraiser ever, with over $3 million raised. The GoFundMe page set up by Equality Florida reached $3 million by 8am Tuesday. It was set up by the civil rights organization on Sunday. The largest individual contribution of $100,000 was donated by the GoFundMe team. However, given the site's 5% fee, GoFundMe will make a $50,000 profit on the funds raised unless the fee is waived, which has happened in some previous high-profile campaigns. 'Our thoughts are with the victims and all those affected by this terrible attack,' the company wrote in a blog post. The Orlando campaign is also the site's fastest-growing fundraiser to date, a company spokesperson told Daily Mail Online. Fellow gay rights organization Executive Pride gave $30,000. Some 70,000 individual donations had been collected on Tuesday morning. Scroll down for video A fundraiser for Orlando victims has raised over $2.9 million. Pictured, Brett Morian, from Daytona Beach, hugs an attendee during the candlelight vigil at Ember in Orlando on Sunday Money keeps streaming into the fundraising page set up by Equality Florida, a gay civil rights organization The previous record holder, a campaign to raise funds for medical bills for terminally ill Eliza O'Neill, 4, has amassed $2,026,710 in 32 months. The record-breaking fund was set up for victims of terrorist Omar Mateen, who shot dead 49 people and wounded at least 53 more during the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Mateen, of Port St. Lucie in Florida, reportedly laughed as he sprayed bullets into the crowded club before he was shot dead by a SWAT team several hours after launching his horrific massacre with a legally bought assault rifle and pistol. He told the 911 dispatcher over the course of three 911 calls from inside the nightclub that he was inspired by ISIS and showing solidarity with the Boston bombers and Florida man who went to become a suicide bomber for Al-Nusra Front. FBI Director James Comey said: 'The Boston bombers and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by ISIS, which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives'. Equality Florida said it's working with local organizations and a team of attorneys and experts to allocate the funds fairly. The organization is receiving help from the National Center for Victims of Crime, which has assisted in distributing funds raised for victims of other mass shootings. 'We are heartbroken and angry that senseless violence has once again destroyed lives in our state and in our country,' Equality Florida development officer Ida Eskamani wrote on the fundraising page. Twenty of the 49 victims in Orlando, pictured from top left: Anthony laureano, Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, Luis Vielma, Xavier E. Serrano, Kimberly KJ Morris, Oscar Aracena, Eric Ortiz, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, Stanley Almodovar III, Amanda Alvear, Eddie Justice, Deonka Deidra Drayton, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez , Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, Martin Benitez Torres, Mercedez Flores, Juan Ramon Guerrero, Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar III, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera Mourners around the world paid respect to the victims of the massacre in Orlando. Pictured, a vigil in Berlin In Hong Kong, a man writes a message of support in a book placed in front of candles left by other attendees of a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting in Florida People hold candles during a vigil to pay tribute to the victims of Sunday's Orlando shooting in Seoul, South Korea 'Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety.' Mateen has been described as a racist and sexist who had anger management and mental health issues. His father said he had recently expressed disgust after witnessing a gay couple kissing in Miami. A Staffordshire bull terrier saved from death row after a $600,000, two-year legal battle after she bit a woman is up for adoption. In 2013, 'Izzy' escaped from her owner's property in Melbourne and bit a woman, causing a 1.5cm laceration to her finger, according to The Age. The same dog - but now named 'Indie' is up for adoption at RSPCA Queensland. The ad does not mention the bull terrier's past or legal battle. 'Indie', who is up for adoption in Queensland, is actually 'Izzy', a Staffordshire bull terrier who was saved from death row after a $600,000, two-year legal battle According to the listing, Indie is a: 'sweet and calm girl' who is 'looking for a special someone who has the time and effort to put into me as I may take a little while to settle in and can be a bit of a fussy eater'. Her former owner, Tania Isbester, went to Australia's highest court to save the dog's life. She had the help of lawyers including barrister Graeme McEwen who were working for free. The High Court ruled in favour of the dog in September 2015, and she was eventually released to the RSPCA in South Australia. She was handed to RSPCA in Queensland as there was no suitable handler for her in SA. Ms Isbester couldn't keep the dog because her public housing wasn't suitable for a dangerous dog. The Knox City Council, who seized Izzy in 2013, had to pay Ms Isbester's $600,000 legal costs, The Age reported. RSPCA Queensland spokesman Michael Beatty told the Brisbane Times changing Izzy's name to Indie was not an attempt to hide her history. 'And any person who is interested in adopting her would, firstly, be ...vetted to see if [Izzy] is going to a suitable home, [and] her full history will be disclosed to them,' he said. Despite what had been said about her, she was a good-natured dog, he added. But Boris Johnson derides the use of Brown as a 'desperate' move Gordon Brown today insisted dealing with illegal immigration and not working migrants was the key to tackling public concerns as he relaunched the struggling Remain campaign. The ex-prime minister used a major speech to insist the world's problems are best solved by cooperation and not by withdrawal from the world. Speaking to activists from both the Labour In and Britain Stronger in Europe campaigns, Mr Brown was handed a leading role in a scramble to ensure Labour voters turn out on referendum day. Mr Brown today launched a five point plan for EU reform which he said could be implemented by Britain when it takes the rotating presidency of the EU for the first time in 12 years next year. But his efforts to breath fresh life into a beleaguered Remain campaign beset by fears of immigration and allegations of scaremongering were dismissed by Vote Leave champion Boris Johnson. Ex-prime minster Gordon Brown today used a major speech to try and kick start the ailing Remain campaign with just 10 days until the referendum The ex-mayor of London claimed deploying Mr Brown with just 10 days to go, in an echo of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, was a 'desperate' move from a 'rattled' campaign. Mr Brown repeated claims about immigration he first made to the BBC this morning, insisting illegal immigration was the key problem. He told the Today programme: 'In the document we actually say we've got to help communities that have been hit by rising levels of population, we've got to do something to help them with the health service and the schools and with the provision of public services. 'We think Europe should contribute to that as well as the British Government and that's something that could be done tomorrow.' But he added: 'Norway, outside the European Union, has a higher rate of migration; Switzerland, outside the European Union, has a higher rate of immigration. 'If you look at the actual figures themselves then, what, 500,000 of the people who you classify as Europeans coming into Britain... are Irish citizens nobody wants to exclude the Irish citizens from Britain. 'The real problem we're dealing with and this is, again, in the document and the biggest problem is illegal immigration.' Asked about people's concern legal migration drove down wages and put pressure on public services, Mr Brown said: 'If you talk to an American, if you talk to an Indian, if you talk to people in Europe it is illegal immigration that is the problem they are most worried about. 'And the numbers that are coming into the United States, 11 million, India, 20 million and we've got to do something about it by cooperation, and that is the only way: working with the other European authorities.' In his speech in Leicester, Mr Brown said that globalisation had created challenges which required 'economic co-operation and sharing and integration' between nation states, but at the same time led to demands from some to 'bring control back home'. 'It is not just here in Britain, it is in Trump in America, other movements in America, other movements in Europe - Greece, Spain, Germany, Austria,' he said. Mr Brown today spelt out a five point plan for how he wanted to see the EU reformed under British leadership during the UK's turn holding the rotating presidency next year Mr Brown addressed activists in Leicester as he launched the 'Leading not Leaving' relaunch of the campaign to keep Britain inside the EU Mr Brown continued: 'Globalisation creates this sense there's a runaway train out of control. What we need to do is to show we can manage globalisation and global change in the public interest but at the same time we have got to respect people's love of national identity. 'We've got to show that we can balance the autonomy that people want with the co-operation we need. That is what the European Union is about. 'It is not some giant project for a federal superstate, but it's not a return - which is impossible - to 19th century views of sovereignty which even America, the biggest superpower in the world, has left behind.' GORDON BROWN'S FIVE POINT PLAN TO FIX THE EU Gordon Brown today published his three page, five point plan to fix the EU's problems Gordon Brown today spelled out his five point plan for how Britain could reform the EU. He said Labour's aim was 'full employment' and said Britain holding the rotating EU presidency in 2017 would help achieve this goal. The ex-PM said reforms could include 'action to improve living standards through energy price cuts', fuelled by pooling of renewable energy in Europe. Mr Brown advocated further EU-level action to tackle tax havens as well as further protection for workers' rights. EU reform to ensure greater security could also be pursued by the British presidency, Mr Brown said. At no point in his three page document does Mr Brown mention the Conservatives are in Government and will be in charge of the 2017 presidency agenda. Advertisement Mr Johnson, speaking from the Vote Leave battle bus, said: 'I think people are increasingly listening to what we have to say. 'I must say I think that the Remain campaign are getting slightly rattled now, if you have a relaunch with Gordon Brown that's got to be some measure of desperation in my view.' The Tory MP for Uxbridge also repeated his demand the Remain campaign spell out how it would deal with runaway immigration - hours after Migration Watch forecast net migration continuing to run at more than 250,000 for the next 20 years. Mr Johnson said: 'They have no answer. We're advocating an Australian-style points system so that we get into this country the people that are needed for the economy and in a way that is not discriminatory.' Vote Leave chairwoman Gisela Stuart said: 'We know that hardworking British people are feeling the strains caused by uncontrolled migration - and that they are sick and tired of being told their concerns are somehow illegitimate. 'The Remain campaign have nothing to say on immigration, and Gordon Brown added nothing to their case today. 'As an immigrant myself, I am conscious of benefits immigration brings to this country - but it needs to be controlled. 'I have been very clear that I would like to see the introduction of an Australian Points based system - something that would also serve to end the discrimination inherent in the current system. 'But the fact of the matter is that the democratically elected UK parliament is prevented from doing any such thing because of the EU's obsession with open borders. 'The only way to take back control of our borders and our country is to Vote Leave on 23 June.' Mr Brown's intervention was dismissed today by Labour MP John Mann, one of the few Labour MPs backing a Brexit vote on June 23. He said: 'Gordon refers to illegal immigration and illegal immigration is not the issue in the Labour heartlands, in fact illegal immigration is a tiny, tiny issue in the Labour heartlands. 'It's about pay, it's about conditions, it' s about wages going down, it's about agency work that's why there's this popular revolt out there among Labour voters. 'Gordon re-emerging on the scene, great though he was while in power, just reminds us that Labour is uncomfortable with these issues.' Two teenage dancers died in a fireball car crash when a motorist smashed into them after they had stopped because they hit a deer. Driver Daniela Ruggiero, 18, and her passenger Charlotte Dove, 17, were both killed when Luiz Rocker hit their Citroen at 68mph after it came to a halt on the A10 in Hertfordshire in October 2013. They were killed in an explosion after the impact ruptured the Citroen's fuel tank, and sparks from the car's undercarriage ignited petrol, causing the vehicle to be engulfed in flames. At the end of the trial, the victims' families shouted of 'bloody joke', 'he killed our daughter' and 'he destroyed our family' as Rocker, 48, was cleared of causing death by careless driving. Driver Daniela Ruggiero (left), 18, and her passenger Charlotte Dove (right), 17, were both killed when Luiz Rocker hit the Citroen at 68mph after it came to a halt in the middle of the A10 in Hertfordshire in October 2013 St Albans Crown Court heard how Daniela and Charlotte were unharmed after the first collision but were killed when Rocker smashed into the back of their car. Rocker, from Ware, Hertforshire, who had previously admitted causing death by careless driving, was sentenced to 16 months in prison suspended for two years and has been banned from driving for 18 months. During his trial Rocker, a painter and decorator said: 'I could not avoid the car, I could not stop.' Luiz Rocker has avoided jail despite admitting causing death by careless driving after he crashed into a car and killed two teenage dancers He described seeing the collision with the deer ahead of him before crashing into the damaged Citroen. Rocker, a Brazilan immigrant who moved to the UK in 2001, said: 'The pieces of the car went through the air. In my mind, it was like a movie in slow motion.' The Citroen had come to a halt across the two lanes between High Cross and Standon, Hertfordshire, and data from an insurance device in Daniela's car shows it was then hit by Rocker 0.9 seconds after it stopped. He said: 'I knew I was going to crash,' adding: 'I thought it was too late.' After the collision, Rocker rushed towards to the Citroen and tried to save the women from the inferno but he was unable to pull them from the burning vehicle. Following the sentencing, an emotional tribute was paid by the family of Charlotte Dove, which stated: 'It seemed as if Charlotte was born dancing. She started lessons at the age of three, but had been twirling and spinning to music long before then. 'By the time she finished primary school she knew that all she wanted to do was to become a dance teacher. 'We should be watching Charlotte dance and laugh, and grow into the beautiful young lady she was becoming. She should be following her dreams of finishing her course and teaching. Maybe performing the odd show, a musical, it would have all been hers for the taking, and now it's gone. 'Life will never be the same again, but we just have to find the strength to keep going and we do this to honour her.' A statement read on behalf of the family of Daniela Ruggerio said: 'When we received the devastating news about what happened on October 15, 2013, our world fell apart. The accident happened after the car of the two victims hit a deer on the A10 in Hertfordshire in 2013 'As a family we have struggled every day to cope with the loss of our beloved Daniela and have found it near impossible to carry on. We visit her grave every day. 'Two families have been destroyed as two beautiful young ladies with so much ahead of them have been taken away from us. 'We will never ever come to terms with or accept that Daniela will never be with us again here on earth and our pain and suffering will go on forever.' Sergeant Richard Cruse from the Forensic Collision Investigation Unit said: 'This is such an extremely tragic case where two young women have needlessly lost their lives through no fault of their own. Embattled South Australian property developer Cathy Pearce has avoided a trial on fraud charges after prosecutors failed to find sufficient evidence. Ms Pearce, once a BRW rich-lister worth 19 million before she filed for bancrupcy in 2009, faced the Brisbane District Court on Monday for what was expected to be day one of a three-day trial over an alleged car insurance fraud. She allegedly defrauded more than $54,000 in insurance over a drink driving accident in 2008, The Courier Mail reported. Embattled Australian property developer Cathy Pearce (right) has avoided a trial on fraud charges after prosecutors failed to find evidence However prosecutors dropped the charge after failing to find the original insurance policy. Judge Julie Ryrie said she would not grant an adjournment to relocate it. 'There is an obligation upon the Crown to prosecute in a timely way,' she said, noting that case had been going on for eight years. Judge Ryrie also said a product disclosure statement tabled by the prosecution was 'not in itself' sufficient to progress the matter. The jury was excused, as was Pearce. Ms Pearce was allegedly involved in a crash in Brisbane in 2008 involving her car, understood to be a Mercedes. Ms Pearce faced the Brisbane District Court on Monday (pictured) for what was expected to be day one of a three-day trial over an alleged car insurance fraud Police allege she was not entitled to the $54,000 she claimed in insurance because she was drunk during the accident and deliberately gave the wrong date to authorities. Juan David Villegas-Hernandez, 34, was arrested in connection with the shooting deaths of his four daughters, ages 14, 11, 7, and 3, and his wife, 34 A man suspected of shooting dead his wife and four daughters has been detained in Mexico. Mexican authorities say they have apprehended 34-year-old Juan David Villegas-Hernandez in a residence in the town of Arizpe in Sonora, Roswell police said Monday. Investigators confirmed Monday afternoon the man in custody is Villegas-Hernandez. He is expected to be subject to extradition, police said. Police said the victims of Saturday's fatal shooting at the Villegas-Hernandes family home in Roswell were the wanted man's wife, 34, and four daughters, aged 14, 11, 7 and 3. Their names have not been released. Police said the victims were found around 11:15pm Saturday by relatives who grew worried after they were unable to reach them by phone. The family lived in the 2300 block of Davis Avenue, according to KOAT. A medical examiner will conduct autopsies to confirm the victims' identities and cause of death. The shooting likely occurred earlier on Saturday, Wildermuth said. Police said Villegas-Hernandez may be driving a red, four-door Ford pickup with New Mexico license plate KJS479. Dramatic dashcam footage has emerged of the moment a car caused a rollover crash on a busy highway in Utah. The crash occurred on the on I-15 in Salt Lake City Friday morning. The footage shows a Toyota Tacoma making contact with the PT Cruiser, causing the truck to turn over. It appears a third vehicle attempted to change lanes without room to do so, setting off a chain of events that led to the crash, Fox 13 reported. Rollover: The crash occurred on the on I-15 in Salt Lake City Friday morning, with footage showing a Toyota Tacoma making contact with the PT Cruiser, causing the truck to turn over The Toyota tries to swerve to miss the truck but ends up smashing into it, causing the truck to roll The truck flips onto the highway and the Toyota has to swerve again to avoid hitting it a second time The footage shows a Toyota Tacoma making contact with the PT Cruiser, causing the truck to turn over The Utah Highway Patrol said the crash occurred around 7:40 a.m. near 600 North on southbound I-15. The driver of the truck was taken to a hospital with minor injuries. The driver of the PT Cruiser was not injured. Video of the crash was uploaded to Facebook by driver Scott Rodgers. Police told Fox that, according to witness reports, a black vehicle had attempted an improper lane change, causing the truck to quickly move. The building will reportedly be more than 300,000 sq ft CEO said move is to attract younger talent that prefer to live in big cities It is leaving Oak Brook, Illinois, where 2,000 employees are currently based McDonald's will set up shop at the former Harpo Studios by spring 2018 McDonald's corporate headquarters is moving back to Chicago after more than 40 years away - and it's at the old home of The Oprah Winfrey Show where it has decided to stay. The fast food franchise announced on Monday that it will be leaving the suburbs of Oak Brook, where it has been based since 1971, to set up shop at the old Harpo Studios in downtown Chicago. McDonald's CEO Steve Easterbrook said the company hopes the move, planned to take place by spring 2018, will attract younger talent that prefer to live in big cities. McDonald's corporate headquarters is moving back to Chicago after more than 40 years away - and it's at the old home of The Oprah Winfrey Show at Harpo Studios (pictured) where it has decided to stay The fast food franchise announced on Monday that it will be leaving the suburbs of Oak Brook (pictured), where it has been based since 1971, in an effort to attract young talent that prefers big cities The Oprah Winfrey show was filmed at Harpo Studios from 1990 until 2011. Oprah (pictured at the Tony Awards on Sunday) shuttered it for good in March 2016 to relocate production of her shows in California 'We are a brand on the move in more ways than one,' he said in a statement. 'Moving our headquarters to Chicago is another significant step in our journey to build a better McDonald's.' 'This world-class environment will continue to drive business momentum by getting us even closer to customers, encouraging innovation and ensuring great talent is excited about where they work.' The new building will hold both McDonald's global and US corporate headquarters as well as international training center Hamburger University, where franchise owners and many employees and executives are trained. McDonald's did not release details regarding design plans for the new building but it will reportedly be more than 300,000 sq ft, according to Crain's Chicago Business. The company, which was based in Chicago from 1955 to 1971, will be leaving behind the 88-acre suburban Oak Brook campus although it is unlikely all 2,000 employees will make the move to city due to cost-cutting measures. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the city did not provide McDonald's any incentives to move downtown. I'm proud to welcome them to our dynamic city, and proud that their new headquarters will be part of the growing West Dynamo Loop,' he said in a statement, according to the Chicago Tribune. 'McDonalds has identified the keys to success to todays global market, talent, technology, and access to transportation networks...I can't wait to break ground and cut the ribbon.' The site is owned by developer Sterling Bay, which purchased the property from Harpo Studios in 2014 for $30.5million. The site is owned by developer Sterling Bay, which purchased the property from Harpo Studios in 2014 for $30.5million McDonald's building will hold both global and US corporate headquarters as well as international training center Hamburger University (pictured in Oak Brook), where franchise owners and executives are trained The Oprah Winfrey show was filmed at Harpo Studios from 1990 until 2011. Winfrey shuttered the studio for good in March 2016 after announcing the company was relocating to California. McDonald's is joining a slew of big businesses that are moving their headquarters from the suburbs to big cities. General Electrics announced in January it would be relocating to Boston from its Fairfield, Connecticut home base, and Kraft Heinz moved from Illinois suburb Northfield to Chicago as well. Easterbrook said in a May shareholder meeting that the company was 'committed to leaving no stone unturned' as it continued to upgrade the McDonald's brand. The fast food franchise has recently found success with an all-day breakfast menu, which helped boost lagging sales, and next month will see a 6,500 sq ft 'McDonald's of the future' opening in Missouri. 'Our current space in Oak Brook has served us well for many years,' said spokeswoman Becca Hary. Gun company's shares on the stock market have increased after the horrific tragedy in Orlando where Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people in a gay nightclub early Sunday morning in a shooting rampage. The increase in shares on the stock market for major gunmakers has happened after previous mass shootings in America, according to Business Insider. Smith & Wesson, the Massachusetts-based manufacturer of handguns, shares increased as much as eight per cent. Shares of Connecticut-based Sturm, Ruger & Company saw a more than nine per cent jump in shares. Scroll down for video Omar Mateen, 29, was armed with a Sig Sauer .223-caliber AR-15-type rifle and a 9mm semi-automatic pistol when he killed 49 people inside of Pulse nightclub on Sunday Smith & Wesson, the Massachusetts-based manufacturer of handguns, shares increased as much as eight per cent Shares of Connecticut-based Sturm, Ruger & Company saw a more than nine per cent jump in shares While Vista Outdoor (VSTO), a company that's headquartered in Utah and designs, develops and manufactures ammunition and related equipment, saw a two per cent increase. It appears the concern among consumers is that guns might be more difficult to purchase in the future if stricter legislation is passed, Business Insider reported. SHARES FALL AT SECURITY FIRM Shares in London-listed security firm G4S tumbled by as much as 8 per cent today amid revelations that the Florida nightclub shooter worked for the security firm. The business confirmed that Omar Mateen, 29, who gunned down 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, had been employed by G4S since 2007. The world's biggest security company said he worked as a staff member at a gated retirement complex called PGA Village, in Port St Lucie, South Florida Advertisement In January, gun sales increased after President Obama promised to use executive powers to expand background checks for people purchasing guns and increasing licensing requirements for gun dealers. That announcement followed the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California where 14 people died when a couple pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State killed them. In the wake of the most deadliest mass shooting in American history, both Obama and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, called for tighter gun-control measures in statements released on Sunday. Obama said on Sunday that the shooting was 'a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or a house of worship, or a movie theater, or a nightclub.' In January, gun sales increased after President Obama (pictured Monday) promised to use executive powers to expand background checks for people purchasing guns and increasing licensing requirements for gun dealers While speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Obama warned against downplaying the role of gun control in solving the problem of home-grown Islamic crusaders. 'If we have self-radicalized individuals in this country, they are going to be very difficult oftentimes to find ahead of time,' he said. 'And how easy it is for them to obtain weapons is in some cases going to make a difference as to whether they are able to carry out attacks like this at not.' 'We make it very easy for individuals who are troubled or disturbed or want to engage in violent acts to get very powerful weapons very quickly. And thats a problem. Its a problem regardless of their motivations,' he insisted. Obama said the killer 'was able to obtain these weapons legally because he did not have a criminal record that would in some way prohibit him from purchasing those weapons.' 'The fact that we make it this challenging for law enforcement, for example, even to get alerted that somebody who they are watching has purchased a gun and if they do get alerted sometimes its hard for them to stop them from getting a gun is crazy,' he said. 'Its a problem. And we have to, I think, do some soul searching.' Donald Trump leveled a national-security flamethrower at Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, blaming her for embracing an immigration policy that would drive more Islamic radicals to stage terror attacks like the one from which Orlando, Florida is only beginning to recover. Clinton, he said, would negligently implement a 'catastrophic immigration plan' that would 'bring vastly more radical Islamic immigrants into this country, threatening not only our society but our entire way of life.' 'Ignorance is not bliss,' he said in a half-hour speech at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. 'It's deadly. Totally deadly.' SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO CLOBBERING CLINTON: Donald Trump delivered a biting speech Tuesday on terrorism and national security, aimed largely at Hillary Clinton, following a deadly Islamist terror attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida DUELING SPEECHES: Clinton and Trump split on gun control but agreed on the notion that radical Islamists are a threat to the LGBT community Trump castigated the former secretary of state for comments she made in November 2015 during a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. 'Let's be clear: Islam is not our adversary,' Clinton said then. 'Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.' 'That is Hillary Clinton,' Trump said, hammering her for her response to the weekend's bloodbath at a gay nightclub where more than four dozen people list their lives to a man who pledged allegiance to the ISIS terror army. 'The days of deadly ignorance will end, and they will end soon' if he is elected president, Trump pledged. Clinton's response on Monday was equal parts gun control and a motherly embrace of America's gays and lesbians. 'She says the solution is to ban guns. They tried that in France,' Trump poked, referring to last year's terror attacks in Paris. 'One hundred thirty people were brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists in cold blood,' he said. 'Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans, abolish the Second Amendment and leave only terrorists ... with guns.' 'She wants to take away Americans' guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us,' Trump boomed, reading from a teleprompter. He pledged to meet with the National Rifle Association, the powerful lobby that has endorsed him, to 'discuss how to make sure Americans have the means to protect themselves in this age of terror.' 'CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS: 'Hillary Clinton can never pretend to be a friend of the gay community,' Trump said in New Hampshire, while she supports immigration policies that admit anti-gay jihadi immigrants IN YOUR FACE: Trump read a Clinton quote from a November 2015 speech before attempting to dismantle her views on immigration, national security and border protection Trump effectively blunted Clinton's approach on anti-gay discrimination by joining her, however, saying that 'our nation stands together in solidarity with the members of Orlando's LGBT community' against a terrorist who plotted 'to execute gay and lesbian Americans.' He called the carnage 'an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want, and express their identity.' That rhetoric would have sounded at home during the Democratic primary season, or on the stage of Sunday night's Tony Awards. Trump, in fact, claimed that he would be a better and more effective advocate than Clinton for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans. 'Hillary Clinton can never pretend to be a friend of the gay community,' he said, while supporting immigration policies that bring along with them the threat of more jihadi immigrants. 'She can't have it both ways,' he said. 'She can't claim to be supportive of these communities while [increasing] the number of people who want to oppress these communities.' He emphasized that as president he would prioritize the protection of law-abiding 'people who are potential victims of crimes based on backgrounds or sexual orientation.' Trump has been the Republican Party's most consistent immigration hawk during the primary season, advocating for tighter border control and catching flak along the way. 'We want to remain a free and open society ... [but] we have to control our borders. And we have to control them now. Not later. Right now,' he said Monday. With dozens dead in Orlando, he said, 'we cannot afford to talk around issues anymore. We have to address these issues head-on.' In a tweak to his previous proposal for a ban on non-citizen Muslims coming into the United States, he said he would use existing presidential powers to 'suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or our allies.' And doubling down on identity groups that cleave to Clinton's side, he emphasized that 'radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-American.' 'I refuse to allow America to become a place where gay people, Christian people, Jewish people are targets of persecution and intimidation by radical Islamic preachers of hate and violence.' 'This is not just a national security issue. It's a quality of life issue.' Clinton delivered a speech Monday in Ohio that relied more on compassion and national introspection than on get-tough saber rattling. Instead of vowing a get-tough policy on ISIS or al-Qaeda, she pledged to work overtime as president to root out so-called 'lone wolf' jihadis the hardest terrorists to find because of their lack of links to organized movements. Like President Barack Obama in the late morning hours, Clinton framed the Orlando attack as the result of anti-gay prejudice and an American gun culture that needs tightening. She declared that the federal government needs 'more resources for this fight' and insisted that 'weapons of war' like the semi-automatic rifle used in the Orlando killings should be purged from America's streets. And she complained that the U.S. government has done precious little to connect gun licensing with terror watch lists and other tools Washington uses to manage threat levels. 'If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldnt be able to just go buy a gun,' she said. The U.S. Constitution, however, guarantees citizens the right 'to keep and bear arms.' While state and federal agencies can curtail those rights in cases where Americans have been convicted of crimes, gun-rights and civil-liberties groups have consistently pushed back against attempts to extend that power to mere suspects. Clinton's most telling jab at Trump, a line one campaign source said was kept in her speech from an earlier draft before the Orlando shooting, was a dig at the billionaire's penchant for self-promotion. America, she said, is 'not a land of winners and losers' 'a country of "we," not "me".' She also sought to drive a wedge between Trump and moderate Republicans, praising former President George W. Bush for communicating 'a message of unity and solidarity' to Muslims after the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 the opposition of Trump's focus on Islam as an incubator of terror-minded threat groups. Hillary Clinton is making a new push for gun control measures favored by liberals, including a ban on what she calls 'weapons of war, in response to the night club shooting Sunday in Orlando. Clinton said during a speech today in Cleveland, Ohio, that as president she would make sure law enforcement officials have the tools they need to prevent future attacks. But she also said it is 'essential that we stop terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attacks.' 'And that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino,' she said. HHillary Clinton is making a new push for gun control measures favored by liberals, including a ban on what she calls 'weapons of war, in response to the night club shooting Sunday in Orlando The Orlando shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen purchased a .223 caliber AR type rifle, left, and 9mm semiautomatic pistol, right, days before the attack. Clinton today called for a ban on the AR-15 The Orlando shooter, 29-year-old Omar Mateen purchased a .223 caliber AR type rifle and 9mm semiautomatic pistol, days before he opened fire on an attack. 'It appears that one of those weapons he was able to just carry out of the store -- an assault rifle, a handgun -- a Glock -- which had a lot of clips in it,' President Barack Obama said today as he briefed the press. Obama said, 'He was apparently required to wait for three days under Florida law. But it does indicate the degree to which it was not difficult for him to obtain these kinds of weapons.' In Cleveland, Clinton pointed out that the shooter used the same style of gun as the terrorists in the San Bernardino, California, killing spree and the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 - a semiautomatic assault rifle. 'I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets,' she said to applause at the Democratic event in Ohio. Clinton acknowledged the contentious debate in American society over new firearm regulations that conservatives say are an infringement on the Second Amendment. But she said there are certain gun control measures that every American should be able to get behind. 'If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked,' she stated. Clinton also argued against the 'loopholes' that allow gun-buyers to evade criminal background checks online or at a gun show. 'And yes if you're too dangerous to get on a plane, your'e too dangerous to buy a gun in America,' she added. The Democratic presidential candidate brought up the other massacres that involved assault rifles and said, 'We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war. 'And that may not stop every shooting or every terrorist attack, but it will stop some and it will save lives, and it will protect our first responders.' Clinton also argued against the 'loopholes' that allow gun-buyers to evade criminal background checks online or at a gun show, even though that's not how the Orlando shooter obtained his firearms Contrary to Clinton's suggestion, Mateen was not under surveillance by the FBI when the attack occurred. Two previous investigations in 2013 and 2014 turned up short. And, as the president indicated earlier today, the shooter did not obtain the firearms through a 'loophole' - he bought them in a store, abiding by a mandated thee-day waiting period for at least one of them. To Clinton's point, however, even if Mateen had been on the terror watch list, he still could have purchased the guns used in the attack, the LA Times has asserted. This morning on CNN Clinton called for 'common sense gun safety reform,' putting her weight behind stalled congressional legislation that would prevent Americans on the no-fly list from purchasing weapons. The federal government must act, she said, so that states like Florida will be forced to fall in line. 'Florida doesn't regulate assault weapons or .50 caliber rifles or large-capacity ammunition magazines,' she declared. 'It doesn't require a permit to purchase a gun. It doesn't require any registration, whatsoever. 'It doesn't require gun owners to be licensed. And it doesn't require a permit to carry a shotgun or a rifle. It doesn't even require a background check prior to the transfer of a firearm between, you know, non-federally licensed parties.' She told CNN's Chris Cuomo, 'That's a lot of nots...I believe strongly that common sense gun safety reform across our country would make a difference.' 'We can't fall into the trap that is set up by the gun lobby that says, if you can't stop every shooting and every incident, you should not try to stop any,' she said. 'We did have an assault weapons ban for ten years. I think it should be reinstated.' Trump said Monday afternoon during a speech centered on the attack that Clinton's solution for terrorism is 'to ban guns' and 'abolish the Second Amendment.' 'They tried that in France, which has among the toughest gun laws in the world, and 130 were brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists in cold blood,' he said, per his prepared remarks. If citizens of the United States were disarmed that would leave 'only the bad guys and terrorists with guns,' he said. 'She wants to take away Americans guns, then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.' Alejandro Cao de Benos (pictured), 42, from Barcelona, is the only Westerner officially working for North Korea's secretive regime A Spaniard who is the only Westerner working for North Korea's secretive regime has called Kim Jong Un 'humble' and dubbed 'North Koreans the 'Latinos of Asia'. Alejandro Cao de Benos, 42, from Barcelona, is an honorary special delegate for the DPRK's Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Mr Cao de Benos, an IT consultant who became fascinated with North Korea as a teenager, visits the country up to twice a month. He claims he receives a warm reception when arrives in Pyongyang and insists there are many similarities between North Korea and Spain. He told The Local: 'I feel Catalan and Spanish by birth and North Korean by adoption. 'I would say that the North Koreans are the "Latinos" of Asia. Compared to my Japanese, Chinese or Thai friends, Koreans show their feelings, like hugging family members and friends, crying, laughing and being quite expressive.' Mr Cao de Benos set up the Korean Friendship Association in 2000. It has official representatives in 28 countries, including Spain, the US, Norway, Canada, Brazil, Russia, China, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. He has had exchanges with Kim Jong Il as well as his son, Kim Jong Un, and claimed they are both 'servants of the people' and 'very humble and hardworking'. 'While our leader Kim Jong Il had to pass the most difficult time in hard economic conditions and under pressure from the USA, he always had a smile on his face when he was among his citizens.' Mr Cao de Benos, who has close ties with the dictatorship, also insisted that the more senior government officials were the most humble. He first became interested in the politics of North Korea and Asian culture when he was 16, and got in touch with North Korean families that lived in Madrid. His parents were allegedly wary of his new hobby, especially as North Korea was crippled by famine at the time. He is an honorary special delegate for the DPRK's Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (pictured, second top left, at the 2014 wedding of a police sub-lieutenant in Kaesong, North Korea) Mr Cao de Benos, an IT consultant who became fascinated with North Korea as a teenager, visits the country up to twice a month. He is an Honorary journalist of the Republic (pictured his certificate) The 'Ardous March' crisis - in which as many as 3.5million of the nation's 22million people died - was brought on by economic mismanagement, natural disasters and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. Mr Cao de Benos revealed his parents feared he might be jailed for working in North Korea, and claims he has even been fired twice from other jobs for his occupation. In 2013 he acted as a spokesman for North Korea when the dictatorship made threats to the London School of Economics before a row over the BBCs controversial undercover film went public. The nation warned that the ten students who visited its capital with Panorama journalists would be exposed if the documentary were broadcast. In a letter to the BBC, the university then made plain its anger, arguing that the students had been put in danger and had not been properly informed about the risks. But the Corporation flatly rejected the demands not to broadcast, insisting that the students were told about the plans. The programme aired as planned last Monday and was watched by 5.1 million people. Mr Cao de Benos set up the Korean Friendship Association in 2000. It has official representatives in 28 countries, including Spain, the US, Norway, Canada, Brazil, Russia, China, Switzerland, Germany and Italy He has had exchanges with Kim Jong Il as well as his son, Kim Jong Un, and claimed they are both 'servants of the people' and 'very humble and hardworking' The Mail on Sunday has learned that several days before the row surfaced, the university was contacted by North Korean government aide, Mr Cao de Benos. The Spaniard hosts foreign delegations and acts as an intermediary for external parties wanting to invest, make documentaries or simply visit the country. The rest of the year he acts as a roving ambassador, making media appearances and effectively acting as a government spokesman. In an email to the BBC on April 9, he said he was in communication with LSE representatives regarding the abuse of the name of their institution and other students. He warned that broadcasting the programme would leave him no choice but to expose all the real story and data. A man called the police accusing his neighbor of stealing a six-pack of alcohol before he nearly decapitated him with a machete and buried his body under a pile of rotting deer carcasses, police said Monday in court documents. When police asked Bruce Akers, 57, of Limington, Maine, whether his neighbor Douglas Flint was alive, he shook his head 'no' and said he could bring them to the body. Akers, who has been charged with murder, told police: 'I actually would have called you guys right away but I wanted a few hours of freedom...and enjoy it.' Bruce Akers, 57, (pictured) accused his neighbor of stealing a six-pack of alcohol before he nearly decapitated him with a machete and buried his body under a pile of rotting deer carcasses, court records state Akers called the York County Sheriff's Department on June 9, accusing Flint of stealing several missing items from his home. The following day, both Flint's brother and his daughter Amanda Flint called authorities saying the 55-year-old had gone missing, pointing to worrying signs that he had left his phone and cigarettes at home. Family members told police they were suspicious of Akers, who often entered his neighbor's home without permission, according to an affidavit filed by a Maine State Police detective. Amanda also said her parents had previously returned home to find Akers bathing in their pool, and she instructed Flint to keep her children away from him because he 'creeped her out'. Police questioned Akers and asked whether Flint was alive, to which he shook his head 'no' and said he could bring them to Flint's body. He also said, 'The guy just wouldn't leave me alone,' before telling authorities: 'I actually would have called you guys right away but I wanted a few hours of freedom...and enjoy it. I can't say that I've enjoyed it that much.' Police questioned Akers and asked whether Flint was alive, to which he shook his head 'no' and said he could bring them to Flint's body Detectives also noticed he had several scratches on his hand, shins, back, arm and abdomen. After obtaining a search warrant, police enlisted the help of a cadaver dog and found Flint's body under rotting deer carcasses. A bloody machete was located in Aker's camper home, and an autopsy found Flint died from injuries to the head and neck with 'almost total decapitation', according to the affidavit. On Monday, Bruce Akers appeared in York County Superior Court, where he was charged with murder and held without bail. Akers sold four of his seven acres of land after a divorce, the Portland Press Herald reported. The land was foreclosed, and Flint and his late wife purchased the plot and built a small house in 2014. Akers and Flint lived on adjacent plots, sharing a dirt driveway. Akers was previously convicted for misdemeanors like theft, disorderly conduct, and assault. Orlando police are facing questions over why it took three hours for a SWAT team to storm the nightclub where ISIS fanatic Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 people. As the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history began to unfold, an off-duty police officer working at a gay nightclub exchanged gunfire with the suspect. But authorities chose to hold off on letting the tactical units enter Pulse nightclub, where more than 100 people were shot. Police Chief John Mina has also admitted that some of the victims may have been hit by officers' gun fire. Orlando Police Chief John Mina has admitted that some of the victims inside Pulse nightclub could have been shot by law enforcement as his department faces questions over why they told SWAT teams to wait for three hours after gunman Omar Mateen had opened fire Two bodies of victims arrive at the Orlando Medical Examiner's Office. They were among the 49 people killed in the horrific attack in the early hours of Sunday morning However he insisted it is a part of the investigation into the horrific attack. He said: 'I will say that is all part of the investigation. But I will say when our SWAT officers, about eight or nine officers, opened fire, their backdrop was a concrete wall. And they were being fired upon, so that is all part of the investigation.' The decisions made by Orlando police made them targets for scrutiny among experts in police tactics. They said the lessons learned from other mass shootings show that officers must get inside swiftly even at great risk to stop the threat and save lives. 'We live in a different world. And action beats inaction 100 per cent of the time,' said Chris Grollnek, an expert on active-shooter tactics and a retired police officer and SWAT team member. VICTIMS: 48 IDENTIFIED SO FAR On Sunday, Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34; Stanley Almodovar III, 23; Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20; Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22; Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36; Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22; Luis S. Vielma, 22 and Kimberly Morris, 37, were confirmed dead. In the early hours of Monday morning, Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30; Darryl Roman Burt II, 29, Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32; Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21; Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25; Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35; and Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50, were added to the list. Later on Monday morning the authorities announced more names of the 50 who died: Amanda Alvear, 25; Martin Benitez Torres, 33; Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37; Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26; Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35; Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25; Simon Fernandez, 31; Oscar Aracena-Montero, 26; Enrique L. Rios, Jr, 25; Miguel Angel Honorato, 30; Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40; Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32; Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19; Cory James Connell, 21; Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37; Luis Daniel Conde, 39; Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33; Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25; Jerald Arthur Wright, 31; Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25; and Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25. In the afternoon, authorities identified another nine victims: Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24; Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27; Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33; Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49; Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan, 24; Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32; Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28; Frank Hernandez, 27; Paul Terrell Henry, 41; Antonio Davon Brown, 29; Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24; and Akyra Monet Murray, 18. Advertisement Authorities in Orlando say the situation changed from an active-shooter scenario to a hostage situation once gunman Mateen made it into one of the bathrooms where club-goers were hiding. He first had a shootout with the off-duty officer at the club's entrance. Then two other officers arrived and the firing continued. Experts say there's a big difference between responding to a lone gunman and a shooter who has hostages. In active-shooter situations, police are now trained to respond immediately, even if only one or two officers are available to confront the suspect. In a hostage crisis, law enforcement generally tries to negotiate. Once in the restroom, Mateen called 911 and made statements pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said Monday. That's when the shooting stopped and hostage negotiators began talking with him, the chief said. 'We had a team of crisis negotiators that talked to the suspect, trying to get as much information as possible, what we could do to help resolve the situation... He wasn't asking a whole lot, and we were doing most of the asking,' Mina said. But Mateen soon began talking about explosives and bombs, leading Mina to decide about 5am to detonate an explosive on an exterior wall to prevent potentially greater loss of life. The explosives did not penetrate the wall completely, so an armored vehicle was used to punch a two-foot-by-three-foot hole in the wall about two feet from the ground. 'We knew there would be an imminent loss of life,' Mina said. Hostages started running out, as did Mateen, who was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members. It turned out there were no explosives. Police tactics changed after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, where the first officers to arrive exchanged fire with the gunmen but then stopped and waited for the SWAT team. That took 45 minutes. By then, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had killed 12 students and a teacher. Police forensic workers and a member of the FBI examine holes that were blown in the side of the nightclub during the gun battle with Mateen A medical worker examines the body of one of the victims of the horrific nightclub shooting. Orlando Police are now investigating whether delays in their decisions gave the gunman more time ORLANDO SHOOTINGS TIMELINE 2:02am - Sunday, June 12 - Suspect Omar Mateen tries to enter Pulse nightclub armed with assault rifle and and handgun and is spotted by a uniformed officer. The two exchange fire outside the club - but Mateen manages to enter the nightclub holding 320 people while still firing. The shooting then developed in a hostage situation. 2:09am - Pulse nightclub posts a message to their Facebook desperately telling those inside 'Everyone get out of pulse and keep running'. 5.05am - Three hours after the first shooting began, a SWAT team rushed inside to rescue hostages and confront Mateen. Members of the SWAT team detonated a controlled explosion to confuse Mateen and then nine officers exchange gunfire with terrorist - shooting him dead. SWAT officers manage to free 30 hostages who dashed to safety. 5:35am - Orlando police confirm that the shooter is dead. 8:00am - Officials with the FBI deem the incident to be 'domestic terrorism'. 9:40am - The shooter was officially identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie. 10:20am - At a press conference Mayor Buddy Dyer makes the announcement that 49 people have died and 53 injured in what is now the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States. 11.54am - US Senator Bill Nelson and California congressman Adam Schiff claimed Mateen had pledged his allegiance to ISIS Advertisement At the time, the standard police practice was to set up a perimeter, wait for SWAT officers and then go inside. Authorities began to realize that the delayed response gave suspects more time to kill. 'We can't just let him have free rein and continue to shoot,' said Ben Tisa, a former FBI agent and former SWAT team member. Experts point to other mass shootings where a delay in confronting the shooter probably gave the gunman time to maneuver and attack. A mass shooting in 1984 at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, offered one of the earliest lessons, with 21 people being killed and 19 wounded before a SWAT team killed the gunman about 45 minutes later. Incorrect or incomplete information is typical during police emergencies. And the gravity of the decisions is not lost on SWAT teams and their commanders. Civilian lives are at risk, along with those of police officers who are often outgunned by suspects. Authorities said the face-off with gunman Omar Mateen (left and right) started as an active-shooter situation, but quickly changed into a hostage crisis when he entered a toilet where revelers were hiding 'You have split seconds,' said Thor Eells, commander of the Colorado Springs Police Department and chairman of the board of the National Tactical Officers Association. Almost immediately after the shooting began, the nightclub posted a note on its Facebook page telling people to get out and 'keep running.' Grollnek, a consultant who conducts active-shooter training for law enforcement, said that's another lesson from other mass shootings: civilians can't expect to stay safe by heeding the old advice to hide or shelter in place. 'The problem is we're failing to evolve by learning the lesson that hiding does not work,' he said. 'Running works. Everyone who escapes to tell their story says, "I ran away. I heard a noise on my left, and I went to my right and I got out".'' But Grollneck reserved his anger for the police commanders in Florida who didn't allow SWAT team members to enter until several hours after the shooter began the attack. 'How have we failed so poorly that we did not learn our lesson... when we see SWAT teams respond and not making entry creates victims,' he said. 'Period. End of story.' A soldier stands guard outside the Pulse nightclub, where a gunman opened fire in the early hours of Sunday morning Witnesses said he fired relentlessly - 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. Pictured above, the damaged rear wall of the nightclub is seen Forensic tents are set up around the nightclub as authorities begin their investigation into the massacre A worker has found a massive 22lb lump of butter dating back 2,000 years buried in an Irish bog - which is still edible. Jack Conway, a turf cutter from Maghera, northern Ireland, discovered the prehistoric dairy product which 'smelled like cheese' while working on Emlagh bog last week. The butter may have been buried to preserve it, but experts claimed it could have been an offering to the gods so that they might keep that area safe. Jack Conway, a turf cutter from Maghera, northern Ireland, discovered the prehistoric dairy product (pictured), which 'smelled like cheese', while working on Emlagh bog last week It was unearthed in the Drakerath area where the boundaries of three ancient baronies met. Andy Halpin, assistant keeper in the museum's Irish Antiquities Division, told The Irish Times: 'These bogs in those times were inaccessible, mysterious places. 'It is at the juncture of three separate kingdoms, and politically it was like a no-man's-land - that is where it all hangs together.' He added: 'Theoretically the stuff is still edible - but we wouldn't say it's advisable.' Bog butter was often used to preserve butter but experts claimed it could have been buried as an offering to the gods - so that they might keep that area safe (From left Savina Donohoe, curator of Cavan County Museum, Jack Conway, and Andy Halpin, assistant keeper, Irish Antiquities Division) Mr Conway found the butter 12 feet below the ground and reported it to Cavan County Museum It was then transferred to the National Museum to be carbon dated. WHAT IS BOG BUTTER? Butter that has been buried in peat is often referred to as 'bog butter'. The earliest known examples date back almost 2,000 years, but there are records of people burying butter as recently as the 1800s. Burying the butter was a good method of preserving it - as butter made in ancient times without salt expired quickly. The low oxygen conditions of the bog could help preserve it. Advertisement Savina Donohoe, curator of Cavan County Museum, told UTV Ireland: 'It did smell like butter.' 'After I had held it in my hands, my hands really did smell of butter. She added: 'There was even a smell of butter in the room it was in.' There was no discovery of a cover over the bog butter, which led Mr Halpin to suggest the artefact was possibly not intended to be dug up. Similar discoveries are said to be common in Scotland and Ireland. Such finds are common in Ireland and Scotland. China has called for more young men to become donors to help fill sperm banks amid a shortage of volunteers. Chinese government officials want men aged between 20 and 45 to help ease the crisis and are using cash or the promise of a new iPhone as an incentive. With China now allowing more couples to have a second child there are fears that the problem of sperm bank shortages could become even more acute. China has called for more young men to become donors to help fill sperm banks amid a shortage of volunteers (file picture) According to the New York Times, men are being targeted via social media with messages from computer-game characters and offers of cash. The newspaper said China has an ageing populating and diminishing workforce and state-run media have been urging people to 'show your compassion' by donating. A study also revealed that nearly 50 per cent of people who do offer to donate are 'screened out'. Last year, it was revealed how two Chinese sperm banks were using the lure of a new iPhone to entice potential donors. Renji Hospital, in Shanghai, and a sperm bank in Wuhan, had launched an appeal using the WeChat messaging service, the South Morning China Post reported. The requirements were that men had to be in their early 20s to mid 40s, have a degree, be at least 5.4ft tall and have no genetic diseases. Mateen was killed in a shootout with police on Saturday after killing 49 and injuring dozens more after opening fire on a gay nightclub When he was picked up at the end of the day, another student says he saw Mateen's father slap in across the face in front of the school Another student says that Mateen went on to taunt others on the bus by making plane sounds While the nation watched in horror as two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, the future Orlando gunman was openly cheering, former classmates say. Omar Mateen, 29, was shot dead in a gunfight with police Saturday night after opening fire inside an Orlando gay nightclub, killing 49 people and injuring dozens more. Just hours after the incident, former classmates of the gunman started talking about the massacre in a private Facebook group, going over their memories of Mateen to see if there were any clues of the man who he would become. Scroll down for video Former classmates of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen (left) say he started cheering in class when the September 11, 2001 attacks happened. Mateen, 29, was a sophomore in high school at the time One incident in particular stuck out to at least three of the former students, and that was the bizarre way that Mateen allegedly cheered on the terrorists during the September 11, 2001 attacks. At the time of the attacks, Mateen was a sophomore in high school, attending a Spectrum Alternative School, a school for students with poor grades or behavioral issues. The Washington Post reports that Mateen's class was watching broadcast video of the first plane hitting one of the towers that morning when the second plane hit on live TV. After the second plane hit, a former classmate recalls that Mateen 'stood up in class and...started jumping up-and-down cheering on the terrorist'. One classmate recalls that Mateen was suspended or expelled from the school after his behavior on 9/11. Above, the alternative school in Stuart, Florida that Mateen attended at the time of the attacks 'Mateen was smiling. It was almost like surreal how happy he was about what happened to us,' the student recalls. Mateen was smiling. It was almost surreal how happy he was about what happened to us. The former student, who spoke anonymously to the Post for fear of his business clients learning that he attended an alternative school, said Mateen also claimed that Osama bin Laden was his uncle. Another former classmate told the Post that Mateen started acting out after the two towers were hit, and that he was sent to the dean's office with Mateen for misbehaving. 'I was sleeping in class and woke up to see people jumping off buildings, so I started swearing and they sent me up,' the former student said. 'But Omar was saying some really rude stuff. Stuff like, "That's what America deserves." That kind of thing. It wasn't right.' Robert Zirkle, who was a freshman at Martin County High School at the time but who rode the same bus as Mateen, says that Mateen began taunting other students on the ride by making plane noises. Zirkle says he believes Mateen was suspended or expelled from his school shortly after 9/11. On the day of 9/11 itself, another student recalls seeing Mateen's father pick him up from school and slap him across the face in public. 'They had to escort him out of the school,' Zirkle said. 'Other kids were trying to fight him. A couple days after, they had to take him off the bus.' 'A few of my friends wanted to fight him because he kept doing it and saying crazy things,' he added. 'It's weird. He was totally cool before 9/11, and then something changed.' Mateen's lasting fascination with terrorists was obvious when he called 911 from inside the Pulse nightclub on Sunday. FBI Director James Comey saidin a statement on Monday that the shooter was involved in precisely three calls to a 911 dispatcher at approximately 2:30am. Comey said: 'He (Mateen) called and hung up. He called again and spoke with the dispatcher and hung up. 'And the dispatcher called him back and they spoke briefly. 'During the calls he said he was doing this for the leader of ISIS, who he named, and pledged loyalty to. But he also appeared to claim solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings and solidarity with the Florida man who died as a suicideb bomber in Syria for Al-Nusra Front - a group in conflict with the so-called Islamic State. A distraught family from Oklahoma is warning about the dangers of swimming in warm waters this summer after their 24-year-old daughter died from a rare brain eating amoeba. Elizabeth Knight, a mother-of-two, died last August 10, after she caught a rare infection while swimming in a Lake Murray, Oklahoma, near the Texas border. The primary amebic meningoencephalitis infection (PAM) was caused after a deadly bacteria called Naegleria fowleri, which can be found in warm water, got into her system through her nose. Scroll down for video Elizabeth Knight (left and right) a mother-of-two, died last August 10, after she caught a rare infection while swimming in a lake near the Texas border She had been swimming in Lake Murray, Oklahoma, on the border of Texas. The infection was caused after a deadly bacteria called Naegleria fowleri, that can live in water, got into her system through her nose Nearly a year later, her family are raising awareness of the dangers, with father Mike McKown telling Fox News 6: 'There's no doubt in our mind that she would want us to do everything we could to prevent this from happening to another family.' McKown began an awareness campaign last year with a tribute page via Meningitis.org and a Facebook page called Beth Smiles Amoeba Awareness. He writes: 'The medical community must be aware of this as a cause of meningitis, especially in the summer months in the lower states where the water temperature in the lakes and rivers reach 80 degrees. 'Since this is not a mandatory reportable disease in all states, the statistics can not be accurate as to the number of cases of meningitis that are due to this amoeba. 'There is no way to determine the number of cases that are misdiagnosed as bacterial or viral meningitis instead of PAM. 'We must make the medical community aware of this cause of meningitis. It is 99 per cent fatal but it can be 100 per cent preventable if the public is made aware.' Mother Alonie McKown teared up as she recalled: 'Her roommate had said that she woke up stumbling through the house. She was incoherent' Nearly a year later, a family are raising awareness of the dangers A few days after she had gone swimming, her boyfriend Eric Bowers (right) found her unable to speak with the loss of her motor skills The Michigan native had complained of a severe headache not long after swimming in Lake Murray with her children, aged three and five at the time last August. Doctors saw her the following day and said she had a migraine and was sent home. But the next afternoon her boyfriend found her unable to speak with the loss of her motor skills. After being taken to hospital she continued to act erratically and boyfriend Eric Bowers told M-Live at the time: 'She was completely out of her mind. It's probably one of the saddest things I'm ever going to go through, watching that. 'Doctors didn't know what to do for a good 16 hours.' She was transported by medical helicopter to an Oklahoma City hospital, where she was put on life support and later died. It was only then that doctors discovered she had contracted a brain-eating amoeba. Naegleria fowleri infections are rare. In the 10 years from 2006 to 2015, 37 infections were reported in the U.S, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those cases, 33 people were infected by contaminated recreational water, three people were infected after performing nasal irrigation using contaminated tap water, and one person was infected by contaminated tap water used on a backyard slip-n-slide. A man was arrested in the mysterious death of a victim who was found decapitated in a pickup truck parked at a boat ramp in Texas. Police said they were able to identify the victim, Jubal Alexander, 24, through fingerprints after his body was found near Angleton on May 3 in Brazoria County, Texas, according to ABC13. Twenty-four-year-old Zachary Foyt was arrested in the case, the Brazoria County Sheriff's Office announced on Monday. Twenty-four-year-old Zachary Foyt (left) was arrested in the mysterious death of Jubal Alexander (right), 24, who was found decapitated in a pickup truck parked at a boat ramp in Texas Police said they were able to identify Alexander through fingerprints after his body was found in a blue Chevrolet pickup truck (pictured) on May 3. After an extensive search Alexander's head was never located Investigators told the station that Foyt fled to Lakewood, Colorado, after the murder. The sheriff said there's no indication that Foyt and Alexander knew each other and there was no obvious motive. They told ABC that Foyt may have decapitated the body to destroy evidence. Police arrested Foyt in Colorado after being tipped off by a witness that he could be involved with Alexander's death. His bail is set at $5 million. Brazoria County Sheriff's Capt Chris Kincheloe told CBS that the cause of death has not yet been determined. And it's unclear if Alexander was alive or dead when he was decapitated. Alexander's headless body was found in a pickup truck that was parked at the Austin Bayou Boat Ramp. The sheriff's office said someone reported seeing what appeared to be a dead person in a blue Chevrolet pickup truck. After an extensive search Alexander's head was never located. Authorities say the victim was last heard from on April 27. Alexander worked as a pipe cutter for a plant in the area, according to KHOU 11. Investigators said he worked the overnight shift, and was homeless, so he would sleep in his truck during the day. Brazoria County Sheriff's Capt Chris Kincheloe said the cause of death has not yet been determined. And it's unclear if Alexander was alive or dead when he was decapitated. Authorities said Alexander (pictured) was last heard from on April 27 One day after describing his son as a loving father who wasn't radicalized, the father the Orlando gunman says he won't 'miss anything about him'. In an interview at his home in Port St. Lucie, Florida on Monday, Seddique Mateen pulled a 180, saying what his son did was wrong and that he is just as outraged as the rest of the world. 'I apologize for what my son did,' Seddique said, according to the New York Post. 'I am as sad and mad as you guys are.' 'I dont miss anything about him,' he added. 'What he did was against humanity.' Scroll down for video Seddique Mateen says he won't 'miss anything' about his son, the man who shot dead 49 people in an Orlando nightclub this past weekend This is quite a turn from a video Seddique posted online just hours before, in which he said what his son did was wrong, but only because it's god's job to punish homosexuals in the after life. In the video posted on Facebook early this morning, Seddique Mateen said his 29-year-old son, Omar Mateen, shouldnt have gone on the killing spree because God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality, according to a translation by the Washington Post. In an earlier interview, he said there was no sign of any trouble when he saw his son just hours before the mass shooting, and he denied suggestions his son was radicalized or an ISIS sympathizer. In the Facebook video, posted shortly after midnight, Seddique Mateen, standing in front of Afghanistan's national flag, expressed shock that his good son was responsible for the worst mass shooting in U.S. history and said he was saddened by the rampage. Speaking in Dari, he said: I am deeply saddened and announce this to the people of America. He said he doesn't know why his son launched the attack. The video ended with him expressing disbelief that his son took it upon himself to seek retribution against the gay community, the Washington Post reported. God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. This is not for the servants, he said, according to the translation. Orlando police said officers shot and killed Omar Mateen when a SWAT team stormed the nightclub Authorities at the home of Seddique Mateen, the father of Omar Mateen, in Port St. Lucie, Florida Florida home of Seddique. On Sunday, cops and federal agents were seen entering the property as they continue their investigation into the worst mass shooting in American history In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen said his son was enraged after seeing two men kissing in front of his wife and son during a visit to Miami a couple of months ago. Later, in his first on-camera interview, Seddique Mateen, who moved to the U.S. from Afghanistan, told ABC News his son wasn't radicalized or a sympathizer of ISIS, and was a loving and caring husband and father. Investigators havent revealed a motive for the massacre, but Omar Mateen was involved in three calls with a 911 from inside Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning during which pledged allegiance to ISIS and claimed solidarity with the Boston Bombers and the Florida man who became a suicide bomber for Al-Nusra Front in Syria - a group in direct conflict with ISIS. 'The Boston bombers and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by ISIS, which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives', Comey concluded. Seddique Mateen, who lives in Fort Pierce, Florida, revealed he saw his son at 3pm on Saturday, around 12 hours before the mass shooting started. He came in here, paid respect and he went, like around 3 o clock. Everything was normal, he said. Seddique Mateen speaks to ABC News after his son, Omar, killed at least 49 people in an Orlando nightclub. Seddique Mateen revealed he saw his son at 3pm on Saturday, around 12 hours before the mass shooting A photo from Facebook shows Seddique Mateen wearing Army fatigues while saluting and holding a flag Seddique Mateen said he was stunned and saddened when he received a phone in the middle of the night and learned his son was responsible for the worst mass shooting in American history. He said he had no idea his son was planning the attack and he would have done something to stop it if he had. Seddique Mateen, a political activist who is running for president of Afghanistan and has expressed gratitude towards the Afghan Taliban in videos posted online, said his son was not radicalized, adding: He wasnt because he had no beard, and he was just a regular person going to work and coming back and taking care of his wife and his kids. The father said he has no idea why the attack occurred and he didnt notice anything irregular in his sons behavior. I couldnt believe that was my son because my son got an education, hes born in the United States in New York and he finished high school here in Florida, and he got his associate degree in criminal justice, he told ABC News. He had a lot of love and care, and I couldnt believe that this is what he was doing. And if he was alive I would ask him one question: Why? Mass shooter Omar Mateens father, Seddique Mateen, visited Congress, the State Department and met political leaders during a trip to Washington, D.C., in April Seddique Mateen hosts the Durand Jirga Show on a channel called Payam-e-Afghan, which broadcasts from California Armed with a .223-caliber AR-15-type rifle and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun legally purchased within the last week, Omar Mateen began shooting his victims inside and outside the nightclub around 2am on Sunday. He engaged in a gun battle with an off-duty police officer who was working security at Pulse, and then went deeper into the nightclub. He took hostages and continued to kill his victims until police raided the bar at 5am in order to rescue the remaining survivors. In the ensuing gun battle a SWAT team rescued 30 hostages and shot and killed Omar Mateen, who was also from Fort Pierce in central Florida, said Orlando police. Last April, Seddique Mateen, who regularly writes open letters to President Barack Obama, visited Congress, the State Department and political leaders during a trip to Washington, D.C. Seddique Mateen has expressed gratitude towards the Afghan Taliban in videos posted on the internet Seddique Mateen posts open letters to President Barack Obama on Facebook, primarily focusing on Pakistan and Afghanistan He hosts his own show, called the Durand Jirga Show, which is broadcast from California, where he discusses politics in the Dari language. In videos posted online, he has expressed gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government. Posts include topics such as 'Rise Afghan people against Pakistan' and 'Intelligent service and Military of Pakistan real Enemy of the USA (sic)'. In one video the elder Mateen holds up a sign that reads: 'ISI Pakistan and Military is Destroying 14 years of US work in Afghanistan to cut AID to killers'. And in another, according to the Washington Post, he tells the camera: 'Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up. Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon.' Only hours before the massacre in Orlando, Seddique posted a video called Provisional Government of Afghanistan on a Facebook page, which he describes as 'social activity for communities to develop a good relationship'. The only person to escape from his hiding place in an Orlando gay club bathroom has revealed how crazed gunman Omar Mateen laughed as he slaughtered his victims. Norman Casiano, 26, was shot in the back four times by the shooter, but he managed to climb over his friends' dead bodies to safety. Just one day after the attack at Pulse nightclub, Casiano has been released from hospital and has spoken of his terrifying ordeal. Scroll down for video Norman Casiano survived just by crawling over his friend's bodies and made it out with four gunshot wounds to his back Pictured: US citizen Omar Mateen, 29, the suspected Islamic extremist who slaughtered at least 49 people inside a gay club in Orlando early Sunday morning Mateen was born in New York and grew up in Florida. Pictured: the scene outside Pulse in Orlando on Sunday morning When he heard the first two gunshots, he threw himself to the ground and 'military style crawled' to the bathroom. Casiano packed into a bathroom staff with other terrified party-goers, where they huddled together as the gunshots got closer. 'I started crying and at that point a gentleman stumbles into the bathroom, collapses in front of the stall door and he's bleeding everywhere and he's begging to come inside the stall,' he told Local 10 News. But the man couldn't fit underneath the door and the stall was so packed that they couldn't get it open. Mateen entered and shot the man one last time. 'The scary part was that he didn't say anything, and what's scarier than that when he shot the boy that was already shot, he laughed,' an emotional Casiano said. 'And as he's laughing as he fires through the whole front of the stall. That's when I got my first wound.' They started pleading for their lives, but this only seemed to spur the gunman on, who put his gun over the top of the stall and sprayed bullets towards them before leaving the room. Mateen killed as many as 30 people inside the bathroom, but Casiano crawled over his friend's bodies at made it out with four gunshot wounds. Deyni Ventura, a local pastor, said that Casiano had a miraculous escape. Survivor: Deyni Ventura told how Casiano had escaped with four bullet wounds from the bathroom of the club, where a laughing Omar Mateen had killed as many as 30 crammed into the tiny space 'He was laughing fanatically as he sprayed people with the gun,' Casiano told her. 'He was going "ha, ha, ha" as he shot them.' She told DailyMail.com: 'He survived. He was in the bathroom stall with 30 other people. Those other 30 people are deceased. 'God was definitely with Norman on this day, his 26th birthday. 'He cannot understand how he got out. He had to crawl over the bodies of his best female friend and his male friend to get to safety.' When he emerged - through the same hole in the wall which Mateen was then to crawl through and die in a hail of gunfire - he was confronted by armed police. 'He said, 'I'm not the shooter, I'm a victim, I'm a victim' and he put his hands up in the air and then they went to him,' Ventura said. The hole in the wall was crawled through later by Mateen himself as he tried to escape, leaving four or five hostages in it, police said. Three forensic investigators are pictured above working the crime scene as the windows at the nightclub are completely broken out Police forensic investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting, as bodies are removed at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016 Investigators from the office of the medical examiner investigate on the west side of Pulse nightclub, as bullet holes and large holes can be found throughout the building Grim task: Law enforcement officials have erected forensic tents at the Pulse gay nightclub where Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people on June 13 in Orlando, Florida Witness: David Ward (left) watched the carnage unfold from his home which neighbors the club (right) His dramatic account emerged as an eyewitness told how club goers fleeing the scene of Mateen's massacre turned and ran back into the massacre to find missing friends after the gunman had initially opened fire. The disclosure raises the possibility that some of those who doubled back, screaming friends' names, are among the dead. Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Online, eyewitness David Ward, 50, described the scene of 'bedlam' that unfolded in the early hours of Sunday morning leaving 49 dead and 53 wounded some of them critically. PULSE KILLER 'SHOT DEAD AS HE EMERGED THROUGH HOLE IN WALL' Police officers crashed an armoured vehicle into a wall of US nightclub Pulse in a desperate bid to save hostages. Gunman Mateen was killed when he crawled through the wall firing his weapons at waiting officers. John Mina, chief of police at the City of Orlando Police Department, told how his officers handled the tense standoff with the terrorist who carried out the worst mass shooting in US history. Mateen shot some of his initial victims at the Orlando club before taking the rest hostage. He barricaded himself in a toilet with around four or five hostages and called 911. FBI Director James Comey added in a statement on Monday that the shooter was involved in precisely three calls to a 911 dispatcher at approximately 2:30am. Comey said: 'He (Mateen) called and hung up. He called again and spoke with the dispatcher and hung up. 'And the dispatcher called him back and they spoke briefly. 'During the calls he said he was doing this for the leader of ISIS, who he named, and pledged loyalty to. But he also appeared to claim solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombings and solidarity with the Florida man who died as a suicideb bomber in Syria for Al-Nusra Front - a group in conflict with the so-called Islamic State. 'The Boston bombers and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by ISIS, which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives', Comey concluded. Police chiefs chose to act when he boasted to the 911 call handler about bomb vests, explosives and said he would murder more young people. Officers first laid explosives on the wall to create a space which those held hostage could escape through. Officers then drove the vehicle at speed crashing into the wall when the first plan failed. Mateen then wriggled out of the hole and fired before he was shot down. Police said the action saved the lives of dozens of people. Advertisement Terrified party-goers ran from the back of the club, rushing past his home and surrounding landscaping. Mr Ward said: 'A number of people stopped, turned back and went back because they realized that the friends they had gone with were not with them. 'So a number of them went back, screaming their names.' Ward, a life settlements account manager, was woken around 2am by two shots. He recalled: 'I thought at the time they were maybe car backfires.' He explained that the lot behind his home is used as overflow valet parking for Pulse and from Wednesday through to Saturday, it was often the scene of some commotion. He said: 'I stepped out and saw some people exiting from the back of the club. I went into the street and then the entire volley of automatic fire started.' What followed, he said, was 'bedlam' with terrified club goers fleeing down the street and into the undergrowth. He said: 'For the next three hours we were watching things unfold. Most of the staging area was in the lot [behind my house]. A SWAT team arrived and pretty much everything was locked down. 'There were people behind dumpsters, people pretty much everywhere.' Ward watched as the harrowing scenes unfolded. He said: 'They were doing triage on the injured, they were dragging victims with makeshift, I wouldn't even call them gurneys, it was almost like blankets, or anything like tarp. 'They just literally dragged them across the street into this lot and put them on pick up trucks and headed to the hospital.' As law enforcement tried to gain control and understand what was going on, he continued: 'The police at that point were looking through every vehicle, I guess to see if there were any problems with any of those. 'Some of them they asked to get on the ground at gunpoint, I guess to assess whether or not they were a threat or simply a victim.' Ward watched as police drove a 'huge battering ram truck' into position. He said: 'At close to 5am they moved it, positioned it across the street, rotated it towards the building and punched a hole in the wall. 'We had heard that there was a bomb potentially on or strapped to the shooter or in the facility. 'Right about five o'clock I was sitting with my girls on the couch and that detonated. 'We found out later it was a controlled explosion and they were trying to breach the walls but it literally shook the walls it was that powerful.' Ward stepped out onto his balcony to witness SWAT teams yelling 'Go, go, go,' as they breached the club. Chicago news anchor Robin Baumgarten finally met the doppelganger dozens of viewers have long told her she had. The three-time Emmy Award winner and WGN Morning News presenter skyped her lookalike, Whitney Martin, during Friday's show. Many people had called in to report the similarities between the two - though Baumgarten had mixed feelings about the meeting. 'What person doesn't want to hear there's a younger version of her?' she sarcastically commented. Separated at birth?: Chicago news anchor Robin Baumgarten (left) finally met the doppelganger dozens of viewers have long told her she had - Whitney Martin of Rockford, Illinois (right) 'What person doesn't want to hear there's a younger version of her?' Robin Baumgarten (right) sarcastically said of Whitney Martin (left) However Baumgarten quickly came around and congratulated Martin on her career, joking she was the 'nicer version' of herself. Martin started at CBS in Rockford as an intern. She now works as the morning news anchor. 'You're on your way up in your career and I'm just ready to ride it out,' Baumgarten said. 'You seem delightful.' Baumgarten also had some advice for Martin on how not to become too bitter or jaded working in the industry. 'It's great to see you. Keep up the smiling. Don't let the business get to you,' she said. Martin replied saying that Baumgarten has excellent dress sense, after the first photo of the women surfaced with both appearing to be wearing the same dress. Many people had called in to report the similarities between the two - though Baumgarten initially had mixed feelings about the meeting In 2004, Robin became the main anchor of WGN Morning News, from 5.30am to 9am. When the show expanded in 2013, she extended her duties again to cover the 6am to 10am hours, according to WGN. Robin received a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is a proud Illini alumna. She is a lifelong Chicagoan, born and raised in South suburban Burbank, and has two daughters. Martin joined the 23 News Team in March 2007 and has since covered news on both sides of the camera as a photographer and reporter, according to CBS. Martin was promoted to the anchor chair in 2010 and was recently awarded a Silver Dome Award for 'Best TV Reporter' in the state. She was also recognized by the Illinois Broadcasters Association as one of the 'Best Photographers' and 'Best Anchors' in the market and was honored by the Associated Press for her feature writing. The mother of the Orlando gunman, who slaughtered 49 people in a nightclub on Sunday, was once arrested for attacking his father. Omar Mateens mother Shahla Mateen was charged with battery after attacking her husband Seddique Mir Mateen during an argument in 2002, RadarOnline reports. The 59-year-old was taken into police custody after the incident on December 7. It is not known what motivated the assault, but a police officer wrote in the arrest affidavit that the couple had been arguing and then, Shahla pulled at her husbands hair and pinched his left arm. Scroll down for video Shahla Mateen, left, the mother of the Orlando gunman Omar Mateen , was once arrested for attacking his father Seddique Mir Mateen, right Omar Maeen killed 49 people in an attack on the Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Saturday morning Victim Seddique told me that both his wife and he had been arguing and when he went to brush his teeth, his wife, the above defendant, started cussing at him and pulled his hair along with pinching his left bicep, the officer wrote. Shahla Mateens attack on her husband left him with a visible red mark on his left bicep consistent with being pinched, the officer added. The couples children were asleep at the time, according to court documents. Omar was not living in the home, RadarOnline reports. They had been married for 20 years when the incident occurred. The couple had been married for 20 years at the time of the incident in 2002. Pictured above, their current home in Port Saint Lucie, Florida Shahla was arrested at the scene without incident and booked at the Martin County Jail with bond set at $5,000, which she later posted. The case was ultimately dismissed after her husband dropped the charges. Wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, Omar Mateen, 29, shot dead 49 people and wounded at least 53 more when he opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning. During the three-hour shooting rampage and hostage siege, Mateen who was born in New York to Afghan parents - called 911 to declare his allegiance to ISIS. Mateen, of Port St Lucie, Florida, reportedly laughed as he sprayed bullets into the crowded club before he was shot dead by a SWAT several hours after launching the attack with legally bought weapons. More details of the bloodbath have emerged on Monday with Orlando Police Chief John Mina saying Mateen had remained cool and calm during his phone calls with police negotiators. But Mina said he decided to send the SWAT team in and bash through a wall after Mateen holed up with hostages in a bathroom and began to talk about bombs and an explosive vest. Mateen, 29, shot dead 49 people and wounded at least 53 more when he opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning. Above, FBI agents investigate at the scene Mateen reportedly laughed as he sprayed bullets into the crowded club (pictured after the attack) before he was shot dead by a SWAT several hours On Sunday, the gunmans father claimed religion was not a factor in the attack and revealed his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said it may have been connected to the attack. We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident, he said. We arent aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country. On Monday, Seddique Mir Mateen, 59, told reporters that the massacre was the act of a terrorist. I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are. He would not go into details about any religious or political views his son held, saying he didnt know. Asked whether he missed his son, he said: I dont miss anything about him. What he did was against humanity. Roger Stone, an informal advisor to Donald Trump's campaign, is publicly suggesting that longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin could be a 'Saudi spy' and is encouraging the candidate to raise the issue. 'She has a very troubling past,' Stone told Breitbart News Daily. 'She comes out of nowhere. She seems to have an enormous amount of cash, even prior to the time that she goes to work for Hillary,' he added. 'So we have to ask: Do we have a Saudi spy in our midst? Do we have a terrorist agent?' he asked. Stone didn't offer any evidence for Abedin's supposed terror ties or any proof of spying. He pointed to press reports about Abedin's family history and time living in Saudi Arabia as a child. In urging Trump to raise the issue, Stone, who has participated in bare-knuckled politics since Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign, alluded to the Orlando killings that have already shaken up the 2016 race. Secret agent? Donald Trump advisor Roger Stone is asking whether longtime Hillary Clinton (left) aide Huma Abedin (right) is a 'Saudi spy' or a 'terrorist agent' 'I also think that now that Islamic terrorism is going to be front and center, there's going to be a new focus on whether this administration, the administration of Hillary Clinton at State was permeated at the highest levels by Saudi intelligence and others who are not loyal Americans,' Stone said. 'I speak specifically of Huma Abedin, the right-hand woman, the now vice-chairman or co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.' Stone urged Trump to start raising the issue. 'The only way its going to cross over into the mainstream, the only way people are going to focus on it is if Trump himself raises the question,' he said. 'It's not just Huma. It's her mother and her father who are, who are hardcore Islamic ideologues,' he said. There aren't any comments in the public record of Huma Abedin making hardcore Islamic ideological statements. She has offered very few pronouncements over her career as a behind-the-scenes operative, although she did weigh in on Twitter after Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said a Muslim shouldn't be in charge of the country. 'You can be a proud American, a proud Muslim, and proudly serve this great country. Pride versus prejudice,' Abedin tweeted in response to the comment. Advisor Roger Stone wants Donald Trump to start raising the issue of Abedin's family ties Stone has participated in bare-knuckled politics since Richard Nixon's reelection 'I'm not talking about her personal relationship at this point I'm talking about her political relationship,' Stone continued. Stone said he thought Abedin would be a 'major issue' in the campaign. She is married to ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner, who quit Congress after a sexting scandal. She appears frequently in the thousands of emails Clinton handed over to the State Department after it was revealed she was using a personal account and a home server while serving as secretary of state. 'Who is this woman? Where did she come from? I think that is going to be a major major issue and what is her relationship with Hillary Clinton? I think this all gets adjudicated in this campaign,' Stone said. Stone alluded to press reports including a February Vanity Fair article that examined her late father, Syed Zainul Abedin's ties to the Institute of Minority Muslim Affairs, a think tank, and served as editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. National review columnist Andrew McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney, claims the publication is a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood. The article claimed that the Abedin family moved to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, when Abedin was two with the backing of Abdullah Omar Nasseef, president of King Abdulaziz University. McCarthy in 2012 called Nasseef a 'major Muslim Brotherhood figure involved in the financing of al-Qaeda.' Abedin got her start working for Clinton when the candidate was first lady. She later followed her to the Senate and the State Department Former Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann wrote the State Department about Abedin's alleged ties, and was rebuked my many prominent Democrats and Republicans, including Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona. 'Put simply, Huma represents what is best about America: the daughter of immigrants, who has risen to the highest levels of our government on the basis of her substantial personal merit and her abiding commitment to the American ideals that she embodies so fully,' McCain said then. He added: 'I am proud to know Huma and to call her my friend.' Stone also raised the accusations in a post on Breitbart. 'Chic gal pal? Mild mannered politicians wife? Harmless clotheshorse? Saudi plant? Innocent aide? Handler?' he asked. Abedin was born in Kalamazoo Michigan, the child of two academics. Her father was born in New Delhi, India, while her mother was from Pakistan. She attended George Washington University and was a board member of a Muslim students association. Three other people, with links to Abballa, were arrested on Tuesday Hit list of 'rappers, journalists, police and public figures' on his computer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider killed at home near Paris An ISIS militant murdered a police commander and his wife at their home near Paris before being shot dead by officers who rescued the couple's three-year-old boy unharmed. After killing the couple Larossi Abballa, 25, recorded a 12 minute monologue to camera while in the couple's house in Magnanville and posted the video on Facebook Live. In the video, Abballa says: 'We will come and find you the way I have found this policemen at his house.' He also hinted at an ISIS attack on the Euro 2016 football tournament, saying: We're keeping another surprise for the Euros but I wont say anything more.' And, chillingly, he also hinted that the son of his victims was also in danger, saying: 'I don't know what I'm going to do with the boy.' Scroll down for video After killing Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his partner, and while holding their three-year-old son hostage, Abballa (pictured) recorded a 12 minute rant to camera and posted the video online Detectives believe Jean-Baptiste Salvaing (left) was killed first and then his wife Jessica Schneider (left) and the boy witnessed both killings He continued: '(President) Hollande you are ruthless but we are also heartlessI was ruthless just now towards this policeman and his wife. Police later raided Abballa's home and found a hit list on his computer which contained six names. Prosecutor Francois Molins said they included 'rappers, journalists, police officers and public personalities'. During Abballa's video diatribe he expressed particular hatred for journalists Bernard de La Villardiere, Audrey Pulvar, Mohamed Sifaoui and Lea Salame, political scientist Gilles Kepel and rapper Booba. Booba is of Senegalese Muslim origin and was, ironically, accused of anti-Semitism in 2014 for the lyrics of a song which appeared to praise Mohammed Merah, a lone wolf who killed seven people, including a rabbi and three Jewish children in Toulouse in 2012. Abballa called on Muslims to kill journalists and police officers and added: Target their fear. He stabbed Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, 42, nine times in the stomach at his home in the Yvelines department, north west of Paris, shortly after 8.30pm on Monday. After a three-hour stand-off elite Raid commandos entered the building, where they killed Abballa. Inside the house, they found the lifeless body of Mr Salvaing's wife, Jessica Schneider, who was an administrator who worked for the police force in Mantes-la-Jolie. The only survivor was the couple's three-year-old son, who was 'extremely shocked but otherwise unharmed'. Heavily armed police commandos at the scene, where Abballa was gunned down after killing Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his wife The killer was 25-year-old Larossi Abballa (pictured), who grew up in Mantes-la-Jolie and had a criminal record dating back to 2011 Abballa, pictured here on Twitter, ranted about the Euro 2016 tournament being turned into a 'cemetery' The couple's young son was 'in shock but unharmed,' a prosecutor added, saying he was receiving medical attention. Mr Molins said Abballa pledged his allegiance to ISIS three weeks ago and appeared to be following a recent order from ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi 'to kill miscreants at home with their families' during Ramadan. Three men - 'linked to' Abballa - were arrested on Tuesday morning. They were described as 'acquaintances' and are aged 27, 29 and 44. It also emerged today the knifeman was part of a recent investigation into a Syrian jihadist network. French security expert David Thomson said Abballa posted gruesome images of the murdered couple on the internet. A 12-minute video and 15 photographs appeared on Abballa's Facebook page, along with his justifications for what he had done. Abballa's Facebook profile, under the name Mohamed Ali, was suspended in the early hours of this morning. Mr Thomson told a Paris radio station that at one point Abballa could be seen sitting on the sofa with the child behind him. Abballa wrote: 'I still don't know what I'm going to do with him.' A French police officer lays flowers outside the house in Magnanville where two of his colleagues were murdered by an ISIS supporter A French flag flies half-mast outside the police station in Les Mureaux, where a French police commander who was killed in nearby Magnanville, worked Police officers stand guard at a security perimeter near the house in Magnanville where the killings took place One of his most recent Facebook posts was a mock-up of the European Championship logo, which he claimed contained masonic and occult symbols. Abballa was born in Mantes-la-Jolie, a suburb close to the scene of the killings. He had criminal convictions for theft and violence dating back to 2011. Abballa earned a living as a restaurant delivery man and used the moniker Doctor Food. Mr Thomson said he frequently used social media to call for the murders of police, prison officers and journalists, often by name. French rapper Booba (pictured) was one of a number of celebrities who Abballa threatened during the video he recorded shortly before being shot dead by police commandos A policeman has been stabbed to death outside his Paris home by an attacker who also murdered the officer's wife. Emergency services are pictured at the scene Abballa, pictured, was a restaurant deliveryman who used the name Doctor Food on social media Abballa had also been sentenced in 2013 for taking part in a jihadist organisation with links to Pakistan. He was sentenced to three years behind bars, six months of which were suspended for 'criminal association with the aim of preparing terrorist acts' following a trial with seven other defendants. Despite this, he only spent a few months in prison, and is thought to have maintained his links with a group sending jihadists to fight in Afghanistan. It has also been revealed Abballa had previously claimed allegiance to ISIS and sources say he did so again while talking to officers during the siege. The terror group's al-Amaq news agency said the attacker was an 'Islamic State fighter' and claimed responsibility for the killings. Witnesses told investigators the man may have shouted 'Allahu akbar' (God is greatest) as he stabbed the policeman repeatedly. President Francois Hollande held a top-level security meeting to discuss the 'appalling terrorist act' which took place as France was on high alert for the Euro 2016 football championships. He said: 'France is not the only country concerned as we have seen, again, in the United States, in Orlando.' Mr Salvaing was an assistant chief with the judicial police at nearby Les Mureaux. The French police have set up an online book of condolences for Mr Salvaing and Ms Schneider. The killing came a day after a gunman claiming to be acting in the name of ISIS shot dead 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the worst mass shooting in US history. Yves Lefebvre of police union Unite SGP Police-FO said: 'Today every police officer is a target.' He said terrorists were getting more 'professional' and were able to track down police officers to their homes. Witnesses told investigators the man may have shouted 'Allahu akbar' (God is greatest) as he stabbed the policeman repeatedly The bloodshed also comes as France hosts the Euro 2016 football tournament under tight security, still reeling from jihadist attacks in Paris last November that left 130 people dead. Loud detonations were heard at the scene as RAID officers moved in following failed negotiations with the attacker. Officers found the woman's body when they stormed the building, and the attacker was killed during the assault. Mr Molins said inside the house police found three mobile phones and three knives, including one which was covered in blood. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve expressed his 'infinite sadness' at the death of the police commander and his partner, who had worked for his ministry. 'The attacker was neutralised by RAID forces, who showed great composure and great professionalism and who saved the couple's little boy,' Cazeneuve said in a statement. 'The inquiry opened by the justice authorities will establish the precise circumstances of this tragedy.' Police sources said earlier in the evening that the attacker had taken the policeman's partner, who worked as a police secretary, and son hostage after stabbing the officer to death as he returned home around 9pm. All light will be shed on the circumstances of this terrible tragedy President Francois Hollande Residents were evacuated from the neighbourhood as police moved in. RAID officers 'arrived rapidly on the scene. Negotiations were launched and an assault plan was put in place,' said Brandet. But the negotiations were 'unsuccessful' and authorities decided to launch an assault around midnight, he added. A helicopter was on the ground a few hundred metres away from the scene of the attack, while several fire trucks and ambulances were seen leaving the security perimeter. President Hollande said in a statement that he 'strongly condemned this odious act'. 'A police commander and his partner, a civil servant at the interior ministry, were shamefully murdered this evening,' Hollande said. 'All light will be shed on the circumstances of this terrible tragedy,' he added. Omar Mateen, the gunman who murdered 49 people in an Orlando gay club early Sunday morning, was a gay man himself according to multiple people who knew and had met the man. A gay man who attended the police academy in 2006 with Mateen said that the pair went out to gay bars and that at one point Mateen told the man he wanted to pursue a relationship. Meanwhile, multiple people are now coming forward to say that they had spoken with Mateen on gay hookup apps including Grindr and Jack'd. The attack, which many assumed was an act of Islamic extremism, now appears to possibly be tied to Mateen's own shame over his sexuality and investigators are now looking into this internal conflict as a possibly motive. The shooter's father, Seddique Mateen, made his beliefs on gay people very clear in a video he posted to Facebook on Monday saying 'homosexuals will be punished by God.' ISIS meanwhile, the terrorist group some believe Mateen killed in the name of, executes gay men on a daily basis in horrific fashions. 'He's a homosexual and he was trying to pick up men,' said Jim Van Horn, who called Mateen a Pulse 'regular' and described his approach to chatting with people in the club. 'He would walk up to them and put his arm around them or something and maybe try to get them to dance a little bit or something and go over and buy them a drink.' Mateen's first wife, Sitora Yusufiy, 27, also said that his own father once called him gay in front of her. Scroll down for videos Killer: Omar Mateen (pictured) killed 49 and injured dozens more Sunday morning when he opened fire in gay club Pulse. His father said he was homophobic, but mounting evidence suggests he was gay and in the closet Revelation: Kevin West (above) said he spoke with Mateen on the popular hookup app Grindr More revelations: Cord Cedeno (above) said that Mateen also contacted him on Grindr, but he blocked him because he was 'creepy' Regular: Chris Callen, who performs as Kristina McLaughlin, said: 'Ive seen him a couple of times at Pulse, a couple of other people that Ive spoken with, including an-ex security guard, have actually witnessed this guy at Pulse many times before' Van Horn also said he spent one night speaking with Mateen at the bar, but halfway through the conversation his friends asked him to join them outside. 'They said they didn't want me talking to him because he was a strange person,' said Van Horn. 'I recognized him off Grindr,' said an emotional Cord Cedeno in an interview with MSNBC on Monday, adding that he eventually blocked Mateen on the app because he was 'creepy.'. Cedeno also recognized Mateen from the club, saying: 'He's been there several times. I know that for a fact.' Kevin West said he had spoke with Mateen on another gay hookup app, Jack'd, for the past year, and that he was often ask him was clubs were 'popping.' He then saw Mateen at 1am Sunday as he crossed the street while making his way towards Pulse just one hour before the start of the deadly massacre. 'He walked directly past me. I said, "Hey," and he turned and said, "Hey," and nodded his head,' West told the Los Angeles Times. West went to police as soon as he saw pictures of Mateen in news reports, handing over his phone and Jack'd login to FBI agents, who still had it as of Monday. Many in the Orlando gay community are now coming forward to share similar stories of seeing Mateen at clubs for the past decade or speaking to him on hookup apps. The former male classmate of Mateen who was once asked out by the mass-murderer told the Palm Beach Post that he would hang out with gunman alone and in groups, and that they went to gay clubs together during that year. The man, who did not wish to be named, was a classmate of Mateen's in 2006 when they both attended the Indian River Community College police academy. He also said that refused Mateen's romantic advances at the time. 'We went to a few gay bars with him, and I was not out at the time, so I declined his offer,' he said. He said that he believed Mateen was gay and closeted, and that he was an 'awkward' figure. 'He just wanted to fit in and no one liked him,' he said. 'He was always socially awkward.' Regulars at Pulse said they saw Mateen several times over the past three years drinking alcohol and dancing with men. A couple who perform as drag-queens at the popular venue in 1912 South Orange Avenue said they had seen the 29-year-old party at Pulse. Ty Smith and Chris Callen said the father-of-one was sometimes so drunk he had to be removed from the club. Callen, who performs as Kristina McLaughlin, said: 'Ive seen him a couple of times at Pulse, a couple of other people that Ive spoken with, including an-ex security guard, have actually witnessed this guy at Pulse many times before.' Smith said he'd seen Mateen at Pulse 'at least a dozen times.' 'We didn't really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times,' Smith said. 'He told us he had a wife and child.' A security guard who worked at the club two years ago still remembered Mateen turning up to the venue, he added. Orlando's gay community is still reeling from the tragedy, and those who had seen Mateen at gay clubs before seem to all have a story to share about his temper. Callen said Mateen, who seemed like a 'nice guy' and was 'comfortable' with the draq queens, threatened someone with a knife when he became angry about a religious joke. Remarks that Mateen drank heavily conflict with his apparently strict adherence to his Muslim faith, including regular worship at a mosque in his home town of Port St. Lucie - where he was quiet and kept to himself. Ex-wife: Mateen's ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy (right) told her fiance Marco Dias (left) that Mateen had 'gay tendencies', according to an interview Dias gave with Brazilian media Changed: Matta's dad said his son became angry at seeing two men kissing, but an old school friend said that Mateen used to be friendly and cordial around gay people and that 'Something must have changed' since Yusufiy, whom Mateen he met online in 2009 and married soon after, told the New YorkDaily News his family think he murdered the 49 because he was in turmoil about who he really was - not because he was an Islamic extremist. 'When we had gotten married, he confessed to me about his past -- that was recent at that time - and that he very much enjoyed going to clubs and the nightlife,' Yusufiy said. 'So, I feel like it's a side of him or a part of him that he lived but probably didn't want everybody to know about.' Yusufiy also spoke on a Brazilian TV station yesterday, joined by her fiance from the country, Marcio Dias. Speaking Portuguese, he told the channel that Yusufiy told him Mateen had 'gay tendencies' and had been called gay in front of her on several occasions by his father. He also said that she didn't believe that Mateen's supposed Islamic beliefs were at the root of his attack. She had told the FBI that he was unstable, and that she didn't believe he was part of a terrorist group - despite him pledging allegiance to ISIS before the attack and the fundamentalists later claiming responsibility for it. 'The FBI asked her not to tell this to the American media,' he told the station. Yusufiy has also said that Mateen 'beat her': 'After a few months he started to beat me. He was mentally unstable he was obviously disturbed. I know he had a history of [taking] steroids. Yusufiy sought divorce from Mateen in 2011, after he turned violent. Attacked: Mateen attacked gay club Pulse (pictured) on Sunday morning. He had been a regular there for three years, witnesses later testified - and denied Mateen's father's claim that his son was homophobic Drunk: Mateen had sometimes just sat quietly in Pulse, one witness said, but at other times he became very drunk and belligerent. He spoke to few there, but when he did he would talk about his wife and son (pictured) Mateen married a second time after divorcing Yusufiy, to Noor Zahi Salman, with whom he had a son. The pair got a mortgage together in 2013, but they were living at separate addresses when he went on his rampage. His father, Seddique Mateen, told the Palm Beach Post that he didn't believe his son was gay. 'If he was gay, why would he do something like this?' he asked the paper. And he had previously recounted a time when his son became angry after seeing two men kissing in Florida. But speaking to The Canadian Press, Smith said that the story was 'bullc***'. 'That's straight-up c***,' he said in an interview at the GLBT Community Center of Central Florida. 'He's been around us. Some of those people did a little more than (kiss) outside the bar... He was partying with the people who supposedly drove him to do this?' Classmate Samuel King said Mateen was not homophobic when he knew him in the year after their 2004 graduation. 'What is shocking to me is that the majority of the staff at Ruby Tuesday's when I worked there were gay,' he said. 'He clearly was not anti-(gay), at least not back then. He did not show any hatred to any of us. He treated us all like the individuals we were. He always smiled and said hello.' King, who characterized Mateen as friendly and talkative, said: 'Something must have changed.' The Remain campaign was in meltdown last night over mass migration. Three opinion polls gave Brexit leads of up to seven points following a fortnight in which immigration became the dominant issue in the referendum. A report yesterday warned the UK population will pass 76million by 2035 most of the arrivals coming from the EU. The apparent surge in support for Brexit has been underlined by a YouGov poll for The Time The study follows official statistics revealing that net migration rose to a near record 333,000 last year. Yesterday senior Labour figures were called in to shore up Remain support in the partys northern heartlands. But Gordon Brown continued to insist that EU migration was not uncontrolled. Within hours he was flatly contradicted by his ex-sidekick Ed Balls who said Britain needed to restore proper borders. The former shadow chancellor also said the deal secured by David Cameron on limiting migrant benefits did not go far enough. With only nine days until the historic vote on continued EU membership: n European Council president Donald Tusk claimed Brexit could trigger the end of Western political civilisation; Figures showed the EU has granted citizenship to five million migrants since 2009 giving them free access to the UK; The Sun newspaper urged its readers to vote Out to escape dictatorial Brussels; Academics said the Treasury had been turned into a pro-Brussels propaganda machine; Remain campaigners claimed disability benefits and NHS funding would be slashed after a Leave vote; Martin McGuinness, a former member of the IRA army council, pledged to campaign for In. David Cameron took a back seat in the campaign yesterday to allow Mr Brown to lead the Labour fightback Mr Cameron took a back seat in the campaign yesterday to allow Mr Brown to lead the Labour fightback. The decision followed mounting alarm that large numbers of traditional Labour voters, particularly in the North of England, are planning to vote Leave, largely because of concerns about immigration. But the move quickly backfired as the former PM, who once labelled a voter with concerns about immigration a bigot, came under pressure over Labours past record. Mr Brown brushed aside the publics concerns, saying: In Britain we have managed migration it is not uncontrolled. He also said voters were much more concerned about the threat of illegal immigration than about mass migration from the EU. His comments were criticised by pro-Brexit MPs including senior figures in his own party who accused him of complacency. Last night, his former close adviser Mr Balls added to the chaos with an article for the Daily Mirror. Mr Balls, who is campaigning to stay inside the EU, wrote: Europe still doesnt work well enough for Britain. Theres still too much waste and bureaucracy from Brussels and, while a limit has been secured on the benefits paid to migrant workers, I dont think that can be the end of the story. We need to press Europe to restore proper borders. Mr Cameron will keep a low profile again today to allow Jeremy Corbyn to make the pro-Brussels case. Leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson said the Prime Ministers decision to make way for Mr Brown smacked of panic Speaking on a joint platform with militant Unite union boss Len McCluskey, the Labour leader will say staying in the EU provides the opportunity to strengthen workers rights. Leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson said the PMs decision to make way for Mr Brown smacked of panic. He added: The Remain campaign are getting slightly rattled now, if you have a relaunch with Gordon Brown thats got to be some measure of desperation. The odds on Brexit tumbled last night after new polling gave Leave a seven-point lead. Experts said it now had an overall lead in the so-called poll of polls. A YouGov poll for the Times put Remain on 39 and Leave on 46, with 11 per cent still unsure. Phone and internet polls for the Guardian, conducted by ICM, show support for leaving the EU is strengthening. Leave now enjoys a 53-47 advantage once dont knows are excluded, according to research conducted over the weekend. A Daily Telegraph poll puts the Leave lead at 1 point. Gordon Brown continued to insist that EU migration was not uncontrolled - but within hours he was flatly contradicted by his ex-sidekick Ed Balls who said Britain needed to restore proper borders Beware the rambler. Ancient Mariner Gordon Brown was unleashed on a blameless Leicester yesterday. His mission: Save The World (Part III), this time begging Britain to vote for Brussels. Labours last leader-but-one had been flown in to speak to an afternoon crowd, replacing David Cameron (retd. hurt). The Remain camp calculated that the Prime Minister is now a liability. They realise many Labour voters are angry about immigration and may want to leave the EU as much as the rest of us. Ancient Mariner: Gordon Brown was unleashed on a blameless Leicester at De Montfort University yesterday And so the Remainers turned to that Great Horse Whisperer of Middle England, that lithe charmer of the English shires the Broonster. First Nicola Sturgeon, then Eddie Izzard, now grumpy Gordon. Jings, its a winning streak. Alas, Gordons excursion was not a resounding success. Having in the morning accused the BBC of having an agenda on immigration, he now picked the same fight with The Sun newspaper. He repeatedly wriggled out of immigration questions (from not only the Sun but also the Left-wing Daily Mirror and Guardian no doubt they, too, have agendas). I lost patience and shouted at him to answer the bloody question, but he would not. He did later say, however, that it was our duty to help solve unemployment throughout Europe. Get that, folks? If the Greeks and Spaniards and Co lose their jobs on account of the euro, its our duty to hire them. Now get on with it. Mr Brown spoke for 40 minutes in the slightly poky science block at De Montfort University. Above us were metal-banistered walkways, painted green. Shades of HMP Wormwood Scrubs About 100 people had been squashed into an area surrounding a small patch of floor where Mr Brown introduced by a local MEP prowled while speaking There was high-flown stuff about Nazi concentration camps and how such horrors could recur if we left the EU. He reached for a vaunting tone when he spoke of First World War graves and the Western Front and the Warsaw Ghetto. The EU was a bulwark against such atrocities, allegedly. Mr Brown laughed delightedly at his old jokes, the jaw dropping and his shoulders heaving in delight This was threaded with personal, comic anecdotes of an after-dinner tone. The juxtaposition was most peculiar. He spoke for 40 minutes in the slightly poky science block at De Montfort University. Above us were metal-banistered walkways, painted green. Shades of HMP Wormwood Scrubs. About 100 people had been squashed into an area surrounding a small patch of floor where Mr Brown introduced by a local MEP prowled while speaking. He did a lot of groin-thrusting and kept flattening his jacket to show off his barrel chest. Was he perhaps a little less stressy-vexed by life than in the recent past? Maybe. But if he was more relaxed, he was also excessively garrulous. PM: The Remain camp calculated that Prime Minister David Cameron (pictured on Sunday) is now a liability Remain: First Nicola Sturgeon (left), then Eddie Izzard (right), now grumpy Gordon. Jings, its a winning streak He told us stories about Nelson Mandela, Elton John, Oprah Winfrey, George Bernard Shaw, Amy Winehouse, Michael Foot, John Kenneth Galbraith, various Austrian economists, Jacques Delors, and the drunken 1960s Foreign Secretary George Brown. For that last one, he gave us the hoary and apocryphal yarn about tipsy George asking a cardinal archbishop to waltz to a countrys national anthem, having mistaken him for a scarlet woman. He also reproduced the old John Kennedy line, ask not what your country can do for you. Was this a referendum speech for a troubled Remain campaign or was it snatches of some stump speech for corporate dinners? It was hard to see how many of these mouldy tales had much to do with the EU referendum When recounting such stories, Mr Brown laughed delightedly at his old jokes, the jaw dropping and his shoulders heaving in delight. Mike Yarwood used to do his Ted Heath impersonation like that. The Leicester spectators, being polite, chuckled. But it was hard to see how many of these mouldy tales had much to do with the EU referendum. At one point he started citing Lulu. I suddenly woke up, but drifted back to sleep when I realised he was talking about Brazils ex-President Lula and some jest he had made about how he liked to blame the Americans for all his countrys problems. Ho ho ho! roared Gordon at his own anecdotage. From the rest of the room? Silence. Heartbreaking images show the moment an elderly man was rescued after he became stuck in a muddy riverbed. The 70-year-old surnamed Ren was trying to reach for an empty water bottle when he became trapped in the mud in Xuancheng City, eastern China's Jiangsu province, reported Huanqiu.com, an affiliation to People's Daily Online. The man who makes his money from collecting old plastic recyclable waste spent all evening alone waiting for someone to come to his aid. Tragic: The man surnamed Ren spend around 12 hours overnight in the mud after hunting for bottles Police rescue: He tried to grab people's attention but could only use his hands to communicate A struggle to free him: Police officers and two passersby managed to free him from the riverbed According to reports, the man's body or face could not be seen because he had become completely covered in mud. According to Ren, he was reaching for a single plastic bottle when he fell into the mud and became stuck. All that could be seen was the man's hands trying to wave for attention. The man was only spotted by passersby the following morning who noticed that there were two hands coming out of the riverbed. By that time, Ren had already spent some 12 hours in the riverbed. Local authorities arrived to rescue Ren and spent an entire hour digging him out from the mud. Two passersby helped officers free the trapped man. They carried Ren to safety before calling for an ambulance. According to one of the officers at the scene, Ren was unable to speak. Chinese media are reporting that he is still in hospital in a stable condition. Authorities say that he was lucky to survive as the riverbed could have flooded at any moment. Many people on lower incomes in China collect bottles and other items to trade in for cash. Shocking: The man was completely covered by the mud and was unable to move after falling in Earlier this year, SpaceX chief, Elon Musk, announced that he was 'planning to send Dragon to Mars as soon as 2018.' However, until now there was little in the way of details of the plans. Mr Musk has now shed light on his ambitions to send an unmanned spaceship to the red planet, which he believes could become a regular cargo route running every 26 months. Scroll down for video Speaking about his plans, Elon Musk said: 'This is going to be mind blowing. I'm so tempted to talk more about the details of it. But I have to restrain myself' THE FIRST RELAUNCH SpaceX has managed to land four rockets from space back on Earth, one on land and three on sea, with the latest successful sea landing on 28 May. The chief executive of SpaceX revealed on Twitter that the company is planning to relaunch one of them in the next few months. This move would take the firm, and the aerospace industry as a whole, another step closer towards reusable rockets becoming commonplace. Advertisement Speaking to The Washington Post, Mr Musk, who is the chief executive of SpaceX, drew parallels between people crossing the oceans in centuries past to unknown worlds. He said that the journey to Mars was going to be 'hard, risky, dangerous and difficult', however he was confident people would still sign up to go because 'just as with the establishment of the English colonies, there are people who love that. They want to be the pioneers.' However, before SpaceX can begin to send people to the red planet, unmanned travel and a supply chain must be developed successfully. Mr Musk said: 'Essentially what we're saying is we're establishing a cargo route to Mars. 'It's a regular cargo route. You can count on it. It's going to happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station. 'And if scientists around the world know that they can count on that, and it's going to be inexpensive, relatively speaking compared to anything in the past, then they will plan accordingly and come up with a lot of great experiments.' The mission is private and will not be funded by the US government or Nasa. However, Nasa has previously said it would provide 'technical support' for the 2018 mission. Separately, Nasa is also studying the effects of long-term space flight on the human body, and has announced plans to send people to Mars by the 2030s. Elon Musk appeared to be referring to an upgraded version of the California-based company's Dragon cargo capsule, which is currently used as an unmanned spacecraft to shuttle food and supplies to and from the International Space Station SpaceX plans to make that launch in 2018, although the Falcon Heavy rocket that will carry the company's Dragon capsule to will not have its first test flight until later in 2016. Nasa, which is aiming for a human mission to Mars in the 2030s, said it will provide technical support for SpaceX's first foray, known as Red Dragon It is currently unclear how people would survive the long journey of a year or more in space, needing adequate food and water and protection from space radiation during the trip. Mr Musk has previously spoken of his vision of creating a colony of a million earthlings on Mars, in order to make humanity 'multi-planetary' and avoid the risk of extinction on Earth. His most recent feats include managing to return the first stage of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets to an upright landing on water and on solid ground, as part of his effort to make rockets that are as reusable as airplanes. Speaking about his plans, he said: 'This is going to be mind blowing. I'm so tempted to talk more about the details of it. But I have to restrain myself.' Its dangerous and probably people will dieand theyll know that, he continued. And then theyll pave the way, and ultimately it will be very safe to go to Mars, and it will very comfortable. But that will be many years in the future. THE RACE TO BUILD REUSABLE ROCKETS Reusable rockets would cut costs and waste in the space industry, which currently loses millions of dollars in jettisoned machinery after each launch. Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency are also developing similar technology and are in testing stages. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and owner of The Washington Post newspaper, said last month that Blue Origin expects to begin crewed test flights of the New Shepard, the company's flagship rocket, next year and begin flying paying passengers as early as 2018. SpaceX has managed to land four rockets from space back on Earth, three on sea and one on land, while Blue Origin's New Shepard successfully completed a third launch and vertical landing in April this year. The Indian space agency also hopes to develop its own frugal shuttle, as it seeks to cash in on a huge and lucrative demand from other countries to send up their satellites, after a successful test launch last month. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and owner of The Washington Post newspaper, said last month that Blue Origin expects to begin crewed test flights of the New Shepard, the company's flagship rocket (pictured) next year and begin flying paying passengers as early as 2018 Advertisement The surface of Mars bears scars that suggest it was once awash with liquid water. In September, for instance, Nasa confirmed that 'dark fingers' spotted in Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images are likely made by liquid moving across, or beneath, the planet's surface. But Nasa has yet to find direct evidence of this water on the red planet. Now, despite the combined resources of the world's scientists, an amateur alien hunter claims to have succeeded where they have failed. Scroll down for video Are these lakes surrounded by trees? YouTube channel WhatsUpInTheSky37 have proposed that Nasa MSSS footage shows standing water WHY WE SEE ODD THINGS ON MARS Pareidolia is the psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items in random stimulus. It is a form of apophenia, when people see patterns in random, unconnected data. There have been multiple occasions when people have claimed to see religious images and themes in unexpected places. On the red planet, one of the most famous is the 'face on Mars' spotted by one of the Viking orbiters in 1976. This was later proven to just be a chance alignment of shifting sand dunes. Advertisement In a video posted on YouTube, he claims to have found evidence of lakes of standing water surrounded by trees on the surface of Mars in images taken by Nasa's Mars Global Surveyor. The YouTube channel, WhatsUpInTheSky37, is dedicating to scouring Nasa images for evidence of alien life. Using images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera on the Mars Global Surveyor, Will Farrar, who runs the channel from his home in from Salisibury, Maryland, said he believed they showed an abundance of water that could support alien life. In the description for the video, Will Farrar, who runs the channel, said: 'We now have more than five or six very good shots from the air that seem to show frozen or warm water lakes sitting on the Martian surface. 'This has never been addressed by Nasa since we are still looking for these "minuscule" traces of life and water. I ask you to use your judgement on this one. What does this look like to you?' Mr Farrar does not seem to be alone in thinking the footage shows lakes and trees - many people have commented on the video agreeing with him. Ted Cox posted: 'How did they let this one get through? They look like tree lined lakes to me.' Another user, M Bronte, speculated about what else it could be, posting: 'This totally looks like liquid...water, mud, mercury pools...I don't know but definitely a liquidy substance here.' The video has also been promoted on the blog, Ufosightingsdaily.com. Scott Waring, the editor of the blog wrote: 'It's a bit mind-blowing, but there are lakes on Mars and we now have government evidence to back that up. Nasa originally posted this image online, which alien-hunters have claimed shows lakes surrounded by trees Scientists believe liquid water once flowed on the surface of Mars billions of years ago, but it has long since evaporated. Small ice deposits may still exist in some of the craters close to the poles and under the surface. A stock picture of Mars is shown 'This is 100 per cent proof that lakes and rivers exist on Mars, which means that fish and water creatures do as well. 'Water is a main source for animals to exist, so this may also be a big visiting spot from some smaller life forms'. However, despite the claims, Nasa has said it has yet to find any evidence for significant levels of liquid water on Mars. There is growing evidence that the planet was once rich in liquid water that shaped valleys, canyons and even dried out ocean beds before it evaporated billions of years ago. There are, however, hopes that water ice may exist in craters close to the poles and perhaps buried deep under the surface in the Martian soil. In September, Nasa confirmed that 'dark fingers' spotted in Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images are likely made by liquid moving across, or beneath, the planet's surface Microsoft has announced it is buying LinkedIn for $26.2 billion (18.4 billion) in a move that could see the professional networking site being integrated into the software giant's business services. Jeff Weiner, chief executive of LinkedIn, said the company would remain as fully independent entity within Microsoft much as YouTube has under Google. But the amount Microsoft is paying for the site will surprise some - last year, LinkedIn made a loss of $166 million (116 million). Microsoft has announced it is to pay $26.2 billion for the professional networking site LinkedIn. The move will see the two companies combine their services and could see LinkedIn being integrated into Microsoft's Office. The graphic above shows how the two companies set out their future together However, the move promises to let the social networking site, which has around 433 million registered users, to extend its reach to 'empower people and organisations'. In a letter to LinkedIn's 10,000 staff, he said that the acquisition could see its network being interwoven through Microsoft's Outlook, Office, Skype and Windows. BIGGEST TECH DEALS IN HISTORY Dell buys EMC In October 2015, computer manufacturer Dell announced it was buying data storage giant EMC for $67 billion, making it the largest technology takeover in history. HP buys Compaq Personal computer firm Hewlett-Packard bought its rival Compaq in the highly competititve market place in September 2001 for 31.8 billion. Facebook buys WhatsApp Facebook bought out the messaging app in February 2014 for $19.7 billion. Advertisement He said this could also help Mircosoft develop new solutions for helping companies transform their corporate directories, disseminate company news and improve collaboration. Microsoft's chief executive Satya Nadella added: 'The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the world's professionals. 'Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organisation on the planet. 'As I've thought about it more in terms of what is it that is most needed in this world, for sure, I am a great believer in productivity tools and communication tools as that is what empowers people to be great at their job. 'Think about taking that and connecting it with a professional network to really having that entirety of your professional life being enhanced and empowered, acquiring new skills and being more successful in your current job and finding a greater bigger next job.' The deal will see Microsoft paying $191 per share adding a premium of 49.5 per cent to LinkedIn's closing price on Friday. Based in based in Mountain View, California, the site officially launched in May 2003, boasting just 4,500 members after its first month. It is now available around the world in 24 different languages and offices in 30 cities around the world. Users can network with professionals, upload their resumes and search for jobs on the site. The purchase by Microsoft is thought to one of the largest technology takeovers ever struck, rivalled only Dell's purchase of EMC and HP's acquisition of Compaq computers. In a letter to staff, Mr Weiner said he had long been hoping to combine LinkedIn with some of the bigger technology players. He said: 'Imagine a world where we're no longer looking up at Tech Titans such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook, and wondering what it would be like to operate at their extraordinary scale - because we're one of them. 'Imagine a world where we're not reacting to the intensifying competitive landscape - we're leading it with advantages most companies can only dream of leveraging. LinkedIn (screen grab pictured) boasts 433 million registered users who upload their resumes to the site and use it to help maintain professional relationships with others in their own and related industries 'When Satya first proposed the idea of acquiring LinkedIn, he said it was absolutely essential that we had alignment on two things - purpose and structure. 'On the former, it didn't take long before the two of us realized we had virtually identical mission statements. 'For LinkedIn, it was to connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful, and for Microsoft it was to empower every individual and organization in the world to achieve more.' Many might question why Microsoft was willing to pay so much for what is essentially a social networking site used by people in their professional lives. Jeff Weiner (left), LinkedIn's chief executive, will now report directly to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella (pictured middle). LinkedIn's chairman Reid Hoffman is pictured right However, Mr Weiner hinted that the deal could bring new ways of creating revenue for both companies. He said: 'Both of us recognised that combing these assets would be unique and had the potential to unlock some enormous opportunities. 'For example expanding beyond recruiting and learning and development to create value for any part of an organization involved with hiring, managing, motivating or leading employees. 'This human capital area is a massive business opportunity and an entirely new one for Microsoft. The first signs of a particle heavier than the Higgs boson was seen at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) back in December. Unexplained by current models, its existence might lead to the discovery of a whole new set of particles and possibly even a fifth fundamental force. The first results were not enough to confirm the particle exists, but now the new particle could be confirmed within the next few weeks. Two of the detectors, ATLAS and CMS, were counting particle decays that ended up in two photons, and found a potential new particle. If it turns out to be real, and not a blip, this would be a huge discovery. Two high-energy photons whose energy, shown in red, was measured in the CMS is illustrated THE ELUSIVE PARTICLE Two of the detectors at the Large Hadron Collider - ATLAS and CMS - were searching for new kinds of physics by counting particle decays that ended up in two photons. Measuring photons is a way of detecting new and unknown events because photons are easy to detect and physicists know what to expect in terms of results from background events. When particles decay into photons, they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. The measurements saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV, making the potential particle six times heavier than the Higgs boson. If it turns out to be real, and not just a blip in the measurements, this would be a huge discovery. 'It would be something completely beyond the Standard Model, and the tip of an iceberg of a large new set of particles, if it exists!', the researchers said. Advertisement In data produced last December at the LHC in Geneva, two separate measurements found what looked like a particle six time heavier than the Higgs boson. If it turns out to be real, and not just a blip in the measurements, this would be a huge discovery. 'We should have enough data by mid-July to either confirm the result or place serious doubt on its existence,' Professor James Olsen, CMS physics coordinator and a physicist at Princeton, told MailOnline. 'The CMS plan is to have an updated result using the 2016 data by the ICHEP conference in Chicago (starting Aug 3), although this timescale could be accelerated if the LHC outperforms expectations.' According to Dr Michele Redi. a research scientist at INFN Florence, writing in Scientific American, the hints of the new particle might be confirmed 'within just a few weeks, or possibly even within days.' 'If the bump is real, we are about to start writing a whole new chapter in the history of fundamental physics,' Dr Redi said. 'It is impossible to imagine where this could lead. 'We could know the answer very, very soon.' 'The LHC is in good shape, therefore delivering collisions and new data to the experiments,' a spokeman from CERN told MailOnline. 'It is clear that the ATLAS and CMS collaborations plan to analyze these data in preparation for the big conference of the year - ICHEP 2016 Chicago - early August - so in case they have enough data and there is something new, it should be known by then or just before. 'I would say it will still take a few weeks before we can provide an update about "the bump" as analyzing the data requires some careful work.' 'It would be something completely beyond the Standard Model, and the tip of an iceberg of a large new set of particles,' Professor John Ellis, theoretical physicist at Kings College London told MailOnline, 'if it exists!' Two of the detectors, ATLAS and CMS, were searching for new physics by counting particle decays that ended up in two photons. Measuring photons is a good method for detecting new physics because photons are easy to detect and physicists know what to expect in terms of results from background events. They both separately saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV. When particles decay into photons, they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Were all familiar with Einsteins most famous equation, and this observation is it in action. This means the particle that produced these photons is an as yet unknown with this exact amount of energy in the form of its mass. It weighs about 750 GeV, corresponding to about six times heavier than the Higgs boson, and almost 800 times heavier than the proton, said Ellis. It was a similar 'bump' that gave the first hints to the Higgs boson. But the difference now is that the existence of the Higgs boson had already been predicted. This new particle, if it exists, has not been predicted by the Standard Model, so would open up physicists to a whole new unexplored world and could lead to the discovery of a new set of particles. In December last year the two observations, in the ATLAS and CMS detectors, hinted at a new particle six times heavier than the Higgs boson. The LHC will start making more collisions next month, April 2016, and experts can expect confirmation or refutation in the summer When particles decay into photons, they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. The measurements saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV, about six times heavier than the Higgs boson, something that has not been predicted by the current theory describing particle physics The Standard Model claims everything in the universe is made from the most basic building blocks called fundamental particles, that are governed by four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear. The forces work over different ranges and have different strengths. This new particle, if it exists, would not fit into the description given by the Standard Model and so would lead to a whole new area of particle physics for them to explore. Some have suggested it might even lead to the discovery of a fifth fundamental force. 'This is possible, but there must at least be a set of unknown particles to explain how this new particle decays, and probably how it is produced,' said Ellis. This development is exciting because the Standard Model has left some questions unanswered for years, so scientists are keen to break free of it and find new theories. It can't explain gravity, for example, because it is incompatible with our best explanation of how gravity works - general relativity, nor does it explain dark matter particles. STANDARD MODEL OF PARTICLE PHYSICS AND WHY THE FIND IS SO EXCITING The Standard Model says everything in the universe is made from the most basic building blocks called fundamental particles, that are governed by four forces: gravity, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear. The Higgs boson, named after professor Higgs, shown, was discovered in 2012 and is an essential component of the Standard Model The forces work over different ranges and have different strengths. This new particle, if it exists, would not fit into the description given by the Standard Model and so would lead to a whole new area of particle physics. Some have suggested it might even lead to the discovery of a fifth fundamental force. This development is exciting because the Standard Model has left some questions unanswered for years, so scientists are keen to break free of it and find new theories. It can't explain gravity, for example, because it is incompatible with our best explanation of how gravity works - general relativity, nor does it explain dark matter particles. The quantum theory used to describe the small particles in the world, and the general theory of relativity used to describe the larger objects world, are also difficult to reconcile. Nobody has managed to make the two mathematically compatible in the context of the Standard Model. According to the Big Bang theory, matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the start of the universe and so they should have annihilated each other totally in the first second or so of the universe's existence. This means the cosmos should be full of light and little else. But because it isn't there must have been a subtle difference in the physics of matter and anti-matter that has left the universe with a surplus of matter and that makes up the stars we see, the planet we live on and ourselves. But the observations seen so far are not enough to confirm the existence of a particle. Advertisement The quantum theory used to describe the small particles in the world, and the general theory of relativity used to describe the larger objects world, are also difficult to reconcile. Nobody has managed to make the two mathematically compatible in the context of the Standard Model. According to the Big Bang theory, matter and antimatter were created in equal amounts at the start of the universe and so they should have annihilated each other totally in the first second or so of the universe's existence. This means the cosmos should be full of light and little else. But because it isn't there must have been a subtle difference in the physics of matter and anti-matter that has left the universe with a surplus of matter and that makes up the stars we see, the planet we live on and ourselves. The detectors saw photons with a combined energy of 750 GeV. When particles decay into photons they release energy equivalent to their mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. This means the particle that decayed into them would have been about six times heavier than the Higgs boson But the observations seen so far are not enough to confirm the existence of a particle. The CERN physicists need to make sure the observations were not just down to chance, so it comes down to collecting much more data and waiting to see if the particle is spotted again. Some remain unconvinced. 'Indeed, I don't see yet statistically convincing bumps that would point to the existence of a new particle in the LHC data,' Professor Patrick Janot, working on the CMS detector at CERN told MailOnline. The LHC started making more collisions in April, and the results that might confirm or refute the existence of this particle could be available soon. One of the biggest mysteries in astronomy that has come into the limelight this year is the question of whether a mysterious planet is lurking at the edge of our solar system. Since an announcement was made at the start of this year, researchers have published a series of papers suggesting where the planet might be and how it could have formed. But the latest theory suggests something none had predicted before - that 'Planet Nine' might in fact be several planets instead of just one. Scroll down for video The motions of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects (as illustrated on the right) suggest that there is an unknown planet (artist's impression left) in the confines of the solar system. But the latest theory suggests something none had predicted before, that 'Planet Nine' might in fact be several planets instead of just one HOW THEY 'FOUND' PLANET NINE Researchers inferred Planet Nine's presence from the peculiar clustering of six previously known objects that orbit beyond Neptune. They say there's only a 0.007 per cent chance, or about one in 15,000, that the clustering could be a coincidence. Instead, they say, a planet with the mass of 10 Earths has shepherded the six objects into their strange elliptical orbits, tilted out of the plane of the solar system. Advertisement In January, Caltech astronomers Professor Konstantin Batygin and Professor Mike Brown predicted the existence of what they, somewhat controversially, termed Planet Nine. They used mathematical modelling and computer simulations to find the planet would exactly explain a strange clumping behaviour of a group of dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy objects and debris beyond Neptune. Now, astronomers from Spain and Cambridge University have confirmed, with new calculations, that the orbits of the six extreme trans-Neptunian objects that were used a reference to announce the existence of Planet Nine are not as stable as it was thought. The evidence gathered by the authors makes them believe the most stable scenario is one in which there is not just one planet, but rather several more beyond Pluto, in mutual resonance, which best explains the results. 'That is to say we believe that in addition to a Planet Nine, there could also be a Planet Ten and even more,' Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, one of the lead researchers on the paper, said. But the debate continues, as Professor Brown told MailOnline he is uncertain how the team reached their conclusion. 'I think it's way too early to start speculating about a second planet, but, in general, I am confused by their results,' Professor Brown told MailOnline. 'We have a nearly identical analysis which shows nearly the opposite result. It is not obvious to me why they would get such a different answer.' The unknown world, dubbed Planet X by others, is thought to be 10 times more massive than Earth and the furthest planet from the sun - but its exact location is unknown. Moving in an unusually elongated orbit, the mysterious planet will take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete one revolution around the sun. In order to arrive at this conclusion, Professor Batygin and Professor Brown ran computer simulations with input data based on the orbits of six extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs). These ETNOs are called Sedna, 2012 VP113, 2004 VN112, 2007 TG422, 2013 RF98 and 2010 GB174. In January, Caltech astronomers Professor Konstantin Batygin and Professor Mike Brown predicted the existence of what they, somewhat controversially, termed Planet Nine. Since the prediction, researchers over the world have been using different instruments to hone in on the planet. Artist's impression pictured The six most distant known objects in the solar system with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all mysteriously line up in a single direction. Such an orbital alignment can only be maintained by some outside force, according to the Caltech researchers who predicted Planet Nine in January THE CONTROVERSIAL PLANET NINE Even the mysterious planet's name causes controversy. Mike Brown is Professor of Planetary Astronomy at Caltech. He is best known for his discovery of Eris, the most massive object found in the solar system in 150 years, and the object which led to the debate and eventual demotion of Pluto from a real planet to a dwarf planet. Alan Stern is an engineer and planetary scientist. He is the principal investigator of Nasa's New Horizons mission to Pluto. He is famously a defender of Pluto's planet title, which was stripped from it in 2006. The two scientists are 'at loggerheads' with each other over the classification of Pluto, according to some astronomers. The mysterious planet has always been termed 'Planet X', X being the roman numeral for ten, suggesting a tenth planet. But when Professor Brown and his team published the paper in January, they controversially named the planet 'Planet Nine' instead of Planet X, as a nod to Professor Brown's work towards declassifying Pluto. 'Calling it Planet Nine is very mischievous,' Professor Monica Grady told MailOnline. Advertisement But two freelance Spanish astronomers, Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos, together with scientist Sverre J. Aarseth from the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge considered the question the other way around. They wondered how the orbit of these ENTOs would evolve if a planet like Planet Nine proposed by Professor Brown and Professor Batygin. 'With the orbit indicated by the Caltech astronomers for Planet Nine, our calculations show the six ETNOs, which they consider to be the Rosetta Stone in the solution to this mystery, would move in lengthy, unstable orbits,' said Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. 'These objects would escape from the Solar System in less than 1.5 billion years,' he added, ;and in the case of 2004 VN112, 2007 TG422 and 2013 RF98 they could abandon it in less than 300 million years; what is more important, their orbits would become really unstable in just 10 million years, a really short amount of time in astronomical terms.' According to this new study, also based on numerical simulations, the orbit of the new planet proposed would have to be modified slightly so the orbits of the six ETNOs analysed would remain stable for a long time. The researchers also questioned whether the ENTOs are permanent and stable or if they are only there for a short time. A paper published in March suggests the distance between Earth and Saturn measured by Cassini (artist's impression pictured) could be used to narrow down an area of space where the planet could be Professor Mike Brown predicted the existence of 'Planet Nine' in January this year. He is best known for his discovery of Eris, the most massive object found in the solar system in 150 years, and the object which led to the debate and eventual demotion of Pluto (shown) from a real planet to a dwarf planet HOW THE SUN STOLE A PLANET It has been one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy - does planet nine exist, and what is it? Now, astronomers at Lund University in Sweden show that it is highly likely that the so-called Planet nine is, in fact, an exoplanet. They believe it was 'stolen' by our sun as it moved past in early in the universe's evolution, and has been a part of our solar system completely undetected ever since. The theory is that our sun, in its youth some 4.5 billion years ago, stole Planet 9 from its original star. According to astronomers in Lund, there is a lot to indicate that Planet 9 was captured by the young sun and has been a part of our solar system completely undetected ever since. Stars are born in clusters and often pass by one another. It is during these encounters that a star can 'steal' one or more planets in orbit around another star. This is probably what happened when our own sun captured Planet 9. Advertisement 'If the ETNOs are transient, they are being continuously ejected and must have a stable source located beyond 1,000 astronomical units (in the Oort cloud) where they come from', notes Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. 'But if they are stable in the long term, then there could be many in similar orbits although we have not observed them yet'. The evidence suggests the most stable scenario is one in which there is not just one planet, but rather several more beyond Pluto, in mutual resonance. These studies are only a few of the countless international peer-reviewed articles published or in preparation about the search for Planet Nine with the help of N-body simulations and other techniques. Professor Batygin and Professor Brown are going to present soon new models of the orbit of the mysterious Planet Nine with up-to-date data. On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, Professor Jacques Laskar's team from the Paris Observatory is also attempting to be the first to compute the position of the hypothetical Planet Nine in order to then observe it. His team used data from Nasas Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn, looking at the distance between Saturn and Earth, to narrow down where the planet could be in a paper published in March. Physicists at the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics looked at the most likely scenarios for how a planet could get to such a distant part of the solar system. It is probably a gas giant that formed close to the sun and was kicked out by a series of gravitational pushes by nearby planets including Saturn (shown) But Nasa scientists do not agree with the French team's results, suggesting instead it could come down to an error in the data. One of the most revolutionary studies from recent months, also with computational simulations and participation of French institutions, was led by the researcher Alexander Mustill from Lund University who raised the idea that Planet Nine may have come from outside the Solar System, that is to say, that it could be an exoplanet. The theory is that our sun, in its youth some 4.5 billion years ago, stole Planet 9 from its original star. Other scientists, however, believe that this scenario is improbable. The debate is on. What all astronomers do agree on is the importance of closely tracking the motions of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects to be able to adjust the calculations that should lead the way to the location of Planet Nine, without forgetting that the best evidence will be its direct observation, a race which several research teams are fighting to win. Apple has unveiled a massive overhaul of all its software to include a new 'Super siri' personal assistant and AI features. Tim Cook began the firm's annual developer conference with a heartfelt message for victims of the Orlando massacre, saying 'We offer our deepest sympathies to everyone whose lives were touched by this violence, it was senseless,' before asking everyone to rise for a moment's silence. The firm then revealed new versions of its key software for its phone, tablet, watch and Mac products alongside new AI features and opening up Siri to third party apps in a bid to rival Facebook, Google and Amazon's smart assistants. Scroll down for video Apple revealed a new look for its iOS software at the event, which now includes a new AI messages app that can predict emoji, as well as new 'smart' notifications and face recognition. APPLE'S WWDC ANNOUNCEMENTS iOS 10 for the iPhone and iPad New messaging app with AI keyboard Photo app with AI face and location features WatchOS 3 software MacOS Sierra with Siri on Mac New overhauled version of iTunes New Playground app to teach children to code Advertisement 'We offer four incredible platforms that let you access these incredible experiences,' said Cook. Craig Federighi of Apple revealed iOS 10, which he said was the 'biggest ever overhaul' of the firm's iPhone and iPad software. The software has been redesigned to include new smart notifications the use the iPhone 6S's 3D touch. They can include live status updates for apps such as Uber. Voicemails will also be automatically transcribed into text, and a new feature will warn if an incoming call could be spam. The messages app also now include a new emoji prediction feature, along with the ability to include handwriting and video previews. It including new bubble effects including invisible ink and the ability to change text sizes. Developers will also be able to create their own effects with Message apps. Apple has also overhauled Siri, which receives 2 billion requests a week. Apple's AI will also be used in a new Photo app to recognise people in pictures on the handset, and even identify objects and scenes. SIRI GETS SMART PRIVACY Apple is making Siri smarter by using what Apple calls differential privacy. Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy explains it as Apple using non-personal information in aggregate to teach Siri new tricks, then having all the personalization take place on the individual device. It's in contrast to Google's approach of doing everything over the internet - that is, in the 'cloud.' Advertisement Developers will be able to access to app, allowing it to send messages in other apps, for instance. Siri will also be utilised in the firm's new smart keyboard to try and understand what the user wants to type. It can learn what a user wants and make suggestions for replies. It can also access a user's calender and fill in information in other apps such as calender. Analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research says the changes announced in San Francisco on Monday should make Siri 'substantially more useful and effective as an assistant and keep it competitive with alternatives from Google, Amazon and others.' Apple's AI will also be used in a new Photo app to recognise people in pictures on the handset, and even identify objects and scenes. 'We can do 11 billion calculations on a pictures,' boasted Federighi. The new Messages app can look at text and find words that could be turned into an emoji It can automatically put the right emoji in- and help people choose one if they aren't sure The new app has a memories section, which brings together pictures and video from trips in one place. It can even put them together to automatically create AI movies of holidays A new smart emoji Keyboard can scour text and suggest emoji to use. Messages can also now use special effects (right) Maps has also been redesign to take on Google with smart suggestions based on a user's location or calender, with a new navigation app. Eddy Cue revealed a new version of Apple's music app. The firm has completely redesigned its software to make it easier to use. It has been completely redesigned 'from the ground up' said Cue. 'It has a beautiful new design - the music is the hero.' Messages can now include handwriting effects, which even show the force of ink on the page. Messages can include images and links, and invisible ink It includes new daily playlists, Developers will also be able to use Maps for the first time. Cue also revealed a new News app, which now has 2,000 publishers on board. Users will also be able to subscribe to magazines and newspapers, and the app will show breaking news notifications. Eddy Cue, Apple senior vice president of internet software and services, reveals an entirely new version of Apple Music. iOS 10 also includes new smart notifications, along with links and images in Messages (right) Federighi also unveiled a new version of HomeKit, which allows people to control home appliances from their handset. A new Home app will allow people to control their lights, blinds, locks and other smart appliances from a single app. It will use the Apple TV as a home hub, allowing people to remotely access their devices. A new Home app will allow people to control their lights, blinds, locks and other smart appliances from a single app. The new AI features will be done on the device, to avoid privacy concerns. iOS 10 will be available in the fall, with a beta version set for the summer, he revealed. The firm also unveiled a new version of its watch software. 'I'm really excited,' said Apple's Kevin Lynch. 'In WatchOS 3 your apps are available instantly.' The firm has come under for for the slow loading time of apps - which will now be held in memory for almost instant access, Lynch said. The firm also overhauled the Watch's navigation, using the side button to reveal apps and swiping up for control center - like iOS. It can also recognise handwriting with a new 'scribble' feature. Tim Cook opened the WWDC conference with a moment's silence for Orlando, before revealing new software for the firm's four main product lines. He also revealed a new Minnie Mouse watch face, along with a new activity watch face to allow people to easily see their activity. Jay Blahnik of Apple revealed a new Watch app allowing people to share their activity and compete against friends, even sending them messages. He also unveiled a new app called Breathe, designed to help people deal with stress. It walks users through deep breathing exercises. It also revealed support for wheelchair users, allowing them to track their activity, and an emergency feature to call 911 with a single press. Apple's Eddy Cue unveiled new software for Apple TV, including apps from Sling and ESPN. The firm has also overhauled its iPhone remote app which has the same touchscreen as the firm's dedicated remote. Apple showed off a range of new faces for its Watch, including new fitness faces. People can share their activity and compete against friends, even sending them messages Siri also allows people to simply say what live channel they want to watch. Analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research says the changes announced in San Francisco on Monday should make Siri 'substantially more useful and effective as an assistant and keep it competitive with alternatives from Google, Amazon and others.' Craig Federighi of Apple revealed the firm's Mac software will now called macOS rather than OSX. It will also include Siri for the first time. The latest version, to be called macOS Sierra, will include new features to allow users to move between phones and laptops more easily. Users will also be able to automatically unlock their mac using their Apple Watch. The latest version, to be called macOS Sierra, will include new features to allow users to move between phones and laptops more easily. MacOS now includes Siri for the first time. The new software will also optimise disc space, putting files into Apple's iCloud when not needed. It also revealed Apple Pay is coming to the web, allowing people to pay online Artificial intelligence, and Apple's wisecracking digital assistant Siri, could play a big role. The firm is set to make a raft of announcements at its annual WWDC event at San Francisco's Bill Graham auditorium later today, including new software for iPhones, iPads and its Watch. AI is emerging as a major new tech battleground, one where Apple may have some ground to make up. Siri made a big splash when it debuted five years ago. But as other tech giants jockey to build intelligent 'chat bots' and voice-controlled home systems capable of more challenging artificial-intelligence feats, Siri at times no longer seems cutting edge. The main question is whether it will be enough to keep up with rivals like Amazon, Google, Facebook and others who are racing to create digital services that consumers will find indispensable for shopping, chatting, controlling other appliances and simply getting through their daily lives. Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Monday, June 13, 2016, in San Francisco. The firm is set to make a raft of announcements at its annual WWDC event at San Francisco's Bill Graham auditorium later today, including new software for iPhones, iPads and its Watch. 'Google Now has kind of eaten their lunch,' said Chris Monberg, co-founder of Boomtrain, a startup that makes artificial intelligence software used by online retailers. Monberg argues that Google's proactive digital assistant provides more useful reminders, recommendations and tips on local weather or traffic, largely because it reads his email and other data from his Android phone and crunches it with sophisticated algorithms on Google's powerful servers. The firm is set to make a raft of announcements at its annual WWDC event in San Francisco later today. Apple's Siri made a big splash when the wisecracking digital assistant debuted in 2011 and is expected to get a major overhaul. Amazon's Echo home speaker likewise has its fans; it recognizes informal voice commands and can order flowers, pizza or a ride to the airport. Facebook, Google and Microsoft are also working to incorporate intelligent 'bots' into the voice- and text-messaging services that people use to chat with their friends. In some respects, Siri remains plenty competitive, at least so long as you stick with Apple's other services. If an iPhone owner uses Google's Gmail, for instance, Apple's software may not scan those emails for useful information. But Jan Dawson, a tech analyst at Jackdaw Research, notes that Siri can volunteer helpful reminders from the Apple calendar, offer suggestions based on a user's location, or search for images stored in Apple's photo app. HOW THE STREAMING SERVICES COMPARE Service Cost Apple Music Apple Music costs $9.99 a month or $14.99 for a family plan (up to six family members) - both with a three-month free trial Tidal $9.95-a-month for standard sound quality and $19.99-a-month for 'lossless high fidelity sound quality' (9.99 and 19.99 in the UK) Spotify Free level with adverts, Premium $9.99-a-month service (9.99 in the UK) SoundCloud Go $9.99-a-month in the US, 9.99 in the UK and 9.99 in Ireland Beats Music $9.99-a-month or $99 per year Pandora $4.99-a-month for Pandora's ad-free internet radio service Deezer Free with adverts, $9.99-a-month for Premium+ (9.99 in the UK) Rdio Free with adverts, Rdio Unlimited costs $9.99 (9.99 in the UK) and US users can also get Rdio Select for $3.99 a month with limited downloads Apple, however, has been largely unwilling to pry too deeply into your personal information. And some experts say that puts it at a disadvantage compared to Google, which has compiled vast quantities of data about both individual users and consumer trends from its search engine, Gmail, maps and other well-liked online services. (Many of those Google services remain popular on the iPhone, despite Apple's best efforts to replace them.) With AI, 'systems get much better the more they know about the user,' said Alan Black, an expert in voice-enabled technology at Carnegie Mellon University. Apple collects plenty of data from its users, but hasn't 'focused on connecting all the dots,' said Raj Singh, co-founder of Tempo AI, an artificial intelligence startup acquired by Salesforce.com last year. Google, of course, makes money from advertising that's keyed to individual interests. Mario Queiroz showed off the new Google speaker, called Google Home, that will be released later this year. The Amazon Tap (left) is a portable version of the 9.25-inch Echo that sells for $130, while the $90 Echo Dot (right) can be plugged into any speaker. at are designed to amplify the role that its voice-controlled assistant Alexa plays in people's homes and lives. They will now complete Apple, which makes most of its money from iPhones, says its software respects customer privacy by working with an individual's data on the iPhone or iPad, while anonymizing information that's uploaded to its servers. 'We don't mine your email, your photos, or your contacts in the cloud to learn things about you,' Apple VP Craig Federighi said at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference last year. 'We honestly just don't want to know.' Apple declined comment on plans for Siri. Last fall, however, Apple acquired a startup that makes AI software specifically for mobile devices, and another that helps computers carry on extensive voice conversations. And tech news sites have reported Apple may loosen its restrictions on Siri's ability to work directly with other companies' software. That could enable Siri to book a restaurant reservation on command, or order a ride from a car service, rather than show a link to an app like Open Table or Uber and requiring the user to do the rest. Experts say the quality of Apple's software and online services is increasingly critical to maintaining its popularity with consumers. Services like Siri, Apple Music and Apple Pay add significant value to the iPhone and other Apple devices, Dawson said. can be seen braving emergency chutes and taking part in mock-up flights Advertisement The boom of jet travel promised a life of adventure for beautiful, single young women keen to explore the world. But these fascinating images show that they had to work hard for the privilege of globe-trotting in glamorous uniforms and serving lobster to rich husband material. Behind-the-scenes pictures at the US TWA flight school show prospective stewardesses braving emergency slides and taking part in exacting mock-up flights and dining classes. And their polished look was the result of being taught how to stand, walk, style their hair and how to apply make-up, so the women would be the starlets of the skies. The luxury of mile-high life was limited to an elite few. In 1967, TWA boasted that it accepted less than three per cent of its applicants. In comparison, Harvards acceptance rate today is five per cent. Journey back to the sixties with these incredible snapshots of the air hostesses embarking on their career in the golden age of flying. Take the plunge: A prospective air hostess launching herself down an emergency chute from a plane used to train stewardesses at the TWA training school Future stewardesses pictured during a simulated flight on a mock-up of a Boeing 707, wearing signs to represent different passenger types Looking the part: Air hostesses wait in line, dressed to the nines, at the TWA School during a uniform inspection Glamour at altitude: Women can be seen studying during a dining class on a simulated flight on a mock-up of a Boeing 707 Prospective stewardesses have their nails inspected in detail as part of their grooming tuition Learning the ropes: Two women strap themselves into a seat on a demonstration plane used for training purposes As well as taking part in grooming lessons, prospective stewardesses also had to take dining classes before they got the job Classroom settings were transformed into dining scenarios so the women could learn the ropes before jetting off around the world Starlets of the skies: Prospective American and French stewardesses study grooming and etiquette at the TWA school Rayani Air, Malaysia's first Islamic-compliant airline, has been shut down, months after it was suspended from flying for breaching aviation regulations. The carrier launched only in December with Muslim flight crew wearing the hijab while non-Muslim members were forbidden from wearing revealing clothing. In-flight meals were completely halal and alcohol consumption banned. But after an 'investigation into the administration and safety audit' of the airline, the Department of Aviation (DCA) said it has revoked Rayani's Air Operator Certificate. Rayani Air was Malaysia's first Islamic-compliant airline, with Muslim flight crew wearing the hijab The DCA launched an inquiry into the airline in April following a string of criticisms from passengers and the government over delays and last-minute cancellations. That month saw pilots of the carrier, which operates two Boeing 737-400s, also go on strike over unpaid wages, further damaging its image. A month earlier, it was revealed the airline had issued hand-written boarding passes to passengers after a Malaysian MP posted a Facebook photo of his boarding pass on a domestic flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching. The photo showed a piece of paper with Rayani Air's logo printed on it and flight details written in ink, including the passenger's name, seat number and cities of departure and destination. In his Facebook post, MP Lau Weng San called the boarding pass 'unbelievable', adding: 'It wouldn't be accepted anywhere else in the world, only in Malaysia.' Hand-written boarding passes were given to the politician and other passengers as they endured a lengthy flight delay due to a hydraulic leak on the plane. Rayani Air adhered to Islamic rules, including prayers and no alcohol consumption or meals with pork The travel documents did not have any security features such as a barcode and appeared as though it could have been written by anyone. Malaysian Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lay said the boarding passes posed a potential security threat and should never have been issued, the Malay Mail Online reported. In statement, Rayani Air said it was forced to distribute hand-written boarding passes before the 19 March flight due to a computer glitch and it wouldn't happen again. A British Airways plane en route to India turned back to Heathrow with a technical fault - five hours into its nine hour journey. While flying over the Turkish coast, pilots of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner detected a problem and signalled their intention to return to London. The aircraft had set out from Heathrow at 4:40pm on Sunday and was scheduled to land in Hyderabad but instead touched down back in London just after midnight. A British Airways flight en route to India was forced to return to London five hours into the journey with what the airline has said was a 'technical fault' (file image) Some aviation accounts on social media have claimed that the issue related to a problem with the weather radar. Aviation news reporter, Alex Macheras, who told MailOnline Travel he was listening to Air Traffic Control, described the landing back in London as 'very turbulent' in a post on Twitter. He also said that the aircraft had a 'failed weather radar display'. The airline has not confirmed what the 'fault' related to, but they have said that the best place to 'fix' it was back at Heathrow. A spokesperson for British Airways told MailOnline Travel: 'This flight returned to London following a minor technical fault and we are sorry for the delay to our customers. 'We never compromise on the safety and security of our customers and crew.' This graphic shows the plane's flight path, diverting back to the UK after around five hours in the air Aviation news media sources claimed the fault was concerning the 'weather radar' not working correctly Yesterday (Sunday) MailOnline Travel reported on a BA flight which declared an emergency shortly after taking off from Heathrow. Flight 1340 had set off from London bound for Leeds at 8.23am, but was forced to turn back to Heathrow shortly after take-off. It is believed the captain requested a priority landing with a 'technical issue'. A 'squawk 7700' signal was sent out by the pilots on board, signalling a general emergency and alerting Air Traffic Control that the aircraft needed to return. The pilots then moved the plane into a holding pattern, circling above Chesham in Buckinghamshire, before flying on to Heathrow. Breaking through the language barrier is hard enough when travelling overseas but even those who can speak a foreign tongue may have trouble understanding what the locals really mean. Every nationality has their own bizarre sayings that don't make sense when translated into other languages, like the British phrases: 'A sandwich short of a picnic,' or when it is 'Raining cats and dogs'. Revealing the strangest idioms from their home country, Reddit users from around the world have been sharing the phrases that don't make any sense when converted into English. Sausages are a popular foodstuff in Germany and they also feature heavily in phrases in the country Many of the most popular phrases are based around food, particularly in Germany where sausages are used liberally in the language. One German called istrebitje revealed several of the sayings including, 'Eine Extrawurst verlangen' which translates as 'to ask for an extra sausage', meaning, 'to ask for special treatment.' Another Reddit poster said: 'Die beleidigte Leberwurst spielen' translates as 'play the offended liver sausage' but really means 'to act like a prima donna.' And finally in the sausage category is 'Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei,' which means, 'Everything has an end, only the sausage has two.' A tofu seller in China is another way to describe a prostitute Meat isn't the only foodstuff to be used as a description in German though - they also have the phrase 'Das ist nicht mein Bier, which translates as 'That's not my beer', meaning: 'That's not my business.' The Chinese are also particularly fond of using food to describe other aspects of life. For example, 'To sell tofu,' is another way of describing a prostitute and 'To eat tofu' describes someone who is a pervert. Eggs also get a bad rep in the country, with the saying, 'Roll away you egg,' meaning 'F*** off,' and someone who is described as scrambled eggs loosely translated as the English word 'B**tard', according to Reddit user NotAmusedOldFellow. Meanwhile Andreasen revealed in the thread that the Spanish use the phrase 'Me cago en la leche', which directly translates to 'I s**t in the milk,' but is used like 'dammit' in English. And in South Korea, a phrase 'Let's drink and die,' is supposed to mean 'Let's get drunk,' but has a rather sinister air to it. Rude bodily functions are also a common theme among various nationalities, including the Swedes who have the phrase: 'Now I've taken a s**t in the blue cabinet,' which means to mess something up. In France, their equivalent of the English saying, 'Other fish to fry' is 'D'autres chats a fouetter,' which means 'Other cats to whip' Over in neighbouring Norway, residents like the phrase: 'It sells like minced s**t,' which means that something sells very well. And in Italy, a common way to describe someone as useless is to liken them to a 'fart in a bottle,' while in Mexico the question 'What is your fart?' means 'What is your problem?' Some sayings don't appear to have any sense to them at all though, including a bizarre Norwegian saying that reads: 'So then I sat there with the beard in the mailbox,' and which actually means someone has made a bad deal or gamble and lost. Whereas in France, their equivalent of the English saying, 'Other fish to fry' is 'D'autres chats a fouetter,' which means 'Other cats to whip.' A mother has called on Thomson Airlines to recall their in-flight cutlery after her one-year-old daughter choked on a shard of plastic that broke off a spoon provided by the airline. Natalie Ward was travelling from Glasgow to Orlando for a family holiday with her husband Simon and daughter Gabrielle when the worrying incident happened. As Gabrielle ate a yoghurt the plastic utensil snapped, leaving Mrs Ward 'frantic at 40,000 feet'. Natalie Ward, pictured with her one-year-old daughter Gabrielle who choked on a piece of plastic that broke of a spoon on a Thomson Airways flight This is the spoon that broke as toddler Gabrielle was using it to eat a yoghurt, causing her to choke on the fragment that snapped off The toddler began to suffer breathing difficulties, and a paramedic who was sitting nearby, was forced to intervene to help clear her airways. Speaking to The Daily Record, Natalie, who lives just outside Glasgow, said: 'She wasn't biting hard on it it was just really flimsy. 'Gabrielle started choking at 40,000 feet and I was just completely frantic. 'I want them (Thomson) to recall this cutlery as I believe it's clearly dangerous.' Although Gabrielle soon began breathing normally after swallowing the bit of plastic, measuring 2cm by 1cm, the paramedic was 'worried about what it could do to her insides', according to Mrs Ward. The Ward family were travelling with Thomson Airways from Glasgow to Florida when daughter Gabrielle choked on plastic that broke off a spoon The 34-year-old client services manager was heading off on her first family holiday to Florida with her husband Simon and daughter Gabrielle when the incident took place. A spokesperson for Thomson Airways told MailOnline Travel: 'We are really sorry to hear about the Ward family's experience and we will be contacting the customers directly and further reviewing their complaint. A drone was flown just 80ft away from a passenger plane as it came in to land, a police investigation has revealed. The near-miss happened as the aircraft made its descent at Winnipeg International Airport, Canada. Staff at Nav Canada, who operate the country's civil air navigation service, reported the incident to police after the pilots relayed what they had seen. A drone came within 80ft of colliding with a passenger plane at Winnipeg International Airport (file photo) The plane was around 3,000ft above the ground when the drone was spotted. Despite the unauthorised device travelling in the flight path, the aircraft landed safely. Neither the drone, nor the person who was operating it, have been found by the police, who are continuing to investigate. The airline has not been named and there is no indication as to the number of passengers on the flight. A spokesperson for the police told MailOnline Travel: 'The Winnipeg Police Service reminds UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) owners that a significant portion of the City of Winnipeg is controlled air space. UAV operation for personal use is subject to Transport Canada restrictions regarding altitude, purpose, size of UAV and area of use. 'Commercial UAV operators must be in possession of a valid Special Flight Operations Certificate and are required to comply with all the restrictions contained in the SFOC. 'In cooperation with Transport Canada, the Winnipeg Police Service may take enforcement action regarding either personal or commercial UAV operations within the City of Winnipeg.' The law in Canada is that a drone cannot be flown any closer than five miles from an airport and higher than 300ft above the ground (file photo) DRONE RULES IN CANADA Do not fly: Closer than five miles from any aerodrome (i.e. airport, heliport, helipad or seaplane base, etc.) Higher than 300ft above the ground Closer than 500ft from people, animals, buildings, structures, or vehicles In populated areas or near large groups of people, including sporting events, concerts, festivals, and firework shows Near moving vehicles, highways, bridges, busy streets, or anywhere you could endanger or distract drivers Within restricted and controlled airspace, including near or over military bases, prisons, and forest fires Anywhere you may interfere with first responders Advertisement Constable Rob Carver of the Winnipeg Police Service believes the incident is worrying as the motives of the owner of the drone are not known. 'It's hugely concerning because this isn't just your average hobby drone. It was able to go to 3,000ft, which is unusual,' he told CBC News. 'Someone directed it to go up 3,000ft, which means somebody also directed it to be near an aircraft. 'That is incredibly concerning to not just the pilot, but the people in the aircraft.' In another incident of drones interfering with aviation, on Saturday, Dubai International Airport, one of the world's busiest airport for international travel, closed its airspace for 69 minutes due to unauthorised drone activity, causing 22 flights to be diverted. Dubai Airport's chief executive Paul Griffiths said thousands of passengers suffered disruption to their journeys. Sixteen of the diverted flights went to Dubai World Central, Dubai's other main airport, a Dubai Airports spokesperson told Reuters. 'This is a very serious incident and we obviously take the safety of our customers and our staff extremely seriously,' Griffiths told Dubai's Dubaieye 103.8 radio at the time. 'As you can imagine, this is the busiest international airport in the world and there was major inconvenience to thousands of passengers. There are very clear restrictions and no fly zones around all airports in the UAE, saying that this type of activity is actually illegal.' The fundamentalist Christian pastor of an Arizona church is being condemned after he celebrated the deaths of 49 people at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando in a hate-filled rant posted on YouTube. Just hours after Americans worst mass shooting came to an end, Steven Anderson, pastor at Faithful Word Baptist Church in suburban Phoenix, unleashed a sickening tirade in which he said the victims deserved to die. The good news is that theres 50 less pedophiles in this world, because, you know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles, Anderson said in the video. Thats who was a victim here, are a bunch of just disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar, OK? Pastor Steven Anderson, from Faithful Word Baptist Church, delivers his hate-filled rant on YouTube Anderson was previously condemned for his comments about the Paris attacks, Caitlyn Jenner and AIDS Anderson - who has been condemned for previous comments about President Barack Obama, the Paris attacks, transgender celebrity Caitlyn Jenner and AIDS - quoted the Bible and Book of Leviticus as he tried to justify the terror attack at Orlandos Pulse nightclub. The Bible says that homosexuals should be put to death obviously its not right for somebody to just shoot up the place because thats not going through the proper channels, he said. But these people all should have been killed anyway but they should have been killed through the proper channels as in they should have been executed by a righteous government. Andersons rant has been viewed nearly 100,000 times and has received thousands of comments from viewers who blasted him for spreading hate. I am a Christian and I am mourning the loss of 50 of my fellow brothers, one user wrote. I hope that people realize not all Christians are self-righteous hatemongers like this man. I don't believe anyone has the right to judge anyone else, and I'm so sorry for the murder of these people. I'm all so very sorry a man like this is representing Christians. Please know we are not all like this animal. Vigils have been held in cities around the world in memory of the victims. Anderson quoted the Bible and said the victims of the mass shooting 'should have been killed anyway' The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, was shot and killed when a SWAT team stormed the club, said police Anderson said the bad news following the massacre at Orlandos Pulse nightclub is that there will be a further push for gun control where law-abiding, normal Americans are not gonna be allowed to have guns for self-defence. He also predicted that the shooting would push an agenda against so-called hate speech. Im sure that people are going to start attacking Bible-believing Christians now because of what this guy did, he said. The gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, from Fort Pierce, Florida, was shot and killed when a SWAT team stormed the nightclub and rescued 30 hostages early Sunday, said police. So far 48 victims have been officially identified by the city of Orlando on its website. Daily MailOnline has contacted Faithful Word Baptist Church for comment. On its website, the church tells visitors: 'Don't expect anything contemporary or liberal. We are an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, soul-winning Baptist church.' After last November's terror attacks in Paris, Anderson called the Bataclan concert hall victims 'devil worshipers' and blamed them for their deaths because they went to a death metal concert. In a sermon he called France 'a sinful nation' and accused the victims of glorifying death and Satan. He has also told his followers that he hates Obama and prays for him to die and 'go to hell' due to his position that abortions should be legally available. Anderson's New Testament church, located in a strip mall in Tempe, has been named an anti-LGBT 'hate' group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. On its website, the SPLC said Anderson was formerly affiliated with Regency Baptist Church, in Sacramento, California, and started Faithful Word Baptist Church on Christmas Day in 2005. 'With "well over a hundred chapters of the Bible memorized word-for-word," Anderson quickly led his congregation into a series of extremely radical stands,' the website states. 'Much of his venom was aimed at homosexuals, who he suggests should be killed.' A plane passenger was arrested just minutes before boarding his flight after he was overheard saying 'no one is going to survive'. Bulgarian national Ivan Zlatev Manolov, 52, was flying to Athens from Malta when he was overheard making the threat by another couple on the shuttle bus. He was then arrested by Maltese police at Luqa Airport. He could face three years in prison and up to a 4,000 (5,000) fine. Scroll down for video Bulgarian national Ivan Zlatev Manolov(pictured) was flying to Athens from Luqa airport, Malta, when he was arrested after he was heard making a threat Appearing before a court in Malta at the weekend, Manolov denied two charges, one of threatening people and another of threatening police officers once arrested. In his police statement, he said he uttered the statement 'as a joke'. The Times of Malta reported that in court, Manolov's lawyer, Yanika Bugeja, said that the defendant was drunk when he made the threat. However, this was disputed by prosecuting officer Silvio Magro, who claimed that 'he could not smell any alcohol on the accused's person and that he was not acting in an intoxicated manner'. Manolov was told by Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech that he could face a three-year jail term and a fine between 800 (635) and 5,000 (4,000) for his actions Manolov is also accused of threatening police officers when he was arrested at the airport Manolov was told by Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech that he could face a three-year jail term and a fine between 800 (635) and 5,000 (4,000) for his actions. Bail was denied. Dimech said: 'The court does not take kindly to people who instill fear in others. 'It is reprehensible and could have caused much more serious consequences.' She's currently in Australia promoting her new fashion collaboration, and Charlotte Crosby used a little down-time to share a very leggy Instagram selfie. The stunner from Sunderland showed off her enviably toned legs in high waisted shorts as she posed for a selfie in Sydney. Her sultry post came after snaps of her on-off lover Gaz Beadle cosying up to Geordie Shore's Chantelle Connolly in shock scenes in Magaluf were released. Scroll down for video Foxy lady: Charlotte Crosby, 26, showed off her slender legs for very sexy Instagram snap after her former lover Gaz Beadle was pictured getting close to his Geordie Shore co-star Chantelle Connolly Charlotte, who recently dismissed claims she might return to the show that made her a household name, looked incredible in the selfie. She looked chic in a black sleeveless jersey top which she tucked into her slinky shorts as she posed in front of a mirror. Her shorts had a layered up look with a tie at the front for a unique style. She walked tall in a pair of white wedge sandals as she posed on Sunday. Look away now Charlotte! No doubt these snaps would have hurt Charlotte a little - no matter how innocent they might be Since the very start of the show Gaz was embroiled in an on-off love affair with former co-star Charlotte Crosby although their romance collapsed brutally in recent weeks. Charlotte announced she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy with the child she shared with Gaz and subsequently quit the show following a bitter rift between the pair. However, Charlotte has vowed to move on from the show and make a fresh start altogether following her turbulent few weeks. 'Missing my babycakes': She's currently in Sydney to promote a new fashion range with an established Australian brand, but Charlotte's mind was clearly elsewhere on Monday morning The MTV reality star shot down insider reports that she will make 'special appearances' on the show in a lengthy Twitter rant and said: 'I appreciate all the optimistic articles of me returning to @mtvgeordieshore for "Special Occasions" But sadly there's no truth in these.... 'I am no longer a part of Geordie shore and have no plans in returning. It's massively devastating for me and I will miss them all. Cute: A second shot, posted shortly after the first, features new pup Rhubarb, one of two new dogs she adopted in May 'But I'm ready and MASSIVELY excited for my real life to start now. Just to clear that up from the articles that have been claiming otherwise' Meanwhile she has been seeking comfort in her beloved pet pooches. Taking to Instagram, she shared two snaps of her pet dogs, who remain in the UK while she fulfils her promotional commitments in Australia. In the first, Charlotte is seen cradling Baby - the 15-month old Pomeranian she first introduced to fans on YouTube last September. Captioning the selfie, she wrote: 'Missing my babycakes.' She won't be back: Geordie Shore's Charlotte Crosby told fans that she will not return to the show, even for special appearances on Friday night Insistent: Charlotte took to Twitter on Friday night to dispel the news that she will return to Geordie Shore All change: Charlotte (here with ex-boyfriend Gaz Beadle) was expected to return to Geordie Shore for special appearances and cameos despite dramatically quitting over ongoing conflict with Gaz See Geordie Shore updates as Charlotte Crosby set to return for guest appearances Shock: Charlotte revealed in an emotional interview with Heat magazine on Tuesday that she recently suffered an ectopic pregnancy, after falling pregnant with ex-boyfriend Gary's child 'Devastated': Gary broke his silence on Wednesday after learning of the ectopic pregnancy Last week has seen the brave young star reveal details of an ectopic pregnancy and exchange harsh words with ex-boyfriend Gaz Beadle. On Tuesday Charlotte revealed in an emotional interview with Heat Magazine that she recently suffered an ectopic pregnancy. An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb, usually in the fallopian tube, meaning a baby is unable to develop and leaving the mother's health in danger. While there is a chance of conception again, it is advisable for the woman to wait a while due to damage caused in the fallopian tube. Charlotte also confessed that she is now in fear that she won't be able to have children following the distressing ordeal. Blindsided: Gaz had kept quiet on Twitter as the news broke on Tuesday but told his Twitter followers on Wednesday he had to say something to clear his name Her ex, Gaz, had kept quiet on Twitter when the news broke on Tuesday but told his Twitter followers on Wednesday he had to say something to clear his name. Gaz posted a link a his Daily Star column on Twitter, telling his followers: 'I was quiet all day yesterday then last night decided to write this... Felt like I needed to say something... Gaz X.' In a lengthy and passionate post, the Geordie Shore star detailed months of his on/off relationship with Charlotte, insisting he was keen to get serious with his co-star but she was the one who was holding back. He then reveals that Charlotte jeopardised any hope of a monogamous relationship by kissing their Geordie Shore co-star Marty McKenna during a night out. The pair did make up though and after being reunited following Charlotte's trip to Australia, Gaz says they enjoyed an 'amazing' time together. See Geordie Shore news as Gaz thinks Charlotte should have kept ectopic pregnancy private But despite being keen to again get serious with Charlotte, Gaz reveals it was her who was reluctant, even telling press that they weren't together and she couldn't trust the party-loving star. Gaz writes that he was then contracted to shoot Ex On The Beach in Thailand with the couple telling each other they would see what happened when he returned to the UK. 'The next day, I was around the pool and got told I needed to take an emergency phone call. It was MTV saying that Charlotte had been rushed to hospital,' Gaz writes. 'Straight away, I was like, 'I need to go home immediately.' I was told I could speak to Charlotte, which calmed me down.' Gaz insists he spoke to Charlotte every day and was keen to be updated about her condition, but she soon found out he had slept with a fellow EOTB contestant on day one of the show, before he found out about the pregnancy, leading to a huge argument. Turbulent relationship: In a lengthy and passionate post, the Gaz detailed months of his on/off relationship with Charlotte, insisting he was keen to get serious with his co-star but she was the one who was holding back 'At the end of the day,' he added. 'I was going to be a dad. We were going to be parents, then this happened. It's bloody awful. I am devastated for the both of us,' he says. Charlotte announced that she would be leaving their hit show Geordie Shore in an epic Twitter rant, explaining that she can't work with her ex anymore. 'Sadly because a certain some1 can't admit to being in the wrong and have to write a short story full of excuses. I have made the.....The very hard decision to Leave the show, it's something I have went back and forth with for a while now,' Charlotte told her Twitter followers. Her side: Charlotte soon hit back at Gaz's version of events in an epic Twitter rant on Wednesday, where she announced she would be leaving their hit show Geordie Shore as she can't work with her ex anymore Shock decision: The Geordie Shore favourite told fans she couldn't work on the show anymore with Gaz 'But I am willing to sacrifice that part of my career in order to be well away from. A liar and a cheat, I'm actually excited to watch the ex on the beach...to see the numerous girls emerge from the water who you slept with behind lillies back. You no the girl you all thought he wasn't cheating on?!' 'Am also really excited to see the show you went off to film before that with your grandad, the one you spoke to me every day on, and f**ked some1 else on! While I was sat waiting for you! You may have fooled every else with your victim act!' she continued. 'I am hugely sad and it kills me to write this, I will miss Geordie shore with all of my heart, it was my life and I love you all so much,' the reality star finished. Emotional: Charlotte couldn't hold back the tears as she spoke of her horrific ordeal in her interview on Tuesday Speaking out: 'I thought I had a really bad period because I was bleeding and cramping - I can't describe the pain, it was awful,' Charlotte explained, adding that it felt like she was 'being stabbed in the side' Emergency: She couldn't stop the flow of her tears as she revealed the doctors made her go for emergency surgery after coping with the pain for a week In love: The Geordie Shore co-stars had been working on their romance of late, but they are currently not together due to his alleged infidelities The Kardashian-West brood may have just returned from a vacation celebrating Kanye West's 39th birthday. But jet lag won't keep Kim Kardashian and Kanye from hopping on yet another flight, this time departing Sunday afternoon from their home turf in Los Angeles to Paris. The 35-year-old reality star stayed true to form as she arrived to LAX, flaunting her famous curves in a skin-tight bodycon dress. Scroll down for video On the move: Jet lag won't keep Kim Kardashian and Kanye West from hopping on yet another flight, this time departing Sunday afternoon from their home turf in Los Angeles to France A knee-length cardigan in the same color failed to hide Kim's ample cleavage from onlookers as it slipped off her toned shoulders while she sauntered in with her husband by her side. The mom-of-two rounded out the sizzling ensemble with a crocodile Birkin handbag and peep-toe boots from Kanye's Yeezy fashion line. The brunette beauty wore her locks in loose waves across her back and kept her makeup dramatic with a bronze-colored smokey eye, thick lashes, nude lip gloss and major contouring across her cheek bones. See more Kim Kardashian updates as she heads to Paris with Kanye West Power couple: A knee-length cardigan in the same colour failed to hide Kim's ample cleavage from onlookers as it slipped off her toned shoulders while she sauntered in with her husband by her side Finishing touches: The brunette beauty wore her locks in loose waves across her back and kept her make-up dramatic with a bronze-colored smokey eye, thick lashes, nude lip gloss and major contouring across her cheek bones Walk this way: While Kim seemed engulfed in her iPhone, West kept the duo on track as he guided his beau through the airport in a Rolling Stones graphic tee and intricately embroidered black bomber jacket. While Kim seemed engulfed in her iPhone, West kept the duo on track as he guided his beau through the airport in a Rolling Stones graphic tee and intricately embroidered black bomber jacket. The rapper kept the bottom half of his stylish look relatively simple, donning a pair of skinny jeans and suede boots. Early Sunday morning, West was photographed arriving for a business meeting at his Calabasas office in the same outfit. Best foot forward: Kim supported her husband by wearing a pair of nude peep-toe boots from Kanye's Yeezy fashion line Fashionista: The mom-of-two rounded out the sizzling ensemble with a crocodile Birkin handbag and peep-toe boots from Kanye's Yeezy fashion line Future plans? It's unclear what brings the VIP couple to France, but it's possible Kim and Kanye could be ringing in their daughter North's birthday in the City of Lights when she turns three on Wednesday It's unclear what brings the VIP couple to France, but it's possible Kim and Kanye could be ringing in their daughter North's birthday in the City of Lights when she turns three on Wednesday. The parents also have a son, six-month-old Saint who has remained largely out of the spotlight since his birth. Kardashian did pay homage to her little boy, flaunting a diamond choker with his namesake across it as she uploaded Snapchat videos from the car ride to the airport. On the move again: The superstar couple rarely spend long in one place Candid camera: Kim filmed her journey to the airport on her phone to share her life with her fans Mommy moment: Kardashian did pay homage to her little boy, six-month-old Saint, flaunting a diamond choker with his namesake across it as she uploaded Snapchat videos from the car ride to the airport No pictures, please: In the videos, Kim posed for the camera before turning the lens on West who appeared less than willing to comply with his wife's antics Clinging to every curve: The 35-year-old's dress highlighted her fabulous figure to the max In the videos, Kim posed for the camera before turning the lens on West who appeared less than willing to comply with his wife's antics. 'We are so late at the airport,' Kim complained. She also added an excited, 'Going to Paris!' with a French accent. Ready to catch some Zzzz? No doubt Kim and Kanye would be flying First Class to Paris so will be able to have a comfortable sleep on the plane Smile, you're on candid camera: Kim turned the table on the paparazzi and filmed them taking photos of her Flawless: The reality TV queen had her usual heavy make-up look for her airport appearance Guiding that famous booty: The rapper placed a hand on Kim's derriere as he guided her past the paparazzi and fans Doting parents: Kim and Kanye also have a son, six-month-old Saint who has remained largely out of the spotlight since his birth They were one of only two of couples to stay together on Married At First Sight, but Christie Jordee has announced her separation from Mark Hughes amid claims the farmer sent racy text messages to a woman 15-years his junior. Businesswoman Christie exchanged vows with Mark while filming the popular Channel Nine reality show late last year, with the couple originally intending to spend their time between her home in urban Sydney and Mark's sprawling farm in rural Victoria. But little more than two months after viewers watched the couple marry in front of Sydney Opera House, the pair have called time on their short lived marriage. Scroll down for video All over: They were one of only two of couples to stay together on Married At First Sight, but Christie Jordee has announced her separation from Mark Hughes amid claims the farmer sent racy text messages to a woman 15-years his junior Speaking to Woman's Day, Christie claims she was ready to sell her cleaning business and move to Victoria permanently before getting cold feet, adding: 'We were starting to fall in love but our heads got in front of our hearts.' Confirming the split, Mark told the publication: 'We couldn't get into the relationship because we'd see each other once a week, but then not the next. I felt like we were holding back because we knew we'd get hurt.' But while Christie maintains she 'still adores' Mark and would 'love to see him with another woman,' New Idea claim the 37-year old farmer was sending saucy text messages to a younger girl shortly after Married At First Sight concluded in April. Previously: Little more than two months after viewers watched the couple marry in front of Sydney Opera House, the pair have called time on their short lived marriage Speaking to the magazine, the unnamed woman - who claims to be 22 - says she exchanged numbers with Mark after they met on picture messaging service Instagram. 'He was really sweet on the phone and told me he didn't believe that a girl like me would message him,' she said. 'Then he asked me to go on a date with him the following weekend. 'I was excited, because on TV he came across as such a gentleman.' Text messages obtained by New Idea appear to show the farmer suggesting they 'hang out and cook' after admitting 'younger is fine' - an apparent reference to their 15-year age gap. Old times: The couple originally intending to spend their time between Christie's home in urban Sydney and Mark's sprawling farm in rural Victoria The woman claims their contact extended to Facebook messages and lengthy, 'hour long' phone-calls before she 'cut all contact' after discovering pictures of Mark with Christie. Earlier this year Christie labelled their current living situation as 'difficult'. 'Its hard, its difficult,' she told Woman's Day. 'My business is lacking a little bit so Ive told him he needs to get his butt up here now.' Bun in the oven: Before the finale aired Christie hinted she was still with the farmer and that they may have been expecting their first child together by sharing an image of freshly baked bread rolls to Instagram Christie and Mark were one of only two couples to stay together after meeting and tying the knot on the Channel Nine reality show. Before the finale aired Christie hinted she was still with the farmer and that they may have been expecting their first child together. While sharing an image of freshly baked bread rolls to Instagram, she wrote: 'Love my protein buns! Just baked a new batch. 'Mmmm maybe I baked them for a special someone in my life too.' She revealed in the first episode that: 'wanting children has become more important'. Speaking to TV Week, she said she did not want to 'miss out' on having kids because of her age. 'Unfortunately, we do have the clock,' she said. 'I do want kids and I'm also happy to adopt. I would love to adopt, because my parents fostered kids.' Read all about it: Christie and Mark confirmed their split in the latest issue of Woman's Day magazine He took his first steps since being stabbed at a Marbella nightclub, last week. And Jake Hall used his new found mobility to manoeuvre to the beach as he continued his recovery away from hospital this weekend. The 24-year-old Only Way Is Essex star appeared rather positive as he found himself back on his feet, taking to Instagram to post pictures of his sun soaked holiday. Scroll down for video The only way is up! TOWIE star Jake Hall appears to be well on the mend as he posted pictures of himself on the beach following recent nightclub stabbing in Marbella And he captioned the snaps with thankful and motivational messages, such as: 'What a feeling' and 'Enjoy life to the full'. Jake also posted an artsy shot of himself walking down a set of stairs, where he referenced his injury with the phrase, 'One step at a time'. The reality TV star has already received resounding support from his army of followers who have all wished him well on his road to recovery. Thankful: The star was wounded under a fortnight ago but appears to be getting back on his feet Jake cut a summery figure in his latest poolside snap as he dressed in a blue and white pin-striped jacket and matching shorts. And he played it cool with a pair of round, tinted sunglasses that came complete with a quirky plastic frame. However, Jake didn't look quite ready to dive back into the crystal blue water, as he posed for the camera with his legs dangling over the edge of a sunbed. 'One step at a time': Jake posted an artsy shot of himself walking down a set of stairs, which he used to referenced his injury Jake was first pictured back on his feet on Wednesday as he walked for the first time since his injury. The Essex native described it as 'the best feeling in the world' as he shared a video of the moment he took his first steps since being left in intensive care in the Costa del Sol. Jake almost lost a kidney when he was reportedly stabbed with a broken bottle in what is thought to have been a gang-related attack at celebrity hotspot Aqwa Mist, just over a week ago. Back on his feet: Jake was back on his feet on Wednesday, just over a week after being stabbed at a Marbella nightclub Still wearing his hospital clothes, the reality TV star was seen back on his feet on Wednesday as he gave a few air punches in the style of the late Muhammad Ali - though he still looked a little unsteady. Jake wrote beside the video posted on his 306k-followed Instagram account: 'Today was best feeling in world being able to have a little walk' It seems that Jake's recovery has also been pushed along by bedmate 'Eduardo,' who he referenced in a second picture caption of a group, taken inside the hospital. Bedbound: Jake was left in intensive care in the Costa del Sol Hospital after a gang-related brawl at the Aqwa Mist nightclub, where he is thought to have been stabbed with a broken bottle Fighting fit: In a new video, posted only on Wednesday, the star can be seen to give Muhammad Ali-style punches in the air He wrote: 'Most amazing family me and Eduardo been pushing each other he getting better too! #graciaseduardo #legend' Jake has remained defiant about making a strong recovery and posted his first message in the hospital bed eight days ago that simply said: 'You can't get rid of me that easily.' One other such solid support has been on-and-off-screen girlfriend Chloe Lewis, who has kept a bedside vigil since news of the attack reached her in the same Spanish holiday resort. Though recent posts on Chloe's social media have indicated that the incident hasn't caused her to reconsider the pair's future together, but made it clear Jake was still very much important to her. Feeling good: He wrote beside the photo: 'Today was best feeling in world being able to have a little walk' Still in hospital: He was still dressed in his hospital clothes but went without a shirt Get well soon; He shared a group shot of the individuals who are helping him to recover When he managed to raise his first smile for the cameras, Jake penned a thank you to his fans that gave a special mention to Chloe. He wrote: 'I'm slowly getting better. my family @chloelewis91 and close friends have been here for me and love them very much' Documenting his recovery in pictures, the TV star also shared the moment he was able to get washed and shaved for the first time. The Essex native was attacked when a group of Liverpudlian friends he was with squared up to a gang of violent Londoners at Marbella's celebrity hangout Aqwa Mist. Getting better: The hunk has been documenting his recovering, and was delighted to be able to shave and wash his hair this week On the mend: Early on in his recovery, a bed-bound Jake posted a Twitter picture to say he was getting better The two groups went for each other with broken champagne bottles and shards of glass from shisha pipes they had been smoking. Several holidaymakers have spoken out after witnessing the aftermath of the incident. Laura Wohlgemuth, who was queuing up outside the club at the time, told the Scottish Daily Record: 'Jake ran out into a car. Blood was everywhere. 'We thought we weren't going to get in but they just got a hose out and washed away blood.' Stand by your man: Ex-girlfriend Chloe Lewis is thought to have been keeping a bedside vigil throughout In the latest development, police questionned the Essex native from his bed in the hospital but he was said to have been ' fairly uncooperative'. Police investigating the brawl have questioned three men and though the British trio were identified they were not arrested. A spokesman for Spain's National Police, which is probing the incident under the coordination of an investigating magistrate, said: 'This matter is still under investigation. We cannot say any more at this stage.' There for him: After learning of the news, Chloe - who was in the Spanish city with pals at the time - posted to say that their relationship status might not have changed but she was standing by him The only way is up: Jake was in defiant mood when writing to his 157,000 followers Feeling thankful: The Essex native appeared genuinely grateful for all the well-wishes he had received A spokesman for Marbella town hall, who local police officers answer to, said: 'This matter is a National Police matter.' A source close to the case said: 'Neither of the two police forces were told a man had been stabbed when they reached the nightclub. 'They came across the aftermath of a fight but encountered the typical wall of silence they get after night-time altercations in the area, especially those involving Brits.' When it comes to red carpet fashion at the 2016 Tony Awards, the stars brought their A-game. And Jourdan Dunn was no exception, arriving to Beacon Theatre in New York City on Sunday evening in a stunning strapless silk gown in hues of champagne pink and silver. The 25-year-old model's enviable figure was on full display in the cleavage-baring dress, which featured a glamorous high-low skirt that trailed behind her as she walked. Scroll down for video Model behavior: Jourdan Dunn was no exception to the flury of major red carpet moments, arriving to the Tony Awards in New York City on Sunday evening in a stunning strapless silk gown in hues of champagne pink and silver The bodice of Jourdan's ensemble was reminiscent of a corset, while the bottom half flowed out from the knee-length pencil skirt hugging her slim pins. As for accessories, Dunn kept it glitzy with a double-layered diamond necklace and sparkling statement earrings. She let her natural beauty shine through with a sheer bronze makeup look and dab of pink gloss across her plump pout, while she wore her hair in a centre part tucked behind her ears in loose curls. See Tony Awards 2016 red carpet updates as Jourdan Dunn is an absolute vision Dynamic duo: Designer Zac Posen joined the British beauty on the carpet, looking as handsome as ever in a two-toned navy blue suit and bow-tie The ensemble fit for a princess was rounded out by a pair of shimmering ankle strap heels in a light pink color. Fashion mogul Zac Posen - who designed Dunn's dress - joined the British beauty on the carpet, looking as handsome as ever in a two-toned navy blue suit and bow-tie. The 35-year-old donned a silver ribbon across his lapel. On point: She let her natural beauty shine through with a sheer bronze makeup look and dab of pink gloss across her plump pout, while she wore her hair in a centre part tucked behind her ears in loose curls Celebrities were out in force on Sunday to celebrate the year's biggest achievements in Broadway theatre. Leading the celebrity arrivals at the 2016 Tony Awards was Oscar-winning beauty Lupita Nyong'o and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star Jane Krakowski who both stunned in pretty gowns with floral motifs. Lupita looked statuesque in an off-the-shoulder Boss gown encrusted with colourful sequins while Jane showed off her cleavage in a floral pattern fishtail gown by Michael Kors. So pretty: Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o was statuesque in a colourful sequinned gown for the 2016 Tony Awards Maximum glamour: The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star wowed in a floral design dress with plunging neckline and fishtail silhouette She's been rumoured to follow in the footsteps of Sam Frost as Australia's next Bachelorette. But it turns out that Lana Jeavons-Fellows is already off the market, with the brunette beauty officially unveiling her boyfriend of seven months, 35-year-old entrepreneur Jake Meah, in an exclusive interview with NW magazine on Monday. The 28-year-old reveals that things are going so well between the pair that they're already talking babies and marriage. Scroll down for video Off the market: Lana Jeavons-Fellows confirmed her relationship with boyfriend Jake Meah on Monday in an exclusive interview with NW magazine 'We talk about it freely,' gushed Lana when asked if marriage was on the cards. She continued: 'I sent him a picture the other day of someone's wedding photo, but ours would be much less conventional. I'm not a big-white-puffy-dress girl.' Jake admits to the magazine that he likes the idea of having three children, while Lana is torn between two or three little ones. 'Maybe two,' she said, before adding: 'Or you never know - we might have triplets!' 'We talk about it freely,' said the 28-year-old when asked if marriage was on the cards 'We do both want to have children one day:' The couple are already talking babies 'You never know - we might have triplets!' gushed Lana, while Jake admits he wants three kids The loved-up twosome met before Lana appeared on The Bachelor last year, but parted ways when Jake temporarily relocated to London for business. The couple have now been together for seven months, despite Lana's repeated hints that she could be the next Bachelorette. In an interview with Daily Mail Australia over the weekend, the brunette bombshell refused to confirm or deny if she would be following in Sam Frost's footsteps. Long time lover: Lana and Jake met before the brunette starred on The Bachelor, and have officially been dating for seven months Businessman: The 35-year-old entrepreneur is the founder of internet startup Click Profits She explained: 'As I said a surprise is always good. I have been dating so' 'Theyre still filming The Bachelor so its still some months away now until they start filming [The Bachelorette], so its not something anyone can think about or commit to at this stage.' Lana is currently set to join fellow reality TV stars like Lydia Schiavello and Louise Pillidge by launching her own beauty and lifestyle blog. Her claim to fame: Lana shot to stardom after appearing on season three of The Bachelor Brokenhearted: The brunette beauty made it to the final two, before being dumped by Sam Wood for glamorous mother-of-one Snezana Markoski The multi-talented starlet made the announcement in April, specifying that her blog will be focused on hair care. 'I did notice that throughout and after the show a lot of people would write to me on Instagram about how I look after my hair,' she told Daily Mail Australia. She added: 'I've got the draft but there are still some technical things to work out.' Lana found fame after making it to the final two of the third season of The Bachelor. However, the corporate communications officer was left brokenhearted by Bachelor Sam Wood, who chose glamorous mother-of-one Snezana Markoski over Lana. She was spotted earlier in the day working up a sweat during a punishing run. And Claire Danes's glam squad had got to work by the time she appeared on the red carpet at the 70th Annual Tony Awards in NYC on Sunday. The 37-year-old was still glowing from the exercise as she dazzled on the red carpet. Stunning: Claire Danes looked glam on the red carpet at the 70th Annual Tony Awards in NYC on Sunday The Homeland star was in-keeping with the sombre mood of the awards - who dedicated the ceremony to the victims of the Orlando massacre hours earlier - wearing all black. She chose a simple floor length bias cut gown without embellishment, which showcased her toned arms and shoulders and decolletage. Her blonde tresses were styled in a loose up-do, and her gentle make-up showcased her piercing blue eyes and flawless skin, as she arrived accompanied by husband Hugh Dancy. See Tony Awards 2016 updates as Claire Danes stuns in a satin gown with Hugh Dancy Elegant: Her blonde tresses were styled in a loose up-do, as she arrived accompanied by husband Hugh Dancy Hugh, 40, looked dashing in a well-cut black tux as he also carried a matching suntan. The British actor - who will celebrate seven years married to the Romeo and Juliet star this summer - looked to have freshly cropped his hair and opted for a thin black tie instead of traditional bow. Claire likely met up with her loyal glam squad - stylist Petra Flannery, hairdresser Peter Butler, and make-up artist Rebecca Restrepo after smashing out a Sunday run. Respectful: The Homeland star was in-keeping with the sombre mood of the awards - the ceremony was dedicated to the victims of the Orlando massacre hours earlier - by wearing all black Radiant: The 37-year-old was still glowing from the exercise as she dazzled on the red carpet Handsome couple: Hugh, 40, looked dashing in a well-cut black tux as he also carried a matching suntan Both in black: The British actor - who will celebrate seven years married to the Romeo and Juliet star this summer - looked to have freshly cropped his hair and opted for a thin black tie instead of traditional bow Pretty: Her gentle make-up showcased her piercing blue eyes and flawless skin Stylish: She chose a simple floor length bias cut gown without embellishment, which showcased her toned arms and shoulders and decolletage The Dry Powder thespian served presenting duties at Sunday night's Tony Awards airing live on CBS from New York's Beacon Theatre. Hosted by James Corden, guests at the annual awards ceremony including Cate Blanchett, Carole King, Jeff Daniels and openly gay actors Neil Patrick Harris and Jesse Tyler Ferguson wore a silver ribbon designed by the Tony Awards in remembrance of those who were affected by the Orlando tragedy. Broadway's biggest night is being dedicated to those affected by the shooting, with the Tony producers saying in a statement Sunday: 'Our hearts are heavy for the unimaginable tragedy that happened last night in Orlando. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those affected. Inside: The Dry Powder thespian took a seat before serving presenting duties at Sunday night's Tony Awards airing live on CBS from New York's Beacon Theatre 2016 TONY AWARD WINNERS BEST MUSICAL Hamilton - WINNER Shuffle Along Waitress School of Rock - The Musical Bright Star BEST PLAY Eclipsed The Father The Humans - WINNER King Charles III BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY The Crucible A View From the Bridge - WINNER Blackbird Long Day's Journey Into Night Noises Off BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL The Color Purple - WINNER Fiddler on the Roof She Loves Me Spring Awakening Dames at Sea BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL Bright Star - Steve Martin Hamilton - Lin-Manuel Miranda - WINNER School of Rock - The Musical - Julian Fellowes Shuffle Along - George C. Wolfe BEST ORIGINAL SCORE (MUSIC AND/OR LYRICS) Steve Martin and Edie Brickell - Bright Star Lin-Manuel Miranda - Hamilton - WINNER Andrew Lloyd Webber and Glenn Slater - School of Rock - The Musical Sara Bareilles - Waitress BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY Gabriel Byrne in Long Day's Journey Into Night Jeff Daniels in Blackbird Mark Strong in A View From the Bridge Frank Langella in The Father - WINNER Tim Pigott-Smith in King Charles III BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A PLAY Jessica Lange in Long Day's Journey Into Night - WINNER Michelle Williams in Blackbird Laurie Metcalf in Misery Sophie Okonedo in The Crucible Lupita Nyong'o in Eclipsed BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton Leslie Odom Jr. in Hamilton - WINNER Alex Brightman in School of Rock Danny Burstein in Fiddler on the Roof Zachary Levi in She Loves Me BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE IN A MUSICAL Phillipa Soo in Hamilton Cynthia Erivo in The Color Purple - WINNER Jessie Mueller in Waitress Laura Benanti in She Loves Me Carmen Cusack in Bright Star BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY Reed Birney in The Humans - WINNER Bill Camp in Arthur Miller's The Crucible David Furr in Noises Off Richard Goulding in King Charles III Michael Shannon in Long Day's Journey Into Night BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A PLAY Pascale Armand in Eclipsed Megan Hilty in Noises Off Jayne Houdyshell in The Humans - WINNER Andrea Martin in Noises Off Saycon Sengbloh in Eclipsed BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL Daveed Diggs in Hamilton - WINNER Brandon Victor Dixon in Shuffle Along Christopher Fitzgerald in Waitress Jonathan Groff in Hamilton Christopher Jackson in Hamilton BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A FEATURED ROLE IN A MUSICAL Danielle Brooks in The Color Purple Renee Elise Goldsberry in Hamilton - WINNER Jane Krakowski in She Loves Me Jennifer Simard in Disaster! The Musical Adrienne Warren in Shuffle Along BEST CHOREOGRAPHY Andy Blankenbuehler, Hamilton - WINNER Savion Glover, Shuffle Along Hofesh Shechter, Fiddler on the Roof Randy Skinner, Dames at Sea Sergio Trujillo, On Your Feet BEST ORCHESTRATIONS August Eriksmoen, Bright Star Larry Hochman, She Loves Me Alex Lacamoire, Hamilton - WINNER Daryl Waters, Shuffle Along BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A PLAY Beowulf Boritt, Therese Raquin Christopher Oram, Hughie Jan Versweyveld, A View from the Bridge David Zinn, The Humans - WINNER COSTUME DESIGN OF A MUSICAL Gregg Barnes, Tuck Everlasting Jeff Mahshie, She Loves Me Ann Roth, Shuffle Along Paul Tazewell, Hamilton - WINNER BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A PLAY Jane Greenwood, Long Day's Journey Into Night Michael Krass, Noises Off Clint Ramos, Eclipsed - WINNER Tom Scutt, King Charles III BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A MUSICAL Howell Binkley, Hamilton - WINNER Jules Fisher and Peggy Eisenhauer, Shuffle Along Ben Stanton, Spring Awakening Justin Townsend, American Psycho BEST LIGHTING DESIGN OF A PLAY Natasha Katz, Long Day's Journey Into Night - WINNER Justin Townsend, The Humans Jan Versweyveld, The Crucible Jan Versweyveld, A View from the Bridge Advertisement 'The Tony Awards dedicate tonight's ceremony to them.' Claire is keeping busy - in the sixth season of Showtime's Homeland, Danes' bipolar character Carrie Mathison will be living with her daughter Frannie in Brooklyn and working for a foundation for Muslims in the States. Last month, Hulu renewed The Path - in which the 40-year-old Emmy nominee plays The Meyerist Movement leader Cal Roberts - for a second season. She also has a three-year-old son called Cyrus with Dancy. It may been the biggest night of his career. But Lin-Manuel Miranda couldn't help but pay tribute to the victims of the tragedy in Orlando. The 36-year-old actor, writer and composer recited an emotional sonnet while accepting just one of Hamilton's 11 total awards at the 2016 Tony Awards in New York City on Sunday evening. Scroll down for video Touching: Lin-Manuel Miranda recited an emotional sonnet while accepting the best Original Score Award at the 2016 Tony Awards in New York City on Sunday Heartfelt: With tears in his eyes, he said: 'We chase the melodies that seem to find us until theyre finished songs and start to play/ When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day' LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA'S ACCEPTANCE SONNET TO HONOR ORLANDO My wifes the reason anything gets done/ She nudges me towards promise by degrees / She is a perfect symphony of one/ Our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us until theyre finished songs and start to play/ When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day. This show is proof that history remembers/ We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger/ We rise and fall and light from dying embers remembrance that hope and love last forever. Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside/ I sing Vanessas symphony. Eliza tells her story. [we] fill the world with music, love, and pride. Advertisement He was presented the Best Original Score Award at the event held in the legendary Beacon Theater before addressing the crowd with tears in his eyes. Lin said: 'We chase the melodies that seem to find us until theyre finished songs and start to play/ When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day.' And the big moments for the talented star and his company did not stop there as they were presented with one of the top honours of the night: Best Musical. When addressing the crowd after the victory, producer Jeffrey Seller talked about how they are all dreamers adding: 'Look around, look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now.' Barbra Streisand returned to the Tony stage for the first time in 46 years and also acknowledged the killings. The 74-year-old actress said: 'Tonight our joy is tinged with sorrow but we're here to celebrate Broadway and the beauty that artistry can bring into this world." Art, she said, can "at times like these console us.' Touching: Barbra Streisand presented Lin and company with one of the biggest awards of the night: Best Musical 'Look around, look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now': Producer Jeffrey Seller exclaimed during the acceptance speech when they were given one of the biggest awards of the night Historic: They took home 11 of their record-breaking 16 nominations In the spirit: The 74-year-old actress returned to the Tony stage for the first time in 46 years as she wore Hamilton-themed garb Happy: Lin was congratulated by his wife Vanessa Nadal shortly after the announcement of his win Hamilton had such a historic night that the cast came out for a second performance after their big win as they did The Schuyler Sisters with most of the major cast in their formal wear. Their total of 11 gongs falls just one short of The Producers record from 2001. Hamilton does have the record-breaking most nominations of all-time with 16 The previous record for most Tony nominations went to The Producers and Billy Elliott, who each received 14 nods. The smash Broadway hit also received nominations in all four acting categories and came away with three wins. Leslie Odom Jr, who is starring in his first Broadway role, took home the Best Actor in a Musical prize as he thanked the creative mind behind the play as he thanked Miranda for 'a new vision of what's possible.' Renee Elise Goldsberry set the tone for the night as she won the first televised win for Hamilton in the Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical category. At the top: Lin was bested by his co-star Leslie Odom Jr. in the coveted Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical category Milestone moments: Daveed Diggs (left) and Renee Elise Goldsberry (right) were recognised for their performances in the smash hit play What a moment: Renee was presented the Best Performance By An Actress gong by Mary Elizabeth-Winstead Stealing the show: Lin, Renee and Daveed proudly posed with their shiny new trophies backstage at the event The play received also three nods in the category of Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson/Marquis de Lafayette, Christopher Jackson as George Washington and Jonathan Groff as King George III. Diggs was ultimately crowned the winner as he told a funny story about how his father joined him in bright leotards for a gymnastics performance when he was a child. Director of Hamilton,Thomas Kail, was also presented with a gong on the telecast as he took home the prize for the Best Direction of a Play category. Star of the show: Lin returned with his cast for an incredible performance Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story before breaking out into Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down) Making a statement: They announced before the show that they would not be using muskets during their performance after the horrific massacre at an Orlando gay club that claimed the lives of at least 50 people Players in the play, which is centred around the life of American founding father Alexander Hamilton, announced before the show that they would not be using muskets during their performance after the horrific massacre at an Orlando gay club that claimed the lives of at least 50 people. The ensemble put together an incredible performance Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story before breaking out into Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down) without the prop firearms. The performance was preceded by an introduction from President of the US Barack Obama and his wife Michelle. Earlier in the night, a few of the castmembers had a part of the opening number as they joined host James Corden for a spoof of one of their most famous tracks. James was joined by three members of the cast from smash Broadway show Hamilton for an opening number. Man of the hour: James Corden opened up as host of the gala event Big night: Leslie Odom, Jr. began opening song of the play, Alexander Hamilton, as he set up Corden for his introduction Talented: James performed a hilarious song and dance after his monologue Putting on a show: The high-energy performance included references to musical classics like Grease All-star cast: Laura Benanti, James Corden, Jane Krakowski, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Renee Elise Goldsberry - pictured from left to right - all harmonized together at the end of the host's opening segment Leslie Odom, Jr. began the opening song of the play, Alexander Hamilton, as he is joined by other castmembers Anthony Ramos, Daveed Diggs and Okieriete Onaodowan, dressed in their colonial garb. The 34-year-old actor croons: 'Yes, the theater is where he made his name and his name is.' The Late Late Show host then finishes off by coming out with a Tony Award in his hand while replying: 'James Corden.' Prior to the performance James paid tribute to those affected by the shooting in Orlando as he said: 'All around the world people are trying to come to terms with the horrific event that took place in Orlando this morning. 'Your tragedy is our tragedy': Before the event, James had a touching monologue regarding the Orlando shooting just hours prior JAMES CORDEN'S OPENING MONOLOGUE REGARDING ORLANDO SHOOTING Good evening. All around the world, people are trying to come to terms with the horrific events that took place in Orlando this morning. On behalf of the whole theater community and every person in this room, our hearts go out to all of those affected by that atrocity. All we can say is you are not on your own right now. Your tragedy is our tragedy. Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced and is loved. Hate will never win. Together, we have to make sure of that. Tonights show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle. This is the Tony Awards. Advertisement 'On behalf of the whole theater community and every person in this room our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity. 'All we can say is you are not on your own right now. Your tragedy is our tragedy. 'Theater is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced and is loved. 'Hate will never win. Together, we have to make sure of that. Tonight's show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principal.' Big moment: British actress Cynthia Erivo won best actress for her Broadway debut in The Color Purple Fantastic four: Daveed, Cynthia, Leslie and Renee posed for a snap together as they won the musical acting awards, all but Cynthia starred in Hamilton Mogul: Oprah Winfrey was in attendance at the event as she is a producer for The Color Purple Proud: After the event she flashed her Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical Legends: She also posed with Barbra backstage at the gala Tremendous trio: Oprah posed with Cynthia Erivo and fellow producer Scott Sanders James also had a funny monologue as he joked about how Hamilton-centric the show was going to be. The funnyman said: 'I promise tonights show wont be all about Hamilton. There will also be commercial breaks.' He even poked fun at both Donald Trump and The Oscars lack of diversity as he joked: 'Think of tonight as the Oscars but with diversity. Its so diverse that Donald Trump has threatened to build a wall around this theatre.' Before the event it was reported that Broadway's biggest night was also dedicated to those affected by the tragedy. Breathtaking in blue: Jessica Lange accepted the award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in Long Day's Journey Into Night Pretty: Cate Blanchett presented the Best Actor in a Play award Veteran Frank Langella won his fourth Tony for playing a man who has begun his slide into dementia in The Father Dashing: Jake Gyllenhaal was one of the first presenters of the night Long time coming: Jayne Houdyshell accepts the award for Featured Cctress in a Play for The Humans Big night: Director Ivo van Hove accepts the award for Best Direction of a play for A View from the Bridge What an honour: Playwright Stephen Karam accepts the Tony award for Best Play for The Humans as the play totalled the second most wins with four Talented: Andrew Rannells and Oscar-nominated actress Saoirse Ronan looked stylish as they presented Lovely lady: Claire Danes presented in a navy satin nightey-inspired number Star in stripes: Diane Lane presented as she wore a zebra patterned number Taking the plunge: New mom Keri Russell sported a low-cut red number with shiny silver detailing on the shoulders Pioneer: Marlee Matlin spoke and signed on stage while introducing Spring Awakening Happy: Meg Ryan was another one of the presenters at the event Veterans of the stage and screen: Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones received a standing ovation when they hit the stage to present Dynamic duo: Lupita Nyong'o looked gorgeous as she posed with Common No strangers to the stage: Neil Patrick Harris and Sean Hayes posed for a snap together 'Our hearts are heavy for the unimaginable tragedy that happened last night in Orlando. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those affected,' the Tony Awards said in a statement Sunday. 'The Tony Awards dedicate tonight's ceremony to them.' They have also created a ribbon that guests will wear at the show in remembrance of the tragedy. Hamilton may have won several of the awards but did not win all of them as The Humans took home several awards including the coveted Best Play prize. Reed Birney took home the Best Performance by and Actor in a Featured Role in a Play gong for the play based off the book by Stephen Karam. It was the second most awarded show with four. Talented: Cynthia Erivo was featured in The Color Purple performance Moving and grooving: Jane Krakowski showed off her flexibility with Gavin Creel as they performed a number from their play She Loves Me Mirrored: Ana Villafane and Gloria Estefan performed a medley from On Your Feet! Mazel tov: The cast of Fiddler on the Roof performed a number Dreamland: Laura Benanti was one of the performers from She Loves Me Rocking out: Alex Brightman lead the cast of School Of Rock Pie in the sky: Jessie Mueller performed with the rest of the Waitress cast Legend: Bebe Neuwirth and the cast of Chicago performed All night entertainment: There was a stage set up on the sidewalk of the award show featuring Broadway stars including Steve Martin, Lin and Edie Brickell British actress Cynthia Erivo won best actress for her Broadway debut in The Color Purple. The 29-year-old actress thanked her cast for 'making me a stronger woman on that stage.' The Color Purple, which was produced by Oprah, won for Best Revival Of A Musical. Jessica Lange won her first Tony for playing a drug-addled mother in the revival of the monumental Long Day's Journey Into Night. Hitting the high notes: Actress Glenn Close parodied Hillary Clinton for A Clinton Line spoof Hello: Andrew Rannells channelled Donald Trump for The Book Of Moron The 67-year-old two-time Academy Award winner said: 'This is a dream come true and it fills me with such happiness, even on such a sad day as this.' Frank Langella won his fourth Tony for playing a man who has begun his slide into dementia in The Father. He almost teared up when he mentioned his brother's struggle with dementia. He also had a message for the people of Orlando: We will be with you every step of the way.' There were also funny sketches throughout the night including one where Glenn Close portrayed Hillary Clinton and Andrew Rannells played Donald Trump. Gala: The Tony Awards is an annual event that recognises achievement in live Broadway theatre She's regarded as one of the most beautiful Bond girls of all time. And Jane Seymour proved that her stunning good looks were timeless as she stepped out on to the red carpet for the 56th Festival De Television in Montecarlo on Sunday. The 65-year-old looked a vision of youth at the event as she put on a playful display for the cameras in a flirty A-line dress that showed off her sensational figure. Scroll down for video Ageless beauty! Jane Seymour proved that her stunning good looks were timeless as she stepped out on to the red carpet for the 56th Festival De Television in Montecarlo on Sunday Jane's dress came in vibrant shades of powder blue and white, which contrasted vividly against the star's golden glow. And the cut of the gown made the most of her fabulous figure as it cinched in her tiny waist before cascading down around her hips. Keeping her shoe choice in keeping with the rest of her outfit, the actress slipped on a pair of silver slingback heels that added some extra height to her already never-ending legs. Stunning: The 65-year-old looked a vision of youth at the event as she put on a playful display for the cameras in a flirty A-line dress that showed off her sensational figure Playful: Jane's dress came in vibrant shades of powder blue and white, which contrasted vividly against the star's golden glow She also made sure to match he accessories accordingly, as she added some extra sparkle to her ensemble with a delicate silver bracelet and coordinating pendant. And she made sure that all eyes were on her elegantly long neck with some oversized hoop earrings. However, Jane couldn't resist teasing the crowds as she added an extra pop of colour to her look with a contrasting scarlet manicure. Flattering: The cut of the gown made the most of Jane's fabulous figure as it cinched in her tiny waist before cascading down around her hips Coordinating: Keeping her shoe choice in keeping with the rest of her outfit, the actress slipped on a pair of silver slingback heels All that glitters: Jane made sure to match he accessories accordingly, as she added some extra sparkle to her ensemble with a delicate silver bracelet and coordinating pendant As she joyfully danced her way along the red carpet, Jane's auburn hair took centre stage as it elegantly cascaded down her back in loose waves and framed her pretty features with bouncy bangs. But despite the carefree feel to her appearance, Jane made sure that she maintained a high-glamour look in the makeup department, as she sported a flawless complexion and drew attention to her almond eyes with lashings of mascara. She also accentuated her dazzling smile with a slick of sophisticated rose lipstick. Eye-poppying: Jane couldn't resist teasing the crowds as she added an extra pop of colour to her look with a contrasting scarlet manicure Humble: Jane took the time to sign autographs for her adoring fans at the festival Last month, Jane gushed about her love for her three grandchildren. Jane's children include Katherine and Sean, whose father is David Flynn, as well as John and Kristopher, whose dad is James Keach. Jane divorced James in 2015 after 22 years of marriage. Fit for a princess! Princess Charlene of Monaco also attended the event and looked dazzling in a white floor-length dress Dream team: Princess Charlene and Prince Albert of Monaco were joined by actress Marg Helgenberger on the red carpet The British actress, told Closer Weekly being Grandma (or 'Oma,' as her grandkids call her) is her favorite role yet. 'I love having my grandchildren over,' the actress said. Jane was also joined on the red carpet by big names, such as Princess Charlene and Prince Albert of Monaco, and Jason Pristley. He has always boasted a head full of luxuriously thick hair. But Neil Patrick Harris showed off his new buzzcut as he graced the red carpet with husband David Burtka the Tony Awards in New York on Sunday. The 42-year-old shaved his head for his role as Count Olaf in the Netflix series A Series of Unfortunate Events, and he looked far from the handsome hunk his fans know and love with his new egghead look. Scroll down for video An unfortunate event: Neil Patrick Harris showed off his newly shaved dome as he posed with husband David Burtka at the Tony Awards in New York on Sunday Prodigious prestidigitator Neil, who was previously president of Hollywood's prestigious Magic Castle, looked in fine form otherwise in a classic black tuxedo and leather shoes. The couple looked so in love on the red carpet, with David gurning with glee for the cameras as he showed off his sparkling tuxedo. Neil, who played ladies man Barney Stinson in hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother, is taking a step out of his comfort zone for his new role, and not just because he has shaved off his famous hair. For he is playing eccentric criminal and antagonist Count Olaf in the forthcoming Netflix show A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is based on the children's novel series of same name. See Tony Awards 2016 updates as Neil Patrick Harris shows off new-look shaved head Not so egg-celent new look: Neil's bald head does not flatter his features as much as his usual do Ready to perform: The prodigious prestidigitator certainly looked like a magician in his tux Bringing the glam: While Neil wore a classic tux flamboyant David went for a sparkling number It came after the 42-year-old Doogie Howser MD favourite posted an image on Instagram of the pair grinning in front of the skyline of New York a couple of weeks ago where he said: 'Happy Birthday, @dbelicious. 'I'm honored to be your husband, and so grateful that you are a father to our children. I suspect this will be your best year yet. ' The celebrity couple got engaged following the passage of the Marriage Equality Act in New York in 2011 and finally tied the knot three years later. Ladies man: Women could not resist his luxurious barnet on How I Met Your Mother For he is playing eccentric criminal and antagonist Count Olaf in the forthcoming Netflix show A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is based on the children's novel series of same name If there's one thing that's for certain about Cate Blanchett's red carpet style, is that it's always far from dull. And as the Australian actress stepped out at the Tony Awards in New York on Sunday night, she opted for an interesting choice to say the least. The 47-year-old wore a black and white Louis Vuitton gown with a contrasting bustier detail across her chest. Scroll down for video Hot metal! Cate Blanchett donned a metallic Louis Vuitton gown with contrasting bustier at the Tony Awards in New York City on Sunday night A look plucked straight off the Autumn ready-to-wear 2016 runway, the dress was a combination of fabrics layered on top of one another, finishing in an asymmetric line. The grunge-influenced frock also featured leather sleeves, and she added to the theme of the look with large metal earrings and thick black eyeliner. Pinned to the left side of Cate's chest was a silver, translucent ribbon to remember the victims of recent the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida. See Tony Awards 2016 updates as Cate Blanchett cuts a grungy figure in metallic gown Grungy: The grunge-influenced frock also featured leather sleeves Hot off the catwalk: A look plucked straight off the Autumn ready-to-wear 2016 runway, the dress was a combination of fabrics layered on top of one another, finishing in an asymmetric line Aussies reunited! The Carol star reunited with fellow Australian Rose Byrne and her partner Bobby Cannavale Before heading into the awards ceremony that honours excellence in theatre, the Carol star reunited with fellow Australian Rose Byrne and her partner Bobby Cannavale. The Boardwalk Empire star was also wearing a silver ribbon pinned to the lapel of his blazer, and stood with his arm around his partner, who cut a feminine figure in a red sequinned frock. It was announced earlier that Cate would be making her return to the stage to make her debut on Broadway. Ageless beauty: Cate's pristine skin was also on display, showing very little makeup except her strong black eyeliner Back to the stage: It was announced earlier that Cate would be making her return to the stage to make her debut on Broadway Upcoming: The show will open on Sunday January 8, 2017 and will play a limited engagement through to Sunday March 19 Dates and venue have now been set for her playwright husband Andrew Upton's adaptation of Anton Chekhov's first and long-forgotten play, The Present, beginning previews on December 17. Cate will star opposite Richard Roxburgh, and the pair have previously appeared together off-Broadway in 2012 in Upton's adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. The show will open on Sunday January 8, 2017 and will play a limited engagement through to Sunday March 19. There's no question that many members of Hollywood's elite live in the lap of luxury. But quite a few stars came together Sunday afternoon at a private residence in Beverly Hills to give back, raising funds for arts-based educational initiatives at the 8th Annual Empathy Rocks event presented by Children Mending Hearts and Vintage Grocers. Of the do-gooders included Jessica Alba, stylist Rachel Zoe, television personality Ali Fedotowsky, and actresses Lydia Hearst, Kat Graham, Rowan Blanchard, Jenette McCurdy and Garcelle Beauvais. Do-gooder: Jessica Alba and more stars came together Sunday afternoon at a private residence in Beverly Hills to give back, raising funds for arts-based educational initiatives at the 8th Annual Empathy Rocks event presented by Children Mending Hearts and Vintage Grocers In addition to sponsoring the deserving cause, attendees were able to flaunt their unique style in a number of fashion choices perfect for LA's warm summertime weather. Alba showed some skin in a lace Three Floor frock with sheer panels near her cleavage while close pal Zoe rocked a bohemian-inspired maxi dress that featured white ruffles around her shoulders. The dynamic duo each relied on one accessory to make a statement; Alba, 35, shined in a pair of gold circular earrings while Zoe, 44, sported a bold necklace with tassels. Better together: Of the do-gooders included Jessica Alba, stylist Rachel Zoe, television personality Ali Fedotowsky, heiress Lydia Hearst and actress Kat Graham Pregnancy glow: Ali Fedotowsky put her growing baby bump on full display in a colorful, empire waist maxi dress in hues of purple, orange and pink Perfect couple: The mom-to-be glowed alongside her longtime beau and radio host Kevin Manno, who looked dapper in a collared flannel shirt and dark skinny jeans. Ali Fedotowsky put her growing baby bump on full display in a colorful, empire waist maxi dress in hues of purple, orange and pink. The mom-to-be glowed alongside her longtime beau and radio host Kevin Manno, who looked dapper in a collared flannel shirt and dark skinny jeans. The 31-year-old is surely counting down the days until her July 13 due date. Photo shoot ready: In addition to sponsoring the deserving cause, attendees were able to flaunt their unique style in a number of fashion choices perfect for LA's warm summertime weather Summertime fine: The Vampire Diaries actress cut a sizzling figure in a floral print burgundy-colored maxi dress with revealing cutouts across her slim mid-section and cleavage Ready for her close up: Kat pulled her caramel-colored tresses into a flirty updo with french braids and let her natural beauty shine through with minimal makeup Cutie: Rowan Blanchard, 14, dressed for the occasion in a quirky striped dress with a mock turtleneck, vintage-inspired denim jacket with funky patches and black patent leather ballet flats The Vampire Diaries actress, 26, cut a sizzling figure in a floral print burgundy-colored maxi dress with revealing cutouts across her slim mid-section and cleavage. Kat pulled her caramel-colored tresses into a flirty updo with french braids and let her natural beauty shine through with minimal makeup save for bronzer and thick lashes. Rowan Blanchard, 14, dressed for the occasion in a quirky striped dress with a mock turtleneck, vintage-inspired denim jacket with funky patches and black patent leather ballet flats. All smiles: iCarly actress Jennette Mccurdy looked stylish in a flirty romper with red polka dots and a key-hole neckline, which was rounded out by a fabulous pair of matching heels with a bow detail Red hot: Actress and heiress Lydia Hearst followed suit in a similarly colored strapless frock with eyelet detailing and mermaid-style skirt Giving back: Actress Garcelle Beauvais looked lovely in an off-the-shoulder flowing midi-dress in a blue and brown floral pattern Family affair: The brunette beauty was all smiles with her twin sons, Jaid and Jax, by her side. iCarly star Jennette Mccurdy, 23, looked stylish in a flirty romper with red polka dots and a key-hole neckline, which was rounded out by a fabulous pair of matching heels with a bow detail. Actress and heiress Lydia Hearst, 31, followed suit in a similarly colored strapless frock with eyelet detailing and mermaid-style skirt. Actress Garcelle Beauvais, 49, looked lovely in an off-the-shoulder flowing midi-dress in a blue and brown floral pattern with her twin sons, Jaid and Jax, by her side. Taking the stage: The dynamic duo each relied on one accessory to make a statement; Alba, 35, shined in a pair of gold circular earrings while Zoe, 44, sported a bold necklace with tassels Proud: Alba was eager to give a speech about Zoe's contributions to the worthy cause Congratulations: The duo shared a loving hug in front of onlookers before Rachel spoke of her passion for the charity organization After walking the red carpet, Alba took the stage to present Zoe with a special accolade, a moment she later featured on her Snapchat with the caption: 'CMH Humanitarian Award goes to my sweet Rachel Zoe' The duo shared a loving hug in front of onlookers before Rachel spoke of her passion for the charity organization. Meanwhile, Alba and Fedotowsky were busy sharing behind the scenes moments of the event, which featured Jessica's youngest daughter Haven enjoying a treat of cotton candy. Picture perfect: Meanwhile, Alba was busy sharing behind the scenes moments of the event, which featured Jessica's youngest daughter Haven Supportive: After walking the red carpet, Alba took the stage to present Zoe with a special accolade, a moment she later featured on her Snapchat with the caption: 'CMH Humanitarian Award goes to my sweet Rachel Zoe Selfie: Alba took to Snapchat to give a friendly shout out to her stylists while Haven offered a silly face in the background Ready: Alba documented the special afternoon on Snapchat, flashing a toothy smile to the camera on her way over Little princess: The 4-year-old looked elated to have her face painted with a special design and sparkly gems Time for a treat: Alba even let her little girl have a snack break with a sugary dessert of cotton candy Close friends: Alba and Zoe spent most of the afternoon posing for pictures with each other He's known for his cheeky sense of humour and outrageous antics. So it was no surprise to see Karl Stefanovic telling a firefighter to disrobe on-air during a live telethon on the Today show on Monday morning. 'I'll donate $100 if you take off your shirt right now,' the Today show host told the handsome young firefighter in a bid to raise funds for the Sydney Children's Hospital. Scroll down for video 'I'll donate $100 if you take off your shirt right now!' Karl Stefanovic asked a young firefighter to disrobe for cash in an attempt to raise money for the Sydney Children's Hospital Rather than shy away from the spotlight, the firefighter seemed more than keen to flaunt his ripped physique to the masses as he started pulling off his shirt just seconds after the racy request was made. The young stud stood grinning in front of a firetruck as he showcased his incredibly muscular frame while two of his clothed co-workers watched from the sidelines. 'Ooh yeah!' an enthusiastic Karl hooted as he admired the pleasing display. Eager to please: The firefighter didn't waste any time taking off his shirt for charity Nice view! The handsome young stud revealed his chiseled physique to millions of Australians 'Ooh yeah!' Karl made it clear that he enjoyed the view This wasn't the only comical behaviour that Karl has shown on the Today show recently, with the 41-year-old playfully mocking Delta Goodrem's dancing last week. Arms flailing in the air flamboyantly while Delta's The Voice chair slowly rotated toward the camera, Karl exclaimed: 'Who am I, who am I?' to the amusement of his co-hosts. He also appeared to take a leaf out of Jessie J's book by saucily stroking the air in a feline-like fashion, before saying: 'I love her. I love Jessie J'. Guess who! Flailing his his arms in the air flamboyantly while his chair slowly rotated toward the camera, Karl exclaimed: 'Who am I, who am I?' to the amusement of his co-hosts He went there! He also appeared to take a leaf out of Jessie J's book by saucily stroking the air in a feline-like fashion, before saying: 'I love her. I love Jessie J' At the end of his bizarre performance, Karl smugly sat back down and added: 'I love Delta'. Today took to Instagram to continue the fun, sharing a photo of Karl's impression of The Voice's judges captioned with: 'What do you reckon @deltagoodrem? Does @kstefanovic pull it off?' The answer from fans, however, appeared to be a resounding 'no', with one commenting: 'I love Karl but No'. 'No no no no no', wrote another. As America once again woke to the news that there had been yet another mass shooting, this star took to the streets to let those targeted in the attacks know they are not alone. Kelly Osbourne headed to West Hollywood, California, in solidarity of those lost in the Orlando shooting and to support the LGBTQ community on Sunday. The 31-year-old star and her friends reacted to the horrible news first with sorrow but then decided to create signs and go to the annual LA Pride event to show fear and hate will not win. Dping her bit: Kelly Osbourne headed to the West Hollywood Pride parade in solidarity of those lost in the Orlando shooting and to support the LGBTQ community on Sunday The star proudly held up her sign which had Orlando and WEHO (West Hollywood) interlaced with two hands clasped together and the phrase 'Fearless and proud' on it. Kelly even wrote the word 'solidarity' to the side of her shaved head which matched her 'stories' tattoo on the other side. The former Fashion Police host took to social media to encourage fans to join her and head to the West Hollywood event which celebrates the local LGBTQ community. Posting a picture of her and her friend making the sign, Kelly wrote: 'Love & equality will always triumph. After many tears & prayers today, making signs to show our support & solidarity. Showing support: The 31-year-old star and her friends (pictured is skater Braydon Szafranski and artist Jeremy Kost) reacted to the horrible news first with sorrow but then decided to create signs and go to the annual LA Pride event to show fear and hate will not win. 'Fearless and proud': Kelly even wrote the word 'solidarity' to the side of her shaved head which matched her 'stories' tattoo on the other side 'Let's show the world that fear can go f**k itself. Make your sign & meet me at #pride.' The star joined thousands of people who flocked to West Hollywood to join the celebration and to show their support for the gay community as well as those killed in the Orlando massacre. Again trying to show that fear cannot win, Kelly then headed to the city's biggest gay club, The Abbey, to celebrate in the face of terror. Fan outreach: The former Fashion Police host took to social media to encourage fans to join her and head to the West Hollywood event which celebrates the local LGBTQ community The in-crowd: The star joined thousands of people who flocked to West Hollywood to join the celebration and to show their support for the gay community as well as those killed in the Orlando massacre Not afraid: Again trying to show that fear cannot win, Kelly then headed to the city's biggest gay club, The Abbey, to celebrate in the face of terror As Pride happened in Los Angeles, across the other side of the country in Orlando, Florida, the FBI and the police were continuing their investigations into the country's worst mass shooting and deadliest terror attack since 9/11. Omar Mateen, 29, shot and killed 50 people and wounded 53 as they partied at gay club Pulse. Mateen started his attack at 2am in the morning and then held some clubgoers hostage before he was killed in a gun battle with police three hours later. She's known to document her family's life on social media, particularly the cute antics of her children. And Roxy Jacenko again took to Instagram to share a sweet photo of her two-year-old son Hunter Curtis wearing a new pair of high-end trainers. The tiny tot was decked out from head-to-toe in Adidas gear as he walked along a footpath in Bondi Beach with his mother on Monday. Brunch with mum: Roxy Jacenko again took to Instagram to share a cute photo of her two-year-old son Hunter Curtis wearing a new pair of high-end Adidas trainers, on Monday His sporty ensemble included a grey tracksuit with distinctive Adidas stripes and all-white Originals sneakers. 'Serious get up today,' the PR maven wrote next to the photo shared with her 93,700 followers. The family were on their way to a decadent brunch at Bills, where Roxy later posted a snap of her meal of cucumber, onions and greens salad on sourdough bread, which likely cost at least $25. During a school run last Thursday morning, Roxy again could not resist the urge to take a short Instagram video of Hunter. But this time he appeared slightly miffed with his mother taking a snapshot of him while he sat buckled up in his car seat. 'No Mum, no picture': Roxy could not resist the urge to take a short Instagram video of Hunter during the school run last Thursday morning No picture Mum, the youngster pleaded, while Roxy quipped: But I want to know where we are going, Im not quite sure. Ignoring his persistent mothers plea to say where they were going, Hunter begged: No Mum, no picture Mum. The post, which has been viewed over three thousand times, was simply captioned: 'Please Mum. Please. Off to school we go.' Not impressed: However, the two-year-old tot appeared slightly miffed with his mother taking a snapshot of him while he sat buckled up in his car seat Celebrations: Roxy celebrated her 36th birthday with husband Oliver and their children, Hunter and four-year-old Pixie after Oliver was convicted of insider trading Meanwhile, Roxy recently celebrated her 36th birthday with husband Oliver Curtis and their children, Hunter, and four-year-old Pixie. During the days proceedings, the PR maven showed off a shiny new Cartier diamond ring, which retails at $5,600. Sharing a snap of her hand with the bling on Instagram, the entrepreneur simply captioned the photo with her initials and a heart Emoji, followed by her husbands social media handle. 'RJ @1903oprc @cartier,' she captioned the image. A very modern family! The 36-year-old also shared a photo of her children outside the Chinese eatery Golden Century Seafood Restaurant as they both clutched iPads It's unclear whether the impressive accessory was a gift from the Sydneysider's beau, who was recently found guilty of conspiracy to commit insider trading. Daily Mail Australia have reached out to Roxy for confirmation. Earlier this month, a jury delivered their verdict following a tense three-week trial where Oliver's former best friend and schoolmate John Hartman was pitted against him. Mother-of-two Roxy remained dutifully by her husband's side during the trial. Roxy's husband could face up to five years imprisonment and/or a $220,000 fine over the charge. She has courted plenty of controversy with her social media posts in the past. And Imogen Anthony has once again been criticised for her latest upload. The 25-year-old girlfriend of shock jock Kyle Sandilands shared a snap of herself to Instagram on Monday, in which she is seen wearing a necklace with a gun charm. The post came after the tragic shootings in Orlando, where 50 people were shot dead and 53 were wounded. Scroll down for video Controversial: Imogen Anthony, 25, has come under fire for a selfie of herself wearing a gun necklace after news broke of the Orlando shootings While giving her 110,000 followers a rundown on her day's accessories, it was hard not to notice the statement necklace. 'The gun necklace is my own little somethin' somethin' from @resilientsilentkind,' Imogen wrote in a caption alongside a gun emoji. It wasn't long before one of her followers picked up on the ill timing. One user commented: 'Not the best time to glamorize guns after the tragedy over Orlando! Be safe there.' 'Not the best time to glamorize guns': One Instagram user was quick to comment on the ill-timed post Bad timing: The media personality caused a stir after she flaunted the gold gun necklace on Instagram while on holiday in LA with boyfriend Kyle Sandilands Earlier in the day, the White Trash Royalty designer uploaded a similar snap to the social media site drawing attention to the controversial piece of jewellery. There was no caption but her long pink talons were placed suggestively on her chest near the gold jewel. An American-born man, who'd pledged allegiance to ISIS, gunned down 50 people early Sunday at gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida. It has been named the deadliest mass shooting in the United States and the nation's worst terrorist attack since 9/11. The gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, Florida, carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the packed nightclub around 2am on Sunday and started shooting. Controversial: Imogen, seen here with Kyle, often attracts controversy with her Instagram posts Deja vu: Back in November, the Maxim model posed topless in a black balaclava and made a shooting gesture with her hands after news broke of the terror attacks in Paris, during which 127 people were killed Baring all: Imogne has never been shy in her Instagram posts. She's pictured here covering her modesty with strategically placed tape across her nipples This is not the first time Imogen has come under fire for her ill-timed social media posts. Back in November, the Maxim model posed topless in a black balaclava and made a shooting gesture with her hands after news broke of the terror attacks in Paris, during which 127 people were killed. She deleted the post shortly after a follower pointed out its ill-timing. Imogen has explained in the past that it's easy to fall into the trap of seeking others' approval on social media. At the end of last year she told her fans: 'F*** social media - if it didn't help with the s*** I needed to do with work, aka the [fashion] label and just knowing I generally exist as a partner to a famous dude, I wouldn't have it.' Risque: In October last year, Imogen announced the launch of her own fashion label, White Trash Royalty, and needless to say, this only led to some very revealing outfits showcased on her Instagram account Her stunning beauty has made her one of the world's highest paid models. And Joan Smalls was truly a glowing goddess at the 2016 Tony Awards in New York on Sunday. The Puerto Rican beauty dazzled on the red carpet wearing a low-cut Altuzarra gown with ornate embroidery. Statuesque: Joan Smalls stunned on the red carpet at the Tony Awards in New York on Sunday The dress featured a patchwork design with black sequinned trim and she teamed it with delicate strappy heels. The Victoria's Secret star wore her long dark locks in a neat ponytail and side-swept fringe. Her makeup look was dramatic, with dusky red eye-shadow with a more pared down lip. See Tony Awards 2016 news as Joan Smalls glows in ornate embroidered gown Ornate: Joan wore a red patchwork style dress with silver embroidery and embellishments Shimmering: The 27-year-old model posed with her dress designer Joseph Altuzarra Joan - rocking Monique Pean jewelry - also showed her support for the victims of the Orlando massacre by wearing a small silver ribbon on her chest. Last week the model was back in her native Puerto Rico to attend the opening ceremony of an H&M store at the Mall of San Juan. After growing up in Puerto Rico, the 5ft 10in beauty's highly successful fashion career began when she moved to New York after college. Sleek: The Puerto Rican beauty - rocking Monique Pean jewelry - wore her brunette locks pulled back in a side parting Since then, she has walked the runway for the most celebrated designers and fashion houses, featured on the most prestigious covers and appeared in popular music videos, including Beyonce's Yonce video. In 2014, Joan topped models.coms ranking of the 50 most sought-after models, and appeared on the Return of the Supermodel cover of American Elle. She also made history when she became the first Latino model to represent Estee Lauder cosmetics, interviewing newcomer Kendall Jenner when she joined. Joan has been dating entrepreneur Bernard Smith since 2011. 'On my way to the #TonyAwards' The VS beauty shared a video clip on Sunday showing off her glam look Dorothy Wang told Morgan Stewart she was re-considering being her bridesmaid after confronting her friend over offensive remarks she made behind her back. Dorothy sobbed as she told the bride-to-be how hurt she was after being called a 'ch***y twinkie' and confessed she was struggling with their friendship. Revealing what she had been told by pal Bianca Espada, Dorothy said: 'I heard what you said about me, referring to me as a ch***y twinkie. Tensions rising: Dorothy Wang told Morgan Stewart she was re-considering being her bridesmaid after confronting her friend over offensive remarks she made behind her back Called out: Revealing what she had been told by pal Bianca Espada, Dorothy said: 'I heard what you said about me, referring to me as a ch***ytwinkie' With tears streaming down her face, she continued: 'Bianca told me everything, ok? My heart literally dropped and I was like 'what did I ever do?' 'A lot of the stuff I say is out of humour and bad taste sometimes and you know that and I'm sorry,' Morgan apologized. 'I'm telling you I very much care about you but I don't expect you to believe anything I'm saying right now. I'm genuinely telling you I'm really sorry.' Making amends: 'A lot of the stuff I say is out of humour and bad taste sometimes and you know that and I'm sorry,' Morgan apologized Dorothy added: 'I just don't know where we go from here. Sometimes I think about it and I'm like how am I going to get up and be a bridesmaid and maybe get up and give a speech when I know that not that long ago you were saying that about me?' Dorothy's snow down with Morgan, which aired on Sunday night's episode of The Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, came as the pair flew to Miami for Morgan's bachelorette party. Earlier, Dorothy had opened up to her mother Vivine about what happened and confessed she wasn't sure she wanted to go to Florida for the party. Heart to heart: Dorothy had opened up to her mother Vivine about what happened and confessed she wasn't sure she wanted to go to Florida for the party 'I just feel like it's gross and disgusting that she calls me that. It's just mean,' she said. 'I've been called that before but this is the first time it's been from someone that I thought was my friend. I just feel like she's so fake. 'I just want her to look at herself and ask herself what type of person she is, what type of friend she is, what type of wife she's going to be and just be better.' Bachelorette fun: EJ Johnson joined the girls for a weekend trip to Miami Yikes: The group took on a scavenger hunt, which saw them complete risque tasks such as giving lap dances to strangers After her mother advised her to go to Miami as planned and just be nice to Morgan, Dorothy joined the other girls and EJ Johnson for a weekend of drinks and games. The group took on a scavenger hunt, which saw them complete risque tasks such as giving lap dances to strangers, downing flaming shots, kissing a stranger on the lips and encouraging a random man to give you his underwear. Later they surprised the bride-to-be with a cardboard cutout of her fiance Brendan Fitzpatrick, a room full of bachelorette party supplies and three male strippers. Naughty: They surprised the bride-to-be with a cardboard cutout of her fiance Brendan Fitzpatrick, a room full of bachelorette party supplies and three male strippers Big surprise: While two of the strippers disguised themselves as police officers, another posed as a pizza delivery man While two of the strippers disguised themselves as police officers, another posed as a pizza delivery man. 'I did not for one second think a meat lover's pizza meant a stripper. I was like 'oooh what toppings are we getting?' Morgan laughed. But things took a turn for the worse for Morgan when Dorothy confronted her about Bianca's claims she had called her an offensive name. Uh-oh: 'I did not for one second think a meat lover's pizza meant a stripper. I was like 'oooh what toppings are we getting?' Morgan laughed Admitting she was at fault, Morgan told the camera: 'It's something that I can't just brush under the rug and I have to take responsibility for something I did that I'm really, really not proud of. 'I didn't realise that I could hurt people and there's some things you can joke about and there are other things you can't joke about.' Dorothy, however, said: 'I feel like Morgan is saying all the right things, but it still doesn't make it feel any better.' Mixed feelings: Dorothy, however, said: 'I feel like Morgan is saying all the right things, but it still doesn't make it feel any better' Outsider: Things went from bad to worse after Dorothy, feeling awkward around Morgan, invited Bianca to join her in Miami and snuck off to meet her for dinner. Things went from bad to worse after Dorothy, feeling awkward around Morgan, invited Bianca to join her in Miami and snuck off to meet her for dinner. Dorothy told her friend: 'I'm still mad at Morgan. We still have a very long way to go, but I feel like she was genuine.' Rolling her eyes, Bianca said: 'I think it should tell you who your real friends are and who they're really not.' Look who's here: Before the pair could talk about it any more, their dinner was gatecrashed by none other than a furious Morgan who sat down and screamed at Bianca in the middle of the restaurant Girl fight: 'I think the only probably for Dorothy is you and your f***ing mouth and if you want to say something about me you say it to me,' she said, wagging her finger at Bianca. Explaining that she felt Dorothy treated Morgan in a very different way to her, she added: 'It's hurtful. I've been nothing but a good friend to you. 'I just wish you would stand up for yourself more. I wish you were stronger about it. Anybody that talks about anybody like that is not a friend of mine. I want to stay as far away from her as possible.' Before the pair could talk about it any more, their dinner was gatecrashed by none other than a furious Morgan who sat down and screamed at Bianca in the middle of the restaurant. Game over: 'If everyone believed everything they heard about you, everyone would think you're the w**** that you are. You run your mouth all over,' Morgan screamed at Bianca Defense mechanism: 'Why do you feel the need to talk s*** about her?' Bianca asked in return 'I think the only probably for Dorothy is you and your f***ing mouth and if you want to say something about me you say it to me,' she said, wagging her finger at Bianca. 'If everyone believed everything they heard about you, everyone would think you're the w**** that you are. You run your mouth all over.' Addressing Dorothy, Morgan said: 'I f***ed up. I talked s*** about you, you and I were not cool and I owned it.' Caught in the middle: 'Sometimes I think about it and I'm like how am I going to get up and be a bridesmaid and maybe get up and give a speech when I know that not that long ago you were saying that about me?' Dorothy told Morgan Turning to Bianca she asked: 'Why do you feel the need to talk s*** about me to her?' 'Why do you feel the need to talk s*** about her?' Bianca asked in return. 'First of all this is none of your f***ing business. You're a f***ing scum b****,' Morgan screamed. Goodbye: Turning to Bianca once again, she fumed: 'You and I are done' before storming out of the restaurant. 'Dorothy it's my bachelorette. I'm very sorry I talked s*** about you.' Turning to Bianca once again, she fumed: 'You and I are done' before storming out of the restaurant. A furious Bianca told Dorothy: 'Every door is open now. She has no f***ing idea what's about to come her way. I'm going to f*** this b****'s life up.' Boys' time: Back in Beverly Hills, things between Brendan and Jonny were much less dramatic While chaos was descending on Morgan's bachelorette party, her husband-to-be Brendan went with pal Jonny Drubel to get Botox injections in his armpits. 'I have a sweating problem,' he explained. 'I'm getting married. I don't want every photo in the wedding album to have a wet mark here.' Speaking to the doctor, he added: 'I've got two tuxedo shirts but I'd like to only use one.' While chaos was descending on Morgan's bachelorette party, her husband-to-be Brendan went with pal Jonny Drubel to get Botox injections in his armpits Brendan gritted his teeth and breathed heavily in pain while the doctor administered injections in his armpits. 'He's getting ready for childbirth,' the doctor quipped. Jonny, who got some fillers in his forehead, told Brendan: 'See, it wasn't that bad. Now I can't feel my face I feel great.' He added: 'I feel like it's 100 per cent normal for guys to get Botox together. It's bro-tox.' No pain no gain: Jonny, who got some fillers in his forehead, told Brendan: 'See, it wasn't that bad. Now I can't feel my face I feel great' After wowing at the 2016 Tony Awards it was party time for Lupita Nyong'o on Sunday night. And the 33-year-old Kenyan-Mexican actress wore the perfect dress for the event which was held at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Lupita donned a champagne hued mid-length dress with ruffle details on the front and black strappy heels. Ready to party! Lupita Nyong'o was pictured arriving at the Tony Awards after party at the Plaza in New York The 12 Years a Slave star opted for simple stud earrings to complete the look. Earlier in the evening the actress wowed on the red carpet wearing a colourful sequinned gown by Jason Wu for Hugo Boss. The off-the-shoulder number featured cut-out detail at the back and a small train. This year's Tony Awards was presented by Late Late Show host James Corden. See more Tony Awards 2016 news as Lupita Nyong'o wows at the after party The 33-year-old was radiant in the champagne hued number which featured ruffles on the front So pretty: The Oscar-winner wowed in a colourful sequinned Jason Wu for Boss gown as she attended the Tony Awards ceremony at the Beacon Theatre The star-studded event also saw presenters including Cate Blanchett, Claire Danes, Jake Gyllenhaal, Neil Patrick Harris, Oprah Winfrey and many more take to the stage. It was announced on Sunday via the award show's Twitter account that the ceremony would be dedicated to the victims of the Pulse nightclub terrorism attack. At least 50 people were killed and 53 were injured when a gunman opened fire early Sunday morning at the venue in Orlando, Florida. Big entrance: Lupita kept it simple with minimal accessories and some peach lipstick 'Our hearts are heavy for the unimaginable tragedy that happened last night in Orlando,' the message read. 'Our thoughts are with the families and friends of those affected. The Tony Awards dedicate tonight's ceremony to them.' Many of the guests wore a silver ribbon to signify their support for the victims and families. Catching up: Lupita was pictured chatting to her Eclipsed co-star Akousa Busia on the red carpet They left fans in shock after announcing that they had broken up amid rumours of infidelity. But now Married At First Sight's Mark Hughes is setting the record straight on his split with Christie Jordee, revealing that things are still amicable between the two and that his text messages to another woman took place after separating from Christie. 'We're still friends,' the farmer told Mamamia, adding that they're still very much on speaking terms. All over: They were one of only two of couples to stay together on Married At First Sight, but Christie Jordee has announced her separation from Mark Hughes amid claims the farmer sent racy text messages to a woman 15-years his junior The 37-year-old also confirmed reports from New Idea that he's been texting another woman, but specified that it took place after splitting from Christie. Mark and Christie were just one of two couples to stay together at the end of Married At First Sight. Businesswoman Christie exchanged vows with Mark while filming the popular Channel Nine reality show late last year, with the couple originally intending to spend their time between her home in urban Sydney and Mark's sprawling farm in rural Victoria. All over: They were one of only two of couples to stay together on MAFs, but Christie has announced her separation from Mark amid claims the farmer sent racy text messages to a another woman The couple originally intending to spend their time between her home in urban Sydney and Mark's sprawling farm in rural Victoria But little more than two months after viewers watched the couple marry in front of Sydney Opera House, the pair called time on their short lived marriage. Speaking to Woman's Day, Christie claims she was ready to sell her cleaning business and move to Victoria permanently before getting cold feet, adding: 'We were starting to fall in love but our heads got in front of our hearts.' Confirming the split, Mark told the publication: 'We couldn't get into the relationship because we'd see each other once a week, but then not the next. I felt like we were holding back because we knew we'd get hurt.' But while Christie maintains she 'still adores' Mark and would 'love to see him with another woman,' New Idea claim the 37-year old farmer was sending saucy text messages to a younger girl shortly after Married At First Sight concluded in April. Previously: Little more than two months after viewers watched the couple marry in front of Sydney Opera House, the pair have called time on their short lived marriage Speaking to the magazine, the unnamed woman - who claims to be 22 - says she exchanged numbers with Mark after they met on picture messaging service Instagram. 'He was really sweet on the phone and told me he didn't believe that a girl like me would message him,' she said. 'Then he asked me to go on a date with him the following weekend. 'I was excited, because on TV he came across as such a gentleman.' Text messages obtained by New Idea appear to show the farmer suggesting they 'hang out and cook' after admitting 'younger is fine' - an apparent reference to their 15-year age gap. Old times: The couple originally intending to spend their time between Christie's home in urban Sydney and Mark's sprawling farm in rural Victoria The woman claims their contact extended to Facebook messages and lengthy, 'hour long' phone-calls before she 'cut all contact' after discovering pictures of Mark with Christie. Earlier this year Christie labelled their current living situation as 'difficult'. 'Its hard, its difficult,' she told Woman's Day. 'My business is lacking a little bit so Ive told him he needs to get his butt up here now.' Bun in the oven: Before the finale aired Christie hinted she was still with the farmer and that they may have been expecting their first child together by sharing an image of freshly baked bread rolls to Instagram Christie and Mark were one of only two couples to stay together after meeting and tying the knot on the Channel Nine reality show. Before the finale aired Christie hinted she was still with the farmer and that they may have been expecting their first child together. While sharing an image of freshly baked bread rolls to Instagram, she wrote: 'Love my protein buns! Just baked a new batch. 'Mmmm maybe I baked them for a special someone in my life too.' She revealed in the first episode that: 'wanting children has become more important'. Speaking to TV Week, she said she did not want to 'miss out' on having kids because of her age. 'Unfortunately, we do have the clock,' she said. 'I do want kids and I'm also happy to adopt. I would love to adopt, because my parents fostered kids.' Read all about it: Christie and Mark confirmed their split in the latest issue of Woman's Day magazine Sunday dinner is often a tradition among many families. But Caitlyn Jenner offered a new spin on the staple as she was seen taking her two daughters Kendall and Kylie for a late night meal at Nobu in Malibu. The trio were spotted arriving separately to the venue, but 66-year-old Caitlyn certainly pulled out all the stops in the fashion department. Dinner date: Caitlyn Jenner was seen taking her two daughters Kendall and Kylie for a late night meal at Nobu in Malibu The former Olympian wore a glamorous pantsuit and creamy dinner jacket to the trendy fusion restaurant. Kylie, 18, was spotted wearing a gold jacket as she wore her black hair down over her shoulders. While Kendall, 20, arrived in jeans and motorcycle jacket as she appeared to self consciously play with her new hair cut. Fans were left wondering if Kendall was experimenting with a wig after she appeared to have shorter hair in a Snapchat video on Friday. See more Caitlyn Jenner news as she takes her daughters Kendall and Kylie to dinner Bright and shiny: Kylie, 18, was spotted wearing a gold jacket as she wore her black hair down over her shoulders Chic: The former Olympian wore a glamorous pantsuit and creamy dinner jacket to the trendy fusion restaurant However, the model proved she did indeed go for the chop as she showed off her new hairdo at a fashion show in Los Angeles on Saturday night. The reality star-turned-clotheshorse chose Tyler The Creator's fashion show for Made LA to debut her new look after years of sporting longer locks. The Keeping Up With The Kardashian star highlighted her shorter 'do by opting for a yellow dress as she joined her brother-in-law Kanye West in the front row. Lobbing it: While Kendall, 20, arrived in jeans and motorcycle jacket as she appeared to self consciously play with her new hair cut Happy: The 18-year-old looked to be in high spirits The trio were spotted arriving separately to the venue, but 66-year-old Caitlyn certainly pulled out all the stops in the fashion department The rapper was equally colourful in a peach sweater and jeans as he checked out the designs from his pal Tyler. Meanwhile, earlier this week, Kendall has been sharing her storage issues at home on her paid website, complaining she didn't have enough room in her $1.39million condo to put all her belongings. See Kendall Jenner updates as she shows off her new shorter hairdo at fashion show She wrote: 'It's hard at my condo because I don't have enough closet space. I also have a rack [of clothes] - it's so messy, I hate it.' Meanwhile, veteran supermodel Stephanie Seymour had waded into the criticism of Kendall and her fellow model Gigi Hadid. After Rebecca Romijn complained recently that Kendall and Gigi were 'not true supermodels' because of their social media fame, Stephanie agreed. All change: Kendall showed off her new shorter hairdo the night before as she joined brother-in-law Kanye West at Tyler, the Creator's fashion show for Made LA at L.A. Live on Saturday Storage drama: Earlier this week, Kendall shared her storage issues on her paid website, complaining she didn't have enough room in her $1.39million condo to put all her belongings Cheeky! At one point, Kendall flashed her bra as her dress gaped open She told Vanity Fair magazine: 'They are completely different than we were. 'Supermodels are sort of the thing of the past. They deserve their own title. [Kendall and Gigi] are beautiful girls, and I support all of them, but they need their own title.' When asked what title she would give them, Stephanie replied: 'B**ches of the moment! That would be a good title for them.' Under fire: Kendall and her fellow model pal Gigi Hadid came into criticism this week from veteran supermodel Stephanie Seymour It is the episode on which the whole reputation of this season of Game Of Thrones rests. And it seems the pressure of this below par season is even getting to Jon Snow, as he prays to the Lord Of Light before going into battle against Ramsay Bolton in the teaser for next week's show. He is understandably fearing for the life of both himself and his men as he gets ready to engage the superior forces of the Lord Warden Of The North in the aptly named Battle Of The Bastards. Scroll down for video Let us pray: Jon Snow begs the Lord Of Light to let him stay dead before he takes to the battlefield in the preview for next week's Game Of Thrones Jon said: 'If I fall, don't bring me back.' He is also heard telling his half-sister Sansa Stark, in what is perhaps a display of false braggadocio, that he has nothing to fear from the forthcoming clash. He said: 'Battles have been won against greater odds. I've fought beyond the wall against worse than Ramsay Bolton.' But his words do not cut any ice with his sibling, who knows all about the warmonger's love of torture and destruction. A song of Snow and Longclaw: He rides into battle with his trusty sword strapped to his side Stark raving mad: Sansa is not happy when Jon insists he has 'fought worse beyond the wall' Oh dear: The Bolton army is of a rather intimidating size while they also burn the crosses on the family flag Speaking across the table in their war tent, she replies: 'You don't know him.' To be fair to the jolly former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, he has gone head-to-head with both the King Beyond The Wall's Wildling army and the White Walkers in the past few years. It also seems that Jon again shows his much vaunted leadership by challenging Ramsay to single combat. He says: 'Thousands of men don't need to die. Only one of us.' However it seems his offer falls on dead ears, as the massive forces are then shown clashing into each other. Adding some ginger spice to the battle: While Jon's army is only just over 2,000 strong, Sansa sent a letter begging for help from Petyr Baelish and the Knights Of The Vale Brotherhood without manners: The Bolton family flag featuring a crucified man fluttered in the background Playing the averages: Ramsay seems to turn down the opportunity for one-on-one combat with Jon Clash: Steel clashes against steel as the epic battle finally gets underway The Stark forces certainly have large odds to overcome if they are to emerge victorious and retake Winterfell, with Jon having just over 2,000 men to Ramsay's 5,000. To make matters worse, Brienne Of Tarth was a failure yet again on Sunday's episode, her quest to recruit the Tully forces ending with her usual level of success after Lord Edmure ordered his forces surrender without a fight to Jaime Lannister the castle his uncle the Blackfish won on the battlefield. Luckily Sansa may have a joker left to play, as it is thought she has sent a letter begging Petyr Baelish to come to her aid with the powerful Knights Of The Vale, which she had initially turned down in a strop over him marrying her off the the sadistic Ramsay. Brienne's wild thing: Tormund and his Wildling warriors have to face off against a better trained and larger force Slicing Onion Knight: Ser Davos shows his courage despite his self-confessed lack of sword fighting skills Horseplay: A spear sends a knight flying from the back of his faithful steed She has had a turbulent year after falling pregnant with her ex-beau Jeremy McConnell's child. And Stephanie Davis has frequently vented her woes on social media yet now she has turned to spiritual planes rather than the Internet to provide guidance. The 23-year-old former Hollyoaks actress revealed to her 399,000 Twitter followers that she was hoping to contact her grandfather in the afterlife and the visit was 'just what she needed'. Scroll down for video Lost love: Stephanie Davis has frequently vented her woes on social media yet now she has turned to spiritual planes rather than the Internet to provide guidance Stephanie revealed earlier this year that she was expecting Jeremy's child just months after the duo met in the Celebrity Big Brother house in January and following frequent break-ups. After an acrimonious break-up the duo have now been locking horns in an Internet feud as Stephanie has lambasted her former flame for failing to support her. Now the pretty starlet has turned to Staffordshire-based medium Sandrea to try and contact her late grandfather for spiritual help. She tweeted her thanks to Sandrea in a gushing Tweet reading: 'Thankyou so so sooo much @sandrea27 for the reading you are amazing #Mygrandad #justwhatineeded big love xxx' Seeking help: The 23-year-old former Hollyoaks actress revealed to her 399,000 Twitter followers that she was hoping to contact her grandfather in the afterlife and the visit was 'just what she needed' War of words: Stephanie Davis appears unlikely to stop the feud anytime soon, as she launched her latest attack seemingly directed at her 'toxic' former partner Jeremy McConnell on Thursday night Sandrea lists herself on the microblogging site as: 'Psychic to the stars. International Medium and author of Vanquishing Ghosts and Demons.' She responded to Stephanie's tweet saying: 'It was my absolute pleasure darling X he's always with you and remember you have an amazing year ahead.' Aside from her praise to her spiritual aide, Stephanie has remained relatively coy in regard to images of herself or her bump - a bizarre move from a former selfie lover. Coy: On Sunday night she simply shared an image of her strappy heels and added the caption: 'Out for din dins... lets go' On Sunday night she simply shared an image of her strappy heels and added the caption: 'Out for din dins... lets go'. Stephanie has taken to sharing a host of thinly-veiled attacks on her 'toxic' ex Jeremy on social media, as she launched her latest attack via a meme on Friday, which read: 'When a toxic person can no longer control you, they will try to control how others see you.' 'The misinformation will feel unfair, but stay above it, trusting that other people will eventually see the truth, just like you did.' Stephanie seemed to be in a good place, despite her ongoing problems with Jeremy, as she captioned the shot: 'Never read anything so true. Ahh so relaxed and breathing easy.' She added: 'Can't wait to see friends, me my beautiful bump and laughs.' (sic) 'Me and my beautiful bump': The Celebrity Big Brother star seemed in a reflective mood as she took to her Instagram page to rant about her former flame Support: She received many messages of support, with one follower writing: 'Steph you are a beautiful person inside and out. I have loved you ever since Hollyoaks. Ignore what people say about you' The post quickly attracted almost 3,500 likes from her 516,000 followers. She received many messages of support, with one follower writing: 'Steph you are a beautiful person inside and out. I have loved you ever since Hollyoaks. Ignore what people say about you.' See celebrity Instagram updates as Stephanie Davis launches attack on Jeremy McConnell But others dismissed her latest attack on Jeremy and questioned if she was pregnant at all. Earlier this month, Jeremy provoked fresh outrage after he posted a snap of himself and a busty mystery woman on Instagram. But despite the pair's close pose, Jeremy insisted that he was only friends with the woman, as he simply captioned the image: 'Buds.' The tattooed hunk could be seen smiling broadly as he places a hand on the glamorous lady's shoulder, while showing off his muscular physique in a form fitting T-shirt. Just 'buds'? Jeremy posted a snap of himself and a busty mystery woman on Instagram earlier this month Mystery companion: Jeremy proved Stephanie couldn't be further from his mind as he cosied up to a pretty blonde on Friday night Meanwhile, the blonde beauty also flashed a her pearly whites as she leaned towards the camera in a plunging black and white lace gown. But despite gaining thousands of likes on the social media site, the photo has sparked controversy amongst Jeremy's followers with some saying the image is disrespectful to ex Stephanie Davis. And Jeremy proved his former Celebrity Big Brother love interest couldn't be further from his mind as he cosied up to a mystery girl last week. Jeremy previously insisted that Stephanie is not pregnant with his child and has even called for a DNA test if she gives birth to prove she is lying. The reality star called Stephanie's claims 'ridiculous,' and added she would look like a 'mug' when it is revealed any child is not his after a paternity test, Ireland's TV Now Magazine reports. No love lost: The Irish hunk has insisted that Stephanie is not pregnant with his child and has even called for a DNA test if she gives birth to prove she is lying Following a bitter war of words between the former couple, the 26-year-old again said: 'I'm not going to be a dad. If she is pregnant, it's not mine. 'If I was a dad, I'd be 100 per cent no, 110 per cent, the best dad in the world. But you'll see in the future that it's not my kid, and she'll look like a mug.' A representative for Stephanie said in a statement to MailOnline: 'Our client is categorically pregnant. We do not need to continue repeating this.' Despite their strained relationship, Jeremy showed he still cared for the former Hollyoaks actress and dismissed her behaviour as a tactic to secure media coverage. 'I still love Steph and Id never bad mouth her, but I just think the whole thing is a media approach and its ridiculous,' he said. Two weeks ago Stephanie alleged her ex had a serious drug problem and begged him to go to rehab. 'Healthy mind and body': The Irish male model posted a lengthy statement on Twitter last week, denying he had a drug problem and accusing her of having an affair with her ex Sam Reece In response, Jeremy denied he was abusing narcotics and accused Stephanie of having an affair with her ex-boyfriend Sam Reece during their rocky four-month romance. The former Beauty School Cop-Out star also denied Stephanie's claims again that he is the father of her unborn child. Posting a lengthy statement on Twitter, he wrote: 'Was gonna stay quiet about the whole thing and just let it come out normally, first of all I'd like to let people know I'm perfectly healthy mind and body and have took the break up privately, but when me and my family are effected by what I'd call a person with no shame, she is slandering me and trying to portray me in a certain light for a reason, to make me look like a terrible lad. 'People can choose to believe or not. I do not care. For months she was seeing Sam behind my back and now in Ibiza together. It will all unfold in time. 'People don't know what I put with in that relationship. I was never perfect but please, don't believe 90 per cent of what she says. I've messed up but I'd never be as evil. This will be my last message about her #bookclosed.' The night before his lengthy post, he tweeted: 'I'm as shocked as all you are at this whole saga, I'm sure you can join the dots yourself #letmelive. Concerns: The former Hollyoaks actress accused Jeremy of being a drug addict and urged him to go to rehab 'She's not pregnant with my child come on. It's all lies I've been told by her friends.' The following morning, an angry Steph hit back: 'Tell me I'm not pregnant and keep denying your child, and I#ll throw u right under that bus as the s**t I have in u, u would never survive!' Responding to the Irish model's claims she's in Spain with her ex - who she dumped on TV after falling for Jeremy on Celebrity Big Brother - Stephanie posted a photo of her legs on a balcony in Liverpool. Former flame: Jeremy accused Stephanie of having an affair with her ex-boyfriend Sam Reece, who she dumped to date the Irish male model in January She wrote: 'Sorry does his tweet not show how f**ked he is... I'm in Ibiza with Sam.......... Sure I'm in Liverpool. 'Let's look positively he needs this to sort his life out , for all u to understand what I've been through with his crazy mind. It's all good.' Jeremy's statement came an hour after Stephanie posted her own lengthy essay, accusing her ex of failing to turn up for baby scans. She wrote: 'I think it's disgusting that Jeremy hasn't turned up for scans and is constantly drunk and partying, the stress he has had me under. I've already been in hospital once with pains and stress. 'I don't hate the lad I feel very VERY sorry for him the fact no one is getting him the help he needs. His management should have him in rehab and sorting his life out so he can then be there for his child before he dies. 'I wouldn't mind but don't WANT to get someone pregnant and have a family. To not be there. I'm happy doing it alone. Off for a chilled week away with bump. 'Been doing this since his act from Big Brother was over after sleeping with what 9 girls now? Boy need help. Sort it out and be a dad. Bye for now, Steph.' On-screen romance: Stephanie and Jeremy fell for each other on Celebrity Big Brother in January - while she was still dating Sam Reece Former Bachelor stars Tim Robards and Anna Heinrich have been holidaying in idyllic Umbria as they celebrate her mother's 60th birthday. And it seems the fun - and romance - is continuing for the reality TV lovebirds, with Anna looking stunning in a lace-up Rebecca Vallance dress. The 29-year-old lawyer cosied up to her beau as they explored San Gemini, with the couple wrapping their arms around one another in a tender shot shared to Instagram. Scroll down for video That's amore! Former Bachelor stars Tim Robards and Anna Heinrich cosied up to one another as they explored San Gemini in Italy's Umbria sharing a sweet shot to Instagram On show: The fun and romance is continuing for the reality TV lovebirds, with Anna looking stunning in a lace-up Rebecca Vallance dress In the snap, the pair appear to be standing outside a sandstone church, with the pair both beaming as they pose cheek-to-cheek. Anna wears light make-up including foundation and mascara and has her hair out and neatly straightened over her shoulders. Tim, meanwhile, wears a navy blazer with a green and white checkered shirt. Anna simply captioned the image with a love heart emoticon. La familia: At the small town, they also joined her family and posed up for photos She also shared a picture of her outfit, with her back to the camera to show off the intricate design of the dress. In the small town, they also joined her family and posed up for photos. Tim made sure he flaunted his shirtless toned physique in bright blue board shorts, as he stood in Capri. He jokingly compared himself to the Greek God Zeus, writing: 'The taking of Capri #mybestzeusimpression.' Anna also flaunted her toned figure in a blue bikini as she emerged from water in Sorrento. Ab-tastic: Tim also recently flaunted his toned physique in bright blue board shorts, as he soaked up Capri Picture perfect! Anna flashed her flawless frame while emerging from the pool on Sunday The couple that holidays together, stays together! Anna and Tim have been travelling around Italy for the past few days The stunning lawyer has been sharing countless images of her Italian vacation to social media since jetting off last week. On Friday, she relaxed on a sun lounger at the her idyllic hotel while lover Tim enjoyed a dip in the pool. The buff chiropractor and personal trainer made a sexy exit out of the small pool on the balcony overlooking the ocean, wearing his Aussie Bums swimsuit and channelling his inner James Bond. Channelling his inner James Bond? Tim Robards made a sexy exit out of his luxurious hotel pool in Positano on Friday as he and girlfriend Anna Heinrich continued to share envy-inducing snaps from their holiday Room with a view! Anna showed off her lean limbs in a sexy yellow lace mini dress by Rebecca Vallance, hot off the Resort Collection runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia last month Meanwhile, the blonde beauty flaunted her lean limbs in a frilly bright yellow lace mini dress by Rebecca Vallance - hot off the Resort Collection runway at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia last month. Earlier, Anna had been in the same pool and shared a photo as she too showcased her phenomenal figure in a black bikini. If anyone is to give Tim a run for his money in the physiques stakes it's Anna. Looking fine: Bikini-clad Anna Heinrich shared a similar shot to her beau as she exited the hotel pool on Thursday in a skimpy black two-piece Torrential rain would keep most people firmly indoors, but the stars of Sherlock were forced to endure foul weather on Sunday to continue filming the hotly-anticipated new series. Benedict Cumberbatch tried to put on a brave face as he huddled with cast and crew members under giant umbrellas on the central London set in between scenes. Despite precautions, the 39-year-old actor got soaked during the downpour and his character's trademark great coat provided little protection. Scroll down for video Putting on a brave face: Benedict Cumberbatch's dark brown locks were styled into Sherlock's trademark bouncy curls, but appeared to have been flattened by the wet conditions in central London on Sunday Cumberbatch's dark brown locks had been styled into Sherlock's trademark bouncy curls, but appeared to have been flattened by the wet conditions after striding around the set. At one point he sheltered with actress Sian Brooke, who is joining the cast and wore a striking red dress, under the canopy of the now famous Speedy's Sandwich Bar. The cafe, on North Gower Street in Bloomsbury, is next door to the stand-in for Sherlock's home - 221B Baker Street. Also on location was Martin Freeman, who plays famous sidekick Dr Watson, and his on-screen wife and off-screen partner Amanda Abbington. Downpour: Benedict tried to put on a brave face as he huddled with cast and crew members on set in the Bloomsbury district of London Deep in conversation: Also on set was Martin Freeman, who plays famous sidekick Dr Watson, and his onscreen wife and off-screen partner Amanda Abbington Hiding out: At one point Cumberbatch sheltered with actress Sian Brooke under the canopy of the now famous Speedy's Sandwich Bar Freeman managed to keep dry and looked casual in a dark jacket over a grey shirt, jeans and tan shoes. While Abbington was dressed stylishly in a patterned blue shirt, jeans and a pair of white trainers. The actress later thanked fans who had travelled to watch filming and wrote on Twitter: 'A huge thank you to everyone who came down to set today. A pleasure meeting you all. Massive love and hope you got home safe.' High spirits: Freeman managed to keep dry and kept things casual in a dark jacket over a grey shirt, jeans and tan shoes Poor conditions: Torrential rain would keep most people firmly indoors, but the stars of Sherlock were forced to endure foul weather on Sunday to continue filming for the hotly anticipated new series There is speculation that this season will see the return of Sherlock's nemesis, Professor James Moriarty. And viewers will witness Freeman's character become a father for the first time. In a statement from the writers and executive producers of the show when filming first started in April, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat said: 'Sherlock series four - here we go again. 'Ghosts of the past are rising in the lives of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson bringing adventure, romance and terror in their wake. This is the story we've been telling from the beginning. A story about to reach its climax.' Dismal: Despite precautions, the 39-year-old actor got soaked as scenes were shot and his trademark great coat provided little protection She buried the hatchet with her former love rival Kim Kardashian earlier this year, speaking out in support of her naked selfie and shocking fans by posing for a picture together. But Amber Rose appears to have re-ignited her feud with the Kardashians, reminding people the family are only relevant because of Kim's infamous sex tape leak, which helped propel them to fame in 2007. In a new interview with the New York Daily News, the 32-year-old social media sensation insisted that despite her public spats with the girls, she certainly doesn't 'hate' them. Scroll down for video Miow: Amber Rose insisted that despite her public spats with the Kardashians, she certainly doesn't 'hate' them... before adding that the only reason they have a career is because of Kim Kardashian's sex tape However, she cheekily added: 'But lets face it. The only reason these girls have a career is because their older sister had a little fun on tape'. Amber dated Kim's now-husband Kanye West from 2008 to 2010, and the drama stems from their bitter break-up. It's fair to say the relationship did not end amicably with Amber previously branding Kim, the mother of Kanye's two children, a 'homewrecker'. Kanye was bold about slamming his former girlfriend in 2015 when he said in an interview that he had to take '30 showers' after dating Amber. Breaking the internet: Amber appeared to have buried the hatchet with her former love rival Kim Kardashian earlier this year, speaking out in support of her naked selfie and shocking fans by posing for a picture together He candidly confessed: 'If Kim had dated me when I wanted, there would be no Amber Rose.' Amber has rebranded herself as a fierce feminist in recent times, leading an annual SlutWalk in Los Angeles in protest of a flip remark reportedly made by a police officer after a string of sexual assaults in Canada, claiming, 'Women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.' The star explained that she wants to be the poster girl for all women who have been sl*t-shamed, taking inspiration from her own experiences> She added to the New York Daily News: 'I deal with talk like that every day. I recently dealt with that when my ex (Kanye) said he had to take 30 showers after hed been with me. 'We were happy when we were together and now Im getting sl*t-shamed because were not anymore . . . and its unfair.' Hitting back: The fierce feminist lashed out at her ex Kanye West, who she split from in 2010. 'Now Im getting sl*t-shamed because were not anymore . . . and its unfair' Amber's candid opinions have seen her land her own weekly VH1 talk show, The Amber Rose Show. While Amber might have made peace with Kim of late, she certainly hasn't patched things up with Kanye. Revealing why she decided to make amends with the Keeping Up With The Kardashians favourite, Amber previously told People, 'As women, it's good for us to let things go.' She added: 'I don't necessarily like [Kanye]. She knows that.' Social media spat: Kanye had previously made comments relating to Amber's Sebastian, which suggested the only reason he was around was because the rapper had split with his mother Kanye had previously made comments relating to Amber's SON Sebastian, which suggested the only reason he was around was because the rapper had split with his mother. 'I know you mad every time you look at your child that this girl got you for 18 years', Kanye tweeted, referencing Wiz Khalfia's three-year-old with Amber. 'You wouldnt have a child if it wasnt for me.' Kanye also referred to Amber as a 'stripper' and implied she was a gold digger by referencing lyrics to his hit song during an exchange with Wiz. Kanye wrote: 'You let a stripper trap you.' The New Slaves hitmaker later apologised for bringing Sebastian into the feud, saying, 'God's dream .... Never speak on kids again...all love...all blessings.' Last month, Married At First Sight's Xavier Forzzy fuelled speculation he was in a new relationship with pretty blonde Josette after sharing a number of snaps together online. And now his former TV wife Simone Lee Brennan has done the same, with the makeup artist posing up for a cosy snap with a mystery male pal after a road trip to a winery in Sydney's South. The brunette beauty shared a shot of them overlooking an idyllic vineyard, with her pal's arm wrapped around her waist. Scroll down for video New love? Simone Lee Brennan cosied up to a mystery man sharing a snap of them enjoying a road trip to a winery in Sydney's South Social media reaction: The new post caused her followers to question if the man was her new love interest It caused her followers to question if he was her new love interest. One user, @deena_el, commented: '@simoneleebrennan hope that's a new man you're sporting there lovely lady,' adding two love heart emoticons. Another, @leonie.king3, remarked: 'Romance??,' adding a love heart and a smiley face with love heart eyes. TV husband: The Married At First Sight star was married Xavier on the show Several weeks ago it emerged Xavier, a 26-year-old gym buff, moved on with busty blonde, Josette Roumi. The television personality sent fans into overdrive after he shared a shot of himself posing arm-in-arm with the slender stunner to his Instagram account. One Instagram user, @alissa.peterson commented underneath, writing: 'New girl?!,' while another, @julesagrann, tagged her friend and said she was 'shattered.' Dating? Xavier continues to fuel speculation he's in a new relationship with a stunning blonde who has been revealed as Josette Roumi Simone and Xavier were paired together on the reality series but the makeup artist decided not to proceed with her relationship with him after the month-long experiment. Determined to settle with someone more affectionate, she shocked fans when she said she felt 'clear headed' about the decision. Moving on too: He shared to Instagram snap of himself gazing affectionately at Josette, simply captioning the shot: 'power' The Kardashian/Jenner clan's romantic lives spin a convoluted web. And Kylie Jenner, the baby of the family, proved the dynasty do not hold grudges as she headed to Hollywood's The Nice Guy restaurant on Sunday night. The 18-year-old cosmetics guru was joined at the exclusive eatery by her half-sister Khloe Kardashian's former boyfriend French Montana - proving their is no bad blood since their split. Scroll down for video Firm friends: Kylie Jenner, the baby of the family, proved the clan do not hold grudges as she headed to Hollywood's The Nice Guy restaurant on Sunday night Kylie had headed for dinner with her dad Caitlyn and supermodel sister Kendall for a late night meal at Nobu in Malibu shortly before she joined French. Yet far from calling it a night, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star headed on to The Nice Guy bar and restaurant where she was joined by rapper French, real name Karim Kharbouch. The raven haired beauty was spotted wearing a gold jacket layered over a flesh-flashing white crop top with high waisted black jeans and trendy pointed ankle boots. French meanwhile looked stylish in a Versace-inspired monochrome jacket with distressed grey jeans and box fresh white trousers. See Kylie Jenner updates as she dazzles in gold bomber as she enjoys night out Whatta pair! The 18-year-old cosmetics guru was joined at the exclusive eatery by her half-sister Khloe Kardashian's former boyfriend French Montana - proving their is no bad blood since their split Golden girl: Kylie had shortly headed for dinner with her dad Caitlyn and supermodel sister Kendall for a late night meal at Nobu in Malibu Designated driver: French was charged with driving Kylie and her pal to the club Hilarious: The pair later posed up a storm in a hilarous Snapchat video in which she he gave roses to his former girlfriend's sister Good pals! The pair were having a wild time as they larked around The pair later posed up a storm in a hilarous Snapchat video in which she he gave roses to his former girlfriend's sister. The duo's outing was timely due to the fact while they hit the restaurant the latest episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians aired on E! and featured scenes with French. Khloe was seen running into French at sister Kourtney's ex-boyfriend Scott Disick's house and the were seen to share an awkward yet flirty exchange. As they said goodbye, French appeared to get slightly too close as his hands extended to the small of her back after which Khloe said: 'Don't touch me. Too low.' Cheeky French then paid homage to his ex-girlfriend's ample and renowned derriere, as he responded: 'That thing's still fat.' Case of the ex: The duo's outing was timely due to the fact while they hit the restaurant the latest episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians aired on E! and featured scenes with French Perky! Kylie exhibited her peachy derriere as she disembarked the car Whatta pair: The duo look calm and relaxed ahead of their night Headed off: French looked slick in his bold red Rolls Royce as he drove his ex-girlfriend's sister around For Kylie's dinner earlier in the night she and Kendall were relatively low-key yet 66-year-old Caitlyn certainly pulled out all the stops in the fashion department. The former Olympian wore a glamorous pantsuit and creamy dinner jacket to the trendy fusion restaurant. While Kendall, 20, arrived in jeans and motorcycle jacket as she appeared to self consciously play with her new hair cut. Fans were left wondering if Kendall was experimenting with a wig after she appeared to have shorter hair in a Snapchat video on Friday. Funky look: French meanwhile looked stylish in a Versace-inspired monochrome jacket with distressed grey jeans and box fresh white trousers Hometime: The gang looked as though they had a wonderful evening as they headed out of the plush venue No bad blood here: As the entire family remain extremely close to sister Kourtney's ex boyfriend Scott Disick is little wonder Kylie is tight with French Bomber look: Kylie showed off her usual flare for fashion as she departed the restaurant Close pal: Kylie's friend was equally glamorous as the trendy pair headed into the restaurant Dinner date: Caitlyn Jenner was seen taking her two daughters Kendall and Kylie for a late night meal at Nobu in Malibu Bright and shiny: Kylie opted not to change between her family dinner and her night out with French Chic: The former Olympian wore a glamorous pantsuit and creamy dinner jacket to the trendy fusion restaurant However, the model proved she did indeed go for the chop as she showed off her new hairdo at a fashion show in Los Angeles on Saturday night. The reality star-turned-clotheshorse chose Tyler The Creator's fashion show for Made LA to debut her new look after years of sporting longer locks. The pretty star highlighted her shorter 'do by opting for a yellow dress as she joined her brother-in-law Kanye West in the front row. Lobbing it: While Kendall arrived in jeans and motorcycle jacket as she appeared to self consciously play with her new hair cut Happy: Kylie flashed a cheeky grin as she headed into the flash eatery Glamorous display: The trio were spotted arriving separately to the venue, but 66-year-old Caitlyn certainly pulled out all the stops in the fashion department All change: Kendall showed off her new shorter hairdo the night before as she joined brother-in-law Kanye West at Tyler, the Creator's fashion show for Made LA at L.A. Live on Saturday The rapper was equally colourful in a peach sweater and jeans as he checked out the designs from his pal Tyler. Meanwhile, earlier this week, Kendall has been sharing her storage issues at home on her paid website, complaining she didn't have enough room in her $1.39million condo to put all her belongings. See Kendall Jenner updates as she shows off her new shorter hairdo at fashion show She wrote: 'It's hard at my condo because I don't have enough closet space. I also have a rack [of clothes] - it's so messy, I hate it.' Meanwhile, veteran supermodel Stephanie Seymour had waded into the criticism of Kendall and her fellow model Gigi Hadid. After Rebecca Romijn complained recently that Kendall and Gigi were 'not true supermodels' because of their social media fame, Stephanie agreed. Storage drama: Earlier this week, Kendall shared her storage issues on her paid website, complaining she didn't have enough room in her $1.39million condo to put all her belongings Cheeky! At one point, Kendall flashed her bra as her dress gaped open She told Vanity Fair magazine: 'They are completely different than we were. 'Supermodels are sort of the thing of the past. They deserve their own title. [Kendall and Gigi] are beautiful girls, and I support all of them, but they need their own title.' When asked what title she would give them, Stephanie replied: 'B**ches of the moment! That would be a good title for them.' It was one of the most technically difficult challenges the MasterChef Australia kitchen has ever seen. And the pressure clearly got too much for Elena Duggan as she broke down in tears while trying to re-create chef Ross Lusted's perfumed stone fruits dessert in an elimination round on Monday. Despite this, it was actually Zoe Konikkos who was sent home by the judges after her syrup failed to meet the mark. Scroll down for video Meltdown: Elena Duggan broke down in tears while trying to re-create chef Ross Lusted's perfumed stone fruits dessert in an elimination round on Monday After falling behind while fighting for her place against Zoe and Elise Franciskovic, Elena broke down and walked away from her bench. With tears streaming down her face, Elena said: 'Just give me a second. 'I'm really struggling with the idea that this could be me going home today. I just need to step away from that for a moment.' Emotional: After falling behind while fighting for her place against Zoe and Elise Franciskovic, Elena broke down and stepped away from her bench to catch her breath Taking a break: Elena walked away and said: 'I just need to step away from that for a moment' She then pulled herself together and saved her place in the competition. Elena said the memory of her grandparents' stone-fruit orchard spurred her on to continue with the devilishly difficult dish. 'I would love to be here to the end. I really want to be here to the end. I really just need to think about what this dish is all about,' she said. 'That beautiful, fragrant fruit. The fragrance of this fruit really resonates a strong memory with me. 'My Oma and Opa had a stone-fruit orchard that my mum grew up on. She picked fruit, she would have it at its absolute optimum freshness. Devilishly difficult: They were tasked to re-create Ross Lusted's perfumed stone fruits dessert Eliminated: Zoe Konikkos was sent home after her syrup failed to meet the mark Emotional farewell: Zoe hugged Ross Lusted goodbye after she was sent home 'And I think she instilled that love of fresh produce in myself. Thinking of my Oma and my mum I think just gave me this lovely warmth and strength. 'I want to take those beautiful memories as inspiration and...and harness it and use that to power me through the rest of this cook.' Ross, the head chef at award-winning Sydney restaurant The Bridge Room, praised all three budding chefs. He said: 'I think you did fantastic. I can honestly say I have young chefs who work with me, that they struggle with making that recipe that you did today. 'The amount of effort that went into today's pressure test was very impressive.' But he and the other three judges decided to send Zoe home after her syrup turned into a thick treacle. Impressed: Ross, the head chef at award-winning Sydney restaurant The Bridge Room, praised all three budding chefs Fighting back: Elena said the memory of her grandparents' stone-fruit orchard spurred her on to continue with the devilishly difficult dish Elimination battle: Elena, Zoe and Elise Franciskovic (right) went head-to-head in the challenge Zoe said: 'I can't pick one thing that I wouldn't want to do again. Um, everything I've done has been amazing. So I'm just so thankful to have had this opportunity to be mentored. 'I've loved every minute, being on this roller-coaster ride. It really is a roller-coaster.' Earlier in the episode, Ross warned the three contestants that the chefs in his restaurants get nervous when they hear his dishes are appearing on MasterChef. 'Every time we do this, it scares my chefs because every time somebody sees this on MasterChef, they come to the restaurant and they want to see the dishes,' he said. 'So, it's equally as hard for you guys to cook it, but my chefs are probably more stressed back in Sydney, I can tell you, today.' Matt Preston then responded: Basically, what you're saying is the dishes under these cloches are enough to scare your team in your kitchen.' Johnny Depp's restraining order trial may soon hit something of a wall of silence, as sources close to his estranged wife Amber Heard expect him to refuse to give testimony on Friday. According to TMZ, the actress's team are convinced that her estranged husband will opt out of cross-examination for fear of saying something incriminating while under oath. The website reports that her team also expect the veteran screen star to decide against supplying a written declaration denying domestic violence, thus paving the way for Amber's order to be granted. Scroll down for video Bitter divorce: Johnny Depp is reportedly expected to opt against testifying in his restraining order trial, brought about by his estranged wife Amber Heard, on Friday MailOnline has contacted representatives for Amber and Johnny for comment. It was recently reported that Amber rejected a spousal support offer from Johnny because he wanted to include a restraining order against her. The actress - who accused Johnny of domestic violence and was granted a temporary restraining order against him - says money is 'the lowest priority,' and she's primarily concerned about her safety, sources told TMZ. Lawyers for Amber and Johnny, 52, have been in talks over a settlement, and she did not respond to his offer of $50,000 a month for eight months. Court battle: A photo showing Amber's bruises after Johnny allegedly threw his iPhone at her face That's because the Pirates of the Caribbean star also wanted a 'mutual restraining order' and Amber refused, saying she was not the violent one, the site reports. Her priority now is staying safe, and Amber sees herself as standing up for other victims of domestic violence, sources told TMZ. Amber is seeking $50,000 a month in spousal support. The couple reported did not have a prenup, and under California family law she is legally entitled to half of what Johnny earned during their marriage. Brave face: Amber smiled as she headed to an appointment with her lawyer in Los Angeles on Wednesday She will appear in court next Friday to seek a permanent restraining order. Meanwhile, Johnny this week jetted to his private island in The Bahamas, where the couple wed last year. The 52-year-old has been in Europe promoting his new movie Alice Through The Looking Glass and on tour with his band Hollywood Vampires. But his lawyer appeared in court in Los Angeles on Friday and accused Amber of delaying a deposition until after the restraining order hearing on June 17. On tour: Johnny appeared in a video promoting his band Hollywood Vampires' tour in Europe, and has now jette off to his private island in The Bahamas Amber says she and her friend and witness Rachel Pennington can't give a deposition until next week, because they are in New Jersey for Rachel's engagement party and then Amber has to fly to London for costume fittings for her upcoming movie Justice League, TMZ reported. But Johnny's lawyer Laura Wasser claims Amber is just trying to delay until after the restraining order hearing next week. The delay is causing Johnny to be 'tried in the media' and damaging his reputation, she claimed in court documents. Abuse claims: Amber and Johnny at a gala in Los Angeles in 2014. She has accused the actor of domestic violence and filed for divorce after 15 months of marriage Escape: Johnny headed to his private island in The Bahamas this week after being on tour in Europe. He and Amber wed in the scenic spot last year. Close friend: Amber Heard's confidente Raquel Pennington was seen out and about in Los Angeles in the midst of the ongoing legal battle Amber shockingly filed for divorce on May 23, two days after Johnny's mother Betty Sue Palmer died after a long illness. A few days later, she went public with allegations of domestic violence against Johnny and was granted a temporary restraining order. The couple met on the set of their 2011 film The Rum Diary, and were married for 15 months. Johnny was previously in a longterm relationship with French actress Vanessa Paradis, and they share two children - model Lily-Rose Depp, 17, and son Jack Depp, 14. Amber, who is openly bisexual, previously in a four-year relationship with artist Tasya van Ree. Kim Kardashian famously became the focus of the then freshly-coined term 'breaking the internet', when she was unveiled as the buttocks-bearing cover girl for a 2014 edition of Paper magazine. And now Demi Rose Mawby - who was recently romantically linked to Tyga after his split from Kim's youngest sister Kylie Jenner - has unveiled a few click-worthy images of her own on Instagram. On Sunday, the Brummie beauty, 21, uploaded a snapshot of herself showing off her tantalising posterior as she posed with her back to the camera while wearing a skimpy black bikini. Scroll down for video Life's a beach: Model Demi Rose Mawby shared a shot of herself posing in a bikini on a beach on Sunday With her voluminous brunette mane cascading down her back, she can be seen holding a stylish pair of sunglasses as she soaks up the sunshine on a stunning beach. 'Taking trips on the Islands,' she captioned the shot, which garnered almost 65,000 likes from her 2.5 million Instagram followers within hours of being posted. To satiate her fans' appetites, Demi Rose uploaded another jaw-dropping image of herself several hours earlier, with her bra-busting cleavage and incredibly taut abs taking centre-stage. Hot: The British beauty displayed her ample bosom and taut abs in another shot, seemingly taken on vacation In the shot, Demi is seen posing in a white bra, teamed with fashionably ripped figure-hugging skinny jeans.and lace-up stilettos. She simply captioned the image Muneca - Spanish for doll - sparking an avalanche of more than 70,000 likes and decidedly lustful comments from members of her appreciative audience. Last month, MailOnline revealed the British model grew up in a middle class home in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham. Linked: The Brummie beauty shot to fame last month, as rumours circulated that she was dating rapper Tyga Parents Barrie, 78, a former bank manager, and Christine, 61, said she is a very different person at home and insisted they were proud of her. Her mother said: 'We're right behind her. She's such a beautiful girl, why shouldn't she? If you've got it, flaunt it. 'She's very kind and a really down-to-earth girl nothing like what we are seeing in the press.' The ex factor: Up until late spring, Tyga had been in a high-profile romance with reality TV star Kylie Jenner The Instagram favourite attracted a flurry of headlines after being pictured with 26-year-old Tyga in recent weeks, including a trip to the Cannes Film Festival. Despite seeming inseparable from Demi Rose, Tyga took to Twitter earlier this month to insist that he is not dating anyone new, telling his followers: 'Single. Focused. Blessed. Living Life (sic).' Tyga split from ex Kylie, 18, before this year's Met Gala and the reality TV star is said to have moved on too - she's been linked to musician PartyNextDoor - real name Jahron Brathwaite. Va va Brum! Since returning to her native Birmingham, Demi Rose has enjoyed a spike in press attention Tyga recently said he 'still loves' Kylie - although that was before he started seeing Demi Rose. When asked if the difference in age played a factor in their break up, he said: 'Um, uh, I think, you know, we're both just focusing on our lives, our individual lives right now, you know? Sometimes things don't work out. But, you know, I love her.' On Friday, Tyga sparked fresh rumours when he shared photos of scantily-clad blonde model Amina Blue on Snapchat and Instagram during a trip to Jamaica. Saturday Kitchen ratings have plummeted after popular host James Martin quit the show in March. The new format - which drafts in guest presenters, including the Hairy Bikers and Michel Roux Jr - has been branded a flop after it failed to entice audiences to the BBC One weekend staple. Viewing figures for the show dropped from 2.4million for Martin's emotional final appearance to just 1.4million for this Saturday's episode, fronted by Irish cook Donal Skehan. Scroll down for video Popular: Saturday Kitchen viewing figures have plummeted after host James Martin quit the show in March An insider told The Sun newspaper: 'Viewers loved James and the show is really struggling without him. 'People don't like change and without a regular presenter, fans are beginning to lose interest. The guest chefs aren't working as well as bosses had hoped.' Donal was a hit with viewers this weekend, but it is feared it could be a case of too little too late for the foodie show. The source added: 'It's not looking good as the ratings are only going down. However, Donal's debut on Saturday seemed to go down well. But the BBC are going to need to do more to win fans back.' Flop: The new format with a rota of guest presenters failed to entice audiences to the BBC One weekend staple James - who presented Saturday Kitchen from 2006 to 2016 - previously compared his departure to that of when One Direction announced they were 'splitting'. The star decided to walk away in order to work on new projects, leaving his legion of fans heartbroken. He was inundated with messages from fans on social media, who were shocked and disappointed that he was hanging up his apron. New face: Ratings for the show almost halved from 2.4million for Martin's emotional final appearance to just 1.4million for this Saturday's episode, fronted by Irish cook Donal Skehan (pictured) Expressing his shock at the reaction to his departure, James said: 'I said to the guys at the Beeb,: "Oh just put it out there, nobody will notice me leaving." Pfft! It was on the front page of every newspaper going.' Before his last show aired on March 27, one Twitter user wrote, 'A shame James Martin has quit Saturday Kitchen after 10 years. 'He did a great job and it will be hard to replace him after he leaves in March', while another shared: 'Gutted. Saturday mornings won't be the same'. In a statement, the BBC refuted the show had seen a dramatic drop in viewing figures since the James left and said: 'When compared to the same period last year, the average audience has remained relatively stable currently 1.4m (21 per cent share) compared to 1.5m (22 per cent share) last year. It added: 'Audiences for the recent shows have been as high as 1.7m.' They touched down in Paris just a few hours earlier. But Kim Kardashian and her husband Kanye West didn't waste any time exploring their favourite city, stepping out in style as they enjoyed a morning of shopping on Monday. The 35-year-old reality star was hard to miss thanks to her seriously low-cut, bodycon dress as she headed out alongside the hip-hop star, 39. Scroll down for video Back in Paris: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West didn't waste any time exploring their favourite city, stepping out in style as they enjoyed a morning of shopping on Monday Kim showcased her famous curves in all their glory in the figure-hugging khaki dress which flattered her hourglass physique. She kept covered up in a flowing grey cardigan, which fell from her shoulders as she sashayed along the street. The mother-of-two - who raises baby Saint, six months, and North, almost three, with Kanye - completed her look with a pair of on-trend, peep toe boots from Kanye's Yeezy fashion line. See more Kim Kardashian updates as she showcases cleavage in Paris with Kanye West Hourglass curves: Kim showcased her famous curves in all their glory in the figure-hugging khaki dress which flattered her hourglass physique Fashionable duo: Kanye and Kim pulled out all the stops to look their best in the French capital Demure: The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star kept covered up in a flowing grey cardigan, which fell from her shoulders as she sashayed along the street Leading the way: Kanye looked equally stylish in a Rolling Stones graphic tee and intricately embroidered black bomber jacket Kim stuck to her muted colour palette by toting a crocodile print Birkin handbag in one hand. The brunette beauty wore her locks in loose waves across her back and kept her makeup dramatic with a bronze-colored smokey eye, thick lashes, nude lip gloss and major contouring across her cheekbones. Kanye looked equally stylish in a Rolling Stones graphic tee and intricately embroidered black bomber jacket. Inseparable: The lovebirds are fresh from a holiday celebrating Kanye's 39th birthday Bling beauty: Kim set off her look with a statement silver choker around her neck Popular attraction: Kim and Kanye were surrounded by French fans eager for pictures and autographs The rapper kept the bottom half of his stylish look relatively simple, donning a pair of skinny jeans and suede boots. The famous couple caused quite the stir as they made an appearance in the French capital, as onlookers attempted to take a selfie with the duo. The Kardashian-West brood have just returned from a vacation celebrating Kanye's 39th birthday, and were seen hopping on another flight the previous day. On the move: Jet lag didn't keep Kim and Kanye from hopping on yet another flight, departing Sunday afternoon from their home turf in Los Angeles to France Power couple: A knee-length cardigan in the same colour failed to hide Kim's ample cleavage from onlookers as it slipped off her toned shoulders while she sauntered in with her husband by her side The reality star stayed true to form as she arrived at LAX, flaunting her famous curves in her sexy bodycon dress. While Kim seemed engulfed in her iPhone, West kept the duo on track as he guided his partner through the terminal. The pair were seen departing Sunday afternoon from their home turf in Los Angeles to Paris, rocking the same ensembles. See more Kim Kardashian updates as she heads to Paris with Kanye West Finishing touches: The brunette beauty wore her locks in loose waves across her back and kept her make-up dramatic with a bronze-colored smokey eye, thick lashes, nude lip gloss and major contouring across her cheek bones Walk this way: While Kim seemed engulfed in her iPhone, West kept the duo on track as he guided his beau through the airport in a Rolling Stones graphic tee and intricately embroidered black bomber jacket. While Kim seemed engulfed in her iPhone, West kept the duo on track as he guided his beau through the airport in a Rolling Stones graphic tee and intricately embroidered black bomber jacket. The rapper kept the bottom half of his stylish look relatively simple, donning a pair of skinny jeans and suede boots. Early Sunday morning, West was photographed arriving for a business meeting at his Calabasas office in the same outfit. Best foot forward: Kim supported her husband by wearing a pair of nude peep-toe boots from Kanye's Yeezy fashion line Fashionista: The mom-of-two rounded out the sizzling ensemble with a crocodile Birkin handbag and peep-toe boots from Kanye's Yeezy fashion line Future plans? It's unclear what brings the VIP couple to France, but it's possible Kim and Kanye could be ringing in their daughter North's birthday in the City of Lights when she turns three on Wednesday It's unclear what brings the VIP couple to France, but it's possible Kim and Kanye could be ringing in their daughter North's birthday in the City of Lights when she turns three on Wednesday. The parents also have a son, six-month-old Saint who has remained largely out of the spotlight since his birth. Kardashian did pay homage to her little boy, flaunting a diamond choker with his namesake across it as she uploaded Snapchat videos from the car ride to the airport. On the move again: The superstar couple rarely spend long in one place Candid camera: Kim filmed her journey to the airport on her phone to share her life with her fans Mommy moment: Kardashian did pay homage to her little boy, six-month-old Saint, flaunting a diamond choker with his namesake across it as she uploaded Snapchat videos from the car ride to the airport No pictures, please: In the videos, Kim posed for the camera before turning the lens on West who appeared less than willing to comply with his wife's antics Clinging to every curve: The 35-year-old's dress highlighted her fabulous figure to the max In the videos, Kim posed for the camera before turning the lens on West who appeared less than willing to comply with his wife's antics. 'We are so late at the airport,' Kim complained. She also added an excited, 'Going to Paris!' with a French accent. Ready to catch some Zzzz? No doubt Kim and Kanye would be flying First Class to Paris so will be able to have a comfortable sleep on the plane Smile, you're on candid camera: Kim turned the table on the paparazzi and filmed them taking photos of her Flawless: The reality TV queen had her usual heavy make-up look for her airport appearance Guiding that famous booty: The rapper placed a hand on Kim's derriere as he guided her past the paparazzi and fans Doting parents: Kim and Kanye also have a son, six-month-old Saint who has remained largely out of the spotlight since his birth They first revealed their relationship at the Taormina Film Festival in 2015. So it was no wonder Richard Gere and his stunning girlfriend Alejandra Silva looked happy and relaxed as they stepped out amid the 62nd annual event on the Italian island of Sicily on Sunday. The Pretty Woman actor, 66, and his striking girlfriend, 33, put on a loved up display as they stepped out in matching white outfits. Scroll down for video His and hers outfits: Richard Gere and his stunning girlfriend Alejandra Silva looked happy and relaxed as they stepped out during the 62nd Taormina Film Festival on the Italian island of Sicily on Sunday Silver fox Richard looked casual in jeans and sunglasses, wearing his white linen shirt slightly unbuttoned in the Sicilian heat. The American actor's Spanish socialite girlfriend looked effortlessly chic, teaming her white jeans with a matching blazer, a loose-fitting black t-shirt and white and tan wedges. Completing the relaxed look she wore large black sunglasses covering her tanned and apparently make-up free face, leaving her beachy blonde hair loose. Cute couple: The Pretty Woman actor, 66, and his striking girlfriend, 33, put on a loved up display as they stepped out in matching white outfits Casual: Silver fox Richard looked casual in jeans and sunglasses, wearing his white linen shirt slightly unbuttoned in the Sicilian heat Richard is serving as honorary president of the 62nd Taormina Film Festival and picked up an award on Saturday night. The activist - who was previously married to Cindy Crawford and is currently in divorce proceedings with the mother of his child Carey Lowell - hit the red carpet with Alejandra. Putting on a loved up display, Richard wore a grey suit as he giggled with Alejandra- who wore a black crochet sundress, in front of photographers. Supporting her man: The American actor's Spanish socialite girlfriend looked effortlessly chic, teaming her white jeans with a matching blazer, a loose-fitting black t-shirt and white and tan wedges Alejandra reportedly attended a school in Dorset, as well as regularly mingling with Spanish aristocracy. The socialite is reported as being the estranged wife of Govind Friedland, the son of American mining magnate Robert Friedland. Together the pair have a young son, Albert. It's believed the duo were seeing one another for at least a year before going public with their romance at the film festival last year. They've been inseparable ever since they were spotted leaving a London club together last month. And Chloe Sims was once again joined by her multi-millionaire friend Robert Tchenguiz as she partied at Harry's Bar in London on Sunday. The TOWIE star - who is adamant there is nothing romantic between her and the 55-year-old property tycoon - was looking lovely as she strutted down the street in a plunging white dress. Scroll down for video Fun-filled outing: Chloe Sims was once again joined by her multi-millionaire friend Robert Tchenguiz as she partied at Harry's Bar in London on Sunday Chloe, 33, showcased her toned legs in the above-the-knee number, which she set off with a navy duster jacket. The single mother set off her silky cover-up with a pair of beige strappy heels and pretty pink make-up. Wearing her blonde bob down loose, the Essex favourite looked fresh-faced and natural for her day out with her regular companion. Just good friends? The TOWIE favourite looked fresh-faced and natural for her day out with her regular companion Chloe appeared to be embracing a more natural look, toning down her usual heavy contouring and deep tan. The ITVBe regular has been seen on several outings with Robert in the past few weeks, and he even whisked her off to the Cannes Film Festival for a VIP experience. Iranian-born entrepreneur Robert, who is said to be worth 850m, was smartly clad for their outing, donning a dinner jacket and crisp white shirt. Chloe recently denied reports that she was dating the tycoon, telling Closer magazine they are nothing more than friends after they were pictured clubbing in Cannes. Denial: Chloe is adamant there is nothing romantic between her and the 55-year-old property tycoon, who even whisked her off to the Cannes Film Festival last month Mixing with a new crowd: The Essex beauty toned down her look to party with Iranian-born entrepreneur Robert, who is said to be worth 850m, and his friends She told the publication: 'My friend Robert invited me out because he goes every year. I'd love to back , but I'm still struggling with a hangover... I was out till the early hours each morning. 'I had the time of my life. It was so glamorous and I partied loads! I met Leonardo DiCaprio and I was so star-struck... He was really friendly and polite.' Meanwhile, Chloe's ex Elliott Wright has announced his engagement to girlfriend of 10 months Sadie Stuart. The 35-year-old restaurateur, who has been married once before, also shared a heartfelt snap of himself and his new fiancee alongside a sweet message on social media earlier this month. 'I met this girl 10 months ago... I knew then she was special... Today even more so! Thankfully she said... Yes!', Marbella-based Elliott - who split from Chloe due to their long-distance romance - wrote. Anna Heinrich is spending time with her beau Tim Robards and family in Umbria, Italy. And on Monday, the stunner stripped down to a barely-there bikini for a day of fun in the sun with her lookalike sisters Charlotte and Andrea. The 29-year-old lawyer showed off a deep golden tan as she posed for a snap shared to her Instagram account and flaunted her toned body in a blue and white two-piece costume. Scroll down for video Bellas: Anna Heinrich (R) stripped down to a barely-there bikini for a day of fun in the sun with her lookalike sisters Charlotte (L) and Andrea (centre) in Italy on Monday The reality star had her hair out and over her shoulders and wore a pair of black tinted sunglasses to shield her gaze. All the girls wore pretty red flowers in their hair and beamed broadly for the family snap. Sister Andrea stood out in a cut-out black and white bikini, while Charlotte wore a blue, white and coral costume. Anna captioned the shot: 'With these babes.' Charlotte also shared the shot, captioning it: 'Basking under the Italian sun.' If you've got it! Chiropractor Tim Robards showed off his washboard abs and buff body when he enjoyed a dip in the Sorrento sea wearing bright blue board shorts Chiropractor Tim showed off his washboard abs and buff body when he enjoyed a dip in Sorrento wearing bright blue board shorts. They also enjoyed sightseeing in Capri and in a playful image, he picked Anna up in his arms for a fun snap. The former Bachelor stars also enjoyed riding a Vespa around town, with Tim saying it was 'the best way to see Sorrento.' The couple are currently in Italy as they help Anna's mother celebrate her 60th birthday. Mucking around: They also enjoyed sightseeing in Capri and in a playful image, he picked Anna up in his arms for a fun snap That's amore! They cosied up to one another as they explored San Gemini in Italy's Umbria sharing another shot to Instagram They had made sure to document their trip on Instagram for their fans, sharing plenty of pictures of themselves in the idyllic location. Most recently, Anna stood in a Rebecca Vallance dress in San Gemini as she wrapped her arms around the former Bachelor. They've also shared numerous snaps of themselves swimming, having first arrived in the destination last week. On show: The fun and romance is continuing for the reality TV lovebirds, with Anna looking stunning in a lace-up Rebecca Vallance dress La familia: At the small town, they also joined her family and posed up for photos She recently opened up about how she felt lost and isolated after giving birth to her daughter Phoenix. But actress Tammin Sursok looked as though she was getting back in her stride when she arrived at a charity event in Beverly Hills on Sunday in a chic black tea dress. The former Home And Away star flaunted her toned pins in the short wrap dress with winged, mid-length sleeves. Chic: Former Home And Away star Tammin Sursok looked stylish when she arrived at a charity event in Beverly Hills on Sunday in a black tea dress She made her legs look even longer by taking to the red carpet in a pair of brown wedges. With her long brunette locks styled into loose waves, Tammin looked stunning as she arrived at the Empathy Rocks fundraiser. She was also seen at the event with her Hollywood producer husband Sean McEwen. Brunette beauty: With her long brunette locks styled into loose waves, Tammin looked stunning as she arrived at the Empathy Rocks fundraiser Svelte frame: The former Home And Away star flaunted her toned pins in the short wrap dress with winged, mid-length sleeves Last week, the South African-born actress wrote about feeling lost and isolated after giving birth to Phoenix. Tammin, who was raised in Sydney and now lives in LA, spent months 'obsessing' about reclaiming her identity as an actress and not enjoying her time with her daughter. Writing on her blog Bottle + Heels, she said: 'I remember going to a spin class three months after my little one was born and the teacher spoke about feeling lost and I crumbled. 'I had caked old breast milk on my activewear. It truly hit a nerve. Lost, lost, lost... My life had changed the day my magnificent daughter came into the world,' she added. Happy couple: She was also seen at the event with her Hollywood producer husband Sean McEwen Snap happy: She shared this picture from the event on Facebook, saying: 'Incredible afternoon at @xtina house for the @childrenmendinghearts' Tammin explained she had placed so much emphasis on defining herself by her career that she felt 'isolated' after taking time off work to look after Phoenix. 'I spent time in my head and had obsessive thoughts about when I would get a job,' she added. Earlier this year, Tammin confessed to Channel Nine's Today show that Sean hopes to have more children - sooner rather than later. My husband keeps trying to have a baby with me everyday,' she chuckled. Candid: Last week, the South African-born actress wrote about feeling lost and isolated after giving birth to Phoenix 'My life had changed the day my magnificent daughter came into the world': Last week, the South African-born actress wrote about feeling profoundly lost and isolated after giving birth to Phoenix (pictured) Amid the hype for the upcoming fourth season of Netflix smash hit Orange is the New Black (premiering on Friday) the streaming service has shared more big news. On Monday they dropped a teaser for season two of drama Narcos, revealing that all ten episodes would premiere on September 2. The 28-second bare-bones clip, while simple, does manage to give quite the clue for what's to come, as it features one memorable date - 12.02.93 - the date Pablo was killed by Colombian law enforcement. Scroll down for video He's back! On Monday Netflix released a teaser for the upcoming second season of Narcos, featuring Wagner Moura as drug kingpin Pablo Escobar The video - bathed in darkness, with a black background - has Pablo (Wagner Moura) walking slowly to the camera, as his figure multiplies to three. Then one by one he is replaced by numbers, which make out a date - 12.01.49 - the drug kingpin's birthday. Then his face fills the screen, before numbers once again take the place of the visage of the solemn drug lord. Big dates: The simple, 28-second teaser featured Wagner against a black background, while also showcasing big dates in his life, such as his birthday - December 1, 1949 And it is no wonder he looks so solemn, as this time the numbers make out 12.02.93. which is the date that Escobar was killed by Colombian law enforcement. Pablo had escaped from the hands of authorities in June of 1992 when they attempted to remove him from his luxury prison 'La Catedral' in favor of a more standard holding facility. He managed to continue evading them until the day after his birthday, December 2, 1993, when he was infamously caught in a middle-class neighborhood in Medellin. It all leads to this: The teaser also hinted at the Colombian drug lord's demise Infamous: Another big date was December, 2, 1993, which was the date that Pablo was killed by Colombian law enforcement Two American Drug Enforcement Agents assisted in the manhunt: Steve Murphy and Javier Pena, both of whom are portrayed in Netflix's series, played by Boyd Holbrook and Pedro Pascal respectively. Narcos also stars Joanna Christie, Paulina Gaitan, Maurice Compte, and Stephanie Sigman. The first season is currently available to subscribers, and the second will begin streaming on September 2 at 12:01am PST. She is best known as Roger Moore's Bond girl in the 1973 film Live And Let Die. And Jane Seymour proved she was still as glamorous as ever at the 56th Festival De Television in Monte Carlo on Monday. The 65-year-old actress - who looked decades younger - opted for a striking orange dress ensuring all eyes were on her as she worked her magic in front of the cameras at the event. Scroll down for video Striking: Jane Seymour proved she was as glamorous as ever at the 56th Festival De Television in Monte Carlo on Monday The classic piece was teamed with a pair of black strappy stilettos embellished with gold studs in what was a simple but eye-catching ensemble. Jane accessorised with a pendant necklace, an intricate silver bracelet and a solitary matching ring. Her voluminous tresses were worn in a relaxed tousled style and fell in bouncy curls over her shoulders, framing her flawless complexion. Clearly in high spirits, Jane beamed for the cameras and was happy to pose for the waiting photographers on her second day at the festival. Glamorous: The 65-year-old actress opted for a striking orange dress ensuring all eyes were on her at the star-studded television event On Sunday, the star wowed in a pretty blue and white dress at the festival, where she was joined on the red carpet by Princess Charlene and Prince Albert of Monaco. Her glowing looks could have something to do with her newly-found single status. Late last year Jane finalised her divorce from her fourth husband James Keach, whom she had been married to for 22 years. But the star maintains a close bond with her family and last month she gushed about her love for her three grandchildren. Stunning: The classic dress was teamed with a pair of black strappy stilettos embellished with gold studs in what was a simple but eye-catching ensemble Jane's children include Katherine and Sean, with David Flynn, as well as John and Kristopher, whose dad is James Keach. The British actress, told Closer Weekly being Grandma - or 'Oma,' as her grandkids call her - is her favorite role yet. 'I love having my grandchildren over,' the actress said. Jane was also joined on the red carpet by big names, such as Princess Charlene and Prince Albert of Monaco and Jason Pristley. Katie Holmes has been shooting the TV miniseries The Kennedys After Camelot in Toronto, Canada for several weeks, slipping into different period costumes to make herself resemble Jacqueline Kennedy. But on Sunday the 37-year-old actress gave on-lookers a little more than they bargained for as she suffered a wardrobe malfunction during filming. The star was shooting a scene alongside Matthew Perry, who plays Ted Kennedy, and revealed the top of her pantyhose as she crouched down. Scroll down for video So Jackie O! Katie Holmes was a dead ringer for Jacqueline Kennedy as she shot scenes for the new TV miniseries The Kennedys After Camelot in a park in Toronto, Canada on Monday Only just covering her dignity, the star's mini-dress rode up flashed a lot of derriere. Katie looked especially like the American icon as she wore a belted, white double-breasted coat with black-and-gold buttons while shooting in a park. Matthew puffed on a cigarette in character as Ted Kennedy, wearing a white and blue polo shirt. Oops! The 37-year-old actress gave on-lookers a little more than they bargained for as she suffered a wardrobe malfunction during filming His hair was parted to the side as he portrayed the senator, who was the younger brother of JFK. Also on set was actor Alexander Siddig, 50, who is playing the part of her second husband, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Like a gentleman, he pretended not to notice Katie's indiscretion. Careful! The star was shooting a scene alongside Matthew Perry, who plays Ted Kennedy, and revealed the top of her pantyhose as she crouched down Revealing: Only just covering her dignity, the star's mini-dress rode up flashed a lot of derriere Scene: Katie and Matthew took food from a BBQ and pointed to the distance Not friendly: Matthew puffed on a cigarette in character as Ted Kennedy Sixties styling: The former Friends actor was wearing a white and blue polo shirt Kennedy and Onassis were wed from 1968 until 1975. So this scene shot in a park must have taken place within those years. Holmes was wearing a brown wig to resemble the late wife of President Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963 while in office. The ex-wife of Tom Cruise added a vintage brown and white Gucci hobo purse to her look and white chunky heels that were fashionable in the late 1960s. Colour splash: Katie added a turquoise wrap to keep warm Acting: Matthew pulled a strange expression as they shot a scene Wry: He didn't look very impressed with his sister-in-law Staying in character: The actress slipped on some Uggs in-between takes Buh-bye! The star filmed another scene where she waved goodbye from the back of car The mother-of-one also wore heavy eye makeup and bushy eyebrows, and could have had on some prosthetic work done to look more like the former First Lady. Onassis looked nicely dapper in a double-breasted grey suit with a gold tie and white shirt. The Greek superstar had a flair for dressing well in expensive clothes. Siddig, a Sudanese-British actor, also had on Ari's signature oversized glasses. Here's Ari: Also with the Ohio native was actor Alexander Siddig, who is playing the part of her second husband Aristotle Onassis Shocking couple: Kennedy and Onassis were wed from 1968 (pictured) until 1975 The man from Greece: Onassis looked nicely dapper in a double-breasted grey suit with a gold tie and white shirt. The Greek shipping magnate had a flair for dressing well in expensive clothes Caught between scenes: Katie gave the camera a look as she stood with Siddig, 50 At peace: In the scene the two were also arm-in-arm suggesting this was set in the early part of their marriage The hair is just right: Holmes was wearing a brown wig to resemble the late wife of President Kennedy, who was assassinated while in office Two good: The mother-of-one also wore heavy eye makeup and bushy eyebrows, and could have had on some prosthetic work done to look more like the former First Lady The Jackie O look: The New York resident was known for her love of white coats, which she wore here in 1970 Alexander has also starred in Game Of Thrones and Atlantis. He studied theater in England after arriving from Sudan as a child. On October 20, 1968, Kennedy married Onassis, who she had been friends with for many years. It was suggested she fell for the multi-millionaire because he could provide the privacy and security she sought for herself and her children after Kennedy had been shot dead. The wedding took place on Skorpios, Onassis's private Greek island. The union brought her bad publicity and there was even a discussion if she should be excommunicated by the Roman Catholic church. With her daughter? In this photo Holmes is seen taking care of her child who looked to be a young Caroline Role reprisal: Katie played Jackie in the 2011 miniseries The Kennedys Between scenes: The star had a hair helper holding a brush next to her between scenes Instead of moving to Greece for Onassis, she spent a lot of time in New York City as well as her apartment in Paris. Onassis' health began deteriorating rapidly following the death of his son Alexander in a plane crash in 1973. He died of respiratory failure at age 69 in Paris in 1975. The Kennedys After Camelot also stars Friends vet Matthew Perry as Ted Kennedy and Erin Agostino as Christina Onassis, Aristotle's daughter from his first marriage. The series, which will debut in 2017, portrays the life of the former First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline, in the aftermath of the assassination of her husband as she becomes Jackie O. Ready for a hot dog and cola: Here Katie is seen standing next to a vendor in the park Touch up: A makeup artist wore a fringed coat as she attended to Katie's hair Off course: The Dawson's Creek vet had on her UGG boots and a long down coat during a break from shooting Keeping warm: Katie was surely kept warm in her long black puffy coat They enjoyed a loved-up vacation in Italy and France in May. And John Stamos and his new girlfriend Caitlin McHugh still seem to be ecstatically happy. The 52-year-old actor, who couldn't wipe the smile off his face, flashed the peace sign as they strolled in Malibu on Sunday morning. Sign language: John Stamos was all about peace and love when he was spotted out in Malibu with his new girlfriend Caitlin McHugh in Malibu on Sunday The handsome star and his 32-year-old lady love were probably looking for a spot to enjoy brunch together. John looked dapper in a seagreen checked shirt and khaki green trousers that he wore with white sneakers and a grey flat cap. The Vampire Diaries actress was casually dressed in a purple, scoop-neck T-shirt that she wore under a pale blue bomber jacket with graphic art on the back. Happy together: The 52-year-old and his 32-year-old lady love couldn't wipe the smiles off their faces Caitlin showed off her long slender legs in skinny jeans that she tucked into brown leather boots that came up to just below her knees. The brunette's long tresses cascaded over her shoulders. John, who was married to actress Rebecca Romijn from 1998-2005, first hinted that he was seeing someone in an interview on The View in early March. Cute couple: The actor kept his romance with the Vampire Diaries actress underwraps but admitted he was seeing someone in an interview on The View in early March He was discussing his upcoming tour with The Beach Boys, whom he has worked with intermittently since the 1980s, when he revealed that he had FaceTimed 'the girl I'm dating' during one of the band's performances. The Full House star didn't reveal Caitlin's name, saying: 'She loves this song, Disney Girls, so I put on FaceTime... I thought I could get away with it but people were tweeting, "Who are you FaceTiming?!" ' Since then they have been seen together frequently. Still loved up: The Fuller House star looked back and flicked a second peace sign as he and Caitlin strolled on Meanwhile, both have busy careers. John is reprising his starring role as Jesse Katsopolis on Fuller House, the Netflix reboot of the hit eighties ABC sitcom Full House, after his Fox sitcom Grandfathered was cancelled. Caitlin has two movies out this year, Random Tropical Paradise and Tomato Soup, which are both in post-production. On Sunday John shared a photo from Bob Saget's birthday party. Jeffrey Ross was also in the image. Michu Meszaros, who played ALF in the hit Eighties sitcom of the same name, has died at 76. The 2ft 9in actor was found unconscious on his bathroom floor late last week by his manager Dennis Varga and was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital where he remained in a coma, according to TMZ. Varga had previously said the actor, born in Budapest, Hungary, had suffered from health problems since having a stroke eight years ago. Scroll down for video Michu Meszaros, who played ALF in the hit NBC sitcom of the same name, has died at 76 The 2ft 9in actor was found unconscious on his bathroom floor late last week and was rushed to a Los Angeles hospital Michu had given strict instructions that the life support machines must not be turned off if his condition does not improve. The star has appeared in a number TV and film projects over the years, but is best known for his work as the friendly extraterrestrial nicknamed ALF in the 1980s science fiction series. In the first seasons of the show Michu wore a complete costume of the character whenever a full-body shot of the alien was needed. But the majority of shots used an upper body suit, since the full costume was extremely hot and uncomfortable for the actor. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1939, he became a performer with the Hungarian National Circus. He defected to the U.S. in 1980 when he was 40 and became a citizen ten years later. Michu told the LA Times in an interview at the Los Angeles Federal Court House after the ceremony that he had fought a lifetime of discrimination over his height. 'Life was very hard for me there,' he recalled of Budapest. 'The happiest day of my life was when I arrived at Kennedy Airport.' In the U.S., Michu first came to fame in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, founded in 1919. He was billed as the 'smallest man in the world' by circus bosses, who were keen to cash in on his impressive array of talents, and stayed with the circus until 1985. The tiny star also became a close friend of the late Michael Jackson after appearing with him in two Pepsi adverts in 1992. Michu was reportedly a regular at Neverland Ranch and was present during MJ's courtship to Lisa Marie. He accompanied them on their honeymoon to Hungary and is seen in footage captured by TV news show Hard Copy at the time standing in front of them at the top of the steps of their jet. The city of Hawthorne in California honoured the actor by naming their shortest street 'Michu Lane' in the 1980s. Happier times: The actor had suffered from health problems since suffering from a stroke eight years ago Aside from Alf, Michu also appeared in Big Top Pee-Wee and Freaked. His most recent appearance on cinema screens was in the horror film Warlock: The Armageddon, released in 1993. She's a regular face each year at the famous Eden Roc in Cannes and model Victoria Silvstedt was there once again on Monday. The 41-year-old looked every inch the bronzed goddess as she topped up her tan in a very skimpy white bikini which showed off her youthful figure. She showed off her ample assets in the white two-piece which glistened in the sunshine, flaunting a gold watch and bracelet as she gazed out at the horizon. Scroll down for video Wow thing: She's a regular face each year at the famous Eden Roc in Cannes and model Victoria Silvstedt was there once again on Monday, wearing a stunning white bikini The Swedish beauty tied her platinum blonde locks up in an elegant up do as she enjoyed her break, hiding her eyes behind a pair of sunglasses. Her tiny briefs were held together with flimsy looking tie sides as she walked up the steps at the hotel while barefoot. Holding a towel in her hand, Victoria flashed her perky posterior and she used the stairs as her very own catwalk. Stunner: She showed off her ample assets in the white two-piece which glistened in the sunshine, flaunting a gold watch and bracelet as she gazed out at the horizon The former Playmate of the Year has recently appeared on a Swedish reality series alongside a host of famous personalities, which was broadcast on TV3. Victoria has previously talked about her introduction to modelling and her discomfort with the catwalk. Speaking to Female First, she said: I started very young to model in Paris when I was 18, I remember like starving myself to fit into the clothes and it was an amazing experience but you know I did shows for Valentino, Chanel, so it was really prestigious. But it never felt like it was my thing, I'm not like a runway skinny model, I'm more curvy. It was torture, I put myself through starvation, you know torturing myself. Victoria is capable of speaking a whopping four languages and loves to travel. The day before, she was pictured soaking up the sun in Monaco. She's proved her fashion credentials time and time again on the red carpet. So it was little surprise to see Naomie Harris rocking a seriously chic yet daring look at on the FROW at Songzio's London Collection Men's show on Monday. Arriving at the BFC Show Space in Soho, the 39-year-old Spectre star looked every inch the silver screen siren in a plunging monochrome ensemble by the South Korean design house. Scroll down for video Sizzling Spring style: Naomie Harris rocking a seriously chic yet daring look at on the FROW at Songzio's London Collection Men's show on Monday Combining both a saucy sartorial streak and a fashion forward look, the 28 Days Later star opted for a monochrome two-piece suit from Songzio's collaboration with Couturissimo. Showing a tantalizing amount of skin, the London-born actress donned a plunging sleeveless jacket, which allowed Naomie to flash a tiny hint of cleavage as well as her decolletage. Opting to forgo a bra, the stunning actress kept the fitted jacket buttoned - securing her modesty. Seriously chic: Arriving at the BFC Show Space in Soho, the 39-year-old Spectre star looked every inch the silver screen siren in a plunging monochrome ensemble by the South Korean design house She teamed the jacket with a matching white and black pair of slimline trousers, which subtly accentuated and defined her lithe legs. Rounding off her look with a high-fashion statement, befitting the show, Naomie donned a pair of towering white stilettos. Making sure not to detract from her look, the Moonlight actress only carried a white Aspinal of London Scarlett clutch, and kept her jewellery to a minimum. Sartorial sass: She teamed the jacket with a matching white and black pair of slimline trousers, which subtly accentuated and defined her lithe legs Skyhigh heels: Rounding off her look with a high-fashion statement, befitting the show, Naomie donned a pair of towering white stilettos and carried an Aspinal of London Scarlett Clutch in white Wearing her long dark locks in a sweeping side-parting, Naomie let her chestnut locks tumble in silky waves around her shoulders. With her tresses framing her striking and pretty face, the movie star subtly defined and accentuated her features with a natural and simple palette of make-up. The brainchild of Zio Song, the high-end fashion label attracted a whole host of fashion concious stars; with the likes of Dougie Poynter and Chinese model and actor, Hu Bing. Dapper gents: The brainchild of Zio Song, the high-end fashion label attracted a whole host of fashion conscious stars; attracting the likes of Dougie Poynter (R), Hu Bing (C) and Craig McGinlay (L) A splash of colour: Prints featured heavily in the show, which showcased the Spring/Summer 2017 collection Breaking down the barriers: The collection featured both men's and women's collection, showcasing their colourful and fresh vision for both genders A spring in his step? Adding light and colourful twists to classic staples, shirts, suits and shorts were all showcased on the catwalk They were joined by the suave and effortlessly cool model and rising actor, Craig McGinlay. Prints featured heavily in the show, which showcased the Spring/Summer 2017 collection - with both Menswear and Womenswear featuring on the catwalk. Adding light and colourful twists to classic staples, shirts, suits and shorts were all showcased on the catwalk. There were plenty of head-turning outfits at the Tony Awards on Sunday night. But it seems the best was saved for last as Victoria Justice impressed in a white number at the Tonys after party held at the Baccarat Hotel in New York City. The 23-year-old Victorious actress appeared serene in a white dress that looks very much like gowns Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen have worn in the past. Getting it white: Victoria Justice looked like a cool drink of water at the Tony Awards afterparty at the Baccarat Hotel in NYC on Sunday Different versions of the same thing: Kim Kardashian (left) in a white cut-out dress and Chrissy Teigen (right) in something very similar The dress had slits up the sleeves and a little turtleneck. The hem was also above-the-knee, unlike Kim and Chrissy's, which went to the floor. The Zooey 101 actress paired her light and bright number with black-and-white heels. She kept her hair pulled back and added pink lipstick for an early summer vibe. A cute guy by her side: The TV star took time out to pose with actor Reeve Carney Nailing her look: The Zooey 101 actress paired her light and bright number with black-and-white heels. She kept her hair pulled back and added pink lipstick for an early summer vibe The TV star took time out to pose with actor Reeve Carney, who appeared to be in costume with a fitted jacket and brown tie that was pinned in the middle. The stunner was last seen on Thursday at the amfAR gala in a metallic beaded gown that highlighted her slender figure. Victoria is currently filming the live TV movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which features talent such as Christina Milian, Adam Lambert, and Tim Curry. In addition, she is rejoining former Victorious co-star Avan Jogia in the comedy,The Outskirts, a flick bout best friends who seek help from their high school's outcasts to get revenge on the popular crowd after they were the butt of a mean prank. No wonder she needed a coffee! After spending her weekend attending charity events, Jessica Alba hopped straight on a plane to New York. The 35-year-old clutched hold of her giant iced coffee as she made her way through JFK on Monday. Scroll down for video Hitting the ground running: Jessica Alba touched down at New York's JFK airport on Monday morning Wearing glasses as she walked through the terminal, it was obvious the star was a little tired after an eventful weekend and then for a cross-country flight. But while she may have needed some more rest, the Into The Blue star looked casually chic in a well put together ensemble. For her flight, Jessica wore a pair of straight legged olive jeans with a raw cropped hemline and a forest knit woven sweater - which had a hole in it - under a navy lightweight trench. The star accessorized the look in a pair of on-trend and easy to wear Velcro sneakers from Kenneth Cole and wore some gold bracelets. Need a nap? Wearing glasses as she walked through the terminal, it was obvious the star was a little tired after an eventful weekend and then for a cross-country flight Tired but chic: For her flight, Jessica wore a pair of straight legged olive jeans with a raw cropped hemline and a forest knit woven sweater - which had a hole in it - under a navy lightweight trench Adding some fun to the natural coloured ensemble, the star carried a cross body bag from Anya Hindmarch which was covered in fun colourful 'stickers'. Jessica skipped wearing lots of makeup or doing her hair, instead leaving her brown sun kissed locks out and flowing. Wandering through the airport with coffee in hand, Jessica wheeled her small white carry-on by LOMS which ensured she could quickly go from plane to her waiting car. Fashion fun: Adding some fun to the natural coloured ensemble, the star carried a cross body bag from Anya Hindmarch which was covered in fun colourful 'stickers' Seasoned traveller: Wandering through the airport with coffee in hand, Jessica wheeled her small white carry-on by LOMS Luggage which ensured she could quickly go from plane to her waiting car Perhaps due to her tiredness, when the actress turned business mogul arrived at her hotel she seemed a little confused as she jumped out of her car. The star pulled a rather funny face as she tried to get her head around whatever was leaving her so muddled. The day before Jessica had been busy trying to help raise funds for the Children Mending Hearts organization at the annual Empathy Rocks event. Almost there: Perhaps due to her tiredness, when the actress turned business mogul arrived at her hotel she seemed a little confused as she jumped out of her car Careful the wind will chnage: The star pulled a rather funny face as she tried to get her head around whatever was leaving her so muddled Held in Beverly Hills, the day helped raised money for the charity which aims to connect children empowering and educating them through creative endeavours. Jessica was also helping young women during the week as she hosted a Baby2Baby Graduation Event. The graduation, held with Los Angeles Unified School District, was to recognize young mothers who have continued their education to get their high school diploma while raising their children and living below the poverty line. She was catapulted to fame on America's Next Top Model. And Winnie Harlow continued to steal the limelight as she attended London Collections: Men One For The Boys karaoke party on Monday night, which aimed to raise money for men with cancer. 21-year-old Winnie, who has a skin condition called vitiligo, appeared to be having the time of her life as she put on a very energetic display as she belted out a karaoke tune. Scroll down for video Change of career? Model Winnie Harlow was having the time of her life as she belted out a tune at the One For The Boys charity party in London on Monday night She oozed glamour in a plunging pink minidress that flaunted her fabulous figure in all the right places. Winnie drew attention to her ample assets in the intricately embroidered gown with a long golden pendant that rested neatly above her impressive cleavage. And she accentuated her never ending legs with a pair of towering strappy stilettos that featured a pretty cut-out design. Busting a move! Winnie didn't hold back as she posed with her tongue out and danced boldly to the music Having a giggle! Winnie took perfectly to her new rock star persona and she confidently took to the stage Crowd pleaser! Winnie encouraged the audience to get involved as she pointed her microphone towards the audience Winnie styled her hair into loose Hollywood waves that perfectly framed her pretty features, and clutched a small, boxy bag. And she kept her look chic and sophisticated with minimal makeup, apart from a subtle smokey eye that drew attention to her deep brown peepers. The supermodel looked to be having a great time at the event as she took to the stage and blasted out some of her favourite songs. Taking the plunge! The 21-year-old oozed glamour in a plunging pink minidress that flaunted her fabulous figure in all the right places Stunning! Winnie Harlow, who suffers from a skin condition called vitiligo stole the limelight as she attended London Collections: Men karaoke party on Monday night in a plunging pink gown Working it! Winnie drew attention to her ample assets in the intricately embroidered gown with a long golden pendant that rested neatly above her impressive cleavage Role model: Winnie looked sophisticated for the event as she styled her hair into loose Hollywood waves She didn't hold back as she posed with her tongue out and danced boldly to the music. Taking perfectly to her new rock star persona, Winnie then encouraged the crowd to get involved as she pointed her microphone towards the audience to get them to sing along. And it seemed as though she earned herself a few fans through her performance as she was later pictured with her arm around acting legend, Samuel L Jackson. Getting into the swing of things: The model could barely contain her glee at being on stage Top her lungs! Winnie made sure that everyone could hear her vocal performance Professional! Winnie acted like a natural as she took command of the stage Feeling flushed? The model fanned herself down with her hand after her energetic performance Fan base! It seemed as though she earned herself a few fans through her performance as she was later pictured with her arm around acting legend, Samuel L Jackson, who hosted the event Also present was model Daisy Lowe. The 27-year-old looked incredible in a midnight blue brocade prom dress which fell to just below her knee as she posed for snaps at the glitzy bash. The karaoke party was hosted at Abbey Road Studios by Hollywood actor Samuel L Jackson. Praise you! Winnie was congratulated on her stunning performance by Daisy Lowe She wore blue... Daisy looked incredible at the event as she posed for snaps Making an entrance: Daisy looked incredible in her blue brocade dress which was cinched in at the waist with a thick black belt Daisy looked incredible in her outfit which was cinched in at the waist with a thick black belt. She added some glamour to her look with a pair of silver court shoes and carried an Aspinal of London Scarlett Clutch bag in her hand. Her raven locks were blow-dried to perfection and her make-up was gothic inspired with pale features and a slick of dark berry lipstick. Looking good: Daisy didn't go solo on the night as she had her long-term model pal, Jack Guinness on her arm to keep her company Funny man: Jack gave her the giggles as he threw his arm around her All in the details... Wearing a smattering of vintage rings, she sported a perfect red manicure as she enjoyed the fashion-themed night out Wearing a smattering of vintage rings, she sported a perfect red manicure as she enjoyed the fashion-themed night out. Daisy didn't go solo on the night as she had her long-term model pal, Jack Guinness on her arm to keep her company. Jack looked incredibly dapper in a three-piece suit which had a light plaid pattern running throughout the fabric. Meanwhile, while Daisy and Darius appear to be close, she recently split from musician Thomas Cohen. The great man himself: Host Samuel L Jackson attended in a casual ensemble, consisting of a striped T-shirt and trainers 'Daisy and Thomas split about a month ago. It's all very amicable, they had lots of fun and a great time together. It just sort of fizzled out and had run its course', a source said. Daisy and Thomas, 26, only went public with their romance at the start of the year, but are said to have noted a growing attraction as far back as October. It appears they grew close while supporting each other over their mutual grief following the death of Peaches - Daisy's pal and the mother of Thomas' two sons, of a heroin overdose in 2014. Talking to Now magazine, Daisy refused to officially confirm the romance, but said: 'I'm never going to talk about my personal life, never... I am so happy, thanks, yeah. I'm about good vibes all around.' Not for him? She's rumoured to be romancing Darius Campbell but he was nowhere to be seen at the bash Putting her best foot forward: She wore a pair of killer silver heels on the night Playing it cool! Dougie Poynter rocked his usual quirky style in a red and black blazer and coordinating shirt Spot the difference! Dougie pulled off two fun looks for event as he swapped his black and red shirt for a more summery silk number She is currently taking a break from her busy work schedule with a holiday in Europe. And it appears that The Biggest Loser host Fiona Falkiner has found her happy place. The 33-year-old looked content in a black bikini as she sat on a swing in Fiscardo, the seaside village on Kefalonia in Greece on Monday. Scroll down for video Goddess in Greece: Fiona Falkiner, 33, content in a black bikini as went on a swing in Fiscardo, the seaside village on Kefalonia in Greece on Monday Fiona uploaded a snap of herself on Instagram, captioning it: 'Under the olive tree' alongside a leaf emoji. The TV personality looked stunning in her black triangle bikini and high-waisted white skirt that clung to her hourglass curves. Proving her penchant for accessorising, she completed her look with a pair of sunglasses and a stylish wide-brimmed hat. She kept her beauty look simple with her blonde tresses falling effortlessly over her shoulders and a golden tan that accentuated her cleavage. On vacation: The television host has been enjoying the European summer, with trips to Greece, Italy and the UK Curves ahead: Earlier this week, the curvaceous blonde showed off her enviable physique while cooling down in the pool Fresh-faced: The stunning model and TV host has been sharing several snaps from her idyllic holiday Busty display: The personality flaunted her assets in a patterned bikini while enjoying herself on Costa-Costa beach in Greece Picturesque: Fiona also enjoyed the stunning views outside her hotel room while on her European vacation The presenter, who is currently making her way around the world on the trip of a lifetime, is candidly open about her curvy frame. Her take on health, wellness and body image is what fans admire the most. The bronzed beauty shared with Body and Soul that despite getting down to a size 12 after being a contestant on The Biggest Loser, she discovered being healthy was more than just a dress size. 'Here I was, a healthy size 12 and I still hated what I looked like,' she admitted to the publication. 'It made me realise that my insecurities had nothing to do with what size I was, it had to do with my mindset,' she added. The now size-16 media personality is adamant that true health can only be achieved through self-love. 'Its been about learning to love my body, to value it and to appreciate it,' she shared with the newspaper. 'When you start to love yourself, you want to look after your body and lead a healthy lifestyle,' she said. Content: Fiona, who found fame on The Biggest Loser, is adamant that true health can only be achieved with self-love He's played hunky builder Jason Grimshaw in Coronation Street for 15 years, but for Ryan Thomas, leaving the show has become almost too much to bear. In an interview with OK! magazine, the 32-year-old said: 'The main reason is I wanted to have a change and it was about doing something Ive never done before. 'I feel like now is the right time Im in my thirties. Ive been here since I was 16 thats all my life, really. Its the only job Ive ever had.' Scroll down for video It's all over: Coronation Street's Ryan Thomas talks about filming emotional final scenes as Jason Grimshaw as he enjoys leaving party with (L-R) Samia Ghadie, Jane Danson and Michelle Keegan The star, who enjoyed a leaving party with Samia Ghadie, Jane Danson and Michelle Keegan, revealed he cried twice when he filmed his final scenes. He said: 'The first time I picked up the script that was when it hit me I was leaving. I was fine in rehearsal but when it came to film the scene, I just couldnt look at Sue or Bruno.' However, the door is very much being left open for his character to return. What a guy! Ryan has played hunky builder Jason Grimshaw in Coronation Street for 15 years Happy families: Ryan spoke fondly of his ex Tina O'Brien, (pictured) who is the mother of his daughter Scarlett, seven and said he has bonded with Tina's fiance Adam Crofts (left) Read the full interview in this week's OK! magazine He said: 'At Tony Warrens wake, one of the writers came up to me and said: "Ive written a scene where Jason isnt very happy in Thailand you will come back, wont you?" That is really lovely to hear.' Admitting that he wont miss the attention he gets outside of the show, he says: 'It feels like Im having an out-of-body experience and I can do what I want. It feels like the world is my oyster.' During the interview, Ryan spoke fondly of his ex Tina O'Brien, who is the mother of his daughter Scarlett, seven and said he has bonded with Tina's fiance Adam Crofts. He said: 'Theyre the perfect family. Adam is a great role model for my daughter. Im very blessed because he is the perfect man for my daughter to be around. 'Hes warm, kind and I would class him as family. He has given everything to Scarlett and I would do the same for Beau [Adam and Tinas son].' He added: 'Adam is a good man. I spent Christmas with them one year. He and Tina are perfect. Adam trains me, too. Adam and I are even planning to have a little holiday away. Given the context Florence seemed an appropriately romantic backdrop for Natasha Oakley as she stepped out for dinner with boyfriend Gilles Souteyrand on Monday evening. The Australian swimwear designer was celebrating the first anniversary of her blossoming relationship with London based Gilles, and she dressed to impress in a stunning silk evening gown that ensured she caught the eye. Exposing a hint of side-boob, the backless design from online retailer Revolve perfectly accentuated Natashas voluptuous curves as she arrived at a local restaurant with her boyfriend. Scroll down for video Eye-catching: Exposing a hint of side-boob, Natasha Oakley's dress perfectly accentuated her voluptuous curves as she celebrated the first anniversary of her relationship with boyfriend Gilles Souteyrand Posting two snaps across social media, she wrote: Arrived in Florence. Having another anniversary dinner, because why not?! Natasha, 25, has been enjoying an extended European break with Frenchman Gilles seven months after confirming their romance to Daily Mail Australia in November. 'We are very much in love and have been together for six months, she said at the time. Looking good: The Australian swimwear designer was celebrating the first anniversary of her blossoming relationship with London based Gilles, and she dressed to impress in a stunning silk evening gown Their trip started with a stay at the luxurious Grand Hotel Tremezzo, where she was pictured showing off her bikini-clad figure as she lazed by the side of a hot tub with the sweeping views of Lake Como behind her. The couple have since explored Venice and its neighbouring island, Burano, before heading inland to Florence. Having secretly broken up with her former boyfriend, French Big Brother star Martin Medus some time this year, Natasha's new relationship took social media by surprise. Cause for celebration: Posting two snaps across social media, she wrote Arrived in Florence. Having another anniversary dinner, because why not?! Lavish lifestyle: Their trip started with a stay at the luxurious Grand Hotel Tremezzo, where she was pictured showing off her bikini-clad figure as she lazed by the side of a hot tub with the sweeping views of Lake Como behind her As a model and personal trainer, Gilles has worked with high fashion brands such as Burberry, and graced international magazine covers such as Men's Fitness. He has also worked in several campaigns for Swiss luxury watchmaker, Patek Philipe, and has even included her in his new modelling portfolio for Select Models. Running his personal training business out of Core Collective in Kensington, London, the fitness guru focuses his methods on CrossFit, core exercise and calisthenics. US drone attack 'kills two Qaeda fighters' A US drone attack in southern Yemen killed two suspected Al-Qaeda members, the second deadly strike in as many days, security sources said Monday. The drone on Sunday targeted a car driving in Habban, killing "two Al-Qaeda fighters and wounding their driver," one of the sources said. The strike comes after an American drone attack on Saturday killed two other presumed Al-Qaeda members in their vehicle in Marib province, east of the capital Sanaa. Yemeni women protest US action in Yemen on May 12, 2016, in the capital Sanaa Mohammed Huwais (AFP) Washington, which views Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch as its most dangerous, acknowledged on May 7 that a "very small number" of US military personnel have also been deployed in support of the operation to retake former Al-Qaeda stronghold of Mukalla. Al-Qaeda exploited the civil war in Yemen between Shiite Huthi rebels and government forces to expand its presence in the south and southeast. US Muslim leader condemns Orlando attack, slams extremists The head of a prominent US Muslim advocacy group has strongly condemned the nightclub massacre in Florida, calling members of the Islamic State group an "aberration" amid allegations the gunman was inspired by the jihadists. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also called for unity and urged politicians not to "exploit" the slaughter in Orlando, which left 50 dead and dozens more injured. "This is a hate crime. Plain and simple. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms," Awad told a news conference. Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has strongly condemned the nightclub massacre in Florida, calling members of the Islamic State group an "aberration" Chris Kleponis (AFP/File) "It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims. Let me be clear, we have no tolerance for extremism of any kind." The FBI said the American gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who died in an exchange of fire with police, was believed to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS before the shooting. Awad referenced such reporting and said he had a word for IS members and supporters. "You do not speak for us. You do not represent us. You are an aberration, you are an outlaw ... they don't speak for our faith. They never belonged to this beautiful faith." With the 2016 race for the White House in full swing, Awad warned that perpetrators of attacks such as the one in Orlando "mean only to divide us" and called for calm on the political front. "And to those politicians who may try to exploit this tragedy, we ask them to respect the victims and their families. This is not the time to score points. This is not the time to exploit fear. This is the time for unity and faith." White House hopeful Donald Trump lost no time in claiming the killing showed he has been right about Islamic extremism all long. The Republican flag-bearer demanded that President Barack Obama stand down if he refused to blame the attack on what Trump called "radical Islam." The billionaire has previously argued that incidents like last year's San Bernardino shooting show that the United States should ban Muslim travelers. Police cars outside the Pulse Night Club in Orlando after a mass shooting on June 12, 2016 Racehorse A Shin Hikari primed to give Japan historic win at Ascot A Shin Hikari is in prime form and ready to become the first Japanese horse to win at British flat racing's showpiece festival Royal Ascot, his trainer says. The horse is one of several from Asia and the United States who can threaten the established order of the finest thoroughbreds the English, Irish and French send out and all in front of noted racing enthusiast Queen Elizabeth II, no stranger herself to visiting the winners' enclosure. A Shin Hikari pushed himself to the forefront of the betting for Wednesday's Group One Prince of Wales's Stakes with a stunning performance under veteran Japanese jockey Yutaka Take in the Group One Prix d'Ispahan at Chantilly last month on heavy ground. Japanese jockey Yutaka Take and Japanese horse A Shin Hikari will compete in British flat racing's showpiece festival Royal Ascot Anthony Wallace (AFP/File) Trainer Masanori Sakaguchi, who will be anxiously surveying the skies because he does not want soft ground for his stable star at Ascot, sounded a warning to his rivals after he watched a final serious pre-race training gallop at Chantilly. "I think he has progressed and that he's in better condition than before the Prix dIspahan," Sakaguchi told The Racing Post. "I suppose I was a little bit surprised he was able to produce a performance like that (the Ispahan). "I expected him to lead at Chantilly, but the horse remained mentally strong with the change of tactics (Take decided to come from behind instead), and the way he finished was extraordinary." A Shin Hikari shouldn't encounter any traffic problems if Take decides once again to forego pace-setting duties, with less than 10 rivals set to take him on. Irish master trainer Aidan O'Brien's filly Found, a well-beaten second at Epsom last time out, is the likeliest major obstacle to him going one better than compatriot Agnes World's runners-up spot in the King's Stand Stakes at the 2000 meeting. Hong Kong too have a strong contender for major honours in hoary veteran seven-year-old Gold-Fun, trained by Englishman Richard Gibson and set for the Group One sprint The Diamond Jubilee Stakes on Saturday, the final day of the five-day extravaganza. Gibson, who began his training career in France before decamping to Hong Kong, is confident of a good showing from the sprinter whose battle-hardened experience will count in the rough and tumble of a sprint up the Ascot straight. "I don't have any worries about him handling the track there," he told the Racing Post. - 'Nothing comes close' - America could get the non-European challenge off the mark on the opening day on Tuesday with the Wesley Ward-trained Acapulco -- who won the two-year-old race the Queen Mary at the meeting last year -- in the King's Stand Stakes. Acapulco's chances have been done no harm by having Ryan Moore on his back as the American challenger is owned by among others Michael Tabor and Sue Magnier, who provide him with the majority of his rides out of the O'Brien stable. The classiest race of the week, though, will not feature any "gatecrashers" from far afield. The St James's Palace Stakes over a mile will bring together the winners of the French, Irish and English 2000 Guineas in O'Brien's The Gurkha, veteran Kevin Prendergast's Awtaad and Hugo Palmer's Galileo Gold respectively. As for racing's most high-profile personality, Frankie Dettori, the effervescent Italian believes he has a couple of potential winners on a track where he famously rode the "Magnificent Seven" winners in 1996, although that was on Champions Day, not the Royal meeting. The 45-year-old -- who broke the 50-winner mark at the Royal meeting last year but trails way behind overall leader Lester Piggott's astonishing total of 116 -- says there is no festival like it. "It is my biggest week of the year," Dettori told The Sun. "I travel all over the world, but nothing comes close." Japanese horse A Shin Hikari is one of several from Asia who can threaten the established order of the finest thoroughbreds at Royal Ascot Anthony Wallace (AFP/File) Terror returns to US shores with gay club massacre US anti-terror strategy was under new scrutiny after a gunman previously cleared of jihadist ties launched a hate-fueled rampage in a Florida gay club that left 50 dead. As the worst mass shooting in modern US history erupted Sunday, Orlando police blasted their way into the Pulse nightspot and shot the attacker dead. The murderous assault triggered grief but also defiance in the gay and lesbian community, and more than 100,000 marched in a planned Los Angeles Gay Pride parade. Police investigate at the Pulse nightclub, the scene of the worst mass shooting in modern US history, in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016 Gregg Newton (AFP) In New York, the Tony Awards for musical theatre went ahead as planned but were dedicated to the victims of the massacre. "We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," President Barack Obama said, as the FBI investigated the shooter. Prominent US Muslim figures, Pope Francis and world leaders condemned the attack, which is being treated as the worst act of terror on US soil since September 11, 2001. The FBI admitted that 29-year-old Omar Mateen had previously been investigated -- but cleared -- for ties to a US suicide bomber. Special Agent Ronald Hopper also said Mateen was reported to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS shortly before the massacre. Meanwhile, the IS-linked news agency Amaq said without providing evidence that one of its fighters carried out the attack. But the group, which has previously been a conduit for Islamic State statements cited only "a source," leading experts to doubt the claim. Terrified survivors described how the gunman raked club-goers with bullets, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue. Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York in 1986 and lived in Port St Lucie, Florida, about a two hour drive from Orlando. His father Mir Seddique told NBC News his son may have been motivated by homophobia, insisting: "This had nothing to do with religion." - FBI probe - The suspect's ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told reporters he had been violently abusive to her but was not especially religious. But the FBI's Hopper told reporters Mateen's behavior had raised red flags well before Sunday's attack. In 2013, he was probed by the bureau after making inflammatory comments to co-workers that suggested terrorist ties. Later, in 2014, he was again questioned by agents investigating his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a fellow Floridian. Abusalha became notorious as the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria, and was reportedly a member of an Al-Qaeda affiliate. "We determined the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time," Hopper said. The Orlando atrocity came at the height of what is already a heated US presidential election campaign, and the main candidates were quick to react. - Hostage rescue - Democratic flag-bearer Hillary Clinton postponed a joint campaign rally with Obama and tweeted that her "thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act." Her Republican rival Donald Trump, meanwhile, lost no time in claiming the attack proved he was right to promise a ban on Muslims entering the US. Trump demanded Obama resign for failing to publicly blame the massacre on "radical Islam," and vowed to make a speech on security policy Monday. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore," Trump declared. Events at Pulse unfolded over a three hour period from around 2:00 am (0600 GMT) when shots rang out amid the throbbing music. Police said the gunman was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. A policeman working "extra duties" at the club responded and two other officers exchanged fire with the suspect. Police stormed the venue after the suspect fell back inside, and broke through a wall with a wheeled armored vehicle known as a BearCat. It was unclear whether all the victims were killed by the gunman or if some died in crossfire during the assault to rescue his hostages. - 'I'm trapped' - Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revelers with bullets. "It was like complete chaos," he told AFP. "It was like a scene out of a movie. People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped.'" "People were getting trampled. There was no clear exit sign at the club, so we didn't know which door to take or where to go. The massacre -- which coincided with Gay Pride month in the United States -- cast a long shadow over the parade in Los Angeles. Chillingly, a man was arrested in nearby Santa Monica with weapons and explosives in his car. Police said he had no known connection to the Orlando bloodshed. Map of Orlando, Florida, locating the gay nightclub targeted in the mass shooting Kun Tian (AFP) A woman places a hand print on a makeshift memorial in a parking lot near the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016 Mandel Ngan (AFP) Images of Omar Mateen, 29, a US citizen of Afghani descent from Port St. Lucie, Florida, from his MYSPACE.COM page Handout (myspace.com/AFP) People gather at a vigil in New York in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016 Bryan R. Smith (AFP) Stanford graduation ceremony overshadowed by rape case Prestigious Stanford University's graduation ceremony has been overshadowed by a sex assault case that prompted a brief protest by students. The event kicked off with the university's president John Hennessy calling for a moment of silence for survivors of sexual assault as well as victims of the massacre in Florida that left 50 people dead. "As events on our own campus and around the country remind us, violence in all forms has become a scourge on our society," he said. A woman carries a sign in solidarity for a Stanford rape victim during graduation at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California, on June 12, 2016 Gabrielle Lurie (AFP) A handful of students carried signs that read "Rape is Rape," "It doesn't matter what she was drinking" or "Stanford protects rapists" during the so-called "Wacky Walk" processional into the university stadium. At the ceremony itself, there was only muted protest with several students sporting on their caps a message that read "1/3," in reference to the ratio Stanford students say will be victims of sexual assault by the time they finish a four-year degree. A plane hired by a women's activist group earlier flew overhead, trailing a banner that read "Protect survivors. Not Rapists. #PerskyMustGo." The tag referred to Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky who earlier this month sentenced to six months in jail a former student -- Brock Turner -- who was convicted for the 2015 sexual assault of an unconscious woman. The sentence, which gained attention after the victim's statement to the court was made public, has prompted widespread outrage and calls for Persky to be recalled. The judge has not commented on the case as Turner's attorney has indicated he may appeal his sentence. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, who spoke at the ceremony, urged the nearly 5,200 graduates from 35 countries to be vigilant about sexual assault and to speak out against it. "I am the father of four daughters," he said, addressing the students. "If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them," he added to sustained applause. Stanford student Paul Harrison (C) carries a sign in a show of solidarity for a Stanford rape victim during graduation ceremonies at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California, on June 12, 2016 Gabrielle Lurie (AFP) Attack on Orlando gay club 'unbelievable': imam The imam of the mosque where the Orlando nightclub shooter worshipped said the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence. Omar Mateen, 29, attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old, the mosque's imam said. "He would pray and his son would play," said Syed Shafeeq Rahman, who has known Mateen since 2003 when he became the imam. Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce, Florida on June 12, 2016. Rahman says he has spoke out against groups like ISIS in the 11 years he has led the group Mateen did not socialize, leaving when services ended. He didn't talk but would smile and shake hands, Rahman said. The imam said it was "unbelievable" that a heavily-armed Mateen carried out a rampage at a gay club in Orlando, killing 50 people and wounding 53. It was the deadliest terror attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. Authorities said Mateen apparently called 911 before the massacre and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. "I never expected this," Rahman said, holding a Koran in his hand as he spoke with reporters. "We teach peace and justice." "It must be some kind of psychological problem or anger problem," the imam said, adding that Mateen might have been radicalized on the Internet. Mateen's parents regularly attend services at the mosque and his father works in life insurance, the imam said. Rahman said he was concerned about the safety of the mosque, located on a quiet residential street in the small coastal city of Fort Pierce. "The people who are bad people look like us, and that's a problem," he said. Thai king improving after heart operation: palace Thailand's ailing King Bhumibol Adulyadej is recovering well after a recent operation to improve blood flow to his heart, the palace said, the latest in a series of major medical procedures for the 88-year-old. Bhumibol is the object of an intense personality cult and his frail health is a matter of significant public concern. On Tuesday doctors performed a series of angioplasty procedures without anaesthetic, using balloons and stents to widen multiple arteries in his heart. Women hold images of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej during the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of his reign in Bangkok last week Lillian Suwanrumpha (AFP/File) In the latest update on his health released by the palace late Sunday, doctors said the king was making progress with blood pressure and breathing back to normal. An electrocardiogram also showed improved bloodflow to the heart, the statement added. The king is confined to a wheelchair and rarely seen in public. He has spent most of the past two years hospitalised in Bangkok for a series of ailments, including bacterial infections, breathing difficulties and hydrocephalus (water on the brain). Bhumibol is the world's longest-reigning monarch and most Thais have never known life under another king. He is largely seen as a unifying force in a nation bitterly divided along political lines. Anxiety over what will happen after his reign ends is considered an aggravating factor in the country's past decade of tumultuous politics, as competing elites jostle for power and influence before the transition. Information on the monarchy is tightly controlled by the palace. Throughout much of the last two years of Bhumibol's hospitalisation, updates have been rare. But in recent weeks the palace has issued a string of health announcements. Last month doctors announced that he had been successfully treated for hydrocephalus as well as a lung and knee infection. Bhumibol has not been seen by the public since September when the palace released a video of him being taken in his wheelchair to visit a shop inside Bangkok's Siriraj hospital. Shoppers and attendants knelt and bowed as he passed by. An official photograph of him attending a ceremony was released by the palace in December, while officials also released a statement in January saying he briefly left his hospital for an hour-long trip by car to visit a palace and other royal projects. Discussion of his reign and the role of the monarchy is all but impossible because of the world's strictest lese majeste laws. Use of the laws has skyrocketed in the last two years since the military took over in a coup with some people jailed for as much as 30 years. Japanese street art: Not quite Banksy, but trying Beneath the crackle and hum of Japan's neon veneer, graffiti culture has traditionally been viewed as mindless vandalism assaulting the country's highly valued sense of order and cleanliness. Tokyo's lanes are virtually bare of the edgy street art -- common in other major cities -- that has brought global fame to guerrilla icons such as Banksy, JR and the late Keith Haring. But local enthusiasts are trying to work their way into the hearts and minds of the public in art-loving Japan, despite a prevailing conformist culture. Japanese street artist Kohei Yamao, better known as BAKIBAKI, with his work in Tokyo Kazuhiro Nogi (AFP/File) "Japanese street art is still a little behind Asia, Europe or America," street artist Kohei Yamao, better known as BAKIBAKI, told AFP. "It's not that artists here don't have the same kind of talent, it's just that the environment doesn't exist (for it to flourish). Historically Japanese people don't have a culture of drawing on city walls. The concept of the public space is different than in other countries," he added. Opulent galleries with a heavy emphasis on the traditional -- Tokyo museums this year have exhibited Botticelli, Caravaggio and Vermeer -- are visited in cathedral-like reverence, their works discussed in hushed tones and prized above the anarchic designs and images of the street. Beyond cultural attitudes, legal sanctions are also a factor -- with graffiti artists facing up to five years in prison if caught defacing public property. Still, some Japanese artists have found ways to skirt constraints, such as with "live painting" -- where works are created before an audience usually accompanied by music, in bars, clubs or on the street. "My style has developed from mechanical designs to a more organic flavour," said the Osaka-born BAKIBAKI. "What they actually represent is open to interpretation." Last year, Tokyo hosted the first Pow! Wow! Japan festival, a weeklong extravaganza celebrating live painting across several city districts including youth and fashion havens Shibuya and Harajuku, where street art has gained some acceptance. - Sumo-sized graffiti - Originally the brainchild of Chinese-American artist Jasper Wong, Pow! Wow! began in Hawaii as a way of connecting artists to the public. "People are able to view the process and learn at the same time and see how each artist works during the event," said Emily Okamoto, director of Pow! Wow! Japan. Blending foreign influences with Japanese, such as interweaving calligraphy with graffiti tagging styles, the festival brought together local and international artists in an exchange resulting in creations such as a massive drawing of a sumo wrestler on a 12-storey building by German artist Andreas von Chrzanowski, known as Case, in Tokyo's Tennozu Isle. For the artists, the festival is a valuable opportunity to slowly shift Japan's conservative stance on artwork, but in a respectful manner. "We have a culture here, in which something that disturbs the view or something too self-assertive for the scene is considered unpleasant," said BAKIBAKI, whose distinctive 'tag' is a star-shaped design inspired by traditional Japanese hemp patterns often seen on kimonos. "In my case, I would do a painting in a way to fit the view." Besides live painting, street artists have also been able to translate their murals into more refined "art walls" for companies, promoting 'legal' graffiti through corporate collaborations. In 2014, international advertising and public relations company Ogilvy & Mather invited Remo Camerota, author of "Graffiti Japan", to create an art installation inside its Tokyo office. The result was a floor to ceiling mural on which 12 songs can be played by touching different points on the work. "It's true that street art is being recognised more than ever thanks to collaborations with brands," BAKIBAKI said. "We're trying to mix Japanese sub-culture with main street art to make something uniquely Japanese, something 'Made in Japan'." Tokyo's lanes are virtually bare of the edgy street art that has brought global fame to guerrilla icons such as Banksy (work pictured) Geoff Caddick (AFP/File) Eritrea accuses Ethiopia of launching border attack Eritrea on Monday accused arch-rival Ethiopia of attacking its heavily militarised border, but officials in Addis Ababa said they had no knowledge of the reported fighting. Ethiopia on Sunday "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front," Eritrea's ministry of information said in a statement. Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Redda said there were "no clashes that we know of". Ethiopian soldiers check for landmines on a road leading to the eastern Ethiopian-Eritrean border town of Badme - (AFP/File) Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after three decades of war, but returned to battle in 1998-2000. They remain bitter enemies, with their troops still eyeing each other along the fortified frontier. Tensions are never far from the surface. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," Eritrea said, adding it "will issue further statements on the unfolding situation." Eritrea and Ethiopia have long traded accusations of attacks and of backing rebels to needle each other. In February, Ethiopia accused Eritrea of being behind anti-government protests in the Oromia region last year which led to a violent clampdown by the government in Addis Ababa. Ramadan raid on frail Indonesian food seller sparks anger Indonesian netizens have reacted with fury and a flurry of donations after footage emerged of a frail food seller breaking down as her cafe was raided for staying open during the daytime in Ramadan. Video of the 53-year-old business owner desperately begging officials not to confiscate her food went viral at the weekend, and social media users have donated almost $20,000 to a crowdfunding site to help her and other vendors. It is common for food outlets in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country that remain open during the daytime in the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims are supposed to fast from sunrise to sunset, to be raided. Food stalls and restaurants in Jakarta use fabric covers to hide their stalls from customers who are fasting Bay Ismoyo (AFP) But the case of food seller Saeni, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, has touched a nerve, with many criticising authorities for being heavy-handed during the raid in Serang, west of the capital Jakarta. "You should be tolerant towards those who are not fasting, cruel authorities," wrote Facebook user Elisabeth Oktofani. The food seller was deeply in debt and so had decided to keep the cafe open during daylight hours to make extra cash, she was quoted by local media as saying. President Joko Widodo condemned the raid and ordered his staff to make a personal donation, with his spokesman saying that the action "cannot be justified". In the footage, a group of public order officers, who assist police in maintaining order but have fewer powers, march into the small food outlet, which consisted of a few goods in a glass case and some shabby chairs and tables. Saeni, wearing a blue Muslim headscarf, begs them not to take the food but they put it into plastic bags and march off. Local authorities defended the raid, saying that the food seller was breaking the law. While many restaurants in bigger cities stay open throughout Ramadan, local bylaws in smaller places often forbid vendors to sell food during the daytime. A crowdfunding campaign launched in response to Friday's raid has raised over 265 million rupiah ($19,900), with the organisers planning to distribute the money to Saeni and other food sellers targeted for staying open during daylight hours in Ramadan. Most Indonesians practise a moderate form of Islam, but the country is also home to a vocal, hardline fringe. Top human rights activist rearrested in Bahrain Bahraini security forces on Monday rearrested the leading human rights activist Nabeel Rajab in a dawn raid, his family said on Twitter. Detained in 2014 for tweets deemed insulting to the Gulf kingdom's authorities before his release on health grounds, Rajab, 51, was apprehended at his home in the mainly Shiite village of Bani Jamra, near the capital Manama, his family said. "Rajab was arrested from his house and his house was searched," his wife Sumaya Rajab tweeted. Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab (C) is greeted by relatives at his home in the village of Bani Jamrah on July 14, 2015, after his release from prision Mohammed Al-Shaikh (AFP/File) No immediate reason was given for his latest arrest. The head of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights who has led anti-government marches, Rajab had previously served two years in jail for taking part in unauthorized protests. Sentenced to another six months in prison for his tweets, he was released in July 2015 after King Hamad issued a royal pardon "for health reasons." Home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, Bahrain has been rocked by unrest since security forces crushed Shiite-led protests in 2011 demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister. Washington, which has called for Rajab's release during previous detentions, complained directly to the government again on Monday. "We're deeply concerned," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. "We do not at this point know what charges have been levelled against him." "We don't believe anyone should be put in prison or prosecuted for engaging in peaceful expression or assembly," he added. "Societies are strengthened, not threatened, by peaceful expression of dissent." Rajab's arrest comes a week after another leading opposition activist, Zeinab al-Khawaja, fled Bahrain following her release from jail on "humanitarian grounds." "It pains me to leave, but I leave carrying our cause on my back, and my love for my country in my chest," Khawaja -- who left for Denmark where she also holds citizenship -- said on Twitter. She was sentenced to three years and one month on charges including tearing up the monarch's picture and insulting a police officer, the Gulf Centre for Human Rights has said. Human rights groups condemned Rajab's latest detention. It "appears to be another alarming example of Bahrain's zero-tolerance stance toward peaceful dissent and activism, which it enforces through arbitrary measures including revolving-doors detention," Amnesty International's James Lynch said. - 'Deteriorating human rights record' - Also on Monday, an appeals court in Bahrain upheld jail terms of between 10 and 15 years for 11 Shiites convicted of forming a "terrorist group" that planned to attack police and the Saudi embassy in Manama, among other charges, a judicial source said. The court also confirmed a previous criminal court order to revoke their citizenship, the source added. Bahrain has detained scores of opponents of the kingdom's Saudi-allied rulers, often sentencing them to lengthy jail terms, rights groups say. A court in May more than doubled the jail sentence passed against opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman, who is now set to serve nine years in prison for inciting violence. The authorities also prevented five activists from leaving Bahrain for Geneva on Sunday to attend a UN Human Rights Council session, London-based Amnesty said. "It has become painfully clear in recent weeks that the authorities in Bahrain have little interest in what the world makes of their deteriorating human rights record," Lynch said. China's investment growth slows, bucking signs of stabilisation China's fixed asset investment, an important gauge of infrastructure spending, slowed to its weakest pace in 16 years, government statistics showed Monday, a worrying trend despite other signs of economic stabilisation in the Asian giant. The moderation comes after a record credit binge in the first quarter of the year, a splurge aimed at stimulating China's slowing economy. Fixed asset investment rose 9.6 percent in the first five months of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. China's factory production and consumer spending showed steady growth Nicolas Asfouri (AFP/File) The world's number two economy, a key driver of global expansion, grew just 6.9 percent in 2015, the weakest rate in a quarter of a century. The investment results fell far short of economists' median forecast of 10.4 percent in a survey by Bloomberg News and was the slowest pace of expansion since May 2000. But factory production and consumer spending showed steady growth for the period, the government data indicated, as industrial output rose 6.0 percent year-on-year in May, matching the figure for April, while retail sales were up 10.0 percent. "The national economy extended a stabilising and progressing trend that emerged since the start of the year with positive factors accumulating," said Sheng Laiyun, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics. "But we must be aware that the international environment remains complicated and severe, the painful domestic structural adjustments continue, and the economy is still under downward pressure." The data show that overall industrial conditions were broadly stable, Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a note, but added that growth was "increasingly reliant on rapid state sector investment" that is likely to drop off later this year. -Private investment slows - Private investment growth also weakened, with a 3.9-percent increase in the first five months of the year. "The slowdown in private investment growth indeed showed the intrinsic driver of China's economic growth is yet to be strengthened," said Sheng. He blamed the weakening on factors including the difficulty for private firms to get loans, industrial overcapacity, and limited access for private firms to some sectors. Beijing has promised to take steps to address these problems, pledging to cut red tape and release the economic power of small and medium enterprises. But as with other reform vows, talk seems to have outweighed action and complaints from private enterprises remain abundant. Following Monday's release, analysts said that this month's overall figures may endanger China's growth target of 6.5 to 7 percent in the second quarter. The numbers may lead authorities to use more aggressive fiscal policies such as faster approval of infrastructure projects, analysts with ANZ Research said. "If fixed asset investment declines further in June, the 6.5 percent threshold is at risk," it said, a sentiment echoed by Nomura. As part of the programme to avoid that outcome, a possible first step towards a feared "hard landing", Beijing has pledged to reduce overcapacity and excess inventory in its industrial sectors, with the country's ailing steel industry a key target. But output rose 1.8 percent on-year in May, even as US and European steelmakers have accused bloated Chinese firms of dumping excess production on foreign markets. Foreign governments say they have seen little movement towards implementing promises to tackle the problem. Chinese stocks were sharply lower, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index falling 2.4 percent in late trade. Grief mixes with defiance as a shaken Orlando deals with attack The people of Orlando grieved and remembered the dead after a gunman murdered 50 people at a gay nightclub in the Florida city, but there was also defiance in the face of tragedy. On Sunday evening many relatives kept anxious vigils at the bedsides of wounded loved ones at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Angel Colon emerged from the hospital thankful to have found his son Angel Jr, 26, alive and in stable condition despite three gunshot wounds, including a bullet that went through his thigh. People wave flags during a vigil in New York to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016 Bryan R. Smith (AFP) Knocked to the ground by the bullets and with his leg broken, Angel was unable to flee Pulse, the popular nightspot that turned into a bloody shooting gallery just before closing time early Sunday. Colon said a girl fell to the ground next to his son, and they held hands as the gunman moved around the room methodically pumping bullets into people on the ground. "Then he shot the girl he was holding hands with," Colon said. "It looks like she didn't make it." "When I saw him, I held him," Colon said of his son. "I told him in Spanish, 'Pai, God is giving you another chance'." Earlier in the evening, authorities appeared before family members gathered at a hotel and read out the names of those hospitalized. Some in the audience broke down when they failed to hear the names of their loved ones, concluding they had died in the deadliest shooting attack in US history. At around the same time about 300 people gathered in El Calvario church not far from downtown Orlando to pray for the victims. Many were Hispanics, a reflection of the fact that Latinos were heavily represented among the dead and wounded. For about an hour they prayed and sang hymns, often with their hands raised toward the rafters as a violent downpour battered the city outside. - Blood donors out in force - But heavy rain did not discourage volunteers who lined up to give blood at mobile stations set up around the city. "At the central location there were thousands of people," said Sonia Drudge after giving blood for the first time. "I was there at 11. It was a five-hour delay. I've never seen anything like this." "My sister's gay and I have many relatives in the gay and lesbian community and I feel that I just need to do this for my people," she said. Claudia Santesimo, a regular at Pulse who waited three hours to give blood, could not get over what happened. "You expect maybe to see someone getting beat up in the parking lot but not an attack," she said. Drudge, however, was not surprised. Orlando is a city that draws 62 million tourists a year because of its amusement parks and other attractions and has long been considered a terrorist target. "We know that we're ground zero, that we're at the top of the list for terrorist attacks because of who we are. It's Orlando, it's the happiest place on earth. I've been expecting this," she said. More than radical Islam, the top concern mentioned by many Orlando residents is the proliferation of guns. - Guns 'out of hand' - "I'm sick of the silent prayers," said Corrine Brown, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from Orlando. "We need to do something about guns in the United States. You should not be able to kill 50 people like that," she told AFP. "It's just out of hand. Guns that people have, it's not for hunting, it's not for protecting themselves, it's for killing people." Just hours after the attack and despite the staggering death toll, many in Orlando were already talking about rebounding from tragedy. "Were a resilient community, a resilient state, a resilient nation," Rick Scott, Florida's Republican governor, told those gathered at El Calvario. Kathleen Gordon, the vice chair of a local school board, said: "This is devastating but it will not stop the love that Orlando has. We love our LGBT community," she said. "They can't stop us." Mass killings in the US Nick SHEARMAN, John SAEKI, Gal ROMA (AFP) People walk past a police roadblock near the Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Brendan Smialowski (AFP) Armed clashes in Iran kill 10 militants, policeman Ten militants and a police officer have been killed in separate armed clashes in Iran, local media reported Monday. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards killed five Kurdish rebels near the country's northwestern border with Iraq, an official statement said. "A team of five from the PJAK terrorist splinter group... has been identified and destroyed in the Sardasht region" on the Iraqi border, a Guards statement said on its official website. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards killed five Kurdish rebels near the country's northwestern border with Iraq, an official statement said Atta Kenare (AFP/File) It said the group was responsible for the death of three members of Iran's Basij militia more than a month ago. No further details were provided about the operation. The last reported clashes between Kurdish rebels and the Revolutionary Guards were in September, when two rebels and two Iranian soldiers were killed. State television later Monday reported six more deaths in armed clashes in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province. One police officer and five militants were killed in the fighting, which pitted Iranian forces against the Sunni militant group Jaish-ul Adl. Officials recovered "large amounts of explosives" after the clashes, state television website said. Tehran accuses Jaish-ul Adl of having links with Al-Qaeda. The group has conducted several armed attacks inside Iranian territory in recent years. PJAK -- the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan -- is an Iranian Kurdish party with close links to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Philippine protesters say harassed by Chinese during flag stunt Filipino protesters said Monday that Chinese coastguard ships blocked and sprayed them with water as they sailed to a disputed South China Sea shoal to plant a Philippine flag for independence day. China claims most of the strategic and resources-rich sea and has controlled Scarborough Shoal, just 230 kilometres (145 miles) off the main Philippine island of Luzon, since a 2012 standoff with the Philippine Navy. The Kalayaan Atin Ito (Freedom This is Ours) group said 16 of its members arrived near the shoal early on Sunday, Philippine independence day, and their boat was promptly blocked by two Chinese coastguard vessels. An activist holding a Philippine flag while a Chinese coastguard ship sails close by at the Scarborough Shoal STR (Kalayaan Atin Tio/AFP) "Five of us attempted to swim to the rock to plant the Philippine flag and the UN flag but they harassed us," the group's coordinator Vera Joy Ban-eg, told AFP via text message. "They chased us with their two speed boats and blocked our path, sprayed water on us. Two of the swimmers however were able to reach the ring of the shoal and raised the Philippine flag." The incident comes at a particularly tense time in the long-running dispute between the Philippines and China over Scarborough Shoal and other parts of the sea claimed by both. China insists it has sovereign rights to nearly all of the sea, even waters close to the shores of its neighbours. Aside from the Philippines, other claimants are Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Philippine President Benigno Aquino's administration has taken China to a UN-backed arbitration tribunal in a bid to have Beijing's territorial claims declared illegal. A ruling is widely expected over the next few weeks, although China does not recognise the arbitration and has reacted angrily to the Philippines' legal efforts. Kalayaan Atin Ito has organised trips to Philippine-claimed or -controlled South China Sea islands in the past, sending 47 Filipino youths by boat to Filipino-garrisoned Thitu Island in the Spratly group in December. The Philippine government has previously said it recognises the group's patriotism but has discouraged such trips, owing to safety concerns. The group posted video clips and pictures of its latest trip on its Facebook wall. One clip showed a group of young men and women singing the Philippine national anthem while they stood on the deck of a wooden-hulled boat flying Philippine and United Nations flags. A larger, white-hulled vessel is seen shadowing the Filipino vessel from behind. Ban-eg said 15 Filipino youths and an American national took part in the protest sail, but did not identify the foreigner beyond calling the person a "volunteer". A Chinese embassy spokeswoman in Manila told AFP it may comment later. IS suicide attack kills five in Iraq's Ramadi: officers A suicide attack carried out by Islamic State group fighters killed at least five members of the Iraqi security forces on Monday in the city of Ramadi, army officers said. The Iraqi army earlier this year regained control of Ramadi, the capital of the country's vast Anbar province, and in recent weeks has been battling to retake Fallujah, another city in the province, from IS jihadists. Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi said the IS attack targeted an army base in Ramadi with several explosives-laden vehicles driven by suicide bombers and gunmen who fired on soldiers. The Iraqi army earlier this year regained control of Ramadi, the capital of the country's vast Anbar province, from the Islamic State group Haidar Hamdani (AFP/File) "Our forces killed all the attackers and destroyed all the car bombs but there were a number of killed and wounded among army ranks," said Mahalawi, who heads the operations command for Anbar province. Two senior Iraqi army officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said five soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in the attack. The attack highlighted IS's continued ability to stage deadly operations in areas where it lost control of territory, as the government seeks to bring local populations back and start rebuilding. Bangladesh arrests in anti-militant drive top 8,000 Bangladesh police said Monday they have arrested more than 8,000 people in a nationwide crackdown launched after a wave of murders targeting minorities and secular activists. Authorities have come under mounting international pressure to end the attacks in which nearly 50 people have been killed over the last three years, many hacked to death with machetes. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed at the weekend to catch "each and every killer" and on Monday police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan said 3,245 suspects had been arrested, raising the total to 8,192 since Friday. Bangladeshi police escort arrested men who were detained during a anti-militant crackdown in Dhaka on Sunday - (AFP) Opposition parties have accused the government of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent. Deputy inspector general of national police AKM Shahidur Rahman said most of those arrested were criminal suspects with existing warrants against them, rather than suspected militants. "Only a fraction of the people who have been arrested are members of Islamist militant groups," he said. The crackdown comes after five suspected Islamist militants were shot dead in gunbattles with police in recent days. It is thought to have been triggered by the murder this month of Mahmuda Begum, wife of a top anti-terror police officer. The officer had led several high-profile operations against the banned group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), members of which were among those arrested in the latest sweep. JMB is one of two local groups blamed by the government for most of the recent killings. Authorities reject claims of responsibility by the Islamic State (IS) group and a South Asian branch of Al-Qaeda and say they have no presence in the country. Premier Hasina accuses the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its Islamist party ally, Jamaat-e-Islami, of orchestrating the killings to destabilise the country. - Hindu priest decapitated - A BNP spokesman said police had detained more than 2,100 of its activists across the country. "Police have arrested and harassed opposition activists and ordinary people in the name of the crackdown. Also many of our activists have fled their homes, fearing arrests," Rizvi Ahmed told AFP. "Police have said several suspected militants have been shot dead in crossfire. Instead of putting them into trials, these suspected militants are being eliminated in cold blood." Last week an elderly Hindu priest was found nearly decapitated in a rice field, while a Christian grocer was hacked to death near a church. IS claimed responsibility for those murders as well as that of a 62-year-old Hindu monastery worker on Friday. Bangladesh is officially secular, but around 90 percent of its 160 million-strong population is Muslim. Other victims have included liberal activists and secular bloggers along with two foreigners and two gay rights activists. Mubashar Hasan, an expert on political Islam, said the crackdown risked further alienating hardliners who feel they have no choice but to join the militants. A previous government crackdown on government opponents -- including a ban on Jamaat -- following a protracted political crisis is widely blamed for pushing many Bangladeshis towards extremism. "While fighting militants on the ground is important, winning hearts and minds of people is crucial so that more people do not join militancy," said Hasan, of Dhaka's University of Liberal Arts. National police chief Shahidul Hoque defended the crackdown, saying only those suspected of wrongdoing were being picked up. Bangladesh police say they have arrested more than 8,000 people in a nationwide crackdown on militants following a spate of gruesome murders N. Korean hackers steal defence files from South North Korean hackers managed to steal thousands of records from private firms and state agencies in the South including defence industry information and files from Korean Air, Seoul police said Monday. The hacking originated from 16 servers based in the North's capital Pyongyang, police said, adding the North had stolen more than 42,000 internal records. The North gained access to the internal systems of the firms and agencies at some point after hacking in 2014 into computer management software developed by a Seoul IT firm, according to the police. The hacking attempt originated from 16 servers based in the North's capital Pyongyang, according to South Korean authorities Leon Neal (AFP/File) The breach was discovered earlier this year. The hackers also planted 33 types of malicious code into the computers in an apparent bid to use them as "zombie" machines to launch future cyberattacks on other organisations in the South, it said. The companies that were hacked include South Korea's flagship air carrier Korean Air and SK Networks, a sister company of South Korea's top wireless operator, SK Telecom, Yonhap news agency said. "We worked with the organisations that were targeted to recover the lost records and fortify their computer security to prevent further infiltration," the police said in a statement. Some of the stolen records however contained information about the defence industry or network data essential to stage cyberattacks, it added. The records include designs of military aircraft and Internet facilities at South Korean army barracks, according to the Yonhap. Police added that some of the 16 servers in Pyongyang had the same IP addresses as those that had staged a crippling cyberattack on Seoul's banks and TV broadcasters in 2013. Seoul has in recent years blamed the North's hackers for a series of cyberattacks on military institutions, banks, state agencies, TV broadcasters, media websites and a nuclear power plant. The attack in March 2013 left the websites and tens of thousands of computers at several TV stations and banks paralysed for hours. Pyongyang has angrily denied involvement in the attacks and accused Seoul of spreading fabrications aimed at slandering its leader. Double-digit Asia growth drives record arms sales: study A buying spree in the Asia-Pacific region propelled double-digit growth in the global arms market last year to a record $65 billion (57.7 billion euros), defence analysts IHS Jane's said Monday. Defence imports by Asia-Pacific nations soared 71 percent in a "spend surge" between 2009 and 2016, the analysts said, helping the global arms market jump 11.3 percent or $6.6 billion last year. "The global defence trade market has never seen an increase as large as the one we saw between 2014 and 2015," said Ben Moores, a senior analyst at IHS Jane's. South Korea rose from being the seventh biggest defence importer in the world in 2014 to fifth largest last year, purchasing arms worth $2.2 billion South Korean Defence Ministry (South Korean Defence Ministry/AFP/File) "2015 was a record-breaking year," he added. It said there had been an acceleration in particular in "states bordering the South China Sea". Beijing has stirred regional opposition by rapidly building artificial islands capable of hosting military hardware, despite partial counter-claims by several Southeast Asian states. An IHS Jane's report said three of the top 10 countries with the fastest growing opportunities were in Asia-Pacific: Vietnam, Philippines, Bangladesh. South Korea rose from being the seventh biggest defence importer in the world in 2014 to fifth largest last year, purchasing arms worth $2.2 billion. The report predicted it would rise to fourth place in 2016. Australia's defence imports also rose from sixth to third place with $2.3 billion, after top importer Saudi Arabia and second-placed India which did not change positions from the previous year. IHS Jane's predicted that the global arms market would grow further in 2016 to $69 billion, pointing in particular to India's inability to manufacture the quality of defence equipment it needs to replace ageing stock. "Large numbers of India's fighters and submarines need to be replaced and, given the country's high economic growth rate, it should be in a strong financial position to acquire them in the coming decades," IHS Jane's director Paul Burton said. On the exporting side, IHS Jane's found that Germany rose from being the world's fifth biggest arms exporter to third biggest in 2015 with sales of $4.8 billion. France slid from third to fourth place ($4.8 billion) and Britain from fourth to fifth ($3.9 billion). Japan bamboo-pickers defy bear attack warning despite deaths Residents seeking seasonal bamboo shoots in northern Japan are ignoring warnings to avoid a mountain despite four deaths from apparent bear attacks, officials said. Bear attacks on humans are not unusual in mountainous Akita prefecture on Japan's main island of Honshu, but fatal ones are rare, with only eight tallied from 1979 through last year. Last month three men, two in their seventies and one in his sixties, died in apparent bear attacks while harvesting bamboo shoots in three separate incidents in a mountain forest near Kazuno city. Toshiki Aoi, an emeritus professor at Japan's Iwate University, noted that it was extremely unusual for Asian black bears to eat people Raymond Roig (AFP/File) The body of a fourth victim, a badly mauled 74-year-old woman, was discovered Friday, with reports saying she had been picking wild plants. Hunters killed an Asian black bear just 10 metres from the spot where her remains were discovered. Public broadcaster NHK reported Monday, citing a specialist, that it probably attacked all four because a human body part was found inside it. The expert, Toshiki Aoi, an emeritus professor at Iwate University, however, noted that it is extremely unusual for that type of bear to eat people. Prefecture and city officials have told locals to stay away but some are not heeding the warnings, according to prefectural official Masaru Kobayashi. "Some people ignore our warning, thinking they won't encounter bears, or they can handle the dangerous situation," Kobayashi, who is in charge of environmental conservation, told AFP. In addition to prefectural and city officials, police and firefighters are patrolling the mountains daily encouraging anyone there to leave, Kobayashi said. "It's impossible to set up a fence around the mountains," he said. "All we can do is to advise locals not to go in." Makoto Aoyama, a Kazuno city official, said bamboo shoots are a popular seasonal product and some residents make a living selling them. "But there is always a chance to encounter bears because bamboo shoots are their staple in spring," she said. The city set up several bear traps on Friday but they have not captured any, she added. Earlier this month a seven-year-old boy was found safe after being abandoned by his parents in a bear-inhabited forest on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. Libyan pro-govt advance slows as IS hits back in Sirte An intense fightback by the Islamic State group in Libya's Sirte slowed an advance by pro-government forces Monday into the jihadists' North African stronghold. Forces allied with Libya's unity government made rapid gains in Sirte last week, pushing IS out of the port and the airport on the edges of the coastal city, 450 kilometres (280 miles) east of the capital Tripoli. But the advance, under cover of air strikes and heavy artillery, slowed as pro-government fighters reached residential areas near the city centre. Forces allied with Libya's unity government made rapid gains in Sirte last week, pushing IS out of the port and the airport on the edges of the coastal city Mahmud Turkia (AFP/File) Most of Sirte's residents have fled, but officials have said some 30,000 civilians remain there. "We are trying to advance slowly today," a member of the operations command told AFP. "There are no big clashes so far, but the most important thing is that we are trying to advance." As the fighting degenerated into a street-by-street battle, IS militants holed up in the central and northern parts of the city hit back with sniper fire, improvised explosives and suicide car bombings. The GNA forces' Facebook page said on Monday 10 of their fighters were wounded in a clash with IS on the western side of the residential areas, and that the jihadists lost both men and vehicles in the fighting. On Sunday, three IS fighters drove cars laden with explosives at pro-government troops and a field hospital, killing at least one fighter and wounding four others, a unity government spokesman told AFP. Pro-government fighters responded by attacking IS positions at the main western entrance to the city on Sunday afternoon. They came under intense fire from the jihadists and withdrew as evening fell, an AFP journalist at the scene reported. A pro-government fighter was injured by sniper fire during the operation. But another fighter in the battle sounded an upbeat note: "Our ground forces will advance despite the difficulties," he said. - Unified command - The AFP journalist filmed pro-government fighters firing assault rifles at IS positions from inside buildings on the edge of the city. One wounded fighter lay on steps as his colleagues shouted for medical assistance. "The infantry has advanced inside Sirte with a great deal of effort," said Mohammed al-Fadel, a pro-government fighter. IS -- which is estimated to have some 5,000 fighters in Libya -- seized control of Sirte last year and turned it into its main base in North Africa. The loss of the city would be a major setback for the group, which has also been losing territory in Syria and Iraq where IS established its self-declared "caliphate" in 2014. The forces battling to oust the jihadists from Sirte include militias from western cities, notably Misrata, and the guards of eastern oil installations that IS has repeatedly tried to seize. Under the command of Libya's UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), they launched the assault on Sirte, the hometown of Libya's ousted dictator Moamer Kadhafi, a month ago. Directed from a joint command centre in Misrata, 190 kilometres (120 miles) to the northwest, pro-GNA forces have deployed tanks, rocket launchers and artillery in the fight for the city. Forces from Misrata -- who have an arsenal that includes MiG fighter jets and attack helicopters -- have carried out dozens of air raids against IS. Pro-GNA forces entered Sirte last week, taking the port on Friday and advancing on residential areas in the east. Following rapid gains, a spokesman for the pro-GNA forces predicted on Thursday the city would fall "in two or three days". But the advance slowed over the weekend, as IS responded with machineguns, mortar rounds and sniper fire, in addition to the car bombings. According to medical sources in Misrata, at least 140 pro-GNA fighters have been killed and 500 wounded since the operation began on May 12. Loyalist forces enter Sirte, IS bastion Kun TIAN, Thomas SAINT-CRICQ (AFP) Forces loyal to Libya's UN-backed unity government attempt to evacuate a passenger stuck inside a vehicle following a car-bomb attack in Sirte on June 2, 2016 Mahmud Turkia (AFP/File) Israel extends detention for Palestinian clown Israel has extended the detention without trial of Palestinian clown Mohammad Abu Sakha for another six months, his circus school said on Monday. Abu Sakha, 24, was arrested on December 14 in the occupied West Bank, and held since January in administrative detention, the controversial measure under which Israel holds suspects without trial for periods of six months, renewable indefinitely. "Administrative detention order extended (for) another six months. Our hearts are heavy," a statement from the Palestinian Circus School said. Palestinian clowns hold portraits of their imprisoned colleague Mohammed Abu Sakha, during a rally in Gaza City, on February 8, 2016 Mohammed Abed (AFP/File) The Shin Bet Israeli internal security agency confirmed his detention had been extended to December. Rights group Amnesty International called Abu Sakha's detention "yet another shameful example of the Israeli authorities' abusive use of administrative detention". "For decades, Israel has relied upon administrative detention, in many cases as an alternative to bringing Palestinians to trial, and used it to suppress peaceful dissent," it said in a statement. "They must take urgent steps to end this cruel practice once and for all." Shin Bet has accused Abu Sakha of being an active member of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel and others because of its armed wing. "Due to Abu Sakha's danger to the region's security, and lacking another alternative, Shin Bet recommended that the military command order his administrative detention," it said in a statement. The Palestinian Performing Arts Network, representing artists and cultural institutions, earlier this year said it was "deeply concerned" by Abu Sakha's detention. He has been part of the Palestinian Circus School in Bir Zeit in the occupied West Bank since 2008, first as a student and later as a clown and teacher. Administrative detention is intended to allow authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, with the aim of preventing further attacks in the meantime. The system has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and members of the international community. The Canadian government says it has 'compelling reason to believe' that hostage Robert Hall, who was kidnapped nine months ago, has been killed. Mr Hall was abducted along with three others from a marina in the southern Philippines in September and hopes of finding him alive began to fade when his fellow Canadian, John Ridsdel, 68, was beheaded in April. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today: 'It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors.' Robert Hall (centre, left) was shown in a video earlier this year being threatened with a machete as he sat next to fellow Canadian hostage John Ridsel, (centre, right) who was beheaded in April Mark Singer, an intelligence analyst in Manila who studies Abu Sayyaf, told Canada's National Post newspaper: 'Intelligence sources tell us Canadian Robert Hall was murdered on Jolo Island this afternoon.' The Abu Sayyaf gang, an indigenous Filipino group which has pledged to ISIS, had said they would murder Hall if they did not receive 300 million pesos (4.5million) ransom by today. Mr Trudeau said: 'While Canadian officials are working closely with authorities in the Philippines to formally confirm Mr Hall's death, we have compelling reason to believe that reports to this effect are, unfortunately, true. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (pictured) said: 'It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall...has been killed by his captors.' 'The vicious and brutal actions of the hostage-takers have led to a needless death. Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder,' he added. Mr Trudeau then reiterated Canada's intention never to pay ransoms to terrorist groups, because it encourages more kidnappings. Mr Hall was among four people abducted in September from yachts at a tourist resort on Samal island in the southern Philippines. There is no word yet about the fate of Mr Hall's Filipina girlfriend, Marites Flor, or the fourth hostage, a Norwegian, Kjartan Sekkingstad. Little is known about Mr Hall but he is believed to have worked as an insurance agent and welder in British Columbia before taking early retirement to sail across the Pacific on his yacht. He had met Miss Flor in the Philippines and was planning to make his home in the archipelago. President Benigno Aquino, the outgoing head of state in the Philippines, cancelled a public engagement on Monday to receive updates about Mr Hall. Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of Islamic militants that was founded in the early 1990s with money from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. Earlier this year a 30-second video was released showing the four hostages being threatened by a group of heavily armed terrorists holding ISIS-style banners. It is known what has become of Marites Flor (far left) or Norwegian, Kjartan Sekkingstad (far right) But it has recently switched its allegiance to ISIS. The southern Philippines has a large Muslim community, which has frequently been at odds with the country's Roman Catholic majority. Abu Sayyaf is believed to have only a few hundred armed followers but is considered one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the Philippines. After Mr Ridsdel was killed President Aquino pledged that his security forces would 'neutralise' Abu Sayyaf but an offensive involving thousands of troops has had little impact. Abu Sayyaf survives by using the mountainous, jungle terrain and support of local Muslim communities to its advantage. Rodrigo Duterte, who was elected as the new president of the Philippines, has also vowed to crush Abu Sayyaf but has not explained how he will manage what his predecessor has failed. The Philippine military has been hunting Abu Sayyaf Islamic militants who have earned many millions of dollars from kidnapping foreigners and locals since the early 1990s Therence Koh (AFP/File) From 2002-2014, the US deployed Special Forces advisers to train and provide intelligence to Filipino troops, which led to the killing or arrest of many Abu Sayyaf leaders. But the Abu Sayyaf went on a sustained kidnapping spree after the Americans left. The Abu Sayyaf has abducted 44 Filipinos and foreigners since last year in at least 16 separate incidents, according to Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a regional risk assessment organisation. The Abu Sayyaf was reported to have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for the kidnapping and release of 18 Indonesian and Malaysian sailors in recent months. 'Up to God to punish homosexuals': Orlando killer's father The father of the gunman behind the Florida massacre voiced sadness that his son took it upon himself to attack the gay community, saying it was "up to God to punish homosexuals". In a video posted on Facebook early Monday, Seddique Mateen said he was grieved by the rampage that left 49 people dead in a gay nightclub in Orlando, calling the 29-year-old killer Omar Mateen a "good and educated son". "I am deeply saddened and have announced this to the people of America," Seddique said in the three-minute video in the Dari language, voicing disbelief that his son carried out the killings during the holy month of Ramadan. The Orlando gunman was identified as Omar Mateen Handout (myspace.com/AFP/File) "It is up to God to punish homosexuals. It is not up to servants," the US resident added, sitting before a flag of his home country Afghanistan. The assault, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, has triggered an outpouring of grief but also defiance in the gay and lesbian community. The father is a minor celebrity in Afghan political circles in the US, hosting an occasional television show in which he expresses hardline views -- dressed sometimes in a pinstripe suit and other times in military fatigues. In the "Durand Jirga Show" available on YouTube, he rails against the Pakistani government and announces a quixotic bid to seek the Afghan presidency. Sitting like a statesman with an Afghan flag in the background, he lauds the Taliban as his "warrior brothers" in one of the videos. "The Taliban are 100% Afghan," said a large yellow signboard he held up in a picture he posted on social media. But his sympathy for the militant group appears confused at best, as he pillories Taliban leaders in various Facebook posts for alleged links with the Pakistani military establishment. Officials in Afghanistan sought to distance themselves from the family, saying they did not know when exactly Seddique had left the conflict-torn country. "All we can say is that he (Mateen) is a US citizen of Afghan origin. He had been living in the US for decades, and that is all we know from the media," a foreign ministry official told AFP, requesting anonymity. A senior Taliban source on the border dismissed any association with the family, pointing out that Mateen was born, lived and worked in the US. "I don't even consider him as a jihadi," the source said. The FBI has admitted that Mateen -- who was born to Afghan parents in New York -- had previously been investigated, but cleared, for ties to a US suicide bomber. The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings "as an act of terrorism". Terry DeCarlo, executive director of The LGBT Center of Orlando cries near the scene of the Pulse nightclub terror attack on June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Gerardo Mora (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP) People wave flags during a vigil in New York to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016 Bryan R. Smith (AFP) Pakistan cop accused of beating Hindu man for not fasting Pakistani police have arrested a fellow officer after he was accused of beating up an elderly Hindu man for not fasting during Ramadan, an incident that sparked a social media outcry. The elderly man was pictured bloodied after the attack which reportedly took place in Ghotki district of Sindh province on Saturday just before sunset. The images were widely shared over the weekend. Activists and outraged Pakistanis using the hashtag #JusticeforGokalDas called for the officer who allegedly attacked him to be arrested. Pakistani police have arrested a fellow officer after he was accused of beating up an elderly Hindu man for not fasting during Ramadan Arif Ali (AFP/File) "Religion doesn't mean forced fasting & terrorising the weak. Shame on those who did this," tweeted one Pakistani user. "Deplorable! Non-muslims should be allowed to eat food anytime they want. Stop terrorising them," said another. Bilawal Bhutto, son of Pakistan's slain prime minister Benazir, later tweeted that the police officer had been taken into custody. Local police confirmed the arrest and told AFP an inquiry was being conducted. "Strict action will be taken against the police official and a senior police officer will go to meet the victim and seek an apology to give a better image of the police to the public," a statement said. Eating or drinking in daylight hours during Ramadan is a crime for Muslims in Pakistan. They can be fined or even jailed for up to three months. The restrictions do not apply to other religions. Indian student goes undercover to expose child labour An Indian business student who went undercover to expose child labour at a factory promised Monday to keep up the fight after her efforts led to the rescue of more than 100 children. Jharna Joshi, 22, was visiting relatives in the western state of Gujarat when she noticed large numbers of children going to work at a ceramics factory. She asked local people about the issue but could not confirm the workers were under-age, so decided to apply for a management trainee job at the factory. Millions of children in India work in factories, mines and other areas, according to aid agencies and government data Dibyangshu Sarkar (AFP/File) "In the factory I accessed records of these workers and found that the majority of them were below 18 years of age. Some were even below 14 years which is illegal," she told AFP. When her appeals to local child protection authorities went unheeded, she wrote to the state's Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and travelled to the capital Gandhinagar to lobby state government officials. Earlier this month government officers raided the factory and rescued 111 child workers, most of them girls. Millions of children in India work in factories, mines and other areas, according to aid agencies and government data. The law bans those under 14 from working in hazardous jobs, but activists say it is not properly implemented. Joshi said she was attacked as she went to the police station to record her statement by two men who pulled her off her scooter. But she vowed to continue the fight, saying she knew of more factories in the area that employed under-age workers. Rainbow colours in global outpouring for Orlando Tributes poured in from across the world Monday for the victims of the Orlando massacre, with global landmarks swathed in rainbow colours as people rallied behind the stricken gay community. In the outpouring of solidarity similar to that seen after the Paris and Brussels attacks, political and religious leaders lined up to condemn the worst mass shooting in US history and to reject homophobia. US President Barack Obama condemned the shootings in the Florida city as "an act of terror and an act of hate" and ordered flags at half-mast. A flag stands a half-mast during a memorial service for the victims of the Orlando shooting, during a gay pride rally in San Diego, on June 12, 2016 Sandy Huffaker (AFP) Pope Francis voiced shock at the "homicidal folly and senseless hatred" of slain gunman Omar Mateen, who gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Joining the chorus of tributes, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that the Eiffel Tower would be lit up Monday night in the colours of the rainbow in memory of the victims. "Paris is with Orlando," the mayor of the French capital, which is still recovering from the November jihadist attacks in which 130 people were killed, tweeted along with a rainbow-coloured heart. On Sunday, the spire of One World Trade Center in New York was already dyed red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, as was a sign in giant letters spelling Toronto in a square in the Canadian city. "This is pride. Toronto stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community around the world," Toronto Mayor John Tory tweeted. - #Loveislove - Social media were flooded with messages condemning the attack using anti-homophobia hashtags #loveislove or #lovewins. Some posted images of a black ribbon or a ribbon combining the US and rainbow flag colours. Following the latest in a string of mass gun killings in the United States that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in the past two years, Obama said the FBI was "appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism". "Although it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate," he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said tolerance must prevail. "Although such deadly attacks cause profound sadness in us, we are resolved to continue with our open and tolerant lifestyle," she told German television on the sidelines of a visit to China. While most leaders avoided polemical statements, the foreign minister of Lithuania, Linas Linkevicius, tweeted that the attack posed a "challenge for us all & #Muslims of the world." "How long bunch of cowards will hide under religion&kill in the name of #Islam?" he asked. In a statement from the Vatican, the pope lamented the tragic loss of life. The attack "caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation... before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred", the statement said. On Sunday, hundreds gathered in New York's Greenwich Village to leave flowers, candles and letters beside a sign reading "Stop Hate." - 'Stop hate' - In London, the PinkNews website said bars in the Soho district, which also has a thriving gay scene, would close on Monday evening and that customers would be invited onto the street to hold hands. French President Francois Hollande reacted "with horror" to the Orlando attack, issuing a statement extending the "full support of France and the French people" during the ordeal. Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel also tweeted his condolences over the attack, which comes two-and-and-half months after dual strikes by jihadists on Brussels' airport and metro killed 32 people. "Deeply saddened by the loss of so many innocent lives in Orlando shooting. We join families in their grief," he said. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani also condemned the attack carried out by a suspected US-born 29-year-old of Afghan descent with a reputation for violence and homophobia. "I unequivocally condemn the horrific attack in Orlando, Florida, USA. Nothing can justify killing of civilians," Ghani tweeted. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron and the royal family also issued statements condemning the violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country "stands shoulder to shoulder with the United States at this moment of tragic loss." The leaders of Russia and China also sent messages of support. Chinese President Xi Jinping called Obama to express his "sincere condolences to the American people", the Chinese foreign ministry said. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country has been condemned for attacks on gays, called the killings "a barbaric crime". Mourners left tributes for the Orlando victims at a makeshit memorial outside the US embassy in Berlin, on June 13, 2016 John MacDougall (AFP) US President Barack Obama condemned the shootings in Orlando as "an act of terror and an act of hate" YURI GRIPAS (AFP) Security for the Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood was tightened in the aftermath of the deadly shootings in Orlando, Florida Mark Ralston (AFP) Mourners hold a vigil in outside the White House on June 12, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida Andrew Caballero-Reynolds (AFP) Sydney's Town Hall was bathed in pink light as hundreds of Australians gathered at Taylor Square to stand in solidarity with the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting William West (AFP) Austin Ellis, a member of Metropolitan Community Church, carries a cross with a sign in memory of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting as he marches in the Pride Parade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Jessica Kourkounis (Getty/AFP) IS suspects fleeing Iraq's Fallujah with civilians Iraqi forces said jihadist fighters were attempting to flee Fallujah by blending in with civilians who have been escaping the besieged city in their thousands in recent days. The Pentagon said meanwhile that US Apache helicopters hit an Islamic State group target for the first time in Iraq, in the north of the country. More than 500 suspected IS members have been arrested trying to sneak out with civilians since forces ramped up efforts to retake Fallujah, one of the group's most emblematic bastions, two weeks ago. Iraqi government forces and elite counter-terrorism fighters patrol the outskirts of Fallujah on June 13, 2016 Ahmad Al-Rubaye (AFP) "We have arrested 546 suspected terrorists who had fled by taking advantage of the movements of displaced families over the past two weeks," said Hadi Rzayej, the police chief for Anbar province in which Fallujah is located. "Many of them were using fake IDs," he said from the southern edge of Fallujah, where Iraqi forces are pressing a three-week-old offensive to retake the city from IS. When civilians reach government forces, teenage boys and adult men are screened separately. Some are released after a few hours while others undergo more thorough interrogation. "Daesh (IS) is fleeing among the civilians, we have arrested many and are investigating the suspects," said Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the overall commander of the operation. Until last week, an estimated 50,000 civilians were still trapped in the centre of the city, which is one of the jihadist group's last bastions in Iraq and lies only 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad. The Iraqi army on Saturday opened a corridor to the southwest of the city that has allowed thousands of civilians to escape IS rule and reach displacement camps. UN deputy representative to Iraq Lise Grande said on Monday that more than 7,000 people have fled Fallujah in recent days using the safe corridor set up by Iraqi forces, who were working on opening a second protected route. - Street battles - Yet the flow of residents fleeing via the corridor and through the Al-Salam intersection to the southwest of the city appeared to dry up on Monday, the Norwegian Refugee Council's regional media adviser Karl Schembri said. "We haven't seen a continuation of the trend," he said, adding that groups of civilians were believed to be trapped in northern Fallujah neighbourhoods. He said nonetheless that more than 2,600 new arrivals had been recorded in displacement camps on Monday, mostly civilians from the outskirts of the city. Estimates for the number of IS fighters holed up in Fallujah vary from 1,000 to 2,500. Iraqi forces have been making slow but steady progress in the past two weeks, with elite troops dodging suicide car bombs and picking their way through thousands of explosive devices to work their way up from the south of the city. "This is a phase of street battles now, our fighters and the militants are sometimes only 20 metres from each other, fighting with light weapons," said Saadi. A vast offensive was launched on May 22-23 to retake Fallujah, with a first phase, involving Shiite militias, aimed at sealing the siege of the city. While offensives on other cities such as Ramadi or Tikrit often offered enemy fighters an escape, Fallujah is almost completely cut off from the rest of IS's self-proclaimed "caliphate". "Some fighters can flee under the cover of darkness, but only on foot and with no logistics and definitely not in convoys," said Saadi. As he surveyed the results of air strikes by the US-led coalition from a rooftop, he also listened in on radio conversations between IS fighters. Saadi said his men's monitoring of IS communications suggests the jihadists are low on supplies. In the north of the country, US Apache helicopters conducted strikes against IS targets for the first time in Iraq, near Qayyarah south of Mosul, the Pentagon said Monday. Pentagon chief Ashton Carter has since early December made it clear to the Iraqi government that the US military is willing to use its Apaches based in Iraq to support local forces, but the government had until now declined. US officials say this is because Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi did not want to anger Shiite militias, who oppose the ramping up of US combat operations in Iraq. Displaced Iraqis who were evacuated from their villages by Iraqi government forces south of the besieged IS group bastion of Fallujah arrive at a safe zone on June 12, 2016 Moadh A-Dulaimi (AFP) Kenya camp closure must be humane, says UN refugee chief Kenya's planned closure later this year of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, must not result in people being forcibly returned to war-torn Somalia, the UN's refugee chief warned Monday. "Repatriation, when it happens, must be in a humane, dignified manner, in line with international principles," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in Nairobi after a five-day visit to Kenya and Somalia. Kenya has vowed to send back 350,000 Somali refugees living in Dadaab in north-east Kenya by November, insisting the camp is a security threat and a drain on national resources. The vast majority of residents of the sprawling Dadaab complex of camps close to the Kenya-Somalia border fled Somalia's more than two-decades long conflict Tony Karumba (AFP/File) Nairobi has taken a hardline position, describing Dadaab as a terrorist training ground for Shabaab Islamists, and has publicly and repeatedly said all the Somali refugees would be removed from the country by the end of the year. But Grandi -- who met with President Uhuru Kenyatta on Sunday -- said there was room for flexibility. "The time frame of a few months is very short. I'm sure it will be longer than November, how long I don't know," Grandi said. "I hope there will not be a scenario of coercion and forced return." Just 14,000 refugees have taken up the offer of voluntary return since the programme began in December 2014, but Grandi said "tens of thousands" more had returned "spontaneously", meaning without UN assistance. - 'Arrests, detention and harassment' - Grandi said the planned returns would not be conducted unilaterally by Kenya, but in discussion with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Somali government, and would require financial support from foreign donors to improve conditions in war-torn Somalia and provide a return package of food and money to those who go home. The vast majority of residents of the sprawling Dadaab complex of camps close to the Kenya-Somalia border fled Somalia's more than two-decades long conflict. Many remain fearful of returning to a country where insecurity remains rife and life tough. Grandi said that while Kenya's government sees Dadaab and its Somalis as "a situation that has to end as soon as possible" it will remain a host for asylum-seekers from other conflict-hit countries, such as South Sudan. "The current discussion only concerns Dadaab," Grandi said. Charities and the UN have voiced dismay at the closure plan, while rights groups have warned that forcibly repatriating refugees would break international law. On Monday rights group Amnesty International said it "continues to receive reports of arrests, detention and harassment of refugees by the police" since the closure plans were announced last month. US drugstore chain Walgreens cuts ties with Theranos US drugstore chain Walgreens has cut ties with blood-testing company Theranos, the California startup under criminal investigation over the reliability of its technology. Walgreens, in a statement late Sunday, said it would immediately close operations at all 40 Theranos Wellness Centers at its drugstores in Arizona. It is the latest blow to Theranos, once a startup darling as it touted new technology which it said delivered quicker blood-test results and cost less than traditional laboratory methods. US drugstore chain Walgreens has cut ties with blood-testing company Theranos Josh Edelson (AFP/File) The company has been under investigation by civil and criminal authorities for months since a Wall Street Journal series of articles launched last October questioned the reliability of its tests. Federal health regulators have rejected Theranos's plan to rectify deficiencies found at its lab in Newark, California, and Walgreens finally pulled the plug. "In light of the voiding of a number of test results, and as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has rejected Theranos' plan of correction and considers sanctions, we have carefully considered our relationship with Theranos and believe it is in our customers' best interests to terminate our partnership," said Brad Fluegel, a Walgreens senior vice president, in the statement. Walgreens in January had halted Theranos lab testing services at a California location and warned the startup must send blood tests collected at Walgreens stores only to Theranos's certified lab in the Phoenix, Arizona, area or to an accredited third-party lab for analysis. The 40 Theranos blood-draw sites in the Walgreens Arizona stores are the primary source of revenue for the startup, according to The Wall Street Journal. Theranos said it was "disappointed" that Walgreens ended the relationship. "Quality and safety are our top priorities and we are working closely with government officials to ensure that we not only comply with all federal regulations but exceed them," said spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan in a statement. Goldman Sachs legal battle with Libya wealth fund opens in UK Goldman Sachs exploited inexperienced staff at Libya's sovereign wealth fund to clinch "inappropriate" deals which cost the fund $1.2 billion (1.5 billion euros), lawyers claimed at London's High Court Monday. The high-profile trial promises a rare glimpse into the workings of the US investment bank and features allegations of the use of prostitutes and of shady dealings in 2008. The Wall Street giant denies any wrongdoing, saying the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) lost money due to the 2008 financial crash, not their close but controversial working relationship. Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York City Spencer Platt (Getty/AFP/File) On the opening day of the hearing into LIA's claim, its lawyer Roger Masefield read out an internal message sent by Goldman Sachs partner Driss Ben-Brahim. Ben-Brahim said the nascent fund, set up by Moamer Kadhafi's regime in 2006 to capitalise on Libya's oil wealth, was "very unsophisticated -- and anyone could 'rape them'," the court heard. The LIA alleges that Goldman Sachs employee Youssef Kabbaj embedded himself in the fund, gained the trust of "young and impressionable staff" and sold it complex products that ended up losing the LIA over $1.2 billion. These actions earned the bank over $220 million in profits, LIA lawyers claim. Kabbaj built an especially close relationship with Haitem Zarti, younger brother of fund chairman Mustafa Zarti, securing him a coveted Goldman internship, Masefield told Judge Vivien Rose. Kabbaj took Haitem Zarti on holidays to Morocco and to a conference in Dubai. Here, "it appears from Goldman Sachs' disclosure that, while there, Mr Kabbaj arranged for two prostitutes to spend the evening with them at a cost of $600," LIA lawyers claimed. It is then alleged that the bank rushed through a basket of deals of "staggering size" in 2008 without the LIA conducting due diligence tests or seeking independent advice. - Abuse of trust? - The bank had earlier sold the LIA complex derivative products tied to the share prices of Citigroup bank and French energy firm EDF. The LIA, one of the world's wealthiest investors, claims it was tricked into believing it had gained strategic stakes in the companies. But it says in reality it only held risky bets which became worthless when stock markets plunged following the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in September 2008, wiping out the $1.2 billion outlay. The situation became clear to Mustafa Zarti during a 2008 meeting with the bank, whereupon he threw Kabbaj out of the meeting, the court heard. He later called Goldman Sachs a "bank of Mafiosi" and claimed it had "abused his trust", selling him risky products inappropriate for a state fund. The claimant's legal team cited as evidence of their opinion of their financial knowledge an email sent by a Goldman Sachs vice-president criticising a presentation given to the LIA. It said: "You just delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camels." Goldman Sachs denies it exerted undue influence on the fund or abused its trust, arguing that the deals involved standard products common in the financial world. In its submission to the court, it said: "The credit crisis and its impact on global markets turned out to be far more prolonged than the LIA and the great majority of market participants had anticipated. "The LIA was the victim of an unforeseen financial depression, not of any wrongdoing." Goldman partners including Andrea Vella, co-head of investment banking in Asia, are expected to give evidence in the eight week hearing, in which the LIA is seeking to recoup its losses. 'Significant' casualities in Eritrea and Ethiopia border battle Arch-rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea traded blame Monday for a border battle in which "significant" casualties were reported, one of the worst clashes since the end of a 1998-2000 border war. "There were significant casualties on both sides, but more on the Eritrean side," Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda told AFP. He said the battle that began Sunday was one of the most serious in recent years, noting that while the two sides had exchanged gun fire in the past, this clash was on a far larger scale. The fighting had reportedly calmed on Monday. An Ethiopian soldier patrols near the Eritrean border in the northern town of Zala Anbesa in the Tigray region on November 19, 2005 Marco Longari (AFP/File) "We used to take precautionary measures against this regime, but this time was much more important in terms of magnitude than the measures that were taken so far," Getachew added. Both sides blamed the other. Ethiopia on Sunday "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front," Eritrea's ministry of information said in a statement. Getachew instead claimed the fighting started when Eritrean artillery fired shells across the border. "Eritrean forces started shelling our positions, including civilian ambulances, and we responded," said Getachew, who had initially claimed no knowledge of the fighting. Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1991 after three decades of war, but returned to battle in 1998-2000. - Fortified frontier - The two remain bitter enemies, with their troops still eyeing each other along the fortified frontier. Tensions are never far from the surface. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," Eritrea said, adding it "will issue further statements on the unfolding situation." Eritrea and Ethiopia have long traded accusations of attacks and of backing rebels to needle each other. In March 2012, Ethiopia attacked an Eritrean military base, accusing the country of supporting "terrorist activities" on its territory. In February, Ethiopia accused Eritrea of being behind anti-government protests in the Oromia region last year which led to a violent clampdown by the government in Addis Ababa. The two countries remain at odds over the flashpoint town of Badme, awarded to Eritrea by a United Nations-backed boundary commission but still controlled by Ethiopia. It was not immediately possible to verify independently the scale of the clashes and exact reason they started. Eritrea's media is ranked below North Korea as worst in the world for press freedom by Reporters Without Borders. However, opposition Eritrean websites, run from abroad but with contacts inside the country, reported there were clashes along the border. "Each side appears to be calling up reinforcement," Awate.com website reported. The Asmarino website carried a statement from opposition campaigners appealing for calm. "The prospect of another war is inconceivable," the statement read. Thousands of Eritreans risk their lives to flee the hardline regime every month according to the UN, fleeing across the border into Sudan and Ethiopia despite a shoot-to-kill policy along the frontier. Those who escape describe crawling under razor wire, tiptoeing across minefields or sneaking past armed border guards in their bid for freedom. Last week the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (COI) on human rights said the government of President Isaias Afwerki, in power since 1991, was guilty of systematic enslavement, forcible conscription and other abuses. Eritrea rejected the findings as "laughable." Border clashes between Eritrea and Ethiopia Sophie Ramis, Alain Bommenel (AFP) Trump heaps pressure on Muslims after Orlando attack America's presidential rivals offered sharply different approaches for tackling extremism Monday after the Orlando massacre, with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump accusing Muslims of failing to report potential terrorists in their midst. The provocative billionaire, likely to square off against Democrat Hillary Clinton in November's election, also reiterated his call for a halt to all Syrian refugees entering the United States and warned there are people living in the country with "hate in their heart." Trump has sought to portray himself as a national security stalwart in the wake of Sunday's massacre at a gay club in Orlando, Florida, where a gunman possibly inspired by Islamic extremists killed 49 people before he was killed by police. Donald Trump has sought to portray himself as a national security stalwart in the wake of Sunday's massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida Joe Raedle (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP) While Clinton zeroed in on fighting Islamic State extremism and the need to rein in American gun violence, Trump seized on how Muslims may be protecting their own, including the Orlando shooter, at the expense of national security. "People in the area, people in the neighborhood, they know there's something off with him and they don't report them to the police," Trump told CNN. "The Muslim community does not report people like this," he said. "Right now we have thousands of people... living in the United States who have the same kind of hate in their heart as he had, and we have to know who they are." Trump's argument followed his accusations that neighbors and relatives of the San Bernardino attackers who slaughtered 14 people last December knew the couple had been radicalized but did not alert authorities. "We have to get the people that surround these maniacs to start talking," Trump added on ABC. He also said it was time "to have a ban of people coming in from Syria and different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible." And Trump repeated his argument about the arming of US citizens, saying if more club-goers had had guns, fewer people would have been killed. Clinton for her part recognized the need to track so-called lone wolves and prevent them from launching attacks, and she reiterated her call for the reinstatement of an assault weapons ban, saying Orlando shooter Omar Mateen used a "weapon of war" to kill his victims. Congress in 1994 adopted a 10-year ban on the manufacture and sale of certain semi-automatic weapons, but lawmakers allowed it to expire. Trump meanwhile has hammered President Barack Obama and Clinton for failing to use the term "radical Islamic terrorism" in addressing the problem. But Clinton shot back, telling NBC: "Radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I'm happy to say either, that's not the point." She warned that "demagoguery" would not end terrorism. "I'm not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion," she said. "That is dangerous and plays into ISIS's hands." Mourners lay flowers during a vigil in New York in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016 Bryan R. Smith (AFP) FBI 'confident' that Orlando gunman was 'radicalized' The gunman who launched the worst terror attack on US soil since 9/11 at a gay nightclub in Orlando was radicalized by Islamist propaganda, officials said, amid reports he was a club regular. Lone gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 and wounded another 53 before he was killed when police stormed the Pulse, one of Orlando's most prominent gay venues, early Sunday. The attack is reminiscent of the November 13 suicide attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, where 90 people were massacred when jihadist gunmen opened fire on concertgoers. People hold candles during a vigil for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Mandel Ngan (AFP) A total of 130 people died across the French capital that night in a series of shootings and suicide bomb attacks. The FBI said Mateen had been radicalized by Islamist propaganda, but found no evidence -- contrary to the Paris attacks -- that the shooting had been coordinated from abroad. The Islamic State group claimed that Mateen was acting as "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." US investigators believe that Mateen was a "lone wolf" inspired by Islamist propaganda to carry out what President Barack Obama dubbed "an act of terror and an act of hate." FBI chief James Comey said his agents found no evidence that the attack had been directed from outside the United States, "and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network." Agents are instead looking into the possible role of anti-gay bigotry. The FBI was "highly confident" Mateen had been "radicalized" while consuming online propaganda, Comey said, adding that he claimed allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a series of calls during the attack. - Mateen a club regular? - In a further twist to the story, four people said Mateen, 29, had been a regular at the gay club, the Orlando Sentinel newspaper reported late Monday. "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," Ty Smith told the Sentinel. Smith said he had seen Mateen inside at least a dozen times. "We didn't really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times," Smith said. "He told us he had a wife and child." Another Pulse regular, Kevin West, told the Los Angeles Times that Mateen messaged him on and off for a year using a gay chat app. Other club goers told local media and MSNBC News that Mateen had been using multiple gay apps, including Grindr, with mutual acquaintances to "hook up." Mateen's wife, Noor Zahi Salman, was not cooperating in the probe, a law enforcement official told the Sentinel. However agents have talked extensively with Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, who said he had beat her. Relatives and acquaintances portrayed Mateen as an unstable man prone to violence who expressed homophobic views. The slaughter raised questions about US counterterror strategy and gun laws. The FBI said it had investigated Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan descent, but cleared him of extremist ties. Nevertheless Mateen legally bought a rifle and a handgun. "We make it very easy for individuals who are troubled or disturbed or want to engage in violent acts to get very powerful weapons very quickly," Obama said. He demanded that the Republican-controlled Congress pass legislation to curb the sale of assault-type weapons like the one used in Orlando. The White House said Obama would travel to Orlando on Thursday to pay his respects to victims' families. - 'Help me, help me' - A gay chorus sang and rainbow flags fluttered in the evening wind late Monday as thousands in Orlando gathered for the first major vigil for the night club victims. The trim green lawn outside a performing arts center filled with people gay and straight to hear speakers urge the city known for theme parks and fun to unite and not surrender to fear. "We're not going anywhere, we are here to stay," the crowd chanted at one point. Police put their number at about 5,000. "It shouldn't be so easy to get guns," said Joe Brennan, a 52-year-old engineer at the vigil. "The innocent deserve to be protected, too." Police have identified all 49 victims -- mainly club goers celebrating Latin Night at the Pulse nightclub at the start of Gay Pride month. Many of the wounded remained hospitalized. As the club was closing around 2:00 am Sunday, Mateen began a gun battle with an off-duty officer working at the club. More officers responded, and the gunman escaped to the bathroom, where he barricaded himself and seized hostages. Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revelers with bullets. "It was like complete chaos," he told AFP. "People were screaming 'Help me, help me, I'm trapped!'" The attacks triggered solidarity vigils by gay and lesbian groups and their supporters across the world. Thousands also gathered Monday in New York at the birthplace of the gay rights movement, and in Los Angeles, where pop star Lady Gaga led a tearful vigil. "This is an attack on humanity itself... an attack on everyone," said Gaga, who has often spoken out on gay rights issues. Other memorial vigils were held in Philadelphia, San Diego and San Juan, Puerto Rico. Several of the victims were natives of the US Caribbean possession. In London's Soho district, thousands marched under rainbow flags, bursting into chants of "We're here, we're queer, we will not live in fear." Marches and vigils were also held in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Australia. Orlando nightclub shooting Sophie RAMIS (AFP) People gather at a vigil in solidarity for the victims killed at Pulse nightclub in Orlando in New York on June 13, 2016 Kena Betancur (AFP) Investigators work at the Pulse nightclub on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Brendan Smialowski (AFP) People hug outside of the Beardall Senior Center, currently being used to interview family members of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Mandel Ngan (AFP) Iran condemns 'evil' massacre at Florida gay club Iran on Monday condemned the mass killings at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida carried out by a shooter claiming allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group as an "evil... terrorist attack". "The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its principled policy of condemning terrorism and its strong will to seriously confront this evil phenomenon, condemns the recent terrorist attack in Orlando," foreign ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari said, quoted by state news agency IRNA. In Iran, whose diplomatic ties with the United States have been severed for more than three decades, homosexuality is banned and can be punishable by death, under the Islamic Sharia laws in force since its 1979 revolution. People place candles by the US Embassy in Bangkok on June 13, 2016 during a vigil for victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida in the worst mass shooting in modern US history Lillian Suwanrumpha (AFP) Forty-nine people were killed and 53 others wounded when a heavily armed gunman opened fire and seized hostages on Sunday at the Pulse gay nightclub, in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Canadian hostage likely killed in Philippines: Trudeau The Canadian government has "every reason to believe" that one of its citizens kidnapped by Islamic militants in the southern Philippines nearly nine months ago has been killed, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday. Members of the notorious kidnap-for-ransom Abu Sayyaf gang had said they would murder Robert Hall if they did not receive 300 million pesos ($6.5 million) ransom by Monday. Hall was among four people abducted in September last year from aboard yachts at a tourist resort on Samal island in the southern Philippines. He would be the second Canadian from the group to be killed. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (pictured) said: "It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors." Kena Betancur (AFP/File) "It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors," Trudeau said in a nationally televised address. "We continue to work closely with the authorities in the Philippines to formally confirm Mr Hall's death. We have every reason to believe that the reports are unfortunately true," Trudeau said. The Canadian flag atop parliament was lowered to half-mast in Hall's honor. "The vicious and brutal actions of the hostage-takers have led to a needless death. Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder," Trudeau said. After Trudeau's comments, Philippine authorities said late Monday they recovered a human head on the Abu Sayyaf stronghold of Jolo island. "Yes we recovered a Caucasian-looking one.... Seems like Robert Hall," regional military spokesman Major Filemon Tan told AFP, adding police investigators were now trying to establish the person's identity. Canadian John Ridsdel was beheaded in April after a similar ransom demand of 300 million pesos was not paid. The fates of the two other people abducted at the Samal resort -- Hall's Filipina girlfriend Marites Flor and Norwegian resort manager Kjartan Sekkingstad -- were not known. Norway's foreign minister, Borge Brende, said his country continued to seek their release, while denouncing Hall's killing. "I condemn in the strongest terms the brutal killing of Canadian citizen Robert Hall. If these reports are true, abhorrence and outrage is the only reasonable response," Brende said in a statement. - Canada 'will not pay' ransoms - Listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, the Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of Islamic militants that was founded in the early 1990s with money from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network. It is regarded as one of the most radical offshoots of a Muslim separatist insurgency in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines that has claimed more than 100,000 lives since the 1970s. The Abu Sayyaf is believed to have just a few hundred armed followers but authorities regard it is as one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the Philippines. Its leaders have in recent years declared allegiance to the Islamic State group that holds vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. But security analysts believe the leaders are chiefly focused on getting money from kidnappings-for-ransom rather than waging a religious war. Abu Sayyaf gangs have earned many millions of dollars from kidnapping foreigners and Filipinos since the early 1990s. At a G7 summit in Japan in April, Trudeau pressed partners to publicly denounce such payments, saying it only emboldens hostage takers and fuels more violence and instability. "Canada cannot and will not pay ransoms to terrorists," he said Monday. Rather, he said, Canada will continue to work with allies and the Philippines "to pursue those responsible for these heinous acts and bring them to justice, however long it takes." Aquino vowed after Ridsdel's death that security forces would "neutralize" the Abu Sayyaf, but a fresh offensive involving thousands of troops apparently had little impact. The Abu Sayyaf has for years withstood repeated military offensives against it, surviving by using the mountainous, jungle terrain and support of local Muslim communities to its advantage. From 2002-2014, the US deployed Special Forces advisers to train and provide intelligence to Filipino troops, which led to the killing or arrest of many Abu Sayyaf leaders. But the Abu Sayyaf went on a sustained kidnapping spree after the Americans left. Members of the notorious kidnap-for-ransom Abu Sayyaf gang had said they would murder Robert Hall if they did not receive 300 million pesos ($6.5 million) ransom Gal Roma, Adrian Leung (AFP) Gays a target for the Islamic State group The Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for an attack on a gay nightclub on Sunday that left 49 revellers dead, has a history of extreme violence against gays. A bulletin from the group's Al-Bayan media outlet on Monday praised the shooter, Omar Mateen, for the attack in "a nightclub for followers of the people of Lot" -- a term it uses for gays. While there is no indication IS coordinated the attack, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, the group has killed dozens of gays in the areas it controls in Syria and Iraq. An image taken from a propaganda video released on March 17, 2014 by the Islamic State group's al-Furqan Media allegedly shows fighters raising their weapons as they stand on a vehicle mounted with the trademark jihadists flag It has published videos of allegedly gay men being thrown from rooftops or stoned to death. - Terminology - Since it founded its self-proclaimed "caliphate" in 2014, IS has carried out dozens of execution-style killings for what it calls "sodomy" and "sexual deviance". IS also refers to gays as "followers of the people of Lot" -- a reference to the biblical and Koranic prophet associated with Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the Bible and the Koran, God destroyed the two cities after their people engaged in same-sex relations. - Theology - In a 2015 article in its online magazine, Dabiq, IS claimed that the early Islamic ruler, Abu Bakr, sentenced a man found "guilty of committing sodomy" to be burned alive. It also claimed that Abu Bakr had a tradition of taking those who "committed this filthy deed" to the top of buildings and throwing them off. IS says it is implementing "the rulings of Allah" against people who practise "any form of sexual deviancy or transgression". It carries out similar sentences against people accused of adultery and sorcery. It blames western society for promoting gay and lesbian lives against the teachings of Allah. - Executions - In the same article, IS published pictures of a man it said was "guilty of engaging in sodomy" to the top of a building and him thrown off. That is one dozens of killings IS has carried out against men it said were gays in both Syria and Iraq. The LGBT rights group OutRight Action International has recorded more than 30 such acts since December 2014, backed by videos and pictures, although they could not be verified. The most recent series of photos is dated 7 May. It shows a group of men and children attending the execution of a young man who is thrown from a four-storey building. His body is then apparently stoned. - Crimes against humanity - These executions are based on an IS penal code established in 2014, which the group claims is based on a the principles of Islamic law. The United Nations has accused the jihadist group of crimes against humanity for its acts of beheading, crucifixions and slavery. Keys impresses in Wimbledon warm-up Madison Keys made an impressive start to the Birmingham WTA tournament on Monday, beating Timea Babos 7-6 (7/3) 6-4 in the first round of the grasscourt Wimbledon warm-up event. The 21-year-old, whom Serena Williams last year described as "a world number one of the future" is widely considered America's best hope of success when the long Williams era ends. Keys struggled early this year after injuring a leg during the Australian Open. Now, though, she attacked freely on a lush green surface. Madison Keys of the US, pictured on May 28, 2016, beat Timea Babos 7-6 (7/3), 6-4 in Birmingham Philippe Lopez (AFP/File) A swift victory seemed likely after she hurried into a 5-2 lead, but when Keys tried to close out the set, serving at 5-3, she seemed to lose her serving rhythm and allowed Babos to break back with some good returns. The pivotal moments, though, came when Keys took seven successive points in the tie-break from 0-3 down, making one stunning service return to reach 3-3 and thereafter driving more confidently and accurately. "I think I was rushing too much to get the first set over in those moments when I played badly," admitted Keys. "But I have become better at figuring stuff out after this clay court season." This included a win in Rome over Garbine Muguruza, soon afterwards the French Open champion, a success which helped Keys back into the world's top 20. Keys could now be one win away from a quarter-final meeting with Petra Kvitova, the two-time Wimbledon champion who however suffered a curious piece of ill luck as she begins one of her most important tournaments for many months. Dogged by illness, injury, and indifferent form, Kvitova landed an opener against one of her best friends. The Czech left-hander was originally drawn against Misaki Doi, the 48th-ranked Japanese player, but after a redraw was required by the withdrawal of the third-seeded Simona Halep, Kvitova found herself saddled with an encounter with last year's French Open runner-up, Lucie Safarova. The two have known each other since their childhood days in Moravia and still train at the same club. Later, Belinda Bencic, another young prospect who could do well in this grass court season, spoke of her comeback after two months out with injury. "I believe I can beat all these opponents," said the 19-year-old Swiss, the youngest player in the world's top 10. "The first time I played Serena I had too much respect for her," said Bencic, who notably beat the world number one in Toronto 10 months ago. "But now I try to ignore who she is, and just play point after point." Apple opens up Siri, other systems to woo developers Apple said Monday it was opening up its Siri digital assistant to outside applications, stepping up its artificial intelligence efforts to compete against rival services from Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The new feature will enable iPhone users to connect with non-Apple services to send messages, make payments and search photos. "Now you'll be able to tell Siri 'send a WeChat,'" said Apple vice president Craig Federighi, referring to the Chinese messaging application. Apple says it is opening up its Siri digital assistant to outside applications, enabling iPhone users to connect with non-Apple services to send messages, make payments, and search photos Mandy Cheng (AFP/File) Federighi said Siri will also work with apps such as Slack, WhatsApp, Uber and Lyft. The announcement at the kickoff of Apple's annual developer conference in San Francisco marks a new approach for Apple, which has largely kept its leading services self-contained on the iOS mobile operating system. The new feature will debut on the iOS10 operating system expected later this year. Also opening to outside developers will be the Apple Maps application, which had a rocky debut marked by glitches in 2012, and the iMessage platform. This will mean that iPhone users navigating with Apple Maps can, for example, make a restaurant reservation using a third-party service such as Open Table, said Apple vice president Eddy Cue. By opening up its messaging platform, Apple will also developers to create anything from silly "stickers" to payment programs within iMessage, ramping up competition against Facebook Messenger. - Apple's AI push - The announcements come with Apple aiming to move deeper into services amid slowing sales of its profit-leading iPhone, and a weak tablet market that has hurt sales of its iPad. Apple also announced it was bringing Siri to its Mac computer system, allower users of the PCs to search their machines or the Internet with voice commands. The moves expand the footprint for Siri, which is facing increased competition from Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa and Google Now, which also use artificial intelligence. "In some ways, the star of the show wasn't a particular product but Apple's refutation of accusations that it can't compete with Google and Facebook in artificial intelligence and deep learning," said Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research in a blog post. "Apple has been accused of being behind in this area, and also of being handicapped by its privacy stance, but its on-stage demos today showed that it's capable of competing effectively regardless." Dawson said the changes to Siri "should make it substantially more useful and effective as an assistant, and keep it competitive with alternatives from Google, Amazon and others." Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy agreed that Apple appears to flexing its deep learning muscles. "Opening up Siri will make an enormous effect on the experience," Moorhead said. "I don't see anything Google can do that Apple cannot, and they're doing it with the highest levels of privacy, which is unique. It's apparent Apple has been working on this for a long time and in many ways, appears ahead of where Google is with their developers on an intelligent agent." Separately, Apple said it was expanding its Apple Pay system to the Web, allowing merchants to handle transactions which can be authenticated on a user's iPhone or Apple Watch. Federighi said Apple Pay would be expanded "in the coming months" to more markets including France, Hong Kong and Switzerland. For the Apple TV platform, the company said it now has some 1,300 video channels and 6,000 apps, and unveiled an upgraded voice search capability through Siri. Apple added the Sling TV service, which includes a low-cost bundle of live channels as an alternative to cable or satellite. US Apache helicopters strike IS for first time in Iraq US Apache helicopters have struck an Islamic State target for the first time in Iraq, the Pentagon said Monday. The sophisticated attack choppers destroyed an IS car bomb Sunday near Qayyarah, which is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Mosul, the group's main stronghold in Iraq. "The government of Iraq approved the use of Apaches in support of ISF (Iraqi Security Forces) operations," Defense Department spokesman Christopher Sherwood said. US Apache helicopters, like this one pictured in 2015, are operating in support of the Iraqi Security Forces Jung Yeon-Je (AFP/File) "The strike was vetted and approved through the same process the (US-led) coalition uses for all strikes." Pentagon chief Ashton Carter has since early December made it clear to the Iraqi government that the US military is willing to use its Apaches based in Iraq to support local forces. But the government had until now declined. US officials say this is because Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi didn't want to anger Shiite militias, who oppose the ramping up of US combat operations in Iraq. Still, coalition warplanes and drones have since August 2014 been bombing IS targets in Iraq and Syria after the jihadist group overran large parts of the two countries. The Apache strike came as Iraqi forces advanced towards Qayyarah with the eventual aim of retaking Mosul. Spotlight on lone wolf attackers after Florida massacre FBI agents had Omar Mateen on their radar for years, and long suspected him of jihadist sympathies. But they could never build a case against the man who would go on to conduct the worst mass shooting in US history. The horrific assault highlights the challenges for law enforcement in preventing "lone wolf" attackers, an urgent concern for authorities now that Islamic State-inspired jihadists -- many radicalized online -- are targeting the United States. Mateen, a 29-year-old American of Afghan descent, died in a gunfight with police after the shooting rampage early Sunday at Orlando's Pulse nightclub that left 49 dead. Members of the FBI and other investigators work in the area around the Pulse nightclub on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Brendan Smialowski (AFP) He pledged allegiance to IS during the attack -- albeit in a jumbled 911 message in which he also vowed support for the Al-Nusra Front, which is battling IS in Syria. The Orlando attack came six months after the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, where a man and wife opened fire on a Christmas party killing 14 people. The radicalized Muslim couple are believed to have been inspired, if not directed, by the Islamic State group. Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton vowed Monday to set up a team dedicated to detecting and preventing "lone-wolf" attacks. But experts said the killings in Orlando and San Bernardino raise tough questions about privacy and security, and show just how hard it is to stop radicals who act alone. The FBI admits it previously investigated the 29-year-old Mateen after he made inflammatory comments to co-workers -- but cleared him of extremist ties. FBI chief James Comey vowed Monday to "look hard at our own work" to see whether there is something agents should have done differently. "So far, the honest answer is, I don't think so." - 'Free society' - Steve Pomerantz, a former assistant director and counterterrorism chief for the FBI, said the agency likely has interviewed "thousands" of people who visit extremist websites or have raised other red flags. But such behavior is not necessarily illegal. "As long as I don't cross the line of fundraising for them or recruiting for them, it's not against the law, so what do you do about that? Do you wiretap that guy, and if so for how long? Do you follow him? The amount of manpower it would take to do that is beyond the realm of reality," Pomerantz told AFP. "Unless they've actually gone over that line, there are a limited number of things in a free society that you can do about that," he added. Mateen's case is a potent illustration. The FBI first became aware of him in May 2013 when he was flagged for making comments to colleagues that suggested terror ties. "We attempted to determine whether he was a possible terrorist, something we do in hundreds of cases all across the country," Comey told a news conference. The FBI's Miami office opened a preliminary investigation: introducing sources to him, recording conversations with him, following him, reviewing his communication records, and searching government files. Interviewed twice, Mateen told agents he made the incendiary comments in anger because he thought his co-workers were teasing him as a Muslim. After 10 months, the investigation was closed. Agents questioned him again the following year over his connection to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a fellow Floridian who conducted a suicide bombing in Syria. The two attended the same mosque but again, the probe turned up no ties of any consequence, Comey said. - 'Increasing number' of attacks - Clinton trained her fire on the ready availability of assault weapons, which compounds the threat from radicalized individuals, saying: "It's essential that we stop terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attack." Mateen legally purchased the weapons used in the Orlando attack, even though he was once included on a terror screening database. In light of the challenges of identifying and stopping "lone wolves," observers say responsibility for thwarting them starts with the people who know them. "For a large majority of offenders in mass-casualty and active-threat situations, others were aware of the grievances that later turned into terrorist plots or active shooting situations," said Michael Masters, senior vice president at the New York-based Soufan Group intelligence consultancy. Local cops need to boost outreach to local communities and filter reports of suspicious activity up to state and federal authorities, he suggests. "Unfortunately, I think we are going to see an increasing number of these (attacks), which is why that emphasis on trying to identify individuals and take proactive stances against them is going to be particularly critical at the next stage," Masters told AFP. Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump has made a similar point -- but alarmed critics by singling out the Muslim community, accusing it of failing to report potential terrorists in its midst. Comey noted that the FBI has had positive interactions with many Muslim communities. "Some our most productive relationships are with people who see things, and tell us things, who happened to be Muslims," he said. "It's at the heart of the FBI effectiveness to have good relationships with those folks." Shootings like those in Orlando, Florida and San Bernardino, California raise tough questions about privacy and security, and show just how hard it is to stop radicals who act alone Chip Somodevilla (Getty/AFP/File) FBI agents keep watch during the Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California on June 12, 2016 Mark Ralston (AFP) FBI agents respond to a shooting at the Inland Regional Center on December 7, 2015 in San Bernardino, California Joe Raedle (Getty/AFP/File) EgyptAir black box signals will soon cease: inquiry Signals from the black boxes of the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean on May 19 will stop operating in 11 days, the Egyptian board of inquiry said Monday. What caused the Airbus A320 from Paris to Cairo to go down, killing all 66 people on board, remains a mystery. The sea where it crashed is believed to be about 3,000 metres (10,000 feet) deep, and its flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder should have had enough battery power to emit signals for four to five weeks. Signals from the black boxes of the EgyptAir Airbus A 320-200 that vanished from radar on May 19, 2016 will stop operating in 11 days, according to the Egyptian board of inquiry Andras Soos (AFP/File) On Monday, a statement from the commission of inquiry issued by the civil aviation ministry said the signals would continue until June 24. The statement also said Egyptian investigators had agreed to a US request for its National Transportation Safety Board to rake part in the inquiry. Egyptian investigators also confirmed what had already been reported by Greek officials, that the aircraft had made a 90-degree left turn followed by a 360-degree turn to the right before disappearing from radar screens. The French research vessel "John Lethbridge" arrived in Egypt on June 9 to join the search for the aircraft which came down between the Greek island of Crete and Egypt. A French navy vessel using deep-water listening devices picked up signals from one of the black boxes on June 1. Egypt initially suspected the aircraft was brought down by an attack, but it is now thought the crash may have been caused by a technical fault. Automatic alerts sent by the Airbus indicated smoke in the cabin and a fault in the flight control unit. The crash happened seven months after the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula in October that killed all 224 people on board. World's gay communities rally after Orlando attack Crowds flocked to vigils around the world in shock at the shooting of dozens of Florida club-goers in the deadliest ever attack on the gay rights movement. Thousands lined the streets in the central London district of Soho, long a hub for the gay community in Britain, bursting into chants of "we're here, we're queer, we will not live in fear" under rainbow flags. A policeman at the scene estimated the crowd at between 5,000 and 7,000 strong, as other rallies took place in cities from Berlin to Bangkok. Mourners light candles on a rainbow flag draped with a black ribbon outside Barcelona's city hall during a vigil on June 13, 2016 in memory of the victims of the gay nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida Josep Lago (AFP) "It's about solidarity, it's a way for our voice to be to be heard -- to try to tell everybody that love wins," said Julius Reuben, 35, wearing towering heels and a long black dress. "It made me feel more insecure," he added. "We shouldn't have to protect ourselves so much, we should be accepted for who we are." The crowd in London released 49 brightly coloured balloons into the sky for each one of the victims of Sunday's massacre at the gay nightclub in Orlando, the worst mass shooting in modern US history. Standing outside the Admiral Duncan, a pub where three people died when a neo-Nazi planted a nail bomb in a homophobic attack in 1999, Jennifer Hersey, a 36-year-old originally from Texas, wiped away a tear as she looked out onto the crowd. "It's amazing, because people could be scared. It's better that people gather and meet together. Every time that something horrible happens, people come out," she told AFP. The leader of Britain's opposition Labour party Jeremy Corbyn attended the vigil as did London mayor Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim to hold the post. "It was an attack on our freedoms and our values," Khan said in a television interview before the rally. "What's really important is that we stand shoulder to shoulder with the victims and their families in Orlando." - 'Act of hate' - In Australia, the landmark Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit with the rainbow colours of the gay community flag as hundreds gathered to condemn terror and homophobia. "This could have happened anywhere," Paul Savage told AFP at a candlelit vigil for the victims on the busy strip that hosts Sydney's annual Mardi Gras pride march. "He could easily have walked into a bar in Sydney," he said, though he added that Australia's tighter gun laws were "much more helpful" in preventing the mass shootings that claim hundreds of lives each year in the United States. In Berlin, more than 100 people gathered outside the US embassy to lay flowers, light candles and wave rainbow flags. And in the Netherlands, the first country to legalise same-sex marriage, hundreds gathered at Amsterdam's "Homomonument", composed of three pink triangles, designed to commemorate gay men and women who have been persecuted because of their sexuality. But in Moscow a couple were arrested as they tried to leave a tribute outside the US embassy, the RBK newspaper reported. Islam Abdullabeckov, a social media editor for the newspaper, and his boyfriend Felix Glyukman were trying to leave flowers and a sign reading "Love wins - Stay with Orlando" outside the embassy when they were detained, they told RBK. In an outpouring of solidarity similar to that seen after the Paris and Brussels attacks, social media were awash with messages of support for the families of the victims. The Eiffel Tower was lit up in rainbow colours and the colours of the American flag in solidarity, as the city still reels from November jihadist attacks in which 130 people were killed. The Islamic State group, which was behind the Paris and Brussels attacks, also claimed responsibility for the Florida bloodshed. In one of several vigils across the United States, hundreds gathered in New York's Greenwich Village on Sunday to leave flowers beside a sign reading "Stop Hate", and the One World Trade Center's spire was lit up in rainbow colours. Leaders around the world sent condolences, with Pope Francis expressing shock at Mateen's "homicidal folly and senseless hatred". US President Barack Obama denounced the attack at the Pulse nightclub by slain shooter Omar Mateen, which also wounded 53, as "an act of terror and an act of hate". The Eiffel Tower in Paris is illuminated in rainbow colours in homage to the victims of the mass shooting at a gay nighclub in Orlando Thomas Samson (AFP) Thousands gathered in London outside the Admiral Duncan, a pub where three people died when a neo-Nazi planted a nail bomb in a homophobic attack in 1999 Justin Tallis (AFP) The Sydney Harbour Bridge is lit with the colours of the rainbow on June 13, 2016 William West (AFP) A woman adds a rose to a memorial near the US Embassy in Berlin on June 13, 2016 John Mac Dougall (AFP) Orlando gunman went on Saudi pilgrimages: ministry The American gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando twice performed a minor Islamic pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, the interior ministry said on Monday. "He performed umrah twice," a ministry spokesman said of Omar Mateen, 29, who was of Afghan descent. Mateen performed the minor umrah pilgrimage for 10 days in March 2011 and again for eight days in March 2012, the ministry spokesman told AFP. A security officer stands guard, close to the holy Kaaba, as Muslim pilgrims perform the lesser pilgrimage, Known as Omra, in the holy city of Mecca in western Saudi Arabia, on June 17, 2012 Fayez Nureldine (AFP/File) He gave no further details. CNN, citing an unnamed US official, said Mateen had also visited the United Arab Emirates. The Islamic State group, which has also claimed attacks within Saudi Arabia, said Mateen was acting as one of its "soldiers" in Sunday's rampage. It was the worst mass shooting in modern US history. Mateen died in a gun battle with police. FBI chief James Comey said he was confident the gunman had been "radicalised" while consuming online propaganda, and there was no indication of a plot directed from outside the United States. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to its holiest sites. The annual hajj and the umrah pilgrimage, which can be performed at any time, bring millions of Muslims to the kingdom every year. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic party nominee for US president, on Monday accused Saudi Arabia and its neighbours of allowing extremism to thrive. "It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organisations," Clinton said in a speech. "And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path toward extremism." UN cites progress in probe of Syria chemical attacks A UN team is making progress in its investigation of nine chemical weapons attacks in Syria but it has yet to identify the perpetrators, a report said Monday. The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) set up by the Security Council last year appealed for more information from world governments including from the Syrian regime to determine those responsible for the attacks. The JIM is the most concrete UN effort to date to establish some accountability in the five-year war that has left more than 280,000 dead and displaced over 11 million people. Members of the civil defence spray and clean areas in the town of Taza, around 220 kilometres north of the capital Baghdad, on March 13, 2016, that might have been contaminated in a chemical attack carried out by the Islamic State (IS) group Marwan Ibrahim (AFP/File) "Investigations into the nine cases under consideration by the mechanism have all progressed," said the JIM in a report to the Security Council. But identifying those responsible "continues to be dependent on sufficiency of information", said the report obtained by AFP. The 24-member team is due to present its findings in August, when its one-year mandate ends, but the council could ask the panel to continue its work if it does not produce a list of perpetrators by then. The panel is looking into nine attacks using toxic chemicals that took place in 2014 and 2015 in the Hama, Idlib and Aleppo provinces. - Chlorine gas attacks - The report did not provide details, but most of the cases point to the alleged use of chlorine gas in barrel bombs, that the West blames on the Syrian regime. These took place in Kafr Zita in Hama province while other attacks were in villages in Idlib including Talmenes, Al-Tamana, Qmenas, Binnish and Sarmin. A more recent attack in Marea on August 21, 2015, pointed to the likely use of mustard gas by Islamic State militants. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has concluded that chlorine was probably used as a weapon on opposition-held villages, killing 13 people. The OPCW did not assign blame for the attacks, among the many horrors to have been documented Syria's war. The panel led by Argentine expert Virginia Gamba has visited seven countries, three of them in the Middle East, as part of its investigation and is planning to visit three more in June. Investigators traveled to Syria twice this year, in March and May, to question government officials and interview witnesses. The panel is working with two forensics institutes to analyse material and has consulted a number of laboratories on chemical substances and munitions. Even if the panel comes up with a list of names, the Security Council would have to adopt a new resolution to impose sanctions or take action against the perpetrators. That appears unlikely after Russia and China in 2014 blocked moves to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court for war crimes. UN council condemns Orlando attacks after some haggling The UN Security Council on Monday strongly condemned the Orlando attacks in a unanimous statement after some haggling with Russia and Egypt over a reference to the targeting of gays. The 15-member council said the "terrorist attack" on a gay nightclub in the early hours on Sunday targeted "persons as a result of their sexual orientation." Council members expressed condolences to the families of the 49 victims of the attack and reaffirmed that terrorism is one of the most serious threats to peace and security. Mourners light candles at the Legacy of Love statue during a vigil in Dallas, Texas, on June 12, 2016, for victims of the attack at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida Laura Buckman (AFP/File) The US-drafted text was circulated to council members on Sunday, but Russia and Egypt raised objections over the reference to "sexual orientation," diplomats said. French Ambassador Francois Delattre described the statement that was finally adopted late afternoon Monday as "very important," and acknowledged that "there were some consultations to achieve unanimity on this text." US Deputy Ambassador David Pressman separately took a swipe at the United Nations for failing to do enough to uphold the rights of sexual minorities. Pressman said the world body must do more than contribute condolences and condemnation when gays and lesbians are targeted in attacks. "Let us be equally united around the basic premise of upholding the universal dignity of all persons regardless of who they love, not just around condemning the terrorists who kill them," Pressman told the General Assembly. The diplomat deplored that the annual renewal of a resolution on protecting the right to life leads to a "pitched fight over whether it is appropriate to include sexual orientation in that protection." "Dignity should not be so hard to protect. Here, it too often is," said Pressman. The General Assembly last month denied accreditation to 22 groups, mostly gay rights activists, to take part in a conference on ending the AIDS pandemic after Russia, Muslim countries, Cameroon and Tanzania blocked it. Trump, Clinton clash in wake of Orlando attack The Orlando massacre has exposed some of the sharpest contrasts yet between America's presidential rivals, with Hillary Clinton on Monday warning against demagoguery and rival Donald Trump declaring prospective immigrants from some nations persona non grata. Instead of unifying a politically divided nation, the worst terror attack in the United States since September 11, 2001 has widened the gap between the White House contenders over how to tackle extremism and keep Americans safe. Both candidates used their speeches in the wake of the shooting to enhance their commander-in-chief credibility, in starkly different tones. Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump speaks in Manchester, New Hampshire June 13, 2016 Timothy A. Clary (AFP) Presumptive Republican nominee Trump ratcheted up his pointed rhetoric, blasting Clinton for seeking to "allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country" and suggesting the former secretary of state "has no clue" about radical Islam. "When I'm elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we fully understand how to end these threats," Trump said during a highly-anticipated national security speech in New Hampshire. "We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer," he said, referring to the Orlando gunman, whom US authorized suspect was radicalized by Islamist propaganda. The provocative billionaire again called for a halt to Syrian refugees entering the United States and warned there are people living in America with "hate in their heart." In an exchange with Fox News, Trump said President Barack Obama "doesn't get it" when it comes to the extremist threat, a comment that drew curt reaction from the White House. "When you are focused on something as big as helping the country respond to the worst mass shooting in our nation's history... and combating violent extremism, it's important not to get distracted by things that are so small," White House spokesman Joshua Earnest said. - 'Metastasizing' threat - Trump heaped criticism on his rival. "The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system" of screening, Trump said. "She wants to take away Americans' guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us." Clinton made no mention of Trump in her speech, instead urging Americans to reject political partisanship and "stand together" to defeat terrorism. "The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive and we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination and pride in our country and our values," she said. "The threat is metastasizing." While Clinton zeroed in on fighting Islamic State extremism and the need to rein in American gun violence, Trump seized on how Muslims may be protecting their own. "We have to get the people that surround these maniacs to start talking," he told ABC. Trump's argument followed his accusations that neighbors and relatives of the San Bernardino attackers who slaughtered 14 people in December knew the couple had been radicalized but did not alert authorities. Clinton for her part recognized the need to track so-called lone wolves and prevent them from launching attacks, and reiterated her call for reinstatement of an assault weapons ban, saying Orlando shooter Omar Mateen used a "weapon of war" to kill 49 people. But she stressed that "inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric" and bans based on religious affiliation would only hurt the vast majority of Muslims who abhor terrorism. She warned that demagoguery would not end terrorism. "I'm not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion," Clinton said. But she did demand that other governments reconsider policies that allow extremism to thrive, calling out three US allies. "It is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations," Clinton warned, urging them to stop supporting "radical schools and mosques" that promote extremism. Trump expressed strong support for America's gay community, following Sunday's attack on the gay nightclub. "It's an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity," he said. "It's a strike at the heart and soul of who we are as a nation." Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to supporters on June 13, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio Angelo Merendino (Getty/AFP) Israel for the first time wins UN committee chair Israel on Monday was elected to chair a UN committee for the first time in the world body's 71-year history, triggering strong protests from Arab countries and the Palestinians. Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon won the chair of the legal affairs committee of the General Assembly by picking up 109 votes from the 193 member-states. Danon's candidacy was put to a vote by secret ballot at the request of Arab countries. All of the other committee chairs were chosen by consensus. Israel's premanent representative to the United Nations, Danny Danon speaks during a Holocaust memorial ceremony in New York on January 27, 2016. Jewel Samad (AFP/File) Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour criticised the regional group for putting forward Danon's candidacy, saying he was divisive and unworthy of the task. "They should have advanced a very responsible qualified candidate and not a big violator of international law," Mansour told reporters. Yemen's Ambassador Khaled Alyemany, who heads the Arab Group at the United Nations, said he had sent a message to all member-states to protest the election of the Israeli ambassador. "We cannot accept that a country like Israel, violator of international law and humanitarian law and the last colonial force existing in the world, has the right to rule on all legal affairs," said Alyemany. Danon said he was "very proud" to be the first Israeli to head a UN committee and declared that it was "a pitiful moment to see some of the Arab countries trying to block that nomination." Israel's candidacy was backed by the United States and European countries. Orlando gay men angry they can't donate blood after massacre As they mourn friends and partners murdered in the gay nightclub massacre, homosexual men in Orlando are eager to join in the rush of solidarity by donating blood for those victims still clinging to life. But they are angry and frustrated: federal law imposes strict conditions to guard against HIV transmission. Gay men can only give if they have not had sex with another man for a year. So while they say it is a relief to see many others lining up outside blood banks in suffocating heat for hours to donate in the wake of the attack that killed 49 and left 53 wounded -- and the response has been described as overwhelming -- gay men are forced to sit by and watch. A technician prepares to take a plasma donation from Tiffany Stephens on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Mandel Ngan (AFP) "I am married. I am gay and sexually active with my husband, of course. But I am ineligible to donate blood," said Rob Domenico, a board member and chief fundraiser at The Center, Orlando's main LGTB community center. "So at a time when I am needed the most to help save my brothers and sisters, I can do nothing. So it is very frustrating," he said at the center's small, jam-packed headquarters, which has operated in crisis mode since the massacre in the wee hours of Sunday at the Pulse nightclub by gunman Omar Mateen. The Center teemed with activity Monday as volunteers arranged appointments for people who need counseling after the carnage and took delivery of supplies -- food, drink, even toiletries -- for victims' families. A charity group brought in golden retrievers to serve as comfort dogs for people to pet. This therapeutic technique was also used after the Newtown school shooting in Connecticut in 2012, which left 26 dead, most of them small kids. Outside The Center, Chris Callen, 34, said he knew Pulse very well -- he worked there performing as a drag queen. And his loss of friends in the attack was huge. "I lost a total of seven -- and I actually just found out I lost one more, on the phone," he said, gesturing to his mobile and wincing. - 'Do anything to help' - Callen said he could not donate blood because he has been HIV-positive for nearly seven years. Back when he was healthy, however, he said it hurt really badly to not be able to give. "When the Twin Towers fell, we had a whole bunch of the gay community that wanted to rally and go and give blood. And we weren't allowed," said Callen, wiry and shirtless in the muggy Florida heat. "I would do anything to help my community," he added. The government restriction on gay men giving blood used to be even tougher. Until very recently, the Food and Drug Administration rule stipulated that any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 could not give blood, said Pat Michaels, a spokesman for OneBlood, a network of blood bank clinics in Florida and other southern states. OneBlood had been pressuring the FDA for years to lift the older blanket ban, said Susan Forbes, another representative of that not-for-profit network. She called the change, mandating a year of abstinence, a step in the right direction. Domenico said it was a joy to see so many straight people turning out to donate blood. On Sunday alone, it was 3,500 people across OneBlood's network, said Michaels, compared to 1,000 on a regular day. "We have straight allies that are there for us and have been there for years," Domenico said. Herb Voyles, a 40-year photographer who is straight but has gay friends who used to go to Pulse, said even the new rule is ridiculous, arguing that since blood can be tested for HIV, gay men should not be barred from donating. Voyles spoke as he sat in what looked like a dentist chair, donating his dark, red O+ and squeezing a rubber toy to keep it pumping. Of his contribution, he said: "It is small. But if it can save someone's life, I guess it is something I should do." A man walks past signs supporting the mass shooting victims at the Pulse nightclub on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Brendan Smialowski (AFP) A Oneblood staff member thanks a man for waiting in line to donate blood on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Mandel Ngan (AFP) A technician prepares to take a platelet donation from Stephen Ruiz at the Oneblood blood center on June 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida Mandel Ngan (AFP) Ex-Illinois governor petitions for Chicago mayor term limits CHICAGO (AP) Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn kicked off a signature drive Sunday to impose a two-term limit on Chicago's mayor and create a citywide elected consumer advocate position. The binding referendums could be on ballots as early as November or in the 2018 cycle, meaning there's potential to make Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ineligible to seek a third term in 2019. Quinn insisted his effort wasn't aimed at any individual, and getting nearly 53,000 valid signatures before an Aug. 8 deadline for November's ballot would be challenging. He explained how he got his start in petition drives including laying the groundwork for the Citizens Utility Board and wanted to give residents a way to bypass the mayor and City Council. Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn kicks off a petition drive to put a two-term limit on Chicago's mayor, and to create an elected citywide consumer advocate position Sunday, June 12, 2016 in Chicago. The Chicago Democrat added his name to the petition during a news conference in downtown Chicago (AP Photo by Sophia Tareen). "Part of my mission in life is not to sit on the sidelines, but to try and organize movements and give people a greater say in their government," he said. "It's a way to let fresh air in and let the people into City Hall." The proposed consumer advocate would act as an independent watchdog, replacing a similar position appointed by the mayor. Emanuel, who faced a tense 2015 re-election bid, has experienced increasing discontent among residents. Protesters have called for his resignation in the wake of the shooting of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager shot 16 times by a white police officer. The city refused to release video of the 2014 shooting until a judge ordered it. Emanuel's spokesman didn't immediately have comment. Chicago unlike other major U.S. cities including Los Angeles and New York doesn't have mayoral term limits. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley served for 22 years. Sunday's event was classic populist Quinn, who's led petition drives since the 1970s, including one to pass a constitutional amendment to reduce the size of the Illinois House. He offered a history lesson invoking the nation's Founding Fathers and trotted out his rickety ironing board for supporters to use to sign petitions while the cameras rolled. He then signed it himself. Quinn, who once served on the Cook County Board of Tax Appeals, was state treasurer and lieutenant governor. He became governor in 2009 after Rod Blagojevich was removed from office. Quinn was elected to a full term in 2010 and ousted by Republican businessman Bruce Rauner in 2014. Quinn wouldn't say what groups he's coordinating with. If the measure doesn't come before voters in November, it could be on the ballots during the 2018 gubernatorial election. He refused to answer if he'd seek public office again. Quinn has recently been making the rounds at political events, fueling talk that he's wants to throw his hat in the ring again. "I've run for office before," Quinn said. "We'll see about the future." __ Follow Sophia Tareen at http://twitter.com/sophiatareen . 10 Things to Know for Monday - 13 June 2016 Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Monday: 1. 50 SLAIN AT GAY NIGHTCLUB IN FLORIDA A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opens fire inside a crowded club before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers. The attack is the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Rachel Henry, from left, Selene Arciga, Nicolette Gullickson, Joanna Lamstein join members and supporters of the LGBT as they gather for a candlelight vigil in front of the White House in Washington, Sunday, June 12, 2016, in support for the victims and their families and friends, who were killed and injured in a massacre at an Orlando nightclub. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) 2. WHO WAS ORLANDO NIGHTCLUB SHOOTER Omar Mateen, 29, was a body builder and a security guard who at one point expressed interest in becoming a police officer, though he never pursued it. 3. ORLANDO MASSACRE SPURS GRIEF, FEAR FOR LGBT AMERICANS Sunday's attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando stirs LGBT communal fears and swiftly prompts tighter security at gay pride events. 4. CLINTON, TRUMP ADJUST POLITICKING FOLLOWING FLORIDA SHOOTING While offering support to the victims of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, they both infuse their sympathy with statements that favor their presidential aspirations. 5. HOW STUDENTS SHOW SUPPORT FOR VICTIM AT STANFORD GRADUATION They use the school's commencement ceremony to again express their anger over what they see as a lenient jail sentence given to a former student for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. 6. WHERE DIVIDED LOCALS SHARE FEAR OF TOTAL SIEGE Pummeled by bombs and rocket fire, residents across Syria's Aleppo worry that a day will come when they can no longer go in or out of their neighborhoods. 7. 'HAMILTON,' 'THE HUMANS' WIN BIG AT TONY AWARDS "Hamilton," the hip-hop stage biography of Alexander Hamilton, and "The Humans," a play about a fractious family's get-together, win best musical and best play on Broadway's big night. 8. HOW MUCH D-DAY FLAG SELLS FOR The U.S. banner flown on the stern of the boat that led the first American troops onto Utah Beach is sold for $514,000 at auction in Texas. 9. GEORGE H.W. BUSH CELEBRATES 92ND BIRTHDAY Sunday's celebration is low-key and the former president is spending the day with his wife, Barbara Bush, and other family members in Kennebunkport. 10. PENGUINS BEAT SHARKS FOR 4TH STANLEY CUP TITLE Pittsburgh beats San Jose 3-1 in Game 6 and a turnaround season for the Pens ends with Sidney Crosby lifting his second Stanley Cup. The cast of Hamilton performs at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) PICTURED: Editor selections from Latin America, Caribbean This photo gallery highlights some of the top images from Latin America and the Caribbean that you may have missed last week. Peru held its closest presidential contest in five decades. The daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori, Keiko Fujimori, lost by just 0.2 percentage point to former World Bank economist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Turmoil in Venezuela continued, with once-middle-class residents, made desperate by the economic collapse, sifting through trash at a market for discarded fruit and vegetables to resell or feed themselves. Demonstrators were kept back by tear gas as they tried to march to the country's electoral headquarters to demand the government allow it to pursue a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro. In this June 5, 2016 photo, supporters of presidential candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski celebrate his win in Lima, Peru. Kuczynski began the task of forming a government Friday after his rival Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat in Peru's closest presidential contest in five decades. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia) Haitians are also calling for their president to step down, but with a voodoo ceremony. Supporters of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise poured beer into the skeleton skull meant to represent interim President Jocelerme Privert. In Paraguay, an elderly mother was distraught as she waited for news outside the prison where her son is locked up after a fire broke out at the overcrowded facility. People with disabilities in Bolivia held a mock funeral for two fellow protesters who were run over by a drunk driver as they slept in their encampment in Cochabamba, one of many cities where disabled people are protesting to demand an increase in state benefits. Currently they receive a yearly payment of about $146. Argentine taxi drivers were furious with the arrival of Uber, and blocked a main artery of the capital to demand a stop to the app-based car service. Brazilians continued to protest the gang rape of a 16-year-old girl by about 30 men, a case that has rocked Latin America's largest nation and highlighted its endemic problem of violence against women. Guatemala's former defense minister, Gen. Manuel Lopez Ambrosio, sat behind bars after his arrest in connection with the alleged misuse of public funds. ___ Photo gallery curated by photo editor Leslie Mazoch in Mexico City. @mazachova __ Associated Press photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/150o6jo In this June 6, 2016 photo, coins sit on a stack of newspapers with a headline that reads in Spanish "PPK Wins," referring to presidential candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in Lima, Peru. Analysts say Kuczynski's best chance to ease hostility could be in releasing rival candidate Keiko Fujimori's father, Alberto Fujimori, to house arrest, freeing him from the prison where he is serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and supporting death squads during his autocratic rule in the 1990s. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) In this June 7, 2016 photo, Peru's presidential chair sits on a truck to be taken away after a Flag Day ceremony in Lima, Peru. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski began the task of forming a government Friday after his rival Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat in Peru's closest presidential contest in five decades. His margin of victory was less than 43,000 votes or 0.2 percentage points. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) In this June 5, 2016 photo, supporters of presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori react as they listen to exit poll results in Lima, Peru. In conceding, Fujimori blasted politicians, business leaders and members of the media for orchestrating a "hate-filled" campaign to discredit her candidacy. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo) In this May 31, 2016 photo, Pedro Hernandez, left, and his friend Luis Daza pick up tomatoes from the trash area of the Coche public market in Caracas, Venezuela. At the Coche market, once middle class Venezuelans made desperate by the country's economic collapse have taken to sifting through the trash to resell or feed themselves on discarded fruits and vegetables. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) In this June 10, 2016 photo, Victoria Rodriguez, 83, the mother of inmate Venancio, cries outside Tacumbu jail after a fire broke out at the overcrowded facility in Asuncion, Paraguay. Authorities said the fire was caused by a short circuit in the art workshop and that the only person who died in the blaze was Blas Gaona, the prison's security chief. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz) In this June 10, 2016 photo, a woman in a wheelchair carries flowers behind mock coffins, symbolizing protesters who died the previous day in La Paz, Bolivia. Two protesters were run over by a drunk driver as they slept in their encampment in Cochabamba, one of many cities where disabled people are carrying out an ongoing protest to demand an increase in disability compensation, from the annual 1,000 Bolivianos, to a monthly stipend of 500, or about $73 dollars. (AP Photo/Juan Karita) In this June 7, 2016 photo, a supporter of presidential candidate Jovenel Moise pours beer into a skeleton skull meant to represent interim President Jocelerme Privert in a mock coffin, during a voodoo ceremony before the start of a protest march demanding his resignation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The electoral council of Haiti has decided to re-do a presidential election that a special commission determined was marred by fraud. (AP Photo/Dieu Nalio Chery) In this June 11, 2016 photo, Guatemala's former Defense Minister, Gen. Manuel Lopez Ambrosio, sits inside a cell at a court in Guatemala City. Guatemalan authorities say police have arrested Lopez Ambrosio and one other former cabinet minister in connection with the alleged misuse of public funds. The former officials served under ex-president Otto Perez Molina and allegedly bought him a helicopter using government money. Perez Molina and his former Vice President Roxana Baldetti are jailed awaiting trial in multiple corruption cases. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo) In this June 7, 2016 photo, demonstrators carry a youth away from tear gas fired by police during an opposition demonstration in Caracas, Venezuela. Protesters were turned back from the headquarters of Venezuela's electoral body where the group attempted to march to demand the government allow it to pursue a recall referendum against President Nicolas Maduro. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) In this June 9, 2016 photo, a taxi driver holds a sign that reads in Spanish "Get out Uber" as cabbies block the 9 de Julio Avenue in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Taxi drivers blocked the main artery of the capital to demand Uber stop its service. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko) PICTURED: Americans mourn latest mass shooting tragedy "More Love. Less Hate." That was the heartfelt message on the screen during a prayer vigil at Joy Metropolitan Community Church in Orlando, Florida, hours after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The attack left 49 club-goers, plus gunman Omar Mateen, dead and critically injured dozens more at Pulse, a gay nightclub south of the city's downtown early Sunday. Brett Morian, from Daytona Beach, hugs an attendee during the candlelight vigil at Ember in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Joshua Lim/Orlando Sentinel via AP) From North Carolina to New York, from Connecticut to Texas, Americans held vigils for the victims. Here are some images from the Sunday evening gatherings as a nation mourned the latest mass shooting. ___ Follow AP photographers on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP/lists/ap-photographers Follow AP Images on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Images Visit AP Images online: http://www.apimages.com http://www.apimages.com A woman cries and holds flowers in front of a makeshift memorial to remember the victims of a mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., in New York, Sunday, June 12, 2016. A gunman opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki) Jeffrey Erikson and Jamie Fernandez hold each other during a moment of silence at a vigil in Cal Anderson Park in Seattle for the victims of a mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Genna Martin/seattlepi.com via AP) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; SEATTLE TIMES OUT; TV OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT Paul Cox, right, leans on the shoulder of Brian Sullivan, as they observe a moment of silence during a vigil for a fatal shooting at an Orlando nightclub, Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Ryan Gibson, left, embraces Tabor Winstead during a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting on Sunday, June 12, 2016 at the Legends Club on Hargett Street in downtown Raleigh, N.C. The event was held by the LGBT community in Raleigh, after 50 people were killed in an Orlando nightclub. (Robert Willett/The News & Observer via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT Judy Rettig, right, and Karen Castelloes cry during a prayer vigil Joy Metropolitan Community Church after a fatal shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Members LGBT community light candles in solidarity with Florida's shooting attack victims, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, June 12, 2016. The shooting attack in Orlando, Florida, USA, Sunday, left more than 50 people dead amid a multitude of events celebrating LGBT Pride Month. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) The US Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T. Davies places a candle with vigil organizer Paisam Likhitpreechakul outside the US Embassy for those killed and wounded in the Sunday June 12, 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, June 13, 2016. The vigil was held for victims of the nightclub shooting which killed at least 50 people and was the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to date. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) A couple embraces as people gather in front of a makeshift memorial in New York to remember the victims of a mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. A gunman opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki) Former Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra and Shawn Lang of Hartford embrace after Segarra spoke Sunday, June 12, 2016, during a vigil organized by the state's Muslim and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities Sunday evening on the steps of the state Capitol building in reaction to the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla, Holding gay pride flags behind Segarra and Lang are from left, Fioroella Hidalgo, Becky Muniz (hat), Stephen Vetter and Charlie Ortiz. (John Woike/Hartford Courant via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT A man looks over an impromptu candle-lit memorial set up in Sydney, Monday, June 13, 2016, following the Florida mass shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub where police say a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle opened fire, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that the Orlando mass shooting was "an attack on all of us on all our freedoms, the freedom to gather together, to celebrate, to share time with friends." (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) A man stand next to flowers placed in front of the United States embassy during a vigil in Berlin, German, Monday, June 13, 2016 to honor the victims of the attack on the gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) Caleb McGrew, right, wipes tears as he stands with his partner Yosniel Delgado Giniebra, center, during a vigil in memory of the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Miami Beach, Fla. A gunman opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday, before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee pauses after placing a candle at a memorial on Castro Street and 18th Street during a vigil at Harvey Milk Plaz in the Castro district of San Francisco, Calif., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The vigil was held for victims of the Orlando, Fla. nightclub shooting which killed at least 50 people and was the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to date. (Jane Tyska/Oakland Tribune via AP) Maurice Forbes, center, holds a candle with others during a vigil at The Center, a community center for the LGBT community, Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Las Vegas. The vigil was for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. (AP Photo/John Locher) Rachel Henry, left, and Selene Arciga, kiss to show their solidarity with members and supporters of the LGBT gathered for a candlelight vigil in front of the White House in Washington, Sunday, June 12, 2016, in support for the victims and their families and friends, who were killed and injured in a massacre at an Orlando nightclub. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) A room filled with supporters hold hands and sing a closing song during a vigil, Sunday, June 12, 2016, at the Old National Centre's Egyptian Room, in Indianapolis, Ind., to remember those who died and were injured in the Orlando mass shooting at the Pulse, a gay nightclub just south of downtown Orlando. The vigil was organized by Indy Pride.(Kelly Wilkinson/The Indianapolis Star via AP) A message of the screen during a prayer vigil at the Joy Metropolitan Community Church after a fatal shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Picking sides: A world of opinions on South China Sea case WASHINGTON (AP) A case brought by U.S. ally the Philippines against China represents a diplomatic dilemma for far-flung nations as Washington and Beijing rally support for their respective positions on the use of international arbitration in South China Sea disputes. The United States has been building diplomatic pressure in the West and in Asia on China to abide by the Hague-based tribunal's decision, which is expected soon. China, which maintains it won't be bound by the ruling, has been pushing back by building support from nations mostly in Africa and the Mideast. The U.S. is not a party to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, under which the tribunal has been constituted, but says it wants China to play by international rules. Since there is no enforcement mechanism for the ruling, any impact will depend on how the international community reacts. FILE - In this Friday, June 10, 2016, file photo, a protester has her cheek painted with a slogan outside the Chinese Consulate during a protest against China's occupation and island-building in the disputed Spratly Island group in the South China Sea, in Makati city's financial district east of Manila, Philippines. A case brought by the Philippines against China in an international tribunal deciding the claim, represents a diplomatic dilemma for far-flung nations as Washington and Beijing rally support for their respective positions on the use of international arbitration in South China Sea disputes. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) Here's a look at where dozens of countries stand: ___ ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS ASEAN has been trying for years to achieve diplomatic solutions in the South China Sea, making little progress and exposing divisions in the 10-member bloc, which includes the Philippines. Reaching consensus on the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling will be tough. When President Barack Obama met ASEAN leaders in February they agreed on "full respect for legal and diplomatic processes" in accordance with the U.N. convention, but pro-China members Cambodia and Laos nixed any mention of "arbitration." Vietnam, which has fought China over competing South China Sea claims, has been most supportive of the Philippines' case and submitted a statement to the tribunal. Hanoi has said it supports "full compliance" to the procedures of the convention. But other ASEAN nations are generally wary of speaking out for fear of alienating China, the region's economic heavyweight. Malaysia and Brunei have said little about the case, though they too are South China Sea claimants. Indonesia and Singapore are not claimants but have been a bit more outspoken. Singapore's Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said last week that the ruling could have implications beyond the South China Sea and "we cannot subscribe to the principle that might is right." Indonesia's Foreign Ministry declined to say whether the ruling should be binding on both sides but said international law must be respected. Even the Philippines' position is unpredictable as a new government takes office there June 30. President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has expressed willingness to restart bilateral negotiations with China. ___ RUSSIA Moscow, which shares China's suspicion of Washington, is Beijing's most prominent supporter on the issue. On a visit to China in April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia is against any interference from outside parties in the South China Sea a reference to the U.S. "or any attempts to internationalize these disputes." Like China, Russia says disputes should be resolved through talks between the parties directly involved. ___ CHINA SUPPORTERS IN AFRICA, MIDEAST China's state news agency Xinhua on May 20 said that more than 40 countries have expressed support for China's stance on the arbitration case. The Foreign Ministry has in recent weeks given prominent mention to support it claims to have from nations principally in Africa, the Mideast and Central Asia. But few of those foreign governments have issued statements independently. Some, including Cambodia, Laos and Fiji, have disavowed China's description of their position. Experts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said they could confirm official statements from Afghanistan, Gambia, Niger, Sudan and Vanuatu. A Chinese statement with the 21-member Arab League supported China but it was unclear if it represented all the parties' official positions. ___ EUROPEAN UNION and G-7 The EU has urged all South China Sea claimants to resolve disputes through peaceful means and "pursue them in accordance with international law," including the U.N. convention. The Group of Seven wealthy nations, which comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.S. and the EU, has called on all states to fully implement decisions binding on them in courts and tribunals provided under the convention. In June, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian proposed that European navies coordinate patrols in Asian waters to reinforce a rules-based maritime order. He warned that if the laws of the sea are not respected in that region, they could also be challenged in the Arctic Ocean or Mediterranean Sea. ___ AUSTRALIA In January, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the China-Philippines ruling will be "extremely important" as a statement of international principle and will "settle once and for all" whether artificial reefs are entitled to territorial waters. But Australia has been less outspoken in support of arbitration than the U.S., perhaps mindful of Australia's own resistance to arbitration to resolve its disputed maritime border with tiny East Timor. ___ INDIA India has not issued a categorical position on arbitration case, but has been broadly supportive of the application of international law. India shares U.S. concerns about Beijing's rising ambitions in the seas of Asia. India's External Affairs Ministry says that "all countries must abide by international law and norms on maritime issues." India set an example in 2014 when it accepted a decision by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration that ruled in favor of Bangladesh in a dispute over the countries' maritime boundary. ___ JAPAN Japan was an early supporter of the Philippines' pursuit of arbitration and says both China and the Philippines should abide by the outcome. Japan sees that as upholding international law, but it also reflects concern that historic rival China seeks strategic control of vital sea lanes in the South China Sea that carry 80 percent of Japan's crude oil imports. Japan's support of third-party dispute resolution is not universal. While it has sought to take its dispute with South Korea over the South Korean-held Dokdo or Takeshima islands to the International Court of Justice, it says no such action is needed in its dispute with China over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, which are administered by Japan. ___ SOUTH KOREA Like Japan, South Korea is heavily dependent on fuel imports that pass through the South China Sea, but it has closer ties with China and has been less inclined to speak out. The Foreign Ministry says South China Sea disputes should be resolved under internationally established regulations and that it is "looking with interest" at the Philippine-China arbitration case. ___ TAIWAN Taiwan has complained that the tribunal has not solicited its views. While Taipei officially exercises the same nine-dash line claim as Beijing in the South China Sea, it is primarily concerned about Taiping island in the Spratlys. Taiwan administers that remote land feature and is concerned it could be designated as a rock without the rights granted to islands. ____ Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, Ashok Sharma in New Delhi, Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing, Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo contributed to this report. A personal quest to document IS massacre of Iraqi Yazidis DOHUK, Iraq (AP) The walls and even the windows of Bahzad Farhan Murad's office are covered with lists. They name the thousands of people who were killed or are still missing after the Islamic State group launched an attack on unarmed Yazidi communities in northwestern Iraq nearly two years ago. The 28-year-old Yazidi has been documenting crimes against his community ever since the August 2014 attack. He is collecting data on as many victims as he can, gathering information on the men who were executed in groups, the women who were captured and forced into sexual slavery, the children who were indoctrinated in extremist training camps. To date, he has conducted hundreds of interviews and produced detailed files on over 2,400 victims. Murad says his aim is to help the victims by gathering as much evidence as possible to assist a future criminal prosecution and by preserving the historical record. In this May 22, 2016 photo, Bahzad Farhan Murad talks to The Associated Press in the small office where he collects evidence on crimes against Yazidis, in Dohuk, northern Iraq. Murad, a 28-year-old Yazidi, is on a personal quest to collect evidence of the Islamic State groups devastating attack on his community in August 2014. He hopes his detailed files of over 2,400 victims can assist a future criminal prosecution and preserve the historical record of ISs massacre of up to 5,000 Yazidi men and enslavement of thousands of women. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) "I'm pretty sure that if we don't do it now, after 20 years no-one will remember. And they will say, 'nothing happened to the Yazidis," he said. Iraq's Yazidi community a small and isolated religious minority that combines elements of Islam, Zoroastrism and Christianity has been repeatedly persecuted by successive governments and invading armies. Murad thinks it is crucial to document the most recent massacres in detail. "I was told several times by my father and grandfather about the massacres that happened to the Yazidis, how they killed the men and took the children and the women. I was reluctant to believe it because it (the story) was told in different ways by different people," he says. According to the United Nations, about 5,000 Yazidi men were killed by IS militants when they took control of Iraq's northwest two years ago and thousands more, mostly women and children, were taken into captivity. Most of the population some 400,000 Yazidis were displaced from their homes. Murad demonstrated his determination to gather detailed accounts when he recently visited a Yazidi woman in a camp for the displaced on the outskirts of Dohuk, a city in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region. The woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she still fears for her safety, had escaped from the IS-held Iraqi city of Mosul five months earlier. Murad asked her to recount every stage of her capture and time in captivity, repeating every question, checking every detail and then recording the answers on forms. The woman's family seemed happy to cooperate. Her brother said she doesn't know whether any good will come of Murad's efforts, but that he appreciated his determination to ensure their suffering is recognized. "The interview was good," Murad said after an hour, emerging from the tent. "But I need to see her two or three more times because she was in their hands for more than a year. I will document every stage of her story." Murad's quest for detail magnifies what already seems a monumental task. He photographed each item the woman had with her when she escaped, as he does with all the women he interviews. The pictures go into the victim's file, along with the description of their case and other personal details. Alongside the case files, his home garage has many boxes of these items: the clothes they were wearing, bags, water bottles, even small bank notes. He says he's aware of the danger of taking on too big a task, but he doesn't think there is another way to document the extent of the atrocity. "Everything the massacres, the disappearances is connected with everything else. It has to be documented in its entirety," he said. Murad works independently and is self-funded, helped by a few volunteers. Coming from a well-off family, he says he doesn't have to worry about money and has nothing else to do. The files are not yet being published; he says he's merely at the stage of collecting information. He is tentatively planning to display the objects in a museum and publish the case files on a website. Various other Iraqi organizations are also working to document the massacres and disappearances, and Iraq's Kurdish regional government has exhumed some of the mass graves in which dozens of murdered Yazidi men are buried. The size of the job doesn't seem to deter Murad, although he admits that he has felt briefly overwhelmed at times. "We have to prove for history that it was the fully-planned intention of IS to eliminate the Yazidis, to commit genocide against them. It is for history and for our next generations to know what happened to us," he said. In this May 22, 2016 photo, Bahzad Farhan Murad arranges the pages of a diary written by a Yazidi girl while in Islamic State militant captivity, in Dohuk, northern Iraq. Murad, a 28-year-old Yazidi, is on a personal quest to collect evidence of the Islamic State groups devastating attack on his community in August 2014. He hopes his detailed files of over 2,400 victims can assist a future criminal prosecution and preserve the historical record of ISs massacre of up to 5,000 Yazidi men and enslavement of thousands of women. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) This May 22, 2016 photo, shows clothing worn by a Yazidi girl enslaved by Islamic State militants, that was collected by Bahzad Farhan Murad to document Islamic State group crimes, in Dohuk, northern Iraq. Murad, a 28-year-old Yazidi, is on a personal quest to collect evidence of the IS groups devastating attack on his community in August 2014. He hopes his detailed files of over 2,400 victims can assist a future criminal prosecution and preserve the historical record of ISs massacre of up to 5,000 Yazidi men and enslavement of thousands of women. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) In this May 22, 2016 photo, lists of dead and missing Yazidis are taped to the wall of Bahzad Farhan Murad's office where he collects evidence on crimes against Yazidis, in Dohuk, northern Iraq. Murad, a 28-year-old Yazidi, is on a personal quest to collect evidence of the Islamic State groups devastating attack on his community in August 2014. He hopes his detailed files of over 2,400 victims can assist a future criminal prosecution and preserve the historical record of ISs massacre of up to 5,000 Yazidi men and enslavement of thousands of women. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo) Armed man arrested in California wasn't allowed to have guns CHARLESTOWN, Ind. (AP) An Indiana man arrested in California over the weekend with three assault rifles had been ordered by a judge in April to give up all his guns, but authorities in his home state said Monday they had not made any surprise checks to confirm he was following the probation requirement. James Wesley Howell was arrested early Sunday in Santa Monica, California, with the weapons and explosives in a car he apparently drove from Indiana. He told police he was headed to a gay pride event in West Hollywood that attracts hundreds of thousands of people. It's unclear whether Howell intended any violence at the LA Pride event, but the timing of the arrest hours after the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida put police and event organizers on heightened alert. Investigators view items removed from a car, left, after a heavily armed man was arrested in Santa Monica, Calif., early Sunday, June 12, 2016. The man reportedly told police he was in the area for West Hollywood's huge gay pride parade. Authorities did not know of any connection between the gay nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday and the Santa Monica arrest. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) An Indiana probation officer met with Howell, 20, of Charlestown, Indiana, three weeks ago, rated him a low-level offender, and had yet to schedule the in-home visit, said James Hayden, chief probation officer in Clark County. Howell didn't have permission to leave Indiana after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor intimidation charge. Authorities there are seeking to have him returned as a probation violator. The FBI is continuing to investigate. "We have processed the vehicle and are consulting with prosecutors to determine if charges apply," said Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles. Court records in Indiana and friends depict Howell as a gun enthusiast with a quick temper. Twice within four days last October he was accused of pulling a gun and making threats. The first incident involved Howell's then-boyfriend and the second a neighbor, identified in police records as Jeremy Hebert. Howell was charged with intimidation in the case involving Hebert, a conviction that led to his yearlong probation and weapons prohibition. Hebert remembered Howell being "hot-headed" but said he had no interest in pursuing an intimidation charge against him. "I wasn't going to ruin his life for it," Hebert said, adding that he was fine as long as Howell didn't return to the neighborhood. Prosecutors apparently pursued the case without Hebert. Grace Logsdon, Howell's former roommate, said Howell owned five guns and liked to spend time at a shooting range. He enjoyed teaching Logsdon about guns, she said, but he had a bad temper. During one trip to a gun range, she said Howell told her: "I wish I could kill a lot of people." She said Howell lived in a duplex apartment with Logsdon, her husband and Howell's now-former boyfriend late last year. Howell's ex-boyfriend, Richard Hambrick, described Howell as "explosive." "He's got a lot of anger problems," Hambrick said. He added that he doesn't know why Howell was in California. "As far as I know he had no connections there with any family or friends," Hambrick said. Charlestown police Detective Capt. Chuck Ledbetter said the handgun Howell used in the intimidation case was the only one the department seized from him. A rifle that ex-boyfriend Hambrick said Howell pointed at him a day earlier wasn't seized because no arrest was made at the time, Ledbetter said. A lawyer who represented Howell in Kentucky said that he is looking for a lawyer in California. Attorney Bobby Boyd told WDRB-TV that Howell's father is cooperating with the FBI and was shocked by his son's arrest. ___ Associated Press writers Tom Davies contributed from Indianapolis, Claire Galofaro contributed from Jeffersonville, Indiana, and Christopher Weber contributed from Los Angeles. This June 12, 2016 law enforcement booking photo provided by the Santa Monica, Calif., Police Department shows James Wesley Howell, 20, of Indiana. Police say Howell was the heavily armed man arrested in Santa Monica on his way to a Southern California gay pride parade, who told them he wanted to do harm to the event. (Santa Monica Police Department via AP) Items removed from a car are displayed on a sidewalk after a heavily armed man was arrested in Santa Monica, Calif., early Sunday, June 12, 2016. The man reportedly told police he was in the area for West Hollywood's huge gay pride parade. Authorities did not know of any connection between the gay nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday and the Santa Monica arrest. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies ride along a street in West Hollywood, Calif., during the gay pride Parade on Sunday, June 12, 2016. A heavily armed man arrested in Southern California told police he was in the area for West Hollywood's gay pride parade. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) Los Angeles County Sheriff's department motorcycle deputies ride along a street in West Hollywood, Calif., during the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday, June 12, 2016. A heavily armed man arrested in Southern California told police he was in the area for West Hollywood's gay pride parade. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) EU president: new Britain-EU relationship would take 7 years BERLIN (AP) European Union President Donald Tusk says that voting to leave the bloc would be a geopolitical setback for Britain, and it would take at least seven years to negotiate a new Britain-EU relationship. In an interview with German daily Bild published Monday, Tusk said a vote to leave in the June 23 referendum "would be a setback not just economically but above all geopolitically for Britain." He was quoted as saying that no one can foresee the long-term consequences but he fears "Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction not just of the EU but of the entire political civilization of the West." Orlando killer appears to have been 'homegrown extremist' ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) The gunman whose attack on a gay nightclub left 49 victims dead appears to have been a "homegrown extremist" who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic radical groups, the White House and the FBI said Monday. As Orlando mourned its dead with flowers, candles and vigils, counterterrorism investigators dug into the background of 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the American-born Muslim who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. "So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States, and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network," said FBI Director James Comey. But he said Mateen was clearly "radicalized," at least in part via the internet. Family members of victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting hug outside a family reunification center set up at the Beardall Senior Center, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) Comey said the bureau is also trying to determine whether Mateen had recently scouted Disney World as a potential target, as reported by People.com, which cited an unidentified federal law enforcement source. "We're still working through that," Comey said. The FBI chief defended the bureau's handling of Mateen during two previous investigations into his apparent terrorist sympathies. As for whether there was anything the FBI should have done differently, "so far, the honest answer is, I don't think so," Comey said. Despite Mateen's pledge of fealty to the Islamic State, a murky combination of other possible motives and explanations emerged, with his ex-wife saying he suffered from mental illness and his Afghan-immigrant father suggesting he may have acted out of anti-gay hatred. He said his son got angry recently about seeing two men kiss. The Orlando Sentinel and other news organizations quoted regular customers at the gay bar as saying they had seen Mateen there a number of times. "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," said Ty Smith. Smith said he saw the killer inside at least a dozen times. Wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, Mateen opened fire at Pulse Orlando early Sunday in a three-hour shooting rampage and hostage siege that ended with a SWAT team killing him. During the attack, he called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State group. At the White House, President Barack Obama said there is no clear evidence so far that Mateen was directed by the group, calling the attack an apparent example of "homegrown extremism." Obama is traveling to Orlando on Thursday to pay his respects to the victims and stand in solidarity with the community, the White House said Monday evening. More details of the bloodbath emerged, with Orlando Police Chief John Mina saying Mateen was "cool and calm" during phone calls with police negotiators. But the chief said he decided to send the SWAT team in and bash through a wall after Mateen holed up with hostages in a bathroom and began to talk about bombs and an explosive vest. "We knew there would be an imminent loss of life," Mina said. As it turned out, Mateen had no explosives with him. Five of the wounded were reported in grave condition, meaning the death toll could rise. A call went out for blood donations. In Orlando, mourners piled bouquets around a makeshift memorial, and people broke down in tears and held their hands to their faces while passing through the growing collection of flowers, candles and signs about a mile from the site of the massacre. Later Monday evening, thousands gathered near the site for a vigil held on the lawn of the Dr. Phillips Center, the area's main performing arts venue. Many in the crowd said they were inspired to attend because Pulse played a huge role in their lives as gays and lesbians. "It was a place that a young 20-year-old who wasn't openly gay felt safe for the first time," said Cathleen Daus, now 36. About 300 employees of the Red Lobster restaurant chain some in business suits, some in chef's uniforms emerged from the company's corporate headquarters and walked two-by-two across the street to the memorial, each carrying a red or white carnation. "We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater," vowed Mayor Buddy Dyer, whose city of a quarter-million people is known around the globe as the home of Walt Disney World and other theme parks. The tragedy hit the city's gay and Hispanic communities especially hard. It was Latino Night at the club when the attack occurred. "As the names come out, they are overwhelmingly Latino and Hispanic names," said Christina Hernandez, a Hispanic activist. "These were not just victims of the LBGT community, but of the Hispanic community, as well. This was senseless bloodshed." Mateen's grasp of the differences between Islamic extremist groups appeared shaky. During three calls with 911 dispatchers, Mateen not only professed allegiance to ISIS but also expressed solidarity with a suicide bomber from the Syrian rebel group Nusra Front, and a few years ago he claimed connections to Hezbollah, too both ISIS enemies, according to Comey. The FBI became aware of Mateen in 2013 when co-workers reported that the private security guard claimed to have family connections to al-Qaida and to be a member of Hezbollah, too, Comey said. He was also quoted as saying he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so that he could martyr himself. The FBI launched a 10-month preliminary investigation, following Mateen, reviewing his communications and questioning him, the FBI chief said. Mateen claimed he made the remarks in anger because co-workers were teasing him and discriminating against him as a Muslim, and the FBI eventually closed the case, Comey said. His name surfaced again as part of another investigation into the Nusra Front bomber. The FBI found Mateen and the man had attended the same mosque and knew each other casually, but the investigation turned up "no ties of any consequence," Comey said. Mateen was added to a terror watch list in 2013 when he was investigated, but was taken off it soon after the matter was closed, according to Comey. People who are in that database are not automatically barred from buying guns, and in any case Mateen purchased his weapons in June, long after he was removed from the list. On Sunday, the bloodshed started after Mateen approached the club around 2 a.m., exchanged fire with an off-duty officer working security, and then went inside and started gunning people down, police said. After two other officers arrived and exchanged gunfire with Mateen, the gunman holed up in a restroom with about five club-goers. An additional 15 to 20 were in another nearby bathroom, authorities said. Hostage negotiators began talking to Mateen. After Mateen began to talk about explosives, Mina made the decision around 5 a.m. to blow open a wall to the bathroom. The explosives didn't penetrate the wall completely, so an armored vehicle was used to punch a 2-by-3-foot hole. Dozens of people escaped, and Mateen was gunned down as he emerged through the hole, police said. The Islamic State's radio hailed the attack and called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." But it gave no indication the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Counterterrorism experts have been warning in the past few years about the danger of so-called lone wolf attackers who act in sympathy with extremist groups like the Islamic State but are not directed by them. Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters that the massacre was "the act of a terrorist," and added: "I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are." He wouldn't go into details about any religious or political views his son held, saying he didn't know. Asked whether he missed his son, he said: "I don't miss anything about him. What he did was against humanity." ___ Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, Mike Schneider and Tamara Lush in Orlando and photographers Chris O'Meara in Orlando and Alan Diaz in Fort Pierce, Florida, contributed to this report. The American and gay pride flags fly at half-mast over the LGBT Community Center of Central Florida, Monday, June 13, 2016. The Center is a gay-rights support group in Orlando, located about 4 miles from the Pulse nightclub where the massacre occurred on Sunday. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT Family members of victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting walk out of the Orlando Medical Examiner's Office, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who authorities say killed dozens of people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (MySpace via AP) Brett Crowe, right, sits with friend Myron McCullough, down the street from the scene of the fatal shooting at a nightclub Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Crowe was supposed to go the club the night of the shooting but decided in the last minute he didn't want to drive. (AP Photo/David Goldman) Orlando, Fla., Mayor Buddy Dyer reads details of the fatal shootings at Pulse Orlando nightclub during a media briefing Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Looking on is Florida Gov. Rick Scott at right. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) In this photo made from video, Seddique Mir Mateen speaks to reporters about his son Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, the killer, who died in a gun battle early Sunday with a SWAT team, Monday, June 13, 2016, at his home in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The last of the bodies were removed from an Orlando gay nightclub overnight as investigators dug into the background of the gunman, who called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State during the attack that left 49 victims dead. (AP Photo/APTN) Orlando Police Chief John Mina describes the details of the fatal shootings at the Pulse Orlando nightclub during a media briefing Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) People embrace at a vigil in Seattle for the victims of a mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Genna Martin/seattlepi.com via AP) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; SEATTLE TIMES OUT; TV OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT Aidan Wood, left, her mother, Lisa Laughman and Karen Pace console each other at a vigil for the mass shootings in Orlando, Fla., in Lansing, Mich., Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Robert Killips/Lansing State Journal via AP) Family members, center, of victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting are escorted out by volunteers as they leave a family reunification center set up at the Beardall Senior Center, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux) Josh Mercer wears a T-shirt Monday, June 13, 2016, in honor of two of his friends who were killed during a fatal shooting at Pulse Orlando nightclub in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) President Barack Obama pauses while speaking to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2016, after getting briefed on the investigation of a shooting at a nightclub in Orlando by FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and other officials. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Krystle Martin cries as she speaks to the media near a makeshift memorial for the fatal shootings at Pulse Orlando nightclub, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Law enforcement officials confer near the Pulse Orlando nightclub before sunrise Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Pulse Orlando was the scene of a mass fatal shooting early Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Greg Larsen writes a message on a banner Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla., to one of his friends killed during a fatal shooting at Pulse Orlando nightclub. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Florida Gov. Rick Scott reacts as he listens to the details of the fatal shootings at Pulse Orlando nightclub during a media briefing Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Several hundred supporters, led by Laura Kanter, at right, marched to Sasscer Park after a vigil at Calle Cuatro Plaza in support of the Orlando shooting victims Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Santa Ana, Calif. (Kevin Sullivan/The Orange County Register via AP) Don Haller, left, and Frank Thompson of Laguna Niguel pray for the victims of Orlando nightclub shooting at Main Street Bar in Laguna Beach, Calif., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Kyusung Gong/The Orange County Register via AP) Exchange of fire at Afghan-Pakistani border crossing kills 1 PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) Afghan border guards and Pakistani security forces exchanged fresh rounds of artillery Monday after an overnight exchange of gunfire at a border crossing killed one Afghan guard and wounded 19 people on both sides, officials said. Mohammad Ali Hazarat, the head of the provincial council in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, said the Pakistani army resumed firing artillery and Afghan forces responded in kind. The Torkham crossing was closed following the incident and talks were underway to defuse the situation and reopen it. Ghuncha Gul, a Pakistani official in the region, said earlier that the Afghan side started shooting late the previous night when construction work began on a new gate on the Pakistani side. He said the gunfire ended around 4 a.m. but that the Afghans started firing artillery rounds hours later, and that the exchange of fire was continuing. He said four guards and nine civilians were wounded on the Pakistani side. Gen. Zarawar Zahid, police chief of Nangarhar, said one Afghan security officer was killed and six were wounded. He said Pakistani forces opened fire after the Afghans asked them to stop work at the gate, which he claimed is located on no-man's land. Afghanistan does not recognize the present boundary, the so-called Durand Line, as an international border, and has denounced Pakistan's plans to erect a fence at the crossing. The Pakistani military said it is "constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessary measure to check for unwanted and illegal movement." Islamabad summoned Afghanistan's charge d'affaires on Monday to complain about the incident, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said. Last month, the Torkham crossing was closed over a similar incident and reopened only after an understanding was reached at a meeting between Pakistani army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif and Afghan Ambassador Omar Zakhilwal. The father of Omar Mateen, the American of Afghan heritage who allegedly carried out the mass shooting early Sunday in an Orlando gay bar, referenced the border dispute in a Facebook posting early Monday in which he spoke of his son as a "nice" man. Seddique Mateen, who is believed to have moved from Afghanistan to the United States some three decades ago, said Afghan security forces were battling Pakistan's intelligence service, known by its acronym ISI, at the border. He blamed the dispute on Pakistan but did not elaborate further. ___ As young man, gunman worked ordinary jobs and got married FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) Like many other young American men, Omar Mateen worked a series of unremarkable jobs during and after high school a Publix grocery store, Circuit City, Chick-Fil-A and Walgreens. He graduated in 2003 and jumped through a series of jobs related to nutrition and health, working at Nutrition World, Gold's Gym and a GNC store. He worked for six months at a state prison. And an early marriage faltered. This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who authorities say killed dozens of people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (MySpace via AP) But eventually he found some form of stability with a job as a security guard in South Florida, where he was still working when he stormed a gay nightclub early Sunday in Orlando, resulting in the deaths of 49 people and the wounding of 53 more. He died in a gunfight with police. It remained unclear exactly why Mateen targeted the club. However, one patron told The Orlando Sentinel he saw Mateen drinking at the bar several times before the shooting. Ty Smith said he saw Mateen inside at least a dozen times. "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," Smith said. Mateen, 29, spent most of his childhood on Florida's Atlantic coast and lived there as an adult, not far from his parents. Born in the New York City borough of Queens in 1986, he moved with his family to the Long Island town of Westbury two years later and then in 1991 to Port Saint Lucie, Florida, about 125 miles southeast of Orlando. Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman of the city's Islamic Center said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a boy and never saw any signs of violence in him. The Orlando attack, he said, "was totally unexpected." But one colleague at the security contractor G4S, his most recent employer, remembered the son of Afghan immigrants as an angry, profane co-worker who used slurs and threatened violence. Daniel Gilroy said Mateen started badgering him and sending dozens of text messages to him daily, and that he reported Mateen's behavior to his bosses. "I kind of feel a little guilty that I didn't fight harder," Gilroy said. "If I didn't walk away and I fought, then maybe 50 people would still be alive today." Gilroy told multiple news outlets that Mateen routinely used slurs for gay people, blacks, Jews and women. "He talked about killing people all the time," Gilroy told The New York Times. Of the massacre, Gilroy said, "I saw it coming." G4S denied Gilroy's claims, saying in a statement Monday that it had no record of Gilroy ever making such a complaint to his superiors. Furthermore, the company said, Gilroy told officials shortly after leaving in June 2015: "The work and job assignments were respectful and co-workers were good men and women that put in an honest day's work and genuinely like to work as a team and contribute." A woman who said she was once a neighbor of Mateen's said the security company assigned him to guard the back entrance of PGA Village, a golf resort in Port St. Lucie. Tricia Adorno said her children would sometimes play ball with Mateen's young son. A spokesman for the St. Lucie County clerk of court said Mateen had once been assigned to the clerk's building and was issued a credential. Joseph Abreu said Mateen last used the credential to access the building in May 2013. In a statement, G4S said Mateen had been subject to a detailed screening when he was recruited in 2007 and was re-screened in 2013 "with no adverse findings." Mateen graduated with a degree in criminal-justice technology from Indian River Community College in 2006, the same year he changed his name from Omar Mir Seddique to Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, according to civil court records in St. Lucie County. The papers listed no reason for the name change. His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said her former husband wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Florida Department of Corrections spokesman Alberto Moscoso said Mateen had worked at the Martin Correctional Institution in Indiantown, Florida, from Oct. 27, 2006, to April 27, 2007. In September 2007, he was hired by G4S, a global security firm that has 610,000 employees in about 100 countries. Yusufiy told reporters in Boulder, Colorado, that she believed Mateen suffered from mental illness. Although records show the couple didn't divorce for two years after their 2009 marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually with Mateen for only four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come literally pull her out of his arms. Divorce papers reveal that Mateen made $1,600 a month working for G4S and that she earned $3,000 a month as a real estate agent. It's unclear when Mateen married his second wife, Noor Salman, but an Aug. 30, 2013, property deed in Saint Lucie County identified them as a married couple. Family members said the pair had a young son about 3 years old. On Monday, the FBI said Mateen appeared to be a "homegrown extremist" who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic radical groups. During the attack, he called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State group. FBI Director James Comey said Mateen was clearly "radicalized," at least in part via the internet. The FBI became aware of him in 2013 when co-workers reported that he claimed to have family connections to al-Qaida and to be a member of Hezbollah, too, Comey said. The agency launched a 10-month preliminary investigation, following Mateen, reviewing his communications and questioning him, the FBI chief said. Mateen claimed he made the remarks in anger because co-workers were teasing him and discriminating against him as a Muslim. The FBI eventually closed the case, Comey said. His name surfaced again as part of another investigation into a suicide bomber from the Syrian rebel group Nusra Front. The FBI found Mateen and the man had attended the same mosque and knew each other casually, but the investigation turned up "no ties of any consequence," Comey said. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He attended evening prayer services at Port St. Lucie's Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his son, Rahman said. The imam said he last saw Mateen on Friday. "When he finished prayer, he would just leave," Rahman told The Associated Press. "He would not socialize with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful." On Monday, the shooter's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, said what his son did "was the act of a terrorist." "I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are," he told reporters outside his home. He did not go into details about his son's religious or political views, insisting he did not know. Asked whether he missed his son, the father said: "I don't miss anything about him. What he did was against humanity." ___ Weiss reported from Charlotte, North Carolina. AP writer Brendan Farrington contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to show that Gilroy, not Mateen, made the statement to the company about respectful workers. This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who authorities say killed dozens of people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (MySpace via AP) Apple makes Siri smarter, rolls out software improvements SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Apple is working to make its iPhone and other gadgets smarter, responding to competitors' recent moves by building more artificial intelligence into its Siri digital assistant, photos, maps and other online services. The tech giant kicked off its annual software conference by announcing new software features for the Apple Watch and Apple TV, as well, while unveiling a new design for the Apple Music service. It's also extending Apple Pay to the web, so users can pay for purchases made on their Mac computers using the fingerprint authorization on their iPhone or Apple Watch. Most of these new features won't arrive until this fall. At a time when sales of its flagship iPhone are slowing, Apple seemed determined to show that it can make its gadgets indispensable, or at least as useful as its competitors' products. Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, demos iOS10 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) THINKING FAST AND SLOW Still, the tech giant is taking a cautious approach to integrating computer intelligence into its online services. While Apple is opening its text messaging service to outside app-builders, for instance, Apple made no mention of adding the kind of intelligent programs, or "chatbots ," that competitors are all rushing to build into their messaging platforms. Apple executives also stressed their efforts to safeguard users' privacy even while providing recommendations and suggestions based on individual user information. The company says it's committed to keeping most user data encrypted on individual iPhones or other devices, rather than uploading information to process on Apple's servers. Experts say that can make it more difficult to analyze information and provide useful services, but Apple says its software can still be helpful. Apple's once-maligned Maps service, for example, will offer traffic information, location-based restaurants for things like restaurants, and let users connect with outside apps to do things like make a reservation or call a car service. For some features, however, Apple says it's starting to upload some user data to analyze for broader trends or patterns, but it vowed that information will be "anonymized." "We believe you should have great features and great privacy," said senior vice president Craig Federighi. MAKING SIRI SMARTER Apple's wisecracking digital assistant will play a larger role in the company's products. On Monday, Apple announced that Siri will be coming to Mac desktop and laptop computers, where it can locate files and perform other feats. Siri will also gain new capabilities with Apple TV, where it will let you launch live TV viewing with voice command and search YouTube and the iTunes store for videos. Perhaps more important, Apple is letting Siri work with applications made by other companies. The change will open up new ways for Siri to help iPhone owners get things done more quickly. Such AI features are emerging as a major new tech battleground , one where Apple is racing to catch up with other virtual assistants from Google and Amazon. Amazon's assistant, Alexa, is enjoying a surge in popularity, partly because it works well with a variety of other applications. Outside developers are eager to work with Siri, according to Jordan Edelson, CEO of independent app-builder Appetizer Mobile. "It could really change the way that apps are built and how customers experience them," he said. But the move has trade-offs for Apple. Experts say the changes could make Siri more useful to consumers and help Apple learn more about its users. But it could diminish use of Apple's homegrown apps, such as Apple Music or Maps. To start, Siri will only work with certain kinds of outside apps, like messaging, payments or ride-hailing services. APPS GET SCHOOLED Apple's AI improvements aren't restricted to Siri. An update to the iMessage app, for instance, will rely on machine learning to automatically suggest appropriate emoji to place alongside texts. It will also show graphics and thumbnails of the information contained in a web link and automatically play online videos when they're opened by a recipient. Apple's photo app will also get smarter. It's adding the ability to analyze an individual's photo library and group photos by people, locations or other subjects, automatically assembling them into albums and short movies. It's similar to a feature that Google has offered users of its photo app, but with some new frills, like the ability to adjust the length of the album or select different kinds of theme music. As sales of iPhones and other smartphones slow, it's especially important for Apple to keep its software and online services fresh, said Brian Blau, a tech analyst with the Gartner research firm. That's why, he said, Monday's announcements were all about "software and services, fast and furious." NEW COATS OF PAINT Other changes were more aesthetic. The messaging app, for instance, will let users alter the size of the bubbles surrounding the text to help convey the feelings underlying the words. An expression of love might get a large bubble while a message of condolence might be shown in a very small one. The feature is similar to an upcoming Google messaging app called Allo. Both are expected in a few months. Apple Music, which now has 15 million paying subscribers, is getting a new interface that's intended to be simpler and that will make it easier to find music you store on your phone, and not just tunes you can stream from the internet. Apple's watch, the company's first new product since Cook replaced co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, also got a face-lift. The retooled watch software, due in September, will include an "SOS" feature that will automatically call for help in emergencies. It will launch software apps faster than before, and will also bring fitness tracking to wheelchair-bound users and let all users share their exercise activities with others people. ___ AP reporters Barbara Ortutay and Bree Fowler in New York, Michael Liedtke in San Francisco, and Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Follow Brandon Bailey at https://Twitter.com/BrandonBailey or find his reporting at http://www.bigstory.ap.org/journalist/brandon-bailey Apple CEO Tim Cook observes a moment of silence in remembrance of the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Monday, June 13, 2016, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) FILE - In this Oct. 4, 2011, file photo, Apple's Phil Schiller talks about Siri during an announcement at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. Apples Siri made a big splash when the wisecracking digital assistant debuted in 2011. But as its competitors jockey to build intelligent chat bots and voice-controlled home systems capable of more challenging artificial-intelligence feats, Siri at times no longer seems cutting edge. On Monday, June 13, 2016, Apple is expected to demonstrate how much smarter Siri can get as it kicks off its annual software conference. Its a potentially momentous time for the company; sales of its flagship iPhone are slowing, and AI is emerging as a key tech battleground. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File) Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, speaks about macOS at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, speaks at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) The Latest: Obama going to Orlando to pay respect to victims ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) The Latest on the deadly shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. (all times local): 9:00 p.m. The White House says President Barack Obama will travel to Orlando on Thursday to pay respects to the victims of Sunday's nightclub shooting and to stand in solidarity with the community. Brett Crowe, right, sits with friend Myron McCullough, down the street from the scene of the fatal shooting at a nightclub Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Crowe was supposed to go the club the night of the shooting but decided in the last minute he didn't want to drive. (AP Photo/David Goldman) The White House did not provide more details about the trip. Obama had canceled what was to be his first campaign event with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the wake of the shooting at a gay nightclub that killed 49 and wounded dozens more. That event was scheduled for Wednesday. Obama has called the shooting an act of terrorism and an act of hate. He notes that the site of the shooting was more than a nightclub. He says it's a place where people came to raise awareness, speak their minds and advocate for their civil rights. ___ 8:50 p.m. The security company that employed the Orlando nightclub gunman says it has no record of a co-worker's complaints that the shooter was angry, profane and threatened violence. The company, G4S, says in a statement Monday that it has no record of any complaint by Daniel Gilroy against Omar Mateen. Mateen died in a gun battle with police after a mass shooting that left 49 people. Gilroy told The New York Times that Mateen started badgering him and sending dozens of text messages to him daily, and that he reported Mateen's behavior to his bosses. However, G4S says Gilroy told company officials in June 2015, shortly after he left the firm, that his co-workers were "good men and women that put in an honest day's work and genuinely like to work as a team and contribute." ___ 8:30 p.m. Thousands of people gathered in downtown Orlando for a vigil to support the victims and survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting. Many in the crowd Monday evening say they were inspired to attend because Pulse played a huge role in their lives as gays and lesbians. Cathleen Daus, now 36 says, "It was a place that a young 20-year-old who wasn't openly gay felt safe for the first time." She worked at Pulse in her twenties. "Pulse gave me confidence, made me realize I was normal and so much like everyone else." The vigil was held on the lawn of the Dr. Phillips Center, the area's main performing arts venue. It's also the location of a makeshift memorial, where folks have been leaving flowers, candles and notes for the victims. ___ 8:15 p.m. A regular at the club that became the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history say they saw the gunman there drinking on several occasions before the massacre. Ty Smith told The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/235LohN ) that he had seen 29-year-old Omar Mateen at the gay bar, Pulse. Smith says Mateen would sit and drink by himself, getting loud and belligerent. Smith says he did not talk to Mateen much, but that Mateen mentioned having a wife and child. Authorities say Mateen's rampage left 49 people dead. He was killed in a gun battle with police. ___ 7 p.m. Target stores across the U.S. are going silent Tuesday to honor two employees, one who worked at the retailer and another who worked at a Starbucks inside the store. A third Target employee who works at an in-store coffee shop remains in critical condition as a result of the nightclub shooting early Sunday. The employees slain in the attack were Mercedez Marisol Flores and Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo. Family and friends say the 26-year-old Flores worked at an Orlando-area Target while attending community college in hopes of becoming a party planner. The 20-year-old Ocasio-Capo worked at a Starbucks shop inside a Kissimmee Target store while studying theater. His sister says he would've been auditioning for a play Tuesday. The name of the worker in critical condition wasn't released. ___ 6:45 p.m. More than 20 Hispanic organizations from Florida and across the country held a "solidarity" news conference in Orlando to call attention to the many Latinos killed or injured in the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Calling themselves "Somos Orlando" or "We are Orlando," the groups said Monday they were uniting with LGBT groups to help the families of the 49 people killed and 53 injured in Sunday's attack. Hispanic activist Christina Hernandez said everyone is coping with the attack. Although there is no specific count, the list of victims is dominated by those with Hispanic surnames, many of whom are presumed to have ties to Puerto Rico. In recent years, central Florida has drawn thousands of Puerto Ricans escaping the economic crisis on the island. About one in four Orlando residents is Hispanic. ___ 6:15 p.m. The city of Orlando has released the names of eleven officers who fired at the nightclub shooter. Most of the officers are with the SWAT team that stormed the Pulse nightclub after Omar Mateen took people inside hostage. The officers range in experience from about 25 years to two years with the Orlando Police Department. One officer on the list was Michael Napolitano, who was shot in his Kevlar helmet, but survived. A photo of the helmet has been widely circulated online. ___ The United Nations Security Council is condemning "in the strongest terms" the terrorist attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend that left 49 people dead. France's U.N. ambassador Francois Delattre, the security council president for June, told reporters that council members expressed their "deepest sympathies and condolences" to the families of the victims and to the United States. Delattre said that "any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable," regardless of their motivation. Investigators are looking into the background of 29-year-old Omar Mateen for clues to why the American-born Muslim carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. ___ 5 p.m. The U.S. is calling on all 193 members of the United Nations to not only condemn the terrorism that resulted in the mass killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida over the weekend, but also to protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from such attacks. Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. David Pressman, speaking at the election of Fiji Ambassador Peter Thomson to the post of 71st General Assembly president, said protecting the dignity of all human beings should be at the heart of the General Assembly's work going forward. He said outrage at the killing should be directed at protecting members of the LGBT community "not just around condemning the terrorists who kill them." ___ JetBlue Airways says it is providing free seats when available on flights to and from Orlando, Florida, for immediate family and domestic partners of people who were killed or injured in the weekend shooting at an Orlando nightclub. The airline is also waiving ticket-change fees for customers booked on flights to or from Orlando. New York-based JetBlue is one of the largest airlines at Orlando International Airport, with about 14 percent of the market, according to Department of Transportation figures. The airline also has a training center there. The airline is not sure how long the free travel will last because they are still learning funeral dates. ___ 4:45 p.m. Three members of Congress are downplaying their encounters with the father of the gunman at the Orlando gay nightclub, calling the meetings short and insignificant. Three separate, grainy photos posted on Facebook by Seddique Mir Mateen show him standing next to Reps. Ed Royce, R-Calif., Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y. Mateen came to the U.S. from Afghanistan three decades ago and has made a series of rambling political videos about his former homeland. Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Monday he met with Mateen about a year and a half ago. Royce said he vaguely recalled a discussion about Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, but he described the meeting as "brief and inconsequential." Rohrabacher said Mateen "paid a visit" to his office in November 2014, but he doesn't recall any specifics. Hannah Kim, Rangel's spokeswoman, said the congressman didn't meet with Mateen and doesn't remember the encounter. Kim said the photo with Rangel was taken on the day of President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech in 2015 when "strangers constantly stop members for a photo in the hallways." ___ 4:30 p.m. The owner of a gun store where the Orlando nightclub shooter bought his weapons says the gunman passed a full background check and that if he hadn't bought the guns from him, he would've purchased them somewhere else. Ed Henson is the owner of the St. Lucie Shooting Center. He told reporters during a news conference Monday outside his business that Omar Mateen legally purchased a long gun and a handgun about a week or so ago but he didn't know on exactly what days. He said they weren't bought on the same day. Henson says Mateen had two security licenses, an armed one and an unarmed one. Henson says he is sorry this "evil person" bought the guns from his store. ___ 3:25 p.m. Mexico's president says three people killed in the Orlando nightclub attack were citizens of his country, and a fourth was wounded but is in stable condition. President Enrique Pena Nieto also says his government is assisting families of the victims of what is the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Christina Hernandez, a Hispanic activist who spoke Monday during a gathering at Hispanic Federation office, noted that the victims' names are overwhelmingly Latino and Hispanic. She says the victims were part of the LBGT community and the Hispanic community. ___ 3 p.m. The head of the FBI and the Homeland Security secretary will brief members of the House on Tuesday about the deadly shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. Speaker Paul Ryan's office said he requested a members-only classified briefing. The briefers will be FBI Director James Comey, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and NCTC Director Nick Rasmussen. The briefing comes after a gunman attacked a gay nightclub early Sunday. That attack left 50 people dead, including the shooter. ___ 2:40 p.m. The FBI's director says the agency is trying to determine whether the Orlando nightclub shooter had recently scouted Walt Disney World and other locations as potential targets. Director James Comey made the comments at a Monday news conference about the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. When asked whether Disney and other locations had been scouted, Comey said, "We're still working through that." He also said he wasn't in a position to comment further. People.com, citing an unnamed federal law enforcement source, reported that Omar Mateen had recently scouted the theme park. The report says he visited with his wife. People.com said representatives for Walt Disney World didn't immediately return calls seeking comment. ___ 2:30 p.m. There will be a minute's silence in all European Championship fan zones at 2:30 p.m. EDT Monday to honor the 49 people killed at an Orlando nightclub. The Paris town hall press office says in a statement that the moment of silence will be a mark of support for the victims, their relatives and the American people as a whole. The office says "the tribute will also be the occasion to reaffirm values of freedom, tolerance, living-together and sharing, which play a fundamental role in the world of football and sports." ___ 2:15 p.m. The FBI says the gunman who attacked a gay nightclub in Orlando called the Boston Marathon bombers his "homeboys." Harold Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston division, said Monday that Omar Mateen made the reference to brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev during a 911 call he made early Sunday while he was shooting people in the Pulse nightclub. Shaw and Massachusetts state police say evidence collected so far shows no connection between Mateen and the Tsarnaev brothers. The Tsarnaevs planted two bombs near the finish line of the marathon on April 15, 2013. The explosions killed three people and injured more than 260. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a getaway attempt several days later. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for his role in the bombings. ___ 2 p.m. OneBlood officials continue to urge people to donate blood in the wake of the Orlando nightclub massacre. Potential donors are asked to make appointments at their local blood banks. OneBlood officials posted videos on Facebook showing snacks and beverages donated for people waiting in long lines to give blood. Spokeswoman Stephanie Zaurin says donors are coming "in record numbers." U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Tara Goodin said in an email to The Associated Press that the Interorganizational Disaster Task Force met Sunday and ensured that all immediate needs for blood were met. Goodwin said the agency appreciated the widespread desire to donate blood after the shooting. She said scheduling appointments to donate blood "will help replenish the blood supply in an organized manner, without overwhelming the system." ___ U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is writing to the governor of Florida and the mayor of Orlando to convey his condolences at "the horrific and hateful act of terror" that targeted the LGBT community. Ban, a strong supporter of LGBT rights, said "such violence is despicable, and contrary to the values of equality, peace and mutual respect that underpin the United Nations," spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday. In the letters to Gov. Rick Scott and Mayor Buddy Dyer, the U.N. chief said "at this time of shock and sorrow, the United Nations stands in solidarity with the families of the victims and with the people of the United States," according to Dujarric. Ban condemned the attack in a statement on Sunday. ___ 1:30 p.m. FBI Director James Comey says the Orlando nightclub shooter espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic organizations. He said that shooter called 911 during the attack and not only pledged loyalty to the Islamic State but also expressed solidarity with the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing and a suicide bomber who died on behalf of the al-Nusra front, a group at odds with the Islamic State. Comey says in the past few years, the gunman also expressed support for both al-Qaida and its enemy Hezbollah. The FBI investigated Omar Mateen for 10 months beginning in May 2013 after he was said to have inflammatory remarks in support of terrorists. Comey said investigators introduced him to confidential sources, followed him and reviewed some of his communications, but Mateen claimed he made the remarks in anger because co-workers were teasing and discriminating against him because he was Muslim. As for whether the FBI should have done anything differently, Comey says so far he doesn't think so. ___ 1:10 p.m. Hospital officials say they are "very optimistic" that the nightclub shooting victims being treated at Orlando Regional Medical Center will recover. Orlando Health officials tweeted Monday that they no longer need to give "major amounts of blood" to shooting victims. The hospital says many survivors had "multiple high-velocity" gunshot wounds and many in the intensive care unit no longer need ventilators to breathe. The hospital holds weekly trauma simulations, along with periodic large-scale, city-wide simulations. Officials say the training left the hospital well-stocked for mass casualties. The trauma medical director, Dr. Joseph Ibrahim, says the only thing he would change is that more victims could have gotten to the hospital sooner so that that they could have saved more people. ___ The world's largest body of Muslim-majority nations has condemned the mass shooting in Orlando but also warned against "political campaigning and self-serving agendas" in the wake of the tragedy. The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation said in a statement Monday that "the massacre, as terrible as it is, must not be taken out of its context as a domestic American case." The organization says it is concerned that "hasty judgment" and "Islamophobic discourse" have emerged before a full investigation into the motivations and causes of the attack that killed 49 people. The organization also conveyed its condolences to the families of the victims of "this horrible act." It says the teachings of Islam are based on peace and tolerance, and that terrorism is a crime against humanity. ___ Two men have been detained outside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during a vigil for the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting. People have been bringing flowers and rainbow flags to the embassy in central Moscow to show their solidarity with the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history since early morning. An Associated Press reporter on Monday saw two young men take out a placard saying "Love wins" before police officers came up to them and took them away. Russia passed a controversial law in 2013, banning the so-called propaganda of gay relationships among minors, which authorities have used to ban any public displays of support for the gay community. ___ 12:55 p.m. FBI Director James Comey says the gunman in the Orlando nightclub attack that killed 49 people had "strong indications of radicalization" and was likely inspired by foreign terrorist organizations. Comey told reporters Monday that Omar Mateen spoke with a 911 operator three times early Sunday morning. Mateen pledged loyalty to the head of the Islamic State group on his last call. The FBI investigated Mateen for 10 months beginning in May 2013. Comey said investigators introduced him to confidential sources, followed him and reviewed details of some of his communications. The early Sunday attack marked the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Mateen died in a gun battle with police. ___ A vigil will be held Monday night in Orlando for the 49 victims of a gay nightclub massacre. The group Equality Florida says it has been working with the city to make sure the event at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center, just about a mile from the Pulse nightclub, will be safe. Mayor Buddy Dyer will speak at the vigil. ___ A Democratic congressman says he's done with the moments of silence typically held on the House floor after mass shootings. Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes says he will leave the House floor during the traditional moment if Republican leaders schedule one to honor 49 people who died in an attack at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning. In a series of tweets Sunday, Himes says the silence doesn't honor victims, but mocks them. He calls the observances an "abomination" and says he will not be silent. He and other Democrats have complained about the moments of silence as Republicans and some Democrats have remained opposed to additional gun controls. Himes says in an interview Monday that he plans to talk to Democratic colleagues about leaving the floor and honoring the victims in another way. ___ 12:45 p.m. A steady stream of people is filing through a makeshift memorial about a mile from the gay Orlando nightclub where 49 victims were killed in the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history. The makeshift memorial had about 25 bouquets of flowers and a growing collection of candles by Monday morning. One married couple, Josh and James Mercer, left a poster with the hashtags "#onelove, #oneheart, #onepulse" and the illustration of a medical pulse. Josh Mercer says two of their friends died in the shooting. Others who approached the memorial were emotional, breaking down in tears or holding their hands to their faces in prayer. ___ 12:20 p.m. Court documents reveal new details about the life of the Orlando nightclub shooter. The documents are in relation to Omar Mateen's petition to legally change his name in 2006, the same year he graduated from Indian River Community College. The documents released Monday detail Mateen's various jobs and say he was born in Queens, New York, and moved to Port Saint Lucie in 1991. Between 2001 and 2006, he worked at eight jobs, including a Publix grocery store, Circuit City, Chick-Fil-A and a Walgreens drug store. Then his jobs begin focusing more on vitamins and health. He worked at Nutrition World in Fort Pierce, Gold's Gym and a GNC store in a mall. The records show that he changed his name from Omar Mir Seddique to Omar Mir Seddique Mateen. The documents don't say why he changed his name. The 29-year-old Mateen was killed after he attacked a gay nightclub early Sunday. Forty-nine other people died in the attack. ___ 12 p.m. Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry says Orlando shooter Omar Mateen visited the kingdom twice to perform an Islamic pilgrimage. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press in a text message Monday that Mateen first visited Saudi Arabia for 10 days in March 2011 and again a year later in March 2012 for eight days. Mateen had performed what is known as the umrah pilgrimage, a series of religious rites carried out in Mecca by millions of Muslims from around the world each year. This pilgrimage is shorter than the annual hajj. Most pilgrims will also travel to the nearby city of Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried and where he built the first mosque. ___ 11:45 a.m. Hospital officials say five people are still in "grave condition" after they were wounded in the attack at an Orlando nightclub. Orlando Regional Medical Center says 29 people are still at the hospital and a number of patients remain critically ill and in shock. Six more surgeries on the victims are scheduled for Monday, a day after a gunman opened fire inside a gay nightclub. The attack left 50 people dead, including the shooter. ___ 11:30 a.m. President Barack Obama says there's no clear evidence that the shooter at an Orlando nightclub was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot. He says it appears the shooter was inspired by extremist information disseminated over the internet. Obama says the investigation is at the preliminary stages and is being treated as a terrorism investigation. He says the attack appears to be similar to last year's shooting spree in San Bernardino, California. The president says investigators are still looking into the motivations of the shooter, including the fact that the shooting took place at a gay venue. Obama spoke in the Oval Office after getting briefed on the investigation by FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other officials. ___ 11:15 a.m. The father of the Orlando nightclub shooter is calling his son's massacre "the act of a terrorist." Seddique Mir Mateen gave a statement to reporters and answered a few questions Monday at his home in Port St. Lucie, Florida. On Sunday, the father suggested that his son's anti-gay hatred may have led to the rampage, saying his son got angry a few months ago when he saw two men kissing in Miami. Mateen apologized for what his son did and said "I am as sad and mad as you guys are." He wouldn't go into details about any religious or political views his son held, saying he didn't know. ___ 10:45 a.m. Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama led a minute of silent prayer for the tragedy in Orlando during a visit to Washington. Dressed in his customary saffron robes, he clasped his palms together, eyes closed, in front of several hundred people Monday at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was there speaking about the role of youth leaders in resolving world conflict. The prayer came after the last of the bodies were removed from an Orlando gay nightclub. The attack left 49 victims dead. ___ Spain's King Felipe VI has sent messages of support to President Barack Obama and Florida Gov. Rick Scott condemning the "brutal attack" in Orlando and expressing the condolences of the Spanish government and people. In a telegram to the U.S. president, the king said he was "deeply affected" by what he described as "an execrable act contrary to all the principles of democratic co-existence." He reiterated Spain's firm commitment to continue cooperating closely with the U.S. for the peace and prosperity of both nations. Speaking to Spain's Telecinco television Monday, the king said it was important to stay united against the perpetrators of such attacks. ___ 10 a.m. The father of the man authorities say opened fire at a gay Florida nightclub in a massacre that left 49 victims dead says the attack goes against everything he taught his son. Speaking to reporters Monday morning, Seddique Mir Mateen the father of gunman Omar Mateen said the attack was against his principles and against what he taught his son. Seddique Mir Mateen said the family is shocked by what happened and that if he'd known what his son was planning, he would have arrested him himself. Authorities say Omar Mateen opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at a gay nightclub early Sunday before being killed in a shootout with police. Another 53 people were wounded in the shooting. ___ 7:45 a.m. Officials say they don't yet know if anyone will be charged in the massacre that left 50 dead at a gay Florida club. U.S. Attorney Lee Bentley said at a Monday morning news conference that officials have been collecting electronic and physical evidence as part of the ongoing investigation. He says, "We don't know if anyone else will be charged." He adds that officials don't believe there is a threat of imminent danger to the public. Shooter Omar Mateen was killed in the early Sunday incident. Officials say 49 victims were killed in the incident. The FBI says a total of 50 people were left dead, including Mateen. ___ 7:40 a.m. Officials are giving more details about the law enforcement response to a mass shooting that left 50 dead at a gay Florida nightclub. The officials spoke at a Monday morning news conference. Orlando police Chief John Mina says an extra officer was working at the Pulse nightclub in full uniform. The officer engaged with the shooter near an entrance. Additional officers entered, and engaged the suspect in another gunbattle. The shooter retreated to the bathroom. Mina says, "At that time we were able to save and rescue dozens and dozens of people and get them out of the club." Officers then secured everything, and the SWAT team was brought in. Mina says officers then set up for an explosive breach on the bathroom wall. Mina says he made the decision to breach the wall, which created a hole through which dozens of clubgoers were rescued. Then the suspect exited through the same hole, and engaged in another gunbattle with officers. Shooter Omar Mateen was then killed. ___ 7:30 a.m. Officials say that families of 24 of the victims from the massacre at a Florida nightclub have been notified. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer described the progress at a Monday morning news conference. He says that by 11 p.m. Sunday, all bodies of victims had been turned over to medical examiner. The massacre early Sunday left 50 dead. ___ 7:15 a.m. A former Florida police officer who says he once worked with Orlando club shooter Omar Mateen described the 29-year-old as "unstable and unhinged." Daniel Gilroy told multiple news outlets that he worked with Mateen at the G4S security company. Gilroy called him an angry, loud, profane man who used slurs for gay people, blacks, Jews and women. Gilroy said Mateen also regularly made threats of violence. Gilroy told The New York Times, "He talked about killing people all the time." And Gilroy wasn't surprised when he learned of the massacre: He said, "I saw it coming." Gilroy said Mateen started badgering him and sending dozens of text messages to him daily. Gilroy said he reported Mateen's behavior to his bosses. Gilroy says: "I kind of feel a little guilty that I didn't fight harder. If I didn't walk away and I fought, then maybe 50 people would still be alive today." ___ The item has been corrected to show the name of security company is G4S, not G45 __ 6:05 a.m. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling says one victim of the Orlando nightclub attack worked on the Harry Potter Ride at the Universal Studios theme park. The author tweeted a picture of 22-year-old Luis Vielma in a Hogwarts school tie, and said: "I can't stop crying." Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister David Cameron have sent messages of condolence from Britain for the attack, which killed 50 people at a gay nightclub. Cameron said he was "horrified" by the shooting. Buckingham Palace says the queen sent a message to President Barack Obama saying: "Prince Philip and I have been shocked by the events in Orlando. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have been affected." ___ 5:50 a.m. The Islamic State's radio has called the Orlando mass shooter "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the IS extremist group, on Monday hailed the attack that left 50 people dead, saying it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it's the worst attack on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Authorities say Omar Mateen opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at a gay nightclub early Sunday before being killed in a shootout with police. Another 53 people were wounded in the shooting. The broadcast is apparently an opportunistic statement as IS has not officially claimed responsibility for the Orlando attack. ___ 3:45 a.m. Israel's ceremonial president says the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 50 people and wounded dozens more is "as cowardly as it is abhorrent." In a letter to President Barack Obama, Reuven Rivlin says Monday that Israel stands "shoulder to shoulder with our American brothers and sisters" after the attack on the LGBT community. He sent his condolences and said there is "no comfort for those who have had their loved ones torn away from them." The Orlando attack has dominated news in Israel, which has seen a wave of Palestinian attacks in recent months. On Wednesday two Palestinian gunmen killed four people at a popular shopping and restaurant area in Tel Aviv. LGBT groups in Israel planned rallies and other support for the community in Orlando. ___ 3 a.m. Dozens of bodies were slowly removed overnight from a popular Orlando gay club after a gunman sprayed the helpless crowd with bullets in violence that killed 50 people and devastated a city famous for family-friendly theme parks. When the attacker opened fire in the early hours of Sunday morning, it interrupted an evening of drinking, dancing and drag shows at a club known for tolerance for all people. Authorities say suspect Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and fired relentlessly 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot at police. He took hostages. When the gunfire at the Pulse Orlando club finally stopped, 50 people were dead and dozens critically wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. FBI Director James Comey, right, listens to President Barack Obama, left, speak to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2016, after meeting with the FBI Director and others. Comey says the gunman in the Orlando nightclub attack that killed 49 people had "strong indications of radicalization" and was likely inspired by foreign terrorist organizations. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Two women place flowers for the victims of the fatal shootings at Pulse Orlando nightclub at a makeshift memorial Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Runners pass under the the flags flying at half-staff around the Washington Monument at daybreak in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2016. The flags were ordered to half-staff by President Barack Obama to honor the victims of the Orlando nightclub shootings. (AP Photo/J. David Ake) Don Haller, left, and Frank Thompson of Laguna Niguel pray for the victims of Orlando nightclub shooting at Main Street Bar in Laguna Beach, Calif., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Kyusung Gong/The Orange County Register via AP) Several hundred supporters, led by Laura Kanter, at right, marched to Sasscer Park after a vigil at Calle Cuatro Plaza in support of the Orlando shooting victims Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Santa Ana, Calif. (Kevin Sullivan/The Orange County Register via AP) This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who authorities say killed dozens of people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (MySpace via AP) This undated image shows Omar Mateen, who authorities say killed dozens of people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (MySpace via AP) Mourners attend a candlelight vigil in Toronto on Sunday, June 12, 2016 to honor victims of the mass shootings in Orlando. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT Family gather for shooting victims Monday, June 13, 2016, at Beardall in Orlando, just north of the shooting scene at the Pulse night club in Orlando. (Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via AP) ** LEESBURG OUT, LADY LAKE OUT , DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL OUT , TV OUT, MAGS OUT, NO SALES ** Tourists walk past a flag flown at half-mast in Epcot in Orlando on Monday, June 13, 2016. (Dewayne Bevil/Orlando Sentinel via AP) (Jacob Langston/Orlando Sentinel via AP) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT A makeshift memorial Monday, June 13, 2016 for the shooting victims is on Orange Ave. just north of the mass shooting scene at the Pulse night club in Orlando.(Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via AP) ** LEESBURG OUT, LADY LAKE OUT , DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL OUT , TV OUT, MAGS OUT, NO SALES ** In this photo made from video, Seddique Mir Mateen speaks to reporters about his son Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, the killer, who died in a gun battle early Sunday with a SWAT team, Monday, June 13, 2016, at his home in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The last of the bodies were removed from an Orlando gay nightclub overnight as investigators dug into the background of the gunman, who called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State during the attack that left 49 victims dead. (AP Photo/APTN) Media surrounds family members of victim Anthony Luis Laureano Disla arriving Monday, June 13, 2016, to Beardall Senior Center just north of the mass shooting scene at the Pulse night club in Orlando. (Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via AP) ** LEESBURG OUT, LADY LAKE OUT , DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL OUT , TV OUT, MAGS OUT, NO SALES ** Two women place flowers for the victims of the fatal shootings at Pulse Orlando nightclub at a makeshift memorial Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Krystle Martin cries as she speaks to the media near a makeshift memorial for the fatal shootings at Pulse Orlando nightclub, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara) Tatiana Osorio, of Orlando, cries while giving blood at the OneBlood blood center near the mass shooting at a nightclub Monday, June 13, 2016, in Orlando, Fla. Osorio lost three friends in the shooting. (AP Photo/David Goldman) President Barack Obama, center, speaks to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2016, after getting briefed on the investigation of a shooting at a nightclub in Orlando by FBI Director James Comey, right, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, left, and Vice President Joe Biden. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) President Barack Obama pauses while speaking to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, June 13, 2016, after getting briefed on the investigation of a shooting at a nightclub in Orlando by FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and other officials. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) For-profit college watchdog under federal scrutiny BOSTON (AP) Federal education officials are deciding whether to shut down the nation's biggest accreditor of for-profit colleges over allegations that it overlooked deception by some of its schools. The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools is meant to be a watchdog for hundreds of for-profit schools, wielding the stamp of approval that colleges need to receive federal money. It's one of many accreditors authorized by the U.S. Education Department to ensure the quality of schools. But the nonprofit is being accused of employing lax standards and failing to stop schools from preying on students. Institutions that have operated under the group's certification include the Corinthian College chain, which closed in 2015 amid fraud allegations, and the ITT Technical Institute chain, which now faces federal charges of fraud. Even after the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began investigating both in 2013, the council found no major problems during its own reviews. In 2014, it included two Corinthian schools on its annual "honor roll." FILE - In this July 8, 2014 file photo, a woman walks past the Everest Institute in Silver Spring, Md., owned by Corinthian Colleges. Federal education officials are deciding whether to shut down the nations biggest accreditor of for-profit colleges over allegations that it overlooked deception by its schools. The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools is meant to be a watchdog for hundreds of for-profit schools, wielding the stamp of approval that colleges need to receive federal money. Institutions that have operated under the groups certification include the Corinthian College chain, which closed in 2015 amid fraud allegations, and the ITT Technical Institute chain, which now faces federal charges of fraud. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) "If accrediting agencies aren't willing to stand up against colleges that are breaking the law, colleges that are cheating their students, then I don't know what good they do, and I sure don't know why we would let them determine which colleges are eligible for federal dollars," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said at a congressional hearing on Corinthian last year. At least 17 colleges certified by the council have been subject to state or federal investigations, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, a liberal public policy organization in Washington. Over the past three years, those schools received more than $5.7 billion in federal money, the group said. Attorneys general in more than a dozen states, along with other critics, want the Education Department to strip the council of its authority to accredit schools. The council is up for its regular review this month; it was last approved in 2013. "This is an outfit that is in the business of sustaining and aiding and abetting with fraud and abuse," said Barmak Nassirian, a federal lobbyist for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "It's like a consumer fraud dream come true." Council officials declined to be interviewed for this story. Losing recognition would effectively close the council and give its schools 18 months to find new accreditors. Otherwise they would lose access to federal money, the primary source of revenue for most for-profit colleges. Because the council oversees more than 900 schools, some experts question whether it will be spared because of its size. "The fear of it being too big to fail is the only thing saving it right now," said Ben Miller, senior director for postsecondary education at the center. "At this point it would be shocking if ACICS didn't face some sort of sanction." Top Education Department officials will decide the group's fate after an advisory committee issues a recommendation this month. Any decision could be appealed in federal court. Department officials declined to comment on the pending decision but said they're working to improve oversight of accreditors. "Unfortunately, in recent years, we've seen far too many schools maintain their institutional accreditation even while defrauding and misleading students, providing poor quality education, or closing without recourse for students. This is inexcusable," Undersecretary Ted Mitchell said in a statement. "Accreditation can and must be the mark of quality that the public expects." The council last week announced a series of changes and promised not to certify any new schools until its work improves. In a statement, the council acknowledged that it has problems and needs to fix them. "The ACICS board of directors is determined to restore trust and confidence in the accreditation process, strengthen ACICS's oversight of member institutions, and ensure that students are receiving a quality education that will put them on a path to employment," said Anthony Bieda, the council's interim chief. The accreditor's president of seven years resigned in April amid the Education Department's review. The changes include a pledge to "ensure greater accuracy" of the data that schools publicize about student success, which were found to be inflated at some colleges. An ethics board will review potential conflicts of interest on the group's board of directors, which is heavily made up of executives at for-profit colleges. The group will add more training for its volunteer evaluators who visit and assess schools. Recently, the council has tried to take a firmer stance against troubled schools. In March it attempted to revoke accreditation of California's Bristol University over academic problems, but a federal judge blocked the move because it would have forced the school to close. The council also demanded that ITT Tech justify its accreditation amid allegations that the chain concealed failing loan programs from authorities. But some say those improvements are too little, too late. The Education Department is supposed to give its authorization "based on whether an agency is a reliable authority, not whether it might be," said Robert Shireman, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a Washington think tank that describes itself as progressive and nonpartisan. Among the chorus of critics, there's a debate over the root of the council's troubles. Some say it intended well but outgrew its ability to police so many schools. Some say it attracts bad actors because it sets a lower academic bar than other accreditors. Others suggest it intentionally has turned a blind eye to deceptive colleges. "They demonstrated not just an incompetence to do the job, but an unwillingness to do the job," said Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, who has led a push against the group. "They simply shouldn't be allowed to continue in the business of what is essentially taking advantage of students and taxpayers." The department's decision is also seen as a test of its willingness to regulate for-profit accreditors, which have rarely faced severe sanctions, but are often accused of being too lenient. "You couldn't line up a better set of facts against an entity," said Nassirian, of the association of state colleges and universities. "If this is a hard judgment, then there's really no hope." Rising premiums rattle consumers paying their own way WASHINGTON (AP) Millions of people who pay the full cost of their health insurance will face the sting of rising premiums next year, with no financial help from government subsidies. Renewal notices bearing the bad news will go out this fall, just as the presidential election is in the homestretch. "I don't know if I could swallow another 30 or 40 percent without severely cutting into other things I'm trying to do, like retirement savings or reducing debt," said Bob Byrnes, of Blaine, Minnesota, a Twin Cities suburb. His monthly premium of $524 is already about 50 percent more than he was paying in 2015, and he has a higher deductible. Kirk Smith poses for a photograph on June 8, 2016, in Lufkin, Texas. Smith's insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, is the only insurer in his county and it is requesting average premium increases of nearly 60 percent for 2017. Smith works installing telecommunications equipment and his employer does not offer health insurance. Millions of people who pay the full cost of their health insurance will face the sting of rising premiums next year, with no financial help from government subsidies. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip) President Barack Obama's health law provides income-based subsidies for consumers who buy individual policies on HealthCare.gov and state insurance markets. About 10 million people get assistance, helping reduce the uninsured rate to a historically low 9 percent. But there's no subsidy for those making more than $47,520 for an individual and $97,200 for a family of four cutoffs that represent four times the federal poverty level. Also, subsidies are not available for consumers at any income level who purchase outside of HealthCare.gov or a state marketplace. Those who remain uninsured risk fines. Premiums are expected to climb next year in many areas because major insurers have taken significant financial losses under the health law. Enrollment has been lower than anticipated, new customers were sicker than expected and a government system to stabilize the markets had problems. "People receiving subsidies can protect themselves from premium increases, but others who buy their own coverage don't have that option," said Larry Levitt, who tracks the health law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. He estimated 5 million to 7 million consumers nationally may be paying full freight. Byrnes, a manager for a medical courier service, says he supports the law's goal of expanded coverage, but he hasn't found his policy particularly affordable. In the small East Texas city of Lufkin, Kirk Smith buys his policy from the only insurer available, which also happens to be the state's largest. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas is seeking an average premium increase of nearly 60 percent for 2017, and Smith says his monthly bill of about $350 is already about as much as a car payment. Moreover, he's had to drive to a neighboring county for medical care because he couldn't get an appointment close to home. "I've got a problem when you can't see somebody in the county, and they want an increase?" said Smith, who works for a contractor installing telecommunications equipment. He said the government should subsidize everyone in rural communities with no insurer competition. Michelle Scarola of Queens, a borough of New York City, said she has received notice that her 2017 premiums will be going up in a range of 8 percent to 25 percent. Scarola, who's in the midst of a career transition from advertising to interior design, isn't happy that her insurer dropped the hospital network she's interested in. "For people like me who are in the middle, there is very limited choice, and now that limited choice is going to get more expensive," she said. Insurance broker Liz Gallops in Raleigh, North Carolina, says she tries to let customers vent about large increases. Some see insurance bills that surpass their mortgage payments. The state's biggest insurer is proposing average increases of nearly 19 percent. "I've had people yell on the phone," she said. "I've had people curse." Back in 2010, the Obama administration used public anger about premium increases as leverage to win passage of the health law. It now says worries about next year's premiums are premature because final rates have not been approved. Officials say people who don't receive subsidies still have options. For example, some people buying directly from an insurer might find that they qualify for subsidies if they go through HealthCare.gov. Those who make too much for a subsidy still can shop for lower premiums. Under the health law, insurers have to accept consumers with health problems. People are no longer locked into a plan indefinitely. Another wrinkle is that people who pay their own premiums may be able to later deduct the cost on their income taxes. But the rules are complex, and it's not the same as getting an upfront subsidy. It may seem counterintuitive that premium increases for health law policies also hit people who get no financial assistance. It's happening because the law created one big insurance pool in each state for consumers buying individual coverage, whether or not they go through markets such as HealthCare.gov. Many people respond to premium hikes by switching to skimpier coverage, yet that leads to bigger medical bills if they need treatment. Some insurance brokers encourage customers to get plans linked to a health savings account. But rising premiums can cut into how much people stash away. ___ AP Social Media Editor Eric Carvin contributed to this report. Sen. Reid aiming for one last campaign win before he retires LAS VEGAS (AP) Democratic leader Harry Reid says he wishes he could stay in the U.S. Senate forever. So the canny 76-year-old is doing the next best thing as he heads into retirement after more than three decades: working the inside game as only he can, to ensure he leaves Democrats in control of the Senate, the White House and his home state of Nevada next year. Reid hand-picked the Democratic candidate to replace him, former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. She is trying to capitalize on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's unpopularity with Hispanics by playing up the fact that she would be the first Latina elected to the Senate. If she wins in Nevada, Democrats will be well on their way to taking back Senate control after two years in the minority. In this June 9, 2016, photo, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Reid says he wishes he could stay in the U.S. Senate forever. So he is doing the next best thing as he heads into retirement after more than three decades: Working the inside game to ensure he leaves Democrats in control of the Senate, the White House and his home state of Nevada next year. Reid hand-picked the Democratic candidate to replace him, former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, who is capitalizing on Donald Trumps unpopularity with Hispanics by playing up the fact that she would be the first Latina ever elected to the Senate. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Reid also interceded in Nevada's caucuses in February, helping to get union workers to Democratic presidential caucus sites, which tipped the balance in favor of front-runner Hillary Clinton at a moment when Bernie Sanders' support was surging. Now Reid is moving all the levers at his disposal to ease the Vermont senator out of the race, subtly and not-so subtly, even as he promotes the idea of liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as Clinton's running mate, something that could be a consolation prize for Sanders' supporters. Also, Reid is intricately involved with races in Nevada, working to retake control of the Legislature for the Democrats and restore a Democratic majority in the congressional delegation. Whether his vaunted political machine retains its potency may become partially clear on Tuesday, when Nevada holds its congressional primaries and a Reid-backed Democrat faces two strong opponents in the 4th Congressional District race. The moves are vintage Reid, who has long meddled in politics in his small state, cementing his status as an unparalleled political animal by winning his own re-election race in 2010 against all odds. He is a most unusual politician, with stooped shoulders, frequent gaffes, and nearly inaudible speaking style. But he will leave a legacy unmatched in Nevada and as an important partner to President Barack Obama. "He's built a machine like nobody has seen before and he will leave that to future Democrats," said U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, one of few Democrats who's defied Reid and lived to flourish politically. As for Reid's distinctively uncharismatic style, Titus suggested even that could be a political calculation. "He speaks softly? People have to lean in and listen. If you make gaffes you can get away with making points that other people might be afraid to make," the Nevada congresswoman said. "I'm not sure that those are not intentional." Some of Reid's more notorious comments include calling then-President George W. Bush a "loser" and remarking that tourists to the Capitol smell bad in summer. His accomplishments include shepherding Obama's health care bill through the Senate with no votes to spare, getting Obama to protect more than 700,000 acres of remote Nevada lands in the Basin and Range National Monument, and moving up Nevada's caucuses in 2008 to make it an early voting state. That resulted in many new Democratic registrations that have made the state much friendlier territory for the party. Reid, a gold miner's son from tiny Searchlight, Nevada, doesn't mention any of those things when asked how he wants to be remembered. "I want to be remembered as someone who worked hard, was honest and did my best to represent the people of Nevada and the country," he said softly in a recent interview in the North Las Vegas campaign headquarters of state Sen. Ruben Kihuen, a protege whom Reid is helping in a contested Democratic congressional primary. Reid's legacy is likely to be more complex than that. He's hated by many Republicans for running the Senate with an iron fist when Democrats were in control, shutting off votes on legislation in what turned out to be a failed, and arguably misguided, effort to protect vulnerable Democrats headed into the 2014 election. That election cycle turned out to be a disaster for Democrats, costing them control of the Senate and Reid his perch as majority leader, and causing some to question whether his machine still could deliver. "In 2014 in this state we swept the six constitutional offices, we flipped the state senate back to a Republican majority and we took back the state Assembly for the first time since 1992," said U.S. Rep. Joe Heck, the Republican running for Reid's seat. "I think that speaks for itself." Democrats say that as he looks to retirement, Reid is more determined than ever to reverse those losses. "Sen. Reid would love nothing more than to leave the U.S. Senate with a Democratic majority and to right the ship at home in Nevada," said Rebecca Lambe, Reid's top political adviser in Nevada. As the date for leaving the Senate nears, Reid has grown more outspoken about his regrets about retiring. He would have run again, had he not been sidelined by an eye injury early last year when an exercise band snapped and smashed him in the face, leaving him blind in one eye. "I'm going to find something to do to keep me busy," said Reid, though it won't be spending more time with his family. He and his wife, Landra, have 19 grandchildren. "I've spent enough time with my family," Reid said. "I always kind of believe in quality, not quantity, so I'm fine." ___ Follow Erica Werner on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ericawerner In this May 31, 2016, file photo, Senate candidate Catherine Cortez Masto, center, laughs while speaking with people at a campaign event at a restaurant in Las Vegas. Democratic leader Harry Reid says he wishes he could stay in the U.S. Senate forever. So he is doing the next best thing as he heads into retirement after more than three decades: Working the inside game to ensure he leaves Democrats in control of the Senate, the White House and his home state of Nevada next year. Reid hand-picked the Democratic candidate to replace him, former Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, who is capitalizing on Donald Trumps unpopularity with Hispanics by playing up the fact that she would be the first Latina ever elected to the Senate. (AP Photo/John Locher) Trump asserts thousands of people in US 'sick with hate' WASHINGTON (AP) Republican Donald Trump is asserting there are thousands of people in the United States "sick with hate" and capable of committing the kind of shooting rampage that killed at least 50 people in a Florida nightclub. Trump also says Muslims in this country know who these radicals are and "should turn them in" to authorities. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gives a thumbs up as he arrives for a campaign rally, Saturday, June 11, 2016, at a private hanger at Greater Pittsburgh International Airport in Moon, Pa. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic) The billionaire real estate mogul and presumptive GOP presidential nominee told Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" he believes "there are people out there with worse intentions" than the shooter in Orlando. He claimed that there are "thousands of people" in this country who are subject to becoming "radicalized." Democratic dependence on nonwhites proven by Obama, Clinton ATLANTA (AP) Eight years ago, exit polls showed Hillary Clinton with comfortable margins over now-President Barack Obama among whites and Latinos during the Democratic primary season. This year, exit polls of Democratic voters showed whites narrowly preferred Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Yet, Clinton is the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee. The key difference: African-Americans sided overwhelmingly with the winner of 2008 and 2016 nominations, with black voters across the South and in heavily Democratic cities fueling key wins and delegate advantages in the drawn-out primary contests. FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2008, file photo, then-President-elect Barack Obama, left, stands with then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., after announcing that she is his choice as Secretary of State during a news conference in Chicago. Eight years ago, Clinton got more than 18 million Democratic primary votes for president, with exit polls showing her with comfortable margins over now-President Barack Obama among whites and Latinos. This year, exit polls of Democratic voters showed whites narrowly preferred Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Yet Clinton is the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) For Clinton, her second effort is evidence of a lesson learned, and it provides her with a head start in rebuilding part of the general election coalition that propelled Obama to two terms. For Sanders, it's a case of what-might-have-been. And for aspiring Democrats eyeing future White House bids, it serves notice that the presidential demand for a diverse voting coalition isn't just a general election concern for Republicans too dependent on whites; it actually begins in the Democratic primary. "You just can't have a limited strategy focused on Iowa and New Hampshire, two of the whitest states in the country," said Atlanta-based Democratic consultant Tharon Johnson, who worked for Obama's 2008 campaign, arguing that Sanders and Clinton, in her first campaign, made that mistake. South Carolina Democratic Chairman Jaime Harrison, whose early voting state offers the first primary contest with a large contingent of black voters, singled out black women. "They almost single-handedly gave the nomination to Secretary Clinton," he said, after "doing that for Sen. Obama" in 2008. The two campaigns bear strikingly similar trajectories. Each time, the top two contenders split Iowa and New Hampshire before a competitive finish in Nevada. But Obama then trounced Clinton in South Carolina by a 2-to-1 margin. Blacks made up about 55 percent of the electorate, and Obama won about four of five of them, according to exit polls conducted for the Associated Press and television networks. This year, Clinton won South Carolina 3-to-1, with exit polling reflected a whopping 86-14 advantage for Clinton over Sanders among blacks, who accounted for an estimated 61 percent of primary ballots. The 2008 and 2016 circumstances were influenced by unique characteristics of the candidates. Black voters embraced the possibility of Obama becoming the nation's first black president. Clinton, this year, capitalized on decades of good relations with black Democrats she'd helped elect, raise money for and worked with on various issues since her early years as a lawyer, advocate and first lady of Arkansas. But South Carolina established a pattern. The nine states where blacks account for the greatest population share form an unbroken band from Maryland and Delaware down the Atlantic Coast and through the Deep South to Louisiana. Obama defeated Clinton in all of them on his way to winning 82 percent of African-Americans in states where exit polling was conducted. Clinton defeated Sanders in the same nine states, as well, and won 77 percent of the black vote in states with exit polling. The margins are important since Democrats award pledged delegates roughly proportionally. Obama's total pledged-delegate advantage of less than 200 can be attributed almost entirely to his success among African-Americans. Clinton's advantage this year is wider, but it was first established during a concentration of Southern states that had voted by March 15. Unable to catch up, Sanders sometimes dismissed Clinton's victories, saying the primary schedule "distorts reality" because the South is so conservative. Yet in late 2015, before voting began, he began emphasizing his personal civil rights advocacy in the 1960s including being arrested for protesting segregated housing in Chicago. He also massaged his economic inequality arguments to focus on minorities. "The African-American community ... will respond," he predicted to AP in September. Clinton, who spent 2015 formalizing a deep network in the South, countered with her own biography and an open embrace of Obama. She cast Sanders as disloyal to the president and hammered the senator as soft on gun control, focusing the issue on black voters wrenched by violence within their community and many high-profile cases of black citizens being killed by police. Georgia state Sen. Vincent Fort, a black Sanders supporter, argued that Clinton's advantage was "entirely to do with her brand" as a party powerbroker and lamented that Sanders "is more in line with the black community" on issues "from universal health care to free college tuition." Fort also noted that Sanders' appeal among young voters crossed racial lines, foreshadowing that nominees after Clinton "will come from the progressive wing." Certainly, Sanders can defend his strategy: Could he have essentially tied Clinton in Iowa and blitzed her in New Hampshire if he'd spent more early campaign time in the South? Regardless, Johnson, the Georgia Democrat, said future nominees must sell themselves and their ideas across the electorate. "We have now gone through two consecutive cycles in which campaigns have gone to the very, very end," Johnson said. "We're going to continue along that path. In the end it's important to know the diversity of America, the diversity of the issues people are facing, and then having people know who you are." ___ Donald Trump's campaign draws dedicated volunteers MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) Dale "Boomer" Ranney can get in Donald Trump's face like almost no one else. She has nudged her way to the front of 21 of his rallies, passing up book after book, photo after photo for him to autograph, finding success some 66 times. He smiles at her in recognition now. When she made a trip to Trump Tower in New York to be near him for his home state primary in April, he spotted her and told his security guards to let her into his victory party there later that day. A photo snapped that morning shows Ranney and her candidate grinning and giving the thumbs up. He's in his suit and red tie. She's in her sequined American flag vest and matching boots. Dale "Boomer" Ranney makes calls in support of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump from her home in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Trump is finding dedicated volunteers for his presidential campaign among his fan base. The retiree has organized a group of 50 to make calls to voters on Trumps behalf. Ranney has been to 21 Trump rallies and gotten 66 Trump autographs. She calls it ``a personal responsibility to try to help put Trump in the White House. (AP Photo/Julie Bykowicz) Ranney is not only a Trump superfan, she's also a forceful advocate and volunteer on behalf of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Since February, she has guided an ad hoc team of 50 volunteers who have made some 75,000 telephone calls to voters to preach the gospel of Trump. The eclectic, unpaid group she calls them the "Trump T-Birds," after her red Ford convertible includes a cancer patient making calls from her bed and 13-year-old who spouts Trumpisms. All candidates count on volunteers to make calls to voters, distribute literature and knock on doors. Few have inspired the kind of passionate dedication that the celebrity billionaire has. For a candidate just now beginning traditional fundraising and woefully behind in building a staff of paid field organizers, this volunteer network could be especially vital when he faces presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton this fall. Ranney, a 62-year-old thrice-married, beach-loving retired industrial engineer, is perhaps Trump's most committed volunteer. "I feel guilty anytime I'm not on the phone calling for him," Ranney said. "I'm not getting paid, but it's a personal responsibility I feel to get him in the White House." She approaches her volunteer work much like Trump approaches his bid, speaking off the cuff with prospective voters rather than reading from scripts the campaign has uploaded to its computerized calling program. She uses social media to build a following and makes her own assignments rather than waiting for directions. "I really think all of us volunteers kind of copy Donald," Ranney said. "It's natural, not rehearsed, kind of ad-libbed." With the primary nomination locked up for Trump, Ranney is starting to organize voter registration drives, acting on her gut instinct that he will inspire scores of people who have never voted to come out for him. ___ DIALING FOR DONALD She wants to keep dialing up voters, too. On the eve of the Indiana primary May 3, Ranney settled in at her home for another round of calls. "Hi, I'm calling from the Trump campaign, and we'd like to know if you have a favorable opinion of Donald Trump," she said cheerily. "Um, no, I do not," the Indiana woman on the receiving end said, curtly but politely. "Ok, well good luck, ma'am, and thank you very much," Ranney said, ending the call. "That was a no," she said, noting the same in the call system. One call later, Ranney found a more welcome reception: "Oh, I'm gonna vote for him." Later in the batch of calls, Ranney got to make her full Trump pitch. She'd reached a voter leaning toward Trump, but concerned about what exactly Trump's stance was on Planned Parenthood, a women's health clinic this particular anti-abortion-rights voter didn't much care for. "Oh, he's pro-life," Ranney assured the woman. "The only thing about the Planned Parenthood he's for is the fact that it helps women, you know, with their health issues. Other than that, he's against it ma'am." The voter also mentioned the blitz of advertising she'd seen portraying Trump as sexist. To this, Ranney said, "You know, there's one thing I will say about Mr. Trump, and that is that he is an equal-opportunity criticizer. So if he doesn't like someone, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. He's going to tell you what he thinks." The call ended with Ranney feeling confident she'd found maybe even helped convert another Trump voter. ___ THE T-BIRDS Ranney's T-Birds are a mix of ladies she knows in Myrtle Beach and Trump fans she's met on social media and in the front of the lines at rallies. "I figure, if someone is dedicated enough to get in line at 3 a.m., they're dedicated enough to probably want to make some calls for Mr. Trump," she said. There's Alice Ziriada, a Myrtle Beach friend, who has made more than 12,000 calls for Trump, often from her bed while laid up from chemotherapy to treat her cancer. She said she's loved making the calls, even if they don't always go so well. "No matter how mean they get on the phone with me, cussing, whatever, I just let them finish," she said. There's Matt Lewandowski (no relation to Trump' campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski) in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a 68-year-old whom Ranney recruited through Facebook. He has made about 9,000 calls, hitting 300 in one day. Now he, in turn, helps find other volunteers. "I'm just one guy, but I hope I am helping with this process," he said. And dropping the median age of the group, there's Zach Dodson, a 13-year-old seventh-grader in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Ranney met Zach and his mother, Chula, at a Trump rally, and they've become some of Trump's most avid photographers, sharing hundreds of rally shots on social media. Chula Dodson said, somewhat apologetically, that she and her son had made only a few hundred phone calls apiece because she didn't want him too distracted from school. "I cannot explain how much my son loves Mr. Trump." Zach, grabbing the phone, chimed in, "I like him because he's a businessman who has made a fortune. He can apply that to America." He's adept at channeling the candidate himself. "For many decades now," said Zach, "the establishment has failed us miserably and they know it." The rallies have served as more than a meeting point between Ranney and her volunteers. It's also the way she gets the swag that she thinks helps keep them motivated. All of those books and photos Ranney has Trump sign? She gives them to volunteers who are hitting milestone numbers of phone calls, an enticement to keep at it. Trump frequently praises his volunteers on social media. "Without my amazing volunteers this would not have been possible," he wrote on Instagram after winning the Indiana primary, essentially locking up the nomination. ___ REFORM PARTY ROOTS There's a reason Ranney seems like she's done this before (she has) and that she seems to know Trump (she does). Back in the 1990s, when she was Dale Barlow and living in Oklahoma, Ranney fell in political love with another billionaire businessman-turned-politician: Ross Perot. She volunteered for his two presidential campaigns and became an elected leader of the Reform Party he founded. She said her volunteerism then showed her how many people in the country are reflexively opposed to trade deals as bad for U.S. workers. That's a major theme of Trump's campaign now, and part of why Ranney is so convinced that he can win. Late in the decade, the party's highest elected official, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, tried to persuade Trump to run for president on the Reform ticket and pointed him toward Ranney for advice. Ranney said she met with Trump at Trump Tower in December 1999, sharing with him her fears about factionalism within the party. Two months later, Trump wined and dined Ranney and other Reform officials at his Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, although he soon after decided not to run. Indeed, the Reform Party spun into chaos after Ventura quit. Ranney also left the party and politics altogether for 15 years. But her dealings with Trump had made an impression, and she couldn't help but be delighted to see him descend his Trump Tower escalator last June and announce his bid as a Republican candidate for president. "I believe in him," she said. "I've always believed in him." ___ Follow Julie Bykowicz on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bykowicz Oscar Pistorius a 'broken' man as defense seeks leniency PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) Oscar Pistorius is a "broken" man whose mental state has deteriorated and he should be hospitalized and not jailed, a psychologist called by his defense testified at the start of a new sentencing hearing Monday. Prosecutors, seeking a long jail term for the double-amputee Olympic runner after his conviction was changed to murder for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, immediately challenged that opinion of Pistorius. For one, they charged that Pistorius confronted a police witness in an aggressive manner at the courthouse on an earlier occasion. Pistorius is currently living under house arrest after initially serving one year of a five-year prison sentence for manslaughter for shooting Steenkamp in 2013. But that manslaughter conviction was overturned last year by South Africa's Supreme Court, which convicted Pistorius of the more serious charge of murder. Oscar Pistorius, centre, appears in the High Court for re-sentencing proceedings, in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, June 13, 2016. Pistorius appeared in a South African court on Monday for a sentencing hearing after the double-amputee Olympian was convicted of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Defense lawyer Barry Roux argued for some leniency and called a psychologist who evaluated Pistorius to testify. (Phill Magakoe, Pool Photo via AP) Judge Thokozile Masipa, who initially acquitted Pistorius of murder, will decide the new sentence. The hearing is scheduled to run through Friday this week. Pistorius' lawyers are arguing for leniency. South Africa has a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison for murder, although a judge can reduce that in some circumstances. Dressed in a dark suit, Pistorius sat calmly on a bench during the testimony, mostly with his head down and sometimes covering his eyes with a hand. The courtroom was packed with relatives, journalists and other onlookers. Police officers lined the wood-paneled walls. Barry and June Steenkamp, the parents of the model Pistorius killed by shooting multiple times through a toilet door in his home in 2013, were also present. Clinical psychologist Prof. Jonathan Scholtz said Pistorius was "quite ill" and struggled with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Scholtz evaluated Pistorius in 2014, during his murder trial, and again last month. Pistorius was now "despondent and lethargic, disinvested, and leaves his future in the hands of God," Scholtz said. He said he did not think Pistorius would be able to testify at the sentencing hearing because of his psychological problems. Chief prosecutor Gerrie Nel pounced on that in his cross-examination of Scholtz, pointing out that Pistorius had recently given a TV interview but now claimed to be unable to testify in court. Prosecutors had depicted Pistorius as an arrogant figure with a sense of entitlement and a love of guns. Nel subjected Scholtz to sharp questioning, referring to the courthouse incident with the police witness and trying to show that Pistorius was not a changed, remorseful man. Nel quoted Pistorius as saying to the police officer: "Please give us space and privacy. You didn't do your job in any case." The prosecutor said the defense team apologized for the spat. Pistorius' defense lawyer did not immediately comment on the allegation. Nel also said Scholtz had disregarded a prison report that Pistorius was "aggressive and verbally violent" toward officials at the beginning of his imprisonment. In his testimony, Scholtz recommended that Pistorius first be treated in a hospital rather than go to jail, and then work with underprivileged children. He noted that Pistorius had sold his guns, becomes jumpy even at the sound of gunfire on television, and is unlikely to resort to violence again. He said Pistorius was subjected to several "traumatic and humiliating experiences" in prison, including being forced to shower while sitting on the concrete floor because of his disability, and being treated "like an animal in a cage." Nel challenged Scholtz on some of the claims. For example, Scholtz said Pistorius told him that he had heard an inmate being raped by another, and later saw the body of the alleged victim after he had hanged himself. Nel disputed the assertion. Nel also said Pistorius was not confined to his cell for 18 hours a day, as the psychologist said he was, but rather was allowed to walk around a separate wing of the prison he shared with only one other inmate. "He complained about everything," Nel said of Pistorius. ___ Imray reported from Somerset West, South Africa. Oscar Pistorius, appears in the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, June 13, 2016 for sentencing proceedings. An appeals court found Pistorius guilty of murder, and not culpable homicide for the shooting death of his girlfriend Reeve Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, Pool) Oscar Pistorius, appears in the High Court for re-sentencing proceedings, in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, June 13, 2016. Pistorius appeared in a South African court on Monday for a sentencing hearing after the double-amputee Olympian was convicted of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Defense lawyer Barry Roux argued for some leniency and called a psychologist who evaluated Pistorius to testify. (Phill Magakoe, Pool Photo via AP) Oscar Pistorius, is comforted by a relative as he appears in the High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, June 13, 2016 for re-sentencing proceedings. Pistorius appeared in a South African court on Monday for a sentencing hearing after the double-amputee Olympian was convicted of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Defense lawyer Barry Roux argued for some leniency and called a psychologist who evaluated Pistorius to testify. (Phill Magakoe, Pool Photo via AP) Father of the late Reeve Steenkamp, Barry Steenkamp, in court where Oscar Pistorius, appears in the High Court for re-sentencing proceedings, in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, June 13, 2016. Pistorius appeared in a South African court on Monday for a sentencing hearing after the double-amputee Olympian was convicted of murdering girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. Defense lawyer Barry Roux argued for some leniency and called a psychologist who evaluated Pistorius to testify. (Phill Magakoe, Pool Photo via AP) Supporters of the double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius, sing whilst picketing outside the high court in Pretoria, South Africa, Monday, June 13, 2016. Pistorius, was convicted of murder by South Africa's Supreme Court for shooting girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe) FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 8, 2012, file photo, South Africa's gold medalist Oscar Pistorius poses with his medal after winning the men's 400 meters T44 category final during the athletics competition at the 2012 Paralympics, in London. The double-amputee Olympian's sentencing hearing opens Monday, June 13, 2016, after he was convicted of murder by South Africa's Supreme Court for shooting girlfriend Reeve Steenkamp. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File) FILE: - This Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014 file photo shows the Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Services prison in Pretoria, South Africa where Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to five years imprisonment for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in 2013. The double-amputee Olympian's sentencing hearing opens Monday, June 13, 2016, after he was convicted of murder by South Africa's Supreme Court for shooting Steenkamp. (AP Photo-File) FILE - In this Nov. 4, 2012 file photo, South African Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius and Reeva Steenkamp arrive for an awards ceremony in Johannesburg, South Africa. The double-amputee Olympian's sentencing hearing opens Monday, June 13, 2016, after he was convicted of murder by South Africa's Supreme Court for shooting girlfriend Steenkamp. (Lucky Nxumalo/Citypress via AP, File) SOUTH AFRICA OUT Lebanon's interior minister says Beirut blast targeted bank BEIRUT (AP) Lebanese authorities said Monday that a bomb blast the previous day that damaged the headquarters of Lebanon's second biggest bank specifically targeted that financial institution. However, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk warned against casting blame before an investigation is finished. The Sunday night explosion outside the BLOM Bank building in Beirut, which left one person wounded, was an attack on the entire bank sector, said the Association of Banks in Lebanon. The blast also destroyed several cars and damaged several floors of the bank's exterior. Police investigators remove broken windows from the damaged headquarters building of Blom Bank where a bomb exploded Sunday evening, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 13, 2016. Blom Bank has been criticized by some pro-Hezbollah politicians for taking a hard-line position after Lebanese banks began abiding by a U.S. law that sanctions doing business with the militant group. Authorities say dozens of bank accounts related to Hezbollah's organizations have been closed in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) No group claimed responsibility and it was not immediately clear why BLOM was targeted. The bank has closed accounts linked to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, to comply with a recent U.S. law punishing those doing business with the Shiite militant group. Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese coalition government and supports a wide network of hospitals and social institutions in the country. Local papers have reported that the group has started to finance its institutions in cash. Pro-Hezbollah politicians have recently criticized the BLOM bank for abiding by the new U.S. regulations. Meanwhile, forensic teams sifted through the explosion area Monday and work crews removed debris in the affluent residential-commercial quarter where the bombing took place. State Prosecutor Samir Hammoud said the explosion was caused by an 8-kilogram (18- pound) bomb. The bomb went off shortly after the start of the iftar evening meal when Muslims break their dawn-to-dusk fast during the holy month of Ramadan. Police investigators carry equipment in front the damaged headquarters building of Blom Bank where a bomb exploded Sunday evening, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 13, 2016. Blom Bank has been criticized by some pro-Hezbollah politicians for taking a hard-line position after Lebanese banks began abiding by a U.S. law that sanctions doing business with the militant group. Authorities say dozens of bank accounts related to Hezbollah's organizations have been closed in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) A police investigator removes broken window panes from the damaged headquarters building of Blom Bank where a bomb exploded Sunday evening, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 13, 2016. Blom Bank has been criticized by some pro-Hezbollah politicians for taking a hard-line position after Lebanese banks began abiding by a U.S. law that sanctions doing business with the militant group. Authorities say dozens of bank accounts related to Hezbollah's organizations have been closed in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) A police investigator looks through a broken window in the damaged headquarters building of Blom Bank where a bomb exploded Sunday evening, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 13, 2016. Blom Bank has been criticized by some pro-Hezbollah politicians for taking a hard-line position after Lebanese banks began abiding by a U.S. law that sanctions doing business with the militant group. Authorities say dozens of bank accounts related to Hezbollah's organizations have been closed in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) Policemen stand guard in front the damaged headquarters building of Blom Bank where a bomb exploded Sunday evening, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 13, 2016. Blom Bank has been criticized by some pro-Hezbollah politicians for taking a hard-line position after Lebanese banks began abiding by a U.S. law that sanctions doing business with the militant group. Authorities say dozens of bank accounts related to Hezbollah's organizations have been closed in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) A general view of the main entrance of the headquarters building of Blom Bank where a bomb exploded Sunday evening, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, June 13, 2016. Blom Bank has been criticized by some pro-Hezbollah politicians for taking a hard-line position after Lebanese banks began abiding by a U.S. law that sanctions doing business with the militant group. Authorities say dozens of bank accounts related to Hezbollah's organizations have been closed in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) Ethiopia, Eritrea trade accusations over border incident ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) Ethiopia and Eritrea are trading accusations over an incident in a disputed border area, with Ethiopia on Monday confirming its military had taken "proportional measures" against Eritrea in response to an attempted attack in the Tsorona area the day before. "The attack heavily weakened Eritrean military's attacking capacity," Ethiopia's Communications Affairs Office said. In a statement late Sunday, Eritrea's Information Ministry accused Ethiopian troops of carrying out attacks against Eritrean positions in the Tsorona Central Front. The two countries have been in a stalemate since the end in 2000 of a border war in which tens of thousands of people were killed. The countries do not have diplomatic relations and have accused each other of training and deploying banned armed groups. Relatives of people who live in the Tsorona area said their families were fleeing following heavy shelling early Sunday. "My father lives in the area and told me by phone of heavy shelling in the area," Yared Tewolde said. "One heavy artillery shell has landed very close to a school, and this has scared many." Charlotte King, an analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, said accusations of direct attacks by the two countries are relatively rare. "It is also unusual for the Eritrean government to comment on violent outbreaks," she said, adding that Eritrea may be trying to divert international attention away from a U.N. commission's report released last week that accused the government of widespread crimes against humanity. In New York, the spokesman for the U.N. chief, Stephane Dujarric, said Ban Ki-moon urged both sides to "exercise maximum restraint." Diplomat: Qatar frees Dutch woman held after rape report DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) A Dutch woman held in Qatar for nearly three months after telling police she had been raped there was released on Monday after receiving a one-year suspended prison sentence, a Dutch diplomat said. The 22-year-old woman was in the care of the Dutch Embassy after a brief court hearing in Doha, the Qatari capital which will host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Her case has raised new questions ahead of the tournament, which likely will draw tens of thousands of Western tourists unfamiliar with the Islamic-based legal codes that govern the small peninsular nation. It wasn't immediately clear what sentence was given to the man she accused of rape. Qatari officials repeatedly have declined to comment after her detention became public knowledge over the weekend and the state-run Qatar News Agency did not report on the verdict Monday. FILE- In this May 14, 2010 file photo, a Qatari woman walks in front of the city skyline in Doha, Qatar. A Dutch woman held in Qatar for nearly three months after telling police she had been raped was released Monday after receiving a 1-year suspended prison sentence, a Dutch diplomat said Monday. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File) The woman, on a vacation with a friend, went out for drinks at a hotel bar in the Qatari capital in mid-March, lawyer Brian Lokollo previously told The Associated Press. While at the bar, she believes someone "messed with her drink" and her memory became hazy, Lokollo said. She later awoke alone, her clothes torn and the victim of a rape, he said. She was immediately detained after reporting the attack, Lokollo said. She previously appeared three times in court, he said. A social media campaign had called for her release. The AP does not identify victims of sexual assault. The woman faced an adultery charge for having sex out of wedlock. Her release and sentence were confirmed by Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Daphne Kerremans. The Dutch Embassy in Doha declined to comment further. On Twitter, Netherlands Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said he was "relieved" by the verdict. Lokollo said Monday that the woman's family was "very pleased" she was released and praised the work of Dutch diplomats. He said she also faced a fine equivalent to 750 euros ($845). "We are very happy she's going to be home soon," he said. The Dutch woman's case highlights the societal differences in Qatar, home to gleaming skyscrapers and international aspirations that practices a highly conservative form of Islam similar to that of neighboring Saudi Arabia. Alcohol is available at high-end hotels in Qatar and duty-free shops at its massive international airport. However, residents must have permission from their employers to buy at the country's only government-run liquor store. Sex out of wedlock is illegal. Similar cases also have occurred elsewhere in the Gulf Arab states. In 2008, an Australian woman said she was jailed for eight months after reporting that she was gang-raped at a hotel in the United Arab Emirates. In 2013, a Norwegian woman who reported being raped in Dubai received a 16-month sentence for having sex outside of marriage, though she was pardoned and allowed to leave the country. ___ Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . World in chaos, Israel gets singular focus at UN rights body GENEVA (AP) Wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Enforced disappearances, torture and extremist attacks infringe on human rights worldwide. Tyrannical, autocratic leaders and their allies from Belarus to Burundi repel dissent with an iron fist. But while human rights abuses are legion in these troubled times, only one country has its record inspected at every single session of the United Nations Human Rights Council: Israel, over its policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel, which trumpets its bona fides as a democracy in a difficult neighborhood full of enemies, is crying foul. And it is not entirely alone: Other critics, notably the United States, also decry what they see as an entrenched bias in United Nations institutions and an obsession with the Palestinian issue at the expense of other crises around the globe. Delegates gather during the opening of the 32th session of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, June 13, 2016. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP) As the council convened Monday in Geneva for its second, weeks-long session this year, "Item 7" considers the human rights implications of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. The standing item at the 10-year-old council has come to exemplify the spotlight on Israel in a number of U.N. bodies. "I don't know whether it's fair or unfair, but it's obvious that the majority of members want to continue to focus on the situation of Israel and Palestine," council president Choi Kyong-lim told The Associated Press. Of 233 country-specific HRC resolutions in the last decade, more than a quarter 65 focus on Israel. About half of those are "condemnatory." Israel easily tops the second-place country in the infamous rankings: Syria, where since 2011 at least 250,000 have been killed, over 10 million displaced, and swaths of cities destroyed, was the subject of 19 resolutions. "The U.N. continues to single out Israel, the one liberal democracy in the Middle East," said David Keyes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman. "Imagine that. A country with free speech, free elections and minority rights is condemned more than mass murdering dictatorships like North Korea, Iran and Syria. That speaks for itself." Shortly after taking office in 2007, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticized the standing item on Israel, saying he was "disappointed at the council's decision to single out only one specific regional item, given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world." It hasn't budged since. Over the years, the council has variously criticized Israel's presence in the Golan Heights and its detention of Syrian suspects without trial, a lack of cooperation with U.N. human rights investigators, its expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and its muscular and at times deadly response to militants' rocket attacks from Gaza that have killed Israeli civilians. This session, no resolutions are planned on Israel, but it still gets automatic billing. Israel's expansion of West Bank settlements in recent years has garnered sharp criticism, even of allies. The criticism of Israel spans many U.N. bodies. Take some other recent examples: Israeli officials bristled after the U.N.'s cultural agency, UNESCO, passed a resolution in April that put the Western Wall in Jerusalem Judaism's holiest site in quotation marks and described other Jewish sites as "so-called." An HRC resolution in March called on U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein to set up a database of businesses operating in settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights. U.S. Ambassador Keith Harper said that move "only serves to reinforce the council's one-sided actions against Israel." On Friday, Zeid condemned Wednesday's gun attack in Tel Aviv that killed four people. But he quickly expressed concern about the response, saying that Israeli authorities could be engaging in "collective punishment" with some measures against Palestinians like canceling 83,000 travel permits granted to West Bank and Gaza residents during Ramadan. Israel's mission in Geneva accused his office of "using the murder of innocent Israelis to attack Israel." Palestinians accuse Israel of intransigence in applying U.N. resolutions. "Israel tries to say that the U.N. is not the place to solve problems," said Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki. "Israel tries hard to single out the Palestinians by saying the conflict will be solved by the two sides and in the same time it continues confiscating lands and building settlements. Israel ... doesn't listen to anybody." The Palestinians, who have been gaining a greater presence in U.N. institutions in recent years, have allies like the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, which has often led the push for resolutions critical of Israel. An OIC official did not respond to calls and e-mails seeking comment, saying only that its ambassador to the council had recently left. John Fisher, Geneva director for Human Rights Watch, said that while his group believes Israel's record deserves attention, it also has been calling for "attention to situations that are not on the council's agenda at all, but should be." The more economic and political heft that a country has, the more it can block intense scrutiny. Uber-rich Saudi Arabia thwarted efforts to create an international probe of rights abuses in neighboring Yemen, where a Saudi-led military coalition has led a campaign including air strikes that have left hundreds of civilians dead. On the side of those less influential, there's Eritrea: a small, poor country on the Red Sea whose African neighbors want to highlight in this session with a resolution critical of its rights record. Nearly from its inception, the HRC has drawn criticism for its make-up. This year, China, Cuba, Russia, Venezuela and Burundi are among its 47 members. Diplomats insist the HRC reflects the world, and cannot only include peaceful Western democracies. They say no country is fully above reproach. The HRC has had achievements in places like post-genocide Sri Lanka, whose new government has been generally receptive to scrutiny and has cooperated with the council. Some Latin American countries are expected to lead an effort in this session to support protections for people based on their gender identities and sexual orientation. ___ Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report. Across the world, shock and condemnation at Orlando massacre From across the world, officials and public figures are expressing condemnation and shock over the Florida mass shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub on Sunday, when police say a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle opened fire, killing at least 49 people and wounding dozens. FRANCE The Eiffel Tower will shine in the colors of a rainbow on Monday night, starting at 10:45 p.m. (2045 GMT) to honor victims of the mass shooting at an Orlando gay club. Paris City Hall began paying respects in the afternoon with a display of American and rainbow flags, while French President Francois Hollande condemned the mass killing as an attack on freedom. He vowed to toughen the fight against terrorism "at the side of the American people." A note is placed at an impromptu candle-lit memorial set up in Sydney, Monday, June 13, 2016, following the Florida mass shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub where police say a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle opened fire, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that the Orlando mass shooting was "an attack on all of us on all our freedoms, the freedom to gather together, to celebrate, to share time with friends." (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) "It's American that was hit but freedom that was targeted," Hollande said after signing a book of condolences at the U.S. Embassy, "freedom to choose one's sexual orientation, the freedom to determine one's way of life." France feels deeply the horror of deadly attacks after the November terror attacks on a music hall, restaurants and bars and the main sports stadium killed 130. That was preceded by attacks on a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery store. All were claimed by the Islamic State group. ___ BRITAIN With tears, song and defiance, thousands of people gathered in London for a vigil in honor of the victims. Mourners packed narrow Old Compton St. in Soho, the heart of London's gay nightlife district, on Monday evening. Bearing rainbow flags and signs reading "stand with Orlando," Londoners observed two minutes' silence, before 49 balloons - one for each person killed - were released into the air. Senior politicians including London Mayor Sadiq Khan joined the vigil near the Admiral Duncan pub, where three people died and dozens were wounded in a 1999 bomb attack by a far-right extremist. British lawmakers also held a minute's silence Monday after what Home Secretary Theresa May called "not just an act of terror but an act of homophobic hatred." Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister David Cameron have sent messages of condolence from Britain for the attack. J.K. Rowling says one victim of the Orlando killings worked on the Harry Potter Ride at the Universal Studios theme park. The author tweeted a picture of 22-year-old Luis Vielma in a Hogwarts school tie, and said: "I can't stop crying." ___ GERMANY German Chancellor Angela Merkel says it's important to continue with "our open, tolerant life" following attacks such as the mass shooting at an Orlando gay club. Speaking during a visit to China on Monday, Merkel said that "we have a heavy heart" over the fact that "the hatred and malignancy of a single person" cost so many lives. She added: "We are firmly determined, even when such murderous attacks put us into deep sorrow, to continue with our open, tolerant life." In downtown Berlin, dozens of people have come together in front of the U.S. Embassy to mourn the victims of the Orlando shooting. People were setting white lilies and pink roses next to teddy bears in front of a rainbow flag and an American flag. ___ UN HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEF The U.N. human rights chief has denounced the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Zeid Ra'ad Hussein, commenting at the opening of the three-week Human Rights Council session in Geneva, chronicled a number of human rights abuses and concerns. He added: "I also condemn with the greatest possible force the outrageous attacks by violent extremists on innocent people, chosen at random, or because of their presumed beliefs, or opinions, or as we saw yesterday their sexual orientation." ___ MUSLIM NATIONS The world's largest body of Muslim-majority nations condemned the mass shooting but also warned against "political campaigning and self-serving agendas" in the wake of the tragedy. The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation said in a statement Monday that "the massacre, as terrible as it is, must not be taken out of its context as a domestic American case." The OIC says it is concerned that "hasty judgment" and "Islamophobic discourse" have emerged before a full investigation into the motivations and causes of the attack. The organization also conveyed its condolences to the families of the victims of "this horrible act." It says the teachings of Islam are based on peace and tolerance, and that terrorism is a crime against humanity. ___ ISRAEL Israeli President Reuven Rivlin says in a letter to President Barack Obama that Israel stands "shoulder to shoulder with our American brothers and sisters" after the attack on the LGBT community. Rivlin sent his condolences, saying there is "no comfort for those who have had their loved ones torn away from them." The Orlando attack has dominated news in Israel, which has seen a wave of Palestinian attacks in recent months. On Wednesday two Palestinian gunmen killed four people at a popular shopping and restaurant area in Tel Aviv. LGBT groups in Israel planned rallies and other support for the community in Orlando. ___ PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah says the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history is a "senseless act of terror and hate" and that "Palestinians stand with the American people in this difficult time." The statement made no direct reference to the LGBT community. Homosexuality is deeply taboo in the conservative Palestinian society. Gay Palestinians tend to be secretive about their social lives and some have crossed into Israel to live openly safely. The sentiment is reflected throughout the Arab and Muslim world. ___ AFGHANISTAN Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told the Cabinet as he opened the weekly meeting live on television on Monday morning that the Orlando attack "tells us that terrorism knows no religion, boundary and geography. Terrorism must be eliminated." He says that Afghans "do not support terrorism but the victims of terrorist attacks" and offered his condolences to the people and government of the United States. "Our hearts and minds are with our U.S. partners." He also urged "collective actions to end such attacks." ___ PAKISTAN Pakistan's former military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf condemned the Orlando shooting, saying 'this is a sobering reminder that extremism and terrorism are on the rise.' Musharraf, who is facing court cases at home but left Pakistan in March for treatment abroad, says on his Facebook page the world must "address the root causes of global terrorism to suck the oxygen out of the extremist narrative of hate, intolerance, bigotry and the promotion of obscurantist ideology that is radicalizing vulnerable Muslims around the world." ___ SAUDI ARABIA Saudi Arabia's Embassy in Washington condemned "in the strongest terms the attack on innocent people in Orlando" in a statement Monday from Ambassador Abdullah Al Saud. He said that Saudi Arabia "will continue our work with the United States and our partners in the international community for an end to these senseless acts of violence and terror." The statement did not mention the fact the attack happened at a gay nightclub. Saudi Arabia outlaws same-sex relationships and non-Muslim gays and lesbians can be sentenced to death by stoning, according to Human Rights Watch. Such executions have not been carried out in recent years. ___ IRAN Iran condemned the attack, but also made no mention of the fact that it happened in a gay nightclub. State TV quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari as saying "Iran, based on its main policies of condemning terrorism and its strong determination to confront this ominous phenomenon, condemns the Orlando terrorist attack." In Iran, sodomy convictions can carry a death sentence, while lesbians can face 100 lashes, according to Human Rights Watch. ___ EGYPT Egypt's Foreign Ministry condemned the Orlando attack "in the strongest possible terms," and offered condolences to the American government and people. "Egypt stands next to the American people in these difficult times, offering sincere condolences to the families of the victims and wishing the injured a speedy recovery." Egypt's statement urged for international solidarity and a "firm, comprehensive approach to confronting terrorism, which knows no borders or religion, and is incompatible with all humanitarian principles and values." ___ UNITED ARAB EMIRATES The United Arab Emirates home to the Western-friendly metropolises of Abu Dhabi and Dubai condemned "the terrorist attack" in Orlando, expressed its solidarity with the United States and called on the international community to work to "eliminate the scourge of terrorism." ___ LEBANON Lebanon's Foreign Ministry is strongly condemning the "cowardly" attack in Orlando, expressing solidarity with the victims and the U.S. government and blaming the massacre on the Islamic State group. It says no country or person is safe from "this global blind terrorism." The Lebanese statement doesn't explicitly mention attacks on homosexuals. But religiously-mixed Lebanon is the most liberal among the region's Arab nations regarding same-sex relationships, with an active LBGT community. Although technically homosexuality is against Lebanese law, activists have strongly challenged it in courts. ___ RUSSIA People have been bringing flowers and rainbow flags to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to show their solidarity with victims of the shooting since early Monday. An Associated Press reporter saw two young men take out a placard saying "Love wins" before police officers came up and led them away. Russia passed a law in 2013 banning the so-called propaganda of gay relationships among minors, which authorities have used to ban any public displays of support for the gay community. ___ THAILAND A vigil honoring those killed and wounded in a Florida nightclub shooting drew at least a dozen people to the front gate of the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. Participants passed around white and yellow candles to light in memory of those killed. "We are distraught by what happened in Orlando," said Paisarn Likhitpreechakul, the vigil's organizer. "We are looking for a way to express our condolences and solidarity with the people and government of the United States to raise awareness of problems of violence against the LGBT community." U.S. Ambassador Glyn T. Davis came out to speak with the Thai LGBT activists and lit a candle. Separately, Thailand's Royal Palace released a message to President Obama from King Bhumibol Adulyadej expressing sympathy and condolences to him and the bereaved families "for their irreparable loss caused by this shocking incident." ___ INDONESIA Indonesia's foreign ministry said the government condemns the attack and extends deepest sympathy to the families of victims and the American people. But Fahri Hamzah, the deputy speaker of Indonesia's parliament, tweeted that the mass killing happened because LGBT people are too visible. Anti-gay rhetoric by officials has been increasingly common in the world's most populous Muslim nation over the past year, fueled by army leaders and conservative religious groups who view homosexuality as an import from the West. Hamzah was recently booted out of his party for ethical violations. ___ CHINA China's official Xinhua News Agency issued a statement saying President Xi Jinping had telephoned his American counterpart Barack Obama to express his condolences over the Orlando shootings. Xi was quoted as saying that "on behalf of the government and people of China, I convey to President Obama and the American government and people my deepest sympathies, sincere condolences and deep grief for the victims." ___ JAPAN Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has condemned the Orlando nightclub attack and expressed condolences to the victims and their families. Abe told reporters Monday in Oita that "Japan stands together with the people of the United States" and that "this despicable act of terror cannot be tolerated." ___ AUSTRALIA Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that the Orlando mass shooting was "an attack on all of us on all our freedoms, the freedom to gather together, to celebrate, to share time with friends." He said he spoke with the U.S. ambassador to Australia, John Berry, "and formally conveyed to him Australians' sympathy, condolences and resolute solidarity in the face of this shocking act of hate and terror." "Together, at home and abroad, we continue the fight against terrorism and stand up for the values of our free nations," Turnbull said. ___ SINGAPORE The mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub happened shortly after a same-sex kiss was removed from a production of the musical "Les Miserables" in Singapore, and after the government said it would look into rules of foreign funding for gay pride parades like Pink Dot. Law Minister K. Shanmugam said on Facebook: "Another senseless shooting. ... It just goes on and on. The madness is not going to stop." ___ MALAYSIA The prime minister of Muslim-majority Malaysia, Najib Razak, said he was "horrified" by the Orlando mass shooting. "Islam abhors killing of innocent people," he tweeted. A few Malaysians, using pseudonyms, wrote on social media that they approved of the attack at the gay nightclub because the victims were "sinners," but they were quickly condemned by many others. ___ MEXICO Mexicans largely reacted to the Orlando nightclub shootings with messages of sympathy for the victims. President Enrique Pena Nieto tweeted his condolences. Many also lamented that mass shootings have become too common in the United States. "My first reaction on hearing the news was horror, but not disbelief," columnist Gabriel Guerra wrote in the newspaper El Universal. "This is another of the innumerable armed attacks that occur daily in the United States." In the conservative state of Jalisco, a midlevel government official posted on Facebook that "It's a shame there were only 50 and not 100." Jalisco Gov. Aristoteles Sandoval said he had ordered that the employee be fired and promised that "expressions of discrimination will not be tolerated under any circumstances." ___ BRAZIL People at a gay pride parade in Rio de Janeiro observed a minute of silence Sunday to honor the victims of the Orlando shootings. "What happened in the United States was unacceptable violence. We are all shocked and cannot face this fact as normal, never," event organizer Loren Alecander told the broadcaster Globo. In Sao Paulo, dozens of people attended a vigil Sunday night carrying candles and banners that read "Pray for Orlando." The government issued a statement condemning the killings and expressing solidarity with victims' relatives and the U.S. government. "We are going through terrible times, times of discrimination and intolerance that are taking human lives," said President Dilma Rousseff, who has been suspended pending an impeachment trial. ___ POLAND Warsaw residents and authorities have placed flowers, rainbow flags and lit lights in front of the U.S. Embassy in a sign of respect for the victims. Deputy Chief of the U.S. Mission in Warsaw, John C. Law, came out to the dozens of people gathered in the street to thank them for their gestures of sympathy. Warsaw Deputy Mayor, Jacek Wojciechowicz, placed a wreath in the city's red and yellow colors. Among the flowers and lights were printed-out pictures of the victims. ___ This story has been corrected throughout to show that the Orlando mass shooter killed 49 and that the figure of 50 dead on the scene included him. A man lights a candle during a spontaneous vigil to remember those slain and wounded at an Orlando nightclub, Sunday June 12, 2016 in Paris. Several people were draped in rainbow flags. They lit candles and took pictures as a person in head-to-toe fetish gear held up a sign saying "Proud." (AP Photo/Raphael Satter) A man places his hand on a bunch of flowers during a vigil in front of the United States embassy in Berlin, German, Monday, June 13, 2016 to honor the victims of the attack on the gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The vigil was organized by Berlin's lesbian and gay organization LSVD. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) A man lays down flowers during a vigil in front of the United States embassy in Berlin, German, Monday, June 13, 2016 to honor the victims of the attack on the gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) Visitors prepare to place candles at a vigil outside the US Embassy for those killed and wounded in the Sunday June 12, 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, June 13, 2016. The vigil was held for victims of the nightclub shooting which killed at least 50 people and was the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to date. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) A man looks over an impromptu candle-lit memorial set up in Sydney, Monday, June 13, 2016, following the Florida mass shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub where police say a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle opened fire, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that the Orlando mass shooting was "an attack on all of us on all our freedoms, the freedom to gather together, to celebrate, to share time with friends." (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft) A man lays down flowers during a vigil in front of the United States embassy in Berlin, German, Monday, June 13, 2016 to honor the victims of the attack on a nightclub in Orlando, Fla. . The vigil was organized by a Berlin's lesbian and gay organization, (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) A woman stands in front of flowers during a vigil in front of the United States embassy in Berlin, German, Monday, June 13, 2016 to honor the victims of the attack on the gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. . (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) American flags and a rainbow banner hang at the Paris City Hall Monday, June 13, 2016 in Paris. The Eiffel Tower will shine in the colors of a rainbow on Monday night to honor victims of the mass shooting at an Orlando gay club. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) American flags hang at the Paris City Hall Monday, June 13, 2016 in Paris. The Eiffel Tower will shine in the colors of a rainbow on Monday night to honor victims of the mass shooting at an Orlando gay club. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) American flags and a rainbow banners hang at the Paris City Hall Monday, June 13, 2016 in Paris. The Eiffel Tower will shine in the colors of a rainbow on Monday night to honor victims of the mass shooting at an Orlando gay club. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) Visitors place candles at a vigil outside the US Embassy for those killed and wounded in the Sunday June 12, 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, June 13, 2016. The vigil was held for victims of the nightclub shooting which killed at least 50 people and was the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to date. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) The US Ambassador to Thailand Glyn T. Davies places a candle with vigil organizer Paisam Likhitpreechakul outside the US Embassy for those killed and wounded in the Sunday June 12, 2016 mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday, June 13, 2016. The vigil was held for victims of the nightclub shooting which killed at least 50 people and was the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to date. (AP Photo/Mark Baker) Greece clears migrant camps near border, volunteers detained THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) Police detained 34 volunteers in northern Greece Monday while clearing makeshift migrant camps along the border with Macedonia. Scores of riot police were deployed as 1,065 Syrians and 58 Iraqis were ordered out of a camp set up around a gas station near the Greek border with Macedonia and moved by bus to a shelter near the northern city of Thessaloniki. The detained volunteers all non-Greeks who had been helping migrants with food distribution and other basic needs were all released without charge following identification checks at a nearby police station, authorities said. Journalists were not allowed access to the site during the police operation. Afghan migrants who live in the Hellenikon refugee and migrant camp of Athens register for asylum on Monday, June 13, 2016. Authorities began registering applications at the site Monday, in a processes expected to last months as more than 50,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded in Greece in the wake of European border closures. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Greece has continued to expand shelter space to house stranded refugees and migrants. Authorities said a site previously used to store grain had been modified by the army and was being used as a shelter where the migrants were being taken. Around 3,000 refugees and migrants were camped at the border at three sites after authorities cleared a huge makeshift camp at Idomeni last month. More than 50,000 migrants remain stranded in Greece following European border closures and an agreement reached in March between the European Union and Turkey to deport newly arrived migrants traveling across the Aegean Sea. In the Greek capital, refugees at government shelters housed in a sprawling former sports complex for the 2004 Athens Olympics began registering for asylum Monday. "They had not intended to apply for international protection in Greece, but due to the circumstances they have been, so to speak, trapped," Maria Stavropoulou, director of the Greek Asylum Service, told the AP. Separately, Greece's coast guard said a distress call had been received from a suspected migrant smuggling boat carrying approximately 200 people in international waters south of the island of Crete and inside Libya's search and rescue area of responsibility. A nearby Greek-flagged tanker and a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship headed to the area to provide assistance, after Libyan authorities asked Greece for help. The coast guard later said the vessel was able to continue on a western course, escorted by the merchant ships. Hundreds of people have died in recent weeks in shipwrecks in the southern Mediterranean, with overcrowded and unseaworthy boats sinking on their way from the shores of north Africa towards Europe, usually heading to Italy. ___ Derek Gatopoulos, Elena Becatoros, Nicholas Paphitis and Raphael Kominis in Athens contributed ___ Follow Kantouris at http://www.twitter.com/CostasKantouris Afghan migrants who live in the Hellenikon refugee and migrant camp of Athens register for asylum on Monday, June 13, 2016. Authorities began registering applications at the site Monday, in a processes expected to last months as more than 50,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded in Greece in the wake of European border closures. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Former PM Brown urges Labour supporters to vote 'in' on EU LONDON (AP) Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an impassioned call Monday for Labour Party supporters to vote to stay in the European Union, amid nervousness in the "remain" camp that it is losing momentum ahead of next week's referendum. Brown, who governed from 2007 to 2010, said Britain should "lead in Europe" and not leave it. Polls suggest the June 23 vote on whether to leave the 28-nation bloc could go either way. The "remain" side has stressed the economic uncertainty that would be triggered by quitting, while the "leave" campaign has focused on unease about the large scale of immigration from other EU countries an approach polls suggest may be reaping rewards. FILE - This is a Saturday, March 29, 2014 file photo of former British Prime Minister and U.N. special envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown as he addresses during an education conference in Islamabad, Pakistan. Brown made an impassioned call Monday June 13 2016 for Labour Party supporters to vote to stay in the European Union, amid nervousness in the "remain" camp that it is losing momentum ahead of next week's referendum. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File) Brown conceded that globalization and rapid change had made many people anxious and left behind. But he argued that Britain needed to work with its neighbors, not walk away from them. "The European Union is not the cause of the problem," he said. "If you can get cooperation working, the European Union can be part of the solution to the problem." Brown's speech is considered significant because his last-minute intervention during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum is credited with bolstering support for remaining part of the United Kingdom. Labour leaders are increasingly worried that many of their working-class supporters plan to vote "leave," or are confused about where their party stands. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has long criticized the EU, and some Labour members feel Corbyn has not made a strong case for staying in the bloc. With just 10 days to go until the vote, other senior Labour figures are stepping up their campaigning. Labour's foreign affairs spokesman, Hilary Benn, said in a speech Monday that Britain has "always looked beyond our own shores and engaged with the wider world," and argued that leaving the EU "would make us a poorer Britain. A lesser Britain. A less influential Britain." European Council President Donald Tusk delivered an even starker warning, saying a British exit could start the unraveling of the political system that had dominated Europe for much of the past century. Tusk told German daily Bild that Brexit "could in fact be the start of the process of destruction of not only the EU but also of the Western political civilization." "Not only economic implications will be negative for the U.K., but first and foremost geopolitical," he said. "Do you know why these consequences are so dangerous? Because in the long-term they are completely unpredictable." He said enemies of the EU "will open a bottle of champagne" if Britain leaves. "Leave" campaigners have accused pro-EU forces of engaging in "Project fear" because of their claims Brexit would cause economic and political turmoil. Former London Mayor Boris Johnson, a leader of the "leave" campaign, said his opponents were "rattled." "You can tell that they are panicking because they are resorting to more and more scare stories, more and more misery, more and more discussion of the end of civilization," he said. Leave campaigners were accused of using scare tactics themselves after the Leave.EU group tweeted a poster claiming that Britain faces "an Orlando-style atrocity" if it stays in the bloc. The tweet was deleted after drawing criticism from "remain" campaigners. Equalities Minister Nicky Morgan said linking the referendum to the shooting attack in which 50 people died was "shameful." Telecoms giant BT became the latest company to take sides Monday, sending a letter to 80,000 staff urging a "remain" vote. The letter said "the majority of businesses large, medium and small believe we are better off staying in." "Virtually all major independent experts believe leaving the EU would result in an economic downturn, one from which it may take several years to recover," said the letter, signed by chairman Mike Rake, chief executive Gavin Patterson and leaders of two major unions at BT. Many large private-sector employers have said they want Britain to stay in the EU, citing access to the bloc's single market of 500 million people. Small firms are more divided, with some saying they would like to be free from EU regulation. ___ Raf Casert in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report. The Latest: Migrants found in Hungary taken to transit zones THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) The Latest on European reactions to the migrant crisis (all times local): 4:20 p.m. Officials in Hungary say some migrants detained by police after breaching the fence on the border with Serbia will be taken to transit zones beyond the fence where they can apply for asylum. Afghan migrants who live in the Hellenikon refugee and migrant camp of Athens wait to register for asylum on Monday, June 13, 2016. Authorities began registering applications at the site Monday, in a processes expected to last months as more than 50,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded in Greece in the wake of European border closures. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Until now, migrants detained by police and requesting asylum were usually taken to open reception centers, from where most continued their journeys to western Europe, but Hungary is planning to shut the centers down. Gyorgy Bakondi, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's security adviser, said that the rules approved Monday by parliament will apply to migrants detained within 8 kilometers (5 miles) of the border but where it cannot be determined that they cut through the border fence a criminal act since the razor-wire barrier was built late last year. Human rights advocates consider that measure as another restriction on migrants and refugees. ___ 3:20 p.m. Police clearing makeshift camps along the border with Macedonia on Monday detained 34 volunteers who were working with migrants in northern Greece. Scores of riot police were deployed as nearly 600 Syrians and Iraqis were ordered out of a camp set up around a gas station near the Greek border with Macedonia and moved by bus to a shelter near the northern city of Thessaloniki. The detained volunteers all non-Greeks were all released without charge following identification checks at a nearby police station, authorities said. Journalists were not allowed access to the site during the police operation. Greece has continued to expand shelter space to house stranded refugees and migrants. Authorities said a site previously used to store grain had been modified by the army and was being used as a shelter where the migrants were being taken. ____ 2:50 p.m. Police say that a man in western Germany shot at a home for asylum-seekers with an air gun, slightly wounding two young refugees. Police said that the incident happened Sunday in Lingen, near the Dutch border. The man took aim from his third-story apartment window, wounding a 5-year-old boy and an 18-year-old man who were outside the home about 40 meters (130 feet) away. A witness reported seeing shots fired from the 21-year-old man's apartment, which police then searched. They said Monday that they seized an air gun and ammunition. They said in a statement it wasn't immediately clear whether the shooting was "politically motivated." The two refugees received outpatient treatment at a hospital. ___ 1:50 p.m. Greece's coast guard says a distress call has been received from a suspected migrant smuggling boat carrying approximately 200 people in international waters south of the island of Crete and inside Libya's search and rescue area of responsibility. The coast guard said Monday a nearby Greek-flagged tanker and a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship were heading to the area to provide assistance, after Libyan authorities asked Greece for help. No further details on the nature of the emergency were immediately available. Hundreds of people have died in recent weeks in shipwrecks in the southern Mediterranean, with overcrowded and unseaworthy boats sinking on their way from the shores of north Africa toward Europe, usually heading to Italy. __ 1:15 p.m. The U.N. human rights chief says the European Union needs to uphold its commitment to resettle tens of thousands of refugees now stuck in Greece and Italy. Over a million people, mostly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, crossed the eastern Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Greece since January 2015. The flow has recently slowed following an EU-Turkey accord on the migration crisis. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein noted a "worrying increase" in detention of migrants where "even unaccompanied children are frequently placed in prison cells or centers ringed with barbed-wire." Speaking Monday to the Human Rights Council, Zeid said EU members "need to make good on their commitments" made in September to relocate 160,000 people from Greece and Italy. He cited new figures saying less than 1 percent of those have been relocated. ___ 12:05 p.m. Police in northern Greece are clearing makeshift migrant camps along the border with Macedonia after creating more shelter space to house stranded refugees and migrants. Scores of riot police were deployed Monday as more than 400 Syrians and Iraqis were moved from a camp set up around a gas station near the Greek border with Macedonia and moved by bus to a shelter near the northern city of Thessaloniki. Authorities said a site previously used to store grain had been modified by the army and was being used as a shelter where the migrants were being taken. Journalists were not allowed access to the site during the police operation. Around 3,000 refugees and migrants remain camped at the border at three sites, after authorities cleared a huge makeshift camp at Idomeni last month. Afghan migrants who live in the Hellenikon refugee and migrant camp of Athens register for asylum on Monday, June 13, 2016. Authorities began registering applications at the site Monday, in a processes expected to last months as more than 50,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded in Greece in the wake of European border closures. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) PICTURED: Editor selections from the past week in Asia Muslims across Asia started observing the fasting month of Ramadan, when the faithful abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from dawn until dusk. Most Muslims break their fast like the Prophet Muhammad did some 1,400 years ago, with a sip of water and some dates at sunset. With the cityscape of Malaysia's capital beneath him, a tourist posed for photos in the observatory sky box at the Kuala Lumpur Tower. A worker demonstrated target feeding of Japanese Sea Nettle, a type of jellyfish, in Singapore, while a boy in Tokyo cycled past a wall of mock-up mobile phones. FILE - In this June 9, 2016, file photo, Muslim women read the Quran during the holy fasting month of Ramadan at a mosque on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia. During Ramadan, the holiest month on Islamic calendar, Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex from dawn to dusk. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana) In Thailand, Buddhist monks lined up to receive offerings during the 70th anniversary celebrations of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej's accession to the throne, while in Beijing an animal rights advocate held a rescued dog during a demonstration against an annual dog meat festival in southern China. ___ This gallery was curated by Associated Press photo editor Karly Domb Sadoff in Bangkok. FILE - In this , Friday, June 10, 2016, file photo, Bangladeshi Muslims walk past others who have already taken their positions as they pour into a mosque to offer prayers on the first Friday of Ramadan in Dhaka, Bangladesh. During Ramadan, the holiest month in Islamic calendar, Muslims refrain from eating, and drinking from dawn till dusk. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) FILE - In this Tuesday, June 7, 2016, file photo, an Indian Muslim woman performs a prayer after breaking her fast on the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India. Islam's holiest month is a period of intense prayer, dawn-to-dusk fasting and nightly feasts. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri) FILE - In this Tuesday, June 7, 2016, file photo, an Indian Muslim performs a prayer after breaking his fast on the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan at Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India. Islam's holiest month is a period of intense prayer, dawn-to-dusk fasting and nightly feasts. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri) FILE - In this Sunday, June 5, 2016, file photo, a tourist poses for souvenir photographs with the Petronas Twin Towers seen at left from an observatory sky box at the Kuala Lumpur Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Petronas Twin Towers are one of the major landmarks in Kuala Lumpur along with the Kuala Lumpur Tower. (AP Photo/Joshua Paul, File) FILE - In this Tuesday, June 7, 2016, file photo, an aquarist at the S.E.A. (South East Asia Aquarium of Resorts World Sentosa) demonstrates a method of feeding known as target feeding of Japanese Sea Nettle, a type of jellyfish. in Singapore. This is part of efforts by the aquarium to educate visitors on the threats facing the oceans and the importance of protecting them as part of their 10-day celebration of World Ocean Day which falls on June 8. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File) FILE- In this Thursday, June 2, 2016, file photo, a boy cycles past a wall of mock-up mobile phones displayed outside an electronics store in downtown Tokyo, Japan. The store owner started this display with a few thousands of cellphones ten years ago, which continue to draw attention from those who pass by. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, File) FILE -In this Thursday, June 9, 2016, file photo, Buddhist monks line up to receive offerings from devotees outside the Grand Palace during the 70th anniversary celebrations of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej's accession to the throne in Bangkok, Thailand. King Bhumibol is the world's longest-reigning monarch. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File) Morocco announces arrest of Italian man linked to IS group RABAT, Morocco (AP) Moroccan authorities said Tuesday they had arrested an Italian national on suspicion of plotting attacks in support of the Islamic State group. In a statement, Morocco's Ministry of Interior said that the unidentified man had been "brainwashed" by the fanatical Muslim group and had unsuccessfully tried to join the organization's training camps back in 2014. Italy's Interior Ministry did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. The line was busy at the Italian Embassy in Rabat. The Moroccan statement said the Italian was arrested Wednesday at Oujda airport near the Algerian border. It added that he was ordinarily resident in Belgium but had spent time in Casablanca, Morocco's commercial capital, after arriving in the North African kingdom in June 2015. Few other details were released. NATO chief: 4 battalions going to Baltic states, Poland BRUSSELS (AP) NATO's chief announced Monday that the alliance will agree this week to send four multinational battalions to the Baltic states and Poland to boost their defenses against Russia. Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said alliance defense ministers will formally approve the deployment plan drafted by NATO military planners at a meeting that begins Tuesday in Brussels. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, four of NATO's members that feel most threatened by Russia, will each be reinforced by "a robust multinational battalion," Stoltenberg told a news conference. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday, June 13, 2016. NATOs chief says the alliance will agree this week to send four multinational battalions to the Baltic states and Poland to boost their defenses against Russia. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) "This will send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any ally," the alliance chief said. There was no immediate reaction from Moscow. The Kremlin has accused NATO of moving more and more military forces close to its borders, and vowed to do what it takes to protect Russia's national security and interests. Poland and the Baltic states have been seeking a permanent, significant NATO troop presence on their territory since Russia, their neighbor to the east, annexed the Crimea Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and began backing pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine. The four alliance members believe the NATO boots on their soil will be an unmistakable sign of the alliance's commitment to their security, and serve as a deterrent to the Russians. Until now, "Poland has stepped into NATO, but NATO has failed to step into our territory," Polish President Andrzej Duda said recently. Stoltenberg said the battalions will be under the orders of NATO commanders, and deploy on a rotational basis rather than being based permanently in the host countries. U.S. NATO Ambassador Douglas Lute said numerous details, including the exact number of troops involved as well as the national composition of the battalions and who will be in command, remained to be decided and will be announced at the July NATO summit in Warsaw. "By Warsaw, three weeks from now, we'll have answers to who's contributing where," Lute told a news conference in Brussels. With some 800-1,000 troops in each unit, NATO officials estimate some 4,000 troops will be deployed in total. Earlier in the day, speaking during a telephone press briefing, Lute, a former three-star U.S. Army general, said the troops will rotate, but coverage will be continuous and the presence will be maintained as long as necessary. A leading European security analyst said the units' purpose is not so much to repel any attacking Russians, but to make clear to Moscow that an act of aggression could rapidly bring it into head-to-head military conflict with the United States and other NATO member countries, who could rush in further reinforcements. "Deterrence of the Russians will be more in the assurance that if they were to attack, they would come into contact with NATO forces almost immediately, and that therefore the Russians should not doubt NATO's determination to fight," said Jonathan Eyal, international director at the Royal United Services Institute in London. "For that, you don't need large numbers of troops." The United States, Britain and Germany have already committed to acting as so-called framework nations to furnish core forces for three of the battalions. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday that it's not yet clear how many troops the U.S. would provide for the battalion it is responsible for. But he said it's possible that the U.S. could supply the entire 800-1,000 troops for the unit. ___ Lolita C. Baldor in Brussels contributed to this report. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Monday, June 13, 2016. NATOs chief says the alliance will agree this week to send four multinational battalions to the Baltic states and Poland to boost their defenses against Russia. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo) Germany: talks on colonial-era Namibia killings advanced BERLIN (AP) Germany and Namibia are in the advanced stages of talks on officially recognizing as "genocide" a colonial-era crackdown more than a century ago in which more than 65,000 ethnic Hereros were killed, the German government said Monday. It hopes to conclude them by late next year. Historians say German Gen. Lothar von Trotha, who was sent to what was then South West Africa to put down an uprising by the Hereros against their German rulers in 1904, instructed his troops to wipe out the entire tribe. About two-thirds of all Hereros were killed, and the order also affected smaller tribes. The German government says the basis its approach is a parliamentary motion signed in 2012 by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, stating that "the war of destruction in Namibia from 1904 to 1908 was a war crime and genocide." Steinmeier was an opposition leader at the time and the motion didn't pass. "The process of negotiations is quite well advanced," Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer told reporters. He said officials hope to conclude it during the current parliamentary term, which ends with an election expected in September 2017. The aim is to produce joint declarations by the countries' governments and parliaments and to draw "conclusions for the future," which could include projects to give the descendants of the victims "development prospects," Schaefer said. Then-Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul traveled to Namibia in 2004 and offered Germany's first apology for the massacre, which she said was "what today would be labeled as genocide." Last year, Parliament speaker Norbert Lammert said that "measured by today's standards of international law, the putting down of the Herero uprising was genocide." Lammert noted in an interview with ZDF television broadcast Sunday that his comments were "just as unambiguous" as a resolution approved by lawmakers June 2 describing as genocide the killings a century ago of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a vote that infuriated Turkey. Lashing out at Germany after the vote, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan brought up the Namibia killings, saying "they should review the Namibia Holocaust." Lammert said it was "regrettable and, in the context of recent debates, also a bit embarrassing" that the German legislature has yet to make a statement on the Herero killings. Police: Deputy fatally shoots suspect in domestic dispute HISEVILLE, Ky. (AP) Kentucky State Police say they are investigating after a deputy fatally shot a suspect in a domestic dispute. Police said in a statement the Barren County Sheriff's Department responded Sunday evening to the dispute at a home in Hiseville, where a woman reported that her husband had shot her. The woman was able to get to a neighbor's home. Police say when deputies caught up to her husband, 61-year-old John Williams, he fired at them multiple times. Police say Deputy Dean Harbaugh returned fire, striking Williams. Williams was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy is scheduled Monday in Louisville. The woman, who was not identified, was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, for non-life-threatening injuries. Walgreens cuts ties to blood-testing company Theranos Troubled blood-testing startup Theranos says it will continue serving customers through independent retail locations a day after the nation's largest drugstore chain severed ties with the company. Walgreens had said Sunday that it will immediately close all 40 Theranos Wellness Centers at the drugstore chain's Arizona locations. In January, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. told Theranos to stop sending samples collected at its stores to a testing facility that drew regulatory scrutiny over possible patient risks. Theranos said Monday in a brief statement posted on its website that it was disappointed with the Walgreens decision. The blood-testing company said it was working with government officials "to ensure that we not only comply with all federal regulations but exceed them," and it still would serve customers in California and Arizona through the independent retail locations. Palo Alto, California-based Theranos has raised millions of dollars by pitching its technology as a cheaper, faster way to run blood tests. Libya's UN envoy condemns torture, killing of prisoners BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) The U.N. envoy to Libya on Monday condemned the torture and killing of 12 people after their release from a militia-run prison in the North African country. The 12, who were tried on charges of killing protesters during the 2011 uprising that ousted and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, were released last week and their bodies were found a day later, bearing signs of torture. The incident illustrates the lawlessness that still permeates Libya, months after the formation of a U.N.-brokered government aimed at unifying the country's rival factions and restoring security. The unity government is also overseeing a large offensive against Libya's Islamic State affiliate in the militant group's stronghold of Sirte. After an initial push into the coastal city, the pro-government militias, mainly from the western city of Misrata, have been slowed down in the face of IS suicide bombers. Brig. Gen. Mohammed al-Ghosri said Sunday forces were advancing "carefully to ensure less casualties" while using long distance artillery to break IS ranks and avoid street battles. He blamed the international community for the slow-down, saying, "we are left to fight alone." IS militants had barricaded themselves in a densely built-up area in the city center, with their snipers taking positions on rooftops. Nearly 140 fighters were killed and hundreds wounded in the month-long anti-IS offensive. Libyan Justice Ministry spokesman Wessam al-Saghir said the 12 were freed last Wednesday and that their bodies were found in different parts of the capital, Tripoli, with bullet wounds to their heads and bearing signs of torture. CSX: Freight train derails in Baltimore tunnel; no injuries BALTIMORE (AP) Authorities say it appears that a mechanical problem caused a freight train derailment in a tunnel in Baltimore, but the specific cause is under investigation. CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle said at least 13 cars derailed early Monday in the Howard Street tunnel, but there were no injuries or hazards to the public. Doolittle says the 124-car train was headed from Philadelphia to Cumberland, Maryland, with eight locomotives. He says one derailed car contains acetone, a flammable solvent. Rail traffic was stopped in the area. Philippine officials confirm Canadian hostage was beheaded MANILA, Philippines (AP) Philippine officials confirmed Tuesday that Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded a Canadian man, the second Canadian hostage to be killed in two months after their demands for a large ransom were not met. The hostage, Robert Hall, was abducted from a marina last September along with another Canadian, a Norwegian and a Filipino. The other Canadian, former mining executive John Ridsdel, was beheaded in April. Presidential spokesman Herminio Coloma condemned "the brutal and senseless murder" of Hall. He had been held by the Abu Sayyaf in the jungles of southern Sulu province for nine months. FILE - This file image made from undated militant video, shows Canadians Robert Hall, left, and John Ridsdel, right. Police found a severed head in the southern Philippines on Monday, June 13, 2016, and are examining whether it belonged to Canadian hostage Robert Hall, who is believed to have been beheaded by Abu Sayyaf militants after a ransom deadline passed, officials said. Ridsdel was beheaded in April. (Militant Video via AP Video, File) NO SALES, MANDATORY CREDIT "This latest heinous crime serves to strengthen our government's resolve to put an end to this reign of terror and banditry," he said in a statement. A militant video obtained by Philippine police officials and seen by The Associated Press showed Hall in an orange shirt and kneeling in front of a black Islamic State-style flag before he was killed in a jungle area. An Abu Sayyaf deadline for the payment of a large ransom lapsed Monday and police later found a severed head of a Caucasian man outside a Roman Catholic cathedral in Sulu province's main Jolo town. In Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was "compelling reason to believe" that Hall had been killed by his captors, and that the Canadian government was working with Philippine authorities to confirm his death. "We have every reason to believe that the reports are unfortunately true," Trudeau said. He said he was "horrified" by the killings and reaffirmed Canada's refusal to pay ransoms. "The government of Canada will not and cannot pay ransoms for hostages to terrorist groups, as doing so would endanger the lives of more Canadians," Trudeau said in a statement. "We are more committed than ever to working with the government of the Philippines and international partners to pursue those responsible for these heinous acts and bring them to justice, however long it takes." Trudeau recently urged leaders of other members of the Group of Seven rich nations to reiterate their opposition to paying ransoms. After being abducted from the marina on southern Samal Island last September, the hostages were taken by boat to Sulu, where the Abu Sayyaf has held hostages for years in mountainous jungle camps. Ridsdel was beheaded on April 25 after a ransom demand of 300 million pesos ($6.3 million) was not paid. In an Abu Sayyaf video posted on YouTube after Ridsdel's death, Hall and the two other hostages, Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad and Filipino woman Marites Flor, pleaded to Canadian and Philippine officials to negotiate their release. "We live like this every day, go to bed like this," Hall said, raising his arms to show that he was handcuffed. We have a hundred people heavily armed around us all the time that dictate to us and talk to us like children. We've been humiliated in every way possible. One of us has already been murdered." Hall spoke later in the video for a second time, sounding resigned to a tragic fate. "I would also like to thank my family for the effort they put in my family and friends for the effort they put in to get me out of here. I know you did everything you can, and I truly appreciate it. I'm sorry I got you in this mess," he said. Trudeau extended his "heartfelt condolences" to Hall's relatives and friends. The United States and the Philippines have both listed the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization for kidnappings, beheadings and bombings. The group emerged in the early 1990s as an extremist offshoot of a decades-long Muslim separatist rebellion in the country's south. __ Bosniak leader pays tribute to Serb wartime victims SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) Muslim Bosniak leader Bakir Izetbegovic paid tribute Monday to the victims of a Bosnian Muslim paramilitary group during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, visiting the mountain where they were thrown into a crevice by a unit seeking revenge against Serbs. Izetbegovic placed white flowers on a rock at the massacre site in the outskirts of Sarajevo, in a gesture of reconciliation with Serbs. "It is very sad what happened here," said Izetbegovic, who represents Muslim Bosniaks in the country's three-member presidency. Bosnian Muslim leader Bakir Izetbegovic member of Bosnian Presidency, front centre, lays a wreath as he pays tribute to at least 30 Bosnian Serbs who were killed by paramilitary group during the 1992-95 Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Monday, June 13, 2016. The first Bosnian Muslim leader to visit the site, Izetbegovic is visiting the mountain where at least 30 Bosnian-Serbs were thrown into an abyss by a paramilitary unit seeking revenge for a Serb nationalist siege on the capital. The city of Sarajevo behind. (AP Photo/Amel Emric) "We have to do everything to prevent these things from repeating ever again. To anyone. Anywhere," he said, adding he should have visited the place earlier and that he hopes his visit will inspire other politicians in Bosnia to pay tribute to victims their own ethnic group killed. The head of the Serb Civic Council, an association of Sarajevo Serbs, praised Izetbegovic's move. "This act will contribute a lot to reconciliation here," said Milorad Novakovic, the head of the association. "It will contribute to a joint life here; it will contribute to lasting peace and tolerance." The Kazani pit killings, as they came to be known, occurred during a months-long onslaught by the paramilitary group, which sought revenge for a siege by nationalist Serbs of Sarajevo. Their victims included Serbs who favored national unity, as well as some Croats and even some Muslims. The paramilitary forces were stopped when Bosnian government forces overwhelmed the unit and killed its commander in 1993. The killings by the unit threw a shadow on the government and its image of being an advocate of a multiethnic Bosnia, even though dozens of the perpetrators were tried for war crimes and several government forces were killed while crushing the unit. At the time of the killings and the subsequent fight against the paramilitary unit, Izetbegovic's father was the president of the country. Bosnian Muslim leader Bakir Izetbegovic member of Bosnian Presidency, front right, lays a wreath as he pays tribute to at least 30 Bosnian Serbs who were killed by paramilitary group during the 1992-95 Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Monday, June 13, 2016. The first Bosnian Muslim leader to visit the site, Izetbegovic is visiting the mountain where at least 30 Bosnian-Serbs were thrown into an abyss by a paramilitary unit seeking revenge for a Serb nationalist siege on the capital. (AP Photo/Amel Emric) Member of police forces secure an area while Bosnian Serb Miladin Vidakovic member of the Serb Civil Council from Sarajevo looks on, near the spot where 30 Bosnian Serbs were killed by paramilitary group during the 1992-95 Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Monday, June 13, 2016. The first Bosnian Muslim leader to visit the site, Izetbegovic is visiting the mountain where at least 30 Bosnian-Serbs were thrown into an abyss by a paramilitary unit seeking revenge for a Serb nationalist siege on the capital. The city of Sarajevo behind.(AP Photo/Amel Emric) Bosnian Serb man Miladin Vidakovic member of the Serb Civil Council from Sarajevo fixes his tie, near spot where 30 Bosnian Serbs were killed by paramilitary group during the 1992-95 Bosnian war in Sarajevo, Bosnia, Monday, June 13, 2016. The first Bosnian Muslim leader to visit the site, Izetbegovic is visiting the mountain where at least 30 Bosnian-Serbs were thrown into an abyss by a paramilitary unit seeking revenge for a Serb nationalist siege on the capital. The city of Sarajevo behind. The city of Sarajevo behind. (AP Photo/Amel Emric) PICTURED: Poor Bangladesh kids work to eat, help families DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) Eleven-year-old Al Amin and his friends work 10 hours a day, six days a week, sawing aluminum sheets and pounding them into bowls and plates. They need the few dollars a day they make to keep eating and support their families in the slums of Bangladesh's jam-packed capital, Dhaka. "I love to study in school," Al Amin said, covered in the fine metal dust he has been breathing while working without protective gear in one of the dozens of aluminum factories clustered in the city's Kamrangirchar neighborhood. "But my father died, and I had no choice. I must work." In this photo taken on Sunday, June 12, 2016, Imran, 11, poses for a portrait as he works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/ A.M. Ahad) Al Amin's story is hardly unique. Some 4.7 million children below the country's legal working age of 14 spend their days as restaurant servers, ticket collectors on public buses, construction workers, or laborers in garment factories and other hazardous industries, according to UNICEF. Many are forced to work to send money to their families who are struggling to maintain farms outside the city. Some must work to help pay medical bills for an ailing parent. And some just need a job to get by in the slums of Dhaka, after fleeing flooded villages in the low-lying delta nation. Worldwide, an estimated 168 million children aged 5-17 are working in dozens of countries, according to the International Labor Organization. The U.N. agency says many of those children, while working in informal sectors out of the sight of authorities, produce materials and products that are ultimately sold on the world market. "Child labor has no place in well-functioning and well-regulated markets, or in any supply chain," ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said in a statement Sunday, the U.N.'s World Day against Child Labor. Largely a product of persistent poverty worldwide, child labor came into sharp focus two years ago when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to children's rights activists Malala Yousef from Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India. In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Imran, 11, works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Imran, 11, works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Nizam, 11, works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Abdullah, 12, works at a metal factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Al Amin, 10, looks towards camera as he works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Ridoy, 7, works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, child laborers take a break as they work at a metal factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this photo taken on Sunday, June 12, 2016, child laborers share a light moment as they work at a metal factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/ A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, boys Imran, 11, left, and Nizam, 11, look at a mobile phone, as they take a break during their work at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Rubel, 12, looks towards camera as he works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Ridoy, 11, poses for a portrait as he works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Bangladeshi child Arif, 9, looks towards camera as he works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Nizam, 11, poses for a portrait as he works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Sunday, June 12, 2016. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) In this Sunday, June 12, 2016, photo, Robin, 10, looks towards camera as he works at a factory that makes metal utensils in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The World Day Against Child Labor, which was initiated in 2002 by the International Labor Organization to highlight the plight of child laborers, is observed across the world on June 12. (AP Photo/A.M. Ahad) Police: Suspect in death of wife, 4 daughters in custody ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) The search for a man charged in the deaths of his wife and four daughters in the United States ended in the hills of a northern Mexico town where authorities say the suspect threatened to take his life as officers closed in on him. Juan David Villegas-Hernandez was taken into custody by Sonora state police on Sunday a day after police in Roswell, New Mexico, said the 34-year-old shot and killed his wife, Cynthia Villegas, and their four daughters ages 14, 11, 7 and 3. The mother, who also was 34, was a well-respected employee of the Eastern New Mexico Medical Center, said Roswell Mayor Dennis Kintigh, who spoke with the CEO of the hospital on Sunday. This photo provided by the Roswell Police Department shows Juan David Villegas-Hernandez. Authorities are searching for the man they believe shot his wife and four daughters to death in their New Mexico home. Roswell police identified Villegas-Hernandez on Sunday, June 12, 2016 as the suspect in the fatal shootings. (AP Photo/Roswell Police Department) "This rippled through town quickly," he said. "Candidly, it's hard to get your mind around the deaths of small children. It's hard for law enforcement; it's hard for family members and the whole community." He described Roswell, a desert town in southern New Mexico, as a community that can often feel isolated from much of the rest of the state. It's home to about 50,000 people. Records show that nearly 10 years ago the Villegas purchased their home in Roswell, where the shooting happened. Before that, it appeared Villegas-Hernandez had lived in Sierra Vista, Arizona. He is originally from Arizpe, a city in the Mexican state of Sonora where he was arrested. It lies southeast of the border crossing nearest Nogales, Arizona. Villegas-Hernandez has dual citizenship in the United States and Mexico, which means he can't be deported and is subject to Mexico's often-lengthy extradition process, said Victor Felix, of Sonora state police. Roswell police haven't released a possible motive for the killings. But according to court documents obtained Monday by the Albuquerque Journal, Cynthia Villegas had just asked her husband for a divorce. The newspaper said a criminal complaint filed in Chaves County Magistrate Court showed a struggling marriage an unhappy and unemployed husband worried about infidelity and a wife in fear of a man who had allegedly become controlling and threatening. During his years in Roswell, however, Villegas-Hernandez had little if any contact with police, said Todd Wildermuth, a spokesman for Roswell police. Authorities had launched a search for the suspect early Sunday after relatives who stopped at the family's house late Saturday called authorities. One of the relatives saw the body of a victim through a partially open window. After officers arrived, they reportedly discovered the victims in three different bedrooms of the house, Wildermuth said. By Sunday afternoon, Sonora state police in Mexico alerted local authorities in Roswell that they believed they had apprehended the suspect. Officers had gone to Villegas-Hernandez's family home in Arizpe and found his vehicle parked outside, Felix said. When the suspect realized police were present, he fled in a vehicle, then bailed out and ran. "It's a hilly area and he fled into the hills on foot," Felix said. "When police surrounded him, he took out a knife and said he was going to kill himself." The officers managed to take him into custody "it was a process of negotiation," Felix said and are now holding him under arrest at a local hospital. Felix said Villegas-Hernandez is being held on a misdemeanor charge equivalent to fleeing from police, and that Mexican authorities can hold him for only 36 hours. The U.S. Marshals Service is assisting Roswell police in the process of completing paperwork to extradite Villegas-Hernandez back to New Mexico. He has been charged in state district court with five counts of first-degree in the deaths of his wife and their daughters Yamilen, Cynthia Janeth, Abby and Ida. Roswell police initially gave different spellings of three of the children's names. It was not immediately known whether he had a lawyer in New Mexico. --- High Court won't hear dispute over birthright citizenship WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a group of American Samoans who say the United States should grant full citizenship to people born in the U.S. territory. The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that said the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship does not extend to the islands that have been a part of the country since 1900. Current law considers American Samoans to be "nationals," not full citizens like those born in Puerto Rico, Guam and other U.S. territories. Nationals are allowed to work and live anywhere in the United States, but unlike citizens, they can't vote or hold elective office. The challengers said that the law violates the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last year that birthright citizenship does not automatically apply to the nation's unincorporated political territories. The lawsuit was filed by a small group of American Samoans who did not have the support of the islands' government officials. The government of American Samoa has argued that automatic U.S. citizenship could undermine local traditions and practices, including rules that restrict land ownership to those of Samoan ancestry. The Obama administration also weighed in against the challengers, saying the issue should be decided by Congress if the elected government of American Samoa changes its position. About 56,000 people live in American Samoa. People born there who want full citizenship must leave the territory and live in a U.S. state for at least three months to apply for naturalization. Many complain that the inconvenience and expense of the process deters them from pursuing citizenship. Image of Asia: A greeting before entering court in Cambodia In this photo by Heng Sinith, detained human rights worker Yi Soksan, left, is touched by his daughter as he arrives at an appeals court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The court on Monday denied bail to him and four other human rights workers who were arrested in April on accusations they tried to help cover up a woman's affair with the deputy leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party. Rights groups have expressed concern about a growing campaign of legal pressure against critics and opponents of Prime Minister Hun Sen's government ahead of elections starting next year. Lawyer who represented freed Detroit teen wants license back DETROIT (AP) An attorney who represented a Detroit teenager when he was sent to prison for murder is trying to get his law license reinstated at a time when the convictions have been overturned and the young man is free after eight years. Robert Slameka's license was suspended in 2015 after two misdemeanor convictions, not because of his work on behalf of Davontae Sanford. But that case, among many other issues, has been the subject of testimony at the Attorney Discipline Board. Slameka's critics include a University of Michigan law professor, David Moran, who played a critical role in getting Sanford released from prison last Wednesday. Davontae Sanford stands with his mother, Taminko Sanford and addresses the media during a news conference, Thursday, June 9, 2016 in Detroit. Sanford entered prison as a teenager in 2008 and was released Wednesday, a day after his guilty pleas to four fatal shootings were erased by a judge at the request of prosecutors who conceded the case was compromised by flawed police work. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) In 2008, Slameka represented Sanford when the 15-year-old pleaded guilty to four murders. Sanford, now 23, is free after prosecutors acknowledged police misconduct. Separately, a professional hit man has admitted to the slayings. Slameka didn't challenge Sanford's confession in court, although the boy was blind in one eye, 14 at the time of his arrest and could barely read or write. "Everything that was in Davontae Sanford's confession turned out to be false except the facts that the police already knew," Moran told the Attorney Discipline Board, which is considering whether to reinstate Slameka's law license. Slameka told the board that he didn't force Sanford to plead guilty to second-degree murder. "I advised him. I gave him all his rights. I visited him six times in jail. I got nowhere with him," Slameka said, according to a transcript. Moran said he regularly scrutinized convictions in Slameka's cases when the professor was a state appellate lawyer in the 1990s. "He's the last person in the Michigan Bar Directory that I would want to have represent anyone close to me or anyone off the street for that matter," Moran said. Slameka's law license suspension was tied to misdemeanor convictions for larceny and breaking and entering. He said he was trying to retrieve his wallet from a woman. His attorney in the license matter, David Burgess, declined to comment Monday. Slameka said he didn't have a traditional law office before his suspension but would regularly meet clients in the lobby of a Detroit casino. "I've never heard a complaint from a client meeting me in that location," he told the board. Board member Paul J. Fischer said Slameka sounded like the lawyer in AMC's "Better Call Saul," who meets people in a nail salon. "It just doesn't sound like what a lawyer does," Fischer said. Slameka pledged to get office space if reinstated. Two Wayne County judges, Richard Skutt and James Chylinski, said they like Slameka's style, especially when he works with people who need a court-appointed lawyer. "He's the type of guy that has a little bit, I should say a little bit less tact and more directness: This is what you got, this is what you're facing, this is what I recommend," Chylinski said. ___ The Latest: Heavily armed man not allowed to leave Indiana SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) The Latest on the arrest of a heavily armed man who told police he was heading to a gay pride parade (all times local): 11 a.m. Authorities say they'll try to revoke the probation of an Indiana man arrested with a cache of weapons and ammunition who said he was headed to a California gay pride parade. This June 12, 2016 law enforcement booking photo provided by the Santa Monica, Calif., Police Department shows James Wesley Howell, 20, of Indiana. Police say Howell was the heavily armed man arrested in Santa Monica on his way to a Southern California gay pride parade, who told them he wanted to do harm to the event. (Santa Monica Police Department via AP) The chief probation officer in Clark County, Indiana, says 20-year-old James Wesley Howell didn't have permission to leave the state following his guilty plea in April to a misdemeanor intimidation charge. James Hayden says Howell met on May 22 with a probation officer, who rated him a low-level offender. Hayden says officers hadn't yet conducted a surprise home visit to check that Howell was following a judge's order not to have weapons during his one-year probation. Howell was arrested Sunday in Santa Monica with three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, and explosive chemicals. ___ 10:15 a.m. Court records show the Indiana man arrested with a cache of weapons and ammunition who said he was headed to a California gay pride parade was twice accused of threatening people with a gun last year. Police in Charlestown, Indiana, say the first incident involved James Wesley Howell's boyfriend last October and the second involved a neighbor four days later. Howell was charged with intimidation in the second case and reached a plea deal that placed him on probation and prohibited him from having weapons. The 20-year-old was arrested Sunday in Santa Monica with three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, and explosive chemicals. Santa Monica police said Howell told them he was in town for the annual gay pride parade in West Hollywood. Police haven't said whether Howell had any plans to use the weapons. ___ 7:50 a.m. A lawyer for a heavily armed Indiana man who told police he was headed to a gay pride parade when they arrested him in California says the suspect's father is cooperating with the FBI. Louisville, Kentucky, attorney Bobby Boyd tells station WDRB-TV (http://bit.ly/25XoJG5 ) that the father of James Wesley Howell is shocked by his 20-year-old son's arrest and is talking to investigators. Boyd asked that the father not be identified. Howell was arrested Sunday with a car full of assault rifles and chemicals used in making explosives. He told police he was going to LA Pride in West Hollywood, an event that draws hundreds of thousands of people each year. Boyd, who represented Howell in a Kentucky case, says Howell is trying to find an attorney in California. He's scheduled to appear in Los Angeles court Tuesday. Investigators view items removed from a car, left, after a heavily armed man was arrested in Santa Monica, Calif., early Sunday, June 12, 2016. The man reportedly told police he was in the area for West Hollywood's huge gay pride parade. Authorities did not know of any connection between the gay nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday and the Santa Monica arrest. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) Items removed from a car are displayed on a sidewalk after a heavily armed man was arrested in Santa Monica, Calif., early Sunday, June 12, 2016. The man reportedly told police he was in the area for West Hollywood's huge gay pride parade. Authorities did not know of any connection between the gay nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday and the Santa Monica arrest. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon) Islamic State group targets gays with brutal public killings REYHANLI, Turkey (AP) The Islamic State group, which on Monday called the Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen 'one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America,' has a history of targeting gays with brutal public killings. Many Muslims consider homosexuality to be sinful. In some parts of the Arab world, homosexuals have been arrested and sentenced to prison on charges linked to "debauchery." In Iran and Saudi Arabia, they have been lashed. Many other religions frown on homosexuality. The Islamic State group has reserved one of its most gruesome methods of killing for suspected gays -- throwing them to their death from building rooftops. EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2015, file photo, Daniel Halaby, a gay Syrian living in southern Turkey, shows a photo from his laptop of Islamic State group militants throwing a man off a roof for allegedly violating the extremists' ban on homosexuality. The Islamic State group, which on Monday called the Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, has a history of targeting gays with brutal public killings. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) The Associated Press is reproducing an article on IS treatment of gays that initially ran on Dec. 2 and was part of a 2015 AP series of stories, "Inside the Caliphate," which explored life under Islamic State rule. ___ Before a crowd of men on a street in the Syrian city of Palmyra, the masked Islamic State group judge read out the sentence against the two men convicted of homosexuality: They would be thrown to their deaths from the roof of the nearby Wael Hotel. He asked one of the men if he was satisfied with the sentence. Death, the judge told him, would help cleanse him of his sin. "I'd prefer it if you shoot me in the head," 32-year-old Hawas Mallah replied helplessly. The second man, 21-year-old Mohammed Salameh, pleaded for a chance to repent, promising never to have sex with a man again, according to a witness among the onlookers that sunny July morning who gave The Associated Press a rare firsthand account. "Take them and throw them off," the judge ordered. Other masked extremists tied the men's hands behind their backs and blindfolded them. They led them to the roof of the four-story hotel, according to the witness, who spoke in the Turkish city of Reyhanli on condition he be identified only by his first name, Omar, for fear of reprisals. Notorious for their gruesome methods of killing, the Islamic State group reserves one of its most brutal for suspected homosexuals. Videos it has released show masked militants dangling men over the precipices of buildings by their legs to drop them head-first or tossing them over the edge. At least 36 men in Syria and Iraq have been killed by IS militants on charges of sodomy, according to the New York-based OutRight Action International, though its Middle East and North Africa coordinator, Hossein Alizadeh, said it was not possible to confirm the sexual orientation of the victims. The fear of a horrific death among gay men under Islamic State rule is further compounded by their isolation in a deeply conservative society that largely shuns them. Many Muslims consider homosexuality to be sinful. Gay men are haunted constantly by the possibility that someone, perhaps even a relative, will betray them to the militants whether to curry favor with IS or simply out of hatred for their sexual orientation. Islamic State group fighters sometimes torture suspected homosexuals to reveal their friends' names and search their laptops and mobile phones. Even among IS opponents, gays find little sympathy. Some in the public who might be shocked by other IS atrocities say killings of gays is justified. Syrian rebel factions have killed or abused gays as well. A 26-year-old Syrian gay man told the AP that even two years after fleeing to Turkey, he wakes up shaken by nightmares that he is about to be hurled from a building. The man spoke on condition that he be identified as Daniel Halaby, the name he now uses in his activism tracking IS atrocities, and that the city in Turkey where he lives not be named for his own safety. Halaby says a childhood friend who became radicalized and joined IS betrayed him to the militants in 2013, forcing him to flee his home city of Aleppo. "He knew everything about me, such as being secular and gay. ... I am sure he is the one who gave my name to Daesh," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. At that time, in mid-2013, IS had just started to spread from neighboring Iraq into Syria. It didn't yet hold the large stretches of territory across both countries that it would capture the next year. Instead, its fighters pushed into rebel-held areas in Syria and tried to dominate other rebels, often clashing with them for control and imposing the group's strict law wherever they could. In September 2013, IS fighters besieged the Aleppo neighborhood where Halaby lived with his family, trying to wrest it from the rebel Free Syrian Army. The two sides negotiated over an end to the siege and, during the talks, IS gave the rebels a list of people they demanded be handed over to them. Halaby said he learned his name was on that list. He quickly escaped to Turkey. There, his bedroom is decorated with a flag of the Syrian opposition and a rainbow banner that covers an entire wall. His parents, who remain in Aleppo, refuse to talk to him because of his sexual orientation. When he watches videos of gays being killed, he said, "What breaks my heart most is that I feel helpless." Life for gays in Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, was always hidden, Halaby said. When the secular-led peaceful protests erupted against President Bashar Assad in 2011, he said he quickly joined, sure they would lead to a democratic government "that will respect everyone no matter their religion, ethnicity, sect or sexuality." "We were very naive," he said. "What happened was exactly the opposite." Subhi Nahas, a 28-year-old gay Syrian who now lives in San Francisco, said he fled because he feared his own father might turn him in to al-Qaida's affiliate, the Nusra Front, which also has targeted homosexuals. When his father learned he was gay, Nahas said he called him a shame to the family and beat him. Around the same time, in late 2013, Nusra fighters launched a crackdown on suspected gays in Nahas' hometown of Maaret al-Numan, detaining 25 men and announcing through mosque loudspeakers that they would cleanse the town of homosexuals. "With the problems between me and my father, I did not rule out that he might (hand me over)," he told the AP. So he fled, first to Lebanon, then Turkey. But in Turkey, he said, he began getting death threats from a former school friend who joined the Islamic State group. Fearful that he wouldn't be safe even in Turkey, he legally resettled to the United States in June. In August, Nahas and a gay Iraqi man spoke about the suffering of homosexuals in their countries at the first-ever U.N. Security Council session spotlighting violence and discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. The stigma surrounding homosexuality makes it difficult to document IS killings and identify victims, rights groups say. Families and friends refuse to talk about victims. Gays under IS rule are terrified to speak, and most who flee abroad go into hiding. The Islamic State group's announcements are the main source of information, but the group often does not name the victims, perhaps in deference to their families, who could lash out in anger at having their names publicly linked to homosexuals. "Such a barbaric show of murder leaves LGBT individuals in constant state of fear and would deprive them of a normal life that any human being is entitled to," Alizadeh said. Widespread public hostility leaves the community even more vulnerable. "They are violating God's laws and doing something that is forbidden in Islam, so this is a legitimate punishment," said Hajji Mohammed, a resident of the IS-held northern Iraqi city of Mosul. There the group has thrown men suspected of being gay off the Insurance Building, a landmark about 10 stories high. By employing the grisly method, the Islamic State group aims to show radicals that it is unflinchingly carrying out the most extreme strains in Islam a sort of "ideological purity" the group boasts distinguishes it even from other militants. The punishment "will protect the Muslims from treading the same rotten course that the West has chosen to pursue," IS proclaimed in its online English-language magazine Dabiq. The Quran tells the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and sodomy in Arabic is known as "liwat," based on Lot's name. Men having sex with each other should be punished, the Quran says, but it doesn't say how and it adds that they should be left alone if they repent. The death penalty instead comes from the Hadith, or accounts of the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. The accounts differ on the method of killing, and some accounts give lesser penalties in some circumstances. The Islamic State group bases its punishment on one account in which Muhammad reportedly says gays "should be thrown from tremendous height then stoned." Before IS, the method was rarely used, though other militants have targeted homosexuals for death. During their rule in Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban had their own method: The victim would be put in a pit and a stone wall would be toppled on top of them. Most moderate Muslim clerics ignore the death penalty provisions, even as they fiercely denounce homosexuality. Across the Arab world, homosexuals have been arrested and sentenced to prison on charges linked to "debauchery" and sometimes lashed in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Omar, the man who watched the killings in Palmyra, said he remains shaken. It began when IS militants blared on loudspeakers for men to gather. Then a black van pulled up outside the Wael Hotel, and Mallah and Salamah were brought out. The first to be thrown off was Mallah. He was tied to a chair so he couldn't resist, then pushed over the side. He landed on his back, broken but still moving. A fighter shot him in the head. Next was Salameh. He landed on his head and died immediately. Still, fighters stoned his body, Omar said. The bodies were then hung up in Palmyra's Freedom Square for two days, each with a placard on his chest: "He received the punishment for practicing the crime of Lot's people." ____ Judge rules jury will mull case of church shooting suspect COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) A jury, not a judge, will consider hate crimes and other federal charges against the man accused of gunning down nine parishioners at a South Carolina church, the judge overseeing the case ruled Monday. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel also ordered that jurors will hear arguments on a possible death sentence for Dylann Roof if he's convicted of capital crimes in his federal trial. Attorneys for Roof, 22, had requested a bench trial, acknowledging in court papers filed last week that prosecutors hadn't agreed to sign off on the idea. Earlier Monday, prosecutors filed papers officially opposing a bench trial, pointing out that their approval was needed to move forward with one. Roof faces the charges in connection to the June 17 shootings during Wednesday night Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. His federal trial is scheduled to begin on Nov. 7, and Roof's defense attorneys have said he is willing to plead guilty if the government drops its pursuit of a possible death sentence. Roof also faces nine counts of murder in state court. That trial is set for January. The church shootings, which occurred a year ago this Friday, reignited discussions about race relations and led to the removal of a Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina Statehouse. Roof had previously posed for photos with a rebel flag. Due in part to problems in obtaining lethal injection drugs, no one has been executed in South Carolina since 2011. The federal government hasn't put anyone to death since 2003. Roof was originally to go on trial in state court this July. But the case was delayed after defense attorneys said doctors needed more time to complete psychiatric testing of Roof. ___ Fiery Trump, sober Clinton at odds over Orlando attack WASHINGTON (AP) Donald Trump vowed Monday to impose a broad ban on immigration from areas of the world with a history of terrorism and suggested some Muslims in the United States are turning a blind eye to unfolding plots, as he outlined an aggressive response to the deadly attack in Orlando. Hillary Clinton, Trump's presidential rival, was more measured in her own remarks, warning that demonizing all Muslims for the actions of a few would only benefit extremist groups. She pointedly blamed American partners in the Middle East Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar for not stopping terror funding emanating from their countries and called for tougher gun control legislation in the U.S., including outlawing assault weapons like one used by the Orlando shooter. "I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets," Clinton said. Though she drew implicit contrasts with Trump, she never mentioned him by name, saying "Today is not a day for politics." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at Saint Anselm College Monday, June 13, 2016, in Manchester, N.H. Trump attacked Hilary Clinton by name in his speech in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting. Clinton did not mention Trump by name in her speech an hour earlier. During the national security speech, Trump repeatedly criticized Clinton's immigration plan, her attempts to tighten the nation's gun control laws and for not using the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" when describing recent attackers. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) Trump clearly disagreed, criticizing Clinton harshly and often. The two candidates' dramatically different proposals as well as their contrasting styles underscored the clear choice Americans face in the November election. Democrat Clinton's vision builds on President Barack Obama's campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and expands on his gun control executive orders, while Republican Trump is calling for a drastically different national security posture. Though the Orlando shooter was born in the U.S., Trump continued to propose sweeping changes to the nation's immigration rules as the cornerstone of his anti-terror plan. He redoubled his previous call for a temporary ban on Muslims coming to the U.S., saying that policy would stay in place until the government can "properly and perfectly" screen immigrants. Going further, he also said he would use presidential discretion to "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there's a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe and our allies." The businessman did not specify what countries would be affected or whether the suspension would apply regardless of religion. Trump's campaign did not respond to multiple requests to clarify whether his new language would replace the proposed Muslim ban and whether it would apply to potential immigrants from countries like Ireland, Israel and Belgium that have faced attacks. Clinton said such proposals would only make it more difficult for law enforcement to work with Muslim communities. "Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric and threatening to ban the families and friends of Muslim Americans, as well as millions of Muslim business people and tourists from entering our country, hurts the vast majority of Muslims who love freedom and hate terror," she said. Trump pledged to protect all Americans "wherever they come from, wherever they were born." But he repeatedly referred to Muslims in a negative context. The Orlando shooter 29-year-old Omar Mateen was born in the United States, but Trump noted he was "born to Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States." He said Muslim communities must turn over to law enforcement "people who they know are bad," adding "they do know where they are." He also said gays and lesbians are often discriminated against in the Muslim world, and said Clinton could not claim to be an ally of the LGBT community if she supports immigration from such countries. "Ask yourself, who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community: Donald Trump with actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words?" Trump said. However, the businessman has said he opposes gay marriage the official position of the Republican Party while Clinton and Democrats back same-sex unions. The Republican did not repeat suggestions he'd made in earlier television interviews that Obama may not be taking tougher action against terrorism because he may sympathize with the perpetrators. "He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends." ''It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable." Clinton said her anti-terror efforts would center on identifying "lone wolf" attackers those who may be radicalized but not connected to a broader network or carrying out plans on behalf of any group. Obama said Monday that the Orlando attacker appeared to fall into that category. Clinton also reiterated her call for tougher gun control measures, a policy proposal that has been a centerpiece of her presidential campaign. In addition to her support for an assault weapons ban, she also said Americans should be able to agree that "if the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked." The FBI said Mateen had twice come to its attention, but the investigations did not reveal any definitive links to terror groups or plots. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the past week or so, according to federal authorities. ___ Lerer reported from Cleveland and Colvin reported from Manchester, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Jon Lemire in New York and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the Cleveland Industrial Innovation Center, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, left, accompanied by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, right, speaks at a rally at a warehouse for the company "Team Wendy" which produces helmets for military, law enforcement, and rescue teams, in Cleveland, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at Saint Anselm College Monday, June 13, 2016, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) President Barack Obama said Monday that there's 'no clear evidence' that the shooter at an Orlando nightclub was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot. The president declared instead in an Oval Office press availability that the shooter appears to have derived inspiration from extremist information disseminated over the internet. And he suggested an anti-gay bias, not a terrorist influence, may be the primary reason for the weekend's bloodshed in Orlando, Florida. 'The fact that it took place at a club frequented by the LGBT community I think is also relevant,' he stated. The president blamed 'propaganda and perversions of Islam that you see generated on the Internet' for the mindset that drove a sympathizer with the ISIS terror army to kill 49 people Saturday night, along with 'the capacity of that to seep into the minds of troubled individuals or weak individuals.' 'I think we don't yet know the motivations' of the shooter, the president said. The mass-murder pledged his loyalty to ISIS in a 911 call as he carried out the attack. FBI Director James Comey explained in a statement after his meeting with Obama that the killer also sympathized with other radicals, including one who was part of a group in direct conflict with ISIS, however, leading to confusion about his own goals in carrying out the attack. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO President Barack Obama said today fromthe Ovala Office that there's no clear evidence that the shooter at an Orlando nightclub was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot Obama said Monday that the investigation into 29-year-old Omar Mateen is its preliminary stages and is being treated as a terrorism probe. The president said the attack appears to be similar to last year's shooting spree in San Bernardino, California. He said investigators are still looking into the reasons for the shooting, including the fact that it took place at a gay nightclub. 'Here's what we do know,' he said, using his preferred alternative acronym for ISIS is organizations like ISIL or organizations like al-Qaeda or those who have perverted Islam and created these radical, nihilistic vicious organizations, one of the groups that they target are gays and lesbians because they believe that they do not abide by their attitudes towards sexuality.' 'Now we also know that these are organizations that think its fine to take captive women and enslave them and rape them,' he added. 'So there clearly are connections between the attitudes of an organization like this and their attitudes towards tolerance and pluralism and a belief that all people are treated equally regardless of sexual orientation.' 'That is something threatening to them: Women being empowered is threatening to them,' the president said. Obama hedged, however, against the possibility that the 49 dead might be genuine victims of a jihadi directed from abroad, even as he declared that there is 'no sign' of a wider plot against the United States. 'Regardless of the particular motivations of this particular killer,' he said, 'there are connections between this vicious bankrupt ideology and general attitudes towards gays and lesbians.' 'And unfortunately that's something that that LGBT community is subject to,' he said, 'not just by ISIL but by a lot of groups that purport to speak on behalf of God around the world.' 'We see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. It does appear that at the last minute he announced allegiance to ISIL,' Obama said. 'But there is no evidence so far that he was in fact directed.' He also reassured the public that there is no 'direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot. In that sense it appears to be similar to what we saw in San Bernardino. But we dont really know. And this is part of what is going to be important' to uncover through an investigation. Obama spoke in the Oval Office after being briefed on the investigation by FBI Director James Comey, right, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, left, and other officials Obama spoke in the Oval Office after being briefed on the investigation by FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other officials. Attorney General Loretta Lynch was not present. She is currently overseas, in China. Her deputy, Sally Yates, acted as a stand in. Yates also stood alongside Comey this afternoon as he told the press that there is 'no indication that this was a plot directed' from outside the US or that the killer was a part of any terrorist network. He made clear affinity for ISIS during one of three 9/11 calls during attack, saying at one point that he committed the crime for the leader of ISIS, whom he referred to by name, Comey said. But he also claimed solidarity with the Boston bombers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who officials determined were self-radicalized, as well as Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, a Florida man who became a suicide bomber in Syria for al nusra, an al Qaeda group in conflict with ISIS. Neither of those terrorist attacks were inspired by ISIS, Comey pointed out, and that has contributed to the FBI's confusion about his motives. Comey said they do know that the shooter was radicalized online. And while the FBI had investigated the man two times before in 2013 and 2014, the probes did not turn up the kind of evidence that would have allowed for continued surveillance. 'I don't see anything in reviewing our work that our agents should have done differently,' Comey said. 'Our work is very challenging, we are looking for needles in a nationwide hay stack.' The FBI chief reminded Americans of Homeland Security's motto - 'If you see something, say something' - as so often people who knew the would-be terrorist come forward with information only after a crime has been committed. After his meeting with the president FBI Director James Comey told the press, is 'no indication that this was a plot directed' from outside the US and the killer was a part of any network. In the Oval Office, Obama also warned against downplaying the role of gun control in solving the problem of home-grown Islamic crusaders. 'If we have self-radicalized individuals in this country, they are going to be very difficult oftentimes to find ahead of time,' he said. 'And how easy it is for them to obtain weapons is in some cases going to make a difference as to whether they are able to carry out attacks like this at not.' 'We make it very easy for individuals who are troubled or disturbed or want to engage in violent acts to get very powerful weapons very quickly. And thats a problem. Its a problem regardless of their motivations,' he insisted. Obama said the killer 'was able to obtain these weapons legally because he did not have a criminal record that would in some way prohibit him from purchasing those weapons.' 'The fact that we make it this challenging for law enforcement, for example, even to get alerted that somebody who they are watching has purchased a gun and if they do get alerted sometimes its hard for them to stop them from getting a gun is crazy,' he said. 'Its a problem. And we have to, I think, do some soul searching.' Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, also used the attack to push for new gun control measures on Monday. 'We've got to get back to, you know, common sense gun safety reform. And we can't fall into the trap that is set up by the gun lobby that says, if you can't stop every shooting and every incident, you should not try to stop any,' she said this morning on CNN. In a national security speech later, she pointed out that one of the guns that was used in Orlando shooting was the same model as the one used in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. 'We have to make it harder for people who should not have those weapons of war,' she said. 5 ways to fly high in California wine country NAPA, Calif. (AP) You know it's fun to take in the wine country sights. But have you thought about trying the heights? Whether you're zooming down a zip line or floating through the air (with the greatest of ease) in a hot-air balloon, there are quite a few ways to experience the high life in wine country. Here are five options ranging from thrill to chill. In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, a hot air balloon flies over the Bolen Family Estates winery in Napa, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) ___ UP, UP IN THE AIR Multicolored hot-air balloons dotting a blue sky are a signature of wine country and you can be part of the picture-postcard scene. Several companies offer balloon flights, including Napa Valley Aloft, which launches from the V Marketplace in Yountville and has two alternate launching places if it's foggy. Be aware this is a bird's-eye view for early birds. Flights launch just after dawn when winds are calmest and temperatures lowest. Prices start at $220 for a ride in a gondola that holds up to 14 people followed by an optional $20 Champagne breakfast. Booking in advance recommended, as is the case for most wine country attractions, especially in the high seasons of summer and fall. ___ ZIP-N-SIP In Paso Robles, the grape-growing area along California's Central Coast that was featured in the popular 2004 buddy movie, "Sideways," Margarita Adventures has zip lines that will have you whizzing over forests, canyons and vineyards. Their latest addition is a 2,800-foot tandem zip line, the Double Barrel, that lets you travel alongside a friend. Set on the Santa Margarita Ranch just outside the town of Santa Margarita, there are six zip lines in all and for a further high-flying thrill, one of the connectors between platforms is a 300-foot suspension footbridge. The tour concludes with optional tastings at neighboring Ancient Peaks Winery. Tickets are $109 on weekdays, $119 on weekends and holidays, $89 for youth under 18 at all times. Details at http://www.margarita-adventures.com . Winery tasting fee of $10 is waived if you buy a bottle or more and tour guests get a 15 percent discount on purchases. And, yes, "Sideways" fans, it is OK to order the merlot. ___ GLIDE IN A GONDOLA For a brief but lovely time aloft, ride the aerial tram at Sterling Vineyards in Calistoga. You get a smooth ride up a tree-studded hill and are greeted at the top with a glass of wine as you begin a self-guided tour of galleries and overlooks. Finish with a wine and food pairing on the South Terrace which has sweeping views of the Napa Valley. Open Monday-Friday 10:30 a.m. -5 p.m., weekends 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission starts at $29, with additional fees for food pairings, and tickets can be booked through http://www.SterlingVineyards.com . ___ HOP ON A CHOPPER There are several companies offering helicopter rides over wine country including Golden Gate Helicopters, taking off from Silicon Valley and the east San Francisco Bay area, and Wine Country Helicopters based at the Napa airport. For a different type of wine flight, Vin de Luxe in Sonoma County offers rides on a 1926 Travelair biplane in concert with Coastal Air Tours. Prices vary by season and itinerary, but a Vin de Luxe "Over the Moon" tour including transportation, lunch, biplane ride to a winery for tasting and driver/guide rings up at about $900 per couple, http://www.vindeluxetours.com . ___ STORM THE RAMPARTS Want to be above it all without taking to the air? Try climbing the ramparts of the Castello di Amorosa, a medieval-style Tuscan castle nestled in the hills just below Calistoga. A long-time project of Napa Valley vintner Dario Sattui, the castle was built with 8,000 tons of hand-chiseled stone and took more than a decade to complete. It is probably the only winery that comes complete with a fully equipped torture chamber. Open daily 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. March-October, closing at 5 p.m. November-February. Admission starts at $25 and includes a complimentary tasting; and reservations are recommended. ___ More online: http://www.visitnapavalley.com Michelle Locke tweets at https://twitter.com/Locke_Michelle In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, a peacock rests above a rampart at the Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, a pair of hot air balloons with Napa Valley Aloft fly over vineyards in Napa, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, a tram carries visitors up to Sterling Vineyards with the Castello di Amorosa in the background in Calistoga, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, Sterling Vineyards is seen in the distance from the Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, Laura and Pete Santana, of Fort Worth, Texas, ride a tram up to Sterling Vineyards in Calistoga, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, a walkway leads to the entrance of the Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) In this photo taken Tuesday, May 31, 2016, a pair of women walk over a draw bridge to the entrance of the Castello di Amorosa in Calistoga, Calif. Whether you're hurtling down a zipline or floating through the air in a hot air balloon you have a few options when it comes to flying high in wine country. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg) Russia says it will not attend historic all-Orthodox meeting MOSCOW (AP) The Russian Orthodox Church said Monday it would not go to a historic meeting of all of the world's Orthodox churches because other churches have walked out. The meeting on the Greek island of Crete due to start on Sunday would be the first in more than a millennium. The Ecumenical patriarch, however, seemed to open the door for further talks that could prevent the meeting from falling through. FILE - In this Friday, May 27, 2016 file photo, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow arrives to the port of Dafni, at Mount Athos, Greece. The Russian Orthodox Church on Monday, June 13, 2016, is suggesting postponing a historical meeting of all of the world's Orthodox churches. The meeting on the Greek island of Crete later this month could be the first one in more than a millennium. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic, FILE) Orthodox church leaders haven't held such a meeting since the year 787, when the last of the seven councils recognized by both Orthodox and Catholics, was held. The "great schism" that divided the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox followed in 1054 amid disputes over the Vatican's power. Hilarion, a bishop who heads the Moscow Patriarchate's department of external church relations, said in a televised statement that Russia would not take part if others are walking out, and suggested the meeting be postponed. "We have made a decision that we will not be able to take part in the all-Orthodox Synod if other churches do not go," Hilarion said. The announcement of the Russian Orthodox Church, with an estimated 100 million flock, is a heavy blow to the plans by Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, who had hoped the gathering of leaders from 14 independent Orthodox churches later this month could promote unity among the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. Bartholomew I ranks as "the first among equals" in the Orthodox world. The Moscow Patriarchate last week proposed holding a preliminary meeting to discuss the controversial issues raised by the Bulgarian church and others. Reverend Alexander Karloutsos, a member of the organizing committee of the Great and Holy Council, told The Associated Press on Monday that they are inviting Moscow and other churches to meet and discuss the differences on June 17. "There is no mandate to change or postpone and we are going to proceed. They asked for a pre-conciliar meeting on the 17th and we expect to them to be here," he said. "We are the church of love and embrace everyone." Bulgaria's Orthodox Church put the plans in jeopardy last week saying it would not attend, citing differences over the agenda. Unlike the Roman Catholic church, the Orthodox churches are independent and have their own leadership. Hilarion said the Russian church will reach out to Bartholomew I to suggest postponing the meeting until the differences are resolved and all the churches agree to come. Russia will have to give the Crete gathering a miss if Bartholomew does not agree to reschedule, the Russian church said in a statement at the end of an extraordinary meeting in Moscow. "All churches should take part in the all-Orthodox Synod and only in this case the decisions of this assembly will be legitimate," Hilarion said. The Holy and Great Council has been 55 years in the preparation. Since the "great schism" there have been about a dozen smaller Orthodox councils over the centuries to discuss theological or doctrinal issues, but there has never been a meeting on this scale. The council aimed to take up the mission and role of the Orthodox Church and its global flock, issues relating to the function of the churches and relations with other Christian faiths. Unity of the Orthodox churches is considered a key prerequisite to any reconciliation with the Vatican. __ Airlines race to Cuba, overcoming major hurdles HAVANA (AP) Galo Beltran stands on the tarmac testing a hand-held baggage scanner. Each time a barcode is successfully read, he smiles. The device, which is used to track luggage, is deployed at airports across the world. But until this moment, Beltran wasn't sure if it would work on Cuban cellular networks. As satisfying as meeting that challenge was, there are hundreds more to be tackled as U.S. airlines prepare to resume their first regularly scheduled flights to Cuba in five decades. Collecting baggage fees in a country where most U.S. credit cards don't work, for instance. And solutions need to be found rapidly airlines must start flights within three months of being granted a route by the U.S. government. In this Friday, June 10, 2016, photo, Galo Beltran, Cuba country manager for American Airlines, stands at the check-in facility of Terminal 2 at Havanas Jose Marti International Airport. Beltran is based in Dallas. The Department of Transportation said Friday that six airlines: American, Frontier, JetBlue, Silver Airways, Southwest and Sun Country, have been selected for routes to nine Cuban cities other than Havana. (AP Photo/Scott Mayerowitz) The Associated Press got exclusive access, joining American Airlines on a trip to Cuba to access the airports and meet with officials there. "We have a good plan in place," says Beltran, a longtime American executive who is overseeing the airline's entrance into Cuba. "Even with the challenges, we have been able to look for loopholes." Take the baggage scanner. While some U.S. cellphones do work in Cuba, the U.S. SIM card in the scanner wouldn't connect. So the airline found a workaround: get SIM cards from another country. The Department of Transportation on Friday granted American and five other airlines permission to fly to nine Cuban cities. Normally, airlines spend up to a year preparing for new foreign markets. In this case, flights must start within 90 days of the government awarding the route. A decision is expected later this summer on the more-coveted and contested routes to Havana. Airlines are racing to figure out how to offer the same streamlined service that is provided out of the U.S. Cuba's airports lack self-serve check-in kiosks. The terminal currently used by U.S.-bound charter flights has a tiny departure lobby and overflowing baggage belts. And all the workers are government employees, leading airlines to question if they will have a dedicated staff who can be trained in their policies and computer programs. Andrew Watterson, senior vice president of network and revenue at Southwest Airlines, notes that the unique challenges of U.S. and Cuban regulations, along with the 90-day window to start operations, "leads to a high-pressure situation." "The timelines don't fit all these extra complications," Watterson says. Teams from American and JetBlue Airways have already visited Cuba. Next week, a delegation organized by Airlines for America, the industry's main trade and lobby group, will also head to the island nation. All flights between the two countries today are charters, many operated by the carriers now seeking approval for scheduled service. American leads the group, flying 1,084 charter flights last year, followed by JetBlue with 221. When flying the route on behalf of a charter company, the airlines don't have to worry about selling tickets, dealing with currency or many of the logistical challenges. But all of that becomes the airlines' responsibility once they start scheduled service. The charter experience has provided some lessons on serving Cuba. American and JetBlue, for instance, both fly in their own mechanics each day since Cuban maintenance providers haven't yet been certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. But much is still unknown. Internet speeds at airports are supposed to be at least 256 kilobytes a second extremely slow but supposedly fast enough to process check-ins. Then there is the unique cargo heading to Cuba. For instance, engine blocks are popular and, as JetBlue discovered, can be transported only if they never contained any flammable oils or fuel. Airlines are finding they need special nomenclature. Consider visas. The Cuban government requires most visitors from the U.S. to have a "tourist visa." However, the U.S. government doesn't allow tourism to Cuba. Visitors must be on so-called cultural exchange trips. Airlines don't want to be in the middle of this political parsing of words, so they are talking about "visitor visas." "With Cuba, we can't look at what other U.S. carriers have done," says Scott Laurence, senior vice president of airline planning at JetBlue. "We know we've got to be ready for a number of curveballs." Most Americans cannot still legally visit Cuba. However the Obama administration has eased rules to the point where travelers are now free to design their own "people-to-people" cultural exchange tours with very little oversight. But airlines still need to record and keep for five years the official reason why somebody is traveling to Cuba. So reservation systems have been revamped to allow passengers to select one of the 12 permitted categories. They include family visits, official business, educational or religious activities. U.S. citizens' interest in visiting Cuba has swelled since relations between the two nations started to thaw in December 2014. Nearly 160,000 U.S. leisure travelers flew to Cuba last year, along with hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans visiting family. That's only likely to grow following an aviation agreement signed between the two nations in February that allows for up to 110 daily scheduled flights more than five times the current charter operations. Many travelers are excited for the change. Charters are often expensive and lack online booking or 24-hour customer service. Hilda Costa and her husband Larry Costa of Wappingers Falls, New York, recently took a charter from New York to Havana to visit her family. "When you go through the travel agencies, it's a lot of money that they charge you," she says. "I can't wait for the day they have regular airline service." Costa paid $859 a person, not including luggage fees: usually $25 a bag plus $2 or $3 for each pound over 44 pounds. Most travelers to Cuba check multiple items, bringing supplies and flat-screen TVs to loved ones. Often, they pack in plastic bags or cardboard boxes to minimize weight and fees. That however creates a logistical headache for airlines since the packaging is more likely to rupture in transit. Cuba has already seen startling growth in aviation. Last year, 18 percent more passengers flew there than in 2014, according to government aviation officials. Currently, 46 airlines fly to Cuba including Air France, Aeromexico, KLM, Air Canada, Aeroflot and Iberia. But none of them fly from countries that still have a trade embargo with Cuba. Now, thanks to an easing of regulations under the Obama administration, U.S. airlines are about to add to that mix. "The problem is it's ten all at one time. The others have all come little by little," says Mayda Molina Martinez, the Cuban government official responsible for relationships with U.S. airlines. "Every day, every hour, every minute, somebody calls me, somebody emails me." Cuban aviation officials say they are ready for the extra flights but questions remain, especially at Havana's airport. Currently, all U.S. charters arrive at Terminal 2 where passengers must use stairs to exit planes and then walk or take buses to the terminal. Airlines would prefer to use the more modern Terminal 3, which has eight jet bridges and is currently used by other foreign airlines. Check-in involves one long, snaking line for all U.S. flights, regardless of which airline passengers are flying. The same Cuban government workers process all flights. With the start of scheduled service, the U.S. carriers would prefer their own, dedicated staff still Cuban government employees handle check-in. American, which has flown charters the longest, hopes to leverage its large Miami hub home to the largest Cuban-American population to its advantage. The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline has requested more routes and frequencies than any other U.S. carrier. Everywhere Beltran went last week, he reminded Cuban officials of American's message: "We have kept our commitment of serving Cuba for 25 years nonstop." And told them that American would prefer to use the updated terminal. "We will see," Martinez says of the terminal request. "There will always be somebody who isn't happy." __ Follow Scott Mayerowitz at twitter.com/GlobeTrotScott. His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/scott-mayerowitz. In this Friday, June 10, 2016, photo, a passenger walks to his American Airlines charter flight to Miami at Havanas Jose Marti International Airport. The Department of Transportation said Friday that six airlines: American, Frontier, JetBlue, Silver Airways, Southwest and Sun Country, have been selected for routes to nine Cuban cities other than Havana. (AP Photo/Scott Mayerowitz) President Barack Obama will travel to Orlando on Thursday to pay respects to the victims of last weekend's nightclub shooting and to stand in solidarity with the community as it embarks on recovery, the White House said Monday night. Obama had canceled what was to be his first campaign event with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the wake of the shooting at a gay nightclub that killed 49 and wounded dozens more. That event was scheduled for Wednesday. White House press secretary Josh Earnest didn't provide any details about the visit, but said additional information would be forthcoming before the trip. The role of consoler-in-chief is not a new one for Obama, who has traveled to Newtown, Connecticut, Charleston, and South Carolina among other places to meet with families who have lost loved ones to gun violence. President Barack Obama speaks to members of the media in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. On Thursday, he is due to travel to Orlando to pay his respects and stand in solidarity with the community White House press secretary Josh Earnest didn't provide any details about Thursday's visit, but said additional information would be forthcoming before the trip. Obama has called the Orlando shooting an act of terrorism and an act of hate. He noted that the site of the shooting was more than a nightclub, calling it a place where people came to raise awareness, speak their minds and advocate for their civil rights. Earlier Monday, Obama said the gunman was inspired by extremist information over the internet, calling it an apparent example of 'homegrown extremism' that U.S. officials have been worrying about for years. Obama, speaking in the Oval Office after meeting with the FBI director, said the attack appears similar to the shooting late last year in San Bernardino, California, though he added that 'we don't yet know.' Investigators in that attack determined the killers weren't directed from overseas but were at least partly inspired by the Islamic State group. Attack: A woman sits on the ground outside the club while another party-goer, whose legs are covered in blood, stands beside her Police, army and FBI surround the club after Sunday's massacre, which killed at least 49 people Pictured: US citizen Omar Mateen, 29, the suspected Islamic extremist who slaughtered at least 49 people inside a gay club in Orlando 'At this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally,' Obama said, referring to suggestions that the Islamic State group or other extremists had orchestrated the attack. 'It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL,' he said, using an acronym for the extremist group. He said the probe was being treated as a terror investigation and said investigators were examining materials from the internet that the shooter may have consumed. Obama said investigators are still looking into the motivations of the shooter and considering all possibilities. He said gays and lesbians are targeted by organizations like IS, al-Qaida and others because of their 'vicious, bankrupt ideology' and their religious beliefs about homosexuality. 'The fact that it took place at a club frequented by the LGBT community I think is also relevant,' Obama said. The Latest: Wife was seeking divorce before Roswell killings ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) The Latest on the shooting deaths of a woman and her four daughters in New Mexico (all times local): 7:15 p.m. Court documents show that a man accused of killing his wife and four daughters in Roswell may have been headed for a divorce. Juan David Villegas-Hernandez was arrested Sunday, a day after police say he allegedly shot his family members at their Roswell home. He has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder after being arrested in Mexico. Mexican authorities say Villegas-Hernandez fled in a truck from officers in Arizpe, then bailed out and ran. Authorities surrounded him, and he threatened to kill himself. The U.S. Marshals Service is assisting Roswell police in the process of extraditing Villegas-Hernandez back to New Mexico. _____ 2:55 p.m. Authorities in Mexico say a man charged in the deaths of his wife and four daughters in the United States was taken into custody after a dramatic chase in Arizpe, the Sonora town he's originally from. Victor Felix, of Sonora state police, said Monday that U.S. authorities called his agency to be on the lookout for Juan David Villegas-Hernandez. Villegas-Hernandez was arrested Sunday, a day after police in Roswell, New Mexico, say he shot his family members at their home there. Mexican authorities say Villegas-Hernandez fled in a truck from officers in Arizpe, then bailed out and ran. Authorities surrounded him, and he threatened to kill himself. The U.S. Marshals Service is assisting Roswell police in the process of extraditing Villegas-Hernandez back to New Mexico. 2:30 p.m. A New Mexico man has been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of his wife and four daughters. Roswell police identified the victims Monday as 34-year-old Cynthia Villegas and her daughters, 14-year-old Yamilen, 11-year-old Cynthia Janet, 7-year-old Abigail and 3-year-old Idaly. A criminal complaint in state District Court accuses Juan David Villegas-Hernandez of shooting and killing his family sometime Saturday before fleeing to Mexico. Police say they're investigating a motive. Relatives who stopped at the family's house late Saturday called authorities after one of them saw the body of a victim through a partially open window. Police began the process of extraditing Villegas-Hernandez after confirming with authorities in Arizpe, Mexico, that he had been taken into custody there Sunday. ___ 10:04 a.m. Police say investigators have confirmed a man suspected of killing his wife and four daughters has been apprehended in Mexico. Roswell police spokesman Todd Wildermuth says 34-year-old Juan Villegas-Hernandez was taken into custody in or near Arizpe, a city south of Nogales, Mexico. He was arrested Sunday afternoon by Mexican authorities, who alerted Roswell police. The arrest came a day after authorities say Villegas-Hernandez fatally shot five family members at their home in Roswell. Police say a relative discovered the victims late Saturday night after stopping by the home to check on the victims. Investigators believe the shooting happened earlier in the day. Wildermuth says police have begun filling out paperwork to begin the extradition process. He says investigators believe Villegas-Hernandez was a Mexican national, who lived in Roswell. ___ 7:20 a.m. Police say they're investigating whether a New Mexico man suspected of killing his wife and four daughters fled to Mexico. Roswell police spokesman Todd Wildermuth tells the Albuquerque Journal that Mexican authorities say they might have apprehended 34-year-old Juan David Villegas-Hernandez. Wildermuth said Monday that investigators were working to determine whether Villegas-Hernandez was caught in the Mexican state of Sonora on Sunday. No other details have been released. Villegas-Hernandez is accused of shooting five people who police believe are his wife and children ages 14, 11, 7 and 3. A relative went to check on the family late Saturday and discovered the bodies. Wildermuth says the shooting likely occurred earlier in the day. Venezuela investigating death of protester as unrest rises CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Venezuelan authorities are investigating the shooting death of a 21-year-old man during a protest over food as the South American nation's economic disarray fuels more unrest. Luis Fuentes died after being shot in the leg as national guard troops broke up a protest on a highway in Sucre state. Another dozen people were injured. The attorney general said in a statement Sunday that it is investigating security forces' actions. The government's ombudsman condemned the use of firearms to break up protests after a video circulated on social media showing the national guard firing into the crowd. Fuentes is the third Venezuelan protester to be killed in a week as social tensions boil over. Court vacates $1.8M Ventura award in 'American Sniper' case MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A federal appeals court on Monday threw out $1.8 million in damages awarded to former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who said he was defamed by the late author Chris Kyle in the bestselling book "American Sniper." The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also sent a portion of the case Ventura's defamation claim back to the district court for a new trial, saying Ventura's attorneys made improper remarks and the trial court "clearly abused its discretion in denying a new trial." Messages left with Ventura, his publicist and his attorney were not immediately returned Monday. An attorney for Kyle's estate had no comment and referred questions to publisher HarperCollins, which said it was reviewing the opinion and had no comment at this time. FILE - This combination of file photos shows Chris Kyle, left, former Navy SEAL and author of the book American Sniper, on April 6, 2012, and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, right, on Sept. 21, 2012. A federal appeals court has thrown out a $1.8 million judgment awarded to Ventura, who says he was defamed in the late author Chris Kyle's bestselling book "American Sniper." (AP Photo/File) Kyle is a former SEAL regarded as the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history with 160 confirmed kills. In his book "American Sniper," he wrote a subchapter called "Punching Out Scruff Face" in which he describes decking Ventura at a California bar in 2006 after Ventura made offensive comments about SEALs, including that the SEALs "deserve to lose a few" in Iraq. Ventura, a former Underwater Demolition Teams/SEAL member and ex-pro wrestler, sued. He testified at trial that he never made the statements and that the confrontation never happened. He also said the book ruined his reputation in the tight-knit SEAL community. Kyle, who was killed on a shooting range in 2013 by a troubled fellow veteran, gave sworn videotaped testimony before his death that his story was true. The case proceeded against his estate. In 2014, a jury awarded Ventura $500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million for unjust enrichment. Kyle's widow, Taya Kyle, appealed, asking that the verdict be thrown out or that a new trial be ordered on First Amendment and other grounds. Ventura's lawyers, however, argued that jury got the verdict right. In Monday's ruling, a three-judge appellate panel reversed the unjust-enrichment award, saying the theory of unjust-enrichment "enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law" and fails as a matter of law. The majority of the judges also vacated the defamation award and sent that portion of the case back to court for a new trial. The majority found that Ventura's attorneys improperly let the jury hear that publisher HarperCollins had an insurance policy to cover a defamation award and attorney fees. The majority said those comments prevented Kyle's estate from receiving a fair trial and that Ventura's attorneys deliberately referenced a "deep-pocket insurer" to try to influence the jury and enhance damages. "From our review, these unsupported, improper, and prejudicial statements were not heat of the moment argument, but were strategic and calculated," the judges wrote. The judges also wrote: "Ventura's counsel's closing remarks, in combination with the improper cross-examination of two witnesses about Kyle's insurance coverage, prevented Kyle from receiving a fair trial." Judge Lavenski Smith dissented, saying Ventura's attorneys mentioned insurance coverage only after Taya Kyle testified she'd be responsible for damages. He noted that Ventura's attorneys argued Taya Kyle should not be allowed to "plead poverty if an insurance company is going to pick up the tab." Smith said any error in allowing Ventura's counsel to ask about insurance was harmless and non-prejudicial. He also found that the $500,000 award for defamation was not excessive. The hit movie based on Kyle's book did not depict the alleged incident. ___ Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski contributed to this report. ___ Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti . More of her work can be found at http://www.bigstory.ap.org/content/amy-forliti University of Cincinnati president leaves for Canadian post VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) The president of the University of Cincinnati has been named to a similar post at the University of British Columbia. Santa Ono, who was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, has served as president of the University of Cincinnati since 2012. He said in a statement Monday that it was a difficult decision but noted his father had served on the UBC faculty in Vancouver when he was born 54 years ago. The 53-year-old Ono holds a biology degree from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in experimental medicine from McGill University. He is the son of a Japanese-born professor who taught math at UBC in the 1960s. Board chairman Stuart Belkin praised Ono's extraordinary life and accomplishments and said he was unanimously appointed to serve a five-year term as UBC president. Ono served in various administrative posts at UC for several years before becoming president in 2012. "My six years at the University of Cincinnati has been simply amazing," he told a news conference in Vancouver. "I shall miss it dearly." Under Ono's leadership, UC achieved its largest enrolment in school history and received numerous accolades, including being named Public University of the Year by the Washington Center. Ono has also served in a variety of teaching, research and administrative positions at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and the Schepens Eye Research Institute, University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Inventors, and was inducted into the Johns Hopkins University Society of Scholars in 2015. Honduran man on Texas death row again loses federal appeal HOUSTON (AP) A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider an appeal from a Honduran man on Texas death row for beating and strangling a Houston woman during a robbery at her home more than 20 years ago. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March ruled against 46-year-old Carlos Ayestas. In an opinion released Monday, the court said the full court would not rehear the appeal that argues his previous lawyers were deficient and questions the accuracy of the earlier ruling that said he had been examined by a psychologist for his 1997 trial. Ayestas wasn't. A Harris County jury took 12 minutes to decide Ayestas should die for murdering 67-year-old Santiaga Pareque in the September 1995 robbery. Carter: at least 1 Apache helicopter used in combat in Iraq BRUSSELS (AP) Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday that at least one U.S. Apache helicopter has been used for the first time in combat in Iraq. He says an Apache was used to strike an Islamic State target in the last 24 hours or so. The strike was part of the ongoing effort to encircle and eventually retake the northern city of Mosul, which is under Islamic State control. Carter was speaking to reporters traveling with him to Brussels for a meeting of NATO defense ministers. A U.S. defense official said that more than one Apache flew but only one of them fired and struck a vehicle early Monday morning. Albanian mayor arrested for faking documentation on his past TIRANA, Albania (AP) Prosecutors say that the mayor of an Albanian town has been arrested for using forged documentation to hide past criminal convictions. Elvis Roshi, the mayor of Kavaja, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the capital, Tirana, is the first official to be arrested based on a six-month old anti-corruption law that requires the vetting of public officials. A statement from the prosecutor general's press office on Monday said Roshi, 41, provided false documentation that hides criminal convictions in Italy and Switzerland dating to the 1990s. Prosecutors noted that he was convicted of rape in Italy but gave no other details. Sanders spending night of final primary meeting with Clinton WASHINGTON (AP) Bernie Sanders is expected to spend his final primary night meeting with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton not before thousands of cheering supporters as his campaign seeks to influence Clinton's agenda against Republican Donald Trump. Sanders plans to meet privately with Clinton in Washington on Tuesday evening as the District of Columbia holds the last primary of the Democratic race. The Vermont senator suggested in media interviews Sunday that an endorsement will not come immediately, saying he hopes to learn more about the kind of platform she will support. "Dependent on how Secretary Clinton comes down on many of these major issues will determine how closely we can work with her," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., arrives at City Hall Park in Burlington, Vt., on Monday, June 13, 2016. Sanders took park during a march and vigil for the people killed and wounded during a shooting at an Orlando, nightclub. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring) Clinton is now the presumptive Democratic nominee and Sanders has shown signs of winding down his campaign. He met last week with President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who both later endorsed Clinton, and held a Washington rally that included chants of "Thank you, Bernie." After spending a long weekend in Vermont, Sanders attended a vigil in his hometown Monday to show solidarity with the victims of the mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando. Sanders said the Orlando shooting was carried out by "one hateful person" and was not committed by the Muslim people. To claim otherwise, he said, "is bigotry pure and simple." "Our job is not to allow politicians, Mr. Trump or anyone else, to divide us up by where our family came from, the color of our skin, our religion or our sexual orientation," Sanders said. Sanders will meet Tuesday with Senate Democrats during their weekly luncheon, following up on meetings last week with Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the party's incoming Senate leader. Sanders has pledged to do everything he can to defeat Trump but it remains unclear what shape his campaign will take after Tuesday. He told reporters Sunday after meeting with supporters that he intends to take his campaign to the Philadelphia convention with an awareness of "who has received the most votes up to now." "He hopes to have a good discussion with (Clinton). After that we'll think some more about the next steps of the campaign, but he has made it clear that the campaign will go to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia where the issues that he fought for will be discussed," said Sanders spokesman Michael Briggs. Looking forward, Sanders has begun helping Democrats preparing for congressional races and the battle to regain control of the Senate. An early test of his clout will come Tuesday in Nevada, where a Sanders-backed congressional candidate, Lucy Flores, competes in a three-way primary. Sanders has opened up his campaign's massive email donor list to several Democratic candidates, hauling in more than $2.4 million for his allies. Flores has been the top recipient of those appeals, collecting about $390,000 from an email Sanders sent in April on behalf of her and two other candidates. __ Glance: Apple unveils messaging app, improvements to Siri SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Apple unveiled improvements to maps, messaging and its Siri voice assistant. It's also bringing an "SOS" feature to its watch to automatically call for help in an emergency. The company previewed new features for its iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch and Mac software as the weeklong Apple Worldwide Developers Conference opened in San Francisco on Monday. Here is a look at some of Apple's announcements: Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks about Swift Playgrounds young developers app at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) ___ BETTER MESSAGING Apple is trying to make its messaging app smarter, more versatile and more engaging as part of an upcoming update to its iPhone and iPad software. Users will be able to change the size of the bubbles surrounding the text to help convey the feelings underlying the words. For instance, an expression of love might be displayed in a large bubble while a message of condolence might be shown in a very small bubble. The updated app will also automatically suggest emojis to place alongside texts using machine learning. ___ SIRI ON COMPUTERS, OTHER UPGRADES The digital assistant, first introduced on iPhones in 2011, will now be available on Mac computers. That follows a trend in which Microsoft and Google have built similar voice services to their operating systems for computers. Microsoft added its digital assistant, Cortana, to the Windows 10 operating system released last year. Apple is also letting Siri work with applications made by other companies. The change will open up new ways for Siri to help iPhone owners get things done more quickly. Apple wants to make Siri smarter by using what it calls differential privacy. Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy explains it as Apple using non-personal information in aggregate to teach Siri new tricks, then having all the personalization take place on the individual device. It's in contrast to Google's approach of doing everything over the internet. ___ REDESIGNED MAPS Apple has opened its once-maligned Maps app to developers. The company says that will enable you to find a restaurant, book a reservation, request a car from Uber or Lyft and pay for it using Apple Pay, all without leaving the Maps app. ___ MUSIC TO YOUR EARS Apple is unveiling a redesign of its music service, Apple Music, aimed at simplicity and making it easier to find music stored on the device as opposed to streamed from the Internet. It also has lyrics now, as well as personalized, daily curated playlists and a "discovery mix" to help users find new music. The service now has 15 million paying subscribers, 2 million more than in April. ___ WEB PAYMENTS Apple's payment system, Apple Pay, is coming to the web. The service already lets people pay in stores without opening a separate app, by holding their phone or watch near a reader. Apple says users can now use their phone's fingerprint sensor to pay and check out when they are shopping online using a web browser. Google brought a similar feature to Android Pay last month. ___ WATCH THIS Apple will bring fitness tracking to wheelchair users in an upcoming Apple Watch update. Among other things, it will prompt users to wheel themselves about an equivalent to standing breaks. The efforts may boost the image of Apple's smartwatch over stand-alone fitness trackers, though the target market isn't huge. The next version of Apple's software for watches will also include an "SOS" feature that will automatically call for help in emergencies. ___ THE MAC Apple's new Mac system will be called macOS Sierra. Besides getting Siri, it will let users move more seamlessly between different kinds of Apple devices. It will help people move more files to the Internet to free up space. And Apple Watch owners will be able to log into their Macs without a password. ___ TELEVISION Apple is making it easier to use its Apple TV set-top box as the new hub of a digital home. You'll be able to sign in once to access multiple apps from various TV network providers. You can launch live TV viewing with voice command and search YouTube and the iTunes store for videos using Siri. ___ LEARN TO CODE A new, free app for the iPad aims to make learning to code "fun and easy for anyone," Apple says. The app, Swift Playgrounds, will use on-screen characters and animations to teach basics as well as more complex lessons. The company developed a set of lessons that teach computer programming through core coding concepts. It plans to regularly release new challenges so students can continue to improve their coding skills. Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, speaks at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, speaks about the new iOS at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, speaks about Photos in iOS10 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, speaks about Photos in iOS10 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, speaks about iOS10 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Craig Federighi, Apple senior vice president of software engineering, demos iOS10 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar) Man arrested in Colorado for Houston-area decapitation death ANGLETON, Texas (AP) A man has been arrested in Colorado in connection with the slaying of a Southeast Texas man whose decapitated body was found about six weeks ago in his truck near a boat ramp. The Brazoria County Sheriff's Office said Monday 24-year-old Zachary Lyn Foyt is being held on $5 million bond in Lakewood, Colorado, pending extradition to Texas. The victim is 24-year-old Jubal Alexander of Port Arthur. Alexander's headless body was found May 3 outside Angleton, south of Houston. He was last heard from on April 27. Investigators say Alexander worked at a nearby chemical plant and was living in his truck to save money. Guilty plea set in Islamic State hack of US military info McLEAN, Va. (AP) A Kosovo citizen is scheduled to enter a guilty plea on charges that he hacked computers to expose U.S. service members' personal data on behalf of the Islamic State group. Court records indicate Ardit Ferizi's plea hearing has been scheduled Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. He initially pleaded not guilty to charges of providing material support to terrorists and identity theft. Prosecutors say Ferizi, who was born in 1995, hacked the records of a private company and provided names, email passwords and phone numbers of more than 1,300 service members to the Islamic State last year. The Islamic State group then published the data on Twitter with a warning it would "strike at your necks in your own lands." Ferizi was arrested in Malaysia in October and brought to the U.S. to face charges in January. When the charges were announced back in October, the Justice Department said the case was a first of its kind and "demonstrates our resolve to confront and disrupt ISIL's efforts to target Americans, in whatever form and wherever they occur." Specifically, the charges allege that between June and August 2015, Ferizi allegedly provided the information to Islamic State group member Junaid Hussain, also known as Abu Hussain al-Britani. On Aug. 11, Hussain posted a tweet titled "NEW: U.S. Military and Government HACKED by the Islamic State Hacking Division!" which contained a link to a 30-page document threatening service members and listing their personal data. Geremy Kamens, the federal public defender in Alexandria representing Ferizi, declined comment on the case Monday. The court listings do not make clear exactly what charge Ferizi will plead guilty to. Change-of-plea hearings typically indicate a plea bargain has been reached. The original charges filed against Ferizi carried a maximum prison term of 35 years. AP FACT CHECK: Trump's speech needs some asterisks WASHINGTON (AP) An annotated version of Donald Trump's speech on combatting terrorism would be heavy with asterisks. The presumptive GOP nominee's speech Monday painted a picture of a nation overrun by terrorists and with cowed leaders including the State Department under Hillary Clinton's leadership doing little to keep them out. The reality is far more complex. Clinton, too, spoke Tuesday about how to fight the terrorist issue, but relied on thin data in an implied scold of her GOP opponent. A look at some of the candidates' claims: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at Saint Anselm College Monday, June 13, 2016, in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) TRUMP: "The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system to really screen. We're not screening people." THE FACTS: Refugees entering the U.S. are subject to rigorous background checks, including a search of government databases that list people suspected of having ties to terrorist groups. Processing of refugees can take anywhere from 18 months to 24 months and usually longer for those coming from Syria. Refugees are subject to in-person interviews overseas and are required to provide biographical data about themselves, including their families, friendships, social or political activities, employment, phone numbers, email addresses and other information, along with biometric information including fingerprints. The vetting process is led by the Homeland Security Department, with involvement from the State Department and U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies. For all that caution, though, U.S. officials have acknowledged there is a risk the Islamic State group could try to place operatives among refugees. Last year, FBI Director James Comey said data about people coming from Syria may be limited, adding, "If we don't know much about somebody, there won't be anything in our database." ___ CLINTON: "Inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric" and a ban on Muslims entering the country, as Trump has advocated, are counterproductive. "It's no coincidence that hate crimes against American Muslims and mosques have tripled after Paris and San Bernardino." THE FACTS: There are no official government data available for the period Clinton specified. Her campaign said the statistic came from a December report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino, which relied on a single month of U.S. media reports of "anti-Muslim hate crime attacks," beginning with the Nov. 13, 2015, date of the Paris attacks. It then compared that number with a different data source, the average monthly totals for the prior five years of anti-Muslim hate crimes reported to the FBI. The study's author, Cal State-San Bernardino Professor Brian Levin, acknowledged limitations to his findings, including comparing disparate data sets. And because he measured only one month, he couldn't say whether the increase he observed in December persisted until now, as Clinton implied. Levin said reports of hate crimes generally peak in the month after a terror attack and then fall back to something near the average. ___ TRUMP: "Clinton's State Department was in charge of admissions and the admissions process for people applying to enter from overseas. Having learned nothing from these attacks, she now plans to massively increase admissions without a screening plan, including a 500 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into our country." THE FACTS: Between Oct. 1 and the end of May, the U.S. resettled about 2,800 Syrian refugees in the United States. President Barack Obama has pledged to bring 10,000 Syrians into the country this year. Since 2011, 5,763 Syrian refugees have been admitted to the United States. Clinton supports allowing in 65,000 refugees. That would be more than a 500 percent increase. But the vetting process is so lengthy and in depth that it would likely be difficult to speed up the pace without a major overhaul of the screening process or a big increase in resources. ___ TRUMP: Hillary Clinton "says the solution is to ban guns. ... Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans, abolishing the Second Amendment, and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns. She wants to take away Americans' guns and then admit the very people who want to slaughter us." THE FACTS: Trump is overstating Clinton's gun proposals. She supports a ban on certain military-style weapons, similar to the law President Bill Clinton signed in the 1990s. That ban expired after 10 years and has not been renewed. Clinton also backs an expansion of existing criminal background checks to apply to weapons sales at gun shows. The checks now apply mainly to sales by federally licensed gun dealers. Federal authorities have said the Orlando shooter legally obtained the weapons he used at the night club. The assault weapons ban barred AR-15 rifles, but the exact model used by Mateen may not have been covered by the ban. The AR-15-style firearm also was used in the mass shootings in San Bernardino, California, and Newtown, Connecticut. ___ CLINTON: "If the FBI is watching you for a suspected terrorist link, you shouldn't be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked. ... If you're too dangerous to get on a plane, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America." THE FACTS: Federal law is very specific about who is barred from buying a gun. The list of prohibited buyers includes convicted felons, those convicted of a domestic violence offense, fugitives from justice, drug addicts and those who have been judged by a court to be "mentally defective." Being investigated by law enforcement does not bar a person from buying a gun. And Mateen was not under investigation when he bought the guns he used. According to a 2015 analysis by the Government Accountability Office, people on the FBI's consolidated Terrorist Watchlist successfully passed the background check required to purchase firearms more than 90 percent of the time, with more than 2,043 approvals between 2004 and 2014. Gun rights advocates argue that placement on such a list doesn't give people adequate due process to justify revoking their constitutional right to bear arms. ___ TRUMP: "When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats." THE FACTS: The United States doesn't ban immigration from anywhere. Anyone with a valid petition can immigrate, and that holds even for the three U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism, Iran, Sudan and Syria, although their citizens face extra scrutiny. As of this year, even Europeans who would normally qualify for visa-free travel to the U.S. must first obtain a visa if they hold dual nationalities that include terrorism-sponsor countries or Iraq. The same rule applies if they've visited any of these places in the last five years. ___ TRUMP: "The killer, whose name I will not use, or ever say, was born in Afghan, of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States. ... A radical Islamic terrorist targeted the nightclub." THE FACTS: Trump appeared to trip over his words about Omar Mateen's birthplace, but it's an important distinction. Mateen was born in New York, as was Trump. His parents emigrated from Afghanistan before his birth. As for Mateen's motivation, investigators have not determined why he attacked the Orlando gay nightclub. Mateen's father has said he did it because of his anti-gay stance. Untangling the shooter's exact motivations could take time, and investigators may never know exactly what drove him. Obama and FBI Director James Comey said Monday that Mateen had "strong indications of radicalization," likely drawing inspiration from foreign terrorist organizations. Mateen also pledged loyalty to the head of the Islamic State group during a 911 call he made during the attack. But investigators say there's no clear evidence Mateen was actively directed by the Islamic State. ___ TRUMP: "The Obama administration, with the support of Hillary Clinton and others, has also damaged our security by restraining our intelligence gathering and we have, just, no intelligence gathering information." THE FACTS: Trump did not offer specifics, but last year Congress allowed Section 215 of the Patriot Act to expire. That section authorized the National Security Agency to conduct bulk collection of domestic telephone records and allowed the FBI to obtain business records, including hotel bills, travel vouchers and internet data relevant to terror-related investigations. The program was not regarded as a key tool in thwarting terrorism plots, however. The only case the government said was cracked because of the program over a decade was a relatively minor terrorist financing scheme. Under new law, the government has to request a search of data held by phone companies. The CIA works to combat international terrorism by collecting, analyzing and disseminating intelligence on foreign terrorist groups and individuals all over the world and often shares information with allies. ___ Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta, Amy Taxin in Tustin, Calif., and Deb Riechmann, Bradley Klapper, Eileen Sullivan, Chad Day and Michael Biesecker in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nbenac and Alicia Caldwell at http://www.twitter.com/acaldwellap. Man shot by police at Dallas airport out of hospital; jailed DALLAS (AP) A Maryland man shot by a police officer outside a Dallas airport after a domestic disturbance is out of the hospital and in jail. Shawn Nicholas Diamond was booked into a Dallas County jail Sunday on charges of aggravated assault on a public servant and assault-family violence with offensive contact. He remained jailed without bond on Monday. Jail records list no attorney for the 29-year-old from Edgewood, Maryland. Dallas police say Diamond struck his ex-girlfriend and battered her car with a traffic cone and large landscaping rocks outside the terminal at Dallas Love Field. He says an officer shot Diamond after he advanced with rocks in his hands. Trump says he is revoking Washington Post credentials MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) Donald Trump says his presidential campaign is revoking credentials provided to The Washington Post. Trump writes on his Facebook page that, "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post." He writes that he's "no fan of" President Barack Obama, but faults the Post for a headline posted Monday that he says read, "Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at Saint Anselm College Monday, June 13, 2016, in Manchester, N.H. Trump attacked Hilary Clinton by name in his speech in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting. Clinton did not mention Trump by name in her speech an hour earlier. During the national security speech, Trump repeatedly criticized Clinton's immigration plan, her attempts to tighten the nation's gun control laws and for not using the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" when describing recent attackers. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) The headline on the story Monday afternoon read, "Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting." Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel Monday morning that when it comes to fighting terrorism, the president "doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands." Post spokeswoman Kristine Coratti Kelly says the headline was changed shortly after the story posted "to more properly reflect what Trump said." She adds, "We did so on our own; the Trump campaign never contacted us about it." A Post photographer and reporter attended Trump's speech in New Hampshire Monday afternoon without issue. In a statement, Post editor Martin Baron says, "Donald Trump's decision to revoke The Washington Post's press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press. When coverage doesn't correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished. The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along - honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. We're proud of our coverage, and we're going to keep at it." Trump's campaign has revoked credentials from other news outlets including The Daily Beast, Politico and the Des Moines Register. First resettled Syrian refugee family in US faces challenges KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) A Syrian man whose family was the first to be resettled in the U.S. as part of the new U.S. "surge" refugee program has faced several challenges since arriving in Kansas City from trying to learn English to having all his teeth removed. But on Monday he wanted to express his sorrow over the nightclub shootings in Orlando, Florida. Ahmad Alabood, a 45-year-old former construction worker from Homs, Syria, spoke through an interpreter at a news conference at a school operated by Della Lamb Community Center. The center has been handling the family's resettlement since they arrived in April from Jordan, where they lived in a refugee camp after fleeing Syria's civil war three years ago. Syrian refugee Ahmad Alabood gets on a bus following English class at Della Lamb Community Services in Kansas City, Mo., Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) "He heard about it, and he says we are so sorry this happened from somebody like that. Islam is not like that," Alabood's interpreter, Fariz Turkmani, said of the Orlando shootings. "This is not Islam. And he feels for the families that lost loved ones or have injured people." Alabood said he has concerns about potential backlash against Muslims after the Orlando shootings, which left 49 people and the shooter dead and scores more injured. The gunman was identified as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old U.S.-born Muslim. "It's so sad when somebody like that kills people, and he thinks he's going to go to heaven," Alabood said. Alabood, his wife and their five children arrived in Kansas City, the first Syrians to be resettled in the U.S. under the Obama administration's surge program designed to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees by Sept. 30. The family was among the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who fled their nation's civil war, which sparked a humanitarian crisis as they began pouring into Europe and the Middle East last year. Whether the surge target will be met is unclear. From last October through June 8, there were 3,887 Syrian refugees resettled in the U.S., according to State Department data. Alabood said a couple of his children, who range in age from about 1 to 12, have had health problems, including the baby, who had elevated lead levels in his blood and a 5-year-old with a heart ailment. He said both concerns have been addressed. He said he's been working on his English since dealing with own health problems, including having all his teeth removed because they had gone bad and talking to doctors about shrapnel in his head and legs from a bomb blast in Homs a few years ago. Alabood attends English classes given by Della Lamb four days a week. On Monday, he sat in the back row in a polo shirt, jeans and flip flops, intently listening and quietly participating. His two older children are also enrolled in Della Lamb's charter school, where they have an interpreter. The younger children are picking up English quickly, thanks in part to cartoons, and will attend school in the fall, he said. He said his wife stays home with their baby. Alabood said through the interpreter that he had warm feelings toward the U.S. before he arrived and "whatever thoughts he had about America before he believes in them even more." Alabood has not yet started a job, said Judy Akers, Della Lamb's executive director. She said the first priorities have been tackling the family's health issues and learning English. Alabood is expected to be employed within the next several months, she said. Della Lamb is also expecting to be assigned the resettlement of Alabood's brother, who is now in Jordan, but it's unclear when he and his two children will arrive, Akers said. Alabood said he tells his brother it will be challenging in the U.S. "He always tells him, you know, don't think that you're going on vacation when you come here. You are starting all over from zero, with the language, with everything," the interpreter said for Alabood. Syrian refugee Ahmad Alabood picks out days of the week while in English class at Della Lamb Community Services in Kansas City, Mo., Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) Syrian refugee Ahmad Alabood, right, sits in the back row during English class at Della Lamb Community Services in Kansas City, Mo., Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) Syrian refugee Ahmad Alabood, rear, sits in the back row during English class at Della Lamb Community Services in Kansas City, Mo., Monday, June 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner) An American Airlines plane bound for San Francisco had to return to Phoenix's airport after part of the engine cover was ripped off during take-off. An astonishing photo taken by a passenger on the flight has emerged that shows the wiring and electronics exposed in mid-air after the panel fell to the ground. American Airlines spokeswoman Polly Tracey said the carrier is working to determine what caused the part a removable engine cover known as a cowling to come loose. This photo taken by passenger Ken Papagno from inside the plane shows the damage to the engine Tracey added that the part was recovered on Sky Harbor property, and no one was injured. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said that the incident occurred about 8.30am local time on Monday and the plane landed safely about 20 minutes later at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. He added the FAA are also investigating the incident. Flight 403, with 136 passengers aboard, was delayed almost three hours before it departed Phoenix for San Francisco International Airport. A spokesperson for American Airlines told MailOnline Travel: 'American Airlines flight 403 from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to (PHX) to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) returned to Phoenix and landed safely after a part of an engine cowling came loose. 'We have notified the FAA and are working to determine what caused the part to come loose. We apologize to our customers for the delay.' American Airlines has confirmed it, along with the Federal Aviation Administration, is investigating the mishap (file photo) Last month MailOnline Travel reported how a Delta flight with more than 100 passengers on board was forced to make an emergency landing in Nashville after turbulence ripped off the engine cover. The Delta Flight 762 was travelling from Atlanta to Chicago on Mother's Day when it hit turbulence at 28,000ft, over Cleveland. The cowling (engine cover) flew off and hit part of the fuselage, leaving marks that could be seen when the plane landed. The engine lights immediately went on and the pilot was forced to land the plane unexpectedly at Nashville International Airport, WTVF reported. But the 109 passengers on board and five crew made it down safely, according to a statement released by Delta at the time. US screening of controversial Russian film ends in ruckus WASHINGTON (AP) A controversial documentary that claims that a Russian whistleblower whose death in prison had inspired a major U.S. human rights law was responsible for the very fraud he had accused Russian officials of perpetrating was shown in Washington on Monday, drawing harsh criticism from his supporters. The screening at Newseum ended with the shouts "Shame" and "Lies" from the audience and a planned question-and-answer session turned into a heated exchange between supporters of the late whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky and the movie director, Andrei Nekrasov. Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison in 2009 at the age of 37 after accusing Russian officials of stealing $230 million from the government in tax rebates using the companies that he represented. The Russian presidential council on human rights said he was beaten and denied medical treatment in jail. Magnitsky was a lawyer for William Browder, a British-American investor who made millions in Russia after the Soviet collapse, but then was expelled from the country in 2005. FILE - In this Nov. 30, 2009, file photo a portrait of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail, is held by his mother Nataliya Magnitskaya, as she speaks during an interview with the AP in Moscow. A documentary premiering June 13, 2016, at Washingtons Newseum is generating controversy by claiming that late Russian whistleblower Magnitsky, who had inspired a major U.S. human rights law, was responsible for the very fraud he had accused Russian officials of perpetrating. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File) Magnitsky's case has become a symbol of human rights abuses and corruption in Russia. In 2012 Congress passed a law in his honor that imposed sanctions on nearly 40 Russian officials deemed implicated in the case and in other rights violations. The sanctions, which Browder actively lobbied for, involve travel bans and asset freezes in U.S. jurisdictions. Russia reacted by banning American families from adopting Russian orphans, citing safety concerns. Browder has denounced the movie as a smear campaign and has succeeded in blocking its screening in Europe. But the Newseum, a museum dedicated to media freedom, stood by its decision to rent its theater for the screening, saying it is a matter of free speech. In the film, which blends elements of a documentary and actors re-enacting Magnitsky's time in jail and other scenes, Nekrasov disputes the widely accepted narrative that Magnitsky was arrested and abused in jail because he had uncovered a massive tax fraud scheme perpetrated by Russian officials. Nekrasov, who has made movies critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claims that Magnitsky never actually accused two police officers at the center of the case and contends that it was in fact Magnitsky himself who perpetrated the tax fraud. But a transcript of Magnitsky's testimony to Russian investigators, which Nekrasov references in the movie, shows him naming the two police officials before his arrest many times. Nekrasov also alleges that Magnitsky was not tortured in jail, even though there are photos showing multiple bruises on Magnitsky's body and a prison report saying that a rubber baton was used against him. Nekrasov claimed that Browder, who has been convicted of tax evasion in Russia and sentenced to prison in absentia, invented the Magnitsky story as a public relations stunt. "He made up the Magnitsky story so that the accusations of the Russian government against him would be regarded as politically motivated," Nekrasov told The Associated Press ahead of the screening. Nekrasov said he initially set out to document Browder's version on the events in his film, but then discovered evidence that changed his mind. Browder vehemently denied Nekrasov's allegations and said the film is an attempt by the Russian government to get the Magnitsky Act repealed. Browder's campaign has led several countries, including the United States and Switzerland, to open money laundering investigations and freeze assets in connection with the fraud. "It's part of a Kremlin-sponsored smear campaign to try discredit the Magnitsky Act and to ultimately repeal the Magnitsky sanctions," Browder told the AP. "This movie is spitting on the grave of a Russian hero who stood up against Russian corruption and gave his life for his principles, and it's a terrible insult to his family who are still deeply traumatized and destroyed by what the Russian government did to their husband and their son." Prosecutor: No charges in Louisiana baby's hot car death BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) A district attorney in Louisiana says he won't prosecute a man whose 8-month-old daughter died after about two hours in a hot car. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore says Raylee Mercer's death was a tragic accident, and Marvin Mercer's actions don't meet the standard for negligent homicide. Moore said Monday that evidence shows Raylee was well cared for and not subject to neglect, abuse or mistreatment. He says Mercer has no previous history that suggests he was in any way careless with his children. Officials: Police couple killed outside Paris, child rescued PARIS (AP) A knife-wielding attacker stabbed a senior police officer to death Monday evening outside his home in a distant suburb of Paris, officials said. The attacker and a female companion of the police commander were later found dead after police commandos stormed the home and rescued the couple's three-year-old son. French officials said anti-terrorism prosecutors were investigating the attack. The Islamic State's Amaq news agency cited an unnamed "source" as saying an IS fighter carried out the attack, but the extremist jihadist group has not officially claimed responsibility. The off-duty police commander was attacked outside his home in Magnanville, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) west of Paris, interior minister spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters at the scene. The attacker then retreated indoors and elite police commandos laid siege to the residence, eventually storming it after a roughly three-hour standoff. Brandet said the woman, the commander's companion and a fellow police worker, was found dead, as was the attacker. The police couple's son was unharmed. Although officials said the attacker was killed by police when they stormed the residence, it was unclear how the woman was killed. "The toll is a heavy one," Brandet told reporters, his voice heavy with emotion. "This commander, this police officer was killed by the individual ... (and) we discovered the body of a woman. The assailant, the criminal was killed. Thankfully, a little boy was saved. He was in the house. He's safe and sound. He was saved by police officers." The Paris prosecutor's office said early Tuesday that anti-terrorism investigators had been brought in to the case given the target, the method behind the attack, and what the attacker said to police during the ensuing standoff. The office did not elaborate, but French media, some of them citing unnamed neighbors, reported that the attacker was heard shouting "Allahu Akbar" Arabic for "God is Great" during the attack. French prosecutor Vincent Lesclous who said he knew the slain police commander told reporters that the boy was found "shocked but unharmed." He said the assailant's identity was unknown. If the crime was in fact organized or inspired by IS, it would fit in with a long-established pattern of jihadist violence. France, like other countries in Europe, has seen a series of stabbings aimed at police officers or soldiers and carried out by Muslim radicals. IS has encouraged its supporters to stage such attacks. Tensions have been particularly high since Islamic State extremists claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was lit up Monday night in the colors of a rainbow to honor victims of Saturday's mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed at least 49 people. The gunman declared his allegiance to IS in phone calls to police, but his motives remain unclear. French President Francois Hollande condemned what he described as an "odious act," saying that he would hold a meeting at his Elysee Palace office on Tuesday. No progress in talks to avoid Twin Cities nurses strike MINNEAPOLIS (AP) Negotiators have returned to the bargaining table but report no progress in contract talks to avoid a strike by nearly 5,000 nurses at five hospitals in the Minneapolis area. Representatives from the Minnesota Nurses Association and Allina Health met Monday at the request of a federal mediator. The nurses rejected Allina's latest contract offer last week, saying it would shift too much of the company's health care costs to the nurses. Union leaders have set a one-week strike to begin Sunday by nurses at Abbott Northwestern, Phillips Eye Institute, United, Mercy and Unity hospitals. Allina says its metro-area hospitals will remain open if the nurses go on strike. Nico Rosberg unimpressed with Lewis Hamilton manoeuvre Nico Rosberg admitted he was "massively p***** off" with Lewis Hamilton after the Mercedes team-mates banged wheels on the opening lap of Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix. Rosberg, who endured a miserable afternoon, was forced on to the grass after making contact with Hamilton in the rush down to turn one of the Montreal race. The German re-joined the Gilles-Villeneuve Circuit way down the order in ninth before a puncture and a spin on the penultimate lap saw him cross the line only fifth. In contrast, Hamilton claimed his second victory in as many races, to move to within nine points of the German. Nico Rosberg was frustrated after the Canadian Grand Prix "I was very p***** off in the moment," said Rosberg, who finished more than one minute behind his Mercedes team-mate. "Lewis had a really bad start, mine was decent, and Vettel had a super start. It was a hard manoeuvre from Lewis but that is racing and I need to do a better job next time. "I lost a lot of places, that cost me the race, and after that I fought back and was on course for the podium until I got a puncture. "Fifth place is a big disappointment as our car was awesome today and obviously it was good enough to fight for the win." Rosberg, who cancelled his post-race media duties in order to catch an earlier than scheduled flight from Montreal to his home in Monaco, has lost 34 points to Hamilton in just two grands prix. For the Briton however, whose defence of his campaign had been fraught with bad luck, he was gift-wrapped another victory to seal his fifth win in Montreal. A fortnight ago in Monaco, a Red Bull pit-stop blunder robbed Daniel Ricciardo of victory , and here a strategical blunder by Ferrari prevented Sebastian Vettel from claiming his first win of the campaign. Hamilton has been the fortunate beneficiary on both occasions. "We're going to just take it one race at a time, and there's still work to do," Hamilton, who celebrated his first grand prix win here in 2007, said. "We're going to continue to improve this car and we need to try to keep on a roll if possible. "There's a long, long way to go and these guys at Ferrari and Red Bull are getting faster and faster, so collectively as a team we're just going to keep our heads down and keep pushing. Fractured finger rules David Warner out of West Indies tour Australia opening batsman David Warner has been ruled out of the tour of the West Indies by a fractured finger. Warner was struck on the tip of his left index finger during the 36-run over South Africa on Sunday and X-rays have revealed a fracture that will rule Warner out for two to six weeks. The left-hander will return home to recuperate ahead of the tour of Sri Lanka that begins on July 26. David Warner fractured his finger against South Africa "He's in the form of his life and batting beautifully, so it's obviously going to be a big loss for us," said captain Steve Smith. "But I'm sure whoever's going to step into that position is going to do a terrific job and hopefully we can continue the success we've had so far in the series. Police could be disciplined years after leaving force under 'Hillsborough law' Police officers could face the prospect of disciplinary proceedings many years after they have left the force, under new proposals being put forward by the Government. Ministers have already tabled plans for officers to face misconduct investigations for up to 12 months after retiring, but a new amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill would extend the period in "exceptional circumstances", Downing Street has announced. The announcement came as shadow home secretary Andy Burnham called for a "Hillsborough law" to help individuals fighting against police misconduct. Andy Burnham will urge other parties to support the measures Labour are hoping to force two votes on the Bill in the House of Commons on Monday to rebalance the policing and criminal justice system in families' favour. Mr Burnham is urging MPs to back parity of funding for legal representation for bereaved families at inquests where the police are involved. And he argues there should be no limit on the period after leaving the force that officers can face a misconduct probe. He called for the removal of the time limit to be made retrospective, so it could apply to officers involved in the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy, where 96 Liverpool fans died. A much-delayed inquest found in April that the fans were unlawfully killed and failings by police contributed to their deaths. Prime Minister David Cameron's official spokeswoman said an amendment to be brought forward in the House of Lords would extend the proposed period of time under which misconduct proceedings can be brought "in exceptional circumstances", but was unable to say whether there would be any time limit or whether the change would be imposed retrospectively. "We had already proposed in this Bill to introduce new measures so investigations and disciplinary proceedings could take place within 12 months of an officer's departure," said the spokeswoman. "We will now bring forward an amendment to allow in exceptional circumstances for disciplinary proceedings to be brought outside of that time period." The spokeswoman said that the Government agreed with the "spirit" of Mr Burnham's call for parity of funding, but said any decision should await a report being written by the former Bishop of Liverpool James Jones. "This is something we want to look at and the Home Secretary has asked Bishop Jones to compile a report on that," said the spokeswoman. "Our view is that we should wait for his report before making further decisions, but we support the spirit of the amendment." Mr Burnham is also calling on MPs to back a requirement for the Government to press ahead with the second planned phase of the Leveson Inquiry, which would look into the relationship between police and press, as well as a ban on unattributable briefings to the media by police. The shadow home secretary said: "The 27-year struggle of the Hillsborough families exposes how the odds are all too frequently stacked against ordinary families seeking truth and justice. "Hillsborough must mark a moment of real change when Parliament rebalances the police and criminal justice system and puts more power in the hands of ordinary people. "Never again should any bereaved families have to fight like the Hillsborough families have had to fight. "We must call time on the uneven playing field at inquests where public bodies spend public money like water on hiring the best lawyers when ordinary families have to scratch around for whatever they can get. Expect higher food prices if UK leaves EU, says ex-Tesco boss Former Tesco boss Sir Terry Leahy has urged the British people to vote to stay in the European Union, reiterating his warning that food prices will rise as a result of Brexit. With just 10 days to go until the crunch vote, he said that the UK faces the prospect of a "major recession", higher tariffs and capital flight should Britons opt for exit. Speaking from the International Festival for Business in Liverpool, Sir Terry told the Press Association: "The message is, don't take a leap into the unknown. There is a major risk of recession that the UK cannot afford, we could see capital flight and the pound fall. Sir Terry Leahy, the former Chief Executive of Tesco, warned of the risk of recession after Brexit. "Food prices will go up if we vote for Brexit as the supply chain would be severely disrupted and we would be paying tariffs. Consumers are a big part of the recovery, and we should protect that recovery, not risk it." William and Kate rumoured to make first appearance at Royal Ascot The Queen's passion for Royal Ascot is well known, but rumours are rife the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge could make their first appearance at the famous sporting event. Punters have been betting on the prospect of William and Kate joining the Queen in her carriage as the royal procession makes its way along the famous course. William Hill bookmakers have even suspended the book on the Cambridges making an appearance at the racing meet, which begins on Tuesday. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are rumoured to be joining the Queen at Royal Ascot Jon Ivan-Duke, a spokesman for the bookmakers, said: "We were offering odds of 2-1 that the Duchess would be in the Queen's carriage this week - this now looks a certainty. "The question now is will Prince George be going too." The firm is offering odds of 10-1 that William and Kate's toddler son will join them at the famous Berkshire racecourse. The Royal Family - especially the colour of the Queen's hat - are usually the basis for novelty bets during the five-day racing event. William Hill have made blue the 2-1 favourite for the colour of the Queen's hat on the opening day. Mr Ivan-Duke added: "We have had our first gamble on the Queen's hat today with almost 85% of bets for blue. We think the gamble is based on the chilly weather forecast when blue would perhaps be more appropriate than yellow." Known for its strict dress code in the Royal Enclosure, Royal Ascot is one of the highlights of the racing and social calendar. Each year around 300,000 race-goers descend on the racecourse and drink their way through 51,000 bottles of champagne, eat 5,000 kilos of salmon, 2,900 lobsters, 7,000 punnets of berries and bet thousands on the horses. The Queen is a passionate horse owner and breeder and has watched more than 20 of her thoroughbreds triumph at Royal Ascot. Her thoroughbred Estimate won the Gold Cup in 2013, when the monarch could not contain her delight as it romped home. Bookmaker Coral has also made blue its favourite, with odds of 3-1, for the colour of the Queen's hat on the opening day of Royal Ascot. Manchester City new boy Ilkay Gundogan sets August target New Manchester City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has revealed he hopes to be fit before the end of August. The German, who became City's first summer signing when he penned a four-year deal earlier this month, will miss the start of the 2016-17 campaign after sustaining a knee injury playing for Borussia Dortmund. But the 25-year-old does not expect to be sidelined for long as City move into a new era under Pep Guardiola. Ilkay Gundogan hopes to be fit for Manchester City early next season Gundogan told the club's website: "I hope to be fit by the end of August or first week of September. "You can't be absolutely sure and we have to gauge it week by week but that's my target and if everything goes to plan, it will be August. A Catholic teenager was tied to a wooden cross and hung from a wall in a sustained course of victimisation and bullying by work colleagues, a court heard yesterday. Andrew Addison, 30, Joseph Rose, 21, Christopher Jackson, 22, and Alex Puchir, 37, allegedly tormented him at their firm in Selby, North Yorkshire before some dismissed it as banter. The boy apprentice, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also had religious and phallic symbols drawn on his face and body with permanent marker, the court was told. Defendants: Andrew Addison (left), 30, and Joseph Rose (right), 21, allegedly tormented the apprentice at their shopfitting firm in Selby, North Yorkshire before dismissing it as banter Four men have gone on trial at York Crown Court accused of religiously aggravated assault against the teenager, who was aged between 17 and 18 at the time. Austin Newman, opening the case for the prosecution, told the jury of five men and seven women the boy obtained an apprenticeship at the shopfitting company in July 2014. During his apprenticeship, he worked on jobs in London, the South East and Yorkshire with the four defendants, including company manager Addison. Mr Newman said: These defendants are charged variously on counts of religiously aggravated assault by beating and putting a person in fear of violence by harassment. These counts are designed to cover what the prosecution contends was a sustained course of victimisation and bullying of a young man in the work place. He added: He was subjected to acts of bullying, which the Crown say went beyond anything that could reasonably be described as banter or high jinks in the workplace. Appearing: Christopher Jackson (left), 22, and Alex Puchir (right), 37, have also gone on trial at York Crown Court accused of religiously aggravated assault against the boy, who was aged between 17 and 18 at the time Mr Newman said the boy was a practising Roman Catholic and told the jury the defendants were motivated by hostility based on his religious observance. Addison, Jackson, and Puchir are accused of tying the boy to a wooden cross and hanging him from a wall in a way which resembled a crucifixion, Mr Newman said. He was subjected to acts of bullying, which the Crown say went beyond anything that could reasonably be described as banter or high jinks in the workplace Austin Newman, prosecuting The prosecutor said the three men tied the teenager on to a cross, which had been fashioned from two lengths of wood and attached to a piece of plasterboard, with duct tape before leaving him suspended about a metre above the ground for around ten minutes. On another occasion, Rose is accused of using a permanent marker to draw crosses and penises across a large proportion of the boy's body and face while he was asleep. Mr Newman said: The Crown say that the crosses in particular were an indication of the hostility towards (the boy) based on his religious observance. The barrister said it took a number of days to remove the symbols and the boy was left with sore skin due to having to scrub at the marks. Rose is also accused of spraying deodorant towards the boy's head and lighting it while he was asleep in bed, the court heard. Hearing: York Crown Court (pictured) was told that the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, also had religious and phallic symbols drawn on his face and body with permanent marker Mr Newman told the jury the teenager only avoided serious injury by pulling a duvet cover over his head as Rose lit the deodorant, causing a ball of flame that narrowly missed (the boy's) head. The prosecutor said Addison took photographs of the incident on his mobile phone. The Crown say that the crosses in particular were an indication of the hostility towards (the boy) based on his religious observance Austin Newman, prosecuting Addison is also accused of tying the teenager to a chair with duct tape and cable ties and leaving him locked in a room by himself and giving the boy a wedgie by pulling his underpants up so forcibly he was lifted off his feet and suffered cuts and bruises to his buttocks, the court heard. Mr Newman said Addison remained silent when interviewed by police after his arrest in May 2015. The other three defendants accepted their involvement in the incidents but claimed they were part of general workplace banter, the jury heard. Addison, of Selby, and Rose, of Bubwith, East Yorkshire, both deny putting a person in fear of violence by harassment and religiously aggravated assault by beating. Addison also denies a charge of assault by beating. Jackson, of Barlby, North Yorkshire, and Puchir, of Edinburgh, both deny religiously aggravated assault by beating. Six England fans jailed over Euro 2016-related trouble in Marseille Six England fans have been jailed for taking part in the violence that spread across Marseille, with all banned from France for two years. The men, who all appeared at court in the city during a five-hour session, were imprisoned for between one and three months. The father of 20-year-old Alexander Booth, the youngest to be jailed, was seen crying outside court and said he would fight the conviction. Six England fans have been jailed for taking part in the violence that spread across Marseille. Automatic organ donation has saved dozens of lives, Assembly to be told A landmark change to the way organs are donated has saved dozens of lives, Wales' health minister will tell Assembly Members later today. Last year, Wales became the first part of the UK where people automatically become donors after their death unless they object beforehand. The move - from an "opt in" to an "opt out" system - was criticised by some religious groups. Health minister Vaughan Gething is to address Assembly members about the organ donation scheme However, six months on from the law coming into effect, Welsh Government officials say new figures prove the policy has been a life saver. According to statistics, 60 organs were transplanted between December 1 last year and May 1, 2016 - with 32 coming from people whose "consent had been deemed". This compares with 23 donations in the same period for 2014-15. Vaughan Gething, Cabinet Secretary for Health, Well-being and Sport, is to address fellow AMs about the scheme in the Senedd later today. He is expected to say: "I am extremely proud that Wales now leads the way by being the first nation in the UK to move to a soft opt-out system of consent. I fully expect that the new system will create a step change in consent for organ donation in Wales. The early indications are that this certainly is the case. "This law was introduced to address the chronic shortage of organs for transplant which we face in Wales. I am sure we have all heard heart-breaking stories about those on organ waiting lists." Under the new system, those over 18 become potential donors either by registering their decision to opt in or by doing nothing at all. It applies to adults who have lived in the country for more than 12 months and organs available are the same as the "opt-in" method - including kidneys, heart, liver, lungs and pancreas. According to the figures, 1,000 people in the UK die every year while waiting for a transplant. Among those who welcomed the law's launch last year was the British Heart Foundation (BHF). Speaking in December, BHF chief executive Simon Gillespie said: "We campaigned strongly in Wales to introduce soft opt-out and now it's time for the rest of the UK to follow their lead." However, clerics from several faith groups - including Christians, Jews and Muslims - signed an open letter expressing their unease about the plan. Tom Watson: EU free movement rules could be changed in future The European Union's free movement rules could be changed in future because of concerns about immigration, Labour deputy leader Tom Watson has indicated, as the party launched an effort to persuade its wavering voters to back the Remain cause. Mr Watson insisted that a decision to stay in the EU on June 23 would not mean the end of the reform agenda in the bloc as he acknowledged many Labour voters viewed immigration as an issue. His comments came as party leader Jeremy Corbyn warned that the NHS will be at risk if the country votes to leave the European Union as h e pleaded for his party's supporters and trade unionists to back the Remain cause. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his deputy Tom Watson appear with other members of the shadow cabinet at the TUC Congress Centre, London Mr Corbyn said Labour would be making "the strongest case we can" for a Remain win on June 23 following criticism about his level of involvement in the campaign. With another opinion poll showing a lead for the Leave camp, both sides know that winning the support of Labour voters could prove crucial to the outcome of the referendum. Mr Watson said immigration was the issue which had been the backdrop to every election in Britain over the last decade. "Woe betide politicians that don't listen to what voters tell them," he told the BBC. He added: " I think we have to reassure people that if they vote Remain on Thursday June 23, that isn't the end of the reform package for Europe. You know, I think a future Europe will have to look at things like the free movement of labour rules." Mr Watson also urged David Cameron to push for a fund to target support at communities where public services were being stretched as a result of immigration. He added that immigration was also an issue in other EU countries and the way to address it was to retain the UK's seat at the negotiating table. "It seems to me this just isn't a phenomenon that affects the United Kingdom. It's European-wide. And if we want to change the rules on the free movement of labour, you have to be in the European Union to do that," he said. "And I would imagine that a future UK government, when it comes to the next iteration of reform in Europe, will have to engage in that process." Asked if a Labour administration would suggest a control on the numbers coming to the UK, he said: " I think it's very likely that a Labour government would want to reform the European Union and yes, if we get to a general election in 2020, of course we would have to listen to our voters. "They're giving us a pretty clear signal in this referendum, and I think we should be listening very clearly to what they're telling us." Mr Watson urged Labour voters not to use the referendum "as a way of punishing David Cameron" because "the stakes are too high". Mr Corbyn used his speech at the TUC headquarters in London to say he was "proud" of the 52,000 EU workers in the NHS as he attacked the Leave camp's rhetoric on immigration. "The NHS could not afford to lose 52,000 dedicated professionals and still deliver the service we need. They should think about these things before they shoot their mouths off in the way that they do." Mr Corbyn joined with trade union leaders to take on the Brexit campaign over the future of the NHS after Brexit. Vote Leave has promised to increase funding for the NHS using the money saved from no longer contributing to the Brussels budget. But Mr Corbyn said Vote Leave's central claim about the 350 million it says goes to Brussels was an "outright lie", and their spending pledges had been "magically funded". The Labour leader labelled Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage "wolves in sheep's clothing" as he claimed some of the most prominent Brexit campaigners had called for changes which would erode the health service's basic principle of universal free care. In a speech during which he condemned Tory policies which had left the NHS in "crisis", he warned that Brexit would hit the funding available for the health service by around 10 billion. At the event, TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady launched a bitter attack on the Leave campaign as a group of "fibbers, fakes and phonies", while Unison chief Dave Prentis said "the future of our NHS is on the line" in the EU vote. Mr Corbyn used an appearance alongside members of his shadow cabinet to warn that the "bonfire of regulations" promised by the Brexit camp could damage workers' rights. Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn poses with a nurse during a TUC NHS safer in the EU event Brexit could leave UK 'critically short' of workers, Manpower report claims Leaving the EU could make the UK "critically short" of workers, with hiring intentions already hit by Brexit uncertainty, according to a new report. Employment group Manpower issued a warning about the impact on British industry if EU workers were no longer able to move freely to this country. Leaving the EU would be particularly damaging for top construction firms, which traditionally rely on European workers, and have been warning for months of skills shortages, said the report. There are currently 2.2 million people from the EU working in the UK, Manpower has said A survey of 2,100 employers showed the biggest fall in retail optimism in five years, prompted by the recent launch of the national living wage. James Hick, managing director of the Manpower Group, said: "Britain added 404,000 jobs in the last 12 months alone, and despite the uncertainties of Brexit, employers tell us they still need more workers. "Make no mistake about the vital contribution EU workers make to Britain. There are currently 2.2 million people from the EU working in the UK, but not all of them will stay here in the long term and we need the opportunity to replace the skills they bring. "Britain today is a magnet for international talent, from finance to tech to the NHS. Leaving the EU will make it much more difficult to attract the brightest and best. It will mean more bureaucracy for those coming to Britain and salaries could be less competitive, especially if sterling falls, as many warn it could. "To compete on the world stage British businesses need the flexibility and free movement that EU membership brings." EU confirms Juncker to meet Putin in Russia next week BRUSSELS, June 10 (Reuters) - European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin during an economic forum in St. Petersburg next week, an EU spokeswoman said on Friday. Confirming the EU chief executive's schedule for the coming week at a news briefing, the spokeswoman said Juncker would, as previously announced, attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday and Friday and that while there he would hold his first meeting with Putin since November 2014. Relations between Moscow and the European Union have been strained since an EU move to bring Ukraine into a trade pact and Russia's annexation of Crimea and support for rebels in eastern Ukraine. Mutual sanctions have been in force for two years and EU leaders are likely to roll over their measures. Juncker has argued for better relations with Russia and said in October that EU policy on the matter should not be "dictated" by Washington. On Friday, the spokeswoman said Juncker had made clear that his visit to Russia would not change the EU's stance. "I find it very important to try, at least in economic questions, to move towards Russia," she quoted Juncker as having said last week. "I can assure you there won't be a softening of European positions in St. Petersburg." Juncker's acceptance of the invitation to the annual Kremlin-run, high-profile gathering of business and political figures provoked criticism among some Europeans who fear that resolve to maintain sanctions over Ukraine is weakening. Iraqi forces gain ground against Islamic State south of Mosul ERBIL, Iraq, June 12 (Reuters) - Iraqi troops advanced against Islamic State south of Mosul on Sunday as the U.S.-led coalition intensifies its campaign against the militants on multiple fronts across their self-proclaimed caliphate. Officers involved in the operation said Iraqi forces had moved towards the village of Haj Ali in tanks and armoured vehicles under cover of coalition airstrikes and artillery fire, capturing another village on the way. "In the beginning they resisted but when they saw the force they withdrew," said an Iraqi officer speaking from the newly recaptured village of Kharaib Jabr, adjacent to Haj Ali. Haj Ali sits on the eastern bank of the Tigris river, opposite the Islamic State hub of Qayara, where there is an airfield that is set to serve as a staging ground for future operations to recapture Mosul, about 60 km (40 miles) north. Islamic State overran Mosul two years ago and went on to proclaim a caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria but has come under increasing pressure in recent months, losing ground to an array of forces. Iraqi forces are also advancing on the edge of the Islamic State bastion of Falluja further south, while in Syria U.S.-backed forces are encircling the militant-held town of Manbij. Iraqi troops were deployed to the northern Makhmour area earlier this year and launched an operation in March touting it as the beginning of a bigger campaign to retake Mosul - the largest city under militant control. Since then, Iraqi forces have made modest gains, capturing a handful of villages on the eastern bank of the river Tigris. The commander of the operation blamed the slow pace on a lack of tanks and said he did not have enough men to hold ground after it was retaken from the militants. Father of Orlando shooter hosted political show on Afghan-Pakistan issues By Jonathan Landay and Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, hosted a political show on an U.S.-based Afghan satellite channel that took a hard anti-Pakistan line. In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son's rampage had "nothing to do with religion." He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and he became very angry. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," NBC News quoted him as saying. "We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country." Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when came to the United States. He did not immediately return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email. Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called "Durand Jirga," which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinent's former British rulers. "Three or four times a year, he would show up in Southern California," Khatab said in a phone interview on Sunday. "He'd talk for about two to three hours. He'd buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day." Khatab said Seddique Mateen's political views were largely anti-Pakistan. One of Seddique Mateen's videos refers to the "killer ISI" - the acronym for Pakistan's main military-run intelligence service - and says the agency is the "creator and father of the world's terrorism." U.S. officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against U.S. targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations. A U.S. congressman said Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old Florida resident and U.S. citizen, may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group. U.S. officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between the gunman and any such group. Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. Mexico arrests teacher union boss, doubles down on education reform MEXICO CITY, June 12 (Reuters) - Mexico's government said on Sunday it had arrested the leader of a dissident teachers' union for alleged corruption, redoubling efforts to impose its authority on an education reform that has sparked months of protests in the country. Deputy attorney general Gilberto Higuera told a news conference that Ruben Nunez, head one of the most combative factions of the CNTE union, had been held on suspicion of receiving money of illicit origin through the organization. "This is another step in the process of full application of the law, and respect for the rule of law," said Javier Trevino, deputy minister of education. Nunez is secretary general of the CNTE's Section 22 in the southern state of Oaxaca, a longstanding hotbed of resistance to government efforts to reform the education system. According to Higuera, Section 22 made a deal with companies supplying the teachers' union to charge an illegal 3.5 percent commission on sales, money its leaders then used for personal ends and to fund demonstrations by its members. Between 2013 and 2015, more than 24 million pesos ($1.29 million) were acquired by Nunez as part of the scheme, he added. The CNTE was defiant following Nunez's arrest. "We're not going to give up our fight," Section 22 member Juan Garcia told a crowd of supporters in Oaxaca's capital, Oaxaca City. Organizing marches and protests that have frequently caused chaos in the Mexican capital, the CNTE has spearheaded efforts to resist the education reform, in particular its mandate to carry out evaluations of teachers. Critics argue many teachers in the poorer south lack the financial support to meet required standards. President Enrique Pena Nieto has staked his name on the reform, describing it as the most important for Mexico's future. In the past month the government has said over 4,000 teachers in the states of Michoacan, Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas on the Pacific seaboard will be dismissed. Two other senior figures in Nunez's group have also been arrested in recent days, and the three men are in prison in the northern city of Hermosillo, officials said. Wanted: Oil traders who know China, with good heads for liquor By Chen Aizhu and Florence Tan BEIJING/SINGAPORE, June 10 (Reuters) - Chinese independent oil companies are luring traders, marketers and risk managers away from dominant state behemoths, offering better pay and perks in a hiring spree triggered by the freeing up of China's crude import trade. Global oil firms and commodity houses have also been raiding state giants such as Sinochem and CNPC for staff to help handle up to $50 million a day in new crude flowing into China this year, and the cherry-picking of talent is likely just getting started. China's independent "teapot" refiners, so called due to their small size, could be processing by the end of this year as much as a fifth of the crude imports of the world's No.2 oil consumer. Already, in the first five months of 2016 - the first full year of a dozen of them being granted crude import licences - they have captured about 10 percent of the inbound shipments. Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, China's largest independent refiner, has built a Singapore-based trading team of 11 to handle this new business, including trading and shipping managers hired from CNPC Fuel Oil Company and the CNOOC group. "A team of this size is far from enough for our scale of 10 million tonnes a year (200,000 bpd) crude demand," said Zhang Liu Cheng, vice president of Shandong Dongming. "We'll need more to cover products, chemicals and market analysis," Zhang said. Awarding crude import quotas of up to 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) to China's teapots has started a tussle for talent as the refiners - and the oil majors and trading houses that aim to supply them - dive into an activity previously restricted to state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This year, use of the quotas has made up most of a 16 percent or around 1 million bpd rise in China's crude imports, even with several underused and more awaiting approval. Those angling for a slice of this market have already hired more than 40 traders and others, mostly from state companies, say colleagues and acquaintances of people who have moved jobs. "We have a big but not totally motivated team," said a senior trader with a state oil company, noting that offers often beat SOE employment, particularly at smaller firms. "Certainly we're going to see more talent outflows as the teapots have just begun hiring," the senior trader said. Most of the hires are in their mid-thirties, having honed their craft at Chinese state companies such as Sinochem Corp , China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), sources said. "Our traders are very popular," said a source from one of the state oil trading companies. "Most of those who moved from our company are going to trading houses and majors because the perks are definitely better." (For a table of traders and others hired away from state companies, please see.) PEOPLE SKILLS, DRINKING CAPACITY "We are looking for people who have systematic training, good relationship skills, and people who understand how China markets work," said a Beijing-based executive with a global trading house. Also, with teapots concentrated mostly in the eastern province of Shandong, an ability on plant visits to withstand drinking bouts could also be critical as official at some refineries there are renowned for their large capacities for alcohol. "Sometimes I'm scared to visit our refinery in Shandong as they drink too much," said a Chinese trader who buys crude on behalf of one of the teapots. At Shandong Chambroad Petrochemicals Co, however, teetotallers would have the edge as the company has a strict no-drinking policy that bans alcohol at work and discourages its consumption even at personal events. Chambroad, the first Chinese independent to become a Saudi Aramco client, hired a crude trader at its Singapore unit Sunshine Oil last year from a trading outfit for China State Shipbuilding Corp. This year Chambroad set up a Shanghai-based derivatives team of 10 professionals, headed by Harry Cui, a former senior trader and head of futures research for state-owned grain processor and trading firm COFCO Corp [CNCOF.UL}. Cui said his team trades Brent futures to hedge Chambroad's four million tonnes of annual crude imports as well as its exports of refined fuel. "It's a small pool when you nail it down to trade experience plus market knowledge," said the global trading house executive. For state enterprises, the loss of roughly 10 percent of the trading teams at some companies is viewed as inevitable. So far the impact has been minimal, but that could change as the newcomers take more of the market. Most companies - including BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Glencore - declined to comment on their staff movements. New hirees also declined to comment due to the sensitivity of the matter. Sailing-Sweden's Artemis Racing the top boat in Chicago June 12 (Reuters) - A consistent set of results lifted Swedish boat Artemis Racing to the top in the Chicago leg of the America's Cup World Series (ACWS) that finished on Sunday. In front of a large crowd at Chicago's Navy Pier, Artemis finished second in the first race on Friday, and then second, first and fourth on Sunday on Lake Michigan, the first freshwater venue in America's Cup history, to pile up 61 points and claim the regatta. Artemis led from start to finish in the second Sunday race, holding off a late challenge from Oracle Team USA. "We feel that we have very good boat handling now, and very good speed," said Nathan Outteridge, the Australian skipper of Artemis. "Today was all about nailing those gybes ... That made us strong." British boat Land Rover BAR, which won the first race on Sunday, finished the weekend in second place with 58 points, two better than SoftBank Team Japan, which won the first race on Friday and final race on Sunday, but finished last in the second race on Sunday. Emirates Team New Zealand was fourth on 51 points, but maintains a narrow lead in the series with 295 points, 10 ahead of Team USA and British boat BAR. The Swedish boat moved into fourth at 262. Taiwan opposition slams former leader's travel ban to Hong Kong TAIPEI, June 13 (Reuters) - Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party slammed the island's new government as "suppressive" for barring former president Ma Ying-jeou from travelling to Chinese-controlled Hong Kong on the grounds of national security. Ma's China-friendly Nationalists lost landslide elections in January to President Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has traditionally leant towards independence from China. It said barring Ma from visiting the former British colony of Hong Kong was "completely unhelpful for Taiwan's internal political reconciliation and social harmony". "This suppressive style of the just-sworn-in DPP government is naked to all the people," it said. Tsai's administration said on Sunday it had barred Ma from travelling to Hong Kong to give a speech at a media awards ceremony. "Based on the international situation faced by Taiwan and in consideration of national security and interests, Hong Kong is a highly sensitive area (when it comes to) maintaining our national security," the Presidential Office said in a statement, adding that it would be difficult to control the risks of such a visit. It added that the decision was made in after a review by a government committee that included foreign, defence, justice, China affairs and senior security officials and was in line with the island's national security regulations. China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island. Communist Party rulers in Beijing have vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary. Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula which guarantees wide-ranging autonomy for the financial hub but was the scene of lengthy and sometimes violent anti-China street protests in 2014 calling for fully democratic elections. China had put forward the "one country, two systems" formula as a model for Taiwan to follow, which island leaders have rejected. China has also repeatedly warned Taiwan of negative consequences if they fail to recognise Taiwan is a part of China under Beijing's "one China" principle. Massive N.Korea cyber attack thwarted after hacking S.Korea - report SEOUL, June 13 (Reuters) - North Korea has hacked into more than 140,000 computers at large South Korean conglomerates and government agencies and planted malicious codes that may have been intended for a massive cyber attack that has been thwarted, a news report said on Monday. The hacking originated from an internet address traced to the North Korean capital and targeted a software used by about 160 companies and government agencies to manage their computer networks, Yonhap news agency reported, citing the police. The internet address was identical to the one used in a 2013 cyber attack against South Korean banks and broadcasters that froze their computer systems for more than a week. South Korea blamed the North for that attack. The South Korean police agency's cyber investigation unit uncovered the hacking and worked with the companies and agencies affected to neutralise the malicious codes and prevent them from being used in a large-scale cyber attack, Yonhap said. The police's cyber investigation unit could not immediately confirm the report. South Korea has been on heightened alert against the threat of cyberattacks by North Korea after it conducted a nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February that led to new U.N. sanctions. In March, the South's spy agency said it had intercepted an attempt to hack into the South's computer networks to attack the transport system's control network, blaming the North for the attempt. North Korea has worked for years to develop the ability to disrupt or destroy computer systems that control public services such as telecommunications and other utilities, according to a North Korean defector familiar with the effort. The United States accused North Korea of a cyberattack against Sony Pictures in 2014 that led to the studio cancelling the release of a comedy based on the fictional assassination of the country's leader, Kim Jong Un. Taiwan opposition slams former leader's travel ban to Hong Kong TAIPEI, June 13 (Reuters) - Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party slammed the self-ruled island's new government as "suppressive" for barring former president Ma Ying-jeou from travelling to Chinese-controlled Hong Kong on the grounds of national security. Ma's China-friendly Nationalists lost landslide elections in January to President Tsai Ing-wen and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which has traditionally leant towards independence from China. They said barring Ma from visiting the former British colony of Hong Kong was "completely unhelpful for Taiwan's internal political reconciliation and social harmony". "This suppressive style of the just-sworn-in DPP government is naked to all the people," it said. Tsai's administration said on Sunday it had barred Ma from travelling to Hong Kong where he was due to give a speech at a Society of Publishers in Asia media awards ceremony on Wednesday. "Based on the international situation faced by Taiwan and in consideration of national security and interests, Hong Kong is a highly sensitive area (when it comes to) maintaining our national security," the Presidential Office said in a statement, adding that it would be difficult to control the risks of such a visit. It also said Taiwan and Hong Kong authorities had had no time to coordinate on preparations. The DPP has traditionally been more wary of China than Ma's Nationalists. Its caution comes after a group of Taiwanese were forcibly deported from Kenya to China for suspected fraud in China in April, a case that enraged Taiwan. Some comments on Taiwan social media at the time questioned whether a precedent was being set of Taiwanese abroad being "taken away" by China, drawing a parallel with the case of five booksellers in Hong Kong who temporarily went missing in mysterious circumstances. The Society of Publishers in Asia said in a statement on its website it was disappointed Ma would not be able to attend but that it planned for him to speak via a video link. China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's forces won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island. Communist Party rulers in Beijing have vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary. Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 under a "one country, two systems" formula which guarantees wide-ranging autonomy for the financial hub but was the scene of lengthy and sometimes violent anti-China street protests in 2014 calling for fully democratic elections. China had put forward the "one country, two systems" formula as a model for Taiwan to follow, which island leaders rejected. China has also repeatedly warned Taiwan of negative consequences if they fail to recognise Taiwan is a part of China under Beijing's "one China" principle. Germany's Merkel says more talks needed on China's market economy status BEIJING, June 13 (Reuters) - There is a need for more expert-level talks with China on its market economy status under the World Trade Organization, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday at a news briefing with China's Premier Li Keqiang. Li said trade disputes with the European Union were a small part of trade ties and that China did not want a trade war. China, Hong Kong shares fall as global investors flee risky assets SHANGHAI, June 13 (Reuters) - China and Hong Kong stocks slumped on Monday morning, with investors joining a global flight from risky assets on lingering economic concerns and rising risks from the UK's possible exit from the European Union. Sentiment was dampened by worries over China's economic health after data showed slowing growth in fixed asset investments and retail sales, offsetting optimism that MSCI may add Chinese shares to its emerging market index this week. China's blue-chip CSI300 index fell 0.8 percent, to 3,138.06 points by the lunch break, while the Shanghai Composite Index also lost 0.8 percent, to 2,904.23 points. Selling was more intensive in Hong Kong, where financial markets are more open and thus more vulnerable to global market volatility. The benchmark Hang Seng index dropped 2.5 percent. In June 2015, China's "Great China Bubble" burst, triggered by the destruction of margin trades, and sending shockwaves across global financial markets. "One year after the crash, China's stocks, bonds, property and currency are still expensive," wrote Hong Hao, chief strategist of BOCOM International. He added that the Shanghai index was still roughly 17 percent above the theoretical support level of 2,500 even after almost halving from last summer's peak. "Although Hong Kong is trying to heal, struggling global markets will be a drag." Global market volatility surged lately as investors fretted ahead of this week's central bank meetings as well as Britain's June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the European Union. Sentiment was not helped by lacklustre Chinese data. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in May fell 1 percent from a year earlier, marking the first year-on-year decline since December, according to data published on Sunday. Data on Monday showed that China's fixed-asset investment growth eased to 9.6 percent in January-May from the same period a year earlier, below market expectations. Industrial output and retail sales data were not encouraging either. "Given today's data, there is higher risk for China to miss the growth target of 6.5 percent y/y in Q2," ANZ wrote in a research note. Shares fell across the board in China and Hong Kong. Romania - Factors to watch on June 13 Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Monday. DEBT TENDER Romanian debt managers tender 400 million lei ($99.75 million) worth of Dec. 2022 treasury bonds. CURRENT ACCOUNT Romania's central bank to release April current account data. ENERGY RESOURCES Romania's statistics board to release April energy resource data. INFLATION Romanian consumer prices fell 3.5 percent on the year in May as expected, compared with April's 3.3 percent fall, data from the National Statistics Board showed on Friday. CEE MARKETS Czech stocks led a decline by Central European assets on Friday, amid concern that British voters will vote to quit the European Union, leaving less financing available for the bloc's poorer members. For the long-term Romanian diary, click on For emerging markets economic events, click on For an index of all diaries, click on Eritrea says Ethiopia made an attack within its territory ADDIS ABABA, June 13 (Reuters) - Eritrea's government has accused Ethiopia of launching an attack inside its territory, but the extent of the assault was still unclear and there was no immediate response from Ethiopia. "The TPLF regime has today, Sunday 12 June 2016, unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front," the Information Ministry said in a statement late on Sunday, referring to Ethiopia's Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, one of the four parties making up the ruling coalition. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," it said. Ethiopian government officials were not immediately reachable for comment. The two Horn of Africa nations were involved in a war in 1998-2000 that killed 70,000 people. Tsorona Central Front is close to the border and saw intense fighting during the war. Poland - Factors to Watch June 13 Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Monday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 2 hours): DATA Poland's statistics office will release CPI data for May and the central bank will publish April current account data at 1200 GMT. RATES Poland's monetary policy should be conservative and cautious as new child benefit will be a solid boost for the consumption, newly appointed central bank governor Adam Glapinski told Puls Biznesu daily in an interview published on Monday. BANKS Banks in Poland should be supervised directly by the central bank and not by the financial market watchdog as it is now, Glapinski also said. BUDGET Budget deficit will be lower by a few billion zlotys this year due to the central bank's profit, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily said quoting a minister Henryk Kowalczyk. FREE-TAX ALLOWANCE Poland will increase free-tax allowance tax when it will launch a uniform tax in 2018, Kowalczyk also said. ****Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.**** Eritrea, Ethiopia trade blame for border clashes By Aaron Maasho ADDIS ABABA, June 13 (Reuters) - Eritrea and Ethiopia accused each other of starting clashes on Sunday between their soldiers in a border region, highlighting persistent tension over a boundary dispute that triggered war in 1998-2000. Ethiopia said the situation was calm on Monday, after a resident on the Ethiopian side reported the sound of explosions all day on Sunday and lasting into the early morning of Monday. Eritrea, a Horn of Africa country, won independence from Ethiopia in 1991. About 70,000 people were killed in the border war between the two countries. Eritrea's Information Ministry said in a statement late on Sunday night that the Ethiopian government had "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front." U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was concerned about the clashes and was reaching out to both sides. "The secretary-general calls on both governments to exercise maximum restraint and work to resolving their differences through peaceful means, including the full implementation of the peace agreement they signed in 2000," he said. The United Nations in 2000 deployed a ceasefire monitoring force on the Eritrean-Ethiopian border but withdrew it in 2008 in response to restrictions imposed on it by Eritrea that the U.N. said at the time made it impossible for the mission to function. Tsorona is a town south of the Eritrean capital Asmara and close to the frontier. The area saw intense fighting during the earlier border war. "The purpose and ramifications of this attack are not clear," the Eritrean statement said. Ethiopia disputed this account, saying Eritrea started the fight. "Their forces were promptly repulsed. They were given a proper response," government spokesman Getachew Reda said, adding that the situation was quiet on Monday. Eritrea and Ethiopia routinely accuse each other of backing rebels trying to destabilise and topple the other's government, a legacy from the earlier war. A resident in the Ethiopian town of Zalambessa, across the border from Tsorona, told Reuters by telephone that he had heard the sound of shelling on Sunday and into the night. "It did not stop until this morning around 9 a.m. (0600 GMT)," he said, asking not to be identified. He added that he had seen Ethiopian military vehicles and troops moving along the central stretch of the militarised border. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Ghebremeskel had no immediate additional comment when asked about casualties or other details of the attack. Ethiopian government officials also did not say if there were any casualties. Charlotte King, senior Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said it was unusual for Eritrea to comment on flare-ups but said the statement may have been prompted by U.N. criticism Eritrea has faced over its prolonged national service. The U.N. accuses Eritrea of rights abuses for indefinite national service, where Eritreans can spend many years in low-paid work under conscription. Asmara says an ongoing threat from Ethiopia makes extended national service essential. Eritrea's "critics will argue that it is trying to divert international attention away from the alleged crimes against humanity, and justifying its need for an enormous military and compulsory conscription," King said in a brief commentary. Eritrea, which is under U.N. sanctions, says world powers have failed to push Ethiopia to accept an international arbitration ruling demarcating the boundary. Ethiopia's government has said it wants talks on implementation. Czech Republic - Factors To Watch on June 13 PRAGUE, June 13 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Czech financial markets on Monday. ALL TIMES GMT (Czech Republic: GMT + 2 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA========================== Real-time economic data releases.................... Summary of economic data and forecasts........... Recently released economic data.................. Previous stories on Czech data............. **For a schedule of corporate and economic events: http://emea1.apps.cp.thomsonreuters.com/Apps/CountryWeb/#/2E/events-overview ==========================NEWS================================== GOVERNMENT: A plan to shake-up the Czech police to merge its anti-corruption units has split the centre-left coalition government and threatens to topple it more than a year before the election is due. A plan announced to create a national bureau by joining organised and economic crime units led to the resignation of the chief of the organised crime unit on Friday and angry exchanges among ministers in the media. Story: Related stories: UNIPETROL: Downstream oil group Unipetrol has agreed to buy Spolana from firm Anwil, owned by the Czech group's Polish parent company PKN Orlen. Story: Related stories: EU GUNS: European Union interior ministers on Friday endorsed tighter rules for purchase and possession of guns in the bloc, a response to the Islamist attacks in Paris and Brussels that was diluted to exempt groups from shooting clubs to collectors. Poland and the Czech Republic remained opposed to the agreement on Friday but unanimity was not required for it to be passed. Story: Related stories: CEE MARKETS: Czech stocks led a decline by Central European assets on Friday, amid concern that British voters will vote to quit the European Union, leaving less financing available for the bloc's poorer members. Story: Related stories: ---------------------- MARKET SNAPSHOT ------------------------ Index/Crown Currency Latest Prev Pct change Pct change close on day in 2016 vs Euro 27.015 27.023 0.03 -0.06 vs Dollar 23.999 23.901 -0.41 3.47 Czech Equities 840.05 840.05 -3.2 -12.16 U.S. Equities 17,865.34 17,985.19 -0.67 2.53 Pvs close or current levels vs prior domestic close at 1500 GMT =======================PRESS DIGEST============================ GOVERNMENT: Finance Minister Andrej Babis said his ANO party would ask for the resignation of Interior Minister Milan Chovanec, a Social Democrat, if he signs a police reorganisation before a planned coalition meeting on Wednesday. Pravo, page 1 OKD: Industry Minister Jan Mladek said part of an up to 1 billion crown ($41.67 million) loan he is proposing to extend to OKD, the insolvent mining unit of New World Resources , may not have to be repaid. Hospodarske Noviny, page 3 Reuters has not verified the stories, nor does it vouch for their accuracy. For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX For updates on CEE currencies TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets Prague Newsroom: +420 224 190 477 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com ($1 = 23.9100 Czech crowns) ($1 = 23.9980 Czech crowns) (Reporting by Prague Newsroom) Iranian forces kill five Kurdish separatists, Revolutionary Guards say DUBAI, June 13 (Reuters) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards killed five members of a Kurdish separatist group involved in assaults last month in the northwest of the country, state media said on Monday. The five were responsible for the killings of two members of the Revolutionary Guards in Sardasht last month and an engineer working there, the Guards said in the statement. It did not say when the five were killed. "A five-member team of the terrorist group PJAK were identified in a region near Sardasht ... and were all killed by the Revolutionary Guards army," Tasnim news agency reported, citing the Guards' statement. Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PJAK, is an outlawed group that seeks self-governance for Iran's Kurds and has links to Turkey's militant Kurdish Workers' Party. A ceasefire between the government and PJAK was signed in 2011, when Iran said it would suspend executions of Kurdish political prisoners if PJAK stopped its attacks. Both sides regularly violated the deal, but in recent months the number of clashes has climbed. Iran's seven million Kurds make up around 10 percent of the population. Most live in Kurdistan, a region in the northwest on the border with Iraq. It is among the most politically active regions in Iran, where little dissent is tolerated. PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - June 13 SOFIA, June 13 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Monday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. TRUD - Bulgaria's financial regulator has approved auditors PriceWaterhouseCoopers, HLB Bulgaria and PCM Bulgaria which will carry out asset quality review in the country's 27 pension funds. Results will be announced on Dec 1. CAPITAL DAILY - Bulgaria has spent over 100 million levs ($57.61 million) so far to build a fence on its border with Turkey to prevent illegal inflows of migrants, officials said. STANDART - Bulgaria's maritime shipping operator Navibulgar plans to acquire seven new ships and bring their total number to 39 ships with a total deadweight tonnage of over 1.2 million, the company executive director Alexander Kalchev said. China stocks tumble 3 pct on weak investment data, global woes SHANGHAI, June 13 (Reuters) - China stocks slumped more than 3 percent on Monday as weak investment data fuelled worries about the health of the Chinese economy and as global equity markets fell on fears that Britain may vote to leave the European Union. The worries offset lingering optimism that MSCI may decide this week to add Chinese shares to its emerging market index. Posting their biggest fall in nearly four months, the blue-chip CSI300 index slumped 3.1 percent to 3,066.34 points, while the Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 3.2 percent to 2,832.51 points. Investor sentiment was also fragile ahead of the first anniversary of June 2015's near-meltdown in China's stock markets, which sent shockwaves across global financial markets. Despite several attempted rallies since, the country's benchmark indexes have still not been able to pull much off the lows hit last August, though they have not retested early 2016 lows. "One year after the crash, China's stocks, bonds, property and currency are still expensive," wrote Hong Hao, chief strategist of BOCOM International. He said the Shanghai index was still roughly 17 percent above the theoretical support level of 2,500 even after almost halving from last summer's peak. Bangladesh arrests over 100 Islamists in crackdown after killings By Ruma Paul DHAKA, June 13 (Reuters) - Police in Bangladesh have arrested at least 119 militants as part of a crackdown on Islamists after a wave of deadly attacks on members of minority groups and liberal activists, an officer said on Monday. More than 8,000 criminal suspects have also been arrested since law enforcement agencies began a week-long drive on Friday to halt the targeted killings in the mainly Muslim nation. Those 8,000 were accused of firearms, narcotics and other offences, national police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said. However, Bangladesh's main opposition party says the mass arrests are a ploy to suppress political opponents. Militants have killed more than 30 people in Bangladesh since early last year, with atheist bloggers, liberal academics, gay rights campaigners, foreign aid workers, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups among the victims. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for 21 of the attacks since its first claim in September last year and al Qaeda has claimed most of the rest, according to Site Intelligence Group, a U.S.-based monitoring service. The government denies that either group has a presence in Bangladesh and police say home-grown militants from Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen and Ansarullah Bangla Team are responsible. The groups are seeking to impose strict Islamic law on Bangladesh, whose population of 160 million are mostly moderate Muslims. Of the 119 militants, most of are members of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, said Shahidur Rahman, deputy police inspector general. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has vowed to track down the killers, blaming the growing violence on political opponents linked to Islamist parties. The main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, said more than 2,100 of its leaders and activists across the country had been arrested under the crackdown since Friday. Last month, junior foreign minister Shahriar Alam told Reuters that Islamic State was trying to ride a wave of religious radicalisation by falsely claiming killings and said there was enough evidence implicating domestic militant groups. At least 10 suspected members of the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen have been killed in shootouts since November, including five last week, police said. U.N. rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said he was concerned about the killings and urged the government to do more to protect the affected groups. Nervous Baltics on war footing as NATO tries to deter Russia By Robin Emmott and Andrius Sytas VILNIUS, June 13 (Reuters) - Leaders in the Baltic countries and Poland fear the force NATO plans to deploy on their territory is too small and symbolic to deter an attack by Russia, whose 2014 annexation of Crimea is fresh in the memories of the former Soviet-bloc states. They will this week press other ministers of the western military alliance to help them build an air defence system against Russian aircraft and missiles. But that would be a highly sensitive step, likely to be condemned by Moscow as yet more evidence of a NATO strategy threatening its borders. Asked about the likelihood of Russian aggression in the Baltics, Lithuania's Defence Minister Juozas Olekas told Reuters: "We cannot exclude it ... They might exercise on the borders and then switch to invasion in hours." Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia see themselves on the front line in any potential conflict with Moscow and say they are putting their armies on a war footing, meaning they can be mobilised almost immediately. NATO defence ministers are set to agree this week on a new multinational force of 4,000 troops for the Baltics and Poland. The United States, Germany and Britain are set to lead battalions of about 1,000 troops each. Canada may lead a fourth. While the Baltic nations welcome the deployments, they say the build-up must go further - pointing to Russia's efforts to develop an "anti-access" capability in the Kaliningrad exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland, using missiles and submarines to stop NATO moving reinforcements into the Baltics. The Baltics want NATO fighters to protect their skies and are seeking medium-range missile interceptors from Norway's Kongsberg Gruppen and U.S. defence contractor Raytheon . "We need to stop possible air aggression," said Olekas. "We are discussing creating a regional medium-range air defence system together with the Latvians, the Estonians and the Poles." Olekas expects to raise the matter with NATO colleagues at the ministers' meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels. CREDIBILITY The head of the Estonian defence force Lieutenant General Riho Terras said: "The first and foremost is the defence of our airspace. Air defence is the challenge that needs to solved together with the NATO alliance." "We are not talking about defence of Lithuania, we are talking about the credibility of the whole alliance," said Lithuania's Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius. But such calls would require stretched NATO governments to beef up the so-called air policing mission that regularly intercepts Russian jets flying over international waters close to the the Baltic states. The Baltic nations rely on their NATO allies' quick reaction aircraft to patrol their skies, with no mandate to confront hostile aircraft in a conflict. Four British Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets and four Portuguese F-16 fighter jets are currently carrying out the air policing mission. Officials say a lot more would be needed for air defence. And southern NATO nations, focused on uncontrolled migrant flows and the failing states on Europe's borders, may also be unwilling to grant more resources to the eastern flank. Ben Hodges, the commander of the U.S. army in Europe, visited Vilnius last week. He echoed Baltic concerns about the strength of NATO's deterrence. "It is a transition," Hodges said. "I hope that includes serious war fighting capabilities. Just putting garrisons of troops sitting in the countries ... will not deter." Russia insists it poses no threat to the former Soviet states. Top NATO officials say talk of an impending attack is misleading, a view shared by Paris and Berlin. Russia has held unannounced exercises on the borders of the Baltics, including one in 2014 which mustered 100,000 troops, according to Danish Colonel Jakob Sogard Larsen, who heads the new NATO command outpost in Lithuania. "You see it differently when you live here," Larsen said. "We need to learn to fight total war again," he said, in a sign of the return of a Cold War-style mood. Lithuanian officials accuse Russia of trying to buy off Lithuanian soldiers and business people to become spies for the Kremlin, intimidating diplomats and spreading disinformation on the Internet and television. Prosecutors are preparing to file criminal charges against someone they say is a high-ranking Russian intelligence officer arrested last year trying to recruit informants. Russia denies any such activities. SWITCH TO "CLASSIC WARFARE" The NATO battalions are part of a deterrent to be approved by leaders at a summit in Warsaw in July. That will involve forces on rotation, warehoused equipment and a "spearhead" force backed by NATO's 40,000-strong rapid reaction force. Once the decision is made, Germany could deploy to Lithuania before September. Britain is expected to deploy to Estonia, the United States to Latvia and Canada possibly to Poland. German and Danish soldiers fanned out across swamps and woodland in Lithuania this week in war games to learn the unfamiliar Baltic terrain and test their ability to move equipment and personnel quickly to a possible front. Their tanks and armoured vehicles were recently brought back from Afghanistan, desert-yellow camouflage painted over with the green-and-black colours of Baltic woodlands. Pakistan, Afghan soldiers clash at Khyber Pass border - officials By Ahmad Sultan TORKHAM, Pakistan, June 13 (Reuters) - Pakistani and Afghan soldiers clashed overnight at the main border crossing at the end of the Khyber Pass, officials said on Monday, with at least one killed and several wounded, further straining relations between the militancy-plagued neighbours. One Afghan soldier was killed and six were wounded, an Afghan official said. The Pakistani army said one of its soldiers was wounded in the fighting at the Torkham Gate crossing in the mountainous region of northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Both countries blamed each other for starting the fighting, which broke out at roughly 9 p.m. local time on Sunday and continued into the night. "We currently have agreed on a ceasefire with #Pakistan. We hope this problem will end through the work by diplomatic addresses," the Afghan government's chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, said on Twitter. "The current fight Pakistan started doesn't help anyone's interest." Relations between the neighbours have been strained in recent months. Kabul has accused Pakistan of harbouring militants seeking to topple the Afghan government, including the notorious Haqqani network, blamed for high-profile attacks in the capital. Pakistan denies supporting militants and said it was constructing a border gate near Torkham, a Pakistani town close to the frontier, to prevent militants crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan. "In order to check movement of terrorists through Torkham, Pakistan is constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement," Pakistan's army said in a statement. "Pakistani security forces responded to Afghan firing effectively." Ayub Hussainkhil, border police commander in eastern Afghanistan, said the fighting at the Torkham Gate stopped at t 5 a.m. on Monday. "We have received reinforcement and are ready to defend our country until the last drop of blood in our bodies," he said. The Pakistan-Afghanistan border has long remained porous and disputed. Afghanistan has blocked repeated attempts by Pakistan to build a fence on sections of the roughly 2,200-km (1,370-mile) long frontier, rejecting the contours of the boundary. Last month, Pakistan build a border post between Pakistan's South Waziristan and Afghanistan's Paktika province and handed it over to Afghan officials. Bahrain arrests prominent campaigner Nabeel Rajab -wife DUBAI, June 13 (Reuters) - Bahraini police detained Nabeel Rajab, one of the most prominent rights activists in the Arab world, his wife said on Monday on her Twitter account, nearly a year after he was freed from prison by royal pardon. Sumaya Rajab said security forces searched the family house before they arrested her husband. No reason for the arrest was given, the Arabic language al-Wasat newspaper reported her as saying, and there was no immediate comment from authorities. Rajab, founder of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, played a leading role in Shi'ite Muslim-led demonstrations in the 2011 demonstrations demanding reforms in the Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab kingdom. Bahrain, where the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is based, quelled the 2011 protests but has since struggled to resolve political deadlock between the government and the opposition. Many Shi'ites complain of political and economic discrimination, a charge authorities deny. Rajab was jailed in May 2012 on charges of organising and participating in illegal protests and released two years later. In January 2015, he was sentenced to six months in jail over remarks deemed insulting of the kingdom's security establishment. He appealed against the verdict but an appeals court confirmed the ruling in May 2015. Bank of China Intl commodity unit plans to boost Chinese, European business By Melanie Burton HONG KONG, June 13 (Reuters) - Bank of China International (BOCI) plans to boost its commodity business by tapping a latent investor base in China and broadening its drive into Europe. The investment banking arm of state-backed Bank of China , the country's No.4 lender by assets, became the first Chinese member of the London Metal Exchange in 2012, pushing into commodities near the height of a demand boom. "Hopefully for the next five years, we'll get into the next stage (in our commodity business) which is to expand our products and our service capability so we can become a key player in the landscape," said Arthur Fan, managing director of BOCI's global commodities arm. "Supporting Chinese clients, that is where we have an edge. We regard ourselves as an international player, not from China or Hong Kong. Commodities is a global business, and with a global platform we will tap into those local players." BOCI set up the unit in 2010 to serve its Chinese customers with an energy hedging business in Hong Kong, before opening in London, New York, Singapore and Shanghai's free trade zone, focusing on energy, as well as base and precious metals. At the time, however, market participants said it was slow to build on momentum. Having launched an oil index product last year, BOCI plans to expand its index and structured products business for institutional and private wealth clients in China, from its own private banking base in Hong Kong, and through its parent's customers on the mainland. Further afield, BOCI is looking to expand its financing business for commodity clients, in repurchase agreements and for offtake and prepayments. In Europe, it will also rely on Bank of China's branches for introductions to new clients. "These next two years, we will start aggressively expanding our European clients," Fan said on Monday, adding that a mix of Chinese and Europeans on his London team should increase business with firms in the continent, such as in hedging for automakers. Fan moved back to Hong Kong this year after five years in London. Pistorius a "broken" man, psychologist tells South African court By TJ Strydom and Tanisha Heiberg PRETORIA, June 13 (Reuters) - Oscar Pistorius is a "broken" man who should not be jailed for the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a psychologist told a court in South Africa on Monday, while a prosecutor said he has shown no remorse. The 29-year-old Paralympic gold medallist, known as "Blade Runner" for the carbon-fibre prosthetics he wore when racing, faces a minimum 15-year jail term after his manslaughter conviction for the 2013 killing was upgraded on appeal. The case has prompted a fierce debate in a country beset by high levels of violent crime against women. Some rights groups have said the white athlete has received preferential treatment. Jonathan Scholtz, a psychologist called by Pistorius' lawyer Barry Roux, told the sentencing hearing that the athlete, who attended in a dark suit and at times sat with his head in his hands, was on medication for depression, anxiety and insomnia. "One would describe him as broken. In my opinion his current condition warrants hospitalisation," Scholtz said, noting that Pistorius was not in the right frame of mind to testify. "Since 2013, he becomes traumatised when he hears the sound of gunfire," Scholtz said. "He never wants to touch a firearm again." Prosecutor Gerrie Nel questioned Scholtz's assertion that Pistorius was not fit to testify, saying he had given a TV interview. The hour-long interview with Britain's ITV is due to air on June 24 at 2000 GMT. Nel told the court Pistorius had shown no remorse for the murder, and that he only "feels sorry for himself". Pistorius had had temper tantrums in jail and had once banged a table when he got upset with a nurse, Nel said, asking Scholtz why he ignored Pistorius' actions. Scholtz said Pistorius may have acted violently as he was still adapting to prison and affected by medication. "Why would you select only positive views for your report. I find that in your report you are biased towards the accused," Nel said, shortly before the court adjourned for the day. Pistorius' lawyer Roux declined to comment on the day's proceedings, as did Steenkamp's family. Scholtz said Pistorius had been assaulted once in jail but Nel rejected this, saying the complaint register in which Pistorius often raised issues had no report of such an incident. Nel also disputed a claim by the psychologist that Pistorius was traumatised after he saw a prisoner who had hanged himself, saying it was unlikely that he could have seen the victim. Luvuyo Mfaku, a spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority, told Reuters its position was "to argue for the prescribed sentence to be imposed, that is 15 years." SUPPORTERS PROTEST Johannesburg-based lawyer and legal analyst Ulrich Roux said the fact that Pistorius would not testify was crucial. "I think it would have served them better to let him testify, and even if he breaks down, the state can take into consideration his frame of mind. In my opinion that's going to count against him," he said. Pistorius was at first given a five-year sentence for culpable homicide, South Africa's equivalent of manslaughter, for shooting Steenkamp through a locked toilet door in his Pretoria home on Feb. 14 three years ago. He had argued he mistook her for an intruder. The conviction was later upgraded to murder after an appeal heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled in March that Pistorius had exhausted all his legal options and could no longer appeal. The original trial judge, Thokozile Masipa, started hearing the pre-sentencing arguments at Pretoria High Court on Monday. State prosecutors who lodged the appeal say Pistorius intended to kill Steenkamp and that the law graduate and model had fled to the toilet during an argument. A final ruling on his sentence is expected by the end of this week. Scholtz told the hearing, which was attended by Steenkamp's mother, that Pistorius had suffered financially and found asking others for assistance humiliating. Pistorius lost millions of dollars in endorsements and sponsorships after reaching the pinnacle of his fame in London 2012 when he became the first double amputee to run in the Olympics, reaching the 400 metres semi-finals. Outside the court, a group held up placards backing the athlete, one of them with the message: "Worldwide supporters of Oscar Pistorius". Powerful Saudi prince to meet Obama, Ban on U.S visit DUBAI, June 13 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's powerful deputy crown prince flew to the United States on Monday for meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Saudi media reported. The visit of Mohammed bin Salman, whose powers include his role as defence minister, comes amid a diplomatic row with the United Nations and policy differences with the United States over the war in Syria and relations with Iran. Prince Mohammed, spearheading an ambitious plan to revamp the economy of the world's top oil exporter, will also travel to California where he is expected to meet company executives in Silicon Valley, the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said. The royal court said in a statement late on Sunday that the prince would discuss ways of strengthening relations with the United States, which have cooled under Obama's presidency. Saudi Arabia, a leading supporter of Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad, has been critical of what it sees as foot-dragging by Washington over efforts to end the conflict. It has also urged Obama to take a tougher stand on what Riyadh sees as Iranian meddling in the affairs of Arab states. Iran denies such interference. Asharq al-Awsat quoted Saudi sources as saying that Prince Mohammed, a son of King Salman, would start his visit in New York where he was expected to meet the U.N. chief on Monday. Ban said last week that Saudi Arabia had exerted "unacceptable" pressure on the world body after a U.N. report blacklisted a Saudi-led military coalition for killing children in Yemen, a charge denied by the kingdom. The United Nations removed the coalition from the list after Riyadh threatened to cut its funding of U.N. programs, diplomatic sources said. The prince would then meet Obama as well as Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Washington, the newspaper said. State news agency SPA said that a number of senior officials, including Finance Minister Ibrahim Alassaf and Commerce and Investment Minister Majid al-Qusaibi were part of a delegation accompanying Prince Mohammed, but it did not specify who he would meet during the three-day visit. U.N. rights boss deplores detention of migrants in Europe GENEVA, June 13 (Reuters) - The United Nations human rights boss on Monday decried a "worrying rise" in detention of migrants in so-called "hotspots" in Greece and Italy and urged authorities to find alternatives to confining children while their asylum requests are processed. "Even unaccompanied children are frequently placed in prison cells or centres ringed with barbed-wire. Detention is never in the best interests of the child - which must take primacy over immigration objectives," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a speech. "Alternatives to the detention of children must be developed." Zeid told the U.N. Human Rights Council that he deplored "the widespread anti-migrant rhetoric that we have heard, spanning the length and breadth of the European continent". Bank Norwegian plans quarterly dividends after listing By Camilla Knudsen OSLO, June 13 (Reuters) - Fast growing consumer lender Bank Norwegian sees record demand for its loans and intends to pay quarterly dividends to shareholders next year, its chief executive told Reuters ahead of a planned listing this week on the Oslo stock market. The online bank's customer base grew 42 percent to about 677,000 people in the year to the end of March and it will continue to expand thanks to recently launched operations across the Nordic region, CEO Erik Jensen said. The bank began operations in Norway in 2007, then launched in Sweden in 2013 and in Denmark and Finland last December, but has steered clear of acquisitions. Europe's third-largest budget carrier, Norwegian Air Shuttle , is the company's top investor with a 20 percent stake, and the two cooperate closely on credit cards and a loyalty incentives programme to help drive growth. It is the latest lender to seek a listing in Norway, following Pareto Bank, which offers project financing, in May and online bank Skandiabanken last November. Bank Norwegian is focused on consumer finance only and has around 13 percent of that market in Norway. "We are only talking about organic growth, because we prefer to do the credit assessment ourselves," said Jensen, while adding he aims to make the Finnish and Danish operations profitable in the next six months. With an April private share placement of 300 million Norwegian crowns and a subsequent offering of up to 40 million crowns, the company is ready for a listing on or around June 17. So far this year the shares have risen 65 percent in the OTC (over the counter) market to 82 crowns, valuing Bank Norwegian at 14.7 billion crowns ($1.8 billion). LENDING FEARS DISMISSED Bank Norwegian aims for a dividend pay-out ratio of at least 40 percent of net profits in the long term, but will begin with a more modest 20 percent ratio from the second quarter next year. "Our cash flow has been steady and rising, and we certainly expect to reach 40 percent pay-outs within the next three years," Jensen said. The bank reported record growth in consumer loans in the first quarter in Norway, and the CEO added that the second quarter has also been good so far. On Wednesday, Norway's Financial Supervisory Authority warned of strong growth in consumer lending and said banks' losses stemming from such loans could rise substantially. Jensen said it was appropriate for the regulator to express its concerns, but added he was not worried for his own bank's portfolio. "Even if losses were to increase by 20-30 basis points, it would not be critical for us," Jensen said, adding that he was "very comfortable with the situation". Syrian activist shot by Islamic State fighters in southeast Turkey By Humeyra Pamuk ISTANBUL, June 13 (Reuters) - A Syrian journalist campaigning against Islamic State has been shot by fighters from the group in southeastern Turkey, a news agency affiliated with the radical Islamists and Syrian activists said on Monday. Ahmed Abdulkader was shot in the head by two Islamic State militants riding a motorcycle and is being treated in the intensive care unit of Sanliurfa state hospital, an official in the provincial governor's office said. The Amaq news agency, which is close to Islamic State, said Abdulkader was the head of a local newspaper and one of the founders of "Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently", a campaign group against the radical militants. His attempted killing is the fifth such attack in the past eight months targeting Syrian anti-Islamic State activists in Turkey's southeast, parts of which abut territory in Syria held by the radical militants. None of the others survived. Among the four killed was Abdulkader's 27-year-old brother, Ibrahim, a member of the same campaign group who was shot in the head and beheaded along with a fellow activist at his home in Sanliurfa last October. NATO member Turkey has increasingly become a target for Islamic State. The group has been blamed for two suicide bombings in Istanbul this year and has carried out targeted killings in the southern cities of Gaziantep and Sanliurfa, both hubs for Syrian activists trying to document the war. An online broadcaster for Aleppo Today, who was shot in the neck in April, died at the hospital two days later. That attack came three months after a Syrian documentary maker was gunned down in Gaziantep. Both killings were blamed on Islamic State. Turkey long faced criticism for failing to do more to prevent thousands of suspected foreign fighters from crossing its territory to join the ranks of Islamic State in Syria. Germany assessing travel warning for MPs with Turkish roots-spokesman BERLIN, June 13 (Reuters) - The German Foreign Ministry is still evaluating the security situation of German lawmakers of Turkish origin and whether it needs to warn them against traveling to Turkey, ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said on Monday. Schaefer said 11 members of Germany's parliament of Turkish origin and their parties would soon be informed in writing about the ministry's evaluation of potential new security risks. The lawmakers had been threatened after the German parliament declared the 1915 massacre of Armenians a genocide. "There is no travel warning," Schaefer said, when asked about a report in the German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday. "It is correct that, given the events of the last few days, there have been and are continuing to be considerations about the political and legal circumstances present in Turkey ... That process should be completed soon." Fitch warns Japan ratings downgrade possible after tax hike delay By Stanley White TOKYO, June 13 (Reuters) - Fitch Ratings warned on Monday that it could downgrade Japan's sovereign rating after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delayed an increase in the nationwide sales tax by two-and-a-half years due to worries the economy has not shaken off deflation. Japan's anemic growth is also a credit weakness because Abe's attempts to reflate the economy, known as "Abenomics," have not raised potential growth, Fitch said in a statement. The government could avoid a downgrade if it lays out new steps to meet its fiscal discipline targets, but a lack of measures to bolster confidence in its fiscal policy could lead to a downgrade, Fitch said. "The government has decided to postpone the tax increase, which leaves us to revise our assessment of the government's commitment to fiscal consolidation," said Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia-Pacific sovereigns at Fitch. "If it looks like the debt ratio is going to go on rising, then the next move in the rating could be downwards." Fitch revised down its outlook for Japan's A sovereign debt rating to negative from stable on Monday, a move that was not wholly unexpected given the market's disappointment that critical fiscal reforms had been put on the back burner. Japan's A rating is five notches below the top AAA rating. In general, the time frame for the negative outlook is the next 18 months to two years, Colquhoun said. Japan's government was scheduled to raise the nationwide sales tax next year to 10 percent from 8 percent in April next year, but Abe said earlier this month he would push this back to October 2019. It was the second time Abe delayed an increase after a rise from 5 percent in April 2014 tipped the economy into recession. Fitch said in the statement the delay means the tax hike will not happen. Japan's debt-GDP ratio is the world's worst, standing at more than twice the size of the $5-trillion economy. Greece searching for suspected migrant boat off Crete ATHENS, June 13 (Reuters) - Greece ordered two ships on Monday to search for a boat believed to be carrying about 200 migrants which sent a distress signal off the island of Crete, the coastguard said. A Greek-flagged tanker and a Panama-flagged freighter in the area were heading to the location, about 80 nautical miles south of Crete and 15 nautical miles within Libyan waters, coastguard spokesman Nikos Lagkadianos told Reuters. He said a passenger had sent a distress signal which alerted the coastguard. "We haven't spotted anything yet," he added. U.N. rights boss deplores detention of migrants in Europe GENEVA, June 13 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief on Monday decried a "worrying rise" in detentions of migrants in Greece and Italy and urged authorities to find alternatives to confining children while asylum requests are processed. More than one million migrants, many fleeing Syria's war, have arrived in Europe through Greece since last year. More than 150,000 have come in 2016 so far - 38 percent of them children, according to United Nations refugee agency data. Italy has also set up mandatory detention centres. "Even unaccompanied children are frequently placed in prison cells or centres ringed with barbed wire. Detention is never in the best interests of the child - which must take primacy over immigration objectives," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. "Alternatives to the detention of children must be developed," he told the start of a three-week council session. Zeid said it was possible for Europe to create "well-functioning migration governance systems", with fair assessment of individual requests for international protection while removing what he called "hysteria and panic from the equation". Zeid deplored anti-migrant rhetoric "spanning the length and breadth of the European continent ... This fosters a climate of divisiveness, xenophobia and even - as in Bulgaria - vigilante violence". In April, Bulgarian police arrested a local man who had posted video on social media showing how he tied up three migrants near the Turkish border. The migrant influx has drawn a rising public backlash, in part because of strains it has imposed on housing and social services. Concerns have also been raised in some EU countries about their ability to integrate many mostly Muslim migrants. Avenger militants spurn call from ex-Niger Delta cohorts to join in government talks By Tife Owolabi YENAGOA, Nigeria, June 13 (Reuters) - The Niger Delta Avengers, a group that has claimed responsibility for a recent spate of attacks on oil and gas facilities in Nigeria's oil hub, on Monday rejected calls from former militants to join talks with the government. On Sunday, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) -- one of the largest militant groups until it signed up for a government amnesty in 2009 -- urged the Avengers to negotiate and halt attacks that have cut Nigeria's crude output to a 20-year low. The ex-militants said they had chosen a team of negotiators to participate in the government initiative to start talks over their demands for a greater share in oil wealth and a reduction in pollution from oil spills in the impoverished Niger Delta. Nigeria's government has moved army reinforcements into the swampy Delta region in response but Western allies have said that widespread poverty and oil spills there must be tackled to defuse the militant problem. Nigeria was long Africa's biggest oil producer until the wave of attacks by the Avengers pushed it into second place, behind Angola, in recent weeks. MEND has said some of its former commanders and fighters make up the Avengers, which has been denied by the group. Security officials have also linked a MEND commander to the Avengers, although he denies this. "MEND is a phased out body," an Avengers representative told Reuters in a text message, saying the group had been defunct since participating in the amnesty scheme. "It's just some political jargon ... to confuse the general public," he said of MEND's intervention, before questioning the ex-militant group's right to be involved in a committee aimed at quelling the current insurgency. Morocco arrests Italian suspected of Islamic State ties RABAT, June 13 (Reuters) - Moroccan authorities have arrested an Italian national who was planning to carry out attacks on targets in the kingdom, the interior ministry said in a statement on Monday. Morocco, a Western ally against Islamist militancy, often announces it has broken up militant cells accused of plotting attacks inside and outside the kingdom. The suspected Italian militant, who lives in Belgium, was arrested on June 8 when landing in the eastern city of Oujda, based on intelligence showing that he had ties to the Islamic State group and was involved in a plan to attack targets in Morocco, the statement said. In 2014, he tried to travel to Syria or Iraq but failed, despite guidance from an Islamic State member, and returned to Belgium, the statement said. Authorities said the suspect has already visited Morocco in 2015, sent by Islamic State, and identified targets in Casablanca, Morocco's biggest city. Moroccan security officials provide information that help their European counterparts in fighting militancy, especially during the recent Paris attacks. Thousands of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb nations, such as Tunisia, have joined Islamist militant forces in the conflict in Iraq and Syria, and also in Libya. Some are threatening to return home to carry out attacks and recruit more jihadis, security experts say. Moroccan officials estimate that 2,000 Moroccan fighters have joined armed groups in Syria and Iraq, including Islamic State and the al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front, and about 200 have been jailed on their return home. Greece says migrant boat sailing safely despite distress signal ATHENS, June 13 (Reuters) - A boat carrying about 200 migrants which had sent out a distress signal off Crete on Monday was spotted safe and sailing to Italy, the Greek coast guard said. Greece had ordered a Greek-flagged tanker and a Panama-flagged freighter earlier on Monday to search for the 25-metre long fishing vessel after it sent out a mayday signal about 80 nautical miles south of Crete and 15 nautical miles within Libyan waters. Greece has not rescued the migrants because the boat was not in Greek territory and the passengers were safe, a coastguard official who declined to be named told Reuters. It was not immediately known where the boat had set sail from. Crete, Greece's southernmost island, lies north of Libya and Egypt. In recent weeks, the number of migrants heading to Italy from the African coast has grown as calmer weather sets in, and so has the number of boats that have lost their way and ended up near Crete. Some 206,400 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. So far, 2,809 deaths have been recorded, up from 1,838 during the same period last year. WIDER IMAGE-Egypt builds new homes to replace crumbling slums By Mahmoud Mourad CAIRO, June 13 (Reuters) - Bayada Mohamed has left her old slum on a crumbling cliffside and moved into a new flat in a Cairo residential complex, making her among the first to benefit from a government plan to rehouse residents of Egypt's most dangerous slums. Like other residents of the Doueyka slum where homes have no running water and a rockslide killed about 130 people in 2008, Bayada's family has been offered a rental flat in the recently-opened Tahiya Misr development in the Moqattam area, as pictured in this photo essay - http://reut.rs/21hyvjc. "Where was I and where am I now?" exclaimed Bayada, sitting in her new flat surrounded by new furniture. There are 351 slums deemed unsafe in Egypt, most of them in the sprawling capital where the poorest have built ramshackle homes that lack basic amenities such as mains sewage and water. Some 850,000 people are believed to live in dangerous slums. Building collapses are common in Cairo, home to some 20 million people, and the shortage of afforable housing is so acute that 1.5 to 2 million are believed to live in tombs in an area known as the City of the Dead. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised last month to move all those living in unsafe slums to new flats over the next three years in an ambitious project expected to cost about 14 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.58 billion). The first two phases of Tahya Misr, which is dedicated to rehousing slumdwellers, were completed in 11 months and comprise 12,000 flats. The third phase opens in 2017, bringing the number of flats to 20,000. The completed complex will house 100,000. Government efforts to eradicate the worst slums come as Sisi faces growing pressure to revive the economy and avoid the kind of protests that toppled two presidents in the last five years. But rising prices are eroding living standards in a country where tens of millions rely on state-subsidised food and complicating efforts to rid Egypt of its slums. MORE SLUMS Not all slum residents have been as enthusiastic as Bayada about leaving behind their communities and seeing their old homes demolished. "Most of the residents of these areas wish to be in areas close to where they are actually living now and this for us is a problem," Sisi said at the recent opening of a low-income housing project in the Madinat Badr area of Cairo. While it evacuates dangerous areas, the government is upgrading other informal settlements, connecting them to basic services and paving roads. But many residents are disappointed with the upgrades. Magdi Mahmoud, a factory worker who lives with his family in the informal settlement of Abu Dahruj in southern Cairo, said the work should have stretched to schools and clinics. "The improvements are not bad but the important thing is people look after them," he said. And on Cairo's dusty and desolate fringes, the city's poorest are building more illegal homes on land they do not own. As the Tahya Misr development nears completion, Ahmed, a vegetable seller, is working with neighbours to complete a new slum near Arab al Barawi, an older informal settlement in southern Cairo, after struggling to afford the rent there. His new house is built with scavenged materials. "Thank God, today he blessed us with a bit of wood that was left on the street ... to roof my house," Ahmed said. ($1 = 8.8799 Egyptian pounds) OPEC sees oil glut shrinking in second half of year By Alex Lawler LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - OPEC forecast that the world oil market will be more balanced in the second half of 2016 as outages in Nigeria and Canada help to speed up the erosion of a supply glut. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said its oil output fell 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 32.36 million bpd in May, according to its monthly report. That is 160,000 bpd less than OPEC's forecast of the average demand for its crude in the second half. Oil has risen to $50 a barrel from a 12-year low of $27 in January as the outages curb excess supply. These, say OPEC, are accelerating a tightening in the market it expected to happen anyway, as lower prices finally take their toll on higher-cost supply outside the group. "The excess supply in the market is likely to ease over the coming quarters," OPEC said in the report, published on Monday. "Shutdowns in Nigeria and Canada tightened the oil market markedly and brought supply and demand more closely into alignment earlier than many had expected, bolstering prices." But OPEC cautioned: "Nevertheless, there is still a massive global supply overhang." Prices collapsed from $100 two years ago in a drop that deepened after OPEC refused to cut output, hoping lower prices would curb rival supply. With signs the strategy is working, OPEC at a June 2 meeting made no change to its output policy. The price drop is hitting non-OPEC supply as companies have delayed or cancelled projects around the world. OPEC forecasts supply from outside producers will decline by 740,000 bpd in 2016 led by the United States, unchanged from last month. OPEC supply had been climbing since the 2014 policy shift, reaching its highest since 2008 in April. The output drop in May was led by Nigeria, the report said citing secondary sources. With demand for OPEC crude expected to rise to an average of 32.52 million bpd in the second half as non-OPEC supply falls and seasonal demand rises, OPEC's report points to a deficit of 160,000 bpd if the group keeps pumping at May's rate. OPEC said its output exceeded the demand for its crude by 2.59 million bpd in the first quarter, when prices hit the 12-year low. OPEC stuck with a forecast that world oil demand will rise by 1.20 million bpd this year. At ground zero of warming, Greenland seeks to unlock frozen assets By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle BUKSEFJORD, Greenland, June 13 (Reuters) - On top of the world, by a fjord in western Greenland, a remote hydro power plant is buzzing with extra water from the melt of ancient glaciers. This island at ground zero of global warming is seeking to be one of the few places on Earth to benefit. Outside the Buksefjord plant, the biggest of five hydro-electricity stations built in Greenland since 1993 in a push to move away from imported oil, cod that usually only thrive further south can be seen swimming in the clear water. And a worker at the facility is preparing to grow potatoes and turnips on land close to the Arctic Circle that is usually too cold for anything other than lichen and reindeer. The north Atlantic island "is in the midst of new thinking", Environment Minister Mala Hoy Kuko said, to capitalise on an alarming thaw that included a record early melt on the vast ice sheet in April 2016 before a cooler May. Hydro power "potential will grow even bigger with the warming of the climate", Kuko said in the capital Nuuk, which gets power from Buksefjord 56 km (35 miles) away. Above his desk is a 2-metre tusk of a narwhal, a whale known as the unicorn of the sea. Climate change, caused mainly by greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, is set to cause economic harm in almost all parts of the world by spurring ever more droughts, heat waves and floods, according a U.N. panel. Low-lying tropical island states from the Maldives to Tuvalu view Greenland's 3,000-metre (10,000 ft) thick ice sheet with foreboding since it contains enough ice to raise world sea levels by 6 metres if it ever all melted, over many centuries. But for the 56,000 inhabitants of Greenland, a giant island a quarter the size of the United States, the melt may be unlocking frozen assets and helping businesses including fishing, farming, mining, shipping and tourism. "Unfortunately I can't sit down and weep and say it (climate change) is bad because overall it's good for Greenland," said Henrik Leth, chairman of both Greenland's biggest private company, Polar Seafood, and the Greenland Business Association. His firm's pre-tax profit rose to 335 million Danish crowns ($51 million) in 2015 from 235 million in 2014 thanks to high prices for its main products, prawns and Greenland halibut. About 90 percent of the island's exports are fisheries, and many hunters and fishermen welcome shifts in currents, apparently linked to warming, that have brought cod to west Greenland for the first time in two decades, and mackerel to the east. HUNTERS Prime Minister Kim Kielsen, whose island has wide powers of self-rule within the kingdom of Denmark, cautioned that "there are pros and cons" to the melt. Arctic regions are warming at about twice the global average, partly because a melt of white ice and snow reveals darker ground and water that soaks up ever more heat. Most worryingly for Greenlanders, the melt threatens the livelihoods of indigenous hunters in the north who use dogsleds and rely on ice to hunt seals. And some buildings and airports standing on permafrost are at risk. Faced with such threats, the islanders are looking to extract as many benefits as possible from the changes. The ice melt could help the government meet its target of raising the share of its electricity that comes from hydro to 90 percent by 2030, from about two-thirds now. Officials say hydro plants that could draw directly from the ice sheet could power a proposed new aluminium smelter and iron ore mines such as for iron ore. Buksefjord gets water from a lake, fed mostly by rain and melting snow, with some from ancient glaciers, officials say. Climate change could also boost the island's hopes to develop minerals ranging from rare earths to oil and gas, even though low prices have put most plans on hold. Melting snow and ice makes prospecting less complicated and improves access to sites. "There will be more open water for shipping and it will be cheaper for companies to get out minerals," said Josephine Nymand, a scientist at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources. The opening waterways could prove a boon for the tourism industry too, giving visitors better views of spectacular glaciers, such as at Ilulissat. This summer, Crystal Cruises LLC plans to send a first cruise ship through the Northwest Passage from Alaska to New York, calling at Greenland. Among other projects linked to the Greenland melt, scientists are also studying how to tap some of a billion tonnes of milky coloured sediment that gets washed every year from the ice sheet into the sea. "It could be dredged up and shipped to tropical nations as nutrients" for farming, said Minik Rosing, a professor of geology at Copenhagen University. VIKINGS Economists say it is hard to pin down the net effects of climate change for Greenland, named by the Vikings about 1,000 years ago during a natural warm period. For farmers, for example, warmth and a longer growing season in the south have been offset by drought - some have hauled icebergs from the sea to help irrigation. Prime Minister Kielsen, pointing to the ceiling of his office, about 3 metres high, said that in the north: "Just 15 years ago the sea ice thickness could be compared to the height of this room." In some places, it was now too thin to walk on, he added. Showing the importance of ice for transport, Greenland's statistics bureau documents about 15,000 sled dogs on the island against just 4,033 cars, two motorbikes and "railways: 0 km". The pace of change this year has been disorientating, even though Greenlanders have adapted to sharp shifts in climate since people first arrived from North America 4,500 years ago. Many people in Nuuk, a town of 17,000, were shocked when organisers of the Arctic Winter Games in early March, usually a snowy month, had to generate artificial snow. Among the drawbacks of warming, rising temperatures are thawing permafrost such as at Kangerlussuaq on the Arctic Circle, the site of the island's main airport. And in 2012, a flood of melt water from the ice sheet washed away a bridge. "It was a disaster," said Kim Ernst, a former chef at the Roklubben restaurant that was cut off for three months. Many glaciers worldwide are shrinking because the summer melt exceeds the amount of snow that falls in winter and gets compressed into ice. In many nations, from the Andes to the Himalayas, this will disrupt hydro power and irrigation. But despite Greenland losing about a net 300 billion tonnes of ice a year, according to the Danish Meteorological Service, its store is almost inexhaustible. The CEO of government-owned energy company Nukissiorfiit, Michael Pedersen, said it was looking at building a new hydro project to provide power to the towns of Aasiaat and Qasigiannguit in the west. But like climate change itself, benefits can be unpredictable. Fishermen seeking the new arrivals, for example, are at the mercy of shifting currents that are often a mystery. "Three weeks ago I went out fishing and got a lot of cod," said Tnnes Berthelsen, deputy head of the KNAPK association of fishermen and hunters. "Yesterday I went fishing again but I didn't get even one." ($1 = 6.5769 Danish crowns) Hungary's Orban challenges one-time ally in banking overhaul By Marton Dunai BUDAPEST, June 13 (Reuters) - Hungary's government is investigating the business interests of Zoltan Speder, chairman of second biggest listed bank FHB, as it tries to loosen the billionaire's influence over its savings bank sector. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has used regulation and the nationalisation of several major banks to tighten his control on banks since coming to power in 2010. The government has encouraged wealthy Hungarian businessmen like Speder to expand in the banking sector as it works to reduce foreign ownership. However, government support for Speder halted abruptly last week when regulatory fines and changes to the law blocked FHB's growth plans. FHB, where Speder is the biggest owner, is a member of Hungary's Savings and Loan Integration Association (SZHISZ). FHB also holds a direct stake in Takarekbank, the central institution of the savings network: 90 small local banks that primarily cater to local depositors and small businesses. Savings banks are one important avenue for Orban to secure more than 50 percent of the bank sector in Hungarian hands, part of a maverick economic policy that has earned him criticism from the European Union and followers in countries such as Poland. Including FHB, the savings sector has a 9.1 percent market share by total assets, with about 1,500 branch offices and 1 million customers, according to data on its web site. Other parts of the banking industry had complained that FHB was enjoying tax breaks and other benefits that the government affords to savings and loans banks, even though FHB is a classic commercial retail lender. On June 9, police raided FHB's office and some of Speder's other business interests such as the Hungarian Postal Service. His media company was also hit by a tax probe, and government-friendly media published reports sharply critical of Speder. FHB has said in a statement that it operates lawfully, in compliance with all regulations, and that the changes would not affect its business. "The Banking Group is not about to change its strategy and operation," it said in a statement to the stock exchange on June 10. Speder could not be reached through his spokesman for comment. The reason and the timing of those moves was unclear, but analysts and media commentators suspect Speder, once close to Orban, fell out of favour with the premier. "We see the execution of an oligarch in a system that fundamentally builds on oligarchs," Political Capital analyst Peter Kreko told Reuters. "It is meant as a message... The ultimate power rests with Orban." Orban told national news agency MTI that he believes the savings and loan banks sector, which he wants to become a larger part of the banking industry, needs a major overhaul. "A reorganised savings and loan system that clarifies the opaque financial processes of preceding years and has proper financial background and professional management forms a natural part of the new Hungarian banking system," Orban said. The raids on Speder's businesses were part of an ongoing investigation, police said in a statement. The tax authority declined to answer questions about the investigation. FHB shares traded at 518 forints late on Friday, down a third from 686 forints on Monday and the lowest level since 2014. "PARASITES" FHB joined the savings and loan umbrella group last year and built up an indirect holding in Takarekbank, which operates as the central bank for Hungary's 90 small local savings banks. Members of the umbrella group enjoyed tax breaks, capital guarantees and some independence from the market regulator, the National Bank of Hungary. The Chairman of the Hungarian Bank Association, Mihaly Patai told Economy Minister Mihaly Varga in a May 26 letter that FHB benefitted from those market advantages unfairly because it was a classic retail bank, not a savings and loan bank. "The savings and loan integration must not extend to banks with no savings and loan history," Patai wrote according to a copy of the letter obtained by Reuters. Sandor Demjan, the chairman of the National Savings and Loan Association, a rival business group, accused FHB of using its interest in Takarekbank to grow its profits at the expense of other savings banks. "Zoltan Speder and his business associates have woven a web of companies around the savings and loan sector and feed on its resources like parasites," Demjan wrote in a letter to Orban. Neither FHB nor Speder reacted to Demjan's letter. Orban told MTI on June 6 that he would heed Demjan's call to extend regulatory oversight and probe Speder's network. Former Deutsche banker jailed for carbon trading fraud By Alexander Hubner FRANKFURT, June 13 (Reuters) - A former Deutsche Bank employee was sentenced to three years in jail on Monday for his part in a scheme trading carbon emission permits to fraudulently collect 220 million euros ($248 million)in sales tax. The case stems from an investigation into so-called carousel trades in the European Union's carbon market in 2009 and 2010, in which some buyers imported emissions permits in one EU country without paying value-added tax (VAT). The buyers then sold them to each other, adding VAT to the price and generating tax refunds when no tax had been paid. Helmut Hohnholz, formerly a regional sales manager with Deutsche's global markets division, received the toughest penalty of the seven bankers on trial in the German court. Judge Martin Bach accused the 55-year-old banker of ignoring all question marks over the scheme. The banker, who had coordinated the trading of carbon emissions in Germany for Deutsche, was "the culprit, not the helper" in collecting 145 million euros of taxes, the judge said. Hohnholz's lawyer said that he would appeal the verdict. Bach said that the scheme had been run purely to trick the tax authorities out of a total of 220 million euros. In all, seven former Deutsche Bank employees were on trial in Frankfurt. Five were given suspended jail terms of between one and two years on Monday for assisting in the tax fraud. One received a reprimand only. Responding to the verdict, Deutsche Bank said that it had repaid the tax, changed its internal processes and parted with the staff involved. Israel opens banking to new entrants, shakes up credit cards JERUSALEM, June 13 (Reuters) - Israel agreed to make it easier for challengers to the country's dominant banks on Monday and required its top two lenders to sell their credit card businesses to further boost competition. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon was elected last year with a promise to shake up the banking sector, dominated by Hapoalim , Leumi and Discount, which control about three-quarters of the credit in Israel. "After 47 years of not having a new bank in Israel, we have paved the way for the establishment of new banks," Kahlon said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Monday's cabinet meeting: "Competition in the banking sector will ease the credit situation for small and medium business. And separation between the major banks and credit card companies is the start of a comprehensive reform that will be good for all Israelis." Under the final recommendations of a government committee Hapoalim and Leumi will have to sell their credit card companies, although they will be allowed to issue credit cards. Shares in both banks were down around 1 percent in Tel Aviv. Their credit card companies provide less than 10 percent of credit to households, the finance ministry said. Discount will not be forced to sell its credit card unit for four years, when the issue will be re-examined. The changes will be presented as a law to parliament for approval in the coming weeks. The credit card firms that will be separated will be encouraged to become banks and receive incentives such as lower capital requirements than incumbent banks. They will only need initial capital of 50 million shekels ($13 million) versus 400 million until now. Kahlon and the Bank of Israel had been at odds over banking reform for months, particularly on removing some of the central bank's supervisory powers and transferring them to the Finance Ministry. But in the end, the Bank of Israel will retain supervision of the credit card companies. Also, requirements will be eased on institutions wanting to provide credit to the retail market from pension funds. Kinross says three-week strike ends at Mauritania goldmine June 13 (Reuters) - Kinross Gold Corp said on Monday a nearly three-week strike by unionized workers at its Tasiast mine in Mauritania ended on Saturday. The company said it would restart negotiations on a new labor agreement and other issues within 10 days. Employees retain the right to strike during negotiations subject to Mauritanian labor laws, Kinross said. Toronto-headquartered Kinross said it did not expect the strike to affect a planned expansion at the mine. Philippines condemns execution of Canadian by al Qaeda-linked group By Allison Martell and Manuel Mogato TORONTO/MANILA, June 14 (Reuters) - The Philippines confirmed on Tuesday the execution of a Canadian who had been held hostage by the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Islamist militant group on a remote southern island with three other people since September 2015. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in Toronto on Monday that it appeared the second execution of a Canadian hostage by Abu Sayyaf in recent months had taken place. That was later confirmed in Manila. "We strongly condemn the brutal and senseless murder of Mr. Robert Hall, a Canadian national, after being held captive by the Abu Sayyaf group in Sulu for the past nine months," outgoing Philippines President Benigno Aquino said in a statement. A Philippines military spokesman said earlier a severed head had been found near a Catholic cathedral on a remote southern island late on Monday. No identification had been made yet. Hall was taken captive by the militants with three others from an upscale resort on Samal island, hundreds of miles east of Jolo. Another Canadian who was held captive, former mining executive John Ridsdel, was executed by the group in April. A Norwegian man and a Filipina are still being held. Trudeau told reporters that "Canada holds the terrorist group who took Mr. Hall hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder". He said Sunday's attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and the killing of Hall "serve as devastating reminders for all of us, the vicious acts of hatred and violence cannot be tolerated in any form". Abu Sayyaf, based in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic Philippines, is known for kidnapping, beheadings and extortion. Security is precarious in the southern Philippines despite a 2014 peace pact between the government and the largest Muslim rebel group that ended 45 years of conflict. In Manila, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte's national security adviser said Duterte's new government, which takes charge on June 30, would "take a stronger action against lawlessness in the south". "We cannot allow this situation to continue, this should end once and for all," Duterte's adviser Hermogenes Esperon told Reuters. Abu Sayyaf had initially demanded one billion pesos ($21.7 million) each for the detainees, but it lowered the ransom to 300 million pesos each early this year. Preliminary intelligence reports in the Philippines indicated Hall had been beheaded 10 minutes after a 3 p.m. deadline lapsed in the mountains outside Jolo's Patikul town. Philippine media had already quoted Abu Raami, a spokesman for Abu Sayyaf, confirming the execution. Hungarian parliament passes law that could block Uber sites By Marton Dunai BUDAPEST, June 13 (Reuters) - Hungary passed legislation on Monday which could curb the activities of Uber after months of protests by taxi drivers, following in the footsteps of other countries that have banned some of its ride-hailing services. Under the new law, the Hungarian national communications authority can block Internet access to "illegal dispatcher services", in a similar fashion to the way the regulator blocked access to illegal online gambling sites in the country. "The bill aims partly to block the Internet access to illegal taxi, or other similar dispatcher services, if the authorities' other preventive measures are ineffective," Development Minister Miklos Sesztak wrote in the reasoning. Taxi drivers in Hungary have demanded Uber be outlawed and its smartphone app blocked as they say its drivers breach regulations other taxis firms must adhere to. UberPOP, a smartphone app that links private drivers with passengers, has prompted taxi driver protests across Europe and to date has been declared illegal by courts in Italy, Spain and Germany, with appeals pending in Belgium and the Netherlands. France suspended the low-cost service last year after the government banned it under pressure from licensed taxi drivers and a French court slapped a hefty fine on Uber last week for running an illegal taxi service. A German court also upheld the ban on UberPOP last week. Hungary issues taxi firms with dispatcher service permits, allowing a dispatcher service to transfer passenger requests to drivers under a series of criteria, such as a sizeable insurance deposit and an obligation to record data. Without such permits it is illegal to offer rides for money, and the government can block Internet-based communication that enables that, the new law says. Uber's Hungarian operations director Zoltan Fekete said in an emailed statement that its drivers had permits to drive taxis and the company would continue its operations while seeking dialogue with the government. "Uber has emphasised legal compliance: our drivers took out permits and provide legal receipts," Fekete said. "Uber seeks dialogue with decision makers in the hope that the current outdated regulations are replaced with a modern one tailored to new technology, centred around the interest of consumers," he said, adding that Uber has 150,000 Hungarian users and 1,200 drivers. The new Hungarian legislation, which does not mention Uber by name, is due to come into effect in 31 days. Armenia's biggest bank sells $20 million debt to Luxembourg funds YEREVAN, June 13 (Reuters) - Armenia's biggest bank by assets, Ameriabank, has sold bonds valued at $20 million to four Luxembourg-based funds to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and energy efficiency projects in the former Soviet republic, it said on Monday. Its investment manager, Investments AG, handled the placing. Ameriabank, 20 percent-owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and with capital of $182 million and about $1 billion in assets, signed a $20 million loan with German investment group DEG on May 13 to fund SMEs. The bank said in January it was planning a possible stock market listing in London in the next two to three years. In addition to the EBRD's $40 million investment, the World Bank's International Finance Corporation lent the bank $50 million to boost lending to local businesses. Kuwait fund wants to sell French nuclear group Areva stake -media PARIS, June 13 (Reuters) - Sovereign wealth fund Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) has told French authorities it wants to sell its stake in nuclear group Areva, La Lettre de l'Expansion reported on Monday. KIA is Areva's second-biggest shareholder with a 4.82 percent stake, according to ThomsonReuters data. The newsletter said the Kuwaiti fund had complained that its investment in Areva, which is majority owned by the French government, was made based on incorrect company accounts. French Industry Minister Emmanuel Macron and Areva declined to comment on the report. KIA was not immediately available for comment. KIA paid 600 million euros ($676 mln) for the stake in 2010, but since then Areva shares have plunged by about 90 percent as the firm's equity has been wiped out by years of losses. Areva will be rescued by a 5 billion euro state-funded capital increase and its nuclear reactor unit will be taken over by state-owned utility EDF later this year or early next year. The French state holds about 87 percent of Areva's capital. KIA or other minority shareholders have never publicly complained about Areva's accounts, but former Areva chief executive Anne Lauvergeon was put under formal investigation last month for her role in the 2007 acquisition of uranium mining firm Uramin. In France, a formal investigation does not automatically lead to a trial but often does. Lauvergeon has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and has said that asset depreciations at Uramin were partly due to the collapse of uranium prices after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011. Iraq makes arrests over reports of Sunnis executed in Falluja By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin BAGHDAD, June 13 (Reuters) - Iraq said on Monday it had made arrests as it investigates allegations that Shi'ite militiamen helping the army retake Falluja had executed dozens of Sunni Muslim men fleeing the city held by Islamic State. Iraqi authorities "are following up on the violations and a number of arrests have been made," government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said after a regional governor said 49 Sunni men had been executed after surrendering to a Shi'ite faction. Sohaib al-Rawi, governor of Anbar province where Falluja is located, said on Sunday that 643 men had gone missing between June 3 and June 5, and "all the surviving detainees were subjected to severe and collective torture by various means." The participation of militias in the battle of Falluja, just west of Baghdad, alongside the Iraqi army had already raised fears of sectarian killings. Iraq's Defence Minister Khalid al-Obeidi said four military personnel were arrested after video footage showed them abusing people displaced from Falluja. He pledged on Twitter to prosecute any serviceman involved in such acts. "Harassment of IDPs (internally displaced persons) is a betrayal of the sacrifices of our brave forces' liberation operations to expel Daesh (Islamic State) from Iraq," he said. Falluja is a historic bastion of the Sunni insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and the Shi'ite-led governments that followed. In the north of the country, troops fought with Islamic State militants in the village of Haj Ali for the second day in a row, an Iraqi officer taking part said. Haj Ali is near the Qayyara, a town under Islamic State control which has an airfield that Baghdad's forces seek to use as a staging ground for a future offensive on Mosul, about 60 km (40 miles) north. STRICT ORDERS "Strict orders were issued to protect the civilians," government spokesman Hadithi said, adding that these instructions were also given to the Hashid Shaabi, or Popular Mobilisation Forces, the coalition of mostly Shi'ite militias backed by Iran which are involved in the fighting. The United Nations said last week it knew of "extremely distressing, credible reports" of men and boys being abused by armed groups working with security forces after fleeing Falluja. Iraqi authorities routinely separate males aged over 15 from their families when they manage to escape Falluja, to screen them to ensure they do not pose a security risk and check if they may have been involved in war crimes. U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said screening was legitimate but should not be done by paramilitary groups. "The country must avoid further divisions or violence along sectarian lines, lest it implode completely," he said on Monday. A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State said the Baghdad government was aware of the abuses. "We know that the prime minister has come out and said that he believes that these abuses have happened and that he ... has demanded accountability of any perpetrators," Colonel Chris Garver said. "We think that is the right course of action." The Iraqi army launched the offensive on Falluja on May 23, with air support from the U.S.-led coalition. The United Nations has said up to 90,000 people are trapped in the city with little food or water. Germany, Turkey to finalize deal on Incirlik base work in weeks-spokesman BERLIN, June 13 (Reuters) - Turkey and Germany are expected to finalise within weeks an agreement on construction of new housing and aircraft facilities for German forces at Turkey's Incirlik air base, a spokesman for the German defence ministry said on Monday. The two sides are hammering out details after reaching consensus on key tenets of a technical agreement about the infrastructure project, which includes a dormitory for up to 400 troops, a headquarters building and an air operations centre, said the spokesman. The project will also include facilities for storage and maintenance of the six German Tornado reconnaissance jets and an Airbus 310 MRTT refueling plane that are using the base to support a campaign of air strikes against Islamic State targets, he added. The agreement underscores the continued German-Turkish military relations despite growing political tensions after Germany's parliament angered Ankara by declaring the 1915 massacre of Armenians a genocide. Germany currently has around 280 troops at the Turkish base, which is also hosting U.S., Saudi and Qatari forces. Berlin joined the U.S.-led air strike campaign against Islamic State in Syria last year, though limiting its role to reconnaissance and refueling missions, after the jihadist group killed 130 people in shooting and bombing attacks in Paris. The German contingent is using existing U.S. and Turkish facilities to house its soldiers and take care of aircraft, and has set up two special tents for maintenance of its planes. France's Schneider Electric sets sight on UK's Aveva again June 13 (Reuters) - Aveva Group Plc said it received a revised, conditional proposal from Schneider Electric SE , six months after the French company pulled out of a deal to buy a majority of the British software maker. The proposed cash-and-stock deal, if completed, would see Schneider Electric owning a majority stake in Aveva, the company said on Monday. London-listed Aveva said it was is in preliminary discussions with Schneider Electric about the merits of such a transaction and its terms and that a potential deal would be a reverse takeover under UK listing rules. Aveva, founded in 1967 as a spin-off from Cambridge University, had agreed upon a deal with Schneider in July, which involved Schneider paying 550 million pounds ($783 million) for new shares in Aveva. The deal would have resulted in the French company taking a 53.5 percent stake in an enlarged group that also comprised Schneider's software operations. But the companies called off the deal by mutual consent in December, saying the combination would have been too risky due to the complex structure of the deal. Shares in Aveva, which makes software used to design oil rigs, ships and nuclear power stations, were up 9.9 percent on Monday, after the Financial Times first reported the news. Trading in the stock was later temporarily suspended at the company's request. Shares in Schneider Electric, which makes electric components and energy management systems, were down 1.96 percent at 54.16 euros at 1338 GMT. Dalai Lama: must not see all Muslims as terrorists after Orlando By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) - Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Monday called the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in which 50 people died, a "very serious tragedy," but said it was wrong to see all Muslims as potential terrorists. Asked in an interview with Reuters about U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's reiteration of a call after the shooting for a ban on Muslims entering the country, the Dalai Lama said the billionaire businessman was entitled to his opinion. However, he added that if he had a chance, he would ask Trump "What's his reason? More detail." The Dalai Lama said that in every religious community, including Buddhist ones, "there are some mischievous people." "But you cannot generalize," he said. "Some individual Muslims may carry out some terrorist activities, but better we should not say 'Muslim terrorists.' I think that's wrong." Fifty people, including the gunman, the U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants who had declared his allegiance to Islamic State militants, were killed in the attack at the Orlando nightclub on Sunday morning. It was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton are at odds over how to respond to such attacks, with the latter warning against demonizing Muslims and calling for tougher gun safety measures. Speaking earlier at Washington's U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), the Dalai Lama said that by nature, women were more compassionate and if more world leaders were female, "there may be less trouble, less violence." "Of course, some ladies, females, are exceptional," he added. "Equally, some males are very compassionate." Asked by Reuters if it was time for a female leader in the United States, he said, "that's up to the people of this country," although he added that past female world leaders such as India's Indira Gandhi, Israel's Golda Meir, Britain's Margaret Thatcher and Germany's Angela Merkel had set good examples. Asked if he would meet President Barack Obama during his three-day visit to Washington, the Dalai Lama said it was "not finalized, but some friends say he may meet me." Obama met the Dalai Lama when the latter visited Washington in 2014 and vowed "strong support" for Tibetans' human rights, angering China which sees the spiritual leader as an anti-Chinese separatist. Asked how Beijing (Peking) might respond this time, the Dalai Lama said: "I don't know - you should ask them. I think in Peking, we cannot as of now  generalize. In Peking there are different views. Some people there have a more realistic view. Some are more hardline, which is more narrow-minded." At the start of the USIP event, the Dalai Lama called on the audience to observe a moment of silence for the Orlando victims. "Yesterday, very serious tragedy, Orlando. So let us (say) some silent prayer, OK," he said, while adding afterwards: "Although, one Buddhist monk grows quite skeptical about the effects of prayer." Real change, he said, required serious action, including better education, to ensure more compassion and tolerance in the world, and it was important not to lose "determination or courage." Ugandan soldier killed in gun attack at regional police base By Elias Biryabarema KAMPALA, June 13 (Reuters) - At least one soldier was killed and seven other people were wounded when gunmen attacked the regional police headquarters in northern Uganda to try to free an inmate, police said on Monday. Ugandan police chief Kale Kayihura identified the man as Oola Dan Odiya, who is being held on charges of murder and terrorism related to an attack at a local police post on May 27. Scores of people have been arrested in the four months since veteran leader President Yoweri Museveni was declared winner of a presidential election on Feb. 18, the opposition says, and protesters have frequently clashed with police. Kayihura said the attack in Gulu, the biggest town in northern Uganda, happened at about 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Sunday, when gunmen drove up in a pick-up firing their guns and tried to storm the station "to free and cause escape of one suspect". "The gang was repulsed by a joint Police and UPDF (Ugandan military) force," Kayihura said. Six security personnel and one civilian were injured in the attack, police said. Eight guns and ammunition were recovered after the attackers dropped their weapons as they fled. As well as the arrests of its supporters, the opposition says some of its leaders have also been arrested and then released after questioning. Kizza Besigye, the main opposition leader, was arrested in May and shortly after charged with treason, a charge the opposition says is trumped up. An opposition legislator was recently arrested and security officials were quoted in local media as saying he was being investigated on suspicions of plotting a coup. Military spokesman Paddy Ankunda told Reuters about 30 soldiers, including a colonel, had also been arrested in the last few days and were under investigation for various offences. Microsoft to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 bln in its largest deal By Sarah McBride June 13 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 billion in its biggest-ever deal, a bold stroke by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in his efforts to make the venerable software company a major force in next-generation computing. By connecting widely used software like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint with LinkedIn's network of 433 million professionals, the combination could enable Microsoft to add a suite of sales, marketing and recruiting services to its core business products and potentially challenge cloud software rivals such as Salesforce.com Inc.. "LinkedIn and Microsoft really share a mission" of helping people work more efficiently, said Microsoft CEO Nadella in a conference call with analysts. "There is no better way to realize that mission than to connect the world's professionals." The $196-per-share price tag represented a premium of almost 50 percent over LinkedIn's stock market value as of Friday, but was still well below the social media company's all-time high of $270. Analysts said the price was rich, and Microsoft's stock closed down 2.7 percent at $50.14. Still, there was cautious optimism that this could be one of the relatively few tech mega-mergers that works out well. "It's a massive growth play for Microsoft," said Forrester analyst Ted Schadler. The deal may also help spur further mergers and acquisitions in the tech sector, where a broad correction is bringing down the prices of public and private companies even as a handful of major players sit on large cash piles. For LinkedIn, founded in 2002 and launched the following year by Reid Hoffman, one of Silicon Valley's most-visible investors and entrepreneurs, the sale marks the end of a classic startup run: funding from top-tier venture capitalists, a long period of building the company and developing a revenue base, then a big initial public offering, followed by a roller-coaster stock price and finally an acquisition. The company makes most of its $3 billion in annual revenue from job hunters and recruiters who pay a monthly fee to post resumes and connect with people on what's often known as the social network for business. The company's growth has slowed recently and investors have become far more cautious on the high valuations of many tech companies - both of which likely figured into LinkedIn's decision to sell, analysts said. For Microsoft, the LinkedIn deal is a chance to reverse a terrible track record with acquisitions, including paying $9.4 billion for phone maker Nokia in 2014 and $6.3 billion for ad business aQuantive in 2007. In 2012, it wrote down its aQuantive acquisition by $6.2 billion, and its cumulative writedowns for Nokia total $8.55 billion. It also paid $1.2 billion for business network Yammer in 2012 and $8.5 billion for video-calling tool Skype in 2011. The LinkedIn acquisition could help Microsoft play to its strengths in analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, Nadella said on the investor call. LinkedIn and Microsoft both have enormous amount of data about their customers that can potentially be mined to offer automated suggestions and other features that make business processes quicker and simpler. Microsoft noted that the deal brings in a big new customer base: after adding in LinkedIn, the total potential market size of Microsoft's productivity and business-process segment sits at $315 billion, up from $200 billion without LinkedIn. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said the deal would be financed mainly with debt, a way for the cash-rich company to reduce its tax bill. The company has $105 billion in cash and other liquid assets. Moody's said it was reviewing Microsoft's rare AAA debt rating for a possible downgrade. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner will remain with the company, which will be operated as a separate unit and retain its name. CHASING GROWTH Nadella has been trying to reinvigorate Microsoft since taking over the lumbering giant two years ago, and has helped build more credibility around the company's efforts in areas such as cloud-based services. When he took the top job in February 2014, the company's share price was $34.20; early Monday afternoon, it was trading around $50. With LinkedIn, Nadella is solidifying Microsoft's focus on the business market, where it has retained a much stronger position than it has in the smartphone-centric consumer technology business. In touting the synergies of the deal, Nadella gave an example of a customer walking into a meeting scheduled on a Microsoft Outlook calendar integrated with LinkedIn. That person might receive notification that one of the people in the meeting went to college with a colleague, enabling another level of connection. "The future of productivity is around people, identity and data and the relationships between the them," said Matt McIlwain, a portfolio manager at Madrona Ventures. "Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for the opportunity to leverage these capabilities and combine them with Microsoft's strong but complementary assets in those three areas." The strategy in many ways is similar to that of Salesforce.com, whose CEO, Marc Benioff, just last month told investors he believed artificial intelligence and machine learning would drive growth at his company. Salesforce.com had once been considered a possible Microsoft acquisition target. Microsoft has its own salesforce automation product, called Dynamics, and integration with LinkedIn could help it become a much more formidable competitor in that market. Despite Microsoft's weak track record in M&A, the one prior major deal on Nadella's watch - the $2.5 billion purchase of video game maker Minecraft in 2014 - is generally considered a success, complementing Microsoft's work on augmented-reality projects such as the HoloLens headset. Weiner of LinkedIn said on a call with Reuters that he met Nadella two years ago at the Microsoft CEO Summit - a meeting of top executives at the software company's campus near Seattle - and started serious talks about an acquisition in February. That was shortly after LinkedIn's stock fell by 40 percent following a weak earnings report. TWITTER NEXT? Weiner added LinkedIn would remain its own entity in the way that YouTube is relatively independent from parent Alphabet Inc , or Instagram from parent Facebook Inc. That could ease concerns that users might have about Microsoft being in control of their professional information - though the kind of integration Nadella cited suggests that LinkedIn might not be its own entity forever. Monday's deal raised investors' hopes that another social media company, Twitter Inc, could be the next acquisition target, sending that company's shares up almost 4 percent. The Microsoft-LinkedIn deal, which won the unanimous support of both boards, is expected to close this year, the companies said. After the deal, which will require approval from regulators in the United States, the European Union, Canada and Brazil, LinkedIn will become part of Microsoft's productivity and business processes unit, the companies said. That unit generated $6.52 billion of Microsoft's $20.53 billion in revenue last quarter. Microsoft's financial adviser was Morgan Stanley and LinkedIn's financial adviser was Allen & Company LLC and Qatalyst Partners, founded by Silicon Valley dealmaker Frank Quattrone. Microsoft's legal adviser was Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Professional Corp advised LinkedIn. Nigeria's Boko Haram victims bounce back with businesses in camps By Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, June 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - W ith more than one million people living in camps around Nigeria's northeastern city of Maiduguri, having fled their homes due to Boko Haram attacks, some are finding innovative ways to rebuild businesses from scratch. Many of the displaced arrived at the camps with no money or possessions, leaving them totally dependent on the government and humanitarian organisations for their day-to-day survival. Despite the harsh conditions of the camps, which host up to 30,000 residents, entrepreneurial spirit is not in short supply. Several of those uprooted by the Islamist militant group, such as shopkeeper Modu Mustafa, have launched profit-making businesses within internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. Mustafa saw his opportunity when the former governor of Borno state visited the camp where he resides in Maiduguri, home to 4,000 people, and gave the families there bags of rice. Rather than eat the rice with his two wives and 10 children, 45-year-old Mustafa decided to sell it for 8,000 naira ($40) and used the money to open a kiosk in his family's tent - selling items ranging from biscuits and batteries to salt and sugar. "In one month, I make about 20,000 naira ($100) and use the money to feed my family," he said, adding that the food provided by the state and aid agencies was not sufficient for his family. Maiduguri has been inundated in the past three years by people fleeing Boko Haram, sending the city's population surging to two million from some 600,000 and putting pressure on housing, health, food, and water supplies, aid agencies say. More than 15,000 people have been killed and 2 million displaced in Nigeria and neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon during the militant group's seven-year insurgency to carve out an Islamist caliphate. While nine in 10 of the displaced who arrive in Maiduguri find accommodation with host families, the rest reside in the city's 22 government camps, or live in informal, makeshift settlements dotted outside of the capital of Borno state. FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS Fanne Saidu, a widow in her seventies, earned a living from selling locally-made pots and pans which helped her send her eight children to Islamic school, until the threat of Boko Haram forced her to flee to a camp in a primary school in Maiduguri. She begged people for money and raised enough to buy dried plant flowers, which she mixed with water from a solar-powered tap in the camp to make a popular Nigerian drink called zobo. Five months later, she is still in business, buying empty bottles from local children for 5 naira and filling them with the drink to sell at 10 naira (5 cents) each - and has even saved enough to rent a room at 1,500 naira ($7.50) a month. "I make about 600 naira ($3) daily," said Saidu, who earns more during term time when students buy zobo en route to school, or during their breaks. "I have never been idle in my life." Many government IDP camps in Maiduguri were previously established in schools, which remained shut for almost two years due to the widespread violence caused by Boko Haram. The militants have destroyed nearly 1,000 schools in northeast Nigeria, and in their most high-profile attack, seized more than 200 girls from their school in Chibok in April 2014 . While the government began relocating the displaced from schools in February in preparation for their reopening, many, like Husseina Abdullahi, were unhappy to have been moved. "The environment there was better," said the 35-year-old widow and mother of eight, adding that aid agencies had fitted the school with toilets and running water. Although Abdullahi was first disappointed with her new home in the Bakassi camp, which she described as just a vast piece of land, she soon discovered she could turn her hand to farming. She began sewing and selling traditional caps, and used the profit to buy seeds and farming tools which enabled her to grow vegetables such as spinach behind her tent. "With what I plant, I can feed my children," Abdullahi said. POWER FOR FOOD Many people in the IDP camps complain that conditions are poor, and the United Nations say many of the makeshift shelters are overcrowded and substandard in terms of water and sanitation facilities, cooking and privacy, especially for women. Sites tend to be unfinished structures, with limited access to clean water, sanitation, waste management and electricity. Usman Muhammed and Babagana Alhaji-Grema saw a business opportunity given the poor electricity supply in their camp. The cousins, aged 29 and 22, fled their home in Bama two years ago, where they had sold over-the-counter medication. But, they soon became bored with the daily routine of life in the camp routine. "We had nothing to do," said Alhaji-Grema. When his older brother came to visit from Lagos, Nigeria's commercial capital, and gave them 30,000 naira ($150), they invested it in a phone charging business - to enable people to charge their phones when the electricity supply was out. "An electrician from our village who is also here in the camp built it for us," said Alhaji-Grema, explaining how they had bought a small generator, a variety of phone chargers, adapters and wood from a local market nearby. It costs 30 naira (15 cents) to fully charge a phone, and their device is equipped with about 30 adapters, Alhaji-Grema added. "We make at least 700 naira ($3.50) to 1,000 naira ($5) per day," he said, out of which they buy enough fuel for the following day's work, save some, then spend the extra on food. $1.86 bln of Mozambique loans "illegal", social groups say JOHANNESBURG, June 13 (Reuters) - A group of 26 Mozambique civil society organisations said on Monday $1.86 billion of government debt arranged by Credit Suisse and Russia's VTB Bank was illegal and should not be paid. South Africa's MTN must apologise to Nigeria as part of $1.7 bln fine deal ABUJA, June 13 (Reuters) - South African telecoms company MTN must issue an apology to Nigeria and take immediate steps to list its shares there as part of a deal to end a dispute over unregistered SIM cards, a copy of the agreement said. Militants say they will only talk to Nigerian govt with foreign mediators LAGOS, June 13 (Reuters) - The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group that has carried out attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria's southern oil region, said on Monday it would only negotiate with the government if independent mediators assisted. The government last week offered to hold talks with the group, which wants a greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth to go to the impoverished Niger Delta region. The group also said in a statement it may review its "earlier stands of not taking lives" if its demands were not met. $1.86 bln of Mozambique loans "illegal", social groups say JOHANNESBURG, June 13 (Reuters) - A group of 26 Mozambique civil society organisations said on Monday $1.86 billion of government debt arranged by Credit Suisse and Russia's VTB Bank was illegal and should not be paid. In a joint statement, the organisations said the loans breached a law requiring all borrowing and guarantees longer than a year to be approved by parliament. The debt also exceeded limits in the 2013 budget and were not entered into that year's budget, the groups said. Paula Monjane from the Civil Society Budget Monitoring Forum, which coordinated the statement, said those who broke the law - on both sides of the transactions - should be investigated for corruption. "The officials who broke the law in Mozambique need to be held accountable," she said. "This includes the lenders and financial institutions which facilitated these loans. In defence of the common good and against the continued impoverishment of the Mozambican people, we do not want, do not accept and will not pay the debts." Mozambique's parliament has agreed to set up a commission of inquiry into the issuing of the debt, which has pushed the foreign borrowing levels to 80 percent of the impoverished southern African country's GDP. The controversial loans are an $850 million Eurobond issued in 2013 to build a tuna-fishing fleet, a $622 million loan to enhance maritime security and a $535 million loan to build shipyards for the offshore natural gas sector. The tuna bond has already been restructured and the state company behind the $535 million loan missed a repayment of $178 million due on May 23, putting the government on track for default. Financial watchdogs from Switzerland and Britain are looking into the arranging of the sovereign borrowing, which was done without consultation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or Mozambique's foreign donors. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said last month the lack of transparency behind the transactions was "clearly concealing corruption". She did not elaborate. Credit Suisse has consistently declined to comment on the maritime security loan. VTB, which arranged the shipyard loan, says it expects the government to honour its sovereign guarantee. Indigenous rights and private funding key to slowing deforestation, says Norway minister By Anastasia Moloney BOGOTA, June 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Efforts to save the world's forests hinge on securing private sector funds and ensuring indigenous communities in tropical forests are more involved in protecting their environment, Norway's environment minister said. Speaking ahead of a high-level conference on forest conservation hosted by Norway, Vidar Helgesen said stronger political leadership is needed to amplify the voices and role of indigenous people in forest conservation. Norway is the biggest donor to the United Nations programme aimed at Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) in developing nations. When forests are degraded or destroyed, the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere, with deforestation accounting for 10 to 15 percent of carbon emissions worldwide. "A key priority of REDD+ is self-governance and strengthening the involvement of indigenous communities in the forests," Helgesen told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview. But campaigners say all too often indigenous groups are sidelined from decisions affecting the forests on which they rely for their livelihoods, and are not properly consulted about dam, mining and agriculture projects on or near their lands. "In some countries it is still at the level of lip service," Helgesen said. Ensuring indigenous communities have formal land tenure or ownership is an effective way of slowing down deforestation, environmental campaigners say. RESULTS BASED Norway, rich from offshore oil, is financing projects to help protect forests from Ethiopia to Peru, as well as two projects worth $1 billion each for Indonesia and Brazil and one worth $750 million for Guyana. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is due to speak at the two-day conference starting on Tuesday, and Helgesen said Norway and the United States would announce a bilateral agreement on forest conservation. Developing countries participating in REDD+ get payouts for meeting verified emission reduction targets for slowing deforestation over several years. The payments are usually distributed to farmers and local community and indigenous groups working on forest protection. "This is results based. If we don't see results, we don't pay," Helgesen said. A key challenge to be discussed at the Oslo conference - attended by nearly 500 experts and policymakers - is the need to attract more private finance to fund forest conservation. Funding from the private sector has contributed just one-tenth of the money provided to keep forests standing, according to 2015 figures from U.S.-based non-profit group Forest Trends. "You can't depend on aid budgets as they are not as abundant as they were in the past," Helgesen said. "Private sector funding and strengthening public-private partnerships will have to be brought forward further." BRAZIL Helgesen singled out Brazil, home to the world's largest rainforest, as a success story in efforts to cut deforestation. Brazil's deforestation rate dropped by 70 percent during the past decade "while significantly increasing agricultural production," he said. "One of the most important lessons learnt is that it is not just a matter of protecting but producing too," Helgesen said. However the rate of forest loss has recently increased. Brazil's rate of deforestation edged up 16 percent in the year to July 2015, according to government data. Slowing forest clearance involves encouraging sustainable agriculture, particularly among small farmers, who need to be able to produce food and crops for sale while protecting the forest, Helgesen said. This includes small farmers using new irrigation and fertilizer systems to produce higher yields on the same land. "At the local level practices have been unchanged for decades and centuries and new techniques and knowledge have not been applied," Helgesen said. COLOMBIA He said progress on slowing deforestation in Colombia's vast Amazon rainforest depended on combating illegal gold and silver mining, which cuts down trees and contaminates water. "There are strong interests including illegal actors involved in illegal mining posing a threat to local leaders and activists," he said. Colombia is home to more than 45 million hectares of rainforest - roughly the size of Germany and England combined. It has declared the goal of zero net deforestation by 2020 and halting the loss of all natural forest by 2030. Under the REDD+ programme, Colombia received its first payment of $6 million this month from Norway, Britain and Germany for reducing emissions from deforestation in its Amazon rainforest in 2013 and 2014. Venezuela lootings, food protests leave 3 dead in past week CARACAS, June 13 (Reuters) - The recent wave of lootings and food riots in crisis-hit Venezuela has left three people dead in the last week, authorities and a rights group said. The state prosecutor's office is investigating the deaths of a 21-year-old man in eastern Sucre state on Saturday, another 21-year-old man in the Caracas slum of Petare on Thursday, and a 42-year-old woman in the western state of Tachira last Monday. All three suffered gunshot wounds during chaotic scenes outside supermarkets, which have become a flashpoint for violence and looting amid scarcities of basics across the South American OPEC member country, according to local rights group Provea. A policeman has been arrested over the Tachira death. With basics such as flour and rice running short, crowds chanting "We want food!" are thronging supermarkets daily, presenting a major problem for the struggling leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro. More than 10 incidents of looting are occurring daily, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, a local monitoring group. Venezuela's political opposition is pursuing a recall referendum in an effort to remove the socialist Maduro from office. Orlando shooter visited Saudi Arabia in 2011, 2012 -Saudi interior ministry RIYADH, June 13 (Reuters) - Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in a gun attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, travelled to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and 2012, Saudi Interior Ministry security spokesman Major General Mansour Turki said on Monday. He said Mateen performed the umrah Islamic pilgrimage for 10 days in March 2011, and eight days the following March. A U.S. official said his travel records indicate that he apparently also visited the United Arab Emirates on one of the trips. Umrah is a lesser pilgrimage to Mecca than the haj, which unlike umrah is mandatory for all Muslims. However, the official said, the Saudis so far have not provided any evidence that Mateen made contact with known extremists during his visits to the kingdom, adding that anyone thought to be a threat is kept under surveillance by Saudi authorities, although that doesn't mean they have a handle on everyone with radical views or contacts. Early on Sunday, Mateen stormed the nightclub with a handgun and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, fatally shooting 49 people before police killed him in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Fifty-three others were wounded, many critically. Nigerian militants insist on foreign mediators for talks with government LAGOS, June 13 (Reuters) - The Niger Delta Avengers, a militant group that has carried out attacks on oil facilities in Nigeria's southern oil region, said on Monday it would only negotiate with the government if independent foreign mediators were involved. Last week the group, which wants a greater share of Nigeria's oil wealth to go to the impoverished Niger Delta region, rejected an offer from the government to hold talks. Attacks in the southern swampland have pushed oil production to a 20-year low in what was until recently Africa's biggest oil producing nation. Its production has fallen behind Angola in the last few weeks. In a statement on its website, the Avengers said they wanted multinational oil companies operating in the country to "commit independent mediators to this proposed dialogue" to "bring about a lasting peace". "If need be we may review our earlier stance of not taking lives," the statement said. OFFICIAL CORRECTION-More time needed to send Somali refugees home, U.N. tells Kenya By Katy Migiro NAIROBI, June 13 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Kenya must relax its November deadline for sending some 350,000 Somalis home from the world's largest refugee complex as parts of their war-torn nation are unsafe, the United Nations refugee chief said on Monday. He called on donors to provide funding to create jobs and build infrastructure in Somalia to allow refugees in the Dabaab camp who wish to return home to nine areas regarded as safe by the U.N. to do so. "The places of origin of many of the refugees in Dadaab are still very insecure," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, told a news conference in Nairobi on Monday. "I think everybody understands that we need to be gradual in respect of those who come from those areas." Kenya announced in May that it planned to close Dadaab camp in the east of the country, home to 350,000 mainly Somali refugees, due to fears the sprawling complex had been infiltrated by militants. The east African nation has been hit by a series of attacks by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militant group, including on a Nairobi shopping mall and a university in the northeast. Grandi said he will meet with the Kenyan and Somali governments in Nairobi later in June, after lobbying donors to step up investment to improve conditions in Somalia. "President Kenyatta is quite determined to get through this in a relatively short period of time," he said. "I told the president that in order to mobilise these resources, we need a little bit more (time)." Only 14,000 Somalis have voluntarily returned home since December 2014, Grandi said, and another 8,000 are on a waiting list to do so. The U.N. provides returnees with transport and basic household items, as well as three months food rations, which Grandi said he hopes to increase to six or 12 months supplies. Returnees that Grandi met in Somalia also asked for schools, health centres and help reconstructing their homes, he said. "We don't want to help people go back and then they become internally displaced," said the Italian diplomat who took office in January. "It is just transferring the problem from one place to another where ... it's even more difficult to help them." Almost 1 million of Somalia's 9 million people are internally displaced, mostly in the capital, Mogadishu. In October, UNHCR appealed for $500 million to improve conditions for voluntary return to Somalia. It received pledges of $110 million, only $7.2 million of which have been received, spokesman Andreas Needham told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Kenya's government has reversed a decision to close Kakuma, a second camp on its northern border hosting almost 200,000 refugees, mainly from South Sudan, Grandi said. McDonald's moving headquarters to Chicago June 13 (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp, working to remake itself as a "modern, progressive burger company," will move its corporate headquarters from an Illinois suburb to the former home of Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Studios in downtown Chicago by the spring of 2018. The move marks a homecoming for the world's biggest restaurant chain, which was headquartered in Chicago from 1955 to 1971. No tax incentives were involved in the move, a spokeswoman said. "Moving our headquarters to Chicago is another significant step in our journey to build a better McDonald's," Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook said in a statement. Easterbrook said the move would bring the company closer to customers and offer employees an exciting work environment. The new headquarters also will house Hamburger University, one of seven worldwide McDonald's employee training centers. Several high-profile U.S. corporations are returning to cities in a bid to attract young talent. Another big company, General Electric Co, announced this year it would move its headquarters to Boston from Fairfield, Connecticut. Crain's Chicago Business first reported McDonald's plan to relocate to 1045 W. Randolph Street in Chicago's West Loop neighborhood. McDonald's confirmed that plan on Monday. Rain frustrates England and Sri Lanka LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - The third and final test between England and Sri Lanka ended in a draw after persistent rain allowed only 12.2 overs of play on the last day at Lord's on Monday. Sri Lanka, chasing 362 for victory, went from 32 for no wicket to 78 for one between the showers but neither side had any chance of forcing victory and England won the series 2-0. England fast bowler James Anderson trapped Kaushal Silva lbw for 16 with an excellent inswinging delivery to claim the only wicket. Dimuth Karunaratne finished unbeaten on 37 with Kusal Mendis on 17. U.S. urges United Nations to unite for gay rights By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS, June 13 (Reuters) - The United States appealed on Monday for the United Nations to unite to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, not just express outrage over a massacre in a Florida nightclub on Sunday in which 49 people were killed. Being gay is a crime in at least 74 countries, the U.N. has said. "If we are united in our outrage by the killing of so many - and we are - let us be equally united around the basic premise of upholding the universal dignity of all persons regardless of who they love, not just around condemning the terrorists who kill them," Deputy U.S. Ambassador David Pressman said A shooter pledging allegiance to the radical group Islamic State carried out the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history on Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Rights organizations have accused Islamic State militants of killing dozens of gay men by throwing them from buildings or stoning them. Pressman noted that there is just one General Assembly resolution referencing "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," a resolution that urges states to protect the right to life of all persons and investigate killings. He said every year "there is a pitched fight over whether it is appropriate to include sexual orientation in that protection." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has long advocated for gay rights but has faced opposition from African, Arab and Muslim states, as well as from Russia and China. On Sunday he condemned the Orlando attack. In 2014, Ban announced the United Nations would recognize all same-sex marriages of its staff, allowing them to receive U.N. benefits. Russia unsuccessfully tried to overturn the move last year, with Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, India, Egypt, Pakistan, and Syria among 43 states that supported Moscow. In February the 54-member African Group, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and 25-member "Group of Friends of the Family," led by Belarus, Egypt and Qatar, protested the launch of six U.N. stamps promoting LGBT equality. Then a group of 51 Muslim states blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from officially attending a high-level U.N. meeting last week on ending AIDS, sparking a protest by the United States, Canada and the European Union. World Bank's Zambia solar auction sets African low price benchmark By David Lawder WASHINGTON, June 13 (Reuters) - A World Bank-led solar power auction in Zambia has set a new low-cost benchmark for Africa, with two development groups winning backing to build generating plants in the next year, the international lender said on Monday. Neoen SAS, First Solar Inc and Enel Green Power were the winners of the initial auction for the "Scaling Solar" program, the World Bank Group's International Finance Corp said in a statement. France's Neoen and U.S.-based First Solar jointly bid 6.02 cents per kilowatt hour and will build a 45-megawatt solar plant in the African nation. Enel Green Power, a subsidiary of Italy's largest power utility, Enel, bid 7.84 cents per kilowatt hour and will build a 28-megawatt plant. Those bids compare with recent solar contract prices of over 7 cents per kilowatt hour in South Africa and up to nearly 12 cents in India. The two new solar plants are expected to expand Zambia's generating capacity by 5 percent, easing the strain of drought that has reduced the country's hydroelectric output, the IFC said. "These are the lowest solar power tariffs seen to date in Africa, and among the lowest prices for solar power anywhere in the world - a game changer for Zambia and other countries in the region facing electricity shortages," IFC Chief Executive Officer Philippe Le Houerou said in a statement. The World Bank program aims to help governments deliver cheap and clean energy by helping them run competitive auctions and reducing investment risks. It includes a full suite of World Bank products and services, including IFC financing and advice as well as guarantees from the group's Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency arm. The IFC said Senegal and Madagascar also have signed up to run Scaling Solar tenders, which are expected to move to the prequalification phase in the coming months. The program, which hopes to develop one gigawatt of solar power in the next three years, also is supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Dutch and Danish governments. Egyptian investigators say EgyptAir black boxes to stop emitting signals June 24 CAIRO, June 13 (Reuters) - The flight data recorders from an EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean last month are expected to stop emitting signals on June 24, and search boats are working against the clock to retrieve them, Egyptian investigators said on Monday. Without the "black boxes", investigators say there is not enough information to explain why flight MS804 crashed on May 19, killing all 66 people on board. The Egyptian-led investigation committee said in a statement that it had accepted a request by the United States' National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to have a representative join the investigation team. The plane's engines were built by a consortium led by the U.S. firm Pratt & Whitney. The country where the engines were built is often invited to take part in an air crash investigation, although it is not compulsory. Investigators also said on Monday that radar imagery obtained from the Egyptian military confirmed previous reports based on Greek and British radar data indicating that the plane had swerved in mid-air before crashing. Egyptian Air Navigation had previously said that the plane suddenly disappeared off the radar at cruising altitude around 37,000 feet. Those comments contradicted the Greek defence minister's account on the day of the crash that the plane had turned sharply to the left, then 360 degrees to the right before disappearing from radar at 15,000 feet. That conclusion is important, said one aviation source, because it goes some way to excluding the possibility that the plane was brought down by a mid-air explosion. France's air accident investigation agency, the BEA, which is advising Egypt on the underwater search, has said that one of the search ships has continued to pick up locator signals from one black box, whose position has been narrowed to within 1 to 2 km (just over a mile). The disconnect of the new generations of Kashmiri Muslims with the intellectual and scholarly magnificence of their motherland is tragic. This disconnect has been illustrated most poignantly in the recent vociferous opposition to Abhinav Sandesh Yatra in the Valley. The opposition to the Abhinav Sandesh Yatra was politically driven, but it was rooted in ignorance. Kashmiri Muslims are immensely proud of their Kashmiriyat. The absence of the Pandits in the Valley is regarded as a collective wound by Kashmiri Muslims. Across the towns and villages of Kashmir, Muslims have looked after many Pandit shrines. Admittedly, this has not been possible in all cases. The Kheer Bhawani mela has become a symbol of communal harmony as local Muslims make all the arrangements. Such is the value placed on Kashmiriyat, that even the Kashmiri resistance leadership has never opposed any traditional religious yatra, mela or festivity of the Kashmiri Pandits. The Shri Amarnath Yatra, a great pilgrimage for all Hindus, is eagerly awaited in the Valley every year. Prayers and celebrations at the Kheer Bhawani Temple are another annual ritual. Every year, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits arrive in the Valley to pray at the Kheer Bhawani Temple in Ganderbal district of Kashmir in mid-June. The mela has become a symbol of communal harmony as local Muslims make all the arrangements for the devotees including setting up of stalls for flowers and other offerings. Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits equally revere Lal Ded, the saint-mystic who was a Kashmiri Pandit. Her verses, in colloquial Kashmiri, are commonly quoted by all Kashmiris in conversation. Then why the strident opposition to the Abhinav Sandesh Yatra? This disconnect is the result of the Valleys separation from its glorious historical and cultural legacy. Many Kashmiri Muslims are not aware of who Abhinavgupt was. This was evident in the statement of National Front chairman Nayeem Khan over the Abhinav Sandesh Yatra. Khan called the Abhinav Sandesh Yatra a new move of the RSS, and a cultural and religious aggression on Kashmiris. "This Abhinavgupt is unknown to every Kashmiri and has no religious importance," Khan said in a statement issued to the Kashmir media. Scholars of Kashmir would be appalled at his statement. Kashmiri writers, poets, thinkers and others proudly proclaim that Kashmir has been a land of such intellectual and scholarly magnificence that it was called Sharda Peeth. Prof Rehman Rahi, one of the most loved poets of Kashmir, wrote the official anthem of Kashmir University, called the KU Tarana. He lovingly paid obeisance to the towering intellectual heritage of Kashmir, which saw no distinction between Hindu and Muslim. The Kashmiri youth sing in the Tarana: This is the land (where) Abhinava Gupt's ocean of knowledge surges high Having studied Kashmiri psyche to some extent, I can say the following with conviction. If the Kashmiri Muslim politicians were familiar with Acharya Abhinavgupt and his most marvelous intellectual legacy, they would welcome the celebrations dedicated to one of the greatest saint-philosophers of their land. There is renewed focus on Acharya Abhinavgupt because we are now in his millennial centenary. Note what Pratap Bhanu Mehta, one of Indias most admired intellectuals, wrote about Acharya Abhinavgupt in The Indian Express in January 2016: "There are moments of intellectual achievement that are beyond measure. In any reckoning of Indian intellectual history, one figure whose achievement is almost unparalleled is Abhinavagupt. Although usually described as a Kashmiri Saiva philosopher, the range of his work and its originality defy easy classification. He lies at the centre of so many currents of intellectual thinking: Aesthetics, literary criticism, dramaturgy, music, tantra, yoga, devotional poetry, cognitive science, emotions, philosophy of mind, language. His incandescent brilliance transformed every subject he touched." This extraordinary saint-philosopher has receded from the collective memory of Kashmiri Muslims because he wrote in Sanskrit. For centuries, Acharya Abhinavgupt has survived largely in the portals of south Indian Shaivik Tantrism. According to Kashmiri folklore, Acharya Abhinavgupta entered into communion with Param Shiva almost 1,000 years ago in Bhairava cave, situated at Beerwah in Budgam district, Kashmir. Hence, a Kashmiri Pandit organisation played a pivotal role in organising the Abhinav Sandesh Yatra. The yatra started from Kanchikamkoti in Tamil Nadu. After travelling across the country, it was scheduled to reach Srinagar in the first half of June. Acharaya Abhinavgupt Sheshadri Samroh Samiti proposed that the yatra should end at Bhairava cave at Beerwah in Budgam. This is where the fight started. Over the last one month, tempers flared in the Valley over the proposed yatra. Some local political organisations threatened to take to the roads if the yatra was allowed into Beerwah. Anjuman Mazharul Haq, a Muslim religious organisation from central Kashmir, warned the Pandits against holding the yatra. Its patron Moulana Syed Abdul Lateef Bukhari said that the yatra would disrupt communal harmony. Moulana Bukhari said that according to revenue records, the cave was used by Muslim saint Mian Shah Sahab for prayers. "Muslims consider this cave as their holy place. If Pandits take law into their hands and forcibly perform prayers and yatra, it can disturb traditional amity and communal harmony," he said. Dukhataran-e-Millat chairperson Aasiyah Andrabi stated that Centre was misusing religious sentiments to satisfy its political motives. "By proposing yet another yatra to a place which has no historical relevance for Hindus, it confirms how the RSS is plotting to link Hindu religious sentiments to the land of Jammu and Kashmir," she said. National Front chairman Nayeem Khan said that Kashmiris would prefer gallows instead of allowing the yatra to go ahead. "Abhinav Gupt cave is not a historical or heritage site," Khan said. Tension was so high that in order to avoid any law and order situation, all the entry points to Beerwah were sealed by the police and paramilitary forces with rolls of concertina wires. The government spokesman and education minister Naeem Akhtar had to make a statement that no such yatra would be allowed. "This has been made clear already by chief minister and deputy chief minister," he said. The Abhinav Sandesh Yatra finally concluded at the ancient Jyestha Devi Temple in Srinagar. The preventive action taken by the J&K government was essential. The scholars and intellectuals of Kashmir hold the colossal legacy of Abhinavgupt in great regard. The highly prestigious J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages is planning to organise seminars and symposiums to mark the centenary celebrations of this prodigious philosopher-saint. Despite all the turmoils that have rocked the Valley, the essential Kashmiriyat remains beautiful and all-encompassing. It is the Kashmiri scholars themselves Muslim and Pandit alike who will be the foremost custodians of the astounding, breathtaking legacy of this great Kashmiri a philosopher, a literary giant, a mystic, a musician, a poet, dramatist, theologian, and logician. Ace intellectual Pratap Bhanu Mehta says that Abhinavgupt is for deep-sea divers, not for those who skate on surfaces. Writes Mehta, "To confront Abhinavagupt is to confront an intellectual relentlessness about self-knowledge that our frenzied world has lost." The marvelous intellectual and scholarly attainments of Acharya Abhinavgupt, one of the greatest Kashmiris of all times, is world heritage. GORDONSVILLE The Virginia Industrial Hemp Coalition hosted its first Virginia Hemp History Day at the Vanguard Ranch on Sunday in hopes of educating the public on the often misunderstood plant and to push for more widespread use of hemp in products. The free event was open to the public and consisted of informational booths on hemp, as well as free samples of hemp products. There also were places for attendees to purchase food, beer, clothing, pet food and other products made from hemp. Jason Amatucci, founder and executive director of the coalition, said he hopes the event, which was held on the last day of Hemp History Week, becomes an annual tradition. Marty Phipps of Old Dominion Hemp, which sells bedding made from hemp for horses and small farm animals, set up a booth for his business to tell people about his product and how industrial hemp could be a benefit for the agricultural industry. Were just out here showing people that there is another avenue for hemp to be distributed, he said. people are familiar with the bracelets and stuff like that and the food, of course but were also showing that theres an agricultural use for farmers to utilize this product. Jay Roskow, a Nelson County resident, said he came to learn more about the hemp industry and how the plant can be utilized. Its the first one of these things that Ive been to, he said. I figured I wanted to see what they had to say. Hemp farming, I think, could be a possibly very good thing for Virginia, so I wanted to see what kind of information there is here relating to that. Another aspect of the event was to educate people about state and federal laws regarding hemp production and manufacturing. Earlier this year, Virginia lawmakers passed House Bill 699 and Senate Bill 691, which allow for licensed, legalized commercial and private hemp farming and manufacturing in Virginia. Amatucci said Virginia and surrounding states are considered hot zones for growing hemp. Although Virginia allows for the agricultural cultivation of hemp, the federal government bans the growing of hemp because of its relation to cannabis through the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Amatucci said one of the purposes of events like Virginia Hemp History Day is to clear up misconceptions people have about hemp. Hemp is a family thing its not about drugs. Were getting away from that stigma, he said. Phipps said hes asked all the time if hemp is something people can use to get high. Thats what I want people to know, he said. No, you cannot smoke it. Close to 100 people had come by the ranch within the events first hour, and Amatucci said about 500 people had stopped in by the end of the evening, including attendees of all ages. More information about hemp legislation and the Virginia Industrial Hemp Coalition can be found at vahemp.org. Michael Bragg can be reached at mbragg@dailyprogress.com or (434) 978-7243. The Daily Progress (VA) This election cycle, talk of deficit reduction has faded like last New Years resolutions. Some presidential candidates are talking about greater defense spending, while President Barack Obamas budget for Fiscal Year 2017 also calls for increasing national defense spending (including nuclear weapons) to $537 billion. The Republican leadership is looking for at least that much, and some members of Congress are insisting on more. Is this what the people think is best? A new Citizen Cabinet survey finds that Virginians do not share this enthusiasm for defense increases and even favor modest reductions. In an innovative survey where respondents were allowed to make up their own defense budget, more than half brought it down to $504 billion. In addition, majorities cut the F-35 fighter program and reduced the number of aircraft carriers. A representative sample of 471 registered voters in Virginia participated in the survey, which was conducted by the University of Marylands Program for Public Consultation and released by Voice Of the People. Citizen Cabinet surveys are unique in that respondents go through an online process called a policymaking simulation in this case, developed with defense experts and reviewed in advance by key Republican and Democratic congressional staffers to assure its accuracy and balance. Respondents were briefed on the current national defense budget and shown historical trends. They evaluated strongly stated arguments in favor of spending and in favor of cutting overall, and for the seven major areas of defense spending. Finally, they were given the opportunity to adjust the amounts budgeted for each area of defense spending, getting constant feedback about their totals. Overall, 64 percent made net cuts. Relative to the 2015 national defense spending level (including nuclear weapons) of $509 billion they were presented, the majority cut $5 billion. This included cutting ground forces by $2 billion (or 2 percent), nuclear weapons by $2 billion (8 percent) and missile defense by $1 billion (13 percent). Air power, naval forces, special operations and the marines were left untouched. No areas were increased. A majority of Democrats in Virginia cut $24 billion; Republicans were divided, with majorities not supporting either increases or decreases. In addition, 59 percent of Virginians favored cutting the F-35 program, saving $6 billion in one year and $97 billion over the next 21 years. Reducing the numbers of aircraft carriers from 11 to 10 was approved by nearly 6 in 10, saving $7 billion over the next 10 years. Other programs fared better. Presented with a controversial proposal for a new long-range stealth bomber called Next Generation to replace the B-2 bomber (which would cost $32 billion over the next 10 years), 51 percent approved of it. Fifty-three percent rejected a proposal to reduce the number of planned nuclear submarines from 12 to 8. The study of Virginians was part of a larger national study of 7,126 respondents. Nationally a majority of voters (61 percent) cut defense spending with a majority cutting $12 billion or more. A majority of Democrats cut $36 billion, independents cut $20 billion; and among Republicans there was not majority support for either increases or decreases. So how much would you spend on defense? The full defense budget simulation our representative panels went through is now posted online for anyone to try at: research.cfrinc.net/vop15350pub/. These days, Americans are expressing a lot of dissatisfaction with government. Polls show that voters from both ends of the spectrum are sounding a common theme: elected officials are not listening to constituents, but rather the special interests that make campaign contributions. This survey is one more piece of confirming evidence that leaders are indeed out of step with the people. Steven Kull is the director of the University of Marylands Program for Public Consultation and president of Voice Of the People, a nonpartisan organization that uses innovative methods and technology to help give the American people a more effective voice in government. Steven Kull LEICESTER - England - Gordon Brown's speech today claims that remaining in the EU means more jobs, lower energy prices, a clampdown on tax avoidance, stronger workers' rights and greater security. He is wrong on all counts and has been wrong before on the EU. Responding to Gordon Browns speech at Leicester on the European Union, Vote Leave Chair Gisela Stuart said: We had an opportunity to get positive changes out of the EU but David Cameron blew it with his failed renegotiation. Labour voters have seen through the spin of the Government which is why they are rejecting the IN campaign and no amount of hastily cobbled together relaunches will change that. As my own experience with the EU constitution taught me, Brussels only heads in one direction seizing more power and money from member states at every opportunity. If we want to take back control of our borders, economy and democracy, if we want to stop handing Brussels 350 million a week and if want to create a fairer Britain, we have to Vote Leave on 23 June. The UK has gone further than EU law on workers rights. Further harmonisation of social legislation poses a threat to the UKs more generous protections. The EU has destroyed jobs. If we Vote Leave, we can create 300,000 new jobs through new trade deals. The EU keeps fuel bills high through VAT which we will scrap if we Vote Leave. This will benefit low income households in particular. The European Court facilitates tax avoidance. HMRC could have to pay out 43 billion to big businesses by 2021 due to its rulings. The EU and the European Court are undermining the UKs security, by keeping dangerous people in the UK and weakening our border controls. Gordon Brown broke many promises on the EU when he was in Government. The UK has gone further than EU law on workers rights. Further harmonisation of social legislation poses a threat to the UKs more generous protections. The Wilson Government passed the Equal Pay Act 1970 before it entered the then European Economic Community in 1973. The Labour Government passed the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, before the first EU Directive on the topic was adopted. There is no need to be in the EU to ensure equal pay for equal work. The Employment Protection Act 1975 provided that a woman who was dismissed on the grounds of pregnancy was to be treated as unfairly dismissed. This was adopted long before the Pregnant Workers Directive. The UK has been more generous than EU law on paid holidays, with 5.6 weeks entitlement each year, rather than the four contained in EU law. The UK is more generous on maternity pay. Statutory maternity pay lasts for 39 weeks under UK law. This is much more generous than EU law, which provides for a period of 14 weeks. UK legislation also gives women the right to receive 90% of their salary during the first six weeks of leave. EU law only requires that the rate of pay be equivalent to statutory sick pay in this period. This is 88.45 per week. The UK is more generous on maternity leave. UK maternity leave may be taken for up to 52 weeks. EU law only requires a period of four months. The right of part-time workers not to be discriminated against is contained in UK legislation. The enabling legislation was the Employment Relations Act 1999. This means that protections for part-time workers would remain in UK law if we left the EU. The EU has destroyed jobs. If we Vote Leave, we can create 300,000 new jobs through new trade deals. Youth unemployment in Greece is 51.4%. Youth unemployment in Spain is 45.0%. As a result of disastrous EU policies, the suicide rate in Greece rose by 35% between 2010 and 2012. Suicides in Spain have risen by 20% since the start of the economic crisis. Average net earnings for a single person without children in Greece fell by 17% between 2010 and 2015. Control over trade policy could create 300,000 jobs. The EUs failure to conclude just five trade agreements, with the United States, Japan, ASEAN, India and Mercosur has, according to the European Commissions own figures, cost the UK 284,341 jobs. The EU keeps fuel bills high through VAT which we will scrap if we Vote Leave. This will benefit low income households in particular. European Union law prevents the UK from cutting VAT on household energy bills. The Labour Partys 1997 Manifesto stated that the tragedy is that those hardest hit are least able to pay. That is why we strongly opposed the imposition of VAT on fuel. If we Vote Leave, we will be able to scrap VAT on household energy bills, as the UK will have left the EUs common system of VAT. Each household on average spends 25.80 per week on electricity, gas and other fuels, or 1,341.60 per year. Subtracting VAT of 5% would reduce this figure to 1,277.70, a saving of 63.89 per household. Scrapping VAT on fuel will benefit low income households. The lowest decile on average spends 9.1% of average household income on electricity, gas and other fuels. The average UK household spends 4.9% of its income on energy, while the top decile spends just 3.1% of its income on energy. The EU has admitted its policies increase the cost of energy. The European Commission has admitted: Energy costs [are] to rise in all scenarios. The European Court facilitates tax avoidance. HMRC could have to pay out 43 billion to big businesses by 2021 due to its rulings. The UK is paying billions to big business in tax refunds because of EU law. The sum of HMRCs liabilities and contingent liabilities for taxes subject to challenge (such liabilities being caused by challenges to tax legislation under EU law) was 42.781 billion on 31 March 2015 (liabilities: 7.181 billion; contingent liabilities: 35.6 billion). The Justice Secretary, Michael Gove, has said the European Communities Act 1972 should be amended after the referendum to end these payouts. We can also better limit tax avoidance outside the EU. Changes to the UKs anti-avoidance rules which apply to controlled foreign companies were introduced to comply with a 2006 judgement of the European Court. These changes have meant 2.36 billion in lost revenue since 2012 when the judgement was implemented, and a recurring cost of 840 million per year. The EU and the European Court are undermining the UKs security. We cannot remove persons involved in terrorism or convicted murderers. The European Court is undermining our border controls. Terrorists. In 2015, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled the UK could not exclude ZZ from the UK because of EU law, despite the fact that he was a suspected terrorist. The Commission concluded that: We are confident that the Appellant was actively involved in the GIA [Algerian Armed Islamic Group], and was so involved well into 1996. He had broad contacts with GIA extremists in Europe. His accounts as to his trips to Europe are untrue. We conclude that his trips to the Continent were as a GIA activist. Killers. In 1995, Chindamo, who is an Italian citizen, murdered the headteacher Philip Lawrence who went to help a 13-year-old boy who was being attacked. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996. In 2007, Mr Justice Collins, sitting in the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, ruled that removing Chindamo would be disproportionate under EU law. David Cameron said that Tribunals decision flies in the face of common sense. It is a shining example of what is going wrong in our country. He is someone who has been found guilty of murder and should be deported back to his country What about the rights of Mrs Lawrence or the victim?. Cameron said: This does seem to be complete madness. Border controls. In December 2014, the European Court decided that the UK could not require third country nationals who are married to EU citizens to obtain a permit from UK authorities to enter the UK. The British Government is instead obliged in principle to accept as valid residence cards issued by other EU countries. This is despite the fact that Mr Justice Haddon-Cave had found that forgery of such permits was systemic. The former Secretary General of Interpol, Ronald K Noble, has noted that: Eight Schengen countries were on the list of the top 10 nations reporting stolen or lost passports in Interpols databases. Gordon Brown broke many promises on the EU when he was Prime Minister. He failed to hold a referendum on the European Constitution. Brown signed the Lisbon Treaty (which was almost identical to the European Constitution) on 13 December 2007. This was despite a promise in the 2005 Labour Manifesto that: We will put it [the Constitution] to the British people in a referendum. He surrendered many vetoes. The Treaty surrendered 70 vetoes over EU law. Despite this, Brown claimed: there were no major constitutional changes. Our national sovereignty has been protected. He signed up to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, with his Government wrongly claiming there was an opt out. The Lisbon Treaty included the Charter of Fundamental Rights, although the Government falsely claimed at the time it had an opt out. The then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, claimed: A new legally binding protocol guarantees that nothing in the charter extends the ability of any court to strike down UK law. The Charter has been used to strike down the UKs surveillance regime. In July 2015, the Divisional Court in London annulled the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014, for being inconsistent with the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, had said the legislation was crucial to fighting crime, protecting children, and combating terrorism. The European Court will now decide whether the legislation is allowed after the referendum. He surrendered part of the rebate as Chancellor. Gordon Brown was Chancellor when Tony Blair surrendered half of the UK rebate, despite the Government promising that the rebate will remain and we will not negotiate it away. Period. Tony Blairs changes have now cost the UK at least 10.4 billion. He sold 60% of Britains gold reserves at the bottom of the market. From 1999 2002, Gordon Brown sold off Britains gold reserves at the lowest price in decades. By doing so, Brown lost the taxpayer 2 billion. ANKARA - Turkey - Leaked documents reveal that visa free access to Turkish citizens will most certainly occur after June 23 EU referendum. Here is conclusive proof that the Prime Minister David Cameron is planning a visa deal with Turkey after June 23 EU referendum: In a telegram to the Foreign Office on May 5, Janet Douglas, the deputy head of mission in Ankara, called for Britain to let in thousands of Turkish citizens. She acknowledged that this would be a risk but said it would be a significant and symbolic gesture to Turkey. Douglas warned that failure to help Turkey would lead to a backlash, saying if visa liberalisation doesnt happen, an impetuous and riled Erdogan prone to come out fighting when he feels betrayed could carry through his threat to open the flood gates to Europe for migrants. Europol has warned Theresa May that migration fuels terrorism. The Commission has sought to keep the migration situation under control until after the referendum: Nick Pickard, the deputy head of mission in Berlin, said Angela Merkels Europe adviser Uwe Corsepius was confident that the Commission, for their part, would avoid major escalation of tensions before the end of June quoting him as saying: We can keep this under control. The British Government is preparing a memorandum of understanding on migration with Turkey. The Government regards visa liberalisation for 1.8 million Kosovars as a drop in the ocean. Despite David Camerons claims on Sunday, Turkey and four other countries are joining the EU, with his and the European Commissions full support. David Cameron refused to veto Turkish accession or commit to hold a referendum. David Cameron refused to veto Turkish accession or commit to hold a referendum. During his interview, David Cameron refused (1) to veto Turkish accession or (2) to hold a referendum. He simply claimed its not going to happen and that you cannot find an expert who thinks Turkey will join the EU. Clearly, he does not consider the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to be experts. The accession process is being accelerated. On 4 May 2016, the European Commission announced that: The accession process will be re-energised, with Chapter 33 to be opened and preparatory work on the opening of other chapters to continue at an accelerated pace. David Cameron strongly supports this. In 2010, Cameron said he was angry at the slow pace of Turkish accession, that he was the strongest possible advocate for EU membership for Turkey, and that I want us to pave the road from Ankara to Brussels. In 2014, he said that: In terms of Turkish membership of the EU, I very much support that. Thats a longstanding position of British foreign policy which I support. The Government admitted it supported Turkish accession last month. Last month, the Europe Minister, David Lidington, said: The UK supports Turkeys EU accession process. The British public will not get a vote on the accession of Turkey to the EU. The European Union Act 2011 allows the Government to ratify EU accession treaties without a referendum. There was no referendum on the accession of Croatia to the EU in 2013 (European Union. The Government opposes giving the British people a say. As the Minister for Europe, David Lidington, said in 2011: A few years ago, 10 new member states joined the European Union at the same time. I believe that their combined population then was 73 million, which is slightly greater than Turkeys population is now. I do not believe that anybody in this country argued at that time that a British referendum on those accessions was right. The UK is paying 2 billion to help Turkey, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia to join the EU. Turkey alone is set to receive over 1 billion of UK funds to help prepare it for membership. LONDON - England - Eurostat's publication today of acquisition of citizenship statistics for the EU reveal the UK has no control of migration and the numbers of migrants are increasing at an exponential rate into the EU. Commenting on the publication of Eurostat figures on the acquisition of citizenship in the EU, Vote Leave Chief Executive Matthew Elliott said: These figures show how little control we have over our borders while we stay in the EU. Since 2009, close to four million people have been given the right to come to the UK, with Moroccans, Albanians and Turkish citizens the main beneficiaries. The number of people coming to the EU is increasing each year and it is becoming unsustainable. This level of migration puts a strain on our invaluable public services, as well as jobs and wages. The British people are absolutely right to be concerned. However, today the Prime Ministers EU campaign chief endorsed comments referring to those that want to take back control of our borders, and leave the EU, as idiots. I think thats appalling. The only way to take back control of how our country and our economy is governed is to vote to leave the EU on the 23 June. Eurostat has today published acquisition of citizenship statistics for the EU. Over three-quarters of a million people gained the right to come to the UK in 2014. Grants of citizenship by other EU member states are on the rise. Since 2009, EU member states have granted citizenship to 3.96 million persons, the equivalent of the accession of Albania and Montenegro. The UK has no control over how other EU member states issue national citizenship. The European Court is taking control over British citizenship, declaring EU citizenship is the fundamental status of British citizens. The Prime Ministers EU campaign chief endorsed comments referring to those that want to take back control of our borders, and leave the EU, as idiots. Over three-quarters of a million people gained the right to come to the UK in 2014. In 2014, EU member states granted citizenship to 889,139 persons. The UK granted citizenship to 125,605 persons. This means that other member states granted citizenship to 763,534 persons in 2014. The vast majority of these are non-EU nationals who gained EU citizenship for the first time. Eurostat notes that: 9 out of 10 persons granted an EU citizenship in 2014 were non-EU citizens. Under EU law, every EU citizen has the right to enter, reside and work in the UK. EU law provides that: Every citizen of the Union has the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States. Grants of citizenship by other EU member states are on the rise. Since 2009, EU member states have granted citizenship to 3.96 million persons, the equivalent of the accession of Albania and Montenegro. Grants of EU citizenship by other member states have risen from 568,200 in 2009 to 763,500 in 2014. Between 2009 and 2014, other EU member states granted citizenship to 3.96 million persons. This is the equivalent of the combined accession of Albania (population: 2.89 million) and Montenegro (population: 0.62 million). We have no control over how other EU member states issue national citizenship. Some countries in the Schengen area sell passports. Until 2014, Malta sold national passports to the highest bidder with no residence requirement. The European Court is taking control over British citizenship, declaring EU citizenship is the fundamental status of British citizens. In 2001, the European Court declared EU citizenship would be the fundamental status of nationals of the Member States. In its Rottmann ruling in 2010, the European Court said that Member States must, when exercising their powers in the sphere of nationality, have due regard to European Union law, blocking member states from automatically stripping national citizenship from criminals who acquire it fraudulently. These judgements were in direct breach of promises made to Denmark in 1992 that EU citizenship would not in any way take the place of national citizenship. The question whether an individual possesses the nationality of a Member State will be settled solely by reference to the national law of the Member State concerned. David Cameron has used the Danish deal as a model for his own renegotiation, claiming: Denmark negotiated the same sort of legal opt-outs and, 23 years on, they clearly stand and are legally binding. Those are the facts. The Prime Ministers EU campaign chief endorsed comments referring to those that want to take back control of our borders, and leave the EU, as idiots. Ryan Coetzee, who is Director of Strategy for the Prime Ministers campaign, has described as brilliant an article by Matthew DAncona (Twitter, 12 June 2016, link). The article said leaving the EU was the idiot option. Mr Coetzee has previously claimed that: No policy on immigration is the right policy (Twitter, 31 May 2016, link). Ford launched the 2017 Ford KA+ in the European market, which is the same as the Ford Figo manufactured and sold in India. The European KA+ is assembled in the Sanand, Gujarat, manufacturing facility, in India, and gets exported to Europe. Ford has added plenty of add-ons to suit the more aggressively consuming European market, at a budget price point of 8995 (Rs. 8.85 lakh). A few of the standard add-ons go into the base variant and a few more into the top-end variant, along with the standard ones. The European 2017 Ford KA+ is a 5-door hatchback, unlike its Indian counterpart. Offered in two variants, Style and Ztec, the Ford KA+ has a 1.2liter Duratec Ti-VCT petrol engine available in two states of tune, 69 BHP and 85 BHP, mated to a 5-speed manual transmission. On the other hand, the Indian Figo uses 1.2Liter 86 bhp output engine and also the 1.5liter 98 bhp output engine. The mileage of the Ford KA+ is around 20 km/l, against the 15-20 km/l offered by the petrol variant of the Indian Figo. With a reengineered subframe and with the vehicle riding lower than the Figo; revised steering, improved suspension, ORVMs, remote central locking, front power windows, etc. are some of the add-ons intended to offer comfort, while the safety features include six airbags, rear torsion beam axle, anti-roll bar, speed limiter, ABS (Anti-lock Braking System), ESC (Electronic Stability Control), HAC (Hill-Start Assist Control), etc., as standard add-ons available in both the variants. The higher powered 85 BHP variant gets even fancier features as rear power windows, 15-inch alloy wheels, auto climate control, heated seats, leather steering, cruise control, rear parking sensors, etc. in addition to the standard features. Despite the multiple add-ons the hatchback comes with, the 2017 Ford KA+ is a budget vehicle that goes below the Ford Fiesta hatchback. The Ford KA+ has just been launched in Europe and bookings have begun, while delivery of the vehicles will begin by late this year. Source: Vicky.in New Delhi: Targeting April 2017 for the rollout of Goods and Services Tax, the government is betting on support from smaller regional parties to pass the national sales tax legislation in the Parliament session from next month, and expects approval for supporting laws by year-end. GST was earlier planned to be introduced from April 1 this year, converting 29 states into a single market through the new indirect tax regime, but the deadline was missed as the bill to roll it out remains stalled in the opposition- dominated Rajya Sabha. "If we can pass it in the monsoon session (of Parliament beginning next month), then we can implement it in April 1, 2017," Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha told PTI. The government has enough backing from smaller regional parties to pass the Bill in Rajya Sabha without support from the main opposition Congress party, he said. Congress, which first proposed the constitutional amendment in 2006, is demanding capping the overall rate at 18 per cent and scrapping an additional 1 per cent tax designed to compensate manufacturing-heavy states that fear losing revenue once the measure is implemented. After Parliament approves the constitutional amendment to allow GST, it needs to be ratified by more than half of states. Then Parliament must pass another bill to implement the GST, Sinha said. "First the Constitution Amendment will have to be ratified by 50 per cent of the state assemblies, then the GST Bill will be passed by all the state assemblies," he said. After the Constitution Amendment Bill is passed in Parliament, there are three more legislations - Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) - which are required to be passed. "Of course, there is a complicated legislative calendar that we have to work through. Then there are implementation issues which are working, but we feel that we can get all of that done in time," he said. Meanwhile, the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers will deliberate on the model GST law at a two-day meeting in Kolkata beginning tomorrow. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will participate in the meeting and try to iron out differences with the states over the new regime. The GST bill -- which will help create a single national sales tax to replace several state and central levies -- has already been approved by the Lok Sabha or Lower House of Parliament and is pending in the Upper House where the government doesn't have a majority. Sinha hoped to get support of most of the parties on GST Bill so that it is passed with national consensus. "Our expectation is that we will get support from many parties. We would like it to be passed with a national consensus, so we would like all parties to approve it. In the Lok Sabha when the Constitution Amendment was passed, it was passed unanimously. So we would like it to be passed in Rajya Sabha unanimously as well," he said. Mallya's statement said Kingfisher had provided evidence that the funds were used for legitimate business purposes. Exiled tycoon Vijay Mallya said on Sunday that Indian authorities trying to recover about $1.4 billion from his collapsed Kingfisher Airlines had no legal grounds for sequestering certain assets in a money laundering case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) tweeted on Saturday that it had "attached" properties worth 14.11 billion Indian rupees ($210.78 million) in the case involving a loan from state-owned IDBI Bank to Kingfisher to buy properties abroad. The assets were purchased several years before Kingfisher was launched, Mallya said in a statement to the media on Sunday. "There is no rationale nor any legal basis for the series of actions initiated by the ED which is now making it more difficult to raise resources to pay the banks," Mallya said. The ED says Mallya's United Breweries Group used 4.3 billion rupees of Kingfisher bank loans to buy property overseas. Mallya's statement said Kingfisher had provided evidence that the funds were used for legitimate business purposes. Creditors, led by State Bank of India have rejected an offer of partial repayment by Mallya, who had given a personal guarantee for the Kingfisher loan. They want the former billionaire, who is living in Britain, to attend a hearing in India's Supreme Court. The foreign ministry in April revoked a diplomatic passport that he carried as a member of parliament's upper house. A judge in Mumbai has non-bailable warrant for his arrest. Bhopal: The censor board has cleared the controversial drug-themed Bollywood film 'Udta Punjab' with 13 cuts under the 'A' category, its chairman Pahlaj Nihalani said today. "We have today cleared Udta Punjab under A (restricted for adult audience) category after 13 cuts," Nihalani told reporters on the sidelines of a function here. Nihalani, who was in the eye of the storm over suggesting a very large number of cuts, said nine members of the Central Board of Film Certification watched the film and "unanimously" cleared it after the proposed 13 cuts. "The CBFCs job is now over. It is now up to the producer to go to the court or tribunal. We will implement the order," Nihalani said. The Abhishek Chaubey-directed film is tentatively scheduled for release on June 17. The CBFC's revising committee had suggested a number of changes in the movie, which stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor-Khan and Diljit Dosanjh, and deals with the problem of drug addiction among youth in Punjab. Meanwhile, responding to a query, Nihalani, who has been criticised by the film fraternity for his "dictatorial attitude" said, "those call me cheap are themselves 'ghatia' (lowly)". Nihalani clarified that he never called himself as "chamcha" (sycophant) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "There is nothing wrong in admiring the Prime Minister. I never said (I am) a chamcha," he said. The makers of the movie, Phantom Films had approached the Bombay High Court against an order of the revising committee of CBFC that suggested certain changes in the film. A string of changes proposed included removing a signboard mentioning Punjab and other suggestions. The HC had on Friday said that the makers of 'Udta Punjab' should tone down expletives and vulgar scenes as these alone cannot make a film work. A division bench had concluded hearing arguments on the petition and is expected to pass order in the case tomorrow. In Punjab which is set for assembly polls next year, the opposition parties had accused the ruling SAD-BJP of using influence to "censor" 'Udta Punjab'. However, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said the government had "nothing to do" with the movie and that the matter was between the producers and the Censor Board. Badal's rival and Punjab Congress Chief Amarinder Singh said he has written to producers of 'Udta Punjab', requesting them to provide him uncensored CDs of the film to release it in Amritsar on June 17. Film's co-producer Anurag Kashyap got support of BSP supremo Mayawati who said there was "nothing wrong" with 'Udta Punjab' and that the party supported it. The I&B ministry had sought to distance itself from the controversy, saying the certification process was independent. I&B minister Arun Jaitley had, however, said radical changes in the certification process were in the offing. The ministry had earlier formed a committee under filmmaker Shyam Benegal to look at the functioning of the censor board. The panel has already submitted the first part of its report. Mumbai: In a massive turn of events, the Bombay High Court on Monday rapped the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) for the cuts it ordered in the film Udta Punjab, saying mere references, signboards of Punjab does not affect sovereignty and integrity of India. The movie, that stars Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Punjab superstar Diljit Dosanjh, courted a major controversy after it ran into trouble with the CBFC, with officials reportedly demanding 89 cuts in it and the removal of the word Punjab from the title. After hearing the plea by Udta Punjabs co-producers Phantom Films and Balaji Telefilms against the cuts suggested by the CBFC, the court has ordered the Board to clear the film with just one cut. Lawyer Ameet Naik, who represented the Udta Punjab team in court, said, It is the freedom of creative artists to offend and they should be allowed to offend. The Court observed, Creative freedom envisages presentation and choice of words. Hence the attempt is not to discourage the making of films. Board has to ensure drugs are not glamourised. The court further added that the CBFC must exercise its powers consistently in consonance with the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech. The CBFC had asked for the word Punjab to be eliminated from the title and that references to the state should be removed from the film altogether, including a signboard that had the word Punjab on it. To that the court said, The title contains the word Punjab, so there is no need to delete scene of a sign board showing Punjab. The Board had also heavily objected to the rampant usage of cuss words in the film. The court observed that adults would not be tempted to use foul language simply because they heard it in the movie, so it permitted the film to hit theatres with all the cuss words in place. The court also responded to the CBFCs demand to delete a visual of a sardarji 'scratching his sides, pointing out that the scene does not show the community in bad light. Furthermore, rubbishing the Boards apprehensions about close-up shots of drugs being injected, the judge said that the sequence does not encourage or glorify drugs. Another cut demanded by the Board was removing the sentence, Jamin banzar te aulad kanjar. The court observed that it does not suggest anything about the state and added, Punjab is a land of warriors, they are not that sensitive. However, the judge maintained that the sequence where Shahid Kapoors character Tommy Singh urinates in front of a crowd could be done away with, as there is enough material for the filmmakers to drive home their point even without this scene. The court has directed the CBFC to issue certificate in two days. In a strongly worded order, the court to the CBFC, Do not act like a grandmother. Change as per the times now. The CBFC need not be over-sensitive in the matter of art. Preity Zinta, who was in the news for her private wedding with Gene Goodenough a few months back, is all support for the severe draught conditions in Maharashtra. The actress recently constructed a well in a village near Nasik city in Maharashtra that was inaugurated on Sunday. The well was constructed with the motive to conserve and save water to help the villagers during this crisis in the state. The state has been experiencing water shortage for a very long time due to which even the IPL matches were shifted from Nagpur to Mohali! The actress took up this initiative to help the villagers in Maharashta and thanked the team who made this happen on social media. Earlier, Preity has also spoken publicly on various womens and childrens issues in India, and participated in fundraisers for various Indian charities. In 2010, she became the brand ambassador for The Loomba Trust, a charity that supports widows and their children. She is also associated with Red Cross that provides relief to victims of disasters and help people prevent, prepare, and respond to emergencies. The student research determined whether or not the seemingly superhuman abilities used by the famous characters in films and comic books are in fact possible. (Photo: Representative image) London: The best-equipped superhero of all could be DC's Superman, followed closely by Marvel's Wolverine, Mystique and Thor, according to a new research that also suggests that Batman may be the most disadvantaged in terms of special powers. Students at the University of Leicester in the UK have been using simple calculations to explain the feasibility of the powers behind of some of the most prominent comic book superheroes known around the world. The student research determined whether or not the seemingly superhuman abilities used by the famous characters in films and comic books are in fact possible. Whilst Black Bolt, ruler of the 'Inhumans', may be the most destructive of the superheroes (capable of planetary annihilation), the study suggests that the 'Last Son of Krypton' Superman is likely to be the best equipped to win in an epic clash between all of the studied superheroes. Boasting a super-powered array of skills, Superman, if obeying the 'Law of Energy Conservation', could exhibit a calculated stored solar energy output of over 700 thousand Joules per second for his 'Super Flare' attack. It is also shown that the 'Man of Steel', in theory, could have higher density muscle tissue than the average human which could aid in several of his superhuman abilities. This incredible display of power makes Superman the number one candidate for most powerful superhero. Honourable mentions go out to X-Men duo Wolverine and Mystique who were close contenders for the title of world's finest with their multitude of mutant abilities including increased regenerative capacity and, in the case of Mystique, a mastery of gene manipulation to aid in disguise. The superhero Thor, based off of the Norse god of the same name, would also be one of the most formidable superheroes, having high energy efficiency and explosive powers. With strongest superhero determined, the study also shed light on who the most ill-equipped superhero might be with a seemingly grim end result for Gotham's 'Caped Crusader', Batman. Though his cape proves to be a vital utility when gliding in comic and media depictions, the student-led research suggests that when gliding Batman reaches velocities of around 80kilometres per hour - which could be fatal upon landing. This inability to perform even the simplest of superhero feats suggest Batman would struggle to get off the ground. The research was published in the University of Leicester's Journal of Physics Special Topics and Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics - student-run journals designed to give practical experience of writing, editing, publishing and reviewing scientific papers. She wrote to Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and travelled to Gandhinagar to lobby state government officials. Ahmedabad: A business student who went undercover to expose child labour at a factory promised on Monday to keep up the fight after her efforts led to the rescue of more than 100 children. Jharna Joshi, 22, was visiting relatives in Gujarat when she noticed large numbers of children going to work at a ceramics factory. She asked local people about the issue but could not confirm the workers were under-age, so decided to apply for a management trainee job at the factory. "In the factory I accessed records of these workers and found that the majority of them were below 18 years of age. Some were even below 14 years which is illegal," she told AFP. When her appeals to local child protection authorities went unheeded, she wrote to the Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel and travelled to Gandhinagar to lobby state government officials. Earlier this month government officers raided the factory and rescued 111 child workers, most of them girls. Millions of children in India work in factories, mines and other areas, according to aid agencies and government data. The law bans those under 14 from working in hazardous jobs, but activists say it is not properly implemented. Joshi said she was attacked as she went to the police station to record her statement by two men who pulled her off her scooter. But she vowed to continue the fight, saying she knew of more factories in the area that employed under-age workers. "I will continue to fight until the ceramic unit owners are behind bars. They used to make children work in such sub-human conditions," she said. Kottayam: A 47-year-old Indian national has been reported missing from his workplace in Sunaina near Ibri in Oman, his relatives said here on Monday. Relatives of John Philip, who hails from nearby Manarcadu said they suspected it to be a case of abduction. "We have informed the matter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj," they said. According to his brother Jacob Philip, John had gone missing from the fuel filling station in Sunaina in Ibri, some 217 km from Muscat since Friday night. John had been working as a supervisor in the station for the last 12 years, he said. His colleagues reported for duty on Saturday and alerted the Oman police after they found signs of disturbance at the station, he added. The CCTV camera and its hard disc was also found missing from the petrol pump, where John was the only person on duty on Friday night, the relatives claimed. 'We are taking required steps as per the law to ensure their departure from the state and also the country,' Home Secretary Asit Tripathy said. (Photo: AFP) Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government on Monday issued "Leave India" notices to ten Chinese nationals who were working on an expansion project of the Adani Group-controlled Dhamra Port Company Limited in Bhadrak district of the state, a government official said. "The state government has asked the Director of Intelligence and the Superintendent of Police, Bhadrak district to execute Leave India notices on the Chinese nationals," Home Secretary Asit Tripathy told reporters in Bhubaneswar. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had informed the state government last week about the presence of 10 Chinese nationals in Bhadrak district where sensitive defence establishments were located. "We are taking required steps as per the law to ensure their departure from the state and also the country," Tripathy said. Stating that the notices were issued as per the suggestion of the foreigners division of the MHA, he said the Chinese nationals were engaged by a Thai company at the port since a few months. Though the Chinese nationals were holding business visas, they worked as employees of the Thai company, official sources said. "Initially 19 Chinese nationals came to Bhadrak and worked under the Thai company on DPCL's expansion project. Meanwhile, nine of them have already left the state. Therefore, we are serving notices to 10 Chinese nationals," Bhadrak SP Nihar Ranjan Das told PTI over phone. They were mostly working on soil testing for the expansion project of the Port and staying outside the Dhamra Port Company Limited (DPCL) campus. They were staying in a rented house in Bhadrak district, a port insider said. The government action in this regard came as the foreigners were found engaged in work at a place close to the missile-launch facility at APJ Abdul Kalam Island, earlier known as Wheeler's Island. Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan said that the BJP has turned a blind eye to numerous corruption charges leveled on its ministers. New Delhi: Belying tall claims of corruption-free governance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at its National Executive meet, the Congress on Monday said the saffron party has become "corruption blind". Congress spokesperson Tom Vadakkan told ANI that the BJP has turned a blind eye to numerous corruption charges leveled on its ministers and is refusing to own up nefarious activities of its leaders. Read: Corruption-free decision making helping country's economy: BJP "Very surprising indeed, I have heard of people being colour blind, but a party being 'corruption blind' is very strange, because we have seen it in Vyapam; we have seen it in Chhattisgarh, the son and father are involved; we have seen it in Rajasthan, where the mother and son were involved in corruption activities. And then, we have involvement of Cabinet Ministers in the Lalit Modi case," said Vadakkan. "There are many blind spots which the BJP refuse to recognize and they still claim to be have zero tolerance against corruption. The people of India are watching and let them realize that such utterances are out of place in public domain," he added. Addressing the media on the sidelines of the BJP's national executive meeting in Allahabad , Union Minister for Telecom Ravi Shankar Prasad had on Sunday highlighted the NDA government's achievements in the last two years in office. "No corruption has taken place under our government. Our government works on the ground of no policy paralysis and decisive leadership," he said. The Congress leaders and Anand accused Subhas Chandra, a media baron, of 'playing fraud on the democracy and Constitution.' (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Congress on Monday approached the Election Commission to demand cancellation of the election to both Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana, alleging a conspiracy by BJP-RSS led to the defeat of a candidate backed by the party under controversial circumstances. A delegation comprising Congress general secretary BK Hariprasad, party's Haryana unit chief Ashok Tanwar and its legal cell secretary KC Mittal accused the Manohar Lal Khattar dispensation of "misusing" the government machinery to defeat RK Anand. Read: RS polls: Rebellion hits Congress in Haryana, R K Anand loses The Congress leaders and Anand, a well known lawyer, claimed there was no "internal sabotage" that caused the defeat. INLD, which had originally backed Anand, had alleged that Congress leader and former Chief Minister BS Hooda and BJP were "responsible" for the 14 votes of party MLAs being declared invalid in Saturday's Rajya Sabha election, leading to the victory of BJP-supported independent candidate Subhash Chandra. Read: Congress trio to meet Rahul Gandhi to talk poll loss The Congress leaders and Anand accused Chandra, a media baron, of "playing fraud on the democracy and Constitution" with the help of an independent MLA and some EC officials. "There was a conspiracy hatched to hijack the elections... We have made a complaint to the Election Commission about the fraud played by Subhash Chandra, Jai Prakash (independent MLA) in the Rajya Sabha election. "The AICC too has filed its complaint. The EC has heard our side, they will decide the matter accordingly. We have urged them to declare as null and void the entire election process and hold re-polling there," Anand told reporters after the meeting with EC officials. Hariprasad said all the Congress MLAs voted for Anand "as per the direction of the party". Hariprasad said he, being agent of the party during the polls, had seen votes of all but one MLA. "There was no revolt. Congress people voted (to the right candidate), it was the conspiracy of the RSS-BJP. This indeed is a conspiracy and deliberate attempt (to defeat Anand). It is a big conspiracy to wipe out Constitution and election process," he said. When asked by reporters whether Hooda did not vote, Hariprasad retorted, "Who told you that Hooda did not vote? He did cast his vote." On the pen theory, Anand claimed it was BJP legislator Aseem Goyal who had allegedly switched the pen meant for marking the votes so as to make the 14 Congress votes declared invalid. He alleged that Jai Prakash took away the original pen from the voting enclosure. When asked why the pen issue was not raised while the election process was on, Anand said, "One will not know such things when the polling is on". "We realised about the fraud when we checked the voting pattern. There was no point of Jai Prakash going there (inside the booth) again (twice)... after two of our MLAs cast their votes, he (Jai Prakash) went there again and changed the pen," Anand claimed. The votes of 14 Congress MLAs were declared invalid leading to the loss of Anand who was otherwise expected to win. New Delhi: Former TERI chief R K Pachauri, who has been summoned as accused by a Delhi court in a sexual harassment case, has been allowed to travel to various countries to attend conferences and meetings till July 5. Metropolitan Magistrate Shivani Chauhan, who had taken cognisance of the charge sheet filed against Pachauri for allegedly molesting and outraging the modesty of an ex-woman colleague, granted him permission to travel to Mexico, Norway, France and Switzerland. Pachauri, through his counsel Ashish Dixit, had moved an application seeking permission to travel abroad to attend various functions, seminars and conferences till July 5, as per his itinerary. The court allowed the application noting that the investigation was complete and chargesheet has already been filed. "In these circumstances, the accused is permitted to travel as per his itinerary, subject to furnishing of one local surety of Rs 2,00,000 to the satisfaction of this Court and upon furnishing an undertaking that he shall appear in the Court in person or through counsel and shall not dispute his identity at a later stage," the court said. It allowed the request of the Pachauri's counsel that surety furnished by him during the last travel may be considered for this purpose. The court also asked the accused to file a copy of his itinerary and intimate the court after his return and about any changes in his travel plans in advance. During the pendency of the trial, Pachauri has been allowed at least 10 times to travel to various countries, including USA, UK, China, Japan, France, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Kuwait, Somalia and Saudi Arabia. He was chargesheeted by the Delhi police on March 1 this year after which the court took cognisance of the chargesheet on May 14 and summoned him as an accused saying there is sufficient material to proceed against him. Delhi Police had filed an over 1,400-page charge sheet in the court against Pachauri under sections 354-A (sexual harassment), 354-B(assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 354-D (stalking), 509(word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 341 (wrongful confinement) of the IPC. On February 13, last year an FIR was registered against Pachauri for the alleged offences and he was granted anticipatory bail in the case on March 21, 2015. Judith, working for international NGO Aga Khan Foundation, was kidnapped by suspected militants in the heart of Kabul two days ago. (Photo: Twitter) New Delhi: Keeping the hope alive that Judith D'Souza will be home soon, her family today wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to do his "utmost" in securing her release from abductors in Afghanistan. Read: No updates as of now, have full faith in Indian govt: Judith's brother Kolkata-based Judith's father Denzil D'Souza, mother Gloria D'Souza, brother Jerome D'Souza and sister Agnes D'Souza wrote a common letter to the Prime Minister, whose copies were sent to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress MP from the state Derek O'Brien. In the letter, the family members have said that the "brave, thoughtful, generous and compassionate" Judith had been working in Afghanistan for the well-being of the Afghan people and "as an ambassador of goodwill from India's people, participating in the developmental programmes of that country". Read: Indian woman working with an international NGO abducted in Kabul Describing her as a "proud Indian", the family said, "as you can imagine, the news of Judith's kidnapping has shocked and stunned us. It has placed a shroud upon our family." They added, "We were eagerly awaiting her arrival home on vacation in a week from now, and do hope she will be back with us soon." Judith, working for an international NGO Aga Khan Foundation as senior technical adviser, was kidnapped by suspected militants in the heart of Kabul two days ago. She was scheduled to return to India next week. The family members said the government has reached out to them in "our time of need and anxiety" and the External Affairs Minister as well as an official of the ministry had spoken to them in the past two days. "However, we still await concrete details," they said. "Sir, we appeal to you in your capacity as the leader of our great country and as the custodian of the well-being of our citizens, to please do your utmost to get dear Judith back home, among her family, her friends and her people. Please commit all levers you can bring into play to successfully reunite our family," the family wrote in the letter to the Prime Minister. The letter noted Modi's remarks earlier that 'Afghanistan's success is a deeply-held hope and desire of every Indian' and said it is so critical to India's engagement with the neighbouring country. "...we seek your active support under this noble sentiment as well." The family had words of praise for West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee government. "In Kolkata, where we have lived our lives and where Judith was born and educated, the community, our peers and the government, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, have left us overwhelmed with our warmth and solidarity in this hour of crisis for our family," they said. Ranchi: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) supremo and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav appeared before a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court in Ranchi, Jharkhand in connection with the fodder scam case on Monday. "The case is pertaining to RC38A/1996, in which there are a total of 48 accused and most of them were evading personal appearance. That is why all the accused had been ordered by the court to appear before it," said Lalu's counsel Prabhat Kumar. "So far 15-17 accused have marked their presence in the court, and more are expected to visit. The court will take legal action against those who failed to comply with its order," Kumar added. The fodder scam relates to fraudulent withdrawal of around 1,000 crore rupees by the Animal Husbandry department from various districts when Lalu was the Bihar chief minister from 1990 to 1997. On October 3, 2013, Lalu was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in another case of fodder scam by a special CBI court, which had disqualified him from membership of Parliament and also rendered him ineligible for contesting elections for 11 years. Besides Lalu, six other politicians and four retired IAS officers were also sentenced to prison terms for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa treasury (now in Jharkhand) when Lalu was heading the Janta Dal government in the early 1990s in erstwhile Bihar. Meanwhile, with important files related to the fodder scam reportedly missing from the animal and fisheries resources department office in Patna, Union Minister and BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy alleged that this was all being done to get a clean-chit for RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav by his partner in crime Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Rudy said this is all being done by the incumbent grand alliance government in Bihar to facilitate Lalu's acquittal. "The missing files signify there are people in the system trying to get a clean-chit for Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav. Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar are friends and they are partners in crime," he said. Rudy recalled that the RJD boss had to quit as the Bihar chief minister in 1997 because he was charged and sentenced in the fodder scam. "Thereafter, the CBI chargesheeted him. He was put behind the bars. He had to quit his position as the chief minister," he said. "There are reports that the file pertaining to the Fodder scam has been stolen. And it clearly emphasises that there are people in the system who possibly would be working to give a clean-chit or to assist or facilitate the acquittal of Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav," he added. Continuing his tirade against the Nitish-Lalu duo, Rudy said crime has increased in Bihar, adding the state government has begun to protect the criminals. "It seems it's a part of that very same chain. We are all very concerned that the process of law and the process of justice will stand vitiated if such incidents happen where the files pertaining to fodder scam are stolen," he added. Meanwhile, an FIR has been registered at the Old Secretariat police station in this regard. The fodder scam involved the embezzlement of about Rs. 9.4 billion from the government treasury of Bihar. Bengaluru: Hoping for the return of his sister Judith, Jerome D Souza cant stop himself from recalling the best moments he spent with his sister and family. Hoping that Ramzan will bring the family good news soon, DSouza said that the entire family is praying for his sisters return from Afghanistan where she was reportedly abducted by terrorists on Thursday night while she was returning home from a social engagement. Talking to Deccan Chronicle over phone from Kolkata, DSouza, a philanthropist working in Bengaluru, said, We are in touch with higher officials in MEA. A Joint Secretary-level officer from MEA is coordinating with us on Whatsapp. Also, the officials at the Aga Khan Development Network, where my sister was working, are in constant touch with us. My parents and sister are overwhelmed with all the support we are getting. Our gratitude and thankfulness to all. We are hopeful that our sister will come home soon. He said, Judith used to take quarterly breaks. She visited us in March and was scheduled to visit us during Ramzan vacation. I am certain that my sister will be back with us soon. The family updated a family picture on their Twitter account on Sunday with the caption, The last time we were all together, we want her back. Judith D'Souza, working with the Aga Khan Foundation as senior technical adviser gender, was kidnapped along with two other people outside her office in Taimani area of Kabul on Thursday night. Its been four nights since Judith D Souza has remained untraceable. Since the news of her abduction broke out, prayers and support for Judith and her family based in Kolkata has been pouring in on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Netizens from all walks of life have stood in solidarity with the DSouza family. New Delhi: VHP on Monday held "jihadi elements" responsible for the alleged exodus of Hindus from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh and asked the Samajwadi Party government to "rein them in" and tighten law and order in the state. "Jihadis are being encouraged to carry out their activities... VHP calls upon the state government to rein in jihadi elements who are responsible for this exodus and tighten the law and order in the state," VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain said. He hit out at SP leader and state minister Azam Khan over his statements on the Kairana issue and said it only proved the "anti-Hindu mindset" promoted by him. Jain said the migration of Hindus from Kairana is "unfortunate" and the township, which was Hindu majority 40 years ago, now has only eight per cent Hindus. "It is not only Kairana in Uttar Pradesh that is a mute testimony to the exodus of Hindus, there are many more places other than Kairana which are also witnessing this trend of mass out-migration of Hindus. Apart from Kandhla, Gangoh and Thanabhavan, there are many other places in Western UP where Hindus are resorting to mass out-migration," he said. The VHP leader alleged this dismal state of affairs has not come about in one day and "unfortunately the parties that have been governing UP have concentrated more on vote bank politics rather than the interests of the nation and the state. Instead of taking action against the criminals, they provided political patronage to them." Lucknow: The BJP on Monday took pot-shots at the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party (SP) Government in Uttar Pradesh over the recent exodus of Hindu families from Kairana village of Shamli district. Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi on Monday alleged that the ruling dispensation in Uttar Pradesh has no shame about the deteriorating law and order situation. "There will be a time when everyone will wish to leave Uttar Pradesh. There is no development, no protection for farmers or for life," Gandhi said. Claiming that there was neither development nor safety in the state, Maneka Gandhi said that Samajwadi Party Government has no shame about the rising crimes in the state. "I get at least 10 to 15 calls from Uttar Pradesh everyday regarding rape, kidnapping and the lacklustre attitude of the police. It seems the Uttar Pradesh Government has no shame," she added. Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Monday also said that it was unfortunate that people were forced to leave their village in their own country, adding that the state government should take the responsibility. "If people have to leave their village in their own country, then the state government should take the responsibility. If the state government seeks any help from us, we will definitely provide them," said Kiren Rijiju. "The Uttar Pradesh government should take a note of the deteriorating law and order situation and comprehend over it. Hooliganism, hostility and looting, land-related problems etc are rampant in the state, which is adding to people's resentment against the government. The law and order situation has deteriorated to a greater extent and the government must ponder on it. For the development of the state, the government needs to ensure people's safety, which is not happening in Uttar Pradesh," he said. When asked if the Uttar Pradesh government had sent its report to the MHA, Rijiju said, "We have not received a report from the state government. The state government should have sent its report." BJP legislator and Muzaffarnagar riots accused Hukum Singh had earlier reportedly said that the Hindus were being forced to leave their homes in the Muslim-majority town in Uttar Pradesh. According to reports, the police have ordered a probe into the alleged migration after Singh presented a list of 346 families from the Muslim-majority town while claiming that they had to leave their homes after attacks and extortion attempts. Court directed the authorities to confiscate the products seized as per Section 14 of Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products. (Photo: PTI) Chennai: Coming down heavily on sale of tobacco products near educational institutions, particularly schools, Madras High Court on Monday directed the Tamil Nadu government to immediately form special squads to conduct surprise raids on shops located near them. Justice N Kirubakaran, who passed the order on a petition by one T C Sharath, directed the state Health and Welfare Department, Director General of Police and Commissioner of Police, Chennai, to form the squads immediately to conduct surprise raids of shops located within 100 yards of the institutions and seize tobacco products. The petitioner had sought a direction against shopkeepers who sell tobacco products to students and action against smokers in public places. The judge directed the authorities to confiscate the products seized as per Section 14 of Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution Act, 2003 (COPTA ACT). He also directed them to remove and confiscate advertisements of tobacco products placed near schools, book those persons who smoke in Public Places as per section 21 of the Act and to file a report in court by June 20. The judge referred to an observation by King James I of England that smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain and dangerous to the lungs and said it was shocking to know that there is extensive use of tobacco products among school going children. He said though statues and rules mandate that shops located within 100 yards of educational institutions should refrain from selling tobacco products, it is found that many such shops sell tobacco products, violating rules. The judge referred to surveys by various authorities and organisations and said these showed that among 13 to 15 year old school going students in Chennai, tobacco usage is high and in line with those found in studies done in Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, and North Eastern States. He observed that cigarette smoking outside school campus was reported to be high proportion among the youth. He referred to a Supreme Court order, prohibiting smoking in public places like auditoriums, hospital buildings and Health Institutions and said that in view of the above order, "it is necessary and it is the bounden duty of all concerned to safeguard the people, especially children, from the evil effects of smoking, tobacco use and passive smoking." The Judge also directed that steps be taken to punish those who sell cigarettes or other tobacco products to persons aged below 18 years as per Section 24 of the act. He then posted the matter to June 20. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal after meeting President Pranab Mukherjee, at the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took a swipe at Lt Governor Najeeb Jung on Monday, saying notwithstanding the "obstacles" put by him at the "behest" of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he will never be made the Vice President of India. In an acerbic letter to the LG, Kejriwal took on Jung and Modi for allegedly putting spanners in every small initiative of the AAP government by getting them probed by the Anti-Corruption branch and CBI. "I want you to know that only yesterday the government has inaugurated a 100-seater medical college. I want to request you to ask your ACB team to lodge an FIR and get it investigated. "Kindly also tell Prime Minister Modi to get a raid done on Health Minister Satyender Jain for committing the crime of completing the medical college in a record time," Kejriwal wrote. The AAP chief and Jung have clashed repeatedly on matters of jurisdiction in governing the national capital since the party stormed to power in 2015. Seeking to offer a "small suggestion" as Jung's "younger brother", Kejriwal went on to write, "Do as much unconstitutional, illegal and anti-people work as you want at the behest of Modiji, but he will never make you the vice president." Kejriwal stated that he was among a few people who are meant to serve the mankind, "struggle and construct" while the rest are tasked with destructing and putting spanners on every good work. "You and Modiji fulfil your duties. We will be awaiting your and Modiji's ACB and CBI," he said. There are 48 pay-to-use Sulabh toilets, which are the only ones in good condition. Hyderabad: The city has one public toilet for 30,000 citizens. And most of the public conveniences are in a pathetic condition. The recently introduced 47 bio-urinals are no exception. There are 48 pay-to-use Sulabh toilets, which are the only ones in good condition. There are another 136 toilets in the build-operate-own-transfer model, 86 run by the GHMCs engineering department and the 47 bio-urinals that were introduced recently. Besides, 20 urinals are located near railway and bus stations and 60 in the Cantonment. About 30 per cent of the GHMC toilets are defunct. But then, even at the few functional toilets, people relieve themselves all around. Several slum-level federations and other organisations have applied to the GHMC to run 188 public toilets. The proposals are pending. Last year, the GHMC had said it would construct 1,000 bio-toilets but has managed to erect 47 so far. On the poor status of the bio-toilets, GHMC additional commissioner, health and sanitation, said they had been handed over to an agency, Ultimate Concepts. The GHMC does not pay the agency. It will use the outside walls for advertisements, he said. But several toilets are not maintained properly, and others are locked. A GHMC official said the maintenance team of the agency cleans the toilets at a particular time; till then the toilets remain dirty. Sometimes they are shutting down the toilets for maintenance, he said. For either reason, men relieve themselves all around the toilets. Asked about this, Mr Kiran said he would issue a notice to the agency. The petition has crossed the threshold of one lakh signatures, making it mandatory for the White House to respond. (Photo: PTI) Washington: An online petition on the White House website has called on the Obama administration to stop shielding American multinational Dow Chemical from accountability for corporate crimes in the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy case. The petition has crossed the threshold of one lakh signatures, making it mandatory for the White House to respond. Titled 'Uphold International Law! Stop Shielding Dow Chemical from Accountability for Corporate Crimes in Bhopal, India', the petition dated May 15, says that more than three decades of protection to Union Carbide (UCC) -- which is now owned by Dow Chemicals -- must end. "We insist that the US government meet its obligations under Treaty and international law by immediately serving notice upon Dow to attend court in Bhopal on July 13, 2016," said the petition, which as of June 12 had garnered 102,000 signatures. Tonnes of toxic Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked from Union Carbide's Bhopal factory on the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, killed nearly 25,000 people and injured half million others. "India charged UCC with manslaughter, but UCC refused to show for trial. Dow Chemical bought UCC in 2001 but has not made UCC available to face charges," the petition said. "Under a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, India sent four notices to the US Department of Justice to summon Dow to explain UCC's whereabouts. The DoJ has ignored or obstructed every notice. The same DoJ made BP pay USD 4 billion in criminal fines and penalties for Deepwater Horizon. 31 years of US protection of UCC and Dow must end," the petition said. The students will begin their 4,500 kilometres on June 17 from Kanyakumari and will reach Leh on August 6, on World Organ Donation Day. (Photo: Representational Image) Mathura: Four post-graduation students will embark on a cycle trip from Kanyakumari to Leh to raise awareness about organ donation. The students will begin their 4,500 kilometres on June 17 from Kanyakumari and will reach Leh on August 6, on World Organ Donation Day. "We will leave from Agra Cantt tomorrow and after reaching Kanyakumari, we will set out for Leh. Covering 100 kilometres per day and going through 43 cities, we will complete our journey in 50 days," said Saransh Goswani who had come to visit his university here yesterday. "We have decided to provide financial help to the participants for their venture," chancellor of GLA University said. The cities they will visit include Ajmer, Udaipur, Manali, Panipat, Vadodara, Mumbai, Panaji, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. "We have named our campaign as GORGON, 'which stands for 'Go For Organ'," Goswami said, adding the idea of cycle trip was suggested by one of the participants, Manoj Sharma. He said besides him and Sharma, Suchitra Singh and Vikramjit Singh have already pledged to donate their organs and wants others to follow their path. Hyderabad: With T- advocates starting preparations for Mondays Chalo High Court, police has stepped up security across the state. Section 144 is already in force around the High Court and additional forces have been deployed around the premises. Police has also detained advocates in a few places across the state as a preventive measure. However, T-advocates are adamant that they will go ahead with their protest despite the police rejecting permission. T-advocates has also condemned the preventive arrests and demanded immediate release of the advocates. We are only fighting for our right, which is a separate high court for the state. The Union law minister also had promised it, but nothing has happened, said Advocates JAC co-convener K. Govardhan Reddy. Arresting advocates and terrorising them is illegal. All of them should be released immediately, said Jitender Reddy, president, Federation of Bar Associations in Telangana. The advocates have also decided to seek permission from the High Court to go on mass casual leave if their demands are not met. The police meanwhile is taking no chances. Outsiders without valid identity proof will not be allowed into the Court premises, said a senior police official. Hyderabad: President Pranab Mukherjee's assent to amending Article 371(D) of the Constitution according local status to AP employees and people in TS shifting to AP by June, 2017 is snowballing into a big controversy. Telangana employees have threatened to launch an agitation to protest the move, arguing that this gives scope for AP-natives in TS to secure double local status in both TS and AP for their children, which will hit the prospects of Telangana students and job aspirants. Employees demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao should intervene and take corrective measures to protect the interests of Telangana. It was the responsibility of the Centre and President to seek the opinion of TS government before an amendment. But the notification was issued unilaterally, said A. Padma Chary, president, Telangana Udyogula Sangham. TS employees argue that large numbers of AP-native employees and people and their children, who settled in Hyderabad became locals of Telangana based on their education done here. Anyone who studied in a particular region for four consecutive years out of previous seven years of study from Class V to XII in Undivided AP became locals of that region as per Article 371 (D). They said that the Centre's latest notification according local status to all those who shift to AP would enable them secure AP's local status too. This will give scope for their children to appear for recruitment exams besides admissions in professional colleges in both the states. This is totally unfair, said V. Srinivas Goud, Telangana employees leader. However, AP employees rubbished these claims saying that the AP government is yet to issue guidelines for determining 'local status'. Just because the state was bifurcated, they cannot lose their constitutional rights. What's wrong if they claim local status here? asked P. Ashok Babu, president, APNGOs Association. New Delhi: Indebted tycoon Vijay Mallya on Sunday accused the government agencies of deeming him guilty without trial and lambasted the country's financial crime fighters for leading a heavily biased investigation against him. The flamboyant 60-year-old beer baron left India in March for the UK, under hot pursuit from banks over $1.34 billion in loans granted to his collapsed carrier Kingfisher Airlines and yet to be repaid. He has repeatedly failed to appear before investigators at the Enforcement Directorate, a financial crimes agency, who suspect him of misusing funds loaned by a state bank. In a rare statement, Mallya responded to reports that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was taking further steps to probe him and the airline. "It is, indeed, sad and disappointing that the thousands of documents submitted by us and interrogation of several executives seems insufficient to convince them there has been no wrongdoing," he said. "I have maintained and continue to maintain that there has been absolutely no misappropriation or diversion of funds and strenuously deny any allegation to the contrary." Mallya rejected reports he had refused to go before the Enforcement Directorate, which has issued three summons for his appearance, but said he had simply sought time to sell assets to pay employees, tax authorities and the banks. He added that he had offered to appear before officials via video conference. "It surely appears as if these agencies are pursuing a heavily biased investigation and are already holding me guilty without trial after which I need to prove my innocence," he said. "Purely civil matters such as loan recovery are being connected with criminal allegations without any basis whatsoever." A spokesman for the Enforcement Directorate was not immediately available for comment. The government revoked Mallya's diplomatic passport in April after he repeatedly failed to appear before investigators. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in May the government would seek to extradite the indebted tycoon after Britain turned down its request to deport him. Once dubbed the King of Good Times for his lavish lifestyle, the entrepreneur's massive debt has become a symbol of Indian banks' vast volume of bad loans -- meaning in default or close to it -- seen as a threat to financial stability of the country. In an interview with the Financial Times in April, Mallya said he was prepared to settle millions of dollars owed to banks but had no plans to leave Britain. A former MP, he resigned from his seat in the parliament's upper house ahead of a likely expulsion over his huge debt defaults. India and the United Kingdom signed an extradition treaty in 1993. Bengaluru: BJP Karnataka President B S Yeddyurappa has landed in a controversy after a video purportedly showing him telling a police official not to harass some Hindu youths in a murder case in Hassan district went viral. "You have already arrested 14-15 Hindu youths. A few more are being tortured. Please don't do such things in future. It won't be nice, situation in Arsikere may get disturbed, peace may get disturbed," he is seen speaking to Hassan district Superintendent of Police Rahul Kumar Shahapurwad in the video footage. Congress Spokesperson Brijesh Kalappa, who posted the video on his Facebook, has accused Yeddyurappa of trying to "influence" the course of investigation into the murder case. Kalappa also charged that Yeddyurappa was giving a threat to the SP, who was only trying to do his job. As a public servant the BJP leader was doing a "wrong thing." "It is a clear indication that Yeddyurappa wants to influence the course of investigation," he alleged. Violence had erupted in Arsikere following the murder of 24 year-old Emanuel Varun, who was stabbed to death on May 29 with some shops being attacked in the fallout of the incident. The video of the murder had gone viral. Police said differences between two groups of youths had led to the murder and there was no communal angle to it. According to police, Varun's friend had differences with one of the arrested persons in the murder case regarding running of a gym in the town. When Varun and his friend raised the issue with another person, the latter's friend allegedly stabbed him. 11 persons have been arrested in connection with the murder and another 13 over the violence that followed the crime. Among those arrested, a few are said to be associatedwith Hindu groups. "We have made all arrests based on the evidence available. We have the video footage of violent incidents in which the arrested accused participated," the SP said. A delegation of BJP leaders led by MLC Bhanu Prakash had met Shapurwad recently and complained that police had arrested a few innocent people in the case. Vijayawada: The YSR Congress will conduct a one-day state-level extended meeting in Vijayawada on June 14. After bifurcation and Amaravati capital city announcement, the YSRC is planning to conduct the meeting in Vijayawada in a big way for the first time. The event is expected to heat up the political atmosphere in the district, as the YSRC may shift its political base to the city after the meeting. YSRC leaders reviewed the arrangements for the meeting on Sunday. According to sources, nearly 1,900 representatives would attend the meeting along with party chief Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, MLAs, MPs and senior leaders. The one-day meeting will exclusively focus on Amaravati capital location developments, land allotments, Kapu-BC reservation issue, ongoing political developments and strengthening the party. The party decided to conduct the meet after the recent jolts of some of the party MLAs joining the TD. The YSRC top leadership has plans to indicate to the ruling TD that they are not demoralised due to the MLAs' exit. The party hopes the meeting will boost confidence among the cadre. However, fact remains that the YSRC has neglected to build the party structure at the grassroots level. There is no coordination between the leaders of the party. This issue would be raised in the meeting, said a YSRC mandal unit president. He said coordination was needed to rebuild the partys base. Political analyst A. Brahmaiah said that how the Kapu-BC issue is handled is important not only for the government but also for the main Opposition. Allahabad: Using Kairana and Mathura incidents to attack the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP) government in Uttar Pradesh, BJP president Amit Shah on Monday claimed his party was the only political outfit that can challenge the Mualaym Singh Yadav led party. Describing Kairana incident as an eye openor, Mr Shah' while addressing the Parivartan Rally at Parade Ground, said if UP does not want a repeat of the incident of alleged mass exodus of Hindu families, SP government needs to be thrown out. Kairana and Mathura incidents will be part of saffron partys electoral strategy for the Assembly elections in UP scheduled early next year. Many feel that Kairana incidents could be used to communalise the atmosphere ahead of the elections. While deteriorating law and order situation in the state will be the main weapon against the ruling party, Mayawatis BSP will be attacked over corruption and supporting the Congress. He said many people centric schemes have been launched by the Modi led NDA government but the SP government was not implementing many of these central schemes. He said whether it was SP, BSP or Congress, their only aim is to conspire against the Modi government. His preferred position, and that of Mining Minister Robin Wilson, is for a partial lifting of the ban. It was a development that went unreported in a dramatic week in Papua New Guinea, and President Momis has expressed serious concerns about it. President Momiss position that the moratorium should only be partly lifted received little support from representatives who overwhelmingly supported the full lifting of the moratorium. LAST week the Bougainville House of Representatives again debated lifting the moratorium on mining exploration and development on the island after an initial debate in April. They want a more cautious approach to allow time to observe how the new ABG Mining Department handles a completely different system of mining tenements, to arrange for the grant of community mining licences for small-scale mining, and enable an international tender for highly prospective areas which could not be implemented if the moratorium is lifted in full. President Momis also believes that, if the moratorium is lifted in full, there will be intense pressure for multiple mines to be approved. There does seem to be a lack of understanding by some ministers and many Bougainville MPs about the problems that could be caused by completely lifting the moratorium. But there is also a rational reason. Many leaders are concerned about the heavy dependence of Bougainville on PNG government grants, especially in a climate where the national government is dishonouring the financial provisions of the Bougainville Peace Agreement. Leaders believe the rapid development of the mining sector is the only realistic way to achieve financial self-reliance in Bougainville. It is believed the full lifting of the moratorium, although widely supported by law makers, will cause great controversy in Bougainville. President Momis is understood to be wanting to steer a delicate middle course between what seems to be a pro-mining majority and a small but extreme anti-mining group. Under the Bougainville Mining Act, only the Cabinet (the Bougainville Executive Council) and not parliament has the authority to lift the moratorium, whether partially or in full. The Cabinet has not yet made a decision on the issue. Hyderabad: The No Helmet, No Fuel rule has been approved in principle by the police, transport and traffic departments for implementation in Hyderabad. Two-wheeler riders without helmets will be denied fuel in city petrol pumps. This has been implemented in Adilabad district in Telangana since June 2 under the Motor Spirit and High Speed Diesel Oil (Licensing and Control) Act. It is, in fact, applicable to all states. Fuel stations can deny petrol, diesel and oil under Section 3/7 of the Essential Commodities Act. The city traffic department is studying the effects of the rule in Adilabad, the problems faced by petrol pumps from the public and will make changes to the rule if needed. It is likely to be implemented by June end. Hyderabad traffic, and law and order police and the state transport authority have formed a coordination committee that met on June 6 and approved the rule. DCP (South) traffic, and convener of the committee Mr A.V. Ranganath said, The committee is presently studying how effective it has been in Adilabad district. Problems like people arguing and resistance to the rule may surface, which is being studied. After the feedback from Adilabad, Hyderabad traffic police will hold a meeting with the collector (or Civil Supplies department) and the citys fuel station owners. By June end the committee will take a call on the implementation. States like Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha have implemented the rule. The Telangana Two-Wheeler Riders Association (TTWRA) has threatened to protest if the rule is implemented warning a bandh. Since other citizens are not affected due to an individuals choice of not wearing a helmet, the government should review the rule, said convenor Mr Mohd Amanullah Khan. Hyderabad: The spotlight is on the upcoming AP Eamcet counselling and future recruitment tests of APPSC given the new nativity order issued by the President for people migrating from Andhra Pradesh to Telangana before June, 2017. Government employees of a few departments will be moving to Amaravati in phases, from June 27. Against this backdrop, a demand was raised to extend local status rule to their children, who wrote the AP Eamcet in Hyderabad. In normal circumstances they would have been regarded as non-local candidates if they apply for any college in Andhra Pradesh. The nativity rule has changed the scenario. Engineering and medical aspirants, who shift to the residuary state from Telangana, will be regarded as local candidates as and when the rule comes into effect. Although, the implementation of the rule might take some time since guidelines are yet to be issued, employees are demanding it be made applicable to this years Eamcet. Allotment of seats for engineering colleges is set to be completed in a week to 10 days. With no guidelines in place yet, the nativity factor may not enter the equation. Nativity is likely to be a big issue at the time of medical counselling, which will only be taken up after announcement of results of the July 24 Neet-2. Government sources indicate that guidelines for nativity will be issued by that time. Although there are a limited number of medical seats, we will ensure that the local factor does not affect chances of candidates from 13 districts. If the government gives specific directions, OU region candidates fulfilling all eligible criteria will be treated as locals and given admission, an official from higher education department said. Nativity factor will also come into play when APPSC conducts job recruitments in the near future. The APPSC would go by government directions as far as recruitment is concerned, said chairman P. Uday Bhaskar. If the government gives local status to eligible candidates then the commission will consider it at the time of job recruitments, he said. Nativity rule to cover all With the government yet to issue guidelines on the nativity rule, confusion persists as to who will benefit. Some sections feel that this decision was taken keeping in mind the over 10,000 government employees, who will be shifting to AP. The reality is entirely the opposite. All eligible individuals, be it government employee or private or self-employed, can stake claim for this new facility provided they shift to Andhra Pradesh in the next year. They must fulfil the criteria to be specified in government guidelines. There was no mention of the term government employee in the Gazette Notification issued by President Pranab Mukherjee on the nativity issue. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao poses for a picture after unfurling the largest Tricolour on the occasion of second anniversary of Telangana Formation Day in Hyderabad. (Photo: PTI) Hyderabad: Telangana state has climbed 11 places in the Centres preliminary rankings for adopting business-friendly initiatives, while the ranking for Andhra Pradesh fell 17 places. However, the states will have time till June 15 to improve their position since the final rankings would be given with the help of World Bank in July. Last year, Andhra Pradesh was placed 2nd and TS at 13th position in the final rankings. However, Telangana jumped to 2nd rank and AP fell to 19th rank this year in preliminary rankings released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion on business reforms and action plans. States and union territories were asked to upload the status of completed reforms by June 15. After that the DIPP and World Bank will come out with the final rankings. This year, the commerce and industry ministry is evaluating the states on real time basis. The evaluation is being done based on 340 parameters as against 91 last year. Bihar stood at the first place. These rankings are dynamic and may change on the basis of initiatives taken by states and union territories in the next two days. Results may change frequently during this process. Final results will be available once the process is complete, DIPP said. To improve the business environment in the country, the Centre started the practice of ranking states on their business-friendly initiatives last year. Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka have secured third, fourth and fifth ranks respectively. Gujarat was ranked first on the ease of doing business index prepared by the World Bank last year but at present it is at sixth position. As of now, 16 states have provided details about reform measures initiated by them through the DIPP-managed portal. Among them, Bihar has given information on as many as 29 reforms, the highest among the 16 states. The rankings are likely to change the moment other states report their respective reforms. Many states have reported about 200-plus reforms but so far maximum reforms have been verified for Bihar. A picture of the Haj House at Nampally, Hyderabad. The Wakf Board is sitting on several parcels of land which can be developed to earn revenue. Hyderabad: Several prime properties in Hyderabad that would otherwise have fetched crores to the Telangana State Wakf Board, have been lying vacant for several decades. Though the Board had identified the properties long ago to generate additional income, no concrete steps have been taken so far. Sources said that the Board has a yearly income of only Rs 5 crore though it has huge tracts of lands in various districts of the state and also prime properties in the capital city. This Rs 5 crore gets exhausted every year for paying salaries to staff and also for maintenance. As per provisions of the Wakf Act, the Board has an obligation to protect Wakf properties and also maintain them. It also has a statutory obligation to take care of the welfare of destitute, orphans and widows of the Muslim community. Sources said that currently the Board was giving pensions to a few widows by depending on grants-in-aid from the government every year. Elders of the community say that if the Board develops the properties it has, it will generate crores in revenues every year which in turn would enable it run old-age homes and orphanages, besides giving pensions to Muslim widows. Infographic A senior officer in the Board said that there was a provision in the Wakf Act to develop Wakf properties by inviting private players to fetch revenue for the Board. The relevant provision in the Wakf Act states: In case the Board is satisfied that any Wakf property may be developed for the purposes of the Act, it may, after recording the reasons in writing, take up the development of such property through such agency and in such manner as the Board may determine and move a resolution containing a recommendation of development of such Wakf property, which shall be passed by a majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the Board." Mr Altaf Hyder Rizvi, a former Wakf Board member, said that the Board had constructed a huge complex besides the Haj House long ago without taking a single rupee from the state government. He said that the complex was still lying idle. When there was an elected committee in the Board before bifurcation of the state, it had decided to rent out the building, but the proposal is still pending with the government. Several other vacant lands of the Board also remain unused, he added. Wakf proposals lie with state The TS Wakf Board has identified 26 properties in the city and its surroundings to develop on Build-Operate-and-Transfer basis. According to Mr Syed Omer Jaleel, special secretary of the minorities welfare department, the Board had sent a proposal to the state government for six properties that required immediate attention to generate more revenues for the Board. He said that as per the Wakf Act, the state governments approval is mandatory for giving Wakf properties to private parties for development. He said, Though we had send the proposal long back, the government has been examining all the aspects to avoid unnecessary litigations. Recently we have orally reminded the government about the pending proposal. KALABURAGI: A military uniform, cap, jackets and a German-made wristwatch dating back to the World War. Could these be the belongings of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, believed to have died in a plane crash in Taiwan in 1945? Many contend that he survived the crash and lived a mysterious life after that. The Bose belongings, which include a 1932 model compass, in an ashram near Humnabad, has triggered speculation that Netaji could have lived here. His disciples aver that the aged man they fondly addressed as Laldhari Mutya, was Netaji. Mutya died in 2001 but the contents of his trunk were discovered only recently. Did Netaji Bose live a mysterious life near Bidar? Did Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose die in a plane crash in Taiwan in 1945 as officially declared or did he survive the crash and live a mysterious life after that? A definite answer to this question has remained elusive to this day. But the discovery of material such as a military uniform, cap and jackets besides a German-made wristwatch released during the World War I, a 1932 model compass and binocular made in France in an ashram abutting the Kalaburagi-Bidar highway near Humnabad, has once again sparked off speculation about the survival of Netaji after the plane crash and him leading a secret life. Based on these findings, which include some foreign currency, military badges, etc., from Laldhari Ashram and the personal accounts of some of the disciples, it is now speculated that the aged person whom they fondly addressed as Laldhari Mutya (Laldhari is the name of the village where the Ashram is and Mutya means elderly person), was in fact Netaji. The speculation has gained credence nearly 15 years after his death due to a kidney ailment in a hospital at Umarga in Maharashtra on May 13, 2001. Reason: The trunk, in which the material was kept in the Ashram, remained locked till recently. Mr Santharam, who hails from Umarga, was quite dismayed to find the material in the trunk when he visited the Ashram in January. He is understood to have written to the Osmanabad deputy commissioner requesting him to take measures to find out whether the material belonged to Netaji. Subsequently, Osmanabad MP Ravindra Gaikwad is also said to have written to PM Narendra Modi requesting him to send experts for examining the material. Santharams father Athmul Muzani is said to have chanced upon a Punjabi-looking man at Solapur bus stand in 1971. Impressed by the conversation he had with him, he took him home and gave him shelter till his death in 1985. After Muzanis death, the Punjabi left for Bidar and set up an ashram at Laldhari. According to his disciples, Mutya used to celebrate Independence Day and Republic Day by hoisting the tricolour at the Ashram. He was said to have confided to some of his devotees that he was Netaji. But this comment of Mutya is said to have evoked sniggers among his disciples. Mr Santharam, who has in his possession samples of the teeth and hair of Mutya, feels a DNA test would establish the true identity of Laldhari Mutya. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and AIADMK Supremo J Jayalalithaa ahead of her visit to R K Nagar constituency to thank the voters, in Chennai. (Photo: PTI) Chennai: Establishment of the Cauvery Management Board, resolution of water disputes with neighbouring states and generous financial assistance are some of the key demands expected to be placed before the Union government when Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. Putting an end to Sri Lankan Navy arresting Indian fishermen hailing from Tamil Nadu, extension of Metro rail services and implementation of final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal are other demands expected to be part of the memorandum that Ms Jayalalithaa will submit to Mr Modi. The Chief Minister will undertake a days visit to New Delhi on Tuesday to meet Mr Modi and discuss crucial issues relating to Tamil Nadu. During her trip, she is also likely to meet Finance minister Arun Jaitley while a few other ministers are expected to call on her at the Tamil Nadu House. Ms Jayalalithaa is also expected to point out to the PM that it has been more than three years since the Union government notified the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) on sharing the waters of the Cauvery system among the basin States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala and Union territory of Puducherry. However, the Cauvery Management Authority has not yet been established. The CWDT had on February 5, 2007 awarded 419 tmcft of water to Tamil Nadu, 270 tmcft to Karnataka 270 tmcft, 30 tmcft to Kerala and 7 tmcft to Puducherry. Another major issue that the Chief Minister will take up is the frequent arrest of fishermen from Tamil Nadu and seizure of their boats by the Sri Lankan Navy. Ms Jayalalithaa has been writing to the Prime Minister very often seeking his intervention in the matter and put an end to apprehension of fishermen. Bengaluru: Having lost the Rajya Sabha polls, the Janata Dal (S) is trying to salvage its pride by winning the elections to the Legislative Council from the graduates and teachers constituencies for which voting was held last week. The counting of votes will take place on Monday. The JDS is sure of its victory in two of the four constituencies which went to polls. The party is optimistic of winning North West Teachers constituency represented by former minister Basavaraj Horatti who is all set to register his name in the Guinness book of records by winning for a seventh time. In this constituency, the individual charisma of the candidate matters more than the party. Going by this yardstick, Mr Horatti may not find it difficult to reserve his berth in the Council because of the rapport he enjoys with the teacher community in that part of Karnataka. Both BJP and Congress are aware of this and have not taken the outcome of the poll seriously. Another segment where JD(S) can expect victory is South Graduates constituency held by BJP. The JD(S) candidate, K.T. Srikantegowda is an old warhorse who has understood the pulse of voters. In fact, there was opposition from Nagamangala MLA Cheluvarayaswamy to giving ticket to Mr Srikantegowda. But JD(S) supremo H.D. Deve Gowda did not succumb to pressure and gave ticket to Mr Srikantegowda. With hardly 44 per cent voting in Mysuru district, sources hinted at an edge for Mr Srikantegowda this time. Compared to the 2010 polls, the voting percentage had dipped by almost 10 per cent in a constituency which is considered a fortress of the BJP as far as graduates and teachers are concerned. The Congress has never won the Graduates seat in the last three decades. This time, the imposition of the candidate reportedly at the behest of Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar has upset the rank and file of the party and may impact its candidate, Dr Ravindra. The Congress has chances of retaining the North West Graduates seat as sitting member, Mahantesh Koujalgi has a clean image. The BJP may win North East Teachers constituency where sitting MLC Arun Shahpur is seeking re-election. HD Kumaraswamy in bulgaria shooting Jaguar A day after the ignominious defeat of JD(S) candidate B.M. Farookh in the Rajya Sabha poll, partys state unit chief H.D. Kumaraswamy left for Bulgaria for the second round of shooting of his son's debut Kannada film, 'Jaguar'. Mr Kumaraswamy, along with son, Nikhil Gowda, hero of the movie, left Bengaluru early Sunday. He skipped the party convention at Palace Grounds where the suspension of eight rebel JD(S) legislators was announced. He had cited personal reasons for keeping away from the crucial meeting. He was supposed to leave for Bulgaria last month if everything had gone well in the Council and Rajya Sabha polls. The rebellion within the party necessitated his presence to keep the flock together though it proved unsuccessful. He had been to Sofia city and Iceland for the selection of locations to shoot two song sequences in Iceland and a chasing scene in Sofia. New Delhi/Bengaluru: The Congress will approach the Election Commission on Monday to protest against the misuse of government machinery in the Rajya Sabha elections for two seats in Haryana on Saturday which led to independent candidate R.K. Anand, backed by the party, losing the poll. Party general secretary B.K. Hariprasad said they will approach the EC and demand countermanding of election to both Rajya Sabha seats from Haryana. Asked whether the party suspected internal sabotage in the elections including by former chief minister B.S. Hooda, he replied in the negative. Mr Hariprasad alleged that there was deliberate fraud in the election by switching the pen meant for marking the votes so as to make the Congress votes invalid. The votes of 14 Congress MLAs were declared invalid leading to the loss of Mr Anand who was otherwise expected to win. On his part, Mr Hooda said there has been a big conspiracy and the truth should come out. In Bengaluru, cracking the whip, the JD(S) suspended its eight rebel MLAs who voted against its official candidate and supported the Congress in the biennial elections to fill four Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka. Caught off guard by the open defiance of rebels, a red-faced JD(S) leadership also issued a notice asking them why they should not be expelled from the party for defying the party whip, which saw the party candidate, businessman B.M. Farooq, securing 33 votes against the party strength of 40. Meanwhile, in Lucknow, the BJP suspended its MLA from Gorakhpur Rural Vijay Bahadur Yadav for cross voting during Rajya Sabha biennial polls. MLA Vijay Bahadur Yadav has been suspended by the party from Legislature group for cross-voting during Rajya Sabha elections, an official release said here. I have recommended the state unit chief to take action against Yadav as his act comes under voluntary anti-defection law, Leader of BJP in UP Assembly Suresh Khanna said. The MLA had cross-voted in favour of a SP candidate on Saturday. I voted on the basis of development done by the Chief Minister and I am ready to make any sacrifice, he said. Chennai: When Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa meets him in his office in New Delhi on Tuesday, the only thing that could weigh heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modis mind is how to get the AIADMK, whose combined strength in Parliament is 50, into the fold of the National Democratic Alliance. The top brass of BJP, especially Mr Modi and his second-in-command Amit Shah, have been quite vocal in enlisting the support of the AIADMK and want the party to be just part of the NDA, if not in the government itself. BJP sources told Deccan Chronicle that the PM is likely to extend an invitation to Ms Jayalalithaa to join the NDA, thus formalising the relationship between her party and the BJP. Ms Jayalalithaa will hold a one-on-one meeting with Mr Modi on Tuesday and politics is likely to top the agenda. AIADMK sources said the Chief Minister is primarily undertaking the visit to get an assurance for generous financial assistance to Tamil Nadu from the Centre. She will also discuss crucial issues relating to the state and seek the PMs support for resolution of water issues with neighbouring states. The NDA wants Jayalalithaa into its fold given its minority status in Rajya Sabha, where Congress was the single largest party till the poll for 27 of 57 seats on Saturday. After the poll, in the House of 245, the NDA has raised its tally by 5 and now has 74 members. The UPA, on the other hand has 71 members, with its tally down by three. This will only be the second formal meeting between Ms Jayalalithaa and Mr Modi after he assumed office in May 2014. The talk within the BJP is that though Ms Jayalalithaa is not part of the NDA, she is a trusted friend and ally and her party has been supporting the Union government on almost all issues both inside and outside the Parliament. The AIADMK has bailed out the BJP government on several occasions, especially in Rajya Sabha and had always sided with the government except on the GST Bill, on which it has reservations. BJP insiders feel if Ms Jayalalithaas party joins the NDA, its strength in the Upper House would go up and that will ensure passage of several crucial legislations pending due to adamant attitude of the Opposition Congress. The BJPs not-so-good relationship with its current allies SAD, Shiv Sena and TDP is also believed to have spurred the need to look for another trusted ally in Ms Jayalalithaa since she shares an excellent rapport with Mr Modi. It is a known fact that both have attended each others swearing-in as Chief Minister before Mr Modi assumed the office of Prime Minister. Roping in Ms Jayalalithaa into the NDA will face no opposition from any of these parties since they all enjoy good equations with the AIADMK chief. Bengaluru: Buoyed by the Congress partys success in the just concluded Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council polls, Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah is likely to leave for New Delhi on Tuesday to hold the first round of discussions with party central leaders about the possibility of carrying out the much awaited cabinet reshuffle. Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior leader in the Chief Minister's camp said, Mr Siddaramaiah has prepared a list of eight to ten ministers who could be dropped and also those who could be inducted in their place. The source added that the Chief Minister was ready with the list and was awaiting the nod of party central leaders to take up the exercise. Clarity on the Cabinet reshuffle will only emerge after Mr Siddaramaiah's scheduled visit to Delhi on Tuesday, the source added. Meanwhile, Congress general secretary and state Congress in-charge Digvijay Singh told reporters in Mysuru on Sunday that Cabinet expansion was the discretion of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. He was in Myusuru to visit Chamundeswari temple atop the Chamundi hills. Mr Singh also made it clear that the party would face the next Assembly elections under the leadership of Siddaramaiah. When asked about Mr Siddaramaiahs declaration that he would not contest elections in future, Mr Singh said he had said this earlier too but he would not do so. To a question on a Dalit leader becoming Chief Minister, the Congress general secretary said, The elected MLAs will choose their leader. For 40 long years he heard every cry from the four corners of PNG loud and clear. Alas he never kept the towns in East and West Sepik close to his heart and their present condition is a testimony of his national agenda. This is the nation he built without any guns fired or blood shed. He gathered 1,000 tribes together and held these fragmented societies miraculously up to and after independence. Isnt it ironic that in the twilight of his political career, bloodshed is seen to be lurking on our front and back doors? MY utmost respect for Grand Chief Sir Michael Thomas Somare, the founding father of Papua New Guinea. It breaks the heart of many people too see our father humble himself by making a solo pilgrimage to Port Moresby General Hospital to pay his respects to a new generation of national heroes; those who will not budge in what they believe in. The new breed of national heroes are ones who are ever ready to die whilst clasping the PNG colours in their blood stained hands. The students may have lost this fight because of heavy handed tactics on the part of the national government to deploy armed police personal against unarmed students. The war, the one major battle to dethrone Peter ONeill is still raging on. The use of guns to curb dissent in PNG is the new trend by the current regime. Somares visit signifies the changing of the guard. The old is making way for the new. From PNG Facts MEETING and shaking the hand of the founding father of Papua New Guinea at one stage in life is a privilege for many young Papua New Guineans, but for young UPNG student Madmax Rex at his hospital bed, it was an emotional moment when Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare paid him a visit at the Port Moresby General Hospital. Madmax is currently in a stable condition but he has to heal from the bullet wound sustained from the police shootout last Wednesday at the University of Papua New Guinea. He is a third year student studying Earth Science and does the media works for the UPNG Students Representative Council and was filming on the day of the shootout. The bullet which hospitalised him passed through from the back right side of his chest and exited his front right chest. He is currently suffering lung and chest injuries from the wound but he managed a smile after shedding tears as the Grand Chief and Lady Veronica visited him. When classes at the university resume tomorrow as decided by the university council, Madmax with another UPNG student Steven Lucas, who is still in a coma and who still has a bullet in his head, will both still be in the hospital. Meanwhile the Grand Chief assures the students that he will take their grievances to the university council today. MP Palvai Govardhan Reddy and MLA Komatireddy Venkat Reddy were among those who were slapped show-cause notices Hyderabad: The TPCC is firm on expelling leaders indulging in indiscipline and anti-party activities, however big they may be. Meanwhile, speculations were rife on Sunday that former MP G. Vivek and former MLA G. Vinod are set to join TRS. The Congress also came in support of TJAC chairman Prof Kodandaram and termed the criticism by TRS leaders against him as an attack on democracy. The TPCC executive committee, which met at the Gandhi Bhavan on Sunday to discuss defections and infighting within the party, resolved not to tolerate indiscipline and anti-party activities anymore and deal them with an iron hand. The committee has decided to expel leaders who fail to reply to show-cause notices within the deadline. Party sources said, This will send a strong message that indiscipline will not be tolerated. If they fail to respond to the show-cause notices, they have to face the axe. MP Palvai Govardhan Reddy and MLA Komatireddy Venkat Reddy were among those who were slapped show-cause notices for their open criticism of TPCC chief N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and CLP leader K. Jana Reddy recently. Meanwhile, Mr Govardhan Reddy clarified that he did not term Mr Jana Reddy as covert directly and blamed media for misinterpreting a letter he had sent to Mr Uttam Kumar Reddy. He also demanded action against Congress leaders Mohd. Ali Shabbir and Mallu Ravi for criticising him. Sources said AICC representative Koppula Raju will reach Hyderabad on June 15 to make the high commands stand clear that indiscipline will not be tolerated. He is also expected to make a last-ditch effort to persuade G. Vivek, G. Vinod, MP Gutta Sukhender Reddy and MLA N. Bhaskar Rao not to desert the Congress amid speculation of their migration to TRS. Mr Mallu Ravi said, The party is against the land acquisition policy of the TRS government for irrigation projects. It should be done as per Land Acquisition Act, 2013. The party also decided to host iftar parties in all districts on June 17 for Ramzan. It opposed the painting of all government buildings in pink colour. Ever since JD(S) patriarch Mr H.D. Deve Gowda took out the Daridra Narayana Rally in Chamarajpet, which helped Mr B.Z. Zameer Ahamed Khan become the local MLA, much water has flowed down the Cauvery. In the last ten years, it has been a love-hate relationship between Mr Zameer and the Gowda family. Things have now reached a flash point with Mr Zameer and his fellow MLAs suspended from the party for cross-voting in Saturdays Rajya Sabha polls. But the old faithful still refuses to point fingers at the party or Mr Gowda. As a matter of fact, he is ready to work with the JD(S) headed by Mr Gowda and would consider his son Mr Kumaraswamy as his leader only if the latter mends his ways. Its quite clear that he is trying to keep the lines open for a reapproachment with Gowda senior. And the future? Mr Zameer dismisses reports that he is planning to join the Congress and says he would be an azad panchi if the JD(S) expels him. In an interview with Deccan Chronicle, he shared his thoughts on what led to this sorry situation. Excerpts from the interview: After doing everything possible for the growth of JD(S), you are now rocking the boat? Even today, I am a JD(S) man and I am not rocking the boat. Everyone knows who is responsible for this development. It is Mr Kumaraswamy. I have never defied either Mr Deve Gowda or the party. I have told the media several times that todays Kumaraswamy and What he was before 2004 are not the same. He changed after becoming Chief Minister. I had told the media one month ago that I would be voting for the Congress and not JD-S (in the Rajya Sabha poll) . You should be asking Mr Kumaraswamy the reason behind my decision. It was not just me... but five of us (which later became eight MLAs). I don't know why, Mr Kumaraswamy wanted to finish us politically. He cleared the candidate without informing party members. Initially our conscience did not permit us to do this. We sent a message through MLC Mr C.R. Manohar that we would vote for Congress. But, he took us for granted. After a fortnight, Mandya MP Mr C.S. Puttaraju took us for a dinner meeting with Mr Kumaraswamy to sort out issues. However, during the meeting, Mr Kumaraswamy did not utter a word. We were ready to go back on the decision to back Congress. But, in the two-and-a-half-hour meeting, he did not bring up the Rajya Sabha issue at all. We sensed that he was prepared to go ahead without us. A week later, he called Mr H.C. Balakrishna and said that he had finalised the Muslim candidate which was intended to finish me politically. Later, while negotiating with independent MLAs seeking their support for the JD(S) candidate, he told them that he needed only five votes and was getting the support of 12 independents to teach us a lesson. We are also human beings. If we don't get angry over such incidents which have been recurring at regular intervals, we will become gods. After the independents ditched him, he came to talk to us. At the Gold Finch Hotel meeting, I told him everything in his face, including what he had told the Independents. I told him that I could not come back, as we had gone too far. I also told Mr Kumaraswamy that he could call us after the elections and we could build the party again. You worked against the party candidate in the Hebbal bypoll, now you have sabotaged their prospects in the Rajya Sabha and Council polls too? Hebbal was a different issue. There was no need to field a Muslim candidate against a Muslim. In both Hebbal and Raichur, we lost our deposit. What message are they giving to our society? It affected our ZP and TP election prospects also. Were you scared that the party might cultivate another minority leader to diminish your prospects? What minority leader? Just look at the candidates they selected. In Hebbal and Raichur, both could not poll more than 3,500 votes. If they wanted to give the Rajya Sabha ticket to a minority candidate, such candidates were there in our party itself. They could have given it to Mr Danish Ali or Mr Zafrulla Khan. If they wanted to promote a poor Muslim, there was Mr Shakeel Nawaz. All of them have worked for the party for a long time. Who is this Mr Farookh? His uncle, Mr Mohiyuddin was in the Janata Parivar, but Mr Farookh is a Congressman. If they wanted to give the ticket to a Congressman itself, there was Mr C.M. Ibrahim, who would have been an asset to our party. Mr Farookh runs educational institutions... What is his contribution to our community? With such candidates, what parallel leadership can they build against me? What is the deal with the CM? What deal with CM? I have seen reports on our leaders blaming Mr Siddaramaiah for trying to break our party using our MLAs. It is false. I was the person who took the proposal for a third Congress candidate to the CM. Initialy, Mr Siddaramaiah was irked and said that it would be a misadventure. He also warned us that we would lose our membership. I tried convincing him 10 times, but he was not ready for the gamble. I then spoke to Mr Digvijay Singh and after he cleared the proposal, the CM agreed to it. He has no role. No politician is stupid to engage in philanthropy unless it benefits him. I am not doing charity work for political benefit.. I believe in god and I am doing it for that. In Urdu, they call it Akhirat' ... for posterity. I tell even the people I help that I will be deriving benefit from this work with god. Another rebel MLA, Mr H.C. Balakrishna told TV channels that he was going against the party because you told him to. It seems he took money from you in the last poll and he had to return the favour. I don't think he said that. See, we are like a family in JD(S). During elections, we did not get funds from the party. He had financial constraints and took it from me. Such give and take is common... What he said was that I had taken good care of him and the party had done nothing but issue the B-form. Will you contest the 2018 Assembly polls on a Congress ticket? I have never thought of going to the Congress. Since there was so much confusion in the party, we had to take such an extreme decision. I believe my fate has been written and I have left it to that. It hurts me as my ties with Mr Deve Gowda' are older than my relationship with Mr Kumaraswamy. Our conscience did not permit us to vote for Congress. But our self respect was repeatedly challenged by Mr Kumaraswamy. Mr Gowda could have and should have intervened and handled the situation. We don't know why he did not do that. I keep saying that Janata Dal (Secular) is a training ground, which breeds leaders, who migrate to other parties. I never understood why. Now, I have the answer. The party belong to Mr Deve Gowda family. If they remove us, we may feel bad. But, we have no choice. The Congress too is not in good shape, wont you spoil your prospects by joining hands with the party? Many people think I will join Congress. I am close to Mr Digvijay Singh for a long time. Even last week, I spoke to Mr Rahul Gandhi for 40 minutes. But, we are like a family in JD(S). The Congress culture does not suit us. We can be good swimmers in ponds and lakes but the Congress is an ocean, I will be lost in that. I am pragmatic about my approach. If they remove me from the party, I will contest as an independent and prove that I have grown since my first election in Chamarajpet. Even today, if Mr Gowda wants me back and if Mr Kumaraswamy is ready to mend his ways, I am ready to work with them. BENGALURU: Political circles are abuzz that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is likely to reshuffle his cabinet as part of a strategy to refurbish the image of his party. He, therefore has convened a meeting of council of ministers on Wednesday to seek resignations, even as party leaders in New Delhi indicated a minor rejig rather than a full-scale shakeup. Sources in the cabinet maintained, however, that the leader planned to discuss the launch of various housing schemes and other populist measures. Bengaluru: Asserting that they were still with the party and had not received any suspension notice, rebel Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs on Monday called for a "more decent" parting of ways if there had to be one. Speaking to reporters here, six of the eight rebels claimed Sunday's meeting convened by party patriarch, H.D. Deve Gowda was not aimed at building it, but ruining it. "It was held just to provoke the party workers against the rebels," they charged. Absent at the press conference were prominent rebels, Iqbal Ansari and ZameerAhamed Khan, who have gone on umrah, a pilgrimage to Mecca. Expressing his displeasure over the way the affair was handled, Mr N. Cheluvarayaswamy said if the party wanted to take action against the rebels, it could have held a meeting with some of the seniors among them. Instead, a meeting of party workers was organised, where posters were torn and ugly messages sent through social media, he said. Mr Gowda, Mr Revanna and Mr YSV Datta have stooped to a new low in their criticism and today party workers are being provoked to protest in Mandya and Ramanagar districts. But we will not retaliate the same way. Our conscience does not permit us as we have grown with him. We don't want to damage the party's image, as it has contributed to our political growth. We will not stoop that low,' Mr Cheluvarayaswamy declared. Defending the rebels' cross-voting during the recent Rajya Sabha elections, the MLA said they had honestly informed the party about their intention to vote for the Congress. But even while negotiating with the independents, Mr Kumaraswamy told them he was going to counter us. So we took on the challenge of countering him. While people like Mr Bandeppa Kashampur and Mr Alkod Hanumanthappa are slogging for the party, those like Mr. Narayanaswamy and Mr Saravana are becoming MLCs. What is their contribution to the party? he demanded. Mr Cheluvarayaswamy said that neither Chief Minister Siddaramaiah nor BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa were eager to induct the rebels into their parties."Mr Gowda's family is closer to Mr Siddaramaiah than we are, he claimed. Recalling that he and Mr Balakrishna had stood by Mr Gowda during his tough times, the MLA pointed out that when the JDS supremo's photograph was removed from the Chief Minister's chamber, it was he who had attacked Mr. Siddaramaiah. Neither Mr Kumaraswamy, nor Mr Revanna opened their mouths. Our mistake was that we fought to reward our party workers. While they worked, others enjoyed all the power, he added bitterly. Venting his ire against the Gowda family, Mr Balakrishna claimed that in 2006, after "the rebels made Mr Kumaraswamy Chief Minister, it was Mr Revanna and Mr Deve Gowda who ran the administration.Today Mr Gowda says he will get 120 seats and make Mr Kumaraswamy Chief Minister again. If he can pull this off we will retire from politics. If he can't, let him give Mr Kumaraswamy to us and we will make him Chief Minister. Don't ask us how though, Mr Balakrishna added. Responding to Mr Revanna's remark that shanis have left the party, he said the JD(S) leader was himself Mr Kumaraswamy's biggest shani (evil influence). They believe that if Mr Kumaraswamy becomes stronger, Mr Gowda will become weak. They are not letting him become strong and he knows that, he maintained. Accepting Mr Revanna's challenge to take an oath before goddess Chamundeshwari on the cash for vote controversy, Mr Balakrishna said, All eight of us will come there. Let three of the Gowda family members also come there. We will reveal what happened in all the elections and will swear to tell what is true and what is false, he added. Mr Ramesh Babu Bandisidde Gowda, for his part, claimed he had nothing against the party or its leaders. But since I am from Mandya, I am close to Mr Cheluvarayaswamy. A fortnight ago, Mr Deve Gowda called me and asked if I was going with him and even before I could answer he wished me all the best. I had no option but to go with Mr Cheluvarayaswamy, he said. BENGALURU: Spewing venom a day after the suspension of eight party MLAs for supporting a candidate of the ruling Congress in Rajya Sabha polls, Janata Dal (Secular) patriarch H D Deve Gowda said on Monday that his party was built by workers, and was not invigorated by money power. I never considered money as a tool to build the party. When the party grows stronger, money comes automatically. The greatest strength of our party is our workers, he told the media here. A visibly upset Mr Gowda trained his guns on rebel legislators Zameer Ahamed Khan, N Cheluvarayaswamy and H C Balakrishna alleging that his son and state unit president H D Kumaraswamy was persuaded by these MLAs to join hands and form a coalition government with Bharatiya Janata Party in 2006. Mr Kumaraswamy had no intentions to join hands with the BJP. However, these three tricked him and made him join hands with Bharatiya Janata Party. Since then, I am upset with them. Now, they have crossed all limits, he added. He launched a vituperative attack against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, energy minister D K Shivakumar and state Bharatiya Janata Party president B.S. Yeddyurappa, alleging that the trio had ganged up to decimate his party. He threw a challenge at them saying he would tonsure his head and parade himself on a donkey, if they succeed in their plans. When asked whether he was willing to lose minority leader like Mr Zameer Ahamed Khan, Mr Gowda said the former minister was trying to finish the Janata Dal (Secular) for the last three years. All he did was to hobnob with Mr Siddaramaiah and tried to ruin the party. The party never benefited because of him. It lost a lot due to him, Mr Gowda added. The Congress story of good times in the Northeast, for long the partys bastion, could well be history. When I talk of the Congress good times in the region, I am reminded of Rajiv Gandhi, the charismatic former Prime Minister who personally drove wife Sonia from Aizawl, Mizorams capital, to Silchar in Assam, stopping to admire the wilderness along the way. The Congress attained acceptability in the Northeast under Rajiv Gandhi, who managed to deliver quite a few things the historic Assam Accord in 1985, the Mizo Peace Accord in 1986, and the peace deal with the Tribal National Volunteers (TNV) in Tripura in 1988. I remember hopping onto his helicopter along with a colleague from Nongstoin, in Meghalaya, to Tura in the Garo Hills, returning to Shillong the next day. It was during a campaign tour in Meghalaya where thousands would flock to the venue to catch a glimpse of Rajiv Gandhi and hear him. Those were good days for the Independence-era Congress that was strong in the Northeast despite the region being engulfed in violent insurgencies that pushed sub-national aspirations. Today the Congress has clearly lost its grip in the Northeast, with desertions turning out to be the order of the day. It began with the revolt in the party in Arunachal Pradesh that led to dissidents deserting the Congress to join the almost-defunct Peoples Party of Arunachal, thereby toppling the Nabam Tuki government. Now the government in Itanagar is headed by the PPA-BJP combine. Next, it was Assams turn to bid farewell to the 15-year Tarun Gogoi government. The electorate, with 85 per cent turning up to vote, gave a decisive mandate in favour of the BJP. The saffron party got 60 seats (up from just five in 2011) on its own, while its two regional allies won 26. The BJPs convincing win in Assam seems to have sparked the fresh banner of revolt in the Congress in states like Tripura and Meghalaya, perhaps due to the feeling within sections in the party that it was headed for more difficult days ahead. Besides, the Assam win has given a huge impetus to the BJP in Manipur, where Assembly polls are due next year. Three developments in Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur explain the Congress sorry state in the region. Its boat started rocking in Tripura just after the Trinamul Congress sweeping victory in West Bengal. Six of the states 10 Congress MLAs (Tripura has a 60-member Assembly) have since defected and joined Trinamul, and one, surprisingly, has joined the CPI(M). That has brought down the Congress strength in the Left bastion from 10 to just three. In Meghalaya, too, revolt is brewing in the ruling Congress with several leaders, including MLAs, establishing contact with top BJP leaders. This suggests that the Mukul Sangma government in Meghalaya could face a full-blown rebellion in the coming days. In Manipur, the BJP bagged 10 seats in the 27-member Imphal Municipal Corporation in the just-ended civic polls. The Congress won 12 seats and five have gone to Independents. This is significant as in the last civic polls in 2011, the BJP won only one seat. The BJP in Manipur is upbeat as this performance ahead of the 2017 Assembly polls can be taken as an indication of the saffron upsurge in a state where the Congress has been rather strong. Again, for the record, the Guwahati Municipal Corporation too has just transformed itself from a Congress-ruled one to BJP after some Congress councillors quit, reducing the party to a minority. This led the Congress mayor to resign, paving the way for the BJP to take over the GMC. The BJP is clearly working to a plan to consolidate itself in the Northeast, having picked party strategist Himanta Biswa Sarma as convenor of the newly-formed North-East Democratic Alliance, but the Congress shows no sign of a damage-repair strategy as yet. That leaves the field open for the BJP to exploit and expand in the region, that is a relatively new power arena for it. Himanta Biswa Sarma, who was among the main architects of the BJPs Assam victory, has a clear mandate, that of expanding and strengthening the BJPs base in the region so that the party could bag most of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in eight states in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In fact, Himanta Biswa Sarma has said he is confident the BJP will come up with an extraordinary performance in the 2019 general election as it will be stronger in most of the northeastern states by then. What is most baffling is the utter lack of urgency on the part of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi or the AICC to deal with the Congress woes in the Northeast. In fact, it was this attitude on Rahul Gandhis part that allowed the dissidence in the Assam unit to fester for over two years, and ultimately led to the exit of a dynamic political leader like Himanta Biswa in August last year. The AICC did precious little to tackle the Congress rebellion in Arunachal and Tripura. The story is the same in Meghalaya. The best antidote for the Congress high command at this stage, with Karnataka left as the only big state where it is in power, is to give full autonomy to its state units and loosen its grip to allow local leaders take decisions and engage in workable social engineering. It this doesnt happen, one could soon see a Congress-mukt Northeast if not a Congress-mukt Bharat! In that event, Rahul Gandhi and his advisers will have to take the blame and accept responsibility. China persists in its reservation about India joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the informal cartel of 48 countries that frames rules for international trade in nuclear materials, when it has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which this country regards as discriminatory. The Indian objection to the NPT is that it permits the declared five nuclear weapons powers (the US, Russia, Britain, France and China) which made the bomb by 1968 to produce atomic weapons but bars other countries. After signing a bilateral agreement with the US in 2008, India was able to obtain a one-time waiver from the NSG in procuring internationally-sourced nuclear reactors for its civilian energy programme. The fact that India has an outstanding record in the matter of non-proliferation of nuclear materials and missile components, unlike some of the P-5 themselves, clinched the argument for India, and now the US has agreed to push Indias case for NSG membership. But this does not impress China, which continues to argue a technical case that only NPT signatories can be in the NSG. NSG members decide on entry of new members only through consensus. A Chinese official spokesman said on Saturday that, unlike the impression created, Indias special case was not discussed at an informal NSG meeting in Vienna last week. Beijing says that the minimum criteria for admitting new members should be discussed at NSGs Seoul meeting later this month. This, in effect, is a dismissal of US secretary of state John Kerrys earlier appeal to China not to block a consensus emerging in Indias favour. India made its application for admission to NSG on May 12. Since then Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been energetically appealing to NSG members to let India in. He dropped by in Switzerland and Mexico recently and was able to persuade these countries to give up their objections. Indias cause has been helped by the American stance. The US has brought India into a tighter geopolitical embrace and also hopes to gain commercially if India is permitted to freely trade in nuclear wares. Chinas all-weather friend Pakistan insists that it be admitted to NSG if India is. China has developed a greater politico-economic interest in Pakistan in recent years and also desires to keep India down. Thus, Beijing agreeing to an Indian NSG membership right away seems not too likely. New Delhi will have to work on an appropriate give-and-take with it, and this could have a Pakistan and Afghanistan dimension. A teacher asked her students: Why do people, have different blood groups? The wittiest among them retorted: So that mosquitoes may enjoy different flavours. While mosquitoes presumably relish myriad menus of bloods, blood donors vivify and unify humankind. Today is World Blood Donor Day with the theme: Blood connects us all, share life, give blood! Although every one of us has blood coursing through our bodies, the sight of blood is unwelcome. For the ancients, the bright red of blood together with its mystical connection with life and death made it an ominous symbol of violence and wrong, guilt and impending punishment. Only in the light of sacrifice did blood portend good news. Blood generally symbolises life. Additionally, in the Bible, blood signifies death since it is being spilled results in doom. The shedding of human blood is treated as a capital offence: Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that persons blood be shed. Blood being symbolic of guilt stems from blood spilt due to murder. Shakespeares Macbeths oft-quoted query: Will all Great Neptunes ocean wash the blood clean from my hand? echoes the desperation of men of blood whose hands are soaked with blood and whose sins will not go unpunished. In the religious realm, discharges of blood are often seen as signs of impurity that fragment the fabric of life. Sadly, menstruating women are sometimes kept away from the sanctum sanctorum and prohibited from partaking in certain rituals. The life of Christ is often interpreted in terms of bloody sacrifice. Jesus does away with animal s acrifice in order to offer up our bodies as pure sacrifices. Predicting his bloody death on the cross, he symbolises it with the proffering of a cup to his disciples, saying, This is my blood, poured out for you. Beyond religious significances, despite our imagined ideas of purity and impurity, our manmade divisions of class and caste, when we desperately need blood, dont we rush to receive it without bothering about who the donor is? Irrespective of our backgrounds, blood donors cooperate with God to sustain life; for, science has been unable to produce blood in laboratories thus far. Medicos say that if one per cent of any population donates blood, the needs of entire countries will be met. Why not be part of that one per cent? My experiences of donating blood and nudging others to do so have been heartwarming. Years ago, my students formed a fraternity of donors felicitously named blood brothers. Tongue-in-cheek, someone said: Pessimists have B-negative blood group. Whatever be your blood group, blood connects us all. God-given life flows through our arteries and veins. Show your love. Donate blood. Your little red rivulets will never flow in vain. Few Indians have read Chinese writer Sun Tzu who, 2,500 years ago, wrote the Art of War. Sun Tzu wrote: The art of war is of vital importance to the state a matter of life or death, a road either to safety or ruin. Some Indians may be vaguely aware of Chinese sea power, with the worlds second largest navy, its largest merchant fleet, the largest Coast Guard, the largest fishing fleet, 52 major ports, 16 inland ports and an unique fishing trawler-based force known as the maritime militia. In stark contrast, Indian sea power is 25 per cent that of China, and the gap between the two navies is widening in Chinas favour. Examine how China uses Sun Tzus lessons to press its claims in the East China Sea and South China Sea, and its growing reach into the Indian Ocean region. Had our leaders read Sun Tzu and studied Chinas growing military heft, our defence budget (1.65 per cent of GDP, lowest in percentage terms since the 1962 war) should have been at least three per cent of GDP (specially as we are the worlds fastest-growing economy, at 7.6 per cent). This year the finance minister for the first time added Pensions & MoD staff to the defence budget, inflating it to 2.26 per cent of GDP ($51 billion). Unlike India, China is racing ahead with military modernisation and in late May announced its Jin class strategic nuclear submarine (SSBN) with 12 nuclear-tipped JL-2 ballistic missiles had sailed out of Sanya naval base (Hainan island) on its first deterrent patrol in the Pacific, with a second-strike capability to target the US mainland. Incidentally, Hainan island is also a big tourist destination, holds international beauty pageants, besides being the home base for Chinese military aircraft, nuclear submarines and warships. China continues to take India and the world by surprise due to its meticulous long-term planning, hard military power, diplomacy, surprise, deception, economic power and ruthless execution of plans, which are the basic elements of Sun Tzus Art of War. All nations involved in the South China Sea and East China Sea disputes are strengthening their navies, but also realise that to reduce the chances of open conflict, its preferable to use lightly-armed Coast Guard ships. This Coast Guard faceoff is a regular feature in the ECS disputed Senkaku islands, where Chinese Coast Guard ships escort Chinese trawlers near the disputed islands, while the Japanese Coast Guard asserts Japanese sovereignty on the islands it holds. A new competition for large Coast Guard ships has begun. The US Coast Guard (the worlds second largest) has 4,500-tonne ships, while the Japanese Coast Guard (the third largest) boasts of 6,500-tonne ships. The Chinese Coast Guard is the largest in the world, and it is building two massive 10,000-tonne ships to deliver non-military shock and awe to the Japanese in the ECS. In SCS, where China faces lightly armed small regional navies or Coast Guards, but a potent US Navy carries out freedom of navigation operations and the US Air Force patrols it from airbases in the Philippines, the innovative Chinese have introduced a paramilitary maritime force known as the Maritime Militia. This comprises dozens of Chinese state-owned trawlers, operating from fishing harbours in China, since the founding of the Communist republic in 1949, and initially substituted for the almost non-existent Chinese Navy and Coast Guard. Founded in 1985, it operates from Tanmen fishing village in Hainan island and is manned by highly-motivated local fishermen and retired Chinese Navy veterans. In April 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Tanmen Maritime Militia, in recognition of its role in claiming Chinese sovereignty in the disputed SCS. These vessels frequently try to harass US Navy warships and obstruct Philippines Navy efforts to access the disputed Scarborough shoal in SCS. This innovative and unarmed militia is escorted by lightly-armed Coast Guard ships and since no agreement has been signed between different countries on the conduct of coast guards at sea, it tries to do some muscle-flexing without weapons, such as when a CCG ship deliberately collided with a small Indonesian patrol boat to rescue a Chinese trawler that was arrested for intruding into Indonesian waters. In April 2014, at the Chinese port city of Qingdao, the navies of over 20 Pacific nations, including China, the US and Japan, approved a non-binding agreement called Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) to prevent incidents at sea. Of course, the Americans now want a similar agreement to include Coast Guards and a Chinese major-general, speaking at the recent Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore (also atttended by Indian defence minister Manohar Parrikar), said a CUES for Coast Guards should be possible. But even if that were to happen, the Chinese Maritime Militia will be available to press home its claims in the SCS-ECS. Using the Art of War, China created doubts in the minds of the US Navy by talking of two shore-based non-tested aircraft-carrier killer ballistic missiles, called DF-21D, about which I had written earlier in this newspaper. The DF-21D threat is taken seriously by the Americans, though no test against a sea target has been conducted. If the Chinese were to base it at Gwadar port in Pakistan, it could well pose a major threat to Indian aircraft-carriers, or if these carriers were to venture into the SCS-ECS. A Chinese admiral recently announced China had a new 2,500-mile-range aircraft-carrier killer ballistic missile named DF-26. This weapon too has not yet been tested against a sea target, but what worries the Americans is that these two missiles, if successful, will be game-changers and might make aircraft-carriers obsolete, thus greatly diminishing American sea power. To conclude, take a sentence from the Art of War: All warfare is based on deception. The Chinese moves can be better understood and predicted if one understands Sun Tzus book. India-China relations will normalise for mutual benefit, only after Indias economy, military power and political will are respected by Beijing. At present, India doesnt figure very prominently on Chinas strategic radar, so Prime Minister Narendra Modi must pay the same attention to defence that he devotes to economic growth and foreign affairs. Eric Hochberg, left, principal investigator for the CORAL (Coral Reef Airborne Laboratory) project, and lead NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Michelle Gierach, right, look at reefs in Oahus Kaneohe Bay, near Kaneohe, Hawaii. Coconut Island, Hawaii: Coral reefs have almost always been studied up close, by scientists in the water looking at small portions of reefs to gather data and knowledge about the larger ecosystems. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is taking a step back and getting a wider view, from about 23,000 feet above. NASA and top scientists from around the world are launching a three-year campaign Thursday to gather new data on coral reefs like never before. Using specially designed instruments mounted on high-flying aircraft, the scientists plan to map large swaths of coral around the world in hopes of better understanding how environmental changes such as global warming, acidification and pollution are affecting these delicate and important ecosystems. "The idea is to get a new perspective on coral reefs from above, to study them at a larger scale than we have been able to before, and then relate reef condition to the environment," said Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences' Eric Hochberg, who is principal investigator for the project, called the Coral Reef Airborne Laboratory, or CORAL. Hochberg and the project's lead NASA scientist, Michelle Gierach, were in Oahu's Kaneohe Bay with The Associated Press on Tuesday to gather baseline data in the water. While the primary science will be conducted using instruments that create detailed images of the sea floor from above, the team also must take baseline measurements in the ocean to validate the data, Gierach said. Coral reefs drive many tourist economies around the world, but they provide much more than pretty places to dive and snorkel, Gierach said. Reefs are critical habitat for the majority of the fish that people consume and also protect shorelines from dangerous storm surges and rising ocean levels. Recently, scientists have developed pharmaceutical applications from coral reefs, including painkillers that are not habit-forming, Hochberg said. "Just realizing that though you may not see a coral, that you may not have your backyard be within this beautiful environment that we're in right now, corals are impacting you, they are globally important," Gierach said. "We have to understand how they're changing so we can make some managed decisions about their future." Reefs are among the first ecosystems to be dramatically and directly affected by global warming, according to researchers. The International Society for Reef Studies Consensus Statement, published in 2015, said up to 50 percent of coral reefs have been "largely or completely degraded by a combination of local factors and global climate change" over the past few decades. Julia Baum, assistant professor of biology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, has done extensive research on coral reefs and said the data gathered from this kind of project could prove highly valuable for international reef scientists and the conservation community. Baum said coral reef science has been limited by the lack of broad data sets like this project plans to provide and that the research could complement information collected in the water if it's made openly available to the scientific community. CORAL researchers said all data will be made public. "As scientific divers, we're limited by the depth we can work at and the amount of bottom time that we have while we're diving, so much of underwater marine science, especially on coral reefs, is a painstakingly slow process," she said. The CORAL team will study the reefs of Hawaii, Palau, the Mariana Islands, and Australia's Great Barrier Reef over the next three years. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. About the only country that might be happy about the recent events is Indonesia because PNGs troubles are taking the heat off West Papua. In Australia, in particular, the government is keeping its fingers crossed that it doesnt have to launch a RAMSI-style rescue mission. In Australia, the USA and China there are nervous resource developers wondering whether they should review their investment plans for the country. A LOT of people in a lot of countries are closely watching what is going on in Papua New Guinea at the moment. But its in the other Melanesian states, like Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia that most interest is being generated. In the Melanesian world Papua New Guinea is the big banana. Economically and demographically it casts a giant shadow over its near Pacific neighbours. They know that if Papua New Guinea descends into turmoil, or becomes the dictatorship that it is rapidly heading towards, the repercussions for them will be dire. They know that their own political classes will take the lead from whatever happens in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea will be the future blueprint for Melanesia. When Vanuatu started falling apart, for many of the same reasons now affecting Papua New Guinea, it took an outside military intervention to stabilise the small nation. When the Solomon Islands imploded the same thing happened for the same reasons. In between, Papua New Guinea experienced its own cataclysm in Bougainville, mostly brought about by rivalry over development spoils. All of these events should have been salutary lessons in how not to govern a country. But the lessons dont seem to have been learnt because it is now happening in Papua New Guinea. The big banana looks set to join its tinpot cousins. Yet there is still hope that the country will pull out of its downward spiral. That hope lies firmly with its ordinary people, with those brave people like the students who dont want to see their nation become another failed Pacific state. Its quite a challenge but the gauntlet has been well and truly thrown down by the events of last Wednesday. At the moment Papua New Guinea is being run by criminals. There is no other way to describe the politicians in charge. They may not have been charged, arrested and convicted but by any other definition they are criminals. There is little difference between them and the underworld mafia in other countries. In fact, their corruption, greed and plundering of the public purse while their people suffer makes them much worse than any of those mafia dons. At least those men look after their own people. The politicians of Papua New Guinea cant be bothered. There are foreign businessmen, and no doubt local businessmen, who are weighing up their options right now. They are planning their exit strategies in case things get worse. Conversely, there are carpetbaggers, conmen and fraudsters eyeing Papua New Guinea as a potential new playground, just as they did before they set sail for Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. If you thought the big companies in Papua New Guinea were bad wait until these darlings arrive. It is make or break time in Papua New Guinea. Lets hope it is not the latter. solar-powered airplane Solar Impulse 2, piloted by Swiss adventurer Andre Borschberg, flies over the Statue of Libery in New York Saturday, June 11, 2016 shortly before landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport. New York: The pilots of a solar-powered airplane on a globe-circling voyage that began more than a year ago said their flight over the Statue of Liberty before landing in New York inspired them on their mission to promote a world free from reliance on fossil fuels. "Today, liberty is about finding and promoting renewable sources of power," said Bertrand Piccard, the initiator and one of the pilots of the Swiss-made Solar Impulse 2. "Our mission is to demonstrate that just the energy of the sun can give us enough power to fly day and night." Piccard and Andre Borschberg, who flew the plane to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, arrived Saturday from Pennsylvania at 4 a.m. after a 4 hour-41-minute flight. "It was really gorgeous," Borschberg said of the aerial view of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. "I felt like I was a young child in front of a Christmas tree." Their trip across the US mainland began April 24, when Solar Impulse landed in Mountain View, California, after flying over the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on its way from Hawaii. Piccard said the pair hoped to leave sometime next week on their journey across the Atlantic Ocean toward Europe. He said weather conditions will dictate when they embark and a decision will likely be made in flight as to where they land either Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal or elsewhere. Across the U.S., they stopped in Phoenix; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Dayton, Ohio, home of aviation pioneers Orville and Wilbur Wright; and Allentown, Pennsylvania. The Solar Impulse 2's wings, which stretch wider than those of a Boeing 747, are equipped with 17,000 solar cells that power propellers and charge batteries. The plane runs on stored energy at night. Ideal flight speed is about 28 mph, although that can double during the day when the sun's rays are strongest. The trip began in March 2015 from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and made stops in Oman, Myanmar, China and Japan. The plane had a five-day trip from Japan to Hawaii, where the crew was forced to stay in Oahu for nine months after the plane's battery system sustained heat damage on its trip from Japan. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. In what seems to be an attempt to introduce foldable display smartphones, Lenovo showcased two other devices at its Tech World event with bendable displays. Although the first Project Tango-based smartphone Lenovo Phab 2 Pro stole the spotlight during the Tech World conference, the two other devices with bendable displays were also equally interesting, and more manufacturers are taking keen interest on the feature. The companys CEO Peter Hortensius showcased CPlus, showcased the CPlus smartphone with bendable display; users can even wear this watch on their wrist, as it bends backwards and fits on the wrist in a matter of seconds. Moving on, he also demonstrated the Folio tablet, which practically folds in half. Users can not only take calls using the foldable device but also open it instantly and start browsing or use apps. The CPlus handset prototype features a 4.26-inch display but the company pointed out that the final versions will be available in two sizesa large and a small oneto fit on all wrist sizes. The handset and tablet will utilise an Android OS, which will come in 12 different colors. The companys Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Yuanqing Yang, said during the event that the company has been a leading innovator in the field of smartphone technology and acknowledged that the company has started working on bendable displays for smartphones and tablets. However, there is no confirmation regarding the time when the actual devices will hit stores. On the other hand, Samsung is also looking to launch two devices with foldable displays in 2017. It will fall under the companys Project Valley that is focused on developing smartphones with flexible displays. These smartphones are expected to make their first appearance during the mobile World Congress 2017. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. Many of us have reached the age when a pair of spectacles mislaid or a wallet lost, can seem like a larger crisis than all the weighty matters discussed at 9 pm on TV. Time was, when we had to round up a posse of the unwilling near-and-dear and send them out in search parties to retrieve our missing possessions. Thanks to some innovative extensions of wireless technology, today there is a better way. You click an app on your phone and a tag attached to your prized possession, announces where it is hidden. But it is not just geriatrics like us, who should welcome these new tools to worry-free living: For the young and restless, smart tags enable levels of convenience that were hitherto undreamt of. You enter a restaurant and tap your table with your phone. The menu opens on your handset, with any preset restrictions you may have set like vegetarian or diabetic. These may seem like trivial applications that is because the smart tags story is still a work in progress, limited only by ones imagination and creativity. The trend is largely driven by two technologies: Near Field Communication and Bluetooth. NFC is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology that enables the exchange of data between devices over five to 10 cm distance. NFC tags are thin, coin-sized circuits which can be fashioned like stickers. They are passive i.e., they have no power source of their own and draw it wirelessly from another active NFC device. Tags, can typically store from 100 to 1000 bytes of information and these can be programmed to do just about anything: transferring pictures, text and video links. You can embed an NFC tag on any surface in a brochure for example and it will open up an entire multimedia document. Such tags are now available by the dozen, for around Rs 50 and are reusable. Programming them on your phone using special NFC apps is quite easy so you can tweak the tags to do a variety of things. Some wireless speakers use NFC to connect to the phone. The biggest use of NFC tags may be in the payments business. Many points of sale now allow you to pay by bringing your phone close to the NFC station: All your credit card information remains secure. The more basic use of tags to track items, people and pets, is best done using Bluetooth. This is usually good for 10 metres or so. Bluetooth tags are larger and stay in constant communication with a Bluetooth enabled device. Indian companies have launched some useful versions. Such wireless ways to connect have overtaken technologies like Bar codes, Quick Response Codes, even Radio Frequency ID (RFID) because they are simpler, not necessarily better. In todays tech duniya your solution must work for dummies or die. Evotag: Find it fast! A Gurgaon-based startup, Evoxyz Technologies has made a name in micro location technologies and launched arguably Indias first Bluetooth tracker, Evotag. The tiny rubber encased device needs to be paired with the Evotag app on your phone. This allows you to set up one of many use scenarios: locate any item to which you have attached the tag; locate a pet; know when your child strays away from you; locate baggage when it comes near you on an airport conveyor belt. You can ask the lost item to announce itself with a ring. In another useful situation, you can stick the tag on your front door and programme your phone to ring if the door is opened. In fact the tag is a bahuroopi that you can train for any number of situations. With the tag you also get an LED torch-keychain to which you can attach the tag if you like. It costs Rs 1,399 a small price to pay for peace of mind. It is available later this week from online portals or from the parent company. IndiaTechOnline Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. The Ehang 184 is designed to carry a 220-pound load, fly under 650 feet in the air, and cruise for 23 minutes at an average speed of 62 mph, according to the specs. Buckle up, because an autonomous car-sized drone from the Chinese company Ehang is cleared to begin testing in Nevada, US. The electric Ehang 184 passenger drone first debuted earlier this year at CES and has the capacity to stay aloft for more than 20 minutes. The Ehang 184 is designed to carry a 220-pound load, fly under 650 feet in the air, and cruise for 23 minutes at an average speed of 62 mph, according to the specs. Electric charging takes two to four hours. The four-rotor drone also uses an app for takeoff and landing. We picture it being sort of like a pedicab that gets airborne. Recently the Nevada Governors Office of Economic Development and the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems announced an agreement with Ehang to collaborate on flight testing, training, and development at the states FAA unmanned aircraft systems test site. The goal is for Ehangs drone to ultimately get regulatory approval. The people involved called the agreement historic, but futuristic sounds more accurate to us. I personally look forward to the day when drone taxis are part of Nevadas transportation system, Tom Wilczek, an aerospace and defense industry specialist for the Governors Office of Economic Development, said in a press release. A specific timeline for testing is still in the works but Ehang expects to begin later this year, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. If everything works out, it will be a first for the state and the US. Not that getting regulatory approval will be easy. Plus, there are other challenges like the drones limited 23-minute cruise time and its lack of manual flight controls should anything go awry. Source: www.livescience.com Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. New Delhi: Intex Technologies has announced the launch of its first-ever Virtual Reality Cardboard, Intex EYELET, which will come bundled with the latest 4G smartphone, Aqua View on Monday. Intex EYELET is a certified Works with Google Cardboard (WWGC) device, making Intex the first brand in India to launch a Google-certified Cardboard viewer. The 4G-enabled smartphone, Aqua View along with Intex EYELET is available at a price of Rs 8,999. The 4G-enabled Aqua View comes with a 5-inch HD display and a 2.5D curved glass display which gives user a smoother touch and swipe experience. The Cardboard Viewer - Intex EYELET offers users a unique gateway inside the fascinating world of 3D and 360 degree content viewing. The device has an in-built cardboard application that allows users to experience EYELET VR technology. The Cardboard, EYELET, is the version-2 of Google cardboard and so is compatible with any smartphone (Hardware should support Gyroscope and Accelerometer sensor). Virtual reality is the next big thing in the area of consumer technology. We are delighted to partner with Google in bringing Intex Eyelet Cardboard bundled with Aqua View thereby marking our entry into the VR space, stated Mr. Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, Mobile Business Head, Intex Technologies. Aqua View comes with the latest bio-metric security - fingerprint sensor at the front panel. The scanner will scan and verify the authority, thereby making the device completely secure. For photography enthusiasts, the smartphone has an 8MP Rear AF Camera with LED flash and 5MP front camera. The camera has various modes like Face Beauty mode, anti-shake, motion tracker mode, Live photo mode and Gesture V capture mode. Aqua View has an in-built 16GB ROM and an expandable memory of up to 32 GB. Also, along with 4G network has VOLTE (Voice Over LTE network) feature which enables users to enjoy the crystal clarity of HD voice calls. The 4G-dual-SIM device has a 2200mAh Li-Ion battery, offering a talk-time up to 7 hours along with a standby time of 9 days. With a sophisticated back cover with brush finish, the stylish Aqua View is available in Grey and White colors. Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter. 'India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence,' Pranab Mukherjee said. (Photo: PTI) Accra: President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday condemned the worst mass shooting incident in the US that killed 50 people and said India condemns terror in "all its forms and manifestations" while calling for immediate collective action to check the scourge of terrorism. Read: Terrorism must be eradicated by collective efforts: Pranab Mukherjee In a condolence message to President Barack Obama, Mukherjee, who is here in Ghanaian capital on the first-leg of his six-day visit to three African nations, said the attack was yet another "grim reminder" that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them. Read: Orlando shooting reignites debate on stricter gun control laws "I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the deadly attack against innocent civilians in Orlando earlier today. I offer my deepest sympathies to all those who have been affected by this terrible tragedy. "India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence," he said in his message. Read: ISIS claims Orlando nightclub shooter as 'soldier of caliphate' "The people of India stand by the people of the United States of America in their moment of grief and mourning. We pray for the families that have lost loved ones and for the swift recovery of the injured," the President said. Mukherjee is on the six-day visit to Ghana, Ivory Coast and Namibia, beginning on Sunday. At least 50 people were killed and 53 were injured in a massacre at a gay nightclub in the US on Sunday. Accra: Terrorism is a scourge which knows no borders and must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee said here as he expressed solidarity with Ghana which is confronting this challenge. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on Sunday, Mukherjee, who arrived here on a two-day visit, said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghana's concern that it has become a global menace. "It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge," he said. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled 'Africa' in his address. "Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council," Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. "The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs," he said. During his eight years in office, Obama has had to appear publicly after more than a dozen mass shootings. (Photo: AP) Washington: President Barack Obama condemned the "horrific massacre" of 50 revelers at an Orlando nightclub Sunday, an attack that is already fueling rows over guns, gay rights and how to defeat the Islamic State group. Fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded during a late-night assault on Pulse, a nightclub popular with Florida's gay community. Police have pinned the slaughter on 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a son of Afghan immigrants who is said to have pledged allegiance to IS before going on a rampage with an assault rifle. "This was an act of terror and an act of hate," Obama said in a somber White House address to mark the worst mass shooting in US history. "The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance, sing and live. As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people," Obama said. During his eight years in office, Obama has had to appear publicly after more than a dozen mass shootings. He has called the slaying of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, the worst day of his presidency. But this latest shooting comes in the middle of a vitriol-filled campaign to see who will replace Obama in the white House next year. An Islamic State-inspired attack in San Bernardino, California in 2015 prompted Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump to call for a blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States. That call was pilloried by many as racist and unconstitutional, but it propelled Trump now the Republican party nominee to center stage in the 2016 race. The identity of the presumed Orlando shooter, his target and the fact that his weapons were legally purchased, will only fan the political flames. Trump is expected to focus a speech Monday on national security, rather than the alleged shortcomings of his rival Hillary Clinton as planned. Meanwhile, a first joint campaign event between Democratic nominee Clinton and Obama, scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed. In his statement, Obama was careful not to inject too much politics into the issue. "We've reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer," he added, saying that the FBI was nonetheless threating the attack as an "act of terror." "We must spare no effort to determine what, if any, inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups." Trump slams Obama Trump was quick to point out that Obama has repeatedly refused to associate such attacks with Islam. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" he said on Twitter. Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 The last week had offered Obama a rare glimmer of hope in the fight against the Islamic State, with the group under series pressure in Libya and Syria. Democrats have honed in on evidence that Mateen bought two weapons legally in recent days to call for tighter gun control. "The shooter was apparently armed with a hand gun and a powerful assault rifle," Obama said. "This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. We have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well," says Obama. The flag at the White House was lowered to half-staff and Obama ordered all government buildings to do the same. 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the man who was killed by the SWAT after opening fire at a US gay club in Orlando. Right, a body of one of the victims arrives at the Orlando Medical Examiner's Office (Photo: AP) Orlando: ISIS's Amaq news agency said on Sunday that the Islamist terrorist group was responsible for the shooting that killed at least 50 people in a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. "The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an ISIS fighter," Amaq said. Read: US mass shootings: Kissing men irked suspect U.S. officials cautioned, however, that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or any other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between the gunman and any such group. "We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate," Obama said in a speech from the White House. "And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people." Read: Florida nightclub attack 'nothing to do with religion', says Orlando gunman's father U.S. officials have reached no definitive judgment on the killer's precise motives, Obama added. "We must spare no effort to determine what, if any, inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups," he said. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. Pulse was crowded with some 350 revelers at a Latin music night when the attack happened. "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running," the club's management wrote on Facebook as the incident unfolded. A hostage situation developed, and three hours later SWAT team officers used armored cars to storm the club before shooting dead the gunman. It was unclear when the victims were killed. Read: Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was homophobe, wife beater: reports Video footage showed police officers and civilians carrying people away from the club and bending over others on the ground. Dozens of police cruisers, ambulances and other emergency vehicles could be seen in the area. Read: Orlando shooter was body builder, guard; once wanted to be cop "Today we're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said, more than doubling an earlier estimate that about 20 bodies had been found. Dyer said 39 people were killed inside the club, two outside, and nine others died after being rushed to hospital. Dozens of terrified patrons, some of whom had been hiding in restrooms, were rescued. One officer was injured when he was hit in his helmet while exchanging fire with the gunman, police said. Read: US mass shootings: The deadliest rampages since 2012 U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on a congressional intelligence committee said that according to local law enforcement the shooter had declared his allegiance to Islamic State. He noted that the shooting took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and that Islamic State leaders who control territory in Syria and Iraq have urged attacks during this time. All of this indicates an ISIS-inspired act of terrorism, he said in a statement, referring to Islamic State. Authorities said they had considered calling off the parade but then decided to go forward while beefing up security, including placing undercover police in the crowd. The march went ahead without incident. (Photo: AP) Los Angeles: A man whose car contained a cache of weapons and bomb-making materials was arrested on Sunday after telling police he wanted to harm the Los Angeles Gay Pride parade, authorities said. James Howell, 20, was detained in nearby Santa Monica with multiple weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials in his car, which had Indiana license plates, police said. The arrest came just hours after 50 people were massacred at a gay nightclub in Florida. Santa Monica police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said on Twitter that Howell told officers aboutwanting to harm (the) Gay Pride event, in reference to the annual L.A. Pride parade that took place in Hollywood on Sunday amid beefed up security. Santa Monica police said in a statement that Howell was arrested after a resident reported a prowler knocking on their door and window at around 5.00 am. When officers responded, they found Howell sitting in a car with three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, the statement said. Additionally, officers discovered a five-gallon bucket with chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device, it added. Seabrooks said there was no known connection between Howell and the carnage in Orlando, Florida, the worst mass shooting in US history. Authorities said they had considered calling off the parade but then decided to go forward while beefing up security, including placing undercover police in the crowd. The march went ahead without incident. The Pulse attack coincided with gay pride month in the United States, with festive marches and events being held all over the country including in Orlando last week. (Photo: AP) Orlando, United States: A gunman killed 50 people and injured 53 in a crowded gay nightclub in the tourist hub of Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday before being shot dead by police, authorities said, in what appeared the deadliest mass shooting in American history. The shooter was identified as Omar S. Mateen, a man that a senior FBI official said might have had leanings towards Islamic State militants. Officials described the attack as a terrorism incident though cautioned that the suspected Islamist connection required further investigation. Here is what we know so far: Who was the gunman? Law enforcement identified the gunman, who died in a shootout with police, as Omar Mateen, 29. A US citizen, Mateen was born to Afghan parents living in New York and resided in Port St Lucie, Florida, about two hours' drive from Orlando. The FBI said Mateen had previously been investigated and cleared by the agency for suspected ties to an American suicide bomber and after making inflammatory terror-related comments to coworkers. But Mateen apparently made a 911 call pledging allegiance to ISIS before Sunday's massacre. Law enforcement recovered a handgun, an AR-15 assault rifle and an unknown number of additional rounds from the suspect. Mateen sprayed the club with bullets and took hostages in a three-hour standoff that ended when authorities stormed the venue. What was his target? Pulse is a popular club known on the Orlando LGBT party scene for its drag shows. It is not known exactly how many people were inside at the time of the attack, but it was packed with Saturday night revelers who came to watch a drag queen contest. The nightclub was co-founded by a woman whose brother died in 1991 after battling HIV, and called itself more than just another gay club. In 2004, Barbara Poma and a friend opened the club to keep her brother's spirit alive, and named it in honor of his heartbeat. It has become a flagship establishment for the LGBT community in Florida and further afield and forms part of a vibrant activist scene that aims to promote awareness of gay rights. What was his motive? US President Barack Obama called the massacre an act of terror and an act of hate. The suspect's father told NBC News his son may have been motivated by homophobia and not by his Muslim faith. Seddique recalled a recent incident in downtown Miami when his son became angry after witnessing a gay couple embracing. The suspect's ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told the Washington Post he had been violently abusive to her and was not especially religious. The Pulse attack coincided with gay pride month in the United States, with festive marches and events being held all over the country including in Orlando last week. Who are the victims? Authorities aren't publicly identifying victims until their families have been notified. As of Sunday evening, seven names have been released. All were men, ranging in age from 20 to 36. Pulse was hosting a Latin-themed party at the time of the shooting. Based on their names, all of the victims identified appeared to be of Hispanic heritage. Other threats? On Sunday, police in the Los Angeles area arrested a man who said he wanted to harm the city's Gay Pride parade and was found with multiple weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials in his car. However, there was no known connection between 20-year-old James Howell and Mateen, authorities said. The attack, which became the worst mass shooting in modern US history, was carried out in the Pulse nightclub, a well-known gay hangout. (Photo: AFP) Orlando: Early reports on the background of the gunman who slaughtered at least 50 people at a Florida nightclub paint a picture of a violent and prejudiced young man. The suspect, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is a Muslim American of Afghan descent and police are investigating whether he may have had a terrorist motive. US law enforcement is investigating whether he had links to or was inspired by Islamist terrorism. And US media, citing law enforcement sources, reported that he called police during the massacre to claim allegiance to the Islamic State group. But relatives interviewed by US media say Mateen, who worked as a security officer, was not overly religious but had anti-gay views and had regularly assaulted his ex-wife. Mateens shocked father, Seddique, said his son had recently been offended to see two gay men expressing affection on a Miami street. We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music, the father told NBC News in the immediate aftermath if the shooting. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry, Seddique said. The attack, which became the worst mass shooting in modern US history, was carried out in the Pulse nightclub, a well-known gay hangout. We are in shock like the whole country, Seddique added. This had nothing to do with religion. In a separate interview, a former wife of the suspect who left him in 2011 fearing for her life, said he was violently abusive. He was not a stable person, the ex-wife told the Washington Post, which did not identify her because she fears for her safety. He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasnt finished or something like that, she told the Post. According to the wifes account the pair had met in New York but in March 2009 had moved in together in Fort Pierce, Florida. The womans parents later rescued her from the relationship and the pair were later divorced, according to a court document seen by AFP. She described him a private person but not especially expressive about his Muslim faith. He owned a small caliber handgun and worked as a guard at a secure facility for juvenile delinquents. According to a report by the Daily Beast website, citing FBI sources, Mateen was investigated twice for possible extremist links in 2013 and 2014 but never prosecuted. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services website, he had a gun license set to expire in September of next year. Washington: Republican Donald Trump asserted Monday there are thousands of people living in the United States "sick with hate" and capable of carrying out the sort of massacre that killed at least 50 people in a Florida nightclub. "We can't let people in. ... We have to be very, very strong," the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said in one of a host of broadcast interviews he undertook in advance of a speech he planned later Monday in New Hampshire. "The problem is we have thousands of people right now in our country. You have people that were born in this country" who are susceptible to becoming "radicalized," the billionaire real estate mogul told Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends. He claimed that there are Muslims living here who "know who they are" and said it was time to "turn them in." Trump, who got embroiled in controversy early in the presidential sweepstakes when he advocated a ban on Muslims being admitted to the United States, said "there are people out there with worse intentions" than the perpetrator of the shootings in Orlando early Sunday. "They have to report these people," he said. Trump planned later Monday to further address the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history in a campaign speech originally intended to attack Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. That switch came a day after Trump called for Clinton to drop out of the race for president if she didn't use the words "radical Islam" to describe the Florida nightclub massacre. Trump will retool his talk in New Hampshire to "further address this terrorist attack, immigration and national security," his campaign said Sunday. A gunman wielding an assault-style rifle and handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, killing at least 50 people before dying in a gunfight with police. Another 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition. Authorities identified the shooter as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old U.S. citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida. Trump's hardline approach to fighting Islamic terrorism was a hallmark of his primary campaign. Besides proposing a temporary prohibition on foreign Muslims from entering the country, he has and advocated using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods to try to stave off future attacks. In the hours after the Orlando shooting, Trump issued a statement calling on President Barack Obama to resign for refusing "to even say the words 'radical Islam'" in his response to the attack. He said Clinton should exit the presidential race if she does the same. In an address from the White House, Obama called the tragedy an act of terror and hate. He did not talk about religious extremists. He said the FBI would investigate the shootings in the gay nightclub as terrorism, but added the gunman's motivations were unclear. On Monday he said "we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind. People cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he is and cannot even mention radical Islam." Like Obama, Clinton called the shootings acts of terror and hate, but did not use the words radical Islam in a statement released by her campaign. Instead, she said the country must "redouble our efforts" to defend the country, including "defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home." Hours after Obama spoke, a law enforcement official confirmed to The Associated Press that Mateen made a 911 call from the club during which he professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The official was familiar with the investigation but not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. While some Republican leaders have encouraged Trump to abandon his proposed Muslim ban in an effort to broaden his support among voters before November's general election, the Orlando attack appeared Sunday to harden the billionaire businessman's position. "What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning," Trump tweeted Sunday. "Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough." It was one of several tweets that drew criticism online for their told-you-so tone. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" he'd written earlier. Clinton's statement and tweets on Sunday made no mention of Trump. She did make the case for gun control and reached out to a key constituency - gays and lesbians. "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them," she said. On Friday, Trump accused Clinton of failing to understand the gravity of the risk posed by Syrian refugees in a speech to a conservative Christian group. "Hillary will bring hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom have hostile beliefs about people of different faiths and values and some of whom absolutely and openly support terrorism in our country," he said. "We don't need that. ... We have enough problems right now." Clinton has said she would support allowing more refugees from the war-torn Middle East to come to the U.S., so long as they are carefully screened and vetted. Trump will deliver his speech at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, a possible battleground state, which delivered Trump his first primary win. He canceled a rally planned for Monday night in nearby Portsmouth. Clinton's campaign postponed what would have been her first joint event with Obama in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Wednesday because of the shooting. She will campaign Monday in Ohio. A body of one of the victims arrives at the Orlando Medical Examiner's Office , Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Orlando. (Photo: AP) Orlando, Florida: US law enforcement officials investigated on Monday whether anyone helped the gunman who massacred 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, but said they did not believe anyone connected to the shooting posed a current danger to the public. The FBI and other agencies were poring over evidence inside and in the closed-off streets around Orlando's Pulse nightclub, where a shooter pledging allegiance to ISIS carried out the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club early Sunday morning with armored cars after a three-hour siege. Officials said on Sunday the death toll was 50. On Monday they clarified that this included Mateen, who was killed by police. Law enforcement officials were looking for clues as to whether anyone worked with Mateen on the attack, said Lee Bentley, US Attorney for Florida's middle district. "There is an investigation of other persons, we are working as diligently as we can on that," Bentley told a news conference. "If anyone else was involved in this crime, they will be prosecuted." Officials emphasized that they believed there had been no other attackers and that they had no evidence of a threat to the public. Mateen, 29, called emergency services during the shooting and pledged allegiance to the leader of the militant ISIS group, officials said. His father said on Sunday his son was not radicalized, but indicated Mateen had strong anti-gay feelings. His ex-wife described him as mentally unstable and violent toward her. ISIS reiterated on Monday a claim of responsibility for the attack. "One of the Caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando," the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan Radio Although the group claimed responsibility, this did not necessarily mean it directed the attack: there was nothing in the claim indicating coordination between the gunman and ISIS before the rampage. The attack, denounced by President Barack Obama as an act of terror and hate, reignited the debate over how best to confront violent Islamist militancy, a top issue in the Nov. 8 US presidential election campaign. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump both addressed the issue on Monday. Trump has made it a centerpiece of his campaign to get tougher on security and has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. He told Fox News on Monday that the United States should increase its military campaign against ISIS militants, who hold land in Syria and Iraq, in response to the shooting. The rampage began just after 2 a.m. on Sunday at the crowded Pulse nightclub in the heart of Orlando, about 15 miles (25 km) northeast of the Walt Disney World Resort. Orlando is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the United States, drawing some 62 million visitors a year. Some 350 patrons were attending a Latin music event at the club and survivors described scenes of carnage and pandemonium as the shooter took hostages inside a bathroom. Waiting For News of Relatives Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said that 48 of the 49 victims had been identified and about half the families of those killed have been notified. "I cannot imagine being one of the parents or knowing that your loved one might be among those who are deceased and waiting to find out," Dyer told reporters. Florida Governor Rick Scott asked Obama to declare a state of emergency over the attack, which would free up more federal resources to assist victims. "Yesterday's terror attack was an attack on our state and entire nation," Scott said in a statement. Mateen was an armed guard at a gated retirement community, and had worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years. He had cleared two company background screenings, the latest in 2013, according to G4S.. Despite Mateen's 911 call expressing support for ISIS, US officials said on Sunday they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with foreign extremists. "So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre," said a US counterterrorism official. "This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody." Authorities said Mateen had been twice questioned by FBI agents in 2013 and 2014 after making comments to co-workers about supporting militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity His father Mir Siddique, who saw Mateen on Saturday afternoon, said in a video posted to Facebook early Monday that he had not known of his son's plans. "I don't know what happened and I didn't know he had hatred," Siddique said. "God himself will punish homosexuality. It is not the job for humankind." In an earlier interview with NBC news, the father described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry. Mateen's former wife, Sitora Yusufiy, said he was emotionally and mentally disturbed, yet aspired to be a police officer. Yusufiy told reporters near Boulder, Colorado, that she had been beaten by Mateen during outbursts of temper in which he would "express hatred towards everything". Mateen and his family regularly attended a Florida mosque. "Not everyone had a friendship with him. He wasn't a people person. He was not extremely friendly but he wasn't rude either," said Mohammed Jameel, 54, a worshipper at the mosque. Sunday night, federal agents combed through Mateen's apartment in the Atlantic coast town of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles (190 km) southeast of Orlando. Homegrown Attacks The attack in Orlando came six months after a married couple in California - a US-born son of Pakistani immigrants and a Pakistani-born woman he married in Saudi Arabia - killed 14 people in San Bernardino in an shooting rampage inspired by ISIS. The couple died in a shootout with police hours after that attack. Obama was due to be briefed at the White House by his top national security officials including FBI Director James Comey at 10:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT) Obama said on Sunday the Orlando gunman's motivation was still unclear. "We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate," he told reporters. Obama also repeated his frustration over America's lax gun laws. The attacks underlined the inherent difficulties of providing security at open public events. "We are determined to continue living in an open and tolerant way even if such murderous attacks plunge us into deep mourning," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a visit to China. The most deadly attack on US soil inspired by violent Islamist militancy was on Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people. Bangkok: A domestic airline in Thailand has apologized after three friends of a pilot joked in a group chat about crashing the plane he was going to fly with former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on board. The screenshot of the chat, conducted on their phones Sunday, somehow got leaked on social media, provoking widespread criticism of the airline, Nok Air. In response, Nok Air chief executive Patee Sarasin said in a tweet that "this kind of behavior is intolerable." He says he "will personally call Yingluck and apologize." Nok Air has no politics and "I won't stand this," he said. Yingluck came to power in a landslide election victory in 2011, but her government was ousted in a coup in 2014 after protracted political turmoil. Rome: Pope Francis on Monday condemned the use of hunger as a "weapon of war" and lamented the fact that it was easier to move weapons across borders than the aid needed to keep civilians alive. Days after aid agencies were allowed to deliver food to the besieged Syrian town of Daraya for the first time since 2012, Francis said preventing supplies from reaching war zones was a violation of international law. On a visit to the headquarters of the World Food Programme (WFP), the pope said the world faced a "strange paradox". "Whereas forms of aid and development projects are obstructed by involved and incomprehensible political decisions, skewed ideological visions and impenetrable customs barriers, weaponry is not. "In some cases, hunger itself is used as a weapon of war," he said in an address to the WFP, the Rome-based UN agency which is the largest provider of food aid worldwide. "(Weapons) circulate with brazen and virtually absolute freedom in many parts of the world. As a result, wars are fed, not people," said Francis, who has often condemned arms manufacturing and trafficking. In January, UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon accused both the Syrian government and rebels of using starvation as a weapon, calling the practice a war crime.. The Argentine pope said the rich world was increasingly desensitised, "growing immune to other people's tragedies, seeing them as something 'natural' ... all those human lives turn into one more news story." Francis, who in the past has condemned speculation in food commodities as undermining the fight against poverty and hunger, also condemned rich countries' wasteful use of food. "We have made the fruits of the earth - a gift to humanity - commodities for a few, thus engendering exclusion. The consumerism in which our societies are immersed has made us grow accustomed to excess and to the daily waste of food," he said. "We need to be reminded that food discarded is, in a certain sense, stolen from the table of poor and the starving." The main opposition Labour Party, which supports Britain remaining in the European Union and some lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party, which are deeply divided over the vote, condemned the poster. (Representational Image) London: A group campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union urged voters on Monday to back a British exit from the EU, or "Brexit", to prevent what it called "an Orlando-style atrocity", a message condemned by rival campaigners. Posted on the @LeaveEUOfficial Twitter account run by Leave. EU, a day after 50 people were killed in the Florida shootings, the poster-style advertisement said: "Islamist extremism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long". It accompanied a Tweet saying: "The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists. Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote #Leave." The @LeaveEUOfficial Twitter account is linked to the Leave. EU's website. The poster disappeared from the Twitter feed about an hour after it appeared. Several calls to representatives of Leave.EU, founded by insurance tycoon and supporter of the anti-EU UK Independence Party Arron Banks, went unanswered. An email asking for comment and to clarify that the campaign had posted the advertisement also went unanswered. The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, a New York-born Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of Afghan immigrants, was shot and killed by police who stormed the club early Sunday morning after a three-hour siege. The official "Vote Leave" campaign, which has distanced itself from Leave.EU, disassociated itself from the poster. Former London mayor, Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of Vote Leave, told reporters his campaign had nothing to do with the Leave.EU message and it was "very, very important" not to make political capital out of the shooting. Both sides have stepped up campaigning before a June 23 referendum on Britain's EU membership, keen to break a deadlock in opinion polls which suggest that voters are all but evenly split. With less than two weeks to go, many lawmakers and voters have criticised the often bitter campaign. The main opposition Labour Party, which supports Britain remaining in the European Union and some lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party, which are deeply divided over the vote, condemned the poster. "This is a shameful and cowardly poster," said Hilary Benn, Labour's foreign affairs spokesman. "It takes courage to stand by your principles and your friends when they are attacked, whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels," he said in a statement, referring to Islamist attacks on the two European capitals which killed more than 150 people. "Doing so makes us stronger and shows our resolve to stand up for our values and our way of life in the face of those who hold both in such murderous contempt." "This is really shameful," Nicky Morgan, the Conservative education minister, posted on Twitter. Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi said the IS attack targeted an army base in Ramadi with several explosives-laden vehicles driven by suicide bombers and gunmen who fired on soldiers. (Photo: Representational Image) Baghdad: A suicide attack carried out by Islamic State group fighters killed at least five members of the Iraqi security forces on Monday in the city of Ramadi, army officers said. The Iraqi army earlier this year regained control of Ramadi, the capital of the country's vast Anbar province, and in recent weeks has been battling to retake Fallujah, another city in the province, from IS jihadists. Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi said the IS attack targeted an army base in Ramadi with several explosives-laden vehicles driven by suicide bombers and gunmen who fired on soldiers. "Our forces killed all the attackers and destroyed all the car bombs but there were a number of killed and wounded among army ranks," said Mahalawi, who heads the operations command for Anbar province. Two senior Iraqi army officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said five soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in the attack. The attack highlighted IS's continued ability to stage deadly operations in areas where it lost control of territory, as the government seeks to bring local populations back and start rebuilding. Fallujah, which lies about half way between Baghdad and Ramadi, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the Iraqi capital, is IS's last major bastion in Anbar. Several hundred supporters, led by Laura Kanter, at right, marched to Sasscer Park after a vigil at Calle Cuatro Plaza in support of the Orlando shooting victims. (Photo: AP) Beirut: The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them," a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio said. Read: Orlando shooter, a 'bipolar' security guard who once wanted to be a cop The jihadist group declared its "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The IS-linked news agency Amaq said on Sunday that the attack had been "carried out by an Islamic State fighter". US media reported that the gunman -- identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent -- had pledged allegiance to the jihadist group IS. Read: Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was homophobe, wife beater: reports The FBI has admitted that Mateen -- who was born to Afghan parents in New York -- had previously been investigated, but cleared, for ties to a US suicide bomber. The worst mass shooting in US history left 50 people dead, in addition to the shooter, and wounded 53 others. US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings "as an act of terrorism". Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced the cancellation of tens of thousands of permits for Palestinians to enter Israel and east Jerusalem during Ramadan. (Photo: AP) Jerusalem: Israel has reopened Palestinian crossing points from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip following a three-day closure put in place after last week's deadly Tel Aviv shooting, the army said Monday. Crossings were reopened overnight as planned, an army spokeswoman said, though "security checks are ongoing" in Yatta, the West Bank village where the two Tel Aviv attackers were from. The village had been put on lockdown in the hours after Wednesday night's attack that killed four Israelis and wounded five others. Crossing points were shut on Friday morning, preventing Palestinians from entering Israel and annexed east Jerusalem. An exception was made however for the first Friday prayers of Ramadan, with thousands of Palestinians allowed to visit Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third-holiest site in Islam. Israel announced a range of measures following the Tel Aviv attack, which saw two Palestinian cousins open fire at a busy cafe. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced the cancellation of tens of thousands of permits for Palestinians to enter Israel and east Jerusalem during Ramadan. The moves drew international concern, with France strongly condemning the attack but also warning against further exacerbating tensions. United Nations rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein's office in a statement on Friday also condemned the attack but said the Israeli measures may amount to "collective punishment". It can be an impediment for individuals who are seeking to change their direction in life: A question on a college application asking the prospective student whether they have ever been convicted of a crime. The White House, along with Cornell University and other higher institutions, wants to change that. President Barack Obama's administration launched the Fair Chance for Higher Education Pledge on Friday. Twenty-five colleges and universities, including Cornell, have signed on in support of the initiative. The pledge urges schools to "take action to reduce barriers to a fair shot at a second chance" and adopt admissions policies to determine whether questions about an applicant's criminal justice history are relevant. The White House hosted an event on Friday to roll out the pledge. The attendees included Rob Scott, executive director of the Cornell Prison Education Program. Scott said one goal of the pledge is to dispel the notion that someone with a criminal background who is applying for college could commit another offense. According to the White House, an estimated 70 million Americans have some sort of criminal history. That total accounts for nearly one-third of working Americans. "If someone is aiming to commit some new offense, it's not likely that there means to get there will be applying to college," Scott said in an interview Monday. The initiative Scott oversees operates in three central New York prisons Auburn Correctional Facility, Cayuga Correctional Facility and Five Points Correctional Facility. The program will expand to include Elmira Correctional Facility next year. He noted that one of the reasons why inmates enroll in Cornell's program is because many of them assume they won't be able to go to college after they're released from prison. For those on the outside, Scott mentioned the burdens that come with enrolling college courses the course work and paying for higher education. "Why would someone do that to just commit a crime?" he said. "Of the people that have the records, the folks that are applying to school deserve to be looked at as serious candidates." Scott said one problem with the question on college applications is that admission departments haven't been consistent with how they handled the information. Some schools that asked applicants to subsequently attach a rap sheet. Which is illegal for someone to have. Another issue: The question can discourage those who committed crimes from even completing the application. A report released by the Center for Community Alternatives found 2,924 applicants to State University of New York institutions acknowledged that they had a felony conviction on their record. Most of these individuals 62.5 percent didn't complete the application process. At Cornell, Scott said the university's admissions department won't consider an applicant's criminal history until later on in the process. Any applicant with a criminal background will be given an opportunity to explain their offenses. "At least you get to find out where you stand in the broader pool before this aspect of your record is included," Scott said. Cornell isn't the only New York institution to sign the Fair Chance for Higher Education Pledge. The City University of New York, Columbia University, New York University, Nyack College and the State University of New York system have all signed the pledge. Friday's event was the second time in less than two months that Scott visited the White House. He received an award in April for his work as director of the Cornell Prison Education Program. "That was great," he said. "It's exciting to be in the West Wing." The Dutch woman who told Qatari police she had been drugged and raped in March has been in government detention ever since on unclear charges. (Representational photo: AP) Doha: A Doha court on Monday convicted a Dutch woman of adultery and handed her a one-year suspended sentence after she reported being raped while on holiday in Qatar. The 22-year-old woman, known only as Laura and who was not in court, was also fined 3,000 Qatari riyals ($800/710 euros) and will be deported once she pays the fine, court officials said. The male defendant, also not in court, was given a sentence of 100 lashes for adultery and 40 lashes for consuming alcohol. He will not serve any time in jail. The Dutch ambassador to Qatar Yvette Burghgraef-van Eechoud, who was present in court, told reporters the embassy would help Laura leave Qatar. "We will do everything to get her out of the country as soon as possible to where she wants to go," said Eechoud. The envoy added that she expected Laura to leave Qatar within the next few days. Laura was arrested on March 14 and has since been held in custody. Her lawyer previously said that the incident happened after she had visited a Doha hotel. "She went dancing but when she returned to the table after the first sip of her drink, she realised that" she had been drugged, Brian Lokollo has said. "She really didn't feel very well," he added. The young woman remembers nothing more until the following morning when she woke up in a totally unfamiliar apartment "and realised to her great horror, that she had been raped," he said. The male defendant had insisted that their night together had been consensual and that the woman had even asked for money. Dhaka: Bangladesh on Monday said it did not need any foreign help to provide security to its religious minorities despite a recent wave of deadly attacks by Islamists targeting Hindus and other communities along with liberal activists in the Muslim-majority country. "The followers of minority religious faiths are being attacked along with other ordinary citizens as part of an orchestrated plot to embarrass the government but these incidents could in no way affect the interfaith harmony in Bangladesh," Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu said. He added, "We don't need to seek assistance of any foreign country or government for the security of our minority communities the (Bangladesh) government by principle is secular and it is awake 24 hours". Inu heads the left-leaning party which is a partner of ruling Awami League-led coalition government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The minister's comments came in response to a recent media report that said Hindu community in Bangladesh had sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention for their protection in the wake of the attacks. "The Hindu community, which is the biggest minority community in Bangladesh, is vulnerable in Bangladesh. Fundamentalist and Jamaat forces are trying to wipe out Hindus from Bangladesh," general secretary of Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council and noted human rights activist Rana Dasgupta had said in Kolkata. "We feel that India being a Hindu majority country, should do something. We have high hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He should act and take up the matter with Bangladeshi government and ensure the safety and security of Hindus," he said. A wave of recent attacks that left a number of secular or liberal activists and religious minorities dead prompted Bangladesh to launch a nationwide anti-militancy crackdown on Thursday. Police today claimed that 8,569 people were arrested till Monday with 34 of them suspected Islamists. According to police, most of the militants detained in the countrywide raid belonged to Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) the banned outfit that is believed to have carried out most of the attacks in the past two years. In June, an elderly Hindu priest, a Hindu monastery worker, a Christian grocer, and wife of a senior police officer, were all murdered. The Islamic State terror group and the South Asian branch of al-Qaeda (AQIS) reportedly claimed responsibility for most of the attacks. But the government rejects the claim attributing the murders to homegrown militant outfits like JMB alleging that main opposition BNP and its fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami were patronising the attacks under an orchestrated plot against the government. The Afghan authorities do not recognize the present boundary, the so-called Durand Line, as an international border, and have denounced Pakistan's plans to erect a fence at the crossing. (Photo: Google Maps) Peshawar, Pakistan: Pakistani and Afghan border guards exchanged gunfire overnight at a crossing between the two countries, leaving one guard dead and 17 wounded on both sides, officials said on Monday. The Torkham crossing was closed following the incident and talks were underway to defuse the situation and reopen the border. Ghuncha Gul, a Pakistani official in the region, said the Afghan side started shooting late the previous night when construction work began on a new gate on the Pakistani side. He said the gunfire ended around 4 a.m. On the Pakistani side, two guards and nine civilians were wounded. Afghan Gen. Zarawar Zahid, police chief of Nangarhar province, said one Afghan security officer was killed and six were wounded. He said the Pakistani forces opened fire after the Afghans asked them to stop work at the gate, which he claimed is located on no-man's land. But the Pakistani military said the country is "constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessary measure to check for unwanted and illegal movement." Islamabad also on Monday summoned Afghanistan's charge d'affaires, Syed Abdul Nasir Yousufi. A Foreign Ministry statement says the Afghan diplomat was told the incident was contrary to the spirit of friendly relations between the two neighbors. Last month, the Torkham crossing was closed over a similar incident and reopened only after Pakistan and Afghanistan reached an understanding at a meeting between Pakistani army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif and Afghan Ambassador Omar Zakhilwal. The Afghan authorities do not recognize the present boundary, the so-called Durand Line, as an international border, and have denounced Pakistan's plans to erect a fence at the crossing. Aziz told members of the committee that India was a country seven times larger than Pakistan, yet relations between both have remained bad ever since the start due to the issue of Kashmir. (Photo: PTI) Islamabad: India has always been the "axis" of Pakistan's foreign policy and for that very reason, it became a "security state", the country's top diplomat said on Monday. "India has always been the axis of Pakistan's foreign policy," Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said. "To face India with determination for the past 60 years, based on our principles is an important achievement," he said. "For that very reason, our country became a security state," he said while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs in the parliament house in Islamabad. Aziz told members of the committee that India was a country seven times larger than Pakistan, yet relations between both have remained bad ever since the start due to the issue of Kashmir, the News International reported. He also said after the 9/11 terror attacks, Muslims were attacked and the sparks flew from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Separately, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry told the same committee that no compromise will be made on nuclear programme, according to Radio Pakistan. Chaudhry said Pakistan will not allow its soil to be used against any other country. He said terrorism is the major issue for Pakistan and over 5,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in the war on terror. Islamabad: Pakistan's adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz on Sunday said that his country has stronger credentials than India for a membership to the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) if they decide to form an uniform criteria for non-NPT states. "If the group forms such a uniform criteria, then Pakistan has stronger credentials for NSG membership than India," said the top minister in an exclusive interview to Dawn. Aziz asserted that Pakistan has engaged with many countries to discuss the criteria-based approach for non-NPT countries that would pave way for their entry into the elite club. Read: Countries resisting India's bid to join NSG soften stand "Our strategy was to apply after India did, after which we would have immediately followed. We have had our application in an advance state of readiness for the past three months for purpose," Aziz said. He claimed that Pakistan has already convinced several countries including crucial ones like Russia, New Zealand and South Korea to support the criteria-based approach and that they have always had the backing of China. According to Aziz, if India would be allowed to enter the NSG, then Pakistan could not be left behind either. "If you compare it with India, when our neighbouring country conducted a nuclear test in 1974, it misused the nuclear supplies given to it for peaceful purposes, which led to the formation of NSG. After that nuclear fissile material was stolen from India, but such an instance has never occurred in Pakistan," Aziz said. Read: Pakistan to persuade other members to stop Indias NSG bid: Sartaj Aziz With Prime Minister Narendra Modi building up more support for India's NSG bid, an alarmed Pakistan has been lobbying hard to ensure that India is not allowed into the exclusive nuclear group. Aziz said the US has formed a policy to 'build up India' as "their entire attention is towards containing the Islamic world and China". "We cannot question them but we repeatedly tell them that you (US) are a sovereign country and can maintain any level of relations with any country, but if you increase the strategic and conventional imbalance in South Asia, our problems will increase," the foreign affairs adviser said while referring to the US support for India's inclusion in NSG. The US has been pushing for India's NSG membership while China has been reportedly backing Pakistan's bid to join the nuclear trading club. India, though not a member, enjoys the benefits of membership under a 2008 exemption to NSG rules for its atomic cooperation deal with the US. The NSG looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector and its members are allowed to trade in and export nuclear technology. The NSG works under the principle of unanimity and even one nation's vote against a country could scuttle its bid. In the firing, an Afghan border guard was killed while two Pakistani soldiers and nine civilians were injured. (Photo: AP) Islamabad: Pakistan on Monday summoned a top Afghan diplomat after security forces of the two countries exchanged gunfire over the contentious fencing issue at north-western Torkham border crossing. Afghan Charged Affaires was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey Pakistan's strong protest over "unprovoked firing" by the Afghan forces at Pakistani forces on Torkham border crossing, foreign office spokesperson said. The Afghan diplomat was told that the overnight firing incident was "contrary to the spirit of friendly relations" between Pakistan and Afghanistan. "The Afghan side was urged to thoroughly investigate the incident and share the findings with Pakistani authorities. It was further emphasised that all steps should be taken for avoiding recurrence of such incidents in the future," the official said. In the firing, an Afghan border guard was killed while two Pakistani soldiers and nine civilians were injured. Pakistan alleged that "unprovoked" firing was started by Afghanistan's security forces when construction work began on a new gate on the Pakistani side. "The gate is being constructed to facilitate the cross-border movement of people and vehicles. It was conveyed to the Afghan side that the regulation of movements at Torkham is part of government's policy to strengthen border management. Therefore, Afghan government's cooperation was needed as it would enhance mutual security and help combat the threat of terrorism," the spokesperson said. Last month, the border crossing was sealed for several days over the construction of the gate, causing hardships to thousands of people who cross it every day. Afghan government does not recognise the border, which is also known as Durand Line, and it opposes permanent structure. Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif last month met top Chinese leadership in Beijing and had assured them to provide full security to the project as well as Chinese nationals. (Photo: AFP) Islamabad: Pakistan is raising a 17,280-strong force to provide security to the ambitious USD 46 billion dollar China-Pakistan economic corridor project that passes through the restive Balochistan province. Minister of State for Interior Muhammad Balighur Rehman told the lawmakers in the Senate today that recruitment was going on to raise the force of 17,280 personnel. Twenty-two additional wings of Civil Armed Forces will be raised to guard the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Project (CPEC), the minister said. Responding to a calling attention notice moved by Senator Abdul Qayyum, he said 17,280 personnel will be hired for this purpose, while over 3,000 personnel have already been hired. He said funds have also been allocated for the procurement of arms and ammunition for these wings. Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif last month met top Chinese leadership in Beijing and had assured them to provide full security to the project as well as Chinese nationals. A Chinese engineer was injured in a roadside blast in Karachi on May 30 claimed by a little-known separatist group that vowed to derail CPEC. Earlier, the Convener Special Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, senator Taj Haider, laid the second interim report of the committee on CPEC in the House. The ambitious 3,000-kilometre CPEC project was launched last year to link western China to southern Pakistan through a network of roads, railways and pipelines. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Delhi government to register two new diesel vehicles which are conforming to BS-IV norms and would be used for garbage disposal and handling of municipal waste generated in New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area. A bench, headed by Justice Jawad Rahim, granted the relief on similar terms and conditions which were imposed by the NGT in its May 31 order in which it had directed the government to register 45 new diesel vehicles for garbage management. The tribunal had passed the May 31 order on applications moved by East Delhi Municipal Corporation and South Delhi Municipal Corporation , which had sought permission to buy 45 vehicles for garbage management as registration of new diesel vehicles above 2000cc is banned in Delhi. While allowing NDMCs request, the bench referred to the earlier order and said, We are satisfied with the request... We find no impediment and there is no reason for us to take different view. The green panel also noted that in the May 31 order, the bench had clarified that these vehicles would be used strictly for transportation of municipal and other allied waste to be dumping site only. The tribunal had earlier asked the municipal corporations to condemn and dismantle vehicles which were over 10-years old and had ordered that new vehicles should be fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) system. The plea moved earlier by the civic body had contended that the green panel had last year banned the registration of new diesel vehicles as well as re-registration after 10 years. Later, the Supreme Court had also banned registration of diesel-run SUVs and cars having engine capacity beyond 2000cc in Delhi and NCR. Due to this, the transport department was not registering the newly-procured vehicles, which conform to BS-IV norms and not re-registering the old vehicles, it had said. A man was brutally stabbed to death by his nephew over a dispute revolving around a debt of Rs 6,000 in east Delhis Karawal Nagar area, police said on Sunday. Pravesh Dayal Saxena, 40, was killed on Friday by his nephew Ankit, 22, who was demanding repayment of a Rs 6,000 loan given to him by his family, police said. Ankit has been arrested. Police said the Saxena was first to start the trouble by refusing the money to Ankit and attacking his nephews sister with a knife at their joint home in Panchal Vihar in Karawal Nagar. Saxena was rushed to GTB Hospital where he died during treatment, police said.Saxena lived in the first floor of the building with his wife Meenakshi and 10-year-old daughter and his elder brother and father of Ankit and their family stayed on the ground floor, police said. Saxena had borrowed Rs 6,000 from Ankit and his sister Shweta a few days ago but was resisting attempts by Ankit and his sister to recover the money, police said. On Friday evening when Shweta again asked Saxena to return the money, he attacked and injured her. This allegedly enraged Ankit who retaliated by stabbing his uncle, police said. A murder case has been registered, police said. In a separate incident on Saturday, a scrap dealer was shot at and injured by three bike-borne assailants in Rajender Nagar, police said. S S Singh, 37, a resident of Jangpura, was hit by a bullet in his leg and taken to RML Hospital after the incident that took place on the isolated stretch of Shanker Road, police said. After initial investigation police said personal enmity seemed to be the motive and they have started scanning the CCTV footage of cameras of establishments near the incident spot. The incident took place when Singh was returning from his office in Mayapuri to home in car and the assailants forced him to stop his vehicle and started an argument, police said. Singh said the assailants wanted to blackmail him and extort money after accusing him of misbehaving with a woman, police said. During the argument, the assailants threatened to get a police case registered against him in the woman harassment case and demanded money from him for not taking the matter to police, Singh told police. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation has issued notices to 11 educational institutions including private schools after finding conditions conducive for breeding of Aedes mosquitoes which cause dengue. As a part of its prohramme for the prevention and control of vector borne diseases like dengue, the South Corporation inspected about 26 educational institutions in the past couple of days. The Chairman of South Delhi Municipal Corporation Shailender Singh, the supervisory staff and dengue breeding checkers (DBCs) inspected various public schools under the limits of the civic agency. "The DBCs along with supervisory staff thoroughly checked the premises to find out breeding of Aedes mosquitoes. On finding breeding at Blue Bells International School Greater Kailash, DAV Public School Kailash Hills, GLT Sarswati Bal Mandir Nehru Nagar, Deshbandhu College, Kalka Public School Alaknanda, St. George Public School Alaknanda, Delhi Public School Sunder Nagar, Mothers International school opp. ITI, Vasant Vellay school Vasant Kunj, NK Bagrodia school Sector-IV Dwarka and Queen Valley school Sector-VIII Dwarka their authorities were issued notices by the SDMCs Public Health Department," said the civic agency. Singh has instructed the public health department to treat all breeding points in the schools on priority basis. The department said that it has already treated "all places where breeding was detected". The chairman of South Corporation has asked the public health department to eliminate breeding of mosquitoes in the localities and offices including educational institutions. The department has been organising 'Reorientation Training Programme' for field workers, supervisory staff, malaria inspectors and DBCs in all the four zones under the South Corporation. Seventy-two years after Fay C. Bailey was captured by German forces during World War II, the Syracuse-area veteran was honored at a ceremony Monday hosted by U.S. Rep. John Katko. Katko, R-Camillus, presented Bailey with the Prisoner of War Medal for his time as a captive during the war. Bailey, a pilot with the U.S. Army Air Forces, was on a B-24 bomber when German soldiers shot down the plane in 1944. He was taken prisoner and held by the Germans until April 1945. After returning home from the war, Bailey returned to Clarkson University, where he completed his mechanical engineering degree. He now lives in the town of Onondaga with his wife, Rita Taylor. Bailey was informed in 1990 that he was awarded the Prisoner of War Medal, but never received the honor. Last year, he saw news stories on central New York veterans receiving medals they were awarded but never collected. He contacted Katko's office, which worked with the Department of the Air Force to obtain Bailey's medal. "Mr. Bailey selflessly served our country and made incredible sacrifices to ensure that our freedoms remain protected," Katko said. "At a young age, he joined our nation's armed services and faced the most unimaginable circumstances as a prisoner of war. He is truly deserving of this recognition, and it is my distinct honor to present Mr. Bailey with this medal today." The Prisoner of War Medal was established in 1985. Any military service member who was held as a prisoner of war after April 5, 1917 is eligible for the honor. To solve the problem of piped water not reaching tail end areas in Sangam Vihar, the Delhi Jal Board has come up with a solution to divide the constituency into two segments and provide water on alternate days. In Sangam Vihar area, which has been perennially suffering from acute water shortage, the work of laying pipelines started last year. While some residents started receiving water, a large chunk complained that they are not able to benefit from the piped network supply. Maximum water is being consumed by people at the initial stages of the piped network and does not reach people at the tail end. The water coming through pipeline has a flowing system but since there are no meters in the constituency, a lot of water is being wasted as people at the initial stage keep taps open and use fresh water for purposes like washing their cars, said Delhi Jal Board Vice Chairman Dinesh Mohaniya, who is also the MLA from the area. To overcome this problem, Mohaniya has divided the constituency into two segments, one comprising of areas at the tail end and other at the initial stages. "These areas will get water on alternate days so that people at the last stage of the network also receive water," he said. Shutting valves This will be done by shutting of the water valves of houses in the initial stages on days when water has to be provided to the people at the tail end. This is a pilot project and will be executed next week. If successful, it may be applied to other unauthorised colonies in the city suffering from water shortage. However, groundwater supply through bore wells and tube wells will be given on a routine basis. The decision was taken at a meeting of the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) of the constituency called by Mohaniya on Sunday where people were told not to waste water. Sangam Vihar in South east Delhi, has 38 unauthorised colonies which have been prone to water crisis and people mostly rely on tankers, tube wells, bore wells, and public hydrants for their water needs as till recently there was no piped supply. The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has now laid down a temporary distribution network and it claims to connect every house with the piped network by the end of this year. Rs 90 crore has been sanctioned for Sangam Vihar to lay down pipelines. The work is in good pace and this will be done hopefully by the end of this year, Mohaniya said. Training in stress management, etiquettes and team building are mantras mostly heard in a corporate environment. But Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwals CEO-style functioning has ensured that such personality development tools reach even Delhi government employees. Apart from e-governance and efficient management of files, Kejriwal is set to leave a lasting personal impression on the way Delhi government has invests in developing its human resource. Three training programmes, scheduled for June, for middle, lower level officers and officials would help them in their day-to-day functioning, said an official. Kejriwals focus on skill development of employees appears to be in sync with his CEO-style focus on putting in place some robust governance mechanisms, like the cabinet decision monitoring system and public grievance monitoring system, using the latest IT tools. The Directorate of Training, Union Territories Civil Services, has invited all departments to nominate at least five employees for the courses. These courses are designed to enchance the skills set and knowledge of the participating official and to make them familiar with the new concepts, initiatives and benchmarking of the field. Besides, it would help them in their day-to-day functioning, said DoT official. The course on stress management is aimed at identifying situations of stress, sources of stress, impact of stress and educate participants in management of stress, said an aide of Kejriwal. With the Chief Ministers focus on women protection, a three-day training in self- defence has also been included in the bouquet of programmes proposed by the Delhi government. The self-defence programme is designed for employees who earlier underwent a Level-1 course, said an official. The Directorate of Training, UTCS, through its suitably designed modules, looks forward to help Government servants in self-defence through this training programme, sent a note sent to all departments at the time of inviting nominations. The training programmed on team building and group dynamics, held last week, was introduced to employees as an opportunity to learn useful intervention strategy to develop greater organisational effectiveness. In the past year and a half in office, Kejriwal a former Indian Revenue Service officer has put his administrative acumen to good use to lead a team of people who either have no experience in serving as ministers or have just a 49-day tenure as part of the previous Aam Aadmi Party government. Republican White House contender Donald Trump has called on President Barack Obama to resign for not using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" to describe the gay club massacre even as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton backed redoubling of efforts to defeat terror groups. "Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesn't he should immediately resign in disgrace!" Trump said in a series of tweets as he slammed the US President for not blaming radical Islam for the terror attack by the lone Afghan-origin gunman Omar Mateen at a public bar in Orlando that claimed at least 50 lives. In another tweet, Trump claimed that Mateen shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. The police, however, is yet to corroborate this claim of Trump. The 69-year-old presumptive Republican presidential nominee also stated that a second man was arrested in Los Angeles with rifles near the Gay parade. The police, however, has so far ruled out any linkage with the Orlando shooting, which is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. In a separate statement, Trump also asked Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to get out of the race. "In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words 'Radical Islam'. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words 'Radical Islam' she should get out of this race for the Presidency," Trump demanded. "Last night our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist. It was the worst terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11 and the second of its kind in 6 months. My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded and their families," he said. "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore," Trump said. Meanwhile, Clinton, 68, described the Orlando mass shooting as an act of terror and called for redoubling of efforts to defeat international terror groups. ISIS has claimed credit for the mass shooting carried out by 29-year-old Mateen, the New York-born American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan. "This was an act of terror. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad," Clinton said. "That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defences at home," she said. "It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values," Clinton said in a statement. Describing Mateen as a terrorist, Trump said the shooter was the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for President of Afghanistan. According to Pew, 99 per cent of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law. "We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States," he said. "Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term -- and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalising," Trump alleged. "We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from Radical Islamic Terrorism -- which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a President for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans. We are going to make America safe again and great again for everyone," Trump said. Describing the Orlando shooting as "an act of hate", Clinton said, "the gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month." "To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hate has absolutely no place in America," she said. Clinton said the horrific incidents reflect the need to have strict gun control laws."We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets," she said. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic party presidential aspirant, said all Americans are horrified, disgusted and saddened by the horrific atrocity in Orlando. "At this point we do not know whether this was an act of terrorism, a terrible hate crime against gay people or the act of a very sick person, but we extend our heartfelt condolences to the victims' families and loved ones and our thoughts are with the injured and the entire Orlando LGBTQ community," he said in a statement. Pakistan today claimed that its credentials for NSG membership are "stronger than India" if the elite club agrees on a uniform criteria for non-NPT states to join the group. Pakistan's Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz said Pakistan has diplomatically engaged numerous countries over the criteria-based approach for the countries that are not signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "If the group forms such a uniform criteria, then Pakistan has stronger credentials for NSG membership than India," he told Dawn News. Pakistan has bright chances of getting membership to the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) on merit, he claimed. "Our strategy was to apply after India did, after which we would have immediately followed. We have had our application in an advance state of readiness for the past three months for this purpose," Aziz said. He claimed that Pakistan has gradually gathered support for the criteria-based approach. "Last week, I telephoned the foreign ministers of Russia, New Zealand and South Korea, who will in future head the NSG, and our viewpoint was that they should support the criteria- based approach and we have gathered support for it, China was already supporting it," Aziz said. He expressed hope that due to "Pakistan's efforts and its strong credentials", if India gains entry into the 48-nation club, Pakistan will also not be left behind. Responding to a question about nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's proliferation network, Aziz said Pakistan has come a long way since then and everyone has witnessed Pakistan safeguarding its nuclear assets. "If you compare it with India, when our neighbouring country conducted a nuclear test in 1974, it misused the nuclear supplies given to it for peaceful purposes, which led to the formation of NSG. After that nuclear fissile material was stolen from India, but such an instance has never occurred in Pakistan," Aziz claimed. He said the US has formed a policy to 'build up India' as "their entire attention is towards containing the Islamic world and China". "We cannot question them but we repeatedly tell them that you (US) are a sovereign country and can maintain any level of relations with any country, but if you increase the strategic and conventional imbalance in South Asia, our problems will increase," the foreign affairs adviser said while referring to the US support for India's inclusion in NSG. The US has been pushing for India's NSG membership while China has been reportedly backing Pakistan's bid to join the nuclear trading club. India, though not a member, enjoys the benefits of membership under a 2008 exemption to NSG rules for its atomic cooperation deal with the US. The NSG looks after critical issues relating to nuclear sector and its members are allowed to trade in and export nuclear technology. The NSG works under the principle of unanimity and even one nation's vote against a country could scuttle its bid On the board's direction to the movie makers to delete all scenes where expletives have been used, the court said that the dialogues have to be seen wholly and not in isolation. "Such blanket deletion without reference to the theme and subject of the film is bound to interfere with the creative freedom of the petitioner. The petitioners have used such language as they feel that people from that particular strata of society used such language ordinarily," the HC said. On deletion of the use of the words, 'Election, MP, MLA, Parliament, Party Worker and Punjab', the court said, "These are general words and the film does not talk about any particular person or party." The court also rejected suggestions that the film was made with an eye on Punjab elections, saying" It is common knowledge that elections are round the corner in several states. 'Udta Punjab' is not made keeping in mind the upcoming elections in Punjab or with any political propaganda." CBFC chairman Pahlaj Nihalani had recently alleged Anurag Kashyap, who has co-produced the film had taken money from Aam Aadmi Party to show the state in poor light. Nihalani, in the eye of the storm over the film, had yesterday said the censor board had cleared the film with 13 cuts after certifying it under 'A' category, meant for viewing only by adult audience. The Bombay High Court today cleared the decks for the release of movie 'Udta Punjab', whose makers were locked in a dispute with the Central Board of Film Certification, after ordering deleting a urination scene and displaying a revised disclaimer.The court also came down heavily on the CBFC and asked it not to act like a "grandmother", and change with times. A division bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi directed the CBFC to certify the drug-themed film within 48 hours to enable the makers to release it on its scheduled date of June 17."Barring the deletion of the urination scene as directed by the board and modification of the disclaimer, the June 6 order passed by the CBFC's revising committee directing for a total of 13 changes in the movie is quashed and set aside," the court said.The bench, however, refused to stay its order on a plea made by CBFC counsel Advait Sethna to enable the board to appeal against it in the Supreme Court, saying the filmmakers have already spent a lot on the movie and its promotion and distribution.The court, which was hearing a petition filed by Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films challenging the CBFC order, came down heavily on the board for curbing a creative person's work."Do not act like a grandmother. Change as per the times now. The CBFC need not be over-sensitive in the matter of art. The CBFC cannot stop creative people abruptly as it may discourage them. This will kill creativity. These days filmmakers are brutal, direct and straightforward. One need not treat them harshly just because of this," the HC said.The court further noted that the CBFC is not empowered by law to censor films, as the word censor is not included in the Cinematograph Act."Censor in common parlance means to certify a movie. Therefore, if by law the board is empowered to make changes, cuts, or deletions, this power of the CBFC must be consistently in consonance with the provisions of the Constitution and the Supreme Court directions," Justice Dharmadhikari said.As per the revised disclaimer, the 'Udta Punjab' makers will have to delete reference to Pakistan. They will also have to make additions to the disclaimer to the effect that the movie, its characters and the filmmakers do not promote the use of drugs and abusive language, and that the film is only attempting to depict the reality of drug abuse.On cutting out the urination scene, Justice Dharmadhikari said, "The CBFC is justified in directing deletion of the scene as the shot was unnecessary given the backdrop and the theme of the movie. Instead of this particular scene, the filmmaker could have taken recourse to other methods to depict the same."The court noted that it has read the film's script and does not find anything in it that shows Punjab in a bad light or affects the sovereignty, integrity or security of India."It is undisputed that the CBFC possesses powers to call for cuts, changes, deletions in a movie while certifying it. These powers come into play if the film affects the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, foreign relations, public order, and or is likely to incite commission of an offence. There is a heavy burden on the authority to show that the restrictions imposed are reasonable," the bench observed.In the present case, the CBFC-imposed restrictions were not correct. The movie has to be seen as a whole and it was not permissible to take the characters, scenes and songs in isolation and out of context, the judges said."It is open for a creative person to select the background, setting and accordingly weave the story. It is entirely on the creative person to choose the setting, pattern, underlying theme and storyline."Creative freedom allows use of certain words as per the choice of the filmmaker. Nobody can dictate to him as to how the movie should be made or its content," the court said.The bench said it was in agreement with the petitioners that there was an increasing menace of drug abuse amongst the youth in Punjab."The film is meant for adult viewing. If a maker chooses this way of depicting the movie and a subject, then it is not for anybody to restrict it. Like the CBFC, even we would be happy if better words were coined and used by the filmmaker," the judges said.The court said one must not forget that the movie is a work of fiction. The Islamic State group today claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them," a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio said. The jihadist group declared its "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando gay club was motivated by "extremist information distributed over the internet", but does not appear to be part of a broader ISIS plot, US President Barack Obama said today, calling it an apparent example of "homegrown extremism". "The one thing that we can say is that this is being treated as a terrorist investigation. It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet," Obama told reporters after receiving a briefing from the FBI this morning. All those materials are currently being searched, exploited, so that the FBI has a better sense of the pathway that the killer took in making a decision to launch this attack, he added. "At this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL, but there's no evidence so far that he was, in fact, directed by ISIL (ISIS)," Obama said with the FBI Director James Comey sitting by his side. "Also, at this stage, there's no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot. In that sense, it appears to be similar to what we saw in San Bernardino, but we don't yet know. And this is part of what is going to be important in terms of the investigation," Obama said. "As far as we can tell right now, this is certainly an example of the kind of home-grown extremism that all of us have been so concerned about for a very long time," he said. "It also appears that he was able to obtain these weapons legally, because he did not have a criminal record that, in some ways, would prohibit him from purchasing these weapons. It appears that one of those weapons he was able to just carry out of the store, an assault rifle, a handgun, a Glock, which had a lot of clips in it. He was apparently required to wait for three days under Florida law," he said. But it does indicate the degree to which it was not difficult for him to obtain these kinds of weapons, he added. Omar Mateen, the 29-year-old Afghan-origin gunman, killed at least 50 people at the gay nightclub in Orlando in US' deadliest mass shooting incident. In a radio bulletin today, the ISIS claimed that the attack on the "crusader gathering" was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "At the end of the day, this is something that we are going to have to grapple with, making sure that even as we go after ISIL and other extremist organizations overseas, even as we hit their leadership, even as we go after their infrastructure, even as we take, you know, key personnel off the field, even as we disrupt external plots, that one of the biggest challenges we are going to have is this kind of propaganda and perversions of Islam that you see generated on the internet," he said. The capacity for that to seep into the minds of troubled individuals or weak individuals, and seeing them motivated then to take actions against people here in the US and elsewhere in the world that are tragic, said the US President. Obama said countering this extremist ideology is increasingly going to be just as important as making sure that they are disrupting more extensive plots engineered from the outside. "We are also going to have to make sure that we think about the risks we are willing to take by being so lax in how we make very powerful firearms available to people in this country," he said. "This is something that I have talked about for a very long time. You know, my concern is that we start getting into a debate, as has happened in the past, which is an either/or debate, and the suggestion is either we think about something as terrorism and we ignore the problems with easy access to firearms or it's all about firearms and we ignore the role, the very real role, that organisations like ISIL have in generating extremist views inside this country," he added. It's not an either/or. It's a both/and, Obama asserted arguing that case of going after these terrorist organizations and hit them hard. "We have to counter extremism, but we also have to make sure that it's not easy for somebody who decides they want to harm people in this country to be able to obtain weapons to get at them," he said. He said the motivation of the shooter is not known yet. "I think we don't yet know the motivations, but here is what we do know, is organisations like ISIL or Al Qaida or those who have perverted Islam and created these radical, nihilistic, vicious organizations, one of the groups that they target are gays and lesbians because they believe that they do not abide by their attitudes towards sexuality. Now, we also know these are organizations that think it's fine to take captive women and enslave them and rape them," he said. "So there clearly are connections between the attitudes of an organisation like this and their attitudes towards tolerance and pluralism and a belief that all people are treated equally regardless of sexual orientation. That is something threatening to them. Women being empowered is threatening to them," Obama said. This harsh pitiless summer didnt just make us humans hapless hotheads, but more importantly, drained the sap out of wildlife. News of human-wildlife interactions nothing but tripled across the Western Ghats. The year began with 6 elephant mortalities, 6 human deaths and over 9 human-elephant interactions reported in a period of just one month starting January 1, 2016. It has only deteriorated ever since, the last being that of an elephant electrocuted in Mysuru in May 2016. The sneezing jumbo Two months ago when I visited Sathanur, a village located close to Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, I witnessed several farms raided by elephants. In fact, over 30 farms were affected in just a day, leaving several farmers growing cash crops like bananas completely devastated. When I visited one of the farms in May something had changed. Elephants had raided neighbouring farms thrice over 2 weeks, but hadnt ventured into Eshwarappas land, which was otherwise a frequenting herds favourite pad for its bananas and coconuts. We have been using ropes laced with chilli paste and tobacco around the fence to ward off elephants. Our fence has been broken in several places, and yet this time, they avoided our land thrice. We are really overjoyed. Another similar defence mechanism is the use of chilli smoke. Chilli smoke is generated by burning red or green chilli pods and tobacco along with dry grass. If you use pungent variety of chilli, the smoke can cause coughing and sneezing in animals. We have been using this method in our study area in Uttara Kannada district in Karnataka for the last 6 years. Elephants avoid the paths where they encounter smoke. Our farmers have reported that they have heard the elephants sneeze and cough, explains Prachi Mehta, executive director, research, Wildlife Research and Conservation Society (WRCS), that has trained over 500 farmers. Back in 2002, Save The Elephants founder Iain Douglas-Hamilton and fellow scientist Fritz Vollrath disclosed how elephants stay away from acacia trees with beehives. Kenya also succeeded in using beehive fences to ward off elephants. Farmers in Karnataka have been using this method for a few years now. It has proved to be successful, explains Dr Surendra Varma, biologist and member of the IUCN/SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group, who believes these indigenous methods are economical, efficient and also, not harmful to elephants. The sound of bee buzzing makes elephants nervous as they are afraid of bee sting. We made fences of naturally colonised wood logs and clay pots. Elephants can smell the bee-wax, honey and can hear the buzzing from a distance. That way they have been avoiding the areas with log hives, discloses Prachi. Trip alarms are also being used extensively now. As its impossible to stay up all night and guard, besides it being precarious and challenging to spot elephants in the night the idea of trip alarms come as a boon. It alerts the farmer in advance and he can actively try to keep the elephant out of the field. Back in Sathanur, Eshwarappa hadnt used chilli smoke in over 2 weeks. It is quite expensive. I own 2 acres, and to replenish every 3 days is proving to be expensive. Chilli smoke costs anywhere between Rs 30 and Rs 70 for one application. But if one compares this with other most popular mitigation measures like solar fence or chain link fences, that costs between Rs 1 lakh and 3 lakh per km, it sure is much cheaper. Prachi confirms that most materials used in chilli smoke or bee hive fences are low-cost and low-tech. The farmers can use the methods on their own and do not need interventions from Forest Department or civil society organisations. The hurdle And yet, there have been instances of farm raids even on lands which were once laced with chilli powder or abuzz with bees. Dr Surendras team have trained and assisted farmers in Bannerghatta with these mitigation measures. In the initial 2 years, farms that were frequented by elephants witnessed a much welcome absence without leave. But in the third, elephants slowly began to venture. The reason being farmers were not putting the same effort in maintaining and vigilantly keeping up the practice. This is the biggest challenge unfortunately, after initial training and help, its the farmer who holds the key to his farm. The farmer has to diligently keep up the practice without breaks, using chilli smoke once a month wont help, says Dr Surendra. Prachi seconds that: We motivate and train farmers to use crop guarding measures which are easy to use and affordable. However, it is an uphill task as it requires involvement of farmers in guarding their own crops. In each village, we find a section of the community willing to participate whereas some individuals will expect the Forest Department to provide the relief for them. Most farmers have one question wont this highly intelligent animal get habituated to this too? To which, Prachi believes rotating the mitigation methods will suffice. But is it effective in all seasons? During the rains, it is difficult to do ground chilli smoke. But it is possible to make chilli smoke in tin boxes. So, different types of alarms are used along trip wires. They are used to warn the farmer that there is movement. The rainwater may spoil the trip alarm battery. but it can be covered with waterproof material or kept indoors. There will be seasonal and weather related problems but it can be addressed easily, assures Prachi. While many individuals and select civil society organisations continue to hold several community education programmes to expose farmers to these innovative measures, it all boils down to one important factor the government. If mitigation measures such as these speak of several successful case studies, why isnt it being advanced more aggressively? It means coming together of scientists, the forest department, assisting civil society organisations and funds it has been suggested before, and yet compensation is viewed as an easier getaway. It doesnt address the real issue, of course, says a source with the Forest Department. In the meantime, Eshwarappa is considering trip alarms, and when his neighbours watch the orchard farm with a few raised eyebrows in the near future ideas will be shared and word will spread. And, hopefully, them gentle giants will find their way back to forests less harassed and unharmed. Urban Development Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake said he would accept the decision of Congress high command on the major changes expected during the impending Cabinet reshuffle. He said that there might be reshuffle of the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government Cabinet shortly. It would bring in many changes in the Cabinet, he added. The minister said the chief minister would convene a meeting of the Cabinet on June 15 to take a decision on the reshuffle. He said he would always remain loyal to the partys decision in this regard. Sorake said the support of JD(S) MLAs in the Upper House election played a decisive role and would be instrumental in the future political scenario. Seven or eight JD(S) MLAs with secular approach are waiting to join the party, he added. The minister said the government took the decision of accepting the resignation of Kudligi DySP Anupama Shenoy as it was tendered during the police protest which created an emergency situation all over the state. No other officer had done it. Hence, the government has decided to accept it. It seems it is an intentionally-done act to lend support and express outrage in the midst of the prevailing confusion, he reiterated. He said no one has approached him to convince the government and work in favor of the former police officer. District Congress Committee President Gopal Poojary said that he would be prepared to accept the new role and deliver his best, if he is offered the ministerial berth. He claimed that he has been working for the party for many years and is capable for the post. He added that he is also a four-time MLA. Pooajry said he has appealed the party high command about his desire. The high command has also assured that he would be recognised for his long, selfless service to the party. He said if the high command does not offer him the ministerial post, he would be happy to remain as whatever he is at present. He also ruled out any possibilities of lobbying for the post. We are always grateful for the support of the LaBuff-Cole American Legion Post No. 911 in Cato, which helps us honor the veterans and war dead on Memorial Day. This year, we were at Emerson Cemetery and the wreath was placed to honor the Corfield family. Five of them served in the military. I cannot document Marjories service, although a flag has been placed by her grave. Her brother Paul Corfield was killed in World War II in the Philippines. Paul was posthumously awarded both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. It is fitting that we continue to honor our war dead we should never forget the tragedy of young lives lost or the reason that brave soldiers continue to fight for our freedoms. Our next soldier packing party will be on June 22. Our Girl Scouts will be helping, and they are bringing homemade fudge! Sayles: How many veterans posts are in Cayuga County? The American Legion is 97 years old this year, and has a special history of service to Cayug June has many milestones. Wedding, family and class reunion plans are being made for our wonderful park pavilions. The Port Byron Alumni Banquet will be soon. The two Hall of Fame inductees are James Vitale (class of 1969) and Willoughby Waterman (class of 1906). Both men were distinguished educators and we are proud to honor them! The banquet is a special time to share memories and fellowship with those who graduated with us and during the surrounding years. We have a unique occasion this year: Eight members of the class of 1946 are gathering to celebrate their 70th-year reunion! Wow! While I will be sad to see the class of 2016 go they are ready and able to "take on the world." We are graduating fine young people who will continue to excel and contribute. 2016 Panthers, I am so proud to have been a part of your lives! Coming up in early July will be the Conquest Fire Department Car Show. This is one of the larger shows in our part of the state that day, Conquest will be the place to be! Great food, good music and oh my, the memories those cars elicit. We continue to celebrate the past as our museums will be opening for the summer months. Stop by the CIViC Heritage Museum in Cato, the brick schoolhouse on Route 34, the Lock 52 Historical Society and our new very exciting Erie Canal Heritage Park on Route 31, just east of the village of Port Byron. These saved memories and documents are preserved by dedicated volunteers; it is costly in dollars and hours to maintain these facilities. Stop by and thank the folks who are keeping these buildings alive. Members of Raitha Sangha and other organisations staged a protest in Hassan, demanding a ban on illegal quarrying at Dadadahalli and Bettadahalli in Shravanabelagola hobli, Channarayapatna taluk on Monday. Farmers, labourers and office-bearers of various organisations took out a rally from the Hemavathy statue in the city, up to the Deputy Commissioners office. They formed a human chain near NR Circle for a while, blocked the road, causing inconvenience to motorists. Later, they culminated near the Deputy Commissioners office and raised slogans against the officials. Protesters said that though Mines and Geology department has issued four licences for quarrying on eight acres of land at Bettadahalli and surrounding areas, mining activity was rampant on 60 acres of land. The Mines and Geology department has turned a blind eye towards the issue, they added. The agitators said, continuous mining will affect the statue of Bahubali atop the Chandragiri hill and also the stone idol of Bahubalis feet and mantap at Devarabetta. According to sources, four licences have been issued, but a single person is managing the entire mining activity. An Andhra-based agency has been issued permission to carry out mining at survey number 10, at Rangapurakaval at Tirupatihalla in Hassan. Ironically, the department officials do not have any information on the extent of land. The officials are hand in glove in the illegal mining, they alleged. Tahsildar and Assistant Commissioner, who made a spot visit, have submitted a report that is favourable to the contractors. The public, who agree to be witnesses to the case are threatened by goons. So the villagers fear to provide any evidence, they alleged. They demanded a CID or judicial probe into the mining activity, which is going on unabated for the past two decades, eroding natural resources. They demanded suitable compensation towards the loss incurred by the residents due to the mining activity. Raitha Sangha leader Badagalapura Nagendra led the protest. A blood test to detect cancer mutations produced results that generally agree with those of an invasive tumor biopsy, researchers reported, heralding a time when diagnosing cancer and monitoring its progression may become less painful and risky. The blood tests, known as liquid biopsies, represent one of the hottest trends in oncology. They take advantage of the fact that DNA fragments from tumours can be found in tiny amounts in the blood of patients with cancer. Researchers hope that such tests can become alternatives to conventional tumour biopsies, in which a piece of the tumour is extracted by needle or by surgery procedures that can have complications. The results of the study, the largest to date of a liquid biopsy test, give some reassurance that this might be possible. I think this study really demonstrates the veracity of the liquid biopsy approach, said Dr Philip Mack, director of molecular pharmacology at the University of California Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. The liquid biopsies are not used to diagnose cancer but rather to monitor disease progression or to detect genetic mutations in the tumour that could suggest which drug should be used to treat the disease. Just this week, the US Food and Drug Administration gave its first approval for such a test, one developed by Roche (pharmaceutical firm) to detect mutations in a particular gene. Lung cancers with mutations in that gene are vulnerable to treatment with certain drugs, including Roches own Tarceva. Many liquid biopsy tests are being sold by other companies under rules that do not require FDA approval. The study looked at the results of more than 15,000 liquid biopsies performed by Guardant Health, a Silicon Valley startup that is one of the leaders in the field. While many liquid biopsy tests now look for only a few mutations, Guardants test, which has a list price of $5,800, looks at mutations in 70 cancer-related genes. The 15,000 samples came from the blood of people with various types of cancer, including lung, breast and colorectal. The researchers on the study, most of whom worked for Guardant, said the frequency and types of mutations found were similar to what is known from scientific literature. For almost 400 patients, tumour biopsies were available, allowing for direct comparison to the blood test results from the same patient. For certain mutations that drive tumour growth, if a particular mutation was found in the blood, it was also found in the tumour 94-100% of the time. There was much less agreement for mutations that predict resistance to particular drugs. Those might have arisen only after the treatment started, so might not have been seen in the tumour biopsy, which is usually taken at the time of diagnosis. One shortcoming of the liquid biopsy was that for about 15% of the patients overall, no tumour DNA was detected in the blood. There are simply tumours that do not shed DNA into circulation at detectable levels, so we are bound to miss them, said Mack, who has been a paid speaker for Guardant. Dr Edward Kim, an expert on lung cancer mutations who was not involved in the study, said the results showed the liquid biopsy accuracy was very good. He said, however, that use of an actual tumour sample allows for a more thorough analysis, including more mutations than is possible with a blood sample. Im not personally ready to give up tissue, said Dr Edward, who is the chairman of solid tumour oncology at the Carolinas HealthCare Systems Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. Its still the gold standard. Still, he said, there are times when a tissue biopsy cannot be obtained, and it is difficult to do second and third tissue biopsies on a patient. In those cases, he said, I love the option of having the blood test available. The DSouza household in south-central Kolkatas Entally has become the destination for political leaders of all hues and beliefs after Judiths abduction in Afghanistan. From BJP leaders with saffron scarves around their necks to Congress and Left leaders, all have been making a beeline for the house, tucked away in a lane off a busy thoroughfare. Derek OBrien, the Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP, was the first to bring to the nations notice the case of the missing aid worker from Kolkata, who was kidnapped from the Afghan capital of Kabul on Thursday night. Since then crowds of curious on-lookers to political leaders, alighting from SUVs, have all gathered outside the DSouza residence. Leaders from all the major parties have called on the DSouza family members, who have hardly had any sleep since their youngest daughter went missing. Judith, a 40-year-old gender specialist with the Aga Khan Foundation, who has been working at Afghanistan on women and child development since July 2015, was abducted by unknown gunmen when she was on her way back home after having dinner at a restaurant. Two others were also abducted with her. The DSouzas got the news the same night following a call from the Indian embassy at Kabul and the Ministry of External affairs has been in talks with the Afghan government to trace and rescue her. CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who was in town for the two-day state committee meeting since Saturday, visited the DSouza family on Sunday evening. He spoke to Judiths elder sister Agnes and father, Denzel, assuring them of all help. State Congress president and MP, Adhir Chowdhury, also visited the family and wrote to foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, urging her to take all steps necessary to bring back Judith at the earliest. A sense of menace stirs right off the elevator on the fifth floor of Kaspersky Labs Moscow headquarters, where a small television screen displays cyberthreats occurring in real time around the world a blinking, spinning, colour-coded globe brimming with suspicious emails, malware and evil botnets that could be infecting a computer near you. That feeling of unease intensifies when Eugene Kaspersky the stocky, garrulous, 50-year-old founder and chief executive of the global computer security company begins to list possible threats: The computerised elevator you just left is vulnerable to cyberattacks, as are your smartphone and smartcar. Your bank, without question. Your electricity and water supplies could be at risk. Cybercriminals grow smarter, bolder and more elusive every year. We are living in the middle cyberage, the dark ages of cyber, said Kaspersky, whose modest corner office with glass walls overlooks a stretch of canal and a boat club. He has longish salt-and-pepper hair, a trim beard and a ruddy, tanned complexion. Right now, it is more functionality, more technology, more services, but not enough security. Kaspersky Lab is most famous for being the home of the brainy geek squad that exposed Stuxnet and Flame, the American-Israeli cyberweapons that disrupted Irans nuclear programme. Kaspersky and his company find themselves at the forefront of the battle against cybergangs, one of the largest emerging threats, for two simple reasons as he said: Russian software engineers are the best; unfortunately, Russian cybercriminals are the best, as well. Hacking methods developed in the Russian-speaking world are going global, suggesting a thriving black market in malicious code. They dont just hack the victims, they trade the technology to other gangs, he said. Now there are hundreds of victims, in the US and Asia. One gang alone is believed to have stolen up to $1 billion from banks, mainly in Russia, in 2013 and 2014. And this month, Kaspersky Lab experts helped Russia catch its largest hacking gang yet 50 people were arrested and accused of stealing $45 million since 2011. Investigators now believe the North Korean government hacked an international financial messaging system in February in an effort to drain $1 billion from the central bank of Bangladesh. They managed to get $81 million before the Federal Reserve Bank of New York became suspicious and cut off the transaction. After banks, commodities are a big new target. Hackers manipulate supply records, disguising surpluses to sell. We now have reports that it is massive, it is everywhere, said Kaspersky, who speaks colourful English with a Russian accent. Kaspersky is something of an anomaly in Russia, a businessman who built a global brand from scratch, using brains and persistence. His firm is among the most successful international computer security operations in the world, with offices in 32 countries, about 400 million people using its software and high-profile advertising campaigns, like its sponsorship of Ferraris Formula One team. However, given the tense relations between Russia and the West, Kaspersky Lab is fighting a rear-guard battle along with combating cybercrime: allaying concerns that a Russian security company can be trusted to protect confidential data stored online by Western companies and individuals. There is a strong sense in Russia that no company, particularly no computer security company, could succeed without Kremlin support, and Russian tech experts invariably refer to two episodes that fed mistrust. Kaspersky once advocated requiring an individual passport for web access, an idea the Kremlin encouraged, although he has come to focus on controlling access only to sites of high national security interest, like utilities. Government critics also found Kaspersky Lab slow to react during protests in 2011, when numerous opposition websites collapsed under a severe criminal attack widely attributed to the Russian government. In December, Kaspersky raised questions by signing his first cooperation agreement with a major state-run Chinese enterprise. Some Russian internet experts saw that as proof of choosing sides, becoming the anti-West cybercop and endorsing the Chinese model of a highly filtered internet. Kaspersky said his China contract was simply a matter of capitalising on its need for better security, especially since he sees Russian malware emerging there. Others said he had to make his peace with the system or leave. He decided to accept the rules and to stay here, said Andrei Soldatov, the co-author of The Red Web, a book documenting the Kremlins efforts to transfer ubiquitous Soviet surveillance techniques onto the web. He is part of the Russian tradition of engineers who really believe in order. Kaspersky said he stayed in Russia for its skilled software engineers. He and others attribute their prowess to a Russian educational system that, while less regimented than in Soviet times, still nurtures elite math skills. Widespread hacking is partly rooted in the tradition of not paying a kopeck for anything that could be grabbed free off the web, like software or movies. Kaspersky appears in self-effacing nerd mode around Kaspersky Lab headquarters, busying his own cafeteria tray and riding the elevator downstairs to smoke outside like everybody else, despite the vast balcony outside his office. Underwriting projects He claims not to know his net worth, which Forbes recently estimated at $1.1 billion, putting him at 66th among Russias top 200 richest people. He wears a Swatch and usually flies commercial airlines. In addition to Formula One, he underwrites various quirky or scientific projects including the excavation of the mysterious Minoan civilisation of Akrotiri, on the Greek island of Santorini and he delights in exploring remote spots in eastern Russia, the American West and New Zealand, among other places. I want to be not only a very professional, very correct, very good security company, he said. I also want to be an unusual company. Kaspersky works as his brands high-profile envoy, spinning around the globe seemingly at the speed of the lights on his cyberthreat map. His travels last year included 116 flights and included more than 50 presentations. He documents every step on a blog translated into nine languages. You wonder if he is ever asleep or ever at home, said Anton Nossik, a Russian tech pioneer and journalist, noting that the entrepreneur maintains a particularly sunny disposition online for someone selling the need to fight crime. Where Kaspersky breaks out of the nerd mould is with his brash, booming presence at large corporate events. He loves to be in the spotlight, said Aleksandr Plushev, who covers tech for the Echo of Moscow radio station. He is a very bright, funny, smart and open-minded person, with his own opinion. A little bit crazy, like almost all very talented people. The government is examining the objections raised by the Supreme Courts Collegium on the guiding document for the appointment of judges in higher judiciary. The Collegium has last month returned the Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) prepared by the Centre with suggestion to remove certain clauses. It has red-flagged the clause, giving the government right to reject nomination of judges on the ground of national interest. The collegium led by CJI Justice T S Thakur is reported to have objected to criterion of merit-cum-seniority for the elevation of judges. The MoP lays down the process for appointment of judges in high courts and the Supreme Court. As the collegium sent back the MoP with its remarks, it would be sent to the Group of Ministers, which would take a fresh look over it, sources said. It would take at least three weeks to finalise the response, they added. The government was told to prepare a fresh MoP in consultation with the Collegium after the Supreme Courts Constitution bench quashed the National Judicial Appointment Commission Act, meant to put in place new procedure for appointment of judges. The Supreme Court had then favoured making public the eligibility criteria for appointment of judges and asked the Centre to supplement the existing MoP, providing for a complaint redressal mechanism against the judges. Following the directions by the apex court, last year, the GoM headed by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was set up to prepare the draft MoP. With the collegium having taken its view on the subject, the matter is also to be referred to Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi for his views. Notably, Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda had already clarified the recommendation for appointment of judges would not be affected due to absence of new MoP. He said there was agreement between the judiciary and the government to go ahead with the appointment with the help of existing MoP prepared on June 30, 1999 on the basis of previous apex court judgments (Second and Third Judges cases). Frances Airbus Helicopters on Monday announced that it would be delivering three helicopters to Indias Aviators Air Rescue, to be used in Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) in the country. Aviators is set to become the first dedicated HEMS provider in India, as a result of a tripartite agreement between itself, Airbus Helicopters and US-based Air Medical Group Holdings. The order includes three Airbus H130 helicopters, best suited for air ambulance, rescue and medical operations. The H130 is a global reference among single engine helicopters for air ambulance missions. In addition, to the pilot and co-pilot or a technical crew, both of whom can be seated in the cockpit unlike any other helicopter of its class, the H130 can accommodate a stretcher and seat three more attendants or paramedics in the cabin. The Airbus Helicopters signature Fenestron shrouded tail rotor design allows the H130 to land in congested areas, Airbus Helicopters in India President Xavier Hay said. According to Aviators Air Rescue Managing Director Arun Sharma, The helicopters will be delivered from October 2016, and in the first phase we will be covering the five South Indian states of Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. We have tied up with many hospitals in the South, and will provide the last-mile connectivity, and end-to-end emergency care. On the basis of asset cost, Aviators has invested Rs 100 crore in the first phase, and will be investing another Rs 350 crore in the second phase that will commence from April 2017, and the company is eyeing seven more helicopters to be inducted and to serve the whole country. Our goal is to make this service affordable, accessible. We are inviting individuals to pay a sum of Rs 24/day, or Rs 8,999/year, and families to pay Rs 12/day, or Rs 17,999/year, as subscription fees. This ensures that there is direct access between patients and the service, and there is no middleman, Sharma said. The BJP blamed global recession for decline in exports and credited the government for steering the economy to achieve a growth rate of 7.9% in the last quarter of 2015-16. The Economic Resolution adopted at the ongoing BJP National Executive meeting here also credited the Centre for sending unambiguous message to investors on reforms and assurance on non-engagement in any retrospective taxation. It pointed out that according to the OECD, all countries including China and Brazil, were at the grip of recession. There is a decline in the role played by global trade in pushing economic growth and propelling growth of developing nations, the resolution said. In contrast, the Indian economy has been posting higher growth and emerged as the fastest growing economy of the world, it added. The assertions on the economic situation come amid questions raised by the Congress and other opposition parties over the GDP figures put out by the Modi government. The trust of investors increased manifold due to increased transparency and accountability in governance, scam-free administration and prudent fiscal management policies, according to the resolution that was adopted on Saturday night. During the UPA regime, international community had started writing off India: terming it as a laggard economy, the resolution said slamming the Congress-led government for allowing crony capitalists to influence the decision-making process. Party hits out at Cong The BJP also hit out at the Congress for its obstructionist politics which the BJP said was delaying the roll-out of Goods and Services Tax regime. Crediting Prime Minister Modi for blending welfare and growth measures, the resolution said increased economic activity has improved the confidence of not only investors, but also the common man. The governments handling of the economy has led to an increase in FDI inflow under the NDA. FDI inflow was over $55 billions in 2015-16 against $41 billions in 2014-15 and $36 billions in 2013-14, it said. This has facilitated in making the objectives of initiatives like Make in India, Start Up India, Stand Up India a reality, the resolution said. SENNETT There may have been a chilly wind Sunday, but it stayed dry so 161 youngsters and their families could take part in the 64th Kids Fishing Derby at the Falcon Sportsmen Club. As one of the organizers, Joe Donofrio told the gathered crowd waiting to hear who won, God never rains on our fishing derby. When each youngster caught a fish, he or she would bring it to the weighing station, where Donofrio and his daughter, Jill, would weigh and record the fish. The also would make each child feel special and then tell the child to release the fish back into the pond. Every child who caught a fish was so proud, whether it was a 4-ounce fish to the largest fish caught on the day 12 pounds, 10 ounces caught by Ava Dennis, who won first prize. Five-year old Emma Lawless won in the 5-and-under group for her 4-pound, 11-ounce catfish. I have been fishing all my life, and I really like it, she said. All youngsters who caught at least a one-pound fish or more was given a choice of prizes. Ava chose a fishing rod and case as the first-prize winner. Emma chose a new fishing pole. They are all winners, and every child who participates gets a prize, so everyone goes home a winner, Donofrio said. Although, the fishing derby attracts a large number of participants, there are many community activities the Falcon Sportsmen Club sponsors. The clubs 1,000 members raise funds to send youngsters to one of New York states summer conservation camps. Last year, three children spent a week in Lake George learning about nature and the great outdoors. Club President Michael Indelicato said families are encouraged to join, and anyone can sponsor a junior membership for only $1. Yearly membership for families is just $20 a year, allowing them to participate in all of the activities and classes. Besides enjoying the fun of fishing, everyone who attended the derby was treated to lunch, thanks to the many sponsors who regularly contribute to the club and its functions. The club gears all of its activities to its main purpose, which is to promote sporting and conservation for the youth in the area so they will carry the love of the outdoors to the next generation. If the rebel JD(S) MLAs chose a hotel to launch an attack on the Deve Gowda clan on Monday, Gowda used a television channel as a platform to counter them. A day after he suspended eight MLAs from the party, JD(S) national president H D Deve Gowda spent over three hours on a regional television channel, where he stoically defended his decisions. Gowda said, I was patient with the rebels because I have 55 years of experience in politics, he said. The party had suspended all 40 MLAs, including his son H D Kumaraswamy, when they brought down the Congress-JD(S) government in 2006. Action was also taken against then deputy chief minister Siddaramaiah, when he had indulged in anti-party activities, he pointed out. Gowda said that MLA Zameer Ahmed Khan had influenced the other party leaders to go against the party leadership, as he had vested interests. He said he was relieved that Kumaraswamy was no more surrounded by the MLAs, and that good times were now in store for his son. Reacting to Congress leader Digvijaya Singhs statement that JD(S) would be completely destroyed, Gowda said that if such a day were to arrive, he (Gowda) would tonsure his head and ride a donkey. Revanna happy now Zameer Ahmed Khan said that MLA HD Revanna is the main cause for the chaos in the party.Revanna has been conspiring against Kumaraswamy for many years as he could not tolerate his brothers rise in politics, Ahmed said. Speaking to a television channel from Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Khan accused Revanna of always pitting Gowda against Kumaraswamy. Today, Revanna has finally realised his dream. The party is in doldrums, all thanks to him, added Khan. The CPM state unit, which convinced its central leadership over the need to ally with the Congress, will have a tough time defending the move in the Central Committee meeting. After hours of discourse and debate at the two-day state committee meeting, which concluded in Kolkata on Sunday evening, state CPM leaders were able to convince former general secretary Prakash Karat and Politburo member M A Baby that the alliance with the Congress was necessary for its survival, despite the severe drubbing in the Assembly polls. The matter, however, will be up for review at the upcoming Central Committee meeting. Bengal leaders have placed their argument but the Central Committee will take the final call in its next meeting, Karat told reporters on his way back to Delhi. Karats successor Sitaram Yechury, a prominent architect of the alliance, however, was not so forthcoming on the meetings conclusion. All secular, democratic forces must come together against post-poll violence in Bengal, he said, without naming the Congress. Tough time Sources within the party admitted that even though Yechury has continued to provide tacit support to the state unit and the alliance has the backing of all the Politburo and Central Committee members from Bengal, state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra will face a tough time when the Central Committee meets. Karat key Karat, who holds sway over both the top decision-making bodies of CPM, has been a vocal critic of the coalition and could make things difficult, insiders agreed. Sources said that state units of Kerala, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are not willing to allow Bengal leaders to follow a different path. Well aware of the hurdles ahead, Mishra said, If we didnt have the alliance with the Congress, we couldnt have fielded polling agents in large number of booths. But the CPM is a national party and not just a Bengal-based party. Weve to follow discipline and the party constitution. Well go by what the central committee decides. Bengal CPM leaders found support form state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury, who reiterated his partys commitment to the coalition. While Left Front partners CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc are still debating whether to join the Congress in agitations against Trinamool Congress, Chowdhury said, Ive no hesitation in admitting we benefitted from the alliance. We should continue the arrangement and well share the benefits we receive as the main Opposition party in the Assembly. Soldiers of the Peoples Liberation Army of China recently intruded into the territory of India, after crossing the de facto border between the two nations. Nearly 250 PLA soldiers crossed over the Line of Actual Control at Yangtze near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh on June 9. They stayed put for a few hours and returned only after officials of the Indian Army took it up with their counterparts in the PLA, sources said in New Delhi. The incident took place even as the complex relations between the two nations came under stress in the wake of Chinas strong opposition to Indias bid to enter the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It also came just a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi concluded his high-profile visit to Washington DC, a visit that signalled greater strategic synergy between India and the US, especially in the Asia Pacific region. The sources said that the situation was diffused within hours in accordance with the bilateral Border Defence Cooperation Agreement, 2013. The incident on June 9 did not lead to a week-long stand-off as it had happened in the cases of similar incursions by the Chinese soldiers into Indian territories at Depsung Bulge and Chumar in Jammu and Kashmir in May 2013 and September 2014. But the incursion did once again underline the need for demarcating the LAC in order to narrow differences between the border guarding troops of both the nations on the alignment of the line, an official, aware of India-China boundary negotiations, told the DH on Monday. Though the LAC at present separates India and China in the absence of a mutually agreed boundary, differences in perceptions about the alignment of the line are often blamed for its transgressions and consequent tension and stand-offs. President Pranab Mukherjee had a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 26 and agreed that while India and China must improve border management and ensure peace and tranquillity is maintained in border areas. Legislative Assembly Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa on Monday said cross-voting by MLAs and reports of horsetrading in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, are detrimental to democracy. He told reporters that political parties should field sincere party workers and experts in certain fields in the elections to the Upper Houses of the Parliament and the state legislature. Realtors should be kept away from politics. Otherwise, they will vitiate the system. If they want to enter politics, let them give up everything, he added. On sting operations by two national news channels on the sale of votes, Thimmappa said the Election Commission of India (ECI) should take strict action. Moreover, what can anybody do if elected representatives go awry? Money should not be the basis for all the decisions we take, he added. To a question whether he can take any action against the JD(S) rebels for violating the whip in the elections, the Speaker said the whip has been violated outside the Assembly and hence, it does not come under his purview. He said he was hopeful that the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will wake up at least now and provide an effective administration for remaining two years of his term. A vice-president of a village panchayat in Tamil Nadu has been arrested in connection with the 2013 bomb blast near the BJP office in Malleswaram. Daniel Prakash (35), vice-president of Pudukudi village panchayat in Tirunelveli district, was picked up from Tirunelveli town by a Central Crime Branch (CCB) special team led by ACP Venkatesh Prasanna. Daniel was later brought to Bengaluru and is being interrogated. With this, a total of 16 arrests have been made in the case. Daniel supplied gelatine sticks and detonators to Panna Ismail, Police Fakrudeen and Kitchen Buhari to carry out the blasts. Daniel transported a gunny bag loaded with gelatine sticks and detonators to a desolate area near Mela Pudukudi railway gate. The trio collected the bag, sent it to Bengaluru in a car, prepared the bomb and triggered the blast, said the police. The trio are now in jail. In March, a CCB team arrested Jhone Asir and Syed Ali, residents of Tirunelveli. The duo revealed details about Daniels involvement in the blast, and since then he has been on the CCB radar. About two months ago, the CCB police almost nabbed Daniel at Ambasamudram, but he twisted a cops arm and escaped, Prasanna told DH. Daniel was earlier jailed twice, but obtained bail. According to the CCB police, Daniel was involved in supplying explosives on three occasions: for planting a bomb below a bridge near Vellore in 2011 to target BJP leader L K Advani, the 2012 Tirunelveli blast and for the Malleswaram blast. Daniel neither had any religious affiliation nor he transported explosives for money , the officer added. The Central Crime Branch (CCB) of Bengaluru police will oppose the bail petition moved by Akhila Karnataka Police Mahasangha president, V Shashidhar, when a local court hears it on June 17. During the day, Justice S Abdul Nazeer of the High Court ordered that notices be issued to the Bengaluru police commissioner and the CCB on a petition filed by Shashidhars wife. Shashidhar was arrested from his home in Yelahanka New Town, north Bengaluru, on June 1 for provoking constables across Karnataka to go on mass casual leave on June 4 in protest for better pay and other facilities. The state government decided to punish him. He was charged with sedition and other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), besides under the Police Forces (Restriction of Rights) Act, 1966, the Police (Incitement to Disaffection) Act, 1922, and the Karnataka Essential Services Maintenance Act, 2013. He is in judicial custody till Thursday. Shashidhar was booked for sedition as he instigated the constabulary to wage a war against the police and the government. His conduct brought disrepute to the police, a senior police officer told Deccan Herald. We have decided to oppose his bail petition. The CCB, however, let go around 20 constables from Bengaluru, Bengaluru Rural district, Hubballi, Vijayapura, Chitradurga, Davangere and Tumakuru who were in touch with Shashidhar. The constables told the CCB they presumed him to be fighting for their cause. But they said they didnt take part in the protest and had kept distance from Shashidhar after the police top brass warned them. CCB investigators have not been able to find evidence against the constables to link them with the larger conspiracy to defame the police force. They have taken the constables statements and let them go. The CCB is likely to summon around 60 more constables for questioning over the next few days before sending a detailed report to the Director General and Inspector General of Police, Om Prakash, for appropriate action. The DGP may order a departmental inquiry and initiate disciplinary action against the constables. The higher-ups are empowered to dismiss the constables even without the departmental inquiry if they are found to have fuelled rebellion in the force. In the High Court, Shashidhars wife Poornima accused the government of acting with a vengeance and framing her husband. Her counsel G R Mohan contended that Shashidhar was targeted by politicians against whom he had filed many a case. He urged the court to restrain the police from harassing Poornima and her two children and sought a CBI inquiry into his arrest. By Matthew Hill and Mustapha Muhammad 9 June 2016 (Bloomberg News) Yusuf Ibrahim, a tomato farmer in Kano, Nigeria, has lost almost 90 percent of his crop this year to Tuta absoluta. That prices for the fruit are 15 times higher than before the outbreak of the pest is little consolation; he cant afford to plant the corn and rice he normally does after harvesting tomatoes. Since arriving from South America via Spain in 2008, Tuta absoluta, also known as the tomato-leaf miner, has spread across at least 15 African countries. The moth thats about the size of a headphone jack landed in Nigeria, the continents biggest economy, in 2015. The main tomato-producing regions government declared a state of emergency, and the Africas richest man, Aliko Dangote, had to halt output at a $20 million processing plant due to lack of supply. The farmlands look abandoned, dry but with wilted plants, Ibrahim said on June 6. After harvesting tomatoes, most farmers go for maize or rice farming on the same land, but most of the land isnt being used because of losses. The dont have enough to go for another round. The fruit is used to enhance staple starch dishes across the continent, including jollof rice in the west and as a sauce poured over a stiff, corn-based porridge in South Africa. Africa exported almost $800 million of tomatoes in 2015, or about 10 percent of the worlds total, according to the Geneva-based International Trade Center. The continent produced $6.9 billion of the fruit in 2013, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimates. Tuta absoluta broke out in Zambia last month, raising the threat of infestation in surrounding countries. While the pest is yet to be detected in South Africa, the risk rises as it spreads, Jan Hendrik Venter, a plant health early-warnings scientist at the nations Agriculture Ministry, said by e-mail. Tuta has the potential to effectively eliminate tomato from the agricultural cycle, Richard Hopkins, head of pest behavior at the London-based University of Greenwichs Natural Resources Institute, said by e-mail. [] This is going to cause havoc but nobody cares until it hits, said Shakir Al-Zaidi, managing director at Russell IPM, a U.K.-based pest-management company thats been fighting Tuta absoluta for 10 years. [more] 9 June 2016 (IEP) The 2016 Global Peace Index (GPI) shows the world became less peaceful in the last year, reinforcing the underlying trend of declining peace over the last decade. Results also show a growing global inequality in peace, with the most peaceful countries continuing to improve while the least peaceful are falling into greater violence and conflict. The 2016 GPI report provides a comprehensive update on the state of peace. It shows that amidst the global deterioration the world continues to spend enormous resources on creating and containing violence but very little on peace. The key to reversing the decline in peace is through building Positive Peace a holistic framework of the key attitudes, institutions and structures which build peace in the long term. The UNs Sustainable Development Goal 16, which focuses on peace, justice and strong institutions is critical to focusing the international community on the goal of attaining a more peaceful world. But measuring it and developing the data to know if countries are improving is a serious challenge that needs greater investment and levels of cooperation. THE WORLD IS BECOMING LESS PEACEFUL The tenth edition of the GPI finds that overall global levels of peace continue to deteriorate while the gap between the most and least peaceful countries continues to widen. While the the world became less peaceful in 2015, many countries also improved. In fact, slightly more countries improved, 81 than deteriorated, 79. As the size of the deteriorations was larger than the improvements, there was a decline in the global average. This shows the complex picture of global peace and underscores that while there has been an emergence of concerning negative trends, they are not uniform globally and positives can be drawn from the data. The majority of the global deterioration is due to the developments in the Middle East and Africa (MENA), already the least peaceful region in the world. So intense is the current concentration of violence and conflict in MENA that, when considered separately, the rest of the worlds average peace levels improved. Three of the five biggest country declines in peace occurred in the region: Yemen, Libya and Bahrain. The indicators with the largest yearly deterioration were the impact of terrorism and political instability. Deaths from terrorism increased by 80 per cent from last years report with only 69 countries not recording a terrorist incident. The intensity of terrorism also increased with the number of countries suffering more than 500 deaths from terrorist acts more than doubling, up from 5 to 11. The rise in political instability was globally distributed with large changes within many countries spread across many regions. Among the countries with the largest deteriorations were Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau, Poland, Burundi, Kazakhstan, and Brazil. However, there were positives. The indicator with the largest improvement is UN peacekeeping funding. This underscores the increasing commitment of the international community to maintaining adequate funding for peacekeeping operations. The second largest improvement was recorded in the security officers and police rate indicator, with the number of countries that have high levels of police and internal security officers decreasing. These are promising developments that counter the fall in overall global peace. The ongoing conflict and societal safety and security domains both deteriorated on average, however militarisation improved from 2015 to 2016. THE DECADE LONG DECLINE IN PEACE The last decade has seen a historic decline in world peace. This interrupts the long term improvements in peace since World War II. The historic ten-year deterioration in peace has largely been driven by the intensifying conflicts in the MENA region. Terrorism is also at an all-time high, battle deaths from conflict are at a 25 year high, and the number of refugees and displaced people are at a level not seen in sixty years. Notably, the sources for these three dynamics are intertwined and driven by a small number of countries, demonstrating the global repercussions of breakdowns in peacefulness. Over the past decade, the average country score deteriorated by 2.44 per cent with 77 countries improving while 85 countries deteriorated, highlighting the global complexities of peace and its uneven distribution. While many of the least peaceful countries have seen an intensification of conflict and violence over the past ten years, many of the most peaceful countries have remained peaceful or improved and are likely the most peaceful in human history. The bottom 20 countries especially have progressively become much less peaceful, creating increased levels of inequality in global peace. The past decade has seen a continuation of longer term trends in peacefulness away from external conflicts between states and towards internal conflicts within states. Although it is too early to state whether the decrease in peacefulness represents a reversal of the long peace that started at the end of World War II, there are a number of worrying signs that suggest conflict could escalate. TERRORISM AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH The terrorism impact indicator had the greatest overall deterioration, with all but two regions recording an increase over the past decade. While still accounting for a small percentage of the total number of violent deaths, terrorism has grown steadily over the past decade. The number of yearly incidents has almost tripled since 2011 and the number of deaths has increased to over 30,000. The majority of terrorist activity is highly concentrated in five countries: Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. Between them these countries accounted for 78 per cent of deaths from terrorism in 2014. However, there are signs that terrorism is becoming more common across the globe, with almost every region having an increase in its terrorism impact score from 2008 to 2016. BATTLE DEATHS FROM CONFLICT ARE AT A 25-YEAR HIGH The total number of conflicts has jumped sharply in recent years, rising from 31 in 2010 to 40 in 2014. This increase in the number of internal conflicts has led to a concurrent rise in battle deaths. In 2014, owing largely to the conflict in Syria but also the increasingly protracted conflict in Yemen, battle deaths hit a 25 year high. This number is likely to increase when 2015 data is released. Although the majority of deaths in 2014 occurred in Syria, there were a number of other conflicts that resulted in high numbers of battle deaths. In total, 11 conflicts resulted in more than a thousand deaths each in 2014, with conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan resulting in more than 10,000 deaths each. However, it is important to place todays violence in historical context. While the total number of battle deaths did reach a 25 year high in 2014, the last 25 years have been relatively peaceful compared to the preceding 25. From the period 1990 to 2014, there were more than 50,000 deaths in a year on six occasions. By contrast, from 1965 to 1989 there were more than 50,000 deaths on 24 occasions. REFUGEES AND INTERNALLY DISPLACED PEOPLE The number of refugees and internally displaced persons increased dramatically over the decade, doubling from 2007 to 2015, to approximately 60 million people. There are nine countries with more than 10 per cent of their population classified as refugees or displaced persons with Somalia and South Sudan having more than 20 per cent of their population displaced and Syria with over 60 per cent displaced. THE LAST DECADES POSITIVE TRENDS The trends over the past decade are not uniformly negative. While there has been an increased international dimension to the MENA conflicts, there has also been a positive renewed effort by the international community to provide timely funding and support to peacekeeping operations. The stand-out improvement over the period is commitment to UN peacekeeping funding which improved by 12 per cent. The increasing number of deployed peacekeepers and the international communitys improvement in meeting UN peacekeeping funding dues reached record highs in early 2016. This reflects an international community increasing its commitment to peacekeeping and global peace and security. The other indicator that saw significant improvement was external conflicts fought, which records countries involvement in illegal wars with other countries. While that positive trend has been offset by an increase in internal conflicts fought, there were also improvements in other indicators of militarisation the armed service personnel rate and levels of military expenditure both improved by five per cent. Having reached a landmark year, the annual Flagstaff Folk Fest is pulling out all the stops for Arizonas premiere gathering of expert folk musicians and appreciators. Presented by Flagstaff Friends of Traditional Music, which has grown far beyond its original circle of musicians and dancers, more than 100 acts will take to five stages as part of the festivals 15th incarnation that continues to elevate a time-honored tradition that exists by and for the people. The 15th annual Flagstaff Folk Festival takes place Saturday and Sunday, June 18 and 19 at the Coconino Center for the Arts and Pioneer Museum, 2300 N. Fort Valley Road, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tickets are $5 per person or $15 per family. Visit Flagfolksfest.org to learn more. Already back on guitar from a recent illness, Tony Norris will lend testament as one of Flagstaffs favorite folklorists and musicians. D-Squared from Mayer, Ariz., has also broken its hiatus to lend flavor to the festival. And in addition to the dozens upon dozens of musicians setting up over the weekend, a litany of workshops are also tuned specifically to give visitors a taste of what FFOTM is all about as an organization, said Folk Festival Director Anne Wittke. Saturdays workshop load will help folks learn how to flatpick with Shawn Dennehy, or master altered tunings with Hank Levine. Susan Conger will offer new tips for intermediate fiddle players while Mindy Dillard lends kids a hand at the ukulele. And if youve ever gotten writers block when it comes to humorous songwriting, turn to Tom Tuerff. Sundays workshops are just as fulfilling and will give players an extra edge at the weekends planned and impromptu jam sessions with How to Play by Ear with Dave and Jenny or Open Tuning Slide Guitar by Eric Ramsey. Wallace Bornmann will also lend hits and singing and songwriting while Faint Praise tackles vocal harmony. Beyond these specialized demonstrations, spaces are set up across the Pioneer Museums and Coconino Center for the Arts campus for folks to set up and jam on their own as FFOTM encourages visitors to bring their instruments with them to the festival. Wittke also noted a number of vendors will supply local food and swag, but visitors are asked to bring cash as no ATMs will be onsite. By Louvat Mathieu, Dolphin Integration Abstract Using pulsed latches instead of flip-flops is a solution that has been thoroughly studied for its advantages in speed, density, and power consumption reduction [1] [2]. Even so, this solution has not been widely adopted by standard cell library providers because of the difficulties related to timing verifications: pulse width integrity and hold time closure. There is also a lack of EDA tools natively supporting this feature. Dolphin Integration delivers standard cell libraries based on pulsed latches (SESAME uHD libraries) that can be used in standard design flows and fully compatible with the most common EDA tools. Introduction Pulsed latches (Spinner cells) are an alternative to flip-flops for synchronous memorization, which had seen a number of failed attempts over the years. Their industrialization until now was lacking. On the one hand, a flip-flop allows capturing data on an active edge (high or low) of a clock signal (Fig 1). Fig 1: Flip-flop design One the other hand, a pulsed latch allows capturing data in an active state (high or low) of a clock signal. It is composed of a single latch (so called Spinner cell) and a pulse generator (PG) to generate a pulsed clock signal (Fig 2 and Fig 3). Fig 2: Latch design Fig 3: Pulse generator design The patented Dolphin Integration Spinner system [3] [4] [5] enables the use of pulsed latches in standard SoC integration flows [6] using the tools provided by the major EDA vendors. This article demonstrates the benefits of Dolphin Integrations standard cell libraries based on Spinner cells and Pulse Generators, so called Spinner system. The first part is dedicated to demonstrating the performance improvements compared to flip-flops. A complete validation methodology of the integrity of the pulse is presented in the second part. Then robustness of both the Spinner system and flip-flops is investigated using high-sigma simulations. Finally, a test-chip methodology for timing closure will be given along with examples of mass production of Silicon IP using the Spinner system in various technologies. Performance improvements with the Spinner system Area reduction Circuits implemented using standard cell libraries providing the Spinner system are 10 % to 20 % denser (Fig 4) than circuits implemented with flip-flop based libraries [6]. Fig 4: SoC area versus frequency on the Motu-Uta 5.1 benchmark for spinner and flip-flop based libraries at 65 nm Power saving As the Spinner cell is two times less complex than its flip-flop counterpart, its power consumption is drastically reduced, as illustrated in Table 1. Rise power CP -> Q (pW/MHz) Fall power CP-> Q (pW/MHz) Internal power CP (pW/MHz) Average Leakage (pJ) Spinner 4.957 3.801 2.325 106.354 Flip-flop 6.705 5.469 3.858 157.96 Power gain of Spinner versus flip-flop 26 % 31 % 40 % 32 % Table 1: Power consumption (index 1x1) for flip-flop and spinner at 55 nm (TT 1.2V 25C) To compute power savings at SoC level, the comparison needs to take into account changes in the clock tree structure linked to the Pulse Generator (called PG hereafter) insertion [6]. Due to strong pulse integrity requirements, the PG consumes much more power than a standard clock buffer. Its impact on the clock tree power consumption depends on the clock tree structure, the number of spinners and the average PG fan-out. Clock gating options also have a big impact on the clock tree structure and therefore on the power consumption of the Spinner system through the fan-out of the pulse generators. Pulse Generator insertion is performed using a patented algorithm [3] [4] implemented using the Tcl language compatible with the P&R tools provided by the major EDA vendors. Fig 5 presents the power analysis of the clock tree, the registers and the entire SoC after the P&R step on the Motu-Uta 5.1 public benchmark, with flip-flops and Spinner system in the same conditions with clock gating options optimized for power consumption. The total power consumption of registers is reduced by 60 %, but the power consumption of clock tree is increased by 15 %. Overall, 27 % power reduction is reached thanks to the Spinner system. Fig 5: Power analysis after P&R on the Motu-Uta 5.1 benchmark (clock period of 5ns) at 55 nm (TT @25C) Spinner system validation methodology by Dolphin Integration To take advantage of the performance improvements granted by the Spinner system, mastery of the pulse integrity is a requirement since it conditions the proper behavior of the pulsed latch. To this end, Dolphin Integration has developed a validation methodology for the Spinner system involving 2 steps: mismatch validation and 45 corners validation. Mismatch simulations are used to validate the pulse integrity over local statistical process variations whereas the 45 corners validation checks the pulse integrity over systematic process variations. The following simulations are performed: Capture of a logic 0 with min clock transition Capture of a logic 0 with max clock transition Capture of a logic 1 with min clock transition Capture of a logic 1 with max clock transition Design Under Validation (DUV) The schematic used for both validations is presented in Fig 6. Two pulse generators respectively drive their minimum and maximum fan-out, and are connected to a Spinner cell. The output of each Spinner cell is loaded with its maximum capacitance. The input pins (CP and D) are set according to the 4 cases described above. Fig 6: Validation schematic (DUV) Mismatch validation The mismatch validation is composed of 3 steps: The determination of the worst case netlist for the PG The determination of the worst case netlists for the Spinner cell The simulation of the DUV with these netlists This entire validation is performed with worst and best corners for parasitic extraction and process. The worst netlist for the PG is the netlist which generates the smallest pulse under the worst mismatch variations. The worst netlists for the Spinner cell are the same as above for 2 distinct cases: the worst for the capture of a logic 1 and the worst for the capture of a logic 0. Any failure running the simulations with the worst netlists for each case leads to re-sizing of the Spinner cell. 45 corners validation 45 corners validation is the simulation of the DUV with total process corners (TT, FF, SS, FS, SF), three parasitic extractions (minimum, maximum and typical) and three temperatures: highest, smallest and room (Fig 7). Fig 7: 45 corners validation In case of simulation failure, the pulse generator and Spinner cell need to be re-sized. Spinner system robustness The validation methodology is qualified by comparing the robustness of the Spinner system with that of flip-flops using high-sigma simulations and silicon qualification. High sigma simulations High-sigma simulations with fast Monte-Carlo simulators have been run on a fully validated Spinner system and flip-flop, and the yield of both solutions have been compared. The simulated schematic is based on the DUV in Fig 8. Fig 8: High sigma netlist The success criterion is defined as a propagation time (CP to Q) with less than 20 % variation over the characterized propagation time. Fig 9 shows the results for the capture of a logic 0 (worst case) for both the Spinner system and a flip-flop at 55 nm. Fig 9: High sigma simulation results The results show that the yield of the Spinner system is identical to the yield of the flip-flop. Many test-chips embedding the Spinner system have been designed and measured to correlate silicon with the characterization models (Liberty files) and specifically the timings. Correlation of propagation timings To correlate propagation timings, the frequency (F_ro) of a ring oscillator composed of tiles (Fig 10) looped with a nand gate controlled by a start signal is measured. Fig 10: Tile of a spinner RO From F_ro, we deduce the propagation time of a tile (Tp_meas). At the same time, we run static timing analysis (STA) to determine the simulated propagation time (Tp_sim). To correlate, Tp_meas must satisfy the following equation: Correlation of constraint timings Constraint timings of the Spinner system are described using the nochange syntax. The methodology used [7] has been adapted to measure the nochange high high fall constraint (hold falling). To correlate, the result (Tc_meas) must be included in the meta-stability window defined in STA (Fig 11). Fig 11: constraint timing measurement correlation The Spinner system is in mass production in many customer SoCs for the implementation of ultrahigh density logic. It is also embedded in Virtual Components of audio codecs shCODlv-90.15 2G (180 nm), sCODS100-LB-IO-N.12 (40 nm) and sDACa-MT1.03 (28 nm), provided by Dolphin Integration, which are also in mass production in many customer SoCs. Conclusion Dolphin Integration has industrialized the technique of pulsed latch design for digital circuit implementation through the introduction of an innovative Spinner system, at a time when its use has become most relevant. This system has demonstrated significant performance improvements suitable for low-power and high-density applications, such as IoT, compared to flip-flop based libraries. Bibliography [1] Pulsed-Latch Aware Placement for Timing-Integrity Optimization by Yi-Lin Chuang, Sangmin Kim, Youngsoo Shin and and Yao-Wen Chang [2] Pulsed-Latch Circuits: A New Dimension in ASIC Design by Youngsoo Shin and Seungwhun Pai [3] FR2963688 (A1) - 2012-02-10 - ARBRE D'HORLOGE POUR BASCULES COMMANDEES PAR IMPULSIONS [4] US2012032721 (A1) - 2012-02-09 - CLOCK TREE FOR PULSED LATCHES [5] FR2972087 (A1) - 2012-08-31 - Circuit de bascule commandee par impulsions [6] Spinner System: optimized design and integration methodology based on pulsed latch for drastic area reduction in logic designs by Lionel Jure [7] Self-Calibrate Two-Step Digital Setup/Hold Time Measurement by Luo Zhihong, Zhang Yihao, Henry Law Check some related IPs To find the silicon IP related to your need, contact Dolphin Integration: contact@dolphin.fr About the Author Louvat Mathieu joined Dolphin Integration in 2011 as standard cell designer. He is now involved in standard cells and low power system architectures. Mathieu holds a masters degree in Electronics and Integrated System Design from Joseph Fourier University About Dolphin Integration Dolphin Integration contributes to "enabling low-power Systems-on-Chip" for worldwide customers - up to the major actors of the semiconductor industry - with high-density Silicon IP components best at low-power consumption. The "Foundation IP" of this offering involves innovative libraries of standard cells, register files and memory generators. The "Fabric IP" of voltage regulators, Power Island Construction Kits and their control network MAESTRO enable a flexible assembly with their loads. They especially star the "Feature IP": from high-resolution converters for audio and measurement applications to poweroptimized 8 or 16 and 32 bit micro-controllers. Over 30 years of experience in the integration of silicon IP components, providing services for ASIC/SoC design and fabrication with its own EDA solutions, make Dolphin Integration a genuine one-stop shop addressing all customers' needs for specific requests. It is not just one more supplier of Technology, but the provider of the DOLPHIN INTEGRATION know-how! The company strives to incessantly innovate for its customers success, which has led to two strong differentiators: state-of-the-art panoplies of Semiconductor IP components for high-performance applications securing the most competitive SoC architectural solutions, a team of Integration and Application Engineers supporting each users need for optimal application schematics, demonstrated through EDA solutions enabling early performance assessments. Its social responsibility has been from the start focused on the design of integrated circuits with low-power consumption, placing the company in the best position to now contribute to new applications for general power savings through the emergence of the Internet of Things. If you wish to download a copy of this white paper, click here London, UK 9 June, 2016 Imagination Technologies (IMG.L) and Kernkonzept announce that the latest release of the open source L4Re hypervisor now supports Imaginations OmniShield ready MIPS CPUs. The small footprint L4Re hypervisor, maintained by Kernkonzept, can take advantage of the hardware virtualization technology in MIPS CPUs for more efficient context switching and better use of CPU cycles, leading to improved application headroom. Hardware virtualization is quickly gaining attention beyond its traditional home in the data-center for the benefits it provides across numerous application areas from IoT to consumer to automotive to industrial and beyond. With this technology, connected devices can be designed with numerous distinct domains in which multiple operating systems and applications can run independently at the same time on a single platform. Built in to the latest MIPS CPUs and other processor families, Imaginations OmniShield technology leverages hardware virtualization to enable the creation of multiple domains on a single SoC. The L4Re operating system is an ideal match: it works with systems that need to consolidate multiple applications with differing security, safety, or real-time requirements. With OmniShield-enabled MIPS CPUs, the L4Re hypervisor makes it possible for multiple isolated tenants or guests to run on the same host, authorizing access to on-chip resources, prioritizing use of shared resources, allocating and managing service interrupts from external sources and peripherals, and more. Says Jim Nicholas, EVP MIPS Processor IP, Imagination: As Imagination continues to expand its MIPS ecosystem and OmniShield security offerings, we are delighted to work with Kernkonzept to bring the proven, highly efficient L4Re hypervisor to MIPS. Open source technologies like L4Re, where entire communities are responsible for developing and maintaining the code, can lead to inherently more reliable systems. Were seeing a great deal of interest in L4Re for MIPS. Says Michael Hohmuth, CEO, Kernkonzept: Our engagement with Imagination is extremely collaborative, and has already led to great value for both companies. The collaboration is enabling us to take the L4Re operating system into new areas. This technology is already quite strong in areas including government and military. Now its making its way into embedded markets such as Wi-Fi routers, cable set-top boxes, home gateways, and automotive where MIPS CPUs have a strong presence. New demonstration vehicle highlights the benefits of hardware virtualization The open source prpl Foundation, with its members Imagination and Kernkonzept, worked to create a demonstration vehicle that enables companies to see and try out the capabilities of hardware virtualization for themselves. It illustrates the power of a separation-based architecture in providing reliability and ease-of development for next-generation connected devices. The demonstration builds on prpls proof-of-concept demonstration earlier this year of its prplSecurity frameworka comprehensive collection of open source APIs providing hardware-level security controls. That was one of the first public demonstrations of hardware enforced multi-tenant OpenWrt, the Linux distribution at the heart of most of the worlds home gateways. The new demonstration features several domains including two instances of OpenWrt one that isolates the Wi-Fi radio, and another that enables access to networking devices. With evolving Wi-Fi channel and frequency regulations, its important to ensure the radio is completely isolated, while letting users update their OS and install their own applications on the system. Additional domains can be used for provisioning of third party services such as those from operators and service providers. Availability The L4Re hypervisor for MIPS is available now at www.kernkonzept.com/download.html. Kernkonzept also provides a supported version of the L4Re hypervisor. Contact info@kernkonzept.com for more information. About the L4Re operating system The L4Re operating system is an open-source system framework for building applications with real-time, security, safety, and virtualization requirements. The L4Re system is built on the principle of a minimal Trusted Computing Base: minimize an applications attack area by modularization and by reducing its dependencies. It consists of the L4Re hypervisor/microkernel, user-level infrastructure for building trusted native L4Re microapps, and virtual-machine support for running various standard OSes in isolated compartments. About Kernkonzept Kernkonzept develops the open-source L4Re operating systems and hypervisor for security/safety-critical and virtualization-enabled applications. The Dresden, Germany-based company provides software services for the security-sensitive, real-time, and embedded markets. About Imagination Technologies Imagination is a global technology leader whose products touch the lives of billions of people across the globe. The companys broad range of silicon IP (intellectual property) includes the key processing blocks needed to create the SoCs (Systems on Chips) that power all mobile, consumer and embedded electronics. Its unique software IP, infrastructure technologies and system solutions enable its customers to get to market quickly with complete and highly differentiated SoC platforms. Imaginations licensees include many of the worlds leading semiconductor manufacturers, network operators and OEMs/ODMs who are creating some of the worlds most iconic products. See: www.imgtec.com. This Is What Shilpa Shetty Has To Say About Her Divorce Rumours SIIMA Gives Opportunity To Meet Friends From Industry: Kushboo Microsoft's deal to acquire LinkedIn is expected to close by the end of the year and LinkedIn will retain in brand, culture and independence Microsoft has announced that it plans to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. The deal will be an all cash transaction and Microsoft has valued LinkedIn at $196 per share. Microsoft notes that social networking site will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence. Jeff Weiner will remain as the CEO of LinkedIN and will report directly to the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year. Nadella said in a statement, The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the worlds professionals. Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet. Microsoft says that the deal has been unanimously approved by the Board of directors of both the companies. However, the deal is subject to approval by LinkedIns shareholders, certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The amount being paid by Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn is much higher than the amount the company paid to purchase Nokia a few years back. The company paid nearly $7.2 billion to acquire the Finnish smartphone manufacturer and the deal included all of Nokias Devices and Services business, Nokias patents, and the licensing and use of Nokias mapping services. The headset will be available via the Uber app from June 14, 3:00 pm onwards OnePlus has partnered with Uber to give users a chance to book a OnePlus Loop VR headset. The headset will be available via the Uber app from June 14, 3:00 pm onwards and those interested will have to ensure that they are signed into the app. Inside the app, users will have to enter the promo code ONEPLUS3VR in the promotions tab in the app. After entering the code, they will have to head back to the main screen and click the UberVR icon on June 14th, from 3:00 pm onwards. If the request is accepted, an Uber cab will reach the users location with their Loop VR headset. The service is available in eight major cities in India, namely, New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Bhubaneshwar, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, and Chandigarh. This might be the last chance for users to get their hands on the OnePlus Loop VR headset before the launch of the OnePlus 3 smartphone. Vikas Agarwal, General Manager, India at OnePlus, stated, OnePlus fan community is very important to us and we are thankful to them for their continued love and support. As we have received several requests to offer more OnePlus Loop VR Headsets to experience the OnePlus 3 launch in VR, we are partnering with Uber to give our fans a last minute opportunity to get their hands on VR Headsets right at their doorsteps within minutes of booking. OnePlus will be launching its upcoming flagship device, the OnePlus 3 via virtual reality on June 14 and the VR headset is aimed at helping people be a part of the launch. Further, those attending the launch will also have a chance of purchasing the device before anyone else. Last week, OnePlus partnered with Droom to auction the OnePlus 3. The company stated that all proceeds from the auction were donated to a charity chosen by the OnePlus community. UK Prime Minister tries to inject momentum into Remain campaign as Leave gathers pace David Cameron tried to force fresh momentum into the Remain campaign on Sunday, as he warned that a United Kingdom exit from the European Union could deal a serious blow to home affairs, particularly pensions and healthcare. The Prime Minister was speaking during an interview on The Andrew Marr show on BBC on Sunday morning, as the Leave campaign continues to improve their performance in polls leading up to the June 23rd referendum. Cameron warned that a British vote to leave the EU would do untold harm to the UK economy, leaving the government with less money to spend on pensions than it would if they chose to stay. "If we vote out, it is a decade of uncertainty, and we shouldn't risk it," Cameron said. The government and Cameron's own personal contribution to the campaign has signifcantly increased in recent days as the pressure from the Brexit side comes to the fore. He gave an interview to one newspaper as well as writing a letter to another. Treasury boss George Osborne also warned in a newspaper article that among other things, defence spending could decrease and endanger the security of British citizens. If Britain votes to remain in the European Union net migration will exceed a quarter a million a year for about 20 years, according to a think tank on Monday, which wants to lower migration. Migration Watch said in a report that by 2035 an estimated 265,000 migrants will come to the UK, with 60% from the EU resulting in a massive impact on our population. The think tank looked at if Britain votes to remain in the EU and the subsequent 20 years thereafter. The figure excluded average high and low migration scenarios and excluded the chance of Turkey joining the EU. It based the conclusion on current levels of immigration, which in the year to June is 336,000. In May the Office for National Statistics estimated net migration rose 333,000 in 2015, the second highest figure on record. Net migration is the difference between the number of people coming to the UK for at least a year and those leaving. The low migration scenario would see EU net migration would fall by 135,000 and only a small number of refugees would settle in the country. This plan would also reduce non-EU migration to 100,000 a year and the number of people migrating away from the UK would stay at 50,000 - total net migration 205,000. The high migration scenario would see EU net migration rise 220,000 by 2031. In this plan non-EU migration stays at 150,000 a year and UK migration would stay at 50,000 total net migration 320,000 in 20 years. This report is a final wake-up call, Lord Green Deddington, chairman of Migration Watch said. Even leaving aside the prospect of Turkey joining the EU, it shows that net migration could still be running at 265,000 a year in 20 years' time. "This would bring our population to 80 million within 30 years. If we remain in the EU there will be nothing to stop a continuing rapid increase in our population. This would change our country forever against the express wishes of a very large majority of our fellow citizens." However, Migration Watch said it has not taken either a Leave or Remain position regarding the EU referendum on the 23 June. Leave campaigner and former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith said to Sky News: These figures show that unless you get control of our borders - and we don't have control of our border with the European Union - we've seen net migration rise - over a million have now come and stayed in the UK. As migration rises most of the people coming into the UK from the EU are doing low-skill, low-paid jobs and this has driven wage levels down." James Brokenshire immigration minister said: "David Cameron is in complete agreement with the leaders of the Leave campaign who have admitted Turkey joining the EU isn't remotely on the cards. "Damaging the economy by quitting Europe is not the answer to the complex issue of immigration." Microsoft has agreed to buy LinkedIn in a $196 per share all-cash takeover that values the professional social network at $26.2bn. The software giant said it expected the deal, which is to be funded by issuing new debt, would close this calendar year subject to approval by LinkedIns shareholders and regulatory authorities. Microsoft said that LinkedIn will retain its "distinct brand, culture and independence", with current chief executive officer Jeff Weiner remaining in place and reporting to Microsoft boss Satya Nadella. On the closing of the deal, the Microsoft expects LinkedIns acquisition to create a minimal dilution of around 1% to earnings per share for the remainder of fiscal year 2017 and for fiscal year 2018, before becoming accretive to EPS in the 2019 financial year "or less than two years post-closing". The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the worlds professionals, Nadella said. Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet. Microsoft, which supplied a video from Nadella and Weiner describing the rationale for the deal, said it still intends to complete its existing $40bn share buyback authorization by the end of the current calendar year. Morgan Stanley is acting as financial advisor to Microsoft, with Qatalyst Partners and Allen & Company advising LinkedIn. LinkedIn co-founder and controlling shareholder Reid Hoffman said: Today is a re-founding moment for LinkedIn. I see incredible opportunity for our members and customers and look forward to supporting this new and combined business. I fully support this transaction and the boards decision to pursue it, and will vote my shares in accordance with their recommendation on it. A good deal? LinkedIn shares closed at just over $131 last week, down from a peak last year of nearer $270 with a sell-off in recent months after it issued a weak outlook in its February earnings call. Analyst Augustin Eden at Accendo Markets said the deal would be likely to result in a bit of an exodus from Microsoft. "Shares in Microsoft were understandably suspended from trading in the lead-up to this bit of news, given that the traditional reaction to such an announcement often involves a shareholder exodus from the predator. With this deal lightening Microsofts coffers to the tune of $26bn, make that an exodus of biblical proportions. "However its perhaps the attractiveness of this deal to the merger arbitrage hedge funds thats set to have the biggest impact on both companies. With that massive 50% premium, this could be the pairs trade of the decade." Analyst Naeem Aslam at Think Forex said Microsoft had got itself a good deal. "Linked is worth a lot more with Microsoft because the firm was well behind the curve when it comes to CRM. Linked tried to develop this, but they never did a good job there at all, and with Microsoft behind them now with all of of their cloud infrastructure, it will be a game changer." He said the software giant had been eyeing a big deal for some time but nothing had progressed. Suggesting the deal could presage a tech takeover spree, he said Twitter and Yell could be the next companies targeted. Jasper Lawler at CMC noted that Microsoft will be paying a colossal 91 times forward earnings, "which needs some impressive growth in LinkedIn or cross-over benefits to Microsofts services to justify". "Microsoft is increasingly moving into the cloud and this acquisition of LinkedIn is the next stage of that evolution. In this deal, Microsoft is acquiring the one thing that many of the new tech companies have and old-tech dont; users. Microsoft will be hoping to lean on LinkedIns business users for its enterprise business.LinkedIn users can expected some options to integrate with Office 365 in the not-too-distant future." Shares in LinkedIn surged 48% while Microsoft's were down 4%. CRM sector rival Salesforce was down slightly. Oil and gas engineering services business Plexus Holdings announced on Monday it has agreed the terms of a conditional placing to raise 6m before expenses, by way of a placing of 9,230,770 new ordinary shares at a price of 65p each to new and existing investors. The AIM-traded firm said the placing is intended to strengthen Plexus balance sheet during the current down cycle, and provide Plexus with the flexibility to support the capital requirements of its long-term strategy of becoming a leading international oil and gas services company, supplying a new standard of wellhead equipment and associated products for exploration, production and subsea applications. Natural resources development firm Metals Exploration announced on Monday that its Runruno Gold project has successfully poured its first gold Dore as part of its ongoing test running and debugging programme of the processing plant and associated operations. The AIM-traded company said the gold poured was predominantly recovered from the gravity circuit. Energy storage and clean fuel company ITM Power was celebrating on Monday, after an announcement from the Thuga Group in Germany over the operational performance of the power-to-gas plant purchased from ITM Power two years ago. The AIM-traded firm said the plant has successfully concluded tests for primary grid balancing, with a more economic operation and higher revenues accessible from such grid balancing. Resources company Sable Mining made an announcement to the market on Monday, over recent press comment and speculation regarding allegations of bribery and corruption made against the company in Liberia. The AIM-traded firm said one allegation is that CEO Andrew Groves has been indicted in Liberia on unspecified charges, by the Liberian government. Ergomed, a British pharmaceutical development services company, said on Monday, it had bought two German service providers to complement and enhance its existing capabilities, and increase its presence in Germany. The company acquired Dr. Oestreich + Partner GmbH (O+P), a full service contract research organisation based in Cologne and Gesellschaft fur angewandte Statistik + Datenanalyse mbH (GASD), a specialist statistics and data management company based in Neuss from their founders. Ten Alps, trading as Zinc Media, has sold its subsidiary, Grove House Publishing (GHP) for 50,000. The multimedia content producer has sold its food, agriculture and animal medicines publisher and event organiser business as part of the companys restructuring of its publishing business. Exploration company African Potash confirmed on Monday that, following press speculation, it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Government of Uganda to support the development of a fertiliser industry in Uganda. The AIM-traded firm, which focuses on the vertical integration of fertiliser operations in Africa and sub-Saharan potash assets, said the agreement will seek to help ensure the availability and effective distribution of fertilisers to Ugandan farmers. Independent Oil and Gas (IOG) has tightened its grip on the Vulcan oil fields in the North Sea with an acquisition of up to 5m for four UK licences. AIM-listed IOG has acquired Oyster Petroleum, which on completion will own the four 'Vulcan Satellite' licences in the southern North Sea with estimated recoverable resources of 320.7bn cubic feet of gas, from Verus Petroleum for an initial 1m drawn from its loan facilities from London Oil & Gas. Exploration company African Potash confirmed on Monday that, following press speculation, it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with the Government of Uganda to support the development of a fertiliser industry in Uganda. The AIM-traded firm, which focuses on the vertical integration of fertiliser operations in Africa and sub-Saharan potash assets, said the agreement will seek to help ensure the availability and effective distribution of fertilisers to Ugandan farmers. On Sunday afternoon, Flagstaff Police Department received information that two suspects wanted for multiple robberies in the Phoenix metropolitan area may be arriving by Greyhound Bus in Flagstaff. The suspects were identified as Nicholas Espinoza, 26, of Phoenix and Florentina Estrella, 24, of Phoenix. Espinoza was reported to be armed with a firearm. Officers responded to the Greyhound bus station in Flagstaff and searched two buses for the suspect. An employee reported that one of the buses bathroom door was locked and he was unable to verify that the entire bus had been evacuated so police could search. Flagstaff Police Departments Tactical Operations Team and Negotiations Team were called to assist in the search. At the conclusion of the search it was discovered that there were no people hiding on the buses. Flagstaff Police Department is seeking the publics help in locating these suspects if they are in the area. Please do not approach them as information received indicates they may be armed and dangerous. If you have any information about the location of theses suspects please call Flagstaff Police Department at (928)774-1414. Save my User ID and Password Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site. Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site. Eager for Wildlights at the zoo? Workers are prepping for your visit! By Matt Kwong, CBC News 'It's not too early to talk about politics because this just happened,' says regular at nightclub Scott Gohman and his wife Donna, both Donald Trump supporters with concealed carry weapons permits, visit the site near where shootings took place early Sunday. 'This was an attack on the world,' Gohman said. (Matt Kwong/CBC) The dead were still inside the building, their bodies unclaimed in the Orlando gay club, many of their names still unreleased this morning. It didn't take long for the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history to hit the 2016 political campaign trail. The early-Sunday massacre at Pulse Orlando brought America's war on terror to Florida. How the battleground state responds now could well affect the country's political direction in this election year On Sunday, helicopters whirred over candle-light vigils at South Orange Avenue downtown. A block away from a police cordon, 49 people at Pulse's regular Latin Night had been slain by 29-year-old gunman Omar Mateen. Another 53 people were wounded, some critically. Hector Martinez, 31, a regular at Pulse Orlando's Latin Nights, lights a candle for friends shot and wounded in Sunday's shooting spree. 'I know the club manager, the promoter, the performers. I was here last Saturday,' he said. (Matt Kwong/CBC) Mateen, a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent, pledged allegiance to ISIS in a call to 911, before he was killed in a gun battle. No evidence has emerged directly linking him to the extremist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But the horrors at Pulse, an LGBT fixture in Orlando, have exposed the deep rifts among Americans distrustful of Islam and those weighing the freedom to bear assault-style firearms. Hector Martinez, a regular at Pulse's Latin Nights, happened to skip this weekend. But he returned to the area last night, lighting a candle for two friends wounded in the gunfire. One was shot in the right arm, the other in his leg. "This is a time for a healing," Martinez said, and for asking questions. But he believes it's also the right time to think about how political change might prevent this from happening again. "It's not too early to talk about politics because this just happened," he said. "You look at Virginia Tech. You look at Sandy Hook," Martinez said, reciting the shorthand names for previous U.S. mass shootings carried out separately by Seung-Hui Cho in 2007 and Adam Lanza in 2012. "The gunmen in those tragedies had control of massacre weapons." Descriptions of the weapons Mateen used to carry out mass murder included a handgun as well as one semi-automatic weapon similar to the AR-15 rifle. Lanza used an AR-15 to carry out the Sandy Hook Elementary School killings four years ago of 20 young children and six adults. Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday. (Myspace/Associated Press) In her statement responding to Sunday's killings, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said the massacre "reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets." U.S. President Barack Obama called Sunday's tragedy an "act of terror." He made yet another solemn plea for soul-searching on limits to access to firearms. The massacre was a "further reminder," the president said, "of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theatre. Or in a nightclub." Presumptive Republican Donald Trump hit back around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, calling on Obama to resign in a press statement. The president acted "disgracefully," Trump's release said, by not characterizing Sunday's ISIS-inspired attacks as "radical Islam." And unless Clinton uses those words to describe the attack, he said, "she should get out of this race for the presidency." He once again implied there's little room for political correctness in discussions about national security, and he criticized Clinton's plans to "dramatically increase admissions" to the U.S. of people from the Middle East. FLORIDA-SHOOTING/ Mourners in San Diego, Calif., gather under an LGBT pride flag flying at half-mast for a candlelight vigil for mass shooting victims in Orlando. (Mike Blake/Reuters) "We will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalizing," Trump's statement said. They were invigorating words for Scott Gohman, a barber from Daytona who watched the vigils from South Orange Avenue late Sunday. "I've been waiting all day to get home to see what Trump says, because this is part of the reason that he needs to be president," he said. "Obama wants all these people to come here, that's fine, that's how America was made. But you've got to vet these people." Lacking specifics Gohman, 47, added later that he was aware that Mateen was born in the United States and was a citizen. Trump's linking of violent attacks with the religion of Islam is troublesome, in part because it lacks specifics, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University. "There should be no debate about who these people are, and it's violent Salafist Jihadists," Levin said. "We should be using specific, accurate language. "I think, frankly, the national security community is quite worried about experience and temperament with regard to our continuing fight and the need to have Muslim allies on our team." The major Muslims American organizations Monday have roundly and unequivocally condemned the attacks. Particularly worrisome to Levin, though, is the "terror watch-list loophole" that allows potentially radicalized individuals who have already been flagged by law enforcement to still obtain guns. Senate Republicans late last year blocked a bill aiming to stop the legal purchase of guns by terror watch-list suspects. Online users began publishing the names of the senators who voted against the bill. Still too early "We have to have some introspection with regard to both radicalism and access to firearms by individuals who shouldn't have had them in the first place," Levin says. "I think all can agree on that." Mateen was twice investigated by the FBI for possible terrorist ties and statements allegedly supporting ISIS. Still, he was able to purchase firearms. For his part, Orlando resident Chris Enzo, 25, felt it was still too early to politicize the shooting. His friend, Rodney Sumter was bartending at Pulse when he was shot three times. Sumter survived, running for his life before the crisis ended with dozens dead inside the club. "We're still just piecing it all together," he said. "We could suspect this is a hate crime against homosexuals, but not everybody at Pulse is homosexual. "Rodney was bartending there. He's not gay. He's another person who loves people. A lot of these people are just people who love people." Subscriber content preview NEW YORK (AP) A construction company in charge of a New York City building site has been convicted of manslaughter in the death of a worker in a trench collapse. The company, Harco Construction LLC, was also convicted Friday of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment in the April 2015 death of 22-year-old Carlos Moncayo. . . . Hong Kong firm buys site near Pike Place for residential tower Images by Hewitt [enlarge] The site is at 1613 Second Ave., on the southwest corner of Second and Stewart. [enlarge] Atlanta-based Wood Partners had planned a 39-story apartment tower with 177 units. Create World America, an international construction management firm based in Hong Kong, paid $17.1 million for a site near Pike Place Market where it wants to build a luxury residential tower. The 8,748-square-foot site is at 1613 Second Ave., on the southwest corner of Second Avenue and Stewart Street. It is across Second Avenue from the 40-story apartment tower being built by Turner Construction for Equity Residential. Second and Stewart is a dynamic location, just one block from Pike Place Market, with spectacular views, said Ross Klinger, vice president at Kidder Mathews, in a news release. With large units programmed, (the tower) has the potential to be either apartments or condominiums. The Puget Sound Business Journal reported that Create World CEO Lili Lu said she will build condos because her company has clients in China who want to buy homes in Seattle. Lu said up to 40 percent of the units could be sold to Chinese nationals. Klinger said the original plan was for larger units north of 1,200 square feet but the sizes could be scaled down. Kidder Mathews represented the seller, MJA Building LLC, which is an affiliate of Principal Real Estate Investors. The sale included air rights to allow for a large floor plate. The building will have protected views above the 14th floor. Last fall, the DJC reported that Atlanta-based Wood Partners was planning a 39-story apartment tower on the site that would cantilever more than 14 feet over the adjacent Broadacres Building, starting at the tower's 16th floor. The design by Hewitt architects called for 177 units, 2,800 square feet of ground-floor retail, and parking for 145 vehicles on 10 levels, including four above grade. A representative from Hewitt declined to comment on the project. Klinger said Andersen Construction Co. has been involved in preliminary work. He didn't know the schedule, but said it could happen very fast because drawings are advanced. Kidder Mathews broker Jim Klinger also worked on the deal. Create World America Construction Management, a subsidiary of the Create World Group, was incorporated in 2014. Create World is also developing a residential tower on Northeast 10th Street in Bellevue. Halloween creatures owls, crows and bats all live at Crossroads, and that makes us very happy, for these scary animals make a positive contribution to the habitats of the preserve. We don't even mind black cats, IF they are kept indoors. Feral and outdoor cats are exceedingly harmful to wildlife ... and that's not a superstition! But to tamp down superstitions, we at Crossroads will spend the week demystifying Halloween creatures. On October 28, 2022, at 6 p.m. will be our Evening with Owls. The Open Door Bird Sanctuary will be at Crossroads, offering a one-hour presentation followed by the opportunity to meet and greet live birds. Learn all about owls and the other incredible birds in the care of the Sanctuary! Down through the centuries, in many cultures throughout the world, owls have been associated with evil and death. Truth is, owls probably are not smart enough to be evil. But researchers agree that owls are about as dim as the nighttime forests in which they hunt. Owls don't need to be smart. They have everything else going for them. They are muscular. They fly silently. Their huge eyes enable them to see in the dark. Their beaks and talons are strong and wickedly sharp. But their sensitive ears are what make owls extraordinary hunters. Most people assume that the plumicorns (a.k.a. "horns) of an owl are its ears. Not so. The actual ears lie under feathers on the sides of the head, and they aren't symmetrical. Because one ear is higher than the other and the ears are unequal in size, sound is different from different directions, helping owls locate prey, which they do almost unfailingly, even in total darkness. Owls do not smell their prey. As with most birds, the sense of smell is insignificant, if it exists are all. Great Horned Owls frequently prey on skunks. Enough said. But well-developed intelligence? Researchers have observed owls beating their wings on bushes to try to flush out little birds. Is this learned behavior? Is it problem-solving? Maybe. For the most part, owls do not have a lot of problems to solve. They appropriate abandoned nests of other birds, so they don't need building skills. They are stealthy by nature, and they pounce on and usually catch anything they hear, so they don't need hunting techniques. In spite of ghost stories, legends of American First People, and superstitions from Europe and India, hooting owls do not foretell impending death, although their nocturnal calls are spooky. We hear them now and then this time of year, but we will regularly hear those eerie calls at Crossroads in January or February. In contrast to owls, crows are noisy all year round and they are amazingly intelligent. They can learn. They can remember. They can solve problems. They can even identify individual humans. And they detest owls, though whether this is innate or learned behavior is not clear. Those curious about crows will want to attend the Crossroads Book Club on Wednesday, October 26, at 10:00 a.m. This month, the book Crow Planet, Essential Wisdom for the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt will explore the fascinating world of these remarkable birds. The program is free and open to all, whether or not they have read the book. So bring the family to our program on owls, learn about crows at the Crossroads Book Club, or learn about bats at our pre-school Junior Nature Club on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. or our Family Science Saturday program at 2:00 p.m. Costumes are encouraged but not required at Junior Nature Club and Science Saturday, and adult visitors are welcome. According to a class action lawsuit filed Monday by a local bondsman, the City of Dothan has failed to follow state law when appointing special municipal judges, calling into question the resolution of a significant number of cases heard by the judges. The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court by Rickey Stokes, who was convicted of unlawful imprisonment in September of 2014 by special appointed judge Carl Chamblee, Jr. According to the suit, the citys mayor is the only person authorized to appoint special municipal judges, who are appointed to hear cases when the local municipal judge recuses herself due to an absence, conflict of interest or other reasons. For many years no one is sure how long the city manager has been authorized to make the appointment in lieu of the mayor. By Dothans own admission, and under Alabama law generally, any actions taken or orders entered by a Special Municipal Judge which has not been properly appointed are void ab initio, states the suit, filed on behalf of Stokes by Dothan attorneys Derek Yarbrough and Stephen Etheredge. Ab initio is a legal term that means from the beginning. The suit argues the city is liable for anything that happened to defendants after the alleged unlawful appointment of a special judge, including confinement, fees, fines, drug and alcohol treatment which incurred additional costs, appeal costs and other costs. Because the special municipal judges lacked any jurisdiction and their orders were and are void, the fees and fines assessed pursuant to their orders, all probation fees assessed pursuant to their probation orders, and all amounts necessary to effect appeals of their orders were and are illegal deprivations of property effected under color of state law, the suit states. Further, any members who have served time in custodial confinement were unlawfully deprived of their liberty under color of state law. The suit seeks damages including costs incurred by the potential defendants in defending the case, fines and fees paid, and asks the court to determine the city's financial liability for defendants who were confined. The class action suit only includes potential members who paid fines, incurred other costs or were confined in Dothan due to the orders of a special municipal judge since June 13, 2014, when Chamblee was appointed to hear the case involving Stokes. City Manager Mike West said he did not know how long the practice of allowing the city manager to appoint in lieu of the mayor has existed, but it has been in place since at least late 2004, when he arrived. When there is a need for a special appointed Judge, the local municipal judge uses a city-created form. The local judge nominates, or suggests a special appointed judge, and signs the form. It is then submitted to city administration. There are signature places for the mayor and city manager at the bottom of the page, but there is language on the form that indicates West can sign off on the appointment in lieu of the mayor according to Title 12, Section 14-34 of the Alabama Code. However, the code section does not authorize anyone other than the mayor to make the appointment. The section reads: In the event of the absence from the municipality, death, disability of disqualification of a municipal judge for any reason, the mayor of the municipality shall have the authority to designate a person, licensed to practice law in the state and a qualified elector of the state, not otherwise employed in any capacity by the municipality, to serve as acting municipal judge with all power and authority of a duly appointed municipal judge. City Manager Mike West said Monday that the city has already changed its procedure regarding special municipal judges and has filed a motion to remand Stokes case back to municipal court. Stokes appeal of his 2014 conviction was scheduled to be heard this week in Houston County Circuit Court. Obviously the city will comply with what the rules are, West said. There was nothing to give me any indication, or that would have led me to believe that this was something improper. Someone sends me over a form that looks official, it quotes statutes and it says I sign in lieu of the mayor. There was no need to question that. There is no reason to think the appointments would have been any different, West said. West said he has not seen the class action suit filed Monday and could not respond to the legal ramifications. That is up to the attorneys and the courts, he said. It is not known how many cases this could affect. District 2 Commissioner Amos Newsome was convicted of misdemeanor assault by a special municipal judge in April. He has appealed the conviction. Once the City of Dothan is officially served, it will have several days to respond in U.S. District Court. Students attending the Summer Reading Program at the Blanche R. Solomon Memorial Library were greeted by several special guests last Thursday. Animal Tales kicked off the event. We are extremely grateful to John Ham with Animal Tales, and all of his animals he has brought with him today, said Joan Moulton, library director. John is known for his way of allowing the animals to spread educational tips to children in attendance for his shows. He is very talented man, and we all are just so excited about todays show. Hams show allows students to learn about many unique animals, such as a baby red kangaroo, Saker falcon, Egyptian fruit bat, Brazilian rainbow boa and a Norway rat. This is a great program, Ham said. This program allows the children to see how animals compete. These animals are our natures Olympians. The show features exotic animals from all around the world that utilize unique abilities to compete and survive in the world. The goal of this program is to help the children get interested in the animals, so interested they want to learn more. In return, the children will learn more by reading. This program connects the interest of unique animals with having an interest in reading. If a child is interested in something, they will want to learn more about that topic, and, in order to learn more, they must open their minds, and they can do this by reading. One of the childrens favorite animal is the kangaroo. Besides television, or visiting a zoo, where can the children actually see a real kangaroo? They love it. The library held two different sessions last week for the students participating in the Summer Reading Program. I cant thank the students enough for participating in our program, Moulton said. Each year our summer reading programs get larger. Today we will have around 200 students participating between both programs. I also want to thank our volunteers and our board members. They all work so hard in making all of our programs available to the children of our community. Without their support and help we could not offer these programs. Thank you all again. The summer reading program is held every Thursday. Remember, our theme this year is On your Mark, get set, Read! Moulton said. Our next show is scheduled for June 9. This program will target fitness and include crafts and books. I encourage everyone to attend this program as well. It is going to be a program full of energy. Moulton also reminded all the children to keep a log of the books read during the Summer Reading Program. Top readers will receive an award. For more information regarding the Blanche R. Solomon Summer Reading Program, call 693-2706. Headland High School hosted the inaugural SkillsUSA Masonry Area Competition with vocational students from Dothan High School and Northview High School competing with Headland High Schools Building/Construction Shop students. This is the first time Headland High has hosted a SkillsUSA event, said Jeffrey Carroll, Building/Construction instructor. Usually, students participate in state and district, but after discussing this event with the instructor of the Dothan City Schools Vocational Department, we all decided an area event would be great for the students. During the event, students were assigned to teams to compete, while other students taking the class assisted in being laborers for the teams in the competitions. The teams were split into first-year students and second-year students. This competition was more than three hours long, Carroll said. All the teams in the first-year division were assigned the same project, and all teams participating in the second-year division also were assigned to a same project. Projects were judged on skill usage, brick laying, mortar usage, level usage, brick spacing, cosmetic view and cleanliness of the completed project. For individuals whose career is not construction-based, most have no idea how hard this work is. All students participating in this competition worked very hard, and they all worked as teams and showed not only great competition skills, but great teamwork as well. That is what this is all about, working together to complete a project and complete a project properly. Although Headland High School did not bring home the Overall Team Award, Headlands teams did place and win several categories. For this to be our first area competition, these students did fantastic, Carroll said. Although Headland is not scheduled to host the event next year, I do believe my students will be better prepared for the competition. When this event was first mentioned, the students were not sure what to think, but, as time got closer, and they began to work harder and harder, they all actually looked forward to participating. They actually were excited to participate in an event that allowed them to demonstrate their skills, and I am proud of each one. I will also tell anyone, if you believe this is trade that only interests male students, you are incorrect. I have two female students who worked just as hard in this class and during the competition. I can also proudly say they have skills in this line of work. With this event being hosted by Headland High School, the HHS SkillsUSA Club served as ambassadors to the event. The club members did a fantastic job in organizing everything related to the event, Carroll said. Each member showed not only dedication to the club, but great school spirit by welcoming and assisting our guests with their needs. Headland High School thanks all the judges who participated in the competition. We had business owners and representatives in several areas of the construction field make time to judge this event, Carroll said. I want to thank each and every one of you for also helping to make this event so successful. Carroll will kick off his third year instructing the Building/Construction Shop in the upcoming school year. I am looking forward to next years class, Carroll said. I have had a lot of great students this year, and many of my students have received summer job offers in the construction field. To an instructor, that is great news for the student and me. I am excited about not only seeing what I can teach my new students next year, but also what new skills I can teach my returning students. My goal as an instructor is not only to teach each student construction skills and safety skills, but to also enforce the importance of incorporating their academic skills. Students have to know and understand both skills go hand-in-hand, when it comes to building. Arch Solomon didnt intend to create a local landmark when he put up a giant American flag outside his car dealership last year. When we put the flag up, we had about 250 vets out, said Solomon, owner of Solomon Chevrolet. We didnt invite the media or any local dignitaries. We didnt want it to be a dog and pony show. We wanted it to be about the vets. The 30 foot by 60 foot flag has become a landmark, however, and one that Solomon is proud to see. The Solomon family has had a car dealership in Dothan since 1930 and several members of the family have served in the armed forces. Solomon said he put up the flag to honor them and his country. We feel very strongly about being patriotic, he said. Solomon said hes now looking for an even larger flag to fly on holidays and special events. Solomon said he hopes to find a 50 foot by 100 foot flag. For James Seay, a smaller flag flying outside his home serves for honoring his country and his friends. Seay, an Army veteran, served in the military from 1977 to 1992 as a paratrooper. When I look at that flag, I remember the ones who didnt come back to see it, he said. Flying the U.S. flag has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially after 9/11. Eric Pfeiffer, a department manager for Tidmore Flags, a Birmingham flag seller, said American flags give people a way to show solidarity with one another. He said individual sized 3 foot by 5 foot flags are among the companys best selling products. Pfeiffer said flag sales often spike after times of tragedy as people search for a way to show solidarity with their fellow citizens. Its bad that it takes chaos to make that happen, Pfeiffer said. Seay said that the flag offers Americans a visible means of showing their support for one another. Seay said the flag is an important constant for Americans to hang on to during uncertain times. Now with everything going on all over the world, its a way to show unity, Seay said. ---------- Flag Day facts: Celebrated June 14 each year Commemorates adoption of the U.S. flag, which happened June 14, 1777. Flag Day was proclaimed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Congress established National Flag Day in 1949. dpa ElectionsData With dpa ElectionsData you get access to a unique collection of data. Via a programming interface (Rest-API), your developers can access detailed information, candidate profiles and live results for all national elections in the European Union and important international elections, like the US Midterm elections etc. The data pool also includes all heads of state and government as well as about 20,000 elected members of parliament throughout the EU. In addition to their data (name, party, constituency or list position), we collect social media profiles and official websites of individuals and parties. Siemens stalwart will run ABB's automation and motion division ABB has appointed Sami Atiya to be the new president of its Discrete Automation and Motion (DM) division, succeeding Pekka Tiitinen, who is returning to his home country to be managing director of ABB in Finland. Atiya joins ABB from Siemens where he has worked for 18 years, most recently as CEO of its Mobility and Logistics division since 2011. Before that, he was CEO of Siemens Computer Tomography business from 2008 to 2011. His achievements at Siemens included integrating its Invensys rail acquisition. Sami Atiya has tremendous experience in leading industrial portfolios across a wide range of markets and geographies as well as a proven track record of delivering strong results in growth, restructuring and integration situations, says ABB CEO, Ulrich Spiesshofer. With his wide-ranging expertise, including robotics, software and artificial intelligence, and his integrative leadership style, he is the ideal person to strengthen the divisions pioneering technology leadership and enable customers to seize the tremendous opportunities created by the digital revolution in industry. I am delighted to welcome Sami to our senior leadership team and look forward to drive the implementation of our Next Level strategy together with him and the entire team. Before joining Siemens, Atiya was co-owner and managing director of Harald Balzer & Partner, a provider of software and services for project and process management, and was earlier a project leader at Robert Bosch. He holds a PhD in robotics, sensors and data processing from the University of Wuppertal, obtained while he was at the Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing, and a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and Automation from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. He holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US. He will be based in Zurich, Switzerland. The new president of ABB's Discrete Automation and Motion (DM) division, Sami Atiya Tiitinen will take up his new role as MD of ABB Finland on 1 October, 2016, following a transition period in the DM division. His new appointment is part of a leadership succession at the helm of several ABB country organisations. ABBs current MD in Finland, Tauno Heinola, will succeed Axel Kuhr as MD in Australia, while Kuhr will become MD in Japan, replacing Tony Zeitoun, who is retiring from ABB. I would like to thank Pekka for his contribution to DM over the past three years, and look forward to continuing to work with him in his new position, says Spiesshofer. This is my first time to try fencing. Ive always wanted to do it because of Richard Gomez, Zorro and the Three Musketeers! Haha! Anyway ,Fencing is known as a very elite sports in the Philippines because of the expensive equipment, but now you can try it out without having to buy a thing! Just [] Ive been to several cruises but mostly on a yacht . Most of them last for at least two-three hours. In the said cruise what we did was to sail in the middle of the ocean and then eat, drink , party, then back to the port area. It was such a great experience to go on a cruise boat with real stops destinations in mind. This is what I experienced when I cruised down the the worlds 12th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia, the Mekong River. The Mekong River also known as the Greater Mekong Subregion covers 2.6 million square kilometers and surpases 6 different countries: Cambodia, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Yunnan Province in China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam. For our multi-country Mekong fam tour we landed on two countries, Thailand and Laos and we boarded the Mekong River cruise that lasted for eight (8) hours with two stops: a visit of a traditional village of hill tribe in Baw and the Caves of 1,000 Buddha. Mekong River Cruise How can one avail of a Mekong River tour like the one I had?Mekong Cruise / theoffers packages for a cruise like the one we had. It includesOff-peak rates is US$400 up to US$700 during peak season. They operated Monday, Friday during low season (April until September except June non operation) and Monday, Thursday, Friday during High Season (November March and October). Cruise package includes lunch and snacks. Stay at the resort includes breakfast. They also have a reverse trip which is from Luang Prabang to Houeisay, called cruise Up and it is available on Wednesday/Saturday during low season, add Tuesday during high season. You may visit mekong-cruises.com or luangsay.com for more information on booking the Up and Down Mekong River Cruises How to get there? We did the most unconventional way of going about the cruise. We went by land and cross the border of Banhuaykon Border Nan, Thailand to Pak Beng District in Laos. Until we arrived at the Luangsay Resort where our Mekong River cruise started. Luangsay Resort / Luangsay Residences Can you start the cruise from the airport or from the resort and not cross borders like we did?Yes, like I mentioned above there is a cruise both ways which is what they call cruise up or cruise down. Airport transfers to the port area or hotel can be arranged. Meanwhile Thai Air Asia has two flights going to and from Bangkok International Airport (DMK) to Luang Prabang International Airport (LPQ) . Why would you want to go on a Mekong River tour? If you want to do something out of the regular travel experience you have , like maybe going to the beach and trekking, this is something you may want to try. You will get to learn about culture and history and the way of living of the locals who live by the riverside. Having such experience broadens your view in life and gives you a different perspective with your own way of life. Aside from the cultural experience the scenic view along the river as you cruise is very calming and invigorating. The fact that theres no telecommunication signal while on the cruise gives you that internet/social media detox you need and should have once in awhile. The Mekong River cruise we had is about 8 hours total. We started at 8:30am from Luangsay Resort at Pak Beng Laos and ended the cruise at Luang Prabang around 5pm. We had two stops that took about less than an hour each stops. One stop was at a small village 2 hours away from Pak Beng, the next stop is to the Pak Oiu Cave whch is 2 hours from that village. Then to Luang Prabang is also about 2 hours. Traditional Riverside Laotian Village Cave of a thousand Buddha (Pak Oiu Cave) Please visit www.mekongtourism.orgto know more about the tours, business or any other activities you might have in mind or follow their social media @TourismMekong. They are also on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/mekong-tourism. Stay gorgeous everyone! Google on Thursday filed an appeal with Frances supreme administrative court over an order from a privacy regulator requiring it to scrub certain search results around the world under a law called the right to be forgotten. The March order from the CNIL requires Google and other search engines to delist the information of Europeans that shows up in searches for their name, even if the link points to truthful information and lawfully published websites referencing newspaper articles or government websites, according to Google. The company complied by delisting search information on sites available from the country of origin of person who makes the request, as well as other EU country domains, it said. The order to delist that information from all of Googles global search capabilities is a bridge too far, general counsel Kent Walker said in an op-ed in Le Monde. Race to the Bottom As a matter of both law and principle, we disagree with this demand, Walker said. We comply with the laws of the countries in which we operate. But if French law applies globally, how long will it be until other countries perhaps less open and democratic start demanding that their laws regulating information likewise have global reach? Enforcing such a law could lead to a global race to the bottom that potentially would block from French citizens information that is perfectly legal in France, he said. Googles concern is not just hypothetical; it has resisted similar demands from other countries and has in some cases led to the blocking of its services, Walker noted. Global Information Police Such a requirement would place Google in an untenable position, according to theElectronic Frontier Foundation. CNILs specific demand that search engines modify their results universally to comply with a uniquely French administrative decision would set an extremely damaging precedent, said Danny OBrien, international director of the EFF. If every country demanded the same, it would transform what you see on the Worldwide Web into the sorry remains, after every countrys censorship policies had been subtracted, he told the E-Commerce Times. It feels like Google has it about right: The EU can police and regulate itself, but not the rest of the globe, said John Carroll, mass communications professor atBoston University. That said, there seems to be a discrepancy in the number of removals that have occurred over the past two years. Google says it has reviewed almost 1.5 million requests, with 40 percent resulting in the removal of a search result. Other data suggests that the denial rate is closer to 75 percent, he told the E-Commerce Times. Regardless, the EU might more profitably address its criteria for removal: that search results appear to be inadequate or irrelevant. That gives Google an awful lot of wiggle room. Maybe before trying to widen the geographic scope of RTBF, the EU should attempt to narrow its criteria, Carroll added. Spanish Origin The order in March followed a 2014ruling by the European Court of Justice in a case involving Google and Google Spain against the national data protection agency of Spain. In 2010, a Spanish citizen, Mario Costeja Gonzlez, filed a complaint with the agency against a large newspaper in Catalonia alleging that a search of his name resulted in a 1978 real estate auction to recover social security debts allegedly owed by him, according to the 2014 ruling. The Spanish agency initially ruled against him, arguing that the newspaper had published the information lawfully, but the complaint was upheld with regard to Google. Google and Google Spain went to the National High Court of Spain to fight the order requiring Google to scrub the information. The company decided in 2014 to scrub a blog post by TV journalist Robert Peston regarding the case of Merrill Lynch chief Stan ONeal, who was pushed out of the company after it took massive losses on reckless investments a year before the 2008 economic collapse. The experience with the implementation of Google v. Spain is that the vast majority of requests were made by private people concerning private matters, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of theElectronic Privacy Information Center. And Googles unwillingness to delist globally, he told the E-Commerce Times, is both illogical as a matter of harm and inconsistent with its treatment of similar delinking requests for copyright violations. Blog Archive June 2021 (1) May 2021 (77) April 2021 (77) March 2021 (82) February 2021 (68) January 2021 (64) December 2020 (67) November 2020 (66) October 2020 (66) September 2020 (67) August 2020 (74) July 2020 (83) June 2020 (92) May 2020 (86) April 2020 (104) March 2020 (105) February 2020 (74) January 2020 (75) December 2019 (75) November 2019 (70) October 2019 (89) September 2019 (69) August 2019 (81) July 2019 (77) June 2019 (73) May 2019 (110) April 2019 (110) March 2019 (102) February 2019 (85) January 2019 (123) December 2018 (116) November 2018 (112) October 2018 (121) September 2018 (107) August 2018 (150) July 2018 (163) June 2018 (190) May 2018 (145) April 2018 (112) March 2018 (124) February 2018 (113) January 2018 (164) December 2017 (150) November 2017 (144) October 2017 (169) September 2017 (171) August 2017 (135) July 2017 (131) June 2017 (147) May 2017 (160) April 2017 (138) March 2017 (156) February 2017 (143) January 2017 (203) December 2016 (208) November 2016 (185) October 2016 (173) September 2016 (194) August 2016 (232) July 2016 (225) June 2016 (238) May 2016 (231) April 2016 (215) March 2016 (246) February 2016 (226) January 2016 (252) December 2015 (230) November 2015 (250) October 2015 (234) September 2015 (222) August 2015 (253) July 2015 (275) June 2015 (279) May 2015 (223) April 2015 (226) March 2015 (243) February 2015 (258) January 2015 (281) December 2014 (292) November 2014 (296) October 2014 (413) September 2014 (472) August 2014 (506) July 2014 (483) June 2014 (488) May 2014 (512) April 2014 (497) March 2014 (531) February 2014 (482) January 2014 (535) December 2013 (482) November 2013 (441) October 2013 (416) September 2013 (491) August 2013 (521) July 2013 (491) June 2013 (470) May 2013 (457) April 2013 (426) March 2013 (420) February 2013 (414) January 2013 (489) December 2012 (433) November 2012 (504) October 2012 (469) September 2012 (430) August 2012 (427) July 2012 (360) June 2012 (336) May 2012 (362) April 2012 (322) March 2012 (263) February 2012 (224) January 2012 (291) December 2011 (295) November 2011 (325) October 2011 (330) September 2011 (319) August 2011 (333) July 2011 (318) June 2011 (387) May 2011 (373) April 2011 (389) March 2011 (375) February 2011 (335) January 2011 (400) December 2010 (445) November 2010 (395) October 2010 (312) September 2010 (262) August 2010 (277) July 2010 (323) June 2010 (386) May 2010 (360) April 2010 (333) March 2010 (351) February 2010 (336) January 2010 (384) December 2009 (353) November 2009 (300) October 2009 (308) September 2009 (350) August 2009 (298) July 2009 (255) June 2009 (203) May 2009 (193) April 2009 (186) March 2009 (197) February 2009 (173) January 2009 (148) December 2008 (181) November 2008 (197) October 2008 (236) September 2008 (304) August 2008 (314) July 2008 (273) June 2008 (27) May 2008 (1) April 2008 (6) October 2007 (1) May 2007 (1) April 2007 (6) March 2007 (2) February 2007 (1) October 2006 (1) September 2006 (1) August 2006 (4) July 2006 (4) June 2006 (1) July 2005 (1) May 2005 (2) March 2005 (1) June 2004 (2) May 2004 (1) April 2004 (4) March 2004 (2) February 2004 (2) July 2003 (2) June 2003 (5) (Photo: Peter Kenny / Ecumenical News)Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches preaches at the (Lutheran) Church of the Holy Redeemer in Jerusalem on Feb. 10, 2016. The general secretary of the World Council of Churches has expressed "shock, outrage and sadness" over the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida on June 12 said to be the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. In the attack, 50 people are reported to have lost their lives and 53 more were wounded in an attack by a single gunman on a nightclub frequented by members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community. "My thoughts and prayers go especially to the families, friends and loved ones of the victims, to the injured, and to the whole community affected by this appalling attack," said WCC general secretary Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit in a statement on June 13. "I pray for God's healing and comfort for all whose lives have been altered forever by such destructive and corrosive hatred." The shooter was said to be a Muslim man, Omar Mateen, who was nominally affiliated with the ultra-extremists Islamic State group and who was said to have been enraged by the site of men kissing, The Washington Post reported. Tveit was joined in offering his condolences by the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Thabo Makgoba who described the attack on the Florida night as a "terrible massacre." THABO MAKGOBA "We pray for the recovery of those injured, for the LGBT community and the people of Orlando." said Makgoba in a statement from South Africa. Tveit noted that the Florida attack took place in a nightclub frequented by LGBT people, and that the crime may have been motivated at least in part by the perpetrator's perception of his religious heritage. He called "for all people of faith and goodwill to join in clearly and categorically rejecting violence against people on the basis of their sexual orientation, regardless of differing religious perspectives regarding homosexuality." "Whether the act of a disordered individual, or a disordered group or ideology, this atrocity calls for universal community solidarity against violence and discriminatory hatred," the WCC general secretary noted. "I appeal to politicians, religious leaders and community leaders to act as one in standing against it." Tveit also said, "We must reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslims in general for one troubled individual's action.... Such an attitude only guarantees further polarization that is dangerous to all." The WCC leader said the attack raises again the "vexed question" of control of automatic and semi-automatic weapons in the United States. "This must be a turning point in addressing the need to restrict access to weapons in the U.S., particularly the legality of carrying semi-automatic weapons. "I hope and I pray that some more hearts and minds will have been changed by this tragedy, and that they will add to a growing groundswell of support for logical, necessary and long-overdue controls to protect people and communities from such attacks in future." Pope Francis had on June 12 offered his prayers and compassion for those affected by the nightclub shooting. In a June 12 statement Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See press officer, said the "terrible massacre," which has left a "dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred." "Pope Francis joins the families of the victims and all of the injured in prayer and in compassion," the statement read. "Sharing in their indescribable suffering he entrusts them to the Lord so they may find comfort." "We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence which so deeply upsets the desire for peace of the American people and of the whole of humanity." The Council on American-Islamic Relations Pittsburgh Chapter sent a June 12 statement, condemning the "horrifiic" mass shooting. "Pittsburgh Muslim community join their fellow Americans in condemning Sunday's horrific mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando," said Safdar Khwaja, president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "Such lunacy has no place in our nation. We offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims. Prayer and blood donations are requested for the victims." The statement goes on to say that the Muslim community joins the rest of America in "rejecting anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence." Universities have been viewed as seats of learning separate to the provision of vocational training. The economics of present times dictate that the provision of entry qualifications for a chosen career has become a necessity. Education has as its Latin root the meaning to bring out. The development of the whole individual and the inclusion of the development of ability to think have never been more apparent as a present need, as individuals struggle to survive modern career challenges. In 40 years as a recruiter I see it as the educators responsibility to prepare students to gain entry qualifications for their chosen career. To leave university without this, having incurred hefty debt is no option except for the very rich. But success at interviews rests on different skills and aptitudes. Employers need staff to manage change without stress whilst retaining good levels of sensitivity. Resilience is a valued attribute to ensure the use of positive thinking as a mindset in the face of uncertainties. Similarly, a strong Social Network supports individuals in stressful situations in the workplace. Employers seek Initiative as a default mode of thinking. The ability to analyse and problem solve is prized. Communication by the spoken and written word, without ambiguity and in a socially acceptable manner between cultures, demographics and hierarchies, might top the list of valued competencies. And there is no link between high academic achievement and any of these competencies. Emotional intelligence is the seam of gold we interviewers mine for. How to discover this valuable element? It hides in hobbies, interests and concrete experiences derived from the University of Life. Sensitivity to others, good listening skills, and a sense of humour - all deflect and reduce stress for self and co-workers supporting mental health and resilience in the workplace. Olympic athletes understand the energy, commitment and sacrifice connected to attaining goals. Like osmosis it transfers to other goals. The bottom of the second page of a CV hides such gems. Students need knowledge and acceptance of themselves to interview well so give them practice. Integrity, taught by grandmother might distinguish the candidate, so students choose your parents with care! Concrete experience of work before you apply for paid work may distinguish you from the pack. Employers, relax on the absence or presence of skills that might be trained in six months. It has taken 22 years to make a person; Henry Ford complained to his HR department, every time I ask for a pair of hands, someone gives me a whole person.' The whole person is what we all get stuck with so better make sure that person is the right one and teach them the missing skills - in your own time. Almost every hand is raised in Ms. Markeesha Zigbuos 2nd grade class at The Mastery School in Minneapolis, Minn. Twenty girls, all African-American and all dressed in matching purple plaid jumpers over white collared shirts, squirm in their seats, locking their elbows and stretching their torsos in an attempt to make themselves taller and their hands higher. Behind them, taped to the wall, are the seven principles of Kwanzaa, an annual celebration of African heritage. The Mastery School is one of three schools in Minneapolis Harvest Network of Schools, set up to serve almost exclusively low-income African-American and East African studentssome in single-gender programs like this one. African-American families have significant needs, explained Eric Mahmoud, the founder of Harvest. Many of our children are walking around with hundreds of years of history saying they cant [make it]. Mahmoud believes a curriculum steeped in African history and culture is crucial to closing academic achievement gaps between poor black students and their wealthier, white peers. He represents a school of thought in one of the most persistent and nebulous debates of the charter sector: whether there is a harmful lack of diversity in the publicly funded but independently run schools of choice. Its a debate that includes disputes over whether charter schoolsuntied to neighborhood boundariesshould be leveraged to help integrate public schools racially and socioeconomically, whether poor students benefit more from diverse classrooms, and whether charters are indeed less integrated than their district school counterparts. Harvest Network of Schools, Minneapolis, Minn. Mission: To unleash the potential of our scholars and transform the community by using education as a lever for change. Student Stats: 97% Black 82% Qualify for free or reduced-price lunch State-Level Variations A snapshot of state-level data shows significant variations in charter and noncharter enrollment by race and region. Nationally, black students make up 28 percent of charter school enrollment, compared to only 15 percent of noncharter enrollment, according to an analysis by the Education Week Research Center of federal data from the 2012-13 school year. White students make up 35 percent of total charter school enrollment and 50 percent of noncharter. Meanwhile, the gap in enrollment share is smaller for Hispanic students than for their black and white peers. Hispanic students account for 29 and 25 percent of charter and noncharter enrollment, respectively. Overall, more than 2.5 million students are enrolled in charter schools, or about 5 percent of the total public school population. But the degree to which charter schools skew toward a certain racial or ethnic group varies greatly from state-to-state. Black students, for example, not only make up large majorities of the charter school population in Maryland, Louisiana, and Tennessee, but theres also a significant gap in the enrollment of black students between charter and noncharter schools. Those numbers dont surprise Gerard Robinson, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. Hes also the former president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options and a former education official for Florida and Virginia. Robinson noted that several of the states with high proportions of black students in charters have either taken over local districts or schools because of poor performance, such as Maryland and New Jersey, or run statewide turnaround districts, such as Louisiana and Tennessee. Racially diverse schools ... are the most powerful path for nonwhite families to graduating high school and college and middle-income wages. Theres undisputed evidence of that. MYRON ORFIELD, Author of Minnesota charter law Bubbling under some of the numbers that we see is a context about the state having to intervene, Robinson said. But, he points out, its difficult to distinguish if the high proportion of black and Latino enrollment in certain states is a product of parents choosing to go to charter schools, or simply a function of where the charter schools have opened up. You may have [charter schools] who are targeting African-American parents in particular, he said. Opening charters aimed at closing achievement gaps between low-income urban minority students and their white and Asian-American peers is also a priority for a handful of well-endowed foundations, which have helped fuel sizeable growth among charter schools targeted to these populations. Factors Driving Enrollment Of course, there could be factors other than philanthropies driving enrollment, depending upon the families and the state. The pattern weve noticed is that Latino parents are enrolling their children in high-quality charter schools largely because they offer dual-language services, said Brenda Calderon, an education policy analyst with the National Council of La Raza. Black and Latino students make up nearly the same percentage of total charter school enrollment nationally. Yet even among states with some of the highest levels of Latino charter enrollment, such as California and Texas, theres still relatively little difference, by percentage, between Latino charter and noncharter enrollment. Madeline Mavrogordato, an assistant professor of educational administration at Michigan State University, said Latino families may not be flocking to charters in the same way black families are because they often hit language barriers. For example, state accountability data on schools may only be available in English. It can be difficult for someone to assemble the information they need, said Mavrogordato. They dont search for information as much on the Internet or go talk to school officials. Serving a Population Charter schools aimed at serving a specific racial or ethnic group are not unusual. Minnesota, the birthplace of the charter school idea 25 years ago this June, is home to several charters that use the extra freedoms granted to them through state law to open schools targeted to African-American, Native American, Somali, and Hmong students. But while these schools may be popular among families, others worry that single-race or -ethnicity schoolsand a general lack of diversity in charterscould ultimately harm students more than it may help them. Racially diverse schools are good, said Myron Orfield, a law professor and the director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota. Theyre the most powerful path for nonwhite families to graduating high school and college and middle income wages. Theres undisputed evidence of that. This tension in Minnesota between what research says and what parents choose is in many ways a microcosm for the national debate over diversity in charter schools. There are those within the charter community who bristle at characterizing schools that serve predominately one race of students as segregatedespecially as the countrys district schools remain siloed by race and income. They are wary of any official effort to force charter schools to become more diverse. In Minnesota, for example, an administrative law judge recently rejected the state education departments plan to include charter schools in its integration rules. Segregation is when the state endorses a plan for forcing people of color into inferior circumstances, said Chris Stewart, a school choice advocate and former Minneapolis school board member. Black people choosing culturally affirming schools that have a lot of other black people in them, thats not segregation. Twenty-five years ago this month, tucked in a voluminous education funding bill headed to the Minnesota governors desk, was a quirky and contentious idea to allow teachers and parents to create a new kind of public schoolchartered schools. With a stroke of his pen, then-Gov. Arne Carlson signed into existence a movement that has grown over the last quarter-century into a national juggernaut: a charter school sector with thousands of schools, millions of students, a cadre of deep-pocketed benefactors, dozens of advocacy groups, and sophisticated networks of schools that in some cases dwarf the nations average-size school district. Although charter school students only make up about 5 percent of the 50 million K-12 public school students in the country, charters have posed the only credible competition to the traditional system of public schooling. While the growth of charters has mostly been in large urban districts, in 14 of those cities, such as San Antonio, Detroit, and Philadelphia, charters now enroll at least 30 percent of children in public schools. But as charters have expanded their reach, some observers inside and outside the sector contend they have wandered far from their original purpose: to be schools of innovation and serve as a research and development sector for traditional K-12 schools. And among one of the most searing criticisms of the charter sector is that the schools are accelerating the resegregation of American public education. In many ways, Minnesota still embodies some of the early ideas, while cities such as Los Angeles represent what the charter movement has become: an engine powered by muscular foundations for raising the prospects of low-income African-American and Latino students. Almost every inch of the walls in Avalon School in St. Paul, Minn., is covered in art. And with several pieces of student-made furniture, the school feels a bit like an antique store. A large, wooden armoire is painted with Avalons teachers reimagined as anime characters riding a Chinese dragon. Original Concept In one classroom, students mingle around desks strewn with laptops, books, earbuds, snacks, and the remnants of various projects. This is not a break between classesit is class. Avalon is built around project-based learning, and students spend most of their time working individually or in small groups on projects that relate back to core subjects. I started with doing a cumulative history of computing, which was really a journey of self-discovery, explained senior Campbell Jaap, who is wearing seafoam green skinny jeans and a matching sweatshirt, as he clicks around on a computer he built. Two teachers sit at large desks at the head of the classroom, ready to assist students as they need help. The teachers represent another way that Avalon departs from the traditional school moldthey run the place. There is no principal, no superintendent. All decisions, from staffing and curriculum to budget and schedules, are made collectively by the teachers. Avalon, which opened in 2000, is a living example of the early visions of charter schoolsan idea that was conceived in part by the late Albert Shanker, then the president of the American Federation of Teachers, as a means for teachers to create their own experimental schools under the district umbrella. Avalon School, St. Paul, Minn. Mission: Prepares students for college and life in a strong, nurturing community that inspires active learning, engaged citizenship, and hope for the future. Student Stats: 77% White 29% Qualify for free or reduced-price lunch What I saw chartering asits become so complicatedits chartering. Its a verb, said Ember Reichgott Junge, a former Democratic Minnesota lawmaker who authored the first charter school legislation. Its permission for teachers and parents to provide different learning opportunities. Its permission for someone other than the school district to do that. Its not a school. Although Reichgott Junge was inspired by Shankers ideas, she ultimately proposed that charter schools should be unbound from districts and union contractssetting up a rift that still exists. But motivations for passing charter laws fractured as the concept spread to other states. Some lawmakers latched onto charters as a way to break up school districts dominance and inject what they believed was market-style competition into public education. Others were drawn to the idea because it was potentially a more politically palatable way to give low-income families school choices without using private school tuition vouchers, which often funnel public money to religious schools. Ted Kolderie, Co-Founder and Senior Associate at Education Evolving, helped craft the first charter law Ember Reichgott Junge, Former Minnesota Democratic State Senator, author of the first charter law Joe Nathan, Founder and Senior Fellow at Center for School Change, helped write the first charter law There are different concepts even within the charter, whatever youd sayfamily, movement, sectorabout what its purpose is and what its strategy ought to be, said Ted Kolderie, who has worked in Minnesota education policy for decades and helped write Minnesotas charter law. The strategy that developed was to show that chartering could do what the district sector couldnt do. That is to create schools for educationally needy children [become] proficient in English and math. Today, Minnesotas charter sector is still somewhat of an anomaly, even as 43 states and the District of Columbia now allow charter schools. Its the only state where a local teachers union serves as an authorizerthe state-approved groups that grant charters, allowing the schools to open. Its charter schools also have a deeper reach into suburban and rural areas, rather than being concentrated in cities. And it is mostly devoid of the large, multistate charter school chains that oversee around 40 percent of charter schools nationally. Out of Minnesotas nearly 160 charter schools, only four schools are run by out-of-state management groupstwo by for-profit education management organizations, and two by nonprofit charter management organizations. Its chartering. Its a verb. ... Its permission for teachers and parents to provide different learning opportunities. EMBER REICHGOTT JUNGE, Author of Minnesota charter law Although the majority of charter schools nationally remain independent from networks, nonprofit charter management organizationsthink KIPPhave been eating into that share. And the number of CMO-run schools surpassed the number of for-profit counterparts in the 2008-09 school year, according to data from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Nationally, CMOs account for 22 percent of all charters that have opened over the last five years. While differences between the types of charter school operators may seem insignificant, the growth of CMOspropelled by billions of dollars from the federal government and a cadre of wealthy and highly involved philanthropistshas altered the face of the charter sector. College-Prep Model Many CMO-run charter schools build their missions around educating black and Hispanic students living in poor, inner-city neighborhoods, in prep school-like environments with stringent codes of conduct and a laser focus on college acceptance. I think that sort of changed the flavor of charters, said Sarah Reckhow, an assistant professor of political science at Michigan State University who studies education philanthropy. It gave them more of this kind of branding element, the whole rise of no excuses and those particular CMOs. ... That was very much facilitated by philanthropy. The hands-on approach that philanthropists have taken in propagating the CMO model marks a shift in education giving, say experts who have studied this evolution. Earlier forays from foundations such as Annenberg and Ford mostly stayed out of the way of their beneficiaries. In todays era, living donors from the Walton Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation have taken a more strategic approach to their giving, pouring their money into research, advocacy, and models that could grow or scale up quickly. (The Walton, Gates, and Broad foundations provide support for coverage in Education Week.) From a grant making standpoint, charter management organizations are a solid bet for philanthropists and the federal government because they can invest in growing an organization with a proven track record. But theres a flip side. What its meant, of course, is that the schools that could grow were the schools that fit the priority of the funderswhich mostly meant creating seats for low-income black and Latino kids in city centers, said Frederick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. Youve seen a huge emphasis on creating schools for those kids. In a renovated sock factory situated in an industrial park south of downtown Los Angeles, the Alliance Collins Family College Ready High School enrolls 600 students. Airplanes rumble overhead, approaching the runways at LAX. The distant downtown skyline is blurred by smog. Inside the school, which is part of the citys Alliance network, dozens of college pennantsa common decor choice for many charter networkshang in the front office and cafeteria. Past a door decorated to promote a college study abroad program in Costa Rica, a teacher, Shireen Noori, quizzes students in an Advanced Placement environmental science class. Tell me about the Ocean Dumping Act of 19 finish it off, she instructs a male student who, wearing a Berkeley sweatshirt, stands to answer. 1976, he responds. Tell me about the law. It prevented the dumping of industrial waste into the ocean, he answered. His classmates clap as the teacher offers extra credit to a student who can name the correct year. The students usually wear uniformsblack slacks, and polo shirts with the Alliance logo on them. But on Fridays, the school allows them to stray from the dress code slightlyas long as they wear a shirt branded with a university name. Californias charter school law followed closely on the heels of Minnesotasit was the second state to allow chartering and, because of its size and influence on public policy, it helped propel the idea into the national consciousness. In many ways, Los Angeles represents the rapid evolution of the charter concept and the direction in which philanthropy has pushed it. The city is a major beneficiaryor target, in the view of some criticsof foundation dollars. It brims with CMO-run schools in the college-prep, no-excuses mold. Alliance is one of many homegrown charter networks in the city that has been buoyed by foundation funding. It serves mostly low-income, Latino students and has grown to 27 schools since opening its first in 2004. At around 12,000 students, the network is larger than many school districts in California. The network has been the target of a major unionizing effort by the United Teachers Los Angeles, at a time when the influence of philanthropic money in the citys K-12 system has come under increased scrutiny. That was triggered last fall when a plan crafted by the Broad Foundation to more than double the number of charter school seats in the city was leaked to the Los Angeles Times. With an influential foundation, powerful teachers union, and an elected school board that has been a political springboard for many of its members in the citys backyard, Los Angeles reflects many of the tensions surrounding the charter sector nationally. Primarily that charters are no longer an incubator for the traditional district system, but an alternative to it. We are the proof point. If they take over this district, the dominos will fall across the country, said Steve Zimmer, a former teacher and the board president of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district, with 640,000 students, is the second largest in the country. If you can destroy the bureaucracy here, you can do it anywhere. ... If you can destroy UTLA, you can destroy any public-sector union. Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Los Angeles, Calif. Mission: To open and operate a network of small, high-performing high schools and middle schools in low income communities in California with historically under-performing schools, that will annually demonstrate student academic achievement growth, and graduate students ready for success in college. Student Stats: 98% Latino or African American 94% Qualify for free or reduced-price lunch Charter school students make up a little more than 20 percent of all public school students in Los Angeles, and the plan outlined in the memo from the Broad Foundation initially called for that number to grow to around 50 percent, although that plan is currently being revised to include schools other than charters. The city already has more charter school students than any other city. The Broad plan, as it was outlined last fall, would push Los Angeles into a small club of cities that have crossed the 50 percent threshold: New Orleans and Detroit. Weve reached a point of saturation, said Zimmer. When we lose more seats to charter schools, weve crossed a threshold where it has an effect on the key reforms that have been pushed by this district. Philanthropy Rising While the Broad Foundation has invested millions in Los Angeles K-12 sector, its also emerged as one of the most influential players in education philanthropy over the past 15 yearsgiving over $150 million to charter schools nationally. Of that, $79 million has gone to charter schools in the Los Angeles area, according to the foundation. One of the foundations most high-profile initiatives has been its annual Broad Prizes, which have awarded millions of dollars to charter management organizations and urban school districts for college readiness efforts and scholarships. But after 12 years of singling out districts it believed were closing achievement gaps, the Broad Foundation indefinitely suspended the prize for urban districts in 2015, citing sluggish academic progress. The charter prize continues. Weve always been an organization that looks very carefully at results, said Gregory McGinity, the executive director for the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. In terms of charters, this has been a mainstay for us because weve seen great data from these organizations and theyve produced great opportunities for low-income families. The data is strong and the demand is strong. Although McGinity says the Broad Foundation is still devoted to supporting urban school systems, giving from foundations nationally has moved away from districts as the major players in education philanthropy have changed. Giving to charter schools meanwhile, has ticked upward, and rose significantly from 2000 to 2010, according to data collected by Reckhow, the researcher from Michigan State University. Although private philanthropy and federal dollars have been a boon for charter management organizations, theres concern that new types of schools are being overlooked. I wish there was more assistance to outstanding schools that want to create one or two more schools, instead of dozens, said Joe Nathan of the St. Paul-based Center for School Change, who was also involved in crafting Minnesotas charter law. I think the role of philanthropy has been very powerful and very mixed. A 2015 report by The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based charter advocacy organization, said that although some schools have pioneered radically different models, most charters look a lot like their district school counterparts. The report pointed to risk-averse authorizers and philanthropists opting to back well-established models, such as CMOs, over untested ideas. But innovation is in the eye of the beholder, and even charter school advocates are divided on whether the movement has really pushed the envelope. Although Ember Reichgott Junge, the former Minnesota lawmaker, believes there should be more unique ideas coming out of the charter sector, she points to polling numbers from companies such as PDK/Gallup as proof that the experiment she helped launched 25 years ago is a success. Im very thrilled that even today, two-thirds of America supports chartering, she said. I ask you what else does two-thirds of America support today? Lincoln Correctional Center Warden Mario Peart has been reassigned pending completion of an investigation into the Friday morning escape of two inmates from the maximum-security prison near Pioneers Park. Warden Fred Britten has moved from the state Diagnostic and Evaluation Center to LCC in the interim. Peart, a longtime state Department of Correctional Services employee, will be in the system's central office for the time being, state Corrections Director Scott Frakes said at a news conference Monday morning. Frakes ticked off a number of procedural errors that he said led to the Friday morning escape and said a critical incident review is underway. To start with, he said, it looks like at least two LCC employees failed to follow procedure. Among the mistakes, he said, is that inmates Armon Dixon and Timothy Clausen were allowed into the laundry area after telling an employee they were assigned there Friday morning and the employee let them through even though they weren't on a list of inmates approved to be there. "If proper procedures had been followed ... we should have known that there was a problem by 9 or 9:30 and that would have allowed the facility to move into a formal count," said Frakes. LCC did a head count at 5:10 a.m. Monday, according to a timeline provided by Frakes. A former LCC employee said Friday a routine 11 a.m. count was discontinued several months ago. Dixon was arrested Saturday night in northeast Lincoln; Clausen remains at large. The Monday morning news conference at the Capitol also was attended by Gov. Pete Ricketts, Col. Tim Rice of the Nebraska State Patrol, Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer and Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister. The No. 1 priority, Ricketts said, is public safety, and all of the officials cautioned people -- especially those in northeast Omaha -- to continue to be on the lookout for Clausen and not to approach him if they see him. Call 911 immediately, they said. Clausen, 52, is doing time for sexual assaults in Douglas County and is considered dangerous. He was last seen about 10 o'clock Sunday night in Omaha, Schmaderer said, adding that he doesn't think he had access to a vehicle at that time. Wanda Minor, 50, was arrested Saturday night and is in the Douglas County jail on suspicion of helping Clausen get from Lincoln to Omaha. In 2013, she got two years probation for tampering with a witness during Clausens sexual assault trial. Monday morning, Frakes handed out a timeline detailing the escape and its aftermath. Dixon and Clausen left LCC in a prison laundry truck at 9:12 a.m. Friday and were able to cut a hole in the top of the truck, climbing out when it stopped eight minutes later at U.S. 77 and Warlick Boulevard. At 9:30, a woman called 911 to say she saw two men wearing khakis and gray shirts running and acting panicked near the intersection; deputies from the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office arrived there a few minutes later. About the same time, the prison switchboard transferred a call from a woman to a caseworker asking if Dixon had a cellphone and saying she got a call from someone saying he was Dixon; she thought it was a joke. The caseworker made a note that she had seen Dixon earlier in his unit and the yard. At 10:20 a.m., LCC got a call from Lincoln police about the possibility of an escape. Six minutes later, a patrol trooper and sheriff's deputies began chasing a truck stolen by two men who hadn't yet been identified as escapees. The truck crashed at 18th and F streets about 10 minutes later. At 11:15 a.m., the patrol notified the Corrections Department about the sightings, and an emergency count began five minutes later. When asked why the Corrections Department wasn't notified about the sightings until nearly two hours after the initial call, patrol spokeswoman Deb Collins said: "The timeframe from 9:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. involved a pursuit and subsequent search for the two suspects involved in the pursuit. During this time, law enforcement (to include LPD and LSO) was not only searching for the suspects involved in the pursuit, but working to identify them by reaching out to various entities including the Department of Corrections." Three hours after Dixon and Clausen rode out of the prison in the laundry truck, staff from the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution called LCC to say the truck had a hole in its top when it reached Tecumseh. Corrections Department spokesman Andrew Nystrom said the trucks are driven by department staff members. They're commercial box trucks that can hold more than 20 laundry carts he said, declining to provide a photo or describe them further for security reasons. Back to the timeline, Warden Peart confirmed the two were missing from the Lincoln prison at 12:53, and the public was notified at 1:38 p.m. The timeline doesn't say if or when sheriff's deputies called state prison officials about the sighting. Sheriff Terry Wagner said Monday his department is still waiting for a record of what calls were made and when. Wagner said his office has procedures in place for what to do if a prisoner escapes from county custody but not from other facilities. On Monday, officials were focused on capturing Clausen but vowed to figure out how the two sex offenders escaped and what should happen next. Frakes acknowledged that LCC is overcapacity, but said the review so far doesnt conclude that was a factor in the escape. The prison, he said, is at 163 percent of design capacity and 108 percent of what he called operating capacity. He also acknowledged that staff at the prison is forced to work overtime. On Friday, he said, four staff members were held over to work additional eight-hour shifts, two of those were mandatory. In all, he said, 11 staffers were on overtime Friday morning. "We had a breakdown and two people got hurt," Ricketts said at the news conference. "What we do in corrections is very, very important. ... Nobody wants to know about how this happened more than I do. So we will have a complete investigation to find out how this all broke down." Said Frakes: "Last Friday, we failed in our mission to keep the public safe. We will make no excuses for our failures. ... Our focus now is to ensure nothing like this happens again." Oct. 13, 2022 Prior to this summer, the memorial garden had lost its shine and perhaps had gone forgotten. That was when 18 year old Annabelle Smith, daughter of an Eielson Airman and a Girl Scout for 13 years, decided to take on a renovation project as a part of a Gold Award project, one of the highest awards in We read the classics of Western Civilization from the start. We have created an eight-semester IIC that begins in the first year with a course on interdisciplinary learning. That is followed by six consecutive semesters of interdisciplinary learning through the ages, in other words, a historical approach that begins with the ancient philosophers and culminates with The American Experiment. These six semesters are integrated because writers and ideas introduced in one course are reconsidered in the context of another course. For example, ideas of personal freedom introduced by reading Plato are tied to definitions of liberty in the French Revolution which ultimately informed our Founding Fathers. Our act of preservation is in graduating students who think clearly and communicate effectively-the legacy of liberal arts education. This means focusing on the educated mind and everything that means. People have been and will continue to be drawn to the humanities. That is the legacy of a literate population, and a population that seeks to preserve its heritage. We are certainly engaged in preserving our American heritage, and this remains at the forefront of everything we do along these lines. We teach the very best American poetry, fiction, history, and other academic areas, and therein our students learn about their history and heritage. I saw the need to restore the liberal arts and sciences to their place in the Great Conversations of humanity, as well as their legacy of teaching people to think clearly. All incoming students are asked to write a 500-word essay answering the question, "Who am I?" They complete the same assignment in the last month of their first year, and compare the two to learn what has changed in them. In the second year, the question is "Who am I in the context of community?"; the third year, "What am I good at learning and doing?"; and in the fourth year, "What can I give back as a result of what I have learned?" These are self-reflective inquiries that heighten the learning experience well beyond coursework and lab assignments. People equipped to think about and begin to answer for themselves and community some of the Great Questions can only help raise the quality of their life, and the life of the nation. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) advises trustees and alumni about higher education issues, identifies "oases of [educational] excellence," and examines graduation requirements at various colleges to answer the question "What Will They Learn?" In that report, ACTA scrutinizes each college's curriculum, looking for seven requirements: composition mathematics , and science . Based on the number of those essentials that are met, the school is assigned a grade. To earn an "A," a college must have at least six of those seven.In California, just four out of 71 institutions get an "A": Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Thomas Aquinas College, Pepperdine University, and the most recent addition, Saint Katherine College.Come again? Saint Katherine . This four-year-old private college near San Diego currently has only a few dozen students but, according to founder and president Dr. Frank Papatheofanis, also has no intention of growing to more than 1,000.In my interview with him, he stressed that "we are committed to small class sizes and personalized education." Other A-List schools such as St. John's (New Mexico) and Lyon (Arkansas) have enrollments under 1,000 and, not surprisingly, high four-year graduation rates.Still, one has to wonder why anyone would start up a liberal arts college at a time when so many historically liberal arts colleges are closing down or re-purposing. In that, Saint Katherine seems quixotic. Or is it brilliant?A cardinal rule for business success is to differentiate yourself from the competition. Normal people look on in disbelief at colleges riven by speech codes, Title IX hysteria, snowflakes, crybullies, safe spaces, trigger warnings, misandry, multiculturalist tribalism, social justice warriors, and ideological curriculum, a steaming mess that blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds calls "the education apocalypse."So the moment is ripe for something different, and a number of alternatives have sprung up: MOOCs, for-profit schools, DIY courses for autodidacts, and tiny enclaves of academic quality such as Saint Katherine.Dr. Papatheofanis says:Small, nimble institutions like Saint Katherine College will be successful once students and families understand the basic purposes behind attending college-teaching and learning. If four more years of relative dependence and anxiety over civil engagement with society are the underlying reasons for attending college, then the scores of families that can afford to pay exorbitant tuition rates will continue to fuel the present model of private education. If students recognize the price they pay for luxury dormitories, four-star cuisine, and resort-like campuses has to be repaid, then small liberal arts colleges will experience a reconsideration and renaissance because the overwhelming focus of such institutions is teaching and learning, and preparing one to become a contributor to their community and nation.Like several other of ACTA's "A" schools, Saint Katherine has a religious connection, in this case Orthodox Christianity. I believe that this is significant because most public colleges dismiss, mock, or pathologize religious belief, leaving students with no chance to contemplate metaphysical or transcendent possibilities. In contrast, the Saint Katherine curriculum includes two semesters of theology.On his school's curriculum, Dr. Papatheofanis remarks:As you know, educators have traditionally differentiated liberal from servile learning. The pure form of the former stands at one end of a continuum whereas the latter is at the opposite extreme. One broadly stands for "truth and beauty" whereas the other offers vocational skills and employment. Reality falls somewhere in between in the sense that one can become an educated person and be gainfully employed.In 1992, Neil Postman presciently wrote in his book Technopoly that "Modern secular education is failing...because it has no moral, social, or intellectual center. There is no set of ideas or attitudes that permeates all parts of the curriculum. The curriculum is not, in fact, a `course of study' at all but a meaningless hodgepodge of subjects. It does not even put forward a clear vision of what constitutes an educated person...."Saint Katherine does put forward such a vision. Its intellectual center is expressed in its motto: "Inquiry Seeking Wisdom."To achieve a balance between "liberal and servile learning," Saint Katherine employs an "Integrated Interdisciplinary Core" (IIC). Dr. Papatheofanis says:Saint Katherine thus joins historic universities such as John Erskine's Columbia and Robert Hutchins's University of Chicago that embraced a structured, coherent, transformative curriculum in which what comes before serves as ground for what comes after with the aim of graduating students who have absorbed a truly liberal education.This sounds encouraging to me since I am among those in academia who have looked on in dismay as liberal arts colleges have floundered.How bad is it? The poet Rosanna Warren once speculated that literature might have to withdraw from higher education entirely and retreat to the salon and the coffee house. And at the Alliance for Liberal Learning conference last November, there was serious talk of scattered "monastery" colleges that might preserve the legacy of the humanities.That is what Dr. Papatheofanis has in mind when he states:The Polish filmmaker Krystof Kieslowski was inspired to create his stunning Decalogue after finding in his travels around the world that more and more people he met seemed not to know why they were alive.So I asked Dr. Papatheofanis what inspired him to create Saint Katherine College. He replied:Amen to that. After the shooting in Orlando on June 12, 2016, there will no doubt be a rush to solutions which range from more gun control to more tolerance for LGBT rights, including political twist to take advantage in the present election process. First, I freely admit I have no armchair chair solution to the problem. I have opinions, but some may remember the old saying about opinions being like "????????",everyone has one. In the absence of anything other than an uninformed opinion, most think people will look to the experts for an answer or at least an informed opinion. Normally, I would look to our political leadership to assemble knowledgeable people to address the issue, but I have lost all confidence in our current crop of political leaders on either side of the political spectrum to identify the problem much less provide a reasoned path forward. Anger and shock are not the time to make snap judgements on actions and new laws that may be required to calm the angst of the population. I have for many years been concerned about the absolute ideology of any movement. If you think back over our recent history you will find that ideology is the root of many of our abhorrent disasters. Radical Christians felt that they had the right to kill doctors and bomb clinics that provide abortions.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Rudolph) Radical anarchist felt that they had the right to blow up a government building in Oklahoma. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh) Radical White supremacist ideology sparked a massacre in Ruby Ridge when the federal government overreacted to this aberrant ideology by laying siege on the home of Randy Weaver. (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/incident-at-ruby-ridge) Radical Progressive ideology has been played out on our college campuses when students and professors called for more muscle to prevent a news reporter from covering their event in Missouri. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/01/25/i-need-some-muscle-over-here-missouri-prof-melissa-click-charged-with-assault/) Radical Left Wing ideology founded the Weather Underground because they felt that peaceful means were not sufficient to convert non-believers to followers their beliefs. (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/weatherunderground/movement.html) Radical Right Wing Ideology formed the Ku Klux Klan to maintain a system of racial supremacists that felt it was appropriate to lynch black people just for being black. (http://www.history.com/topics/ku-klux-klan) None of the above had anything to do with the Islam religion but were the result of an Ideology that the adherents believed justified their actions. The point I am belaboring here is that the problem is not the bombs, guns, or extra muscle that caused the problem. It is the extrapolation that one's ideology gives them license to kill, attack, eject or maim anyone who disagrees with their ideology. This has been the human condition since humans were first place on this earth. The second generation of humans resorted to the use of force over differing ideologies. (Genesis 4:116) Some would ask what this world is coming to when they look at the current frequency of ideology-based attacks on our civilization. This is not a recent phenomenon. Ask any World War II sailor who served in the pacific fleet at the end of the war. An ideology run amuck resulted in the "Divine Wind" attacks by Japanese pilots on US Naval ships in the Kamikaze attacks. (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-kamikaze-attack-of-the-war-begins) You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Before we descend into a debate once again about gun control, perhaps we should look to a more deeper analysis of our current war. Arguing over the weapon of choice in terrorist attacks is just a deflection of the core problem which is based on ideology. If you do not believe we are engaged in a war, I offer the quote often erroneously attributed to Leon Trotsky Fortunately, we have multiple sources of serious and well-reasoned analysis of the current fight with ISIS. I offer one such source for those who have the patience and concern to delve deeper into the dilemma of how we deal with ISIS. Based on the recent North Carolina primary election returns, I suspect that only seven percent (7%) have gotten this far in this article and fewer still will click on any links included here. And that perhaps is where our problem lies. Will it take another Pearl Harbor or World Trade Center event to galvanize our attention away from our "not my backyard" mentality? Secondly, do we as a country have the determination to solve the problem or will we forget as we always do in a few weeks until the next event. I have tried to stay away from the flame words of either the left or right political perspective, but my prejudices are apparent to those who may disagree with my political leanings. However, maybe just once we could focus on the problem instead of the weapon used. "What I have been trying to convince this city of for many years now is that we have not even begun to engage in the information operations battlefield. We do almost everything at the tactical level and have allowed political correctness to infect the way we do Information Operations and Psychological Warfare. America is preeminent at the application of kinetic force. The U.S. Abbottabad raid will be taught from the Beijing Military Academy to Sandhurst for the next hundred years as how you do a kinetic application of lead-on target. But tactical perfection does not automatically add up to victory. Tactical victories do not necessarily bring strategic success. We must delegitimize the ideology of the enemy or this will be exercise in whack-a-mole. Your children, my grandchildren, will be hunting jihadists a hundred years from now unless we take down their ideology of Global Jihadism." Here is one alternative from Sebastian Gorka.( The Gorka Briefing Testimony to House Armed Services Committees Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, 8 Jan 2016. In light of continued developments, primarily since 2008, there exists in these United States a Legal System which operates on a proved Two Tiered approach to justice rendered, which primarily benefits Democratic Elites and Woke Ideological Virtue Signalers, representing their co-dependent wards, to the expressed exclusion of normal hardworking American citizens: What is your suggestion in remedying this widespread injustice and, if not corrected, its existential outcome for our Constitutional Republic? Complete overhaul the Department of Justice and their enforcers - the FBI - to reflect a far more honest justice system to keep patriots remaining calm. Disband the FBI, and request that congress investigate all unethical and non patriotic practices to partially right the wrongs of a distrusted and politically weaponized "Department of Justice." Hutchy considering future at TT after Dunlop spat TT racer Ian Hutchinson says he's unsure if he'll return to the Isle of Man for the event next year. It follows a spat with Michael Dunlop which started after the Northern Irish rider was disqualified from the second Supersport race for running an "illegal engine". Hutchy made his feelings clear during the Senior Race on Friday in which Dunlop romped to victory leaving him to take second place. Michael responded to the attack saying that's 'just the way it goes': Hutchy made his feelings clear during the Senior Race on Friday in which Dunlop romped to victory leaving him to take second place. Media Ian Hutchinson Jail for man who pooed in police cell A Douglas man who defecated in a cell and smeared faeces over his hands in a bid to obstruct police has been jailed. 55-year-old Graham Johnson foiled attempts by officers to swab his hands for accelerant after he was arrested on suspicion of arson on March 26th. He'd been seen lighting a piece of paper and putting it into a wheelie bin - which then set on fire - in Strand Lane the night before. Johnson later pleaded guilty to arson and obstructing police - at Douglas Courthouse last week his advocate described his actions as "strange" and "particularly unpleasant". He said the piece of paper belonged to Johnson's flatmate and he'd decided to burn it because he suspected it was connected to drugs. He told the court Johnson was in the past "someone of great standing in the local community" but said he now had issues with alcohol. Sentencing him to 26 weeks in prison Deputy High Bailiff Jayne Hughes told him "you need to get your life back on track". Sales and incentives go hand in hand in any industry and environment. On the get go it is important to understand that this is an integral part of your product launch and to keep your brand thriving in the market. It is what keeps sales representatives and ultimately the distributor interested and motivated in moving your product. First: The Legal Stuff In some states in the US, sales incentives are a norm whereas in others statutory regulations prohibit the use of incentives. Make sure that you are not stepping over the law when offering incentives to your distributor. Second: Your Margins Before going into the nitty-gritty of offering sales incentives, work backward to see the margins you have for your brand. Never offer incentives that do not work for you. If you cannot afford it, it is not an offer you can extend. Some producers have lower priced products which may not have high enough margins. Sales incentives on these should be designed by volume. Some producers have a portfolio of products with some higher value products mixed in with loss leaders. One has to take into account the mathematics of their brands before designing a program. For example, if offering $10 per case is going to put you in the negative then you will have to think of a different incentive to offer. If a trip to a South African winery is more than you can account for, then you have to get creative and come up with more affordable experience based offers that are still attractive to the sales person or retailer. Step 1: Designing a Sales Incentive Program Discuss the incentives you plan to offer during launch and thereafter with your distributor. This will keep expectations clear on both sides. It will also ensure that higher incentives being offered at launch are not seen as precedents for the year to follow. The sales incentives you offer should be measurable and achievable to hold value. If the offer is convoluted, one will not bother to understand it. Keep it simple, straightforward and worthwhile for you and the distributor or salesperson. The offer should also be relevant to the person or organization for it to be effective. If the sales incentive per case you are offering is much lower than the other products in the distributors portfolio, your offer will mostly be overlooked. You will have to design a different offer that is just as if not more compelling than others. Similarly, offers for off and on premise accounts should be designed as such because the quantities cleared by on-premise accounts are vastly lower but their value is measured in brand placement, value created and the focused time with the consumer. Design most offers to be of a shorter term to keep them interesting and introduce new offers throughout the year. An offer that runs for a longer duration could be one with a more substantial prize. Step 2: Designing Your Incentives Launch Incentives: During a product launch in a new market, sales incentives should be kept higher to gain momentum. Some examples of offers that may be designed are: 1. Account-based incentive: A $50 case incentive for each new off-premise account opened. A $25 cash incentive offered for each on-premise account opened by the distributors sales representative. 2. Total accounts opened: A $1000 cash incentive is offered to the distributor if 200 stores are opened as new accounts in a quarter. 3. Time based incentives: The incentives run for the first month or a quarter. For the purposes of achieving maximizing your winerys sales success, both you and your distributor will need to work hard at developing your launch incentives. 4. Key accounts incentives: Work on getting branded retailers, floor displays, famous restaurant house pours and distributor houses. On-going incentives: The launch is over and you want to keep selling. Incentives are good but not the end all of selling so make another trip to work the market with your distributors sales representative and organize regular tastings at retail stores or restaurants. A winemakers visit to talk about the wines with the distributors sales representatives and accounts also works to boost interest in a brand and is a great time to incentivize. Here are some examples of on-going incentives that may be offered: 1. Hand-selling incentive for retailer: For every case sold per week, the retail store owner receives a bonus. Because a professional is leading the process, potential customers have the opportunity to not only hear about the story of the brand but also be able to ask questions. An excellent promoter is also good at human behavior and can assess where the prospect is in the buying cycle, and move him/her closer to a sale. Be sure to use educate your retail customer on your brand philosophy. The more information that they share with the customer, the more personal the experience and the higher the chance of a successful sale. 2. Repeat Orders: This should be launched after a brief gap from the launch period offers. It will help in getting re-orders and therefore promise longevity to your brand after the initial round of orders. For example, offer $5 per case for off-premise and $10 for on-premise for all repeat orders. 3. Display incentives: An obvious benefit is that your brand will stand out in the crowd with a fabulous display, as opposed to a sea of bottles on a store shelf. It's hard to go unnoticed when your branded packages are stacked high with sharp-looking personal promoters in full view. The Wait Wines Display In One Of The Chain Stores In Ohio State, USA a. Offer incentives to the sales representative for product placement. It could be a smaller bonus for placing your product on the rack that is at the eye-level of the customer rather than on the bottom shelf. b. Offering a bonus to the retailer and salesperson for a 25 case display stack in a prime location of the store, that is mostly near the entrance and the first to catch the customers eye as they enter the store. This is even more beneficial for your brand if run during the holiday period when the customer numbers are the highest and there is a better chance of the stock being depleted as well. Yellow Tail Wines Floor Display at Valley Liquors In Wimington, DE 4. In-Store Tasting Incentives The best part of in-store tastings are the daily sales totals. At the end of a tasting you have an immediate count of how your wine was received by the bottles sold. This information is key in planning the next event, as well as making any adjustments necessary to sell even more the next time. Keep your retailers updated with reports on your success. At the end of the day, money talks. If you can keep your partners happy with strong quarterly numbers that reflect solid depletion rates across your distribution and retailer channels then you are sure to be one of their favorite brands to work with. In-Store Tasting should always be a line item in your marketing budget if you plan on focusing your resources on ensuring high depletion rates. Sight, sound, taste, touch and smell are all heightened through one moment, which is sure to lead to many new customers who will be dedicated to coming back for more. You should work on your incentive programs based on each market and time of the year. Your distributor would know its customers and market better, so it is best to discuss your sales incentives plans on an annual basis with your distributor. See an example of a promo calender below. (example use only - Click to download the file) Conclusion: There is no denial or debate about the fact that your wine is of unsurpassed quality, your packaging is phenomenal or your craft beer tastes like no other, but sales are also a real aspect of your business and incentives are a predominant factor to drive sales. Stagger your sales incentive program and tailor it as per the time of the year so your stock is moving all year long. Not a BTN Member yet? Get BTN Premium membership and have full access to articles and webinars on BTN + other benefits like: Full Access to BTN Consultants Full Access to Buying Leads Post Unlimited Brands Full Access to all Articles and Webinars Full Access to BTN Live conferences presentations and speaker sessions Discounted rates to exhibit at major partner events and conferences And Much More... Your BTN membership will reduce your trial and error time: Why experiment with your branding and distribution when you can fast-track your time to success? Get 'How to do it' content which will help you improve your sales and grow your distribution. Just one article can help you make better decisions and improve your distribution strategy. Try it The media is learning more about the man who has caused the bloodiest domestic mass murder the country has even seen, along with new details about his family. There's a new report that says Omar Mateen, who is the suspected shooter that killed 50 people and left another 50 critically injured, not only pledged his allegiance to ISIS before the mass murder, but that his father, Seddique Mateen, might also be a supporter of the Afghan Taliban. According to the Daily Mail, Seddqiue is an Afghan-born resident of Fort Pierce, Florida who hosts the Durand Jirga Show on the Payam-e-Afghan channel, which is broadcast from California. There are supposedly several posts under his YouTube account in which he talks about a number of political issues in his native Dari. The site says that posts include, "Rise Afghan people against Pakistan' and 'Intelligent service and Military of Pakistan real Enemy of the USA (sic)." He also says in one clip, "ur brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up. Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon." Yet, according to USA Today, Saddique says that he doesn't know the motive behind his son's attack other than he was left angry after seeing two men kissing at a beach in Miami several months ago. He said, "I apologize for what my son did. I don't know why he did it. He is dead, so I can't ask him. I wish I knew," before adding, "This has nothing to do with religion." Omar Mateen's family has made no further comments. Honoring Second Lieutenants A travelogue By Mark Alexander Last week, my family and I traveled to the Air Force Academy to celebrate the graduation of the Class of 2016 and the cross-commissioning of two young men from that class into the Marine Corps. Our son was one of those Marines, and this trip marked our first to a college graduation of one of our own children. There were some notable highlights (and a couple of lowlifes) along the way, so, to capture the experience, I'm composing this column as something of a travelogue. The trip was bookended by roundtrip flights at least that's how the rest of my family traveled from Chattanooga to Colorado Springs and back. However, in order to retrieve the "two large footlockers and three sea bags" my son indicated would be packed and ready for return to Tennessee, I drove the 1,400-mile stretch in my Ram 3500. Now, I mention my son's cargo and the size of my vehicle by way of noting that when I returned last Friday, the bed, the back seat and the front seat of my truck with the exception of a hole large enough to see my right rearview mirror was packed floor to ceiling. Apparently, "loadmaster" is not his calling. It was an easy two-day trip each way, mostly on secondary routes in order to see more of the countryside and visit fellow Patriots along the way. On day two outbound, I stopped to visit friends who have a ranch at the base of the Spanish Peaks. For the record, at my age I've learned to appreciate the concentration of oxygen at 2,200 feet at our homestead in East Tennessee. I don't adjust to the thin air at almost 9,500 as fast as I once did. However, I finally made the adjustment about a day before returning east. On Tuesday, the first of three highlights was attending a graduate awards ceremony followed by degree program awards. My son had served as Cadet Wing Commander and had a double major and double minor, so we made a lot of stops that morning. Next up was a ceremony with the USAFA Officers' Christian Fellowship group and meeting my son's peers and mentors. I'm deeply heartened by and profoundly grateful for OCF and this group of young faithful Patriots! That night, a friend hosted our family and guests for a fine dinner at the Broadmoor Tavern, an old facility by Colorado standards, at the base of Cheyenne Mountain bunker. Wednesday morning was the graduation parade in advance of Thursday's ceremony. This was the last for the Firsties, who, after forming up on the field, marched out of their squadron ranks and turned to face the formation of the second, third and fourth class cadets. The keynote speaker for this event was Air Force Chief Gen. Mark Welsh, who has been an outstanding USAFA leader. Gen. Welsh retires this month, so this was the last class of his alma mater he addressed as Chief. To gain a sense of Gen. Welsh's character and leadership, watch his address to USAFA cadets a few years ago. It was this address that influenced my son's decision to attend the Air Force Academy instead of the Naval Academy, where he had also been admitted. (However, he did spend a semester at USNA as an exchange student from USAFA.) A highlight for me that day was meeting up with my Patriot friend Mike "Smack" McGinn, a former Marine aviator I profiled back in 2009. That column, "Marine Aviator's Memorial Day Waveoff," was about Mike's denial of entry to Arlington Cemetery for his annual Memorial Day visit to the gravesite of his decorated Marine aviator father, James McGinn. For the first time since his father's death, Mike was denied access to National Cemetery because all ingress and egress was halted for the grand entrance of one Barack Hussein Obama. Mike noted that in the five previous years he visited his father's gravesite when President George W. Bush was CINC, this had never happened. After my son chose to attend USAFA, Mike sent him a cadet sword, which had been presented to his father in 1968 when James McGinn was the lone Marine AOC at the Air Force Academy. It was presented by then-USAFA Cadet Lt. Col. Craig Baer, commander of Squadron 25. Mike looked up Craig, and 48 years later, after the graduation parade, Craig (now a research scientist) and Mike reconvened and officially re-presented that sword to my son. Thursday, graduation day, was a day of high anticipation for us, as it is for any parent celebrating a graduation. The day started early, given the requirement that all parents and guests had to get through the Secret Service screening required of all who expect to breathe the same air as this day's keynote speaker. Sadly, some parents didn't make it into the stadium to see their cadet graduate because of the security delays. Military graduation ceremonies are "by the numbers" and thrilling for all present except that the start time of this one was delayed 30 minutes because the keynote speaker was (SHOCKER!) running late. The ceremony was a case study in contrasts: On the one hand, a field full of young men and women prepared to serve our great nation and a stage with many who have spent their career serving honorably; and on the other hand, a podium featuring two "dignitaries" one a wholly unqualified Air Force secretary and the other a commander in chief who has done more damage to our nation than any president in the last century. Now, mind you, while those graduates on the field, including my son, exhibit due honor and respect to the office of president regardless of its occupant, I am neither in the president's nor the secretary's chain of command and am therefore free to offer my candid observations. For her part, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James was the opener for Obama, and her remarks sounded more like those of the warm-up act for a Democrat re-election campaign than anything honoring our Air Force's newest 2nd lieutenants. James reminded the graduates, "We're so honored today to be joined by our commander in chief, President Barack Obama." That was but the first instance of a highly decorated retired Marine GySgt sitting behind us and muttering, "B-ll Sh-t." She then reminded everyone in the stadium what a fine job Obama had done improving the VA because "the president and first lady believe that all who serve should receive top-notch benefits and world-class care." Heard from that Marine Gunny again... "And as you graduate, I charge all of you to follow the president's lead," said James. (Presumably, she didn't mean to "follow the president's lead" by avoiding military service.) Digging an ever deeper and more disgraceful hole, James said, "President Obama launched his strategy to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL." Now, for the record, if Obama hadn't withdrawn from Iraq while claiming "victory" as a key element of his 2012 re-election charade, thus leaving an enormous power vacuum in the Middle East, nobody would've ever heard of "ISIL," the rise of the Islamic State or the ensuing humanitarian crisis. Thanks to Obama, ISIL is now the most dangerous threat on the planet. "So as you graduate, I charge you to follow the president's lead, to become experts in your mission. ... One year ago, as you entered your senior year and started counting down the days to graduation, President Obama was guiding America to the stark agreement with Iran ... [blocking] Iran's path to a nuclear weapon, which ultimately is going to create a more stable world." Seriously, she said with a straight face that Obama's greatest foreign policy achievement, as he insists, was the deal with Iran. In doing so, she rendered meaningless all satire from that moment forward. Suffice it to say that Obama and his heir-apparent, Hillary Clinton, have set the standard for abject foreign policy failures. Again, James said, "I charge you to follow the president's lead. ... Putting millions of people in this country back to work, and championing same-sex marriage, the president has led with strength and conviction." I'll leave it to your imagination as to what our Marine Gunny said in response to that assertion. May I inject here that my charge to USAFA graduates would be to follow your CINC's lawful orders, but never "follow Obama's lead." He has never defended our nation with anything more than a glass of Chardonnay. So, next up was Obama, who, predictably, droned on endlessly about his magnificence. He attempted a bit of levity, saying what a good job our airmen had done taking care of him on Air Force One: "You are always on time. You never lose my luggage. I don't have to take off my shoes before I get on." Ah yes, Air Force One. Recall if you will that the Obamas have lived the life of the rich and famous, jetting off to exotic resorts at taxpayer expense doing so even during sequestered military cutbacks. At the same time the Obamas were tying up Air Force One for their lavish family trips, Gen. Welsh noted that his sequester had grounded 33 squadrons, and many pilots are losing their proficiency. "If we were ordered to go [to Syria], we'd go," but we would be "accepting the risk of those people not being as current. For me, that's a risk we don't want to be accepting." Oh, and while I was advocating sequestering funds for Air Force One, BO also grounded all honor flights for veteran interments at National Cemetery, where this week he has ordered lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender support posters displayed for June, which he has proclaimed "LBGT Pride Month." Of course, at the graduation podium, BO reiterated the importance of normalization of "gays and lesbians" into our society. Likewise for Muslims, et al. Let me just cut to the chase and get to the only thing Obama said that was widely applauded including my applause: "Today will be the last time that I have the honor of addressing a graduating class of military officers." Moving on to the best part of Thursday for two families of graduating Air Force cadets the Marine cross-commissioning ceremony for my son and another cadet, both of whom graduated Marine OCS last summer and have earned their eagle-globe-and-anchor insignias. A couple things I would note about that ceremony. First, the Air Force brass, from the Superintendent to the Commandant, were among the small group of attendees at the Marine commissioning, and it was an honor to have them present. They have all demonstrated great leadership at USAFA. Second, I was humbled by the opportunity to offer the invocation and some remarks at the ceremony, among them this anecdote about George Washington: In 1783 at the conclusion of the American Revolution, Patriot Ethan Allen's first wife had died, and in 1784 he married Frances Buchanan. She hailed from an ignoble and notorious family of British loyalists. On one of Ethan Allen's visits to her New York family shortly after their marriage, her siblings, still seething from the defeat of their British masters, hung a large portrait of George Washington in their privy outhouse hoping to offend Allen. Emerging from his first visit to the outhouse, Allen said nothing of the portrait. The loyalist pranksters inquired whether Allen had seen the portrait, and he responded, "Yes indeed, and it is a fine place to hang it." Knowing they would be perplexed by his response, Allen went on to explain, "Nothing makes a Crown loyalist [crap] faster than the sight of George Washington."** I mentioned this story to make an important point: Since the founding of the Continental Marines on 10 November 1775, and their first amphibious assault at the "Battle of Nassau" on 3 March 1776, nothing has made America's adversaries crap faster than the sight of United States Marines. I closed with this quote from 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, which loyal Patriot readers will find familiar: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." I then noted that each of those two Marines had joined the ranks of "better men." Finally, my eyes began to "sweat" a bit, and his mom shed a few tears as our son raised his hand to take his first oath to "to Support and Defend" our Constitution as a Marine. That moment was bittersweet, because he had hoped and planned on my father being present and administering his oath. Dad didn't make it, though, having died last October at age 92, but his NAS Pensacola cap and his lapel Wings of Gold did. I carried these to my son's graduation and his commissioning in honor of his Granddad. Mark Alexander is the executive editor of the Patriot Post. Home America's First President Sukarno By Michael Moriarty Despite the romanticized complexities of any film set in politically tortured, 20th Century Indonesia, a showing of The Year of Living Dangerously seems to have particularly contemporary relevance for Americans. Is President Barack Hussein Obama, with the priceless help of the bipartisan, New World Order dreams of men like George H. W. Bush, is this Presidential creator of an increasingly powerful and unquestionably arrogant Obama Nation really America's second version of Richard Nixon and the United States' first version of Indonesia's President Sukarno? "Sukarno?!" President Obama might exclaim. "He's small potatoes compared to where I've been and where I'm headed?! Sukarno's a footnote!!" Whether you agree with this opinion or not, America and the American people, under the Obama Nation, have been most definitely and, with Obama's second Presidential election, perversely living under dangerously provocative, Sukarno-like, criminally unconstitutional behavior from the White House. Beyond mere gossip, the growing fear of Obama declaring martial law is all over the internet. Here is an early and profoundly naive view of Indonesia from 1955. It compares President Sukarno to America's George Washington. Here, on the other hand, is a statistically realistic view of Indonesia in the Third Millennium. The last thing I would have expected to be doing today is to be comparing America to the history of Indonesia. Why am I doing that? This film: The Year of Living Dangerously. It's taken me at least three viewings of this film to realize that Linda Hunt portrays not a female but an apparently historic male in the history of President Sukarno's ultimate downfall. I don't think that the sex of Linda Hunt's character has anything to do with the power of that figure's eloquence, narrative authority and profoundly vital function in this film. Once he/she is pushed out of a window to his/her death, the film seems to lose two thirds of its magnetism. It's no wonder that the curtain to this tale seems to be brought down in such a hurry. Why? The Year of Living Dangerously has lost the voice of its most important and discerning pair of eyes. Not long after the Hunt character's death, the Gibson character despairs of Indonesia altogether and leaves to renew his romance with Sigourney Weaver. Hunt's character, Billy Kwan? We mourn for him/her! More importantly, however, where now is Third Millennium America's Billy Kwan? America has a number of them, two of which Ben Carson and Allen West are African-American. Meanwhile, Sukarno eventually holds no more resemblance to America's George Washington than President Obama holds to the legend which Time Magazine compared him to: Abraham Lincoln. The Second Abraham Lincoln?!?! No! America's first President Sukarno! And the second Richard Nixon. Under Sukarno, Indonesia became an increasing disaster. Sukarno and Obama? Both unpredictably violent and arrogantly punkish wanna-be's. TIME Gambles On Obama's Shameless Insult To Israel The two most indispensable enablers of the Obama Presidency: George Soros and TIME Magazine. Despite all the "big-hitters" in Obama's corner, he still is no more than America's President Sukarno. Why hasn't Barack Hussein Obama been impeached or, like Richard Nixon, forced to resign?! The answer? The New World Order! America and Americans, of both political parties, are being sold out to a United Nations' New World Order by The Political Establishment! That body of Washington's men and women that are best represented by two families and two families only: The Bushes and The Clintons. Barack Obama? Hired to do the "dirty work". Being at high risk of becoming America's second yet far more violently Leftist Jimmy Carter, President Obama could very well declare martial law to simply hold power and control an unending third term. A third term to make the "fundamental transformation" actually happen. Can we minimize such damage that Obama by impeaching him now?! Dishonoring him completely, as we did with Nixon?! Or, will America let him leave office with the distinction of an elder statesman?!?! Able to continue his damage to America from the palatial home and lifestyle that the American people will still be paying for? Or? Worse yet! He declares Martial Law! Suspends elections!! Stays in office by force!!! And indefinitely?!?!?!?!?!?! A certain, Second American Civil War which Obama hopes he can squelch with the invaluable aid of both the United Nations and Red Chinese troops. Meanwhile, what would Presidential Candidate Donald Trump and his pal, Vladimir Putin neither a fan of The New World Order what would they be doing in response to the American Second Civil War?! The only way we find out is if Obama is stupid enough to try and declare martial law. Or, even worse yet, run for a third term, rig the election and win, thus provoking this seemingly inevitable, Second American Civil War. All the alternatives, beyond simply leaving office and the White House quietly: an Obama demand for a third term, his declaration of martial law, the civil war that would inevitably follow?! Jehovah, God of the Holy Bible, Israel and most of what is left of the Free World?! That Almighty has never been short of alternatives in dealing with the likes of Barack Hussein Obama, his compatriots in a New World Order the Bushes and the Clintons his real but bizarre pair of Gods, Allah and Karl Marx, his real religion of narcissism, or any other idea of Evil that the Devil Lucifer has always been able to offer the likes of Barack Hussein Obama. The Last Big One, World War III, is inevitably on the way. Just remember, in the end, The Good Guys, Not The Smart Guys, The Good Guys win! Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com. He can be found on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@MGMoriarty. Home My big fat Greek real estate buying spree: Russian investors flock to Greek fire sale By D. Sidney Potter "Hell is empty and all the devils are here." Don't quote me on that, but it was either William Shakespeare or William Clinton who said that. All kidding aside, it was the former and is one of his most famous lines from The Tempest. And more particular, the second act of the infamous play that all mother-in-laws are modeled after. The purpose of this prelude is not to demonstrate with the pen on how snarky this writer thinks he is, but to highlight an otherwise boring subject matter home sales on the European continent, with a little bit more sizzle and snap! Ergo, this writer wishes to emphasize the distasteful love/hate relationship and the downright dichotomy that exists between the Russians and Greeks and it's very direct relationship to single family home investor buying trends that have recently taken shape in Greece. According to a recent tid bit of high brow journalism from CNN, in one of their typical 100 word news stories found online that masquerades as serious journalism much the same way Anderson Cooper and Don Lemmon are the Walter Cronkite's and Edward B. Murrow's for the super awesome millennial generation who act as if they invented the transistor radio (and sex). The reason for the real estate stampede! Well, according to CNN, "Brave investors are hunting for cheap island villas in Greece in the hopes that the crumbling economy will boost their bargaining power." And according to Forbes in connection to real estate buying opportunities a perennial news reporting agency if ever there was one, noted the following: "The news from Greece over the past few years has been quite dire as the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. However, despite seemingly desperate economic conditions there is a real estate market where many properties are being purchased at a healthy rate in particular purchases by Russian investors." When you think of Russians' digging into their pockets to nab the pick of the liter for Greek luxury properties, you might view this as a match made in heaven. Or if you were to stretch your imagination, it is what real estate brokers define as the perfect supply and demand' equation. A motivated buyer and an equally desperate and motivated seller who could ask for anything more! Almost like a crack addicted whore looking for her next high and a more than willing John willing to supply the juice. (Super sad, but super true). Bottom line, most luxury home investors from other countries are very much concerned that investing in Greece is a losing proposition, given that the country will be eventually out of the Euro even though they dodged a bullet on this last year. However, the Russian investors have demonstrated a stronger inclination, at least according to the Forbes article, to put their money into the Greek real estate market irrespective of an imminent economic collapse. Wherein Russia, always above board who were at least implicitly honest enough to state to the world what their intentions where with Ukraine, but not before taking over parts of the country by fiat. (Who needs enemies like these when they're conveniently situated next door along your border?). Russians', and by that, existentially meaning Vladimir Putin who never meet a former USSR satellite country he didn't already dislike, likely looked upon their own dastardly deeds coupled with single family home purchases from their wealthy elite as a form of job creation in Greece. Without exception, this is a country who so desperately needed it and still does. Desperate times cause for desperate measures. D. Sidney Potter has worked in the real estate and mortgage industry since 1992 and is also a contributing writer to iReport (CNN), DigitalJournal and Newsvine.com (apart of MSNBC). Home Hard charge and hard truths By Daniel M. Ryan What you're about to read is a capsule history of the first hot alternative-cryptocurrency presale coin of 2016. Its take was smaller than Lisk's or WAVES', but it garnered a lot of Bitcoin for its time. It's also the one, thanks in part to the altcoin bear market turning into a bull market, which notched up more than a 25X gain for its fortunate pre-buyers if they sold at the right time. Its fate, both in its high times and its more recent times, shows the wrinkles facing any grassroots tech project in Altcoin Land. New Beginnings And Old Repute On October 21st, 2015, yet another day in the final episodes of a now-gone bear market, the regulars haunting the Announcements board of Bitcointalk saw a new pre-announcement for a then-vapourware cryptocurrency called IoTA. It's intended to be an Internet-of-Things cryptocurrency with a lightweight blockchain and no transactions fees, so as to facilitate micropayments. Intended primarily for machine-to-machine transactions, its aim is to bring monetization to the Internet of Things. In a later article published by CoinTelegraph, the co-founder illustrated this possibility by giving these use cases: micro-payments for information on electricity consumption, heat consumption, spot weather data, etc., so as to incentivize folks to provide huge sets of very granular data for better Big Data analytics. He also mentioned more homely use-cases, like a smart fridge ordering a new bag of milk or a smart toothbrush ordering a new tube of toothpaste. The original post of the IoTA pre-announcement was made by a fellow who goes by the nick Come-from-Beyond. In the teeth of the gloomy days of late 2015, his proposal got a lot of attention because Come-from-Beyond was the #1 heavyweight in the Nxt community in its earlier days. He had already backed away a little from the Nxt world to pursue Jinn: its goal is to build a massively-parallel microchip using balanced ternary logic in which the three possible values are (-1, 0, 1) The "trit" framework is actually quite old, but it was left by the wayside when binary logic became standard. Come-from-Beyond became interested when he found out that balanced-ternary logic has advantages over standard binary: namely, more compact representation and less difficulty in constructing a massively parallel processor. As indicated above, it's the latter advantage that got him interested in balanced ternary. He did sell Jinn tokens with a partner on the Nxt Asset Exchange, and they did well even though a new hardware innovation was a high bar. It seemed to be humming along, but it got bogged down by delays; Come-from-Beyond's partner Triangle got defensive when flak developed. Less than a month before IoTA was announced, someone on the Jinn thread noted that Come-from-Beyond was working on a whitepaper that would prove to be for IoTA. Triangle dealt with some flak by getting his dander up: "Every single time an update has been made and the delays have been explained. You can be as impatient as you like, that is 100% your right, but do not accuse us of lying. Plans change in start-ups all the time, especially something that is primarily experimental hardware. This is why we quit giving out dates, people read too much into it and think it means something special when it gets delayed a week or two. Welcome to the hardware world, often delays last months and years." He ended his rebuttal with these words, which would prove to be a foreshadow: "You already got a 5x ROI, so make your choice, it's only yours to make. We will continue doing what is needed for Jinn to succeed in the real world long term, not for the tokens to 5x or 10x or 15x in the short-term." As he got more pushback on the Jinn official thread, his defensiveness became a continual stance particularly with regard to the delays. Eventually, the thread dribbled away as attention shifted to IoTA; the Jinn project remained in "stealth mode." His second-last message on the subject was upbeat: There is constant progress, but like I said earlier this month we will postpone any announcements until after IOTA is launched. After that a big summary will come and we will exit stealth mode. IOTA spawned as a necessity for our vision of the Jinn project, so it only makes sense to first introduce IOTA and then Jinn afterwards. For anyone still wondering why it's "taking so long": it's really not. We're trying to redo computing itself here, it's not an easy task. Even big companies spend years developing their new iterations, Jinn is no iteration, it's a brand new paradigm, so patience is important. Also we *have* to be very secretive about the inner workings and standings of the Jinn project simply due to the fact that once we launch out of stealth and we demonstrate what we have invented and created we are going to get noticed by people who got tens of billions at their disposal, we're already enough in a 'David vs Goliath' situation, let's not give Goliath more advantages:) But his most recent post as of the time of this writing started off with a bit of the bitters: .From a personal perspective I feel that the Jinn project has shown that you can indeed crowdsource resources in a decentralized fashion, but also shown that there are indeed 'side effects'. I used to be a huge champion of crowdfunding and crowdequity, but over the last 1.5 year I have come to dislike it more and more on a general level, as you end up with A LOT of inexperienced people who does not understand what they purchased, as well as pure speculators that does not care one second for the project itself and will act accordingly, which consumes A LOT of time and energy for the people holding the crowdfund, time and energy MUCH better spent on the project itself. The Jinn project is about reinventing computing, not asset trading, thus having further liquidity of JINN tokens is not something we're focused on. In fact at the moment it's something we oppose due to necessary steps in the future to identify JINN token holders and enforce the profit-rights they hold. I will do a blogpost on this entire experience some time in the future to inform other people who are contemplating going the route we did with JINN. I know from other projects that a lot of the concerns I have with this kind of thing is shared by others who has gone through and conducted the same 'experiment' Of note is the fact that Triangle took all the flak. Come-From-Beyond's reputation suffered no blemish. His golden reputation, not just in the Nxt world but also in the Bitcointalk world, did a lot to get a lot of interest in IoTA before its crowdsale. So did the promised new technology. The associated whitepaper, here in a PDF file, quickly generated a lot of discussion and some critiques. Of course, this being the cryptocurrency frontier, a troll or two showed up. Thus, Come-from-Beyond who had set up a moderated thread stated that he'd "heavily use my moderation privilege against trolling, insults and offtopic." But he did not moderate skeptical posts about the promised technology. As a result, he soon got a lot of posts from technical-oriented folks who soon dominated the thread. Many of them were interested in IoTA's "secret sauce" that would enable it to be a proper cryptocurrency without using a standard blockchain. This "secret sauce" is a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) or "tangle." A DAG is a set of nodes and paths such that the paths are one-way (there's a start and finish) and there's no path from a node to itself except the "trivial path" (zero-length path). This Tangle is not a blockchain, although it can act like a blockchain when the "load" (number of unconfirmed transactions) is low. One major difference consists in how the Proof-of-Work is distributed. Each node must approve two prior transactions when it makes a new transaction: this proof-of-work sets up the paths. In this way, the tangle grows through time and older transactions gain more and more legitimacy (weight) over time. This process of growing the tangle, which assigns older transactions greater cumulative weight, takes the place of blockchain confirmations. As pointed out in IoTA's whitepaper, the use of a DAG for a cryptocurrency is not a new idea. This point allayed always-sensible fears about using new and unproven cryptography for a new cryptocurrency. For verification purposes, the direction of the Tangle points back in time to the genesis block. Every unverified transaction forms a "tip" in the graph, or a node which has only paths from it; there are no path leading to it until or unless it's verified by a new transactional node. Once these "tips" are verified, which is entailed by one or more new transactions forming new tip(s) built on top of the current tip, then they're a regular part of the graph. Their cumulative weight grows along with the Tangle. As noted above, a node making a new transaction requires some Proof-of-Work: it has to select two earlier transactions to (re)verify. These can be unverified transactions tips - but they don't have to be. In answer to some vetting in the thread, Come-from-Beyond said that the default programming for nodes would select tips whose prior txs have the greatest cumulative weight. This feature makes it a lot harder for a malicious node to construct a private Tangle with a double-spend and induce the other nodes to treat its bad-Tangle as the new legitimate one. Since all cryptocurrencies are networking software at heart, there's always a chance of the nodes coalescing around a new ledger. Typically, these "re-orgs" are innocuous. As explained in that above-mentioned interview, IoTA is primarily designed for machine-to-machine transactions. In Come-from-Beyond's original announcement post, the benefits listed by implication were: less centralization; quantum-resistant cryptography; micropayments; robustness (ease of self-healing) in the face of a network partitioning; integrating transactors with transaction verifiers; no hard cap on transactions per second; minimal hardware requirements; ease of adding Tangle pruning that prevents blockchain bloat. These features were put in a framework-list of conventional cryptocurrency's limitations. Also mentioned was the feasibility of hooking up a tangle to another cryptocurrency's blockchain, thus making it act as a checkpoint enforcer, a sidechain or a trusted oracle that supplies data to a blockchain or smart contract residing in a blockchain. Later, he discussed one wrinkle of this new design: there has to be a continual flow of transactions for the network to be secured or else checkpoints or overlaid PoW had to be added. This wrinkle, he explained as going hand-in-hand with IoTA being used by machines micro-transacting with each other. To get the network off the ground, he planned for checkpoints every five minutes. In addition to his prior reputation, he showed a gift for community-building. Shortly after unveiling the hashing function to be used for IoTA, he invited everyone to help out by asking all and sundry to click a link to a hashrate-measurer for this algorithm and report the rate plus the device used. Within two days, he got more than two pages' worth of responses. He then led them to download an address generator and instructed them on what kind of seed was necessary to generate a new IoTA address. To assure that each person would get the IoTA he was owed in exchange for the Bitcoin he sent, Come-from-Beyond explained that each pre-buyer had to send the Bitcoin in a custom transaction which had to include a signed message with 132 characters derived from the seed. As a means of building community support for the then-upcoming pre-sale, it was shrewd. Encouraging folks to take a hands-on role about two weeks before the pre-sale had even begun not only generated interest in the pre-sale itself but also got them interested in helping test the various iterations of IoTA during the testnet phase. The actual crowdsale began on November 25th and was announced on the main thread three days in advance. That announcement was made by Come-from-Beyond's partner in the venture, a fellow who took the Bitcointalk nick iotatoken. He identified his role as "management and marketing." As the presale announcement drew near he was upbeat and largely cheerful when rebutting skeptics. Except on one point, which appeared in the thread on October 28th and 29th. He was responding to a veteran poster who fretted that the pre-sale of IoTA constituted the sale of unregistered securities as according to the Howey test, which specifies four criteria to determine if a different vehicle is a thinly-disguised security. Now, it is true that pre-sales were typically called "IPOs" back in 2013 and 2014, but the use of the term was essentially metaphorical. When looked at from one angle, a "cryptocurrency IPO" bears as little relationship to an initial public offering as does an "iron horse" to a Clydesdale. But the proliferation of alternative-cryptocurrency exchanges and the inevitable speculation did make the question ambiguous when the Howey test was factored in. To this question, iotatoken offered this full response: I have no problem with people being skeptical of ICOs and we're not selling securities so it's not in our place to give anyone advice on whether or not they want to buy IOTA tokens. It's essentially a software sale, the iotas being the software, either you want some or you don't. If you don't, that is 100% fine by us. If you do want some, you are free to purchase them. It's really that simple and so we are immune to this kind of criticism because we are completely open and honest here. We are not selling anyone a dream or promising an investment that we guarantee will grow 10x. All of this will be settled by the market which we have no control over. What we do promise is that we will launch IOTA which has been in development for quite some time already and all the technical aspects are available for people to review and we are here to answer those questions. Anyone that does not find this fair should just exit the discussion. In context, it contained the same old self-confidence in IoTA and its prospects. But, like those above-quoted responses of Triangle, this response would prove to an adumbration. Excitement, Bubble, Toil The crowdsale began on November 25, 2015, five weeks after the original pre-announcement. Given that the altcoin market was at the end of being ravaged by a powerful bear, it was inevitable that the first response was derisory and was followed by several other disparagers in the first few pages. But the preparation shown in the pre-announcement phase did pay off: iotatoken and Come-from-Beyond managed to prevail despite a tough crowd. The two did go out of their way to be above-board. Both made it repeatedly clear that they would not receive a single IoTA; they would only receive the proceeds from the pre-sale. In altcoin jargon, they would receive no "pre-mine" of IoTAs. They also conducted the crowdsale in the rubric of a registered Norwegian company. The company was named Triangle, which established that iotatoken and the above-quoted Triangle of the Jinn project was one and the same person. Also, instead of a first-day pre-buyer bonus, their highest early-bird bonus percentage prevailed for a full nine days. As a favour to the Jinn token holders, the duo said that Jinn tokens could be swapped for IoTAs at a valuation of 0.0063 BTC per token. There was a condition, though: a Jinn holder had to send his entire balance of Jinn to be eligible for the swap. This condition was intended to make the swap act as a kind of buy-out for folks who were impatient about the progress of Jinn. Also, they changed their original signed-message plan to a simpler one: each sender would be asked to send a custom-generated very tiny amount of Bitcoin to the presale address in order to verify that he was in fact the guy who was entitled to receive the IoTA. This care, plus the already drummed-up interest, meant that IoTA had a vibrant and supportive community as of the crowdsale's go-time. Come-from-Beyond and iotatoken were far from the only ones to tell the deriders that they were aught but trolls. This support, plus quick answers to non-trollish questions, meant that the crowdsale did drum up a lot of funds. So did the promise of IoTA, particularly the promise of quantum-resistant cryptography. As the pre-sale neared the end, Come-from-Beyond relaxed the address-generation policy so that it no longer required 81 characters and unveiled the new generator with a friendly contest to find the seed that generated the longest English word in the generated IoTA address. Just before that unveiling, and after a few hints that showed he was already working on the software, he promised "We will create the UI". This promise would prove to be prefatory. Right after the presale ended, iotatoken invited everyone to join a dedicated Ryver channel to discuss IoTA. Come-from-Beyond revealed that he was rewriting the code so as to make it harder to clone: stripping out the default algorithm that chose the tips to confirm and replacing it with a special co-ordinator node; this node would also help secure IoTA in its early days. Given this change, he modified his original promise to have "something in the wild" " by Christmas [2015]". But the good feeling was so pervasive, everyone understood. The total proceeds from the crowdsale were 930.96250857 BTC and 41297 Jinn. As of back then, the BTC take was a big amount. 999,999,999.999999999 IOTAs were to be split between the intrepid pre-buyers. While the pre-sale was still running, iotatoken presented evidence that a big-league outsider was interested in IoTA. Wanxiang Blockchain Labs Sponsorship Program, an incentivizer of open-source crypto solutions, awarded IoTA a grant of $4,000 from its Blockgrant #1 Genesis round of prizes. The four grand was contingent upon the team launching both the beta and the full version of the cryptocurrency plus forming a foundation for it. Two days after that announcement, iotatoken token posted: "I already got several big names lined up for calls to explain IOTA and how it can impact their business." These announcements, plus the overall good feeling, resulted in IoTAs moving upwards in price and volume after the presale closed. The first announced after-presale OTC offer was a Nxt Asset on its Monetary System called 1000IOTAs. It was unveiled on December 30th, or a week after the crowdsale had closed. Like the name says, it offered a thousand IoTAs per Nxt token bought. Its offering price was somewhere between three and four times the presale price. At that price, it sold out. Around that time, the pre-sale buyers started claiming their prizes. Early in the New Year, iotatoken urged folks to join the Ryver chat and mentioned that it now contained several rooms for different focuses on how to use IoTA. It was the first time in the thread that he alluded to avoiding the bystander effect. This urging reinforced an earlier exhortation: We'll be able to give date soon [for the launch], right now everyone that bought IOTA, the software, needs to start thinking about what they are going to do with that software. This is the most important part right now and is what we've setup a Ryver for. There are some interesting brainstorming going on and some interesting projects that are adopting it, but I am still getting way too many PMs regarding when it's going to be added to exchanges etc. A lot of these inquiries are from people who want to acquire IOTAs, but also quite a few who is clearly speculating. We're going to deliver the software, but if you're not going to use it, it wont be of any value. Remember this and start thinking about use cases. The above statement, particularly the subtle distancing from "speculators," would be another one that foreshadowed. But on that happy January 4th of 2016, it was cheered and taken as further confirmation that IoTA was destined to be huge. The Ryver rooms filled up. In the good feeling, Come-from-Beyond said that its mainnet would be ready to go within ninety days of the pre-sale's end: late February. Before that statement, the second Nxt token backed by 1000 IoTAs per token appeared: KIOTA. The first tranche sold out, in two weeks, for 300 Nxt each. The next was listed at 375 and was bought out in two days. The final batch at 450 Nxt sold out just as quickly. Soon, there were several others, whose tokens were exchangeable for one IoTA each, which sold at even higher prices and were sold out. The OTC market was on a roll, which turned good feelings into better feelings. The first testnet beta version, iota-0.0.1.zip, was released on January 25th.Although its release prompted some hyper-bullish silliness, a sober voice kicked in: "IPOs typically double quickly and then trickle back to initial price, followed by a slow decline to some fraction of initial offering. Not everything can do an ETH." This statement was reflective of the bear-market pessimism that was only beginning to lift. No-one really knew what was coming. Come-from-Beyond kept toiling away like the workaholic he is. By February 4th, he was up to version 0.3.0 and iotatoken was promising a "beautiful" user interface provided by a professional team of designers. Come-from-Beyond then proposed an improvement in the lower-level design that, he said, would shift the inner accounting from inputs/outputs to account balances. Doing so would make the underlying program more lightweight, but it would push back the mainnet launch somewhat. (After extensive testing, he later dropped it.) The first responses he got were somewhat cheerleadery assents, but he then got some pushback. At least one person objected on technical grounds, worrying that the change would make consensus harder to achieve, but more than one got ticked off because they were expecting IoTA to go into mainnet and be listed on at least one exchange. Part of the problem was that the impatient folks weren't very technically gifted. They were also in a small minority, making up no more than a small gaggle of loud pipsqueaks. But, one of them the loudest was also a reliable volunteer. The next day, Come-from-Beyond had to step in and censor two posts with abusive content. A salty old hand who weny by the nick AltcoinUK started up an unmoderated IoTA thread; it quickly devolved into a series of arguments, accusations and rebuttals from the IoTA duo. But ironically, the tempest also called forth some feedback from people with deep technical knowledge which was exactly what Come-from-Beyond was looking for. Despite no shortage of volunteers, the ones with the deep knowledge had been scarce leaving Come-from-Beyond worried that he was shouldering too much of the technical work alone. In the meantime, a big holder of IoTA offered some at a price of 1000 satoshis or more than seven times the pre-sale price; he implied that he had sold most of what he had to offer at that price. This got some pushback, after which iotatoken put his foot down: Now to the real reason I am replying: please do not pollute the threads with speculation, make a separate thread about it. IOTA is an IoT tech project, not a pump and dump investor scheme. How much is the software going to be worth on launch? No one knows yet. How much will it be worth 1-2-3 months post-launch? NO ONE knows, and if they claim they do they are lying. This vacuous speculation only derails the real purpose of IOTA: real life IoT applications. This is the *only* thing that should be in focus here. If you only want to buy IOTA because CfB coded my vision with Mtchl's formulas and math prowess and you got no other vision for IOTA yourself, then I don't even see why you even want to buy it? You clearly have no idea what it even is and only look for a quick buck, sorry but we have explicitly stated repeatedly that we do not care about such leechers. Shortly afterwards, a friendly mainstay of the community created a speculation thread - which turned into an OTC buy-and-sell thread. It was here that the new altcoin bull market, as reflected by the jump of an earlier pre-sale called Augur rising to 3-4 times its pre-sale price as of mid-February, gave the IoTA price its second oomph. As winter turned into spring, IoTA climbed up to more than twenty-five times its pre-sale price and these prices prevailed for some two-digit-BTC buys. But it wasn't just the bull market. On February 12th, iotatoken announced the "Exciting News" that IoTA would be partnering with Chain-of-Things: a new "think tank and blockchain IoT consortium." Other announcements of this sort followed. But there were a series of announcements that took a different tack And Trouble While the OTC price kept climbing, the launch of IoTA's mainnet kept getting pushed back and that rise in price got a rise of something else out of iotatoken. On February 27th, someone asked "when release?"; Come-from-Beyond answered, "If you need Iota for M2M [machine-to-machine] then it can be usable right away (in test mode though)." That same day iotatoken revealed that he had to fire the GUI designer he had earlier hired for non-performance, as part of an answer that both complained about AltcoinUK's carping and implied he and Come-from-Beyond were supplying a GUI wallet as a courtesy to the pre-sale buyers. The next day, in answer to another questioner who politely asked for an updated timetable but firmly said there were delays, he amplified Come-from-Beyond's above "test mode" response : Listen, what you are a part of is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are saying that there is no delay on IOTA, because there isn't. IOTA exist, you can try it out yourself, but IOTA is back-end IoT technology, not a glossy front-end GUI. The GUI has been delayed, yes, but this does not impact IOTA the technology you purchased. It's really important that people understand this. We're not going into early stage beta, we're going into a very tested and optimized beta, so no real time has been lost. But if you guys keep going on and on and on about it, yes it will look like IOTA got issues to the uninformed, which is obviously not good, but more importantly: not true. The same day, he introduced an official IoTA forum and said that he would deprecate his participation in the thread in favour of the forum; he didn't. The toil continued, as did a pattern of defensiveness. But that was laid aside for the next big announcement: a partnership with Microsoft Azure's Blockchain As A Service project. At that time it was not widely known that Microsoft was eager to get lots of cryptocurrencies on Azure, so its admission criteria were fairly relaxed. So naturally, the OTC market went gaga over the news. Around then, Come-from-Beyond agreed to act as escrow for over-the-counter trades and to change the entries in the genesis block to include the new address generated for the buyer. The Azure news got some community members digging up address of a few cloud-hosting heavyweights to contact about IoTA and brought back the old excitement. Emotional Blowup As some of you may have guessed, the release date kept getting pushed back. That second user-interface designer, bruited as a bigwig in his field, proved to be just like the first one: he reneged. So did a third. The team had to resort to asking a fourth, a fellow who's well trusted in the Nxt community but also's been under previous time pressures. As I write this, IoTA still does not have a GUI: you can read iotatoken's explanation here. Interestingly, those delays did not affect the price on the OTC market, which kept going up and up until March. After achieving a price greater than 3000 satoshis on the various Nxt Assets, the direct-to-BTC price settled down to about 2,500 satoshis. Only in the last month or so has it started to sag a bit. The mainnet has not been released as yet. Come-from-Beyond is working as hard as ever, and the testnet versions are regularly upgraded with new features added. For example: it got a more secure address generator, multisignature capability and was remade to more easily act as an oracle for smart contracts. IoTA did go to 0.7.0, 0.9.0, 0.9.x: as of the time of this writing, the latest version is 0.9.22. But, the 1.x signifying release is still out of reach. From time to time, Come-from-Beyond says that progress will be speeded up if he has more (technically astute) testers. A pre-sale that jumps up many times always attracts a certain type of character. Early in March, a feller with a bad case of the regrets jumped in demanding a second pre-sale. He was rebuffed, but after he went on his way iotatoken's mission-statement commentary changed subtly: We chose to do zero premine in order to ensure that the community has to take care of itself and not be dependent on us. We could've easily set aside 5% premine and used these funds to sustain IOTA, but this would make us liable, which we're not. Instead IOTA lives or dies by the community, as such an open source decentralized technology should. If you hold IOTA and you want IOTA to succeed, you must accept that you should probably donate some of your iotas towards whoever you see got an interesting project going on, setup some bounties, do some marketing, whatever. I joined Nxt in 2013 and lead the first organized effort to get Nxt on the right track, this was December 2013. I, together with 2 others got over 70 volunteers to sign-up and we laid out the plans for how we could leverage Nxt's unique position as a superior technology with a great time window on other projects like Bitshares and Ethereum. What happened? The Nxt whales refused to put up bounties. Some even promised bounties, but then didn't pay when work was delivered. This created a completely toxic environment and frankly disincentivized a lot of people from helping Nxt. Why would you want to work for free to make someone else rich, someone that doesn't even care to compensate you for the work you do? This was the biggest problem in Nxt.In IOTA, as the architect and manager I am already the 'de facto' name and face of IOTA publicly and I presume that will continue to be the case as long as I lead the project and negotiations. I don't mind this, my intention was always to be public. IOTA is a project for the real world, not some esoteric 'movement' in the shadows. BUT like I have stated numerous times: it's important that IOTA does not depend on just one or a handful of guys. This is why CfB describes himself as a "simple coder", he does not want this hero status because it will lead people to draw irrational conclusions based on his activity within IOTA. You cannot have one or a couple of people be larger than the project itself, once that happens it is way too vulnerable, which makes companies weary of adopting it.At the moment my name is all over the internet tied to IOTA due to several interviews and articles, which is good since I am in the middle of negotiating a lot of potential opportunities for IOTA, but I cannot be the sole representative, it leads to IOTA being way too reliant on me, which is very unhealthy. Another issue is the fact that travelling to tens of conferences per year cost A LOT and they usually overlap in time, and usually there is very little reason for there to be the same person at every event, the presentation itself is what matters the most, so having different representatives in different regions of the world is undoubtedly the most efficient in terms of time and cost. But don't worry, I have no plans of stepping down my involvement in ensuring IOTA's success, on the contrary, IOTA is important for our vision for our hardware start-up too. Not worried about it. The sale of iota software was nowhere near similar to Nxt ICO. We know from history that the real number of actual Nxt whales was less than 50 and they all put in just a few dollars. This was *pure* speculation. IOTA already got a half a million dollars of real money put into it by hundreds of people, this creates a strong incentive to ensure that IOTA gets real adoption. Nxt whales basically bought a lottery ticket and thought that there was no limit to how much it would be worth, so they refused to put up any bounties out of pure greed. This was also a very different time, VC money wasn't going into crypto yet, big companies hadn't even heard of 'blockchain' yet, all the other coins were copypastes etc. etc. This time around the world is very receptive to this technology and the ecosystem has matured a lot. Are there still greedy speculators? Of course, but even those who simply bought for speculation know now from experience that sitting on the tokens without doing anything is the worst strategy possible to get profits. To tie this back to the Nxt situation: if the whales had even just put up 10% of their holdings they would've grown the Nxt ecosystem probably 100fold and ensured that their remaining 90% would have become SO MUCH MORE valuable than it ever became. So the Nxt whales essentially lost countless millions on their greed. But I also believe it will be different this time because IOTA is a project with a clear market, clear roadmap and clear vision. Nxt was not. Nxt just had some peripheral ideological basis of decentralization and a ton of features that were just created without anyone ever asking: "Who is going to use this?" In IOTA we only care about the real life solutions. In those sweet days of March, these statements were welcomed and taken as evidence of good stewardship. But if you read them carefully, you'll see that he was not only asking community members to volunteer their time but also some of their bought IoTA on the grounds that Nxt went into a tailspin because of "greed." As the zero-premine statement indicated, he and Come-from-Beyond had reserved no IoTA for themselves (other than what they bought with their own funds.) So when spring came along and he saw a need for a Foundation, bounties, etc., he called on the community to donate. All for the sake of IoTA becoming a community coin instead of a coin dependent on the devs. It seemed that those 930.96250857 collected from the presale would not be enough. (Some of it, iotatoken later disclosed, was used to pay Norwegian VAT.) In mid-March, pledges to the future IoTA foundation started trickling in: theese were big pledges from big holders. Around the same time, there was a call for contributions to a secret "Big Deal" that iotatoken was careful enough to describe as a "Potential opportunity" when he first announced it. The rumour mill coalesced around this fill-in: some cryptocurrency heavyweight or big company wanted to buy a whale's stake of IoTA 25 million, or about 2.5% of the whole supply - at well below the then-prevailing OTC price but well above the pre-sale price. Pledges then tended to be dual: some for the Foundation, some for the "Big Deal." But there was some pushback, in part because of the secretive nature of the "Deal." All of those prefatory, adumbratory, foreshadowy moments came to a head when a character by the name of troleroo accused iotatoken of engaging in "emotional blackmail" (in my opinion, on iffy grounds.) When he saw it, iotatoken got his dander up: Emotional blackmail, are you serious? I am simply stating the truth. What do you think cause adoption and appreciation of value of a software/token? It's hard work and strategic decisions. Look at Nxt, it was groundbreaking in numerous ways, yet achieved 0 real life adoption due HODL 4 LIFE mentality permeating the entire community from late 2013 to late 2015 My comment about not wanting to hear any complaints come from experience, people tend to complain when they realize they have lost an opportunity, which I don't want to hear. Again: you are 100% free to make your decision, but you can't just sit there expecting to hodl your tokens and magically people will want to buy them for some dreamed up value without some BIG things happening. I present the community with big opportunities, if it doesn't take it (fortunately so far the overwhelming majority do take it) it can't complain either. A moment was reached. Subsequent to that confrontation, iotatoken recurrently claimed that someone had accused him of being a blackmailer. By May, It became part of his standard routine when he faced more pushback. The pledges still rolled in, but a line had been crossed. The day after, in a response to an informational question, he announced that the goal for funding the Foundation was 50 million IoTAs or 5% of the supply: "I am the founder of the foundation. At the moment we're still quite a while from establishing the foundation at reached 50 million. Though we got quite some time left before launch, so I'm confident we can reach the goal." Again, in the happy 25-bagger days of early spring, this goal was taken in stride. The pledges for both the Foundation and the Big Deal kept rolling in. In mid-April, Come-from-Beyond adjusted the supply to make it 2,779,531 times larger. The new supply was 2,779,530,283,277,761 iotas. The reason given was, 2,779,530,283,277,761 made for a nice elegant number in ternary base-3: 111,111,111,111,111,111,111,111,111,111,111. What this new supply meant for a future exchange listing was easily answered: any exchange need only trade it in megaiotas (1 million), gigaiotas (1 billion) to get a reasonable Bitcoin price per unit. This too was greeted with approval. The community spirit did largely hold up, but iotatoken had hardened his position. In response to complaints, he fell into the habit of saying it was up to the community to make IoTA into a winner. Initially, he stood by this on the ground that both he and Come-from-Beyond were working day and night on the project. One of his suggestions was community members should get the word out about IoTA in the hope that it would attract one or more startups into using it. These suggestions pointed to the fact that there were no shortage of volunteers per se, but there was a real dearth of volunteers with professional programming skills and experience. Amateur techies are the folks who are testing the various versions right now. In this sense, "the community" did step forward. But the occasional complaints about the delays kept coming in as IoTA was left behind by bigger projects. On May 4th, when Liskers were excitedly waiting for the launch and >WAVES' pre-sale got rolling, a complaint asking for "better communication" got a lengthy response which included this snippet: "So repeat after me: you bought IoT software, therefore I assume you need it for some IoT project, or at least a distributed ledger project. I assume this of every IOTA holder, and when it's clear a holder does not have any intention of using IOTA for anything other than piggybacking on other people's blood, sweat and tears for quick profit, well then I tell them to fuck off, because we were 100% open and crystal clear on this from day 1.I want to say that OF COURSE I understand that a significant portion of IOTA holders got no tech skills, no tech plans for IOTA and may not even care about IOTA beyond pure profit. I'm a realist and a pragmatic person, but I don't OWE you anything, so when people start using terms like 'blackmail' when we ask people to do (testing) what has always been obvious would be needed, I will respond with "Fuck off". If you JUST want to profit from IOTA, fine, it's a choice you've made, I can't and won't stop you, but you could AT LEAST do the sane (even from a purely egoist speculator POV) thing and not just sit around complaining, but at least contribute something to the COMMUNITY." Thisforthrightness got a few folks wondering if IoTA would be better off with a community manager with thicker skin, which of course iotatoken blew off. Inevitably, this hardened attitude along with the insistence that "there has been no significant delays" crept into the pledges for the IoTA Foundation. Before he got into that, iotatoken did leaven his posts with apparent softeners like: "As the leader of the project I accept wholeheartedly that any frustration will be directed at me, that is inevitable and fair." But the overall tone of his hard-arsed missives increasingly made those mollifiers look like boilerplate. He did show a pattern of following in someone's wake when it came to escalating his demandingness. On May 20th, a community member named bubbletea called for a vote on whether or not 5% of all IoTAs should be allocated to the foundation automatically. This suggestion, iotatoken demurred from because he interpreted it as a contract-breaking premine. But the suggestion plus his demurrage did reinforce his "you bought software, not an investment" stand. He also took bubbletea's proposal as leverage to harden up once again: This is also why I am 100% entitled, in fact obligated by logic, to tell anyone who thinks for a moment that we're working for them for free, or that we owe them anything other than the software they bought, to 'fuck off', because we did not allocate a single iota for ourselves, so as to avoid that exact scenario. I won't mention names right now, but one such example is one guy in this very thread complaining, while he is advertising and selling iotas at a 20x ROI from our work, without having done anything himself. When May turned into June, he stated that he would not be putting the same effort into IoTA that he used to put in unless the Foundation was adequately funded. By this time, it had been more than five months since the crowdsale's end. The testnet versions kept being churned out, but there was still no estimated time for the livenet. This new escalation got some pushback, again, but it also was received with a lot of support from the community members who had stuck with IoTA. On June 11th, iotatoken responded with some uncharacteristic humour to someone asking once again when IoTA would launch for real: "Hehe, but why would you randomly assume a date?" Lessons Learned We can look at the development of IoTA as a real-time experiment on what it takes to build an innovative "community" coin. So far, the results are: If you offer a compelling vision, come up with an altcoin that either produces huge quick profits, and show that you're working hard yourself, you can be quite demanding of the community members and most will rally around you. As long as you have that "hook" in #1, the bulk of the community members will accept delays, pushbacks and will not hold you to your prior words. So long as you try, and push yourself & other hard, almost no-one will ask if you've bitten off more than you can chew. With few exceptions, the folks that are not satisfied will not raise a ruckus: they'll just quietly move on. The bystander effect is real. As Conservatives, we all know this: the "edge case" of the bystander effect is found in socialism. It can be reduced by project (or commune) leaders who work like Stakhanovites but it's still there. It can also be reduced somewhat by getting demanding, but doing so is perilous unless you yourself set a good example. This example-setting includes both hard work and showing some intermediate results that the community can get excited about. This experiment of a sort is still in progress; it's still testing iotatoken's hypothesis that Nxt is fading away because of speculators' and whales' greed. If he's right, then IoTA will succeed. But if not, the new sphere of innovative altcoins will again learn some old-school lessons. You can probably think of a few. Daniel M. Ryan, as Nxtblg, is shepherding the independently-run Open Audi Initiative Prediction Market Shadowing Project. He has stubbornly assumed all the responsibility and blame for the workings and outcome of the project. Why the Islamic State is in retreat By Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah Two years ago the Islamic State's blitz assault across a swath of land as big as the United Kingdom led to the establishment of the self-proclaimed Caliphate and fragmented both Syria and Iraq. The recent defeats inflicted on the Islamic radicals, however, have considerably shrunk the areas under IS control in both countries. ISIS children conducting executions of 25 Syrian soldiers in ancient Palmyra, in July 2015 Indeed, under the pressure of the Syrian-Iranian-Russian-Hizbullah coalition on the one hand and the American-Western-Iraqi and moderate-Arab coalition on the other, the Islamic State suffered enormous losses in manpower (according to the French minister of defense, 20,000 IS fighters have been killed during the last year) and more significantly, the IS has lost an estimated 40 percent of its territory, conquered only a few months earlier. The most symbolic loss was Palmyra, retaken by Bashar Assad's loyal forces with the active assistance of Russian air power and the infantry support of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Afghani paramilitary units. Likewise, in Iraq, the regime scored a huge success in recapturing key cities that had fallen under the IS control such as Ramadi and Beiji. Currently, the Iraqi regime is trying to reconquer a key Sunni city, Fallujah, north of Baghdad, while continuing to prepare an assault on Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. A Kurdish coalition, reportedly assisted by U.S. Special Forces, is approaching the outskirts of Raqqa in Syria, the unofficial capital of the IS Caliphate. Based on the latest advances of loyalist troops and militias both in Syria and Iraq, some fundamental questions arise: What has changed today that did not exist two years ago? What were the factors that brought that change in fortune, and what are the future prospects for the Islamic State? Are we witnessing the "beginning of the end" of the Islamic State, or is it a prelude for a resurgence in a new geographic area such as the failed state of Libya or even in a torn state such as Afghanistan? Bearing in mind the Obama administration's policy of "No boots on the ground," the two main anti-Islamic State coalitions (one American-led, the other Russian-led) succeeded to contain the advance of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq due to the following factors: Attrition: Since August 2014 when the U.S.-led coalition initiated its air campaign against the IS the coalition has succeeded in eliminating thousands of Islamic fighters, but more important, it has struck and shaken the command and control structure of the IS. Notorious field commanders (such as Jihadi John, "the butcher," of the western hostages) and leaders of the Islamic state (red-haired Izzat Ibrahim) have been killed in the air campaign. "Caliph" Abu Bakr el-Baghdadi might have also been seriously injured in the course of a drone attack. The addition of the Russian task force was but another element in eroding the IS ability to withstand the growing firepower of its enemies. Due to the immense capabilities of U.S. and Russian intelligence, the self-proclaimed Caliph and the different commanding officers of his troops are constantly on the run knowing almost for certain that the moment they reappear they become the favorite targets of Coalition airpower. Bearing in mind that part of the IS commanding pyramid (according to some estimates up to 25 percent of the commanding officers) were former officers of Saddam Hussein's army, their disappearance has taken a severe toll on the control and command structure of the IS. Their replacements suffer from lack of field experience and military education. Finally, considering the different assessments given by the Coalition spokesmen, it is believed that at least 20,000 IS fighters have been killed in the last two years, a very heavy burden to carry. Problems of manpower: The Islamic State's ideology, territorial successes, and Western opposition were ingredients in the melting pot that attracted thousands of volunteers who flocked from all over the globe to join the ranks of the IS and other radical organizations. However, two years after the birth of the Caliphate, countries from where IS volunteers were recruited have adopted new rules of conduct and restricted the flow of volunteers to the IS. Aware that most of the fighters would come back to their native countries and become members of dormant IS agent cells, Western countries as well as countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon now closely monitor the Salafist organizations in their countries to prevent illegal acts and the departure of volunteers to the IS. Of late, Turkey has also hardened its lenient attitude towards allowing volunteers to cross its borders to Syria and Iraq. Finally, the bestial and barbaric videos spread via social media brought about a different reaction. While some recruits were hypnotized by the cruelty of the IS, the majority opted not to identify with the goals of the IS and refrain from being recruited by the IS professional networks. As a result, the Islamic State has been recruiting children and youngsters to its ranks hoping to fill the void created by the death of thousands of its fighters and the impossibility of replacing them with substantial "fresh troops" coming from abroad. Firepower inferiority: When the IS took control of Mosul, it captured hundreds of Iraqi vehicles, military equipment, tanks, APCs, self-propelled artillery, ground-to-ground missiles, and ammunition. The same applies to areas conquered by the IS in Syria where most probably the IS also captured Syrian chemical ammunition that was not evacuated from areas where the weapons were hidden. Even though the IS obtained several warplanes, they were obsolete and in no state to fly. This reality on the ground favored the IS as long as the coalitions (U.S. and Russian) did not intervene with their airpower. Unwilling to put "boots on the ground," the U.S. and Russians chose to crush IS forces and the rebels from the air, targeting their equipment, logistics, leaders, and military formations. The choice was to pinpoint the strikes, sometimes through the use of laser-pointing artillery officers on the ground rather than using the strategy of "carpet bombing," making the process of elimination rather slow and sometimes ineffective. However, in the long run, the U.S. and Russian effort worked. Having no adversary in the skies and no weapon systems capable of downing combat planes, after two years the coalitions succeeded to reduce IS military power and to force it into retreat. The IS had no answer to the air campaign since the aircraft flew and bombed from above the ceiling of performance of its shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles. However, on the ground, the IS adopted impressive anti-personnel and vehicle mining tactics and excelled in urban warfare in which a small number of combatants could withstand large regular army formation. Instead of a viable air force, the IS used human bombers to penetrate the defenses of its enemies, a tactic used in Kobane, Tikrit, Palmyra and dozens of other places. These tactics did not change the balance of forces on the ground, and the IS kept fighting while in a position of inferiority, which in turn translated to the loss of territory it suffered in recent months. Diminishing financial support: When IS captured Mosul, it looted Mosul's central bank. According to various reports, the IS absconded with $500 million. There have also been reports of the IS sale of oil via Turkey and even selling directly to the Assad regime. But air attacks on oil truck convoys have cut into IS earnings. IS obtained funds from trafficking stolen antiquities, but efforts are made to block the sales. It seems that of late their principal income comes from monies raised in private circles in the Gulf States that are insufficient to maintain the structure of the state. Taxes imposed on IS citizens, as well as fines imposed on non-Muslims, are another source of revenue, insufficient as well, but they still allow maintaining the basic infrastructure of the IS. In the last year, however, U.S. aircraft unleashed a new and effective financial measure: blowing up the Islamic State's coffers. In January 2016, the American-led coalition claimed to have destroyed nine depots where "tens of millions of dollars" were stashed. These controls on the flow of monies carried out by the United States are forcing the IS to find alternatives. Without that money, the IS cannot recruit new fighters nor pay monthly salaries to its fighters and administration. The question remains: how long can the IS sustain such a basic economy without pushing its citizens and fighters to despair and desert. The Islamic State's Retreat Two years after the proclamation of the Caliphate and after stunning victories in Iraq and Syria, the IS is retreating. Still, the IS has made some territorial progress in northwest Syria (Aleppo, Homs) and in Syria's far east (Hasakeh). However, those key cities have not fallen to the IS while the Islamic State's two main cities Mosul and Rakka have become the next targets of the coalition forces. It is clear that as long as coalition leaders will not engage in ground forces, Rakka and Mosul will remain IS bastions until local forces (Syrian and Iraqi) dislodge the IS from its strongholds. This is not about to happen in the coming weeks or months. It is a process that will eventually occur, slowly and painstakingly. Therefore, the Islamic State is looking for alternatives: Libya is a place of choice because of its disintegration. However, its closeness to Europe makes a takeover by the IS improbable because it will inevitably ignite a military reaction. Europe and the United States are already discussing their reactions. Afghanistan and Yemen may be alternatives for the IS. Recently the IS has been fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, which it opposes ideologically, and has taken control of remote areas in the eastern part of the country. In Yemen, the IS has found a fertile environment in the Governorate of Hadramaut. A cautionary note: One should not underestimate the IS appeal in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. A symbiosis has been created between the IS and local radical Muslim organizations whose aim is to spread havoc and install an Islamic Caliphate in lieu of the acting regimes. In the meantime, the Arab nation-states have the upper hand at a very high price. They must be vigilant and aggressive in their pursuit of the destabilizing forces that threaten their regimes. An eventual defeat of the IS will not translate immediately into an elimination of the radical Muslim movements. Such a development can occur only when the Arab nation-states will offer a viable ideological alternative and champion a socio-economical welfare doctrine. Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence. Home Can (should) America trust Hillary Clinton with nuclear codes, other sensitive state secrets? By John W. Lillpop Although panicked liberals in the mainstream media and disenfranchised members of the Republican establishment have joined forces in trying to portray Republican Donald Trump as a hot-headed, ill-informed bully lacking the judgment and temperament requisite for serving as Commander-In-Chief, the ongoing criminal investigation into Hillary Clintons performance while Secretary of State poses substantial questions concerning her fitness for high office as well. Specifically, as reported in the Wall Street Journal: At the center of a criminal probe involving Hillary Clintons handling of classified information is a series of emails between American diplomats in Islamabad and their superiors in Washington about whether to oppose specific drone strikes in Pakistan. The 2011 and 2012 emails were sent via the low sidegovernment slang for a computer system for unclassified mattersas part of a secret arrangement that gave the State Department more of a voice in whether a Central Intelligence Agency drone strike went ahead, according to congressional and law-enforcement officials briefed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe. Some of the emails were then forwarded by Mrs. Clintons aides to her personal email account, which routed them to a server, she kept at her home in suburban New York when she was secretary of state, the officials said. Investigators have raised concerns that Mrs. Clintons personal server was less secure than State Department systems. The still-secret emails are a key part of the FBI investigation that has long dogged Mrs. Clintons campaign, these officials said. They were written within the often-narrow time frame in which State Department officials had to decide whether or not to object to drone strikes before the CIA pulled the trigger, the officials said. Law-enforcement and intelligence officials said State Department deliberations about the covert CIA drone program should have been conducted over a more secure government computer system designed to handle classified information. This failure indicates a fundamental flaw in Clinton's ability to serve responsibly, in addition to her well-documented moral and character defects. Clearly, Hillary Clinton should not be trusted with the US nuclear codes and other vital state secrets routinely made available to the president as part of his role as Commander-In-Chief . Rather, Hillary should be a stay-at-home granny where she can conduct Clinton Foundation rip-offs and fraud on insecure servers and e-mails to her hearts content, without endangering the lives of 330 million Americans! John W. Lillpop is a California-based writer. 2016 John W. Lillpop Home CSU Professor Maria Fernandez-Gimenez has received the Order of the Polar Star from the government of Mongolia, the highest civilian honor the country presents to foreign nationals. Fernandez-Gimenez was selected due to her long-standing commitment to researching Mongolia's extensive rangelands and how natural and human communities are adapting to ecological and economic change. Fernandez-Gimenez has been researching rangeland systems and the pastoralists they support in Mongolia since the early 1990s, when she was among the first Western scientists to conduct research in Mongolia following the country's transition from communism to a market-based economy. She joins the rarified air of previous recipients including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Sen. John McCain. According to a decree from President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, Fernandez-Gimenez received the honor due to her contributions to improving the knowledge of experts concerning animal husbandry in steppe regions, protection of natural resources and capacity-building. "Receiving this award is a tremendous honor," said Fernandez-Gimenez. "It means that the research and education we have done since 1993 is recognized and appreciated by the Mongolian government and the people of Mongolia. It also demonstrates the continuing importance of rangelands and pastoral livelihoods to the nation." "On a personal level, it is humbling and very meaningful to be nominated for this award by the people with whom I have worked so closely for so many years -- Mongolian researchers, students and herders," Fernandez-Gimenez added. Rangelands support wildlife, people's livelihoods Mongolian rangelands, which make up three-quarters of the country, are critically important not only to people's livelihoods, but also support globally important wildlife populations. The systems are sensitive to ecological change, including a rapidly warming climate, and those changes can have dramatic impacts throughout the country's herding families. Throughout her time in Mongolia she has focused on understanding ecological changes driven by livestock grazing and climate change, as well as herder livelihoods, management practices and policies that influence behaviors over time. Since 2008, Fernandez-Gimenez has led the landmark Mongolian Rangelands and Resilience Project, or MOR2. MOR2 compares management practices of traditional herders with those of community resource groups that developed in the mid-2000s. The team assessed Mongolian systems' resilience to climate change, strengthened linkages between natural resource science and Mongolian policy makers, and built scientific capacity to analyze the dynamics of complex natural-human systems. Other CSU faculty involved in the effort include Professors Robin Reid, Steven Fassnacht and Melinda Laituri. Better integration of social, ecological issues Tungalag Ulambayar, a Mongolian national, earned her Ph.D. working on MOR2, and has seen firsthand the impacts the project has had on the nation. "We've learned the connections of social and ecological issues of rangeland systems," she said. "Previously we were thinking of separate fields, and there was not integration. The project also brought forward the theoretical back-up of community-based rangeland management, and helped build a lot of confidence at different levels of MOR2 team members and partners." MOR2 involved dozens of Mongolian scientists, some of whom were fairly early in their careers. "We brought an interest in collaboration and science as a democratic process with us," said Fernandez-Gimenez. "These were new concepts to many of our Mongolian colleagues who came from a much more hierarchal scientific background." Throughout MOR2 three Mongolian scientists, including Ulambayar, earned doctoral degrees at CSU, further increasing Mongolia's scientific capacity. Their time studying on the main campus in Fort Collins provided great opportunities for further cultural exchange that, while challenging at times, was valuable, according to Fernandez-Gimenez. "The deep relationships that emerged between our group and collaborators in Mongolia facilitated an appreciation of different ways of knowing," she said. The project took place in communities throughout the country, creating unique logistical challenges. "We call it the Mongolian miracle," said Fernandez-Gimenez. "We collected data throughout a developing country without strong infrastructure, and so many things could go wrong. But Mongolians never give up and they never say no. They figure out a way to get the job done." Outreach to impacted communities essential Perhaps the strongest aspect of the project was the outreach back into communities where data collection took place. "We absolutely did not want to leave the communities we worked in out of the process after our field work was finished," she explained. "The outreach components to the project were vital." Through regional workshops, the research team helped communities combine the scientific findings of MOR2 with their local knowledge, using scenarios to consider their futures and how to adapt to unpredictable environmental and economic changes. Fernandez-Gimenez carried out high-level research meetings that included people from all aspects of the project, helping inform national policy direction and facilitate capacity-building. A radio call-in show hosted by Ulambayar sought to reach herders across the country. "We've influenced the national dialog about policies related to rangelands and community-based management, in addition to the trajectory of how donors and non-governmental organizations are working and what they focus on," Fernandez-Gimenez explained. "We have raised a great deal of awareness about rangelands' importance, and what they mean to the country." Together with Robin Reid, director of CSU's Center for Collaborative Conservation, and anthropology Professor Kathy Galvin, Fernandez-Gimenez is working to develop framework that calculates the conservation return on investment from community-based rangeland management, drawing on data from MOR2 and other datasets from Mongolia and the U.S. Fernandez-Gimenez is a professor in the Department of Forest and Rangelands Stewardship in the Warner College of Natural Resources. The MOR2 project received funding from the National Science Foundation, the World Bank, USAID, the Ford Foundation, the Center for Collaborative Conservation and the American Center for Mongolian Studies. ### A prototype system, designed as a test for a planned array of 5,000 galaxy-seeking robots, is taking shape at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Dubbed ProtoDESI, the scaled-down, 10-robot system will help scientists achieve the pinpoint accuracy needed to home in on millions of galaxies, quasars and stars with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) planned for the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. ProtoDESI will be installed on the Mayall Telescope this August and September. The full DESI project, which is managed by Berkeley Lab, involves about 200 scientists and about 45 institutions from around the globe. DESI will provide the most detailed 3-D map of the universe and probe the secrets of dark energy, which is accelerating the universe's expansion. It is also expected to improve our understanding of dark matter, the infant universe, and the structure of our own galaxy. The thin, cylindrical robots that will be tested in ProtoDESI each carry a fiber-optic cable that will be precisely pointed at selected objects in the night sky in order to capture their light. A predecessor galaxy-measuring project, called BOSS, required the light-gathering cables to be routinely plugged by hand into metal plates with holes drilled to match the position of pre-selected sky objects. DESI will automate and greatly speed up this process. Each 10-inch-long robot has two small motors in it that allow two independent rotating motions to position a fiber anywhere within a circular area 12 millimeters in diameter. In the completed DESI array, these motions will enable the 5,000 robots to cover every point above their metal, elliptical base, which measures about 2.5 feet across. That requires precise, software-controlled choreography so that the tightly packed robots don't literally bump heads as they spin into new positions several times each hour to collect light from different sets of pre-selected sky objects. "The main goal of ProtoDESI is to be able to fix fibers on actual objects and hold them there," said Parker Fagrelius, who is managing the ProtoDESI project at Berkeley Lab. Fagrelius is a UC Berkeley graduate student who is also an affiliate in the Physics Division at Berkeley Lab. ProtoDESI's robots, assembled at University of Michigan and then shipped to Berkeley Lab, are positioned far enough apart that they won't accidentally collide during their initial test run. While DESI's robots will primarily target galaxies, ProtoDESI will use mostly bright, familiar stars to tune its robotic positioning system and ensure the system is accurately tracking with the motion of objects in the sky. Mounted next to the positioners is a custom digital camera known as the GFA (for guide, focus and alignment) that will remain targeted on a "guide star"--a bright star that will aid the tracking of other objects targeted by the robot-pointed fibers. Several Spanish research institutions in Barcelona and Madrid are responsible for this GFA system. "We'll choose the fields we look at quite carefully," Fagrelius said. The robots will initially fix on isolated sky objects so that they don't mistakenly point at the wrong objects. In addition to the 10-robot system, ProtoDESI is equipped with a set of 16 light-emitting rods--shaped similarly to the robots--that project small points of blue light onto a camera to calibrate the positioning system. The completed project will include 120 of these devices, called "illuminated fiducials." The fibers carried by the robots each have a core that is 107 microns (millionths of a meter) wide. After repositioning, the fibers will be backlit to project points of light on a camera that can help to fine-tune their individual positions, if needed. Yale University is supplying this fiber-view camera and also the fiducials. Fagrelius will join a team of researchers at Kitt Peak's 4-meter Mayall telescope in early August to run through a checklist of ProtoDESI tests. About 28 researchers from nine institutions in the DESI collaboration are working on ProtoDESI, including six Berkeley Lab researchers. Researchers will test the auto-positioning system by slightly shifting the pointing of the telescope and the fibers--a process known as "dithering"--to see how the components readjust to find the correct targets. A digital camera will measure light streaming in from the fibers to determine if the robots are properly targeting sky objects. "ProtoDESI will show us how the software and positioners are working together," Fagrelius said. "All of the things we learn along the way from ProtoDESI will be built back into the plans for DESI's commissioning." Some measurements and pre-testing with ProtoDESI will be conducted at Berkeley Lab even before ProtoDESI moves to the Mayall telescope, she added. The full robotic array planned for DESI will be segmented in 10 pie-wedge-shaped "petals" that each contains 500 robots. The first petal will be fully assembled by October at Berkeley Lab and tested at the lab through December. The multi-petal design will allow engineers to remove and replace individual petals. Each robot will have an electronic circuit board and wiring, and on the final DESI project each robot's fiber-optic cable will be spliced to a 42-meter-long fiber-optic cable that will run to a light-measuring device known as a spectrograph (ProtoDESI will not have a spectrograph). The completed project will feature 10 high-resolution spectrographs, that will measure the properties of objects' light to tell us about how fast faraway galaxies are moving away from us and their distribution, and will help us trace the universe's expansion history back 12 billion years. Joe Silber, a Berkeley Lab engineer working on DESI systems that include its robotics, said the fiber-optic cables are among the most sensitive components in DESI. "If there is too tight of a bend or you stress the fiber, it will degrade its performance," he said, noting that there have already been tests of the repeated bends and twists to the cables caused by the movement of the robots. Over the lifetime of DESI the ends of the fiber-optic cables will be turned almost 200,000 times, he said. Installation of DESI is expected to begin in 2018. Fagrelius said she looks forward to the ProtoDESI run at Mayall. "September will have a lot more clear nights than August. There should be four weeks of decent time that we can get on sky," she said, and other tests can be conducted even when viewing is obscured by weather. ### DESI is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science; additional support for DESI is provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Division of Astronomical Sciences under contract to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory; the Science and Technologies Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; the National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico, and DESI member institutions. The DESI scientists are honored to be permitted to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du'ag (Kitt Peak), a mountain with particular significance to the Tohono O'odham Nation. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit http://www.lbl.gov. DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov. At this year's award ceremony for the national "Jugend forscht" competition in Paderborn, five young researchers had two reasons to celebrate: Not only did they take first place in various fields, they were also awarded the Europa-Preis of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). The aim of this award is to prepare them specifically for the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS), which will be held in September in Brussels. This year the DFG's Europa-Preis was presented to two individual researchers and one research team. Seventeen-year-old Tassilo Schwarz, a pupil at the Bavarian Johannes Heidenhain Gymnasium in Traunreut, received the DFG award in addition to the "Federal Chancellor's Prize for the Most Original Work". In the field of mathematics/IT, he developed a technique for identifying undesirable drones and determining their location. At a time in which the use of small drones is constantly increasing, the software written by Schwarz can track drones' flight paths precisely and is able to differentiate them from passing birds. Ivo Zell from the Schloss Hansenberg boarding school in Geisenheim achieved first place at national level in the field of physics, and was awarded the Europa-Preis for his research into fuel-efficient aeroplanes: He built a "flying wing", an aeroplane without fuselage, wings or tail assembly. The 17-year-old schoolboy and passionate model plane enthusiast optimised the flying qualities of this special plane using measuring devices he designed himself. The members of the successful research team were Christian Scharf (18), Friedrich Wanierke (17) and Paul Rathke (18), pupils at the Albert Schweitzer Gymnasium in Erfurt. They won the Europa-Preis in addition to their national win in the field of chemistry. They created tiny ruby monocrystals in a laboratory. To do this, they experimented with various melting and crystallisation processes, analysed the synthesising process and the powder particles and crystals obtained. The Europa-Preis was presented to the five "Jugend forscht" award winners in Paderborn by DFG Vice President Professor Dr. Wolfgang Ertmer. With this prize, created in 2010, the DFG aims to emphasise the importance of internationalisation for a successful research career. The winners will receive 1,000 euros in prize money, and the opportunity to participate in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS), which will be held this year from 15-20 September in Brussels. In the run-up to this event, the young researchers will be tutored by mentors, who will also accompany them to Brussels. The mentors are selected by the DFG from a pool of early career researchers who are supported by them, in the Emmy Noether Programme, for instance. This has the additional aim of facilitating the development of lasting networks between generations of researchers. ### Further Information Media contact: DFG Press and Public Relations, Tel. +49 228 885-2109, presse@dfg.de You can find further information on the Europa-Preis here: http://www.dfg.de/en/funded_projects/prizewinners/europa-preis You can find information in German on all of this year's "Jugend forscht" prizewinners here: http://www.jugend-forscht.de One of the major obstacles with treating cancer is that tumors can conscript the body's immune cells and make them work for them. Researchers at EPFL have now found a way to reclaim the corrupted immune cells, turn them into signals for the immune system to attack the tumor, and even prevent metastasis. Macrophages are cells of the immune system that protect the host from invading pathogens. But in cancer, macrophages can be "hijacked" by tumors, and made to support their malignant growth and spread. This is a drawback for a major cancer treatment, immunotherapy, which turns the body's immune system against the tumor. EPFL scientists, working with colleagues at the Roche Innovation Centers in Munich and Basel, have now identified a molecular "switch" that can convert the "hijacked" macrophages into cells that can stimulate the immune system to fight the growth and spread of cancer. The work is published in Nature Cell Biology. "Traitor" macrophages Along with attacking foreign pathogens like bacteria, macrophages also help the body's organs develop and its wounds heal. Their own behavior is fine-tuned by small molecules that they produce, called microRNAs. When a tumor begins to develop, macrophages attempt to block its growth. But often tumors hijack them and convert them into what are known as "tumor-associated macrophages", or TAMs for short. Now corrupted, TAMs use their microRNAs to shield the tumor from the patient's immune system, helping it grow and metastasize. This phenomenon is common across many tumor types. It is one of the major obstacles in treating cancer, and often leads to a poor prognosis for the patient. Reprogramming macrophages Michele De Palma's team at EPFL found how to reclaim TAMs. The researchers genetically modified TAMs to remove their ability to produce microRNAs. As a result, the TAMs were reprogrammed dramatically. Instead of protecting the tumor, the TAMs now signaled the presence of the tumor to the immune system, triggering attacks against it - and did so very efficiently. Using a bioinformatics approach, the researchers found that the most likely culprit was a small family of microRNAs, called Let-7. This offers a more specific target: blocking Let-7 microRNAs may help instruct the TAMs to stimulate anti-tumor immunity. Interestingly, the researchers observed that reprogramming TAMs also stops cancer cells from leaving the primary tumor. This could mean that the approach can also prevent tumor metastasis, the most threatening aspect of cancer. Moreover, the researchers found that the re-educated TAMs could enhance the anti-tumoral efficacy of certain cancer immunotherapies, some of which are already approved for patients. However, more work is needed to translate all these findings to actual therapies, especially since there is currently no way to block the Let-7 microRNAs selectively in TAMs. But De Palma's lab is now working with bioengineers at EPFL to design drugs that can target the Let-7 microRNAs specifically in the TAMs. Therapeutic opportunities Some of the most promising cancer treatments are immunotherapies, which are based on provoking or enhancing the patient's immune response against their tumor. "The most exciting finding was that TAM reprogramming greatly improved the efficacy of immunotherapy," says Michele De Palma. "Our results in experimental models of cancer suggest a new therapeutic strategy based on inhibiting the microRNA machinery - or the Let-7 microRNAs - specifically in the TAMs, which may unleash the power of mainstream immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors". ### The first authors of the study are Caroline Baer, who recently obtained her PhD from the Doctoral Program in Biotechnology and Bioengineering (EDBB), and Mario Leonardo Squadrito, senior post-doc, both in De Palma's lab. The study involves a collaboration of EPFL's Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) with the Roche Centers for Innovation at Basel and Munich. It was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Fondation pour la lutte contre le cancer, the Swiss Federal Commission for Scholarships for Foreign Students, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG. Reference Baer C, Squadrito ML, Laoui D, Thompson D, Hansen SK, Kiialainen A, Hoves S, Ries CH, Ooi C-H, De Palma M. Suppression of microRNA activity amplifies IFN--induced macrophage activation and promotes anti-tumor immunity. Nat Cell Biol. June 13, 2016. DOI: 10.1038/ncb3371. In the race towards the discovery of a ninth planet in our solar system, scientists from around the world strive to calculate its orbit using the tracks left by the small bodies that move well beyond Neptune. Now, astronomers from Spain and University of Cambridge have confirmed, with new calculations, that the orbits of the six extreme trans-Neptunian objects that served as a reference to announce the existence of Planet Nine are not as stable as it was thought. At the beginning of this year, the astronomers K. Batygin and M. Brown from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, USA) announced that they had found evidence of the existence of a giant planet with a mass ten times larger than Earth's in the confines of the Solar System. Moving in an unusually elongated orbit, the mysterious planet will take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to complete one revolution around the Sun. In order to arrive at this conclusion, Batygin and Brown run computer simulations with input data based on the orbits of six extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs). Specifically, these ETNOs are: Sedna, 2012 VP113, 2004 VN112, 2007 TG422, 2013 RF98 and 2010 GB174. Now, however, brothers Carlos and Raul de la Fuente Marcos, two freelance Spanish astronomers, together with scientist Sverre J. Aarseth from the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), have considered the question the other way around: How would the orbits of these six ETNOs evolve if a Planet Nine such as the one proposed by K. Batygin and M. Brown really did exist? The answer to this important question has been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS). "With the orbit indicated by the Caltech astronomers for Planet Nine, our calculations show that the six ETNOs, which they consider to be the Rosetta Stone in the solution to this mystery, would move in lengthy, unstable orbits," warns Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. "These objects would escape from the Solar System in less than 1.5 billion years, -he adds-, and in the case of 2004 VN112, 2007 TG422 and 2013 RF98 they could abandon it in less than 300 million years; what is more important, their orbits would become really unstable in just 10 million years, a really short amount of time in astronomical terms." According to this new study, also based on numerical (N-body) simulations, the orbit of the new planet proposed by Batygin and Brown would have to be modified slightly so that the orbits of the six ETNOs analysed would be really stable for a long time. These results also lead to a new question: Are the ETNOs a transient and unstable population or, on the contrary, are they permanent and stable? The fact that these objects behave in one way or another affects the evolution of their orbits and also the numerical modelling. "If the ETNOs are transient, they are being continuously ejected and must have a stable source located beyond 1,000 astronomical units (in the Oort cloud) where they come from", notes Carlos de la Fuente Marcos. "But if they are stable in the long term, then there could be many in similar orbits although we have not observed them yet". In any case, the statistical and numerical evidence obtained by the authors, both through this and previous work, leads them to suggest that the most stable scenario is one in which there is not just one planet, but rather several more beyond Pluto, in mutual resonance, which best explains the results. "That is to say we believe that in addition to a Planet Nine, there could also be a Planet Ten and even more," the Spanish astronomer points out. International race to discover Planet Nine These studies are only a few of the countless international peer-reviewed articles published or in preparation about the search for Planet Nine with the help of N-body simulations and other techniques. Batygin and Brown are going to present soon new models of the orbit of the mysterious Planet Nine with up-to-date data. On the other side of the Atlantic, in France, Professor Jacques Laskar's team from the Paris Observatory is also attempting to be the first to compute the position of the hypothetical Planet Nine in order to then observe it. This situation is reminiscent of the discovery of Neptune, in which the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier was the first to "discover" a new planet using laborious hand calculations based on the positions of Uranus; later, the German astronomer J. G Galle directly observed it. "If Neptune was the first planet discovered using pen and paper, Planet Nine could be the first to be discovered using entirely computerized numerical calculations." notes de la Fuente Marcos, although he points out that the results of the French team are based on residuals in the tracking data from the Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn, caused by the presence of the hypothetical planet, but NASA has denied it, suggesting that it could simply be statistical noise in the signal. Could Planet Nine be an exoplanet? One of the most revolutionary studies from recent months, also with computational simulations and participation of French institutions, was led by the researcher Alexander Mustill from Lund University (Sweden), who raised the idea that Planet Nine may have come from outside the Solar System, that is to say, that it could be an exoplanet. His hypothesis is that around 4.5 billion years ago, our then young Sun "stole" this planet from a neighbouring star with the help of a series of favourable conditions (proximity of stars within a star cluster, a planet in a wide and elongated orbit,...). Other scientists, however, believe that this scenario is improbable. The debate is on. What all astronomers do agree on is the importance of closely tracking the motions of the extreme trans-Neptunian objects to be able to adjust the calculations that should lead the way to the location of Planet Nine, without forgetting that the best evidence will be its direct observation, a race which several research teams are fighting to win. ### References: De la Fuente Marcos, Carlos; de la Fuente Marcos, Raul; Aarseth, Sverre J. "Dynamical impact of the Planet Nine scenario: N-body experiments". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 460 (1): L123-L127, 2016. C. de la Fuente Marcos and R. de la Fuente Marcos. "Commensurabilities between ETNOs: a Monte Carlo survey". MNRAS Letters 460 (1): L64-L68, 2016. An industry-driven consortium has developed a national roadmap designed to chart the path to large-scale manufacturing of cell-based therapeutics for use in a broad range of illnesses including cancer, neuro-degenerative diseases, blood and vision disorders and organ regeneration and repair. Over the past decade, new and emerging cell-based medical technologies have been developed to manage and possibly cure many conditions and diseases. In 2012 alone, these technologies treated more than 160,000 patients. Before these treatments can be more widely available, however, the cell therapeutics community will have to develop the capability for advanced, large-scale manufacturing of high-quality and consistent living cells. To advance that goal, the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) have launched the National Cell Manufacturing Consortium (NCMC), an industry-academic-government partnership that recently released the National Roadmap for Advanced Cell Manufacturing. Establishment of the consortium and development of this 10-year national roadmap was sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The roadmap was announced June 13 at the White House Organ Summit. "The cell manufacturing roadmap effort is mission critical to establish the United States as the world leader in cell therapy manufacturing," said Greg Russotti, Ph.D., vice-president of technical operations for Celgene Cellular Therapeutics. "Cell therapies offer exciting next-generation opportunities that may help patients live longer and better lives, reduce the burden on health care and benefit society. Producing sufficient quantities of high quality cell therapies so that patients have access will not be possible without significant advances in the field of cell therapy manufacturing. Industrial, academic, and government stakeholders collaborated to construct this roadmap, which delineates our path to U.S. leadership in the emerging field of cell therapy production." Development of the roadmap required strong support and involvement from more than 60 representatives from industry, government and nonprofit organizations. "MilliporeSigma (formerly EMD Millipore) supports consortia, like the National Cell Manufacturing Consortium, that bring together industry, innovators, clinicians and academics to advance the field of cell therapy," said Martha S. Rook, Ph.D., head of novel therapies for the company. "The consortium's cell manufacturing roadmap is a valuable resource to help identify and address challenges in cell manufacturing." While research has demonstrated the value of cell therapies - using adult stem cells and immune system cells - improvements are needed to make these cells broadly available to the medical community. "The aspirin you buy today from one pharmacy is essentially the same as the aspirin you buy from another pharmacy, but cell-based therapies may have different efficacy depending on the source and manufacturing processes," said Krishnendu Roy, Robert A. Milton Chair and professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "There are established ways to quickly assess the efficacy and safety of small-molecule drugs that are acceptable around the world. We want to develop and establish similar processes for therapeutic cell manufacturing." Established in 2014 through a NIST Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMTech) grant, the NCMC is an industry-driven consortium including cell manufacturing experts from industry, academic research, clinical good manufacturing practice (GMP) centers, government agencies and private foundations. Georgia is positioning itself to be at the forefront of this new and growing market with its research institutions playing a vital role in the consortium. Researchers from Emory University, Georgia Tech, and the University of Georgia are contributing to the ongoing work of the NCMC. The Atlanta-based Marcus Foundation recently made a major gift to Georgia Tech to establish the Marcus Center for Therapeutic Cell Characterization and Manufacturing (MC3M). The new center, the first of its kind in the United States, will develop processes and techniques for ensuring the consistent, low-cost, large-scale manufacture of high-quality living cells used in cell-based therapies. "The NIST grant kick-started our efforts to develop a national roadmap for cell manufacturing" said Michael Cassidy, president and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance. "The cell manufacturing industry is an emerging and growing industry with annual revenues of over $1 billion. Completion of this roadmap positions Georgia at the forefront of one of the most exciting new initiatives of this century." ### For more information on the National Cell Manufacturing Consortium and to view the roadmap, visit http://cellmanufacturingusa.org. About Georgia Research Alliance The Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) works to expand research and commercialization capacity in Georgia's universities to recruit world-class talent, seed new companies and transform lives. For over twenty-five years, GRA has worked to strengthen the university research enterprise in Georgia by working in partnership with the University System of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Economic Development to create the companies and jobs of Georgia's future. Visit http://www.gra.org for more information. About Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology is widely regarded as one of the world's top technological research universities. Ranked 7th among public universities by U.S. News & World Report, Georgia Tech has more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and conduced $726 million in research during 2014. Visit http://www.gatech.edu for more information. Nearly 15 percent of opioid-naive patients hospitalized under Medicare are discharged with a new prescription for opioids, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. Among those patients who received a prescription, 40 percent were still taking opioids 90 days after discharge. The rate of prescription varied almost twofold between hospitals, with some hospitals discharging as many as 20 percent of patients with a prescription for opioids. Despite growing concern about the public health costs of long-term opioid use, little has been known about how often the painkillers are prescribed. Even appropriate short-term prescriptions can lead to long-term use and, potentially, abuse. "Every day, 44 people in the United States die from prescription drug overdoses, especially opioid overdose," said Anupam Jena, lead author of the study, the Ruth L. Newhouse Associate Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. "It's critical that we understand hospital prescribing patterns so that we can make sure we are prescribing these medications safely and effectively without fueling this deadly crisis." Jena said that the researchers were especially interested to see whether there was a relationship between Medicare incentives to encourage hospital pain management and the rate of opioid prescriptions by hospitals. Currently, hospitals that score well on patient-reported pain metrics receive cash bonuses. Could this policy encourage hospitals to overprescribe opioids? While the study, which analyzed hospitalizations under Medicare in 2011, did find that the hospitals that scored highest on pain control measures also had the highest rates of opioid prescribing, the link was quite modest and did not explain most of the variation between hospitals. While the study did adjust for differences in patient mix, diagnosis and other clinical factors, Jena said, it was possible that some hospitals had a high percentage of patients with more severe pain. However, he said it was more likely that the observed differences in prescribing rates were related to differences in how individual doctors prescribe or to differences in the prescribing culture of different hospitals or geographic regions. Short-term prescriptions for opioids, while well-intentioned, can lead to long-term use. "Opioids have an important role to play in specific forms of acute pain, but the high risks of long-term use mean that adherence to proper prescribing guidelines is critical," said study co-author Pinar Karaca-Mandic, associate professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health Division of Health Policy and Management. Dana Goldman, professor and the Leonard D. Schaeffer Chair and Director of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California also contributed to the study. This research was funded by the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH Early Independence Award 1DP5OD017897-01, National Institute on Aging (grants 5PO1AG033559 and 5K01AG036740) and a University of Minnesota Academic Health Center faculty development grant. ### About Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 10 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in hospital-based clinical departments at 15 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Hebrew SeniorLife, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear/Schepens Eye Research Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and VA Boston Healthcare System. MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- Raelene Wouda's passion for improving cancer treatment starts with our four-legged friends. Wouda, Kansas State University assistant professor of clinical sciences, is conducting clinical trials to treat cancers in dogs, cats and other companion animals. When pet owners bring their dogs, cats, horses and other animals to the College of Veterinary Medicine's Veterinary Health Center for treatment, Wouda and the Oncology Service can offer groundbreaking new treatments often at a lower cost to pet owners. Wouda also is able to study important topics, such as improved diagnostic testing, monitoring approaches and innovative treatment options, including anti-cancer vaccines, t-cell transfer, combination chemotherapy and nanoparticle drug formulations. She has recently published her research in Veterinary Comparative Oncology and the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. "Although surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and, more recently, immunotherapy have improved patient outcomes, many cancers still do not have a long-term cure," said Wouda, a clinical veterinary oncologist. "These clinical trials are a crucial step." But Wouda's research benefits humans, too. Many cancers in animals -- especially dogs -- are similar to those in humans, which means that the diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and response to treatment are also similar. "Any research that we do in our patients has the potential to provide important information for how the disease can be better diagnosed, monitored and treated in human patients," Wouda said. "That's what I would like to do with our research. I would like to continue to improve outcomes for our veterinary patients and, by extension, help human cancer patients." Companion animals offer several research advantages. Wouda's clinical trial program focuses primarily on dogs because of the similarities between their cancers and human cancers, such as osteosarcoma, melanoma, lung cancer and urogenital cancers. Osteosarcoma, for example, is both clinically and genetically almost identical in dogs and human pediatric patients. Dogs also live with us and are exposed to the same environmental factors. Additionally, because dogs age faster than humans -- one dog year is equivalent to seven human years -- their diseases progress faster, which is a practical advantage for rapidly evaluating a new treatment's efficacy and clinical benefit, Wouda said. "We get clinical answers more quickly in dogs," Wouda said. "The benefit of a particular therapy becomes evident in dogs more rapidly compared to people, and because of this we can preserve research and development finances, but more importantly, we save valuable time and resources." Animal clinical trials are structured similarly to human clinical trials and are tightly regulated and overseen. Wouda works with Mary Lynn Higginbotham, associate professor of clinical sciences, their graduate students and oncology technicians as well as the Veterinary Health Center's referring veterinarians to conduct these clinical trials. They also collaborate with human medical researchers to discuss how the research can best be applied in the field of human oncology. "For many pet owners, cancer is a terminal diagnosis for their beloved family member," Wouda said. "These studies provide owners an opportunity to trial a cutting-edge therapy for their pets at a reasonable price. Moreover, owners participating in these clinical trials take comfort and are pleased to know that they are helping to achieve better treatments and outcomes for pets that may be diagnosed with cancer in the future." Wouda has received previous and current funding from the university's Johnson Cancer Research Center, the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Foundation, the Mark Derrick Canine Research Fund, the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence and Zoetis Animal Health. ### Led by Lehigh University professor Joshua Pepper, team includes nearly 40 members in 10 countries across 4 continents; Measurements by Swarthmore faculty and amateur astronomer in Portugal, helped verify new planet Kepler-1647 Crowdsourcing is used for everything from raising funds to locating the best burger in town. The practice of enlisting a large group of people to provide a service, information or a contribution to a project--most often via the internet--is a defining feature of our era. Though the term crowdsourcing was coined in 2005 by Wired Magazine editors to describe how businesses were outsourcing work, one of crowdsourcing's earliest uses was for science. A plea from Yale science professor Denison Olmsted--published in a newspaper article in 1833--asked the public to send in their observations about a major meteor storm. Olmsted then used the information to make significant advances in our understanding of the nature of such storms. Now Lehigh University astronomer assistant professor of physics Joshua Pepper is using crowdsourcing to gather observations worldwide--and the information is being used to verify the discovery of new planets. His network-- known as the "KELT Follow-Up Network"--is made up of nearly 40 members in 10 countries across 4 continents. The group--the largest, most coordinated network of its kind--contributed key observations to confirm the existence of the recently-identified planet, Kepler-1647 b. The new planet was discovered by a team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and San Diego State University used the Kepler Space Telescope. The discovery was announced today in San Diego, at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The research has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal with Veselin Kostov, a NASA Goddard postdoctoral fellow, as lead author. Planets that orbit two stars are known as circumbinary planets, or sometimes "Tatooine" planets, after Luke Skywalker's homeland in "Star Wars." Using NASA's Kepler telescope, astronomers search for slight dips in brightness that hint a planet might be transiting in front of a star, blocking a small portion of the star's light. "But finding circumbinary planets is much harder than finding planets around single stars," said SDSU astronomer William Welsh, one of the paper's coauthors. "The transits are not regularly spaced in time and they can vary in duration and even depth." To help verify what they had seen, the researchers made use of the worldwide network of professional and amateur astronomers that Pepper--a coauthor on the paper--had created. "Most members of our network have small telescopes that are not able to observe distant galaxies--but they are very well-suited to observing bright stars, like the ones Kepler-1647 b is orbiting," said Pepper. The two network astronomers whose observations helped researchers to estimate the mass of the new planet are Eric L.N. Jensen, professor of astronomy at Swarthmore College and Joao Gregorio, an amateur astronomer in Portugal--both listed as co-authors on the paper. "It's really exciting for me to be part of this discovery, since I've been working on this problem for a long time, said Professor Jensen. "As a graduate student in the early 1990s, I studied dusty disks around young binary stars. We thought that such disks should form planets, but that was before any planets had been discovered outside the solar system, so it was just speculation at that point. I never thought that one day I would help discover a circumbinary planet." "As an amateur being involved in the KELT follow-up network giving my contribution to the discovery of 'new worlds' is amazing--I'm very proud to be able to contribute," said Mr. Gregorio. Kepler-1647 is 3700 light-years away and approximately 4.4 billion years old, roughly the same age as the Earth. The stars are similar to the Sun, with one slightly larger than our home star and the other slightly smaller. The planet has a mass and radius nearly identical to that of Jupiter, making it the largest transiting circumbinary planet ever found. "It's a bit curious that this biggest planet took so long to confirm, since it is easier to find big planets than small ones", said SDSU astronomer Jerome Orosz, another coauthor on the study. "But it is because its orbital period is so long." The planet takes 1,107 days (just over 3 years) to orbit its host stars, the longest period of any confirmed transiting exoplanet found so far. The planet is also much further away from its stars than any other circumbinary planet, breaking with the tendency for circumbinary planets to have close-in orbits. Interestingly, its orbit puts the planet within the so-called habitable zone. Like Jupiter, however, Kepler-1647 b is a gas giant, making the planet unlikely to host life. Yet if the planet has large moons, they could potentially be suitable for life. "Habitability aside, Kepler-1647 b is important because it is the tip of the iceberg of a theoretically predicted population of large, long-period circumbinary planets", Welsh said. The "KELT Follow up Network" was originally assembled to assist Pepper and his colleagues in identifying exoplanets for a project he founded called the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) survey. It uses two robotic programmable telescopes, one in Arizona called KELT North and the other in South Africa known as KELT South. The survey has confirmed 15 exoplanets using the transit method. Lehigh, Vanderbilt University and Ohio State run the KELT project together, and the project's low-resolution telescopes are dwarfed by other telescopes that have apertures of several meters in order to stare at tiny sections of the sky at high resolution. The wide-angle KELT view of the universe, by contrast, comes from a mere 4.5-centimeter aperture with a high-quality digital camera and lens assembly that captures the light of 100,000 stars with each exposure. "The goal of KELT is to discover more planets that are transiting the brightest stars we can see. In essence, those give us the very rare, very valuable planets," Pepper says. ### National surveys suggest ecstasy (the street name for the drug MDMA) use has decreased substantially among adolescents and young adults in the US since 2001; however, the recent phenomenon of "Molly" (ecstasy marketed as "pure MDMA") may be leading to underreporting of use as not all users are aware that "Molly" is a form of ecstasy. A new study, published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence by researchers affiliated with New York University's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR), compared self-reported ecstasy/MDMA use with and without "Molly" in the definition. Researchers found that reported lifetime use (8.0% vs. 5.5%) was significantly higher with Molly in the definition. "Differences in reported use appear to be driven by those reporting use only a couple of times," said Joseph J. Palamar, PhD, MPH, an affiliate of CDUHR and an assistant professor of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center (NYULMC). "This is troubling, as it suggests that ecstasy use--at least among infrequent users--is being underreported when Molly isn't included in the definition." The article, "Underreporting of Ecstasy Use among High School Seniors in the U.S.," draws data from Monitoring the Future (MTF), a nationwide ongoing annual study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of American secondary school students. The MTF survey is administered in approximately 130 public and private schools throughout 48 states in the US. Roughly 15,000 high school seniors are assessed annually. Analyses focused on data collected from high school seniors (12th graders) in 2014 (N = 6,250; modal age: 18). Three randomly distributed survey forms asked about ecstasy use, and one form included "Molly" in the definition. Self-reported lifetime, 12-month, and 30-day ecstasy use were compared to determine whether including "Molly" in the definition was associated with higher prevalence or frequency of use. The researchers focused their analysis on the 6,250 students who answered ecstasy questions on the survey forms. Their findings suggest that underreporting of ecstasy use is associated with less experienced users and users that did not report recent use. "Street names for drugs tend to change over time and it's important to consider these names when asking people about use," said Dr. Palamar. "Underreported use may suggest prevalence or popularity of a potentially dangerous drug is decreasing and this may equate to less public health concern." As the researchers have shown, national surveys underestimated the prevalence of ecstasy use in the U.S. when "Molly" was not included in the definition of ecstasy. "The takeaway is that national and local surveys should maintain vigilance in assessing current street names of drugs in order to more accurately assess prevalence," said Katherine Keyes, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. "Adolescents and young adults require better education about ecstasy and about drugs in general," cautions Dr. Palamar. "We need to try to prevent use among those at risk for using, and try to reduce the potential harm among those who decide to use. We've been finding that Molly is increasingly adulterated with other drugs such as bath salts, so those who insist on using need to educate themselves as much as possible about ecstasy. We must do a better job at providing the public with the necessary information to help prevent any more Molly-related deaths from occurring at dance festivals." ### On the web: http://bit.ly/1YnFbNM Researcher Affiliations: Joseph J. Palamar, 1,2 Katherine Keyes, 3 Charles M. Cleland 2,4 1 Department of Population Health, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY; 2 Center for Drug Use and HIV Research, New York University College of Nursing; 3 Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY; 4 New York University Rory Meyers College of Nursing, New York, NY, USA Acknowledgements: This project was funded by the National Institutes of Health (K01 DA-038800, PI: Palamar, P30 DA011041, PI: Deren, K01 AA021511, PI: Keyes, and 01 DA-01411, PI: Johnston). The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research and Monitoring the Future principal investigators had no role in analysis, interpretation of results, or in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The author would like to thank the principal investigators of Monitoring the Future (PIs: Johnston, Bachman, O'Malley, and Schulenberg) at The University of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, Survey Research Center, and the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research for providing access to these data. Monitoring the Future data were collected through a research grant (R01 DA-01411) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). J. Palamar, K. Keyes, and C. Cleland are funded by the National Institutes of Health (K01 DA038800, K01 AA021511, and P30 DA011041, respectively). About CDUHR The mission of the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR) is to end the HIV and HCV epidemics in drug using populations and their communities by conducting transdisciplinary research and disseminating its findings to inform programmatic, policy, and grass roots initiatives at the local, state, national and global levels. CDUHR is a Core Center of Excellence funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant #P30 DA011041). It is the first center for the socio-behavioral study of substance use and HIV in the United States and is located at the New York University College of Nursing. For more information, visit http://www.cduhr.org. About the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health The Mailman School of Public Health is recognized as an international thought leader addressing critical public health issues ranging from emerging infectious diseases and urban health disparities to the implications of health policy decisions. The Mailman School is committed to creating knowledge, translating science for impact, and educating the next generation of public health leaders. Since 1922, the Mailman School has been at the forefront of public health research, education, and community collaboration. Addressing everything from chronic disease to HIV/AIDS to healthcare policy, the School tackles today's pressing public health issues, translating research into action. http://www.mailman.columbia.edu About NYU Langone Medical Center NYU Langone Medical Center, a world-class, patient-centered, integrated academic medical center, is one of the nation's premier centers for excellence in clinical care, biomedical research, and medical education. Located in the heart of Manhattan, NYU Langone is composed of four hospitals--Tisch Hospital, its flagship acute care facility; Rusk Rehabilitation; the Hospital for Joint Diseases, the Medical Center's dedicated inpatient orthopaedic hospital; and Hassenfeld Children's Hospital, a comprehensive pediatric hospital supporting a full array of children's health services across the Medical Center--plus the NYU School of Medicine, which since 1841 has trained thousands of physicians and scientists who have helped to shape the course of medical history. The Medical Center's tri-fold mission to serve, teach, and discover is achieved 365 days a year through the seamless integration of a culture devoted to excellence in patient care, education, and research. For more information, go to http://www.NYULMC.org About the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing is a global leader in nursing education, research, and practice. It offers a Bachelor of Science with a major in Nursing, a Master of Science and Post-Master's Certificate Programs, a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree and a Doctor of Philosophy in nursing research and theory development. Military members who visited a primary care clinic while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression reported fewer symptoms and better mental health functioning a year after enrolling in a treatment program that included specially trained care managers and telephone therapy options, according to a new study. The study focused on primary care as a way of combating the stigma many service members feel about going directly to a mental health specialist. The intervention assigns patients to nurse care managers with special training to help patients remain in care and follow treatment recommendations, coordinate patients' status with the health care team, and help patients to access telephone-based therapy. Researchers found that the approach resulted in significant improvements in recovery after one year, as compared to peers assigned to care managers without the added training and teletherapy options. The findings are published online by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. "Although the improvements were modest, the reach of the program can be large and has the potential to bring more people under a high-quality treatment umbrella sooner," said Dr. Charles Engel, the study's lead author and a senior natural scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "These findings suggest that the military health system might use this strategy to extend the reach of mental health care and reduce time to first treatment for PTSD and depression." The prevalence of mental health issues is relatively high in the U.S. military, with an estimated 13 percent to 18 percent of members suffering from PTSD, anxiety or depression after deployment. Fewer than half of the affected personnel receive military mental health services and when services are received they often are not timely or adequate. Collaborative care models that provide mental health treatment in primary care settings with the support of nurse managers and options to see mental health professionals have been widely shown to provide high-quality care and improve clinical outcomes. However, few studies have examined whether the approach is helpful for PTSD and no previous studies have examined whether the concept can work in the military health care system. The study, conducted by researchers from RAND, RTI International and the Department of Defense Deployment Health Clinical Center, examined the experiences of 666 military members treated in 18 primary care clinics at six large Army bases during 2012 and 2013. Participants, who were mostly men in their 20s, were randomly assigned to one of two different programs that provided care for mental health problems in a primary care setting. The existing Army model, used for test comparison, trained staff at primary clinics to screen for PTSD and depression. Nurses contacted patients monthly to check on symptoms, coordinate care with primary care providers and increase access to mental health professionals. The test model, centrally assisted collaborative telecare, preserved existing Army model and added some key features. The nurses were specially trained in behavioral activation, problem solving and motivational interviewing to help patients remain in follow-up and stick to treatment recommendations. In addition, the test model used psychologists to deliver telephone-based cognitive-behavioral therapy and offered face-to-face psychotherapy in a primary care or specialty setting. The nurse care managers also helped patients access and complete online cognitive-behavioral self-management programs. A centrally located psychiatrist, psychologist and nurse care manager remotely assisted the clinic sites, using a central database of symptoms to review caseloads weekly and suggest changes in treatments as needed. Engel said that while the extra improvement seen among those treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model was not large, it is important given that the original Army approach already is an improvement over usual approaches to treating PTSD in primary care. "Our findings are consistent with what has been observed in nonmilitary health care settings," Engel said. "This approach results in better outcomes and improves access to high-quality care. This is particularly important for a population that has a demonstrated need for mental health services." After 12 months of care, 25 percent of military members with PTSD who were treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model showed a 50 percent improvement in their symptoms, compared to 17 percent for those treated under the first model. Similarly, among patients with depression, 30 percent treated under the second model showed a 50 percent improvement in symptoms after a year, compared to 20 percent for the first model. People treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model also had fewer suicidal thoughts and physical symptoms. In addition, patients treated under the model had more telephone contact with care managers and more months on appropriate medication for PTSD and depression. "The results support the idea that high-quality mental health care can be provided in primary care settings," Engel said. "While many military members are reluctant to seek out mental health specialists, they are more willing to receive primary medical care. So this is a good way to encourage more people to receive mental health care, while also improving the quality of mental health services for military members." ### The medical clinics involved with the study were at Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington, Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Campbell in Kentucky and Fort Carson in Colorado. Support for the study was provided by the U.S. Department of Defense Deployment Related Medical Research Program. Other authors of the study are Lisa H. Jaycox and Terri Tanielian of RAND; Michael C. Freed of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the Deployment Health Clinical Center (now at the National Institute of Mental Health); Robert M. Bray, Donald Brambilla, Marian E. Lane, Kristine L. Rae Olmsted and Russ Vandermaas-Peeler of RTI International; Dr. Douglas Zatzick, Dr. Jurgen Unutzer and Dr. Wayne J. Katon the University of Washington School of Medicine; Brett Litz of the VA Boston Healthcare System and Boston University School of Medicine; and Laura A. Novak, Bradley E. Belsher and Daniel P. Evatt of the Deployment Health Clinical Center. RAND Health is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care costs, quality and public health preparedness, among other topics. The next generation of nanosubmarines being developed at Rice University has been upgraded with tags that fluoresce longer, which enables the submersibles to be tracked for greater periods while being driven through a solution. The single-molecule vehicles introduced by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour last year may someday be used to deliver drugs or other cargo. The new version built and tested with collaborators at Tel Aviv University in Israel is the subject of a recent paper in the American Chemical Society journal Organic Letters. The first nanosub, USN-1, could be monitored but not imaged by a technique that would irradiate it with light for very short times. But that did not offer information about the submersible's trajectory, according to lead author Victor Garcia-Lopez, a former Rice graduate student. The latest model, the 334-atom USN-2, can be viewed by single-molecule microscopy for at least 1.5 seconds, long enough for 30 frames of video. "This makes it possible for us to track the trajectory of a single nanosubmersible," Tour said. "It should lead to a better understanding of how our vehicles move." The lab attached cyclooctatetraene (COT) to the molecule's body and motor to keep them from bleaching, which quenches fluorescence. The light-driven motor developed by scientists in the Netherlands is a tail-like ligand that spins about a million times per second. The new subs, like the originals, are capable of moving 15 meters per second over nanoscale distances, based on the thrust provided by each turn of the rotating motor. Between the frequent collisions that stop their forward motion, Tour said, they are "the fastest-moving molecules ever seen in solution." The nanosubmarines still can't be steered in the traditional sense, Tour said. The team is satisfied for the moment with achieving "enhanced diffusion" that lets them figure out how to move a one-molecule vehicle in a solution of similarly sized molecules. "The next step is to track these nanosubmarines in solution and see if we can use them to deliver cargo or interact with cells," Tour said. ### Co-authors are Rice visiting scholar Shunsuke Kuwahara of Toho University, Japan; Angel Marti, an associate professor of chemistry of bioengineering and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice; and Jonathan Jeffet, a master's student, and Yuval Ebenstein, a senior lecturer in chemistry, at Tel Aviv University. Garcia-Lopez is now a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Tour is the T.T. and W.F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of computer science and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice. The National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, the Yamada Science Foundation, the Israel Science Foundation and the European Research Councils supported the research. Read the abstract at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.orglett.6b00506. This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu/2016/06/13/nanosubs-are-good-to-glow/ Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews. Related materials: Rice makes light-driven nanosubmarines: http://news.rice.edu/2015/11/16/rice-makes-light-driven-nanosubmarines/ James M. Tour Group: http://www.jmtour.com Wiess School of Natural Sciences: http://naturalsciences.rice.edu Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,910 undergraduates and 2,809 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for best quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview. (CHICAGO) Families of children with severe hemophilia A may want to take a fresh look at treatment options from human plasma. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 26 showed that participants who received a recombinant therapy-- the present standard in the United States -- developed antibodies or "inhibitors" to the treatments at almost twice the rate as those whose treatments were made from human plasma. Recombinant Factor VIII, derived from a hamster cell line, was associated with an 87 percent higher likelihood that the patient would develop inhibitors, which can make the standard treatment ineffective, than the alternative, Factor VIII derived from human plasma with von Willebrand factor, a naturally occurring protein apparently protective of Factor VIII. "Families will want to have a discussion with their physicians about how this study might impact the treatment options," said Dr. Mindy Simpson, a Rush University hematologist-oncologist who participated in the international study. The Hemophilia and Thrombophilia Center at Rush University Medical Center, the largest program of its kind in Illinois, was one of seven centers in the United States to take part in the study, Simpson said. The study, the Survey of Inhibitors in Plasma-Products Exposed Toddlers, or SIPPET, is the first randomized, controlled study of the associations between inhibitors and the two first-line treatments for hemophilia A. "Who is developing inhibitors, and why? This study is the first to try to sort out the answer to those questions regarding the factor treatment options," Simpson said. Hemophilia is a rare genetic condition, affecting mostly boys, that hinders the production of an important clotting factor, Factor VIII in the more common hemophilia A, and Factor IX in hemophilia B. People with severe hemophilia can bleed excessively from even minor injuries. Untreated, hemophilia can be disabling and even fatal. The best treatment for a "bleed" caused by hemophilia, or in some cases even to prevent bleeds from occurring is injection with the appropriate clotting factor, either drawn from human plasma, or a recombinant product. Recombinant Factor VIII has been the preferred treatment for hemophilia A in part because patients died in large numbers after the human blood supply was tainted with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s, Simpson said. "Patients and families have been afraid of plasma-derived products even though they have been safe for decades," Simpson said. There have been no transmitted cases of HIV or hepatitis C in hemophilia factor products since the 1990s. The development of inhibitors, which occurs in about 30 percent of patients, is a major problem in the management of hemophilia A. When inhibitors appear in high titers -- that is, large numbers of antibodies per unit of blood -- the factor VIII replacement products are no longer effective to treat or prevent bleeding. That individual must then use more expensive and potentially less effective treatments. Patients who develop inhibitors usually do so early on, within the first 50 treatments. SIPPET was conducted between 2010 and 2015, with 251 previously untreated young children in 42 centers in 14 countries, on five continents. The study, which does not have direct implications for patients with hemophilia B, was led by investigators Flora Peyvandi and Pier Mannuccio Mannucci, and sponsored by the Angelo Bianchi Bonomi Foundation, with funding from the Italian Ministry of Health and other groups. ### San Francisco State University astronomer Stephen Kane is among a team of researchers who have discovered a new planet that orbits two suns simultaneously. The discovery was announced today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in San Diego. With a mass and radius nearly identical to that of Jupiter, the planet, Kepler-1647b, is the largest circumbinary planet -- a planet that orbits two stars -- ever discovered. Located in the direction of the constellation Cygnus, Kepler-1647b is 3,700 light-years away from Earth and approximately 4.4 billion years old, roughly Earth's age. The stars it orbits are similar in size to our Sun, and it also has the largest orbit of any circumbinary planet ever found, taking roughly three Earth-years to orbit its host stars. The team that discovered the new planet used data from the Kepler telescope and includes astronomers from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and San Diego State University. Laurance Doyle, an astronomer at the SETI Institute, first noticed its transit past the suns in 2011, however more data and several years of analysis were needed to confirm the transit was caused by a circumbinary planet. Kane, an associate professor of astrophysics at SF State and co-author of the discovery paper, currently serves as chair of the Kepler Habitable Zone Working Group. "During the lifetime of the Kepler Mission, we've only had a handful of opportunities to see the moments when this planet could align and block out the light from both stars, so the fact that we've found anything at all is pretty amazing," Kane said. "We weren't expecting to find anything like [Kepler-1647b], with such a long orbital period because those kinds of planets tend to fall through the cracks, but when we saw more than one transit and realized that this is the real deal, it was very exciting discovery to make." Though Kane says Kepler-1647b's massive orbit places the planet within the "habitable zone" of its stars, meaning its proximity to its suns is fitting for liquid water to exist on the planetary body's surface, it is believed that the planet is a gas giant and unfit to support life. "It's as if you took Jupiter and placed it in Earth's orbit," Kane explained. Kane and a student assistant have already begun working on calculations to try and estimate the possibility and frequency of moons orbiting giant planets like Kepler-1647b to see how likely it could be for one of those moons to not only exist, but be capable of supporting life as well. "You really have to be Johnny-on-the-spot with these types of experiments to have a chance of making significant finds," Kane said. "Hopefully [finding Kepler-1647b] is a sign of many more of these kinds of discoveries to come." The research for this planetary discovery has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal with Veselin Kostov, a NASA Goddard postdoctoral fellow, as lead author. ### A pioneer in the field of cardiovascular nuclear medicine, Strauss was awarded the prize by the Education and Research Foundation for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging San Diego, Calif. -- H. William (Bill) Strauss, MD, FACNM, a pioneer in the field of cardiovascular nuclear medicine, was awarded the Benedict Cassen Prize, often considered the Nobel Prize of nuclear medicine, during the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) in San Diego, Calif. This honor is given every two years by the Education and Research Foundation for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (ERF) to a living scientist or physician-scientist whose work has led to a major advance in basic or clinical nuclear medicine science. "The Cassen Prize Committee selected Bill Strauss as the 2016 recipient in recognition of his seminal studies in cardiovascular nuclear medicine, which have greatly advanced nuclear medicine science and have had exceptionally high clinical impact," said ERF President Hazem H. Chehabi, MD, FACNM, FACNP. During a special plenary session at SNMMI's Annual Meeting, Strauss presented the Cassen Lectureship on "Quo Vadis Cardiovascular Nuclear Medicine?" The lecture described contributions by major investigators to cardiovascular imaging, recent studies on the role of microcalcification as the precipitating cause of heart attack and new applications in heart failure and the evolving role(s) of multimodality imaging with magnetic resonance imaging and PET. Strauss commented, "It has been a thrill to work at the interface of cardiology and nuclear medicine. One of the best parts of this adventure has been the opportunity to learn from dedicated colleagues and students from around the world, people who are willing to teach and hungry to learn. I want to thank my wife for putting up with many late nights and missed dinners--and the Education and Research Foundation of the Society of Nuclear Medicine for recognizing the importance of cardiovascular nuclear medicine to our field." Internationally recognized for his work in cardiovascular nuclear medicine, Strauss is currently an attending physician emeritus in the Molecular Imaging and Therapy Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Memorial Hospital in New York City. He joined the Memorial Sloan Kettering/Cornell faculty and staff in 2001, following 30 years of faculty, clinical and research appointments in nuclear medicine at the medical schools and teaching hospitals/medical centers of Johns Hopkins, Harvard (Massachusetts General Hospital), Stanford and Cornell University. For two years in the early 1990s, he served as vice president for diagnostics drug discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. In 2002, the Society of Nuclear Medicine honored him with the Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award. Strauss is a prolific researcher, an active teacher and clinician, and the author of eight books, including the Atlas of Cardiovascular Nuclear Medicine and Cardiovascular Nuclear Medicine. He has more than 560 published original and invited articles and more than 70 book chapters. He is a past president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, former editor of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, and has served on the editorial board of that journal, as well as six other juried publications. Strauss has been widely recognized for his work with named lectureships, life memberships and honorary degrees. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and a life member of the American Board of Nuclear Medicine, as well as a fellow of both the American College of Nuclear Physicians and the American College of Nuclear Medicine. The Cassen Prize honors Benedict Cassen, whose invention of the rectilinear radioisotope scanner--the first instrument capable of making an image of radiotracer distribution in body organs of living patients--was seminal to the development of clinical nuclear medicine. Strauss is the 14th individual to receive this prestigious $25,000 award from the Education and Research Foundation for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging since 1994. ### About the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) is an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to raising public awareness about nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, a vital element of today's medical practice that adds an additional dimension to diagnosis, changing the way common and devastating diseases are understood and treated and helping provide patients with the best health care possible. SNMMI's more than 17,000 members set the standard for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine practice by creating guidelines, sharing information through journals and meetings and leading advocacy on key issues that affect molecular imaging and therapy research and practice. For more information, visit http://www.snmmi.org. San Diego, Calif. -- Ross McDougall, MB, ChB, PhD, professor emeritus of radiology and medicine at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., has been named this year's recipient of the Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award for his contributions to nuclear medicine. McDougall was presented the award by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) at its 2016 Annual Meeting, held June 11-15 in San Diego, Calif. McDougall has been associated with Stanford University Medical School from 1972, the first 2 years as a fellow and subsequently as full-time faculty. In 1989, he took over directorship of the thyroid clinic. McDougall was involved in both the Medical School and the hospital. He held numerous positions of importance at those institutions, including president of the medical center--the first faculty member elected to this post. He was director of the Nuclear Medicine Residency Program for 25 years. Since retiring as director of the thyroid clinic in 2008, he has been an active Emeritus professor. "I was fortunate to train under Dr. McDougall while I was a resident at Stanford University in the mid-1990s," said SNMMI President Hossein Jadvar, MD, PhD, MPH, MBA, FACNM. "He is an exceptionally caring physician and a superb diagnostician. He exemplifies the true meaning of a gentleman and scholar." McDougall conducted laboratory and clinical research and published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers and 110 book chapters, reviews and editorials. He authored or coauthored 3 textbooks on thyroid disease. He was appointed to the American Board of Nuclear Medicine, and he subsequently chaired the board for two years. He was vice chair of the Residency Review Committee in Nuclear Medicine. He was also a governor of the American Board of Internal Medicine for three years. He was president of the Western Regional Chapter of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. Multiple honors have been awarded to McDougall for his contributions to nuclear medicine. From the University of Glasgow, he received the Ure Prize and Cullen Medal for Pharmacology, the Captain Rankin V.C. Prize for Pathology, the Ure Prize and McFarlane Prize for the Integrated Year of Medicine and Surgery and the William Hunter Medal in Clinical Surgery. From Stanford, he received the Robert Reid Newell Award, the Arthur Bloomfield Award, the Alwin C. Rambar Award and the Albion Walter Hewlett Award. He received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Western Regional Chapter of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging in 2006. "The de Hevesy Award means an enormous amount to me," Ross McDougall said. "I spent more than 45 years in the field of nuclear medicine using tracers for diagnosis and therapy. I have been a colleague of three previous winners and have interacted with many others, all of whom I looked up to as giants in the field. I was shocked and stunned when I received notice of the award--and now, added to these sentiments, I am greatly honored and humbled. I hope over the years I did my very best to advance the specialty by teaching residents and fellows listening to patients. My deepest thanks to the Society." McDougall received his MB and ChB degrees from the University of Glasgow. He passed the Membership Examination of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow in 1971 and subsequently became a Fellow of that college and the Royal College of Physicians in London. He was awarded a PhD in 1972 for clinical and radiobiological studies of 125I in the treatment of thyrotoxicosis. Some of this work was published in the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. In 1972 he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to conduct research at Stanford. He received two Carnegie Scholarships, one in 1964 to investigate DNA patterns of adrenal tumors at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and a second in 1965 to investigate the lymphatic anatomy of adrenal glands at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Each year, SNMMI presents the Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Medicine Pioneer Award to an individual for outstanding contributions to the field of nuclear medicine. De Hevesy received the 1943 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in determining the absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination of radioactive compounds in the human body. His work led to the foundation of nuclear medicine as a tool for diagnosis and therapy, and he is considered to be one of the fathers of nuclear medicine. SNMMI has given the de Hevesy Award every year since 1960 to honor groundbreaking discoveries and inventions in the field of nuclear medicine. The list of previous recipients of this award includes numerous Nobel laureates--such as Ernest Lawrence, who invented the world's first cyclotron for the production of radionuclides, and Glenn Seaborg, who discovered more than half a dozen new elements. ### About the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging The Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) is an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to raising public awareness about nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, a vital element of today's medical practice that adds an additional dimension to diagnosis, changing the way common and devastating diseases are understood and treated and helping provide patients with the best health care possible. SNMMI's more than 17,000 members set the standard for molecular imaging and nuclear medicine practice by creating guidelines, sharing information through journals and meetings and leading advocacy on key issues that affect molecular imaging and therapy research and practice. For more information, visit http://www.snmmi.org. COLLEGE STATION - Major rainfall across most of Texas triggering hordes of mosquitos coupled with seemingly constant mosquito-related Zika virus media reports from around the globe may have set the stage perfectly for what one researcher deems as a very significant discovery in man's war against earth's leading human disease carrier. Dr. David Ragsdale, head of the entomology department at Texas A&M University, College Station, credits Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow in the entomology department at College Station, along with her students and colleagues from other institutions, with discovering a receptor on the legs of mosquitoes that when activated, keeps female mosquitoes from taking a sugar meal and makes them fly away. "This finding could lead to novel mosquito repellents," Ragsdale said. "This is really a big deal, a major achievement." Aedes aegypti females reject the sucrose solution containing the synthetic peptide. The sugary solution contained a blue dye to trace the meal in their gut. (Photo courtesy Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow) Aedes aegypti females reject the sucrose solution containing the synthetic peptide. The sugary solution contained a blue dye to trace the meal in their gut. (Photo courtesy Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio, Texas A&M AgriLife Research Fellow) Ragsdale said Pietrantonio has just had the article, "Leucokinin mimetic elicits aversive behavior in mosquito Aedes aegypti (L.) and inhibits the sugar taste neuron," on the work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To view the work and its authors go to http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2016/06/01/1520404113.abstract. "What makes this even more compelling is the work was with Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species responsible for spreading Zika, dengue, yellow fever and Chikungunya viruses," Ragsdale said. "This work is the culmination of over five years of study by Dr. Pietrantonio, her students and collaborators. With Zika a looming threat, this is a timely discovery." Pietrantonio said after mating, Aedes aegypti females immediately search for a blood meal from a human host. "They are highly anthropophilic, meaning they are attracted to humans," Pietrantonio said. "They may even follow people indoors. If female mosquitoes are infected with viruses they may transmit them to humans when they acquire a blood meal." The blood meal supplies the protein source female mosquitoes require to produce eggs, she said. "However, in the field, if human hosts are not present, females will feed on sucrose solutions such as nectar from flowers, though they prefer a blood meal to a sugar meal but male mosquitoes feed only on nectar. Certainly sugar feeding is one of the two feeding modalities for adults of this species." "We found that a synthetic peptide that was designed to mimic a peptide naturally present in mosquitoes triggers an aversive fly away, walk away or jump away behavior in female mosquitoes." If the same aversion could be tied to a blood meal, she said a totally new and effective mosquito feeding deterrent may be in the offing, one that perhaps would cause the mosquito to pass up the required blood meal needed to lay eggs. Doing so would either disrupt the life cycle and/or reduce disease transmission. However, this is far from being accomplished, she said. "One of our team designed a peptide mimetic of the kinin peptides, which are diuretic hormones in mosquitoes, to be resistant to enzymatic degradation," Pietrantonio said. "These mimetics are more potent than those found naturally, because they take longer to be degraded by the insect. These diuretic hormones make mosquitoes lose water after a blood meal, but we also found the peptidomimetic blocked sugar perception. This is a completely new and unexpected discovery." The research team localized these receptors in the feet and mouthparts of mosquitoes. What is really new, they said, is that this type of receptor proteins known as GPCRs, were not previously considered to be important for "taste" in insects and further, contact with the peptidomimetic made the mosquitoes fly away. "In sum, we unequivocally verified this kinin receptor is present in the taste organs of the legs and labella, the pair of lobes at the tip of the proboscis." Pietrantonio said their observation that the peptide blocks sugar perception is interesting because the peptide is insect-specific, therefore, the receptor represents a target for further applied research to find ways to diminish the ability of female mosquitoes to feed. Doing so would likely reduce their lifespan or reproductive capacity. "We had a lot of fun doing this research within the frame of an international, multi-institutional and multidisciplinary collaboration," she said. Institutions involved along with Texas A&M were the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service, Iowa State University and Universite Paris-Saclay, France. Pietrantonio said the team will continue to study the system in the hope of developing an effective mosquito feeding deterrent in order to stop what is arguably the greatest foe to mankind on earth. ### How must a landscape be utilized in order to fulfil both ecological and socio-economical requirements? This question has been answered by an international research team with the participation of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), using abandoned pasturage in the Ecuadorean mountain rainforests. By means of simulations, the scientists ascertained that the key to this is multitasking, which is to say the most diverse utilization possible. The results have now been published in Nature Communications. "We wanted to find out how a landscape has to be composed in order to render many ecosystem services at the same time and as safely as possible", explains the lead author of the study Prof. Thomas Knoke of the Institute of Forest Management at the TUM. Experts use the term ecosystem services to refer to the effects of an ecosystem that are important for human well-being, such as protection against erosion, soil formation or provision of energy sources. In their study, Knoke and his colleagues simulated various land use concepts. The results have now been published in the magazine "Nature Communications". The simulations are based on data that had been gathered by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers in the tropical rainforest of Ecuador over a period of 15 years. There, the scientists had investigated the reintegration of abandoned agricultural areas into forestry or agricultural production. Compensating for uncertainties The aim of the simulations carried out on the basis of these investigations was to take 22 indicators into account in a land use plan on as equal a footing as possible. Sixteen of the indicators are criteria from the field of ecology such as e.g. carbon storage, protection against erosion, reduction of the runoff of surface water and climate regulation. Eight criteria are from the field of socio-economics, including the question of how profitable the use is and what kind of cultivation the local farmers would prefer. Uncertainties were also incorporated into the simulations. Reasons for these uncertainties include, for example, fluctuations in the production of foodstuffs and wood as well as price changes. A good mixture of different land use forms has a balancing effect in this context, because not all land use forms are affected by the uncertainties to an equal degree. "It works like a share portfolio in which the risk is of course spread over many investments", explains Knoke. Area mosaic of five concepts The scientists had already worked out the following five usage concepts for the abandoned agricultural areas in a preceding study and were able to use the results for the simulation of multifunctional land use: no cultivation - abandoned pasture areas are left alone, forestry utilization - planting with an indigenous species of alder, forestry utilization - planting with an introduced species of pine, extensive pasture utilization - mechanical weed control, then utilization after initial fertilization, intensive pasture utilization - chemical weed control, then utilization with regular fertilization. The optimum result provided by the simulations was a kind of area mosaic: 46 percent of forestry utilization, with 21 percent indigenous alders and 25 percent of exotic pines, 10 percent extensive pasture utilization, 20 percent intensive pasture utilization. 24 percent of the landscape is not to be used at all, but instead rather left to natural succession. The concept of combining different land use options provides a buffer in the event of under-average ecosystem services from an individual land use component, because the other land use alternatives can balance this out. Few indicators will not lead to optimal multitasking If, instead of 22 indicators, only individual ecosystem services are optimized, such as only socio-economic ones for example, very uniform landscapes can arise. Although a land-use mosaic is the best concept for balancing out uncertainties, the influence of the uncertainties is not great enough in all scenarios. It depends on precisely which ecosystem services are optimized and how great their uncertainties are. If, for example, only biomass production, hydrological indicators or climate regulation are defined as the sole aim of the land use then this will result in uniform landscapes which are either solely characterized by agriculture or by forestry. Protection for the rainforest On 385 to 472 million hectares of land around the world, the previous agricultural or forestry use of the land has been abandoned. If these area resources could be transformed into productive, multifunctional landscapes, this would contribute to the protection of the endangered tropical forest. "At the moment there is the tendency to afforest such areas solely with exotic types of trees", says forest scientist Knoke. "This is, however, to be critically regarded against the background of the now clearly proven major advantages of diversified land use." He says, on the other hand, that incentives are necessary - especially financial support of the farmers - in order to be able to implement the concept of diversified land use. The researchers now want to apply their planning approach to other types of landscapes around the world as well. In this application, the existing forms of land use, such as e.g. natural forest, active agricultural land use and plantations, are also to be incorporated. Another important point is the explicit spatial distribution of the types of land use and structural elements of the landscape - such as hedges. ### Publication: Knoke T., et al. (2016): Compositional diversity of rehabilitated tropical lands supports multiple ecosystem services and buffers uncertainties, Nature Communications DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11877 The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (research group FOR 402 and 816, transfer projects PAK 823-825, http://www.tropicalmountainforest.org/). Scientists from the following institutes were involved in the study: Technical University of Munich; University of Bayreuth; University of Marburg; University of Munster; Justus Liebig University Gieen; Universidad Tecnica Particular de Loja, Ecuador; Memorial University, St. John's, Canada; Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Contact: Prof. Dr. Thomas Knoke Technical University of Munich Institute of Forestry Management Tel.: +49 8161 71-4700 knoke@tum.de http://waldinventur.wzw.tum.de A model that predicts outbreaks of zoonotic diseases -- those originating in livestock or wildlife such as Ebola and Zika -- based on changes in climate, population growth and land use has been developed by a UCL-led team of researchers. "This model is a major improvement in our understanding of the spread of diseases from animals to people. We hope it can be used to help communities prepare and respond to disease outbreaks, as well as to make decisions about environmental change factors that may be within their control," said lead author Professor Kate Jones, UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment and ZSL. More than 60% of emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic and although Ebola and Zika are well-known, there are many other diseases including Rift Valley fever and Lassa fever which affect thousands already and are predicted to spread with changing environmental factors. "Our model can help decision-makers assess the likely impact of any interventions or change in national or international government policies, such as the conversion of grasslands to agricultural lands, on zoonotic transmission. Importantly, the model also has the potential to look at the impact of global change on many diseases at once, to understand any trade-offs that decision-makers may have to be make," Professor Jones added. The study published today in Methods in Ecology and Evolution tested the new model with Lassa fever. It was carried out by partners in the Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium, which was funded under the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme. Lassa fever is endemic across West Africa and is caused by Lassa virus passing to people from rats. The model predicts the number of people with the disease will double from 195,125 to 406,725 by 2070 due to climate change and a growing human population. Like Ebola virus, Lassa virus causes haemorrhagic fever and can be fatal. How many people are affected by Lassa fever each year is unclear as many don't have severe symptoms and those that do are often misdiagnosed with malaria; current estimates range from 100,000 to one million. "Our new approach successfully predicts outbreaks of individual diseases by pairing the changes in the host's distribution as the environment changes with the mechanics of how that disease spreads from animals to people, which hasn't been done before. It allows us to calculate how often people are likely to come into contact with disease-carrying animals and their risk of the virus spilling over. Alongside population increases, the expected future changes to climatic patterns will drive an expansion of the areas of West Africa considered high risk, especially the western most regions around Senegal and Guinea, the coastline of Cote d'ivoire and Ghana, and in Central Nigeria," added first author, Dr David Redding, UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment. The team used the locations of 408 known Lassa fever outbreaks in West Africa between 1967-2012 and the changes in land use and crop yields, temperature and rainfall, behaviour and access to healthcare. They also identified the sub-species of the multimammate rat (Mastomys natalensis) which transmits Lassa virus to humans to map its location against ecological factors. The model was then developed using this information along with forecasts of climate change, future population density and land-use change. The approach has already proved successful by predicting the current disease patterns of Lassa fever. The researchers say the model could be refined to consider zoonotic disease transmission within human populations by including the impact of travel infrastructure, human-to-human contact rates and poverty -- something that would have been of enormous use in the recent Ebola and Zika outbreaks. ### Irvine, Calif. -- The Botox toxin has a sweet tooth, and it's this craving for sugars - glycans, to be exact - that underlies its extreme ability target neuron cells in the body ... while giving researchers an approach to neutralize it. A study co-led by Rongsheng Jin, professor of physiology & biophysics at the University of California, Irvine; Min Dong with Boston Children's Hospital-Harvard Medical School; and Andreas Rummel with the Hannover Medical School in Germany, reveals an important general mechanism by which the pathogen is attracted to, adapts to and takes advantage of glycan modifications in surface receptors to invade motor neurons. Glycans are chains of sugars synthesized by cells for their development, growth, functioning or survival. Results appear June 13 in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. "Our findings reveal a new paradigm of the everlasting host-pathogen arms race, where a pathogen develops a smart strategy to achieve highly specific binding to a host receptor while also tolerating genetic changes on the receptor," Jin said. "And to some extent, this mechanism by which the toxin attacks human is similar to the one that is utilized by some important broad-neutralizing human antibodies to fight viruses, such as dengue viruses and HIV." Botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT/A), commonly known as the Botox toxin, is widely used in a weakened form for treating various medical conditions as well as for cosmetics. The clinical product Botox contains extremely low doses of the toxin and is safe to use. But at higher doses, it can be lethal, and it's also classified as a potential bioterrorism agent. Its potency and therapeutic effects rely on its extraordinary ability to target motor neurons and subsequently block release neurotransmitters that control the movement of muscle fiber, which can result in paralysis. This specific targeting is achieved by highly selective interactions between the toxin and its receptors - host proteins that bind to the toxin in a lock and key manner. The intricate detail of how the Botox toxin recognizes its receptors also reveals novel ways to neutralizing these deadly toxins. "With this new structural information," Rummel said, "we were able to pinpoint key amino acids in the toxin that are required for binding to sugars, and we found that even mutating a single amino acid is sufficient to abolish the toxicity by more than a million fold." Remarkably, the newly mapped glycan-binding site turns out to be also the site recognized by a potent human neutralizing antibody called CR2/CR1, which is currently in clinical trial for the treatment and prevention of BoNT/A poisoning. "This antibody fights the toxin exactly by preventing it from binding to sugars on the receptor. Our study thus provides a new strategy for anti-toxin inhibitor design," Dong said. Guorui Yao and Kwok-ho Lam at UCI, Sicai Zhang at Harvard, Stefan Mahrhold at the Hannover Medical School, Daniel Stern at Berlin's Center for Biological Threats & Special Pathogens, Kay Perry at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and Karine Bagramyan and Markus Kalkum the Beckman Research Institute at the City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., contributed to the study, which was primarily supported by the National Institutes of Health. ### About the University of California, Irvine: Currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 30,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It's located in one of the world's safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County's second-largest employer, contributing $4.8 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit http://www.uci.edu. Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UC Irvine faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists. Urbana, Ill.--"Jumping genes" are ubiquitous. Every domain of life hosts these sequences of DNA that can "jump" from one position to another along a chromosome; in fact, nearly half the human genome is made up of jumping genes. Depending on their specific excision and insertion points, jumping genes can interrupt or trigger gene expression, driving genetic mutation and contributing to cell diversification. Since their discovery in the 1940s, researchers have been able to study the behavior of these jumping genes, generally known as transposons or transposable elements (TE), primarily through indirect methods that infer individual activity from bulk results. However, such techniques are not sensitive enough to determine precisely how or why the transposons jump, and what factors trigger their activity. Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have observed jumping gene activity in real time within living cells. The study is the collaborative effort of physics professors Thomas Kuhlman and Nigel Goldenfeld, at the Center for the Physics of Living Cells, a National Science Foundation Physics Frontiers Center. "In this study, we were able to see that there is actually more of this jumping gene action going on than might have been expected from previous studies," said Kuhlman, whose team performed the in vivo experiments. "What's more, we learned that the rates at which these genes jump depend sensitively on how the cells are growing--if there is food available for the cells to grow, for example. In other words, jumping gene activation isn't entirely random, it's dependent on environmental feedback." To observe these individual cellular-evolution events in living cells, Kuhlman's team devised a synthetic biological system using the bacterium Escherichia coli. The scientists coupled the expression of fluorescent reporters--genes that encode (in this case, blue and yellow) fluorescent proteins--to the jumping activity of the transposons. The scientists could then visually record the transposon activity using fluorescent microscopy. "These are genes that hop around and change location within the genome of a cell," said Kuhlman. "We hooked that activity up to a molecular system, such that when they start hopping around, the whole cell fluoresces. In our experiment, cells fluoresced most when they weren't very happy. One school of thought suggests that an increased mutation rate like this might be an advantage in such unhappy conditions, for cells to diversify." In order to help design the experiment and to calculate what would have happened if the jumping occurred in a purely random fashion, Goldenfeld's team developed computer simulations of the growth of bacterial colonies and predicted what the experimental signal would look like in the random case. These calculations showed that the experiments could not simply be interpreted as random transposon activity and even provided clues as to sources of non-randomness, including environmental feedback and heredity. "Our work involved a good deal of computational image analysis, followed by statistical analysis," said Goldenfeld. "To extract signals and conclusions from the raw data, simulation and theoretical calculations were integral to the experimental design and interpretation. This sort of collaborative project was really only possible with the unique structure provided by the Center for the Physics of Living Cells." "The over-arching long-term research goal is a deeper understanding of how evolution works at the molecular level. Direct observation of how genomes in cells restructure themselves allows for a precise determination of adaptation rates and may shed light on a host of important evolutionary questions, ranging from the emergence of life to the spread of cancer, where cells undergo rapid mutations and transformations of their genomes," added Kuhlman. Kuhlman and Goldenfeld are members of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The work involved several graduate students, including lead author Hyuneil Kim, Gloria Lee, Nicholas Sherer and Michael Martini. ### This release is based upon research performed at the Center for the Physics of Living Cells, a Physics Frontiers Center supported by the National Science Foundation, and at the NASA Astrobiology Institute for Universal Biology supported by NASA, both located on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. Kuhlman's research is additionally supported by a 2015 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The conclusions presented are those of the scientists, and not necessarily those of the funding agencies. Images and movies are available for download at this link: Images and movies are available for download at this link: https://uofi.box.com/s/l2axeet76d5rc2zkcyzd5gwnfqodwy72 Multiple sclerosis looks different from person to person. In many individuals, though, the difficulty in maintaining a sense of self and in keeping up intellectually can be the disease's most devastating manifestations. With this in mind, University of Michigan researchers are exploring a new way to improve cognitive issues, such as memory, attention and mental processing in MS patients: by examining sleep. People with MS face an elevated risk of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a disorder in which the throat collapses during sleep, causing the patient to repeatedly stop breathing for periods of 10 seconds or longer throughout the night. OSA can lead to a decline in mental functioning. A U-M pilot study published in Sleep is the first to find an association between sleep apnea severity and cognitive dysfunction in patients with MS. "Since obstructive sleep apnea is a treatable condition that is also commonly seen in MS, we wondered, 'What if some of the thinking and processing difficulties that MS patients experience do not stem directly from the MS itself, but from the effects of sleep apnea or other sleep problems?'" says Tiffany Braley, M.D., M.S., the principal investigator and co-first author of the study, and an assistant professor of neurology at U-M. MS affects nearly half a million Americans and is the leading non-traumatic cause of neurological disability among young adults. Braley's team studied 38 adults with MS who had questions about their sleep or cognition. The patients performed seven cognitive tests, which included tasks of word list recall, calculation, and reproducing figures and pictures. They also spent a night in the Michael S. Aldrich Sleep Disorders Laboratory for polysomnography, an overnight sleep test. Thirty-three of the 38 patients met the criteria for OSA. "Multiple measures of sleep apnea severity directly correlated with poorer performance on several cognitive tests," said co-first author Anna Kratz, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation. "In particular, problems with attention and multiple aspects of memory, including memory for words and images, and working memory, which plays a role in problem solving and decision making, were all associated with poorer sleep." Apnea severity measures accounted for between 11 and 23 percent of the variance in cognitive test performance. The investigators also observed relationships between other sleep quality measures and poor cognitive performance. "Current MS treatments can prevent further neurological damage, but do little to help existing MS symptoms and damage," Braley says. "Our focus on sleep is part of a larger collaborative initiative to identify previously overlooked but nonetheless treatable conditions that could be affecting patients with MS. Identifying and successfully treating conditions like OSA could help us find new ways to improve the cognitive function in MS." Next steps Now, the researchers will replicate their findings in a larger sample of MS patients, and treat those patients diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea with positive airway pressure therapy (CPAP), the first-line treatment for OSA. The new clinical trial, led by Braley and funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, will investigate whether cognitive function in MS patients improves when sleep apnea is treated. In the meantime, the investigators want to inspire more conversations in the neurology clinic. "We hope neurologists will ask their patients with MS about sleep, and the patient should be encouraged to openly discuss sleep concerns with their neurologist," says Neeraj Kaplish, M.D., assistant professor of neurology and medical director of the U-M Sleep Laboratories. "Given the high prevalence of treatable sleep problems in MS patients, and the fact that many patients with MS rate fatigue as one of their most bothersome symptoms, physicians should have a low threshold to refer MS patients who report sleep disturbances to sleep specialists," says last author Ronald Chervin, M.D., M.S., professor of neurology and director of U-M Sleep Disorders Center. ### The research was funded in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, the University of Michigan Sleep Disorders Center and the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Braley is principal investigator on a clinical trial that receives material, but not financial, support from Biogen. She is site principal investigator for several industry-funded studies of MS immunotherapeutics at the University of Michigan (sponsors include Genzyme-Sanofi and Genentech-Roche), but receives no personal compensation for this work. She is also named in a provisional patent, held by the University of Michigan, concerning treatment for sleep apnea. Chervin serves on the board of directors for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and is named in copyrighted material, patents and patents pending, held by the University of Michigan, for sleep apnea and sleep disorder diagnosis, assessment and treatments. VINNOVA, Sweden's Innovation Agency, has decided to continue funding the activities of the UPSC Berzelii Centre for Forest Biotechnology at Umea University for five more years (2017-2021). The UPSC Berzelii Centre now becomes a new VINNOVA Competence Centre and will be one of five existing Centres of Competence in Sweden that receive this funding. With its Centre of Competence programme, VINNOVA aims to create active networks between universities, research institutes, companies and other public research organisations. The focus is set on research areas that are significant for Sweden's competitive strengths on a national and international level. In a directed call against existing Competence Centres, VINNOVA has decided to grant the most successful Centres a five-year continuation. Umea Plant Science Centre (UPSC) at Umea University is hosting the current Berzelii Centre for Forest Biotechnology that is funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) and VINNOVA from 2007 till 2016. Research groups from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Umea University are collaborating with seven industrial partners on performing and translating excellent basic research to applications within the Swedish forest industry. The performance of the Centre was recently evaluated together with 19 other Berzelii and VINNEX Centres and was found to be "Exceptional" among these centres. In this new call, UPSC competed with those 19 and other previous VINNOVA centres and was found to be one of five centres that had earnt continued support. "This is great news for us," says Ove Nilsson, director of the current UPSC Berzelii Centre and the new UPSC Centre for Forest Biotechnology. "The new approval allows us not only to continue and develop our academic/industrial research projects, but also confirms that what we are doing and the way we are doing it is successful." VINNOVA motivates the decision for granting the UPSC Centre for Forest Biotechnology by "an excellent application in which the applicants add many innovative developments to an already high-functioning centre". They especially valued the proposed activities for staff development, the international collaborations, and the industrial graduate school. The Swedish government agency VINNOVA was funded in January 2001 and operates under the Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation. Every year, it spends SEK 2.7 billion in different projects aiming at promoting Sweden to become "a world-leading country in research and innovation". The new Centre of Competence programme was opened in autumn 2015. The programme is a follow-up of previous VINNOVA competence programmes but in particular requires integration of existing research programmes into the new centre. ### The alarming upward trend in fatalities in organized violence, witnessed over the last few years, was broken in 2015. This is evident from new data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), Uppsala University. The number of armed conflicts involving states continued to increase, however, going from 41 in 2014 to as many as 50 in 2015. Since 2011, peace researchers have witnessed a worrying increase in fatality numbers in organized violence. The highest number since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was reported for 2014, with more than 130,000 people killed in the three categories of organized violence that the UCDP registers: armed conflict involving a state, conflicts between non-state actors, and one-sided violence against civilians. This trend appears to have been broken in 2015, with the number of fatalities decreasing to less than 118,000. In the last few years, the trend has by and large been driven by the civil war in Syria. 'The fact that we don't see a continued increase is of course encouraging project manager at the UCDP. However, we need to remember that the level of violence remained high and that 2015 was one of the three most violent years since 1989', says Therese Pettersson project manager at the UCDP. Although the number of fatalities decreased, the number of conflicts continued to increase, both those involving a state and those between non-state actors. The non-state category witnessed an increase from 61 conflicts in 2014, to 70 in 2015; the highest number during the entire 1989-2015 period. Also conflicts involving a state witnessed a dramatic development, with the number increasing from 41 in 2014 to 50 in 2015. 'The increase is mainly due to developments relating to the expansion of the Islamic State (IS) to a growing number of countries', says Lotta Themner, project manager at the UCDP. In 2014 the group was active in conflicts against three different states, a number that increased to as many as 12 in 2015. This is a result of new IS wings being created around the world, for example in Afghanistan and Russia, as well as entire groups pledging allegiance to IS and being integrated into the latter, which is what happened in Nigeria and Egypt. IS was also active in a large number of conflicts against other rebel groups during the year, mainly in Syria. 'IS constitutes a serious threat against people in many parts of the world. However, compared to other rebel groups in modern history IS does not come across as an especially successful group, at least not yet. There are many examples of armed groups that have managed to win wars or gained important concessions in peace agreements, which IS has not yet done. We also need to understand that an exaggerated focus on IS and its allies risks drawing attention from other very serious situations that require international action', says Erik Melander, UCDP Director. ### Although clinical trials have shown that lung cancer screening using low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) can detect lung cancers early and reduce lung cancer mortality, less than half of family physicians in a recent survey agreed that screening reduces lung cancer-related deaths. Most were also unaware of current recommendations on lung cancer screening in high risk patients. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that there are gaps physicians' knowledge about appropriate lung cancer screening. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality in the United States, in part because most cases are diagnosed at advanced stages. The United States Preventive Services Task Force, Medicare, and multiple professional societies and organizations support the use of LDCT screening for high risk patients, such as certain current and former smokers. Some groups, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, assert that there is not enough evidence to either recommend or discourage the use of LDCT screening, however. To evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and practice patterns related to lung cancer screening using LDCT among family physicians, Jan Eberth, PhD, MSPH, of the University of South Carolina, and her colleagues distributed a 32-item questionnaire to South Carolina Academy of Family Physicians members in 2015. Of 101 respondents, most had incorrect knowledge about which organizations recommend screening. Although 98 percent felt that LDCT screening increases the likelihood of detecting disease at earlier stages, only 41 percent believed screening reduced lung cancer-related deaths. Also, while 75 percent felt that LDCT's benefits outweigh potential harms, 88 percent had concerns about unnecessary procedures, 52 percent had concerns about stress/anxiety, and 50 percent had concerns about radiation exposure. Although 75 percent of physicians discussed the risks and benefits of screening with their patients in some capacity, more than half reported making ?1 screening recommendation in the past year. When asked whether they would recommend lung cancer screening with LDCT for a 60-year-old patient with a 30 pack-year smoking history, 12 percent of physicians stated they would not recommend any screening and nine percent stated they would recommend a chest x-ray, even though LDCT is the only evidence-based screening strategy for a person with this background. "Education is needed to bridge these knowledge gaps and lay a foundation on which physicians can base their treatment recommendations," said Dr. Eberth. "With the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services now offering reimbursement to primary care providers to engage in shared decision making with their patients about lung cancer screening, it is vital that providers have an accurate understanding of the eligibility criteria for screening and potential risks and benefits. Decision aids may be a useful tool to facilitate these treatment discussions." ### DUBLIN, 13 June 2016 - Shimmer Sensing, a leading provider of medical grade wearable wireless sensors, announced today a partnership with the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University in support of ongoing research focused on remote patient monitoring using wearable sensing technology. The research is led by Paolo Bonato, Ph.D., who is an Associate Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute and an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. "Partnering with Shimmer Sensing will allow us to further develop our remote patient monitoring platform called MercuryLive," said Bonato. MercuryLive is a platform designed to support clinicians' remote monitoring of patients - who, for example, could have Parkinson's disease or be stroke survivors, traumatic brain injury survivors, or children with cerebral palsy - via live streaming of wearable sensor data and an interactive video feed. Bonato's team at the Wyss Institute is developing the latest version of the MercuryLive platform, which enables the integration of a variety of wireless devices. Shimmer's financial support of the research and its technical expertise in wireless medical sensors will accelerate the development of MercuryLive towards applications in remote patient monitoring. Among other clinical applications, the platform being developed will allow clinicians to remotely monitor patients with knee osteoarthritis using a knee sleeve with embedded wireless sensors and observe older adults in their home using wearable sensors and a mobile robot designed to navigate the environment and reach the subject in case of an emergency. "The Wyss Institute is renowned for taking academic innovation to the next level, and partnering with physicians and the industry to bring new technologies to the bedside. We are very enthusiastic about the opportunity to support Prof. Bonato's research team and their work toward the development of the next generation of remote clinical monitoring systems," commented Patrick White, the CEO of Shimmer Sensing. "Wearable patient monitoring systems represent the future of ambulatory medicine, and we are excited to help catalyze collaborations between engineers, clinicians and industrial partners to make this a reality," said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science. ### PRESS CONTACTS Shimmer Sensing Michelle Murphy, michelle.murphy@clarify.ie, + 353 86 853 7806 Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University Kat J. McAlpine, katherine.mcalpine@wyss.harvard.edu, +1 617-432-8266 MULTIMEDIA CONTACT Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University Seth Kroll, seth.kroll@wyss.harvard.edu, +1 617-432-7758 Shimmer Sensing is a leading technology company providing clinical-grade wearable wireless sensing technology. The company's award winning platform enables enterprises to reduce risk, cost, and time to market for sensor-based digital health solutions. Shimmer Sensing offers consultancy, design, customization, and volume manufacture for a full range of wearable sensor technology to provide high quality, scientifically reliable biophysical and movement data in real-time. This unlocks the potential for analysis and interpretation of sensed data specific to the person and creates an unprecedented level and access to personal digital health information, with the goal of improving health care outcomes. Shimmer's technology is trusted and utilized by the world's brightest startups, Fortune 500 companies, and leading Universities in over 65 countries worldwide. Deployments include an FDA approved biophysical application in the US, a telerehabilitation solution in Spain, and player tracking and performance management solution in the UK and Ireland. Established in 2008, with headquarters in Dublin, Ireland and with offices in Boston and Kuala Lumpar, Shimmer Sensing offers wearable wireless sensing technology that overcome the challenges of size, wearability, reliable communications and low power consumption. For more information visit: http://www.shimmersensing.com The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University uses Nature's design principles to develop bioinspired materials and devices that will transform medicine and create a more sustainable world. Wyss researchers are developing innovative new engineering solutions for healthcare, energy, architecture, robotics, and manufacturing that are translated into commercial products and therapies through collaborations with clinical investigators, corporate alliances, and formation of new startups. The Wyss Institute creates transformative technological breakthroughs by engaging in high risk research, and crosses disciplinary and institutional barriers, working as an alliance that includes Harvard's Schools of Medicine, Engineering, Arts & Sciences and Design, and in partnership with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston University, Tufts University, Charite - Universitatsmedizin Berlin, University of Zurich and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Written by ACM *Strasbourg/Angelo Marcopolo/- An EU Parliament's Plenary Debate, Oral Question, Report and Resolution backed by a Large Majority, together with EU Commission's Statements, as well as a Press Conference by 5 Experienced MEPs, strongly Pushed this week in Strasbourg for an "Ambitious" EU Space Policy, focusing on a Huge Potential both on Economy and Security or Defence High-Tech, and on Europe's "Autonomy" in a Globalized World where Competition Grows Fast, even for its "Independence" on Space Tools, stressing the Need for Adequate Funding, also in view of the Forthcoming Mid-Term Review of the Pluri-Annual Financial Perspectives, as well as facing the Current Mid-Term Debate on Juncker's Investment Plan 2015-2017, at EU Parliament this Morning. ----------------------------------- RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED -------------------------------------- Ambitious EU Parliament's Votes, Today, launched a Series of Vibrant Calls for an EU "Defence Union" with "Its own Instruments" of a "Space-related and Military Autonomy" having "Independent Capabilities", particularly of "Dual-Use", "for Both Civil Security and Defence purposes", as well as to forge a "Strategy ensuring ... Europe's Leading position in Space Technologies and Services in Global Markets", with an "Independent Access to Space ... and ... a Level playing field for the European Space Industry". Mainly because, Nowadays, appears a more "Dangerous and Challenging" "Environment", "both within and outside the Union, including "by Terrorist Attacks and Mass Murder", "Unrest and armed Conflict in our Neighbourhood", Mass "Migration", "Degradation of People's Livelihoods", "Climate Change and Poverty", (etc). So that "the EU Needs to Increase its Role as Security Provider", "ensuring Stability", and "Securing External Borders", (etc). In this regard, "Space capabilities for European Security and Defence are Important, and .. even Vital for ... Day-to-Day Peacetime use", and/or "Crisis Management", up to "full-scale Warfare". At the Same Time, Worldwide "Competition" is "Increasing" "over Space Assets ... and ... critical Infrastructures", (f.ex. "Satellites", etc), providing "Dual-Use operational Capacity.. in areas such as External Action, Border Management, Maritime security, Agriculture, the Environment, Climate action, Energy Security, Disaster Management, Humanitarian Aid and Transport". + Moreover, "Research and Development in Space Technology" has "High Investment Return", and also creates "High Quality Software and Harware By-Products, with various Commerical Uses", while "EU Space Activities are of major importance for Scientific and technical, Progress, Innovations, Economic Growth, Industrial Competitiveness, social cohesion, the creation of Skilled Jobs and Enterprises, and new Opportunities for ... Markets", (etc), at the same time that "Access to Space", "Positioning and Timing information, and Earth Observation Data, are Fundamental for ../ European Autonomy". But "the EU still Lacks an integrated and coherent Space Policy", observed 2 Resolutions adopted Today by EU Parliament with a Strong Majority : --------------------------- VOTES --------------------------------- >>> Significantly, the Most Popular Issue discussed among MEPs proved to be the Call for an "Integrated, Long-term approach to the Space Sector at EU Level", deemed to have become now "Necessary". This Key point succeeded to Top All MEPs' Votes, by getting a Record-High Number of 567 "Yes", against Only 54 "No" and 53 Abstentions. 2nd Best issue, EU Parliament's move for "the use of Space capabilities in the war Against Terrorism and terrorist organisations, (f.ex.) through the ability to locate and monitor their Training camps", considered to be "Vital", succeeded to attract a Wide Majority of 522 Votes, against Only 137, with 14 Abstentions. Very Close to that, the "Socio-Economic Benefits", particularly of the development of "Applications based on GALILEO (Satellite Navigation system) capabilities, including ... for (EU's) Common Security and Developement Policy", managed to get another Solid Majority of 512 Votes in favour, against just 146, and 9 Abstentions. It's true, however, that a move to "Urge" the EU "to develop the necessary (specific Legal) Framework for EU-level Funding", via sustained Investments in Security Defence capabilities of Space policy, received a (Comparatively) Smaller Support, amidst various Hotly Debated issues, with just 412 "Yes", 239 "No", and 23 Abstentions, which represents, However, a crystal-Clear Majority. But it's Interesting to note also the Astonishing Fact that, even in one among the usualy Hardest Issues, that of EU's relations to NATO, (with which EU should continue a "close Cooperation"), EU Parliament's position that "the EU Must ... ensure, to the Highest possible Degree, (a) Space-related and Military Autonomy", while, it "Must" also "have Its own Instruments, establishing a Defence Union", (even if "in the Long term"), Succeeded to attract, not only a good Majority of 420 Votes, Against just 237, with 15 Abstentions, but Even the Unexpected Support of Several MEPs from Various Political Horizons, usually Accused to be "Euro-Scepticts" : - F.ex., at least one Leftist MEP, Kohlicek from the Czech Republic, but vice-Chair of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, as well as a vice-President of the Conservatives : Helga Stevens of Belgium, from the "New Flamish Alliance", as also another 3 Conservative MEPs, added to Experienced Romanian MEP Monica Macovei, together with Branislav Skripek from Slovakia, the Incoming EU President for the period July-December 2016. Even a vice-Chair of pro-BREXIT Nigel Farage's "Freedom and Democracy" Group : French MEP Joelle Bergeron, a former long-time Member of the "FN" Party of Rightist Le Pen. More Surprizing, several current Members of Marine Le Pen's Rightist "Nations and Freedom" new Group also Supported that move, including 2 vice-Presidents of that Group, both from Italy (Salvini, of "Lega Nord" Party, together with other 3 MEPs), and from Austria, (Vilinsky, of the "FPO", together with another 3 MEPs), as well as German MEP Pretzell from the "Alternative" Party, and Rebega from Romania. But the Most Unexpected was the Support for EU Defence by Nationalists ("Independent/Non Aligned") MEPs, such as 2 Hungarians from "JOBIC" Party, 1 German from "NDP" Party, and 3 Greeks from Rightist "Golden Dawn" Party... It's true, however, that, at the same time, 7 MEPs from the ChristianDemocrat/EPP Group, (particularly Swedish), and 20 Socialist MEPs, (mainly Brittish, etc), and 4 Liberals, defected towards a "No" Vote, while another 7 Socialists Abstained on the above-mentioned point. But a Massive "Yes" Vote from the 3 Biggest Groups, particularly of the ChristianDemocrats/EPP, led by Weber from Germany, and of the Socialists, led by Pittella from Italy, as well as of the Liberals, led by Verhofstad, (former Prime Minister) of Belgium, added to the 24 Unexpected MEPs' Support mainly from various Rightists Nationalists (Comp. Supra), succeeded to gather at least a Rock-Solid, Unquestionable Majority (420 against 237), even on that "Hard" Issue of the Creation of a European "Defence Union". Finaly, the overall Resolution on "Space capabilities for European Security and Defence", drafted by EU Parliament's Rapporteur Bogdan Zdrojewski, a mainstream ChristianDemocrat/EPP MEP from Poland, attracted a Wide Majority of 446 Votes against only 156, with 71 Abstentions. + To this was Added also anOther Resolution, on the Economic aspects of Space Policy, (formaly placed under a Heading on "Market Uptake" from "Space" programs, but Debated by EU Parliament's Plenary together with an Oral Question tabled by 15 ChristianDemocrats/EPP, 3 Socialists, 1 Conservative and 1 Liberal MEPs, on the "Industrial" acpects of "EU Space ... Policy"), which was Supported and Voted not just by the 3 Biggest Groups (ChristianDemocrats/EPP, Socialists and Liberals), but also by the Conservatives, "Greens", and "Freedom - Democracy" MEPs, (i.e. Totaling 6 Groups), naturaly gathering during the Votes a Very Strong Majority, (and so UnContested that Nobody Asked to Count the Votes casted...). ----------------------------------------------------------------- MEPs' Press Conference -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Speaking earlier to a Press Conference on EU Space Policy, organized Yesterday in Strasbourg by 5 MEPs of the ChristianDemocrat/EPP Group, EU Parliament's vice-President, and former EU Commissioner in charge also of Space, Antonio Tajani from Italy, focused mainly on Space as "an extremely Important sector of Industry, and a Vital component of EU's Re-Industrialisation Strategy", which makes it "clear that we (EU) Can Manage Large-Scale Infrastructures, such as GALILEO, COPERNICUS, EGNOS", etc., able to generate good "Returns for Investments", 'not only for Big Companies, but also for SMEs". Therefore, he experssed the "Hope" that, "at the End of this Year" (2016), EU Leaders will take "Ambitious" Final Decisions in this regard. - Experienced vice-Chair of the ChristianDemocrat/EPP Group, MEP Jean Marinescu from Romania, optimisticaly said that "EU is on the Way to become a Space Power", and pointed at EU Commission's declared intention to present "on Autumn" 2016 a Draft "Space Strategy". EU shoud "bringTogether all Industry and Governance" Players on Space activities, while a "First Priority" is a consequent "EU Budget" as well as the forthcoming "Mid-Term Review of EU's Financial Perspectives", but also the "Need of (Scientific) Research and (Technologica) Development", he added. - French mainstream MEP Franck Proust, a ChristianDemocrat/EPP, stressed that "Air-Space's Huge Industry in the EU is Robust" and "a Success for Europe as a whole", but, "at the moment", it stands "at the Crossroads", particularly because "Our (EU's) Clients of Today, will become Competitors Tomorrow", including, "f.ex. India", etc., which still "Need us (EU) for the moment", as far as "Satellites" are concerned, "but Will Soon become able to Launch their own Satellites", he Warned. Therefore, "We (EU) Need to Invent and Look at the Future", in order "to make sure that we'll be Competitive" in front of a Fast-Growing "Globalization". Thus, EU should "Focus on European Technology", as, f.ex., "it's Unthinkable for the USA to have to Launch Satellites by anOther Operator", considering also the Fact that EU currently has "ZERO % Failure in Our Launchers", where "We have a Good Technology". But, at the same time, "We (EU) have seen Problems with Data Protection", in relation with the USA, to the point that, "at the moment, we (EU) are Not Yet Able to Ensure our Clients" about the Security of Data, he pointed out. That's one reason more, for which, in the "Future", we (EU) have to "Look at Innovations", and, considering "our Competitors : mainly USA and certain Emerging Countries", "we Need to Invest", in order "to Keep our Position", he concluded. - EU Parliament's Rapporteur on Security and Defence aspects of Space Policy, MEP Bogdan Zdrojevski from Poland, another ChristianDemocrat/EPP, observed that there are some "Differences" between "Political Groups", as well as "Different Individuals" : "Some, in the Left, Reject a Security/Defence policy" for the EU on Space, while, on the Contrary, others, "at the Right", even if "they consider Security as a Main Issue", nevertheless, "they think that it should Stay at a National level, and not on that of the EU". To this is added, sometimes, also a Lack of Common Points between All (EU) Member States, so that there is "No Compromise Resolution" acceptable to all MEPs. "Our (EU's) System is Non - Military, Unlike that of China, Russia or the USA, where it's Mixte, including also a Military" component. But "in the EU, it's mainly the "Civil use (of Satellites), "and that's the Right Way to go", he found. In addition there is also "Security on Transports, Data Transmission, etc., while Help of Access for EU Citizens would be Appropriate". Moreover, EU has some "very Different Systems, such as GALILEO, COPERNICUS and GPS+", while "we (EU) Need to Bring Together the Various Sectors, and to Cooperate across Sectors", as he said. But, "what is absolutely Vital, at present, is to Support Long-Term Financing", because, "withOut a Long-Term Financial Security, Technologicaly Complex Projects, would see their Quality Undermined", he Warned. Thus, "We (EU) Need to Ensure a Continuing Investment of Projects". As for "Going into Space", it's better to adopt a "Careful approach", but, even if it might be "Expensive", it can unleash the "Full Protential" of cutting-edge Technologies, he concluded. - Francoise Grossetete, an Experienced vice-President of the ChristianDemocrat/EPP Group, and its referent on Space Policy, stressed that, Today, "it's High Time", and "Vital for the EU, to Ensure that it remains Independent" on Space-related activities. For that purpose, "We (EU) Must Act Now", at least to "Take Steps Now" : F.ex., "With GALILEO (Satellite Navigation Sysyem), becoming Soon operational, "We (EU) must Develop Chips and Sensors, etc. in order "to be in Condition" to use it on Time : "it's Unacceptrable for us (the EU) to Carry on by Using the American GPS System", even "when we'll be Able to have Our own European GPS !", she stressed. "And another Essential matter is for COPERNICUS" program, "which is all about Earth Observation, Collecting Terrestrial Data, in addition to Ocean Data and even Greenhouse Gases Emmissions Data, we (EU) will be Able to Move Ahead, thanks to this Technology", (f.ex. in order to Ensure that Informations received from Each State are Correct", as far as the Fight against Climate Change is concerned, etc). Here too, "Cooperation is of Vital Importance, in order to Share Data between various StakeHolders". Moreover, "We must absolutely Develop EU's Space Industrial policy, because it's an Essential Pilar" for Growth and Innovation : "We usualy speak about Digital Tech., but also Space Tech. should be Placed at an Equal Footing, because it has an Important and Decisive Impact on Innovation, also for SMEs", she pointed out. "For all that to be the case, we (EU) will Need Financing", and, in order to "make Sure that we Target (at least) the Funding that we have (already) got, f.ex. by Coordinating Strategy with the "Horizon 2020" EU Research and Technology Program. For all that, "We (EU Parliament") are Determined" to act, and "Have to Take Decisions very Quickly", while "Expecting from the EU Council (i.e. from National Governments) to be Bold enough in order to Enter into Battles that will be Succesful", she concluded. ------------------------------------ EU Parliament's Plenary DEBATE : -------------------------------------------------- + Meanwhile, inter alia, opening EU Parliament's Plenary Debate on Space, ChristianDemocrat/EPP Group vice-President Francoise Grossetete from France, observed from the outset, that, while "USA Invests, Russia adopted a New Space Strategy on 2014, China started to Launch Satellites, and India understood that it should also play in the court of Space Powers", so that "Europe must do anything it can in order not to be distanced. Speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group, MEP Doru Frunzulica, observed also that "Satellites could (also) be used" to Monitor "the Flow of illegal Immigrants and their Roots", in order "to Engage with them Faster, Save more Lives, and improve Naval Security", as she pointed out. For the Conservative Group, Polish MEP Zdzisaw Krasnodebski warned that, in nowadays "Global Competition, several Countries develop Anti-Satellite Technologies and Orbital Weapons, making it Necessary for the EU to become able to to Defend their Space Infrastructures". By doing so, Europe should also take care of the "Compatibility" of its Tools with those of NATO, he found. Many countries are actively developing anti-satellite technologies, including in the field of orbital weapons, which testifies to the militarization of space and the need to develop the ability of European countries by the defense space infrastructure. "Green" MEP Michel Reimon observed that, Today, even his "Mobile Phone has 10 or 15 elements related to Space Technologies", and urged for the EU to Help Small European Start-ups to use the Data obtained by GALILEO and/or COPERNICUS. Brittish EuroSceptic MEP Bill Etheridge claimed that "EU was supposed to be about Trade". Instead of the EU, he prefered for the UK itself to develop its National Space Policy, after leaving the EU. French Rightist MEP from the "National Front", Jean-Luc Schaffhouser suspected an Hypocrisy behind EU's claims for an "Independent" Space Policy, since it doesn't get out of NATO, while the "Dual" (Civil + Military) use of Space Technoilogies might start to be used against Russia, from the next NATO's Summit in Varsaw, he claimed. German MEP Constance Krehl added that "Earth Observation can be used also in order to Face "Natural Catastrophes". Experienced former EU Parliament's President and Rapporteur on Scientific Research, Jerzy Buzek, a ChristianDemocrat/EPP from Poland, Warned that, even if EU's "Spending" for Space might look "Expensive", and durate "Many Years", (since a "Technology Advantage" may need up to "3 or 4 Decades", "in Cutting-Edge Space Technologies"), nevertheless, "It's Bad to Do Nothing, because we (EU) shall be Depending on Others". Italian Socialist MEP Flavio Zanonato asked "a Stable Framework", in order for EU Citizens to seize the Opportunity of Selling Services based on Space Data. ChristianDemocrat MEO Andrei Kovatcev, from Bulgaria, stressed that Europe will need Space Technologies if it wants to "Play a Global Role", and noted that even Small-Medium Countries like Bulgaria can Contribute Usefuly, f.ex. by Producing special "Food for Austronauts". Conservative MEP Karol Karski, advised to "Change EU's Financing" schemas, and "Not stay Only to Pre-Existing Figures", in order, also, to "Encourage New Member States" (i.e. mainly in Central-East Europe) "to become More Active" in that field. "Space Policy implied, First of all, Research, i.e. to Develop Human Potential", observed Greek Conservative MEP Notis Marias, urging to "provide (EU) Funds for Scientists working in that field at All Member Countries", in order to End "the InJustice suffered (f.ex.) by Greek Astrophysicians, obliged to Emigrate because they don't have the Means to pursue their Research in their own Country" Moreover, EU should "Cooperate not only with the USA, but also with Russia, India and China, for Cutting Edge Space Technologies to serve Humankind". Leftist MEP Joao Ferreira preferred to speak against "Militarisation" of EU's Space Policy, and urged to use Space Technologies also in order to End "Inequalities". ---------------------------------------------- => EU Commission's Concluding Promisses : ------------------------------------------------------------------ => After also the Debate at EU Parliament's Plenary, Yesterday Afternoon, EU Commissioner in charge of Industry, Market, Businesses and SMEs, Elzbieta Bienkowska, a former vice-Prime Minister of Poland, Replying to "Many" MEPs' observations about a "Link between Space and Defence Policy", took the "Commitment" to be "very Attentive" to that, because she is "in charge of Both Strategies", while "2016 is e very central Year for European Defence" too : - "We (EU) will have a Global Strategy for Space, and then a Defence action Plan", which would "Focus ... on Cooperation in Research,, .. Industrial projects, .. and Stronger Capabilities". In this regard, "I Agree with those (MEPs) who Call to ensure an (EU) Autonomous Access to Space", because, "withOut that, .. there is No Space Strategy in Europe", that "We Want, and Will be Ambitious", she promissed. -------------------------------------------------------- Less EU Funds for Space High-Tech, than for Turkey ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But, nevertheless, EU reportedly intends to give Only 11 Billions until 2020 for Both 2 landmark EU Space Infrastructures : the Galileo and Copernicus Programs (on Satellite Navigation and Earth Observation, respectively), i.e. Less than it Spends nowadays for Turkey : Just 2,2 Billions per Year for EU Space Policy, instead of More than 3 Billions per Year for Turkey, (at least Starting during the Forthcoming Years 2016, 2017 and 2018, probably due to be Extended Further, unless EU's Migration Policy Changes soon enough) ! In addition, the Scandalous spectacle of a Press Room with some Accredited Journalists among whom Not even One doesn't Care to Raise any Question at all during that Exceptionaly Important Press Conference organized by 5 mainstream MEPs, including the vice-President of EU Parliament and former EU Commissioner Antonio Tajani, (curiously Scheduled at the Same Moment that other Journalists had to follow anOther Plenary Debate on Migration policy, once more), was Aggravated by a Counter-Productive Secretariat's Decision to Condemn the EU Space Strategy Debate only into a quasi-Desertic Hemicycle because of a Timing cornered Near .. MidNight ! (I.e. exactly as it had done also against a Previous Debate, last February 2016, on a Different, but also Topical Important Issue, on the Human Rights of Young Girls and Women Massively Brutalized by unprecedented Mob Aggressions, most reportedly launched by Thousands of Mass Asylum Seekers/Irregular Migrants flowing through Turkey into the EU, amidst a Strange Absence of any Police Protection, followed even by Attempts to Muzzle and/or Minimise the Horrible Crimes committed against Defenseless and mostly Poor Girls living at Far Away Suburbs, who were Blocked, Attacked and Brutalized at Koeln's Center on the Night of New Year's Eve, as it also occured, mutatis-mutandis, even in several other Cities in Germany, as well as in Other EU Countries, f.ex. Sweden, Denmark, Austria, etc : That "Hot" Debate was also Condemned to take place Near MidNight, in addition to being Banalized by a Heading simply speaking about a recurrent phenomenon of "Violence against Women", to the point that even Important MEPs who were Personaly and Politricaly Interested in that still Pending matter, speaking then to "Eurofora", acknowledged that they had Not even Noticed that the New Issue of Mass Aggressions against Women in Europe had been ever Debated at EU Parliament)... Is there any Link between these 2, apparently so Different EU Parliament's Debates, (both curiously scheduled in quasi-Desertic MidNight Sessions and otherwise Marginalized), one on High-Tech Space Policy and Europe's Autonomy in the World, and the other on Human Rights of Poor Girls Brutalized by Mass Aggressions of Violent and unscrupulous Mobsters ? Obviously, if anyone might wish to Hide the notoriously Controversial and Unpopular character, (as well as, in Fact, largely Useless, as UNHCR + IMO Official data Prove, given that the Mass Migration "Tsunami" from Turkey had been Stopped, already, Earlier by several European Countries' decision to setablish Checks at the Borders of the "Western Balkans' Route" : See f.ex., ......), of an EU - Turkey Deal with Big, Unprecedented Concessions from the EU, taken momentaneously Hostage by a Blackmailing Turkish regime, then, he wouldn't, certainly, like at all to have a lot of Publicity about the parallel Needs to Save EU Funds for Space High-Tech and Europe's Autonomy, (instead of Wasting much More for Controversial and Unpopular Deals with Turkey : Comp. Supra), as well as to Protect Poor Girls' basic Human Rights, Safety and elementary Human Dignity in front of Brutal Mobsters, mostly among the Migrants that Turkey had "Selected", as recent Revelations in Brussels and elsewhere Denounced, (f.ex. by Excluding Educated People and de facto Hindering most Christian Refugees, etc). Simply because Both these Issues concern, in fact, European People's Development and Social Cohesion, as well as EU's Autonomy and Strength, instead of Depending on various Foreign Countries, (for Access to Space and/or in order to Guard EU's External Borders)... A really Strong and Human Europe should obviously become Able to do Both by itself. By the way, speaking of "Mid-Term Review" also of the Juncker Investment Plan, (Comp. Supra), Tomorrow's EU Parliament's Debates will probably have also to Deal with an apparent Paradox : How it comes for the EU to Spend already More than 100 Millions in full Grants in Greece, for the reception of Mass Migrants from Turkey, out of a Total of reportedly 700 Millions earmarked for that purpose, while, on the Contrary, despite the Vital Need of that EU Member Country to Fund Competitive Growth and Innovation, nevertheless, it hadn't managed yet to get out of that Juncker Plan, until now, more than just 35 Millions , and that in reimbursable Loans ? This Strange but Verified Fact was initialy Denounced by an "Eurofora" reader who Published a short but strongly Critical viewpoint in our Forum as early as since the 1st of June : See http://www.eurofora.net/forum/index.php/topic,792.0.html , but it was also Slamed, later-on, even by the Liberal Group at an EU Parliament's Press Briefing, in view of its present Plenary Session in Strasbourg, reportedly at the istingation of Experienced former Prime Minister of Belgium, and current President of Liberal MEPs Guy Verhofstadt... ---------------------------------- However, on Space Policy's Economic aspects, a Joint Draft Resolution Strongly Backed by a very Wide Coalition of Political Groups, both of the ChristianDemocrats/EPP, Socialists, Liberals, and of Conservatives as well as "Greens", "stresses the Need to Strengthen (EU) Funding", particularly "for Development of Downstream Applications and Services", but also to "Better Exploit, for the Space Sector", "the Innovation Potential of Horizon 2020" EU's Program for Science, Research and Technology, as well as, all "EU"'s "Wide Range of Access to Finance Opportuities at its disposal", (such as "Horizon 2020, ESIF, COSME, EFSI, etc"). And a Ouestion to EU Commission raised by mainstream MEPs of the ChrristianDemocrats/EPP, Socialists, Conservatives and Liberals, focusing on "Space Industrial policy", asks "More Resources for Space Research", and, in particular, to "fully use", for that purpose, also "the 1,4 Billion put aside within Horizon 2020", etc., because Space is of "Fundamental" importance for "Innovation, .. Non-Dependance and Security of Supply in Critical Technologies". In Addition, a Report on Security-Defence related aspects of Space policy, adopted by EU Parliamebt Today, stresses that "Continued financial Investment is Needed to sustain Technological Research and Development" in that sector, as well as for the EU to "Encourage all Actors in the Technology and Know-how Supply chains to turn their Attention to Space-based Capabilities and Dual-use (Civilian + Military) Technologies of relevance to Security and Defence". (../..) ------------------------------ *** ("DraftNews", as already send to "Eurofora"'s Subscribers/Donors, earlier. A more accurate, full Final Version might be published asap). *** The Slovenian government is set to sell a majority stake in the countrys largest lender, Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), via a public listing. Marko Jazbec, head of Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SSH), says the state investment company opted for the IPO route after a feasibility study with advisers Deutsche Bank. We reviewed all available options for the sale of NLB, including potential partnerships with large international banks or a sale to financial investors, he says. The conclusion was that an IPO offered the highest probability for a successful transaction and increased proceeds for Slovenian taxpayers. Marko Jazbec, SSH NLB has been wholly state-owned since March 2013, when Belgiums KBC Bank was forced by the European Commission to sell a 22% stake in the lender. A separate EC ruling, related to the state bailout of NLB in the same year, requires the Slovenian government to privatize the bank by the end of 2017. Jazbec says the initial response from investors to the IPO proposals has been positive. Investors like the progress on NLBs restructuring in areas including reduction of costs, compliance with EC commitments and IT processes, he says. The banks retail and corporate business mix, as well as its strong presence in south-eastern Europe, were also seen as quite favourable. In addition to insurance and fund management subsidiaries in Slovenia, NLB has a large presence in four Balkan markets Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo as well as a small operation in Serbia. Last year, the foreign subsidiaries accounted for more than half of total net income of 92 million. No date has been set for the IPO, although Jazbec confirms that it will not be before the autumn. NLB will be dual-listed in Ljubljana and on an leading international stock exchange, as yet unnamed. It will be the first IPO on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange since June 2008. A decision is also pending on the size of the holding to be sold in the IPO. The Slovenian government plans to retain a permanent 25% stake in NLB, which had total assets of 11.8 billion and total equity of 1.4 billion at end-December. Dampen enthusiasm Analysts suggest that continued state involvement could dampen enthusiasm for the transaction. SSH is aware that to complete the IPO successfully we have to consider very carefully what the future involvement of the state will be in the governance of NLB, says Jazbec. We would like to self-limit ourselves based on international best practice in order to attract international investors. Elena Romanova, senior expert for CEE banking at Raiffeisen, says NLBs structure and background may also deter investors. It is a cumbersome institution with a less than favourable track record, she says. Pricing will also likely be an issue because there are few obvious comparables for the bank, plus the recent uncertainty around Slovenian banks will boost the risk premium. Slovenias banking sector returned to profit in 2014 following a 4.8 billion state recapitalization of the three biggest lenders NLB, Nova KBM and Abanka and the creation of a bad bank. Nevertheless, non-performing loans remain high, particularly in the corporate segment. At the end of December, bad debts still accounted for 15.3% of total lending at NLB. Recent changes at the top of the bank may also weigh on investor sentiment. In February, chief executive Janko Medja resigned, citing differences of opinion with SSH relating to the privatization. The president and two members of the supervisory board followed suit in April, just two months after their appointment. A joint resignation letter suggested that individuals and interest groups ... are trying to control and lead the bank toward aims that are hardly correct. In late May, NLB was still working to recruit a new CEO. SSH says a new supervisory board will be in place by the end of June. Slovenias second-largest lender, NKBM, has already been privatized. US private equity group Apollo Global Management bought the Maribor-based bank last summer for 250 million. The deal was completed in April. Gernot Lohr, a senior partner at Apollo, says the fund is targeting a 25% stake in the Slovenian market, which it sees as ripe for consolidation. Apollo has already bought Raiffeisens Slovenian operation a deal that is due to be completed this June and is eyeing the assets of other foreign lenders with smaller subsidiaries such as Sberbank, Hypo Alpe Adria, Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit. Fragmented market The Slovenian market is overly fragmented, says Lohr. In a country of only two million people, it will never be possible to make money with a 4% market share. It is therefore clear that several of the foreign players will want to exit, because they are realising that their current business model doesnt work. Abanka is also due to be privatized under the ECs agreement with Slovenia, although the government has until the end of 2019 to complete the sale. The lender is undergoing intensive restructuring following its merger with smaller state-owned lender Banka Celje and will not be ready for sale for at least a year, says Jazbec. It is far too early to comment on the preferred route for the sale of Abanka, he says, adding: Obviously it will depend partly on the success of the NLB transaction, as well as the fundamentals of the bank at the time. The city of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the worlds most expensive location for expats, mainly due to currency changes, new research shows.All expats know that their living costs are likely to be affected by currency fluctuations at some point and in the case of Kinshasa it is due to the Congolese Franc appreciating against most major currencies around the world and in particular the Swiss Franc.The latest cost of living survey from employee management firm ECA International shows that Kinshasa tops the global 2016 rankings but this may not last with the Congolese economy and the currency under pressure from falling commodity prices, especially copper and cobalt.The cost of importing and transporting items, commonly purchased by international assignees in this location, is high due to poor infrastructure, corruption and the ongoing risk of conflict in the area, said Steven Kilfedder, ECA International manager for Cost of Living and Remuneration Services.This years survey also shows that Hong Kong now the second most expensive location for expats in Asia and ninth globally. Again, this is due to currency as during the past 12 months the Hong Kong dollar appreciated against most currencies contributing to Hong Kongs rise in the rankings.The Japanese locations covered by the survey all moved back into the global top 15 most expensive cities with Tokyo once again the most expensive location in Asia, rising from seventh in the regional rankings last year.The appreciation of the yen in recent months against other major currencies is a significant reason for this rise in the rankings. This means that for many companies, the cost of maintaining their assignees' purchasing power while posted there has increased, said Lee Quane, ECA International regional director for Asia.Shanghai, which was ranked as the most expensive location for expats in the Asia Pacific region a year ago, has moved down two places to the third most expensive. Within China, Shanghai at 10th globally is just ahead of Beijing at 11, Guangzhou at 15th and Shenzhen at 24.Indeed, 11 of the 14 Chinese cities included in the rankings dropped positions in the global rankings this year. However, all 14 ranked Chinese cities still rank in the global top 50 most expensive locations for expatriates.We have seen a small depreciation of the renminbi against the yen and HK dollar over the past year, this has led to Shanghai and Beijing falling below Tokyo and Hong Kong in the rankings, explained Quane.However, this does not truly reflect the general trend seen in China over the past five years with locations in mainland China averaging a 54 place increase in the global rankings over this time period. It is likely that major Chinese cities will remain expensive destinations for mobile executives for the foreseeable future, Quane added.Overall Singapore has remained relatively stationary in the Asia Pacific regional rankings, moving down to 10th position from ninth last year, it has climbed one place to 18th position on the global stage. Amblepup said: Should have also said you DO have to register at your local comune as you will be living there, it is a legal requirement and I believe you need to call at your local police station with your documents. However, if you do have problems you could try further afield, give your local comune a chance, most are very helpful and friendly. Click to expand... Thanks Amble,my grandfather was born in Fresagrandinaria, CH so we are in the same area. I rented a place in Vasto, on a Adriatic, which has always been my favorite area. Besides it is only 17 km from the town of Fresagrandinaria, I could not find anything closer. I have all my documents too. My concerns were if Fresagrandinaria is up with the times being such a small commune. Is it possible to call them and ask in advance or is that considered a no no?If all else fails I could apply in Vasto which is a tourist town I hear.I know about applying and i have collected all my documentation and registering with the local Police and I also want to get my passport stamped with a residency allowing me to stay for one year just in case.Thanks much fo the feedback!Rachel This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NIXON Theres no Big Texas-style entrance to Doug Havemanns cattle operation. Its just a hog panel fence at the end of a lane of modest homes and double-wide trailers in Nixon, a small town east of San Antonio where 22 percent of families live below the poverty line. There, Havemann tends to his 12 head of cattle on 16 acres of systematically paddocked, carefully monitored grassland. By tending, he means scratching the chin of an affectionate 2,200-pound bull named Jack and letting a still awkward calf named Sue learn to judge distance by rubbing up against his leg. There are no bags of feed grain, no pesticides or fertilizers for the pasture, no shots of antibiotics or castration to calm a future pubescent bulls hormones. I want them to have a great life with one bad day, he said, referring to the inevitable slaughter. And I dont even want them to know that day is coming. He sees his neighboring large-herd ranchers over morning coffee, and senses theyre inwardly scoffing at his little project, imagining the Desert Storm veteran and former corporate computer systems guy raising skinny, sinewy, tough-tasting, politically correct beef cows. Snickering from the big guys he can handle. What bugs him is the $1 assessment hes forced to pay per head that ends up marketing what he views as their environmentally harmful, non-natural way of producing beef with feed grain. Like other independent, nonconventional cattle raisers, Havemann views the U.S. Department of Agricultures national Beef Checkoff Program as a tax for a program that works against him. The question is what do I need it for? Havemann said. I sell directly to the consumer. My advertising is word-of-mouth. I have to pay; its the law. So it costs me money and I get no benefit from it. The 1985 Beef Promotion and Research Act created the Beef Checkoff program the following year to promote and market beef consumption. It generates about $80 million annually for research and advertising campaigns with memorable slogans such as Beef Its Whats for Dinner. But a series of lawsuits brought by smaller producers, including one filed in May by the Montana-based Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF), allege that the program has ended up funding only the interests of mega-ranches and a few multinational corporations that pack and sell the bulk of the nations beef. Administered by the USDA, the largest contractor for the program is the National Cattlemens Beef Association, a lobbying group that contributes heavily to political campaigns and lobbied hard to undo meat labeling specifying in which country the animal was born, raised and harvested, which R-CALF supported. Checkoff revenue accounted for 82 percent of the NCBA budget, according to a report by the Office of Inspector General. The program meanwhile has been plagued by allegations of impropriety. J. Dudley Butler, who served as a top official overseeing stockyards under Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, resigned amid talks of a second checkoff that he said would be more of the same. Butler ran the office responsible for ensuring fair competition in selling meat, livestock and poultry. Under your watch the beef checkoff money paid by producers, like me, has been improperly collected, mismanaged and misappropriated, he wrote in a Dec. 22, 2014, letter to Vilsack. Under your watch there continues to be a cover up of these abuses. Of late, beef checkoff administrators have joined similar commodity checkoff programs in getting a provision in the pending 2017 House agriculture appropriations bill that exempts checkoff programs from the federal Freedom of Information Act. The House appropriations committee backed the position that the campaigns are industry funded and therefore not agencies of the federal government subject to open records requests. The action followed an Associated Press report that used a public records request to show the American Egg Board had attempted to stop the sale of an eggless mayonnaise alternative at Whole Foods. John Robinson, executive director of the National Cattlemens Beef Association, said FOIA requests were becoming a drain on checkoff dollars for multiple commodities. We signed onto a letter with a number of other contracting organizations or checkoff organizations and the simple reason for that is because producer dollars are precious, theyre very limited and over time weve seen the purchasing power of that beef checkoff dollar decline, he said. Rather than that money being spent on answering FOIA requests, which as Im sure youre aware are very expensive, we would prefer that the money be directed toward fulfilling the act and the order as it was written and pursuing activities that promote beef and provide research opportunities. R-CALFs lawsuit against Vilsack and the USDA focuses on the portion of beef checkoff proceeds that go to states, which in Montanas case is administered by the privately run Montana Beef Council. The lawsuit alleges producers are being forced to fund ads with with slogans such as Beef. Always in Season and campaigns such as one with Wendys that touted burgers from cattle raised in North America, which could include cattle from 41 different countries and territories, including Central American nations. R-CALF USAs Montana members are required to subsidize the speech of the private Montana Beef Council, according to the complaint. The lawsuit says the council is made up of executives from some of the largest multinational, industrial cattle producers, which purchase and raise cattle both domestically and internationally. As a result, the council engages in promotional campaigns that communicate all beef is equal and it is irrelevant where beef comes from, the complaint reads. The USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. Judith McGeary, executive director of the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, said the lawsuits key premise, that producers are paying for promotion of imported products, reflects a fundamental problem with the checkoffs. Producers are legally required to pay for these marketing programs, but the content of the programs is controlled by specific groups that do not fairly represent the producers, she said. Stayton Weldon, a fourth-generation Cuero rancher and former R-CALF state director, said he was all for the beef checkoff until he realized the multinationals were selling more imported beef. They were using our beef checkoff for promoting beef from Argentina, Brazil or wherever, he said. Beef Its Whats for Dinner. Does it say American beef? No. Does it say were eating Australian beef? No. Its just beef. Where does that beef come from? Weldon said independent ranchers, who raise their cattle and sell them on the open market, fear corporate encroachment and a lost way of life as the cattle industry goes the way of the chicken and pork industries. That means captive supply contracts and vertical integration, essentially packers buying the animals before they are finished, and controlling the feed, weights and, ultimately, market price without ever going to auction. R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard said the fear was of the chickenization of the cattle industry. The majority of the hundreds of thousands of once independent chicken producers are now under contract with one of a few multinational corporations, he said. Voter Guide: What to know for the midterm election Your guide to the Texas and San Antonio races and candidates on the Nov. 8 ballot. And theyve got complete control of the chicken market, he said of the corporations. They bring him his chickens; the farmer is not allowed to count how many chickens hes gotten. They bring him his feed; he is not allowed to look at the weight of the feed that they bring him or the quality. Anything they bring him, hes got to feed them. When that chicken is sold, they cannot go with those chickens to see what the chickens weigh. And they just get a check. Thats what the beef people, those independents, are trying to avoid, Bullard said. Being completely controlled by these multinational corporations. But Tom Super, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, said in an email that the top four chicken processors are responsible for 53 percent of the current market, compared with 80 percent of the beef market being controlled by the top four beef packers. He sent a fact sheet with points such as that chicken companies remove 97 percent of economic risk from producers and that in 2014 there were nearly 2,000 people on waiting lists to be contract farmers. Richard Thorpe, a rancher who is president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association representing some 17,000 producers, said the beef business can never go the way of the chicken or pork industries because of the independent mindset of the rancher and the sheer amount of land needed to run cattle. Itll never be vertically integrated where a packing house owns all the cattle in the country, and they run them to their feed yards and then their packing plant, he said. Its impossible to happen with the cattle industry. He defended the checkoff program as something that, according to a checkoff-commissioned Cornell University study, has returned $11.20 in beef sales for every dollar invested and has promoted beef sales to the benefit even of the smallest cattle operations. What groups such as R-CALF are really upset about is the lost battle for country-of-origin labeling (COOL), he said, which stems from a lack of understanding about the potential backlash to COOL by Canada and Mexico. The countries argued to the World Trade Organization that the labeling carried the implication their products were inferior. The whole mindset of country-of-origin labeling was that eating beef produced in this country is good and we all like that, we all are for that, Thorpe said. But 13 percent of U.S. beef is exported, with Mexico and Canada being the two biggest markets, he said. They were going to have retaliatory tariffs, he said. Those retaliatory tariffs would have ended up costing producers a tremendous amount of money when all of a sudden we had a lot of product we couldnt move and prices would go down. My bottom line is Im very happy with people buying beef. Id much rather them buy beef than chicken or pork or another competitive protein, he said. Because the demand is more important. The worldwide demand is more important than trying to label the product. Havemann, in the meantime, is getting more than five times the price per pound for his grass-fed, hormone-free cattle. His beef is also sold out more than two years ahead of time and hes working with more than a dozen high-end San Antonio chefs eager to experiment with the flavor nuances of grass-fed beef. A Texas A&M cattle expert tells him his cattle look as fat and healthy as stock show animals. Thorpe praised Havemann for being able to profit from a marketing niche. Natural and organic products are definitely out there and people want to buy them, and Im very happy that he is in that business and doing real well, Thorpe said. But in saying that, Im 100 percent sure that he doesnt have any evidence that his product is any healthier or safer than conventionally raised beef. lbrezosky@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Gov. Greg Abbott is seeking federal aid for the Texas counties hardest hit by the latest run of storms that flooded thousands of homes and streets with reckless force. In a letter dated Thursday, Abbott asked President Obama to declare a major federal disaster in 12 counties, including Brazoria, Fort Bend and Montgomery, where the powerful storms and flooding swamped cars, ruined houses and businesses, washed out roads and ripped apart trees. The other counties earmarked by Abbott are Austin, Brazos, Grimes, Hidalgo, Hood San Jacinto, Travis, Waller and Washington. The governor's action is a necessary first step before Obama decides whether to release funds to the counties as they clean up from the storms. U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady tweeted that the state's congressional delegation had written Obama in support of Abbott's request. Officials said they expect a decision within days. The president already had declared disasters in many of the same places after major flooding in April an unfortunate fact that Abbott highlighted in his letter requesting more federal help. Major storms and flooding have hammered the Houston area on the last two Memorial Day weekends. The last year has taken a terrible toll on the people and the property of this state, he wrote Thursday. Texans are resilient, but few can recover without assistance when disaster after disaster hits in the middle of recovery. With a presidential declaration, people whose homes were damaged or destroyed can apply for a grant of up to $33,000 from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The amount will depend on the severity of the reported damage. In addition to repair costs, some aid can be used for certain medical expenses, funeral costs and damage to clothing or household items, among other losses. Although Abbott has declared a disaster in 46 counties since June 1, his request for federal aid only covers those with storm-related damage of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments. Abbott wrote that the most recent storms, which began May 26, dumped up to 20 inches of rain in parts of Southeast Texas that typically receive 40 to 50 inches of rain a year. Brenham alone had 16 inches on the first day of the storms, shattering the Washington County city's one-day rainfall record by more than 6 inches. To make matters worse, the region had been pounded with heavy rain for weeks, so the ground already was saturated, the rivers, bayous and creeks already brimming. This latest rain had nowhere to settle. The severe storms were blamed for at least 20 deaths, including nine soldiers who were killed when their truck was overturned by swift water near Fort Hood, north of Austin. WASHINGTON Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro plans to announce today in San Antonio a full-court press in HUD-assisted housing aimed at reducing threats of lead poisoning in children. Castro, scheduled to attend a conference in the city, was preparing to spell out plans to strengthen HUD regulations governing lead hazards and to seek legislation for increased monitoring authority. HUD also plans to announce $46.5 million in Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration grants to 15 local and state agencies, including $3.4 million to the city of San Antonio. All told, the new money could make 3,100 homes lead-safe. Castro, a former San Antonio mayor, described his concern about threats to children from exposure to lead from deteriorated paint, dust and soil. It peels away their opportunity to achieve their full, God-given potential. It causes, oftentimes, stunted learning ability or other health issues that rob a child of his or her full potential. And thats a shame, he said. Castro will announce the initiative at the HUD-National Environmental Health Association annual conference in San Antonio. The HUD initiative was described as an aggressive effort in the waning months of the Obama administration to bolster federal lead programs crippled over the years by a lack of funding. Lead poisoning results in a host of problems in children, among them lowered IQ, reduced attention span and anti-social behavior. In 2000, when a federal plan was devised to tackle the vexing problem, it was estimated that at least $230 million annually would be needed to adequately fund HUDs lead hazard control program. HUD has spent over $1.5 billion since the 1990s and has identified lead-based hazards in more than 190,000 low-income, privately owned housing units. But funding has steadily declined, down to $103 million this year despite estimates of lead problems in over 4 million homes with children. HUD is able to fund roughly half the applications it receives for lead abatement grants. Congress has proposed slight increases for next year. With significant new funding unlikely, the agency is moving ahead on the regulatory front. In a Lead-Safe Homes, Lead-Free Kids Toolkit that Castro will unveil, his agency spells out plans for increased cooperation with other federal departments along with educational programs to heighten awareness of the problem in HUD-assisted housing. New programs and monitoring apply to public housing authorities and to private homes where inhabitants receive HUD assistance. A proposed rule the agency submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget seeks to bring the blood-lead-level definition used by HUD in line with recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While there is no blood-lead level considered safe, the CDC recommends that remedial actions be taken when tests in children ages 1 to 5 show blood-lead levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter. HUDs level triggering action is 20 micrograms. Blood testing of children often occurs in connection with preschool programs or when recommended by physicians. HUDs new initiative aims to increase testing. The lowered blood-lead level is designed to increase monitoring, enforcement and possible relocation of residents. Castro said his agency will seek legislation enabling more thorough inspections beyond the visual walk-through that is permitted now. Right now, Castro said, the way its determined theres a risk of lead exposure is that somebody goes in there and they do a visual inspection. They see if theres peeling paint. Its limited. Since taking over at HUD nearly two years ago, Castro has defined initiatives in his agency as attempts to increase the potential of success of those assisted by HUD. Thats the case, too, in the anti-lead plan he wants to spell out in his hometown. If were going to truly spark opportunity in the lives of families, good health is fundamental to good opportunity, he said. Castro said HUD also plans to award grants to New Britain, Connecticut.; Cook County, Illinois; the Maine State Housing Authority; Lansing, Michigan.; Newark and Trenton, New Jersey; Albany, Erie County and Onondaga County, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; the Rhode Island Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp.; Salt Lake County, Utah; and Milwaukee. bill.lambrecht@hearstdc.com French journalist Jean-Marc Gonin has had a vantage point of U.S. presidential electioneering that many U.S. journalists have not. While the great majority of us have watched Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump from our laptops, cellphones and TVs, Gonin has had an up-close and dronelike look at presidential and un-presidential politics. The foreign correspondent for Le Figaro magazine in Paris has traveled the United States during other presidential election years. Last week Gonin landed in San Antonio for a story about Latinos, the race for the White House and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Over breakfast tacos at Mi Tierra, Gonin talked about the 11 Trump rallies that put him in contact with Trump supporters and their perspectives that have brought him to a chilling comparison from his European eye. He couldnt utter the word, but its fascism. In Europe, he says of Trump, the phenomenon, theres a sense of deja vu. Though fascism may congure images of World War II and Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, in Europe you dont have to go back in history that far. Neo-fascism has taken hold in national politics throughout the European Union. Gonin says the movement has two features, two arguments: violence and race. In the thick of Trump rallies, he has seen the same kind of right-wing nationalism and anti-immigrant zealotry that marks Europe. In his own country, he points to Jean-Marie Le Pen, former head of the far-right National Front party. Hes the Holocaust denier who once said Ebola could solve Europes immigration problem. Le Pen backed Trump early this year, just a few days after the endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke. Trump eventually denounced the latter. Gonin also mentioned Le Pens daughter Marine Le Pen, who now leads the National Front. She was acquitted in a case of inciting hatred after comparing Muslim street prayers to Nazi occupiers. Muslims do pray in public spaces in several cities where theres a lack of mosques or other prayer rooms, newspapers have reported. The younger Le Pen will run for president of France next year. There are some other common features between the European right and the U.S. right. Theyre overwhelmingly white and undereducated. In both, leaders ascribe depressed economies to immigrants, and the latter are overwhelmingly brown. In Europe, theyve been overwhelmingly Muslim. In the United States, Trumps scapegoats also have been overwhelmingly brown and most often Latino, but black and Muslim, too. Trump supporters have cheered his goal of building a wall between the United States and one of its largest trading partners as a solution to illegal immigration and its ills, unwilling or incapable of seeing the complications of immigration, the familial ties and the potential impact to the U.S. economy sans undocumented labor. Theres another comparison to be made between European neo-fascists and Trump supporters. Theyre angry, and when en masse show violent streaks. Gonin says theyre so angry at the system, They want someone to break the system. Europeans fear a Trump presidency, as they fear their own neo-fascists, because he doesnt play by any rules and threatens stability far beyond U.S. borders. Gonin called the United States the beacon of freedom and democracy around the world. Tarnishing that standing will impact European democracies, too, he said. For all those in Europe who say they dislike the United States and view Americans as uncultured cowboys, theres also a recognition of its leadership in the world and its willingness to help the world on a massive scale. Europeans have good memories. They know that America has come to its defense twice, Gonin said. We want a sheriff, but not a violent one. Gonin was impressed with San Antonios friendliness, though he said he has found that to be true throughout the country. He was struck by what he called the depths of its political activism. Its really rooted in society, and its active, he said. I didnt expect the communitys strength to impose its agenda in public life in San Antonio. Once you get it, you dont let loose. Gonin interviewed several people in Latino political circles about the rising Latino demographic and its impact on presidential elections. He showed interest in the Castro brothers, Joaquin, the congressman, and Julian, the housing secretary, former mayor and vice presidential hopeful in waiting. He loves traveling through the United States. He cant say this about his own country, where villagers are leery of visitors. The United States feels open, he said. Its the confidence of freedom, the kind that would abhor the restrictions of a heavily polarized society, the kind that would abhor the building of a wall. Its an open society, Gonin said. I hope it stays that way. eayala@express-news.net Twitter: @ElaineAyala This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate AUSTIN It has been the site of fancy dinners, weighty deliberations and holiday celebrations, launched George W. Bushs first presidential campaign and even survived being burned. But the best stories about the Governors Mansion are the personal tales about the people whove called it home. I got the chance to hear some of those stories and revisit others when I wrote about Gov. Greg Abbotts use of the mansion and spoke to people including former Gov. Mark White. The Democrat disposed of my questions about how he handled donor invitations, then recounted the time he invited some friends to dinner at the mansion with former Vice President Walter Mondale. As White recalls, he was sitting at one end of the formal dining-room table and Mondale was at the other. All the guests, including his friend Larry Johnson, were seated on antique chairs. All at once we heard this crash, and all we could see of Larry was his nose and up, sticking over the top of the edge of the table. His chair had collapsed under him absolute collapse, said White, who served 1983-87. All he was saying was, I wasnt leaning back. I wasnt leaning back. He was explaining to his wife, who he knew was going to take his scalp if he kept getting caught leaning back in one of these chairs, and it broke, White said. That was probably the most memorable part of that evening probably for everybody there, including Mondale. A lunch that didnt happen at the mansion also provided some insight into human nature, when White told of inviting a Dallas friend to share a meal. I told him, Lets have lunch at the mansion next Thursday. Came Thursday, Im sitting over at the mansion waiting on him. Where the hell is he? Hes up in Dallas at The Mansion waiting on me, White said, referring to an upscale restaurant. To Whites way of thinking, the mistake said something about Dallas residents. They just think the whole world revolves around Dallas. And by God, it did for him, White quipped. We had a pretty good lunch over at our place. I thought maybe the wine was better in Dallas, but we didnt do badly. Democratic strategist Harold Cook said the late Ann Richards enjoyed inviting friends to the mansion when she was governor. But she apparently didnt always remember to tell the Texas Department of Public Safety, which provides mansion security, to be ready for her guests. That led to a memorable moment as Cook drove by the mansion one day. The late Rep. Ernestine Glossbrenner of Alice had been invited, but the mansion gate was closed, leading to a minor ruckus as she tried to get DPS attention in true Texas fashion. Shes blocking traffic, laying on the horn, trying to make DPS open the gate, said Cook. Recognizing the big ol land yacht that Glossbrenner drove, Cook called the governors office to ask that the gate be opened for her. After Bush succeeded Richards, he readied for his first presidential run with a stream of visitors to the mansion, in what was dubbed the front-porch campaign. Some family touches recur from administration to administration. The mansion adventures of first puppy Pancake now all grown up are sometimes featured on the Abbotts social media accounts, including a video of the proud dog climbing onto the front-porch swing. And they arent the only first family to include pet lovers. The mansions Christmas decorations a dozen years ago were inspired by miniature dachshund Lucy, a pampered member of former Gov. Rick Perrys family. And former Gov. Jim Hogg (1891-1895) had a parrot, Jane, that would cry Papa! Papa! and fly out to meet the governor as he arrived home, according to Carl R. McQuearys Dining at the Governors Mansion. The Republican Abbott even has something in common with Richards, the most recent Democratic governor. Abbott hosted his Duncanville High School reunion at the mansion this year, celebrating the Class of 1976. Nearly a quarter-century earlier, in 1992, Richards hosted the 42nd high school reunion of her Waco High School class there. Im glad I didnt embarrass yall, she told some of her classmates. Perry and his wife, Anita, hosted a reunion of another sort in 2012 when the mansion was restored after the arson that severely damaged it. They invited former Texas first families to a luncheon that included White and his wife, Linda Gale, along with family members of former Govs. Connally, Jester, Daniel, Shivers, Briscoe, Moody, Richards and Smith. The restoration freshly revealed a signature memory of Whites stay one that White said after the arson that he hoped his grandchildren would be able to find one day. His children had carved their initials on a banister. pfikac@express-news.net Twitter: @pfikac Sometimes, when a relationship begins to sour, making that tough phone call is inevitable. Beeeeeep beeeeep beee call answered. Uncomfortable silence. I know youre there. Im not surprised youre so quiet youve often been at a loss for words with me, and I imagine thats because you really dont know me that well but I know that youre the one whos not doing so well these days. Still, I really need to talk to you because well, you know why. Donald Trump. Hes coming to San Antonio next week. So I figured Id reach out to you before its too late. More uncomfortable silence. OK, we dont have until November, so Ill make it quick. For years, you were riding around with the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters and Joe Arpaios and everyone who loved them, so it seemed you didnt want anything to do with the likes of me or people like me. And even though you never came out and said it, your less tolerant friends did. They were really mean, and you never told them to shut up. But I paid attention and liked a lot of what you were saying. Sometimes there is unfairness in life, but Im not a victim. I work hard; my military parents raised me to believe that some values are worth risking lives for. I believe in self-determination, building wealth and creating opportunities for those who will help us become a better nation. Things are complicated, but I have faith that good people eventually figure things out. Most of all, I believe that life isnt red or blue and that we need people with different ideas to adequately represent us. Despite your angry friends, I felt we were getting to know each other. Some of your friends seemed to understand me. I admit I was a little tense about that hanging chad stuff but, in time, I grew to like and understand W. I liked McCain until I got to know Sarah Palin, but I really liked Mitt and, in time, warmed up to Paul Ryan. And you know I loved Jeb, and how jealous I was of Marco Rubios potential until he threw out those weak-sauce insults ... Still more silence, hinting that I should get to the point. So, yeah, about next week. I feel like were back to the days of the mean team, only now, it seems as if you know better but are just going along with the popular kids and their ugly ways. You and all of the voices of reason seem to have folded and given up completely. You cant deny the conversation the protesting, the fights, the insults, the behavior in general is getting so much uglier. And thats hurting everyone. I get it. A lot of people are willing to overlook the meanness for the sake of a win. But I cant. Thats why I called. I had to speak up. Im just hoping youll be brave enough to speak up, too. Call ended? mariaanglin@yahoo.com This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Donald Trump has been picking on Mexicans all campaign long, but this time he has picked on the particularly wrong Mexican. And revealed himself as a racist again. In this case, the Mexican is federal Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, who is presiding over the lawsuit against Trump University, which, from documents whose release the judge allowed recently, was, for many clients, to a university what a con game is to legal commerce. Trump recently suggested that Curiel is biased because he happens to be, we believe, Mexican. Actually, Curiel was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrants, which makes him as American as all other Americans. He is Mexican-American, yes, but much like Trump is an American of Scot and German ancestry. Which, I guess, means that, as president, Trump should recuse himself from any decision having to do with NATO, or other items having to do with U.S. and United Kingdom or German relations. Aside from the fundamental misunderstanding of the judicial system and the questions this presents for Trumps fitness to appoint judges, the charge of bias against Curiel actually can be boiled down to questioning the judges allegiances. He is, to Trump, Mexican, which means he isnt really, you know, fully American. He is the other, unable to look past his ethnicity to uphold U.S. institutions or do his job correctly. Its a sorry charge, seemingly undiminished through U.S. history in some circles by reality not the least of which involves a whole lot of Mexicans fighting in their birthplaces wars or otherwise serving in the U.S. military bravely and honorably in the 20th and 21st centuries and before. And in Curiels case, serving as a federal prosecutor taking on the Mexican cartels that Trump says he wants to protect us from. A credible death threat put Curiel under the around-the-clock protection of U.S. marshals before his appointment to a state judgeship by then-California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, in 2007 and to a federal judgeship in 2011 by President Barack Obama. Trump tried to walk back his statement. Sorry, you cant unring a bell. One can only presume Trump questions the allegiance and judgment of all of Mexican heritage as if were the only ones to question the practicality, legality and humanity of that border wall or the deportation of 11 million or so people. Curiels alleged bias comes because Trump has pledged to build that wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. So, Trump said, the judge should have recused himself, not only for that, for other things. Curiels real offense is that he hasnt ruled as Trump would have him rule summary dismissal of the suit. So, lets say this judge was named Curry instead of Curiel. Lets say this judge had Scot and German roots, and had a fondness for trash-talking billionaires running for president who bluster about making American great again. Should he recuse himself? Not unless there was some public statement for the candidate. And, from all indications, Curiel hasnt publicly offered any such views for or against Trump. Trump recently said its possible that Muslim judges would also rule against him. Given how many he has insulted women included would there be any fair judges possible in any Trump case? If there was a real case for recusal, Trump and his attorneys should have made that motion at the beginning. And one wonders how that would have gone. Your honor, we make a motion that you recuse yourself. On what grounds, counselor? Well, it has come to our attention that youre a Mexican and our client wants to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Dismissed. Move on. Curiel stands biased in Trumps eyes because of his heritage. So can we assume that all white judges should recuse themselves in cases in which minorities are involved? Nonsense. This is just another example. Trump is unfit for office, not because of his heritage, but because of what he says and does. o.ricardo.pimentel@express-news.net Twitter: @oricardopimente The Prairie Doc: We need to be more intentional with antibiotics The Farmers Union of Wales (FUW) has urged the new Welsh Government to work with the farming industry to address the issue of TB in wildlife. Speaking during the FUWs Annual General Meeting, FUW President Glyn Roberts told members that an average of 36 cattle were culled every working day due to TB, representing an increase of 37 percent on the previous 12 month period, and an eight hundred percent rise since 1996. "The pattern in the north Pembrokeshire Intensive Action Area, where millions have been spent on vaccinating badgers over the past four years, is no different," Glyn Roberts told those present. Mr Roberts referred to the latest scientific report into the impact of badger vaccination in the area, which found there was no improvement in TB rates in the area despite more than 3.7 million having been spent on vaccinating 5,192 badgers in the area since 2011. "We therefore look to this new government to finally grasp the nettle, and accept the basic facts which our Chief Vet has made clear to successive governments," he said. Badger population reduced by 65,000 a year due to disease Glyn Roberts also highlighted the experience of other countries where cattle TB controls, which are less stringent than those applied in Wales, quickly eradicate the disease and restore TB-free status, citing the example of Germany. The badger population here is proactively managed, and numbers are reduced by around 65,000 a year. "Their badger population [in Germany] is not endangered by any stretch of the imagination and nor is it infected with TB." Glyn Roberts said such patterns are repeated around the world, and that scientific evidence gathered from across the EU and the globe showed that TB cannot be eradicated while the epidemic in wildlife is ignored. "This truth, and the distressing figures in terms of the numbers of cattle being culled every day, is something we will be highlighting over the coming months, and we hope Welsh Government and those from across the political spectrum will work with us in helping educate the public about the severity of the situation, just as we have done in the past," he added. A new report suggests the UK places little importance on soil, resulting in a 'worrying lack' of knowledge around it. The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Agroecology for Sustainable Food and Farming said that although 95 per cent of the UK's food comes from the soil, the political agenda does not reflect this and current policy is insufficient in protecting soil for future generations. Following the APPGs recent inquiry into soil health and protection, which took a particular focus on agriculture, serious concerns emerged around the following key areas: Climate change Soil can act as both a carbon sink and emitter, but government policy does not go far enough to preserve soil quality and current incremental plans to improve agricultural performance are far from sufficient. Soils must be incorporated into the Governments climate change strategy. Knowledge It is not possible to study soil science below postgraduate level, often making soil the most neglected component of land use. Policymakers, farm businesses and advisers are less likely to consider soil as the cause or solution to a problem. Testing and data collection The national picture on soil health is deplorably lacking, and there are currently no assessment plans, despite the Government commitment to ensure that all soils are managed sustainably by 2030 Farming methods Maize crops for energy use are often proving to be implicated in soil compaction and flooding. Policy must also encourage extensive farming over intensive farming, and business and political infrastructure surrounding our diverse farm sector must work harder to safeguard soil. A panel of cross party MPs and Peers heard evidence over three oral sessions, with expert witnesses from the NFU, Rothamsted Research Institute, the Soil Association and Cranfield University among others. Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, who led the inquiry panel, said: "Healthy soil is vital both here and around the world. "Failure to tackle current problems will lead to catastrophic environmental, economic and social breakdown. "Reversing the loss of soils, along with restoring knowledge and interest in soil, are essential first steps to sustainable food production." One step that could be taken to build healthier soils, is to use measures within Pillar 2 of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) to incentivise farmers to improve soil organic matter with initiatives, such as crop diversification to include agroforestry, which could also mitigate against harmful monocrops, for example maize grown for energy use. The findings echo many of the concerns expressed in the recent Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) report, and when read together they give a complete assessment of UK soils, along with policy recommendations to improve their current state. The APPG particularly supports recommendation 691 from the EAC report, which recognises the need for agricultural practices that maximise soil health, and calls for landowner incentives to restore soil quality to help mitigate against flooding. Such a policy could help deliver against food security concerns while also providing natural barriers to help minimize damage from the increasing number of floods battering the UK. As the UK population is set to rise to some 70 million people by 2030, the issues outlined in the reports will need to be taken seriously or the pressure on our agricultural system may prove devastating. The APPG is sharing the reports with Ministers and Shadow Ministers to raise the importance of soil health and to encourage greater consideration for soil protection policies. 'One of the most vital resources for food production' Georgia Farnworth, policy officer at the Soil Association said: "This most recent signal that MPs from all political parties are committed to the protection of our soils one of the most vital resources for food production is hugely encouraging. "The Soil Association is particularly pleased that our evidence to the APPG into the need to protect our soils have been agreed, especially from the negative impacts of growing maize, which were highlighted in this report as well as by the EAC and in the recent DECC consultation. "The APPG report also concluded that the subsidy regime for AD maize needs to be urgently reviewed. "We must continue to ensure soil is rooted at the top of the political agenda. "Farmers need the right advice and best practice guidelines for improving soil organic matter and reversing the dramatic loss of agricultural soil that has devastated the nation in recent flooding. "This is something the Soil Association has outlined in our recent 7 Ways to Save our Soils report." The APPG for Agroecology Inquiry panel comprised: Scott Mann MP Simon Hoare MP Jeremy Lefroy MP Rebecca Pow MP Daniel Zeichner MP Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Baroness Young of Old Scone Lord Cameron of Dillington The Joint campaign Against Bluetongue (JAB) is launching a series of roadshow meetings to give updates on Bluetongue disease to local farmers, vets and the wider farming industry. Events will be staged across the south of England, the area of the country most at risk. JAB is an industry campaign to ensure that farmers and vets are informed about the risk of Bluetongue, raise awareness about the disease and what to do when they suspect it. Audiences will be able to hear about what clinical signs to look out for, what to do if Bluetongue is suspected and find out more about the vaccine to assess the risk to the farm and stock. Bluetongue is caused by a virus transmitted by biting midges, which are most active between May and October and can infect all ruminants such as sheep, cattle, goats and deer as well as camelids like llama and alpaca. The disease is currently circulating in France - Defra has analysed the risk to livestock in the UK and the country is at risk of an outbreak during the spring or summer months, with an outbreak in late summer rated the most likely the probability of incursion being 5-10 per cent in May, 33-60 per cent in July and 80 per cent in September. The disease does not affect people, meat or any other animal products including milk. The UK has robust disease surveillance procedures in place and the government are working closely with the Devolved Administrations and livestock industry. NFU animal health and welfare adviser Rebecca Veale said: "We are targeting farming communities across the south of England as we know that this is likely to be the route of transmission by infected midges being blown across from France where the situation is being carefully monitored. "The meetings that are being organised will include presentations from vets, scientists and NFU advisers and the audiences can also get involved in question and answer sessions." JAB has put together a leaflet and poster to highlight the signs of Bluetongue and how farmers can be proactive. The Tenant Farmers Association has called on Defra to begin the process of setting the agenda for the next incarnation of farm policy in the UK regardless of the EU Referendum outcome. TFA Chief Executive George Dunn said: "Whether the EU Referendum produces a majority in favour of leaving or remaining in the EU, UK Governments should waste no time in developing thinking on what farm policy should look like for these islands. "Obviously if there is a vote to leave the EU we will be in a position of having to consider radical changes but even if there is a vote to stay we must lead the debate, which is already underway within Europe, on the future for the Common Agricultural Policy. "In a Brexit scenario there will be a substantial number of issues to deal with and the farming voice must not be lost in negotiations which take place to separate ourselves from the EU and in building new policy frameworks for the way ahead. "Those in the Brexit camp have been keen to highlight the importance of continuing to support farming if the UK was to leave the EU and the TFA will press to ensure that the farming voice is heard loud and clear from the start of any process to develop independent policy frameworks," said Mr Dunn. Next reform of CAP "In the event that the Referendum produces a majority in favour of remaining in the EU, it will be just as important to gain early traction on the development of ideas for the next reform of the CAP which is now only a few short years away and around which views are already being developed in European institutions and in other Member States. "We will not want to be behind the curve in seeking to influence the debate for the benefit of domestic producers and consumers," said Mr Dunn. Although there has been criticism of the Government in not putting forward a plan B for British agriculture should it fail to convince the British public to retain membership of the EU, the TFA has itself published a post Brexit plan for UK agriculture. "The TFA has attempted to speak into the vacuum left by the Government on what the UK might do if it repatriated agricultural support in a Brexit scenario. "We have published that plan on our website as a focus for debate and will be the place we will start in the event of a vote to leave the EU. "However, we have also focused on reforms that we will need to see to the CAP in the event that we remain members of the EU. "This includes placing sensible ceilings on direct payments, moving towards a better reward structure for agri-environment schemes and abolishing the ability for landlords to enter agri-environment schemes on land occupied by farm tenants," said Mr Dunn. Global plant phenotyping specialist LemnaTec has unveiled the largest field robot in the world, capable of continuously monitoring the development of crops under real growing conditions. The new Field Scanalyzer was built for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) as part of a programme to develop tools that enable an increase in the rate and extent of genetic improvement of the yield of bioenergy crops grown in the field. The machine is installed at the University of Arizonas Maricopa Agricultural Center in Arizona. A huge motorised gantry, which can be positioned to an accuracy of within a few millimetres, travels down the field recording detailed information about each plant. The data is then uploaded to a central database for further data processing and analysis. Pioneered in the UK at the Rothamsted Research Centre, this revolutionary machine enables scientists to monitor crops in a field environment 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. At the opening ceremony, a ribbon was cut by Dr Ellen D. Williams, Director of the ARPA-E, who was joined by VIPs from the US Government and directors of the worlds leading plant breeders and growers. Afterwards, LemnaTec gave a talk about the future of digital phenotyping and its positive impact on plant research. Breeders also gave talks, emphasising the importance of phenotyping technology to reduce the length of time required to develop new varieties. Ben Niehaus, Chief Technology Officer at LemnaTec, commented: "Operating day and night, the Field Scanalyzer will move a payload of advanced cameras and sensors across a research plot measuring over one acre in area, generating arguably the most detailed measurements ever recorded for a bioenergy crop." Massey Fergusons state of the art MF 5713 SL tractor has won a Technical Innovation Award at this years Royal Highland Show. The prize is in recognition of its industry leading All-in-One, AGCO Power 4.4 litre four-cylinder engine system which uses the latest Selective Catalytic Reduction technology to meet strict Stage IV/Tier 4 Final emission regulations. The award, sponsored by Hillhouse Quarry Group, will be presented by The Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) on Saturday, June 25. Chief Steward John Mackie said: "The compact design incorporating the emission components is innovative and allows MF to continue supplying the demand for high-visibility tractors when working with loaders." Lindsay Haddon, Massey Fergusons Advertising and Sales Promotion Manager, continued: Were delighted to receive the RHASS Technical Innovation Award for our new, All-in-One engine system. "We're very proud of the design of both the MF 5700 SL Series tractors and their state of the art components. "The unique features of the highly compact and straightforward All-in-One engine system mean that the operator enjoys maximum visibility from the cab over a low swept bonnet and slim exhaust, while also benefitting from lower running costs thanks to greater fuel efficiency and efficient use of power making the MF 5713 SL a leader in its class. "The RHASS award demonstrates Massey Fergusons continued commitment to investing in the very latest technologies helping to make the working lives of our farmers that little bit easier and protecting the wider environment." MF 5700 SL Series Launched last year, the MF 5700 SL Series tractors are available in four models ranging from 100hp-130hp. With a 2.55m wheelbase and weighing just 4.8t, they combine a great power to weight ratio with superb agility ideally suited to a wide range of duties for livestock, mixed and arable farmers. The advanced AGCO Power 4.4 litre, four-cylinder engine employs the unique, maintenance free, All in One Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system together with Diesel Oxidisation Catalyser (DOC). The technology uses a special swirl system to thoroughly mix the exhaust gases and Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) to help meet Stage IV/Tier 4 Final emission regulations. The highly compact unit tucks neatly away under the right-hand side of the cab, creating a slim, steep-nosed, sloping bonnet that offers superb visibility and manoeuvrability without sacrificing power and efficiency. The MF 5700 SL range includes a choice of renowned Dyna-4 or Dyna-6 transmissions, with brake to neutral function to help make light work of loader applications. A Massey Ferguson designed and built front axle suspension option is also available. The tractors come with a unique choice of three hydraulic systems that offer high flow rates and comprehensive control to suit every application. All models are equipped with an efficient two pump system that delivers 58 litres/min for the spool valves and linkage, with a separate pump for all internal services. For those requiring extra flow to boost loader performance there is also a 100 litre/min combined flow option. A 110 litre/min closed centre load sensing (CCLS) system is another option delivering flow and pressure on demand for optimum output, control and economy. The MF 5700 SL Series benefits from the same cab comfort as larger models and provides sophisticated but straightforward control. A new Speedsteer option makes it possible to vary the number of steering wheel revolutions needed to turn the wheels from lock-to-lock helping with loading operations and ensuring headland turns can be made quicker and with less effort. An Auto-Guide 3000 automatic steering option is available as well as the AgCommand telemetry system. The recently introduced Go Mode on Auto-Guide 3000 also enables users to choose between four steering paths. All MF 5700 SL Series tractors can be loader ready straight from the factory, with a huge range of features to enhance ease of fitting, use and control. The Scottish Government will drive forward growth in the organics sector with a 50,000 development fund, Rural Economy Secretary Fergus Ewing announced today. The fund will help deliver Organic Ambitions the industrys Action Plan for 2016-20, with an initial focus on developing innovative approaches to strengthening the Scottish organic supply chain. The news comes on the back of the 2015 Organic Farming Statistics which were published earlier today. The report indicated that the amount of organic land in Scotland fell by 7% in 2015, from 136,000 hectares to 126,000 hectares, and is now the lowest area since the 1990s, while the numbers of cattle, pigs and poultry that are certified organic have increased. Scotland is committed to developing organic sector The Cabinet Secretary said: "The supply and demand of organic food has a significant role to play in driving forward Scotlands rural economy, whilst contributing to protecting the environment. "The Scottish Government is committed to developing this sector which is why Im delighted to support it with the Organic Ambitions Fund. "The aim is to strengthen and promote Scotlands organic food and drink supply chain through better partnership working. "Organic spend in Scotland increased by 2.6% between February 2015 and January 2016, and around 52.6 million was spent on organic food and drink products in Scotland in the year up to 31 January 2016. "There is clearly evidence of strong demand and potential to boost the rural economy, whilst at the same time enhancing Scotlands already stellar reputation for quality food and drink. I hope that this funding will help to improve on these statistics." Rebuilding in a strong and resilient way Chair of the Scottish Organic Forum, David Michie, said: "This is excellent news. Funding of this kind is vitally important if we are to achieve the goals our national organic action plan sets out, and allow the organic sector in Scotland to thrive. "The key is to ensure we connect every link in the organic chain, from supply through to demand: making sure farmers, growers, producers and processors are able to create the right amount and range of top-quality organic products here in Scotland. "Were at an exciting turning point: the number of farm businesses converting to organic is already increasing, and the market for organic is on the up. "This action will help both of these ends of the supply chain at this critical time, and after several years of contraction the organic sector needs some support to rebuild in a strong and resilient way. "With this new development fund and continued effort and commitment from everyone involved, we have a real opportunity to build a strong future for organic in Scotland bringing farmers and businesses more profits and individuals and families top quality Scottish produce." The Organic Ambitions Fund for the financial year 2016/17 will open to applicants today (Monday 13 June) and will support one or more winning applications that can develop existing relationships within the organic supply chain and can identify and address critical gaps, and can demonstrate a proven track record of successfully developing, coordinating and delivering projects. The deadline for applications is Friday 1 July 2016. A plan to increase and improve mobile coverage in Scotland has been agreed with mobile operators, Cabinet Secretary for Connectivity Fergus Ewing has announced. The plan will see the Scottish Government work with the industry and other partners to maximise commercial investment in 4G mobile in Scotland, and ultimately, to support 5G-ready infrastructure across the country. This will help to ensure the Scottish Government uses its powers to guarantee people benefit from better mobile coverage, even though the primary responsibility lies with the UK Government. Farmers and rural businesses in Scotland will welcome the announcement, as studies have shown rural parts of the country have some of the worst mobile coverage in the UK, with many villages and countryside settlements receiving extremely poor signals. Mr Ewing said: "Ensuring high quality digital connectivity for people across Scotland is a priority for the Scottish Government. "That is why we are doing everything we can to improve the case for investment in Scotland, despite this being the responsibility of the UK Government. "We have set out an ambition for the availability of world class digital connectivity across the country, and we recognise that improved mobile connectivity is an integral part of delivering that ambition. "We have been working closely with the UK mobile network operators, and they have demonstrated a clear commitment to maximising coverage. "Already significant progress is being made towards meeting 4G coverage obligations, but we collectively recognise that coverage gaps will still remain in some of the most rural and remote areas. "We will identify where those gaps will be after the commercial rollout, and together with the industry will jointly design technology solutions and business models that will allow services to be delivered by operators in a sustainable way. Although mobile connectivity is a matter reserved for the UK Government, the Scottish Government will use the powers it has to take forward a series of actions, with tangible steps alongside public sector partners to support its ambition. These will aim to take costs out of operators business models in non-commercial areas and will range from interventions such as business rates relief through to more direct interventions, such as investing in the construction of new or enhanced infrastructure. Operators will help design and shape these interventions in order to make them as effective as possible. What was it like to be an Oath Keeper? John Zimmerman can tell you John Zimmerman said he was active with the Oath Keepers from September to November 2020, then left after a falling out with founder Stewart Rhodes. Frederico Curado (Image courtesy of Embraer via YouTube)Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer SA said in an SEC filing Friday that Frederico Curado will step down as chief executive officer after leading the company for nine years. Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva, currently chief of Embraers commercial aviation business, will take over next month from the 55-year-old Curado, the company said. Embraer said in the SEC filing the moves are part of the planned succession process. It said the executive transition is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. Embraer shares Friday fell to a two-year low. Industry analysts said Curados departure was abrupt. In a statement emailed Monday to the FCPA Blog, the company said: Embraer reinforces that the CEO succession is a planned process, and there is no relationship between that theme and the mentioned investigations. In late 2014, Brazil prosecutors filed a criminal action against eight Embraer SA employees for an alleged $3.5 million bribe to an official in the Dominican Republic in return for a $92 million contract for attack planes. Embraer said the case is under seal and it cant comment. Three years ago, Embraer disclosed an investigation for possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It said in U.S. filings that it received a subpoena from the SEC in September 2010. The Wall Street Journal said the DOJ and SEC were investigating Embraers sales practices in the Dominican Republic and other countries. The U.S. agencies shared the evidence with law enforcement authorities in Brazil, the report said. Embraer SA, the worlds third largest commercial aircraft manufacturer, trades on the NYSE under the symbol ERJ. In March this year, the WSJ reported that a sales consultant told prosecutors in Brazil he believes the companys top managers, including Chief Executive Frederico Curado, knew of the illicit payments, which were tied to the sale of military aircraft to the Dominican Republic. Curado hasnt been charged in the case. Those charged, according the WSJ report, are an Embraer vice president for sales, Eduardo Munhos de Campos, Orlando Jose Ferreira Neto, another vice president, Embraer regional directors Acir Luiz de Almeida Padilha Jr., Luiz Eduardo Zorzenon Fumagalli, and Ricardo Marcelo Bester, and managers Albert Phillip Close, Luiz Alberto Lage da Fonseca, and Eduardo Augusto Fernandes Fagundes. They face corruption and money laundering counts, the WSJ said. If convicted they face up to eight years in prison. ____ Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. Hell be the keynote speaker at the FCPA Blog NYC Conference 2016. Historians may look back on 2016 as the year when the global anti-corruption movement took political center stage. Every day, we taste corruptions bitter fruit in the form of instability, violence and a corrosion of trust that spans from government to sport. At the same time, exposes like the Panama Papers show how the few who benefit from corruption hide, launder, and spend their ill-gotten gains often with near impunity. This must change. I have been a corruption hunter and integrity advocate for most of my legal career. I used to investigate and prosecute corruption cases in South Africa. Since 2008, I have led the World Banks Integrity Vice Presidency, which works to safeguard the integrity of World Bank-financed development projects, and ensure that development funds reach the poor they are meant to serve. By promoting integrity, we aim to inspire solutions, trust and hope in a better future. Development is risky business. At the World Bank, we take pride in a portfolio of development results that are implemented with quality and integrity. Thanks to a global pool of governance and operational experts, we successfully partner with our IDA clients to deliver schools, roads, health services, clean water and emergency support in 75 countries, many of which struggle with long-term conflict and fragility. As the 2016 Global Declaration against Corruption rightly stated, we must defeat corruption, if our common efforts to end poverty and promote prosperity are to succeed. Penalizing corruption is one critical tool in this fight. Equally important is prevention. In 2015, the World Bank Group prevented approximately $138 million in contracts from being awarded to companies that had engaged in past misconduct. Yet a third tool partnership may ultimately prove most important of all. This week, 200 leading corruption fighters are meeting in Paris at an International Anticorruption Practitioner Conference hosted by the French Ministry of Justice. One of the topics we will explore is fighting corruption through alternative dispute resolutions, such as settlements. The World Banks experience, drawn from the negotiation and enforcement of more than 45 settlements, is that cooperative tools s enable a wide range of companies large and small, international and local to commit to integrity, change their behavior, and level the competitive playing field. The World Banks decision to settle some corruption cases has strengthened our ability to prevent the recurrence of fraud and corruption while holding those responsible accountable. Settlements enable us to fight corruption by partnering with companies to change business norms. When one sees systemic corruption, one is also seeing a broken corporate culture and the benefits of reforming this culture resonates deeply with a wide range of companies and governments. Settlements compliance reform requirements buttress the prescriptive efforts of many other international institutions, such as the G20, the B20 Coalition, the United Nations Global Compact, and the World Economic Forums Partnering against Corruption Initiative. Some have argued that settlements only let large companies off the hook, in exchange for a restitution payment they can easily afford. While sympathetic to the concern, my experience teaches otherwise. The World Bank has settled with many local and regional companies, not just large multinationals. Indeed, by undertaking ambitious compliance and reform efforts, it is the smaller firms that seize the greatest opportunity to gain credibility in highly-competitive developing markets. Settlements can carry stiff penalties. Nearly all World Bank settlements include a debarment period during which they are excluded from receiving World Bank contracts.This sanction is enhanced by a cross debarment agreement signed with other Multilateral Development Banks. A company debarred by one is debarred by all, regardless of size, wealth or nationality. Settlements also provide flexibility to remedy corruptions harms. World Bank settlements can include restitution components, and we have used this remedy creatively. Some restitution is best imposed through the repayment of the profits that a company received through misconduct. One World Bank settlement involved the payment of $9.5 million to the government of Zambia; another, the payment of 400,000 to the government of Romania. But cash repayment is one option among many. Another World Bank settlement involved the in-kind contribution of medical test kits to the affected countrys health authorities. And in a 2015 settlement, a company that engaged in corruption in an urban sanitation project in Liberia repaid $325,000 that the World Bank used to support Liberias urgent Ebola response efforts. Most importantly, settlements can include unique and substantial corporate reform requirements. World Bank settlements almost always require firms to correct their misconduct and launch a new code of integrity and compliance. The World Banks experience in monitoring compliance is relatively young, but we are already seeing many companies, small and large, recreate their brand on integrity. By changing culture, settlement can redefine bribery from an acceptable expense to a strictly unacceptable action. Settlements compliance reform requirements buttress the prescriptive efforts of many other international institutions, such as the G20, the B20 Coalition, the United Nations Global Compact, and the World Economic Forums Partnering against Corruption Initiative. The scale and scope of corruptions ill effects is well documented. For many countries, corruption manifests in weak, sclerotic institutions that abuse their powers, and fail to respond to critical challenges. This weakness contributes to ills ranging from crumbling infrastructure, to high infant mortality, to lack of access to clean water or education, to uncompetitive business environments all of which run counter to eliminating poverty. But we have every reason to hope, because the tide is slowly turning against the corrupt. The world is a very different place than it was 15 years ago, when no one spoke of corruption, and bribes were often tax-deductible business expenses. The amount of money at stake is now higher, but so is the pressure to change. The ways and means of fraud and corruption are more sophisticated, but so, too, are anti-corruption authorities. The air of impunity is receding, replaced with the growing threat of transnational enforcement. Development goals can be compromised if we fail to impact corporate behavior. Partnership, through tools like settlements, is helping to light a promising road ahead. ____ Leonard McCarthy is the Integrity Vice President of the World Bank Group, a position he has held since June 2008. The mandate of the Integrity Vice Presidency (INT) is to anticipate, detect, deter and prevent fraud and corruption in Bank Group-supported activities. Prior to joining the World Bank Group, Mr. McCarthy headed the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO) in South Africa. Katrina Kaif has always maintained that she would prefer ageing naturally over plastic surgery and treatments like Botox and Juvederm. Its a lesser-known fact that the actor, who turns 33 on July 16, swears by the ancient beauty trick of facial acupuncture. She has been visiting her acupuncturist, Mumbai-based Dr Jewel Gamadia for nearly two years nowand has even recommended it to close friends in the film industry. According to some of her friends, even though the results cannot be seen right away like other cosmetic fillers, acupuncture restores elasticity and firmness of the skin. Each session builds on the last one and it promotes overall health, says a friend of the actor. Photograph: Yogen Shah The NIFT-TEA Knitwear Institute, promoted by Tirupur garment exporters has signed a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government-owned Sri Lanka Institute of Textile and Apparel which will allow it to use Lankan expertise on production management.The draft MoU was signed in Colombo on Friday between the representatives of NIFT-TEA Institute and Sri Lankan institute. It will come into force automatically once the Lankan Government gives an approval, The Hindu has reported. The NIFT-TEA Knitwear Institute, promoted by Tirupur garment exporters has signed a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government-owned Sri Lanka Institute of Textile and Apparel which will allow it to use Lankan expertise on production management. The draft MoU was signed in Colombo on Friday between the representatives of# According to the agreement, NIFT-TEA Institute would hold one diploma course and four certificate courses with experts deputed by the Sri Lankan Institute of Textile and Apparel on topics related to production, management and merchandising.This tie-up is very important as the Lankan institute been famous for producing some of the best technical experts in production technology and management in the textile industry across the globe, chairman of NIFT-TEA of skill development division, T. R. Vijayakumar told The Hindu.He said that those who sign up for these courses, could be absorbed by the units in Tirupur knitwear cluster in key posts in the production chain for ensuring cost effective apparel production.Currently, a large number of units in the Tirupur cluster are struggling to minimise the cost of production as well as adapt to modern machines in apparel production due to lack of adequate specialised trained people to handle production processes. (SH) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Pakistan's Board of Investment (BoI) has declared the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park in Punjab province as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ)The apparel park is a state of the art project of the Punjab Industrial Estates Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) which is being constructed on 1,536 acres of land on Sheikhupura Motorway Road. The construction work is underway at a fast pace. Pakistan's Board of Investment (BoI) has declared the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park in Punjab province as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) The apparel park is a state of the art project of the Punjab Industrial Estates Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) which is being constructed on 1,536 acres of land on Sheikhupura Motorway Road.# According to a statement, PIEDMC Chairman Malik Tahir Javed has hailed the federal government's decision of declaring its project as a SEZ, saying the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park would prove to be a milestone in the development of textile and garments sector.He vowed completing the construction work, and selling of the plots at a very fast pace. He said the government has also approved an interchange on the motorway, before Sheikhupura, some 20 minutes from Lahore, to facilitate the industries in the park.Javed said the Quaid-e-Azam Apparel Park would provide a tax holiday to zone developers for 10 years and five years for zone investors after getting the status of the SEZ. He said the PIEDMC was also trying to get the same status for its other industrial estates, as it would lead to ushering a new era of economic prosperity in the country . (SH) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Under the theme Future trends in man-made fibre, the Synthetic & Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council (SRTEPC) will organise its flagship 'Source India-2016', a global buyer sellers meet for the man-made fabric (MMF) and textile industry on August 13-14, 2016, in Surat. More than 200 buyers from over 36 countries have been invited by SRTEPC to participate in the two-day Source India summit, to be held for the first time in Surat. Organising the show in Surat acquires importance because the city alone meets 40 per cent of Indias MMF fabric demand, and accounts for nearly 44 per cent of 5,000 SRTEPC members from India. Under the theme 'Future trends in man-made fibre', the Synthetic & Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council (SRTEPC) will organise its flagship 'Source India-2016', a global buyer sellers meet for the man-made fabric (MMF) and textile industry on August 13-14, 2016, in Surat. More than 200 buyers from over 36 countries have been invited by SRTEPC # At an exhibitor roadshow organised by SRTEPC in the city, Anil Rajvanshi, chairman, and vice-chairman Narain Agarwal urged MMF manufacturers in Surat to participate in Source India to get greater exposure to fibre, yarn and fabric manufactured by them. Buyers from global markets, and large Indian apparel and sportswear brands have been invited at the Source India meet, which provides an opportunity to showcase Surats prowess to the world, said Rajvanshi. During the two-day event, in addition to fashion shows, fashion forecast will be made for the next year. The SRTEPC aims to achieve $9 billion in MMF export from India. (RKS) Fibre2Fashion News Desk India Increasing the diversity of pollinator species, including bees, flies and butterflies, can dramatically increase cotton production, says to a new study by The University of Texas at Austin, The researchers estimate that in South Texas, the region they studied, increasing the diversity of pollinators could boost cotton production by up to 18 per cent, yielding an increase in annual revenue of more than $1.1 million.The research features in the June 16 issue of the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, the University said on its website. Increasing the diversity of pollinator species, including bees, flies and butterflies, can dramatically increase cotton production, says to a new study by The University of Texas at Austin, The researchers estimate that in South Texas, the region they studied, increasing the diversity of pollinators could boost cotton production by up to 18 # South Texas accounts for about 15 per cent of the state's cotton production. Because pollinator populations and growing conditions vary across the state, it's difficult to extrapolate statewide. But the researchers say boosting pollinator diversity could be worth several millions of dollars to Texas cotton farmers.Cotton is the world's most economically valuable nonfood crop. Texas alone produces 25 per cent of US cotton.The researchers also examined what factors increase the diversity and abundance of pollinators in cotton fields. They found that the greater the area of natural land cover areas not used for farming or ranching within about 800 feet of cotton crops, the more diverse the pollinators that visit the plants.Based on these findings, the researchers recommend several ways to increase the diversity of pollinators in cotton fields. Farmers can plant a row of wildflowers between rows of their crops or even on the edges of the crop field. In addition, farmers can introduce flowering crops into the crop rotation and reduce pesticide spraying, especially during the daytime.One of the most important implications of this research is that local government officials "can increase cotton crop yield by supporting habitat for native pollinators," said Shalene Jha, assistant professor of integrative biology and senior author of the study. This gives an economic impetus to municipal projects that protect biodiversity, such as permanent wildflower spaces."We've shown that there are multiple benefits to biodiversity," Jha said. "With the right management, cotton farmers can have higher crop yields and support native plants and animals."In addition to Jha, the study's authors are Sarah Cusser, a Ph.D. candidate at UT Austin; and John Neff, director of the Central Texas Melittological Institute.The researchers estimate that in Texas, the boost in crop yield due to increased pollinator diversity would translate to an increase in annual revenue of $108 per acre.The study focused on 12 field sites representing a wide range of landscapes across South Texas, one of four major cotton production regions in the state. The researchers netted pollinators foraging on cotton plants and determined their abundance and diversity; analyzed geographic information system, or GIS, data derived from satellites and other sources to map landscape types; and conducted hand-pollination experiments. One of the major priorities for the Ministry of Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation is the development of the Domestic Violence Helpline, says the ministrys permanent secretary Dr Josefa Koroivueta. The Ministry is committed to the establishment of the Domestic Violence Helpline. It has a budgetary allocation of $170,000, and we are almost in the final stages now, where we are going to award the tender to the appropriate service provider, Dr Koroivueta said. Dr Koroivueta added that the Ministry also looked forward to the upcoming budget announcement. We are looking at the amendment to the Ministrys Annual Corporate Plan, and seeing the initiatives that we had set for year 2016, those initiatives will also continue. For us it is the rearrangement of our business priorities, rearrangement of our services but not losing out on the rationale behind it because we are dealing with services for women, children, people living with disabilities and senior citizens. We do know that we will be accountable for the actions, particularly for the key performance indicators, that we target in that regard, Dr Koroivueta said. The Domestic Violence Helpline will be first of its kind to be commissioned in Fiji. Women who are victims and survivors of domestic violence will be able to seek counselling services for free, whereby they can talk about their problems to a qualified professional and get relevant advice and support. Concerned members within the victim and survivors network would be able to seek advice and support as well on behalf of a victim. The Permanent Secretary said that the Domestic Violence Helpline would also strengthen the partnership between government agencies and Non- Government Organisations who directly and indirectly deal with domestic violence cases. The Fiji Womens Crisis Centers Somebodys Life, Everybodys Business Report, highlighted that Fijis rates of violence against women and girls are among the very highest in the world: 64 percent of women who have been in intimate relationships have experienced physical and or sexual violence by their husband or partner. Meanwhile, the National Child Helpline has to date recorded of the total 11,774 calls received, 922 genuine calls while 2521 were listed as test calls, 3125 as silent calls, 2594 prank calls and 2612 were voicemail calls. Main issues reported through the National Child Helpline included child neglect, child physical abuses, child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse, gender based violence and issues concerning family welfare. The Bombay High Court, has delivered justice by upholding freedom of expression and has ordered only one cut in the movie which showcases Shahid Kapoor (Tommy Singh) urinating in front of an audience while performing live on stage. However, twitteratis took up the 'urination' scene cut and made it into a huge laugh out loud moment, because at the end of the day, victory is best savoured by a heartfelt laughter. Check out the slides to view funny 'urination' trolls on Udta Punjab! As soon as the Bombay High Court announced that the urination scene should be cut off from the movie, twitteratis started creating a laugh riot by saying "Good day for the nation & bad day for urination" and "they cut off Shahid Kapoor urinating, hope he's doing alright" and "13 million people have already seen Shahid Kapoor urinating in the trailer". However, Twitter has come out in support of the High Court's decision and the trolls are a sign of victory and light hearted laughter. We hope that when Udta Punjab releases on June 17, 2016, people would go to the washrooms during the interval to pass ahem ahem 'urine'!! Bombay High Court Raps CBFC! Allows Udta Punjab To Release With Just One Cut Mamtha Mohandas, the multi-faceted was heavily bashed by the social media for her extreme glamorous look in Anand Tv Film awards. In a recent interview, Mamtha reacted to the social media attack. The actress, who is back in the industry after short hiatus, says that she in not bothered about the harsh criticisms. Mamtha stated that she will only wear costumes according to her own taste. Social media has harshly criticised Mamtha for trying to copy the dressing style of Hollywood actresses. The actress retaliated, stating that she lives in USA, and bought the dress from Los Angeles. Mamtha says that she lives in a circle, where people are not much bothered about the life and privacy of others. But here, people have no courage to react on social issues, but loves to invade others privacy. She remarked that it is awful that social media celebrate such insignificant topics. Mamtha Mohandas strongly believe that all individuals have the right to wear the outfits according to their own tastes. The actress, who had a prolonged battle with cancer, has bounced back with the huge success of the recent movie, Two Countries. She currently filming for the upcoming Mammootty starrer, Thoppil Joppan. Veteran actor Vivek, who will be seen playing Karthi's father in the upcoming horror film Kashmora, has said public intelligence is fast becoming a threat to movies. In one of his interviews to Times of India, the 54-year-old actor has spoken about his upcoming films and how various social media platforms are playing key roles in today's cinema. "Karthi will be seen as my son in 'Kashmora'. Though I essay an aged man's role, it is a flamboyant character, and not a serious one. The cop I portray in 'Muthuramalingam' will be a loud one. He is a person who can't keep secrets. The comic portions are based on this interesting trait of the character, he has said. On public intelligence, he has said, "They (movie goers) can identify copies of foreign movies. Public intelligence has become a big threat to films now. They show no mercy in tearing a film apart if they feel cheated, irrespective of how big its star cast is. I think audiences were always clever, but there weren't platforms such as Twitter for them to air their thoughts. Going by the memes, I feel audience has a better sense of humour than us." On his next release Rum, Vivek has said, "The film will have ample scope for humour in my style, though it is, basically, a spine-chilling spooker. I feel revealing anything about my role would spoil the suspense. But I can say that this project has a technically sound crew. Its director, debutant Sai Bharath, used to work on VFX in films earlier." Among young music directors, Anirudh is his favourite. "Anirudh scoring music for the film is yet another highlight. I have always been a fanatic fan of Ilaiyaraaja. However, Anirudh is my favourite in the current generation." Photo courtesy: Vivek's Twitter page. Also Read: Ilayathalapathy Vijay Is A Dedicated & Intense Actor: Jagapathi Babu On 'Vijay 60' Karan Mehra, who plays the role of Naitik on Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai, has quit the show, owing to health issues. But there are reports that the actor was kicked out of the show. Post his exit, Karan had sent a heartfelt video message to his fans through his social networking account. In the video, Karan has thanked all his fans for the love they have given to the character Naitik. The actor even said that he will come back afresh, but now, he needs a break. He also added that post his exit, people might talk nonsense! Karan's wife Nisha Rawal has also come in support of her husband. She wrote a lengthy message on Facebook saying, how loyal and hardworking her husband is, in spite of his ailing health. Check Out Nisha's Reply To Those Who Said Karan Was Kicked Out Of The Show.... (PS: Only a few statements from her FB message has been taken) But, what grabbed our attention was Hina Khan and Rajan Shahi's messages on social networking sites. Hina wrote, "Thrs a saying"AN IDLE MIND IS DEVILS WORKSHOP AND IDLE HANDS ARE HIS TOOLS" ppl hv no wrk and are jobless since ages." The message also had a snapshot of Rajan Shahi's message, "It's sad when people can't speak directly and thru not needed platforms others who are not connected to YRKKK speak so much when not needed (sic)." Hmm... the messages are quite cryptic. Hina received a message from her fan (@goyal_sona) which said, "Was any name mentioned? @eyehinakhan..." and a picture message that had, "Chillax yaar Hina di didn't say anything against any fan, she respects ur emotions...Rajan Sir n Hina di mentioned it 4sum1 who is not even part of Yrkkh, and is bulshi**** about other actors in the show what do u know b**** jobless :/ Karma will speak (sic)." The actress replied, "Well thank you for understanding what we actually meant #relaxguys." It has to be recalled that although Karan and Hina weren't friendly off-screen, their relationship did not reflect on-screen. Recently, at the 9th Boroplus Gold Awards, the duo won the Best Jodi award, as well. Karan's exit has definitely left his fans heartbroken. As we have reported earlier, Megastar Chiranjeevi's special act at CineMaa awards turned out to be a sensation. Though the channel kept the news under the wraps, it has come out after the actor was spotted shooting for a promo, at Annapurna studios. The event took place on Sunday 12 June, at Novotel Hyderabad amidst the big-wigs of Telugu industry. Though the awards night is yet to be aired on the television, 'the welcome back' program planned for Chiranjeevi was recorded by a few fan boys, present at the event and the videos are now going viral. And finally all mega fans here is the video of Shakardada walk by Chiru #CinemaaAwards pic.twitter.com/TzEF6NdmWJ 30yrsofTrendSetter (@ichowdary9) June 12, 2016 Video 8- Chiru in Mutamestri getup pic.twitter.com/a42odL2t6F 30yrsofTrendSetter (@ichowdary9) June 12, 2016 Video 9 - Chiru in gharanamogudu getup pic.twitter.com/Mk0u2nWkb9 30yrsofTrendSetter (@ichowdary9) June 12, 2016 Video -5 Chiru in swayamkrushi getup pic.twitter.com/mn1jDCQoZE 30yrsofTrendSetter (@ichowdary9) June 12, 2016 Going by the videos, Chiranjeevi's old classic characters came alive to tell the actor about the expectations of fans, on his comeback film. It is indeed a feast for Megastar fans, to see him getting into the shoes of his vintage roles, once again. Ram Charan and his wife Upasana Kamineni, Allu Arjun, Chiranjeevi's wife Surekha, Srija along with her husband Kalyan, attended the event to see the grand welcome held for the Megastar. As part of the 20 minute act, Chiranjeevi danced along with Srikanth, Sunil, Navdeep and Sai Dharam Tej, to the very popular title song of Gang Leader. Check out the link below to have a glimpse. VIDEO: Megastar Chiranjeevi Shakes A Leg For Gang Leader Song At Cinemaa Awards Its February 9, and Rodrigo Duterte steps on stage in front of a raucous crowd in Manila for his first major speech since announcing his candidacy for president. But as Duterte speaks, a brave soul taps him on the shoulder. Duterte has turned the wrong way, the man points out. The camera is filming his back. Duterte appears to consider the request, turning briefly to face the cameras and lights. But he soon thinks better of it and continues to speak to a group behind the stage, leaving his back to the camera for 15 minutes. The moment offers a telling picture of Dutertes campaign, and of Duterte himself. He was not, as one senior observer put it to FinanceAsia, a media-hugger. He was rarely TV-friendly, peppering speeches with profanity, insults, and rambling asides. He was also prone to monumental gaffes. When old video emerged of Duterte joking about the rape of an Australian nun, he refused to apologise, defying the ambassadors of Australia and the United States. Despite or perhaps because of these apparent flaws, Duterte seemed to appeal directly to the people. When Filipinos went to the polls on May 9, Duterte won with around 40% of the vote. But the nature of Dutertes win much bluster, little detail left bankers and executives uncertain of what his presidency would mean for them. Will they be the crowd he appeals to, or the crowd he turns his back on? The answer could make a big difference to the Philippines, one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia. It will also be key to a host of foreign corporations and banks trying to play a greater role in the countrys future. ECONOMIC MINDS There is little doubt economic policy took a backseat during Dutertes campaign. He focused almost entirely on his crime-fighting credentials, pointing to a successful and highly controversial anti-crime campaign as mayor of Davao City. When asked about economics, Duterte pleaded ignorance. He said he would rely on the advice of the economic minds in the country. He appears to have kept to his word. Duterte confirmed several key appointments long before taking office on June 30. They include the all-important job of finance secretary, which is going to Carlos Sonny Dominguez, a man who market insiders interviewed by FinanceAsia unanimously praised as a steady pair of hands. Hans Sicat He comes with a good record, Hans Sicat, president and chief executive of the Philippine Stock Exchange told FinanceAsia. Hes an ex-banker, a former cabinet man. Hes viewed as a balanced, responsible individual. Hes not a wild right-wing or left-wing type of finance minister. Another senior figure in the Philippines said Dominguez was a necessary presence to control the goons Duterte may surround himself with: those politicians who might share some of Dutertes more brazen populism without his policy nuance. Because the goons are there, [Dominguez] was probably reluctant to join, he said. But thats exactly why he had to join. Dominguez has made a strong start. He announced an eight-point economic plan on May 12, several days before finally accepting a job he initially resisted. The first point was perhaps the most important for reassuring investors: Dominguez said the new administration would largely follow the economic policies of outgoing president Benigno Aquino III, albeit with more focus on tax collection. But within the following seven points there were tempting hints Dutertes government might make the changes foreign investors really want. The governments commitment to infrastructure investment was one such point. A public-private partnership programme launched under Aquino has been relatively successful, with 12 projects already awarded. But senior officials working in the sector argue the programme could have led to so much more, blaming serious bottlenecks and not enough private sector involvement. They hope Duterte will be able to tackle these problems, making things easier for those companies that want to help an infrastructure push that is almost unanimously seen as necessary. Benigno Aquino This goal could be helped, of course, by bringing in more foreign investors. This is one area where Duterte has made all the right noises. During the election, he said he might remove a 40% ownership cap that applies to foreign companies in several major sectors of the economy, including several ripe for infrastructure investment such as transport, port operations and telecommunications. After the election, Dominguez made this is a key part of the economic plan for the country. A CHANGE IN TACK Economists admit lifting the restriction on foreign ownership of local companies will be no panacea. But it speaks to an attitude towards foreign investment that might not be expected of a man who fought such a populist election campaign. The gesture, in itself, might be enough. The removal of constitutional restrictions is an important signal to foreign investors, said Christian de Guzman, a sovereign analyst at Moodys. However, I've always thought that the key is infrastructure. For example, China looks to be even more restrictive, but they have no problems with attracting FDI. This relatively open approach to business might surprise those whose first experience of Duterte was on the election trail. But it fits with the stories of those who worked on projects in Davao during his time as mayor. Duterte made business permits quicker and cheaper to obtain, and was relatively low-key between elections, said a person with experience in the city. It is perhaps because of this approach that the Philippine stock market has performed well since Dutertes victory. The benchmark PSEi stock index stalled in the months leading up to the election, after slowly recovering from a major fall in the second half of 2015. But the index has risen 4.72% since May 10, when Dutertes victory became clear. That beat smaller rises in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore during the same period. That is a good start. Bankers, executives and other senior figures in the Philippines now hope it will be a taste of things to come, believing the bombast and bluster that defined the election campaign is about to make way for a more measured style of management one that will extend an open arm to foreign companies, and put significant emphasis on infrastructure. "It's mostly theatre," says a senior official in Manila. "I've talked to people in Davao and they've said the only time he's visible is during elections. Once he goes in to do his work, he's very low-key." Bankers and foreign executives might not be sure of policy details at this point. But they can at least take some heart from the fact that, now the speeches are over and the election has been won, Duterte will not be so quick to turn his back. AGIC Capital, a $1 billion private equity firm founded by veteran China banker Henry Cai, has agreed to buy a majority stake in an Italian robotic company for more than 100 million ($113 million). Joining the recent surge of Chinese investment in automation technology and looking to close its second European deal in less than six months, AGIC Capital said it is acquiring Gimatic, which makes robotic arms for handling plastic injection and moulded parts for auto industry suppliers. "We hope to replicate its success stories in Europe into China," Heiko von Dewitz, managing director of AGIC Capital, told FinanceAsia in a phone interview, describing the Italian company as highly profitable and cash positive. AGIC Capital's swoop for Gimatic comes after another Chinese group, home appliance manufacturer Midea, launched a $5 billion bid last month for German factory robot manufacturer Kuka. These acquisitions are part of Chinas ambitious plan to revamp its manufacturing base from a world-beating low-cost production centre into a global centre of excellence for innovation and high-quality goods. In its Made in China 2025 blueprint outlined last year, the State Council said it plans to spend more than Rmb8 trillion ($1.3 trillion) over the next 10 years on 10 key sectors ranging from aerospace equipment and farming machines to transportation equipment and medical devices. Such pro-industry policies and economic reforms have in turn contributed to a series of high-profile foreign forays by Chinese companies, including February's $43 billion mega offer by state-owned China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) for Swiss seeds and pesticide maker Syngenta. That was preceded in January by news ChemChina had teamed up with Cais fund and Guoxin International Investment Corp to buy KraussMaffei Group for $1 billion. The 178-year old German firm makes machinery for processing plastic and rubber, from carbon-fibre-reinforced components on BMW electric cars to insulating layers in Whirlpool refrigerators. Founded in 1985, Gimatic, a privately-held company with 70 people globally, designs and manufactures robotic arms that help makers of car parts to produce bumpers, dashboard and other high-end plastics. The company is located in the city of Roncadelle, about 60 kilometres from Milan. Gimatic is in excellent condition today with high profit margins and unique business products to Chinas automobile industry, Munich-based von Dewitz said. The speed of automation technology has increased at a very fast pace in China, where we see significant demand for highly engineering solution for handling complicated task. China strategy He added that Gimatic is in talks with domestic car makers Geely and Great Wall as well as Chinese operations of foreign car companies as it seeks to boost its overseas revenues. Gimatic is open to any strategic partnership or joint ventures, von Dewitz said. Sales of robotic products to auto-part makers represent about 50% of its overall revenue, while the remaining half of the income is split evenly between electronics, pharmaceutical companies, and packaging. European countries, mainly Germany and Italy, account for 80% of sales currently, with the remainder coming from the United States and Asia. He declined to give details of Gimatics Asia expansion strategy but said that AGIC Capital will help Gimatic to scale up its overseas business in China and Asia, thanks to Cais extensive business network in China. "Our firm adopts a long-term investment strategy and we do not consider to sell the stake in Gimatic in a short period of time," he said. AGIC Capital raised $550 million from a group of investors last year, including anchor investment from sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp. It is expected to complete its second round of fundraising in August, for a total war chest of more than $1 billion. Before becoming a private equity investor, Cai spent more than 20 years in the investment banking business in Asia, mostly helping China's state-owned companies to list their shares in Hong Kong, including the 1993 debuts of Shanghai Petrochemical and Tsingtao Beer. He was most recently Deutsche Banks executive chairman of corporate finance for Asia-Pacific and left the bank in February 2015. He plays an instrumental role in deal-making, offering foreign companies quick access to China and Chinese companies access to technological know-how through his overseas network of contacts. Chinas industrial robots will double to more than 400,000 in the three years to end-2017, surpassing the EU or North America, according to International Federation of Robotics, a trade group. In 2013, China overtook Japan as the largest market for industrial robots, with a fifth of global sales. JAKARTA, Indonesia, June 12, 2016 - (ACN Newswire) - The Indonesian government is focused on the creative economy ecosystem in Indonesia. Through it, says Triawan Munaf, head of the Creative Economy Agency (BERKAF), new entrepreneurs in the creative industries will be able to assist each other, and grow their businesses together."Take the smartphone application which helps housewives to market their products, for example. In less than three months they have been able to succeed in selling products in a large quantity," he said.In addition to helping create an ecosystem, the Creative Economy Agency provides training for entrepreneurs in developing business plans, building online businesses, improving sales, marketing & networking, and engaging buyers through successful online presentations.Triawan also cautions that less than 10 per cent of online businesses enjoy on-going success. Much of this situation, he feels, is caused by a lack of networking success and modest online product presentation."We also assist in bringing entrepreneurs together with investors, with support ranging from advice through to JV and partnerships. With this support, these businesses are expected to grow rapidly," he continued.The creative economy in Indonesia has become an important sector which should be developed seriously, said Triawan. The South Korean government has been developing the creative economy for 15 years, while China has been trying to realize theirs for 10 years."The results can be seen today, where these ecosystems are greatly developed. So what we need to put focus on right now is building the ecosystem in Indonesia," he said.Bambang Muliana, CEO of PT Razedo Grup Sukses (RGS), also known as LiveWell Global, agrees that we are in an era of creative economy, and that new entrepreneurs have to make their businesses stand out.To achieve this, Bambang believes that entrepreneurs in each industry should be networking, improving marketing and knowledge, as LiveWell Global has been doing. "We have always been training distributors on how to market and sell product and on creating proper business networks," he said.According to Bambang, some industries have reduced staff due to financial problems. "It's a shame they laid off, they may have tackled problems if they had adequate networks. At LiveWell Global, we provide opportunities for anyone to join, and take part in improving quality of life for the community," he said.Thus the spirit of LiveWell, according to Bambang, is in line with Government programs to provide positive impact for the people. "In this era of creative economy," he says, "We do not want to be a spectator, we want to play a role, and contribute to better lives."*Livewell Global was established by network businessmen with a will to create the ideal network marketing company, with a mission to become the best business opportunity for Indonesians to completely improve qualities of life morally, spiritually and financially.For further information, please contact:LukmanPR ManagerLiveWell GlobalM: +62 81232885533E: pejuangpagi@gmail.comU: www.livewell-global.comSource: LiveWell GlobalCopyright 2016 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved. RZESZA"W, Poland, LONDON and HONG KONG, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- G2A.COM Limited won the Outstanding New Product / Service award at the Global Business Excellence Awards 2016 in London, United Kingdom for their innovative payment and protection ecosystem, G2A Pay which is supported by the G2A Shield . G2A.COM is the world's fastest growing digital gaming marketplace and a multi-award winning international company scooping 6 international awards in 2016. http://www.gbeawards.com http://www.stevieawards.com (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377942 ) Commenting on G2A.COM, G2A Pay and G2A Shield and why they won the Outstanding New Product/Service Award, the chairman of the judges said: "Digital gaming marketplace G2A.COM, with 10 million clients worldwide, has experienced incredible success and growth by focusing on online security, customer service and on valuing its staff and encouraging them to be creative. The G2A Shield is a brilliant new innovation that protects customers' transactions and ensures money back approval in just five minutes. G2A Shield also offers an online chat service and round-the-clock live support. This level of security gives clients confidence that their money is safe - something that is essential in the gaming marketplace." Bob Voermans, EVP Global Payments at G2A.COM was delighted that G2A Pay and G2A Shield have been recognized: "G2A Pay delivers the best possible customer experience on payments made via G2A Pay. G2A developed an open and safe ecosystem and G2A Pay can be used by any digital company connected to the G2A.COM marketplace. If such a company needs to have access to over 100 payment methods world-wide, we are open for discussion."https://pay.g2a.com Upon hearing about the Award, Bartosz Skwarczek, Co-founder and CEO of G2A.COM said: "It's a big honour to be judged the winners. This victory motivates us to continue to deliver the best possible customer service worldwide." The Global Business Excellence Awards is one of the world's highest profile awards and winning this accolade speaks volumes about the quality of G2A's innovative work. Due to their high profile, the awards attract a wide range of entries from across the world, from large international PLCs and public sector organisations to dynamic and innovative SMEs. The winners all have one thing in common - they are truly outstanding at what they do and G2A.COM Limited have proved this by winning the Global Business Excellence Award. The Global Business Excellence Awards pride themselves on having a large panel of independent expert judges who select winners according to strict criteria for each category and sector; focussing on financial results, innovation, customer, employee, investor and community benefits. http://www.g2a.com. Author: Jacqueline Purcell - jpurcell@G2A.com The next generation of light vehicles will replace HMMWVs with greater protection, speed and off-road mobility in a very transportable package Oshkosh Defense, LLC, an Oshkosh Corporation (NYSE: OSK) company, will showcase its Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) at Eurosatory on June 13-17 in Paris, France. The Oshkosh JLTV is the next-generation light tactical wheeled vehicle that delivers unmatched protection, speed and off-road mobility over the most demanding terrain to safely transport soldiers during their missions. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160612005072/en/ The Oshkosh JLTV provides soldiers with the transportability, performance and protection they need for current and future battlefields. (Photo: Business Wire) Based on the Oshkosh Light Combat Tactical All-Terrain Vehicle (L-ATV) platform, the Oshkosh JLTV is the U.S. Department of Defense's choice to replace the U.S. fleet of uparmored HMMWVs for the Army and Marine Corps. "There is simply no comparison between the HMMWV and JLTV-our JLTV sets a new standard for light vehicle protection and off-road mobility," said John Bryant, Oshkosh Corporation senior vice president and president of Oshkosh Defense. "The JLTVs that we are building today are the result of years of development and rigorous U.S. Government testing, which has resulted in the highest performance ever achieved in a light tactical wheeled vehicle." The combination of the JLTV's powerful drive train and TAK-4i suspension enables soldiers to travel off-road at speeds that are 70% faster than today's gold standard. Additionally, the TAK-4i can be raised and lowered using interior operator controls to maximize sea, air and land transportability. The JLTV can be air transported internally by a C-130, C-5, C-17 or externally by CH-47 and CH-53, and other aircraft with similar characteristics used by international militaries. The Oshkosh JLTV has the latest technologies, as well as unprecedented protection. With the Oshkosh Core1080 crew protection system, every inch of the vehicle is designed to save lives during blasts, IED events, and other threatening situations. Core1080 is an occupant-centric, comprehensive systems engineering approach that considers every component and technology to protect the crew, optimize readiness and effectively complete every mission. For nearly 100 years, Oshkosh has been a pioneer in designing, integrating, manufacturing and sustaining military vehicles including a full portfolio of heavy, medium, MRAP, aircraft rescue and fire fighting (ARFF), and light vehicles. Oshkosh serves armed forces around the globe and has produced and sustained more than 150,000 tactical wheeled vehicles for the United States and its allies including the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Jordan, Oman, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. Oshkosh Defense leadership will be available to discuss the Oshkosh JLTV, and the company's portfolio of vehicles, technologies and integration capabilities at Eurosatory booth D608. About Oshkosh Defense Oshkosh Defense is a leading provider of tactical wheeled vehicles and life cycle sustainment services. For decades Oshkosh has been mobilizing military and security forces around the globe by offering a full portfolio of heavy, medium, light and highly protected military vehicles to support our customers' missions. In addition, Oshkosh offers advanced technologies and vehicle components such as TAK-4 independent suspension systems, TerraMax unmanned ground vehicle solutions, Command Zone integrated control and diagnostics system, and ProPulse diesel electric and on-board vehicle power solutions, to provide our customers with a technical edge as they fulfill their missions. Every Oshkosh vehicle is backed by a team of defense industry experts and complete range of sustainment and training services to optimize fleet readiness and performance. Oshkosh Defense, LLC is an Oshkosh Corporation company [NYSE: OSK]. To learn more about Oshkosh Defense, please visit us at www.oshkoshdefense.com. About Oshkosh Corporation Oshkosh Corporation is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of access equipment, commercial, fire emergency, military and specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies. Oshkosh Corporation manufactures, distributes and services products under the brands of Oshkosh, JLG, Pierce,McNeilus, Jerr-Dan, Frontline, CON-E-CO, London and IMT. Oshkosh products are valued worldwide by rental companies, concrete placement and refuse collection businesses, fire emergency departments, municipal and airport services and defense forces, where high quality, superior performance, rugged reliability and long-term value are paramount. For more information, please visit www.oshkoshcorporation.com. , TM All brand names referred to in this news release are trademarks of Oshkosh Corporation or its subsidiary companies. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains statements that the Company believes to be "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding the Company's future financial position, business strategy, targets, projected sales, costs, earnings, capital expenditures, debt levels and cash flows, and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. When used in this press release, words such as "may," "will," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe," "should," "project" or "plan" or the negative thereof or variations thereon or similar terminology are generally intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors, some of which are beyond the Company's control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160612005072/en/ Contacts: Oshkosh Defense Jennifer Christiansen, 920-966-5635 Vice President, Business Development jchristiansen@defense.oshkoshcorp.com Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc / Index: AIM / Epic: EOG / Sector: Oil & Gas 13 June 2016 Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc ('Europa' or 'the Company') Transfer of interest in and operatorship of FEL 2/13 and 3/13 offshore Ireland Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc, the AIM listed oil and gas exploration, development and production company focused on Europe, is pleased to announce that consent has been received from the Irish Minister of Energy for the transfer of interest in and operatorship of, Frontier Exploration Licences ('FEL') 2/13 and 3/13 from Kosmos Energy Ireland. Europa now has 100% interest in, and is operator of seven licences in the Atlantic basins offshore Ireland. As announced on 8 June 2016, Europa's portfolio of seven offshore Ireland licences is estimated to hold combined gross mean un-risked prospective and indicative resources of up to 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent and 1.5 tcf of gas in various prospects in the Cretaceous fan and pre-rift plays. For clarity, prospective resources are by definition potentially recoverable. Europa is currently running a data room to farm-out interests in FEL 2/13, FEL 3/13 and LO 16/2. The response from target companies, majors and midcaps has been positive to date and the confirmation of the transfer of interest in the two FELs removes a potential obstacle to the farm-out. Europa CEO Hugh Mackay said, "We believe that the North Atlantic contains two of the world's exploration 'hotspots'. One is in the Flemish Pass basin offshore Newfoundland and the other is offshore West Ireland. We are delighted that major oil companies have returned to Ireland's Porcupine basin. We are focused on finding a suitable partner with whom we can look to prove our existing licenses via the drill bit. With this in mind, I look forward to providing updates on our progress." * * ENDS * * For further information please visit http://www.europaoil.com/ or contact: Hugh Mackay Europa + 44 (0) 20 7224 3770 Phil Greenhalgh Europa + 44 (0) 20 7224 3770 Matt Goode finnCap Ltd + 44 (0) 20 7220 0500 Simon Hicks finnCap Ltd + 44 (0) 20 7220 0500 Frank Buhagiar St Brides Partners Ltd + 44 (0) 20 7236 1177 Susie Geliher St Brides Partners Ltd + 44 (0) 20 7236 1177 Notes Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc has a diversified portfolio of multi-stage hydrocarbon assets that includes production, exploration and development interests, in countries that are politically stable, have transparent licensing processes, and offer attractive terms. In 2015 Europa produced 141 boepd. Its highly prospective exploration projects include the Wressle development (targeting production start-up later in 2016 at up to 500 bopd gross) in the UK; 100% owned gas exploration prospect (107 bcf) and appraisal project (CPR 277 bcf) in onshore France, a joint venture with Vermilion Energy also in onshore France; and seven licences offshore Ireland with the potential to host gross mean un-risked resources of more than 4 billion barrels oil and 1.5 tcf gas across all seven licences. Qualified Person Review This release has been reviewed by Hugh Mackay, Chief Executive of Europa, who is a petroleum geologist with 30 years' experience in petroleum exploration and a member of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, American Association of Petroleum Geologists and Fellow of the Geological Society. Mr Mackay has consented to the inclusion of the technical information in this release in the form and context in which it appears. Regulatory News: THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, JAPAN OR ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. OTHER RESTRICTIONS ARE APPLICABLE. PLEASE SEE THE IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE AT THE END OF THIS ANNOUNCEMENT. ASIT biotech (Paris:ASIT) (BSE:ASIT) (ASIT BE0974289218), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the research, development and future commercialization of breakthrough immunotherapy products for the treatment of allergies, today announces it has set up a liquidity contract with Bank Degroof Petercam SA. By appointing Bank Degroof Petercam SA as a liquidity provider, ASIT biotech is aiming to increase the liquidity of its share on the Euronext Brussels and Euronext Paris regulated markets. The agreement between Bank Degroof Petercam SA and the Company is compliant with the Euronext Rule Book for liquidity providers and is effective as of 13 June 2016. About ASIT biotech ASIT biotech is a Belgian clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and future commercialisation of a range of breakthrough immunotherapy products for the treatment of allergies. Thanks to its innovative ASIT+TM technology platform, ASIT biotech is currently the only developer of AIT product candidates consisting of a unique mixture of highly purified natural allergen fragments in an optimal size selection. This innovation results in a short treatment, expected to improve patient compliance and real-life effectiveness. ASIT biotech's product pipeline entails two novel ASIT+ product candidates targeting respiratory allergy with the highest prevalence (i.e. grass pollen: gp-ASIT+TM and house dust mite: hdm-ASIT+TM), that could significantly expand the current immunotherapy market. The Company believes that its innovative ASIT+ platform is flexible and would be applicable across a range of allergies. ASIT biotech has a headcount of 22 staff members, at its headquarters in Brussels and a laboratory in Liege, Belgium. Further information can be found at: www.asitbiotech.com. Forward Looking Statements All statements in this announcement that do not relate to historical facts and events are "forward-looking statements". In some cases, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the words "believes," "estimates," "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "may," "will," "plans," "continue," "ongoing," "potential," "predict," "project," "target," "seek" or "should" or, in each case, their negative or other variations or comparable terminology or by discussions of strategies, plans, objectives, targets, goals, future events or intentions. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the Company's intentions, beliefs or current expectations. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Given these risks and uncertainties, you should not rely on forward-looking statements as a prediction of actual results. Any forward-looking statements are made only as of the date of this announcement and, without prejudice to the Company's obligations under applicable law in relation to disclosure and ongoing information, the Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update the forward-looking statements set forth in this announcement. Important Legal Notice This announcement does not constitute, or form part of, an offer or invitation to sell or issue, or any solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for shares of ASIT biotech SA (the "Company" and the "Shares"). Any purchase of, subscription for or application for, Shares to be issued in connection with the intended offering should only be made on the basis of information contained in the prospectus and any supplements thereto, as the case may be. This announcement does not constitute a prospectus and the information contained herein is for information purposes only and does not purport to be full or complete. Investors should not subscribe for any Shares except on the basis of the information contained in the prospectus that the Company expects to publish after its approval by the Belgian Financial Services and Markets Authority, and which can then be obtained at the Company's registered office and on www.asitbiotech.com. This announcement is not for distribution, directly or indirectly, in or into the United States or to any U.S. person within the meaning of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"). The Shares have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act and may not be offered or sold in the United States, except pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act. The Company has not registered, and does not intend to register, any portion of the intended offering of Shares in the United States, and does not intend to conduct a public offering of Shares in the United States. This announcement and the information contained herein are not for publication, distribution or release in or into the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan or any jurisdiction where to do so would constitute a violation of the relevant laws of such jurisdiction. This announcement is only addressed to and directed at (i) the public in Belgium and France, and (ii) persons in member states of the European Economic Area ("EEA") other than Belgium and France who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of the Prospectus Directive (Directive 2003/71/EC and amendments thereto, including Directive 2010/73/EU, to the extent implemented in the relevant EEA Member State, and together with any applicable implementing measures in such relevant Member State, the "Prospectus Directive") ("Qualified Investors"). In addition, in the United Kingdom, this announcement is only addressed to and directed at (i) persons having professional experience in matters relating to investments who fall within the definition of "investment professionals" in Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended, (the "Order") or ii)"qualified investors" falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) of the Order, and (iii) any other person to whom it may otherwise lawfully be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The intended offering, as the case may be, will only be available to, and any invitation, offer or agreement to subscribe for, purchase, or otherwise acquire the Shares will be engaged in only with relevant persons. Persons within the United Kingdom who receive this communication (other than persons falling within (i), (ii) and (iii) above) should not act or rely on or act upon this communication or any of its content. The date of completion of listing on Euronext Brussels and Euronext Paris may be influenced by things such as market conditions. There is no guarantee that such listing will occur and investors should not base their financial decisions on the Company's intentions in relation to such listing at this stage. Acquiring investments to which this announcement relates may expose an investor to a significant risk of losing the entire amount invested. Persons considering such investments should consult an authorized person specializing in advising on such investments. This announcement does not constitute a recommendation concerning the intended offering. The value of the shares can decrease as well as increase. Potential investors should consult a professional advisor as to the suitability of the intended offering for the person concerned. No announcement or information regarding the intended offering, as the case may be, or the Shares referred to above may be disseminated to the public in jurisdictions outside of Belgium and France where a prior registration or approval is required for such purpose. No steps have been taken, or will be taken, for the intended offering of the Shares of the Company in any jurisdiction outside of Belgium and France where such steps would be required. The issue, the subscription for or purchase of the Shares are subject to special legal or statutory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. The Company is not liable if the aforementioned restrictions are not complied with by any person. The Company is responsible for the information contained in this press release. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160612005017/en/ Contacts: ASIT biotech Thierry Legon, Tel. +32 2 264 03 90 CEO investors@asitbiotech.com or Media and Investor Contact NewCap Dusan Oresansky Pierre Laurent, Tel.: +33 1 44 71 94 92 asitbiotech@newcap.eu NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- New York Residence, Inc., a world-renowned real estate brokerage firm, is pleased to announce that Mr. Richard Pino, Chief Financial Officer and Associate Broker, will be traveling to Italy and Croatia from July 1st through July 13, 2016 to meet with customers. Mr. Richard Pino, Chief Financial Officer, said he will be traveling to Rome, Trieste, and Croatia to meet with existing customers who continuously show a strong interest in purchasing additional property in New York. Mr. Pino further stated that he has set aside additional time to meet with potential new customers. Private appointments may be arranged in advance by sending an email to Mr. Pino at rpino@nyr.com. Over the last decade, Mr. Pino has traveled to Columbia, Panama, China, Hong Kong, Russia, and Ireland to meet with customers and represent New York Residence at international trade shows. Mr. Pino stated that an investor can buy a beautiful condominium in a full service building starting at US$500,000 and going beyond US$100 million. In addition, newly constructed developments are being built with extensive amenities, similar to five-star hotels. New York Residence has ranked within the top five of Manhattan boutique real estate firms for the past three years, 2014-2016. In addition, New York Residence was ranked number 20 in closed transactions amongst all firm sizes. The 2016 independent ranking charts and articles can be seen in the May 2016, issue of The Real Deal, an industry real estate publication. Since solidifying its outstanding reputation in the real estate world, New York Residence has provided consulting services to real estate developers on ground-up developments, and on converting rental buildings to condominiums. New York Residence' seasoned brokers speak a total of 20 languages, and are well-educated in all aspects of the real estate market. New York Residence has access to all residential, mixed use, and commercial listings in New York. New York Residence is a real estate brokerage firm specializing in residential, commercial, and investment property sales and rentals to domestic and international buyers. It maintains three offices in New York, with international offices located in Korea, Seoul, and Shanghai. New York Residence' corporate headquarters is located at 1501 Broadway, 26th floor, in the iconic Paramount Building in the heart of Times Square. Contact: RUBENSTEIN PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTACT: ALAN SEGAN ASEGAN@RUBENSTEINPR.COM To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/real-estate-firm-new-york-residence-inc-visits-italy-and-croatia-300283432.html TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - Fitch Rating affirmed Japan's credit rating on Monday, but lowered the rating outlook, citing reduced confidence over the government's commitment to fiscal consolidation. Japan's Long-Term Foreign- and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings were affirmed at 'A', the agency said in a statement. The outlook was lowered to 'Negative' from 'Stable'. On June 1, the Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, decided to delay a scheduled increase in the consumption tax from April 2017 until October 2019. This was the second time the move was postponed from its original date of October 2015. Fitch pointed out that the government failed to identify any offsetting measures. 'The Outlook revision primarily reflects Fitch's decreased confidence in the Japanese authorities' commitment to fiscal consolidation,' the agency said. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann. VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - Quaterra Resources Inc. ("Quaterra" or the "Company") and its subsidiary Singatse Peak Services LLC ("SPS") today announced they have reached an agreement with Freeport-McMoRan Nevada LLC ("Freeport Nevada") to extend the current Stage 2 of Freeport Nevada's option to acquire an interest in the Company's Yerington Copper Project in Nevada for up to two years by Freeport Nevada making option payments totalling $5.75 million. Freeport Nevada is a wholly owned subsidiary of Freeport Minerals Corporation, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX). In terms of today's agreement, Stage 2 of Freeport Nevada's earn-in option, which commenced in June last year, can be extended for up to four additional periods of six months each by Freeport Nevada making the following payments to SPS: $1.8 million on June 13, 2016; $1.25 million on December 13, 2016; $1.35 million on June 13, 2017; and $1.35 on December 13, 2017. (All amounts are expressed in U.S. dollars). SPS intends to use the Freeport Nevada's option payments for property maintenance, G&A and environmental compliance at its Yerington Copper Project. Freeport Nevada will have the right to terminate the agreement at any time with 60 days' notice. During the two-year extension period, SPS may propose special exploration programs, including work plans and budgets, to be undertaken with Freeport Nevada's agreement under an annual drilling program. These programs will be funded by Freeport Nevada, at its discretion, through accelerated option payments. The Stage 2 extension option payments and any accelerated option payments will reduce the payments required for Freeport Nevada to earn its initial 55% interest in SPS. SPS will continue to initiate and self-fund desktop studies to assess the over-all development potential at Yerington, and surface work including geophysical surveys to better understand the Bear porphyry copper deposit, one of three known copper deposits on the Company's 51-square mile Yerington land package. Geophysical surveys will also assist in future drill site selection. Freeport Nevada has the option to participate in these studies as part of due diligence. "We welcome the opportunity to continue working with Freeport Nevada at Yerington and appreciate its confidence and continued support for our efforts," says Quaterra Chief Executive Officer Thomas Patton. "The ability for the company, under the extension agreement, to propose special exploration programs provides us with a strong incentive to identify compelling drill targets." Mr. Patton says that the recently completed six-hole exploration program was successful in extending mineralization at the Bear deposit an additional 2,000 feet north-northeast by 3,000 feet northwest-southeast. The mineralized intercept in four step-out holes was on average approximately 1,000 feet thick. "These results make us even more confident that higher grade zones exist within this large porphyry copper system," he says. In June 2014, Quaterra and its subsidiaries Quaterra Alaska and SPS entered into an agreement which gives Freeport Nevada an option to earn an initial 55% interest in SPS by providing $40.7 million in option payments to SPS. Today's agreement has potentially extended that period by another two years. Freeport Nevada can earn a further 20% in SPS (increasing its holding to 75%) by spending $99.5 million or by funding a feasibility study, whichever comes first. Before then, Freeport Nevada can terminate the agreement at its discretion. Expenditures have been revised marginally from earlier disclosed amounts to address changes in property maintenance costs at Yerington. Quaterra's Yerington Copper Project -- located in the historic Yerington Copper District, about 70 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada -- consists of the Bear porphyry copper deposit; the Yerington pit oxide and sulfide deposit previously mined by Anaconda; the MacArthur oxide and sulfide deposit; and several untested exploration targets. Quaterra's 51-square-mile land package is situated in a mining-friendly jurisdiction with a history of copper production and good infrastructure. It also owns valuable water rights in the district. Quaterra has invested some $36 million in the Yerington District since 2006, and has released NI 43-101-compliant oxide and sulfide resources at both MacArthur and Yerington, and a preliminary economic assessment at MacArthur. Quaterra's Yerington assets have the potential to be transformed into a large-scale, long-life copper mining operation. Technical information in this news release has been approved by Thomas Patton, Ph.D., the CEO of the Company, and a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101. About Quaterra Resources Inc. Quaterra Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE: QTA) (OTCQX: QTRRF) is a copper exploration and development company with the primary objective to advance its U.S. subsidiary's copper projects in the Yerington District, Nevada. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Thomas Patton, Chairman & CEO Quaterra Resources Inc. More information on Quaterra and its Yerington Copper Project can be found on the Company's website at www.quaterra.com Disclosure note: Some statements contained in this news release are forward-looking statements under Canadian securities laws and within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are identified in this news release by words such as "believes", "anticipates", "intends", "has the potential", "expects", and similar language, or convey estimates and statements that describe the Company's future plans, objectives, potential outcomes, expectations, or goals. Since forward-looking statements are based on assumptions and address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. In particular, forward looking statements in this news release include that the Company will receive option payments over the next 24 months; that exploration drilling will be undertaken, particularly at the Bear deposit; that results will define further mineralization or high grade zones; that historical and new exploration will support a resource on the property; and that the Yerington assets have the potential to support mining operations. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties which may cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. A summary of risk factors that apply to the Company's operations are included in our management discussion and analysis filings with securities regulatory authorities, and are publicly available on our website. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date thereof. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time except in accordance with applicable securities laws. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. For more information please contact: Thomas Patton Chairman & CEO Quaterra Resources Inc. 604-641-2758 Gerald Prosalendis President and COO Quaterra Resources Inc. 604-641-2780 TORONTO, ONTARIO and MUNICH, GERMANY -- (Marketwired) -- 06/13/16 -- Editors Note: There is a photo associated with this press release. TANTALEX Resources Corporation (CSE: TTX)(FRANKFURT: 1T0) ("TANTALEX" or the "Corporation"), is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, United Materials Congo SARL ("UNITED MATERIALS" or "UMC"), located in the Katanga province of Democratic Republic of Congo ("DRC"), has received its first 1,500 Kg of Tantalum Pentoxide concentrate (Ta205) from its sub-contractor. (Refer to June 8, 2016 press release). The barrels of Ta205 have been shipped to UMC's warehouse, located in the city of Lubumbashi, in the province of Katanga. They will temporarily be held there until when they will be shipped overseas by container to pre-established buyers. Dave GAGNON, Chief Executive Officer of TANTALEX, explains: "We are extremely happy to see the first shipments of Tantalum arrive. It's proof of our team's hard work, perseverance and dedication. In what seems to be a never-ending downturn market, we have been able to put together partnerships and secure buyers for a mineral that remains in constant demand." About TANTALEX Resources Corporation TANTALEX is a mining company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development and distribution of Tantalum and other high-tech mineral properties in Africa. The Company is listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange (symbol: TTX) and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (symbol: 1T0). Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements The information in this news release includes certain information and statements about management's view of future events, expectations, plans and prospects that constitute forward looking statements. These statements are based upon assumptions that are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Because of these risks and uncertainties and as a result of a variety of factors, the actual results, expectations, achievements or performance may differ materially from those anticipated and indicated by these forward looking statements. Although TANTALEX believes that the expectations reflected in forward looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurances that the expectations of any forward looking statements will prove to be correct. Except as required by law, TANTALEX disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements to reflect actual results, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions, changes in factors affecting such forward looking statements or otherwise. The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed this news release and does not accept responsibility for its adequacy or accuracy. For further information, please contacts Investor relations: ir@tantalex.ca Or visit us at: WWW.TANTALEX.CA To view the photo associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://www.marketwire.com/library/20160613-TANTALEX.jpg. Contacts: TANTALEX Resources Corporation Dave Gagnon Chief Executive Officer +16479637476 dg@tantalex.ca TANTALEX Resources Corporation Kyle Appleby Chief Financial Officer +14164179176 ka@tantalex.ca LAS VEGAS, NV -- (Marketwired) -- 06/13/16 -- 5miles, the country's first full-category local marketplace app, announced today that the company is unveiling a host of automobile dealer services this week at the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association's annual conference in Las Vegas. The NIADA Convention and Expo, which is the world's largest gathering of used vehicle dealers, brings together industry leaders and players to learn about new tools, services and technology. 5miles, recently named by appPicker as one of the top car-buying apps on the market, is making its NIADA Convention and Expo debut this year, where the year-old startup is presenting itself to the broader auto dealer industry after early success with increasing hyper-local transactions between used car sellers and buyers. "In the short time we've been in operation, 5miles has had huge success in the car category with a significant -- and ever-growing -- presence of independent car dealers joining our marketplace," said Rick Cantu, general manager at 5miles. "Our coming to NIADA is a calculated move to showcase how and why 5miles is such a hot platform for both buyers and sellers of vehicles." Consistently one of the top-selling shopping apps on Google Play, 5miles has grown to a community of more than eight million users, with billions of dollars in transactions and counting. In the car category alone, the 5miles app is one of the top 10 auto platforms (by listing volume), with nearly 5,000 new listings and 1,500 vehicles sold every day. Features like 5miles' patent-pending "boost" function, along with newer offerings such as premium listings, are differentiating the mobile marketplace even further. "People are flocking to 5miles to buy cars, which has allowed us to expand our marketing efforts to include car dealers," said Jonathan Bailey, director of sales at 5miles. "With more and more consumers using us to a high degree, the more visibility to dealer inventory we can provide on our marketplace. It's a win-win that is creating a powerful sales channel." 5miles is the first app of its kind to offer users a truly dynamic, local marketplace with access to both second-hand goods and services, housing and jobs: real items from real people in real time -- all within five miles. From cars and motorcycles to auto repair and installation, body and glass, and washing and detailing on the service side, 5miles is delivering a total shopping and aftermarket service experience like no other. Learn more about 5miles at 5milesapp.com. For event information, visit niadaconvention.com. About NIADA The National Independent Automobile Dealers Association has represented quality independent automobile dealers for more than 65 years. The Arlington, Texas-based organization assists 20,000+ professional auto dealers and association members in becoming more successful within the used motor vehicle industry. NIADA brings industry education, valuable information, and benefits designed to prepare members for an ever-changing marketplace, including the annual NIADA Convention and Expo. This event, considered the world's largest gathering of used vehicle dealers, offers attendees a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face with executives of successful dealerships while also showcasing the latest equipment, services and technologies. Learn more at niada.com. For event information, visit niadaconvention.com. About 5miles 5miles is a hyper-local, free to download mobile marketplace app, one of the nation's fastest-growing online shopping ventures available in all major markets across the United States. It is the first app of its kind to include services, housing and jobs, in addition to second-hand trading. 5miles launched in Dallas in January 2015, setting itself apart with an easy-to-use mobile interface, identity verification capabilities for added safety and security, and hyper-local curation of offerings -- all within 5miles. In its first year or so of operation, buyers and sellers in major markets coast-to-coast have transacted more than $2 billion in merchandise through 5miles. The app is ranked routinely as a top 10 shopping app on Google Play and boasts a growing adoption rate with iOS users via the App Store. Learn more at 5milesapp.com. App Store: m.onelink.me/5fc10133 Google Play: m.onelink.me/674211f2 Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=3020540 Media Contact: Mark Brinkerhoff Tel: 1-817-681-5739 Email: Email Contact COQUITLAM, BC--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - SureWerx (formerly JET Group), a leading supplier of professional tools, equipment and safety products for workers across North America, announced today the acquisition of KP Industries, a leading U.S. brand of knee and elbow protection based in Old Mission, Michigan. "The acquisition of KP Industries is perfectly aligned with our corporate strategy to complement our existing safety programs by introducing a complete professional PPE safety portfolio into the Canadian market and to expand our portfolio and reach into the U.S. safety market," states Bill Jeffery, Senior Vice President of Corporate & Brand Development. "KP Industries is the original designer and manufacturer of the now famous KneePro series of knee pads, sold extensively in the U.S. and around the globe since 1990. The KneePro Ultra Flex III knee pad is regarded as one of the best knee pads on the market, incorporating superior design features and functionality that provide outstanding comfort, fit, durability and safety to users in a wide range of applications". "The addition of the KneePro Ultra Flex III knee pad, the premium Ultra Flex III Hybrid with laminate gel insert, as well as ArmorPro Elbow Guard elbow pads to our already extensive line of safety products further strengthens our position as North America's source for unique and innovative safety solutions for the professional markets. As part of SureWerx, we expect to significantly increase market share as this proven product is made available to our North American distribution partners as part of our "One Source" strategy. KneePro products will be yet another complementary brand available to them under the SureWerx banner". Commenting on the acquisition, Chuck Knox, founder of KP Industries said "I am delighted to turn the Knee Pro business over to the SureWerx group. I believe the KneePro product line will thrive alongside the extensive portfolio of professional products at SureWerx". You can learn more about KneePro products by visiting www.kpindustries.com. About SureWerx Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, SureWerx' is a leading supplier of professional tool, equipment and safety products for workers. SureWerx markets its products in Canada under the JET, Strongarm, ITC, STARTECH, Pioneer, Ranpro, PeakWorks, and Sellstrom brands, and in the United States under the American Forge & Foundry, Pioneer, Ranpro, PeakWorks, and Sellstrom brands. SureWerx offers an unparalleled access to its brands through its partner distributor network servicing the industrial, construction, safety, and automotive aftermarket in North America. SureWerx is owned by Penfund, one of Canada's oldest independent private equity firms. For more information, please visit us at www.surewerx.com or www.surewerx.ca. Press Contact: SureWerx Bill Jeffery SVP Corporate Development Phone: 604.523.7634 Email: bjeffery@surewerx.com Sohar SWRO Company LLC has chosen LG Chem's NanoH2O seawater RO membranes for its 250 MLD plant in Oman SEOUL, South Korea, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- LG Water Solutions, part of LG Chem and manufacturer of the full line of high-efficiency NanoH2O ' reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, is proud to announce that it has been chosen by Sohar SWRO Company LLC to supply its high rejection NanoH2O seawater RO membranes to the Sohar desalination plant in Oman. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378345 The Sohar desalination plant will produce 250 million liters of water per day and serve approximately 800,000 local Oman residents. The plant was designed by Valoriza Agua, one of the leading water technology companies in Spain which boasts a portfolio of more than 100 water treatment plants throughout Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Tunisia, Middle East, Brazil, Australia and Chile. "We are extremely honored to have been chosen by Valoriza Agua, a leader in desalination, as the membrane supplier for the Sohar plant," said Mr. Chul Nam, vice president of LG Chem. "This is a significant project for LG Chem and it is a true testament to the hard work and effort of our sales and operations teams to deliver the highest quality membrane products worldwide." Since LG Chem's acquisition of Los Angeles-based NanoH2O in May 2014, the company's product portfolio has rapidly expanded to include high rejection brackish water RO (BWRO) membranes, anti-fouling BWRO and residential RO membranes. LG Water Solutions is a business unit of LG Chem and boasts approximately twenty sales offices worldwide and almost one thousand installations across the globe. For more information on LG Chem's full line of NanoH2O reverse osmosis membranes, visit the company's website at: www.LGwatersolutions.com About LG Water Solutions LG Water Solutions, part of LG Chem, Ltd., manufactures the full line of NanoH 2 O' seawater, brackish water and residential reverse osmosis (RO) memAbranes. Based on breakthrough nanostructured materials and industry-proven polymer technology, LG Chem's unique NanoH 2 O membrane formulation dramatically improves system efficiency and productivity. LG Chem's full line of NanoH 2 O RO membranes are Standard 61 and 58 certified by NSF International for the production of drinking water. These membranes are available in industry-standard element configurations that fit easily into new and existing RO systems, purifying water from a broad range of sources with improved productivity and water quality. LG Water Solutions is headquartered in Seoul and is part of LG Chem, Ltd. For more information, visit www.LGwatersolutions.com About LG Chem LG Chem, Ltd. is a globally diversified chemical company which operates three main business units: Basic Materials & Chemicals, IT & Electronic Materials, and Energy Solution. The chemical business manufactures a wide range of products, from petrochemical goods to high-value added plastics. It also extends its chemical expertise into high-tech areas such as electronic materials, water desalination and rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and ESS. For more information, please visit the LG Chem website at www.lgchem.com NEUHAUSEN, GERMANY -- (Marketwired) -- 06/13/16 -- Tyco is introducing the fire alarm industry's first addressable notification appliances with individual on / off audio control -- a new innovation in notification technology that promises to enhance protection, reduce costs and simplify building operations. The new line of intelligent SIMPLEX TrueAlert ES audio speakers takes notification to another level of capability, safety and value for architects and engineers, installing contractors, building owners and facility managers. TrueAlert ES speakers are specially designed to provide high quality audio output, improved aesthetics, and targeted emergency message delivery. At the same time, the speakers offer all the other benefits of the SIMPLEX TrueAlert ES family of fully addressable notification appliances, including easier, more flexible system design, cost-effective installation, and revolutionary device self-testing. "This new family of wall and ceiling mount speakers expands and strengthens the TrueAlert ES suite of addressable notification appliances," said Peter Ryan, Senior Commercialization Manager for SIMPLEX products, Tyco Fire Protection Products. "This is the first family of fire alarm system speakers where the user can individually select which appliances broadcast each audio message, giving unprecedented flexibility and control over emergency messaging and response. As part of the TrueAlert ES family of notification appliances, they also have revolutionary self-test capability that can help improve safety, reduce business cost and ensure systems stay in top working order." Here's a brief overview of the key features and benefits of SIMPLEX TrueAlert ES addressable speakers: Targeted Audio Messaging for Enhanced Emergency Response: Addressable TrueAlert ES speakers have the capability to deliver audio messages to specifically targeted areas within a building. Each audio unit has its own address on the fire alarm system and is supervised by a SIMPLEX ES fire alarm panel. This means the fire alarm panel can be programmed to select which speakers are to be used and what message will be played on them during emergencies. This targeted audio paging capability enables the delivery of critical, event specific information where it's needed. For example, in the case of a small isolated event, an individual speaker can be activated to deliver a message in that specific area. In broader emergency situations, groups of speakers can be used to deliver critical evacuation instructions for specific parts of the building based on the nature of the emergency. With SIMPLEX TrueAlert ES Addressable Speakers, audio messages are directed by programming, not wire runs, opening up a new world of flexibility, configurability and performance for audio fire alarm systems. Appliance Self-Testing: Like the entire SIMPLEX TrueAlert ES family of addressable notification devices, the new speakers provide revolutionary appliance self-testing capability as well as advanced programming and reporting features. The self-test process takes just seconds to complete, and can be initiated manually or programmed via the fire alarm control panel to run automatically at a convenient time. Self-testing can reduce business disruption and provide significant time and cost savings, particularly in large buildings where notification appliance testing can be difficult. Flexible Design, Cost-Efficient Installation & Improved Aesthetics: The wiring architecture of SIMPLEX TrueAlert ES speakers is extremely flexible, which can mean easier, more efficient design and faster, more cost-effective installation. The addressable speaker technology is also highly scalable, so it's easy to adjust and expand the notification system as buildings change and life-safety needs evolve. The new devices also feature a streamlined look that blends well with the building or facility decor. Improved Audibility and Intelligibility: TrueAlert ES speakers provide a high-quality audio output that improves audibility and intelligibility of messages and enables dual-purpose functionality. In an emergency, the speakers operate as part of a building's fire alarm system, so they can help notify building occupants about what to do through pre-recorded messages, tones, or live messaging. In addition, the quality of the sound can enable the speakers to be used for standard daily functions like non-emergency paging and background music. SIMPLEX TrueAlert ES speakers are available in red, white and black, and wall or ceiling mounted audio only and audio visual models. They are sold through Tyco's North America integrated solutions and services businesses -- Tyco SimplexGrinnell and Tyco Integrated Fire & Security -- and through other authorized Tyco distributors around the world. About Tyco Fire Protection Products Tyco Fire Protection Products is a division of Tyco, the world's largest pure-play fire protection and security company. As an industry leader, Tyco Fire Protection Products uses its global scale and deep expertise to drive innovation, advance safety and solve the unique challenges of customers in more than 190 countries worldwide. Every day, Tyco Fire Protection Products manufactures and delivers an unmatched range of detection and suppression systems, extinguishing agents, sprinkler systems, valves, piping products, fittings, fire-fighting equipment and services that helps its customers save lives and protect property. Its global technology portfolio includes fire suppression, fire detection and mechanical building product offerings sold under many of the world's best-known brands: ANSUL, CHEMGUARD, EZCARE, FIRECLASS, FLAMEVISION, GRINNELL, HYGOOD, NEURUPPIN, PYRO-CHEM, RAPID RESPONSE, SABOFOAM, SHURJOINT, SIMPLEX, SKUM, SPRINKCAD, THORN SECURITY, VIGILANT, WILLIAMS FIRE & HAZARD CONTROL, and ZETTLER. For more information, visit www.tycofsbp.com. Media Inquiries Melissa McClain melissa.mcclain@tycofp.com 267-218-3177 HARRISBURG, PA--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - Pennsylvania today agreed that the U.S. Supreme Court should assume original jurisdiction in the state's efforts to recover more than $10 million in unclaimed property funds that were wrongly submitted to the state of Delaware over 10 years. In February 2016, Treasury filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania against Delaware and MoneyGram, Inc. The lawsuit argued that under federal and Pennsylvania law, when a money order issued by MoneyGram is not cashed after the requisite time period, any funds associated with the uncashed money order becomes unclaimed property and should be remitted to the state where the money order was purchased. Instead, MoneyGram has been submitting the unclaimed money to Delaware where it is incorporated. The state of Wisconsin subsequently filed a similar lawsuit and Delaware countersued and sought to have the dispute moved to the Supreme Court. Last week 21 other states jointly filed a lawsuit identical to Pennsylvania's seeking to have Delaware return unclaimed money to each of them as well. "Given that this is a dispute between states, the U.S. Supreme Court is an appropriate venue and we look forward to arguing the merits of our case," said Pennsylvania Treasurer Timothy Reese. "We feel strongly that this is money that belongs to Pennsylvania and are pleased to lead this effort that nearly two dozen other states have now joined." Click here to view the legal filing. The Pennsylvania Treasury is an independent department of state government led by the state treasurer, who is elected every four years. The department's primary duty is to safeguard and manage the state's public funds. It invests state money to generate income on behalf of the citizens of Pennsylvania, reviews and processes payments for state government agencies, and serves as custodian of more than $100 billion in state funds. Key Treasury programs include Unclaimed Property, PA 529 College Savings Program and the Board of Finance and Revenue. To learn more visit patreasury.gov. Media Contact: Scott Sloat 717-695-1789 news@patreasury.gov Washington D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - June 13, 2016) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that two California-based municipal advisory firms and their executives have agreed to settle charges that they used deceptive practices when soliciting the business of five California school districts. An SEC investigation found that while School Business Consulting Inc. was advising the school districts about their hiring process for financial professionals, it was simultaneously retained by Keygent LLC, which was seeking the municipal advisory business of the same school districts. Without permission, School Business Consulting shared confidential information with Keygent, including questions to be asked in Keygent's interviews with the school districts and details of competitors' proposals including their fees. The school districts were unaware that Keygent had the benefit of these confidential details throughout the hiring process. Keygent ultimately won the municipal advisory contracts. This is the SEC's first enforcement action under the municipal advisor antifraud provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. "This unauthorized exchange of confidential client information could have given Keygent an improper advantage over other municipal advisors that were candidates for the same business," said Andrew Ceresney, Director of the SEC Enforcement Division. "The Dodd-Frank Act prohibits this type of deceptive behavior by advisors when dealing with municipal issuers." School Business Consulting also is charged with failing to register as a municipal advisor. "These laws apply not only to municipal advisors, but also those who solicit business on behalf of municipal advisors," said LeeAnn Ghazil Gaunt, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division's Public Finance Abuse Unit. "Municipal entities should be able to trust that their selection of a municipal advisor is untainted by any breach of fiduciary duty." Without admitting or denying the findings in the SEC's orders instituting settled administrative proceedings: School Business Consulting agreed to a censure and a $30,000 penalty. The firm's president Terrance Bradley agreed to be barred from acting as a municipal advisor and must pay a $20,000 penalty. Keygent agreed to a censure and a $100,000 penalty. Keygent's principals Anthony Hsieh and Chet Wang agreed to pay penalties of $30,000 and $20,000 respectively. The SEC's investigation was conducted by Brian P. Knight, Monique C. Winkler, and Deputy Chief Mark R. Zehner of the Public Finance Abuse Unit with assistance from John Yun of the San Francisco Regional Office. The global potato chips marketis expected grow at a CAGR of 4.42% during the forecast period, according to Technavio's latest report. In this report, Technavio covers the market outlook and growth prospects of the globalpotato chipsmarketfor 2016-2020. Based on distribution channel, the market is segmented into the following: supermarket or hypermarket, convenience store, independent retailer, and others. Technavio's research study segments the global potato chips market into the following regions: Americas Europe APAC MEA Americas: largest market for potato chips The potato chips market in the Americas is growing steadily. The acceptance of quick meals such as burgers and sandwiches is one of the major factors driving the market in the Americas. Chips are widely accepted and consumed as a favorite combination with burgers and sandwiches. Also, the busy lifestyle of people leads to the demand for snacks such as potato chips in the region. Supermarkets and hypermarkets accounted for 77% of the total sales of potato chips in the US in 2015. Some potato chips are available in flavors unique to Canada, such as ketchup and "all-dressed" flavors. Canadian consumers prefer BBQ-flavored hickory sticks and potato chips. One of the popular brands and flavors launched in 2015 is Ruffles all-dressed flavor, which has garnered consumer interest in the Americas for its unique Canadian flavor. In April 2014, Lay's Canada announced the return of its Do Us a Flavour contest, which invites fans across the country to submit their flavor ideas to be the next great potato chip flavor. "The rising number of flavors and increasing demand for quick snacks are expected to contribute to the market demand during the forecast period," says Arushi Thakur, one of Technavio's industry experts for research on food sector Ask for a sample of this report: http://goo.gl/8LoitX Potato chips market in Europe In Europe, countries such as the UK and the Netherlands are the major contributors to the potato chips market in terms of imports and consumptions. The savory snacks market in Europe was valued at USD 26.77 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach USD 34.62 billion by 2020. The consumption of savory snacks, including potato chips, varies from country to country in Europe. The savory snacks market in the UK was valued at around USD 5.65 billion in 2015. There is a growing demand for frozen potato chips, private labels, and numerous varieties from the UK, boosting the overall potato chips market in Europe. Private labels accounted for 22% of the packaged food market in Europe in 2015. Potato chips market in APAC The market in APAC has been experiencing strong growth over the last few years, and the same growth is expected to continue during the forecast period as well. India, China, and South Korea are the major contributors to the growth of the market in APAC. An increase in disposable income and busy lifestyle are the two factors driving the market in APAC. "In addition, the potato chips market in APAC has benefited from localization of flavors in Japan as consumers prefer buying local flavors available in their country. However, compared to cookies and candy, Chinese still consume a relatively small amount of potato chips. Therefore, there is huge potential for market growth in China," states Arushi. Potato chips market in MEA An increase in disposable income and busy lifestyle are the major two factors boosting the potato chips market in MEA. It is expected that consumers' spending on food in the Middle East will reach USD 110 billion by 2020. Consumers' spending on food in the UAE alone was USD 21.3 billion in 2013 and is expected to increase to USD 25.1 billion by 2016. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Bahrain, and Qatar, PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division holds the major share of the market. Notion Group, a snacks manufacturer, expanded its manufacturing facilities in Dubai and Saudi Arabia in 2013 to fulfill the rising demand for chips and chocolates. The company is experiencing a huge demand for its products from other Muslim countries because its products have Halal certification. The top vendors in the global potato chips market highlighted in the report are: Calbee Foods Herr Intersnack Group PepsiCo Snyder's-Lance UTZ Quality Foods Browse Related Reports: Global Savory Snacks Market Market Research 2015-2019 Global Jams, Jellies, and Preserves Market 2016-2020 Global Protein Ingredients Market 2016-2020 Purchase these 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/20160613005514/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 630 333 9501 UK: +44 208 123 1770 www.technavio.com The global scuba diving equipment marketis expected grow at a CAGR of close to 4% during the forecast period, according to Technavio's latest report. In this report, Technavio covers the market outlook and growth prospects of the globalscuba diving equipmentmarketfor 2016-2020. For calculating the market size, the report has taken into consideration the revenue generated from the sales of different types of scuba diving equipment. Based on product type, the market has been segmented into the following categories: rebreathers, apparel, diving computers and gauges, and others. Technavio's research study segments the global scuba diving equipment market into the following regions: Americas APAC Europe MEA APAC: largest market for scuba diving equipment The Americas led the market with 57% of the market share in 2015 and the region is expected to continue leading the market over the next five years. An increased awareness of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and the growing number of scuba divers are expected to be the major growth drivers for the region. The US, with its numerous scuba diving sites, drives the market in the region. The US not only has numerous prime scuba diving sites on its southern and western coasts, but a large number of freshwater springs, lakes, and quarries, which provide diving sites in its inland regions as well. The country's saltwater scuba diving coasts can be found in Florida, California, and Hawaii. Mantri Charan Kumar, a lead analyst at Technavio for research on outdoor gear, says, "Diving enthusiasts also find Colombia and Argentina in South America attractive diving destinations. Endangered southern right whales, sea lions, and seals can be found as some of the major attractions under water, which again contributes to the popularity of the region for scuba diving." Ask for a sample of this report: http://goo.gl/tM2cpQ Scuba diving equipment market in Europe A large number scuba diving sites spread across Europe make it the second-largest revenue contributor to the global scuba diving equipment market with a share of 22% in 2015. This region is estimated to maintain stability in its growth rate during the forecast period due to the market approaching maturity. Among the vast number of countries offering the sport, France and Germany are the leading contributors to the market in Europe. Apart from the aforementioned countries, Turkey, Italy, Spain, and Belgium have major scuba diving sites. Known to be lined with over 125 shipwrecks, Turkey's coast makes for an attractive dive destination, something that most divers look forward to. Italy is yet another European country that has attractive dive sites. With the 14th longest coastline in the world, the country has popular dive sites along the coast as well as inside its landlocked region. Scuba diving equipment market in APAC APAC, which is the fastest growing region among all other geographic segments, held 16% of the market's share in 2015. This share is expected to go up to 17.35% by 2020. "South Korea and Australia are the prime markets for scuba diving equipment in the region. A few other prominent regions contributing significant amounts of revenue to the market are Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore. Indonesia is situated within the Coral Triangle, making it the center of marine diversity," says Mantri. Scuba diving equipment market in MEA MEA held the smallest share of the global scuba diving equipment market in 2015, and is estimated to continue to do so during the forecast period as well. It also registers the lowest CAGR among all the other geographic regions, mainly due to the lack of dive sites. Dubai is one of the key regions for scuba diving in the Middle East. Owing to the lack of natural reef environment, the region focuses more on wreck diving. However, scuba diving activities in the region are hugely limited due to unfavorable currents and the resultant bad visibility. Apart from Dubai, dive sites are also present in South Africa and Egypt. The top vendors in the global scuba diving equipment market highlighted in the report are: American Underwater Products Aqua Lung International Johnson Outdoors Mares Sherwood Scuba Browse Related Reports: Hard Adventure Equipment Market in the US 2015-2019 Global Action Camera Market 2015-2019 Global Sports Equipment Market 2016-2020 Do you need a report on a market in a specific geographical cluster or country but can't find what you're looking for? Don't worry, Technavio also takes client requests. Please contact enquiry@technavio.com with your requirements and our analysts will be happy to create a customized report just for you. 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/20160613005469/en/ Contacts: Technavio Research Jesse Maida Media Marketing Executive US: +1 630 333 9501 UK: +44 208 123 1770 www.technavio.com VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - Almaden Minerals Ltd. ("Almaden" or "the Company") (TSX: AMM) (NYSE MKT: AAU) is pleased to report on the on-going development and exploration activities at the Company's 100% owned Tuligtic project and the Ixtaca gold-silver deposit located in Puebla State, Mexico. Development Activities Advanced engineering and environmental baseline studies designed to meet the requirements of a Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") and the submittal of an environmental permit application and risk assessment to the Mexican regulatory agency responsible for mine permitting are ongoing. As announced on October 19, 2015, Almaden secured the option to purchase the Rock Creek mill, which only operated for several months before the mining operation was curtailed in 2008 and has been kept in excellent condition during subsequent care and maintenance. The mill was built to process 7,000 tonnes per day, and includes a three-stage crushing plant, gravity circuit, ball mill, flotation cells, leaching facilities, conveyors, metallurgical and chemical fire assay laboratories, a water treatment plant, full electrical circuitry including generators, and a number of spare parts for the ball mill and crushers. In order to demonstrate the impact of this option agreement on Ixtaca economics, Almaden updated its preliminary economic assessment ("PEA") on Ixtaca (see Amended PEA filed on SEDAR on April 13, 2016). This study demonstrates that for initial capital costs of US$100 million, the Ixtaca project shows (after tax basis) a 30% IRR and a US$166 million NPV (5%) using $1150 gold and $16 silver all the while producing on average 108,000 ounces AuEq per year (using a 72:1 silver:gold ratio) for approximately 13 years. In addition to reflecting the Rock Creek mill in the economics, the Amended PEA incorporates a smaller, near surface and payback-focussed pit, and optimised waste placement and tailings management facilities in addition to other changes. Subsequent site visits by the independent consulting engineering team of Moose Mountain Technical Services and Knight Piesold Ltd. have identified further optimization opportunities through updated waste placement and facilities locations. The related geotechnical, geomechanical, and hydrologic field programs will be completed to a PFS level this year, allowing for the completion of a PFS and submittal of environmental permits shortly afterwards. To date Almaden has completed or initiated the following studies: Hydrologic studies including the drilling of water test wells and installation of hydrologic equipment for baseline monitoring of existing subsurface water flow and quality on the project site; Baseline surface water quality and flow measurements; Geochemical characterization of rock materials; Condemnation drilling of areas where mine infrastructure and waste rock placement is planned; Geotechnical drilling to confirm foundation, footing and subsurface material quality; Geomechanical drilling to confirm rock strength, hardness and pit slope parameters; PFS level metallurgical testwork; Flora and fauna studies; Installation of a weather station. Exploration Activities In addition to the ongoing PFS program, Almaden is initiating an exploration drilling program designed to test both regional and near resource targets. Recently an induced polarisation ("IP") geophysical survey was completed over a prospective but covered area, along strike and southwest of the resource. The survey was done in a roughly 2 kilometre gap in drilling between the resource area and the Tano Zone, located roughly 2 kilometres southwest along strike from the resource. The IP survey in this area defined both weak chargeability and resistivity targets similar to the responses seen in the resource area. These targets will be tested in the upcoming drill program. A complete list of targets where further work and/or drilling is planned include (see map appended to news release): Tano Zone: Located roughly 2 km southwest along strike from the Ixtaca resource area. Past drilling at the Tano Zone intersected 2.00 meters @ 1.76 g/t gold and 5.45 g/t silver. New IP geophysics has defined an undrilled target in this area as well as in the untested area between the Tano zone and the resource. SE Clay alteration zone: This area is located immediately south of the resource area and is marked by clay alteration and epithermal elemental markers similar to those observed in the volcanic hosted clay alteration immediately above the resource. Ixtaca East Zone: Gold values in soil and silt samples are elevated in this area of clay alteration. Further mapping is planned before drilling. This area is located to the NE along strike from the Ixtaca deposit. Near Resource Drilling: Resource drilling intersected veins adjacent to the resource not incorporated into the Amended PEA pit. A review of past drilling data indicates the potential for finding additional veins parallel to the Ixtaca vein system and immediately adjacent to the resource. In the Main Ixtaca Zone, IP chargeability responses correlate well with vein density and grade. Untested IP chargeability targets adjacent to the resource will also be tested in this program. The potential for near resource discovery is highlighted by Section 10 + 550E where hole TU-11-056, drilled in 2011, intersected two high grade veins which returned 1.26 metres @ 2.45 g/t gold and 854 g/t silver and 0.95 metres @ 13.86 g/t gold and 2577 g/t silver respectively (see attached section) These intersections are outside and north of the Amended PEA pit and point to the potential for additional parallel veining. J. Duane Poliquin, chairman of Almaden commented: "We continue to advance Ixtaca towards a production decision. We are proud of our hardworking team that has allowed the Company to effect significant progress while limiting shareholder dilution despite the downturn in mining. We look forward to updating shareholders with further progress in the coming months as we focus on the preparation of a PFS study and permit submittal as well as exploration. Going forward we will begin to build a mining team to handle the final push towards production." About the Ixtaca Drilling Program and the Ixtaca Project The 100% owned Ixtaca Zone is a blind discovery made by the Company in 2010 on claims staked by the Company. The deposit is an epithermal gold-silver deposit, mostly hosted by veins in carbonate units and crosscutting dykes ("basement rocks") with a minor component of disseminated mineralisation hosted in overlying volcanic rocks. The Ixtaca deposit is located in a developed part of Mexico in Puebla State, the location of significant manufacturing investments including Volkswagen and Audi plants. The project is accessed by paved road and is roughly 20 kilometres from an industrial park with rail service where significant manufacturers such as Kimberly Clarke have facilities. Any potential mining operation at Ixtaca would be located in an area previously logged or cleared with negligible to no current land usage. The Company has access to the entire project area and works closely with local officials and residents. The Company has employed roughly 70 people in its exploration program who live local to the Ixtaca deposit. For example, local employees have made up virtually all the drilling staff and have been trained on the job to operate the Company's wholly owned drills. The Company has implemented a comprehensive science based and objective community relations and education program for employees and all local stakeholders to transparently explain the exploration and development program underway as well as the potential impacts and benefits of any possible future mining operation at Ixtaca. The Company regards the local inhabitants to be major stakeholders in the Ixtaca deposit's future along with the Company's shareholders. Every effort is being made to create an open and clear dialogue with our stakeholders to ensure that any possible development scenarios that could evolve from the anticipated PFS are properly understood and communicated throughout the course of the Company's exploration and development program. To better explain the impacts of a mining operation at Ixtaca the Company has conducted numerous tours for local residents to third party operated mines in Mexico so that interested individuals can form their own opinions based on first-hand experience. The Company invites all interested parties to visit www.almadenminerals.com to find out more about our community development, education and outreach programs. Technical Details The potential quantity and grade of these exploration targets described in this news release are conceptual in nature. There has been insufficient exploration and/or study to define these exploration targets as a Mineral Resource. It is uncertain if additional exploration will result in these exploration targets being delineated as a Mineral Resource. The potential quantity and grade of these exploration targets has not been used in the Amended PEA. The Main Ixtaca and Ixtaca North Zones of veining are interpreted to have a north-easterly trend. Holes to date suggest that the Main Ixtaca and Ixtaca North Zones are sub vertical with local variations. This interpretation suggests that true widths range from approximately 35% of intersected widths for a -70 degree hole to 94% of intersected widths for a -20 degree hole. The drilling completed to date has traced mineralisation over 1,000 meters along this northeast trend. The Chemalaco (Northeast Extension) Zone strikes roughly north-south (340 azimuth) and dips at 55 degrees to the west. This interpretation suggests that true widths range from approximately 82% of intersected widths for a -70 degree hole to 99% of intersected widths for a -40 degree hole. Morgan J. Poliquin, Ph.D., P.Eng., a qualified person ("QP") under the meaning of NI 43-101, the President CEO and a Director of the Company, reviewed the technical information in this news release. The analyses reported were carried out at ALS Chemex Laboratories of North Vancouver using industry standard analytical techniques. For gold, samples are first analysed by fire assay and atomic absorption spectroscopy ("AAS"). Samples that return values greater than 10 g/t gold using this technique are then re-analysed by fire assay but with a gravimetric finish. Silver is first analysed by Inductively Coupled Plasma - Atomic Emission Spectroscopy ("ICP-AES"). Samples that return values greater than 100 g/t silver by ICP-AES are then re analysed by HF-HNO3-HCLO4 digestion with HCL leach and ICP-AES finish. Of these samples those that return silver values greater than 1,500 g/t are further analysed by fire assay with a gravimetric finish. Blanks, field duplicates and certified standards were inserted into the sample stream as part of Almaden's quality assurance and control program which complies with National Instrument 43-101 requirements. About Almaden Almaden owns 100% of the Tuligtic project in Puebla State, Mexico, subject to a 2% NSR royalty held by Almadex Minerals Limited. Tuligtic covers the Ixtaca gold/silver deposit, which was discovered by Almaden in 2010. On Behalf of the Board of Directors Morgan J. Poliquin, Ph.D., P.Eng. President, CEO and Director Almaden Minerals Ltd. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) nor the NYSE MKT have reviewed or accepted responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the contents of this news release which has been prepared by management. Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, certain information presented constitutes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Canadian securities laws. Such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, those with respect to potential expansion of mineralization, potential size of mineralized zone, and size and timing of exploration and development programs, estimated project capital and other project costs and the timing of submission and receipt and availability of regulatory approvals involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Almaden to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks related to international operations and joint ventures, the actual results of current exploration activities, conclusions of economic evaluations, uncertainty in the estimation of mineral resources, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, environmental risks and hazards, increased infrastructure and/or operating costs, labour and employment matters, and government regulation and permitting requirements as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in Almaden's Annual Information form and Almaden's latest Form 20-F on file with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. Although Almaden 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. Almaden disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required pursuant to applicable securities laws. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/6/13/11G102652/Images/Ixtaca_TuligticExplorationPotential_20160609-bbe5a44b94e9a5218bb1a7b3a758b6e1.jpg Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/6/13/11G102652/Images/Section_10550E_NR-53305eed55b6ac9a87d0a4709f4967a3.jpg Contact Information: Almaden Minerals Ltd. Tel. 604.689.7644 Email: info@almadenminerals.com www.almadenminerals.com SAN ANTONIO, TX--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - GlobalSCAPE, Inc. (NYSE MKT: GSB), a pioneer and worldwide leader in the secure and reliable exchange of business information, announced today that IDG's Computerworld has selected the company as one of the 2016 Best Places to Work in IT. Recognized alongside only 99 other organizations, Globalscape stood out through employee endorsements in categories such as benefits, career development, training and retention. Globalscape was ranked number three among twenty-nine small organizations (or companies with less than 1000 U.S.-based employees) on the Best Places to Work in IT list. With this year's recognition, Globalscape has been named to the list for the third consecutive year and fifth time within the last seven years. Globalscape offers a number of programs and initiatives to recruit and retain talent, in addition to competitive benefits and compensation. Standard perks like training, individual development programs and tuition reimbursement are just a few ways that Globalscape emphasizes its commitment to professional development and company culture. A complete list of the 100 Best Place to Work in IT will be featured in Computerworld's digital magazine and online at www.Computerworld.com, with results from the 23 rd annual Best Places to Work in IT survey. Supporting Quotes: Andrea Farmer, Vice President of Human Resources at Globalscape "Globalscape is proud of the many awards we've earned over the years, but we're proudest when those recognitions are based on employee feedback. IT jobs are in high-demand, and so a workplace where people want to be, and that recognizes and rewards staff contributions in sincere and meaningful ways, makes it easier to recruit and retain the best talent in the industry. That's why we're thrilled to receive this recognition from Computerworld as it highlights not only our company culture but also our strength in career development for IT staff." Scot Finnie, Editor in Chief at Computerworld "The organizations on this year's Best Places to Work in IT list excel at creating a dynamic and satisfying IT work environment. In a competitive market for tech talent, these outstanding employers are able to attract highly skilled IT pros by offering great benefits, new learning opportunities, access to cutting-edge technologies and challenging, business-critical projects." About the Best Places to Work in IT List The Best Places to Work in Information Technology (IT) list is an annual ranking of the top 100 work environments for technology professionals by IDG's Computerworld. The list is compiled based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, career development, training and retention. In addition, Computerworld conducts extensive surveys of IT workers, and their responses factor heavily in determining the rankings. About Computerworld Computerworld is the leading IT media brand helping senior IT, business decision-makers and key influencers navigate change with effective business strategy. As the voice of business technology, Computerworld enables the IT value chain with unique editorial coverage from setting strategies to deriving value. Computerworld's award-winning website (www.computerworld.com), focused conference series, strategic marketing solutions and research forms the hub of the world's largest (40+ edition) global IT media network and provides opportunities for IT vendors to engage this audience. Computerworld leads the industry with an online audience of over 7.5 million monthly page views (Omniture, July 2015 - December 2015 average). Computerworld is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading media, events and research company. Company information is available at www.idgenterprise.com. About Globalscape GlobalSCAPE, Inc. (NYSE MKT: GSB) is a pioneer in the reliable exchange of mission-critical business data and intellectual property. Globalscape's leading enterprise suite of solutions delivers military-proven security for achieving best-in-class control and visibility of data across multiple locations. Founded in 1996, Globalscape's software and services are trusted by tens of thousands of customers worldwide, including global enterprises, governments, and small and medium enterprises. For more information, visit www.globalscape.com or follow the blog and Twitter updates. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The words "would," "exceed," "should," "anticipates," "believe," "steady," "dramatic," "expect," and variations of such words and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that a statement is not a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements are based upon the Company's current expectations and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements are risks that are detailed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the 2015 fiscal year, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 3, 2016. Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/6/13/11G102543/Images/cw_100_bp_2016_logo-f3771ffe3717a1bb8f60a05b01c7a7b6.jpg GLOBALSCAPE PRESS CONTACT Contact: Ciri Haugh Phone Number: +1 (210) 308-8267 Email: PR@globalscape.com TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 06/13/16 -- Northquest Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: NQ)(FRANKFURT: N3Q) ("Northquest" or "the Company") announces that, pursuant to the previously announced support agreement (the "Support Agreement") between the Company and Nord Gold SE ("Nordgold") dated May 26, 2016 relating to Nordgold's offer to purchase all of the common shares of the Company ("Common Shares") at a price of $0.26 per Common Share (the "Offer"), the Company has appointed Mr. Karl Glackmeyer and Mr. Andrew Matthews, as director nominees of Nordgold, to the board of directors of the Company (the "Board") effective June 13, 2016. Mr. Glackmeyer has over 40 years of experience in the mineral resource industry. From 2009 to 2012, Mr. Glackmeyer was a director of a former Toronto Stock Exchange-listed gold producer, High River Gold Mines Ltd., where he was also a member of the audit committee in 2009 and from 2011 to 2012. From 1994 to his retirement in 2004, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Fairstar Explorations Inc., also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. From 1984 to 1991, he was president of Yorbeau Resources Inc., a mineral exploration company traded on the Montreal Exchange. Mr. Glackmeyer obtained a Bachelor of Applied Sciences degree from Laval University in 1967. Mr. Matthews is a consultant with several years of experience advising senior management. Mr. Matthews currently holds the position of AML Investigator at the Royal Bank of Canada, where he also was an Employee Relations Advisor from 2013 to March 2016. From 2011 to 2013, he was a Development Officer at the Office of Bernard Trottier, MP, Etobicoke-Lakeshore. Mr. Matthews was previously a director and a member of the audit committee of a former Toronto Stock Exchange-listed gold producer, High River Gold Mines Ltd. Prior to that, he held senior positions in the corporate finance industry and management consulting firms. Mr. Matthews obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Alberta, Edmonton. In connection with the appointments to the Board, Dr. Robert Hodder and Mr. Eric Klein have resigned as directors of the Company, effective June 13, 2016. Northquest thanks Dr. Hodder and Mr. Klein for their contributions to the Company since their appointments in 2012 and 2008, respectively, and wishes them the best in their future endeavours. Under the Support Agreement, Northquest agreed to appoint two of Nordgold's nominees as directors in place of two then current directors of Northquest prior to June 15, 2016, which is the date on which the Offer will expire, subject to any extension thereof, and, following such date, to obtain the resignations of each of the directors of Northquest as Nordgold requests and to appoint such additional nominees of Nordgold to the Board in replacement of such directors. The Company will provide further information following additional changes to the board and management of the Company if or when they are made. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to statements relating to the Offer, the Support Agreement, the timing relating to the Offer and the composition of the board of directors and management of the Company. These statements relate to future events or future performance and reflect the Company's expectations regarding the future growth, results of operations, business prospects and opportunities. In some cases forward-looking information can be identified by terminology such as "may", "will", "should", "expect", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "projects", "potential", "scheduled", "forecast", "budget" or the negative of those terms or other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company, including, but not limited to, the Offer, impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, volatility of commodity prices, risks associated with the uncertainty of exploration results and estimates, metallurgical test results and that the resource potential will be achieved on exploration projects, currency fluctuations, dependence upon regulatory approvals, political and country risk, and the uncertainty of obtaining additional financing and exploration risk. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, events or otherwise, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. Contacts: Northquest Ltd. Jon North, Ph.D., P.Geo. President and Chief Executive Officer (416) 306-0202 Mobile (416) 786-6348 TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 08/02/16 -- On May 10, 2016, Chieftain Metals Corp. (TSX VENTURE: CFB), ("Chieftain" or the "Corporation"), its wholly owned subsidiary, Chieftain Metals Inc. and an investment fund advised by West Face Capital Inc. ("West Face") entered into a Forbearance Agreement pursuant to which West Face agreed not to exercise its rights under its security that became enforceable on March 31, 2016 until August 2, 2016. Chieftain is continuing to explore alternatives as to the best way forward to maximize value for all stakeholders. Chieftain is pleased to report that the strategic review process is well underway and that responses to date have been encouraging from providers of the various components of the project financing structure. The objective of the strategic review is to unlock value for all stakeholders by pursuing alternatives including project financing, entering into a joint venture with a suitable project partner, sale of a project interest or other project investment. The Tulsequah project is a construction ready, permitted, high grade, polymetallic project with one of the lowest operating costs and camp scale exploration potential. About Chieftain Chieftain Metals Corp. is a public holding company, whose principal business is the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties. Chieftain's business has focused on the development of the Tulsequah Chief deposit located in north-western British Columbia, Canada. Chieftain's properties consist of 65 mineral claims and Crown-grants covering approximately 32,722 hectares including two previously producing mines. About West Face Capital Inc. West Face Capital is one of Canada's leading alternative investment managers. West Face Capital is active in a wide range of strategies, including providing bespoke capital solutions to companies with unique opportunities. West Face Capital's capabilities are underpinned by a seasoned multi-disciplinary investment team, proprietary origination channels and deep sector expertise, both domestically and internationally. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release contains forward-looking information. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking and can be identified by the use of future-oriented words and phrases including without limitation "may", "will", "could", "subject to", "expects" and variations and negatives thereof. Forward-looking information contained in this document is based on the opinions and estimates of management as well as certain assumptions considered by management to be reasonable and which are made as at the date the information is given. Readers should be cautioned that forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking information because it is possible that predictions, forecasts, projections and other forms of forward-looking information will not be achieved by Chieftain. The forward-looking information contained herein is made as of the date hereof and Chieftain assumes no responsibility to update or revise it to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Shares outstanding; 16,751,875 Contacts: Chieftain Metals Corp. Victor Wyprysky President & CEO (416) 479-5410 vw@chieftainmetals.com Carduso Capital Groningen-NL has launched a 31m fund targeting innovation in the Northern Region of the Netherlands. An initiative of the University of Groningen and the its academic hospital University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG), Carduso Capital will focus on financing seed and early-stage companies in the Life Sciences (with a particular focus on healthy ageing), energy and sustainable society sectors in the Groningen region. Backed by the European Investment Fund, Investment Fund Groningen IFG; NOM and De Friesland Participation fund, the fund is also open to build syndicates with other investors. FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Spoonfed, an Edinburgh, Scotland, UK-based software-as-a-service catering software startup, raised 585K in a second round of funding. Backers included angel investment syndicate Equity Gap, private US and Channel Islands investors and the Scottish Investment Bank, the investment arm of Scottish Enterprise. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate international growth, further enhance the functionality, and hire new people. Launched in 2013 by Willie Biggart and Murray McNicol, Spoonfed provides a SaaS-based system for single and multi-site catering management used for online ordering, production planning, route planning, invoicing, email marketing to customers including high-street chains, independent sandwich retailers and contract catering businesses throughout the UK, in USA, Canada and Australia. FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Berlin, Germany-based fintech and insurtech company builder FinLeap raised 21m in funding. Backers included founding shareholder HitFox-Group, new investor Hannover Re, the third largest worldwide reinsurer with a gross premium of around 17 billion euros, and others. Founded by the HitFox Group, Ramin Niroumand and Hendrik Krawinkel in summer 2014, FinLeap specializes in building digital companies within the financial industry investing between 500k and 5m, providing a network of investors, experienced entrepreneurs, customers and top-talents, and an integrated technology platform. In the last 20 months, the firm has built nine new companies* altogether employing over 250 employees from more than 30 nations and together with other investors plans to invest at least 50m within the next 12 months into its FinTech-ecosystem. These funds will be used to grow existing companies and create new ventures. The portfolio includes: Clark, an online-insurance broker; Savedo, a marketplace for investment products; FinReach, a software-company that created an automated account switching kit; Valendo, an asset-based lender; Pair Finance, for online debt collection; solarisBank, a tech company with a full-banking license, and zinsbaustein.de, a digital platform for real estate investments. FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Vivo Capital, a global healthcare investment firm, closed a new fund, at over $100m. Investors in The Vivo PANDA Fund include financial institutions, corporate entities, and family offices. The fund plans to invest the capital in innovative early-stage healthcare companies across pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, and diagnostics. It will enable the firm to invest in all stages in the life science industrys development cycles complementing and building synergies with Vivo Capital Fund VIII, which invests primarily in later development stage and growth stage healthcare companies. With the close of the fund, the firm also announced the opening of its office in Taipei, Taiwan, located at 18/F, No. 460, Section 4, Xinyi Road, Xinyi District, which add to the existing ones in Palo Alto, Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei. Founded in 1996, Vivo Capital is led by Managing partners Frank Kung, Albert Cha, Edgar G. Engleman, Shan Fu, Chen Yu, Mahendra G. Shah, and Managing directors Hwachie Lee, Cyber Cao, Lawrence Wang and Michael Chang. The firm, which has more than $1.8 billion under management, has an active portfolio of over 30 companies (and over 20 exited) in the USA and 15 in China (and 5 exited). FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Utrecht, The Netherlands-based Thuja Capital Management has launched a new 34m venture capital fund. Thuja Capital Healthcare Fund II (TCHF II) will invest in products improving diagnosis, cure or care, and contributing to lowering the cost of healthcare. The fund will invest in early-stage Dutch and Belgian companies developing new medical devices, diagnostics and medicinal products and medical food products. Backed by the European Investment Fund (EIF), and a large number of family offices and private investors, TCHF II is based on partnerships with Rabobank and Knowledge Centres including the Utrecht University, University Medical Center Utrecht and Radboud University Medical Center and Regional Development Agencies. Founded in 2007 and based in Utrecht Science Park, Thuja Capital Management manages a number of venture capital funds, each with a focus on medical product innovations. The team includes Harrold van Barlingen and Michel Briejer as investment managers and Martin Solleveld as financial controller. FinSMEs 13/06/2016 VMob, a San Francisco, CA-based personalization platform built specifically for retailers and QSRs, raised $2.3m in funding. Vix Investments Limited made the investment. The company will use the funds to accelerate product development and market expansion. Led by Scott Bradley, founder and CEO, VMob develops mobile personalized marketing solutions that leverage consumer data, in-store activities and customized offers to engage customers and influence buying decisions. The companys solution is used by such global brands as McDonalds, 7-Eleven, Exxon, Anheuser Busch and IKEA. FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Global venture capital firm Partech Ventures has further expanded its team with two newly appointed General Partners. In order to strengthen its transatlantic presence, the Paris-based firm has appointed Reza Malekzadeh in San Francisco and Emmanuel Delaveau in Paris. Malekzadeh, who has twenty years of experience in various executive sales, marketing and operations roles for both large and startup companies and one of the very early VMware employees joining the company in 1998, joined the Venture team as a General Partner alongside Nicolas El Baze in San Francisco, Philippe Collombel and Jean-Marc Patouillaud in Paris, and Olivier Schuepbach in Berlin. Emmanuel Delaveau, who over the past 9 years developed CNP Assurances private equity activities, which grew to more than 6 billion, will strengthen investor relations and structure the investment firms growth strategy and business development initiatives. With offices in San Francisco, Paris and Berlin, Partech Ventures invests in Internet and information technology startups at seed, venture and growth stages. Since 1982, the firm has completed 21 initial public offerings, and more than 50 M&A transactions over $100m with large international companies (such as eBay, SAP, Vivendi, VMware, IBM, Oracle or TripAdvisor). FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Notarize, an Alexandria, VA-based provider of a remote notarization platform, secured $8m in Series A financing. The round was led by Polaris Partners with participation from Founders Fund, Ludlow Ventures and other individual investors. In conjunction with the funding, Polaris Partners Managing Partner Dave Barrett joined Notarizes board. The company, which has raised $10.45m to date, intends to use the funds to expand operations. Founded in May 2015 by Pat Kinsel, CEO, and Adam Pase, COO, Notarize provides a remote notarization service to faster turnaround times and increase productivity with reduced complexity and human error, based on technology having several applications in many industries, including financial services, real estate and legal. The company has partnered with the National Notary Association (NNA), a large notary association, which will be assisted with training and certification of Notarizes electronic notaries and will enable the platforms agents to tap into the NNAs community and support services. Notarizes team also includes Dan Tangherlini, Principal of Government, Operations, and Michael Chodos, General Counsel, and Alexander Jenkins, Vice President of Product. FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Node, a San Francisco, CA-based data intelligence layer that reorganizes information on the web based on the people who use it, raised $7.5m in funding. Backers included Mark Cuban, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Avalon Ventures, Canaan Partners, Bee Partners, and Entree Capital. Founded by CEO Falon Fatemi, Node has developed technology that is reorganizing the web to facilitate personalized discovery, where relevant information will be automatically recommended to the user, at the right time, without requiring a search box. Now in stealth mode, the companys team includes Google, Facebook, Wildfire search engineers and natural language processing experts. The company is currently focused on scaling its platform for sales and marketing and on working with select enterprise customers. FinSMEs 13/06/2016 Mumbai: Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who is heading a committee for revamp of the censor board, Monday welcomed the Bombay High Court's verdict clearing the release of Udta Punjab, which set aside the cuts suggested by the CBFC. The court asked the makers to delete just one scene and put a revised disclaimer instead of the multiple cuts suggested by the Central Board of Film Certification, which had asked the makers to remove references to Punjab from the drug-themed film. "I think this is a very mature verdict. It's a good verdict. It shows that the court has taken note of the seriousness of the subject as well as the ability of the film to address the subject. Running a disclaimer and cutting out a scene are not a problem for the makers," Benegal told PTI. The director, 81, saw the movie at a special screening recently and had praised the director's handling of the subject but had stopped short of criticising the board at that time, citing conflict of interest as he was heading the revamp committee. He, however, on Monday said the board should not act like a parent to the filmmakers, who had already asked for an 'A' certificate. Low-cost carrier AirAsia India has launched yet another low fare sale, this time to celebrate its completion of two years of India operations. In view of this, the company has said it will be offering fares starting at Rs 899 for its flights to Bengaluru, Jaipur, Kochi, New Delhi, Pune among other domestic destinations. The company's website says the offer, which starts today (13 June), will be open for bookings for passengers till 19 June for travel dates from 4 January 2017 21 August 2017. For international flights to Bali, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Perth, Singapore among other destinations, AirAsia India is offering discounted fares starting at Rs 3,399. The dates for international travel are also from 4 January 2017 21 August 2017. Allahabad: Political temperature over reports of migration of Hindus from Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh is all set to rise in the run-up to the next year's Assembly polls with BJP on Monday terming it as "not good" for democracy, and promising "proper action" after probe by a party team into the "very sensitive matter". A day after BJP chief Amit Shah expressed serious concern over "migration" from Kairana area in Shamli district, which had witnessed communal riots in 2013, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday said his party has taken up the issue with all seriousness. "Party President has set up a committee, which will go there and study the situation. Such a migration is not good for democracy. The party is sensitive about it and proper steps will be taken after the report comes," Gadkari told reporters on the second day of BJP National Executive meeting. The seven-member committee consist of four MPs and three leaders from Uttar Pradesh. Gadkari, a former BJP president, parried a question about the Samajwadi Party government's assertion that many Hindus had migrated from Kairana long back and some of them are now already dead, saying the BJP president has already reacted to this matter. "The party is sensitive on this issue and will take proper action," was his repeated refrain. Shah, in his address to the National Executive on Sunday had said, "The migration happening in Kairana due to violence is a matter of serious concern. There is an atmosphere of violence. The lack of development and the lack of governance in the largest state of India, that is Uttar Pradesh, is becoming a matter of serious concern." Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who had briefed media about Shah's speech, faced a barrage of questions on whether the saffron party was attempting at "communal polarisation" with Shah raking up issues like migration of Hindus from Kairana. Rejecting the contention, he had insisted that BJP's "foremost commitment" is to the development of UP but the SP government's "law and order failures" be in Mathura or Kairana were a matter of deep concern. "We don't speak about communalism but about national interest." In their ongoing movement against the proposed Sainik and KP colonies, the divided separatists on Sunday put up a united show against the Jammu and Kashmir governments controversial plans to settle ex-army officials and migrated Hindus in separate colonies. The separatists said they were united and ready to foil Indias plans to change the Muslim-majority character of Kashmir. The different factions of Hurriyat Conference and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) have launched a joint strategy to foil the governments plans to change the demography of the state and give the Kashmir conflict a communal colour. This is for the second time since 2008 Amarnath Shrine Board land row that the separatists have assembled at one platform - much to the worry of the state government. The joint separatists seminar was held at senior separatist Syed Ali Geelanis residence in Hyderpora. Earlier, Hurriyat leaders were house arrested by the police to foil the seminar but were allowed to go ahead with it. Many people have raised eyebrows over the governments intentions of allow the seminar. Unite against conspiracies Speaking on the occasion, the Hurriyat (G) chairman Geelani asked people to unite against the conspiracies of the government to change the demography of the state. He said: People should be ready to resist conspiracies aimed at changing the demography of Kashmir. We have to be cautious of Indias plans to settle non-locals here. The pro-freedom camp is united. Now it is peopless turn, particularly youth, to unite and foil conspiracies of India to change the Muslim-majority character of Kashmir into minority. Geelani appealed to people to stay away from pro-India parties like the National Conference, Peoples Democratic Party and Congress. Pandits are our brothers On the issue of separate residential complexes for the settlement of migrated Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley, Geelani said they (Hurriyat) were not against their (KP) return. They are our brothers. Muslims will welcome them with open heart. If they government is giving them Rs 20 lakh for rehabilitation, let them give them Rs 30 lakh, but they must be settled at their native places, he said. Hurriyat (M) chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, voiced the same opinion on this controversial issue which has attracted much debate both inside and outside the Assembly. Mirwaiz said New Delhi wanted to label Kashmiri Muslims as extremists. Mirwaiz said: The return of Kashmiri Pandits is a humanitarian issue. Our younger generation might not have seen Pandits, but we will wholeheartedly welcome them back but to their native places. New Delhi wants to label Kashmiri Muslims as extremists and communal and give an impression that Kashmir Pandits are insecure, he said. Mirwaiz said Hurriyat would reach out to Pandits and appraise them against the conspiracies of establishing separate colonies for them. The Pandits living in Kashmir have opposed separate townships. The pro-freedom leaders and civil society will reach out to the Pandit leadership and appeal them to settle in their own houses, he said. The government has identified over 700 kanals of land to construct separate townships for migrant Kashmiri Pandits in different districts of the state. In the ongoing Assembly session, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, said the government would set up transit accommodation to facilitate the return of migrant Pandits to the Valley. Will fight Sainik colonies tooth and nail On the construction of the Sainik colonies for retired ex-army officials, Geelani said it was a conspiracy to settle non-locals in Kashmir. He said that the Jammu and Kashmir government was following the footsteps of Sheikh Abdullah to settle non-locals here. There is no need to establish separate colonies for the retired Army officials. I had opposed Sheikh Abdullahs move to pass the law that give land on lease for 90 years to non-locals. Now, this government, on directions of people in New Delhi, is doing the same thing, he said. He said the government intends to settle non-local laborers working in Kashmir. Over five lakh Biharis working here have been assured settlements, he said. Mirwaiz said they will fight tooth and nail the establishment of the Sainik Colonies. Since 1947, conspiracies have been made to change the Muslim-majority character of Kashmir. RSS leaders like Shyama Prasad Mukherjee hatched conspiracy to change the demography of Kashmir. We appeal to traders, civil society, industrialists, hoteliers and Bar Association to take a stand on these issues, Mirwaiz said. However, Mehbooba has denied any settlement of non-state subjects in the Sainik colonies by the government. I want to make it clear that the Sainik colonies are meant for ex-army men who are state subjects, she said in the Assembly two weeks ago. JKLF chairman, Yasin Malik, who was rearrested after the court granted him bail in 1987 case, couldnt attend the seminar. However, vice-chairman Advocate Bashir attended the joint seminar. Similarly, senior Hurriyat leader, Shabir Ahmad Shah, was not allowed to attend the seminar by police by putting him under house detention. Besides separatists, civil society, several trade, and industrialist bodies attended the seminar and extended their support against the government plans. Public anger in Kashmir is visible against the governments move. A statewide shutdown called by separatists against the Sainik and KP colonies on 26 May evoked a strong response from the general public. The united show of separatists may have unnerved the government, but it needs to be seen how it reacts to the joint strategy against Pandit and Sainik colonies. However, it is likely to cause heated debates in the Assembly when the Opposition and Bharatiya Janta Party leaders corner the government on Monday. Patna: Two more persons, who were "working" for absconding former Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) Chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, were on Sunday arrested in Patna in connection with state intermediate examination scandal while the ex-BSEB chief's wife has been made a 'non-FIR' accused. The arrested persons are Ajit Shaktiman, an ad hoc lecturer with Patna College and Sandeep Kumar Jha, a teacher with Sanskrit Shiksha Board on a deputation from Sanskrit College, Bhagalpur, Senior Superintendent of Police, Manu Maharaj told reporters in Patna. With these arrests, the total number of persons held have gone up to eight including the alleged kingpin of the toppers' scandal, Bachha Rai, who was on Saturday arrested after he surrendered at Bhagwanpur police station in Vaishali district. Both (Ajit and Sandeep) of them were "working as agents" for Lalkeshwar Singh and were in constant touch with Singh's wife and a former JD(U) MLA Usha Sinha, the SSP said, adding, his wife's involvement in the scandal has also come to the fore during the investigation. Ajit and Sandeep have confessed to their crime while Usha Sinha is absconding, he said. They used to manage centres besides changing copies and helping people in providing marks, said Maharaj, who is heading the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on merit muddle in Bihar Intermediate Examination. Bachha Rai, who is Secretary-cum Principal of controversial Bishun Rai College arrived at the Bhagwanpur police station to give himself up after which he was arrested. Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Council on Monday witnessed a ruckus over Chairman Anayat Ali's decision to drop a resolution condemning the presence of the Chinese army in Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan from the proceedings of the house. As soon as the House met this morning, BJP MLC Ramesh Arora raised the issue of his resolution being dropped and sought to know under what rules it had been done. He was soon joined by his party colleagues and also the members of opposition Congress and National Conference (NC). Law Minister Abdul Haq Khan intervened, saying the powers of the Chairman cannot be questioned. "The Chairman has unlimited powers and he can remove it (the resolution)," Khan said. The members, however, continued to disrupt the Question Hour despite the Chairman's repeated pleas to not waste the time of the House. However, the members did not budge and continued to demand answers from the Chair and the government. Defending the Chairman, Khan said, discussing foreign affairs and defence-related issues was not in the domain of the Legislative Council. "How can we discuss foreign and defence affairs here? It is not in our domain to discuss such affairs," Khan said. There was calm for some time after the Chairman asked the members to let the Question Hour function and, following its conclusion, a discussion could be taken up on the issue. After the Question Hour ended, the uproar resumed. Arora and Congress legislator Ghulam Nabi Monga said, it was against the rules to omit a listed resolution. The minister, however, intervened, saying the resolution was removed from the agenda on Saturday and this was mentioned in monday's bulletin. Khan also invoked House rules, saying only those resolutions could be submitted in the House which are of general public interest. He said, the issue of Chinese army's presence in Gilgit-Baltistan is the concern of the Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Defence and urged the members to refrain from commenting on such sensitive issues. Arora said, through his resolution, he wanted the House to seek Centre's intervention in the issue of Chinese presence in Gilgit-Baltistan which he said are "integral parts of Jammu and Kashmir and India". However, the government and the Chairman rejected the demand and the resolution was not taken up. BJP president Amit Shah's emphasis on the violence and land-grab incidents in Mathura, and the migration of the Hindus from Kairana are indicative of the fact that the party plans to use these incidents as twin emotive issues. Delivering his address at the BJP national executive meet held in Allahabad, Shah made clear the BJP's intentions to mobilise public opinion in the party's favour, and to take a prominent position against the Mulayam Singh Yadav-Akhilesh Yadav led Samajwadi Party (SP) government. The BJPs idea is to pitch itself as the direct challenger to power vis-a-vis the Samajwadi Party in the upcoming 2017 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, and to somehow push down Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to third position. By bringing up the incidents in Mathura, the BJP president highlighted the illegal land-grab attempts in the state where under the patronage of certain political powers the miscreants were emboldened to the extent that they ignored the consequences before engaging in violent clashes with the police that led to the killing of 24 people, including two police officers of the area the SP and SHO. This helped the BJP to establish a narrative that the SP "protects the goons, land grabbers and gun runners". The BJP recently launched a digital platform where an aggrieved person or a whistle-blower could send an email about any such land grab incident, following which they would respond by sending party workers to the location to pick up a fight on behalf of people of the area. That way, the party could keep their ground workers engaged, and begin the early mobilisation of public opinion. Kairana, on the other hand, presents a situation of a different kind. Located in close vicinity of Muzaffarnagar where riots took place just a few years ago and whose wounds are still fresh Kairana is a Muslim dominated area. There have been several reports in the media, both print and electronic, showing that a large scale migration of members of Hindu community has taken place particularly those engaged in trade and commerce. The migration took place because of the perceived threat from other communities and the SP led state authorities' inability to instill confidence in the community, that their lives and other interests would be protected. Look at how things have panned out since then. A fortnight ago, local MP Hukum Singh complained about the migration of Hindu residents from the area and the subsequent change in demographic profile. Following that, the BJP formed a nine-member fact finding committee led by none other than Hukum Singh himself. Then, the BJP national president stressed on the issue in his opening address at the national executive meeting in Allahabad. The political emotive import of the issue could not be missed. Several questions were directed towards Telecommunication and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who came to brief the media on Shahs close door speech to the party delegates on whether the party was going to adopt the tested and beaten path of trying to communally polarise the voters by raising Mathura and Kairana. The Minister's answer was no. Quoting Shah, he said, the violence and migration are cause of serious concern. This is to highlight how law and order has gone downhill and there is total lack governance by the Samajwadi Party. Since the 3 June Jawahar Bagh incident in Mathura, where the Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik Kranti Satyagrahi led by one Ram Vriksha Yadav follower of late Baba Jai Gurudev indulged in unprecedented violence, the BJP has actively mobilised its leaders and cadres to challenge the Samajwadi Party. All the state leaders assigned were fielded in particular areas of their influence, and organised several demonstrations and protest marches. Even the partys senior most leader from the state, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, landed at Amroha to launch a blistering attack on the SP government. Amit Shah himself has visited parts of UP thrice since then, though the official plea is that the visits were in accordance with pre-scheduled programs. The BJP is doing the same with the Kairana migration issue. The BSP, on the other hand, don't seem to be taking up these issues with any serious vigour. That could be because of the fact that in the BSP, nothing or nobody matters more than Mayawati herself. The BJP is also aggressively pitching to woo the BSPs core social constituency the Dalits. It may or may not make a dent in this politically significant social constituency, but it has surely placed itself in a direct fight with the Samajwadi Party, at least thats how the popular perception is building up for now. BJP's shrill pitch on Matura and Kairana are dovetailed with what it calls its strong area development and the 'supposed' achievements of the Modi government. Shah asked all the party leaders and workers to resolve to sweat it out in the field to the best of their capacity, and to win the UP elections with full majority. He also spoke on the need to optimise the reach of social media to spread their messages. Via UP, he asked them to internalise another resolve to bring back BJP to power at the Centre in 2019, with an increased majority. The party steered clear of revealing its choice for the chief ministerial nominee in UP. What to do and when to do, thats the prerogative of the Partys parliamentary board. At the moment our aim is build an effective strategy to secure full majority in the election, Prasad said. The optimism and buoyancy in the air was tangible at the BJP national executive meet. After all, the BJP brass is fresh from the historic verdict in Assam, and the good show put up by the party in other states. It was almost natural on part of Amit Shah to vigorously push the partys rank and file to take up 2017 as challenge elections in five states including UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Gujarat. While elections in Goa and Gujarat will come up towards the end of 2017, the most populous and politically most significant state, UP, will go to the polls in the beginning of the year. That is precisely the reason why the BJP is holding its national executive meet to build the required hype among people and to boost the morale of its cadre to take up the fight against the two mighty regional powers, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, with certain buoyancy and confidence. The fact that it also coincides with the partys celebrations of Modi governments two years in power, and the Prime Ministers highly successful five-nation tour abroad is intended to give them the required talking points to take to their respective areas of influence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mega public rally on Monday at the Parade Ground, will sound the poll bugle to officially set the campaign tone for the UP elections. New Delhi: Allegations of a role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots returned to haunt Kamal Nath, who has been appointed as Congress general secretary in-charge of Punjab, with AAP using it to attack him, while the veteran MP dismissed it saying he was "absolved" of all charges by the Nanavati Inquiry Commission. Citing documents, AAP leader and an advocate fighting for the victims of the 1984 riots, H S Phoolka, claimed that Nath was a part of the mob that attacked the Rakab Ganj Sahib Gurudwara in Delhi on 1 November, 1984. Two Sikhs were also burnt to death in the attack. "One Mukhtiar Singh, who is now the manager of Rakab Ganj Gurudwara, had filed an affidavit before the Nanavati Commission. "He (Mukhtiar) states that Kamal Nath was a part of the mob that attacked Gurudwara Rakab Ganj on 1 November, 1984. Kamal Nath too, in his affidavit before the Commission, accepts his presence on that day," Phoolka said, adding by appointing Nath as the Congress in-charge of Punjab, the party has tried "to rub salt into wounds" of the victims. Hitting back, Nath dismissed as "very motivated" AAP's charge insisting that Nanavati Commission has "absolved" him of all charges. "For 21 years, my name figured nowhere. There was no charge against me, no statement against me, no case against me. Nobody raised any voice in any manner about my participation in the riots," he told news channels. Phoolka also said newspaper reports after the attack on the gurudwara suggested his presence there. "...On 2 November, 1984 a national daily reported that Kamal Nath was leading the mob which attacked Rakabganj Sahib. On 3 November, another national daily reported the same," he said, adding through this appointment, Congress has conveyed that the party does not care about the sentiments of the victims. "All that Congress cares is about the people having lots of money and muscle power," he said. Nath said the AAP leaders were making the charge "out of ignorance". "The Nanavati Commission's report is there on the Internet, free for anybody to read. And this was the Commission set up by the BJP government. The Akalis made no charges against me. This matter came up in Parliament on many occasions. They made no charge against me and now suddenly, this comes up so obviously this is very motivated," he said. "I don't think AAP knows what they are talking about. Nobody has ever made a charge...I think it will be easily dealt with," he added. Poolkha said Nath's appointment also suggested neither the party nor Amarinder Singh, its chief ministerial candidate in Punjab, has any respect for law. "Appointment of Kamal Nath as general secretary in-charge of state also reflects that the Congress party has no respect for law. It is not a secular party, but a party of hooligans," Phoolka said. Senior AAP leader Sanjay Singh said the Congress in the past has protected leaders like Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, whose names have cropped up in the anti-Sikh riots. "This reflects the mindset of the party. Appointing Kamal Nath is like rubbing salt into the wounds of the riot victims," Singh said. Responding to attack made by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Nath observed the charges were "political" and intended at expanding AAP's base in the state that goes to polls next year. "Since the party is contesting Assembly polls in Punjab I think the perception again is very clear. This is politics. Probably he is stepping in Punjab, so he has to dig up the issue. We will take up the issue, because it is clear, so crystal clear that there never has been any kind of involvement of mine," he said. "We will deal with. There is no problem because it is very clear (that) for 21 years there was no charge as I said. I think it will be easily dealt with," the Congress leader said. Kejriwal had on Sunday attacked the Congress on Nath's appointment, asking Amarinder if he has absolved Nath for his alleged involvement in 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Attacking the Centre, Singh said it was because of a letter written by Kejriwal that 75 cases of 1984 anti-Sikh riots are being reopened just ahead of Punjab polls. Singh also wondered if it was another 'jumla' which the Modi government was coining ahead of Punjab polls and was the Centre serious in punishing those involved in the anti-Sikh riots. "The country wants to know whether the 75 cases, which are to be reopened have names of (Congress leaders) Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler, Kamal Nath, leaders of the BJP-RSS involved in the 1984 riots. "Our party's stand is very clear. Those who have been involved in massacre and genocide...their place is not in politics, but behind the bars. "After the 1984 riots, Rajiv Gandhi had said that a big tree falls, ground does shake. Appointing Kamal Nath reflects the mindset of the party, which has not changed since the last 32 years," Singh added. Auto refresh feeds The crowd in Allahabad erupted in loud cheers when Prime Minister Narendra Modi attributed to India's growth and development to its citizens. The Prime Minister invoked the Ganga river, Triveni sangam and said the BJP needs people's support for the development of Uttar Pradesh. Development in UP will happen when there is no corruption, goondaraj, nepotism, communalism and there is law and order in the state. UP will be on the path of development Modi is in campaign mode in Uttar Pradesh and asked the crowd that if you want change in Uttar Pradesh and go in the path of development, then BJP should form the government in UP. He said the difficulties our elders went through, the youths of the country should go through the same difficulties. The solution to all problems is development. Youths will not get jobs without development. Without development, how can the youth of India get employment opportunities: PM @narendramodi We decided on abolition of interviews for Class III and Class IV. This is an effort to end corruption: PM @narendramodi in Allahabad Modi made an important announcement at the rally. He said for government jobs, the process of interview will be removed. Talking about corruption, he said earlier, youths had to pay to get through interviews for government jobs. UP is troubled by nepotism, casteism, criminalisation...and a Vikas Yagya will remove these evils: PM @narendramodi in Allahabad #UPWithNaMo There seems to be a contract in UP. SP & BSP make serious allegations against each other but they do nothing about it when in power: PM Prime Minister Modi said that kick us out of Uttar Pradesh if in five years BJP doesn't change the state. He said that UP cannot be ruined. If there is progress in Uttar Pradesh, nobody can stop India from surging ahead. What has not happened in 50 years, Modi said he will try to accomplish it in five years. When Kalyan Singh ji and Rajnath Singh ji served in UP, the state developed greatly. Development is our priority: PM @narendramodi Even after so many years of Independence, 1,529 villages in Uttar Pradesh didn't have electricity. But 1,352 villages have electricity now and work is progressing in rest of the villages, said Modi to the excited crowd. Since Independence, the most farmer friendly crop insurance scheme has been initiated by this Government: PM @narendramodi in Allahabad After Independence, the BJP government is the only government who has produced maximum electricity and coal. The pace of building roads, railway infrastructure is the highest, said Modi at the rally. This government has brought the maximum Foreign Direct Investment in the country. With eye on Uttar Pradesh assembly election which is slated for 2017, BJP chief Amit Shah attacked the Samajwadi Party government on Sunday over the atmosphere of violence in the state. The BJP chief cited recent Mathura clashes and "migration" of Hindus from western Uttar Pradesh town Kairana. In his inaugural speech at the partys two-day national executive, Shah also stressed on the challenges before the party in 2017, when elections are due in UP, Punjab, Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, as he exhorted the party workers to rise to the occasion by taking the Modi governments successes to the masses. With the entire party leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, present, he also trained guns on the Congress, saying it is increasingly weakening and its atrophy is growing at an alarming pace due to its policy of repeatedly obstructing the governments path to development in the last two years. He also expressed confidence that the party will return to power in Uttar Pradesh in 2017 and the Centre in 2019 as well. Briefing reporters about Shah's speech, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the National Executive will not name any chief ministerial candidate for the UP polls, noting that such a decision can be taken only by the partys Parliamentary Board, its highest decision-making body. Prasad also faced a barrage of questions on whether the saffron party was attempting at communal polarisation with Shah raking up issues like migration of Hindus from Kairana, a contention he vehemently denied. He insisted that the BJPs foremost commitment was to UPs development but made it clear that the Akhilesh Yadav governments law and order failures be it in Mathura or Kairana were a matter of deep concern. "We don't speak about communalism but about national interest." Prasad quoted Shah as saying, the migration happening in Kairana due to violence is a matter of serious concern. There is an atmosphere of violence. The lack of development and the lack of governance in the biggest state of India that is Uttar Pradesh is becoming a matter of serious concern. The party president also referred to the highest civilian honours accorded on Modi by two prominent Islamic countries, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, in a clear message to Muslims who continue to be wary of BJP due to its Hindutva agenda. Shah referred to the Modi governments foreign policy achievements and made a special reference to the unique thing of the two Islamic countries awarding him with their highest civilians honours. While some people are running a campaign against Modi, this is an evidence of his international image as all Islamic countries where he visited spoke in one voice against terrorism and recognized India as a source of stability in Asia, Prasad said when asked if Shahs mention of these awards was an attempt to reach out to Muslims. The national executive on its first day and Shah in his speech did not refer to the partys core issue of Ram Temple with Prasad saying that it was not necessary to take it up in every meeting but it was a matter of faith not elections for the party. Hindutva bodies affiliated to RSS have been clamouring for an early construction of the temple in Ayodhya. The party chief described its win in the recent Assam assembly polls and rise in vote share in states like Kerala and West Bengal as happy beginning for a good future. He spoke about the partys focus on increasing its strength in Coromandel states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and Tamil Nadu besides Bengal. BJP had not won many Lok Sabha seats from these states in 2014 and Shah has focused on them with 2019 Lok Sabha polls in mind. The gateway to the northeast has opened to BJP, he said while referring to the Assam victory. Shah also drew a contrast between the two years of the Modi government and the UPA rule of 10 years, saying that the latter was full of scams and policy paralysis while BJP has given a corruption-free and accountable government aimed at public welfare. In the UPA, all ministers considered themselves prime ministers but did not treat the Prime Minister as one while in the NDA there is a decisive leadership which had struck a balance between rural and urban development, reform and public welfare and foreign and defence policies, the BJP President said. The massive publicity and public outreach launched by the government following its two years of power was termed by him as the new standards of democratic accountability as he noted that union ministers and partys office bearers travelled to over 250 places to give people an account of its work. "Its a unique example of public contact, he told the Executive. Modi also spoke briefly and is believed to have praised the partys growing strength. He is set to deliver the concluding speech tomorrow and then address a rally. Shah spoke about the rise in the growth rate under the BJP government and listed various pro-people schemes like Swachh Bharat and Skill India to project its economic agenda as GDP with a human face. Shah flayed Samajwadi Party over the Mathura incident saying it shows the Akhilesh Yadav government was encouraging land-grabbing. "We will fight elections with full preparedness and form a government with a majority You should take our developmental agenda to villages. The way the party is expanding we should pledge and make efforts to forming the government in 2019 at the Centre with a bigger majority, he said. Asked about more details of deliberations on UP elections, Prasad said the matter could be taken up in detail tomorrow. He also spoke against electoral violence against party workers in Kerala and West Bengal. "There is no place for violence in a democracy," Shah said. He emphasised that the entire BJP was with its workers who had faced political attacks in Kerala. To a question about lack of prominence given to senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi in various posters put up by party leaders, he said posters should not be used to make comments about veteran leaders and BJP respected them. Joshi is a former MP from Allahabad. He said India had once again become the centre of worlds hope and emerged as a very strong force under the Modi government after it had fallen off the global map under the UPA as he referred to the rise in GDP growth to 7.6 per cent in two years. Against the backdrop of BJP aggressively wooing Dalits, Shah spoke about Modis reference of Dalit icon B R Ambedkar in his address to the US Congress. He also made a reference to Modis successful five-nation tour. Among them, the US, Switzerland and Mexico extended their support to India's entry to the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers' Group, he said. Prasad also referred to the recently-held Rajya Sabha elections, which saw the BJP marginally improving its tally in the Upper House and the Congress performing badly in a state like Haryana, saying Congress-Mukt Bharat echoed in RS also. "We had not even imagined that the Congress will fall apart like this. The elections on the one hand confirmed the soundness of our party and on the other signalled that our mission of Congress-Mukt Bharat was finding its echo in the Upper House of the Parliament as well. "The BJP is moving from strength to strength by virtue of the spotless conduct of its party workers and its governments as well as the party's firm commitment to ideology," he said. Taking a dig at the manner in which several members of the UPA cabinet acted contrary to the advice of Manmohan Singh, Prasad remarked "in the previous regime, there were many ministers who acted as if they were the Prime Minister. "And nobody paid heed to what the Prime Minister actually said". "Compared with the earlier situation, we have in Modi a leader who is strong and decisive", Prasad remarked. Congress politician and partys homegrown political manager with an impressive academic track record with a Mechanical Engineering degree from IIT-Bombay, MS from Carnegie Mellon University and a doctoral program in Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jairam Ramesh, the chief architect of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act 2014 has sought to explain to people that he has discharged a task thats entrusted to him. In his book titled, Old History New Geography Bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh discussed the background of separation of Andhra from Tamil Nadu, creation of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana sentiment, and the political and administrative exercise that led to the carving out of the 29th State of India. He, however, is aware that people, especially from Andhra region, are sore with his role in carving out a separate Telangana. He believes that had Chandrababu Naidu inducted K Chandrasekhara Rao into his Cabinet, the latter wouldnt have launched the agitation. He asserts that the untimely death of YS Rajasekhara Reddy was a turning point in the history of Andhra Pradesh and creation of separate Telangana. Here are a few excerpts from Firstpost's exclusive interview with Jairam Ramesh How is the Congress viewing the creation of Telangana (or bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh), after two years of its formation, as a historic necessity or a historic blunder? The Congress has certainly ended up paying a huge political price, but the bifurcation had become somewhat inevitable with all political parties barring the CPM clamouring for it. The demand for Telangana has a history of over half a century. While doing the draft of the Reorganisation Bill and also while participating in the process of bifurcating the State, were you personally gripped by a sense of guilt? Is it because of that you sounded somewhat apologetic in the book? Not really. I was given a job to do and I tried to execute my responsibility with full fairness, honesty and transparency. I did not volunteer or lobby for the assignment which proved to be a completely thankless task. I ended up as I say in the book by giving balanced dissatisfaction. I am not apologetic of what I did. I did what had to be done and what I was asked to do. I was but an instrument of destiny you can say. Why havent the UPA or the Congress constituted a second States Reorganisation Commission (SRC), but instead have chosen a short-cut to create a separate Telangana? I wish an SRC had been created. It can still get created. Uttar Pradesh has to be broken up into four new states. A strong case can be made for Vidarbha as well. Though hypothetical, could the Congress have gone ahead with the bifurcation, had YS Rajasekhara Reddy been alive and continuing as the Chief Minister? You, in fact, mentioned in the book that YSRs death was the event that finally made Telangana possible. Why did you think so? YSRs untimely and tragic death was certainly a turning point. He did make a commitment on Telangana in the AP Assembly on February 12, 2009. But his death gave KCR new life. I talk about this in the book. Why do you think N Chandrababu Naidu, who has been a staunch votary of a united Andhra Pradesh, suddenly changed his stand on Telangana issue? How many letters has the TDP given to the various committees? Has the Congress given any letter of either consent or dissent at all? Yes, from 2008 onwards, the TDP supported Telangana. In fact, I reproduce two letters of Chandrababu Naidu asking for the formation of Telangana. I dont know why he changed his stand. All I can say is that had he made KCR a Cabinet Minister, perhaps KCR would not have become a dissident and used the Telangana issue to give himself political relevance. Do you think the Congress has been able to judiciously divide the State? Why hasnt the Special Category Status (SCS) been enshrined in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, but why has Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured the Rajya Sabha of SCS? The special category status is a decision of the Union Cabinet endorsed by the National Development Council (NDC). This is what Vajpayee did with Uttarakhand which was created by law in 2000 but got special category status only in 2002 by a decision of the Union Cabinet. We followed this very route. Dr. Manmohan Singh said special category status for five years and Venkaiah Naidu said in the Rajya Sabhawhy only five years, we will make it for 10 years when the BJP comes to power. The BJP has been in power for two years and what has Venkaiah Naidus government done? Did you, through your book, attempt to shift the part responsibility or blame on to the BJP? Can you please divide the responsibility ratio among the Congress, the BJP, the TRS, and the TDP? Certainly not. My book is not to score political points. It is a work of scholarship with primary sources of information and documentation. It is an eye-witness narrative. There is also some analysis and reflection but definitely no blame game whatsoever. I have been factual and very often critical of ourselves including myself. Though you dealt with the recommendations of Justice Srikrishna Committee, hasnt the Congress taken a decision that it had mistakenly perceived to be advantageous to itself? Did you foresee the partys rout in both States? The partys rout in both states was completely unexpected. It was not foreseen. We knew we had a huge challenge in Andhra Pradesh but we expected to do much, much better in Telangana. Even in AP, we never ever imagined that we would end up with 2% of the popular vote. Dont you think incorporation of certain clauses like Section 8 and leaving the institutions under Schedule 9 and 10 of the Constitution without dividing and confusing way of dividing the river waters and even employees without going into the details have all caused a rift between the two States now? No. the law is very detailed in this regard. If the political leadership in both states goes by the letter and spirit of the law, then there will not be much problem. Unfortunately, both states are now ruled by regional parties who thrive on political confrontation. The need is for continuous political dialogue and discussion and compromise on both sides. I think the law and its provisions are very detailed and provide a framework for the harmonious development of both states. Has KCR ditched the Congress by not merging his party into the Congress in Telangana? Does Congress regret distancing YS Jagan in AP? I have no idea. You have to ask the political managers that question. I can only answer questions relating to the bifurcation process and that too events that took place between October 8th, 2013 and February 20th, 2014. New Delhi: VHP on Monday held "jihadi elements" responsible for the alleged exodus of Hindus from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh and asked the Samajwadi Party government to "rein them in" and tighten law and order in the state. "Jihadis are being encouraged to carry out their activities. VHP calls upon the state government to rein in jihadi elements who are responsible for this exodus and tighten the law and order in the state," VHP Joint General Secretary Surendra Jain said. He hit out at SP leader and state minister Azam Khan over his statements on the Kairana issue and said it only proved the "anti-Hindu mindset" promoted by him. Jain said the migration of Hindus from Kairana is "unfortunate" and the township, which was Hindu majority 40 years ago, now has only eight per cent Hindus. "It is not only Kairana in Uttar Pradesh that is a mute testimony to the exodus of Hindus, there are many more places other than Kairana which are also witnessing this trend of mass out-migration of Hindus. Apart from Kandhla, Gangoh and Thanabhavan, there are many other places in Western UP where Hindus are resorting to mass out-migration," he said. The VHP leader alleged this dismal state of affairs has not come about in one day and "unfortunately the parties that have been governing UP have concentrated more on vote bank politics rather than the interests of the nation and the state. Instead of taking action against the criminals, they provided political patronage to them." The story of the migration of 300-odd Hindu families from Muslim-dominated Kairana township of Western Uttar Pradesh is deliberately picked by the BJPs national executive at Allahabad to polarise the electorate. After its massive victory that ensured the NDA coalition to win 73 out of 80 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 General Elections, the BJP seems to have discovered polarisation as its ticket to win the state Assembly Election in 2017. Since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls held in the backdrop of a series of communal clashes in Muzaffar Nagar, Baghpat, Shamli and Ghaziabad, the partys victory is largely attributed to the strategy of polarising the electorate on communal lines. On the face of it, Kairanas narrative appears to be highly exaggerated and twisted out of context to suit the BJPs determined attempt to mobilise the electorate on religious lines. There is little doubt that in all over the state cross-migration of Hindus living in Muslim locality or Muslims living in Hindu locality, pockets of ghettoisation have multiplied manifold. But it would be naive to attribute it communalism alone. The successive riots in the state over the three decades and the states inability to punish the guilty and often colluding with them have emboldened criminals in the guise of caste and religion, to have a free-run and set up a parallel state. Obviously, the ghettoisation of the state began at furious pace after the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. In this context it would be instructive to recount the story of emergence of a BJP member of municipal corporation in Kanpur Kala Bachcha as the most intriguing personality in early nineties.. He figured as the most dreaded leader of criminals who attacked Muslims in Babupurwa locality. Yet Hindutva forces feted him as a savior. The story of his criminal escapades entailing attacks on Muslims triggered a massive ghettoisation of Muslims. In certain urban localities where Muslims chose to migrate from their old houses, the organised attacks by Kala Bachcha and members of his gang drove almost all of them to return to their ghettos. In February 1994, Kala Bachcha was killed by his rivals, mostly Muslim gangsters, that triggered yet another bout of communal rioting and killing. In his study on emergence of Kala Bachcha, noted political scientist Paul R Brass, known for conducting extensive field surveys on communal situation in North India, has aptly summarised that a complicit and ineffectual state often facilitated the Kala Bachcha phenomenon. This is further confirmed by findings of surveys conducted by successive UP government in the 1990s to assess demographic profiles of new urban centres created by the citys development authorities. The question was: Do the areas with modern amenities contain mixed population? Do Hindus and Muslims live in peace in these new urban centres? The surveys conducted by senior government officials invariably pointed out that a section of aspiring Muslim middle-class which shifted its based from walled areas to newly-developed urban clusters, but found themselves quite vulnerable due to successive riots and returned to their old habitats ie ghettos of old and unplanned areas. This assumes significance in view of the fact that the BJPs national executive in Allahabad has particularly picked the issue of forced migration of Hindus from a Muslim-dominated Kairana block of West UP. But those know the state of affairs in UP would confirm that the story of Kairana conforms to a pattern in the state. Since the Babri demolition, ghettoisation of Muslims all over the state has become an accepted fact. A survey conducted one of the senior IAS officer in UP in 1992 pointed out that in most of these ghettos, the population has been bursting at seams. For want of space, people sleep in shifts, the study pointed out. Kairana however presents a different facet of the same problem. Barely 150 kilometres away from National Capital, Kairana is known for its agricultural prosperity and lawlessness. Criminal gangs aligned on caste lines ruled the region and demand extortion. Though largely surrounded by a Hindu population, Kairanas criminal gangs are still wedded to their primordial loyalties and sustain on political patronage. A Gurjar-Muslim would have greater bonding with Gurjar Hindu than a mule jat (a jat converted to Islam). In this complex social tapestry of West UP, Jats and Gurjars largely hold the sway and marginalise traders or intermediary castes. Police officers posted in West UP admit that though some of Hindu families in Kairana had decided to migrate from the area, their decision was guided more by deterioration of law and order than any other reason. The state has been rendered ineffectual as various criminal groups have been operating with impunity all across Kairana , Shamli, Baghpat and Meerut and demand protection money. Apparently the Kala Baccha phenomenon has taken in its grip the entire state. Elections are coming to Uttar Pradesh and so is the inevitable wolf. For some fortuitous reason, somebody up there manages to conjure an existential threat to Hindus of western Uttar Pradesh from you-know-who just before an important election. Lok Sabha polls: Muzzafarnagar is under threat. By elections for Assemblies: Love jihad. And now: Kairana is turning into Kashmir. Immaculate timing! The latest cry of 'Hindu khatre main hain' has been raised by BJP Parliamentarian Hukum Singh, who claims Kairana, a small town part of Shamli district in UP, is turning into another Kashmir Hindutva brigade's favourite pseudonym for a place where Muslims force Hindus to migrate. Singh has produced a list of some 350-odd families he claims left this town, just around a 100 km from Delhi, for fear of being victimised by Muslims of the town. In the BJP's long list of crying wolf, this is yet another Malda moment: a mischievous misrepresentation of facts to raise the communal temperature of the state. Since it just won an election in Assam by raising a similar bogey of Hindus being under threat from the rampaging armies of Bangladeshi immigrants, its national executive too has joined the chorus. The BJP's strategy, for those who are still naive enough to not know it, is simple: Foment fear psychosis among Hindus through imaginary threats and gross exaggeration, pitch itself as the saviour and hope voters scurry to voting booths like scared chickens. For the BJP, fear is the key. The party preys on the minds of a terrified voter. Time for some facts about Kairana, the purported Kashmir of western UP. For the past several years, two criminal gangs have been operating in the area. These are led by Mukim Kala, rumoured to have 29 members under his baton, and Furkan. Since 2013, for socio-political reasons we will discuss later, the two gangs have scaled up their activity in the region. Extortions threats, crime and gang wars have become rampant. Kala and Furkan, who are both in jail, have threatened dozens of families over the past three years. But notice the difference here the gangsters, like all smart criminals, do not differentiate between money on communal lines. Both Hindu and Muslim traders are targeted, threatened and made to pay up. Kala and Furkan are criminals, just like the Tyagi brothers who ruled UP once, who happen to have Muslim names. The problem in Kairana is because of criminals, not Muslims. No, nobody is marching on the Hindus of Kairana under Islam's flag. According to official records, eight cases of extortion were filed in Kairana since 2013. But, like everywhere else, the actual numbers are much more, perhaps more than a 100. Most of the people who are approached do not go to the cops, they either pay up through a middleman or find some other mechanism of dealing with constant pressure of criminals. It is true some families, not 350-plus Hukum Singh's gospel claims, have left Kairana. A few months ago, former president of the local vyaapar sangh (traders' organisation) Arvind Singhal left for Shamli under police protection after gangsters approached him. But, at least five Muslim traders too have been made to cough up money after they were threatened by gangsters. As BJP leader Dilip Singh Judeo famously said on camera while allegedly accepting bribes: Paisa khuda to nahin, par khuda ki kasam, khuda se kam bhi nahin. Short point: Money is the only god of Kairana gangsters. Kairana has always been a Muslim-majority area. According to reports, more than two-third of the population is Muslim. Their numbers, incidentally, have gone up because a large number of Muslims sought refuge here after the riots in Muzzafarnagar and settled down in makeshift colonies. To argue that the demographic mix has changed only recently is just communal balderdash. According to S Raju, a senior journalist with the Hindustan Times, the recent spurt in criminal activity is because of the political vacuum in the area. "For several years the town was represented in Parliament by Munawar Hasan and his wife Tabassum Begum. But, after Hasan's death in a road accident, the family's hold over local administration diminished," he says. Hukum Singh, the incumbent MP, does not take any interest in thana-kachhari (grassroot issues) because he feels his stature has gone up. So, the local administration has become blase about the rising threat from criminals. Singh's list, compiled obviously by his overenthusiastic team, is as reliable as the earlier lists put out by the BJP of Hindu girls who had fallen to "love jihad." As The Indian Express reports, 68 persons included in the list are dead. Some others left the town years ago for various reasons, including job and business opportunities. NDTV reports that it went looking for 15 families in Singh's list to 4 colonies in Kairana. It found that a chunk of the families had left around five years ago. A few families left two years ago after some local businessmen were murdered. If the argument that a religion and its practitioners should be held accountable for the activities of a criminal, many Indian states would have by now turned into a Hindu equivalent of Islamic State. In Rajasthan, for instance, Anand Pal and his gang extort money from people across the business and political divide in the communally-sensitive Shekhawati region. Is that because of his Hindu beliefs? Was Phoolan Devi a Hindutva jihadi? The Akhilesh Yadav government should be hauled over the coals for letting goons establish their raj in Kairana, letting people live in fear of extortion and crime. There should be sustained pressure on the administration to demolish Kala and Furkan gang, shut down their operation. But giving a communal spin with the help of a fictitious list to a law and order problem could lead to a longer list of riot victims. And this time the names would be real. New Delhi: A likely meeting between Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata this month may formalise issue-based coordination between the two parties, sources in the BJP said on Monday. Fresh from the success in Assam and also the recent elections to the Rajya Sabha, the BJP is all the more keen to establish good working relations with regional chieftains and pass important bills like the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill will meet in Kolkata for a two-day conclave from 14 June. To be presided over by West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra, chairman of the empowered panel, Jaitley is likely to attend the meeting on the first day. "Jaitley, who also holds the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, is also likely to be in Kolkata for an All India Radio function on 28 June. Prasar Bharati has invited West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also for the meeting. Jaitley and Mamata Banerjee can also meet separately for a one on one deliberation," BJP source told IANS. The BJP has already made it clear that with its enhanced numbers in the Rajya Sabha after the recent biennial elections, the government will like to fast track the process of passing of GST Bill to give the reform process the much needed direction. Mamata Banerjee has already declared her support to the GST. The bill for a pan-India GST to thoroughly overhaul India's indirect tax regime has been passed by the Lok Sabha, but is stalled in the Rajya Sabha where the ruling National Democratic Alliance currently lacks majority. After the just concluded state assembly elections where the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress recorded a major victory, the BJP has tried to reach out to the regional outfit. On 10 June, Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu called on Mamata Banerjee in her office and both leaders discussed projects and a road map to consider a joint venture between the state administration and the railways for infrastructure development. Prabhu later also described Banerjee as a "successful railway minister". Meanwhile, BJP sources said on 28 June that President Pranab Mukherjee will launch All India Radio's (AIR) special Bangla service, Akashvani Maitree. According to Prasar Bharati, the new radio service will cater to the audience of West Bengal as also Bangladesh with the idea of promoting friendship with India's eastern neighbour. The new service, which will be launched from West Bengal's Chinsurah, about 35 kilometres north of Kolkata, will also have programmes on mutual cultural and educational interests. While addressing the media on the second day of the BJP national executive meet in Allahabad, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the Modi government has retained its popularity in the last two years and that the BJP will use its political power for the goodwill of the society. Commenting on the economy, Jaitley said that in a context where the entire world is growing at a slow pace, the BJP's national executive is aiming to formulate a strategy on ways to improve the Indian economy. Earlier the government was characterised by a policy paralysis. However now, India is seen as a bright spot, Jaitley added. Indias politics is taking a significant turn, he said. Also, speaking about expanding the reach of the party, Jaitley said that the BJP is planning to set up units in every district and to strengthen the party across the country. Earlier in the day, union minister Nitin Gadkari said "On the one hand, the graph of BJP and Modi is on the rise while that of the main Opposition party is falling." Addressing a media conference after the party's national executive adopted a political resolution, he also raised questions over the relevance of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh. Further Gadkari said, "The coming times belong to the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and victory of our party and its ideology. BJP will emerge as a strong option in south and eastern India." On Sunday,BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad had addressed the media after the executive meeting. To questions about the BJPs chief ministerial candidate for the UP polls, Prasad had said, Questions about when will the CM face be announced and who will it be will only be discussed by the Parliamentary board. Speculation on possible chief ministerial candidates has been growing with Varun Gandhi, Smriti Irani and Mahesh Sharma coming up as prominent faces on posters and hoardings. Before the national executive meet began on Sunday, the party's national office-bearers met in the morning to set the agenda for the polls. Amit Shah delivered the inaugral address and attacked the Samajwadi Party government over the atmosphere of violence in the state. With inputs from PTI The altered equation in the Upper House after the recent Rajya Sabha elections make it imperative for the NDA to deliver on the promise of development and reforms that brought it to office with an overwhelming majority in 2014 and has since been the driving force behind its increasing national footprint. The catchphrase that the ruling NDA took recourse to when criticized over the pace of reforms in its first two years in power is that it has been held hostage by the obstructionist policies of a hostile opposition led by a recalcitrant Congress party. Much could indeed be laid at the oppositions' door. The obstructionism of Congress, in particular, was the cynical gambit of a wasted force that is tottering on its last unsure legs, unable to come to terms with the terminal decline. But as the ruling party, it is incumbent upon the Narendra Modi-led government to use all tools at its command and get the single biggest tax reformthe GST Billpassed. The legislation could give a boost the economy, which is struggling with the effect of back-to-back poor monsoons. Instead of carping incessantly at the disjunction in numbers in the two Houses, the NDA must remember that it isn't the first government to grapple with such a hurdle. It must show better floor management through a subtler approach towards non-UPA parties, avoid a confrontational attitude, take as many parties with it as possible and try to expose the desperation of Congress which may continue to use House impediment as a matter of policy to derive political relevance. The way the Grand Old Party appeared to be against the self-proposed GST Bill which seeks to create a simplified tax structure across the country by giving a note of dissent in the Select Committee spoke volumes about the negative politics it had practiced for the last two years by exploiting its superior numbers in the Rajya Sabha. But those days might be ending. Two important recent developments take away much of Congress's bargaining chip. If we look at the last Budget session of the Parliament, the Congress had 64 members to BJP's 49 in the Upper House. Spread across 15 states, 57 seats have since then fallen vacant in which 30 members have been elected unopposed. Among the remaining 27 that went to vote (across 7 states) last Saturday, frenzied manipulations, cross-voting and seemingly daft moves saw the BJP reduce the Rajya Sabha gap with its main adversary from 15 seats to 5, garnering 55 members to Congress's 61. Overall, in the 245-member House, the NDA now has 74 members (up by 5), UPA 71 (down by 3) while regional players remain unchanged at 89. While it still cannot circumvent the Congress while passing the Constitutional Amendment (122nd) Bill, the increase in BJP's muscle power will be good news for its strategists ahead of the upcoming monsoon session where the Narendra Modi government is expected to give a renewed push to the GST. Under the altered circumstances, the Congress may find itself increasingly isolated if it decides to stick to its guns and refuses to allow discussion on the Bill which needs a two-third majority. To be sure, no party likes to be seen as the last obdurate force standing in the way of a reform which the country badly needs. Much of the adamant obstructionism Congress displayed in the last two years was built on a platform of opposition unity against the NDA. If the government manages to drive a wedge between the opposition and wean away some support on GST from UPA allies, the Congress won't have any option but to support the bill. The NDA has obviously been assiduously courting regional players in its quest to pass the GST and create a consensus on politically sensitive land and labour reforms. It seems to have gained a measure of success with a host of regional parties, except Jayalalithaa's AIADMK, backing the GST. Mamata Banerjee has gone on record with her support. Her party Trinamool Congress has 12 members in the Upper House, with West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra heading the empowered committee of state finance ministers that is due to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the draft legislation. If the Centre wants to roll out the ambitious tax reform from 1 April, 2017, it must pass the GST in the monsoon session. "Every regional party barring one, which has mixed voicesthat is the AIADMK and we can speak to themsupports this bill. SP, BSP, RJD, JD(U), DMK, NCP, CPI (M), TMC all are making strong noises in support of the bill. When you take a broad head count, I am confident that it will be difficult for Congress to have a contrarian view. All Congress CMs are also on board, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said recently, seeking to isolate Congress. Debates about the relevance of an un-elected Upper House impeding law-making, reforms and governance could be had ad infinitum without us reaching a conclusion. We may hold it against the founding fathers of the Indian Constitution for saddling us with a House whose 'erudite' members serve to gridlock the Parliament more instead of staying true to the lofty ideals of viewing legislation dispassionately and provide critical value addition to law-making. These discussions will lead us nowhere. Instead, the more prudent step for the government will be to make the most of the altered situation through realpolitik and initiate crucial reforms on an urgent basis. It must remember that the demographically young India that voted in its favour in 2014 is extremely impatient and cannot be taken for granted. No amount of excuse-making will cut ice. Washington: Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, are fearing a backlash following the Orlando gay club shooting even as the Obama administration has assured them of their safety. In a bid to allay growing concerns within the community, the White House sent one of its top official to a gurdwara in the suburb of Washington DC on Sunday to meet members of the Sikh community and local leadership to assure them about their safety and interest. "We know, this is a time when some in the community fear unease," Cecilia Munoz, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, told PTI after her interaction with the Sikh community at the oldest gurdwara of Maryland Guru Nanak Foundation of America. She also attended 'sangat' with its members. "I shared the work that the federal government is doing to make sure that every child is safe and secure, every person is feeling safe and secure in the places of worship and the places where they work and the places where they study," Munoz said, adding that there was no need to be fearful. Her visit to the gurdwara was planned a few days ago but her presence was very timely in terms of the new wave of fear that has gripped the community because of the Orlando incident the deadliest mass shooting in America's history. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando in the wee hours of yesterday and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. "This is a country of great diversity. We cherish that diversity. We celebrate it. We feel great gratitude to the Sikh community for the many many contributions to the United States," Munoz said. "It is fundamental to our democracy that people have freedom of worship, but also have freedom from fear," she said, adding that the Obama Administration has taken steps to address these challenges. Paramvir Singh Soni, chairperson of the Guru Nanank Foundation of America, acknowledged that there is a sense of fear in the community and said the Sikh-Americans are touched by the steps being taken by US President Barack Obama in this regard. "We are still looking for stronger actions against hate crimes. I think there we need to do some more work, but we are making progress," he said. Singh said the community wants to have the next president as one who can address its challenge. "Someone who is more open to the Sikh community, somebody who is more engaged," he said. Dr Rajwant Singh, Washington-based chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said the Sikh community, is very concerned about the possible backlash from the Orlando killings. "We are thankful to the White House for sending Cecilia Munoz to the Sikh congregation in Silver Spring in Maryland. As we were thrilled by this kind gesture, our hearts were broken with the terrible news about the merciless killings of so many innocent people in Orlando," Singh said. "We have had several incidents of violence after the San Bernardino killings last December. We are praying for the victims but at the same time very concerned that how this would impact the Sikh community across the nation," he said. "We have conveyed that this needs to spelled out by the White House and we request that President Obama include and mention Sikhs particularly in his remarks while issuing a statement about the Orlando tragedy. Sikh congregations across the would need some security assistance and capacity building resources," Singh said. The Sikh Coalition in a statement condemned the Orlando shooting as a terrible act of terror, hate and bias-based violence and bigotry against minority communities, including the LGBTQ community. "In the aftermath of such events, minority religious communities are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge every Sikh to exercise extra vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety," it said. In another statement, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF) condemned the hateful attack on the lesbian, gay, bisexual,and transgender (LGBT) community in Orlando Florida. American Sikh Council (ASC) said it is extremely distressed by the indescribable act of mass murder at the 'Pulse' nightclub in the city of Orlando "As a result of such events, religious communities like the Sikh-Americans are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge everyone to exercise vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety. Please notify the local law enforcement in case of any threats of violence," it said in a statement. Washington: CIA Director John Brennan said there is no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials supported the 11 September attacks. Brennan's remarks, in a weekend interview with al-Arabiya, addressed the still-secret 28 pages of a congressional inquiry into the 2001 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia. President Barack Obama has promised to publicly release all or part of the 28 pages of the report, which could happen as early as this month. The rest of the report was released in December 2002. Bob Graham, who was co-chairman of that bipartisan congressional panel, and others say the 28 pages point suspicion at the Saudis. Graham said it's important for the public to know that all of the still-classified allegations were thoroughly investigated. Brennan had said earlier that the 28 pages contained preliminary information about possible Saudi links to the attackers that had not been corroborated or vetted at the time. He said that the 9/11 Commission, which did a follow-on investigation into the attacks, ultimately found nothing that pointed to Saudi complicity. "Subsequently the 11 September commission looked very thoroughly at these allegations of Saudi involvement, Saudi government involvement and their finding. Their conclusion was that there was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution or Saudi senior officials individually had supported the 11 September attacks," Brennan told al-Arabiya, the Saudi-owned broadcaster, on Saturday. "Indeed, subsequently the assessments that have been done have shown it was very unfortunate that these attacks took place but this was the work of Al-Qaeda, (Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri), and others of that ilk," said Brennan, who called Riyadh a strong US partner in fighting terrorism. Brennan said he supports the release of the still classified part of the congressional inquiry. The Saudi government says it has been "wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity" in the attacks, is fighting extremists and working to clamp down on their funding channels. Still, the Saudis have long said that they would welcome declassification of the 28 pages because it would "allow us to respond to any allegations in a clear and credible manner." The pages were withheld from the 838-page report on the orders of President George W Bush, who said the release could divulge intelligence sources and methods. Still, protecting US-Saudi diplomatic relations also was believed to have been a factor. In the early hours of Sunday morning, gunman Omar Mateen opened fire on patrons of Pulse a gay nightclub in Orlando. This was an act of terror and hate and we will not give into fear, said President Barack Obama in the aftermath of the attack, condemning the shooting at the nightclub. The shooting left 50 dead and 53 others injured by the time the gunman had been neutralised. Heres a look at what Obama said in light of the Orlando shooting: In the wake of this event, Obama called it the deadliest shooting in American history. He also said that the attack on Florida was an attack on all Americans. During his eight years in office, Obama has appeared publicly and spoken about mass shootings more than a dozen times. This was actually the 14th time Obama has had to speak to the nation to condemn a mass shooting and pay his condolences to the families and friends of victims. Lahore: At least 40 clerics of the Barelvi school of thought in Pakistan have issued a fatwa against honour killing, declaring it an 'un-Islamic and unpardonable sin' amidst a series of such incidents. The clerics under the banner of Sunni Itehad Council (SIC) told a news conference here on Sunday that honour killing is kufr (infidelity). "Burning women alive for marrying of their own choice is against Islamic injunctions," the fatwa (religious decree) said. It condemned recent honour killings in Lahore, Abbottabad and Murree, saying such incidents have shaken the whole society as we are moving towards social and societal degradation. It said killing in the name of family honour is based on ignorance and waywardness. The fatwa urged the government to implement proper legislation to curb such crimes, and declare heinous acts such as burning or killing of woman as an unpardonable crime as it is an Islamic government's responsibility to protect women rights. At least 1,100 women were killed in the name of honour in Pakistan last year by their relatives on the pretext of defending what is seen as family honour. "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness" -- a film based on the story of a rare survivor of an attempted honour killing had won an Oscar for best documentary short subject at the 2016 Academy Awards. Following this, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had pledged to eradicate the "evil" of honour killings. Fallujah: Iraqi forces on Monday said jihadist fighters were attempting to flee Fallujah by blending in with civilians who have used recently opened corridors to escape the besieged the city. More than 500 suspected Islamic State members have been arrested trying to sneak out with fleeing civilians since forces ramped up efforts to retake Fallujah, one of the group's most emblematic bastions, two weeks ago. "We have arrested 546 suspected terrorists who had fled by taking advantage of the movements of displaced families over the past two weeks," said Hadi Rzayej, the police chief for Anbar province in which Fallujah is located. "Many of them were using fake IDs," he told AFP from the southern edge of Fallujah, where Iraqi forces are pressing a three-week-old offensive to retake the city from Islamic State. When civilians reach government forces, teenage boys and adult men are screened separately. Some are released after a few hours while others undergo more thorough interrogation. "Daesh (Islamic State) is fleeing among the civilians, we have arrested many and are investigating the suspects," said Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the overall commander of the three-week-old Fallujah operation. Until last week, an estimated 50,000 civilians were still trapped in the centre of the city, which is one of the jihadist group's last bastions in Iraq and lies only 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad. The Iraqi army on Saturday opened a corridor to the southwest of the city that has allowed thousands of civilians to escape IS rule and reach displacement camps. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, that runs several of them in Amriyat al-Fallujah, south of Fallujah, more than 4,000 people were able to flee via the corridor on Saturday and Sunday. Yet the flow of residents fleeing via the corridor and through the Al-Salam intersection to the southwest of the city, appeared to dry up on Monday, the NRC's Karl Schembri said. "We haven't seen a continuation of the trend," he said, adding that groups of civilians were believed to be trapped in several northern Fallujah neighbourhoods. He said nonetheless that more than 2,600 new arrivals had been recorded in displacement camps on Monday, mostly civilians from the outskirts of the city. Even as the news of the Orlando massacre started trickling in on an otherwise sultry Sunday, some of us were at a party celebrating the successful Kashish Film Festival later on Sunday evening. There was a sober time when the otherwise ecstatic LGBT party goers turned round and asked Why do they hate us so much? The Orlando massacre is only a high note in a series of events that seem to be showing a new global trend: mainstream societies, allegedly heterosexual, have prioritised a new enemy. Though hacking innocent Hindus has become passe in Bangladesh, the killing of Xulaz Mannan was unique in that the killers went to his home and brutalised him before hacking him to death. And now in Orlando, a mass killers father says He was very angry when he saw two men kissing. From Dr Subramanian Swamy to Baba Ramdev to IS/Daesh to evangelist Christians like Uma Shankar in Chennai and scores of Baptist Churches who are actually celebrating the mass murders, we need to think why we seem to be up against God and his people in the second decade of this century when we are supposed to have spawned scientific and rational societies all over the world. The first shock was last week when the United Nations General Assembly met to pass resolutions on the health needs of most-at-risk groups like Men-Having-Sex-With-Men (MSM or the generic phrase for homosexuals), sex workers and ID Users (IDU). The simple 26-page document drafted for the occasion, became a battlefield with powerful countries like Russia, the 53-strong Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) and the Vatican opposed even the mention of the three most-at-risk groups as simply unacceptable (Russias words) with the added support of Saudi Arabia which ironically sits on the UN Human Rights Commission with clear Sharia laws mandating homosexuals be executed by swords and axes. Even Indias Union Health Minister Nadda stated rather airily that We will offer treatment for all who need it, a puffed up add-on to Sabsa Saath, Sab Ki Vikas but did not mention the real populations who needed it. HIV among gay men in India is ten times the prevalence in the general populations but then thats another matter that the Supreme Court is still to even decide on their being criminals or not. Even the cultural acceptance of hijras with long eulogies being sung in the Lok Sabha to the marginalisation of our Tritiya Panthi sisters did not hide the fact that gay men did not matter. Why? Because as our learned MPs said: Homosexuals chose their preferences and hence any reconsideration on Section 377 was prone to misuse. These were words used on TV by a journalist known to be backed by the RSS. The concern may be genuine but not valid. In his words: "By removal of Section 377, if we allow you consent then tomorrow you will want to have sex in the streets openly. Curiously, both in Britain and in the words of the Delhi High Court judgment what was demanded was a reading down of the anti-sodomy law to read consensual sex between two consenting adults in private. The reform of the old anti-sodomy law in Britain was followed by stricter policing of public places so homosexuals stuck to the letter of the reformed law. Yet the anxieties remain not only in Britain but all over Europe, The most homophilic country in Europe, France, saw the one of the biggest rallies against reforming of the laws to allow same-sex marriage late last year in Paris fully backed by the Roman Catholic Church and the French Ulema together mobilising over a lakh of concerned citizens. They had the implicit backing of the new Right Wing parties sprouting all over Europe seeing homosexuals as the new danger to the fabric of society. In Italy, despite a sound defeat of its position on abortion, the Vatican has been successfully blowing hot and cold on homosexuals rights with Pope Francis refusing to judge them but making contrary noises on same-sex marriage. Orlando is thus a wakeup call for LGBT all over the world to organise locally but think globally. Though the killings took place in sunny Florida very close to the Bible Belt, they also seem to have happened on gay territory the bar Pulse, was started as a memorial to a brother who lost his life to HIV/AIDS. Hence it was a kind of memorial to what gay men have been undergoing in America ever since the AIDS Epidemic wiped out whole swathes of gay populations centred in New York and San Francisco. Now even that territory has been desecrated with homosexual blood in one huge wave of hatred for sexual minorities. It is too early to even analyse what the consequences of this new horror will visit upon the LGBTI communities in America. Presently, nearly all the gay e-lists and portals have cautioned people not to allow a backlash of Islamophobia though that has been a lurking under-current with Trump ramping it up. But there is a hopeful rising trend that we need to delink generic religion from education, public discourse and even electrol politics. Meanwhile, Fabrice Houdart, senior officer at the UN Human Rights Council and also senior officer at the World Bank wrote this sad Facebook post on the Orlando massacre: Our case rests! Berlin: European Union President Donald Tusk says that voting to leave the bloc would be a geopolitical setback for Britain, and it would take at least seven years to negotiate a new Britain-EU relationship. In an interview with German daily Bild published Monday, Tusk said a vote to leave in the 23 June referendum "would be a setback not just economically but above all geopolitically for Britain." He was quoted as saying that no one can foresee the long-term consequences but he fears "Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction not just of the EU but of the entire political civilization of the West." Tusk said cutting treaty links between Britain and the EU would take around two years and negotiating a new relationship would take at least another five. Washington: US President Barack Obama on Monday once again called the nation's attention to the pressing problem of gun violence following the mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando city, Florida, which left 50 people killed and 53 injured. Until the end of 2015, Obama had made 15 public statements condemning gun violence and calling for a restriction on sales. However, he is not the only US president who has made efforts to curb gun violence, Xinhua news agency reported. The following are more statements or actions over US gun control made by the presidents in the past decades: This year on 5 January, Obama presented at the White House a set of administrative measures to restrict gun use, including strict background checks on firearm purchasers, federal research on gun safety technology and a request for $500 million to improve mental health programmes. On 3 December, 2015, a day after Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook killed 14 people and injured 17 in a service centre for disabled people in California, Obama appealed for gun law reforms to restrict gun sales, the third time in a week that he made such a statement. On 16 December, 2012, Obama called for an urgent change to current US gun laws when attending a meeting to remember the 26 lives, including those of 20 children, lost in the school mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut on 14 December that year. After the 2012 shooting, the Obama administration initiated but failed to push for stronger gun control laws. Recalling such frustration, Obama admitted that the failure to reform gun laws is "one of the greatest frustrations" of his presidency. During the presidency of George W Bush, national gun laws were somewhat loosened as the Democratic Party supported the gun lobby and supporters. Compared to Obama, Bush, according to the US media, made no direct public statement on any shooting incidents during his term. Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton successfully signed several federal acts on gun control in 1994, including the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, commonly called the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB). However, the AWB expired on 13 September, 2004, as President Clinton had made the compromise with a Democrats-dominated congress that the ban only had effect for a term of 10 years. Given that the right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, many see scant hope to make big changes to American gun laws. An average of about 33,000 people were killed by guns annually in the US in the past five years, according to data released by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Islamabad: Pakistan is raising a 17,280- strong force to provide security to the ambitious USD 46 billion dollar China-Pakistan economic corridor project that passes through the restive Balochistan province. Minister of State for Interior Muhammad Balighur Rehman told the lawmakers in the Senate on Monday that recruitment was going on to raise the force of 17,280 personnel. Twenty-two additional wings of Civil Armed Forces will be raised to guard the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Project (CPEC), the minister said. Responding to a calling attention notice moved by Senator Abdul Qayyum, he said 17,280 personnel will be hired for this purpose, while over 3,000 personnel have already been hired.He said funds have also been allocated for the procurement of arms and ammunition for these wings. Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif last month met top Chinese leadership in Beijing and had assured them to provide full security to the project as well as Chinese nationals. A Chinese engineer was injured in a roadside blast in Karachi on May 30 claimed by a little-known separatist group that vowed to derail CPEC. Earlier, the Convener Special Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, senator Taj Haider, laid the second interim report of the committee on CPEC in the House. The ambitious 3,000-kilometre CPEC project was launched last year to link western China to southern Pakistan through a network of roads, railways and pipelines. Click HERE for a list of our other web sites Click HERE to get filtered opportunity reports by email, starting at only $21.95/month. User login is required to use this feature. Register here Contact us if you like to have a single PDF file with each report send in your email each day. What: Shares of agricultural technology leader Monsanto (MON) rose nearly 18% in May after German conglomerate Bayer AG made an initial buyout offer of $40 billion, then followed that up with a monstrous $62 billion bid that would have netted investors $122 per share. Monsanto rejected both offers. So what: Talks of a potential merger are hardly surprising at this point. Since late 2014, low commodity prices, specifically grain and chemical prices, have led to increased volatility and uncertainty for seed and agrochemical companies, which have responded with knee-jerk merger agreements. The Dow Chemical Company and DuPont announced a $130 billion merger in late 2015, while Syngenta agreed to merge with ChemChina earlier this year. Analysts and some investors urged Monsanto to follow the trend, but after failing to court Syngenta throughout 2015 and the first quarter of 2016, management decided to focus on internal R&D projects and growth prospects. While the second offer was significantly higher than the first, Bayer was really stretching the limits of its balance sheet. German investors didn't react kindly to size of the deal, which would have to be financed almost entirely with debt. Moreover, a merger would create a company with 30% market share of the agricultural seed market. That likely wouldn't pass by regulators and antitrust laws, forcing tough decisions about spinouts and divestments -- as Dow and DuPont investors have learned. Bayer attempted to call Monsanto's bluff with a $40 billion buyout offer, but management didn't blink. That was good news for investors focused on the long-term growth prospects, especially considering the tremendous value in R&D projects leaving the pipeline for real-world markets in the next few years. Bayer followed with a $62 billion bid, which Monsanto considered but ultimately turned away. Now what: Investors can be confident that Monsanto -- and its near-term and long-term growth prospects -- is worth considerably more than $40 billion. Saying "no" to $62 billion for $122 per share may be more difficult, but I think the company can still achieve a market valuation at least that high through its own efforts within the next few years. While peers are stuck playing with agrochemicals, Monsanto will be launching innovative products that reduce agricultural inputs and place it in a class of its own. Of course, if current headwinds persist, I wouldn't be surprised if the stock gave back at least some of its gains in the near term. Uber is racing Lyft to be the dominant player in the ride hailing scene. Although both have similar business models, Uber has a bigger war chest and has been posting more impressive growth. However, there are some key differences in how both companies are approaching challenges the nascent ridesharing industry is facing and, more importantly, Lyft is making huge gains in areas that Uber is still struggling in. In this clip from the Industry Focus: Consumer Goods podcast, Motley Fool's Vincent Shen and John Rosevear go over last year's earnings numbers for both companies; then they dive into some of the challenges Uber and Lyft are seeing and the different ways the two companies are dealing with them. A transcript follows the video. This podcast was recorded on June 7, 2016. Vincent Shen: Uber and Lyft have been able to reach the so-called "unicorn" status through their core ride-hailing service. Just to give you a sense of their size and their growth, investors for Uber have included some fellow tech companies like Microsoft and Baidu, a lot of institutional names like Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, government funds, and even some industry leaders like Jeff Bezos. As the biggest player, there has been a lot of fundraising for them, over $10 billion, I think, to date, which has given them quite a bit of a war chest, so to speak, to essentially expand as aggressively as they have. They have a much bigger worldwide, global footprint than Lyft does, which is still very much focused in the United States, but there were some leaked financials last year that I wanted to share with you from Uber that I thought were pretty interesting, giving you an idea of how this is basically a company that's bleeding growth, but also highly, highly unprofitable, which is common for these Silicon Valley start-ups. Net revenue, or total bookings, actually, let's start there, were $3.6 billion for the first half of 2015. That's, essentially, everything that the drivers collect. They take a cut that's about 75%, so net revenue actually for Uber was about $663 million for that first half of last year. Keep in mind, that is up from $495 million in all of 2014. Just in that first half of the year, they're already on pace to easily double the prior year amount. Some of their expenses that are coming in, 24% of their net revenue went to operations support; 27% went to general and administrative expenses, and then here's the kicker: 44% of their net revenue, so some $295 million for that period, went to sales and marketing. The competition in this transportation industry, this niche, you might even call it, has been very intense. Their GAAP losses amounted to about $671 million in 2014, and then $987 million, just for that first half of 2015. Those are the most recent numbers I could find; whereas for Lyft, on their side, they're at a much smaller scale, where they had about $127 million loss in the first half of 2015 on $47 million in revenue. They think their run rate, in terms of actual gross bookings, is at about $1 billion, and potentially more in the coming year, but they spent more than twice of their revenue, again, over the same period, on marketing. You can see how they're just trying to one-up each other. Moving forward, just wanted to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that they faced also. I know when we were speaking yesterday about this, you mentioned some of the legal hurdles, the regulatory hurdles, and just also the issue of finding drivers. If you could touch on that more, I'd love to hear it. John Rosevear: Well, I mean, we've all read about his. Uber and Lyft go into some city somewhere, and the taxi drivers protest and flip out, and the regulators say, "Well, we can't have unlicensed, hackney carriages" or whatever. In some places, this has been easy, and in some places like New York, they've worked to compromise, and in some places like Austin, Texas, for the moment anyway, Uber and Lyft gave up. They said, "The rules you're demanding here are too onerous for us," and they went away. There's been a lot of that. Uber, separately, has huge issues in China, where they are being outpaced by Didi, the local company, which is much bigger in China, in part because Didi is native to the country and native to dealing with China's very complicated government regulations and pacifying the officials in every city and so forth, to operate, whereas Uber has spent a lot of money trying to keep up and has maybe not kept up. There's a lot of skepticism that Uber is going to be able to really challenge Didi in China, whereas Lyft hasn't even bothered. Lyft partnered with Didi. Didi invested in Lyft, actually. I mean, they've gone right around those. It's interesting that one of the big differences between the two companies is that Uber is doing things on its own and Lyft is doing them through partners. We talk about retaining drivers, hiring, retaining drivers. That's a huge thing for both of them. One of the problems is people come and want to drive and they don't have what is deemed a suitable car, a car that's fairly nice and fairly new and that has a backseat that passengers can easily get in and out of. Uber has set up various leasing programs, including one that is getting some controversy right now, called Uber Xchange, which is a subprime leasing program for drivers with poor credit. You make weekly payments on your car that I think come out of your Lyft earnings, but it's a huge markup over what you'd pay if you just went to a Toyota dealer or whatever and got the same car. Evan Niu, our senior technology specialist, has a great article on this on Fool.com right now. It's really the charges that they're charging these drivers are really extreme, and it's the company store thing. You've always got to work more to stay ahead of the company store and your debt to the company store. Lyft is doing something a little different here. Lyft has, and I will look here to find the name of it briefly, they have something called Express Drive. This is something they've set up with their most recent big investor who is not a Silicon Valley name, it's General Motors (GM 3.61%). GM and Lyft are doing some really interesting things. This is the first thing that came out of that partnership. It's a rental program. They started it in Chicago and they're going to roll it out to other cities over the next year or so. You rent, by the week, a GM vehicle. It starts at $99 a week, but here's the key. The more rides you give for Lyft during the week, the cheaper it is, and it can go right down to nothing, where Lyft is paying it. That $99 a week includes insurance and maintenance. The terms are more flexible, and this is part of how Lyft has been working against, with some of the controversy that has come around Uber. They're saying, we're the kinder, gentler company. We're a little nicer to drive for. We take better care of our drivers, we provide a little better service. Whether all of that is true is open to some discussion, but that's certainly been their positioning, and it does seem to be working for them. Yeah. The big problem for them both is retaining and finding, drawing drivers. That's part of the expansion. I mean, they want more customers, and they want more drivers to serve those customers. When we look at some of the deals like Wal-Mart, that's something that could grow into a big side business over time, but of course, they'll need to crowdsource the drivers to do it, at least for the next several years, because it's interesting that both of these companies are making big moves toward self-driving vehicles, which will replace drivers and time, or at least, that's the thinking. I think that's the real investment bet here. Q: Toto, what is wrong with your clutches? It looked like your guys were almost stood still at the start, while Sebastian Vettel rocketed away... Toto Wolff: Well, we have invented rules to make starts more unpredictable. And to be fair we had some great starts at some of the last races, but Canada wasn't great. We have to analyse what happened. Ferrari had a much better start - we have to accept that. Q: Is it related to the sort of issues you had at the start of the year? TW: I think it was rather a slip today - simply not getting it 100 percent right. The initial getaway from Ferrari looked great so maybe they have some kind of I don't know what. We have to look at it. The initial getaway from Ferrari looked great. We have to look at it. Toto Wolff Q: Moving to the first corner, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg touched again. Nico described it as a hard move, but ultimately fair. What is your view? TW: Yes, it was a hard manoeuvre. Lewis said that he had understeer. From a team perspective when you make the front row of the grid and come out of the first corner in P2 and P9 - that is not pleasant to say the least. But for me it feels like deja vu, as we are having these discussions after every race. That's probably what you get if you let your guys race - then they do. As long as they don't crash out like they did in Barcelona, we are fine with it. Q: Could it be that Nico sacrificed his position in order to avoid a similar situation to Barcelona? TW: Turn 1 in Canada is a difficult place. There is a concrete run-off area. If there was a wall there you would definitely think again about taking chances there. If you are on the inside you dictate the line. Q: Nico said that his cockpit was lighting up like a Christmas tree during the race - that almost every warning light seemed to be on TW: Yes, he had every thinkable warning on the dash. Our guess it that him running wide and over the grass at Turn 1 blocked some of the cooling, so he had warnings for calipers, gears, discs - everything you can imagine. That settled a bit - but at some point the fuel issue came on top. Q: How did Nico manage these warnings? TW: Such a situation is distracting for the driver, and with the amount of lights blinking he asked if this was for real - and we told him it was. But we managed never to cross any limit where the engine would have taken serious damage. It all was manageable. [Nico] won seven races in a row and everybody was writing about the 'phenomenon'. Now after only three not-so-easy races... Toto Wolff Former CIA Covert Operations Officer Mike Baker makes the link between mounting success against ISIS in Syria and Iraq and terror attacks such as the ones in San Bernardino and Orlando. Weve been making some headway over there in Syria and Iraq, Baker told the FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney. Baker says that an unintended consequence of this headway against ISIS in the Middle East is a higher risk of terrorism here in America. The sad reality is, the more success we have on the ground in Syria and Iraq in terms of taking back territory, reducing their revenue streams, taking out leadership, the more likely it is were going to see similar events such as the shooting in Orlando, said Baker. This is a similar pattern to other terror groups such as Al Qaeda, according to Baker. We know from dealing with Al Qaeda in the past, and other similar like-minded elements, is that once you get them on the back foot, once you take away the comfort of some territory, then they morph, they adapt, they adjust, Baker said. As a result, Bake said ISIS is encouraging its followers to take action in Europe and the U.S. So weve already been seeing that. I mean the result, I would argue the attacks in Paris, the attacks in Brussels, Orlando, San Bernardino, these are the sort of things that happen because they get more aggressive in encouraging their followers, their minions, people they can bring to the dark side and they encourage them more aggressively to take action wherever they happen to be, said Baker. Despite this, the U.S. should not ease up on its resolve to defeat ISIS, said Baker, but should strengthen its national security efforts to prevent further attacks. So we definitely need to take them out on the ground in Syria and Iraq, theres no question about that. Now weve got issues because theyve been moving resources to Libya and elsewhere but we have to understand, we have to be pragmatic. The more we do that then we have to gird ourselves up, we have to prepare ourselves for the likelihood that they will be more aggressive in trying to attack us in the west, Baker said. Frontier Communications has a lot on its plate right now. The company has struggled to integrate the 3.3 million voice connections, 2.1 million broadband connections, and 1.2 million FiOS video subscribers it recently purchased from Verizon for $10.54 billion. While it's been dealing with problems related to that switch-over in California, Texas, and Florida, the company was also hit by being named the lowest-scoring company on the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Telecommunications Report. Because internet and cable providers rank the lowest of all the categories ACSI tracks each year, the lowest-ranking companies in those categories are the least customer-friendly brands in America. Frontier's score of 56 as an ISP (out of 100) was good for last place in that category and only placed ahead of little-known Mediacom, which scored a 54 as a pay-television provider. It's a challenging time for the internet, cable, and landline phone provider, which Senior Vice President and Treasurer John Gianukakis discussed while speaking at the Stephens 2016 Spring Investment Conference. Image Source: Getty. Protecting the dividend is key One of the reasons Frontier has been adding customers, according to Gianukakis, is to grow its scale and increase its free cash flow. Frontier currently pays about $0.105 per quarter for each share. "That translates to about an 8% dividend yield at today's prices," the treasurer added. Frontier is happy with the Verizon transition Gianukakis told the crowd that Frontier is happy with the quality of the business it bought from Verizon, noting the employee base and the infrastructure as particular strengths. He did acknowledge that the transition has been a little bumpy. The treasurer noted that the company has now gone through two billing cycles with its new customers and that they have gone well. Gianukakis acknowledged that there have been some outages for customers but said they have been corrected quickly. "Those outages impacted less than one-half of 1% of customers," he said. The company is pleased with its retention rate Even though there have been some problems with taking over the Verizon territories, the treasurer believes that the problems have been within the expected range. He also noted that most customers are generally understanding. Short-term growth will be impacted Because Frontier wanted to focus on keeping the acquired customers happy, it has dialed down its new customer-acquisition efforts, according to Gianukakis. Frontier has had trouble in the markets it purchased from Verizon. Image source: Author. "We pulled back that demand generation," he said. "Obviously, that's going to impact our gross adds in the near term." That said, the treasurer expects that to be a short-term problem and that ultimately the company will be able to turn the pump back on. "[New customer acquisition efforts] will phase in over time," he added. "We want to make sure we can serve existing customers." Frontier believes it can add customers While short-term growth will be affected by the transition, Frontier believes its three new markets offer potential growth. "One of the things we liked about this is that 55% of the territories are FiOS enabled," he said, making reference to having the ability to offer internet and pay-television. "That [is] a very competitive product set." Gianukakis also noted that his company has improved internet delivery over the copper infrastructure in the remaining 45% of the territory it now serves. The article 5 Things Frontier Management Wants Investors to Know originally appeared on Fool.com. Daniel Kline has no position in any stocks mentioned. He has never understood what's fun about a whale watch. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Verizon Communications. 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. Human liver tissue. Image source: Getty Images. Financial figures didn't cause anyone to perform cartwheels after Organovo Holdings reported its 2016 fourth-quarter results on June 9. A quarterly loss of $8.4 million with revenue of only $0.5 million isn't awfully exciting. The real news for the 3D bioprinting company, though, came in the earnings conference call. Here are five highlights from what Organovo's management team said during the call. (All quotes from S&P Global Market Intelligence.) 1. Financial performance will probably be choppy Organovo still hasn't replaced former CFO Barry Michaels, who left the company in April. As a result, CEO Keith Murphy discussed the details of Organovo's financial results himself. While revenue is growing at a solid pace, Murphy made sure to drive the point home that the company could have "choppy quarterly results" going forward. The primary issue causing this "choppiness" is that customers make decisions on their own schedules. Murphy gave the example of a hypothetical customer with which Organovo has a multi-stage contract. Even when the first phase goes well, the customer could be slow to proceed to the next phase. It's possible that he was alluding to L'Oreal in this example. Organovo completed the first phase of its agreement with the cosmetics company to develop 3D skin tissue ahead of schedule. The initial part of this collaboration was to develop a model. Next will be validation of that model. When asked about next steps, Murphy replied that Organovo needed "to work on the next phase agreements" to move forward. He added that Organovo was encouraged by the progress thus far. What Organovo's management hopes investors focus on is the company's longer-term revenue outlook. Organovo projects fiscal 2017 revenue will be between $4 million and $6 million. That's a big jump from the $1.5 million in total revenue reported for 2016. The outlook range is pretty wide, though. Murphy chalked up the broad guidance to difficulty in predicting "when you're still starting and in the early days." 2. Adoption by Big Pharma is growing Organovo can now count five of the top 25 largest drugmakers as customers, with the recent addition of a new customer. Murphy noted that Organovo has "maintained a cadence of repeat agreements" with its Big Pharma customers. Of particular note is Organovo's relationship with Merck . Organovo is working with the big drugmaker on toxicology and custom tissue disease modeling. Some revenue has already been recognized from this collaboration, but the larger part of the contract revenue remains in the future. Merck and Organovo signed a multi-year collaboration agreement in 2015, with financial details not disclosed. The deal gave Merck access to Organovo's exVive3D bioprinted human liver tissue and included developing other tissue models using Organovo's NovoGen bioprinting platform. Murphy said that Merck and its other customers, including smaller ones, have provided "very good feedback on the data that they're getting, the correlation they see with their expectations, and the in-vivo expectations they have." That's certainly good news, since 3D bioprinted tissues are still new and face hurdles in adoption. 3. Sales momentum is picking up Paul Gallant, Organovo's general manager, gave an update on the company's progress in developing its sales organization. Gallant noted that when he joined the company last August, Organovo had only one dedicated sales executive. Now the company has a vice president of sales and four dedicated sales directors in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, with four support staff. Organovo's joint presentation with Bristol-Myers Squibb at the Society of Toxicology's annual meeting in March proved to be something of a turning point for its sales efforts, according to Gallant. He said sales momentum increased following the standing-room-only presentation. Gallant stated that Bristol's presentation showed how it was "able to identify multiple mechanisms of a known toxic compound using [Organovo's] 3D liver model" -- mechanisms that wouldn't have been captured using traditional 2D models. This type of scientific corroboration of the benefits of 3D bioprinted tissues helps Organovo tremendously in making its case to prospective customers. 4. The competition can be beaten Organovo's chief competition for now continues to come from animal models and 2D cell cultures. The company's main challenge is to persuade pharmaceutical companies that 3D bioprinted tissues are superior to both alternatives. Results like those Bristol presented help in the effort. Murphy said more scientific publications are also on the way. He added that Organovo must produce more data that demonstrate that its bioprinted 3D tissues outperform animal models and 2D tissues in predictive capabilities. What about other players in the 3D bioprinting world? Murphy acknowledged that some customers have used products and services from rival companies. However, he didn't seem too concerned about the competition, stating that the competitors had only "low-single-digit percentages of the market" and didn't present significant challenges to Organovo. 5. Big opportunities lie ahead The one common thread throughout most of Organovo's conference call was the big opportunities that lie ahead for the company and 3D bioprinting in general. For example, the company expects its sales of the ExVive3D human liver tissue to more than triple this year. That's just the beginning, though. Murphy confirmed that efforts to launch a 3D kidney tissue in the third quarter of 2016 are on track. He anticipates that "the level of the wow factor with the kidney [tissue] might even be higher" than for the company's liver tissue. Murphy also noted that Organovo's skin model is hitting key milestones. When asked about the potential for developing human therapeutics, Murphy agreed that it presented "a huge opportunity." Organovo sees a market of over $1 billion in the area of human therapeutics. How will the company finance the necessary research on its various projects? Organovo had$62.1 million incash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter. That's enough to fund operations for maybe two years. Murphy hinted at perhaps finding a strategic partner to help with financing. He also speculated that taking on debt could be an option if revenue growth hits the levels the company expects. The article 5 Things Organovo Holdings, Inc. Management Wants You to Know originally appeared on Fool.com. Keith Speights has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. 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. Disney (NYSE:DIS) is among the many corporations that is increasing security measures following the worst mass shooting in U.S. history in Orlando claiming 49 lives and injuring at least 53 others. A spokesperson for Disney tells FOXBusiness.com: Unfortunately weve all been living in a world of uncertainty, and during this time we have increased our security measures across our properties, adding such visible safeguards as magnetometers, additional canine units, and law enforcement officers on site, as well as less visible systems that employ state-of-the-art security technologies. Ticker Security Last Change Change % DIS THE WALT DISNEY CO. 104.43 +2.65 +2.60% The 29 year old gunman Omar Mateen, who carried out the massacre, had reportedly scouted Walt Disney World, according to Reuters which cited two officials briefed on the investigation. People.com (NYSE:TIME) was first to report the Disney connection without naming any sources. Later this week, Disney is set to open Shanghai Disney its first park in Mainland China. The Orlando attack follows a rash of global terrorist acts including the San Bernardino, CA killings which claimed the lives of 14 people and injured 22 in December. In November 2015, a series of coordinated attacks, including suicide bombers, killed 130 people in the Bataclan Theatre in Paris. Dozens more were injured. Traders rushed to buy into gun makers Monday, as lawmakers reignited calls for new gun-control regulations in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Orlando. Smith & Wesson (NASDAQ:SWHC) and Sturm, Ruger & Co. (NYSE:RGR), two of the largest gun manufacturers in America, both rallied to kick off a new week of trading. Smith & Wesson rallied 6.9% to $22.88, and Ruger jumped 7.9% to $61.93. Vista Outdoor (NYSE:VSTO), which owns Savage Arms and Federal Premium ammunition, rose 2.3% to $48.11. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is pushing for a reinstatement of a ban on assault weapons following the terrorist attack. Law enforcement officials say a gunman, who reportedly pledged his allegiance to ISIS, killed at least 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets, Clinton said in a statement. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised to protect gun rights. In a speech Friday, Trump said Hillary Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment. Ticker Security Last Change Change % SWHC n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. RGR STURM RUGER & CO. INC. 54.30 +1.11 +2.09% Former President Bill Clinton signed a 10-year federal ban on AR-15 rifles in 1994. The ban had a 10-year sunset provision, so it expired under President George W. Bush in 2004. The AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle design purchased by Colt in the early 1960s, was later adopted by the U.S. military as the M16. After the 1994 ban was lifted, the AR-15 became a popular firearm on the consumer market. AR-15 modelsalso known as modern sporting riflesare manufactured by multiple companies, including Smith & Wesson and Ruger. Gun stocks have widely outperformed the broader market during President Barack Obamas time in office. Since Jan. 23, 2009, Smith & Wesson has gained 737%, and Ruger is up 822% as of the closing bell Friday. The S&P 500 has increased 135% over the same period. According to the FBI, background checks for gun purchases and permits hit a record 23.1 million in 2015. So far this year, background checks are up 31% at 11.7 million through May. People across the United States turned out on Sunday (June 12) to honor victims of a massacre at a gay club in Orlando, Florida, earlier that morning that left 50 people dead. From Indiana to Texas to New York, mourners lit candles, waved pride flags, and held up signs saying "We are stronger than fear" and "Love is stronger than hate". The shooter, who was identified as Florida resident Omar Mateen, was killed by police at the nightclub. A top U.S. congressman said Mateen may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group, but U.S. officials cautioned they had no direct evidence of a connection. Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage, which surpassed the 32 people killed in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech university. President Barack Obama described the worst mass shooting in U.S. history as "an act of terror" and "an act of hate". While worker protests all over the country have called for a $15 hourly minimum wage and Democratic presidential runner-up Bernie Sanders made the idea a key part of his populist campaign, that number remains a far-off fantasy for most non-manager retail employees. Of course, there are some municipalities, like Seattle, Washington, that are slowly phasing in a $15 minimum hourly rate and others that are considering it, but the federal minimum wage still sits at $7.25 an hour, exactly where it has been since 2009. Many states have mandated minimums above that number, but 23 states still come in exactly at the lowest rate allowed by federal law, according to RaiseTheMinimumWage.com. Even the states with the highest minimum, Massachusetts and California, only come in at $10 an hour, while the District of Columbia leads the way at $11.50. Retail sales workers generally do a little bit better than the lowest legally allowed hourly wage, but not by much. The median salary for retail sales workers in 2015 was $22,040 per year or$10.60 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means that half of those workers earned more than that amount and half earned less, but even the ones on the better end of that scale were unlikely to get anywhere near $15 an hour. Because of their sheer size, Wal-Mart and, to a lesser extent Target , are often targeted by wage protesters. Both companies have recently raised wages for their retail workforce, but neither one comes anywhere close to paying its non-manager workforce close to $15 hourly. Many Wal-Mart associates got a raise recently, but still make less than $15 an hour. Image source: Wal-Mart. What does Wal-Mart pay per hour? Early in 2016 Wal-Mart raised wages for 1.2 million employees as part of the second phase of what the company described as a two-year, $2.7 billion investment in workers. The raises, which went into effect Feb. 20 raised the minimum hourly rate for all associates (Wal-Mart's term for employee) hired before Jan. 1, 2016, to at least $10 an hour. New entry-level employees will continue to start at $9 an hour and move to at least $10 after successfully completing the company's new retail skills and training program, called Pathways. In addition employees who already made more than $10 an hour received their annual raise in February rather than having to wait until their anniversary date. All non-entry level jobs will also now start at at least $10 an hour. The company reported that once these changes went into effect, its average full-time hourly wage will be $13.38, though that number includes non-salaried supervisors and managers. Its average part-time hourly wage will be $10.58. Wal-Mart patted itself on the back in the press release announcing the change, but U.S. COO Judith McKenna also pointed out that paying people more leads to better customer service. "We are committed to investing in our associates and to continuing to simplify our business. When we do so, there is no limit to what our associates can accomplish," she said.,"Our customers and associates are noticing a difference. We're seeing strong increases in both customer experience and associate engagement scores. " How much does Target pay per hour? It took Target a few months to catch up, but in April it reportedly raised its minimum hourly wage to $10, with the change going into effect in May, Reuters reported. The retailer also raised pay rates for employees who already earned more than $10 a hour. Those employees will receive an annual "merit raise and a pay-grade hike, which is related to experience and position of the employee," sources told the news service. Unlike Wal-Mart, which heavily publicized its wage increases, Target would not confirm the change to Reuters, but did share the following statement: "We pay market competitive rates and regularly benchmark the marketplace to ensure that our compensation and benefits packages will help us to both recruit and retain great talent." What does this mean for Wal-Mart and Target? In the short term, these changes at least take some of the pressure off the two retailers, but moving up to $10 an hour is not likely to quiet the political and protest forces pushing for $15 an hour. The problem for Target and Wal-Mart is that making that increase would come with a huge price tag. A recent study by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research showed that Wal-Mart would have to spend an additional $4.95 billion annually if it were to raise the minimum wage for its hourly employees in the U.S. to $15 an hour. The company has 1.1 million hourly workers in the country and the study estimated that 979,000 employees would get a raise if Wal-Mart adopted the $15 standard. Even though Wal-Mart could afford the raises -- it made about $15 billion last year -- it's obviously a significant chunk of earnings. Because of that, and the impact that type of hit to profits would likely bring to share prices, it's unlikely Wal-Mart or Target will voluntarily go to $15 an hour any time soon. What's much more likely to happen is slow, steady increases brought on partly by public pressure and partly by a tightening labor force. That's not what the protest movements or Sanders' followers want, but it's much more realistic than expecting either company to take on such a massive expense quickly. The article What Do Wal-Mart and Target Pay Their Workers? originally appeared on Fool.com. Daniel Kline has no position in any stocks mentioned. His first job paid $5.50 an hour. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. 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: Avon. What:Shares of beauty-products makerAvon Products Inc. fell 17% last month, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence,as the company delivered a weak earnings report, and concerns about the overall business continued. So what:Avon said that first-quarter sales fell 16%, to $1.31 billion, as performance in Brazil and China continued to drag, and its adjusted loss per share came in at $0.07, well below the $0.02 profit that Wall Street expected. Excluding the divestiture of Liz Earle, and using constant currency, revenue increased 3%. CEO Sheri McCoy said the results were in line with expectations, and the company has been successfully executing its turnaround plan, which includes selling the North American business, and implementing a new organizational structure. Now what:Change has been coming quickly to Avon as it sold off its North American business to Cerberus in December, and cut 7% of its workforce in March. The stock has been volatile as the company implements its turnaround strategy; but it got a vote of confidence after Jefferies initiated coverage with a buy rating. The research firm said the company had taken positive steps to alleviate cash concerns, and saw its long-term targets as "very achievable." Though macroeconomic headwinds continue in foreign markets like Brazil, Avon is taking active steps to revamp the business. Considering the stock was above $20 less than three years ago and now trades around $4, the upside potential is considerable if the company can make meaningful steps to profitable growth. The article Why Avon Products Inc. Stock Dropped 17% in May originally appeared on Fool.com. Jeremy Bowman has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. 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: Cypress Semiconductor. What: Shares of Cypress Semiconductor rose 17.7% in May, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Fresh off a strong first-quarter report at the end of April, the company basked in delayed investor reactions and plenty of positive developments around its most important target markets. So what: Cypress more than doubled its first-quarter sales year over year, albeit mostly because of the merger with memory-chip specialist Spansion in the late spring of 2015. Earnings swung from a sizable loss to a modest net profit, near the top end of management's guidance range. Alongside this report, longtime CEO T.J. Rodgers announced his retirement and the company bought Broadcom 's Internet of Things products in a $550 million all-cash deal. That's a lot of important news for Cypress investors to chew on. I can't blame them for taking some time to fully digest what's going on here. Other than that, embedded processors turned out to be a hot ticket in the second half on May. Key Cypress rivals Xilinx and Integrated Device Technology both surged more than 10% across this period, lifted by a handful of fresh product introductions and rising interest in the future of automotive chip sales. That's one target market these rivals all have in common, and that represents serious growth potential for several hopefuls. Automotive computing is a cozy place to park your investing dollars right now. But Cypress had them all beat with a 20% second-half price boost. That separation came from analyst firm Wedbush Morgan's suggestion that the unprofitable Deca range of chip packaging technologies could be spun out as an independent company in 2018. Taiwan-based chip testing and assembly specialist Advanced Semiconductor Engineering already invested $60 million in Deca -- yes, the deal was announced on that very busy day of the earnings report. Cypress EZ-BLUE Bluetooth module; penny coin included for scale. Image source: Cypress Semiconductor. Now what: Cypress is wheeling and dealing in an effort to optimize its product portfolio. The Spansion integration is still not complete, and Cypress has yet to extract the revenue it wanted from that merger. On the upside, Rodgers believes that the first quarter was the very bottom of the merger-related weakness. The Spansion deal should start pulling its weight, and a number of smaller plug-in acquisitions are also champing at the bit. Perhaps the biggest challenge for Cypress won't be found in the ever-changing market environment, nor in the struggle to integrate several important buyouts. Finding a new CEO who can equal the value of Rodgers might be downright impossible. Heck, fellow Fool Rich Duprey wished that Rodgers would run for president as a visionary libertarian. That being said, the stock looks neither overpriced nor deeply discounted today. It's hard to say how the Rodgers replacement will work out in the long term, or how quickly Cypress can get a grip on its unruly merger processes. Therefore, I'm happy to stay on the sideline for now -- but always keeping a close eye on this interesting company and stock. The article Why Cypress Semiconductor Corp. Gained 18% in May originally appeared on Fool.com. Anders Bylund has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom and Cypress Semiconductor. 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. During a press conference early Monday afternoon, FBI Director James Comey discussed the details of the agencys investigation into the Orlando nightclub shooting, prior surveillance of the perpetrator and whats next for the FBI as its agents search for clues that were a part of the tragedy. We will continue to look forward in this investigation, and backward, he said. We will leave no stone unturned. And we will work all day and all night to understand the path to that terrible night. The FBI Director said the work done by the agency is going to be analyzed to see if different measures could have been taken. I dont see anything in reviewing our work that our agents should have done differently, but well look at it in an open and honest way and be transparent about it. Our work is very challenging. We are looking for needles in a nation-wide haystack, but were also called upon to figure out which pieces of hay might someday become needles, he said. Because of the timing of the horrificmass shooting in Orlando early Sunday morning, John Oliver became the first late-night comedian to address the tragic event on his show, "Last Week Tonight" on HBO. As he has done following previous terrorist attacks, Oliver opened the Sunday show, airing only hours after the shooting, with brief emotional remarks about the murders. TV Execs & Producers Talk the Risks & Benefits Of Peak TV, Competing With HBO & Netflix-- ATX Television Festival Its still early and details are still emerging and right now this just hurts, he said.And the worst thing is, this pain is so familiar. In Paris last November, terrorists seemed to target places that symbolize everything that is wonderful about France culture, music, restaurants. And in Orlando early this morning a gunman attacked a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world. And for the record, I will happily embrace a Latin night at a gay club in the theme park capital of the world as the ultimate symbol of what is truly wonderful about America. Oliver almost apologized for doing a comedy show so soon after the attacks. Its hard to even know what to do in the wake of an event like this, he said. 'Westworld' EPs Talk 'Game Of Thrones' Influences, Robots & Lack Of Diversity In Westerns - ATX Television Festival He ended his comments with an image of the hundreds of people who had lined up in Florida today to donate blood for the victims of the Orlando shooting. It kind of reminds you that that dips--t terrorist is vastly outnumbered, Oliver said. Game Of Thrones': "No One" Left Unscathed As Show Heads To Season 6 Conclusion The hospital where 44 victims of Sundays deadly terror attack inside a Central Florida nightclub were taken said six patients have been discharged, while 29 remain hospitalized. The hospital also said that nine of the patients brought in following the massacre succumbed to their injuries. Of those nine patients, the Orlando Regional Medical Center said most arrived with no vital signs or profoundly ill. The hospital also said that no patients have died since the initial nine on Sunday morning. Dr. Michael Cheatham, chief surgical quality officer at Orlando Regional Medical Center said that six surgeries were planned for Monday after 26 were completed Sunday. The hospital said via Twitter that many of the wounded patients had high-velocity gunshot wounds and were transported to operating rooms to stop the bleeding. Some patients were awake and able to speak upon arrival. The hospital added via Twitter that as of Monday doctors have been able to extubate half of the patients who went to the intensive care unit (ICU) on a ventilator, and are no longer giving major amounts of blood. "Based on their outcomes, we are a very optimistic for our patients' prognosis right now," the hospital posted. Six trauma surgeons had been called in on Sunday and were operating within one hour of the arrival of the first patient. Cheatham also said the hospital had about 200 family members of patients at the hospital, while staff worked to try to unite victims and family. Officials say 48 of the 49 victims killed have been identified. The devastating thing was watching family members learn that their loved one was not in the hospital and was therefore likely still in the club, unfortunately having died from this incident, Cheatham told Good Morning America. The hospital thanked community members who responded to a call for blood donations after the tragedy, saying that local blood banks have more than 600 units of blood on hand. "Our hearts and prayers are with the PULSE nightclub victims and their families as we continue to work through this trying time together," Orlando Health said in a statement. The hospital said via Twitter that staff prepares for situations "like these by doing trauma simulations weekly, with large-scale, city-wide simulations arranged as well." Authorities have described ISIS-linked terrorist Omar Mateen as being cool and calm as he killed 49 people and took hostages in a bathroom at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando that was hosting a Latin night-themed event. He began his deadly spree around 2 a.m. Sunday in a gun battle with a uniformed off-duty officer working security at the clubs entrance before turning his attack on club patrons. In addition to the victims killed, 53 more were injured. Many of the wounded suffered gunshots wounds to the trunk and abdomen. After unsuccessful negotiations with Mateen, authorities launched a rescue operation that involved an explosive breach of the bathroom wall. An armored SWAT vehicle known as a BearCat was used to puncture a hole in the wall, which Mateen came through with guns in hand and began firing at officers, who shot and killed him. Drug labels sometimes warn that the medications may disrupt sleep, but a new study suggests these drugs don't cause troubled sleep for most people. The researchers found "barely" any link between medications that warned about potential sleep disturbances and actual sleep problems among thousands of people interviewed for the study. "Sleep disturbances are a frequent problem especially in older people and we wanted to find out whether this might be due to the intake of sleep disturbing drugs," said lead author Anna-Therese Lehnich, of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, in email to Reuters Health. She noted that in clinical trials, drugs are tested under strict protocols, which may be different from real-world scenarios. To see if the sleep disturbance warnings can be generalized to everyday people, the researchers collected data from 4,221 people ages 45 to 75 in the German cities of Bochum, Essen and Mulheim. The data indicated which drugs the study participants took, and whether they woke up early, had difficulties falling asleep or had problems staying asleep. Researchers used information on each drug to assign patients a probability that they'd have problems with sleep. "We found that drugs labeled as sleep disturbing . . . are not a major risk factor for sleep disturbances in the general population," Lehnich said. Even taking a number of potentially sleep disturbing drugs barely led to more sleep disturbances, they found. "However, the individual or a specific patient can still suffer from sleep disturbances caused by drugs - especially drugs against diseases of the central nervous system," Lehnich said. One limitation of the study is that the results are based on self reports by the participants and not devices that track sleep, said Dr. Sanjeev Kothare, director of the Pediatric Sleep Program at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. "Even though (sometimes) the drug will interfere with sleep, in some patients it may not be so," Kothare, who was not involved with the new study, told Reuters Health. Lehnich said the results are surprising on one hand, because taking several drugs that would disturb sleep barely led to an increase in sleep problems. "On the other hand, in most summaries of product characteristics you find that 1 in 1000 or 1 in 100 persons suffered a sleep disturbance when taking this drug, which is rather low," she said. "Consequently, we could not expect strong effects." Doctors in states that track painkiller prescriptions were nearly one-third less likely to offer patients dangerously addicting opioids, a new study found. The launch of drug-monitoring programs in 24 states led to an immediate 30 percent drop in prescriptions for Schedule II opioids, the most addictive, in patients with pain complaints, the study showed. "We are moving in the direction of raising awareness about overprescribing these drugs," lead author Yuhua Bao said in a phone interview. "But we still have a lot to do in terms of changing the culture and practice of painkiller prescriptions." Bao, a health economist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, and colleagues analyzed 26,275 office visits for pain in 24 states that implemented prescription drug-monitoring programs from 2001 to 2010. As reported in Health Affairs, in these states the probability of a doctor prescribing a Schedule II opioid dropped from 5.5 percent to 3.7 percent - a more than 30 percent reduction. The results were immediate and held for three years. The study confirmed Bao's hypothesis that physician drug-monitoring programs, which have been implemented in a wide variety of forms in every state except Missouri, are an effective tool to combat the opioid drug epidemic. But she stressed the need for other means as well. "There are no magic bullets here," said Dr. Caleb Alexander, who directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness in Baltimore, in a phone interview. "The interventions are needed along the continuum here - from manufacturers to end-users. This is important to keep in mind given the magnitude of addiction, injuries and deaths," said Alexander, who was not involved in the current study. Nearly two million Americans either abused or were dependent on prescription opioids in 2014, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Overdose deaths, along with sales of prescription opioids, have quadrupled since 1999, the CDC estimates. More than 165,000 Americans died from overdoses related to prescription opioids from 1999 to 2014. Some of these deaths might have been avoided if doctors had been able to check a prescription drug-monitoring database, Alexander said. A database could show when patients are obtaining opioids under their own name from multiple doctors, which might assist in identifying potential abuse and dependency, he noted. Drug-monitoring databases may make doctors think twice before prescribing pain medications for a variety of reasons in addition to uncovering "doctor shopping" by patients, the study authors write. Knowing that they're being watched may serve as a deterrent, and the programs may generally increase awareness of the dangers of prescribing opioids, they say. "Given how many people are killed by prescription opioids and how dangerous these drugs are, it should be no less important for a clinician to check a prescription drug-monitoring program before prescribing an opioid than to check kidney function before prescribing a new blood-pressure medicine," Alexander said. In March, the CDC released guidelines instructing primary care doctors to sharply curtail use of opioids for chronic pain. At the time, CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden called the prescription overdose epidemic "doctor-driven." Primary-care doctors treating adults for chronic pain write nearly half of opioid prescriptions, the CDC said. The new guidelines recommend non-opioids like acetaminophen and ibuprofen as the first line of pain treatment. Authors of the current study say American clinicians are writing enough prescriptions to medicate every US adult for a month. "No opioid is entirely safe," Alexander said, "and all opioids should be used with much greater caution than we have in the past two decades." Too often, when an ambulance is called to a nursing home, the resident's wishes regarding end-of-life care aren't clear and the staff have differing opinions, leaving paramedics to navigate through the confusion, a new paper suggests. "For a patient nearing the end of his or her life, transfer from a nursing home to the emergency department can be inappropriate, with potentially negative consequences, but transfer in these circumstances is, regrettably, all too common," UK researchers write in the Emergency Medical Journal. "People are trained to call emergency services, we learn as children to call 911," said Nancy Berlinger of The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute in Garrison, New York. But calling emergency services is often the worst medical option for nursing home residents, and antithetical to what they actually desire, said Berlinger, who wasn't involved in the study. Yet, "without clear and authoritative instructions indicating an alternative, that is likely to happen," she told Reuters Health. In those cases, first responders get little clarity from staff or medical records, she added. For the new report, Georgina Murphy-Jones of the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust and Stephen Timmons of the University of Nottingham interviewed six London-based paramedics about challenges they face in nursing homes. The paramedics often had trouble understanding nursing home residents' wishes, according to Murphy-Jones and Timmons. When a patient no longer had the capacity for decision-making, paramedics found it challenging to balance patients' best interests with pressure from nursing staff, patients' relatives and colleagues. Records of patients' wishes were "rare" and generally restricted to resuscitation preferences. One paramedic reported, "The care notes would tell me what medication she's on and what type of cancer if you are lucky." The paramedics wanted to act in patients' perceived best interests, but others' interests often come into play. One paramedic who arranged for a patient to be treated at the nursing home rather than transported to a hospital felt the "staff were unhappy because it meant they had to provide one-to-one care and actually look after someone dying." Another recalled a typical scenario when relatives oppose the patient's preferences: "So if she's ill and she says she wants to stay at home and the family want her in and I think she's sick enough to go in, she goes in, even though she said she wants to stay." Kevin Biese, who leads the American Geriatrics Society's emergency medicine collaborative, told Reuters Health that the choice to transport a nursing home resident to the hospital can be a "life and death" decision. Transfer increases the risk of delirium, functional decline and death, he said. "The reason to go the hospital is to get a therapeutic intervention helpful to the patient and consistent with the patient's wishes," said Biese, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. But Biese doesn't blame facility staff. "I am sympathetic to what a hard position they are put in," he said. "For cultural reasons, for liability reasons and for lack of resources, it is really hard for nurses at nursing homes in the U.S. to keep patients at the facility." Biese and Berlinger both said Americans near the end of life have an advantage that the UK patients in this study did not. In most states, patients can have their doctors fill out a "POLST" form, for Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment. "For those who are seriously ill, advance directives are not enough," said Susan Tolle, director of the Oregon Health and Science University Center for Ethics in Health Care. "Patients nearing the end of their lives who wish to set limits on treatments need to turn preferences into action with orders on a POLST," Tolle, who wasn't involved in the new study, told Reuters Health. Theresa Sanderson, administrator of the West Hartford Health and Rehabilitation Center, told Reuters Health that because the study involved just a few paramedics, it can't be considered "true evidence." At her 160-bed facility, "We do not have situations where paramedics are the decision-makers," said Sanderson, who is a member of the American College of Health Care Administrators. "We have educated our staff about the very real impact of transfer trauma," she said. "We want patients to stay at home and be treated in place." It's important for all nursing homes to clarify residents' preferences regarding resuscitation and intubation, Berlinger said. Even more important: a facilitated discussion of values and goals that can be transcribed into instructions for every employee. "It is owed to the patient, the family and to that aide at three o'clock in the morning," Berlinger said. "It is owed to the paramedic." The authors of the study were unable to respond to a request for comment by deadline. EDITOR'S NOTE: Orlando's mayor on Monday revised the death toll in the nightclub shooting to 49, from 50. The 50th body was identified as gunman Omar Mateen. America is at war. The events in Orlando represent a sea change in the United States. Or at least they should. In the last two years, since the Islamic State declared the reestablishment of the Caliphate from the Grand Mosque in Mosul, Iraq, U.S. police and federal agencies have intercepted, arrested, or killed 103 individuals on U.S. soil connected to the Islamic State (see Threat Knowledge Groups report, ISIS: The Threat to the United States.) As reports continue to flow in, it is clear that the murderer of the 50 innocent people at the nightclub in Orlanda linked himself to ISIS. And not only that, but the Islamic State, through its official propaganda outlet, has claimed responsibility for the attack, tweeting The Orlando attack is the work of a soldier of the Caliphate. The year 2015 saw the most jihadi plots on U.S. soil since September 11, 2011. This is despite two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the expenditure of trillions of dollars, and the loss of thousands of lives among our servicemen and women. The administration of President Obama now has an historic opportunity to declare to the world that we are at war and our enemies must be crushed. The time for political correctness is behind us. The idea that federal agencies, armed services, and law enforcement are not allowed to discuss the religious motivation and ideology of our enemies, and that words such as jihad have to be censored out of our lexicon of counter-terrorism and military training has to end. If this administration persists in ignoring the reality that jihadi terrorism is a global phenomenon that has reached our shores and continues to focus instead on concepts such as lone wolf, hate crime, and the proliferation of weapons in private hands, we will continue to see Americans die on U.S. soil. As I highlight in my book "Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War" -- which presents a potential strategy for the next commander-in-chief -- there is a way to win this war. The strategy has three parts: 1. We have to get politics, and particularly political correctness, out of the threat assessment. We have to talk truthfully about our enemy, exactly the same way we did during World War II, when facing the Nazis, and during the Cold War, when President Reagan rightfully called the Soviet Union an evil empire. 2. We have to empower our Muslim allies in the Middle East who are most at threat from groups such as ISIS, and which, in the final analysis, have to be the face of a victory against Islamist extremism and terrorism. This includes the Jordanians and especially the government of President Fatah al-Sisi, a brave Muslim who has been rejected by this administration. Our Sunni allies have to be the face of this war but they will not close with and destroy this enemy unless we assist them, which means redeploying our troops as advisors to the region. 3. Finally, this war will not be won by killing jihadis in large numbers. The use of force is only a part of the solution. Ultimately we will win when the ideology of global jihadism is no longer attractive to young men and women from Orlando to Brussels, from Paris to San Bernardino. That can only be done through a strategic-level counter-propaganda campaign driven by the White House, in exactly the same way that we did during the Cold War. If these three elements of the strategy are followed, we could destroy the menace of global jihad. If it is not taken seriously by the current president or the next administration, Americans will continue to be targeted on American soil. Editor's note: The following column originally appeared in The Washington Times. Hillary Clinton clinching the Democratic Party nomination isn't a victory for women, it's a betrayal. As a former leader within the American feminist establishment I cringe every time I realize that someone as corrupt and incompetent as Hillary Clinton filched this milestone from the nation. Courtesy of Mrs. Clinton, we are now saddled with something truly historic: the first time an American political party has nominated a person under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Moreover, two days after that nomination and on the very day President Barack Obama endorsed Mrs. Clinton, the White House itself confirmed the DOJ examination into her use of a private server was, in fact, a "criminal" investigation. But those aren't the only historical firsts for Mrs. Clinton. She is also the only nominee in history to have a former staff person, the IT person who set up and managed her homebrew computer servers, plead the 5th Amendment out of fear discussing his work for her could lead to criminal prosecution. When Mrs. Clinton won the New Jersey and California primaries on June 7, she officially hoovered up the necessary delegates for the nomination, and the legacy media made sure to hector everyone. On MSNBC we were told we should pause in awe of the accomplishment. Guest Maria Shriver agreed, "I hope we pause not only to think about how this is historic and unprecedented for her, for women, but about all the people that made this moment possible, all the women who went before her, all the women whose shoulders she stands on..." As a newsflash for Ms. Shriver, those on whose shoulders Hillary stands includes Russia. After presenting them a much-ballyhooed "reset," her new friend annexed Crimea, went to war with Ukraine, threatens NATO, and harasses NATO nations. Russia also became the power-broker in the Middle East, filling the power vacuum Mrs. Hillary's State Department left behind. Then there's ISIS, which needed a safe, ungoverned space within which to grow, and Hillary gave them Libya. For some reason, emboldened terrorists then thought they could attack an American consulate in Benghazi, murdering our ambassador and 3 others, with no repercussions. And they were right. Then there are the shoulders of Bryan Pagliano, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, a gaggle of Clinton aides who are the enablers of a secretary of State so paranoid, controlling and careless that she decides to set up a completely autonomous (and unsecured) email server system with which to conduct federal business. The latest on the email server debacle? The Associated Press is reporting Mrs. Clinton's exposed emails could have revealed the names of CIA agents. The Wall Street Journal is also now reporting Clinton homebrew emails dealt with CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Russia. ISIS. Benghazi. Collapse of the Middle East. Genocide of Christians. 250,000 people dead in Syria, a refugee crisis on the scale of World War II, and the inexplicable decision to set up an email server that is likely still compromising national security. Big, bloody, disastrous shoulders, indeed. Knowing her history will forever be established as what 'the woman' brought to the table, any woman with this track record, who truly wants women and girls to be inspired and proud, would never have run for president. For trailblazers the responsibility isn't just the act of winning; it comes with the additional requirement of a moral grasp of the standard this person creates as "the first." It is an obscene turn of events that the first woman nominated for the presidency is a person so morally bankrupt she lied to the families of the Benghazi fallen, as she stood next to the caskets of the dead and their loved ones. Mrs. Clinton is so devoid of conscience she claims her nomination is a victory for all women as she brings to the table a history of lies, abandonment, failure and excuses. Yet, she believes she deserves a promotion because... Woman. I also want a woman in the White House, and we'll get one, and most of us know we'll get one, but it doesn't have to be Monica's ex-boyfriend's wife. I also know that woman had better know what she's doing and do it well. Unlike Hillary, who is insisting that she as a woman can do whatever a male president can do, but continues to say she'll put her husband in charge of the economy "because he knows how to do it." Hillary Clinton represents everything that is wrong with the leftist American feminist movement and our disconnected and corrupt political system. She's a favorite of the establishment because she'll protect the bureaucracy's secrets and continue with the expected wealth and power distribution amongst the members of their private power club. Hillary Clinton may be the first women nominee by a major party, but there's still time to make sure she does not become the first woman president. Why? Because little girls, women, and the men who love them all deserve a trailblazer they can be proud of. Convert or die. That is the war cry of the modern-day jihadist. The Islamic Radicals want to exterminate all of us -- Gay and straight, Christian and Jew. Click here to join Todds American Dispatch: a must-read for conservatives! They target each and every one of us, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote in a powerful call to action. Their objective, which they broadcast worldwide, is to murder or forcibly convert every single American. And as we saw in Orlando, Florida -- this enemy shows no mercy. The death toll is staggering 49 dead, dozens wounded mostly young people enjoying a night of dancing and music at a popular gay nightclub. More bodies piled on the altar of political correctness. I say enough! What we need is for every American Democrat and Republican to come together, abandon political correctness, and unite in defeating radical Islamic terrorism, Cruz wrote. But America is at war with an enemy our president refuses to acknowledge. President Obama went on national television and told us he has no "definitive judgment" on the motive of the Orlando jihadist. Click here to get Todds latest book - your primer on how to restore traditional American values! So lets review the facts. The gunman had reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 telephone call. He reportedly referenced the Boston bombers in that conversation. And he reportedly and screamed Allahu Akbar -- as he massacred innocent Americans. And still the president seemed baffled over the jihadists motivations.. It was similar to his behavior in the aftermath of Chattanooga and San Bernardino and Boston and Fort Hood. We need a commander-in-chief who will speak the truth, and who will unleash the full force and fury of the American military to utterly destroy ISIS and its affiliates, said Cruz. We need to pass the Expatriate Terrorist Act, so that known ISIS terrorists cannot use U.S. passports to return to America and wage jihad. We need a President who is serious who will identify the enemy by name and do everything necessary to defeat it. But the White House does not seem all that serious about naming the enemy or admitting that Radical Islam inspired the carnage. And that brings me to something that happened during the first post-shooting press conference. They invited a Muslim religious leader to speak. They did not invite a Christian minister. They did not invite a Jewish rabbi. But by golly they made sure to invite the senior Imam for the Islamic Society of Central Florida. Now, why would they do that? Why invite the local imam if the shooting had nothing to do with radical Islam? Instead of denouncing radical Islam he told us not to rush to judgment. Instead of affirming and announcing solidarity with the LGBT community, he told us not to sensationalize the massacre. Instead of urging Muslims to wage war on the Islamists, he advanced the Mainstream Medias narrative about getting our guns. With all due respect -- Americans did not need a lecture from the Senior Imam of the Islamic Society of Central Florida -- especially after an Islamist had just slaughtered Americans on American soil. But amid the carnage and devastation came acts of bravery and compassion. Police officers and first responders ran into harm's way to save lives. Hundreds of citizens lined up to give blood. Churches hosted vigils and prayer services. What happened in Orlando is not about the political community or the religious community or the LGBT community. It's about the American community -- our community. And not even a jihadist can destroy that. Every Monday, Fox News contributor Karl Rove wraps up the last week in politics and offers an inside look at the week ahead. Its nearly official now: Hillary Clinton swept four of Tuesdays six primaries, besting Bernie Sanders by wide margins in California and New Jersey, nipping him in New Mexico and South Dakota and losing in Montana and North Dakota. This gives Clinton a majority of Democratic National Convention delegates, but her 2,780 total includes 577 unelected superdelegates. Without them, Clinton is still 80 votes short of a majority. With victories in all five Republican contests (North Dakota had voted earlier this year), Donald Trump extinguished the possibility of a multiballot convention by securing 1,447 pledged delegates, 210 more than needed. Still, whats the rush? President Obama called Clinton Tuesday to tell her that he had cut a video earlier that day in which he would endorse her after meeting with Sanders on Thursday. The president proceeded to do just that by releasing his endorsement video an hour after meeting with Sanders. Is that the way to conciliate the Bern? The videos timing seemed somewhat disrespectful to Sanders, who might have shown his pique after his meeting with the president when he said, I look forward to meeting with Clinton to see how we can work together to defeat Donald Trump, before adding, to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent. Might the self-described democratic socialist be eager for convention platform fights? Sanders platform drafting committee representative, Cornel West, called on Democrats to oppose an occupation of precious Palestinians by Israel, while a Clinton ally said, I really don't personally think anyone should have a gun. With extremists like that, Philadelphia could provide a contentious, far-left set of platform debates. Trumps bad week started bad He started the week defending his assault on Gonzalo Curiel, the Mexican judge, by urging surrogates to double down on the attacks during a private conference call. The suggestion apparently led one or more surrogates to leak the contents of the call, presumably to disabuse the GOP candidate that the continued controversy was helpful. Speaker Paul Ryan and former Speaker Newt Gingrich repudiated Trumps comments. Former presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and a veritable battalion of Republican officeholders condemned the presumptive nominees comments on the judge. In this, they are representing the sentiment of a growing number of ordinary Republicans. But got better ... By weeks end, sanity appeared to be making its presence known in Trump Towers, as the candidate largely avoided the topic. Still, damage has been done. Private polls in battleground states conducted late in the week suggest Trumps numbers have dropped. Public polls in the next month will show how far they have declined, and for how long. Struck a good note. Trump delivered a restrained, substantive and reassuring speech Friday to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, systematically outlining his views on issues of interest to evangelicals and then methodically cataloging Clintons views. Read from a teleprompter, the speech still sounded like Trump, especially when he embellished it with his verbal tic of repeating phrases for emphasis. Looking ahead, will Obama start pushing his favorable numbers back down? The presidents favorable numbers have crept up in recent months (while his ratings on the economy, foreign affairs and health care have remained stagnant). Might this be the result of him being obscured by the two parties nomination battles? If so, might his numbers decline again as he becomes more visible while campaigning? The more hes on the national stage, the more he might remind voters that Clinton represents a third term for Obama. Might Trump regain the initiative with his speech this week? After two weeks on the defensive as a result of his own missteps, the presumptive GOP nominee needs a substantive, well-researched, pointed speech delivered from a teleprompter (so as to minimize harmful additions). After crying unfair Mexican judge, he must now reassure nervous Republicans and skeptical independents hes worthy of their support. Will Mondays speech on the terror threat be what Trump needs to reassure voters that he can be an effective commander-in-chief? This is even more imperative after Trump went off the rails Sunday with tweets congratulating himself on his own intelligence in forecasting jihadist attacks and demanding that the president resign and Hillary retire from the race. -- All of which was unnecessary and unhelpful at a moment when appearing strong and presidential was required. Editor's note: The following column originally appeared on The Resurgent website. It is reprinted with permission. In the first 48 hours since the horrific mass shooting in Orlando, the worst terror attack on American soil since 9/11, the public has seen wall-to-wall media coverage of the events. The false narrative emerging from the media seeks to make a few points, all of which are red herrings and straw men designed to take attention from the truth. The shooter, Omar Mateen, was homophobic because he hated gays. Mateen was unstable because he was mean and beat his wife Mateen had too much unfettered access to guns Mateen was not religiously motivated Story after story references these points, and they quote each other liberally (take the pun as you wish). Fox News and other media outlets reported comments by a coworker at security firm G4S who called him "toxic" and "unhinged." The Times of London quoted CNN, about his first wife, "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill." Anti-gun New York Daily News quoted NBC News, who spoke to Mateen's father Seddique Matteen, who insisted the rampage had nothing to do with religion. The Washington Post also did a story on Seddique Mateen defending his son. He had a child and a wife, and was very dignified, meaning he had respect for his parents, Seddique Mateen wrote, standing in front of the flag of his apparent birthplace, Afghanistan. I dont know what caused him to shoot last night. The shooter's father has close connections with his native Afghanistan, and has traveled back there as recently as 2014, even interviewing Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul, according to the Washington Post. He made a series of Youtube videos praising the Taliban and railing against the U.S. The Boston Globe appears to be at a complete loss as to Mateen's motive for the killings, because there's no actual proof (besides the killer's own words pledging allegiance is ISIS) he was tied to any jihadist causes. While Mateen claimed allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, no evidence had emerged by late Sunday pointing to actual ties to terrorist groups or a significant association with jihadist causes. Yes, they actually wrote that. Apparently a confession isn't evidence to them. We can either accept the media narrative, that some unknown complex mix of motives drove this mentally ill man to buy readily available assault weapons and kill people he simply hated for no reason, or we can apply Occam's Razor--the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The Quran teaches that homosexuality is wrong and punishable by death (not just "God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. This, is not for the servants" of God, which Seddique Mateen said). In some Sharia-law Muslim countries, it actually is punished by death. Certainly ISIS punishes homosexuality by death. Many Muslim men are brought up and taught to beat their wives--that this is the correct way to administer discipline in the home. This kind of behavior is common in the Islamic world, where women are not valued as anything more than property. Mateen had a clean record, worked as a security guard, kept himself in excellent physical condition, and trained for his jihad. This was not a crime of opportunity, or of passion. It was a planned operation. The "mentally ill" narrative offers no hard evidence at this point. He bought weapons because, despite the FBI having investigated him, nothing of concern was noted that would prevent him from doing so. This is a failure of the intelligence and law enforcement system, not our Second Amendment rights. The attack was absolutely religiously motivated. You didn't see Mateen attacking the Orlando Islamic Center, the mosque he attended, because he didn't like the people there. You didn't see the people with whom he worshipped calling the FBI or the local authorities to report Mateen acting weird or talking about killing people. The simplest explanation is that Mateen was a radicalized Muslim, who moved easily with other radicalized Muslims, some of whom are probably living their lives in Orlando. Only now would the FBI be interviewing those people and find connections. The press is weaving a false narrative to fashion a complex explanation for a simple problem. We have a cancer of radical Islam growing in America. Political correctness, the inability of our president to accept the problem because of his beliefs about Islam being a religion of peace, and impossible restrictions placed on federal, state and local law enforcement have made this crime possible. Our government is ignoring the cancer and it will continue to grow, as long as the country keeps buying the media's spin. What Conservatives Gain From a Republican Majority Republicans have now been in charge in the Senate for 17 months 17 months that have been simultaneously rewarding and frustrating. Rewarding, because the Senate is functional now in a way that it wasnt under the Democrat majority. And frustrating, because there are a number of conservative priorities that we havent been able to push through because of Democrat opposition in the Senate and from the White House. Americans, understandably, are looking for accomplishments. And being in the majority has allowed us to make real progress on some issues where weve managed to convince Democrats and the president to get on board like increased sanctions on North Korea and an education reform bill that returns power to states and local school boards. The fact of the matter is, though, as long as we lack 60 Republican votes in the Senate and a partner in the White House willing to work with us, we are going to be limited in what we can achieve. But that doesnt mean having a Republican majority in the Senate is useless. Far from it. We may not be able to accomplish everything we want to right now, but the Republican-led Senate has been able to make sure that important bills at least get a vote. Take the pro-life bills we considered last year the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and legislation to defund Planned Parenthood. These bills would never have seen the light of day in the Democrat-led Senate. Ultimately, these bills didnt become law, but that doesnt mean the debates on these bills were pointless. Another important thing we accomplished this year was passing legislation in both the House and the Senate to repeal Obamacare. Unfortunately, as long as President Obama is in office, were not going to be able to get a repeal signed into law. But by sending a repeal bill to the president, the Republican-led Congress showed that once we have a partner in the White House, we can get rid of this failed legislation and replace it with real reform. Two other bills that would not have received a vote in a Democrat-led Senate are the measures we passed to prevent the Obama EPA from regulating ponds and ditches on private property and imposing a national energy tax on coal-fired power plants. While the president ultimately vetoed these bills, the debates we had drew attention to the burdens these regulations will place on ordinary Americans. Another important advantage of a Republican-led Senate became very clear this winter, and thats the ability to prevent President Obama from dramatically shifting the Supreme Courts direction with a lifetime appointment while Americans are in the process of selecting our next president. The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia left us with an opening on the Supreme Court that President Obama would like to fill with a judge who will embrace the presidents philosophy that the priorities of the far left always trump the rule of law. Needless to say, a third Obama Supreme Court justice could fundamentally realign the direction of the court for a generation to come. And right now, there is only one thing standing between our country and that scenario: the Republican-led Senate. Had Republicans not gained the Senate majority in 2014, it is likely that a third Obama nominee would already be on the bench. Theres no question that theres a lot more to be done to undo the damage wrought by the Obama administration. But the Republican-led Senate has made a start. Weve passed important legislation, and while not all of our bills were signed into law, we pushed the needle in our direction by drawing attention to these issues. I hope next year well have a president willing to work with us. But regardless, the Republican-led Senate will continue to make sure that conservative priorities get debated and that the Senate functions in a way that benefits the American people. Before the blood was dry from ISIS-sympathizer Omar Mateens massacre of patrons at an Orlando gay club, anti-gun liberals were busy trying to obscure the real culprit. Despite withering ridicule from the politically correct elite, Donald Trump stood firm in his convictions to act decisively against radical Islamperhaps his greatest qualification to be president. Mateen was an Islamist sympathizer who took time before his attack to call 911 and profess his allegiance to ISIS. He yelled the now-familiar jihadist cry of Allahu Akbar during the rampage that killed fifty-one and wounded as many more. He had been interviewed twice by the FBI for possible ties to terrorists, including to the first American suicide bomber in Syria. And of course he targeted gays, who in Islamist incubators like Iran and the Islamic State are summarily executed. Liberals instinctively seized an opportunity to indulge political correctness. For some reason, Hillary Clinton issued a statement and tweeted in Spanish, and added, We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. President Obama addressed the nation, saying: This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. (This from the man who has ensured a southern border so porous that virtually any illegal weapon cache could be imported inside bricks of cocaine.) Neither Obama nor Hillary mentioned radical Islam. Instead, they tried to take the worst attack by Islamists on our soil since 9/11 and move it down the political path of mass murderers who have shot up schools and a church in recent years. They offered their failed and unconstitutional prescription of more gun control. The misdirection was reminiscent of the Benghazi cover-up, in which Obama and Hillary shifted blame for a jihadist attack away from the Islamists who were actually at fault. Trump is having none of it. The presumptive Republican nominee for president, who has advocated a halt to the admission of refugees from Syria, called for toughness and vigilance against radical Islamic terrorism. He called on Obama to resign for failing even to mention the political force that animates home-grown terrorists and foreign threats as diverse as ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Trump issued a statement that, We can't afford to be politically correct anymore, which further noted, I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. What Trump said wasnt slick or polished or PC, but it came from the heartwhich is enough for most Americans. Most of us dont want a president who is anti-Muslim, but we want one who is capable of acknowledging the obvious threat posed by Islamic supremacists who want to unify mosque and state, kill gays, Jews, and other Americans and Westernersand subject everyone else to a theocratic tyranny. Most Americans can see that acknowledging this threat is actually the best way to defend our freedoms here at home. Without doing so we will never develop a defense against it. Rather than taking guns from the law-abiding, we should update laws like the McCarran Act that were used against communists during the Cold War, in order to ban Islamist political activity today. We should be able to keep Islamist refugees and visa applicants from coming to the United States and incriminate the small but dangerous number of Islamist U.S. citizens like Mateen who are here plotting war against us. We should be eager to avoid the means to which Israelis had to resort during the jihadist intifadas against them. These steps included guards and searches at nearly every public venue in cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. As a gay man, Ive often wondered when the Islamists would attack us here at homeincluding at gay venues that pride themselves on being open and welcoming. The time apparently is now. If we dont want to have to turn our public spaces into fortresses with intrusive, airport-like security, we need to go on the offensive against Islamic supremacists and those who enable them. What Trump suggests is counterintuitively the preservation of freedom. He also offers a watershed for Republicans: a leader who stands up for gays and softens the GOPs reactionary image on social issues. While the GOP eliteincluding the oh-so-erudite Romney-Ryan faction that tut-tuts the rest of the partyhas consistently advocated second-class citizenship for gays, it is Trump who could drag the party into the 21st century. Ultimately, the 2016 election is a contest between the dishonest elite and the American public. Shortly after the Orlando attack, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich remarked about that elite on Fox News: They dont want to tell us the truth about the world, they dont want to tell us the truth about trade deals, they dont want to tell us the truth about who is getting payoffs in Washington, and they dont want to tell us the truth about Islamic terrorism. If in tragedy we find the resolve to defend our country and our freedomand reject the failures of our political elitethen those who perished at the hand of an Islamist in Orlando will not have died in vain. The massacre in Orlando by a self-proclaimed Islamist terrorist removes any doubt that the West or its allies have contained the radical jihadi movement. You wouldnt know it by listening to President Obama. From the Oval Office on Monday, he remained unable to utter the words radical Islam. Yet, early Sunday morning the shooter pledged allegiance to ISIS and reportedly yelled Allahu Akbar before opening fire. He murdered and injured more than 100 innocents in the worst Islamic terror assault on U.S. soil since 9/11. Family and friends are suffering. Their lives will never be the same. The worst aspect is that political leadership could have helped to prevent the attack by addressing the violent Islamist threat by its rightful nature. As was the case in Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino or any of the other murders in the name of Allah against the West the during his time in office, the president will not identify jihad as even a possible motivation. He instead talks about gun control, identity politics and thought crimes. Americans know that it was terror. They know that it was hate. They also know that is so much more than that. For weeks ISIS has threatened brutal attacks throughout the world during the month of Ramadan. The Investigative Project on Terrorism has tracked the threat streams along with the intelligence community. What were suspect Omar Mateens interactions with various groups in the U.S. and internationally? Who were the groups, and what was the nature of those interactions? Law enforcement officials had Mateen on their radar. Why did they stop monitoring him? Could it have had anything to do with the suffocating political correctness in which workplace violence and man-caused disasters replaced jihadist terror over the last few years? The echo chamber of Islamist front organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim American Society and the Muslim Public Affairs Council facilitate the administrations obfuscation. They rush to condemn the attacks to American audiences, yet they are the worst enablers of the attacks themselves. CAIR, for example, routinely pressures American Muslims to not cooperate with law enforcement. White House records reveals that leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood regularly meet with officials at the highest levels of government to influence stewards of foreign policy into minimizing the threat from Islamic terror organizations. The president may only have seven more months in office, but he needs to provide the country with a new strategy. It cannot continue down the same path of political correctness, and it cannot wait until a new president assumes office to reevaluate. The evidence of the West losing the struggle is overwhelming. Globally, the number of victims has increased to unprecedented levels. Millions of refugees flood Europe from the Middle East and Africa, Islamists behead and inflict genocide against religious minorities and ISIS has created a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, as well as in Libya. Orlando is such a painful illustration that the U.S. is not beyond its reach. American leadership needs to engage in a frank discussion about where we go from here. It needs to identify and implement a policy against jihadist terror that transcends elections, including the upcoming November ballot. It can no longer punt on the issue and hope that nothing bad happens under its watch. Discerning the threat is not difficult. Identifying its true nature seems impossible to current leaders. Developing effective counter strategies is no easy task, but it needs to start today. Americans will not tolerate any more carnage. Obama said in his remarks to the nation today that the attack in Orlando could have occurred in any U.S. community. He needs to finally understand that there is something dreadfully wrong with that. Western lawmakers are worried that the limited amount of time that Congress is working this year will push an issue burning up their states into next year. After a 2015 fire season that cost taxpayers $4.2 billion, Congress began discussing long-term funding fixes for fighting wildfires but made little headway. Now, with the 2016 fire season starting, time is running out on making any changes this year. 'You can be sure that we will get more money if needed. We're not going to let fires roar out of control.' Last year's deadly fire season burned up more than 9.4 million acres, which included California's Valley Fire, a blaze that burned for weeks, destroyed thousands of buildings and killed four people. More than 200 fires burned at once in Alaska, where more than 4 million acres were charred, causing enough concern that the omnibus spending package passed in late 2015 included increased funding for stopping wildfires this year. Christine Cozakos, a Forest Service spokeswoman, said about $1.6 billion has been budgeted for wildfire suppression and the agency estimates it will spend between $1 billion-$1.7 billion. The service has exceeded its budget on wildfire suppression in all but two years since 2002. Read more on WashingtonExaminer.com After two failed bids to grant voting rights to illegal immigrants, some San Francisco officials believe they have found the man who can make it happen: Donald Trump. A proposed charter amendment drafted by Board of Supervisors member Eric Mar would give illegal immigrants with kids in the public school system the right to vote in school elections. Voters have rejected two previous ballot proposals, but Mar is betting on anti-Trump sentiment to carry the pro-illegal immigrant proposal if he can get it on the November ballot. With Donald Trumps racist and anti-immigrant sentiments, there is a reaction from many of us who are disgusted by those politics," Mar said. "I think thats going to ensure there is strong Latino turnout as well as other immigrant turnout. A key promise in Trump's campaign for the Republican nomination for president has been to build a wall on the Mexican border. This week, Trump claimed a federal judge overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University wouldnt be impartial because he is of Mexican heritage. Mar staffers confirmed the measure will go before the rules committee within weeks, and could then be presented to the full board of supervisors. If a majority support it, the charter amendment will be on the ballot Nov. 8 when the city and nation votes for president. The time is right for San Francisco to make history, to pave the way for immigrant parents to have a say in the policy decisions that impact their childs education and who gets to sit on the Board of Education, Mar said in a written statement. In 2004, voters narrowly rejected the same proposal. A similar measure, introduced by California Assemblymember David Chiu, D-San Francisco, failed in 2010 with just 46 percent of the vote. Chiu believes Trump's presence on the ballot, and the fact that one of every three children in the system is now the child of an immigrant parent could make the third time a charm. With the anti-immigrant rhetoric from Donald Trump, it is more important than ever that we come together as San Franciscans to stand up for our immigrant communities and support their civic engagement, Chiu said in a written statement. The plan is bad public policy, according to Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former Federal Elections Commission member. It is wrong to extend the vote to individuals who have not entered the American social compact or made a commitment to the our Constitution, our law, and our cultural and political heritage by becoming citizens, von Spakovsky said. It is even worse to extend the franchise to illegal aliens whose very first act is to violate our laws; that encourages contempt for the law. While laws in all 50 states bar noncitizens from voting in state elections, and federal law makes it a felony for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, there is an opening in local elections, von Spakovsky acknowledged. Seven jurisdictions - including 6 in Maryland and one in Chicago afforded voting rights to noncitizens, Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at Queens College of the City University of New York, told the Chronicle. Alaska Republicans are joining with Democrats in taking drastic action to save the states ObamaCare insurance system from spiraling into crisis, as all but one insurer flee the state and health care costs soar. While state Republicans remain largely opposed to the health care law, the GOP-dominated legislature passed a bill earlier this month that aims to prevent massive premium hikes and keep the ObamaCare system afloat for the thousands of residents already in the system. The measure was introduced by Gov. Bill Walker. Over the past two years, my team and I have received hundreds of calls and emails from Alaskans who say health care costs are increasingly unaffordable, Walker, once a Republican and now an independent, said in a statement. This legislation will provide relief from substantial premium increases for 23,000 Alaskans who are insured through the private marketplace as we continue work to bring more insurers into Alaska. Walkers office said that three insurers have left Alaska since 2015, and that the one remaining insurer, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield, would have to pull out or pass costs on to customers if the state does not offer relief. The legislation establishes a state health insurance fund to stabilize rates for all Alaskans by subsidizing costs for high-cost customers, according to Politico, which earlier reported on the move. The costs would be covered by existing funds from a tax on insurance premiums that all insurance companies pay. Had this problem not been addressed this year, it would have cost the state more than $200 million next year, Lori Wing-Heier, Division of Insurance director, said in a statement. The bill passed both chambers with almost unanimous bipartisan support, and will soon go to the governors desk for his signature. State Senate Democratic Leader Berta Gardner told FoxNews.com the bill was necessary in part due to Alaskas unique situation, which makes health care particularly expensive. Because Alaska is a very high cost area and we have a small scattered population, insurance companies are not eager to do business here, Gardner said. Costs are high and there are relatively few people. For instance there is no rheumatologist in the entire state. Gardner rejected the claim that the crisis has been caused by ObamaCare: Its been a long standing problem, well before the Affordable Care Act. State Rep. Lora Reinbold, who was the sole House Republican to vote against the bill, told Politico she objected to the legislation as failed federal policies continue to take tremendous toll on state budgets. However, Republican U.S. senators offered support for the legislation and laid the blame for the crisis at the feet of ObamaCare. Sen. Dan Sullivan told FoxNews.com in a statement that Alaska is facing a difficult predicament imposed on it by a law that has caused Alaskans to lose their doctors and has shrunk the market. Now the state is facing the difficult predicament of having to spend even more taxpayer dollars to prop up this failing system. Its outrageous, Sullivan said. This is exactly why we voted to repeal ObamaCarewhich was vetoed by the president--and why we will continue to work to undo the damage thats been done under this law. Meanwhile Sen. Lisa Murkowski called the legislation necessary to prevent Alaskans losing coverage. Senator Murkowski commends the Alaska State Legislature for working to address the problems in Alaska created by the Affordable Care Act and doing what is necessary to avoid thousands of Alaskans losing their coverage, a spokeswoman for Murkowski told FoxNews.com. FoxNews.com's Adam Shaw contributed to this report. An amendment to the defense bill that would preserve the U.S. refugee program for endangered Afghan military interpreters was blocked from a vote in the Senate late last week, prompting outrage from advocacy groups and military veterans. The amendment to the defense authorization bill would authorize the State Department to issue up to 4,000 additional U.S. visas through the Special Immigrant Visa program. The program is designed to provide visas to Afghans who worked with the United States in Afghanistan and are now under threat from the Taliban. The State Department has said it is on track to run out of its current allotment of visas, potentially stranding thousands of Afghan interpreters and their families who are still on the waiting list. After a dispute over which proposed amendments should be voted on, the Senate moved on Friday morning to end debate and proceed to vote on the defense authorization bill without added inclusions. Supporters of the Afghan visa amendment said the final hope to get it passed is on Monday, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will attempt to introduce some of the hundreds of amendments that were blocked this week. It would likely need to pass by unanimous consent. But if that fails, they said it would be the first time in four years that Congress has failed to issue new visas for the program. In prior years, Congress has provided for additional visas through the National Defense Authorization Act. Two Republicans, Sen. Chuck Grassley and Sen. Jeff Sessions, opposed the inclusion of additional visas in the current bill. Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon. While investigators try to piece together what led the Orlando gunman to carry out an unspeakable act of terror, the attack is upending the 2016 campaign debate as the two presumptive rivals go toe-to-toe on terror with two very different messages. In back-to-back speeches Monday, Donald Trump doubled down on his call for a Muslim immigration ban while decrying what he described as a "deadly ignorance" that is hurting the country -- and Hillary Clinton renewed her call for an assault-weapons ban while vowing to stop "lone wolf" terrorists. Trump, speaking in New Hampshire, focused largely on his plans for an immigration crackdown. Trump said he wants to "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism" against the U.S. or its allies. We have no choice, Trump said of the proposed ban. It wasn't immediately clear whether Trump was revising his long-standing proposal to temporarily bar foreign Muslims entering the U.S., which he also defended, or referring to the same plan. The New York businessman also called the Orlando shooting an assault on the ability of free people to live their lives, love who they want and express their identity. It we dont get tough, and we dont get smart and fast were not going to have a country anymore there will be nothing left, Trump said. Trump, speaking at St. Anselm College, was quick to slam his Democratic rival, claiming she is in total denial and that her ultimate plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans while admitting immigrants who could pose a threat. A few hours earlier at her speech in Ohio, Clinton called for an "intelligence surge" and a ban on assault weapons as part of a multi-pronged strategy to confront homegrown terrorism. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, following the Orlando terror attack, called on Americans to fight terrorism at home with clear eyes and steady hands. She delivered a carefully calibrated message, calling for America to get tougher on terrorists while also renewing gun control proposals that have failed to gain steam in Congress. At the Cleveland campaign event, she drew cheers from the crowd after calling for a ban on assault weapons. Weapons of war have no place on our streets, Clinton said. Clinton also said if she were in the White House, a top priority would be identifying and stopping lone wolves, like the Orlando shooter. She also called for increased efforts to remove Islamic State messages from the Internet and said peace-loving Muslims are in the best position to help fight radicalization. Trumps speech was originally supposed to focus on his case against the Clintons but Trump changed his focus following the attack in Orlando that left 49 people dead and dozens injured. The gunman died in a shootout with police. On Monday, President Obama said investigators believe the gunman was not directed by external extremist groups, instead saying the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the Internet. He added that there is no direct evidence the shooter was part of a larger plot. Clinton warned earlier Monday against demonizing an entire religion, saying doing so would play into the hands of the Islamic State group. "We can call it radical jihadism, we can call it radical Islamism," Clinton said on CNN's "New Day." "But we also want to reach out to the vast majority of American-Muslims and Muslims around this country, this world, to help us defeat this threat, which is so evil and has got to be denounced by everyone, regardless of religion." The horrific shooting consumed the White House race just as Trump and Clinton were fully plunging into the general election. It served as a reminder to the candidates and voters alike that the next president will lead a nation facing unresolved questions about how to handle threats that can feel both foreign and all too familiar. Trump said Monday he was revoking the press credentials of the Washington Post after the newspaper published an article with a headline "Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting." "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post," Trump posted on his Facebook page. Authorities identified the killer in Orlando as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim. FBI officials said they had investigated him in 2013 and 2014 on suspicion of terrorist sympathies but could not make a case against him. Mateen opened fire at the Pulse Orlando club with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He called 911 during the attack to profess his allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist organization though it was unclear whether he had any direct contact with ISIS or was just inspired by them. The Associated Press contributed to this report. If Elizabeth Warren isnt campaigning to be Hillary Clintons running mate, shes doing an awfully good imitation. From a lacerating anti-Trump speech carried live on MSNBC and CNN, to endorsing the Democratic nominee on Rachel Maddows show, to the Friday morning meeting at Clintons home, Warren has been all but shouting that she is available. And Warren didnt deflect the question when Maddow asked if she believes she is qualified to take over as commander-in-chief: Yes, I do. Now it may be that the pundits are talking up Warren because shes a colorful figure who has a slashing style--Donald Trump is a thin-skinned money grubber and all thatand rather entertaining to cover. Keep in mind that journalists kept pressing her last year on why she wasn't running for president, and repeatedly refused to take no for an answer. But there hadnt been much veepstakes chatter in recent months because Warren had remained neutral during the primaries. Now I see the surface appeal of Clinton tapping the Massachusetts senator: Warren is a nationally known figure. Thats not unimportant, as it's hard to sell the country on a little-known politician with no experience in the searing media spotlight. Warren would be a snarling attack dog against Trump, saying mean things that the nominee cant or should not say. She might be able to bring in disaffected Bernie supporters, since her anti-Wall Street populism gets the partys left wing excited. But there are problems. Some point to the fact that Warren and Clinton barely know each other, and Elizabeth once zinged her record on a banking bill. The talk is that Hillary wants someone she is comfortable with as a governing partner. I dont know, given the history of Kennedy/Johnson, Dole/Kemp and Reagan/Bush, Id imagine they could find time to do some sisterly bonding. Doesnt sound like a dealbreaker. What about a Republican governor filling her seat? That would probably be temporary, but is still a concern for Democrats hoping to recapture the Senate. Does an all-woman ticket bring anything? Hillary would already be breaking the glass ceiling. And while a CNN poll found that 80 percent of Americans are ready for a female president, that means a fifth of the country isnt. No, the real question is whether Warren, running with a nominee wholl be 69, is ready for the top job. The essence of Clintons candidacy is that she brings ample government experience and Trump brings none. She knows the Senate, shes the former secretary of State, she was in the Situation Room when crises erupted. Doesnt picking a first-term senator undercut that argument? Wasnt that part of the problem for John McCain when he tapped Sarah Palin? Ed Rendell, Pennsylvanias former Democratic governor, told WPHT radio that while Warren is bright and passionate, she has no experience in foreign affairs and not in any way, shape or form ready to be commander-in-chief. The debate would quickly turn to Warrens views on Iran, Iraq, Syria and ISIS. Sunday's horrible terror attack by a Muslim shooter in a gay Orlando nightclub will ensure that terrorism remains high on the campaign agenda. Maybe Warren, if she indeed gets the nod, will survive the scrutiny with flying colors. But the tone is certain to be different from the effusive chatter of the veepstakes game. A new bill seeking to bust Pennsylvania ghost teachers is on the move. House Bill 2125, sponsored by state Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Allegheny, would place strict regulations on the number of teachers allowed to leave the classroom to work full-time for their unions while still drawing a public salary, benefits and school seniority. The bill cleared the House Education Committee this week on a 15-9 vote and now goes to the floor for a vote. Recent news articles have shed light on the problem of ghost teachers individuals who receive monetary compensation and benefits, including retirement benefits, from their public school employer while on leave from school employment to perform union duties, Saccone said. Currently, the Public School Code does not restrict this practice, which misdirects valuable tax dollars that should be used to provide for teachers who are actually working in the classroom to educate our children. Dozens of Pennsylvania school districts allow a number of teachers to leave the classroom each year to work full-time for unions as members of the collective bargaining team, information officers and political operatives. The practice is also known as release time or official time and is typically part of the teachers contract. Sign-up for our Pennsylvania Watchdog email list to receive the latest news and in-depth coverage. Saccones bill joins two other pieces of legislation moving through Harrisburg that would bar the practice in some capacity. Click for more from Watchdog.org The security company that employed Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen also is a federal contractor for the Homeland Security and State departments -- raising more questions about how he passed background checks despite being on the FBIs radar screen and the level of security at a firm handling sensitive U.S. operations. Mateen, who killed 49 people and wounded dozens more early Sunday inside the gay nightclub Pulse, started working for G4S Secure Solutions in 2007 and until the attack was employed as an armed guard at a gated retirement community in South Florida. The U.K.-based firm has a far-reaching portfolio that goes well beyond retirement villages, however, with its U.S. arm having become of the biggest government contractors since 9/11. This includes helping secure 40 U.S. embassies worldwide and working with U.S. agents on border patrol. In a statement released Monday, the company expressed shock at the tragic attack and said they are cooperating with law enforcement. But the FBI acknowledged having interviewed the 29-year-old Mateen in 2013 and 2014 about possible terror ties, raising questions about what G4S knew and what, if any, action the company took. The company said Mateen passed company screenings -- including psychological and criminal checks -- when hired in 2007 and again in 2013. Spokeswoman Monica Lewman-Garcia said G4S in 2013 learned the FBI questioned Mateen and later closed its inquiries. "He was also subject to checks by a U.S. law enforcement agency with no findings reported to G4S," the company said. The company also states on its website: Every G4S security officer participates in a training program that far exceeds industry standards, becoming a specialist trained to both recognize and react to unique hazards of an assigned post." At least one former G4S employee, Daniel Gilroy, says he raised numerous concerns with supervisors about Mateens hateful and potentially dangerous behavior. Gilroy told Fox News that he and Mateen had worked as security guards at the same South Florida resort and that Mateen, a Muslim, used horrible words at the sight of women and blacks and was in a constant state of anger and rage. However, the company refused to take action on his complaints, and Gilroy was forced to quit last year after Mateen began sending him harassing text and phone messages, according to Florida Today. The company wouldn't do anything, Gilroy told the paper. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people." FBI Director James Comey on Monday also detailed the nature of the original complaints the bureau received back in 2013. He said co-workers were concerned about "inflammatory and contradictory" statements he had made, including claiming family connections to Al Qaeda. Mateen later admitted making the statements but said he did so out of anger because he thought his co-workers were discriminating against him. The FBI closed the preliminary investigation, before briefly looking at him one more time in 2014. G4S did not immediately respond to a request Monday by FoxNews.com asking whether Gilroy had indeed complained and if the company took any action in response. But the history of co-workers' complaints at a company that last year alone reportedly had $89.3 million in federal contracts raised more questions about Mateens continued employment and access to government information and sites. G4S became one of the U.S. governments biggest contractors after the 9/11 attacks. G4S has 623,000 employees in 110 countries, including 54,000 in North America, reports show. The companys U.S. headquarters is in Jupiter, Fla., about 150 miles southeast of Orlando, and offers a range of security services including guards and technology to several industries including retail and residential. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who for months has vowed not to seek re-election this year, indicated in a radio interview Monday that the Orlando terror attack has him re-thinking his future. Speaking with radio host Hugh Hewitt who during the interview urged Rubio to run the senator stressed that he has not thought about the attack from a political perspective and reiterated that running is not part of our plan as a family. Still, the former Republican presidential candidate said the attack is another indication of how the country is at a tipping point with all the foreign policy challenges ahead. It really gives you pause to think a little bit about, you know, your service to your country and where you can be most useful to your country, Rubio said. Pressed by Hewitt on whether hed consider mounting a Senate run, Rubio said: My family and I will be praying about all this, and well see what I need to do next with my life in regards to how I can best serve. Time is running out. The deadline to file is June 24. All along, Rubio has said hes not interested in running, citing as one reason the fact that his friend, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, is seeking his Senate seat. Rubio mentioned that consideration again on Monday. But GOP leaders for weeks have been trying to lure Rubio back into the race, worried about whether anyone in the current crop of primary candidates can hold down the seat in November for the Republicans. According to a Politico report, fellow Senate candidate Rep. David Jolly is considering whether to drop out and simply run for re-election in the House. Its unclear what hell decide, but he told Politico in a statement that if Rubio entered the Senate race, I would withdraw and support Rubio. Rubios office has not returned a request for comment regarding his interview Monday with Hewitt. The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a group of American Samoans who say the United States should grant full citizenship to people born in the U.S. territory. The justices on Monday let stand a lower court ruling that said the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship does not extend to the islands that have been a part of the country since 1900. Current law considers American Samoans to be "nationals," not full citizens like those born in Puerto Rico, Guam and other U.S. territories. Nationals are allowed to work and live anywhere in the United States, but unlike citizens, they can't vote or hold elective office. The challengers said that the law violates the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last year that birthright citizenship does not automatically apply to the nation's unincorporated political territories. The lawsuit was filed by a small group of American Samoans who did not have the support of the islands' government officials. The government of American Samoa has argued that automatic U.S. citizenship could undermine local traditions and practices, including rules that restrict land ownership to those of Samoan ancestry. The Obama administration also weighed in against the challengers, saying the issue should be decided by Congress if the elected government of American Samoa changes its position. About 56,000 people live in American Samoa. People born there who want full citizenship must leave the territory and live in a U.S. state for at least three months to apply for naturalization. Many complain that the inconvenience and expense of the process deters them from pursuing citizenship. The lawsuit's lead plaintiff, Leneuoti Tuaua, said he wanted to become a law enforcement officer in California but couldn't because he isn't a citizen. The heinous terror attack in Orlando doesnt entirely fit either presidential candidates narrative. It was inevitable that the worst mass shooting in American history, coming in the midst of the 2016 campaign, would become political fodder in a country that has suffered too many tragedies of this nature. Hillary Clinton, in her initial statements on Orlando, spoke of the need to strengthen gun control. But Omar Mateen had a Florida gun license and bought his AR-15 rifle legally, so stricter background checks or gun-show restrictions would not have prevented him from acquiring the weapon. Donald Trump, in his initial statements, referred again to his plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. But Mateen was an American citizen already living here and would not have been affected by such a ban. There is, quite obviously, no one-size-fits-all approach to combating the scourge of terrorism, especially in an era when a lone wolf like Mateen can pledge allegiance to ISIS and inflict mass casualties without the command and control of the terrorist organization. But the responses of Trump and Clinton will resonate with many voters, even if the specifics dont match what happened at the Pulse nightclub. When Trump argues that Muslim immigrants must be banned for now because federal authorities cant effectively screen them, well, Mateen was a Muslim of Afghan descent who had become radicalized. Trumps pitch is that there are many more radical Islamic extremists just like Mateen who would love to get inside this countrys borders and wreak havoc. And while he is making that case, Hillary Clinton and President Obama would not call the murder of 50 people Islamic terrorism. I have never fully understood their reluctance to do so. Trump pounced on the issue, saying the president should resign and Clinton should quit the race unless they are willing to use those words. (Clinton told the Today show that it is pointless to argue over labels, that she has referred to radical jihadists and radical Islam, but that she doesnt want to smear an entire religion because of those who pervert it for violence.) In a similar vein, when Clinton and Obama renewed their call for tighter gun controls, that will appeal to those who believe deadly weapons are too readily available in America, even if such laws would not have stopped Mateen. Some people will wonder how a guy who was under FBI investigation for possible ties to terror was able to legally purchase an assault-style rifle and a handgun. The Washington Post noted that assault-style rifles have been used in 14 public mass shootings over the last decade, half of them since last June. Bill Clinton successfully pushed for a ban on such weapons in 1994, but Congress let the ban expire in 2004, during the Bush administration. One other undeniable factor is that Mateen, reflecting radical Islams hatred of homosexuality, targeted a gay bar. Most of the gay community has been in the Democratic fold, with Clinton and Obama, among others, reversing their earlier positions and strongly backing same-sex marriage. This may matter less than it did a decade ago, though, when George W. Bush and other Republicans were supporting a ban on gay marriage. Trump drew some flak on Sunday for tweeting: Appreciate the comments for being right on radical Islamic terrorism. I dont want congrats, I want toughness and vigilance. In another tweet he said: I said this was going to happen- and it is only going to get worse. It probably would have been better if Trump had let one of his aides or surrogates make those points, as he seemed to make it about himself. Politico said the Orlando attack exposed Donald Trumps penchant for behaving reality-show small during moments that historically demand the stature of a president. But is the press holding Trump to a different standard? A New York Times story led off yesterday by saying Trump sought to capitalize on a mass shooting, and demonstrated his willingness to flout convention and engage in a style of demagogic politics rarely displayed by a presidential nominee. Okay. But the story later noted that Clinton, after initially responding with restraint, said that we need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. Is that not capitalizing on a mass shooting as well? Clinton effectively used the gun control issue against Bernie Sanders in the primaries. And Obama has openly said after Newtown and other mass shootings that he wants to seize the moment to pass tougher gun legislation. That, after all, is how the 1968 gun control law was passed, after the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Others are just interested in playing the blame game. New York's increasingly left-wing Daily News, which wants assault weapons banned, blared this insensitive headline on the cover: "THANKS, NRA." With the country still numb from the shock of so many innocent people slaughtered in Florida, there is also a weariness that sets in as each political party reprises its standard attack lines on terror, guns and immigration. But its not reasonable to expect either Trump or Clinton to refrain from addressing what has sadly become the new normal in the age of terror. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said Monday he was revoking the press credentials of the Washington Post after the newspaper published an article with a headline "Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting." "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post," Trump posted on his Facebook page. "I am no fan of President Obama, but to show you how dishonest the phony Washington Post is, they wrote, "Donald Trump suggests President Obama was involved with Orlando shooting" as their headline. Sad!" he added. In a statement, Post editor Martin Baron said, "Donald Trump's decision to revoke The Washington Post's press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press. When coverage doesn't correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished. The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along - honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. We're proud of our coverage, and we're going to keep at it." The headline on the story Monday afternoon read, "Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting." Post spokeswoman Kristine Coratti Kelly told the Associated Press the headline was changed shortly after the story posted "to more properly reflect what Trump said." She adds, "We did so on our own; the Trump campaign never contacted us about it." The Trump campaign in a statement said the newspaper covered the Republican candidate "inaccurately." The Washington Post unfortunately covers Mr. Trump very inaccurately. Today's headline, "Donald Trump Suggests President Obama Was Involved With Orlando Shooting" is a perfect example. We no longer feel compelled to work with a publication which has put its need for "clicks" above journalistic integrity," the statement read. "They have no journalistic integrity and write falsely about Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump does not mind a bad story, but it has to be honest. The fact is, The Washington Post is being used by the owners of Amazon as their political lobbyist so that they don't have to pay taxes and don't get sued for monopolistic tendencies that have led to the destruction of department stores and the retail industry," the statement continued. The Washington Post story featured comments Trump made earlier in the day on Fox News, when he made a made a vague statement about Obama interpreted by some as a reference to his sympathies. He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump told Fox News. "It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable." He later said Obama is either not tough and smart or has something else in mind. "Donald Trump seemed to repeatedly accuse President Obama on Monday of identifying with radicalized Muslims who have carried out terrorist attacks in the United States and being complicit in the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando over the weekend, the worst the country has ever seen," The Post wrote. The Washington Post said that Trump's spokeswoman and campaign manager have yet to respond to a request for a fuller explanation of Trump's comments about the president. Though the gunman, Omar Mateen, was a U.S. citizen, Trump said Monday that the U.S. is allowing others into the country who are no different than this maniac. This could be the all-time great Trojan horse, Trump said, of those being admitted from Syria and other nations. Obama, speaking in the Oval Office after getting briefed on the investigation by top officials, said the U.S. has to go after terror groups and hit them hard. He also said the U.S. needs to make it harder for those who wish to inflict harm to obtain weapons. Meanwhile, Obama said while the investigation is at the preliminary stages, We see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The terror massacre at a packed Orlando nightclub reverberated across the presidential campaign trail Sunday, as the candidates condemned the deadliest shooting in U.S. history -- and Donald Trump ripped President Obama and Hillary Clinton for avoiding the term radical Islam in doing so. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee went so far as to say Obama should step down for not using the term and Clinton should get out of this race if she wont either. If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore, Trump said in a statement. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen -- and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We can't afford to be politically correct anymore. Obama, speaking from the White House on Sunday, said the nightclub massacre in which 50 people were killed and at least 53 others were wounded is being investigated as an act of terror, though did not say whether it was tied to radical Islam. The gunman, Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, was heard shouting "Allahu Akbar" while engaging officers, law enforcement sources told Fox News. Mateen also called 911 during the shooting to pledge allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Fox News has learned. ISIS reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack, though its unclear if the shooting was actually directed by the group or only inspired by it. All these details, surrounding the deadliest terror attack on the U.S. homeland since 9/11, have fueled tensions in the presidential race at an already-combustible time. Trump has faced intense criticism from members of both parties for his calls to temporarily ban Muslim immigration to the U.S. In the wake of the Orlando attack, Trump again defended his proposals, saying on Twitter: What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough. Trump originally was planning to deliver a speech Monday in Manchester, N.H., focused on the Clintons. In the wake of the Orlando attack, it will also focus on security and immigration issues, Fox News is told. Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders also condemned the attack, while speaking to reporters outside his home in Burlington, Vt. Earlier Sunday, Clinton released a statement unequivocally calling the massacre an act of terror. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad. That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses at home. It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values, she said. She also called it an act of hate -- a term Obama also used -- since the attacker targeted an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month. And she said the country needs to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. Clinton did not reference radical Islam. Meanwhile, a joint campaign rally with Clinton and Obama set for Wednesday in Green Bay, Wis., has been postponed in light of the attack, according to a White House official. Obama also ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff as a mark of respect for the victims of the act of hatred and terror perpetrated on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Orlando, Florida. Florida GOP Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency, which will make additional resources available for local authorities. He offered thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the attack, particularly the victims and their families, and praised the efforts of the first-responders. Donald Trump renewed warnings about Middle Eastern refugees and other immigrants coming to America on the heels of Sundays terror massacre in Orlando, while claiming thousands already are in the country who like the shooter are sick with hate. Though the gunman, Omar Mateen, was a U.S. citizen, Trump told Fox News on Monday that the U.S. is allowing others into the country who are no different than this maniac. This could be the all-time great Trojan horse, Trump said, of those being admitted from Syria and other nations. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has only amplified his warnings about immigration and the terror threat since Sundays massacre left 49 dead and even more wounded. At the same time, hes aggressively criticized both President Obama and likely general election rival Hillary Clinton for not initially using the term radical Islam in describing the shooters religious background. She wont even utter the words, Trump said Monday. On Sunday, Trump had said Obama should step down for not using the term and Clinton should get out of this race if she wont either. In remarks that were getting widespread attention Monday, Trump also made a vague statement about Obama interpreted by some as a reference to his sympathies. He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump said. "It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable." He later said Obama is either not tough and smart or has something else in mind. Obama, speaking in the Oval Office after getting briefed on the investigation by top officials, said the U.S. has to go after terror groups and hit them hard. He also said the U.S. needs to make it harder for those who wish to inflict harm to obtain weapons. Meanwhile, Obama said while the investigation is at the preliminary stages, We see no clear evidence that he was directed externally. Rather, Obama said it appears the gunman was inspired by extremist information on the Internet. Speaking Monday on NBCs Today, Clinton directly rejected Trump's criticism on their approach to terror attacks. I think Trump, as usual, is obsessed with name-calling and from my perspective, it matters what we do, not what we say," she said. "It matters that we got bin Laden, not what name we called him. But if he is somehow suggesting I don't call this for what it is, he hasn't been listening. Clinton called the attack an act of terror on Sunday, as did Obama. But unlike Obama, who did not use the term "radical Islam," Clinton elaborated on Monday and addressed some of the religious motivations. I have clearly said that we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people, she said. We have to stop them and we will. We have to defeat radical jihadist terrorism, and we will. And to me, radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I'm happy to say either, but that's not the point. I'm not going to demonize and demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. Clinton, who spoke as well on CBS This Morning, also said she would push for laws that prevent people on America's no-fly list from buying weapons. She also urged tougher restrictions on "weapons of war," like the assault-style rifles used in Orlando and San Bernardino, Calif. while saying she would set up a federal team dedicated exclusively to addressing "lone wolf" attacks. Trump later claimed credit on Twitter for Clinton referring to radical Islam. The attack has only fueled tensions in the 2016 race, as both Trump and Clinton launch into a general election battle after having effectively clinched their respective nominations. Trump has tried to cast Clinton as weak on security issues, while the presumptive Democratic nominee has described Trump as unfit to lead. Clinton will attend a campaign event in Ohio later Monday, while Trump is scrapping plans to make an anti-Clinton speech and instead delivering an address focused on terrorism, security and immigration Monday afternoon in New Hampshire. Trump told Fox News hell be calling for strength, and calling for intelligence improvements in his speech. Further, of those in America sick with hate, Trump said they need to be reported. Nobodys reporting these people, he said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The ship was fashioned after the Titanic, and met an end no less tragic, but the tale of the Cap Arconaand the thousands of concentration-camp prisoners who lost their lives aboard itis one you've likely never heard. The "Nazi Titanic" gets its due in a new book of the same name by Robert P. Watson, a historian and professor at Florida's Lynn University. The German luxury liner was built in 1927 and traversed the Atlantic 91 times, reports the Columbus Dispatch in a review of the book. During WWII, it played the role of the Titanic in a Nazi propaganda film made to depict the English in a bad light (that ended up being a bust), but it otherwise sat at port in the Baltic Sea until the war's final month, when Adolf Hitler had the ship packed mostly with concentration-camp prisoners. Records unearthed by Watson indicated Hitler intended to have a U-boat destroy the ship. Citing "crossed signals" and fears the Nazi leaders would employ the boats in the harbor to flee to Norway, the Deseret News reports the British Royal Air Force bombed the Cap Arcona four days before all German forces surrendered, killing nearly all aboard (the Jerusalem Post reports it was carrying at least 4,500 prisoners, of which roughly 350 survived, to the Titanic's 1,517 dead). Though victims' remains washed ashore for more than 25 years, the incident was essentially kept "secret for seven decades," per Watson, who first learned of the ship when he came across a letter from a WWII solider that made mention of it. Incredibly, the Sun Sentinel reports he reached out to scholars at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and even they were unaware of the ship. Watson pieced together the story after being granted access to British archives, which the Palm Beach Post reports were to remain sealed for 100 years. (Thousands of items that vanished from Auschwitz have been found.) This article originally appeared on Newser: Professor Tells the Secret Story of the 'Nazi Titanic' NASAs Juno spacecraft will enter into orbit around Jupiter on the Fourth of July, completing a journey of over 1.7 billion miles that began on August 5, 2011 when it blasted off from Earth on an Atlas V rocket. After the spacecraft slows down from a breakneck speed of over 40 miles per second and enters a polar orbit, it will study Jupiter, helping scientists better understand whats inside the planet and learn more about the gas giant's red spot, which is three times the diameter of Earth. The mission is focused on, among other goals, understanding the planets origin and evolution, NASA says. Related: How the Air Force's 'space fence' will keep American satellites safe We're currently closing the distance between us and Jupiter at about four miles per second," Scott Bolton, the principal investigator for Juno and the director of the space sciences department at Southwest Research Institute in Texas, said in a statement on June 9. "But Jupiter's gravity is tugging at us harder every day and by the time we arrive we'll be accelerated to 10 times that speed -- more than 40 miles per second (nearly 70 kilometers per second) -- by the time our rocket engine puts on the brakes to get us into orbit," Bolton said. Related: Bill Nye: Internet is helping launch the next generation of scientists Scientist Bill Nye has starred in a series of short light-hearted videos about the mission to Jupiter, discussing aspects of the journey like how the craft slingshot around the Earth in 2013, how it will study the red spot, the planets core (if it has one), and how it is powered. The spacecraft will execute a 35-minute burn of its engines on Independence Day to slow down and begin its study of Jupiter in what NASA described as the harshest radiation environment known. Follow Rob Verger on Twitter: @robverger Apple CEO Tim Cook condemned Sundays Orlando nightclub shooting as senseless and unconscionable during his keynote at Apples Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in San Francisco Monday. It was a senseless, unconscionable act of terrorism, said Cook, during his opening remarks at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. The Apple chief offered the companys deepest sympathy to anyone affected by the horrific mass shooting. The Apple community is made up of people from around the world, from all different backgrounds and points of view, said Cook, before asking the audience to rise for a moment of silence for the victims and their loved ones. Related: Software and services on deck at Apple's WWDC event Terrorist Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people in Orlando gay nightclub Pulse early Sunday before he was killed by law enforcement. The Orlando shooting continues to trend heavily on social media with #OrlandoUnited one of the top trending U.S. topics on Twitter. Facebook activated its Safety Check service for the first time in the U.S. after Sunday mornings deadly shooting. Related: Facebook activates Safety Check service after Orlando nightclub shooting ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack Sunday afternoon via its Amaq news agency, according to Reuters. Designed for times of disaster or crisis, Safety Check lets users in a specific area notify friends and family that they are safe. Users can also check on others in the affected area and mark friends as safe. Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers Apples Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) kicks off in San Francisco Monday with the tech giant expected to unveil a host of enhancements to its software and services. The Cupertino, Calif.-based firm made its last major hardware launch in March when it unveiled the new iPhone SE and 9.7-inch iPad Pro. Experts think that Apple is unlikely to make any big device announcements at WWDC with Apple typically using the annual event to update its software efforts. We expect Apple to take its digital matrix to the next level with software updates, including iOS 10, OS X 10.12 (or macOS), watch OS 3 and tvOS 10, combined with potential framework updates around HomeKit, HealthKit, CarPlay and more, explained Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White, in a recent note. Related: Apple unveils new iPhone SE and 9.7-inch iPad Pro Digital Trends reports that Siri may get improved natural language recognition technology with iOS 10, and there are rumors of announcements around the services support for third-party apps. Apple has acquired a variety of companies with expertise in artificial intelligence recently, and among them is VocalIQ, which specializes in conversational voice interactions, explained Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research, in a recent blog post. I would expect significant improvements in natural language processing including multi-step conversations to be announced at WWDC, which should move Apple forward in a big way in this area. In our view, a clear focus of WWDC will be around expanding the breadth and depth of Siri that remains just a shadow of what it could be if third-party apps were able to develop around this innovation, noted Drexel Hamiltions White, in his report. Moreover, the Mac portfolio seems ripe for Siri and the early success of the Amazon Echo should accelerate Apple's creative juices around how Siri can be leveraged in the future. Related: Computex 2016 highlights Citing the Asus Zenbo personal robot that was on show at Computex recently, White says he would like to see Apple eventually introduce a Siri-enabled personal robot. There have also been rumors that Apple could launch Siri-enable smart home technology at WWDC that would compete with Amazon Echo and Google Home. Apple Music, iTunes and Apple Pay may also be in line for makeovers and enhancements. We believe there is a big opportunity to improve the aesthetics and intuitiveness of Apple Music. Same goes for iTunes, wrote White. In terms of Apple Pay, a couple of drawbacks remain, including the inability to make purchases on the web and engage in person-to-person payments but this could change at WWDC. Related: Man dressed as Apple Genius steals $16,000 in iPhones from Apple store The WWDC keynote starts at 1 p.m. ET Monday. Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment on this story from FoxNews.com. Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers A Colombian hit man who has admitted murdering around 300 people and playing a role in the killings of thousands more is now making what he calls "clean money from honest work"as a YouTube star. Jhon Jairo Velasquez, former chief enforcer for Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel, has rebranded himself "Remorseful Popeye" and racked up millions of views on a YouTube channel that mixes tales of his violent past with what he describes as a quest for forgiveness, the New York Times reports. Velasquez, 54, was released from prison in 2014 after serving 22 years, and he says starting the YouTube channel, which has more than 100,000 subscribers, was his way of reintegrating into society. Velasquez tells the Times that he wants to share his stories because he wants to have his opinion heard. "I am an activist. I am against the Venezuelan and Colombian government," he says. "I am against Donald Trump because of his hatred of Latinos." Relatives of his victims have been angered by Velasquez's rise to celebrity, despite his claim that he's trying to steer young people away from a life of crime. "It's a slap in the face for us for him to present himself now as an expert, a consultant, when he hasn't shown any remorse for what he did to us," Gonzalo Rojas tells the Guardian. His father was among 107 people killed in the cartel bombing of an Avianca flight. (Another cartel hit man lived quietly in a small town in Ohio for a decade.) This article originally appeared on Newser: Former Hit Man Has New Career on YouTube More From Newser Although it tends look to the sky, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) came back down to Earth to develop RoBattle, an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that may soon be tasked with the type of risky missions typically assigned to foot soldiers. IAI's UGV is built to be maneuverable, dynamic, and tough. Six wheels with independent suspension enable RoBattle to scale obstacles, such as rubble and small walls, to access areas that would typically be out of reach for other robots. A modular robotic kit allows the machine to be modified and adapted with remote vehicle control, navigation, and real time mapping abilities, depending on its operational needs. RoBattle can operate independently or as support unit for convoy protection, decoy, ambush, attack, intelligence, surveillance, or armed reconnaissance, according to IAI. It even dons a lightweight remote weapon station called Pitbull, which includes a range of sensors that help the robot "see" in daytime, night time, and limited visibility operations. Related from Digital Trends: The Marine Corps is developing land-borne battlefield robots with flying drone sidekicks "The RoBattle system is based on IAI's vast experience and heritage in development and manufacturing of unmanned systems including unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). With the modular 'robotic kit' methodology, designed to meet specific customer requirements, RoBattle is one of the most advanced combat, maneuvering, ground robotics in the market." said IAI's Deputy general manager of ground robotics systems, Meir Shabtai, in a statement. RoBattle is the newest in a line of UGV developed by IAI and other military organizations around the world. IAI already offers robots such as Sahar, an IED detection and routing clearing machine, and Guardium, a UGV specifically designed for border security and protection of assets. Meanwhile, inside the Warfighting Lab at Quantico, Virginia, the U.S. Marine Corps is develop battlefield UGVs that operate in teams with flying drones. Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, has given his blessing to plans for a $4 billion theme park in the country called The Magical World of Russia, which is being developed by two Los Angeles-based companies, Moschanko Investment Group and Goddard Group. The theme park, which will be built on 220 hectares of government-owned land on the border of the Kaluga and Moscow regions, was presented to Putin for his approval by the governor of the Kaluga region, Anatoly Artamonov, last week, according to the Kremlin. The project will be entirely funded by private investors, including Moschanko. The theme park has as its theme Russian folklore, culture and history, and will include hotels, a waterpark, and a number of other attractions, including a recreation of several of St. Petersburgs best-known historic buildings. Gary Goddard, founder and chairman of Goddard Group, said in a statement: Using Russian folklore, legends and history, we are actively working to make this a theme park that will reflect the culture and lore of Russia and one that will be built to a quality level equal to, or better than, any other world-class theme park today. Goddard Group also designed the $3.2 billion Studio City resort in Macau, China, which launched in October, and a yet to be completed Cirque du Soleil resort in Mexico. Plans for the Russian theme park first emerged in 2011, when it had a lower projected cost of $2.5 billion, and a different intended location. I am happy to see my long-held dream of creating a true theme park and resort for Russia finally becoming a reality, said Gene Moschkovich, the founder of Moschanko Investment Group, who heads the consortium developing and managing the project. What's the most important thing to keep in mind when booking a flight? Aside from price, and how likely the airline is to lose your luggage, leg room and general seating comfort are tops. If you're flying for more than five hours, you probably want more space to move around since deep vein thrombosis can be a huge concern. Space, however, can be hard to find as carriers try to squeeze in more and more rows to maximize passenger capacity per plane. For our purposes, room is measured by pitch, the distance from a seat to the one behind it. Seat width and seat pitch can vary widely by airplane model and route. The U.S.-based airlines on the following list have been compared based on data from sites like SeatGuru, LifeHacker, SeatExpert and AirlineQuality. JetBlue JetBlue is often ranked very high in terms of leg room space. The pitch width of its economy class Airbus A320 is 34 inches. The pitch of the latest A321 is 33 inches and the seat width is 18 inches. Most fliers note that the leg room is very comfortable. Southwest Southwest Airlines pitch is 32-33 inches on a long-haul economy flight with a Boeing 737-800. Americas largest low-cost carrier consistently boasts a 32-inch seat pitch on all seats except those on its Boeing 737-700 fleet, which offer a 31-inch seat pitch and a seat width of 17.3 inches, according to Cheapflights.com. Virgin America The pitch of the economy class Airbus A320 and A319 is 32 inches. The seat width is 19 inches. I am very impressed the by seat comfort of Virgin America. Being 6/7 the seat legroom is of importance for me. It is some of the first planes and airlines, I did not touch the front seat with my knees, one review read. More from The Active Times Best and Worst TSA Checkpoints in the U.S. The 17 Most Dangerous Airports in the World The Airlines Most Likely to Lose Your Luggage The Fittest Airports in the World Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines offers so many different types of routes and planes its hard to summarize the seat comfort in one pitch number. Most Airbus models vary between 31 and 32 inches. The different Boeing planes also have between 31 and 33 inches of leg room between seats, but some, like the Boeing 737-700, offer up to 36 in within certain rows Allegiant This American low-cost airline offers about 30 or 34 inches between seats. The seat width is 17 inches. One person wrote: I am 6'0 and sat somewhat comfortable for 5 hours from Los Angeles to Hawaii. However, the seats do not recline, so you need to learn to sleep upright. American Airlines American Airlines is another major American carrier with a lot of planes flying to hundreds of locations every day. Most aircrafts, whether Boeing or Airbus, have a pitch of 31-32 inches with a seat width between 17 and 18 inches. Check out more of the Airlines Offering Least and Most Leg Room Hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail can expect to encounter harsh-but-beautiful landscapes, extreme fatigue, andthese days, at leasttraffic. "You cant talk about the Pacific Crest Trail without mentioning the crowds," Pete Brook writes for Outside. He should know: Brook currently is trekking the 2,650-mile PCT, which runs from the Mexican border through California, Oregon, and Washington to the border with Canada. But don't take his word for it: The Pacific Crest Trail Association so far this year has issued more than 4,000 permits to people planning on tackling at least 500 miles of the trail. To put things in perspective: 300 people attempted to complete the entire PCT in 2006, according to the AP, with about 120 of those making it. In 2014, 1,000 people set off and about half completed the trail. More traffic means more stress on the land, more improperly disposed of poop, and more inexperienced hikers requiring rescue. So what's with the increase in traffic over the past few years? You can thank Cheryl Strayed and her enormously popular memoir-turned-major-motion-picture Wild. After the book came out in 2012, there was a small increase in interest in the trail, the PCTA's Jack Haskel told the AP in 2015. More from Newser But after the movie, starring Reese Witherspoon, was released in 2014, interest in the PCT exploded. "Millions are hearing about it now and are being inspired," Haskel said. Strayed, more or less unprepared for the journey, hiked 1,100 miles of the trail as a form of therapy as she grappled with personal demons. "However for others that follow her strategy of deliberate ineptitude, things might not turn out so well," writes DontHikeLikeWild.org. "Our advice to would-be hikers: Grow a spine first. Then get out there and hike the PCT." (This female hiker is the "biggest badass you've never heard of.") This article originally appeared on Newser: The Pacific Crest Trail Is Insanely Crowded EDITOR'S NOTE: Orlando's mayor on Monday revised the death toll in the nightclub shooting to 49, from 50. The 50th body was identified as gunman Omar Mateen. As Omar Mateen swept the interior of Pulse nightclub in Orlando with gunfire, 30-year-old Eddie Justice sought shelter in a bathroom. Somehow, amid the chaos, he was able to text his mother, Mina. "Mommy I love you. In club they shooting," one message read. About 30 minutes later, he texted: "He's coming. I'm gonna die." "Still here in bathroom," he wrote at 2:46 a.m. "He has us. They [police] need to come get us." Early Monday, Justice was confirmed to be among the 50 people killed in the worst mass shooting in modern American history, as city officials began releasing the names and ages of victims whose next of kin had been notified. As of early Monday, 21 of the victims' identities, including that of Justice, had been posed on a city website. The other 20 confirmed victims are: -- Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 -- Stanley Almodovar III, 23 -- Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 -- Juan Ramon Guerroro, 22 -- Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 -- Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 -- Luis S. Vielma, 22 -- Kimberly Morris, 37 --Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 --Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 --Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 --Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25 --Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 --Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50 --Amanda Alvear, 25 years old --Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old --Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old --Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old --Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35 years old --Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25 years old Sotomayor, 34, was a caring, energetic man known for wearing a silly top hat on cruises, David Sotomayor, who identified himself as the victim's cousin, told the Associated Press. David Sotomayor, who lives in Chicago, told the AP on Sunday that Edward worked for a company that held gay cruises and often traveled to promote the company's events. The two discovered they were related after meeting at Orlando's annual Gay Days festival around a decade ago. They texted regularly and kept in touch, last seeing each other earlier this year at a filming of the television reality show "RuPaul's Drag Race," David Sotomayor said. "You never think that's going to be the last time you speak to him," David Sotomayor told the AP. "It's just heartbreaking to know it just can happen anytime." Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, had told his cousin Robert Guerrero, that he was gay about two years ago but he was worried about how the rest of his family would react so he did not tell them until just before the beginning of this year. And when he did? "They were very accepting," said Guerrero, 19. "As long as he was happy, they were OK with it." On Sunday morning, after learning that so many people had died at the nightclub that his cousin had gone to once in a while, Guerrero started to become concerned. Later in the day, his fears were realized when the family learned that Guerrero was identified as one of the victims. Robert Guerrero said his cousin worked as a telemarketer and in recent months he started attending college at the University of Central Florida. Guerrero said his cousin didn't quite know what he wanted to study, but he was happy to be in school. And he was happy in a relationship with a person his relatives came to regard as a member of the family, Guerrero said. "He was always this amazing person (and) he was like a big brother to me," he said of his cousin. "He was never the type to go out to parties, would rather stay home and care for his niece and nephew." Stanley Almodovar III's mother had prepared a tomato-and-cheese dip for him to eat when he came home from his night out. Instead, Rosalie Ramos was awakened by a call at 2 a.m. Sunday telling her something had happened. Ramos told the Orlando Sentinel her son, a 23-year-old pharmacy technician, posted a Snapchat video of himself singing and laughing on his way to Pulse nightclub. "I wish I had that (video) to remember him forever," she told the newspaper. A friend, Hazel Ramirez, told the Washington Post she also saw a video from Almodovar on Snapchat and learned Sunday afternoon what had happened. Ramirez described Almodovar as "kind, but sassy," and someone who was comfortable with his own sexual identity. "He was so proud of who he was," she told the Post. "He would do his makeup better than anyone else. It was so easy to be myself with him. Kimberly Morris had taken a job as a bouncer at Pulse after moving to Orlando some months ago. "She was so excited," ex-girlfriend Starr Shelton told the Sentinel. "She'd just started working there and told me how she was thrilled to get more involved in the LGBT community there," Shelton said. "I can't think of a time when I did not see a smile on her face," friend Narvell Benning told the Sentinel. "I'm so thankful of the good memories I have of her. This is just unreal." Luis Vielma worked at Universal Studios' Wizarding World of Harry Potter. High school friend Eddi Anderson told the Tampa Bay Times that Vielma loved his job and was known for his pleasant attitude and warm demeanor. "He was always a friend you could call," co-worker Josh Boesch told the Sentinel. "He was always open and available." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Click for more from The Orlando Sentinel. A federal appeals court on Monday threw out $1.8 million in damages awarded to former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, who said he was defamed by the late author Chris Kyle in the bestselling book "American Sniper." The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also sent a portion of the case -- Ventura's defamation claim -- back to the district court for a new trial, saying Ventura's attorneys made improper remarks and the trial court "clearly abused its discretion in denying a new trial." Messages left with Ventura, his publicist and his attorney were not immediately returned Monday. An attorney for Kyle's estate had no comment and referred questions to publisher HarperCollins, which said it was reviewing the opinion and had no comment at this time. Kyle is a former SEAL regarded as the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history with 160 confirmed kills. In his book "American Sniper," he wrote a subchapter called "Punching Out Scruff Face" in which he describes decking Ventura at a California bar in 2006 after Ventura made offensive comments about SEALs, including that the SEALs "deserve to lose a few" in Iraq. Ventura, a former Underwater Demolition Teams/SEAL member and ex-pro wrestler, sued. He testified at trial that he never made the statements and that the confrontation never happened. He also said the book ruined his reputation in the tight-knit SEAL community. Kyle, who was killed on a shooting range in 2013 by a troubled fellow veteran, gave sworn videotaped testimony before his death that his story was true. The case proceeded against his estate. In 2014, a jury awarded Ventura $500,000 for defamation and $1.3 million for unjust enrichment. Kyle's widow, Taya Kyle, appealed, asking that the verdict be thrown out or that a new trial be ordered on First Amendment and other grounds. Ventura's lawyers, however, argued that jury got the verdict right. In Monday's ruling, a three-judge appellate panel reversed the unjust-enrichment award, saying the theory of unjust-enrichment "enjoys no legal support under Minnesota law" and fails as a matter of law. The majority of the judges also vacated the defamation award and sent that portion of the case back to court for a new trial. The majority found that Ventura's attorneys improperly let the jury hear that publisher HarperCollins had an insurance policy to cover a defamation award and attorney fees. The majority said those comments prevented Kyle's estate from receiving a fair trial and that Ventura's attorneys deliberately referenced a "deep-pocket insurer" to try to influence the jury and enhance damages. "From our review, these unsupported, improper, and prejudicial statements were not heat of the moment argument, but were strategic and calculated," the judges wrote. The judges also wrote: "Ventura's counsel's closing remarks, in combination with the improper cross-examination of two witnesses about Kyle's insurance coverage, prevented Kyle from receiving a fair trial." Judge Lavenski Smith dissented, saying Ventura's attorneys mentioned insurance coverage only after Taya Kyle testified she'd be responsible for damages. He noted that Ventura's attorneys argued Taya Kyle should not be allowed to "plead poverty if an insurance company is going to pick up the tab." Smith said any error in allowing Ventura's counsel to ask about insurance was harmless and non-prejudicial. He also found that the $500,000 award for defamation was not excessive. The hit movie based on Kyle's book did not depict the alleged incident. In a letter to the judge released Friday, the mother of former Stanford swimmer and convicted rapist Brock Turner pleaded against prison time for her son, describing it as a "death sentence." Carleen Turner also wrote, "Look at him. He wont survive it. He will be damaged forever and I fear he would be a major target. Stanford boy, college kid, college athlete -- all the publicity." Judge Aaron Persky ultimately sentenced Brock Turner to six months in jail and ordered him to register as a sex offender for life. However, the decision sparked outrage, with critics claiming the sentence was much too light. A petition to remove the judge from the bench received more than a million signatures. Brock Turner, 20, of Oakwood, Ohio, is scheduled to be released from Santa Clara County jail in September, after completing three months of his sentence due to good behavior. The victim's emotional statement to the court about how the assault devastated her life spread quickly online, attracting national attention to the case. In Carleen Turner's letter, which she submitted before her son's sentencing, she also wrote this his "dreams have been shattered." The mom wrote that she and her husband, a "working middle-class couple with Midwestern values," had downsized their home as her other children racked up student loan debt. Donald Trump has had some rough spots in his campaign. He damaged his credibility early on as a candidate by making a string of confusing and ill-advised statements about punishing women who have an abortion and expressing scant concern about nuclear proliferation. His campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, had been dogged by charges that he assaulted a Breitbart reporter. Even worse was the shellacking Trump took in the Wisconsin primary, losing by a shocking double-digit margin. Reports had said that with the Make America Great Again campaign was in evident disarray, Trumps team of advisors were working on a reboot. As the presumptive Republican nominee, there a bright spot in this story. The reboot. After years of studying collaboration at the Wharton School of Business, we concluded that the best performing teams do it all the time. As situations change, they change. In other words, they reboot. We have no special insight into Trumps nomination, but as teamwork experts, we do feel the candidate deserves credit on this key point. Related: 5 Marketing Lessons Learned From Donald Trump Lets look a little more closely at what the man who wrote the book on deal-making can teach us about the art of teamwork -- and especially the reboot. Trump launched his campaign with the clear goal of broadcasting his message directly to voters. He all but ignored the traditional retail activities such as meet-and-greets at churches and state fairs, rubber chicken dinners, and gatherings with local politicians. Delivering taunts, insults, and over-the-top promises at debates and large rallies generated what many observers have claimed is over a billion dollars of free PR. His new convention manager, Paul Manafort, said the campaign model was predicated on a historic approach to communicating with the public. But then, as the gaffes mounted, this shoot-from-the-hip approach stopped delivering easy victories by late March. What to do? Thats right: time to reboot, and redirect energies. Which Trump did -- and fast. Because, even with an impending nomination, there are still obstacles ahead. Trump brought in Manafort, who has his own team of like-minded aides who will also join the campaign. Lewandowski has hired specialists who worked with Ron Paul and know how to win over delegates, one tough-talk conversation at a time. Related: Donald Trump Has Mastered These 5 Psychological Tactics to Get Ahead Desperation moves? Recent media coverage might lead you to that conclusion. We see a different perspective. The Trump campaign is like a team of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who raised money, launched a venture, recognized quickly that their business model was failing, and -- to use a popular high-tech term -- pivoted. Successful teams at Facebook, Slack, Pinterest and many other companies had to pivot several times before they became winners. This is not easy to do for a startup or campaign team and it often produces conflicts. Not surprisingly, Trumps meetings with his staff have been reported as highly contentious. So, how to have a successful reboot? When we advise executives about managing their teams, we emphasize a few guidelines illustrated vividly by Trumps latest public moves. Always work toward a goal but avoid becoming too attached to it, because situations change and you might have to adjust. Define and redefine roles on your team as your work evolves, and seek to put the right people in those roles. Have frank discussions -- which will often be contentious -- about what they need to do. Be clear about how you want the members of your core team and related teams to work together. As Gen. Stanley McChrystal puts it, leaders need a team of teams to run an organization. Above all, remember that it is really hard work to align and re-align a group of people collaborating on achieving a common purpose. Related: Donald Trump's Top Speaking Tips for Entrepreneurs Because managing a successful pivot is such hard work, most teams fail to deliver hoped-for results. Yet at the moment, we think Trump's campaign is increasing its chances of officially clinching the victory soon by rebooting. You might even consider doing it on your own team, if recent performance has been disappointing. Of course, in politics as in business, despite the promises of overconfident leaders, there are no simple solutions and no guarantees. But by following a few guidelines, you can give your team the best shot at achieving what Trump himself might call yuge" success. Orlando police punched holes in the side of a nightclub after hours of fruitless negotiations with the ISIS-linked terrorist who killed 49 people inside, freeing dozens of trapped clubgoers and luring the killer outside, authorities said Monday as a more detailed picture of the deadliest terror attack on American soil since 9/11 came into focus. Omar Mateen was cool and calm as he killed 49 people and then took hostages in a bathroom at the gay nightclub Pulse, later pledging allegiance to the Islamic State terror group during a 911 call, officials said. The death toll had been announced as 50 on Sunday, though authorities clarified Monday that that figure included the shooter. Investigators said 48 of the 49 victims had been identified, 24 next-of-kin had been notified and crews had finally removed the scores of dead from the bloody scene. Mateen, armed with a handgun and long gun, began his deadly spree around 2 a.m., engaging in a gun battle with a uniformed off-duty officer working security at the clubs entrance before he started shooting club patrons, wounding 53 in addition to the dozens killed, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said. Additional officers quickly responded, forcing Mateen to retreat into a bathroom with about four or five hostages while authorities rescued dozens of injured and non-injured from the dance floor and lounge and bar area, Mina said. In the bathroom for about three hours, Mateen called 911 to pledge his allegiance to ISIS and engaged in unproductive negotiations with police. Mateen claimed he had a bomb vest and explosives, Mina said, though authorities have not said either of those supposed ordinances was ever found. During this time he also expressed solidarity with the Boston Marathon bombers and called those terrorists his "homeboys," officials said. Boston authorities have not found a credible link between Mateen and the Boston bombers. He was cool and calm when he was making those phone calls to us, Mina said. Negotiations were mostly one-sided as police tried to resolve the assault without further loss of life. He really wasnt asking for a whole lot and we were doing most of the asking, Mina said. There were no shots fired during the time Mateen was in the bathroom, Mina said. However, at least one of the hostages, who had been texting his mother, was later discovered among the dead. Authorities came to believe further loss of life was imminent around 5 a.m., prompting a rescue operation that involved an explosive breach of the bathroom wall. But the explosion did not penetrate the wall completely, so an armored SWAT vehicle known as a BearCat was used to puncture a three-foot wide hole in the wall, about two feet off the ground, Mina said. Mateen came through that hole in the wall with guns in hand and began firing at officers, who shot and killed him. Mina was asked if any of the dead or wounded may have been killed by friendly fire during the final chaotic gun battle. [Officers] backdrop was a concrete wall and they were being fired upon, Mina said. But thats all part of the investigation. Mateen had a third weapon in his car, though ATF officials did not say what it was and were still working on tracing it. The other weapons used in the attack were purchased legally by Mateen during the last week, authorities said Sunday. Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he asked President Obama to declare a state of emergency for Florida early Monday morning. Scott had declared a state of emergency for Orange County on Sunday. The FBI said it had already processed 100 leads and was working to preserve forensic evidence at Pulse with a shooting reconstruction team. U.S. Attorney Lee Bentley said he did not know if anyone else would be charged in connection with the incident, but said there was no reason to believe anyone connected to the crime is placing the public in imminent danger at this time. Florida Attorney General Pam Biondi said 14 victims advocates had been mobilized and compensation counselors were available to families who may not be able to afford funeral expenses. EDITOR'S NOTE: Orlando's mayor on Monday revised the death toll in the nightclub shooting to 49, from 50. The 50th body was identified as gunman Omar Mateen. The gunman who killed at least 50 people at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday was described by a former colleague as an "unhinged and unstable" person who repeatedly made racist, misogynist and homophobic remarks. Daniel Gilroy, a former police officer, worked as a security officer with G4S Security at the PGA Village complex in Port St. Lucie. Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen worked the shift right after Gilroy at the complex's south gate. Gilroy described Mateen as a devout Muslim who brought a prayer mat to work and prayed several times a day. "There was never a moment where he didn't have anger and rage," Gilroy told "The Kelly File". "And he was always loud and cursing. And anytime a female or a black person came by, he would use horrible words." On one occasion, Gilroy said, Mateen told him, "I would just like to kill all those [n-words]" after a conversation between Mateen and a black man. "A few times he mentioned homosexuals and Jewish people," Gilroy said, "but we didn't deal with them quite as often, so it was mostly women and blacks, because those were the people in front of us." Gilroy told Florida Today that he complained to his superiors several times about Mateen, but they refused to take action because, Gilroy claimed, Mateen was Muslim. Gilroy said he quit G4S in 2015 after Mateen began sending him dozens of harassing text and phone messages per day. "Everything he said was toxic," Gilroy told the paper, "and the company wouldn't do anything. This guy was unhinged and unstable. He talked of killing people." PGA Village resident Eleanora Dori, however, described Mateen to Florida Today as "very polite" and "always a gentleman." "You would never ever think that he would have done anything like this," she told the paper. "Scary, scary. Very scary." In a statement late Sunday, G4S said Mateen had worked for the company since 2007 and had passed a company screening and background check twice, once when he was hired and again in 2013. "In 2013, we learned that Mateen had been questioned by the FBI but that the inquiries were subsequently closed," the statement read in part. "We were not made aware of any alleged connections between Mateen and terrorist activities, and were unaware of any further FBI investigations." Meanwhile, it emerged late Sunday that Mateen had sent a Facebook friend request to the owner of another gay club last week, raising the possibility that he may have considered targeting other LGBT nightspots in the area. Micah Bass, the owner of the M Hotel and the Revere nightclub, told the East Orlando Post that Mateen sent him the friend request late last week. Bass told The New York Times that he recognized Mateen's picture after he had been identified as the shooter at the Pulse nightclub early Sunday. "I saw the picture and said That guy tried to friend me," Bass said. Bass said he deleted Mateen's friend request after noticing that his friends had Arabic writing on their Facebook pages. Bass said that because there are not many Arabic speakers in the gay subculture, he believed the friend request to have been a mistake. Bass and his business partner had closed Revere Thursday, and planned to only make it available for private events. "I feel terrible," Bass told the Times. Im hoping that my staff didnt end up at Pulse." "If we had not closed for restructuring ... We very well could have been the target this weekend," Bass said. He added that he had notified the FBI about Mateen's social media activity and was examining video footage to determine whether the gunman or any possible accomplices visited the club in recent weeks. A firebrand Muslim cleric noted for sermons calling for gay people to be executed reportedly preached at an Orlando-area mosque just weeks before a homegrown terrorist gunned down at least 49 people at a gay nightclub. Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar, a British-born scholar who currently lives in Iran and travels the world to spread his hateful message, preached at the Husseini Islamic Center in the Orlando suburb of Sanford last month. The sermon -- delivered behind closed doors -- was titled, How to deal with the phenomenon of homosexuality and raised the ire of local LGBT community leaders. The sermon came just three years after Sekaleshfar had spoken at another engagement in the U.S. where he discussed his twisted idea of compassion for gay people. Death is the sentence. Theres nothing to be embarrassed about this. Death is the sentence, Sekaleshfar said during a 2013 sermon at the University of Michigan, according to Orlando-based WFTV 9. We have to have that compassion for people. With homosexuals, its the same. Out of compassion, lets get rid of them now. Officials for the Husseini Islamic Center said that they were not privy to the sheikhs prior comments. The management at the Husseini Islamic Center were unaware of these remarks when he was invited, a representative of the Orlando mosque told Fusion.net. Please understand that the singular views of guest speakers do not represent those of the Husseini Islamic Center. We want to reiterate that nothing, absolutely nothing, can justify yesterdays atrocious actions. The news site also received comment from Sekaleshfar via Facebook in which he referred to shooter Omar Mateen as an ill and perverted, animalistic entity who has abused an ideology to satiate his sad, twisted desires. I am totally against the barbaric act of violence that has happened. In no way at all can such a killing be justified Islamically, he said. When asked about his alleged comments in March in Orlando regarding gays, Sekaleshfar chalked it up to academic discussion and that he was describing a theoretical angle as to what Islam says. I never gave the call to a death sentence, he told Fusion, adding that his speech in 2013 had been taken out of context. I was explaining what Islamic law in a country whose people democratically desired Islamic law to be exercised states in relation to NOT homosexuals, but rather in relation to when the act of anal copulation is executed in such an aforementioned public. Corey Clagett was a 21-year-old U.S. Army private in the 101st Airborne Division on a mission deep inside Al Qaeda-controlled territory in Iraq when, he says, he followed an order that would change his life forever. It was May 9, 2006, and Clagetts squad had been dropped on to a tiny lake island 200 miles north of Baghdad. They were told it was a terrorist training camp, and members would later testify the rules of engagement were to kill all military-aged males in the area. When they caught three men hiding in a house, the squads leader ordered Clagett and three others to let them go and shoot them as they fled. I was just a private. I looked up to the higher officers. We thought they were following the rules, Clagett, who was released earlier this year after serving 10 years at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., told FoxNews.com. I followed their orders and thought it was the right call, but it wasnt the case. Shooting unarmed men in the back as they fled violated the most basic rules of war, and following orders is no defense if the orders were unlawful. Clagett pleaded guilty to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. It was hell. The minutes seemed like days and the hours felt like months. Corey Clagett Yet supporters of Clagett and others in the Leavenworth 10, the name given to a fluctuating group of men imprisoned at Leavenworth for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan say the men were scapegoats for their superiors, sacrificed to appease the governments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their cases have garnered online petitions and brought together odd coalitions of military veterans and young legal students who believe justice is not always served when young service members fates are sealed in military courtrooms far removed from the heat of battle. Among the more well-known cases is that of Army First Lt. Clint Lorance, who is serving a 20-year sentence for ordering his men to shoot two suspected Taliban scouts in July 2012 in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. Lorance had just taken command of the platoon after the prior leader and several others were killed days before by fighters using information provided by scouts. Another is U.S. Army Master Sgt. John Hatley -- a highly decorated, 20-year vet who served in Operation Desert Storm and did another three tours during the Iraq War -- now serving a life sentence at Leavenworth. His conviction stems from an April 2007 incident in Iraq in which he and his unit captured four enemies following a firefight. He was ordered to let them go, and maintains he did, but military prosecutors say Hatley and his men killed the suspects. No bodies were ever found. In Clagetts case, the staff sergeant he claims ordered him to shoot the Iraqis had his own criminal charges dismissed on an appeal. Raymond Girouard was eventually given back pay and an honorable discharge. Clagett, who grew up in Moncks Corner, S.C., and enlisted right out of high school, was paroled on March 31 after a grueling stint that included years of solitary confinement for mounting infractions such as receiving too much mail and having contraband items in his cell. It was hell, he told FoxNews.com. The minutes seemed like days and the hours felt like months. His case and subsequent treatment drew the attention of the University of Chicago Law Schools Combat Clemency Project, which is petitioning the Army for a full pardon of his conviction. "Corey committed a crime for which he has expressed remorse and been punished severely -- much more severely than anyone else involved in the incident, said Eamonn Hart, a law student who worked on Clagetts petition. That includes his direct superior, who ordered Corey, an impressionable young private first class, to do what he did. The legal group stressed that a pardon would not condone the shooting, but could help Clagett rebuild his life. A pardon isn't a statement that what Corey did was right, but rather, an exercise of mercy, merited by the fact that he has been punished so much more harshly than anyone else involved," Hart said. For now, Clagett has found work with United American Patriots, a North Carolina nonprofit that helps service members who face injustice. The group helped Clagett win an early release from an 18-year sentence after learning the details of his case. I got to know him well, the more I spoke with him, said United American Patriots founder Herbert Donahue, 72, a retired major who served in the U.S. Marines in Vietnam. The more I realized that this was not the type of person to be rotting away in jail. Clagett is working in Kernersville, N.C., as a United American Patriots community and veterans liaison. This job means everything to me, Clagett says. The only job opportunities were for $6 an hour and living back at home. Its a sense of purpose Clagett hasnt felt since he served in Iraq, where he insists he had a positive impact. I feel theres more to do, Clagett told FoxNews.com, adding that he wishes he could re-enlist. I was doing good. I remember one incident where we saw this family living on the side of the road in a tent. They had nothing. They were starving. We gave them all our food and all of our water. To see the happiness on their faces, it changed me. They called him Top Hat Eddie. Eddie Sotomayor was witty, sarcastic, loyal to a fault, and he loved his top hat. On Saturday night, he posted a video to Facebook of a friend who had stolen his signature accessory while partying at the nightclub, Pulse. He said, Hes trying to steal my top hat! And I just lay in bed and I laughed because he was so happy and he was so funny, said Ryan Macauley, 27, who was scrolling through his Facebook feed before turning in for the night. The next morning, Macauleys phone woke him up when breaking news alerts went off -- a mass shooting at Pulse. He jumped with shock and fell out of bed. He called Sotomayor a dozen times, but each call went to voicemail. No one else knew what had happened to him. That same morning, Jeff Prystajko, director of marketing and communications at Come Out With Pride Orlando, and his husband woke up to a huge amount of texts and phone calls from friends across the country asking if they were OK. Thats when they saw the news that a gunman had entered the nightclub, one they had been to before, and opened fire on the crowd. Over the course of the day, LGBT groups triaged the situation, sharing information and encouraging the public to donate blood. Ironically, gay men are barred by the Food & Drug Administration from donating blood unless they have not had sexual contact with another man in the last 12 months. As people waited hours in the Central Florida sun to donate blood and plasma, rumors circulated that the ban had been temporarily lifted. I had a friend who really wished he could donate today and couldn't, Prystajko said. On the positive side, pretty much every blood bank and donation point was at capacity today. Throughout the day, more information came out, with the death toll rising from 20 to 49 people and another 53 injured. Finally, on Sunday evening, the city released the names of the dead. The first was Edward Sotomayor, Jr. He was 34. In the back of my mind I just prayed that maybe his phone died, he didnt have a phone charger with him, that he was sleeping, Macauley said. As soon as that page loaded and I saw his name first, I had to walk out of work because I was just so devastated. Key West, where Macauley now lives for work, hosted its annual pride festival over the weekend. Almost every float, car, and flag paid tribute to the tragedy in Orlando. Later, hundreds walked from the end of the parade route to the beach to release a wreath of white roses into the ocean. A lot of friends say, If you need me, Im there, but he practiced what he preached. The amount of love that he just spread is unfathomable and I cant even seem to put words together because its truly remarkable, Macauley said of Sotomayor. Eddie was always the one who would remember the date that my mom died and would always go out of his way to make sure on that day we went out, we had drinks, we made it a happy day. One of those celebrations was at Pulse a few years ago. The nightclub has been open for nearly 15 years and known throughout the community as a fun, safe place to let loose and dance. From the beginning, Pulse has served as a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ community. I want to express my profound sadness and condolences to all who have lost loved ones. Please know that my grief and heart are with you, owner Barbara Poma wrote on the clubs website. On Saturday night, Omar Mateen, 29, drove up from Port St. Lucie to commit the crime -- he allegedly was angered by the sight of a gay couple kissing a few months earlier in Miami. On Facebook, Pulse staff wrote an eerie post at 2:09 a.m., Everyone get out of pulse and keep running. Across social media, people changed profile photos, shared condolences, and posted #IAmPulse. In honor of Sotomayor, friends changed their profile picture to a photo of a top hat. Equality Florida launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for the shooting victims and their families -- in 24 hours, more than 37,000 people raised more than $1.4 million. While small vigils popped up around the Orlando area Sunday night, Prystajko said area LGBT organizations are waiting to host a formal, large vigil at Lake Eola. Police requested that they host the vigil later, as they were still clearing the scene on Sunday and interviewing witnesses. It has been incredible and emotional seeing that kind of support flow in from organizations, friends, allies, and people we dont know, Prystajko said. This was the support of the community and our allies coming together to help when we were in need. One of the clubgoers who escaped the massacre in Orlando early Sunday said he gave a man the shirt off his back to stop his bleeding, and prayed with him as they rushed to a hospital. Joshua McGill says he used what he has learned in nursing school to help save a man's life. @WUFTNews pic.twitter.com/16PB3HnYGW James Fertil (@j_fertil) June 13, 2016 He later learned that his actions helped save a bartender's life. Joshua McGill said as soon as he heard the shots, he and roommates bolted from one of the exits and hopped a fence. That's when he said he spotted the wounded man "limping around," so he pulled the man behind a car. McGill described what he saw to ABC News. "I noticed he had been shot once in each arm... I took my shirt off, tied it around his first initial gunshot wound on his left arm. I took his shirt off, tied it around his other arm where the other gunshot wound was." As the two of them raced through a parking lot to find medical help, McGill said he noticed the man had suffered a third gunshot wound, this one in the back. "I just applied as much pressure as I could." On their way to the hospital, McGill finally learned the man's name: Rodney. He would find out later the man was a 27-year-old bartender at Pulse Nightclub. McGill said he assured the bartender he'd be OK, and the two of them prayed together. The bartender survived. McGill said he learned the bartender was in stable condition. McGill posted on Facebook: "Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that. Being covered in blood.. Trying to save a guys life that I don't even know regardless that I'm fine..just traumatized." Investigators said the shooter killed 49 people and wounded more than 50 others when he opened fire at the packed nightclub. Police said they killed him in a shootout hours after the siege got underway. In the hours after word broke of the massacre at the Pulse Nightclub early Sunday, relatives rushed to Orlando in a desperate search for their loved ones -- but some families said they were getting few answers more than a day later. Julissa Leal, 18, reportedly drove from Lafayette, La. to try finding her brother, Frank Hernandez, bringing her mother with her. Leal told Reuters they still knew nothing about her brother's whereabouts. "We haven't heard anything, don't know anything," Leal told the news agency. "I'm going to see him again. I'm going to see him again." But later on Monday, officials in Orlando confirmed that Hernandez had died. Leal said she found her brother's boyfriend, who said he lost Hernandez in the chaos. The boyfriend reportedly was shot but survived. Baron Serrano told The New York Times he'd been waiting for nine hours outside a hospital for any word on his brother, 37-year-old Juan Rivera. Officials in Orlando ultimately confirmed that Rivera was among the dead. Crews removed the last of the bodies from the nightclub Monday. Investigators said the gunman slaughtered at least 49 people before police killed him. Stanford University graduating students and women's rights advocates used the school's commencement ceremony to again express their anger over the six-month jail sentence given to a former student for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. A handful of students demonstrated Sunday during "Wacky Walk," a rambunctious, slow-moving stroll by graduating students dressed in zany costumes that precedes the official graduation events. One person held a sign that declared "Stanford protects rapists." Another graduate's sign was a message to the victim: "You are a warrior." Organizers said they wanted to show solidarity to the woman sexually assaulted on campus last year by former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner. "It's very important to amplify the voice of survivors," said Brianne Huntsman, a protest organizer. The victim's emotional statement to the court about how the assault devastated her life was widely shared online, attracting national attention to the case. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, whose rousing keynote speech called on Republicans to reconsider their endorsement of Donald Trump, closed his address urging sexual assaults be taken seriously. "If someone tells you they have been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them," said Burns, who is the father of four girls. "Maybe someday we'll make the survivor's eloquent statement as important as Dr. (Martin Luther) King's letter from the Birmingham jail." Turner's six-months in jail sentence, which also orders him to register as a sex offender for life, touched off an emotional national debate about leniency and campus sexual assault and sparked outrage with critics collecting thousands of signatures to demand trial Judge Aaron Persky be removed from the bench. Turner, 20, of Oakwood, Ohio, is scheduled to be released from Santa Clara County jail in September, after completing three months of his sentence due to good behavior. The women's advocacy group UltraViolet submitted more than 800,000 signatures to the Commission on Judicial Performance's San Francisco offices Friday in a symbolic effort for Persky's removal. The group also has filed a formal misconduct complaint. A small plane carrying a banner reading "Protect Survivors. Not Rapists. #PerskyMustGo" that was commissioned by the group flew over Stanford University Stadium ahead of Sunday's commencement ceremonies. "Stanford students are justifiably outraged over a so-called justice system that protects privileged white rapists over the survivors of their crimes," said Nita Chaudhary, co-founder of UltraViolet. "With one in four women sexually assaulted while in college, we need judges that take rape seriously, and that's why Judge Persky should be removed from the bench." UltraViolet said it has also paid for a full page ad in The Stanford Daily's graduation issue inviting students and alumni to take a stand against rape and that bicycles carrying billboards calling for the judge's removal will accompany student protesters. The bikes are a nod to two graduate students who were riding their bicycles when they confronted the freshman as he attacked the unconscious victim by a garbage bin. "I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story. That we are looking out for one another," the woman said in her statement to the court. Meaningful work is something everyone wants. Employees desire jobs with a purpose they can identify with; they want to know that theyre making an impact. Related: 5 Things You Can Do to Avoid 'Fake Work' But is "meaning" a workplace necessity? Shouldnt employees show up to work each day engaged and ready to go simply because the employer is paying them? The answer to that question may be "no." While, at first glance, "meaningful work" sounds like just another fluffy, feel-good ideal, it turns out that employees want and need more than a paycheck to stay engaged at work. Consider the evidence: An alarming 57 percent of North American employees surveyed by Achievers in 2015 actually said they weren't motivated by their companys mission. And, not surprisingly, 50 percent said they didn't expect to be with their employers a year later -- which may indicate that for employees a sense of purpose is critical. Indeed, meaningful work seems to have a real and recognizable impact on employees and the organization as a whole. Heres what happens when employees work with purpose: Intrinsic motivation increases. Employees are motivated by rewards and recognition. But these are extrinsic motivators and go only so far; eventually, they lose their appeal. The key to lasting motivation goes deeper -- its intrinsic. And purpose fuels intrinsic motivation. Consider the results of a study published in the Global Business Review in April, which looked at 480 IT professionals across India and found that transformational leadership, combined with meaningful work, improved commitment to the organization and employee performance. In other words, when leaders listen to employees and explain the purpose behind a task, the latter are more interested and more motivated to do well. Meaningful work is the spark that ignites intrinsic motivation -- its what leads employees to work hard because they want to, not because they have to. Related: Menial Tasks Eat Up the Majority of the Workday for Most Employees Purpose attracts more job-seekers. Recruiting top talent is getting more and more competitive. In fact, 56 percent of recruiters surveyed by Jobvite in 2015 said they couldn't find the skilled talent they needed, and 95 percent expected this problem to remain or become even more competitive in the future. On the other side of the aisle, while more employees are on the search for new opportunities, theyre more picky about whom they work for. They dont just want a job -- they want meaningful work. In a study of 7,700 millennials from 29 countries around the world, conducted by Deloitte, 56 percent of those surveyed said they had ruled out working for an organization because of its values. Whats more, 70 percent said they believed their personal values were shared by the organizations they work for. Professionals choose employers with similar values -- they choose work with a purpose. After all, a survey of job seekers spanning multiple generations published by Millennial Branding in May 2014 found meaningful work to be one of the most important characteristics of an employer during the job search. Purpose and values set employers apart from their competitors in the job market. When employers can show job-seekers that their work is meaningful in multiple ways, they attract more candidates and fill positions faster. Employees will stick around. Job-hopping is an increasingly popular trend, and an expensive one, at that. According to a report published by Gallup in May, turnover from millennials alone costs the U.S. economy $30.5 billion annually. Not to mention the headaches employers experience. Why are employees leaving? Theyre on the search for work that satisfies them, gives them more drive and challenges them. In the Gallup study, 71 percent of millennial respondents who strongly agreed that they knew what their organization stood for and what made it different from its competitors, said they planned to be with their company for at least one year. In addition, among those in the DeLoitte survey who said they would stay with their employer for more than five years, 88 percent said they felt a sense of purpose. Related: What Companies Can Expect When They Hire Gen Z In sum: Employees want to know their work means something, and if they dont, theyll look for purpose elsewhere. But meaningful work breeds loyalty. When employees feel a sense of purpose, theyre happier, love their jobs and want to stick around. For the average American, following the ideas and proposals of presidential candidates isnt always easy. The press likes to jump on the stories that garner the most attention, and focus laser-like on the hot-button issues. Think: Donald Trump's comments about banning Muslim immigrants, and the heat Hillary Clinton has taken for her use of a private email server for official communications. Related: Donald Trump Has Mastered These 5 Psychological Tactics to Get Ahead Meanwhile, the actual political positions of these candidates tend to go unnoticed by all except the most politically engaged citizens, who are meticulous in their research. Certainly, you'll hear a lot about tax reform, trade agreements, small business, minimum wage and immigration -- the hot topics as the 2016 election gains momentum. But theres a lot more to the candidates' positions, and it directly impact the lives of Americans. With less than six months to go before the election, its worth digging into all of the issues to see how Trumps or Clintons policies might impact you and your family: Trump vs. Clinton -- the economy After two elections dominated by economic issues, this one in 2016 is shaping up to be no different, as voters consistently rank the economy their top concern. While the unemployment rate has fallen since President Obama took office in 2009, and there has been consistently strong job growth, not all Democrats are eager to embrace the economic legacy of President Barak Obama. Their presumptive nominee sometimes sounds like one of them: During one economic speech, Clinton stated that the economy still isnt delivering. Clinton is standing up for workers who want equal and better pay, as she supports an increase in minimum wage across the country. And, thankfully, both candidates propose policies on tax filing and tax reform that will ease the burden on businesses and individuals, by aiming to put more money back into the pockets of working families, and hopefully allow for more job creation. The environment and science After years of cutbacks, federal spending on science is at its lowest percentage since World War II. Thats surprising, considering that climate change is one of the most partisan issues snaking its way through this presidential race. Related: 2016 Election Causing Many Small-Business Owners to Feel Down The Obama administration pledged to cut U.S. emissions by as much as 28 percent from 2005 levels, but the Republican Party is criticizing that move. The administration's pledges have also brought about lawsuits from industry groups, particularly those in coal-producing states. Trump, meanwhile, says that climate change is a "hoax" created by special interest groups that negatively affect businesses. Clinton, however, proposes a push toward clean energy to make the United States a " clean energy superpower of the 21st century." She supports the administrations pledge to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Criminal justice There hasnt been a lot of debate around criminal justice issues among Republicans and Democrats, but its a growing issue for Americans with concerns about mass shootings, crime, police violence and prison sentencing. Clinton is calling for ending the era of mass incarceration and praises the use of body cameras to record police interactions with civilians, in an effort to keep police officers accountable. Clinton also wants to expand background checks for guns and make it harder to purchase firearms online and at gun shows. Trump firmly states that protecting Americans' Second Amendment rights will make America great again, and offers no new gun regulations. On his platform website, regarding gun control, Trump states, The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon. Period. When asked about the growing concern over police brutality, Trump has stated that more power should be given to the police. Its a massive crisis, Trump said on Meet the Press. Some horrible mistakes are made. At the same time, we have to give power back to the police, because crime is rampant . . . we have to give power back to the police, because we have to have law and order. Healthcare The rising cost of healthcare, including the costs for pharmaceutical drugs, is a growing concern for Americans, and both candidates recognize that change is necessary. Clinton supports the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, but she proposes changes that would make healthcare more affordable, including a move to put a $250 monthly cap on out-of-pocket drug spending and increased competition for specialty drugs. Trump sees rising costs of pharmaceuticals as pure profiteering, and has called this phenomenon disgusting. He aims to disassemble the Affordable Care Act and create a marketplace designed to create competition among health insurance providers. He believes this would bring down the cost of insurance. He rejects the idea of forcing Americans to buy health insurance. Education Education is also not being widely discussed by the candidates, or Americans in general. According to Gallup polling, only about 4 percent of Americans consider education to be the nations most important problem. But it is a problem. Clinton is proposing a plan to make community college free. Trump and the Republican Party want to encourage colleges and universities to find ways to reduce costs by accrediting nontraditional education and making schools responsible for student loan interest. The Common Core State Standards Initiative that details what kids should know in English and math is a big topic that has divided parents and educators on its effectiveness. Clinton says she has always supported national education standards, and wants to see the same set of common standards for all public schools across the nation. Related: Hillary Clinton's Top 10 Rules for Success Trump strongly believes in limiting federal regulation and government overreach. He says that Common Core is education through Washington, D.C. I dont want that. There is "compelling reason to believe" that a second Canadian held hostage in the Philippines has been killed by his captors, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday. Trudeau said Robert Hall was likely killed, and the Canadian government was working with authorities in the Philippines to confirm his death. "It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since Sept. 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors," Trudeau said in a statement. Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder," Trudeau said. In April, Abu Sayyaf militants beheaded Canadian John Ridsdel, a former mining executive, in the southern Philippine province of Sulu after a ransom demand of 300 million pesos ($6.3 million) was not paid. Hall and Ridsdel were abducted from a marina on southern Samal Island along with a Norwegian and a Filipino, and were taken by boat to Sulu. In the Philippines, the military said it had received intelligence reports that the Abu Sayyaf had beheaded Hall after failing to receive a ransom by a new deadline of mid-afternoon on Monday. Troops were attempting to validate the reports, and the military would not confirm the killing in the absence of any clear evidence, regional military spokesman Maj. Filemon Tan said. "While we're not seeing any evidence, we can't conclude anything and we can't confirm or deny," Tan said by telephone. The United States and the Philippines have both listed the Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organization for kidnappings, beheadings and bombings. The brutal group emerged in the early 1990s as an extremist offshoot of a decades-long Muslim separatist rebellion in the country's south. Trudeau reiterated Monday that Canada would not pay any ransom. "The government of Canada will not and cannot pay ransoms for hostages to terrorist groups, as doing so would endanger the lives of more Canadians," Trudeau said. "We are more committed than ever to working with the government of the Philippines and international partners to pursue those responsible for these heinous acts and bring them to justice, however long it takes." Trudeau recently urged leaders of the world's largest industrial nations -- the Group of Seven -- to reiterate their opposition to paying ransoms. The prime minister extended his "heartfelt condolences" to Hall's family and friends on Monday. "They have suffered a terrible loss, and this is a devastating moment for them. Our thoughts are with them as they mourn this tragedy," he said. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The Islamic State group, which on Monday called the Orlando mass shooter Omar Mateen 'one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America,' has a history of targeting gays with brutal public killings. Many Muslims consider homosexuality to be sinful. In some parts of the Arab world, homosexuals have been arrested and sentenced to prison on charges linked to "debauchery." In Iran and Saudi Arabia, they have been lashed. Many other religions frown on homosexuality. The Islamic State group has reserved one of its most gruesome methods of killing for suspected gays -- throwing them to their death from building rooftops. The Associated Press is reproducing an article on IS treatment of gays that initially ran on Dec. 2 and was part of a 2015 AP series of stories, "Inside the Caliphate," which explored life under Islamic State rule. ___ Before a crowd of men on a street in the Syrian city of Palmyra, the masked Islamic State group judge read out the sentence against the two men convicted of homosexuality: They would be thrown to their deaths from the roof of the nearby Wael Hotel. He asked one of the men if he was satisfied with the sentence. Death, the judge told him, would help cleanse him of his sin. "I'd prefer it if you shoot me in the head," 32-year-old Hawas Mallah replied helplessly. The second man, 21-year-old Mohammed Salameh, pleaded for a chance to repent, promising never to have sex with a man again, according to a witness among the onlookers that sunny July morning who gave The Associated Press a rare firsthand account. "Take them and throw them off," the judge ordered. Other masked extremists tied the men's hands behind their backs and blindfolded them. They led them to the roof of the four-story hotel, according to the witness, who spoke in the Turkish city of Reyhanli on condition he be identified only by his first name, Omar, for fear of reprisals. Notorious for their gruesome methods of killing, the Islamic State group reserves one of its most brutal for suspected homosexuals. Videos it has released show masked militants dangling men over the precipices of buildings by their legs to drop them head-first or tossing them over the edge. At least 36 men in Syria and Iraq have been killed by IS militants on charges of sodomy, according to the New York-based OutRight Action International, though its Middle East and North Africa coordinator, Hossein Alizadeh, said it was not possible to confirm the sexual orientation of the victims. The fear of a horrific death among gay men under Islamic State rule is further compounded by their isolation in a deeply conservative society that largely shuns them. Many Muslims consider homosexuality to be sinful. Gay men are haunted constantly by the possibility that someone, perhaps even a relative, will betray them to the militants whether to curry favor with IS or simply out of hatred for their sexual orientation. Islamic State group fighters sometimes torture suspected homosexuals to reveal their friends' names and search their laptops and mobile phones. Even among IS opponents, gays find little sympathy. Some in the public who might be shocked by other IS atrocities say killings of gays is justified. Syrian rebel factions have killed or abused gays as well. A 26-year-old Syrian gay man told the AP that even two years after fleeing to Turkey, he wakes up shaken by nightmares that he is about to be hurled from a building. The man spoke on condition that he be identified as Daniel Halaby, the name he now uses in his activism tracking IS atrocities, and that the city in Turkey where he lives not be named for his own safety. Halaby says a childhood friend who became radicalized and joined IS betrayed him to the militants in 2013, forcing him to flee his home city of Aleppo. "He knew everything about me, such as being secular and gay. ... I am sure he is the one who gave my name to Daesh," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. At that time, in mid-2013, IS had just started to spread from neighboring Iraq into Syria. It didn't yet hold the large stretches of territory across both countries that it would capture the next year. Instead, its fighters pushed into rebel-held areas in Syria and tried to dominate other rebels, often clashing with them for control and imposing the group's strict law wherever they could. In September 2013, IS fighters besieged the Aleppo neighborhood where Halaby lived with his family, trying to wrest it from the rebel Free Syrian Army. The two sides negotiated over an end to the siege and, during the talks, IS gave the rebels a list of people they demanded be handed over to them. Halaby said he learned his name was on that list. He quickly escaped to Turkey. There, his bedroom is decorated with a flag of the Syrian opposition and a rainbow banner that covers an entire wall. His parents, who remain in Aleppo, refuse to talk to him because of his sexual orientation. When he watches videos of gays being killed, he said, "What breaks my heart most is that I feel helpless." Life for gays in Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, was always hidden, Halaby said. When the secular-led peaceful protests erupted against President Bashar Assad in 2011, he said he quickly joined, sure they would lead to a democratic government "that will respect everyone no matter their religion, ethnicity, sect or sexuality." "We were very naive," he said. "What happened was exactly the opposite." Subhi Nahas, a 28-year-old gay Syrian who now lives in San Francisco, said he fled because he feared his own father might turn him in to al-Qaida's affiliate, the Nusra Front, which also has targeted homosexuals. When his father learned he was gay, Nahas said he called him a shame to the family and beat him. Around the same time, in late 2013, Nusra fighters launched a crackdown on suspected gays in Nahas' hometown of Maaret al-Numan, detaining 25 men and announcing through mosque loudspeakers that they would cleanse the town of homosexuals. "With the problems between me and my father, I did not rule out that he might (hand me over)," he told the AP. So he fled, first to Lebanon, then Turkey. But in Turkey, he said, he began getting death threats from a former school friend who joined the Islamic State group. Fearful that he wouldn't be safe even in Turkey, he legally resettled to the United States in June. In August, Nahas and a gay Iraqi man spoke about the suffering of homosexuals in their countries at the first-ever U.N. Security Council session spotlighting violence and discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people. The stigma surrounding homosexuality makes it difficult to document IS killings and identify victims, rights groups say. Families and friends refuse to talk about victims. Gays under IS rule are terrified to speak, and most who flee abroad go into hiding. The Islamic State group's announcements are the main source of information, but the group often does not name the victims, perhaps in deference to their families, who could lash out in anger at having their names publicly linked to homosexuals. "Such a barbaric show of murder leaves LGBT individuals in constant state of fear and would deprive them of a normal life that any human being is entitled to," Alizadeh said. Widespread public hostility leaves the community even more vulnerable. "They are violating God's laws and doing something that is forbidden in Islam, so this is a legitimate punishment," said Hajji Mohammed, a resident of the IS-held northern Iraqi city of Mosul. There the group has thrown men suspected of being gay off the Insurance Building, a landmark about 10 stories high. By employing the grisly method, the Islamic State group aims to show radicals that it is unflinchingly carrying out the most extreme strains in Islam a sort of "ideological purity" the group boasts distinguishes it even from other militants. The punishment "will protect the Muslims from treading the same rotten course that the West has chosen to pursue," IS proclaimed in its online English-language magazine Dabiq. The Quran tells the story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and sodomy in Arabic is known as "liwat," based on Lot's name. Men having sex with each other should be punished, the Quran says, but it doesn't say how and it adds that they should be left alone if they repent. The death penalty instead comes from the Hadith, or accounts of the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. The accounts differ on the method of killing, and some accounts give lesser penalties in some circumstances. The Islamic State group bases its punishment on one account in which Muhammad reportedly says gays "should be thrown from tremendous height then stoned." Before IS, the method was rarely used, though other militants have targeted homosexuals for death. During their rule in Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban had their own method: The victim would be put in a pit and a stone wall would be toppled on top of them. Most moderate Muslim clerics ignore the death penalty provisions, even as they fiercely denounce homosexuality. Across the Arab world, homosexuals have been arrested and sentenced to prison on charges linked to "debauchery" and sometimes lashed in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Omar, the man who watched the killings in Palmyra, said he remains shaken. It began when IS militants blared on loudspeakers for men to gather. Then a black van pulled up outside the Wael Hotel, and Mallah and Salamah were brought out. The first to be thrown off was Mallah. He was tied to a chair so he couldn't resist, then pushed over the side. He landed on his back, broken but still moving. A fighter shot him in the head. Next was Salameh. He landed on his head and died immediately. Still, fighters stoned his body, Omar said. The bodies were then hung up in Palmyra's Freedom Square for two days, each with a placard on his chest: "He received the punishment for practicing the crime of Lot's people." The U.S. military used Apache helicopter gunships for the first time in the war against ISIS Monday in northern Iraq when one of the U.S. Army helicopters fired a hellfire missile at an ISIS armored vehicle rigged with explosives, a senior defense official told Fox News. A pair of Apaches were flying together, and one of them took the shot, the official said. There was no immediate word how many ISIS fighters were killed in the U.S. strike. The U.S. attack happened near the Iraqi city of Qayyarah, roughly 50 miles south of Mosul, Iraqs second largest city and an ISIS stronghold where the majority of ISIS fighters reside inside Iraq, according to defense officials. Mosul fell to ISIS two years ago in June 2014. In April, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter authorized Apache helicopters to support the Iraqi Army in the fight against ISIS in a sign of increasing involvement of U.S. forces against the Islamic terror group. Defense officials have said recently that the U.S. Apache gunships would be used in the Mosul operation against ISIS, but not elsewhere in the country. Biosimulation Technology Industry 2015 : Market Growth And Forecast Report By Radiant Insights,Inc RadiantInsights.com includes new market research report on "Global Biosimulation Technology Industry Size, Share And Trends Report Up To 2015 : Radiant Insights" to its huge collection of research reports. -- The Global Biosimulation Technology Industry 2016 Market Research Report is a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Biosimulation Technology industry. Browse Full Research Report With TOC on http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-biosimulation-technology-industry-2015 The report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions and classifications. The Biosimulation Technology market analysis is provided for the international markets including development trends, competitive landscape analysis, and key regions development status. Development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures are also analyzed. This report also states import/export consumption, supply and demand Figures, cost, price, revenue and gross margins. The report focuses on global major leading industry players providing information such as company profiles, product specification, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Request For Research Report Sample @ www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-biosimulation-technology-industry-2015/request-sample With 135 the report provides key statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market. Table of Contents 1 Industry Overview 1.1 Basic Information of Biosimulation Technology 1.1.1 Definition of Biosimulation Technology 1.1.2 Classifications of Biosimulation Technology 1.1.3 Applications of Biosimulation Technology 1.1.4 Characteristics of Biosimulation Technology 1.2 Development Overview of Biosimulation Technology 1.3 Enter Barriers Analysis of Biosimulation Technology Browse All Reports of This Category at: http://www.radiantinsights.com/catalog/chemicals-and-materials 2 Biosimulation Technology International and China Market Analysis 2.1 Biosimulation Technology Industry International Market Analysis 2.1.1 Biosimulation Technology International Market Development History 2.1.2 Biosimulation Technology Competitive Landscape Analysis 2.1.3 Biosimulation Technology International Main Countries Development Status 2.1.4 Biosimulation Technology International Market Development Trend 2.2 Biosimulation Technology Industry China Market Analysis 2.2.1 Biosimulation Technology China Market Development History 2.2.2 Biosimulation Technology Competitive Landscape Analysis 2.2.3 Biosimulation Technology China Main Regions Development Status 2.2.4 Biosimulation Technology China Market Development Trend 2.3 Biosimulation Technology International and China Market Comparison Analysis About Radiant Insights,Inc Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. In addition to over extensive database of reports, our experienced research coordinators also offer a host of ancillary services such as, research partnerships/ tie-ups and customized research solutions. For more information about us, please visit http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/global-biosimulation-technology-industry-2015 Contact Info: Name: Michelle Thoras Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Organization: Radiant Insights, Inc. Address: 28 2nd Street Phone: 4153490054 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/biosimulation-technology-industry-2015-market-growth-and-forecast-report-by-radiant-insightsinc/118945 Release ID: 118945 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) The Law Offices Of Kate Mesic, PA Welcomes Attorney Winnie Staats The Law Offices of Kate Mesic, PA is an experienced Jacksonville legal professional. The legal team has been expanded to include Winnie Staats as its newest professional. -- The Law Offices of Kate Mesic, PA and Kate Mesic are pleased to announce that the practice has named attorney Winnie Staats as the newest member of the legal team. Winifred "Winnie" Staats provides practice areas which include family law, domestic violence injunctions, criminal and DUI defense, and wills and trusts. Ms. Staats earned her Juris Doctor degree, with a Certificate in Business Law, from Florida Coastal School of Law in 2015; her Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati in 2007; and her Bachelor of Arts degree in Criminal Justice from Marshall University in 2002. Prior to embarking upon her legal career, Ms. Staats worked in law enforcement for nearly ten years, as a federal probation officer. After working in various areas across the country, including Charleston, West Virginia; Washington, DC; and Las Vegas, Nevada, Ms. Staats found her home in Jacksonville, Florida. She enjoys music, attending sporting events, traveling, and photography. After starting with Law Offices of Kate Mesic, PA, Winnie said: "I look forward to working with the Mesic Law team. My background in both law enforcement and business law provides a unique perspective that will be beneficial in meeting the needs of our clients." The website is a business web address for an experienced Jacksonville attorney who focuses on criminal defense, DUI defense, traffic tickets, expungement and sealing of Florida criminal records, commercial collections, business disputes, business contracts, or starting a business in Florida. Mesic Law is located in Jacksonville, Florida and brings to the legal industry a powerful combination of solid experience, professional service, personal dedication and proven results. For clients involved with shoplifting, underage drinking, fake ID, traffic tickets, reckless driving, driving while license is suspended or revoked (DWLSR), no valid driver license, racing on a highway, and many additional legal services in Jacksonville, FL. A free legal consultation with the experienced attorneys at the practice is available. For more information about us, please visit http://mesiclaw.com Contact Info: Name: Kate Mesic Organization: The Law Offices of Kate Mesic, PA Address: 6550 St Augustine Rd #305, Jacksonville, FL 32217 Phone: (904) 619-2510 Video URL: https://youtu.be/cYBixPrf7U4 Source: http://mesiclaw.com/about-us/ Release ID: 117560 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Commercial Truckers Protest High Insurance Quotes Tuesday afternoon near the Florida State Capitol building in Tallahassee, Florida, dozens of truck drivers from South Florida honked their horns and blocked intersections. The unhappy truckers are discontent with the high cost of commercial truck insurance, their low pay, and profit brokers take. -- Tuesday afternoon near the Florida State Capitol building in Tallahassee, Florida, dozens of truck drivers from South Florida honked their horns and blocked intersections. The unhappy truckers are discontent with the high cost of commercial truck insurance, their low pay, and the amount of profit brokers skim off the top. For refusing to drive his truck out of an intersection, one, Javier Figueroa Leon, was arrested, and his wife caught the arrest on her cell phone. A Florida Highway Patrol Trooper said to "get out of the truck." A second man, named Magdiel Millar, was arrested for hindering Figueroa's arrest. Daniel Garcia, a protester, complained that the truckers had driven from Miami to Tallahassee to take care, saying that customers did not want to pay and stole money from the truckers. He also said that their attempts to "do something" were futile and that their protesters going to jail was senseless. Above all, truck insurance is too high. At a truck stop on I-10, the protest continued. Commercial truck insurance, they said, is too high. The FDHSMV (Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles) described the incident, stating that their top priority is keeping Florida's roadways safe for the public. That goal spurred them to monitor the CDL911 convoy's routes in order to prevent interrupted or delayed travel for Florida's citizens and visitors. They also explained that they had arrested two drivers -- Magdiel Millar and Javier Figueroa -- for resisting arrest non-violently. FHP arrested Javier Figueroa for blocking an intersection, and LCSO arrested Magdiel Millar for hindering that arrest. LCSO was assisting FHP while the convoy traveled through Leon County. A representative from QuoteMyRig, a commercial truck insurance agency, was quoted as saying "We completely understand why truckers would feel their truck insurance is too high. It's truly unfortunate how truckers have to bear the grunt of rising costs and expenses on top of rising insurance premiums. In fact that's exactly why our company strives to keep truck insurance rates as fair and low as possible because we know all about the expenses truck drivers and transportation agencies have to cope with." For more information about us, please visit http://www.quotemyrig.com Contact Info: Name: Igor Kapelnikov Organization: QuoteMyRig Phone: 8008067204 Release ID: 119090 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Window Tinting Company Announces Lifetime Guarentee At Opening Of New Office Precision Window Tinting celebrated the opening of its new offices in Perth by announcing that they will now provide a lifetime guarantee on all residential window tinting. -- Brad Maguire, the founder of Precision Window Tinting, a leading window tinting company in Perth, Western Australia, today announced that Precision Window Tinting would celebrate the opening of its new offices on the 25th floor of one of the most prestigious business addresses in Perth, the iconic Palace office tower at 108 St Georges Terrace , by offering a lifetime guarantee on all residential window tinting. "This new office place us in the very centre of the Peth CBD, which means our head office is now located in the heartland of our most significant market" he said. Mr Maguire went on to say that after he had personally spent 10 years in the business, he wanted to do something to acknowledge both the quality of its workmanship and the products Precision Window Tinting installs. "A lifetime warranty on residential installations is a promise that speaks to the confidence we have in the durability of the products we provide," he said. According to Mr Maguire, the biggest problem in the window tinting industry today is the way people are lured into buying inferior window tinting film by what he called "cheap and unscrupulous" operators. "People think they're saving money by installing cheap window film", he said "but ultimately cheap films ruin the look of their windows because, in the harsh Western Australian sun, poor quality tinting films only have a lifespan of 2 to 3 years, before they start to peel, bubble, fade or go cloudy." he said. " This ruins the look of windows and is quite costly to remove", he said Under the terms of the companies new residential lifetime warranty "if there is any peeling, bubbling or fading what so ever", the company will come back and remove the old film; then re-install brand new film to replace it, all at no charge to the customer, for materials or labour. In the case of Commercial clients, a similar warranty will be offered guaranteeing their installations for up to 12 years, he said. Mr Maguire said that the confidence Precision Window Tinting has in the quality of its products has been vindicated by the extraordinary customer satisfaction rating the business has on Facebook. "Of the 17 customers that have rated and reviewed our business, 100%, i.e. 17 out of 17 have scored our business 5 out of 5" he said. "I'm extremely proud of our customer satisfaction record we have on Facebook and intend to do everything I can to keep our exceptional record intact" he said. For more information about us, please visit http://precisionwindowtinting.com.au/ Contact Info: Name: Brad Maguire Organization: Precision Window Tinting Address: 25/108 St Georges Terrace Perth, Western Australia, 6000 Phone: (61) 404-349-835 Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P78ayPsC57Q%20 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/window-tinting-company-announces-lifetime-guarentee-at-opening-of-new-office/118750 Release ID: 118750 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Webscout Expands to Meet Demand in Rome with Three New Office Buildings Webscout announced today that three new centres in Rome are now available to rent through their online service. -- Webscout, a leading global office space provider, today announced that they have added three new office centres in the business districts of Rome, Italy. "We are very pleased to be able to announce the availability of new office space for rent in Rome", said a spokesperson for Webscout. "With today's announcement, Webscout now has twelve office buildings available in this key European city, which is an important step towards realising our objective of providing the best possible business premises to companies in the historically and economically important city of Rome." The office buildings available include space on Via Properzio, which is a highly desirable location moments from St Peter's Square and the Vatican City. This well established business centre provides modern office suites complete with a range of business support packages that include dedicated reception, security and IT staff. With fully equipped conference rooms, integrated IT and communications infrastructure, passenger lifts and 24 hour access. The second of the new office properties available is a traditional period building on Piazza del Popolo, a few minutes from the River Tiber. Office facilities include furnishings, conferencing suites, dedicated security personnel, business lounges, professional admin support staff, hot desking options and on site parking. The other new office centre is situated on Piazza Luigi Sturzo, in one of Rome's most dynamic business districts, and provides a range of fully furnished office suites complete with meeting rooms, IT and communications systems, a professional reception team and car parking facilities. "A lot of the feedback we have received from businesses over the years has been regarding the necessity for affordable, flexible rental terms for office space in Rome, and we anticipate that these new buildings will be fully occupied in the very near future," concluded Webscout's spokesperson. About Rome Rome is Italy's capital city and the largest municipality in the country, with more than 2.7 million inhabitants. The economy of the city is predominantly made up of services, research, high tech companies, construction and tourism. Rome is the location of the largest airport in Italy, Fiumicino, and is also the home of most major Italian company headquarters. The transportation infrastructure in Rome is second to none and, besides its international airport, there is an extensive system of rail, road and bus networks. Find out more about Webscout's office space in Rome. About Webscout Webscout is an international service dedicated to helping businesses find serviced office space in thousands of locations worldwide. The Webscout.com site offers serviced offices, managed office accommodation, traditional office rental and fully-serviced executive suites in cities in more than thirty countries. For more information, please visit http://www.webscout.com Contact Info: Name: Clare Jones Organization: Webscout.com Address: www.webscout.com Phone: 00 61290370276 Release ID: 118951 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Viralizeed Launches Spanish Version Of Its Viral Content Tracking Platform Viralizeed is a one-stop website built on the latest big data technologies to track in real time the most relevant viral content. Viralizeed identifies the most relevant viral photos, viral videos and viral news shared on social media by users all around the world. -- Viralizeed and founder, Diego Vegas, are pleased to announce the launch of their new Spanish language website which combines the wisdom of crowds concept with the latest big data technologies to track in real time the most relevant viral content for Spanish-speaking users, from viral news, to videos, music and photos. The release of the Spanish language version of the website and platform is a momentous occasion. Using social media permits users throughout the world to have a platform for expression of their thoughts and interest with others. Over time, the users will fix on a particular item of shared content which is found of wider interest. It will reach millions around the globe in a matter of minutes. The collective voice determines that the specific content which has gone viral is significant to many. Viralizeed tracks the content of all social network platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Google and other key social media sites. The most relevant viral videos are found in real time, as well as viral photos and viral news. The platform includes the latest technology and music topics in addition to other subjects. Spanish-speaking people around the globe number nearly six hundred million. Spanish is the third-most-widely spoken language on the World Wide Web and it is the second on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Diego Vegas, Chief Executive Officer, explained, "The Spanish internet user is culturally social. We knew we needed to develop a Spanish version of the Viralizeed SL portal. As of today, we are already able to track the most relevant social sources coming in from Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Peru , Chile, Argentina, Mexico and, of course, Spain. He continued, "We will keep working during the upcoming weeks to add to our platform sources so that every country in South and Central America is represented." For more information, please visit http://www.es.viralizeed.com Contact Info: Name: Diego Vegas Organization: Viralizeed SL Address: c/ Toques 15, 28050 Madrid. Spain Phone: +3491391942 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/viralizeed-launches-spanish-version-of-its-viral-content-tracking-platform/119178 Release ID: 119178 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Refund Management Services Congratulates Top-Placing Canadians at the 47th Annual WSOP Tournament Refund Management Services weighs in on the top Canadian finishes at the 47th Annual World Series of Poker Tournament in Las Vegas. -- Refund Management Services (www.RefundManagement.com), the number one choice for Canada's biggest winners for U.S. gaming and casino tax refunds, congratulates the top-placing Canadians competing at the 47th annual World Series of Poker (WSOP) Tournament currently under way at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Refund Management Services also reminds Canadians and other eligible players attending the WSOP that their winnings are subject to a 30% withholding tax. "A week into the 68-event tournament and a number of Canadian poker players have already cashed in at the WSOP," says Brooke Sacks, vice-president of marketing and business development at Refund Management Services. "While no Canadian players have taken a bracelet yet, the tournament runs through July 18. There are high hopes, though; in 2015, Canada booked four bracelets." In event number two, Colossus II No-Limit Hold'em, Richmond Hill, Ontario native Andrew Yip put in the best performance for a Canadian, placing 11th and winning $72,054. Warren Chu placed 17th and cashed in $44,740, Ping Lin finished 25th with $35,584, and David Elfan finished 45th, earning $22,939. Over 100 Canadian poker players cashed in at Colossus II, the world's largest live poker event with 21,613 entrants. (Source: "Results Event #2: $565 Colossus II No-Limit Hold'em," wsop.com data sheet, June 7, 2016; http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/results.asp?tid=14902&grid=1232.) "A number of other Canadian poker players cashed in other events. Jeffrey Fast finished 26th with $2,066 at event number one, Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em, while Graydon Kowal was the top Canadian in Event number four, Top Up Turbo No-Limit Hold'em, finishing with $2,447. And Clayton Mozden was the top finishing Canadian at event number five: Dealers Choice 6-Handed, cashing [in] $3,387," Sacks adds. "Canadian poker players have been well represented so far with only five of the 68 tournament events being played." (Source: "WSOP 2016 Results," wsop.com, June 8, 2016; http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/results.asp.) Sacks explains that it's important for Canadian and other eligible non-U.S. residents competing in the WSOP to remember that winnings over $1,200 are considered taxable income by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and subject to a 30% withholding tax. But there is a way for Canadians and other eligible non-U.S. residents to get all or a portion of their gaming withholding tax back. "Refund Management Services is Canada's most reliable and experienced poker, gaming and casino tax refund provider. In fact, RMS is where many Canadian WSOP winners turn when it comes to getting their 30% withholding tax back," Sacks concludes. "That's because the chartered accountants at RMS have never been refused an eligible refund. It can take a minimum of four to six months for the IRS to review the claim and for RMS to receive the refund." There are a number of countries that currently do not have a U.S. tax treaty. However, residents in any of the following countries could still be eligible for a refund: Australia, Bahrain, Barbados, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Malaysia, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and the U.A.E. Founded and owned by a Canadian chartered accountant, Refund Management Services is the most reputable casino and gaming tax recovery service in the industry. As registered agents of the IRS, Refund Management Services (RMS) helps Canadians and other non-U.S. residents recover all or a portion of their taxes up to three years after their winnings have been withheld. With expertise in gaming-related tax laws, RMS understands all the IRS requirements to ensure that any eligible refund is successfully recovered. RMS only gets paid for successful gambling tax refunds. RMS is a member of the Better Business Bureau and the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. Contact Refund Management Services toll free from the United States and Canada at 1-888-272-5559. Or e-mail RMS: info@refundmanagement.com. For more information, please visit http://www.refundmanagement.com/ Contact Info: Name: Brooke Sacks Organization: Refund Management Services Address: Yonge Norton Centre 5255 Yonge St., Suite 1300 Toronto, ON Phone: 416-443-3360 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/refund-management-services-congratulates-top-placing-canadians-at-the-47th-annual-wsop-tournament/119202 Release ID: 119202 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cold Store Rentals Installs Cool Room At Spencer House, A Private London Palace Cold Store Rentals has published its latest article covering supporting the expansion of Spencer House, one of London's private palaces., which is aimed primarily at Catering and Hospitality Sites. The article is available for viewing in full at http://coldstorerentals.co.uk/news/supporting-spencer-house-expansion/ -- Cold Store Rentals has recently published a new article entitled Supporting Spencer House Expansion, which details some of the most important aspects of supporting the expansion of Spencer House, one of London's private palaces. Catering and Hospitality Sites seeking a temporary or permanent solution for walk in cold rooms or walk in freezers can view the full article at http://coldstorerentals.co.uk/news/supporting-spen... The article includes several interesting pieces of information, one in particular is how Cold Store Rentals installed a completely new cold room without interfering with the operations of the Palace. Enabling the venue to be fully prepared to cater for larger events in the future, as well as utilize the existing premises to its full potential. This should be of particular interest to Catering and Hospitality Sites because Cold Store Rentals had to consider the prestige of the venue, and the impact of the new installation on its day to day events. The venue is the home of many important high profile events and conferences as well as hosting dignitaries and other notoriety. One of the most important pieces of information the article tries to convey and communicate is how the skilled technicians were able to fully install the new cold room in 5 hours, giving the catering teams the perfect solution that will enable the venue to increase capacity well into the future.. The best example of this is perhaps found in the following extract: 'The racking inside the new unit has been specially configured to offer maximum internal storage capacity, as well as low level storage. Should there be another large-scale event in London such as the 2012 Olympics, Spencer House will be ready for the demand that it brings.' In discussing the successful installation, Steve Prior, Director at Cold Store Rentals said: "One of London's private palaces, Spencer House, has recently experienced a surge in interest of its hire facilities which caters for up to 450 people at one time. To help with the demand and business expansion, we have supplied a cold room to the palace." Cold Store Rentals offers solutions on a daily basis to clients all over the UK and Europe, the project at Spencer House was created after a two year working relationship with them. Chris Stallworthy, Events Director at Spencer House, explains: "We had been renting a cold room through Cold Store Rentals' sister company, Ice House Hire, for two years, and decided that a new bespoke cold room would be worth the capital investment this time." Stallworthy continued to say "The project was delivered very efficiently. Steve came to the site to assess what we needed, and provided us with a clear quote accompanied by detailed drawings to show a bespoke solution that suited our requirements." Cold Store Rentals provides solutions that work and are delivered on time, whilst factoring the needs of each site. The goal is to complete all installations with the minimum of downtime and disruption to ongoing operations of a client site. Anyone who has a specific question about a past, present, or future article can contact Cold Store Rentals via their website at www.coldstorerentals.co.uk The complete article is available to view in full at http://coldstorerentals.co.uk/news/supporting-spencer-house-expansion/. For more information, please visit http://www.coldstorerentals.co.uk Contact Info: Name: Steve Prior Organization: Cold Store Rentals Release ID: 119198 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Tiva IT Publish An Article Which Reveals Surprising Facts for UK Internet Users Tiva Business IT Solutions has published its latest article covering phishing attacks in the United Kingdom, which is aimed primarily at UK Internet Users. The article is available for viewing in full at http://www.tiva-it.com/uk-businesses-facing-phishing-attacks-more-than-anywhere-else-in-the-world/ -- An article covering the subject of 'phishing attacks in the United Kingdom.' entitled 'UK Businesses Facing Phishing Attacks More Than Anywhere Else In The World' has now been released and published by Tiva Business IT Solutions, an authority website in the IT Security and Support niche. The article brings to light fascinating information, and especially for readers that are interesting in protecting their personal data and internet security.. UK Internet Users and anybody else who's interested in phishing attacks in the United Kingdom. can read the entire article at http://www.tiva-it.com/uk-businesses-facing-phishi... Because of the amount of time spent accessing the internet is increasing, and the reliability on online banking and shopping becoming more important in day to day lives, it is important to be aware. Perhaps one of the most interesting, or relevant pieces of information to UK Internet Users, which is included in the article, is that the many different types of cyber attack carried out against UK businesses is growing. The article has been written by Peter Davidson, who wanted to use this article to bring particular attention to the subject of phishing attacks in the United Kingdom. They feel they may have done this best in the following extract: ' According to new research, UK businesses are the top targets of phishing compared to any other country. In fact, UK was ranked first with regard to phishing attacks in Europe and the world as a whole by the annual Internet Security Threat Report, whose primary focus is to examine the global threat trends.' Tiva Business IT Solutions welcomes comments and questions from readers, in relation to the article. Tom McClellan, Head Of IT Security Systems at Tiva Business IT Solutions has made a point of saying regular interaction with the readers is so critical to running the site because many businesses rely on the internet for day to day business, and should be aware of the potential risks in the cyber world today. In discussing the article itself and Tiva Business IT Solutions company development, Tom McClellan said: "The services provided by Tiva IT include internet security and monitoring of systems. The IT support team are on hand at a moments notice in the event of a cyber attack, and are ready to resolve issues as soon as they appear." Anyone who has a specific question or comment about this article, or any article previously published on the site, are welcomed to contact Tiva Business IT Solutions via their website at www.tiva-it.com Once again, the complete article is available to in full at http://www.tiva-it.com/uk-businesses-facing-phishing-attacks-more-than-anywhere-else-in-the-world/. For more information, please visit http://www.tiva-it.com Contact Info: Name: Tom McClellan Email: info@tiva-it.com Organization: Tiva IT Solutions Release ID: 119192 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Five O'Clock Steakhouse Hosted Vintage Car Show & Live Music Event Benefiting Dryhootch Milwaukee And Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative Five O'Clock Steakhouse will kick off a series of summer events and fundraisers by hosting a Vintage Car Show Benefiting Dryhootch Milwaukee and Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative. -- On Sunday, June 5, 2016 Milwaukee's iconic Five O'Clock Steakhouse will kick off a series of summer events and fundraisers by hosting a Vintage Car Show Benefiting Dryhootch Milwaukee and Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative. From 12-4pm, guests can peruse the collection of vintage and custom cars assembled in Five O'Clock's private lot. Authentic Mexican cuisine will be served by Milwaukee's popular food truck, El Comedor. Five O'Clock Steakhouse will be mixing up summer cocktails and beverages. Guests can enjoy live music and special guest performances throughout the afternoon. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to two local veterans organizations. Dryhootch Milwaukee provides peer support, employment and assistance for returning military and their families. The Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative helps at-risk veterans obtain housing, medical care, food and necessities. Admission is free; $20 suggested donations will be accepted. Guests who donate $20 to either veterans' organizations at the event will receive a $20 promotional certificate good for a future Five O'Clock Steakhouse visit. "102.1's (WLUM-FM) John Adler will broadcast live from the event and give away Summerfest tickets," said Stelio Kalkounos, Managing Partner of Five O'Clock Steakhouse. "Support our local veterans . Bring family and friends out for an afternoon of classic automobiles, food, live music and fun!" Owners interested in showcasing their cars can register them for free by emailing dine@fiveoclocksteakhouse.com. Visit www.fiveoclocksteakhouse.com or call 414-342-3553 for more information. About Five O'Clock Steakhouse Five O' Clock Steakhouse, formerly Coerper's Five O' Clock Club, has been a family-owned and independently operated Milwaukee staple since 1948, serving the finest steaks paired with outstanding service. Five O'Clock has been named "One of America's Best Steakhouses" by TV host Rachael Ray, TravelandLeisure.com and was featured on the Travel Channel's "Steak Paradise 3." The Alley Cat Lounge features free live music weekly, classic cocktails and a 1940's retro-lounge ambience. About Dryhootch Milwaukee Dryhootch is a nonprofit 501c3 organization formed by combat Veterans to help Veterans by providing peer support, employment and critical services for returning military and their families. Dryhootch was envisioned as a place where Veterans could gather informally in a safe, comfortable, drug-and-alcohol-free environment. The organization operates a coffee house located at 1030 E. Brady St. in Milwaukee. More information can be found at http://dryhootch.org/ About Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative Founded and run by veterans, MHVI's mission is to enable homeless and at-risk veterans to reach and maintain their highest levels of independence. Since 2008 we have helped more than 2,600 veterans and their families in southeastern Wisconsin to obtain benefits, housing, health care, furniture, household goods, food, clothing, transportation, toiletries and other necessities. http://www.mkehomelessvets.org For more information, please visit http://www.fiveoclocksteakhouse.com/wi/ Contact Info: Name: Stelio Kalkounos Email: dine@fiveoclocksteakhouse.com Organization: Five O'Clock Steakhouse Address: 2416 West State Street Phone: 414-342-3553 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/five-oclock-steakhouse-hosted-vintage-car-show-live-music-event-benefiting-dryhootch-milwaukee-and-milwaukee-homeless-veterans-initiative/119093 Release ID: 119093 For more information visit r Recent Press Releases By The Same User Agarwood Essential Oil Market Expected to Grow at CAGR 4.2% During 2016 to 2022"> (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Cyber Weapon Market by Type, Product, Application, Region, Outlook and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Landscaping and Gardening Expert Trevor McClintock Launches New Locally Optimized Website (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Sleep apnea devices Market is Evolving At A CAGR of 7.5% by 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Agriculture Technology Market 2017 Global Analysis, Opportunities and Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Global VR Helmet Market by Manufacturers, Technology, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022 (Fri 2nd Jun 17) Free Freightnet Membership List your company in the Freightnet directory. It's Free, it's Easy and your company can be displayed in front of potential freight buyers within 24 hours. M&G has extended its membership with the Investment Association (IA) until the end of 2016 as the trade body continues to nurse its relationship with potential defectors. The fund house, along with Schroders, threatened to leave the IA in October 2015 in a move that resulted in then chief executive Daniel Godfreys resignation. M&G told Investment Adviser it will now remain a member until at least 2017. Schroders and M&G committed to being members for six months at the end of 2015. This was after the trade body began consulting with members on its remit, and interim chief executive Guy Sears took control. At the time, it was understood the pair wished to remain actively involved with the IA but on an interim six-month basis in order to review its progress and have an input into changes at the organisation. Since then the IA has appointed Chris Cummings as a permanent replacement to Mr Godfrey. Mr Cummings, who joins from lobby group TheCityUK, will take up his role by the end of the third quarter. The trade body said the decision to appoint Mr Cummings was made unanimously by its board, which includes representatives of 18 fund houses. The news of M&Gs additional six-month commitment comes as it welcomed new chief executive Anne Richards. Ms Richards joined last week from Aberdeen where she was chief investment officer to replace the retiring Michael McLintock. Flows into exchange-traded funds reached record levels last month, marking 20 consecutive months of net inflows, according to a London-based research house. According to ETFGI, a research and consultancy firm studying ETF trends, around $2.7bn (1.9bn) poured into European- listed ETFs throughout May. At the end of the month, the European ETF industry had 2,219 ETFs with 6,927 listings, and total assets of $530bn (373bn) from 52 providers listed on 25 exchanges in 21 countries, the report stated. Assets invested in ETFs listed globally hit $3.1trn (2.2trn), marking another record month of inflows. This comes despite the S&P 500 index being up just 1.8 per cent in May, while developed markets excluding the US declined 0.9 per cent, and emerging markets declined 3.2 per cent. Deborah Fuhr, managing partner at ETFGI, said there is still a significant amount of uncertainty in the markets due to the upcoming vote on the European Union referendum and the expectation the Fed will raise rates sooner than expected. Fixed income ETFs gathered the largest net inflows in Europe with $2.8bn (2bn), followed by commodity ETFs with $982m (691m). However, equity ETFs experienced net outflows of $1.2bn (0.85bn) in May, and saw net outflows of $6.4bn (4.5bn) for the year to date. For the year to the end of May, ETFs garnered $17.3bn (12.2bn) of new money, while fixed income topped the list with the largest inflows, hitting $16.1bn (11.3bn) BlackRocks ETF arm iShares gathered the largest net inflows of any ETF provider in May, with $1.4bn (0.99bn), according to ETFGI. Last week, a BlackRock report revealed gold-exposed exchange traded funds saw the highest level of inflows in May. katherine.denham@ft.com Damian Clarke, a former equities trader at Schroders, has been sentenced to two years in prison having pleaded guilty to nine counts of insider dealing. Mr Clarke worked for Schroders between 2000 and 2013, initially as an assistant fund manager, and as a trader from 2006. He recieved inside information about significant corporate events, and made trades in his and family members names over nine years between 2003 and 2012. The former-trader was never charged or accused of using information for Schroders benefit. He pleaded guilty to seven counts in July 2015 and to the remaining two on March 15. Total profits made from this amounted to at least 155,161, the FCA said. FCA director of enforcement and market oversight Mark Steward said: This is yet another case involving a city professional caught and jailed for abusing the market that employs him. Insider dealing is increasingly detectable these days and, where detected, more likely to lead to terms of imprisonment and shame rather than glamorous profits and fame. In April 2016, the UKs Supreme Court issued its judgement in the case of Asset Land Investment Plc and another v the Financial Conduct Authority, considering the definition of what constitutes a collective investment scheme (CIS). The judgement was in relation to an appeal against the Court of Appeals decision that Asset Land Investment Plcs land investment scheme amounted to a CIS within the meaning of section 235 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA). Asset Land acquired potential development sites that it sub-divided into plots for sale to investors. Its offering was to procure the re-zoning of the sites and thereafter arrange their sale to a developer, with the investors sharing in the sale proceeds. The FSA (now the FCA) initially attempted to restrict Asset Lands activities and, when this was unsuccessful, began proceedings against the firm on the basis it did not have FCA permission to operate an unregulated CIS. So what is a CIS? A CIS is defined under section 235 of FSMA. Broadly, it is any arrangements with respect to property of any description, the purpose or effect of which is to enable the participants in the arrangements to receive a financial return from that property. The participants must not have day-to-day control over the management of the property, and either or both of the following characteristics must be present: a) Pooling of the contributions of the participants or the income from which payments are to be made to participants; and/or b) Management of the property as a whole by, or on behalf of, the operator of the scheme. The Supreme Court issued two judgements: the leading judgement by Lord Carnwath and a further judgement by Lord Sumption clarifying the CIS definition. Lord Sumption stated that arrangements [in the definition] comprises any understanding shared between the parties about how the scheme would operate, whether legally binding or not, and any consequences from that understanding or from the commercial context in which it was made. The parties intention at the outset of the arrangements is the crucial factor, not what happened later. Lord Sumption believed it necessary to create a distinction between a CIS and the provision of management services by an intermediary Aidan Campbell and James Marshall, CMS Cameron McKenna LLP On the issue of day-to-day control, Lord Sumption stated that control of property means the ability to decide what happens to it, which not only encompasses the legal ability to decide but also that the investor will, in practice, be able to do so. The question is who would exercise control. This illustrates the importance of investors having day-to-day control of the management of scheme property to avoid a scheme being a CIS. In considering what constitutes management activity, Lord Sumption drew a distinction between: Investors controlling the property and employing a service provider to operate it; and Investors surrendering control to the operator of a scheme so that it can be pooled or managed in common, in return for a share of the profits. In the wake of the publication of the Panama Papers, the government has confirmed its intention to accelerate the introduction of a strict liability criminal offence for corporations that fail to prevent the criminal facilitation of tax evasion. The offence applies to all UK corporates and partnerships and, in certain cases, to overseas corporations. It is particularly targeted at financial institutions, professional services firms and other financial sector entities. Corporations will be criminally liable where: a taxpayer commits a tax evasion offence whether UK or overseas tax; or a person associated with the corporation, such as an employee or a subsidiary, commits a UK or foreign tax evasion facilitation offence. Facilitation includes intentionally aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of the tax evasion offence, or being knowingly concerned in, or taking steps with a view to, facilitating the fraudulent evasion of tax; and the corporation did not have in place reasonable procedures to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion, unless the corporation can show it was reasonable to not have any procedures in place. Where these conditions are satisfied, the business will be criminally liable and subject to a fine. In the context of money laundering and bribery, corporate fines are unlimited, with guidelines suggesting fines of up to 400 per cent of the harm caused by the offence, but it remains to be seen whether similar guidelines will be produced in the context of this tax offence. The draft guidance outlines the issues corporates should address to satisfy the reasonable procedures defence. Unhelpfully, however, the guidance is silent on the circumstances in which it would be reasonable for a corporation to have not put in place any prevention procedures. While we expect this carve-out is aimed at small- to medium-sized organisations that face a low risk of tax evasion being committed, clarification would be welcomed. KEY FIGURES 15% Of the 219 financial advisers polled say their clients have been put off legitimate tax planning in the past year, citing negative publicity around tax avoidance. 84% The majority of advisers say clients are still willing to make use of tax-planning measures. 20-40% Of the advisers surveyed, 3 per cent suggested 20-40 per cent of their clients had been dissuaded from using standard tax-planning methods. Source: Old Mutual Wealth The steps that a business will be required to take to satisfy itself and any potential prosecutor that its procedures are sufficiently robust will depend on the circumstances and risk profile of the organisation. Those organisations that face a greater risk of its services being used by an associated person to facilitate tax evasion will need to implement more comprehensive procedures than low-risk organisations. All businesses should conduct an appropriate risk assessment of whether its services, or services connected to it, are at risk of being used by employees or other associated persons to facilitate tax evasion. The size of the organisation, the nature and scale of the services offered, the reliance on third-party service providers and the jurisdictions in which they operate will all be relevant risk-assessment factors. Chelverton UK Equity Growths James Baker has turned defensive after the oil, gas and mining suppliers in which he was invested mimicked their customers slump last year. The co-manager of the 27m fund has trimmed exposure to firms that design and manufacture components for larger industrials, and which have been caught up in the latters capital expenditure cuts. In their place, he has shifted in consumer defensives, such as Dairy Crest and Photo-Me International. The fund, which operates a strong small-cap bias, had 13.8 per cent in industrials and 12.7 per cent in consumer stocks at the end of April. Mr Baker, who manages the fund alongside David Taylor, said defensive stocks were necessary despite the growth focus of the portfolio. He added the stocks still met Chelvertons screening process, which filters companies with low gearing and the ability to convert a high proportion of their profits into cash. The pair have three-fifths of their portfolio in structural growth companies including 25 per cent in technology stocks, which have driven performance over the past year. With the remaining two-fifths in cyclical growth firms, the managers said a defensive move within this bucket was warranted at a time of macroeconomic unease. Mr Baker said: The market this year is somewhat becalmed by the Brexit vote, much like it was last year by the general election. Investors are increasingly sitting on their hands, and unfortunately businesses are too. Business activity is slowing, which makes it difficult to know whether to change your portfolio or not. If we come out [of the EU] that uncertainty will persist for a while longer. If we stay in, some of these stocks will have a knee-jerk reaction, so we dont want to be out of them. Chelverton bought into Dairy Crest (pictured) towards the end of 2015 after the firm sold its dairies business to German rival Muller, signalling a move away from milk production in order to focus on other dairy products. Mr Baker said the stock did not meet the funds financial screen prior to the sale, but once it sold its capital-intensive, low-margin milk business it became the right kind of profitable, cash-generative firm. Meanwhile, the manager said he became interested in Photo-Me International once it branched out into offering laundry services on supermarket properties. Its a nice growth concept that seems to be working well and adds a new growth angle to Photo-Me. It will only invest when it gets a cash payback and we like that, Mr Baker said. He said the fund was continuing to monitor oil, gas and mining supplier stocks and admitted it could get left behind in the event of a rally. We need to be attentive to what is happening to the oil price to see if we need to go back into the market, he said. It still feels right not to have exposure there, but it is an area where if we see a pick-up, or if mining stocks rise, well get left behind. Al Rayan Bank has launched a new website for mortgage intermediaries, as part of a push to grow the volume of retail assets it services through the channel. Currently around 16 per cent of its retail asset sales come via intermediaries, less than half of the amount that come via the direct channel or branch and agency network. The new website follows the appointment of dedicated intermediary specialist Saalik Haleem in September and supports an existing adviser helpline and dedicated email address. The mobile responsive site provides all the information and support intermediaries need to advise on Al Rayan Banks range of ethical, Sharia-compliant mortgage alternatives: home purchase plans, HPP Scotland and the buy-to-let purchase plan. It also contains mortgage calculators and guidance on the process of referring cases, as well as details of the banks procuration fees on referred cases - 0.35 per cent for HPP and 0.50 per cent for the BTL purchase plan. Senior sales manager Sagheer Malik said: As well as providing information on how intermediaries can refer cases to Al Rayan Bank, the new dedicated website will help raise awareness of Islamic home finance amongst the general mortgage intermediary market, helping advisers to better service the needs of the British Muslim market. peter.walker@ft.com Story Highlights Confidence in institutions stays near historical lows Confidence in newspapers, organized religion now at record lows Confidence in institutions has slumped for a decade WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans' confidence in the nation's major institutions continues to lag below historical averages, with two institutions -- newspapers and organized religion -- dropping to record lows this year. The overall average of Americans expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in 14 institutions is below 33% for the third straight year. Americans' confidence in key U.S. institutions has remained relatively low since 2007. That year, the average for the 14 institutions Gallup has asked about annually since 1993 dropped to 32% from 38% in 2006. (Gallup began asking about a 15th institution, small business, in 2007.) From 1993 to 2006, the average had been below 38% only once -- in 1994, when it dipped to 36%. Banks, Organized Religion, News Media, Congress Fell Most Over Past Decade Since 2006, Americans have lost confidence in 10 of those 14 institutions, with six suffering substantial losses. The remaining four institutions saw no change or a gain of no more than a few percentage points. Many Institutions Lost Ground in Last Decade Percentage with "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in the institution June 2006 June 2016 Difference, 2006 to 2016 % % pct. pts. Military 73 73 0 Police 58 56 -2 Church or organized religion 52 41 -11 Medical system 38 39 +1 Presidency 33 36 +3 U.S. Supreme Court 40 36 -4 Public schools 37 30 -7 Banks 49 27 -22 Organized labor 24 23 -1 Criminal justice system 25 23 -2 Television news 31 21 -10 Newspapers 30 20 -10 Big business 18 18 0 Congress 19 9 -10 Gallup polls, June 1-4, 2006, and June 1-5, 2016 Confidence in banks -- which took a hit amid the bursting housing bubble in 2007 and 2008, and dropped further after the ensuing financial crisis -- fell the most, plunging from 49% in 2006 to 27% now. Confidence in organized religion, which has felt the effects of the scandals enveloping the Catholic Church, dropped from 52% to 41%, one point below last year's previous low of 42%. Television news, newspapers and Congress all dropped 10 points -- pushing newspapers to a 20% confidence level, two points below their previous low of 22% in 2007 and 2014. Despite the declining percentages of Americans having high confidence in these institutions, the majority have at least "some" confidence in all but one of them. Congress has the ignominious distinction of being the only institution sparking little or no confidence in a majority of Americans. As has been the case in previous years, Americans have the most confidence in the military, and the least in Congress. The police and small business are the only other institutions garnering majority confidence. Joining Congress at the bottom of the list are big business, newspapers, television news, the criminal justice system and organized labor. As Other Measures Climb, Confidence in Institutions Lags Behind While the overall average confidence in institutions is still six points below where it was in 2006, the trends in two other key measures of the public's mood have -- by contrast -- recovered from major drops during the past decade. When Gallup asked about confidence in institutions in June 2006, the public's satisfaction with the way things were going in the nation was in the midst of a long fall, having dropped from 55% in January 2004 to 30%. The decline continued through the financial crisis of 2008 -- bottoming out at 7% in October of that year. A long, bumpy climb has brought the percentage satisfied back up to 29% in June 2016, about where it was in June 2006. A Gallup measure of job market optimism asking whether "now is a good time or a bad time to find a quality job" fell from 41% in June 2006 to as low as 8% in November 2009 and 2011, but is now up to 43%. Bottom Line Americans clearly lack confidence in the institutions that affect their daily lives: the schools responsible for educating the nation's children; the houses of worship that are expected to provide spiritual guidance; the banks that are supposed to protect Americans' earnings; the U.S. Congress elected to represent the nation's interests; and the news media that claims it exists to keep them informed. Even as Americans regain confidence in the economy and are no longer in the depths of dissatisfaction with the way things are going in the nation, they remain reluctant to put much faith in these institutions at the core of American society. Each institution has its own specific probable causes for this situation. But the loss of faith in so many at one time, while Americans are becoming more positive in other ways, suggests there are reasons that reach beyond any individual institution. The task of identifying and dealing with those reasons in a way that rebuilds confidence is one of the more important challenges facing the nation's leaders in the years ahead. Survey Methods Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 1-5, 2016, with a random sample of 1,027 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. View survey methodology, complete question responses and trends. Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works. Story Highlights High approval ratings help presidential incumbents keep office Leadership approval highest in Botswana, lowest in DRC Those who say job market is good are more likely to approve WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Majorities in 21 of the 28 African countries that Gallup surveyed in 2015 -- a year marked by elections across the continent -- said they approved of the job performance of their respective nation's president. Ratings were highest in Botswana, Burkina Faso and Kenya, where roughly four in five said they approved. Approval was lowest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (28%) and Mauritania (32%). Presidential Approval Ratings in Africa, 2015 Approve Most recent election/Outcome % Botswana -- Ian Khama 82 In office since 2008 Burkina Faso -- Michel Kafando+* 80 Could not run in 2015 election Kenya -- Uhuru Kenyatta 79 In office since 2013 Mozambique -- Filipe Nyusi 74 In office since 2015 Cameroon -- Paul Biya 72 In office since 1982 Niger -- Mahamadou Issoufou 69 Re-elected in February-March 2016 Ivory Coast -- Alassane Ouattara 68 Re-elected in 2015 Uganda -- Yoweri Museveni 67 Re-elected in February 2016 Nigeria -- Muhammadu Buhari 67 Elected March 2015; survey was fielded in June-July 2015 Tanzania -- Jakaya Kikwete* 64 Could not run in 2015 election Mali -- Ibrahim Boubacar Keita 61 In office since 2013 Sierra Leone -- Ernest Bai Koroma 60 In office since 2007 Republic of the Congo -- Denis Sassou Nguesso 59 Re-elected in March 2016 Senegal -- Macky Sall 57 In office since 2012 Togo -- Faure Gnassingbe 56 Re-elected in 2015 Guinea -- Alpha Conde 55 Re-elected in 2015 Malawi -- Peter Mutharika 55 In office since 2014 Zimbabwe -- Robert Mugabe 53 In office since 1980 as prime minister, and as president since 1987 Chad -- Idriss Deby 52 Re-elected in April 2016 Madagascar -- Hery Rajaonarimampianina 52 In office since 2014 Benin -- Thomas Boni Yayi* 51 Could not run in February 2016 election Zambia -- Edgar Lungu 49 In office since January 2015; new election scheduled for August 2016 South Africa -- Jacob Zuma 45 General elections in August 2016 Liberia -- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf 43 In office since 2006 Gabon -- Ali Bongo Ondimba 41 In office since 2009; elections in late 2016 Ghana -- John Dramani Mahama 36 In office since 2012; elections in November 2016 Mauritania -- Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz 32 In office since 2009 Democratic Republic of the Congo -- Joseph Kabila 28 In office since 2001; elections in November 2016 *No longer in office; +Acting president World Poll More than a dozen national elections took place across the African continent last year, with some observers perhaps expecting to see more changes than they did. But ahead of the ballot, incumbent candidates enjoyed relatively high approval ratings and, in most cases, they were able to win another term. Burkina Faso and Tanzania are the notable exceptions. In the former, although acting President Michel Kafando enjoyed an approval rating of 80%, he could not run in last November's elections. In the latter, 64% of Tanzanians approved of Jakaya Kikwete's job performance, but he could not run again because of constitutional term limits. However, a candidate from the ruling party won the election in Tanzania. So far this year, several national elections have already taken place, and incumbents have retained office, most notably in Chad, the Republic of the Congo and Uganda. Of the seven countries where leadership approval drifted below 50% -- the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mauritania, Ghana, Gabon, Liberia, South Africa and Zambia -- five have elections scheduled for later this year. But relatively low approval ratings in these countries suggest significant challenges for incumbents, provided the elections are free and fair. Africans With Favorable View of Job Market Far More Likely to Approve In general, there are few differences in presidential approval ratings by gender or age. In most countries, less educated Africans and those living in rural areas are more likely to approve of their country's president. But Africans' positive views of the job environment appear to factor more substantially in presidential approval. It should be noted that in most African countries, a majority or near-majority said it was a bad time to find a job in their communities in 2015. As many as three in four residents in Ghana and Zimbabwe said it was a bad time. In just a few countries -- Mozambique, Niger and Ivory Coast -- a slim majority said it was a good time for job seekers. In most countries, majorities of Africans who said it was a good time to find a job were more likely to approve of their president's performance than those who said it was a bad time. Differences were largest in Mauritania and Senegal. In South Africa, however, attitudes toward job conditions did not appear to make much of a difference in approval ratings (41% approval from those who said it was a good time vs. 46% approval among those who said it was a bad time). This could suggest voters will look beyond jobs when they cast their ballot in the coming general elections. Africans' Presidential Approval Based on Their Perceptions of the Job Climate in 2015 "Thinking about the job situation in the city or area where you live today, would you say that it is now a good time or a bad time to find a job?" Good time Bad time Difference % Approve % Approve (pct. pts.) Mauritania 49 18 31 Senegal 76 46 30 Togo 72 46 26 Ghana 55 31 24 Democratic Republic of the Congo 42 21 21 Guinea 65 45 20 Mali 73 54 19 Nigeria 78 61 17 Zimbabwe 67 51 16 Niger 76 61 15 Zambia 58 44 14 Sierra Leone 69 56 13 Uganda 74 62 12 Republic of the Congo 66 54 12 Chad 57 45 12 Botswana 91 79 12 Gabon 48 36 12 Mozambique 78 69 9 Liberia 48 40 8 Benin 55 47 8 Ivory Coast 71 63 8 Madagascar 56 49 7 Malawi 58 54 4 Kenya 81 77 4 Burkina Faso 82 78 4 Tanzania 65 62 3 Cameroon 74 71 3 South Africa 41 46 -5 World Poll Bottom Line The findings provide a lens into Africans' support for presidential incumbents just a few months before re-elections in some countries. Overall, the African leadership picture has changed little after the last round of elections. In general, high approval ratings suggest incumbents can win another term, although Africans' approval of their leaders ranges widely. Further, Africans' attitudes toward the local job climate, which may be based not only on candidates' promises during electoral campaigns but also on Africans' perceived ability to earn income from labor, appear to be a factor in approval ratings in many countries. Over the long term, the creation of a climate conducive to job creation and entrepreneurship will become a formidable task for leaders as sub-Saharan Africa's working-age population is expected to exceed that of the rest of world combined by 2035. An estimated 18 million new jobs per year would be needed in the region to absorb the flow of working-age Africans, a daunting challenge, to say the least, for leaders in any region. Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics. Survey Methods Results are based on face-to-face interviews with at least 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted in 2015 in Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. For results based on the total sample of national adults in each country, the margin of sampling error is 3.8 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting. Learn more about how the Gallup World Poll works. Story Highlights More in U.S. have low (36%) than high (20%) confidence in newspapers Democrats, young adults no longer confident in newspapers Decline for newspapers mirrors pattern for 14 major institutions PRINCETON, N.J. -- The 20% of Americans who are confident in newspapers as a U.S. institution hit an all-time low this year, marking the 10th consecutive year that more Americans express little or no, rather than high, confidence in the institution. The percentage of Americans expressing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers has been dwindling since 2000, and the percentage expressing "very little" or "none" finally eclipsed it in 2007. The percentage with low confidence has only expanded since, tying a previous high of 36%. One in five U.S. adults now say they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in newspapers -- the all-time low for newspapers in Gallup's trend dating to 1973. An additional 42% of U.S. adults say they have "some" confidence, meaning that the institution still sparks at least a measure of confidence in a majority of Americans. However, the days when more than twice as many Americans expressed high rather than low confidence in newspapers are long gone. While this was common from the inception of Gallup's confidence in institutions trend through 1990, it has only been achieved once since -- in 2002, during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when Americans rallied around most major U.S. institutions. Newspapers Lose Vote of Confidence From Democrats Historically, Gallup has found that Democrats, including independents who lean Democratic, are more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to have a significantly better view of newspapers. That has held true even as confidence in newspapers among both groups has fallen over the past 16 years. This is the first year, however, that Democrats' confidence is no longer net positive: 27% have little or no confidence in newspapers, slightly exceeding the 25% saying they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence. By contrast, Republicans' views toward the institution have tilted negative since 2004. Net Confidence in Newspapers, by Party ID Percentage "A great deal/Quite a lot" minus "Very little/None"^ Republican/Lean Republican Democratic/Lean Democratic 2016 -33 -2 2015 -25 7 2014 -25 5 2013 -29 2 2012 -23 12 2011 -19 17 2010 -26 10 2009 -25 13 2008 -20 9 2007 -25 12 2006 -14 18 2005 -10 15 2004 -11 23 2003 12 24 2002 10 24 2001 5 26 ^ % None a volunteered response Gallup Young adults aged 18 to 34 have consistently been the most positive of all age groups about newspapers as an institution. However, the broader decline in confidence has finally reached the point that young adults are more likely to say they have very little or no confidence in newspapers than to say they have high confidence. This year marks the second straight year that newspapers are running a significant confidence deficit among young adults. Net Confidence in Newspapers, by Age Percentage "A great deal/Quite a lot" minus "Very little/None"^ 18 to 34 35 to 54 55+ 2016 -5 -23 -18 2015 -7 -17 -8 2014 6 -12 -23 2013 4 -19 -20 2012 13 -8 -21 2011 15 -12 -7 2010 24 -26 -11 2009 -1 -2 -15 2008 18 -7 -14 2007 9 -6 -15 2006 10 -5 5 2005 10 -5 6 2004 12 2 2 2003 32 14 5 2002 30 15 9 2001 26 13 10 ^ % None a volunteered response Gallup The decline in public confidence in newspapers since 2000 is part of a larger pattern of decline in Americans' confidence in U.S. institutions. However, since 2000, confidence in newspapers has fallen more steeply than the average of 14 institutions Gallup has tracked annually since 1993. While average confidence across all 14 institutions fell from 40% in 2000 to 32% the last two years, confidence in newspapers fell from 37% to 20% over the same period. Confidence in newspapers was at a peak in 2000, after climbing between 1993 and that year. However, even compared with 1993, confidence in newspapers has fallen more than the 14-institution average. Bottom Line Over half of Americans maintain at least some confidence in newspapers as a U.S. institution, but the percentage expressing high confidence -- the kind that counts -- has dwindled to 20%. The percentage with low confidence is now close to twice that rate. This reflects a downturn in confidence among all age and party groups to the point that young adults and Democrats, who once expressed solidly positive confidence in newspapers, are now neutral or net negative. The public's mood over the past 16 years has been something of a whirlpool, pulling most major U.S. institutions underwater, but newspapers appear to be faring a bit worse than average. The rise of digital media could be a factor in the trust Americans place in a traditionally print medium such as newspapers, but perhaps more importantly, newspapers are suffering from the broader decline Gallup sees in Americans' trust in the mass media in general. Survey Methods Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted June 1-5, 2016, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 1,027 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is 4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Learn more about how the Gallup Poll Social Series works. 'Outlander' Season 2 Episode 11 Air Date, Spoilers News & Update: Claire Will Meet Captain Jack? Jamie's Rescue Will Be Bloodier Than Expected The "Outlander" Season 2 is getting more intense with its imminent season finale coming after its last three episodes. The "Outlander" Season 2 Episode 11, "Vengeance is Mine," is now much-awaited for its new revelations that await Claire Randall (Caitriona Balfe) and Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan). 'Vengeance Is Mine' Synopsis According to Unreality TV, "Outlander" Season 2 Episode 11 will be hard for Claire and Jamie. In the teaser trailer of "Vengeance is Mine," a major battle lies ahead for the "Outlander" protagonists that fans hope not to make the life of Jamie in danger. As per "Outlander" Season 2 Episode 11 synopsis, the Jacobite leaders will try to stop the march in London that will make Claire and the rest of the Highlanders go to North. A Bloody Rescue Of Claire They will then come across the Redcoats that could be a sign of the return of Captain Jack (Tobias Menzies). As Claire gets separated from Jamie, the Redcoats will take her to a grand abode that might reunite her with Captain Jack that might put her at risk and the young Mary, Radio Times reported. Of course, Jamie together with Murtagh Morzansson (Garrett Hedlund) will come to Claire's rescue and it will be bloodier than everyone could think of. "I lay your vengeance at your feet," an unexpected character said. "I think we'd better go." The Unexpected Lost Of Angus Meanwhile, the fans of "Outlander" were surprised with the loss of Angus Mhor (Stephen Martin Walters) in Episode 10, "Prestonpans." To recall, Angus died unexpectedly through an unknown cause of internal bleeding at Claire's hospital after helping Rupert MacKenzie (Grant O'Rourke). "To be honest with you, because they've taken such a divergence in the first place from the actual character in the book anyway, it didn't surprise me," Walters told TVLine. "In terms of just casting me as Angus in the first place as Angus, from the physical description in the books, nothing surprised me." "Outlander" Season 2 Episode 11, "Vengeance is Mine," will air on Saturday, June 18, 10 p.m. on Starz. 'Attack on Titan' Season 2 Air Date, Spoilers, News & Update: New Characters, Storyline Details Revealed! 'AoT 2' Is The Last Installment? Several fans are now excited for the arrival of the "Attack on Titan" Season 2. After the leaked video for "Attack on Titan" Season 2, here are the further details that we know so far. New characters and villains in 'Attack on Titan' Season 2 As reported by The Christian Times, "Attack on Titan" Season 2 is intended to highlight the war between the Titans that had infiltrated the wall and the 104th Trainees Squad. It will also show the rebellion of humanity over the bent ways of the king and his downfall. There is also the debuts of the different characters that will play an integral part of the storyline that the fans can be excited about for "Attack on Titan" Season 2. Here are the characters that will make their debut for the sequel, Uri Reiss, Rod Reiss, Frieda Reiss, Captain Kenny Ackerman, and the Beast Titan. Rumored plot for "Attack on Titan" Season 2 revealed The rumored plot for "Attack on Titan" Season 2 is said to be a flashback of the real story the king and thing ended up to where they are today in the present time. Also, the Reiss family's story is also given a different light in "Attack on Titan" Season 2. From the king death, up to the passing of power in the Reiss family of generation to the other. Featured as well is the struggles of the Ackerman family members. Once again reported at The Christian Times, "the Ackerman family have a special gift of immunity to having their memories erased by the king. This gift has constantly placed the Ackermans in trouble." With this, it's rumored that we'll see more encounters and fights between the Reiss and the Ackerman family in "Attack on Titan" Season 2. Another important character who will make a debut for season 2 is the Beast Titan. With the looks of an ape or a caveman with such gigantic size, The Beast Titan will be known for his intelligence and knowledge on leadership. He will also have the capability to order commands to other Titans in the forthcoming "Attack on Titan" Season 2. For more news about "Attack on Titan" Season 2, stay tuned to GamenGuide! 'Dance Moms' Season 6 Spoilers: Nia Frazier Not Returning to Abby Lee Dance Company After Jojo Siwa's Exit? It seems like Abby Lee Miller is losing yet another dancer in "Dance Moms" Season 6 after Jojo Siwa's recent alleged departure. Rumors of Nia Frazier quitting the show and leaving Abby Lee Dance Company for good had been making its rounds on the Internet. So what is the real score? 'Dance Moms' Season 6: Nia Frazier quits Lifetime show and ALDC? "Dance Moms" season 6 star Nia Frazier is the only dancer lef from the original cast of "Dance Moms." Now, Nia Frazier is reportedly following the footsteps of Maddie Ziegler, Mackenzie Ziegler, and Jojo Siwa, who left "Dance Moms" and Abby Lee Dance Company in search for greener pastures. Yibada reports that Nia Frazier is getting a lot of opportunities outside "Dance Moms" and she is open to the idea of taking these jobs. The site revealed that the "Dance Moms" season 6 dancer is working on a secret project and she will have a performance outside the studio this July 2016. 'Dance Moms' season 7 cancelled? The BitBag took the news further by suggesting that "Dance Moms" season 7 might never happen after losing another "Dance Moms" season 6 dancer. This isn't the first time that Abby Lee Miller's prized talents left "Dance Moms." Maddie Ziegler and her younger sister Mackenzie left "Dance Moms" to focus on their career and pursue bigger opportunities outside the studio. Chloe Lukasiak, Brooke and Paige Hyland left the Lifetime hit show after their moms were involved in a verbal and physical fight with terror dance teacher, Abby Lee Miller. READ: 'Dance Moms' Season 6 Spoilers: Jojo Siwa Quits Show and Abby Lee Miller Dance Company? As for Jojo Siwa, her alleged exit from "Dance Moms" season 6 has yet to be confirmed. As of now, her absence from the show is still a mystery and it all started when she didn't perform with Nia Frazier, Kendall Vertes, Kalani Hilliker, and Brynn Rumfallo at the "Dance Moms" Season 6 Fierce National Dance Competition in Calabasas, California. Fifty Shades Darker Release Date, Cast, News & Update: Jamie Dornan Confirmed Showing Junk, Butt? Dakota Johnson, Rita Ora Are Exclusively Dating? Several fans are now excited for the upcoming release of the "Fifty Shades Darker" movie. Now, new reports have claimed that Jamie Dornan will be showing his butt and junk in the forthcoming "Fifty Shades of Grey" sequel. Jamie Dornan confirmed to show junk and butt in 'Fifty Shades Darker' GamenGuide previously reported that Jamie Dornan is now willing to do everything to increase the viewership and the earnings of the upcoming "Fifty Shades Darker" movie. At first, the leading man of Dakota Johnson has been very unsure about going full-frontal in the "Fifty Shades of Grey" sequel but it seems like the wind have gone to a different direction. When Jamie Dornan was still thinking twice about showing his junk and butt in "Fifty Shades Darker" movie, reports were saying that the husband of Amelia Warner is willing to do it if the price is right. In fact, an unidentified insider has told The Hollywood Life that Jamie Dornan has been offered with $1.5 million to show what most fans have been longing to see from day one. While Jamie Dornan has remained mum about it, Dakota Johnson has assured members of the "Fifty Shades Darker" cult that she will be doing her very best to make her leading man show what he's got. "I'm going to make him get fully naked in the next one. Everybody wants to see the D," the 26-year-old "How To Be Single" actress said. Dakota Johnson, Rita Ora exclusively dating in 'Fifty Shades Darker' set Meanwhile, Celeb Dirty Laundry has reported that Dakota Johnson and Rita Ora have been dating on the set of the "Fifty Shades Darker" movie. Photos of Dakota Johnson kissing Rita Ora have surfaces online that sparked reports that the two "Fifty Shades Darker" stars are exclusively dating. Up until now, Dakota Johnson and Rita Ora have remained silent about the dating reports. This is not the first time that "The X Factor" judge has been rumored dating another woman. In fact, the former girlfriend of Calvin Harris has been linked to Prince Harry's rumored girlfriend Ellie Goulding and Taylor Swift's BFF Cara Delevingne. Do you think Jamie Dornan will show his butt and junk on "Fifty Shades Darker"? Do you think Dakota Johnson and Rita Ora are dating? Share to us your thoughts in the comment section below. News & Notes Attorneys Beth Crawford and Holly Ferrioli recently established a new law practice, Crawford and Ferrioli, LLC, in the Bowlby Building at 310 N.W. Fifth St., Suite 205, in Corvallis. Crawford has practiced law in Corvallis since 2008 and continues to focus her practice on family law matters (including divorce, support, child custody, stalking orders and restraining orders) and will-based estate planning. She is a graduate of Wake Forest University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned a law degree from the University Of Oregon School Of Law. In 2011, she received the Mary Zelinka Advocate for Social Justice Award from the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence. Ferrioli has been practicing in Corvallis since 2011. Her focus includes both criminal law and family law, with significant trial experience in Benton County. Ferrioli graduated from the University of Oregon School of Law and began practicing law in 2009. She completed her undergraduate studies at Southwestern University, with a focus on interdisciplinary environmental studies. She currently volunteers through CARDV, assisting survivors with family law and criminal law matters. Crawford and Ferrioli and be reached at 541-752-0037. To learn more about the practice, see the firms website at www.crawfordferrioli.com. Officers & Directors Corvallis Elks Lodge recently installed its officers for the 2016-17 year. The new Exalted Ruler is Pernita Gregory. Others installed were Leading Knight Don Bartley; Loyal Knight Joey Taylor; Lecturing Knight Bruce Wilkinson; Secretary Evelyn Begin; Treasurer Darlene Rousey; Five-Year Trustee Fred Raw; Inner Guard John de Montigny; Chaplain Sharron de Montigny; Esquire Bill McCormick; and Tiler Paul Myers. Receiving special honors for the past year were Officer of the Year Don Bartley; Elk of the Year Rodger Danielson; and Volunteer of the Year Bob Sells. People on the Move Keller Williams Realty recently announced the addition of a new agent, Marcel Erickson. Erickson joined the Keller Williams Corvallis office. He has been in the Willamette Valley for nearly 10 years, and is a civil engineering student at Oregon State University. He can be reached at 503-688-0204 and marcel.erickson@kw.com. The Keller Williams Corvallis Market Center is at 1121 N.W. Ninth St. Take a Bow Hewlett-Packard Co., Oregon State University and Samaritan Health Services Samaritan Square site were honored in the 2015 Cascades West Rideshare program at Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments, in collaboration with the City of Corvallis Transportation Program. The ETC Challenge recognizes worksites for their efforts to promote transportation options. Staff members at all three locations helped promote transportation initiatives throughout the year, including, for example, attending quarterly ETC meetings, distributing fliers about transportation options campaigns, hosting events such as brown-bag lunches to share information at their worksites, and promoting the statewide rideshare database, www.DriveLessConnect.com, to their colleagues. The ETC Challenge features gold, silver and bronze levels to recognize participants for their level of engagement in various promotional opportunities and goals. HP and SHS are bronze-level winners, and OSU is a gold-level winner in recognition of participation from the OSU Sustainability Office, the OSU Transportation Services program, and the OSU Alternative Transportation Advisory Committee. The Employee Transportation Coordinator program brings together representatives from employers large and small throughout the Corvallis area to share transportation information, and to promote carpooling, walking, transit, biking and other transportation options to their fellow employees. The City of Corvallis Transportation Program, with support from Cascades West Rideshare, has spearheaded the group since the 1990s. Linn-Benton Community College recently earned a top-10 ranking from the Center for Digital Education, tying for fourth place across the nation. The centers annual Digital Community Colleges Survey asks community colleges across the country to share their education technology initiatives. LBCCs Admission and Registration office was recognized for its work using Laserfiche processing and Infusionsoft communications programs to help streamline processes and communicate more efficiently with students. The Laserfiche program helped the college streamline its transcript evaluation process, cutting evaluation turnaround time from an average of six to eight weeks down to one week. Students receive automatic email notifications when their transcripts have been received and evaluated. Laserfiche also is used to find unevaluated transcripts from students who have scheduled new student orientations, adding the transcript to an urgent folder and notifying staff of the need to evaluate them. LBCCs use of Laserfiche to process late refund and academic standing petitions significantly reduced processing time. The program notifies staff members of where a petition or refund is in the workflow, resulting in no more lost petitions or documentation. Students automatically are notified of the outcome via email, and can access their petitions online to easily attach support documentation. The Infusionsoft program allows the college to track and corresponding with prospective students, and to tailor messages to students interests. Infusionsoft also is used to send information to new students to help them prepare for college. In addition to Infusionsoft, Appointmentcore and PlusThis help the college track new student orientation appointments, and are being used to communicate with students via email and text messages. The winning colleges reflect a comprehensive implementation of technology supporting the educational institutions operations, as well as serving students, faculty and administrators. Top-10 colleges were recognized at a reception during the American Association of Community Colleges Annual Conference, held April 9 through 12 in Chicago. Another day, another lawsuit filed against the state by a local government. This is getting to be old hat. This latest complaint involves a new plaintiff the city of Corvallis, instead of Linn County but the case should be of interest to residents throughout the mid-valley: The lawsuit challenges Senate Bill 1573, which allows cities to annex land without a public vote, provided certain conditions are met. The bill affected the 35 cities in Oregon, including Albany, whose charters require public votes on annexation. In a recent case, residents of Jefferson learned that they no longer had the right to vote on a proposed annexation that is working its way through the towns government. Senate Bill 1573 was part of a package of four bills that aimed to address affordable-housing issues throughout Oregon. The package, a priority for Portland-area lawmakers, was among the high-profile legislation rammed through this years short legislative session. (This is the spot in the editorial in which we renew our frequent complaint that the Legislatures short sessions have gone considerably beyond the boundaries voters intended.) The citys lawsuit argues that Senate Bill 1573 is unconstitutional in part because it does not comply with state constitutional provisions limiting legislative authority. The lawsuit also argues that the bill is an unconstitutional limit on the right of local voters to enact and amend their own city charters. The lawsuit was filed in Benton County Circuit Court, but its a reasonable bet that any decision from that court will be appealed to the states Court of Appeals and, eventually, the state Supreme Court. (If the initial ruling goes against the city, it would be up to the City Council to appeal, but wed be surprised if the council backs down at that point.) A variety of other local governments will be watching this case with considerable interest. Despite the obvious differences between the political climates in the city of Corvallis and Linn County, a common thread runs through the annexation lawsuit and at least one of the lawsuits that Linn County has filed against the state: Both the annexation case and Linn Countys suit challenging the increase in the states minimum wage (another measure passed in the short session) on some level test the limits of the states authority over local governments. At least some local governments (especially in the states less populated areas) feel as if their concerns and issues have been given short shrift by the state. It's no surprise that local governments are pushing back. Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021. Floods aftermath : Five bridges in five days Wachtberg The Technische Hilfswerk volunteers have been lauded as heroes for their hard work over the last week. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Exactly one week almost to the minute after the floods in Pech inflicted catastrophic damage, a second temporary bridge was erected. After Pech Hauptstrae was reopened on Saturday morning, the Technische Hilfswerk (THW) closed the gaping hole in Gruner Weg in the afternoon. Around 2:45pm, a 300 ton crane heaved a 45 ton temporary bridge over the damaged area. There was great joy as THW personnel from Bad Honnef directed the crane and the 24 metre long bridge was put in place. Both those helping with the catastrophe and passersby, who had captured the bridge building on mobile phones and cameras, applauded. One mother rejoiced, Now the children no longer have to take a kilometre long detour to the Pech primary school. Some also called the THW personnel heroes. The mayor, Renate Offergeld, who was one of the first to cross the temporary bridge at Gruner Weg, also highly praised the volunteers. The THW has made a name for itself in the area. It was not just the two bridges in Pech that were built. Five bridges were built in five days. The Bonn THW helped build two smaller bridges, one at the Olmuhle in Pech on Saturday and a footbridge at Rodder Kirchweg in Villip on Sunday. Yesterday morning work also started on a further temporary measure for the blocked L123 road in Arzdorf. The same type of Bailey bridge used in Pech was erected over the damaged area within seven hours. It was completed at 5:15pm. The operation has been unprecedented in terms of organisation. Bridge construction expert Edgar Peters from Monchengladbach said he could not remember a similar situation in the region in his forty years of experience. Volunteers from Bornheim, Bonn, Leverkusen, Bruhl, Bergheim, Siegburg, Bielefeld and Monchengladbach had taken it in turns to work over the week. THW spokeswoman Sabrina Strauch said, No one was expecting us to get so far in one week. And everyone had experienced the huge thanks of the residents. That makes our work fun, said Strauch. However, the weekend also saw the first criticism since the building of the temporary bridge on Pech Hauptstrae. Residents are complaining of drivers going too fast over the bridge and the wooden planks making too much noise. Bonn International School : Topping out ceremony for new school extension Bad Godesberg The new eight million euro extension to the schools Waves building will house a further 23 classrooms. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Bonn International School (BIS) held a traditional topping out ceremony (Richtfest) for its new extension on Saturday, as a wreath was hoisted high above the building site and a carpenter threw a Schnaps glass. This is an important day for Bad Godesberg, said district mayor, Simone Stein-Lucke, at the start of the ceremony. To cater for international guests, the topping out ceremony was, of course, conducted in English. The ceremony linked the international nature of the school with a typical German tradition. A topping out ceremony is normally held as soon as the shell of a building and, in particular, the roof structure, is finished. We are on budget and on time, said Eric Voss, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the International School. The total cost of the build is more than eight million euros. Two million euros will come from the Federal Government and 1.89 million euros from the North Rhine Westphalia State Government. The school could also enjoy support from private donors. Voss said some money would also come from the internal school budget. The topping out ceremony took place on Saturday despite there being no third storey as yet. The flat roof also means there will be no roof trusses. We deliberately planned the ceremony to coincide with International Day, said Eric Voss. International Day takes place every year at the BIS campus and offers the chance to try food and drink from schoolchildrens many different cultures. As well as Stein-Lucke and others, the mayor, Reinhard Limbach, also spoke and underlined the importance of BIS to Bonns cross-cultural nature. The city of Bonn will do its best to support the school, promised Limbach. At the end of the ceremony, a colourfully decorated wreath was hoisted by crane above the building and a nail hammered into a wooden beam. The traditionally dressed carpenter was a highlight. He recited a traditional address and threw a Schnaps glass from the second floor of the unfinished building. Bonn International School has 792 pupils from 74 nationalities. The school comprises an early learning section, primary and secondary school up to Grade 12. The new building will house 23 additional classrooms as well as some offices. The building work started on 5 January. The end is also in sight. We want to be finished by the start of the new semester on 26 December 2016, said Board chairman Eric Voss. Article Protecting the worlds oceans an important goal of Germanys climate diplomacy The worlds oceans are vital to our survival. They regulate the global climate and are a source of food and income for billions of people. Only a very small part of the seas enjoys legal protection, however. Our diplomats are working in New York right now to change this state of affairs. 'Feels Like Home Season 2' offers something real and tangible to think about; takes home a pertinent point - if your intentions are good, there is nothing in life that isn't achievable. 'US-Japan-India to cause frictions in East China Sea' Iran Press TV Sun Jun 12, 2016 9:36AM Joint war games by the US, Japan and India near the East China Sea are likely to "create frictions" in the disputed waters, a Chinese military expert says. The first phase of the drill kicked off on Friday in Japan's southwestern city of Sasebo, with the the second stage due to start on June 14 off the Okinawa Island. Chinese military expert Du Wenlong said Saturday that the drill is aimed at the Diaoyu Islands, which Japan calls Senkaku, "to make the maritime and air space situations of the East China Sea worse." During the maneuvers, modern military equipment will be used, with Japan's warships practicing submarine hunting and anti-aircraft defense, military sources said. "If the three countries mount their advanced equipment in the region, their purposes are definitely to create more frictions in the disputed area," Du said. The expert also said the trilateral military maneuvers can also be "a threat to China's military activities in its offshore areas." China has repeatedly criticized US military presence in the region and suspects such drills are part of efforts to contain Beijing. The drill, known as Exercise Malabar and launched for the first time in 1992, used to be an annual military event between the US and India till 2015 when Japan joined it. Japan officially joined the war games for the first, a move seen as a reflection of Tokyo's growing militarism and and its raising of the ante in the territorial dispute with China. The two countries have been at loggerheads over the East China Sea islands for many decades, with each side claiming the entire maritime region as their own. Tokyo has reinforced its southwestern island chain with radar stations and anti-ship missile batteries. The area is home to the biggest concentration of US military personnel in Asia, effectively blocking China's east coast access to the Western Pacific. China claims most of the South China Sea, despite overlapping claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, which all enjoy military ties with the United States. Officials in Beijing called on Washington on Tuesday to play a constructive role in safeguarding peace in the disputed region. On Friday, an official at Chinese Embassy in the US sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal, in response to an article titled "South China Sea Challenge", saying China was acting within its sovereignty rights. Embassy spokesman Zhu Haiquan refuted the article's claim that China's territorial ambition was the root of the South China Sea disputes, saying that the origin of the dispute is the illegal seizure and occupation of Chinese territory by other countries. Zhu said the moves suggested by the article were "reckless and alarming," adding US military operations in the region could do nothing but fuel tension. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address 50 Killed In Florida Club Shooting June 12, 2016 A gunman has killed 50 people overnight at a gay nightclub in Florida before being killed by police in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. Orlando's Mayor Buddy Dyer said on June 12 that another 53 people were hospitalized after the attack at the Pulse club. President Barack Obama said Americans would stand united and "not give in to fear or turn against each other" in the wake of "an act of terror and an act of hate." A "definitive judgement" about the motives of the gunman were not yet available, said Obama, who ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at the White House and federal buildings. Police entered the Pulse club some three hours after the shooting unfolded, and killed the gunman who had taken hostages. Police described the attack as an act of terrorism. The attacker was carrying an assault rifle and a handgun, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. The shooter was identified by authorities as Omar Mateen, whom media reports described as a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent. The Amaq news agency, which supports the extremist Islamic State (IS) group, said the shooting was carried out by an IS fighter -- quoting an unidentified "source." U.S. media also reported that Mateen, a Florida resident reportedly born in New York, had been licensed as a private security officer. Reports also said he called 911 before the shooting and swore allegiance to the IS group. However, U.S. officials said they had seen no immediate evidence of any direct connection between the shooting and the IS group or any other foreign extremist group. The father of the suspect said he believed his son was motivated by hatred of gays -- not by his Muslim religion. "This had nothing to do with religion," Mir Seddique told NBC News. Seddique said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago and thinks that may be related to the shooting. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," he also said. "We are in shock like the whole country." In a statement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack, saying that "targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever." "We are sickened and heartbroken by this appalling attack," said Nihad Awad, executive director of a leading Muslim organization in the United States -- the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Law enforcement officer Danny Banks said authorities are looking into whether the shooting was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was acting alone. FBI agent Ronald Hopper said the attacker appeared to "have leanings toward" radical Islamist ideology. An unidentified law-enforcement official was quoted as saying the suspect was known to the FBI and had been looked at by agents within the last few years. In a statement, Florida Senator Marco Rubio said one of America's biggest challenges in law enforcement and intelligence gathering is to confront violent radicals within the United States. President Obama has ordered the federal government to provide any assistance needed to Florida police investigating the shooting, the White House said. The death toll given by Mayor Dyer means that the Orlando attack surpasses the 2007 massacre at the Virginia Tech college that left 32 people dead. "Today we're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Dyer said, adding that there was "an enormous amount of havoc" and "blood everywhere." With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/florida-orlando- gay-club-shooting-deaths/27793351.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. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Zarif: JCPOA reached thanks to Supreme Leader guidelines, people resistance IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, June 12, IRNA -- Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said here on Sunday that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been reached thanks to the guidelines of the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei and people's resistance and prayers. Zarif made the remarks while attending Majlis (parliament) open session to give a report on Economy of Resistance and foreign investments. Zarif reiterated that the anti-Iran sanctions would have been increased, if the JCPOA had not been reached. He added that almost each month or year a new sanction was imposed against Tehran over the past years. 'If anti-Iran sanctions had continued, Iran's oil sale would have been reached less than 200,000 bpd and later close to zero ,' he said. Zarif reiterated that thanks to Iranian people resistance and great efforts of Petroleum Ministry, Iran's oil exports have currently reached 2,000,000 bpd. Today, the new Majlis is holding its seventh session since it started work after the February 26 Majlis elections nationwide. 9060**1771 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Larijani: Certain countries seeking to sabotage nuclear deal IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency Tehran, June 12, IRNA -- Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said certain countries are trying to sabotage the nuclear agreement signed between Iran and six world countries. He made the remarks while addressing the Sunday session of the Majlis after legislators listened to Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who briefed them on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and its outcomes. He urged the parliament, the government and other relevant bodies to vigilantly monitor all developments. The speaker further hailed the efforts of the Iranian team in striking a nuclear deal after lengthy negotiations and said they endeavored to safeguard the rights of the Iranian nation. However, he said, the Iranian foreign ministry had to remain vigilant towards the US excessive demands as tokens indicate that America as well as some other countries are seeking to press Iran again through channels other than nuclear issue. Larijani also voiced parliament's support for Zarif's policy which is to enhance economic relations with world. 1424**1771 NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Iraq calls for clarity after Saudi Arabia admits fundraising for Daesh Iran Press TV Sun Jun 12, 2016 5:46AM Iraq has called on Saudi Arabia for explanation after a senior official admitted fundraising in the kingdom for Daesh terrorists fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The call by Iraq's Foreign Ministry came after Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said earlier this week that Iraq's current offensive against Daesh has sparked a flurry of new fundraising campaigns in Saudi Arabia. "You cannot control the sympathies of people," Turki said before acknowledging that those were potentially fake campaigns to raise money in the name of the "children of Fallujah" that actually funds terrorism. "They are focusing on any event that results in a humane crisis, like the one going on in Fallujah now in Iraq," he said. "This is now heavily being used by many to encourage people to give money for the children of Fallujah," Turki added during a conference call with reporters on terrorist financing. In a statement on Saturday, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry denounced the case as "an obvious violation of the Security Council's decisions." "We are waiting for a clarification from the Saudi Government regarding its spokesman's press statements on the collection of financial donations for ISIS (Daesh) within the kingdom," the statement said. "The real efforts exercised to fight terrorist organizations must eliminate its funding sources," the ministry said, in an apparent jab at Turki's allegations touting Saudi Arabia's counter-terrorism efforts. Turki spoke Wednesday to reporters invited to question him remotely at the Saudi embassy in Washington which has sharply stepped up its lobbying activities in recent months amid new reports about the kingdom's role in 9/11 attacks. Saudi Arabia threatened to pull out several hundreds of billions of dollars in assets held in the US if the country was incriminated in the attacks. Hence, US Treasury officials have said their concerns about wealthy Saudis funneling money to terrorist organizations have largely abated. Riyadh is widely viewed as one of the major supporters of Daesh, mainly operating in Syria and Iraq. Takfirism, which is the terrorist group's trademark, is largely influenced by Wahhabism, the radical ideology dominating Saudi Arabia and freely preached by Saudi clerics. Daesh overran Fallujah in the western Anbar province in January 2014, six months before the terror group proceeded with its offensive, taking more areas in Iraq. On May 23, the Iraqi military started a large-scale push to drive out the militants from Fallujah, located nearly 70 kilometers west of the capital, Baghdad. According to the United Nations, up to 90,000 civilians are believed to be trapped in the city, which has been under siege for about six months, with no supplies getting in. Daesh militants have been carrying out horrific acts of violence, such as public decapitations and crucifixions, against all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians in areas they have overrun. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Political, military balance shifting in favor of Assad, Syrians: Iran Iran Press TV Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:51PM The political situation in Syria is changing in favor of the Arab country's government and nation, says a senior adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. "The political and military balance in Syria is shifting in favor of the country's government, people and its allies," Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises Ayatollah Khamenei on international affairs, told reporters on Sunday. "We firmly believe that victory belongs to the Syrian government and nation," he said. Velayati emphasized that given the legitimacy of the Syrian government and the dire situation of the country's people, "it is incumbent upon us to help them and this has been done." Iran, Russia and Syria all pursue a common objective and are united in the fight against terrorism, which poses a danger to the security of regional states, the senior Iranian official said, adding that the three countries have achieved positive results during recent years and months. Velayati's remarks came after Iran, Russia and Syria recently agreed to step up cooperation in their fight against Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in Syria and across the region. Iran and Russia are Syria's main allies against a multitude of foreign-backed armed groups, including Daesh terrorists, fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Moscow has sent warplanes and special forces in support of Syrian government troops, while Tehran has deployed military advisers in the fight against terrorists. Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Damascus says Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main supporters of the militants fighting the government forces. On the battleground, Syrian troops established control over an oil pumping station and a power station in the northern city of al-Tabqa on Saturday as well as two oil fields in the western suburbs of Raqqah. Syrian forces also shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle gathering information about army positions for Daesh over the Badiya desert in central Homs Province. UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian crisis so far. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Riyadh, Ankara, Doha behind massacre of Syria civilian: Syrian PM Iran Press TV Sun Jun 12, 2016 8:44AM Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi has held Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar responsible for the "brutal massacres" of civilians across his country. Halqi said on Saturday that the three countries are the main supporters of the Takfiri terrorist groups fighting in Syria to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power. He condemned terrorist bombings outside the holy shrine of Hazrat Zaynab (Peace Be Upon Her) on Damascus suburbs on Saturday, which left at least 20 people dead and dozens of others injured. Such acts of terror, he said, are being carried out to undermine Syria's security, restore terrorists' morale and compensate for failures in the face of recent advances by the "valiant" Syrian government forces. Halqi further called upon the international community to fulfill its "human, moral and legal responsibilities" vis-a-vis terrorist attacks in Syria and adopt punitive measures against Riyadh, Ankara and Doha as the "main supporters and financiers" of Takfiri militants. The prime minister went on to say that terrorist attacks "will by no means scare the Syrian nation, and will rather cement their determination to obtain victory and defeat terrorism." On Saturday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry sent two letters to the United Nations and Security Council, calling for immediate action against Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. They were similar to two other letters sent to the UN last month after deadly terrorist bombings killed at least 154 people in the coastal cities of in Tartous and Jableh. The letters said the terrorist bombings were a "dangerous escalation by the hostile and extremist regimes in Riyadh, Ankara and Doha." Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Damascus says Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar are the main supporters of the militants fighting the government forces. On Saturday, political and media adviser to the Syrian president Bouthaina Shaaban said the Syrian nation would never bow to the West. Speaking at the 16th anniversary of the demise of President Hafez al-Assad in Damascus, Shaaban said the ongoing crisis in Syria showed that Syrians love their homeland, and don't care about anything other than their national interests. On the battleground, Syrian troops established control over an oil pumping station and a power station in the northern city of al-Tabqa on Saturday as well as two oil fields in the western suburbs of Raqqa. Syrian forces also shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle gathering information about army positions for Daesh over the Badiya desert in central Homs Province. UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimates that over 400,000 people have been killed in the Syrian crisis. The UN stopped its official casualty count in Syria more than two years ago, citing its increasing inability to verify the figures it received. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Alan Burkitt-Gray speaks to Michael Wheeler, executive vice president at NTT Ltd, about a name change for the company, NTT's contribution in the midst of the pandemic and all things network security. A company planning a $250 million investment in the region has signed a purchase agreement with the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority for a 300-acre site at the industrial mega park site on Berry Hill Road. The announcement came after RIFA members emerged from a closed-door meeting Monday. The agreement with Wilmot Properties LLC a Delaware limited liability company calls for the company to purchase the site for $30,000 per buildable acre. Acreage deemed unbuildable such as environmental issues like wetlands conservation will be sold for $10 per acre. A determination has not yet been made on the breakdown of what acreage falls into each category, but if all of the acreage were buildable, the cost would be $9 million. There is a 180-day due diligence period included in the agreement, for the company to conduct any investigation of the site called Lot 3B it determines necessary and appropriate and gives the company a right to extend the due diligence period or to terminate the purchase agreement without penalty. The agreement states that the company will invest at least $250 million in connection with the development of the site, including construction and operation of the facilities, while RIFA reserves the right to repurchase the site and facilities should the company not make the level of investment promised within five years of acquiring the property. There are no details about what company will ultimately build on the site or what the company produces or even how many jobs can be expected. The project itself is code-named Project 950. We cant say at this time, Clarence Monday, administrator of Pittsylvania County said. Its still under a confidentiality agreement. The agreement states that RIFA will perform certain site work on Lot 3B which could include acquiring various permits, environmental mitigation, earthwork and grading and the removal or relocation of any historic or culturally significant structures, not to exceed $6.5 million. This project, from our current understanding, would likely represent the largest single private investment ever in Pittsylvania County, Jessie Barksdale, RIFA and Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors chairman, said in a prepared statement. Berry Hill Industrial Park was specifically developed these types of large projects. Danville Mayor Sherman Saunders, who is vice chairman of the RIFA board, was absent from the meeting, but also commented about the project in a prepared statement. It is exciting to know that our efforts and investment in the Berry Hill Industrial Park may result in such a regionally significant project, that would bring good jobs and shared revenue to our region, Saunders said. More details about development at the industrial park site was discussed during the regular meeting, with the board passing a resolution to proceed with additional archeological work and subdivision plats for both Lot 3B and Lot 8A. Lot 8 is being subdivided to provide a 100-acre site for Project Lignon, another unannounced project considering the Berry Hill Industrial Park as a location site. Both proposals received unanimous approval, though there was a request from Mark Joyner, founder and project director of the Association for the Study of Archeological Properties, to keep his agency as well as both the Danville and Pittsylvania County historical societies abreast of any archeological work done and allow them to monitor the work. In the past, the archeological surveys and studies that have been conducted at this site have been done without notification to our groups, who are representing the history of our region, Joyner said. Joyner said artifacts from those studies were taken to a Henry County museum and he wants to be assured the items remain in Pittsylvania County or Danville. Please help us to continue to maintain control of our historical and archaeological resources here in the county, Joyner said. After the meeting, Monday and Matt Rowe, director of economic development for Pittsylvania County, said they could not immediately speak on Joyners requests, but would have to check with the appropriate state agencies about how they are required to process any archeological artifacts. Updated at 1:23 p.m. REIDSVILLE A court document released today revealed that Rontae Devore Hayes had a first-degree murder charge dropped Tuesday. According to a dismissal notice of reinstatement, the charge was dropped because one witness' statement was tainted during investigation. Also, another witness' identification of Hayes in a photo line-up was deemed "completely unreliable," according to the document. Hayes, 37, of Fewell Road, Greensboro, was charged in the April 26 death of 25-year-old Larry Bud Alexander Settle Jr. in Eden. Updated at 12:44 p.m. REIDSVILLE Rontae Devore Hayes was charged today with two counts of murder in the deaths of two people found dead at 1290 Grooms Road early Sunday morning. In addition to the murder charges, Hayes, 37, of 4704 Fewell Road, Greensboro, is charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, first-degree sexual offense, kidnapping, first-degree burglary, first-degree arson, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. REIDSVILLE A Greensboro man was captured Sunday after an overnight crime spree in Rockingham County that left two people dead and four others injured. Rontae Devore Hayes, 37, was captured at 9:18 a.m. Sunday about 12 hours after a shooting, an assault with a beer bottle and a stolen car set off a countywide manhunt. Hayes has been charged with attempted first-degree murder and two other felonies. Authorities in Rockingham County say other charges will be filed today. Two men found dead inside a burning house on Grooms Road were not immediately identified. The Rockingham County Sheriffs Office gave this account of the crime spree that included two shootings, two intentionally set fires and a report of a peeping Tom. About 9 p.m. Saturday, Reidsville police said three people were injured in an incident in the 100 block of Madison Street. Someone hit a person with a beer bottle and shot a second person in the leg. The assailant stole a car and hit a third person, the vehicles owner, as he drove off. Police didnt identify the victims but said all three were treated at a local hospital for injuries that were not life-threatening. About 10 minutes later, Rockingham County deputies were called to 735 Knowles Road, which sits about 7 miles from the Reidsville incident. There, a 49-year-old man had been shot. Deputies also found the stolen car, which was on fire nearby. The wounded mans condition was unknown late Sunday. As authorities searched for the suspect, they got a call about 1:30 a.m. Sunday about a house fire. Authorities found two men inside the burning single-story ranch house at 1290 Grooms Road, about a mile south of Knowles Road. Rockingham County Fire Marshal Robert Cardwell said efforts to revive the unidentified men were unsuccessful. There was right much fire showing when the fire department arrived, Cardwell said. Also at the Grooms Road house, authorities found a woman lying outside with serious injuries. The sheriffs office said the unidentified woman had been assaulted. Authorities caught a break about 2:30 a.m. when the sheriffs office got a call about a man reportedly looking into the window of a house at 121 Jacks Trail in Reidsville, about a quarter mile away from the burning home on Grooms Road. Surveillance video captured an image of a man in his underwear. As the night went on, Rockingham County authorities issued alerts to area residents. They called in State Bureau of Investigation agents, the N.C. Department of Corrections bloodhound team and a Highway Patrol helicopter. The sheriffs office said they found the man they were looking for shortly after 9 a.m. Sunday. The man tried to run, but authorities caught him near Busick Road and Grooms Road. Initial charges against Haynes include attempted murder, felony possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, felony larceny of a motor vehicle and three counts of misdemeanor assault with a dangerous weapon. More charges are pending. Hayes is being held without bail in the Rockingham County jail. His Greensboro address was not immediately available. Hayes served eight years in prison after he was convicted of manslaughter, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon in 2000, according to the N.C. Department of Correction website. He was released from prison in 2010. Donald Trump angered plenty of Republicans on his way to the title of presumptive nominee and not just the supporters of the other candidates he beat during the primary. This week, though, Republicans have good reason to worry about Trump, and more than a few of them have criticized their presidential candidate. Trump has picked a fight with an Indiana-born federal judge with a reputation for taking on the type of criminals that Trump has spent so much time campaigning against. Trump doesnt like the way Federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel has handled a civil lawsuit against Trump University. Its a tremendous conflict of interest for Trump to be talking about this lawsuit. Its racist of Trump to be concerned about Curiel because he is the son of Mexican immigrants and Trump wants to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. That combination of racism and self-interest should shock and anger Americans who believe in the rule of law and the importance of an independent judiciary. Ultimately, the issue here isnt Trump University or Judge Curiel, but the Republican Party. There are more races on the ballot than just the presidency. Right now, the Republican Party controls both the House of Representatives and the Senate. On the U.S. Supreme Court, four of the eight justices were appointed by Republican presidents. Throughout this country, men and women are running as Republicans for seats in the House of Representatives, Senate and the governorship of states. This is not the time for a presidential candidate the proverbial top of the ticket to get into trouble with his or her mouth. Trumps actions last week have put the entire party at risk. Based on the campaign he has run so far, its likely that Trump wont win the majority of women, blacks, Muslims and Hispanic voters in November. Last week, the Republicans presumptive nominee took a few steps backward and he threatens to drag down lots of Republicans with him. Its important to remember that most Republicans are not like Donald Trump. We live in a community thats represented by Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly and the U.S. House of Representatives. None of those men talk like Trump or act like Trump. Trump, as they say, is a different kind of Republican. For this countrys premier conservative political party, lets hope he learns that right now, hes his own worst enemy. VANCOUVER, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - Wellgreen Platinum Ltd. ("Wellgreen Platinum" or the "Company") (TSX: WG; OTC-QX: WGPLF) is very pleased to announce that Diane R. Garrett has joined the Company as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. Ms. Garrett has over 20 years of experience in the mining industry and an exceptional track record for developing projects, building companies and creating considerable value for shareholders. Most recently, Ms. Garrett was President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Romarco Minerals Inc. ("Romarco"), a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company which was acquired by OceanaGold Corp. (TSX, ASX, NZX: OGC) in 2015 for a final transaction value of over C$550 million. As CEO of Romarco, Ms. Garrett restructured the company and built and led the team that developed a world class mining project from exploration through to final feasibility, permitting and into construction, starting in 2002 with no assets and a market capitalization of less than C$20 million. Ms. Garrett has extensive experience in executive management and advanced academic credentials in the mining and petroleum industries, including a Masters degree in Mineral Economics and a Ph.D. in Engineering (with her doctoral dissertation focused primarily on Platinum Group Metals) from the University of Texas at Austin. Myron Manternach, Chairman of Wellgreen Platinum, stated, "We are thrilled to have Diane join the Company. She is ideally suited to lead the Company forward and to unlock the tremendous value of our assets for the benefit of all our stakeholders. We look forward to working with Diane and benefiting from her energy and enthusiasm as well as her vast experience, expertise and network." Ms. Garrett stated, "I'm very excited to join Wellgreen Platinum, which controls a project that is not only one of the largest undeveloped PGM-Ni deposits in the world but is also located in one of the most attractive jurisdictions globally. The Wellgreen Project is exceptionally attractive in terms of the extraordinary size of the resource, the diversity of base and precious metals, and its being situated in a supportive community. I appreciate the hard work carried out by current management and the Board that has brought Wellgreen Platinum to this point, and I look forward to working with the team to take this project up the value chain." The hiring of Ms. Garrett concludes a successful search process conducted by the Executive Search Committee of the Board of Directors led by Board member, Michele Darling. Mr. Manternach stated, "On behalf of the entire Board of Directors, I want to extend a special thanks to Michele for her excellent work in managing a thorough, professional and cost-effective search process." Mr. Manternach further stated, "On behalf of the Board of Directors, I also want to thank John Sagman, Wellgreen Platinum's Chief Operating Officer, for his excellent leadership as interim President during the last six months." Wellgreen Platinum is also pleased to announce that Gillyeard (Gil) Leathley has been appointed as an observer to the Board of Directors, and is expected to stand for election to the Board at the Company's next Annual General Meeting. Mr. Leathley is being proposed as a director by Electrum Strategic Opportunities Fund L.P. ("Electrum") pursuant to its rights under the terms of a unit purchase agreement between the Company and Electrum dated March 9, 2016. Mr. Leathley has more than 50 years of experience in the mining industry, culminating in the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Homestake Mining where he provided executive leadership in all aspects of mine construction and operations around the world. Myron Manternach stated, "We enthusiastically welcome Mr. Leathley to Wellgreen. With his extensive mine-building expertise, Gil has the very skill sets we need on our Board to help us as we take our project to the next level." About Wellgreen Platinum Wellgreen Platinum is a Canadian mining exploration and development company focused on the active advancement of its Wellgreen platinum group metals (PGM) and nickel project. Located in the Yukon Territory of Canada, the 2015 PEA demonstrated that the Wellgreen project has the potential to become a large, low cost, open pit producer of nickel, platinum, palladium, gold, and copper. The Wellgreen property is accessible from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to year-round deep sea ports in southern Alaska. The Company is led by a management team with a track record of successful large-scale project discovery, development, financing and operation. Our vision is to create value for our shareholders through development of the Wellgreen deposit into a leading North American PGM and nickel producer. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Information: This news release includes certain information that may be deemed "forward-looking information". Forward-looking information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans" or similar terminology, or negative connotations thereof. All information in this release, other than information of historical facts, including, without limitation, regarding the size, scale and future development of the Wellgreen deposit, is forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in such forward-looking information are based on reasonable assumptions, such expectations are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is based on a number of material factors and assumptions. For more information on the Company and the key assumptions, risks and challenges with respect to the forward looking information discussed herein, and about our business in general, investors should review the Preliminary Economic Assessment dated March 19, 2015 on the Wellgreen project, our most recently filed annual information form, and other continuous disclosure filings which are available at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. SOURCE Wellgreen Platinum Ltd. MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - Jun 13, 2016) - Yorbeau Resources Inc. (TSX:YRB.A) (the "Company" or "Yorbeau") is pleased to report on recent diamond drilling results at its 100% owned Scott Lake project in Quebec. Drill hole SC-85W, which was the second last hole in the 2016 program, intersected high grade zinc in massive sulphides at the western edge of the Gap Lens. This mineralized interval, as were all intercepts released by the Company since June 2015, is located outside of the mineral resources as currently estimated (see attached Figure 1) at the Scott project. Assay results are shown below: DDH SC-85W Section 2050W (weighted averages) From (m) To (m) Length (m) Cu % Zn % Au g/t Ag g/t Remarks 944.7 949.2 4.5 0.2 19.4 0.2 31.0 Massive sulphides As this is still preliminary drilling on the above mineralization, the exact shape and true width cannot be determined with certainty. The core lengths obtained may not reflect the true width of the mineralization. Hole SC-85W is a wedge-cut drilled up-dip from original hole SC-85, completed in the last month, and is part of the on-going 2016 program which consists in acquiring enough drill data at a nominal 50 metre spacing to initiate a revised resources estimate. Prior to SC-85W, holes SC-84 and SC-85 were drilled, specifically to test for down plunge extensions of the Gap Lens, but did not encounter mineralization (see attached Figure 1). As shown in Figure 1, and as supported by borehole geophysics, the Gap Lens is presently thought to be cut-off or have ended to the west around section 2050W. However, borehole geophysics clearly shows potential extension at depth below SC-83, and also at shallower depth to the east. In particular, geophysical vectors as well as computer modelling of the data in surrounding holes SC-31 and SC-31W2 clearly suggest strong conductivity to the east. The Company has therefore decided to extend the planned program and drill two additional holes totalling approximately 1,500 metres to the east on section 1800W prior to initiating the revised resource estimate. Hole SC-86, located about 50 metres west of SC-82 (Figure 1), was completed on June 10 and was the last hole of the initial planned program. It was sampled and assays will be released in late June. The additional drilling will start immediately after a short break for the drilling crew. Company president Gerald Riverin stated: "We continue to be very encouraged with the on-going drilling program and hitting high grade zinc in SC-85W near the western edge of the lens is certainly considered a positive development. By extending the planned program with two more holes we realize that the revised resource estimate is going to be delayed by a few weeks. However, success in these two holes would lead to a further increase in mineral resources, which is the ultimate objective of the program. We are looking forward to pursuing drilling in this sector." The Scott Lake property, 100% owned by Yorbeau, already hosts a number of polymetallic massive sulphide lenses. These represent combined inferred resources of 5.45 million tonnes grading 1.2% copper, 4.6% zinc, 0.2 g/t gold and 34 g/t silver, using an NSR cut-off of $80 per tonne (Technical Report prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates and filed by Cogitore Resources in 2011). All drill core discussed in this press release was logged and marked up for assay at the Company's secure facility in Chibougamau, Quebec. Drill core selected for assay was split in half. Half of the core was shipped in sample bags to Techni-Lab S.G.B. Abitibi Inc. (ACTLABS) of Ste-Germaine-Boule, Quebec, with appropriate standards, duplicates and replicates used for quality control purposes. The other half of the core is retained for future reference. Work is carried out by the personnel of Yorbeau, under the supervision of Gerald Riverin, PhD, P. Geo. He is a qualified person (as defined by National Instrument 43-101) and has reviewed and approved the content of this release. About Yorbeau Resources Inc. The Company's 100% controlled Rouyn Property contains four known gold deposits in the 6-km-long Augmitto-Astoria corridor situated on the western half of the property. Two of the four deposits, Astoria and Augmitto, have substantial underground infrastructure and have been the focus of NI 43-101 technical reports that include resource estimates. The Company has recently expanded its exploration property portfolio by acquiring strategic base metal properties in prospective areas of the Abitibi Belt of Quebec and Ontario that also feature infrastructure favourable for mining development. The newly acquired base metal properties include Scott Lake which hosts important mineral resources. More information on the Company may be found on the Company's website at www.yorbeauresources.com. Forward-looking statements: Except for statement of historical fact, all statements in this news release, without limitation, regarding new projects, acquisitions, future plans and objectives are forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate; actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Jun 13, 2016) - Emerita Resources Corp. (the "Company" or "Emerita") (TSX VENTURE:EMO) is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding letter agreement (the "Agreement") with Falcon Metais Ltda. ("Falcon") pursuant to which Falcon has granted to Emerita an option (the "Option") to acquire a 100% interest in the Falcon Litio MG Project (the "Project") on or before June 13, 2018 (the "Option Expiry Date"). The Project is adjacent to Brazil's only lithium mining operation owned by Companhia Brasileira de Litio ("CBL") and the northwestern property boundary of the Project is just 500 meters from the CBL mine (see Figure 1 below). The Option In order to acquire the Option, Emerita will issue 500,000 common shares, at a price per share of $0.155, to Falcon promptly after receiving approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). In order to keep the Option in good standing prior to its expiry, Emerita is required to issue an additional 500,000 common shares to Falcon on or before June 13, 2017. In order to exercise the Option and acquire the Project, Emerita must issue a third tranche of 500,000 common shares to Falcon on or before the Option Expiry Date. All issuances of common shares of Emerita are subject to a statutory hold period and to approval by the Exchange. If Emerita exercises the Option and acquires the Project, Falcon will retain a transferable 2% net smelter royalty on all commercial sales from the Project. In addition, if a "mineral resource", as defined in National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"), of at least 20 million tonnes with a grade of at least 1.3% LiO 2 is delineated at the Project, Emerita shall either, (i) pay CAD$5 million in cash to Falcon or, in its sole discretion, (ii) issue CAD$5 million worth (to be determined on a reasonable volume weighted average price basis) of common shares to Falcon (the "Resource Consideration"). The Resource Consideration shall only be paid by Emerita if (i) the mineral resource is verified by a "qualified person", as such term is defined in NI 43-101, who is independent of Emerita and Falcon, and (ii) at least 50% of the mineral resource is categorized as an "indicated mineral resource" or "measured mineral resource", as defined in NI 43-101. Pursuant to the Agreement, Falcon will hold the Project in trust for Emerita until Emerita exercises the Option and the Project is assigned and transferred to Emerita. If Emerita does not exercise the Option by the Option Expiry Date, Falcon will retain the Project. The Project The Project is located in Minas Gerais State, Brazil, and is comprised of one exploration permit and five applications for exploration permits. The applications for exploration permits have been submitted to the Brazilian Mining Agency by Falcon and will be transferred to Emerita when the exploration permits are granted. The area of the existing exploration permit is immediately adjacent to CBL's lithium mine. Pegmatite dykes similar to the mineralized dykes on the adjacent CBL property have been identified on the Project during the initial field reconnaissance of the area. Systematic mapping and sampling of the Project will commence immediately by Emerita. According to Dr. Fernando Tallarico, P.Geo, an independent consultant of Emerita, "the proximity to the producing operation along with the geological evidence observed in the field, indicate further mapping, sampling and drilling are merited." Mineralization in the area where the Project is located is associated with Neoproterozoic granitic intrusions that have deposited lithium mineralization with minor contents of rare metals such as thallium, niobium and tin mineralization in the apical aureole of these intrusions. Mineralization is hosted by pegmatite dykes with widths varying from 5 to 30 meters and strike in excess of 1 kilometer. The mineralized pegmatite dyke system is structurally-controlled by a framework of NW and NE crosscutting faults and fractures, and locally is characterized by stockwork systems or sets of sub-paralleled sheeted-dykes. The main lithium mineral at the adjacent CBL property is spodumene with minor amounts of petalite. CBL produces lithium concentrate with a grade of approximately 5% LiO 2 that is converted in a chemical plant, also belonging to CBL, into lithium-hydroxide and lithium-carbonate. Figure 1 map : http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/FalconAreas2.pdf According to Joaquin Merino, President and CEO of Emerita, "This transaction is an exciting development for Emerita. We will continue to pursue advanced projects in the Iberian Peninsula, however, we have been able to leverage our strong contacts in Brazil to acquire an option on a project in a proven environment for lithium immediately adjacent to a producing mine". Qualified Person Dr. Fernando Tallarico, P.Geo., is a "qualified person" as such term is defined in NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information included in this press release and has approved its dissemination. Dr. Tallarico is considered independent of Emerita. About Emerita Resources Corp. Emerita is a natural resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties with a primary focus on exploring in Spain and Brazil. The Company's corporate office and technical team are based in Sevilla, Spain with an administrative office in Toronto, Canada. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Information This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the Project, the mineralization of the Project, the permits and applications comprising the Project, the Company's ability to exercise the Option, the ability of the Company to be granted any mining rights and the Company's future plans. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Emerita, as the case may be, to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; the actual results of current exploration activities; risks associated with operation in foreign jurisdictions; ability to successfully integrate purchased properties or mining rights awarded; foreign operations risks; and other risks inherent in the mining industry. Although Emerita has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Emerita does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. NEITHER TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE. VANCOUVER, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - Barsele Minerals Corp. (TSX-V: BME) ("Barsele") reports that joint venture partner Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM, TSX: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle") has made the first anniversary $US 2 million ($CA 2.54 million) payment to Orex Minerals Inc. (TSX.V: REX) ("Orex") as per the agreement (the "Agreement") between Agnico Eagle and Orex whereby Agnico Eagle acquired a 55% interest in the Barsele Project in Vasterbottens Lan, northern Sweden. Pursuant to the Agreement, Agnico Eagle acquired a 55% interest in the corporate entity which owns the Barsele Project in consideration of an initial payment to Orex of $US 6 million, with an additional $US 2 million payable by Agnico Eagle, in cash or shares at Agnico Eagle's election, to Orex on each of the first and second anniversaries of the closing. As part of the Agreement, Agnico Eagle has committed to spend $US 7 million on Barsele Project expenditures over three years and will earn an additional 15% interest in the corporate entity which owns the Barsele Project if it completes a pre-feasibility study. Orex was also granted a 2% net smelter royalty on production from the Barsele Project which may be repurchased by Agnico Eagle at any time for $US 5 million. Agnico Eagle holds a majority of board seats and will be the operator of the Barsele Project for customary compensation (see Orex news release 11 June 2015). Subsequent to the original transaction with Agnico Eagle, Orex spun out their 45% interest in the Barsele Project to Barsele. The completion of the Barsele spin out was announced in a news release dated 25 September 2015. Orex and Barsele's President, Gary Cope says, "This continuation of Agnico Eagle's involvement in the Barsele Project illustrates their interest in advancing and expanding the development of one of Scandinavia's best mineral projects." About the Barsele Gold Project The Barsele Project is located on the western end of the Proterozoic "Skellefte Trend," a prolific volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits belt, where it intersects with the "Gold Line" in Northern Sweden. Both polymetallic deposits and intrusive hosted orogenic gold deposits are present in this region and on the property. Current and past producers in the region include Boliden, Kristineberg, Bjorkdal, Svartliden, and Storliden. On 25 September 2015, mineral resource estimates were filed by Barsele on SEDAR for the Barsele Project in four zones, the Central, Avan and Skirasen Gold Zones and the Norra VMS Zone. The resource estimate for the Central-Avan- Skirasen Zones states an Indicated Resource of 14.1 million tonnes grading 1.21 g/t gold for 547,000 contained ounces, plus an Inferred Resource of 20.2 million tonnes grading 0.97 g/t gold for 627,000 contained ounces. The polymetallic Norra Zone contains an Indicated Resource of 110,000 tonnes grading 3.13 g/t gold, 30.3 g/t silver, 0.53 % copper and 0.72 % zinc, plus an Inferred Resource of 310,000 tonnes grading 1.62 g/t gold, 12.7 g/t silver, 0.26 % copper and 0.42 % zinc. All zones were estimated at a gold cut-off grade of 0.6 g/t. Art Freeze, P.Geo. and Ben Whiting, P.Geo., are Qualified Persons as defined in NI 43-101 and take responsibility for the technical disclosure contained within this news release. About Barsele Minerals Corp. Barsele is a Canadian-based junior exploration company comprised of highly qualified mining professionals. Barsele's main property is the Barsele Gold Project in Vasterbottens Lan, Sweden, a joint venture with Agnico Eagle. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gary Cope President This News Release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements and Barsele undertakes no obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release SOURCE Barsele Minerals Corp. VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - UEX Corp. (TSX: UEX) (OTC PINK: UEXCF) (FRANKFURT: UXO) ("UEX" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that exploration drilling has recommenced at the Christie Lake Project (the "Project"). The $2.75 million drill program began this past winter and was suspended in mid-April due to the spring thaw. The summer program will focus on two objectives (see Figure 1): Expand the high-grade core of the known Paul Bay uranium deposit. On May 24, 2016, the Company announced the results of hole CB-092 drilled during the winter program that intersected 9.3% U 3 O 8 over 9.8 m, the highest ever GT (uranium grade A thickness) encountered at the Christie Lake Project to date. This result established the presence of a high-grade zone within the Paul Bay deposit footprint. O over 9.8 m, the highest ever GT (uranium grade A thickness) encountered at the Christie Lake Project to date. This result established the presence of a high-grade zone within the Paul Bay deposit footprint. Extend the Paul Bay deposit in the down-dip direction. The program will consist of approximately 10 holes totaling 6,000 m and is anticipated to be completed by August. Qualified Persons Technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Roger Lemaitre, P.Eng., P.Geo., UEX's President and CEO who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. About the Christie Lake Project UEX currently holds a 10% interest in the Christie Lake Project and is working under an option agreement to earn up to a 70% interest. The Project is located approximately 9 km northeast and along strike of Cameco's McArthur River Mine, the world's largest uranium producer. The P2 Fault, the controlling structure for all of the McArthur River deposits, continues to the northeast beyond the mine. UEX believes that through a series of en-echelon steps the northeast strike extension of the P2 Fault not only crosses the Project but also controls the two known uranium deposits on Christie Lake, the Paul Bay and Ken Pen Deposits. The Paul Bay and Ken Pen Deposits are estimated to host a combined 20.87 million pounds of U 3 O 8 at an average grade of 3.22% U 3 O 8 and were discovered in 1989 and 1993 respectively. This is a historic resource estimation which does not use resource classifications consistent with NI 43-101. The historical resource estimate was presented in an internal report titled Christie Lake Project, Geological Resource Estimate completed by PNC Tono Geoscience Center, Resource Analysis Group, dated September 12, 1997. The historical resource was calculated using a 3 D block model using block sizes of 2 m by 2 m by 2 m, and block grades interpolated using the inverse distance squared method over a circular search radius of 25 m and 1 m height. Specific gravities for each deposit were averaged from specific gravity measures of individual samples collected for assay. UEX plans to complete additional infill drilling on the deposits during the option earn-in period to upgrade these historic resources to indicated and inferred. A qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historic estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. UEX is not treating the historic estimate as current mineral reserves or mineral resources. About UEX UEX (TSX: UEX) (OTC PINK: UEXCF) (FRANKFURT: UXO) is a Canadian uranium exploration and development company involved in sixteen uranium projects, including four that are 100% owned and operated by UEX, one joint venture with AREVA that is operated by UEX, as well as nine joint ventures with AREVA, one joint venture with AREVA and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited, which are operated by AREVA, and one project under option from JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited and operated by UEX. The sixteen projects are located in the eastern, western and northern perimeters of the Athabasca Basin, the world's richest uranium belt, which in 2014 accounted for approximately 16% of the global primary uranium production. UEX is currently advancing several uranium deposits in the Athabasca Basin which include the Kianna, Anne, Colette and 58B deposits at its currently 49.1%-owned Shea Creek Project, the Horseshoe, Raven and West Bear deposits located at its 100%-owned Hidden Bay Project. About JCU JCU is a private company that is actively engaged in the exploration and development in Canada. JCU is owned by three Japanese companies. Amongst these, Overseas Uranium Resources Development Co., Ltd. ("OURD") acts as the manager of JCU. JCU has partnerships with UEX, AREVA, Cameco, Denison and others on uranium exploration and development projects in the Athabasca Basin of Northern Saskatchewan including Millennium and Wheeler River and the Kiggavik project in the Thelon Basin in Nunavut. Forward-Looking Information This news release may contain statements that constitute "forward-looking information" for the purposes of Canadian securities laws. Such statements are based on UEX's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections. Such forward-looking information includes statements regarding UEX's mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates, outlook for our future operations, plans and timing for exploration activities, and other expectations, intentions and plans that are not historical fact. The words "estimates", "projects", "expects", "intends", "believes", "plans", "will", "may", or their negatives or other comparable words and phrases are intended to identify forward-looking information. Such forward-looking information is based on certain factors and assumptions and is subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from UEX's expectations include uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and geology, additional drilling results, continuity and grade of deposits, participation in joint ventures, reliance on other companies as operators, public acceptance of uranium as an energy source, fluctuations in uranium prices and currency exchange rates, changes in environmental and other laws affecting uranium exploration and mining, and other risks and uncertainties disclosed in UEX's Annual Information Form and other filings with the applicable Canadian securities commissions on SEDAR. Many of these factors are beyond the control of UEX. Consequently, all forward-looking information contained in this news release is qualified by this cautionary statement and there can be no assurance that actual results or developments anticipated by UEX will be realized. For the reasons set forth above, investors should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking information. Except as required by applicable law, UEX disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/6/10/11G102449/Images/NR_230_Figure_1_Paul_Bay_3D_View_and_Long_Section_-cd6e73d49ea0a363a5efb4ae11fd9356.jpg TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION OR DISSEMINATION DIRECTLY, OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES. Alexandria Minerals Corp. (TSX VENTURE:AZX)(FRANKFURT:A9D)(OTC PINK:ALXDF) ("AZX" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the closing of the first tranche of the $4,000,000 million financing the "Private Placement") originally announced on May 30, 2016. The first tranche consists of 10,898,500 Quebec flow-through units ("Quebec FT Units") at a price of $0.07 per unit, for $762,895; 9,133,000 national flow-through units ("National FT Units") at a price of $0.06 per unit, for $547,980; and 11,388,483 non-flow-through units ("Units") at a price of $0.06 per unit, for $683,309. Each Quebec FT Unit will be comprised of one flow-through common share and one-half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole warrant, a "Warrant"). Each National FT Unit will be comprised of one flow-through common share and one-half of one Warrant. Each Unit will be comprised of one non-flow-through common share and one-half of one Warrant. Each whole Warrant will entitle the holder, on exercise, to acquire one common share at an exercise price of $0.10 for a period of three years. All securities issued under the Private Placement will be subject to a four-month hold period in accordance with applicable securities laws. In addition, finder's fees shall be paid to Medalist Capital Ltd. in the amount of up to 6% of the gross proceeds of the Private Placement and 6% finder's warrants, with each such warrant exercisable to acquire one common share at a price of $0.06 for 3 years. The Private Placement remains subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Closing of a second tranche of the Private Placement is expected to be completed in the coming days. The proceeds from these transactions will be used for exploration and general corporate purposes. Further information about the Company is available on the Company's website, www.azx.ca, or our social media sites listed below: Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlexandriaMinerals Twitter: www.twitter.com/azxmineralscorp YouTube: www.youtube.com/AlexandriaMinerals Flickr: www.flickr.com/alexandriaminerals/ About Alexandria Minerals Corporation Alexandria Minerals Corp. is a Toronto-based junior gold exploration and development company with important gold resources on one of the largest properties along the prolific, gold-producing Cadillac Break in Val d'Or, Quebec, and now with a significant presence in the Snow Lake-Flin Flon gold-base metal mining district of Manitoba. The Company's properties are located in mining districts hosting large, world-class mineral deposits and important mining infrastructure. WARNING: This News Release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing of completion of the Private Placement, the use of proceeds of the Private Placement and receipt of regulatory approval of the Private Placement. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements. Alexandria Minerals Corp. relies upon litigation protection for 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. SHARE By Staff Report AUSTIN A San Angelo lawyer is among those being honored by the State Bar of Texas for exceptional service to the public and the legal profession during its annual meeting on June 16-17 at the Fort Worth Convention Center and Omni Hotel, the association said June 13 in a news release. Sara Anne Giddings is to receive the Presidential Citation, presented by the State Bar of Texas, and Outstanding First Year Director, presented by the Texas Young Lawyers Association Sara Anne Giddings is an associate with Smith Rose Finley in San Angelo, where she practices tax, estate planning and business law. She is the Texas Young Lawyers Association District 15 director and president of the Tom Green County Young Lawyers Association. As a TYLA director, Giddings serves on the Public Service and Member Outreach committees. Giddings has been instrumental in organizing and presenting on the Breaking the Silence panels. As a director, Giddings has contributed to numerous TYLA initiatives, including Permanent Kinship Placement, Cyclists Be Careful, How to Get Involved in Nonprofit Boards, and the Local Affiliate Toolkit. SHARE Despite frequent interruptions from thunderstorms during May and early June, more than 60 percent of the winter wheat crop has been harvested in the McCulloch County region, Jason Jacoby said. "Unfortunately, we are running into some sprout damage due to the continued rainfall," he said. "Most of it is running from 3 percent to 10 percent sprout damage." Sprout damage occurs when mature unharvested wheat remains in wet conditions and germination of wheat kernels takes place in the ripe heads. Jacoby, a stock farmer and owner of Jacoby Feed & Seed at Melvin west of Brady in McCulloch County, said the overall wheat crop is good. "The yields are averaging from 30 to 40 bushels per acre. Some fields are higher, but the test weights are light on this crop," Jacoby told me. "The protein content of this crop is running in the 10 to 11 percent range. It needs to be in the 12 percent category," he said. "If the protein is 11 percent or below, the buyers will discount it anywhere from 50 cents to 60 cents per bushel." Jacoby Feed & Seed will ship a portion of the wheat from the elevators at Melvin by truck, but most of the wheat they buy is sent to the Jacoby Rail Center in Brady where it is shipped to the Gulf Coast. The rail spur will load more than 200 cars this season. The majority of McCulloch County's wheat is grown in the western edge of the county around Melvin, about 60 miles southeast of San Angelo. The Salt Gap areas north of Melvin and on the Concho-McCulloch county line has the greatest concentration of wheat acreage. According to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, wheat production for Texas is forecast at 89.6 million bushels, down 16 percent from last year. Yield per acre is expected to average 32 bushels, up 2 bushels from 2015. Harvested acreage for grain, at 2.80 million acres, is down 21 percent from the previous year. Wheat production in the Northern High Plains is forecast at 37 million bushels, down 23 percent from last year. Winter wheat production in the Blacklands is forecast at 9.01 million bushels, down 50 percent from the previous year. The Southern Low Plains production is estimated at 18.1 million bushels, up 27 percent from 2015. In Oklahoma, wheat production is forecast at 116 million bushels, up 17 percent from last year. This forecast is up 9.9 million bushels from the May forecast. The yield per acre is expected to average 35 bushels, up 9 bushels from last year. Yield per acre is expected to average 35 bushels, up 9 bushels from last year. Acre expected to be harvested for grain, at 3.30 million, are down 13 percent from 2015. Winter wheat production is forecast at 1.51 billion bushels across the United States, up 10 percent from last year. Yield is expected to average 50.5 bushels higher than a year ago. Acreage to be harvested for grain or seed is expected to total 29.8 million, down 8 percent from last year. Meanwhile, the Texas Wheat Producers Board is hosting an African Trade Team this week in Corpus Christi and the coastal region. The group consists of flour milling executives from South Africa, Nigeria, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Ghana. The team will be accompanied by U.S. Wheat Associates staff from Cape Town, South Africa and Lagos, Nigeria. "Hosting the South Africa and Nigeria trade team is part of the ongoing market development efforts of the TWPB," said Rodney Mosier, executive vice president of Texas Wheat. "The event is designed to maintain and increase wheat exports, reducing carry-over stocks and strengthening wheat prices." The African Trade team will visit with Texas wheat farmers and export elevator professionals, while also receiving guided tours of important export facilities. These experiences are geared to help the team gain a better understanding of the U.S. wheat production and marketing system. According to Mosier, one of the topics to be discussed during the team's visit will be the quality of American wheat, especially that of Texas hard red wheat. The Texas Wheat Producers Board is a statewide board funded by a voluntary two cents per bushel checkoff program. Jerry Lackey is the agriculture editor emeritus. Contact him at jlackey@wcc.net. SHARE LONDON Of the fighting faiths that flourished during the ideologically drunk 20th century, anti-Semitism has been uniquely durable. It survives by mutating, even migrating across the political spectrum from the right to the left. Although most frequently found in European semi-fascist parties, anti-Semitism is growing in the fetid Petri dish of American academia, and is staining Britain's Labour Party. In 2014, before Naseem "Naz" Shah became a Labour member of parliament, she shared a graphic on her Facebook page suggesting that all Israelis should be "relocated" to the United States. She seemed to endorse the idea that the "transportation cost" would be less than "three years of defense spending." When this was recently publicized, "Red Ken" Livingstone, former Labour mayor of London, offered on the BBC what he considered a defense of her as not anti-Semitic because "a real anti-Semite doesn't just hate the Jews in Israel." Besides, Livingstone said, Hitler was a Zionist (for supposedly considering sending Europe's Jews to Palestine) "before he went mad." As mayor, Livingstone praised as a "progressive voice" an Egyptian cleric who called the Holocaust "divine punishment." Labour's leader, Jeremy Corbyn, says he wants to cleanse Labour of such thinking. But Corbyn hopes to host at the House of Commons a Palestinian sheikh who calls Jews "bacteria" and "monkeys" and has been accused of repeating the "blood libel" that Jews make matzo using the blood of gentile children. Leftist anti-Semites invariably say they hate not Jews but Zionism, and hence not a people but a nation. Israel was, however, created as a haven for an endangered people. Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, refutes the canard that "hating Israel is not the same as hating Jews" by saying: Criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist. When Sacks asks his audiences if Britain's government can be criticized, everyone says yes. But when they are asked, "Do you believe Britain should not exist?" no one says yes. Then Sacks tells his audiences: "Now you know the difference." "It is very easy to hate," says Sacks. "It is very difficult to justify hate." Anti-Semitism's permutations adapt it to changing needs for justification. In the Middle Ages, he says, Jews were hated for their religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries, they were hated for their race. Now they are hated for their nation. "The new anti-Semitism can always say it is not the old anti-Semitism." But it is. It remains, Sacks says, "essentially eliminationist." It disguises its genocidal viciousness, insisting that it seeks the destruction not of a people but only of the state formed as a haven for this people that has had a uniquely hazardous history. The international "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" movement, supported by many American academics, aims not just to pressure Israel to change policies, as South Africa was pressured to abandon apartheid, but rather to delegitimize Israel's existence as a nation. Sacks says that when bad things happen to a healthy society, it asks: What did we do wrong? A fraying, insecure society asks: Who did this to us? Sacks notes that although Jews were never more than 2 percent of Germany's population, this did not protect them from becoming the explanation for Germany's discontents. In a conversation with a supposedly "moderate" British Muslim leader, Sacks asked, "Does Israel have a right to exist within any borders whatever?" The leader replied: "Your own prophets said that because of your sins you have forfeited your right to your land." To which Sacks responded mildly: "But that was 2,700 years ago and surely the Jews have served their sentence." After World War II, Western nations strove to develop what Sacks calls "a cultural immune system" against anti-Semitism with Holocaust education and other measures. The immune system is not weakening in Britain, other than among Muslim immigrants and leftists eager to meld their radicalism with radical Islam. Labour's leader before Corbyn, Edward Miliband, who led the party in the 2015 general election, is Jewish, as was the Conservative Party's greatest 19th-century leader (Benjamin Disraeli). Former Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who was educated at Eton, noted, perhaps regretfully, certainly indelicately, that Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet included more "old Estonians than old Etonians." This was not anti-Semitism, just a jest too fine to forgo. Seven decades after the Holocaust, some European nations have, remarkably, anti-Semitism without Jews and Christian anti-Semitism without Christianity. Britain just has a few leftists eager to mend their threadbare socialism with something borrowed from National Socialism. George Will is a Washington Post columnist. Contact him at georgewill@washpost.com. Indiana: Glenda Ritz (D) is running for re-election Montana: Open seat; Denise Juneau (D) is running for the U.S. House North Carolina: June Atkinson (D) is running for re-election North Dakota: Kirsten Baesler (R) is running for re-election Washington: Randy Dorn (nonpartisan) is retiring New Hampshire: Open governor seat (Democrat Maggie Hassan is running for U.S. Senate) Vermont: Open governor seat (Democrat Peter Shumlin is retiring) Missouri: Open governor seat (Democrat Jay Nixon is retiring) West Virginia: Open governor seat (Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin is retiring) Just two years ago , Common Core was a major issue for the GOP in state races. So strong was the opposition to the K-12 education standards that several red states -- among them Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina -- backed out of them, and a number of potential Republican presidential candidates railed against them, including Chris Christie of New Jersey, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana These critics decried what they saw as creeping federal control of the nations schools -- even though Common Core was drawn up by the nonpartisan Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association.But while Common Core has popped up here and there in this years campaign rhetoric, it has waned in importance. Part of the reason for the shift is that some states have already made changes.Another reason is that Congress and President Obama enacted the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015. The law replaced the No Child Left Behind Act, which like Common Core was focused on testing and a federal role in K-12 education. The new law is considered a course correction, easing testing requirements and devolving authority from the federal government to the states.With Common Core on the back burner, the focus has turned -- or, one could argue, returned -- to funding. Kristen Amundson, executive director of the National Association of State Boards of Education, says several states, especially Illinois and Kansas, are locked in budget struggles over school funding. So contentious is the fight in Kansas right now that it faces a possible school shutdown this summer.But neither of those states will elect a statewide schools chief in 2016. Instead, only five states are holding direct elections for school superintendents this fall, including several contests that are poised to be highly competitive. Several of those, including North Carolina and Washington state , will be home to debates over the amount and distribution of school funding.Nationally, Republicans hold seven of the 10 partisan school superintendent seats that are directly elected by the voters, with Democrats holding the remaining three. (Many states give the governor the ability to appoint a schools chief; other states use varying methods .)The GOP edge in partisan, elected schools chiefs is not surprising: Those states all voted Republican for president in 2012, often strongly so.Indeed, the fact that Democrats have a foothold at all in these 10 states is likely a testament to the continuing influence of teachers unions, even among moderate-to-conservative voters. In the 2014 campaign cycle, Democratic superintendent candidates did well with voters in red states like Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma and Wyoming even though they were unable to overcome a strong pro-GOP tide on Election Day.In this falls superintendent elections, the Democrats have the most to lose. Each of the three Democratic-held seats are up this year and will be fiercely contested. Democratic incumbents are at risk in Indiana and North Carolina, while a Democratic-held open seat is up for grabs in Montana. Its not out of the question that Democrats could lose all three of their seats and hand the GOP a 10-0 advantage in elected, partisan school superintendent offices.Two other 2016 superintendent contests are also worth watching. In one, a GOP incumbent faces an intra-party challenge (North Dakota), while in the other, a free-for-all is under way to fill an open, nonpartisan seat (Washington state).Beyond these direct elections, there are four gubernatorial seats being vacated by Democrats that have appointment power for the superintendents office or the state board of education. Each of these contests is competitive to one degree or another. (Three other states have gubernatorial races this year that could impact the selection of a state superintendent -- Delaware, Oregon and Utah -- but none of these gubernatorial contests is considered competitive this year.)Heres a state-by-state rundown of the direct elections for school superintendent taking place in 2016, along with a few other states where elections for governor could shape the direction of education policy.Four years ago, Ritz upset Tony Bennett, a conservative whose efforts to expand school vouchers and heighten accountability prompted a backlash. Bennett lost by six-points to Ritz, an award-winning teacher who ran a grassroots campaign challenging several of his policy changes.After Ritz won, Republican Gov. Mike Pence tried to do an end run around her, making the state Board of Education -- which the governor appoints -- more influential. But Pences moves backfired and he dropped the effort. Ultimately, the two worked together with the legislature to terminate a contractor running Indianas mandatory standards test after it drew increasing criticism. Now, whoever wins the office will have to draw up a new test, as well as address charter schools, vouchers, school-district consolidation, and funding fights between suburban, urban and rural districts.In her re-election bid -- which followed a brief, abortive consideration of a gubernatorial run -- Ritz can look forward to solid funding and the backing of the Indiana State Teachers Association. Two Republicans are vying to face her. Jennifer McCormick, a small-district superintendent, is the establishment candidate, and her Tea Party-aligned opponent is Dawn Wooten, who has proposed cutting all federal funding to schools in the state.Montanas open-seat contest pits recently retired elementary school teacher and Republican state Sen. Elsie Arntzen against Democrat Melissa Romano, a fourth-grade teacher.Arntzen finished far back in the pack in a U.S. House primary in 2014, though it did give her some statewide recognition. She has assembled a low-key but strongly conservative record in the legislature. Shes a strong advocate for local, rather than federal, control. Romano, meanwhile, can expect strong backing from the state teachers union. While the GOP hasnt held this seat for 24 years, observers expect a close race.Atkinson, a Democrat first elected in 2004, has a reasonably high profile in the state and has experienced no significant scandals in her decade-plus in office. Atkinson faces Republican Mark Johnson, a lawyer and former school teacher who currently serves on the Forsyth County Board of Education. Johnson is pushing for curbs in testing and local control. While school funding has been a big issue, the superintendent race may struggle to attract attention, since this campaign cycle includes high-profile contests in North Carolina -- for the states presidential electoral votes, a U.S. Senate seat, and the gubernatorial race.Baesler, a first-term incumbent, has faced a significant backlash from opponents of Common Core. She was nearly upset by Joseph Chiang, a high-school teacher who opposes Common Core, at the Republican state convention in April. The two will face off in the June 14 primary, though Baesler is considered the favorite. The Democrats wont be a factor in the race.Washington states open-seat contest looks like it should be wide open. The candidates include state Rep. Chris Reykdal, as well as two officials who served under Dorn -- Erin Jones and Robin Fleming. Though the position is officially nonpartisan, all three are Democrats. Several other lesser-known candidates are running from both parties.The gubernatorial race will be among the many hotly contested races in New Hampshire this fall. The governor appoints the states education commissioner, though historically the job has been a relatively nonpartisan, technocratic post. It remains to be seen how important education will be as an issue in the gubernatorial race.If the Republicans nominate their strongest 2016 gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, then the Vermont governors race could be competitive. The governor appoints the state secretary of education, who becomes a member of the governor's cabinet. The position is not considered as powerful as it is in other states; education policy in Vermont tends to rest more on decisions made in local school districts.The open-seat Missouri gubernatorial race leans Democratic for now but should be competitive, particularly after a GOP nominee emerges from the Aug. 2 primary. The state board of education is appointed by the governor and, in turn, the board appoints the state commissioner of education, who has significant sway over how to divvy up a $5 billion budget. The winner of the gubernatorial race is expected to put their stamp on the boards nominees.The open-seat race is expected to be one of the nations hardest-fought gubernatorial contests, though Donald Trumps presidential bid -- which is popular in the state -- could aid down-ballot Republicans, including Republican gubernatorial nominee Bill Cole. Democratic nominee Jim Justice, however, has the backing of the West Virginia Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. North Dakota generally practices status quo politics. The state has a populist tradition, but it's rare for an underdog to win against a well-established politician.That might change on Tuesday.In the GOP primary for governor, a Donald Trump-supporting software millionaire has a chance of beating one of the state's longest-serving politicians in the race to replace Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple, who is not seeking a second full term.Wayne Stenehjem, the state's attorney general since 2001 and a lawmaker since the 1970s, began the year as Dalrymple's near-certain replacement. A February poll showed Stenehjem leading Doug Burgum, a former top executive at Microsoft, 59 to 10.But Burgum has outspent Stenehjem since joining the race in January, casting the attorney general as part of an old guard that's responsible for the state's economic downturn and budget shortfall.The conventional wisdom heading into Tuesday's primary is that Stenehjem has maintained a small advantage, but no one will be terribly surprised if Burgum emerges as the winner. Without more recent public polling, political experts have to rely on guesswork to make predictions."Burgum has done a very good job of catching up and making it, from my view, very close," said Bruce Gjovig, who directs the University of North Dakota's Center for Innovation.On the Democratic side, state Rep. Marvin Nelson is running unopposed for the nomination but isn't expected to present a serious challenge for whoever wins the Republican race. North Dakotans haven't elected a Democrat for governor since 1988.Gjovig, who cohosted a fundraiser for Stenehjem, describes both candidates as "very good and dear friends of mine." Many Republicans -- including former GOP Gov. Ed Schafer, who gave Burgum his highest-profile endorsement -- say they would be happy with either candidate. But Schafer's endorsement suggests the moment may be ripe for an outsider."With a down cycle in the economy, you have to look at things in a different way," said Schafer. "You have to hold things almost at arm's length and say we've got to change our ways of doing things."North Dakota is one of the most oil-dependent states in the country. When oil prices sank last year, so did North Dakota's revenue, leaving a billion-dollar budget hole. For the first time since 2002 , lawmakers had to slash state spending this year. Looking ahead to next year, Gov. Dalrymple is instructing almost every department to submit budget plans that would cut spending by 10 percent. While there's still plenty of money left in the state's rainy day fund, lawmakers this year had to dip deep into it to fill the shortfall.Despite the end of the oil boom, Stenehjem insists the state is still in good shape -- and there's evidence to support his argument. The state's unemployment rate, at 3.2 percent, is well below the national average. There's growth in sectors such as aerospace. Still, "voters tend to believe the negative argument," said Rob Port, who edits the North Dakota politics blog Say Anything.Stenehjem, however, has the support of the outgoing Gov. Dalrymple and former governor John Hoeven, who's now a U.S. senator. He also received the state GOP's endorsement in April.In addition to castigating Stenehjem as a "40-year career politician," Burgum has criticized the attorney general for offering only tepid support to Donald Trump. Stenehjem says he'll support the party's presidential nominee but avoids mentioning Trump by name. Burgum, by contrast, endorsed Trump last month, saying "voters are looking for a political outsider because the status quo isn't working for many Americans."Opinions differ as to whether Burgum's full-throated support for Trump will help him in North Dakota. The state has a populist tradition, and voters tend to like politicians who take on the distant Washington establishment. But that doesn't mean voters blame state officials for problems with the economy, which, according to Mark Jendrysik, a political scientist at the University of North Dakota, they understand are the result of a global decline in oil prices. The poll back in February showed that North Dakotans were generally pleased with the direction of their state, even as most of them believed that the country as a whole is on the wrong track.For all the heat of Burgum's rhetoric -- and the millions he's put into broadcast advertising, push polls and mailers to spread his attack -- voters will have a hard time distinguishing between his actual platform and Stenehjem's."Finding a real difference between them on major policy positions is pretty hard for the average voter," said Jendrysik.Nevertheless, one of the big question marks is whether Democrats and independents, who can vote in the open GOP primary, will come out in significant numbers to vote for Burgum, who's perceived as more progressive on social issues such as abortion and gay rights.If Burgum can turn out lots of new or occasional voters, many expect he will prevail.But no one knows. This unexpectedly tight race will remain unpredictable right until the end."Everyone's operating in the dark," said GOP state Sen. Ray Holmberg. "They're operating on anecdotal stories and not much else." An influential Texas lawmaker has a new side gig thats raising a few eyebrows in capital circles.Rep. Jason Villalba is helping launch LightSwitch Solutions, an Austin-based public relations and consulting firm with plans to shape opinion about local policy, mostly on behalf of businesses and other private entities.Whether you are seeking to marshal to passage a controversial school bond package, shape public opinion on an important initiative, effect a change to the countys rules for online cab service, or amend the citys charter, the companys website said Friday afternoon, LightSwitch is uniquely qualified to get you the results that you seek.Villalba was listed as the firm's CEO.That and all other information was scrubbed from the website shortly after the Tribune interviewed the Dallas Republican and one of his partners at the company: Trey Newton, a longtime political operative and former chief of staff to Land Commissioner George P. Bush.Ashley Juergens, Villalbas chief of staff at the Capitol, was listed as the companys chief operations officer on the site, which included a picture of the state Capitol.Newton called LightSwitch a really slow-development type of thing, incorporated just a few weeks ago. It does not yet have any business and has only met with one potential client, he said. It won't do any lobbying, but will be trying to influence public opinion.Newton said the firms website which originally listed services including public relations, polling and managing political action committees probably should have been stamped draft or put on a private server.Half the content still needs to be changed, he added.First elected in 2012, Villalba has largely focused on economic development, infrastructure and public safety in his legislative career. He most recently served on the House committees on Business & Industry and Economic & Small Business Development.In his new private-sector job, Villalba does not appear to violating any state ethics rules those set up to ensure part-time lawmakers dont use their office for private gain. But government watchdogs said he should tread cautiously.If they stay away from state policies that the Legislature would have to address, I dont see a problem with it, said Buck Wood, a prominent ethics attorney in Austin. But theyre going to need be careful about what issues they get involved in because there may be issues that impact not only locally but also as far as the Legislatures concerned.The Texas Constitution prohibits lawmakers from voting on bills if they have a personal or private interest." State law also bars them from voting on measures that will directly benefit a specific business transaction if they have a controlling interest.Questions about whether private legal or consulting work conflicts with public duties frequently pop up under the Capitol dome.For instance, critics of former state Sen. Wendy Davis the Democratic 2014 gubernatorial nominee frequently asked whether her role at a law firm that offered legal services to public and quasi-public clients conflicted with her legislative duties (she maintained it didnt).Villalba, who is also a partner at the high-profile law firm Gardere Wynne Sewell, said he would maintain a firewall between lawmaking and his interests at LightSwitch, where he would serve almost as a figurehead, really to be able to attract some relationships.The firm wont touch any statewide issues or local matters that could percolate up to the Legislature, he said. The lawmaker also agreed to disclose his clients, once he had some.We want to make it very clear that were going comply to the letter of the law with every requirement, he said. My thinking is, if were close to not passing the smell test, were not going to take it on. Were only interested in helping private corporations achieve their objectives by shaping public opinion.Newton said the firm would prefer to work exclusively with private entities, but he wouldnt rule out taking on a public client. It might be a school board or a city, maybe, he said.Tom Smitty Smith, director of the Texas office of liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, said he was glad to hear the assurances but added that they could be difficult to keep.Its seldom that a local issue is only local, he said.One example: Austins battle with ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft over city requirements that included fingerprint background checks for drivers. After local voters defeated a proposition to replace the rules with those that the companies preferred, several lawmakers including Villalba said they would push for company-backed legislation to rescind local restrictions.Villalba said he recognized such possibilities and would recuse himself from any votes if theres even the appearance of a nexus between his jobs.The biography that initially appeared on the scrubbed LightSwitch website said Villalba has a peculiar understanding of and ability to shape public opinion. That is an asset that Jason didnt learn in business school, but in the rough and tumble works of Texas politics.Smith said he found the salesman-like description of Villalba's public office job problematic.Hes using his position as a state legislator as part of the reason why you should hire him, which raises both eyebrows, he said.Newton said he understood how the initial description of the firm might set off ethics alarms.Reading the website the way it is today, he said, if we put a press release out that said this is what were doing, I could see huh, this might be a conflict of interest. Thats not exactly what were doing.He added: Theres nothing hidden, nothing secretive, nothing weird here. Authorities on Sunday were trying to determine the intentions of an Indiana man with a cache of weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials in his car and apparent plans to attend the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood.Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks initially said on Twitter that the 20-year-old man told one of her officers after he was arrested that he wanted "to harm Gay Pride event."But Lt. Saul Rodriguez said later the tweet was a misstatement. He said the suspect told investigators that he was going to the Pride festival but said he did not make additional statements about his intentions."It was a misstatement," Rodriguez said. "Unfortunately, she was given incorrect information initially, which indicated that that statement was made; however, that statement never was made. He did indicate that he was planning on going to the Pride festival but beyond anything as far as motives or his intentions that statement was never made nor did any officer receive that statement."Police identified the suspect as James Wesley Howell of Indiana. A Facebook page for someone with the same name in Indiana shows a young man posing next to a white Acura with the same license plate as the car searched in Santa Monica for the weapons and explosives.At a news conference Sunday afternoon, police stressed they were still trying to figure out what Howell planned to do with the weapons.Howell's friend and fellow car club member Joseph Greeson, 18, said Howell didn't harbor any ill will toward gays or lesbians.Greeson said Howell's family in Jeffersonville hadn't seen him for days and that his parents had called Greeson's parents looking for him.He added that Howell was known to have a gun collection.According to Indiana court records, Howell was charged in October 2015 with intimidation and felony pointing a firearm at another person. On April 19, Howell pleaded guilty to misdemeanor intimidation, and prosecutors dropped the charge of pointing a firearm. Court records show he was sentenced to a year in state prison and placed on probation. Under the deal, He agreed to forfeit all weapons during his term of probation.Howell allegedly pointed a gun at his neighbors in the October incident, according to a News and Tribune article. In the article, witnesses also described Howell as having pointed his gun at his boyfriend in an earlier incident."James is going to get someone hurt," one witness said, the article said. "He needs to stop pointing guns at people."Greeson said that Howell harbored no ill will toward gays or lesbians and added that Howell was bisexual.Federal and local law enforcement decided against canceling the annual parade, which went forward Sunday morning under tightened security. Investigators are now trying to piece together what happened but said they don't believe there is any connection between the incident and the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that killed at least 50 people overnight.Early Sunday, Santa Monica police received a call about a suspected prowler who was knocking on a resident's door and window about 5 a.m. in the 1700 block of 11th Street, Santa Monica police said. Patrol officers responded and encountered Howell, who was sitting in a car registered in Indiana, police said. Officers inspected the car and found three assault rifles, high-capacity ammunition and a 5-gallon bucket containing "chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device," police said.A law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the contents of the bucket included Tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to create a pipe bomb. The maker of the material said that was not the case and that it can only be detonated by high-velocity impact such as a bullet strike. But Tannerite is known as a material used in the construction of other types of explosive devices.The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, said authorities also found camouflage clothing in the car.Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said the suspect told police he was going to the Pride parade to look for a friend. Authorities were looking for that individual.Santa Monica police spokesman Saul Rodriguez said detectives are "not aware of what the suspect's intentions were at this point."Santa Monica police continued to search the suspect's white Acura on Sunday morning. All four of the car's doors were open and a green blanket, red gasoline canister and several other smaller items were being piled on the sidewalk next to it. The car's license plate included a symbol of the National Rifle Assn. on the left side and the bottom said, "Teaching Freedom."A Facebook page for Howell said he attended high school in Louisville, Ky., and lives in Jeffersonville, Ind., where he works for an air filtration company. A car enthusiast, Howell posted numerous photographs of the Acura along with a couple of videos taken from inside cars. Another 10-second video includes gunfire, with shots striking grass.The site includes political posts, including one in which he compares Hillary Clinton to Adolf Hitler. In another, he repeats conspiracy theories that the government was behind notorious terrorist attacks, including Sept. 11, 2001. That post shares a video claiming that last year's terror attack on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was a hoax and attributable to the "New World Order.""They found him with weapons that were very disconcerting," said one source, adding officials are "taking the appropriate safety precautions."One source in West Hollywood said there was discussion of calling off the parade but that officials decided to go forward, with heavy security including undercover officers in the crowd.The sources spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.The parade comes hours after the attack at the Orlando club. In addition to those killed, at least 53 were injured in the deadliest shooting in modern American history after a gunman took hostages. The gunman, who was killed in a shootout with police, has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, a U.S. law enforcement official said.West Hollywood City Councilwoman Lindsey Horvath said in a statement that Los Angeles County sheriff's officials were stepping up security efforts around Sunday's parade and other festivities. But she said officials do not believe there is any threat around Sunday's activities.The parade began about 10:45 a.m. Usually a joyful affair, this event was tempered by the Orlando violence and the Santa Monica arrest.Emma Samuels, 16, stood at Crescent Heights and Santa Monica boulevards with a group of friends, wearing a rainbow tutu.She had heard about what happened in Florida when her mother called her Sunday morning, as soon as she arrived at the parade. "She told me and said, 'I hope you're safe, sweetie, I love you and let me know that you're OK,'" she said. Her friend Nicki Genco-Kamin, 18, stood with her, a "No H8" temporary tattoo on her left cheek: "I feel like it's all the more reason to come out. That's trying to push us back. This is showing we're still here, we're still going to take a stand," she said.The group said that a sense of worry was there, but stressed the importance of turning out."That's exactly why we're here, to be like, 'I'm proud of who I am. I don't care if you hate me, I'm going to love myself,'" Samuels said."Life is short anyways," Genco-Kamin said. "Spend it being authentic to yourself." Tracking Mateen 'I saw fire coming out of his gun' Looking for family Mourners across Orlando -- as well as the nation and world -- paused Sunday night to remember the 50 people killed and 53 injured in the Pulse nightclub shooting, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.So far, seven of the victims of gunman Omar Mateen's spree have been identifed: Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 years old; Stanley Almodovar III, 23; Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20; Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22; Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36; Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22; and Luis S. Vielma, 22.At Ember in downtown Orlando, crowd members spontaneously broke out into clapping at the close of a twilight candlelight vigil."Love wins, y'all!" shouted Henry Ballesteros of Orlando, triggering a wave of cheers across the crowd.The group gathered on the bar's outdoor patio, holding white, tapered candles above their heads in silence.Ballesteros, 47, said by focusing on love and not hate, he hopes no attention goes to the gunman who carried out the attacks."I don't know want to know his name," he said.Braden Cowell, 27, of Orlando, also came to Ember for the vigil, bringing rainbow banners in a gesture of defiance against terror."If we don't come out today and support our community, they win," he said.At Jones High School, just a few miles from Pulse, a vigil organized by the Experience Christian Center brought together seven pastors, "all sharing in prayer, different denominations all coming together for a common cause," said Experience Senior Pastor Derrick McCrae."What prayer does is give direction," McCrae said. "People find inner strength through a conversation with God. We want to see no division, and only see unity. We want to be mindful of what could happen to us at any point in life, but also be confident in who is keeping us."Speakers talked of the other vigils happening elsewhere at hospitals, in which family members wait on news of their loved ones."There are those who believe they have power over life and death," said Rabbi David Kay of Congregation Ohev Shalom. "But they do not. As long as we come together, no act of terror, no act of murder, no act of hate can extinguish the light that has kindled from what we all start here tonight."Stephen A. Green, national director of the Youth Department of the NAACP, said, "We come against any bigotry, any sexism, any racism, any homophobia."U.S. Rep. Corinne Brown told attendees, "Orlando is a big city, but we are family, and I had to be with my family.""We cannot continue to let this happen in our country," Brown said."This is the beginning, and Orlando will lead the way."Experience spokesman Dominic C. Clark said that the vigil was a way "to let them know the faith-based community is still here. What better place than close to downtown. We made a few calls this morning and it was like, 'absolutely.' ... We're simply praying for healing in Orlando."Some attendees said they were worried about the future -- and hoped the response to the shootings can have a positive effect.Dominique Belt of Orlando said before the vigil, "now it feels like we're no longer safe. I've been in Florida all my life, and we used to leave the window open and fell safe at night. Now, I'm scared to shop."I think that in coming together and praying, we can demand change," Salt said.Mateen of Fort Pierce has been identifed as the gunman and was among those killed early Saturday.The Federal Bureau of Investigation three times interviewed Mateen for having alleged terrorist ties. The FBI learned of Mateen in 2013 after he made inflammatory remarks to coworkers and alleged terrorist ties, said FBI Special Agent In Charge Ron Hopper.The FBI investigated and interviewed witnesses and Mateen, but closed the investigation. He came to the FBI's attention again in 2014 for making contact with a suicide bomber. Their connection was considered minimal by the FBI, and closed the investigation.U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, D-Florida, said the Islamic State claimed responsibility for a massacre.Mateen -- the lone gunman -- called 911 moments before the attack and pledged his allegiance to Islamic State, a federal law enforcement official said, confirming earlier reports.Federal investigators believe the selfie photos of Mateen taken from his MySpace page are of him, but said the investigation was still in its early stages.Mateen, 29, of Port St. Lucie, was killed after a shootout with Orlando police. He was armed with a pistol and assault rifle.President Barack Obama, in a news conference on Sunday, said the shooting is "a sobering reminder that attacks on any American -- regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation -- is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country.""We know enough to say this was an act of terror and an act of hate," he said.U.S. investigators are operating under a theory that the Orlando nightclub mass shooting was inspired by Islamic State, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday.Similarities with the November attack on the Bataclan nightclub in Paris, and that the shooter appeared to target a gay dance club during the Muslim month of Ramadan, "indicates an ISIS-inspired act of terrorism," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, said in a statement.Intelligence officers are combing through terrorism databases to see if there are any known links between the alleged shooter and a terrorist group, Schiff said. Multiple outlets, including CNN, reported Mateen made a 911 call before the attack, pledging allegiance to ISIS.There haven't been signs so far that Islamic State leaders helped orchestrate the plot, he said. "Whether this attack was ISIS-directed remains to be determined," he said.Christopher Hansen, who was inside the Pulse nightclub during the attack, said he dropped to the floor when he heard about 40 gunshots. People ran from the bar as police officers screamed for everyone to leave."I just fell down and crawled out," said Hansen, 23."I helped someone who was on the ground. I wasn't sure if he was dead or alive," he said.As people fled the club, Pulse Orlando posted a note to its own page that said, "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running."Police Chief John Mina said Mateen fired the first shot at about 2:02 a.m. at an Orlando police officer and then ran into the club, which held more than 200 people. Details about exactly what happened inside the club were unclear, but police handled it as a hostage situation.By 5 a.m., the police department's SWAT team opened fire. They distracted Mateen with an explosive device and plowed into the building with a vehicle. When officers went inside, they discovered 50 dead, including Mateen, and 53 injured.Mina said nine officers were involved in the shooting. One sustained an injury to his eye and was saved by his helmet.Mina credited his officers with rescuing 30 hostages from Pulse Orlando at 1912 S. Orange Ave., which is just south of Downtown Orlando and near Orlando Regional Medical Center.Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer declared the city in "a state of emergency," and Gov. Rick Scott, who was at the scene, extended it to all of Orange County."Tonight our community witnessed or experienced a very horrific crime," Dyer said.In an attempt to shift family members away from ORMC, where many of the injured were taken, authorities set up an information center at a nearby Hampton Inn & Suites at 43 Columbia St., and urged relatives to call 407-246-4357.U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, called the attack a "hate crime" because the shooting happened at a gay club."It's no coincidence the attack took place where it did and when it did," he said.Authorities said there is no indication of impending attacks in Florida or across the nation. The FBI is leading the investigation.Mina said the situation is not related to a separate shooting Friday inside The Plaza Live theater in Orlando, where a man opened fire, killing former NBC's "The Voice" contestant Christina Grimmie and himself.It was Latin night at the club.Mina said some people trapped inside the club hid in the bathrooms and called 911.Rosie Feba was there with her girlfriend for the first time."She told me someone was shooting. Everyone was getting on the floor," Feba said. "I told her I didn't think it was real, I thought it was just part of the music, until I saw fire coming out of his gun."Feba and her girlfriend ran out of the club. On the way out, they saw a man who had been shot.Feba grabbed him. Others around her called 911. Some of the man's blood stained the sleeve of her striped T-shirt.Both Feba and her girlfriend were unharmed, but shaken. They waited in a CVS parking lot for more information.Victims experiencing emotional trauma related to the shooting can dial 2-1-1 for support, said Ashley Blasewitz of the Heart of Florida United Way.Many of the victims were taken to ORMC, where family members gathered, hoping to get information.Florida Hospital wouldn't comment on whether it was treating any of the injured, but said they can check on names for families.Mina called the mass shooting "absolutely terrible. ... one of the worst tragedies we've seen."He said the immediate priority is to identify the dead and injured and notify their next of kin, something that he said would require people to be patient."Unfortunately this tragedy and the amount of bodies that are in there, the amount of victims, is going to take some time," Mina said.Carlos Muniz went to OPD headquarters after the shooting to give an interview."It was massacre, basically," said Muniz, who was in the club at the time of the shooting. "And one of our friends is missing."Muniz initially thought the shots were part of the music.Meanwhile, authorities scoured the area for explosive devices, using robotic devices and K-9 dogs. In addition to carrying the weapons, Mina said Mateen was possibly wearing an explosive device.Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, urged people to pray on what he called "a heart-breaking morning.""It's a horrible tragedy. We are mourning, we are sad. We are heartbroken," he said.A mass shooting, he added, "is the worst nightmare, and we are sorry to know that it happened to us."U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Senate intelligence committee staff "do believe there is some connection to ISIS.""There appears to be some connection to Islamic radicalism," he said at a news conference at the command center in Orlando. On Friday, in the morning, at Government House, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC, Administrator of the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia and Mrs Kaye de Jersey hosted a morning tea to launch the Government House publication Birds of the Fernberg Estate where the Administrator addressed guests. Description GIS - 13 June, 2016: The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Protection will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the field of consumer protection and legal metrology with the Government of the Republic of India. The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Protection will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the field of consumer protection and legal metrology with the Government of the Republic of India. The MoU provides, amongst others, for collaboration in the establishment of periodical exchange of information and documents relating to legal metrology, consumer protection, welfare and awareness of consumers. It also makes provision for the exchange of officials, experts and professionals and cooperation to ensure the alignment of national standards to international standards. Description GIS -13 June 2016: The President of the Republic, Dr Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, will deliver the keynote address at the opening of the 10 th Edition of the European Development Days (EDD 16) to be held on 15 June 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. The EDD is Europes Leading Forum on international cooperation and development. The Mauritian President will also sign the 11th EDF National Initiative Programme on 16 June 2016. Dr Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, will be accompanied by Mrs Marjaana Sall, Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Union. The President of the Republic has been invited by the President of the European Union, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, to participate in the two-day event. Other speakers will include amongst others: Mr Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Mr Evo Morales, President of Bolivia; Mr Juan Manuel Santos, President of Colombia; and, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya. The 2016 edition will mark the 10 years of the EDD. In that context, he Forum will be one of the first major international events to address the way forward for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. People, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership will be at the heart of this years Edition. The Forum will also provide a unique platform for the development community to find practical solutions for some of the worlds most pressing problems. The EDD 16 programme will include debates, practice sharing and problem-solving sessions in respect of innovation projects and research initiatives that are addressing development challenges. The European Development Days were launched in 2006, and the forum has now become a reference for the development community for its high-level meetings and debates fostering partnerships and innovation. Each year, the forum brings together over 6,000 development actors from all corners of the globe, in the belief that co-operation is the cornerstone to building a fairer global society. Description GIS 13 June 2016: A Gamma irradiator and a digester were inaugurated at the Entomology Division of the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security, this morning at Reduit. The self-shielded Gamma irradiator will be used by various institutions namely the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security for the sterilisation of insects and mutation breeding of plants, the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life for the sterilisation of mosquitoes, the University of Mauritius for the sterilisation of seeds and other materials for research purposes and the Mauritius Sugar Industry Research Institute for sugar cane breeding. Moreover, the Entomology Division will be using this irradiator for the sterilisation of fruit fly pupae in order to implement the Sterile Insect Technique for the area wide control of fruit flies in farmers fields and in fruit orchards. On the other hand, the digester is a plant for the modification of waste brewery yeast into fruit fly bait. This plant can produce 2000 litres of protein bait within one week. Present at the inauguration ceremony, the Minister of Agro-Industry and Food Security, Mr Mahen Seeruttun stated that so far fruit fly bait is being imported and it constitutes an important cost in fruit fly control. Preliminary studies have shown that the modified bait from waste brewery yeast is as good as the imported protein bait, he said, adding that the prepared bait will be sold to growers at a minimum price so as to encourage them to apply protein bait for fruit fly control. According to the Minister, the inauguration of the Gamma irradiator and the digester confirms his Ministrys endeavour in taking proactive measures in adopting an integrated approach to handle the problem caused by insect pests which is in line with Governments vision in aiming at encouraging sustainable agriculture. He recalled that pests and diseases often have significant negative impacts on food security and nutrition in developing countries which is of major concern to policy-makers and provides one of the main arguments in favour of international assistance for control programmes. There are 8 spe cies of fruit flies in Mauritius, 4 of them attacking vegetables and 4 species attacking fleshy fruits. The peach fruit fly (Bactrocera zonata) is a major pest of fleshy fruits such as mango, peach, guava, papaya etc which are mostly grown in backyards. The melon fly (Zeugodacus cucurbitae) is the most important insect pest of cucurbits namely: cucumber, pumpkin, squash, bittergourd, snakegourd, courgette among others. The annual production of cucurbits is around 24,000 Tons. It is estimated that 30 % of the production is lost in the field due to fruit fly attack. In the absence of fruit flies, our cucurbit production should have been 32,000 Tons a year. It is estimated that Rs 160 M are lost annually as a result of damage caused by fruit flies. Consequently, an environment friendly package for fruit fly control which involves the use of protein bait and mass trapping of males is being recommended by the Entomology Division, said Mr Seeruttun, adding that in order to make fruit fly control sustainable, the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) has been included. SIT involves the mass rearing of fruit flies in the laboratory, sterilization of males by irradiation of pupae and field release of the sterile males. In this way the life cycle of the insect is disrupted and the population is suppressed without the use of pesticides. The Entomology Division, underlined the Minister, has already started releases of the sterile peach fruit flies at Poudre dOr village in the north and promising results have been obtained. Description GIS - 10 June, 2016: The Buyers Sellers Meeting (BSM) organised by Enterprise Mauritius on 25 and 26 May 2016 at Hilton Olympia, London, attracted more than 100 stakeholders over two days and enabled the operators to renew contacts and meet with a number of customers who were no more working with Mauritius. The delegation of 21 Textile & Apparel leading manufacturers of garments who are regular exporters to Europe, USA and Africa was led by the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Protection, Mr Ashit Gungah. The products promoted ranged from shirts, t-shirts, polo shirts, sweat shirts, jeans wear, denim fabrics, light knitted garments, kids wear, pullovers and cardigans, mens underwear, fine knits for ladies, casual wear, beachwear, swimwear, and made to measure suits. In his keynote speech to the British business community, Mr Ashit Gungah emphasised the historical ties and trade relationship that exist between Mauritius and the United Kingdom for over 100 years. Mauritius has over the last four decades built a commendable International reputation as a supplier of a wide range of quality garments, he said. Our objective in this BSM is primarily market consolidation and expansion. Equally important is the commitment of our enterprises to Fair Trade and compliance to international standards, norms and ethics. The trust placed in Mauritius as a sourcing destination has underlying factors, namely product quality, supply reliability and competitive pricing. We are putting all our resources together to ensure the perenity of this sector and making all efforts that Mauritius henceforth becomes a sourcing destination by choice of high fashion and quality clothing, he stated. It is to be noted that UK is still the number one trading partner of Mauritius with total exports reaching Rs 10.7 billion in 2015 among which Textile & Apparel constitutes more than 55% of the export share. Mauritian Textile & Apparel products are strongly represented among leading UK retailers such as Arcadia Group, Next, River Island, Debenhams, among others. Outcomes Leading Textile & Apparel exporters of Mauritius took part in this event to showcase their latest collections to UK buyers. Among the companies present were CIEL Group, Wensum Limited, RT Knits, World Knits, Palmar Limited and Firemount Group. CIEL Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Mauritius, stated that UK buyers appreciated their commitment towards environmental responsibilities and ethics. The business meetings have been very good and further negotiations are progressing, underlined the Group. Another participant, Oceantex Limited, a medium sized company and a regular exporter to South Africa, believes that this event enabled them to connect with big UK buyers, which represents an opportunity to diversify their exports into the UK market. The event attracted high profile buyers such as Tesco, Primark, TM Lewin, Monsoon, Matalan, New Look, JD Williams, among others, who appreciated the quality of Mauritian products. Mr Arvind Radhakrishna, CEO of Enterprise Mauritius, stresses that UK retailers are increasingly looking at Mauritius for sourcing quality products due to our short lead time, compliance to international norms and standards, flexibility, reliability, and ease of doing business in Mauritius. This event is part of Enterprise Mauritius strategy of increasing export shares in traditional markets. The aim of the BSM is to strengthen and expand our commercial partnership with UK buyers, he added. New clients who have so far not done any business with Mauritius have also expressed interest to source from Mauritius. Several meetings were also organised in other parts of London with key buyers such as Supergroupa British International branded clothing company with more than 178 stores in UK, Europe and North America. Minister Gungah together with the Chairperson and the CEO of Enterprise Mauritius further held meetings to discuss collaborative partnerships with Lord Marland, Chairperson of Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council; Mr Peter Bishop, Deputy Chief Executive & Director of International Trade of London Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Mr Atam Sandhu, Chief Executive of Developing Markets Associates; and Mr Ronan Quigley, Executive Director of the British Chambers of Commerce. Description GIS - 13 June, 2016: The Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, held pre-budget consultations, last week, with stakeholders involved in the following economic sectors namely: Housing; Ocean Economy; Fisheries; Aquaculture; Seafood; Fish Farming; Livestock; Dairy; Manufacturing; Textile; Pharmaceutical; Jewellery; and Printing. The Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, held pre-budget consultations, last week, with stakeholders involved in the following economic sectors namely: Housing; Ocean Economy; Fisheries; Aquaculture; Seafood; Fish Farming; Livestock; Dairy; Manufacturing; Textile; Pharmaceutical; Jewellery; and Printing. During the consultations, the Minister emphasised the need to adopt innovative measures to give a further boost to these traditional sectors. According to him, innovation is a prerequisite in the existing sectors so as to help the economy prosper. The Finance Minister also had the opportunity to take stock of the proposals of the various stakeholders, who expressed appreciation for being given the opportunity to share their expectations before the forthcoming budget exercise. Representatives of the private sector also gave an overview of the constraints facing the particular sectors due to external factors. Minister Pravind Jugnauth responded positively to the requests and stated that he will implement, as far as possible, some of the proposals, which are both in the interest of the country as well as for those evolving in the sectors mentioned above. 5G Americas broadband infrastructure is considered to be overpriced and slow when compared to Internet speeds in other countries. Worse, its far from universal. Nationally, 75 percent of households have broadband, and 53 percent of rural Americans lack access to even moderate-speed service. Critics of the countrys broadband infrastructure say the lack of universal access to high-speed broadband is a drag on education and the economy. Think if we were at 75 percent for electricity or running water, Adie Tomer, a research analyst with Brookings, told Governing earlier this year. With 25 percent of the population without broadband, it has ramifications for students who dont have access, for job seekers, he said. Laying cable or fiber in the ground or on poles and connecting homes to the Internet backbone is an expensive proposition, holding back the goal of low-cost, universal adoption. But high-speed wireless might be the answer. Already a small but growing number of households rely entirely on 4G mobile networks to provide not just phone service, but data needs as well. The network has been around since 2010, and it adopted IP technology in a way that significantly boosted broadband access to mobile devices with higher speeds and an emphasis on streaming data rather than just transmitting voice communications. Now, the wireless industry is stirring interest in 5G networks. While far from being a global standard, theres already growing excitement that it could take wireless broadband to a new level with speeds reaching 1 gigabit per second (and perhaps reaching 10 Gbps as the technology matures) and a latency of no more than 1 millisecond versus todays 4G latency of about 50 milliseconds, according to The Economist. But it could take years before standards emerge. Theres also a question of where the spectrum for 5G might come from, since todays wireless devices operate in a crowded part of the radio frequency, leaving little room for 5G. Stay tuned. Iowa City, Iowa, is a modest-sized city, with a population of just over 73,000. But what makes it stand out is the fact that it ranks fifth in the nation overall when it comes to the percentage of households that subscribe to broadband. With 86 percent of its homes connected to high-speed Internet, Iowa City outranks San Diego, Seattle and Washington, D.C., to name just a few of the best-connected cities in the country, according to a survey by the Brookings Institution. Cities that have high levels of fast Internet connectivity to households reap more economic and educational benefits, according to Brookings: There is no question that the Internet is a huge boon to the economy and society, but maximizing its potential is only possible if all individuals are online.What makes Iowa City so special? It has an educated workforce that has a relatively high average household income and large numbers of technology workers, as well as people who work from home; its also a university town (University of Iowa); and it has fewer senior citizens compared to other cities of its size. Most importantly, its a city where broadband is seen as a necessity, not a choice.For decades, when it came to infrastructure and potential, the cities with a well developed network of roads, bridges, rail and subway lines, as well as good electrical and water utilities, were considered world leaders. Now, local governments are expected to have a digital infrastructure consisting of cable and fiber with deep penetration into every neighborhood, if they are to compete regionally, nationally and even globally. Broadband is now essential for 21st-century communications and commerce.Take jobs. Broadband is the catalyst for economically competitive cities. Americas 50 most research- and technology-intensive industries have added 1 million jobs since 2010, and these industries are disproportionately based in cities, Bruce Katz, a researcher with Brookings, told The Economist. Education is another big reason why broadband infrastructure is critical for the ideal digital city.A growing number of studies point to the fact that cities that lack wide adoption of broadband will struggle when it comes to educating and graduating students with the skills needed to advance in college or for sustaining an economy that is increasingly tech-driven. Local governments also have an opportunity to cut costs by creating more online services, but only if theres close to universal adoption of broadband in the community.And thats where the problem lies with urban broadband infrastructure. Nationally, 75 percent of Americans had a connection to broadband in 2014, according to Brookings. But theres a great variation in connectivity across demographic groups and between metropolitan areas. While the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (Silicon Valley) area has the nations highest rate of adoption at more than 88 percent, cities like Laredo, Texas, have adoption rates of less than 58 percent.Then theres the speed factor. The Federal Communications Commission defines minimum broadband speeds as 25 Mbps for downloads and 3 Mbps for uploads, but 44 million Americans are more likely to experience download speeds of 4 Mbps or less. Meanwhile, closure of the availability gap between those who have broadband and those who dont appears to be slowing, according to the FCC. In other words, broadband progress has stalled.To become the ideal digital city, urban areas realize their broadband infrastructure has to reach near-universal availability at speeds ranging from 100 Mbps up to 1 gigabit per second. Seattle commissioned a study on what it would take to implement a municipal broadband service for universal adoption, but balked at the $480 million to $685 million price tag. Still, other major cities continue to explore the idea of municipal broadband to make the Internet as universally available as water and electricity. Boston is considering the idea and, most recently, San Francisco studied what it would take to create gigabit Internet service for the entire city.While San Francisco may be the largest city to contemplate this, its not the only one. At least 48 cities have some kind of gigabit service available at residential rates, according to Highspeedgeek.com. Chattanooga, Tenn., is perhaps the most famous and largest of the cities offering gigabit broadband as a municipal service, but others provide very fast Internet service either as a municipal utility or through a provider.For a long time, the major broadband providers have downplayed the need for gigabit Internet service in cities. But Google Fiber has begun to change the equation. The service, launched in 2012, has brought gigabit service to a handful of cities, including Kansas City, Mo.; Provo, Utah; Austin, Texas; and Atlanta, with plans to add service in San Antonio, Nashville, Tenn., and Charlotte, N.C. As a result, cable providers that dominate the existing broadband infrastructure have begun to actively market their plans to provide gigabit service.In February, a municipally owned electric utility in Huntsville, Ala., announced that it would lease its fiber lines to Google Fiber, which would deliver gigabit service to residents and businesses starting in 2017. Some see the partnership as a game-changer in how municipalities provide broadband. The Huntsville model changes Googles path to scale as it potentially decentralizes construction efforts to multiple cities, according to Brookings. The partnership will decouple ownership of the fiber network from providing Internet service, speeding up the delivery of fast Internet service. Its also expected to bring more municipalities into the world of gigabit service, as incumbent cable and telecom companies will compete to provide a similar service.Thats good news for cities, big and small, that need abundant, affordable broadband for the next generation of economic growth and education. The workforce development efforts now ongoing in Hennepin County, Minn., are an increasingly common example of how technology and government policy intersect, but ultimately its a story about securing a future for everyone.Helping people get the training and assistance they need to start working is a nice idea, but economic and workforce development aren't undertaken purely out of generosity. An aging workforce is expected to soon leave a big gap between the jobs America needs and those qualified to do the work. Its why Obama launched the TechHire Initiative last year. Technology jobs need doing now, so avenues to employment must adapt to the times and happen faster.The Minneapolis and St. Paul region will have more than 100,000 jobs that cant be filled by qualified applicants within the next five years, according to Hennepin County . And 32 percent 2,200 positions of the countys own workforce is also expected to retire within five years. These workforce programs arent rooted in idealistic thinking government is trying to ensure todays markets are still there in 10 years.Hennepin Countys comprehensive approach to workforce development, called Hennepin Workforce, is an attempt to change course and close the impending skills gap through partnership with community organizations, code boot camps, state and local governments, private companies and educational institutions that include the Minneapolis Community and Technical College and the University of Minnesota. The Career Connections initiative supplies narrowly focused training so people with additional barriers to employment, like veterans, can equip themselves with the skills for a job in county government. In addition, the County Pathways program trains students with skills needed for employment with the county or private companies in the fields of building operations, health, office administration and human services.Beyond formal programs, theres recognition within the county that times are changing and so government must adapt. Internal planning documents supplied tooutline a desire from the county to attract and retain talent by catering to the needs of employees based on their age and current stage in life. Embracing gender and ethnic diversity also is a component of the government's renewed approach. The county recently realized the need for a change in approach that would work in a constrained environment, explained Sandy Hvizdos, division manager of IT talent for Hennepin County.This bigger picture of the baby boomer retirement, the escalating need for resources, has really made us stop dead in our tracks. We need to revise the whole thing. We cant just do what weve been doing in the past, Hvizdos said. Weve adopted a grow-our-own philosophy as opposed to trying to find experts in the field and attract those. Weve been trying to attract and re-create entry-level positions coming in.It was around 2012 when the county was migrating off Windows XP that the new approach started. Attracting cheap labor quickly was challenging, she explained, and the first attempt at an internship program was sloppy. But the county has since matured the program and developed relationships with organizations like the Minneapolis Community and Technical College and Normandale Community College, leading to internships for about 60 students and the eventual hire of eight.One of the great things we have going for us is that a lot of private corporations have to set up some artificial engagement with the community, Hvizdos said. One of the things were trying to sell with our millennial population is that weve got that built in. You are making a difference; you are contributing back.Policies and standards with Hennepin County are also changing so that potential new hires dont face as many barriers. If someone can do the job, thats whats important, Hvizdos said, not if they meet a technical education requirement. Special interest groups such as those serving female constituencies and Native American populations are also among the countys partners.The countys minimum qualification standards and promotion processes have changed, and job descriptions, skills databases and roles are being updated. A renewed partnership with the countys human resources department is essential to making programs like these work, said Jerry Driessen, CIO of Hennepin County. These types of partnerships can be difficult, he said, because no department likes to hear from another that it isnt doing its job perfectly, but fortuitous events aligning all at the same time have made it possible.A new CIO and a new HR director starting at the same time following the county administrators direction were able to make a very fine partnership, said Driessen. I would also credit the county administrator for clearly articulating the direction not just with IT, but across the whole county that the challenges with workforce in the future were not to be taken lightly and that we needed these sorts of partnerships.Programs like the Obama administrations TechHire are great, Driessen said, but localities need a more holistic approach. Governments that are often operating based on decades-old bureaucratic structures aren't prepared to handle the new challenges that arise. And thats what needs to be altered so the government can in turn change what the outside world looks like.Were doing it all the way through, Driessen said. We always look at a huge problem and think, Weve got to bring a seasoned veteran in. In technology today, and the way the worlds moving, the workforce was born with an iPhone in their crib and using technology all their lives. Weve got to find our talent differently, and weve been doing that. (TNS) City planners signed off Thursday on the first Google "fiber hut" in Portland, another milestone in Google Fiber's slow march toward bringing its hyperfast Internet service to the region.Plans call for a 500-square-foot enclosure on Water Bureau property in Southwest Portland. It would be one of several fiber huts Google plans around the city to operate its network.Google Fiber offers Internet connections up to 1 gigabit per second, 40 times faster than the current federal broadband standard, and accompanying cable TV and phone service. Service starts at $50 a month for a 100 megabit connection, up to $140 a month for a full gigabit connection, cable TV and home phone service.Google Fiber has been contemplating Portland service since February 2014 and won a franchise to operate in the city two years ago. But a state Supreme Court ruling in the fall of 2014 made Google subject to an unusual Oregon tax, derailing the project until lawmakers and regulators created an exemption.Though Google Fiber has yet to formally commit to serve Portland, it has hired local personnel and begun talking with neighborhood associations about routes for its network. The project approval Google won Thursday could serve as a template for additional sites, but the city said it has not yet received other applications from the company.Google did not immediately respond Friday to an inquiry on its plans.According to the city's approval, Google's fiber hut consists of a small equipment building and backup generator behind a high wooden fence. (TNS) A rural network that was supposed to bring broadband to the masses has dissolved after accepting $24 million in federal grants.The Florida Rural Broadband Alliance went into Chapter 7 bankruptcy in April. It was established in 2010 to deploy broadband Internet services in 15 northwest and southcentral Florida counties, but never signed a single customer.FRBA was created by Floridas Heartland Regional Economic Development Initiative in Sebring and Opportunity Florida in Chipley. The two non-profits used an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 grant build a network that beamed the internet from rented mobile towers.Gina Reynolds, the last executive director of FHREDI, said the network was up and running when she left last summer to start her own economic development consulting agency. However, FHREDI didnt have the budget to replaced Reynolds as executive director.Greg Harris revealed some of those details Tuesday at a Highlands County commission meeting. Harris is a county commissioner and was a FHREDI director. He is now on the board of Florida Heartland Economic Region of Opportunity. FHEROs new motto is, The Future Is Here.FRVA is in bankruptcy, FHREDI is being dissolved, Harris told the county commission. The reason why FRVA is in bankruptcy is that contractor that was running the network walked away from the network.Terry Burroughs, an Okeechobee County commissioner, is FHEROs chairman.Im the vice chairman, Harris said. So far, FHERO has no other staff. Harris, Burroughs and Paul McGehee, business development manager for Glades Electric and a FHERO director, said FHERO has returned to FHREDIs original mission, rural economic development.The counties, including me and our county, we felt like we werent getting anything out of the investment we were making into those organizations, Harris said. We can now concentrate solely on regional economic development based on conversations with site selector consultants Enterprise Florida, including support from the governor.FHREDI includes Hardee, DeSoto, Highlands, Okeechobee, Glades, and Hendry counties and Immokalee city. The other nine FRBA counties are Holmes, Washington, Jackson, Gadsden, Calhoun, Liberty, Gulf and Franklin.The Highlands county commissioners agreed to join FHERO and pay $10,000 in annual dues.FRVAs goal was to install central offices in Orlando and Tallahassee, to buy microwave dishes and computer servers, and deploy a middle-mile broadband network in the underserved rural areas of Florida. Counties qualified because they have populations less than 100,000 and low per-capita incomes, low per-capita taxable values, and high unemployment.That equipment is still sitting in warehouses in Lake Placid and Tallahassee, Burroughs said. However, that last mile the figurative mile between the middle-mile broadband network and the 200,000 residential and commercial users never appeared. Although Harris and McGehee said they were aware of a contractor, and Reynolds said she signed a non-disclosure agreement, Burroughs said he never knew of a contractor. When I first got on the board, they were trying to negotiate with a contractor. Gina was working with that, and it went on and on and on.An ex-telephone company executive, Burroughs said he became a FHREDI board member late in 2015. There was probably a network at some given time, but I dont think a last mile ever deployed. When I got there, the last mile was dark. I never knew of a paying customer. They were trying to build a telephone company, and they were doomed to failure.McGehee said Glades Electric looked at joining the network, which was partially aimed at hospitals, schools and other larger users.It wasnt suitable for us, but we werent the target user anyway, McGehee said Wednesday.The operator who was contracted to run it as a company stepped away from it, McGehee said Wednesday. He said he could not recall the contractors name.The flaw in FRVAs plan, McGee said, was that while the grant bought the equipment, there were no federal funds for operations. No one wanted to step up and operate the network, and there was no way to pay the tower leases The end product wasnt a viable sustainable thing.Why would it be successful this time, versus where FHREDI kind of went awry? Commissioner Don Elwell asked Harris. FHREDI was obviously in existence long before FRBA, but put all its eggs in FRBAs basket. (FHERO) seems like it is more streamlined back towards the actual purpose for what FHREDI was originally meant to do, which is, of course, economic development. Is that fair?Absolutely, Harris said. And we all felt the same way. We didnt really know what FHREDI was doing. They were spending most of their opportunity on FRBA and the rural broadband. It got away from what we really needed to focus on. And were back.And the rural broadband itself, obviously that got left hanging? Elwell asked. Is that just dead now? What work that has been done is gone?We spent a lot of time trying to get other companies to come in and operate that, and it just didnt work, Harris said. So the federal government owns all that equipment. And so thats being turned back to the federal government. And so they will dissolve what remains.I also spoke with Terry Burroughs, Commissioner Jim Brooks said, And he is very passionate that this is the way to go. So I dont have a problem with it. Maurizio Arrivabene has slammed as a sign of "disrespect" rumours Ferrari technical boss James Allison could soon leave the team. Reports have suggested that after the sudden death from meningitis of his wife in March, Allison is now considering an offer to return to Britain to be with his three children full-time. Until the death of his wife, Allison - who joined Ferrari from Enstone based Lotus in 2013 - was splitting his time between his family in the UK and his factory-based role in Italy. "The only comment I make is that this is completely untrue," Ferrari boss Arrivabene said in Montreal when asked about speculation linking Allison with a return to Renault. "James recently suffered a very difficult loss, which I would not want to see anyone go through. We all support him, which is the most important. "A couple of days ago I read what was written about him and, in my opinion, to me it is a matter of disrespect," Arrivabene added. (GMM) Montreal mayor Denis Coderre says the city will move to secure the future of the Canadian grand prix. At the weekend, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone cast doubt on the future of the popular race by suggesting Montreal had failed to fulfil its pledge to update the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve's ageing facilities. "We'll see," the 85-year-old told reporters, when asked if Canada will therefore be left off the sport's 2017 calendar. Mayor Coderre has now responded, saying he has met up with Ecclestone to seek "clarification". "We are talking about an investment of several million in public funds and it was important to get it right," he told the Quebec newspaper La Presse. "I met with Mr Ecclestone several times recently and had a meeting yesterday with the president of the executive committee to settle the details," he added. However, Coderre said he was not sure if Montreal could complete the required work in time for the 2017 or even 2018 Canadian grands prix. "This is a complex process," he explained. "We have a date in mind, but I prefer not to talk for now. Mr Ecclestone is aware and does not compromise in any way the contract that we have with him." Coderre continued: "We know Mr Ecclestone. He has his way of negotiating, but everyone wants to keep the grand prix in Montreal. "That is why we want to ensure that the replacement of the installations is done right." Coderre also did not want to comment on Ecclestone's hints of conflict with the current promoter, Francois Dumontier. "It is up to them to sort it out," he insisted. "For me, Mr Dumontier is an outstanding organiser, but the management and promotion of the grand prix is not up to me." (GMM) Oops! There was a problem! Sorry, but we can't find what you were looking for right now. The content may have been removed, or is temporarily unavailable. GreatAndhra.com powered by India Brains Infotech, LLC, its owners, associates and employees are not responsible for any errors, omissions or representations on any of our pages or on any links on any of our pages. We do not endorse in anyway any advertisers on our web pages, links to personal pages, official pages, or commercial pages. We have no control of the content of external information. Please verify the veracity of all information on your own before undertaking any reliance. The linked sites are not under our control and we are not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site, or any changes or updates to such sites. We are providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by us of the site. We hereby expressly disclaim any implied warranties imputed by the laws of any jurisdiction. We consider ourselves and intend to be subject to the jurisdiction only of the courts of the state of California. Greatandhra.com also contains material in the form of inputs/feedbacks submitted by users and Greatandhra.com accepts no responsibility for the content or accuracy of such content nor does it make any representations by virtue of the contents of Greatandhra.com in respect of the existence or availability of any goods and services advertised in the contributory sections. Greatandhra.com makes no warranty that the site contents are Virus -free or anything else, which has destructive properties and shall have no liability in respect thereof. Every effort is made to keep the website up and running smoothly. However, GreatAndhra.com takes no responsibility for and will not be liable for the website being temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond its control. If you have any questions or concerns about a published article, please send us email at venkat@greatandhra.com . We will review your request and article will be removed immediatly. MAHLE Powertrain is the first independent engineering service provider (ESP) to have its real driving emissions (RDE) test process and routes approved by the UK Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA). MAHLEs approval comes well in advance of the adoption of RDE across Europe in 2017, when portable emissions measurement systems (PEMS) will become mandatory for the emissions testing of all new vehicles. MAHLEs PEMS system fitted to an Audi A1 TFSi model. Click to enlarge. In 2018, the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) will most probably replace the current New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) test cycle as the standard for vehicle emissions testing. The WLTP cycle is intended to more closely simulate real-world driving styles with more time spent at higher speeds and loads, including more aggressive acceleration and braking phases. The two approved RDE test routes both start and finish from MAHLE Powertrains headquarters in Northampton. Each route is around 50 miles long and encompasses several different types of roads, including motorways and urban routes, to comply with the latest EU regulations. MAHLE Powertrains RDE test process using PEMS has been carefully designed over a long period so that it provides an accurate, true to life reflection of the vehicles emissions and fuel consumption. About three years ago, a friend of mine sat down at a meeting with a surprised look on his face. Im sorry, he said with a subtle shake to his head, but I just have to tell you something. The lunch special at Bangkok Cafe is the best thing in town right now. Ive eaten there three times this week. I promptly forgot about his recommendation until a couple of weeks ago, when I volunteered to write this article about the next Ethnosh. This months NoshUp was scheduled to coincide with Guilford Countys Local Foods Week, so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to partner with Ethnosh on a write-up. When the organizers told me that Bangkok Cafe was Junes destination, I had to laugh a little at the thought of my friend and his utter perplexity over the awesomeness of his new go-to restaurant. Bangkok will host Ethnosh, the international food adventurers, to showcase the cuisine and culture of Thailand from 5:30 to 9 p.m. June 20. At this NoshUp, you can meet owners Ad and Jeff Griffin and their staff. For $8, you get you a plate of signature samplers. Beer, wine, Thai Tea and other beverages will be sold separately. Electronic reservations are required to attend. About a week before our interview, I finally took my friends advice and stopped by for a lunch special. The menu has all of the familiar fare Pad Thai, Chicken Satay, Pad Pik Pow, a variety of curries and a celebration of cashews. I also was pleased to find my favorite, Pad See Ew, on its dinner menu. For my first venture, I took a page from my roommate who is from Vietnam and once co-owned a Japanese restaurant who tends to judge most places by how well they do their pineapple fried rice. I wasnt disappointed. It was only when I returned a week later, however, that I really started to get to know the family who keep things moving at Bangkok Cafe. Sisters at the center At the center of Bangkok Cafe are sisters Ad Griffin and Yim Thepsoumane. Ad and her husband, Jeff, bought the restaurant in 2013 from Thepsoumane, who had owned the space since 2005 and still manages the front of the house and bustles between the dining room and kitchen. Even though shes the younger sister, Thepsoumane also carries the narrative of the restaurant and her familys connection to food. Their story is printed in their menu. The sisters approach to food is influenced heavily by their family especially their mother. They grew up on the edge of northeast Thailand, in a small town on the Mekong River. From the front porch of their mothers home, they can look across the river and see the neighboring country of Laos. Their food is influenced not only by their roots in Thailand, but also their proximity to Laotian food culture. Thepsoumane and Ad Griffin came to the United States from Thailand in 1993 and 2005, respectively. Thepsoumane had previously worked for Tyco Electronics, but she switched over to restaurants after moving to Greensboro. When she was ready to start a family in 2005, she thought owning her own business might give her more time to spend with her children. I asked her how that worked out for her, and she laughed. Nevertheless, she bought the Bangkok Cafe in 2005. Shortly thereafter, she asked her older sister if she knew how to cook. Yes, yes. Im a very good cook, Ad Griffin assured her. But Thepsoumane quickly learned that while Ad Griffin was an excellent cook for two people, getting up to speed on feeding an entire restaurant of people took more time. The two laugh about these stories much in the same way that my sister and I banter with each other, all in good fun with a hint of truth. The community around these sisters has continued to grow, especially as Ad Griffin became more skilled and experimental in the kitchen. While she inherited much of the current menu from the owners before Thepsoumane, she began playing around with recipes inspired by her family as well as her own searches through cookbooks and the internet. She now regularly features specials, which they post on the message board in the restaurant as well as its Facebook page. The sisters also take great pride in cooking food to order, which has become a great way for the sisters to connect with the many Thai and Laotian families in Greensboro. Customers from Thailand and Laos get special treatment with their orders sweet, sticky rice, lots of vegetables, smelly fish, strong herbs and very spicy. (Pro tip: if you want your food really spicy, and I mean really spicy, order it Thai hot. Theyll take you there.) Although the sisters are at the center of daily operations at the Bangkok Cafe, they have an extensive family tree behind the scenes. Thepsoumanes daughter Heather has basically grown up at the restaurant, Ad Griffins son Oat has worked there for almost four years and their sister-in-law is also part of the ranks. Perhaps one of the best stories comes from Jeff Griffin, Ads husband since 2012. Jeff had been a regular at the Bangkok Cafe for several years hes a big fan of the Pad Thai. Jeff and Ad also became big fans of each other and eventually married in Thailand. So you started out as a fan and became part of the family? I asked him. I guess so, he said. More than a metaphor For many restaurants and other food-related enterprises, its easy to invoke the family metaphor. Whether or not they actually live up to that metaphor, however, is often a mystery. Theres a certain sincerity when the Griffins and Thepsoumane talk about family at Bangkok Cafe. Jeff tells a story about seeing some of their customers out and about in Greensboro, and he mentions that Ad will always correct him, saying no, not our customers. Our cousins. I guess thats part of the beauty of the sisters story. They really mean it when they say that their customers are family. They laugh at how people come in every day and every week and order the exact same thing. They talk about their children growing up in the restaurant. They take great pride in connecting with other Thai and Laotian families in Greensboro. We can all start out as fans and end up as family. RALEIGH The N.C. Center for Missing Persons has issued a Silver Alert for a missing endangered woman. Virginia Helena Coe was last seen at 217 Wind Road in Greensboro. She is believed to be suffering from dementia or some other cognitive impairment. Sept. 2 marks the 71st anniversary of the end of World War II. Japanese Emperor Hirohito, the divine authority, had gone on national radio and told his nation to end the war, but his war cabinet had vowed to fight for the home islands to the end. The U.S. would have landed an initial invasion in November 1945. The Japanese were amassing a huge long-term defense. They had 5,000 kamikaze planes ready. Their atrocities across Asia were endless, including the deaths of more than 40 percent of their POWs, with the rest emaciated. The Japanese had already killed more than 17 million people. Estimates were we would take more than a million casualties, and Japan would take more than 5 million in an invasion attempt. The nuclear explosions occurred Aug. 6 and 9. To this day, Japan has never apologized for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, and the horror it created throughout Asia. Germany, long ago, offered lasting amends for the deeds it inflicted on so many. So, unquestionably, tragic as they were, Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused the end of World War II, and there has been no subsequent nuclear use anywhere. Thomas Ward Greensboro After years of divisive politics playing one segment of American society against another, neither of the two major political parties, Democrat or Republican, has offered a qualified candidate for the presidency. One candidate will say whatever she thinks will gain votes, to the point of zero integrity, while her opponent is a bombastic egoist whose hubris exceeds imagination. Oh, what has happened to our democratic process to reach such lows? How can we find national unity? It is time for a third candidate to refuse either of these two pretenders the necessary majority of the Electoral College. I see only a single alternative with any hope of such an achievement, Libertarian Gary Johnson. Before voting for the lesser of two evils, I urge every American voter to express their unhappiness with the current major candidates by voting for Gary Johnson. While throwing the election into the hands of Congress may be questionable, it is less risky than an administration by either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Do you want either of these two appointing Supreme Court justices? Michael Lopez Summerfield GREENWICH Before dentist Christine Tierney went to college, the highest level of education anyone in her family had reached was the associate degree in dairy farming her father held. Her mother, a phone operator, wanted her children to go further. What to expect. It looks like the au naturale dining trend has now infected Japan, where on July 29 a pop-up restaurant called the Amrita the Sanskrit word for immortality will begin offering people in Tokyo the worlds most awkward first dinner date. Customers will dine in the buff but be required to don paper underpants provided by the restaurant to keep things, um, hygienic. According to Rocket News, its supposed to be Adam-and-Eve-themed, although apparently very light on the Eve: The waitstaff is made up entirely of men with the worlds most beautiful bodies serving tables in nothing but G-strings. (The website simply describes them as muscle waiters.) Per the current trend, the menu is all-organic, but the true delight is the Zoolander-meets-Chippendales dance performance featuring only the best of the best American and European male models. This Tokyo pop-up does depart from its predecessors in its approach to body image, as the Amritas creators are more than happy to engage in body-shaming: We ask anyone more than 15 kilograms above the average weight for their height to refrain from making a reservation, the rules state. Also not okay are people over the age of 60 and anyone with a tattoo. Would-be diners whose weight looks iffy will be made to stand on a scale before dining. Cost of the meal which runs from $112 to $563 per person is done in advance, so the restaurant would probably advise people on the fence about whether theyre of average-ish weight to sit the Amrita out. On second thought, that may be fantastic advice for everyone. [Rocket News 24] Tuck into a bowl of Mareas fusilli. Photo: Melissa Hom Finding the best pasta when theres so much of it everywhere isnt easy. Our methodology: Borrow Mario Batalis Babbo pasta-tasting-menu conceit and apply it DIY-style to a bunch of other restaurants menus, which led to ordering as many as eight pasta dishes at one sitting, and elicited funny looks from fellow diners that ranged from bewilderment to revulsion to order-envy regret. The Absolute Best 1. Mareas Fusilli With Red-Wine-Braised Octopus and Bone Marrow 240 Central Park S., nr. Broadway; 212-582-5100 Was the first person to tuck into a bowl of Mareas fusilli like Jonathan Swifts bold oyster slurper one badass gastronaut? Some people we know are scared to death of this dish. But when Michael White decided to perk up his ragu with purple cephalopod tentacles and the fatty tissue youll find in the hollows of animal bones, he created an unlikely crowd-pleaser. Whats so compelling about it is the juxtaposition of textures: the terrific chew of the hand-rolled fusilli distinctively shaped like little Twizzlers, the slight squish of the octopus, and the melting quality of the marrow scattered about like gelatinous croutons. And then theres the tomato-based sauce, emulsified with liquid marrow and tasting rich and earthy and briny all at once. Certain pasta shapes are forever linked in our minds with certain sauces: linguine with clam, bucatini with amatriciana, orecchiette with sausage and broccoli rabe. That wasnt the case with fusilli until Mareas red-wine-braised-octopus-and-bone-marrow ragu came along. 2. Del Postos Bauletti 85 Tenth Ave., nr. 16th St.; 212-497-8090 The problem with a pasta list like this is that it would be pointless and incomplete, bordering on insane, without a Del Posto pasta dish on it, and the problem with this is that its impossible to pick a single best Del Posto pasta dish. Every one of Mark Ladners pastas is exceptional. Theres not a dud or clunker or underachiever in the bunch. And if this were a ranking of the absolute best pasta menu in New York, Del Posto would be at the top. What we can do, however, is choose a current favorite, and that would be the bauletti. Bauletti, like cappellacci, are pasta ripiena, or stuffed pasta. If cappellacci translates literally as shabby old hats, Mark Ladners bauletti are more like jaunty Pharrell Williams chapeaux tall, thin, supple dumplings filled to the brim with sheeps-milk ricotta, well coated with melted butter and grated black truffle. Like all of Del Postos pastas, the bauletti are technical marvels, almost too beautiful to eat. But whatever you do, dont just sit and stare at them. Ladner has done his homework, having timed the cooking, saucing, and transport and delivery of a plate of bauletti from kitchen to dining room down to the millisecond. If the timing is off, he says, the bauletti will continue to absorb sauce and kill the balance. As the saying goes: Pasta waits for no one. 3. Lilias Rigatoni Diavola 567 Union Ave., at N. 10th St.; 718-576-3095 Missy Robbinss simplest pasta is her best housemade rigatoni fashioned from semolina and extruded in the shape of big fat commas. Theyre perfectly dressed by which we mean thoroughly but sparely and they exhibit the extra-firm but yielding texture one associates with the work of elite Italian grandmas. No wonder this pasta dish is Robbinss own favorite. Its the one I want to eat every night, she says. Us too. 4. Porsenas Anelloni 21 E. 7th St., nr. Third Ave.; 212- 228-4923 Sara Jenkins could spoon her signature spicy lamb sausage and mustard greens over a plate of Ronzoni wagon wheels and the result would probably be good enough to find a place on this list. Instead, she uses an obscure pasta she smuggles in from Italy called anelloni fat tubes of ridged pasta that wear their grooves on the inside, not the outside, and, as such, grip sauce in wonderful ways physicists once believed werent possible. Rigatoni, penne rigate, and radiatori have nothing on anelloni. 5. Babbos Garganelli 110 Waverly Pl., nr. Sixth Ave.; 212-777-0303 As is the case at Del Posto, singling out a pasta at Babbo that rises above the rest of the primi piatti is a fools errand. But well go ahead and declare as the winner the garganelli with funghi trifolati fresh egg-pasta squares folded into little, ribbed, Trump-size fingers and tossed with thinly sliced black trumpet mushrooms sauteed with garlic and parsley. If you dont believe us, try Mario Batalis great gift to pastavores, Babbos five-pasta-strong pasta tasting menu, and see for yourself. 6. Osteria Morinis Spallina 218 Lafayette St., nr. Kenmare St.; 212-965-8777 Spallina (epaulette in Italian) is what Osteria Morini calls its double ravioli two separate rectangular pockets of handmade egg pasta fused together so that one side houses a gamey mince of rabbit meat, the other the soft white cheese from Emilia-Romagna called squacquerone. Why they dont just mix the meat and cheese together into a single raviolo pouch, we dont know. Maybe theres an Italian cooking rule forbidding it. Or maybe the inventor of this pasta didnt like different foodstuffs touching each other on the plate. Origin notwithstanding, the pasta finds delectable expression at Morini, whose kitchen drizzles it with a veal reduction and showers it with fresh favas. When it comes to spallina fillings, never the twain shall meet and were okay with that. 7. Escas Gnocchi 402 W. 43rd St., at Ninth Ave.; 212-564-7272 Weve eaten our fair share of gnocchi in our time: the delicate morsels Marco Canora makes from Idaho potatoes and drowns in sage-infused butter at Hearth, the Franks denser but equally delicious gnocchi alla marinara at Frankies Spuntino, the ricotta puffballs Ignacio Mattos serves with mushrooms at Estela, and Jody Williams and Rita Sodis Gorgonzola-sauced flavor bombs at Via Carota. And lets not forget April Bloomfields fiendishly good gnudi at the Spotted Pig, which are technically not gnocchi but in the same family. These are all Italian dumplings of the highest order and delicious things to eat. But if we were forced to pick one plate of gnocchi, our desert-island gnocchi, if you will, it would be the gnocchi di ricotta Dave Pasternack makes at his Italian seafood restaurant Esca little lumps of dough shaped like wine corks in a bright tomato sauce mingled with cubes of buffalo mozzarella and garnished with fresh basil. Pasternack credits the sheeps-milk ricotta he gets from Old Chatham Sheepherding Creamery, but theres something to be said for technique, too, not to mention a trace of irony. Whod have thought the best pasta at a piscine shrine would be the only one without seafood? 8. Ribaltas Spaghettoni al Pomodoro 48 E. 12th St., nr. Broadway; 212-777-7781 Dont drive or operate heavy machinery when youre angry is a given. Cooking may be another matter. When native Neapolitans Rosario Procino and Pasquale Cozzolino discovered that the version of spaghetti pomodoro that Scott Conant popularized at LImpero and later Scarpetta contained the heretical addition of butter, and, insult to injury, was widely perceived by the local yokels to be the last word on the subject, they were pissed. Butter and tomatoes go together, Procino and Cozzolino say, like Yoo-hoo and 18-year-old Scotch. So what did they do? They issued an official rebuttal in the form of a finely tuned purist rendition of their own: a sauce-gripping spaghettoni from dried-pasta mecca Gragnano, tossed with basil and a rare variety of preserved cherry tomato of such spectacular Mt. Vesuviusgrown flavor that San Marzanos cower in its presence. One bite changes everything you thought you knew about spaghetti and tomato sauce. 9. Sandros Spaghettini al Limone 306 E. 81st St., nr. Second Ave.; 212-288-7374 No one cooks classic Roman like that master of the pasta pot Sandro Fioriti. Its to his plainspoken Upper East Side dining room that connoisseurs repair for bona fide bucatini allamatriciana and spaghetti cacio e pepe. But his signature pasta, oddly enough, is said to derive from more southern precincts (unless you ask Sandro, who says he invented the dish himself). He tosses the skinny spaghetti called spaghettini with a sunshine-bright mix of lemon juice and zest emulsified with cream, and blitzes it with a furious grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Its sweet; its salty; its rich; its clean. To the eye and palate, its shockingly simple, but no less stunning for it. 10. Bar Primis Linguine, Four Cloves of Garlic, Bread Crumbs 325 Bowery, at 2nd St.; 212-220-9100 Despite the boasty, gauntlet-throwing menuspeak (four cloves of garlic!), this is a classic aglio, olio e peperoncino perhaps the simplest pasta dishes in the history of pasta dishes. The reason its on this list? Its the best aglio, olio, e peperoncino weve ever had. Huawei has revealed that the global sales of its Honor 5X smartphone has crossed the 8 million mark. The revelation was made by Zhao Ming (who heads the Chinese company's Honor brand) during the unveiling of Honor 5A in China yesterday. Ming also said the company is confident that the sales will eventually cross the 10 million milestone, although he didn't give any specific time-frame. The device was launched in China back in October last year, and it landed in the United States this January. Europe got the handset just a few days after the US. The phone is available as the GR5 in Canada. Via OLED shipments are growing - 91.3 million OLED displays were shipped during the first three months of this year. It's largely phones that bear these displays, but some TVs do too. Samsung Display is the dominant force in this market, the Samsung subsidiary shipped 86.7 million displays - accounting for a whopping 95% of the market! Many of those went to Samsung Mobile, but phones from Chinese makers increasingly rely on OLED displays too. Samsung Display is rumored to have struck a supply deal with Apple, which will further boost its sales. Samsung has already invested $1.5 billion into its A3 plant to boost production from 15,000 units to 105,000 units a month, presumably to meet the increased demand. Still, Samsung is in for some competition as Chinese firms are spinning up OLED production lines this first quarter. An analyst at Hyundai Securities says Korea and Japan are also lowering LCD production in favor of OLED. LG is a distant second currently as LG Display has focused on OLED TVs, which is a lower-volume business (LG Mobile prefers LCDs for now). Aside from LG's own needs, LG Display OLEDs are being shipped to China's Skyworth, which makes TVs (among many other things). Source | Via Published on 2016/06/12 | Source Soldiers stand in the Joint Security Area in the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas on Wednesday. /Courtesy of South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command Advertisement The Joint Security Area of the border truce village of Panmunjom was ringing with muffled North Korean propaganda broadcasts on Wednesday as tensions remained high along the inter-Korean border. Reporters were given a tour of the JSA at the invitation of the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. The South plays no propaganda broadcasts in the JSA, but a North Korean announcer could be heard apparently denouncing South Korea, though it was difficult to understand what she was saying due to the poor quality of the loudspeakers. South Korea stepped up propaganda broadcasts elsewhere along the border after North Korea conducted its latest nuclear test and the North has been retaliating with its own. But in the JSA North and South Korean soldiers stand within arm's reach of each other, and physical clashes erupted there in the past. In 1984, a shootout erupted after a Soviet diplomat touring Panmunjom suddenly crossed over the military demarcation line, prompting North Korean soldiers to chase after him into the South Korean side of the DMZ. The ensuing firefight resulted in the deaths of one South Korean and three North Korean soldiers. Afterwards the South installed electronic equipment in the JSA to detect North Korean troop movements around the clock. "Things may look calm on the outside, but tensions are always high here", Lt. Col. Kwon Young-hwan in the JSA said. "We're constantly monitoring whether North Korea is abiding by the terms of the ceasefire agreement". The two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended only in a ceasefire. Gen. Vincent Brooks, the new commander of U.S. Forces Korea, visited the JSA after assuming his new post last month and told reporters Wednesday that the threat facing the Korean Peninsula can be "clearly felt" there. Harlow is a former New Town in Essex with a population of 86,000. Located in the upper Stort Valley, it was built in the decades after the Second World War to ease overcrowding and London and provide homes for people bombed out during the Blitz. It includes Britain's first pedestrian precinct and first modern residential tower block, The Lawn. Old Harlow, the historic part of the town, was mentioned in the Domesday Book. David and Victoria Beckham's former home, Rowneybury House, nicknamed 'Beckingham Palace', is nearby. 11:52, 25 OCT 2022 By Jessica Isaacs | [email protected] Photos by Sarah Weiffenbach Home is a safe place to sleep at night. Its a haven from the busy workday and a quiet place to do homework. Its blank canvas on which we splash our favorite styles and ideas. Its a warm environment for entertaining our friends and a peaceful retreat from the hustle and bustle of the world. Its the one place in which we can truly be ourselves, and its a place to call our own. Its a labor of love, and its where we raise our families. No matter how you look at it, home is where the heart is. Countless studies show that owning a home has direct, positive impacts on a familys health, wellbeing and stability. Adults who own their homes often perform better at work, and kids raised in healthy, stable families often do better in school. Many families pour their hearts into building a home thats right for them. Some spend decades saving up to buy a place of their own. Some take a fixer-upper and turn it into their dream home over time. Some work day in and day out to provide for their loved ones and will still never be able to own a home that is, unless theres someone around to give them a helping hand. For some families, home ownership is a blessing and a privilege. For others, its a dream theyll never know. Here in the High Country of North Carolina, where living expenses and real estate are costly, achieving it is certainly a challenge. One local agency, Habitat for Humanity of Watauga County, has been working for nearly 30 years to bridge the gap between poverty and stability that often prevents people from buying a home. This year, the High Country Home Builders Association, another respected, longstanding organization, has stepped up to the plate and made a colossal commitment to supporting Habitats next project. Habitat for Humanity Watauga Habitat is a branch of Habitat for Humanity International, a nonprofit ecumenical housing ministry that seeks to put Gods love into action to build new houses and create safe, healthy, comfortable homes for people around the world. With local affiliates across the globe, the organization seeks to further the mission its founder, the late Millard Fuller. A self-made millionaire before the age of 30, Fuller was led by personal struggles to reevaluate the direction of his life, Habitat.org explains. In the early 1970s, he and his wife sold all of their possessions, donated the money to the poor and moved to Africa to establish a housing project that would practically apply the teachings of Christ. Not long after, Habitat International was born, and his work is still continued today in countless communities. Habitat homes are built using volunteer labor with the help of the families who receive them, also known in the organization as partner families, who must meet certain criteria before beginning their journey to homeownership through the agency. In many cases, Habitat families have enough monthly income to make a small house payment but not enough to qualify for a bank loan. Qualifying partner families also go through criminal background checks and must be willing to invest sweat equity, or volunteer hours, into the construction of their own home and the homes of other partner families. Once complete, the homes are not given away but sold to the partner family as a zero-interest mortgage loan. Even without the expense of labor, Habitat homes cost approximately $100,000 to build in our area, which leaves the average Habitat homeowner with a monthly mortgage payment of $450-$500, including taxes, insurance and property owners association fees. Because of that financial responsibility, interested partner families must have a steady source of income. First incorporated in 1987 as Blue Ridge Habitat for Humanity, the Watauga affiliate stepped out on its own in 1993 when the local chapter separated into two groups to better serve Watauga and Avery counties. Later that year, Watauga Habitat built its first home near the hospital in Boone off of Bamboo Road. In 2011, after nearly two decades of building in Watauga, a sizeable donation allowed the affiliate to make a down payment on a 20-acre lot in the Green Valley community. This property would soon become home to the agencys first subdivision, named GreenWood. Since then, four partner families have moved into beautiful, sustainable homes in the neighborhood. Homes in this development also feature energy-saving extras and are built well beyond typical code standards, saving families between $200-$300 each month on utilities. At Home in the High Country Home ownership comes with greater challenges here in the High Country, where tourism and part-time residency play important roles in the local economy. Thats why the folks at Watauga Habitat, including Executive Director Alex Hooker, stay hard at work to make it a reality for those who need help finding safe, reliable, affordable living conditions. Housing costs are so high here due to the competition with students and second home buyers. Thats driven up the costs for Watauga residents, said Hooker. The median price of a home in our county is a lot higher than the North Carolina average. The fair market rent established by HUD is close to $800 for a three-bedroom apartment. For somebody who makes minimum wage to afford that, theyd have to work more than 80 hours a week to keep up with their payments. Plus, more than 30 percent of our population is below the poverty level, so those three things combined make it impossible for some local people to afford a decent place on their own. Habitat and its area partners know that helping families build and buy their own homes is an essential part of growing a stronger community. There are so many studies that point toward the benefit of home ownership and the direct correlation between that and emotional and physical health, Hooker said. When lower-income families are renting and forced to move constantly, it takes so much effort, especially if they have children it can be so consuming. When you stabilize that family, put them in their own home and take the worry out of the equation, theyre able to focus on themselves and their family. Parents do better with job opportunities, holding jobs and working their way up, and thats just part of it if they get that opportunity. Thats what we try to create for people, and it really puts them in a position to break out of the cycle of poverty. The affiliate has established 26 homes for local families since its inception, and, with increased support this year from its friends at the High Country Home Builders Association, it will complete another project in the GreenWood development this summer. High Country Home Builders Also a fixture in the High Country, the HCHBA is an organization comprised of members who are general contractors building residential and commercial structures in the area, as well as associate members who serve the homebuilding industry. If you visit the group online at highcountryhba.com, youll find a complete directory of its membership, which also includes building suppliers, grading companies, plumbers, electricians, painters, carpenters, bankers, developers and other professionals whose livelihoods depend on the industry. HCHBA President Chuck Perry, who first joined the association in 1999, said the group seeks to serve its members and the community by focusing on its core values. Whether its political action or economic process, we work to stay involved in things that are good for homebuilding. We also work to support our community in any way we can, said Perry. If we think about our homes, what else do we, as consumers, expect so much from? Our home is a place we feel safe in and its where we raise are kids and where we stay warm and dry. Not everybody has the opportunity to do that, so we, as homebuilders, feel the need to support housing initiatives, and Habitat already has a great program in place. Habitats mission and its established systems make it a perfect avenue through which the homebuilders association can channel its service. Its a natural fit for us to work with Habitat. Theyre trying to get people into homes who may not otherwise be able to afford it a place thats safe and dry and comfortable that they can be proud of so its always been a good fit for us, Perry said. We want to help the community, and Habitat has a model in place that serves it well, so why not allow our skillset to serve theirs? Then it becomes a win/win. For many years now, the two longstanding organizations have joined forces to tackle building projects, and the HCHBA has served as a valuable resource that connects Habitat with the building industry. We have the relationships in place to help with the procurement of materials and provide labor to build a home. Thats not to say that Habitat cant do that on its own in fact, its been doing that for years all across the country and has done a marvelous job of it, said Perry. Here in the High Country, we are in a unique position to help make things easier on Alex and his group in terms of getting together materials, which can often be the most difficult part. Working Together This year, the HCHBA has gone above and beyond to help Habitat reach its goals with the latest project, providing an unprecedented amount of materials and labor during the 2016 construction season. We went to three of our building supplier 84 Lumber, New River Building Supply and Blevins Building Supply and asked if they would mind to support us with this initiative. We asked them each for $5,000 worth of products to give, and they said yes, said Perry. Part of the reason they did that is because there are hundreds of us homebuilders here in the county, and were buying products from them day in and day out. I would like to think theyre supporting that relationship by supporting this initiative. The HCHBA members will not only supply $15,000 or more worth of materials for the next GreenWood home, they will also provide the labor to put those products into action at the jobsite. That will essentially provide the shell for a brand new house the framing, the siding and the roof, Perry said. $15,000 worth of materials is big time, and the labor to do that work is a major endeavor. The time and materials provided by the homebuilders association will bring a level of expertise to the next project that will streamline Habitats construction process and yield the benefits of professional-quality work for the new homeowners. Theyre getting a house that is essentially professionally built through and through, although the labor is done on a volunteer basis. That can make a big difference, Hooker said. They can go out and do the work a lot quicker and more efficiently than what a normal volunteer team would be able to do. That increases our house production and gets the homeowners in the house faster. The HCHBAs leadership and the generosity of its members and suppliers have made this venerable partnership with Habitat possible, as well as the expanded contributions for the upcoming project. Our board of directors have always made it a priority for us to take on a build project every year, said Perry. We have sought to use the skillset of our team of members and serve our community through that skillset, and the Habitat partnership worked out great for us this year. We wish we could do this all of the time, and our board always makes it a priority for us. The Habitat team hopes to kick off the 2016 build season in GreenWood with work beginning on June 1. As the two organizations continue to collaborate in service, their strong relationship will continue to make a difference for generations to come. We all live on this earth together and we all have skills, Perry said. If we can share those skills with other people, thats good, and thats what is important to us at the association. Were all volunteers and we all have jobs, families, businesses and limitations, but together we can achieve more. For more information on Habitat for Humanity of Watauga County, visit wataugahabitat.org or call 828-268-9696. To learn more about the HCHBA, visit highcountryhba.com. Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket This article is reviewed by a team of registered dietitians and medical doctors with extensive, practical clinical and public health experience. All articles are produced independently. When you click our links for purchasing products, we earn an affiliate commission. Learn more about how we earn revenue by reading our advertise disclaimer. 9.0 Quality 8.0 Support Research 9.0 Reputation 7.0 Price Features The organic materials are entirely free of pharmaceuticals. Since its a botanical and organic remedy, theres a slim possibility of side effects. Payment is accepted in the form of HSA cards. It has a liberal 90-day return period. Brand Information Promedev LLC invented this product Medical Benefits Alleviates common aches and pains Decreases Swelling Boosts Your Mobility Bolsters strong muscles & joints About The Brand The Relief Factor is a pain-relieving substance that claims to help consumers lessen body discomfort caused by regular activities, age, and exercise. Whats not to enjoy about a recipe that aims to strengthen the bodys processes associated with swelling and pains while also recovering suppleness and range of motion? This composition, which contains several organic substances, decreases inflammation and relieves joint soreness. The quantity of reviews for Relief Factor is rather impressive, as there is no more innovative method to appraise a product than by looking at what other people have to say about it. What Is Relief Factor? Promedev LLC in the United States promotes Relief Factor as an anti-inflammatory supplement. Unlike the traditional pharmaceutical medications that your doctor may recommend, this blend of herbs and fish oil provides 100 % safety. It is suitable for everybody, but it is specially designed for those who suffer from joint problems and other age-related medical problems. This medicine can relieve body discomfort and inflammation in persons who are not just elderly but also those who have demanding occupations or fitness regimens. Anti-inflammatories used to treat arthritis and other types of joint discomfort work by inhibiting the immunological reaction that causes pain. On the other hand, this supplement operates by giving natural substances that, like pharmaceutical medicine, can successfully control inflammation. Vitamin Relief Factor Calm and Relief Factor Energy have been included in the line-up as well. The first is a botanical medication that will assist you to unwind by reducing tension, whereas the latter is an adrenaline enhancer that will allow you to stay energetic. How To Choose The Best Joint Supplements Does It Really Work? The big question is, does Relief Factor really work? In a nutshell, yes, it does. As we have quoted above, Relief Factor can help to reduce joint discomfort by using organic anti and antioxidant substances to reduce swelling. Inflammation in the joints and muscles is a common trigger of pain and stiffness. Its a powerful combination that could help people suffering from minimal to intermediate to severe pain. The effectiveness of the substance is the outcome of extensive testing undertaken by a group of experts to develop a healthy option for treating joint soreness. This medicine is designed to be a safe and effective option for pharmaceutical pain relievers that can affect the internal organs. Is Relief Factor Legit? This joint pain product ought to have some favorable effects based on the given constituents. These are permitted ingredients in a joint and arthritis pain relief product. This product, nonetheless, could be another free trial fraud mostly because it works. But the company providing you a free pint in exchange for merely the shipping costs is a common approach to get you to sign up for a regular everyday living for a months supply. There are no particular concerns on the internet on Relief Factor reviews consumer reports, so much so its worth remembering and using as a joint pain relief remedy. Pros As its a botanical and organic product, theres a slim potential of side effects. According to the majority of Relief Factor review evaluations on the factor of Customer Relief, most customers appear to be pleased with the functionality of the items. Aside from the mentioned advantages, the goods may provide additional health advantages to their users. Its easy to find on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and the official site. The study that will contribute to the ultimate product is claimed to be led by specialists. Cons There is insufficient clinical evidence to back up the products claimed effectiveness. Users must take the vitamins three times a day, with four units of substance every intake, which makes adherence difficult. Clients are involuntarily enrolled for future orders, and canceling the membership may be difficult. The suppliers lack of a money-back guarantee clause generates specific concerns regarding the reliability of the product. In contrast to other options presented, the product appears to be pricey. Relief Factor Ingredients Best Reputation Relief Factor The organic materials are entirely free of pharmaceuticals. Since its a botanical and organic remedy, theres a slim possibility of side effects. Cost-effectiveness. Users can choose a subscription service. Payment is accepted in the form of HSA cards. This solution contains four key substances that work together to provide great pain and muscle relief, similar to that provided by pharmaceutical medications. Lets glance at what some additional components work to understand better how the product functions. The Relief Factor was created to assist the body in combating pain and inflammation. People with persistent but minor joint problems may benefit from the product. Still, people with chronic or developed joint pain issues should receive professional counsel or pursue a more potent treatment option. Each day, a slew of new vitamins hit the shelves. There arent many that are as effective and useful as Relief Factor. In addition, the ingredients quality and the production facilitys sanitary conditions are of a high degree. The recipe has been clinically established over the last 15 years and has been tried and true. The human body possesses the ability to resist muscle discomfort and bodily aches. Relief Factor vs. Natural Balance Inflammation-response therapy isnt a new concept, as countless reviews can confirm. So, how does Relief Factor stack up against its rivals? This Relief Factor review has developed a list of parallels and distinctions between the two brands, which can be found below. So, which business is deserving of filling your pill organizer? Lets have a look. Relief Factor Provides a subscription plan for most of their items, including pain reduction, tiredness, and stress release Cost-effective No international shipping is available Customer feedback is scarce Nature Balance Provides fruit and vegetable-based dietary supplements Users can also choose to subscribe to the service, which is more expensive than Relief Factor On their website, they offer health counseling More feedback from customers Turmeric Turmeric[1] is thought to be helpful for your joints because of its curcumin concentration. This is the element in the Relief Factor that has the most anti-inflammatory capabilities of all the compounds. Curcumin has been found to have a spectrum of pharmacological qualities, such as being an effective therapy for diabetes, Parkinsons disease, arthritis, cardiovascular illness, and pulmonary disease. Icariin This potent vasodilator[2], derived from the herb Epimedium, serves to build blood arteries so that additional blood can flow through them. It contains nitric oxide, which opens blood arteries to let the additional blood flow, resulting in tissue perfusion. Increased oxygen allows cells to operate effectively and heal themselves more quickly, resulting in less long-term joint pain. Japanese Fleeceflower (Resveratrol) This is one of the supplements key constituents. For its blood flow-improving properties, resveratrol[3] is included in the Relief Factor recipe. It aids in the proper circulation of blood to all body regions and promotes the functionality of blood vesselsresveratrol aids in preventing joint discomfort. Resveratrols anti-inflammatory properties are particularly significant in the Relief Factor supplements underlying purpose. Omega-3 Omega-3 fatty acids[4] have a slew of health advantages. Omega-3s can be found in foods like fatty fish, fish oil, and chia seeds, but many individuals take supplements as they dont receive plenty from their meals. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for eyesight and the brains functioning. The following are some of the advantages of including omega-3 in your meals or consuming a multivitamin: Helps reduce the number of inflammatory molecules released by your system Blood clots are less likely to occur Maintains the clean and silky lining of blood vessels Some people take Omega-3 fatty acids to assist in decreasing their triglyceride concentrations. Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to boost energy levels and psychological well-being. Alternatives to Relief Factor Physio Flex Pro Fast-acting, an easy-to-absorb substance with no adverse reactions A multi-effect treatment that stimulates, emulsifies, and aids in the management of pain and inflammation. Ingredients with scientific backing International shipments will incur a $15 fee. The specialized website is the only place where you may get it. Get More Brand Options For Joint Pain Here Health Benefits of Relief Factor Countless individuals throughout the globe suffer from aches and pains caused by arthritis and aging. Such folks might get some relief from their difficulties securely and dependably with natural remedies like Relief Factor. Aside from the apparent, Relief Factor has a variety of advantages for its consumers. The numerous ways that this supplement may provide aid are outlined below: Helps in managing inflammation more effectively. Helps to alleviate the symptoms of gout over time. Decreases arthritis pain significantly Improved mental performance It enhances the bodys natural response and healing process. The all-natural ingredients promote a strong immune system that helps in the relief of incapacitating persistent lower back pain. Improves the hearts condition and general well-being improves. This supplement aids strong joints and muscles. Potential Side Effects Relief Factor has remained on the marketplace for decades, and users have never recorded adverse side effects. According to the brands site, you should start with three packs, which equals 12 capsules each day. Side effects such as drowsiness, watery bowel, and nosebleeds are common in the initial phases of taking the Relief Factor, but they will fade over time. Fish oil might be bothersome to specific individuals, especially those who have sensitive stomachs. The adverse reactions will be reduced if this mixture is taken with meals. Individuals who are utilizing blood thinners should also seek medical advice before starting this regimen. Some of the chemicals in this composition boost a healthy blood flow, causing undesirable interactions in the circulatory system. However, you should seek medical assistance for specific instructions from a healthcare provider on utilizing the product. How To Take Relief Factor? This item is delivered in packets. Two capsules are in one packet, while two soft gels are in the other. The suggested intake differs based on the persons health, per the supplements supplier. To obtain the desired results, begin with three packs each day. However, if the discomfort is extreme, you should take four packets every day. As the swelling goes down, cut back to 2 to 3 packages. Consume one pack in the morning, two at lunchtime, and the other at nighttime when consuming four loads. If youre taking three packets, all you have to do is reduce the two packs taken at lunchtime to one as described above. If youre taking two packs in a day, take one during morning hours and the other at night. Relief Factor Review: What Do Real Users Say? On the web, client feedback is hard to come by. This is attributable to the reality that the company regulates its goods. There is no other client input other than through its site. Relief Factor has garnered conflicting feedback from its customers, as one might anticipate. Regrettably, the vast majority of them are unfavorable. This product, according to one customer, helps to relieve muscle soreness. Nonetheless, because his blood pressure increased due to taking this supplement, he encouraged users to keep a close eye on their blood pressure if they chose to use it. Relief Factor, according to another customer, is a rip-off. He went on to say that the maker had hidden fees. As a result, if you decide to purchase this product, you are prone to losing all of your money. Because of these viewpoints, you may consider purchasing this product or trying another more beneficial vitamin. Five-star review I absolutely loved it! I used it for just a week, and I felt and saw a decreased inflammation and pain in my right knee. Highly recommend. Mory This Relief Factor supplement truly helped my mum regain her mobility. I am grateful. Janet 3 stars I am not sure it is working because my arthritis pain is still unbearable. I will give it another week to see if my joint pains reside. Lou Final thought The vast array of joint remedies available demonstrates virtually limitless options whenever it regards selection. We always recommend selecting goods that are genuine and marketed ethically. The relief Factor seems to be a high-quality product that works. Although it is a bit more pricey than some other supplements in this genre, it holds many experimentally verified substances that warrant the price. Frequently Asked Questions What is the effectiveness of the Relief Factor? The Relief Factor is an anti-inflammatory substance that purports to aid in the alleviation of joint discomfort. Our investigation indicates that some of the contents are excellent; nevertheless, we are concerned with their subscription plan, which appears to be producing issues for some clients. We havent found anything better. Is it possible to take a joint supplement while receiving a RA influx? Your prescription may take several weeks to begin functioning. It can take anywhere from 15 minutes to eight hours, depending on the drug. Infusion drugs are not pain relievers, so you might have to continue taking pain relievers for RA. The administration of infusions can take many hours. Is it safe to Take the Relief Factor? Yes, the Relief Factor is completely safe. Theres no justification for thinking the Relief Factor isnt safe because the components are totally safe. The ingredients have all undergone clinical testing to ensure their suitability. Is Relief Factor capable of weaning me off of morphine sulfate? The relief Factor comprises botanical and fish oil elements that help the body battle aches and pains constructively. It does not affect Morphine addiction. If you have to take Morphine for an extended period, your body may get resistant to it. To manage your pain, you will require greater dosages. Consult a physician if youre concerned about your dependence or would like to learn more about avoiding signs of withdrawal. Does the Relief Factor have any adverse side effects? If you are intolerant to soy or fish oil, the product could trigger a reaction. For people who have sensitive stomachs, fish oil should be taken with meals to prevent stomach distress. It has the potential to induce bleeding in people who have been identified with blood coagulation abnormalities. Loose stools, nosebleeds, and drowsiness are all rare adverse reactions. Please seek medical advice before starting any new medicine if you are currently on one. What are the Relief Factors refund and return policy? The company offers a 90-day money-back guarantee. The item can be returned for reimbursement within 90 days of buying. Nevertheless, delivery fees are not refundable. The package must be returned in its original blue and green bag, unopened and undamaged, to be eligible for a rebate. Clearly mark the parcel as refused and return it. Where Can I Purchase Relief Factor? This item is not obtainable in your local pharmacy. You must go to the relief factors website to obtain this product. Is Relief Factor a Scam or Does It Work? The Relief Factor appears to be a promising anti-inflammatory remedy, claiming to be beneficial in pain relief. This remark may be correct, but it really doesnt address the underlying problem. As a result, it is recommended that you try other remedies, which relieve swelling and discomfort without making any deceptive claims. Orpo refrained, however, from commenting on his plans for the portfolio of the Minister of the Interior. It'll be time for those decisions soon, but not quite yet, he said. Petteri Orpo (NCP), the Minister of the Interior, has announced his intention to take over from Alexander Stubb (NCP) as the Minister of Finance after being elected as the chairperson of the National Coalition Party in Lappeenranta on Saturday. It presently remains unknown whether or not the newly-elected chairperson is to set aside a high-powered role for his predecessor in the Government or the National Coalition. Stubb, who declined to comment on his future after losing the election, won a seat in the Finnish Parliament roughly a year ago but cannot return to the European Parliament under the rules of the European Union. Regardless of his unwillingness to speculate on any appointments, Orpo estimated that both of his rival candidates, Stubb and Elina Lepomaki, continue to have plenty to offer to the National Coalition similarly to one of the most influential supporters of his leadership campaign, Jan Vapaavuori (NCP), a Vice-President of the European Investment Bank (EIB). Orpo revealed that he has already talked briefly with Prime Minister Juha Sipila (Centre), who announced that a ministerial shake-up is on the horizon while addressing the party faithful in Seinajoki earlier on Saturday. Orpo is expected to table his proposal for the shake-up in his meeting with Sipila on Monday. The Centre, on the other hand, will not rotate its ministerial portfolios, according to Sipila. Orpo also pledged his long-term commitment to restoring public confidence in the National Coalition Party. He reminded that he decided to run against the incumbent chairperson roughly a month before the party conference due to murmurs about a lack of trust, need for change and internal disarray emanating from within the party. The message that it's time for a change became clearer during the course of the spring," he said. It's time for down-to-earth policy-making. What also became clearer was an air of internal disarray within the National Coalition. [Stubb] is a phenomenon, a great personality and a completely new breed of politicians. He has a different approach to policy-making. The National Coalition, however, should not revolve exclusively around its chairperson, added Orpo. We have an abundance of expertise in various fields and I intend to expand the image we give of the National Coalition. Orpo also voiced his disappointment with both the Government and labour market organisations for their failure to find a truly impactful agreement on measures to improve the employment situation. The Government has a strategic government programme. It gives us a possibility to accomplish a lot, and it's not an obstacle to rational policy-making, he stated. I want to increase the agility of coalition co-operation. Decisions haven't been made fast enough. Orpo snapped at Sipila for ignoring the concerns of the National Coalition on a number of issues over the past twelve months. The premise for me must be that the ruling coalition makes decisions unanimously. The two-against-one approach is unsustainable. I hope that this is understood also by the chairperson of the Centre. He then turned his attention to labour market organisations and the competitiveness pact that was completed on Friday after a final approval from the Finnish Metalworkers' Union. The pact is a good agreement, but it isn't the kind of competitiveness leap we were hoping for, said Orpo. The National Coalition, he assured, has no intention of eroding the position of labour market organisations let alone wage earners under his leadership. Orpo admitted to being disappointed with how long it took employee and employer representatives to find common ground in the recently-concluded negotiations. We must be able to find common ground, but more swiftly. The recently-concluded negotiations were far from a perfect performance from the viewpoint of the Government. I'm disappointed with how the labour market mechanisms responded to an obvious need [to restore the competitiveness of businesses], said Orpo. We'll see the pact through. I'm of the opinion that it should tie the hands of the Government as little as possible. The question of how to promote local bargaining at workplaces and enhance the flexibility of labour markets remains unanswered, he reminded. Aleksi Teivainen HT Photo: Heikki Saukkomaa Lehtikuva Source: Uusi Suomi It's 30 years since Philip Cairns went missing while walking to school in Rathfarnham. I worked on the case, which is surely the country's most high profile disappearance. But, like the dozens of my colleagues who doggedly investigated it, I could never have foreseen the developments of recent days. On October 23, 1986, the 13-year-old schoolboy was reported missing by his family. He had left his home at Ballyroan Road at 1.30pm that day to return to Colaiste Eanna, a short distance away. He was never seen alive again and his body has never been found. His disappearance sparked off one of the biggest manhunts in the history of the State. The fact that a young boy could disappear in such circumstances, to vanish into thin air, traumatised the city and indeed the country. On October 24, I was assigned to the garda team based at Rathfarnham station to investigate his disappearance. It was one of the most thorough and comprehensive inquiries that I have been involved in. For weeks and months, more than 50 officers worked the case around the clock. Discovery Hundreds of lines of enquiry were pursued and hundreds of witnesses interviewed. Every scrap of information was followed up. The discovery of Philip's schoolbag in a laneway near Colaiste Eanna six days after he went missing provided some hope. But the breakthrough never came. The years passed and the Cairns case remained open. Appeals continued to be made. Every new lead was followed up and investigated. But despite all the work, Philip's disappearance remained a seemingly unsolvable mystery. Until the extraordinary events of recent weeks, that is. It's now emerged that a victim of paedophile Eamon Cooke, a pirate radio DJ, recently came forward with new information from the day of Philip's disappearance. The witness was only nine years old at the time. She told gardai she saw Cooke strike Philip with an implement in his radio studio in Inchicore. She said she saw the boy bleeding and unconscious on the floor. She fainted and when she woke, his body was gone and she was in a car being driven by Cooke. As a former detective, my first thoughts on hearing of this development was that, at last, the suffering of the Cairns family could be coming to an end. This is the strongest lead yet in the case. Cooke died two weeks ago but not before he was interviewed by gardai in his hospice bed. It's reported that he corroborated some details of the witness's account but did not admit to abducting and murdering the schoolboy. This is an extraordinary twist in the case. Eamon Cooke was never a person of interest or a suspect in the original investigations or any subsequent reviews. The claim that Cooke was involved initially surprised me. I knew Cooke, having first come across him in Dublin in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was a motorcycle garda at the time, attached to the Crime Task Force. As bizarre and strange as it now seems, Eamon Cooke was, at that time, well known in garda circles for pseudo-vigilante activities. He patrolled the streets of Dublin's south inner city in a battered green Jaguar Mark 1. Code He even used a blue light on the top of his car, to appear like an unmarked garda car, and deployed a CB radio to communicate with garda Command and Control section in Dublin Castle. Incredibly, he was even given the code sign 'Alpha Seven', an official garda code designation in the city's 'A' district. Cooke always 'patrolled' at night, often pursuing stolen vehicles and calling in burglaries and assaults. Personally, I thought Cooke was a weird character, an oddball. At that point, his child abuse was obviously not known of. As it now turns out, he may not only have been a paedophile but also a child killer. With Cooke dead and in the absence of any remains or crime scene, the investigation will now to turn to the schoolbag. It can only be hoped that DNA analysis of this item can link it to the DJ. Clearly this would corroborate the witness's story and put Cooke in the frame. As a detective who worked on this case, and in light of this compelling new witness evidence and Cooke's later paedophile convictions, it's clear that there's now a strong case that the DJ abducted and murdered Philip Cairns. For the sake of justice, and the Cairns family, I hope it can be proven. Dylan Mooney took steroids on day of the offences A cystic fibrosis sufferer who drove a car without the owner's permission and without insurance understood how "dangerous" the situation had been, a court heard. Dylan Mooney (20) had just taken steroids for his medical condition on the day of the off- ences and could not remember the incident, his lawyer said. Judge David McHugh left him without convictions when he admitted charges arising from the episode, which happened near his home in west Dublin. Mooney, with an address at Westway View, Blanchardstown, pleaded guilty to un- authorised taking of a car and uninsured driving at nearby Westway Garth last October 28. He also admitted resisting a female garda at Westway View on the same date. Blanchardstown District Court heard the accused had pleaded guilty to the charges on a previous date, when details of the case were heard by the judge. Mooney had two previous convictions for minor road traffic offences. Defence solicitor John O'Doherty handed in a letter and medical reports to the judge and said Mooney's parents and girlfriend were present in court to support him. He told the judge the accused was suffering from cystic fibrosis. "What's his lung capacity at the moment?" Judge McHugh asked. Mr O'Doherty conferred with Mooney and replied that it was 39pc. The judge then asked what the "occasion" was that the accused found it necessary to drive without insurance. Mooney had taken steroids for his condition on the day and "can't really recall the incident", Mr O'Doherty said. "He realises how dangerous it is given his medical situation," Mr O'Doherty added. "He has not been in trouble since." "I am with you in relation to the matter," the judge said, and imposed the Probation Act. Joanne McMahon who sustained serious burns when she was lighting a Bain Marie; with husband Mike. A mum who miraculously survived after being burned in a horror barbecue accident has raised over 200,000 for the National Burns Unit, where she received life-saving treatment. After waking up from a month-long induced coma, Joanne McMahon promised doctors she would spearhead a fundraiser for the burns unit, located at St James's Hospital, Dublin. Joanne said she was "delighted" to hand over a cheque for a massive 209,976.62 to Odhran Shelley, National Burns Unit Director, at the culmination of a 131-day fundraising campaign. Airlifted The 131 days of cake sales and dances, cycles and concerts, represented the time Joanne spent in the burns unit. In June 2014, Joanne was airlifted to hospital from her home in Castlemahon, Co Limerick, after a Bane Marie food heater exploded into a ball of flames over her. She sustained serious burns to 50pc of her body at a confirmation party for one of her children when she poured methylated spirits into the already lit food heater, which then burst into flames. A ball of fire engulfed her face neck and hands. The Joanne McMahon Thanksgiving Fund was launched last December, and ended on Friday with the cheque presentation at Castlemahon Community Hall. An initial target of 15,000 had been set - however, after donations flowed in from all over the world, including Australia and America, proceeds came to over 200,000. All the funds raised are going directly to the National Burns Unit. Happy Ms McMahon said yesterday: "It's unbelievable. I would have been happy had we raised 30,000, but this took on a life of its own after we started last year. "It was such a massive involvement by everybody. I have to thank all the people of West Limerick, but we also got support from Auckland, Chicago and Sydney...it's nearly impossible to thank everyone." Management at the burns unit are to erect a plaque marking her extraordinary efforts as the "first benefactor" to the unit. A similar plaque will also be erected in Ms MacMahon's hometown of Castlemahon. There is still nothing to stop another group of workers suffering the same fate as Clerys staff, it has been claimed. Up to 80 people held a demonstration outside the iconic Dublin store yesterday to mark the first anniversary of the store's closure. Siptu spokesman Robbie Purfield said they want jobs minister Mary Mitchell O'Connor to speed up legislation to close loopholes that allowed the buyers of Clerys to force people out of their jobs without giving them redundancy payments. The State used 2m in taxpayers' money to give statutory payments to more than 400 workers who were made redundant without any notice. A Labour Party motion was passed in the Dail recently proposing greater protection for workers who find themselves in similar situations. Bolted "New legislation is urgently needed as there's currently nothing to stop a similar situation happening again. The horse has bolted for Clerys workers, but they don't want it happen to anyone else," Mr Purfield told the Herald. The Duffy-Cahill Report into what happened at Clerys made recommendations which the minister needs to include in a new law, he added. Labour has now pledged to table a draft law to prevent a repeat of situations like the Clerys closure. Former junior jobs minister, Ged Nash, said Labour would act if the Government failed to follow up on the expert report. Labour would seek support to ensure their proposal became a reality. The report called for major new protections to be introduced for workers, including increased redundancy compensation to as much as two years' pay. Gerry Markey (54), who was a bed salesman and shop steward at Clerys, said: "The owners, Gordon Brothers, told us the next day they had sold to Natrium but our jobs were safe. "Later on the same day, we were informed by people for Natrium that our jobs were gone and we had to leave the building immediately. Meeting "We want a meeting with Natrium who have refused to meet us. "We want an apology from them for what they did. We deserve respect," Mr Markey added. The store's former payroll manager, Maurice Bracken (53), from Kimmage, said: "I worked in Clerys for 32 years. People who worked there are still in shock. We never got closure." Washington County Football: What to watch and who will win in Week 9 Woman feels betrayed by GOP over Diego Morales assault allegations A Republican woman who is accusing secretary of state candidate Diego Morales of sexually assaulting her said she tried This domain has expired. If you owned this domain, contact your domain registration service provider for further assistance. If you need help identifying your provider, visit https://www.tucowsdomains.com/ Dear Prime Minister, Last night was difficult for millions of members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community across the world as we coped with the tragic death of 50 of our friends in an Orlando nightclub. The worst mass shooting in American history triggered a worldwide wave of sympathy and condemnation. Messages of hope, grief and resilience poured in from across nations, helping friends and families of the victims deal with the deaths and the bile of hate that followed. You too tweeted a message of solidarity, as is practice by a top world leader in a time of tragedy such as this. But while you said your thoughts and prayers are with the bereaved, did you forget to mention that the victims were queer people, the kind our nation criminalises and ostracises? The Orlando shootings numbed many but LGBT people are unfortunately familiar with such hate crimes in every country. A 2011 study said sexual orientation motivated a fifth of all hate crimes in the United States, a country that has made far more strides in LGBT liberation that India. Such violence is common on bodies and orientations that look different from the mainstream the rate of murders of transpeople is the highest in recorded US history, the brutal lynching of a gay rights activist in Bangladesh and terrible homophobic laws in Russia that probably kill more people than Orlando. Back home too, the Orlando shootings invoke a familiar feeling of nausea. The draconian Section 377 that outlaws our lives and makes us criminals exists on the books and your government has done little to ensure justice to the possible millions of LGBT citizens of the country. The law and the associated hatred of LGBT people ensures that most people remain in the closet and dont dare express their gender or sexual preferences. Those who come out, as they say, they face unimaginable violence. People face daily violence in their homes, trans people get beaten up and raped on streets and gender non-conforming people are regularly harassed. Such violence against LGBT people is seldom reported in newspapers as victims are scared to approach police or media for fear of recurring hatred or ridicule. The few murders that make it to mainstream media are often objects of ridicule, buried deep inside the pages meant for salacious afternoon crime gossip. Dear Prime Minister, your tweet that erases the victims from their own tragedy is an act that is steeped in this culture that denies LGBT people their existence. Members of your council of ministers have called homosexuality unnatural and your administration hasnt come out against section 377 despite most countries including its parent the United Kingdom rescinding the law. It is this culture that forces people into closets, forces them into suicide and makes sure many of us have no avenue to express ourselves except in the dark confines of a club in one of the metro cities. This is the kind of vulnerability that Omar Mateen, the shooter, took advantage of. It is because of this culture that homosexual people are still barred from donating blood, that educational institutions still have few trans students two years after the Supreme Court recognised the third gender and there are few jobs for open LGBT people. We face discrimination in housing, when we go to colleges, when we step into offices and when we try to express our love. We are branded unnatural and people reportedly close to the establishment such as Baba Ramdev get rich by pedaling cures for homosexuality. June is Pride month across the world in remembrance of the watershed 1969 resistance movement in New Yorks Stonewall bar, where mostly queer people of colour stood up against police violence. This month, people plan to march in Chennai and Gurgaon in defiance against the hate and discrimination that threatens to shackle our lives. If youre sincere about your prayers for the Orlando victims, maybe you will tweet a message of support for the millions of similar LGBT people back home. Maybe youll send an envoy or emulate Justin Trudeau of Canada in joining a pride. At the very least, your government can tell the Supreme Court that the time for section 377 to go has come and enact a legislation in Parliament to the same. In the same breath, youll also rein in elements of your party pedaling hatred against other minorities. Orlando is grieving but so are millions back home. Dear Prime Minister, turn your attention to them. Views expressed are personal. The writer tweets @dhrubo127 SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In the wake of the worst mass shooting in US history, it is pointless to debate whether the Orlando killings constitute just an act of Islamist terror or also an act of hate directed at the LGBT community. Every act of terror springs from hatred of its target, be it a nation or government or community. The real question, given the spate of recent terrorist attacks from Brussels and Paris to Pathankot and San Bernardino, relates to the ideology that inspires such terror. The scourge of Islamist terror is closely connected with the Arab petrodollar-funded spread of the insidious ideology of Wahhabism. Wahhabi fanaticism is terrorisms ideological mother, whose offspring include groups like Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Laskar-e-Taiba, Boko Haram, al-Shabaab and ISIS, all of which blend hostility towards non-Sunnis and anti-modern romanticism into nihilistic rage. The only way to defeat an enemy driven by ideology is to undercut its ideology. The West won the Cold War not so much by military means as by spreading the ideas of political freedom and market capitalism, which helped suck the lifeblood out of communisms international appeal, making it incapable of meeting the widespread yearning for a better, more open life. Today, stemming the spread of the ideology that has fostered jihad factories holds the key to containing terrorism. The export of Wahhabism by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and some other oil sheikhdoms is the source of modern Islamist terror. From Asia and Africa to Europe, Arab petrodollars have played a key role in fomenting militant Islamic fundamentalism that targets the West, India and Israel as its enemies. Wahhabi fanaticism is gradually snuffing out more liberal Islamic traditions in many countries. For long, the rest of the world in thrall to Arab money and reliant on Arab oil and gas has largely turned a blind eye to the jihadist agenda of some Arab monarchs. With Western support, tyrannical oil monarchies in Riyadh, Doha and elsewhere were able to ride out the Arab Spring, emerging virtually unscathed. Saudi Arabia has faced little international pressure, even on human rights. How the Saudi kingdom buys up world leaders is apparent from the Malaysian attorney generals claim that Prime Minister Najib Razak received a $681-million personal donation from the Saudi royals. Saudi Arabia has given $25 million to the Clinton Foundation. The attitude towards Riyadh is now beginning to slowly change. German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said, We must make it clear to the Saudis that the time of looking the other way is over. After a married couple of Pakistani origin staged a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, US President Barack Obama alluded to Wahhabism as a perverted interpretation of Islam. No country has contributed more than Saudi Arabia to the international spread of Wahhabism, which is gradually snuffing out more liberal Islamic traditions in many countries. Jihadism and sectarianism are institutionalised in Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world named after its founder, commonly known as Ibn Saud. Saud, who ruled for 20 years until his death, brought the central part of the Arabian Peninsula under his control with British assistance in 1932, establishing a desert kingdom tethered to Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that was considered a fringe form of Islam until oil wealth transformed the once-barren Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest country without a river. Since the oil-price boom of the 1970s, Saudi Arabia has spent more than $200 billion on its global jihad project, including funding Wahhabi madrassas, mosques, clerics and books. Western powers actually encouraged the kingdom as an antidote to communism and the 1979 anti-US Iranian revolution to export Wahhabism. But now rising attacks serve as a reminder that Wahhabi fanaticism is the root from which Islamist terrorists draw their ideological sustenance. As US Vice-President Joseph Biden said in a 2014 Harvard speech, Saudi and other allies policies wound up helping to arm and build allies of Al Qaida and eventually the terrorist ISIS. Today, with its own future more uncertain than ever, the House of Saud is increasingly playing the sectarian card in order to shore up support among the Sunni majority at home and to rally other Islamist rulers in the region to its side. Having militarily crushed the Arab Spring uprising in Sunni-led but Shia-majority Bahrain, Saudi Arabia early this year executed its own Arab Spring leader, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who had led the anti-regime Shia protests in 2011. Before the execution, the kingdom formed an alliance of Sunni states purportedly to fight terrorism. The coalition included all the main sponsors of international terror, like Qatar and Pakistan. It was like arsonists pretending to be fire wardens. According to a UN panel of experts, Saudi Arabia is currently engaged in war crimes in Yemen. The Saudi royals seem to mistakenly believe that widening the sectarian fault lines in the Islamic world will keep them in power. By drawing legitimacy from jihadism and by being beholden to sectarianism, the royals could be digging their own grave. After all, fuelling jihadism and sectarianism threatens to empower extremists at home and devour the royalty. More broadly, the global war on terror cannot be won without closing the wellspring that feeds terrorism Wahhabi fanaticism. Wahhabism is the ultimate source of the hatred that triggered 9/11, 26/11 and the recent string of attacks. Shutting that wellspring demands that the West hold Arab monarchs to account for spawning the kinds of dangerous extremists that are imperilling regional and international security. The late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew rightly said in 2003 that success in the war on terror hinges more on controlling the queen bees the preachers of the deviant form of Islam than on just killing the worker bees (terrorists). As long as Arab petrodollars keep jihad factories in business, there will be suicide killers. Dismantling the Saudi, Qatari and other Wahhabi religious-industrial complexes that are spreading jihadism has thus become more imperative than ever. Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and author The views expressed are personal The super hit hip-hop musical Hamilton, depicting the story of Americas founding father Alexander Hamilton, bagged 11 trophies at the 2016 Tony Awards, including the one for the best musical. It was nominated for a record-breaking 16 awards during Sundays prize giving. In addition to the top award presented to them by Barbra Streisand, the shows star, creator and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, took best book of a musical and best original score. Phillipa Soo, foreground left, and Renee Elise Goldsberry, center, and the cast of Hamilton, winners of the 2016 award for best musical, perform at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York on Sunday. (AP) Miranda lost the best leading actor in a musical trophy to his co-star Leslie Odom, Jr, while other acting prizes went to Renee Elise Goldsberry (best featured actress in a musical) and Daveed Diggs (best featured actor in a musical). The creative team had a near clean sweep, winning best direction of a musical (Thomas Kail), best choreography (Andy Blankenbuehler), best orchestrations (Alex Lacamoire), best costume design (Paul Tazewell), and best lighting design (Howell Binkley). Although Hamilton went home with 11 trophies, it did not break the record for the most wins in one night, which is held by The Producers. The musical was honoured with 12 Tonys in 2001. Producer Scott Sanders, center, accepts the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical for 'The Color Purple' with his cast and creative team onstage. (AP) Meanwhile, acclaimed show The Humans scored the most trophies in the play categories, for best play, best featured actor and actress prizes for its two stars Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell, respectively, and best scenic design of a play for David Zinn. Frank Langella earned his fourth Tony for best leading actor in a play for The Father, while Jessica Lange won her first Tony for best leading actress in a play for Long Days Journey Into Night. Arthur Millers A View From The Bridge was given two Tonys, for best revival of a play and for its director Ivo van Hove. Casts from each of the best musical contenders Bright Star, Hamilton, School of Rock, Shuffle Along and Waitress treated viewers to song and dance numbers, while stars from best revival of a musical nominees, The Color Purple, Fiddler on the Roof, She Loves Me and Spring Awakening, also hit the stage to perform. Jessica Lange accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role in a play for Long Day's Journey Into Night. (REUTERS) Bebe Neuwirth also led a 20th anniversary tribute to the revival of long-running musical Chicago, the show which earned her second Tony Award in 1997. The ceremony held at New York Citys Beacon Theatre, was hosted by James Corden, who in his monologue, addressed the tragic Orlando shooting. Also during the show, the American Theatre Wing which hands out the Tonys announced its new Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative, which is being funded with a $1.3 million, three-year grant from Lloyd Webber that will support theatre education opportunities for under-resourced public schools around the United States. Follow @htlifeandstyle for more. Damoh district collector Srinivas Sharma whose mother died due to lack of timely basic medical treatment, on Sunday said that he will purchase an ambulance and set up an intensive care unit at the district hospital so that people do not suffer the same fate like his mother. My mother couldnt get timely treatment as the hospital didnt have functional equipment but I have no complaint against doctors as they did their best with whatever resources they had, Sharma told Hindustan Times. I am now concerned with hospital having functional equipment and basic infrastructure as I dont want this to happen to anyones mother, he said. I will spend from my own pocket to set up an intensive care unit (ICU) at the district hospital and a buy a functional ambulance for the hospital. Collector not in favour of any inquiry but wants healthcare infra to improve Sharma further said that he was not in favour of any inquiry into the incident but wanted the healthcare infrastructure in the district to improve. Sharma couldnt get basic medical facilities for treatment of his mother, Shanti Devi Sharma,78, who was rushed to the district hospital after she complained of chest pain. When she was brought to the hospital , there was no doctor on duty. A doctor arrived after repeated calls and he told the collector that the ventilator at the hospital was not working and asked him to take his mother to Jabalpur. But the ambulances ventilator too was not in a working condition and finally, an ambulance from Sagar, about 78 km from Domoh, was called and his mother was rushed to Jabalpur where she died at a hospital. The death of collectors mother has exposed loopholes in the healthcare delivery in the district hospitals of the state. Following the incident, HT spoke to a number of officials at the district hospital, which revealed that despite many requisitions, the hospital was not provided the required resources or functional equipment for effective delivery of the healthcare. Even 48-hour after the incident, the health department has not taken any corrective steps. Sources said the district hospital faces a number of problems, including shortage manpower and lack of infrastructure. The hospital on average gets 800 to 1,000 patients every day in the outpatient department and 600 to 700 patients are admitted at the hospital on average every month. The hospital has 10 wards but no intensive care unit. Sources said when the collectors mother was brought for treatment, the operation theatre was used as an ICU. Even in the in operation theatre, one of the three air conditioners is out of order and other two provide inadequate cooling. The auto clap machine used for warming clothes is not working either. Even the air conditioner at the burn ward is not working since long. Attendants of patients bring air coolers from their house for their patients. The only 108 ambulance fitted with a ventilator was damaged six months back after which it has not been repaired. The hospital has half the sanctioned strength of doctors and paramedic staff and even basic facilities like stretchers, drinking water were lacking, sources said. Dr Diwakar Patel, district resident medical officer, said he has complained more than 15 times about the damaged ventilator of 108 ambulance head office at Bhopal but no action has been taken. The operation theatres AC is working but at times it has problems with cooling. The burn ward AC too is not working for a long time, he told HT. We have complained about these issues at various levels but no action has been taken. We do not have an ICU. Until now we have not received any information about any inquiry being ordered into the death of the collectors mother, he said. Last week, Deepika Padukone had a meeting with her publicity team. The team was on their way to a hotel in Juhu when one of the female members (name withheld on request) met with an accident. When Deepika heard about it, she rushed to check on her. The woman was badly injured, and was bleeding profusely. Since the injury was on her face, she was in a state of shock, but Deepika calmed her down, says a source close to the actor. READ: I want to work with Salman soon: Deepika Padukone Even when the girl was discharged from the hospital, Deepika stayed constantly in touch to know about her condition. (Hindustan Times) Apparently, Deepika rushed her to the nearest hospital for first aid. Deepika sent her staff along with the girl. She took care of the expenses at the hospital. She also called several doctors and specialists personally for opinion on her treatment, says the source. Even when the girl was discharged from the hospital, Deepika stayed constantly in touch to know about her condition. Deepika was concerned since the girl stayed in the city alone, says the source. READ: Lucky and blessed to have Deepika Padukone in my life: Ranveer Singh Though the actor couldnt be reached for a comment, a source close to the girl said that Deepika went out of her way to make sure that she was fine. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The drug-themed film Udta Punjab will be released with just one cut, the Bombay high court ruled on Monday, asking the censor board to stop acting like a grandmother in a case that has sparked a debate on creative freedom. The ruling overturned a controversial suggestion by the censor board seeking 13 cuts to the movie which it had deemed offensive to peoples sensibilities and a threat to the countrys integrity. Besides asking the producers to delete a scene which shows the lead character, a drug-addicted rock star played by Shahid Kapoor, urinating in public, the court also ordered modification of a disclaimer by deleting a reference to Pakistan. Read: We respect courts verdict on Udta Punjab: Pahlaj Nihalani Read: Cant randomly pick words and raise objections, HC tells CBFC Do not act like a grandmother. Change as per the times now, a bench of SC Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi said in its order, which was hailed by the film fraternity as a landmark judgment. The CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) cannot stop creative people abruptly as it may discourage them. This will kill creativity. These days filmmakers are brutal, direct and straightforward. One need not treat them harshly just because of this. Set against the backdrop of the northern state that goes to the polls early next year, the film has also triggered a political row with the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) accusing Punjabs ruling BJP-Shiromani Akali Dali (SAD) of influencing the boards decision. Read: CBFC offers A certificate to Udta Punjab with 13 cuts The film is scheduled to be released on June 17. The court said filmmakers should be allowed to choose the backdrop for movies, ruling that the censor boards exercise of power should not violate the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and expression. It overruled the boards demand that the words election, MP, parliament, and party should be cut and said a scene where a character injects himself with drugs could be shown. References to a dog called Jackie Chan were also allowed to remain. The films co-producer Anurag Kashyap, at the centre of the fight against the censor board, hailed the verdict in a tweet. Read: How censors made Udta Punjab bleed Watch Shahid Kapoor in a song from Udta Punjab Thank you to the honourable Judge, thank you all for the faith and support. Time to get back to work (sic). Censor board chairman Pahlaj Nihalini, facing allegations of following the governments agenda in films, said the CBFC respects the courts verdict but hinted that the ruling could open the floodgates for filmmakers moving courts over its decisions. It has never been the CBFCs endeavour to obstruct a films creativity or to be a stumbling block to its release. Kashyap had called Nihalani an oligarch, while the latter responded by suggesting that the filmmaker had taken money from the AAP to make Udta Punjab to tarnish Punjabs image. AAP leader and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal described the verdict in a tweet as a tight slap on Modi regimes intolerance. Shortly after the ruling, the the Punjab and Haryana high court ordered a special screening of the film on Tuesday before a panel which will ascertain if it was fit for public. The panel will submit a report to the court on Thursday. Indias censors have a long history of barring movies and cutting scenes, including those deemed too racy or capable of causing religious offence. The CBFC last year blocked the release of a toned-down version of the erotic Hollywood film Fifty Shades of Grey and deemed two James Bond kissing scenes unsuitable for an Indian audience. Follow @htshowbiz for more Anil Sardana, CEO and MD of Tata Power, Indias largest private power company, sees a lot of opportunities in the renewable energy sector. But it could go the power and telecom way, if non-serious players are allowed to come in, he told HT. Excerpts. Do you see risks from non-serious players entering the renewable energy sector? It could definitely have this issue, because there is a tendency to flock the sector and non-serious players coming in. There will be a lack of strong background checks, and bankers will lend to them so that they can set up projects. This is what happened in the power sector. What led to stressed assets in the power sector? There are a lot of non-sector players who walked into the power sector in the last 10 years, assuming that perhaps this will give them tremendous amount of valuation gains. That didnt happen and it led to stressed assets. This happened in telecom as well. Are declining coal prices the biggest positive for Tata Power? Coal prices are a double-edged sword. We have invested in coal mines. So if coal prices go low, our mines are going to lose. On the other hand, if coal prices become lower, it helps us in Mundra because there we have an issue of under-recovery. But the improvement in profitability is because of performance. What are the risks of investing in India? I am all for bidding out of projects, but it is important to make sure that the risk profile is balanced and its not unnecessarily thrown on to the developer. Otherwise you end up with successful bidding, but unsuccessful progress on projects. So coal bidding has been successful, but all the bid-out mines are now seeing unresponsiveness from the winning bidder. At a macro level, my concern is that we are still at 1,000-kilowatt per person per year, which is one third of the global average. When do you see big-ticket private investment returning to the power sector? Why do you need investment if the demand for electricity is going to stay where it is? Demand depends on the success of the UDAY scheme to turnaround state discoms. Until state discoms are pulled out of the financial mess, you cant expect people to invest without clarity on power purchase agreements and whether their money will be recovered. Do you think judicial intervention is causing instability in policy? The cancellation of coal mines is an example. You cant say there is instability in policy. You have to say that there has to be a sovereign promise, that is, if the sovereign gives you something, its a promise. Could you have predicted that the blocks allocated in 1994 would be illegal in 2014? So, anyway since it has happened and since it has been done by the apex court, I am saying there has to be a more legitimate way to support such projects. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Defending the Uttar Pradesh governments wise handling of the Mathura clashes, Samajwadi Partys new Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh on Sunday complimented it and blamed the Union home ministry for not sharing inputs on the presence of naxal elements at Jawahar Bagh. Amar went to the extent of invoking Operation Blue Star, the military action on Harmandir Saheb complex at Amritsar in Punjab in 1984 to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale and his armed followers. They then too could have resorted to cutting power, water and logistics supply to the complex the way the UP government attempted in Mathura. It was wise on the part of the UP government not to storm the Jawahar Bagh for there were many women and children. Home minister Rajnath Singh cannot shed his responsibilities. Can he tell whether central intelligence agency had given any input to state regarding presence of naxalites of Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha in Mathura?, Singh told reporters at a news conference he held with the Samajwadi Partys UP incharge Shivpal Singh Yadav. Amar Singh, who was expelled by the SP in 2009, is not back in the party yet, but was elected to the Rajya Sabha on the Samajwadi Party ticket on Saturday. Read: Woman names jail-born son after Mathura cult leader Ram Vriksh Yadav The UP government was not informed about the presence of extremist elements there, Amar Singh said. Responding to BJP chief Amit Shahs allegations that senior party leader and cabinet minister Shivpal Yadav had provided patronage to the cult, Singh said, A big leader from Gujarat, who doesnt know how to talk, has demanded resignation of the state government over Mathura incident. I want to know if he asked for the same from the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, where Vyapam scam claimed many lives, or from Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh, after extremists killed Vidya Charan Shukla or the Haryana CM, after rapes took place during the quota stir. Replying to a question, Singh said Shivpal had known Jai Gurudev, but the group that had occupied Jawahar Bagh was a breakaway faction of the sect. He went, goes and continues to go to the Jai Gurudev ashram. It is a matter of personal faith. Even I used to visit his ashram and will again go. The state government had followed court orders in Mathura and sent a small force of police as women and children were there, he said. (With inputs from PTI) NEW DELHI: Nineteen years after 59 people were killed in the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy in the Capital, the families of victims continue their quest for justice. We are still waiting for the Supreme Court to take up our petition seeking review of its decision to let off Gopal and Sushil Ansal on payment of a fine of Rs 30 crore each in lieu of a jail term, president of President Association of Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT) Neelam Krishnamoorthy told HT. We filed the review petition in October last year against the courts August 19, 2015, verdict. In January this year the court agreed to give us an open court hearing. But the case has not been taken up despite our advocates mentioning it twice in March and April for an urgent hearing, said Krishna mo or thy who lost both her children in the fire. The tragedy dates back to June 13, 1997 when a fire broke out at Up ha ar Cinema during the screening of Bollywood blockbuster Border . Fifty nine people died and over 100 were injured due to suffocation in the ensuing stampede as the escape routes were blocked by illegally fixed extra chairs. In November 2007, a trial court had sentenced the Uphaar owners the Ansal brothers to two-year rigorous imprisonment. But in December 2008, the Delhi High Court reduced their sentence to one-year jail term. While Sushil Ansal spent 5 months and 20 days in jail, Gopal remained in jail for four months and 20 days. On August 19, 2015, the SC upheld the brothers conviction in the case. However, considering their age and the period already spent by them in prison, it decided not to send them back to jail. It asked the duo to pay a fine of Rs 30 crore each in lieu of a jail term. The money to be used for constructing a trauma centre in the capital as ordered by the top court has already been deposited by the Ansals with the Delhi government in November last year. Terming the SCs order as shocking, AVUT requested the court to review its decision. Contending that the sentence awarded was inadequate and against the principles of natural justice, CBI and AVUT both had demanded an open court hearing A bench of Justices AR Dave, Kurien Joseph and AK Goel in January decided to hold a hearing in open court on review petitions of the CBI and AVUT. The CBI said while letting off the accused with mere fine, the court did not consider several aspects dealt with by the bench which had convicted the Ansals. They asked how can such lenient view be taken after the SC had earlier noted that contemptuous disregard of civic law (in the tragedy) was glaring and cinema owners were more interested in making money than ensuring safety of the public. In its review petition, AVUT said: The sentences imposed on the convicts, Sushil Ansal and Gopal Ansal, have been substituted with fine without assigning any reason or basis thereof. The sentences of the said convicts have been reduced to the period undergone without taking into account the gravity of their offence. The orders under review run contrary to the well established jurisprudence of the principles of sentencing as followed so meticulously by this Honble Court. ALLAHABAD: BJP chief Amit Shah called 2017 as the partys year of challenge on Sunday as he attacked the Samajwadi Party government over the recent Mathura violence and the alleged exodus of Hindu families from western Uttar Pradeshs Kairana town. Shah told BJP executive members that the atmosphere of violence in Uttar Pradesh the most important of the five states that go to polls next year was a serious concern and the lack of governance was equally baffling. The present Samajwadi government each day is expressing its helplessness in dealing with these situations, Shah said in his inaugural speech at the two-day BJP national executive meeting. His reference to Kairana where over 250 Hindu families left after alleged extortion demands from Muslim gangs indicated the BJP wont stick to the development plank alone as it aims to return to power in Indias most populous state after over a decade. The BJP promptly rejected suggestions that it was planning to polarise voters on communal lines but said there were issues other than development. BJPs focus is development. But incidents like Kairana and Mathura expose the lack of development, peace and deteriorating law and order situation in the state, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters. In Mathura, 29 people died after a police anti-encroachment drive in a city park triggered violence earlier this month. The BJP claimed the squatters were patronised by the SP. Winning Uttar Pradesh is crucial for the BJP and Shahs ambitious target of returning to power at the Centre in 2019 with a greater majority than it got in 2014. Shah did not speak about the leadership issue that puzzles the party in the state but asked workers to ensure that the party gets an absolute majority. Speaking at the same event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked party leaders to not take the Opposition lightly and accept changes a possible reference to speculated largescale changes in the party brass and council of ministers. Shahs focus on communally divisive incidents such as Kairana and the state BJPs zeal to keep them in public focus is in line with the partys larger electoral strategy of consolidating the Hindu votes in Uttar Pradesh, where a polarisation of minority vote has always troubled it. Muslims account for over 18% of the state and have largely remained faithful to the ruling Samajwadi Party. Its principal rival, the Bahujan Samaj Party, is trying to make inroads among community members with plans to field about 80 candidates from Indias largest minority community. The BJP wants to counter any such shift of Muslims from the SP to the BSP by consolidating the Hindu communities like it did in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, when it won 71 of the states 80 seats. Shah asked BJP workers to toil hard, make preparations and bring a full majority government, even as he suggested the party workers to take the message of Modi governments welfare schemes to the masses with the help of social media and other initiatives. Shah was full praise for the Modi government for economic growth and welfare measures. He drew a parallel between the present and past government, saying policy paralysis and scams were the hallmark of the previous government. Vikas Parva celebration that has seen senior ministers travelling to various parts of the country is the new standard of democratic accountability and a unique example of public contact, Shah said. NEW DELHI: A family, who was out for a birthday dinner on Saturday evening, was allegedly pushed out of a restaurant in central Delhis Connaught Place, after they decided to include a bunch of street children in their celebrations. The restaurant owners, however, denied the charges, saying the woman started abusing the staff after they refused to give free food to the underprivileged children. Delhis deputy chief minister, Manish Sisodia, has ordered a magisterial probe into the matter. Sonali Shetty, a resident of Dehradun, had flown to Delhi, with her nine-year-old son to celebrate her husbands birthday. They had come for a family dinner to Shiv Sagar, at Janpath, when they met a few street children at the traffic signal and decided to invite them to dinner. Shetty, however, claims the poor children were not allowed to enter the restaurant, and the staff manhandled and abused them. We just wanted to feed the children as a part of a family celebration, but the restaurant pushed us out because these children were poor. Even after so many years of independence, our mindset hasnt changed. How will we develop if we continue to judge people on the basis of their socioeconomic background, said Shetty. The restaurant denies the charges. We do not discriminate against anybody, but we do not want anyone to create a scene in the restaurant. The woman told my staff to feed the children for free because they are underprivileged. When we refused, she created a scene. She misbehaved with our employee which is we asked her to leave, said Vidur Kanodia, owner of the restaurant. The restaurant staff, however, had a different story to tell. We have CCTV footage which shows that the family and the children were allowed inside. The children, however, started creating ruckus. For the benefit of other customers, as a restaurateur I have the right to deny service to people who cause inconvenience to others, a senior staff said, on condition of anonymity. Shetty said after they were pushed out of Shiv Sagar, they took the children to a neighbouring restaurant where they had dinner and paid the bill. She then sat at the entrance of Shiv Sagar in protest. She was later removed from there. She alleged the police also refused to help her and did not file a complaint against the restaurant staff for misbehaviour. Deputy commissioner of police ( New Delhi), Jatin Narwal, said they had received complaints from both parties and an inquiry was on. On Sunday, Shetty continued the protest against the restaurant. Around 4 pm, she went with around 25 children to a fast-food restaurant and fed the children there. She later took them shopping. Deputy CM, Manish Sisodia, has ordered a probe against the restaurant. This is typical Colonial mindset. Cant be tolerated. Have ordered DM New Delhi to enquire and report within 24 hours (sic), tweeted Sisodia. The restaurant owners submitted CCTV footage to the subdivisional magistrate on Sunday, denying the allegations. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON NEW DELHI: A 43-year-old conman, who duped parents of several job aspirants of their hard earned money on the promise of jobs in Indian Railways and other government agencies, was arrested by the Delhi Police crime branch, police said on Sunday. The impostor, Praveen Kumar Singh, who claimed to be a Lok Sabha member, also duped proprietors of several private companies with the allurement of earning them lucrative business contracts through different ministries. He also lured many local political leaders to secure plum political posts, said police. A reward of Rs 50,000 was announced on his arrest. Singh allegedly runs an organised cheating syndicate in which he has included his wife and some government employees working, said a senior investigating officer. The police are now looking for Singhs wife and as many as 10 members of his gang, including one Rajkumar, a commercial clerk posted at Mughal Sarai railway station. Apart from cheating gullible job aspirants, Singh has duped a businessman in Punjab of around Rs 2 crore on the pretext of securing him allotment of a petrol pump. A local Congress leader and an RSS worker are among his victims who were duped on the fake promise of helping them get desirable political postings, the officer said. We are yet to receive complaints from the Punjab s businessman and the politicians who were cheated by Singh, said the officer. Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police (crime), said Singh was arrested on May 28. NOIDA: The Allahabad high court has granted bail to three women who were accused of abetting the alleged suicide of a B Tech student. Ritu Yadav had reportedly jumped off the seventeenth floor of NRI City housing complex in Greater Noida, alleging torture by her flatmates on April 20. The 21-year-old student of a private university in Greater Noida was reportedly tortured after being accused by her flatmates of shoplifting a facial cream from a local department store. The store owner had informed Yadavs flatmates about the incident, who in turn, informed Yadavs parents over the phone of the accusations against their daughter. Police stated that, Yadav, fearing humiliation, had committed suicide. In her four-page suicide note, Yadav accused her four flatmates of mentally and physically torturing her. She said that her flatmates also hit her with a beer bottle on the night of April 19. Her father, Vishambhar Yadav, had alleged foul play and claimed that his daughter was murdered. An FIR under section 306 was lodged against the four girls. The accused girls counsel, Mohammed Khalid, argued in the high court that his clients were falsely implicated in the suicide case as the real reason behind Yadavs suicide was the harassment she faced after the shoplifting incident. After listening to the arguments of the counsels of the applicants and the defendants, the high court granted bail to the three accused with the condition that they will cooperate with the trial proceedings and be present on every hearing of the case against them. The fourth accused flat mate is yet to file her bail application. About 66 children from a slum cluster in the Capital didnt return from a nearby forest where they had gone to answer the call of nature because their shanties lacked lavatories. They were among 171 children who went missing in the forest near Shahbad Dairy, a slum in outer Delhi, between December 2013 and March 2015. More horrifying is the fact that five children four of them below 10 were killed; 28 girls have been raped and another 17 sexually abused. Saksham, an NGO, arrived at the disturbing figures by analysing RTI replies for missing children of the slum during the 15-month period. There is not a single toilet for the 500 families living at Shahbad Dairy, forcing every resident to rush to the adjacent forest to defecate, where children and women become vulnerable to attacks. Overcome by fear, residents have stopped feeding their children after sunset an ineffective attempt to prevent nature from calling at night. We have no choice but to ask our kids not to eat after evening. We have seen cases where children did not return after going to the forest to relieve themselves, said 45-year-old Raj Kumari, a resident of Shahbad Dairy. We are always tense there have been cases of women being dragged into the forest. Middle-aged Sarita, who has been living in the slum since 1986, vouched that the area was crime-free until a year ago. But not anymore. My daughter-in-law doesnt go there alone she was harassed by men a few months ago. My grandchildren are underweight but at least they are with us. We dont feed them at night for their safety, she said. Soha Moitra, the regional director of CRY, an NGO for children, warned that the practice of skipping meals could lead to long-term health problems in children. It is shocking that children go to sleep hungry not because of lack of food but because of lack of toilets. Women too skip dinner at night. At times, men guard women and children in the woods. Our husbands cannot be with us all the time. There is no toilet in the 2km area and despite requesting authorities, we dont see any hope. We have complained to police but they react only after a crime is committed. There is no sense of security at all, said Khushboo, a slum resident. Police try to ensure security near public toilets, according to the DCP for outer Delhi, but what about a place that doesnt have a loo and people defecate in the open? It is not possible to put permanent pickets in slums, said DCP Vikramjeet Singh. NGOs alleged a hands-off policy when they approached authorities, including the legislator and councillor for the area, to build community latrines for these families. The attitude goes against the governments mission to build toilets and make India open defecation-free, a multi-crore rupees effort to stamp out the unhealthy practice of people relieving themselves in the open. Aam Aadmi Party legislator Ved Prakash, in whose constituency the slum falls, admitted to the problem. There have been cases of missing children and women were suffering a lot. There was no toilet for the past 25 years. I got 27 toilets sanctioned and it will be constructed soon, he said. According to Sakhsham, at least 45% of women and children either do not eat or take less food after evening. Malnutrition has crept in as a consequence; and many children are underweight. Moitra of CRY requested the state government to act, saying childrens health and safety were compromised by a lack of basic infrastructure. Shahbad Dairy is a perfect example of how communities, particularly children, suffer because of government apathy. Over 60 families in the area are waiting for their kids to return. Some are lucky, though. My five-year-old son did not return. After three months of search, he was found at a bus stop. I was lucky to get my child back. I dont allow him now to leave home alone. But it is difficult to keep track of the children all the time, said Pinky, another resident of the slum. The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), which manages public lavatories in the national capital, promised toilets in the area. I have directed officers, board CEO VK Jain said. Different crimes in Shahbad dairy between 1 December 2013 to 31 March 2015 as per the RTI reply: Crime (Age) 0 - 5 6 - 10 11 - 14 15 - 18 Total (Untraced) Missing 33 14 51 73 171 (66) Murder 2 2 0 1 5 Rape 4 4 10 11 29 Harassment 0 2 5 10 17 SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON NEW DELHI: Educated, middle-class youngsters in India appear to be more drawn to the Islamic State, moved as much by the terrorist groups brand of global jihad as by perceived injustices against Muslims at home. This marks a possible class shift among those attracted to violent groups in India, where religious radicalisation is thought to be more prevalent among the poor and illiterate, shows an analysis of the socioeconomic profile of the IS sympathisers interrogated by security agencies since 2014. Data accessed by HT shows about 70% of 152 Indians arrested, detained or counselled for links to IS were from middle and upper middle classes, with half of them holding graduate degrees and 23% completing their masters. Only a quarter of them had religious degrees. In contrast, an overwhelming majority of 645 terrorism suspects interrogated between 2000 and 2014, before the rise of IS, was from poor families. More than 90% of them did not complete school, and their trigger for radicalisation was mostly perceived victimhood at home, not a desire for global jihad. Although IS with its online propaganda appears to resonate more among the educated young in India, the government does not consider this too serious a problem. I am not alarmed by a small misguided educated youth joining them, Union home minister Rajnath Singh told HT. Like IS does propaganda by twisting the religion, I have asked my officers to take the help of Muslim clerics to build (a) counter narrative. The data on IS sympathisers shows why controlling the narrative in a perception war might be vital. It suggests a direct correlation between key events with religious undertones in India and spikes in internet traffic from the country to jihadist websites over the past two years. For instance, the National Technical Research Organisation and Intelligence Bureau detected that such traffic peaked between July 23 and 29 last year coinciding with the hanging of 1993 Mumbai bombings convict Yakub Memon. Many believed him to be innocent, triggering a media debate. Again, more people logged into jihadist websites from India between April 17 and 23 this year around the time as a controversy over the National Investigation Agency softening its terrorism charges against people linked to Hindu radical groups. Terrorism experts and psychologists say perceived victimhood seems to amplify an identity crisis among IS sympathisers in India. Most of them are second generation from well to do families who enjoyed the best of liberal societies and (are) feeling guilty about enjoying it as their community suffers elsewhere, says Rajat Mitra, a clinical psychiatrist who has helped police deal with terrorism suspects. This guilt coerces them to look for a purer form of identity and (they) get trapped by radical propaganda. GK Pillai, former Union home secretary, says modern- day terrorism, which uses online communication and social media, demands qualified and technology savvy recruits. So we will also increasingly face this challenge of more upward mobile individuals getting attracted to radical ideology, he says. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON BEIJING: Indias entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) didnt come up at a just-concluded meeting of the elite group in Vienna, China said on Sunday, adding that more discussion was needed to build a consensus for New Delhis membership. An official statement from China said several other countries supported its stand to block Indias membership, indicating New Delhis entry will be tougher than anticipated after Washington backed the bid last week. The 48-country NSG controls access to nuclear technology, which India needs, for one, to meet its increasing power requirements. The club aims to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and was set up in response to Indias first nuclear test in 1974. Prime Minister Narendra Modi picked up endorsements from Mexico and Switzerland, along with the US that is trying to convince other countries to back India. But China has been fronting the effort to block Indias accession to the NSG and is supported by New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey and Austria. Their broad argument: India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (NPT) treaty, a global arms-control pact that says only five countries US, United Kingdom, Russia, China and France can possess nuclear warheads. China and its allies say if New Delhi is allowed to join the NSG, it could set a precedent for other non-NPT countries to argue for inclusion. But Islamabad joining the NSG is also opposed by several countries, mostly because, as Reuters pointed out, The scientist that headed its nuclear weapons programme ran an illicit network for years that sold nuclear secrets to countries, including North Korea and Iran. Also, despite not being part of the NPT, China has helped Pakistan to build nuclear plants. On Sunday, China tried to once again clear the air on its stand, saying that it had a uniform view of non-NPT members which includes Pakistan joining the NSG. The foreign ministry spokesperson, Hong Lei, in fact, said the matter of Indias application did not even come up during last weeks NSG meet. He was answering a question that asked: There are people saying that Indias admission will undermine the non-proliferation efforts and is likely to infuriate Pakistan. What is Chinas comment? There was no deliberation on any items related to the accession to the NSG by India or any other countries that are not signatories to the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), he said in a statement published online. He added that according to the Argentinean ambassador, the meeting was convened to heed opinions on the NSGs outreach and prepare for a report to be submitted at a group plenary meeting in Seoul later this month. Hong reiterated Chinas stand, saying Beijing believed the NSG should have full discussion before forging a consensus and making decisions based on agreement. The NPT provides a political and legal foundation for the international non-proliferation regime as a whole. Chinas position applies to all non-NPT countries and targets no one in particular. The fact is that many countries within the group also share Chinas stance, Hong said. Hong said NSG members are divided about including non-NPT countries in the group. Looking forward, China will continue to support further discussion within the group to forge consensus at an early date, Hong said. For years, India has held out from signing the NPT one of the four countries to do so because it would spell the end of the countrys nuclear defence programme. But New Delhi says it should be allowed NSG entry based on its non-proliferation record, no first-use nuclear policy and an agreement that has put most of its reactors under international monitoring. India is also poised to join the missile technology control regime (MTCR) after talks between Modi and US President Barack Obama. Both groups NSG and MTCR will give the country greater access to research and technology. NEW DELHI: Auto-rickshaw driver, Anil Kumar, who reunites stranded children with their families, rescued a 15-year-old girl from Nehru Place in south Delhi on Sunday. The girl had lost her way back home. She was vulnerable and could have been molested.. Kumar offered the girl help and reunited her with her parents. In the past few months, Kumar has helped two missing children, aged 4 and 8, reach home. Around 7am, Kumar was waiting for passengers along with three other auto-rickshaw drivers near Nehru Place pedestrian underpass, when he spotted a girl wandering alone near the CNG station. The girl looked traumatised and Kumar immediately approached the girl. I noticed her for a few moments before offering assistance. When I asked her if she was okay, she started crying. I consoled her, gave her some water, and asked her if she was hungry. She told me she was returning from her maternal uncles home in Sangam Vihar and had lost her way back home, Kumar said. The girl further told him that a group off four-five boys sexually harassed her on the pedestrian underpass. The miscreants fled, when she took Kumar to the underpass. Kumar wanted to take the girl to her parents, but there was a problem. The girl didn t remember their address. She only knew that they lived in Jaitpur area of south Delhi. But she knew where her grandmother lived. She worked as a domestic help at a bungalow in Kalkaji in Madanpur Khadar. I then took her to the Kalkaji police station and narrated the entire incident to head constable Mahender Singh and woman constable Kusum. They recorded her statement and took her to the bungalow in my auto-rickshaw. The house owner identified the girl and called her grandmother who in turn asked her parents to reach the police station, he said. His humanitarian efforts have not gone unnoticed. Senior Delhi Police officers have now decided to honour him. The work this auto driver has been doing is commendable. We have decided to reward him, said Mandeep Randhawa, DCP (southeast). Nearly a third of Aam Aadmi Party legislators might face disqualification after President Pranab Mukherjee refused to sign a bill that allowed the 21 MLAs to hold a second paying position as parliamentary secretary, officials said on Monday. The Constitution prohibits legislators or parliamentarians from holding any positions with monetary or other benefits. This clause known as office of profit is aimed at reducing conflict-of-interest situations for public representatives. Rashtrapati Bhavan sources said the Union home and law ministries told the President the Delhi government bill allowing the MLAs appointment as parliamentary secretaries and exempting them from office-of-profit regulations retrospectively violated existing laws. The President has withheld his assent to the bill and it has been conveyed to the lieutenant governor, said a home ministry spokesperson. Sources from L-G Najeeb Jungs office said the Presidents decision had been communicated to the Delhi governments law secretary. The AAP government fumed at the development, saying that no MLA received any benefits vehicles, bungalow or extra money from the parliamentary secretary position. Read: AAP holds emergency meet, discusses rejection of bill by President Modi ji doesnt respect democracy. He is only afraid of AAP. Modi ji says neither I will work, nor will allow others to work, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted as the party called an emergency meeting. If the MLAs are disqualified, it will be setback for Kejriwal, who stormed to power two years ago on an anti-corruption plank but has repeatedly clashed with the Centre over officers appointment, files and governmental jurisdiction. It is a moral defeat for Kejriwal and the AAP. It is a fall out of the partys dishonesty, anarchist mindset and undemocratic endeavour to keep its flock together by rewarding MLAs, said Vijender Gupta, BJP leader and leader of Opposition in the assembly. The election commission is expected to take a final call on the disqualification issue. The MLAs have already responded to notices sent by the poll panel after lawyer Prashant Patel complained to the President and EC, sources said. Moreover, the appointment of the legislators as parliamentary secretaries has been challenged in the Delhi high court. But Delhi government sources said the AAP administration will first review the reasons behind the withholding of assent and indicated all option, including sending the bill back to the President, were open. On March 13, 2015, the Kejriwal government passed an order appointing the 21 party MLAs as parliamentary secretaries, saying they wont take remuneration and hence didnt fall under the office of profit regulations. Subsequently, the AAP government sought an amendment in the form of a bill -- the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 2015 -- passed it in the assembly last June on the back of its brute majority of 67 MLAs in the 70-member House. Bill to provide car, office and amenities to 21 AAP MLAs was not only ethically but also procedurally wrong. Thus bill rejected. We welcome it! Congress leader Ajay Maken tweeted. LEGISLATORS APPOINTED AS PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARIES Praveen Kumar as parliamentary secretary to minister of education as parliamentary secretary to minister of education Sharad Kumar as parliamentary secretary to minister of revenue as parliamentary secretary to minister of revenue Adarsh Shastri as parliamentary secretary to minister of information and technology as parliamentary secretary to minister of information and technology Madan Lal as parliamentary secretary to minister of vigilance as parliamentary secretary to minister of vigilance Shiv Charan Goel as parliamentary secretary to minister of finance as parliamentary secretary to minister of finance Sanjeev Jha as parliamentary secretary to minister of transport as parliamentary secretary to minister of transport Sarita Singh as parliamentary secretary to minister of employment as parliamentary secretary to minister of employment Naresh Yadav as parliamentary secretary to minister of labour as parliamentary secretary to minister of labour Jarnail Singh (Tilaknagar) as parliamentary secretary to minister of development as parliamentary secretary to minister of development Rajesh Gupta as parliamentary secretary to minister of health as parliamentary secretary to minister of health Rajesh Rishi as parliamentary secretary to minister of health as parliamentary secretary to minister of health Anil Kumar Bajpai as parliamentary secretary to minister of health as parliamentary secretary to minister of health Som Dutt as parliamentary secretary to minister of industries as parliamentary secretary to minister of industries Avtar Singh Kalka as parliamentary secretary to minister of gurudwara elections as parliamentary secretary to minister of gurudwara elections Vijender Garg Vijay as parliamentary secretary to minister of PWD as parliamentary secretary to minister of PWD Jarnail Singh (Rajauri Garden) as parliamentary secretary to minister of power as parliamentary secretary to minister of power Kailash Gahlot as parliamentary secretary to minister of law as parliamentary secretary to minister of law Alka Lamba as parliamentary secretary to minister of tourism as parliamentary secretary to minister of tourism Manoj Kumar as parliamentary secretary to minister of food and civil supplies as parliamentary secretary to minister of food and civil supplies Nitin Tyagi as parliamentary secretary to minister of women and child and social welfare as parliamentary secretary to minister of women and child and social welfare Sukhvir Singh as parliamentary secretary to minister of languages and welfare of SC/ST/OBC # The Arvind Kejriwal government in March, 2015, appointed 21 members of MLAs as parliamentary secretaries to the ministers of government of the National Capital Territory. This year on June 23, it passed a bill to give exemption to these secretaries from disqualification with retrospect effect. The bill was later sent to the Centre for presidential assent. Read: Large-scale irregularities in Delhi govt depts, says CAG report This is the second controversy to hit AAP legislators after the assembly agreed last December to a four-fold salary hike for MLAs along with a substantial increase in allowances that made them among the highest-paid lawmakers in India. The practice of appointing multiple parliamentary secretaries gained popularity after a 2003 constitutional amendment capped the number of ministerial berths to 15% of the House strength, forcing parties to think of alternatives to keep large numbers of legislators happy. In Delhi an earlier provision only allowed one parliamentary secretary position to the chief minister. The position was kept out of the purview of the office of profit rules after a 2006 amendment bill, when the Congress was in power. The amendment passed by the AAP government clarified that parliamentary secretaries to ministers shall also not be disqualified. The Delhi government on Monday recommended the Centre to either initiate a probe against former chief minister Sheila Dikshit in connection with an alleged water tanker scam to the tune of `400 crore. Delhi water minister, Kapil Mishra, informed Delhi assembly on Monday that he had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, urging them to order either a CBI or an ACB probe into the matter as both investigative agencies directly come under the Centre. Mishra said he had also sent a copy of the fact-finding report, prepared by an empowered probe committee constituted by him, which clearly mentions the names of politicians and bureaucrats involved in the alleged scam. The move came after leader of opposition, Vijender Gupta, while moving a calling attention motion demanded chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to make public the report of the committee submitted to the CMs office by Kapil Mishra in August 2015. The report indicated that Dikshit, as the then chairperson of Delhi Jal Board, and other DJB members had indulged in grave irregularities. Gupta had raised the issue in the assembly on June 10 as well and had created uproar by scaling atop a desk of the Delhi Assembly alleging the treasury bench was gagging oppositions voice. Taking a dig at Gupta, Kejriwal said that the opposition leader can take credit for forcing the Delhi government to release the report but dared him to get the FIR registered against Dikshit within next two months. If he (Gupta) fails to do so, he should then shave off half of his moustache and sit on dharna against the PM, Kejriwal said. Reacting to the development, Gupta said Kejriwal has denigrated the offices of Prime Minister and the chief minister by dragging them in a state subject for which he himself is entirely responsible. The government kept sitting on the file for 10 months and suppressed the report, Gupta said. NEW DELHI: Students who bunk off a class or two are not difficult to find in the school register. But in a unique initiative, parents will now be able check which teachers are missing classes. The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has decided to link the attendance of all the teachers in their schools to an online system. Officials said that the project will be started as a pilot in all the schools of Najafgarh zone. The parents of children who go to these schools can log on to the municipal corporations website and check which teachers are missing classes. Senior officials said that by ensuring that teachers regularly attend classes, the corporation aims to bring down the dropout rate of students and raise the standards of education. The system will be linked to the Aadhaar cards of the teachers to ensure their complete details can be accessed by both officials and the parents. This will also help us do away with the need for carrying out inspections at the schools, said a municipal official. There are approximately 80 schools in the Najafgarh zone with 2,800 teachers. Senior officials said the system may be replicated in other zones. The south body runs a total 589 schools with an approximate strength of three lakh students and 13,000 teachers. We are looking for a complete image makeover of the municipal corporations-run schools. We are often accused of not being serious with the attendance of teachers and the students. We have made extensive plans to improve the quality of education in our schools, said a municipal official. The SDMC has recently initiated several other projects, including a students assessment project and had decided to collaborate with NGOs to enhance the quality of education being imparted by its schools. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday once again accused lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung of interfering in the Delhis governments functioning, ratcheting up his long-running power tussle with the Centres representative in a letter laced with sarcasm. Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor, mocked the lieutenant governor saying that Jung will never become the vice president despite all the illegal, anti-people and unconstitutional things you might do on (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi jis instructions. The chief minister said he was offering a small suggestion to the L-G as his younger brother. L-G said, who denies working at the behest of the Centre, said in response to Kejriwals fresh barb: I feel sorry for his paranoia. Ever since returning to power with a landslide victory, Kejriwal has attacked Jung for allegedly interfering in and impeding the Delhi governments work on the instruction of the BJP-led government at the Centre. Key departments of the national capital are under the L-G, who reports to the Union home ministry. The friction between Kejriwal and Jung centres on administrative jurisdiction -- clearing of files, appointments and transfers. Last month, the AAP government unveiled a draft bill seeking full statehood for Delhi, seeking to take control of departments like police and land records. In the letter, Kejriwal also asked Jung to direct the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) to file an FIR against Delhi government officials after the inauguration of the 100-bed Bhim Rao Ambedkar Hospital on Sunday. These days, you and Modi sahab get every little project of the Delhi government scrutinised by the ACB and CBI, irrespective of whether there are irregularities or not, the chief minister said. Please also ask PM Narendra Modi ji to order a CBI raid at health minister Satyendra Jains place for the crime of completing the construction of the hospital in record time, Kejriwal said in an apparent reference to an ACB raid at the office of one of his key aides on charges of corruption. Kejriwal said there were a few people who serve the mankind, struggle and construct while others are tasked with destructing and putting spanners on every good work. The letter went on to say that the Delhi government is fulfilling its responsibilities and the L-G and PM are only creating roadblocks on its way. The lone wolf is the terrorist face of the 21st century. And he is blurring the lines that once divided different forms of terror and political violence. The Orlando nightclub killing on June 12, the worst act of violence by a single person in the US history, is an example of how the different categories and definitions of terrorism are blurring. That President Barack Obama felt obliged to call the killing both an act of terror and a hate crime is indicative of how terror is metamorphosing since 9/11. The Orlando attack is a reminder that much of the preventive counterterrorism strategy used by governments depends on terrorist communication. But if an attacker keeps to himself, he becomes invisible to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Most successful pre-emption of such attacks has been done through tip-offs by the local community, family or friends. Omar Mateen, the Orlando gunman, left a trail of domestic violence and radical Islamicist sympathies but never enough to indicate he was ready to cross a thin blood-red line into full-fledged terror. Mateens action also indicates that the degree of violence a lone wolf is capable of inflicting is today almost at the same level of an organised team attack one of the key differences that existed between the two forms of terrorism. With terrorists finding it harder to hit symbols of government or high-profile structures, they are turning to almost any place where civilians congregate. This makes countering this threat more difficult. Read: Orlando massacre gives Trump a chance to play his Islamophobia card Finally, the distinction between international and domestic terrorism is also blurring. Mateen seems to have seen himself as an Islamic State (IS)-inspired fighter. But his choice of a gay nightclub was as much a reflection of his own biases. Not unlike the IS terrorists arrested in India, most of whom have chased a half-dozen different labels including the Indian Mujahideen and al-Qaeda, Mateen would probably have declared affiliation to any organisation. This does not mean IS is not to blame. In fact, the terror-State is seeking out such people on the Internet, giving them advice on how and what to attack, and then making statements legitimising their actions. It also does not mean a more traditional-structure terrorism has disappeared after all, Indias primary threat continues to be from groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba. Read: Gay Americans shaken but unbowed by Orlando nightclub attack Governments will face increasingly difficult decisions when confronting this lone-wolf menace. In the case of the US, for example, its lax gun-control laws are undermining its ability to prevent such attacks. A more universal problem will be in the area of civil liberties. Should sociopaths with violent tendencies be detained preventively for being wife-beaters or verbally supporting political extremism? Surveillance will again become a source of contention as liberal democracies continue to confront a zero-sum game between liberty and security. Read: Florida nightmare: 50 killed, 53 wounded in worst mass shooting in US history Wife of former Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) chairperson Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, an accused in the intermediate toppers scam, has claimed to have cleared her Class 10 board examination when she was just eight years old. Usha Sinha was also made a co-accused in the intermediate examination scandal by the police special investigation team (SIT) probing the scam as her role has also come under the scanner following interrogation of arrested persons. Some BSEB employees also alleged that she used to manipulate things at the board. In an election affidavit filed in 2010, the 1961 born Janata Dal(United) candidate for the Hilsa assembly constituency in Nalanda district said she passed her matriculation examination in 1969. Read more: Time running out for BSEB ex-chief, wife made co-accused If her claims are to be believed, she has left behind Bihar-born physicist Tathagat Avatar Tulsi, who made the headlines after completing high school at the age of nine. And this isnt Sinhas only achievement at a stunningly young age. According to the affidavit, she passed her intermediate examination in 1971 at the age of 10 from Uttar Pradesh board, graduated at 12 from Gorakhpur university and completed her masters when she was 15 years old in 1976. Sinhas affirmation that she obtained her masters degree from Awadh (sic) University in 1976 is also interesting since Avadh University, now renamed Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Avadh University, came into existence only on March 4, 1975. In her affidavit dated October 19, 2010, Sinha mentioned her age as 49 (which made her 1961 born) which means she was just 23 years old when she earned her doctorate from Gaya headquartered Magadh university in 1984. She won the 2010 Bihar assembly poll from Hilsa and served as an MLA for the next five years. She was, however, denied the seat by the JD(U) in the 2015 polls after her party conceded that seat to a grand alliance partner. Sinha, the principal of Ganga Devi Mahila College in the state capital, proceeded on eight-day medical leave on June 9 after her name cropped up in the scam. She has been incommunicado since then. Patna Police have petitioned a designated court for an arrest warrant against Singh, who is absconding since he was made an accused in the intermediate toppers scam that has rocked the state. Singh resigned from his post last Wednesday hours after the state education department served him a second show cause notice. Patna Police have petitioned a designated court for an arrest warrant against Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, former chairman of Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB), who is absconding since he was made an accused in the intermediate toppers scam that has rocked the state. Singh resigned from his post last Wednesday hours after the state education department served him a second show cause notice. His wife has been made a co-accused, as her role has also come under the scanner following interrogation of arrested persons, Patna senior superintendent of police Manu Maharaj said. Singhs wife Usha Sinha, a former Janata Dal (United) MLA from Hilsa, is also on the run. Maharaj said police arrested two more people - Sandeep Kumar Jha, an employee of Sanskrit Shiksha Board posted in Bhagalpur, and Ajit Shaktiman, an ad hoc teacher in Patna Colleges department of sociology who is considered very close to the BSEB ex-chief - in connection with the case on Sunday. Read more: Baccha Roy, fugitive owner of Vaishali college, surrenders When Singh was with the department of geography in PU, Ajit worked with him. Jha was also brought to the board on deputation and the two worked for the chairman. They have also admitted this during their interrogation, he added. So far, eight people have been arrested in this connection. A senior police official said that raids were on to nab the absconding chairman. There is a possibility that he may have taken shelter in neighbouring Nepal. But once the warrant is issued, he cannot keep running for long. All the evidence point to boards complicity and the chairman cannot deny it, he added. Bachcha Rai, the arrested principal of VR College (Vaishali), has not revealed much to the police during his interrogation, Maharaj said. He continues to be evasive in his replies and says he has no accountability for whatever has happened. We will take him on remand for a more thorough interrogation, the SSP said. According to police sources, recovery of stamped answer books of Bihar board from Rais residence has given ample evidence of his complicity in the scam. Further investigation is on as Rai has amassed huge property and wealth, the source of which he would have to explain. There was a whole nexus involved in it, they added. The controversy broke out late last month when a television channel showed Rubi Ray Bihars topper in political science unable to answer the most basic questions pertaining to her chosen academic discipline. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Two students from Uttar Pradesh have shown that physical disabilities can never be a deterrent by clearing the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Advanced 2016, the result of which was declared on Sunday. Despite all challenges, Anand Kumar and Mayank Kumar have realised their dreams of studying in the premier Indian Institute of Technology with strong will power and determination. Anand, who suffers from polio, never dreamt that he will manage to crack one of the toughest exams in the country. Ranked sixth in Scheduled Caste-Persons with Disability (PwD) list, Anand is all ready to seek admission in IIT-Kanpur to study computer science. A student of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya at Pipersand in Lucknow, Anand is one of the 31 students who cracked the test. Thirty eight students appeared for the JEE Advanced. Anand, who was born in a Dalit family in Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh, thanked his parents for never losing their faith in him. I needed family members support for every step. Luckily, they all held my hand and helped me to come this far. My parents were supportive. They all had a dream that I become an engineer. I am happy to have lived up to the expectations of the family, Anand said. He believes that once he completes his engineering course from IIT, he will be able to change his familys fortune. We are five brothers and Im the third. Father is old and my elder brother who runs a small cyber cafe shop in the village is a sole bread earner. We have seen difficult days. But all of that will end soon, he said. Read more: Check results and summary, Jaipurs Aman Bansal is topper Anands elder brother Sanjeev Singh said the family never expected that he could even complete his Class 10 but he defied his disability to pursue his education even further. We have become a celebrity overnight. People are coming to our house to congratulate Anand over his achievement. He has become the talk of the town, he said. Anands school principal JC Gupta congratulated his over his success. Anand and many other students of the school, who mostly come from rural humble background, have proved that facilities alone do not matter. It is the perseverance that counts, he said. Sultanpur resident Mayank, who has paralysis on the right side of his body, also worked hard to realise his dream. As a child, he insisted that he should be allowed to study and became the first to get a formal education in his family. Read more: Daily wage labourers son cracks JEE Advanced Youngest among his four siblings, he is not satisfied with his rank in JEE Advanced. My rank in OBC Non-Creamy Layer category is 6835. I want to pursue computer science from IIT Delhi or Mumbai. But with rank I will not get a college of my choice, Mayank said. I have made a tough decision to drop this year and will crack the test again next year. Im confident that I will crack the exam with high marks and get to study stream and in the college of my choice, he added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Three burglars, including a woman, were caught on camera striking at a house in DLF City Phase 1 area in broad daylight when the owners family was out to attend last rites of a relative in Delhi. The thieves decamped with Rs 50,000 cash and jewellery worth Rs 12 Lakh from the house, police said. The thieves, according to police, struck at the residence of RK Bhan, a businessman, on Sunday afternoon. The family had gone to attend the last rites of Bhans father-in-law who passed away in Delhi on Saturday. When his wife, Usha Bhan, a teacher, returned on Sunday evening she found the locks broken and doors open. The thieves had made their way to the cupboard containing valuables. The family suspects someone known to the family was hand in glove in the theft. Someone knew about our whereabouts. Also they knew the place where we store cash and jewellery which helped the burglars for sure, Usha told police. RK Bhan is often travels to Kashmir for business purposes and Usha teaches in Delhi. She lodged a police complaint at DLF phase 1 following which police registered an FIR against unknown persons under different sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). She told police that Rs 50,000 cash, Rs 12 Lakh jewellery (200 grams gold and three diamond rings) were missing from the home. An FIR under sections 454 (house-breaking) and 380 (theft) of the IPC has been registered and the investigation is on, a police spokesperson said. Police are examining the CCTV footage where the three people are seen leaving the house in an auto rickshaw after committing the theft. Sundays incident is a series of burglaries that have took place in DLF City Phases in recent times. Rama Rani Rathi, the local councillor, alleged that authorities neglected the safety issues of the area even as burglaries continue unabated in the area. It is unfortunate that no one seems to care about the safety of citizens here. This despite residents paying full maintenance charges to the builder, she said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Hollywood star Vin Diesel has shared an emotional tribute to Fast and Furious star Paul Walker on social media. Paul was a passenger in a Porsche driven by his friend Roger Rodas, who also died, when it hit a pole and burst into flames in November 2013. He was 40 years old. Diesel has publicly grieved the loss of his close friend and Fast & Furious franchise co-star on numerous occasions, and paid another tribute to Paul on social media. The actor shared a photo of himself smiling while holding his daughter Pauline - named after Paul - up in the air. Read: Vin Diesel dedicates Furious 7 to Paul Walker Always... A photo posted by Vin Diesel (@vindiesel) on Jun 10, 2016 at 2:07pm PDT However, the snap has been altered to include the late actor smiling down on the pair, and Diesel captioned the shot Always. Read: Fast and Furious 8, first without Paul Walker, set for 2017 release The 48-year-old actor has shared several photos of Paul on social media recently as filming for eighth movie in the franchise, Fast 8, began. He posted an image of the pair laughing and smiling together on Instagram back in May (16), and wrote a touching tribute to the late actor. Many of the crew members who have worked on several of the past Fast films are here again to help us make something special. One of them at the end of the week came up to me and said wow what we are capturing on film is excellent... And then looked at me and said Paul would be proud. #wemakethemwithourhearts A photo posted by Vin Diesel (@vindiesel) on May 21, 2016 at 1:05pm PDT Follow @htshowbiz for more The Congresss decision to give charge of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh and Punjab to veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kamal Nath indicates the seriousness with which the party views the two big electoral fights of early 2017. Coming ahead of an organisational reshuffle -- talked about for a while but without any official confirmation that will see vice-president Rahul Gandhi take control of the party, the two appointments send out several messages, party leaders and analysts say. One important signal that these appointments send is that Rahul Gandhi is taking the old guard along. There is work and respect for senior leaders, a party leader in New Delhi said on Monday, a day after the changes were announced. Rahuls growing profile triggered speculation that the new Congress under him will have no use for seniors. The appointments of Azad, 67, and Nath, 69, had laid those fears to rest, said Prof Balveer Arora, a political analyst and former pro-vice chancellor of Jawaharalal Nehru University. There was a lack of consistency and direction with Rahuls elevation (to the post of vice-president three years ago). A decision on what will happen to older leaders was pending. That decision seems to have been taken, he said. The appointments, he said, also send a message to those who are leaving or tempted to leave that the party leadership is building on the strengths of the past. Several leaders have walked out of the Congress in recent years as its battles sliding popularity and a string of electoral debacles. The latest blow came in Assam when Hemanta Biswa Sarma, a former Sonia loyalist, switched sides to the BJP, engineering the saffron partys first electoral win in the northeastern state. The two appointments leave only one general secretarys position vacant which was expected to go to a younger leader, sources said. Azad is the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, where the Congress on the strength of its numerical superiority has blocked the governments attempts to push through key legislations. Nath is the partys senior-most lawmaker in the Lok Sabha, having been elected nine times from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. Azad has had several ministerial stints at the Centre -- the first was under prime minister Indira Gandhi and has served as Uttar Pradesh general secretary earlier as well. Naths stature and seniority would help him rein in the warring factions, a Congress national secretary from Punjab said. The Congress is looking to make a comeback in the border state with the SAD-BJP ruling combine battling anti-incumbency and charges of corruption. But, infighting and the Aam Aadmi Party, which is making its poll debut and fancies it chances in the state, pose a threat to the party. Nath and Punjab Congress chief and former CM Capt Amarinder Singh were at the Doon School around the same time over six decades ago and share a good equation. But, Naths appointment has rivals raking up the 1984 anti-Sikh violence. I just cannot believe a political party can be so brutally insensitive to the sentiments of the Sikh community, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said. One of AAPs prominent faces in the state is lawyer HS Phoolka, who has been fighting for the victims of the communal violence that followed the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi. The Congress is rewarding Kamal Nath for obeying (then prime minister) Rajiv Gandhis orders during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, Phoolka said at a press conference in Delhi. Reports show that Kamal Nath was present outside Gurdwara Rakab Ganj as part of the mob. What was he doing there? If he had come to protect the gurdwara why did he not help the distressed Sikhs who were burnt alive and three of them were crying for medical aid? Nath has maintained that the Nanavati Commission that investigated the anti-Sikh riots cleared him of all charges. The opposition parties will try and make this a political issue in Punjab, a Congress MP from the state confessed. New Delhi: The Congresss decision to give charge of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh and Punjab to veterans Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kamal Nath indicates the seriousness with which the party views the two big electoral fights of early 2017. Coming ahead of an organisational reshuffle -- talked about for a while but without any official confirmation that will see vice-president Rahul Gandhi take control of the party, the two appointments send out several messages, party leaders and analysts say. One important signal that these appointments send is that Rahul Gandhi is taking the old guard along. There is work and respect for senior leaders, a party leader in New Delhi said on Monday, a day after the changes were announced. Rahuls growing profile triggered speculation that the new Congress under him will have no use for seniors. The appointments of Azad, 67, and Nath, 69, had laid those fears to rest, said Prof Balveer Arora, a political analyst and former pro-vice chancellor of Jawaharalal Nehru University. There was a lack of consistency and direction with Rahuls elevation (to the post of vice-president three years ago). A decision on what will happen to older leaders was pending. That decision seems to have been taken, he said. The appointments, he said, also send a message to those who are leaving or tempted to leave that the party leadership is building on the strengths of the past. Several leaders have walked out of the Congress in recent years as its battles sliding popularity and a string of electoral debacles. The latest blow came in Assam when Hemanta Biswa Sarma, a former Sonia loyalist, switched sides to the BJP, engineering the saffron partys first electoral win in the northeastern state. The two appointments leave only one general secretarys position vacant which was expected to go to a younger leader, sources said. Azad is the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, where the Congress on the strength of its numerical superiority has blocked the governments attempts to push through key legislations. Nath is the partys senior-most lawmaker in the Lok Sabha, having been elected nine times from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. Azad has had several ministerial stints at the Centre -- the first was under prime minister Indira Gandhi and has served as Uttar Pradesh general secretary earlier as well. Naths stature and seniority would help him rein in the warring factions, a Congress national secretary from Punjab said. The Congress is looking to make a comeback in the border state with the SAD-BJP ruling combine battling anti-incumbency and charges of corruption. But, infighting and the Aam Aadmi Party, which is making its poll debut and fancies it chances in the state, pose a threat to the party. Nath and Punjab Congress chief and former CM Capt Amarinder Singh were at the Doon School around the same time over six decades ago and share a good equation. But, Naths appointment has rivals raking up the 1984 anti-Sikh violence. I just cannot believe a political party can be so brutally insensitive to the sentiments of the Sikh community, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said. One of AAPs prominent faces in the state is lawyer HS Phoolka, who has been fighting for the victims of the communal violence that followed the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi. The Congress is rewarding Kamal Nath for obeying (then prime minister) Rajiv Gandhis orders during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi, Phoolka said at a press conference in Delhi. Reports show that Kamal Nath was present outside Gurdwara Rakab Ganj as part of the mob. What was he doing there? If he had come to protect the gurdwara why did he not help the distressed Sikhs who were burnt alive and three of them were crying for medical aid? Nath has maintained that the Nanavati Commission that investigated the anti-Sikh riots cleared him of all charges. The opposition parties will try and make this a political issue in Punjab, a Congress MP from the state said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A Delhi Court on Monday allowed former Teri chief RK Pachauri, who has been summoned as accused by a court in a sexual harassment case, to travel to various countries to attend conferences and meetings till July 5. Metropolitan Magistrate Shivani Chauhan granted the environmentalist permission to travel to Mexico, Norway, France and Switzerland. Earlier, the same court had taken cognisance of the charge sheet filed against Pachauri for allegedly molesting and outraging the modesty of an ex-woman colleague. Pachauri had moved an application seeking permission to travel abroad to attend various functions, seminars and conferences till July 5, as per his itinerary. The court allowed the application noting that the investigation was complete and chargesheet has already been filed. It directed Pachauri to submit a copy of his itinerary and intimate the court after his return and about any changes in his travel plans in advance. During the pendency of the trial, Pachauri has been allowed at least 10 times to travel to various countries, including USA, UK, China, Japan, France, Kazakhstan, Bolivia, Kuwait, Somalia and Saudi Arabia. He was chargesheeted by the Delhi police on March 1 this year after which the court took cognisance of the chargesheet on May 14 and summoned him as an accused saying there is sufficient material to proceed against him. Delhi Police had filed an over 1,400-page charge sheet in the court against Pachauri under sections 354-A (sexual harassment), 354-B(assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 354-D (stalking), 509(word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) and 341 (wrongful confinement) of the IPC. On February 13, last year an FIR was registered against Pachauri for the alleged offences and he was granted anticipatory bail in the case on March 21, 2015. With less than a fortnight left for the plenary meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in Seoul, India has conveyed to China that its quest for membership does not have a geopolitical dimension but is a mandatory technical requirement in New Delhis quest for clean nuclear energy. China wants a discussion on the process for entry of non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) members into the NSG even though a majority of the 48-country strong regime favours Indias entry. Speaking to HT after the special NSG plenary at Vienna on June 9-10, a senior official said on condition of anonymity: A majority of NSG members in Vienna felt that time is ripe for Indias entry into the regime as it has completed all the required process including separation of military-civilian reactors and placing civil reactors under IAEA safeguards. This was in sharp comparison to other two applicants, the official said. Other top sources said that India will diplomatically engage China at the highest levels in the run-up to the June 23-24 Seoul meet so that broad consensus is reached without any county being isolated on the issue. New Delhi has reminded Beijing that India has always supported Chinas entry into multi-lateral regimes and has convergence on other issues like climate change. Read| Indias NSG bid wasnt discussed at Vienna meeting, more talks needed: China Meanwhile, the Modi government expects to complete formalities for Indias entry into the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) later this month. The process is on to complete formal procedures with an announcement expected from the body later this month, said a senior official. The government has also appointed an Empowered Credit Finance Negotiating Committee under Secretary (Economic Relations) Amar Sinha to negotiate with the US Exim Bank on terms for NPCIL-Westinghouse-Toshiba deal at Kowada in Andhra Pradesh for installation of six 1100 MW nuclear reactors. Sources say the entire project exercise is expected to be completed by June 2017 with Westinghouse expected to submit its revised techno-commercial bid soon. It is understood that installation at Kowada will be cheaper than the previously allotted Mithi-Virdhi site in Gujarat as no tunneling work is required at the Andhra Pradesh site. Read: Resistance to India joining nuclear suppliers group softens, but China defiant Read| Indias NSG bid: Too much diplomacy, too little action Prime Minister Narendra Modi set the tone on Monday for the BJPs campaign for the 2017 Uttar Pradesh election, asking voters to choose his development agenda over politics of dynasty and rule of corruption. His remarks were viewed as a three-pronged attack against the ruling Samajwadi Party and the opposition Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Congress in the state, where the BJP is trying to wrest power after doing remarkably well in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. His party won 73 of the 80 parliamentary seats two years ago. The state is afflicted with the evils of dynastic rule, favouritism, casteism and communalism. There is a solution to every problem and that solution is development, Modi said, addressing a huge crowd at the BJPs Parivartan rally after its two-day national executive meet here. He directed his firepower against the party headed by Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose son Akhilesh is the chief minister, accusing the SP government of goonda raj or lawlessness. The Prime Minister asked the people of the state to adopt vikasvaad, meaning development, which is the BJPs primary calling card for this election. If UP is developed no one can stop India from reaching the number one spot in the world, he said, promising to take the state 50 years ahead in five years of BJP rule. The message follows a publicity blitzkrieg by Indias ruling party and the government to showcase its welfare schemes and the country emerging as a bright spot in the world economy despite global recession. Modi accused the SP and Mayawatis BSP of fooling the people by conniving with each other to rule the state alternately every five years. This is their jugalbandi (duet), he said. Read: As it happened: Modis Allahabad rally Mayawati, whose government was besieged with corruption charges, ruled the state for two terms before the SP. Modis blistering attack against the Akhilesh Yadav government comes in the backdrop of a bloody clash in Mathura after police action against a land grabber and the alleged exodus of Hindu families from Kairana town. It was clear from the Prime Ministers speech that the BJPs campaign for next years election will also revolve around the alleged lawlessness in the state. Party chief Amit Shah said as much at the national executive on Sunday that increasing violence in Uttar Pradesh was a serious concern. Modi didnt spare the Congress either, referring obliquely the alleged policy paralysis during the previous UPA government. In the past two years, the BJP government launched several schemes and took major decisions, which the previous government failed to do as corruption and loot were on its agenda, he said. Read: Huge Varun Gandhi posters in Allahabad indicate infighting in BJPs UP unit The Prime Minister also played the BJPs conscious keeper, preaching seven mantras for party leaders at the national executive. He suggested Sevabhav (service), Santulan (balance), Sanyam (patience), Samanvay (coordination), Sakaratmakta (positivity), Samvedna (sympathy) and Samvad (dialogue) to define their conduct and policies. People are not satisfied with mere sloganeering. They are concerned about how the country is being strengthened, Modi told BJP members at the national executive. The sermon on personal conduct coincides with the resignation of senior Maharashtra politician Eknath Khadse over corruption charge, division in the Uttar Pradesh BJP over chief-ministerial candidate and controversial statements by senior leaders embarrassing the party. Khadse is the first casualty to corruption charges in the BJP camp after Modi swept the 2014 polls, riding high on the promise to deliver a corruption-free government. He is aware any slip could be detrimental for him in 2019. (With inputs from Kumar Uttam and K Sandeep Kumar) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON With media baron Subhash Chandra winning the second Rajya Sabha seat in Haryana following the disqualification of 14 votes, political parties have erupted into a vicious blame game. The pen indeed proved mightier on Saturday when 12 votes meant for RK Anand, an independent candidate backed by the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Congress, were deemed invalid because they were not marked by the official violet pen provided by the Election Commission (EC). Instead, Subhash Chandra, an independent candidate backed by the BJP, wrested the seat. Read | High drama: Wrong pen, arrests turn tides in Haryana, Jharkhand Rajya Sabha polls The matter escalated quickly as the INLD accused the ruling BJP of colluding with a Congress faction, led by former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, to ensure Chandras victory. The Congress on the other hand blamed the BJP and the INLD of orchestrating the votes and demanded countermanding the election. INLD leader, Abhay Singh Chautala also alleged that the BJP MLA from Ambala City, Aseem Goyal and independent MLA from Kalayat, Jai Prakash, played a part in the debacle. Goel voted at serial number 93. Thirteen Congress MLAs cast their ballot from serial number 94 to 106 which apparently turned out invalid. It seems that Goel changed the Election Commission pen with another pen after casting his ballot. All the 13 Congress MLAs marked their preference on the ballot with that pen only. He then went on to say that Prakash, who voted at 107, replaced the ECs pen Only three Congress MLAs- Kuldeep Sharma, Geeta Bhukkal and Kiran Chaudhary voted after Jai Prakash and those votes turned out to be valid. Read | RS polls: BJP wins 12 seats, Congress 6; Opposition still rules House In retaliation, Congress MLA from Palwal, Karan Singh Dalal, said he would file a case of criminal defamation against Chautala and Anand for blaming him and Hooda for the debacle. There is no denying the fact that we were against voting for the INLD-backed candidate, RK Anand. But once he expressed faith in the policies and leadership of the party and the Congress central leadership issued a directive, we changed our mind and voted whole heartedly for Anand. I have cast my ballot as decided by my party. Anyone accusing me of foul play is tarnishing my image, Dalal said. Prakash was quick to hit back as well. The INLD and Abhay Singh are in a habit of telling blatant lies. First they blamed chief minister, ML Khattar, then they accused Bhupinder Singh Hooda and now they are accusing me of foul play. I have nothing to do with it. I will file a defamation case against Abhay Singh. This entire episode was orchestrated by the INLD, he said, adding he had, in fact, found out about the pen controversy from Singh. Abhay Singh was the one apprised me about the pen controversy and told me the Chief ministers vote could be cancelled as he had used the non official pen to cast ballot. Now, the chief minister voted in the morning while the Congress MLAs voted in the afternoon. So who put the non official pen at the polling booth in the morning, the Kalayat MLA said. BJP MLA Aseem Goyal did not respond to the calls. Former chief minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda too rubbished Chautalas allegations, saying either the INLD or the BJP were the ones who carried out the conspiracy. He called on the EC to use forensic help to figure out what actually happened. Meanwhile, Haryana Congress chief, Ashok Tanwar said the party is seeking countermanding the election. Party observer for Rajya Sabha polls, BK Hariprasad and me will meet Congress president, Sonia Gandhi on Monday to apprise her about the developments. We will also take a legal recourse in this regard, Tanwar said. Read more | Rajya Sabha elections: The rise of the independents Having inherited a very bad economy amidst global slowdown and two successive years of drought, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi India has emerged as the fastest growing economy, the BJP said on Monday. India has emerged as a bright spot in a world in recession, in which most of the nations are facing a slowdown and decline in growth. Economic experts, think tanks, multilateral institutions and reputed media have acknowledged Indias growth story, a resolution passed at the BJPs National Executive meet here said. Indias GDP had grown to 7.2 per cent in the year 2014-15 and 7.6 per cent in 2015-16. It is significant to note that last quarter witnessed GDP growth rate of 7.9 per cent, the BJP resolution said. Read: Modi govt model right blend of welfare, growth measures: BJP national executive Despite severe resource constraints, we could achieve fiscal deficit of 4.1 per cent and 3.9 per cent in the year 2014-15 and 2015-16 respectively, the resolution added. India received an unprecedented amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the calendar year 2015, it said. Increased capital spending in infrastructure development, increased credit for agriculture and small industries has facilitated Indias fast growth, the resolution said. This has increased domestic growth and domestic consumption. Indian consumer spending increased from 6.2 per cent in 2014-15 to 7.2 per cent in 2015-16, the BJP resolution said. Notably, some economists and newspaper columnists have questioned the growth figures flaunted by the government, putting them a few notches lower than officially claimed. At 8.30 am on December 22, 2015, thirteen young men assembled at House No 78, Gali No 5 in Chand Bagh, North Delhi. It was their first meeting. Their agenda for the day: to read, rage and seek revenge for the atrocities against Muslims in India and around the world. The house became the adda where they cast aside their daily lives and discussed the killing fields of Kashmir, Gujarat and Muzaffarnagar. Inside house No78, Mohammad Sajid was not just a tailor but a ringleader who would go on to assemble a bomb. Sameer Ahmed and Shakir Ansari were not just small-time salesmen of auto parts, but devoted followers of their leader, Sajid. The others simply followed suit. On the same day, around the same time, Delhi Polices special cell officers and their counterparts from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) parked themselves at a distance from House No.78. Five months later, on May 3, a bomb went off in North Delhis Chand Bagh. The three young men Sajid, Sameer and Shakir had assembled crude improvised explosive devices (IEDs) with help from the internet. The premature explosion was an accident that set off panic. Calls were made to the remaining ten to help dispose the bombs. The special cell decided it was time to move in. After 12 hours of intensive interrogation, the special cell reached a conclusion: they busted a Jaish-e-Mohammad terror module that had plans to attack the national capital. The special cell has a dubious record of parading suspects as trophies but the script played out differently this time. The low-profile, no-nonsense police commissioner, Alok Verma asked some hard questions. Sajid, Samir and Shakeel appeared to have played a vital role but there was no evidence against the remaining ten. Conscious of the special cells record and its ability to even plant weapons on unsuspecting innocents, as in the 2013 case of Liaquat Shah who was returning to India from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, under the amnesty scheme of Jammu and Kashmir police, Verma studied the case. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe which found that weapons had been planted on Shah was already knocking on his door, wanting to proceed against the special cell officers. In 2015, 22 terror probes fell through due to lack of evidence and 40 terror accused were acquitted after languishing in jail for over 3.5 years on average, according to the data accessed from 4 state police departments. Verma, sources reveal, was categorical. No false implication in the absence of hard evidence, even if its a borderline case. Read | Educated, middle-class Indian youngsters drawn to Islamic State Vermas decision is contrary to the image of the Narendra Modi government that often wears nationalism on its sleeve and thumps its chest while taking hard-line stands on matters of sedition. Nevertheless, Verma decided to flirt with the idea of releasing the 10 men and communicated it to home minister Rajnath Singh and the National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. By all accounts, this is the first time that an investigation into a possible terror plot took a different turn: the police roped in psychiatrists and Muslim clerics to mediate between the police and the families of the ten suspects. With this, the government scripted a new doctrine to deal with what Rajnath Singh has often referred to as increasing radicalisation. HT spoke to the law enforcement officials and most of the ten suspects and their families to reconstruct what led to their intense feeling of rage and revenge. Spot the group On November 8, 2015, a friend request from Sajjad Ghori, a member of Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed put Sajid on the agencys radar. The IBs social media monitoring cell and Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) were both picking up threads connecting Sajid to terror recruiters. Sajids online activity showed frequent visits to JeMs official website rangonoor.com and its magazine website Al Qalam. Sajid and his disciples also seemed impressed by JeM chief Masood Azhars teachings. The same month, Sajid received a Whatsapp message from another Jaish member, Rishad Awan. Aap ne Hamari Hadrat ki photo apne profile mein kaise lagayi hai, the text read, referring to Sajids profile picture which was of Azhar. Finally, the groups clandestine form of communication through paper chits raised eyebrows in the security establishment. The doctrine Two days before the groups clandestine meeting in North Delhis Chand Bagh, the security establishment was brainstorming on how to deal with radicalised youth like Sajid. At a closed door meeting in Gujarats Rann of Kutch, Modi, Rajnath and security officials were viewing Hyderabad police commissioner M. Mahendra Reddys presentation on Radicalisation, its spread and responses. Verma, then Director General of Tihar Jail was also in attendance. At the closing session, the home minister started his speech by referring to Reddys presentation. A specific plan of action to counter as well as control radicalisation should be made, Singh said. Six months later, when Verma called Singh on May 4 at 4 pm, the home minister probably had the session in mind when he said, Give them a chance, but keep them under watch. The same day, NSA Doval too gave his go-ahead, with the same rider: monitor them. As the ten walked free the next day, a new doctrine had been scripted. Abdur Raziq, Delhi general secretary of Jamiat Ulemma-e-Hind, who was present with the families in special cell office said, This is a welcome move. By not putting innocents in jail for years and destroying their life, the immediate release of these men is a very humane decision and the community appreciates it. Read | NIA analysing IS video featuring purported Indian fighters Before they walked free, Verma also called in a cleric from Jamiat-Ulemma-e-Hind, situated next-door in central Delhi. Jamiat, founded in 1919, is a leading Muslim organisation that opposed partition in 1947 and had adopted theological basis for its nationalistic philosophy. The Jamiat cleric and the police psychiatrist were brought in to talk to the families. The Delhi police also called in an independent psychiatrist to counsel the ten. Their release hinged upon assurances from the clerics, the families and a satisfactory report from the psychiatrist. MS Khan, the advocate who has been representing terror accused, including this case, said, In this case, the police approach needs to be appreciated. Even if we go by the version of police that these men were radicalized, they would respect the system now. What is the point in destroying someones life in jail? Ten angry men HT spoke to eight of the ten. All requested anonymity as they are struggling to return to their daily lives. The oldest in the group is a 40-year-old with little formal education and the youngest is a class VII dropout and only 19 years old. Two others are in their 20s and the rest in their early 30s. All of them are school dropouts except one who has completed his diploma and works with an auto-export firm. All are conservative Sunni Muslims. Their slow process of radicalization started with them huddling together and browsing photos and videos of Muslims tortured in Abu Ghraib, Gujarat and Kashmir. The acts of violence assaulted their conscience and invoked their anger, they told HT. According to the police psychiatrist, a sense of shame and anger took over their mind. They stopped thinking as individuals and their collective universal brotherhood took over. Rajat Mishra, a psychiatrist who been working with the Delhi police since 1999, helping them profile criminals, says, It is a scientific and humane decision. I would say there is a need for institutionalising behaviour knowledge in crime management. It is a sign of a mature society and combating radicalisation this is the way forward. The way they lived HT sat down with the 32-year-old member of this group, who holds a diploma and earns a decent salary. A Sikh gets a job, even if he has a beard and wears a turban, but a Muslim can get sacked for having beard according to his religion. Look at the venom these Hindu leaders spew. My grandparents chose this country and I am an Indian. I want equal rights in this country, I want my space, he says in a tired voice. He was referring to Shakir, who had also told his interrogators that he was sacked from Nike outlet in south Delhi because of his beard. In his case, the personal became political. Each of the ten had similar experiences their livelihoods were targeted on the basis of their religious identity. Read | NIA crackdown reveals arrested Mumbra man is chief of ISIS India wing These men represent a generation of young Muslims who see their future in this country but have been forced to distrust the state. Sajid, the ringleader, was once an aspiring dancer, who failed to make it to a television reality show. It was during this time of despair for Sajid that a cleric told him he was on the wrong path to salvation. This seemingly ambiguous statement had a profound effect on him, reads Sajids interrogation report. The police psychiatrist says, Instincts have been subdued by collective victimhood and the motivation by peers has taken over their thinking. For instance, they watch a video collectively and then started believing in it. Outreach is the best possible way. The internet fuelled the quest for universal victimhood. Asked how he knew what that accounts he had heard of the persecution of Muslims were accurate, this 20-year-old youth with no formal education, who speaks reasonably fluent in English said, I saw it on the internet. I saw it with my own eyes. The online world gets more eyeballs during periods of perceived victimhood. The data analysis by the security establishment shows a sharp increase during the time that Mumbai blast case accused Yakub Memon was hanged. It also spiked after the Pathankot air base attack and again after the NIAs U-turn gave Sadhvi Pragya a clean chit. Ten Indian Muslims have been given a clean slate to rewrite their destinies but as security officials say, scores of radicals are surfing cyberspace and the challenge is to keep them from venturing onto a road that may lead to terror. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON RJD president Lalu Prasad and two former MPs appeared before a special CBI court in Ranchi on Monday in connection with a fodder scam case, whose hearing would be taken up again on June 29. Prasad appeared before the court of Shivpal Singh in connection with 38A/96 case pertaining to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.31 crore from Dumka treasury in undivided Bihar during the 1990s. Former MPs Jagdish Sharma and R K Rana were among others who also appeared before the court. The court fixed June 29 as the next date as two of the accused petitioned that they could not attend the court due to illness. The CBI has already produced 208 witnesses and several others are to be produced. Altogether 48 people, including former Bihar chief minister Prasad, were made accused in the Dumka treasury case. Fifteen of them have died and two turned government approvers, while two others were acquitted. Prasad was convicted in the RC 20A-96 case relating to Chaibasa treasury on September 30, 2013. The four-year sentence led to his losing Lok Sabha membership. RJD chief Lalu Yadav on Monday appeared in a special CBI court in Ranchi over his involvement in a multi-crore fodder scam. RJD President Lalu Prasad proceeding to appear before a CBI court in connection with the fodder scam case ((Photo by Parwaz Khan/ Hindustan Times) RJD President Lalu Prasad proceeding to appear before a CBI court in connection with the fodder scam case ((Photo by Parwaz Khan/ Hindustan Times) ((Photo by Parwaz Khan/ Hindustan Times) Lalu Yadav had already been convicted in a fodder scam and he was awarded five years sentence in October 2013. ((Photo by Parwaz Khan/ Hindustan Times) On June 2, the court had summoned 38 people accused in a case related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.31 crore from Dumka treasury including the RJD chief. ((Photo by Parwaz Khan/ Hindustan Times) On June 2, the court had summoned 38 people accused in a case related to fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 3.31 crore from Dumka treasury including the RJD chief. Lalu arrived on Ranchi on Sunday evening from Patna. The case trial is under process. Lalu Yadav had already been convicted in a fodder scam and he was awarded five years sentence in October 2013. He is currently on bail. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive has lauded the economic policy of the Narendra Modi government and termed it an appropriate blend of welfare and growth measures. Hailing the policy, the national executive dubbed it the hallmark of the NDA governments governance model drawing inspiration from Pandit Deendayal Upadhyays concept of Antyodaya upliftment and service of the poor, downtrodden and marginalised. The national executive expressed confidence that the efforts of central government under the leadership of the Narendra Modi, the economy will continue to grow and with the social equality and economic empowerment there will be a transformation in the lives of the poor. The first two years of the Narendra Modi government have been marked by significant measures to alleviate poverty and deprivation, enable socio-economic empowerment of the marginalised sections and lay a robust foundation for economic progress. Sabka Sath Sabka Vikas is the underlying philosophy of the government, read the first resolution passed on Sunday by the national executive on day one of its two-day meet in Allahabad. The resolution was introduced by national general secretary of BJP P Muralidhar Rao in the second session of the meet in presence of party president Amit Shah, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior leaders of the party. The resolution was supported by finance minister Arun Jaitley, minister of state for commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman and home minister Rajnath Singh. As a result of all these efforts by Narendra Modi led NDA government, different sectors are doing well in spite of enormous problems surrounding the economy. There is increased economic activity at different levels resulting in improved confidence of not only investors but also the common man. Besides, India is making a powerful impression at the international level, read the resolution. The national executive resolution noted that at a time when world economy was expected to grow less than 3% this year, the same as in 2015 and almost all countries including China, Brazil, are in the grip of recession, India was a bright spot in the world of recession. Increased capital spending in infrastructure development, increased credit for agriculture and small industries has facilitated Indias fast growth. This has increased domestic growth and domestic consumption. Indian consumer spending increased from 6.2% in 2014-15 to 7.2% in 2015-16. Agricultural sector posted a robust growth of 2.3% in the last quarter of 2015-16 and 1.2% for the whole of 2015-16 against a negative growth of 0.2% in the earlier year. Industry has posted a growth of 7.4% in 2015-16 as against 5.9% in the earlier year. The core sector growth during April 2016 is a robust 8.5% against (-0.2)% in April 2015, the resolution points out. The national executive praised that government for taking the lead to clear 42 stalled projects worth Rs 1.15 lakh crore since February 2015, which activated the idle investments locked in the projects. It noted that this had also begun yielding results in 2015-16. That is why despite slower growth in investments GDP has grown. Further unlocking of stalled projects will accentuate the GDP growth in future, the resolution noted. A baby girl born with a rare congenital disorder with barely any external skin died on Monday in Nagpur after struggling for her life for two days. The 1.8-kg girl was diagnosed with Harlequin Ichthyosis, a disorder that occurs once in 300,000 births, and her body was covered with thick plates of hardened, cracked skin and her internal organs visible. She was put on oxygen on Monday morning and died at the privately run Lata Mangeshkar Medical College and Hospital. She was born to a 23-year-old woman from Amravati in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra on Saturday. The father of the baby, a poor farmer from Amravati, and her grandmother were shocked to see her. However, they have accepted the situation, said Dr Kajal Mitra, the dean of the hospital. The baby was not shown to the mother till Sunday and she broke down when she saw her child on Monday afternoon in the presence of a group of doctors. Read: Cause, symptoms and cure: What is Harlequin ichthyosis? The baby had breathing problems since morning and was put on a ventilator. The mother was no a regular patient at the hospital and hence the disease wasnt diagnosed earlier, doctors said. Even otherwise skin disorders, especially Harlequin Ichthyosis, cannot be picked up on conventional ultrasonography, pointed out Dr Mitra. Doctors say Harlequin Ichthyosis is a very rare severe genetic skin disease that causes thickening of the skin. In such cases, the childs whole body is encased in an armour of thick white plates of skin separated with deep cracks. Through the day, When images of the baby made rounds on social media, some were shocked, some were surprised, and many others were just disturbed. Some called it a ghost child, while some even hoped the child passes away in peace due to its suffering. But hours before her death, the babys family said she was a gift from god. A newspaper report quoted citys renowned paediatrician Dr Uday Bodhankar as saying this condition can be detected during the fourth month of pregnancy through ultrasound or sonography tests, though it is clearer in the sixth month. There is no cure for the disorder and studies say such babies need to be fed with feeding tubes for nutritional support as they are born with high risks of infections, low body temperature, difficulty in breathing, and sometimes dehydration. In 1984, an infant with this disorder was born in Pakistan and the baby lived till 2008. Another such birth was recorded in the USA in 1994. Siliguri A battery-operated fence erected by Nepal along the border to keep elephants from India away is set to snowball into a controversy with the West Bengal government writing to the Centre to raise the issue with the neighbouring country. Nepal erected the 18-km-long energised fence near the bank of Mechi river that divides the two countries with aid from international funding agencies six months ago. West Bengal forest minister Binay Krishna Barman, who held a high-level meeting with state forest officials in Sukna in Darjeeling on Saturday, raised objection over the fence along the international border by Nepal. Barman said the fencing blocks the natural movement of the elephants. The state government has already written a letter to the Centre to take up the matter with the Nepal government, Barman said. Every year hundreds of elephants migrate from the forests of Assam and West Bengal into Nepal through the Indo-Nepal border and destroy crops in the villages on both sides. The animals follow a traditional corridor to reach places like Bahundangi in eastern Nepal under Jhapa district after crossing forests of Sukna and Panighata in Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Man-elephant conflict Animesh Bose, programme coordinator of Siliguri-based Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation (HNAF), said man-elephant conflict is a serious issue along this border. The elephants corridor along the Indo-Nepal border has existed for thousands of years. If the movement of the elephants is blocked, it will create a disastrous effect in places like Kolabari and other basties under Kolabari beat of Panighata range, Bose told HT. He added that in the past 15 years, at least 20 elephants have died inside Nepal and more than 50 people have been killed on both the sides of the international border by elephants. The animals reach the Indo-Nepal border twice a year during the rainy season and winter when maize and rice are cultivated respectively and often plunder crops during the night in Nepal and return to Kolabari forest on the India side in the morning. In the past, Nepalese villagers and authorities have resorted to firing and poisoning of elephants killing a number of the pachyderms. The elephant menace has often affected the cordial relation between the residents on both sides of the border. After joint efforts by India and Nepal to mitigate the problem fell flat, the Nepalese government decided to erect the fence. Indian authorities believe that the energised fence will make the elephants hostile and eventually the animals will turn their ire against villagers on the Indian side leading to more destruction of crops and human lives. Nepal, however, has said the fence would not bother the animals as well as Indians along the border. Necessary international guidelines have been followed while erecting the fence with the help of international donor agencies, a senior Nepalese forest official requesting anonymity said. Arjun Karki, the president of Nepals Nature Conservation Society, also said that the fence should not be a problem for India as it has been erected on Nepaleses side where there are no forest tracts. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Out on bail after spending close to two years in jail over his alleged ties to Maoists, wheel-chair bound Delhi University (DU) professor G N Saibaba says he feels he has been pushed into a larger prison. I continue to feel the restricted atmosphere around me, Saibaba, currently undergoing treatment for his various ailments at a Hyderabad hospital, told HT. Suffering from 90% disability, the professor of English at DUs Ram Lal Anand College has been in and out of prison since he was first detained in July 2014 for being a member of the banned CPI-Maoist, a charge he denies. He last stepped out of prison in April after being granted bail by a court. Saibabas arrest was among a series of police action against civilians accused of Maoist links, including the Mumbai-born Kobad Ghandy, who was acquitted of all terror charges by a Delhi court last week, seven years after the 68-year-old was jailed for alleged links with the CPI (Maoist). Like Saibaba, Ghandy is also facing other terror-related cases in Telangana. Suspended by the DU pending an inquiry, Saibaba says his life remains in tatters. Telangana police allegedly prevented him from addressing a meeting last month in Warangal on an anti-Maoist drive launched by the authorities Restricting his movements further is his frail health which he says deteriorated further following his detention. He is awaiting a muscle-transplantation at the Hyderabad hospital for his left hand. The hand suffered a severe damage when the police dragged me into jail holding my hand, he says. He had earlier alleged that his health worsened after the jail authorities refused him medical treatment during his incarceration. Saibaba says his financial situation is as precarious. I get half of my salary but it is being spent on clearing my loans. I am able to meet hospital expenses with the support of friends, he explains. Saibaba, who says he was targeted by the authorities for his activism, is however hopeful that the tide would turn for him soon. The trial court has completed examining witnesses and a verdict is expected before July. I am hopeful I will be acquitted in the case as the prosecution could not find anything against me despite seizing all documents, hard discs and pen drives, he says. The BJP-led NDA government should not overlook the fact that past attempts to broker peace with Pakistan have been reciprocated with aggression and terror strikes, RSS joint general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said here on Monday. While he clarified that the Sangh is not opposed to the governments engagement with the neighbour, he underlined the need to maintain vigil as Pakistan is administered by the army generals and not an elected government. The ideological mentor of the BJP, the Sangh has in the past spoken about the possibility of an Akhand Bharat (unified India), but wants the Government not to lose sight of the fact that Kargil war and the recent attacks in Pathankot, closely followed Indias overtures for peace. Describing Pakistan, as a rogue nation where state power buckles under street power Hosabale, speaking at the launch of journal Pakistan Watch, said the two nations do not share cultural but civilizational ties. He said Pakistan is a nationless state, which has failed to help its people stand on its own feet. It has only manufactured Taliban terroristsno other manufacturing takes place there, he said, taking a swipe at Pakistan. Sangh ideologue Rakesh Sinha, who is the editor-in-chief of the first edition of Pakistan Watch said, Pakistan is an idea, a discourse and it is imperative for Indian policy makers to keep an eye on the nation that was an experiment and will continue to remain one. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Less than a month after permitting pilots to attend mandatory ground classes online from their homes, Indias aviation safety regulator has pulled back the approval citing a safety gap it may have overlooked. While the domestic airlines are pushing for the policy change as it would cut down training costs significantly, the regulator fears that the online medium has no checks on pilots who decide to skip classes. On June 4, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) wrote to a private airline which was the first domestic carrier to get approval. At least two more airlines in India had approached the safety regulator to switch to the new medium known as remote e-learning, said sources. There is no way we would know if the person logging in online for the classes is the pilot himself. The regulator wants airlines to look up something such as a webcam to rule out such doubts, said an official. The first step towards e-learning for pilots began in 2013, when the DGCA permitted domestic airlines to conduct ground classes online. But it still required pilots to take a break from routine flying duty and spend six-odd days at an airline facility in a year. Last month, a private airline took that provision to another level when it got permission for pilots to attend these classes from any remote location, including their homes. According to DGCA rules, its mandatory for all pilots to attend 26 hours of ground classes which largely comprises brushing up basic flying skills and getting updated on new safety regulations. Airlines have been pushing remote e-learning to cut down training costs. According to estimates, the training which currently takes up to 6 days could be reduced by 2 days if they switch to remote e-learning, said industry experts. Independent safety experts said there is a trust deficit in India. There have been several cases of pilots fudging training records. The regulator is doing to the right thing by treading cautiously, said a former member of a government-appointed panel. DGCA chief M Sathiyavathy said chief flight operation inspector, Captain Ajay Singh, was better placed to comment but Capt Singh was unavailable for comment. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, are fearing a backlash following the Orlando gay club shooting even as the Obama administration has assured them of their safety. In a bid to allay growing concerns within the community, the White House sent one of its top official to a gurdwara in the suburb of Washington DC on Sunday to meet members of the Sikh community and local leadership to assure them about their safety and interest. We know, this is a time when some in the community fear unease, Cecilia Munoz, Director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, told PTI after her interaction with the Sikh community at the oldest gurdwara of Maryland -- Guru Nanak Foundation of America. She also attended sangat with its members. I shared the work that the federal government is doing to make sure that every child is safe and secure, every person is feeling safe and secure in the places of worship and the places where they work and the places where they study, Munoz said, adding that there was no need to be fearful. Her visit to the gurdwara was planned a few days ago but her presence was very timely in terms of the new wave of fear that has gripped the community because of the Orlando incident -- the deadliest mass shooting in Americas history. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. This is a country of great diversity. We cherish that diversity. We celebrate it. We feel great gratitude to the Sikh community for the many many contributions to the United States, Munoz said. It is fundamental to our democracy that people have freedom of worship, but also have freedom from fear, she said, adding that the Obama Administration has taken steps to address these challenges. Paramvir Singh Soni, chairperson of the Guru Nanank Foundation of America, acknowledged that there is a sense of fear in the community and said the Sikh-Americans are touched by the steps being taken by US President Barack Obama in this regard. We are still looking for stronger actions against hate crimes. I think there we need to do some more work, but we are making progress, he said. Singh said the community wants to have the next president as one who can address its challenge. Someone who is more open to the Sikh community, somebody who is more engaged, he said. Dr Rajwant Singh, Washington-based chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said the Sikh community, is very concerned about the possible backlash from the Orlando killings. Terrorism is a scourge that knows no borders and it must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee said, while pledging Indias support to Ghana for combating the menace. Mukherjee, who is here on a two-day visit -- the first by an Indian President -- said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghanas concern that it has become a global menace. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on Sunday, Mukherjee said, It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge. Mukherjees visit is a part of Indias outreach to Africa. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghanas first President Kwame Nkrumah and Indias first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled Africa in his address. Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council, Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africas dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs, he said. The elaborate banquet which saw traditional African dishes with Bollywood numbers playing in the backdrop was hosted at the flag staff college which has been constructed by a noted Indian builder. Mukherjee presented to Mahama a photograph of Indias first President Rajendra Prasad meeting Nkrumah in Rashtrapati Bhavan as he stressed that government of India seeks Ghanas continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Indo African Forum Summit held in New Delhi last year. Lauding Ghanas efforts in reducing poverty levels to almost half and crossing the threshold to become a low income country, Mukherjee said India will continue to extend the hand of cooperation as it marches on the path of prosperity. The Congress faced an embarrassing defeat in Rajya Sabha election in Haryana last week. Votes of 14 Congress MLAs were cancelled as they used a wrong pen to mark their preferences. The Congress is livid with the BJP-controlled state machinery and called it a state-sponsored fraud. At the same time, some leaders in the party are also pointing fingers at a section within the Congress establishment for this fiasco. Role of some leaders are not out of the realm of question. But this is not the first time the Congress goofed up on its electoral prospects and handed over seats to the rivals. Heres a look at other instances where the party suffered an embarrassing defeat due to own mistakes. 1. In 2009 Lok Sabha polls, Congress had fielded Rajkumar Patel against BJPs Sushma Swaraj in Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. But Patels nomination was rejected by the district magistrate on the last day of filing nomination as he failed to submit Form A in original. The Form is the only prove that the party has officially nominated a candidate to use its symbol for a seat. The result: Swaraj won the Vidisha seat virtually unchallenged. Many eyebrows were raised in the Congress as the possibility of a secret deal between the BJP and Patel as the latter also went to file his papers without any lawyer, which could have averted such a situation. 2. If 2009 Lok Sabha poll saw the Congress virtually gifting Sushma Swaraj a seat in Vidisha, sabotage has been detected in neighbouring Chhattisgarh where a party nominee withdrew from a by-poll at the last moment, leaving the Congress in a lurch. A sting operation by a newspaper revealed that Congress candidate Manturam Pawar didnt contest the Antagad by-election in 2015 even after getting party ticket as a part of the deal. The tapes of an alleged conversation between Congress satrap Ajit Jogi, his son Amit Jogi, chief minister Raman Singhs son-in-law Puneet Gupta and others hint that the poll was fixed to benefit the BJP. A red-faced Congress expelled Amit Jogi for six years. Ajit Jogi recently announced that he will form his new party even as the Congress claimed that the party will not be affected with Jogis exit. 3. In 2000, the official Congress nominee lost to a candidate who was backed by rival Trinamool Congress despite having sufficient numbers to win the poll. A furious Congress brass hauled up the party unit in West Bengal and then Congress state chief Somen Mitras political goodwill was severely damaged before the partys central leadership. Trinamool had only 3 MLAs in the 294-strong West Bengal assembly, yet it managed to push a candidate in Rajya Sabha. the Congress candidate Debaprasad Roy got only 36 votes even as the party had 79 MLAs in the assembly. The en-mass cross voting exposed the chinks in the Congress armour and eventually more and more Congress leader quit the party to join Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Bombay high court is on Monday expected to pass its order regarding the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC)s suggested cuts to Udta Punjab, a film centred around the drug problem in Punjab that has stoked both a political and artistic debate. Read | Udta Punjab: Facts, figures and falsehoods of states drug problem Makers of the film, Phantom Films, had challenged some of the CBFCs suggested cuts in the high court, which included deleting references to Punjab, two graphically vulgar scenes and toning down an expletive-laden script. The CBFC had finally cleared the film on Sunday with 13 cuts under category A, board chairman Pahlaj Nihalani said, saying its job is now over. It is now up to the producer to go to the court or tribunal. We will implement the order, Nihalani said. The CBFCs clearance came after the Bombay high court came down heavily on the board, saying it was overly critical of the controversial drug-themed film. Read | Punjabs struggle with drugs A bench of judges, SC Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi, observed that Udta Punjab, prima facie, did not appear to glorify drug abuse, one of the main contentions of the censor board based on which it sought multiple cuts to the film co-produced by filmmaker Anurag Kashyap. If the movie is glorifying use of drugs, then ban the entire movie, the court said. Regarding deleting the references to Punjab, it noted that the crux of the film will be lost. However, at the same time, the court asked producers to delete a potentially offensive scene and tone down the use of expletives. Read | Bombay HC asks censor board not to be overly critical of Udta Punjab The filmmakers agreed to cut out a scene that showed a man urinating on a crowd on the courts insistence. Another which showed a man scratching himself vulgarly is also being axed. Assembly elections are due in Punjab early next year and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress have accused the BJP of influencing the censor board to hide the menace of drug abuse that has allegedly crippled a generation in the state. The BJP is a partner of the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjabs ruling alliance. Read | SAD says Punjab govt will not ban Udta Punjab; but wants EC to intervene The controversy has seen almost all of Bollywood come out to oppose the notoriously sensitive censor board, which earlier blocked the release of a toned-down version of Fifty Shades of Grey last year and deemed two James Bond kissing scenes unsuitable for an Indian audience. Everybody has a choice. Let (the) people decide whether a movie is good or bad Handover the remote to people let them decide, whether it is television or cinema.. You have the power of certifying films for public exhibition The word censor does not appear anywhere in the (Cinematograph) Act, except in your mind, the Bombay high court judges said. If they (film producers) produce bad movies, they will suffer in the long run, they added. The film stars Shahid Kapoor in one of the lead roles, with Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh. Directed by Abhishek Chaubey, it is tentatively scheduled for release on June 17. I am not PM Modis chamcha As the debate raged, Kashyap had accused Nihalani of being dicatatorial and controlling the CBFC. However, the board chairman dismissed the allegations, saying, those call me cheap are themselves ghatia (lowly). Nihalani clarified that he never called himself as chamcha (sycophant) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There is nothing wrong in admiring the Prime Minister. I never said (I am) a chamcha, he said. (With inputs from PTI) The Bombay high courts verdict on Monday could have far-reaching repercussions on the workings of the Censor Board. The court cleared Udta Punjab with just one cut. Reacting to this, Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) chief Pahlaj Nihalani said, We completely respect the honourable courts verdict. Now that the honourable court has given Udta Punjab the go-ahead other filmmakers too can appeal to the courts. Recalling the CBFCs decision to pass the film with cuts, Nihalani said, We offered to clear Udta Punjab with an A certificate and some cuts which we thought would not hamper the flow of the narrative. It has never been the CBFCs endeavour to obstruct a films creativity or to be a stumbling block to its release. The producers of Udta Punjab were supposed to return to us with the cuts that we suggested. The CBFC chief said the censor board has cleared another film about the drug menace. If we had a problem with the drug problem in Punjab being shown on screen why would we clear the Punjabi film Dhee Punjab Dee which deals with the same issue? Its producer Baljeet Singh has gone on record to condemn the strong language in Udta Punjab. We at the CBFC are not against the film. Pahlaj Nihalani said the CBFC is absolutely in-sync with the honourable high courts decision. Were happy with whatever theyve decided, he said. The high court allowed the makers of Udta Punjab to release the film with just one cut and a revised disclaimer. The High court ordered Udta Punjab makers to remove the scene where Shahid Kapoor is seen urinating on crowd. Any reference to Pakistan is also to be removed. Read| Bombay HC on Udta Punjab: Cant randomly pick words and raise objections Read| How censor board made Udta Punjab bleed Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Allahabad high court on Sunday and assured the HCBA lawyers that he would not disappoint them on their demand against creation of a new bench of the court in western UP. Members of the High Court Bar Association were angry over media reports that Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah had supported a separate bench of the judicial body for western UP. The Prime Minister also assured HCBA office-bearers that their demands including filling up of all vacant posts of judges, land for parking of vehicles and seating of lawyers and a multi-speciality hospital for lawyers would also be considered. HCBA president RK Ojha said that the Prime Minister gave them the assurance after he was apprised of the strong opposition by lawyers to the setting up of the bench. The Prime Minister garlanded the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the marble hall of the high court. Thereafter, he met the judges. He also visited the museum of the high court and met the office-bearers of HCBA. Before the PMs visit, state BJP president Keshav Prasad Maurya reached the high court and met the association officials. He denied that BJP president Amit Shah gave any statement in support of creation of a new bench in western UP and added that no proposal was pending in this regard. A woman constable, who had gone to a pub in Vile Parle with her team to resolve a fight between two guests and the staff, was allegedly molested by the guests on Sunday. The incident took place around 3am, at a pub near Juhu gymkhana, which is frequented by celebrities. The accused Shrinivas Sundarvardhan, 28, from Tamil Nadu and S Shashtri Krishna, 25, from Kochi, Kerala were drunk, said an officer from the Juhu police station. They were given a bill of Rs14,000. However, they fought with the staff, saying they will not pay as it has been inflated. This resulted in a brawl, after which the staff alerted the police control room. A police team was sent to the spot. The police staff, comprising a woman constable and two policemen, requested the duo and the staff to come to police station, but the former refused. This led to another heated argument between the police and the duo, who then allegedly pushed the police personnel and touched the policewoman inappropriately. The duo was then taken to Juhu police station, where an FIR was registered under section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 354 (whoever assaults or uses criminal force to any woman, intending to outrage or knowing it to be likely that he will thereby outrage her modesty) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. They were produced before a magistrates court on Sunday and have been remanded in police custody for a day. A kidney racket probe by Kolkata Police in early 2015 could help Delhi Police crack the nationwide kidney racket unearthed recently. Delhi Police sought the report of a case registered at the Purba Jadavpore police station under Kolkata Police, which busted a kidney racket back in January 2015. The report is expected to help link private hospitals already on police radar in the recently uncovered kidney racket. In January 2015, we busted a kidney racket where we found involvement of a few hospitals in the city. Later, the Kolkata high court expressed concerns over our investigation and ordered the state health department to look into the matter, a senior Kolkata Police officer told HT. Delhi Police asked for our investigation report and we have already forwarded it. In this regard, one Deepak Kar, who was arrested in Kolkata, has been taken to Delhi for questioning. Delhi Police investigators said Kar along with Brajesh Chauhan, who was on the personal staff of a doctor at Apollo Hospital, were in direct contact with kingpin T Rajkumar Rao and facilitated in drafting forged documents for the kidney transplant at the hospital. A private hospital in Kolkata had in January 2015 lodged a complaint with the Purba Jadavpur station that a donor submitted forged documents in order to donate her kidney. Investigation revealed the donor, Karuna Roy Chowdhury, a resident of Alipurduar district of North Bengal, was trying to sell her kidney for Rs 6 lakh to pay her sons college fees. She had submitted fake documents on the instructions of a person who had also brought her to the city, it later emerged. Ten people were arrested in the case, and Siliguri resident Javed Akhtar emerged as the kingpin of the racket. The gang had successfully sold at least 10 kidneys in the past that were transplanted in three Kolkata hospitals including the one that filed the complaint. In all cases, the donors forged their documents that the hospitals did not realise. What was more surprising is that Javed Akhtar was the introducer in all the 10 cases and hospitals did not question his interest or locus standi at all. It was an interstate racket catering to the states of eastern India, said an investigating officer. The gangs modus operandi was to lure poor people from Alipurduar to sell their kidney. They would then bring the victims to Siliguri and then to Kolkata to introduce them to prospective recipients. But in most cases they did not pay the agreed amount to the donors. They would pay a meagre amount to the donors as advance and would flee once the transplantation was over, the investigating officer told HT. Police said the Kolkata case was similar to the one recently uncovered in Delhi, and it was possible that the two rackets are linked. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON A day after Anti-child Labour Day, 27 children were rescued from the clasps of traffickers from Thane station on Monday. At 6.30am on Monday, when a technical problem forced the Jan Sadharan Express, travelling from Raxaul in Bihar to Mumbai, to end its journey at Thane, short of its final destination, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT), Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel and volunteers from Pratham, who had information that the train was carrying trafficked children, grew anxious. We had posted RPF constables at LTT to catch the traffickers and rescue the children, said Sneha Shirgaonkar, assistant director for Pratham Council for Vulnerable Children (PCVC), Mumbai. A quick rescue operation ensured that 27 children, who were brought to Mumbai to work in bag-making units, were rescued and the traffickers arrested. We had set up our rescue team at LTT, but when the train ended its journey at Thane we rushed our team to the station and rescued the children, said Sachin Bhalode, senior divisional security commissioner, RPF. The PVCV activists said the children were below 17 years and were accompanied by 21 adults. It is indeed shocking that it was only yesterday (Sunday) that we observed Anti-child Labour Day and today, these innocent children are trafficked for work, said Kishore Bhamre, director of PCVC. Shirgaonkar said the children carried identity proofs, including Aadhar cards, which the volunteers suspect are fake. The children said they were 18 years and older, but when they were counselled it was found that many of them were younger .The youngest among them was 10 years old . The children say they have come with their relatives, but we know what the truth is. They have been taken to Makhurd, the government rescue home, as part of protocol, she said. We have rescued several children before, but never in such large numbers. Child labour is a social problem. These children from north India are brought here with assurances. This case is being investigated into, added Bhalode. With senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Eknath Khadses ouster from the Maharashtra cabinet and his eight portfolios up for grabs, a long-pending reshuffle and expansion of ministries is likely next week. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis is expected to undertake the rejig of his team after the two-day meeting of the BJP state executive in Pune on June 18-19. The reshuffle is likely next week, post state executive [meet], so that the new ministers get time to get acquainted with their departments ahead of the monsoon session of the state legislature that starts on June 12, said a party functionary. There will be fresh faces; one or two junior ministers may get promotion. In all, around five to six BJP ministers will get inducted. The Fadnavis cabinet has 29 ministers and this figure cannot exceed 42 ministers, according to guidelines. The party is expected to fill in promised berths to its pre-poll allies, including one junior ministerial berth each to the Rashtriya Samaj Paksha and the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana. Its main ally turned enemy, Shiv Sena, is keen on getting one cabinet portfolio and two junior ministerial berths but the BJP is unlikely to concede to its demand, especially after the formers aggressive posturing against the BJP government at the centre and the state. Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut recently referred to the BJP central and state governments as worse than the Nizam rule. Sources said Fadnavis has a preliminary list of new ministers ready and it will be finalised after consultations with the partys top brass in Delhi. It is widely expected that co-operation minister Chandrakant Patil may get the important revenue portfolio, unless Fadnavis decides to keep it with himself. Finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, the current No 2 in the state cabinet, is learnt to have refused to take the responsibility. He may instead take additional charge of the agriculture portfolio. It is also learnt that state minister for home (rural) Ram Shinde, also an backward class leader, is up for a promotion. One call to people that they have won the Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) lottery is all it took a gang to cheat people of lakhs of rupees. While the Worli police have busted the racket, they are yet to get to the exact number of people cheated and the money swindled. This is how the trio -- Jaffar Abbas Hasmulla Shaikh, 22, and Irfan Miya Ali Ansari, 32, both of whom were arrested from Kolkata, and Arshad Sayyad Ali, 20, who was arrested from Bihar a few days ago believed to be the mastermind of the gang, functioned. They used to first call an unsuspecting victim, claiming he has won a KBC lottery worth Rs 25 lakh. They used to then tell the victim he will have to pay a certain amount to claim the lottery. Once they deposited the amount (around Rs3 lakh), the gang used to tell the victim he could deposit more money (around Rs3 lakh) to avail of gold jewellery worth Rs20 lakh. The racket came to light after a vendor approached the police, alleging he was cheated of Rs3.30 lakh. According to the police, the gang has cheated scores of people not just from the city, but across the country. They used Pakistani SIM cards, so their call data records could not be traced. They appointed various people for different tasks such as creating bank accounts, calling people and withdrawing cash. While three men used to withdraw cash from ATM kiosks, two others used to collect it from them. An officer said, The accused used SIM cards from Pakistan which made tracing their call details and locations tough. The police got their first breakthrough, after they recovered the CCTV footages of the ATM centers from Kolkata. A team spent several days in Kolkata. We got their photos made from the CCTV footage and then brought them to the city. Subsequently, we found out Alis location, after which a team was sent to Bihar, said another officer, requesting anonymity. . SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON NEW DELHI: The Congress on Sunday appointed two veteran warhorses, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kamal Nath, as in-charge of crucial poll-bound states, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, triggering fresh speculation s about the much-awaited organisational reshuffle. The announcement comes amid calls for a major surgery from within the party following its debacle in the recent assembly polls in four states. Azad, who is the leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, has replaced Madhusudan Mistry as the general secretary in-charge of Uttar Pradesh where the elections would be held in early next year. The former Jammu & Kashmir CM appointment comes as the Congress makes a renewed bid to revive its fortunes in the countrys most populous state. The Congress has been in political wilderness in UP since 1989, following emergence of divisive Mandal-Mandir politics and rise of the BSP, which took away its crucial Dalit vote base. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had won just two seats in a state that sends 80 MPs to Parliament. Party veteran Kamal Nath has also been appointed as the general secretary and given charge of Haryana and Punjab. He replaces former UPA minister and party general secretary Shake el Ah mad. Kamal Naths responsibility in Punjab suggests that he is back in reckoning in the party circles. In 2014, despite being the seniormost MP in Lok Sabha, Nath was overlooked by the Congress as it appointed Mallikarjun Kharge as the floor leader. Punjab will face assembly elections early next year. Congress has roped in poll strategist Prashant Kishor, who managed Prime Minister Narendra Modis Lok Sabha campaign in 2014 and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumars last year, to aid and assist the party in UP and Haryana units. (With PTI inputs) NEW DELHI: Indians joining al Qaeda were moved by the 1992 Babri mosque demolition and 2002 Godhra riots and were committed to establish base of terror outfit al Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) here, Delhi police told a court. In its charge sheet filed against 17 accused, Special Cell of Delhi Police said for the purpose of jihad, some of them went to Pakistan and met Jamatud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and several other dreaded terrorists. While delivering jihadi speeches in various mosques, he (arrested accused Syed Anzar Shah) met Mohd Umar (one of the absconding accused) and they discussed atrocities on Muslims in India, especially Godhra and Babri Masjid issues. Umar got impressed with his jihadi ideology and speeches and committed himself to the cause of jihad and expressed the desire to receive arms/ammunition training from Pakistan, the chargesheet filed before additional sessions judge Reetesh Singh said. It said that Umar was operating from Pakistan. Police said arrested accused Abdul Rehman had provided safe hideouts in India to Pakistani militants Salim, Mansoor and Sajjad, all members of Jaish-e-Mohammed, who were later killed in a shootout in Uttar Pradesh in 2001. These three Pakistani militants had come to India to take revenge of Babri Masjid demolition and had planned to attack Ram Mandir in Ayodhya but got killed, the charge sheet claimed. The police named in its charge sheet 17 accused, 12 of whom are absconding, for allegedly conspiring, recruiting Indian youths and establishing a base of AQIS here. In its final report, the agency has charged five arrested accused Mohd Asif, Zafar Masood, Mohd Abdul Rehman, Syed Anzar Shah and Abdul Samifor alleged of fences under the provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). The probe agency has alleged that al Qaeda was trying to set up its base in India under the banner of AQIS and some youths from districts of western Uttar Pradesh had already left India and joined its cadre in Pakistan. It said that one of the modules of the outfit was active in Sambhal district in Uttar Pradesh. It alleged that the accused were in touch with terrorists from Pakistan, Iran and Turkey via social media and mobile phones. PANCHKULA/CHANDIGARH: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev said if Rahul Gandhi was made Congress president, Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) would easily realise their dream of a Cong Mukt Bharat. Speaking on the sidelines of a yoga camp on Sunday, Ramdev added that if Priyanka was made Congress president, the saffron party would have to struggle hard. At a function in Chandigarh, he reiterated his thoughts on Congress and said that a lot of leaders in the party were good but Rahul as president would make BJP lazy. When asked about the controversy surrounding the film Udta Punjab, he said: I do not see movies. I dont know what is flying in Udta Punjab. (Though) It is true that drug addiction is rising in the country. On Rahul Gandhi coming to lead a march on drugs in Jalandhar, he said, He should be asked whether he had ever taken drugs. Answering questions about Modi governments inability to bring back black money and contain rising prices, he said: Aadarniye (Respected) Modiji works for 18 hours with honesty One or two corruption cases have come up and concerned people had been removed too. But there is zero tolerance on corruption. The government is facing criticism over black money. I have raised the issue with Modi, Jaitley and Amit ShahThis years budget is quite farmers friendly. Some work is (still) left. KOLKATA: Even as Afghan security agencies are trying to trace Judith DSouza who was abducted in Kabul late on Thursday, political parties are making a beeline for the DSouza home on CIT Road. After TMC Rajya Sabha MP Derek O Brien and a BJP delegation, a Left delegation led by CPI(M) general-secretary Sitaram Yechuri met Judiths family on Sunday. Congress was not left behind. State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury wrote a letter to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj asking her to ensure a safe return. We also requested the external affairs ministry to make every possible effort to ensure a safe return of Judith. I visited her residence and spent some time with her parents and siblings. The visit is to convey a message that we are with them during this troubling time, said Yechury. Gunmen abducted Judith late on Thursday in the Qala-e-Fatullah area of Kabul. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj called Judiths father Denzil on Friday and said the government would extend all possible help to find her. The external affairs ministry is in constant touch with us. A joint secretary level officer is coordinating with us giving constant updates. Since these are official proceedings, we dont want to make the updates public, said Judiths brother, Jerome. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON SRINAGAR: The top separatist leadership of the Valley held a day-long seminar in Srinagar on Sunday to discuss the proposed establishment of exclusive colonies for migrant Pandits and ex-servicemen and in unequivocal words opposed the same. Though the government has repeatedly cracked down on the separatist leadership in Kashmir in the recent past, the seminar took place without any restrictions. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq leaders of the two factions of the Hurriyat Conference and representatives of the Jam mu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) attended the event. However, JKLF chief Yasin Malik, who was released on bail on Saturday after a week-long detention in a case related to the 1987 elections, was arrested again the same night. For the first time in eight years, Geelani, Farooq and Malik had come together last month and forged an issue-based united programme. Later, Mirwaiz and Malik went to Geelanis home and held a closed-door meeting for about 90 minutes. Political observers said it was unexpected that the government allowed Sundays seminar because in the recent past, it has been continuously trying to prevent such events called by the Hurriyat. Also, the seminar saw the coming together of the new joint separatist leadership. The seminar titled proposed separate colonies and the ambiguous policies of the government saw participation from Hurriyat leaders as well as civil society members. Talking about the seminar, spokesperson of the Geelani faction of the Hurriyat, Ayaz Akbar, said the joint leadership decided that it would completely oppose the construction of Sainik and Pandit colonies by the government. The leaders said the government was ambiguous on the issue and was not saying clearly what exactly the matter is, Akbar said. He added that the leaders said the construction of Pandit colonies was nothing but an attempt to give Kashmiri Muslims a bad name on communal lines. Geelani has said instead of Rs 20 lakh, the government should give Pandits Rs 30 lakh each for rehabilitation but they should come back to their original places and not separate colonies, Akbar said. Earlier, the PDP-BJP government in the state had made it clear that there will be no separate townships for Kashmiri Pandits but transit accommodation will be provided to them till they are comfortable returning to their native places. CM Mehbooba Mufti had also said the Sainik colony was proposed to be established only for the state subject ex-servicemen. What does it take to change someones life for the better? Arpna Chandail would have to say 140 characters. A one-line message on micro-blogging site Twitter was enought to change the lives of not one but 36 children, who were otherwise looking a future filled with garbage. Chandail, who teaches Ghazipur ragpickers children after her office hours, had put out a tweet a week ago asking for help to get the children enrolled in schools. On Monday, the 36 children got admitted to a government primary school in Bhovapur, thanks to the prompt response of UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav. In her tweet on June 7, Chandail had highlighted the plight of minor boys and girls who needed a formal education but were unsuccessful in getting admitted to a regular school. Chandail, who works with a television channel and teaches children in a makeshift school in Bhovapur after office hours, tagged the tweet to the handles of HRD Ministry, Prime Ministers Office, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia. Only the office of UP chief minister responded, and that too within 4-5 hours. Also Read: Woman tweets to all for help to educate ragpickers kids, only UP CM responds We were working with these children since January and had put in a lot of effort to reach their families - to let them agree to getting these kids admitted to a government school. However, the school staff was apathetic towards the children and their admissions could not take place. So, I tweeted for help and the UP government responded swiftly, said Chandail, who hails from Doda in Jammu&Kashmir and stays in Ghaziabad. Following a survey, 36 of a total of 43 children from the area were admitted to the primary school in Bhovapur on Monday. The officials of the basic education department said that apart from free formal schooling, the children would also get free books, school uniforms and midday meals. Thirty-six children from the area were admitted to the primary school in Bhovapur on Monday. The officials of the basic education department said apart from free formal schooling, the children will also get free books, school uniforms and midday meals. (Sakib Ali /HT) Our teams surveyed the area and we got these children admitted to the government school. Those remaining will be admitted soon. Our teams are finding suitable schools in their locality, said Vimal Kumar Sharma, district magistrate, Ghaziabad. I will still be going to Bhovapur daily as I also teach other students at my makeshift school. Apart from admissions, a lot of effort is needed to ensure that the children dont drop out of school, Chandail said. Among those who got admissions on Monday were two children, Furkan and Burfan, who got admitted to primary school. The school was not taking them in. So, I started sending my children to learn Urdu. Now, they both have got admissions after a lot of efforts. Who will not want their children to study and make their parents proud? I will ensure that my children attend school every day and become better people, said Mohammed Ramzan, their father. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON At least 15 people were injured in a clash between labourers and farmers over the possession of land allotted to members of the Scheduled Castes community at Machhi Nangal village in Ajnala subdivision. The government had allotted 22 plots of 5 marla each to landless and homeless SC labourers. However, the possession was not handed over to the beneficiaries and some farmers had got a sizeable portion of the land registered in their names, said sources. The trouble started on Sunday morning when the beneficiaries, equipped with sticks, started constructing a boundary wall around the land. Opposing the move, a group of 25-30 farmers, also armed with sticks, challenged the beneficiaries leading to a violent clash. Members of both the side started pelting each other with stones. The heavy police force, led by Ajnala deputy superintendent of police Manmohan Singh, had to restore to a minor chanecharge and fired in the air to disperse members of the warring groups. A head constable, Balwinder Singh, was also injured in the clash. The injured were taken to Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. Alleging that the police helped the farmers, Pendu Mazdoor Sabha (PMS) leader Dharminder Ajnala, who led the labourers, said the cops protected the farmers and canecharged the labourers. He alleged that the cops didnt even spare women labourers. Demanding registration of case against the cops and farmers under the SC/ST Act and attempt to murder, the labourers later staged a protest at the village. While the controversy over Bollywood movie Udta Punjab keeps the political pot boiling in Punjab, even the union government had admitted in the Rajya Sabha that drug addiction was affecting the youth of Punjab. Ironically, the admission came in replies of Union minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju to questions from two Rajya Sabha MPs, Ranjib Biswal from Orissa and Mahendra Singh Mahra from Uttarakhand, and not from the 20 MPs from Punjab in both Houses. In his reply to an unstarred question (of Biswal dated May 4, 2016) whether Punjab Police and Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were found working in collusion with trans-border drug smuggling network, Rijiju denied organised collusion but listed 55 cases and 68 arrests of employees of Punjab Police, state jail department, Punjab home guards, BSF, railway protection force and Chandigarh Police. Of these 68, 53 were from Punjab Police, including 24 in 2014, 26 in 2015 and 4 till March 31, 2016. While Punjab cops top the list, seven employees of the state jail department were arrested during these years for involvement in drug trade, followed by four from BSF, two from Punjab home guards and one from Chandigarh Police. In reply to a query of MP Mahendra Mahra (dated March 9, 2016) whether the Union government was aware of that youth of Punjab were reeling under drug menace, Rijiju said, Yes sir. Drug addiction is affecting the youth in Punjab and the ministry of social Justice and empowerment has conducted a rapid survey along with AIIMS to estimate the extent and pattern of drug abuse and is taking steps to restrict supply of drugs from across the border. Since the replies were to unstarred questions in the Rajya Sabha, they did not make headlines. But Punjab Congress chief spokesman Sunil Jakhar claims it busts the claims of both Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) and Badal government who are claiming that the producers of Udta Punjab were defaming Punjab. Even the Union government has admitted that Punjabs youth are addicted to drugs, he adds. The AIIMS survey on Punjab Opioid Dependence Survey (PODS), commissioned by the Centre and conducted in February-April 2015 had pegged opioid-drug dependents (addicts) in Punjab at 2.32 lakh, which translates to 0.84% of the states total population. However, a flip side to the story is that cops are using the NDPSAct to indict fellow policemen. A Patiala court had last week asked the Punjab Police to initiate departmental inquiry against an an Assistant Sub-Inspector and acquitted a policeman and his associate of all charges terming it as a false case wherein the ASI was himself the complainant in the case and had shown that he had arrested the accused on a tip-off from sources. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Two of the four freezers at the Bathinda civil hospital mortuary are non-functional, while the building too needs maintenance. The capacity for now is six. There is no place for kin or attendants to sit, except two benches under trees nearby. Water leakage from the roof makes it vulnerable in the rains. Cleanliness is a casualty, as a garbage dump has developed there. Toilets are a nightmare. Even the health minister had paid a visit and assured of repairs, but nothing has happened, said an employee. In case we have more than six bodies, we either have to fit the extra body in one of two functional freezers, or bring ice blocks, said another worker, seeking anonymity. A proposal for a new mortuary was sent in December 2014 to the Punjab Health Systems Corporation. The officers there asked us to repair the existing structure until the new one is constructed; but we couldnt do that due to paucity of funds, said an official, not willing to be named. We are expecting our proposal for a new mortuary gets the nod soon, said senior medical officer Satish Goyal. The dead matter: HT Spotlight on state of Punjabs mortuaries SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Reacting sharply on the appointment of Kamal Nath as in charge of Congress affairs in Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Sunday termed him accused of Sikhs riots in 1984. AAP state convenor Sucha Singh Chhotepur said that since 32 years, Sikhs are crying for justice, but Congress has played a cruel joke on Sikhs. Substantiating the allegations against Nath, Chhotepur revealed that senior journalist Sanjay Suri in his statement to the Mishra Commission and Nanawati Commission stated that Kamal Nath was leading the mob in front of Rakabganj Gurdwara of Delhi for at least two hours to kill Sikhs in 1984. Even advocate HS Phoolka in his book on the 1984 anti-Sikhs riots accused Nath for leading the mob to kill Sikhs, he added. Akali legislator from Mansa Prem Mittal may be in for trouble as the main suspect in the March 24 former ITBP inspectors murder at Una in Himachal Pradesh claims to be his son-in-law. According to a probe conducted by the Una police, accused Vishal Bansal, a businessman settled in Gagret in Una district, had allegedly conspired to eliminate retired ITBP official Kashmir Singh, a resident of Mawa Sindhian village of Una, on March 24 with the help of two men from Hoshiarpur (already arrested in the case). Bansal is married to the daughter of former Congress councillor and former acting District Mahila Congress chief from Asha Garg in Ludhiana. A case under Sections 302 (murder), 392 (robbery), 341 (wrongly restrained), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) had been registered at the Gagret police station against Bansal and two Hoshiapur youth, Amarinder Singh Nagra and Yuvraj Singh, after the wards of the retired cop found his body lying in a forest in Hoshiapur, bordering Una district. Gagret SHO Gaurav Sharma said in the course of investigations, the two accused, who allegedly killed the former cop on Bansals instructions, had told the police that he used to assure them that they would not face any action as his father-in-law was an Akali MLA from Mansa. The accused is at large. His bail plea was dismissed by the Supreme Court on June 16, said the SHO. As per the statements of the arrested accused and the call details of Bansals family, the police are apprehending that he was hiding somewhere in Mansa, the SHO added. On May 31, a team of the Gagret police visited Mittals house in Mansa where he assured the cops that he would talk to his mother-in-law to ask Bansal to surrender, said a police official. CLOSE POLITICAL FRIENDS Mittal, who was a Congress leader having base in Ludhiana before he joined SAD ahead of the 2012 assembly polls, was senior deputy mayor in the Ludhiana municipal corporation from 2002 to 2007 and Asha Garg was a Congress councillor from 1992 to 97, when Mittal was also a councillor. Congress leaders from Ludhiana said during the Congress rule, both Asha and Mittal were political close. Even when the Gagret police team raided Gargs house in May, she wrote her address as Asha Garg w/o Prem Mittal. However, in another statement to the police after a few days, Garg cited Rajinder Kumar as her husband. Even as Mittal rubbished the charges that Bansal was his son-in-law, he said: I know Bansal as Garg is a close family friend. In our culture, we also give equal honour to our friends son-in-law. This must have led to confusion, Mittal told HT. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal of turning a blind eye to drug menace in the state as his party men and he were benefiting from it. Leading a Congress dharna against drugs and deteriorating law-and-order situation in the state, Rahul said when he had called drug abuse a very serious issue in Punjab four years ago, Sukhbir had accused him of maligning the states image. Read: Only 16,000 drug addicts in Punjab, AAP-ruled Delhi worse off: Sukhbir Read: Sukhbir wrong: Punjab indeed has a drug problem, worse than India, world BACKS UDTA PUNJAB Rahul Gandhi in Jalandhar during a dharna in Jalandhar. (Pardeep Pandit/HT Photo) Now, Udta Punjab, a movie based on the issue, is being banned in the state. Once again, he (Sukhbir) is not willing to accept the truth (about drug abuse in Punjab), because ignoring it is benefiting them (Akalis), said the Congress vice-president during his 10-minute speech, while accusing SAD leaders of earning huge profits from drug trade. Rahul, who preferred to sit with second-rung leaders of the party instead in the VVIP enclosure during the well-attended dharna outside the Jalandhar mini-secretariat, said chitta (drugs) has ruined the future of Punjab. Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal for their statement on ease of doing business under their regimes, Rahul said: Patronised by Akali leaders, the only business that has flourished in Punjab is drug trade. SAD govt sidelining good cops The Congress vice-president slammed the SAD government for sidelining good officers in the Punjab Police to prevent them from cracking a whip on drug trade. It is the Punjab Police that overcame the problem of terrorism in the state. Nowhere else in the world terrorism has been wiped out completely. The Akali government, however, sidelined good officers and delegated important duties and full powers to bad officers, he said, adding that bringing to an end the interference in policing will help curb drug menace and address other law and order problems in the state. Read: SAD says Punjab govt will not ban Udta Punjab; but wants EC to intervene Read: Udta Punjab: Facts, figures and falsehoods of states drug problem Highlighting Punjab Congress chief Captain Amarinder Singhs promise to wipe out drugs within a month of forming the government in Punjab, Rahul said the Congress government will do so by giving powers to upright officers. New law to sell properties of drug peddlers Claiming only the Congress could curb drug menace in Punjab, Rahul said if voted to power, it will enact a law to sell properties of drug peddlers and give the money earned from it to those who have suffered due to drug abuse. Let us fight drug menace collectively, and not feel embarrassed to admit the problem plagues the state. Let us talk about it and help our party wipe it off, he said. Rahul promised that the Congress will wage a war against drugs on the lines of the partys agitation against land acquisition. The Congress vice-president also said the party will work for both farmers and industrialists, and not make any false promises if elected to form the government. Read: Congress will solve Punjabs drug problem, says Rahul Gandhi Read: Raising drug issue, exposing Akalis inaction not against Punjab: Rahul SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Birenders witty side Union rural development minister Birender Singh was at his witty best after he got elected to the Rajya Sabha from Haryana on Saturday. While interacting with reporters, Birender, who had triggered a political controversy in 2014 (he was in the Congress then) by claiming that the Rajya Sabha seat can be bought for `100 crore, was reminded of his statement and asked whether what he had claimed then was true. Apna toh 100 rupyee mein kaam chal gaya. Auron ki unse puchoo (I just had to spend `100. If you want to know about others, ask them), he responded with a wide smile. When the minister was asked why he was saying this was his last election, he said, I am 76. Aur kya saari duniya ko lootna hai. On his unfulfilled dream of becoming the chief minister, he told a scribe: Do you ever have any other question? Im not going to get caught in this today. You want the person who has got me votes get angry with me. In response to another query about what happened (rejection of votes) in the Congress since he has known (former CM Bhupinder) Hooda for a long time, pat came the reply: What Hooda did to me earlier he has done to RK Anand this time. In poll year, its advantage scribes Social media is not all that political parties need. In poll-bound Punjab, the old guard journalists still command respect. Its no wonder that the Akalis and the Congress are trying to woo them. The Punjab government has already announced a health insurance scheme for over 3,000 accredited and recognised journos of Punjab. A subsidised housing scheme also is in the offing where a three BHK flat would be offered for `30 lakh to journalists! Not to be left behind, Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh has come out with an offer for scribes. Amarinder has promised if he comes to power in Punjab, journalists would get pension after they turn 60 along with health insurance. Regardless of who wins, its advantage scribes in Punjab!!! AAP wooing Capt Kanwaljits wife Sarabjit Kaur, wife of Akali minister Capt. Kanwaljit Singh who died in a road accident in 2009, is being wooed by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for the Dera Bassi constituency in the upcoming assembly polls. The constituency which was rechristened from Banur assembly segment after delimitation was represented by the former minister for three terms. Though AAP surveys have thrown up her name as the winning candidate, the partys efforts to persuade her to join its ranks have not been successful so far. The segment is presently represented by Akali chief parliamentary secretary NK Sharma, once a protege of Capt. Kanwaljit Singh. He is considered very close to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. Udta Punjab creates a flutter on Twitter The ongoing controversy over the release of Bollywood film Udta Punjab kept the social media abuzz last week. On Twitter, udtapunjabgirtabadal, which seemed to be the work of trolls of a political party, was a trending hashtag. This was followed by a discussion on censorship with the hashtag punjab. Then, another hashtag congakalidruggedpunjab trended on the social networking service. The war on social media is getting uglier by the day. No prizes for guessing who could be behind this! Rights bodys wrong move Khalra Mission Organisation (KMO), a human rights body with Sikh ideology, last Friday announced the name of Dr Harshinder Kaur as its candidate against chief minister Parkash Singh Badal in the 2017 Punjab assembly polls. But the announcement was made without consulting her. When contacted, Dr Harshinder Kaur, a social activist and senior doctor at the Patiala government medical college and hospital, strongly rebutted it. They never talked to me on this issue. How could they do this? she said, making a request not to publish the organisations statement. Besides her, KMO had also named its former chief Paramjit Kaur Khalra and three others as its candidates against political bigwigs such Sukhbir singh Badal, Capt Amarinder Singh, Bikram Singh Majithia and Sucha Singh Chhotepur. Chandras Haryanvi versus non-Haryanvi twist Media baron and BJP-supported Independent Subhash Chandra, who won the Rajya Sabha poll due to rejection of votes of 14 MLAs, including those of the Congress, tried to give a Haryanvi versus non-Haryanvi twist, claiming that some INLD MLAs had also voted for him. But the other side promptly rejected his claim. INLD-backed Independent candidate RK Anand, whom the Congress had also promised its support, has a Haryana connection. Anand, who resides in Chhatarpur (Delhi), had done his graduation from SD College in Palwal. Barring one, all other legislators, according to an INLD leader, had voted for the candidate backed by the party. BJP MLAs perfect meeting point Haryana education minister Ram Bilas Sharma is known for his wordplay. When the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) convened a meeting of its MLAs to draw its strategy for election for two Rajya Sabha seats in the state, Sharma, who often interacts with reporters, was asked by one of them as to where the meeting would be held. The MLAs will meet at the residence of the chief minister (Manohar Lal Khattar). It is chadawas (bachelors abode). There is no disturbance. And, there is no better place for holding the meeting, he said, fast with his repartee, to guffaws from those present. Small wonder, BJP legislators have held a few meetings at the CMs residence. Post Prakash panel report, bouquets for some Retired IPS officer Prakash Singh, who gave a blistering report on acts of omission and commission of civil and police officials during the quota stir, had appreciated the conduct and performance of several officials. A few have been issued appreciation letters on the basis of his findings. Among those given a clean chit is a state civil service officer who was placed under suspension after a video clip that had gone viral, creating an impression that the bureaucrat was sympathetic to the protesters. There was, in all likelihood, slip of tongue on her part rather than any mala fide (sic), reads the report. The former IPS officer went a step further, writing to the chief secretary to consider the officers representation sympathetically. The officer was reinstated subsequently. Himachal MLAs new avatar All India Congress Committee (AICC) secretary and Gagret MLA Rakesh Kalia is known for his short temper. He often tries to solve even the simplest of problems with an iron hand. Kalia was, however, was seen in a different avatar the other day. Concerned over violation of traffic rules, particularly by two- wheeler drivers, in his constituency, the MLA resorted to Gandhigiri to create awareness. He distributed chocolates to offenders, telling them about danger of not using helmets and triple-riding. His soft side left people amused, especially those who had seen him argue with cops fiercely when they had raided the house of one his close associates. Naddas offer to Bali The Bharatiya Janata Partys Vikas Parv rally at Palampur has set political circles abuzz. It was Union health minister JP Nadda who set the rumour mill turning by making an offer to state transport minister GS Bali to join the BJP. Though the offer was made in a lighter vein, it is being interpreted in many different ways in the two parties. A few Congressmen dont rule out the possibility as the flamboyant leader has been seen cozying up to the BJP leaders in recent months. He played the perfect host when Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari visited in the state last month. Again, he was the only Congress leader at the Palampur rally. (Contributed by Chitleen K Sethi, Gurpreet Singh Nibber, Prabhjit Singh, Navneet Sharma and Naresh K Thakur) Tension prevailed in Faridkot after a Dera Sacha Sauda follower was shot in the head by an unidentified man, who was accompanied by two others, on Monday morning. Police said Gurdev Singh, 35, was shot in the back of the head by the assailant soon after he opened his grocery shop at 5.30am at Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village, 25 km from Faridkot town. The three men had come in a white Maruti Swift car that did not have a registration number plate. They asked Gurdev for soft drinks, and the moment he turned around to fetch the bottles, one of them shot him in the head. All three managed to flee. Dilbag Singh, witness and owner of a nearby shop, said he heard a gunshot and came outside his shop. He saw two men running and getting into the car. The third man was sitting in the car with the ignition on. The dera follower was rushed to Dayanand Medical College and Hospital, Ludhiana, where his condition is said to be critical. Ferozepur range deputy inspector general of police (DIG) RS Khatra said: On the basis of preliminary investigation, it seems to be a well-planned attack. Police and the forensic team will conduct a thorough investigation. Meanwhile, a case has been registered against the unidentified persons under Sections 307 (attempt to murder) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), on the complaint of Gurdevs wife, Sarabjeet Kaur. VILLAGE IS EPICENTRE OF SACRILEGE ROW Gurdev Singhs shop is located near the gurdwara from where a bir (copy of the holy book) was stolen on June 1 last year. That incident had led to tension in the nearby Bargari village from where torn pages believed to be of the bir were found four months later in October. In view of the sensitive situation, senior police officials, including DIG RS Khatra, senior superintendent of police (SSP) SS Maan and SP (detective) AS Sandhu rushed to Burj Jawahar Singh Wala village to take stock of security. While the excise department is conducting raids based on information regarding smuggling of liquor from Jharkhand to Bihar, people living on bordering districts of Bihar have adopted novel methods to get alcohol from Jharkhand. Excise department officials said they were taking steps to control smuggling of liquor from bordering districts to Bihar. Bihar was in April this year declared a dry state with the Nitish Kumar government imposing a total ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol including India Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) with immediate effect. Sources said buses and trains have become common means to carry small amounts of liquor to Bihar. A passenger could carry one or two bottles with them and sell them at a higher price in the neighbouring state. It is difficult to check each passenger and each family going to Bihar, said an excise department official. People have taken up new methods to smuggle liquor from Jharkhand to Bihar across river Ganges in Sahibganj district. Boats made of rubber tubes with small rims are being used for illegally carrying liquor. Cartoons filled with liquor are loaded on the boats and covered with plastic. People sit on both sides of the Ganges with ropes tied to the boat. The person sitting on the Bihar side draws the ropes to his side and unloads the liquor. The one sitting on the Jharkhand side pulls back the boat. Many people are also coming to bordering districts of Jharkhand including Deoghar and Koderma to spend days drinking alcohol. People come in Deoghar to perform puja at Baba Baidyanath temple and then stay back in hotels for a few days to satisfy their thirst for alcohol. The situation is similar in other states neighboring Bihar including Uttar Pradesh and Nepal, said an excise department official. The Koderma police have asked a team of policemen to conduct raids in buses, trains and other places. However, it is difficult to stop people who come to Jharkhand and go back after having drinks at roadside hotels, said the superintendent of police Kranti Kumar Gadideshi. It is very difficult to identify whether people purchasing and consuming alcohol in bordering districts are from Jharkhand or from Bihar, said deputy commissioner, excise, Gajendra Kumar Singh. The excise department said it was gathering information about the factories located on the Jharkhand-Bihar border for supply of liquor into Bihar. After a factory in Deoghar, another factory was found in Dhanwar in Giridih, a bordering district of Jharkhand, on Wednesday. Several machines, 80 liters of spirit, 15 liters of liquor and a large number of caps of royal stag and officers choice were found in the factory. The liquor could have been sent anywhere including across the border, said the officer-incharge of local police station. A group of women, dressed in pink sarees, performed a religious ceremony on Sunday near the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Ranchis Morahbadi area to seek divine help for their drive for liquor ban in Jharkhand. Members of Nari Shakti Sena (NSS), locally known as Gulabi Gang, have been spearheading an anti-liquor campaign and awareness drive against sale and consumption of liquor in Ranchi for the last one year. The voice for a complete ban on sale and consumption of liquor is resounding across Jharkhand but state politicians are apathetic. So, we performed a havan and puja seeking good sense to prevail over them so that they could understand the ill-effects of liquor consumption, NSS president Rani Kumari said. A survey released on June 8 said that in Jharkhand 23.4% men above the age of 15 years drink alcohol, which is the second-highest in the country after Chhattisgarh (33%). Tribal-dominated Jharkhand also has the highest number of women drinkers in the country, followed by Chhattisgarh. The survey said 3.1% of women above the age of 15 years drink alcohol in Jharkhand. The survey, which is a part of the nationwide sample registration system survey conducted by the Registrar General of India (RGI) in 2014, said most of the men or women drinkers are from rural areas in Jharkhand. The figure of rural men drinkers above 15 years is 26.4% while the same for urban is merely 14.5%. Experts said both states are tribal dominated where many tribes accept alcohol socially and culturally. In Jharkhand, womens anti-liquor campaign gained momentum in 2014 when hundreds of them destroyed material used to produce country-made liquor in Lohardga and Gumla. Liquor is a big hurdle in the way of womens empowerment. Women suffer the most economically and socially, Kumari said. The state government claimed to have launched several programmes for women empowerment but when it comes to banning liquor, it maintains silence, she added. Last week, hundreds of women held a demonstration in Dhanbad demanding a ban on sale and consumption of liquor in the state. We are impressed the way Nitish Kumar imposed a ban on sale and consumption of liquor in Bihar, Rekha Mahto, who participated in the demonstration, said. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar kick-started a liquor ban drive in Jharkhand last month after he banned sale and consumption of all kinds of liquor in April in a move seen as the fulfilment of a poll promise to women. Other than Bihar, a total ban on the sale of liquor is in force in the states of Gujarat, Nagaland and parts of Manipur; as well as in the Union territory of Lakshadweep. Kerala has been implementing prohibition in a phased manner since 2014. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Director Sam Anton, who has worked with actor GV Prakash Kumar for the second time in upcoming Tamil action-comedy Ennaku Innoru Peru Irukku, says unlike their previous outing, this film completely rests on the shoulder of the actor. The duo had previously worked together in 2015 Tamil horror-comedy Darling. Darling was a heroine-centric film. However, Ennaku Innoru is an out-and-out hero-centric film, despite the presence of nearly dozen strong characters. The film rests completely on the shoulders of GV Prakash, said Anton. Read: When actor GV Prakash Kumar kissed Manisha Yadav 36 times Prakash has evolved as an actor since Darling, said the director. He has worked really hard this time. In Darling, his character didnt require him to do much. However, this time he has really pushed himself to the edge in terms of performance. Out of the four songs in the album, he has danced to three like never before, he said. Watch the trailer of Ennaku Innoru Peru Irukku here: The film, which features Prakash as a gangster, is slated for release on Friday. Nearly 70 percent of the film has been shot at night. This is the story of the rise of a gangster. The film is filled with wacky characters and weve treated it with high-octane humour. The last half hour is where the film shifts gear and audiences will get to see something unexpected, said Anton, who would love to work with Prakash again. Read: Composer-turned-actor GV Prakash Kumar happy with Darlings success I hope there will be a third film with Prakash. I want to work with him again but not sure when it will happen, because hes busy with nearly half a dozen projects in his kitty, he said. Listen to the song Myma from Ennaku Innoru Peru Irukku here: The film is bankrolled by Lyca Productions, who are currently producing Rajinikanth-starrer 2.o. More than the pressure of working with such a big banner, I felt more responsible. Usually, producers come and see the rushes of the film at regular intervals. However, my producer only saw the film after it was certified. It shows the trust they had in me and my product, he said. ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop The Orlando gay nightclub massacre, the 2015 San Bernardino shootings, the 2012 shooting in a movie theatre in Aurora and the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting all have one thing in common the AR-15 assault rifle. The AR-15 is the civilian version of the M-16 assault rifle and a reliable estimate suggests there are around 5 million of these weapons in the US, making it Americas most popular rifle. While the weapon has rarely been used in crimes such as robberies, it has been linked to some of the worst mass shootings in recent years. Omar Mateen used an AR-15, which can pump out 45 rounds a minute in semi-automatic mode, in the attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The US state only requires a person to fill out an identification form and pay $8 for a background check to buy a deadly weapon such as the AR-15. The second amendment to the US Constitution states that the right of American citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed and organisations such as the National Rifle Association have zealously defended this right despite growing opposition to firearms following a series of mass shootings. The AR-15 was first built by the firm ArmaLite in 1959. It sold the design to Colt, which first began selling civilian versions of the rifle. Colts patent expired long ago and versions of the AR-15 are now made and sold by several firms, including Bushmaster, Remington Arms and Smith & Wesson. Versions of the AR-15 are available in the US for prices ranging from $499 to $899. Some with additional features and a higher calibre sell for more. What makes the AR-15 particularly deadly is that it can be illegally modified to fire in full automatic mode as was done by Syed Rizwan Farooq and Tashfeen Malik, the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino last December. One of their .223-calibre rifles was changed to fire in full automatic mode, where the weapon continues firing till the shooter stops squeezing the trigger, while the other was modified to be used with a larger magazine holding more bullets. A squeeze of the trigger in a semi-automatic weapon fires a single bullet. With between 300,000 and 500,000 AR-15s being made every year, the NRA has mounted a spirited defence of the weapon in the face of its use in several massacres. The NRA has said the AR-15s are used by good people for perfectly good reasons such as home protection and marksmanship competitions. There is even a gun porn blog from the NRA that suggests the various ways you can legally modify an AR-15. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave an aggressive response to the deadliest mass shooting in US history, quickly claiming the attack was the work of an Islamist militant while calling on President Barack Obama to resign and for Democrat Hillary Clinton to exit the presidential race. For Trump, it was an attempt to frame the attack in Orlando in a light favourable to his campaign for the November 8 presidential election. Early on Sunday, when few facts were known about the shooting, he boasted on Twitter that it proved he had been right about his warnings over radical Islamic terrorism. Trump cancelled a planned Monday evening rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire late on Sunday, because of the shooting, but will go ahead with a major speech at St Anselms College on Monday afternoon. In a tweet just hours after the incident, he wrote: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. Read | An act of terror and hate: Reactions to Orlando mass shooting Trump has made combating the threat of groups such as Islamic State a central part of his candidacy. It was Decembers attack in San Bernardino, California that killed 14 people that led Trump to propose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump re-visited the proposal on Sunday after at least 50 people died in the attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough, Trump wrote on Twitter. In a statement late Sunday, the businessman went further than US officials investigating the shootings by asserting that the attack in Orlando was the work of a radical Islamic terrorist. Islamic State, which controls land in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the shooting but US officials said they had seen no immediate evidence directly linking the militant group to the massacre. The shooter, US-born Florida resident Omar Mateen, was killed by police. Mateen, 29, called 911 on Sunday morning and made comments saying he supported the Islamic State militant group, officials said. A Trump supporter played Trumps speeches on a loudspeaker outside the Port St Lucie, Florida home of Mateens parents. Im a Cuban citizen and Im becoming an American citizen on July 6 and Im going to vote for the first time in my life for Donald Trump, said Arisley Travieso, 36, who works for a shredding company. Traveiso said he supported Trump because the Republican nominee sees the problem is Islamic terrorism. He (Trump) has been saying it nonstop. Call for Obamas resignation Trump ripped Obama for his long-standing refusal to refer to Islamic State and other extremist groups as in part representative of the religion of Islam. In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words Radical Islam. For that reason alone, he should step down, Trump said. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words Radical Islam she should get out of this race for the presidency. Trumps day-long barrage of tweets and statements contrasted with more cautious approaches taken by Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, and her fellow Democrat Obama. In remarks at the White House, Obama said the investigation into the shootings was ongoing and declined to speculate on the motives of the shooter. Weve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer, Obama said. The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. Similarly, Clinton, in a statement, called the attack an act of terror but did not speculate about the ideology of the gunman. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work, and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead, said Clinton, who expressed her sympathy for the victims and said weapons of war have no place on US streets. Bangladesh police said Monday they have arrested more than 8,000 people in a nationwide crackdown on militants launched after a series of murders targeting minorities and secular activists. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina vowed on Saturday to catch each and every killer as Bangladesh reels from a wave of murders of religious minorities and secular and liberal activists that have spiked in recent weeks. Police spokesman Kamrul Ahsan said 3,245 suspects had been arrested in the last 24 hours, raising the total number to 8,192 since the campaign began Friday. Bangladeshi authorities have come under mounting international pressure to end the attacks, which have left nearly 50 people dead over the last three years. But opposition parties have accused police of using the crackdown to suppress political dissent. Many of those arrested were suspected ordinary criminals with existing warrants against them. Read: Facebook, Microsoft, Google to remove inappropriate content for Bangladesh Weve arrested 3,245 people including 34 Islamist militants on the third day of the nationwide anti-militant drive, deputy inspector general AKM Shahidur Rahman told AFP. Only a fraction of the people who have been arrested are members of Islamist militant groups. Most of those who have been detained have warrants of arrests against them or they are charged with narcotics, arms and other criminal offences. The week-long crackdown is part of ramped up efforts to halt the killings, with five suspected Islamist militant group members shot dead in gun battles with police in recent days. Among those arrested in the latest sweep were members of banned group Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), police said. JMB is one of two local groups blamed for most of the recent killings. The government rejects claims of responsibility from the Islamic State (IS) group and a South Asian branch of Al-Qaeda, saying international jihadists have no presence in Bangladesh. The deadliest shooting in modern US history has people around the world wondering why mass violence keeps happening in America. For those who have lived through mass shootings, and for the law enforcement officers trying to prevent them, the answer is self-evident. Because we allow it, said Sandy Phillips, whose daughter was among 12 killed at Colorado movie theater in July 2012. The nation began the week mourning the 50 people killed early Sunday when a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Authorities are investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism, a hate crime, or both. Politicians lamented the violence as tragically familiar despite its staggering scale. The causes of mass shootings are as disparate as the cases themselves, but those involved in other tragedies couldnt help but feel the similarities. President Barack Obama called the latest massacre a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. Although the Orlando shooters motives, and allegiance to Islamic extremism, arent yet clear, the massacre already sparks echoes of last years attack on a social services center in San Bernardino, California. Read| Americas favourite gun: AR-15 used by Orlando shooter has bloody history For Ryan Reyes, whose boyfriend was killed in that case, the shootings have less to do with gun control and more to do with highly charged political rhetoric and how people treat each other. The issue is American society, he said. We are to blame, and the fact that we refuse to accept the fact that we are to blame just makes it worse. Its what we do to each other that causes these people to get to the point where they feel this is the only option. Still, guns get their share of the blame. Laws that allow almost anyone who has not been convicted of a felony to purchase guns have made it too simple to get weapons and ammunition, Phillips said. That includes semi-automatic rifles like the Orlando gunmans AR-15, a common denominator in many of the worst recent mass shootings: Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino, to name a few. More frustrating, Phillips said, is that even the most horrifying massacres have provoked little change. A man places a rose and a rainbow flag for the victims of the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando in front of the US Embassy in Berlin, Germany, June 13, 2016. (Reuters Photo) The best chance might have come after a gunman in the Sandy Hook community in Newtown, Connecticut, killed 20 first-graders and six adults at a school, just months after the theater shooting in 2012. Obama dedicated much of the start of his second term to pushing legislation to expand background checks, ban certain assault-style weapons and cap the size of ammunition clips. That measure collapsed in the Senate, and since then, the political makeup of Congress has made new gun laws appear out of reach. Obama and other proponents of reform have all but quit calling for action after major attacks, shifting instead to simply decrying the fact that they can even happen. When politicians do succeed at pushing for tighter gun measures, they risk their careers. In Colorado, fresh off the Aurora theater shooting and still healing from the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in which two students killed 13 people and themselves, Democrats in the state Legislature in 2013 muscled through new laws requiring universal background checks and banning magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. Gun control advocates considered it a victory, until furious gun rights supporters forced from office two state senators who supported the measures. We could have done something about this in the years since Columbine, since Sandy Hook, said Marcus Weaver, who was wounded in the theater shooting and whose friend was killed. When is enough enough? Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, disagreed that stricter gun laws are the solution. I think theres other root causes in play, he said. I think mental health is a huge issue. One of the motivators is really that ISIS continues to exist, Islamic terror in other forms continues to exist. Many mass shooters have been found to have severe psychological problems, including the Colorado theater shooter and the man who tried to assassinate Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011. For Phillips, the story is the same, each time. We have made it so easy in this country, for anyone any one, she said. It doesnt matter who that person is or what their agenda is. Read| Omar Mateen: How a playful Afghan child became Orlando shooter Read| Im gonna die: As Orlando shooting unfolded, horror for a mother via text Defence secretary Ash Carter says that at least one US Apache helicopter has been used for the first time in combat in Iraq. He says an Apache was used to strike an Islamic State target in the last 24 hours or so. The strike was part of the ongoing effort to encircle and eventually retake the northern city of Mosul, which is under Islamic State control. Carter was speaking to reporters traveling with him to Brussels for a meeting of NATO defence ministers. The U.S. has had Apache helicopters in Iraq for some time. While in Iraq in April, Carter announced the US was offering to use them in combat but any final decision on when would be up to the Iraqis. The number of nuclear weapons in the world is declining but China is increasing and modernising its arsenal, a new report by a Stockholm-based military think-tank said on Monday. The report estimates the number of Pakistans nuclear weapons to be between 100 and 130, as against the 100 to 120 nuclear weapons in Indias arsenal. It also estimates China has 260 nuclear weapons as of 2016. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual nuclear forces data that at the start of 2016, nine countries possessed approximately 4,120 operationally deployed nuclear weapons. The data shows that while the overall number of nuclear weapons in the world continues to decline, none of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future, SIPRI said. The report said the worlds nine nuclear weapon states the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea together possess approximately 15,395 nuclear weapons compared with 15,850 in early 2015. China appears to be gradually increasing its nuclear forces as it modernises its arsenal. India and Pakistan are both expanding their nuclear weapon stockpiles and missile delivery capabilities, the report said. North Korea is estimated to have enough fissile material for approximately 10 nuclear warheads. However, it is unclear whether North Korea has produced or deployed operational weapons. Shannon Kile of SPRI said, Despite the ongoing reduction in the number of weapons, the prospects for genuine progress towards nuclear disarmament remain gloomy. All the nuclear weapon-possessing states continue to prioritise nuclear deterrence as the cornerstone of their national security strategies. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, speaking on Monday after the massacre in a Florida nightclub, said the United States must find a way to keep the country safe without demonizing Muslim Americans. Clinton called for statesmanship, not partisanship in the aftermath of the shooting in Orlando while Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, urged the monitoring of mosques in the United States and reiterated his calls for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. Fifty people, including the gunman, the US-born son of Afghan immigrants, died in at the gay nightclub in what was the deadliest shooting in US history. Clinton, in several television interviews, said she would support stronger measures to prevent so-called lone wolf attacks and urged closer internet monitoring. She said she was committed to protecting the rights of Muslim Americans at the same time. We cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous, Clinton said on the MSNBC network. She also called for steps to prevent people who are on the US no-fly list from purchasing guns and said possible restrictions on assault weapons needed to be part of the debate. Trump plans to deliver a speech on national security at 2 p.m. EDT (2330 IST) on Monday in New Hampshire. The topic was a change from his earlier plans to criticize Clinton and what he said was her scandal-prone past. Trump said on CNN that the United States needed better intelligence-gathering to prevent incidents such as the Orlando massacre. We have to look at the mosques ... and we have to look at the community, he said. And believe me, the community knows the people that have the potential to blow up. European Union President Donald Tusk says that voting to leave the bloc would be a geopolitical setback for Britain, and it would take at least seven years to negotiate a new Britain-EU relationship. In an interview with German daily Bild published Monday, Tusk said a vote to leave in the June 23 referendum would be a setback not just economically but above all geopolitically for Britain. He was quoted as saying that no one can foresee the long-term consequences but he fears Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction not just of the EU but of the entire political civilisation of the West. Tusk said cutting treaty links between Britain and the EU would take around two years and negotiating a new relationship would take at least another five. The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, is a fringe political commentator who rails against Pakistan and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Seddique Mateen, who public records indicate is the father of Omar Mateen, had an occasional television show on a US-based Afghan satellite channel for about three years, and has continued to post political commentaries on his Facebook page as recently as Sunday. Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called Durand Jirga, which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinents former British rulers. In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his sons rampage had nothing to do with religion. He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, US-born Omar Mateen, 29, of Florida, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry. We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident, NBC News quoted Seddique Mateen as saying. We werent aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country. Read | Omar Mateen: How a playful Afghan child became the Orlando shooter Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when he came to the United States. He did not return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email. Khatab said Seddique Mateen would show up at his studio in Canoga Park, California, three or four times a year to tape his shows. Hed talk for about two to three hours, Khatab said in a phone interview. Hed buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day. Read | 50 killed, 53 injured: What we know about the Orlando shooting Critical of Pakistans ISI Khatab said Seddique Mateens political views were largely anti-Pakistan. A YouTube channel under Mateens name had more than 100 videos posted between 2012 and 2015. One of the videos refers to the killer ISI - the acronym for Pakistans main military-run intelligence service - and says the agency is the creator and father of the worlds terrorism. US officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against American targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations. US officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection between the Florida attack and Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between Omar Mateen and any such group. Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single US mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. Seddique Mateen interviewed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in January 2014, according to a video posted on his YouTube channel. The interview touched on economic development and youth unemployment in Afghanistan. Khatab said Mateen conducted the interview in Kabul and brought it to California for broadcast. Candidacy for Afghan Presidency During the interview Mateen praised Ghani but by the following year had changed his views, apparently angered by Ghanis outreach to Pakistan in his bid to start peace talks with the Taliban. In a 2015 video, Mateen declared his own candidacy for the Afghan presidency, even though there was no election at that time. In the videos, he wears a Western suit and tie and speaks Dari, a dialect of Persian spoken in northern Afghanistan. He harshly criticizes Ghanis policies both at home and abroad and lashes out at Pakistan, its intelligence service, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and some senior Afghan government officials and jihadist figures. In a February video on his Facebook page, he addresses Taliban members and castigates them for being the servants of the ISI. In a June 11 video posted on Facebook, Mateen is dressed in military fatigues and says Afghanistan must punish the traitors. I wish a hero one day removes Ashraf Ghanis turban and slaps this crazy man, he said in the video. This traitor has rolled up his sleeves to destroy our country. On Twitter, Ghani condemned the Orlando attack and called it an act of terror. Read | Man with arms cache in car sought to harm LA Gay Pride parade arrested Read | A look at some of US deadliest rampages since 2012: Timeline Frustration over online gambling debts prompted a 29-year-old man to carry out the crude bomb attack inside Shanghai airport that injured five people, including the attacker, police said on Monday. The attacker, identified as Zhou Xingbai from Guizhou region in southern China, was seriously injured when he slashed his throat after lobbing the home-made bomb into a crowd of passengers near a check-in counter inside Terminal 2 of the busy Shanghai Pudong international airport on Sunday. The others injured were three Chinese nationals and a Philippines citizen. According to the version of events shared by Shanghai police, Zhou planned the attack well in advance. On Sunday, he took a long-distance train from a city neighbouring Shanghai and reached the airport at 2.30 pm. He was carrying a beer bottle filled with crackers, police said. Once at the airport, he chose a place, lit the crackers and threw the bottle into the crowd. Investigators found remains of the crackers in a rented house at Kunshan near Shanghai, where Zhou had stayed before taking the train to the city. Police said he had accumulated online gambling debts over the years while working in an electric company. Subsequently, he lost all his money, borrowed from friends and lost that money too. Before carrying out the attack, Zhou said in a WeChat - a popular mobile social media app - group that he was in "heavily in debt", had planned to do something "crazy" and was ready to die. Police did not specify how much debt he had incurred. There have been a few instances in China in the recent past where personal problems or a sense of injustice against local authorities have triggered acts of violence by lone attackers. In July 2015, a man in northeastern China set himself alight after launching a knife attack in a government building, killing one person and injuring another. Grievances against the local government apparently triggered the attack. New Yorks Empire State Building went dark while the spire of One World Trade Center lit up in the colours of the gay pride flag in memory of the victims of the Orlando massacre. The symbolic move came as the United States mourned the 50 victims of the worst mass shooting in modern US history, gunned down at a gay club in the Florida city (Photo: Empire state building Twitter Handle ) One World Trade Centre lit up in the colours of the gay pride flag in memory of the victims of the Orlando massacre. The symbolic move came as the United States mourned the 50 victims of the worst mass shooting in modern US history, gunned down at a gay club in the Florida city. World trade centre love this respect #loveislove pic.twitter.com/lBXDTVA8Pn Stephen Brooks (@Stephen_Brooks1) June 13, 2016 In the wake of the attack by a heavily armed assailant, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all flags would be flown at half-staff in the largest US city and that security measures have been strengthened, in particular around places associated with the LGBT community. Orlando Eye lit up the wheel in rainbow colours Our hearts go out to the victims of last night's tragedy. Tonight we stand with our city as we light the wheel in rainbow colors. The Orlando Eye (@theorlandoeye) June 12, 2016 A rainbow flag is held up with the name of the gay nightclub where the worst mass shooting in US history occured in Orlando,Florida, during a vigil in front of the White House in Washington. (REUTERS) De Blasio told reporters that the shooting that also left dozens injured was against our values. He said there were no credible threats directed at New York City. But youll see a lot of additional police presence on the streets of the city, he added, stressing: No city in the world is better prepared to stop terror, to stop hate. Hundreds of people gathered yesterday evening in Greenwich Village to reflect on the violence and leave flowers, candles and letters beside a sign reading Stop Hate. The Tony Awards, which honour the best of Broadway, opened in New York dedicated to victims of the shooting, the deadliest terror attack in America since September 11, 2001. The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by one of the soldiers of the caliphate. God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them, a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio, a media outlet for the IS extremist group said. The jihadist group declared its caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2014. Authorities said Omar Mateen opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at a gay nightclub early Sunday before being killed in a shootout with police. Another 53 people were wounded in the shooting. Dozens of bodies were slowly removed overnight from a popular Orlando gay club after a gunman sprayed the helpless crowd with bullets in violence that killed 50 people and devastated a city famous for family-friendly theme parks. When the attacker opened fire in the early hours of Sunday morning, it interrupted an evening of drinking, dancing and drag shows at a club known for tolerance for all people. Authorities say suspect Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and fired relentlessly - 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot at police. He took hostages. When the gunfire at the Pulse Orlando club finally stopped, 50 people were dead and dozens critically wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting in which at least 50 people were killed and 53 others injured when a lone wolf gunman opened fire early on Sunday in a gay nightclub, where a state of emergency has been declared. In a message published on the groups semi-official news agency, Amaq, it described gunman Omar Mateen as a soldier of the caliphate, The Telegraph (UK) reported. Although the statement did not clarify Mateens relation to the group, but the language appeared to suggest he was viewed as a lone wolf attacker. The gunman Omar Mateen, 29, was killed by a SWAT team after he took hostages at Pulse, a popular gay night club. It is believed that the suspect, who was a US citizen from the Florida town of Port St Lucie and was of Afghan descent, was not on a terrorism watch list, although he was being investigated for an unrelated criminal act, BBC reported. Officials said the killings were likely to be ideologically motivated, though there was no information that the gunman was associated with a particular group. He was armed with an assault rifle, a handgun and an unspecified device, said officials. It appears he was organised and well-prepared, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said. The shooters father told NBC News: This has nothing to do with religion. Mir Seddique said Omar Mateen had been angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami recently. We are saying we are apologising for the whole incident. We werent aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country, Seddique told NBC News . US President Barack Obama was briefed on the mass shooting, which police described as an act of terrorism. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and loved ones of the victims. The President asked to receive regular updates as the FBI, and other federal officials, work with the Orlando Police to gather more information, said a statement by Barack Obamas press secretary. US Congressman Alan Grayson said it was no coincidence the attack happened in a gay club. Relatives were gathering at local hospitals desperate for news of their loved ones. Many had received calls and texts from loved ones inside the club as the siege began, and some have heard nothing since. The death toll given by Mayor Dyer means that the Orlando attack surpasses the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech which left 32 people dead. Today we are dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable, he said, adding that there was an enormous amount of havoc and blood everywhere. Because of the scale of the crime Ive asked the [Florida] governor to declare a state of emergency, he said. Were also issuing a state of emergency for the city of Orlando so that we can bring additional resources to bear to deal with the aftermath. A group of influential Pakistani clerics has issued a fatwa against killings over perceived damage to a familys honour and reputation, saying they are against the teachings of Islam. The Sunni Ittehad Council, a representative body of the Barelvi Sunni Muslim ulema or clerics, has said anyone involved in an honour killing is a heretic. The ruling came after a flurry of attacks on women, including murders committed in the name of honour such as last weeks killing of 16-year-old Zeenat Bibi in Lahore after she married a man of her choice. The teenager was burnt to death by her mother. The Sunni Ittehad Council, which includes more than 100 prominent clerics, is affiliated with the Barelvi school of Sunni Islam. The other school prominent in Pakistan is the Deobandi school, which is seen to endorse some of the violence against women. Earlier this week, a man killed his wife in the name of honour by attacking her with a fork. Last Friday, a father in Lahore killed his daughter and her husband because he disapproved of their marriage. In May, a 16-year-old girl accused of helping a young couple elope was killed and her body set on fire, in a case that again brought honour killings into the national spotlight. In 2015, more than 500 men and women were the target of honour killings, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The toll this year, as of Monday, was 233, the group said. Most suspects in honour killings are never prosecuted. The council called on the government to amend laws that allow family members to forgive perpetrators in honour killings, which means charges are often dropped. In February, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif praised an Oscar-winning Pakistani film on honour killings, raising hope among activists that long-pending legislation on the issue would be passed. However, no progress has been made so far. The last of the bodies were removed from an Orlando gay nightclub overnight as investigators dug into the background of the gunman, who called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State during the attack that left 49 victims dead. We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater, Mayor Buddy Dyer vowed on Monday, a day after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. The killer, who died in a gun battle with a SWAT team early Sunday, was identified as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim. FBI officials said they had investigated him in 2013 and 2014 on suspicion of terrorist sympathies but could not make a case against him. A man holds a poster as he attends a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting in Florida, in Hong Kong on June 13, 2016. (AFP) Mateen opened fire at the Pulse Orlando club with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in such close quarters that the bullets could hardly miss. He was gunned down after police used explosives and a small armored vehicle to punch a hole in a wall and allow dozens of club-goers to escape, police said. Ive always felt so safe here for my family, kids. And now, I dont know, said Marlon Massey, who lives across the street from the club, in the city known to tourists around the globe as the home of Walt Disney World and other theme parks. President Barack Obama called the shooting an act of terror and an act of hate against a place of solidarity and empowerment for gays. Law enforcement authorities said Mateen made a 911 call from the club in which he professed allegiance to the Islamic State. Renowned sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik gives tribute to the victims of Orlando terrorist attack with the message One World, One Message, End Terrorism in Puri. (PTI) Authorities have not said whether Mateen was directed by the Islamic State or simply acted in sympathy with the extremist group in a so-called lone wolf attack. His father suggested another motive: anti-gay hatred. The father said his son got angry a few months ago when he saw two men kissing in Miami. And Mateens ex-wife said he was mentally ill specifically, bipolar. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant and lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, where he had worked as a security guard. The Islamic States radio called Mateen one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America. Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the extremist group, hailed the attack, saying that it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it was the worst attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Even if the attacker sympathized with the Islamic State, it was unclear whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateens father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters Monday that the attack was against my principles, against what I taught him. I am as sad as the rest of the country, he said. He said if had known what his son was planning, he would have arrested him himself: I dont allow nobody to do any kind of crime or terrorist act inside the United States. People attend a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco, California. (Reuters) Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and the others died at hospitals, the mayor said. By Monday morning, families of 24 of the victims had been notified, Dyer said. Workers removed the bodies four at a time on stretchers and loaded them into white vans. The action was repeated over and over. The covered bodies were taken to the county medical examiners office. All were there by 11 p.m., Dyer said. At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb. On Monday morning, officials emphasized that there was no immediate threat to the public. The shooting started about 2 a.m., with more than 300 people inside the Pulse, where it was Latin night. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance, said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next to her get shot. I just tried to get out of there. Jon Alamo had been dancing for hours when he wandered into the clubs main room just in time to see the gunman. You ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? Thats how he was shooting at people, he said. My first thought was, Oh, my God, Im going to die, Alamo said. I was praying to God that I would live to see another day. Pulse patron Eddie Justice texted his mother, Mina: Mommy I love you. In club they shooting. About 30 minutes later, hiding in a bathroom, he texted her: Hes coming. Im gonna die. Justices name would eventually be added to the list of the dead. A man places a rose and a rainbow flag for the victims of the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando in front of the US Embassy in Berlin, Germany. (Reuters) The previous deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself. Mateen was not unknown to law enforcement: In 2013, he made inflammatory comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent Ronald Hopper, who called the interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber, but the agent described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen bought at least two guns legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Mateen exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, he had a handgun. Police Chief John Mina said officers held back for some time because Mateen indicated he had a bomb vest. About 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the remaining club-goers, Mina said. The Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for an attack on a gay nightclub on Sunday that left 49 revellers dead, has a history of extreme violence against gays. A bulletin from the groups Al-Bayan media outlet on Monday praised the shooter, Omar Mateen, for the attack in a nightclub for followers of the people of Lot -- a term it uses for gays. While there is no indication IS coordinated the attack, the worst mass shooting in modern US history, the group has killed dozens of gays in the areas it controls in Syria and Iraq. It has published videos of allegedly gay men being thrown from rooftops or stoned to death. - Terminology - Since it founded its self-proclaimed caliphate in 2014, IS has carried out dozens of execution-style killings for what it calls sodomy and sexual deviance. IS also refers to gays as followers of the people of Lot -- a reference to the biblical and Koranic prophet associated with Sodom and Gomorrah. According to the Bible and the Koran, God destroyed the two cities after their people engaged in same-sex relations. - Theology - In a 2015 article in its online magazine, Dabiq, IS claimed that the early Islamic ruler, Abu Bakr, sentenced a man found guilty of committing sodomy to be burned alive. It also claimed that Abu Bakr had a tradition of taking those who committed this filthy deed to the top of buildings and throwing them off. IS says it is implementing the rulings of Allah against people who practise any form of sexual deviancy or transgression. It carries out similar sentences against people accused of adultery and sorcery. It blames western society for promoting gay and lesbian lives against the teachings of Allah. - Executions - In the same article, IS published pictures of a man it said was guilty of engaging in sodomy to the top of a building and him thrown off. That is one dozens of killings IS has carried out against men it said were gays in both Syria and Iraq. The LGBT rights group OutRight Action International has recorded more than 30 such acts since December 2014, backed by videos and pictures, although they could not be verified. The most recent series of photos is dated 7 May. It shows a group of men and children attending the execution of a young man who is thrown from a four-storey building. His body is then apparently stoned. - Crimes against humanity - These executions are based on an IS penal code established in 2014, which the group claims is based on a the principles of Islamic law. The United Nations has accused the jihadist group of crimes against humanity for its acts of beheading, crucifixions and slavery. Gays face discrimination across the Islamic world. They risk being condemned to death in countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen. Malaysias Rayani Air, the countrys first Sharia-compliant airline owned by an ethnic Indian Hindu couple, was shut down on Monday, months after it was suspended for failing to adhere to aviation rules. The Malaysian Aviation Commission (MAVCOM) revoked Rayani Airs Air Service Licence (ASL) after finding that the airline had breached the conditions of its licence. It said the airline also lacked the financial and management capacity to continue operating as a commercial airline. As a consequence, Rayani Air can no longer operate as a commercial airline with effect from today, it said. The airline was founded by Ravi Alagendrran and his wife Karthiyani Govindan and started operations in December last year. They used parts of their first names for the airlines name. On May 25, MAVCOM had issued a show-cause letter to Rayani Air after it had completed its evaluation of the airlines commercial standing and capabilities to determine whether it could continue as an ASL holder. MAVCOM required the airline to submit its representation in writing within 14 days before the commission decides on whether Rayani Air should be allowed to continue to hold the ASL or whether it should be revoked, or suspended. Rayani Air submitted its representation in writing to MAVCOM on the last day of the stipulated time. After reviewing Rayani Airs written representation, MAVCOM has decided to revoke the ASL as the representations made by Rayani Air are not satisfactory responses to the show cause letter dated May 25, 2016, it said. The commission also said the airline was still liable to refund its customers. Customers who have purchased tickets with Rayani Air but were not fly may lodge a complaint with the company and seek a refund. In the event consumers are not able to obtain their refunds, they can file a civil suit for those refunds. Alternatively, affected consumers may lodge a formal complaint with the Commission, who can hear and determine the complaint, with a view of protecting legitimate consumer interests. The Commission may apply for its decision to be registered as a judgement of the Malaysian High Court. A man whose car contained a cache of weapons and bomb-making materials was arrested on Sunday after telling police he wanted to harm the Los Angeles Gay Pride parade, authorities said. James Howell, 20, was detained in nearby Santa Monica with multiple weapons, ammunition and bomb-making materials in his car, which had Indiana license plates, police said. The arrest came just hours after 50 people were massacred at a gay nightclub in Florida. Santa Monica police chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said on Twitter that Howell told officers about wanting to harm (the) Gay Pride event, in reference to the annual L.A. Pride parade that took place in Hollywood on Sunday amid beefed up security. Read | Florida nightmare: 50 killed, 53 wounded in worst mass shooting in US history Los Angeles county sheriff's deputies watch over the 46th annual Los Angeles LGBT Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California, following the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida earlier in the morning. (Reuters) Santa Monica police said in a statement that Howell was arrested after a resident reported a prowler knocking on their door and window at around 5.00 am. When officers responded, they found Howell sitting in a car with three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, the statement said. Additionally, officers discovered a five-gallon bucket with chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device, it added. Watch | Los Angeles: Pride attendees react to Orlando shooting Read | As IS links emerge, father says Orlando suspect not motivated by religion Seabrooks said there was no known connection between Howell and the carnage in Orlando, Florida -- the worst mass shooting in US history. Authorities said they had considered calling off the parade but then decided to go forward while beefing up security, including placing undercover police in the crowd. The march went ahead without incident. KATHMANDU: Nepals former Maoist prime minister Baburam Bhattarai launched a party on Sunday, urging people disillusioned with old ideologies to be part of the movement for economic revolution. The move came nine months after he quit the countrys biggest Maoist party. The Naya Shakti Nepal was made official at a public gathering in Kathmandus Dasarath Stadium where Bhattarai administered oath to thousands of party members. After promulgation of the constitution, the new challenge for Nepal is development and prosperity, and the Naya Shakti aims to lead that change, Bhattarai stated. Bhattarai said the party has a plan to reduce poverty significantly within the next seven years, increase per capita annual income from the present $700 by 10 times within 15 years and make Nepal one of the richest countries in the world in 25 years. We shall strictly follow a system of one person-one executive post, and one executive post maximum two tenures, he said. Once considered a Maoist ideologue, the JNU alumnus had severed ties with the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) over ideological differences with chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda. He had quit the party nine days after promulgation of Nepal s new constitution in September, stating his old party wasnt good enough for the country. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Speaking for the second time about the Orlando shootings, President Barack Obama on Monday said the attack was a case of homegrown extremism, and that the shooter, Omar Mateen, may have been inspired by the Islamic State but not directed by it. It appears the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet, Obama said in remarks from the Oval Offie after a meeting with his national security team. We see no clear evidence that he was directed externally, he said. It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL. But there is no evidence so far that he was in fact directed by ISIL (another name for Islamic State), and at this stage theres no direct evidence that he was part of a larger plot. Obama likened the shootings to the San Bernardino attack last December, when a married couple of Pakistani descent gunned down 14 people and pledged allegiance to the IS while on the run. Mateen had declared his allegiance to the group in a 911 call he made before he opened fire on a Saturday night crowd at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Obama, who had renewed a call for reconsidering the countrys gun laws in his first remarks on the shootings on Sunday, drew comparisons with other such incidents on his watch to point to how easy it is for people to acquire deadly weapons such as the ones used by Mateen. Mateen used an AR-15 assault rifle, the same kind used by Colorado theatre killer James Holmes and Newtown school mass murderer Adam Lanza, and a Glock handgun he had recently purchased legally, despite his past brushes with the FBI, which twice investigated him for terrorist links. Long before Omar Mateen, the US-born Orlando shooter, was radicalised around 2013, he was a wife-beater, a woman briefly married to him told US media outlets. His father, Seddique Mateen, an Afghan-descent American with political ambitions, told a TV news station his son was a homophobe and the shootings had nothing to do with religion. Investigators are looking for his motives, but 29-year-old Mateen professed allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 call around the time he opened fire at the gay nightclub Pulse. Authorities revised the death toll to 49 on Monday, saying the earlier count included the shooter, who, FBI special agent Paul Wysopal said, cannot be included as a victim. Mateen, who was born in New York and grew up in the US, had been on the FBIs radar since at least 2013, when he was first investigated, special agent Ron Hopper said. Read: Omar Mateen: How a playful Afghan child became Orlando shooter He was investigated again in 2014, but the cases were closed as inconclusive for lack of prosecutable evidence, the FBI has said. Mateen was interviewed twice in connection with the first case launched after he was heard making inflammatory remarks to his colleagues at his workplace and claiming jihadi links. The FBI investigated him again in 2014 for possible links to Moner Abu Salha, the first American suicide bomber in Syria. The FBI closed that case too, concluding the contact was minimal. Through all this, Mateen was employed by security company G4S, which said in a statement he had been on its rolls since September 2007 though it was not clear if this was continuous. Read:As IS links emerge, father says Orlando suspect not motivated by religion Media reports suggested Mateen was also in touch with Marcus Dwayne Robertson, a US marine who became a jihadi preacher transitioning through a variety of intermediate phases. Sitora Yusufiy, who was briefly married to Mateen, said in multiple interviews they met in 2009 on a dating site. She moved to Florida to be with him and they married shortly after. Yusufiy, who said she migrated to the US from Uzbekistan in 2000, noticed Mateens erratic behaviour within six weeks of their marriage. He began beating her and took away her pay cheques. Their marriage lasted a few months. He was not a stable person, she told The Washington Post. He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasnt finished or something like that. Otherwise, Mateen seemed like a normal human being, Yusufiy has said, adding he didnt seem very religious and preferred to spend his spare time working out in a gym. After his divorce from Yusufiy in 2011, Mateen is understood to have married again this time he had a son but this relationship ended in divorce too. No details were available. Mateens father, Seddique Mateen, who is a prolific broadcaster on local community TV network, one of zillions in every neighbourhood, has said his son is a homophobe. He was angered, the senior Mateen claimed, by the sight of two men kissing in Miami a few months ago. Angered enough to cause the death of 49 people? Omar Mateen allegedly gunned down 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday. The 29-year-old with roots from Afghanistan was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and who at one point expressed interest in becoming a police officer, though he never pursued it. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. Mateen attended evening prayer services at the citys Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. When he finished prayer he would just leave, Rahman told The Associated Press. He would not socialise with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful. Mateen opened fire early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, killing 50 people and wounding more than 50 others before he was gunned down during an exchange of fire with Swat team members, authorities said. They say Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a call to 911 on the morning of the shooting. Rahman doesnt think the attack was political or due to anti-American sentiment, though. He said it was more likely the result of psychological issues Mateen may have had. My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with ISIS, he said. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesperson who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., and ran a talk show "Durand Jirga Show" on a California-based TV channel. (YouTube screengrab) Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesperson who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show named Durand Jirga Show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The law enforcement official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Read | Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was homophobe, wife beater: Reports The shooter in 2013 made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and Mateen was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and at one point wanted to become a police officer but never pursued it, the imam said. He was also into body building. He was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence. The shooting was totally unexpected, Rahman said. Read | As IS links emerge, father says Orlando suspect not motivated by religion The impact of the Orlando killings on the US presidential campaign depends on whether swing voters perceive it as a terrorist attack inspired by the Islamic State (IS) or a hate crime driven by homophobia. If the former, the advantage lies with Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has done well from Muslim bashing. If the latter, gun control and gender sensitivity will be the theme and Democratic candidate Hillary Clintons the beneficiary. Read: Omar Mateen: How a playful Afghan child became Orlando shooter Trump has done well from terror before. He saw his poll ratings jump four percentage points after the IS attacks in Paris and Brussels and an additional three points after the IS-inspired attack in San Bernardino, California. It was then that he called for a ban on Muslim immigrants. He was denounced worldwide but three-quarters of Republican voters supported his line and helped him win the nomination. Read: Clinton, Trump postpone poll campaigns after Orlando shooting Trump has sung the same tune after Orlando. Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term and we will have no way to screen them, he said afterwards. Clintons response was to speak of Orlando as an act of terror and hate, but also noting the need for gun control reform. Trump then seized on the fact she and President Barack Obama avoided the term radical Islam or any reference to gunman Omar Mateens religion. Clinton was forced to say radical Islam after being taunted by trump even while admitting she didnt like the phrase. This political correctness is sensible for Democrats, but goes down poorly with independent swing voters. Read: Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was homophobe, wife beater: Reports A poll in May saw Clinton far ahead of Trump on presidential leadership qualities, but nine percentage points behind when it came to handling the IS. Unsurprisingly, her staffers say she will soon issue a tough speech on handling the IS. Trump will seek to capitalise on Orlando. One, he will seek to rally Republican and right-leaning independent voters to his flag on security concerns. In particular, stem the leakage of votes to the free-market Libertarian Party. Read: Orlando massacre thrusts terror threat into White House race Two, he will up his language against Muslims and Islamist terror generally. By raising this bogey just hours after the attack, Trump is already breaking a norm that candidates refrain from blame games just after a tragedy. Three, he will seek to swing around Florida, which is among the biggest electoral states. Earlier this month, an Orlando Sentinel poll gave Clinton the state, 45% versus 42 % for Trump. This could now be in jeopardy. It is still five months before election day, so Orlando will have plenty of time to fade from electoral concerns. But in the run up to the attack, with Trump still entangled in squabbles with fellow Republicans, Clinton had been slowly gaining ground in opinion polls. After a brief moment when Trump was ahead by a few points, she is now ahead by over three percentage points. This momentum may now be arrested. The Republican candidate will seek to put it in reverse. The next few days will see whether calling for a ban on Muslims will fare better than a ban on guns with a terror-stricken electorate. White House hopeful Donald Trump appeared bent on exploiting Sundays massacre in Orlando to boost the argument that he can be trusted to tackle terrorism over rival Hillary Clinton. Read: Saturday night massacre : Blaring music, flashing lights, pop, pop, pop With many victims of the carnage yet to be identified, and police still probing the suspected Islamist ties of the slain gunman, Trump wasted no time in harnessing the assault to his political advantage. The presumptive Republican nominee unleashed a broadside accusing President Barack Obama and his would-be Democratic successor Clinton of failing to tackle what Trump calls radical Islam. Read: Appreciate congrats for being right on Islamic terror: Trump on Orlando massacre Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen -- and it is only going to get worse, he said in a statement. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We cant afford to be politically correct anymore. Trump is set to deliver more of the same tough talk at a campaign appearance in Manchester, New Hampshire on Monday. The speech was originally to be about Clinton, but he is shifting the focus to national security. His other Monday event, in Portsmouth, has been scrapped, his campaign said. Read: Orlando shooting worst act of terror since 9/11: Fear returns to US shores As the country reeled from what is being treated as the deadliest attack on US soil since September 11, 2001, Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, said the threat of terrorism was likely to dominate the US campaign debate. It will be at the forefront until election day, he told AFP. Waterboarding After extremists slaughtered 130 people in Paris last November and a Muslim husband-and-wife team murdered 14 in San Bernardino, California, Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States. The move prompted an uproar, but he doubled down, presenting himself as prepared to do more to crack down on extremism than his political rivals. After San Bernardino, It became a permanent part of the Trump dialogue, said Quinnipiacs Malloy. In March, following a deadly attack in Brussels, Trump said his insistence on defeating extremism was probably why Im number one in the polls. Opinion polls late last year showed a majority of Republicans supporting Trumps call for a Muslim travel ban. Trump and Clinton are promoting radically different approaches to fighting terror, and have traded accusations that the other is not fit to run the country. Trump has repeatedly called for a halt to refugee flows from West Asia and assailed Clinton for wanting to expand them. He says he is prepared to re-authorise torture methods such as waterboarding in terrorism cases and advocates targeting the families of terror suspects. Trump also repeatedly argues that attacks like the one in Paris would have seen far fewer casualties if people had been armed to defend themselves. According to Quinnipiac, voters see Clinton as far more prepared than Trump to handle an international crisis -- but they see Trump as better able to tackle the IS threat. Strongman Clinton leads Trump in most head-to-head matchups, but things can happen in the final weeks and months before the election, explained Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. What if we have an attack like Paris in October? he asked. Maybe people will say we cant trust a person whos never had any experience. But maybe there is the allure of a strongman. Clinton argues that her experience -- as first lady, US senator and top diplomat -- makes her the most qualified to be president. She has reminded voters she urged Obama to authorise the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. But Trump touted his own clairvoyance about national security challenges, tweeting the congrats he received for being right on radical Islamic terrorism. Clinton spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri hit back at Trump for having put out political attacks, weak platitudes and self-congratulations. Trump has offered no real plans to keep our nation safe and no outreach to the Americans targeted, just insults and attacks, CBS News quoted Palmieri as saying. The Orlando nightclub shooting puts the US anti-terror strategy under new scrutiny again, since the gunman who took away 50 lives in a hate-fueled rampage had been previously cleared of jihadist ties. As the worst mass shooting in modern US history erupted on Sunday, Orlando police blasted their way into the Pulse nightspot and shot the attacker dead. The murderous assault triggered grief but also defiance in the gay and lesbian community, and more than 100,000 marched in a planned Los Angeles Gay Pride parade. In New York, the Tony Awards for musical theatre went ahead as planned but were dedicated to the victims of the massacre. We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate, President Barack Obama said, as the FBI investigated the shooter. Prominent US Muslim figures, Pope Francis and world leaders condemned the attack, which is being treated as the worst act of terror on US soil since September 11, 2001. The FBI admitted that 29-year-old Omar Mateen had previously been investigated -- but cleared -- for ties to a US suicide bomber. Special agent Ronald Hopper also said Mateen was reported to have made a 911 call pledging allegiance to IS shortly before the massacre. Meanwhile, the IS-linked news agency Amaq said without providing evidence that one of its fighters carried out the attack. Read | Saturday night massacre : Blaring music, flashing lights, pop, pop, pop President Barack Obama speaks about the massacre at the White House on Sunday. (AP) But the group, which has previously been a conduit for Islamic State statements cited only a source, leading experts to doubt the claim. Terrified survivors described how the gunman raked club-goers with bullets, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue. Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York in 1986 and lived in Port St Lucie, Florida, about a two hour drive from Orlando. His father Mir Seddique told NBC News his son may have been motivated by homophobia, insisting: This had nothing to do with religion. Read | Omar Mateen: How a playful Afghan child became the Orlando shooter FBI probe FBI agents keep watch during the 2016 Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood, California on Sunday. (AFP) The suspects ex-wife, who divorced him in 2011, told reporters he had been violently abusive to her but was not especially religious. But the FBIs Hopper told reporters Mateens behavior had raised red flags well before Sundays attack. In 2013, he was probed by the bureau after making inflammatory comments to co-workers that suggested terrorist ties. Later, in 2014, he was again questioned by agents investigating his contacts with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a fellow Floridian. Abusalha became notorious as the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria, and was reportedly a member of an al Qaeda affiliate. We determined the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time, Hopper said. The Orlando atrocity came at the height of what is already a heated US presidential election campaign, and the main candidates were quick to react. Read | Im gonna die: As Orlando shooting unfolded, horror for a mother via text Hostage rescue FBI assistant special agent in charge Ron Hopper, centre, answers questions from members of the media after a fatal shooting at Pulse Orlando nightclub. (AP) Democratic flag-bearer Hillary Clinton postponed a joint campaign rally with Obama and tweeted that her thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. Her Republican rival Donald Trump, meanwhile, lost no time in claiming the attack proved he was right to promise a ban on Muslims entering the US. Trump demanded Obama resign for failing to publicly blame the massacre on radical Islam, and vowed to make a speech on security policy Monday. If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore, Trump declared. Events at Pulse unfolded over a three hour period from around 2.00 am (0600 GMT) when shots rang out amid the throbbing music. Police said the gunman was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. A policeman working extra duties at the club responded and two other officers exchanged fire with the suspect. Police stormed the venue after the suspect fell back inside, and broke through a wall with a wheeled armored vehicle known as a BearCat. It was unclear whether all the victims were killed by the gunman or if some died in crossfire during the assault to rescue his hostages. Read | In pics: Empire State goes dark, One WTC lights up to honour Orlando victims Im trapped People wave flags during a vigil in reaction to the mass shooting. (AFP) Witness Janiel Gonzalez described scenes of mayhem as the gunman sprayed revelers with bullets. It was like complete chaos, he told AFP. It was like a scene out of a movie. People were screaming Help me, help me, Im trapped. People were getting trampled. There was no clear exit sign at the club, so we didnt know which door to take or where to go. The massacre -- which coincided with Gay Pride month in the United States -- cast a long shadow over the parade in Los Angeles. Chillingly, a man was arrested in nearby Santa Monica with weapons and explosives in his car. Police said he had no known connection to the Orlando bloodshed. Read | A look at some of US deadliest rampages since 2012 It didnt take very long for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump to shed the cloak of restraint and go straight to using the Orlando shootings to bolster his run. He was untypically restrained in his first tweet, shortly after the shootings by Omar Mateen on Sunday: Really bad shooting in Orlando. Police investigating possible terrorism. Many people dead and wounded. There was no reference to radical Islam, unlike in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and Brussels when he shot off the block without waiting for details. On Monday, he waited. His next tweet indicated where he was going: Horrific incident in FL. Praying for all the victims & their families. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant? That was a reference to his repeated call for the US to get tougher on terrorism, without offering a plan other than bombing the hell (occasionally s***) out of the Islamic State. In the next tweet, after an hour, Trump wheeled around to his usual self, and the restraint was gone: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! He was in full election mode now, stoking Islamophobia as he has before, hitting all the buzzwords in the book that appeal to a certain section of his constituency, but not beyond. Trumps next tweet was based on reports that remain unconfirmed, Reporting that Orlando killer shouted Allah hu Akbar! as he slaughtered clubgoers But the Republican nominee wouldnt let facts come in his way, as many times before. His intention was to stoke fear, play on the sense of outrage and insecurity being felt all around. What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough. Canadian hostage Robert Hall is believed to have been killed by his captors in the Philippines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday, in what appears to be the second execution of a Canadian hostage by the militant group Abu Sayyaf in the area in recent months. Trudeau said Canadian officials were working with authorities in the Philippines to confirm the death of Hall, who was taken captive with three other people by the militants in September 2015 from an upscale resort on Samal island, hundreds of miles (km) east of Jolo. Trudeau said in a statement there was reason to believe that Abu Sayyaf had executed Hall. Hours later, he told reporters that Canada holds the terrorist group who took Mr. Hall hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder. The prime minister said the Sunday attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando and the killing of Hall serve as devastating reminders for all of us, the vicious acts of hatred and violence cannot be tolerated in any form. Abu Sayyaf, based in the south of the mainly Catholic country, is known for kidnapping, beheadings and extortion. It initially demanded one billion pesos ($21.67 million) each for the detainees, but it lowered the ransom to 300 million pesos each early this year. The group executed Canadian John Ridsdel, a former mining executive, in April. A Norwegian man and a Filipino woman are still held captive. Philippine security forces were checking intelligence reports that al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants executed Hall on the remote southern Philippine island of Jolo. Preliminary intelligence reports said he was beheaded 10 minutes after the 3pm deadline in the mountains outside the islands Patikul town. Abu Raami, spokesperson for the Abu Sayyaf Group, confirmed the beheading in a telephone call to a local newspaper, Philippine Daily Inquirer. The report could not be independently verified. Wilfredo Cayat, police chief of Jolo island, said officials were checking reports that said Hall was beheaded in Mount Bunga by Ben Yadah, a local Islamist militant holding four captives - three foreigners and a Filipino - since September 2015. We dont know if this is true because we know there are ongoing negotiations for their release, he told reporters. Security is precarious in the southern Philippines despite a 2014 peace pact between the government and the largest Muslim rebel group that ended 45 years of conflict. ($1 = 46.1470 Philippine pesos) Tributes poured in from across the world Monday for the victims of the Orlando massacre, with global landmarks swathed in rainbow colours as people rallied behind the stricken gay community. In the outpouring of solidarity similar to that seen after the Paris and Brussels attacks, political and religious leaders lined up to condemn the worst mass shooting in US history and to reject homophobia. US President Barack Obama condemned the shootings in the Florida city as an act of terror and an act of hate and ordered flags at half-staff. Pope Francis voiced shock at the homicidal folly and senseless hatred of slain gunman Omar Mateen, who gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Joining the chorus of tributes, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that the Eiffel Tower would be lit up Monday night in the colours of the rainbow in memory of the victims. Paris is with Orlando, the mayor of the French capital, which is still recovering from the November jihadist attacks in which 130 people were killed, tweeted along with a rainbow-coloured heart. On Sunday, the spire of One World Trade Center in New York was already dyed red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, as was a sign in giant letters spelling Toronto in a square in the Canadian city. This is pride. Toronto stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community around the world, Toronto Mayor John Tory tweeted. #Loveislove Social media were flooded with messages condemning the attack using anti-homophobia hashtags #loveislove or #lovewins. Some posted images of a black ribbon or a ribbon combining the US and rainbow flag colours. Following the latest in a string of mass gun killings in the United States that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in the past two years, Obama said the FBI was appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. Although its still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate, he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said tolerance must prevail. Although such deadly attacks cause profound sadness in us, we are resolved to continue with our open and tolerant lifestyle, she told German television on the sidelines of a visit to China. While most leaders avoided polemical statements, the foreign minister of Lithuania, Linas Linkevicius, tweeted that the attack posed a challenge for us all & #Muslims of the world. How long bunch of cowards will hide under religion&kill in the name of #Islam? he asked. Australians gather to place candles and flags in Sydney on June 13, 2016, in solidarity with the global gay community after a gunman opened fire in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing over 50 people. (AFP Photo) In a statement from the Vatican, the pope lamented the tragic loss of life. The attack caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation... before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred, the statement said. Stop hate On Sunday, hundreds gathered in New Yorks Greenwich Village to leave flowers, candles and letters beside a sign reading Stop Hate. In London, the PinkNews website said bars in the Soho district, which also has a thriving gay scene, would close on Monday evening and that customers would be invited onto the street to hold hands. French President Francois Hollande reacted with horror to the Orlando attack, issuing a statement extending the full support of France and the French people during the ordeal. A woman cries and holds flowers in front of a makeshift memorial to remember the victims of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, in New York, Sunday, June 12, 2016. (AP Photo) Belgiums Prime Minister Charles Michel also tweeted his condolences over the attack, which comes two-and-and-half months after dual strikes by jihadists on Brussels airport and metro killed 32 people. Deeply saddened by the loss of so many innocent lives in Orlando shooting. We join families in their grief, he said. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani also condemned the attack carried out by a suspected US-born 29-year-old of Afghan descent with a reputation for violence and homophobia. I unequivocally condemn the horrific attack in Orlando, Florida, USA. Nothing can justify killing of civilians, Ghani tweeted. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron and the royal family also issued statements condemning the violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country stands shoulder to shoulder with the United States at this moment of tragic loss. The leaders of Russia and China also sent messages of support. Chinese President Xi Jinping called Obama to express his sincere condolences to the American people, the Chinese foreign ministry said. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country has been condemned for attacks on gays, called the killings a barbaric crime. Baljit Singh, an Orlando restaurateur, has been working the phones since he came to know of the mass shootings at Pulse nightclub to offer his Sikh communitys help any way he can. We want to be in the first row to tell Orlando we are a part of the community and are ready and willing to help, he said on phone, adding he had been asked by authorities to wait. Orlandos Sikhs an estimated 125 families have offered help through their two gurdwaras to the local administration in the aftermath of the killing of 49 people by Omar Mateen, who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. We want to help any which way we can, said Harjit Singh, a priest at Gurdwara Nanaksar Florida, which caters to the community in Orlando and the adjoining city of Kissimmee. The Sikhs have offered to raise money for food and donate blood for the injured, Singh said. And plans are afoot for a candle-light procession to demonstrate our support to the community. Baljit Singh, who has been in the US for 31 years and in Orlando since 2002, said authorities have asked the community to wait for the situation to settle down. We were told specifically not to proceed with the candle-light vigil given the security situation and a high state of anxiety all around, even in the administration, he said. The restaurateur, who once ran World Sikh TV network, said he has been in touch with OneBlood, a blood bank accepting donations for treating the wounded. The response to blood donation calls has been so overwhelming that OneBlood issued an appeal to prospective donors to return in a few days. An official at the second gurudwara, Sikh Society of Central Florida, said, Our doors are open for the survivors or relatives and we trying to contact them or groups helping them. The Adams Express Company, established in 1840 and the 19th-century equivalent to todays express delivery services, played a significant role in the Civil War, initially serving as a shipping agent for both the Union and Confederate governments. Complaints arose about Adams dual service, and the company established the Southern Express Company as a separate affiliate. General Orders, No. 77, dated October 22, 1862, exempted Southern Express employees from conscription. Virginian James Hawkins worked as an agent for the Southern Express on the Virginia Central and the Orange & Alexandria railroads and wrote about his wartime work. His diaries, housed in Navarro Colleges Pearce Civil War Collection, contain numerous references to his company, the West A Guard, but evidence suggests Hawkins probably never mustered into Confederate service. He felt an affinity for the West Augusta Guard, reorganized in 1861 to become Company L, 5th Virginia Infantry, because it was from Woodstock, Va., his hometown, and included many of his friends. Hawkins worked for Southern Express from at least 1862 to May 1865, frequently traveling to Richmond, Charlottesville, Staunton, Gordonsville and Lynchburg. On April 2, 1865, Hawkins returned to Richmond after a run to Charlotte, N.C., with Confederate money and found himself caught up in the evacuation of the Confederacys capital. In a letter to his mother six weeks later, Hawkins recounted the evacuation and his own harrowing trip to Greensboro, N.C.: No. One Danville May 15th 65 Dear Mother I arrived in Richmond the memorable Sunday of the Evacuation about 1 OC PM. Just getting back from Charlotte where I had been with a large sum of C.S. Govt Coin. Found every thing in an awful excited condition burning valuable paper and money at all the different Departs Treasury, War, Medical, State Capitol of Va etc. destroying all that they supposed would be of any service to U.S. Govt. Found they had also pressed the Companys horses etc. but they were after liberated by orders Secty of War. I went to Central Depot supposing I might find some of the boys going Home & send a letter to you all, but no chance. I had then resolved to go home by way of Ly[n]chburg but on returning to Express Office was asked by Col. Bullock if I would not take charges of the horses and two large wagons (containing all monies in hand) as far as Lynchburg. I at once decided that I had better do it. S. Stiles accompanied me as driver of the 4 horse team although he at first refused to leave Richmond. We got every thing ready loaded up and left Richmond Sunday night 12 OC precisely having five (5) safes and a large lot of the books belong to the office besides supplies for man & beast. We took the North Side of Jas. [James] River with our two wagons while Col. Bullock with 4 of the Co[mpanys] horses & one wagon loaded with private baggage from Col. Ould, Col. Hatch, Maj. French Hamilton & himself took the South side of River. I had directions to [go] by Lynchburg if not too closely pressed by enemy. On the evening of 2nd day out we crossed Jas River 51 miles above Richmd at Carterville. The Enemys Cavalry pushing upas fast as possible about the 4th we met up with Col. Bud Harman & daughter, he walking & his daughter being with a Capt. who had offered her a seat in his wagon, and gave him a seat on our wagon as near the SSRR [South Side Railroad] as we would go he wanting to [go to] Lynchburg when we arrived 2 miles from Appomattox Depot. I took two of my horses and accompanied him to Appomattox to hear some definite information and could gain nothing left him then & came back to wagons concluded to make a bold start for Lynchburg. We reached Concord Depot 12 miles from there about 4 OC PM. Met an operater Teleg[r]aph Co. coming out and he informed us the Enemy expected in every moment. Everybody that could get away was leaving we staid there until dark when the Refugees, wagons, etc. began to crowd the place. We turned and at once made for Staunton River to reach the other side below Campbell CH as the enemy were in possession there. I had forgotten to tell you that we met up with Col. Ould, Col. Bullock etc. in Cumberland Cr. When Col. B gave me directions to take the Lynchburg stroll with us also and the Petersburg horses if we met up with them, asking me at the same time if I would not take charge and accompany them on South to Augusta, Geo[rgia] saying he would be very glad if I would etc. I came to the conclusion at once that I had better agree to his request as it might do me some good in the end. We had when we left Richmd two clerks (Raborg & Davis) whom he directed I should leave in Lynchburg when we reached there as he had no farther use for them but as we did not get there I did not inform them of what he said until we crossed Staunton River at Pannills bridge when they started to Danville on a Govt wagon train. We intended originally to go through Henry Co. striking above Danville but the enemy were ahead of us [and] we had to turn off again. I think the whole route was the worst I ever seen, the mud being often above the hubs, had to unload several times and get a team to help pull the empty wagon out then to work and reload. Army wagons, artillery etc. behind and ahead of us and stragglers by the thousand just going along taking all they could find. It beat anything I ever seen since the war about the 10th or 11th we heard of Genl Lees surrender and on the 12th just 10 days after leaving Richmd arrived within 10 miles of Danville and were informed by Dozens from there that it was evacuated. Enemy about in better move or we would be caught that night as they were advancing from there. We concluded we would wait anyhow, being completely out of food for ourselves & horses. The animals so dead on their feet they could hardly move the wagon at all and concluding there was no use they would catch us anyhow. It was my watch that night we three, Stiles, William (colored Driver of 2 horse wagons) & myself relieving each other alternately. I discovered about 2 OC in the morning that a wagon camp just below us of 20 Army wagons and 120 mules had been deserted by the teamsters or had recd order from the Maj QM to take what they wanted and leave as there was no use trying to get out. We came to the conclusion we had better go and get some feed, etc. anyhow. So Stiles & myself went down to their camp, found all the men had left or about leaving after cutting the mules loose. We caught a couple (the woods being almost full of them) hitched them to a wagon loaded with corn and threw in a lot of Bacon from a wagon load of that and started for our Camp. About half way there the wagon stuck in the mud the little mule pulled himself clean out of his harness, kicked up his heels & away he went. I then cut the harness off the other & William came down & we took 8 bags of the corn [and] the Bacon and carried it to our wagon. I amused myself from then till after day by the stragglers coming along they would catch these mules & mount them bare back and away they go a party of 114 passed us all mounted on mules caught around the camp at once. A little after light who should come along but Maj. John Harman from [the] direction of Danville, advised us to cut loose from wagon bury the valuables in the woods and leave. We come to [the] conclusion we would make another trial anyhow to get across the Dan River and accordingly started for Bachelors ford. We had to pass within 7 miles of Danville that route and expected we would be overhauled there but were not. So we drove in the woods and I took one of the leaders [mules] to ride towards Danville & see how things were as the horses could go no farther, being completely given out, rode into town and found the place was evacuated but no enemy within 10 miles of there. So I went out & brought the wagon in at once.The next day I took the safes & started for Charlotte by train leaving Stiles to cut loose from the wagon & come in (him & William) with stock [the] next day at Greensboro, read a telegram from Mingling stating that Stiles refused positively to come any farther. So the teams had to remain here. I staid in Greensboro NC 14 days amidst the greatest scene of confusion & excitement I ever beheld. Johns[t]ons army arrived there a few days after I did and lay around the 10 days truce or Armistice between Sherman & himself. The last of the CS Govt was also there a part of the time including Jeff Davis, Benjamin, Breckenridge, Trenholm etc. nearly all the big men. (Jeff Davis and I suppose the balance have since been captured in Georgia). The C.S. Govt had vast amounts of Stores there, 114 lbs [of] sugar alone, Bacon by the thousand, Corn and enough Army grey cloth to furnish a suit for every man in the Armies [of the] South. Nearly everything was carried off by the mob consisting principally of these NC woman (who beat everything I ever saw in the shape of Females) and Cavalry, Citizens & Negroes besides that they cleaned out trains loaded with stuff from Raleigh. At last I managed to get away the road having been fixed (where [Union cavalry Maj. Gen. George] Stoneman men had torn it up) and reached Charlotte NC the 28th I staid while I was there with Mr. Bates Supt who treated me finely & particularly after living ever since I left Richd on Corn bread & fat bacon & not enough of that. About then Genl Johns[t]ons Army surrendered to Gel Sherman, and Charlotte was taken possesion of by Schofields troops Stoneman moving South after Jeff Davis who left Charlotte about [the] time I got there. I at once got my parole and started home May 9th but met Col. Bullock at Lexington NC (Just from New York) aboard a U.S. troop train when he said I had better accompany him back as wanted me to attend to some business. I concluded to do so and next morning recd appointment of Agt at this point and immediately in here and relieved Mingling. This place is garrisoned by a portion of the 6th Corps USA under Gel Wright. Tell Little Sis and Big Sis to write me long letters with all the town gossip that you all can think of as it will be good news for me now. Ma I would like to see you all very well suppose I will have a chance maybe after a while but cannot tell certain. Also let me know if you have heard from Grandma & the rest of them. Give my best love to all the Girls around town. Would like to see them all mighty well, but dont suppose they are all married yet are they.Love to Aunt Alice, Aunt Kansas, John, Reggy, Pinks etc. if they have not left yet. Ma, about my clothes. I am rather short at present. Want you to fix them. What [do] you think. I will need that is all the nicest etc. put what you can in that Sole leather trunk (tell Pa to have the lock fixed first though) and as soon as possible send them to me. I will write again though or telegraph before you send them to me. You can just be getting them ready you know. Everything so unsettled now. I hardly know how to act. You all write me a long letter about everything. What the girls didnt think of, you can you know. Tell Miss Azzie I think she owes me a long letter, to write and give me the news. I have been very busy since I have been here. My love to all at Woodstock. Where is Bill Haas at, back yet from prison. How about the darkies in town, all free I suppose are they. Have you heard from Will & wife yet? When is John Gibson at home or not. Albert Hunter also. Who has been married since I left and ought to be. How does [Staunton] look. Any stores open etc. With much to all at home I am your Ever Aff son JP Hawkins This article was written by Julie Holcomb and originally appeared in the May 2003 issue of Americas Civil War magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Americas Civil War magazine today! David Rodes and Norman Wenger step out of Wengers red Ford Explorer to look at an old farmhouse in Virginias Shenandoah Valley. At the time of the Civil War, this place was owned by Abraham Heatwole, Rodes says. And he had a wife named Magdalenah and she was a pretty sassy lady. Rodes knows about Magdalenahs sassiness because she was his great-great-great-grandmother and he grew up hearing stories about her. She was always saying, I told you so, he says. And one day Abe came in and told her, Maddy, the cow ate the millstone. And she said, I told you shed do that. And then she realized shed been had. He laughs. Thats the kind of person she was. Rodes heard many family stories about Abe and Magdalenah, but he never heard that they smuggled draft dodgers and deserters out of the Confederacy through a secret pro-Union movement operating in Virginia during the Civil War. He didnt learn about that until he and Wenger began researching their family histories at the National Archives and discovered, to their amazement, that they both had ancestors who were activists in the movement. My sympathies were altogether on the side of the Union from beginning to end, Abraham Heatwole testified in one of the documents that Rodes and Wenger discovered. My house was a sort of rendezvous for refugees and deserters from the rebel army making their escape from the Confederacy. He kept at our house a great many refugees and helped them to escape, Magdalenah Heatwole said in another document. We were in constant danger from having so many come to our place for concealment and refuge while getting ready to go north. Now, standing in front of the Heatwole house, Norman Wenger flips through the pages of a bookone of the six volumes of documents that he and Rodes have published about the Unionist underground. He reads from the deposition of Abes brother-in-law, John Rodes: His house was a kind of depot for refugees and deserters. He had a very good place for concealing them where they could not be found. It was one of the terminals of the Underground R.R., which was the means of conducting several thousand persons from the Confederacy during the war. Several thousand persons. When Rodes and Wenger read that, they realized theyd stumbled upon a story that was far bigger than family history. Theyd discovered proof of a secret Virginia-based, pro-Union movement previously unknown even to Civil War historians. We started this to find out about our families, Rodes says, And then we started seeing this overall pattern about an underground railroad. Family stories never mentioned that, Wenger says, but the documents prove it. Their search began in 1998, when Rodes and Wengerwho both grew up in Mennonite families in Rockingham County, Va.read a slim volume called Mennonites in the Confederacy and spotted footnotes that hinted at untold stories about their ancestors. There was a footnote in there about my great-grandfather Jacob Wenger, says Wenger. It quoted one of his neighbors testifying to his loyalty to the Union: He seemed to rejoice at the approach of the Union Army and said we ought to go roasting turkeys for them. That caught my eye. Rodes noticed a footnote that quoted his great-great-great-grandmother, Fannie Bowman Rodes. Im going to use the language that she used, OK? he says as he tells the story. She quoted what the Confederates said about her family. She said, They said we were lower than niggers. That caught my eye. To be lower than slavesto be lower than property! Property had some value. We had no value. Intrigued by those footnotes, Wenger and Rodes decided to do more research. Neither man is a professional historianRodes, now 60, runs a gift shop and Wenger, 61, is the general manager of a farmers cooperativebut their curiosity propelled their search. The footnotes quoted documents from the Southern Claims Commission, so Wenger and Rodes traveled to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., to search through the commissions records. The Southern Claims Commission was established in 1871 to judge petitions filed by Southerners asking to be paid for their propertyusually crops or livestockthat had allegedly been seized by Federal soldiers during the Civil War. Before paying any claim, the commission required that claimants prove two thingsthat they had remained loyal to the Union and that the U.S. Army had confiscated their property. Both propositions were difficult to prove, and consequently most of the 22,000 claims were denied. But every recorded claim, whether approved or not, illuminates what life was like for civilians in Civil War battle zones. Sometimes wed have tears in our eyes as we read those claims, Rodes recalls. First, Wenger and Rodes searched for claims filed by their ancestors, but they soon decided to dig up every claim filed by residents of Rockingham County. There were plenty of them because the county is located in the heart of the Shenandoah Valleythe breadbasket of the Confederacyand General Phil Sheridans Union army systematically plundered and burned the Valleys crops in the fall of 1864 in an effort to starve Robert E. Lees Confederate army. During their 15 or 20 trips to the Archives, Wenger and Rodes photocopied 298 claims from Rockingham Countymore than 12,000 pages of documents, some containing tales of murder, betrayal, hatred and heroism. Fascinated by the stories, they decided to publish all of the claims. Between 2003 and 2012aided by grants from local historical groups and the expertise of Dr. Emmert F. Bittinger, a sociology professor at Bridgewater College in Virginiathey published the documents in the six-volume series Unionists and the Civil War Experience in the Shenandoah Valley. Our mission was to preserve these documents, Wenger says. We havent made any money. Its a labor of love. But not everyone in the Valley shares that love. Some folks dont want to hear about local people who supported the Union during what they sometimes call the War of Northern Aggression. When Volume 1 came out, we gave a talk on our research and got a real chilly reception, Wenger recalls. I made the comment that if you were a third- or fourth-generation native of Rockingham County, chances are you had a relative who was a Unionist. And a guy got up and said, I really resent that remark! And we found out later that one of his ancestors was involved in the underground railroad, Rodes adds, smiling. I called him to tell him that but he wouldnt accept it. I did all I could to assist refugees and deserters from the rebel army to escape from the Confederacy, a farmer named John Brunk told the claims commission in 1875. I am a Mennonite and had charge of a Mennonite church near my place where I concealed them. Roughly two-thirds of the claims uncovered by Rodes and Wenger were filed by Mennonites or by members of the Church of the Brethren, also known as Dunkers. These pacifist Christian sects opposed slavery, and their membersmost of them farmers of German descentwere appalled at the Souths rush to secession after Abraham Lincolns election in 1860. Secession means war; and war means tears and ashes and blood, Elder John Kline, the leader of the Brethren in Rockingham County, wrote in his diary on January 1, 1861. It means bonds and imprisonment and perhaps even death to many in our beloved Brotherhood, who I have the confidence to believe, will die rather than disobey God by taking up arms. Elder Klines ominous predictions soon proved true. On May 23, Virginia held a referendum to decide if the state should secede from the Union. The Rockingham Register urged a unanimous vote for secession, and local rebels visited the farms of Mennonites and Brethren to demand their support. The day before the election, two men came to my place from Harrisonburg, John Brunk testified, and while talking about the election said if I voted for the Union I would be hungand if I did not vote, I would be driven from the county and my property confiscated. The next day, armed secessionists, some carrying nooses, surrounded the polling places. Inside, voters learned that the ballot wasnt secret: They had to announce their votes aloud. In the town of Mount Crawford, a man named Harrison defied the mob, voted for Union and then headed home. This company of men went after him and got him and brought him back, a farmer named Joel Garber told the claims commission, and said they were going to hang him. Harrison agreed to change his vote, and Garber, whod planned to cast a ballot for Union, instead voted to secede: I was afraid for my life. The threats worked. Of more than 2,000 votes cast in the county, only 22 favored staying in the Union. Secession meant war, as Elder Kline had predicted, and soon Confederate recruiters interrupted services at Mennonite and Brethren churches to demand that all men between the ages of 18 and 45 report for service in the army. Some men complied, secretly vowing that theyd never fire their weapon at another human being. Others refused to serve and were imprisoned. And many fled through the mountains, heading north or west, pioneering what would soon become a well-organized stream of refugees. In March 1862, a group of about 70 menmost of them Mennonites or Brethrenwere captured in the mountains and hauled to Richmonds infamous Castle Thunder prison. Elder Kline and two other religious leaders were also arrested and sent to Castle Thunder. They were released about a month later, after the Confederate Congress passed a law permitting religious dissenters to avoid military service by paying a $500 fine. Some wealthy Mennonites and Brethren paid their fines and kept working their farms. But $500 was a huge sum in that era and many farmers couldnt afford it. Those men also fled through the mountains, stopping to eat and rest at the farmhouses and churches that made up the underground railroad. Elder Kline continued his ministry as a circuit-riding preacher, visiting Brethren churches in Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Some Rockingham County Confederates considered Klines trips to the North evidence that the pacifist preacher was a Yankee spy. On June 15, 1864, Kline was riding home after repairing a neighbors clock, when he passed two Confederate militiamen lying in ambush. One of them fired a bullet into Klines back. The preacher tumbled from his horse and lay gasping on the path. The soldier stepped forward, stood over the man whod predicted that secession would kill some of his congregation, and delivered the coup de grace: a single shot to Klines heart. This house looks pretty much like it did in the Civil War era, Norman Wenger says, as he and Rodes stand in front of an old white house with a tin roof. During the Civil War, Jacob Miller owned this farmhouse. Miller took over the leadership of the Brethren church when John Kline was killed, he says. That was a terrifying job: Millers brother Daniel testified that Confederate soldiers threatened to kill Jacob shortly after Klines murder: I heard them say he would be killed next and several more would be killed soon. Now, Wenger flips through Volume 2 of his Unionist books and reads from Millers deposition: My name is Jacob Miller. I am 61 years old. I am a farmer and preacher in the Dunker church. . . . I aided and assisted a large number of refugees and deserters to escape from the Confederacy. I have kept them concealed or have fed them and sent them to other agents and guides. I have had them come to my house from distant counties in the night. My house was one of the Depots of the underground RR, as it was called. Wenger stops reading and looks up. I was surprised to see people use the term underground railroad in the depositions, he says. I thought that was a term people came up with a hundred years later. But they called it that themselves. He adds that he and Rodes found no connection between the underground railroad in Rockingham County during the Civil War and the famous Underground Railroad that aided escaped slaves before the war. Millers deposition is just one of dozens that mention Rockingham Countys underground railroad. Poring through thousands of pages, Wenger and Rodes pieced together a picture of how the operation worked. It was, they say, a highly organized system, run mainly by Mennonites and Brethren, and designed to guide men seeking to avoid Confederate service to safety behind Union lines. The underground devised its own code: A refugeea draft dodger or deserterwould be taken to a terminal or depot, usually somebodys farm, where groups of men would gather to wait for a pilot to guide them over obscure mountain paths to safety. The usual destination was New Creek, now known as Keyser, W.Va., the Union state on Rockinghams border, where refugees could catch a B&O Railroad train to Northern towns. Wenger and Rodes say theyve identified more than 30 depots in Rockingham County. And they found references to 12 different pilots. Mr. Keester and Mr. Ruderson were the principal pilots, Andrew Lindsey, an active member of the underground, testified. Mr. Keester told me he had taken about 2,000 men through [the mountains] during the last two years of the war. At first, most refugees were local Mennonites and Brethren, but by the end of the war, men came from farther south. There are depositions that mention people coming from Georgia and North Carolina, Wenger says. I believe if you looked at all 22,000 claims in the National Archives, youd find that this underground railroad was organizedloosely organizedin the entire South. Wengers speculation could well be true, says Dr. Victoria Bynum, professor emeritus of history at Texas State University and author of The Long Shadow of the Civil War, a study of pro-Union dissidents and guerrilla fighters in Confederate states. It is a reasonable supposition that a study of the Southern Claims Commission files would likely reveal other pockets of religious resistance to the Confederacy, Bynum said in a recent e-mail interview. There is evidence of secret networks of Unionists, and harboring of draft-age men, in other areas of the South. In North Carolina, the Heroes of America, also known as the red strings, are a perfect example. This [pro-Union] group had clear religious ties with Quakers, Wesleyan Methodists and perhaps the Moravians of central North Carolina. Southern Unionists, she added, are a vital topic of study among historians of the Civil War. Skeptics sometimes ask Wenger and Rodes the barbed question: How do you know that the people who filed these claims werent lying or exaggerating their pro-Union activities in order to convince the claims commission to give them money? Its certainly possible that some people lied, the men respond, but highly unlikely that dozens of witnessesincluding many who didnt file claimsfabricated matching stories over nearly a decade about the underground railroad. The stories fit, says Rodes. I was a Depot Agent, John Harshbarger testified. We would harbor parties and feed them in our barn and in the woods until we could get a small company to our pilot. I would prepare their rations and they would start for the mountains at night, Margaret Rhodes told the commission. We had a place under the floor under the house where we would conceal persons when necessary. It was entered by a trap door in my bedroom and covered by a carpet so no one would suspect anything. When the refugees would come in for food, my brothers would watch for the coming of rebels while the refugees were eating, Mary Gangwer testified. We had a closet with a trap door to a large place behind a chimney where we concealed them. Despite the best efforts of the Unionist underground, not all the refugees reached the North. Others were captured by the [Confederate] scouts, and their orders were to shoot them, John F. Lewis, who later served as a United States senator from Virginia, told the commission. Whenever a man was caught attempting to make his escape through the lines, they shot him. But the Confederate Army wasnt the only danger to the Valley Unionists. The Union Army was also a threat. When General Sheridan rode through the Valley in the fall of 1864 with orders to destroy crops in the Confederacys breadbasket, his soldiers didnt care about the political views of individual farmers. They stole the livestock and burned the barns of secessionists and Unionists alike. Rodes great-great-great-grandparents, Abraham and Magdalenah Heatwole, operated one of the most active depots on the underground railroad, but that didnt stop Sheridans soldiers from confiscating five of their horses, two saddles, 75 pounds of butter, 10 gallons of molasses, 40 gallons of apple butter, two barrels of flour and three bushels of sweet potatoes, according to Abe Heatwoles deposition. They also stole, killed and butchered two sheep, two hogs and two cows outside the family barn. I got a piece of one of the sheep and of one of the hogs, Magdalenah testified, and cooked it for our own family. Her cooking must have smelled good: When she finished, the soldiers confiscated that meat, too. Seven years later, in 1871, Abraham Heatwole filed a claim requesting $996.25 to pay for his losses. He and his wife told the commission about their role in the underground railroad, but they also admitted that Abe was so terrified by the mob outside the polling place in 1861 that he voted for secession. His claim was denied. We regard the vote for a dissolution of the Union as the highest kind of disloyalty, the commissioners wrote. We therefore reject the claim. David Rodes stops the car again, this time in front of an old two-story brick house near the tiny town of Linville. Green ivy crawls up the houses red brick columns. During the Civil War, the house belonged to Jacob Geil and his wife, Mary Wenger Geil. Mary Geil, shes a sister of Jacob Wenger, so she would be my great-grand-aunt, says Norman Wenger. Hes standing outside the old house, thumbing through another of his books until he finds Mary Geils deposition. She says, During the war we had at our house a great many refugees, which my husband kept and fed and harbored until the guides would come and take them to the mountains. Marys husband stayed home on the day of the secession vote, which no doubt helped him with the claims commission. Geil requested $761 to pay for the horse, cattle, oats and hay seized by Sheridans soldiers. In 1877, the commission awarded him $480. Thats interesting information but its not what Norman Wenger is looking for right now. He wants to find a phrase that Mary used in her depositiona phrase that has become a running joke between Wenger and Rodes. He finds it a few lines down the page: Our place was called by the secessionists as a damned Union hole. A damned Union hole, Rodes repeats, laughing. Wenger says he never heard that story when he was growing up. Most of these stories were never passed down, he says, because in the generation after the war, they didnt want to talk about these things. In fact, some people still dont want to talk about them. And Rodes eagerly tells a story about that. I was interviewed by the newspaper, and I quoted Mary Geil saying the Confederates called this place a damned Union hole, he says. And a woman came into my gift shop and yelled across the room15 people probably heard itHow dare you call my precious ancestors home a damn Union hole! And I said, Maam, I didnt call it that, but your great-great-grandmother did. He bursts out laughing. And if youve got a problem with that, youll have to talk to her. n Peter Carlson is a regular contributor to American History. His most recent book is Junius and Alberts Adventures in the Confederacy: A Civil War Odyssey (PublicAffairs). Emily, the Yellow Rose, confounds the boundaries between history, legend and myth as do few other figures in American folklore Her name may have been Emily D. West or Emily Morgan. She has become, in popular culture over the past 175 years, the Yellow Rose of Texas. Whatever her actual last name, Emily may have had nothing to do with the events associated with herif she ever even existed. Regardless, Emily West/Morgan remains the mystery woman of old-time Texas, and Lone Star State folklore would be poorer in romance without her. History purports to offer a straightforward presentation of unvarnished facts. We know, for example, that David Crockett, another notable hero of the Texas Revolution, was born on a mountaintop in Tennessee on August 17, 1786. If only it were that simple. Though now part of the Volunteer State, the district in which his father John Crocketts log home stood was then a part of North Carolina. Davy did die 50 years later at the Alamo, on March 6, 1836. Yet diaries of Mexican soldiers imply the Lion of the West may not have gone down swinging his rifle Old Betsy like a mighty war club as legend would have it. Revisionist historians argue that Crockett, along with five other men, surrendered as dawn broke over the mission/fort and were executed by firing squad. How preferable, though, to picture Davy as Fess Parker portrayed him for Walt Disneyrugged face blending into the Texas flag a split second before Mexican bayonets claim his life during a heroic to-the-last-man stand. Since history isnt necessarily set in cement, people sometimes opt for a preferable if less than precise rendering of the past. In a word, legend: events and behavior not as they were but as they should have been. Myth, which presents larger-than-life characters not derived from people living or dead, also gets added to the mix. Mythical figuressuch as Paul Bunyan, the colossal lumberjack, or Pecos Bill, the superhuman cowboyare created truths that convey the essence of a land and its people. Crockett, like many other fact-based heroes, has come down to us as part history, part legend. Emily, the Yellow Rose, proves more difficult to pin down. She confounds boundaries between history, legend and myth as do few other figures in American folklore. Its not difficult to find experts who insist Emily is a fictional creation. On a recent visit to the Alamo, a tourist from New York asked an attendant about her. Emily Morgan? Pure fabrication, the host assured his guest, adding that this was far from the first time hed had to set the record straight. Others disagree, insisting that an African-American woman appeared at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. On that date Texian General Sam Houston and his ragtag army defeated Mexican tyrant Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and the advance element of his army. Houston and about 900 volunteers had been steadily withdrawing eastward toward Louisiana, closely followed by Santa Anna with more than 1,300 men. At siesta time on the 21st, Houstons force attacked without warning. The fight lasted 18 minutes. When it was over, 700 Mexican troops lay dead, with most of the rest wounded and/or captured. The Texians suffered just nine fatalities. Houstons strategy of feigning retreat while readying for a decisive strike clearly evinced his military genius. Yet some historians argue the actions of a single woman made possible the victory that ensured Texas independence from Mexico. First to put this notion into print was English ethnologist William Bollaert (180776). Arriving in Galveston in 1842, Bollaert toured the Republic of Texas for two years. On July 7, 1842, Bollaert scribbled in his diary: The battle of San Jacinto was probably lost to the Mexicans owing to the influence of a mulatta [sic] girl belonging to Colonel [James] Morgan who was closeted in the tent with Gl Santana [sic] at the time when the cry was made, The enemy! They come! They come! and detained Santana so long that order could not be restored again. Significantly, Bollaert failed to note either the girls name or from whom he picked up this fascinating nugget. Just as cowboys regaled gullible dudes with tall tales of prowess on the prairie, Bollaert perhaps was taken in by some inspired yarn-spinner. Several historians do accept him at face value. Michael L. Tate insists the diary remains one of the most important sources of information on the Republic of Texas and its people. Though it has long been argued that Bollaert got his information straight from Morgan, the mulatto girls ostensible owner, historian James E. Crisp hints in his 2004 book Sleuthing the Alamo that Bollaert may have heard about the mulatto girl from none other than Sam Houstona possibility unearthed in 1996 by scholar James Lutzweiler when he thoroughly researched Houstons letters. Even if (for many observers, a big if) Bollaert did get his information from Houstonthe former general, then president of the Texas Republic and, after Texas became a state in 1845, governor (185961)that doesnt conclusively prove that a mulatto woman played such a decisive role. Houston, according to biographers, told more than one whopper in his time. Why, though, would he fabricate such an unusual story? Significantly, Bollaerts visit preceded the Mexican War (184648) by two years. With devoted Jacksonian John Tyler the sitting U.S. president, few in the know doubted armed conflict would erupt. After nearly a decade as an independent republic, Texas would likely make the transition to statehood. In doubt only was whether the latest state would be slave or free. Many of the earliest settlers had arrived from the North, and the 1824 Mexican Republic had outlawed slavery. Those settlers who did bring slaves to the region appear to have been content changing their status to indentured servants, a semantic alteration that sidestepped the stigma of ownership. Noteworthy, however, is that a large influx of Southern immigrants did not occur until after the Texas Revolution. Houston himself is known to have been a civil rights advocate, most overtly for the Cherokee Nation. Various episodes suggest he did not think highly of slavery. In 1840, after Deep South immigrants had come to dominate the new republic, the Texas Congress passed a law dictating that all free blacks must leave Texas; President Houston issued a reprieve the following year. (Two decades later, on the cusp of the American Civil War, then-Governor Houston refused to pledge his loyalty to the Confederacy and was ejected from office.) With statehood on the horizon in the early 40s, Houston might have concocted the story of a courageous mulatto in hopes that budding-scribe Bollaert would spread the tale and that such a heroine (albeit manufactured) might convince fellow Texians that theirs was, and should remain, a multicultural land. Sam Houston might have drawn from the Bible, a volume he knew well, for his tale. In the Apocryphal Book of Judith, the beautiful namesake Jewish heroine beguiles enemy general Holofernes, then slips into his chamber to behead him in his sleep, thus encouraging her people in a coming battle. The story suggests that women could harness their physical allure for the greater good and that those who did so ought not to be regarded as temptresses but as heroines. The end justifies the means. Might then a mulatto woman, real or imagined, do the same for a modern-day Promised Land called Texas? If she existed, Emily cut off Santa Annas head only figuratively. Houston may have toned down the tale to render it more believable to his contemporary audience. If Houston did concoct the story for the good of Texas, the irony is that Bollaert failed to spread it. Though he would publish widely on his return to London, the man wrote little about the Lone Star State. When he did, Bollaert remained mute as to his most intriguing discovery. Upon Bollaerts death, his family inherited his writings. In 1902 collector Edward E. Ayer purchased the eight volumes of notes about his trip (six diaries, two journals). Nine years later Ayer turned them over to Chicagos Newberry Library. There they sat, mostly gathering dust, occasionally consulted by some Texas historian interested in the early daysthat is, until 1956. A sudden rash of Alamo movies and simultaneous resurgence in popularity of the old folk song The Yellow Rose of Texas had stirred up a fascination with Lone Star State history. That year editors W. Eugene Hollon and Ruth Lapham Butler sought out Bollaerts diaries and published them under the title William Bollaerts Texas, a book that would prove extraordinarily popular. One reader was Henderson Shuffler, a former journalist who had accepted a job as publicist for Texas A&M University. Among his tasks was the renewing of interest in Lone Star heritage, and he took this task to heart. If not altogether diligent when it came to the facts, Shuffler threw himself energetically into his work, embarking on a speaking tour. Asked to give a talk at the San Jacinto Monument, Shuffler accepted. Learning that Houstonites were very much intrigued by The Yellow Rose ballad and the legend of a mulatto beauty, an inspired Shuffler suggested the girl in Santa Annas tent was a fitting candidate for the identity of the woman in the tune. (Despite the widespread notion that this story harks back to old-time Texas, there is not one whit of evidence to suggest, much less prove, the two had ever been linked prior to the speech; though when his assertion later came under attack, Shuffler himself insisted, Her story was widely known and often retold.) His speech went over wonderfully, so Shuffler kept this tidbit in his repertoire of yarns passed along as bona fide facts. Apparently, he also grew ever more salacious in his description of the seduction, telling gullible crowds the lovely Yellow Rose had given herself to Texas piece by piece, a phrase that elicited knowing chuckles. At one point, now seemingly believing his own hokum, Shuffler went so far as to assert that a special monument ought to be erected at San Jacinto to that woman who gave her all (more salacious laughter). Among those fascinated by Shufflers version of events was Martha Anne Turner, an English professor at Sam Houston State University. Thrilled by the tale, Turner set off to do some research and creative/imaginative thinking. At the 1969 annual conference of the American Studies Association of Texas, this scholar of literature, not history, presented a paper that would forever alter public perception, creating a mulatto heroine who grew more beautiful with each retelling. Turner convinced attendees the as-yet-nameless woman in the song had to be the mulatta [sic] girl mentioned in Bollaerts journal. From that moment the beauty of San Jacinto and the Yellow Rose of Texas were collapsed into a single person. Whether that had been the case in actuality, the idea at once assumed the status of mythic truth. Turner reasserted her claim in her 1975 book The Yellow Rose of Texas: Her Saga and Her Song. As people tend to believe what they read, particularly if written by a scholar, the die was cast. In truth, Turners admittedly delightful volume has more in common with Homer than Herodotus. To quote a character in John Fords The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), When the legend becomes fact, print the legend. Turner did precisely that. In his 1985 historical novel Texas, James Michener notes that on the eve of battle, a beautiful mulatto slave girl named Emily from the Morgan plantationwas delighted at the prospect of spending yet another siesta with the general. With a single phrase Michener reduced our heroine to a whore. Texans of a liberal-progressive bent sided with Holly Beachley Brear, who in her 1995 book Inherit the Alamo: Myth and Ritual at an American Shrine labeled Micheners approach creation mythology. Conservative men, Brear argued, did not want the battlefield achievement of white males dissipated by a remarkable woman; better to diminish the dusky quadroon to an eager prostitute rather than enshrine her as a patriotic sexual predator, Texas original cougar. Historian Margaret Swett Henson puts factual likelihood above feminist positioning, arguing that the elusive woman had been seized from Morgans plantation some days before the battle, and was thus neither whore nor predator. Henson, noting the problematic geography and following a cautious timeline, notes in The Handbook of Texas that the girl at San Jacinto could not have known Houstons plans, nor could she have intentionally delayed Santa Anna. Henson does not preclude the girls being in Santa Annas tent, but neither does she deny that such a dalliance, however accidental, may have had precisely the impact those who lionize the young woman identified by Michener as Emily love to claim. Now, though, another piece of the puzzle emerges. From where did Michener get the girls name and that of her owner? By then, Texas historians had more or less taken for granted she was named Emily. But her identity, her origins and her surname all remain up for grabs. In 1996 Lee Paul claimed that an indentured servant, Emily D. West, had been born in Albany, N.Y. This contradicted earlier accounts that the slave Emily Morgan had entered Texas by way of Louisiana, her birthplace either Boston or Bermuda. Today many believe Emily hailed from New Haven, Conn. A few argue that the confusion over names suggests there might have been two different women, each named Emily. As to whether Emily, if she existed, can be placed at San Jacinto on the eve of battle, this much is hard, cold fact: A bond-servant contract, dated October 23, 1835, discovered in New York City some years ago and now filed in the University of Texas, Arlington, Special Collections unit. This paper clearly states that a free black woman, living in the Northeast and named Emily D. West, agreed to travel to Texas. Upon arrival Emily would serve as housekeeper for James Morgan, a businessman and colonel of the Gonzales volunteers. While this firmly locates an Emily at the right time and, generally speaking, the right place (Texas), in no way does it imply that she was ever at San Jacinto, much less that she spent the night in Santa Annas tent. Even so, a private in Houstons army is known to have, with a wink, whispered after the battle that one reason for Houstons victory had been Santa Annas voluptuousness. As for Emilys contract, her term of servitude stated she would remain in Morgans employ for one year. Yet another document reveals that a woman of the same name, planning to travel from Texas to the States shortly after the fight, filed for legal travel papers, claiming to have lost hers at San Jacinto. Isaac Moreland, the commander of Houstons artillery unit (two ancient cannons nicknamed the Twin Sisters), bore witness he had seen Emily Morgan on the field. On the strength of Morelands testimony, Emily received her requested documents and traveled north. That statement, in conjunction with Bollaerts claims, provides enough evidence for some observers that the girl Emily did indeed save Texas via a single sensual night. A more recent theory, one rife with possibilities for drama and intrigue, is that while an Emily did visit Santa Anna, her last name was neither Morgan nor West. This lady was white, not mulatto; highborn, hardly a servant. This hypothesis holds that while traveling from the States to the port of Galveston aboard James Morgans schooner Flash, the servant Emily came in contact with the esteemed de Zavala family. Patriarch Lorenzo de Zavala, a Mexican democrat, despised Santa Annas tyrannical politics. De Zavala would join the Texians cause and later serve as the republics first vice president. With him were his wife (intriguingly also named Emily), three children (two from her previous marriage) and one (white, likely Irish) servant. Now, then, we must deal with the fascinating if bothersome concept of the two Emilys accidentally meeting and becoming friends, as well as the further coincidence that de Zavala and Morgan were financial partners. While possible, such circumstantial speculation strains credulity. So does the next revelation: Emily de Zavalas maiden name was West. The latest theory holds that, on the eve of battle, elegant Emily West de Zavala concocted a clever scheme: Knowing Santa Anna well, and that the would-be ladies man considered her attractive, she sought passage into his tent. This lady was also aware Santa Anna had become addicted to opium. With his stash of drugs and her sexual largesse, Emily so reduced the general to rubble that he could not assume command the next day. However wonderful for her beloved Texas, to admit this openly would have been an intolerable disgrace for a respectable married lady. Her secret mission accomplished, de Zavala then persuaded a slave or servant of her husbands partner, Morgan, to claim responsibility. Thus Texas was saved, along with Emily de Zavalas reputation. Some argue this hypothesis is racially motivated, set forth by people uncomfortable with the notion of a black heroine ultimately being responsible for the liberation of Texas: If a woman did this man-sized job, then, damn it, she mustve been a white woman. As for the mulatto servant Emily, she was likely well paid, which explains why Morgan allowed her to leave Texas before her year of indenture was up and also how she was able to pay for her return passage to New York, once again aboard Flash. Perhaps this version of events, however convoluted, makes the most sense. Incredibly, though, an even more recent theory has arisen to confound and confuse, intrigue and perhaps obsess us. History records that Emily West de Zavala, following her husbands sudden death in late 1836, also left Texas at that timeaboard Flash bound forwhere else?New York. What if, Denise McVea argues in Making Myth of Emily (2006), the slave/servant Emily never existed, as the naysayers have always insisted? There is virtually nothing to be found about de Zavalas beloved bride before they met and married during his residence in New York for business purposes in 1830. Might not his Emily have been of mixed blood? Such a match would have created problems for so prestigious a man in racially torn Texas. As this hypothesis goes, de Zavala and his bride (who may have actually been named Miranda) conspired to create a character they called Emily. According to this incredible if irresistible scenario, during the voyage Lorenzo passed off the Irish servant as his bride, introducing his actual wife as a light-skinned slave. If this were so, then it was Miranda West de Zavala who saved Texas on a long-ago April eve, reviving her earlier masquerade as the fictional character Emily Morgan at Houstons urging. Everything that followed had been a cover-up of mythic proportions, if this potential scandal were motivated by a notably more admirable desire: not to self-servingly achieve political power for the conspirators but to protect a courageous and self-sacrificing lady. Perhaps, then, Emily D. Morgan was but a shadow. Or, in McVeas words, the alter ego for Emily West de Zavala. Linda Kirkpatrick asks on Texas Escapes online magazine: Were there actually two women with similar names, close to the same age, going to the same place on Flash, or was there just one woman trying very hard to protect her identity? Finally, does this lead us closer to finally discovering the truth or only draw us further into the realm of fiction? Undeniably, each successive claim as to the identity of Emily (aka the Yellow Rose of Texas) adds to her mystique. The intrigue of Texas dusky beauty casts its spellwhether in the end that elusive woman who has seduced generations of willing and adoring victims, even as she once supposedly did Santa Anna, constitutes history, legend or myth. Or, more likely, some utterly and appealingly unknowable combination of the three. San Antoniobased author Douglas Brode teaches at Our Lady of the Lake University and the University of Texas. He has written 37 books, including the recent graphic novel Yellow Rose of Texas: The Myth of Emily Morgan, illustrated by Joe Orsak and published by McFarland & Co. of Jefferson, N.C. Hundreds of thousands of women have served in combat through the ages GERMAN TANKS ROLLED toward Stalingrad as if leading a holiday parade in Berlin. Luftwaffe planes had pounded Soviet defenses for weeks, scattering the enemy and clearing the way for the ground assault. Through binoculars, the Germans could see smoke rising from the burning city. Victory seemed almost in hand. Suddenly, shells exploded all around. Soviet antiaircraft crews had cranked down the barrels of their 37mm guns and opened fire. Their aim was a bit wild, but the barrage brought the Germans up short. Halting their advance, the tankers organized a counterattack. Stukas joined in, swooping down on the three dozen batteries, which had no infantry support. The fighting raged for hours until one by one, the Russian guns fell silent. Only later did the Germans learn that the men who had stood against them that day in August 1942 were not men at all. I fear there is a complex against women being connected with lethal work, Churchill wrote to his secretary of war. We must get rid of this What Soviet writer Vasily Grossman described as the first page of the Stalingrad defense had been authored chiefly by teenage girls, volunteers of the 1077th Antiaircraft Regiment, a unit assembled from the citys high schools. A bunch of womenkids, no less. Many had fought to the death, impressing the enemy. Said one Wehrmacht officer, It is completely wrong to describe Russian women as soldiers in skirts. The girls of Stalingrad werent the only women to inspire shock and awe in World War II. Great Britain, the United States, and other combatants put hundreds of thousands of females in uniform; the Soviet Union alone recruited roughly a million, sending many into combat as tank commanders, snipers, and pilots. Desperation, not egalitarian ideals, drove these mobilizations; there simply werent enough men to fight in historys largest conflagration. SIDEBAR A Timeline of Women Warriors Today, theres a steady call in the United States and other liberal democracies to put women into combat. The chaos of modern war already throws female support troops into deadly shootouts with the enemy. Still, nations resist letting women fight alongside men. Judging by modern military history, however, they may ultimately have no choice. NOT LONG AGO, military historian Martin van Creveld surveyed thousands of years of warfare and declared true women warriors almost as rare as unicorns. Thats an exaggeration, of course, but his point is well taken: The history of women in combat before the 20th century is a story of exceptions to the rule. The most well known are queens and duchesses who led armies in the roughly 2,000 years from classical antiquity through the end of the Middle Ages, at the close of the 15th century. By and large, circumstances thrust these women into command. Often they were widows of kings or feudal lords and inherited their armies. Others were forced to mount a defense of land or castle while their husbands were abroad. Perhaps the most famous warrior queen is Boudicca, who led the Celts of Britain against occupying Romans in the first century and slaughtered tens of thousands. Others include Vietnams legendary Trung sisters, who fought marauding Chinese around the same time, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who rode in the 12th-centurys Second Crusade. Less well known than the warrior queens are an assortment of women who disguised themselves as men in order to fight. Binding their breasts and cutting their hair short, they typically passed themselves off as boys to explain their smooth, whiskerless faces. Stories of such deception abound in the ballads, plays, and literature of early modern Europeoften exciting tales of women who enlist to chase adventure or follow a lover. In truth, most of these women fought to escape poverty or a troubled family life. By the 17th and 18th centuries, nations and armies were moving toward their modern form, which left no room for the warrior queen or the woman fighter in disguise. Laws of primogeniture had begun to guarantee that men alone would inherit land and armies. Royalty gave up campaigning and deputized trained officers to manage their armies. At the same time, military life grew increasingly regimented, with standard-issue uniforms and extensive physicals. As many as a thousand women dressed as men and fought in the American Civil War, but with the dawn of the new century, women were all but shut out of fighting. War is mens business, Hector had said in Homers Iliad, and that was still the attitude of any Western country that considered itself civilized. It was almost inconceivable that women would abandon the kitchen and nursery for the battlefield. THE TWO WORLD WARS of the next half century made such thinking a luxury no nation could afford. The conflicts raged over millions of square miles, across continents and oceans, and for the first time in the air. Each of the major powers built huge war machines that demanded ever more troops but also armies of planners, logisticians, transport specialists, and supply clerks. All together, roughly 150 million soldiers were mobilized. In the face of critical shortages of men, military officials conceded that women had something to contribute. Between the start of World War I and the end of World War II, many of the combatantsincluding Germany, Britain, the United States, Australia, Finland, and Polandcreated auxiliary branches of their armed forces in which women served as nurses, typists, cooks, and the like. When the wars stretched on and losses grew, their work brought them closer to the action. Britain was the first of the Allies to put women into formal military service for anything other than duty as nurses. In 1915, as hopes for a quick conflict faded, women suffragists organized a march through London for the right to join the war effort. They carried placards that announced: the situation is serious. women must help to save it. The next year, within months of the devastating Battle of the Somme (British casualties: 400,000), the government began planning for three auxiliary corpsone each for the navy, air force, and armyof women to work as nurses, ambulance drivers, mechanics, cooks, clerks, and other positions in the rear. Recruitment propaganda promised that every woman who signed on would free one man for combat. By wars end, some 100,000 women had joined. During World War II, Britain leaned heavily on its womens auxiliaries, which were championed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Early in his political career, before becoming home secretary in 1910, Churchill had fought against womens voting rights, winning the enmity of suffragists (one who confronted him with a whip). But his views had evolved over the years. Now, with Britains survival at stake, he pushed for women to take on critical and dangerous roles. I fear there is a complex against women being connected with lethal work, he wrote his secretary of war privately in December 1941. We must get rid of this. That same month, Britain began conscripting unmarried women between the ages of 20 and 30. Those called to duty could choose to work in civilian war industries or join one of the auxiliary corps. Auxiliary ranks eventually totaled 640,000more than 10 percent of British armed forces. Serving in all theaters, these women manned jobs directly related to combatas mechanics, radar and telegraph operators, torpedo handlers, intelligence officers, and more. A handful flew aircraft from factories to bases. Britain still couldnt bring itself to insert women into combat. But it came close. General Sir Frederick Pile, who led the British antiaircraft command, persuaded Churchill that women could serve with men in AA crews. They would load the guns, fuse shells, track aircraft, and operate searchlightsvirtually everything save pull the gun lanyard itself. That might damage the female psyche, the military feared. More than 56,000 women were serving with Pile by late 1943including Churchills daughter Mary, a 19-year-old debutante who jumped at the chance to be a gunner girl. When an AA crew recorded the first kill for a mixed-gender unit in April 1942, Pile observed of the women: Beyond a little natural excitement and a tendency to chatter when there was a lull, they behaved like a veteran party. The United States watched the British deployment of women closely. The navy and Marines had introduced a few thousand women to their reserves during World War IWe will have the best clerical assistance the country can provide, declared navy secretary Josephus Danielsand army general John Black Jack Pershing had posted more than 200 civilian women to France as telephone operators, the so-called Hello Girls. But even as the storm clouds of World War II gathered, public opposition torpedoed efforts to introduce women to any more danger. Opposing a bill to create a womens auxiliary to the army, one congressman said: Think of the humiliation. What has become of the manhood of America, that we have to call on our women to do what has ever been the duty of men? The thing is so revolting to me, to my sense of decency. The exigencies of war, however, changed hearts and minds. By the summer of 1942, the army was projecting a shortfall of 160,000 men. Within a year of Pearl Harbor, Congress had approved auxiliary corps for each branch of the military. These would eventually enlist more than 350,000 women to work in some 400 military specialties. The navy trained women in radar, ship design, navigation, intelligence, and other select skills. Women pilots ferried military aircraft from factories to bases and flew radar and smoke-screening missions. When peace arrived, less than half of the army auxiliary troops had traditional clerical roles; most worked an array of jobs from sheet-metal worker to parachute rigger to control tower operator. General George C. Marshall, the armys chief of staff, wanted to put women in even more critical roles. Intrigued by the British mixed-gender AA units, Marshall set up a secret experiment in 1942 that introduced nearly 400 auxiliary troops to antiaircraft crews protecting Washington, D.C. It was a big success; Major General John Lewis, AA commander in the military district around Washington, asked to make the assignments permanent and add even more women to his ranks. Marshall, however, concluded it wasnt worth the inevitable backlash from Congress. Besides, the women were desperately needed in their administrative jobs. He closed the experiment and made sure the public didnt learn of it until after the war. THE SOVIET UNION entered World War II in very different circumstances than its allies. The USSR in the 1930s considered itself a country under siege, with enemiesboth fascists and imperialist democraciespoised to invade and snuff out its experiment in communism. Russian society grew militarized, with citizens urged to acquire the skills to defend the homeland. Osoaviakhim, an organization devoted to the paramilitary training of civilians, built a network of military-sports groupsgun clubs, pilot schools, and the likeaffiliated with factories, schools, and other institutions. Komsomol, the Communist Party youth organization, taught the values of the revolutionary soldiercourage, self-sacrifice, endurance, and, most of all, commitment to Stalin and the nation. Publicly, party apparatchiks applauded the women who learned to fight. The Bolsheviks who had come to power in 1917 had preached equality of the sexes. It was fitting, Stalin said, that women defend the ideals of that revolution alongside men. Should the thunder of war resound, Pravda declared, Soviet women will take up arms to defend the motherland. The Soviets were not unfamiliar with the idea of women in combat. A few thousand women had fought in World War I, some as part of a so-called Death Battalion of about 300 women. In the civil war that followed the 1917 Russian Revolution, as many as 80,000 joined the Red Army to fight counterrevolutionaries. The majority served as medical or administrative personnel, but Russian films and fiction of the 1930s turned these ordinary soldiers into machine-gun-toting heroes. WHEN WORLD WAR II opened, young Soviet women naturally expected that they, too, would pick up guns and fight. Within hours of the Axis invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941, thousands stormed party offices and recruiting stations to enlist. In some areas, women made up as many as half of Red Army applicants. I was reared by the Komsomol to be hard as nails, said one would-be sailor. Most of these women were turned away. The governments easy talk of equality had been a fraud; it maintained that women best served the country on the homefront. Stalins military leaders, meanwhile, believed that females in the ranks hurt morale and led to sexual mischief. The sacred duty of women patriots was to stay home. The disastrous opening of the war made such a stand impractical. The Germans storming into the Soviet heartland inflicted catastrophic lossesnearly 6.5 million casualties in less than a year. In March 1942, Stalins regime quietly launched the first of what would be 12 major mobilizations of women. By the next year, at the height of the war, there were between 800,000 and 1 million women in uniform, roughly eight percent of the armed forces. Conservative estimates suggest about 320,000 were sent to the front, with many kept away from the fiercest fighting. But unlike the United States and Britain, Russia put its women directly into infantry, armor, and artillery units. They were trained to drive tanks and fly planes and fire weaponsincluding rifles, light and heavy machine guns, mortars, and bazookas. And they were asked to kill. In October 1941, the Soviet Union created three all-women air force regiments, becoming the first nation to send women pilots into combat. The new flyers were given six months of training, mens uniformsright down to the underwear, said oneand boy-style haircuts. They flew more than 30,000 sorties. One unit, the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, became notorious among Germans as the Night Witches. Flying at night in wood-and-fabric Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, the pilots typically cut their engines and glided down behind the lines, the wind whistling eerily against the brace lines as they tossed bombs from the cockpit. In 1943, the Soviets opened whats thought to be historys first military school for women. The Central Womens School for Sniper Training put nearly 2,000 students through a rigorous course on weapons, telescopic sights, camouflage, hand-to-hand combat, and more. We fired and fired and fired, wrote one student. We fired from the shoulder, the hip and the chest, on the run and standing, in the open and camouflaged.Your legs pained, your eyes ached from the prolonged stress, and your shoulder throbbed from the recoil of the rifle butt. The schools alumni were credited with killing more than 11,000. Russias most famous sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, didnt learn her craft at the school. The daughter of a Red Army soldier, she trained as a young woman with a shooting club affiliated with the arms factory where she worked. During the war, she racked up more than 300 kills and became legendary for her toughnessshe was wounded four timesand endurance. Often, shed lie in ambush for days. Pavlichenko came to the United States in 1942 to help lobby the Allies to open a second front on the Germans in Europe. The novelty of a woman killer thrilled Americans; Woody Guthrie wrote a ballad Miss Pavlichenko extolling her virtues: Your smile shines as bright / As my new morning sun. / But more than three hundred nazisdogs fell by your gun. The press surprised Pavlichenko with questions about her makeup and hairstyle. Dont they know there is a war? she said. One reporter even questioned her fashion sense, saying her uniform made her look fat. Soviet women had perhaps their biggest impact working in the AA units. As many as 300,000 were assigned to gun crews. As with the men, some didnt handle the stress, noise, or danger well; there were reports of women who grew ill and vomited. But many thrived. Twenty-year-old Yekaterina Razumovskaya, a farm milkmaid before the war, proved she could load heavy shells better than men and was quickly promoted to weapon commander. She explained matter-of-factly: If you strongly want to achieve something, you will. The Soviets came to depend on the women gunners. At Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad, females eventually replaced all the men, to great effect. One German pilot, a veteran of the Africa theater, said: I would rather fly 10 times over the skies of [British-controlled] Tobruk than pass once through the fire of Russian flak sent up by female gunners. Judging by the honors bestowed upon them, Soviet women performed well in this impromptu experiment in egalitarianism. As many as 150,000 were decorated, and 91 received the Gold Star of a Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest award for valor. In the next half century, the Soviet women fighters became folk heroes and models for revolutionaries elsewhere. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara welcomed women into the ranks of their guerrilla armies. During the Vietnam War, the Vietcong and local militia units included thousands of women; by one count, 40 percent of the regimental commanders were women. When Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia in 1993, women made up some 30 percent of its soldiers. Yet World War II did little to change the centuries-old attitudes of the major powers. Soviet leaders had never been comfortable sending women into battle. Women in combat units reported sexual harassment and abuse. Many were executed by German soldiers who considered women soldiers so morally repugnant that they killed any they captured. AFTER THE FIGHTING, Soviet propaganda once again promoted the theme that a womans primary duty to the state was motherhood. By 1959, there were only 659 females in the Red Army. Today, thanks largely to changing cultural norms and pressure from advocacy groups, women in the military in several countries have nearly equal status with men. At least eight nationsincluding Israel, China, North Korea, and Taiwandraft women for the military. In Israel, which in 1948 became the first country to conscript women, they make up more than a third of the armed forces. Though the country still balks at sending women into close-quarters fighting, 93 percent of Israels military positions are open to women, including some with border-patrol combat units that regularly face danger. The United States since World War II has moved grudgingly to open the military to women. Though Congress integrated the armed forces in 1948, it also limited women to 2 percent of total active personnel. That cap held for nearly 20 yearsto be lifted only when the Vietnam War drained the militarys reserves. Though the Department of Defense formally banned women in combat in 1994, it has slowly opened up roles for them in front-line units. Last year, it dropped gender restrictions on 14,000 combat-related jobs. Women can now work in combat battalions as chaplains, intelligence and logistics specialists, tank and artillery mechanics, and even rocket-launcher crew members. Most recently, outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that the department would lift the ban on women in combat. At press time, Congress still had to weigh in, and the services reportedly will have the right to petition to close certain jobs to females. But if the decision holds, women will be eligible for more than 230,000 new jobs, including infantry positions. In many ways, Panettas decision is simply a recognition that women are already fighting in combat. The United States has deployed nearly 290,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade. More than 140 have died, many killed by insurgents. With the blurry front lines of modern warfare, even women assigned to noncombat roles sometimes wind up in battle. In 2005, assigned to a protection detail for a military convoy, Army National Guard sergeant Leigh Ann Hester landed in a firefight with Afghanistan insurgents. Jumping from her Humvee, she ran to a ditch where several Americans were pinned down and about to be taken hostage. Opening fire with her M-4, she held off the insurgents, killing three and helping to rescue the men. Hester became the first woman to receive a Silver Star for a direct engagement with the enemy. Still, Panettas decision will be fought hard. Citing reports of sexual harassment in the ranks, some officials worry that women will disrupt the cohesion crucial to combat unit. They also argue that females physically cant handle the duty. IN THE END, some people will never accept women in battleat least, that is, until women are needed. Drew Lindsay is executive editor of MHQ. WWE star is set to play his debut film role in the upcoming horror flick 'Mohawk.' Directed by Ted Geoghegan, the movie will also feature 'Hemlock Grove' star Kaniehtiio Horn and 'Twilight' actor Justin Rain. The film revolves around a young female Mohawk (Horn) being chased by renegade soldiers whose camp was set on fire by someone in her tribe. "Mohawk is hard-hitting action-horror that subverts traditional genre tropes while delivering a timeless tale of good versus evil," Geoghegan said as quoted by The Wrap. "We look to deliver a horrifying home invasion film where the home is North America itself." So far, no official word has come out on Harper's character. The pro wrestler has been on leave following his injury in March. The cast also includes Noah Segan, Ian Colletti, Robert Longstreet, Sheri Foster, Ezra Buzzington, Andrew Sensenig, and WWE's Jon Huber. As per WhatCulture, Harper looks pretty much 'tailor-made for horror movie roles with his creepy acting and scary facial expressions. So far, no potential theatrical release has been given but shooting is reportedly underway. Meanwhile, Inquistr indicated swirling rumors of Harper's removal from the Wyatts' lineup when he returns after recuperating from his injury. Harper seems prospective enough to establish himself as a star on his own. Things didn't go well when he first did it alone. Some observers think that with his absence, WWE may be able to recast him to a more creative role the next time around. In another Harper-related news, there are speculations of Luke's surprising appearance in the Money in the Bank ladder match. That, however, remains to be seen. As the wrestling promotion braces up for the forthcoming RAW-SmackDown brand split, a number of wrestlers may get an upshot in their careers especially for those in team lineups. After all, some alliances simply don't work. As for Harper, it gives him a fresh start. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando early on Sunday has reignited congressional debate over terrorism and the countrys gun laws, as lawmakers grappled with responding to one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history. Congressional leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, were briefed on the attack Sunday. (See an interactive map and timeline showing how the Orlando attacks unfolded.) Read Full Story HNGN Pick 2016 Seeing stars in the world is no longer possible for almost 80 percent of the American population and 60 percent of Europe. You can perhaps see an "artificial glow", but not the rest of the stars. In an unfortunate effect of modernisation, electricity seems to have drowned out the "natural luminosity" of the Milk Way, according to a new world atlas of artificial night sky brightness. This is a "cultural loss of unprecedented magnitude," said lead author Fabio Falchi of the Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute in Italy. "Humanity has enveloped our planet in a luminous fog that prevents most of Earth's population from having the opportunity to observe our galaxy," the study author wrote. He pointed out that modern lighting has made it impossible for 77 percent of people in U.K. to see the Milky Way. In China, the situation is grimmer. Only people in a few areas such as central Scotland, Corsica, or central Spain are privileged to live in non-polluted environments. This is a form of pollution that can even cause damage to local ecosystems, human health and raise unnecessary energy costs. Scientists gathered data from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite, and combined it with computer models of sky luminescence, as well as field studies of sky brightness collected from professionals as well as the public. It has taken a decade of meticulous work for scientists to collect the information and verify it with over 30,000 on-the-ground measurements. "It's really one of the most thorough studies that we have to date on light pollution across the globe," said Cheryl Ann Bishop, communications director for the International Dark-Sky Association, which fights pollution. "The fact that we're bathing our planet in artificial light at night is a relatively new phenomenon, and it's essentially akin to a human experiment that we're only just beginning to understand the ramifications of." You can find more details in this interactive online map hosted by the University of Colorado, Boulder. Another printed book will be released through Amazon and CreateSpace, called "The World Atlas of Light Pollution" that will create a document of the information that has been gathered. Light pollution Global Atlas shows artificial night sky brightness. Fabio Falchi/E-T AL/AAAS @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. U.S. Travel Associations IPW is the travel industry's premier international marketplace and the largest generator of travel to the U.S. - it is NOT a typical trade show. In just three days of intensive pre-scheduled business appointments, more than 1,000 U.S. travel organizations from every region of the USA (representing all industry category components), and more than 1,300 international and domestic buyers from more than 70 countries conduct business negotiations that result in the generation of more than $4.7 billion in future Visit USA travel. At IPW, buyers and sellers are able to conduct business that would otherwise be generated only through an exhaustive number of around-the-world trips. For more information please contact USTA's International Pow Wow (202)218-3611 It looks like you've reached a page that doesnt exist (anymore). Please use the navigation or search above to find content on Hospitality Net. Go back to home 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. Realizing that HITEC is already action packed with rush, rush and hurry, we have tried to save you a little time and have listed in order of priorities using the time old phrase of 'Eat, Drink and Be Merry'! Welcome to New Orleans and HFTP/HITEC. We know that just the words New Orleans always brings to mind Mardi Gras and the sounds of Jazz and while this is certainly the heart of New Orleans, there are some other things when visiting New Orleans that are an absolute must! Realizing that HITEC is already action packed with rush, rush and hurry, we have tried to save you a little time and have listed in order of priorities using the time old phrase of 'Eat, Drink and Be Merry'! (1) Eat beignets One of the most obvious tourist attractions in the French Quarter just might be the Cafe du Monde. The original Cafe Du Monde coffee stand opened 154 years ago in the New Orleans French Market. The menu is simply dark roasted Coffee and Chicory, Beignets, Milk, and freshly squeezed orange juice. Coffee is black or Au Lait (Half and half with hot milk.) The beignet is a square piece of dough, fried and covered with powdered sugar served in orders of three. Beignets can be purchased from other places and street vendors, so no matter where you go in New Orleans, eating a beignet should be #1 priority! (2) Eat with your hands There are many ways to eat shellfish while in New Orleans and eating with your hands is sometimes the best way to get through these fantastic meals. Shrimp, crawfish, or oysters on the half shell are just a few things that must be eaten while in New Orleans. Whether you are eating fried, broiled, roasted or Shrimp Gumbo, there is no place like New Orleans to indulge in seafood of any kind. (3) Indulge In Libations New Orleans has laid claim to the Sazerac, a stiff drink of rye whiskey, bitters, sugar, absinthe or pastis and a twist of lemon. One of the three must try drinks in New Orleans. The Sazerac, the Obituary Cocktail and the Ramos Gin Fizz. Today we have mixologist who are cocktail experts, however, New Orleans had this down before mixologist came up with their name. You will find many places in town for this drink.the locals, I am told, go to Cure, an upscale cocktail bar or French 75 which is part of Arnauds Restaurant located in the French Quarter. Mixologists make reputable versions in their cocktail bars around town so you cant go wrong in any of the places. Some places where they've always done well -- in historic hotel bars like the famed revolving Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone or the Sazerac Bar in The Roosevelt New Orleans; and in the city's oldest restaurants, like Tujague's and Galatoire's. (4) Live Music The citys music scene has shifted to Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny, which is a historic neighborhood within walking distance of the French Quarter. With Bourbon Street filling with frat-boy-style antics, Clubs like DBA, Snug Harbor, and The Blue Nile draw renowned jazz bands and solo performers supported the move where restaurants such as The Three Muses and the Marigny Brasserie cater to the late-night crowds. The vibe is freewheeling and enthusiastic, with a lot of shoulder rubbing between locals and travelers. At evenings end there are plenty of cabs to ferry you home after your night on the town. (5) Generations Hall Generations Hall was originally built in the early 1820s as a sugar refinery and decorated with artwork by prominent artists, George Schmidt and Xavier deCallatay, depicting the rich history of New Orleans jazz, Generations Hall offers a glimpse an era of long ago. HITECs Opening Party will allow you access to one of the oldest seats in town. (6) Preservation Hall Situated in the heart of the French Quarter on St. Peter Street, you will find the Preservation Hall. This venue presents intimate, acoustic New Orleans Jazz concerts. New Orleans Preservation Hall was established in 1961 to honor one of Americas truest art forms Traditional New Orleans Jazz. Preservation Hall continues its mission today as a cornerstone of New Orleans music and culture by operating as a music venue, a touring band, and a non-profit organization. With the exception of a couple of nights a year, you will find ensembles from a current collective of 100+ local master practitioners. Audiences bear joyful witness to the evolution of this venerable and living tradition. (7) Warehouse District The Warehouse District is a centrally located arts district which is a little-known relative to the city's more historic and heavily toured neighborhoods. The Contemporary Arts Center , the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the National World War II Museum, the Louisiana Children's Museum and numerous galleries and art spaces have built a neighborhood where you could easily spend a couple of days. The Warehouse District is also home to the Link Restaurant Group's Cochon and Peche, Emeril Lagasse's flagship restaurant Emeril's New Orleans, Adolfo Garcia's steakhouse La Boca and American Sector at the World War II Museum. (8) Jackson Square The French Quarters heart and soul is a must-see, boasting a statue of Andrew Jackson at its center and a ragtag collection of artists and fortune-tellers fringing its perimeter. Its flanked by the filigreed Pontalba apartments, site of the Streetcar-Named-Desire-inspired Stella! shouting contest held during the annual Tennessee Williams Festival. At the Squares crown are three 18th-century architectural glories: the Cabildo, a former city hall where the Louisiana Purchase was signed; St. Louis Cathedral; and the Presbytere. The onetime courthouse is now the flagship of the Louisiana State Museum, showcasing Living With Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond, a fascinating exhibit on the infamous storm. (9) Get your bounce on New Orleans dancers have been "popping" since the late 1980s. You may say you have never heard of this dance but it has been said that Miley learned popping when visiting New Orleans and now it is called twerking. Who Knew! In a city that is basically surrounded by water, The Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico, you almost have to go to the high places in order get a good view of any of the surrounding water (take the elevator at Canal Place). One thing you dont want to remember while here is that you are not only almost surrounded by water but you are also below sea leveljust saying!! Have a great time in New Orleans, a city that is truly a unique melting pot of culture, food and music, a city that is historically rich and one of the worlds most exciting cities. (10)Dressed? As you visit the French Quarter and order a friend oyster Po-Boy, the waiter might say Dressed?. This is not a reflection on your current outfit or lack of beads. The waiter is asking if you want the sandwich dressed or plain. Dressed means with lettuce, tomatoes and mayonnaise. This list was compiled by Bonnie Wise, Business Development Manager at Datavision Technologies. We hope you enjoy your days at #HITECnola, learn bit about New Orleans, and have a great trip, Be sure to stop by booth 953 and say Hello Yall. Hyatt Regency Sofia Hotel to Open 2018 in Bulgaria Hyatt Hotels Corporation (NYSE: H) last week announced that a Hyatt affiliate has entered into an agreement with Terra Tour Service EOOD for a Hyatt Regency hotel in Sofia, Bulgaria. Hyatt Regency Sofia will mark the first Hyatt-branded hotel in Bulgaria, and will add to Hyatts growing footprint in Europe. We look forward to collaborating with the team at Terra Tour Service to open the first Hyatt Regency hotel in Bulgaria, said Peter Norman, senior vice president, acquisitions and development Europe, Africa, and Middle East for Hyatt. Hyatt Regency Sofia will be designed to foster connections and serve as a dynamic, energizing place where guests can collaborate, share and find inspiration. We are confident that the globally recognized Hyatt Regency brand will resonate with the growing base of business and leisure travelers visiting the country." Hyatt Regency Sofia will be ideally located in the heart of the Bulgarian capital on Vasil Levski Square. Guests will be a short walking distance from the National Assembly, which houses the countrys parliament, as well as many of Bulgarias cultural institutions and tourist attractions, including the Monument to Vasil Levski, Cathedral Saint Alexandar Nevski, National Academy of Arts, SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library, and Sofia University. We look forward to welcoming guests to Hyatt Regency Sofia, where they will find the Hyatt Regency brands authentic service, culinary experiences and superb meetings and events facilities, said Lachezar Todorov, chief executive officer, Terra Tour Service. This is our first project with Hyatt, and with the combination of the strong Hyatt Regency brand experience and the hotels excellent facilities, we believe Hyatt Regency Sofia will have a great appeal to those visiting the country. Expected to open in 2018, Hyatt Regency Sofia will deliver on the contemporary expectations of guests and meeting planners. The 190-room hotel will feature three restaurants, which will build off the Hyatt Regency brands history of culinary excellence, as well as a rooftop bar with unrivalled views of the city. The hotel will serve as the perfect venue for a variety of events such as weddings, social banquets, exhibitions, meetings, and conferences, offering more than 12,900 square feet (1,200 square meters) of flexible meeting and event facilities. Additionally, the hotel will offer a fitness center and spa. The decrease in occupancy came as a result of a supply growth and demand performance imbalance. Although performance was weak for the month overall, occupancy remained above 86.0% from Tuesday, 24 May to Saturday, 28 May when London hosted the Chelsea Flower Show. ADR also peaked for the month at GBP165.49 on that opening Tuesday. STRs preliminary May 2016 data for London, England, indicates negative occupancy performance. Based on daily data from May, London reported the following in year-over-year comparisons: an increase in supply (+2.5%) and a decrease in demand (-0.4%); a 2.8% decrease in occupancy to 81.7%; a 0.4% increase in average daily rate (ADR) to GBP143.92; and a 2.4% decrease in revenue per available room (RevPAR) to GBP117.62. The decrease in occupancy came as a result of a supply growth and demand performance imbalance. Although performance was weak for the month overall, occupancy remained above 86.0% from Tuesday, 24 May to Saturday, 28 May when London hosted the Chelsea Flower Show. ADR also peaked for the month at GBP165.49 on that opening Tuesday. STR will release May 2016 results later this month. The May edition of STRs Market Forecast is now available. About STR STR provides clients from multiple market sectors with premium, global data benchmarking, analytics and marketplace insights. Founded in 1985, STR maintains a presence in 10 countries around the world with a corporate North American headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and an international headquarters in London, England. For more information, please visit str.com. Smartphones Are Top Productivity Killer at Work 3 in 4 employers say two or more hours a day are lost in productivity because employees are distracted While technology helps workers stay connected while away from the office, in many cases it is causing them to disconnect while in the office, leading to a negative impact on productivity. According to new CareerBuilder research, 1 in 5 employers (19 percent) think workers are productive less than five hours a day. When looking for a culprit, more than half of employers (55 percent) say that workers mobile phones/texting are to blame. The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder between February 10 and March 17, 2016, and included a representative sample of 2,186 hiring managers and human resource professionals and 3,031 full time, U.S. workers in the private sector across industries and company sizes. More than 8 in 10 workers (83 percent) have smartphones, and 82 percent of those with smartphones keep them within eye contact at work. And while only 10 percent of those with smartphones say its decreasing their productivity at work, 2 in 3 (66 percent) say they use it (at least) several times a day while working. While we need to be connected to devices for work, were also a click away from alluring distractions from our personal lives like social media and various other apps, said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder. The connectivity conundrum isnt necessarily a bad thing, but it needs to be managed. Have an open dialogue with employees about tech distractions. Acknowledge their existence and discuss challenges/solutions to keeping productivity up. Wasting Time at Work When asked to name the biggest productivity killers in the workplace, employers cited cell phones/texting, followed by the Internet and workplace gossip: Cell phone/texting: 55 percent The Internet: 41 percent Gossip: 39 percent Social media: 37 percent Co-workers dropping by: 27 percent Smoke breaks or sneak breaks: 27 percent Email: 26 percent Meetings: 24 percent Noisy co-workers: 20 percent Sitting in a cubicle: 9 percent The majority of workers with smartphones (65 percent) do not have their work emails on their smartphones. Of those who access their smartphone during work for non-work use, they spend their time on these non-work related sites during work: Personal messaging: 65 percent Weather: 51 percent News: 44 percent Games: 24 percent Shopping: 24 percent Traffic: 12 percent Gossip: 7 percent Sales: 6 percent Adult: 4 percent Dating: 3 percent The High Costs of Low Productivity Three in four employers (75 percent) say two or more hours a day are lost in productivity because employees are distracted. Forty-three percent say at least three hours a day are lost. Productivity killers can lead to negative consequences for the organization, including: Compromised quality of work: 48 percent Lower morale because other workers have to pick up the slack: 38 percent Negative impact on boss/employee relationship: 28 percent Missed deadlines: 27 percent Loss in revenue: 26 percent Negative impact on client relationships: 20 percent More than 3 in 4 employers (76 percent) have taken at least one step to mitigate productivity killers, such as blocking certain Internet sites (32 percent) and banning personal calls/cell phone use (26 percent). Other efforts to mitigate productivity killers include: Schedule lunch and break times: 24 percent Monitor emails and Internet usage: 19 percent Limit meetings: 17 percent Allow people to telecommute: 14 percent Have an open space layout instead of cubicles: 14 percent Restrict use of speakerphones if not in an office: 13 percent Increase height of cubicle walls to make it easier to concentrate: 8 percent The Craziest Non-Work Activities Workers Have Done On the Job Employers were also asked to reveal the most unusual or most memorable things they have caught an employee doing when they should have been working. Some examples included: 1. Employee was working on a scrapbook. 2. Employee was decorating a cubicle with chains of paper clips. 3. Employee brought her equipment for her embroidery business from home and was making items for a craft show to sell. 4. Employee was doing doughnuts in the parking lot in the snow. 5. Employee brought in a kitten she found outside and tried to keep it quiet within a large purse. 6. Employee was working on her child's school project that included uncooked macaroni noodles. 7. Employee was laying on a patients bed talking to the patient while the patient sat in her wheelchair 8. Employee was watching YouTube videos of people shoving marshmallows in their mouth. 9. Employee was doing some personal grooming in the break room. 10. Employee was searching on craigslist for dates. Survey Methodology This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,186 hiring and human resource managers and 3,031 workers ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) between February 10 and March 17, 2016 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 2,186 and 3,031, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have sampling errors of +/- 2.10 and +/- 1.78 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies. About CareerBuilder As the global leader in human capital solutions, CareerBuilder specializes in cutting-edge HR software as a service to help companies with every step of the recruitment process from acquire to hire. CareerBuilder works with top employers across industries, providing job distribution, sourcing, workflow, CRM, data and analytics in one pre-hire platform. It also operates leading job sites around the world. Owned by TEGNA Inc. (NYSE:TGNA), Tribune Media (NYSE:TRCO) and The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, South America, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com. The news comes from a Gorillaz fan site. Long time Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett has said that new Gorillaz album is "really fucking special" and "can't be rushed". Hewlett said this to a fan who subsequently posted the news on the Instagram page of a Gorillaz fan site. The long awaited new album is now due to be released in 2017. It has been reported recently that the creator of fictional band, Damon Albarn has recruited a number of new collaborators. Chicago rapper Vic Mensa, French composer Jean Michel-Jarre and songwriter Liam Bailey have all been spotted in studio with Albarn via Instagram posts and tweets. Hewlett is responsible for the design of the band and has been since their inception. He has been teasing new artwork for the band members via his Instagram page over the last few months. Recuperation rock ? A photo posted by hewll (@hewll) on May 20, 2016 at 8:38am PDT Advertisement # A photo posted by hewll (@hewll) on Jun 4, 2016 at 12:07am PDT Gorillaz last released an album in the shape of 2010's The Fall. It does not yet have a title but long time band producer and voice actor Remi Kabaka is working alongside Albarn in a Chicago studio. This article can only be read with a Premium Account It comes complete with a brand new video. Radio Room have released their latest single, 'Nobody Told You'. The single is the first from their upcoming and untitled second album. The video depicts the dark acts of a deranged murderer played by Love/Hate's Laurence Kinlan. It was directed by Jay Branagan. The band have released the video ahead of their upcoming UK and Ireland tour. Speaking about the video, frontman for the group Robbie Murphy said, "we wanted to bring an even darker, grittier sound to our music with Nobody Told You and were really happy with the results". Radio Room will soon set out on their UK and Ireland tour which includes dates in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Southhampton and Swansea. Stream the video for 'Nobody Told You' below. The family of a man who committed suicide while in custody at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility claims that jail overcrowding contributed to his death. On June 6, 2013, Steven Tyler Russo, 34, was found hanging in the shower of the county jail. Though alive when detention officers discovered him, he later died at Billings Clinic. According to the lawsuit against the county, filed on June 2, Russo's family has requested the county pay punitive damages and compensation because jail overcrowding led detention officers to be negligent in their duty to Russo. The lawsuit was brought forth by Russo's mother, Patricia Russo-Wood. Yellowstone County has not received a summons to respond to the lawsuit. Billings Police officers arrested Russo on June 5, 2013, after he led officers on a high-speed chase in a stolen vehicle. Officers and detention facility workers reported Russo yelled goodbye to his friends and family during his arrest and incarceration, according to the lawsuit. Russo was placed on a watch list by detention officers and was ordered checked on every 15 minutes, according to the lawsuit. He was designated a maximum security prisoner, but placed in minimum security due to lack of space, according to the lawsuit. On June 6, 2013, Russo was taken to shower at about 2 p.m. A lock-down occurred at about 2:15 p.m., according to the lawsuit. A detention officer realized Russo had not returned from the shower and went to check on him. The officer saw Russo was hanging from the shower. According to Gazette archives, Russo used clothing to hang himself. Russo was still alive when the detention officer found him and attempted to revive him. The officer also called for assistance. Facility Commander Captain Sam Bofto testified at a coroner's inquest that the housing of inmates from other counties contributed to jail overcrowding, according to the lawsuit. A seven-person jury determined on in October 2013 there was nothing criminal about Russo's suicide, according to Gazette archives. The civil suit is on Yellowstone County Judge Russell Fagg's docket. A response from the county has not yet been filed. In Tuesdays primary election, voters approved the county to borrow up to $9.7 million to help build a 148-bed womens unit and to make renovations to the 29-year-old jail. The borrowed funds will be paired with another $7.8 million from county reserve and capital improvement accounts. Together, the $17.5 million will fund the new womens unit and pay for a new kitchen and laundry and upgrade existing housing units along with other improvements. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Los Angeles Times is reporting a man with rifles and possible explosives was arrested by Santa Monica police Sunday who said he was in town for the L.A. Pride festival. The Times says area police responded to a call of a suspected prowler when they confronted a man that ended up having multiple weapons, "a lot" of ammunition and an ingredient used in making pipe bombs, tannerite, in his car. RELATED: Mass shooting at Orlando gay nightclub being called worst in U.S. history According to the story the car had Indiana plates. Law enforcement officials said there is no connection to the mass shooting in Orlando that killed 50 early Sunday morning, which they could find. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a news conference Sunday afternoon at the pride event that the arrest seems to be "completely unrelated" to the mass shooting in Orlando. He noted the strong resolve of the LGBT community and the unity of L.A. Pride and that people there were from all faiths and all races. "We all wanted to be here this morning," he said. "But we did not want to be here under these circumstances. But we are here. We will not go back in the closet." he said to the cheers of those gathered. More for you Hundreds line up to donate blood in Orlando after nightclub shooting He also thanked the police for their quick reaction in arresting the man and the person who called in the tip to police. CARL JUSTE/MBR Five nonprofit organizations and community groups in Texas, including three in the Houston area, have been awarded a combined $4.78 million by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to boost efforts to enroll the state's nearly three-quarters of a million uninsured children, the federal agency announced on Monday. Texas leads the nation not only in the number of overall uninsured but also in the number of children under age 18 who lack health insurance coverage. More than one in 10 Texas children 18 and younger remain uninsured, according to an U.S. Census analysis and other studies. After years of speculation and anticipation, James Beard Award-winning, New Orleans-based superchef John Besh announced this week that he will open a restaurant in Houston. Eunice, a Cajun/Creole brasserie, will debut in fall 2017 at 3737 Buffalo Speed-way in the Greenway Plaza area under the direction of Drake Leonards, the current executive chef of Besh's Luke restaurant in New Orleans. "We are thrilled to join the diverse culinary landscape of Houston and pay homage to the cuisine of both Eunice, La., my hometown, as well as New Orleans," Leonards said. "We've been fans of Houston for a while and (are)honored to now have the opportunity to share our culture, which is as much about hospitality as it is about food." The Besh Restaurant Group is thriving in the Crescent City. In addition to his signature restaurant August, Besh owns and operates Besh Steak, Luke, La Provence, Domenica, Pizza Domenica, Borgne and Johnny Sanchez. Also under the Besh umbrella is the buzzy new Willa Jean bakery and restaurant, as well as chef Alon Shaya's Shaya restaurant, which in May was named Best New Restaurant at the James Beard Awards - one of the nation's highest culinary honors. Outside New Orleans, the Besh group operates Johnny Sanchez in Baltimore and a Luke outpost in San Antonio. Last fall, according to Nola.com, Besh announced he would revive the Caribbean Room restaurant, the Bayou Bar and the Silver Whistle Cafe at New Orleans' Pontchartrain Hotel. Besh, a television food star and the author of several well-regarded cookbooks, including "My New Orleans," has long been a friend to Houston. He has visited the city often for book-signings, fundraisers and special chef functions. My town has a fish. Or maybe the fish has us. Its a herring known as an alewifeabout nine inches long, with a forked tail and a belly that shines like hammered chrome. Every spring after the snow melts and before the leaves bud, alewives swim upstream from the Atlantic via the Kennebec River, follow their noses through a small tidal creek, and jump through a culvert, ending up in the freshwater pond where they were born. They spawn and head back to sea in June. In August the spawn, which have grown from eggs to a few inches long, depart for the sea, where they spend four years before returning to spawn themselves. Alewives do not fit most definitions of delicious, but they have a subtle charisma that has captured the attention of dozens of my towns 400-odd residents aged 10 to 90. When the culvert became impassible in 2013, people carried more than 700 fish across the road in buckets. In 2014, squads of volunteers, biologists, engineers, the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust, and the Maine Natural Resource Conservation Program collaborated to build an alewife-, beaver-, and turtle-friendly culvert. This surprisingly simpatico relationship between citizens and fellow fish started in the 1600s, when dandelion greens and alewives made a fine spring feast. Andwith vigilance and luckit could continue to the 2400s and beyond. The future of a fish in general is not assured: Oceans are warming and acidifying, and fish catches have fallen dramatically worldwide since 1996. Alewives were once abundant in rivers and ponds from South Carolina to Canada. But during the Industrial Revolution, many of those rivers were dammed and pollution got dumped in the rivers. By 1999 the Clean Water Act had tamed pollution. Environmental advocates successfully petitioned to get the dam here on the Kennebec River blown up. Over the past 10 years the population of herring in the Kennebec alone has risen from 50,000 to more than 3 million. The alewife has several advantages over other fish facing threats: Its willing to swim up another stream when a beaver has blocked its way. It is mainly fished for lobster bait these days, so theres no huge industry catching it. Instead of spawning in international waters, alewives do it in ponds tended by small towns. And finally, they are fun to watch as they wriggle their way upstream, which makes it easier to get those towns to support them. I know about that firsthand. Spending time counting alewives is a highlight of my spring, and its allowed me to get to know my neighbors. I recently found Karen Robbins at the culvert, counting fish that had landed in the towns trap. Robbins runs a construction company and in her spare time maintains spreadsheets about alewives. Back in 2006, Robbins said, townspeople were trying to figure out what to do about high levels of phosphorus in the pond that lead to summer algae blooms. Then they heard of a study showing that juvenile alewives carried phosphorus out of inland ponds. Ding! The town decided to try to combine lowering phosphorus and helping out the few alewives who still made it to the pond. So they signed up volunteers to clean up the area around the culvert, set up a trap (to count the fish), and organized a schedule of counting and releasing fish twice a day for more than a month. Since the project started in 2007 the number of fish returning to the pond has generally gone up, but some years are very high and others are lower. Nobody really knows why. When the alewives arrive in spring, all their predators perk up and a fantastic ecosystem-wide feeding frenzy begins. Bald eagles swoop above the river while the seals bounce up from below. Osprey hover and then dive dramatically, bearing the fish away in their feet, lined up aerodynamically with their flight path, like a fish shaped basket hanging below a bird-shaped dirigible. Inspired by the ospreyand bad news about other fishIve been trying to teach myself to enjoy alewives. Smoked, they have the salty slick of bait garnished with a dab of road tar, liquid smoke, and a frill of tiny bones. But Ive persevered, because dependency fosters vigilance, and thus our mutual survival. Ive scrambled them with potatoes and chard, pureed them with white beans and spices, boiled them in milk, baked them in water, and mixed them with tomatoesin the hope that acid would break through the funk. I havent yet gotten the flavor profile to flip over into the tastier territories of scotch and anchovies. But I still have hope. Lisa Margonelli writes the Small Science column for Zocalo Public Square, where she is the science and humanities editor. Bookmark Gray Matters. It's fun to watch as it wriggles its way upstream. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate At the turn of the 20th century, Houston's medical scene was a far cry from its current world-class status. Doctors largely carried medicine across town on horseback, trotting across the dirt roads of a city of fewer than 100,000 residents. The heat, the mud and the mosquitoes were familiar to the city's population, as were bouts of yellow fever, malaria and typhoid. But in the early to mid-1900s, with Houston in the midst of decades of unabated growth, the seeds of much of Houston's medical future were sown. Railroads, one of the main drivers of Houston's economy, set up several private hospitals in the city. Houston and Harris County began to jointly operate the Jefferson Davis Hospital, the first centralized public hospital for indigent care. St. Joseph's, one of the city's oldest hospitals, saw major expansions. The roots of both Ben Taub Hospital and the Memorial Hermann Hospital System can be traced to this period, as can the foundation for the Texas Medical Center. This era in medicine was one of transition between Houston's frontier past and the explosive growth coming its way. More Information looking back 1903: The Harris County Medical Society is established, as the Houston region - along with the rest of the country - pays increasing attention to medical standards and training. 1905: St. Joseph's Infirmary opens a new 3-story wing and establishes a training school for nurses that has five students in its first class. 1924: Five doctors come together to open the Houston Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital at Caroline and Walker Streets. 1924: The first centralized public indigent-care facility, Jefferson Davis Hospital, is established at 1101 Elder St. It cost $400,000 to build and was four stories, with 150 beds. 1925: Hermann Hospital opens its doors 4 miles south of downtown. It's considered modern and has electric lights, an electric ice plant and electric kitchen. 1927: The Houston Negro Hospital opens at 3204 Ennis St. following an $80,000 donation from Joseph Cullinan. 1931: Park View Hospital opens in Houston's East End. 1937: Wright Clinic and Hospital opens on North Main Street. 1942: Hedgecroft Clinic and Hospital, a rehabilitation hospital for those crippled by disease, opens on Montrose Boulevard. See More Collapse "As the city grew, they needed more services, they needed more sophistication and more hospitals," said Bryant Boutwell, a medical historian and professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center. One of the hospitals most emblematic of the changing city at this time was the 102-bed Southern Pacific Hospital, which opened on May 27, 1911. It was one of the city's "earliest" modern hospitals, writes William Kellar in his book, "Enduring Legacy," about the origins and development of the Texas Medical Center. "Railroad hospitals played an important role in healthcare in Texas, including Houston," Kellar writes. The railroad hospitals brought in professional doctors, helping to boost Houston's economy and contributing to an upward cycle of growth and population. Over the next 30 years, Kellar writes, "new hospitals opened in a continuing effort to meet the medical needs of Houston's growing population." One of the most significant developments was the 1924 opening of Jefferson Davis Hospital. It was one of the larger hospitals, with multiple floors as well as a nurses' home that had more than 151 beds in the back, according to a Works Progress Administration guide to the city and its history. For decades, there had been some semblance of indigent care at charity hospitals, dating back almost a century, but Jefferson Davis was the first formal attempt. "I think it was a community responsibility that they felt we needed to organize the best facility we can for taking care of the indigent," Boutwell said. Built on a Confederate burial ground, the hospital was named by then-Mayor Oscar Holcombe after Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, to placate opponents. Jefferson Davis Hospital was a forerunner to Ben Taub General Hospital, which today provides care to the region's poor and uninsured patients. The vision of Houston icon George Hermann led to another well-known medical institution. A lifelong bachelor, Hermann would ride a horse around the city on Sundays, visiting working-class family members and paying attention to the level of medical care they had access to. This inspired Hermann, who died in 1914, to leave part of his fortune for a hospital with a charity mission. Hermann Hospital opened in 1925, one year after Jefferson Davis Hospital, and was considered by some "to be the finest hospital 'in beauty and efficiency' anywhere in the South," Kellar writes. Electricity powered its lights, ice plant and kitchen. Hermann was also located a few miles south of downtown, where it would become one of the first anchors of the Texas Medical Center. "That's when hospitals started moving out of downtown," Boutwell said. Around the same time, oil tycoon Joseph Cullinan donated some $80,000 to create the 50-bed Houston Negro Hospital, the first institution to train African- American nurses, and the predecessor to today's Riverside Hospital, Kellar writes. At a time of segregation, the Houston Negro Hospital became the first nonprofit medical center for African American residents, though other hospitals had separate wards for black patients. There were two other major developments involving hospitals during the first part of the 20th century. Methodist Hospital opened in 1924, the product of a private hospital founded in 1908 by Oscar Norsworthy. Memorial Hermann Healthcare System also can trace its origins to a Baptist sanitarium on Smith Street and Lamar Avenue, before that facility expanded steadily over the years. St. Joseph's Infirmary - established in the previous century - also saw significant growth. Though it was established in 1887, it opened the city's first nursing school in 1905. It also received the city's first X-ray machines in 1912 and built a new $300,000 wing in 1919. Nearly two decades later, it opened the first building for exclusive treatment of women and infants, according to information provided by St. Joseph's Medical Center. Boutwell said the era was defined by an emphasis on elevating medical standards. "They just didn't have the advanced systems of care in Houston," said William Butler, chancellor emeritus of the Baylor College of Medicine. Butler said a national report written by Abraham Flexner, regarded as one of the most important names in medical education, exposed medical schools around the country as substandard. There was a national effort, and then a local push, to improve training and care. "Medicine really was on the map," Boutwell said. "It was the early 1900s when we really started getting sophisticated with the accreditation and the medical society." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate It was 1976, and the spirit of America's bicentennial was everywhere. Ron Kronberg had just graduated from the University of Houston and went to work at his father's office supplies company. His parents had been in business since 1953 and sold a variety of things, including flagpoles - but not flags. He decided to drop all of the other stuff and specialize; now it's Kronberg's Flags and Flagpoles. "The bicentennial was going on, and the Vietnam War was over, and people were getting patriotic again," he said. That same year, Kronberg said, the U.S. Flag Code went through a number of changes, including approval for people to display their flags 24 hours a day, as long as they were properly illuminated. No longer would flag owners have to raise and lower their banners every morning and evening. "The U.S. flag is the thread that holds us all together," Kronberg said. "Regardless of what happens in Washington politics or in Supreme Court rulings, the flag is a symbol for our freedom." June 14th is Flag Day, so you're more likely to see the red, white and blue flown here and all over the country. Here are flag tips and trivia from Kronberg and the U.S. Institute of Heraldry, which advises the federal government on heraldic issues, including flag etiquette. More Information Video Ron Kronberg talks about flags, how they're made and how to display them at houstonchronicle.com/flagday. See More Collapse At your home, the U.S. flag should be flown on a pole in the ground or mounted on your home or porch. It should never drape from a doorway or arch; use red, white and blue bunting for that. When displayed with other flags, the U.S. flag should be at the same elevation or higher than the others. All should be of comparable size. Flags should be destroyed in a dignified way (such as burning) when they're no longer in a condition to be a fitting emblem. Contact a chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Elks Lodge, American Legion or Knights of Columbus for help. Dirty flags may be washed, dried and displayed again. Those tattered on the fly end may be repaired or re-hemmed. Although Flag Day was created by proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, it was President Harry S. Truman who made it official with an act of Congress in 1949. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the U.S. Flag Code in 1942 as a guide for the use, display and disposal of flags. It includes no fines, penalties or means for enforcement. While flag patches should only be worn by members of the military or by those in emergency or patriotic groups, flag lapel pins may be worn by anyone on their left lapel, near the heart. Only the president or a governor can declare that flags be flown at half-staff. It's generally done to indicate a nation in mourning, such as when a president or former president or other dignitary has died. American flags should also be flown at half-staff (sunrise until noon) on Memorial Day and half-staff (sunrise to sunset) on Peace Officers Memorial Day (May 15), Patriot Day (Sept. 11), during Fire Prevention Week (the week in which Oct. 9 falls) and on National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day (Dec. 7). On all other days, the flag can be flown 24 hours. "Reveille" is traditionally played during raising of the U.S. flag; "Taps" is played when it is lowered. (The military plays the "Retreat" song, followed by the national anthem or "To the Colors.") The most recognizable flag is the world is the American flag, Kronberg said. The second most recognizable is the Texas flag. Kronberg credits J.R. Ewing for that. Q: Years ago, I had a friend who was just miserable with a rash from his groin down. He worked in the Great Dismal Swamp, so he had to wear high waders all day long. I told him to try milk of magnesia (MoM). It was life-changing for him. He passed the word around to all of his co-workers. MoM made their lives much nicer. Just recently, I broke out with eczema on my hand and arm. My doctor said that it is stress-related, since my husband was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. I was prescribed a steroid cream for the eczema, but it didn't help at all. I tried MoM, and it's been a wonderful relief. I apply it twice a day. I am grateful that this works so well, and also that my husband is doing well with his chemo. A: Milk of magnesia (MoM) is a liquid laxative containing magnesium hydroxide. It has been used topically as a treatment for seborrheic dermatitis, diaper rash, acne, underarm odor, poison ivy, under-breast rash and canker sores. These all are off-label uses since the Food and Drug Administration has not approved MoM for any of these purposes. Nevertheless, milk of magnesia may make the skin less hospitable to microbes that aggravate a variety of skin problems. Q: I have been taking Januvia for diabetes for eight months. Ever since I started, every joint has hurt. The pain became worse as time went on. I mentioned the pain to my doctor, and he blew me off. I did not connect it with Januvia until I saw a TV commercial. At the end, it mentioned that some people may experience severe joint pain, and it all finally made sense. I didn't start feeling this way until after I started the Januvia. I immediately stopped taking it, and two weeks later, the pain is much less than it was before. That was all the proof I needed that Januvia was to blame. A: It is disappointing that your doctor did not take you seriously when you told him about your joint pain. In August 2015, the FDA issued a drug-safety communication warning that sitagliptin (Januvia) and similar medicines such as saxagliptin (Onglyza) and linagliptin (Tradjenta) can cause "severe and persistent joint pain." For most people, the pain eases when the drug is discontinued. You need to tell your doctor about the FDA warning and discuss other ways to treat your diabetes. Q: I have been taking proton-pump inhibitors like omeprazole and lansoprazole for reflux for a decade. My creatinine numbers are climbing, and I am afraid these drugs could be harming my kidneys. My doctor says acid-suppressing drugs are fine; he takes one too. But as I age, I worry more about my kidneys, so I've decided to go off the medicine. I cut down very gradually, and now I'm off altogether. If I get a little heartburn, I suck on a hard candy. That increases saliva and helps with reflux. A: A recent study suggests that patients taking acid-suppressing drugs long term may be at risk for higher creatinine levels and kidney trouble (Journal of the American Society of Nephrology online, April 14, 2016). Q: I have a family history of Alzheimer's and have been doing a lot of research on how to try to prevent it. I just read that cold sores and other infections may contribute. This is quite upsetting to me, as I get cold sores frequently. I have started using L-lysine tablets to reduce outbreaks. Is there any evidence that it will protect my brain? A: A recent study from Harvard offers a novel theory on Alzheimer's disease (Science Translational Medicine, May 25, 2016). The conventional view holds that plaque made of harmful beta-amyloid protein destroys neurons. The new hypothesis suggests that beta-amyloid protein is part of the body's immune response to pathogens as varied as those that cause cold sores, Lyme disease or HIV. It appears to act as a natural antibiotic, but it can cause damage when the immune response goes haywire. For more than 40 years, scientists have been reporting an association between herpes virus infection (HSV type 1) and dementia (Alzheimer's and Dementia, June 2015). We don't know whether treating cold sores with L-lysine or antiviral drugs (acyclovir, famciclovir, valacyclovir) would help reduce the risk. There has been very little research on the effectiveness of L-lysine against HSV-1 infections (Dermatologica, Vol. 175, No. 4, 1987). Many visitors to our website do report that this amino acid can help prevent cold-sore outbreaks. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate As the sun set Sunday, more than 100 people gathered at the Houston Zoo entrance to honor the Orlando massacre victims and to call for action to protect LGBT people in Houston and nationwide. "Everybody who's been marginalized has been under attack," organizer Ashton P. Woods said. "Now is the time for us to stand up and make our own narrative." Added Jeffrey Campbell, a Houston pastor, "Once all 50 bodies have been buried and all 53 people have been released from the hospital, I need us to continue to come together like this. The vigil topped off a long day of reflection, anguish and determination for members of Houston's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community as they mourned the deaths of 50 people and the injury to 53 more in the mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando, Fla. "This is a horrible morning," said Troy Treash, senior pastor of Resurrection Metropolitan Community Church in the Heights, which ministers to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members. Even a year after marriage equality was mandated, the shooting serves as a stark reminder of how much work remains to reach true equality, he said. "People see difference as something to be afraid of, something to lash out against," Treash said. Prayers were sent to the families and victims during Sunday worship services. Ryan Bellinghausen, a blogger for My Gay Houston which features events, bars and restaurants for visitors to Houston, is trying to sort out what happened in Orlando. "It's important not to jump to conclusions," said Bellinghausen, who has questions like everyone else about whether the shootings were related to terrorism, hate crimes or something else. It will take a few days, he said. And until then, he doesn't want to put a label on what happened. That said, however, Bellinghausen notes that the attack took place during pride month, a festive time in the gay community. "We can't be afraid to celebrate being gay and the strides the community has achieved," Bellinghausen said, referring to the U.S. Supreme Court decision on marriage equality and the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" military policy. The Montrose Center, a non-profit that serves the LGBT, said in a statement: "We are deeply saddened by the lives lost and those injured by this horrific and hateful act at Pulse in Orlando. Our love and condolences go out to those who have lost loved ones and friends." "We are grieving, heartbroken and angry," Kevin Nix, senior director of communications of Legacy Community Health, a network of 22 health care clinics in Houston, said in a written statement. The flagship location in Montrose sees a lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender dominant population. The non-profit was founded in 1981 at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. "Based on media reports, it appears this was a terrorist attack on all Americans, and our freedoms," he said. LGBT leaders in Houston are planning a Stand With #Orlando Vigil at 8 p.m. tonight at Hermann Park. Participants should meet near the zoo entrance. The Montrose Center and Legacy Community Health is planning a vigil for 6 p.m. Monday at 401 Branard. A third is planned for 8 p.m. Wednesday at South Beach, 810 Pacific. "It's one of the most hateful acts imaginable," said club owner Charles Armstrong. "When you go into a church or a synagogue or a school or a gay club and start shooting, it's an act of evil." Pride Houston organizers said they are still planning their event on June 25 in downtown, but that security will be increased. "Today is a tragic loss for the LGBT community, and we keep the victims, as well as those affected, in our hearts as we move forward together as a community" Frankie Quijano, CEO of Pride Houston. Treneice Collins, a patron at JR's, on the patio chatting and spending time with friends and her wife Wendy, said she was devastated by the news. "It could have been one of us," Collins said. "It puts you in a bad place where you're scared to go out and enjoy yourself. It has shaken the LGBT community." To Harold DeMoss, Leatrice Johnson was the friendly home helper who would banter about the Houston Texans. She cared for the 88-year-old retired federal judge, taking him to the bank and doctor's office, and, over time, sitting in on some of the family's most intimate conversations. Then, in December, DeMoss's bank statement came in the mail, line after line showing $25,000 worth of withdrawals from DeMoss's account into one held by Johnson, the evidence of six months of undetected exploitation. "His picture was on the TV," said Harold's son, Chip DeMoss. "He had friends call him. But I think it was mostly a positive experience of 'Wow, if this can happen to a recently retired federal judge, it can happen to anybody.' " Experts expect this type of elderly exploitation to increase as Baby Boomers age and the vulnerable senior population surges, a prospect that's forcing Harris County officials to better understand and address cases of exploitation, abuse and neglect. They're proposing creating a "senior justice assessment center," which would, for the first time, bring a handful of health care, city and county government officials together under one roof. The center would build on efforts in New York City and California and is part of a greater trend toward collaborative approaches to find and stop such cases, experts said. "We have to figure out a way of how seniors can age in place," said Claudia Gonzalez, adult services administrator at the Harris County Guardianship Program for Harris County Protective Services, which would run the center. "How are we going to do that? I don't know as a city, as a state, as a county we're ready." Harris County is currently applying for a $386,000 grant from the federal government for the first year of a three-year pilot project and is in conversations with the county budget office for other possible funding, Gonzalez said. They expect to hear back in August. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Texas had about 3.8 million people age 60 and over, roughly 15 percent of the population. The number is expected to more than triple to 12 million by 2050. A similar surge is expected nationwide - roughly 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65 every day in the U.S., said Bonnie Brandl, director of the National Clearinghouse on Abuse in Later Life. It's unclear whether abuse or exploitation cases are increasing, said Kathleen Quinn, executive director of the National Adult Protective Services Association. She said that's in part because, for decades, there has been relatively little emphasis on senior abuse from the federal government, especially in comparison to child abuse. Increasing awareness That's led to a mishmash of different policies and practices across states and has limited the understanding of a problem sure to become more severe. "It's ridiculous. It's affecting an estimated 10 percent of the fastest-growing population group in the country," Quinn said. She said the federal government is working to develop a national database on statistics, a signal that awareness is increasing. One of the current interim charges of the Texas House of Representatives is to evaluate policies on "financial exploitation and financial abuse of aging Texans." Mary McFaden, chief of the elder exploitation division of the Harris County District Attorney's Office, said her case load has increased from a handful when her division was formed in 2014 to about 40 now. That's more a reflection of increased awareness by both law enforcement and the public about these types of crimes, than an actual increase, because there are not good estimates, she said. Many cases go unreported or unidentified as criminal acts. "What I can say, in Harris County, it's rampant," McFaden said. Most cases that come across McFaden's desk - some are reported directly to prosecutors, while others are referred by Adult Protective Services, a state agency that investigates abuse, exploitation and abuse cases - are financial exploitation cases like DeMoss's. But McFaden said she also regularly sees sexual assault cases and aggravated assault cases. Some cases are particularly striking, like a 2013 case in north Houston that made national headlines. Three malnourished elderly men were found inside a dungeon-like garage. They slept on the floor, ate scraps and had no access to a bathroom for at least a year. Often times, two or three types of crime come together. "We're seeing lots of financial exploitation, which we rarely see alone," Quinn said. "It often is accompanied by physical abuse, and very, very often by neglect." If the senior assessment center proposal goes forward, the building would house representatives from APS, the Houston Police Department, the district attorney's office, the county attorney's office, and health care providers, among others. 'Half the work' The center, officials hope, can help untangle complicated cases that might involve family members, mental health issues, financial records and possibly even substance abuse. It's often difficult to establish that a crime occurred if a victim gives consent against his or her best interests. "There's a fine line of whether this person has the capacity, do they really, really know what they're doing and the consequences?" Gonzalez said. McFaden said agencies may currently conduct separate investigations to determine whether charges can be filed or what social services a victim might need. Having multiple agencies in one building will speed up the process, freeing up time for other investigations, she said. "Instead of APS doing an investigation, the district attorney's office doing an investigation, if in fact we all come to the table on day one, we're basically doing half the work," McFaden said. "Now I can split my time between two complaints instead of one." Time is also critical when dealing with victims who may have memory impairments. The center could also cut down on costly 911 calls if victims get better aid. "These are people who built the nation, the economy that we now have," Quinn said. "They contributed, they raised their children, and they should not, should not suffer like this, nobody should suffer like this." AUSTIN - Gov. Greg Abbott has opened his official state residence to political allies, business leaders, presidential hopefuls, educators, musicians and lawmakers of both parties for numerous receptions and meetings. The guests who get the rarer, highly prized invitations for dinner at the Governor's Mansion, however, often have something in common. Many are donors who have funded his political rise and are seen as crucial to Republicans' future. Of 16 dinners at the Greek Revival-style mansion that were detailed in records examined by the San Antonio Express-News, 13 included donors who together have given Abbott some $15 million since 2000. The tally may be higher, because mansion records provided by the governor's office were incomplete. Among those listed as dinner guests were Bruce Bugg, chairman of the Bank of San Antonio who was appointed by Abbott to the Texas Transportation Commission, and NuStar Energy Chairman William Greehey. Most of the dinners with donors were fairly intimate affairs, with the guest list ranging from one couple to 13 people. Their political contributions have ranged from $150 to more than $1 million, with the majority giving in the six-figure range. Some dinner guests spoke to the Express-News of friendly, warm evenings untouched by political talk. Such get-togethers, however, are about more than giving powerbrokers a chance to press a specific case. "Lobbying and getting favors is about access and personal relationships," said Craig McDonald, director of Texans for Public Justice, which tracks the influence of money in politics, "and this helps strengthen a personal relationship." Such access isn't unusual at the state or national level, and it has put officeholders from both parties in the spotlight. Bill and Hillary Clinton came under particular fire over Democratic donors staying in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House in the 1990s. "This is the way politics works," McDonald said. "The big donors get the special perks." Even some Democrats didn't raise an eyebrow at the Republican governor's dinner guest list. "I didn't check the donor list before we invited anybody. I'm sure I had a lot of donors over there, too," said former Gov. Mark White. "They were friends, or there was some business reason for them to come over there. It's a useful tool for the governor to bring people together and get them to help on projects." Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, is less accepting. "The Texas Governor's Mansion isn't just a symbol of our state's history, it is a place that all Texans can claim as their own. Unfortunately, Gov. Abbott has treated this iconic residence as a perk for high-powered political donors," Garcia said. Asked about donor access and how the governor chooses whom to invite to the mansion, Abbott's staff provided written comments emphasizing the wide range of events that include numerous guests and encompass far more than dinners. A request to interview Abbott chief of staff Daniel Hodge was declined. "The records show that the overwhelming majority of the thousands of guests that the Governor and First Lady have welcomed to the mansion have not contributed a penny to his campaign," Abbott spokesman John Wittman said. 'High-quality time' By the governor's office count, the number of mansion happenings has been close to 250 when including meetings, lunches, receptions that may include several hundred people, news conferences and events such as Easter egg rolls and a 109th birthday celebration for Richard Overton, the oldest known living World War II combat veteran in the United States. That doesn't include public tours, which have been expanded to Saturdays under the Abbotts. Besides receptions that ranged from celebrating the 2015 teacher of the year to saluting Texas music, the mansion has been the scene of lunches or meetings with top business leaders and officials from other countries. Former first lady Linda Gale White requested and got a meeting with current first lady Cecilia Abbott to discuss the Communities in Schools dropout prevention program. Democratic as well as Republican lawmakers were invited to luncheons last year to talk about legislative issues or just get better acquainted. Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, called it "high-quality time." Abbott doesn't raise political money at the mansion. But there have been events with a political air besides the dinners with donors, such as Texans for Greg Abbott, grassroots and conservative group receptions. He also has met there with political advisers and campaign staff. He doesn't have donors as overnight guests, according to his office. Mansion operations are supported with state funds of nearly $750,000 a year, but Abbott's campaign and other funding sources cover event costs such as food and beverages, according to his office. The state money includes $524,589 a year spent through the governor's office, much of which pays for mansion staff, according to his office. The State Preservation Board budgets another $225,380 for items including maintenance and groundskeeping. The governor's office estimated Abbott's campaign has paid about $100,000 for mansion expenses. Another $40,000 has been funneled through a separate fund that allows groups with mansion events to cover their cost. In addition, the Friends of the Governor's Mansion pays for expenses such as maintenance of historic items, spending between $8,000 and $9,000 in 2014. Abbott pays for personal costs, his office said. The exact number of events couldn't be determined because numerous dates in the first half of 2015 were missing from the records provided by Abbott's office in response to a request under the Texas Public Information Act. Among them were dates in July that covered a meeting and dinner with Mexico's then-secretary of foreign affairs, Jose Antonio Meade Kuribrena. His staff said all records that could be located were provided. Politics 'never came up' Despite the breadth of mansion doings, dinners are acknowledged to be a particularly choice invitation. "Dinner, by definition, is more intimate," said high-profile lobbyist and consultant Bill Miller, a dinner guest last August with his wife and daughter. Miller doesn't appear as an Abbott donor in campaign reports, but his firm's political action committee has chalked up more than $242,000 for Abbott since 2000. That's the year before Abbott resigned from the Texas Supreme Court to run for attorney general, an office in which he served before becoming governor in January 2015. The agenda at the dinner he attended was distinctly personal, Miller said. The Millers' daughter attends the California university where the Abbotts' daughter headed last year. The get-together gave the girls and their parents a chance to talk about what the freshman could expect. "People who are not in the business think that all I do is talk politics all day long with everybody I run into. They would not believe that I'm sitting around with the governor and not talking politics," Miller said. "But the truth is when we were there that night, it never came up." Abbott donor Harlan Stai said the same was true when he and his wife, Dian Graves Stai, dined at the mansion. The two, who are retired from Owen Healthcare, have donated more than $400,000 to Abbott, according to campaign finance records. "It was nothing political at all. It was just a nice evening," said Stai. "It was like going to dinner with your brother and his wife." Not every dinner guest detailed in the records was a donor. One dinner featured Nobel laureates. At another, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and his wife, Ann, had dinner there but aren't found as Abbott donors in campaign records. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a longtime Abbott ally who doesn't appear as a campaign contributor, attended a mansion dinner that also included donors the month before he launched his presidential bid last year. The biggest donor on the dinner guest list, according to records provided, is Fort Worth businessman Robert Albritton and his wife, Mary Louise, who have given more than $1 million to Abbott. Albritton is an Abbott appointee to the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents. At times angry and at other times reflective, a crowd approaching 100 people held a candlelight vigil on the lawn of Grace United Methodist Church on Sunday evening to remember and honor the victims of Sunday mornings mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. While I am incredibly saddened by the violence, I am angry, too. I want to scream and rally to protest, and I probably will, but not today, said Liz Welch, LGBT advocacy coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union in Montana. Today, in this space, I want to call us to love and to justice, because its so easy to get drawn into the hateful rhetoric thats coming. The vigil, sponsored by Not in Our Town Billings, drew elected officials, Billings-area clergy, members of Billings' lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and their allies. Love is love, and thats the way it should be, said Vickie Ann Davis, who attended the vigil with her transgender son and her rescue dog August, who was sporting a series of leis in a rainbow array. We are here to support all who lost their children today. Welch said shes been traveling to oppose bills that would limit the rights of the LGBT community, and in many hearing rooms, I have heard people say that my friends dont deserve to have their rights recognized. In every state Ive visited, Ive heard people say that what happened in Orlando needs to happen. To honor the dead, she suggested, lets protect the living against any further assaults of mind, body and spirit. Take every opportunity to offer prayers and thoughts, she said, but also take action and offer sanctuary. Lets create spaces where safety exists. She called on attendees to donate blood or plasma on Monday unless theyre gay, because some blood banks restrict gay donors. You will literally be saving lives" by donating, she said. All of us want to know why, and who is to blame" for the shooting, said Dan Mehrens-Wallace, noting that the gunman reportedly became angry when he saw two men kissing, just like I kiss my husband every day. Islam is not to blame for the nations largest gun massacre, he said. I promise you," he said, "nothing could be further from the truth. To those who would say the shooting is some form of divine retribution for sinners practicing an abomination that is worthy of their death, Mehrens-Wallace told the crowd, this evening we are given the opportunity to send a stronger message, a message of love not fear, dignity not hate. We must write a new narrative for our world, one where all are worthy of dignity and protection, because we all are children of God, loved and adored by God. We must commit to fight this, he said. It is killings us, and it is killing our kids. Near the conclusion of the 30-minute ceremony, attendees lighted candles and sang Imagine and We Shall Overcome. Many wrapped their arms around one another as they sang. As a member of the LGBT community, it is meaningful to see allies willing to stand with us, said Marty Elizabeth Ortiz, board chair of Not in Our Town Billings. Not in Our Town historically has always stood with victims, and thats what we do today. There are many who stand with us, even against legislation that threatens us every day. Candlelight vigils were also held in cities across the state, including Bozeman, Helena, Great Falls and Missoula. Limited budgets, decreased donations and higher demand has forced a local animal rescue group into a financial corner for the second time in a few years. Rescued Pets Movement, a group that's sent more than 13,000 Houston-born cats and dogs for out-of-state adoptions since 2013, is shutting its animal clinic and reducing services until the new fiscal year begins July 1, president Laura Carlock said. This decision came after the group sent hundreds more animals than its monthly budget allowed in an attempt to meet growing demand from out-of-state partners. "We spent about as much money as we could," Carlock said. "We need to slow down considerably to get finances back in order." The Houston rescue group's story is a familiar one for the nonprofit world, said Rick Cohen, spokesperson for the National Council of Nonprofits. According to a survey from the Nonprofit Finance Fund, 54 percent of nonprofits in Texas couldn't meet demand for services in 2014. An Urban Institute report found 45 percent of nonprofits with government contracts and grants say payments don't cover the full cost of services. "So many nonprofits are in the same boat," he said. "They're not paid the full amount necessary to deliver on that service and the funding pool is limited. There are not a lot of generous individuals to come in and fill the funding gap." Cohen sees this predicament often across nonprofits. "It's very difficult to turn away someone who's in need of service, whether they are standing on two legs or on four," Cohen said. "The temptation is always going to be there, even when funding is not." Rescued Pets Movement, seen by many as key in improving Houston's live animal release rate, is in its first year of a five-year, $1.6 million agreement with the city of Houston's Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care. In 2012, BARC had an annual live-release rate of 42.6 percent, and by April 2016, the city reported that the rate had increased to 78.2 percent. The group is the largest of the 150 organizations that BARC works with to handle a monthly influx of 2,000-plus animals, said Greg Damianoff, BARC director. It is, by far, the city's largest partner. Less donations, more dogs RPM receives $75 from the city for every animal it sends outside of Houston for adoption, and comes up with the remaining $150 needed for boarding, medical care, transportation and food through donations and payments from the receiving organization. Carlock has seen a decline in monthly donations, possibly due to downturns in the oil and gas industry, she said. Carlock estimates the group can transport about 400 animals a month to stretch city funding to last the fiscal year. But for each of the past three months, they moved as many as 742. The group launched an online campaign for donations to re-open the clinic and to fund additional animal transfers beyond the budgeted 400. RPM is asking for donations to replace a hot water heater, install UV lights and replace a door to prevent water from entering the building when it rains, according to its newsletter. Also, due to the lack of funds, there is currently no clinic staff. The group is relying more heavily on foster homes to take in animals before they travel out of state. While the group anticipates reopening the clinic as early as July, CEO Cindy Perini doesn't want to rush things. RPM has hired a business manager and plans to better track who is sponsoring every transfer, whether that money is coming from BARC, a private sponsor or a rescue group. "Before we were just blowing and going," she said. Word of mouth is a main cause for the group's popularity, according to Perini. As other groups learned about the influx of animals coming from Houston via RPM, requests to partner up kept coming. Becca Orin, founder of Sunshine Canyon, split off from another rescue group that worked with RPM in 2015. When Orin and her partner branched off, they knew they wanted to keep working with the Houston organization and received their first dog in March 2015. After RPM's financial crunch, Orin's group upped its payments to $75 per dog instead of paying between $25 and $50. On average, they get between six to nine dogs a week from RPM, Orin said. "Boulder, Colo. is such a crazy dog place anyways," she said. "Everyone wants a dog to take up to the mountains." In states such as Colorado and Wyoming, it's more "in vogue" to have a rescue dog, Perini said. Also, a shorter breeding season, colder winters and a smaller stray population from decades of spay-and-neuter efforts have led to a shortage of available pets. In Houston, a limited budget and other factors lead to a larger population of unwanted pets. Damianoff credits the bayou systems, the city's temperate climate and practically year-long breeding season for the surplus of strays. He said there are "lots of things working against us" to be able to achieve a 90 percent live-release rate without "a lot more budget." But with the city's ongoing budget shortfalls, Damianoff said he doesn't expect additional money at this time. The plan had always been for BARC to help RPM in its initial years, before the group could switch mainly to private donations, he said. As it stands, the group must raise an additional $150 for every pet it transfers. According to its 990 forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service, the group received $65,534 in total revenue in 2013 and nearly $1.4 million in 2014. While transporting animals cross-country can get expensive, and may not be a practical long-term solution, Perini sees it as the most viable solution for now. Carlock describes RPM as a Band-Aid solution for the city's large unwanted animal population. "It's a way for us to match supply and demand, until we get to that point where RPM is no longer needed," Perini said. "Until then, the dogs that are here matter. We want to see them get out alive." The Pearland Police Department was left reeling Sunday after a rookie patrol officer was killed in a horrific car crash allegedly caused by a drunken driver. The officer, 30-year-old Endy Ekpanya, was en route to a non-emergency call at 3:15 a.m. when he was involved in a "catastrophic" collision with a woman driving a gray Chrysler SRT near the intersection of 2500 Broadway and Liberty on Pearland's eastern edge, Pearland Police said. The woman was likely driving at high speed, given that damage to the vehicles was so extensive that emergency responders were forced to extricate both drivers, police said. Ekpanya, who joined the department less than a year ago, was transported by helicopter to Memorial Hermann-The Texas Medical Center, where he died about 4 a.m., officials said. The woman, who emerged from the crash with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, will face charges of intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer, said Lt. Craig Cummings with the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is handling the criminal investigation. Cummings declined to identify the woman but said she underwent surgery on Sunday and could be booked into jail on Monday. Her blood alcohol level was tested at the hospital. "There's clear evidence she was intoxicated, and we're confident she was intoxicated at the time of the crash," Cummings said. Pearland Police Lt. Onesimo Lopez said Ekpanya's death was "devastating" to a close-knit department of 163 sworn officers. He lived with his fiancee and 2-year-old son in Rosharon. "He was just a nice guy," Lopez said at a news conference. "He was very kind, courteous, would do anything for you. He was just that kind of guy. I can't say enough good things about him." Dashcam footage Pearland police expect to complete a reconstruction of the crash in the next week. DPS will continue working with the department to piece together more information on the collision. Officials plan to review video footage from Ekpanya's dashboard camera and any cameras at businesses in the area while they continue to track down any witnesses, Cummings said. "These things take time to get all the data out of there, to make sure we have the correct information," he said. "The officer, like all of us, came to work that night, expecting to go home, expecting to save lives, and instead, he lost his own life in defense of his community." Ekpanya's death marked the first officer fatality in the line of duty for the Pearland Police Department since the early 1970s, officials said. For decades the department had been touched by "good fortune," said Officer James Wells, a department spokesman. "It's a matter of time," Wells said. "Unfortunately, we were long overdue." Assistant Chief Johnny Spires said it will take time for the department to heal. "The Pearland Police Department is devastated right now," Spires said. "It's just going to take us some time to work through the process." At the department's headquarters at 2555 Cullen, officers lowered their flags to half-staff and established a memorial outside the building. Officers also participated in a procession in honor of Ekpanya. With lights flashing, they drove along Texas 288 and past the crash site on Broadway before ending at Jeter Memorial Funeral Home in Friendswood, where the officer's body was transported from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences on Sunday afternoon. Residents mourn Throughout the morning and early afternoon, Pearland residents periodically stopped by the scene to contribute to a second memorial on a nearby patch of grass. The first resident to stop by, Adrienne Bell, laid a small bouquet of yellow flowers underneath a nearby tree. Bell, a 10-year resident of Pearland, lives a few blocks from where the crash unfolded. Although she did not know Ekpanya, she said she appreciated his service to the community. "He gave his life for us. That's it," Bell said. "I didn't know him personally, but he was out here taking care of me." Later on, Tom Hinds walked over to the growing pile of flower bouquets, a miniature American flag in hand. Hinds, a teacher, said he was saddened when he woke up to the news of Ekpanya's death. Since he moved to Pearland in 2002, he said the police department has always responded quickly and served the community well. The tragedy was a reminder not to take police officers for granted, Hinds said, adding that bringing the flag was the least he could do. A few minutes later, George Mellis also brought a flag. Mellis, a retired member of law enforcement in New Orleans, said he knew how Pearland police officers were grieving for their colleague. "It hits a little hard," he said. "It's a brotherhood and a sisterhood. You learn to take care of each other." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ratcheted up the pressure on housing officials across the country to do what has rarely been done in Houston: build affordable homes in well-off neighborhoods. That is proving to be easier said than done. The court warned that concentrating public housing in low-income, high-minority neighborhoods could violate the Fair Housing Act. Its guidance was essentially at odds with the goals of the Houston Housing Authority, which argued, controversially, that such a ruling would hamper its ability to provide new affordable housing. A decade since the city housing authority last brought new affordable units to Houston, the agency is now embroiled in a seemingly endless tug-of-war with activists, developers and politicians over how to develop in areas with good schools and low poverty, while at the same time fulfilling its mission to revive distressed neighborhoods. All but three of the authority's eight projects proposed in the last three years were blocked. And those that remain on the table - replacement housing in the Fifth Ward, a mixed-income complex in Independence Heights, and a politically thorny plan for affordable housing in affluent Briargrove near the Galleria-area - still face hurdles. This leaves the stakes increasingly high for upwards of 100,000 Houston families in need of affordable options, facing a rising cost of living across the city. Amid the delays and the ongoing tension over where to build subsidized units, advocates are calling on the city to develop a clear housing strategy. "We have a history of working in silos," said Assata Richards, a former authority commissioner and chair of Mayor Sylvester Turner's transition committee on housing. "What we think is a comprehensive plan around housing - previous administrations have not had that. And so without that, everyone takes on addressing housing in their own way, with their own set of priorities." *** Long considered a bastion of affordability, Houston saw unprecedented levels of demolition and high-end inner-city building during the post-recession real estate boom. Between 2010 and 2014, rental rates across the region rose two to three times the healthy growth rate of 3 percent. New construction and demolition across historically working-class neighborhoods led to continued displacement as homeownership fell out of reach for many. As of 2013, 46 percent of Houston-area renter households were spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing - making them "cost burdened" by federal standards - and 23 percent were spending more than half of their income on rent, according to a report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. Authority president Tory Gunsolley estimated that 100,000 Houston households - or about 270,000 people - would benefit from affordable housing. Houston has 78,000 subsidized units from a web of agencies, including the authority, private developers and nonprofit organizations. Some say the shortage of affordable units is even greater. Among those who has found it difficult to secure an affordable home is Adeline Gonzales, a single mother and grandmother who works with patients at the Texas Medical Center. Her household income dropped by two-thirds when she divorced 10 years ago. Gonzales has struggled to support her 25-year-old daughter and 3-year-old granddaughter on $45,000 a year, 72 percent of the area median income for a family of three. She has been hit by three rent increases in two years, on top of other expenses. "The rates that are going now are outrageous and not feasible for the living conditions," said Gonzales, 53. "It was never a concern until I stood alone. When you wake up one morning and say, 'Uh-oh, this is real.'" Most of Houston's subsidized units are located in neighborhoods with high poverty and a high concentration of minority residents, prompting concerns from some that the city has perpetuated segregation. Research shows that children benefit long-term from living in so-called "high opportunity" neighborhoods with good schools, less economic and racial segregation and lower crime rates. The authority's proposed $53 million development in Briargrove between the Galleria and Tanglewood - a 233-unit, mixed-income complex at 2640 Fountain View - would be the agency's first "high opportunity" project. It would provide a mix of market rate and affordable units. The project has drawn praise from housing advocates, as the census tract where it would be built has a poverty rate of 6.1 percent, compared with 31.5 percent for the census tracts where the authority's current developments are located. The complex also is zoned to an A-rated school, whereas just two of the 19 schools attended by children living in existing housing authority projects received a grade of C or higher from the nonprofit Children at Risk. However, virtually all of the elected officials representing the area - its state representatives, its congressman, school board trustee and city councilman - have opposed the project. Such political influence historically has been a strong driver in where affordable housing has been built - or rather not built - in the region. City Hall is the next step for the Fountain View project, where City Council would have to approve a "letter of no objection" for the authority to move forward. The authority hopes to break ground by the end of the year. Authority board chairman Lance Gilliam said the Supreme Court decision puts the housing authority on a "narrower path" than he would prefer. "Could we use the same amount of money in Sunnyside for a greater good? Yes. Could we use the money for single-family homes in Katy? Yes," Gilliam said. "That's just math. Our authority, like others in the country, wants there to be housing choices across the entire city." Opposition to concentrating resources in "high opportunity" areas also comes from places like Houston's Fifth Ward, where some would rather see revitalization of their neighborhood, a tight-knit, historically black community with deep roots. Kathy Flanagan Payton, president of the Fifth Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation, said residents in such communities may not want to live in areas like the Galleria and should not necessarily be moved from a place where their income supports and where social services are available. "Who are you to tell those family members that you don't have a choice to stay close to where your family is and your places of worship and the things that you're most comfortable with?" said Flanagan Payton. After initially being rejected because of fair housing concerns, the authority's proposal to build replacement public housing in the Fifth Ward appears to be moving forward slowly. The authority's next step is acquiring additional land. Gunsolley says the current system encourages future tax-credit projects in undeveloped, outlying parts of Houston - where political opposition may be weaker - rather than in neighborhoods like Briargrove, which is a "true high opportunity neighborhood." "For me the question is: In this new reality, how do we encourage and incentivize true high-opportunity projects?" Gunsolley said. "The new reality is encouraging aspirational, high opportunity on the one hand, and yet we're still stuck with some of the same old rules that really make it hard to do that." *** One potential solution can be found in a compromise between fair housing advocates and the city's housing department over where to build affordable housing using disaster recovery funding allotted after Hurricane Ike in 2008. The city's Housing and Community Development Department, a separate agency tasked with providing gap funding to private developers, has subsidized more than 7,000 existing income-restricted units, with another 1,000 such units under construction. Facing potential legal action from fair housing advocates, the city agreed four years ago to target investment in a handful of neighborhoods poised to gentrify - the Near Northside, Old Spanish Trail/South Union and the Greater Fifth Ward - with the aim of spurring development while at the same time ensuring housing affordability. Mary Lawler of Avenue CDC has followed a similar strategy to preserve affordable housing along the Washington Avenue corridor and in the Near Northside. "What we really want to see is a balanced approach," she said. "These other neighborhoods should not be abandoned, especially neighborhoods that are really poised to become the places that we want to get these developments into 10 years from now." The Housing Authority's proposed mixed-income project in Independence Heights, a predominantly African-American neighborhood just north of the 610 Loop that is on the cusp of gentrification, more closely aligns with this strategy. It also requires council approval. *** Turner, who promised to curb inequality during his campaign, has indicated he intends to develop a comprehensive housing strategy that expands Houston's stock of single family and workforce housing. He said he would like to target neighborhoods at risk of displacement and gentrification, such as Montrose and the East End of downtown. He also noted areas throughout northeast, northwest and south Houston. "The question is: Can we provide some sort of supplement or subsidy to developers to keep prices down?" Turner said. He has not yet identified a timeline. "No matter what you think about an individual project, this is something that all of Houston has to deal with," said Kyle Shelton, a researcher at Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research. "The Supreme Court made this decision for a reason: Where people live matters. It's so easy to demonize either side. Affordable housing asks of all of us the fundamental question about providing equal opportunity to people." A firearm that the authorities said was used on Sunday in a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, is a descendant of one of the world's most widely distributed and familiar infantry weapons, and a type of rifle that has been involved in previous mass shootings in the United States. Chief John Mina of the Orlando Police Department said the gunman's weapons included a handgun and an "AR-15-type assault rifle." The first AR-15s were designed in the 1950s by Eugene M. Stoner, a Marine and inventor, who developed the weapon to military standards and for military service. It was an atypical rifle for its time, seemingly futuristic, and made partly with lightweight plastics and aluminum that traditionalists scorned. It fired a small-caliber, high-velocity bullet the .223 that was also considered revolutionary. The rifle was capable, via a selector lever, of semi-automatic or automatic fire. In the 1960s, under Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, the Pentagon bought vast quantities of the rifle, calling it the M-16, for U.S. ground troops in Vietnam. The M-16's firepower and reputation for lethality were necessary, in McNamara's view, to counter the Kalashnikov assault rifles carried by the North Vietnamese army and Viet Cong. In this way, the M-16 and the Kalashnikov became a related pair, the assault rifle of the West springing into service as a response to the more widely distributed assault rifle of the East. A half-century later, AR-15s and M-16s are made in varied forms by multiple manufacturers, and updated versions, including the M-4 carbine, remain the standard shoulder-fired weapon for most U.S. service members and many allies. Civilian versions have many trade and model names, but are generally referred to as AR-15s, although this name is a rough description and does not indicate whether a particular specimen of the weapon is capable of both semi-automatic fire and automatic fire, or is semi-automatic only. Police have not said whether the weapon recovered in Orlando was capable of automatic fire. Such questions are politically contentious, although depending on a shooter's skill and the situation, they can sometimes be moot, as aimed semi-automatic fire from a competent shooter can be far more dangerous than automatic fire, which is harder to control and is often inaccurate. AR-15s that fire only on semi-automatic are generally legal in the United States, and are widely owned by assault-rifle enthusiasts. They are also sometimes used in crimes, and have been involved in some of the most deadly mass shootings in U.S. history, including the massacre in December in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people, and the attack in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which killed 26 people, 20 of them children. (That gunman also killed his mother at home before driving to the school.) The AR-15's once unfamiliar caliber now called 5.56-millimeter in military service rather than .223 also evolved into a military standard. The rifle-and-cartridge combination can cause serious wounds, though the damage is determined partly by the type of bullet fired. Investigators in Orlando have yet to provide details on the bullets that were fired in the attack. Once again, an angry gunman has wrought carnage on a crowd of strangers, this time in Orlando, Fla., on a scale unprecedented in American history. His motive was terror and hatred, his target innocent people having fun at a gay nightclub. Survivors of the attacks described a chaotic and bloody scene as nightclub patrons who tried to run away were shot dead. A terrified son who took refuge in a bathroom texted his mother asking her to call police, sending a final message saying, "He has us, and he's in here with us." The father of the man identified as the killer expressed shock and said his son had become enraged when he saw two men kissing each other. The gunman reportedly had telephoned 911 and claimed allegiance to ISIS. At the White House, the president called it "an especially heartbreaking day for all of our friends, our fellow Americans, who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender." And he ordered flags flown at half-staff. Here in Houston, people hung rainbow flags outside their homes. The president reminded us that such an attack on any American is an attack on all of us, but the searing sadness of this event carries special anguish in our city. As the home of one of the nation's largest and proudest LGBT communities, we embrace the people of Orlando in sorrow and solidarity. At the same time, we're exasperated that a man who had been investigated by the FBI because of his sympathies with Islamic extremists was able to obtain the weapons used in the nation's deadliest mass shooting. CNN cited unnamed law enforcement officials saying the killer's Glock pistol found in the midst of the carnage was legally purchased from a Florida gun store sometime in the last two weeks. Just a couple of weeks from now, on July 4, a sad anniversary will pass in Houston. On that date 25 years ago, a young man named Paul Broussard was beaten and stabbed to death after leaving a gay nightclub in the Montrose area. His murder triggered outrage and public demonstrations that shined a spotlight on violent attacks commonly committed against gay men. Now, a quarter-century later, comes a massacre inside another gay nightclub, a heartbreaking reminder that bigotry can have bloody consequences. That's a lesson Houston learned long ago, a lesson now evident to the world. That sound you just heard was Latinos taking yet another slap in the face. No, not from Donald Trump, but rather from the mainstream media. What do you expect from an industry that is stuck in a black-and-white paradigm, suffers from being based in New York and Washington while more than half of Latinos live in the Southwest, and remains clueless about America's largest minority, thanks to a combination of ignorance and arrogance? As you've probably noticed, the media have been obsessed with the story of Trump's racist assault on the character of U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who Trump seems to believe is "Mexican" first and a jurist second. Curiel isn't really Mexican; he was born in Indiana. That was just sloppy shorthand by Trump, the kind that I grew up hearing in Central California when folks would talk about the "Mexican part of town." Or when some of my high school friends assured me that I would not have gotten into Harvard if I "hadn't been Mexican." Or the kind that my parents grew up seeing in the Southwest of the 1960s where signs in restaurants read: "No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed." Using a word like "Mexican" (as opposed to something more accurate like "Mexican-American") is how you talk down to people. And that's how Trump intended to talk about this judge who was putting away drug traffickers as a federal prosecutor, and was so good at his job that he wound up with a bounty on his head and spent a year living under the protection of U.S. federal agents - all while Trump was judging beauty pageants in Atlantic City. Let's not get this twisted. If anyone deserves to be looked down on here, it isn't Curiel. As you can see, I have strong opinions about this story. Not that the television networks are interested in hearing them. Despite having done television commentary for more than 20 years on a dozen shows on a half-dozen networks, and having been tapped to go on a cable show to discuss a different topic just recently, I have not been invited to go on television and comment on the Curiel story. And as far as I can tell, neither were any of my fellow Latino commentators who work for a variety of networks. I might have shrugged this off as a harmless oversight had I not read an op-ed by Felix Sanchez, chairman and co-founder of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts in Washington. "While all the major Sunday talk shows - ABC's 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos; CBS' 'Face the Nation'; CNN's 'Inside Politics,' 'State of the Union' and 'Reliable Sources'; 'Fox News Sunday'; and NBC's 'Meet the Press' - all tracked the Trump/Curiel controversy, not one Sunday news show [on June 5] included a Latino journalist or political analyst," wrote Sanchez for the Hill newspaper. "Frankly, I don't know who is more irresponsible - Trump for the horrendous and unjust damage he has inflicted on the Latino community, or the news media, who have failed to accurately report on these events or provide Latino analysts to interpret them to the nation and the world." I saw this failure with my own eyes on the night of the California primary. As the votes were counted in a state where Latinos make up 39 percent of the population and where whites are a statistical minority, CNN convened what turned into a 45-minute discussion on the case of the "Mexican" judge without a single Latino on the panel. Led by anchor Anderson Cooper, the segment featured CNN contributors Jeffrey Lord, S.E. Cupp, Van Jones, Paul Begala and David Axelrod along with CNN host Michael Smerconish, CNN political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson and CNN senior reporter Gloria Borger. That's nine people - two African-Americans, and seven white people. That's inexcusable. By not reflecting reality, the media compounded the harm that Trump has done, and perhaps - ironically - for much the same reason. So what if the New York liberals who run the networks think they're more enlightened than Trump. Both parties seem to be drawing conclusions about which perspectives are valuable and which aren't. And in both cases, the views of Latinos are tossed into the "aren't" file. Trump obviously believes that Latinos - excuse me, I mean "Mexicans" - are too culturally biased to offer objective analysis and reach fair conclusions. Do the television networks believe the same thing? Navarrette's column is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. His email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. An alleged incident Friday afternoon between two restaurant employees in Houston led to charges. The Houston Police Department cited Scott L. Folsom, 28, of 205 W. Steffens Street in Houston, for third-degree assault after allegedly punching a 17-year-old girl in the face and kicking her in the knee during an incident at Taco Bell (on U.S. 63). Folsom and the alleged victim are both employees there. The following are excerpts from reports generated by Houston police: William T. Hebert, 30, of 611 Hawthorne Street in Houston, was issued citations for driving with a suspended license and failure to place child in a restraint device (times two) after a traffic stop on U.S. 63 around 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Felicia D. Batchelor, 29, of 611 Hawthorn Street in Houston, was arrested Saturday for having an active Texas County warrant for failure to equip a vehicle with a muffler. She was taken to the Texas County Jail. James E. Burris III, 21, of 17100 Tiffany Drive, lot D, in Houston, was arrested Saturday for having an active Texas County warrant for stealing. He was taken to the Texas County Jail, where he was unable to post $100,000 bond. Angela E. Caswell, 28, of 403 N. Grand Avenue, Apt. 2, in Houston, was ticketed for driving with a suspended license after a traffic stop at 11:40 p.m. Friday on Airport Road. Patrick A. Dodson, 35, of 309 S. Second Street in Houston, was cited for third-degree assault after allegedly punching and head-butting a 59-year-old man during an incident around 5:30 p.m. June 6 at a Dooley Street residence. Valerie K. Rippinger, 21, of 305 S. Second Street in Houston, was cited for allowing an animal to run at large after a pit bull she owns was loose and allegedly attempting to bite neighbors around 7 p.m. June 6. The following are excerpts of reports generated by the Texas County Sheriffs Department: A 43-year-old Bucyrus man reported Sunday that a battery charger, dual shop light on a stand and various small tools had been stolen from his German Road residence. There are no suspects. A 24-year-old Houston man reported Saturday that his 17-year-old brother had swiped the keys to his car from his residence in a Morton Road trailer park and wouldnt give them back. A Cabool man called Saturday to report neighbors on his Colburn Road land. An investigating officer made contact with a neighbor man, who said it was his land. The deputy advised both parties that the matter was civil. A 36-year-old Mountain Grove woman called Friday to report she and her 31-year-old former husband were fighting, and it was getting physical. When an investigating officer arrived, the woman stated that the man had fled. The officer searched a wooded area where the man had allegedly run, and eight flowerpots containing marijuana plants were found. The woman said the man had damaged the hood and windshield of her vehicle and she wanted to pursue charges for property damage. A probable cause statement was sent to the county prosecutor seeking felony charges for property damage and the marijuana plants. A deputy was dispatched June 8 regarding a report of a burglary at a Highway AW residence at Plato. A 42-year-old man who lives there told the officer he had left town June 3 and returned June 6 to discover that a lockbox containing $15,000 cash had been stolen, along with multiple knives and military night scopes. The man named another man who lives in an adjacent trailer park as a suspect. The deputy noted in his report that the same man had in the past reported several other burglaries and large amounts of cash swiped. A Houston woman reported June 7 that a man had pulled up a survey stake at her Highway Z property and was driving on her land. An investigating deputy made contact with the man and issued him a verbal no-trespass warning. A 54-year-old Cabool man reported on June 7 that he needed an officer at his Highway 181 residence or he was going to Mountain Grove to do harm to the honkies. An investigating officer made contact with the man, who appeared to be drunk. He stated the honkies had threatened to harm his former wife and granddaughter. He also stated his former wife had received calls from the TCSD and Wright County Sheriffs Department indicating she was on the honkie hit list. The officer advised the man that nobody from the TCSD had made such a call. Based on his behavior and level of intoxication, the officer transported the man to the Texas County Jail for a 12-hour hold period. Barbara Sullins, 45, of 3079 Highway VV at Licking, was issued a citation for first-degree trespassing after allegedly being on 51-year-old mans Reed Road property where she had been told not to go. A 911 call was received June 5 regarding a man threatening suicide. An officer contacted the man, 18, by phone and he stated his family members were being mean to him and he wanted to stab them all with a knife and then hang himself. The man reportedly then told the officer if he would come and talk with him in person he wouldnt harm anyone. The deputy made contact with the man in a wooded area near the mans Highway 137 residence at Willow Springs. An ambulance crew took the man to a West Plains hospital for an evaluation. A deputy was dispatched around 11:15 a.m. June 4 regarding a report of a man holding a gun to his head at a Highway AW residence at Roby. The officer made contact with the man, 27, and he said he didnt want to harm himself or anyone else, he was just angry about his marriage. A family member removed firearms from the residence and the 12-hour rule was put into effect for the man and his wife. The following are recent admissions into the Texas County Jail: June 6 Jamie E. Lane failure to appear June 7 Amanda R. Lunes-Ford possession of controlled substance James L. Hamby MDOC hold Heather D. Parker stealing Tammy A. Giller writ Billy J. Goodwin MDOC hold June 8 Lindsay R. Hodson 24-hour commitment June 9 Clinton E. Reed possession of controlled substance June 10 Jason K. Loman DWI Christopher L. Haney DWI Brandon L. Hunter-Brown non-support Kelsy N. Doughty 48-hour commitment Stormy D. Morgan 48-hour commitment June 11 Rusty S. Chambers Iron Co. hold James E. Burris stealing June 12 Benjamin T. Hickox driving while revoked, failure to register motor vehicle Michael A. Shores assault Keith D. Shaw unlawful use of weapon As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Prospective beer, wine and spirit producers will be able to get their start through a new program at Montana State University Billings. The university will debut its craft brewing certificate program this fall. It's designed to cover both business and scientific aspects of the trade and will cater to home brewers, laypeople and industry members seeking professional development. Kevin Nemeth, director of extended campus at MSUB, said that the program is designed to attract people in the community who have a desire for this kind of certification. "For the size of the population, there's a lot of breweries," Nemeth said. "We thought there might be a need." Current four-year students at the university will be able to take it as well to supplement a science major, but they will pay for the program separate from normal tuition. The program includes five classes and can run up to 10 months. The coursework includes industry-specific business lessons, chemistry and microbiology. It will be the second program in Montana that focuses on craft brewing for business applications, and it comes at a time of sustained growth for brewery and distillery operations. The first program began last year at Flathead Valley Community College in Kalispell. It's a two-year associate's program. With evening labs, online classes and a shorter time frame, Nemeth said that the MSUB program should appeal to the broader community. Early on, his office sent surveys to area beer, wine and spirit business to gauge support. "It was unanimous," he said. "Everyone thought it was a great idea." The university has a list of industry partners who will give lectures and offer their facilities for the capstone portion of the brewing program: a 90-hour internship. The partners include local breweries, distilleries and a winery. The courses will be taught be six current MSUB professors, including Kurt Toenjes, head of the Department of Physical and Biological Sciences. Toenjes wrote his doctoral thesis on brewing yeast, has consulted for a brewery and has brewed and distilled at home. He said that by learning the science related to craft brewing, such as the metabolic processes of yeast, the end product is safer and more consistent. That's good for business. "You want Stand Down Brown to taste like Stand Down Brown if you got it two years ago or today," Toenjes said, referring to the Uberbrew beer. Students will also write business plans for their prospective businesses. The chair of the program is Heather Thompson, a business professor at City College. Other faculty members come from MSUB's social sciences, physical sciences and power plant technology departments. The program doesn't require full registration to MSUB, but there is an application process. It's set up as a self-supporting program that's funded by its own tuition and not through the general fund, Nemeth said. The tuition is $3,410. "We hope to attract about 10 or 12 (students), but we probably could accommodate up to 20," Nemeth said. The admission deadline for the inaugural program year is Aug. 29, and class is set to begin Sept. 7. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. Within a few weeks, VA Montana will have no permanent director, deputy director or chief of medical staff. The leadership vacuum coincides with continued vacancies in front-line staff, unacceptable waits for veterans care and ongoing complaints of low employee morale. Johnny Ginnity announced last week that he is resigning effective July 1, after just more than a year in the directors job. He had been acting director for more than a year after the previous director left under a cloud. She also had a brief tenure. Its unclear why Ginnity, a veteran and long-time VA employee, resigned. His resignation became public knowledge the day before an administrative judge held a hearing in Helena on a former VA employees allegations that a senior VA Montana supervisor retaliated against her for reporting a safety violation in the Fort Harrison operating room in 2014. Separately, the VA Inspector General is investigating issues with long appointment wait times in Montana, according to Sen. Jon Tester, a member of the Senate Veteran Affairs Committee. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, as of June 1, there were 21,321 health care appointments in the VA Montana system. Those include 17,908 scheduled within 30 days and 3,413 that will keep veterans waiting more than 30 days. The Billings VA outreach clinic had nearly 1,000 appointments scheduled more than 30 days out. Thats 21.39 percent of all scheduled Billings appointments. This is not the standard of care that Montana veterans deserve. Waiting times in Montana tend to be closely linked to staff vacancies. Loss of even one doctor or delay in recruiting can significantly increase wait times. As The Gazette has reported previously, there are continuing vacancies, especially for mental health professionals. Having heard rumors that Ginnity would resign, Tester confronted VA Secretary Bob McDonald the day before it became news across the state. McDonald told Tester the departments goal is to name Ginnitys successor within four months. Tester said that would be an acceptable timeframe, and he will hold VA accountable for meeting it. We cant wait 13 months like last time, Tester said. McDonald is working on leadership succession planning for situations such as the Montana directors resignation. There is no such plan yet. Requirements for leadership succession planning are included in the Veterans First Act, which passed the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee with bipartisan support in April. But that legislation hasnt been brought to the full Senate for a vote. Employee morale is low, it was low when he (Ginnity) got there, it hasnt improved, Tester said. The issues that were there when he came on board havent been fixed. As Tester said, employees are the VAs biggest asset. They must be held accountable and they must be rewarded when they do good work. The VAs regional leader, VISN Network Director Ralph T. Gigliotti, based in Denver, now is responsible for filling the Montana vacancy. He must recruit a leader who is experienced in health care administration, a hard worker with a proven record of success in inspiring staff to excel. More than anything, VA Montana needs a leader who will be completely dedicated to providing the highest quality care to our veterans. Its harder for front-line staff to do their jobs well when top leadership is in flux or worse in turmoil. VA Montana needs a leader who can energetically rebuild staff trust and empower them to fulfill their sacred duty of caring for Americas heroes. "Good evening. All around the world people are trying to come to terms with the horrific events that took place in Orlando this morning. On behalf of the whole theatre community and every person in this room, our hearts go out to all those affected by this atrocity. All we can say is you are not on your own right now. Your tragedy is our tragedy. Theatre is a place where every race, creed, sexuality and gender is equal, is embraced and is loved. Hate will never win; together we have to make sure of that. Tonight's show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle. This is the Tony Awards." Each of Canada's three political party leaders have found themselves on the same side of history, condemning the domestic terror attack at a gay nightclub in Florida that left at least 49 people dead. Advertisement Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose, and NDP Leader Tom Mulcair stand beside each other as MPs pose on Parliament Hill for a photo to mark the 150th anniversary of parliament on Wednesday. (Photo: Adrian Wyld/CP) In a statement posted to both his official website and social media platforms, Trudeau said, While authorities are still investigating and details continue to be confirmed, it is appalling that as many as 50 lives may have been lost to this domestic terror attack targeting the LGBTQ2 community. "On behalf of the Government of Canada, Sophie and I offer our condolences and prayers to the families and friends of those lost today, and wish a full recovery to all those injured. We stand in solidarity with Orlando and the LGBTQ2 community." Advertisement We grieve with our friends in the US & stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ2 community after today's terror attack: https://t.co/nwP2MR2xUm Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 12, 2016 Rona Ambrose, interim Conservative party leader, shared a similar message of solidarity, noting, "We stand shoulder to shoulder with our American allies and all those who have been impacted by this brutal and unwarranted act of terror." Horrified by the news this morning in Orlando. My statement: https://t.co/xKxTVfvXjV Rona Ambrose (@RonaAmbrose) June 12, 2016 Meanwhile, NDP leader Thomas Mulcair shared his reaction with a single tweet: Terribly shocked to learn of the shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida. We stand with Orlando and the #LGBT community today & always. Tom Mulcair (@ThomasMulcair) June 12, 2016 The outpouring of support for those affected by the Orlando tragedy extended beyond the political realm. According to LGBTQ publication DailyXtra, candlelight vigils will be held in Toronto, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Vancouver and several other cities across Canada on Sunday night to honour the memory of the shooting victims, and to show unity within the community. Advertisement Please join us tonight at 8pm at the Vancouver Art Gallery for a candlelight vigil in honour of the victims and... https://t.co/v3KxpY9Ox7 Vancouver Pride (@vancouverpride) June 12, 2016 In addition, Toronto's namesake sign will be lit with rainbow colours as a tribute those who died in the shooting. Toronto sign will be lit in colours of the rainbow today to honour the innocent victims in #Orlando. John Tory (@JohnTory) June 12, 2016 Also on HuffPost CHEYENNE, Wyo. The former treasurer of a Cheyenne Cub Scout group has pleaded guilty to stealing $5,400 from the pack. Shane Moore, 43, pleaded no contest in Laramie County District Court to a single count of felony theft. He is accused of making $9,000 in unauthorized transfers from the Cub Scout pack's bank account between 2010 and 2014. Moore was responsible for collecting dues and activity fees, as well as money raised during the group's annual popcorn sale fundraiser. According to a plea agreement, prosecutors will recommend Moore be sentenced to first-offender probation. OTTAWA A similar type of semi-automatic rifle used in the Orlando shootings should be easier to obtain in Canada and allowed for hunting, a Conservative MP said last month. British Columbia MP Bob Zimmer tabled a petition in Parliament on May 13 calling on the government to reclassify the Armalite Rifle-15, also known as the AR-15, as a non-restricted weapon. The petition was tabled on behalf of Marc Bennett, a firearms advocate from Newfoundland and Labrador. Advertisement Lawful firearm owners should be allowed to use the rifle outside of a shooting range and "once again use this rifle to lawfully participate in the Canadian cultural practices of hunting in Canada," Zimmer told the Commons. Conservative MP Bob Zimmer stands during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in 2011. (Photo: Sean Kilpatrick/CP) In Sundays mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Omar Mateen used a .223-calibre AR-type rifle and 9-mm semi-automatic pistol to kill 49 people and wound another 53, said federal authorities. Several sources identified the weapons as a Sig Sauer MCX rifle and a Glock 17 handgun. Advertisement The RCMP lists the AR-style Sig Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle and all AR-15 type firearms as restricted weapons in Canada. They require a special permit, but, in the words of one gun advocate on Facebook, "still easy to get license in order to purchase them." Most people can only use the AR-15 in a gun range. The AR-15 is a civilian model of the M16 rifle used by the U.S. army. It has been used to carry out other mass slayings in the past, including the 2012 killing of 20 children and six adults in Newtown, Conn., and the 2015 San Bernardino, Calif. shootings which killed 14 people. 'Innocuous' firearm when handled safely: MP In a radio interview last month, Zimmer said the AR-15 is a "completely innocuous firearm" when it is handled safely. "I support [the petition] because, essentially, a semi-automatic long-arm should not be restricted and that's the essence of the petition," Zimmer is quoted telling CFRA, a local Ottawa station. "Firearms should be normalized, to a certain extent. We understand that they can be operated safely, and they're operated safely in Canada year after year after year, especially with our rigorous licensing regime, and the like." Advertisement AR-15 rifles are displayed on the exhibit floor during the National Rifle Association annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky in May. (Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images) The AR-15 was once used for hunting and "a lot of Canadian firearms owners would like to hunt with them again," Zimmer told host Brian Lilley. "Restricted firearms are exactly that, they're restricted. You can only go to a qualified range to shoot that firearm. What non-restricted would do would still require somebody to have a license to own it, and to purchase ammunition, but they could actually hunt with it out in the bush, rather than be just restricted to a gun range. "With our Canadian laws, we have clip restrictions," Zimmer added. "For that particular firearm, you'd only be able to put five shells in there in the first place. You'd be maxed out at five, regardless." The RCMP said hunters are only allowed three rounds. The Orlando shooter used 30-round capacity clips. Goodale's office responds Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale's office told The Huffington Post Canada Monday it has no plans to change the classification of the AR-15. Advertisement "Canadians can conclude on their own and assess [the value of the petition] on their own," Goodale's spokesman, Scott Bardsley, said. Goodale told reporters one of the commitments the Liberals had made during the election campaign was that "judgments in these matters should be in the hands of experts and the professionals. "The police make those determinations and we would not interfere in those judgments," the minister said. Goodale said he had received no advice from the RCMP suggesting any change in the present circumstances. But if the RCMP decided to reclassify the weapon, his spokesman said the government would "respect" the Mounties' decision. Advertisement 'A monumental error': NDP leader NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair called Zimmer's petition "a monumental error." "On Mr. Zimmer's try to make it easier to obtain the weapon used in the Orlando shootings, I think that speaks for itself. When a weapon like that can produce a massacre like this, you don't need to be convinced that you shouldn't liberalize access to that weapon," he told reporters Monday afternoon. Zimmer avoided reporters Monday and did not return several calls and emails for comments. His Conservative colleague, Quebec MP Pierre Paul-Hus, the party's deputy critic on defence matters, said he had no comment. "I am aware of the firearm but I have not heard about this petition," he said. Last week, Zimmer invited all of his parliamentary colleagues to a shooting range in Stittsville, Ont., providing free transportation for a morning of "Trap, Rifle and Pistol Events." The fifth annual Parliamentary Outdoors Caucus Shooting Day at the Range was sponsored by the Outdoors Caucus Association of Canada, the Canadian Shooting Sports Association, and the the Canadian Shooting Arms and Ammunition Association, which provided guns and ammunition for the event. Advertisement Several Liberal, NDP and Conservative members attended and some tweeted photos of themselves at the Stittsville Shooting Ranges. The invitation explicitly stated ** No media **. Early am on the range with some colleagues, supporting outdoor industry and Target competition @Gudie@TJHarveyLibpic.twitter.com/z2QWOBxE9w Yvonne Jones (@YvonneJJones) June 8, 2016 "Kerry Diotte, the MP for Edmonton-Griesbach, tweeted that he enjoyed the experience, and in this video, provided by the Liberal research bureau, he also appears to learn how to shoot an AR-15. Advertisement The petition Zimmer tabled notes that the AR-15 is the "most versatile hunting rifle in the world" and that its "calibre can easily be changed to meet lawful provincial hunting requirements from small game to big game animals without the need to purchase multiple gaming rifles." The petition also suggests there is "no inherent difference" between the AR-15 and hundreds of other firearms in Canada which are classified as non-restricted. "This rifle has been ultimately restricted purely because of cosmetic appearance of the rifle which does not make the rifle more dangerous," the petition states. "It has been assembled with modern day materials (plastic & aluminium) and that shouldn't be the merit to base a rifle for restricted classification as there are thousands of other rifles like it used on a day to day basis for legitimate purposes." The day he tabled it, Zimmer boasted that the e-petition had set a record for the highest signatories, 25,239, in Canadian history. Advertisement E-petitions were just introduced last December. One of the largest petitions is actually about employment insurance and garnered more than 80,000 signatures. The Canadian Press reports that anyone wishing to purchase an AR-15 in Canada must have a firearms licence that includes restricted weapons which involves passing a two-day safety course and the authorization of their province's Chief Firearms Officer to transport the gun to a shooting range, gun show, gunsmith or a few other permitted locations. 'It's very popular' The AR-15 is widely available and in demand, Insp. Steve Ridout, a spokesman for Ontario's Chief Firearms Officer, told CP. That's in part because the patent for the rifle, which was owned by Colt, ran out years ago, allowing other companies to make their own versions, he said. "It's very popular," Ridout said. "Especially since the patent ran out, there's lots of variations of it now." Advertisement Prices listed on various Canadian gun store websites ranged from around $700 to several thousand dollars. "There's lots of different AR-15 platforms so it kind of covers the gamut of price points," Ridout said. More than two million Canadians had firearms licences last year, according to an RCMP report. As of December 31, there were a total of 978,347 restricted or prohibited firearms registered to individuals or businesses in Canada, the report said. CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify the type of weapon used in the Orlando shootings. With files from the Canadian Press ALSO ON HUFFPOST: Gary Burchell via Getty Images Dad making lunch for his children Its 2016 and Canadian dads are getting more involved with family life than ever before. According to the Fatherhood Institutes Fairness In Families Index (FIFI), Canada ranks seventh out of 22 countries when it comes to moms and dads sharing child care responsibilities. This is a significant climb from 2010, when Canada ranked at just number 12. The London School of Economics conducted the research and looked at data from multiple sources, including the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Rankings were then based on a number of factors such as parental leave, gender wage gap, and ratios of men and women caring for children and doing housework. Advertisement At the top of the list is Sweden, which also ranked number one in 2010. This isnt surprising considering Sweden was the first country to offer parental leave so that both parents could take time off to be with their kids. It's a very strong tradition here, gender studies professor Roger Klinth, of Linkoping University, told BBC. That all political parties voted for it in 1974, was a clear signal from the state that men and women should have the same status as parents and that one gender shouldn't take main responsibility. In 2015, the Nordic country also announced that it would introduce a third month of paid paternity leave in order to increase gender equality. So how does Canada compare? Canadas parental-leave policy lacks time off specifically for dads, which is likely one reason why its taken Canada six years to jump into the top 10 FIFI rankings. Currently, Canada offers a maximum of 17 weeks maternity leave and a maximum of 35 weeks parental leave for dads or moms. Advertisement But Canada is doing better than a number of other developed countries when it comes to equality among moms and dads. France, Italy and the U.K., for instance, rank at 10, 11 and 12 respectively. In fact, the study actually deemed that dads in the U.K. are the worst in the developed world, considering that British fathers only put in 24 minutes of care for every hour British moms put in. In response to the studys findings, Will McDonald, chair of the Fatherhood Institute, said: What our analysis shows is that compared to other countries, the U.K. has failed to create the structures to support families to achieve the greater sharing that they want, and that is so important for our childrens futures. With Fathers Day around the corner, the Fairness In Families Index really calls attention to the role and involvement of fathers in the home. There are significant benefits for women, men and children when fathers provide competent care beyond the role of breadwinner, and mothers participate substantially in the paid workforce, the study reads. These benefits include but are not limited to, womens empowerment and the promotion of gender equality more broadly. Advertisement Additional studies have also proven that involved dads also lead to smarter and better behaved kids. ALSO ON HUFFPOST: Lovable as he is, there is nothing worse than a stubborn father. Especially one who thinks he's immune to a visit to the doctor. For Chris Ang, a 21-year-old who works in marketing, her dad hasn't seen a doctor in years. "According to my Dad, the cure for everything is to drink more water or to do a salt rinse," Ang says. "It's frustrating! I remind him that he's already paid for healthcare through paying taxes, and that health professionals do go through education and training." Advertisement And she isn't the only one. Nothing is more annoying than listening to my dad complain about being sick, but he won't go to the doctor Jenni (@Jenni_Dyess) February 27, 2016 My dad had an allergic reaction to something a WEEK ago & is STILL breaking out, but won't go to the doctor... Littia Liza Gutman (@iryssx_Ology) January 6, 2016 I don't understand why my dad just won't go to the doctor and get some relief. Like stop feeling so miserable and get something to help.. Melissa. (@_browneyed_babe) December 30, 2015 When dads avoid stethoscopes and exam room tables at all costs, they're also dodging possible measures that could undercut and eliminate preventable diseases. The Canadian Men's Health Foundation reports that 70 per cent of men's health issues can be avoided. But it's a tough sell, when Statistics Canada reports that men are much more likely not to have a regular doctor than women. Advertisement Older men especially face a myriad of unique health concerns, including an increased risk for heart disease and prostate cancer. With serious consequences on the line, why do dads ignore signs? Dr. Dina Kulik says childhood fear could be a factor in fatherly medical absenteeism. "It's how theyre brought up," she says. "Many parents stop bringing their kids to regular checkups when theyre very young, so men develop a phobia or a discomfort with going to the doctor." Kulik, a pediatrician and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, finds that dads are willing to bring their kids in for check-ups, but may avoid it for themselves. This avoidance can lead to untreated conditions worsening. More than 38 per cent of men only go to the doctor when they're seriously sick, the American Academy of Family Physicians reports. Traditional masculinity may also be to blame for dads thinking they're too tough to get sick. Men who believe old-fashioned gender expectations, such as suppressing emotions and not showing weakness, were found to ignore health issues longer than women did. Advertisement In a study affiliated with the University of Montreal, Canadian men over 55 worried most about impaired movement. Of those surveyed, only 13 per cent underwent screenings or received information about possible risk factors. For other men, there is a cultural stigma in formal medicine. They may prefer home remedies or feel like they may be a victim of patient profiling. So what's the cure for a stubborn dad? Kulik recommends giving them a taste of their own medicine: treating dads as kids. Tactic: Remind dad he's a role model Role reversal works in showing dads of all ages that practicing healthy behaviour has a positive impact on their kids and grandkids. So if a parent wants the young ones to take care of themselves, it would be wise to remind them to be a role model and do the same. Advertisement Tactic: Explain in detail how a doctor will help Too often, dads will discount doctors as unnecessary for what they perceive as minor aches. Breaking down exactly how preventative diseases can be stopped in their tracks through a doctor's visit is a good step towards helping dad realize the clinic isn't just a last resort destination. "People need to be educated about what's important about their health and why," Kulik says. "We do it with children all the time. Saying we need to go to the doctor and get a vaccine is not as valuable as saying this vaccine will prevent you from getting sick.' Explaining is more empowering." For petulant dads who don't want to be bossed around, they can be assured that any treatment and medication a doctor suggests will need to be administered with his permission. Tactic: Make the trip a fun and easy routine For dads with grudges against doctors, it helps to remove anything that might remind him of those clinical walls. Booking with a doctor who works out of a drugstore could make the journey seem more mundane. It can also be a convenient shopping opportunity, where you can buy any necessary medication there with him. Advertisement Tactic: Bring up his family Often, a father won't be able to come to terms with his health unless he's able to compare himself to the health of someone close to him. If his mortality is a hard pill for dad to swallow, having an honest conversation with him about his health might be difficult. If that's the case, bringing up family history of certain diseases and talking to him about how family members were helped by doctors can be useful. It could help to schedule appointments as a family, so he won't feel singled out. Also on HuffPost By now, we know Kate Middleton loves to recycle her royal outfits. But it's her latest look, with a Canadian connection, that has us giving some major props to the Duchess. Back in 2011, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge embarked on their grand royal tour of Canada, and one of her outfits consisted of a red skirt suit by Catherine Walker. Now fast forward to June 2016, and Duchess Kate is seen wearing the same ensemble for the Order of the Garter service. Advertisement Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge arrives for the Order of The Garter Service in Windsor, west of London on June 13, 2016. At Windsor Castle on Monday, the 34-year-old mother of Prince George and Princess Charlotte updated her old scarlet Catherine Walker 'Marianne' coat by adding a Lock & Co. headpiece and Gianvito Rossi burgundy suede pumps. She sported a polished low chignon and her signature lined eye. Advertisement To incorporate a bit of nostalgia into her look, Middleton accessorized with her bespoke Robinson Pelham earrings featuring a diamond-encrusted tear-drop, which she previously wore at her wedding in 2011. The previous Canadian outfit, which Kate wore on a trip to the Calgary Zoo in 2011, saw the Duchess pull her signature mahogany locks back into a half-up 'do as she donned a maple leaf brooch on her lapel. The Duchess attends a Government Of Alberta reception on July 8, 2011 in Calgary. In thanks to many celebrations surrounding the Queen's 90th birthday this past week, Middleton's fashion game has been on-point and impeccably elegant as of late. Advertisement On Saturday, during the Trooping the Colour celebration, the Duchess wore a stunning ensemble which consisted of a tilted, flower-adorned hat from Philip Treacy and a white Alexander McQueen coat which she previously wore at Princess Charlotte's christening. And on a rainy Sunday, Kate boldly donned a pastel blue dress from Roksanda Illincic at the Queen's Patron Lunch birthday party at Buckingham Palace. The short-sleeved colourblock design was a hit with royal fashion watchers as the dress was a bargain, being reduced from 980 to 490. Steal! What a weekend! Work it, Kate! Follow Huffington Post Canada Style on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter! Also on HuffPost Kate Middleton's 34 Most Stylish Looks See Gallery Kids love seeing themselves: in photos, in videos, in the mirror. So it only makes sense that a new children's book incorporates a child's name and actual home. Launched in Canada this month, "The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home" uses geotechnology and a lot of coding along with a child's name and address that's entered online to create a very personal book. Advertisement Lost My Name, the company behind it, uses images from NASAs Creative Commons to create computer-generated replicas of stars and constellations, and then personalizes them for each book. The child will see his or her name written in the stars, surrounded by images of uniquely generated galaxies. The story itself is about a little girl or boy trying to find their way home. As the journey progresses, the book shows more and more personalized images, from the flag of the country the child lives in, to a local landmark, and finally to a high-quality satellite image of their own neighbourhood. Advertisement Its an epic journey of a child and her robot friend, all the way from the depths of outer space to their doorstep, said company co-founder Asi Sharabi. Sharabis interest in personalized childrens books started a few years ago when his daughter received one as a gift. That kind of warm and fuzzy feeling of seeing my daughters name in a book lasted exactly one second. It was like, 'Jesus, this is absolutely rubbish,' he said in an interview with The Huffington Post Canada. Personalized books have been on the market for about 45 years now, but they've never really taken off commercially, said Sharabi. Advertisement "Can we make a personalized book that doesnt suck? They were never really treated as a serious creative canvas, they were always just commercial gimmicks just novelty, Sharabi explained. So this whole thing started with the humble quest of just, can we make a personalized book that doesnt suck? His company found success in two earlier books, "The Little Girl Who Lost Her Name" and "The Little Boy Who Lost His Name," which has sold over 1.6 million copies in 176 countries. 'Bonkers with technology' This latest book is being promoted as "the most technically advanced childrens publishing project ever created. " Sharabi said the image of the child's neighbourhood is quite complex because geotechnology is still a bit clunky, so they created an algorithm that fixes any anomalies in the satellite images to ensure that they are the correct resolution. I think with this one we just went completely bonkers with the technology, he said. It's already got at least one big-name, out-of-this-world fan. Astronaut Tim Peake read "The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home" on the International Space Station in April. Advertisement Also on HuffPost: Your Majesty, Good afternoon everybody. Thank you so much for showing that the Great British public doesn't let a little rain spoil a good day out. It means so much to see everybody here today. Can I begin by thanking the organisers of this event, especially my cousin Peter for working so hard over the past year to turn his vision for this celebration into a reality. Catherine, Harry and I and the rest our family are extremely proud to be here today. My family has had plenty of reason to celebrate since The Queen turned 90 in April: The Queen's strong health and relentless energy; her sharp wit and famous sense of humour; and the fact that The Queen remains very much at the helm of our family, our nation and the Commonwealth. The Queen at 90 is the one Head of State that world leaders can turn to for a first-hand perspective of the arc of history over the last six decades. At 90, The Queen is the leader of our country, who we all look up to in good times and in challenging moments to set an example, and to guide the way ahead. But the reason we are here today is to celebrate a role that matters just as much to The Queen as the one that she holds on the world stage. We are here to celebrate The Queen as Patron. Her commitment to the more than 600 charities to which she lends her name and support is unwavering. From national military and sporting bodies, to small local associations, to charities that champion children, faith, education and arts, The Queen's pride in her role as your Patron is absolute. Through The Queen's association with you, she is not just shining a spotlight on the individual causes you care about; she is reminding us all that being active and engaged in society has virtue in its own right. Service to those around you is what unites you all. So on behalf of my entire family, can I say thank you. You have been partners in The Queen's service for so many years. Before I finish, I hope you won't mind if I say a personal thank you to The Queen - and to do so on behalf of all her grandchildren - and great-grandchildren. Granny, thank you for everything you have done for your family. We could not wish you a happier birthday. And now, it is my honour to invite here to the microphone, Her Majesty The Queen. Reese Witherspoons second child, Deacon, has reached a major milestone: hes graduating from elementary school! On Saturday, the 40-year-old actress shared a sweet snap with her growing boy on Instagram. She captioned the photo: Off to Jr. High! Yay, Deacon! #proudmom. Advertisement A photo posted by Reese Witherspoon (@reesewitherspoon) on Jun 11, 2016 at 8:38am PDT Twelve-year-old Deacon is the youngest child of Witherspoon and ex Ryan Phillippe. The former couple had two kid during their famed marriage in the 2000s. Their eldest, Ava, is now 16 years old and gained media attention thanks to her uncanny resemblance to her famous mom. A photo posted by Ava Phillippe (@avaphillippe) on Apr 30, 2015 at 6:37pm PDT Deacon, on the other hand, has managed to stay out of the limelight. However, thanks to Witherspoons recent photo with her son, we can see that he inherited the perfect mix of genes from both parents. Just take a look below. Advertisement Heres a shot of Witherspoon and Phillippe in 2006 at the 78th Annual Academy Awards. And heres a snap of Deacon with Witherspoons third child, three-year-old Tennessee, who she had with husband Jim Toth. These two... #BrotherlyLove A photo posted by Reese Witherspoon (@reesewitherspoon) on Oct 11, 2015 at 11:36am PDT See the resemblance? Since Witherspoon and Phillippe split in 2007, they have remained on good terms and continue to raise their two kids together. In 2015, the Hot Pursuit star opened up to Southern Living magazine about being a working mom. No one's really doing it perfectly, she said. I think you love your kids with your whole heart, and you do the best you possibly can. Advertisement ALSO ON HUFFPOST: The Bismarck Optimist Club will be conducting a "Retiring the Flag Ceremony" at Optimist Park at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. The AMVETS Community Honor Guard will conduct the ceremony to replace the current American flag and raise a new North Dakota flag. Individuals and businesses that have contributed to the "Avenue of Flags" will also be recognized during the ceremony. The ex-wife of the gunman responsible for killing 49 people in a Florida nightclub said he was unpredictable and abused her during their short marriage. Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire at Pulse, a gay club in Orlando early Sunday, leaving behind the worst such mass shooting in U.S. history. After gunning down dozens of people and wounding 53, he was killed by police. Advertisement Hours later in front of her Colorado home, Sitora Yusufiy, 27, told reporters that Mateen had bipolar disorder: "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill." Sitora Yusufiy, the ex-wife of Orlando shooting suspect Omar Mateen, gives a statement to the media at her home in Boulder, Colo. on Sunday.(Photo: Autumn Parry/Boulder Daily Camera via AP/CP) The couple met through online dating in 2008 and married shortly after. "In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun," she recalled on Sunday, but then Mateen would "get mad out of nowhere." Advertisement She went on: "Then after a few months he started abusing me physically, very often, and not allowing me to speak to my family, and keeping me hostage from them." Yusufiy said her family had to literally pull her from her ex-husband's arms when she left him four months into their marriage. Omar Mateen is seen in a photo from Twitter. The New-York born Mateen was an American citizen. Yusufiy said her ex-husband, who worked as a security guard, wanted to be a police officer. While there are reports that Maheen made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, his ex-wife believes the attack has nothing to do with loyalty to terror groups. After being abused and after trying to do that and see the good in him, I can honestly say this is a sick person. This was a sick person that was really confused and went crazy, she told ABC News in an interview. Advertisement Yusufiy said its heartbreaking for Muslims, for any people, any religion, that this happens to where one person is not stable and does something totally out of their mind and it affects entire millions." Police forensic investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub on Sunday. (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters) Yusufiy acknowledged that Mateen was religious, reported The New York Times, but she never heard him speak about radical Islamists unlike his feelings about gay people when he was angry. There were definitely moments when hed express his intolerance toward homosexuals, she told the newspaper. Advertisement According to public records, Mateen married again after the split with Yusufiy, and has a three-year-old son, reported Heavy.com. With files from The Associated Press/The Canadian Press Also on HuffPost There were many memorable moments from last night's Tony Awards, from host James Corden's emotional speech to "Hamilton"'s 11 wins to "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda's moving sonnet and reminder that "love is love is love is love." However, there was another historic moment that also should be remembered: for the first time in Tony Awards history, all four of the musical actor categories lead actor, lead actress, featured actor and featured actress had winners of colour. The winners, respectively, included Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, and Renee Elise Goldsberry of "Hamilton," and Cynthia Erivo of "The Color Purple." Advertisement According to Mic, the only time the Tonys came close to this record was in 1982, when the stars of "Dreamgirls" won lead actor, lead actress and featured actor categories. The wins are especially poignant after the Academy Awards were blasted by critics for the lack of diversity in the nominated films, particularly in the acting categories. The movement #OscarsSoWhite spurred discussion on how to include and feature more people of colour in Hollywood, and set off sweeping changes to Academy membership. But, as one astute Twitter user said Sunday night: "FORGET YOUR #OSCARSSOWHITE, WE HAVE #TONYSSOINCLUSIVE." Advertisement Also on HuffPost #TwoMenKissing because the father of the Orlando attacker said that Mateen had seen two men kissing and got very angry so maybe that's why he went after the gay club. Well your hate can't take away the pride our community has for the rights that we have been fighting for for so long. In our month of pride and always we will not be silenced. Take your hate and homophobia somewhere else, we've been dealing with it for far too long. #lgbtq #orlando #pulse #pride #bestrong A photo posted by Robert Kardashian III (@robbytate) on Jun 13, 2016 at 6:13am PDT When summer rolls around, we can't wait to bust out the frocks, the sandals and the sunnies. But what if you work indoors? In the office, the air conditioning is blasting, but when you step outside for a quick coffee or lunch, you enter another extreme. It can also be tricky to judge which summer items are workplace-appropriate (are these straps too thin, or this skirt too short?). All of this can really put a damper on your summer wardrobe, and you might feel like you have NO idea how to dress. Advertisement So from smart swaps to strategic layering, here are all of your coping mechanisms for surviving summer at the office. Whenever you're dealing with fluctuating temperatures, you want to think about layering. It's always easy to subtract, but you can't add what you don't have. We love this shirtdress from Ann Taylor ($198.99) that could easily be layered over pants, and under a jacket and/or cardigan. Advertisement Whether it's a rule in your office or not, you might want to consider putting the toes away for the summer. Our extremities are usually the first to get cold (and can eventually get numb). If you're the type who always has cold feet, you might want to consider wearing closed-toed shoes at your desk, and swapping them for sandals during your lunch break. And who says closed-toe shoes have to be boring? We love these tassel flats from Vince Camuto ($185.64). It seems obvious, but we suggest leaving a sweater and/or shawl at your office, so it's always there when you need it. Choose a cardigan in a neutral colour with a bit of texture, like this blush pink sweater from Aritzia ($115). When you're freezing in the office, and you've sipped all of the hot coffee humanly possible, you might also want to consider having a scarf on hand. While wrapping it around your neck is the obvious choice (and one we welcome), you could also consider using it to cover your legs if you're wearing a shorter skirt and the goosebumps are spreading. We adore this tassel scarf from Club Monaco ($98.50) that's so cute you might actually turn down the thermostat yourself! Advertisement Yes, we're serious! When you're typing a lot at your computer, your hands and fingers tend to get cold before anything else. We suggest soft and light fingerless gloves, like these cashmere ones from BlumenKinderSeattle on Etsy ($47). Whether your office is freezing or a sauna, these extreme temperatures might tempt you to push some boundaries in the skirt length department. But when trying to decide whether your dress is too short, think back to those high school days when your dress or skirt "had" to be longer than where your hands fell beside your thighs. If you find your office really warm, consider a skirt that's less fitted, as it will be much more breathable. We love this circle skirt from Le Chateau ($59.95) as it has a layered effect that is perfect for girls who want to show a bit more leg, but also want to keep it work-appropriate. Advertisement Sleeveless tops often get a bad rap when it comes to office wear, but we think they are A-OK when done right. Leave the spaghetti straps for dinner or drinks (or only when you know you won't be removing a sweater or cardigan inside). When trying to decide how thick the straps should be, do the three-finger test, where you measure the thickness with you guessed it three of your fingers. If the straps are thinner than the width of your three fingers, you may be going into inappropriate workwear territory. We love, love, love this super preppy tank with its attached collar from Tommy Hilfiger ($89.50) that would look so perfect with a pair of blush pink or white trousers. Just because it's summer doesn't mean we want to look any less professional. However, with the warmer temperatures, you may want to ditch your fall/winter blazer for a version made from a lighter fabric like this linen jacket from J. Crew ($234). Opt for something a little less form-fitting to layer over your tanks, bodysuits or dresses. The extra wiggle room will also make you feel a little less sticky (or stinky). Do consider your colour too, because anything tan, beige or grey will show perspiration. If blazers are just too much for you, don't sweat it. Just get a cardigan instead! It's much lighter in terms of material, but it's also less constricting, so you can move about freely. We love this butter yellow cardigan from Zara ($29.90). You will be a ray of sunshine in your office, and it will also keep you covered and comfortable. Advertisement If you want to dress for summer, but your office is just not cut out for it, consider wearing cropped trousers. Cropped trousers give you the best of both worlds. If you find it warm in the office, it's a great way to allow your legs to breathe a little. But if it's cooler, there's enough coverage to keep you warm. These paper bag trousers from Banana Republic ($124) would be comfortable and breezy for a stuffy office. Follow Huffington Post Canada Style on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter! Also on HuffPost Hemera Technologies via Getty Images Tired man The City of Vancouver has declared June 14, 2016 Men's Mental Health Awareness Day. This special day is part of Men's Health Week (June 13-19, ending on Father's Day). Why mental health awareness? When we think of Men's Health Week, we often think of prostate cancer or testicular cancer. As men account for three to four times the number of suicides of as women, one group is raising awareness of another important cause: men's mental health, depression and suicide. Advertisement HeadsUpGuys, a local depression resource for men funded by the Movember Foundation, has a public art exhibition June 13 and 14, 2016, outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. They also released a series of powerful videos about depression. The first video is about their organization, the people they serve and the impact their work has made in their inaugural year of operation. In year one there were 55,000 visits to the website and 6,500 self-checks completed. This video shares Jay's depression story of using poetry and filmmaking to express how he was feeling inside and communicate with others about his mental health challenges. He realized he was helping people, but he wasn't helping himself. His fourth year thesis film spoke to what he went through and he described the experience of listening to others crying with him as "transformative." Advertisement This video tells Fraser's story of overcoming substance use and depression to become a peer support to others facing similar issues. He says, "I'm very grateful for the journey that I've had, for the opportunities that I've had, and for the people I've met who've been able to support me to become a self determined, autonomous, articulate individual who also happens to suffer from depression." This video tells Aidan's depression story of depression resulting from the isolation moving to a new city and overcoming past abuse. To encourage others, he says, "Our lives don't need to exist with depression, because treatment is available, and recovery is possible." Advertisement This video tells Scott's depression story of overcoming an accumulation of life stress through small changes, engaging with community and working with his doctor to find a better quality of life. Finally, a public art piece has been readied for display June 13 and 14, 2016 outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. It is entitled "Refract." The project consists of five brightly painted full-size male mannequins that will be dissasembled and reassembled, mix matching colours to represent redefining masculine stereotypes that prevent men from reaching out. The art project is a collaboration with the Men's Depression and Suicide Network at the University of British Columbia. June 14, 2016 doesn't just mark Men's Mental Health Awareness Day, it also marks the first anniversary of HeadsUpGuys. The Vancouver-based organization behind these stunning and impactful information products and resources has a website with a wealth of information. It is targeted to help those struggling with depression and the people who love them. Advertisement You can also follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. This post originally appeared on Sparkly Shoes and Sweat Drops. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: BJI / Blue Jean Images via Getty Images Beijing,China We can remember many of them, leaning forward, almost off their tiny kindergarten-sized chairs, squinting with one eye to try and make out a rather large 'H' or 'O' on a chart across the room. We saw them try to cheat by uncovering their other eye or slyly turning their head to one side. They are frustrated that this letter game is so difficult, and so are we. How could it be that we, volunteers at an outreach vision screening program in Toronto, are the first to pick up potentially significant vision problems in these children? Advertisement The program we run, Kids2See, is one of the few community vision screening programs for kindergarten-aged children in Ontario. Kids2See is a volunteer-based program run through the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine which aims to screen kindergarten children primarily for amblyopia. Why doesn't Ontario's supposedly universal health-care system include vision screening for amblyopia? Amblyopia, sometimes called "lazy eye," is a relatively common condition present in up to five per cent of children that develops when the eyes are misaligned or one eye needs glasses much more than the other. It can lead to permanent vision loss if not treated early in life. With early treatment, children can easily regain much of their vision. This is where our screenings come in. They are run entirely by volunteer medical students, under the supervision of a licensed optometrist. Each of us is concerned with the lack of accessible vision care in our city and we donate time out of our schedules to try and fill this gap. Our annual funding budget consists of only $350, which the medical student society provides to all outreach groups. Advertisement While we are screening principally for amblyopia, we also pick up on children's general vision difficulties, which can markedly impair their social and cognitive development. Up to 80 per cent of learning in the preschool age is visually-driven, and children are highly unlikely to realize their own vision is poor. At the small number of inner city schools we target, all of which are deemed high needs by the Toronto District School Board, a staggering 41 per cent of the children we screen have never had any type of eye examination. As part of our program, we are conducting a research study to better understand barriers to vision care in early childhood. While this work is still in progress, we have noticed a disturbing -- and statistically significant -- trend. Children from low-income families are less likely to have ever had their vision checked than children from high-income families. The Canadian Pediatric Society recommends a sequence of eye examinations throughout childhood up to the age of 18. Children with regular access to family doctors, pediatricians or optometrists may be receiving this kind of care, but the results of our survey suggest that this is far from a universal reality. Why doesn't Ontario's supposedly universal health-care system include vision screening for amblyopia? Advertisement Ontario lags behind other provinces, such as British Columbia and Nova Scotia, which have universal screening programs in place to detect amblyopia in young children. Ontario could also follow the example of Sweden, which has a well-thought-out nationwide screening program for amblyopia in preschoolers and has an uptake of over 99 per cent. Many resources exist in Ontario via our publicly-funded system to address vision health, but they are a messy patchwork -- disorganized and uncoordinated. For example, the Toronto District School Board has programs for screening children in Grades 4-6, but by that age, while it may be helpful for simple near-sightedness or far-sightedness, it is too late to effectively treat amblyopia. OHIP covers eye exams for all children under 19 years of age, but parents need the time, resources, and awareness to know that these examinations are an important part of promoting their child's health. As we have experienced first-hand, most parents at the Kids2See visits are not managing to make use of these resources -- with potentially serious consequences for their children. In decades past, nurses from Toronto Public Health would visit schools to check every child's vision. But now, like the school nurse and cafeteria milk programs, that initiative is a relic of a bygone era. Provincial budgets not focused on preventative care are to blame. An article in the medical journal, The Lancet from last year advocates for population-wide screening for amblyopia at age four or five. We could not agree more. Advertisement Ontario needs a universal vision screening program for preschool children. Maybe then so many children in Toronto wouldn't have to rely on volunteers to check their vision. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward The devastation of the Fort McMurray wildfire may be starting to slide off the media's radar, but the impact is far from over. In some ways, it's just beginning -- particularly for Fort Mac's animals. Tara Clarke, Executive Director of the Fort McMurray SPCA, anticipates that the situation for the animals might worsen in the coming months as residents face financial instability and housing shortages in the region. Advertisement Listen as Luna Allison, of the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, interviews Tara Clarke here: Just recently, the first wave of Fort McMurray residents returned to their community. While the Fort McMurray SPCA -- the only local animal shelter in the province's second largest municipality -- is working diligently to develop strategies for keeping pets with their families, regardless of their housing status, pet surrender rates are likely to go up and adoption rates will most certainly go down as the community struggles to get back on its feet. As you may already know, 2400 buildings -- many of them homes -- were razed to the ground by the wildfire. While the Fort McMurray SPCA is still standing, the shelter needs to be inspected and decontaminated before they can get up and running again. Advertisement On top of this, it's critical for the shelter to update and expand its facilities to help the ballooning animal population that they expect to be caring for over the next three to six months. Improvements are needed for the dog runs, isolation areas and kennels -- and, most urgently, the shelter needs HVAC infrastructure to improve disease control, heating and cooling. A fundraising campaign was set to be launched just weeks before the wildfires hit but have now been put in jeopardy not only by the smoke and bio hazard damage, but also their limited ability to fundraise the estimated $970,000 through local channels. Moving forward, the Fort McMurray SPCA will also be providing: 1. Health and safety support to pets as they re-enter, many of whom have experienced less than ideal housing conditions in locations or situations which may compromise their health or, in the case of animals rescued from the community post evacuation, have experienced trauma and transport conditions that can may put them at risk of health issues or complications as they return home. 2. Pet kits to impacted owners to assist in meeting the needs of their companion animals upon their return, including the basic supplies needed for their animals. Kits will be distributed through an online request form to ensure that pets who are most in need receive support first. 3. Long-term supports, including food and basic supplies. The FMSPCA is currently in discussions with food distributors and other companies to determine their ability to provide, donate and transport items that will be needed in the months to come to assure food and health-care security for pets throughout the region on a longer-term basis as the community recovers and rebuilds. Advertisement Want to help? Right now, two things are needed: (1) FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS. If you'd like to help the animals, please donate directly to the Fort McMurray SPCA Wildfire Relief Fund. (2) PET SUPPLIES. Please check the Fort McMurray Facebook Page to ensure that any supplies you want to send are in line with their needs. These supplies will be crucial to Fort McMurray's efforts to keep as many pets as possible living with their families during resettlement. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook ALSO ON HUFFPOST: alvarez via Getty Images Team working at a start up It's likely that most of us have read an article, or watched a news story, about millennial or Generation Y employees (individuals born between 1980 and 1994) and their struggles in the workplace. They tend to have repetitive story lines that rarely break new ground, and love to classify all young people at the beginning of their careers in the same light. I shake my head whenever I am exposed to these stereotypes, because they are contrary to my experiences as a tech employer. After careful consideration, I've determined that not only are the specific traits of millennial employees completely opposite to these characterizations, but that a company can really capitalize on them to achieve their business objectives. Advertisement In the tech sector, young people are the driving force behind some of the world's most recognizable companies. As an example, if you combine the employees of Facebook, Google and Apple in 2015, the average age is just over 30 years old. In Canada Drives, 85 per cent of our employees are under the age of 30. I want to discuss five of the most common millennial myths that I encounter, because I firmly believe that the tech sector is a model of how Gen Y employees who are properly valued can make a significant impact to a company's bottom line. Myth #1 They Lack Drive The new generation of employees are often pigeonholed as being lazy, or lacking the necessary ambition necessary to advance. Yet, according to a study of 90,000 employees conducted by CEB, a US technology company that focusses on monitoring business practices, Gen Y employees were the most competitive demographic, with 59 per cent stating that competition was what "gets them up in the morning." This is the kind of enthusiasm that should motivate employers to foster a healthy but competitive atmosphere that improves productivity and output. Advertisement Myth #2 They Are Entitled This is a common refrain that is hard to pin down. Does it mean that millennials expect everything handed to them on a silver platter? Or does it just mean that they walk in the door without any desire to put their time in at the entry level? Either way, it is not something that I find relatable. In a tech environment, young employees are particularly interested in being judged on merit, and place a lot of value in processes like performance reviews. This in turn leads to careful attention being paid to meeting the requirements of job descriptions and a willingness to turn suggested changes into tangible action. Myth #3 They Are Always Looking to Jump Movement in the workforce is as much a symptom of the current economy as it is about the attitudes of Gen Y employees. In our experience, millennials are simply looking for the right "fit" for their career aspirations. While the tolerance to stay in jobs that aren't for them is far lower than previous generations, their commitment to the right opportunity is rock solid. Many of Canada Drives' senior managers are not only Gen Y employees, but have been with our company from early on in the company's history. When an employer makes a concerted effort to meet expectations beyond compensation -- such as fulfillment, contribution and appreciation -- millennials are far more likely to want to stick around to grow with the company. Myth #4 They Are Unable to Communicate Properly This is a myth that comes about because employers fail to recognize that effective communications can apply to many different scenarios. Advertisement The fact that millennial employees have grown up immersed in technology, as an example, makes a huge difference in dealing with a company's customers and partners. Whether explaining how the online process works, or providing instructions about how to use a customized piece of software, there is a familiarity and confidence that really translates and resonates well. There is also a social aspect to millennial employees that when given the opportunity, can flourish in breaking down company silos. Working environments that promote periodic activities, events and social outings can reap the reward of millennials who become more comfortable, engaged, and as a result, contributory. Myth #5 They Aren't Team Players Younger employees tend to be less set in their ways when it comes to completing a task, or tackling a problem, which makes them more likely to seek out other opinions, and to work with others to achieve solutions. In Canada Drives, working groups tend to be ad hoc rather than imposed, and operate in a fashion that puts utility ahead of ego. This has fostered an atmosphere of self-sufficiency at all levels of the organization, thereby allowing managers to avoid the need to become intimately involved in tackling every unforeseen problem that arises. Canada Drives works extremely hard to foster an environment that allows the archetypical Gen Y personality to thrive. Early success with millennials set the company on a path to seeking out young tech talent as opposed to just accommodating it. The results have been far better than expected, as our workforce has dramatically shaped the company's culture, and led to increased productivity and profitability. This has been our recipe for success, and employers might want to consider their own against millennial employees in their next round of hiring. Advertisement 750 million women alive today were married as children; more than one in three before they were 15 years old. Over the next 30 years, it's estimated that at least 280 million more girls under 18 will be married. The numbers are staggering. But behind each statistic is a child robbed of the right to make their own critical choices in life, to determine their own destiny, and to realize their full potential. Advertisement In Ethiopia recently, I met Aneley Ashafric, a teacher from the town of Hamusit--which means Thursday in Amharic after the town's market day. He told me about a girl in one of his classes some years ago. Aneley began to pick up on signs that the girl's family was preparing her for an early marriage, and was worried what that could mean for her future. He initiated conversations with the girl's family and other community members on the importance of finishing her education and encouraging her to stay in school. After consideration, the family agreed to put off the wedding. The young girl stayed in school and rose to the top of her class. Ending child marriage is about more than simply protecting children. It's about promoting their rights and providing them with opportunities to reach their full potential. It was a beautiful story about a girl who will continue to realize her full potential while she focuses on her education. But stories like these are the exception rather than the rule. Advertisement In Nigeria, 23 million girls and women were married in childhood - the largest number in Africa. In Mauritania, 60 per cent of married adolescent girls have husbands who are at least 10 years older than them. In Guinea-Bissau, one in three married adolescent girls are in a polygynous union. Child marriage is a gross violation of girls' rights. It denies them their childhood, and too often ends their education, endangers their health and exposes them to violence. Behind each statistic is a child robbed of the right to make their own critical choices in life. Ending child marriage is about more than simply protecting children. It's about promoting their rights and providing them with opportunities to reach their full potential. The story Aneley told me is one of millions of children's stories that drive us at UNICEF Canada to fight for their rights. The results are tangible and the proof is clear: when you invest in a girl's future, the whole community benefits. And, when the solution to a problem is local and driven by the affected communities themselves, it works. This week, I'm proud to join Global Affairs Canada and Girls Not Brides to celebrate the International Day of the African Child on June 16, with the launch of Girl's Voices: Speaking Out Against Child Marriage. The photography exhibition, which has already toured more than 15 countries, tells the stories of child, early and forced marriage from the perspective of girls and women affected. Advertisement Canada has shown strong leadership on this issue, introducing the first-ever standalone resolution to end child, early and forced marriage at the United Nations General Assembly in 2013, and working to sponsor a further resolution at the 2016 General Assembly. With Canada's support, UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund have also been building a global program to accelerate an end to child marriage by promoting school enrollment, educating parents and communities, supporting legislative change, and empowering girls with the life skills they need to succeed. When we invest in their rights, we enable children to grow into the people that will change our world for the better. The growing international movement of partners working towards the same cause is inspiring. From the Government of Canada to those in high prevalence countries, from other UN agencies to Girls Not Brides, a worldwide partnership of more than 500 civil society organizations committed to ending child marriage, the world is coming together like never before. But there is much more to be done if we want to achieve the global sustainable development agenda we have set for ourselves through the Global Goals by 2030. Advertisement With the child population of Africa expected to grow rapidly in the next few years, millions more girls will be at risk. We must increase investments in education to ensure all children benefit from at least nine years of quality education. We must ensure flexible educational options for girls who are already married. We must support adolescent-friendly health services. And, we must continue working to protect children and their rights. When we allow children to be married, we are betraying their futures, and we are betraying all of our societies by not taking advantage of their full potential. But, when we invest in their rights, we enable children to grow into the people that will change our world for the better. Sam Edwards via Getty Images "You'll win this easily, you're playing a girl!" This is a comment I would hear being said regularly to my opponent in childhood chess competitions. This comment would make my nine-year-old self more determined to beat them -- which I often did, checkmating both their king and naively sexist ideas. Still, it highlights a major problem that we face in the UK and worldwide today: The idea that men produce more substantial thought than women remains engrained in both sexes. Girls are judged on their appearances at times when men are for valued for their ideas; male speakers are viewed as more authoritative than their female counterparts, and women are interrupted more often than men. I have witnessed this throughout my life. Advertisement Our society instills diminished self-confidence in women through upholding such gender preconceptions. Consequently, girls and women are habitually discouraged from trying new things, putting forward their ideas, and displaying their full potential. Even in a female-dominated university course, such as English Literature, it is often male students who contribute more frequently and confidently in discussions. They do not trail off or cut their points short because they feel they have been talking for too long. If this power imbalance is reinforced before adulthood, it will resonate into the workforce. Women in the workforce see barriers as brick walls, while their male counterparts see them as obstacles to overcome. A prime example of this is that only seven per cent of women negotiate for their starting salary compared to 57 per cent of men. Women need to challenge the rules more often. We must empower ourselves through believing in our abilities, resolutely pursuing opportunities and ensuring our voices are heard. Girls' mind-sets need to be transformed, and the barriers which instil these mentalities must be abolished. This starts with education. The U.K. may have universal education, but there needs to me more taught than just Science, Arts, and Languages. Schools need to instil self-confidence and resilience from an early age, which can be achieved through prompting equal participation in classes, encouraging girls to attribute their successes to themselves instead of external factors, continuing to engage girls in sport, and creating awareness of opportunities and campaigns they can get involved in, such as This Girl Can. Advertisement Rather than ignore the taboo that exists regarding the inequality towards women in the U.K. today, girls must be taught about the barriers they are likely to come up against, and how they can overcome them. They need to be encouraged to stand their ground and not back down. Both males and females should learn about successful women; the best way to demolish the preconception that men produce more substantial thought than women, is to showcase female intelligence and tenacity. Take every opportunity you receive and make your ideas heard. Education must extend to the corporate sector in order to remove the barriers which contribute to women's lack of self-belief in the workplace. Employers must commit to consciously recognize biases in the recruitment process -- including their own internal prejudices -- and remove them. They must use current intersectional research into the different barriers that women face to reassess ways of including women in the boardroom and throughout companies. These educational reforms throughout every career stage are needed to cultivate women's self-confidence and establish gender parity in the labour force. So to give your daughter the same opportunities as the boys in her class: educate her (and your sons) about gender equality and talk to her school and your council about making these changes. Change begins with you. Take every opportunity you receive and make your ideas heard. Be the inspiration for the next generation. By Phoebe Price, delegate representing the United Kingdom at the 2016 G(irls)20 Summit in Beijing, China. Advertisement Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook ALSO ON HUFFPOST: The Three Crowns Swedish American Association will be hosting its annual Midsommar Celebration and Potluck at 6 p.m. June 21 at Buckstop Junction in the Lewis Hotel Ballroom. The event commemorates the popular Swedish festival Midsommer, which celebrates the long sunlit days of summer. This family event includes games for children, food, tours of a Swedish homestead, the Engstrom house, old Claim Shack and the Bethel Church. The Three Crowns Folk Dancing group will also be featured as members take on the Swedish tradition of dancing around the Maypole. Yiorgos Doukanaris via Getty Images A pit bull is sitting on the pier. Death is not enough to convince people to ban pit bulls. That much is clear from the latest horrifying incident that saw Quebec woman Christiane Vadnais mauled (not bitten) to death in a backyard in Montreal's Pointe-aux-Trembles area last Wednesday. The dog had previously attacked a man at a convenience store, and even its owner's cousin. The owner had gone out of his way to keep the dog from becoming more aggressive. Advertisement (It's not the dog, it's the owner, right?) But even being a good owner could not stop the pit bull from taking the life of a beloved sister and a popular employee of Montreal's transit system. Politicians are understandably looking at options to restrict the dogs. Quebec's Public Security Minister Martin Coiteux hasn't ruled out a ban. But so far, even Vadnais' fatal attack hasn't been enough to convince Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre to enact legislation. Common sense must apply, he said. They inherently pose a higher risk of ruining a life when they attack than any other breed, by orders of magnitude. People are a tough sell on the idea of a pit bull ban because of a powerful lobby that is intent on misleading the public and verbally mauling anyone who would dare raise the prospect of one. It's a loose coalition of official organizations and pit bull lovers intent on harassing people out of their opinions on social media. I got a taste of this the last time I wrote about pit bulls two years ago. I argued it was time for every province to enact bans in the wake of a savage attack that almost left a baby without its nose. The reaction to my blog was swift, fierce and continues to this day. I received upwards of 100 tweets aimed at shaming and intimidating me. A Facebook user messaged me saying I should be put to sleep. Another heckler mocked my eye condition (I have strabismus). The last comment came to me only seven months ago. It's a lobby that misleads people with cute photos of friendly pit bulls and tall tales of the dogs serving as nannies to children. Advertisement Of course, such images stand in stark contrast to pictures of savage wounds from pit bull bites -- and to statistics that clearly show the danger these dogs can pose. All of this is, of course, beside the point. It's not that all pit bulls are bad dogs. It's that they inherently pose a higher risk of ruining a life when they attack than any other breed, by orders of magnitude. Advertisement Pit bulls don't just bite. They maul. Even the B.C. SPCA, which disagrees with a pit bull ban, agrees they have stronger jaws and can "do more harm." But don't expect any of this to convince the public, which largely opposes a ban despite statistics and incidents happening again... and again... and again. I understand, to a point. Pictures have power. And it's easier to look at a photo of a cuddly pit bull in a bonnet than it is to look at one of a five-year-old with a mauling scar across her face. But that just means politicians have to be stronger, take a risk and ban the dogs. Ontario's Liberals did it in 2005. Pit bull bites have since all but disappeared in Toronto, and yet the party remains in power. I worry it would take an incident so horrifying, so destructive, so devastating to read about to finally convince the public these animals should be banned. They could even just restrict the animals, like has been done in the cities of Burnaby and Richmond. The mayors of both cities have held office for 13 and 14 years, respectively. These people have risked their political careers to keep the public safe from harm -- and they remain in office. It's just another reason why all politicians should follow, because even savage maulings haven't moved public opinion. I worry it would take an incident so horrifying, so destructive, so devastating to read about to finally convince the public these animals should be banned. A horde of pit bulls attacking babies in a maternity ward, for instance, or a group of children in a daycare. Advertisement Politicians shouldn't wait. Because if they do, adults and children will keep being attacked in their homes and elsewhere. And the pit bull lobby, so desperate to keep the public on side, will fiddle as they bleed. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: Purestock via Getty Images Doctor writing a prescription Two years ago, former Ontario Medical Assocation (OMA) president Dr. Scott Wooder, wrote a blog post asking employers to not require sick notes. He implored them to simply trust their employees (especially for brief absences) and asked them to recognize that sending a person who had a self-limited illness to a doctors office would only risk contaminating people in the waiting room. For a brief period of time, a lot of attention was paid to this blog from various news media. I had hoped that this would be the start of a frank discussion between employers and the OMA, one that would lead to an improvement in the current system. Alas, that was not to be. Advertisement Human resource professionals fired back with their own articles about how important it was to have medical documentation and how absenteeism was reduced by the sick note policy. Many of these corporations that require sick notes continue to abuse the health care system ad infinitum at a time when resources are stretched thin. Typically, they referred to how much money absenteeism cost THEIR businesses and used that to justify the cost of a sick note policy. The OMA never really followed up on this by providing a concrete step that could alleviate this burden on its members (and yes, it's a burden -- physicians HATE filling out sick notes). As a result, attention on the issue went away. What hasn't gone away, unfortunately, is the fact that many of these corporations that require sick notes continue to abuse the health care system ad infinitum at a time when resources are stretched thin. The human resources types will say that sick notes are not covered by OHIP, which is Ontario's physician payment service. As a result, there is no cost to the health care system. However, they are (in many cases, knowingly) only telling you the half truth. Here's what really happens: Advertisement Suppose you have a really bad cold. You know as well as I do that there is no cure for the common cold. However, the cough/congestion is enough to keep you home for three days. Your boss demands a sick note. So, now you go to the doctor's office with $20 in hand (which seems to be the going rate for a sick note). However, your doctor can't legally or ethically simply give you a note. He or she has to at the very least ask you questions about your illness and examine you if appropriate. The fee for that exam is approximately $30 for a family physician. Here's the rub -- because you were legitimately sick (you wouldn't try to cheat your employer, would you?), that service of assessing you is considered "medically necessary" and so is billed to OHIP. Guess who pays for OHIP? It's certainly NOT the company that asked for the sick note. This is why it's so frustrating to hear responses like the Toronto Transit Commission's (TTC) go unchallenged by the government. They had perhaps the most vocal defence of requiring sick notes, stating that their policy reduced absenteeism. You know another way of phrasing that? "Our human resources department wasn't capable of hiring hard-working employees who wouldn't abuse the sick day process, so we're going to download the cost of policing OUR policies onto the taxpayers of Ontario." Lest you think I'm picking on the TTC only, EVERY corporation in Ontario, whether public or private, that has a sick note policy is taking advantage of YOU, the taxpayer, by offloading the cost of THEIR policy onto the health care system. You, dear taxpayer, are subsidizing the cost of their business. Advertisement So, how does one change that? The easiest way to do that is to do the same thing that was done with driver's medical exams in the mid-1990s. For those who need something more than a general car licence (e.g. school bus licence, truck driver's licence), there is a requirement to have a medical examination done by a physician to ensure that the driver is not a health risk. These used to be covered by OHIP. However, the driver's medical exam was de-listed from OHIP in the 1990s, as it was deemed not medically necessary, but rather a work requirement. Additionally, physicians were now no longer allowed to bill OHIP for a service on the same day that they do the driver's medical exam. So, let's do the same thing with EXAMINATIONS for a sick note. Make those exams a non-OHIP service. A physician will charge not just $20 for the note, but will now charge the OMA rate of $60 for the exam. Put in the same rule about not billing OHIP for a service on the same day as a sick note. Give a time frame to implement (say, Jan. 1, 2017) so that companies have a chance to prepare. What will happen? Exactly the same thing as when driver's medical exams were de-listed. Employees will complain to their unions and employers. Employers will complain to the government. Expect some typical attacks from the usual sources on just how high doctor's fees are. And then, after a few months of bluster... companies and unions will figure it out. Sick note policies will change. Requirements will be altered, while still respecting the legitimate business interests of employers. Advertisement Though there will always be some cases where sick notes will be needed, particularly for protracted illnesses, the current odious requirements will be altered. Life will go on. Only this time, corporations will no longer be taking advantage of the taxpayer and abusing the health care system at a time when it cannot afford it. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: It is an international happening -- an art show that will have you holding your breath -- but only for so long. People in-the-know who have a C-card and the willingness to swim with big fishes, have been making underwater pilgrimages this summer in the Florida Keys to see the hidden work of Austrian artist Andreas Franke. Considered one of the 200 best photographers in the world, Franke has once again taken his art underwater in the new show: The Sinking World - The Vandenberg Project #2. This is the fourth time that he has put together a composite photography exhibition that can only be seen wreck diving! The photographer's newest underwater art exhibition has been installed on the wreck of the 523-foot Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg, lying in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary about 10kms south of Key West. The exhibition went up on the 1st of April and runs till the end of July 2016. Advertisement Volunteer divers install a Franke photograph. Picture courtesy of the artist In early April, divers from the Artificial Reefs International Preservation Trust installed a dozen photo illustrations on the Vandenberg's weathered deck, more than 30m below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The pictures will stay affixed to the coral covered Vandenberg until the end of July. Andreas Franke's photographs are encased in plexiglass and mounted in stainless steel frames sealed with silicone. They are a continuation of the artist's "Sinking World" series, which he debuted on the Vandenberg in 2011 shortly after the world's second largest artificial reef was sunk. In 2013 a second exhibition was installed on the wreck of the Mohawk, an artificial reef off Fort Myers, Florida in the Lee County wreck preserve. Advertisement Franke art work that was displayed in 2013 on the wreck of the Mohawk. Photograph courtesy of the artist In the 2016 exhibition Franke has manipulated photographs that depict a flamboyant era of European style and cultural history against the backdrop of a sunken coral encrusted warship. Among visuals are women gossiping over a picnic and other ladies engaged in a leisurely stroll twirling umbrellas across the deck of the sunken WW2 troop carrier (and later missile tracking ship) Vandenberg. Key West diver takes in the Vandenberg exhibition - Picture courtesy of the artist Franke toured and photographed the Vandenberg prior to the ship being sunk to create an artificial reef. He also has photographs of the Vandenberg after she went down. Advertisement Three divers tour the Vandenberg exhibition. Picture courtesy of the artist Working with these images in his Vienna studio he subsequently photographed costumed models to photograph dream-like sequences, which were mashed with the original photographs of the ship. He has created ghostly apparitions and whimsical views of the sunken warship. Off Key West the Vandenberg has become an underwater version of the Flying Dutchman -- a ship, a crew and somehow some pretty female passengers doomed to sail the seas underwater eternally. "During their time at sea, the photos will evolve with accumulation of marine life," explains the artist, "which will give them a seaworthy patina and life of their own and ennobles the art work to unique pieces." After 3-months underwater on the wreck of the Mohawk, Franke's art is under attack by the ocean elements - photograph by Stephen Weir Advertisement At the end of this underwater exhibition, "The Sinking World" images will be brought to the surface for display for non-divers to see. At the wreck site you need scuba gear to make it down to the deck of the ship to see the works. The ship sits at almost 50 metres however Franke's photographs are hung on the upper decks - 30 metres - well within sport diving limits. Given the time constraints involved in diving at this depth (about 25-minutes) and since the composite photographs are placed throughout the ship, there is quite a bit of swim time required to take in the whole show. Seeing this exhibition is a much different experience than contemplating a masterpiece in an air filled museum. The works have only been up for a month but already sea creatures and plant life have attached themselves to the pictures - in time divers will have to sweep off the plant life to see the images. "That divers clean the art work is not too bad at all," Franke told me during his show previous to the Vandenberg. "As long as they only clean the main part of the images it doesn't bother me a lot. On the contrary, it is finally a part of the whole concept. My work is done as soon as the artwork is fixed on the wreck. Then the ocean and the diver decide how the final image will turn out." "I am completely fascinated by that mystical underwater world, the very peculiar emptiness and a tragic stillness but also by the shipwrecks. The depth has no big influence at all as long as divers can reach them." Advertisement ASSOCIATED PRESS A man looks over an impromptu candle-lit memorial set up in Sydney, Monday, June 13, 2016, following the Florida mass shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub where police say a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle opened fire, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said that the Orlando mass shooting was As I type this piece, the tears just won't stop flowing. Being a gay rights activist and a victim of homophobia, I am often left in tears when I come across stories about homophobic attacks or when members come to me about the struggles they are facing. Well, this one takes the cake. This story has left me numb. My heart is bleeding and I cannot stop crying. More than 50 of my people are dead, and for what? Simply because they were gay and perhaps because they supported gay rights as fellow human beings! Advertisement It was not too long ago that I was telling some of my friends how much more work needs to be done in the community, and that all the things we wish and hope for won't be achieved until we unite as a rainbow family and protect each other. I came to that conclusion after one of my Facebook followers insisted that I "stop advocating so much because we (LGBTQ community) have more rights than ever before." This was a gay man. It is quite obvious that many within and outside our community share this belief. We have become so complacent, thinking that because we got a few laws on the books that somehow we have achieved freedom and protection. We must come together as one people, one nation, to affirm that love conquers hate and to demand that we receive the same rights, respect and protection as every other human being. We are now in June, which is our Pride Month, and while celebrating our pride by partying is a great expression that I too partake in, many of us have completely forgotten the origins of this celebration, this political platform that helped to pave the way for our parades and our parties. As a community of LGBTQ people, many of us continue to turn a blind eye to the realities of our brothers and sisters, especially if we live in communities where LGBT rights are recognized. Well, the shooting in Orlando has reminded the world that no gay person -- no lesbian, bisexual or trans person -- is free from homophobia. We are still vulnerable. This attack is not about any religious group or race; it is a wake-up call for the LGBTQ community, its allies and all the people that are outraged at this moment. It is a huge reality check that clearly shows why every member of our community needs protection. That would include my transgender family who would love to use the bathroom without being bombed. Are we going to sit by and allow the extinction of our community before we take a stance? When I wrote my last blog post on "Pride Is A Reminder To Never Take Our Journey For Granted," it was all in an effort to open up the eyes of those who are sleeping and thinking that all is well in the world now. It is not! While Pride is a celebration of love and life, it is being turned into a horror movie; one that is too hard to watch. Our community is under attack now more than ever, and we must come together as one people, one nation, to affirm that love conquers hate and to demand that we receive the same rights, respect and protection as every other human being. We deserve it and it is up to all of us to make it happen! Advertisement In a few weeks, I will be marching in Toronto's gay pride parade for the second time after leaving my homophobic country of birth last year, and I will be dedicating every step of the parade to all the victims and their families. I will never forget! Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: 'Hamilton' dominated this year's Tony Awards, and the cast paid tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting, which claimed at least 50 lives, by removing all prop guns from their performance on the night. The critically-acclaimed production, which tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's founding fathers, won 11 awards including best musical after receiving a record 16 nominations. Advertisement The 'Hamilton' cast on stage Briton Cynthia Erivo won best performance by a lead actress in a musical for her role as Celie Harris in the Color Purple. Fighting back tears on stage, she said: "I promised myself I wouldn't cry because my make-up artist would be really mad at me. "Thank you American Theatre Wing for making a London girl very, very happy." The awards were dedicated to the victims of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando which left at least 50 people dead and another 53 in hospital. Host James Corden opened the show with a message to those affected by the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Advertisement "Our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity," he said. "All we can say is you're not on your own right now. You're tragedy is our tragedy. "Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. Tonight's show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle." The attack in Florida prompted the cast of Hamilton to drop their Revolutionary War muskets for their performance at the awards, a spokesman for the musical said. Speaking before the ceremony in New York, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the star and creator of Hamilton, said the shooting was "heavy in my heart and heavy in my mind". Veteran American actor Frank Langella, who won best performance by a lead actor in a play for his role in The Father, urged Orlando to be "strong" in the wake of the atrocity. Advertisement "When something bad happens we have three choices," he said. "We let it define us, we let it destroy us, or we let it strengthen us. "Today in Orlando we had a hideous dose of reality. I urge you Orlando to be strong because I'm standing in a room full of the most generous human beings on earth and we will be with you every step of the way." Jessica Lange won the award for best performance by a lead actress in a play for her role as morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night. "This is a dream come true," she said. "It fills me with such happiness even on such a sad day as this." The two-time Oscar winner beat Lupita Nyong'o, Michelle Williams, Laurie Metcalf and British actress Sophie Okonedo to win the award. Advertisement Hamilton, which is expected to open at London's Victoria Palace Theatre in October 2017, has achieved rave reviews and sell-out performances since making its debut in February last year. It won Tony Awards for best musical, best lead actor in a musical for Leslie Odom Jr, best featured actor and actress statuettes for Daveed Diggs and Renee Elise Goldsberry, best score, best book of a musical, best direction, orchestration, choreography and best lighting design and costume design of a musical. But the show failed to match the record haul of 12 Tony Awards won by The Producers in 2001. In a pre-recorded video message, US president Barack Obama said Hamilton was "not only a smash hit but a civics lesson our kids can't get enough of", while rapper Common described the show as a "cultural phenomenon". The Color Purple received the Tony Award for best revival of a musical, while A View From The Bridge took the prize for best revival of a play and Humans won best play. Erivo, who grew up in Stockwell, south London, stars opposite American actress Jennifer Hudson in the Broadway production of The Color Purple. Advertisement The 29-year-old Briton reprised her role in the musical on the US stage after first playing Celie Harris in London in 2013. During her acceptance speech, Ervio spotted her mother in the audience and said: "Hi mummy, look!" before thanking Oprah Winfrey, who starred in the 1985 film The Color Purple. "To every single person in the cast, you are magnificent," she said. "Thank you so much for lifting me up when I'm tired. For holding my hands when I'm happy. For kissing me on the forehead when you know I just need some love." Corden, who won a 2012 Tony Award for his performance in One Man, Two Guvnors, hosted the 70th Tony Awards following his successful stint as the presenter of the Late, Late Show in America. It is a rare, difficult and beautiful thing to grasp the interconnectedness of political struggles. To see that when one group is marginalised or attacked, then this should be seen as a problem for all of us. We are lucky to have many activists who achieve this, people who are often unknown and unsung but who spend entire lifetimes reaching beyond personal interest to speak truth to power and make common cause with others. Once in a while, a person with such gifts finds a public platform and so, speaks for the rest of us. I have never met Owen Jones personally, but I can't tell you how often his name comes up in planning meetings for progressive campaign events. Let's ask Owen Jones to speak, someone will say, to murmurs of hopeful approval. It's a heavy load for one person, and Owen would be the first to remind us that he is not alone. There is a danger in turning any single commentator into a spokesperson or star, and we should avoid it. There are others who wish to speak and act too, and it's up to us to find and appreciate them, even as we work to develop the same powers in ourselves. But this morning, I want to defend Owen Jones. He has defended the rest of us time and again. Advertisement As news of the attack on a gay club in Orlando came through, I noted three posts on Jones's public Facebook page. The first was an invitation to join the London LGBTI tribute to the victims of the attack on the gay nightclub Pulse, in Orlando. The second showed Owen's love of London, and once again, his wonderful ability to refuse the politics of fear and hate, and to hold to that interconnectedness of people, communities and struggle. "Proud to live in an incredible city with a Muslim mayor who fought and voted for LGBT people to have the same rights as everybody." The third showed his very real personal pain when he let his Facebook followers know that he would be appearing on the Sky News press preview: "Messed up about it but will do my best." It was painful to watch a press review in which host Mark Longhurst and co-presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer failed to see the hugely important and unavoidable fact that Orlando was a homophobic hate crime, one of the worst attacks on LGBT people in living memory. This fact, together with America's terrible gun problem, will be the two points most at risk in the coming days, as there is a rush to judgment that may well have terrible repercussions for both LGBT people and Muslims. This morning, Jones has already disassociated himself from social media attacks on Hartley-Brewer, while asserting simply and clearly again that Orlando must be seen as an attack on LGBT people. True to form, he does not want the issue to become about him, or an excuse to attack his fellow guest. Of course, he is right on both counts. But Owen, I do want to pause to defend you, as you have so often defended the rest of us. Thank you for turning up, and thank you too, for walking out. It was the best way to make your point. When I tuned in an hour later for round two of the Sky press review, your empty chair was a most eloquent statement on behalf of LGBT people. Advertisement The 3rd international awareness week for Rare Chromosome Disorders begins on Sunday 12th June 2016. During this week, Unique will help improve understanding of Rare Chromosome and Genomic Disorders and raise awareness of the support and information we can offer to individuals and families living with these disorders. The diagnosis... Imagine a scenario where that tiny little human life you created receives an earth shattering diagnosis. The doctors have no information about what it means or how it will affect your little one. Your family is left at the crossroads. You don't know where to go or who to turn to. What help will my child need? How can I get it? Where do I get information? Who can help me and my family? Why me, why us? Advertisement It may sound like I'm dramatizing this but sadly, this is what thousands of families experience every day when they receive a diagnosis of a rare chromosome disorder. At least 1 in 200 babies are born with a rare chromosome disorder; where there is too much genetic material or some is missing or re-arranged. For a lot of families, this can have devastating consequences. Symptoms can start at birth or early childhood, others might be affected later on or when they try to have children of their own - multiple miscarriages, fertility problems, stillbirths or the birth of a disabled child. Now what?... It is usually following diagnosis that families need the most help, practical support and information. But where do they find this? The emotional rollercoaster can be a long and lonely journey for most. For a lot of families, after the chaos of the day has settled, they sit down at the computer and start typing away, on a mission to find answers. Hopefully, Unique will be their first stop. Our ever-growing library of free information guides on over 180 disorders can be the first and only trustworthy information source about their child's rare chromosome disorder. Getting information... Over the last 30 years, Unique has been collecting information about lots of different rare chromosome and genomic disorders over the lifetime of individuals living with these disorders. This has enabled us and professionals to see what effect these chromosome disorders have on people living with a rare chromosome disorder and their families. With their information and the help of geneticists, we have been able to develop our information guides detailing the effects of the chromosome disorder and what support they would benefit from. This would not be possible without our 14,000 family members. Advertisement It's important to highlight also that it is likely that the professionals in the local community - the GP, Social Worker or even hospital specialists - will rarely, if ever have come across anyone with a rare chromosome disorder. This means they quite simply have little or no understanding and are not able to answer the many questions families will have. Families are able to pass on our information guides and educate the professionals supporting their family. Real people... "Ellis is a 3 1/2 year old charismatic, sociable little boy who is full of love, joy and so much energy; he also has a sizeable duplication at 17p13.1 His chromosome disorder has significantly impacted his growth and overall development; particularly his expressive language, he uses his emerging Makaton skills, gestures, jargon and intonations of words to communicate. We are new members of Unique and have only just begun to scratch the surface of the support that is provided. Being able to easily access information has helped me to better understand and make sense of Ellis' genetic makeup which has been an important factor in my process of acceptance". A quote from Melanie, Ellis's mummy, a Unique member. Getting support... As well getting support from Unique through our email and telephone help lines; thanks to our database, we're often able to link up families on the basis of their rare chromosome disorders. Under the umbrella of Unique membership, families can benefit from mutual support and linking even though the chromosome disorders may be quite different. Some of these families are truly Unique because their chromosome disorder is so rare. Often of more practical benefit is to link families on the basis of problems as they arise, whether these are medical, developmental, behavioural, social, and educational and so on. As funds allow, we hold regular family days, conferences and study days in the UK where families and professionals can meet and discuss latest developments. The future... Recent advances in genetic testing means that even smaller changes in DNA can be seen, leading to more people being diagnosed with a rare chromosome disorder. Let me go back to a fact I mentioned earlier: 1 in 200 babies are born with a rare chromosome disorder. When added together, that is a lot, an awful lot. But the rarity of the individual disorders presents a real challenge. By raising awareness of rare chromosome and genomic disorders, we can ensure that people living with these disorders and their families and the professionals supporting them, get the information and support they need and together we can alleviate their isolation. To find out more about Unique and rare chromosome disorders, please visit our website at www.rarechromo.org and follow us on Twitter @unique_charity. The debate, or arguments - depending on your viewpoint, around UK's membership of the EU will increase in intensity as the date of the referendum nears. It is obvious that both sides are putting more simplistic arguments forward to get their messages across. Whilst it is embarrassing for all concerned that people like Farage have referred to the danger of women being raped and sexual assaulted if we stay in the EU - the more reasonable campaigners on both sides have stuck to more reasoned arguments. One element of the Brexit side argument is a call to patriotism - that this country can be a great again - as long as we leave the EU. This is exemplified by an article in the Telegraph by Maj-General Tim Cross recently telling us that the UK can be great again if we leave Europe. When you get army generals writing in the Telegraph talking about Britain being great - we are entitled to think he (they) mean military greatness and sure enough the article was accompanied by photographs of Churchill and Margaret Thatcham in the Falkland Islands. There is irony here of course - Churchill's greatest moments were brought about because of dis-unity and rivalry in Europe - and a vile regime in Germany. It is also significant that Churchill worked very hard to work in partnership with other countries to win the war - mainly the USA of course. The EU at its birth was meant to be something that would make such wars less likely. We take for granted these days that it succeeded in achieving that. Advertisement It is also ironic that images of Thatcher and the Falklands were used to illustrate what could be achieved outside the EU. The Falklands war was conducted by this Country whilst we were in the EU - our membership did not prevent us re-taking the Falklands. If that is what makes a country great - we were great - whilst in the EU. The EU did not cause us to subsequently reduce our Navy to such a size that we probably could not do the same thing again as it stands. What is wrong with the idea of Britain being great in Europe - great in all the other ways a country can be great? As many in the Brexit camp have pointed out Britain already has the fifth largest economy in the world - and that has been achieved as a long term member of the EU. The UK has an outstanding record in winning Nobel prizes - second only to the USA - punching well above our weight in arts, culture and scientific research. We have three Universities in the worlds top ten league table - not bad for a medium sized country. A recent survey by the US based Commonwealth Fund found that the NHS is the best healthcare system in the world. Advertisement The UK gives more foreign aid, per capita, than most other countries. London has, for the fourth time in a row, been voted the most powerful city in the world by the Global Power City Index. If these are the things that make a country great then we have that already - in the EU. The UK is developing hundreds of billions of pounds worth of trade deals with China which is now our sixth biggest export market. We recently signed 20 billion trade deals with India with both countries investing heavily with each other. All this whilst we are in the EU. Of course what is missing in all this is how we treat this country's poorest - how we protect communities under pressure and families living on very low wages. I don't doubt that immigration does put a strain on local resources in certain parts of the Country - but why can't we help those communities whilst still in the EU? On 10 June 2016, the French Presidency of the Security Council organized a high level open debate on "Protection of Civilians in the Context of Peacekeeping Operations". It followed to other recent open debates in the Security Council on related matters: the protection of civilians in armed conflicts in January, the peacebuilding architecture in February, countering terrorism in April, and the cooperation between the UN and the African Union on peace and security in May, thus confirming the acute actuality of the topic. Civilians remain the target of unacceptable violence in situations of armed conflicts, with statistics showing that they represent 93% of victims. It is a figure deeply disturbing, placing the protection of civilian population at the core of the international efforts for peace and security, and as a moral responsibility for the UN. The Report of the UN Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, published in June 2015, revealed that prevailing disrespect for the international humanitarian law by some States and non-State actors, and the impunity of perpetrators, became a critical challenge for the international community. Deliberate targeting of civilians, of schools and hospitals are on the rise in many armed conflicts, bringing the number of refugees and internally displaced persons to alarming levels. Advertisement The primary responsibility to protect the civilian population during wars and conflicts belongs to States, but when national authorities are unable or unwilling to fulfill their responsibility, then the international community must intervene. In cases where atrocity crimes are committed, accountability is crucial. This is why Romania endorsed the French-Mexican initiative that permanent members of the UN Security Council should voluntarily agree to refrain from using their veto in situations involving mass atrocities crimes, and we joined the Code of Conduct proposed by Liechtenstein on the Security Council action against genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. Protection of civilians is also a task for peacekeeping operations. It is even decisive for the success and legitimacy of the UN presence in the field. In many cases in the recent past, peacekeepers did not use force to protect population coming under attack, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Therefore, UN missions need to be equipped with appropriate tools in order to address both the causes of crises and their consequences, including the protection of civilians, with a special attention to women, children and vulnerable persons. Quite often, the complex reality on the ground makes difficult for peacekeepers to fully understand the action they have to perform for protecting the civilian population. In this respect, pre-deployment training is essential, as well as a zero tolerance policy to any kind of abuse. Training must be anchored in the respect for human rights and in the standards of integrity required by the United Nations. It has to include how to interact with local people and civil society organizations, especially those focused on the protection of women's and children's rights, because nothing is more damaging to the reputation and credibility of peacekeeping missions, and to the efforts to regain the trust of local populations, than Blue Helmets abusing those they have mandate to protect. Here, it is the Security Council's responsibility to ensure that the protection mandate is clearly defined, achievable and backed with adequate resources. Out of the 16 UN peacekeeping operations in place today, ten have a mandate for protection of civilians. Romania is present in six of them. Advertisement Romanian experience proves the benefits of mixed teams, where female members of peacekeeping operations interact with women and vulnerable individuals from local communities. Complementary between training courses provided both at national and international level, in a way that they can offer to peacekeepers the skills to identify early warning indicators of potential risk for atrocity crimes, is also important. For instance, prior to their deployment in peacekeeping operations, Romanian troops attend a three months period of strict training which includes protection of civilians and respect for human rights. As a result, in 25 years of continuous presence in UN peacekeeping missions and with a total of more than ten thousands Blue Helmets all over the world, Romanians have never been involved in incidents of disrespect of the civilian population. Currently, we are present with military, police and close protection officers in ten peacekeeping operations and in two special political missions. At the same time, we must not neglect the serious danger peacekeepers continue to face to fulfill their mandates in some of the most dangerous parts of the world. They risk so much to advance peace in profoundly hostile environments, and we pay tribute to the men and women who so admirably dedicate their lives to protect the lives of others. Unknown by the public opinion, criticized sometimes for not doing more, many of them made their ultimate sacrifice. In 2015 only, 129 Blue Helmets died in mission and, unfortunately, others followed this year. To limit the number of victims both among civilians and peacekeepers, a renewed focus has to be on conflict prevention and mediation. From this perspective, negotiated political solutions, early warning mechanisms to anticipate risks of atrocities, accepting the norms of Responsibility to Protect, and respect of the Kigali Principles on the protection of civilians in conflicts, are part of the solution. At present, 29 countries, including Romania, have endorsed the Kigali Principles, accounting for more than 40,000 troops serving under the UN flag. Last but not the least, effective protection of civilians in armed conflicts needs an enhanced cooperation with regional and sub-regional organizations, because of their knowledge of the cultural, social and historical regional realities. The African Union and the European Union are two good examples, both organizations being strategic partners of the UN in the peacekeeping efforts. Advertisement North Dakota voters have a say today in local races, a single statewide ballot measure and, for those voting Republican, a contested gubernatorial primary. Polls in many locations across the state open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.; some open at 8 or 9 a.m., and some close at 8 p.m. Check your county website or the North Dakota Secretary of States website at www.sos.nd.gov for polling locations and times. Sundays Tribune also provided listings of Bismarck-Mandan polling locations. Voters are reminded they can only vote for candidates from one political party on their primary ballot. Crossing over disqualifies the party-specific portion of the ballot, but doesnt impact other portions of the ballot. As of Friday afternoon more than 45,000 absentee, mail-in and early precinct votes already had been cast statewide. This blog was co-authored with Ben Jackson, Chief Executive of Bond, the civil society network for global change. Twenty-five years ago, Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd issued an order to overrule the advice of Britain's top aid official Sir Tim Lankester and commit 234 million of UK aid to building the Pergau hyrdro-electric dam in Malaysia - which he warned was 'uneconomic' and 'a very bad buy'. This fateful decision in July 1991 was to be at the heart of the historic high court victory we helped secure as campaigners at the then World Development Movement (now renamed Global Justice Now) three years later. Advertisement Through two parliamentary enquiries, a National Audit Office probe, a ceaseless media, public and lobbying campaign - and finally through the courts, the truth came out. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her defence minister had secretly promised aid for the uneconomic dam to Malaysian Prime Minster Mahathir Mohammed - in return for him ordering warplanes from Britain. Our long-haul campaign, from grubby offices in a South London backstreet, against the pillaging of the aid budget to serve narrow commercial and strategic interests was successful. The judge ordered the government return millions to the aid budget. More significantly, the case helped ring the death-knell for the notorious Aid Trade Provision (ATP), which used aid to help British companies win contracts. Moreover initiatives to focus aid more effectively on fighting poverty made huge headway. The win on quality was followed by one on quantity as Labour, Coalition and Conservative Governments committed to grow the aid budget to 0.7% of national wealth, which Britain hit in 2013. Today, the UK Parliament will debate whether to keep that target. We are proud to say that they should. Advertisement Not because all aid is perfect. It certainly is not. But those aid naysayers that reel out an anecdotal list of 'bad aid' projects, and say, 'There you are, that proves we should cut the aid budget', are wrong. Last week an NHS hospital A&E department was revealed to be appallingly managed. Were there calls to axe the NHS budget? No - instead people demanded an end to that instance of mismanagement. We should react in the same way to examples of bad aid. In fact aid spending is almost certainly THE most scrutinised of all government budgets. Not only is it subject to the National Audit Office and a parliamentary select committee - but also its own independent aid watchdog, the Independent Commission on Aid Impact. You can track how British aid is spent through the Independent Aid Transparency Initiative, or check the views of international organisations who monitor aid. Finally, it comes down to one question - is Britain leading the world, or retreating from it? To lead the world is to set the standard for aid that makes a significant difference. To have a long-term national security strategy that supports those building peaceful societies, and stops extremism in its tracks. To address the education deficit that holds back half the world's people, and reduce the number of children dying before the age of five - already down by half since 2000 - so that death-by-birthplace becomes a thing of the past. Advertisement Like it or not, we cannot shut the rest of the planet out of our little island in the North Sea. So it seems to us that helping families facing poverty around the world is not about being a naive do-gooder. It's about, in the long-run, protecting our own children - about our own hard-nosed self-interest. That's why we are also ready to stand up and applaud when aid is well used, and support those tackling poverty, or risking their lives to build peace. We can recognise Britain's contribution to ending the war in Sierra Leone, for example and then its efforts to help overcome the Ebola outbreak - a threat for West Africa and beyond. And now, UK funding is helping tackle another global menace: the Zika virus. If anything, we need more not less aid to cope with the crisis in Syria, for example, to invest both in supporting refugees and their host communities, ensuring that Syrian children in exile get an education - while also backing those in Syria building peace between communities from the ground up. By working in developing countries to support their economies and societies, we are in fact making ourselves more secure. I was always proud of my eldest son Harry, never more so than when he swapped working at a building site in Leighton Buzzard to volunteer in a small village in Ghana. He went to Africa aged 20 where he helped build a school and taught children sport. He also contracted the most deadly strain of malaria - having given away his antimalarials to some of the children who he thought needed them more than he did - and three weeks after his return died from this devastating disease. Following his death, I got involved with the campaign to make malaria no more. Having discovered that the world's oldest disease still robs a parent of their child every two minutes - despite treatment costing less than the price of a cup of tea - I wanted to try and play a small part in what is a very big job. With half the world at risk of malaria, and nearly half a million deaths every year (mostly children under five and pregnant mothers), that task is immense. But efforts globally to tackle malaria in the last 15 years - including increased UK aid to help fight the disease - have delivered something that many might have thought impossible. Deaths from malaria have more than halved, saving over 6 million lives - 5.9 million of which are children under five. When you consider that just over 15 years ago malaria was the leading cause of death of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, if that isn't something we should be #ProudOfAid of I don't know what is. And something that I hope will feature in a debate taking place in Parliament on Monday (13th June) on the UK's commitment to 0.7% of the country's income being spent on helping others. Advertisement Whilst there are some sweeping attacks on aid, the undisputable evidence when it comes to malaria is that aid does and is working. How else can you explain the huge progress in saving lives and that since 2000, 102 of the 106 countries with malaria transmission have reversed the incidences of both cases and deaths from this disease? It's no coincide that these 15 years of amazing progress came at a time when many donors, including the UK and malaria-affected countries, increased their investment in fighting malaria. This funding has helped to deliver over 1 billion mosquito nets in Africa, provide quick and effective tests, and treatment that costs less than 1 to save a life. UK aid has also supported the research and development by scientists who are developing cutting edge technologies and treatments to beat this disease. So as the debate takes place, I have to ask myself, could we really be proud of ending our international commitment to spend just 7p of every 10 of our national wealth on aid? Aid that has helped bring us closer to a world free of malaria than we have ever been. I've been privileged as part of the campaign to end malaria to see first-hand it's not a case of aid wasted, but a case of aid working. And delivering some of the best value for money. For every pound spent on malaria prevention and treatment delivers 36 in social and economic benefits. That translates to every 5 mosquito net returning 180 to the economy. I may not be a business women but I know value when I see it. And how valuable are those lives lost to a totally preventable and treatable disease. That's why I'll always be proud of my son for wanting to help a small community in Africa, proud of the amazing progress in ending malaria, and #ProudOfAid. There are several reasons to believe you may not like Birmingham, Alabama's largest city. When it was founded in 1871 it was named not after somewhere romantic like Florence or Paris but after the English industrial city of Birmingham. That's because Birmingham, Alabama, was a steel town and, at the time, equally industrial. These days the steel industry has gone and the furnaces are replaced by opera companies, symphony orchestras, a vibrant theater and music scene, and award-winning restaurants. Advertisement Birmingham was in the public eye for all the wrong reasons during the years of the civil rights struggles, when so many bombs went off that it was nicknamed Bombingham. One of those bombs was so overwhelmingly awful, killing four young girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963, that it was a pivotal moment in the fight for civil rights. The world was shocked, and so was America. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was finally passed. The painful history isn't concealed but is commemorated in today's Birmingham, and there are plenty of things to do and see to warrant a visit of at least a few days. Here in alphabetical order are ten of the best. 16th Street Baptist Church While a visit here could be sad and painful, it's also a way of paying tribute to the four young girls who lost their lives when a dynamite bomb planted by Ku Klux Klan members exploded. It blew a hole seven feet wide in the basement of the church where the girls were putting on their choir robes for a service. A modest stone outside marks the spot of the explosion, and inside the still-active church a film explains the background to the bombing and the civil rights movement. Advertisement Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame Based in the historic Carver Theatre, the collection of artefacts may be modest but jazz aficionados will enjoy the mementoes and musical instruments of the surprising number of top jazz players that Alabama produced, including Sun Ra, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Clarence 'Pinetop' Smith and Erskine Hawkins. Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum This remarkable collection of vintage cars and over 1400 motorcycles, with about half of them on display at any one time, is a must-see whether you're interested in motorsports or not. The design of the vast main building (an extension is due to open in the autumn) is a work of art, flooded with light from enormous windows and with every historic motorbike in immaculate working condition. You can't help but gasp when you walk through the door. Advertisement Bethel Baptist Church There were three figures who were prominent in the fight for civil rights. One was Martin Luther King Jnr, a preacher in Montgomery when the Montgomery Bus Boycott took place. The second was Ralph Abernathy, from Linden in Alabama and King's closest friend. The third was Fred Shuttleworth, who was a minister here at the Bethel Baptist Church. The church was bombed three times and is now a National Historic Landmark. A visit to a Sunday morning gospel service in the new church nearby is an uplifting and moving experience. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Across the street from the 16th Street Baptist Church, this museum opened in 1992 but feels as fresh as a new coat of paint. Through lively exhibits it tells the story of black life in and around Birmingham, and the inevitable fight for civil rights in a country which called itself a democracy but denied millions of citizens the right to vote because of the colour of their skin. A must-see if you want to understand Birmingham. Demetri's BBQ While BBQ is a Southern tradition, some of the best comes from Greek immigrants like Demetri Nakos who came to Alabama in 1955 and discovered he had a knack for BBQ. Well, a knack is putting it mildly as Demetri's has been rated by Playboy as the Number One Breakfast in America. Try their BBQ omelette if you dare. Hot and Hot Fish Club The other side of Birmingham cuisine is at high-end restaurants like the Hot and Hot Fish Club where chef/owner Chris Hastings is a James Beard Best Chef award-winner. Forget the fried catfish and tuck into mouthwatering dishes like oven-roasted duck with rye berries, kale, blackberries, a spring onion puree and lion's mane mushrooms. Great cocktail list too. Advertisement Kelly Ingram Park Across from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and 16th Street Baptist Church, the park was a staging area for the civil rights demonstrations in the early 1960s, including ones in which police dogs and fire hoses were turned on marchers. Visit today for the sense of peace and to see the moving commemorative statues. Niki's West Named by USA Today as one of the USA's top ten restaurants, Niki's offers a daily buffet of about 70 items including Southern fried chicken, catfish, seafood from the Gulf of Mexico and a range of desserts that make you fat just by looking at them. Vulcan The world's largest cast iron statue was built in 1904 and overlooks Birmingham from Red Mountain, giving breathtaking cityscape views from the top. The view of Vulcan from Birmingham's neighbouring city has resulted in the nickname, The Moon over Homewood. Advertisement Where to Stay The author was a guest of the Alabama Department of Tourism and Birmingham's oldest operating hotel, the Redmont Hotel, which dates from 1925 but was recently renovated. How to Get There American Sky has a self-drive American music tour which includes time in Birmingham. The Author Mike Gerrard is an award-winning British travel writer who specialises in writing about the USA, where he lives for half the year. He is also co-editor of the 101 USA Holidays website. Photos At this spring's SXSW digital festival in Austin, Texas, it was clear very early on that messaging app SnapChat had won the show and hit critical mass; everybody was talking about the company. Rather like Twitter at the same show some years before, it was that moment when consumer-friendly became business-potential-infinity. So how did a ephemeral picture app go from being a platform where mostly young people sent each other self-destruct images to a place where the world's largest brands are queuing up to spend their marketing budgets? Advertisement Founded at Stanford University, SnapChat was founded by Evan Spiegel, Reggie Brown and Bobby Murphy. Like all highly valued startups, there was contention about who came up with the idea of disappearing pictures. The app was launched in the summer of 2011 and called Pictaboo, Spiegel coming up with the 'ghost' logo, but at the end of that summer the app had less than 150 customers. Then came the pivot. Reggie Brown was fired from the company and he consequently sued, the name was changed to SnapChat and the acceleration began. The case with Brown was subsequently settled towards the end of 2014. Within six months the company had more than 100,000 users and after that the funding came thick and very fast, Facebook even allegedly making a $3 billion bid, which was rejected. Advertisement As the money came in, so did extra features, meaning users could send videos, video chat, message and create their own 'Stories'. Other features were added, but the app remained baffling to 'non-millennials' or the parents of those who used it. SnapChat's earlier reputation as a sexting tool for teenagers continued to beset it, but US investors seemed to get it. Even though the company is yet to turn a profit, its last $175 million funding round valued SnapChat at $16 billion and user numbers are more than 100 million, and more than those of Twitter. So what is it that investors and their $1.35 billion investment get, but brands have been slow to pick up on? As usual, it's fear of the unknown. While some see SnapChat as childish, others see fun, and one such feature is its Lens offering. Lenses allows users to overlay a photo of a person onto their face with various content and features. Advertisement Snapchat users are heavy creators and lenses helps them add levity to their messages and stories. One early SnapChat adopter Taco Bell recently used it to interact with its SnapChat audience. The company sponsored a Lens that meant users could turn their heads into giant tacos. While not for everybody, it certainly was for a lot of people. It broke all records to such an extent that it received 226 million views over one 24-hour period. While Taco Bell did the creative, this was a joint effort with SnapChat and digital agency LBi; another early adopter in this space. Chris Clarke is the Creative Director at Digitas LBi and he believes his biggest challenge is not SnapChat itself, but how potential clients misunderstand the platform based on its complications and alleged reputation as something for the kids. "The biggest challenge for us is explaining to clients how it works. To middle-aged eyes, it might as well be a hypnotised cat reciting Vogon poetry underwater. The vernacular is hard for non-natives to grasp, but the rewards will be there for the right brands," said Chris Clarke, Creative Director, Digitas LBi. While most people on the internet would probaly be very interested in seeing Clarke's poetic, submerged and hypnotised cat, not every older person is scared of SnapChat. Advertisement One high-level editor of a very prestigious business publication told me that his publication's SnapChat strategy rested on an initial two-hour conversation he had with his teenage daughter, one that he was glad to have. The Lens feature in particular may be the SnapChat component that allows the company to monetise quickly. Apart from Taco Bell's success, 20th Century Fox recently announced that it had partnered with SnapChat to take over ALL of SnapChat's lenses for 24 hours to promote its X-Men: Apocalypse movie. According to one ad buyer reported in AdWeek earlier this year, such 24-hour deals range between $350,000 and $750,000, revenue that a rival, and more mature, platform such as Twitter would love to be able to offer. A few months ago, another volunteer told me "We're all a little bit of the best kind of crazy." She was right of course; it takes a certain lack of conventionality to act in the face of the largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. It's this kind of vision that motivated Ruhi to want to feed lamb biriyani to the entire Dunkirk refugee camp. She said, "It seemed like a logistical nightmare. They don't usually cook meat in camp but I wanted to make it special and I wanted to make sure that nobody went without." Ruhi put a call out and soon had over 200 volunteers from all over the UK and Europe planning the potluck of all potlucks. A team from Huddersfield brought drinks, the London group proposed bananas for dessert, and the collective fundraised for local halal French meat. "The appeal grew momentum and we even had people from France, Belgium and Switzerland helping to cook all weekend. We made lamb biriyani for 2,500 people ourselves in a mobile-bus kitchen." Advertisement After their return to the UK in January, Ruhi and her cohort launched a Facebook page called, Refugee Biriyani & Bananas. She explains, "We wanted a quirky unique name and something with meaning for us. We're all from different backgrounds and we have no hierarchies. We're all inclusive and we all just want to help those in need." Six months later, Ruhi continues not only to work with many of these volunteers, she found herself cooking in the very same mobile bus kitchen at a camp in Greece. A Story a Day for Ramadan Beyond her extraordinary event planning skills, fundraising, and providing medical aid, Ruhi is a gifted storyteller. She has launched a "story a day" series to run throughout the course of Ramadan explaining, "I want people to know and understand about the PEOPLE in the refugee crisis not just the refugees in the refugee crisis." Her posts are raw, from the heart. She writes of visiting the tent of Anwar in Greece, "There was a mum, dad and ten children ranging from one to eighteen years old. They were all eating rice and chicken from one bowl on the ground in a confined, small space. The father told me in broken English how they had lost all their belongings and papers on the boat journey to Lesvos. They invited me to have food with them and my heart melted." After hearing about the journey Anwar took to Greece, Ruhi writes, "They broke the ocean in half to be here only to find that nobody wanted them...." Advertisement The previous day I read about Fadwa from Syria, currently stranded in a Greek Military Refugee camp with her husband and three daughters under five. Fadwa is an educated Arabic teacher. Her husband is so proud he posts photos of her thesis on his social media profiles. Now these photos are all they have of her of her life "before." And yesterday I read Ruhi's account of meeting a young photographer and civil activist from Aleppo, Guevara. Guevara filmed the devastation and also worked as a trainer for the advocacy campaigns in Syria. He did not want to leave, but was pursued by the Assadi system, Daesh, Al Nusra Front and other organisations. In the end he had to flee with his mother, sister, brother-in-law, four nieces and a nephew to Turkey where he founded the Syrian branch of Transparency. Shortly after they embarked on the dangerous boat journey to Chios, eventually settling in Idomeni refugee camp, on the Greek-Macedonia border where he continues his activist work, hoping to return to Syria. Guevara and Ruhi both speak out in very different contexts and utilise diverse gifts to defend the rights of displaced peoples. Some volunteers may not be able to cook a meal for 2,500, but Ruhi suggests alternatives --- fundraise, pack boxes of aid, write letters to representatives, tell our truth. We'll continue to share more stories about volunteer efforts this week and next, inspired by how these brave individuals pursue a dream, even if it seems "bananas". To follow the "Story a Day" series or to donate to Refugee Biriyani and Bananas, visit their Facebook page. Advertisement Reuters When I was 18 I worked in a village pub. One evening two customers did not really like my style behind the bar. I did not know what I had done to annoy them and carried on with my tasks, and the evening passed. The two in question were some of the last to leave, something I thought little of at the time. I left at the end of my shift and drove home. Within seconds of leaving the drive my clapped-out Micra was pelted with stones and some very unpleasant words about my sexuality followed in the same direction. I was not hurt, nor was my little car (not that you would have been able to tell) but I was shaken. Instead of heading to bed I went on autopilot to a place called Pink Punters. It is Fenny Stratford's finest, just outside Bletchley/Milton Keynes off the A5. It's a curious location for a gay bar but it was the scene of many a good night out in my teens. It was a place of joy. On this night, it was a place of safety. Advertisement I did not stay long - I was tired after work and obviously could not drink as I was driving - but I knew that after 11pm it was the one place I could go without waking anyone, where the faces would be friendly and the homophobes would be far away. It did the job and in many ways I have not thought about that night too much since. The last time I remember recalling it was when a gay centre was targeted in Tel Aviv in 2009. Now, yesterday's news of 103 victims at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida reminds us all of the role LGBT venues play in our community. Much fun is had at such establishments but I cannot put into words the feeling you get from being in a place where you know judgement and bigotry is beyond those doors and that love is love between those four walls. There are reminders of how special this is when you and your date have to drop holding hands when hailing a taxi, or on the walk home. Orlando reminded me of their importance - and that night when I was in my Micra at 18. Those feelings were compounded as I watched the clip of Mark Longhurst hosting Sky Papers with Owen Jones and Julia Hartley-Brewer. It appears Owen was asked to appear on the show because he is a prominent LGBT commentator (among many other things). Ahead of the show he tweeted, "Talking about the mass murder of LGBT people in Orlando on Sky News at 10.30pm and 11.30pm. Messed up about it but will do my best." He was clearly emotional. As I was. And many (if not all) of my LGBT friends who had been texting and chatting about it as the news unfolded. Advertisement Owen was - as usual - a total pro. To his surprise - and my incredulity as I watched the clip - he was patronised, told he had no right to 'own it' as he was gay, that it was an 'attack on the freedom of all people to enjoy themselves', not terrorism targeted at LGBT people and their allies. The perpetrator might hate 'gobby women' too - as Julia so eloquently put it - but he chose to focus his hate on people because of their sexuality. That horror hits home. I agree with Owen when he had to argue, "When gay people are targeted... it's homophobia. An attack being also recognisable as terrorism doesn't negate that." Why he had to make the point is beyond me, but the unprofessionalism of the host and co-commentator continued and Owen decided to walk out. I like to think I would have done the same. I fear I would not have been so well behaved. Why watching it angered me so - and I am sure so many others - was, first, how Owen being an LGBT person in the debate was dismissed so easily. There is a growing trend by everyone who considers themselves a liberal that they are equally offended when such horrors take place and therefore has licence to suggest an attack on a particular group - especially when they feel strong affinity to said group - is an attack on 'one and all'. In doing so Owen's views were ten a penny. Mark and Julia may have been the victims of hate in the past - I do not know - but it seems from their position last night it would not have been because of who they love or might want to be in love with. Second, the sneering talk of Owen being 'emotional', like he had taken leave of his senses. It was homophobic and had very similar overtones to the blatant sexism and attacks too often made about women in public life; that they should not be present because their feeling make them 'irrational' and unable to tackle complex issues. Homophobia often rears its ugly head in the form of others placing LGBT people into gender-normative roles. It is not right or acceptable and Sky News should know better. As should many, especially those in the Labour Party, on Twitter. Finally, because Owen's experience about why these events were so personal despite, I assume, having never been to Pulse in Orlando, was dismissed out of hand. The Guardian columnist may never have been to that particular bar but Pulse will be like so many other gays bars across the world, Pink Punters included. Crucially, what Mark and Julia did not get was this: it was not that anyone could have been Omar Mateen's victim in the early hours of Sunday, it's that any LGBT person could have been his victim. Moments before the horror unfolded the patrons of Pulse assumed the homophobes were on the outside and love meant love on the inside. As we wish the 53 a speedy recovery and remember the 50 who perished I do all I can to not think about the horror that flashed through their minds when they realised that just simply was not true. My thoughts go out to their partners, friends and family. Advertisement I've been a Corrie fan for as long as I can remember. Back in the days of two eps a week and three TV channels, it was the best thing on the box. Those classic scenes with Stan, Hilda, Betty, Rita, Bet and countless other characters have made for priceless TV. I even propped up the Rovers bar as an extra in 2003, and almost prevented Johnny Briggs (Mike Baldwin) from emerging from the pub loos. But in recent years it seems to have gone off the boil. Maybe it was losing some long term favourites or just that demand to create five episodes a week, 52 weeks a year that watered things down a bit. Advertisement Or maybe it was me in need of a rest after 40 years of fandom. Thankfully in recent weeks, the discovery of Callum's body under Gail's granny flat has seen the show back on form. Fresh from the show's recent success at the British Soap Awards, I had a chat with Lisa George, aka Beth Sutherland, about why the series is still going strong after 55 years. CORRIE IS GOING THROUGH SOMETHING OF A RENAISSANCE AT THE MOMENT, WITH THE BODY UNDER THE FLAT GRIPPING MILLIONS. WHAT IS THE SECRET OF THE SHOW'S SUCCESS? "The unrelenting commitment to the show by those involved. When you are part of something this big you realise how much work goes into it. Advertisement "It's quite overwhelming and also the support here is fantastic. At the end of the day everybody wants to do the very best they can and I think this success is down to that." WHAT'S BEEN YOUR FAVOURITE BETH STORYLINE AND WHY? "I have to say the eighties wedding. It was fun, it was romantic, comedic, loving, exciting, a multitude of emotions." Photo: Sammy Power WHAT CAN WE LOOK FORWARD TO IN THE COMING WEEKS? "Andy Whyment, who plays my husband (Kirk), and I have filmed some really funny little scenes lately. "The scripts were definitely unexpected but worked really well as it gave us the opportunity to work with characters that we haven't really touched base with much." Advertisement With scriptwriters like Jonathan Harvey, and cast like David Neilson, Simon Gregson and of course Lisa George helping to breathe new life into Tony Warren's saga, this Rover has happily returned to the king of all soaps. Despite the City of London being the centre of financial and capital markets, it is under siege from the EU, with the City's continuing success under dire threat. It repeatedly launches assaults upon the Anglo-Saxon banking system, much despised and envied by those on the continent. The modus operandi: over regulation. The desired result: the relocation of the City's institutions to Frankfurt and Paris, no doubt in order to control and manipulate them in the way that only Brussels can. This certainly doesn't mean that leaving the EU will create a regulatory nirvana for our financial services industry - it won't, as our own regulators are misguided in their agenda to penalise an industry for past mistakes in the hope of risk free markets. That said, at least if we do leave the EU, we can have a government that has the control to bring the regulators back down to earth and act as a positive force for business. It will also work within the same framework which guides the EU, which is set by international bodies such as IOSCO, G8, G20 and the Financial Stability Board, thus ensuring continued access to EU markets and they to ours. And with an immigration system based on skills, it will be able to attract talent from any country in the world rather than principally from the EU. Advertisement It cannot be emphasised strongly enough that a vote to remain in the EU is not a vote for the status quo, but a vote for more risk and more harmful regulatory change, little of which can we control. Existing and future regulations and directives with the likes of Basel III, the AIFMD, CRD IV, Solvency II with Solvency III coming and MIFID 2 with MIFID 3 in the pipeline. There are other deeply unpopular and costly measures already taking hold, such as Financial Transaction Tax and short selling bans. Remaining will mean increased compliance costs, which for small and medium sized firms will most certainly hamper growth and even put some out of business. We thought that the Financial Transaction Tax (the Robin Hood Tax) was killed off years ago, but it is still firmly on the agenda of the EU Commission. This punitive move achieves nothing, apart from further increasing the cost of doing business and satisfying a destructive anti-business mentality from some member states. Ultimately, as with all taxes, the cost is built into the price and the end user bears the brunt of the cost. The end users of most financial services are pension products and insurance, things that involve the everyday person in the street. These ill-considered regulations come from a group on people, who are distant from the realities of the financial services industry, people such as the UK's EU Commissioner Lord Hill, who is also in charge Financial Services and Capital Markets within the EU. This man has only ever worked in politics and never in the financial services industry, what does he know? As with having these people hold such positions, you have bad regulations, which come with unintended consequence. Worse yet, the EU doesn't learn from this and when bad regulation backfires, it creates further regulation. Regulation for regulation's sake. Advertisement Over half a million people are employed in the City of London. That number extends to over a million across the UK. It is not just these jobs in financial services that are under threat, but the surrounding eco-system that the City supports, such as admin offices for insurance companies in Leeds and Birmingham, to the restaurants and coffee shops that line the streets of London, with all being conducive to a productive and vibrant economy. These are just some of the regulations that we already know about. What is not widely known is that the EU, through the "Five Presidents' Report", is hell bent on further integration. In its own words it will commit the EU to the creation of a "genuine Economic Union", a "Financial Union", a "Fiscal Union" and a "Political Union" by 2025. This is not in the interest of the UK - the last thing we need is to get bogged down with the problems that will soon engulf the Eurozone. There is also the issue of the further march towards a fully-integrated pan-European taxation system. Unless we vote to leave on June 23rd, the EU is planning an EU taxpayer identification number, effectively an EU National Insurance number. This also comes with plans to harmonise Corporation Tax levels, which will start with the banning of member states from cutting Corporation Tax below 15%, thus making us highly uncompetitive. For the sake of the future of the City, let's take back control. Because if we do we can have the best of both worlds. We can trade with the rest of Europe without sacrificing the relationships that we have with Europe. We can continue to refocus our trade policy with a global vision, an initiative which has already increased our financial service exports to the world beyond the EU from 61 to 67%, and compete more effectively with our global rivals, like New York and Singapore. We can be an independent nation and still be able to passport funds through UCITS, due to 'Equivalence' and 'Third Country Status' under MIFID 2. It gives me absolutely no pleasure to write this article as 50 people lie in morgues in Orlando, Florida. Most of them are like me - openly LGBT+ and I have to say my blood ran a little colder when I read the headline that a gunman had massacred revellers at a gay nightclub in Orlando, colder than it did when I watched the events unfold in Belgium or Paris. Why? Because I instantly recognised that this was no 'ordinary' terrorist incident - this wasn't the random and callous work of fundamentalist lunatics that want to cause carnage and mayhem - this was a deliberate and focused attack on the LGBT+ community whether you like to admit that or not. Politicians from across the spectrum were quick to denounce the killings as 'heartbreaking' and 'chilling' and media outlets began their usual 24 hour rolling speculation about the attack but one word was missing from it all - 'gay'. This wasn't just a terrorist attack for us - this was personal. Advertisement We don't have the church, we don't have the army, we don't have the streets. Some of us don't even have a family or a home that we can be confident will keep us safe and give us the space to express who we are and why we are without fear of being murdered for it. Nightclubs, for many LGBT+ people, are those safe havens. Our Mecca, our safe houses, they are the Churches that we go to and pray to the Gods of whatever to let us have these four walls that we are in and to keep them from crashing down around us. It is safety in numbers but the attack in Orlando has blown a hole in that forever. The shootings were the work of a homophobe and a lunatic and a terrorist - but to reduce the event to an 'attack on everyone' or an 'attack on freedom of expression' is reductive and a slap in the face to those 50 people who were killed because of who they were or because of who someone thought they were. LGBT+ people and their friends, enjoying a night out in a club in a state that still refuses to protect them in housing or employment. Advertisement Omar Mateen walked into a gay nightclub and opened fire on the patrons inside there. His actions, whether you want to admit it or not, are homophobic and anti-LGBT in their scope. If you have a problem with acknowledging that then maybe you should examine some of the language you use when it comes to LGBT+ people. If you have ever expressed a desire to see gay couples denied equal rights, or for transgender people to be segregated or even stood idly by whilst anti-LGBT laws were passed in your state or country then I'm sorry to say you're on the same spectrum as Omar Mateen. You don't have to walk into a night club full of gay people with a machine gun to be accused of being a homophobe. Homophobia and the rainbow-lexicon of phobias that the LGBT+ community faces can be subtle. They can be in the disgusted looks we get when we hold hands in the street. It can be in the inaction of the school teacher when a kid is called a 'faggot'. It can be the co-sponsoring of a Bill that allows gay people to be fired from their jobs if they get married and yes, it extends to lunatics that walk into night clubs with machine guns. A 1956 Ford pickup paired with a Minions themed yellow mini ride beside it, was described as anything but despicable as crowds milled by at Sunday's Buggies-n-Blues on Main Street in Mandan. Children and adults exclaimed surprise and delight over the tiny model matched against the rebuilt truck, both painted in bright yellow. Larry Zastoupil of Aberdeen, S.D. topped a go cart frame on an ATV to create the effect of the miniature ride. "I said I could put it on an ATV and make it look pretty cool. The ATV is a Polaris four-wheeler. The body was made for a go cart and I modified it to fit on here." He said the mini vehicle can be driven and has space for an adult. "It was an afterthought with the Minions, but I thought it fit the theme pretty good." It drives well at a slower speed, he said. Yet, it was the 60-year-old Ford F100, however, that involved the most work. The retired mechanic said his friend found it in Hillsboro 10 years in tough shape and rusted. It took three years to rebuild it. "I built it from the ground up. ...It's the first one I restored. There was no motor in it. It was a frame and a shell." Despite some modern upgrades, Zastoupil has managed to keep the original seat and dashboard in the vehicle's interior. A 1989 Grand Marquis engine was installed and since it was rebuilt, Zastoupil has driven it 20,000 miles to multiple classic car shows in the past six years. Buggies-n-Blues is his first Mandan event. Zastoupil likes the atmosphere of the car shows he frequents. "It's almost like a little family when you go to car shows. You get to see a lot of the same people. I like going out to different shows to expand from the local shows." He likes how people admire the vehicles in the parades and it gives him a sense of pride. Model T Also popular with the crowd Sunday was the Pioneer Auto Club demonstrating how it could reassemble and start a 1925 Model T in four minutes. Rick Setterlund, president of the group said, "Somebody had already figured out 'this is the easiest way to do it. 'That's the way we've been doing it. There's always a trick ... Sometimes you don't have all of the bolts in tight, but we get the engine in and the tires, the axles on, start it up and get it rolling." It takes a team of seven members to put the Model T together and team members will vary. They've done the assembly on Medora's stage in less than three minutes, Setterlund said. A similar presentation was done in front of the State Heritage Center in May, in Jamestown and numerous cities, Setterlund said. Today, the House of Commons will debate a petition to stop spending 0.7 percent of the UK's national income on Overseas Aid. UK aid is determined by legislation which commits the UK Government to spending 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) on Official Development Assistance (ODA), set out in the 2015 International Development (Official Development Assistance) Act. The percentage of GNI target was first suggested in 1969 by the Pearson Commission. In 1970, the resolution was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Advertisement It was greeted with optimism by the likes of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) who said that "policies can be devised to make further aid unnecessary by the end of this century". As ODI suggested back in 1969, the 0.7% target (and indeed, aid more broadly) was never supposed to be a perpetual effort. It was designed as a means of generating the resources to end the need for aid. Significant progress has been made in the global struggle against poverty. Between 1990 and 2015, the global number of extreme poor fell from 1.9 billion to 836 million; the proportion of undernourished people from 23% to less than 13%, and the primary school net-enrolment rate in sub-Saharan Africa increased from 52% to 80%. The International Development Committee supports the 0.7% target because the job is not yet done. Poverty, hunger, gender and income inequality, poor health, environmental degradation and many other problems remain enormous challenges. Advertisement The global community has recognised the need to tackle these issues in the form of the ground-breaking commitments set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UK Government took a leading role in setting out this pathway to ending poverty, and the financial and political commitment that has been shown should be a matter of pride for the UK. Yet as our recent report highlights, the Goals will not be achieved without adequate donor commitment including in the form of aid. Rather than renouncing the 0.7% target, the UK needs to use its global weight to press other donors to meet it too. There are many excellent examples of the positive benefits of UK aid. UK aid has played a crucial role in alleviating the appalling humanitarian crisis arising from war in Syria. I visited Jordan with Oxfam last Autumn and saw for myself how aid is helping Syrian refugees in key areas like health, education and feeding their families. On a recent trip to Nigeria, the Committee learned about a UK-funded project that is fighting Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) such as trachoma, elephantiasis and hookworm. NTDs cause misery to 500million of the poorest and hardest to reach in Africa, yet this project had managed to reach 22.4million Nigerians by November 2015 at a cost of just over 12million. The ability to change the lives of some of the poorest and most vulnerable by freeing them from debilitating diseases - at a cost of around 50p per beneficiary - is testament to the impact that the UK public's generosity can have. It is not just overseas that the benefits can be felt, but also right here at home. As the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell, former Secretary of State for International Development, has pointed out, UK aid spending is "in our long-term economic interests". Economic development in emerging markets is beneficial to UK exports, as demonstrated by the rapid pace of development in China between 1994 and 2014 which coincided with a 24-fold increase in UK exports to China. The increasing focus that the Department of International Development (DFID) has placed on supporting economic development recognises the mutual benefits that the process of development can have for both aid recipients and the UK. Advertisement It is absolutely right that the UK Government should be held accountable for its aid spending. As in all areas of public expenditure, the British people are right to expect value for money. The International Development Committee works with the Independent Commission for Aid Impact to oversee UK aid. DFID is also held accountable by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee. I welcome today's Westminster Hall debate. It is important that we have an open discussion about UK aid. I am proud of the many positive things which aid has delivered but I am determined that we provide both accountability and value for money. The referendum vote will change British politics whatever the outcome. Putting to one side the longer-term ramifications of a potential Brexit and what it would mean for unpicking the relationship between the UK and the EU, neither Cameron or Corbyn will be sitting comfortably after the 23rd June. So what are some of the potential outcomes that we should be prepared for? A snap election - the Fixed Term Parliament Act contains provision for calling an early general election and there has been speculation that it would be needed in the event of a Brexit vote. With Cameron's credibility torn to shreds he would not have the authority to negotiate with the EU it is suggested. Actually, a snap election could also suit those in the Labour Party looking for an excuse to challenge Corbyn as well so amongst many Parliamentarians the idea could find favour. Whether any of the parties could afford another election campaign is more doubtful. There is also the self-preservation of politicians to consider. Would the Conservatives be able to secure another majority? The Cameron challenge - there will be one, it is only a matter of when it will happen. In the event of Brexit, he will barely have time to pack his bags but even if the country votes to remain, Cameron appears to have unleashed a Conservative armageddon. Whilst his initial decision to hold a referendum may have helped save seats from UKIP in 2015, the EU fissure has re-opened in his own party now the campaign is underway. There is no way that Cameron himself can heal the wounds so a new leader will be needed. By pre-announcing his intention to step down, Cameron has also opened up the space for challengers to position themselves. It is not as though the PM has a bedrock of party support that he can rely on either. From gay marriage through to derogatory comments about MPs ignoring the views of their constituencies, Cameron has eroded what support he did have back in 2005. Advertisement A long-winded challenge - there could be a whole range of candidates that put themselves forward to replace Cameron. The more there are, the longer the process is likely to take. The longer it takes, the more likely it is to turn nasty. There will doubtless be several candidates from both the Remain and Brexit camps, a unity candidate or two and a few looking to boost their credibility to try to get a decent Cabinet position. The Corbyn backlash - very few people are claiming that Corbyn is having a good campaign. Sadiq Khan has, for instance, made a pretty robust appeal for Corbyn to pull his socks up and get the Labour vote out to get a Remain result. Accusations of a lack of commitment and a secret anti-European agenda continue to dog Corbyn despite have made several good speeches. If the vote is close and particularly if Brexit happens then his lack of engagement will be used against him. A poor result for Labour in a snap election would bring Corbyn's time as leader to an end and would mean that MPs would not have to make a challenge themselves. If not, there is one last window of opportunity around July to deliver a principled challenge before the party's policies and processes change at the conference in September. Advertisement Neverendum - just as the SNP will not rule out another vote in Scotland, the Conservative Party may find itself forced to maintain a commitment to another future referendum. In the event of a leading light from the Brexit camp replacing Cameron, the attraction would be obvious but even a pro-European leader would know that their party, the local associations, will need to have bridges rebuilt and will remain generally Eurosceptic. The future of the UK - Remain are already talking widely about the possibility of a pro-EU Scotland holding another independence referendum in the event of Brexit and similarly a derailing of peace in Northern Ireland. Regardless of whether either of these happen, the result will cause further divisions between Westminster politics and the rest of the UK. Referendums - politicians from all parties have shown that referendums are part of modern British politics. New Labour had devolution, the Coalition had electoral reform and Scottish independence, and now the Conservatives have Europe. Decisions being put directly to the people are now part of the political lexicon and there is no reason not to expect more of them in future. There will certainly be demands for them. Image: Plan International For a quarter of a century, 16th June has marked Day of the African Child. Back in 1991, many thought of the continent as poverty- and war-stricken, of its children as desperate and hungry. But in 2016 that's no longer the case, and these negative preconceptions are outdated. For all the challenges it still faces, Africa is a vibrant and promising continent full of amazing young people who, supported by organisations like Plan International UK, are determined to reach their potential and realise their dreams. People like 16-year-old Jacky in Rwanda who, not so long ago, was being "chased out of class" because she was unable to pay her school fees. Household poverty and economic insecurity - leading to girls carrying the burden of domestic work - tends to be one of the barriers to education that girls experience in Rwanda. Advertisement However, Jacky is now part of Financial Education for Girls, a partnership between Plan International UK, Credit Suisse, and Aflatoun working to increase both the financial capability and the awareness of social and economic rights among adolescent girls. Girls like Jacky and her classmates are learning to manage their own savings, spending, and possible future enterprise or income. "I think this knowledge will make a difference to my life. If girls can learn and help their families to learn, so that they are not so poor, then they can go to school and afford the fees and materials" - Jacky, 16 Life skills sessions are an explicit and additional component of the Financial Education for Girls programme. These mitigate issues such as sexual and domestic violence, illiteracy, early marriage, and pregnancy at a young age, and they help lower the number of young people who drop out of school. Plan International Rwanda and local partners are committed to providing education on sexual health and reproductive rights, teaching children appropriate behaviours to avoid pregnancy and disease. While the focus of the programme is on girls, attention is also being paid to boys who will benefit from the same financial and life skills education. Fantastic 'Boys4Change' positive masculinity clubs have been formed, to challenge and change the types of male behaviour that prevent girls from attending school. Advertisement Tom is a boy enrolled in the programme in Rwanda, and learning about saving really attracted his attention. After Tom had saved 4,000 RWF (3-4), his parents contributed some extra money, allowing him and his sister to buy an adult goat together. The goat has since given birth, and the siblings are planning on growing their business to "a big farm of goats"! The future for African children is bright. Let's help them realise it. All of my friends and family will tell you, I'm a bit 'odd'. I have a tolerance for things that are a little bit ick, a little bit bloody or gruesome and the ability to talk about things that make most people gag at the dinner table. But as anyone who knows any nurse will tell you, it's really not all that odd. What I can't take, however, is the idea of people in pain and suffering, even more so when that pain and suffering is something we can prevent. The last year, the privilege of being a nurse has brought this most amazing woman and the organisation 28 Too Many, into my life. And with that, I gained an insight into the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM, also known as female cutting or female circumcision) that stretches far beyond just thinking that it's an awful thing that happens in other places, far, far away from here. I've watched my friend deliver training to health professionals, with photographs I could never share here, discussing the resulting infertility, the chronic urine infections, the gynaecological problems, the skin problems associated with scarring and the life threatening issues that can arise for survivors of FGM in childbirth. And that's before we even consider the psychological fall out. Whilst I once thought that FGM is something that happens mostly in Africa, a 2015 report by City University estimated 137,000 women living in the UK have some form of FGM. In the UK, it is illegal, and anyone found to be taking a child out of the UK for FGM will face up to 14 years in prison. Suspicion of FGM by health care services, schools or social services triggers child safe guarding procedures. It is defined by the Crown Prosecution Service as an act of child abusehttp://28toomany.org/news/dahlia-project-support-fgm-survivors/. With this in mind, why did Sky News think it appropriate to show the procedures around this act, an act illegal in this country, on national television? Advertisement Leading anti-female genital mutilation campaigners based in the UK, including Leyla Hussain, Hibo Wardere and Janet Fyle, contacted Sky News asking that they did not show this piece, stating that the piece would be "harmful and stigmatising and could cause a lot of damage to the survivors of FGM." Yet Sky News still went ahead with the piece. In so many ways this decision by Sky News is wrong and in very poor taste. Whilst they may have travelled to Somalia, a country where FGM is not yet illegal, I seriously question the value of this piece. I am not against discussing FGM in public spheres at all - the more we can the better. But what I am against, however, is the filming of a 7 year old child from Somalia described as being "the optimum age" because that way she's less likely to question the procedure. I am against the re-enactment of holding a child down for this procedure for our viewing pleasure, and children being asked questions, under the watchful eye of adults about their thoughts on the procedure. Where's the consent? Where's the dignity? I cannot remember any time that an act of child abuse committed in British society was ever recorded like this. It also leaves one to consider whether issues surrounding male genitalia could be covered this way, without a second thought. Whilst we must fight FGM at every opportunity, this is not the way. Instead of focusing on the 'shock doc' value of capturing the procedure, lets focus our energies at the long held attitudes that allow for this barbaric practice to continue, at the organisations that are letting communities continue with this and at challenging the poverty and inequality of opportunity and education that still blights women in many parts of the world into thinking marriage is their only life choice. Shame on you Sky News. In the 2005 film "Paradise Now," two Palestinian friends get ready to commit a suicide attack in Tel-Aviv, Israel. The suicide bombers pretend they are going to a wedding, and they come to Tel-Aviv dressed in suits and with explosive belts attached to them. The movie won the Golden Globe for best Foreign Language Film, and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. Poster, Paradise Now Last week, some Israelis wondered if the terror attack in Tel-Aviv on June 8th was inspired by the above movie. The two terrorists are 21-year-old cousins from a West Bank town called Yatta. It is mentioned in the Old Testament, and there are remains of ancient Jewish life there. In 1928, Yitzhak Ben Zvi -- who later became President of Israel -- suggested that half of the extended families in Yatta are possible descendents of Jews. Wikipedia, Elderly Men in Yatta, 2012 Here are some stories behind the event that took place in Tel-Aviv on June 8. This is not a report of the event, but some snapshots from a country where life is lived on the edge. In the Old Testament, we find the question: "Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that it will be bitter in the end? How long will you refrain from telling the people to turn back from following their brothers?" (2 Samuel 2:26). Advertisement *** A police officer was with his family in the vicinity of the terror attack. Upon hearing the sound of gunshots, they fled to their nearby condo. A man dressed in a suit who looked frightened was near their home, and begged in Hebrew for water. They let him in, thinking he was an Israeli who was traumatized by the terror attack. The police officer then went to help other police officers at the scene of the crime, leaving the man in his living room with his wife and in-laws. The man did not talk, possibly because he knew his accent would reveal his identity. When the officer went out, he saw that the captured terrorist wore a suit similar to the one worn by the man he left in his living room. He knew that there were two terrorists, and realized that the in his home was the other terrorist, who remained on the loose. The police officer rushed home and overtook the other terrorist. *** 39-year-old llana Navah, one of the four victims of the terrorist attack, is described as an exemplary mother of four daughters. She was in the location of the terror attack, but she did not have gunshot wounds. The physicians assumed that she had a heart attack because she was frightened to death. "What will 4 girls do without a mother? How can her husband alone continue to function?" asked one of her relatives. *** Avi Ben-Ari, the father of the 42-year-old Iddo Ben-Ari, one of the four victims (also 16 people were injured): "My pain is unbearable; my life will not be the same as they used to be. We do not want revenge, we want a solution. We do not have another country and this country is precious to us." Lihe, the 14-year-old daughter of Iddo Ben-Ari: "Dady, I miss you now, I don't know how to continue and what to do [...]. You taught me to appreciate and to love, to respect and to take care, to be an honest and a descent person, to think always about other people and that our family supersedes everything else...you are the best father that I could ask for..." Advertisement Samuel Scott, 1772, terror *** Tal Haddad, a 21-year-old Israeli, confessed that he is afraid to walk out of his home because people mistakenly identified him as a terrorists. A month ago, he was discharged from his military service. Prior to the attack, he and his friend were dressed in suits and photographed at the same place where the terror attack occured. The photograph was mistakenly presented on Palestinian websites as that of the terrorists. Within minutes, social media and Israeli TV channels did the same. A few hours later, their error became clear. *** I don't like what happening to me lately - happening to my soul that is. The presidential race is emblematic for my worry and distress and the recent tragic manifestation of violence in Orlando seems to reinforce a sense of hopelessness with regard to the public non-conversation about the "culture war". I think my distress has something to do with the undertow of nihilism in our culture. It's the disease of decadence. As long ago as 1945 Cyril Connolly, (in the The Unquiet Grave), wrote, "The god of all cultures is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition - are constant." All the ingredients of decadence are glaringly present in our culture. The historian Jacques Barzun puts it well, "When people accept futility and the absurd as normal, the culture is decadent." In a decadent society, scream anything long and loudly enough and it will be accepted as true. Language itself is corrupted. Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty comes to mind. "When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all." Who gets to determine what's real? Who is master of the narrative? Who shouts the loudest? Who has the money? Who has the power? In these parlous times, we need to rediscover the disciplines of freedom. In 1950 Hannah Arendt wrote, "It is as though mankind had divided itself between those who believe in human omnipotence (who think that everything is possible if one knows how to organize the masses for it) and those for whom powerlessness has become the major experience of their lives." (The Origins of Totalitarianism). I wonder how much has changed? It seems to echo much of the rhetoric in the current political climate. The question of the nature of freedom is always front and center when it comes to our thinking about what it is to be truly human. It seems that we cannot handle freedom. David Brooks wrote recently in the NYT: "We understand that a free society requires individuals who are capable of handling . . . freedom -- people who can be counted on to play their social roles as caring parents, responsible workers and dependable neighbors. . . . It depends on some common assumptions about what's right and wrong, admired and not admired -- a common moral ecosystem." He goes on: "[In short] we need a new traditionalism . . . that is fueled by love and contact with the transcendent. [This would mean educating] "young people to have vocations and not just careers." Let's be clear. The problem isn't so much that we disagree and often disagree violently. It's rather that we live on different planets, inhabit different universes, play different words games, which make conversation and debate not so much contentious as impossible. There is assertion rather than argument, no appreciation of complexity, merely the wielding of power. Decadence? We find it difficult simply "to entertain an idea"! I like that expression - to be so secure in one's being as to be able to live with an alien idea for a while, to see if it fits, to bring about a change of mind and heart - to entertain an idea. We talk a lot about freedom but seem to know little of its cost and the absence of true debate is manifested in our temples of higher education. Some Yale students want to dump Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton because they are "oppressive" and there's a cautionary tale recently coming out of Oberlin college. The story goes that recently more than 1300 students signed a petition asking that midterms and all grades below a C be abolished to accommodate their busy protest schedules. Attending demonstrations against social injustice leave little time for study. How deep and informed is a protest without a vision of justice? There's no appeal to a shared reality or a common humanity. Just the insistence on identity education as well as identity politics. Let's repeat the 60s without learning from them. This reminds me of the story of the idealist left-wing students in Paris who in 1968, drunk with the possibility of a new political beginning went to the old Marxist philosopher Alexandre Kojeve to ask his advice. "what should we do?" "Learn Greek!" he told them. They were confused and dumbfounded. This was the last thing they expected. They were hoping for something like, "Demonstrate! Occupy a building! Overturn and burn a few automobiles! Start the revolution." But, learn Greek? What the hell for?" The response! You want to be free? All right! Learn Greek. Be grounded in a tradition. Embrace its disciplines! If you do, you might bump into a different vision of freedom from the one where you get a high from following your appetites and instincts. Or what about this? Imagine a young boy, sixteen years old, in prison for resisting the Nazis. He asked himself the question, "How should I demonstrate my freedom?" This is what he did. He tore off a piece of brown paper from under his mattress and wrote down, with a blunt pencil he had cadged from a guard, all the Latin verbs he could remember. This was the way he demonstrated his free spirit. He was Ralf, Baron Dahrendorf, known as a defender of liberty. Writing down Latin verbs was his way of expressing his freedom. "In the preservation of liberty," he wrote later, "we have the weapons we need, our minds.'" He presumed that we have well-furnished ones in the first place. It's hard to imagine any contemporary American giving such an example of the free spirit. It all sounds too esoteric and elitist. Learn Greek! Master a few Latin verbs. - you can't get more elitist than that? But don't let's be put off by this apparently snobbish advice. Underneath is the assumption that freedom is a complex matter not only requiring disciplines, but also realizing what it means to stand in a tradition. To be truly free is to be a citizen with obligations and responsibilities. This is the clarion call at this present time. "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity"? Is this true about us? I hope not. European exploitation of Africa started with the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century. It continued with colonization and imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries and is primarily economic in the current era of globalization. European, American, and now Asian capitalists smell profit and move in. Sometimes they claim to bring benefits such as civilization, Christianity, philanthropy, and development, but their goal is always how much money they can make. The latest missionaries in Africa are tech and education companies, and like their slave-trading and imperialist predecessors, they do not hesitate to play dirty. Last week, tech and education companies held a self-congratulatory marketing conference in Nairobi, Kenya called Education Innovation Africa 2016. Its official purpose was to "seek" ways "to deliver transformational and sustainable education businesses as well as collaborative approaches with African governments." The event was held in Africa, but it was not an "African" event. Of the fifty-one speakers pictured on the website thirty-two appear to be were of European background and many of the non-Europeans were also not sub-Sahara Africans. The conference was also not an "education" event. This year's theme was "Driving Impact in Private, Social and PPP Education Projects in Africa." Organizers want to "unite key education leaders at Ministries, Educators, Programmes and Edtech companies, together with Capital Providers at PE, VC, Impact, Development Banks and Corporate Programmes" to expand public-private partnerships, the PPPs. Only two of the listed speakers were from academia. Forty-four of the fifty-one represented corporations of non-governmental agencies, and five were government officials. Advertisement Advertised speakers included Gregg Alpert of Pearson Affordable Learning Fund, Biju Mohandas of the International Finance Corporation, Vineet Bewtra of Omidyar Network, Julia Moffett, Director of Innovation at Equity Group Foundation, Kenyan education investors Ayisi Makatyani of Fanisi Capital and Anthony Wahome of AG International Limited, and Nairobi County Education Executive member Christopher Khaemba. Khaemba, who started out in the Kenyan military and then became a teacher and school administrator has been promoting entrepreneurship for the last decade and has close ties to the Kenyan government. Gregg Alpert of Pearson is responsible for the company's "programs in emerging markets to build affordable education ecosystems" and for "business development in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America." His speech made clear the real purpose of the conference. He spoke on the "need to understand the different business models as well as required return on investment that investors are looking for in a sustainable education asset." The corporate take-over and privatization of education in sub-Sahara Africa has been sharply criticized by United Nations officials and advocates for investment in public education. In a 2015 statement, 190 education advocates from 91 countries, called on governments in the under-developed/mis-developed world to stop education profiteers and the World Bank to stop financing these efforts. In May 2016, Kishore Singh, United Nations special Rapporteur on the right to education, described the out-sourcing of public education in Liberia to an American corporation as "unprecedented at the scale currently being proposed and violates Liberia's legal and moral obligations." Another featured speaker at the conference was Shannon May, co-founder of Bridge International Academies, the company whose expansion into Liberia Singh was denouncing. According to the conference website, Bridge International Academies is the "world's largest chain of nursery and primary schools bringing world-class education to families living below the international $2-a-day poverty line." Bridge operates more than 400 private "academies" in Kenya, 63 in Uganda and six in Nigeria, and is trying to expand into Liberia and India. Bridge is a U.S. company founded in 2007. The Wall Street Journal reports that Gates, Zuckerberg, and Pearson have made more than a 1$00 million investment in Bridge. The company is also funded by World Bank's private sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Advertisement The secret behind Bridge's ability to delivery cheap education in Third World countries appears to be cheap education designed for the Third World. In Bridge International Academies teachers are no longer teachers, but classroom managers who deliver scripted instruction. Many barely have high school educations themselves. They are tracked by academy managers who submit data on student and teacher performance to headquarters in Nairobi and Massachusetts. The school buildings are also built on the cheap with corrugated metal sides and roofs. Despite its claim that its model will bring low-cost education to Africa's poor, Bridge International Academies is meeting official opposition in Uganda and Liberia. In January 2016 the Liberian government announced plans to turn over its troubled pre-primary and primary school system to Bridge and other private companies. It is probably the largest and education privatization scheme in Africa. Aid agencies and global civil rights groups accuse Bridge diverting public funds that should have been invested in improving "universal, free and compulsory basic education." Liberia's teachers unions are threatening to go on a nation wide strike in the fall if the government moves ahead with the proposed private take-over of the country's schools. In Uganda, where the wife of the Prime Minister was just appointed Minister of Education, educational policy is highly political. In May, the Ugandan Ministry of Education temporarily suspended the expansion of the Bridge International Academies in Uganda. It remains unclear why and what will happen next. Bridge International Academies is also one of those companies that play dirty. Educational International (EI) just reported that Bridge International Academies had Curtis Riep, a Canadian researcher affiliated with the organization, arrested by Ugandan police on false charges when they realized he was investigating its Ugandan operations. According to an EI news release, "After arriving for a pre-arranged interview with school officials on 30 May, Riep was detained by police and later charged with impersonation and criminal trespass." He was held in police custody for two days until he was cleared of all accusations. In e-mail correspondence, Riep reported that the level of intimidation was so intense that "Every school inspector and ministry official I have spoken with has told me about their unwillingness to cooperate and withhold information." After his return to Canada, Riep learned that Bridge had published a "wanted ad" in a Ugandan national newspaper accusing him of impersonating one of its employees and demanding that he be turned over to the police. Advertisement Gates, Zuckerberg, Pearson, and the World Bank need to stop their support of Bridge and similar efforts to privatize education or else risk losing any credibility in the Third World. In response to Bridges, Gates, Zuckerberg, Pearson, and their local and global allies, I offer an excerpt from the final letter Patrice Lumumba wrote to his family in 1960 just before he was assassinated. Lumumba was the deposed Prime Minister of the Congo and a former leader of its independence movement. The Belgium military and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency are suspected of conspiring in his death. In this letter, Lumumba expresses his thoughts on the Congolese independence movement and opposition to European and American exploitation of Africa. "All during the length of my fight for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause to which my companions and myself have consecrated our lives. But what we wish for our country, its right to an honorable life, to a spotless dignity, to an independence without restrictions, Belgian colonialism and its Western allies - who have found direct and indirect support, deliberate and not deliberate among certain high officials of the United Nations, this organization in which we placed all our confidence when we called for their assistance - have not wished it. They have corrupted certain of our fellow countrymen, they have contributed to distorting the truth and our enemies . . . Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese . . . [W]ithout dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men . . . Do not weep for me, my dear companion. I know that my country, which suffers so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty. Long live the Congo! Long live Africa! From July 8-10, educators, parents, and activists will rally in Washington, DC for three days of action in defense of public education. Featured speakers include author Jonathan Kozol, Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, and Diane Ravitch. On July 8 there will be a People's March for Public Education and Social Justice. Save Our Schools is organizing a conference for July 9 to be followed by a July 10 Coalition Summit and organizing session. The program for the rally and meetings includes full, equitable funding for all public schools; safe, racially just schools and communities; community leadership in public school policies; professional, diverse educators for all students; child-centered, culturally appropriate curriculum, and no high-stakes standardized testing. "Your life can change in a moment." *** My friend Tony and I sat in the shaded lawn at Washington Square Park on a beautiful 80 degree day. A twenty-something guy off to our right played a full drum set, and in the opposite direction a small group of older gentlemen drew in a crowd with their do-op a cappella. "See those trees over there?" said Tony. I looked across the park to where he was pointing. "And those trees over there? Those trees are a much more beautiful shade of green. Picture a country covered with trees brighter than even the prettiest ones we have here. That's Africa." *** Tony was born in Ghana and spent time living in both East and West Africa before later moving to New York. His dad worked for the United Nations and for a time his family stayed in Rwanda. Advertisement "It was a beautiful house we lived in there," he said, "this big house with lots of rooms built right into the mountainside. Our closest neighbors were over a mile away. We were only in Rwanda for a few months, but it was when things were bad there." *** "Are you familiar with Dian Fossey?" (famous for Gorilla's in the Midst). "No. I don't think so." "She was an American Zoologist who studied mountain gorillas. She lived among them in the mountain forests of Rwanda, eventually gaining their trust and interacting with them closely. "Africans were killing Gorillas and eating their meat," he said. I cringed. "So she created awareness to fight against it. "We were heading to see Fossey's gorillas," said Tony. "That's the thing to do there ... like going to Liberty Island in New York. In Rwanda you go and see the Gorillas. We were in the car ... me, my mom, dad and younger brother. There was a group of six cars going together and we got stopped. A mob was banging on either side of our windows, like what you see in movies in the Middle East. "We were driving along and came up on a road block. There was a fallen tree stretched across the entire highway. It was a planned attack. Someone tipped them off. We were completely blocked, a tree down in front of us and one behind, mobs on either side." Advertisement "What did they want?" I said. "To kill us." "Why?" I said. "We were in Rwanda because my dad was working for the UN. Locals feel like expats come there and live like kings, like we're part of the cause of their suffering." "So what happened?" I said. "They held us there for 4 hours before finally letting us go." "Why did they decide to let you go? I said. "They found out the French Ambassador was part of the convoy and that could have been a problem for them. So finally they took all of our money and raised the tree. You've never seen money come out so fast. All the cars sped off right over the cinder blocks. We got the hell out of there. "After that my dad said we had to leave Rwanda. He stayed and my mom and brother went back to Nairobi, and I left to go to college in New York. "It got really bad after that. Our house got raided while my dad was inside and he hid under the bed. The raiders stayed and operated out of our house for over a week. They would bring women their to rape them. They didn't know my dad was there." "Who were the raiders?" "It was the conflict between the Tutsi's and the Hutu's." "Your dad stayed under the bed for over a week? He had nothing to eat or drink and couldn't use the bathroom?" Advertisement "Yep." "How did he get out?" "The UN was ready to move some of their people so they went to get him and the raiders fled and they found him." *** "That must have affected your dad quite a lot." "Yeah, it changes you. He didn't talk about it much." "What about you? Did your experiences in Africa change you?" "It raises your trust bar. I'm more aware of what's happening with the economy, and I like to live in an area where I can easily leave if I need to, like on the outskirts of a city rather than in the center. 'Highway Sign pointing to Orlando, FL. Home of several family entertainment sites like Disney World, Universal Studios and Sea World.' The worst thing we could do right now is compound a horrible act of anti-LGBT hate by promoting anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hate. To use the worst shooting tragedy in U.S. history to promote Trump-like behavior would be despicable. It is a race to the bottom -- outright bigotry -- branding all people in a group, regardless of character, as the enemy. Advertisement We LGBTs have recently won so many rights -- with the aid of so many non-LGBTs of all faiths -- that it would be unworthy of us to become haters towards any other group of people. We have in our rainbow LGBT community many Muslims and immigrants who catch it from both sides -- racist Islamophobes on one side, anti-LGBT bigots on the other. We especially need to stand with them, and stand against scapegoating, period. At the same time, we cannot allow political leaders to gloss over the fact that this was an attack directed specifically against LGBTs, and that the toxic hate directed against us by people of all different faith traditions has played a role in it. Florida Senator Bill Nelson said yesterday that we need to refuse to be "hyphenated Americans, but stand together as Americans." Sorry, Mr. Senator, but this was an apparent anti-gay attack. Disregarding that fact is to disregard the hate that has been promoted by anti-gay political and religious leaders of both parties, especially in the American South. Advertisement Much of the U.S., especially the South, is currently being swept with anti-Transgender "bathroom bills" aimed at dehumanizing Trans people, and by extension, all LGBTs. These bills dehumanize us, and thus make it "okay" to attack us. We would be more inclined to believe politicians' expressions of sympathy for the Orlando victims and their families, were they not also pushing these anti-Trans, scaremongering bills. Our country is already a violent, tinder box of hate. Things have gotten so bad that we now have a major party presidential candidate who has made it his calling card to make openly racist incitements against immigrants, Latinos and Muslims. Knowing so much hate and violence directed at us as LGBTs over the decades, we have a responsibility to help end it, not augment it. We must stand together as human beings of every race, nationality and religion -- not as parochial Americans concerned only with "our own." We must confront what our own leaders are doing to perpetuate outrages like the scapegoating of groups here in the U.S. We must forcefully oppose the serial bombings and invasions of other countries, and support for despots against their own peoples, which breed terrorism. Advertisement Photo credit: John A. Carlos II The South Carolina Democratic Party has endorsed Arik Bjorn for South Carolina's Second Congressional District over his Democratic Primary opponent, a former Republican, Phil Black. An endorsement by the South Carolina Democratic Party is rare, but a resolution passed by the party said Bjorn's endorsement is "an effort to fight against Republican manipulation of our Democratic Primaries." The resolution endorsing Bjorn also criticized Black for his support of policies that are against the party's platform. Advertisement "Phil Black opposes gun control legislation, supports repeal of Obamacare, opposes regulations to contain greenhouse gases, opposes marriage equality, supports massive deportation of immigrants, amongst other policies contrary to Democratic values." Phil Black, who was referred as a "fake democrat" by the South Carolina Democratic Party, ran as a Republican in 2008, 2010, and 2012 and claimed to be a Democrat on paper during an interview. Those familiar with South Carolina's politics will recognize "Republican manipulation in Democratic Primaries" as a Republican who runs for office as a Democrat to avoid losing to a stronger Republican during a primary election. South Carolina voters do not have to declare any political party affiliation when they register to vote, which means that any voter of any political persuasion can vote in any party's primary. The South Carolina Democratic Party called Bjorn an "excellent Democratic candidate" who "strongly supports Democratic party positions on issues." Advertisement Bjorn, a public librarian, was also endorsed by the South Carolina AFL-CIO and Congressman James Clyburn (D - SC). Bjorn was inspired to run for Congress after he heard Bernie Sanders speak during a town hall held at the Medallion Center in Columbia, South Carolina. "Bernie said, 'there is nothing that together we can not accomplish.' And in that moment I told myself, 'I must take a stand.' I was inspired by Bernie Sanders to run," said Bjorn. Bjorn's Democratic positions include: expanding healthcare as a human right, support for LGBTQ rights, the Black Lives Matters movement. And Bjorn's background experience includes managing South Carolina's SmartState Program, a $2 billion economic development program that used state lottery revenue to invest in research centers and major research institutions. As the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders comes to a close, there will be many progressives voters who are seeking an opportunity to find ways to carry Bernie Sander's progressive campaign forward on state and local levels. Perhaps Bjorn and the South Carolina Democratic Party have found a way to provide Democrats an opportunity to have a liberal candidate who can challenge Republicans while honoring Democratic values. Buddhist teachings are grounded in principles of interdependence, non-separation, and reverence for life, supported by practices of mindfulness and compassion. Yet, as has happened in every religious and spiritual tradition, ignorance influenced by narrow cultural biases can hinder the deep wisdom from flowering. In our culture, this ignorance is often due to the invisible advantage of white privilege, what Wellesley professor Peggy McIntosh calls "a set of unearned assets that a white person in America can count on cashing in each day but to which they remain largely oblivious." White privilege is the conscious and unconscious sense of entitlement that many white people consider the norm. It is also the ignorance of unconscious bias, based on ingrained habits of white preference that affect the way people reason and make decisions. Lastly, it is the ignorance--or denial--of a deeply violent U.S. history that has institutionalized racial bias in every facet of American life, from education and health to criminal justice, housing, and media representations. It is this same ignorance that unfortunately underlies a sense of denial and separation in our own Buddhist spiritual communities and prevents the arising of wholesome action for our collective healing and freedom. As one of the fastest growing faith traditions in the United States, Buddhist communities have been struggling with addressing the pain and harms of racism in our communities. Although some practitioners have been asking for more ethnic and cultural diverse body of teachers, the vast majority of Buddhist teachers who teach in English remain White. While some Buddhist traditions are beginning to create affinity groups for people of color, the validity and need for such affinity groups has been questioned by many White Buddhists. And though we are living in highly racialized times - with ongoing killings of innocent African-American citizens at the hands of police, overt bigotry towards Latinos, and outright condemnation of Muslims - most of our White Buddhist teachers rarely acknowledge these realities in their teachings. However, inspired by many of our teachers of color, some American Buddhists are starting to apply the teachings of the Buddha as a way to become increasingly aware of the ignorance and suffering caused by racism. Some of these communities have begun undertaking specific efforts to investigate and understand the causes and conditions that create the separation of racism in our individual and collective lives. Last May, 125 American Buddhist leaders of every color and tradition convened at the White House for the First White House Buddhist Leadership Conference. At this gathering, Buddhist leaders presented President Obama with a Buddhist Statement on Racial Justice. Advertisement The following month, after nine people were gunned down while praying in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, Buddhists for Racial Justice (BRJ) was formed, a national network of Buddhist practitioners and communities. BRJ's Call to White Buddhists for Racial Justice was developed in hopes of inspiring and activating White Buddhists to create truly inclusive spiritual communities for all people and to respond on the basis of Buddhist principles to the racial hatred still being propagated in our nation. We are now excited to announce that a complementary "Buddhist Practitioners of Color Call to Solidarity for Racial Justice." This innovative invitation speaks to the experiences of all people who identify as people of color: First Nations, Aboriginal, and indigenous people; people of African and Latino/a ancestry, and people from the Middle East, East, Southeast, South Asia, and the Pacific Islands. It seeks to call attention to what is missing in many of our communities by establishing contexts for information-sharing and collaboration, and by creating spaces that allow people of color to speak openly about their experience, without fear, judgment, shame, or denial. The Call's deepest intention and aspiration is to invite people of color who are involved in various Buddhist lineages to: Use the practices to become aware of and heal from the internalized oppression of racism and its impact on our relatedness with ourselves and to one another; Discover, support, and collaborate with one another through resource sharing for racial justice and healing; Bridge the separation that has historically existed within our very diverse communities; To bring about justice by recognizing the interdependent systems that fuel the conscious and unconscious racism that ravages communities of color and our planet. The release of the Call to Buddhist Practitioners of Color is a landmark occasion to engage spiritual communities in one of the most important issues of our time. It was carefully crafted by a multi-lineage, multi-racial group of Buddhist practitioners of color to establish the much-needed conditions of safety, reconciliation, and healing for communities of color, Buddhist and non-Buddhists alike. The Call's inclusive language and aspirations can be applied in all faith traditions, and it has the potential to transform the course of national faith-based organizing for racial equity and justice. We hope this Call, along with the Call to White Buddhists, will inspire all of us and seed action rooted in principles of compassion, reverence for life, and non-violence to heal the trauma of racial injustice and transform all faith communities into being truly inclusive and welcoming for all. Trump as Role Model for Children Donald Trump, as we know, is given to off the cuff remarks as a staple of his mien as a candidate. His speeches and interviews are freighted with exaggerations, insults, threats, lies, and wildly inaccurate pronouncements about domestic and international issues. While most adults have the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff in Trump's remarks, children, by and large, do not. In fact, they are trusting of adults, especially those in positions of importance. Donald Trump, whether he knows it or not - or whether he cares at all - is making an impression on America's youth. The responsibility of the adult community to is to demonstrate, by our actions, how to conduct oneself in a civil society and how to be a contributing member. We have provided a laboratory for delivering that message - our public schools. A mainstay of public school instruction is character development, which equips young people with the tools for getting along with others - whether at home, in the workplace or in the public square. Another priority in schools emphasizes an appreciation for, and an interest in, the complexities of knowledge acquisition. Successful students understand that reading and research, i.e., doing your homework, informs your opinions and deepens your knowledge of subject matter. Advertisement Mr. Trump is woefully under-resourced in both areas. Whether we like it or not, Trump's comments and behaviors are being absorbed, either directly or indirectly, by our children. Many adults are nonplussed by Trump's meteoric rise to the top of the Republican ticket. For the most part, adults have the skills and experience to navigate the choppy waters of politics. It is the effect downstream that is disturbing. Which begs the question: What are children learning about public behavior and thoughtful opinions from the incipient leader of the free world? On the matter of character development, Trump has made fun of a reporter with a physical disability, hurled insults at women, promised to build a wall to keep others out, incited his audiences to violence to target those who do not agree with him. Bullying is a tactic that has reaped him rewards. Each salvo he launches is accompanied by a self-centeredness that is breathtaking. What would happen to students who exhibited these behaviors in school? First, they would earn a trip to the principal's office where, not only would their parents be called, but they would face a school suspension. And, what's more, they would be subject to the rules and sanctions of The Dignity for All Students Act, a New York State regulation which seeks, as described on the department website, " . . . a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment, and bullying on school property." A narcissistic child, one who is so self-centered that he/she monopolizes the classroom conversation, boasting "I am the only one who knows what the answer is", would be referred to the school psychologist. Students who are sarcastic, snide and dismissive of others, would be asked to apologize to students for inappropriate behavior. Advertisement What about depth of knowledge on topics you should be studying? Expert teachers know how to coax even reluctant leaners to use habits of mind which produce thoughtful answers to complex questions. For example, if students in a social studies class were asked to explain the impact of the Constitution on the citizens of the United States, the teacher would expect a considered perspective, based on a thorough investigation of the topic, taking into account a broad understanding of the sweep of history. If Mr .Trump were asked the same question, would we be surprised if he answered: "The Constitution is a great, great document. Millions and millions of people have benefited from it."? How would a teacher respond to a student who gave such a simple-minded answer to a profoundly important question? A remedial session might be arranged to review the function of inquiry and the importance of preparedness. If the student's work remained poor, he/she might have to repeat the course in summer school. For those who clamor for more respect from our youngsters and more rigor in our schools' curriculum, maybe we should take a hard look at whom we lionize as leaders. If Mr. Trump is elected president he will not only be the commander-in-chief, he will be the role model-in-chief as well. A constant stream of degrading remarks and glib answers from a person seeking the highest office in the land will, at best, confuse our youngsters and, at worst, discourage them from civic participation. Advertisement Few would argue that our schools are incubators for the next generation of thought leaders. Strong role models - who exemplify wholesome and thoughtful behaviors - are essential to sustaining a thriving, democratic society, one that leads globally by example. Yes, let's Make America Great Again, but let's choose a leader who leads by example. The horrific terrorist attack in Orlando--and before that in San Bernardino, Brussels, and Paris-- exploded out of nowhere with the same terrifying destructive force as a missile strike from an almost invisible U.S. drone. There is no way, of course, that ISIS could come any where near matching America's martial sophistication nor its mammoth $600 billion annual military budget. Instead, following in Osama bin Laden's steps, ISIS has developed its own very low-budget but devastating weapon: Asymmetric warfare of the Internet age. Being slowly pushed back on the battlefields in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, in May ISIS called on sympathisers around the world to strike at the enemies of the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate by launching their own freelance attacks. ISIS used the social networks to get that message out and inspire would-be terrorists to action. But it's now leaving the timing and targeting and planning up to the attackers. In the U.S those who would heed ISIS' call to action have no problem finding the automatic weapons they need to do the job. They're available at the nearest gun shop. Advertisement Orlando is just the latest tragedy. There is no way it will be the last. At a recent symposium in Paris on "Transnational Jihadism," experts who have been studying Isis and the young recruits from Europe who have flocked to its ranks, met to exchange their findings. Their consensus was bleak, and should be listened to in the U.S. as well. As one of France's leading analysts, Olivier Roy, pointed out, the overwhelming majority of young Europeans who joined ISIS were not long-standing members of Salafist mosques, transformed into fire-breathing jihadists. Most are second and third generation descendants of immigrants who had little intense interest in Islam, such as Omar Mateem, the Orlando attacker. They are disaffected, sometimes mentally disturbed, youth drawn to violence, rebellion--drifters, misfits, delinquents, petty criminals, prison converts to Islam. They had found no place in their respective European societies, and saw only a bleak, aimless future ahead. The lure to them of ISIS was not the chance to finally practice their long-standing fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. It was the opportunity to shed their old identity, to embrace a new, valiant role. As one Belgian researcher put it, "Overnight they can transform themselves from a Zero to a Hero." Advertisement They become glorious combatants in the epic struggle to conquer in the name of Allah. . It's a cause they really don't understand. They don't want to practice Medieval Islam themselves. But that's beside the point. It's the heroic role that counts. (Many of the young women who travelled to join ISIS went to become nurses and breed warriors for the brave new Islamic society) According to the Paris researchers, ISIS is deeply suspicious of these overnight European converts who made it to Syria or Iraq. Unless they had some special skill, most were given minor roles, used as canon fodder or suicide bombers. Thousands of them have now come back to Europe. At the end of the Paris conference, one might have expected the experts to suggest what actions European governments should take. But there was precious little of that. The main point made by Olivier Roy was that by lumping orthodox Islamists together with the jihadists, by banning headscarves or the construction of new mosques, or by cracking down in state of emergency excesses, European governments, such as France, play into Isis hands--that is convincing Muslims that they really have no place in European society, that only jihad and Isis offer a solution. There was not a word during the Paris conference about the extent to which the military interventions of the U.S. and its European allies in the Greater Middle East played a key role in fuelling Muslim hostility--in effect provoking the very attacks the War or Terror was supposed to protect against. Advertisement There was also not a word about the role of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and their massive bankrolling of radical Islamic views across much of the globe over the past decades. But Europe and America desperately need solutions to this domestic threat. What has been made woefully evident in the Orlando attack is that security agencies in the U.S. find themselves overwhelmed. American-born Omar Matteen, for instance, had been interviewed a couple of times by the FBI before he was taken off the agency's "terrorist watch list." The same is true in Europe, where most of the recent attacks were also carried out by people who, at one time or another, had been on such suspected terrorist lists. But a watch list doesn't mean you can actually "watch" someone 24 hours a day. In France, for instance, former French intelligence counterterrorism chief Louis Capriolo estimated that it takes 18-20 officers to keep an eye on any one subject 24 hours a day. Other experts said that number is conservative. So, we do the math: The FBI's terrorist watch list had 800,000 entries as of September 2014. Forty thousand of those were U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. To keep full-time surveillance on those 40,000 (at 20 agents per suspect) would require roughly 800,000 agents!! That is more than twenty times the total of all agents and support professionals (35,000) employed by the FBI. Advertisement In any case, how on earth do you predict when someone who really is no threat, suddenly, for some reason, flips, decides to take radical action? How do you foresee something like Orlando? And multiply that "soft target" by tens of thousands more across the U.S--and Europe. The tragic mass killing in Orlando has already raised a new round of questions about extremist movements and the ideologies that enrapture "lone wolf" terrorists. Given the killer's declaration to ISIS, it will also lead to further hate speech against Muslims. Donald Trump was quick to join in. For months, it seemed like Trump's xenophobic, misogynistic and Islamophobic candidacy would flame out of its own accord. It has become clear that we need to do more at the community level to counter his inflammatory speech. Trump is divisive in real time, but he is also planting the seeds for longer-term damage to the perceptions of self-worth among girls, Latino-American children, and Muslim-American children. His rants combined with his stature as the presumptive Republican nominee legitimize concepts like women should be primarily judged by their appearances, Americans of non-European descent are not "real" Americans and Muslims are inherently dangerous. Without minimizing the impact of his misogynistic or racist comments, Trump's discrimination against Muslims is particularly alarming for three reasons. First, from either a liberal or originalist interpretation, banning Muslims from entering the United States is unconstitutional and a slippery slope away from violating the first amendment. Advertisement Second, Trump's assertion that "Islam hates us," makes law enforcement's job more difficult. While there is no exact brew for what leads some Muslim youth to become radicalized, it is clear that feelings of a loss of dignity and marginalization from a larger community contribute to the process. Trump's statements undercut law enforcement's efforts to build community bridges, not to mention parents' efforts to convince their children that they are an equal part of the American fabric. Third, Trump is not a thought leader on these issues. His rise is an indicator of ideas that are common to a growing number of Americans. According to a 2014 Pew Research Center poll, just 38 percent of Americans say they know a Muslim, and per a 2015 Huffington Post/YouGov, poll 55 percent of Americans had a "somewhat or very unfavorable view of Islam." In an environment where most Americans can't identify a Muslim friend or co-worker, Trump's words validate these negative views. National level condemnation of Trump's positions is not enough to address this growing crisis. Local representatives, school principals and other community leaders must counter his message through actions that fall within these four principles: 1) Condemn hate speech publicly. Governors to city council representatives should condemn Trump's remarks and underscore their support for the Bill of Rights and concepts of inclusiveness and equality, like LA Mayor Eric Garcetti did on Sunday. Faith leaders should use a weekly sermon or bible study session to speak about the value of freedom of religion. While the school year is ending, these are "pick up the mic" moments where principals should convene assemblies and generate student discussions. Civic associations like Rotary and Lions, should also post statements that support the first amendment on their websites. Advertisement 2) Conduct respectful, faith-based outreach. Ramadan began last week and elected officials should offer holiday greetings via public statements and visit local mosques to join a break-fast, or host their own inter-faith iftar. At universities, there are similar opportunities for presidents and practical measures that ease Muslim student life, like adjusting a cafeteria's hours to allow for pre-sunrise eating and night-time break-fasts. Administrators could also alert staff that some students are engaging in a day-long fast for a month. Even with the school year ending, there is still an opportunity for Ramadan programming with a guest speaker or that is student-led. The opportunity for Muslim students to teach their peers about their holiday would be empowering, particularly after Orlando. In addition, the holiday offers a teaching moment for schools and summer camps that do not have a Muslim population. 3) Communicate support for religious freedom to non-faith based audiences. Local officials should broaden their condemnation of religious discrimination to groups that include professional associations, youth clubs, and other issue-based organizations, like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, for example. The message that we are all equal has to be transmitted widely, not just among concentrations of the faith community most affected by the discrimination and current affairs. Along these lines, July 4th celebrations and other summer events are opportunities to include all Americans in celebrating national traditions. 4) Build inclusive coalitions to confront discrimination. Muslim-Americans should not forget the other targets of Trump's insults or lose sight of movements like Black Lives Matter. Solidarity among disparate groups is powerful. Community level coalitions that oppose identity-based discrimination are stronger, and the process of building such coalitions leads to familiarization with "the other." In the wake of the Orlando attack, the most powerful rebuke would be a series of demonstrations for equal rights on campus and in our communities that are organized by coalitions of Muslim-Americans and LGBT activists. Trump's contention is that our differences define us and should separate us. The American narrative is the opposite, though. Our differences have made our businesses, political system, and higher education system more dynamic, innovative and strong. Advertisement Advice columnist Ann Landers once remarked: "At age 20, we worry about what others think of us. At age 40, we don't care what they think of us. At age 60, we discover they haven't been thinking of us at all." That indifference may soon change as older adults become our country's largest demographic group. Younger generations will have to think a great deal about older adults. In particular, they will have to think about how seniors can participate as full-fledged contributing members of society. Why should young people care about seniors' productivity? As I note below, the unprecedented gains in life expectancy of the longevity revolution will have profound effects on the future, not only of our older citizens but of younger ones as well. Indeed, their fates are intertwined. Boosting seniors' economic contribution is no simple task, but one from which younger generations -- and seniors themselves -- will greatly benefit. The first step, as I explain below, is to harness senior power. But before we explore how to confront that challenge, let's look more closely at the demographic realities. Why Seniors Must Participate In The Economy Advertisement A child born this year has a good chance of living to 100. That's the good news. At the same time, the longevity revolution poses challenges. The further out we project the demographics the larger the older population and the smaller the younger population. How a vastly diminished workforce will support an explosively growing population of retirees is a critical economic conundrum. With the coming of a dominant elderly population everything in the way we live, work, love, and play will change. That should not come as a surprise since it's well known that older people differ from younger generations in significant ways. Older adults often have particular philosophies of life, distinctive values, and priorities. Their tastes and preferences in fashion, television, movies, new technologies, consumerism, and every other arena of life can be strikingly different from those of younger generations. In addition to their increasing numbers, greater percentages of older Americans cast votes in elections than any other age group, giving them powerful influence on political outcomes. So the longevity revolution is not just about the economics of Social Security and Medicare. The "Experts" Got It Wrong Longevity sneaked up on economists and demographers. When Social Security was enacted in 1935 (the first recipients collected benefits in 1940) the age for receiving benefits was set at 65. Since life expectancy from birth at that time was 61.7, not everyone was expected to benefit--or not for long. But improved public health measures and the introduction of vaccines and antibiotics turned the tables on demographers. Life expectancy at birth increased dramatically to an average today of 78.8 (81.2 for women and 76.4 for men)--and climbing. That explains why in the early years of Social Security there were forty workers for each retiree and now there are less than three--imposing an extraordinary and possibly unsustainable burden on the working population. Advertisement In fact, we are facing a new predictable demographic reality that will further widen the gap to less than two workers per retiree--and that is not based on crystal-ball gazing. Plain arithmetic tells it all. We can accurately predict the number of elderly over the coming decades based on the known numbers in the current generations. While we are certain that the older population will increase exponentially by mid-century and even more dramatically by 2100, one significant wild card is how long people will live in future decades, especially if there are breakthroughs in the cellular biology of aging and the genetic aging code. This X factor holds the potential to ratchet up the strain on future economies. What can we do to meet this demographic challenge, when for the first time in the history of the world older adults, mostly retired, will be the largest group? First We Must Recognize The Problem And that means getting beyond the glib answers to the aging of society given by our politicians: "Just fix Social Security and Medicare." Unfortunately, that mantra has largely been the focus of the discussion over the past few decades--with little progress--and it continues today, as we have seen in the current political debates. None of the presidential candidates has recognized or addressed the bigger picture--and we close our eyes to that picture at great peril. The longevity revolution is here and the clock is ticking.We must start paying attention. Fallout From Inaction We are beginning to see the consequences of not effectively addressing the issues. Many politicians on the right would like to cut senior programs and some would savage them. Other ageist attacks demonize the elderly, accusing seniors of draining resources, utilizing far more medical procedures and services than other age groups--and the persistent overall complaint that seniors are takers not makers, that they are a burden and don't contribute to the economy or to society. Taking this position conveniently ignores the fact that seniors' work years produced today's prosperity, and that seniors paid for the benefits they are receiving. Harnessing Senior Power--And That Means All Seniors American seniors are generous volunteers through various programs and individual initiatives. In one of the largest programs, the Senior Corps RSVP, 300,000 seniors volunteer in numerous areas. While that is certainly noteworthy, even more impressive are the millions of other seniors sitting on the sidelines ready, able, and willing to volunteer. Volunteering, though, is not always a simple matter. You may have to navigate complex websites or work your way through a maze of referrals and phone calls that requires persistence and can be off-putting. Advertisement Unfortunately, we do not have an infrastructure to harness this vast reservoir of talent and energy that can make significant contributions to our economy and to our quality of life. But a structure can readily be established. What's needed are facilities for signing up volunteers at easily accessible locations, in neighborhoods, malls, and other places that seniors routinely frequent. These can be storefronts, local businesses, such as banks, drug stores, department stores; also public spaces in libraries, schools, as well as religious institutions. Since store locations will bring a flow of traffic that will be good for these businesses they might even compete to be part of the program. Some businesses and corporations are already donating space for public programs. Boscov's department store in a Westfield Connecticut mall provides an auditorium for community use. Other businesses also offer free space. And surely a truly national senior volunteer program would inspire more businesses and corporations to pitch in with donated spaces. All Seniors Register For Volunteerism On Retirement On retirement seniors would be invited to register at these convenient sites, where they would be interviewed for appropriate volunteerism to the extent that they can participate. This would provide a comfortable personal setting where they can be seamlessly shepherded into volunteer roles. Almost all seniors have some skill or experience to contribute that can directly or indirectly give a boost to the economy--e.g. mentoring students, young entrepreneurs, and small-business owners. Seniors with art and music backgrounds can restore school art and music programs that have been the victim of extensive cuts in education funding across America. Retired crafts and trades workers can help poor and low-wage workers with home repairs and renovations--and can teach them skills. The possibilities are endless. Most important, this all-inclusive national senior corps will not only make a contribution to the economy, it will change the image of older adults from takers to makers, while incorporating seniors into the mainstream of American life. No other program holds as much promise for creating a society that will thrive and work for all ages. Advertisement AR-15 rifles are displayed on the exhibit floor during the National Rifle Association (NRA) annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, U.S., on Friday, May 20, 2016. The nation's largest gun lobby, the NRA has been a political force in elections since at least 1994, turning out its supporters for candidates who back expanding access to guns. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images Shock. Sadness. Grief for the families and victims. These are my first reactions to reports of yet another mass shooting in the US. My second reaction is to scan the reports for a particular sentence. And I always find it. 'The gunman was armed with an assault rifle, an AR-15.' It's a phrase that seems to follow mass shootings in the US in recent times. Legally purchased military style assault weapons are widely proliferated throughout the suburbs of many states in America. Advertisement Even to the casual observer, the semi-automatic 5.56mm AR-15 looks like it belongs solely in the hands of a soldier or police specialist rather than in closets or under beds of inner-city apartments or family homes in the outer-burbs. It's a weapon that's easy to aim, comfortable to fire with low recoil; you can keep your target in your site as you continue to pull the trigger. When matched with a high capacity magazine it becomes a highly effective killing system, particularly in a combat situation. The powerful US gun lobby and its supporters readily admit the AR-15 is primarily marketed for home and self-defense. Self-defense against whom? A crack addict with a bazooka? A communist invasion like something out of Red Dawn? And of course militant gun advocates roll out the tired old argument that if everyone was allowed to carry a firearm, incidents like the Pulse massacre in Orlando Florida could be avoided. The fact is that Florida does issue concealed weapon licenses for handguns, electronic weapons or devices, tear gas guns, knives and billies. Will anti-gun control advocates only be happy when party-goers remember to grab their house keys and their AK-47 before they head out? Advertisement What will it take for the US as a whole to at least start heading in the right direction on gun control? Herein lies the problem for US communities: the issue is not whether or not responsible law abiding gun owners should have access to assault style weapons like the AR-15. It's that the law-of-averages dictates that the widespread legal proliferation of this type of weapon within the community will almost certainly lead to its use by those bent on committing mass murder. This is exactly what we're seeing in modern US history -- Columbine Colorado, San Bernardino California, Roseburg Oregon, Newtown Connecticut and the list is far from exhausted. Australia suffered its most hateful and deadly mass murder in April 1996 when an animal murdered thirty five people, including children, using legally available military style assault weapons. Australia's newly elected Prime Minister, John Howard, took immediate action, implementing federal firearm laws over and above state legislation. Mr Howard risked his own political future by implementing federal legislation to ban all assault style weapons and restricting all other semi-automatic rifles to rural landholders deemed to have a genuine need to manage feral animals. Ownership of handguns was drastically tightened. The Government issued an amnesty and gun buyback at a significant cost to the federal budget bottom line. Advertisement At the next election, around a dozen Members of the Parliament from the Howard Government lost their seats, in no small measure due to the stand the Government took on gun laws. The price was worth it. Since 1996 there have been no repeats of the mass murder perpetrated at Port Arthur, while at the same time, the rights of recreational shooters -- like myself -- to own firearms have been upheld. Of course there are still detractors. Recently an Australian politician tried to argue that the gun laws introduced by Prime Minister Howard had little impact on gun crime in Australia. The argument is an exercise in semantics and misses the point of the need to restrict the proliferation of certain firearms in the wider community. While it's true there are still gun crimes in Australia, particularly related to organized crime, there have been no mass killings on the scale our nation witnessed at Port Arthur in 1996 or those we see occurring in the US, since the Howard reforms were implemented nationally. As an idea of how far behind the US is on meaningful gun control at a federal level, in 2015 President Obama was still fighting to have 'armor piercing' ammunition removed from the shelves of gun stores. Obama's address to the nation in the wake of the Orlando massacre marked the 14th such speech during his time as President of the United States. Advertisement Some US administrations do have tighter gun control than others. Assault weapons are banned in Washington D.C. as were handguns until relatively recently. The City's fight to maintain workable restrictions on access to certain firearms has been undermined by successive rulings in the US Supreme Court that aspects of D.C.'s gun control laws were 'unconstitutional'. Sadly, D.C.'s ban on assault weapons does not extend to military style pump-action shotguns -- a ban in place in Australia -- resulting in the 2013 Naval Yard shootings that left 12 people dead. So what will it take for the US as a whole to at least start heading in the right direction on gun control? Quite simply, it will take a Federal Administration, supported by elected politicians, who are willing to sacrifice their own political career for the public good. Until federal politicians in the US are prepared to risk their own political scalp, stand up to the powerful gun lobby and even anger their own voting base to limit the general public's access to assault style weapons, we will continue to mourn mass murder in America. Implementing federal legislation to tackle the proliferation of assault style weapons in the neighborhoods of America should be a key platform of any new US Administration. Unfortunately, it appears political skin is still too thin to take the first steps toward meaningful change. Advertisement Sherese Francis' tweet caught my eye immediate. First of all, I love books. Second of all, I love celebrating. Third of all, I love people that aren't afraid to do new things. So I reached out to Ms. Francis to learn more. Her colleague, Johanne Civil at the Queens Book Festival filled me in on the origins of this festival and what we can expect to find there. What prompted the creation of the Queens Book Festival? What does it take to bring this all together? I was working for a business district in the fall of 2014, and part of my responsibilities were the creation of programming that would drive economic development. I automatically thought of a reading series! Being the nerd that I am, books and readings are my immediate go to events no matter where I am. While creating the reading series in Downtown Jamaica that fall, I had the opportunity to work with a few local literacy nonprofits. That's when I discovered, that according to their research and data a third of the children in the borough could not read on grade level. Come to find out, literacy is a growing crisis in New York City. According to 2013-2014 English Language Arts standardized test scores, 70% of New York City's third grade students are reading below grade level. Amongst the City's poor, 76% are not reading on grade level. Those are astounding numbers! Advertisement I immediately decided that I wanted to do something about this issue plaguing my borough. I wanted to do something that would have a direct impact on the youth. As a new mom at the time, I realized that the best way to get a third grader and even a high school student to learn anything is to let them experience it themselves. Let them see the possibilities and doors that the simple act of being able to read can have on their lives. Again, in doing research for the reading series I attended a local book festival, I thought, that's it! But there has to be a book fest in Queens already and I just didn't know about it. As soon as I got home that evening I researched book festivals in Queens. There were none. I found a festival that celebrated the art of books and another that focused solely on the authors and not the community. So I automatically started creating and organizing the Queens Book Festival, which would be a reflection of the community, literacy, and social issues. I reached out to friends I knew where passionate about literature, community and children and asked them to join me on this new venture. I wanted to work with people who are as passionate as I am about books and reading and have lived and experienced life here in Queens and not some literary bubble. Then the real work started, I reached out to all of the major literary festivals in the nation. Everyone was encouraging and welcoming and shared information. They pointed me towards more research and best practices, but the one thing no one ever shared was funding. I already had the experience of working for festivals in Florida and coordinating music concerts while in college, so I knew the work would be indepth. I was prepared and ready to go! I met Sherese at the reading series in the fall and author Brigett Davis strongly suggested that we should consider working with each other. By November, I started getting the festival registered as a nonprofit, created a website, started to assemble a literary committee, and programming to build up the festival. Sherese worked on creating the author line-up and getting the word out to the Queens literary community. I reached out to a few contacts that I had and started getting funding on the table. Advertisement We were eager to get the festival out and done by Summer 2015, and as soon as all of our ducks were in a row, they all started falling through. Our venue fell through, and our major sponsor pulled out. Sherese and I worked ourselves to the bone for six months straight; I was pregnant at the time with my second child and would stay up till 4am or 5am to make sure emails were sent and fundraising packages were sent, logistics was in order, advertising and marketing was ready, and the author line-up was perfect. All of that hard work went nowhere. Our community never got to a chance to see or experience any of the readings, poetry, discussions, food, none of it. It was a very devastating experience. Instead of falling into ourselves, we strapped on our boots tighter and got right back to work. We attended almost every literary event in Queens last year, we even ventured to the outer boroughs; we created a writing contest for the students at the local schools, and created a calendar of events for 2016. This year in addition to planning the festival, we created programs for National Reading Day (Dr. Seuss' birthday), we created and coordinated the first literary crawls in Queens in April and started the interview series on our blog. The absolute hardest thing we've had to deal with is funding. Getting funds for a first year, first time event is murder! The circular theme has been, "You guys have to prove yourselves." Um, events don't happen without money, so how does one prove one's self in this situation without money? Secondly, the way our city is set-up, even start-up nonprofits cannot acquire funding from government agencies, you have to be two or three years old to be even considered. Foundations don't focus on brand new nonprofits either so funding from them was a no go. So we decided to do an Indiegogo campaign and even with the support we received from the community, we didn't even reach a tenth of our goal. We finally started getting some funding in late April, but we're still fundraising and will have Kickstarter campaign going live on June 16, 2016. We hope more businesses in the community will also become sponsors in the coming weeks. It takes a lot of planning and people to create a festival, most importantly it takes a lot of money. Funding has been more of a concern to us than anything else. Other than funding, two of the most eye opening parts of the experience thus far have been the lack of interest in the literary community from those who are not directly involved with it and the fragmentation of Queens. We found the former is more driven by cultural misconceptions. Some people feel that literature and literacy is only for those within in a certain socioeconomic realm. When you have to work 12 hour shifts and take care of two plus children or an ailing parent, it's difficult to focus on what is considered an activity of leisure or even reading to your kids at home. The latter is simply due to the diversity that frames the borough, most people are proud of the neighborhoods they're from and want to acknowledge them so you'll find more of, "I'm from Sunnyside, Queens," or some other specific neighborhood instead of "I'm from Queens." We attempted to address both of the aforementioned by creating programming all over Queens and not just in areas that are the typical go to for literary events. The literary crawls were in bars, restaurants and cafes while the reading series was in a local furniture store last year. How will the festival reflect the unique character of the "World's Borough?" We have been working to create a festival that reflects the people in the borough and the cultural identities they embody. We have panels about the duplicity of identify that most people have in our borough. You can turn to almost anyone on the street and ask them where they're from and fifty percent will tell you, "I'm from Queens, but my parents are from Uruguay or Ireland" and another 30 percent will tell you, "My parents and I were born here but my grandparents are from Haiti or Russia." This is why we claimed the tagline "The newest and most inclusive." We wanted to include as many cultures, identifies, and social topics as we could. The literary community has long been perceived as been exclusive and only the same certain stories are desired to be heard. That's no longer the case and it surely is not the case of a borough without borders. What are some of the things you and your team are most excited about? We are excited about having a free daylong literary event that anyone in NYC can enjoy. We can't wait to see the kids enjoying the Children's World area and the activities our partners have planned for them. Being that springboard starts with day one. Advertisement The conversations that will flow from each stage will help elevate the already blossoming community that's here. Our hope is for the festival to become a platform for the authors in Queens and for the youth who desire to stay here and create literature in the borough. Tell me about the QBF Writing Contest. How did that come about? How will it work? The writing contest was born out of our desire to involve more children in an activity that would draw them not only into reading but also into the creative writing process. We made it simple and open to elementary through high school students. Some of the winners wrote amazing pieces! We were taken aback the level of skill and creativity these students expressed in their pieces. This also gave us an insight into the different school districts and the one's whose students may have a greater need. This contest was our first experience with a writing contest and there's a lot we learned and will do differently to make it easier for the teachers and students to participate. We will pick up the project again in 2017 and continue to build it as an annual contest. What do you want readers to know about festival? The festival is free and open to the public because we wanted everyone to feel and know that this is for the entire Queens community. The festival is for you. It's for you to come and enjoy the magic that comes out of a book, it's for you to come and connect with your favorite author or to discover a new one. It's an event you can share with your family, friends and neighbors. I'm planning a smaller festival in my Delaware River Community of Stockton, NJ, in October, called River Reads. What advice do you have for other communities that want to bring books, authors, and readers together to celebrate? Advertisement The Danish-born director, Nicolas Winding Refn, has helmed a few popular movies such as Drive (2011), Bronson (2008), and the Pusher trilogy. This success has been only slightly marred by a handful of far-less-favored works including Fear X (2003) and Only God Forgives (2013) starring Ryan Gosling. Ironically, that latter disaster supplied grist for one of the best scenes in the documentary, My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, which was helmed by Refn's wife, the talented but put-upon Liz Corfixen. Near the end of her engaging feature on her self-absorbed spouse, Refn, lying on his bed after the Cannes opening of Only God Forgives, mutters, "Why do critics have to be so cruel?" Then he reads aloud off his cell phone this Hollywood Elsewhere critique by Jeffrey Wells: "Movies really don't get much worse . . . . It's a shit macho fantasy -- hyperviolent, ethically repulsive, sad, nonsensical, deathly dull, snail-paced, idiotic, possibly woman-hating, visually suffocating, pretentious. . . . [T]his is a defecation by an over-praised, over-indulged director who thinks anything he craps out is worthy of your time. I felt violated, shat upon, sedated, narcotized, appalled and bored stiff." Advertisement Nicolas Winding Refn confronts the 16-year-old girl living within him. What I found so fascinating here, besides Refn's reaction to such verbiage ("That's how you know when you made great cinema. When half love and half hate it."), was that Mr. Wells will be able to reuse his review word for word for The Neon Demon. This tale focuses upon a sixteen-year-old virgin, Jesse (Elle Fanning), who arrives in Los Angeles to begin a modeling career. Her first job is to lie on a couch with her neck supposedly slit and the fake blood streaming everywhere. The photographer is the young, kind-hearted Dean (Karl Glusman, who exposed his erection throughout Gaspar Noe's equally dull Love (2015)). The chap instantly falls in love with her. Please don't ask why a nice guy would have a young woman pose with her body mutilated, other than it is a striking visual to open a film with. Anyway, Jesse has no time for love. Admitting herself talentless except for being pretty, she has only one item on her bucket list: to be a top model. Seemingly, she will succeed because when this young woman enters a room, everyone stares. Men. Women. Goats. Chimpanzees. If Jena Malone's lesbian makeup artist can't get any affection from a living gal, she's not above spooning with the dead. Advertisement The very next day she's hired by a modeling agency. Twenty-four hours later she's posing for a top brooding photographer (Desmond Harrington), who after spotting her, has everyone leave the studio, orders Jesse to strip, then rubs metallic paint all over her body. Hopefully, it's not lead-based. Soon every blonde model in L.A. with an Olive-Oyl physique hates her for stealing their jobs, and to top it off, the manager (Keanu Reeves) of the cruddy motel she's staying in is a rapist with a Lolita fixation. Uh-oh. Can there be more? Poorly directed party scenes, stray wildcats and eyeballs, cannibalism, a vile depiction of a horny lesbian, necrophilia in a mortuary, and a dastardly over-the-top performance by Alessandro Nivola as a shallow fashion designer just scrape the top layer of the slime that slithers about as The Neon Demon. Mr. Refn has noted his goal was to make a satire about the modeling industry and America's facile addiction to externals. He also wanted to explore the 16-year-old girl that resides within himself. As if that weren't enough inspiration, he's spouted, "One morning I woke and realized I was both surrounded and dominated by women. Strangely, a sudden urge was planted in me to make a horror film about vicious beauty." Now if Mr. Refn had an iota of wit (visual or otherwise) or if he respected women (his wife says he just wants her around as a housewife) or if his half-baked ideas spent ten more minutes in the oven, this offering could have been a gas. Paul Morrisey, John Waters, or even Greg Araki might have shaped this hodgepodge into a tongue-in-cheek funfest. But if Refn is aiming for intentional laughs, he fails. He seems to have been treading more into David Lynch territory but was swallowed up by the quicksand of his own dullardry. More Blue Polyester than Blue Velvet. If motel manager Hank (Keanu Reeves) can't break into the room of a 16-year-old, an unlocked room of a 13-year-old will do. Advertisement That Refn had no idea what he was creating with Demon was not a new occurrence for this vanquished auteur. He has said of a previous effort, "I've spent three years on this movie, and I don't really know what it's about." Then after the filming and the editing of Only God Forgives was completed, he observed to his wife," I wasted six months of our lives." Happily, for us, with his latest, our wasted time clocks in at one hour and 57 minutes. It just feels like six months. So, it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. There was some (super-slim) hope that the Democratic superdelegates might actually want to win an election and vote for the guy who can, but with Obama endorsing Clinton, that aint happening. So now, Im angry. Practically frothing at the mouth with blind, impotent rage. Impotent, naturally, because its very clear from the results of this election - from the process of this election, that in the grand scheme of things, it doesnt matter what you do, American Democracy just doesnt work. It used to be a punchline on the Simpsons, now its political reality. In America, the most corrupt are the most likely to get elected. Need we any other proof than looking at our two nominees this year? Advertisement I mean, for Bernie Sanders -- Bernie Sanders for Christs sake -- to have almost beaten someone with all the big money, corporate ties, name recognition of Clinton? Bernie Sanders should have been an also-ran, like Martin OMalley or Jim Webb. But he almost succeeded, not just because theres a sizable group of Americans who really do see how the one issue that is blocking progress on all issues is political corruption, but also because Clinton is human garbage. But thats not what made me really angry. I mean, say what you want about Clinton, at the very least you could say that she won the popular vote, and despite all the thumbs on her side of the scale, it wouldnt have been possible if Democratic voters were just a little more informed and a little more intelligent. No, what made me really angry, what made me frothing at the mouth angry, what made me yelling at random squirrels angry, was Sen. Elizabeth Warrens endorsement of Clinton. Especially since it would have been very easy for her to just not endorse anyone. Instead, someone who was once the darling of the Sanders-Warren wing, and someone who was my particular first choice for President, has betrayed everything we thought she stood for. Her endorsement has done nothing to convince progressives that Clinton is in any way shape or form anything but everything weve opposed from the moment we got in politics. All it did was lower our esteem of Sen. Warren. I dont mind that maybe someone working three jobs and raising two kids on a G.E.D. doesnt have time to really understand the issues at play here. But Sen. Warren should damn well know better. Advertisement I guess I dont understand why Democrats can call out Paul Ryan for holding out for weeks before endorsing Donald Trump, when we cant even have our own people saying: This isnt right. She doesnt stand for what the Democratic Party stands for. Well, I guess thats because, de facto, the Democratic party does stand for corruption, regulatory capture, graft, and cheating simply because you can get away with it. Just like the Republican Party now stands for overt racism, belligerence, totalitarianism, and the advocation of war crimes. The problem is that the Clinton wing of the Democratic party, the Establishment wing, has assumed that (like Republicans) all Democrats will rally around their candidate simply because the opposition put up someone completely unacceptable. So, our choices this year are between a corrupt shill who has conned their way into the top levels of the public psyche while doing nothing to help people along the way, who will do anything and say anything to get elected, no matter who it hurts, who refuses to think the rules apply to them and who has a complete lack of common decency, someone who perfectly embodies everything I got into politics to oppose and Donald Trump. This may just be the red-mist speaking, but I really dont think Sanders supporters will show up at the polls for Clinton. I dont think Sanders supporters would show up for Clinton if she were drowning and we were all holding life preservers. Which probably means President Trump will have his hands on the nuclear button by this time next year. Advertisement At this point, Im willing to listen to anybody who can provide a way out of this false dichotomy between the worst man in the world and the worst woman in the world being our only two choices. Amend the constitution sometime in the next couple of months to prohibit them by name from holding office? Give Alex Trebek unlimited power until we can re-establish a democratic form of government that works? Say: Just kidding about all that Revolution stuff and return all lands and holdings to our rightful dominion, the Queen Elizabeth the second of the United Kingdom? Over the last few days the Bahraini government eliminated any remaining doubt about the direction it is moving on human rights. After forcing prominent dissident Zainab Al Khawaja into exile last week, on Saturday it prevented a group of human rights activists from attending the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, and today took leading human rights defender Nabeel Rajab from his home in an early morning raid. This latest attack on civil society comes just as the State Department is about to release its long-overdue report on how well the Bahraini regime is doing on implementing human rights reform. It's hard to see why administration officials missed the February 1 deadline and still haven't sent the report Congress asked for. The situation isn't that complicated--the Bahraini authorities have carried out only a small handful of the 26 recommendations they promised to fulfill in 2011, and in recent weeks have intensified their attacks on human rights activists. Rajab was arrested a few hours ago and is said to be held at Riffa police station. It's unclear if he will be released, if fresh charges are to be brought against him, or old ones resurrected to put him back in prison. He has been prevented from leaving the country since he was released from jail a year ago. Over the weekend, half a dozen other activists were also prevented from attending the U.N. Human Rights Council. One of them, Ebtisam Alseagh, told me: "I went to the airport on Saturday the passport officer prevented me from traveling and said I should ask at the Ministry of the Interior. So I went the next day but they said there was no note in their security files preventing me from traveling," she said. "So a few hours later I tried to leave Bahrain by road via Saudi Arabia but again I was stopped at the border without any explanation." Another, Hussain Radhi, told me a similar story: "I went to the airport Saturday night to go to Geneva for the human rights council. The passport officer said I couldn't travel--he said he couldn't tell me why. Then Sunday I tried to leave via the causeway to Saudi Arabia and was stopped again. It's clear the authorities don't want activists going to Geneva." Today the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid bin Ra'ad Al-Hussain, again criticized Bahrian's regime for its human rights record, rightly noting that "Repression will not eliminate people's grievances; it will increase them." But Bahrain's ruling family is clearly past caring what the international community, including its allies in Washington and London, say in statements of concern. With the Canadian dollar still well below par compared to the U.S. one, it's a perfect time for Americans to head north to Canada's largest urban city, Toronto. Summertime is festival time in Toronto, with music, arts, culture, food, and more being spotlighted via both international and community events. There are too many to name individually, but here are a couple links to get you started in your search - City of Toronto, Toronto Tourism As for places to stay, more and more people are wanting a different experience when they travel. Toronto is lucky to have a pretty cool selection of boutique type hotels that might not be on the radar of most visitors. With that in mind, here's a tip sheet on a few different accommodations available. Advertisement The Ivy is hidden away, and definitely a word of mouth find. It's hidden off the main street, and includes a fabulous spa and one of the finest dining gems in the city as well called George. It's a great location for business executives, but also has hosted many celebrities due to its top notch service and privacy. It's the only private member's women's club in Toronto, however accommodations are open to men as well. The Hazelton is located right in the heart of Yorkville, the place to head for exclusive designer name shops and five-star dining. The hotel itself has just over 60 rooms, with 15 suites, each fitted with original artwork. As well, art is featured throughout the hotel, featuring a wide variety of works that includes oils, acrylics, sculpture, photographs, and more. In addition the onsite facilities include a world-class spa, a private screening room, as well as the exquisite One Restaurant, featuring traditional French and Italian cuisine. It's also a popular hangout for visiting celebrities. Windsor Arms was built in 1927, and has been a hidden gem in the city ever since. There was a brief period in the early 1990's when it had closed, but has regained its in-the-know places to stay when in Toronto ever since. Today with only 28 suites, it retains its Gothic 1920's architecture with added state-of-the-art facilities, and plays host to exclusive parties and big name musicians. The onsite spa is an oasis of relaxation and rejuvenation, and the private screening room is popular during film festivals. As well, there are three dining options located within that include, Prime steakhouse, the Courtyard Cafe, and Lounge 22, in addition to the traditional Tea Room. Soho House is a members-only property centrally located in the downtown core, built within an 1800's building that was once one of Toronto's original hotels. Each of the four levels has a different dining or lounging option including the Rooftop Terrace with outdoor fireplace. As well, every floor features unique art from both international and Canadian artists, with the third floor reflecting individual artists' visual responses to the question 'what does Toronto mean to you?' In addition, members have full use of all facilities at the adjacent Shangri La Hotel. Advertisement Early in the creation of our Constitution, Abigail Adams in March 1776 wrote to her husband John Adams, a leading Founding Father, and famously appealed to him: to "Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors." John Adams, otherwise a wise man who would become a wise President, in this instance was dismissive and mocking in reply: "As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh." Specifically, Clinton remembered the women, and men, who worked on behalf of the rights of women, who climbed into the arena to do political and cultural battle: Advertisement "Tonight's victory is not about one person. It belongs to generations of women and men who struggled and sacrificed and made this moment possible." Continuing in a historical vein, Clinton noted: "In our country, it started right here in New York, a place called Seneca Falls, in 1848, when a small but determined group of women and men came together with the idea that women deserved equal rights, and they set it forth in something called the Declaration of Sentiments, and it was the first time in human history that that kind of declaration occurred. So we all owe so much to those who came before, and tonight belongs to all of you." In including men among those honored in the struggle for women's rights, Clinton showed more magnanimity than John Adams did in his role as Constitution-shaper. In his defense, John would plead the exigencies of rebellion against the British, with "the bands of Government" loosened all about. In his response to Abigail, he cited children and apprentices grown "disobedient." He complained---fatefully for the country's future---that "Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters." And now his wife brings "the first intimation that another Tribe more numerous and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented." It is the height of counter-factual history, and yet imperative to consider: If the conceptual framework of the U.S. Constitution had been less "tribal" (that is, white) and more focused on power-sharing, think of the lives not lost and not deformed because of tyranny. Abigail herself pointed to the problem: "Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could." Advertisement In a way, it is apt that it took another woman to deliver on Abigail's demand to remember the ladies, even if it took 240 years: Abigail threatened rebellion from the ladies if their interests were not included in the Constitution. In that famous letter to John, she wrote (these spellings are hers): "If perticullar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation." Thus it is altogether fitting and proper that Hillary Clinton, in achieving the highest peak in national life a woman has scaled to date, saluted those who struggled and sacrificed for women's rights, those of us who made the long-running "Rebelion." Some of us recognized that, if things went better for us collectively, things would go better for us individually. We looked around us, in our workplaces and public spaces, and where we saw imbalance, we sought balance. We got nervy and organized; we made speeches when we might have preferred listening; we called ourselves feminists and never forsook the term. We endured the shrugged shoulders and rolled eyes of friends and coworkers, including other women, who thought we were fools. We suffered the scorn of more traditional women who thought we were radicals. We abided stern lectures from our elders, and from other "Guardians" and "Masters," on the sacrilege of upending the natural order. For we knew "the natural order" was not right, not natural. The full rights and dignity of women had yet to be affirmed, there was more organizing and lobbying and legislating to do. We climbed into the arena to make History by altering History. Advertisement Which is why Hillary's historic win of the presidential nomination last week, while not treated in the media as a particularly big deal, was a big deal to some of us, and so moving. It felt like History-making hard work was rewarded at last, while also reminding us of all the female talent that was held back or thwarted throughout the ages because of "tribal" stereotyping. Of course, winning the nomination does not mean winning the White House. The general election coming up, pitting Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump---misogynist, xenophobe, tyrant---promises to be brutal. While I am not convinced Hillary playing the "woman card" is sound strategy (just as Barack Obama did not play the black card in his campaign), rest assured Mr. Trump will employ his entire arsenal of insults and smears, much of it aimed at womanhood while simultaneously reinforcing his own (white) manhood. Complicating the ascent of this particular woman is the fact that many women reportedly do not like Hillary (also here). To whom I would say: Remember, Ladies, your sisters in political life have to leap many more hurdles than their male cohorts do. A little sympathy, please? And to the media: Why isn't the likeability standard applied to male politicians? Of course, if we are truly grown up, why is likeability even a standard? Meanwhile, the world wonders at our struggle: Currently, eighteen (18) countries are led by women. Examples in the recent past include Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher. The world's oldest democracy hasn't produced one yet? Back into the arena, Troops! Our "Rebelion" is not done. For full text of the Adams' letters quoted above, see here. For my earlier post titled "The Speech Hillary Clinton Should Give to the 1 Percent on Capitalism and Income Inequality," see here. Advertisement Orlando Police officers direct family members away from a fatal shooting at Pulse Orlando nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) Originally published by Latino Rebels. The detail that hurt most was that investigators had to "tune out" the sound of ringing cell phones coming from bodies strewn about the sanctuary they'd gathered in, before being gunned down in an attack ISIS then claimed responsibility for. Our brother and sisters, who went to drink and dance away a stressful week of work, studying and family issues, and never went back home. They'd gone out to meet friends old and new, to fit in for a change--to fall in love perhaps. I know this well because I did it for many years myself: from Manhattan to Missoula, Montana. My coming out as a queer Latino began in 1988 when I moved to the West Coast, to expose my most shameful and sensitive feelings. As a fledgling queer Puerto Rican from the Bronx, I didn't have the support of my (greater) family and community, and hoped to find it elsewhere. This was what I wanted when I went to live with my mother's family in Portland, Oregon; where I hoped to live as I was only able to dream back then. My options were limited as a working-class 17-year-old Bronx Boricua, so I went to explore, to see what I could find. Advertisement A crucial phase of that exploration was the intoxicating parallel universes of gay/queer bars, where I discovered a diverse and civilized people: my second community. I'd never experienced the range of humanity LGBTQ people shared and offered one another, to others who'd been cast out of their families for being abominations and embarrassments. I had my mother's love and support during those rough times (though I'd yet to tell her) and knowing this kept me from taking wrong turns as others around me did. I kept my head screwed on tight as I grew. The gay/queer establishments I've frequented throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Spain and Puerto Rico all shared the same thing in common: there was never a need for security or metal detectors. (There are exceptions nowadays I'm sure, but this was my experience.) What you were more likely to encounter was harassment on your way in or out by people on the street waiting to give you a hard time, by men acting out their homophobic hatred when there were so many other things they could've been doing: from the police even. This past weekend's tragedy in Orlando is situated on a devastating fault-line of tense social justice issues, what the presidential front-runners will likely spin to their advantage, as they include immigration, gun control, LGBTQ equality and mental health services. My hard-earned experience has taught me there are two kinds of people in this world: those marching ahead toward a better future and those who wish to drag us all back toward darker ages. People have the right to practice religion, but we need to push harder against extremist fanaticism of all kinds, from all hate-based organizations wishing to do harm. The United States has a long history of shielding religious institutions, to the point of complicity. But a new age is here. We must unite and say NO to rousing calls of "kill homosexuals;" NO to churches that protect those guilty of sexual abuse toward minors. Add easy access to military-grade weaponry in an age of flaring mental health issues and this is what we get. And if family members suspect one of their own is experiencing mental health troubles, then what? They just walk away? Advertisement The timing was the uppercut that did me in, as the very community I'd once fled was honoring LGBTQ heritage at the 59th Annual Puerto Rican Day Parade. A sea of flags fluttered, the vibe electrified with salsa music. I was overcome with emotion when a contingent led by former councilmember Margarita Lopez (an out lesbian for many years) marched by with Puerto Rican-rainbow flags, rallying against the fiscal control board bill approved by Congress--No a la Junta! People cheered her on, knowing that our people face more challenging issues. As with the Puerto Rican community I now live in as an openly queer man, we can get to a better place as a nation. My people have suffered centuries of church-perpetuated homophobia and misogyny and though we're creeping beyond this, it's taken a lot of work. It's taken the courage of icons such as Antonia Pantoja, Margarita Lopez, Ricky Martin, and Sylvia Rivera--those who weren't afraid to stand up and say NO. And then again. Again and again until those who refused to listen found themselves with the rest of the community against them. No more. Adria, Joshes dear friend wants to put on a benefit for Josh at The Monarch in San Francisco. She wants to do it all and in my agoraphobic state I am very happy for that. My brother flies in from Mich. My nephew comes from LA. Mia's dad Al, drives from Ventura, and so many, many friends of Josh's. I recognize so few of them. They are all grown up now. Josh's best friend to this day Adam Le Blanc. Adam's mom, Jeanne is here from Palm Springs. I have not seen her since 1998, and she is still beautiful and funny. Adam's sister Simone, who is in the early stages of pregnancy, is here, and dear friends of mine have come. All in all maybe 200 people show up. Lots of Josh's girlfriends from high school, and before he moved to Thailand. They have all written me and told me what a great guy he was, a super boyfriend, loving and thoughtful, and more than anything I love hearing that. Josh's buddy from early DJ days Emanuel is DJing downstairs and the rush of loud music fills me with happiness. Cliche to be sure, but......Josh would have loved this. Mia's dad was the life of the party and at some point in the evening a security guard found a bunch of credit cards and sundry items that had fallen out of Al's man-purse. He had no idea they were missing. I went outside to have a smoke with my brother, and a pretty woman asked me if I was Josh's mom, I said I was, and she told me someone wanted to say hello to me. It was Martin! I threw my arms about him and told him how happy I was to see him and how Josh loved him. He broke down in my arms. It was that kind of night. Happy one minute, greeting and being greeted, and bereft the next. Adria outdid herself and the club raised over $6000.00 for Christian. I opened an account in his name. Now that I know Christian is my grandson, I have to mend my relationship with A. I write her and apologize for my anger and blame it on my grief. I ask her forgiveness and she once again starts calling me mom. I know she cares for the baby randomly and I think if I tell her I will give her 1 million baht ($32,000USD) to start a new life for herself, maybe we could take the baby and raise him here....she tells me "My baby not for sale!" I don't understand. Nobody is raising the baby on a full time basis. He spends time with A's elderly mother/grandmother, sometimes A's sister, who tells her, she doesn't want to raise him but also does not want us to raise him. We hear that the money she has been receiving from the benefits in Phuket and Bangkok is buying new hair do's, a flat screen tv, travel to far places. I am furious. In the trust fund for Christian, we have received only what was raised at the benefit in SF and one in Bangkok. Now I understand. She is the grieving girlfriend with the tiny baby, we are not needy. We hear that a couple living on the Cambodian border in Surin City, not to be confused with Surin Beach, as I was, is taking care of him, after the mother/grandmother fell down the stairs while carrying him. We hear he is covered with bites on his little face, that he is sleeping in a hammock between two trees. We hear the mother is in Macau, China working as a prostitute. We hear it all. We don't know what to believe. I spend so many nights fearing for his safety, knowing I am helpless to do anything for this little baby. This is when I get up and "talk" to Tarn. On one of our late night talks, I tell Tarn we have to hire detectives to find out how and where the baby is. Do they have such a thing in Bangkok? Duh! Within days Tarn hires 2 men to travel the 8 hours to Surin City and we await their report. A week later we find out that the baby is living with a couple who are neighbors of elderly mama. The baby is allergic to cow's milk and can only drink goat's milk formula. There is nowhere in the village to purchase goats milk. A rarely visits the baby and she owes the couple many thousand baht for 2 months of caring for the baby. We are appalled. Tarn springs into action and while she does not send the couple money she sends cases of goats milk and cases of diapers, along with toys and clothes. I am frantic. Mia calms me down by telling me the picture of the house looks nice. "At least it doesn't have a dirt floor." I am angry that she is not doing more. She is angry at me because I don't know what she is doing. We are not getting along. On top of all this Mia and Nat's company Green Shoots Distribution is being plunged into bankruptcy by their investor, who is a 23 year old trust fund baby. They are scrambling to keep it afloat. Bills are not being paid and money is owed. Mia is getting up at all hours of the night trying to keep their company from caving and also deal with The Embassy, and the DNA findings. Nat is commuting back and forth between California and Washington DC, where he is part time dad to his 2 little boys as well as dealing with the business. One morning I wake up and the light is blinking on my phone. I play back the message and it is A, crying. She said Josh came to her in a dream and told her it is best for the baby to come to the United States to live with us. She is fearful, scared really, that if she does not do what Josh asks in death, something horrible will happen to her. Have you read the letter? Not the newspaper stories about the letter, but the actual letter? The one the young woman wrote for the sentencing hearing of Brock Turner, following a searing criminal trial that found him guilty on all three counts of felony sexual assault? If not, you must. It's a true American story, heartbreaking and inspirational. Gritty and authentic. Infuriating and but oddly liberating. Painful and yet promising. After reading her statement I am shocked, awake, human. Sobbing. That's how breathtakingly powerful the words of this 23-year-old are - like a plunge in a frigid lake. My mind and soul are flooded with a consciousness that's been numbed lately by the day-to-day grind of making a living, making dinner and making my way through the presidential election. Advertisement Turner faced a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison, but because of his swimming skills and privilege, he got off easy. Turner's father lamented his son's potential punishment, calling it a "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action," and suggested to the sentencing judge that his son exhibited the appropriate degree of contrition because he had lost his ability to enjoy a good rib-eye steak on the grill. The judge's six-month sentence on top of the heinous acts by Turner and the tone-deaf letter of his father would be impossibly depressing for parents everywhere, if not for the extraordinary words of the victim. Her letter presents an alternative script to the frightening play streaming in our minds - a play in which our kid is the sister, one of the Swedes or the writer. There are actually two sisters in the story. The younger sister persuaded her older sister to attend the Stanford University party where she was brutally raped behind a dumpster. But the two together are sisterhood. The love and selflessness the sisters have for one another is so deep it hurts. "My sister picked me up, face wet from tears and contorted in anguish. Instinctively and immediately, I wanted to take away her pain. I smiled at her, I told her to look at me, I'm right here, I'm okay, everything's okay, I'm right here. My hair is washed and clean, they gave me the strangest shampoo, calm down, and look at me. Look at these funny new sweatpants and sweatshirt, I look like a P.E. teacher, let's go home, let's eat something. She did not know that beneath my sweats, I had scratches and bandages on my skin, my vagina was sore and had become a strange, dark color from all the prodding, my underwear was missing, and I felt too empty to continue to speak. That I was also afraid, that I was also devastated. That day we drove home and for hours my sister held me." Advertisement And then later, the writer tells Turner: "I want to say this. All the crying, the hurting you have imposed on me, I can take it. But when I see my younger sister hurting, when she is unable to keep up in school, when she is deprived of joy, when she is not sleeping, when she is crying so hard on the phone she is barely breathing, telling me over and over she is sorry for leaving me alone that night, sorry sorry sorry, when she feels more guilt than you, then I do not forgive you. That night I had called her to try and find her, but you found me first. Your attorney's closing statement began, 'My sister said she was fine and who knows her better than her sister.' You tried to use my own sister against me. Your points of attack were so weak, so low, it was almost embarrassing. You do not touch her." The sisters are love. The Swedes are the two graduate students who were biking and discovered the rape. These young men chased Turner and caught him. They saved the writer by apprehending her attacker, and they saved her by feeling deeply pained by his actions. One of the Swedes "was crying so hard he couldn't speak because of what he'd seen." The writing about the Swedes saves us, too. We want our sons to be brave and sensitive, and we need role models. We are grateful to the Swedes, but not nearly as grateful as the writer. "Most importantly, thank you to the two men who saved me, who I have yet to meet. I sleep with two bicycles that I drew taped above my bed to remind myself there are heroes in this story. That we are looking out for one another. To have known all of these people, to have felt their protection and love, is something I will never forget." The Swedes are heroes. And we will never forget the writer. To be so incredibly eloquent and brave in the face of adversity and injustice is remarkable. Advertisement "Lighthouses don't go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining," she wrote. The writer shines and saves us most of all. She is a lighthouse. No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriation made by Law... Article I Section 9 of the United States Constitution. A federal court judge, Rosemary Collyer, has recently ruled in favor of the House of Representatives in a lawsuit which challenged the Obama administration's funding of subsidies for insurers who were providing health care policies on the exchanges. John Boehner pushed for the lawsuit when he was Speaker of the House; he felt it was an overreach by the Obama administration which was paying the subsidies to insurance companies without the appropriate funding passed by Congress. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this funding would have cost about $130 billion from 2017 through 2026. This case was also argued on a "standing" basis. Judge Collyer held that the Congress was injured when the administration paid the subsidies. The "power of the purse" is a practical way for the Congress to exercise its check of the Administration. Without this power, they would be harmed; thus standing was affirmed. Advertisement One of the linchpins of our Constitutional republic is the separation of powers. Article I of the Constitution gives the sole power of spending to Congress. This "power of the purse" was meant to be a critical check against tyranny. If the President were to have the power to legislate (designate how money from the Treasury would be spent) along with the power to enforce the laws, then he could essentially ignore Congress altogether. He would have the power of a dictator, not a president. This is one of the things the Constitution was meant to prevent. The Obama administration had argued that they were trying to faithfully implement the law and the funds they were using were in another section of the law dealing with subsidies to reduce the cost of health care insurance. Under Section 1401 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the insurance companies that were participating in the exchanges were required to provide discounts to eligible lower income people who were purchasing health insurance. Under Section 1402 of the law, no money had been allocated for the insurance companies themselves although they had been promised subsidy support. This is not the first time that Congress had promised financial support but failed to allocate the necessary funds needed for the support. In fact, this seems to be a common occurrence; see "unfunded mandates". Even without the money from Congress, the administration decided to pay these subsidies anyway. The insurance companies were losing billions of dollars and they were threatening to leave Obamacare if this support was not forthcoming. Advertisement In a way, President Obama challenged the Congress to file this suit when he taunted them with his statement that "I've got a pen and I've got a phone." He seemed willing to challenge the concept of the "separation of powers" and provide the money from a different section of the ACA which Congress had only allocated for tax credits for some eligible people who were purchasing policies on the various state exchanges. There was no explicit funding of the subsidies for insurers in this section. In her decision, Judge Collyer wrote that the "Affordable Care Act unambiguously appropriates money for Section 1401 premium tax credits but not for Section 1402 reimbursements to insurers." The Obama administration had argued that this appropriation could be "inferred" but that claim was rejected by the judge. Laws must be very specific when they relate to appropriations coming out of the United States Treasury. Under Judge Collyer's ruling, Health and Human Services (HHS) has been enjoined from paying subsidies to the insurers but she stayed the order pending the expected appeal of the Obama administration. It is foreseeable that the insurance carriers will not wait for a final decision as their costs are rising significantly. They will either raise their rates or they will leave the exchanges altogether. In fact, this is already happening. Judge Collyer recognized that she may be overruled on appeal. However, without the payments from the government, the insurance companies would be be facing significant financial losses. Several carriers have already predicted they will need double digit increases on their premiums for 2017. These premium increases will be on top of premium increases that went into effect in 2016. With these increases, more people, especially the healthy ones, will be inclined to go without insurance and pay the penalty instead. Without the participation of these healthy people to off-set the costs of the older and sicker patients who will be using the insurance, the insurance providers may not make it. No company can remain viable if they are likely to lose money on a continuous basis. Advertisement If the decision is upheld on appeal, then it is foreseeable that many insurance companies will have to raise their premiums, increase the deductibles of the policies, and/or withdraw from providing policies under the exchanges. In either case, the ACA will be significantly affected as many people will choose to opt out and pay the penalty (tax) instead of paying higher premiums for lesser policies. In light of "guaranteed issue" and "community rating" people will be inclined to hold off on buying health insurance until they need it; there is really no penalty for waiting so long as the penalty is less than the costs of the policies being offered. If the ACA is put in jeopardy with this decision, the republicans will be under a lot of pressure to get a viable alternative in place. If a democrat wins the presidency, a movement to a single party payer will likely occur. Could the appellate court overturn the decision? Of course it can. The DC Circuit, which has historically sided with the Obama administration, is likely to do the same for this case. They can hold that the money appropriated under Section 1401 can be used to pay for the subsidies. It would not be too much of a stretch to predict that the Supreme Court will also disagree with Judge Collyer. After all, in two previous Supreme Court decisions, Justice Roberts upheld Obamacare; first by equating federal and state exchanges. In the second case, Justice Roberts held that the penalty for not buying health insurance was allowed under the taxing power of the Constitution. Four justices felt this power was allowed under the Commerce Clause but Justice Robert's was not willing to affirm on this basis. The Supreme Court may have the final say as it often does. The Supreme Court is not last because it is right; it is right because it is last. There must be finality in the law or the litigation could go on forever. Advertisement As the horrific events in Orlando unfolded yesterday, like all Americans of good will, we reacted with horror and dismay. It was a time for expression of total solidarity with the LGBT community and the city of Orlando, as well as yet another moment to ask why military-style assault weapons are so readily available in our country. A day later, three defining points have become ever more clear. First, once again, we have witnessed a horrendous terrorist attack motivated, in part or in whole, by radical Islamic ideology. The killer was known to the FBI, and made clear his sympathy for Islamic State. In response, we need to grasp the essential fact that our enemy is a worldwide belief system that views our civilizational values as worthy targets -- and uses terrorism to advance its goals. Advertisement Thus, gays, Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Baha'i, Muslims, journalists, cartoonists, police officers, soldiers, women, and other symbols of an open, pluralistic, and tolerant society have all been in the crosshairs of the foot soldiers of this warped mindset. We need to name the foe for what it is, and not dance linguistically around it. It is radical Islamic ideology. No, it is not just "hatred" or "violent extremism," and its deadly assaults can't be reduced, as some have sought to do in various instances, to such misguided notions as "workplace violence," "road rage," or the "politics of grievance." Radical Islam is in the mold of other supremacist and totalitarian belief systems with worldwide aims that preceded it. We all might wish this were not the case, but, alas, it is -- and history should amply teach us the high price for a failure of imagination or appreciation of the danger. Second, terrorism is terrorism is terrorism. The deliberate targeting and killing of innocent people in the name of a belief system cannot be rationalized or contextualized, nor can it somehow be blithely separated from one instance to another. Advertisement The terrorism faced by the United States derives from the same wellspring of radical Islamic belief that has motivated deadly attacks in France and Belgium, India and Indonesia, Nigeria and Kenya, Israel and Denmark, Australia and Canada. And the list goes on. Trying to create what are effectively distinctions without differences in each of these cases is little more than intellectual sophistry, ignoring the obvious theological-ideological denominators underpinning all these attacks. As a consequence, all societies under assault need to band together in solidarity, common purpose, and full cooperation. This struggle will not end anytime soon, and our staying power, resilience, and will must outlast those of our adversaries. And third, pretending that there is no link between these terrorist acts, including the horror in Orlando, and some adherents of Islam is self-deluding and dangerous. The perpetrators repeatedly invoke their faith. Why are there those who wish to pretend otherwise? No, no one should for a single moment seek to indict or stigmatize an entire faith. That would be irresponsible, inaccurate, and dangerous in the extreme. All responsible people and institutions, including AJC, must make this point again and again. Our core values demand no less. Advertisement But that does not mean avoiding the subject entirely, either. It can't. Something has gone terribly wrong with a segment of Islam and it threatens us all, other Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Outsiders have a key role to play, of course, from intelligence to law enforcement, from outreach to inclusion, and from counter-radicalization to deradicalization programs. But the real struggle for the soul of Islam will be determined from within. Are moderate Muslims prepared to defend their beliefs and confront the faith hijackers in their midst? Many have condemned the Orlando atrocity, but much more will be needed in this long-term struggle. Ultimately, it will depend, I believe, on whether structural reform can take hold from within and prevail. Those Muslims who simply dismiss terrorists acting in the name of Islam as "non-Muslims" are doing no one a service. The terrorists invoke their faith and its most potent symbols and teachings, however misguided they might be. As a Jew, when Yigal Amir assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, there was no way I could declare him to be a "non-Jew" because he acted contrary to my Jewish beliefs. Shamefully, he believed he was reflecting Jewish teachings as he understood them. Our response, in turn, was deep soul-searching and an effort, which continues to this day, to reject those who foster his diabolical thinking. Advertisement The late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington famously wrote about the "clash of civilizations." In reality and more immediately, there is a clash within civilizations. The recent shooting murder of a professor and the shooter's suicide in the engineering building on the UCLA campus is a tragic reminder that on August 1 Texas public universities open their classrooms to guns. I recognized the office where the murder took place. The cramped associate professor's office where quiet meetings with students take place is like the ones I used at the University of Texas at El Paso for a dozen years before my retirement in January. These small cubbyhole offices are the classic workspaces for associate professors outside of the lecture hall. In the bustling academic crystal palace they are small sanctuaries where students seek guidance as they wind their way through the labyrinth of higher education. No appointment necessary. Anyone can walk in during posted office hours. It's part of the job, a daily routine. Advertisement So imagine engineering professor William Klug looking up from his desk as his former student, Mainak Sarkar, a man he mentored through an arduous PhD program of study, walks in with two legally purchased semiautomatic 9mm pistols and shoots him dead. The university has been sacrosanct space going back to Socrates, where conflicting ideas air and clash, with debate ultimately rendering some truth. Threatened by the presence of guns, intellectual sparring is the essence of academic freedom -- the mill that grinds the grist that yields moments of enlightenment. This passionate debate occurs among human beings and at times tempers explode. Even Wyatt Earp kept guns out of Tombstone knowing that a suspicious win on an inside straight could be paid in lead. I have been in class when an angry student, thankfully unarmed, reacting to a professor's criticism, screamed insults and stormed out of the classroom only to return later and apologize. Advertisement And I have seen red-faced professors and professionals at other times in my career spewing anger as a jabbing finger points at my heart. You don't have to be crazy to lose your temper -- it's a universal part of work life, not only in the academy. Sometimes a hair-trigger can release the temper-tantrum. People die from gunshots every day due to the gun lobby's obsessive zero-tolerance opposition to sensible gun control and its fanatical imperative to plant guns in every nook and cranny. President Obama pointed out recently that laws today permit individuals with known connections to terrorist organizations such as ISIS, who are on no-fly lists and cannot board airplanes in the U.S., to buy guns legally at stores and gun shows. My argument is not against the second amendment. I just don't want guns in classrooms. I don't want anybody to walk into a professor's office with a gun. The phrase to "think global and act local" is invoked frequently. But it has taken on a particular new energy across the Pacific as communities address declining fish populations in their traditional fishing grounds. People in small coastal towns remember when the fish was so plentiful they used to swim around the feet of those who got their protein from nature's "icebox" when they needed it. Prohibitions on fishing during certain periods, and restrictions on the kind of fish that could be caught and kept were strictly observed. Punishments were meted out that reflected the gravity of any violation. But as the people whose families have fished in the area for generations know, and as researchers have pointed out, "After western contact, a breakdown of the traditional kapu system and the demise of the watershed as a management unit led to the virtual elimination of traditional Hawaiian sheries management practices." Now, concerned grassroots leaders across the islands are saying it is past time to bring back ancestral fishing conservation practices. And the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) is endorsing the solutions that the community has proposed to the crisis. Last year, the community's rules for the management of the Haena fishery on Kauai were enacted into law. Advertisement Families tell BLNR their stories and call for action to bring back the fish before it is too late. Restraint to allow the fish to rebound This year another community from the Kona coast on Hawaii island came forward with their proposal. "TRY WAIT" said the T-shirts worn by several members of the Ka'upulehu community, and supporters from the neighbor islands and Oahu when they testified before the Board of Land and Natural Resources in late May. The two simple words summed up the community's call for a 10-year moratorium on fishing along a 3.6 mile stretch of the north Kona coast, from Kalaemano to Kikaua Point, from the shore to a depth of 120 feet (20 fathoms). The testimony came from young and old, from those who remembered the way it used to be and those who are willing to make sacrifices now for a future in which generations yet to come can enjoy the bounty of the ocean. Leinaala Lightner's voice broke as she spoke about why the 10 year rest for the reef was important. "I don't want to be the last generation to enjoy feeding my family from the waters," she said, through tears. Her daughter, Malia Lightner's testimony shared on the Ka'upulehu Marine Life Advisory Committee's Facebook page tells a story of shared aspirations: "We are not trying to take away 10 years of fishing. We fish too. We use the resource too. But we are willing to make a short term sacrifice in order to support our families and generations to come. This is our ahupuaa. This is our kuleana. If we don't do something, who will? This is not just for us, or just for me. It's for all of us." Advertisement Outside the BLNR hearing, waiting to add their stories to why we should "Try Wait." The sense that this is a multi-generational effort was reflected in the mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren, husbands and wives who joined their energies to advance this effort. Asked how her son, Kekaulike Prosper Tomich came to be as passionate as she is in advocating for a rest period for the reef, Hannah Kihalani Springer, laughed and said, "Because mama said!" She is proud he has brought his education and professional commitment back to the place where he grew up. She is proud he has embraced the mission of the Ka'upulehu Marine Life Advisory Committee. A solution from the ground up The path leading to the realization that the 10 year rest period is needed was lit by input from more than 350 meetings. It was further illuminated by data gathered by the community with researchers working for The Nature Conservancy and the University of Hawaii. As another Ka'upulehu resident, Shirley Keakealani pointed out, "The 10-year rest period represents a compromise, based on Hawaiian and Western science and Hawaiian cultural values, between the immediate desire for harvest and the long-term need for abundance and sustainability." Fish righteously The call to lawaia pono (fish righteously) is a call to conscience. It is steeped in respect for kupuna, a reawakening to the value of ancestral practices that had served previous generations well, and a conviction deeply rooted in Hawaiian culture, that we must look to the past in order to envision the future. Kelson "Mac" Poepoe of the island of Molokai is widely seen as the godfather of the effort to bring back the fishing practices of his ancestors and malama 'aina (take care of the land/ocean). As word of his tenacity and the results he has been able to achieve spread, people from across the islands began to come together to share their knowledge through a network started in 2003, known as E Alu Pu ("Move Forward Together") Advertisement BLNR's near unanimous acceptance of the community's "Try Wait" proposal was an acknowledgment that to restore the health of the ocean, state agencies must be attentive to the knowledge that resides in the community. In supporting the proposal, Dr. Bruce Anderson, the Administrator of the Division of Aquatic Resources at the Department of Land and Natural Resources, welcomed the fact that the community did not just identify a problem: it studied it thoroughly and came forward with a solution. That solution helps an under-financed and understaffed agency better discharge its obligations to help conserve and ensure the long term viability of the gifts of land and sea that once sustained all the people of these islands. Note: On June 9th, California legislative leaders and Governor Brown reached an agreement in budget conference committee, which includes an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in the child care system over the next two years. Once the budget is passed by the legislature it will head to Governor Brown's desk for signing. Gloria Carter has run a home-based daycare in Sacramento County for over 20 years. She provides child care and educational opportunities for the 12 kids in her care with the help of one daycare assistant. And she's seen first-hand the child care crisis both California and the nation are experiencing. "It's terrible," said Gloria. "Many of the parents of the kids in my care struggle to pay for child care while trying to make ends meet, and when I lose kids in my daycare, my family struggles too." Far too many working families can't afford care, and family child care providers are dealing with wages so low that they can't afford to keep their home-based daycares open. These problems add up to decreased access to quality, affordable child care and early learning opportunities for our children. But there is a solution: Make an investment in family child care providers to increase families' access to child care. Advertisement And with numbers like these, it's clear we need to invest in child care now more than ever. In 2014, the cost of child care for a preschooler in California was approximately $9,100 in a child care center, and $7,850 in a home-based daycare. And this year, an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute found that it may be cheaper for a California family to send their child to college than to pay for child care for an infant. In fact, California is home to the 11th highest child care costs in the country. Families are struggling to provide for other basic needs like rent and food, because the cost of child care is, on average, a third of their income. Families, especially low-income parents, rely on family child care providers to care for and teach their children while they work. And when parents can't work because they can't afford care for their children, they struggle to provide for their families. "A mom of one of my kids couldn't afford child care any longer, so she took her daughter out of my daycare," Gloria recalled. "She reduced her hours at work, which meant reducing her income, so that she only worked when her daughter was in school." In California, low-income families can apply for child care subsidies to help them afford care for their children. However, many families in need don't have access to the care because there aren't enough slots, and others are just barely over the income threshold to qualify. All too often, families are forced to make tough decisions between paying for care and going to work. Advertisement This year, UDW is supporting a major investment in California's child care system via the state budget. A quality investment in child care, including family child care providers, will help ease the financial worries of parents throughout the state. And right now, the best way to do this is to support the Assembly's Early Education Budget, which makes a $618.6 million investment in family child care providers and the child care system. Among the changes, the proposal will increase subsidy rates, which means family child care providers like Gloria will receive a much needed and deserved increase in their pay -- making it easier for them to afford their work-related expenses and keep their daycares open for business. The proposal will also put more children in the home-based daycares of family child care providers by raising the income threshold parents must meet to qualify for care, and adding thousands of slots for more children. Investing in family child care providers and increasing access to care is a wise investment to make here in California, and throughout the country. BAKER, Mont. -- Ruby Goernet had just enough time to crawl under her kitchen table before a tornado tore through her neighborhood on the east side of Baker just before 7 p.m Saturday. I crawled under the table, and it was a 55-gallon barrel that came flying through one of the windows, Goernet said. Just before the tornado hit, Goernets husband, Fritz Goernet, noticed the trees across the street were blown almost completely sideways. He warned his wife to take cover but didnt have time to join her. Fortunately the couple emerged from the wreckage with no serious injuries. Fritz is a United States Navy veteran who served in World War II. During the war, he was stationed on a ship repair base in the Philippines. He said his time overseas was tame compared to the action he saw Saturday night. Just like in a second it was gone, but it sure made a lot of noise when it was here, Ruby said. The storm ripped the roof from their trailer house and shattered her front windows, showering the home in shards of glass. The home was a complete loss. There were no deaths reported after the tornado but a half dozen people reported injuries ranging from severe wounds to minor cuts and bruises. The storm severely damaged more than 30 homes and a half dozen were completely destroyed, said Fire Chief Tom Bruha, of Baker Rural Fire Department. Bruha said 19 agencies assisted BRFD with the storm response. Two separate searches were conducted of the area to identify victims and pull residents from the wreckage. We went house to house, basically making sure everyone was accounted for last night, he said. One of the people rescued was also a BRFD firefighter. His home was a total loss and his injuries were so severe he was later taken to Billings for medical treatment. Bruha said he was late to the scene because two of the 45 volunteer firefighters in Baker were out of town getting married. Despite it being their wedding day, the firefighters responded and assisted in the search. All of the displaced people found a place to stay with friends and family or rented motel rooms. The American Red Cross responded to the incident but did not need to set up emergency shelter, Bruha said. On Sunday Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. worked to replace broken power poles and repair broken lines. Bruha said the cleanup could take weeks. There are ATVs and trailers in nearby Baker Lake and there isnt a set plan to remove them yet. Friends and family showed up in full force with pickups, trailers, dumpsters and wheelbarrows to start the long process of cleaning the tree limbs and debris from the eight block epicenter. Garbage trucks came and went with full loads throughout the day. Ron Callen returned to his home Sunday to find a friend had already boarded the windows of his home of more than 30 years. Callen and his wife were in Williston Saturday working at a home for troubled teens. They decided not to return to Baker on Saturday when they learned the power had been cut off to their neighborhood. They followed Facebook for updates on the storms aftermath. Callens front porch was thrown to the opposite side of his house and two of his outbuildings were destroyed. The storm also damaged his homes roof and interior. But Callen said his thoughts are with his neighbors who lost their homes and hes just happy nobody died. God is amazing, Callen said. In all this mess nobody got killed. We are a blessed community. Everybody helps each other out and we have a lot to be thankful for. This is just stuff. You cant replace lives. Bruha said the Montana High School Rodeo State Finals were in Baker over the weekend, but the storm didnt affect the event. Campers in tents, folks in RVs and their livestock trailers were not harmed. Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky's velvet glove sentence of 6 months, of which he'll serve only three months, to former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner after his rape conviction was no aberration. The case of Brian Banks, falsely convicted or rape, and who served five years, before exoneration, was quickly cited in contrast to that of Turner. Banks, like Turner, was a star high school athlete with a promising college career ahead. But unlike Turner, Banks is African-American. In both cases, their sentences were ultimately a judge's call. The power of a judge to show mercy or throw the book at a defendant is well-documented. However, far murkier and ambiguous is just how much the racial attitudes and views of judges color their sentencing decisions. Two university researchers in 2012 tested just how racial bias determines whether a judge such as Persky will slap a long prison stretch on a defendant such as Banks or give a defendant such as Turner the kid glove treatment. The researchers were careful to control for similarities of the crimes, and backgrounds of the defendants, the quality of their attorneys, the attitudes of the defendants, and most importantly the prior criminal history of the defendants. This is crucial because one of the counter arguments to the charge of the racial double standard in sentencing for whites and blacks is that blacks are more likely to have a longer rap sheet than whites, and judges must take that into consideration. They examined cases based on the randomness in which judges are assigned cases to assure that there was a large enough sample of cases. This meant that on average that judges would get the same types of cases with the same mix of defendants and crimes. The study found that judges in most cases were far more likely to give a black defendant a harsher sentence than a white defendant. This markedly increased both the incarceration rate for blacks and the length of their sentence. https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/news/2170-new-study-by-professor-david-s-abrams-confirms#.V1rX_BSxmeg Advertisement There's another reason why judges are more prone to give hand slap sentences to a Turner while throwing the book at a Banks. It comes down to how a judge sees a defendant even before he or she becomes a defendant. Judges are human and susceptible to the same biases, prejudices, and swallowing of stereotypes as anyone else. Countless tests of implicit racial bias have shown that many whites view blacks as more threatening, menacing and crime prone than whites. The implicit bias is there even when judges to all appearances make every effort to appear fair and unbiased toward a defendant. But yet there are many points during the process that it can come in. Judges make decisions on bail, pretrial motions, evidentiary issues, witness credibility, and jury selection, and instructions to the jury. Judges also can and do weigh the status of the defendant in the community, and the support that he or she gets from outsiders such as parents. Turner's father's pleading letter to Persky was a prime example of how a white, upstanding, middle-class family's plea for leniency can make a big difference to a judge who does not view a defendant as an inherent threat based on the judge's bias. A judge's willingness to bend over backwards toward a defendant or to be tough is deeply influenced by prosecutors. Studies have found that they are more likely to charge blacks with crimes that carry minimum sentences and give the judge little or no room to exercise their discretion in sentencing. This didn't happen with Turner. Persky was not required to impose a mandatory minimum sentence that would have almost certainly amounted to real time in a prison. Both the prosecutor and Turner's attorney were careful not to harshly lambaste Persky for this. Advertisement There's yet one more factor that reinforces judicial bias in sentencing and that's how jurors deal with their implicit racial biases. Two Penn State University studies on racial perceptions and stereotypes, one in 2003 and a follow-up study in 2008, found that many whites are likely to associate pictures of blacks with violent crimes, and in some cases where crimes were not committed by blacks they misidentified the perpetrator as an African-American. This reinforces the perception that a white defendant would be far less likely to commit a violent crime than a black defendant. Turner's defense was that he was drunk and that he did not really sexually assault the victim. But this implied that there was some consent. The jury didn't buy it. But it still left enough of an impression that he was not totally culpable for his act. By contrast, Banks got nowhere with his contention of innocence, and that any sexual contact was consensual. By all accounts, Persky is a fair, even a tough judge, especially on sexual crimes, and there's no evidence of any racial bias in his sentencing in prior cases. Yet his sentence to Turner exhibited the worst kind of bias, and that, sadly, is no aberration. WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 10: Hillary Clinton speaks at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund Membership event to address Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) members on June 10, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jennifer Graylock/WireImage) Democrats, understandably worried about a Trump victory, have tended to give Hillary Clinton a free pass regarding her use of a private server while Secretary of State. Republicans, typically given to over-statement in their attacks on Democrats, have raised the specter of a security leak. As a strong supporter of Edward Snowden, the Republican criticisms do not move me, but I do consider Clinton's use of a private server profoundly disturbing, for two reasons. First, Clinton's actions have corrupted the public record covering her term as Secretary of State. Thus, while she has released 55,000 emails from her tenure, we have no way of knowing whether this is all of them, other than her word, which in my view has proven untrustworthy, but in any event is not sufficient. In fact, other emails have surfaced, which she did not release. As a professional historian, I am alert to the profound significance of this fact. Advertisement Do we care whether Japan attacked Pearl Harbor without warning or whether, as some argue, Franklin Roosevelt maneuvered the Japanese attack in order to get Americans into the war? Do we care whether the US dropped the A-Bomb on Japan to forestall the need for an invasion or to intimidate the Soviet Union? These are the kinds of questions, which historians debate and the only way to resolve such debates, or even to maintain them in an intelligent manner, is through examining the diplomatic records of the time. What Clinton did in corrupting that record can be likened to someone who destroyed precious artifacts of an earlier civilization. If you doubt this, consider that during World War Two, the British were so concerned to preserve public records that they shipped them to a secret location. The Nazis had the same understanding and went to considerable lengths to destroy them, because they believed that would be a blow to British identity. The records of her administration, in other words, belong to the American people as a whole, and we needed them, not in a despoiled and possibly cherry-picked form. There is a second matter, which is equally profound. A fundamental principle of modern government is the distinction between the office and the person who occupies it. Probably the State department, for which precedent and ritual is especially important, may make more of this than other offices, although it fundamental to all public service. When Hillary entered office, there were precedents that of course were presented to her. Her claim that she didn't know the expected procedures is obviously false. The distinction between the office and the occupant also speaks to the supposed precedent of Colin Powell. As the Inspector General's report shows, Powell worked with a public server. His problem was that the system did not allow him to make personal emails, so he procured a second, supplementary computer for his personal use. Powell understood the difference between the office and the person who temporarily occupies it, whereas Clinton did not. Advertisement Recently I walked into seven major bookstores in Manhattan and Brooklyn, picked up a stack of a just-published paperback guidebook to Brooklyn, introduced myself to the staff as the author, and offered to sign my books. (Bookstores love author-signed books.) The staff couldn't have been more accommodating. Just one thing: Nobody checked to make sure if I actually was the author. In fact I am. But think about it: you need a photo ID to cash a check, take a flight, have an alcoholic drink, apply for government benefits, register to vote, or rent an apartment in the Big Apple. In this city of obsessions over money, real estate and success, the more easily one's identity can be stolen, the more tightly it's clutched to one's chest. I've authored a bunch of books, eight to be exact. All nonfiction books, they've been produced by a number of well-known publishers. A guidebook to New York's borough of Queens. A dictionary of public health words. A cheery retirement guidebook for baby boomers, complete with cartoons. My photo has appeared on the back cover of only three. I'm no celebrity, so nobody would know what I look like were my picture not on the book. Hilariously, I've signed my books in bookstores from New York to California, yet nobody has ever sought to verify that I am, in fact, who I say I am. Advertisement The Big Apple is famously laissez-faire about self-reinvention. New York's a place where people can repeatedly lose, find and repurpose themselves. Experimenting with, and fantasizing about alternative identities is almost a given. And for some, authorship is a line item on their personal bucket list like seeing Mach Pichu. People want the experience, to feel it. The ritual of signing one's books in a bookstore is a cayenne kick of affirmation for those of us who spend months or years hunched in front of a laptop. To walk into the store unannounced, crack open a copy of your newly-published work, turn to the title page, and scrawl your signature is hugely gratifying. Pen in hand, there often comes a moment when you conjure images of those who will buy the book, and how they'll use it. Is it personal or a gift? Will it travel to Boston or Berlin? Will my signature add value to the buyer? You might wish your penmanship were better, after all those years spent typing. Then suddenly you've finished signing your name to all ten or twenty copies, but like candy, you want just a little more. So, as I make my rounds, ask for a pen, offer to sign books, and leave my mark and a happy staffer behind the desk, my slightly paranoid writer's inner voice wonders: What's to keep someone in a Walter Mitty-esque mood from borrowing a moment in the authorial limelight? What prevents someone from enjoying a few fleeting if fake moments as "the author"? Recently, the staff in one bookstore (all of whom, it seemed, lived in Brooklyn) ran to the back to fetch every copy of my new Brooklyn guidebook in the shop, as well as extracting one from the window display. They fussed sweetly over which pen was best: the traditional black Sharpie? Or a pen with an eye-catching color? They stuck special stickers, "Autographed" on the cover of each signed book. We schmoozed about the weather (cold) and Brooklyn's cultural scene (hot). They returned to the window the newly-signed copy, even slipping it into a more central location. In another shop, the staff snapped a photo of me holding my book for their social media feeds. Advertisement Transaction complete, I walked out as I'd walked in, claiming to be myself. We hatched a plan. We'd meet in Sausalito, cruise over the Golden Gate Bridge and spend the day together. Awesome, a dad/daughter day with my middle one. She is a senior in college, and San Francisco is the halfway point between home and school. One-on-one time is a rare luxury. My son was taking his college boards, my oldest lives out of state, and my wife was out of town. It was an opportunity that I had to seize. Though, in one respect, it saddens me that our kids are now all young adults, I do love the experience of having grown up conversations. It's just cool to talk and see the wisdom taking root in each of them. One-on-one time is a rare luxury. During our conversation, my daughter mentioned that she wanted to explore other jobs for the summer and next semester. She was concerned, because "I may be an outgoing person, but I suck at networking." I knew exactly what she meant. I struggled with networking for a long, long time. In fact, I continued to "suck" at networking well into my 40's. For most of my career, my personal strategy was to avoid it as much as possible. I was fortunate to have people on my team who enjoyed and were good at it. But, when I started my own practice it was up to me, and I was terrified. "I may be an outgoing person, but I suck at networking." I vividly remember that first attempt. I loaded up my wallet, and my shirt pocket with newly minted business cards, and headed out to an association meeting I had been told was a "target-rich environment". I milled about for an hour or more. My grand total of conversations was two, and both were worthless. I felt awkward, disingenuous, and just completely out of my element. Advertisement My grand total of conversations was two, and both were worthless. What the hell was I going to do? How was I going to grow my business? You have to press the flesh to get the word out. I spent a lot of time thinking about what it was that I found so uncomfortable about networking. Yes, I am somewhat introverted, but falling back on that would just be a convenient excuse as I am able to overcome that in many other situations. It finally hit me. What I hated about networking was approaching every interaction from a position of "want". I felt like a charlatan. I spent a lot of time thinking about what it was that I found so uncomfortable about networking. I thought, what if I changed my approach to networking, and took "want" out of the equation? I know, it sounds like a bunch of fluff, but it is not. It works, it's honest, and if you struggle with networking, in my opinion, it is the way to go. Let me try to explain it in more detail. What if I changed my approach to networking, and took "want" out of the equation? In a recent Q&A session with our book club, David Burkus, author, and professor said something that just struck me as fundamental to this approach. He said, "Trust is reciprocal. In order to get it, you have to first give it." That is now how I network. When I meet people, I focus on how I can help them. It's not that I am so altruistic, doing so just feels good. I am being genuine, and I enjoy making a difference. I am also giving trust. Not with the expectation of something in return, but in the belief that it will be met with reciprocity at some point in the future. I trust that presented with an opportunity to help me, they will. It is that simple. Not only do I now find myself actually enjoying networking, it has also been the source of some great new friendships. Plus, it's been pretty good for business. Maybe you should consider changing your approach to networking. Who knows, you might make a few friends and grow your business along the way Advertisement When I meet people, I focus on how I can help them. It's not that I am so altruistic, doing so just feels good. I am being genuine, and I enjoy making a difference. Interested in reading & talking about leadership? Join the Integrative Leader's Book Club. Each month we pick a thought provoking book to read and discuss. In June, we will be reading Daniel Pink's "Drive, The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us." Elliot Begoun is the Principal of The Intertwine Group. His articles appear in publications such as the Huffington Post, SmartBrief and Linked2Leadership. He serves as a thinking partner, providing clients with the clarity, focus, and tools needed to make good people and product decisions. He helps clients build lasting relationships with their customers, develop leaders who make others feel heard, cared for, valued and respected, and most importantly to grow. Forgive the awful triplicate pun, if you can, and step back in time for just a moment. If we were to take some fashionable New Yorkers from 1986, shove them into a DeLorean, then shuttle them to 2016, can anyone imagine their shock if this were the first thing they saw once they stepped outside? "Unlock the experience," it says on a flag attached to a streetlight. And, at the top of the flag: "Meatpacking District". So is this banner hinting at a certain experience, in a district that is so customarily associated with meatpacking that it serves as its name? What sort of experience can one expect to encounter in a meatpacking district, besides certain lingering, noisome miasma from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle? Does meatpacking in New York smell that much sweeter than Sinclair's Chicago? Advertisement Apparently. And just about every New Yorker knows it--as would anyone else who has visited this tiny Manhattan neighborhood overlooking the Hudson, south of Chelsea. Only the unfamiliar would cling to images of discarded boxes, glistening with moist viscera, flies teeming around neglected residual carrion. Such a notion is as extravagant as the prose I used to evoke it. Replace the buzz of insects and rotting meat with the hum of commerce and Patek Philippe. That is the reality of the Meatpacking District today. So flags/banners that tout the "experience" of this district are completely in sync with the mystique it hopes to elicit. And they're everywhere. But it wasn't always like this. As recently as the 1950s, this "neighborhood" (if you could even call it that) teemed with slaughterhouses and packing plants, while hosting a variety of other manufacturing-related businesses, thanks to the nearby freight yards of the Hudson River Railroad. As a logistical center, it quite understandably failed to command the high residential real estate prices that one might find in Greenwich Village to the immediate south, instead encouraging the aggregation of nuisance-type uses: distilleries, fuel refineries, and, by the turn of the 20th century, a lively market for the processing and trade of meat, poultry and dairy. In the 1960s, containerized freight served as the new logistical standard, allowing each hub to serve a greater populace. The new warehouses inevitably required much larger acreage for consolidating and then distributing produce to a rapidly dispersing suburban population. Thus, cheap land near Newark and Jersey City (the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal) supplanted the Meatpacking District for key operations. Over 90% of the 200+ meatpacking plants left the District, and the area, never high-rent, failed to find a successive industry. It quickly became the epicenter of Manhattan's seediest underground nightclub, BDSM and prostitution scene, which characterized the neighborhood until the late 1990s, when it rapidly evolved into the center for emergent, high-end design. By the early 2000s, even as the stench of semi-processed meat wafted from the doors of the few remaining vendors, the Meatpacking District had turned to the city's most fashionable neighborhood, featuring clubs, restaurants and boutiques characteristically (and predictably) labeled as "edgy"--and steadily climbing rental rates. Advertisement In short, The Meatpacking District now carries the mantle previously claimed by West Village, SoHo, Chelsea, and other neighborhoods that birthed a new phoenix from the ashes of their own desuetude. For the time being, it may be the hippest eight blocks in the Borough of Manhattan, though inevitably it will eventually relinquish its crown and scepter. Until it does, the neighborhood's Business Improvement District (BID) helps foster a spirit of boosterism that the many would argue the neighborhood doesn't need: after all, it already is the hot ticket. If anything, the BID embodies an Icarus-like ambition to promulgate the neighborhood's jurisdiction into territory that never once had anything do due with the wholesale processing and trade of meat. How do we know this? Just take a look at what Google Maps considers the neighborhood boundaries, outlined in red: Now compare that to the turf that the Meatpacking District BID claims. More than twice the size. And the proof is in the pudding: travel the streets of the periphery of The Meatpacking District, and you'll still see those flags fixed to various streetlights. Like this one: The building stock certainly doesn't suggest The Meatpacking District, and most people who live at Horatio and Greenwich Street would identify their low-slung townhomes as a part of West Village. But this Fall 2014 Google Street View of a different corner at the same intersection indicates that The Meatpacking District's efforts to expand at the fringe are ongoing. And it's not just taking place at the border with the West Village. To the north, where the District abuts the Chelsea neighborhood, the same branding efforts appear through flags and banners on streetlights. They're everywhere. With the momentum The Meatpacking District has been enjoying for the last two decades, does it really need the additional branding? After all, the tiny neighborhood also boasts the recent relocation of the Whitney Museum of American Art... ...as well as the southern terminus of the High Line Park, just a stone's throw from the Whitney. And, crammed into the remaining space where Gansevoort Street meets the riverfront, a few telltale indicators of the neighborhood's carnivorous heritage survive: The transformation of one of Manhattan's least habitable neighborhoods into its most chic is only surprising to those who are unattuned to the interplay between shifting collective tastes and real estate. Like SoHo and many others before it, The Meatpacking District had to sink to unprecedented depths to give it a wide enough berth to rise. For close to a century, it was essentially the crotch of Manhattan, wedged between two mostly residential neighborhoods of West Village and Chelsea, harboring locally unwanted land uses like meat processing, and, eventually, a facility for the Department of Sanitation and a parking lot for garbage trucks. They're still close by. In spite of it all, when housing commanded such astronomical prices across most of Lower and Midtown Manhattan, this smelly little triangle became the one place cheap enough to encourage risky enterprise, pushing fashion, studio art, and the purveying of goods to new limits that would be impossible in SoHo because the rent is too dang high. Needless to say, the District's reputation for iconoclasm has outlasted its affordability. It's no cheaper than Chelsea or West Village anymore--in fact, it's probably pricier--but the charm fostered by a tiny neighborhood's rise from underground bondage clubs to gourmet children's food survives...or, at least, that's the mystique all those flags and banners hope to perpetuate. The Meatpacking District is the putative center of haute couture in Manhattan at the moment (or at least its cheerleaders assert it to be), but I'm probably showing my own naivete in making this claim. No doubt, among certain circles of people far more beautiful than I am, the neighborhood is already passe. And in another thirty years, who knows where it will be: Harlem, Greenpoint (Brooklyn) or Jackson Heights (Queens) for that matter? SoHo again? I could attempt a blog article of what I think the successor to the Meatpacking District might be, but it's up to the impecunious bohemians to christen it in an ostensibly organic way--and then for the real estate speculators to capitalize. Eventually we'll hoist those banners: "Yonkers: Experience and Indulge." The appalling mass shooting in Orlando early Sunday morning rips back open the festering confusion about what exactly is going on in today's world and today's America. Quickly the gunman was identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American of Afghan origin, and the FBI has suggested that he had leanings toward "jihadist ideology." So, in today's American parlance, that makes it terrorism and him a terrorist. But he used an assault rifle and a handgun, just like (to cite one example among many) Robert Dear at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs last Nov. 27. So that makes it an old-fashioned American mass shooting of an all too familiar kind. Doesn't it? Advertisement Then again, he is also said to have been armed with "some kind of device," so ... well, devices tend to be used by terrorists, right? I raise the Robert Dear comparison pointedly, because it's crying out to be raised. The Colorado Springs incident was nationally notorious for about five days, until the Dec. 2 attack on the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California - by a Pakistani-American and his Pakistani wife - allowed most Americans to forget it. I couldn't forget Colorado Springs, though, for a very personal reason: my parents live in that strange city, and my mother sometimes shops at the King Sooper supermarket in the same shopping center as Planned Parenthood. Here's a paragraph from a Guardian news story published Sunday: In a press conference on Sunday morning, an FBI spokesman said investigators believed the attacker may have had extremist beliefs, and would consider possible links to Isis, but cautioned they were pursuing multiple leads. It's tiresome always to have to be parsing journalistic language. But it's necessary because (to state the obvious) how we use language determines and reflects how we think, or fail to think, about the world we live in. Investigators believe Omar Mateen may have had extremist beliefs. Okay, let's say he did. They will "consider possible links to ISIS." Again, okay, maybe. Then again, maybe not. Advertisement Robert Dear absolutely was (is, because he's still alive to face his day in court) a terrorist and an extremist. I made a point of speaking on exactly this subject, on Feb. 28 at the excellent Broadmoor Community Church in Colorado Springs. "Yes, what Robert Dear did was an act of terrorism, by any reasonable definition," I said. His strangely admirable insistence on his own guilt is proof of this - Dear himself wants it known that his motivation was political. And everybody in this room knows that Colorado Springs is a high-pressure crucible for the hard and divisive national issues that Dear's act brought sharply, if all too briefly, into relief. Colorado Springs is a laboratory for such stuff and, after observing the experiment over the thirty years my parents have lived here, I'm not sure it's turning out all that well. ... For better or worse, warts and all, whether we like it or not, this town is America. I have a personal thing about Colorado Springs, for understandable personal reasons. But a case can certainly be made that Orlando is at least as representatively American, for better and worse. It was Disney World, after all, that President Bush told us all to visit just after the 9/11 attacks. Who knows what was going on in Omar Mateen's mind before and during the attack, but the fact that he attacked a gay nightclub is disturbing on several levels. Was he motivated by puritanical disapproval of what he considered American sexual license? So was Robert Dear. "San Bernardino has become a national byword," I told the churchgoers in February. "Colorado Springs has not. Many Americans who consider themselves Christians don't want to have to face either armed white men like Robert Dear or the political bullies of the anti-Planned Parenthood lobby." I fear that in the days and weeks to come, the American public will indulge in the same old insinuations, recriminations and evasions. We can't afford to do that. I fear the Orlando attack might even affect the presidential election, as Americans across the sociopolitical spectrum seek common cause in circling the wagons against Muslims. But, if Omar Mateen was a Muslim, we can't avoid facing the fact that he was also an American - just like Robert Dear. And Dear was a terrorist motivated by extremist ideology - just like Omar Mateen. This story first appeared on Ecosystem Marketplace. Click here to view the original. By Tabitha Muriuki In Ghana, cocoa is king: it accounts for almost 10 percent of the country's economy and 30 percent of its exports - but it's also a leading driver of deforestation, for a variety of reasons. To begin with, the cacao tree on which the cocoa bean grows is a ravenous beast that sucks nutrients out of the soil at rates that require massive infusions of chemical fertilizer. On top of that, cacao grows best in filtered sunlight, under shade trees; but more and more farmers have been chopping the shade trees to increase yields in the short-term - largely because of widely-held beliefs that new hybrids thrive in the sun. Advertisement The result, says Yaw Kwakye, Head of the National REDD+ Secretariat within Ghana's Climate Change Unit, is a perfect storm of practices that could drive up greenhouse-gas emissions from deforestation and forest degradation while hastening the end of the country's cocoa industry. "The economic lifespan for cocoa is 30 years up to 35 years," he says. "But if you clear all the shade trees and cultivate cocoa under the full blast of sunlight, you'll only have your cocoa standing for 10 years - and after that, you cannot get any yields." As a result, farmers are moving deeper and deeper into the country's forests - with devastating results. To combat that, the country is using international carbon payments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) to finance a massive education campaign, coupled with insurance programs and efforts to get the big chocolate companies working more closely with small farmers. Advertisement Follow us on Bionic Planet: a New Podcast of the Anthropocene Tree Tenure and REDD Five years ago, the country began looking for ways to promote forest carbon projects that promote the use of shade trees and reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), but those efforts ran aground because of Ghana's unique tree tenure system. According to the constitution, all naturally occurring trees belong to the government - an arrangement that fails to provide the incentives needed for the farmers to grow and take care of cacao shade trees. According to Rebecca Asare, West Africa Coordinator for Forest Trends and program director for NCRC, it was impossible to implement individual cocoa carbon projects. "The tree tenure system, lack of a clear REDD methodology and inadequate investment in Cocoa Carbon meant that it could not succeed," she says. The challenges presented by project-based REDD+ presented Ghana with an opportunity to implement jurisdictional REDD+. In Jurisdictional REDD+, an entire country - or a state within a country, or even, as in the case of Ghana, an ecological region - receives funding to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation. Individual projects like Mai Ndombe can then "nest" within these efforts, provided the emission-reductions aren't double counted. Advertisement Going Jurisdictional In 2011, the government created the Climate-Smart Cocoa Working Group, with the support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ghanaian NGO NCRC (Nature Conservation Research Centre), and Forest Trends. Although the working group's main idea was to promote project REDD+ by exploring potential for the cocoa sector's carbon finance potential, this has since shifted to jurisdictional REDD+. According to Asare, CSCWG drafted a vision document that became Ghana's Emission-Reduction Program Idea Note (ER-PIN), which was formally submitted to the carbon fund of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) of the World Bank in April, 2014. And ER-PIN is a document that clarifies the project in terms of objectives, financing sources, roles of partners among others. This document - Ghana's emission-reductions program for the cocoa forest mosaic landscape - was accepted by the carbon fund, and Ghana is now working on development of the Emission Reduction Program Document (ER-PD). This is the first commodity-based REDD program in Africa, and possibly in the world. If successful, the Carbon Fund, which is hosted by the FCPF, would agree to performance-based for a proportion of the emission-reductions generated by the program, up to roughly $50 million. The FCPF has already provided US$3.4 million for the implementation of a 4-year REDD-Readiness Preparation Proposal (R-PP), and is outlined in this finance flow analysis by Ecosystem Marketplace publisher Forest Trends. But it's expected that the bulk of the finance to support implementation of the program will come from the private sector. A jurisdictional approach can fly where projects floundered because it leapfrogs the sticky issue of tree tenure and individual farms, focusing instead on efforts to create an atmosphere in which the government can cultivate sustainable cocoa practices. To earn performance-based REDD+ finance through government-to-government programs under the UNFCCC, the government must simply show that national deforestation rates are improving, in accordance with rules to be formally agreed on at year-end talks in Paris. Advertisement Ghana's REDD Secretariat, in partnership with the country's cocoa board, has designed a 20-year program that specifically targets the country's cocoa sector. By the end of the 20 years, the program aims to cover 5.9 million hectares, avoiding the release of at lease 255 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. The strategy has several components: some targeted directly to the country's 800,000 small farmers, others targeted to the roughly 25 major buyers. Direct Support to Farmers: Knowledge and Finance Small farmers tend to be in it for the long haul, which makes them inherently receptive to the sustainability argument, says Kwakye. "The farmers are more interested in the long-term cocoa cultivation, so that they can pass [their farm] on to the next generation," he says. "If they want to do short term business, they'll go into trading, for instance, or some other quick-return investment.'' They do, however, lack knowledge and means - and that's where REDD+ finance can help. "Sometimes, they have been badly misinformed - such as with this myth of the 'Sun Cocoa'," says Kwakye, referring to a myth that is, frustratingly, driving deforestation in some parts of the country: namely, the mistaken belief that new cacao hybrids can thrive in direct sunlight. Advertisement "Of course, cocoa needs light, obviously, for the process of photosynthesis," says Kwakye. "But then also the shade creates a kind of micro-environment that is conducive and supportive of cocoa productivity." Even areas that haven't succumbed to the myth of sun carbon, there is little understanding of modern farming methods. "They often don't understand the proper way to apply fertilizer and pesticides," Kwakye says. "Often, even if they know which fertilizers to apply, they can't afford them." As a result, only 30% of cocoa famers use chemical fertilizer, and only half use insecticides - and then often in quantities that are too small. Using REDD finance, the REDD+ Secretariat will recruit and deploy agronomical experts, who will educate and advise farmers on the best practices for sustainable cocoa cultivation - such as which pesticides to use, and the most suitable seedlings for both cacao trees and shade trees. Advertisement The government will also provide insurance to protect against losses incurred from fluctuations in climate, and then it will work with banks and buyers to make sure that finance is more readily available to small farmers. Forging Alliances Between Buyers and Farmers Sustainable farming often means lower yields on an annual basis, although that's not always the case - as farmers in Kenya's Lake Naivasha Watershed learned recently. Still, when sustainability does raise short-term costs, farmers who shift practices often find it difficult to get a premium price for their goods. That's because buyers and middlemen aren't as tethered to the land as farmers are, so their inclination to long-term thinking isn't as strong - but it does exist, especially as consumer giants Cadbury, Nestle, and Kraft come to terms with the looming long-term cocoa shortage and consumers themselves become more aware of the moral implications of their purchases. For more on middlemen, see "Successful Green Pledges Hinge On Procurement Agents And Consumers>". John Mason, executive director of NCRC, says there's plenty of precedent for that, and points to a non-profit called Source Trust, which certifies and promotes sustainable cocoa-farming practices in local communities. It was set up by Armajaro Trading Ltd, one of the country's major intermediaries between farmers and chocolate manufacturers, who pay Armajaro a premium of US$30 per ton in exchange for a traceable and sustainable cocoa supply. "As an industry, our interest is to ensure that farmers have good yields over the long term, not just in the next couple of years," said Nicko Debenham, head of traceability and sustainability at Armajaro and a spokesperson for Source Trust, in a 2011 interview with Ecosystem Marketplace. Advertisement Such efforts show promise, but they need to be scaled up to have a meaningful impact on deforestation. Ghana plans to use this financing model to attract both domestic and international donors to its REDD+ initiatives. The international programs will include bilateral agreements with Ghana's development partners and may tap other financing options, such as The Green Climate Fund. Tree Tenure and Projects The tree tenure issue remains tricky, and can only change if the law changes. "I suspect that will happen, but it's up to the legislature, and not to us," says Kwakye. Once the laws change, he says it will be possible to "nest" individual REDD+ projects within the national system - but that will also require a better understanding of the impact that sustainable practices have on the carbon content of forests. BEIJING -- Perceptions in both China and the United States on China-U.S. relations are now highly diverse. In particular, recent media reports have painted the South China Sea as a new geopolitical wrestling ground for the two countries. However, if you look at what is happening in real life, you see a different picture. Over the past three years, President Xi Jinping and President Obama have had six lengthy meetings that cover wide-ranging subjects, giving a strong push to the relationship by initiating important programs of cooperation. Advertisement As the latest figures for January and February 2016 illustrate, China has become one of the biggest trading partners of the U.S. on a monthly basis. Every 17 minutes, there is a flight between China and the United States, averaging hundreds of flights a week and some 4 million a year. Even the two militaries, which appear to have difficult tensions, are actually engaged in more exchanges and dialogues than ever before. On such global issues as climate change and nuclear security, the partnership between the two countries is increasingly playing a leading role globally. So, which is the real state of China-U.S. relations? Confrontation or cooperation? Or are both real? There is no denying that the ground is shifting in China-U.S. relations. The impact of competition and the imperative for cooperation are both growing. So, perhaps the gap between perception and reality reflects the underlying need to rebuild consensus. I often hear in the U.S. that China is seeking to dominate the Asia-Pacific and replace U.S. leadership. This is a reflection of America's own fear of losing its primacy in the world more than China's ambitions. Recently, I was in the United States visiting several influential think tanks. The main concerns of American academics about China-U.S. relations as far as I can gather can be summarized in the following ways. Advertisement First, many are expressing doubts about "the constructive engagement" policy that the U.S. government has followed for decades. That policy was based on the assumption that, by supporting market-oriented reforms, the U.S. would see political changes in China that would make it more like the West. Now that those political changes are not happening, they think that "constructive engagement" has failed and there needs to be a new grand strategy. Second, confidence about China's economic prospects is waning as growth slows down. There are concerns that a possible hard landing of the Chinese economy would spill over and affect the American recovery. Though still attracted to the Chinese market, some U.S. businesses are disappointed that the economic reform dividend is shrinking. Third, there is rising anxiety about what global role China is going to play. A view I often hear in the U.S. is that China is seeking to dominate the Asia-Pacific and replace U.S. leadership. This we see as a reflection of America's own fear of losing its primacy in the world more than China's ambitions. Nicolas Berggruen, Fu Ying and Nathan Gardels, Beijing, November 2015. (Berggruen Institute) At the same time, however, there is no shortage of rational and optimistic views from the U.S., which see China's future role as being determined by its own culture, history and sense of responsibility as it charts a path of interaction with the outside world. The views of Chinese academics about China-U.S. relations can also be summed up as follows: First, China's policy objective for relations with the U.S. is in line with that of its general foreign policy, namely, to improve its international environment in order to develop and raise the living standards of its population. This objective involves no desire to export values or seek world power. China has gone a long way toward achieving its purposes in recent decades. We believe the U.S. has also gained tremendously from its relationship with China. Advertisement Second, the Chinese economy is now undergoing difficult restructuring. The China-U.S. economic relationship has reached a higher level as Chinese businesses and direct investment are entering the U.S. market. But they are often constrained by the lack of political confidence. China is going to host the G-20 summit this September, which we all hope will open new opportunities for the two countries to work together for balanced global growth. Third, Chinese academics have also looked at changes in China-U.S. relations from the perspective of the evolution of international order. Many see the status of the relationship no longer as one between the weak and the strong, nor do they yet see the relationship as one between two strong powers. The U.S.- China relationship has come to a state where if they work together, they are capable of making a difference in the world. If they fight, they can bring disaster onto the world. In the past, it was said that China and the U.S. had friendly moments, but were never very close; they had problems, but the ties were strong enough to withstand being derailed. Now it seems that the relationship has come to a state where, if they work together, they are capable of making a difference in the world, but if they fight, they can bring disaster onto the world. The challenge for China as the second-largest economy in the world is two-fold. First is how to work with the U.S. within the existing order framework and not to fall into the so-called "Thucydides Trap" of collision between rising and established powers. Second is how China adapts to and participates in the adjustment of the international order. Advertisement Here, the message from the U.S. is confusing, reflected in its reluctance to acknowledge China's effort to help improve the existing order by providing new public goods such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative. Remarks like "China should not be allowed to make the 21st century rules" are inevitably affecting the assessment in China of the country's external environment, its future role and relations with the U.S. The Chinese academic community has two concerns: Might U.S. policy towards China give way to anxiety and even an orientation towards imminent conflict? Might it lead to a reckless urge to throw down the gauntlet and stimulate spiraling tensions? The Hughes Reef is located in the Union banks area within the Spratly group of islands in the South China Sea. (DigitalGlobe via Getty Images) Recent tensions in the South China Sea are a good reflection of the risks involved. The Chinese concern is that America's open involvement in the disputes between China and its neighbors, and its imagined contention with China, may sow the seeds of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reading what is said in the American media, one has the impression that the discourse is far from having solid factual ground, such as the assertion that it is China which is trying to make new claims and coerce its neighbors. Some articles even cannot tell the Nansha Islands from the Xisha Islands. The South China Sea issue is basically a territorial dispute leftover from past history between China and certain countries in Southeast Asia about some land features of the Nansha Islands. But the U.S. involvement has created a new dimension. The U.S.-Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy, from its very start, targeted China not only in rhetoric but also in its military and diplomatic arrangements. In China, most people believe that America's growing interference and even direct intervention are making the situation in the South China Sea more complicated, turning what is essentially a regional dispute into geostrategic rivalry. Advertisement China's aim in the South China Sea remains safeguarding national interests and territorial integrity while maintaining regional peace and tranquility. Finding a balance between the two objectives has always been hard, but in it is an effort in which China will persist. To understand China, one should not lose sight of the historical context. Though China is growing into a strong country, historical memory is painfully fresh for its people. The country stumbled into the 20th century with its capital under the occupation of imperialist armies. For over a century, China suffered the humiliation of repeated foreign aggression and bullying. That is why the Chinese people are very sensitive about anything that is related to the loss of territory. We would never allow such recurrence even if it involves just an inch of land. This is something the outside world needs to bear in mind when trying to understand China's behavior. For over a century, China suffered the humiliation of repeated foreign aggression and bullying. That's why the Chinese people are very sensitive about anything related to the loss of territory. It should be obvious to everyone that, to attain its economic goals, China needs a peaceful external environment, particularly in its own neighborhood. The South China Sea offers the most important international transportation route, which is also a lifeline for China. That is why our policy objective includes ensuring the freedom and safety of navigation in the area. In this regard, China needs to upgrade its capacity to better fulfill its responsibilities. President Xi has proposed that China and the U.S. should move towards a new model of "major-country relations" that will enable us to avoid conflict and confrontation, and respect each other in cooperation. To achieve that, we need to learn from each other. China is a newcomer on the world's center stage, but it should not try to copy the U.S. The U.S. also needs to learn to work with countries like China, which may not be an ally, but is not an enemy, either. Advertisement So, can today's China and America accept and respect each other and build a new consensus? I hope it won't take us long to find the answer. Also on WorldPost: Over 24 hours after anti-gay mass murder marked the bloodiest shooting in the history of the United States, the vast majority of Republican political leaders have yet to express any support to an LGBT community in national mourning. Even simply acknowledging the reality that Orlando's gay community was targeted appears to be too much to ask. Is the deafening silence on the part of so many a quiet recognition that hate-fueled legislation contributes to hate-fueled violence? Or is it nothing more than a glaring refusal to accept the humanity of their LGBT constituents? The lack of acknowledgment is so egregious, so painful, and so deeply unnerving that it seems unreal. Yet, as of Monday morning, a review of all 54 Republican Senators' Twitter accounts confirms that 13 had no response to the terror attack, but of those that did, the condolences were devoid of any reference to the gay community, with one notable exception: Susan Collins of Maine. A brave outlier, her lonely voice stands in stark contrast to her peers. Advertisement Beyond Twitter, the eerie quiet persists, with only a handful of murmers. Mark Kirk of Ilinois did manage to utter the words "gay community." Ted Cruz, a paragon of hypocrisy, was unable to admit our own country's failings or his own vile rhetoric, instead choosing this moment as the time to condemn anti-gay atrocities in Iran. Marco Rubio spoke out and admitted that "he targeted a location frequented by members of our LGBT community -- my gut tells me that it had something to do with it as well." Suspecting that homophobia may have "had something to do with" the slaughter committed by a virulently homophobic man at a gay nightclub during gay pride may not seem like much, but even the power of such a basic declaration cannot be overestimated. That the governor of Florida has, as of this writing, yet to do the same is truly unfathomable. The strikingly partisan divide, at a time when love should reign, appears particularly alarming within the context of the outpouring of support on a global scale. #Lovislove, vigils, and rainbow colors stretching from the Freedom Tower to the Space Needle to the Eiffel Tower tonight are far from empty gestures; they are necessary public indicators that LGBT lives do, in fact, matter. For those of us whose very right to exist has been questioned, words and imagery lend substantive meaning. In the words of Harvey Milk, "Hope will never be silent." Let all of America's leaders look inward and consider why it is that they feel incapable of even the brief, dignified act of bearing witness. Advertisement Film Clip Board Can you feel the ground trembling under your feet? Can you hear the rumble of voices? The roar of applause? That's the Global Female Empowerment movement, baby. On the stage. In the spotlight. Headed for the White House. Women are rising up like never before. And I don't know about you, but I couldn't be more excited if it were raining chocolate-covered strawberries. My first job, more than 25 years ago, was fashion modeling. I was a pawn in the big beauty industry conspiracy to make women feel inadequate and ugly. It only took me a year to realize that I needed to find a career that would lift women up, not bring them down. And I found that role as teacher and mentor to women in wellness. Advertisement But this isn't about me. It's about you. How much do you know about what women are doing to create a sense of solidarity and shared purpose? Are you gathering with your girlfriends to celebrate with us? Women's liberation did not die in the 70s after women got equal pay rights and reproductive protection. Feminism has been simmering in the shadows for decades and has emerged as one of the most powerful movements of our time. Here are 5 incredible films that you need to watch right now to get you fired up about female empowerment: 1. Dream, Girl Dream Girl is a documentary film showcasing the stories of inspiring and ambitious female entrepreneurs. The mission of the filmmakers is to make women's most audacious dreams attainable. It was screened at the White House as part of the lead-up to the United State of Women Summit and premiered at the Paris Theatre in New York City on June 10, 2016 to a sold-out house. From brand new startups to million dollar industries, it's time we stop telling girls they can be anything they want to be and show them what it means to be a leader. 2.Girl Rising Girl Rising is an innovative feature film about the power of education to change a girl - and the world. The mission of the filmmakers is to change the way the world values the girl and ensure that girls' education is part of the mainstream conversation. Millions have seen the Girl Rising film. Its message is spreading across campuses and communities around the world. What girls want most is to be students - to learn. And now, by sharing their personal journeys, the brave girls of Girl Rising have become teachers. Advertisement 3.She's Beautiful When She's Angry She's Beautiful When She's Angry resurrects the buried history of the brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971. The mission of the film is to inspire women and men to work for feminism and human rights. The film has had theatrical runs in almost every state, and in many cities, sometimes running for weeks. Seeing is believing. To see She's Beautiful When She's Angry will help all women believe themselves and each other. 4.Miss Representation Miss Representation explores the way that the media sells us the idea that girls' and women's value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders. 73% of people said that watching Miss Representation changed their opinion about the way in which women are represented in the media. Using film as a catalyst for cultural transformation, Miss Representation inspires us to challenge and overcome limiting stereotypes so that everyone, regardless of gender, race, class, age, or sexual orientation, can fulfill their human potential. 5.!Women Art Revolution Through intimate interviews, art, and rarely seen archival film and video footage, !Women Art Revolution reveals how the Feminist Art Movement fused free speech and politics to radically transform the art and culture of our times. The film highlights the history of those brave women who were told to give up their dreams, and instead started a revolution. With the rising female empowerment movement, a review of the rocky road traveled in pursuit of gender equity could not be timelier. Luckily, the women in my family gave me the courage, confidence and audacity to believe that I could accomplish anything. And I've never doubted that. Even when I've fallen down face-first, over and over, I could hear my mom whispering in my ear, "You can be anything that you want!" And now I am telling you: You can run every aspect of your life. You can be free and independent. There has never been a better time to be empowered, self-reliant, and rich in every way! The more policies you have in place, the less effective your organization. This is all about the difference between compliance, contribution and commitment. If you tell someone what to do and utilize constraining polices, the best you can hope for is compliance. Directional guidelines give people the freedom to contribute. Going one step further, commitment to a cause requires a shared mindset. Some definitions: POLICY: Mandatory, definite course or method of action that all must follow. GUIDELINE: Preferred course or method of action that all generally should follow. MINDSET: Way of thinking about relationships, behaviors and impact. For example: Policy: Respond to all customer inquiries within 24 hours. Guideline: Try to get back to all customers within 24 hours. Mindset: Think customers first and pull in the people you need to answer customer inquiries right the first time. While all three make sense, expect people constrained by the 24-hour policy to comply with the 24-hour rule without regard to the quality of the response or the impact on the customers. Those working with a 24-hour guideline will try to respond within 24 hours, but will relax that constraint as required to provide a higher quality response with a better impact. Advertisement Those with a customers first mindset will have a bias to using these customer interactions as excuses to move the organization forward in line with its purpose. Big difference. Sales Call Standards In the last century Lever Brothers' retail sales department had a policy that sales people had to be in their first store by 8:00 in the morning and could not leave their last store until 5:00 in the afternoon. In between, they were supposed to call on nine stores. Further, sales people were supposed to sit in their cars after each sales call and complete all the paperwork around that call including the paperwork for the order and write up for the daily retail sales and merchandising report. I was an area sales manager in the New York metro area with five retail representatives reporting to me. While the policy seemed to make sense in general, I decided it was counter-productive in our particular situation. Sales people leaving their last store at 5:00 would be driving home in the heart of rush hour. So, we ran an experiment. I asked people to be in their first store by 8:00 and to call on at least nine stores. But, instead of doing paper work after every call, they saved in until the end of the day, leaving their last store in time to drive home before rush hour and then doing their paper work at home. Advertisement It worked. They used the time they saved by avoiding rush hour to make one extra sales call per day and get home earlier. Morale improved. Sales improved. What's not to like? (Other than my violating a policy.) Helpful Policies Some organizations get this right. Nordstrom's famously reduces all its policies to one rule "Use best judgment in all situations." Stu Leonard's in Connecticut has two rules: Rule #1: "The Customer is always right." Rule #2: "If the Customer is ever wrong, reread Rule 1." Implications Of course there are times when you need strict compliance to rules and regulations to minimize risks. You generally don't want people thinking too far out of the box when it comes to standardized, routine management of nuclear power plants, hospital operating rooms or industries highly regulated by the SEC and watched by the press. In most cases you do want your employees to think, to try new things, to help the organization improve on a continuous basis. In those cases: Start by communicating the mindset you want your people to have as they approach problems and opportunities. Advertisement Have a strong bias to deploying guidelines over policies. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks during a presidential primary election night rally, Tuesday, June 7, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) Yes, I said it. If you're a woman, you should vote for Hillary Clinton for president. Our options are bleak. The two presidential nominees have the lowest approval ratings of any presidential nominees to date, but one of them is a woman, and that matters. It is the first candidate that could potentially hold office who will stand with both feet forward for women's rights. This isn't about a claim or policy. There is no debate that Hillary Clinton is a woman, and therefore she is compelled have women in mind. You don't have to like Hillary to know that she understands women the way no other president ever could, and certainly not Donald Trump. This piece isn't to bash Trump, but to justify the option of voting for Clinton on the basis that she represents women. Because a woman in office offers American women the protection that no other candidate has ever offered. Advertisement In Sheryl Sanberg's Lean In, she references a time when she spoke at Harvard Business School in 2011 and said to the audience: "If current trends continue, fifteen years from now, about two-thirds of the women in this audience will be working full-time and almost all of you will be working for the guy you are sitting next to... If you want the outcome to be different, you will have to do something about it." If you haven't figured out what you're going to do about it, do this, vote for the first woman president. When I hear young women say they are going to vote for Donald Trump simply because they're a Republican or because he won't raise their taxes, I die a little inside. First of all, as a young professional, your taxes are hardly going to affect either side's taxation policies. Second of all, while it's great to care about your income, it's another to choose a tax break over equal rights, your equality. Advertisement You might not agree with Hillary Clinton, but you understand that she knows what it's like to be a woman living, working, and raising a family in America. She was not born into politics. She did not marry into politics. Her path in life was not handed to her with a million-dollar loan from her parents. In fact, one of her first jobs was working at a salmon cannery in Alaska. She knows what it's like to fight her way to the top of the corporate ladder in a male-dominated field. And she's relatable to American wives everywhere (re: Lenny Letter) when she describes how difficult it was to put her husband's career before her own. But now, it's her turn. No other presidential candidate, and certainly not one who makes bigotry and discrimination the cornerstone of his campaign, can relate to that. Now, it's women's turn. It's our turn to bring attention to the hypocrisy and double standards that exist in today's America. To take a stand for federal policy on maternity leave; to say, "it's your choice" on abortion rights; to walk into work feeling like an equal and having the American government on your side. It only takes one, and the rest is a domino effect. A female president means more seats in the Cabinet for women, more seats in the Senate and the House for women -- hell, it designates a seat at any table for women to represent. When I was a young girl, my response to what I wanted to be when I grew up was always "the first woman president." When you're that young, you have no real perception that there's a world out there filled with discrimination, bigotry and sexism. As I grew up, I still held that dream close, but I learned that it was a much bigger feat than I had ignorantly anticipated. There was a reason that there hadn't been a woman president, and not because there were never any viable woman candidates. Because the foundation of American established that "all men were created equal." And some men running our governments made sure that there was no evolution to that statement. While I no longer want to be the first woman president, I do want to be a woman who is fairly treated in society and the workforce. I want my accomplishments and my salary to be ranked on an even playing field with those of my male counterparts. I don't necessarily hope to change anyone's mind on which candidate they vote for. But if you are a woman living in America, and you truly dislike both options you have for president, your option is not to not vote. You don't have to love everything about Hillary Clinton to be inspired watching history be made. Your option is the woman. It's ok for your option to be the woman. You side with your side. You side with the notion that young girls will grow up saying they want to be the next woman president. Frequently I urge students in my classes to build their happiness brain and heart muscles now, not only to enjoy the moment but also to prepare for the inevitable bad times. It's part of life, I say aloud. Meanwhile, internally, I am likely engaged in a mini-argument that goes something like this: "You know, this means you, too." "No, no, not me! "Yes, you too, you know it's true." "Oh, okay, but not for a long time, and nothing really bad, right?" Yesterday, the "you, too" side won the argument. Bad times arrived. All week, I lived with low-grade anxiety, starting with a phone call to the optometrist on Monday morning to report some troubling eye symptoms. The receptionist said, you need to come in right away. Not a good sign. After that exam, the optometrist office made sure I got an immediate appointment with one of only four retina specialists in the entire state of Vermont. More foreboding. Still, I had hopes for life as usual until the moment Doctor Kim's tone of voice suddenly changed as he directed urgent comments to his assistant -- in medical shorthand I couldn't understand. "What does that mean?" I asked. "I'll explain it all," the doctor said. "First we need pictures." That meant an agonizing hour in the waiting room where, surrealistically, the television was blaring a Donald Trump speech. Finally, it was my turn with the camera specialist, who asked me what I do for a living. I stammered, "I'm a happiness teacher," thinking, "please, please don't talk to me about happiness because now all I am is a terrified person." Fortunately, he instead reminisced about a recent trip to Costa Rica. Advertisement Ironically, when I left the dark camera room for the sunlit hall on my way back to the examination room, everything was startlingly rose-colored, thanks to a dye that had been injected in my hand to get better eye pictures. The illusion was brief, beautiful, and definitely not metaphorical. Finally, the diagnosis: vitreous hemorrhage in my left eye, bleeding that has already caused permanent damage to my eyesight and would blind me completely in that eye -- probably within months, the doctor said -- if left untreated. Fortunately, there is a treatment, a drug to be injected directly into my eye. The doctor assures me, this will hurt. I need to have the treatment a minimum of three times, probably six times, maybe more, starting right away. Since it was Friday afternoon, and these injections are a two-day affair, the first treatment is scheduled for Monday afternoon. Happy weekend. But I'm not feeling sorry for myself. Serious suffering visits each of us multiple times throughout our lives. Perhaps literally millions of people are suffering much worse physical and emotional pain than I am at this very minute. Rather, I am pondering just how a happiness professional should handle this situation. I believe the answer lies in embracing unhappiness. My first priority was crying. I beat back the tears until I left the doctor's office. I don't know why. I definitely wanted to cry. My left eye is irreversibly damaged. I almost lost my vision completely in that eye. That is worth grieving over. That is worth many tears. Advertisement Since leaving that office, though, I've cried on and off quite a bit, though I suspect I'll be more or less finished crying soon. From both personal experience and research on happiness and resiliency, I know I'll bounce back, presumably with a keener appreciation of my eyesight. For now, it's important to face this reality, not sugar coat it, logistically or emotionally. A full and rich life demands feeling the pain, too. Already, I've had loved ones tell me to be positive and to focus on the gratitude -- and, dear hearts, if you're reading this, I love you and thank you for your kindness -- but that is not what I need right now. Should I be optimistic? I guess I am, in that I didn't think twice about whether to have the treatments or not. Definitely, any optimism I have is grounded in reality: this will not be fun. It might not even work. It might happen in the other eye. But, together with my skilled doctor, I'll do my best to work toward a positive outcome. I've been thinking about the words of Admiral James Stockdale, the highest ranking naval officer to be held prisoner during the Vietnam War. He observed that the POWs most likely to survive that experience were those with reality-based optimism. Neither the prisoners who thought they would be released almost immediately nor the POWs who believed they would never be released survived as well. Stockdale said, "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end -- which you cannot afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be." So be it. Faith, yes. And, tell me the truth. I've also been thinking about a cautionary note in the book Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth by father and son positive psychology team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener. Although happier people are in general less likely to have ill health, the Dieners warned, when it comes to surviving physical maladies, happier people can fare worse. Because their glasses are too rosy, perhaps? Or their optimism isn't reality-based? Advertisement So I don't want that "happy person" who is disconnected from her own health reality. That means not only doing what I need to do, but also feeling what I need to feel. With the support of a few loved ones, I've given myself some hibernation time to grieve, for the human condition, bodies that break, and my own lost eyesight. Time to be afraid, and angry -- at the optometrist (fairly or not, I don't care right now), at myself for not seeing a specialist sooner, and at the world in general because no one ever told me that such a thing might happen to those of us near-sighted folks with large eyeballs. I will forgive everybody. Not yet, though. Another aspect of my teaching feels a little too close to home right now: I always read Helen Keller's essay "Three Days to See" to my meditation classes because it does f illustrates so well the value of mindfulness. Keller wrote compellingly of all how we all might see so much better if we were faced with the loss of our eyesight. Hopefully, I am not facing the loss of my eyesight. Still, on the ride home from the doctor, while my loving husband drove, I reflected on Helen Keller's words and tried to savor the picture postcard Vermont summer mountains and sunny blue skies. I couldn't do it. I just needed to be sad. On Sunday, a gunman opened fire in Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 50 people and injuring several more. According to CNN, the shooter claimed allegiance to ISIS during the attack. On Sunday afternoon, Florida Senator Bill Nelson said that ISIS' news agency said the group is held accountable for the attack, but the reports remain unverified. With Brussels and Paris not so far behind us, and with so many words being associated to this event -- mass shooting, hate crime, terrorism, -- what comes next, as it always seems, a shocking chin-rub reaction from some to quickly blame the Muslims. On the same day, James Wesley Howell -- a white man who is not a Muslim, was taken into custody by Santa Monica police officials, reporting he was going to attack the gay pride event. Cops found him with three assault rifles, clips loaded, and a five gallon bucket filled with chemicals wearing camouflage clothing in his car. James just like Omar Mateen who was involved in the Pulse Nightclub shooting, hated people who celebrate love and had plans to kill them. If he isn't Muslim, then why are we busy pointing fingers at a religion, rather catching the severity of hate. According to data from the FBI, it was reported that 94 percent of terrorist attacks carried out in the United States from 1980 to 2005 have been by non-Muslims. In Europe, where terror attacks have been more publicized in the past five years, less than 2 percent of terrorist attacks across Europe were committed by Muslims from 2010 to 2015, according to the Daily Beast. In the same article from the Daily Beast, data from a 2014 University of North Carolina reported that since 9/11 of the 190,000 Americans murdered, terrorism was responsible for only 37 of those deaths. Advertisement Muslims are not the problem. Islam is not the problem. Guns are the problem. According to a study from PBS, in 2015 alone, there were 355 mass shootings in the United States in which only one of those events has been in turn related to radical Islam, according to the FBI reported by The Guardian. In the same year, there were 27 mass shootings in Florida, none of which were linked to radical Islam. As an American Muslim living in this country I call home, these numbers leave my heart heavy and my soul shaken. As a young woman living in this country, things have changed for better and many for worse. I now triple check the lecture hall in a crowded college campus. I sit near the exit rows in movie theaters in fear. The idea of a crowded concert or parade makes me question, is it worth my life? Mass shootings mortify me. We have reached a point now, where a superlative headline like "worst shooting in American history" have separated the other hundreds of mass shooting incidences that occur everyday. We truly live in a scary world. Every bloodcurdling word has been used to define these acts, but the deadliest fact about this all is, the issue isn't Radical Islam, the issue is guns. Falsely ridiculing and blaming Muslims is not only a waste of time, but it is another trap for people to ignore the real problem of gun control. The real truth is, the vast majority of mass shootings and terror attacks are not committed by Muslims. There have been enough mass shooting in the US last year for one to happen almost every single day of the year, with the exception of 10 days. Mass shootings occur in places we know as safe like an Elementary School, sacred like a church, and even fun, like a club or parade. Chances are no matter who you are or where you are in the United States, you could get your money's worth on a gun. When 20 kindergartners were killed, nothing happened. When nine lives were taken during a Bible study, nothing changed. As long as people continue to falsely place the blame on the religion of Islam, and ignore the severity in lack of gun control, nothing will change to solve this issue. People will continue to purchase guns, and people will continue to die. There will be another "horrific attack since 9/11" and yes it will be more terrifying than the Orlando incident. So drop the labels, and jump on the idea that we need gun control. I, as a Muslim can tell you, Muslims and Islam are not what you should be scared of. Be scared of not being proactive. Be scared of nothing changing. Because lets face it, that is the real danger. That's the threat that facts can support. What has happened to our gun laws -- especially the assault rifle ban that expired in 2004? The Australians had the courage to pass tougher gun regulations -- Australia's Prime Minister, in particular, at the time. It takes courage, in other words, something U.S. politicians seem to lack. Conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a close ally of George W. Bush, faced political and public resistance to the laws. After just three months as the country's leader, Howard wore a bulletproof vest as he addressed a hostile 3,000-strong crowd opposed to the reforms. How did he do it? The current Australian gun laws were passed after 35 were killed and 23 wounded in a 1996 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania. The shooter was able to buy his assault rifle, even though later he was later determined by authorities to have an IQ of 11. There hasn't been a mass shooting in Australia since then. Advertisement Just twelve days after the Port Arthur massacre, the Australian prime minister, John Howard, announced a sweeping package of gun reforms in a country where firearms had long been considered an essential prop in the national mythology of life in the bush. "At that stage the gun lobby was the ruling lobby in Australia," says Philip Alpers, associate professor at the University of Sydney. "What happened at Port Arthur is that they were outpaced, outflanked and outwitted by a man who had the power to move in 12 remarkable days." Tim Fischer was leader of the National party and Howard's deputy prime minister in the Coalition government, charged with persuading skeptical country voters to support, or at least accept, reforms. "Port Arthur was our Sandy Hook," he says. "Port Arthur we acted on. The USA is not prepared to act on their tragedies." It was called the National Firearms Agreement -- legislation that outlawed automatic and semi-automatic rifles, as well as pump-action shotguns. At the heart of the new law was a massive buyback of about one-fifth -- 640,000 -- of all firearms in circulation in Australia. The country's new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners, and required that gun buyers present a "genuine reason" for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase, as well as a 28-day waiting period while backgrounds were checked. (Self-defense could not be a reason.) In the wake of the tragedy, polls showed public support for these measures at upwards of 90 percent. Advertisement "The laws had widespread public support but faced fierce opposition from some rural supporters ... because they believed they were unfairly paying a price for the misdeeds of others," Howard told NBC News in a statement. "This resentment assisted the rise of a new political party which damaged the government at the following election." Howard persisted with introducing the laws, and went on to win that election and lead the nation for more than a decade. He considers the reforms as a key part of his legacy. An article published online in July by the NRA claimed there was "growing consensus" that the laws hadn't made Australians safer. Howard acknowledges that "major cultural and historical differences" make it difficult to draw comparisons between the gun cultures in the U.S. and Australia. "Although I had not anticipated the need to act on this matter so early in my term of government, I had always believed there was a clear link between the ready availability of guns and gun-related death," Howard said. "The national gun control laws enacted after the Port Arthur massacre remain one of the major social reforms ... of [my] government," he added. "All the credible research both in Australia and elsewhere shows that the gun control laws have markedly reduced gun-related deaths." Total intentional gun deaths fell by half in the decade after the 1996 restrictions were put in place, even as Australia's population grew nearly 14 percent. The rate of gun suicides per 100,000 people dropped 65 percent from 1995 to 2006, and the rate of gun homicides fell 59 percent, according to a 2010 study by Andrew Leigh of Australian National University and Christine Neill of Wilfrid Laurier University. Advertisement "Australia is not like the U.S." said the Sydney Morning Herald's Michael Pascoe in response to President Obama's remarks on last year's Umpqua Community College killings by a deranged killer, whose mother kept at least seven guns at home, in addition to the eight guns plus ammunition carried by the shooter in the slaughter of college students and a teacher. President Obama had said, "We know that other countries in response to one mass shooting have managed to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings, friends of ours, allies of ours, Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours." In fact, the US now has a gun homicide rate 370 times that of Australia's. "Unlike the US," said Pascoe, "we collectively decided to have a decent social safety net, the concept of a living wage and make good education freely available. Most of us are wary of those with extreme views of any kind." Our gun problem of course extends beyond mass violence, says the LA Times. In 2014 alone, for example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 11,208 people shot to death, 33,636 injured by gunfire and 21,175 who killed themselves with a gun. That's a total of 66,019 people who were killed or injured by a gun, which comes out to 1,269 per week, 180 a day or 7.5 per hour. "The US is too immature a society to be allowed to play with guns," said the Sydney Morning Herald's Pasco. "It has never shed its Wild West mythology. Americans still use their courts to kill people, which sends a message in its own way." And, we do not have a leader or leaders with enough courage to stand up to the gun lobby, as Australia's John Howard was able to do. Isn't their most important job to protect our citizens, regardless of creed or color? There is a small red structure inside the Mochi Gate of Lahore, one of the 13 historical gateways into the walled city. Painted red, the structure now hosts the shrine of Haq Char Yaar. This shrine tells yet another tale of a place of worship belonging to another religion that was appropriated by the dominant Muslim population of the city after the creation of Pakistan. I don't know much about the history of the shrine, but the epithet Haq Char Yaar refers to the "four friends" in Islamic Sunni iconography - the closest companions of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), all of whom later became Caliphs - Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali. Advertisement Perhaps the clues to mystery of the origin of this shrine are contained within its name, which suggests that it does not belong to any one saint. Where this shrine stands today was once the site of a Sikh place of worship - Gurdwara Lal Khoi. The area within Mochi Gate retains the name Lal Khoi. According to Sikh tradition, it was at this site that Guru Arjan, the fifth Guru of Sikhism, was tortured. The story goes that this site also hosted the haveli, or mansion, of Chandu Shah, the diwan of the Mughal Emperor, who had developed a hatred for the Guru after he rejected a marriage proposal of the emperor's daughter with the Guru's son, Hargobind. Sikhs believe that it was at the behest of Shah, who was in connivance with Guru Arjan's disgruntled elder brother Prithi Chand, that Mughal Emperor Jahangir, ordered the Guru's assassination. Advertisement The Guru is believed to have spent his last days at this spot, occasionally washing and drinking from a well here - that's how it came to be called Lal Khoi, the well of blood. Guru Arjan's assassination was a watershed event in the history of Sikhism. It changed the course of this community, similar to what the assassination of Imaam Hussain did for Muslims. It was under Guru Arjan that the Sikh identity began to be solidified, distinct from that of the Muslims and Hindus. He began the compilation of what came to be known as the Guru Granth Sahib, giving the Sikhs their distinct holy book. He also completed Amrit Sar, the tank of nectar that was started by his father, around which the city of Amritsar developed, giving the Sikhs with their focal religious pilgrimage. Guru Arjan's death came as a major setback to the community, which had only just begun strengthening its identity. Guru Arjan's assassination was followed by a lot of introspection by the community, which feared extinction. Taking on the mighty Mughal Empire was out of the question. Should the Sikhs disavow all form of politics and emerge as a purely religious group? This discussion was resolved by Guru Hargobind, the sixth Guru of Sikkhism and the son of Guru Arjan. On the July 24, 1606, Guru Hargobind emerged in front of his followers, dressed as a royal, wearing a turban with an aigrette on it, a sword hung on each side. He had taken the bold decision of militarising the Sikh community so they could defend themselves. The institution of the Guru and Sikhism were to take a new turn. Advertisement The samadh of Guru Arjan, a modest structure, is also located in the city, facing the Lahore fort. Every year in June, hundreds of Sikhs, from all over, converge at this shrine to commemorate the martyrdom of their Guru. It is a sombre affair, without the grandeur and pomp of the Guru Nanak Jayanti celebrations at the famous Nankana Sahib in Pakistan's Punjab. There is another small event in this complex at the end of June, this one to commemorate the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh Empire, whose samadh stands next to that of Guru Arjan, and in strong contrast to it. While Guru Arjan's samadh is a modest structure, that of Maharaja Ranjit Singh is a triple-storey, regal memorial, elaborately decorated with frescoes of Hindu and Sikh iconography. Separated only by a few days on a calendar, the two events represent two contrasting eras in Sikh history. Advertisement While the assassination of Guru Arjan in 1606 represents a nadir in Sikh history, a point when the community faced the threat of dispersion, their fortunes had turned by the time of the second death in the year 1839. From 1799, the year he took control of Lahore, up until 1839, Ranjit Singh was the undisputed Maharaja of the entire Punjab, whose borders also included areas to west of Indus - an unprecedented tide of history, for invasion had always come from west to east. Under Ranjit Singh, the Sikhs had completed an entire cycle. The militarisation that began after the death of Guru Arjan was at its peak. The Sikh Empire of Punjab and the Sindh served as the last bastion of an independent kingdom in a sub-continent that was now dominated by the British. The Sikhs had earned themselves the title of a martial race by the time British took over Punjab after the death of Ranjit Singh. They were no longer a minor group, as during Jehangir's reign. "This election is not, however, about the same old fights between Democrats and Republicans. This election is different. It really is about who we are as a nation. It's about millions of Americans coming together to say: We are better than this. We won't let this happen in America." -- Hillary Clinton She's right. On the one hand, of course every election is about who we are as a nation, as expressed in terms of the laws and policies we enact at home, as well as the actions we take abroad. But this one is different. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post, in covering Clinton's Tuesday night victory speech, recognized that she had characterized the coming campaign as a "national identity" election. When Barack Obama became the first African-American president, it was a historic milestone, just as the election of the first female president would be. On the one hand, in addition to what he represents by the mere fact of his presidency, Obama has long spoken about our national identity in a more inclusive way than other political figures. This has had a profound effect on the way many Americans -- in particular those who are members of minority groups -- understand their relationship to their country. Advertisement However, his 2008 opponent, John McCain, did not reject the idea of America as a place where we judge people, to paraphrase the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin or their faith. Remember that one of McCain's own supporters, at a rally less than a month before the election, declared to the crowd: "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not, uh -- he's an Arab." The Republican nominee took the microphone back, corrected the previous speaker, and praised his opponent as "a decent family man [and] citizen." Rather than heighten -- and use for his own political gain -- the fear of the 'other' that animates too many in our country, McCain did the exact opposite. In response, his own erstwhile supporters booed him for it and called out, in reference to then-Sen. Obama: "Terrorist!" Fast forward eight years, and ask yourself what Donald Trump would have done. Actually, we don't have to. Trump spent March and April of 2011 soaking up media attention as the country's birther-in-chief, taking advantage of the very same racial anxieties to make himself a major figure on the right. Trump's birther campaign, without question, helped lay the groundwork for his 2016 run by giving him credibility among those seeking a president who refuses to be "politically correct." His entire campaign rests on the notion that expressing bigotry is really just telling it like it is. When being questioned about his comments that he might not receive fair treatment from the "Mexican" judge presiding over the lawsuit filed against Trump University, his fraudulent scheme of a scam, the GOP nominee only doubled down: Advertisement Dickerson: Isn't there sort of a tradition, though, in America that we don't judge people by who their parents were and where they came from? Trump: I'm not talking about tradition -- I'm talking about common sense, OK? [snip] Dickerson: Yeah, I guess I'm just still confused how -- what his Mexican parents have to do with that. Let me -- Trump: Excuse me. I want to build a wall. I mean, I don't think it's very confusing. Dickerson: Well. Trump: Has nothing to do with anything except common sense. You know, we have to stop being so politically correct in this country. In other words, screw our tradition and our core values -- bear in mind that it took almost two centuries of fighting after we stated our belief in equality to finally enact civil rights and full voting rights into law --Trump would replace those traditions and values with "common sense." To Trump, fighting for equality really just equals being politically correct. And that's what we have to stop being, he says. Excuse me, indeed. Democrats offer a different approach. Our party is wrapping up a tough nomination battle, one that centered on substantive clashes between the candidates. But there was no difference on that most important core value: A commitment to equality. To return to Clinton's Tuesday speech, she drew a bright line underneath the fundamental contradiction between our understanding of national identity and Trump's: [Trump's] not just trying to build a wall between America and Mexico - he's trying to wall off Americans from each other. When he says, 'Let's make America great again,' that is code for, 'Let's take America backwards.' Back to a time when opportunity and dignity were reserved for some, not all. [snip] When Donald Trump says a distinguished judge born in Indiana can't do his job because of his Mexican heritage - or he mocks a reporter with disabilities - or calls women 'pigs'- it goes against everything we stand for. Because we want an America where everyone is treated with respect and where their work is valued. It's clear that Donald Trump doesn't believe we are stronger together. He has....denigrated Muslims and immigrants. He wants to win by stoking fear and rubbing salt in wounds....We teach our children that this is one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Not just for people who look a certain way or worship a certain way or love a certain way. For all. Indivisible. By contrasting Trump's bigotry and attempts to divide us with what America really stands for, Secretary Clinton has offered something more than merely a politically effective attack -- she's offered Americans a choice about how we want to define our nation. Barack Obama has laid the groundwork for this kind of approach by consistently and constantly defining America in the manner he has: As a country centered around the notions of the common good, unity, and empathy across lines of race, culture, religion, sexual identity and more, as well as the principles of equality and freedom. By emphasizing that Americans are Stronger Together, Hillary Clinton has placed that definition of our national identity at the heart of her campaign for the White House. Is Western classical music under threat? The genre known as classical, serious, or art music has certainly suffered from being labeled elitist and inaccessible. Discussions about challenges to art music posed by government funding cuts and the allure of social media would become irrelevant if a sworn enemy of all music gains ascendancy. The threat has emerged from political Islam, a radical ideology pushing to become mainstream. Radicalized preachers such as British teacher Ibrahim Hewitt believe music is immoral and un-Islamic. The hardline Islamist established a religious primary school, where music and dancing are forbidden. In Leicester, an Islamic school posted a sign warning: "Music sows hypocrisy in the heart like water causes seeds to grow in soil." Advertisement Thousands of Muslim parents have withdrawn their children from music lessons in British schools because they believe learning to play an instrument is anti-Islamic. Most of those parents had no previous knowledge of a religious prohibition on music, and may have been persuaded by extremist imams from Pakistan. In contrast, the mystical Islamic Sufis of Pakistan and India belong to a religious denomination characterized by music. In 2011, poster campaigns in the London boroughs of Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets and Newham announced sharia-controlled zones where Islamic rules would be enforced. The bright yellow flyers featured stop signs with images and titles banning alcohol, gambling, porn, prostitution, drugs and smoking. The largest sign was captioned "No Music or Concerts". A ban on music is a core tenet of violent Islamist groups. When Islamic State took control of Raqqa in northeast Syria, they first imposed full-face veiling on women and then banned music. For the supposed crime of listening to pop music, Islamic State beheaded a 15 year-old boy in Mosul, the jihadis' Iraqi capital. Paradoxically, violent Islamists have their own music in the form of nasheeds, or religious chanting a cappella by men. Although the genre predates them, Sunni insurgent groups developed battle and martyr chants, while Shia militias such as Hezbollah added strings and drums. The rousing choruses became symbols of jihadi culture and online recruitment propaganda. Advertisement In 2012, jihadist threats to music assumed prominence in northern Mali, where a civil war led to a takeover by Islamist forces that had backed the rebels. The region is famous for its troubadours known as griots, who transmit an oral heritage of history and social commentary in languid song. Over the centuries, they entertained at weddings, births and funerals, singing traditional songs and playing instruments such as the stringed ngoni and "talking drum". Before they were routed by the French, the jihadists banned Western music, beat people for listening to all music and destroyed instruments and archives of cassettes. As traditional music was considered intrinsic to the wellbeing of the people, silencing the griots was a social tragedy. Other countries have suffered music bans thanks to armed jihadis. Afghanistan had a rich tradition containing Persian, Arab, Indian, Pashtun and Tajik influences. Music was central to family events. When the Taliban seized control in 1996, cassettes were prohibited, enforced by the usual beatings by the "morality" police. Only religious chants or panegyrics to fallen militants were permitted. Somali writer Bashir Goth says mullahs are pursuing a jihad against his nation's traditional music, justifying their views with Salafi and Wahhabi quotes, even though no Islamic texts expressly prohibit music. Their campaign against Somali music has convinced many of the country's musicians and broadcasters that music is sinful and forbidden. Al-Shabab, the dominant Islamist militia in Somalia, has banned school bells in the town of Jowhar, claiming they clashed with Islam. Fellow travellers on the jihadi road, Hizbul Islam, intimidated Mogadishu radio broadcasters who defiantly replaced songs with the sounds of horses, roosters and guns. Advertisement If Islamist extremists were free to extend their influence and control in the West, they would surely attempt the demise of Western music, already evident in London borough poster campaigns. The destruction would include art music, and with it, one of the jewels in the crown of Western civilization. Ida Lichter is the author of The Secret Magic of Music: Conversations With Musical Masters When I woke up and heard the news that 50 people in a nightclub were murdered by a gunman in Orlando, Florida my heart sunk. Then I heard that the club was gay and that the murderer was of Arab-American descent and publicly declared his allegiance to ISIS and my heart kind of caved in. What can be said about such senseless violence? This is the kind of hatred that usually engenders further hatred. One of the first things I heard on the news was the father being quoted about his son's intense homophobia and the fact that the killing spree "had nothing to do with religion." Advertisement Being the kind of person I am -- I immediately thought it had everything to do with religion. "People in churches and mosques need to think about what they are teaching," I said to my partner over breakfast. "It's not that different," I said, "Christians, Jews, and Moslems have the same common ancestor Abraham who is in the Hebrew Bible." I read the Bible last year or so as research for a novel -- and learned a few things about religion. I learned that modern culture is rife with biblical references. I also learned, to my surprise, that the Bible is not that anti-gay. I did find it to be extremely misogynist and violent, but I thought the anti gay parts were really taken out of context and greatly amplified. If you listen to Sarah Palin, for example, (who probably never read the actual Bible) you'd think the entire thing was an anti-gay tract. My partner and I have been together for 31 years and you would think that there are no surprises, but I could tell she was impressed with my recently-acquired religious knowledge. She is a deep thinker. "Of course it has to do with religion," she replied. "Where do people learn about hate?" Advertisement Then I saw the photograph of the murderer (who was killed by authorities). To my mind, he looked gay. When I learned that he was married and had fathered a child or children, it still didn't change my mind. There is a good chance that a man with that kind of rage inside him who specifically targeted a gay club and professed his repulsion at gay men holding hands and kissing on the street, was acting out in suppression of his deepest desires. In full disclosure, I think far more people are gay who say they are gay. I have known more than a few gay men who specialize in straight married men. It works for these guys who don't want to end up in a relationship. In fairness, I have known more gay men who are healthy enough to avoid men who identify as heterosexual. And through the years, I have rarely met lesbians who are interested in women who are married to men. I'm not saying that all closeted gay people -- or those who are bisexual and secretive -- are gay bashers. But it is true that plenty of homophobic hate crimes, including murder, have been committed by men who can't handle their own same-sex tendencies as was documented in American Honor Killings (2013, Akashic Books). Granted there are also other issues at play here including gun control and the availability of automatic weapons colliding with mental health issues. In the interest of not responding to hatred with hatred, I immediately thought of the fact that we are a human family. We have more in common than not and often there is considerable overlap between identities. I spent the day reading Guapa, a novel by Saleem Haddad (Other Press; New York; 2016). Advertisement In the novel, a man just under thirty living in an un-named middle eastern country, falls in love with another man and is walked in by his conservative grandmother with whom he lives. The narrator is not from a religious family but he is grappling with homophobia in a deeply religious culture that includes check points, revolution, and a deep connection to family. When the narrator reflects back on his adolescence, he gives voice to the same sentiments, unfortunately, that most young people feel regardless of their country of origin: "I was different from everyone else. I was doomed to be alone. I was going to spend eternity rotting in hell." The narrator attends college in America -- where he also grapples with homophobia and what he describes as his "Arabness" and all that that entails. Advertisement When he comes back to the Middle East and moves back in with his grandmother who raised him, he finally falls in love only to face more struggles. The narrator writes of his lover: "He was right when he told me once that he had one foot in and one foot out. It was a balancing act, and he navigated it so effortlessly. But I was his one foot out, wasn't I? In fact, he made sure I never met his mother. He introduced me to his father once, a few years ago at the wedding of his distant cousins. I remember being surprised at how tall his father was, but like Taymour he was very handsome." Judging from my reaction to the Orlando massacre, if I ever had any doubt, the LGBTQ community is home to me. I agree with President Obama when he said that gay clubs are meant to be safe spaces. I remember the days when gay clubs were not out in the open and when people of the same sex did not dare to hold hands in public. It doesn't matter that I haven't been in a gay club in a good ten or fifteen years. It doesn't matter if those murdered were all young men who I will never meet. I grieve for them and their families. The massacre is an American tragedy. It is a nightmare for the LGBTQ community. And it is a problem for people of faith. I was raised secular, but in recent years became a Unitarian Universalist -- a faith that really does embrace all people, including those of us who are LGBTQ. Advertisement Being part of a religion occasionally puts me in contact with people from other religions who are not so welcoming. I usually don't mind when I am the LGBTQ spokesperson -- and I do understand that being myself and being out can change hearts and minds. Religion is still evolving. I am sometimes astounded that traditional religions are changing at all -- such as the time I drove by a church in my neighborhood and did a double take at a "Happy Pride" sign outside. But other times, I am appalled that many religions are not changing fast enough and the young people raised in them feel compelled to leave. As we can see from the Orlando massacre, religion is not, in fact, changing fast enough for young people and their families who are found in all religions and denominations. Where does hatred come from? This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email. After 50 people were killed early Sunday morning in Orlando, Fla., in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, some are calling for stricter gun restrictions, particularly for those suspected of being terrorists. Recent measures in Congress to restrict access to guns, including an amendment in December to stop suspected terrorists from legally buying guns, have failed. Both North Dakota senators, John Hoeven and Heidi Heitkamp, voted against that legislation. The suspected shooter, Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 50 and injuring 53 more before being killed by police. In December, the Senate rejected two pieces of legislation that targeted access to guns. The first was a bill that would have denied people on the terrorist watch list the ability to purchase guns, which, was defeated 45-54. The second would have enacted universal background checks for those purchasing guns. That measure failed 48-50. Hoeven and Heitkamp voted against both pieces of legislation. In casting her votes, Heitkamp was the lone Democratic senator to vote in opposition to the proposals, which were tied to a bill to repeal much of the Affordable Care Act and strip federal funding to Planned Parenthood. In a statement to the Williston Herald on Sunday, Heitkamp said she would wait to hear more details about the shooting. "My heart goes out to the victims, their loved ones and the city of Orlando in the wake of this unspeakable act of hatred and terror against the LGBT community," Heitkamp said. "In the coming days and weeks, I'll be closely monitoring information that unfolds to make sure the U.S. Congress and our federal law enforcement agencies are doing everything in their power to support the city of Orlando, and to keep all our communities -- from Florida to North Dakota -- strong and safe." Heitkamp's vote in December was consistent with her 2013 vote against expanding background checks. That same year, she supported an amendment to criminalize straw purchasing and gun trafficking, as well as to improve the availability of records to the criminal background check. In December, Hoeven said the measure to block gun sales to suspected terrorists lacked "judicial oversight or due process." He supported an amendment to provide "an expedited process so that law enforcement can prevent a suspected terrorist from getting a weapon" but also protects constitutional rights of those who may have been wrongly put on a watch list, he said. Don Canton, a spokesman for Hoeven, reiterated that stance after Sunday's mass shooting. "Sen. Hoeven supports preventing terrorists from obtaining guns," Canton said in a statement to the Herald. "He voted for an alternative proposal, sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), which would have allowed the federal government to stop the sale of a firearm and give the government time to bring the case before a judge to determine whether or not the sale should be denied. That approach allows judges to review the case and preserves due process for law-abiding citizens." That vote back in December came a day after 14 people were killed in a massacre in San Bernadino, Calif. The two Democratic senators from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, voted in favor of the federal legislation back in December. "This is a sad day for Orlando and a sad day for America," Klobuchar said in a statement. "Innocent people were slaughtered by a man who was motivated by hate and terror and extremism. I stand with the LGBT community today, and my prayers are with the victims. We must root out terrorism abroad and at home." Sen. Robert Casey, D-Penn., said he would announce a bill Monday that would ban anyone convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime from owning a firearm. Current law only prohibits those with felony convictions from buying or possessing a gun, but those convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes are not. There's clearly no limit to what American gun junkies and their political dealers will tolerate. There's no limit to the number of dead they're ready to trade for their right to own automatic assault rifles. It wasn't 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus. It wasn't 26 first graders and teachers in Sandy Hook. Fourteen Innocent Californians weren't enough. My guess is that 50 or more Orlando nightclub goers won't matter either. There will never be a death toll high enough to wake up America's gun lovers and the politicians who have the power to end the senseless carnage. As commentator Dan Hodges once tweeted: "In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the U.S gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over." Advertisement Somehow, easy access to mass killing machines is more important than the lives of those children, and the innocent adults killed day after day. Somehow, so many of our politicians are more concerned with appeasing the gun lobby and preserving the Second Amendment than protecting their citizens. The AR-15 assault rifle was used in the Orlando shooting. The AR-15 assault rifle was used by Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook. James Holmes used an AR-15 style rifle to shoot up a movie theater. The San Bernadino killers used a version of the AR-15. The NRA says ordinary Americans use the AR-15 for target practice, for hunting, for self-defense. Is any of that more important than the welfare of innocent people? To all the gun advocates in Congress "praying" for the victims on television and social media, your hollow, disingenuous prayers are downright offensive. And they're worth less than zero. Those of us who believe guns are destroying this country don't want your condolences - we want you to be accountable. Those of us who are parents of children growing up in this frightening environment want you to get off your irresponsible asses and do something real. Make something happen. As Congressman Chris Murphy tweeted, "Congress's heartless, intentional silence has become a quiet message of endorsement to would be shooters contemplating mass murder." Advertisement I would argue that Congress has blood on its hands every time there is another mass shooting in the U.S. Our representatives and senators are cowards for standing by, waiting for the next attack, and then writing it off with a prayer and a photo-op visit to a funeral. You can blame Islamic extremists, unstable men, racist men. You can talk all you want about mental health. But none of the shooters would have been successful if they didn't have automatic assault rifles. In the Orlando attack, the alleged perpetrator was American. He had access to guns because he lives in America, the country with the highest number of mass killings. Yes, it was a terror attack. And yes, terrorists have attacked other nations, like France. But other countries do not suffer from domestic mass killings on a regular basis. What's the difference between the U.S. and all of these other nations? Do we really think we have that many more unstable people living here? No. The difference is access to guns. It's a straight line, and if you can't follow it, you shouldn't be able to hold elected office. Psychopaths, mentally ill Americans, men and women compelled to do Isis's bidding - they all know how to follow the straight line from guns to death. It's easy. They steal them from their mothers, or get their friends to buy them, or they buy them themselves. Legally. With ease. Advertisement Omar Mateen, the Orlando nightclub shooter, reportedly had a valid Florida firearms license, despite the fact that he was on the FBI's watch list in 2013 and 2014. That is obscene. BANGKOK, THAILAND - JUNE 13: A black ribbon sits on the floor amidst candles during a vigil for the attack at the gay club in Orlando, on Monday, June 13, in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo by Dario Pignatelli/Getty Images) Why is it always "too soon" to talk about how to stop gun violence? In 1996 another shooting massacre by another security guard killed 35 people, the largest mass shooting in the country's history. By that evening, the prime minister met with advisers and "discussed immediately the possibility of changing the law." Politicians "made gun control the focus of a nation in mourning." Within 12 days, gun laws were changed. This was not the United States. It was Australia. And Australia has not had a mass shooting since. In the United States, we post about our "thoughts and prayers" on Facebook, and we change our profile pictures but it's always "too soon" to have the difficult political discussion about preventing another shooting. Advertisement Last night I was unfriended by another mom on Facebook because, in response to her "thoughts and prayers" for the victims, I suggested that we should all check out what the presidential candidates promise to do to stop gun violence. For some, it will always be "too soon" for us to demand more from our political leaders in the aftermath of a massacre. We need to keep talking anyway. Here's what you can say to another mom, a family member, a politician -- anyone who tells you that it's "too soon" to demand a conversation, too soon to work hard to prevent the next shooting, too soon to expect more from our politicians, too soon to do anything except come together to heal: We have a mass shooting in this country nearly every day -- 133 so far during the first 164 days of 2016. If we can't have the hard political discussion about guns in the immediate aftermath of a shooting, then we'll never have it. Because we're always living in the aftermath of mass shootings. Advertisement We need to listen to the victims of gun violence and their families. When I see the victims and their friends and families on television or read interviews, their desires are almost always the same: They want their family member or friend back, but short of that, they want this never to happen again. They want justice now. A mom who was interviewed for ABC News, still waiting to hear about her son the morning after the Orlando massacre, wouldn't end the interview without asking, "Can we do something with the assault weapons so that we can stop this club [of parents of shooting victims] from getting any new members? I beg all of you please..." The opponents of gun control do not want us to have this conversation at all, and that's why they tell us it's "too soon" to talk about policy change. The day after the Orlando shooting, it wasn't too soon to talk about terrorism. Or ISIS. Or, in the case of Donald Trump, about banning Muslims from entering the country. But somehow it was too soon to talk about the one thing that these shootings have in common: guns. We don't use this standard for other types of tragedies. After plane crashes and natural disasters, we are able to talk about the causes and about accountability for these tragedies at the same time that we honor the victims. Other countries have acted quickly to start to change gun laws in the aftermath of large mass shootings. It's never too soon to talk about changing public policy to prevent another mass shooting, and the next time someone tells you that it is, tell them you won't stay silent anymore. We can empathize with the victims; we can think and pray; we can help them and their families to heal. But we can also demand more from our leaders, from the American public, and from ourselves than just thoughts and prayers. Advertisement In a tweet, Democratic congressman Jim Himes said that he will not attend another "moment of silence" for gun victims. He said, "Our silence does not honor the victims. It mocks them." He said that God will ask us, "How did you keep my children safe?" I watched the Clinton and the Trump speeches on Friday, June 11. Clinton at Planned Parenthood, Trump at the Faith and Freedom conference. Both in DC. So many points to fact check. But one thing that Trump said that got my immediate attention was his reference to "Christian-Americans. " Once again, Mr. Trump demonstrated his core conviction that Americans can be easily, carelessly, hyphenated...this time according to our religious beliefs. In a speech given before an audience of men and women with deep and firm religious foundations, foundations upon which I'm sure are built rich lives of charity and fellowship, why would Trump carefully, pointedly, put political parentheses around just one category of Americans of faith? Are not Jewish-Americans, and Muslim-Americans, and Buddhist-Americans also trying to live lives of freedom and faith? Don't Americans who embrace Shinto, Tao, or Sikh ideals as spiritual foundations also aspire to lives of freedom and faith? Here is my disclaimer: I am a Christian. I am an American. I do not believe in conflating the two. My faith and my nationality cannot be defined by a hyphen. Americans cannot be defined by hyphens. In America, we do not say, "I am a farmer-American, or a banker-American, or a nurse-American, or a mother-American, or a soldier-American." I am not a writer-American. Even when a hyphen seems imperative, we need to resist its application to our conditions; a disabled veteran does not need to be further defined, or possibly stigmatized, by a piece of ambiguous punctuation. Advertisement Trump's use of the hyphen in Christian-American inserts just such an ambiguity into the national conversation about the role of religion in politics. His goal at the Faith and Freedom conference was crystal clear: to lift up Christians as a special, preferred, subset of all Americans of faith. In doing so, he purposefully swept the rest of the nation's religions into pile of remnants...leftover material he has decided is not necessary to the fabric of his version of the American quilt, a quilt that is overwhelmingly white and featureless. A quilt that serves only to cover Trump's gilded bed. I certainly don't believe that my Christian faith deserves elevation above others, or has somehow earned the right to be viewed as politically exclusive of all other faiths. What brand of arrogant would that be? Trump's brand, I guess. Mr. Trump cannot seem to articulate a personal value system that accepts or, at the very least, acknowledges, the value systems of others. He demonstrates over and over again a reluctance to accept the possibility--no, the reality-- that Americans, in the main, reject classification; that we abhor being pigeonholed by race, creed, origin, social and economic standing, and religion. Even when I factor in the history of the audience to whom he was speaking -- devoutly Christian, deeply conservative -- it was clear to me that Mr. Trump, in those simple two-words, Christian-American, does not get who we are, what we stand for, and more importantly, what we will not stand for. He had an opportunity, in a speech keyed to Freedom and Faith, to show the bigness of his spirituality. Instead, he once again illustrated the smallness of his mind. As the full impact of the attack in Orlando sets in, it is time to review the fundamentals. Most of this article was published two months ago but the essence remains critical and applicable. Today television anchors and commentators on the news networks pontificate about the group identity of Omar Saddiqui Mateen, the shooter who caused in excess of 100 casualties. Whether allegiance was pledged to ISIS, al Qaeda, or any other organization is not germane. Mateen was a radical Islamic terrorist, who like, Syed Rizwan Farook in San Bernardino, intentionally perpetrated violent acts against citizens of their country. The similarities in these cases are apparent and of concern. These two men were American citizens by birth. They had been raised and educated in this country and appeared to have assimilated into our society. Both Mateen and Farook had been employed for several years in positions of trust and passed background checks. It appears that it was later in life that they became disenfranchised and sought violent reprisals against innocent civilians. Their weapons of choice were assault-style rifles supported by semiautomatic handguns. Uniquely, Mateen twice had been investigated by the FBI for possible terrorist sympathies for which he was subsequently cleared. Barring any flagging action he was able to legally purchase the weapons he used to murder dozens of victims. This shortfall represents an endemic issue when treating terrorism as a crime. The ultimate issue is that we must quit treating radical Islamic terrorism as a thing and recognize it as a concept that transcends geographic or formal organizational boundaries. Advertisement Among the pundits quickly speaking about the attack were Juliette Kayyem, a former Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Homeland Security, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Kayyem noted that Mateen was not inspired by foreign events, as he referenced the Tsarnaev brothers and the Boston bombing incident in his 9-1-1 call but did not mention Paris or Brussels. Senator Rubio stated this was "the new face of terrorism." Both are wrong. Forget about geographic boundaries as the defining parameter of terrorist attacks. It is the act itself, fomented in nonlocal ideology that constitutes terrorism. Therefore, it should not be categorized as foreign or domestic, as it is concept-based, and it certainly is not new. This horrific Sunday morning event certainly dispelled a fundamental myth incessantly perpetuated by the NRA. There was a "good guy with a gun" present, a uniformed law enforcement officer, who initially engaged Mateen. He was quickly joined by two other officers, and an intense firefight ensued. The casualties prove unequivocally that their "good guy with a gun" presence did not deter the "bad guy with a gun." At the Orlando club, Pulse, there was the visible presence of armed security, but that clearly was insufficient to stop the attack. As the pundits kept referring to Pulse as a soft target, one must wonder how much security is enough. The consummate question then becomes what price in personal freedoms are we willing to pay for enhanced security? There have been foreign engagements with similar attributes. In the wake of bombings in Brussels the headlines blare out condemnation for those who left Belgium to fight for ISIS in Syria, Iraq, or other destination. The Belgian Government estimates that over 500 men answered the call, and at least 118 of them have returned home bringing with them expertise in terrorism and suicidal indoctrination. The AP reports that a wave of 400 terrorist are set to attack in Europe. Conventional wisdom assumes they have they once had allegiance to their home state but became radicalized from abroad. This thinking is fundamentally flawed and we need to stop talking about foreign fighters. These are jihadists without borders, bound only to their destructive beliefs, not country of origin. While nationalism prevails in some areas of the world, it is not universal or supreme. A decade ago I noted that the nation-state was a failing concept, albeit a tenacious one. Assisted by information technology, groups now form based on ideology, not geographic happenstance at birth. The following first was published nearly a year ago, but is even more relevant today. Advertisement Jihad Without Borders: There are no Foreign Fighters For years there have been news reports addressing the presence of thousands of foreign fighters engaged in various battles. Promulgated by official sources citing those figures from al Qaeda and ISIS actions Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and countries in northern Africa, the media obligingly carry forth this misconception. At the heart of the matter is a fundamental lack of understanding of contemporary conflict. One major problem is the definition of what constitutes war. Over the last half century the word war has been terribly abused. Officially war is a state of armed conflict between autonomous organizations, such as nation-states or coalitions of such organizations. It is generally characterized by extreme collective aggression, destruction, and usually high mortality. Broadly used as a metaphor, currently war can refer to any physical, psychological or even contextual conflict. Examples range from the ill-conceived war on drugs to wars on obesity, poverty, women, a variety of diseases, and host of other inconveniences. Post 9/11 the U.S. announced a Global War on Terror while seemingly failing to acknowledgement that terror was a means to an end, not an objective that could be defeated. The advent of the all-volunteer military forces of the U.S. has distanced and shielded the American public in general from active, integral involvement in any of our conflicts of the past half century. Lost in the discussion is the notion of wars of national survival such as was experienced in World War II. Also conflated was the notion that wars were about killing as opposed to imposition of will upon an adversary. The conventional use of the term foreign fighters refers to any person who comes to an area in conflict from outside the geographic boundaries of the fighting and in which they were not native born. Notably the term is only used as a designation of enemy combatants and does not apply to U.S./UN/NATO/ or other coalition fighters even though they were not born there either. Unfortunately this American-dominant view of what constitutes war, as regarding armed conflict, is based on an anachronistic idea in which combatants were born in a specific geographic area and thus have innate allegiance to that country. This emotionally based concept has engendered wide-spread support with most citizens of the heterogeneously constructed society in the United States. That is somewhat incongruent since except for Native Americans, the vast majority of the current population immigrated here at some point in the last two hundred or so years. Though not often willing arrivals, today even most African Americans consider the U.S to be their national origin. Totally ingrained in the public psyche, the notions of American values and loyalty, as if unambiguous, are cornerstones of political rhetoric. Advertisement Since American education is shockingly remiss in both geography and history, many citizens are unaware of how borders were established in the majority of the world. The reality is that most geographic boundaries in the world today were imposed by colonial powers based on their self-interests, not those of the indigenous inhabitants. Thus, as geographic devolution has occurred and is continuing in many areas, I have argued in other publications that the nation-state is a failing concept. From time immemorial most combatants effectively have been pawns of elite power structures that used a variety of methods to raise armed forces. Conscription and mercenary measures have often been functional as has the psychological appeal of duty to a cause. Most of the recruitment efforts assume the neophyte has some level of allegiance to the flag under which they engage in combat. From a grunt's-eye view, military leaders have long known that in combat soldiers fight for their buddies, not for any altruistic endeavors. Jihad has been a tenet of Islam since its inception in the 7th century. While some Muslims consider jihad as a psychological or inner struggle, the widely-held contemporary understanding is a violent confrontation based on ideology. That is, jihad is viewed as a holy war, waged against infidels or apostates, and considered by participants as a religious duty. While some sources argue that the application of jihad by elements such as al Qaeda and ISIS are a misinterpretation of the Muslim faith, the reality is that they are, and will continue to be seen by the rest of the world as the most visible and dangerous exponents of Islam. As the U.S. and other coalition forces have engaged in combat with these jihadists, they have attempted to define the conflict based on the previously established and externally accepted borders. Commanders repeatedly address enemy combatants originating from other areas as foreign fighters. While that may be a convenient way of thinking about the conflict, it is fundamentally wrong and needs to be corrected. Throughout the world today, the adversary is waging jihad and simply moves to the area of current conflict. Thus they fight for an ideology, not an allegiance to geography. Advertisement It is especially important for U.S. leaders to understand this issue, as jihad has become indigenous to America. The attacks of 9/11 may have been executed by Saudi nationals, but other incidents, such as those carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan at Ft. Hood, Texas, clearly demonstrate that point. Nearly weekly news emerges of Americans supporting jihadists in a variety of ways. Some voice support or send assistance, while others travel to places like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen or Somalia to actively participate in combat. Then there are more than three and a half million Muslims living in the U.S. and a Pew poll found that about one-third of them support the violent terrorist actions. If only a small number of them act according to their beliefs, that means we can expect quite a number of attacks. These jihadist beliefs are endemic to a substantial subset of the Islamic religion and must be taken into account as autochthonous, not externally imposed. It is time to stop thinking of these activities as aberrations, but rather to understand they are part and parcel of a global conflict, one that will not soon end. Understanding the designations afforded individuals that commit violent acts is important as under current laws they directly impact the responses available. The public is still sensitive to the nationality of the perpetrators and whether they commit crimes versus acts of terrorism effectuate enigmatic prosecutorial constraints. The official definitions of acts and persons also regulate institutional authority for countering them; be that law enforcement, military, or other agencies. These are not academic considerations. I have noticed over the past months, that every time there is a mass shooting in America, persons who identify themselves as Christians, sometimes also as evangelicals, but not always, try to steer the conversation away from our gun culture. They have pointed to other countries as greater security risks than America, or have expressed their concerns about immigration, or just flat out deny that we have a gun problem in this country. So, as a lifelong Christian, I am coming out and saying out loud, "WE HAVE A GUN PROBLEM!!! Why do some followers of the Prince of Peace think it is more important to protect the right of someone to buy an assault rifle than it is to protect the rights of people to not be shot by a stranger? Our politicians are inept and scared, and will do nothing to raise the level of debate about guns. Donald Trump, as expected, blames President Obama for the Orlando shooting. Hillary Clinton has made some gentle remarks about our problem with guns, but does anyone think she will really come out and advocate for banning assault rifles? As a Christian, I believe that the right to live free from threat of attack comes before the right of someone to buy a machine gun just because they can. The NRA and it's insane leader has convinced many Americans that any move to tighten gun laws, or even to close gun law loopholes, or even to make guns safer is an attack on the Constitution itself. Jesus was a prophet, he spoke truth to power. He advocated for the powerless and took on bullies. Try as some folks will, one cannot take his words and make them advocate for eye-for-eye killing, as the NRA means when it states, "The only remedy for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." How many of the victims in Orlando died in the crossfire when the good guys went after the bad guy? I don't believe the gun culture will improve in America, because the power lies with those who value the status quo. But since when was that a reason for Christians to remain silent, or worse, to join those who want the gun culture to thrive? Christianity, at its heart, calls for radical unselfishness. I may have to give up something to enhance the common good. Perhaps I need to eat less, pollute less, spend less free time watching TV and, instead, work to help others. Maybe, just maybe, in order to work to eliminate the frequency of mass murder in America I need to admit that our gun culture is not only unhealthy, but also at odds with the message of the Gospel. Why is that so hard for many Christians to do? Now that we have done the Memorial Day Confederate flag burning and burial across the country two years in a row, one might think that perhaps it is time to consider a more peaceful moment of reconciliation, emotional transcendence, and patriotic unity. But with the looming possibility of a Trump presidency and the call to "Make America Great Again," I think now is the time for a more aggressive creative engagement--not a truce. The recent hate mail, terroristic trolling, and even death threats tell me that we are at a point of no return, that we are at point beyond conversation, at a point of critical collective psychosis. Maybe my work seems confrontational and polarizing. Bingo! It is supposed to be! This war, this illness, started long ago, and the resistance to empathetic discourse is molecularly deep and the road to American togetherness is under major construction. To understand my point and see where irony meets insanity, read what my favorite fellow Americans, the Mystic Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, had to say about my Gettysburg exhibition back in 2004: This love note is actually tamer than most and indicates that even the KKK can write a press release. However, what I am finding is that responses to the response--the meta-responses-- are sometimes so much more interesting, powerful, and instructive than the response itself. We see this played out in the recent demonstrations against police brutality or the current Confederate symbol debate. And on a personal note, shortly after the KKK press release came out, a family member contacted me and asked if I were gay. I told him that if I were gay, he would not hear about it from a KKK website! I guess this chapter of the KKK was (as were other folks) a bit upset about my Drag Flag installation, featuring a Confederate flag redone in hot pink and lavender glitter and fur. The fabric was made of very shiny satin--and came with the stilettos, too. Advertisement The Drag Flag, premiering in Gettysburg in 2004 at the Schmucker Gallery in the exhibition Recoloration Proclamation: The Gettysbury Redress curated by Molly Hutton, was inspired by watching hours and hours of Civil War reenactments. I was drawn to the reenactors' close attention to detail, especially with the uniforms, which got me thinking about approaching the Confederate flag in a different way. Before, I had engaged with the flag as a symbol to be remixed into my cultural terms or brought into relationships with other collaboratively evil symbols (i.e., the noose). But what emerged was a subversive inspiration to make the flag pretty, or even sexy, if such a thing is possible. While there is sometimes an impulse to creatively resist pain or dress up trauma, I was ready to explore dramatic beautification as a way to counterbalance the negative association of the flag with white supremacy and the terror of violence. This was also a desire to break from the heaviness of the gallows piece and embrace the opportunity to play and experiment. This piece also led me to move from the seduction space to the scary space of forbidden intimacy: love. How could I intersect the complexity of the Confederate flag with the desire of human love, forgiveness, and re-union, especially when so much of the pro-Confederate flag defense seems to be selfish and sociopathic? And so I came up with the following piece: The Wedding. This installation was included in the group exhibition Afro-Provocation, curated by Cythnis Hollis at the Brogan Museum in 2007, and it explored the use of the marriage ceremony as a ritual device for the union of ideas: love and sovereignty (hence the hearts replacing the stars). This work was also shaped by the ubiquitous pro-Confederate phrase, "Heritage Not Hate," which seems problematic when you consider that heritage is based on white supremacy, with a few lynchings along the way. This installation became a call to embrace the idea of "Love Not Hate" as well as an invitation to the pro-Confederate movement to marry "Love" with "Heritage," going forward and looking backwards. Advertisement When the Vermont Marriage Equality Act of 2009 law was passed, I thought about how the Confederate states' rights argument ironically connected to a couple's right to marry and the complex relationship we have with governmental interference. Even so, we must be consistently critical of a government trespassing on the space and sovereignty of consenting adults, and equally critical of treasonous elements that hide behind the mask of "rights" as means of perpetuating human injustice. The Wedding installation, along with the public debate on same-sex marriage, inspired the creation of the performance piece, The Wedding: A Civil Re-Union. This performance piece features me officiating the marriage of two soldiers: one Confederate and one Union. It is set to be staged and broadcast live from City Hall in downtown San Francisco on Sunday, June 19th - "Juneteenth," the holiday that commemorates the emancipation of slaves from throughout the Confederate South. Following the wedding, there will be an AfroDixieRemixes listening reception at a jazz club in Oakland featuring 13 black music versions of the song "Dixie," with response poetry hosted by the Oakland Poetry Slam. A week before the wedding ceremony, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens, by way of their Pollination Pod, and I will host "The Confederate - Union Engagement: A Water Toast and Proposal Party." This performance is a part of the This is What I Want Festival, curated by Tessa Wills at Fort Mason Art Center, a former military outpost. The central theme of the toast is water: a force of life, truth, cleansing, and forgiveness. The performance will explore the complexity and synthesis of desire born out of conflict and nurtured by water. This work is the final element of my 15-year project: Recoloration Proclamation, which has gone from SoHo to Harlem; from Gettysburg to Columbia, South Carolina; from burning and burying the Confederate flag all across the US, to a performative same-sex wedding in San Francisco on Juneteenth. I hope this journey, concluding with this wedding as a reunion, inspires an aggressive engagement to embrace art over violence, future over past, and love over fear. For more info on The Wedding and The Water Toast and to view these events streamed live, go to johnsimsprojects.com/TheWedding and thisiswhatiwantfestival.com/watertoast "For me, founding Big Apple Circus was an act of love," says the legendary Paul Binder. For founders Michael Christensen and Paul Binder, that love began as jugglers on the streets of Europe. Their talents would take them from London to Istanbul, eventually landing them in the Nouveau Cirque de Paris. "Being in the circus ring gave me such a charge of energy," says Binder. "I was amazed at the spirit it conjured in me and the audience; and I wanted to bring that back home.". Home was New York City, where in 1977 the juggling duo would establish the Big Apple Circus. "From the beginning, our mission was to be a world-class performing arts institution and simultaneously serve the communities in which we perform." For nearly four decades Big Apple Circus has fulfilled its mission of thrilling patrons of every stripe and walk of life with their special brand of intimate fun, laughter, and artistic excellence; and as is its mission, that circus magic extends beyond the confines of the big top but well into the heart of the community with their various programs. Clown Care ensures patients are prescribed a hearty dose of laughter and companionship. Circus After School, one of the first programs created by the Big Apple Circus, gives at-risk youth an opportunity to learn the benefits of discipline, teamwork, and confidence through circus arts. Vaudeville Caravan makes its way to nursing facilities and never fails to rekindle the wonder of the circus in the hearts of its residents. Circus For All makes it possible for tens of thousands who might otherwise be unable to attend Big Apple Circus to acquire a ticket to the show. Circus of the Senses allows the visually and hearing impaired, as well as, those with various disabilities to experience the show through state of the art technology, American Sign Language, and "touch sessions." "I realize what a difference we're making here," says Big Apple Circus headliner Jenny Vidbel. "We have accommodations that allow many to feel very much a part of the experience.". Advertisement My family and I have enjoyed many productions under that famous tent at Lincoln Center, and on every occasion the feeling has been one of merriment and enchantment with lots of popcorn and a few rounds of cotton candy. In fact, during our most recent outing my daughter got to take on star clown Joel Jeske in a bout of musical chairs. Poor Joel never had a chance. Certainly being Ringmaster of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey has its perks, as I get to also enjoy the company of these wonderful artists following the show. However I, like so many people who enjoy this one ring extravaganza, didn't realize until recently that Big Apple Circus only exists because of the generosity of the public and corporate donors. "People think we're too much fun to be a non-profit," says Executive Director William Weiss. But, alas the fun needs funds if it is to continue to create world-class shows and serve the public. "We need to raise $2 million before the end of July," says Paul Binder. The circus continues to feel the ripple effects of the economic crash of 2008. A number of its corporate donors who would buy entire shows annually have simply vanished. There's also been a series of unforeseen events that have left this storied institution in financial distress. I know this kind of distress intimately. As a proud alumnus of The Boys Choir of Harlem, also a New York artistic treasure, I can recall how financial distress seemed to loom over us. Year after year, it seemed the Choir simply could not meet its needs until suddenly it was gone. A song of hope for so many is no more. Such stories are far too common, particularly for artistic organizations that are vital for cultivating the communities they serve. There's a gaping wound that is created when such institutions cease to exist, and we are clearly not better off for it. Advertisement For Jenny Vidbel, it is not the possibility of losing her means of employment that troubles her. "Circus performers are survivors," says the third generation circus artist. "We can always find work and ways of supporting ourselves," she continues. "It's about losing almost 40 years of a family tradition. It's about having an opportunity to inspire taken away." One of those opportunities to inspire occurred at a performance not very long ago. One of the more intimate features of Big Apple Circus' most recent production, The Grand Tour, were pony rides following the show, presided over by Jenny Vidbel. During one particular performance, Jenny, was approached by a mother whose autistic son desperately wanted to ride a pony. "He was very nervous, but he made his way onto the pony with me at his side," recalls Vidbel. "As he began riding around the ring this huge smile appeared on his face and he started to shout, 'Mom! I'm doing this! Yes! I am doing this!' That happened in the Big Apple Circus ring. I know we changed that child's life." East Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia. Photo Mark Godfrey/TNC By Justin Adams, Global Managing Director of Lands at The Nature Conservancy and Rizal Algamar, Indonesia Country Program Director at The Nature Conservancy Earlier this month, more than 1,000 people gathered for World Environment Day in Samarinda, the capital of Indonesia's East Kalimantan province. It was a moment -- shared by millions of people all over the world in different ways -- of reflection and action on the environment. In the run-up to the event, there had been serious flooding in the city caused by poorly-planned mining activities, and algal blooms that had damaged fish stocks for forest-dwelling people. In the previous months, six young people had died due to irresponsible practices by the mining industry, and this was highlighted in government audits reported during the event. Advertisement It was against this backdrop that leading government, community and corporate representatives agreed to work together to change how development occurs in the province -- under the umbrella of a "green growth compact" that builds on plans begun in 2010. A microcosm for the world's development challenges East Kalimantan is a microcosm for many of the world's development dilemmas, with its leaders grappling with the challenge of how to bring millions of people out of poverty without destroying the natural resources that local people and the local economy depend upon. It is a province on the frontline of sustainable development -- rich in forests, as well as huge coal, oil and gas reserves, and home to hundreds of thousands of village communities and endangered species such as orangutans. Both the UN system and national governments have recognized that achieving the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals will require overcoming sectoral and institutional boundaries and embracing a more integrated approach to growth. In East Kalimantan, there are already many commitments to a greener development path -- from different government departments and private sector players. In 2010, for example, the provincial government announced its intention to increase GDP by 80 percent by 2025, while simultaneously reducing deforestation-related carbon emissions by 80 percent, and achieving zero net deforestation. Alongside this, there are the commitments from palm oil and forestry companies -- such as the New York Declaration on Forests and the Indonesia Palm Oil Pledge. Advertisement These provide genuine cause for optimism, but if pursued separately, the goals will be much harder to reach. The challenge of working in such a complex landscape system requires high levels of co-operation- which of course takes time. It is this type of collaboration that lies at the heart of the Green Growth Compact that stakeholders agreed to work toward in Samarinda. Those who signed up to work toward the compact include many of those with existing commitments, and the list is long. Led by East Kalimantan's Governor Awang Faroek Ishak, the list includes: the provincial government, the national Ministry of the Environment and Forestry, six district heads, four universities, four natural resource companies, one customary leader, and two international non-governmental organizations and development agencies, including The Nature Conservancy. Green growth on a provincial scale Back in December, at COP 21 in Paris, East Kalimantan presented its vision for a sustainable development trajectory. It is an ambitious set of goals, but there are already many examples of progress that can still be improved and scaled up. Again, the list is long -- and involves all levels of society. It includes the Government's One Map policy which is aimed at improving governance of forest areas and land-use disputes; private sector commitments; the establishment of a 265,000-hectare orangutan corridor in the Wehea Forest; the progress made by the Forest Management Unit (or KPH in Indonesia) where forest management concessions are moving to a sustainable model; the jurisdictional models for low-carbon development in Berau, KutaiBarat; and the village green growth models. What happens in East Kalimantan in the next decade is significant for both the nation as a whole but also around the world in those regions experiencing similar challenges within this nexus. In the country at large, there is recognition that climate change is a national as well as an international issue. Indonesia is expected to be one of the most severely affected countries, and there is increasing momentum for action from the government, such as the setting up of the Peatland Restoration Agency in January, and the renewed focus on developing nationally-determined contributions for emissions reduction as part of the Paris Agreement. East Kalimantan, in fact, will serve as a pilot for the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility -- the global partnership of governments, businesses, civil society and indigenous peoples. If successful, it will serve as a demonstration of how results-based finance can support the transition to a low-carbon model for economic development. Advertisement The Compact targets equally ambitious goals -- and on a much bigger scale. Its success will depend in large part on strong leadership by the provincial government and its ability to catalyse effective co-operation among diverse groups and add value to all the existing initiatives and commitments. The Nature Conservancy is ready to be part of that process, having been present in East Kalimantan since 2001, working with local communities, the private sector and all levels of government. Equally, there are many development partners, such as WWF, GIZ and GGCI, who will need to work together to deliver on these goals. Action at the sub-national level is increasingly seen as a key component of climate action, particularly in tropical forests countries. East Kalimantan is gearing up to be a leading example of what integrated action across all sectors of the economy -- and that links public and private sector action -- can do. The Green Growth Compact is a great vehicle to coordinate the action. The compact will be discussed at the upcoming REDD+ Exchange event in Oslo. I am Pulse. I am of Muslim heritage. And I am Pulse Night Club. In spirit, I am today marching in a pride parade, with tears in my eyes and a great big rainbow-colored star and crescent solidarity flag in my hand. Orlando, city of the magic kingdom, has become the city of nightmares where young people were mowed down en masse by a gunman on a dance floor. 50 people are dead, 53 injured, some grievously. Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar III, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, and Juan Ramon Guerrero have fallen. We don't yet know the other names but we mourn them, each and every one. The alleged perpetrator is Omar Mateen, a heavily armed Afghan-American security guard with a purported history of contacts with a suicide bomber and comments in support of terror groups. Many of the victims are our LGBT brothers and sisters, who will never dance again, who will never again greet the families now desperately searching for them. Early reports suggest that Mateen pledged allegiance to "Islamic State" while launching his shooting spree. We will know more in the days to come. I am grateful to those who are righteously rushing in to defend Muslims from the inevitable backlash and deplorable discrimination in the shell-shocked wake of this massacre. However, I would also ask them not to do so by downplaying the harsh realities of Islamist political ideology and the way it purveys hatred against many groups, including gays. Advertisement If a suspected Christian fundamentalist had carried out an attack like this, liberal commentators would rightly be questioning how the rhetoric of some homophobic Christian leaders might have fueled the atrocity. As difficult as it is to do so appropriately in an atmosphere infused with discrimination against Muslims and terrifying Trumpism, if the Islamist inspiration of the Orlando murderer is confirmed, we will have to ask precisely the same questions. How has Islamist rhetoric inflamed homophobia and led to mass violence? Mateen's armed, murderous hate is neither better nor worse because he was a Muslim. It is simply lamentable, to be condemned vociferously, should not be imputed to others who share his identity categories, but must be dissected, analyzed and fought mercilessly. Ani Zonneveld, the head of Los Angeles based Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV) said today, "Let's get to the root of it: the homophobic mindset that led to this killing did not emerge out of a vacuum. Muslims for Progressive Values and others have been advocating for LGBTQI rights for many years against the homophobic teachings that are widespread in Muslim communities, and we as Muslims need to confront this insidious attitude. The fact is, there is no punishment for being homosexual in the Qur'an, nor did Prophet Muhammad persecute homosexuals." MPV's press release after the Orlando attack explained that, "While... every community struggles with homophobia, today it is abundantly clear why the American Muslim community needs to address homophobia in our own community and institutions. We must challenge divisive interpretations of Islam that may encourage those like the gunman in Orlando." Why is it that Muslim advocates of gay rights like MPV are not invited to be on TV in the wake of an event like this? My thoughts now are for the victims, their families, their fellow LGBT people, everyone at a pride march today, all of Orlando. Going forward, I am filled with dread, both at how the haters will try to use this event against Muslims generally, but also at how those pushing back against those haters will downplay the grim reality of Islamist ideology. We are now faced with a terrible and absurd "hate-off." There are the Christian homophobic bigots who tweeted that the terrorist was doing God's work. There are the anti-Muslim bigots who tweeted that this happened because of President Obama's alleged love for Islam. Some seemed to be struggling with whether they hated Gay people or Muslims more. (LGBT Muslims must then have had an especially rough day.) There can be no winner in the "hate-off" and we have to counter it with a principled commitment to equality. Advertisement But we cannot be tolerant of intolerance either, whoever's intolerance that may be. Tolerance of intolerance does not produce tolerance. We have to stand against the far right, whether Christian or Muslim, in the West or in Muslim majority contexts and without disappearing difficult realities behind politically correct platitudes, or making this all about gun control. (Certainly that is also a critical issue - how did a guy who had been twice been investigated by the FBI for terror-related concerns manage to buy an assault weapon?) We also have to grapple with the global reality of homophobia, including its manifestations in Muslim majority contexts, as magnified by Islamist ideology. Even the Muslim cleric who was invited to speak at the first official press conference held in Orlando today never mentioned that the victims were "LGBT" and never once used the word "gay." (Imagine the reverse situation and how Muslims might feel about that.) When I interviewed people of Muslim heritage working against extremism for a book called "Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism," those who most commonly felt they had to ask me not to use their names were lesbian or gay. They were very aware of the threat of Islamism and the danger posed by widespread prejudices. A queer Pakistani advocate said of her work, "If it got on anybody's radar and they decided they needed to do a jihad of some sort, it wouldn't take much." In the current environment, she worried not only about the Taliban but also about fundamentalist lone wolves, "some righteously indignant observant-in-his-own-head, very faithful Muslim person who says, 'Who are these bad women?' That's all it would take." Extremism has magnified the risk of such responses, she suggested, by putting forward "the legitimacy of violence as an honorable thing." One gay Iranian man I interviewed was so marked by the stigma he had faced that he whispered his entire interview even though it was given safely in exile. Four times, he had attempted suicide for his "family's honor." The heroic Junaid Jahangir challenged the attitudes that produce such outcomes in words that are deeply relevant today. "Based on the evolution of Muslim thought," he wondered, "would it be too much to ask thoughtful and rational members of the Muslim clergy to review the case of gays and lesbians based on the principles of compassion and fairness?" That is often difficult today because, as a journalist told me, homophobic aspects of tradition and totalitarian Islamic politics "reinforce each other." It is too easy to say as some have today with the best of intentions that this violence has nothing to do with religion or politics. In fact, though it is too early to say for certain, it seems likely the result of a terrible cocktail of regressive interpretations of religion, cultures of homophobia which are both universal and particular, the most extreme Islamist politics and the easy availability of weapons in the U.S. We will have to address every single one of these ingredients, without discrimination, but also without flinching. Advertisement Older workers with a disability face a double whammy: They're dealing with the stigma not only of disability but also of age. If they ask for accommodations on the job, they fear attention will be drawn to their age as well. The Americans with Disabilities Act protects the rights of workers to ask for accommodations at work to help them manage more easily. But research out of Oregon State University has found that older workers are less likely to ask for help, because they worry they'll be perceived as old instead, and that their disability is a result of their age. Other research has shown that people with disabilities refrain from requesting accommodations if they think coworkers would find the request "normatively inappropriate" -- meaning not in keeping with the office culture. For instance, an office environment like "The Big Short" or "The Social Network" is perceived as being much less likely to understand and tolerate a disability than would a nonprofit that prides itself on a more inclusive culture. Advertisement Research by David C. Baldridge and Michele L. Swift of Oregon State University's College of Business, published in the journal Human Resources Management, studied the effect of age on such requests. Workers' fear of seeming old, they found, may trump their fear of seeming to have a disability. For study purposes they focussed on a single disability, hearing loss. Their findings were based on an email survey of 242 workers ages 18 to 69, all of whom had developed hearing loss before age 18. Most had moderate to severe hearing loss. Age itself has a negative stereotype in many workplaces, including the perception of "lower productivity, resistance to change, reduced ability to learn, and greater cost," the authors wrote. "These stereotypes are often associated with fewer promotions, less training, lower performance ratings, and lower retention." But add disability to age and the stereotypes multiply. The older the person with a disability, the more likely they are to fear that others will attribute the request not to the disability, but to their age. "Simply put," the authors wrote, "people with disabilities appear to face a straightforward yet troubling question, 'If I ask for a needed accommodation, will I be better or worse off?'" Advertisement In their discussion, the researchers advised managers and human resources personnel to realize that while many older employees may be eligible for and would benefit from disability accommodation, "these employees might also be particularly reluctant to make requests," especially if they work in for-profit organizations or if the organization appears not to have others with disabilities. As we know, people are working longer and longer. And as the workforce ages, disability increases. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about 26 percent of those ages 65 to 74 are in the workforce, and the majority are full-time workers. That percentage is expected to increase as the baby boomers age. It's in a company's interest to have employees working at full capacity. If people are reluctant to ask for accommodations for a disability, their output and effectiveness are likely to suffer. Please share your workplace experiences in the comments section. Do you have a disability? Have you asked for accommodations? If not, why not. For more information about David Baldridge's studies of disability and the workplace, email him at David.Baldridge@bus.oregonstate.edu. For suggestions on workplace accommodations for hearing loss see HLAA's Employment Toolkit. A version of this post first appeared on AARP Health on June 3, 2016 Katherine Bouton is the author of Living Better With Hearing Loss: A Guide to Health, Happiness, Love, Sex, Work, Friends ... and Hearing Aids, and a memoir, Shouting Won't Help: Why I -- and 5o Million Other Americans -- Can't Hear You. Both available on Amazon.com. Advertisement Earlier on Huff/Post50: I remember watching an old episode of The Cosby Show when I was a kid. In it a young Rudy reads her parents a story that she wrote about a happy land where its residents were taken prisoner by an evil king. The mayor was honest, the families were selfless, the buildings were stable and the crops were plentiful. Laughter and joy were among the residents' favorite pastime. However, when the king and his people invaded their land, the residents who were used to kindness and living in peace were met with cruelty and hate. They were resistant to it at first, completely appalled at the evils which invaded their happy land. Eventually those evils left some residents hopeless and despondent while others began to join the corruption. The town's flower girl had enough. One day as the evil people were having a party, she marched right up to them and simply told them to stop. That was where the story ended. Rudy explained to her parents that after the flower girl said that, everything went back to normal. I wish life were that simple. Tragically, as a nation we are met with yet another mass murder that has taken the lives of 49 innocent human beings at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Among the confusion and anger are selfless others offering support in the form of prayers, financial contributions and blood donations among other things. As usual I've taken to social media to get updates and see people's responses. Advertisement "We just need to stop all of this hatred and love more." "Let's all try and get rid of the hatred and violence." "Let's do our best to spread love." "Stop the hate." I wish it were all this simple as much as I wish I could walk out into the world and say "stop it" just like the flower girl did in that fairytale episode of The Cosby Show. I'm not sure any of us really has a grasp on what it means to stop hating as much as I'm not sure we know what it means to spread love. Is spreading love as simple as being nice? What would that entail exactly? While there is something commonsensical about respecting another human being, I don't think any of us realizes the task that's ahead of us to combat hatred within ourselves simply because it goes against our human nature. In the Bible, this passage in Romans Ch. 7 illustrates this inner tension. "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it." Our intentions may be one thing, but we have to acknowledge that there is a tension that many of us wrestle with daily that contradicts the very harmony we desire to live in. And it's a daily struggle that's going to take intentionality, self-examination and accountability to reframe. I just don't think it's enough to say we've got to be nicer people, because while ideal, there's an evil pervading our world that is far stronger than everyday niceness. I am still foolish enough to believe that light can overcome darkness. I still believe that we can overcome evil with good. But I also believe that in order to do that, we have got to commit to more than cliched phrases. We've got to sit down with our residents, our families our churches our communities and ask: Advertisement - What does it mean for us to love and how can we come up with an action plan to live that out? - How are we contributing to an environment of hate? - What can we do to end that? Before I go into great detail about what we did each day while in Bhutan, I wanted to provide you with some background on this fascinating country since most people have never even heard of it. In my bias opinion, there truly is nowhere else in the world like Bhutan. Not because of their landscape or their food or their people or their history but solely because of their values. Marketing campaigns read "Happiness is a Place", "Almost Heaven" and "Where Happiness Matters the Most". After spending seven days here, I can honestly say these slogans aren't just a way to lure foreigners to visit. The Bhutanese practice what they preach and what they preach, we should all start to practice. In the age when not even a secretive communist state is spared from the Internet, Bhutan remains one of the most mysterious lands in the world. However, since allowing their first tourist to enter in 1974, it is slowly opening itself up, one smile at a time. Unlike other countries who have lost their culture and traditions to mass tourism, Bhutan is doing everything in their power to preserve what they are so proud of while still providing a glimpse into what their everyday lives entail. One has to experience Bhutan first-hand in order to fully understand how they have managed to turn a fairytale dream into a living reality. In the end, what's the point of having pockets full of money, houses full of stuff and garages full of cars if you are not happy? And happiness is all that matters in this magical place known as Bhutan. Advertisement Here are some educational facts for you to understand just how special and unique this place is: - Bhutan is reputed for pioneering a concept, known as Gross National Happiness, that places people (and not material wealth) at the center of its developmental values. - Only 750,000 people have the privilege to call Bhutan home. - Surrounded by the Himalayas and sandwiched between China and India, Bhutan is a landlocked country. - Bhutan's Royal Family is a bit different than other Royal Families. Princes don't need to wait for their fathers to pass on to become King. Princes become Kings whenever their fathers feel like handing over the throne. - Bhutan is currently on their fifth King, who is about thirty six and is married to a woman who is only twenty six. They just gave birth to a baby son, Bhutan's new prince, in February 2016. Advertisement - The fourth King married four sisters and had ten children in total. - The third King became King at the age of seventeen when his father, the second King, suddenly died of a heart attack while on business in India at the age of forty four. - The Kings are worshipped as if they are Gods. Photos of them are in every house, at every restaurant, in every hotel, on roadside billboards and so forth. - Thimphu (population 100,000) is the economic, religious and government center of the country, residence of the Royal family and one of the only capital cities in the world with no traffic lights. - The entire country is served by only one international airport, which is located in the city of Paro. - There only two airlines that fly to Bhutan, which are Druk Air and Royal Bhutan. - Only eight pilots in the world are certified to fly into Bhutan, as the runway is small and the airplane cuts pretty close to the mountains during landing. Advertisement - Buddhism is the official religion with Hinduism the second popular faith. - In order to visit Bhutan, you have to go with a tour group that has been approved by the Bhutanese Tourism Board. The tour group will apply for your visa on your behalf. You cannot do this on your own. - There is a minimum tariff per day per person of $200 during low season and $250 in high season. This tariff includes lodging, three meals a day, entrance to most sites in addition to a private guide, driver and vehicle for your entire duration. - In 1974, the United Nations recognized Bhutan as a country. - In 1999, Bhutan became one of the last countries in the world to introduce internet services and lift the ban of television. Even today, there is only one state owned televised channel. - In 2006, the fourth King declared his intentions of making Bhutan into a parliamentary democracy. - In 2008, the first democratic elections took place. - Today, as a constitutional monarchy, the King is the head of the State and as a parliamentary democracy, the Prime Minister runs the Country as the head of the government. - In 2010, it became the first country in the world to ban tobacco and tobacco products. -In 2014, the first major global hotel group to start in Bhutan was Starwood. - To this day, there are still no chain establishments such as McDonalds, Starbucks, 7-11, Baskin Robbins, Subway, etc. It remains undeveloped from the outside world. Advertisement - Education is completely free from elementary school up to continued education. - Medical services are completely free. When the doctors in Bhutan can't perform a specific procedure, they will pay for that patient to fly to India to get the appropriate attention they need. - The phallus, or penis, is seen as a precious treasure that gives life and wards off evil. It is a cultural, spiritual and religious symbol. Therefore, big wooden red phalluses are typically hung at the entrance of traditional houses. - Polygamy and polyandry (when a woman has more than one husband) are surprisingly legal in Bhutan, although they are not common these days. - There are twenty different districts throughout Bhutan and twenty four different dialects. - Bhutan is the world's only carbon sink, meaning it absorbs more CO2 than it gives out. It sells hydro-electrical power, making it the only country whose largest export is renewable energy. - 72% of the country is forested. In fact, it is in the country's constitution to keep 60% of its land forested. Respect for the environment, the eco system and all species is a serious matter in Bhutan. Anyone caught killing an endangered species, faces the harsh sentence of life in prison. Advertisement - Thimpu, Bhutan's capital, has been drastically growing over the last decade with a lot of new modern buildings. However, all buildings are mandated to maintain the same aesthetic traditional look of the Buddhist architecture and can be no taller than six stories high. Here are some random facts as well: - Dzongkha, the national language (a derivation of the Tibetan language, Choikd) - Kuzuzangpola, meaning hello and well wishes - Log Jay Gay, meaning goodbye and we will meet again - Men wear a gho, which is a long gown belted at the waist - Women wear an ankle-length dress called kira, which is mostly hand woven with rich traditional patterns - Drinking age is 18 - The average life expectancy in Bhutan is 66 years for men and 70 years for women - Raven is the national bird - Takin is the national animal - Swallowtail is the national butterfly - Blue Poppy is the national flower - Cypress is the national tree - Archery is the national sport - Butter tea is the national tea/drink - Ngultrum is the national currency (introduced in 1974 it is pegged with the Indian rupee) - There is only one escalator in the entire country and it is in a Thimpu shopping mall. - There is only one double lane road in the entire country and it is in Thimpu. - In 2015, Bhutan set a Guinness World Record by planting almost 50,000 trees in just one hour. Tree - planting is popular in the country because they are seen as a symbol of long life, beauty and compassion. - In 2016, the first and only helicopter in the entire country made its debut. - Agriculture is its major industry with rice, fruit and dairy industry (yaks). - Plastic bags have been banned in Bhutan since 1999. - Bhutan has the world's highest unclimbed peak, Gangkhar Puensum, a mountain so sacred by the Bhutanese that the government has banned mountaineering on any peak above 19,685 feet. Advertisement "Here in this tiny kingdom where luxuries like television and Internet were only recently introduced, where villages and communities still live in a time warp of the old age and where smiling people walk down the streets leisurely", you can't help but have a warm fuzzy feeling inside. "A country where mysticism meets reality, where legend is history, magic is science and reincarnation a fact of life". Bhutan is not perfect, nothing is, but it sure has its core values in order and for that, I fell in love. Businesswoman, designer and mother Cecile Reinaud is the founder of international maternity fashion label Seraphine, who won the Queens Award for Enterprise in 2015 as well as Richard Branson's Fast Track 100 Ones To Watch 2015. Her brand of maternity wear became a household name when The Duchess of Cambridge wore a dress for the first official picture with Prince George during her first pregnancy and this year whilst Kate was expecting Princess Charlotte, Seraphine was dubbed "her favourite maternity label" as she wore it on numerous official occasions. Reinaud's business has a turnover in excess of 12 million, with a newly opened flagship in London's Kensington, and New York and is planning on continued fast international expansion for the year to come including Dubai and China. The French born entrepreneur has lived all her adult life in London and is now launching a new line of baby wear in Partnership with the Diana Award foundation. Reinaud was approached by the Diana Award, which is the only official charity working on the legacy of Diana the Princess of Wales, to develop a baby wear range using the iconic Diana Pastel Tartan. Cecile has two sons, Florian aged 7 and Lorenz aged 12 and lives in North London. Originally from Paris where she studied business, Cecile first moved to the UK to work at high profile advertising agencies including JWT, where she was appointed as the youngest Account Director in the company's history. Inspired by her grandparents who owned a fabric company that supplied iconic fashion houses such as Chanel - Cecile's true passion has always been designing and creating clothes, so it wasn't long before pregnant friends began approaching her to tailor make styles to form and flatter their growing bumps. In particular Reinaud revolutionized the maternity jean, creating the under/over bump jean band that has served as a sartorial savior to pregnant women since its inception. It was at this point that Cecile spotted a business opportunity for fashion-driven maternity and nursing style solutions and in 2002, founded Seraphine. Advertisement How has your life experience made you the leader you are today? I'm originally from France, went to senior school in the UK, moved back to France for university and then came to London to start my career. My experience of moving and living between countries at a young age has given me the confidence to expand my business on a world-wide scale. Our web platform ships to over 30 countries and we have Seraphine stores in London, Paris, New York, Hong Kong and Dubai. How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Seraphine? After graduating I started my career in advertising at J Walter Thompson. I was very driven and progressed quickly through the ranks, becoming the youngest account director at the agency. I took on a lot of responsibility at quite a young age, and I learnt to think from a customer's point of view and to spot commercial opportunities. When I spotted a gap in the market for fashionable maternity clothes, my leadership experience at JWT gave me the confidence to strike out on my own and set up my own business. What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Seraphine? Seraphine has given me so many highlights! It's always a thrill to see celebrities wearing our maternity clothes - every time I get a real sense of achievement dressing some of the most beautiful and glamorous A-lister mums on the planet! This month, Anne Hathaway looked super stylish in our Leather Leggings and coat. And I'll never forget the moment I first saw The Duchess of Cambridge looking beautiful in our Fuchsia Knot Front Dress in the first official pictures with Prince George. We had no idea she was going to wear it, and then suddenly the images went viral and our little dress made headlines around the world! And of course last summer I was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen after Seraphine won the Queen's Award for Enterprise 2015. But of course it hasn't always been such smooth sailing, especially at the beginning. I fell pregnant with my eldest in the first year of starting Seraphine, so I was trying to grow my budding business while combatting morning sickness, and then of course as a first time mum with a new born baby. It was the most challenging time of my life and certainly taught me resilience and how to operate sleep deprived! But I got to meet my wonderful son Lorenz and also got a real insight into what is important to women when looking for maternity clothes. Advertisement More recently having to move offices every two years because of outgrowing our space has been a real challenge for the business. Good London office spaces are so hard to find and so expensive, so it has become a permanent challenge to optimise our working environment. What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry? Creating a fashion brand from scratch is a real challenge and I always advise not to under-estimate the enormous amount of work it will take - especially if you are looking to balance a family with a growing business! Make sure you have a unique selling proposition before launching and a thorough communication plan. You will need to adapt to your customer demand and sometimes go places you never thought you would; stay flexible, agile and open minded at all times. What is the most important lesson you've learned in your career to date? Trust your instincts! Whether it's about choosing products, recruiting people or entering into a business deal, always listen to your first impression. Let your intuition guide you in your decision making process and if you perceive negative things at all, just don't do it. Women have great intuitive powers but often we are too insecure to listen to them: believing in yourself is the first stepping stone to success. How do you maintain a work/life balance? Running a business with two young children in the picture is no walk in the park. By nature I'm a perfectionist so when my boys were younger I used to get frustrated about not having enough time. I've since learnt not to beat myself up too much about not being the perfect textbook mum. My trick is to make a list of ten things I want to achieve in a day, then cross out the four least important ones and accept that they just won't happen today. I aim to feel 100% satisfied when I've reached 60% of my daily goals. With this perspective of glass half full I find I have more positive energy that I can redeploy to both my business and family. What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace? Being respected as a female boss was not always easy and I found it hard at times to get the balance right between being a friendly female boss and having people accept my authority. But as time goes on and the business continues to grow I find that this is less of an issue. I believe that talent and hard work ultimately shine through regardless of gender - Over 80% of my staff are women, and we are a super girl team! Dateline: Los Angeles, Calif., June 10, 2016 The second Piatigorsky International Cello Festival at USC's Thornton School of Music ended Sunday night, May 22, in an antic flurry of Beethoven, which Piatigorsky would have loved. Eight internationally-renowned cellists and five pianists played all of Beethoven's original music for cello and piano. Consisting of five increasingly serious sonatas and three sets of relentlessly charming and occasionally sexy variations, each was played to a variety of standards and preparation. Although Beethoven's cello sonatas are great music, they are terrible purely as comfortably-constructed cello sonatas. Beethoven continually uses the cello in ways it was never meant to be used, Italianate fast and high and yet often dangerously awkward, and mismatches it against the piano; somehow, however, as was proved over and over again, the cello's inherent ability to make powerful dramatic statements and sing tunes of great lyrical beauty within a wide dynamic range enables it to carry the day. Advertisement The First Sonata, Op. 5 No. 1, is entry-level Beethoven and was played by Ron Leonard, backed by Kevin Fitz-Gerald, with the kind of good nature and gorgeous, centered tone that only a major symphony's former principal cellist (of the Los Angeles Philharmonic for 24 years) can summon. The Second, Op. 5 No. 2, a big G minor monster, was played larger than life by Mischa Maisky (primarily a Rostropovich student) with daughter Lily Maisky riding shotgun. The big A major Sonata, Op. 69, the one famous sonata among the five, received a noble, unfussy reading from Colin Carr, with Bernadine Blaha dutifully at his side. And the two late Op. 102 sonatas from 1815, odd fellows each, gave Thomas Demenga an opportunity to be bookish and vaguely deconstructionist in the exceedingly angular and episodic No. 1, with a more literal Blaha tagging behind, and Jean-Guihen Queyras an opportunity to be unusually affected in an historically-informed way in No. 2, with similar precious playing from pianist Jeffrey Kahane. The three variations sets were handled elegantly by Laurence Lesser ("Bei Mannern") with Fitz-Gerald, intellectually by Matt Haimovitz ("Ein Madchen oder Weibchen") with Christopher O'Riley, and gently by Andrew Shulman ("See the conqu'ring hero") with Kahane. The packed house of students, colleagues and public at venerable Bovard Auditorium went wild after each performance without any shame. And the musicians, for all their travails, would certainly have played on if only Beethoven had bothered to write more for the combination. Advertisement There are two areas which the third Piatigorsky International Cello Competition, reportedly scheduled for 2020, may want to address: Out of the 26 master cellists who performed and taught, only 2 were women, which I mentioned in my first report on May 20 here. Only 5 of Piatigorsky's former students attended, out of a possible total of 17. It seems particularly ironic that only two women, Sol Gabetta and Wendy Warner, were invited. After all, the modern classical music cello industry, and festivals like this one, owes everything to women cellists. It was the English cellist Beatrice Harrison who made Elgar's Cello Concerto a hit after the dedicatee, Felix Salmond, failed to ignite much enthusiasm at the world premiere. Harris subsequently recorded the Concerto twice with the composer conducting, in 1921 and 1928. It was another English cellist, Jacqueline du Pre, who in 1965 made the recording of the Elgar concerto that served as the torch bearer for EMI's classical music division while creating a market for cello music and cellists. That market continues unabated today with more than 100 recordings of the Elgar Concerto and more than 200 recordings of the complete Bach Cello Suites. Advertisement I asked the Festival's artistic director Ralph Kirshbaum about the anomaly, which Alex Ross in the New Yorker also observed. Kirshbaum, a master cellist himself and a master of cello festivals, having founded and run the Royal Northern College of Music's Manchester Cello Festival, explained to me that the choice of cellists had been made on quality and availability, nothing else. I did some research and found that are many women cellists of high quality. Availability for 2020 I couldn't check. For example, going back to 2009, there have been 42 new recordings of the complete Bach Suites - and 17, nearly half the total, were by womenincluding Inbal Segev, Mayke Rademakers, Jitka Vlasankova, Alfia Nakipbekova, Viola de Hoog, Nina Kotova, Mary Costanza, Quirine Viersen, Ophelie Gaillard, Tanya Tomkins, and Winona Zelenka. An additional list of women cellists who might fit into the Festival's quality and availability controls includes Karine Georgian, Angela East, Natalie Cline, Sara Sant'Ambrogio, Sophie Wieder-Atherton, Maya Beiser, Alisa Weilerstein, Natalia Gutman, Monika Leskovar, Christine Rauh, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Tanja Tetzlaff, Harriet Krijgh, Susan Babini, Saeunn Thorsteinsdottir, Tatjana Vassiljeva, Julie Albers and, of course, Gabetta and Warner. The cello community is not alone. It's almost as bad for women cellists among the country's top symphony orchestras. Advertisement I looked at the 2016/17 schedules of 21 of the country's top symphony orchestras and found that they will perform cello concertos 30 times, but only 8 of the soloists will be women. In other words, if you want to take your daughter to hear a woman cellist play a concerto with a major symphony orchestra, you'll have to live in Seattle, Saint-Paul, Dallas, Minnesota, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Portland, Washington D.C., or New York. (Out of luck this coming season: Nashville, Denver, Tucson, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Costa Mesa, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Des Moines, and Houston.) It seems particularly sad that there was another notable absentee category at the Festival: actual living Piatigorsky students. Laurence Lesser, Jeff Solow, Raphael Wallfisch and Mischa Maisky participated, and Danny Rothmuller attended. U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S., May 1, 2016. REUTERS/Kamil Krzaczynski Donald Trump threw a temper tantrum when labeled a small-hands man because he believes everything about him is huge: big wealth, big wall, big mouth. Theres some evidence he thinks expansively about business because he built a billion-dollar empire out of what he called a small $1 million loan from his father, an inheritance of at least $40 million and repeated help from bankruptcy courts. Advertisement But to suggest hes a big thinker would be an epic stretch. At an event last week, for example, he called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) the PPP, then referred to it as the PP. Finally, later, he got the name right. So much for his deep knowledge of the job-killing trade proposal that manufacturing workers are so fiercely fighting. Donald Trump is, in fact, small minded. He recently pointed out a black audience member, a man who does not, in fact, support Trump, and called him my African-American, as if Trump owned him. Trump launched his campaign by calling undocumented immigrants from Mexico criminals and rapists. Trump ridiculed a physically disabled reporter. He mocked the face of a female primary opponent. Hes a small-tent guy. Only rich white male Christians like him fit in. That, frankly, is un-American. And certainly unbefitting a person who is supposed to represent the best interests of all Americans. The enormity of Donalds small-mindedness arose again when he trumped up the allegation that no judge could fairly resolve the allegations against him in the Trump University fraud lawsuit unless the jurist was a Trump twin. First, Trump accused the sitting jurist, Gonzalo P. Curiel, a federal judge from the U.S. District Court in San Diego, of being biased against him because, according to Trump, Curiel is Mexican. Advertisement Its common sense Trump asserted that a Mexican judge would be prejudiced against him because Trump has proclaimed that hes going to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Then, Trump doubled down, asserting that a Muslim judge also could be biased against him. That is because Trump called for banning all Muslims from entering the United States, a call he reiterated Sunday after the slaughter at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando. Finally, one of Trumps spokespeople, Katrina Pierson, suggested that a female judge also might treat him unfairly, after his long, public history of sexist behavior and comments about women, including calling them fat pigs, dogs, slobs, disgusting animals and losers, often on Twitter. This really narrows it down for Donald. To him, the Trump University case judge must be a rich white Christian man born in New York and bred in exclusive private schools. Like Donald. Judge Curiel doesnt fit that bill. He is one four children of Mexican immigrants. He attended a Catholic high school and public colleges. Advertisement Not born to wealth and glamour like Donald, Judge Curiel was the son of a blue-collar worker, Salvador Curiel, a Steelworker, a member of my union, the United Steelworkers, USW Local 1011. Salvador worked at U.S. Steel and later a unit of Youngstown Sheet & Tube in East Chicago, Ind. One day in December of 1964, Salvador left work at the mill, went home and died of a heart attack. His youngest son, the future judge, was just 11. Gonzalo P. Curiel was born in Indiana, where his father worked. Not Mexico. Under the terms of the U.S. Constitution, that makes him an American. Just as American as Donald Trump, whose mother was an immigrant. Apparently, Donald Trumps mind is too small to grasp that. In addition, in the Trump University case, apparently Trump cant grasp the fact that if he gets the rich white male judge he wants, that may not work for the many different plaintiffs. Maybe theres a plaintiff of Mexican descent who prefers to keep Gonzalo P. Curiel. Maybe theres a woman claimant who wants a female judge. Maybe theres a Muslim petitioner who wants a Muslim judge. Frankly, it would be better to have a Presidential candidate wise enough to know why litigants cant choose their jurists. In addition, it would be great to have a Presidential candidate sage enough to know when to shut up because, frankly, he got a great deal. Donald attacked Judge Curiel because he was mad that the jurist, at the request of the Washington Post, released some documents in the fraud case. Advertisement That meant a little bit of information got out. It would have been a few days of bad press except Trumps malicious assaults on the judge supersized the news value. What would have been far worse for Trump is the actual trial, possibly weeks of embarrassing daily coverage of former Trump University students testifying to a calculated swindle by the GOP Presidential nominee. The plaintiffs asked Judge Curiel to schedule the trial for July or August. The judge could have set it to begin July 18, directly conflicting with the GOP Convention. He could have waited until late August when the Republican campaign would be gearing up for the fall. Instead, Judge Curiel scheduled it for Nov. 28, long after the election will conclude. He spared Trump the awkwardness and humiliation of a trial during his campaign. And Trump thanked Judge Curiel by impugning his ability to be fair based on his heritage. That is smallness. America is a big country and needs a big president. America needs a president with a big brain, capable of understanding complex constitutional, international and economic issues. America needs a president with a big heart and big arms, one who embraces the vast differences in race, religion, national origin, heritage, abilities and disabilities, gender and sexual identity that make the American melting pot great. Donald Trump is too small to be that man. So now we've had "the worst shooting on U.S. soil" according to the New York Times and other media. This mass shooting was a terror attack and a hate crime. Millions of people are once again asking when we'll have meaningful gun control. It's not likely to ever happen, even if Democrats control the White House and Congress. Gun control efforts are doomed and always have been -- and not just because of the lobbying power of the NRA. The Washington Post recently reported, "those who oppose stricter gun laws are, on the whole, more passionate and politically organized than the average voters who support them." Guns are so enmeshed in American history, so much a part of our cultural DNA that truly meaningful gun control in the U.S. will always be a chimera. Advocates of gun control don't seem to understand that and don't seem to understand our founding national story. Advertisement One reason we rebelled against the British was their attempt to take away our guns. In 1774, the British only had 2,000 troops in heavily-armed and seething Boston, and the British response was to take control of the powder house, which meant that Bostonians wouldn't be able to use their guns. The British also started searching for guns and ammunition without warrants. And to suppress a rebellion against their rule, the British began effectively embargoing exportation of guns and ammunition to the Colonies. The very first battles at Lexington and Concord between Americans and the British took place because British troops were coming to seize an American arms cache. So guns are crucial to the founding of our nation -- before we had a flag, a Declaration of Independence, a government, a national anthem, before we had anything that truly united us. Guns, and holding on to our guns. We're a long way from the American Revolution, but it still shapes our national consciousness and resists facts, logic, and repeated tragedies. That's why efforts at gun control have failed so miserably and will probably continue to fail no matter how much anguish we suffer. Citing gun control in other countries like Australia is totally pointless. No other country has our unique history with guns and what they mean to us. Donald Trump just claimed that Hillary Clinton "wants to abolish the Second Amendment." The rallying cry works over and over because many Americans seem to live in an eternal 1775. Advertisement The amount of people joining the road to entrepreneurship is climbing - according to Business News Daily; "the number of Americans involved in early-stage entrepreneurial activity is the highest it has been since The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) began back in 1999." Also according to site, research has found: 13% of Americans are involved in entrepreneurial activity. Kara Miller, host of WGBH radio's Innovation Hub credits two main reasons why young adults in particular are becoming entrepreneurs: there's the fame that follows the founder of the next big thing and the sheer necessity of finding work in a stagnant economy. Approximately 543,000 new businesses get started each month, according to Forbes. Over the course of 10 years, 96% of businesses fail (Inc.). Advertisement What does it take to make it as an entrepreneur in this era and why are so many businesses failing? George Otte, Miami-based entrepreneur and technology expert, shared his insight. At the beginning of our interview Otte recalled the first time he felt 'entrepreneurial.' "I was just seven at the time. I put a sign in the [his] front yard and sold mangos to neighbors and passing cars," he said. "I'll never forget how good it felt when I had a cup full of quarters by sunset." George Otte then moved onto starting a tutoring business as a teen prior. Following, he started a highly successful computer repair and support service. At age 21, he ran it while enrolled in college full time, building a network of more than 100 clients in less than two years. Today, Otte serves as the founder and president of the Miami-based Otte Polo Group, a conglomerate of businesses that serve customers nationwide and operate in a wide-range of industries including: IT support and computer repair, call center and answering services, fulfillment and direct mail, and real estate & property management. The Otte Polo Group's subsidiaries include: Florida-based Geeks on Site, Responsive Call Center, Phase V Fulfillment, and Otte Real Estate. While George attends to this diverse portfolio of companies, he continues to serve as a resource for technology related issues. Throughout the years, he has had been acknowledged by Entrepreneur, NBC, PC Mag, and others, including Mashable in a feature on cyber safety. Back in 2002, it wasn't everyday people in their early 20s were starting businesses. What do you think you knew that they didn't? Advertisement I knew that people were willing to pay well for a good service. I was in tech support but it could have been any industry. I also knew you could easily incorporate a company in one day and get started - so I did. Can you recall an 'aha' moment you had when first starting any of your businesses? My first "aha" was when I was starting Geeks On Site. I realized businesses and individuals were willing to pay good money for reliable tech support. I immediately knew that I could hire and manage techs to perform this work and profit from it. Why do you think businesses fail? There are many reasons - sometimes one, sometimes a combination of a few such as poor customer service, mismanagement of resources (employees and capital), or economic downturns. What does it take to make it as an entrepreneur in this era? Innovation, adaptability, and having the right pricing strategy are key. Thanks to the Internet, consumers are more savvy now than ever before. They are glued to their smartphones and want what they want when they want it. If a webpage loads too slowly or a company rep fails to respond to an inquiry on social media within 24 hours, that sale could be as good as dead. Advertisement There are some companies out there that have been doing the same old thing for the past ten years and then they wonder why their revenue is spiraling downward. Become an expert in your industry and get to know your customers and prospects like the back of your hand. Show them the value of your products and services and deliver it on the channels they communicate on in a language they understand. Also be sure to price what you're selling accordingly. If you go too low or too high you could run your company into the ground. Some companies offer hefty discounts to bring customers in the door, despite in doing so, they decrease their margins. This only goes so far. If what you're selling is innovative enough, people will be more than happy to pay full price. What can consumers do to keep up with the fast paced, hyper connected world we live in? Use a customer relationship management tool (CRM) - it has been key for my businesses. Use it to track communications and follow through on requests. I'm also a big fan of surveys. Surveying your customers can quickly show you patterns of strengths and weaknesses in your operation. If being an entrepreneur was easy, everyone would become one. What can you tell others to do when challenges in business come up? Learn something new and lean on other successful business owners for support. It's important to have a circle of like-minded people to lean on. Advertisement What's something(s) most people don't know about being an entrepreneur but need to in order to survive and thrive? Don't give up. I've seen a lot of people start businesses but not focus or commit and then they give up. Through the challenges, I wake up every day extremely grateful for how my business career has turned out. What four things can aspiring entrepreneurs start doing right away to hit the ground running with their business in order to make it successful? 1. Have complete focus and dedication. 2. Regularly review key areas such as operations, sales/marketing, finance, etc. 3. Keep a close eye on the customer experience. 4. Constantly think of ways to grow revenue while keeping costs in check. Advertisement Maybe Karl Marx had it half right on this one; religion can be the opium of the people. The opiod effect of happiness and bliss is present in many spiritual communities. I often come across this at retreats with majority white people where everyone is smiling, bowing, and pretending that we're all the same, blind to the difference in the color of my skin; and therefore to what I experience from this difference. This is true for many people of color in spiritual communities; I have experienced this consistently first as a practicing Catholic and then as a practicing Buddhist. In the 1980s, Dr. John Welwood coined the phrase "spiritual bypass," to reflect the way many in Buddhist communities use spiritual practices to avoid unresolved emotional issues and psychological wounds as they attempt to wash everything with a happiness lens. I recognize it as a trait shared by many in Buddhist and other religions as " ... we try to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it." I reached a saturation point with this phenomena in a recent retreat where the insistence on smiling and ignoring all of who I am caused me great bodily pain. I also experienced it recently following the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. The city was on a 10:00 pm curfew. In black and brown neighborhoods people were arrested when they broke the curfew; in white neighborhoods, people received verbal warnings. I spoke with a white Christian pastor about the fear and re-surfacing of old traumas I had experienced driving home the night before. There was silence. Similarly, a black friend went to meditation with his majority white sangha waiting to hear someone share about Michael Brown's death and its reverberations in our bodies. He wanted to know that others in his spiritual family understood his pain and to feel comforted by this understanding. There was silence. These were not noble silences. He left frustrated and angry and feeling alienated by a spiritual community that had neglected his reality. Advertisement Image: Benjamin Jancewicz Marx said that religion wants to be the "soul of the soulless world," which is an apt description for the way many communities practice spirituality today, with rites and rituals designed to create and maintain spaces of superficial joy and togetherness in an attempt to see the "oneness" in everyone, while ignoring the segregation which exists in society and our sanghas. In our communities we sit in sharing circles, we smile and sing together, and we ignore the reasons we sought out spiritual sanctuaries: to heal from the suffering inside and outside of us. This causes us to continue to feel isolated, disconnected, and wounded even while we exchange smiles and hugs. Why? Because by focusing on happy rituals alone, we are avoiding our own pain, which leads us to avoid the pain of others, making it impossible for people to truly connect at the deepest level. Clearly the celebration of happiness fills us up so when we face the world there is a reservoir to cushion and hold difficulties. But when majority white practice communities/sanghas focus their time on attaining some higher, blissful state, they are evading the reality of the everyday injustices and discomforts of being black or a person of color in a white world: personal and institutional racism. Spiritual bypass in this context favors something apparently more transcendent, something beyond the mundane investigation of the suffering of all beings. This practice of not acknowledging the reality of those who experience racial and social injustices leads to spaces of non-inclusivity and marginalization of those impacted. This experience is not exclusive to people of color. Any person identifying in a non-powered group--queer, female, disabled, non-English speaking, poor, non-US born--feels this same marginalization when his or her experiences are ignored by those in relative power. When this happens in spiritual spaces, we are simply replicating the same silencing experienced outside spiritual circles and can re-traumatize people. Those in marginalized groups are aware of this reality and we stay away because we cannot find healing and true happiness in these spaces. This side-stepping of the realities of non-powered groups hinders an authentic spiritual path for everyone, one which finds the transcendence right in the middle of the difficulties, the lotus in the heart of the mud. As Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh consistently reminds us: without mud we can have no lotus. For example, it was after I was tired of this pain of having my experiences of being a woman of color ignored that I searched for a deeper understanding of why. This understanding is the lotus; one which would not have bloomed had I not been in such raw pain. And yes, it is possible to bloom at times without suffering but often it is suffering which sends us on an investigation of "why" so we can learn how to heal and find relief. Advertisement After more than 20 years in Buddhist and Christian communities, I have participated in, experienced, and witnessed spiritual bypassing. There are times I have sat in sharing circles of majority white people and felt unable to share about some racial injustice still making its way through my body. Often as folks of color we know that many white practitioners would not understand and feel targeted when we share about racial injustice; we don't want to make our white friends uncomfortable so we remain silent. This is not a noble silence. Or the times when I have attended People of Color retreats to learn that white practitioners affiliated with the community feel we're being separatist and ignoring the intention of being "one in practice": the "why can't we all just love each other" paradox. These large and small acts of implicit bias and microaggressions are traumatizing to the body and mind. These are acts of injustice that our spiritual activism compels us to address in order to practice a deeper understanding of true love in action. As people of color, we seek all-people of color spaces to find the spaciousness, the understanding, and the love to heal and trust. These safe spaces offer an authentic presence and continue what Dr. Beverly Tatum introduces in the book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: a place to unapologetically identify and acknowledge our collective realities. We do not find these sanctuaries in majority white spaces. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us that in order to truly love someone we must understand them: "When we understand someone deeply, even someone who has done us harm, we cannot resist loving him or her." Therefore the path to understanding those who appear different from us or who our society and our practice communities have demonized for this difference is necessary. This understanding will lead to trust, love, and authentic inclusion, integrity in our spiritual communities. Spaces of authentic inclusion are spaces of justice, balanced in acknowledging everyone's reality. We bring balance inside ourselves when we understand and heal the emotional and psychological wounds inside of us, freeing us to meet the mundane directly. Because peace and justice cannot begin to manifest in the world until it is manifesting inside of us, this is critical for social justice. Often I must remind myself that those in spiritual communities are human, bringing with them the same prejudices, injustices, and pains embedded in society. Keeping this openness in mind and heart is critical. At the same time I am mindful that spiritual communities are microcosms of society and ignoring these roots of prejudices, ignorance, and white privilege will continue to cause harm to me and others like me. In an effort to transcend this potential for harm we can act with intention to understand ourselves and those around us. We can be gentle in reminding those we see bypassing the mundane in a rush to the supramundane that life is happening right here on Earth, right in this moment, the one we inhabit together. We can figure it out! In the past 4 years two Buddhist groups--White Awake and Buddhists for Racial Justice--were formed to address the issue of white privilege in our communities of practice. Their first Call to Action was aimed at white folks. It invited them to develop a collective intention to practice true understanding and love in order to address the history and legacy of white supremacy that is present in our Buddhist practice spaces. Their second Call to Action (due out July 2016) is aimed at People of Color spiritual communities across all traditions, inviting us to acknowledge our pain from being ignored and dismissed so that we can begin to heal ourselves. Growing up as a mod girl in the sixties, with flower power, peace, love and understanding as the motto in elementary school while the rebellion and uprisings on college campuses were on the rise. A revolution was happening and we all wanted to be a part of the scene. College campuses were becoming the melting pot of changing the status quo. During the 1960s and 1970's the country experienced an increase in student activism on its college campuses and in its cities. Opposed to U.S. political leadership and dissatisfied with American culture, student activists held demonstrations across the country, trying to evoke fundamental change in our culture. From the Vietnam War to the Civil Rights movement, a community of activists led their fellow students to sit ins, protests and media attention. The draft was used by the United States government to force young adult men into uniform to fight a war they didn't understand. Many young college and young working men began to rethink the policies of our government. There were anti-war marches, petitions, picket signs, and even small round colorful political buttons. "Make Love, Not War." So many of the movements that are still in the forefront today were birthed at that time. From legalizing abortion to 'sex, drugs, rock n'roll', the music industry was a growing phenomenon of broadcasting the ideology and changes desired by the youth. Advertisement The greatest bands emerged, such as the British beat, from Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Cream, the Who. In America it was Bob Dylan, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Mothers of Invention with Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, The Jefferson Airplane, and dozens more becoming the powerful influencers of 'My g, g, generation.' College campuses of the past were hubs for many of the most important changes that are influencing our lives today. However, now the trend is moving away from the traditional schooling to unconventional degrees gained from online education and it is projected to grow at a robust rate. In an article by Candice Adderly, How Technology Has Changed Education, she has touched upon many significant points. "Over the past 20 years, technology has dramatically transformed how we live, how we work and how we connect. How we learn is no exception." "Nearly 70 percent of chief academic leaders said that online learning is critical to their long-term strategy, and 77 percent rated learning outcomes in online education as the same or superior to those in a classroom setting." Advertisement A more recent study estimates that about 46 percent college students are taking at least one course online and that by 2019, roughly half of all college classes will be digitally based. On average, students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. --SRI International for the Department of Education With the increase in online learning options, many students are encouraged to participate in discussion forums. In this time of interacting with other students, there is more time for reflection, as well as camaraderie, and explore each other's ideas. "The takeaway: If delivered well, online education provides a richer and more interactive classroom, allows students to develop a set of sophisticated virtual communication skills and utilizes the power of multimedia to help students remember what they learn!" Lila Romero, 2015 With so many grads seeking work in an ever diminishing job market, many are going to school to earn MBA's at night while employed. According to US News and World Report, Education, there are many high ranking schools for MBA's. The top ranking schools such as Temple University (Fox), a public school, have ninety-two percent of students who are already employed when they first enroll. "The most important is to note that MBA programs at Temple University (Fox) are accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the gold standard of business school accreditation." Less than 5 percent of business schools worldwide have earned this prestigious designation. Another highly rated accredited school is the University of South Dakota and their online Master of Business Administration. Their Business School was established in 1927, and has maintained accreditation status since 1949. Many of the earliest alumni would probably be amazed at the future of education and the advancement of knowledge being disseminated in such a powerful outreach. Few would probably have predicted how far technology has come and just how much of an influence it would come to have on the education process. LISTEN HERE: By Mark Green "Woman Hear Me Roar" says Clinton clinching nomination and making some spines tingle. But the panel sticks to Trump odds of 5-40% because he's a qualified ignorant bully and she's a qualified smart president. Can he be dumped by GOP? Only if more Curiel-like blunders and polls showing her steadily up by 10 points. Hillary becomes presumptive nominee. When Trump last month said that Clinton was playing the woman's card, she cheekily responded, "then deal me in!" Apparently she meant it, given her remarks Tuesday night. Spine-tingling? Rich says no because, though Obama's win was historically thrilling, "he was an outsider and Clinton really has been around so long that she's the insider." Advertisement Having tied Obama in 2008 and won the nomination in 2016, would he admit that like Wagner's music, "she's better than she sounds?" Rich won't give her that, only admitting that she's "resilient, smart and winning the office by default." He concedes there will be a record gender gap while Ron agrees that there aren't enough white men to jump to Trump after Romney won 65 percent of them in 2012. Will Sanders blow his hold'em/fold'em moment? Despite the media focus (including ours), don't we know how this Sanders-Clinton movie ends? There a consensus that, however he gets there, Sanders will end up urging his supporters to vote for Hillary after repeating his list of proposals. That's what happened with Mondale-Hart in 1984, Clinton-Obama in 2008, and, as Ron discusses, Reagan-Ford in 1976, the latter two being closer contests. Ron admits that his father "probably campaigned less than Ford wanted but more than his heart wanted." Though Sanders lacks the usual incentives of a defeated candidate -- hope for later nomination, VP nod -- he won't do anything to indirectly help the truly radical GOP nominee. Hence his Tuesday night speech adjusting his rhetoric to emphasize "his plan to fight for racial and economic justice all the way to the Philadelphia Convention!" That is, "for...justice," not for the presidency. Host: Conclusion -- there's unlikely to be any more from Sanders chiding Goldman speeches and the Clinton Foundation, as he gives his stump speech at Convention and wins a procedural or programmatic fight or two. (But why wouldn't she release the speech transcripts now that Sanders is effectively out?) Also, when it comes down to not "Bernie or Bust" but "Trump or Clinton," even Bern hard-liners will do the right and smart thing for the "progressive agenda." Advertisement Dump Trump? The panel ardently agree that he can't get close to the White House, especially after a week when the two ranking Republicans in the country, Ryan and McConnell, respectively said he made a "racist" statement and "didn't know much about the issues." When has anything like that happened before? But after his very bad, really awful week, can he be dropped from the ticket at this point? Probably not says Rich, a leader of #nevertrump, but...if he made some more Curiel-level mistakes and fell behind by 10-15 points, "which won't happen -- it'll be maybe five points" -- then things could change. Nor does he think the Libertarian ticket will either make much of a difference in purple states or get into the debates, "and even then, Gary Johnson is no Mitt Romney in a debate." Also, given a ticket that's socially liberal and for open borders, it's not one that attracts his brand of conservatism. Last: Lowry unexpectedly announces that "Trump will pick Gingrich" since it gives him some Washington cred and Newt has the verbal skills to tear Hillary's heart out. Ron sensibly then counters, "if that happens, the Dem choice should be Warren, who is a comparably strong debater and attacker." The Host relentlessly believes that Trump -- for reasons historical, political, and demographic, as well as how he "matches up" against Clinton -- is a 'dead man walking'...As Galbraith said of Black Tuesday 1929, 'the end had come but it was not in sight.'" But he's not a fan of Warren as #2. "She has such a great self-awareness and mind that she should prefer to be a singularly influential progressive senator for a decade or two rather than a yes-woman in the White House, which is not at all her thing." Given the activity of this past week with Trump's self-immolating comments and Clinton's capture of the nomination and well-received speeches, do Lowry, Reagan and Green stick with their estimates of Trump's odds of last month -- 40%, 10%, and 5%? Each sticks to his original predictions, with Rich saying 40% since you can't ignore the possibility of unexpected events like "losing the FBI primary, a recession or terrorist attack." (The show was taped two days before the Orlando massacre.) Advertisement But when Clinton outspends him by several hundred million and her ads highlight his incessant nastiness to the disabled/minorities/women + his business cons + his policy ignorance (nukes, abortion "punishment") + an epic weather-vane commercial + GOP-ers condemning him, she'll win by 7-10 points, at least. {After another massacre, a vigil: Orlando Sentinel photo) Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have had a new 9/11 moment -- an opportunity to explain to a waiting nation where they stand, and where they want to lead us, in the aftermath of a horrific assault on the American sense of security. Clinton today decided to play the role of George W. Bush. Trump stood squarely in the role of Donald Trump. After the coordinated terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Clinton reminded followers today in Ohio, she and other leaders rallied behind a Republican president who within days was reaching out to the Muslim community in search of healing. After 9/11, Clinton said, "We did not attack each other, we worked together.'' After the slaying of some 50 innocent people at a night club in Orlando over the weekend, the worst mass-shooting ever on American soil, Trump is flatly accusing President Barack Obama of not knowing what he's doing. And Clinton, he claimed yesterday and again today in New Hampshire, is ready to open the gates to more immigrants intent on doing Americans harm. Advertisement "I want all of us -- us -- to work together,'' Trump maintained -- but that includes convincing "the Muslim community'' to "turn in the people who are bad.'' Repeatedly, he spoke of a Muslim threat, as Clinton spoke of Jihadists. There were clear, if thinly veiled, references to Trump's ongoing campaign rhetoric in Clinton's own remarks today -- "this has always been a country of 'we,' not 'me,''' she said. And: "We are not a land of winners and losers.'' And this: "Inflammatory anti-Muslim language" and talk of banning families from the U.S. "plays right into the terrorists' hands:" Yet she focused today on her intentions of defeating, not containing, ISIS abroad and identifying and stopping "lone-wolf'' terrorists at home. Trump, on the other hand, wielded unsubstantiated claims about Clinton's intentions of vastly increasing the immigration of Syrians and others who threaten U.S. security. "Can you imagine what they'll do in large groups, which we're allowing to come here?'' Trump asked. "We have to prevent large pockets of radicalization from forming inside of America -- not complicated.'' Most ominously, Trump asked: "Why are they here?" Advertisement It was Clinton's State Department, he said, which first allowed refugees of Middle East struggles to stream ashore in America, and it's Clinton, the candidate, he maintains, who stands to make matters much worse. Clinton is welcoming "a Trojan Horse'' of infiltrators, Trump suggested. As for Obama, Trump said: "Clearly this president does not know what he's doing.'' Yet, somehow, even this sounded less offensive than Trump's oblique suggestion on Fox News this morning: "People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on." "Hillary Clinton -- for months and despite so many attacks -- repeatedly refused to even say the words "radical Islam," until I challenged her yesterday to say the words or leave the race,'' Trump said. in New Hampshire. Today, in Clinton's words, the threat the nation faces is a question of "radical Jihadists.'' While Trump attempted to portray his immigration plans -- which include a wall against Mexicans and a ban on Muslim immigrants -- as "mainstream immigration'' versus Clinton's plans as "radical immigration,'' Clinton held out a belief that the diversity which Trump fears is actually a pillar of the nation's strength. "Our open, diverse society is an asset in the struggle against terrorism, not a liability," Clinton said. In contrast, Clinton made a pitch today at rallying Americans for a common struggle in the wake of another terrifying saga, while Trump attempted to make the most of a tragedy in rallying voters against Clinton and Obama. Advertisement "An attack on any American is an attack on all Americans,'' Clinton said. She spoke of Americans "refusing to be intimidated or divided.'' As is his custom, Trump misrepresented Clinton's views on another issue central to this debate. "Hillary Clinton says the solution is to ban guns,'' he said. "Her plan is to disarm law-abiding Americans, abolishing the Second Amendment, and leaving only the bad guys and terrorists with guns. She wants to take away Americans' guns, then admit the very people who want to slaughter us.'' It's assault weapons that Clinton is targeting, as well as "loopholes'' in federal background checks for gun-buyers that enable them to purchase weapons unchecked online and at gun-shows. "Weapons of war have no place on our streets,'' Clinton said today, the day after another assault rifle in another madman's hands has felled dozens of innocent Americans. Most jarring, however, was Trump's insistence that he offers more for women and the LGBT community than Clinton promises. Because the site of the Orlando massacre was a night club catering to gays and lesbians, and the assault weapon-toting assailant had identified himself as homophobic, this act of terrorism also stands as a monumental hate crime. Advertisement The LGBT community has "millions of allies who will always have your back,'' Clinton said in Ohio, "and I am one of them." "Ask yourselves, who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community,'' said Trump in New Hampshire, appealing to a concern for security well-known among married women who tend to vote Republican, as he spoke of Islamic radicals who attack women and gays. "The Huffington Post had a difficult time finding supporters in the crowd who would admit they were ready to vote for Clinton, the party's presumptive nominee, in November." "Hillary Clinton needs to win our votes, which means adopting some of Bernie's platform," said Keith Melchers, a 57-year-old D.C. resident, mentioning Sanders' proposal for free public university tuition. "She's got to take on some of his agenda ... I'm going to hold out to see what she does. I'm open, but it can't be just, 'Hey you've got to automatically support me.' She has to come a little bit our way on our platform." Susan Shufelt, a 69-year-old from Maryland, said she doesn't think she could vote for Clinton. "I would feel terrible if [Sanders] just endorsed Hillary and that was it," Shufelt said. "I want him to do something that will help get money out of politics and help reduce income inequality, the things he talked about during the campaign. I'm not hopeful because Hillary is so connected to money, her husband has his foundation, I don't see any hope with her. ... But I promised my friends I will keep an open mind, those who are a little less rigid than me." "And many said they weren't ready to even consider the possibility of voting for Clinton in the fall. They made noises of frustration at the question and characterized support for Clinton as "giving in."" The spate of recent terrorist attacks can cause anxiety and fear for children, particularly younger ones. The horrific terror attack at the Orlando Pulse Nightclub, the worst shooting in American history, only heightens these concerns. Parents may worry about how to have a conversation with their child about these devastating events. I recommend that you frame it in such a way that you're not producing unnecessary anxiety for your child, but providing them with enough detail to satisfy their curiosity or concerns. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, I was a provider of crisis counseling services to children, teachers and parents under a Project Liberty grant to my agency, The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC). Here are my suggestions. Monitor the TV and the Internet Coverage that Your Children View. Terrorist acts are intended to spread fear and anxiety. Extensive news coverage can worsen this problem for both children and adults. Be an active participant in monitoring the type of information they receive. I recommend that children under the age of five or six not be exposed to the media images, as developmentally, they are not be ready to comprehend this type of violence. Parents should diligently monitor the TV, computer, newspapers, etc. to make sure that children are not repeatedly exposed to the graphic, violent images and photos. You can't "unsee" something. The American Psychological Association has a good tip sheet regarding "How much news coverage is okay for children" Advertisement Research following the terrorist attacks in Oklahoma City and on 9/11 showed that children who continuously watched the coverage had more symptoms related to trauma. My guess is that the media will be playing the upsetting, dramatic news clips of what happened in the last attack many times over in the next few days. Let them know you are there to listen to their questions and concerns. Some children will talk and some won't. Both of these reactions are okay. What children need is reassurance that you are available to answer their questions when they are ready to discuss what happened in the most recent terrorist attack. When they do raise it, you can ask "What do you want to know about what happened?" Or, "Tell me what you've heard about what happened? " Keep your conversation age-appropriate. Here is a good resource that discusses age-appropriate conversation about terrorism. Find out what frightens them and address it. Most children will want to know the bottom line - Will I be okay, will you be okay and is this going to happen here? Their emotions will vary based on their age, personality, religious background and their connection to the attacks. Also, keep in mind that trauma is cumulative in nature. So, if your child has experienced other traumas in their life, these terrorist attacks may put them at risk for higher distress. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) has a good tip sheet that describes children's varied responses to terrorism. Advertisement Stick to the facts. Children may have heard many different and possibly conflicting stories that could cause confusion for them. Be concrete. For example if you are addressing the Orlando Pulse shooting, you can say "There was a man who the police believe did not like gay people. He wanted to hurt them, so he attacked these innocent people, to try to scare all the people in Orlando, the United States, and around the world. Many people died. It is very sad for all of us." Your child may then raise issues about death and what happens afterwards. Depending on your beliefs, you should answer these questions as best you can. There are many heroes helping now and during the days beyond. Talk about the brave efforts of the police, firemen, other first responders and medical providers helping in the aftermath. It's also good to let them know how important is for a community to band together to support each other during difficult times. Emphasize kindness and hope. Here are a few scenarios to think about. If your child becomes upset after reading the newspaper or watching TV, encourage them to discuss their feelings. Normalize and validate them. Don't try to "correct" them. There is no right or wrong feelings and each child's will be different. Children could be very moody, depressed, angry, anxious, possibly even cry. Acknowledge that these attacks make many people very sad. It's completely understandable. Praise your child for being able to express their feelings. Then talk about what might make them feel better, for younger children, diverting them with play is helpful. For older children, it may be playing sports, watching a comedy or uplifting movie. Advertisement If your child asks "What is a terrorist?" you can tell them that a terrorist is someone who tries to hurt and scare people. They are trying to make people afraid. Terror is another word for being very scared. I would then add that there are not many terrorists in the world, but there are many good people in the world working hard to keep them safe. If your child asks "Why did they do that?" you can say, "The man who did this was a terrorist; he was very angry and wanted to hurt the people in the nightclub. He did this to scare people and to cause much harm and damage to the people who were in the nightclub." I suggest that you stay away from going into detail about ISIS/Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Your child needs reassurance that he/she is safe and not in danger. If your child asks "Will it happen here?" you can tell them that "from the President of the U.S. to our local police and firemen, many steps have been taken over the past 14 years since 9/11 to keep us safe, and that our officials are working on it every day. Create (or go over) your Family Emergency Plan. You may also want to reassure your child by creating an emergency plan. Calmly explain to your child you are ready for an emergency and have a plan that will keep them safe. The Homeland Security website provides a template for parents to use to create a plan with their children. Advertisement The components that you should cover are: Contact person(s) in case of an emergency. What will happen if they are in school or you are in work or separated from them. Who is the "go to" at that time? The meeting location if family members are separated. How to call 911 if an emergency happens in the home. Emergency supplies that you keep at home, medicine, money and a cell phone, canned food, water, flashlight, battery operated radio, first aid kit, etc. Review the plan with your child when it is NOT an emergency so they can digest it and ask questions that may come up before an emergency arises. Keep tabs on yourself. You probably have strong feelings about what happened in the recent terrorist attack. Reactions such as intrusive thoughts, being hyper-vigilant, or just being sad are common. It's okay to share how you are feeling with your children. You will serve as a role model for them and reassure them that these hard conversations are possible. Dear Mr. President and the Legislative Body of the United States, And so it goes. On Saturday, June 12th, 2016, we had another mass shooting. The fact that we have to continue to say, "we had ANOTHER mass shooting" is disgusting. As an American I am saddened and exacerbated by the fact that my government is not doing its job to protect its people. As a citizen I am infuriated that the Constitution and Bill of Rights has been manipulated to create such a mess, that I have to say to my children, "Yes, we had ANOTHER mass shooting." I am not a legislative genius. I am a mom. I have three children who it is my sole job to keep safe. Every day I turn on the news, or read about ANOTHER shooting. I worry about being in crowded places with my kids. I am afraid that some mentally unstable person will walk in and shoot everyone in sight, claiming it is for their religious purposes, or sadly because our government did not offer them proper mental health care. I worry that I will get a call that my children's school is on lock down. I worry that someone I love will be at a theme park or movie theater and I will get a call that yes, it has happened again. I am worried that at some point, my children's names will be on that list. A list that no parent wants their children to ever be a part of. Saturday, 49 people died. 49 people who were someone's children. 49 people who were sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, best friends. All were human beings. The job of our government is protect its citizens. It is the core purpose of our government. It is the reason the American Revolution occurred. British citizens who had colonized in North America wanted rights and freedoms that were being taken away by the British government. They wanted a government that was created to protect its people and ensure that they could enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The Bill of Rights was created to ensure that the people had very specific inalienable rights. The Bill of Rights is a beautiful thing. However, the 2nd amendment has been manipulated and contorted into a vessel for creating billions of dollars for gun manufactures and legislators. Advertisement The second amendment was created to give militias the right to bear arms to defend themselves and their property against internal and external threats. To my knowledge, none of the shooters from any of our recent mass shootings were part of any militias. These were people with hatred in their hearts and the ability to gain access to military grade weapons. They took these weapons and killed people in mere seconds. They ended lives with weapons that only the military should have access to. Since I am just a mom, I need some help. I need someone from the government to explain to me and all of the mass shooting victims and their families why we can't regulate the sale of assault rifles? I need someone to explain why citizens need assault rifles. What purpose could any citizen have to own an assault rifle? You don't hunt with them. You don't need them to keep your home safe from intruders. We have more guns in the United Stated than we do people. I am not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to own guns. I am saying that we need to regulate gun laws and ban the sale of assault rifles. They serve no purpose in the general public, other than giving some mass murderer the right tools to kill innocent people. Mr. President, please ban the sale of assault rifles. Please buy back these guns from the public and work with legislators to put an end to ANOTHER shooting. We need to interpret the Second Amendment for its original purpose and stop this miscarriage of justice. We need to stop gift wrapping weapons for murderers and start protecting our citizens. Mr. President and the legislative body of the United States, please take a stand and ban assault rifles and regulate gun laws. Put an end to the tears that are cried at each funeral caused from the misinterpretation of the second amendment. Advertisement The record demonstrates that she certainly is a hawk -- someone who believes strongly in the utility of military force and is ready to use it. There is ample evidence in support of this contention. Her actions as Senator and Secretary of State as well her speeches and campaign statements paint a picture of a would-be President who views the world in terms of an ominous threat environment, who believes that core American interests are being challenged across the globe, who is a firm advocate of intervening on a preventive basis (e.g. Syria, Libya) as well as a preemptive or defensive basis, who is dedicated to keeping putative rivals like China or Russia in a subordinate position. This complex of attitudes puts a considerable amount of blue water between her and Barack Obama. Indeed, early in her campaign she made a point of criticizing the White House for its overly restrained policies vis a vis Assad, Putin and XI. She only switched tacks when it became evident that she needed to associate herself with the Obama record in the face of the unexpected Sanders insurrection. The specific criticisms directed at HRC from those who find her too hawkish are well-known. They include her vote in favor of the Iraq war; her cheer-leading for the GWOT in all its aspects; her collaboration with the Gates-led faction to push Obama into a major Afghan escalation; her advocacy of direct military action in Syria to unseat Assad; her unbending attitude toward containing Iran even after the nuclear accord; and her bellicose language in calling Putin another "Hitler' after Russia's seizure of the Crimea. Hillary's big foreign policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations reinforced the impression of a hard-liner across-the-board who thinks primarily in terms of power balances and its deployment. In addition, her full-throated endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu's actions left no room for accommodating the concerns of those realists who see the United States as inflicting unnecessary harm on itself through its unqualified backing of everything Israel does. Advertisement It is no coincidence that she has drawn admiring remarks from Robert Kagan and other neo-conservative luminaries who envisage her as a President sympathetic to their audacious, muscular conception of American foreign policy. The coalescing of the neo-cons and the gung-ho liberal interventionists who pushed hard for the Libyan intervention (Samantha Powers, Ann-Marie Slaughter) who now promote aiding the Saudis and GCC in Yemen, and wading into Syria involves a number of people who worked for Hillary in the State Department and/or figure prominently among her current advisors. The outstanding example is Victoria Nuland -- Hillary's spokesperson at State and now Assistant Secretary of State for Europe -- who has aggressively spearheaded the anti-Russian crusade. Previously, she had been foreign policy advisor for Vice-President Dick Cheney. Nuland's was escorted into the Obama administration by Strobe Talbot who was her boss at Brookings and viewed her as his protege. Talbot himself, who had been Deputy Secretary of State during the second Bill Clinton administration, has moved progressively toward the hawkish end of the foreign policy establishment continuum (admittedly a rather short band width these days). Some of Hillary's defenders argue that her hawkish views must be understood in a political context. Her Presidential ambitions, they explain, dictated that she find a way to overcome the liabilities she incurred on national security matters as a supposedly liberal Democrat, as heir to the Clinton dynasty that emphasized building bridges of cooperation in foreign relations -- at least as seen by Republican critics, and as a woman. That became an imperative after 9/11. So, we saw a series of moves in the form of votes and rhetoric designed to make her look tough. Hence, the much publicized buddying with John McCain on Senatorial junkets to faraway places with strange sounding names highlighted by reports of her matching her macho colleague in knocking back shots of vodka. Advertisement We should bear in mind that foreign policy never had been a prominent concern of HRC. Most certainly not national security. It was a slate of domestic issues that drew her attention and on which she was knowledgeable. Her prepping only began seriously when she set her sights on winning the Democratic nomination in 2008. It is reasonable to infer that what began as an exercise in political expediency hardened into genuine conviction -- at least insofar as general predisposition is concerned. There is no evidence of HRC having formulated a comprehensive strategy for the U.S, in the world, much less a theoretical model of what international affairs are all about. At the same time, though, there is abundant reason to believe that her hard-edged rhetoric and policy proposals do express her views -- however nebulous they may be. Her few concrete proposals have been half-baked and unrealistic: the idea of enforcing a "safe zone" in northern Syria being a case in point. All that it might accomplish is to create a secure base for al-Qaeda/al-Nusra and their Salafist partners while carrying the high risk of an encounter with Russian military forces operating in the area. Does this mean that an HRC Presidency automatically would mean the dispatch of American troops to Syria? Intensified military efforts against ISIS in Iraq? The insertion of American-led force into Libya? Further provocation of Russia in Eastern Europe including an invitation to Ukraine to join NATO as first offered by George Bush? It is premature to answer those questions in the affirmative. Jingoistic rhetoric is easy when you're on the outside. When you are the one who actually has to make the decisions about military deployments and to anticipate dealing with the unpredictable consequences, anyone will move with a measure of caution. Hillary is more likely to stumble into a war than calculatingly start one -- for a number of reasons. First, there are no obvious places to intervene massively with ground troops, no tempting Iraq circa 2003. Iran has been high on the neo-con hit list, but the nuclear accord removes what could have been a justification. Iraq and Syria are also theoretical candidates. Who, though, is the enemy and what would be the purpose? ISIS obviously; but now it is being contained and slowly is degrading. American boots on the ground simply would ensure an open-ended guerilla war. As for Al-Qaeda/al-Nusra in Syria, it is not seen as an enemy, rather as a tacit ally within the "moderate' camp. There is Assad. With Russia on the ground, however, and the lack of a Western consensus or prospect of an enabling UNSC resolution, an invasion to replace the Ba'ath regime with Salafists of the ISIS and/or al-Qaeda could not be rationalized even with the agitation of the Kagans and Powers. In addition, this is an assignment that the Pentagon brass do not want -- in contrast to the CIA. After all, we have spent enormous amounts of blood and treasure to immunize Afghanistan against a terrorist presence much smaller than what exists now in Syria -- to no avail. Advertisement Libya is the one place where a substantial American force could be dispatched. The argument for doing so would be Afghanistan redux. Still, in the absence of 9/11-like event, that would be a hard sell to the American public. The chances of war by miscalculation are higher. Obama's bequest to his successor is a United States stranded in a mine field in the Middle East bereft of friends or diplomatic GPS. Hillary, of course, bears a large share of responsibility for creating this hazardous topography, and for the prevailing hyper-active habits of American policy -- a potentially lethal combination. For one, maintaining a state of high tension with Iran creates opportunities for incidents to occur in the Persian Gulf. Too, American and Iranian forces in Iraq mingle like oil and water. So, there is some possibility of relatively minor encounters escalating into serious combat by stoking the political fires among crazies on both sides. The other combustible situation is Ukraine. There, the narrative of Russia as an aggressor hell-bent on regaining its Eastern European empire has led to a series of provocative military moves by Washington via NATO that are generating another Cold War. The strength of ultra-nationalists in Kiev, encouraged by their backers in the Obama administration and the fiery rhetoric of American military commanders, have killed the opportunity for a resolution of the conflict in eastern Ukraine as embodied in Minsk II. Paranoia is sweeping the Baltic states and Poland -- again with active connivance of the "war party" in Washington. Hillary is a charter member of that group. While one can be certain that she hasn't thought through the implications, and one be reassured by Putin's sobriety, the lack of prudential thinking makes this the most dangerous of situations. Then, there is the Bill factor. He is the joker in the pack. We know that Hillary consults with him on all questions of consequence as a matter of routine. He is her all-purpose confidante. It is inescapable that he will act as an eminence gris in the White House. So a key issue is the role that he will play and the counsel that he will offer. There is good reason to believe that he will serve to tone down Hillary's war-mongering tendencies -- such as they are. We all know what happened in the early morning hours at Pulse Nightclub on Sunday June 12, 2016. It was horrific. During Pride month. The worst mass shooting in the history of the United States of America. First some history on Pulse (courtesy of my friend and Next Magazine Editor in Chief Alexander Kacala) Barbara Poma was introduced to the gay bar and club scene in Fort Lauderdale at the tender age of fourteen, thanks to her older brother John. On February 13th, 1991, her brother passed away after battling HIV for several years. In honor of her brother, Barbara opened Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, FL with business partner Ron Legler. They coined the name Pulse for John's heartbeat and dedicated themselves to serving the nightclub community, a community he loved so much. Pulse has worked with a wide range of organizations and hosted many community events such as Equal at UCF, Make A Wish, Equality Florida, Miracle of Love, Hope and Help (benefiting the AIDS walk), The Gathering Center, Come Out With Pride, and Gay Games Orlando 2016. Advertisement Post news binge today, there are a number of things I noticed and decided to compile here. Some positive, some hard realities, but all my truth and perspective. It is what I could do for our wonderful and wounded community today. Tragedy Whores Abound I first heard this phrase reading Carole Radziwill's first autobiographical novel "What Remains" and have shared the paragraph several times. Call them "ambulance chasers" or whatever you choose, but they are the type of people that take a local or national tragedy like this one and somehow manage to twist it to make it be about themselves. It's vile, its reprehensible, yet it shows very clearly the kind of people they are at their core. Ms. Radziwill I think encapsulates it the best, in her book where she states that they are "voyeurs. They feed like coffin flies on drama" and most clearly, indicates them as "emotional rubberneckers". I don't think these people can be described any more perfectly. Go Out. Now. Stop typing on Facebook and playing with crowns on Snapchat. Go out to the bar. Hit the dance floor. Grab a cocktail. These bars are part of the legacy of our community and to so many people, a landmark in their coming out process. Now more than ever, they need our support. Places like Pulse, The Manor, and The Parliament House are the fabric of Florida's LGBT nightlife. They are the backbones of our community. They are home. Now is the time to "go home" and support them more than ever. If we don't, the hate wins. And that my friends, is absolutely unacceptable. There Is Still Homophobia; Everywhere. Every time I go to a new area on vacation (or to New York City) my wonderful mother constantly tells me "be careful, there are still people who don't like people like you". While I sometimes brush it off as the musings of an overprotective and wonderfully loving mother, her words today rang so incredibly true. I have been to Pulse Nightclub. A number of times. This could have been Boston. Or Asbury Park. Or Provincetown. Advertisement According to news reports, the young man who committed these atrocities had a large problem seeing two men kissing in Miami several weeks ago. While I am lucky enough to live in a town (Asbury Park, N.J.) that has a thriving gay community, others are not as lucky. Gay bashings still occur. People are still killed for being gay in other countries. Many of the millennial generation specifically, do not recall having to quickly go into gay bars so you are not seen, and can't begin to comprehend a world where they are not accepted. While it's unfortunate that a horrific situation like this had to occur to demonstrate this fact, it needs to crystal clear; while we have come so far as a community, we still have an incredibly long way to go. My Community Is Amazing For almost twenty years, I have called Asbury Park, N.J. my home. It has been my haven, my home base, and my safe place. Some of my dearest friends own, manage and work in the tireless, rewarding and crazy business that nightclubs can be. I have seen each and every one of these people today band together to make sure that our community recognizes the events that have occurred and paying tribute to the victims and those affected with a candlelight vigil. They recognize that while the miles may separate us, the nightlife community is a large and diverse family tree, with branches spanning throughout the United States. I have stood alongside this community through natural disasters (Hurricane Sandy) deaths of fellow community members, and watched it grow from a dark and moody town to one of the premiere tourism destinations for the LGBT community. Today and always, I am terribly proud of each and every one of the people that make up the wonderful fabric of my town. Pride. Simply Pride. People still will dance the night away at Club Cafe. WeHo boys will still sip cocktails at PUMP and The Abbey tonight. Brittany Lynn will still tear up Philly Pride today as the best drag queen in town. JR's in D.C. will continue to be the best spot to cruise post Pride festival. Each of these cities had Pride today. The celebrations did not stop. And they won't stop. The hate that has been demonstrated can only be matched by our communities banding together. June is Pride month. Proud in yourself. Your community. Your family. Now, more than any other Pride month is recent memory, it is imperative to be visible. Be present. Show yourselves. Vigilance Is Key If this incident teaches us anything, it is to be vigilant. While many of us take for granted being able to walk into our local tavern or nightclub and have an amazing experience, we don't take into account the fact that an unforeseen incident could occur. While we can only pray that an incident like last night will not continue to be the norm, it should indicate to all of us that we need to be more aware of our surroundings, especially when it is your first time in a new establishment. Get off your phone and look around. Where are the emergency exits? Where is the closest exit should you need to get out quickly? Where do you plan to meet up with friends should you end up separated? While these questions may seem extreme or trivial, in the world we live in now they are crucial to be answered. Advertisement Like Britney says, Do Somethin' Let's be honest. The #PrayForOrlando and #Pulse hashtags are great, and the memes are appreciated. But there is more we can do. Go to www.redcross.org and click around. Blood donations are needed. And money is needed to aid people that are affected by the tragedy. A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to aid victims of the tragedy and you can donate at https://www.gofundme.com/2942a444. Philadelphia's own Jimmy DePre took a break from spinning various Pride events to share feelings through music. These words are haunting and could not be more true at this moment. There's a man with a gun in his hand Something I can't understand Love should be in demand The homophobic and transphobic carnage in Orlando was a 'plane crash', with the blood and corpses of LGBTQ people splattered across the headlines. However, LGBTQ people are dying of hate, isolation, exclusion, and violence daily, in 'car crashes' that do not catch the public eye. Gay children are being bullied to death in our schools, trans women beaten to death on our streets, and the public does not bat an eye. After the Pulse nightclub massacre, there will be the customary vigils, speeches, and rainbow processions, vows of solidarity, and then the predictable return to business as usual. My heart is exploding with love and grief for those who have died and are dying, and it is also burning with anger at those who perpetrate, encourage, and enable these atrocities. I am left wondering, amid all the prayers and mourning, wherein lies the responsibility and who is to blame? Advertisement I blame Ted Cruz, Pat McCrory, and every single politician in America and around the world who has promoted fear and hatred against the LGBTQ community in attempt to garner more votes. I blame all those legislators who have devoted countless time and resources to concocting homophobic and transphobic laws, while simultaneously thwarting legislative action aimed at protecting the LGBTQ community. I blame every religious leader who has encouraged his faithful to be intolerant towards LGBTQ people and urged them to fight against our basic rights and dignities as human beings. I blame every person who feels that their religion entitles them to be biased against LGBTQ people and to exclude us. Advertisement I blame every parent who has victimized and bullied transgender children in schools by attempting to deny transgender students their right to access facilities matching their authentic gender identity. I blame everyone who has threatened transgender people with violence and murder simply for using facilities that match our authentic gender identity. I blame all parents who have taught their children to be intolerant and unaccepting of LGBTQ people, and all those parents who have rejected and abused their own LGBTQ children. I blame all those who seek to erase LGBTQ people because our existence makes them uncomfortable. I blame all those who bully, intimidate, or harass LGBTQ people, and those adults who turn the other way when LGBTQ children are being mistreated. I blame all those who think it is acceptable to mock and ridicule LGBTQ people, and those who dismiss attempts to end this bullying as 'political correctness'. Advertisement I blame law enforcement in America and around the world that erases LGBTQ people and does not take action to protect us, and in fact is often the worst perpetrator of abuse and violence against us. I blame every court, judge, and jury that has acquitted or given a token sentence to perpetrators of hate crimes against us, because of the 'gay panic' defense or simply because in their eyes our existence is worthy of violence. I blame hate groups and terror groups like the American Family Association, the Ku Klux Klan, and ISIS. I blame all those who have amicable dealings with regimes under which being LGBTQ is considered an offense punishable by death. I blame all those who stand in silence as LGBTQ people are attacked, abused, murdered, and denied our human rights, because they do not think it is their problem or because they are embarrassed to speak up for us. Advertisement A common narrative this election season is that Hillary Clinton will almost certain triumph over Donald Trump because he's a misogynist and a bigot and "there simply aren't enough white men" as a share of the electorate to allow him to win. While this assumption may be comforting for some, it suffers from two critical errors: First, it turns out that white voters make up a larger share of the electorate than people tend to think. So many more, in fact, that there is a fairly stable path to victory for Trump even if he does no better among minorities than Mitt Romney, and even if he suffers among college-educated whites (more on that later). Second, these pundits have been hasty in assuming Trump would not do well with minorities. Right now, he is trending to not only meet, but to exceed, Mitt Romney's 2012 performance. If he manages to surpass his predecessor by a few percentage points with whites or key minority groups (and especially if he manages to do both), then he'll likely be classing up the White House come 2017. And right now, things are looking pretty good. Advertisement At the moment, roughly 10% of African Americans have a positive view of Trump, and another 15% are undecided between Trump and Clinton. At first blush, this does not sound great--winning between 10-25% of the black vote would still mean he's overwhelmingly unpopular with African Americans. However, given that Mitt Romney won a dismal 6% of the black vote, Trump stands to exceed his predecessor by a wide margin. This is a big problem: as Van Jones pointed out, for Hillary to win in November, black turnout would have to at least match 2012's numbers, and she would have to win 90% these votes. Right now, it's looking like she might not hit either of these benchmarks. Although Trump is staunchly anti-immigrant and routinely blames China for America's decline, he is trending to meet or exceed Mitt Romney's numbers among Asian voters. What's perhaps more surprising is that Trump may even outperform Mitt Romney among Hispanics. Despite his depiction of most Mexican immigrants as rapists, criminals and job stealers, or his commitment to build a giant wall between the U.S. and Mexico (and make Mexico pay for it), or his plan to deport undocumented Americans en masse, 23% of Latino voters support Trump, with another 15% undecided--putting him on-track to meet Romney's 27%. Even if he just manages to hold his current margin, it will be very bad for Hillary Clinton; if he does manage to match or surpass his predecessor with this key demographic, Trump will almost certainly be president. A Coalition of Hate After Mitt Romney's humiliating loss in 2012, the GOP of what they believed went wrong. According to their reckoning, the demography of the U.S. was , and towards that of their rivals. If the Republican Party wanted to have a viable shot at the White House going forward, it would need to increase its share of black, Latino and millennial voters by increasing outreach with these groups and softening their tone on contentious social issues. Trump's strategy is , but here's why it may work: People on both sides of the political spectrum tend to talk and think about minorities as a homogenous block. It is assumed that if a candidate says something bad about immigrants, of course Latinos will be upset. If a politician is bigoted against Muslims, of course black people would disapprove. If a public figure makes insensitive comments about trans citizens, of course women would take umbrage. Turns out, this is false--and Trump has been able to peel off many minority voters by appealing to their bigotry towards other minority groups. Advertisement Moreover, it is likely that Trump will win a larger share of the LGBT vote than any Republican candidate has. This is not only for his unorthodox positions on gender and sexual minority issues, but also in part due to his hardline rhetoric against "radical Islam": LGBT and feminist movements have long been complicit in anti-Islam fervor--a trend which may be exacerbated in the wake of the ISIS-inspired attack on Pulse in Orlando (despite the many voices from the LGBT community who aspire to push back against these reactions). As a matter of fact, Trump's anti-Muslim proposals are actually supported by a majority of Americans. Indeed, many of his espoused xenophobic and bigoted views enjoy much wider support than most seem willing to believe or acknowledge--cutting across gender, class, ethnic, and even party lines. Does Trump Have a White-People Problem? Here, the critical reader may object that despite Trump's relative strength among many minority groups, . Here's the problem with that narrative: First, while Trump's approval rating is lower than Romney's was among white females and college graduates, this is largely offset by gains with male white and/or non-college educated voters. And even among women and those with degrees, what is particularly striking is that Hillary Clinton does not seem to be benefiting much from Trump's alleged unpopularity. For instance, Trump is down by 10 points relative to Romney among college-educated whites, but Clinton is only up 3 points relative to Obama's 2012 performance. Or more strikingly, Trump is down relative to Romney by 9% among white women, but Clinton is only up relative to Obama's numbers by 1% in this demographic--despite being the first viable female presidential candidate in U.S. history! Moreover, there are reasons to believe that Trump's actual support among women and college-educated whites may be under-represented in polls. One strong piece of evidence to support this conclusion are exit polls from the primaries, wherein Trump supporters tended to be both wealthier and more educated than the average American. Advertisement Finally, while much is being made about the supposedly deep rifts in the Republican Party over Trump, it is important to distinguish the Republican establishment from its voting base: the entire Trump phenomenon is reflective of a deep cleavage between the two. The fact that the likes of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney or Lindsay Graham have trouble endorsing Trump indicates virtually nothing about how most Republicans feel. In short the rhetoric about Trump's vulnerabilities with white voters seem overblown; he may well win the white vote by a larger margin than any candidate in recent history. And while his numbers with minority voters may be objectively low, he seems to be garnering more than enough support from black, Asian and Latino voters to deny Clinton the White House. This blog was co-authored by Christina J. Gilbert, Staff Attorney and Policy Counsel, National Juvenile Defender Center In 1967, the United States Supreme Court held in In re Gault that children have a constitutional right to a lawyer in juvenile court. But, nearly 50 years after that landmark decision, too many children continue to face police interrogation, court proceedings, and confinement without the protection of an attorney. Not surprisingly, this reality leaves them vulnerable to incalculable harm. As Pride Month celebrations kick off this June, the National Juvenile Defender Center and the Movement Advancement Project are collaborating to elevate the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning (LGBTQ) youth in the juvenile justice system. Research shows that LGBTQ youth are funneled into juvenile court at rates far higher than their peers--and the disparity is even more staggering for youth of color, who make up 85 percent of LGBTQ youth housed in secure detention. Advertisement Advocates and legislators nationwide are making exceptional headway to improve juvenile court policies around LGBTQ youth and end disproportionate contact with law enforcement and court systems. One crisis, however, remains largely unaffected: children's access to counsel. In a juvenile justice system crippled by prejudice, a child's attorney is the last--and sometimes only--line of defense against unfair treatment and senseless punishment. In 2010, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention found that only 42 percent of youth in custody reported having legal counsel. Often, children waive their right to counsel without fully understanding their rights or the possible long-term consequences of their court involvement. Some attorneys are simply overworked, underpaid, and lack adequate training--and for that, young people pay the price. Access to counsel for children means more than representation in court. It means having an advocate who will value clients' stories, hear their concerns, and fight for fair and equitable outcomes throughout the entirety of the case. Juvenile defense attorneys are uniquely positioned to uphold young people's rights and bring to light abuse and mistreatment that youth might otherwise suffer in silence. The attorney-client relationship is especially important for LGBTQ youth, who may be struggling with difficult and deeply personal situations at home, school, or in their communities. When attorneys fail to be sensitive and understanding allies for LGBTQ children, the client-attorney relationship erodes. Juvenile defenders must be trained to check their own biases, which could interrupt or guide their representation of LGBTQ youth. Not only is that an ethical violation, but it also diminishes the special role juvenile defenders can--and do--play as champions for children. Advertisement Specialized knowledge and skills for juvenile defense attorneys is critical to ensuring the best possible outcomes for LGBTQ youth who are court-involved. Some LGBTQ youth may not be "out" to their families, and attorneys should be prepared to navigate fragile parent-child relationships. Judges in juvenile delinquency cases routinely look to a child's family support system and school environment to make a determination of whether or not to detain the child. When LGBTQ youth are disconnected from their families or neglect school because of bullying and harassment, a judge may be less inclined to allow them to return home--unless a juvenile defender offers an alternative remedy informed by the client's experiences. In our system of "justice," LGBTQ youth are twice as likely to be locked up for nonviolent behavior like truancy, running away, and breaking curfew. It's not shocking, then, that LGBTQ youth account for as many as 40 percent of girls and 14 percent of boys in juvenile justice facilities. Behind bars, the bullying, harassment, and violence continue. LGBTQ youth are at increased risk for verbal harassment and physical and sexual assault by their peers and facility staff. The Department of Justice found that youth who identify as non-heterosexual are 12 times more likely than heterosexual youth to be sexually assaulted by another youth. As front line advocates, juvenile defense attorneys are empowered to assure children's safety. This Pride Month, while we honor the progress of the LGBTQ advocacy movement, we must also lift up the voices of LGBTQ youth too often stifled in our courtrooms and in our prisons. Our young people need protections, not punishment. With community and legislative support, juvenile defense attorneys can be that catalyst for change. State leaders should recognize the power of juvenile defenders, invest in their excellence, and ensure they're within the reach of every child. The University of California has a timely opportunity to add to its reputation as a world-class and forward-thinking institution. Last week, UC representatives and the union representing 6,000 postdoctoral researchers (UAW Local 5810) sat down to begin negotiating a new contract for wages, benefits and working conditions. Among the major issues for myself and other postdocs is gender inequity - the fact that women academics, and especially those with children, are paid less, have less job security, face sexual harassment at a dramatically higher rate, and ultimately decide to leave the academy with much greater frequency than their male counterparts. Understanding this gender gap is important and many of the reasons are apparent. If the political will exists within the University, together we can begin to reverse the trend. Low wages are a significant part of the problem. A starting salary of less than $44,000 forces postdocs to scrape by in high-rent California and make sacrifices for our scholarship and professional advancement down the road. But for women postdocs, the sacrifice is even greater. Among recent PhD graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields, women are paid 31% less than men - this suggests a wage hike and wage gap review for postdocs is in order. But salary is not the only significant obstacle that women postdocs face. Failed sexual harassment policies, zero or minimal childcare subsidies, inadequate parental leave policies and inflexible workplace rules hostile to new mothers are also major factors in, as University of Hawaii Professor Hope Jahren describes, the university shedding "women the way the trees on campus lose their leaves in the fall" As it stands, UC policies make it virtually impossible for a postdoc to plan for and raise a family without untenable burdens. The current structure pushes women to choose between family and dedication to career. That is exactly the double bind that has historically kept women out of advanced research and precisely the false choice a leading university should be looking to eliminate. At some point, the absence of adequate financial support and the hardships women endure to achieve both family and professional lives summons up a backward sort of hazing. Too often the UC administration's posture has been "what was good enough for us, is good enough for them" or "it's not my job to figure out how to raise your children." This approach ignores the realities of the modern workforce and the unique contributions women make to their professions. Either "science moms" are welcome in the most rigorous labs and classrooms or they are not. Studies show the existence of a "mommy tax" - the cost in wages and lost advancement that certain industries exact from women who have children. This effect is pronounced for women in science and likely underlies the gender gap. To the extent that the University has contributed to this inequity, it can right that wrong now and adopt policies that reduce the conflict between dedication to one's field and dedication to one's family. A childcare subsidy is one way - a plus for all postdocs, but one that will benefit mothers more. In addition, the University needs to take concrete steps to demonstrate that the sexual harassment cases that dominated the news this past year are not indicative of the administration's posture toward women on its campuses. An overhaul of policies relating to postdocs, including sexual harassment, should be one of those steps. Advertisement In the first bargaining session for our new contract, the union's bargaining team presented a comprehensive package of proposals including language designed to address UC's gender equity crisis by protecting postdocs from sexual harassment and discrimination as well as introducing benefits such as childcare support and parental leave. Though the University has also expressed a desire to make progress, it had no proposals prepared on any of these issues. The University must seize this opportunity to distance itself from the old way of thinking by adopting progressive, equitable policies that enable both women and men to excel in their research and in their family lives. Setting a high standard for gender equity and inclusion is what everyone in the university community should expect from the University of California. Balloons hang on a sign at the entrance to Sandy Hook School on December 15, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. The residents of an idyllic Connecticut town were reeling in horror from the massacre of 20 small children and six adults in one of the worst school shootings in US history. The heavily armed gunman shot dead 18 children inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, said Connecticut State Police spokesman Lieutenant Paul Vance. Two more died of their wounds in hospital. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images) I was sleeping in because we just got back from working in Canada. My friends came over for our scheduled morning walk. I didn't have my phone. I came home and my phone was buzzing like crazy. "Are you okay? "Where are you?" "I'm praying for you!" "I love you!" I still didn't understand. I no longer have a personal Facebook and the TV wasn't on. I don't sign in to the news. I saw it on Twitter and watched the numbers rise in real time. First some dead, then multiple, then 20 and now 50. Advertisement My first reaction was visceral. I know the horror of waiting to hear. A helicopter flew overhead. It made everything too real. Too familiar. I panicked. I called my friend. I cried. Fifty people. I am reliving being one of the family members in wait. And then she told me. An attack against people who are gay. A specific group. Just like last year around this time. The 17th of June. A Black church. My head is spinning. "I can't go to Wisconsin." I am tired. I just got back from Canada. And tomorrow is Wisconsin but now I am scared. I want to crawl up in a fetal position on the sofa and watch Harry Potter movies with my son. Perhaps I will build a bullet proof barrier around my house and just order groceries from Peapod all summer. Or for the rest of our lives. But my message was and is and always will be "love wins." And this is why I must go to Wisconsin. How do I tell my son that fifty people all died the way his sister did? And in one of our favorite places: Orlando, Florida. Advertisement I am waiting for the church to be as outraged about gun violence as much as we seem to be about who pees where in a Target bathroom. I have one message for those families in Florida: I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I am sorry that our tragedy here in Sandy Hook wasn't enough to save your loved ones. I tried and I won't stop trying. Don't you dare even listen to even ONE person who may insinuate that somehow this is your loved ones' fault because they were gay or any other reason. Nor is it God's wrath. They did that to us on Sandy Hook too. And it broke my heart. You will receive love from a million places. Embrace it. Take good care of yourself. This will be a forever journey. Some ugly will come your way too. Delete. Ignore. Let it go. Your loss today will bring out the worst AND the best in all of us. May we commit to being our best selves in honor of what you now bear. I am going to Wisconsin to spread the message that love wins. In honor of your loved ones. Because hate, ugly, evil and prejudice cannot silence love, courage, good. Advertisement I don't know what to tell my son. But know I will commit to learning about each and every one of your loved ones. And we will commit as a family to learning about their lives and the legacies you build in their memory. But I am so sorry. Because you shouldn't have to be doing this. You should be planning summer outings to the beach and barbecues and birthdays and graduations. And I know it will never be the same. My son will learn about your loved ones. And we will not forget. We will say their names out loud. We will remember your children. As you remembered and learned about ours. And dear friends with generous hearts -- please WAIT to donate until you know for sure that your hard earned dollars will be received by VICTIMS... and not by individuals, groups and organizations designed to benefit from tragedies. America's mass shootings should not be the United Way's pay day or a specific town's funding source to build a senior center. Millions were poured in to Sandy Hook. Very little actually reached us. And victims of gun violence will have a lifetime of need. Before you give -- ask where your dollars will go. Specify that you want it to go to victim families. Friends -- you are either a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Victims cannot bear the burden of this alone. Please help. Bring up gun violence in your house of worship and/or community group. Join Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America or any other group like it that speaks to you. Advertisement And if someone is hurting you or bullying you because you are gay -- please visit The Trevor Project or www.itgetsbetter.org If you know someone who shows extreme hate of a group or individual, has access to weapons and you feel there is inherent risk of harm -- please call your local police immediately. Let's be more than bystanders. Let's save lives. From Sandy Hook. From Ana and Isaiah's mom and dad. We love you. We are so very heartbroken. Nelba Marquez-Greene, LMFT has deep knowledge and a long history of service in the area of mental health. She is a clinical fellow of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy and has worked in private practice, community mental health and academic settings in the U.S. and Canada. Prior to founding the Ana Grace Project, Nelba served as the Coordinator for Klingberg Family Therapy Center's outpatient child and adolescent psychiatric clinic and was an adjunct faculty member at Central Connecticut State University. But of all the titles she's ever held -- being a mother to Ana and Isaiah and wife to Jimmy are her most treasured. Image Source: Dhammakaya.net Wat Phra Dhammakaya, a colossal 1,000 acre temple in Thailand, is still much of an enigma to most people in the world. Most outsiders who have heard of the temple hardly know anything about it, except that it is massive in size and often associated with controversy. But what exactly makes this temple so controversial in the first place? Even with the temple's immense size and large following, Dhammakaya has stayed largely under the radar throughout its less than 50 year history. The exceptions being the media scrutiny it faced in 1999 and in 2002 over alleged scandals. The temple was later cleared of these charges and some Thai media outlets even apologized for slander afterwards. Dhammakaya made headlines once again in a heated legal case that started in 2015. Even without the random turbulence the temple has gone through, it has faced criticism over the years regardless over its unique approach to Buddhism. Advertisement Other than the much more common accusation of commercialism, which I addressed in a previous article, Dhammakaya does have a few other controversies surrounding it. Dhammakaya is unquestionably an organization that the media loves to hate, and tabloids just can't get enough of the scandalous stories about it. The accusations against the temple range from concerns over its size, to bizarre theories about the temple trying to take over the world. One prominent Dhammakaya critic, Dr. Mano Laohavanich, accuses the temple of having ties to the Nazis. A somewhat cliche accusation for a critic to say the least. I've even heard some Thais accuse the temple of using magic spells (really people?) to bewitch its huge number of followers into attending. Wacko conspiracy theories aside, Dhammakaya's unique approach to Buddhism has drawn some legitimate criticisms, and mainstream accusations are generally less ridiculous. So what makes the world's largest Buddhist temple so controversial? Advertisement Massive Membership Image Source: DhammakayaPost A common criticism of Dhammakaya has to do with its sheer size and massive following. Dhammakaya is famous for its colossal ceremonies featuring attendance in the hundreds of thousands to sometimes over a million people. An impressive feat considering the temple is less than 50 years old and started with just a few thousands followers. So why is this controversial at all? After all, the temple can't help it if a lot of people wish to attend, and it seems odd to be criticizing something simply for having a lot of followers. Disregarding conspiracy theories about Dhammakaya trying to take over the world by sitting it into submission, many critics do have legitimate concerns over the temple's size. A common criticism of the temple's massive ceremonies is that such events promote Buddhism as an organized religion, rather than a way of life, a notion that is especially popular in the West. This is something that is debatable of course, but somebody who clings to that notion could understandably have some disagreements with Dhammakaya. Dhammakaya critic Sulak Sivaraksa makes this very argument against the temple in fact. Image Source: Dailymail Another concern critics have about Dhammakaya's activities is that the massive crowds it draws in siphon people away from local temples. Many Thais prefer the cozy atmosphere of small community temples to a less intimate massive one. In fact, Thailand is currently going through a serious epidemic of temple abandonment, a problem Dhammakaya acknowledges and has made efforts to reverse. Advertisement Having to see your community temple become abandoned is no easy sight, so it's reasonable people would blame a mega-temple like Dhammakaya, despite the temple's efforts to stem the tide of temple abandonment with its vigorous support of temples in crisis zones and by encouraging members to support and attend their local temple's events as well as their own. Orderliness Image Source: trawelIndia.blogspot.com Dhammakaya is famous in Thailand for its focus on orderliness, and the discipline of Dhammakaya monastics is so renowned many Thais can spot a group of Dhammakaya monks easily due to their unique habit of walking in formation. The temple even asks all attendees to wear white at the temple to represent purity, and of course, to make things look orderly. This aspect of Dhammakaya has sparked criticism of the temple however and even accusations of the temple secretly training communists to take over Thailand in the 1970s. So what's behind this controversy? Other than the somewhat laughable theories that the temple is secretly training Communist Nazi's for world domination, there are indeed less absurd reasons for these criticisms. Mahayana Buddhists in a ceremony in a Singapore monastary Image Source: mykid.lk Unlike other Buddhist traditions, such as the Chinese influenced traditions, Thai monastics actually do not generally put discipline and order at the forefront of monastic practice. Wat Phra Dhammakaya is one of the few temples in Thailand that puts such emphasis on order. For many Thai temples, the focus is more on letting go and convenience to maintain a peaceful mind than upholding themselves to any kind of disciplined code of conduct. Which makes a lot of sense when you consider a big part of Buddhism is being free from worry. Image Source: en.dhammakayapost.org Naturally, since Dhammakaya's customs are different from most Thai temples, this provides ample fuel for controversy. Like with many organizations, particularly religious ones, doing something different than what is seen as mainstream is often seen as "bizarre" or "suspicious". Advertisement Some more reasons for this have to do with the notion that such orderliness is "unBuddhist" per se since having strict discipline isn't really seen as being in line with the calm and relaxed stereotypes usually associated with Buddhism. Despite the fact that such order is found in some other Buddhist traditions. So why does Dhammakaya demand such strict discipline from its monks anyways? Image Source: Buddhistdoor.com A big reason Dhammakaya does this is to instill or uphold the faith of the laypeople. One famous Buddhist story is the story of Ashoka the Great, a famous Indian Emperor who was vital for the spread of Buddhism. Ashoka the Great became inspired when he saw a Buddhist novice monk named Nigrodha walking on the street, he was heartened by the serene way the monk carried himself and the Emperor invited him to his palace where the young monk delivered a sermon. Believe it or not, this is a huge reason Dhammakaya has this tradition of orderliness, and it has worked on many occasions. I know of many cases where people become intrigued by the orderliness of monks from Dhammakaya and seek out the temple as a result, some eventually becoming devout followers. Another reason Dhammakaya has this style of order has to do with its size. Keep in mind most temples in Thailand are a lot smaller and have a fairly modest number of monks and staff to manage. With Wat Phra Dhammakaya's thousands of monks and staff, and a massive temple stretching 1,000 acres, not having a system of discipline and order can make things pretty chaotic. Reverence for its Leaders Followers carrying the golden statue of Phramongkolthepmuni Image Source: en.dhammakaya.net A less common, but still notable criticism of Dhammakaya has to do with the huge devotion it has towards its leaders. These claims are quite accurate. Dhammakaya members undoubtedly have a strong reverence for the leaders that built the foundation for the temple, particularly: the respected Thai meditation master Phramongkolthepmuni, the temple's founder Master Nun Chand Khonnokyoong, and the temple's current abbot Venerable Dhammajayo. Advertisement This however, is not at all abnormal in Buddhist culture, and Dhammakaya is far from the only Buddhist organization that holds deep respect for its leaders. In college, I became exposed to two other large Buddhist organizations; Plum Village, led by Zen Master Thich Naht Hahn, and Tzu Chi, a humanitarianism-based Buddhist organization led by Master Cheng Yen. Both of which I found to have a base of followers extremely devoted to their respective masters. A portrait of the founder of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Master Nun Chand Khonnokyoong Image Source: wikipedia I once went to a small meeting of Thich Naht Hahn followers, consisting largely of Westerners inspired by his books. What I found so striking there was the amount of respect they showed the Zen master, even going as far as placing a picture of him at the center for the meeting, and bowing to him before and after the meeting. When the master came to visit Deer Park, the San Diego branch of his organization, a crowd of devoted followers from all walks of life packed the temple, forcing the main hall to overflow into the outside. Advertisement Venerable Dhammajayo, the current abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya The same holds for the large Taiwanese Buddhist organization, Tzu Chi. I joined the collegiate branch in college on a friend's invite, and was intrigued to see how much respect the members had for their master. Despite large numbers of non-Buddhist members, the volunteers regularly kicked off their meetings by bowing to Master Cheng-Yen, and her presence also drew in large crowds of devoted followers. This type of reverence shouldn't be a surprise; respect is a huge part of Buddhism. The Buddha himself was just a human, yet Buddhists of all sects and backgrounds hold deep reverence for the great teacher. So unless these other late Buddhist masters also went to Hogwarts with Venerable Dhammajayo to learn how to bewitch masses of devotees, I think it's pretty safe to say having high regard for one's masters isn't strictly a Dhammakaya thing. Political Ties Image Source: WorldReligionNews Another common accusation Dhammakaya is dogged by is accusations of political ties to the famous Red Shirt political group in Thailand. Such accusations make people believe that Dhammakaya is actively political, but even if you scour the temple's 24 hour TV channel you won't find an inkling of political endorsement. While some modern religious groups do officially take sides on politics, Dhammakaya does no such thing in the manner you would see with American preachers like Al Sharpton or Pat Robertson. After all, the temple's purpose is to attract many followers, something everybody knows it is very good at, and it would be counterproductive to alienate a group of potential followers by picking a side in Thailand's Red Shirt-Yellow Shirt conflict. Plus, neither side really captures the "Nazi Communists" part of the political spectrum critics say Dhammakaya supposedly backs. Advertisement Dhammakaya's "association" with the Red Shirts comes largely from the media citing each other as proof of the ties and a few Red Shirt leaders having been Dhammakaya members. However, having members who are politicians is different from being actively political, and that should make Dhammakaya no more affiliated with the Red Shirts than the Catholic Church is affiliated with the American Democratic party because of the membership of US Vice President Joe Biden, or affiliated with the American Republican Party because of US House Speaker Paul Ryan. Although they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, they both belong to the same church. Image Source: abc.net Dhammakaya is made up of people from all backgrounds and opinions. The last thing anyone would expect a temple to do is ask what political affiliation somebody is before entering the temple. In fact, many prominent supporters of Dhammakaya are actually known to be staunch Yellow Shirts. Prakob Chirakiti, a big-time supporter of Dhammakaya, is a known member of the Thailand's Yellow Shirt Party (Democrat Party). As one Dhammakaya blogger put it: "...some of them may be Yellow shirts, some Red shirts, some undecided; it is each person's freedom. Whatever political groups they identify with, when they are inside the temple's premises, they are White shirts." To Conclude While the aforementioned points and the "commercialism" are probably the most prevalent criticisms of Dhammakaya, there are others that plague the temple. Dhammakaya Stupa compared with the Kesariya Stupa in India One minor criticism is the so called "unusual" shape of its iconic Stupa. This does have a clear explanation however and doesn't warrant elaboration in this article. Advertisement Another one is the simplistic design of the temple. While some find the practical and simple design of Dhammakaya quaint and calming, others find it cold and emotionless compared to the majestic beauty of traditional Thai temples. This of course is simply a matter of architectural preference. Controversial or not, Dhammakaya is undoubtedly a very unique temple. Some say the temple's approach to the Dhamma is heresy, others say it is simply a modern approach to Thai Buddhism. While supporters and opponents alike will almost unanimously agree that Dhammakaya does do things differently from most Thai temples, Dhammakaya does have reasons for them, and they certainly aren't due to secret plans to take over the world or to wage war against muggles. Either way, you can only learn so much from reading things in the juicy "news" exposes you see in the media. Especially since a lot of news reporters spend no more than a few days at Dhammakaya "investigating" their story before writing their so called tell-all reports. Image Source: Flickriver.com Much like how the best way to understand the Buddha's Dhamma is to experience it through personal practice rather than academic study, the best way to get an understanding of Dhammakaya is to explore it for yourself; first hand. Nothing you can read or hear from random people online will give you a more accurate understanding of the mysterious temple; not online forums, not gossip, not this article or any other article. Advertisement Some come to Wat Phra Dhammakaya out of curiosity and become lifelong members, others come and find that Dhammakaya just isn't for them. It is all based on personal preference. The Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community observe a minute of silence in Nice, France, June 13, 2016 for victims of the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard Somehow, the massacre in Orlando struggles to be recognized as a homophobic act. Although the laws of some Western countries have evolved, hatred of gays, lesbians, bi and transgender people remains a widespread and poisonous phenomenon in the three monotheistic religions and beyond. At the Nuremberg trials, no mention was made of the mass murder of "pink triangles" (a badge gay prisoners were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps). And for good reason. The victors who put the Nazis on trial were still pushing highly homophobic policies and politics in their own countries. The gay victims of the Third Reich were ignored and appeared on no monument or memorial. The surviving deportees would get neither recognition nor compensation. Advertisement On the evening after the Orlando massacre, France 2 reported the crime as if it were at the hands of a killer whose motive was "not known." The same report specified that the attack was carried out in a gay nightclub by a man who, according to his father, had expressed disgust over having seen two men kissing. Unfortunately, it's not surprising that a religious fundamentalist perpetrated the Orlando attacks. Jews, Christians and Muslims all have propagandists of radical homophobic hatred in their ranks. Recently in France, the Grand Rabbi Sitruk said: "The Torah considers homosexuality an abomination and a failure of humanity" and that he considered the Gay Pride parade in Tel Aviv to be an "attempt at moral extermination" of Jews. Inviting his listeners to act out, he concluded in a way eerily similar to ISIS: "I hope the listeners will react in a radical manner to this abomination." In regards to Islam, most Muslim-majority countries continue to condemn homosexuality (sometimes to death) in their criminal codes. As for the church, it remains caught up in violent homophobic currents and extreme opposition to same-sex marriage. Remember what Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the Archbishop of Lyon, said on the topic: "Soon they will want to make marriage with three or four people, and perhaps, one day, the prohibition against incest will fall." In the three monotheistic religions, voices have long since risen up: the Muslim Association of Homosexuals France (HM2F created in 2010), David & Jonathan, a Christian homosexual movement (since 1972), and Beit Haverim, a Jewish group of homosexuals in France (since 1977). Advertisement Intellectuals of all these faiths have signed appeals against homophobia and transphobia, including Protestant philosopher Olivier Abel, Catholic essayist Jean-Claude Guillebaud, the Muslim theologian Tariq Oubrou and Rabbi Krygier Rivon, who said he is "worried about discrimination, violence and humiliation that continues to befall homosexuals and transsexuals." They explained: "We have the feeling that every religious family has members who call for the refusal of violence and other who encourage it." The fact that ISIS capitalizes on this hatred should not surprise us. But it would be tragic if the terrorist organization became the tree that hides the homophobic forest. In Mississippi, a new law will soon allow an officer or businessperson to refuse to serve gay people if his or her religion forbids. In North Carolina, transgender people have been denied the right to use the restroom according to their gender identity, and other states are following. In the very Catholic country of Poland, many consider it a bad thing to be gay, and representatives of the church do not hesitate to segregate gay people. In Russia, President Putin passed a law prohibiting 'homosexual propaganda' and continued reports of violence against gay people make clear that it is extremely dangerous to publicly display any sign of homosexuality there. It should also be noted that among the heads of state who declared themselves "Je suis Charlie" last year, half are unable to offer the same gesture to Orlando because their laws or national customs prohibit the expression of homosexuality. We don't even need to go outside our borders, or our religions, to observe homophobic culture. Obviously, not all discrimination or hatred occurs on the same scale of the massacre in Orlando. And yet LGBT people under the age of 25 are four times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers. Many of these young adults who were rejected by their own parents do not come from fundamentalist families. Advertisement The silence at the Nuremberg trials concerning the killing of gay people was only the prelude to the current hypocrisy that pervades our country. Because of the shame imposed on them by a patriarchal, heteronormative and androcentric culture, homosexual, transsexual and bisexual individuals are left to the margins. How many remain in hiding because their family or social and professional environment does not allow them to come out? Our society needs a cultural detox against the hatred of lesbians, gays, transsexual and bisexual people. For those of us who are hetero or cis, Orlando should be a warning. Six years ago we paid about $700 for a new KitchenAid dishwasher. Since then, we've spent considerably more than that getting it repaired. Each repairman (and they've all been men) who came to our house told us the same thing: most of today's appliances are junk. Both the workmanship and the parts are not made to last. They are designed to break down so consumers have to keep buying new ones, make expensive repairs, or buy costly extended warranties. When we originally purchased the dishwasher we didn't buy additional insurance beyond the one-year warranty that comes with the appliance, which is why we've poured so much money into it as it keeps breaking down. We thought that extra warranties were a rip-off. So, instead, we kept hoping that each repair would be the last, and each time we were wrong. It cost about $150 each time a technician comes to the house. Then there are additional costs for labor and parts -- like a few hundred dollars to replace a rubber rack whose wheels kept breaking. Last month the damn machine wouldn't even start, so a Sears technician came to our house and fixed the problem -- a broken fuse. Finally, this week -- when the dishwater again wouldn't start -- the Sears repairman who came to fix it (by replacing the fuse, again) persuaded us to buy a five-year warranty that cost about $500. He said it was smarter to buy the warranty than to buy a new dishwasher, because the new ones are more fragile than the older ones. Advertisement In essence, the five-year warranty --which Sears calls our "master protection agreement" -- requires consumers to pay almost double for major appliances. First you buy the appliance, then you purchase the extended warranty, which cost almost as much as the machine. They sucker us into this arrangement because we know that most appliances are not built to last, but to break down. Indeed, the Sears repairman offered to sell us additional warranties for our refrigerator, washing machine and dryer, air conditioner, and hot water heater. Economists used to call these products "durable goods," but that term now seems so out of date. In retrospect, we should have purchased the extended warranty when we originally bought the appliance. Now we've done it. It is never too late to learn. But what, exactly, have we learned? This isn't a problem limited to dishwashers (66% of U.S. homes have one) or to KitchenAid or Sears products. It is deeply ingrained in how capitalism -- or at least American-style hyper-capitalism -- works. Today's appliances -- like many consumer products -- are built to break. It is not a matter of consumers mistreating their products. It is designed to maximize corporate profits. This is a concept called "planned obsolescence." Advertisement I'd always associated the term with the late John Kenneth Galbraith, the brilliant Harvard economist whose 1958 book, The Affluent Society, warned that an increasing share of America's economy was devoted to making ineffective products and promoting wasteful consumer spending. He explained that companies manufacture our "wants" through advertising, design new models of things each year that we need in order to "keep up with the Joneses," and, even if we don't get seduced by this year's new model, make us keep buying new products because they are designed to fall apart. John Kenneth Galbraith It turns out that The Affluent Society helped popularize these ideas, but, in fact, Galbraith didn't coin the term "planned obsolescence." Some trace the origins of the phrase to Bernard London's 1932 pamphlet "Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence." Writing in the middle of the Great Depression, London believed that the government should place a legal time-limit on the use of consumer goods in order to increase consumption and stimulate the economy. We've typically identified this idea with the automobile industry, and for good reason. In the 1930s, General Motors CEO Alfred P. Sloan Jr. came up with the idea of annual model-year design changes to persuade car owners that they had to buy a new replacement each year. Sloan called this "dynamic obsolescence." The phrase "planned obsolescence" gained popularity after an American industrial designer, Brooks Stevens, gave a talk with that title at an advertising conference in Minneapolis in 1954. It was during the beginning of the post-World War 2 prosperity, brought about primarily by federal government spending -- huge public investments in roads and highways, homebuilding (thanks to government-subsidized mortgages), higher education (through government-backed financial aid and expansion of university enrollment), and Cold War military spending. But for that prosperity to continue, consumers had to keep consuming more and more. As Stevens explained in his speech, planned obsolescence was "instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary." America's postwar prosperity -- suburbanization, home ownership, and new household goods like vacuum cleaners and freezers -- was gaining momentum when The Affluent Society came out. Galbraith was impressed with America's technological capacity to produce things, but he said that rising gross domestic product was not the best measure of a society's well-being. Advertisement Galbraith warned that America was investing too little on public needs -- education, infrastructure, parks, scientific research to prevent diseases, health care, job training, the arts, and safety net provisions for the poor. Big corporations could move quickly to invent and produce new products and whet consumers' appetites, but democratic government was unable to move as rapidly to raise taxes and invest in public programs. America's priorities were out of whack, Galbraith wrote. For example, if auto companies build more cars, government needs to invest more money on public roads and places to park. Americans have lots of vacuum cleaners in their homes, but governments have too few street-cleaning machines. Echoing Stevens' observations - but with a different sense of capitalist morality and ethics -- Galbraith noted that corporations had to manipulate consumers, through advertising and market research, to feel unsatisfied with their existing standard of living and to demand things they did not have or did not need. As a result, America was overloaded with useless products. Big business could persuade consumers that the next version of each product -- cars, toasters, refrigerators, toys, clothes, televisions -- was bigger, better, and absolutely necessary. Companies designed major and expensive consumer goods, including cars, to last only a few years before falling apart in order to stimulate demand. Companies also encouraged consumers to "buy now, pay later," leading many of them to overextend themselves -- a trend that led to the explosion of credit cards and massive consumer debt. Galbraith wrote The Affluent Society more than a decade before the emergence of the environmental movement (the first Earth Day was in 1970), but he was prescient. Today we understand that much of what is produced in the U.S. and elsewhere (particularly our over-reliance oil-dependent plastic products, including many of the parts in my washing machine) is wasteful, destined to wind up in landfills, and harmful to the environment and public health. We talk more and more about the importance of "sustainability" in the way we produce our products and design our cities. Many Americans have become more skeptical about buying gas-guzzling cars or buying a new vehicle just because of a new model change. We kept driving our 2002 Nissan Altima for 14 years, but over that period we probably spent $20,000 in repairs, most of it due to mechanical problems and problem parts, not human-made accidents. We replaced it with a new Toyota Camry hybrid, which, according to Consumer Reports, has a good repair record and is fuel efficient. We'll see. Of course, despite this new environmental spirit and concern for household budgets, many Americans still feel compelled to buy the most recent edition of cell phones, computers, and other high-tech products, or the next fashion trend in clothes. But even those consumers who try to avoid wasteful spending can't defend themselves against the ongoing onslaught of poorly-made products and the debt-driving monster called the warranty. For the next few months, perhaps even a year, we'll wash our plates and glasses in our newly-repaired dishwasher. Then, thanks to planned obsolescence, something will break. We'll call Sears and then welcome another repairman into our home. What will we do when the five-year warranty runs out? I can't plan that far in advance. washington june 29 us... Answer by Amy Pope, Deputy Homeland Security Advisor to President Obama, on Quora. I was working on the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak. As you may remember, there was a lot of pressure to end all travel from West Africa to the United States. Advertisement The evidence suggested that curtailing travel would actually make the problem worse - by making it even more difficult to get health care providers into the region, not to mention much needed supplies, to end the epidemic more quickly. If we had made decisions based on anxiety - or public opinion polls - we may have actually made Americans less safe. Thankfully, President Obama made clear to the team that we were going to make decisions based on the science. Period. As a result, we did not end travel from West Africa. Instead, we came up with a solution to funnel passengers from the three West African countries into 5 specific airports, where we had public health officials available to screen each individual traveler, then connect them with public health officials who could monitor their health when they were in their local community here in the United States. This solution was tailored to the problem and allowed us to use our scarce resources most strategically, keep the public safe, and end the epidemic most effectively. It took all of us - multiple teams across the government, across the private sector, and across countries around the globe - to meet this challenge. It was a memorable situation, and I'm so grateful and proud to have worked with the President on something so important. These questions originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. Answers by Makinde Adeagbo, Founder @ /dev/color. Former Engineer/Manager @ Pinterest, Dropbox, & Facebook, on Quora. A: My experience at MIT was great! Well, great looking back. At the time, it was hard to appreciate the experience when pulling lots of all nighters to finish problem sets. Advertisement As an African American, my experience was shaped most by where I lived (New House 2 FTW). My section of the dorm, and the one next to it, was almost all Black and Latino/a students. This is the result of an often-debated policy at MIT where students choose where they live, which creates specific cultures in each dorm (often specific hallways). So these areas end up being rather homogenous. Some opponents of the policy say that college is about getting to know new people, and getting out of your comfort zone. But it was this exact policy that allowed me to get to know new people. I went to a public magnet schools in Louisville, KY. While the whole school was racially integrated, my classes were not. Out of the ~60 students in my program, 4 were Black. I spent all of elementary, middle, and high school not seeing more than a handful of other Black students. Getting to live in a dorm with others like me was my chance to experience something new. I lived with people who'd shared similar experiences being the only Black student in their classes growing up. Finally we got to be together. I learned about America's Black, Caribbean, and many other cultures. I wouldn't trade that experience for the world. Living in this environment also changed a bias I'd developed growing up. I'd never seen other Black and Brown students who were as smart (and often, much smarter) than I was. Being around these folks boosted my self confidence. I now could see that being smart and Black wasn't the exception, as it had been growing up, but rather the norm. Advertisement ... A: We bring Black software engineers together to provide one another support, and help one another accomplish their career goals. Members do this in small groups that meet monthly. But I'll actually paste in some of the benefits a recent member was recently talking about ... Networks matter. We've seen the success of NSBE in helping with the community and with careers from job connections. /dev/color is capable of doing the same but with more emphasis on software and tech startups. Peer coaching. This is a bigger thing than people realize. While we're 99% the same, the 1% difference that engineers of color deal with in their careers is enough that there's an additional benefit to talking to people within this group. There's a huge benefit of already speaking the same "culture" and a huge benefit of having a "safe space" to discuss career issues, including race. Career development. /dev/color offers engineers the opportunity to take on leadership roles in a supportive environment. This is great for those looking to test the waters of becoming an engineering leader. There's also a great number of engineering leaders in /dev/color that can offer peer coaching for those looking to take that step. Access! /dev/color has been working to create an audience with top-tier founders, leaders, and VCs of tech startups. This access has traditionally been hard/rare for engineers of color. ... A: It's interesting. I think of myself very much between both. My parents raised me to know and be proud of my heritage as a Nigerian. That said, I didn't visit the country of my birth until I was in high school. Wow, was that an interesting experience. For the first time in my life I didn't have to explain to anyone how to say my name (in fact they could say it better than I could). At the same time, I was now the one with the foreign accent, who didn't know how to get around, and had to adjust to the different way of life. Back in the US, I still celebrate my culture, go to Nigerian weddings, mix in bits of Yoruba when talking to my family. This is how I grew up, so my default way of thinking is mainly rooted in being a Black American. That said, I'd still love to work with folks in Nigeria, and on the continent as a whole. I worked for a while with Bridge International Academies back in 2011, and would love to find more opportunities to work "at home". Advertisement When the trains arrived at Keleti Train Station in Budapest during the summer and fall of 2015, bringing the often exhausted and scared refugees and migrants, Let's Help Refugees in Hungary and Europe volunteers were always there to warmly greet them and provide basic assistance. At Hauptbahnhof Train Station in Vienna, Train of Hope volunteers fulfilled a similar mission. Launched by well-meaning individuals, the two groups started off as social media platforms, which managed to build momentum among thousands of volunteers, who wanted to support fellow humans in need. As the train stations became increasingly empty after Hungary's decision to close its borders, preventing refugees from crossing its territory, both organizations underwent moments of crisis, during which they had to redefine their focus, in order to continue their work. Due to the particular contexts in their countries and societies, their restructuring approaches have been dissimilar, but equally highlight ways in which crisis-born initiatives can transition into long-term sustainable organizations. Let's Help Refugees started its work before Hungary made international headlines with images of the refugees stranded in Keleti train station, as the government prevented them from boarding trains to Austria. It was originally a Facebook group, created by Nora Koves, a human rights expert, with the intent of gathering volunteers and coordinating their activities. For Lidia Balogh, one of the group's members, it was "a guerilla movement," subverting the Hungarian government's policy to provide the bare minimum for the refugees. Luca Laszlo, Let's Help Refugees' Representative , a 20-year-old political science student with sharp managerial skills, recalled: "We launched the platform in June 2015, when around 30-40 people were arriving daily to Budapest. It was the first of its kind in the capital. In July, volunteers started preparing around 50 hot meals at home and offering them to the refugees and migrants at the station. At that time, there was no central location or storage room." Advertisement Providing hot meals to the asylum seekers remained a staple of Let's Help Refugees, when thousands of refugees were arriving in Budapest on their way to Western Europe, including when the train station was shut down and people were stuck there. At that point, the volunteers could no longer independently cook enough food, so the group started looking for a space, where they could collectively prepare the meals. They were fortunate to soon find a community center, called BK41, close to Keleti Station. The volunteers cooked day and night warm meals for the refugees and distributed them in the train station. In July and August, they were providing 300-400 portions of hot meals and over 1,200 sandwiches, while also handing out fruit, yogurt and jarred baby food. By the end of August, the number of hot meal portions went up to 1,000. Cooking food created a sense of unity and belonging between the volunteers, despite the fact that they came from different generations and social backgrounds. It also created a stronger bond with the refugees, since sharing warm meals, which take time and effort to prepare, is one of the most profoundly human gestures in the world, displaying kindness and affection for the recipients. When they prepared 130 portions for the first time, the volunteers bought the ingredients themselves. They quickly realized that it would be unsustainable, so they started accepting product donations through Facebook. Luca explained: "We would post ingredient lists on our Facebook group, specifying the quantity, and people would just purchase what we needed. We were not accepting money from individuals." The volunteers usually prepared vegetarian meals with rice or pasta, but sometimes added halal meat, donated by local Muslim shop owners. They also offered warm black tea and Ayran, a cold yogurt drink popular throughout the Middle East. With increasing numbers of people willing to make donations, Let's Help Refugees expanded their assistance to providing toiletries, including soap bars and shampoo bottles, toothbrushes and men's razors. They also ensured diapers and baby wipes. Advertisement At the Hauptbahnhof Station in Vienna, Train of Hope was involved in similar activities. Launched by Katrin Bernreiter, a young nonprofit professional, Train of Hope welcomed the refugees and migrants in front of their trains and guide them to their 'shop,' where refugees and migrants could go and pick up anything they needed, ranging from food and clothing to medical supplies. Train of Hope also had translator, legal and medical teams, ready to help those in need in any way they can. Just like Let's Help Refugees, Train of Hope would request item donations on their Facebook page. They could also accept financial donations, since they quickly applied for and obtained official nonprofit status. Posting photos of the volunteer activities and the product distribution process became an accountability method for both organizations, while helping them maintain interest and communications with people who cared and wanted to help, but could not always be physically present in the train stations, either because they were busy or lived abroad. Zaid Salah, one of Train of Hope's Iraqi volunteers, who was also an asylum seeker himself still waiting for his application to be processed by the Austrian government, was impressed with the commitment shown by everyone involved in the organization. He confessed: "Without sounding sappy, it was truly a special moment. I had never felt such love and dedication before. Most of the times, you didn't want to go home. You wanted to help as much as you can. So, in the end, you found a corner somewhere around the train station, slept for a few hours, and then started again." Everyone stepped up and helped in all fields when needed. Zaid also personally credited involvement in the organization as changing his life in Vienna, by allowing him not just to develop a solid group of friends, but to be active and find purpose in helping others. When Hungary closed its border with Serbia in September 2015 and started transporting refugees and migrants by train from the Croatian border to the Austrian one at Hegyeshalom, the numbers crossing through Budapest drastically dwindled. The Let's Help Refugees volunteers decided to shift their priorities and work structure, by focusing on transporting food packages and water bottles to Hegyeshalom. Luca added: "We also distributed similar assistance to two Hungarian refugee centers in Bicske and Vamosszabadi, while sending clothes to the detention center at Nagyfa. At this time, the numbers of volunteers also went down, with 20 working regularly, mostly because there was no need and no activities in Budapest." Their work at Hegyeshalom proved to be short-lived also, since Hungary closed in October its border with Croatia, forcing refugees to travel to Austria through Slovenia. This led to the most fundamental crisis in the organization: Should they continue their initiative, now that no refugees would be passing through Hungary? While there were different views held among the key members of Let's Help Refugees, Luca explained the reasoning behind their final decision: "Since we had built that extraordinary volunteer momentum, we decided to formalize our activities by becoming officially incorporated as an association in November 2015. We have not been recognized yet, because the bureaucratic process in Hungary is slow, but this new status will give us a legal setting to accept financial donations." In seeing the process along, a Board was appointed and Luca was selected as the nonprofit's first President. Additional questions sprung up regarding the mission: Would they focus on refugees and migrants in other countries or shift their attention to individuals in need in Hungary, ranging from homeless people living in Budapest to refugees already in Hungary's asylum centers? Luca recalled: "Given that the current refugees' efforts to arrive to Western Europe was the reason why we created the group in the first place, we decided to continue supporting refugees along the Balkan Route. After operating for a short period of time in Dobova, Slovenia, we started working in Athens in December 2015. One volunteer was always posted in Victoria Square in the Greek capital, the main area where the refugees and migrants gather, cooperating with other local volunteers, grassroots movements and international aid workers." Let's Help Refugees periodically sent down cars full of needed items that the volunteer distributes there. Now that refugees have started entering Hungary again and living in parks in Hungary, the nonprofit is striving to distribute to them When Hungary closed its borders, the impact was immediately felt in Austria as well. Train of Hope faced a crucial time of change, requiring the members' full commitment and creativity. They had to figure out how to maintain their initiative relevant. They decided to transition from providing immediate relief to long-term refugee integration support and to switch its focus from the refugees transiting through Austria to those applying for asylum and staying in the country. Zaid confessed that, apart from restructuring its leadership, a process that had not been finalized at the time of our conversation, the organization had as main upcoming project building a House for the Refugees that would provide assistance in all integration aspects. The goal would be to ensure asylum seekers a place to live, German language courses, Austrian and European history classes, while also supporting them with legal and medical assistance. The local authorities in Vienna have been very favorable to the nonprofit's initiative. Train for Hope wishes to eventually become involved in helping refugees find independent housing and jobs soon after obtaining their official status. In Hungary, Let's Help Refugees has also been directing its assistance to those in need in Hungary. It is currently helping the homeless in Budapest, those in need in the countryside area, including Roma minority members, and other marginalized groups. One of their key activities remains preparing hot meals once a month that they distribute close to Janos Pal Papa Ter to the homeless in the surrounding neighborhood. They periodically take clothing and products to villages in the eastern part of Hungary, the country's most impoverished area, where many Roma ethnics live. Lidia emphasized that another initiative, which the organization has been supportive of have been micro-volunteering projects, which appear spontaneously on its Facebook page. Posted by volunteers, they are one-time efforts to raise small item donations to help one family, homeless person or individual in need. They are usually filled quickly with great immediate impact for those assisted, while motivating the volunteers to continue their support. In the near future, the group is hoping to launch a program working with imprisoned refugees to distribute clothes and provide them basic psychological support. It also wishes to help refugees moving into the capital from reception centers outside of Budapest, in finding employment and housing, which is often a problem. Dedicated to ensuring the organization's success long after she would be gone from its helm, Luca confessed that she has already started thinking of setting in place succession plans. Advertisement USA has bled again in Orlando a few months following the San Bernardino shooting and as we move forward there is every reason to be fearful that such incidences can take place in future also. Both the shootings were conducted by radical Islamists, who used high tech assault rifles. Both these incidents have connected apparently separate but at the same time highly debated issues of Islamic extremism and gun control. However, despite the enormous importance of these issues, I doubt that we are taking the right approach. Let's take Islamic extremism. Our discourse is dominated by two contrasting arguments. According to one side, Islamic fundamentalism does not exist or even if it does, it should not be openly condemned. This side consisting of some liberals is simply reluctant to even openly acknowledge the problem. The fear of being branded as xenophobic somehow or the other overrides every other consideration. Liberals have to understand that Islamic extremism is a reality and it needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. Trying to avoid dealing with it on the pretext that it is xenophobia is not going to solve the problem. Yes, it is wrong to paint every Muslim with the same brush. It is wrong to say that every Muslim thinks alike and somehow is supportive of ISIS type of organization. However, at the same time, we need to acknowledge that a violent strand of Islamic ideology does exist which is able to recruit and radicalize some Muslim men and women. In fact the attack on LGBT community is motivated by religious extremism though the general discriminatory environment against them is also definitely a contributing factor. Trying to tackle with that ideology is not xenophobia. Liberals have to engage with Muslims to convince them to exert efforts in building a counter narrative to the violent interpretation of Islam. Advertisement In fact if anything, the failure to acknowledge an obvious problem by the liberal side is going to give the space to outright reactionaries and racists like Donald Trump. In fact he has already gotten a lot of attention because of the way liberals have shown reluctance to acknowledge and condemn the problem and he will exploit this issue in the coming elections as well. In contrast the other side, represented by politicians like Trump, is categorizing all Muslims as evil and supportive of organizations like ISIS. Many are also not able to understand that neither Islam nor Muslims are monolithic. This side is also unable to recognize that the rise of radical Islam is a recent phenomenon, has a lot to do with the interplay between ideology, international events as well as politics of identity. Moreover it has affected different Muslims differently and therefore trying to paint everyone with the same brush is plain wrong. Yes, Islamic radicalism needs to be countered but blanket bigotry and hatred is not the answer. If anything, such behavior is going to further fuel the drift of some Muslims towards radicalism. Then is the issue of gun control which though distinct from Islamic radicalism nevertheless featured prominently in both San Bernardino and the recent Orlando shooting. Let's not forget that although the motivation behind both San Bernardino and Orlando killing may have been religious ideology and hatred but the easy availability of assault weapons made it much easier. Advertisement USA has extraordinary high ownership of guns when compared to the rest of the world. Apart from high ownership of guns, USA is also characterized by high level of gun violence. It has the highest per capita gun related homicide rates in the developed world. More than 13,000 individuals were killed by guns in 2015 and more than 26,000 were injured. Further, there were more than 350 mass shootings in 2015 alone which killed more than 450 people and injured more than 1800. Ironically despite the abive ad part is that over time the gun laws have become even more relaxed. Unfortunately, despite intuitive and theoretical appeal as well empirical evidence, the issue of gun control has not been able to achieve the kind of consensus which is right now needed. The Second Amendment is being constantly cited as a justification for opposing gun control laws and this has in fact led to further relaxing of the laws. After Sandy Hook massacre despite the enormity of the tragedy, President's proposals to implement tighter gun laws were defeated. Even the proposal of proper background checks, which had 90% of public approval ratings got defeated. After defeat at the Senate, the battle over gun control went to states. Around 1500 bills were introduced in the state assemblies in 2013, out of which 178 passed at least one chamber and 109 became law. However, out of those which became law, 70 actually relaxed gun restrictions. In fact more than half of the states have ended up relaxing gun laws. The problem is that easy availability of guns aids the terrorists and in fact anyone who has perverse intentions. In the case of BOTH San Bernardino and Orlando shooting incidents, extremists were able to buy dangerous assault weapons easily. In the case Virginia Tech and Colorado mentally ill people were able to buy assault weapons easily. Unless we are ready to change this, incidents such as these will keep on happening as radicalized individuals will have access to these dangerous weapons. The fact is that many of the proposed laws DO NOT infringe upon the Second Amendment as they merely regulate the right to bear arms by establishing some basic criteria with respect to background checks and type of weapon one can possess. After all every right in this world comes with certain criteria and even right of ownership of a motor vehicle is governed by some rules and regulations. Fight against terrorism requires a complete overhaul of the way we have approached this issue till now. Paradigm Shifters is a series of interviews with a select group of women and men from eclectic walks of life. It will highlight unspoken, real-life insights on how they have been able to turn weakness into strength. A naked soul point of view of how their breakdowns were really a preparation for breakthroughs. They are your quintessential paradigm shifters; internal shifts converted into genuine change. Everything I have ever done has been focused on this underlying theme of shifting the paradigm because, "What we think determines what we feel and what we feel determines what we do." Hence, why Empowered by You takes lingerie, which has traditionally been seen merely as a tool of seduction and redirected that energy as a tool of empowerment. I hope from these stories you will look at your own situations, struggles and accomplishments through a different lens. At the very least you will be more equipped with real life tools to change your own paradigm. At the end of the day, we are our own Alchemist turning the silver we were born with into the gold we are destined to become. Advertisement Mia Kappelgaard - Head of Design, SAMSE & SAMSE Tell me about the whole way you fell into design? How did this journey start and when did you actually fall in love with it? The funny thing is, looking back now, I think that maybe it was meant to be. I grew up in a working class family. Design, and subjects relating to that matter, was not really what I thought I could do. But my dad actually worked as a sales agent for a small dress factory in Denmark. I remember being a kid and running around these giant cutting tables and just the pure, unadulterated excitement I would get from visiting him at work. My father would collect all the leftover fabrics and bring them in these big bags to my after school care for my friends and I to play with. We would usually make small skirts and matching scrunchies from these scraps. I specifically remember creating these MC Hammer style pants. My early passion for designing clothes was forgotten for a while until I moved to London, around that time I met a few people in the fashion business, began hanging out with them and got another insight and glimpse into the business. After London I had a few years split between working in Denmark, travelling in South America and living in New York. Returning to Denmark still having no plans, my good friend was about to start fashion school. I had her inquire on her first day of school if I could join, luckily there was still space and I just fell in love. I continued taking different courses in design, drawing etc. and eventually applied to a design school and got in. It never occurred to me until then that I might actually make my living off designing clothes. Did you experience any skeptics in your pursuit to design clothes? Yes. I remember when I got into design school; my parents were definitely nervous. I remember my mother calling me and asking me if I was sure, if designing clothes was what I really wanted to do. Of course now she's like I don't know what I was thinking, but it was a daunting move. I think she, at that point, saw designing merely as a hobby, something I always could do on the side, but I fell in love with the collection building and the stories that surround it. Moreover, I hope that this story could potentially inspire others to believe in themselves and dare to pursue their dreams. Advertisement Could you describe your brand? I'm a believer of a multifaceted brand. Our brand serves for our consumers to create their own stories. Our collection and brand mentality is not about just purchasing a look. The customer creates their own, personal look. Of course our brand is geared towards independent and urban women and men who dare to define their own style. Our brand also believes it's important to know the current trends but not to be dictated by them. It's simple, functional and timeless. Our approach is classic Scandinavian design with an honest craftsmanship, alongside with high quality fabrics that generate a quite sense of luxury. It's sophisticated, yet always wearable. Our ideal is democratic, approachable and graceful, with a Copenhagen simple-living-edge to it. How do you get your inspiration? I'll go see an exhibition or just watch people on the street. And we travel to New York and Tokyo on a regular basis to collect inspiration. We have a beautiful, open office and atelier in the creative part of Copenhagen, which I love, but I need a bubble to really develop my best work. I like to look at as much variety as possible. I'm drawn to strong, but clean, lines, varying color shades, and a variety of textile designs. The famous designs of Denmark that I grew up with was the modern Danish, democratic style from the mid-century. Some of those ideas developed back then perform an important role in developing our current collections. I love incorporating foreign materials and functionality in our clothing. We definitely have a scandy mentality at Samse & Samse. How do your collections develop? Well, our group will discuss materials and color, which forms the starting point for a mood board. This mood board will often incorporate ideas from previous collections. We believe in the importance on building off previous collections, instead of just leaving them behind. It's such an incredible feeling to see people wearing our designs but I absolutely adore the early stages in developing collections, when everything is still open and possible. There is a lot happening internationally for us, so it's important to hit the right designs and markets. Building a collection is exhausting but also exhilarating; it's a journey. We've grown so much from where we began, but we also take pride in staying true to our original form. Your brand has focused on expansion beyond Denmark. Can you tell us where are you expanding? Norway and Sweden have been strong markets for us for quite some years now, and we are grateful for the fantastic positioning we acquired in Scandinavia. Besides that we are continuously gaining success in the UK, Spain, Benelux, Germany and France are also growing markets for us. The expansion and flagship store openings at premium locations in fashion capitals is definitely exciting. I'm a designer; of course I love it when people buy our styles and to have them purchasing it from different realms of the world is amazing. When sales are up and it's working it feels good. Something that makes your company so unique is your communication? What makes it so unique? I just returned from the Holy Land -- Israel and Palestine -- where I met with a diverse group of elected officials, civic advocates, and residents. The thing that struck me most was what was not said: I didn't hear a word about Iran. That's the quiet triumph of diplomacy. I met with dozens of people, and nobody mentioned anything about centrifuges or reactors or imminent nuclear capability. Nothing about existential threats. I can't count how many times I, and many Members of Congress, were urgently and passionately informed that negotiations with the Iranian menace was wishful thinking and the height of folly. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu even graced the United States Congress with his presence at the invitation of Speak John Boehner -- and to the surprise of President Obama -- to undermine the President's efforts at diplomacy. And now? Nothing. This proves something: diplomacy works and it's worth fighting for. Those of us who stood behind the President and defended our negotiations with Iran were under a ton of pressure to back down. Our common sense and our commitment to America's ally, Israel, were questioned. We stood firm and it was worth it. So far, we have been proven right. Advertisement I don't blame the Israeli Prime Minister for his concerns. As the world knows, the Jewish people barely survived genocide. My visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, was a sobering reminder of how essential Israel's security is. I can understand the fear. But higher walls, more arms, and curtailing people's rights will not lead Israel to security. Diplomacy is a better path. And it's the only approach that can truly keep all parties secure. It's time to take another chance on diplomacy, to give it another opportunity to triumph. This time in the Holy Land. Congressmen John Yarmouth and David Price are leading a resolution urging President Obama to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Inking a deal would allow Israel to experience a heightened level of security and would grant Palestinians a sovereign nation with the rights and obligations that entails. Fourteen years ago, King Abdullah of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia offered the Arab Peace Initiative, which would have granted Israel full recognition by Arab states in exchange for a return to 1967 borders with agreed upon swaps. Recently both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, no shrinking violet, acknowledged their willingness to discuss that same plan. Advertisement But the two-state solution needs action, not lip service. And Netanyahu's government isn't acting like it wants two states. The governing coalition has refused to meet the meaningful demands of the Labor Party which would move them towards a two-state solution. They've joined with Yisrael Beiteinu, an anti-two state party, appointed Avigdor Lieberman Minister of Defense, and looked the other way when Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said there will be no Palestinian state. And they've authorized new settlement construction in East Jerusalem. Soon a number of key nations will meet again in France to try to move the peace process forward. This is not just a question for Israelis and Palestinians; it's the world's business. And the world is ready. On November 29, 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions, to give Palestine 'Non-Member Observer State' status -- a recognition of statehood. Past American presidents have acted boldly to push the parties toward a resolution. President Ronald Reagan recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization. President George H.W. Bush conditioned aid to Israel on the freezing of settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip. President George Bush called for a Palestinian State and laid out a road map to get there. As stabbings spike and the world waits on the fourth Hamas-Israel war in eight years, we need our President to take decisive action again. President Obama needs to set forth parameters for a peace settlement and instruct Ambassador Samantha Power not to veto plans for peace in the United Nations Security Council. He needs to make it clear to the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the rest of the world that the United States can help make peace -- and that peace is worth fighting for. Advertisement I dream of visiting a Holy Land where Israelis fear nothing, and Palestinians are building an inclusive democratic society. I imagine meeting with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders without the "conflict" coming up in conversation. We will talk about water, education, and all the challenges of governance. In so many places in scripture, God's judgment means nations have to choose whether they will pursue violence or whether "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks." (Micah 4:3; Psalm 46:9; Isaiah 2:4) So far, in the United States, too many of our leaders choose the pursuit of violence by failing to reign in the instruments of violence. They protect the profits of gun manufacturers over the lives of our citizens. Amazingly, even after the massacre in San Bernardino Republicans blocked a bill to keep terrorists from buying guns. We need to seriously ask ourselves about God's judgment on those politicians, or on a political candidate like Donald Trump who responds to a mass shooting by advocating more guns, not less. Advertisement We know the results of these moral failings in leaders and would-be leaders. We are once again standing hip deep in the blood of our fellow citizens, crying out in grief and anger at sudden death visited upon our communities. Forty-nine people have been killed and 53 others injured in a mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Every three months analyses show this scourge of mass murder is visited upon the citizens of the United States. Motives and victims differ, but there is one staggering commonality: assault weapons. What other than senseless death unites children in Newtown, Connecticut, college students, moviegoers, California social workers and so many more? All of these different Americans were killed with assault weapons, the AR-15 semi automatic version of a U.S. Military assault weapon. Advertisement These weapons were banned in 1994 after a number of mass shootings in the '80's and '90's. Ten years later, the ban was lifted and since then the number of mass shootings in the United States has skyrocketed. Yes, the assault weapons ban worked to reduce mass shootings. There is only one possible faith response to this horrific national moral failing and that is to once again ban assault weapons. Here are some things you can do right now to try to work to renew the ban on assault weapons: 1. Vote your views. The single greatest obstacle to legislation to ban assault weapons and provide sensible gun control legislation is the legislators we elect. Vote to elect those who will protect the American people from gun violence 2. Sign a petition. 3. Join organizations such as Everytown for Gun Safety or Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and support their advocacy. 4. Call or visit your current members of Congress and tell them you support an assault weapons ban. 5. Call the offices of your religious organization and ask them to speak out to ban assault weapons and for gun control. I am proud to say my Christian denomination the United Church of Christ has done so. Advertisement 6. Organize and/or join interfaith public prayer vigils on banning assault weapons and providing sensible gun control for our nation. Pray for the victims and their families and friends of the daily gun carnage all over this country. Political parties are at a comparative advantage when they unify behind their Presidential nominee. Predictably, supporters of the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton will do everything possible to heal the chasm with the progressive left: those who supported her primary opponent U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT). Their fear is, assuming Hillary pockets the nomination at the Democratic National Convention in July, Sanders supporters will not support Hillary in the General Election, enabling Republican Donald Trump to win the Presidency. To propitiate Sanders' supporters, Democrats will likely incorporate part of his message into the party platform and grant him a primetime speaking slot at the Convention. In 1880, the Republican Party was split asunder between supporters of Civil Service Reform and those who supported the status quo. The party nominated U.S. Representative James Garfield (R-OH) for President. Garfield was a vociferous supporter of Civil Service Reform. To unify the two competing factions, the party nominated Chester A. Arthur, a hero to opponents of Civil Service Reform. Arthur had been fired from his position as Collector of Customs for the Port of New York by Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes for refusing a Presidential directive to disallow his employees from concomitantly working as party functionaries. The integrated ticket of Garfield and Arthur managed to eke out a narrow victory. Contrariwise, in 1896, with the country mired in an economic depression, the Democratic Party nominated William Jennings Bryan, a populist who heralded government intervention in the economy, favored implementing a graduated income tax, and favored bimetallism (allowing both gold and silver to be certified as legal tender). These progressive policies were in direct contrast to Democratic President Grover Cleveland's policies. Cleveland opposed all three proposals and preached the gospel of fiscal austerity even during such economic peril. Advertisement Bryan's recreance to Democratic orthodoxy was too much for establishment Democrats, including Cleveland. Inflamed by Bryan's nomination, they hastily formed the National Democratic Party and nominated U.S. Senator John M. Palmer of Illinois, who held to the party's conservative ideals. The party's platform supported: "sound money" and was "opposed to paternalism in class legislation." The party schism contributed to Republican William McKinley winning the Presidency that year. While the National Democratic Party soon dissolved, an internecine bloodbath continued for the next three elections between the liberal and conservative factions of the party. The shattered party lost the next three Presidential elections. Bryan won the nomination two more times, in 1900 and 1908. When the party chose the conservative Clevelandite Alton B. Parker in 1904, Bryan did not endorse him, averring: "No self-respecting Democrat would vote for him." More recently, in 1964 the Republican Party nominated the insurrectionist conservative U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) to the chagrin of the more moderate Republican establishment. Goldwater made little effort to mitigate his Conservative message, telling the American people at the party's National Convention: "Let me remind you that extremism in the Defense of Liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." Goldwater had horrified the Republican establishment by suggesting making Social Security voluntary. In addition, Goldwater embarrassed the party high command when he quipped in a discussion about the precision of nuclear missiles: "I don't want to hit the moon. I want to lob one into the men's room of the Kremlin and make sure I hit it." Advertisement Consequently, Goldwater's moderate opponents for the nomination (New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Pennsylvania Governor William Scranton) did not endorse him in the General Election contest. In addition, Republican Governor George Romney of Michigan, a rising star in the GOP, refused to back Goldwater. In fact, his re-election campaign mailed out about 200,000 mock ballots showing Wolverine state voters how to mark their ballots for Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson for President and Romney for Governor. Failing to garner much support outside of the conservative base, Goldwater won just six states in the General Election. Four year later, in 1968, it was the Democrats who failed to harmonize. President Lyndon B. Johnson chose not to seek re-nomination after nearly losing the New Hampshire Primary to U.S. Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN). The party became bitterly divided chiefly over the President's escalation of troops in Vietnam. Old-line establishment Democrats supported the President, while the "new left" demanded an end to U.S. involvement in the war. After Johnson dropped out of the race, Vice President Hubert Humphrey jumped into the Democratic Presidential sweepstakes. Humphrey was not popular with the new left because of his support of the Johnson administration's Vietnam policy. While the McCarthy brigades worked to secure delegates in the Democratic primaries, Humphrey only participated in one primary, South Dakota, which he lost. His campaign dispatched favorite son candidates like Governor Roger D. Branigin of Indiana to appear on the ballot in Humphrey's place. These candidates then released their delegates to Humphrey at the Democratic Convention. In addition, Humphrey collected the support of delegates in those states which did not hold primaries. In these states the party elite controlled the delegates. As a result of this somewhat undemocratic process, riots ensued in front of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and anti-war liberals embarrassed Humphrey on the campaign trail, sometimes heckling him at his rallies. Humphrey was able to bring some McCarthy supporters into his fold late in the campaign by announcing that as President he would unilaterally halt the bombing of North Vietnam "as an acceptable risk for peace." However, McCarthy did not endorse Humphrey until about a week before the election, and he did so in a very snide way, asserting to his devotees: "I'm voting for Humphrey and I think you ought to suffer with me."Humphrey made the best of this tepid endorsement, declaring it made him a "happy man." McCarthy's luke warm support for Humphrey coupled with Humphrey's failure to coalesce the support of the party base around his candidacy in the General Election is blamed by some in the Humphrey camp for giving the election to Republican President Richard M. Nixon. Advertisement To win a Presidential election, the nominee must unify all significant bloodlines of his/her political party. With the increasing ideological homogeneity of political parties, that task is easier today than it was in the past. For most of the Twentieth Century, both parties encompassed liberal, moderate, and conservative bloodlines. Conservative Southern Democrats often found little in common with Frostbelt liberals. Eastern liberal Republicans were rarely in concert with Western Libertarians. Today however, the Democrats are clearly defined as a center-left party while the Republicans are clearly defined as a center-right party. From an ideological perspective, the differences between Sanders and Clinton are de minimus compared to the differences between Bryan and Cleveland in the Democratic Party in 1896 or the GOP establishment and Goldwater in 1964. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference," Reinhold Niebuhr once famously penned in prayers. Unalloyed by self-righteousness, and cognizant of man's darkest instincts, Niebuhr's works are widely considered as a refreshing dose of spirituality as well as a "realist" appraisal of politics in our sinful, material world. His works should serve also as a perfect guide for foreign policy in the 21st century. No less than the American President Barack Obama, the "leader of the free world", has embraced the theologian's call for contemplative, self-critical yet audacious leadership. In my opinion, any thoughtful leader should take Niebuhr's prayers to heart, especially in the realm of foreign policy, which is filled with uncertainties and a dazzling array of instantaneous challenges. In light of the festering disputes in the West Philippine Sea, with the Philippines' arbitration case against China expected to bear fruit in coming weeks, foreign policy issues will figure dominantly in coming weeks and months. The arbitration case is arguably the Philippines' best leverage in any prospective bilateral dealings with giant China. With the Philippines set to welcome its new president, Rodrigo Duterte, I found it appropriate to analyze, in more specific terms, about the prospects for and contours of Philippine foreign policy, my primary area of specialization. Advertisement Over the past few years, I have written more than 500 (academic and popular) articles for the world's leading publications and think tanks, in addition to several books on geopolitics and geo-economics in West and East Asia. I also had the chance to visit five continents, meeting heads of states, defense and foreign ministers, and a whole host of pundits and prominent academics, who have devoted their lifetime to understanding the physics of power in the international realm. My main takeaway throughout these engagements was that even the smallest of nations could shape their destiny, regardless of size and wealth, provided they have the right kind of leadership, mindset and foreign policy bureaucracy acumen. So far, we have heard more about President-elect Duterte's domestic plans, particularly his intention to launch a comprehensive fight against organized crime and address the country's massive infrastructure bottlenecks, yet foreign policy is something that needs equally ferocious attention and investment. Gladly though, Duterte and his incoming foreign affairs secretary have indicated a more independent Philippine foreign policy, notwithstanding the achievements of previous administrations. As I have indicated in a series of articles for global think tanks such as Brookings, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), President-elect Duterte, so far, has exhibited a relatively sophisticated understanding of geopolitics, which should -- ceteris paribus -- signal a favorable trajectory for the country's foreign policy. For this reason, I have called him a 'realist'. Advertisement As we celebrate our national independence, it is important for us to also attain a truly independent foreign policy, so that no less than the Philippine state -- rather than foreign powers -- exercises what French Jurist Jean Bodin, in Les Six Livres de la Republique (1576), calls 'the most high, absolute and perpetual power over the citizens and subjects in a commonwealth'. Why Foreign Policy Matters Foreign policy is the conscious effort of a nation-state to pursue, preserve, and augment its national interest in a competitive international system, where dynamics of cooperation and conflict are mediated by balance of power calculations, international law and norms, and a plethora of regional and global regimes built around the pursuit of specialized goals. As a scholar of comparative politics, one would realize how crucial foreign policy is for late-developing countries and/or those who are caught in the midst of superpowers. In the case of Prussia/Germany, for instance, we saw how Frederick the Great (1714-1786) and Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) played a critical role in ensuring not only the survival of their middle-sized nation-state, but also its prosperity and rapid consolidation in periods of tremendous uncertainty in a continent dominated by Imperial France, Russia, Austria and Britain. Not only did these leaders invest in their country's military capabilities and national bureaucracy, but also astutely utilized diplomacy in order to fend off enemies, charm potential allies, and play one superpower against the other. As for Japan, we saw how the Meiji oligarchy, having dispensed with the feudal Tokugawa shogunate in the mid-19th century, embarked on a conscious and systematic overhaul of a largely agrarian society in order to rescue its dignity and secure its liberty from the creeping invasion of Western powers. Meiji Japan used foreign policy to build up its military-industrial capacity, secure its territorial integrity, and import best practices from like-minded powers such as Prussia (Pyle 2007). Prussia/Germany, Japan and all other major late-developing countries, which were able to catch up with the Anglo-Saxon West, were not students of Adam Smith, as unschooled pundits claim, but instead Georg Friedrich List, the founder of the historical school of economics, which provided a tailored-fit blueprint for national development strategy in an era of competitive capitalism. Advertisement Contrary to contemporary neo-liberal discourse, it were List, the Prussian bureaucratic principles, and the Meiji Restoration that served as the true inspiration for Park Chung-hee, Lee Kuan Yew, Chiang Kai-shek, and Deng Xiaoping and other visionary Asian leaders, who managed to steer their nation from destitute to opulence within a single generation (Bernhard 2011; Studwell 2013; Mishra 2012). In terms of economic diplomacy, as the experience of newly-industrialized countries demonstrates, strategic utilization of trade and industrial policy was crucial to the establishment of an increasingly competitive export-oriented manufacturing sector in places like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, which not long ago were also impoverished, agrarian societies. And a fierce sense of independence and measured self-confidence undergirded their pursuit of eventual parity with status quo powers of the West. No country is a self-sufficient island. Literally island nations, in particular, tend to be highly trade-dependent and vulnerable to external predation, as the case of the Philippines poignantly shows. Foreign policy, therefore, is the instrument by which a country can protect its interests, pursue favorable relations, and avoid unnecessary conflicts. But let's be clear: Foreign policy is not an instrument to primarily impress friends, charm the world, and alienate neighbors, but instead it's about discovering friends and allies depending on the issue at hand. No permanent friends, neither permanent enemies, but only permanent pursuit of national interest, which, it self, will shift depending on the imperatives of national development and the overall dynamics of the international system. International relations and comparative politics theories show that change in government tends to bring about more of continuity rather than change, but leading scholars such as Princeton University's Andrew Moravcsik have shown that domestic leadership still matters. This is especially the case when one talks about strong-willed and visionary leaders. And to many, Duterte indubitably falls into that category. But what should a Duterte administration foreign policy look like? Advertisement 21st Century Foreign Policy There are five key foreign principles to bear in mind if the Philippines, as any middle-sized nation, is to achieve an optimal, independent foreign policy. I. Independence, not as a matter of semantics and aspiration, which tends to be the status quo, but as a matter of core strategic interest. Gladly, Duterte himself has signaled his willingness to pursue a more independent foreign policy. But what will it mean in actuality? Independence doesn't mean that you are on your own entirely. Autarky isn't an option, although it is indispensable for the Philippines to develop at least a minimum deterrence capability. It instead means that you don't put all your strategic faith in one partner alone. After all, each (reasonable) country is ultimately out there for its own interest, although recent history shows that 'self interest', as Robert Gilpin argues in the case of post-war America, could also mean keeping the world safe for democracy and free trade. As far as small nations are concerned, history shows that it is best for them to maintain an equilateral balancing strategy towards major powers. This has been more or less the strategy of successful Southeast Asian nations such as Singapore and, more recently, Vietnam. In essence, it means that instead of siding with one giant against the other, it is better to maintain functional relations with all of them depending on the issue at hand. As legendary renaissance thinker Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli cautioned Italian princes, siding with powerful neighbor (e.g., France) against another (e.g., Spain) runs the clear and present risk of ending up as part of an eventual grand bargain between the two. In less extreme cases, the smaller country will be taken for granted by its more powerful ally, since the latter knows its indispensability to the former. Advertisement II. Calibrated audacity. No matter how cunning and nimble a prince is, one can't underestimate the ingenuity and statecraft of established powers. But a totally risk-averse prince runs the equal risk of missing the train of opportunities. As Machiavelli or Sun Tzu would advice, one should keep his friends close, but rivals even closer. The idea to keep in mind is that diplomacy is not only about reaching out to friends, but also understanding and outsmarting your enemies and rivals. Above all, when one talks about serious disputes with neighboring countries, direct engagement is indispensable. You need direct diplomatic engagement in order to manage the conflict and, if conditions are right, negotiate a mutually-satisfactory solution. It is for the above reason that, for instance, I believe in the indispensability of bilateral engagement to deal with the West Philippine Sea disputes. But it is extremely important for the Duterte administration to not give up on any leverage point, especially the ongoing arbitration case at The Hague. And the incoming government should have no illusions about the intentions of Beijing in adjacent waters. As President Reagan cautioned: 'Trust but verify'. III. Capacity-building and consultation. Foreign policy is a time-consuming and labor-intensive work. It demands constant research, policy re-adjustment and rapid response. Throughout the years, I had the privilege of meeting and exchanging views with (retired and serving) Filipino diplomats and folks at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). I have nothing but deep respect for their hard work and dedication, not to mention world-class professionalism. Thanks to a rigorous recruitment process, the DFA employs the best and brightest of the country. Yet, a cursory look at the available resources of the DFA and their humongous menu of responsibilities, including the protection of millions of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), underscores the glaring underinvestment in the country's foreign policy apparatus. The Duterte administration, however, will not have to only invest more in the capacity of the DFA, but also harness the country's collective assets, including the long list of cutting-edge strategic thinkers in the academe and media, who have developed distinct specializations in the realm of foreign policy and could serve as an precious source of advice bereft of bureaucratic interests. Advertisement IV. Ideological heterodoxy, or, in layman terms, policy pragmatism. The key to success in today's world is not following orthodox neoliberal economic policies. A cursory look at almost all successful late-developing countries shows that hardly anyone of them followed ahistorical, one-size-fits-all policy prescriptions of neo-classical economists and leading International Financial Institutions (IFIs). In One Economics, Many Recipes, Harvard University's Dani Rodrik convincingly demonstrates how economic success in today's globalized world demands constant fine-tuning and tailored-fit economic policies for developing countries. The implications for our foreign policy are clear. We should develop a strategic and industrial policy that befits our special needs. Instead of mindlessly jumping into every major trade agreement out there, whether it is the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) or the Comprehensive Economic Partnership for East Asia (CEPEA) or Free Trade Area for the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), we should carefully evaluate their consequences for our national welfare, particularly our most vulnerable sectors. After three decades of neo-liberal reforms, the Philippines is still suffering from massive poverty, unemployment and food security. This must change. As Albert Einstein would tell us: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different outcomes. Nonetheless, in certain areas, economic liberalization may be more sensible. For instance, the Philippines clearly needs to bring in more Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) in order to break the vicious grip of domestic conglomerates in the utility, transportation and telecommunication sectors. As much as we should be critical about the legacy of Multinational Companies (MNCs) around the world, we should also bear in mind that domestic oligarchs need to face stiffer competition if they are to grow up. Heterodoxy, rather than orthodoxy, is the way forward when it comes to our trade and economic diplomacy. V. Grasp of the zeitgeist. As we enter a post-American, multipolar world, it is important for the Duterte administration to enhance relations with emerging powers of the world and appreciate the tectonic shift in the global balance of power. While the United States is expected to remain as a cultural superpower for the foreseeable future, its economic hegemony is now seriously contested. Yes, America enjoys tremendous military edge, but rivals are catching up very rapidly. China, for instance, has two operational fifth-generation fighters, while Russia is working on a sixth-generation fighter. American-dominated IFIs are also facing growing competition from newly-established financial institutions such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) or the New Development Bank (NDB). The West will maintain supremacy in the financial realm in the coming decade or so, but no Filipino government can take this for granted, as a whole host of South-to-South arrangements (e.g., currency-swaps) reshape the global financial architecture. In short, the Duterte administration will, more than any of its predecessors, feel the reverberations of and will have to respond to this fundamental shift in the global balance of power. Advertisement There are even more urgent issues at hand. With the collapse in the price of oil, many petro-states in the Middle East are facing the prospect of recession. Saudi Arabia, for instance, is already in the midst of a historic belt-tightening. The rise of extremist groups in the region and persistent inter-state conflict among regional powers combined with an economic downturn doesn't bode well medium-to-long-term employment opportunities as well as stability in a region that has hosted millions of OFWs in the past four decades. So it is important for the Duterte administration to realize that our decades-long labor export policy, especially in the Middle East, is increasingly unsustainable. And this is precisely why there should be necessary contingency plans and remedial mechanisms in place. Crucially, this should go along more long-term efforts at building employment opportunities at home, which takes us back to economic diplomacy as a key component of our foreign policy. MANILA, PHILIPPINES - JUNE 14: A youth activist light candles as they gather for a vigil in solidarity with the victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 14, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. 49 people were killed after a gunman opened fire at nightclub frequented by gays lesbians and transgender people in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. (Photo by Dondi Tawatao/Getty Images) Another mass shooting in America, and we can probably look forward to another few days of idiotic statements from the right about more guns, good guys with guns and Hillary Clinton planning to come get all our guns - you know, like Obama did. We can expect more comments from Donald Trump insinuating that president Obama is part of an ISIS sleeper cell and may have wanted the massacre in Orlando to happen. Not only did he say that, but it took him less than 12 hours after the tragedy to blame immigrants for the shooting. Advertisement The terrorist, Omar Mir Saddique Mateen, is the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan. We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States. What we can't expect and shouldn't is that the GOP, or anyone from the right, will do anything about mass shootings in this country. They will continue to defend the rights of gun owners no matter who they are. It won't matter if they are on a watch list, like this shooter was, or if they are domestic abusers, which this shooter was. We can also be sure that the GOP and conservatives will continue to demonize the LGBT community who were the targeted victims of this attack, and that they will continue to present legislation, like bathroom bills, that dehumanize them. Two Connecticut Senators have pointed to the GOP as complicit in the recent attack. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal, both Democrats and vocal gun control advocates, represent the community of Newtown, where a gunman mowed down 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. Murphy said on Sunday: Advertisement This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America - nowhere else. Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. This doesn't have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing - again. The GOP has repeatedly blocked legislation that would stop terrorists from buying guns. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who sponsored the legislation, argued recently that President George W. Bush had proposed the same legislation in 2007, and the Obama administration supports it. Feinstein told MSNBC last year: If you need proof that Congress is a hostage to the gun lobby, look no further than today's vote blocking a bill to prevent known or suspected terrorists from buying guns and explosives. Congress has been paralyzed by the gun lobby for years, while more and more Americans are killed in mass shootings. The carnage won't stop until Congress finds the courage to stand up to the gun lobby and protect the nation. What's equally remarkable, and truly disgusting, is the GOP's refusal to call this a hate crime, which it clearly is. Almost no Republican Senator or Congressman mentioned the LGBT community in their remarks about the shooting. The New Civil Rights Movement wrote: Almost no national Republican lawmaker, as far as NCRM has found, could bring themselves to offer condolences to the LGBT community, which was the target of the nation's deadliest mass shooting and terror attack since 9/11. A terrorist shot to death 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, and injured another 53 people, very early Sunday morning. It's not only ludicrous and hateful bathroom bills that are part of their repertoire. The GOP refuses to acknowledge the LGBT community as a group targeted by hate crimes. As Vox points out in detail, a majority of Republican legislators voted against protecting gay people from hate crimes. You can find a full list of names at their website. For a real look into the conservative mind, there's this article from "Thought Catalog" that shows the homophobic response to the attack on social media. The shooter in Orlando, Omar Mir Saddique Mateen, made the news because of his name and because he succeeded. James Wesley Howell of Indiana, however, received very little mention in the news -- despite his having been caught with "cache of weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials in his car and apparent plans to attend the L.A. Pride festival in West Hollywood," according to the "Los Angeles Times." Apparently when you're a white Christian homophobe planning to blow up a parade, it's more of a mental disorder. So, here we are, once again, with one of the biggest and most devastating tragedies the country has seen in a long time. And here we are, once again, with no sign of change to come. To paraphrase Willie Geist on " " this morning when asked about what needs to change: if nothing has changed after 20 children were gunned down, referring to Sandy Hook, what makes us think anything is going to be different this time? After the slaughter of 20 children and six adults in Newtown Connecticut, some expected the National Rifle Association to relent, just a little, to offer some kind of rationale compromise that might help in some small way to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. At the very least, we thought they would stay quiet. Not a chance. He waited about a week but then gun-salesman in chief Wayne LaPierre came out swinging, calling on his followers to do what George W. Bush asked of the American people after 9-11. He told them to go shopping. He did it bluntly -- calling for the arming of teachers in our elementary schools and in a slightly more veiled way -- warning of the government's imminent plan to seize all your guns. It was marketing genius, NRA style: Use a tragedy to sell more guns for the profiteers who really run the NRA -- the gun companies. As we show in Making a Killing: Guns, Greed, and the NRA, those gun sales are the reason the NRA exists at all. And it works, perfectly. Sales of assault style weapons like Adam Lanza used to gun down small children spiked in the weeks after the tragedy. What's more, politicians look at those numbers and believe -- against all logic and reality -- that the gun buyers represent a majority of the electorate who will rise up against them should they take any rational steps to prevent gun violence. We haven't heard from LaPierre yet, but it is just a matter of time. What he comes out with -- arming bouncers at night clubs, handing out pistols once inside like free drink coupons, is anyone's guess. Probably, he will talk about terrorism, stoke some fears and pretend this hate-filled maniac was acting as part of a grand conspiracy that we can defend against if only each and every one of us had a weapon of war at our disposal. Most likely, the sale of AR-15s will spike again as the already-armed enhance their arsenals to protect themselves against anyone who looks different than them, or worships in a different way. They'll have no problem getting these guns despite the fact that there is no reason whatsoever that they should be legally on the market. Or, as Dave Hoover, a police officer whose nephew was killed in the Aurora theater shooting puts it: "You don't go hunting with an AR-15 unless you are hunting humans." We have seen it all before and we could see it again and again and again, unless we do something. Let's start by calling for a full-on permanent ban on weapons like the AR-15, guns that were designed to do exactly what they did, in Orlando, in Aurora, in Newtown, in San Bernadino, in Umpqua, in... Quiz: Who is the one member of the president's cabinet who can't be fired? A. Attorney General B. Secretary of State C. Director of Central Intelligence D. Vice-President The answer, of course, is D. Elizabeth Warren is an attractive candidate for Hillary Clinton's running mate on several grounds, but the potential deal breaker is item D. What president would want a vice president with her own fixed constitutional office, her own national power base, and the willingness to use it to possibly defy her president? But overriding even that concern is the fact that Clinton may conclude she needs Warren to assure her own election. Only on that basis is she likely to turn to Warren. Advertisement All other considerations pale in comparison with that one. Warren will get the nod if and only if Clinton decides that Warren will make a major difference in November. Would Warren take the job? Yes. Why might Clinton conclude that? Because Warren brings a verve and a gusto to the campaign that has partly eluded Clinton until now, though Clinton has evidently been learning some techniques and themes from Warren. And because Warren is a hero to the progressive wing of the party--in some ways she's a better version of Sanders than Sanders is. The worry of Bernie Bros sitting it out would drastically diminish with Warren on the ticket. http://prospect.org/article/elizabeth-warrens-challenge-hillary-clinton Presumably, Clinton has to choose between the need to rally the progressive base and the need to name a more centrist running mate such as Virginia Senator Tim Kaine to shore up her appeal to defecting Republic moderates. But in some respects that's a false dichotomy. Warren actually does very well among independents. She transcends ideology. She would bring the one thing to the ticket that has eluded Clinton--excitement. Moreover, one formula for a Clinton victory is to increase her support among white women voters, whose support the Democrat has lost in the last three elections. In 2004, 55 percent of white women voters went for Bush over Kerry; in 2008, 53 percent supported McCain over Obama; and in 2012, an even larger 56 percent voted for Mitt Romney. Advertisement Clinton herself surely brings the drama of the first woman president--but on the excitement front Warren is a more compelling version of Clinton than Clinton. And two women will be even more of a breakthrough than one. All these are good reasons for Clinton to name Warren as her running mate. But what about that Massachusetts senate seat? In the short run, it would be filled by a Republican, named by Massachusetts Republican Governor Charlie Baker. However, no less than Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, a big Warren booster, has calculated that the seat Warren would give up could be back in Democratic hands, presumably the hands of Congressman Joe Kennedy, by January 2017. If Reid of all people considers this an acceptable bargain, what's not to like? In the end, Clinton has to decide whether she is secure enough in her own skin to name a running mate who may occasionally upstage her and even occasionally oppose her. Elizabeth Warren became a powerful leader of America's progressives because of her formidable skills both as an insider and an outsider. During her time as chair of the Congressional Oversight Committee, the watchdog agency for the bank bailouts, Warren was relentless in her criticisms of Obama's top economic adviser Larry Summers and his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Yet all the while, she maintained a sunny relationship with Obama personally, who appointed her to set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, itself an invention of Warren. Advertisement Subsequently, Warren was willing to organize other senators to compel Obama to name Janet Yellen to chair the Federal over Larry Summers; and to block the confirmation to a top Treasury job of Obama appointee, Wall Streeter Antonio Weiss. She also took her time and waited for the right strategic moment to endorse Clinton. Warren plays hardball, and plays it well. Warren, as V.P., would not be content to go to state funerals and preside over the senate. She would be the kind of activist she has always been. If disagreed with her president, she would probably say so, maybe evenly rally her supporters to "make the president do it." There have only been a handful of vice presidents with that degree of independence and a willingness to use it. The most recent one was Dick Cheney, whose infighting maneuvers ran rings around the less politically adroit George W. Bush. (It's a most unfortunate comparison. Warren is tough, but not devious; and Clinton is a lot shrewder than Bush.) Other recent strong vice presidents have included Joe Biden and Walter Mondale. But you have to go all the way back to Thomas Jefferson's vice president, Aaron Burr, to find one who had no loyalty whatever to his president. And that anomaly operated under a different system of constitutional rules, in which the runner up (and rival) in the Electoral College was awarded the vice presidency. The Founders soon appreciated the system's flaw and drafted the 12th Amendment. Since 1804, the president and vice president have effectively run as a ticket. Advertisement Nonetheless, presidential candidates, for tactical reasons, have sometimes chosen running mates of divergent views. Lincoln, who did not expect to be assassinated, allowed the 1864 Republican convention to nominate the drunkard and slavery sympathizer Andrew Johnson. The arch-conservative William McKinley, also assassinated early in his term, picked the progressive Teddy Roosevelt. John Kennedy went with Lyndon Johnson, supposedly a racial moderate, who turned out to be more of a racial liberal than Kennedy. Johnson, however, was not a particularly strong vice president; he felt stymied by the Kennedys. He showed his true strength only as president. Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln did not serve long enough before succeeding to the presidency to try to oppose their bosses. Warren would be stronger and more independent than most. Nonetheless, if Clinton feels Warren would make a big difference in the election, she will be offered the vice-presidency. Otherwise, Warren can continue to lead from the Senate. It is summer, and my kids are home all day long. What could be more normal than that? Everybody's kids are out of school and annoying the heck out of their parents. There is nothing extraordinary about my family except that we are Muslim American. I was born in Pakistan and immigrated to the United States in my early twenties. I'm now forty and raising two American born children like millions of other moms. Homework, bedtimes, snarky attitude... we all know and love it. My faith doesn't mean I do any of that differently, it's just an added dimension to my parenting. This is not a unique story, and it's a well-told story because I'm an author and public speaker. Wherever I go, people ask me about my life, about how I balance being Muslim and American at the same time. It's a strange question, no stranger than asking a Christian or Jew how they balance their faith and loyalty. It's all a mix inside us, and we as human beings have enough capacity to hold more than one thing dear. In some ways, it's not unlike a mother with several children. Are any of them less dear to her than the others? This juggling is what makes us human after all. Advertisement Yet after a terrorist attack like the one yesterday in Orlando, Muslims are somehow downgraded from Americans to suspects whose every action is suspicious. If you wear a hijab or visit a mosque, you may be radicalized. If you go to Mecca to offer pilgrimage, you may have met with terrorists abroad. If you pray five times, that is a sure indication that you love God more than country. It should be ridiculous but it is actually very scary, not just for me as a person but for me as a mother. My greatest wish as a mother is to protect my children from the harsh realities of life. In the case of this recent tragedy, that's not at all possible. Since they are home, they have been watching the news along with me. They've learned new terms like Islamic terrorism and jihadist, and they argue with me when I try to convince them that jihad is a beautiful term meaning self-improvement. If the television tells them otherwise they will believe it, for they are young and impressionable. My son wants to know if we will have to leave America -- his home -- because of our faith. My daughter worries about bad guys under her window at night. My heart aches for them, because this is not what I want for my children, or for anyone's children. As a public speaker and writer, there is tremendous pressure on me as well. I am in the middle of writing my second book but have to stop what I'm doing to pen essays and op-eds to defend my faith. I do so with eagerness, but also a sense of extreme frustration. Islam does not need defending, for it is a religion full of peace and beauty. But some Muslims have made it seem ugly due to the ugliness in their own hearts and minds. I hesitate to call them Muslim, but I also believe that we all have a right to our faith, however distorted it may be. If I could say one thing to my American brothers and sisters, it would be this: if you want to see what Islam is, look at my actions as a law-abiding citizen, a mother, a writer, a community activist. Look at the millions of American Muslims who are working in their communities, helping their neighbors, studying, being gainfully employed. Look at Muslims around the world who just want peace in their lives. Please don't look at that one insane perversion of my religion who thinks killing is good, violence is sanctioned. He's lying. Advertisement The worst mass shooting in U.S. history happened yesterday morning at 2:00 a.m. eastern time. 50 human beings were killed and 53 were wounded at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It was only a matter of time until Virginia Tech was outdone. Although we are still learning the details of the attack, we know that the shooter swore allegiance to the Islamic State and went to Pulse with the intention of killing members of the LGBT community. We also know that he, like the gunmen in the vast majority of the 16 most recent mass shootings, bought his firearms legally and with a federal background check. We know that at least 8 of those 16 gunmen had criminal histories or documented mental health problems that did not prohibit them from obtaining their guns. Conservatives across the country tell us to be angry, but not with the those who deal out these deadly weapons or refuse to pass laws that may have protected 50 innocent victims today, and an average 91 Americans every other day. Advertisement Congressman Scott Peters (D-CA) gets it. "Thoughts and prayers are not enough, moments of silence are not enough maybe Mr. Speaker, instead of giving Americans a moment of silence you could give Americans a moment of action." Exactly, it is not enough to have empathy, our elected representatives need to grow a spine, face off against the NRA, and implement laws that could change our country's direction. Thoughts don't bring back the 50 human beings that were killed at the Pulse nightclub. Prayers don't prevent guns from getting into the hands of criminals or terrorists. Laws do. The gun lobby likes to equate guns to cars. When we had an epidemic of automobile fatalities in our country, the CDC studied it and we took action. We implemented lower speed limits. We enacted and enforced seat belt laws. We took a hard line on driving under the influence. Guess what happened? The epidemic was addressed and fatality accidents dramatically reduced. Advertisement The gun lobby also likes to say that the states with the strictest gun laws still have problems with gun violence. Don't believe their hype. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that with disparate gun laws across all states and the open borders we enjoy, guns sold in one state are easily brought into another. So what can we do? Instead of thinking and praying -- pick up the phone and call the NRA and GOP lawmakers. Keep calling them. Over and over. Tell them that you want gun violence studied by the CDC with follow-up legislation. Tell them you're tired of people dying because they refuse to act. Instead of a moment of silence, why not write your own letter to the editor or op-ed in your local paper? Tell them what you want. I know what I want. I think a program administered by a state or national agency is the answer. The three ideas below should be ongoing requirements on a 3- to 5-year cycle. Couple with lawyer There are so many things to worry about when your marriage falls apart. The depression and anxiety make it difficult to concentrate. It is strenuous enough to think about the obvious items of dividing time-sharing with the children and who gets what property. Beyond the basics, there are some relatively hidden issues that linger and one such area has to do with your tax obligations. An obvious issue to think about is who will be allowed to take the dependency exemption for the children. This is pretty obvious and should be described in the settlement agreement or the order signed by the court. Advertisement The first hidden issue arises as you decide which of you is going to receive what portion of any brokerage accounts. In dividing stocks and bonds, you must be aware of the tax basis for each asset so that there are not any unevenly divided tax obligations. For example, suppose you own 200 shares of Apple stock. Perhaps half of the shares were purchased recently for $100 per share while the other half were purchased a long time ago at $50 per share. When dividing the stock, you will want to ask the broker to separate the brokerage account so that the records show each of you getting half of the recently-purchased stock and each of you getting half of the older shares as well. By doing that, you will both have the same capital gains tax obligation assigned to the Apple stock. In dividing an IRA or a 401K, merely advise the broker to conduct the same procedure to dividing shares of each asset in the account. There is another significant tax issue related to retirement accounts. If you are dividing an IRA, you must be careful not to withdraw half the money into your personal account and write a check to your spouse so that your spouse can then place it into the spouse's IRA. That would cause you to have to pay income tax on the withdrawn amount. To avoid that, merely ask your broker to transfer the assets directly from your IRA into your spouse's IRA. Your broker shouldn't have a problem doing that either. If there is a non-IRA retirement account, such as a 401K or 503B, the tax law allows you to do the same thing. With those types of accounts, you will be required, however, to have a court document in order to accomplish it. It is called a Qualified Domestic Relations Order or QDRO (pronounced quadro). This is merely an order signed by the judge in your divorce case that describes what portion of the account is going from the employee-spouse to the other spouse. It creates the one exception to the previous IRS rule that funds could only leave those accounts by being paid to the employee. Advertisement In some states, there are also laws relating to portability of the homestead exemption on your home. If you are in one of those states and you are going to sell the marital home and divide that money along with everything else, you have to determine who will get to take advantage of this tax provision. In many instances, you may place a provision in your divorce settlement agreement that you are equally dividing that benefit. Ask your lawyer about that concept if you are selling the marital home. It is bad enough that we have to deal with tax issues in an intact marriage. When divorce raises its ugly head, you have to spend even more time thinking about taxes. As boring as tax issues are, it is worth staying awake in order to save the money that would otherwise go to the government. Buoyed by a subsequent endorsement from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the highest ranking Republicans in the country, Mr. Trump enthusiastically disclosed the hating judge's Hispanic ingredients once again during a raucous rally in San Diego on May 27th. A few days later, on June 2nd, the powerful Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, issued his own endorsement while the triumphant Mr. Trump was repeating his warning about the judge's Spanishness during a sober interview with the Wall St. Journal. The following morning, Speaker Ryan felt compelled to elaborate on the really rich nominee's remarks, explaining that doing and saying racist things doesn't make someone a racist. Neither McConnell nor Ryan are believed to be Mexican, which is fine. Outside one of his campaign rallies, the presumptive Republican nominee allocated a special section to anti-Trump protesters so that they could voice their opposition undetected. Herded behind a padlocked chain-link fence and beneath coils of barbed-wire imported from China, one mocha-shaded activist expressed concern that the candidate's stance on the environment would hasten Climate Change. Fearing a global rise in temperature that could eventually turn the activist a rusty bronze color for months at a time, he denounced Mr. Trump's environmental policies as a ploy to out minorities who are trying to pass themselves off as Americans. In retaliation, he is considering filing a legal action that would require the restoration of the original German "f" in the billionaire's name. The lawsuit would also challenge Mr. Trumpf's self-proclaimed whiteness. "No one can find a photograph of Mr. Trumpf without makeup because he's not wearing makeup," the potential litigant claimed, though he later admitted that tagging him with facial fuchsia is too purply-pinkish as an alternative to white. "Still, whatever he is," the man insisted, "the dude belongs with people of colors because that whiteness thing ain't happening." When told that Mr. Trumpf's birth certificate indicated that his race is Caucasian, the challenger whispered, "How do we know it's real?" Locked inside the Trumpf-inspired border fence encircling the First Amendment, he quietly inched away from the dissidents huddled along the perimeter in order to avoid eavesdropping by the Second Amendment red hats on the other side. Leaning in conspiratorially close as if disclosing the GOP candidate's actual net worth, he said: "You never see a white guy go into a poor neighborhood telling everybody that he's rich. He doesn't want anyone asking for his money, taking his money, even thinking about his money. Every white guy in a poor neighborhood says he's broke. So when I watch Donald Trumpf talking to a whole crowd of broke people, bragging about how rich he is, I'm thinking there's no way that guy is white." Senator Bernie Sanders now needs to make a decision. Should his movement be a fundamental movement, political movement, or both? A political movement is people joining forces to get political power, such as electing candidates, moving a political agenda forward, or both. A fundamental movement is people joining forces to mature something in the way we all think. Not just some of us but all of us. Its leaders have identified a current social tradition they accurately declare is now immoral. It is not something we can or cannot continue to do. As a society, it is something that we can't continue to do because we have matured to where we can see it is immoral: not fair. Therefore, they also know that no matter how long it takes or how difficult the task, this movement will eventually be successful. As individuals and as societies overall we are consistently maturing, admittedly in steps forward and backward. However this change is maturation we are now able to understand and embrace. Advertisement The Civil Rights Movement was a fundamental movement. We have matured to where we know it is immoral if we do not extend equal rights to African-Americans. The Woman's Movement is another example of a fundamental movement. We have matured to where we know it is immoral to not extend equal rights to women. We also know that just as today all children are born into societies that know the Earth is round someday all children will be born into societies that know women, black, whites, all colors, and all human beings deserve equal rights relative to one another. What is the fundamental movement at the bottom of Bernie's call for "a revolution"? I believe it is accurately declaring that the currently acceptable social tradition of giving priority in economic activity to one's self-interest is immoral. It is not something we can do or not do as members of a society. It is something we can no longer allow ourselves to do because we have matured to where we know it is immoral. Like any fundamental movement this will not at first be something easy to explain because it is currently such a deeply held social tradition. However at the bottom giving priority to one's self-interest in anything at any time is immoral. Also freely choosing to give priority to the common good not only does not threaten individual freedom but also enhances the safety necessary to exercise it. Let me explain. Anytime two human beings come together they have two choices: to compete or cooperate. If they choose to compete they will be in a constant relationship of conflict. If they choose to cooperate, they have used their human skill of self-consciousness to make an agreement. The agreement is they will give priority to the common good of the two of them as if they are two parts of a whole. If many people agree to do this, we call it "a society." Advertisement Therefore people who no longer give priority to the common good of the society in all they do have left it and are in competition with it. Whether the society is a group of friends, a village, a company, a democratic nation, a communist state, or any other kind of nation, self-interest can be secondary; but it cannot be primary. Also, because of our modern technology and media, like it or not we now all live in an Earth society. Therefore to not give priority to the common good of us all in anything we do at any time is immoral. We are all in this together now. Throughout history "moral behavior" has been defined as "freely choosing to give priority to the common good." It is the fundamental agreement of being in "a human society." Our marketplace used to be based on an agreement that we would cooperate by competing based on self-interest without collusion among competitors. That agreement was the cooperative context that gave priority to the common good. Therefore the classic competitive marketplace was fundamentally moral. However we no longer live in a classic competitive marketplace. Our Information Age has made it possible, without talking to each other, to legally cooperate with competitors to give priority to mutual self-interest. Let me explain this as well. Advertisement It used to be that companies existed in silos where they did not know what was going on in each other's company. Today everyone has access to nearly all information and the marketplace is global. Also, a monopoly is illegal but a duopoly monopoly is legal. A duopoly monopoly is when two companies dominate a product market - think of CVS-Walgreens, Home Depot-Lowe's, Visa-MasterCard, and Ben & Jerry's-Haagen Dazs. Today the rush is on to become number one or two in each product market or to get out of it. If you are part of a duopoly monopoly you have a legal backdoor to monopoly behavior: without ever talking to each other you simply match each other's price increases. In fact because of this Information Age more than two companies can also do it. For instance, in the USA we are down to only four major airlines that can easily do it: United, Delta, American, and Southwest. Therefore the days of breaking up companies by the government can't end this as well. I am on the board of Ben & Jerry's. In the USA Ben & Jerry's and Haagen-Dazs control 82% of the super premium ice cream market. We never talk to Haagen Dazs but also quickly match each other's price increases. We are a duopoly monopoly with Ben & Jerry's based in Bernie's home state of Vermont. Our two companies are expanding into about the same 35 nations around the world. We are now each owned by one of the most powerful consumer products companies on Earth: Unilever and Nestles. If we did not become a duopoly monopoly in our market two other products would. So in the 2016 global marketplace we have no choice but to seek to become one of the two dominant companies. We will probably eventually become the global super-premium duopoly monopoly. Because of the power of our parent companies it will not be easy for any other company to stop this from happening. The one that began to eat into our market, Talenti, was immediately bought by Unilever and copied by Haagen-Dazs. They did not want to sell but quickly realized they had no choice if they wanted their product to survive, get its value in dollars, or both. Welcome to the duopoly monopoly 2016 marketplace. Bernie has the potential to create both a fundamental movement and a political movement while fully doing both. The most fundamental platform of his "revolution" is economic reform. He can have it be a fundamental movement by declaring that we have matured to now know it is immoral to give priority to self-interest in economic activity. In our now global economy with global companies that are now capable of primarily cooperating for self-interest without ever talking to each other it is essential that we all publicly declare that in all economic activity our highest priority is the common good, not self-interest. Advertisement If companies can now primarily cooperate for mutual self-interest they can also primarily cooperate for the common good. There will be a continuation of the proliferation of global duopoly monopolies. It is now easily possible. Thus, practically, common good capitalism will be when the duopoly monopolies in each product area voluntarily meet, along with all the smaller competitors, and reach agreements that give priority to the common good. A couple of public officials without a vote could be present to provide evidence to the public that the agreements were based on giving priority to the common good, not collusion for self-interest. The former is legal; the latter is not. Then the companies could not only annually provide the public a financial audit but also a common good audit. It will report on their agreements and the progress of each in fulfilling them. This will also allow the public to be in an on-going conversation with the companies on what we have matured into identifying as new agreements we want to make that give priority to the common good. We are constantly maturing as the Civil Rights, Women's, Environment, and Gay's Right to Marry Movements have revealed. The agreements they could forge are quite obvious. One could be to have the minimum wage be a livable wage in each employment location and other good labor agreements. It could be certain environment and safety standards. It could even be to donate the same percentage of annual net profits to reduce poverty around the world. As a secondary activity they could compete as ferociously as before in all other areas such a packaging, marketing, distribution, and new product development. Of course this process could eventually lead to legislation nearly all support. Advertisement What is significant about common good capitalism is that it fully honors individual freedom and free markets. There is nothing to prevent another company being so successful that it replaces one of the two duopolies. Secondly, relative to one another it will not cost the companies a penny. If they need to raise their prices to afford some of their agreements, such as a livable minimum wage, they will both do so at the same time; and they will still be able to compete on price but now it will be based on efficiencies, a committed workforce, and better service to the customers. Thirdly, the conflict between workers and employers can end and be replaced with joint cooperation with the priority being the common good. Lastly the continued proliferation of duopoly monopolies will be supported by the public rather than attacked. They will overtly, publicly, and freely choose to give priority to the common good. Thus, our multinational corporations, some of the most powerful organizations on Earth, will be primarily cooperating with all for the common good. This, by the way, will be essential for the Environment Movement to succeed. Common good capitalism is inevitable. In the Information Age it is the only solution to the now easy global duopolization of our product markets. We want these companies to continue producing all the things we need. At the same time monopoly behavior through a backdoor is not acceptable. Common good capitalism is the only solution that both honors individual freedom and free markets that is something we definitely want to build on and not end. It also enhances the safety for all so we are able to more easily, broadly, and safely exercise individual freedom. In addition to becoming the Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., or Nelson Mandela of the common good capitalism fundamental movement, as the above three did Bernie can also seek political power by getting officials elected and legislation passed that supports it. Bernie now has a golden opportunity to create both a common good capitalism fundamental movement as well as a political movement. I hope he does both. The South African Supreme Court of Appeal's unanimous decision to find Oscar Pistorius guilty of murder by overturning a lower court's verdict of culpable homicide has important implications for the country's judicial system. Thabo Leshilo from The Conversation Africa put questions to Chantelle Feldhaus and Rene Koraan about the implications of the judgment. What is the significance of the verdict? The Supreme Court of Appeal's decision is important for three reasons. First it shows that South Africa has a strong legal system. Checks and balances are intact. Second, the verdict provides a clear interpretation of dolus eventualis as well as how it should be applied. Third, it reaffirms the importance of circumstantial evidence. How does the replacement of the verdict reflect on the trial judge? It has to be borne in mind that the trial was conducted in the glare of international media attention. The fact that the trial was covered by live television was unprecedented in a South African court. This must have added to the inherent pressures on the trial judge. Advertisement In his final remarks, Appeal Court Judge Eric Leach congratulated the trial Judge Thokozile Masipa on the way she conducted the trial. He emphasised that even though the Appeal Court found that certain mistakes were made, its decision should in no way be seen to cast doubt on her competence and ability. He also credited her patience and dignity. Judge Leach commented on the tragedy of the case: This case involves a human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions: a young man overcomes huge physical disabilities to reach Olympian heights as an athlete; in doing so he becomes an international celebrity; he meets a young woman of great natural beauty and a successful model; romance blossoms; and then, ironically on Valentine's Day, all is destroyed when he takes her life. The issue before this court is whether in doing so he committed the crime of murder, the intentional killing of a human being, or the lesser offence of culpable homicide, the negligent killing of another. Judge Thokozile Masipa reading her verdict during Oscar Pistorius's trial. (Reuters/Kim Ludbrook) What happens to Pistorius now? Sentencing was not argued in the Supreme Court of Appeal. It has been referred back the High Court which still has to set a date for a hearing. In the meantime Pistorius will continue to be kept under correctional supervision. This is in effect house arrest. The just less than a year he spent in prison will be taken into consideration when a new sentence is passed down. What possible sentence does he face? In 1998 South Africa enacted legislation prescribing minimum sentences for certain serious offences, including murder. The purpose of the law was to reduce rising crime rates as well as to iron out disparities in sentencing for violent crimes. Advertisement The minimum sentence for a first offence of murder is 15 years' imprisonment. This is the shortest sentence Pistorius can expect unless he can prove that there are "substantial and compelling circumstances" for a lesser sentence. But the court will need to be convinced that: His particular circumstances render the minimum prescribed sentence unjust; and It would be disproportionate to the crime, the accused's personal circumstances and the needs of society. But the court is unlikely to deviate from the minimum prescribed sentence lightly. Whatever sentence Pistorius gets, he will, at the very least, serve two-thirds of it. Is this the end? This is probably the end for Pistorius' case. The only court left for him to appeal to is the Constitutional Court. But to lodge an appeal there he would need to argue a case based on a constitutional right. Say, for example, that his right to a fair trial had been compromised. What are the implications for the law in South Africa? This verdict highlights the importance of appeal processes and that different judges can reach different conclusions. It also cast fresh light on the meaning and application of dolus eventualis. As the Appeal Court explained, dolus eventualis is a form of intent which is present when Advertisement ... a person foresees the possibility of harm ensuing but reconciles him/herself with that possibility and continues with the said action. In this case the court found that Pistorius must have foreseen, when firing the shot, that whoever was behind the toilet door might die, but reconciled himself with that possibility and thus gambled with that person's life. The court also emphasised that the identity of the person behind the door was irrelevant. Pistorius' defence of putative private defence was not sustained. Putative private defence is when someone genuinely believes that his life is in danger when in actual fact it is not. In this case the accused genuinely but erroneously believed that his life was in danger when he fired the shots. The fact that the accused, armed with a heavy calibre firearm, did not take the elementary precaution of firing a warning shot was taken as prima facie proof that he did not genuinely believe he was acting lawfully. The court concluded that Pistorius did not have a rational or genuine fear that his life was in danger at the time of the shooting since he did not know who was behind the door or whether the person constituted a threat to him. Advertisement Another important issue the Appeal Court emphasised was that crucial circumstantial evidence was not taken into account by the trial court. It found that the trial court failed to take into account the evidence of the forensic expert on the position of the bullet holes in the cubicle and the position of the injuries on the deceased. The type of ammunition that the accused used was also not taken into account. This circumstantial evidence is crucial to a decision on whether the accused, at the time he fired the fatal shots, must have foreseen, and therefore did foresee, the potentially fatal consequences of his actions. By Dr. Johnny Rice II, Senior Program Associate, Vera Institute of Justice Father's Day allows us to take stock of the important role fathers and father figures play in the lives of children. Over the years, a growing body of research has consistently demonstrated the value of positive involvement by fathers (biological or otherwise) in their children's lives. Of course, this is not to suggest that children raised by two moms or a mom who has chosen to raise her child on her own cannot have equally fulfilling lives. But, for children who have a father in their lives, studies have found that the children have better socio-emotional and academic functioning if they have healthy contact with their fathers. But, what happens when positive male figures are stripped from their families through acts of violence? Permanent father absence as a result of interpersonal or community violence has broad and far-reaching implications that we as a society should not ignore. In my native Baltimore, the story of Kendall Fenwick immediately comes to mind this Father's Day. Mr. Fenwick was a young father raising his children as a single parent, who by all accounts was a devoted dad and a positive member of his community. But on Monday, November 9, 2015, Mr. Fenwick's life was cut short when a local drug dealer murdered him on his front lawn, with his young children just inside the home and within hearing distance of the gunshot that ended their father's life. That gunshot extinguished the unique relationship that Mr. Fenwick had built with his children, and took away their caregiver. Mr. Fenwick was only 24 years old, and his children were only ages four, two, and seven months. Advertisement The harm associated with such tragedies usually transcends beyond the initial incident, and can impact loved ones (especially children) in a variety of ways based on the trauma experienced. An unexpected death such as Mr. Fenwick's, and its intentional nature at the hands of another community member, compound the trauma that the victim's children, family, and community may experience. It can also leave remaining family members who are fragile vulnerable to future victimization themselves, perpetuating a cycle of violence. Mr. Fenwick's murder struck a distinct chord for me as an African American father. There is a long-standing and pervasive belief that black men are not a consistent part of their children's lives. So I was glad to see that the myth of African American fathers as uninvolved has been challenged by recent research findings examining fathers' involvement with their children in the United States, which showed that African American dads were as likely to be involved in their children's lives as other fathers--and by some metrics, more so. However, I can also relate to the various pitfalls that African American fathers in urban centers such as Baltimore must constantly navigate in order to see tomorrow. Unfortunately, the cold reality is that communities of color are disproportionately affected by gun violence. Recent Center on Disease Control and Prevention data shows that homicide is the leading cause of death for African American males ages 15-34. And the impacts of gun violence go beyond the victims--another study found that four in 10 African Americans reported being affected by gun violence. Many African Americans feel that the United States doesn't care about the gun violence that plagues communities of color. These statistics reflect a cycle of violence, which creates a sense of inevitability and apathy. This perpetuates the dysfunction that ends in the death of productive black men and fathers. Advertisement I take great pride in supporting my son and daughter in their growth and maturation process and work to steer them in the right direction and away from things that can be harmful. When confronted with stories like Mr. Fenwick's, however, I am forced to imagine how my children's life would change if I was not able to be there for them as a result of unexpected violence. This compels me to want to address the problem of community violence that smothers the aspirations of individuals and families who suffer from victimization--in the forms of gun violence, domestic violence and sexual assault, child abuse and neglect--yet want better for their community and themselves. We must start with recognizing the root causes of violence, such as poverty and lack of mental health services, that fuel violence in disenfranchised communities of color, and ask ourselves what each of us can do to address them. Initiatives such as Healing Works, a national learning collaborative and website for people working with young men of color harmed by violence and trauma, can help to inform, educate, and empower communities. We must also equip members of our communities with the tools necessary to de-escalate conflicts without using violence as a means to achieve this goal--particularly black males who may believe violence is the answer when disrespect is perceived or to preempt any harm they feel may be directed at them first. It is also imperative that victims, particularly victims who are family members of those who have been killed, receive the support that they need in their journey to healing. The presence of a loving and supportive adult can serve as a protective factor for children; if violently stripped away, it can make them vulnerable to unhealthy relations and future abuse, such as domestic violence. In Baltimore, Roberta's House, a family grief and support center, is a unique program committed to providing a safe space for supporting children and their loved ones who have been affected by the death of a loved one as a result of homicide, often black men. We need more of these programs. As Father's Day approaches, it's important that we not forget the fathers we have lost to violence. We must reach out to these families, offer them encouragement, and be a source of hope that can overshadow the pain. We honor the memory of fathers like Mr. Fenwick by working harder for peace and not turning away from problems in our communities, but rather finding the courage to confront those ills. Greetings, fellow Republicans. It's my pleasure to speak before the 2016 convention of the Party of Lincoln. Here's the thing. I and some of the other guys have been talking amongst ourselves, and, uh, I'm sorry, we just can't do it, we can't run Donald Trump for president. I know that will disappoint his supporters, but there's actually more at stake here for us than a presidency. Because, you know, running Donald Trump won't just lose us the presidency, it will make our party more of a laughingstock than it already is. I mean, it was bad after George W. Bush, who, I guess it's not really a secret, was, to put it kindly, a blithering idiot. Remember how he couldn't string a sentence together, and we all talked about how that made him "approachable" and "the guy you wanted to have a beer with?" Well, it turns out maybe that's not something you want in a president. And after that guy, our party was in such bad shape that we lost to a black guy. Which, I guess you know, is pretty embarrassing for us. And we've been doing a pretty good job of making sure that the black guy wasn't able to get anything done, and, well, it turns out that's not really enough. Because now look where we are. Jesus, look where we are now. Advertisement Listen. We hate Hillary Clinton. Don't get us wrong. We hate her. She's a progressive, and a liberal, and she supports things like Planned Parenthood and gay marriage and Obamacare. But most of all, we hate her because she's a woman. I know that sounds old fashioned or whatever in the United States in 2016, but that's kind of our brand, we're old fashioned, we think that straight white men were created to rule America and we're uncomfortable with the idea that maybe that's not going to be the case from here on out. But as much as we hate Hillary Clinton, I mean, just look at her resume, on paper she's at least competent, she can handle this, the country isn't going to fall apart while she's president. You know, the "white guy" thing, that's kind of how our party got to this situation in the first place I guess. We played the race card for decade after decade, making poor white people vote for us against their interests by telling them that nonwhites wanted to steal their jobs and rape their women. That stuff didn't happen, of course, it was just us spinning the ol' paranoia story, but it worked for a long time. But, turns out, we played that card so often, we ended up getting an actual grade-A outspoken bigot for a nominee this year. I mean, a lot of us are bigots, I'd be kidding myself if I didn't know that. But mostly we just like using bigotry as a political tool, to win elections, to distract voters from the way we run everything else, like the way we deregulate corporations and let them poison the earth and kill people and that kind of thing, the way we start wars that cost trillions of dollars while telling you that food stamp programs and arts programs and health care and education are too expensive. Ha! No, those things aren't too expensive, we just don't want rich people to have to pay taxes, because those guys keep us in office. Advertisement Anyway, I don't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about that stuff because that's all just politics as usual, it's boring. But Donald Trump isn't politics as usual, he's an actual bona-fide frog-faced pig, a vulgar, silver-spoon trust-fund brat who doesn't know anything about governance, or taxation, or administration, or foreign policy, or, honestly, how to behave like a human being. I mean, we all like to pretend that we're stupid, because that makes stupid people like us, but Donald Trump is genuinely stupid, a grotesque, loudmouthed bully, some kind of cross between Biff Tannen and Baron Harkonnen. I mean, honestly, if you can look at his face for more than a minute and find anything human in there, I have no idea who you are or how you live with yourself. Cross-posted from UN Women At the age of 8, Lucrecia Huayhua Choque was sent away by her parents from her Aymara community in the town of Cocapacabana to the city of La Paz (155 km away), where she began looking after an 8-month old girl. My boss made me sleep under the stairs with the dog. I worked there for four years. I left without ever being paid, she recalls. Although she enjoyed studying, she could only complete fourth grade because she had to work to support her large family of 12 brothers and sisters. My family lacked food, clothes, everything, she explains. Advertisement At her next job, Ms. Huayhua Choque carried out various tasks for more than a dozen people, with workdays exceeding 20 hours, until the age of 22. All this without a salary, vacation days or other social security. They gave me basic supplies for my siblings... My employer would always tell me I was worthless and useless. Those things stay with you... At the time I had no self-esteem, she pointed out. According to a joint study by the UN and Bolivian Ministry of Work and Social Security, at least 848,000 children between the ages of 5 and 17 (28 per cent of that population) are engaged in exploitative economic activities in Boliviaat least 60 per cent of whom are girls.[1] Ms. Huayhua Choque returned to her community at the age of 22 and within a month was kidnapped by the man who is still her husband today. After being locked away for three days, both sets of parents agreed to a forced union, according to local custom. A woman cannot say she doesn't want to get married because it brings dishonour, she explains. Her married life was difficult. I was not aware of my rights, always lived in subordination, was badly treated, and always obeyed orders because that's what I learned in my childhood, said Ms. Huayhua Choque, now a mother of five children. But her perspective started to change after participating in workshops organized by the Organizacion de Mujeres Aymaras del Kollasuyo (Organization of Aymara Women in the Kollasuyo, OMAK) about women's rights, as the basis to strengthen their economic empowerment. She was later selected by OMAK to attend the School for Women Leaders, an initiative supported by UN Womens Fund for Gender Equality, via the NGO network Coordinadora de la Mujer (Women's Coordinator). Her mother encouraged her to take part in the workshops and Leaders School, despite her husbands opposition. If you don't leave your house, you'll die beaten, tortured, mistreated and without knowing what's going on around you. You see violence in your own and other households and you say: this is my life, this is my fatethis is how I'm to die, she recalls. Women leaders are nominated by various womens organizations to attend the School for Women Leaders. The year-long course is divided into four modules with in-person week-long classroom sessions in three regions of Bolivia. It covers topics such as depatriarchalization, decolonization, state structures and women's rights, political advocacy and womens history. Advertisement Ms. Huayhua Choque recalls that when she started she didnt even know the meaning of the word gender, not to mention sisterhood, and said that she improved her self-esteem as she learned about the Constitution of the State and sexual and reproductive rights. She said it was a novelty to know my body, to love myself, to value myself, because I had never been valued, except by my parents. She soon began teaching other women, reading the notebooks she was given at OMAK workshops and at the School, and drawing to transfer this knowledge to others. This project has helped participating women to understand their rights and improve their self-esteem, teach and replicate time these profound changes with other women says interim UN Women Representative in Bolivia, Carolina Taborga, highlighting the importance of programmes to advance substantive change in womens lives. One of the priorities of our work in Bolivia is to increase women's leadership and participation, as well as end violence against women and girls. Ms. Huayhua Choque is now 47 and works for OMAK, sharing her knowledge of womens and girls rights and struggling against violence in various urban and rural communities. The OMAK technical team is committed to enabling women leaders who know their rights and have been strengthened by economic empowerment to develop and implement gender equality in their lives, says OMAK President Andrea Flores. Advertisement Notes Historians don't seek models. We make comparisons and look for analogies. So don't expect to find a pattern of Trumpism in American history, as in candidates that sound or act like him. But American historians are certainly asking themselves "How new is Trump?" versus "to what extent is this master of personal marketing and performance deliberately evoking older traditions of political discourse?" Should he seem familiar to us? To answer that question, I've rummaged through U.S. history seeking authoritarian demagogues who seek to polarize the populace against foreign "others" and endorse violence, while denouncing all existing structures of partisan power and influence. There is a habit of lawless contempt for government, mixed up with advocacy of violence, which Trump deliberately stokes -- all those references to "knock the crap out of him, folks" and "I'd like to punch him in the face." In antebellum America, this political style was associated with the rise of Andrew Jackson, who made his fame by dueling, illegally invading foreign territory, and killing anyone who got in his way -- so-called "British agents," state militiamen who questioned his authority, lots and lots of Indians. As early as 1818, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, later the founder of the Whig Party, denounced him for "Caesarism" (what Marxists would later call Bonapartism), meaning the potential for a military dictatorship. But here's the problem: there's nothing military about Trump at all, he's a large soft playboy, reveling in luxury, so any comparison with Jackson's frontier rough-riding is limited. Advertisement A more recent point of reference would be the state of government in the American South from the 1890s to the 1960s: a condition of endemic lawlessness, and pervasive demagogy extolling that lawlessness, in which one section of the population (African Americans) were outside the state with no rights that white men needed to respect. As Gunnar Myrdal wrote in his 1944 classic The American Dilemma: It is the custom in the South to permit whites to resort to violence and threats of violence against the life, personal security, property and freedom of movement of Negroes. There is a wide variety of behavior, ranging from a mild admonition to murder, which the white man may exercise to control Negroes. While the practice has its origin in the slavery tradition, it continues to flourish because of the laxity and iniquity of the administration of law and justice.... Both the practice of intimidation and violence and the inadequate functioning of justice in the region are expressions of the same spirit of relative lawlessness.... Both are rooted in this strange Southern combination of conservatism and illegality. Does "a strange combination of conservatism and illegality" sound like Trumpism? It resonates with Trump's demonization of Mexicans and Muslims, and encouraging his followers to "rough up" opponents. Certainly in the Jim Crow era, the South produced a long list of flamboyant, cartoonish, and truly dangerous leaders, like Mississippi Senator Theodore "The Man" Bilbo and his predecessor, James K. Vardaman, the self-styled "White Chief," and South Carolina's "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman, plus many others. But again the comparison is limited because those men were part of a well-organized political party with deep historical roots, the Democratic Party. They and their supporters were all "Yellow Dog Democrats," as in the apocryphal saying "I'll vote for a yellow dog before I'll vote for a Republican." There was nothing insurgent about them, they built patronage machines and factional networks that lasted for decades, maneuvered at national conventions and negotiated with presidents, and governed, none of which Trump has ever done. Even more importantly, they expressed the needs of a social and economic system premised on the super-exploitation of a disfranchised racial caste, backed up by a permanent paramilitary network, the KKK. That system, "White Supremacy" as they liked to call it, is as close as America has gotten to a kind of democratic fascism. A real estate empire and a reality TV franchise hardly compare to the entire Jim Crow system, even if Trump gives a knowing nod to what white men used to be able to do to their inferiors. Advertisement For example, here is a cup: should I lift it or should I put it down? You can't say. If I am thirsty, I should lift this cup to drink water. If the cup is too hot, I should put it down, so it doesn't burn my hand. But if you say, as a rule, you should always put the cup down, it won't always be the right decision. Decide what the situation is first, and then you can decide whether to lift the cup or put it down. So, if you hold a thought in your head and it's not good for you, then let it go. So, if you just say "Empty your mind" without knowing the situation, it doesn't work. But, if there is greed in your mind, you should empty it. Greed is not wanting to do something or become something. Greed is defined as wanting two things that contradict each other. And if you become greedy, then you bring suffering upon yourself because it's impossible to have two contradictory things at the same time. In that situation, you should empty your mind and let one of them go. So, if you just say empty your mind without any understanding of the situation, it is just rhetoric. Reuters Staff / Reuters Formula One - F1 - United States Grand Prix 2015 - Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, United States of America - 23/10/15Force India team owner Dr. Vijay Mallya during a press conferenceMandatory Credit: Action Images / Hoch ZweiLivepicEDITORIAL USE ONLY.PLEASE NOTE: FOR UK EDITORIAL SALES ONLY. FOR ALL OTHER USAGE ADDITIONAL FEES WILL APPLY - PLEASE CONTACT YOUR ACCOUNT MANAGER. *** Local Caption *** -- Liquor baron Vijay Mallya has accused government agencies of pursuing a heavily biased investigation," questioning the rationale of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to go after the properties allegedly attached to the money laundering case against him. Mallya, former Rajya Sabha member and chairman of United Breweries Group, on Sunday strongly objected to EDs move and the motives of the ongoing investigation into the Rs 900-crore loan default of now grounded Kingfisher Airlines. Advertisement In a statement, he said that the latest ED move will make it difficult to raise money to repay the banks associated with the default. "Most recent media reports and a tweet from the ED suggest that the ED have attached various properties belonging to myself and United Breweries Holdings Limited which is a public Company and not even the subject of any ED investigation, Mallya said in a statement widely reported in the media. The assets purportedly attached under PMLA date back to several years prior to the launch of Kingfisher Airlines. There is no rationale nor any legal basis for the series of actions initiated by the ED." On Saturday, ED indicated it would attach properties worth Rs 1,411 crore of Mallya and affiliates entities of the United Group, a holding company, in relation to the loan default and the money laundering investigation. According to Mint, the properties in question include eight immovable properties including an apartment in Bengaluru and Mumbai, an industrial plot in Chennai, and a coffee plantation plot in Coorg a residential and commercial constructed area in UB City and the Kingfisher Tower in Bengaluru. Advertisement Last month, Mallya left India for the UK in the midst of the controversy, and has publicly denied accusations of graft and lashed out at the draconian methods of the Indian authorities aiming to recover money from him. The UK has said it will consider a request to extradite him, but had earlier denied requests to deport him. In the statement, Mallya said the latest ED move appears to include "to approach the PMLA Court to declare me a proclaimed absconder for reasons that I cannot understand." He has maintained that he left India on a routine visit to the UK, and at the time of his departure on March 2, no summons had been issued against him. With PTI inputs Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: Hindustan Times via Getty Images NEW DELHI, INDIA - APRIL 28: Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Vice President Rahul Gandhi, Haryana Janhit Congress Kuldeep Bishnoi (not in the picture) and others leaders during the merger of Haryana Janhit congress party with Indian National Congress on April 28, 2016 in New Delhi, India. (Photo by Sonu Mehta/Hindustan Times via Getty Images) It is astonishing that the Congress leadership did not anticipate the rebellion in its ranks in Haryana which led to the defeat of its officially sponsored candidate for the Rajya Sabha, RK Anand. The writing was on the wall, if anyone had cared to read it. But no-one did. The result was egg on the face of the Gandhis and a smile on the lips of Amit Shah and Narendra Modi who left no stone unturned to defeat as many Congress nominees as possible in a do-or-die battle for supremacy in the Upper House. This is the main take-away from the just concluded Rajya Sabha elections. The drama that unfolded in the Congress in Haryana on the day of the polls was extraordinary. It was also grim reminder that neither Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul seem to have learnt any lessons from the spate of revolts that have rocked the party in recent months. Disgruntled leaders from more than half a dozen states including erstwhile Congress bastions like Assam, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra have walked out, accusing the Gandhis of not listening. Advertisement The drama that unfolded in the Congress in Haryana on the day of the polls was extraordinary. It was also grim reminder that neither Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul seem to have learnt any lessons from the spate of revolts that have rocked the party in recent months. A similar story played out in Haryana. The top leadership ignored the concerns of their MLAs who had conveyed in no uncertain terms that it was bad politics for the Congress to sponsor a candidate jointly with INLD. The INLD had also announced support to Anand. Former Congress chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and recent entrant Kuldeep Singh Bishnoi are believed to have met Rahul a few days before the election and pleaded for the party to abstain from voting rather than form a block with INLD. The high command chose to ignore these voices and on the eve of the election, issued a diktat to its MLAs to support Anand. Interestingly, Anand even dropped in at a meeting of Haryana Congress MLAs, called the day before voting, to lobby for himself. Advertisement (Former Chief Minister of Haryana Bhupinder Singh Hooda addressing a press Conference at his residence in sector 7, on February 7, 2015 in Chandigarh, India. Photo by Sanjeev Sharma/Hindustan Times via Getty Images) The dramatic events on voting day were something that seasoned parliamentarians don't recall having ever seen. The process turned into a farce as 14 of the Congress party's 17 votes were declared invalid. The reasons given were quite bizarre. Twelve of the 14 votes were knocked out because the MLAs had apparently used the wrong pen. Huh? They made this mistake under the noses of two senior Congress leaders who were appointed election agents, general secretary B K Hariprasad, himself a Rajya Sabha MP and therefore conversant with the procedures, and spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, who is a three-term MLA, a lawyer and experienced voter in RS elections. Interestingly, even Surjewala's vote was thrown out because he had broken rules to show his ballot paper to a fellow MLA, Kiran Chaudhry. The rules permit only election agents to look at ballot papers. Surely Surjewala, who was one of the two official agent appointed by the Congress, knew the rules. And then there was Hooda's blank ballot. The former CM had not even marked his vote preferences and so his ballot paper was also rejected. The reasons given were quite bizarre. Twelve of the 14 votes were knocked out because the MLAs had apparently used the wrong pen. Huh? Although Hooda and the Congress are now blaming the BJP for hatching a "conspiracy" to have media baron Subhash Chandra elected instead of Anand, it is obvious to any seasoned hand that whatever scheming was done happened in the Congress. Experienced MLAs do not commit kindergarten mistakes like using the wrong pen. Advertisement The fiasco in Haryana exposes the inherent fragility of the Congress and the tenuous hold Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have over the party after the humiliating defeat of 2014. The past one year has seen a steady exodus of important leaders and each exit has been a blow. Himanta Biswa Sarma walked out last year and joined the BJP to script a stunning victory for the saffron forces in Assam this year. (Former Congress Assam Health and Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma arrives for questioning at the CBI's office on November 26, 2014 at Salt Lake in Kolkata, India. Photo by Subhankar Chakraborty/ Hindustan Times via Getty Images) Vijay Bahuguna left with eight MLAs in Uttarakhand. They would have succeeded in bringing down the Congress government in the state but for the centre's missteps. More recently, in the past week or so, two senior leaders, Ajit Jogi in Chhattisgarh and Gurudas Kamat in Maharashtra, have resigned. The fiasco in Haryana exposes the inherent fragility of the Congress and the tenuous hold Sonia and Rahul Gandhi have over the party after the humiliating defeat of 2014. The revolt in Haryana is significant because this is probably the first time that Congressmen have so openly defied a writ from the top. And they may just get away with it because the party can't very well expel almost its entire representation in the Haryana assembly. More importantly, the Rajya Sabha drama is a signal to the party leadership that Hooda cannot be ignored. The former CM has been chaffing over his increasing marginalization. The state president, Ashok Tanwar, and the Congress legislature party leader Kiran Chaudhry were appointed against his wishes. A month ago, the party took back former rebel Kuldeep Bishnoi without informing Hooda. The India Today Group via Getty Images INDIA - NOVEMBER 20: Shanti Mukand hospital in East Delhi, where a ward boy, Bhura, raped a nurse in September 2003. Delhi High Court recently ordered the hospital to pay a compensation of around Rs 7 lakh to the victim. (Photo by Imtiyaz Khan/The India Today Group/Getty Images) NEW DELHI -- The Delhi government has asked five private hospitals in the city, including Fortis Escorts Heart Institute and Max Super Specialty Hospital (Saket), to deposit "unwarranted profits" of over Rs 600 crore for refusing free treatment to the poor, the prime condition for land allotment lease. Dr Hem Prakash, additional director (EWS) in the Health Department, said these five hospitals -- Max Super Specialty Hospital (Saket), Fortis Escorts Heart Institute, Shanti Mukand Hospital, Dharamshila Cancer Hospital and Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute -- were provided lands at concessional rates between 1960 and 1990 on the condition that they will treat the poor free of cost. Advertisement "These five hospitals have not abide by the conditions. We had earlier in December 2015, sent notices to these hospitals seeking their explanation as to why they failed to treat the poor and why they should not be fined. But none of them gave satisfactory replies so we initiated action against them," said Prakash. "The penalty has been imposed on the basis of a High Court order passed in 2007 on a PIL demanding implementation of the provision of free treatment to poor and action against the erring hospitals. And the fine amount has been calculated accordingly," he said. The hospitals have been asked to pay the amount by 9 July, failing which further action will be initiated against them. Total 43 private hospitals in Delhi were allotted land at concessional rates on the condition that they will keep 10 per cent of their in-patient department capacity and 25 per cent of out-patient department capacity to treat EWS patients free of cost. Advertisement Fortis Healthcare's subsidiary Escort Heart Institute and Research Centre has received an order to deposit Rs 503.36 crore for non-compliance of conditions of land allotment lease. "The management will challenge the same in the High Court of Delhi or such relevant authority to seek suitable legal remedies available to it under law," the hospital said in a statement. Devki Devi Foundation, of which Max-Super Speciality Hospital in Saket is a unit, said, "We believe the order is unfair to us, we stand fully committed to discharging all our obligations towards economically weaker sections (EWS). We are extremely serious towards fulfilling our obligations. While we study the order in detail, we will prefer an appeal against this order in the appropriate forum." Director of Dharamshila Cancer Hospital Suversha Khanna said they will challenge the order in the court. Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute and Shanti Mukand Hospital could not be contacted. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: A Hindu man aged over 80 years was beaten up by a police constable in Pakistan for allegedly eating and selling food before iftaar, triggering a social media campaign that led to the arrest of the cop. Gokal Das was badly beaten up by constable Ali Hussain in the remote village of Hayat Pitafi in Ghotki district of the southern Sindh province where he was selling food before iftaar, the evening meal with which Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast at sunset. Hussain claimed he also saw him eating a banana. If our law justifies ban on public eating during roza; then beef ban in India & hijab ban in France are also justified. #apartheid Nudrrat Khawaja (@NudrratKhawaja) June 11, 2016 Bachal Qazi, the Station House Officer of the Jawar police station in whose jurisdiction the village falls said that the constable and his brother "threw the old man on the ground and beat him badly before people rescued him." Das was later taken to a hospital for treatment as he was bleeding. The pictures of the incident showing Das with a injured hand and blood stained shirt were widely circulated on social media. Following the publication of the pictures, a social media campaign was launched calling for justice for the old man. A policeman in #Ghotki beat up an elderly Hindu man 4 eating before iftar. The policeman has been arrested #ZeroTolerance#Justice4GokalDas Bakhtawar B-Zardari (@BakhtawarBZ) June 11, 2016 Social and civil rights activists and even ordinary citizens criticised the intolerance exhibited by the police in the month of Ramadan, which started on June 7 and called for giving him proper punishment. It prompted the government to take quick action and arrest the police constable and his brother. Qazi said that the IG Sindh police ordered the arrest of the constable after that. A sizeable number of Hindus live in Pakistan's Sindh province. Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari, daughter of former president Asif Ali Zardari, whose Pakistan People s Party is in power in Sindh, took to social media to announce the arrest of the cop. "The policeman has been arrested," she tweeted. Amborish Roychoudhury/facebook It was rather a distressing day for film writer Amborish Roychoudhury when we he returned home on June 11 only to find out that he has lost his bag along with his Macbook in a Mumbai local train. Roy wrote a desperate Facebook appeal for his lost backpack and said he was quite cut up about losing his expensive belongings. Advertisement But this was not a usual case it seems. What happened next will restore your faith in humanity. A man named Viresh Narsingh Kele not only returned Roy's lost bag and laptop, he refused to accept any money from the thankful Roychoudhury. According to his Facebook post, Kele found his name and home address in an envelope inside the bag and travelled all the way to his house to return his belongings. Viresh refused to accept any money Here is the full text of the post. However, Roychoudhury later clarified that Kele is not a Railway employee as he initially thought, but works in a catering service at Byculla. Advertisement "They sometimes serve 'special trains'. He was to board one of these specials from CST that night, but he was too late to catch it, when his superior informed him he could catch the train from Panvel as well. He took a local to Panvel, and fell into a deep sleep without realising he had reached his destination. When he woke up, the train was empty, and that's when he chanced upon my bag in the abandoned compartment," he wrote in a Facebook post. It takes nothing away from Kele's kind act and makes us think that the world, after all, is not such a bad place to live in. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: hema via Getty Images Two pregnant colleagues. At least a quarter of pregnancy related deaths recorded worldwide occur in India, according to a study conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO). One woman dies every five minutes in child birth or during pregnancy in the country, the study said. Out of the total 5.29 lakh pregnancy related deaths recorded world over, 1.36 lakh occur in India. Of the total maternal deaths, about one in every three occurs post delivery and postpartum haemorrhage is the most common cause. Advertisement The incidence of emergency postpartum hysterectomies is about 83/100,000 with a maternal mortality of 17.7% and a pre-natal mortality of 37.5%," NDTV reported, quoting from the WHO study. Postpartum haemorrhage or PPH is the excessive loss of blood within 24 hours of delivery. India has a very high rate of PPH deaths recorded. This, says the WHO study can prove a major roadblock for India that is aiming to bring down its maternal death count and achieve a target of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5. "The latest estimates of maternal mortality rate (MMR) in India from 2011-13, show an average of 167 deaths/100,000 live births. The same estimates also demonstrate that wide geographical disparities persist. The highest MMR can be found in Assam (300) and the lowest in Kerala (61)," said the statement. According to the report, there is a 25% deficit when it comes to blood supply. Calling the situation chronic short supply, the report highlights how India falls way short of the global target of at least one per cent reserve. Advertisement "India, with its population of 1.2 billion people, needs 12 million units of blood annually but collects only nine million. Globally, there are innovations in the field of patient blood management, whereas in India, awareness on the management has been overlooked thus far," it said. Contact HuffPost India Also See On HuffPost: Adnan1 Abidi / Reuters India's Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath reacts to a question during an interview with Reuters in New Delhi June 17, 2011. Hundreds of millions of Indians living in the country's overcrowded cities must get used to paying more for better public services as the government pushes a huge infrastructure privatisation programme, Nath said. Picture taken June 17, 2011. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi (INDIA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS) NEW DELHI -- The Congress Party's decision to appoint Kamal Nath as its general secretary in charge of poll-bound Punjab is not just deeply insensitive, but also plain stupid. It makes you wonder if the Grand Old Party has signed its own death warrant in the upcoming state assembly elections, in which the Aam Aadmi Party has already set itself up as a formidable contender. We may never know for sure whether Nath incited a Hindu mob to kill the Sikhs near the Rakab Ganj Sahib gurudwara in Delhi on the afternoon of 1 November 1984, but the fact remains that there are enough members in the Sikh community who believe that the Congress Party leader has blood on his hands or, at the very least, he played some role in the massacre. Advertisement The 1984 anti-Sikh riots claimed at least 3,000 lives in Delhi alone. Let us be clear, no court has found Nath guilty in the anti-Sikh riots. In 2005, the Nanavati Commission, which paved the way for charges to be brought against Congress Party leaders Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler, described Nath's testimony as "vague" but concluded that there was no evidence that he had incited a mob. The lack of a court verdict does not assuage those who believe that Nath is guilty, either because of what they saw, or what they have heard from people they trust. In politics, perception can be as important as the truth, and one would think that the Congress Party would be a little sensitive to the power of perception. It has afterall politically fought Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat under his chief ministership. He has not been found guilty by any Indian court so far but that doesn't mean it hasn't been a factor politically, unfavourable or otherwise. The Congress Party has caught many of its own leaders off guard by appointing Nath. Im unable to recover from the shock. I wish the party high command had consulted or at least discussed the appointment with some senior leaders in Punjab," a senior leader toldThe Indian Express. Advertisement Meanwhile, AAP and the Bharatiya Janata Party are having a field day with Nath's appointment in Punjab. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has been relentlessly tweeting out jibes over the Nath's appointment. Shrewdly enough, the Chief Minister of Delhi has already targeted the one good thing which the Congress Party has in Punjab: Capt. Amarinder Singh, who, despite the Congress Party's lacklustre condition in the state, is still the most popular choice for the chief ministerial candidate, according to a HuffPost C-Voter poll from March. Singh's standing, unfortunately, is likely to be diminished by Nath's appointment. Singh has already expressed his support for Nath, a move that has been mocked by Kejriwal and the lawyer H.S. Phoolka, who has represented many of the victims' families and is an influential voice on the 1984 riots. Amrinder gave Cleanchit to Kamal Nath & admitted getting him appointed in Pb. Next he will bring Tytler to Pb. pic.twitter.com/fRjmzzMBRM H S Phoolka (@hsphoolka) June 13, 2016 Capt Amrinder shud state his stand on Kamal Nath. Does Capt absolve Kamal Nath? https://t.co/746ad6hNQx Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) June 12, 2016 Unfortunately for the Congress, Nath's appointment coincides with the BJP-ruled Centre's decision to open 75 cases related to the 1984 riots, a move that has likely been inspired by the upcoming Punjab polls. BJP's Kailash Vijayvargiya said that making Nath in-charge of Punjab "is like rubbing salt into the wound." Making Nath in charge of Punjab will go down as another slap in the face of the riot victims after Rahul Gandhi's vague responses to questions about the 1984 riots in January, 2014. Nath is of course right in asserting that he has been not found guilty by a court or the Nanavati commission. But the question for the Congress is, is the party so lacking in leaders that it could not avoid reminding Punjab voters of its fraught history with the Sikh riots? Advertisement Also on HuffPost India: Lenovo Lenovo launched their budget phone Vibe K5 In India today. The phone was unveiled originally in February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and will be sold in India for 6999. The budget phone is meant to compete with models such as Moto E and Samsung J3. The phone comes with a couple of features that are notable for this segment, the most striking being the Dolby Atmos audio support and a 720p 5-inch screen. The other hardware features have more run of the mill specifications. It has a 2 GB RAM and runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 415 processor at 1.4 GHz. Advertisement Vibe K5 comes with a 13 MP rear sensor camera, which sounds good on paper. But, without any stabilization or advanced image processing, the camera will be an adequate shooter at best. It also has a 5 MP front camera. It offers 16 GB of internal storage, which is standard for budget phones, and comes with a 2750 mAh battery which is enough for a day's usage. Rather disappointingly, the phone runs on Android Lolipop 5.1 and that is unlikely to be updated. It is a bit sad that smartphone makers are releasing a phone with a two-year-old software when, on the other hand, we are so close to the Android N release. The launch of Vibe K5 comes on the back of the Lenovo Tech World event, where the highlight was the launch of the Lenovo-owned Motorola's flagship Z line. Motorola launched two modular phones Moto Z and Moto Z Force. and, Lenovo showed off a bunch of gadgets and gizmos. This included a project tango enabled phone and a bendable phone, a smart bracelet, 3D printed smart shoes developed in collaboration with Intel, and a smart dock concept. Advertisement The Vibe K5 can prove to be a good seller for Lenovo, if the hardware delivers and it performs well. Lately, Lava and Reliance Jio have released a bunch of phones in this segment and with Jio doing well in the smartphone market, coupled with its 4G connectivity advantage, Lenovo has its work cut out if it wants decent sales figures. Lenovo is holding a flash sale for the phone on 22 June, another strategy that need not necessarily work. Registrations have begun. Advertisement Danish Siddiqui / Reuters India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the inauguration ceremony of the 'Make In India' week in Mumbai, India, February 13, 2016. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui Late last night, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted out his condolences to the victims and the families of the shooting in Orlando, Florida that left at least 50 people dead and about 53 others injured. Shocked at the shootout in Orlando, USA. My thoughts & prayers are with the bereaved families and the injured. Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) June 12, 2016 Even though his tweet, similar to what leaders around the world have said following the tragedy, got over three thousand retweets and more than seven thousand people 'favourited' it, others were quick to point one key fact about the deadly shooting. Indian law is yet to strike down section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, that criminalises "unnatural sex" even if it is consensual, as among two consenting gay partners. Thanks to the discriminatory law and cultural bias against the LGBTQ community in India, there are stories of routine suffering and humiliation. Even though some members of the ruling BJP government have claimed they would support the decriminalisation of gay sex, other senior political members have called homosexuality a "genetic disorder". In the past, senior party leaders have unambiguously opposed the right to gay sex, calling homosexuality "unnatural", and even claimed they would "make LGBT youth normal". The LGBTQ community has lashed out against the BJP for its double-speak. The shooting took place in a gay nightclub in Orlando, reportedly because the shooter was angry seeing two gay men kissing on a previous occasion. This finds no mention in PM Modi's tweet. Advertisement A lot of Indians responded to his message, asking him to scrap section 377. Dear PM @narendramodi ji, you think LGBT people are safe in India? That too, in YOUR government? Veejay Sai (@veejaysai) June 12, 2016 @narendramodi sir they were gay! That's the reason why it happened. Memory alert #Sec377 Debendra Nath Sanyal (@Deb_Sanyal) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi the LGBTQ community don't need your "thoughts & prayers", they need you to stop criminalising their lives. Michael Poland (@_michaelpoland_) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi Maybe you will wake up and smell the coffee in your own country. Vivek Tejuja (@vivekisms) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi everyday LGBT people in India face abuse,harassment n violence.Why close your eyes wen it comes to LGBT people of this country rituparna borah (@rituparnaborah) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi You have no right to express sorrow. first scrap Section 377 and then talk about mourning the deaths in The USA. rituparna borah (@rituparnaborah) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi praying and having discriminatory laws is what caused it bredrin #orlando Gideonomics (@davessidekick) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi rather than condemning the events please take action and pass a law in favour of homosexuals. #OrlandoNightclubShooting Viren Hemrajani (@Viren077) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi Maybe this would encourage you to relook #Section377@BJP4India and show the world how we are better than them to accept all. Satya Banerji (@SatyaBanerji) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi no prayers wud work unless u scrap 377 or pray some 2002 times. Good day Siddharth Patni (@aageSeLeftLelo) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi What mr. Modi?It is happening in ur backyard & why u r not taking immidiate and firm action,but offering condolences 2 others. NVPRASAD (@prasadnidtha) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi we hope you address this LGBTQ+ equality in India too in your "Maan ki baat".#forbetterindia Music is fine (@beingpriyanka5) June 12, 2016 @narendramodi You could show your solidarity by repealing #Article377 and legalizing gay marriage. Jim Aldon D'Souza (@jimdsouza) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi gay marriages are still banned in your own country sir.. make it legal first !!! Shenaz (@shenazM14) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi decriminalize homosexuality in India before shedding these crocodile tears you mass murderer and hypocrite. Arnab Banerji (@drarnabanerji) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi Time to decriminalize homosexuality in India Modiji. Will be a great gift to the memory of the departed souls. #Orlando clownflattery (@ClownFlattery) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi do you even know that it was a gay bar? Why don't you support gays in your country before US? Ranjodh Singh (@TheRonnieSingh) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi Glad to see your direct stance. Now please work on IPC 377. Jhankar Malakar (@jhankarplusm) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi i hope you do something to save the LGBT in india. Coz We can Also be killed #OrlandoNightclubShooting darshilsh (@gossip_dj18) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi It's no use conveniently omitting that it was a 'GAY Bar'.. the situation isn't different in our country too. LGBTQ are unsafe Parth Pardeshi (@ParthPardeshi1) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi Dear Sir, Our Country Criminalises Gay Love, I am ashamed by this, please take a stand for love in times of hate. Dhananjay Baijal (@DeejayBaj) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi showof statement. LGBT community sex makes them criminals in his govt. Sme His bakths/supporters against to LGBT @HumanR@hrw Venkati (@Venkati5) June 13, 2016 @narendramodi It is so easy to console with America, but do nothing about 377 in your own country. Why so? Vivek Tejuja (@vivekisms) June 13, 2016 LAURA BUCKMAN via Getty Images People light candles during a vigil in Dallas, Texas, on June 12, 2016, for victims of the attack at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida.Fifty people died when a gunman allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group opened fire inside a gay nightclub in Florida, in the worst terror attack on US soil since September 11, 2001. / AFP / Laura Buckman (Photo credit should read LAURA BUCKMAN/AFP/Getty Images) "Well, it's either kiss me or kill me, that's how I see it." Tom Waits The other night at a little fundraiser in San Francisco, I met a young Iraqi man. As the guests sipped chilled wine and nibbled on dainty little roast beef sliders, he told the story of how he fled from Iraq as ISIS controlled greater and greater swathes of territory. They throw gay men from tall buildings he said, his voice shaking. But now I am happy now, he said. I got out. I live in Seattle. I have found a husband. Everyone applauded. I wonder what that young man was thinking as he read about the massacre in the nightclub in Orlando, whether it shook his sense of refuge, that a man allegedly "inspired" by ISIS had brought a bloodbath to such an unlikely target--a gay club that called itself "Orlando's Latin Hotspot". Advertisement I wonder what the young man thought when he read what the father of the shooter who unleashed that bloodbath said. It was not about religion, said Seddique Mir Mateen, Omar Mateen, he said, had come across two men kissing in Miami and was infuriated that his three-year-old son had witnessed it as well. It was as if homophobia, even such deadly homophobia, was the lesser sin, the more understandable one. It was if he was saying better Omar Mateen, the homophobic bigot than Omar Mateen, the ISIS lone wolf jihadist. Of course the lines of demarcation are never that clear. When ISIS released that video showing gay men being thrown off a building in Mosul, Iraq, they were doing it in the name of religion. The caption at the bottom of the screen read "The Muslims come to watch the application of the law." Advertisement It was if he was saying better Omar Mateen, the homophobic bigot (and protective father) than Omar Mateen, the ISIS lone wolf jihadist. We cannot duck the facts, especially when the facts come in a rain of bullets. This is about religion or at least some barbaric twisted interpretation of it. This is also about guns and gun control and a conversation America refuses to have. It is about all of those things although in a polarized country, poised for an election, it is tempting to focus on only one or the other. Donald Trump wants to talk about the "dangerous" Muslim. Barack Obama wants to talk about lethal guns. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism," tweeted Trump. Obama said, "The massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or a house of worship or a movie theater or a nightclub. We have to decide if that's the kind of country we want to be. To actively do nothing is a decision as well." But a country that looked away from a shooting in a church and an elementary school, will hardly be moved towards gun control by a massacre in a gay nightclub. Likewise while Muslim American organizations have been quick to condemn the massacre, will the clerics, the ones who issue fatwas, be moved to call for introspection because of the death toll in a gay club? Neither Narendra Modi nor Ashraf Ghani mentioned the word "gay" when they issued their statements of condemnation. Ghani called it a "coward act of terror". Modi said he was "shocked at the shootout". But let's not forget that inconvenient word "gay" in the inevitable debates about gun control or Islamic terror. It is the word that sticks in the gullet of our public conversations, like an errant fish bone. Let's not forget that Omar Mateen left the floor of a nightclub floor slick with blood. Death, even death so gory, bloody and messy apparently did not disgust him as much as two men kissing did. And let's not forget young men like that Iraqi fleeing for asylum, who are both gay and Muslim and do not have the luxury to choose one identity but not the other. Advertisement Neither Narendra Modi nor Ashraf Ghani mentioned the word "gay" when they issued their statements of condemnation. In a "First" World where same-sex marriage is becoming more and more the norm, we sometimes forget that in much of the rest of the world, being LGBT can still be life-threatening. Omar Mateen brought that horror home to America. Who knows if he thought about his timing but he brought it home as Muslims around the world embarked on Ramadan. And he brought it home as LGBT Americans embarked on Pride Month. It has sent shockwaves through the LGBT community. At a corner in San Francisco's historically gay Castro district, a makeshift shrine with flowers had a hand-lettered sign that said 'Orlando, SF Weeps' and 'RIP Orlando' next to a red heart. The rainbow flag that flutters over San Francisco was at half-mast after the shooting. "We think that because we have same-sex marriage the work is done. It's not," said San Francisco supervisor David Campos, himself Latino and gay, at a candlelight vigil in the Castro. In the wake of the success of marriage equality in cities like San Francisco and New York and Miami, LGBT Pride feels like just another festival these days, filled with garlicky fries and warm beer. A friend jokes that it has all become so normalized the heterosexual onlookers are the ones who are more festively dressed. The actual LGBT marchers are often in sweatpants and Google or Oracle t-shirts pushing strollers with their toddlers. Yet Omar Mateen reminded us that all that "normalcy" cannot be normal enough for some. That most basic of human gestures of intimacy, a kiss, can still be deadly. This Pride, let there be candlelight vigils and moments of silence and vows of solidarity. But let them also kiss to mark the Pulse of life itself. Advertisement Also See On HuffPost: Hindustan Times via Getty Images NEW DELHI, INDIA - JUNE 12: Sonali Shetty, who had brought few street children along with her to the Shiv Sagar restaurant at Connaught Place to celebrate her husband's birthday but was not allowed to enter with street children by the restaurant management at Janpath, after that she took the children to nearby restaurant McDonalds, on June 12, 2016 in New Delhi, India. Shetty alleged that the restaurant manager asked her and the children to leave as they cannot be served at the eatery. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia also threatened to cancel the license of the restaurant if the allegations were found to be true. 'We will not let the restaurant work like this.' (Photo by Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times via Getty Images) Following the news that a prominent restaurant in New Delhi allegedly denied entry to underprivileged children who were accompanied by a woman, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has ordered an inquiry into the incident. "If allegations are found true, Delhi government will cancel licence of the restaurant," he told PTI. Advertisement This is typical Colonial mindset. Can't be tolerated. Have ordered DM New Delhi to enquire & report within 24 hours. https://t.co/ifixugxPRD Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) June 12, 2016 Sonali Shetty, a writer, had taken some street children for lunch to a restaurant in Connaught Place to celebrate her husband's birthday on Saturday. But, they were allegedly denied service by the staff at the eatery. "I had taken eight underprivileged children for lunch to Shiv Sagar restaurant but the staff there did not serve us. I was also ridiculed and threatened to keep off the restaurant," Shetty said. Had brought few street children along to restaurant to celebrate my husband's birthday bt owner misbehaved with kids-Sonali Shetty,Protester ANI (@ANI_news) June 11, 2016 She also said that she protested outside the eatery for over 10 hours, but nothing happened. She felt that the whole incident reflected society's "failure". Shetty also alleged that the policemen who had come to the restaurant on her call, did not help and instead "reprimanded" her and asked her to take the children to some other place. The owner discriminated with kids & refused service citing that kids aren't well dressed & look dirty: Sonali Shetty pic.twitter.com/qbwaNgb5ii ANI (@ANI_news) June 11, 2016 "We do not discriminate against anybody. We give service to everyone. But if someone enters the restaurant and behaves aggressively then we can't give service. This is exactly what happened yesterday.she was very aggressive. She wanted free food and we denied it," Vihur Kanodia, owner of the restaurant told ANI. "When we denied giving her free food, she said she was ready to pay. She came in the restaurant and you can see how her behaviour changed in 15-30 minutes. She was in the restaurant for more than an hour. My statement is we never discriminate and we serve food to everyone. We don't want anyone to create a scene in the restaurant," he added. Advertisement (Sonali Shetty sat outside the floor of the restaurant, to protest against their staff's behaviour) However, an employee at the restaurant told ANI that she had "denied service" to the group, as they were creating "commotion" and disturbing other patrons. "It is completely untrue that we denied entry to the children, as we have it on record that we allowed them to sit inside. We also never said that we won't provide service to the children. But then the kids were making a lot of noise, tossing things around and creating a commotion. As a restaurateur, I have the right to deny service to someone who disturbs other customers," Roma Malhotra, an employee of the restaurant, said. Abhishek Singh, District Magistrate, New Delhi, told The Indian Express that the CCTV footage of the restaurant was examined and it showed that the children were sitting at the table for about an 1.5 hours without service. We need to record the statements of some independent witnesses. Until then, it will be the word of one person against another, he told IE. Advertisement Balaji Motion Pictures/YouTube Filmmaker Abhishek Chaubey, producer Anurag Kashyap and others associated with the film Udta Punjab, can finally breathe a sigh of relief after the Bombay High Court on Monday overruled the Central Board of Film Certification's (CBFC) decision and cleared it for release with just one cut. In a landmark judgement, Udta Punjab has been cleared with just one (very minor) cut. Team Udta elated, hands in the air and all Ankur Pathak (@aktalkies) June 13, 2016 The High Court has asked the filmmakers to delete a scene in which the protagonist Tommy Singh, portrayed by actor Shahid Kapoor, urinates in public. Udta Punjab has been left intact with 3 strong disclaimers: that it doesn't promote drug use, support cuss words or defame any state. Ankur Pathak (@aktalkies) June 13, 2016 Naturally, the film fraternity is elated by the decision: Landmark judgement#UdtaPunjab will fly and so will the voice of freedom and expression. Thank you all for the support. This is your victory Shahid Kapoor (@shahidkapoor) June 13, 2016 And FINALLY #UdtaPunjab will flyyyyy!!Here's to freedom of expression, to our judiciary, to the industry, to the media and to YOU ALL!! Alia Bhatt (@aliaa08) June 13, 2016 And justice there is!!!!!!!!! #BombayHighCourt ....#UdtaPunjab ...as a filmmaker I feel empowered and relieved!!!! Karan Johar (@karanjohar) June 13, 2016 The triumph of #UdtaPunjab is the victory of #Democracy. And a victory for the spirit that DOES NOT GIVE IN OR GIVE UP. Dia Mirza (@deespeak) June 13, 2016 Landmark judgement by the honorable Bombay High Court on #UdtaPunjab. Great victory for the filmmakers. Madhur Bhandarkar (@imbhandarkar) June 13, 2016 Woohoo finally udta Punjab can fly. Freedom of expression wins the battle.high court passes with just 1 cut. #UdtaPunjabVerdict Amit Trivedi (@ItsAmitTrivedi) June 13, 2016 Udta Punjab to be released with 1 cut and a disclaimer! SEE YOU ALL at the movies on Friday the 17th.@FuhSePhantom@balajimotionpic Masaba Mantena (@MasabaG) June 13, 2016 And of course, Indian politicians voiced their opinions on the High Court's judgement: Udta punjab judgement is a tight slap on Modi regime's intolerance. Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) June 13, 2016 So Bombay HC clears #UdtaPunjab with just a few cuts while retaining movie title. Nihalani Ji should have a Mumbai special cutting chai. Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) June 13, 2016 I welcome the order of Bombay HC to release Udta Punjab with just one cut.It is a victory for democracy & freedom of speech & expression. Partap Singh Bajwa (@Partap_Sbajwa) June 13, 2016 Udta Punjab which stars Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia Bhatt and Diljit Dosanjh is scheduled for release on 17 June. Produced by Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films and Balaji Motion Pictures, the film revolves around the life of four people, a rockstar, an immigrant labour, a doctor and a cop. This is the week for the annual Acton University, a unique educational experience focused on the intersection of liberty and morality. Here are five facts you should know about Acton U. 1. Acton University is a four day annual conference on liberty, faith and free-market economics held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2. Each even includes nine sessions in which attendees can create a customized learning path from 100+ courses taught by 55+ international, world class experts. 3. The conference is open to undergraduate and graduate students, professors, non-profit professionals, pastors, seminarians, entrepreneurs, business people, and anyone interested in deepening their understanding of the integration of sound economics, rigorous philosophy, and the Judeo-Christian faith. 4. New attendees at Acton U are required to take the four foundational lectures, courses that offer participants a framework and context rooted in Judeo-Christian anthropology. The courses are: Christian Anthropology, Christian Vision of Government, Economic Way of Thinking, and Biblical Foundations of Freedom. 5. Out of all the conferences offered in the U.S. every year, Acton U is by far the one where you will learn the most about freedom and economics and meet the most intriguing people from around the world. It is also the greatest recurring event in the history of Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Note: Point #5 may stretch the meaning of the term fact.) Bill Self talks Kansas' scrimmage with Illinois, more on media day What did Bill Self think about his teams scrimmage against Illinois? Check out what Kansas head coach had to say about that, and more. On Sunday, an American-born terrorist named Omar Mir Seddique Mateen killed 49 and wounded 53 in Orlando. In a 911 call during the attack Mateen pledged his allegiance to the terrorist group ISIS. Although the group also claimed responsibility for the attack, U.S. officials said they havent seen a direct link between the gunman and the terrorist group. Here are five facts you should know about ISIS: 1. ISIS (aka ISIL, Islamic State, IS, Daesh) is the name of an Islamic militant group that was established in Iraq in 2004 and pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in Iraq. They later broke away from Al-Qaeda because of differences in doctrine and objectives and formed a distinct organization. From late 2006 to mid 2013, the group called itself the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). From 2013 to mid 2014, when they expanded into Syria, they called themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). (Most Western media translate Levant as Syria, hence ISIS.) Since 2014, they have expanded their ambitions to be a global organization and today simply refer to themselves as Islamic State. Enemies of ISIS sometimes refer to it as Daesh, a loose acronym of the Arabic for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham). 2. The stated long-term goal of ISIS is to establish a caliphateto rule over the entire Muslim world, under a single leader and in line with Sharia (Islamic law). A caliphateis a form of Islamic government led by a caliph, a person considered a political and religious successor to the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. ISIS has ordered that all able Muslims around the world must emigrate to the territory under its control. As the groups leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, stated in an audio address in 2014: O Muslims in all places. Whoso is able to emigrate to ISIS, let him emigrate. For emigration to the Abode of Islam is obligatory. 3. The religious-political ideology of ISIS is Salafi-jihadism(sometimes referred to simply as jihadism), a distinct strand of militant Sunni Islamism. Salafi-jihadist groups like ISIS emphasize the importance of returning to a pure Islam, that of the Salaf, the pious ancestors. Such groups also maintain that violent jihad is a personal religious duty of all Muslim believers. Former ISIS leader Abu Umar al-Baghdadi once emphasized the importance of offensive jihad, which he defined as going after the apostate unbelievers by attacking [them] in their home territory, in order to make Gods word most high and until there is no persecution. (Under their doctrine, persecution is understood to mean idolatry.) 4. The most prominent elements of ISISs religious-political doctrinerequire that: all Muslims must associate exclusively with fellow true Muslims and dissociate from anyone not fitting this narrow definition; failure to rule in accordance with Gods law constitutes unbelief; fighting ISIS is tantamount to apostasy; all Shia Muslims are apostates deserving of death; and the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are traitors against Islam because they compromise with the non-caliphate political process (e.g., democracy). 5. The focus on personal jihad makes Salafi-jihadist groups like ISIS considerably different than most terrorist groups throughout history. For example, in the 1970s most Marxist and pan-Arabic terrorist groups killed people or committed other acts of terrorism in order to bring attention to their cause. For Salafi-jihadists, though, killing large number of apostatesis itself a worthy religious objective. The world of cyber insurance is fraught with peril.Attorney Charlie Bernier, who practiced insurance defense law before entering the insurance business, said that not all cyber policies are created equal. The interesting thing about cyber insurance is that the policy does not have a standard format. There is no ISO form for cyber and there are about 50 to 60 carriers doing it right now. Not one policy is the same as another, meaning the same word could be defined differently in two different policies.Today, Bernier is corporate counsel and principal consultant in the Professional Liability and Cyber Division of ECBM Insurance Brokers and Consultants of Pennsylvania.One of the things he said agents need to be aware of is sub-limits. They end up sub-limiting these cyber policies. So you buy a $1 million cyber policy but the carriers right now are seeing a lot of claims in cyber crime, so they are sub-limiting that at $250,000, he said.Bernier said sub-limits are just one of the ways carriers are protecting themselves. He said some carriers put exclusions on policies and that agents and their insureds need to be really careful when filling out applications.For instance, encryption exclusions are a big one that you will see on many policies. What this means is that if you are not fully encrypted and you have a breach no matter where the breach is, you wont be covered by the carrier. They put it in the application where you answer yes or no. If you answer no, you will still get covered, but your premiums will be sky high, Bernier said. If you answer yes and it doesnt end up to be the case, you wont be covered even though you bought insurance.These are just some of the things people need to watch out for, he said, advising that agents do what they can to remove sub-limits and exclusions from policies or, at the very least, make sure their clients understand exactly what is and isnt covered.While he said agents always need errors and omission coverage of their own, that is especially true when selling cyber coverage. I have seen incidents where an agent says OK you have cyber, but the limits are too low or they dont have business interruption coverage, and thought they did, he said. When Claire Risoldi was arrested for insurance fraud she made the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Police swooped after a fire at Clairemont, the eponymous mansion she owned in New Hope. It was the third fire at the property in 5 years. AIG had already paid out $20 million for the previous fires and was facing another $20 million in claims including $10 million for jewelry alleged to have been stolen by firefighters.Authorities have already seized nearly $7 million of assets from her family including six Ferraris, two Rolls Royces, and AC Cobra and $4.2 million in jewelry and funds in banks.Risoldi was a high-profile figure in the community, regularly holding extravagant GOP fund-raising events.Last Thursday a Pennsylvania judge ordered the 69 year old to be held for trial on witness intimidation charges.During a six-hour hearing authorities claimed Risoldi obtained a subpoena from her attorney to harass witnesses that had given evidence to the grand jury that had recommended her arrest.On Friday Thomas Gavin, a Chester County Senior Judge sentenced her to 30 days for contempt of court for using the subpoena to circumvent his order not to approach witnesses. Theres another insurance commissioner in the news this week as WSJ Editorial Board member Holman W Jenkins JR launched into Californias Dave Jones in his opinion column over the weekend.At the end of last year, Jones flew to the Paris climate conference. When he came back, he hit the insurance industry with a number of demands divest yourselves of any coal holdings and account for your investment holdings in companies that derive 30% or more of their income from coal, oil or other fossil fuels.Jones went on to explain that companies that dont divest their holdings of assets will be named and shamed. He also wants companies to sign a pledge that they will refrain from future investments in thermal coal.Whatever you feel about greenhouse gasses and global warming, this pressure on the industry ties in nicely to the fact that Jones is running to be Californias Attorney General in 2018. Kamala Harris, the incumbent AG is expected to vacate the role in order to take a seat in the U.S. Senate after a long anti oil-industry crusade. California has long lead the nation with green policies and it would appear that Jones thinks he has a vote winner with insurer bashing.The Association of California Insurance Agencies have already said that insurers should be allowed to manage their investments as they like but as Jenkins WSJ column points out this is Americas most populous state and as an insurance lawyer told the WSJ, Mr Jones has power over a lot of things that are important to his clients. They will probably do what they can to follow his demands.Visit the California Department of Insurance site and the first facts you can find in about us are about the commissioner not his department.(incidentally he also smiles benignly at visitors at the top of the menu bar on pretty much every page) And the font used for his name? Bigger than that used for his department.Which adds to the concern is a politician using our industry as a stepping stone to something that he thinks is more important really the right person to be overseeing the nations largest market of an industry that is so important for the country as a whole? Forty diplomas were presented on Sunday afternoon at graduation ceremonies at Tanglewood. Lenox High Graduates Told Flow Free, And Take Time Valedictorian Grace Ellrodt urged her classmates to move along an 'unrestricted course.' See more photos here. LENOX, Mass. The "opinionated" Lenox Memorial High School class of 2016 did not disappoint at Sunday's graduation, with speakers addressing contemporary topics rather than future what-ifs. Valedictorian Grace Ellrodt called on the school and community gathered under The Shed at Tanglewood to reverse the trend of increasingly protective, and restrictive, security policies at the middle and high school. "Our school has been suspended between the opposing polls of regulation and risk," said Ellrodt, with each successive year seeing increased motivation on keeping students safe. "This class has seen the implementation of more protective measures in our school lives than any before us." Acknowledging that "according to our teachers, our parents and each other, we are exceptionally opinionated, passionate and eager to question," she urged the community and students to follow the classof 2016 not to accept a risk-averse school culture and large-school strictures that can dam up independence and creativity. She compared the high school dynamic to the shifting flows of a natural river, that bends to create ephemeral and essential vernal pools for a healthy ecology. "If you attempt to restrict rivers to run a straight path, vernal pools never develop," Ellrodt said. "But if we understand that there won't always be order in the river's course and chose to give it a wide berth, its movement won't appear disastrous." The community can and should fight for its own version of flood barriers, and consider how the move toward safety and secure affects the educational component. "Do not let the pressures of this age squander the social capital of an exceptional school," she asked the parents and administrators, telling the graduates, "As you charge out into the real world, let's continue our efforts and move in a winding, unrestricted course and allow the formation of our very own vernal pools." Salutatorian Sydney King told the graduates it was perfectly fine, and sometimes essential, to just say no. She realized that this year, as she rediscovered a sense of community with her classmates. "I think we lost it at some point, we stopped hanging out together, we stopped identifying as a class," King said, because they were so caught up school, clubs, jobs, and competing against each other. "We sacrifice our community for our resume, constantly looking to the future," King said. Something always has to give and, this year, it was the band being able to play at Memorial Day services. King said she loved playing in the band but she was on the side of the band director, who said the band hadn't enough time to practice because of testing. Because sometimes it's necessary to say no when you're overwhelmed and need time breathe. (The announcement sparked local outrage and the middle school band ended up playing.) "They wanted us to forsake our own familial and communal activities so theirs could be preserved," she said. "You can't do everything, don't try to. ... go hang out with your friends, go get some ice cream, go to the beach. ... "We need to prioritize the communal, non-competitive, human experiences ... we need to talk sacrifice of what we love or what we feel we need to do." The 40 graduates were handed diplomas by School Committee Chairman Robert Vaugh, Superintendent Timothy Lee and Assistant Principal Brian Cogswell on a dark and blustery day. They were presented as a class by Principal Michael Knybel, who told them to "live in the sweetspot, live in the ever present." The Board of Trustees of the Clark Art Institute has selected Olivier Meslay as its new director. Clark Art Institute Names New Director WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. The Board of Trustees of the Clark Art Institute has selected Olivier Meslay to serve as its Dena and Felda Hardymon director. Meslay, an accomplished museum professional and noted scholar, will become the Clark's fifth director when he assumes his new role on Aug. 22. Mesley currently serves as associate director of curatorial affairs, senior curator of European and American art, and The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Curator of European Art at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), and brings more than 35 years of international experience to his role. Meslay was unanimously elected to the position during a special session of the Clark's board. Olivier's vision, international experience and exceptional academic and curatorial qualifications match the Clark's ambitious aspirations," Andreas Halvorsen, chairman of the Institute's Board of Trustees, said. "He comes to the Clark with a deep appreciation for our academic mission, an expert understanding of our museum program, and an energetic perspective on ways to enhance our dual mission and extend the Clark's reach and impact. Since assuming his current position in 2012, Meslay has overseen the DMA's European and American art collection of more than 4,000 paintings, sculptures and works on paper, and has managed the museum's curatorial department, conservation program and art research library. He has also served as the DMA's curatorial representative with the French American Museum Exchange (FRAME), a collaborative organization of 30 American and French museums. Meslay served as the DMA's interim director from 20112012, managing a staff of 250 employees, directing an extensive fundraising program, and coordinating donor relations that have provided continuing support for the museum. He joined the DMA staff in 2009 after a distinguished career at the Musee du Louvre in Paris. Olivier first came to know the Clark as a fellow in our Research and Academic Program in 2000, and it was clear from the very beginning that he had a deep affinity for the Clark and for the unique relationship between our museum and research programs, said Francis Oakley, the Clark's interim director. It is heartening to see such a long relationship culminate in this way. Olivier's passion for the Clark and for Williamstown and the Berkshires, combined with his extraordinary scholarship and leadership, hold great promise for the future. We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector CAMERA Waiting for Response to Letter to Mart Green About Little Town of Bethlehem | Main | Timely Recall of Huffington Worldpost Op-Ed: More Acts of Jewish Terrorism than Muslim Terrorism in the United States June 13, 2016 A Preoccupied Western Media Fails to Appreciate the Historic Revival of Ties Between Russia and Israel The recent meeting in Moscow between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin marks a milestone in the continuing rapproachment between Israel and Russia. The growing engagement between these former bitter adversaries has attracted limited attention in the Western media, obsessed as it is with Israeli-Palestinian issues. In its prior embodiment as the Soviet Union, the Russian government armed and abetted Israel's enemies and had a central role in the worldwide campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state. Ironically, while Soviet propaganda against Israel remains to this day a staple of the anti-Israel left in the West, the post-Soviet successor state has adopted a more favorable stance toward Israel and the Jewish people. From a historic perspective, a close bond between Israel and Russia is quite natural. Many of Israel's Jews trace their roots back to Russia and the lands formerly ruled by Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union. In more recent history, nearly a quarter of Israel's Jewish population was part of or descended from the migration that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. An article appearing in TASS, the news agency linked to the Russian government, closed with a powerful reminder of a tragic shared past between Russia and the Jewish people. The article reports comments by President Putin. Russia and Israel will pool efforts to counter attempts to revise the history of World War II, Putin said. "We are speaking about a very sensitive subject - the memory of World War II," Putin told journalists. "Our peoples fought together against Nazism and paid a huge price (sp) for the victory," Putin stressed. "That is why we must and will keep the memory of the heroes and victims of that war, we will counter attempts to revise its results, to forget the tragedy of Holocaust." Putin's words serve as a reminder of the role the Soviet Union played in defeating Nazi Germany and the important role Soviet Jews had in the Soviet war effort. It was Soviet forces that liberated the major death camps containing the surviving remnant of Jews caught in the Nazi web. Despite the personal animosity of the Soviet dictator Josef Stalin towards Jews and a ruling Communist party disinterested in the dire circumstances confronting Jews both during and after the war, it was the Russian people, in the guise of the tens of millions serving in the Soviet armed forces, who deserve credit for saving the Jewish people of Eurasia from complete annihilation. Some 500,000 Jewish men served in the Soviet armed forces and 200,000 lost their lives, evenly divided between combat losses and those murdered on the spot after being plucked out of prisoner lines by hawk-eyed German guards. Jews served at all levels in the Soviet armed forces, including as generals and received countless citations for bravery. Jewish engineers and scientists also contributed enormously using their ingenuity to provide the Soviet armed forces with desperately needed modern weapons that enabled the reconstituted Soviet forces to recover from early calamitous defeats and overwhelm the German Wehrmacht. While anti-Jewish sentiment persists in the Russian population and the growing Muslim minority imposes limitations on Russian support for Israel, revived Israeli-Russian relations would go a long way toward righting a historic wrong brought about by a cynical and callous Communist leadership. Posted by SS at June 13, 2016 12:12 PM It would be one thing if this were the first choice Israel made and not a shift in realpolitik created by Obama's foreign policy and his recent reneging on promises to increase Israel's security in light of the "Iranian Deal". Pulling back on Missile defense Obama has made it clear at the end of his epic failure as an American President his promises were not made to be kept. Russia may be the key to restraining the Iranian Ayatollah's and the extremists they succor at this period when it is ever more risky. There are those analysts who would have us believe the extremists days are numbered, but it seems that is pure fantasy. The Obama hallucination, the Arab Spring was an intellectual movement that was pro-Islam and socialist was a grotesque error and if it wasn't a mistake to see the AS for what it was and developed into the Islamic State and a revival of an Al-Qaeda he declared dead, then shame on the President. What would Stevens say? Posted by: jeb stuart at June 17, 2016 11:17 AM As a 'moderated' blog it is stated that comments you deem inaccurate will not be posted. Who determines the inaccurate moniker, and how are facts either contested or in dispute handled and by whom? Posted by: john o'grady at June 18, 2016 03:27 PM Guidelines for posting This is a moderated blog. We will not post comments that include racism, bigotry, threats, or factually inaccurate material. Post a comment The content you are trying to view is exclusive to our subscribers. To unlock this article: IMF Executive Board Completes Fourth and Fifth ECF Reviews for Burkina Faso and Approves US$26.2 Million Disbursement Press Release No. 16/268 June 13, 2016 The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) today completed the fourth and fifth reviews of Burkina Fasos economic performance under an economic program supported by an Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement.1 The decision enables the disbursement of SDR18.57 million (about US$26.2 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to the equivalent of SDR46.70 million (about US$65.9 million). In completing the reviews, the Executive Board also approved the authorities requests for the modification of performance criteria. The 36-month ECF arrangement was approved by the Executive Board on December 27, 2013 (see Press Release 13/542 ) for the equivalent of SDR 27.09 million (about US$38.2 million, or 45 percent of Burkina Fasos quota). An augmentation of access of 40 percent of quota was approved in June 2015 by the Executive Board, bring total access to SDR 51.17 million (about US$72.2 million). Following the Executive Board's discussion today, Mr. Min Zhu, Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair issued the following statement: Despite challenging internal and external circumstances, Burkina Fasos performance under the Fund-supported program has remained satisfactory. Although the terrorist attacks posed some setback to economic recovery, growth should regain momentum in 2016-17, underpinned by robust mining activity, improved energy supply and enhanced public investment execution. The main risks to this favorable outlook relate to the fragile security situation, the challenges of meeting pent-up social and investment demands, and the impact of further declines in commodity prices. The authorities main objective for 2016 is to create adequate fiscal space for priority social and infrastructure spending, including implementation of their new development plan. To this effect, they are undertaking a broad package of tax and customs administration measures aimed at regaining the ground lost in domestic revenue mobilization. Continued efforts to contain recurrent spending, including the public wage bill and to address bottlenecks in project execution will be needed to allow public investment to recover quickly toward pre-crisis levels. The authorities are also seizing the opportunity of the oil price decline to address longstanding structural deficiencies in the energy sector. Full implementation of these measures will contribute to reducing state subsidies and contingent liabilities to the sector and support higher investments in electricity production. Going forward, it will also be important to take action to diversify the agriculture sector and provide a supportive environment to boost credit for the private sector. 1 The ECF is a lending facility that provides sustained program engagement over the medium to long term in case of protracted balance of payments problems. Imperial Valley News Center What can an undergrad learn from a robot? Washington, DC - Robots are becoming increasingly common in introductory college and university computer science classrooms, but they're not exactly R2-D2. Often, they consist of tabletop machines, such as arms with gripper claws or simple Lego creations. A number of factors - from cost to programming complexity - make those basic robots logical choices for introductory courses. But that doesn't make them engaging, says Zack Butler, a computer science professor at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). "There's a challenge in what one might call the drier portions of computer science," Butler says. "Those robots don't really have a practical use outside of teaching programming." Funded through the National Robotics Initiative, a multi-agency effort led by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Butler and a team of RIT researchers are now reconceptualizing what undergraduate computer science looks like by incorporating inexpensive mobile robots into coursework that students can program, manage and test. Instead of having the capability to traverse a table, these robots can roam the halls of research buildings and interact with people inside. "We've named different locations around our building," Butler says. You can say 'robot, go do this.'" Except, of course, if you're a computer science student assigned to program the robot to get some candy, you would have to tell it something like this: pos = robot.get_pos() p = robot.nav_to("Vending").wait() robot.request_confirm("Buy me M&Ms please").wait() robot.nav_to_xy(pos).wait() The machines that Butler and his team have developed still won't be mistaken for something out of Star Wars -- they resemble laptops mounted on robotic vacuum cleaners -- but for as little as $1,000 each, they hit a critical sweet spot of low price combined with high adaptability. Unlike basic mobile robots that programmers can essentially provide with directions (the equivalent of "Go 10 feet; then take a right."), these have mounted cameras and are capable of receiving programming for more autonomous tasks, such as judging whether a moving object is approaching or retreating, then deciding how to get around it. That means they can be used to teach a wider variety of lessons in robotics than their tabletop cousins or more expensive mobile models intended for teaching robotics. The team has made its designs open-source and public, so others can build their own for classroom use. But the researchers face an even tougher challenge than building robots: finding ways to effectively integrate them into the student experience. So far, the researchers have used the machines in a database course and found students were receptive. Butler says they found the idea of building a database for a robot more interesting than for, say, a website. "They're very excited about it," he says. From an education standpoint, however, translating that interest into learning experiences can face one basic issue: programming for mobile robots, even basic ones, is a complex process. Students at the introductory level may enter what seem to be simple programs sending the robots on errands, but then find themselves overwhelmed by debugging in a hardware context. Currently, the team has found the robots more useful in individual student projects, and the researchers are collecting data from those with the goal of further classroom integration. Those projects have also demonstrated another benefit of the robots' adaptability. They offer students at different course levels to collaborate on projects. Butler says that for one RIT robotics project, an undergraduate is handling simple movement and direction while a master's student is tackling the more complicated issue of programming the robot to "see" and differentiate mobile from immobile obstacles and avoid them appropriately. Another master's student is working on an augmented reality debugging system for mobility programming that would allow users to "see" through the robot's camera eyes, with programming defects and problems popping up along the machine's journey. That, in turn, could result in an interface that provides undergrads a more understandable way to approach more complex debugging work. "These students actually work together across different areas of computer science," Butler says. "That's something we haven't been able to do to this extent before." Butler says that kind of collaboration could be critical to ensure robots become an even more familiar sight in university classrooms -- and buzzing around their hallways. Special Advisor for Children's Issues Travels to Ethiopia Washington, DC - Special Advisor for Childrens Issues, Ambassador Susan Jacobs will visit Ethiopia from June 13-17. During the trip, Ambassador Jacobs will meet with Ethiopian officials to discuss intercountry adoptions. She will also meet with non-governmental organizations, adoption service providers, and other experts to support permanent options for children living outside of family care. For more information about childrens issues, please visit: http://ChildrensIssues.state.gov This Isnt Our Last Love Letter Dear Don Don, Way back in 92 I walked into the room and knew Never felt this way before I shook your hand while gazing into your eyes And the feeling grew As I took a seat I knew A love that would have my heart Forever I knew Way back in 92 They say love at first sight doesnt always last or isnt true We were the exception to that rule Our love had no where to hide A spark set fire As if this is how the universe started I never doubted our love or what we could do Together we grew Forming a bond everlasting That became our glue My euphoria was YOU Im eternally grateful for the love and life we shared For how fortunate we were : to have and to hold through sickness and in health Til death do us part Until we are together again This isnt our last love letter I love you with all my heart and soul Yours forever, Deirdre (Mrs. Hank Snow) Im fortunate to have fallen in love with, marry and make a life with the sharpest, coolest, funniest, most rare, bad ass, tender loving, loyal man on the planet, my husband Don Imus. A True American Hero I dont know why it has been so hard for me to write about my dear friend Don Imus. I certainly know what he meant to me, my family, my charity, my hospital and the millions of fans that listened and loved him for so many years. I keep reading all the beautiful condolences that people are writing about how much a part of their lives were effected by listening to him over the years. But what most people dont talk enough about is what he did for all of us. In every sense of the word, he was an American Hero. His work with children with so many different illnesses and his dedication to their future was unmatched by anyone I have ever known or heard about. Besides raising over $100,000,000 for so many causes, he took care of young people for over 20 years in a state where he could not breathe. Along with his incredible wife Deirdre, he created a world where children were not defined by their disease. That was a miracle! He was a miracle. I will miss him ever day for the rest of my life. I was blessed to be a part of his and Deirdes life. No one will ever do what he did. I love you Don Imus - A TRUE AMERICAN HERO David Jurist IMUS IN THE MORNING FIRST DAY BACK! US Man, Who Lost Eyesight To Cancer, Creates Prosthetic Eye; Internet is Amazed Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the The Life Cinematic email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Former Italian Bond girl Caterina Murino may have worked with Daniel Craig a decade ago on Casino Royale, but she believes she knows why the British actor is stepping down as the secret agent. Murino, who achieved international recognition for her role of Solange Dimitrios in the 2006 critically-acclaimed 007 outing, believes Craig is under too much pressure to be the "perfect" James Bond. In an interview with the Sunday People, the actor said: Its hugely stressful being Bond. Theres a lot of money involved, so that also brought more tension - and a lot of that tension was on Daniel. The women who could play Bond Show all 21 1 /21 The women who could play Bond The women who could play Bond Olivia Colman Getty The women who could play Bond Carey Mulligan 2015 Slaven Vlasic The women who could play Bond Emily Blunt 2016 Getty Images The women who could play Bond Felicity Jones 2014 Getty Images The women who could play Bond Gemma Arterton 2014 David M. Benett The women who could play Bond Gillian Anderson Getty Images The women who could play Bond Gugu Mbatha-Raw 2014 Gabriel Olsen The women who could play Bond Hayley Atwell Getty Images The women who could play Bond Imogen Poots GC Images The women who could play Bond Kate Beckinsale 2010 Getty Images The women who could play Bond Kate Winslet 2015 Getty Images The women who could play Bond Keeley Hawes 2014 Danny Martindale The women who could play Bond Michelle Dockery WireImage The women who could play Bond Naomie Harris UK Press via Getty Images The women who could play Bond Olivia Colman 2015 Getty Images The women who could play Bond Rachel Weisz WireImage The women who could play Bond Rebecca Hall FilmMagic The women who could play Bond Rosamund Pike UK Press via Getty Images The women who could play Bond Sienna Miller WireImage The women who could play Bond Thandie Newton 2015 Jon Kopaloff The women who could play Bond Vicky McClure 2015 Getty Images Its not easy to go back time and time again. It can be tiring to keep trying to find new things in the same role. I can understand why Daniel would not want to return." Craig reportedly turned down a two-film deal worth 68 million and, despite sources stating Craig is yet to make a decision on his Bond future, recent news renders it less likely; the actor, who is said to have claimed he was 'done' with the role, will star in a 20-part adaptation of Jonathan Franzen's Purity. Filmmaker Sam Mendes has stepped down as the Bond series' director having steered both Skyfall and Spectre to huge global success. Reflecting on her time working with Craig, Murino added: I could tell he had a small amount of doubt about his abilities at the beginning, but he also knew the role would change his life and he would go down in history." Murino has just been named as the face of a new 007 fragrance for women. Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The origins of 2000trees are well-documented; disillusioned with a festival they had attended for several years (along with a further 90,000 punters annually), six friends, in a possibly intoxicated state, bemoaned the facilities, the layout, the extortionate ticket prices, the over-priced beer, the lacklustre food, the hideous toilets, the abundance of corporate sponsorship, the lack of any kind of attention to detail and the overwhelming feeling of being just another punter willing to empty their pockets. It wasnt long before the six inebriates started to conceive of a better way of running and organising things. Buoyed by a confidence that only being three sheets to the wind can bring, they set out to do exactly that. Its a sentiment that has no doubt been expressed around a plethora of campsites across the country come Britains more-often-than-not rainy summer festival season but few have the enthusiasm or mental smarts to follow through with their sozzled schemes in the sadly sobering sunshine of the Sunday morning light. The organisers of 2000trees however had no such qualms, putting on a modest but successful first incarnation of the festival in 2007 with a line-up that included Frank Turner, InMe, Brigade and Devil Sold His Soul. This summer, 2000trees returns for its tenth iteration, and includes performances from Refused, Twin Atlantic, SikTh and The Bronx amongst 80 other bands across five stages; not bad for a festival conceived by six friends with no previous experience. The weird thing is we never really imagined we would get to 10 years, says organiser and band booker James Scarlett, and now suddenly, here we are! After the festival last year, we sat down and said, 'we're 10 next year, what are we going to do to celebrate it?' and it sounds stupidly obvious but the main thing we wanted to do is put on the best version of what we do. We've spent a bit more money on booking bands; we could never have had bands like Refused play in the past. As far as I'm concerned, without praising ourselves, it's definitely the best line-up we've ever had. Minor changes have been made to the operation of the festival; The Croft stage has moved next to the Main Stage with both running in tandem, the camp site has been expanded to give more room to patrons and the Forest sessions have become a more integrated part of the festival, but the main goal for the organisers is to provide the best 2000trees experience possible after all, if it aint broke, why fix it? Despite this modus operandi, it must be tempting to mark the tenth 2000trees with some kind of outlandish self-congratulatory display, such as a gigantic fireworks spectacle? There will be a few surprises when people turn up, says James but there's no fireworks or anything that just feels a bit lame. I love Metallica but it's a bit Metallica! 2000trees Festival throughout the years Show all 18 1 /18 2000trees Festival throughout the years 2000trees Festival throughout the years Scott Hutchison, vocalist / guitarist for Frightened Rabbit during their 2011 headlining set Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years Twin Atlantic playing the main stage in 2011 D.O'Reagan 2000trees Festival throughout the years Scroobious Pip during the 2011 headline performance courtesy of Dan Le Sac vs Scroobious Pip Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years Billy Lunn (guitar / vocals) and Josh Morgan (drums) of The Subways headlining 2000trees in 2010 2000trees Festival throughout the years A fanatical stage invader causes anarchy during The King Blues set in 2011 Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years A classic example of the communique-through-facial-gurn technique that Cleft perfected through-out their career on the main stage at 2000Trees Festival, Cheltenham, England Joe Singh 2000trees Festival throughout the years Matt Caughthran of The Bronx gets close with the crowd at 2000trees 2014 Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years Frank Turner headlining the first ever 2000trees in 2007 2000trees Festival throughout the years The modest main stage in 2000trees' inaugural year (2007) 2000trees Festival throughout the years The main stage in 2014 Joe Singh 2000trees Festival throughout the years One of the many art sculptures littered around the 2000trees site Amy Jeskins 2000trees Festival throughout the years Scroobious Pip during the 2011 headline performance courtesy of Dan Le Sac vs Scroobious Pip Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years Jamie Lenman backstage at 2000trees 2014 in red facepaint - a decision he would later come to regret under the heat of the stage lights Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years The Forest Session, started in 2014, have now become one of the most endearing and relaxing spaces at the festival Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years The sun sets as Brigade play the main stage of the first ever 2000trees in 2007 2000trees Festival throughout the years Beans on Toast and Frank Turner playing 2000trees in 2008 2000trees Festival throughout the years The tree sculpture that has become a prominent feature of the 2000trees site Ben Morse 2000trees Festival throughout the years Members of the backstage team responsible for 2000trees in 2010 The trajectory of British rock musics ascendance in quality has run in tandem with the history of 2000trees and other grass-roots, independently-minded festivals of its ilk. Not since the heady days of the turn of the 21st century have we had such a diverse, eclectic range of rock bands that we can truly stand behind as not just quality acts, but innovative as well. Whilst James is far too humble to admit it himself, festivals like 2000Trees give these brilliant small bands a platform to excel and be the best they can be in front of a wide and appreciative audience. I think the British rock scene is in the rudest health since we started 2000trees ten years ago says James. You can reel off reams of great bands in our scene at the moment; Black Peaks, Milk Teeth, Muncie Girls, Heck, Creeper, Black Foxxes, Grumble Bee, there are a ton of great British bands that feel like they're about to break. I almost feel like I'm cheating a little bit this year, it's been so easy to put together a good line-up because all of those bands are so great. You don't have to do loads of research to work out that Black Peaks or Heck or Creeper are amazing, you just book them. So as a man with his finger firmly on the beating feral pulse of the underground British rock scene, what bands is James particularly looking forward to? Black Peaks, I think their record is amazing. My brother (Robert Scarlett, fellow 2000Trees organiser) pointed out to me that Glass Built Castles is a world class song and that's totally true! Name me a band that wouldn't be happy to have written that song; If System of a Down wrote Glass Built Castles they'd be f**king happy with that! It's a massive anthem but it's also quite weird as well, so Im really looking forward to them. We've got lots of people playing one-of-a-kind acoustic sets as part of the Forest sessions as well. Its an incredible stage and well have Moose Blood, The Xcerts, Arcane Roots, Black Peaks, Ginger Wildheart, Jamie Lenman playing a stripped back covers set thatll be pretty special. With milestones often comes reflection and James is adamant that 2000trees keeps its independent spirit and reputation for providing a wonderful fully-rounded experience as opposed to simply sticking some bands in a muddy field. I think it's important not to forget where you came from; we didn't really know what we were doing in the first year but we pulled it off. My favourite memory is probably the day after that first year when all the organisers were sitting around going 'f**king hell! I cant believe we did it!' All of us were basically crying, smiling, laughing and then crying all over again. That first year will always be special; we don't get quite the same lows that we used too but that means we don't get quite the same highs either. That's the way life works I think; when something's really hard, it gives you a big buzz when you achieve it. --- We asked a swathe of musicians, organisers and record labels that have been involved with the festival over the past ten years to summarise some of their favourite memories from the illustrious history of 2000trees. James Scarlett (Band booker/Artist liaison) Its so difficult to pick my favourite 2000trees memory of the last 10 years ... So with apologies to The Bronx, Maybeshewill and Future of the Left, Ill have to go with Frank Turner in 2013. He was booked to headline our main stage, but also agreed to play his Love Ire & Song album in its entirety on our second stage (the Cave). He had just sold out Wembley Arena so to get him to play a smallish stage at an independent rock festival was a real coup for us. Love Ire & Song is an album I loved when it came out in 2009 and it really felt like it had a big place in the history of 2000trees. I can still remember the moment when Frank walked on stage with acoustic guitar in hand. I stood there surrounded by my friends (mostly the other Trees organisers) and about 1,000 very happy 2000trees punters. We sang every word back at him and for those 40 minutes I forgot all about my responsibilities as an organiser and just lived in the moment. Without wanting to sound cheesy (probably too late for that), there was this feeling of togetherness, of us all sharing the joy and passion together - it really was something very special that I will never forget. Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up Jamie Lenman Jamie Lenman playing the Cave stage at 2000trees in 2014 (Ben Morse) 2000trees have been really good to me ever since I left them in the lurch and cancelled my headline appearance at the last minute eight years ago. You wouldnt think that would be a particularly firm basis for an enduring relationship but Im glad to say it was they extend the hand of friendship every year and Im always over the moon when Im able to shake it vigorously. Like any musician worth their salt, Ive played more festivals than there are teeth in The Osmonds and there genuinely is something different about this one. I dont know what it is but for some reason the vibe is super relaxed and friendly, everyones always smiling. I cant wait to play it again in 2016. Andy Rea (PR/Marketing/Trader liaison) 2000trees has been the most amazing adventure, encapsulating thousands of micro-moments that each add to the achievement. Through the festival I met my wife, made hundreds of friends and enjoyed one hell of a journey with my co-founders that has provided memories to last a lifetime. We didn't even know if we would do a second one, so to reach 10 years is a massive milestone. It will be a truly beautiful feeling when the event is live and as an organiser the best emotional high is immediately after it is all done and dusted. In year one, we underestimated almost every element of the task in hand and were rescued by the farmers goodwill providing a tractor and trailer and the incredible support of amazing volunteers who wanted to help for the love of live music. Working 20 hour days in the first few years was as exhausting as it was exhilarating. I drew the short straw in year one (2007) and had to do campsite patrol in the rain at 4am; that was a particularly miserable job, but then I was stood in the main stage security pit watching our first headliner Frank Turner and realised this was the best feeling in the world. For me 2000trees is now synonymous with summer sunny days, fun and friendship in the fields, creating memories, and enjoying a pulsating line-up that really represents the future of British rock music. Frank Turner Frank Turner headlining the main stage at 2000trees in 2013 (J.Sadler) The histories of my career and that of 2000trees have been intertwined over the years. I played the first one, it was my first ever festival headline (and I've been back to headline again since). It's become the main festival of the scene I'm part of, the central date of our summer. My memories of it are many and fond; perhaps my favourite year was 2008, when I played a solo set, a set in the campfire, a record in-store in town and then a full-band main stage set. After the last show, I dragged myself into the van to drive home, leaving my ruined shoes behind in the mud, where they may still be, for all I know. They're my little contribution to the festival site. Rob Scarlett (Art development/Site design) 2007 - Year 1 Painting the front of the bar. Everyone went home for showers and I stayed at the site until late finishing it off. I didnt really consider the fact that people stand in front of the bar and you couldnt see a thing! That was my first lesson in not getting bogged down in the detail. Looking back I cant see how we survived the first year, but we did and the feelings of elation at pulling it off have never really been beaten. 2007 - Year 1 Building the Tree sculpture. Me and our artist friend Holly rescued an ancient Oak which had been struck by lighting and fallen the previous year. With a few of the large branches we created a new (albeit smaller) tree in the centre of our camping field. This was my first proper piece of public artwork. It created a really important focal point to an otherwise featureless field and even to this day I hear people saying meet you by the Trees sculpture. Meeting points are super important seeing as we have no phone signal. 2008 - Year 2 Mixing an open mic evening. Id never been behind a desk before but I got a 30 second explanation and I was off! True DIY. That was the origin of our Thursday early entry night, a special gathering for people who want to get set up early and relax rather than arrive with hundreds of others and have to rush to find a camping space. 2014 Year 8 We always wanted to have some secret/special locations and we decided to explore a little stretch of woods that could potentially provide a really lovely relaxing environment. We found a beautiful and natural (with a little pruning) amphitheatre where we could host some bands that became the Forest stage. The lovely farmers John and Sheila actually allowed us to build a permanent stage there (ably designed and built by our Architect friend Rich Bryant). The area provides shelter from Sun or Rain and is a great retreat for people wanting a little relaxation. With hammocks and hay bales this is an area Im really proud of. Every year! Swimming in the lakes at the end of the day. As long as its slightly warm I love having a little dip in the ponds at the end of each setup day. So refreshing, if a little swampy!! Murray Macleod (The Xcerts) Murray Macleod of The Xcerts playing the main stage at 2000trees 2015 (Jess Jones) 2000trees is a festival incredibly dear to my heart. The line-ups are consistently brilliant, the community spirit between the bands and music lovers alike is unparalleled and 2000trees 2015 provided us with the greatest show we've ever played. One of my fondest memories from the festival involves our tour manager giving Darren from Crazy Arm 20 to jump into the lake that runs alongside the festival site. To say the water is murky and mucky is an understatement! Needless to say, Darren was an absolute champ and took the bet. He jumped, he swam, he got incredibly ill. Brendan Herbert (Event Manager/Photography co-ordinator) There is no single standout story that I can relate largely due to the fact that there is always some emergency to be dealt with. Rather, I most fondly recall the dynamic that transcends a single experience, and it is all about the people who make 2000trees happen. The festival is so much more than the organisers. A whole army of friends and volunteers bring the event together over a couple of weeks. For the most part, these are individuals who are spread across the country and so dont necessarily see each other from one 2000trees to the next. Yet, as each arrives on site for the years event, warm reunions take place, and for a week or two each year we live and work together cheek by jowl. I LOVE these people, and am as close to them as I am to friends that I have known a lifetime, yet our cumulative time spent together in the grand scheme of things is minimal. However, our relationship is forged through the blood, sweat and tears of bringing the festival out of the ground, come rain or shine. Their involvement and commitment is the cornerstone of what makes 2000trees a success passion, enthusiasm, dedication and commitment, all for a genuine enthusiasm of the event itself, and the music that we put on. Legends, one and all. Sam McTrusty Twin Atlantic Sam McTrusty of Twin Atlantic (Getty) 2000 trees was the first festival outside of Scotland that gave us a chance to play. It was a big moment for us and the festival didnt disappoint or leave our expectations underwhelmed. The turnout for our set was intimidating at the time. Hundreds of people moving in one big swell as we rushed through our set loving every second of adrenaline and fear. They knew the words!!! People in another country know the words to our songs. It was a milestone. Then a surreal turning point as a guy in a chicken costume appeared in the crowd, then onstage. We had a guy in a chicken costume rock out with us onstage. The following time we returned to the festival they had picked a photo of me out as the cover design to the festival programme. We werent even a headline act. It just made us feel like we belonged. This festival had embraced what we were all about. Hard work and community; taking risks but having fun when it all goes wrong and you end up with a rubber chicken mask on stage singing in the sun. We love that the festival has stayed true to its roots by giving people an alternative take on a music festival where all the cliches youd expect are drowned out by the intimate setting and quirkiness. Mark Gardiner (Production/Site infrastructure) The festival has so many special memories for me including some of the best and most stressful of my life. The experience of growing a very small amateur event into what has turned out to be a pretty slick professional operation has been so special, especially having done it with five mates who have all grown with it. The majority of our customers are unaware of the amount of pre-planning and behind the scenes during the weekend that takes place to make 2000trees happen. Its on the weekend itself where most of the more stressful memories occur, including the generator failing during Alkaline Trio's headline set in 2015, full toilets having to be moved in 2008 as the cleaning truck could not get to them due to the mud, creating new routes to the stages in 2012 due to yet more mud (this time, knee-deep), numerous artic-trucks getting stuck over the years and having to be towed out by the farm tractor, high winds and generally praying it doesnt rain. Despite all this and numerous other challenges we have overcome, the memories that really stay with you are the reactions of the customers, including friends and family, to the changes we make and the bands we book. The one that particularly sticks in my mind is when we created The Cave stage in 2011. There was a significant amount unknown factors in that first year with regards to positioning the tent and working out the stage height, but we felt pretty happy before any bands had stepped foot on it. After all that work it was then so great to see it packed and going crazy for headliners And So I Watch You From Afar. I couldnt resist getting in the pit for their last song Set Guitars to Kill. Charlie Caplowe (Founder of Xtra Mile Records) In 2013 Xtra Mile took over The Greenhouse stage; it was scorching hot, beautiful sunshine beating down on us all day. We had acoustic sets from Jim Lockey & The Solemn Sun, The Xcerts, Emily Barker and many more; and elsewhere throughout the festival we had full band sets, including Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls headlining the Main Stage and Future Of The Left headlining the Thursday night. With so many friends in one place, in the sun, in a stunning setting, on a glorious British summer's day - it was only going to be a lot of fun. There was a swingball competition, some impromptu sing-a-longs at fan's tents and a good amount local food and drink consumed. This year we're back taking over the Axiom Stage with Beans On Toast, Ben Marwood, Oxygen Thief, Rob Lynch and Crazy Arm - with The RPMs, Recreations, Will Varley and Johnny Lloyd playing over the weekend. Plus more to be announced! If its half as good as last time then we're in for a real treat. Jack Clothier (Founder of Alcopop Records) 2000Trees is a spectacular place, with every hidden nook and cranny across the festival a mini theatre playing out some magical scenarios - and that's alongside the awesome bands playing. Personally I've put our label's bands on, played in a ridiculous jurassic park indie-punk fusion band, sold lots of nice merch to incredible people and basically loved it for the last few years, enjoying the privilege of bringing a little bit of what we do to the huge independent party organised by a team of people who really f**king care! I still remember the inflatable dinosaur we borrowed from the silent disco crowd-surfing across the busy Croft Stage as we sung about Jeff Goldblum complete with a raptor-headed guitarist and local quasi-hero Oxygen Thief drunkenly belting out incoherent film samples, or a group of campers winning the opportunity to have Johnny Foreigner help put up their tent (uselessly as it turned out). Kev Douch (Founder Big Scary Monsters Records) Big Scary Monsters have had bands playing - and absolutely adoring - 2000trees for almost as many years as I can remember now, although my personal experiences of the festival began THAT year when it rained like I've never previously seen (2012). Strangely though, as hard work and bleak as the moments of watching rivers of mud flood by, people up to their waists in it, desperately searching for shelter, it's those moments which really encapsulated what the festival is about for me - no-one complained, nobody packed up and went home, everyone dug in and got through it with smiles on their faces and having the best time. 2000trees isn't just another festival, it's a highlight of the summer, a feel-good event where it's totally normal to see three generations of families walking around, pints of cloudy cider and fair trade coke in hand, discovering their new favourite band whilst meeting soon-to-be friends for life. I've never once had to sell the festival to any of our bands and since that first, mud-bathed year, I've not for a second considered missing it myself. Roll on July! Tickets are available for 2000trees 2016, which takes place between 7th 9th July at Upcote Farm in Cheltenham Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A same-sex kiss has been censored from a production of the musical Les Miserables in Singapore. The moment was cut after the show's organizer, Mediacorp VizPro, was told by the state regulator, the Media Development Authority (MDA), that it violated the show's "General" rating; with the kiss, between two male actors, receiving complaints from the public. In Singapore, an old law from its time under British colonialism still exists which outlaws sex between two men, punishable by up to two years in prison; though it is rarely enforced, there have still been nine convictions under the law between 2007 and 2013. The law does not extend to lesbian partners. "The inclusion of this particular scene meant that the performance had exceeded the 'General' rating issued," the MDA said in a statement to Reuters. "Under our classification code, such a scene would fall under an 'Advisory' rating." The decision was made to remove the kiss instead of changing the rating for business reasons, as it would potentially prevent children from seeing the show. The kiss was stated by the company to have been a "peck on the lips" during the comical "The Wedding Chorale - Beggars at the Feast" sequence of the musical, intended to be a comic moment within the adaptation of Victor Hugo's 19th century Parisian novel. This follows from Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs warning that it would take steps to prevent foreign firms like Facebook, Apple, Google, and Goldman Sachs from funding or supporting the city's annual gay-pride event, Pink Dot. Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyArts email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Hate will never win, James Corden said. Together, we have to make sure of that. The opening tribute of the 70th annual Tony Awards from the comedian was dedicated to the more than 100 people who were killed or injured in an LGBT nightclub by a lone gunman in Orlando. All we can say is, you are not on your own right now, he said. Your tragedy is our tragedy. Theatre is a place where every race, creed, sexuality, and gender is equal, is embraced, and is loved. Outside the awards venue, hundreds of fans gathered, some wearing silver ribbons in honour of the victims, and others holding Everytown for Gun Safety banners. The cast of hip-hop musical Hamilton then performed the ceremony opening, but without their usual prop muskets. Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda tweeted the image of a rainbow-coloured heart with the word Orlando. At the ceremony, Mr Miranda read out a powerful sonnet while accepting an award for Best Original Score Written for the Theatre category, as a tribute to the victims in Orlando. Through tears, he said: "This show is proof that history remembers / We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger / We rise and fall and light from dying embers remembrance that hope and love last forever. "Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside / I sing Vanessas symphony. Eliza tells her story. [we] fill the world with music, love, and pride." Other voters and performers showed their support for the Orlando victims, who were killed by 29-year-old Omar Mateen. Tonight, every note I sing will be in remembrance of the lives taken in Orlando, actress and Tony nominee Laura Benanti tweeted Sunday afternoon. Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth also wrote: When will the violence end? Mateen was shot dead by police. His former employer, private security firm G4S, said they are co-operating fully with law enforcement. Mateen called 911 during the attack and pledged allegiance to Islamic State. Before the news in Orlando hit, the Tony Awards-related headlines were focused on whether Hamilton, a modern version of the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton, would scoop all 16 awards it was nominated for. It won 11 awards from orchestration and choreography to Best Original Score and Featured Actress. The list included two of the largest awards: Best Musical and Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, the latter won by Leslie Odom Jr. Lead producer Jeffrey Seller, accepting the award for Best Musical, said to the audience: "Look around. Look how lucky we are to be alive right now." The last record was 12 Tony awards for The Producers musical in 2001. Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for insider tips and product reviews from our shopping experts Sign up for our free IndyBest email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the IndyBest email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Rose started off as a wine you might sample when you were in the South of France. It went with the blue skies and endless sun. Back in the rain-lashed UK the only rose you were likely to encounter came from Portugal in a funny-shaped bottle and tended to be slightly sweet and slightly sparkling. But things have changed. Britains now experiencing the sort of weather most of us went to the Mediterranean to find and sales of rose wines have risen as consumers discover that its the ideal accompaniment to an al fresco meal or a long summers day. And now its not only Provence where you can find excellent roses. Europe, Spain, Italy, Germany and even the UK produce some first-class wines, while further afield, South Africa, Chile, Australia and New Zealand have all got in on the act. So, put your feet up, say hello to Mr Blue Sky and pour yourself a glass of liquid sunshine. You can trust our independent reviews. We may earn commission from some of the retailers, but we never allow this to influence selections, which are formed from real-world testing and expert advice. This revenue helps us to fund journalism across The Independent. Lalomba de Ramon Bilbao rosado 2018, 75cl, 13%: 23.50, Great Western Wine From mature garnacha (grenache) vines planted on the Lalomba hillside, 700 metres above sea level on stony clay and limestone soils in the Rioja Alta region of Spain comes what Ramon Bilbao consider to be the jewel in their crown. Roses should just be as expressive of their provenance as reds and whites, says chief winemaker Rodolfo Bastida and this pale blush rose made from only perfect, hand-picked berries is exactly that. Orchard and red fruit flavours are tempered by mineral notes and an elegant acidity in a wine thats as perfect as a sunny Spanish evening. Buy now Miguel Torres Las Mulas cabernet sauvignon organic rose 2018, 75cl, 13%: 9.39, Waitrose A certified organic and vegan rose from the Torres family of Chile, who make wine using traditional methods without herbicides or pesticides. Produced from cabernet sauvignon grapes grown in the Rapel region of the countrys Central Valley, its a dry wine for those who like big flavours. Lots of intense cherry and red berries on the palate with a pleasing but not too overwhelming acidity. Buy now Barone Ricasoli Albia rose toscano 2017, 75cl, 13.5%: 14.99, Flagship From a Tuscan family famous for its chianti, whose links to the wine trade date back to the 12th century comes a beautifully pale and fragrant rose made from a blend of sangiovese and merlot. An initial sip brings strawberries, cherry and red fruits to the tongue, balanced with a pleasing minerality and a lasting finish. One to be enjoyed lightly chilled with any classic Italian dish. Buy now Rustenberg stellenbosch petit rerdot rose 2018, 75cl, 13.5%: 8.99, Waitrose The Rustenberg Estate in the valley of the Simonsberg Mountain in South Africas premium Stellenbosch wine region was established in 1682. But it was in the 1940s that the Barlow family took it over and established an outstanding portfolio of wines. One of the newer additions is this rose made from the small-berried and thick-skinned petit verdot grape. Bright pink in colour with strawberry and cherry flavours come to the fore, making it the ideal accompaniment to a summer barbecue. Buy now Simpsons Railway Hill rose 2018, 75cl, 12.5%: 19, Roberson Before you do anything else, just admire the bottle. A beautiful club-shaped vision of blushing rose loveliness with an exquisite glass stopper. And, happily after that build up the wine doesnt disappoint. An English rose from the North Downs of Kent, its crisp, bright and fruity with notes of peach and stone fruits and a balanced but delicate allure. Summer was made for wines like this. Buy now Proudly Vegan Chile Valle Central rose 2018, 75cl, 12%: 6.99 Ocado From the UK-based Broadland Wineries comes a Chilean wine thats not afraid to boast about its main selling point a rose so vegan that even the printing ink and the label glue have no animal-related products in them. What you get is a soft and well-balanced wine with plenty of fruity flavour all plum and red berries which could partner baked vegetables, a quinoa salad or a simple olive crostini. Buy now Waitrose Cotes de Provence rose 2018, 75cl, 12.5%: 9.99, Waitrose From their Blueprint range of wines, heres a Waitrose product that does exactly what it says on the tin, or in this case, label ie, delivers an impressive rose from the French region thats the established and spiritual home of this summer staple. Chock-a-block with cherry and red fruit flavours, its a blend of cinsault and grenache grapes and was made to enjoy with a salad nicoise. Buy now Bird in Hand pinot noir rose 2018, 75cl, 12%: 14.25, Frontier One of a range of limited release wines from an Australian winery built by the Nugent family on the site of an old gold mine in South Australias Adelaide Hills. The pinot noir grapes were picked during the coolest part of the day. They were then destemmed and spent up four hours on skins, before being tank fermented, giving the wine its delicate blush hue. Strawberry and soft fruit flavours along with floral notes make it an ideal outdoor aperitif or an accompaniment to a picnic lunch. Buy now Adnams marlborough rose 2016, 75cl: 9.5%, 8.99, Adnams The grapes for this blush rose, produced for Adnams in New Zealand by WineWorks, were picked slightly earlier than usual, so that wine has a more modest 9.5% ABV compared with similar wines. That doesnt detract from the taste, though, as winemaker John Forrest has made sure that the red fruit and elderflower flavour, balanced by a pleasant acidity, is as potent as ever. Fine to drink on its own or with light salads. Buy now El Coto rosado 2018, 75cl, 13%: 4.39, Vinissimus This wont break the bank and for under a fiver you get a good everyday Spanish rose made from grenache and tempranillo grapes grown in Spains Rioja Alavesa region. Pink and colourful in the glass, it has plenty of upfront red fruit and red berry flavours and a fresh acidity. Enjoy it on its own as a summer aperitif or as an accompaniment to light fish or rice dishes. Buy now Coteaux Varois en Provence rose 2017, 75cl, 12.5%: 9 (54 for a case of six), Marks & Spencers From the Provencal region of Var, this is a light but fruity rose made from grenache, cinsault and syrah grapes, with a dash of mourvedre and carignan added to the blend too. There are red fruit and strawberries on the palate with floral hints and an acidity thats balanced without being overpowering. Like many roses its not a wine to be kept for too long and needs to be consumed within 12 months. Buy now London Cru Rosaville Rd pinot noir rose 2018, 75cl, 12%: 15, Roberson From Londons first ever winery, launched six years ago by Cliff Roberson, comes a succulent pinot noir rose made from grapes grown in a Surrey vineyard. Some 90 per cent of the wine was fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks while the rest was put in oak barrels resulting in a creamy yet delicate wine with a citrus aroma and notes of red fruit and strawberries. Best enjoyed young as a superb aperitif or to complement light salad dishes. Buy now Mas de Cadenet Cotes de Provence Sainte Victoire rose 2018, 75cl, 12% : 16.20, Tannico One for art lovers, since the grapes for this very more-ish rose were picked in a vineyard at the base of Sainte Victoire, the mountain that famously features in many of Cezannes landscapes. Now a recognised sub-appellation of the Cotes de Provence AOC, its home to some of the regions finest roses. Made from 45 per cent grenache, 45 per cent cinsault and 10 per cent syrah, it had a slightly more balanced texture and a lengthier fruit-filled finish than other Provencal roses, thanks to the mountains micro climate and notable terroir. Buy now Villa Wolf pinot noir rose 2017, 75cl, 12%: 9.90, The Bottle Club A German rose from the well-established Villa Wolf winery in Pfalz, Germanys second largest wine-growing area, where the sunny and equable conditions resemble Tuscany. As a result, its an ideal location for all varieties of pinot grapes and this lovely pink-hued rose is light, crisp, full of red fruit flavour and an ideal accompaniment to al fresco lunches or meals. Its great value, too, at under 10. Buy now Chateau des Muraires Seduction Cotes de Provence rose 2018, 75cl, 13%: 16.99, Laithwaites This is a seduction that starts with the colour the most wonderful pale rose and continues with that sniff of perfumed Provencal promise thats released as its poured into the glass. Winemaker Bernard Magrezs Provencal estate, mid-way between Nice and Aix-en-Provence may be small - only 1.3 hectares but it produces some outstanding wines including this blend of grenache, cinsault, syrah and the local rolle grape. There are strawberries and red berries in each sip plus a deft acidity that makes the wine an ideal partner for any Mediterranean fish dish. Buy now The verdict: Rose wines Wines such as Simpsons Railway Hill rose from the UK or the Bird in Hand pinot noir rose from Australia are worthy contenders. But if you really want to splash out, go for the best buy, Lalomba de Ramon Bilbao Rosado, a Spanish wine that's everything a magnificent rose should be fruity, mouth-watering, refreshing and satisfying. Summer wouldn't be the same without it. Tim Cook walks off stage after speaking during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference at the Moscone West center on June 2, 2014 in San Francisco, California (Getty) For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Apple is holding one of its biggest events of the year, demonstrating all of the software that will soon come to people's devices. The event will include refreshes of every major piece of software that Apple has, including the operating systems that run its iPhones, Macs, iPads, Apple Watches and Apple TVs. The company could also unveil some surprise hardware announcements, as well as laying out its plans for things like artificial intelligence more broadly. Please allow a moment for the live blog to load. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A British Airways passenger plane was forced to make an unscheduled landing within minutes of taking off from Heathrow. Domestic flight BA1340 to Leeds Bradford Airport had to turn around as the captain requested a priority landing at the west London airport, following a technical issue on Sunday. A squawk 7700message for general aviation emergencies was sent out by the pilots, according to @FlightEmergency, which alerts traffic control. The Airbus A319 needed to circle above Chesham in Buckinghamshire before landing back at Heathrow around 30 minutes later. The flight's looped path returning to London Heathrow shortly after take off (Flight Radar) The aircraft is reported to have landed safely on runway 27 at Heathrow just before 9am. In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Show all 22 1 /22 In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Inside one of the terminal tents in 1946 The year the airport opened. Comfortable armchairs and flowers try to distract from the conditions Graham Bridges collection In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow An aerial view of the airport in 1949 Construction of the runway layout and Central Area are under way In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow A Pan Am crew checks out the Boeing Stratocruiser N1029V Clipper Golden Eagle in 1954 During the early 1950s, Pan Am and American Overseas Airlines operated Statocruisers into London Airport in direct competition on the North Atlantic route operated by BOAC In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow One of the first official London Airport guidebooks C.1953, priced 1s In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow In 1950 a permanent concrete terminal building was built This replaced the tents previously used at London Airport North and is seen still in use for charter and cargo flights in this 1959 view via Graham Bridges In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow BOAC check-in desk in 1954 Inside the new London Airport North terminal building, just before the move to the Central Area Graham Bridges collection In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Air traffic control tower in the 1960s Inside the visual control room CAA Archives via Pete Bish In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Rear cover of the 1956 guidebook Showing a plan of the airport at the time, with entrance prices to the spectators viewing terraces and for airport coach tours In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Spectators in 1958 How close can you get? As soon as the Central Area was open, spectators were afforded unprecedented views of the airliners In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Terminal 3 was opened as the Oceanic Terminal on 13 November 1961 It was built to handle flight departures for long-haul routes. Renamed Terminal 3 in 1968, it was expanded in 1970 with the addition of an arrivals building In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Inside Terminal 3 in 1969 Check-in desks for BOAC and QANTAS airlines In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Plane spotting on Heathrows viewing terraces in the 1960s Wrap up warm, take your spotting logbooks, pen and binoculars and get your mum to pack your sandwiches In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow No 1 Passenger Building Also called the Europa Building. In this photo, taken on 22 June 1963, flags of the many airlines it serves are flown Lee Holden In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Luggage-trailer-towing Routemaster buses When BEA and BOAC merged to form BA on 1 April 1974, both fleets had to be repainted in the new livery, but so did all the ground support equipment In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The entrance to the traffic tunnel in 1974 A Lufthansa Boeing 737 is seen on the runway In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow A 40 per cent scale model of Concorde In September 1990 it was erected on the roundabout at the entrance to the tunnel that passes under the northern runway at Heathrow Airport. It was built in four main parts, with an 80ft-long central fuselage section, to which the wings and tail fin were attached. The completed model was placed on the roundabout in September 1990 and was monitored by CCTV and surrounded by an infrared perimeter alarm that was connected to the local Heathrow police station to ensure it was not vandalised In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Heathrow Airport's 50th anniversary On 2 June 1996, Heathrow marked its anniversary with a flypast of representative airliner types that have served the airport over the years. This culminated in a formation flypast by Concorde with Hawks of the RAF Red Arrows aerobatic team In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The roof of Terminal 3s car park One of the last bastions for plane spotters and spectators was here. This is the unfriendly notice that greets anyone who attempts this today Richard Vandervord In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow On 24 October 2003 BA withdrew its Concordes from service The final scheduled commercial flight was BA002 from JFK operated by G-BOAG. Here we see three of the Concordes parked together outside the BA hangar on 8 November 2003 following withdrawal John Hughes In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The new control tower Costing 50 million to construct, it gives controllers an excellent 360-degree panoramic view NATS photograph In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow The new Terminal 2 The Queens Terminal In pictures: 70 years of Heathrow Looking due west down Runway 27L FlightRadar, an aviation tracking website, described the flight as being cancelled and shows the looped route the aircraft took. A British Airways spokesperson said: The aircraft landed safely at Heathrow after the pilot requested a priority landing for a minor technical issue. "We would never compromise on the safety and security of our customers and crew." For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A former Goldman Sachs dealmaker trying to persuade Gadaffi-era Libya to invest $1 billion with the investment bank procured prostitutes and invited Libyan officials to lavish parties in the hope of winning the business, the High Court heard today. The Libyan Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund is suing Goldman Sachs for inappropriately coercing its naive staff into giving its sovereign wealth fund cash to the bank to invest in products they did not understand. The products were designed to generate big profits for Goldman, the LIA claims. The LIA invested $1.2billion in complicated trades with Goldman which rapidly proved worthless as the financial crisis bit. Recommended Read more Goldman Sachs to face Libya in revealing London High Court trial Goldman, the LIA claims, made a gross profit on the trades of $367.7 million In its opening argument to the court, the LIA today cited how Goldman gave a highly coveted internship to the brother of key LIA director, Mustafa Zarti. The Goldman banker in charge of the LIA contract Youssef Kabbaj also treated the brother to extensive training, holidays in Morocco and, on one occasion, business class flights and five-star accommodation in Dubai, where he also arranged for two prostitutes for the evening at a cost of $600. These treats were three months before the internship was offered with a salary of $5,000-$7,000 a month equivalent to the pay of a gs entry level analyst, as Kabbaj described it. Meanwhile, the LIA offered evidence Goldman bankers were clearly aware of how naive the Libyans were, describing in emails how the countrys banking system was Jurassic. Goldman banker Driss Ben-Brahim wrote: They are very unsophisticated and anyone could 'rape' them. Biggest business scandals in pictures Show all 20 1 /20 Biggest business scandals in pictures Biggest business scandals in pictures Volkswagen emissions scandal VW admitted to rigging its US emission tests so that diesel-powered cars would looks like they were emitting less nitrous oxide, which can damage the ozone layer and contribute to respiratory diseases. Around 11 million cars worldwide were affected. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals Martin Shkreli became known as the most hated man in the world after his drug company, Turing, increased the price of a 62-year-old drug that treated HIV patients by 5,000% to $750 a pill. He was charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. Shkreli, who maintains he is innocent, and says there is little evidence of fraud because his investors didn't lose money. Biggest business scandals in pictures Panama Papers: Millions of leaked documents expose how worlds rich and powerful hid money - April 2016 Millions of confidential documents have been leaked from one of the worlds most secretive law firms, exposing how the rich and powerful have hidden their money. Dictators and other heads of state have been accused of laundering money, avoiding sanctions and evading tax, according to the unprecedented cache of papers that show the inner workings of the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which is based in Panama. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Google's tax avoidance Google reached a deal with the HM Revenue and Customs to pay back 130 million in so-called back-taxes that have been due since 2005. George Osborne championed the deal as a major success. But European MEPs have since called for the Chancellor to appear in front of the committee on tax rulings to explain the tax deal. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Rogue trader A French court cut the damages owed by rogue trader Jerome Kerviel from 4.9bn (4.2bn) to just 1m (860,000). The court ruled on that Kerviel was partly responsible for massive losses suffered in 2008 by his former employer Societe Generale through his reckless trades. Kerviel has consistently maintained that bosses at the French bank knew what he was doing all along. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Barclays CEO under investigation for trying to identify whistleblower - Monday Paril 10 Authorities have launched an investigation into Barclays chief executive officer Jes Staley for trying to identify a whistleblower, the bank said on Monday. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) are both investigating Mr Staley after the bank notified them that Mr Staley had tried to identify the author of two anonymous letters, which were sent to the board and a senior executive in June 2016. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures UK to crack down on bank money laundering after reports of 65bn Russian scam, City minister says - March 2017 The Economic Secretary to the Treasury has vowed that the Government will crack down on money laundering practices, after several of the UK's biggest banks were accused of processing money from a Russian scam, believed to involve up to $80bn (65bn). Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former HBOS bankers convicted of bribery and fraud over 245m loan scam - February 2017 Two former HBOS bankers were among six people found guilty of bribery and fraud that cost customers and shareholders hundreds of millions of pounds, the BBC reports. Lynden Scourfield, 54, a manager at HBOS, forced struggling clients to use the services of his friends David Mills, 60, and Michael Bancroft, 73. In return, the two businessmen arranged sex parties, cash and lavish gifts. On Monday, the three were convicted at Southwark Crown Court on accounts including bribery, fraud and money laundering. Mark Dobson, another manager at HBOS, Alison Mills, and John Cartwright were also convicted. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Lloyds chief apologises for damage caused by affair allegations - August 2016 Antonio Horta-Osorio, the chief executive of Lloyds Bank, has broken his silence over allegations about his private life admitting he regrets any "damage done to the group's reputation". In a message sent to the bank's 75,000 employees, the banker said that anyone can make mistakes while insisting that staff had to maintain the highest professional standards. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Christine Lagarde faces court over 340m Bernard Tapie payment - July 2016 The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, must stand trial in France over a payment of 403 million (now 340m, then 290m) to tycoon Bernard Tapie, a France's highest appeals court has ruled. The court rejected Ms Lagarde's appeal against a judge's order in December for her to stand trial over allegations of negligence in her handling of the affair. Ms Lagarde could risk a maximum penalty of one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros if convicted. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures HSBC senior manager arrested in FX rigging investigation at JFK airport in New York - July 2016 A senior executive at HSBC has been arrested at New York's JFK airport for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to rig currency benchmarks, according to reports. Mark Johnson, global head of foreign exchange cash trading in London, was reportedly arrested on Tuesday. He will appear before a federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Bloomberg said. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Former PwC employees found guilty in 'Luxleaks' tax scandal - June 2016 Two ex- PricewaterhouseCoopers staffers were found guilty in Luxembourg of stealing confidential tax files that helped unleash a global scandal over generous fiscal deals for hundreds of international companies. Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet face suspended sentences of 12 months and 9 months and were ordered to pay fines of 1,500 (1,230) and 1,000 (822) for their role in the so-called LuxLeaks scandal. Despite the minimal sentences, the ruling was described by Deltours lawyer as shocking and a terrible anomaly. The ruling puts on guard future whistle-blowers, Deltour told reporters.The LuxLeaks revelations sped beyond Luxembourg, causing European Union regulators to expand a tax-subsidy probe and propose new laws to fight corporate tax dodging, while EU lawmakers created a special committee to probe fiscal deals across the 28-nation bloc. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Goldman Sachs dealmakers lavished Libyan officials with prostitutes to win contract - June 2016 A former Goldman Sachs dealmaker trying to persuade Gadaffi-era Libya to invest $1 billion with the investment bank procured prostitutes and invited Libyan officials to lavish parties in the hope of winning the business, the High Court heard on Monday June 13.The Libyan Investment Authority sovereign wealth fund is suing Goldman Sachs for inappropriately coercing its naive staff into giving its sovereign wealth fund cash to the bank to invest in products they did not understand. The products were designed to generate big profits for Goldman, the LIA claims.Goldman denies wrongdoing and says the LIA was treated as an arms-length customer Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Former boss of BHS said his life was threatened - June 2016 Darren Topp, the former boss of BHS, has said former owner Dominic Chappell threatened to kill him when he challenged him over a 1.5 million transfer out of the business. MPs on the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee asked Mr Topp about a 1.5 million transfer Mr Chappell made from BHS to a company called BHS Sweden. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley admits paying workers below the minimum wage - June 2016 Mike Ashley admitted paying Sports Direct employees below the minimum wage at a hearing in front of MPs. The company founder said that workers were paid less than the statutory minimum because of bottlenecks at security in an admission that could result in sanctions from HMRC. Reuters Biggest business scandals in pictures Mitsubishi admits improper fuel tests - April 2016 Mitsubishi has admitted to using false fuel methods dating back to 1991. The scale of the scandal is only just coming to light after it was revealed in April that data was falsified in the testing of four types of cars, including two Nissan cars. AP Biggest business scandals in pictures Quindell, the scandal-ridden insurance firm Quindell was once a darling of AIM but its share price fell in April 2014 when its accounting practices were attacked in a stinging research note by US short seller Gotham City. In August the group was forced to disclose that the 107 million pre-tax profit it had reported for 2013 was incorrect, and it had in fact suffered a 64million loss. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Toshiba Accounting Scandal The boss of Toshiba, the Japanese technology giant, resigned in disgrace in the wake of one of the countrys biggest ever accounting scandals. His exit came two months after the company revealed that it was investigating accounting irregularities. An independent investigatory panel said that Toshibas management had inflated its reported profits by up to 152 billion yen (780m) between 2008 and 2014. Biggest business scandals in pictures FIFA Corruption Scandal Fifa, football's world governing body, has been engulfed by claims of widespread corruption since the summer of 2015, when the US Department of Justice indicted several top executives. It has now claimed the careers of two of the most powerful men in football, Fifa President Sepp Blatter and Uefa President Michel Platini, after they were banned for eight years from all football-related activities by Fifa's ethics committee. A Swiss criminal investigation into the pair is ongoing. Getty Biggest business scandals in pictures Libor fraudster City trader Tom Hayes, 35, has become the first person to be convicted of rigging Libor rates following a trial at London's Southwark Crown Court. Hayes worked as a trader in yen derivatives at UBS before joining the American bank Citigroup in Tokyo. He was fired from Citigroup following an investigation into his trading methods. He returned to the UK in December 2012 and was arrested following a two-and-a-half year criminal investigation by the SFO. Getty A Goldman vice president emailed to a colleague: You just delivered a pitch on structured leveraged loans to someone who lives in the middle of the desert with his camels. Asked how literate the Libyans were in derivatives, Kabbaj responded in one email Baaaaaaaasic. Goldman denies wrongdoing and says the LIA was treated as an arms-length customer. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Microsoft has said it is buying LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in cash in its biggest-ever acquisition. In a post on the Microsoft website, Microsoft said that that the deal values LinkedIn at $196 per share. Jeff Weiner will remain CEO of LinkedIn, reporting to Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. Nadella said that as a user of LinkedIn and a publisher on LinkedIn, he was excited to work with the site because of the way it empowers people to take the next step in their careers. He encouraged Microsoft staff to sign up to LinkedIn and get to know the service better, if they weren't already members. Nadella told Weiner that the two companies must be aligned in purpose and structure. "It was after the purpose discussion where there was a lot of excitement. "Satya said you guys have to help write the rules, you have your independence, we have this shared sense of alignment," Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO, said. According to the tag lines on the promotion video in which the two men were speaking, LinkedIn's mission is to connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful, while Microsoft wants to empower every person and organisation on the planet to achieve more. The deal was described as a "re-founding moment" by Reid Hoffmann, LinkedIn chairman, who said it was an "incredible opportunity for our members and customers". Not all analysts were happy, however. Augustin Eden at City firm Accendo Markets took shots at the amount Microsoft was willing to pay for LinkedIn and the knock on effect on shareholders, who may take their money and run from the tech behemoth. Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year. "Shares in professional networking/dating/narcissism website LinkedIn are called to open around 40 per cent higher at the US open after confirmation it has welcomed a mammoth takeover approach from Microsoft constituting a nigh on 50 per cent premium over Fridays share price close," Eden said. "Shares in Microsoft were understandably suspended from trading in the lead-up to this bit of news, given that the traditional reaction to such an announcement often involves a shareholder exodus from the predator. With this deal lightening Microsofts coffers to the tune of $26 billion, make that an exodus of biblical proportions," he added. LinkedIn shares surged 49 per cent in premarket trading in New York to $194.63, while Microsoft shares fell 3.7 per cent to $49.60. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Shares in G4S, a UK-based security firm, fell sharply after it was confirmed the gunman who killed at least 50 people in the attack on a gay club in Orlando was once employed as an armed security guard at the company. Omar Mateen, the man identified as the shooter in the attack, worked with private security group G4S Secure Solutions as an officer in Florida. The role requires 28 hours of classroom training by a licensed instructor. Shares in the company dropped as much as 8.1 per cent when trading began on Monday. Recommended Read more Orlando gay night club gunman worked for global security firm G4S G4S shares were priced 7.7 per cent lower at 172.90 pence just before 9am in London, reducing the companys market valued to 2.69bn. The companys customers include Nike, IBM, General Motors and Bank of America. (Investing/Business Insider) (Investing.com/Business Insider) The incident has raised questions over the firms security procedures as it struggles to rebuild its reputation after a string of scandals. G4S stock had already declined 34 per cent in 12 months, falling the most in March as the firm warned shareholders of rising charges from contracts housing 18,000 asylum seekers in the UK. Last month, G4S suspended seven employees at youth detention centres after allegations that guards used excessive force and one child was stabbed with a fork. (Bloomberg (Bloomberg) In 2012, the company also failed to supply enough security guards for the 2012 Olympics in London, forcing the army to intervene to make up for insufficient numbers. On Sunday, John Kenning, regional chief executive officer for North America, said G4S was shocked and saddened by the tragic events. He confirmed that Omar Mateen had been a G4S employee since September 2007, but that he was off duty at the time of the incident. He also said the company was cooperating with the FBI investigation. Orlando LGBT community tribute Mateen underwent company screening and background checks when he was recruited in 2007, and the check revealed nothing of concern. His screening was repeated in 2013 with no findings, Mr Kenning said. We were not made aware of any alleged connections between Mateen and terrorist activities, and were unaware of any further FBI investigations. Our thoughts and prayers remain with the victims of this unspeakable tragedy, and their friends and families, he added. Fifty people were killed and 53 wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history on Sunday. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace The 29-year-old assailant, who was born in New York, was equipped with a handgun and an assault rifle. Twenty minutes into the attack, he called 911 and pledged allegiance to Islamic State. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Mixed martial arts fighter Ivan JP Cole has died aged 25, with early reports suggesting he was shot while playing Russian Roulette. Dallas Police has confirmed Cole was found dead on Saturday morning. A fundraising website, apparently set up by his wife Kymberli Cole, has said she lost her husband to gun play. Today 11 June, 2016 I lost my husband to gun play, the page reads. He made a bad decision that cost him his life. If you could donate anything I would really appreciate it. Notable deaths in 2016 Show all 42 1 /42 Notable deaths in 2016 Notable deaths in 2016 Debbie Reynolds was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. She died on December 28 in Los Angeles Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Actress Carrie Fisher died on December 27 aged 60 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Comedian and Actor Ricky Harris died on December 26 aged 54 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 British singer George Michael died on 25 December aged 53 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Rick Parfitt OBE was an English musician, best known for being a singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist in the rock band Status Quo. He died on December 24 in Marbella, Spain Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Lord Jenkin of Roding died at the age of 90 on the 21 December PA wire Notable deaths in 2016 Rabbi Lionel Blue died on the 19 December Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Zsa Zsa Gabor died on December 18 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Leonard Cohen died on 7 November Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Grand secretary of the Orange Order Drew Nelson died on 10 October aged 60 after a short illness PA Notable deaths in 2016 Aaron Pryor, the relentless junior welterweight died Sunday, Oct. 9, at the age of 60 at his home in Cincinnati after a long battle with heart disease AP Notable deaths in 2016 Polish Director Andrzej Wajda died on October 9, aged 90 Reuters Notable deaths in 2016 Stylianos Pattakos has died following a stroke on 8th October. He was 103 years old. AP Notable deaths in 2016 Dickie Jeeps, was an English rugby union player who played for Northampton. He represented and captained both the England national rugby union team and the British Lions in the 1950s and 1960s. He died on 8th October. He was 84 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Duke of Westminster Billionaire landowner the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor has died on 9 August, aged 64 Rex Features Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Knudsen Sir Roger Moores stepdaughter Christina Knudsen has died from cancer on 25 July at teh age of 47 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Caroline Aherne The actress Caroline Aherne has died from cancer on 2 July at the age of 52 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Grimmie Christina Grimmie, 22, who was an American singer and songwriter, known for her participation in the NBC singing competition The Voice, was signing autographs at a concert venue in Orlando on 10 June when an assailant shot her. Grimmie was transported to a local hospital where she died from her wounds on 11 June Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Kimbo Slice Former UFC and Bellator MMA fighter Kimbo Slice died after being admitted to hospital in Florida on 6 June, aged 42 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Muhammad Ali The three-time former heavyweight world champion died after being admitted to hospital with a respiratory illness on 3 June, aged 74 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Sally Brampton Brampton who was the launch editor of the UK edition of Elle magazine has died on 10 May, aged 60 Grant Triplow/REX/Shutterstock Notable deaths in 2016 Billy Paul The soul singer Billy Paul, who was best known for his single Me and Mrs Jones, has died on 24 April, aged 81 Noel Vasquez/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Prince Prince, the legendary musician, has been found dead at his Paisley Park recording studio on 21 April. He was 57 Notable deaths in 2016 Chyna WWE icon Joan Laurer dies aged 45 after being found at California home on 20 April Notable deaths in 2016 Victoria Wood The five-time Bafta-winning actress and comedian Victoria Wood has died on 20 April at her London home after a short illness with cancer. She was 62 Notable deaths in 2016 David Gest The entertainer and former husband of Liza Minnelli, David Gest has been found dead on 12 April in the Four Seasons hotel in Canary Warf, London. He was 62-years-old PA Notable deaths in 2016 Denise Robertson Denise Robertson, an agony aunt on This Morning for over 30 years, has died on 1 April, aged 83 Notable deaths in 2016 Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Hadid, the prominent architect best known for designs such as the London Olympic Aquatic Centre and the Guangzhou Opera House, has died of a heart attack on 31 March, aged 65 2010 AFP Notable deaths in 2016 Ronnie Corbett British entertainer Ronnie Corbett has passed away on 31 March at the age of 85 2014 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Imre Kertesz Hungarian writer and Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz, who won the 2002 Nobel Literature Prize, has died on 31 March, at the age of 86 REUTERS Notable deaths in 2016 Rob Ford Rob Ford, the former controversial mayor of Toronto, has died following a battle with a rare form of cancer. The 46-year-old passed away at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto on 22 March Notable deaths in 2016 Joey Feek Joey (left) passed away in March after a two-year cancer illness. She was part of country music duo, Joey + Rory, with her husband Rory (right) Jason Merritt/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Umberto Eco Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco died 19 February 2016 aged 84 EPA Notable deaths in 2016 Harper Lee Harper Lee, the American novelist known for writing 'To Kill a Mockingbird', died February 19, 2016 aged 89 2005 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Vanity Vanity, pictured performing in 1983, died aged 57 REX Features Notable deaths in 2016 Dave Mirra The BMX legend's body found inside truck with gunshot wound after apparent suicide aged 41 Notable deaths in 2016 Harry Harpham The former miner became Sheffield Labour MP in May after many years as a local councillor. He died after succumbing to cancer, at the age of 61. Notable deaths in 2016 Dale Griffin The Mott the Hoople drummer died on January 17, aged 67 REX Notable deaths in 2016 Rene Angelil Celine Dion's husband and manager Rene Angelil has lost his battle with cancer on 14 January, aged 73 2011 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Alan Rickman Legendary actor Alan Rickman has died on 14 January at the age of 69 after battle with pancreatic cancer. He is largely regarded as one of the most beloved British actors of our generation with roles in Love Actually, Die Hard, Michael Collins, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and an illustrious stage career 2015 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Maurice White The Earth, Wind & Fire founder died aged 74. The nine-piece band sold more than 90 million albums worldwide and won six Grammy awards Notable deaths in 2016 Lawrence Phillips Former NFL star found dead in prison cell on 13 January in suspected suicide, aged 40 AFP/Getty Images On its Facebook page, local news station CBS DWF reported: Cole killed himself while reportedly playing roulette with gun in Dallas apartment [sic]. Police are currently looking into the events surrounding his death. On 11 June, 2016, at approximately 7.30 am, officers responded to a shooting in the 13700 block of Montfort Drive. Officers found Ivan Robert-Earnest Cole, B/M 25-years-old, deceased, a statement on the Dallas Police Department website reads. The death of Mr Cole will be classified as an unexplained death pending the results of the autopsy. CBS reporter JD Miles wrote on Twitter that Coles death had been attributed to [a] deadly game of Russian roulette. But he later said police were still investigating these reports. Fellow MMA fighter Antwan Williams said he does not believe reports Cole had been playing Russian Roulette. I dont think he would play with himself like that, he told CBS. He also paid tribute to Cole. Hes such a great athlete in the cage or in the ring, just such a great athlete. You cant even explain it, but when you see him outside of the ring or the cage, hes just so cool. Cole, a New Orleans native, was a rising star in the mixed martial arts scene. He became a professional MMA fighter in 2012 and he last took part in Bellator 135 in March 2015 but lost to George Pacurariu in the first round via submission. He is survived by his wife and a four-year-old daughter. His death follows a number of prominent MMA fighters who have died in 2016. Last week, Kimbo Slice died at the age of 42 and UFC heavyweight champion Kevin Randleman died in February at the age of 44. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} John Oliver has paid tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting and lamented the familiarity of the pain which the world is feeling. Forty nine people were killed and 53 were injured after a gunman, apparently inspired by Isis, stormed LGBT nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida in the early hours of Sunday morning. This is the biggest mass shooting in US history. The comedian, who hosts US show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, condemned the violence committed and urged viewers to focus on the things which make America great. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace The worst thing is this pain is so familiar, Oliver said in a solem opening address. In Paris last November, terrorists seemed to target places symbolising everything that is wonderful about France - culture, music, restaurants. He described the club attacked by the gunman as symbolic of America's greatness. "I will happily embrace a Latin night at a gay club at the theme park capital of the world as the ultimate symbol about what is truly wonderful about America, he said. Im sure there will be much more to say about Orlando going forward," he added. "But for right now, on a day when some dips*** terrorist wants us to focus on one mans act of brutality and hatred, it might be worth seeing this video, which was posted to Twitter today. The video showed hundreds of people queuing up outside the OneBlood bank in Orlando in order to donate blood to help the victims of the mass tragedy. It kind of reminds you that that terrorist dips*** is vastly outnumbered," said Oliver. ORLANDO, Florida-- What started as a typical Saturday night at the club for Josh McGill turned into a nightmare for the Gulfport native as gunman Omar Mateen attacked Orlando's Pulse nightclub, killing 49 people. Efforts to reach McGill were not immediately successful on Monday, but in an interview with WLOX News McGill said the night seemed normal and it was "nothing out of the ordinary." "It was very crazy and a traumatic experience. I'm very thankful I got away safe and a lot of other people I know and care about did as well," McGill posted on Facebook Sunday. McGill said he and his roommates were at the bar, closest to the patio when he heard the three shots, but figured there were issues with the sound system or someone inside of the was playing a prank. He then heard people inside the club say 'someone has a gun' repeatedly. McGill and his roommates ran and snuck out of the patio door to safety. When outside, more shots rang out, according to McGill, and he heard more people yelling, 'run!' McGill and his roommates hopped a fence and ran quickly to the perimeter set up by police while more shots continue to ring out. McGill said he crawled underneath what he thought was a car or SUV in hopes that he would not be hit by a crossfire shot. McGill then noticed a man walking in around the parking lot, covered in blood. McGill pulled him around to where he was sitting. "I think I was shot," the man said to McGill. He noticed the man had been shot in each of his arms and tied his shirt and the victim's shirt on the wounds to stop the bleeding. McGill said on Facebook he only knew the man as Rodney. On Monday, McGill posted that Rodney was in surgery. "The things I had to say to the guy and make promises I didn't know I would be able to keep or not to keep him conscious while holding him as tight as I could and blood everywhere on me. Saying a prayer for him and letting him know I will be here waiting for him. It sucks because all I got was his name and I can't even see if he's okay because I'm not related," McGill wrote Sunday. There was a very tragic thing that happened tonight. Thoughts and prayers for everyone at Pulse or that know anyone that... Posted by Joshua McGill on Sunday, June 12, 2016 After reaching medical personnel, McGill was instructed to not allow the victim to go unconscious so he began to converse with the victim. According to McGill, they made it to the ER in five minutes, and he helped medical personnel put Rodney on a stretcher, prayed with him, and he was taken into the hospital. While McGill and was thankful that he and his roommates survived the horrific experience, his primary focus was on the health and safety of keeping Rodney alive. "They don't lie when they say it is an adrenaline rush," McGill told Janel Forte of WLOX. "The things that were going through my head was that I'm scared, but during that process, the only thing I was hoping the most was that he wouldn't code on me and getting him to the hospital to safety." For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} JK Rowling has reacted with sorrow after learning one of the victims of a mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Florida worked on a Harry Potter themed ride in Orlando. The Harry Potter author told her seven million Twitter followers how she could not stop crying after a gunman killed at least 49 and wounded dozens more at Pulse nightclub, in the worst mass shooting in modern American history. Rowling joined the outpouring of grief and shock expressed on social media on Sunday evening. In an emotive tweet, she paid tribute to one of the victims, Luis S. Vielma, who she said worked on the Harry Potter ride at the Universal Orlando Resort theme park. This has not been confirmed by Mr Vielmas family. A remembrance Facebook page under the name Luis S. Vielma listed him as Production Assistant at Disaster Studios, Rides Attendant at Harry Potter And The Forbidden Journey and Attractions Operations at Universal Orlando Resort. US police have named the gunman as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen born in New York and of Afghan descent who lived in Fort Pierce, Florida. Mateen had purchased guns legally in recent days. Omar Mateen, who has been identified as the Orlando gunman by police (Myspace) The gunman exchanged fire with police at about 2am before a hostage situation developed inside the club. He was killed three hours later when officers stormed the building and shot him dead. An anonymous law enforcement official told the Associated Press Mateen allegedly pledged allegiance to Isis during a 911 call before carrying out the shooting, but the extent of Isis involvement, if any, has not yet been determined. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace His ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy described Mateen as a mentally unstable and disturbed man who had beat her during the four months they lived together in 2009, causing her family to travel to their home in Florida and take her home. She said today: When he would get in his tempers, he would express hate toward everything. He was mentally unstable and mentally ill: that's the only explanation that I could give. His father Seddique Mateen said the attack was not to do with religion. He said his son had become angry after seeing two men kissing in Miami a few months prior to the shooting. We are apologising for the whole incident, he told NBC News. We are in shock, like the whole country. President Barack Obama condemned the attack as an act of terror and an act of hate. Florida authorities have declared a state of emergency and Mr Obama has ordered flags on federal buildings to be flown at half-mast. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Oscar Pistorius is due to be sentenced for the 2013 Valentines Day murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp - facing a minimum of 15 years in prison. The Olympic and Paralympic athletes previous sentence for culpable homicide, South Africas equivalent of manslaughter, carried a five-year sentence, but the conviction was later upgraded to murder after an appeal heard by the Supreme Court. Judge Thokozile Masipa, who presided over Pistoriuss original 50-day trial in 2014, will begin hearing pre-sentencing arguments at Pretoria High Court on Monday, with Pistorius expected to learn the length of his jail term by the end of the week. South Africas legal system recommends a minimum of 15 years and a maximum of 20 years in jail unless there are substantive and compelling reasons for a reduced sentence. The former paralympians legal team is expected to call witnesses who ask for a lenient sentence due to the former athletes mental fragility, physical disability, and good behaviour in jail since his manslaughter conviction. The 29-year-old was released from a maximum security hospital cell last October after almost a year behind bars, before being released to continue his sentence under house arrest at his uncles mansion in Pretoria. He has been denied the right to appeal the murder conviction after the Supreme Court ruled that he had exhausted all his legal options. In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence A mobile telephone, firearm and blood splatter in Pistorius's house In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence A gun in Pistorius's house where his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence A mobile telephone and blood splatter in Oscar Pistorius's house In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence The bathroom in Pistorius's house where his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence The bathroom in Pistorius's house where he shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence The bathroom in Pistorius's house where his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence Oscar Pistorius covered in blood splatter after his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence Oscar Pistorius covered in blood splatter after his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence Oscar Pistorius covered in blood splatter after his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot In pictures: Oscar Pistorius trial evidence Trial evidence Oscar Pistorius's artificial legs covered in blood splatter after his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp was shot Pistorius himself may be called to the witness stand to give evidence. However, an appearance is viewed as unlikely as it would expose him to potentially damaging cross-examination by prosecuting lawyers. There is also the suggestion that Barry Steenkamp, Reevas father, may also give evidence, after suffering poor health as a result of his daughters death and the subsequent trial. Pistorius denies deliberately killing model and law graduate Steenkamp, saying he mistook her for an intruder when he fired four shots through the locked door of a toilet in his house. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A teenager has been arrested over hoax bomb calls to two schools earlier this month. The 16-year-old was arrested and held in custody on Sunday in connection with two hoax calls to secondary schools in Scotland. The teen, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is expected to appear at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court on Monday. His arrest and detention follows hoax bomb threats to Cumnock Academy and Auchinleck Academy in East Ayrshire on June 1. Recommended Read more Glasgow schools searched by police after bomb threats He is the second youth to be arrested in connection with hoax bomb threats to schools this month. A 15-year-old boy was arrested on June 2 following incidents in Glasgow, Clydebank, Campbeltown and Lanarkshire. Police Scotland said in his case a report would be submitted to the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The wide variety of accents and dialects that characterise the different regions of Britain are in decline, according to new research from Cambridge, which shows that we're all taking in a generic South East English accent rather than keeping our local tongues. That is likely going to make it easier for us all to communicate in the future, but it comes at a cost: We're gradually losing the entertainingly difficult-to-understand brogues of unreconstructed Scouse, Geordie, or Glaswegian. The most surprising sign of this shift is that large swathes of British people now pronounce the word three incorrectly. Or at least, differently but certainly not the way it is written. Sixty years ago there was broad agreement on how that word was said properly. Now there isn't.(More on the three controversy later.) Business Insider spoke to Tam Blaxter of Adrian Leeman's research team at the Cambridge Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, to find out what's going on. The Leeman team has constructed an amazing app, called English Dialects, which asks you to choose the correct pronunciation for dozens of common English words. The app collects the results to enhance its database of spoken English variations. Best of all, the app calculates where you grew up based on your answers with a creepy level of accuracy. You can download the app from Apple or Google. The team used the data 30,000 responses to create these maps which show where you live depending on how you think different words are said. How do you say THREE? If you drop the th and say something like FREE, you're probably from London or the South East. Scotland and Ireland have a strong preference for th version of THREE. (Business Insider (Business Insider) The result is surprising because data from 60 years ago shows there was broad agreement in England in favour of THREE. Only North Londoners said FREE. (The historic data was collected only from England.) (Business Insider (Business Insider) Blaxter says that the influence of London and the South East has spread southern pronunciations over the rest of the country which is why a large minority of people in Hull and Plymouth now say FREE even though their parents grew up saying THREE. How do you say SCONE? This is the big one, the word that everyone gets angry about! If it rhymes with gone then you're from Scotland or the North. If it rhymes with bone then you're from the South or the Sheffield area. And look at the Ireland/Northern Ireland split. It's a country divided by Partition and also the correct way to ask for a dough-based cake. (Business Insider (Business Insider) The civil war over SCONE is brutal: On one side of the Peak District, around Liverpool, it's solid rhymes-with-gone territory. But across the moors in Stoke and Chesterfield it is die-hard rhymes-with-bone country. (Business Insider (Business Insider) No one has ever researched the pronunciation of SCONE before, Blaxter says. The chaotic regional variation in its pronunciation also destroys a myth that posh people rhyme with bone and everyone else rhymes with gone. In fact, everyone simply assumes that if you pronounce it the other way, you're wrong, and it has little to do with your socio-economic status. Here is a look at how varied our dialect was 60 years ago. This map shows all the different words our grandparents used to describe a splinter. (Business Insider (Business Insider) Today, if you say SPELK instead of SPLINTER then you're almost definitely from Newcastle or the North East. All the other words have died out. (Business Insider (Business Insider) How do you say ARM? If you pronounce the r like arrum, you're probably from Ireland or Scotland. If you say it more like aahm, then you're from England. (Business Insider (Business Insider) But 60 years ago, if you pronounced the r in ARM you were almost certainly from the West Country or Newcastle. (It's likely that Scotland and Ireland were big r pronouncers too - but we don't have the data for that.) (Business Insider (Business Insider) How do you say BUTTER? If you think the utt sound rhymes with put, then you're from the North of England. But if you say it with a lighter touch, and the two words sound different, then you're definitely not a Northerner. (Business Insider (Business Insider) Sixty years ago there was a dramatic divide over BUTTER, and the Northern way was more widely accepted. But the North is losing the fight as more people adopt the Southern way. (Business Insider (Business Insider) How do you say LAST? If you say it with a short vowel, to rhyme with asp, then you're from the North West or the North East. But if you say it the posh way, like larrst, then you're from the Home Counties (or possibly Scotland). (Business Insider (Business Insider) The last/larrst divide is one of the few resilient splits over time. The nation was divided against itself on this one in much the same way in the 1950s. (Business Insider (Business Insider) How do you say NEW? If you say noo rather than nyoo then you're probably from Nottingham. (Business Insider (Business Insider) But if your parents and grandparents are from East Anglia or Devon, this explains why they keep saying noo. (Business Insider (Business Insider) How do you say TONGUE? If you pronounce the g then you're from Bolton or Preston. Everyone else gives it a soft ng sound. (Business Insider (Business Insider) Back in the day, the hard g in TONGUE was much more common in Stoke and Merseyside. (Business Insider (Business Insider) We are also losing some words that used to be common. In the 1950s, HISSELF was the dominant term for himself, except in London. (Business Insider (Business Insider) But over time the London preference for himself won out almost no one says HISSELF anymore. (Business Insider (Business Insider) Likewise no one says HERN instead of hers anymore. But it was the dominant word in the Midlands and the Cotswolds sixty years ago. (Business Insider (Business Insider) Today, HERN is extinct. (Business Insider (Business Insider) Americans call the October season FALL. But no one in Britain says that today. We call it AUTUMN, as this map shows. But there is a plot twist coming up ... (Business Insider (Business Insider) Back in the 1950s, people in the West Country and Hull said FALL rather than AUTUMN. (Business Insider (Business Insider) While FALL lost the war in England it succeeded in America. Probably 'fall' was a way of describing 'autumn' that was brought to America and, as it happens, that was the dialect variation that won in America. Whereas over here it was 'autumn,' Blaxter says. Read more: Analysts question the way Apple describes its data Mike Ashley has a plan to save BHS with no job losses Investors think central banks have lost their power Read the original article on Business Insider UK. 2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter. Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Morning Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It was absolutely beautiful, he says, I felt my heart lifting. You didnt need to be afraid here. You could be accepted. He met his boyfriend Neil the first boyfriend he dared have in this street, in one of the bars. Coming to London as a student 22 years ago, he had escaped what was then the hostility of post-Communist Poland. There, he says, At that time, you always had to hide yourself. You felt like you were in some sort of cage. Here you could be free. Vigil in Soho for victims of Orlando shooting Recommended Read more New Yorkers gather outside Stonewall Inn to mourn Orlando Small wonder, then, that for Mark and many of his friends, the gay bars of Old Compton Street and Soho can never be just bars. They are more than that, says Mark, 50 and now a lorry driver. They are places of safety. They are like visiting family. Small wonder, too, that the mass shooting at the Pulse bar in Florida has hit home so hard in Soho to the point that at 7pm tonight they will hold hands along Old Compton Street in solidarity with the American venue and those who were murdered there. Its like losing someone from your family, says Mark. Because, although an ocean may have separated them, in the things that really matter, the Pulse and the gay bars of London are the same. Jeremy Joseph, owner of G-A-Y, talks about Orlando mass shooting Pulse was co-founded by Barbara Poma in honour of her older brother John, who died of Aids in 1991, with the name Pulse chosen to symbolise Johns heartbeat. And honour him the club most certainly did. It became, in the words of Daniel Leon-Davis, who grew up 10 minutes away from the club and first visited it as a high school student, a community centre. It was where you went to be yourself. To get away from hate. To be free. In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Show all 44 1 /44 In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Frank Escalante AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Conde AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Brenda Lee Marquez McCool In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Joel Rayon Paniagua AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jerald Arthur Wright AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Paul Terrell Henry AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Shane Evan Tomlinson AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Antonio Davon Brown AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jason Benjamin Josaphat AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Enrique L. Rios, Jr. AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Darryl Roman Burt AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Cory James Connell REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Tevin Eugene Crosby AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jonathan Antonio Camuy-Vega AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Leroy Valentin Fernandez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Andrew Leinonen AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Angel L. Candelario-Padro AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Simon Adrian Carrillo-Fernande AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Javier Jorge-Reyes AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Gilberto Ramon Silva-Menendez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan P. Rivera-Velazquez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Miguel Angel Honorato AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jean Carlos Mendez Perez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Mercedez Marisol Flores REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Luis Laureano Disla REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Franky Jimmy De Jesus Velazquez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Oscar A. Aracena-Montero REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Martin Benitez Torres REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Stanley Almodovar Facebook/Stanley Manolo Almodovar III In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eddie Justice Faebook/ Eddie Justice In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Vielma Twitter/@jk_rowling In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera Facebook/ Eric Rivera In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan Ramon Guerrero Facebook/ Juan Ramon Guerrero In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz Facebook/ Peter Gonzalez Cruz In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Amanda Alvear Facebook/ Amanda Alvear In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Disla Facebook/ Anthony Disla In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Edward Sotomayor Twitter/@ryanraiche In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo Facebook/Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Kimberley Morris Twitter/ @katiezavadski The first time I ever entered Pulse, Leon-Davis wrote on the Fusion website, Everything changed. Pulse was where I learned to love myself as a gay man. And there were hundreds like him, as the social media reaction to his article proved. Pulse was the first gay bar they had visited, or, as one man put it: Pulse saw me grow from a closeted individual to an out proud gay man. Jeremy Joseph, the owner of G-A-Y on Old Compton Street, and of Heaven nightclub, can tell similar stories. There is a complete bond with Pulse he says. I have people coming up to me and saying Thank you for running this place. I come from a small town. There are no gay bars there. This is my only escape. These places are safe havens, as well as bars. When you live in London, he adds, you sometimes forget how good things are. Tributes at the iconic Stonewall Inn (Getty Images) Although even here, in London, there is a limit to how good things are. Many Soho venues show a palpable nervousness about their names being published, about standing out too much. And that is not all about the Pulse attack. Its partly an ingrained, fatalistic caution, a recognition that violent homophobes were around long before Isis. Mark recalls that he walked past the Admiral Duncan pub 10 minutes before it was bombed, with the loss of three lives, in 1999. So no, he doesnt want us to know his surname. Jeremy Joseph, as much one of the organisers of Mondays solidarity ceremony as anyone can be of something so spontaneous, says that waking up to the news of the Pulse massacre was my worst nightmare come true: We are living in a time where, as a venue, we are facing constant threat. He stresses, however, that the threat is faced by all London venues, not just LGBT ones: In Madrid they targeted a train. In Paris they struck against a concert hall. Everyone is under threat. He hopes to revisit Pulse one day. He urges others to do the same, to make the club a safe haven once more. I hope Pulse re-opens and re-opens strong, he says. I dont know how they will recover, but they will. Because you have to. Pulse has to be part of the community again. When they hold hands in Old Compton Street, it will be about community, paying respects to those who died, those who were wounded and their families. It will never be about the killer. The murderer hasnt won, explains Joseph. He will never win. In Old Compton Street, after all, they are not just out, but out and proud. Finishing his lunchtime pint, Mark looks me straight in the eye. I would rather die gay, he says, Than live as a terrorist. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Children should be receiving a sex education that teaches nudity is normal, as a way of reducing unhealthy and oversexualised attitudes to naked bodies, a report has said. A "very British" prudishness about not wearing any clothes means children get their mainstream ideas about bodies from glamour adverts, Hollywood and pornography in a way that makes them sexualise nakedness, according to nudist organisation British Naturism. The new 36-page report calls on politicians, parents, teachers and the BBC to represent nudity as normal rather than sexualised and exceptional. "Children should know about how their bodies work [...]. This should be done ideally by bringing up children in a naturist environment where body honesty is key," said the report. "But otherwise through good, explicit, factually correct and non-judgmental sex and relationships education." The report comes after Nicky Morgan announced in February that PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) and sex education would not be compulsory across UK primary schools. Her decision went against the advice of the Commons Education Committee. But a few hours of sex education a year will not alter attitudes to the body that are reinforced across society, said members of British Naturism. As nature intended: A young man relaxes after a game of naturist-only mini-tennis (Laura Pannack) Andrew Welch, a spokesman for the organisation, said the UK needed "more non-sexual nudity, not less". "The protection of our children has to be paramount, but the line is being drawn in the wrong place," he told The Independent. "By suppressing something and keeping it hidden it means that nobody learns the truth. Teenagers grow up thinking that a normal body is the one in the adverts or young men see pornography and take it from that. "No one knows what's normal anymore." Love and sex news: in pictures Show all 31 1 /31 Love and sex news: in pictures Love and sex news: in pictures What makes a perfect penis? Scientists have now answered one of these great unknowns. According to a new study, general cosmetic appearance is the most important penile aspect when it comes to what women value down there. This is swiftly followed by the appearance of pubic hair, penile skin, and girth. Length comes in at number six, with the look of the scrotum trailing closely behind. The least important facet of the phallus, say the scientists, is the position and shape of meatus, the vertical slit at the opening of the urethra. Getty Love and sex news: in pictures Half of divorcees had doubts on their wedding day Over half of divorcees considered abandoning their husband or wife-to-be at the altar on their wedding day, a new study has revealed. On top of likely worrying about wedding favours and making sure guests behave on their big day, 49 per cent of divorcees admitted they were unsure before the ceremony that their marriage would last. Some 15 per cent of divorcees polled said they were so wracked with doubt that they felt physically sick in the run up to their wedding. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Students who marry after studying the same subject Picking a university subject is already difficult enough for young people. But heres an extra piece of data to weigh on your decision: you may be picking a life partner as well. Dan Kopf of the blog, Priceonomics, analysed US Census data and found that the percentage of Americans who marry someone within their own major is actually fairly high. About half of Americans are married, according to the 2012 American Community Survey (part of the Census). And about 28 per cent of married couples over the age of 22 both graduated from college. (The survey didnt recognise same-sex marriages for the 2012 data, but it will for 2013 onwards, says Kopf). Sean Gallup/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures How much sex we have (and how much we'd like) As a nation, we dont have as much sex as we would like, a survey has (somewhat unsurprisingly) confirmed. In a poll of 1523 people by YouGov, 64 per cent of Britons said they would wish to have sex at least a few times a month. The same sample said that only 38 per cent had sex at least a few times a month. In addition, 10 per cent said they wished to have sex every day, a goal which only 1 per cent admitted reaching. Rex Love and sex news: in pictures The new female condom Picture an internal condom. The chances are youre thinking of something which resembles a carrier bag. However, this could all be about to change with the new VA w.o.w. Condom Feminine. Not only is it a wireless, Bluetooth enabled, vibrating interactive device, which comes available in the shape of a heart, but the manufacturers think youll love it more than not using a condom at all. Love and sex news: in pictures One in five Brits admit to having had an affair One in five British adults admits they have had an affair, according to a new poll. 20 per cent of male respondents and 19 per cent of female respondents admitted to having had an affair in a new poll of 1660 respondents by YouGov. Orlando /Three Lions/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures The UK's favourite sex position Casting aside the myth that Brits are a prudish bunch, a new survey has revealed that doggy style is the nations favourite sex position. As many as a quarter of UK adults surveyed said doggy style was their favourite way to indulge with a partner. Missionary, which is sometimes scoffed at the most boring position, was favoured by a fifth of the 1,000 people surveyed by high street sex shop Ann Summers, seeing it come in as third under "woman on top". Caiaimage/REX Love and sex news: in pictures Who's most likely to cheat? Men and women who are economically dependent on their spouses are more likely to cheat, a new study has revealed. Researchers have found that men who are solely financially dependent are more like to cheat than women, at 15 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. Men who are rely on their wives may cheat because they are undergoing a masculinity threat by not being the primary breadwinner as is culturally expected, said study author Christin L. Munsch, a UConn assistant professor of sociology. Eye Candy/REX Love and sex news: in pictures Jailed for loud sex noises A woman who breached a court order barring her from causing nuisance by making "loud sex noises" was sent to jail. Gemma Wale, of Small Heath, Birmingham, was given a two-week prison sentence after a civil court judge concluded that she had breached the order by "screaming and shouting whilst having sex" at a "level of noise" which annoyed a neighbour. Rex Features Love and sex news: in pictures Photo of wedding guest proposing to girlfriend in front of bride and groom goes viral When the staggering amount time, money, and effort that goes into to planning a wedding is considered, it seems pretty obvious that all guests have is to do is turn up with some gifts, and not upstage the couple. But this fact seems to have escaped one man, whose grinning face has gone viral after he decided to propose to his girlfriend in front of the bride and grooms top table. The photo, which has been viewed over 1.4 million times on Reddit, shows a boyfriend perched on one knee in front of his crying girlfriend. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Sexual fantasies The results of a sex survey are busting the myth that Britons are sexually repressed, by revealing how the majority of women have lived out their sexual fantasies. As many as 81 per cent of women and 77 per cent of men have shared and acted out fantasies with a partner with having sex in public topping the list of turn-ons. The study also laid bare the influence of TV and film on our desires, with three-quarters of couples saying they had inspired them. Meanwhile, a further three quarters of women and over half of men have played out a fantasy theyd found in a book. LEO RAMIREZ/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures The world's sexiest nationalities Irish men are the worlds sexiest, according to a survey of thousands of jet-setting women. In a poll of 66,000 of single American women who use MissTravel.com, as many as 8,000 said that Irish men are the sexiest. Around half of the females who took said they were turned on by Irish men said their accent influenced their choice, according to the Irish Times. ANDREW COWIE/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures More sex = happiness? Couples were asked to double the amount of sex they had each week over a three month period by researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University, who compared them to couples who had their normal amount of sex. Their findings, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior, went against advice given by the average self-help book having more sex doesnt automatically make a person happier. Instead, couples who were instructed to have more sex reported a decrease in happiness levels. Mood Board/Rex Love and sex news: in pictures Most sexually satisfied countries It is often considered the most amorous nation on the planet, but France doesn't even feature in a new list of the most sexually satisfied countries. According to a Durex global survey of 26,000 people, aged 16 and older, across 26 countries, only 44 per cent of people are fully satisfied with their sex lives. In the wake of these results, AlterNet has compiled a list of the 12 most sexually satisfied countries, with Switzerland, Spain and Italy topping the list. INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Sex o'clock They say women are from Venus and men are from Mars but a new sex survey suggests that members of the opposite sex seem to operate in different time zones too. While women like to get steamy between 11:21pm on average, men are more likely to be turned on at the rather inconvenient time of 7:54am. These times fall into the broader timeslots of 11pm and 2am for women, and 6am and 9am for men. PIERRE ANDRIEU/AFP/Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures More sex = more money People who have more sex are likely to earn more, new research claims. The research, partly conducted from the responses of 7,500 people, found employees who have sex two or three times a week earn 4.5 per cent more than colleagues who do not. Rex Love and sex news: in pictures The effects of watching porn Contrary to suggestion that porn desensitises viewers to sex, a study has found that it doesn't "negatively impact sexual functioning" and in fact boosts couples' sexual attraction to one another. In research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, scientists at the University of California tested the effects of visual sexual stimuli on men in relationships, finding that it "is unlikely to negatively impact sexual functioning, given that responses actually were stronger in those who viewed more VSS." Rex Love and sex news: in pictures 'I have herpes' A woman diagnosed with herpes at the age of 20 has written an emotional essay about living with the common condition to fight the stigma surrounding it. Ella Dawson, now 22, said she had never had unprotected sex and thought she wasn't the sort of person STDs happened to when the symptoms first appeared during her time at university in the US. She wrote that the diagnosis initially felt like a punishment for her values and relationships and worried her that telling boyfriends would ruin her love life. Ella Dawson Love and sex news: in pictures More sleep, better sex A new study could have a simple answer to enhancing your sex life just get a good nights sleep (if you are a woman at least). A study conducted by a team at the University of Michigan Sleep and Circadian Research Laboratory found women who get an extra hour of sleep at night reported higher levels of sexual desire and were more likely to have sex with their partners. Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Swipe right A woman has detailed her experiences of a week of always swiping right on Tinder. By opening the floodgates, as Ms Caster describes it, she receives scores of messages from different men and not all are terrible. Love and sex news: in pictures The most adulterous town in the UK Ever wondered what the neighbours are up to? Well if you live in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, then the answer is probably... having an affair. The bustling East Midlands town has been granted the dubious honour of being the UK's top spot for infidelity with a total of 941 affairs reportedly taking place right now. According to The Official Infidelity Index 2015, which was released this week, 2.54 per cent of the towns population are currently seeing someone they shouldn't. REX FEATURES Love and sex news: in pictures Average penis size revealed Scientists have measured more than 15,000 mens penises in an effort to find out what size is normal. Researchers at Kings College London and a London NHS trust said they hoped the review would help address the concern that some men have about their penis size and aid people suffering from anxiety and distress. They revealed that the average flaccid penis is 3.6ins (9.16cm) long, or 5.2ins (13.24cm) when stretched, and 3.7ins (9.31cm) in circumference. Erect penises are 5.1ins (13.12cm) long on average and 4.5ins (11.66cm) in girth. Rex Love and sex news: in pictures One true love Men fall in love more times in their life than women, according to a new survey. 2,000 adults were asked about relationships, and discovered that more than half of men say they've loved more than one person their lifetime. For women, it's markedly fewer, with only 45 per cent saying they've had multiple loves. Love and sex news: in pictures Dating site for 'beautiful people only' A self-proclaimed elite dating website has removed around 3,000 members because they were "letting themselves go". BeautifulPeople.com describes itself as the largest internet dating community exclusively for the beautiful and puts peoples photographs to a members vote to decide if they are allowed in. But administrators have now shown that the rigorous 48-hour selection period is not a permanent pass by taking thousands of profiles down, mainly because of weight gain and graceless ageing. Love and sex news: in pictures Sex is a 'miracle cure' Regular exercise including sex, walking and dancing are miracle cures staring us in the face and could dramatically cut our risk of cancer, dementia, heart disease and diabetes, leading doctors have said. In a new review of existing evidence which reveals the full extent of benefits that can be accrued from exercise, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges said the improvement in health and savings to the NHS could be incalculable. Susannah Ireland Love and sex news: in pictures Pornhub searches by age of user Pornhubs prolific Insights blog fires out many reports of sociological interest, none more so than its latest on age, which lays bare different age groups' sexual proclivities. Looking at the most popular searches among 18-24s, there are several familial terms including 'step mom', 'milf', 'mom' and 'step sister', a trend that seems to die out somewhat in users' 30s. By 65, 'massage' becomes the top term, while 'granny' perhaps unsurprisingly also hits the top ten. PlaceIt/Just Another IKEA Catalog Love and sex news: in pictures Mature sex Research into the sexual lives of more than 7,000 men and women between the ages of 50 and 90 in England reveals that half of men and almost a third of women aged 70 and over were still sexually active, with around a third of these sexually active older people having sexual intercourse twice a month or more. Around two-thirds of men and over half of women thought good sexual relations were essential to the maintenance of a long-term relationship or being sexually active was physically and psychologically beneficial to older people. Getty Creative Love and sex news: in pictures The secret to an eighty year marriage Figures from the Office of National Statistics show that 42 per cent of marriages in England and Wales end in divorce, and the average British marriage which ends in divorce lasts 11 years and six months. Helen and Maurice Kaye, now aged 101 and 102, have been married for 80 years, and say the secret is: I think its important to have patience and tolerance. You're two entirely different people who suddenly live together, which can't be easy. But if you love each other, you get over the difficulties. Love and sex news: in pictures Valentine's Day porn Pornhub saw a (slight) drop in traffic on Valentine's Day as people focused on pleasuring their partners rather than themselves. Everywhere, it is, except for London. Overall UK traffic dipped 3 per cent across the UK, with Plymouth and Oxford seeing the biggest drops of 11 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. In fact every major city spent less time watching porn bar London, the Pornhub audience for which grew by 2 per cent. Getty Love and sex news: in pictures 1 in 10 men paying for sex A tenth of British men have admitted to paying for sex, according to a new study. Professionals aged 25 to 34 who binge drink and take drugs were found to be the most likely to have used the services of prostitutes, based on findings from a study of 6,108 men. Around 11 per cent of subjects, in the study published in the Sexually Transmitted Infections journal, have ever paid for sex in their lifetime and four per cent admitted to doing so in the last five years. Getty Images Love and sex news: in pictures Questions that determine if you're in love The existence of love and its nature is something that has troubled philosophers for centuries, but a pair of scientists believe they have a set of questions that yield "clear empirical evidence" of it, or at least whether your relationship will end in divorce. They are: 'How happy are you in your marriage relative to how happy you would be if you weren't in the marriage?' and 'How do you think your spouse answered that question?' Columbia Children in England ranked lowest for satisfaction with their appearance out of 11 countries, higher only than South Korea, according to the Children's Society. Meanwhile a UNICEF report has shown child wellbeing in the UK is lower than most other European countries. Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, said: "Young people tell us time and again they want better teaching on the essential topics covered within PSHE: sex and relationships, physical and mental health, financial and political education, and bullying. "Yet despite this, PSHE is still woefully inadequate, with Ofsted finding that teaching feel short in 40 per cent of schools." The Department for Education said: "High quality sex and relationship education is a vital part of preparing young people for life in modern Britain, helping them make informed choices and stay safe. "Thats why it is compulsory in all maintained secondary schools, and we expect academies to teach it as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. Schools can also cover related topics in PSHE and to support this, we have commissioned guidance on a number of issues including promote positive body image." Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Over half a million public sector jobs would be at risk by more austerity if Britain votes to pull out of the European Union, Labour politicians and union leaders will warn on Tuesday. In a statement to The Independent and signed by over thirty Labour figures including Ed Balls, Andy Burnham and Harriet Harman say that Brexit would lead to a 40 billion black hole in the British economy that would have to be filled by tax rises or public sector cuts. They suggest that given that the Conservative Government has chosen to cut the current deficit primarily by public sector austerity this is likely to be repeated if Britain were to vote to leave. The statement comes as another poll suggests support for the Leave campaign is solidifying. An ICM poll for the Guardian found Leave now has a 53 to 47 per cent advantage once dont knows are excluded. Prof John Curtice of Strathclyde University, who analyses all the available referendum polling data noted that, after the new ICM data, the running average poll of polls would stand at 52 per cent for leave and 48 per cent for remain, the first time leave has been in such a position. The Leave lead puts pressure not just on David Cameron but also on Labour who have been accused on running a lacklustre campaign with many of the partys traditional supporters likely to back Brexit. The statement on job losses is intended to appeal to those worried about what might happen if a Conservative Government was responsible for dealing with the aftermath of Brexit. Those behind the statement point out that between 2009 and 2015, the public sector workforce fell by 969,000. Over this period the budget deficit was reduced from 103.2bn to 40.5bn. In the case of Brexit, they say, public sector tax receipts have been predicted by the Institute of Fiscal Studies to fall by another 40 billion. They suggest this could mean the number of public sector employees would have to fall by a further 525,000 in order to balance the books. Independent economic experts agree that leaving Europe could hit our economy, including the Governor of the Bank of England who warned we could go into recession, they write. Britains vital public services like the NHS rely on a strong economy and continued investment. But if we leave the shock to our economy could see a 40bn black hole in our public finances, that would hobble our public services and affect workers on the front line. Leaving Europe is a leap into the dark and is a risk for Britains public services that we cannot afford to take. Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn will today return to the campaign trail with a major speech on Europe following growing grumbling with his party that he is not be active enough battling for a remain vote. At an event at the TUC Congress House Labours Shadow Cabinet will come together to make a joint call to Labour voters ahead of the EU referendum. The General Secretaries of some of Britains major trade unions will also be present to show their support. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. Speaking at the event Mr Corbyn MP is expected to say they have just nine days to save Britains place in the EU. Today sees my shadow cabinet and the trade union movement join together, in the interests of the people of this country, to make Labours case to remain in the European Union and bring reform to strengthen workers rights, he will say. Thats why today I am issuing a call to the whole Labour movement, to persuade people to back Remain to protect jobs and rights at work. We have just nine days to go to convince Labour supporters to vote Remain. Alan Johnson MP, Chair of Labour IN, said the fears over public sector job cuts did not amount to more project fear. This is an unprecedented warning from people across the Labour movement who believe in protecting our vital public services, he said. It underlines the catastrophic impact that leaving the EU could have on those employed in our public sector and those who rely on it to get by. We already know that the economic shock of leaving Europe could push our economy into a recession and the last time our economy shrunk that fast we saw nearly a million people in the public sector lose their jobs. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A pro-Brexit campaign has sparked a furious reaction after attempting to link the killing of 49 people at a gay US nightclub and the EU referendum debate. Featuring an image of what appear to be Isis militants brandishing guns in a desert, a post on the official Twitter account of the Leave.EU campaign carried the warning: Islamist terrorism is a real threat to our way of life. Act now before we see an Orlando-style atrocity here before too long. It was immediately denounced as "shameful" by Cabinet minister Nicky Morgan, while Will Straw, the director of Britain Stronger in Europe, labelled it Trump-ist scaremongering. EU Referendum: Latest Poll It comes after 50 people including the gunman were killed and 53 were wounded when 29-year-old Omar Mir Seddique Mateen opened fire at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The Leave.EU poster was attached to a tweet which claimed: "The free movement of Kalashnikovs in Europe helps terrorists. Vote for greater security on June 23. Vote Leave." Within minutes of the post's appearance, pro-Remain Education Secretary Ms Morgan responded: This is really shameful. The Education Secretary added: "Using the tragic deaths of innocent people to make a political point is simply shameful. Leave.EU must apologise for the hurt they have caused and apologise immediately. And Vote Leave need to condemn such despicable tactics and make clear that the Orlando attack has nothing whatsoever to do with the EU debate in this country. Labours shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn said the image was shameful and cowardly. He added: It takes courage to stand by your principles and your friends when they are attacked, whether in Orlando, Paris or Brussels. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace Doing so makes us stronger and shows our resolve to stand up for our values and our way of life in the face of those who hold both in such murderous contempt. Iain Duncan Smith said that Vote Leave the official Brexit campaign had nothing to do with that organisation when asked about the controversial image posted by Leave.EU. Mr Duncan Smith, the leading Brexit campaigner and former Work and Pensions Secretary, told BBC Radio 4's The World at One programme: All I would say to you is that Europol has made the point to the Home Secretary quite recently that unless we control migration there are threats to security, that's a fact of life, but I'm not going to get involved in peculiar tweets that go out from other organisations that I don't sign up to. Asked if he condemned the comments, he replied: I think it is completely pointless to try and make something out of what is a tragedy in America. It has nothing to do with this debate at all, and I abhor anybody who tries to make capital out of that. The Independent was unable to contact Leave.EU - which has since deleted the post - for a comment. Last month Leave.EU was condemned for sharing a xenophobic and disgusting video narrated by the Donald Trump. The controversial video appeared to link immigrants with a reference to a poem about a vicious snake. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} With 10 days to go until voting, the Labour Party will relaunch its EU Referendum campaign today, and attempt to make the positive case for staying in the EU, an idea which has all but absent in the fear-based campaigns from all sides so far. Former Labour Prime Prime Minister Gordon Brown will give a speech at De Montfort University in Leicester, arguing that Labours nine million voters have most to lose from a Brexit vote, and highlighting the UKs unique position to achieve meaningful reform of the EU when it inherits the rotating presidency next year. Labours EU fightback will focus on creating jobs, cutting energy prices, clamping down on tax havens and protecting workers' rights. The partys campaign thus far has been led by Alan Johnson, who has been all but invisible, with party leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow Chancellor John McDonnell seen as Brexiters at heart reluctantly making the case for Remain in order to keep the party together. The former Prime Minister will say that voting to remain is stronger for jobs, for rights at work and maintaining a British voice on the world stage. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. But we shouldnt just be a member of the European Union. We must be the leader of the European Union. If the country votes to leave the EU, much of the blame will be put on Labour for failing to convince their own core support that it is in their interest to remain in Europe. A powerful and late intervention from Gordon Brown in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 is still seen as having made a decisive impact. But this Labour relaunch will be seen as yet more evidence that the Remain camp are becoming increasingly panicked. The backbench Labour MP Gisela Stuart, who is chairman of the Vote Leave campaign said: Labour voters have seen through the spin of the Government, which is why they are rejecting the In campaign and no amount of hastily cobbled together relaunches will change that. Sign up to the Inside Politics email for your free daily briefing on the biggest stories in UK politics Get our free Inside Politics email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Politics email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Michael Gove has said he would not mind being dismissed from the Cabinet if Britain votes to Remain in the European Union against his wishes. In a frank admission the Justice Secretary and co-convener of the Vote Leave campaign said on the BBCs Good Morning Scotland programme that the most important thing is to make a principled case for Britain leaving the EU. I don't mind if my Cabinet career is over," Mr Gove added. Last week David Cameron launched an extraordinary attack on his Cabinet colleagues including Mr Gove accusing them of telling total untruths to con the public into voting to leave the EU. The Prime Minister added that the Leave campaigners were peddling nonsense. Speaking on the BBC on Monday, Mr Gove added that the Scottish Parliament would get new powers over immigration if the UK votes to leave the EU. When asked how many people would be allowed to come to Scotland if the UK leaves the EU, Mr Gove said: "It would be for Scotland to decide. Because, under any proposals we put forward we believe that a points-based immigration policy, similar to the one that was actually put forward as a model for an independent Scotland by Nicola Sturgeon, would be the right approach. It comes as the former Cabinet minister Liam Fox said the blue-on-blue attacks will leave scars that will last well beyond the EU referendum vote on June 23. Dr Fox added that it was very unfortunate there had been attempts to question the integrity of politicians in rival camps. Just last week Amber Rudd, the Energy Secretary, used a live television debate on ITV to deliver a series of scathing comments about Leave campaigner and former London mayor Boris Johnson. Dr Fox told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: I think it's fair enough in a referendum that we will probe one another's views. We can say 'You don't understand the argument', we can say 'You've got your facts wrong'. What I think is unacceptable is for people to impugn the motives or the integrity or the honesty of their colleagues. He added: I think that has happened and I think it's very unfortunate because these scars last well beyond the referendum date itself. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. Dr Fox said the ability of the Conservative Party to pull together after the referendum would be determined by how well we treat one another during the campaign. My advice to everybody is take a deep breath, stick to the issues, don't make personal attacks," the former defence secretary said. It's not necessary and in any case it turns the voters off - they want to hear about the substance. 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. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn will today say we have reached the defining moment in the EU referendum, and that Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are in charge of the Brexit train, taking us down a track that can only lead to disaster. In a speech for the Labour In For Britain campaign at Church House in central London later today, he will accuse the Leave campaign of misleading the public with their pledge to take back control, and say that their understanding of Britains place in the world belongs in the Victorian era and not the 21st century. The Remain campaign will hope that Mr Benns intervention will resonate with undecided Labour voters, who with 10 days to go until the referendum are the most likely to make the difference between victory and defeat. We have now reached the defining moment in this referendum, he is expected to say today. The Brexit train is threatening to pull away from the station with Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove in charge, taking us down a track that can only lead to disaster. It would make us poorer and less powerful, and it would hurt the next generation as they try to prosper in tomorrows world. That's why it is so important that we make the patriotic case for remaining in the EU and keeping Britain great. The Leave side say, We can stand alone and Britain can be great again, he will say. Well, I say Britain never stopped being great and can be greater still in future. It is the Leave campaign who are doing down our country, even though we lead in the UN, Nato and the Commonwealth as well as in the EU. They seem to think that we are not capable of continuing to exert our influence in Europe. Mr Benns closing speech in the Commons debate over British air strikes against Isis in Syria was regarded as one of the great parliamentary speeches of recent years, although it set him at odds with his party leader and set in motion a shadow cabinet reshuffle that lasted several days. His late father Tony Benn, arguably the leading light on the radical left of the party, argued passionately for the UKs withdrawal from the European Economic Community at the referendum in 1975, though his son has always been more centrist in outlook. Labour has been widely criticised for its lacklustre Remain campaign. Jeremy Corbyn has made two speeches in support of the European Union, but has consistently criticised and voted against the EU in his three decades as an MP. At the last election and before, Labour lost millions of votes to Ukip, and some of its radical figures such as former employment minister Frank Field, a Leave advocate, has said the party must stand up for working people whose wages are being undercut by cheap migrant labour. How can we best advance the British national interest today and in the future? Mr Benn will say. By our participation in, and leadership of, those very organisations that we helped to create which gave and give us influence. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The "scars" from Tory infighting over the European Union referendum will last well beyond this months vote, a former Tory Conservative cabinet minister has warned. David Cameron and Boris Johnson have always insisted that the Tories would come together after the June 23 vote despite the increasingly personal attacks from both sides. But today Liam Fox, who is campaigning for a leave vote, suggested that the accusations that had been flung so far in the campaign would make that almost impossible. He added that some of the attacks made during the contest had been "unacceptable" and said it was "very unfortunate" that there had been attempts to question the "integrity" of politicians in rival camps. His comments came after Energy Secretary Amber Rudd used a live television debate to deliver a series of scathing comments about Leave campaigner Boris Johnson. Ms Rudd said last week that Mr Johnson was only interested in furthering his leadership ambitions, adding that "he is the life and soul of the party but he is not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening". What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. Dr Fox told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "I think it's fair enough in a referendum that we will probe one another's views. We can say 'You don't understand the argument', we can say 'You've got your facts wrong'. "What I think is unacceptable is for people to impugn the motives or the integrity or the honesty of their colleagues." He added: "I think that has happened and I think it's very unfortunate because these scars last well beyond the referendum date itself." Dr Fox said the ability of the Conservative Party to pull together after the referendum would be determined by "how well we treat one another" during the campaign. "My advice to everybody is take a deep breath, stick to the issues, don't make personal attacks," the former defence secretary said. "It's not necessary and in any case it turns the voters off - they want to hear about the substance." The EU referendum debate has so far been characterised by bias, distortion and exaggeration. So until 23 June we were running a series of question and answer features that explain the most important issues in a detailed, dispassionate way to help inform your decision. What is Brexit and why are we having an EU referendum? Will we gain or lose rights by leaving the European Union? What will happen to immigration if there's Brexit? Will Brexit make the UK more or less safe? Will the UK benefit from being released from EU laws? Will leaving the EU save taxpayers money and mean more money for the NHS? What will Brexit do to UK trade? How Brexit will affect British tourism What will Brexit mean for British tourists booking holidays in the EU? Will Brexit help or damage the environment? Will Brexit mean that Europeans have to leave the UK? What will Brexit mean for British expats? Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It was possibly seeing two men kissing in Miami that set him off in the first place, or so the shooters father has said. It maddened him also that he was with his three-year-old son at the time. Men kissing in public. That this should not be a shocking notion any more, at least to most of us, is testament to the amazing - and amazingly swift - progress we have made eliminating prejudice against gay, lesbian and transgender people. My boyfriend is still coy about it, but hes old school. True, its mostly younger gays in places like New York or London, who dont think twice about behaving in public just like straight people do; holding hands, nuzzling. All the battles fought since Stonewall by the LGBT community in America were for this moment to arrive: where we could begin truly to think there is nothing special about us. Not special bad or special good, just human. This weekend our Hudson Valley town where we spend weekends, will be celebrating Pride. We will go, enjoy the now mostly familiar parade of friends and chit-chat in the beer tent by the river. But weve heard the rumours: that after six successive years, our pride nearly didnt happen. Gay marriage is now the law of the land; fatigue, even complacency, has crept in. Some are calling Orlando attack especially egregious because it is Gay Pride month in the US. I doubt the shooter knew that. It only matters in the sense that the killing of so many reminds us that, no, actually our battle is not done. Even at our little event on Saturday, the urgency will be back. In the first hours since the massacre, the focus of most political reaction and much of the media coverage in the US was on the killers declaration by telephone just beforehand that he was doing it in the name of Jihad. ISIS Vs US, was the screaming front page of the New York Post. It was a terrorism story. Thousands flocked to London's Old Compton Street to remember the victims of Orlando (Kishani Widyaratna) Lets be clear, this is not just the worst single mass shooting in American history, it is also the worst attack, by far, against the countrys gay community. It joins a litany that extends back to the 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk, the San Fransisco city supervisor - and first openly gay elected official in the US - and the death of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, in1998 after being beaten and tortured. By Monday, officials and political leaders were taking more care, to at least take note of the victims here. There have been so many mass shootings - it is something that has become mind-numbingly familiar, said Hillary Clinton in an eloquent address in Cleveland - but when has one minority been so coldly targeted for slaughter as happened in Orlando on Sunday? The killer had targeted LGBT Americans out of hatred and bigotry, Ms Clinton said. To mourning gays and lesbians she added: You have millions of allies who will always have your back, and I am one of them. From Stonewall to Laramie and now Orlando, we have seen too many examples of how the struggle to live feely and openly and without fear has been met by violence. But rarely violence on a such a scale as this, and so her words will be received gratefully. I dont see Donald Trump attempting to match them, he has been focused on self-congratulation. And gays across America will be surely touched by the thousands who poured onto Old Compton Street in London to show their love and support. Just about all of my gay friends have spent nights in clubs just like Pulse, fighting the decibels to try to hold conversations, even its just ordering another vodka and tonic - its hard flirting effectively when you're competing with Cher - and eyeing the crowd, prospecting, when you were single, for some fun or romance. In those days for certain, and still today for many, these were pilgrimages not just to places of music and mild madness but to places where we felt truly safe, amongst our own, amidst our tribe. There is so much pain today. Its hard to stop your brain and really try to imagine what everyone who was in Pulse witnessed. Those still alive. I almost cant do it. I am guessing you cant either. But part of the pain is this: after coming so far we are jolted so far back again. How long will it be before gays, lesbian and trans people can start going out again and not feel a small clench of fear and worry that the place they used to feel safest in may not be safe at all? How long before gay people kissing in public wont have Orlando and this killer picking at their synapses? What matters, though, is that we don't allow oursevles to be cowed. Which means that they next time my boyfriend demurs and tries to pass me off with a peck on the cheek at the airport or anywhere else, I wont let him get away with it. We should all kiss in public. Otherwise the monster in Orlando wins. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Hungarian circus performer best known for his portrayal of the TV alien Alf passed away in a Los Angeles Hospital. Recommended Read more Hockey legend Gordie Howe dies at 88 Michu Meszaros, 76, was found unresponsive in his restroom last week by his manager Dennis Varga, who rushed him to the hospital. Meszaros was in a coma until his Monday death. Mr Varga told TMZ that Meszaros had suffered significant health problems since he had a stroke in 2008. Measuring a mere 33 inches, Meszaros joined the Hungarian circus as the smallest man on Earth while a teen. He later joined the Ringling Bros Barnum & Bailey Circus in the 1970s. Meszaros cast as the full-body portrayal of Alf from 1986 to 1990. He is credited for 11 episodes. He starred in two Pepsi commercials with Michael Jackson, and appeared in Hollywood films such as Big Top Pee-Wee and Warlock 2: Armageddon. Michael Jackson with Meszaros visiting Hungarian Parliament (Rex) Alf aired on NBC for four seasons, and told the story of a spunky extraterrestrial from the planet Melmac who lived with suburban American family, the Tanners. Alf continuously chased around the family cat since felines were the equivalent of cattle on his home planet. But he became too endeared with the animal to eat it for lunch. Millennials are likely to remember Alf not during its short run on television, but rather through various pop culture references. Meszaros was one of four people to perform Alf. Primary Alf duties - including voice - were the responsibility of creator and puppeteer Paul Fusco. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are clashing again as they offer almost diametrically opposed perspectives on Sundays mass horror in Orlando and how America should respond to it. While Mr Trump pressed on with demands for more intrusive monitoring and surveillance of the Islamic community in the US and of mosques, Ms Clinton warned against pitting one group of Americans against another and taking steps that might splinter the country along religious lines. We cannot demonise, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion. That is just dangerous, Ms Clinton said on the MSNBC network on Monday, while acknowledging nonetheless that she supported stronger measures to prevent so-called lone wolf attacks and more internet monitoring. While there is evidence the shooter, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen, may have been motivated as much by hatred of homosexuals as by faith or ideology, the political conversation in America has so far been mostly in the context of Isis and domestic terrorism. Within hours of each other, the two candidates delivered dueling speeches in the tragedy's aftermath. While Ms Clinton, speaking in Cleveland, Ohio, did not mention her likely general election opponent by name, Mr Trump repeatedly named and also blamed her for the Orlando horror. And it what appared to be a variation on his previous call for a ban on all Muslim immigrants entering teh US, he said as president he would suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism. He added: We have no choice. Ms Clinton used her speech in part to reach out to the gay community saying that it had millions of allies watching to protect it and she was among them. But she also offered a tough pledge not just to contain Isis but to destroy it if she becomes president. The Orlando terrorist may be dead, but the virus that poisoned his mind remains very strong, and we must attack it, she said. In an important moment, Ms Clinton directly chastised three allies of the US in the Middle East - Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait - for allowing its citizens to fund mosques and schools that train jihadists. And she implored Americans to come together in the face of such sadness and fear. Americans from all walks of life rallied together with a sense of common purpose on Sept 12. ... We had each others' backs. We did not attack each other, we worked with each other to protect our country and rebuild our city, she declared said. It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, the spirit of 9/12, let's keep looking for the best within our country, the best within each of us." Her stint as Secretary of States makes Clinton step cautiously on Islam and terror. Rex (REX Features) Mr Trump, the likely Republican nominee, has been the far less cautious of the two presidential candidates, even saying on Twitter on Sunday that he was appreciating all the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, a remark that drew strong rebukes from many of his critics. The candidate, who in the past has advocated killing family members of terrorists, insisted on Monday that the US intelligence community should be doing more intense domestic surveillance. We have to look at the mosques ... and we have to look at the community, he told CNN. And believe me, the community knows the people that have the potential to blow up. The contrasting styles of the candidates will make for a stark choice for American voters at the November general election. While one emphasises caution and empathy, the other remains visceral and emphatic, accusing Mr Obama of pussy-footing where, in his view, a sledge-hammer is required. We cant afford to be politically correct anymore, Mr Trump said on Sunday. In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather at a vigil in solidarity for the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, at Taylor Square in Sydney EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Brett Morian, from Daytona Beach, hugs an attendee during the candlelight vigil at Ember in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People and members of the gay community holding the peace rainbow flag gather for a vigil near the Beaubourg art center in downtown Paris AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man places a hand print on a makeshift memorial in a parking lot near the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People attend a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People place candles by a statue of Abraham Lincoln during a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Tel-Aviv city hall lit up with rainbow flag colors in solidarity with Florida's shooting attack victims AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Juan Mantilla (L) stands with his partner during a vigil in memory of the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, in Miami Beach AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple shares a kiss as they embrace each other under a pride flag while residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area gather to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Austin Ellis, a member of Metropolitan Community Church, carries a cross with a sign in memory of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting as he marches in the 2016 Gay Pride Parade in Philadelphia Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A rainbow flag flies at half mast on the Space Needle in Seattle, in honor of the victims of the nightclub shooting in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People at the LA Pride event in West Hollywood, write signs and light candles showing solidarity with victims of the mass killings in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida people hug outside the Stonewall Inn near a vigil for the victims in New York AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A woman offers free hugs in Washington, in reaction to the mass shootings at a gay club in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A U.S. flag is flown at half staff at the White House after the Orlando mass shooting Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays flowers on a rainbow flag in front of the embassy of the United States in Madrid, to pay tribute to the victims of the shooting of Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Michael Fowler Centre is lit in rainbow colours by the city council during a candle lit vigil across the road at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Participants hold candles during a vigil at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Vixon Noir (R) consoles Trashina Cann, both of San Francisco, during a vigil at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro district of San Francisco AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather in the Castro District for a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting at a gay nightclub, in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple joins residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Mourners pay tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting during a memorial service in San Diego AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Orlando Eye observation wheel lights up in rainbow colors, to remember the people killed and injured in the Pulse nightclub shooting AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People sit by the water with candles during a vigil in a park following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Members of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence carry a sign of remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Former Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra and Shawn Lang of Hartford embrace after Segarra spoke, during a vigil organized by the state's Muslim and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, on the steps of the state Capitol building in reaction to the mass shooting in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The City Hall Building is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims One World Trade Center is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People hold a vigil after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at a gay nightclub in Orlando, in front of the White House in Washington REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays down 50 roses to honor each victim of the gay Orlando night club shooting as people gather outside of the Stonewall Inn as a vigil is held following the massacre Getty Images Mr Trump has been consistent in berating President Obama for failing roundly to utter the phrase radical Islamic terrorism. He even said on Sunday he should step down from the presidency for it. He pursued the point on Monday. There are a lot of people that think that maybe (Obama) doesn't want to get the terror threat facing the country, he told the NBC Today Show. The willingness of Mr Trump to seek political advantage from national tragedy also outstrips anything seen before. I twas after the Paris attacks last November that he stunned America, including many in his own party, by calling for the ban on Muslim immigration. But it was a position that proved extremely popular with the primary Republican voters who eventually handed him the nomination. Whenever there's a tragedy, everything goes up, my numbers go way up because we have no strength in this country. We have weak, sad politicians, Mr Trump averred at the time. On the Democratic side, both Ms Clinton and President Obama, have already taken the Orlando shooting as another platform to plea for stronger gun control in America. Mr Trump, by contrast, has said of past tragedies, including the mass shooting in San Bernardino in California, that they wouldn't have happened if more ordinary citizens carried arms. It's important that we stop the terrorists from getting the tools they need to carry out the attacks, and that is especially true when it comes to assault weapons like those used in Orlando and San Bernardino, California, Ms Clinton said in Cleveland, bringing many in the audience to their feet. The attacks on Mr Obama for declining to speak directly about radical Islamic terrorism, has been red meat on the campaign trail for Mr Trumps supporters. Ms Clinton, however, sought to deflect the issue as essentially a distraction. From my perspective, it matters what we do more than what we say, she told CNN. It mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him. I have clearly said we - whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} One of the earliest promises made by President Barack Obama when he first entered the White House in 2008 may never come to fruition. The administration will no longer pursue the use of executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba. A source close to the deliberations told Reuters that administration officials decided it would not be a viable strategy for the President to use his executive privilege to carry out the order. It was just deemed too difficult to get through all of the hurdles that they would need to get through, the source said, and the level of support they were likely to receive on it was thought to be too low to generate such controversy, particularly at a sensitive [time] in an election cycle. With executive action off the table, then, Mr Obama would have to get full Congressional approval to close the prison, which was established after the 11 September attacks to detain suspected terrorists. The prison has been the focus of significant criticism as it became a symbol of the US War on Terror, indefinite detainment without charges, and torture. USA: 'Close Guantanamo' - Protests hit the White House, Washington D.C. Putting the decision in the Congress hands would lessen the chances of closure. Republicans in Congress oppose the motion to bring the remaining 80 prisoners to maximum security prisons in the US - while also opposing the transfer of prisoners to prisons in other countries, citing concerns of releasing prisoners to conduct militant extremist activity. Mr Obama has previously called the military installation a recruiting ground for terrorist groups. Thirty of the 80 remaining prisoners have been approved for transfer to different countries; 10 are currently being prosecuted in military commissions. Remaining prisoners, Reuters says, have been deemed too dangerous for release. The prison had held 800 prisoners at its peak, but a strategy of the Obama administration had been to lower the number of detainees to make the cost of running the facility on a day-to-day basis unsustainable. The cost of running Guantanamo reportedly tallied $445m (313m) during the 2015 fiscal year - $5.5m per each of the 80 prisoners. The administration's goal is to work with Congress to find a solution to close Guantanamo, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, Myles Caggins, said, adding that the prison has made substantial progress in transferring prisoners to other countries. But the Obama administration has yet to publicly acknowledge the ruling out of an executive order. If Congress ... would finally say no to the president's plan and the executive order option wasn't on the table, there was a concern that the wheels could grind to a halt, the source familiar with White House talks said. But with a Congress that is not champing at the bit to approve any of the presidents proposals, the likelihood of Mr Obama fulfilling one of his remaining 2008 pledges seems less than promising. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} At the mosque frequented by Omar Mateen, a community gathered to offer prayers. There were prayers to mark the breaking of the Ramadan fast and others too, for those killed in Orlando by a man they knew, albeit not well. He used to come here and pray in the night time, then he would leave. He would come with his five-year-old son, said Shafiq Rehman, the imam at the Islamic Centre of Fort Pierce. The last night he came was on Friday night. The regulars at the mosque, the oldest of its kind in the area, were on Sunday trying to make sense of the act of violence perpetrated by the 29-year-old just hours earlier, having apparently become inspired to act by Isis. They knelt to pray in a large, airy room, beneath slowly turning fans, many of them seemingly stunned. The suspect's father says his son reacted angrily to seeing gay men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago (Myspace) They had seen no evidence of any such radicalism in the man who was born in New York and whose parents were originally from Afghanistan, they said. There had been no visits to Saudi Arabia or the Gulf. And they were equally adamant that his actions were prohibited by Islam. The koran, they said, spoke against the taking of innocent lives. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace Akhtar Kureshi, 63, originally from Karachi in Pakistan, said he had been at the mosque on Saturday night with Mateens father, a peaceful man and from a good family. He had learned of the news early on Sunday and struggled to believe that the killings at the Pulse nightclub had been carried out by a member of the mosque. Orlando shooting: City feels 'extremely unsafe' says neighbour of shooter He used to come here, Friday night prayers, not five times a day, said Mr Kureshi, who was among the members of the mosque who invited members of the media to share their meal on Sunday night. and then something like this happens. Reports said that Mateen was divorced from his wife seven years ago. The woman, Sitory Yusify, told the Washington Post that he had beaten her. She said she had met him online eight years ago and moved to Florida to marry him. He was not a stable person, she said. At Mateen's mosque, dozens of regulars prayed on Sunday night (Reuters) Mateen had worked with private security group G4S Secure Solutions as a private security officer. His father, Mir Seddique, told reporters he believed his son had been angered after seeing two men kissing in Miami. This has nothing to do with religion, he said. Abdulrauf Khan, an official with a the Florida chapter of a Muslim charity, said that members of the community frequently contacted the authorities if they believed that someone had become radicalised. Its our country, we live here, we have to keep it safe, said Mr Khan. But if anyone wanted to do something, we would not know. Mateen had lived about five miles away from the mosque in an apartment building set in a quiet neighbourhood of this coastal town, two hours from Orlando. The building had been raided by the police earlier in the day, as had his fathers home, and officials were keeping people back. It appeared his flat looked out on to a pink bougainvillea. Police sealed off access to Mateen's home in Fort Pierce (AP) A woman who gave her name as Lisa said she had seen Mateen occasionally but that she had never spoken to him. The woman, who had previously served in the military police, said she had recognised his face when it was shown on the television news. I think I glanced at him. When I saw him on TV he looked familiar, she said. Deandre Hill, 15, said the neighborhood where Mateen had lived was quiet and peaceful, chilled. I dont know what set him off. He went all the way to Orlando to kill those people for no reason, he said. Gary Coddington, a retired cement worker, said he had returned from holiday in Mexico to discover that the property a street from his house was now the focus of an investigation into the worst mass shooting in modern US history. He said he did not know Mateen, but assumed that he had seen him drive past. As with everyone he said he could not understand what had pushed him to act. He is crazy. This is not about guns, he said. God made all the people in the world. He made the gays. But he also made this guy. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Omar Mateen, the man responsible for the mass shooting that left at least 49 people dead and more than 50 injured at Orlandos Pulse gay nightclub, was a 29-year-old US citizen. Born in New York to Afghan immigrant parents and brought up in Florida, he lived at an apartment in Fort Pierce, more than 100 miles from the scene of the shooting. Mateen was married with a three-year-old son. A keen bodybuilder, he had worked for the global security firm G4S since 2007, according to the company, whose spokesman said he was working at a retirement home before the attack. He was subject to background checks in 2007 and again in 2013, and was required to carry a firearm on the job. Recommended Read more Distortions over Isis and Orlando play into the hands of the jihadists Law enforcement officials said he had two firearms licences, both of which were set to expire next year. He had purchased a pair of guns in the days leading up to the rampage, during which he was armed with an AR-15-style semi-automatic assault rifle and a Glock 17 handgun. Mateen was previously married to another woman, Sitora Yusify, but the couple divorced in 2011. Now living in Colorado, Ms Yusify told reporters that she had met Mateen online and moved to Florida to marry him in 2009. She fled after a mere four months of marriage, she said, explaining that Mateen was violent and mentally unstable and had a history of steroid use. Mateen was religious, Ms Yusify said, but did not appear to have been radicalised. He attended evening prayers at a Fort Pierce mosque three to four times each week, where other regulars told The Independent he had exhibited no signs of being violent. He reportedly travelled to Saudi Arabia in 2011 and 2012 on the annual hajj pilgrimage. Several of his former classmates at Martin County High School in Florida claimed to the Washington Post that Mateen had started jumping up-and-down cheering in their classroom as the 9/11 attacks unfolded in 2001. The gunmans father, Seddique Mateen, described him as a good son and an educated son and insisted the Orlando attack had nothing to do with religion. Instead, he suggested, Mateen had recently been enraged by seeing two men kissing in Miami. Seddique Mateen, a life insurance salesman, regularly uploads rambling video monologues about Afghan politics, in which he has spoken favourably of the Taliban. In a new video posted on Monday, he said his family was saddened by the tragic attack, suggesting it was up to God to enact "punishment" for homosexuality. Law enforcement officials said that Mateen called 911 during his rampage and pledged allegiance to Isis, which has subsequently claimed responsibility for the attack, despite the lack of any apparent links between the gunman and the terror group. The massacre ended when Mateen was shot and killed by police. Mateen had no criminal record, but was previously on the FBIs radar as part of two separate probes: once in 2013, when co-workers reported that he had made inflammatory remarks, and again in 2014 when another Fort Pierce man travelled to Syria to become a suicide bomber. Investigators interviewed Mateen three times but determined that he was not a threat. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} There were scores of people lining up to give blood and Azmia Racchuito was adamant that she be among then. It was not that she felt she was a spokesperson for all Muslims - indeed, she scoffed at the suggestion - but she was also determined not to hide. She said her mother had begged her not to wear her hijab, or scarf, before leaving the house but that she had refused. If she had given into fear, she believed the "terrorists would win". I think it is important for Muslims to take a stand. This is our community too, she said, standing outside a clinic close to the Pulse nightclub in central Orlando. Im here to say that I cannot let Donald Trump have his view of America. Ms Racchuito, 30, who edits a website for Muslim women, was among hundreds or even thousands of people who responded to the attack on a popular gay club in Orlando by answering a call to give blood. Many had to wait five or six hours to donate, and yet they waited in line, even when officials said they had met their needs. The heat was merciless. Were appalled that this has happened. This is the month of Ramadan, said Tatiana Merchant, 24, who was also at the OneBlood clinic to show her support to those killed and injured. Muslims stand for peace. Islam is about showing support. Were showing our solidarity with the community. The non-profit organisation had asked for donations in the immediate aftermath of the attack, and officials said the response from members of the community had been nothing less than stunning. Hundreds answered the call to give blood (AP) I would describe this as surreal, said spokesman Pat Michaels. Earlier today after the shooting, there was a call for blood or plasma. Word got out and people have been coming to our clinics across Orlando and Florida. He said the organisation had met its needs and was now urging people to make an appointment to donate if they still wished to help. Kevin Harrell, a DJ, had been waiting for around six hours. He was determined to stay as long as it took. As a member of the nightlife industry, he said he felt the attack closely. It seemed like the least we could do, he said of his donating of blood. We cannot allow an attack on our way of life. Andrew Bacchus, who was African American, said that as a member of a minority that had long been persecuted, he felt obliged to respond to an attack on the LGBT community. He said it was time for the US to seriously confront the issue of gun control and no longer make excuses. How can you not do something, he said. You have to change the views of people. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The national executive director of the largest advocacy and civil rights group for American Muslims has spoken against the mass shooting in Orlando by a man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Nihad Awad from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said to reporters that the shooting was a hate crime, plain and simple. CAIR has called for the Muslim community to donate blood in the aftermath of the shooting as more than 50 people were injured, many of whom are in a critical condition. The death toll of the shooting was 49 people, and has been named the worst atrocity since the 9/11 attacks. Recommended Read more Muslims join hundreds in Florida who answer call to donate blood We condemn it in the strongest possible terms, said Mr Awad. "It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims. I have a word for Isis and their supporters. How would you stand before God and answer for your crimes against innocent people - thousands of innocent people - Muslims, Christians and other minorities?" You do not speak for us. You do not represent us. You are an aberration, he said. Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old who was born in New York to Afghan parents, took two weapons which he had purchased legally to the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Saturday evening. He opened fire on the club-goers, and called 911 from the bathroom during the attack, pledging allegiance to Isis. They dont speak for our faith, said Mr Awad. "They never belonged to our beautiful faith. They claim to, but the 1.7 billion people are united in rejecting their extremism, their interpretation and their acts and senseless violence. Rizwan Jaka, chairman of the board of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, a large mosque in Washington DC, as well as board member of the Islamic Society of North America, said the attack should not be used to vilify or stereotype peaceful, law-abiding Muslims in America. We were outraged by this horrific shooting, he said. Mateen, who was shot dead by police after the attack, was born to Afghan parents. Both the president and former president of Afghanistan spoke to the press on Sunday, strongly condemning the attacks. We suffer this daily, too, said former president Hamid Karzai, referring to terrorist attacks by Isis. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The father of the gunman in the Orlando nightclub shooting said early Tuesday his son shouldnt have carried out the massacre because "God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. In a video posted to Facebook shortly after midnight, Seddique Mateen, who lives in Florida, called the shooting "tragic" but said his son, Omar Mateen, was "a good son and an educated son". He had a child and a wife, and was very dignified, meaning he had respect for his parents," Seddique Mateen wrote, standing in front of the flag of his apparent birthplace, Afghanistan. "I dont know what caused him to shoot last night." US Muslim leader addresses Isis after Orlando shooting - 'You do not represent us. You are an aberration Seddique Mateen said his son had access to a pistol through his employer. The Washington Post and other media outlets reported Sunday that Omar Mateen worked as a security guard for G4S, a global security and contracting company. In his video, Seddique Mateen repeatedly said he was "saddened" by the massacre, adding he had a "knot in his heart" since learning his son went to a gay club of men and women and killed 50 of them. "I am deeply saddened and announce this to the people of America, said Seddique Mateen, noting his son carried out the attack during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Seddique Mateen, speaking in Dari, concluded the video by expressing disbelief that his son took it upon himself to seek retribution against the gay community. "God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality," he said. "This, is not for the servants" of God. In Afghanistan, officials were still trying to piece together the familys background. In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather at a vigil in solidarity for the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, at Taylor Square in Sydney EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Brett Morian, from Daytona Beach, hugs an attendee during the candlelight vigil at Ember in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People and members of the gay community holding the peace rainbow flag gather for a vigil near the Beaubourg art center in downtown Paris AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man places a hand print on a makeshift memorial in a parking lot near the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People attend a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People place candles by a statue of Abraham Lincoln during a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Tel-Aviv city hall lit up with rainbow flag colors in solidarity with Florida's shooting attack victims AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Juan Mantilla (L) stands with his partner during a vigil in memory of the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, in Miami Beach AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple shares a kiss as they embrace each other under a pride flag while residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area gather to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Austin Ellis, a member of Metropolitan Community Church, carries a cross with a sign in memory of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting as he marches in the 2016 Gay Pride Parade in Philadelphia Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A rainbow flag flies at half mast on the Space Needle in Seattle, in honor of the victims of the nightclub shooting in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People at the LA Pride event in West Hollywood, write signs and light candles showing solidarity with victims of the mass killings in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida people hug outside the Stonewall Inn near a vigil for the victims in New York AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A woman offers free hugs in Washington, in reaction to the mass shootings at a gay club in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A U.S. flag is flown at half staff at the White House after the Orlando mass shooting Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays flowers on a rainbow flag in front of the embassy of the United States in Madrid, to pay tribute to the victims of the shooting of Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Michael Fowler Centre is lit in rainbow colours by the city council during a candle lit vigil across the road at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Participants hold candles during a vigil at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Vixon Noir (R) consoles Trashina Cann, both of San Francisco, during a vigil at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro district of San Francisco AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather in the Castro District for a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting at a gay nightclub, in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple joins residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Mourners pay tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting during a memorial service in San Diego AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Orlando Eye observation wheel lights up in rainbow colors, to remember the people killed and injured in the Pulse nightclub shooting AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People sit by the water with candles during a vigil in a park following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Members of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence carry a sign of remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Former Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra and Shawn Lang of Hartford embrace after Segarra spoke, during a vigil organized by the state's Muslim and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, on the steps of the state Capitol building in reaction to the mass shooting in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The City Hall Building is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims One World Trade Center is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People hold a vigil after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at a gay nightclub in Orlando, in front of the White House in Washington REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays down 50 roses to honor each victim of the gay Orlando night club shooting as people gather outside of the Stonewall Inn as a vigil is held following the massacre Getty Images Afghan government officials said they did not know when Seddique Mateen left the country, but noted millions of Afghans fled after it was invaded by the former Soviet Union in 1979. Omar Mateen, 29, was born in New York but moved with his family to Florida as a child. But Seddique Mateen appeared to maintain a strong affiliation to Afghanistan, hosting a television show broadcast from California that weighed in on the countrys political affairs. He also filmed dozens of sparsely viewed, rambling YouTube videos portraying himself as an important Afghan analyst and leader. While his travel history remains unknown, Seddique Mateen apparently traveled back to Afghanistan at least occasionally. In 2014, during Afghanistans presidential campaign, he secured an inteview with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani filmed in Kabul. Mohammad Haroon Chakhansuri, Ghanis spokesman, said the Afghani president does not know Seddique Mateen. The interview was just one of hundreds that took place during his campaign, Chakhansuri said. His campaign media team had screened the outlet, and responded to the request, said Chakhansuri, referring to the station that aired Mateens television program, Payam-e-Afghan. At the time of the interview, almost two and a half years ago, no indication of any of this tragedy could be seen in the father of this perpetrator. Chakhansuri said Ghani is also outraged by Seddique Mateens controversial views. In one YouTube video, Mateen expresses gratitude toward the Afghan Taliban, while denouncing the Pakistani government. "Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in [the] Taliban movement and national Afghan Taliban are rising up, he said. Inshallah the Durand Line issue will be solved soon. The "Durand Line issue is a historically significant one, particularly for members of the Pashtun ethnic group, whose homeland straddles the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Durand Line is that border. It is not clear whether the Mateens are Pashtun. The Afghan Taliban is mostly made up of Pashtuns. The line was drawn as a demarcation of British and Afghan spheres of influence in 1893. The British controlled most of subcontinental Asia at the time, though some parts, including what is now Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, were only loosely held. The line was inherited as a border by Pakistan after its independence. Since it splits the Pashtun population politically, it is seen as a cause for their marginalization. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in most of eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Just hours before the Orlando shooting, Seddique Mateen posted a video on a Facebook page called Provisional Government of Afghanistan Seddique Mateen. In it, he seems to be pretending to be Afghanistans president, and orders the arrest of an array of Afghan political figures. "I order national army, national police and intelligence department to immediately imprison Karzai, Ashraf Ghani, Zalmay Khalilzad, Atmar, and Sayyaf. They are against our countrymen, and against our homeland, he says, while dressed in army fatigues. The most recent video on Mateens YouTube channel shows him declaring his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. The timing of the video is strange, as it came a year after presidential elections were held in Afghanistan. Mateen appears incoherent at times in the video, and he jumps abruptly from topic to topic. His use of Dari, instead of Pashto, the language of Pashtuns, was another strange element of his presentation, given that he is discussing issues of Pashtun nationalism. Sayed Salahuddin and Mohammad Sharf contributed to this report. Copyright: Washington Post Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} New York Citys LGBT community gathered in front of the historic Stonewall Inn to collectively mourn the deaths of at least 50 people at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Recommended Read more New York Police Department heightens security near LGBT landmarks We come today because we want to value the people who were lost in orlando, Queer Nation organiser Ken Kidd, 58, yelled to the crowd of hundreds packed along Christopher Street in the West Village. We come today for the past. We come today for the present. And we come today because we are a community that will never be silent again! The Stonewall Inn became the national symbol of LGBT rights in 1969 after law enforcement raided the premises, and gay and trans residents fought back against the routine harassment, sparking the Stonewall Riots. President Barack Obama named the tavern a national monument in May, the first official US landmark to honour LGBT rights. On Sunday, law enforcement flanked the historic street, assault weapons in hand, as the city remained on high alert. Mourners exhibited pride, anger, and even disbelief that they stood in the face of yet another tragedy in the LGBT community - amid an ever-growing hostlie political environment across multiple US states with recent anti-transgender restroom legislation. The shooting did not occur in a vacuum, one speaker exclaimed. The crowd repeated chants of No hate and Orlando, we got your back. Many cried for the loss of life in the Florida attack. All called for the continued fight for equality and, importantly, safety. New York's LGBT community chants "No hate" outside historic Stonewall Inn Heather Osterman vigil attended the vigil with her partner, Mitch Davis, and two small children. Mr Davis son Owen, 5, rested on his fathers shoulders repeating the no hate chant to the cheers of surrounding supporters. Both Mr Davis and Ms Osterman believed while they lived life rather comfortably straight-passing couple, it was important to remember the struggle the community-at-large had to endure to reach a certain point of progress. I come out here as a way to be like, Hey my heart is cracking, but what can I do to heal it and remember that this fight is important and will go on, Ms Osterman, 43, told The Independent. It started before we were here and will go on after us. Heather Osterman and Mitch Davis (Feliks Garcia) Were a queer family and we feel that we needed to experience with our family, 44-year old Mr Davis, who is transgender, added. [Our son] really believes in good guys triumphing over bad guys. The hard part is trying to explain to him not that he wont get hurt by a bad guy, that its not here and he doesnt have to worry - but that it is something that is real and isnt necessarily something that cant affect him. For Nico Lang, a New York-based freelance writer, the shooting was a stark reminder of how much work still needs to be done for LGBT equality throughout the US. Orlando was a reminder of the reality of a lot of the country when it comes to how queer people live, he said. I think that sometimes [New Yorkers] get a skewed view of what life is really like for people and the hardships that people face everyday. New Yorkers mourn the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting outside Stonewall Inn. (Justin Carissimo) And this violence - especially as it is directed toward brown people, trans women, and toward a lot of the marginalised parts of our community that were really not recognising on the level that we should - was a reminder of all the work that we need to do. Jennicet Eva Gutierrez, an organiser for Familia Trans Queer Liberation Movement, released a statement via Facebook that addressed the threat faced by the transgender population in the US. If the #PulseOrlando tragedy does not raise the consciousness of a nation and the world about the violence the LGBTQ community faces, especially transgender women of colour, nothing will, she wrote. Enough is enough. Shortly after 2 am Sunday morning, 29-year-old Omar Mateen entered the Pulse nightclub during its Latin Night party - the poster for which featured trans female dancers. Mateen opened fire killing at least 50 and wounding 53 more, making his attack the largest mass shooting in US history. It is the third US high profile mass shooting in the past year to specifically target a marginalised community - preceded by the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood attack and the killings at the Emanual AME historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina. An official candlelight vigil is scheduled to take place at the Stonewall Inn Monday evening, and will feature clergy and elected officials. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} It has been described as a weapon designed to kill people with maximum ease and efficiency. It was used by the gunman who shot dead 26 children and adults in Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, and it was used by Omar Mateen when he attacked an Orlando nightclub and left a nation once again stunned and reeling. Gun control campaigners say there is no legitimate civilian use for the AR-15 semi-automatic weapon; its size and firepower mean it is a liability for home defence. And yet, say activists, it is repeatedly the weapon of choice for those who embark on deadly attacks on civilians. Joshua Koskoff, a lawyer representing the families of those killed and injured in December 2012 at the Connecticut primary school, said in a statement on Sunday: This mornings massacre of innocent civilians in Orlando is more horrific evidence of the unique lethality of the AR-15. It is no wonder that this weapon was chosen by todays shooter, as it has been by so many before him, and as it undoubtedly will be again. (EPA) He added: It was designed for the United States military to do to enemies of war exactly what it did this morning: kill mass numbers of people with maximum efficiency and ease. Earlier this year, some of the families in Sandy Hook secured a breakthrough when a judge gave them permission to sue Remington Arms Company, the maker of the AR-15. The company had argued it was protected against such lawsuits by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. However, in a decision that could have huge ramifications in a country where up to 10,000 people a year lose their lives to gun violence, the judge said the federal laws did not override the legal sufficiency of the claims by the Sandy Hook families that the gun used by Adam Lanza should never have been made available for sale to civilians. Mr Koskoff, who also secured permission to sue the distributor of the weapon and the local shop that sold it to Lanzas mother, added of the rifle: It is the gold standard for killing the enemy in battle, just as it has become the gold standard for mass murder of innocent civilians. The gun industry pretends the civilian AR-15 is vastly different than the military version, because it does not have select fire. (Getty Images) This is a charade: the industry knows that the weapon is most lethal in semi-automatic one-shot, one-kill mode, yet these companies continue to sell it to civilians, abandoning reason in exchange for profit. Officials in Florida revealed that Mateen, a divorced security guard, had purchased both an AR-15 and a handgun legally in recent days. A third gun was found in his car. Although he had been investigated by police in the past for possible links to Islamic extremism, he had been cleared. As a result, there was no prohibition on him purchasing the weapons. In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Show all 44 1 /44 In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Frank Escalante AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Conde AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Brenda Lee Marquez McCool In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Joel Rayon Paniagua AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jerald Arthur Wright AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Paul Terrell Henry AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Shane Evan Tomlinson AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Antonio Davon Brown AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jason Benjamin Josaphat AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Enrique L. Rios, Jr. AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Darryl Roman Burt AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Cory James Connell REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Tevin Eugene Crosby AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jonathan Antonio Camuy-Vega AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Leroy Valentin Fernandez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Andrew Leinonen AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Angel L. Candelario-Padro AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Simon Adrian Carrillo-Fernande AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Javier Jorge-Reyes AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Gilberto Ramon Silva-Menendez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan P. Rivera-Velazquez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Miguel Angel Honorato AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jean Carlos Mendez Perez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Mercedez Marisol Flores REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Luis Laureano Disla REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Franky Jimmy De Jesus Velazquez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Oscar A. Aracena-Montero REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Martin Benitez Torres REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Stanley Almodovar Facebook/Stanley Manolo Almodovar III In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eddie Justice Faebook/ Eddie Justice In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Vielma Twitter/@jk_rowling In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera Facebook/ Eric Rivera In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan Ramon Guerrero Facebook/ Juan Ramon Guerrero In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz Facebook/ Peter Gonzalez Cruz In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Amanda Alvear Facebook/ Amanda Alvear In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Disla Facebook/ Anthony Disla In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Edward Sotomayor Twitter/@ryanraiche In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo Facebook/Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Kimberley Morris Twitter/ @katiezavadski The FBI thoroughly investigated the matter, including interviews of witnesses, physical evidence and records checks. In the course of the investigation, Mateen was interviewed twice. Ultimately, we were unable to verify the substance of his comments and the investigation was closed, said Ronald Hopper, an agent in charge of the FBIs Tampa division. In 2014, Mateen again came to the attention of the FBI because of possible ties to Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, an American suicide bomber in Syria, Mr Hopper said. The FBI conducted an investigation, including an interview with Mateen, but determined at the time that the contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or threat. It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning, in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, said Mr Hopper. Were looking into any and all connections, both domestic and international. Were going to be as transparent as possible, but we also want to be as accurate as possible. On Sunday, The Independent asked Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican senator and former presidential candidate, whether he supported banning the weapon. He declined to give a specific answer, saying that France had tough restrictions on weapons and yet still suffered an attack in Paris last November that left more than 100 dead. "He would have found another way to do this," he said. "If you want to have a debate on gun control, that's fine, but this was terrorism." The organisation, Sandy Hook Promise, a group established in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings to educate schools and teachers about the danger of guns, said that its hearts break for the devastated families and friends killed or wounded. We, and too many other families across the country, understand their pain and sorrow now, and in the days and years to come. Our thoughts remain with them, the loved ones killed, those injured, and the countless traumatised, the group said. We know these atrocities can often make a person feel helpless, or like hope is lost. It's not. We must stand together and work for an end to gun violence in America. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Barack Obama has been unable to enact any meaningful gun legislation during his presidency; and this frustration has shown in recent statements. Mr Obamas address on Sunday was the 18th time he has spoken or made a statement in the wake of a mass shooting. His most emotional reaction came in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Newtown where 26 people were killed in December 2012. Wiping away tears and choking up, Mr Obama mourned the beautiful little kids killed in the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was a rare emotional display from Mr Obama who addressed the nation as a parent rather than a president. "I know there's not a parent in America who doesn't feel the same overwhelming grief that I do. In June 2015, Mr Obama delivered a statement on the shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. The usually stoic President made an address that was founded upon the loss of an old friend Reverend Clementa Pinckney. Michelle and I know several members of Emanuel AME Church. We knew their pastor, Reverend Clementa Pinckney, who, along with eight others, gathered in prayer and fellowship and was murdered last night. And to say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and their community doesnt say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel. 176 Orlando was the 176th mass shooting this year in the United States Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about the death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship. Mr Obamas irritation on being unable to enact meaningful gun reforms during his presidency began to show in this address. Ive had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times. Lets be clear: at some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesnt happen in other places with this kind of frequency. Fast forward four months and Mr Obama found himself having to address the nation again on a mass shooting, this time in Oregon. In at twelve-minute address, the President used 80 seconds to offer his condolences to the victims, before clearly stating its not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted some place else in America next week or a couple months from now. In the next ten minutes, Mr Obama delivered an impassioned and honest speech on gun reform; fuelled by seven years of being unable to make any changes to stop incidents like Oregon, Charleston and Newtown. Somehow, this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it we've become numb to this. And of course, what's also routine is that somebody somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicised this issue. This is something we should politicise. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace Mr Obama blamed the absence of bipartisanship in the Congress for the lack of progress in reform. We spend over $1 trillion and pass countless laws and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be? This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. For one of the first times during his presidency, Mr Obama put his stance clearly, and in no uncertain terms: Each time this happens, I am going to say that we can actually do something about it, but we're going to have to change our laws. I've got to have a Congress and I've got to have state legislators and governors who are willing to work with me on this. I hope and pray that I don't have to come out again, during my tenure as president, to offer my condolences to families in these circumstances. But based on my experience as president, I can't guarantee that, and that's terrible to say. And it can change. Two months on, in an interview with CBS, Mr Obama reaffirmed his stance in the wake of the mass shooting in San Bernardino. "We should never think that this is something that just happens in the ordinary course of events, because it doesnt happen with the same frequency in other countries." President Obama addresses the nation on Sunday. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press) On Sunday, Mr Obama cut a familar figure of frustration when speaking about the mass shooting in Orlando that killed at least 49 people. "Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theatre, or in a nightclub." "And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well." Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The gunman who murdered 49 people at a gay club in Orlando was cool and calm as he phoned 911 during the massacre, police have said. John Mina, the Chief of Orlando Police, said Omar Mateen phoned the emergency services from a bathroom where he was holding several hostages. He was cool and calm when he was making the phone calls to us, he added. The suspect's father says his son reacted angrily to seeing gay men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago (Myspace) There was (a pledge) of allegiance to the Islamic State, there was no laughing as far as we are awarehe really wasn't asking an awful lot - we were doing most of the asking. Mateen opened fire at Pulse at 2am as hundreds of people continued their night out in Pulse, but he was not killed until police made a final push three hours later. Mr Mina said the delay was caused by hostage negotiations and reports of possible bombs and explosives in the building, but that but that police were forced to enter by indications of an imminent loss of life as a deadline set by the gunman was about to pass. Officers evacuated survivors and the injured from the rest of the club as Mateen remained in the bathroom and dozens of clubbers stayed in an adjacent toilet. As the deadline approached, Mr Mina ordered police to blow a hole in the bathroom wall to help hostages escape but the initial detonation did not penetrate it and they were forced to use an armoured vehicle to make a way through. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace Dozens and dozens of people through a small opening at around 5am before the gunman emerged and started firing, Mr Mina said. Mateen was killed in the ensuing battle. Police have not announced the discovery of any explosives but investigators said an unspecified third weapon was found in the suspects car. The AR-15 rifled and handgun he used for the massacre had been legally purchased, despite the FBIs previous investigations into Mateens possible terror links. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it had traced the firearms, amid calls for reformed gun laws to stop the purchase of what Hillary Clinton called weapons of war. The Sheriff of Orange County, Jerry Demings, says police have received tremendous outpouring of support that was helping officers. Orlando shooting: City feels 'extremely unsafe' says neighbour of shooter "This is a civilised society and we had to deal with something unthinkable, he added. "Now it's about putting our community, our nation back together." There were some initial reports of other accomplices or suspects in the shooting but investigators said they do not believe anyone was working with Mateen at the club. US Attorney Lee Bentley said: "We do not know yet whether anyone else will be charged in connection with this crime but have no reason to believe that anyone connected to this crime is placing the public in imminent danger at this time." Efforts continue to inform the families of the 49 victims of their deaths, with 48 of those killed formally identified so far. More than 50 others were injured. Buddy Dyer, the Mayor of Orlando, said that despite the horror of the atrocity, which is the worst mass shooting in US history, he was proud of the communitys response. He added: "We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater - we will be defined by how we respond, how we treat each other and this community has already stepped up to do that." Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Isis claim of responsibility for a massacre at a gay bar in Florida could be a sign of the terrorist groups desperation to boost its image as it faces losses across its territories, analysts have said. Barack Obama said there was no indication that the gunman who shot 49 people dead at Pulse in Orlando had been directed from abroad and called the atrocity an example of home-grown extremism. It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet, the President said. It does appear that at the last minute he announced allegiance to Isil (Isis) but there is no evidence so far that he was in fact directed by Isil or that it was part of a larger plot. Who is Omar Mateen? Omar Mateen was hailed as a soldier of the Caliphate in propaganda statements but analysts have cautioned that the phrase is not an indication of direct involvement by the so-called Islamic State. Michael Horowitz, a senior analyst with the Levantine Group, told The Independent that the groups initial claim of responsibility was more cautious than previously seen. If you compare it to the claims for Paris, for Brussels and for the Russian plane it is very, very different, he added. They really wanted to take responsibility for it but did not seem fully sure. The first claim came from Isis semi-official Amaq Agency, quoting an anonymous source calling Mateen an Islamic State fighter. The source to Amaq could actually just be Western media, Mr Horowitz said, noting that the claim carried no more information than was widely available in online reports. Statements issued following the Paris and Brussels attacks, by contrast, contained previously unknown details of the number of attackers and weapons used. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace There was also a marked absence of footage and images of Mateen on Isis propaganda channels, which normally eulogise so-called martyrs extensively. A subsequent bulletin from Isis al-Bayan radio station was also thin on information. Our brother Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the Caliphate in America, carried out an attack on a nightclub for sodomites in the city of Orlando, Florida, it said. He succeeded in massacring the filthy crusaders, killing and injuring more than 100 of them before he was killedmay Allah accept our brother among the shuhada (martyrs). Mr Horowitz said the statement hinted at the possibility that Mateen may have been in contact with an Isis fighter at some point but that direction by Isis was still unlikely. Soldiers of the Caliphate is a very general term it doesnt mean that they did it or directed it, he added. Damage to the Pulse nightclub following the attack (Getty Images) Its a cheap way of suggesting Isis controls these attacks and can carry them out in America. The group is dying to claim responsibility for one of these big attacks its facing an unprecedented amount of military pressure. The way Isis claimed responsibility for it shows that they are desperateits an example of their fragility. Charlie Winter, a senior research associate at Georgia State University, also believed the massacre was more likely to be inspired rather than directed by Isis. It seems more in line with what happened in San Bernardino, he added, referring to the December attack by a married couple who killed 14 people after pledging allegiance to Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi online. The group also hailed them as soldiers of the Islamic State but investigations found no evidence they had contact with overseas groups. San Bernardino shooters Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik were similarly praised by Isis (AP) Mr Winter said that the targeting of a gay club was a departure from previous Isis terror attacks, which have dominantly been aimed at crusader countries bombing its territories in Syria and Iraq, the security services and Shia Muslims. He cited a defensive statement made by an Isis supporter on the Telegram messaging app claiming that the Orlando shooting was NOT target on homosexuals and that the US' foreign policy was the true motive. This is another example of how well Isis knows how to leverage the media, Mr Winter added. Although no direct link has yet emerged, the attack followed Isis spokesperson Abu Muhammad al-Adanis call for lone wolf attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Acknowledging possible defeat in the groups strongholds of Mosul, in Iraq, Sirte, in Libya and Raqqa, in Syria, he urged followers to create a month of calamity for infidels. The US-led coalition, Syrian army, rebel groups, Iraqi government forces and Libyan miltias are among the forces fighting to drive miltiants out of their former strongholds. Shia fighters hold an Isis flag in an operation east of Fallujah the terror group has lost ground in both Syria and Iraq (AFP/Getty Images) (AFP/Getty) Videos are also being circulated in English, German and French on its propaganda channels urging supporters either to travel to fight in its territories or launch attacks at home. Police said Mateen pledged allegiance to Isis during a cool and calm call to emergency services during his massacre. The shooting started at around 2am in Pulse on Sunday morning, with the gunman retreating to a bathroom after being fired on by police. Mateen, who had previously been investigated for extremism by the FBI, held hostages for three hours until SWAT teams blew a hole in the wall and killed him in the ensuring gun battle. Investigators said the two guns he used were legally purchased and that there was no indication of a second shooter or accomplice in the club. US Attorney Lee Bentley said: We do not know yet whether anyone else will be charged in connection with this crime but have no reason to believe that anyone connected to this crime is placing the public in imminent danger at this time. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A man has killed 49 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Here are the latest updates: Please allow a moment for the live blog to load Police killed the gunman at the scene of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in the centre of Orlando after he called 911 and pledged allegiance to Isis. Omar Mateen, 29, was born in New York to parents from Afghanistan and had been questioned by the FBI twice in years. Around 350 people were in the Pulse nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning when he opened fire with an assault rifle and handgun, killing 50 people and wounding 53. In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family grieve after a list of hospitalised victims was released, implying the death of those who weren't on the list and hadn't been heard from, outside a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel near the Orlando Regional Medical Center AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People mourning for victims of the mass shooting near the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son Eddie who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse in Orlando. It has now been confirmed that Eddie Justice was among the 50 people killed in the massacre AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Terry DeCarlo, executive director of the LGBT Center of Central Florida (C) is comforted by Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan (R) after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI agents investigate the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police officials investigate the back of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at the nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A member of the Medical Examiners office wheels a body to a vehicle from the mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting A photograph posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter with the words, "Pulse shooting: In hail of gunfire in which suspect was killed, OPD officer was hit. Kevlar helmet saved his life", in reference to the operation against a gun man inside Pulse night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting FBI, Orlando Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff's Office personnel investigate the attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Annette Stubbs, a pastor at a local church, prays for victims a few blocks from a crime scene at the nightclub where a mass shooting took place AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Aimee McCarthy from Jacksonville, gives blood at the oneblood facility, to help the victims from a mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Police forensics investigators work at the crime scene of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured person is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting An injured man is escorted out of the Pulse nightclub after a shooting rampage AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement officials work at the Pulse nightclub following a fatal shooting AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando Police officers direct family members away from the nightclub AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The scene outside the Orlando gay club where multiple people have been shot AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting The injured are treated in the street outside Pulse in Orlando following the shooting EPA/Univision In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Two witnesses, Jermain Towns (left) and Brandon Shuford, wait down the street for news following shooting and hostage stand-off at the Pulse nightclub. Mr Towns said his brother was in the club at the time AP In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Emergency services at the scene. Ambulance crews and firefighters were outside the club alongside police. EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting People treating the wounded on the street EPA In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club Reuters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Law enforcement agencies and local city representatives give a news conference in the wake of a mass-casualty shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Rex In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Orlando police officers seen outside of Pulse nightclub after a fatal shooting and hostage situation in Orlando, Florida Getty In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Friends and family console one another outside the Orlando Police Headquarters In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting U.S. President Barack Obama speaks about the worst mass shooting in U.S. history that took place in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman, the Imam of the mosqe that mass shooter Omar Mateen attended, speaks to the media in Fort Pierce. The imam said that the suspect never gave any indication he was capable of such violence.Omar Mateen attended evening prayers three or four times a week at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, bringing his son who is about four or five years old AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Orlando nightclub shooting Omar Mateen has killed 50 people at a gay nightclub after pledging allegiance to Isis in the deadliest mass shooting in US history Myspace Authorities have cautioned that despite Isis claims that Mateen was a fighter for its group, there was no immediate evidence of communication or links. Working for the global security firm G4S during the past nine years, he was an armed guard for a gated retirement community in Florida, and had cleared two company background screenings. We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate, Barack Obama said in a speech from the White House. As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people. Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} At a high school in Florida, students watched the horrors of September 11, 2001, unfold on live TV. When the second hijacked airliner slammed into the World Trade Center's south tower, the class watched in stunned disbelief. But one student, a classmate recalled, "started jumping up-and-down cheering on the terrorist." That was sophomore Omar Mateen, according to one of the accounts from Martin County High School remembering 9/11 and the reaction by the student who, nearly 15 years later, would carry out the worst mass shooting in US history. The recollections of Mateen's actions could not be independently verified, and the memories could be clouded by the years that have passed. But they appear to offer yet another stitch in the wider tapestry of Mateen's life and views before Sunday's rampage, which included his pledge of loyalty to the Islamic State during a call to police during the standoff . In an interview, Robert Zirkle, then a freshman at the Martin County school, said he saw Mateen excited and making fun of how America was being attacked on 9/11. "He was making plane noises on the bus, acting like he was running into a building," Zirkle recalled. "I don't really know if he was doing it because he was being taught some of that stuff at home or just doing it for attention because he didn't have a lot of friends." "Before 9/11 happened, we were pretty straight. We all rode the same bus. We weren't really close friends, but friends at least a little," he added. "After 9/11 happened, he started changing and acting different." Hours after the carnage on Sunday in Orlando, several classmates from Mateen's school days at Martin County High School and Spectrum Alternative School began talking in a group chat on Facebook. In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Show all 30 1 /30 In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather at a vigil in solidarity for the victims of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, at Taylor Square in Sydney EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Brett Morian, from Daytona Beach, hugs an attendee during the candlelight vigil at Ember in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People and members of the gay community holding the peace rainbow flag gather for a vigil near the Beaubourg art center in downtown Paris AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man places a hand print on a makeshift memorial in a parking lot near the Pulse nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People attend a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People place candles by a statue of Abraham Lincoln during a candlelight vigil for the victims of the Orlando attack against a gay night club, held in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Tel-Aviv city hall lit up with rainbow flag colors in solidarity with Florida's shooting attack victims AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Juan Mantilla (L) stands with his partner during a vigil in memory of the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, in Miami Beach AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple shares a kiss as they embrace each other under a pride flag while residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area gather to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Austin Ellis, a member of Metropolitan Community Church, carries a cross with a sign in memory of the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting as he marches in the 2016 Gay Pride Parade in Philadelphia Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A rainbow flag flies at half mast on the Space Needle in Seattle, in honor of the victims of the nightclub shooting in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People at the LA Pride event in West Hollywood, write signs and light candles showing solidarity with victims of the mass killings in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims In reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida people hug outside the Stonewall Inn near a vigil for the victims in New York AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A woman offers free hugs in Washington, in reaction to the mass shootings at a gay club in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A U.S. flag is flown at half staff at the White House after the Orlando mass shooting Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays flowers on a rainbow flag in front of the embassy of the United States in Madrid, to pay tribute to the victims of the shooting of Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Michael Fowler Centre is lit in rainbow colours by the city council during a candle lit vigil across the road at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Participants hold candles during a vigil at Frank Kits Park in Wellington, in remembrance of victims after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Vixon Noir (R) consoles Trashina Cann, both of San Francisco, during a vigil at Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro district of San Francisco AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People gather in the Castro District for a vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting at a gay nightclub, in San Francisco REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A couple joins residents of San Francisco and the Bay Area to mourn, honor, and remember the victims of a mass shooting at a LGBT nightclub in Orlando EPA In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Mourners pay tribute to the victims of the Orlando shooting during a memorial service in San Diego AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The Orlando Eye observation wheel lights up in rainbow colors, to remember the people killed and injured in the Pulse nightclub shooting AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People sit by the water with candles during a vigil in a park following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Members of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence carry a sign of remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, at the 46th annual Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims Former Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra and Shawn Lang of Hartford embrace after Segarra spoke, during a vigil organized by the state's Muslim and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, on the steps of the state Capitol building in reaction to the mass shooting in Orlando AP In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims The City Hall Building is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims One World Trade Center is lit in the rainbow colors in New York, in reaction to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando AFP/Getty Images In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims People hold a vigil after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at a gay nightclub in Orlando, in front of the White House in Washington REUTERS In pictures: The world mourns Orlando shooting victims A man lays down 50 roses to honor each victim of the gay Orlando night club shooting as people gather outside of the Stonewall Inn as a vigil is held following the massacre Getty Images One former student told Zirkle on Facebook that on 9/11, the students were watching the TV in class. On the group chat, the former student wrote that Mateen "stood up in class during the 9/11 attack and after the second plane hit the building he started jumping up-and-down cheering on the terrorist." In a phone interview, a third classmate who did not want to be identified for fear of being bombarded by news media, said he remembered Mateen acting out in class when the towers were hit because both of them were sent to the dean's office at the same time for misbehaving. "I was sleeping in class and woke up to see people jumping off buildings, so I started swearing and they sent me up," the student said. "But Omar was saying some really rude stuff. Stuff like, 'That's what America deserves.' That kind of thing. It wasn't right." Both that student and Zirkle recalled Mateen being suspended or expelled from the school shortly after 9/11. "He got bullied a lot," said the student who sat in the dean's office with Mateen, "It may have been because he was Muslim. But high school can be rough; people can pick on you just because of your name." "They had to escort him out of the school," Zirkle said. "Other kids were trying to fight him. A couple days after, they had to take him off the bus." "A few of my friends wanted to fight him because he kept doing it and saying crazy things," he added. "It's weird. He was a totally cool before 9/11, and then something changed." In another later incident, Zirkle said Mateen told some of his friends in class that Osama bin Laden was his uncle, which started another fight. "They had to escort him out of the school then as well." Copyright: Washington Post Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Orlando nightclub Pulse, now the site of the worst mass shooting in US history, has always described itself as not just another gay club. Long a focal point for the Florida citys LGBT community, it was founded in 2004 by owner Barbara Poma and her friend Ron Legler, in honour of Ms Pomas late brother John, who died from AIDS in 1991. It was John who first introduced his younger sister to the Sunshine States vibrant gay club scene when she was a 14-year-old in Fort Lauderdale. The siblings were raised in a strict Italian family, the Pulse website explains. But, when John came out to his family and friends, the family dynamic transitioned from a culture of strict tradition to one of acceptance and love. The club was named Pulse to refer to Johns heartbeat, as a place where he is kept alive in the eyes of his friends and family. In a statement, Ms Poma said she was devastated by the attack. From the beginning, Pulse has served as a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ community, she said. I want to express my profound sadness and condolences to all who have lost loved ones. Co-founder Mr Legler, who is the President of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Centre in Baltimore, posted a message on Facebook, saying he was devastated and heartbroken. The club hosts nightly performances including drag shows and karaoke, as well as engaging in education and advocacy efforts. According to the Washington Post, it serves as a community hub for HIV prevention, breast-cancer awareness and immigrant rights. Before the weekends attacks, the Orlando Weekly described Pulse as glitzy and throbbing, saying: Every night has something different in store, but Pulse is known to have some pretty impressive drag shows, and the bars dancers are usually gorgeous. In an essay for Fusion, Pulse regular Daniel Leon-Davis wrote that he had grown up gay, 10 minutes drive from the club. The first time I ever entered Pulse, everything changed. For the first time in my life, I saw people that looked like me living freely. I saw people in their joy. I saw people in their celebration of life, he wrote. Pulse was where I learned to love myself as a gay man. Pulse was where I learned to love my community... Pulse was not just my safe haven, but a safe haven for hundreds of LGBTQ individuals in Orlando. On Saturday, the night of the attack, Pulse hosted a Latin-themed drag show, where Puerto Rican drag queen Kenya Michaels was due to appear. She escaped the bloodshed, as did Angelica Jones, a regular performer at the club, who posted a message on Facebook on Sunday, saying: God's good. I made it out safe. Thank you for your prayers." Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} As the nation reels from the deadliest mass shooting in US history, authorities in New Mexico are investigating another murder suspect - a man accused of shooting and killing his wife and four children. Police said Monday that Juan David Villegas-Hernandez was apprehended in Mexico after his wife and their daughters were discovered dead late Saturday at their home in Roswell, New Mexico. The children ranged in age from about 3 to 14, police said. Roswell police are working with authorities in Mexico to get Villegas-Hernandez extradited back to the United States. It's natural that terrible tragedies like the slaughter at the Orlando nightclub on Sunday capture attention, with their unpredictability, high death counts and connections to terrorism. But the slayings in Roswell were a reminder that a preponderance of the roughly 11,000 annual gun homicides happen within people's homes, on street corners and in other places that involve a small number of people. The news Sunday was focused on the massacre in Orlando, where, police said, 29-year-old Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people and injured 53 others at the Pulse nightclub, a popular gay gathering spot. Officials said Mateen held at least four hostages in a bathroom and called 911, calmly describing his loyalty to the Islamic State and then making references to bomb belts or explosives. Eventually, Orlando police shot and killed Mateen. In the hours leading up to the shooting rampage in Orlando, police in New Mexico were in the middle of their own murder investigation. About 11.15 pm. Saturday, relatives went to check on the family when they could not reach them and stumbled upon a grisly scene, police said. The fatal shootings apparently occurred earlier in the day, according to authorities. Villegas-Hernandez, 34, was nowhere to be found. On Monday morning, as federal, state and local officials in Orlando discussed their investigation at a news conference broadcast live across the country, police in Roswell said they were working on a case of their own. Roswell police spokesman Todd Wildermuth said in an interview that Villegas-Hernandez was found in Sonora, Mexico; local police, he said, were asking authorities there to hold Villegas-Hernandez while they work on his extradition. A medical examiner is performing autopsies to confirm the victims' identities and their official cause of death, police said. Villegas-Hernandez's wife and children were not the only victims of gun violence in the United States on Saturday. At least 10 other people died Saturday in multiple-victim shootings in which four or more people were shot or killed in a single incident, not including the shooter, according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive. In 2014 there were 280 multiple-victim shootings. Last year there were 330. This year, there have been 136 reported as of 31 May. The shooting in Orlando came as cities across the country were holding gay pride festivals, celebrating the upcoming anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage. President Obama called the shooting an act of terror and an act of hate. Authorities said Mateen, the gunman, walked into Pulse armed with a handgun and an assault-rifle-type weapon, both purchased legally. In the early hours Sunday, people inside the club started sending desperate text messages to loved ones outside. As with other mass shootings in recent years, the horror in Orlando has prompted debates about gun laws and calls for change. Obama said the violence was a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. Copyright: Washington Post Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump has reiterated his intention to answer terror threats in the United States by shutting down its borders, vowing to suspend immigration from areas of the world where there's a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe and our allies. In a speech in New Hampshire billed as a response to the Orlando gay club massacre, Mr Trump asserted that thousands and thousands of people, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer are pouring into the US, and that the ban will be lifted when and as a nation we are in a position to properly and perfectly screen these people coming into our country. He cast this alleged influx of would-be killers in mythological terms. This could be a better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan Horse ever was, a breathless Mr Trump said, while residents of Orlando struggled to come to grips with the worst mass shooting in US history. Mr Trump did not say whether he was modulating or adding to his original plan to block entry to the US for all Muslims. While he spent most of his speech tying immigration and domestic terror together, he failed to note that the accused Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, had never needed to enter the US; he was a US citizen born in New York to Afghan migrants. In a competing address in Cleveland, Ohio, Hillary Clinton said she would work to track down lone wolf terrorists when she becomes president. She forcefully offered support to the gay and lesbian community which was directly targeted in the Orlando massacre, and took the opportunity to repeat her call for stricter gun laws. I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets, she said. In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Show all 44 1 /44 In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Frank Escalante AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Conde AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Brenda Lee Marquez McCool In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Joel Rayon Paniagua AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jerald Arthur Wright AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Paul Terrell Henry AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Shane Evan Tomlinson AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Antonio Davon Brown AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jason Benjamin Josaphat AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Enrique L. Rios, Jr. AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Darryl Roman Burt AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Cory James Connell REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Tevin Eugene Crosby AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jonathan Antonio Camuy-Vega AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Leroy Valentin Fernandez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Andrew Leinonen AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Angel L. Candelario-Padro AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Simon Adrian Carrillo-Fernande AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Javier Jorge-Reyes AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Gilberto Ramon Silva-Menendez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan P. Rivera-Velazquez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Miguel Angel Honorato AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jean Carlos Mendez Perez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Mercedez Marisol Flores REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Luis Laureano Disla REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Franky Jimmy De Jesus Velazquez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Oscar A. Aracena-Montero REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Martin Benitez Torres REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Stanley Almodovar Facebook/Stanley Manolo Almodovar III In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eddie Justice Faebook/ Eddie Justice In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Vielma Twitter/@jk_rowling In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera Facebook/ Eric Rivera In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan Ramon Guerrero Facebook/ Juan Ramon Guerrero In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz Facebook/ Peter Gonzalez Cruz In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Amanda Alvear Facebook/ Amanda Alvear In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Disla Facebook/ Anthony Disla In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Edward Sotomayor Twitter/@ryanraiche In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo Facebook/Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Kimberley Morris Twitter/ @katiezavadski In London, thousands poured into Old Compton Street in the capitals traditional gay area to express solidarity from the across the Atlantic - a show of support that many in the LGBT in the US will doubtless find touching, even surprising. The London Gay Mens Chorus gathered at the heart of the throng and sang a version of Simon and Garfunkels Bridge over Troubled Waters. As officials in Orlando started to release the names of some of the 49 people who lost their lives in the Florida nightclub carnage, the authorities were desperately trying to determine whether the gunman received any help to launch his devastating assault. With Isis claiming Mateen as a soldier of the Caliphate, both President Barack Obama and the head of the FBI sought to assure the public everything was being done to keep them safe. FBI Director James Comey said authorities still were trying to determine the motives of 29-year-old Mateen, a security guard who had been placed under investigation by officials in 2013 but cleared of suspicion. Yet Mr Comey, who will brief Congress on the tragedy on Tuesday, said while there was no indication he was part of an organised group, he could have been inspired by Isis or other Islamic extremists. It appears that the shooter was inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the internet, said Mr Obama. It does appear that at the last minute he announced allegiance to [Isis] but there is no evidence so far that he was in fact directed by [Isis] or that it was part of a larger plot. That might be something of a moot point. There's were two minutes' silence for Orlando. Later songs were sung (Max Benwell) Some will be heartened that the divorced father who regularly attended Friday prayers at his mosque, was not part of a the sort of outfit that struck Paris with lethal force last year. Yet others will be concerned that a young man, from a good family, was for some reason inspired to launch such staggering slaughter, armed with weapons he was able to legally buy just days before. The Pulse nightclub was hugely popular among the LGBT community and while many in Orlando have sought to suggest the mass shooting was an attack on the entire community, it was gay and transgender people who suffered the brunt of Mateens apparent fury. On Sunday night, Calissa, 29, and Mimi, 27, were close to the site of the club, trying to find out information about those who had been inside. They themselves had been there the night before and had been due to go to the club on Saturday night as well until they were forced to change plans. Im just freaking out, said Mimi. In the coming days, as communities in Orlando and beyond begin to honour and bury their dead, investigators will dig further into the background of Mateen in a search for clues. On Sunday they searched his home in the coastal town of Fort Pierce, and that of his parents in nearby Port St Lucie Mateens father said his son should not have carried out the massacre because God himself will punish those involved in homosexuality. In a message posted to Facebook shortly after midnight, Seddique Mateen, who lives in Florida, said his his child a was a good son and an educated son. He had a child and a wife, and was very dignified, meaning he had respect for his parents, he wrote. I dont know what caused him to shoot last night. While there were no reports that Mateen had any sort of accomplice when he stormed into the nightclub in central Florida in the early hours of Sunday - an attack that ended with a three hour siege and him being shot dead by police - officials said they were looking for clues as to whether anyone had worked with to plan the attack. There is an investigation of other persons. We are working as diligently as we can on that, US prosecutor Lee Bentley told reporters. If anyone else was involved in this crime, they will be prosecuted. In Washington, Mr Comey said officials had evidence that Mateen had been radicalised. There are strong indications of radicalisation by this killer and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations, he said. Were highly confident this killer was radicalised at least in some part through the internet. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump will bar the Washington Post from directly covering his campaign charging the newspaper that broke Watergate and considers itself the watchdog of the political class with lying about him. It is his latest run-in with the American press, which he professes to despise while all along relying on its willingness to cover him almost non-stop to fuel his presidential campaign train. Recommended Read more Trump hints that Obama may have been involved in Orlando shooting Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign, we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phoney and dishonest Washington Post, Mr Trump posted on Facebook. It appears the mogul and TV ringmaster was newly irritated by an article that appeared earlier on Monday that depicted him insinuating in a Fox interview that somehow President Barack Obama had been complicit in promoting terrorism and therefore the attack in the Pulse night club also. Trump seemed to repeatedly accuse President Obama on Monday of identifying with radicalised Muslims who have carried out terrorist attacks in the United States and being complicit in the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando over the weekend, the worst the country has ever seen, the report started. The Fox interview turned in part on Mr Trumps near obsessive pre-occupation with Mr Obamas failure to call the recent attacks in the US the result of radical Islamic terrorism. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism, he said in the interview with Fox Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on. Mr Trump regularly directs his most venomous slurs on the press because he knows it delights most of his supporters, calling reporters who are following him scum or worse. Last summer he ejected a leading Spanish-language TV anchor, Jorge Ramos, from a press conference because he'd didnt like the tone of his questions. He also initiated a long feud with a Fox present Megyn Kelly for allegedly being to mean to him during the first televised Republican debate in Cleveland last August. When the network picked her to help moderate another debate in Iowa in February, Mr Trump boycotted it. At a press conference at Trump Tower two weeks ago in New York, he openly called the ABC correspondent covering the event a sleaze, a slight that in other countries might have provoked all the press corps to rise up and walk out in solidarity. Donald Trumps decision to revoke The Washington Posts press credentials is nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press, Marty Baron, the papers editor said. When coverage doesnt correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organisation is banished. The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along - honourably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. Were proud of our coverage, and were going to keep at it. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} One of the large craters that mysteriously appeared in Siberia may be connected to a huge explosion loud enough to have been heard 100km away, which could have also caused villagers to see a glow in the sky. A number of large-scale craters have been seen across Siberia in the past few years. They are understood to start as metres-wide holes thought to be tens of metres deep, which then rapidly expand in size. The Deryabinsky crater in the Taimyr peninsula was discovered by reindeer herders in 2013. It was estimated to be four metres wide and around 100 metres deep. The crater has since increased by a reported 15 times in size making it an estimated 70 metres in diameter, filled with water. And now a loud explosion and strange light has been connected to the crater. Dr Vladimir Epifanov told the Siberian Times: There is verbal information that residents in nearby villages at a distance of 70 to 100km heard a sound like an explosion, and one of them watched a clear glow in the sky. It was about one month after the Cheyla. It is not known what caused either of these incidents to occur, but the expansion of the crevice is understood to be down to the melting of the permafrost. It is predicted that the crevice will expand to the point where its walls collapse cause the lake within it to merge with a nearby, long established lake. Another crater in Siberia, the Batagaika crater, has been dubbed by locals as the Gateway to the Underworld due to its size. It already measures at about a kilometre long and 90m deep, and is widening by around 20 metres a year. Russian scientists have now discovered seven giant craters in remote Siberia. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Four people including a 74-year-old woman out foraging for wild plants have been mauled to death by bears in northern Japan, prompting authorities to warn citizens away from forests in the area. The woman and three men were all been found dead with evidence of "severe injuries" over four weeks in Akita prefecture, a mountainous northern area on Japan's main island, Honshu. Local authorities were at first unable to identify Tsuwa Suzuki, the 74-year-old woman who had gone to the area alone to pick edible wild plants, because the attack on her had been so severe, according to Japan Today. Two men in their 70s and one in his 60s were also found in separate incidents after harvesting bamboo shoots in the area. Takeshi Komatsu, a local veterinarian, said the same bear may have been responsible for all three attacks since they all occurred in one area and happened within a short timeframe. "After tasting human flesh, the bear may have learned it can eat them," he told Kyodo News agency. The deaths represent a sudden increase in the average number of people killed by bears in Japan, which before these incidents stood at only eight fatalities between 1979 and 2015. The rise in attacks also coincides with an increase in sightings of brown bears and black Asiatic bears to more than 1,200 so far this year, double the number reported in the previous 12 months. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World Show all 10 1 /10 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 10: Poison Dart Frog They might look cute, but the backs of the Amazonian poison dart frog ooze a slimy neurotoxin to keep predators away. Each frog produces enough of the toxin to kill 10 humans. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 9: Polar Bear The strength of a polar bear is enough to decapitate a human being with a single swipe of the paw. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 8: African Elephant The brute force of an elephant is unrivalled by any land mammal. Weighing in around 16,000lb on average, they are responsible for around 500 human deaths each year. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 7: Cape Buffalo Cape Buffalos charge head-on with their razor-sharp horns when confronted with a predator - all 1,500lb of them. And the problem is, they tend to do so as a herd. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 6: Crocodile The stealth and combined strength of a crocodile allows it to lie in the water undetected, before it strikes, drags its pray underwater, barrel rolls and dismembers it. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 5: African Lion These big cats are ruthlessly agile, armed with razor-sharp teeth and talons and near-perfect hunters. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 4: Great White Shark These kings of the sea have 3,000 teeth with which to tear their pray to shreds. On average, are 15ft long and 5,000lb, and can detect a drop of blood in 25 gallons of water. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 3: Australian Box Jellyfish Each tentacle has 5,000 stinging cells and enough toxin to kill 60 humans. Each jellyfish has 60 tentacles each at 15 ft long. That's a lot of killing power for an animal the size of a salad bowl. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 2: Asian Cobra It might not be the most poisonous snake, but thanks to its unique spit and strike attack technique, the Asian Cobra is responsible for more human deaths than any other snake on the planet. 10 Deadliest Animals In The World 1: Mosquito Tiny but deadly, mosquitoes carry and transfer malaria causing parasites to humans. As a result, they cause on average 2million human deaths a year, making the insect one of the world's deadliest creatures. Aside from human beings, of course. Yet several populations of the Asiatic black bear are critically endangered in Japan as a result of commercial hunting, habitat loss and road accidents, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Mature cubs and female Asiatic black bears with cubs pose the greatest risk to humans, according to experts who spoke to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. Officials have set traps in the area and experts have repeated advice to avoid the forests and to carry bells as bears are sensitive to noise and retreat slowly. The experts have also warned people to watch the bear constantly if one is spotted. Yohei Sasaki, chairman of the national hunters association, told the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper an unarmed person would be "helpless in an attack" with adult Asiatic black bears. The recent spate of killings recall the worst bear attacks in Japan's history, when a brown bear attacked and killed seven settlers in Sankebetsu in 1915 on the northern island of Hokkaido, including one pregnant woman and a baby. Bears are believed to become more aggressive when their food source is scarce or in areas where they hunt or hibernate have been disturbed or cut back by human activity, prompting them to venture further afield. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Muslim villagers in Pakistan are helping to fund a new church for their neighbours in a show of religious solidarity six years after the Christian community was attacked by mobs in the area. People in the village of Khaksabad are donating what they can afford towards the building of a new mud chapel for the Christian community, after their previous place of worship was swept away by the monsoon rains, reports Daily Pakistan. "I learnt about the project in a community meeting last month, Dilawar Hussain, a Muslim shopkeeper, told Asia News. A church is also a house of Allah; praying is what matters. We worship the same God. The donations vary due to economic conditions, with one farmer giving 2,000 rupees (21) towards the project, while local business owners such as Mr Hussain have donated 10,000 rupees (105) and as much as 30,000 rupees (315). After local riots we are trying to bring people together even more, villager Ijaz Farooq told the BBC. We have increased our activity so we dont have to face something like that. By building this church we want to show that we are united as a community, he said. Gojra, the closest city to the village, is where religious mobs attacked the houses of known Christians in 2009, leaving 10 dead. Seven people were burned alive in their houses and four churches were destroyed in nearby villages. Faryal Masih, a Christian villager who grew up in the community, told the broadcaster: Since my childhood we have all lived together in this one place. We live with love [and] attend each others weddings and festivals. We are together in times of happiness and grief. I pray that we never have to go through what happened in Gojra ever, he said. The new chapel means Christians in the village will no longer have to rent or borrow a house to celebrate Christmas, Easter, and other holidays. "At first I didnt believe it when Muslim community leaders said they would build us a chapel," Christian labourer Faryad Masih told Anadolu Agency. "But to my surprise, construction work began within one month of the initial announcement," a visibly excited Faryad said. "Our communitys longtime dream is now coming true," he said. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} An elderly Hindu man has been beaten by a constable in Pakistan for reportedly eating and selling food during Ramadan, the month considered holy by Muslims. The victim, identified as Gokal Das, was reportedly eating biryani in public at around 6pm local time. The food was given to him as charity, reports the Express Tribune. Conflicting reports say he is thought to be aged between 82 and 90. Recommended Read more Why Facebook got it very wrong with its Ramadan greeting Pictures of the blood-soaked man have circulated on social media, resulting in a campaign demanding justice. Ali Hassan, the policeman accused of attacking Mr Das was taken into custody on Sunday on charges of torturing and injuring the man, according to Pakistan newspaper Dawn. Hassans brother, Mir Hassan, is also accused of attacking Mr Das. Police official Bacahl Qazi confirmed a case had been registered against both Hassans. We will seek remand of the two accused on Monday for further investigation, he said. Ramadan 2016 - All you need to know He added the brothers had left Mr Das bleeding and he was driven to a hospital in Mirpur Mathelo where he was treated for his wounds. The attack took place on Thursday in Pakistans rural district of Sindh in the south east of the country. Mr Das is a resident of Hayat Pitafi in a remote village, according to Indian news website DNA. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A Canadian man being held hostage by Philippine Islamist group Abu Sayyaf has been executed. The extremist group, which has links to Isis, warned it would kill Robert Hall unless a multi-million dollar ransom was paid. Mr Hall had been held by the group since 21 September 2015, and was one of four hostages that included fellow Canadian John Ridsdel, who was killed by the group in April. A military source speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed to Al Jazeera news that Mr Hall had been executed. Today Canadian kidnap victim identified as Robert Hall was beheaded by his abductor ... the Abu Sayyaf group, the source said. Mr Halls beheading follows that of Mr Ridsdel, whose severed head was found on the streets of Samal Island in the southern Philippines on 25 April. The Canadian men were kidnapped along with Norwegian woman Kjartan Sekkingstad and Mr Halls Filipino girlfriend Marites Flor. Abu Sayyaf had reportedly demanded 300 million pesos (4.6m) for each of the hostages. At the time, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged world leaders not to pay ransoms for hostages, saying that doing so is a significant source of funds for terrorist organizations that then allows them to continue to perpetuate deadly acts of violence against innocents around the world. It would also endanger the lives of every single one of the millions of Canadians who live, work and travel around the globe every single year, he said. Abu Sayyaf emerged in 1991 in the southern Philippines and has carried out bombings, assassinations and multiple kidnappings. The group carried out the Philippines worst terrorist attack, bombing a ferry in 2004, killing 116 people. Since 2014, the group has carried out kidnappings and ransoms in support of Isis. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty In September 2014, Abu Sayyaf kidnapped two German hostages, demanding Germany stop supporting America in its killing of our Muslim brothers in Iraq and Syria, especially the mujahideen of the Islamic State. The pair, 71-year-old Stefan O and 55-year-old Henrike D, were released the following month after Abu Sayyaf claimed the $5.6m (3.9m) ransom had been paid. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Two people including a five-year-old girl have been injured after a man opened fire on a German refugee shelter with an air rifle. A 21-year-old man has been accused of shooting at the shelter from his third floor apartment, only 40 meters away from the camp in western Germany. Police searched the mans apartment and reportedly removed the air rifle and munitions. Recommended Read more Refugees increasingly using small boats to slip into UK undetected The suspect was not arrested as there were no ground for arrest, a police spokeswoman said. The police confirmed the investigation was ongoing, adding it is unclear if the act was politically motivated. Excavators tear down a burnt down hall at Messe Duesseldorf, Germany, 8 June 2016. (EPA) The mother of the Macedonian girl initially thought someone had thrown a stone at her daughter. It was not until a witness saw the suspect shooting the second victim, an 18-year old Syrian, in the leg that it became clear what happened. More than 1 million migrants have reached Europe since 2015, which had resulted in an increase in hate crimes against refugees. In Germany, just under 1,000 far right offences were recorded targeting refugees in shelters in 2015, which is a fivefold increase. In January, a hand grenade was thrown into a refugee shelter following the Cologne attacks. Police said it was pure luck the grenade did not detonate. In February, onlookers were reported to cheer as a hotel used as a refugee shelter in the town of Bautzen went up in flames in a suspected arson attack. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A daredevil bull dodger was killed after being pierced through the heart by a charging bull, in the first goring-related death this year. Juan Carlos Otero, 34, a blacksmith from Segovia in Spain, was participating in a recortador or bull dodging fiesta in the town of La Parrilla. During a complex manoeuvre to evade the bull, Otero lost his footing while attempting the traditional technique of arcing and was gored through the thigh and chest by the animals horns. He died on the way to hospital and the festivities in La Parrilla were suspended, and two days of mourning declared in the region with flags at half mast, according to the Local. Otero was known by the nickname The Rooster and was praised by his hometowns mayor Pablo Torrego as a beloved son of the town for his exploits in the ring. He won several trophies for his bull dodging and was something of a celebrity in his region. La Parillas mayoress Esperanza Toquero said Otero had done the arcing technique hundreds of times before and was simply unlucky to have slipped. Family and friends later posted a video of his bull dodging exploits on Youtube as a tribute. In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Spanish bullfighter David Mora is tossed by an El Ventorrillo ranch fighting bull during a bullfight at Las Ventas bullring in Madrid AP In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matador Spanish matador David Mora is gored by a bull during a bullfight EPA In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Spanish matador Antonio Nazare is gored by a bull during a bullfight of the San Isidro Feria at the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid AFP In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid Matador Spanish matador David Mora is gored by a bull during a bullfight of the San Isidro Feria at the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid on May 20, 2014. AFP In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Assistants help Spanish matador David Mora after he was injured during a bullfight of the San Isidro Feria at the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid AFP In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Spanish matador Jimenez Fortes is gored by a bull during a bullfight of the San Isidro Feria at the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Spanish matador Jimenez Fortes is gored by a bull during a bullfight of the San Isidro Feria at the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Spanish matador Manuel Jesus Cid Sala, aka El Cid, performs a pass on a bull during the San Isidro Feria at Las Ventas bullring in Madrid In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Spanish bullfighter Jimenez Fortes (top second left) has been tossed by the bull during a bullfight at Las Ventas bullring in Madrid In pictures: Madrid matadors gored at 2014 San Isidro festival Madrid matadors Spanish matador Jimenez Fortes leaves the Las Ventas bullring after being injured during a bullfight of the San Isidro Feria in Madrid AFP Last year 13 people were fatally gored during taurine festivals. Anti bull-running campaigners have used the incident to highlight the dangerous and cruel nature of interacting with bulls for leisure. Last June a matador suffered painful injuries to his groin after his bullfighting display went wrong in front of thousands of spectators in Madrid. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Students at a school for health care and education in Denmark have been told they cannot pray during working hours because "religion and education do not belong together". A Muslim student from SOPU Hillerd, which is in Northern Copenhagen, highlighted the ban in a photograph which was posted on Facebook by a friend and received hundreds of likes. In the picture, the woman held a sign which read: New from the director. May one pray at SOPU Hillerd? The answer is NO! Inger Margrethe Jensen, the schools director, confirmed the decision, saying: We have reminded our students about it and reprinted our code of conduct because we have had some incidents that required that we brush up on things, Danish newspaper BT reported. Some [students] wanted to establish a prayer room on school property and the Muslims prayers have become far more visible because in some cases and they have used the hallways to pray. Religion and education dont belong together it belongs to the private life. Weve been asked why they cant pray at specific times because there are some Islamic directions that one should pray at specific times and it is unfortunate because it just adds more fuel to the fire on Islamism. Mia Victoria Lunderd Hansen, a student at the school who posted the image of her friend to her Facebook page, said: We students dont think this is right and therefore weve gone around the school collecting signatures. A situation like this should be taken care of [because] we believe that everyone should be treated equally. Although the woman from the picture has not spoken publicly about the issue, her sister-in-law, Maria Fischer Walldorf, told radio station Radio24syv: I simply cannot understand it. I can certainly understand those who say that they dont want things forced upon them religion is a private thing. The Local reported. One shouldnt be allowed to force things on others, but there shouldnt be others who force things on me [like saying] that I should follow Danish culture and not pray, she said. In May, an adult education centre also in Copenhagen barred female students from attending classes unless they removed their niqabs. Inge Voller, the deputy headteacher at VUC Lyngby, told Metroexpress: It is not a question of religion or ethnicity, but on learning, as we are an educational institution. It is about how we create the best learning and we believe the best way, if you can communicate freely with each other. Legal notices 1) The material on this blog has been created by W. Blake Gray, is protected under US copyright law and cannot be used without his permission. 2) To the FTC: In the course of my work, I accept free samples, meals and other considerations. I do not trade positive reviews or coverage for money or any financial considerations, unlike certain famous print publications which have for-profit wine clubs but, because they are not classified as "bloggers," are not required by the FTC to post a notice like this. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Nato will deploy four multinational battalions - around 4,000 troops - to the Baltic states and Poland to bolster their defences in the region, the secretary-general has announced. Addressing a press conference in Brussels on Monday, Jens Stoltenberg said alliance defence ministers would approve the move in their meeting on Tuesday. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have been eager for a stronger Nato presence since Russia annexed Crimea and became involved in the Ukraine conflict. Although the secretary-general was careful not refer to Russia directly, the motivation behind the increased defences in the region was apparent. Mr Stoltenberg said: Nato has taken robust action to protect our nations, and to contribute to stability in our neighbourhood. But the challenges we face are enduring. So we need to be prepared for the long-haul. We agreed to enhance our forward presence in the eastern part of the Alliance. We are now discussing the size, the scope and the composition of that force. Based on the advice of our military planners, we will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland. This will send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any ally, he said. Although Russia has yet to respond to the announcement, they previously accused Nato of increasing military forces near its borders and said it would do whatever is required to protect its interests. Tensions between Russia and the Western world Show all 8 1 /8 Tensions between Russia and the Western world Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia Vladimir Putin leaves G20 early after criticism from world leaders over Ukraine. David Cameron warned Vladimir Putin, face to face, that Russias whole post-Cold War relationship with the West is at a fork in the road over Ukraine Getty Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia A mysterious Russian object is being tracked by space agencies, giving new life to fears about the increase of space weapons. The satellite, dubbed Object 2014-28E, has grabbed the interest of official and amateur satellite-watchers because it is taking a confusing path and its purpose has not been identified Getty Images Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia Russian warplanes are risking the security of civilian passengers as they play a dangerous game designed to test Western air defences, according to Natos secretary general FRA Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia Russia has warned Ukraine that a resumption of hostilities against pro-Russian separatists in the east would be catastrophic for Ukraine Reuters Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia A Swedish minesweeper searches for suspected "foreign underwater activity" near Stockholm. A Russian sub in Swedish waters has slipped away into the sea...leaving recriminations in its wake Reuters Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia Sberbank, Russia's largest lender, is taking the European Union to court in an attempt to loosen Western sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis GETTY IMAGES Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia Russian government agencies have been accused of editing a Wikipedia article to suggest the Ukrainian military was responsible for shooting down the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, a Twitter account monitoring state IP addresses has claimed AFP Tensions between Russia and the Western world Russia Australias prime minister Tony Abbott has promised he will shirtfront Vladimir Putin over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which killed 38 Australian citizens AP Leading European security analyst Jonathan Eyal said the four new batallions are not intended to repel attacking Russians, but will instead deter them from acts of aggression. Deterrence of the Russians will be more in the assurance that if they were to attack, they would come into contact with Nato forces almost immediately, and that therefore the Russians should not doubt Nato's determination to fight. For that, you don't need large numbers of troops. Mr Stoltenberg explained how the four batallions, each consisting of 800-1,000 troops, would deploy on a rotational basis, rather than being based permanently in the host countries. The United States, Britain and Germany have already committed to acting as so-called framework nations to furnish core forces for three of the battalions. NATO allies launch annual war games exercise Just last month, General Sir Richard Dhireff, who served as Natos Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe between 2011 and 2014, warned of nuclear war with Russia. He said the alliance must increase its capabilities in the Baltic States or risk potential catastrophe. The general said: The chilling fact is that because Russia hardwires nuclear thinking and capability to every aspect of their defence capability, this would be nuclear war. We need to judge President Putin by his deeds not his words. He has invaded Georgia, he has invaded the Crimea, he has invaded Ukraine. He has used force and got away with it. In a period of tension, an attack on the Baltic states is entirely plausible. Mr Stoltenberg said the four battalions represent just part of a much bigger shift in our posture, in response to the challenges we face. He said the Nato response force had tripled, now numbering 40,000 troops of which 5,000 are ready to move at short notice. He also said there were eight new small headquarters located in the Eastern part of our alliance to coordinate planning, exercises and reinforcements, and they are working with national governments and parliaments to ensure troops can move quickly across Europe. We have made significant progress, he said. Associated Press contributed to this report. For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Refugee children are being sexually exploited and forced to work tirelessly by traffickers in northern France, an extensive report by Unicef is to reveal. Young people from Syria and Libya told the charity they suffer a range of abuses at camps in Dunkirk and Calais, including being coerced into performing sex acts on traffickers and forced to commit crimes. The research takes the form of a series of interviews conducted over the course of six months and will be published in full on Thursday. Bilal (not his real name) a 16-year-old boy from Daraa, Syria, was stuck in a camp without his family for seven months and told Unicef about the conditions he and his brother were held in. The worst part of my journey was being in Calais because most people there were subjected to violence and humiliation, he said. Every day people would try to find ways of leaving. My friends and I tried to get on a train to get away I saw two friends die under that train. The charity reports there are at least 157 unaccompanied children living in the Calais Jungle camp who are waiting to be reunited with their families in the UK. Lliana Bird, co-founder of the charity Help Refugees, told The Independent from Calais: We do get these kinds of reports from refugee children fairly often, which is extremely worrying. We hear all sorts of horror stories about how they are treated in the camps, many of which are too horrific to even detail. The refugee crisis - in pictures Show all 70 1 /70 The refugee crisis - in pictures The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian refugee holding a baby in a lifetube swims towards the shore after their dinghy deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee raises a child into the air as Syrian and Afghan refugees are seen on and around a dinghy that deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian and Afghan refugees fall into the sea after their dinghy deflated some 100m away before reaching the Greek island of Lesbos The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee cries as he holds a child on the Serbian side of the border with Hungary in Asotthalom Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees stand in front of a barrier at the border with Hungary near the village of Horgos, Serbia Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee from Syria prays after arriving on the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos aboard an inflatable dinghy across the Aegean Sea from from Turkey. Greece sent troops and police reinforcements to Lesbos after renewed clashes between police and migrants, the public broadcaster said, while Syrian refugees on the island were targeted with Molotov cocktail attacks The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Police try to stop refugees going under a fence to board a train at a station near Gevgelija, Macedonia. Several thousand refugees in Macedonia boarded trains to travel north after spending a night in a provisional camp. Macedonia has organised trains twice a day to the north border where they cross into Serbia to make their way to Hungary The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees push each other as they try to board a bus following their arrival onboard the Eleftherios Venizelos passenger ship at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Greece The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees are welcomed by locals after their arrival at the main railway station in Frankfurt, Germany. Over 1,000 more refugees arrived in Germany to cheers and "welcome" signs, but calls grew for a European solution to its worst refugee crisis since World War II The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A young Syrian boy arrives on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing in a dinghy with other refugees from Turkey AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees walk on the railway tracks between Bicske and Szar, some 40 kms west of Budapest, trying to reach Germany EPA The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Hungarian policemen stand by the family of refugees as they wanted to run away at the railway station in the town of Bicske, Hungary The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A family is arrested by local police after their local train coming from Budapest and heading to the Austrian border has been stopped in Bicske, west of the Hungarian capital The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man is arrested by local police after his local train coming from Budapest and heading to the Austrian border has been stopped in Bicske, west of the Hungarian capital The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict More than 2,500 refugees have died trying to reach Europe this year and the struggle continues as they travel through the continent Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees protest in front of a train at Bicske railway station. Hundreds of people, were stranded on a train in Hungary for a second, demanding passage to Germany in a standoff with riot police The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian refugees arrive on the shores of Lesvos island Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian refugees on the Greek Macedonian border Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees storm into a train at the Keleti train station as Hungarian police withdrew from the gates after two days of blocking their entry The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees storm into a train at the Keleti train station in Budapest The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees cross the border between the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Greece, near the town of Gevgelija, Macedonia. The Gevgelija-Presevo journey is just a part of the journey that the refugees, the vast majority of them from Syria, are forced to make along the so-called Balkan corridor, which takes them from Turkey, across Greece, Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary, the gateway to the European Union, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A refugee helps up an exhausted fellow refugee as they cross the border between Macedonia and Greece, near the town of Gevgelija, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People breaking through a police cordon and crossing the border between Macedonia and Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees pass the border between Macedonia and Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Macedonian policeman carries a child across the border between Macedonia and Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrians sleep on railroad tracks waiting to be processed across the Macedonian border in Idomeni, Greece, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Czech police officer marks a refugee with a number after more than than 200 refugees were detained, mostly from Syria, on trains from Hungary and Austria at the railway station in Breclav, Czech Republic, September 2015 AP Photo, CTK/Igor Zehl The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A baby is lifted on to the Norwegian vessel Siem Pilot during a search-and-rescue mission off the Libyan coast, September 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Budapest's main international railway station ordered an evacuation as hundreds of people tried to board trains to Austria and Germany, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People wave their train tickets and lift up children outside the main Eastern Railway station in Budapest, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People protest at the Eastern (Keleti) railway station of Budapest, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugee children sleep in the surrounding green area of the Keleti railway station in Budapest, September 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrians cross under a fence into Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, August 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees who have just crossed the border from Serbia into Hungary walk along a railway track that joins the two countries, August 2015 Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Police arrest refugees at Cobham Services on the M25 in Surrey, August 2015 Twitter: @bigwheeluk The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Men hold a boy as they are stuck between Macedonian riot police officers and fellow refugees during a clash near the border train station of Idomeni, August 2015 AFP/Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian father holds his children close as his arrives on the Greek Island of Kos, August 2015 Eyevine The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A tourist offers water to Iranian refugees as they arrive by paddling an engineless dinghy from the Turkish coast (seen in the background) at a beach on the Greek island of Kos, August 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian holds his 30-day-old baby on an overcrowded train as they travel through Macedonia. Tens of thousands of refugees, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, use the Balkans route to get into the European Union, passing from Greece to Macedonia and Serbia and then to western Europe, August 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man rests on a platform at the train station in Gevgelija, on the Macedonian-Greek border, August 2015 Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees react after boarding the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) ship MV Phoenix some 20 miles (32 kilometres) off the coast of Libya. Some 118 refugees were rescued from a rubber dinghy off Libya. The Phoenix, manned by personnel from international non-governmental organisations Medecins san Frontiere (MSF) and MOAS, is the first privately funded vessel to operate in the Mediterranean, August 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Authorities are being overwhelmed as they try to fight off hundreds of refugees, prompting France to beef up its police presence, July 2015 AFP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People escape from the French Police as they try to catch a train to reach England, July 2015 EPA The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man jumps over a fence as he attempts to access the Channel Tunnel, in Calais, northern France, July 2015 PA/Thibault Camus The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Two men cling to the roof of a freight truck as it leaves the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone, July 2015 Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man climbs a security fence of a Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles near Calais, July 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Men help a man squeeze through a gap in a fence near the Eurotunnel terminal in Coquelles in Calais, July 2015 Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Desperate for entry to the EU, the group of people risked being washed away by the sea at Ventimiglia rocks, June 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Stranded refugees spend night on rocks - they were supplied with emergency blankets after a cold night next to the sea, June 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees climb in the back of a lorry on the A16 highway leading to the Eurotunnel in Calais, June 2015 Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A police officer sprays tear gas to men trying to access the Channel Tunnel on the A16 highway in Calais, northern France, June 2015 PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Men jump out of a lorry after being discovered by French gendarmerie officers, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man sits under the trailer of a lorry, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Belgian navy sailor passes life vests to refugees sitting in a rubber boat as they approach the Belgian Navy Vessel Godetia, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People on the Belgian Navy vessel Godetia after they were saved during a search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, June 2015 AP The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Iraqis wait as they are detained by Hungarian police after crossing the Hungarian-Serbian border illegally near the village of Asotthalom, Hungary, June 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Syrian refugees walking on train tracks through Macedonia on the Western Balkans migration route, after entering Europe through Greece, June 2015 Reuters The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A group of people huddle together during an operation to remove them from the Italian-French border in the Italian city of Ventimiglia. Italy and France engaged in a war of words as a standoff over hundreds of Africans offered a graphic illustration of Europe's migration crisis. Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano described images of refugees perched on rocks at the border town of Ventimiglia after being refused entry to France as a "punch in the face for Europe", June 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A man is carried by Italian police in Ventimiglia, Italy. Police reportedly removed refugees from under a railway bridge, June 2015 EPA The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict People queue after disembarking from the Royal Navy ship HMS 'Bulwark' upon their arrival in the port of Catania on the coast of Sicily, June 2015 GIOVANNI ISOLINO/AFP/Getty Images The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A Syrian child holds a drawing as he waits to disembark from Belgian Navy vessel Godetia at the Augusta port, Italy. Around 250 refugees from Syria arrived at the Sicilian harbour from a Damascus refugee camp, June 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A dinghy overcrowded with Afghan refugees arrived on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict An Afghan child is helped off a rib on the Greek island of Kos, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict An Afghan girl holds the hand of a woman as they arrive on a beach on the Greek island of Kos, after crossing a part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Refugees crossed part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Afghan refugees arrive on a beach of Kos, May 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Rescuers help children to disembark in the Sicilian harbor of Pozzallo, Italy in April 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict A boat transporting refugees arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation at sea, April 2015 Getty The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Armed Forces of Malta personnel in protective clothing carry the body of a dead man off Italian coastguard ship Bruno Gregoretti as surviving refugees watch in Senglea, in Valletta's Grand Harbour, April 2015 The refugee crisis - in pictures Refugees fleeing conflict Rescued people talk to a member of the Malta Order after a fishing boat carrying refugees capsized off the Libyan coast, is brought ashore along with 23 others retreived by the Italian Coast Guard vessel Bruno Gregoretti at Boiler Wharf, Senglea in Malta, April 2015 It all goes to reinforce the point we are making unaccompanied minors are the most vulnerable people in Europe right now, and it's up to the government to put proper registration systems in place to give children safeguards against this kind of exploitation. This afternoon Theresa May will face questions from MPs about progress made on the governments promise to accelerate the passage of unaccompanied child refugees to the UK. Unicef has today published an open letter to the Home Secretary from four boys reunited with their families in the UK, which can be found below. In April, Help Refugees revealed 129 unaccompanied minors had gone missing from the Calais Jungle shortly after the site was demolished, and more than 10,000 over the past two years across Europe. There are around 4,946 at the Calais refugee camp, around 500 of whom are children. An open letter to Theresa May from four Syrian refugee boys Dear Home Secretary, We are the children you see on the dangerous boats to Europe, torn from our families by war. Were the children you see living through hell in The Jungle in Calais. We will never forget those horrific months. Now, were the lucky few. After months of worrying and waiting, we have finally been reunited with our families in the UK. But our friends are still suffering in Calais, facing more and more danger every day, even though they have a right to be here with their families. Only you can take our friends out of danger. If you had 10 more staff working to reunite children with their families, all of the 157 children who are alone in Calais right now and, like us, have family living in the UK could be here in time to start school in September. In the past three weeks, more than 100,000 people have joined Unicef UK and Citizens UK in calling on you to reunite children with their families in the UK as quickly as possible. Among them are children, parents, MPs, and high-profile people including Michael Sheen, Andy Murray and Sir Chris Hoy. It means so much to know that all of these people in the UK are speaking up for child refugees like us. Please listen to them. Some people have a negative view of refugees, but we just want a second chance of living a happy life with our families and away from war. We are glad and thankful to you that we are now safe with our families in the UK. Please help the other children in Calais along with those in Italy, Greece and elsewhere by letting them be with their families. Yours sincerely, Bilal, 16, from Syria Hasan, 16, from Syria Moussa, 17, from Syria Mohamed, 17, from Syria For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A French police officer and his wife, who worked for the Ministry of the Interior, have been killed in knife attacks by an unknown assailant, who has now been shot dead by police after a tense stand off in the family home. A three-year-old boy, thought to be their son, was caught up in the hostage situation which followed but was found unharmed when police stormed the house, in the Paris suburb of Magnanville on Monday night. The Islamic State's Amaq news agency cited an unnamed "source" as saying an IS fighter carried out the attack, but the extremist jihadist group has not officially claimed the attack. One of the victims, named in in local media as Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, deputy chief of judicial police at Les Mureaux police station, was killed first at around 8pm. Mr Salvaing, aged 42, was returning home, out of uniform, when he was stabbed nine times in the abdomen, reported Le Figaro newspaper. His attacker then entered his home and held the man's wife hostage, along with the couple's three-year-old son. Elite police commandos from the RAID unit attended the the scene as authorities entered negotiations with the attacker. The street was also sealed off. At nearly 11pm, shots and an explosion were heard, and police entered the house. The attacker was then shot dead. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty The child has been resuced unhurt, but is in a state of shock, according to French radio reports. Online rumours that the killer had broadcast images of the second killing were partially substantiated by an official tweet from the French Police National account asking people not to share "malicious images". For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A Dutch tourist has been convicted of adultery in Qatar, three months after reporting to police she had been raped in the countrys capital of Doha. The 22-year-old woman was immediately detained after reporting the attack in mid-March and was held until her hearing, where she was given a one-year suspended sentence and reportedly fined 3,000 Qatari riyals (564). She has since been released to the care of the Dutch Embassy. Recommended Read more Dutch woman held in Qatar on adultery charges after reporting rape Her lawyer Brian Lokollo said the woman had been on holiday with a friend in March when the pair had visited a high-end hotel bar in Doha. The woman believes someone messed with her drink while she was at the bar as her memory had become hazy. She later awoke in an unfamiliar apartment with her clothes torn, and realised she had been raped, Mr Lokollo said. She had been charged with adultery for having sex outside of marriage, which is illegal in Qatar. The woman maintained that she was not guilty. The defendant claimed he and the woman had had consensual sex and that she had asked for money. He was sentenced to 140 lashes; 100 for adultery and 40 for consuming alcohol, according to Sky News. The womans release and sentence were confirmed by Dutch Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Daphne Kerremans. The Dutch Embassy in Doha declined to comment further. Alcohol is available at high-end hotels in Qatar and duty-free shops at its massive international airport. However, residents must have permission from their employers to buy at the country's only government-run alcohol store. Similar cases have occurred elsewhere in the Gulf Arab states. In 2008, an Australian woman said she was jailed for eight months after reporting that she was gang-raped at a hotel in the United Arab Emirates. In 2013, a Norwegian woman who reported being raped in Dubai received a 16-month sentence for having sex outside of marriage, though she was pardoned and allowed to leave the country. Additional reporting by Associated Press For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Isis militants have released an extended propaganda video claiming to show one of their jihadists killing his own brother for attempting to defect. The 15-minute clip posted on Twitter shows two men being led out into a fenced compound to be shot, as part of the terrorist groups clampdown on alleged spying within its ranks in Iraq. The killer, a man named Abu Abdallah, says a prayer in Arabic before shooting one of the blindfolded men in the head. Abdallah claims the prisoner was his sibling, although this remains unconfirmed according to ABNA News. The other man was shot dead at the same time. It is difficult to confirm where or when precisely the killings took place but the video was released on Sunday morning. Isis leaders are said to have grown wary of potential spying activity and defections after losing several of its senior members to airstrikes over the past few months. In January Ali Saqr al-Qasem, a 20-year-old militant, reportedly shot his mother Lena in the head in public after accusing her of apostasy. 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 Ms al-Qasem was found guilty of trying to persuade her son to abandon Isis and flee Syria with her. It is not known why her son was given the task of killing his own mother and the execution took place outside Raqqas post office, where Ms al-Qasem worked. Last month 38 Isis fighters were allegedly killed in acid vats during a purge of suspected spies in Mosul, according to the Sun. The bodies of executed defectors are displayed in public as a warning to those tempted to leave the terrorist collective. Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Take to the streets The street art festival, Artscape, comes to Gothenburg this year, with large-scale artworks on display in all 10 district of the Swedish city. Taking place 25 July-21 August, the festival will feature artists from around the world, as well as panel discussions, lectures and workshops. artscape.se French fancy Pariss Marais district will welcome a new hotel this month. An homage to Josephine Beauharnais, the wife of Napoleon, Hotel de JoBo is a converted convent with 24 rooms. The flamboyant decor is inspired by the couple, with reproduction period wallpaper and a motif of roses Josephines favourite flower. Guests will even find a campaign tent covered in blooms at reception. hoteldejobo.paris Oregon trail Delta will launch direct flights from Heathrow to Portland, Oregon next spring. Starting on 26 May 2017, the service will operate four times a week to the US West Coast city. You can read The Independents recent 48 Hours in Portland here. delta.com Stay connected Skyroam is offering a new service that allows travellers to hire one of its portable wi-fi hotspots for unlimited internet in more than 90 countries around the world. The flat rate is $9.95 (7.11) per day for up to five devices. The Independent recently tested out a similar device, GlocalMe G2 you can read our review here. skyroam.com Southern comfort Svatma, a restored family mansion in the southern Indian region of Tamil Nadu, has opened as a 38-room boutique hotel. Located in Thanjavur, home to Unesco-listed temples, the hotel offers experiences such as academic-led excursions and cookery classes, while the individually decorated rooms are inspired by the art and architecture of the region. svatma.in The grand entrance to Svatma Drink it in Luxury hotel group Relais & Chateaux has launched a new tea trail across Asia. The week-long itinerary covers China, Sri Lanka and India, with the chance to visit tea museums, plantations and tea rooms en route. Prices start at 2,332 (1,850) per person including a night at each of the seven properties on the trail. Transport not included. relaischateaux.com Tents moment Go Outside is a new website that claims to be the first dedicated to luxury camping in Italy. Accommodation on offer includes Airstream trailers, 35 minutes from Venice, and Coco Sweet tents that come with their own kitchen and veranda, on the shore of Lake Garda. gooutside.it Sign up to Simon Calders free travel email for weekly expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calders Travel email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Simon Calders Travel email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} For British travellers to Europe, the summer of discontent acquires a new dimension on Tuesday when French air-traffic controllers join Air France pilots in going on strike. The air-traffic staff, who control the busiest skies in Europe, are unhappy about proposed changes to working conditions and retirement. This is their 50th strike in the past seven years, and once again it has grounded hundreds of flights - many of them flying over France, rather than to or from the country. British Airways has cancelled four flights on each of its routes between London and Nice, Barcelona and Madrid, as well as flights to and from Paris, Geneva, Milan, Rome, Venice and Zurich. The airline said: This strike will be the ninth day of industrial action in the past three months by French air traffic controllers. Ryanair has cancelled 40 flights, including links from Luton to Beziers and Stansted to Carcassonne. At Gatwick airport, easyJets operations on Monday continued to be disrupted by Sundays closure of the main runway because of a pothole. The airline also made a number of cancellations because of air-traffic control restrictions as a result of the weather disruption. World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty Air France passengers faced delays and cancellations not just from the air-traffic control strike but also the continuing pilots strike. The airline said: We plan to operate around 85 per cent of our long haul flights, around 80 per cent of our domestic flights, and around 75 per cent of our medium-haul flights to and from Paris CDG. Both strikes are due to end on Tuesday, but Air France warned disruption will continue into Wednesday due to legal and operational constraints. Also on Tuesday, flights operated by SAS with Swedish pilots will be cancelled due to a continuing pilots strike. Once again the airline will cancel around 240 flights, affecting 25,000 passengers. Flights operated by crews based in Denmark and Norway are unaffected. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Donald Trump, knowing his target audience only too well, was quick to claim the Orlando massacre as evidence of his own prescience (appreciate the congrats, he tweeted) and of the dangers to the US of Islamist extremists. As part of an election narrative in which there are fewer shades of grey than Trumps hair, his comments were applauded by supporters but sickened many others. On the other side of the political fence, President Obama and the Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, were more circumspect about rushing to judge the role of religion in the attack. Both condemned it as an act of terror and argued that it was a reminder of the need to implement tougher controls on gun ownership. Trump, with due inevitability, criticised his opponents for not mentioning radical Islamic terrorism and suggested the President should resign in disgrace. These contrasting responses have to be seen in the light of Americas upcoming election. But they resonate with journalists, who frequently find themselves in the position of having to work out how quickly and definitively to apportion responsibility and ascribe motive when there is an outrage of the kind witnessed on Sunday in Florida. US Muslim leader addresses Isis after Orlando shooting - 'You do not represent us. You are an aberration In this particular case, news of the atrocity started to come through shortly after 8.30am British time and The Independents first report was published at 8.47, noting that a gunman was said to have taken hostages at a nightclub and was believed to have opened fire. We published numerous updates as the morning unfolded but were still reporting at midday that the motive for the attack was unknown, although soon afterwards we added that police were describing the killings as suspected terrorism. Trumps first tweet was along similar lines. At around half past two we reported news about the killers identity, including the fact that Omar Mateen was a US citizen and the son of Afghan immigrants. By 4pm, Trump was sufficiently emboldened to send his inflammatory tweets linking the crime to Islam. Indeed, as further updates emerged from the authorities, it appeared that Mateens affiliation to Isis was real. According to the FBI, he called emergency services to pledge his allegiance to the terror group before embarking on his hideous spree and Isis, through its news channels, claimed responsibility for his actions. The Independent, and others, reported the developments as they happened. All in all, there is little evidence of mainstream news outlets making wild assumptions about the Orlando shootings. Perhaps journalists are more wary about jumping to conclusions after the act of terror committed by Anders Breivik in Norway in 2011. As events unfolded there, expert after expert was interviewed on TV and predicted likely links between the killer and al-Qaeda, only to be proved utterly wrong. Bearing in mind too that America has a long history of mass killings unconnected to radical Islamism, there was further reason to guard against over-eager suppositions as to a religious motive for this latest horror. In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Show all 44 1 /44 In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Frank Escalante AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Conde AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Brenda Lee Marquez McCool In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Joel Rayon Paniagua AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jerald Arthur Wright AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Paul Terrell Henry AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Shane Evan Tomlinson AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Antonio Davon Brown AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jason Benjamin Josaphat AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Enrique L. Rios, Jr. AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Darryl Roman Burt AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Cory James Connell REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Tevin Eugene Crosby AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jonathan Antonio Camuy-Vega AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Leroy Valentin Fernandez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Andrew Leinonen AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Angel L. Candelario-Padro AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Simon Adrian Carrillo-Fernande AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Javier Jorge-Reyes AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Gilberto Ramon Silva-Menendez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan P. Rivera-Velazquez AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Miguel Angel Honorato AP In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Jean Carlos Mendez Perez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Mercedez Marisol Flores REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Luis Laureano Disla REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Franky Jimmy De Jesus Velazquez REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Oscar A. Aracena-Montero REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Martin Benitez Torres REUTERS In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Stanley Almodovar Facebook/Stanley Manolo Almodovar III In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eddie Justice Faebook/ Eddie Justice In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Vielma Twitter/@jk_rowling In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera Facebook/ Eric Rivera In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Juan Ramon Guerrero Facebook/ Juan Ramon Guerrero In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz Facebook/ Peter Gonzalez Cruz In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Amanda Alvear Facebook/ Amanda Alvear In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Anthony Disla Facebook/ Anthony Disla In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Edward Sotomayor Twitter/@ryanraiche In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo Facebook/Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo In pictures: The victims of the Orlando shooting Kimberley Morris Twitter/ @katiezavadski Then again, the initial, factual reporting of terrorist outrages is only one part of the equation. Just as important is the analysis that follows. That is why a politician like Trump is so dangerous: from a narrow factual basis, he conjures narratives which fit his political agenda and illiberal outlook. So in this case, we know that Omar Mateen was a Muslim, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan; we are told by his father that he had expressed anger about homosexuality; and we know he claimed an association with Isis. We know too that other Muslims have been quick to condemn him. Other points remain less clear: did he have contact with other extremists for instance; were there links to Isis other than those in his mind; was his mental health generally sound? While the authorities grapple with those seemingly vital points, right-wing commentators and politicians will not hesitate to fill in the gaps. Trump for one has already concluded that he was correct all along, that the position is clear: Mateen acted entirely because of his religion, Muslims are a danger to America, large numbers are involved in Isis-inspired plots, and the US should at the very least shut its doors to new arrivals who profess to follow Islam. In our post-truth, post-nuance era it is not only possible to get away with being blind to complexity; it may even show the way to the White House. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} A reactivated Gordon Brown is back on our television screens, his unmistakeable voice sonorous and somnolent in equal measure resounding on the airwaves. As it was with the Scottish referendum two years ago, there is a vote to be won. Once again, to quote Brian Blessed: Gordons alive! Now we are in the home straight, it is the rump voters who have not yet made up their mind many of them Labour voters who count. Is Brown, who launched the Labour fightback on Monday with a speech and a round of media appearances, the man for the job? With only 10 days to go, what difference could a former Prime Minister who never won the affection of the electorate truly make? The answer to that question depends on how much weight voters will place, when making their decisions, on what we might call the long view of the EU question. Look at the sweep of history, Brown exhorted Radio 4 listeners on Monday morning. Britain led Europe against Fascism, Britain created the European convention of human rights, Britain was the leader in persuading Eastern Europe to come into the European Union, Britain has always led the way when things have been difficult in Europe and I think its time we were a leader again. Boris vs Brown This is stirring stuff to those of a particular internationalist persuasion, and its wholly characteristic of Gordon Brown in the autumn of his political career. True, we have heard similar appeals to peoples sense of history intermittently throughout the campaign, with mixed results. Wield the weighty issue of European history clumsily and people will see you for what you are: a pound shop Churchill co-opting a long and complex narrative for short-term political gain. David Cameron and Boris Johnson have both been guilty of this in their own, different ways. Johnsons ludicrous comparison of the EU project to the Third Reich was singly unconvincing, while Camerons speech on the EU spun the matter of war and peace within an inch of its life, until all any voter remembers of it is a warning about World War Three that he did not make. One suspects that European Council president Donald Tusks intervention on Monday, warning that Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of western political civilisation in its entirety, will also fall into this category. Dave Brown on Europe Show all 9 1 /9 Dave Brown on Europe Dave Brown on Europe 4 March 2016 Boris Johnson campaigns for Brexit Dave Brown Dave Brown on Europe Dave Brown on Europe 15 January 2016 Chris Grayling hints that he will campaign for Britain to leave EU Dave Brown on Europe 21 October 2015 ECB prescribes more Quantitative Easing Dave Brown on Europe 13 October 2015 Cameron seeks an EU re-negotiation as ex M&S boss announced to lead Dave Brown on Europe 30 June 2015 Greek ATMs close as Tsipras fails to get a bailout deal from Merkel Dave Brown on Europe 6 February 2015 Merkel and Hollandes send Putin a peace proposal for Ukraine Dave Brown on Europe 28 June 2014 Cameron defeated in vote for new EU President Dave Brown on Europe 17 May 2014 Farage makes his position on Europe clear It could be argued that it is much more prosaic matters, such as the cost of the weekly shop, house prices, the value of a pension and the prospects of getting a job, that are going to motivate most voters on June 23. But that is not to say the lofty sweep of history arguments have no power to persuade. As we come closer to the point at which all the arguments crystallise into millions of solitary moments between a voter, their pencil, and the ballot paper, it is worth remembering that at this point voters begin to gravitate toward caution. The responsibility of putting that X in the box looms large. This is a vote of historic proportions; delivered measuredly by a credible figure, a gentle reminder of that fact will only make voters weigh their own contribution more heavily, can only be to the benefit of the Remain cause. Brown is such a figure. So too, for a very large and oft-forgotten constituency, is Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who eloquently took one of the longest imaginable views of the EU question, rooting his decision to vote for Remain in the glorious principles of Britains Christian heritage. His call in the Mail on Sunday for a vote made in the spirit of the vaulting idealism of the post-war generation who built our modern international institutions the EU included will be dismissed as so much hot air by some Leave campaigners, who claim that the idealistic, visionary thing to do is to back Brexit. But there is an interesting nuance in the polling data that suggests they may be wrong. Most polls show Euroscepticism increasing with age, up to the 55+ or 60+ age group, who are the most likely to back Leave. But data produced last week by ComRes, based on four polls recent polls, showed that the over-75s defy that trend and back Remain 45 to 42. Could it be that the experience of living through a European war, of having lived that long sweep of history that Brown describes, makes one more inclined to favour the path of European unity? We voting today are the latter-day custodians of the international order that their generation hauled out of the chaos of war. It will do the Remain campaign no harm to remind us of that fact. Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inbox Get our free View from Westminster email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the View from Westminster email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Bizarre, weird, unprecedented. It's rarely you can call the UN all three. But I did get the April Fool's Day feeling when I read about the World Health Organisation's latest warning to Syrians: they must stop smoking. Not just cigarettes but even the nargileh, the shisha pipe, upon which generations of Arabs have puffed away in war and peace. But now and it is June, not 1 April the poor and desperate Syrian people have been told by the UN health agency that they really must take better care of their lungs. Has the UN no sense of shame? I don't blame Elizabeth Hoff, WHO's representative for Syria, for this preposterous report. There was a time, and will be again in a future peace, for such serious warnings to be issued. But somewhere within the UN's clanking pistons and steam valves, her desire to save the Syrian masses from lung cancer forget the barrel bombers, Russian missiles, car bombs, torturers and throat-cutters to which they fall victim in their tens of thousands got spewed out of the machinery on the East River at the most inappropriate moment in history, and the world was presented with the UN at its cancerous best. Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Show all 10 1 /10 Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Graffiti on the ancient stones reads in Arabic Shooting without the permission of the chief is prohibited Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Damaged artefacts lay inside the museum of the historic city of Palmyra Reuters Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Syrian pro-government forces rest by Palmyra Citadel as they take control of the city from the hands of Isis Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The UNESCO world heritage site appears surprisingly intact after its recapture from the militant group Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Many had feared the ancient city would be destroyed following its capture by Isis in May Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Smoke billows from the Palmyra Citadel as Assads forces drive the Jihadist group from the city Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Palmyra is one of the most important cultural centers of the world Unesco says Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces Pro-government forces play football in the streets following the recapture of the city Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The extent of the destruction caused by Isis 10 month occupation of the city has yet to be fully realised Getty Palmyra recaptured by Syrian government forces Palmyra recaptured by Syrian pro-government forces The City Council of Palmyra building in ruins Reuters Throughout the Second World War, the League of Nations, predecessor of the UN which was constructed after the 1914-18 war to end all such global conflicts, continued to exist, powerless and ignored, in Geneva. But at least it did not admonish the belligerents to drive more carefully or to ensure their children did not eat fattening sweets or jay-walk. Or to stop smoking. For if you really fear the dangers of lung cancer are so important (and they clearly are), surely a sense of decorum should come into play when men, women and children are being eviscerated? But no. The old UN donkey has trotted out its report with hopeless inappropriateness, warning that tobacco and water pipes endanger the lives of Syrian smokers and those around them "notwithstanding the current crisis [sic] in the country". Residents of Syrias Azaz caught in the crossfire The nargileh, Syrians are told the hookah or hubble-bubble pipe has been around since the Mogul empire in the 16th century is 20 times as bad for their health as cigarette smoking. And the Syrian bureaucracy should take care to ensure that cigarettes are plain-packaged to reduce their "attractiveness and glamour". I can see the problem. While fleeing from air strikes, mass graves and ethnic cleansing, Syrians have just got to resist the temptation of a quick gasper to calm their nerves. Your home may be in flames, your family enslaved, your torturers itching to pull out your fingernails but above all you've got to ignore the pretty ciggy packet in your pocket. Try not to join the other 280,000 victims of the Syrian war but above all ignore the temptations of those who urge you to puff away on menthol fresh cigarettes. In fact, the Syrian government did, before the war, start some anti-tobacco campaigns. There are government offices in Damascus where, unbelievably, civil servants are not allowed to smoke, even today. The government's health minister, Ahmad Khlefawy, has actually said that the war is no excuse for smoking tobacco. But far more assiduous in supporting the WHO report will surely be the lads from Isis, who are currently the most vigorous anti-smoking campaigners in the history of the world. Caught with a fag in your mouth in Mosul or Raqqa, or even a packet of cigarettes in your pocket, and you'll be slapped with a $20 (14) fine or, more likely, given 20 lashes with steel wire or the casing of a car tyre. Of course, the timing of the WHO report is preposterous, ludicrous, crazed. The UN is still unable to supply food aid to thousands of Syrians trapped in village and city sieges by rebel and government forces. It cannot even open humanitarian corridors across Syria to save the innocent and the sick. Its negotiators have signally failed to create a lasting ceasefire. They've tried. I don't blame them. But what are Syrians supposed to make of Hoff's smoking report right now? For when, in the middle of this bloodbath, Isis and the UN are on the same track, something has gone terribly wrong. Desperate to survive their terrible war, there must be many Syrians who regard the UN report if they even hear about it as an insult to their lives. The fact that this did not even occur to the UN itself is a measure of its profound dysfunction. 1 of 40 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Flash plugin failed to load 00:00 00:00 Embed Copy Share Trump captures the nations attention on the campaign trail View Photos The Republican candidate continues to dominate the presidential contest. Caption The Republican candidate continues to dominate the presidential contest. June 11, 2016 Supporters attend a campaign rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Tampa Convention Center in Florida. Gerardo Mora/Getty Images Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. Donald Trump seemed to repeatedly accuse President Obama on Monday of identifying with radicalized Muslims who have carried out terrorist attacks in the United States and being complicit in the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando over the weekend, the worst the country has ever seen . "Look, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind," Trump said in a lengthy interview on Fox News early Monday morning. "And the something else in mind -- you know, people can't believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words 'radical Islamic terrorism.' There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on." In that same interview, Trump was asked to explain why he called for Obama to resign in light of the shooting and he answered, in part: "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands -- it's one or the other and either one is unacceptable." [ Orlando gunman cool and calm during nightclub standoff with police ] Here's how Trump and Clinton responded to the Orlando shooting Embed Copy Share Play Video 2:32 After the deadly shooting in an Orlando nightclub on June 12, some in politics pushed for stricter gun control while others asked for prayers. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump ignited controversy with his tweets. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post) For months, Trump has slyly suggested that the president is not Christian and has questioned his compassion toward Muslims. Years ago, Trump was a major force in calls for the president to release his birth certificate and prove that he was born in the United States. On the campaign trail, Trump has repeatedly stated as fact conspiracy theories about the president, his rivals and Muslims, often refusing to back down from his assertions even when they are proven to be false. During an appearance on the "Today" show later Monday morning, Savannah Guthrie pushed Trump to explain what he meant in the earlier interview. "Well there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it," Trump said. "A lot of people think maybe he doesn't want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn't know what he's doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it. He doesn't want to see what's really happening. And that could be." [ Trump and Clinton and their very different responses to the Orlando shootings ] Guthrie asked Trump why that would be, and the presumptive Republican presidential nominee responded: "Because Savannah, Savannah, why isn't he addressing the issue? He's not addressing the issue. He's not calling it what it is. This is radical Islamic terrorism. This isn't fighting Germany; this isn't fighting Japan, where they wear uniforms." Trump's spokeswoman and campaign manager have yet to respond to a request for a fuller explanation of Trump's comments about the president. In December, Trump called for a temporary ban on allowing foreign Muslims into the country as a way to protect against terrorist attacks. Recently, as he faced pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump seemed to back away from the religion-based ban, saying that it was merely a suggestion. But after this weekend's mass shooting, Trump has doubled down on his call for a ban, saying that the United States is allowing in terrorists who could stage even worse attacks. "That man yesterday was sick with hate," Trump said on Fox. "You have many, many people, thousands of people, already in our country that are sick with hate. And people that are around him, Muslims, know who they are, largely. They know who they are. They have to turn them in. They know who they are. They see them." During a brief interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," Trump was asked how a ban on foreign Muslims could have prevented the Orlando shooting, as the shooter, identified as Omar Mateen, was born in the United States. "We have many people coming in whose hate is equal to his and just as bad and even worse, frankly, and we have to stop people from coming in," Trump said, adding that gun control measures also could not stop a terrorist attack. "The problem was that we have a maniac, we have a madman. He could have used a bomb. He could have used other things, just as easily, just as easily," Trump said. "It would have been, probably, even more devastating. So that's not the problem." politics post-politics The Daily Trail newsletter A daily briefing of what's happening on the campaign trail. Please provide a valid email address. Sign up Youre all set! See all newsletters Trump has repeatedly taken credit for having been "right" on issues of terror, and on Monday he continued to face scrutiny for a tweet he posted on Sunday that read: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" "I'm getting thousands of letters and tweets that I was right about the whole situation," Trump said on Fox News. "I mean, I've been right about a lot of things, frankly... I was right about many, many things." Trump is scheduled to give a speech about terrorism in New Hampshire on Monday afternoon, and he declined to provide details on the types of policies he might advocate for, other than saying: "I'm calling for strength. I'm calling for intelligence." Boris Johnson during a visit to Farmhouse Biscuits in Nelson, Lancashire, where he was campaigning on behalf of the Vote Leave EU campaign With sadness and tortured by doubts, I will cast my vote as an ordinary citizen for withdrawal from the European Union. Let there be no illusion about the trauma of Brexit. Anybody who claims that Britain can lightly disengage after 43 years enmeshed in EU affairs is a charlatan, or a dreamer, or has little contact with the realities of global finance and geopolitics. Stripped of distractions, it comes down to an elemental choice: whether to restore the full self-government of this nation, or to continue living under a higher supranational regime, ruled by a European Council that we do not elect in any meaningful sense, and that the British people can never remove, even when it persists in error. For some of us - and we do not take our cue from the Leave campaign - it has nothing to do with payments into the EU budget. Whatever the sum, it is economically trivial, worth unfettered access to a giant market. Expand Close Donald Tusk argued that finance officials need to resume talks and agree within days on reforms needed / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Donald Tusk argued that finance officials need to resume talks and agree within days on reforms needed We are deciding whether to be guided by a Commission with quasi-executive powers that operates more like the priesthood of the 13th Century papacy than a modern civil service; and whether to submit to a European Court (ECJ) that claims sweeping supremacy, with no right of appeal. It is whether you think the nation states of Europe are the only authentic fora of democracy, be it in this country, or Sweden, or the Netherlands, or France - where Nicholas Sarkozy has launched his presidential bid with an invocation of King Clovis and 1,500 years of Frankish unity. I do not think this is remotely possible, or would be desirable if it were, but it is not on offer anyway. Six years into the eurozone crisis there is no a flicker of fiscal union: no eurobonds, no Hamiltonian redemption fund, no pooling of debt, and no budget transfers. The banking union belies its name. Germany and the creditor states have dug in their heels. Where we concur is that the EU as constructed is not only corrosive but ultimately dangerous, and that is the phase we have now reached as governing authority of crumbles across Europe. The Project bleeds the lifeblood of the national institutions, but fails to replace them with anything lovable or legitimate at a European level. It draws away charisma, and destroys it. This is how democracies die. "They are slowly drained of what makes them democratic, by a gradual process of internal decay and mounting indifference, until one suddenly notices that they have become something different, like the republican constitutions of Athens or Rome or the Italian city-states of the Renaissance," says Lord Sumption of our Supreme Court. It is a quarter century since I co-wrote the leader for this newspaper on the Maastricht summit. We warned that Europe's elites were embarking on a reckless experiment, piling Mount Pelion upon Mount Ossa with a vandal's disregard for the cohesion of their ancient polities. We reluctantly supported John Major's strategy of compromise, hoping that later events would "check the extremists and put the EC on a sane and realistic path." This did not happen, as Europe's Donald Tusk confessed two weeks ago, rebuking the elites for seeking a utopia without nation states" and over-reaching on every front. Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm, he said. If there were more Tusks at the helm, one might still give the EU Project the benefit of the doubt. Hard experience - and five years at the coal face in Brussels - tells me others would seize triumphantly on a British decision to remain, deeming it submission from fear. They would pocket the vote. Besides, too much has happened that cannot be forgiven. The EU crossed a fatal line when it smuggled through Lisbon Treaty, by executive cabal, after the text had already been rejected by French and Dutch voters in its earlier guise. It is one thing to advance the Project by stealth and the Monnet method, it is another to call a plebiscite and then to override the outcome. Need I remind readers that our own government gave a "cast iron guarantee" to hold a referendum, but retreated claiming that Lisbon was tidying up exercise? It was no such thing. As we warned then, it created a European supreme court with jurisdiction over all areas of EU policy, with a legally-binding Charter of Fundamental Rights that opens the door to anything. Need I add too that Britain's opt-out from the Charter under Protocol 30 - described as "absolutely clear" by Tony Blair on the floor of the Commons - has since been swept aside by the ECJ. It is heartening that our judges have begun to resist Europe's imperial court, threatening to defy any decision that clashes with the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, or the core texts of our inherited constitution. But this raises as many questions as it answers. Nobody has ever been held to account for the design faults and hubris of the euro, or for the monetary and fiscal contraction that turned recession into depression, and led to levels of youth unemployment across a large arc of Europe that nobody would have thought possible or tolerable in a modern civilized society. The only people ever blamed are the victims. There has been no truth and reconciliation commission for the greatest economic crime of modern times. We do not know who exactly was responsible for anything because power was exercised through a shadowy interplay of elites in Berlin, Frankfurt, Brussels, and Paris, and still is. Everything is deniable. All slips through the crack of oversight. Nor have those in charge learned the lessons of EMU failure. The burden of adjustment still falls on South, without offsetting expansion in the North. It is a formula for deflation and hysteresis. That way lies yet another Lost Decade. Has there ever been a proper airing of how the elected leaders of Greece and Italy were forced out of power and replaced by EU technocrats, perhaps not by coups d'etat in a strict legal sense but certainly by skulduggery? On what authority did the European Central Bank write secret letters to the leaders of Spain and Italy in 2011 ordering detailed changes to labour and social law, and fiscal policy, holding a gun to their head on bond purchases? What is so striking about these episodes is not that EU officials took such drastic decisions in the white heat of crisis, but that it was allowed to pass so easily. The EU's missionary press corps turned a blind eye. The European Parliament closed ranks, the reflex of a nomenklatura. While you could say that the euro is nothing to do with us, it obviously goes to the character of the EU: how it exercises power, and how far it will go in extremis. You can certainly argue from realpolitik that monetary union is so flawed it will lurch from crisis to crisis until it ruptures, in the next global downturn or the one after that, and will therefore compel the European elites to abandon their grand plans, so why not bide our time. But this is to rely on conjecture. You can equally argue that the high watermark of EU integration has passed: the Project is in irreversible decay. We are a long way from the triumphalism of the millennium, when the EU was replicating the structures of the US federal government, with an EU intelligence cell and military staff in Brussels led by nine generals, and plans for a Euro-army of 100,000 troops, 400 aircraft and 100 ships to project global power. You can argue too that the accession of thirteen new countries since 2004 - mostly from Eastern Europe - has changed the chemistry of the EU beyond recognition, making it ever less plausible to think of a centralized, close-knit, political union. Yet retreat is not the declared position of the Five Presidents' Report, the chief blueprint for where they want the EU Project to go. Far from it. In any case, even if we do not go forward, we may not go backwards either. By design it is almost impossible to repeal the 170,000 pages of the Acquis. Jean Monnet constructed the EU in such way that conquered ground can never be ceded back, as if were the battleground of Verdun. We are trapped in a 'bad equilibrium', leaving us in permanent friction with Brussels. It is like walking forever with a stone in your shoe. But if we opt to leave, let us not delude ourselves. Personally, I think the economics of Brexit are neutral, and possibly a net plus over 20 years if executed with skill. But it is nothing more than an anthropological guess, just as the Treasury is guessing with its cherry-picked variables. We are compelled to make our choice at a treacherous moment, when our current account deficit has reached 7pc of GDP, the worst in peace-time since records began in 1772 under George III. I am willing to take the calculated risk that our floating currency would act as a benign shock absorber - as devaluation did in 1931, 1992, and 2008 - but it could be a very rough ride. As Standard & Poor's warned this week, debts of UK-based entities coming due over the next 12 months amount to 755pc of external receipts, the highest of 131 rated sovereign states. Does it matter? We may find out. The Leave campaign has offered no convincing plan for our future trading ties or the viability of the City. It has ruled out a fall-back to the European Economic Area, the "Norwegian" model that would preserve - if secured - access to the EU customs union and preserve the "passporting" rights of the City. The EEA would be a temporary haven while we sorted out our global trading ties, the first step of a gradual extraction. The Leavers have not embraced this safe exit - or rather, less dangerous exit - because it would mean abandoning all else that they have pledged so promiscuously, chiefly the instant control of EU migrant flows. By this fourberie they have muddied the water, conflating constitutional issues and with the politics of immigration. We risk a Parliamentary crisis and shrieks of betrayal if the Commons - discerning the national will - imposes the EEA option on a post-Brexit government, as it may have to do. We leave Ireland in the lurch, at risk of an economic shock that it did nothing to provoke. Those Leavers who chatter cavalierly of resiling from the (non-EU) European Convention of Human Rights should be aware that the Good Friday peace accords are anchored in that document, and if they do not understand why it matters that just 12pc of Ulster Catholics support Brexit, they are not listening to Sinn Fein. However unfair it may seem, the whole Western world deems Brexit to be an act of strategic vandalism at a time when Pax Americana is cracking and the liberal democracies are under civilizational threat. Without rehearsing well-known risks, we have a Jihadi cauldron across much of the Levant and North Africa; Vladimir Putin's Russia has ripped up the post-War rule book and is testing Nato every day in the Baltics; China's construction of airfields along international shipping routes off the Philippines is leading to a superpower showdown with the US. The Leave camp was caught off guard when Barack Obama swept into London to make it the US view brutally clear, followed by Japan's Shinzo Abe, and a troop of world leaders. You do not unpick the web of interlocking global ties lightly. One hopes that Brexiteers now understand what they face, and therefore what they must do to uphold British credibility if they win. We must be an even better ally. But by the same token, the people of this country have every right to take this one chance to issue their verdict on four decades of EU conduct. To those American friends who ask why we cavil at compromises with Europe when we "pool sovereignty" - an inaccurate term - with scores of bodies from Nato to the United Nations, the answer is that the EU is not remotely comparable in scale, ideology, or intent to anything else on this planet. Remainers invoke Edmund Burke and the doctrine of settled practice, but settled is the one thing the EU has not been in its irrepressible itch for treaties and its accretion of power, and Burke is a double-edged sword. He backed the American Revolution, not to create something dangerously daring and new but rather to restore lost liberties and self-government, the settled practice of an earlier age. Americans of all people should understand why a nation may wish to assert its independence. This is my decision. It may go against my own interest, since I hope to live out part of my remaining years in France - though countless Britons lived there contentedly in 19th Century before we ever had such a thing as the European Union, and no doubt will continue to do so long after it is gone. I urge nobody to follow my example. It ill behoves anyone over 50 to exhort an outcome too vehemently. Let the youth decide. It is they who must live with the consequences. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is International Business Editor of The Daily Telegraph. He has covered world politics and economics for 30 years, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels. (This article first appeared in The Telegraph) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] An Irish husband and wife team have secured a five year distribution deal with a subsidiary of drinks giant Carlsberg that will see its cider distributed throughout France. Cork-based pair Daniel and Geraldine Emerson of Nohoval Drinks Company have signed the deal for its Finnbarra Dry Irish Cider, known here as Stonewell Cider. Nohoval has reached an agreement with Carlsberg's French subsidiary House of Beer. The total volume ordered by House of Beer in the first three years equates to the entire 2015 output of Finbarra by the West Cork-based family business. The cider will be sold in both bottle and draught formats across France. House of Beer marketing director Arthur Lenormand said the French market is "cornered" between Brittany farmhouse and overseas industrial ciders. "As with the micro beer sector, wherein lies our established expertise, we are convinced that there is a latent demand amongst French consumers for a new taste experience which will change their patterns of consumption. "As a result we are delighted to be able to introduce Finnbarra to them. To enlighten and delight the French consumer with a different style of cider is an exciting challenge and were aiming to achieve that with a product of outstanding quality," he said. Daniel Emerson described this, the company's largest deal to date as a "landmark" for the company. "A large five year contract for a six year old company allows us to plan our business with greater confidence. That this contract is for a market of 63 million people and with a subsidiary of Carlsberg is a significant endorsement of both our business and our cider. Finnbarra Irish Craft Cider will be distributed nationally in France to both on and off-trade outlets by House of Beer across the companys eight operational regions. In the early phase of the five year contract, demand for Finnbarra Irish Craft Cider is expected to come from the core summer holiday market and also the many Irish-themed on-trade premises throughout France. Demand is expected to broaden beyond these core markets over time. Mr Hubbard, a UK native, is now a director of Irish firm Persium plc, which aims to provide export and investment assistance to clients hoping to export to a number of countries for which export-related finance may be typically more difficult to secure. A Switzerland-based investor, who made a fortune after Limerick bioscience firm Gencell was sold for $150m, is backing a new company that aims to help Irish businesses target exports to the Middle East, India and former Soviet countries. Richard Hubbard was among the investors in Gencell Biosystems when it was sold in 2014 to US firm Becton Dickinson. The Irish company had only been established three years earlier and had raised 6m from backers including Enterprise Ireland. Mr Hubbard, a UK native, is now a director of Irish firm Persium plc, which aims to provide export and investment assistance to clients hoping to export to a number of countries for which export-related finance may be typically more difficult to secure. Speaking to the Irish Independent, Persium director Ali Yousefian said that the company is targeting export finance solutions for small to medium-sized companies in the food, pharmaceutical and medical sectors. He said the company believes that SMEs trying to export to the countries it's dealing with "are not receiving the level of service they merit". "We are engaged in the discounting of deferred payment Letters of Credit issued by local banks in the region as well as those issued by European banks," he said. "The level of exports from the European Union to the region and the import of raw materials and finished goods from the region runs into many billions of euros per annum." He said that Persium will target deal sizes with SMEs of between 1m and 2m. The company's shareholders include an entity registered in the British Virgin Islands, meaning the owners of that firm can't be identified by public means. "The company is well funded and is not looking to raise equity capital from the markets in the near future," said Mr Yousefian. Persium is also likely to assist SMEs targeting to invest in Iran. There's intense investor interest in Iran following the lifting of sanctions against the country in return for it scaling back its nuclear programme. Wonderful Scottish novelist Robert Louis Stevenson first lectured the public about travelling "for travel's sake" almost 150 years ago. But it took 30 years of peace in post-war Europe and the subsequent sustained efforts of cheap travel pioneers like Ryanair's Mick O'Leary to get the ball rolling. Now everyone wants to do what Stevenson recommended: "travel to go". Many of us remember people in, say, the south or west of Ireland in the past who cheerfully admitted they'd never made it as far as Cork or Galway. But these days most people have been hit by the travel bug. There is a booming industry to cater for the adventurous travellers and an even bigger one to look after those, like me, who crave the security of a bus; the certainty of a hotel booking; and the satisfactory knowledge that somewhere there is a four-star chef working on my scrumptious dinner. For us there is the package holiday operator. Keen students of the sector will know there has been huge consolidation. In recent years, the Anglo-German concern TUI AG has become a behemoth of the industry. It's the world's number one tour operator with a listing in London and Frankfurt. It trades in 130 countries, has 76,000 employees, and a very broad portfolio of hotels, cruise liners, aircraft and tour companies - like Thompson, Reiten, American Holidays and Falcon. The hotel division is the largest leisure hotelier in Europe with 310 hotels in 24 countries and plans adding 60 new ones over the next three years including one in Ireland. TUI's cruise business is not large - yet. It has 13 ships with four on order. The cruise business trades as Hapag-Lloyd in Germany and Thomson cruises in the UK. The company's aircraft business operates from 60 airports with a fleet of 140 aircraft making it the fifth-largest airline in Europe. The group is focusing its firepower on packaged holidays. It has agreed the sale of its hotel beds subsidiary, the world's largest database of beds. It will off-load its specialists division, a niche tourism business for the outdoor types, and is targeting 50m in operation efficiencies. TUI's biggest and most profitable region is the UK, Ireland and Nordic countries (Northern region) which accounts for 530m, half of the group's operating profit. Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Central region) has a similar number of customers as the Northern region but with a challenging market, lower revenue and profits at 100m. Belgium, Netherlands and France (Western region) had problems with its North African and Turkey holidays. Interestingly, the company is considering moving beyond its comfort zone of the Mediterranean to Asia and particularly the Chinese tourist market. This could prove difficult as the Chinese are not partial to sun or swimming. However, it intends adding hotels in the Maldives Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Cambodia. TUI sales of 20bn - its first year as a combined group - were solid. In spite of terrorism difficulties, operating profit of 1bn was impressive. The shares trade at 13 having had a previous high of 17.60, has an attractive dividend of 5pc and is valued at 7.7bn. Some view its target of 10pc profit growth as ambitious. Following the two terrorist attacks in Belgium and the earlier horrors in Paris, Turkey and Tunisia tour operators are changing their programmes. Just how companies like TUI get on in the coming year will be a measure of how cowed the travelling public is. Allowing for these problems, TUI has strong earnings and a solid track record and is a share worth following. Nothing in this section should be taken as a recommendation, either explicit or implicit to buy any of the shares mentioned. The boss of Ireland's biggest hotel group, Dalata, has warned that the company could divert more investment to the UK if the minimum wage here rises 25pc. Speaking to the Irish Independent, Pat McCann said that if minimum wage rises to 11.50 an hour, that it would have a knock-on effect across the hotel group, and would ultimately affect future investment decisions. A weekend report suggested that the Low Pay Commission (LPC), which is preparing a recommendation for Government, could be preparing to back a 25pc rise in the current 9.15 per hour minimum wage. While unions are supportive of the move, businesses are concerned of the impact such a hike would have on Ireland's competitiveness, as well as their operations. Mr McCann said increasing the minimum wage would impact Dalata's entire wage structure, and that coupled with high rates and other costs, it could impact the group's overall investment strategy. "Everyone would love to pay more, but that becomes very difficult when you consider that it would come on top of all the other costs," he said. He pointed out that there's a shortage of hotel rooms in Dublin, for instance, and that deciding where to build or buy hotels involves an investment analysis. Higher wage costs could tip the decision "one way or the other", he said. "The reality is that you have a responsibility when you have to invest other people's money," he added. He pointed out that if an investment case for properties in Ireland couldn't be justified, then the group would look at targeting more properties in the UK. Dalata is listed on the stock exchange. It currently owns and manages more than 40 hotels in Ireland and the UK. It has bought 19 hotels since 2014. Last year, it generated revenue of 225.7m, and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of 62.6m. Last month, the group announced plans to build a 26m hotel on Dublin's Kevin Street. It paid 8.1m for the site on which the property will be developed. Dalata also paid 10m last month to buy a partially completed hotel in Cork. Dalata told investors last month that it has no current intentions to expand further in Northern Ireland, but has identified a number of expansion opportunities in Britain. It said that it currently hopes to open two to three more hotels in Britain in late 2018, and another three or four in 2019. It said that opportunity exists in the upper three- and four-star markets in large provincial cities there. The LPC has not yet determined what its final recommendation to the Government will be when it delivers its report towards the end of July. Ireland's current minimum wage is already the second-highest in the EU, exceeded only by that of Luxembourg. Vivien Fekete expected culture shocks before she moved from Hungary to Ireland. But little could have prepared her for the surprise of rental prices. "In Hungary, you can rent three houses for the price you would rent one in Ireland," she told the Irish Independent. Vivien is currently living with her partner and his family members in a three-bedroom flat near Greystones, Co. Wicklow. For that, they pay around 1,400 per month. "We are quite lucky because it seems a little cheaper than other houses around the area," she said. "The landlord has been very good to us and very helpful," she added. "There was only one time when we need something fixed and he was happy to help us." However, she pointed out that friends who have lived in Co. Wicklow before say their rent has gone up by around 20pc since the recession. The couple are currently studying English here and work to pay the bills. After finishing the course, they hope to stay and find jobs in Ireland. However, current property prices are discouraging. "We would love to stay here, maybe for five years," she said. "But buying a property and settling down is just not possible for us." You might imagine that the one glorious advantage of a wedding with two grooms is that there would be zero dress stress around the big day. But when one of the grooms is a designer to the stars, atelier anxiety somehow still finds a way of intruding. Fashion supremo Don O'Neill was in the process of sorting out the last few details of his nuptials to Pascal Guillermie, which take place in Kerry this weekend, when a call came through which stopped him in his tracks. It was from Oprah Winfrey's team. They wanted two of his glittering beaded embroidered tops as options for the cover of Oprah's magazine this coming November, with the shoot due to take place this past Friday, a mere 12 hours before his wedding yesterday. In the hectic whirlwind of getting ready for the long-awaited trip back to Ireland, and bedding down the final details of the wedding day itself, it was possibly the last thing he needed. But on the other hand: you don't say no to O. "(The tops) take six weeks to embroider", Don recalls with a sigh. "And they knew they were shooting the cover six months ago: Oprah's schedule is carefully managed." Instantly it was all hands on deck. "There are people right now working around the clock in our factories to make it happen", he tells me. "Once they are ready they'll go to Hearst Tower (on Central Park West) where they'll use them or not. It feels like it's another wheel on this big machine that's turning but the number of wheels is not set: people are always adding new wheels, new cogs, new gears, whether you like it or not. "Just leaving New York for a week feels cataclysmic, a really big deal." You could certainly say that. By midweek there were exhalations in the departures' lounge and a final, liberating set of wheels rising up under the airplane bringing Don and Pascal back to the Kingdom where the designer's home village of Ballyheigue sparkled like Oprah in her Christmas finery. Don tells me that he would have loved to have gotten married in Ballyheigue Church ("Pascal asked 'can't we just rent it? I said: 'that's not how it works'). But a spectacular alternative was planned. "There is going to a female celebrant who will perform the ceremony, which will be a first for many of the people there. We created the ceremony with her. We will be outdoors, looking out over the castle ruins in Ballyheigue, facing out over the bay. It will be a very spiritual ceremony that focusses on love and responsorial psalms that we wrote. My sister, Deirdre, will sing. Everyone who is there we love with all our hearts. Afterward because there was no venue we're moving to a marquee which will be made of all glass. There will be wooden floors, and fuchsia - all very rustic." The ceremony is the culmination of a 23-year love story, which began in 1993 when Don was looking after the costumes for a production at the Opera de Lyon, in which Pascal was a dancer. Don remembers his French amour as "just the most charismatic individual I had ever met, with sparkling eyes and an incredible warmth. And the body of a gymnast." 1993 turned out to be a memorable year on other fronts too. Lacroix and Dior both wound up offering the young designer internships during the winter of that year, and in the end he went with Lacroix, whose phantasmagorical designs and spectacular runway shows provided the inspiration necessary for O'Neill to expand his own vision as a designer. For a young man who had trained as a chef and started out making his sister's eighties shoulder pads from foam found in the back of a burnt-out car, it was an extraordinary start in the big leagues of fashion. Towards the end of the internship O'Neill won a Morrison visa and, acting upon the advice of Christian Lacroix's astrologer, moved to New York, soon to be followed by Pascal. They were tough but heady years. Even though he had letters from Lacroix introducing him to designers including Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan and Oscar de la Renta, Don had a difficult time finding work. Pascal also struggled to get a Green Card in those years and Don tells me that this, combined with the fact that their relationship had no real legal recognition, played into their decision not to adopt children. "We didn't feel that we would be able to offer a child the security it deserved because we didn't even have that ourselves yet", he recalls. Video of the Day An interview with Ralph Lauren fell through, while Donna Karan and Bill Blass recoiled at his book of designs which had been 'Lacroixified', which Don once translated for me as "boobs hanging out everywhere!" He sought the advice of another astrologer who advised him that a time of great transition would soon be upon him. He had Pascal put a deposit on an apartment in Park Slope (the swankiest area of Brooklyn) but managed to wiggle out of the contract to buy a house that they were truly in love with. Two weeks later he was offered a job at a brand new label, Theia. "It's a division of a large Canadian evening wear company and I've been given free rein to create it", Don explains. "But in the last few years that company has fired 15 designers from other divisions; if you're not performing you're out. That's the reality. People make fun of Heidi Klum on Project Runway when she says 'one minute you're in and the next you're out' but the reality is that there is no certainty in the world of fashion. You're always being humbled. When I get a massage they have to use their elbows to get the knots out of my back muscles." Don would go on to design for a host of stars, including Annette Bening, Khloe Kardashian and Carrie Underwood who wore his dress in front of a few hundred million people at the Grammys. He says most of the stars he deals with are lovely but there have been exceptions. "Oprah is so down-to-earth but there are other stars who show a lot of ego and get very demanding. I have encountered that as well. There was one person, who I won't name, who I had really admired for years, and I got the opportunity to dress and we went to her TV studios and the audience were there and she was so sweet. Then she came off camera for the fitting and she was not a nice person. She was rude and pushy and we were just an object to getting the dress, it was really discouraging." Other collaborations have been notably easier: Over time he and Pascal, who founded his own flower design company, Fleur De Pascal, have worked together with Pascal crafting a memorable glass bouquet for Don's epic bridal show a few years ago. "I had to think of a design that would not obscure the dress", Pascal explains. Over the past few decades they have introduced each other as 'my husband.' "But once he proposed I lost my status as husband and became a mere fiance, but I was very happy anyway and even happier to reclaim my status as husband, thanks, in part, to Ireland which voted yes in May of last year", Pascal tells me. If 2015 was significant for the couple, so was 2013. Three years ago they went to Miami Beach for their 20th anniversary, but unknown to Pascal, Don had organised a surprise. The designer had arranged for a plane to fly over the beach, trailing a banner asking Pascal to marry him. Don had hired a photographer to capture the special moments, and she had taken up a discreet position nearby. As Pascal dried off after a swim in the sea, Don presented him with a handmade anniversary card and Cartier Trinity ring in white gold, palladium and ceramic. "I wanted him to read the words, as I had written about how much he means to me, and my emotions got the better of me," he recalled. "I started crying, so Pascal thought there was something badly wrong. Then I told him to look up at the sky as the plane was now behind me, with its beautiful banner announcing, 'Pascal, je t'aime, will you marry me?'" Even the jaded Miami Beach sunbathers erupted into cheers at that. Pascal also designed the flower arrangements for the wedding, in collaboration with a local florist in Kerry, and tells me that the arrangements are an homage to Don's late mother, Mim, who passed away in 2012. As with Philip Treacy before him, Don's mother was his first and most important muse. She ran the family B&B in Kerry, but in the early 1960s had nannied for the family who owned Colgate in New York, where she acquired a taste for fine clothes, particularly those designed by Ib Jorgenson. Don came out to his parents when he was 23 but his mother already knew - "as mothers do, they are more intuitive" - and she was always his greatest supporter. "The hardest part this weekend is not having mom there", Don tells me. "Because, as excited as everyone is, she would have been the most excited of all. And all of the fussing and what she's wearing and what we're wearing; that would have totally been her cup of tea. Pascal thinks that the wedding is a secret but everyone knows about it and she'd have been in the thick of it. I'd rather have mom there and the day be pouring rain than have mom in heaven keeping the clouds away." In the last few years Don has become close to the Irish author Lorna Byrne, who wrote the book Angels In My Hair. "Lorna came into my life after mom passed away", he recalls. "I did an interview on The John Murray Show. Kathryn Thomas was sitting in for him. We spoke about mom and it was quite emotional. I got a book from Jean Callaghan who represents Lorna. There was a note saying that this might bring me some comfort. I looked at the book and it was about the idea of angels communicating with people and I thought 'hmm . . . I'm not sure about this'. The book got buried on my desk and one day I had nothing planned to read for the subway ride home and there are pictures of mom on my desk and the book somehow resurfaced in front of one of mom's photos. "I read the book in two or three days and the message of it really resonated with me. I was brought up Catholic and lapsed as most of us do. My relationship with the Church was fractured because of their attitude to me as a gay man. But my dad said you have to get beyond the Church because the Church is just a conduit to God." Lorna was with Don when he received his honorary doctorate in Cork last year. "When I made my speech after receiving my doctorate I thanked mom and I was an emotional mess", Don explains. "I said I was sure she was standing here beside me. At the end of the evening Lorna came up to me and she said 'your mom was here and she was standing beside you and she had the biggest smile on her face and she was wearing this sort of pinky coral patterned dress.' What Lorna didn't know was that was what we'd buried mom in." This weekend is a double party for Don because as well as finally becoming a married man he also turns 50 - another big cake was planned for immediately after the wedding. "This has to be the end of midlife crises!" Pascal laughs. "He's been through at least 2,000 so far, so the end is in sight. "When I hear things on the news where the report says "a 24-year-old man" or a 34-year-old man" I think "that sounds quite old", Don adds. "I somehow don't see myself as a man yet. Somehow in my teenage years my vision of what a man is got distorted. I have a bit of a Peter Pan thing going on. My design assistants are 23 and 24 and I think we're all the same age! And I genuinely don't notice any differences until I happen to mention someone like Tina Turner and they're like "who?" And then it dawns on me that there is an itsy bitsy bit of a difference." The couple have already had their honeymoon, taking in the "dream trip" to Bora Bora last year. "We did it first because we knew the wedding would be on the expensive side and we'd be flat broke and would have to take time off to go to Europe to do it", Don explains. "When everyone arrives into the marquee there is an extraordinary ceili band, champion musicians, which will play when people arrive and right through the ceremony. And what nobody knows is that Senator Frances Black is going to sing our first song. She and her husband are coming down with their daughter Aoife. We also have an amazing band and then we have the birthday cake at midnight. I'm sure I won't sleep a wink. We're both so excited for this new chapter in our lives and to have everyone we love around us." theiacouture.com Jennifer Aniston does not have an account on Twitter or Instagram Jennifer Aniston has branded social media "distracting" and "time consuming". The actress does not have an account on Twitter or Instagram, although her husband Justin Theroux regularly posts images on the photo-sharing app. Aniston told the Press Association: "I think it's really distracting. "The amount of time it takes people to probably post all of that stuff, it feels very time consuming. It's just not my thing." Jason Sudeikis, Aniston's co-star in the new film Mother's Day, said his fiancee Olivia Wilde had changed his opinion of social media. Wilde, who has 1.7 million Twitter followers, famously got into a spat with Justin Bieber fans on the site after she criticised the pop star for going shirtless on a night out in London. Sudeikis told the Press Association: "She's good at it. It's not an all-day, every-day thing. She's funny. She speaks about issues. "I would say she changed my personal opinion of it. I have nothing against it for other people. They can do whatever they want. "A photo with a comment? Easy. I can handle that. The effort doesn't hurt my feelings. The content? Possibly. It's just not my bag." Speaking ahead of the release of Mother's Day, Aniston said she agreed to star in the film before reading the script because she wanted to work with Pretty Woman director Garry Marshall. "It was a fun ensemble, a great group of people involved and it was something fun to be a part of," she said. Mother's Day is released in the UK on June 10. "Appreciate the congrats", Trump tweeted. "I's right, I'm right, I'm always right." Self-inflation out of bloodshed? Trump appears to have directly lifted the tweet from former Breitbart national security editor and author Sebastian Gorka. This would be nothing more than bad taste, if not for the fact that the 'report' is completely unsubstantiated. The similarity was initially picked up by CNN reporter Brian Stelter: The 3 words Donald Trump said that made the Orlando shooting even worse Posted a day ago by in news by Upvote Upvoted Picture: David Becker/Getty Images 50 people at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, were left dead in the early hours of Sunday after being attacked by a gunman. Suspect Omar Mateen was killed by police at the scene. Reports have emerged that he called 911 and pledged allegiance to Isis before heading inside the Pulse nightclub with an assault rifle. While grieving families and shocked survivors mourn the dead, the attack has bought a mixture of homophobia and Islamophobia to the fore in other quarters. Many politicians expressed their sadness at events, and affirmed the need to clamp down on both extremism and gun control loopholes. But presumptive Republican nominee for president Donald Trump managed to make the weekend's horrific events about him. Taking to Twitter, he felt the need to mention the praise he's had "for being right on radical Islamic terrorism." "Appreciate the congrats", he tweeted. We have no words. http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/the-3-words-donald-trump-said-that-made-the-orlando-shooting-even-worse--ZkgUG1wAz4W Donald Trump's Orlando tweets just got even worse Posted 8 hours ago by in news by Upvote Upvoted Picture: Scott Olson/Getty Netflix doesn't give audience figures - leading to a world of speculation about which shows do well and which don't. But the company has released metrics this week which show which shows we tend to savour and which we binge upon. It considers that an hour and 45 mins per day of watching its shows is "savouring" the series in question, while two and a half hours constitutes a "binge". Members tend to blow through Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead and are captivated (read: take it a little more slowly) by House of Cards, Narcos, Bloodline and Mad Men. Without doubt one of the series in the binge category is Orange Is The New Black. The show is now a phenomenon, despite what Martha Stewart said this week about it not being as good as the real thing (ie actual incarceration). So what can we expect? Those who did binge on season three will recall that Piper masterminded a dirty underwear empire, smuggling worn knickers out of Litchfield to be sold online to people who are into that kind of thing. Now the success has gone to her head - and it's started an internal battle with the Latina prisoners who take a more prominent role in the new season. Among them are Maria (Jessica Pimentel) and Maritza (Diane Guerrero), whose interesting life stories feature early on. This new season "delves into the racial and economic tensions that run rampant in the halls of Litchfield", and, as ever, the flashback segments are some of Orange Is The New Black's most exciting and entertaining scenes. Set viewing habits to gorge. Network Available now, 1977 And then, sometimes, you just have to dial-a-classic. Still, nearly 40 years after its release, this is the best film ever made about journalism in the modern age. It predicts everything about modern media in the 21st Century - from reality TV and YouTube to shock jocks and the tabloid news format. And it did so 20 years before the internet even existed. The plot hinges on an unforgettable scene in which TV news anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) has a mental breakdown while on-air. Ignoring the teleprompter, he breaks into one of the greatest soliloquies of American cinema, a wandering but coherent rant about the banks, crime and unemployment, before finally announcing he will kill himself live on air during the next broadcast. There is uproar amongst the other news networks but one of Beale's own colleagues, Diana (Faye Dunaway) faces the dilemma of whether to harvest Howard's ranting and even death for greater ratings. Dunaway's performance won her the Oscar for best actress and is one of the miracles of modern cinema. She followed it up with Mommy Dearest, which she refused to discuss after it became a camp classic. But she and we will always have this masterpiece. Suits 4 seasons, available now Set in the high stakes world of US corporate law, Suits is populated by shrewd, nattily attired professionals who exchange acerbic remarks in glassy offices that look out over the Manhattan skyline. It's billed as a legal drama, but the cases don't often get as far as the courtroom. Instead, lawyers try to outfox each other via legal loop-holes, sleight of hand and bluffing their way through big deals in what often looks much like gambling and feels a bit more like House Of Cards meets Mad Men than any of the big screen legal dramas you might imagine it borrowing from. "I don't play the odds," explains leading character Harvey Specter (brilliantly acted by Gabriel Macht). "I play the man." It also has the pedigree of being created and produced by Aaron Korsh who is the man behind a string of big hits, including Everybody Loves Raymond. The new season of Suits airs on America on July 13, so now might be the time to have a look back at the 4 seasons here. Catch up now Emily Hourican PJ Mara: A Legacy RTE Player, until June 16, season 1, episode 2 Video of the Day Part of the Legacy series, documentaries examining the life and contributions of figures such as Terry Wogan, Tony Ryan and Paida O Se, this is a close look at the Fianna Fail strategist and spin doctor who was first made famous by Dermot Morgan's Scrap Saturday. Witty, engaging, good company, Mara was widely liked by journalists, even those he told to "f**k off," as he occasionally did - although that was usually pretty genial too. In fact, so likeable was he, that he managed to obscure the far less winning sides of, first Charles Haughey, and later, Bertie Ahern. For Mara, all politics was "showtime," and he was very successful in translating this view into his manipulation of Fianna Fail's public image. In analysing Mara's legacy, the documentary includes insights from Paul McGuinness, Sean Duignan - Haughey's original choice of press secretary - and Eamon Dunphy. Grayson Perry: All Man Channel 4 On Demand, until June 18 Artist Grayson Perry describes himself as "a lifelong sissy," saying that he has "never felt at ease amongst macho men." For this three-part series, an exploration into what it means, now, to be a man - including confronting the realities of suicide and crime - he throws himself into three very different, very male, environments, beginning with a group of mixed martial arts cage fighters, followed by the Lancashire police force and the men they arrest, and finally, the grand finale, some of London's most successful bankers. In each case, it is Perry's intelligence, curiosity and tolerant humanity that cuts through all the superficial posturing to find the sometimes troubling truth behind these very masculine pursuits. Following his conversations, Perry creates art works in response to what he has learned, and then shows the art to his subjects, for their response. Often, that response is more revealing about them than anything they have said. Fascinating stuff. Podcasts Emily Hourican What I Wore When . . . www.glamour.com/story/podcast This is a podcast mini-series - 10 episodes - put together by Glamour magazine. Designers and editors share their stories of the particular outfit they wore for some of life's most pivotal moments. As with all the best podcasts, this one starts specific, then branches out, to be a series of funny, impressive, touching recollections. There's Ivanka Trump on the dress she wore the night she met her husband-to-be, Cynthia Rowley on the outfit she created for her wedding, the day before it took place, and former child star Ashley Tisdale on her style journey, starting with what she wore for her career-altering audition for The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. You Must Remember This www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com One to remember for long journeys and lazy holidays. This calls itself "The secret and/or forgotten history of Hollywood's first century", and is the brainchild of journalist and author Karina Longworth, who writes, narrates, records and edits each episode, with guest stars including Adam Goldberg, Max Linsky and Mark Olsen. There are episodes on Arthur Miller and the anti- Communist Blacklist, Elizabeth Taylor during her time as an MGM star, beginning when she was a child and ending with some of the best films of her career, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, film noir femme fatale Gloria Grahame and her topsy-turvy career, Lana Turner, the 'Sweater Girl' and one of Hollywood's most shocking scandals: the murder of Turner's boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, at the hand of her 14 year-old daughter, Cheryl Crane. Every episode is meticulously researched, lovingly put together, and delivered with verve. Detective Sergeant Tom Doyle of Rathfarnham Garda Station with the schoolbag belonging to Philip Cairns in a photo from October of last year. Photo: Damien Eagers Gardai investigating the disappearance of Philip Cairns want to trace former victims of serial paedophile Eamon Cooke, who is now suspected of killing the schoolboy. They also believe that if former pirate radio DJ Cooke, who died last week, left a will then it could hold vital clues to the fate of the 13-year-old. One of the enduring mysteries of the disappearance was how Philip's schoolbag was deliberately placed in a laneway close to his home a week after he vanished. Detectives want to trace another former child victim who Cooke instructed to dump the school bag. Senior officers have appealed to women who knew the boss of Radio Dublin when they were children but have been too afraid to come forward before now. "We would appeal to these people who would have been children when Philip went missing on October 23, 1986, to come forward," a senior source said. "Eamon Cooke abused very many children who were so terrified of him that they have never come forward. Now that he is dead and they see the 30-year nightmare that has been endured by the Cairns family, these people may be in a position to come and talk to the gardai." Expand Close Serial paedophile Eamon Cooke: his other victims could hold key to the death of schoolboy Philip Cairns / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Serial paedophile Eamon Cooke: his other victims could hold key to the death of schoolboy Philip Cairns Cooke became a suspect in the decades-old case when a woman recently came forward, and claimed she saw him murder the missing child in 1986. Officers believe the information they received in the past month from the woman has provided the most compelling and credible lead in the investigation. The woman, who was aged nine at the time, told gardai she witnessed Cooke killing the schoolboy at his radio studio in Inchicore, west Dublin. Fresh developments also came to light when one of Cooke's victims contacted Angela Copley, a community worker who supports sex abuse survivors. "This girl rang me. She rang me periodically. She was a victim of Eamon Cooke and I was trying to help her get on with her life," Ms Copley said. Expand Close Schoolboy Philip Cairns / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Schoolboy Philip Cairns "During the conversation, she came out with this. She told me that a girl threw Philip Cairns's schoolbag in the lane and that Eamon Cooke had given it to her to do it." Officers are due to contact Ms Copley today in the hope of finding the new witness. Meanwhile, detectives are trying to trace the location of a property in south Dublin that the paedophile used to site a signal repeater for his illegal radio station. Officers will interview former employees at Radio Dublin and examine land registry documents in a bid to trace the property, which Cooke would have leased more than 30 years ago. The third strand to the revived investigation will focus on three separate DNA samples found on the schoolbag. They will be cross-referenced with Cooke's DNA, which is stored on a database in Garda HQ. A FORMER Spanish-based property owner who knifed his stepson to death has been jailed for seven years. David Mahon (45) was found guilty of the manslaughter of his stepson Dean Fitzpatrick by a jury at the Central Criminal Court last month. Mahon had denied murdering Mr Fitzpatrick on May 26, 2013, a day after the deceased interfered with his bicycle to annoy him. He had claimed that father-of-one Mr Fitzpatrick walked into the knife he was holding and his death was an accident. Expand Close Dean Fitzpatrick / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dean Fitzpatrick His legal team argued that Mahon's account of what happened was not contradicted by the scientific evidence. However, it was the prosecution case that Mahon was drunk, angry and agitated and he stabbed his stepson, before fleeing the scene and leaving him to die on the street. Expand Close Dave Mahon's father Michael and Mahon's wife Audrey leave court Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dave Mahon's father Michael and Mahon's wife Audrey leave court Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin Dean Fitzpatrick was the older brother of teenager Amy Fitzpatrick who went missing in Spain in 2008. The 23-year-old received a single stab wound to the stomach outside the apartment his mother Audrey shared with Mahon at Burnell Square, Northern Cross in Malahide. I just thought it would have been a longer sentence than what he got. Dean was a nice young man only growing up, he was a young man when he died, far too young to die," his father Christopher Fitzpatrick said outside the court. Things have been very hard. This will help a bit. I just feel the sentence could have been longer but thats the way the system seems to work here. Expand Close Dave Mahon and Audrey Fitzpatrick / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dave Mahon and Audrey Fitzpatrick We are relieved that this process is over as it has been a long road to get here. Today has given us some closure but we still have a long road ahead of us in the search for Amy." He added he would never accept the apology offered by Mahon in court. I wouldnt accept his apology under any circumstances. He done what he done. We know what he done, and everybody is aware of what he done, he said. Dean's aunt Christine Kenny thanked their family, friends, Coolock garda station, their legal team and the victims support group at the Central Criminal Court. "Deans death has been a huge loss to our lives and we will never forgive the man that killed Dean. He has put us through hell and back. We have some hope now for Amy with this person coming forward in this other case (Philip Cairns). We hope that people will come forward now and give the information that's needed as regards Amy. She needs to be found and we still have that road ahead of us and we will keep fighting for her. It (latest developments in Cairns case) has given us hope. Theres always hope, she added. We will fight to the bitter end to get truth for Amy. Hopefully somebody will come forward now with information of where Amy was that night and pleased God we find her, she said. Dean's death has affected us terribly, there's no words can explain what this killing has done to our family. Our lives were turned upside down, Christophers life was turned upside down completely. His children, it's absolutely devastating looking at my brother and Deans child and his girlfriend Sarah, seeing how it is affecting them so badly. Justice was served butt not as we would have liked it, she explained. Talking about Deans young son Leon, Christine said the death had affected him badly. Sarah brings him up to the grave regularly. Its sad looking at a little boy with no daddy there to see him go to school, hell be starting school this year, and getting his graduation next week from play school. But he misses his daddy, she said. Christine said she didn't think Mahon was remorseful. I don't know how would he feel if somebody went out to his son and put a knife through him that went into his spine and ridged it. It was absolutely devastating. We know what it is to lose children, she said, adding that neither she nor Christopher had a relationship with Dave Mahon. I knew of him, but I never knew him, she said. Asked what she thought would be a suitable sentence for Mahon. Christine Kenny said: A life for a life. I know that sound bad but thats the way I feel about it. He was a young man of 24. He had a little boy. He had a partner and a father, she explained. Christopher said he felt the same way, adding that Leon is keeping him going, as well as a son he has from another relationship. In May, a jury of six men and six women took eight hours and 16 minutes to reach a verdict that Mahon was not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. Ms Justice Margaret Heneghan said the facts of this case were "very distressing", and she did not propose to go through them again. Ms Justice Heneghan said the defendant had offered a plea of guilty of manslaughter prior to the trial, but this plea had been rejected by the DPP, and she said she must take this into account when sentencing. She said that Mr Mahon had also apologised, through his barrister, to all those who knew Mr Fitzpatrick, and had indicated he would not be appealing the verdict. Ms Justice Heneghan imposed a seven year sentence. During an earlier sentence hearing, defence barrister Sean Guerin SC said he had been instructed by his client to apologise to all those who knew Mr Fitzpatrick. Victim impact statements from Dean's dad Christopher Fitzpatrick, his mother, Audrey Mahon, his girlfriend Sarah O'Rourke and his four-year-old son Leon were also previously read to the court. Audrey Mahon said her life had become a living nightmare since Dean's death, and although he had his problems she recalled his "cheeky grin" and "heart of gold". In her victim impact statement, she said she had lost both her children and did not think she was strong enough to cope with losing her husband. Mrs Mahon said David had also lost everything, and he had done everything in his power to find Amy. She could not disagree with the jury's decision, she said, because David Mahon had produced a knife unlawfully. Mrs Mahon further said she has "forgiven Dave but has not forgotten" what happened, adding that Mahon will "always be my husband, carer and my best friend". Dean's dad, Christopher Fitzpatrick, said Dean's death has taken its toll on him, and he had been hospitalised due to stress. Mr Fitzpatrick also said Audrey Mahon had tried to exclude him from Dean's funeral and he had been forced to go to the High Court so his son could be buried in his own plot. He said he hoped Amy would eventually be found alive but he could have no such hope for his son. He also said there were no words to describe his "pain, anger and despair". Mr Fitzpatrick said that all he now has of Dean is "visits to his resting place". The deceased's partner Sarah O'Rourke said the couple had their "ups and downs" but she "loved him as he loved me". She said she and Dean were so proud and happy when they had their beautiful son, Leon. Ms O'Rourke said she has found it hard to cope since Dean died, and she still can't fully accept that he is not going to see his son growing up. She said their son often picks up Dean's picture and asks "where's my daddy". Ms O'Rourke said she tells her son that Dean is "a star in the sky" and "angels took him to heaven". During the two week trial, the Central Criminal Court heard evidence from Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, who said Mr Fitzpatrick bled to death as a result of a single stab wound to the stomach. Dr Curtis said the wound was inflicted with moderate or considerable force. His examination could not tell if the wound was inflicted with a deliberate thrust of the knife or if Mr Fitzpatrick had "run on" to a knife being held by someone else. The court heard that by 2013, Mr Fitzpatrick was in a relationship with Sarah O'Rourke and they had a two-year-old son. He had mental health difficulties and also had a difficult relationship with Mahon. Read More Both men were members of the Northwood Gym in Santry and Mahons bicycle was interfered with outside the gym on May 24 that year, the court heard. CCTV footage suggested it was the deceased who had done so, taking a water bottle off it. The jury was told Mahon was annoyed and sought to have his stepson barred from the gym. He also spent much of the following day "frenetically" trying to contact the deceased. Witnesses said he was not in a good mood and had been drinking heavily. The jury also heard from taxi driver, Karl OToole, who was in Mahons apartment when Mr Fitzpatrick arrived. He said Mahon accused Mr Fitzpatrick of robbing a water bottle off his bike, and Dean admitted hed done it to annoy him. Dean said hed return the bottle the next day and he left. Mr OToole said Mahon followed him out of the apartment and when he came back he was holding a knife. He said Mahon was "very agitated" and said: "You've have to get me out of here. I have to go". Mr O'Toole said they got into his taxi and he was "just driving". Mr O'Toole said Mahon then told him he thinks "Dean is dead" and "the knife went through him". He advised him to go to the gardai but "Dave was not really making any sense at all". The pair then drove to Mahon's father, Mick's house. Mr O'Toole said Mahon told his dad "Dean came at him with a knife and he ended up being stabbed". The court heard that gardai conducted five interviews with Mahon. During the interviews, he told gardai Mr Fitzpatrick had called up to his apartment and the pair were arguing. He said Mr Fitzpatrick pulled a knife on him in the kitchen, but he took it off him and put it in his back pocket. He said his friend John McCormack took Dean out of his apartment, and he followed them. Mahon claimed he pulled the knife from his pocket and said to Dean, why are you pulling a knife on your auld fella". He said Mr Fitzpatrick walked into the knife, and he knew he had nicked him, but Dean ran off and he "didn't think it was that serious". He told gardai "I didn't stab him, he walked into the knife". The next thing Mahon remembered was being in a taxi with his friend Karl O'Toole and throwing the knife out the window. Asked why he threw away the knife, he told gardai "don't ask me, I don't know why". In his closing argument to the jury, prosecution counsel, Remy Farrell SC, told the jury Mahon cooked up a story for gardai, telling them the farcical story that Mr Fitzpatrick had walked into the knife. He said the reality was that Mahon stabbed his stepson and then set about doing everything he could to get away with it. A PRIVATE investigator, who used a mole in the Department of Social Protection to mine their their computer system for personal information on people, has been fined 4,000. James Cowley (65) with an address at Brookdale Lawns, Rivervalley, Swords, Dublin pleaded guilty to 13 charges under Section 22 of the Data Protection Act for unlawfully obtaining access to personal data and disclosing it to third parties without authorisation of the Department of Social Protection. Permanent TSB Bank had hired him to trace people while insurance companies including Zurich, Alliance and the State Claims Agency used his services to carry out surveillance on possible bogus claimants in personal injuries cases. He was able to access, and revealed, private background information on several people and in one instance could tell when a person was was getting married, and also turned up at the wedding. The court heard he had been in the British Army before working with a security firm and then he set up his private investigation business which he ran for 31 years but is now looking for other work. Convicting and fining him Judge John O'Neill said: Privacy is a huge topic nowadays and invasion of privacy is serious adding that there is now a greater emphasis on protecting those rights. The case followed a probe by the office of the Data Protection Commissioner which prosecuted him and summonsed him to appear before Dublin District Court on 61 counts. Prosecuting solicitor Clare McQuillan told the court that 48 charges were being withdrawn and it was then indicated Cowley would be pleading guilty to the remaining 13 counts, involving 13 people. Assistant data protection commissioner Tony Delaney told the court that last year he got a data breach notification from Permanent TSB after they inadvertently sent two PPS numbers to private investigators one of whom was Mr Cowley. He asked Permanent TSB to send him copies of trace reports, dating back to 2012, which Cowley had prepared for the bank. He said that initially he got reports on six people prepared by Cowley for the bank. He checked with the Department of Social Protection to see if anyone there had accessed the people's data during the time Cowley was carrying out his investigation. All six had their data accessed by one person, named in court as Susan Lillis, an official in the Department of Social Protection, the court was told. Continuing his investigation, Mr Delaney went back to Permanent TSB to get a wider sample, 27 people. Four of them had their private details accessed by the same individual in the department. Cowley was able to get information on people whether or not he had their PPS number. Mr Delaney wrote to the private investigator and carried out an inspection at his office last October. Mr Delaney said insurance companies Zurich and Alliance as well the States Claim Agency had employed Cowley to carry out surveillance work. He said there was nothing unusual about them using a private detective but the issue was the methodology used by the PI. In December 2014 the States Claim Agency asked him to check a plaintiff to see if the injuries they complained of were genuine. Cowley filed a report to the agency in February 2015 to say he had no success in tracing the person whose data had been accessed in the same government department. On June 12 last year, the States Claim Agency asked him to locate another plaintiff. During the time between him receiving the request and submitting his report on July 9 last, two men and two women had their data accessed, while Cowley was carrying out his investigation. One of them had theirs accessed twice. Cowley was also able to say in his report that one woman used a different surname for official purposes from that of a married couple who had raised her. The couple's data was also accessed. The report stated also stated previous addresses and stated when one of them was getting married and Cowley turned up at the wedding in June. All that information had been on the Department of Social Protection's computer system. The next four charges related to investigations carried out by Cowley for Zurich Insurance Plc who had asked him to find out if there a connection between an insured motorist and claimants. Between May 27 and June 22, when he submitted his report, four people had their data in the department's computer system accessed. He was able to include details such as their addresses, maiden names, their mothers' maiden names, whether they were in employment and where they had worked before. In the last five charges another five people had their information accessed between May 22 and June 17 last year when Cowley was asked by insurance firm Alliance Plc to investigate them. The same woman in the Department of Social Protection had accessed their records and Mr Delaney believed she did so the behest of Cowley, the court was told. The PI was able again able to include detailed private information about the five people, the court was told. Mr Delaney agreed with defence counsel Lisa Daly that Cowley had no prior criminal convictions and the guilty plea was useful in that it had not necessitated having to bring witnesses to give evidence. He had also paid 1,000 in the prosecution's legal costs. Mr Delaney also agreed that the defendant had also used lawful and traditional surveillance methods and was not solely relying on his civil service contact. Ms Daly asked for leniency and said her client acted stupidly and had not realised the ramifications or seriousness of the actions. He had been employed to weed out excessive or fraudulent claims. He is now looking for other work and had brought 2,000 to court and was offering to donate it to charity. However, Judge O'Neill said he could not go down that route and imposed four fines totalling 1,000 each, which must be paid within four months.. The remaining nine charges were marked taken into consideration. Following the case, Assistant Data Protection Commissioner Tony Delaney issued a statement and told reporters: The era of private investigators being able to unlawfully access data from State databases and get away with it are over. One by one, they will be brought before the courts to face the consequences of their actions, He warned. In 2014, after successfully prosecuting two separate investigators we issued a very clear warning to those who operate in the private investigator sector that if any of them continued to commit offences under data protection law, we would pursue them and prosecute them. Clearly today's defendant did not heed that warning. I believe there are others who have continued to break the law in the meantime. They are currently being pursued by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioners. We have the resources, we have the skill-set, we have the tools and above all we have the determination to identify any remaining offenders and to bring them to justice, Mr Delaney said. Like last year, the Leaving Certificate Maths Higher Level Paper 2 proved tougher than Paper 1, some teachers agreed. But Aidan Roantree of The Institute of Education, Dublin, thought students would be reasonably happy. By and large there was enough for students to obtain a pass mark. However, more so than on Paper 1, there were also question parts that would have allowed the very best students to show their abilities," he said. Mr Roantree expressed surprise that the difficulty lay mainly in Section A, rather than in the traditionally more daunting Section B. In particular, he said, Question 2 (B) on coordinate geometry was among the most challenging in recent years. He also pointed to Question 3 (A) which referred to cotan, a concept wit which most students would not be familiar , although it is defined on page 13 of the maths tables. He noted the change in the number of questions and the amount of marks from probability & statistics to geometry, co-ordinate geometry & trigonometry, with more marks for trigonometry (125) than for probability and statistics combined (100). Eamonn Toland, of TheMathsTutor.ie. also said the paper was more difficult than Fridays and had more surprises for the students. He described it as very much a paper in the spirit of Project Maths with challenging questions that involved elements from several different parts of the course, including topics that would be expected to appear on paper 1 instead. He said it was highly unusual to see Question 8, based on functions and calculus, on Paper 2 instead of Paper 1. However, this demonstrates that some topics can appear on either or both papers. Mr Toland said Question 9 on inferential statistics, from a part of the course that has created a lot of confusion among teachers and students was mostly straightforward and doable. He said part (c) might have been challenging as students would have to know something about the central limit theorem, all the other parts were very accessible. The information received by gardai about the multiple paedophile abuser Eamon Cooke is possibly the strongest lead to date in the 30-year search for Dublin schoolboy Philip Cairns. It will take a lot of detective work to follow that lead to its conclusion. Their work starts with DNA. There is human DNA evidence of unknown origin on Philip's schoolbag which was dumped in a laneway off Ballyroan Road near the Cairns' home six days after his disappearance. It had rained in the interim but the bag and the schoolbooks were dry, strongly suggesting it was held in a dry place. The DNA from the schoolbag is now being compared with Cooke's. If there is a match, it will point to the conclusion that Cooke lured or abducted and then killed Philip. It could also lead to a re-examination of Cooke's known residences and a possible likely murder scene. Advances in DNA detection and analysis are such that even after 30 years it is quite possible to elicit vital clues. British police have been spearheading historic DNA investigations and have had a run of solving murder cases 30 years and older. Gardai are also likely to talk to some of Cooke's many victims again. The pirate radio DJ preyed on abandoned, vulnerable women in order to abuse their children. He was possibly one of the worst paedophiles the gardai had encountered in Dublin, sources said. Cooke was eventually convicted on 42 counts of rape and sexual assault in 2007 and was still serving his term in Arbour Hill Prison at the time of his death, released only for hospice care. When his victims were interviewed by detectives at that time, gardai had no reason to ask them if Cooke ever mentioned Philip Cairns. Cooke never came up as a suspect in the initial or even subsequent investigations into Philip's disappearance. The Garda did not keep any register of sex offenders at the time. Even though the geographic distance between Cooke's homes in and around Inchicore and near Tallaght are not that distant from Philip's home, and the scene of his disappearance, his name simply did not come up in the investigation. In fact, the initial investigation concentrated on a quiet bachelor known to Philip. Considerable time and effort was devoted to a detailed investigation of this man until it was positively shown he had a full account of all his movements around the time of the disappearance. By the time he was finally cleared as a suspect the investigation had already begun to run out of time and direction. It has not significantly moved forward up to recent weeks when the new evidence brought fresh impetus. One of the many children abused by Cooke is believed to have brought forward the latest lead that caused gardai to question one of the vulnerable women in Cooke's past and to try and elicit some kind of confession before he died two weeks ago. Reports that a woman described seeing Philip beaten unconscious and bleeding in the west Dublin house Cooke used as his pirate radio station are said to be accurate. But, Cooke refused to confirm any detail on his deathbed and the witness has no further information that might lead to the discovery of Philip's body. The disappearance of the 13-year-old schoolboy in October 1986 remains as much a dreadful mystery for gardai as that of the three-year-old Madeleine McCann is for British and Portuguese police. And, it is almost as much a source of controversy both in and outside the garda as the McCann case. Dozens of claims and counterclaims have been made about the handling of Philip's disappearance and as every year has passed the chances of a real breakthrough diminishes. But, sources say that while it was not recognised at the time Eamon Cooke exactly fits the type of predatory paedophile that could have murdered Philip. Cooke's preference was for young girls though not exclusively, The woman's statement to gardai that she saw a boy she has come to believe was Philip lying prone and bleeding in his house is tempered with the obvious question as to why it took her 30 years to come forward. Cooke's imminent death may have freed her from some form of psychological hold he had over her. Or, it may be the result of some suppressed or possibly the product of her imagination. Garda sources say they are not confident but are 'still hopeful' that the information about Cooke may lead to a breakthrough but it may also lead into another dead end. Cooke apparently made some indications during his interviews with detectives about knowing Philip but refused to disclose what, if anything, he knew happened to the boy or where his body may have been hidden. The weekly fees charged to residents in HSE-run nursing homes have not been published in five years, despite demands for public accountability. Owners of private nursing homes, which must disclose their fees, have said they are being put at a disadvantage and that the HSE's secrecy is fuelling allegations of price-fixing. Tadhg Daly of Nursing Homes Ireland, which represents private homes, said it was taking legal advice on the lack of clarity around fees. The association will be raising the issue with the Comptroller and Auditor General in an attempt to examine the use of public money. Mr Daly said information on two HSE-run nursing homes showed that they were charging between 2,340 and 2,472 a week, a substantial increase of up to 88pc since the last published figures in 2011. Health Minister Simon Harris recently said that a value-for-money review of costs in public nursing homes was under way. But in a reply to a parliamentary question by Fianna Fail TD Jack Chambers, he confirmed that the prices were not disclosed. Yesterday, Mr Daly asked: "Are we ever to become aware of what the HSE weekly fees are for their own nursing homes? "We are extremely concerned that the HSE and the Department of Health are involved in some anti-competitive practice to disguise public nursing home costs, so there can be no transparency or accountability. "Previously published but dated research provides some indication as to the realities of the cost of nursing home care in HSE nursing homes. "The Department of Health's own review of the Fair Deal Scheme stated that the headline price differential in the average cost of care between public and private nursing homes was approximately 58pc. "What are the public not being informed of? Is it because if they were published, private and voluntary homes would have a legal case about the unsustainably low level of payments by the State?" Around three-quarters of the nursing home beds in the country are provided by private nursing homes. The majority of nursing home residents are now in the Fair Deal scheme, which subsidises their care. Others have their care paid for by the State and the residents then pay 80pc of their pension towards the cost. There are currently around 22,000 people in nursing homes but this is set to grow as the population ages. Investigations are underway to trace the supplier of a significant quantity of angel dust found on a farm in the border region after on-farm testing detected the use of the illegal growth promoter. A probe is under way to trace the supplier of a significant quantity of the substance that was found on a farm. The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has swiftly moved to confirm it is aware of the detection of the drug clenbuterol, after an animal processed for the food chain tested positive. It emphasised that there was no risk to public health from meat that is on the market. The stimulant, used in the past by a small number of farmers to build up muscle on average sized cattle, has been banned throughout the EU. The suspect animal had been sent for slaughtering for the food chain at meat processor ABP's facility in Clones. All animals on the Co Monaghan farm where the animal originated have been put under restriction. A number of searches have been carried out in the border region with a member of the Agriculture Department's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) allegedly assaulted as they carried out a search last Monday in the Ballybay area of Co Monaghan. The following day gardai and the team from the SIU carried out a search at a property where they discovered what appeared to be a significant quantity of angel dust in the attic of the house. It was taken away for further analysis. A spokesman for meat processor ABP confirmed it had been informed there was a potential issue identified in a single animal processed at its Clones facility in mid-May. As part of its on-farm testing and residue controls programme, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has identified an irregularity on a farm in the Meath/Cavan/Monaghan area. Earlier this week, ABP was informed by the Department of a potential issue with a single animal processed at its Clones facility in mid-May from the farm. "In situations like this with limited details of the issue, ABP will take guidance and direction from the relevant authorities who have informed the company that there was not a food safety risk associated with meat from this animal," he said. A spokesman for the Department confirmed restrictions were continuing at the farm. There is no human health risk from product that may have entered the food chain. "The Food Safety Authority of Ireland is fully aware of the case and has concluded that there is no risk to public health from meat that is on the market," the spokesman said. Joe Healy president of the Irish Farmers' Association, said: "The IFA does not condone the use of any illegal substances in food production. The detection highlights the stringent tests that are in place to protect the food chain from farm to fork." Detective Garda Jerry McCabes widow Ann with retired garda Ben OSullivan at the unveiling of the plaque in Ballylongford. Photo: Domnick Walsh The murder of Det Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare 20 years ago caused his father Johnny to die of "a broken heart", his widow Ann McCabe has said. Mrs McCabe told those attending a special commemorative event for her late husband in his native Ballylongford, Co Kerry that she had no doubt 'Grandad' never recovered from the tragedy of Jerry's death. Yesterday, , Ballylongford commemorated a national hero who gave his life in the line of duty. Mrs McCabe said: "It has often been said of a person that she or he died of a broken heart. In John McCabe's place, it was literally true. "Grandad McCabe never got over Jerry's murder. It broke his heart." Mrs McCabe unveiled a plaque, designed by local artist Paddy Fitzell, outside what was once the McCabe family home, the newsagents and grocery on Bridge Street. She was joined by her children, John, Mark, Stacy, Ian and Ross, her grandchildren, Jerry's sisters Marie, Eileen, Nuala and Kay, and his brother Mike. Her late husband's partner, retired garda Ben O'Sullivan, who suffered 11 bullet wounds on that fateful day in Adare, June 7, 1996, was also present. The Garda Ceremonial Unit, led by piper Danny Houlihan, marched in procession from St Michael's Church to the former McCabe house, which is now owned by Sean Feeney. Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan was represented by the Assistant Commissioner John O'Mahony and the Garda Representative Association, which sponsored the plaque, was represented by its president, Kieran O'Neill. Mrs McCabe said the family was honoured to be in Ballylongford to remember "our Jerry". "We spent many happy times in Ballylongford with Jerry's beloved dad, Johnny and his dearly loved mother, Lizzie. Standing here in this lovely village, I probably don't have to tell anyone of the mixed emotions this unveiling has brought to me and our family. "Jerry had a great respect and passion for Ballylongford and its community. He loved its people and its characters and often spoke lovingly of them." Ben O'Sullivan recalled his happy memories of visits to the north Kerry village. "Any time we were even in close proximity to Ballylongford in the course of our duties, we'd come here," he told the Irish Independent. "I remember coming here when this was a shop and Johnny and Lizzie were running it. "It was like calling in at home because there was a cead mile failte readily available to anybody, regardless of who they were." Family friend Muirne Hurley Goode, the 1994 Rose of Tralee, whose father Cormac was stationed with Det Garda McCabe, sang 'Neidin', Jerry's favourite song, which she also sang at his funeral 20 years ago. The schoolbag belonging to 13 year old schoolboy Philip Cairns in a laneway near his home on Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham A garda on duty at the laneway on Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham, from where Philip went missing on October 23, 1986. His schoolbag is on the ground. It's 30 years since Philip Cairns went missing while walking to school in Rathfarnham. I worked on the case, which is surely the country's most high profile disappearance. But, like the dozens of my colleagues who doggedly investigated it, I could never have foreseen the developments of recent days. On October 23, 1986, the 13-year-old schoolboy was reported missing by his family. He had left his home at Ballyroan Road at 1.30pm that day to return to Colaiste Eanna, a short distance away. He was never seen alive again and his body has never been found. His disappearance sparked off one of the biggest manhunts in the history of the State. The fact that a young boy could disappear in such circumstances, to vanish into thin air, traumatised the city and indeed the country. Expand Close The schoolbag belonging to 13 year old schoolboy Philip Cairns in a laneway near his home on Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The schoolbag belonging to 13 year old schoolboy Philip Cairns in a laneway near his home on Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham On October 24, I was assigned to the garda team based at Rathfarnham station to investigate his disappearance. It was one of the most thorough and comprehensive inquiries that I have been involved in. For weeks and months, more than 50 officers worked the case around the clock. Read More Hundreds of lines of enquiry were pursued and hundreds of witnesses interviewed. Every scrap of information was followed up. The discovery of Philip's schoolbag in a laneway near Colaiste Eanna six days after he went missing provided some hope. But the breakthrough never came. The years passed and the Cairns case remained open. Appeals continued to be made. Every new lead was followed up and investigated. Expand Close A garda on duty at the laneway on Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham, from where Philip went missing on October 23, 1986. His schoolbag is on the ground. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp A garda on duty at the laneway on Ballyroan Road, Rathfarnham, from where Philip went missing on October 23, 1986. His schoolbag is on the ground. But despite all the work, Philip's disappearance remained a seemingly unsolvable mystery. Until the extraordinary events of recent weeks, that is. It's now emerged that a victim of paedophile Eamon Cooke, a pirate radio DJ, recently came forward with new information from the day of Philip's disappearance. The witness was only nine years old at the time. She told gardai she saw Cooke strike Philip with an implement in his radio studio in Inchicore. Expand Close Gerry O'Carroll / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gerry O'Carroll She said she saw the boy bleeding and unconscious on the floor. She fainted and when she woke, his body was gone and she was in a car being driven by Cooke. As a former detective, my first thoughts on hearing of this development was that, at last, the suffering of the Cairns family could be coming to an end. This is the strongest lead yet in the case. Cooke died two weeks ago but not before he was interviewed by gardai in his hospice bed. It's reported that he corroborated some details of the witness's account but did not admit to abducting and murdering the schoolboy. This is an extraordinary twist in the case. Eamon Cooke was never a person of interest or a suspect in the original investigations or any subsequent reviews. The claim that Cooke was involved initially surprised me. I knew Cooke, having first come across him in Dublin in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was a motorcycle garda at the time, attached to the Crime Task Force. As bizarre and strange as it now seems, Eamon Cooke was, at that time, well known in garda circles for pseudo-vigilante activities. He patrolled the streets of Dublin's south inner city in a battered green Jaguar Mark 1. Read More He even used a blue light on the top of his car, to appear like an unmarked garda car, and deployed a CB radio to communicate with garda Command and Control section in Dublin Castle. Incredibly, he was even given the code sign 'Alpha Seven', an official garda code designation in the city's 'A' district. Cooke always 'patrolled' at night, often pursuing stolen vehicles and calling in burglaries and assaults. Personally, I thought Cooke was a weird character, an oddball. At that point, his child abuse was obviously not known of. As it now turns out, he may not only have been a paedophile but also a child killer. With Cooke dead and in the absence of any remains or crime scene, the investigation will now to turn to the schoolbag. It can only be hoped that DNA analysis of this item can link it to the DJ. Clearly this would corroborate the witness's story and put Cooke in the frame. As a detective who worked on this case, and in light of this compelling new witness evidence and Cooke's later paedophile convictions, it's clear that there's now a strong case that the DJ abducted and murdered Philip Cairns. For the sake of justice, and the Cairns family, I hope it can be proven. Fianna Fail may foil growing efforts to have President Michael D Higgins returned unopposed for a second term. Labour leader Brendan Howlin has repeated his enthusiastic calls for President Higgins to seek a second term and there are also supportive noises coming from Fine Gael. Fianna Fail's attitude would be pivotal in determining whether an election is required. In the history of the office only one incumbent president, Eamon de Valera in 1965, has fought for re-election - all others were returned unopposed. President Higgins, who originally said he was only seeking one seven-year stint, will be 77 when his term ends in autumn 2018, and would be close to his 85th birthday at the end of a second term. In the wake of the General Election and 70 days without a government, the issue of the presidency is only now being talked about in political circles. Opinion within Fianna Fail is divided on the issue. Some believe it may prove difficult to find a suitable candidate and that a contest against President Higgins, who they privately acknowledge has performed well, would be hard to win. But others believe that, given their veritable resurrection in last February's election, when they went from 20 to 44 TDs, they should contest the presidency. Others, such as Limerick City TD Willie O'Dea, believe the party has no choice but to contest in 2018: "It is very early in the process and we have had no discussion. But my own personal view is that we should contest the presidency. The circumstances in 2011, when we did not contest, were unique, and things are different now," he said. Children Minister Katherine Zappone has said gay people feel under attack in the wake of the horror massacre of fifty people in Orlando. US-born Ms Zappone Ireland's first openly lesbian minister - said she she extremely distressed at the ISIL-linked terror attack at a gay nightclub. She was speaking at an event highlighting the 'It's Good to Talk' LGBT helpline here. Ms Zappone said that of course the LGBT community will feel under attack after the atrocity. She added: I feel it. But she pointed out that in this country gay people are freer than they were a year ago with the passing of the marriage equality referendum. I'm just extremely distressed I suppose both as someone who has been an advocate for LGBT issues here but especially now - and I speak personally as an American citizen - to know of the extraordinary suffering of the families, of the loved ones. Expand Close Inset: Mass murderer Omar Mateen (29) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Inset: Mass murderer Omar Mateen (29) It's a terrible, terrible day for America. Read More She said that the gunman's actions was not only a crime against those he killed and injured but also against all humanity. Expand Close Candles sit on the edge of Lake Eola, June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. The shooting at Pulse Nightclub, which killed 50 people and injured 53, is the worst mass-shooting event in American history. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Candles sit on the edge of Lake Eola, June 12, 2016 in Orlando, Florida. The shooting at Pulse Nightclub, which killed 50 people and injured 53, is the worst mass-shooting event in American history. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Obviously LGBT people don't have freedom throughout the world and that's why it's so critical and important that those of us that do and experience equality here need to stand up in solidarity and say no and resist that [such attacks] and express our horror in relation to what has happened, Ms Zappone said. She said the attack again raises the issue of gun control in the United States. Expand Close Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse, Sunday June, 12, 2016, in Orlando. (AP Photo/Tamara Lush) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse, Sunday June, 12, 2016, in Orlando. (AP Photo/Tamara Lush) I think President Obama has had to address the American people at least 22 times in relation to gun control. It must be true to say that he has not managed to get that under control and hopefully once again this will be an occasion where once and for all we can challenge the gun lobby in the United States of America. The LGBT helpline is a support service that's running a special positive mental health awareness campaign during next week's Dublin Pride Festival. The number is 1890929539. MINISTER for Social Protection Leo Varadkar has described Donald Trumps comments on the Orlando massacre as crass and tasteless but said politicians still have to meet him later this month. Mr Varadkar paid sympathy to the families of 49 people who were killed as well as the injured in the shooting in a gay nightclub early on Sunday morning. Obviously I watched all the coverage of the events in Orlando yesterday and my thoughts and prayers are of course with the people whove lost their lives or been injured and their families and friends and we stand in solidarity with America at this very difficult time, he said. However, he gave a hard-hitting assessment of the presumptive Republican election nominees Twitter comments. Mr Trump tweeted that he appreciated the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, following the horrific incident. In relation to Mr Trump's contribution, I thought it was pretty crass and I thought it was pretty tasteless and its unfortunate to see anyone from any political perspective trying to exploit really, an event like this, said Mr Varadkar. To make out somehow that they got it right all along. Its very disappointing to see that and Im glad we dont quite have that kind of politics in Ireland. He said he had not received an invitation to meet Mr Trump during his visit so did not have to make a decision about it, but politicians had no choice but to meet such individuals. Its up to others from that point of view, he said. One thing I would say is that the realpolitik of these things if somebody is the elected leader of another country, its the norm that politicians will meet them and there are lots of leaders elected and non-elected from countries all over the world that have done much worse than Donald Trump has ever said, he said. We do meet them because we have to, because thats the way we make sure we protect the interest of our citizens. He said politicians were regularly meeting Egyptian politicians over the Ibrahim Halawa case and were not refusing to meet them on that basis. Dubliner Ibrahim Halawa is in an Egyptian jail for nearly three years after being arrested during a political protest while on holiday in Cairo. In order to get things done, we have to meet them, he said. Mr Varadkar was speaking following a meeting with the Labour Market Council this morning. Detective Sergeant Tom Doyle of Rathfarnham Garda Station with the schoolbag belonging to Philip Cairns in a photo from October of last year. Photo: Damien Eagers Serial paedophile Eamon Cooke: his other victims could hold key to the death of schoolboy Philip Cairns The former head of Ireland's Cold Cast Unit has claimed convicted paedophile Eamon Cooke was a "weirdo" who would show up at violent crime scenes. Alan Bailey, a retired detective, said Cooke was known among Gardai at the time for his bizarre behaviour, which included him monitoring police radios and 999 calls to arrive at crime scenes before authorities. The former radio DJ was jailed in 2007 for 10 years for sexually assaulting girls in the mid to late 1970s. He is believed to have abused hundreds of boys and girls before he was jailed. He died in a hospice last week. The investigation into Cooke's links to Philip Cairns, who disappeared in 1986, have resurfaced as police now suspect the former radio DJ of killing the schoolboy due to fresh evidence. Expand Close Missing since 1986: Philip Cairns / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Missing since 1986: Philip Cairns "I had dealings with Eamon Cooke, my dealings went back as far as the mid '70s. At that stage, he known to Gardai. We heard about him that nine times out of 10 at a call in the city centre youd find him already there in a Jaguar... he monitored 999 calls." "He was a weirdo," Bailey old Newstalk Breakfast. Read More "He would ingratiate himself [into investigations], especially at scenes with a lot of violence." Bailey recalled a particular case of a double stabbing in the early 80s and remembers Cooke "standing beside one of the victims" when he arrived at the scene. Expand Close Former Garda detective Alan Bailey / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former Garda detective Alan Bailey "He was a funny fish to say the least of it," he aded. Cooke became a suspect in the decades-old case when a woman recently came forward, and claimed she saw him murder the missing child in 1986. Officers believe the information they received in the past month from the woman has provided the most compelling and credible lead in the investigation. The woman, who was aged nine at the time, told gardai she witnessed Cooke killing the schoolboy at his radio studio in Inchicore, west Dublin. Read More In yesterday's Sunday World, Cooke's ex-wife, who would only be referred to as Sarah, broke her silence on her ex-husband's suspected involvement with his disappearance. Expand Close Detective Sergeant Tom Doyle of Rathfarnham Garda Station with the schoolbag belonging to Philip Cairns in a photo from October of last year. Photo: Damien Eagers / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Detective Sergeant Tom Doyle of Rathfarnham Garda Station with the schoolbag belonging to Philip Cairns in a photo from October of last year. Photo: Damien Eagers She received a call in May identifying one of his victims as the person who dumped Philips schoolbag in the lane days after his abduction in 1986, the paper reports. "I didnt know anything about Philip Cairns and he [Eamon] has been locked up for the last 10 years. I dont why anyone, if they had information, wouldnt have come forward sooner," she said. I do know Eamon terrified people. Was he capable of killing someone? The answer to that is yes. He tried to kill me on a number of occasions." When Bailey was asked why those with information would wait decades to come forward, he said: "30 year old loyalties have broken downthe passage of time is a great thing. Expand Close Serial paedophile Eamon Cooke: his other victims could hold key to the death of schoolboy Philip Cairns / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Serial paedophile Eamon Cooke: his other victims could hold key to the death of schoolboy Philip Cairns "You have to examine on the basis of why - what were the factors? Was it fear, was it pressure? All those things must be taken into consideration." There have been suggestions that a paedophile ring was being run at the time and protecting abusers and Bailey said the renewed interest into Cairns' death might spur on other victims to come forward. "Quite possibly is other victims coming forward. [They have been] trying to bury their pain and hurt for years and year and this might be the catalyst." Anyone with information or can notify their local garda station or contact a charity helpline "who will point them in the right direction". As for the possibility of DNA evidence finally bringing closure to the case, Bailey said, "The age of the sample shouldnt make a difference." "If theres DNA to do a comparison, it shouldnt be a problem," he added. People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin Stuart Dwyer, Deputy chief of Mission, US Embassy to Ireland and Katherine Zappone TD were at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin Katherine Zappone TD and Leo Varadkar, Minister for Social Protection were at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin Colm O'Gorman, executive director with Amnesty International attends a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express her solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin Olivia McEvoy of the National LGBT federation attends a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express her solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin 13/6/2016 Eamon Farrell, brother of actor Colin Farrell attends a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express her solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin 13/6/2016 Ian Packham conducts the LGBT choir Gloria at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin 13/6/2016 Members of the LGBT choir Gloria sing at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin Leo Varadkar, Minister for Social Protection and singer Brian Kennedy at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square in June to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin People gather at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin THOUSANDS gathered in Dublin City Centre for a silent vigil in memory of those killed during the Orlando mass shooting. The vigil, organised by the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN), took place on Dame Street, with many of those attending draped in the rainbow flag. The memorial started with victims' names being read out, followed by a moment of silence. It was concluded with a rendition of 'Over the Rainbow' by Gloria, Dublin's LGBT choir. Gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 men and women and injured 53 at Orlando gay venue Pulse early Sunday morning in the worst mass shooting in American history. Expand Close Leo Varadkar, Minister for Social Protection and singer Brian Kennedy at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square in June to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Leo Varadkar, Minister for Social Protection and singer Brian Kennedy at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square in June to express their solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin A number of politicians attended the solemn event, including Children and Youth Affairs Minister Katherine Zappone, Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar, Housing Minister Simon Coveney and TD Mary Lou McDonald. Speaking to Independent.ie after the ceremony, Minister Varadkar said it's important that events in Florida don't put people off celebrating LGBT Pride. "It's exactly what terrorists or people who are homophobic want. They want to frighten us. We can't allow them to do that," he said. Expand Close Ian Packham conducts the LGBT choir Gloria at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin 13/6/2016 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ian Packham conducts the LGBT choir Gloria at a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin 13/6/2016 "Pride last year was a celebration of the referendum result. This year's has to be a celebration, but also a parade of solidarity with those in Florida and defiance against those who would seek to use violence, terrorism and hatred to force people to change the way they live their lives." The vigil sends an important message to the people affected by Sunday's massacre that we are standing alongside them, according to GLEN Director Brien Sheehan. Expand Close Olivia McEvoy of the National LGBT federation attends a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express her solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin 13/6/2016 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Olivia McEvoy of the National LGBT federation attends a Rainbow Vigil at Barnado's Square to express her solidarity and sympathy with the victims of the Orlando shooting tragedy. Photo: Tony Gavin 13/6/2016 "Thousands of Irish people are clearly using us this evening to send a message of solidarity. To say that our hearts are broken too," he said. "Now is a moment where we can clearly say 'no more'." Among those attending the vigil was Emma Murphy, who said she came down to show how sickened she was while reading about the Sunday morning massacre. "It is senseless to imagine that members of a community happy, dancing, socialising and enjoying a night out can be gunned down. "I feel hurt and angry but not threatened and the strength of the numbers show the determination and solidarity of the LGBT community in Ireland and of our unity with the LGBT community globally." Tallaght native Eoin Hendrix showed up to show solidarity and support for the families and friends of those who were killed and injured. "Acts of hatred like these just hit home how much there is a need for Pride and the Pride movement," he said. The fear or the threats that people feel should fuel us coming together and show the world that these actions are not okay and we won't let hatred defeat us or tear us apart." Vigils in Cork, Galway and Limerick will be held at 6.30pm on Wednesday.In Galway, a candle-lit vigil will take place in Eyre Square. Cork's event will be held at Daunt Square, while people in Limerick can pay tribute at Arthur's Quay Park. Our excursion to l'Gueuleton didn't get off to a great start. I rang to book a week or so ahead of time. A friend had been telling me how much he liked the place these days and I realised that it had been years since I ate there. The phone appeared to be answered and immediately hung up. Odd, but calls are dropping all around me these days so I tried again. And again. And again. Someone was definitely answering the phone and hanging up, repeatedly. Then I gave up. I asked one of my guests to try the following day. He had better luck and secured a table for four at 7.30pm. Fast forward a week and the restaurant rang to confirm the booking. By way of an aside, the person on the other end of the phone said that the table would be needed back at 9. "Now hang on," said my guest, "we have a birthday to celebrate, and we're not going to be finished in an hour and a half." "No problem," said the person from the restaurant, before going on to enquire whose birthday it was and would that person like a cake, or a candle in their dessert at the end of the meal to mark the occasion. My guest reckoned that a cake might be overdoing it, but thought that a candle would be appreciated. When l'Gueuleton opened back in October 2004, it caused quite the stir. It was a pioneer in a part of the city that is now restaurant central, and its policy of not taking bookings was revolutionary. The great and the good queued up on the street for hours to get a table, and the offering of authentic French bistro food was an instant hit. The prices were low and the mood was high. Dublin was on the up back then, no doubt about it. Plenty has changed since then, not least in this part of town. Fade Street is home to Dylan McGrath's popular Fade Street Social, and around the corner on Drury Street, Luna and Super Miss Sue are packing them in. South William Street, once home to the rag trade, has more places that sell food than clothes. L'Gueuleton has changed too, in that the space that it occupies is now several times larger than the original. The look is still the same - it's all exposed brick and dark wood floors with more than a touch of industrial chic about it - but the no-booking policy has gone, as have the modest prices. And whereas once it felt like an undiscovered gem, it's now full of groups of people from international conferences eating together and it's firmly in the mainstream. A roast cauliflower salad with smoked Gubbeen, rocket and roast hazelnuts was a good assembly of fine, robust flavours that would be simple to re-create at home, while lamb sweetbreads with a slice of cured foie gras and toasted brioche, with a Madeira jus and small confit onions, packed plenty of flavour. A dish of slivered ox tongue with croquettes of deep-fried white pudding wasn't as tasty as it should have been despite the crisp shallot rings and sauce gribiche. And a chicken liver and foie gras parfait was dull, though enhanced by nicely charred sourdough. Of the mains, the roast rare-breed pork loin with chorizo, Savoy cabbage and dauphinois, with more of that Madeira jus, and the roast rump of lamb with charred broccoli, roast shallots, garlic puree and rosemary potatoes suggested by our waitress, were the winners - well-executed dishes both. The eye-appeal of a rib-eye steak was limited, its texture flabby and its flavour underwhelming, while maple-glazed half chicken with leeks, black pudding and herb mash had an ungainly appearance and offered scant excitement. To finish - a generous plate of cheeses that would have benefited from longer out of the fridge, and a lemon tart and chocolate eclair with salted caramel ice cream that did what they said on the tin but nothing more. Restaurant menus have changed so much in the past couple of years that l'Gueuelton feels stuck in a time-warp, its portions too large and its food too heavy. I can't remember the last time that I came across a dish in one of the new wave of restaurants that involved any form of potato and, yet, at l'Gueuleton it's hard to find one that doesn't. Of course there is still a place for nostalgia, for traditional dishes executed well, and for rib-sticking food, but it feels as if l'Gueuleton is out of step with the way that we want to eat now, and that the menu would benefit from a lighter touch. That doesn't mean that the kitchen needs to introduce pickles and ferments to every plate, or to start foraging, but it does need to stand back and re-assess. The bill for four, with two bottles of wine, came to 253.10 before service. And they forgot the candle. ON A BUDGET At lunchtime, you could have French onion soup for 8.50, or theres a Plat du Jour with a glass of wine for 14.50. ON A BLOW OUT Pan-fried scallops followed by the rib-eye and dessert would cost a fraction under 50 per head before wine. THE HIGH POINT Friendly staff, and the people-watching possibilities if you get a seat facing out onto Fade Street. On a warm summer evening, sitting outside would be fun. THE LOW POINT A menu that feels dated rather than traditional its a fine line, but wed like to have had a better choice of lighter dishes. The rating 5/10 food 7/10 ambience 5/10 value for money 17/30 Whispers from the gastronomicon The wonderful Fish Shop on Queen Street (reviewed here some months back) has had a quick re-vamp and will re-open as a seafood restaurant. In the meantime, owners Jumoke and Peter have gone back to their roots (Fish Shop began as a chipper in Blackrock Market) and opened a fish and chip shop around the corner at 76 Benburb Street, Dublin 7. Beer-battered catch of the day with hand-cut chips, salad and tartar sauce is 12.50 at lunch and 16.50 at dinner, with wine available. fish-shop.ie Northern-clime people tend to choose swimwear that is functional, plain and covers the body. The nearer you get to the equator, the more swimwear becomes glamorous, brighter and more revealing. Irish-Italian designer, Virginia Macari, coming from Ireland and now living in Marbella, walks both worlds with her luxury swimwear range, Virginia Macari Beachwear Couture. "We [Irish] tend to be more conservative in our swimwear choices," Virginia tells me. "I remember, 15 years ago, people wouldn't spend on swimwear. We would spend on a bag, or shoes, but not swimwear. That has all changed. Now, we see it is an important investment. "Here in Marbella, women invest in their [swim] look. They are going to their hairdressers early in the morning, then getting their jewellery and style on, and then posing for the day. It is not all about sunbathing now; it is more like a nightclub life. People like to go to the beach clubs, like The Ocean Club and Nikki Beach, looking good and hanging out. A lot of that lifestyle is my target market. And then, I love that classic lady style, which is timeless." On our pages today, is a LIFE exclusive first peek at Virginia's new campaign, photographed in Marbella with international model, Roxy Horner. Roxy shot to fame earlier this year when it was rumoured she was dating Leonardo DiCaprio. Though we didn't discuss him on the day of the shoot, Roxy seemed well over him to me. "Roxy is a girl with curves," Virginia explains. "I don't think women relate to skinny women with six packs. I will never use a model who is stick-thin." Certainly with inspirations such as Monica Bellucci, Sophia Loren and Grace Kelly, Virginia Macari Beachwear Couture is a collection of bikinis, swimsuits - some embellished, some not - and luxurious wrap skirts and gowns, designed to make a woman feel as glamorous as possible. "This year, I know more what people want. It's a lot more adventurous. I think last year I played it a little safe," Virginia explains. "Every year, I am learning more things. This year, there are things there for the young girl and for the older ladies. The neons, for instance - the younger girl will love that; while the older woman will love the nautical. I also have a geometric print that ties the whole collection together." In the collection, there are 17 swimwear styles that come in five different colourways and prints. There are high-cut Brazilian-leg styles for the Ibiza/Marbella crowd, and there are low leg and high-waist styles, too. "The Brazilian cut is a very LA thing, and it is now hitting here," explains Virginia. "The younger girls want it. In Marbella, this is what they wear. "And it isn't just the very slim girl who wears it, all shapes wear it, because when we want a tan, we want a tan." Photography by Jayden Fa Styling by Andrea Karolina Fashion edited by Constance Harris Vera Twomey and Paul Barry are absolutely terrified that their gorgeous little girl will die if she doesn't get a particular drug that has not yet been approved in Ireland. This hard-working couple from Aghabullogue, in Co Cork, have four beautiful children aged six and under. Ava, who is the eldest at six years old, is followed by Sophia, Michael, and baby Elvera May. Having such young children is difficult enough, but unfortunately these parents also have to contend with the fact that Ava has a chronic, life-threatening illness. They believe her only hope rests with a medication that has not yet been approved in this country for patients like her. So Vera and Paul fear that Ava will die, simply because she cannot get access to the drug. Vera and Paul, a tractor mechanic, come from the same local area in Co Cork. Seven years ago, they married and have built a comfortable home adjoining Vera's mother's farmhouse. They were absolutely thrilled when baby Ava arrived safe and sound following a difficult labour, which culminated in a Caesarean section delivery. Fortunately, things soon reverted to normal. However, four months later, baby Ava had a massive seizure. Her frantic parents called the emergency services who rushed the infant to Cork University Hospital (CUH) by ambulance, where she was seen by a paediatric neurologist. As some form of epilepsy was suspected, blood tests were done. In the meantime, the seizures continued. Paul says there is no discernible pattern to them. Ava can have several in succession, and then none for several days. In time, Vera and Paul were given a diagnosis of Dravet syndrome (DS). They learned that this rare condition, also known as severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy (SMEI), meant Ava was unlikely to ever walk or talk. Vera says she was hysterical when she got the diagnosis, but she became determined to do everything in her power to help her precious daughter. Over time, doctors tried various kinds of medication in efforts to control the seizures, but with little lasting success. "It's said that Dravet's breaks through all types of medication," Vera explains. "When she has a seizure, she goes stiff, then her arms and legs twitch and she can have uncontrollable muscle spasms and jerks. She also has what are known as 'absences' when she is not really present, and 'drop seizures' when her legs suddenly turn to jelly; these can cause very serious injuries. It all very frightening and worrying." In the meantime, she and Paul worked so diligently they even got Ava walking when she was two years old, in spite of all the predictions to the contrary. But, one day not long after, this sweet little girl had five consecutive seizures. Vera says the doctors had no option but to try a different medication. Unfortunately, Ava had such a bad reaction, she was unconscious for five days. "Following the coma, she lost the ability to walk," says Vera. "It took us another year to get her back on her feet; but she did it; we are so proud of her." Apart from the seizures, DS causes a range of other difficulties, including insomnia, delayed learning, speech, balance and gait issues, low immunity and acute sensitivity to various things including light and heat. "A bath could trigger a seizure if it was too hot, or too cold." explains Vera. "Her personal freedom is constantly compromised because she can react so badly to so many different things. She has to be watched like a hawk all the time." At 5am on the morning of this interview, Ava had a particularly severe seizure. It left her exhausted, tearful and fractious. She'd had two episodes the day before, and 18 the previous Sunday. "It was a desperate day," says her mother tearfully, "and that doesn't even include the absences." Tears are quite a common feature in Vera's life these days. With three younger, delightfully boisterous children to contend with, on top of Ava's incredibly serious and highly demanding medical condition, she's reached breaking point. This, in spite of the fact that she has huge support from her immensely capable and loving husband Paul, and from her wonderful mother. "When Ava has a seizure, we have to wait for one minute to see if it passes on its own, before giving her medication," says Vera. "If Michael or Sophia are with her when she has one, they automatically start counting to 60. They are only three and four years old. This is no way for such young children to be living." Vera says she used to get home help for one hour a day from the HSE, but unfortunately for this unbelievably stressed family, even that came to an end, and Vera says people don't understand just how difficult the situation can be. "They'll say, 'It's just epilepsy'. Well, epilepsy is bad enough, but we have the added problems of seizures being triggered for no apparent reason." Paul says Ava is rushed to hospital, on average, once a week. So he and Vera have nothing but praise for the paramedics who come from Macroom, to rush little Ava to Cork. "They really, really care about her," Paul volunteers. Vera says the doctors at CUH have tried all of the drugs that might be likely to lessen Ava's seizures, but without any obvious, lasting success. "Some weeks back, they told us that there were none left to try. So they want to try combinations of those drugs." Vera believes Ava's best hope lies in CBD, an oil derived from the cannabis plant. She says this has been made available to patients in certain States in America and in other countries. She says some of the results have been outstanding. "One little girl was having up to 200 seizures a day, and, after a period of treatment on CBD oil, they were reduced to three a month." Vera says that in some cases, the seizures were eliminated altogether. But Ava's chances of getting CBD in Ireland are nil right now, because it is nowhere near being approved by the authorities for cases like hers. And so Vera has begun a petition to put pressure on those very same authorities about the current situation. "I'm canvassing everyone I can think of," she says. "The doctors know CBD works. But my daughter can't have it, and I'm not allowed to bring it into the country. We are always trying to be really positive, but you have to ask, what if Ava has 22 seizures next week, and because of them she slips into a coma and dies? Just before Christmas she went into cardiac arrest. I'm so, so terribly frightened for my beautiful little girl." For more information and to sign the petition, see facebook.com/cbdforavasupport, or see change.org/p/minister-for-health-cbd-for-ava-support I have no idea how young Simon Harris will go down in the pantheon of Irish health ministers, but as 'minister for buying time' he may have no equal. Barely out of the short pants, Simon's grand plans for an all-party Oireachtas committee seeking consensus on healthcare is cunning in the extreme. This will kick moaning cans a few years down the road, share the load equally among the inept, and take the focus off the fact that his party failed dismally to fulfil the promising universal insurance plans they were elected to implement in 2011. But any goodwill there might have been towards a fresh face at Health evaporated fairly quickly when a ludicrous posse of four junior ministers was appointed to join him around the press-release machine. Ireland now has separate ministers for health, social protection, children, disabilities, health promotion, drugs, older people and mental health. In bygone days, one chap did the whole lot for a couple of hundred pounds a year. And before the last war, he juggled the brief of local government into the bargain. Bets are on as to what might come next. A new minister for alcohol might have things to say about the two pubs in Leinster House. A minister for hypochondria might tell us that health services are actually fine, and all the complaints we make are actually in our heads. I think Enda should appoint a minister for junior ministers. With so many young lads and lassies running around waving 120,000 salary cheques, not to mention expenses, they surely need a separate department full of six-figure advisors who can counsel them on how to spend it. A minister for influenza could be useful, too. We are just two years out from the hundredth anniversary of the Spanish Flu, and one never knows when another nasty strain is around the corner. The Great Flu wiped out 20,000 lives on this island alone. I was writing recently about various treatments that were tried, and some of you wrote to tell me of others. Thomas in Kildare knew an old Carlow man, Bill Burgess of Tobinstown, who was born in 1902. He features in Turtle Bunbury's Vanishing Ireland and remembered the Spanish Flu. He said that Doctor Kidd of Rathvilly recommended whiskey. Bill's sister survived the flu, but it took her two years to get back her weight and strength. His brother Vivian died on the family farm at the age of 20, and very few people attended his funeral for fear of contagion. In the same book, Nellie O'Toole, born in 1908, gives an account of the flu in Rathvilly. She recalls that her brother was beating his head against the wall. Soup was delivered in churns by horse-and-carriage to the people of Rathvilly from the local Big House, the Rathdonnells of Lisnavagh. I also had an email from a man who grew up in Castleisland in Kerry not knowing any grandparents on his father's side. He found out why in the local graveyard. Looking at the family headstone, he found that his grandmother and both of her parents all died within three weeks of each other in late October/early November of 1918. As a result, his aunt, who was a young girl at the time, took on the role of mother to his five uncles and one other aunt, while also running a shop in the town. The family rented a room in the house to an RIC officer prior to the Troubles in 1920, and he now regrets that he never spoke to his aunt prior to her death in the 1980s about the flu that was rampant at the time. Kerry didn't have that many soldiers fighting away in the Great War, so the first wave of influenza was a bit slower to arrive there in the summer of 1918. But when it did, it was quite virulent and the county was hit hard. In her book The Last Irish Plague, historian Dr Caitriona Foley wrote about petty court sessions being suspended in the county because of fears of people coming to court "fresh from houses infected with Influenza". The fear of 'infected houses' runs deep in Irish lore and in times past, especially during cholera epidemics, houses would be broken down and burned to the ground with the fever victims still inside. And for many years, and sometimes generations afterwards, children would be warned by their parents not to pick berries from the vicinity of such houses. If you have any interesting family stories of the Great Flu, please do write to me at PO Box 5049, Dublin 6w, or email mgueret@imd.ie vvvvvvvvv Three weeks ago, we looked at the health of Donald Trump, declared by his own doctor as the man who may prove to be the healthiest US president in history. Well, today it's the turn of my distant cousin, Hillary Clinton, to lie on the couch. Now, I would never dream of treating a relative, so I have to rely on information already in the public arena to afford Mrs Clinton her Rude Health check-up. Medication is a good place to start. Like me, Hillary takes a daily dose of hormone pills. In fact, she takes the same type of pills as I do. We cousins share a rare enough glandular condition called hypothyroidism which causes fatigue, weight gain, puffy face and sluggish metabolism. Until we get treated, that is, which is when we all turn into handsome, go-getter, fantastically-fit, globe-changing icons of world renown. Another of Hilla's medications are throat lozenges to suppress that raspy voice and tendency to fits of coughing during public speeches. But her most significant medication is warfarin, which she has been taking for three years to prevent clots, following a serious fall at her home in 2012. We need to seriously talk more about Hillary's health. More next week. Dr Maurice Gueret is editor of the 'Irish Medical Directory' drmauricegueret.com The slot on Newstalk's Sunday Show in which famous names are invited to choose their five favourite books offers a welcome respite from the relentless tyranny of rolling news. Presenter Shane Coleman has the confidence to let his guests speak without interruption, not feeling the need to show off his own knowledge. This in turn allows them to reveal a different side to their public persona. Last week, it was the turn of screenwriter and political analyst Eoghan Harris. He talked animatedly about everything from his love for Just William to his lack of patience for self-indulgent literary fiction which dispenses with plot. Frank O'Connor's account of his time in the anti-Treaty IRA in turn prompted a timelessly relevant exchange on the "upper class Patty Hearst types" who "fall in love with terrorist groups for intellectual reasons and then find themselves in the company of psychopaths." Most of all, there was Aristotle's Poetics, "the single most important book of my life", by which Hollywood still swears to this day as a template for disciplined and satisfying narrative structure. As always with Harris, good storytelling and good politics go seamlessly hand-in-hand. "I could listen to you all day," Coleman said with genuine warmth at the end, and it was obvious that he meant it. Icelandic writer Sjon touched on many of the same themes when he appeared on Tuesday's Free Thinking on BBC Radio 3. Speaking of how cinema was long seen as a "low art" by cultural arbiters, for example, he noted: "I love the fact that while the cultural elite and high class of Reykjavik were going to the theatre, watching outdated Danish living room dramas, and reading obsolete literature, the kids and the working class were in the cinema, witnessing the birth of a new art form." There should be more such interviews in the general schedule, rather than relegating the arts to its own ghetto. The Pat Kenny Show does make an effort - the Newstalk host spoke to Sjon on Tuesday too - but on Irish radio the lowliest TD usually takes precedence over the most interesting artists or writers, and it's not immediately clear why. Dr Ali Selim of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh was on Wednesday's Ray D'Arcy Show to talk about Ramadan, and he denied that Muslim women were oppressed ("they choose to be dressed in this way") or that those who did not accept what he called their "religious obligations" were ostracised; but he did make one troubling remark that wasn't picked up on by the broadcaster. "Everybody has shortcomings, whether you are a man or a woman," he began, before adding that, in the case of "a person or a lady that does not observe the hijab", their "shortcomings are clearer as people can see that." It's doubtful that any other speaker would get such an easy time from RTE if they said that the "shortcomings" of a woman were "clearer" to see just because of the way she dressed. Travelling with children in the USA? Our expert shares her tips for city slicker families. LA Story A bus tour is the best way to get your bearings in sprawling LA. We took the kids on the Starline Tours (starlinetours.com; $49/43) red route from the Chinese Theatre. The kids loved the upbeat, graffiti-covered stores on Melrose and funky eateries like Pink's Hot Dogs. We also spent ages walking along Hollywood Boulevard, while the kids searched for their favourite stars. California has great choice in theme parks and we opted for Universal Studios (universalstudioshollywood.com; two-day tickets from $119/104). The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is the newest attraction, though we ended up drenched at some old jewels like Jurassic Park and stunt show Waterworld. The park is huge and tickets expensive, so go early to make the most of the day. If your kids are sports fans get tickets online for a Lakers basketball game at Staple Centre (nba.com; from $58/51). We found ourselves rubbing shoulders with Will Ferrell. Sylvester Stallone was in the crowd too! Don't go home without taking a trip to Venice Beach on a bicycle. Kids love the hippy vibe and henna tattoos, and my pair loved the old-fashioned theme park at Santa Monica Pier. Bikes can be rented by the hour. Boston Tea Party Expand Close Downtown Boston. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Downtown Boston. Boston is a university city with opportunities for learning everywhere. The Boston Tea Party Ship (bostonteapartyship.com; $23.50/14.50) is good for anyone over eight. Visitors yell and call for revolution with guides wearing period costumes. When we boarded, the kids were called on to chuck the tea chests into the water and pull them out again. Down in the galley the wax figures are creepy - and kids love to be scared! A short stroll across the bridge from the ship is the Boston Children's Museum (bostonchildrensmuseum.com; free for under-12s) with good interactive fun for small children. A must-visit for teens and tweens is the new Converse Store on LoveJoy Wharf (converse.com), the flagship of the popular brand in the USA. Kids can customise their Chucks here - though open-wallet surgery may be required for adults. A great day trip and only one hour on the train is Salem, home of the witch trials. If you are there in October the Haunted Happenings Festival (hauntedhappenings.org) runs for the month with scary events and shows throughout the day. Get your fortune told in Omen or one of the other witchcraft shops. The kids will love it! Washington wow factor Expand Close Washington, DC at the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial during spring / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Washington, DC at the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial during spring DC is great for families as it's clean and orderly with a sense of space - and your kids can have fun and they won't even notice they're learning! Nearly all of the museums are free, too - which saves a fortune, especially if you have more than two children. Must-dos include The Air and Space Museum (airandspace.si.edu), and Museum of The American Indian (nmai.si.edu), where my son especially enjoyed the challenge of finding his balance in an Inuit boat. The cafe serves really healthy delicious food too. The Bike and Roll Tour (bikeandrolldc.com; $39/34) is the very best way to visit the presidential monuments. Fully guided, the tour took us past The White House, Washington Monument and down National Mall from Lincoln to Jefferson down by the Potomac River. Ford's Theatre (fords.org; $5/4.40) where Abraham Lincoln was shot, cannot be missed. Booking a tour online is essential as it is busy all year around and tours start at 8.30am. The highlight for my son was seeing the actual gun that shot President Lincoln. Bear in mind that July and August are DC's hottest months, with temperatures soaring into the 30s. The Streets of San Francisco Expand Close Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. Pier 39 is tourist central and on the way to Fisherman's Wharf. Don't skip it entirely, however. Here, we found Lefty's shop for left-handed people (leftyslefthanded.com). My daughter, Nicole, had to be dragged from this store being a leftie herself. The kids will love Chinatown. Everything is cheap and it's a great place for the kids to pick up souvenirs for the whole class back home. Take a drive down Lombard Street - more thrilling than a ride at Universal. A little further afield, Marin County is home to the ancient redwood trees of Muir Woods. For a day out in nature, this is a great park to visit and it was used as a setting in the last Planet of the Apes movie. Get there early, however, as parking is crazy later in the day. Take a packed lunch for the great picnic areas, too. The very best way to see the bridge and absorb the breathtaking view of San Francisco Bay is by bike (baycitybike.com; $55/44pp). It is a long cycle but older kids won't be bored - a guided tour takes up to three hours and ends at the pretty town of Sausalito, where we stopped for lunch and took a ferry ride back to the city. You can rent bikes by the hour, too. New York, New York Expand Close New York taxi / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp New York taxi Children up to the age of 12 will love the American Girl store (americangirl.com) on 5th Avenue - with a chance to pick one of 49 dolls that will look exactly like them. I bought matching outfits and pyjamas for my daughter and her doll. We spent an afternoon enjoying lunch together at the store, while my daughter's doll had her hair done and ears pierced. It was a special mother and daughter experience we will never forget. 'Truly Me' dolls start from $115/101. The changing rooms at Juicy Couture (juicycouture.com) are another place to make your daughter feel like a princess, but check that there's a sale before entering. We got lucky and arrived on a day with 70pc off everything. New York isn't just Manhattan, either. My daughter's favourite place in the suburbs is the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria (movingimage.us; $15/7). It was a real treat to see props and models used in the original Star Wars movies and other epics. Elsewhere, I recommend Top of the Rock (topoftherocknyc.com; $32/28) rather than the Empire State Building (ESB), as your photos have the ESB in the background. A great free attraction, not to mention a way to see Manhattan from the water, is the Staten Island Ferry (siferry.com) which leaves from the Whitehall Terminal on the half hour. Finally, I'd recommend taking a bike or quadcycle around Central Park. A quadcycle costs $35/31 per hour (bikenewyorkcity.com), the perfect amount of time to leisurely see the lake and the sights. Kids love to be on the move, so this is a great way to get to see the Alice in Wonderland statue, Strawberry Fields and the Chess and Checkers House. Travel checklist Expand Close Camarillo outlet / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Camarillo outlet Aer Lingus, Delta, United and American fly various routes between Ireland the US, though it's often cheaper to book flights and hotels together with the likes of Sunway, Tour America and American Holidays. Visa Waiver travellers need to complete an ESTA (esta.cbp.dhs.gov) beforehand and, as of this April 1, to carry an electronic passport. Before travelling to the US, make sure your family has travel insurance with adequate medical coverage - healthcare can be extremely costly. Read More Shopping tips The best way to ensure you find the exact stores you want is to look up premiumoutlets.com before travel and type your destination into the search box. Premium Outlets are outside all major cities - great for kids' clothes and shoes, and with good food malls too. Outside LA on the way to Santa Barbara, we checked out Camarillo Premium Outlets and the kids found their favourite stores such as Aeropostale, Nike, American Eagle and Gap. Read more: Premium John Downing Opinion New British prime minister Rishi Sunaks succession proves an important milestone in British political inclusivity There is an old saying in British politics that goes: The right looks for converts while the left seeks out traitors. It comes to mind when one reflects upon the election of Rishi Sunak as the UKs first non-white prime minister in a party traditionally seen as most opposed to mass immigration and the dilution of national identity via multiculturalism. Serial paedophile Eamon 'Captain' Cooke was a textbook sexual predator in the same mould as Jimmy Savile: a devious, manipulative creature whose raison d'etre was grooming innocent children for his depraved predilections. While he was convicted of abusing four girls between 1974 and 1989, it is estimated that he victimised hundreds of young girls and boys during his lifetime. Cooke, nicknamed the 'Cookie Monster' by the children he preyed on, took advantage of his minor celebrity status as the boss of the pirate station Radio Dublin. And just like the parasite that was Savile, he sought out and ensnared vulnerable children. He lured children into his trap by carefully, and patiently, grooming them over long periods of time. Cooke then instilled cold fear into his victims so they would never tell - which is borne out by the fact that so many victims have remained silent for so many decades. In August 2002, Eamon Cooke contacted me at the offices of the 'Sunday World' with a letter containing allegations that he was being falsely accused of child abuse. At the time, he was being investigated by gardai in Lucan for the abuse of the four women when they were children. Cooke had gone to great lengths to scupper the inquiry - including making false and vexatious claims against individual detectives. He even convinced a close female associate to make false allegations of a sexual nature against one officer who had uncovered his twisted secrets. When we eventually met, in October 2002, my first impression was of a delusional and repugnant character, in a cheap dirty suit, covered in cigarette ash, with filthy hands. Cooke, who was then 66, was on the run from the gardai for repeatedly breaching a court order to stay away from an 11-year-old girl who had been placed in care by the High Court. He was suspected of sexually abusing the child, who he lured away from the home to be with him. "We're just very close friends," he explained, before claiming that the child had asked him to run away with her. "[She] would ask me to run off with her to London and Cork and places like that and we would go off for a few days at a time. It was great fun," he said, as if he was talking about a relationship with a grown woman. Cooke wanted me to meet the girl to "hear her side of the story" - which I refused. I also received a letter purporting to be from the same child which, while signed by a child, was clearly written by an adult. Gardai and health workers were forced to have the child taken to a foster home in England because they could not keep Cooke away from her. I arranged to meet Cooke again and tipped off the gardai - who were waiting to arrest him. As well as the homeless, those on waiting lists and the 200,000 whose mortgages are restructured or in arrears, there are 450,000 rental households facing huge uncertainty. Stock photo: Graham Moore It was the economist David McWilliams who coined the phrase 'Deckland'. Perhaps it is not quite as catchy as 'breakfast roll man', but it captured the plight of a generation of young families who took flight to towns and villages, outside of our main urban centres, just to put a roof over their heads. Now 'decklanders' are being replaced by 'rentlanders' as a new form of displaced urbanites, and others who cannot find or afford accommodation, who are taking flight to commuter belts, leading to huge costs in terms of their finances and quality of life. And so, sadly, the report into the death of Prince by Minnesota officials has concluded that he died from an overdose of fentanyl. It is an opioid medication, in the same family of drugs as morphine or heroin. It's not known currently whether it was prescribed for him by a doctor but it's a prescription-only medication so it's likely either it was - or else it was originally prescribed for someone else but he was able to buy it. It was hard not to fear that some story like this would emerge surrounding his untimely death. He was a relatively young man, who appeared to be in good health - and with his vast amounts of wealth, he was someone whom you would imagine had access to the best of healthcare, so his death seemed incongruous. But, alas, like Michael Jackson and Elvis before him, vast wealth, fame and success weren't enough to protect him from addiction - perhaps, in fact, they contribute to it. Fentanyl is a drug I've prescribed many times. I use it in end-of-life situations for palliative-care patients with cancer, for example. Or sometimes in older patients with chronic pain from severe arthritis or with collapsed vertebrae from osteoporosis. That kind of thing. I don't have one healthy, young or middle-aged person on it. And I'm of the mind that whilst it is always important to control pain, the slew of problems that a drug like fentanyl creates, in terms of addiction and side effects, means there always has to be a very serious reason to justify me prescribing it. Expand Close Prince he died from an overdose of fentanyl. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Prince he died from an overdose of fentanyl. Patients do come actively looking for drugs like fentanyl - opioid addiction is a very real problem - but in those circumstances it is the role of the doctor to adhere to proper professional standards and refuse to prescribe. It seems to me that there is a terrible irony in people being so incredibly successful that they can afford to buy the worst of medical care, rather than the best. But perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps Prince wasn't prescribed this drug at all and never had a doctor in his pocket, feeding his addiction. Perhaps he was just one of the 20,000 Americans who die from a prescription opioid overdose annually - many of whom get the drugs on the street, not through a physician. Well, even if that's true, street prescription-drugs come from somewhere, and where they usually come from is from a doctor. One either blatantly selling scripts or one who is prescribing inappropriately - so the patient's threshold for using opioids is simply too low. If you prescribe a drug for a patient, who then goes on to sell it on the street, then clearly they never really needed that drug in the first place. America, of course, has a massive problem with obesity. And obesity often results in chronic pain. So pain management is a big health problem there. But the risks associated with opioids often outweigh the benefits and just because we can prescribe something, doesn't mean that we should. Prince would have been 58 last week. It's no exaggeration to say he was one of the greatest musical talents of all time and that he died far too young. There was some question that he'd had hip problems in the past - and that might be why he was on fentanyl. Well, clearly, if that was the case, then the cure was far, far worse than the disease. We as medical professionals need to examine ourselves and see if prescribing in such circumstances can actually ever be warranted. And doctors who prescribe these kinds of drugs without due cause should be struck off. @ciarakellydoc For lovers of Suzuki cars the all-new Baleno arrives in Ireland on this month. Its a grown up car for those who feel young at heart. The Baleno is Suzuki thorough and through, a family car that punches well above its very low weight. Big enough to meet an Irish familys needs the standout feature of the Baleno is its all-new 1.0 litre Direct Injection turbocharged Boosterjet engine that gives super high performance and great fuel economy at 64 miles per gallon. It offers the same level of power and torque of a much larger capacity normally aspirated engine (1.8-litre) for an effortless drive and genuine driving pleasure. Expand Close The distinctive Liquid Form of the Suzuki Baleno / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The distinctive Liquid Form of the Suzuki Baleno The Suzuki Swift is the companys supermini offering with a cult following due to its bullet proof reliability, packed in performance, high fuel economy and low emissions, but mostly for its driveability. The Baleno is a more grown-up car aimed at couples looking for extra space or small to mid-sized families. Still though, the Baleno may be a more rational choice for those with responsibilities, the car retains the youthful exuberance of its more footloose cousin the Swift. The new generation platform and latest development in high tensile steel construction allows for increased rigidity and reduced weight, enhanced fuel efficiency, handling and stability, while still achieving high levels of safety and NVH performance. The result is a very low kerb weight of 935kg (1.2-litre SHVS model), which together with the new engine, means the Baleno is faster and more agile. The Baleno is a nippy city car that is practical, fun and good on the open road. It does tick all the boxes in terms of practicality and can boast offers the best tandem distance in its class which is the measurement taken between the front and rear seats. T 355 litres theres plenty of luggage space and one of the best in its class. Expand Close Suzuki claim the Baleno has the longest cabin length in its class / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Suzuki claim the Baleno has the longest cabin length in its class Theres a lot more to the Baleno than space and agility though, it comes pact full of high-end features SatNav, Bluetooth and Air Conditioning fitted as standard on all models and Radar Brake Support and Adaptive Cruise Control are fitted as standard to SZ5 grade. The touchscreen panel in the cabin is snuggly fitted into cars instrument control panel and is beautifully designed. The touchscreen has full tactile functionality like your smart phone for pinch and swipe hand gestures. Probably the cars most distinctive feature however is evident on the outside and while all other Suzuki models have the same flowing lines and stylish, urban designs that make then so recognisable, the Baleno surpasses them in terms of aerodynamics. Expand Close Plenty of luggage room in the new Baleno / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Plenty of luggage room in the new Baleno The name Baleno means whale in Italian and it makes sense with the cars Liquid Flow design theme. Bringing to mind the bulk of the whale (roomier interior) as well as its streamlined, dynamic outer form that allows it to move so efficiently through water. A more practical choice than the Swift, the Baleno is for Suzuki lovers who maybe dont feel they need to step up to a Vitara or an SX4 S-Cross. Book a test drive to experience the incredible Suzuki Baleno for yourself at http://www.suzuki.ie/request-test-drive For more information on the Baleno and the full range of Suzuki models vist http://www.suzuki.ie/ Sponsored by: Cynthia Erivo with the award for leading actress in a musical for The Color Purple at the Tony Awards (AP) The cast of Hamilton performs at the Tony Awards - the musical won 11 gongs (AP) The hip-hop musical Hamilton dominated this year's Tony Awards as Broadway paid tribute to the victims of the deadly mass shooting in Florida which claimed at least 50 lives. The critically-acclaimed production, which tells the story of Alexander Hamilton, one of America's founding fathers, won 11 awards including best musical after receiving a record 16 nominations. Briton Cynthia Erivo won best performance by a lead actress in a musical for her role as Celie Harris in the Color Purple. Fighting back tears on stage, she said: "I promised myself I wouldn't cry because my make-up artist would be really mad at me. "Thank you American Theatre Wing for making a London girl very, very happy." The awards were dedicated to the victims of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando which left at least 50 people dead and another 53 in hospital. Host James Corden opened the show with a message to those affected by the deadliest mass shooting in US history. "Our hearts go out to all of those affected by this atrocity," he said. "All we can say is you're not on your own right now. You're tragedy is our tragedy. "Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. Tonight's show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle." The attack in Florida prompted the cast of Hamilton to drop their Revolutionary War muskets for their performance at the awards, a spokesman for the musical said. Video of the Day Speaking before the ceremony in New York, Lin-Manuel Miranda, the star and creator of Hamilton, said the shooting was "heavy in my heart and heavy in my mind". Veteran American actor Frank Langella, who won best performance by a lead actor in a play for his role in The Father, urged Orlando to be "strong" in the wake of the atrocity. "When something bad happens we have three choices," he said. "We let it define us, we let it destroy us, or we let it strengthen us. "Today in Orlando we had a hideous dose of reality. I urge you Orlando to be strong because I'm standing in a room full of the most generous human beings on earth and we will be with you every step of the way." Jessica Lange won the award for best performance by a lead actress in a play for her role as morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey Into Night. "This is a dream come true," she said. "It fills me with such happiness even on such a sad day as this." The two-time Oscar winner beat Lupita Nyong'o, Michelle Williams, Laurie Metcalf and British actress Sophie Okonedo to win the award. Hamilton, which is expected to open at London's Victoria Palace Theatre in October 2017, has achieved rave reviews and sell-out performances since making its debut in February last year. It won Tony Awards for best musical, best lead actor in a musical for Leslie Odom Jr, best featured actor and actress statuettes for Daveed Diggs and Renee Elise Goldsberry, best score, best book of a musical, best direction, orchestration, choreography and best lighting design and costume design of a musical. But the show failed to match the record haul of 12 Tony Awards won by The Producers in 2001. In a pre-recorded video message, US president Barack Obama said Hamilton was "not only a smash hit but a civics lesson our kids can't get enough of", while rapper Common described the show as a "cultural phenomenon". The Color Purple received the Tony Award for best revival of a musical, while A View From The Bridge took the prize for best revival of a play and Humans won best play. Erivo, who grew up in Stockwell, south London, stars opposite American actress Jennifer Hudson in the Broadway production of The Color Purple. The 29-year-old Briton reprised her role in the musical on the US stage after first playing Celie Harris in London in 2013. During her acceptance speech, Ervio spotted her mother in the audience and said: "Hi mummy, look!" before thanking Oprah Winfrey, who starred in the 1985 film The Color Purple. "To every single person in the cast, you are magnificent," she said. "Thank you so much for lifting me up when I'm tired. For holding my hands when I'm happy. For kissing me on the forehead when you know I just need some love." Corden, who won a 2012 Tony Award for his performance in One Man, Two Guvnors, hosted the 70th Tony Awards following his successful stint as the presenter of the Late, Late Show in America. The ceremony also featured Barbra Streisand who took to the Tony Awards stage for the first time in 46 years to hand out the best musical award. The Every Student Succeeds Act turned six months old last week. Earlier this spring, the Alyson half of Politics K-12 sat down with all four of ESSAs chief architects. You can read interviews with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash ., Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va. , and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn . Below is an edited transcript of an interview with Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House education committee. Kline is retiring at the end of the year. This interview took place last week, so it touches on more than just ESSAs developmentwe also chat about the regulatory process, the presidential race, and whats next for the House education committee. You tried for years to get the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorized. Why do you think the reauthorization finally happened in 2015? What was the secret sauce? The really secret sauce was the fact that everybody was fed up with No Child Left Behind. And they werent before you dont think? It changed, obviously. ... People could just sort of grumble about it, until we got to the point where schools were failing and the department was deciding who to give waivers to and who not to and what the conditions would be and what they wouldnt. So that kind of helped push it over the top. People were fed up with Common Core and people saying OK, weve got to get rid of No Child Left Behind. Some say it had to do with the mix of leaders in place: Sen. Lamar Alexander had just taken over the Senate education committee. Sen. Patty Murray had just become the ranking member of that committee and Rep. Bobby Scott had just become the House education committees top Democrat. Well, everybody was new except for me. It was a good mix of personalities, theres no question about that... All of us wanted to get rid of No Child Left Behind. And there was a general consensus that the federal government had grabbed too much and we ought to move back to local control. And thats, obviously, where I was all along. ...You had superintendents and teachers unions saying you have to get rid of No Child Left Behind .... That kept us going. Back in 2011, you and Rep. George Miller of California, who was the top Democrat on the committee at the time, really tried to hard to write a bipartisan bill from the start. And you ended up not being able to get to the same place. Did you make that same effort with Rep. Scott? Kline reminded me that I had my history wronghe and Miller actually first attempted a bipartisan bill back in 2010, before the House flipped to Republican control. We were trying to do a bipartisan bill. His staff and my staff were working it, Kline said. The bipartisan consensus never emerged, though: And then we put together [the Republican-only] H.R. 5 [the Student Success Act, which passed the House in 2013, but didnt make it through Congress.] By 2015, Kline knew the clock was ticking, and he thought Democrats could be brought on later in the process. I told Bobby Scott and others, yes, this is a Republican bill. ...We would love for you to vote for it, but its fine if you dont, we need to have this process, we need to get a bill to the floor and pass it. We need to get a bill through the Senate and pass it, so we can by golly do this the old fashioned School House Rock way, how a bill becomes a law. And then that is what happened, and of course we ran into a couple of snags. Here Kline talked a bit about the reasons the House bill initially failed to gain enough support to pass in February 2015. The vote on the bill was postponed and leaders brought it back up in July. If I made a mistake, and I have to admit that I did, I didnt realize how many peoplebecause wed passed this in the previous CongressI didnt realize how many people didnt know, were not familiar with the debate. It took me longer to get people informed, to get them educated, on the education bill, than I had anticipated. How did it feel when Heritage Action and Club for Growth (two conservative groups) key-voted the bill (meaning that a vote against it counted towards a lawmakers report card) as well as amendments that would have changed the direction of it? How did that feel as a Republican, especially because the National Education Association, which is traditionally aligned with Democrats, was for it, even if they were low-key about it in the House? Kline noted that Heritage Action, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation think tank, scores a lot of things, including, at one point, a letter to leadership that was not related to ESSA. Yes, that was a nuisance, and we had some dialogue going with them and others. And there were organizations who understood, and I think that the teachers unions probably both understood, well we cant come out and support this thing, but we want to get to the end. We wanted to get rid of No Child Left Behind. How did you convince your colleagues to bring the bill back up to the floor, after it was postponed earlier in the year? Kline said he didnt go door-to-door pleading his case, but he got help from other committee members and key staff and just started an education process, telling people what was in the bill, what wasnt in the bill, why this is attack is not correct. I had didnt realize how many Republicans werent there for the debate last time, he added. Kline and Scott teamed up in conference behind the scenes to work out the toughest issue: accountability. How did that process go? There was a lot of really good staff action. My staff and his staff working it through and we started to work a compromise. ... We just didnt sit down with a cup of coffee and work it all out. There was a lot of back-and-forth, back-and-forth until we got to a place where I could say, I can live with that compromise, and Bobby could say, I can live with that compromise. Once we had that, then we really started to roll, Kline said. And Kline said it helped that he and Scottand their staffhad already worked together on workforce legislation. When Speaker [John] Boehner resigned, were you worried that his successor would be beholden to the conservative Freedom Caucus or tea party wing of the party and that the ESEA bill would not make it over the finish line? That wasnt going to happen. ... I wasnt concerned about that. I dont know if Sen. Alexander said anything to you about it, but he did raise with me, should we get this done before Boehner walks out the door? And I said, I dont think so, Ill check with Speaker Boehner. Boehner told Kline the lawmakers could wait until he left office. Did [House Speaker Paul Ryan] give you all a deadline of the end of the year? Kline said he did not. Instead, Kline said the speaker told him, I know you guys are getting close. Work it through. Make sure that you will have a majority of the majority. I had already made very, very clear to Bobby Scott, and Patty Murray, and Lamar Alexander, I have to have a majority of the majority. ... And of course we had way more than a majority of a majority. So that was his role. He was not involved in any negotiations. He didnt put any conditions in there, you have to have this or you have to have that, other than you have to have the majority of the majority. Kline added that it was good that Alexander pushed to have Kline chair the conference committee, so that it would be clear that House Republicans had ownership of the bill. (It was the Houses turn to chair, anyway.) He is a smart man. That message was good one in helping us move this thing through, Kline said. I know the pre-K program was one of the biggest sticking points between you and Sen. Murray. Why was the program something that you worried about? A brand new, pre-K program in the Department of Education would have been very hard to sell to get the majority of the majority. And more than that, its not the right thing to do. The pre-K program is Head Start and its in [Health and Human Services.] So my position was if were going to spend some money here in pre-K, it needs to be used to help coordinate programs, keep them aligned. ... So I said, Yes, were going to have this pre-K program that you, Sen. Murray, really want, but it cannot be in the Department of Education. It will grow over there and it will be out of alignment with where the money is. Its gotta be in HHS. And she was not happy. So that was a tough thing. But at the end, its a compromise. She got her program and I got to put it where it needed to go. Some in the school choice community were really disappointed that there wasnt more of a school choice focus in the bill. They really wanted Title I portability, ideally allowing federal dollars to follow students to the private school of their choice. What would be your response to that? Sen. Alexander and I worked hard to get a bill that would pass and would end No Child Left Behind. If you expend your political capital and energy trying to get Title I portability to private schoolsvouchersyou almost certainly cant get it passed and youll get nothing else done. So I think that parents ought to have as much choice as we can possibly get to them. But that wasnt going to happen. I would lose Republican votes and Democrats and it wouldnt be bipartisan anymore. What about public school portability? Again, you are trying to get rid of No Child Left Behind, return local control, put parents in charge and you gotta get what you can get. How do you think the regulatory process is going so far? I am not pleased at all. ... It seems to me that the plain language of the statute is that. It is plain language. It is perfectly clear. And when it uses words like as determined by the state, thats what it means. Not as interpreted by the secretary of education. So were watching really, really close. Im not happy with how its going right now. ... Weve got more still to see. But in general I think the secretary is exceeding the authority granted to him in the statute. We clearly, and repeatedly stated that states would have the decision-making authority on a wide range of issues. And the departments has already put their own interpretation in there. Can you give me a few examples? Kline is unhappy that the accountability regulations call for every state to come up with a summative score for their schools. Thats not in the statute. They just created because they think thats what you should have. Well, no, no, no. [The departments job] is to write regulations to implement the law, not make new law and so that to me is a good example. Its very clear thats not in the statute and they shouldnt be doing that, he said. And on supplement-not-supplant, Kline said, were not happy there again. Youre not allowed to make your own interpretation of what that means. Its unfolding in front of us. Were not happy with the direction we see. ... It could be worse, but I think its going to really bear watching, Kline said. He said that he and Alexander had been talking about this, and he is highly exercised ... He made it clear to [then-Education Secretary Arne] Duncan when we started this that the secretary is not the national superintendent and hes not running a national school board and we ought to restore local control and there ought to be limits on what secretary can do ... Its in the law by design and that was heavily pushed by me, but also by Sen. Alexander. And there was understanding in the Big Four that that had to be in there. If youre really trying to get rid of No Child Left Behind, you dont think the Secretary should be allowed to write his or her own law. Moving off of ESSA. This is your last year as chairman of the education committee. What do you still think you can still get done during this election year? Kline ticked off a to-do list that included child nutrition legislation. Hes working with Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, the agriculture committee chairman on that. But Kline pointed out that Roberts has to work with ranking member Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and shes not Murray. But its important he said, because soon schools will have to follow the sodium requirements in the current version of the law, the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act: And thats going to really start causing problems. He said that committee is also trying to get parts of the Higher Education Act reauthorization over the finish line, including simplifying the Federal Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) and codifying a recent change to how tax income is used to predict a students financial aid eligibility known as prior prior as well as a juvenile justice bill. And he thinks that a reauthorization of career and technical education programs could also move, given that there is strong potential for a bipartisan agreement there. We will get that done, Kline said. What kind of an education president do you think Donald Trump would be? I honestly dont know. Ive never been a [big] Donald Trump supporter. I expect I will be voting for him because I think more four years of this progressive, big government approach that you can expect from Hillary Clinton would be very, very bad ... Im worried about Donald Trump in a lot of areas ... We all know hes said some pretty outrageous things in a lot of areas. So you just dont know about him on education policy? I dont. I dont know if he does [know what he wants to do]. Do you know who he is listening to on education policy? Kline said no, he did not. And in response to another question, he said that no, Trump has not reached out to him for help or advice on K-12 policy. What about Secretary Clinton, what kind of education president would she be? Kline isnt a fan of the presumptive Democratic nominee. She would have a tendency to push the federal government to a bigger role than I would like. I think if she picked a good secretary it would probably be all right. Thats about as big as of praise as I can get ..it would be all right, he said. Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . Model and girlfriend to Rob Kearney, Jess Redden has opened up overcoming kidney failure. Renal failure occurs when the kidneys become unable to filter waste products from the blood, which may result in a potentially fatal build up of chemicals in the bloodstream. The 23-year-old has opened up about her life-threatening encounter with the illness two years ago and how it inspired her to return to college. I was getting really bad pains in my back and I was like, God what is that? We went into A&E first and my creatinine levels were 80 and theyre supposed to be 300 and something, they were so, so low, she told The Sun. Expand Close Leinster's Rob Kearney and Jess Redden / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Leinster's Rob Kearney and Jess Redden [The doctors] kept me in and ran tests. They were talking about dialysis and biopsies. And they couldnt even explain it. They still dont know why, they thought it was a big massive viral infection. My poor parents, they were so upset. I was in Blackrock for two weeks, I couldnt get out of bed I was just so sick, she revealed. Expand Close Jess Redden / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jess Redden Gradually I got better, I was given antibiotics but it was scary at the time, but thats when I really valued my own health. I hadnt really thought about it much until then. Redden, who has a degree in psychology from UCD, will be returning to university to study pharmacy this September. Expand Close Model Jess Redden launches the new Lingerie Room at Brown Thomas, Dublin, Ireland - 19.05.16. Pictures: Cathal Burke / VIPIRELAND.COM / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Model Jess Redden launches the new Lingerie Room at Brown Thomas, Dublin, Ireland - 19.05.16. Pictures: Cathal Burke / VIPIRELAND.COM The self-confessed fitness fanatic said that the illness inspired her to pursue a career in pharmaceuticals. That reinforced the importance of health for me. People think that pharmacists, the traditional role is just dispensing medicines. But they do so much more. Video of the Day I think being part of a team that manufactures a drug that can save millions of peoples lives is just like Id love that. Jess has been in a relationship with Ireland rugby ace Rob Kearney for two years. The petite blonde is signed to Andrea Roche Modelling Agency, and recently posed in her first lingerie photoshoot at the launch of the new Lingerie Room in Brown Thomas. "Dublin Wives was all fake t*ts and big dresses. It was all complete and total b******s," she articulated. "I lost everything from doing that show...I'm still getting invitations but I can't bear to go out...The spotlight it brought me, I didn't deal with it well, and the celeb world it showed is useless". On the last point, at least, it's hard to disagree, because Dublin Wives certainly didn't catapult Jordan onto the Irish celebrity A-list. Expand Close Jo Jordan leaving the Peter Mark VIP Style Awards 2013 at The Marker Hotel / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jo Jordan leaving the Peter Mark VIP Style Awards 2013 at The Marker Hotel To the best of my knowledge, her biggest gig courtesy of Dublin Wives was landing, in the summer of 2013, the role of judge in the Joe Dolan International Westmeath Bachelor Festival. Her interview last week was a far cry from those heady days, when she was singing a different tune. "I f**king love being famous," she revealed in 2013. Expand Close Dublin Housewives star Jo Jordan / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Dublin Housewives star Jo Jordan "I'm loving the attention, loving it! I'm getting really famous people looking for dates with me. It's f***ing great." All of which suggests that Jordan's disappointment is perhaps not that she is constantly hassled when she goes out, but that the lasting fame she hoped for didn't quite materialise. Expand Close Lisa Murphy and Jo Jordan in 2013 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Lisa Murphy and Jo Jordan in 2013 It's nearly four years since Dublin Wives first aired, and most people have either forgotten about it or never heard of it in the first place. The other four participants of the show don't seem overly burdened from having been on it, as you hardly hear a word from them on the subject. Maybe it's time Jo Jordan was grateful for what she has, and moved on. To be brutally honest, the only reason we remember her time in Dublin Wives is because she's still talking about it. The man behind the worst mass shooting in US history has been described as a wife-beater and steroid-taking 'sleaze' who hassled girls in his gym and was investigated by the FBI for connections to a Syrian suicide bomber. Omar Mateen (29) had worked since September 2007 as a security guard in Florida with the British-based security company G4S, which is tasked in the US with protecting federal buildings. Last night, questions were being raised as to how a man with his violent past and suspected radicalism had been employed as a guard and given access to weapons. He was born in New York to Afghan parents and at one point was married to a woman in New Jersey. "He was not a stable person," said the ex-wife, who spoke to the 'Washington Post'. "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that." Tim Crownover, who lives near Mateen's home in Fort Pierce, Florida, said a friend told him Mateen was a bodybuilder who used to be a "huge creep" toward girls. "Everybody thought he was on steroids, I guess," Mr Crownover said. Mateen had come onto the FBI's radar twice - first in 2013, when he made inflammatory comments to colleagues about terrorism, said Ronald Hopper, from the FBI. He was interviewed and investigated, but was not considered to be a threat. A year later, the FBI interviewed him again, in connection with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, the first American to carry out a suicide attack in Syria in May 2014. After training, Abusalha returned home to Fort Pierce for several months in 2013. Law-enforcement officials say he tried to recruit others to go back to Syria. Mateen had a licence for the concealed carrying of a weapon and also had a licence to work as a security guard. The gay club was deliberately chosen, his father, Mir Seddique, said. "We are apologising for the whole incident," he added. "We weren't aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock, like the whole country." Chris Sarafan, now living in Dublin, was a regular at Pulse night club A Florida man living in Dublin has paid tribute to his friend after discovering he was among those killed in the Orlando mass shooting. Chris Sarafan, who has been living in Ireland for years, found out this morning that his friend Chris 'Drew' Leinonen was one of the 50 people killed during the Pulse night club tragedy on Sunday morning. The Trinity College student, who was a regular at the gay venue during his college days, said Drew was a popular and smart person. "He was a really intelligent guy. One night we talked about Victorian Literature for ages," he said. "He was the type of guy you could meet wherever and have a conversation with him like you were friends for years." Read more: Death toll expected to rise among victims of Orlando massacre When Chris (23) heard the news, he was reminded of a promise he made his friend years ago. "We were talking about the band Girls Aloud. They weren't really big in the States, but Drew told me I should listen to them. "I never did, but I've been listening to them a lot today. It seems fitting. Sad, but fitting." WATCH: "Please let's all just get along... get rid of the hatred and violence." - mother of victim Chris Leinonen https://t.co/xaxBJ5551d Good Morning America (@GMA) June 13, 2016 Since the tragedy, an interview with Leinonen's mother Christine has been circulating online. In the exchange, Ms Leinonen made an emotional plea for peace. "Please let's all just get along. We're on this earth for such a short time let's try to get rid of the hatred and the violence please," she said. Although he knows the video is there, Chris said he is not yet able to watch it. "Ive been avoiding watching it. It would absolutely shatter me to watch that," he said. "It is hard being in Ireland and watching from afar. Certainly theres a disconnect from my friends in Orlando, but I feel much safer here." SAFE HAVEN Although he has not been in the area for a number of years, Mr Sarafan said Pulse has a special place in his heart. "It was the first night club I went to, let alone the first gay club. It was social place but also a place where you could feel safe," he said. "How could this happen in Orlando? A place that has international connotations as the happiest place in earth. "I have so many happy memories there. The fact that it has been cast in this light is terrible. Its made me appreciate the memories I have even more." Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. Gunman Omar Mateen opened fire in the popular club. The New York-born Florida resident and U.S. citizen was shot and killed by police after a three-hour siege. A vigil in memory of those killed during the shooting will take place in Dublin this evening. A moment of silence will be held in Bernardos Square beside City Hall on Dame street at 6:45pm today. The LGBT helpline is a support service that's running a special positive mental health awareness campaign during next week's Dublin Pride Festival. The number is 1890929539. Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has used the Orlando shootings as a chance to boast that he was "right on radical Islamic terrorism". Mr Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, said that President Barack Obama should "resign in disgrace" for failing to call the massacre "Islamic terrorism". The billionaire tweeted that he had heard reports that Omar Mateen, the gunman, had shouted "Allahu akbar" - something the police, FBI and Florida politicians have been careful not to mention until it is confirmed. "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism," Trump wrote. "I don't want congrats, I want toughness and vigilance. We must be smart!" Mr Obama preferred to wait for more details before issuing a sombre address to the nation. "Today, as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder, a horrific massacre, of dozens of innocent people," he said. On Thursday, he had welcomed representatives of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to the White House to celebrate the beginning of gay pride month, commending them for their resilience and advocacy. "We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand with the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city," the president said yesterday. "Although it's still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate and as Americans we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people." Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, used the attack to reiterate her long-standing call for gun control. At present, even Americans who are on a No Fly list are able to buy weapons, something Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton have described as madness. Mateen had a permit that allowed him to carry a concealed weapon - despite being on the FBI's radar. Mrs Clinton struck a similar tone to the president, describing the slaughter as "an act of terror" but waiting to hear more information. "Law-enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead," she said. "For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad. "That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere and hardening our defences at home. It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values." Mr Trump has said the existing background check system should be fixed, not expanded, and that assault-weapons bans do not work. Marco Rubio, the Florida senator whom Mr Trump beat in the Republican primaries, said the attack represented "the new face of the war on terror." "We know they seek to intimidate us. We know they seek to terrorise us. But they won't win. Islamic terrorists need to know they will not win. Whatever differences we have, we are all Americans, despite the threat we confront." Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] A man who brought city centre traffic to a standstill after climbing a lamppost and refusing to come down for nearly five hours has been arrested. The 25-year-old man scaled scaffolding to reach the post outside The Queens hotel and main railway station in Leeds at 9.10am on Monday morning, police said. He stood on a light fitting in City Square about 20ft (6m) above the busy loop road - the three-lane road which carries all traffic around the city centre. A specialist police negotiator was called in and the man came down from the post safely at around 2pm before being detained under the Mental Health Act and arrested for wasting police time. During the incident, police, paramedics and fire crews were called to the scene and the loop road was completely closed, causing tailbacks between the city centre and the M621 motorway. Crowds of people stood watching the man, who occasionally shouted to the people below. Inspector Richard Clarke, of West Yorkshire Police, said: "Our primary considerations during this incident were the safety of this man, the public in the area and the officers dealing with him. "We are pleased we were able to bring the situation to a successful conclusion without any issues. "Clearly this incident has caused significant disruption to traffic in the city centre, but we hope the public will understand the need for the road to be closed while we worked to resolve the situation safely." Meanwhile, in Leicestershire, the southbound M1 has been reopened after a man climbed on a gantry over the motorway and refused to come down for 28 hours. Leicestershire Police said the man had been arrested on suspicion of causing a public nuisance and was taken to a police station to be interviewed. The road had been closed between junctions 23a and 22 in the parish of Copt Oak after the man scaled the information board gantry on Sunday lunchtime. Assistant Chief Constable Phil Kay said: "I am relieved that this protracted incident has now come to a safe conclusion, but I do not underestimate the incredible gridlock and massive inconvenience that this incident has caused to motorists throughout the UK. "This man is now in custody and therefore I am not able to say more at this stage about the circumstances that led him to climb the stanchion and remain there for so long. "I would, however, like to express my sincere sympathies to the many tens of thousands of people who have been seriously inconvenienced as a result of this incident. "Our priority from the outset has been the safety of this man, of my officers, and of the motoring public. I am glad that this man has now, after 28 hours, finally agreed to come down." Gay groups and venues across Europe were warned last night to "redouble" their security after an Isil fanatic shot dead more than 50 people in America's worst-ever mass shooting. Omar Mateen (29) burst into Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, at 2am yesterday armed with an assault rifle. He took more than 100 people hostage before being shot by police after a three-hour stand-off. Mateen reportedly called 911 moments before opening fire and pledged allegiance to Isil. The terrorist group last night claimed responsibility for the outrage. The FBI called it an "act of terrorism" and was urgently investigating Mateen's apparent ties to Islamist extremism. Expand Close Omar Mateen. Photo: Reuters / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Omar Mateen. Photo: Reuters President Barack Obama said Americans were united in grief, outrage and "resolve to defend our people" after "an act of terror and an act of hate". Read More Mateen's father said his son, a US citizen of Afghan descent, may have targeted the gay community after becoming angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami some months ago. There were fears that it could signal a move by the terror group or its supporters to target lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities around the world. It has long targeted these groups in Iraq and Syria. It came as police in Los Angeles arrested a man with suspected explosives and assault rifles amid fears he planned to target the city's Gay Pride festival. With Gay Pride festivals set to take place throughout the summer, gay rights activists urged gay organisations and venues to review and strengthen their security arrangements in the US and other Western countries. Read More Mateen, from Port St Lucie in Florida, worked as a security guard in nearby Fort Pierce and reportedly had a Statewide Firearms Licence. It emerged the father-of-one was a "known quantity" to the FBI and had been investigated twice before, in 2013 and 2014. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club. Photo: Reuters Jeffery Greamo (left) and Jon Paul join in a moment of silence for the victims of the mass shooting at Orlandos Pulse nightclub. Photo: Reuters Friends embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation into the massacre at the Pulse nightclub. Photo: Reuters / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Friends and family members embrace outside the Orlando Police Headquarters during the investigation of a shooting at the Pulse night club. Photo: Reuters Congressman Adam Schiff, of the House Intelligence Committee, said: "The fact that this shooting took place during Ramadan and that Isil leadership in Raqqa has been urging attacks during this time, that the target was an LGBT nightclub during Pride, and - if accurate - that according to local law enforcement the shooter declared his allegiance to Isil, indicates an Isil-inspired act of terrorism." The Vatican said Pope Francis expressed the "deepest feelings of horror and condemnation" over the massacre. Expand Close Orlando Police officers direct family members away from a multiple shooting at a nightclub (AP) / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Orlando Police officers direct family members away from a multiple shooting at a nightclub (AP) President Michael D Higgins also extended his condolences to the families of the victims of the massacre. "Irish people will want to join with so many others who are horrified and deeply saddened to learn of the shootings in Orlando which have resulted in such loss of life and injury. "As President of Ireland I wish to express my sincerest condolences to the families of all those bereaved and affected by this tragedy," he said. "Our thoughts are with the people of Florida and the community in Orlando and Orange County at this difficult time. The loss of innocent life on such a horrendous scale is truly shocking and challenges us all," he added. Read More "I have spoken to [US] Ambassador O'Malley and personally conveyed my deepest sympathy and our nation's solidarity with the people of the United States at this time." Kate Middleton at the Patron's Lunch street party in London, in honour of the queen's 90th birthday. Photo: Dominic Lipinski/PA Kate Middleton joined rain-soaked revellers to celebrate Britain's Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday, as her husband Prince William paid tribute to his grandmother "for everything you've done for your family''. With typical British stoicism, 10,000 well-wishers enjoyed the Patron's Lunch street party as they braved heavy downpours in The Mall, London, that left them sodden. William thanked guests attending the 150 (190) ticket event for not letting "a little rain spoil a good day out" and praised his "granny" as someone "we all look up to in good times and in challenging moments to set an example''. Well-wisher Ella Hunter-Gibbs (19) from Surrey, who was attending with her grandparents and mother, chatted to Kate. Bedraggled "She was saying that George opened the door today and said, 'it's not very nice out today Mummy, is it'? She said 'No, it isn't George'. "She said she felt sorry for us in the rain. It has been a fantastic day. She was so nice." William told people in the crowd who looked wet: "Was it really bad? Oh, I'm so sorry." One woman apologised for looking so bedraggled, with wet hair, and he said: "It still looks lovely. You've got more hair than I have." He told another group: "It wouldn't be a proper street party without a bit of rain. I'm glad you've got a bit of alcohol and some chocolate." The Iraqi army yesterday said it had secured the first safe exit route for civilians to leave Isil's besieged stronghold of Fallujah, and a Norwegian aid group said thousands of people had already used it to flee in the first day it was open. Iraq has launched a major operation to recapture Fallujah - an Isil bastion just an hour's drive from Baghdad - but the United Nations fears for the fate of up to 90,000 civilians believed to be trapped inside with little food or water. The new exit route, known as al-Salam (Peace) Junction, was secured on Saturday southwest of Fallujah, Joint Operation Command spokesman Brigadier Gen Yahya Rasool told Reuters. "There were exit routes previously, but this is the first to be completely secured and it's relatively safe," said Rasool. About 4,000 people had fled the city over the past 24 hours through the al-Salam Junction, said Karl Schembri, a spokesman in Iraq for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has been assisting people who escape the city. "We expect thousands more to be able to leave in the coming days," he said. The al-Salam Junction route was secured after troops dislodged insurgents from districts located on the western bank of the Euphrates river, opposite Fallujah's city centre on the east bank, said Rasool. More than 20,000 people have managed to flee the city and its surrounding area since the Iraqi army began the offensive on May 23, the United Nations said on June 8. But the lack of secure routes made their escape difficult and dangerous. At least a dozen people were reported to have drowned while crossing the Euphrates. Those who managed to reach government-held lines said they walked for days to avoid sniper fire and explosive devices planted by Isil insurgents along roads. A government official said the militants were putting up a tough fight defending the city, long an insurgent bastion, where US forces fought the heaviest battles of their own 2003-2011 occupation. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says the troops are progressing cautiously in order to protect the civilians. The army is receiving air support from the US-led coalition and ground support from Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias and Sunni tribal fighters. The Shi'ite militias have deployed behind the army's lines and did not take part directly in the assault on the city to avoid inflaming sectarian feelings. The Every Student Succeeds Act turned six-months-old last Friday. Earlier this spring, Politics K-12s Alyson Klein sat down with all four of the laws main architects in Congress. You can check out our interviews with Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the top Democrat on the House education committee, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, the top Democrat on the Senate education committee. Last week, we spoke with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate education committee, about his role in getting ESSA over the finish line and the future of the law, as well as how education is playing out in the 2016 presidential contest. Below is an edited transcript of that interview. Alexander kicked off the interviewbefore being asked any questionsmarveling that the law had actually passed. Chris Coons [a Democratic Senator from Delaware] called me after it passed,I wouldnt have given you 5 to 1 [odds] that it would have passed. I was talking to [then-U.S. Secretary of Education]Arne Duncan the next day and he said 10 to 1. That led right into the first question. Alexander and others had been trying for years to get the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which ESSA is the latest version, reauthorized. Why did it finally work this time? Alexander had a couple of thoughts. By the time we got to 2015, almost everybody except the U.S. Department of Education wanted it fixed. Governors, teachers unions, chief state school officers ... it was a law that everybody wanted fixed. His relationship with Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the education committee, also mattered. Patty and I worked well together, and I took her advice on how to try to get a bipartisan bill on a very complex issue, which is something that had eluded us for the last two Congresses. The process didnt begin on a bipartisan note, he added. I started out, as you know, the way I thought a chairman should. There are different ways to do something bipartisan. Typically a chairman would offer a proposal and ... then it would be amended by the minority and by the majority and reported to the floor, knowing that it has to get 60 votes to get to the floor. So that was the way I started out, that would be the normal way to do a bipartisan proposal. But Murray sent out a press statement, he said, protesting what she saw as a partisan process. So I went to see her and she said, I really do want a result. And I said, well, then how do you propose we get one, and she suggested that she and I try to write a draft together and present it the committee. And I said, OK, youre a result-oriented senator, and so am I, so lets try that and see what works. So I listened to her and took her advice, so I give that some credit for the eventual deal. Did you reach out originally to some other Democratic senators before agreeing to work with Murray? I talked to a lot of senators about what should go into the bill, including Democrats. We have an informal group of former governors who meet, so I talked to all of them about this and said weve got to end this national school board thats developed. And they all agreed with that. And I asked for them to be interested in it and support them if they go through the process. ... We consulted a lot with other senators. In fact, once the bill was ready to go to the floor, We talked to every single Senate office. And that is unusual, and it paid great dividends. Your first move was to put the question of whether to continue annual testing out on the table as a question you wanted to consider. And that really scared a lot of folks in the civil rights community, and it had the effect of distracting from the debate over the federal role and over accountability. So was that a negotiating technique, or were you seriously considering getting rid of the tests? It was both. I was seriously considering it because we heard more about overtesting than any other issue. The natural instinct was to blame the 17 federally required tests for that overtesting. So I thought that was option we should considerin fact I thought it would be irresponsible if we didnt consider it. But it also had the effect of shocking people and creating a place for [Democrats] to have a win in the end when we kept it. And so the consensus we developed ended up being keep the tests, but move what to do about the results of the tests out of the U.S. Department of Education and back to the states. When the House postponed the vote on its version of the bill back in February, many thought reauthorization wasnt going to happen. What was your take? I wasnt spooked by that. I was determined to pass the bill. I got a lot advice that we should do higher education first because it would be easier to do. Arne Duncan suggested that to me. Others suggested that to me, but I thought it was inexcusable for us to not fix No Child Left Behind, so I never doubted we could do it, even though most everybody else did. Were you worried that the opposition of Heritage Action Fund and Club for Growth, which derailed the bill on the House side, would also trip it up in the Senate? Well, you always worry, and particularly with an education bill. I said there were crocodiles lurking every corner of the pond. On the one hand, youve got vouchers, on the other hand youve got a national rule on bullying. ... Its very difficult to do. A lot of the success, he said, came from consultation and trust. For instance, Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., wanted to introduce a bullying amendment, and Alexander wanted a voucher amendment, both of which might have made the bills political path to the floor of the Senate difficult. So both lawmakers agreed to hold off on those provisions until they could get a full floor vote. Both of them might have passed the committee; if either of them had passed the committee, the bill would have never gotten to the floor, Alexander said. I heard there was a handshake deal between you and President Barack Obama early on that the final law would include a requirement that states turn around the bottom 5 percent of their schools. And I heard you knew along that you would have to include some sort of subgroup accountability. Why did you wait for conference to add these things in? That was true. I started with the idea that if you want a result, it would have to have the presidents signature. And what we were really doing was limiting the presidents executive authority. So that was, thats a substantial challenge. I went with him in January to Tennessee where he announced his community college program and talked to him along the way about what we were working on. ... I said, I have on request on [ESEA reauthorization], because he had already threatened to veto the House bill. I said, I want to ask you to work with us, but dont threaten to veto the bill. He said, I wont. Later on in the process, Alexander and Murray visited the president, Alexander said. It was just the three of them, and a few aides. Even U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wasnt there, he said. The president had three asks for the developing ESEA overhaul: Annual testing, an early-childhood education program, and a focus on turning around the lowest 5 percent of schools, Alexander recalled. I said, Mr. President, in order to get a result, we have to present you with a bill that you are comfortable signing. Well keep the testing, Alexander said. He also told Obama he was working with Murray and Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., to get to yes on early childhood. And he told the president that Congress would do something on the 5 percent, but that it wouldnt happen until conference. I wont bring you a bill [in whicha requirement on the bottom 5 percent] is not there, he said he told Obama. That was the understanding that we had, and thats what we did. And when we got to the signing ceremony in December, we were talking beforehand, he said, You kept your word and did what you said you would do, and I said, So did you, and thats not a bad way to work. He, himself, was very professional and good to work with throughout the entire process. Could you say the same about the Education Department? Were they good to work with, too? The department simply wasnt very involved. I mean, Arne had been very involved in the first two Congresses. I have a cordial relationship with him. ... The discussions we had were with Sen. Murray and her staff. By the time we got to conference the White House and the department were involved. And he said that, to Obamas credit, the president didnt add to his list of asks, The president didnt come along after what he said in March and say, I just thought of three more things. ... He was true to his word. [Politics K-12 note: It seems Democratic congressional aides were in regular communication with Duncans team when the law was being written. Department officials generally kept Democrats informed of their priorities and provided technical assistance to Democratic congressional staff when they asked for it. But Democrats on Capitol Hill, and eventually the White House, did the bulk of the negotiating with Republicans, including Alexander and his aides.] How do you square the laws crackdown on secretarial authority with its accountability focus? I didnt trust the department to follow the law. ... Since the consensus for this bill was pretty simplewell keep the tests, but well give states flexibility on the accountability systemI wanted several very specific provisions in there that [limited secretarial authority]. That shouldnt be necessary, and its an extraordinary thing to do. But for example, on Common Core, probably a half a dozen times, [ESSA says] .. you can not make a state adopt the Common Core standards. And Im sure that if we hadnt put that in there, theyd try to do it. Alexander said that when he was education secretary during President George H.W. Bushs administration Congress created the direct lending program, allowing students to take out college loans straight from the U.S. Treasury. Alexander didnt like that program, but he implemented it anyway. Contrast that with the attitude of this secretary and this department, Alexander said. Exhibit A: supplement-not-supplant. Thats total and complete disrespect for the Congress, and if I was a governor I would follow the law, not the regulation. Do you think that theres anything you possibly could have done in crafting this bill to prevent current controversy over supplement-not-supplant? I guess we could abolish the Department of Education. ... Im convinced that the law is the most significant devolution of power to the states in a quarter century, certainly on education. Whats your take on the accountability regulations? Alexander declined to talk about the Education Departments proposal, released late last month. At the request of the White House Im holding my powder on this until I have a chance to read and digest it. But its clear hes pretty fired up about the supplement-not-supplant regulation , which deals with how federal dollars interact with state and local education spending. Congress, he said, produced a bill that could give school districts certainty on education for years. Now the department is trying to rewrite what the Congress did and throw the whole issue into political wrangling, he said. They have no authority to do that. The change to the way teachers salaries are calculated that the department is pursuing through its proposed supplement not supplant regulation was already floated in a bill by Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., which failed to gain support, Alexander noted. Under this departments theory of regulatory authority, you can apparently do anything, Alexander said. Governors across the country will fight and resist, and I think its a shame because we had ended a period of uncertainty, there were hosannas issuing forth from classrooms everywhere, and this one little department is about to upset that. Alexander added that Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the Speaker of the House, played a key role in getting the bill through Congress. Shortly after becoming speaker, Ryan went to a Senate GOP lunch, Alexander recalled. And he told lawmakers, We are looking for important pieces of legislation that have bipartisan support, that have been through the committee, that have been through the floor, that the president will sign. And it just so happens he sat down next to me, and I said, Ive got a bill for you that exactly fits that description. ... I called [Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the chairman of the House education committee] and John said, Well Ive got a meeting with Paul later today. And from that we were able to get the bill through the House in a very short period of time. And I think it was fortuitous that Chairman Kline chaired the conference committee. Wed worked it out in the Senate and wed worked it out with the president. And having Congressman Kline chair the conference committee symbolically was very important to getting a result. What kind of education president, overall, do you think Donald Trump would be? Do you have a sense? I have no idea. I have not heard him say. Well have to wait and see. What about Hillary Clinton? Well, I have worked with her before. Bill Clinton was elected governor the same day I was, in 1978. We had a lot of common goals, then. And we have some here. For instance, we both worked on year-round Pell Grants. But Alexander said he thought Bill Clintons presidential administration was given to federal overreach on K-12, and he worries Hillary Clintons would follow a similar pattern. I would hope both of them, both Clinton and Trump, would recognize that Congress worked very hard to move away from the national school board [under ESSA]. But I dont know enough about Trump to know what he thinks about that, and I worry about the possibility of overreach with Clinton. Related Links: Lamar Alexander, Fifth U.S. Education Secretary: Biography and Achievements President Barack Obama speaks about the massacre at a nightclub in Orlando (AP) President Barack Obama says there is no clear evidence that the shooter at an Orlando nightclub was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot. He said it appears the shooter was inspired by extremist information disseminated over the internet. President Obama said the investigation is at the preliminary stages and is being treated as a terrorism investigation. He said the attack appears to be similar to last year's shooting spree in San Bernardino, California. The president says investigators are still looking into the motivations of the shooter, including the fact that the shooting took place at a gay venue. President Obama spoke in the Oval Office after being briefed on the investigation by FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other officials. President Obama said investigators are still looking into the motivations of the shooter and considering all possibilities. He said organisations like Islamic State, al Qaida and others target gays and lesbians because of their "vicious, bankrupt ideology" and their religious beliefs about homosexuality. "The fact that it took place at a club frequented by the LGBT community I think is also relevant," President Obama added. Omar Mateen, who killed at least 50 people in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida (Orlando Police/AP) The gunman who killed 49 people in an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando was a "homegrown extremist" who supported a number of different Islamist groups, according to the FBI and the White House. Counter-terrorism authorities have been investigating the background of Omar Mateen and defended their handling of the gunman after it was revealed they had had previous contact with him. Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, opened fire at the crowded Pulse Orlando club early on Sunday. He was killed in a gun battle with a SWAT team after police used explosives and a small armoured vehicle to punch a hole in a wall and allow dozens of revellers to escape. Orlando's Mayor Buddy Dyer said: "We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater." FBI director James Comey said Mateen had "strong indications of radicalisation" and was probably inspired by foreign terrorist organisations. He said Mateen called the 911 emergency number around the time of the attack and pledged loyalty to the Islamic State as well as solidarity with the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the Boston Marathon bombing. He also expressed solidarity with a suicide bomber who died on behalf of the al-Nusra front, a group which is at odds with Islamic State. Mateen had also expressed support in recent years for both al Qaida and its enemy Hezbollah, Mr Comey said. The FBI investigated Mateen for 10 months beginning in May 2013 after he was said to have made inflammatory remarks in support of terrorists. Mr Comey said investigators introduced him to confidential sources, followed him and reviewed some of his communications, but Mateen claimed he made the remarks in anger because co-workers were teasing and discriminating against him because he was Muslim. The investigation was brought to a close. Asked about whether the FBI should have done anything differently, Mr Comey said: "So far the honest answer is, 'I don't think so." At the White House, US President Barack Obama said there is no clear evidence so far that Mateen was directed by the Islamic State. He said Mateen was inspired by radical information over the internet, calling it another apparent example of "homegrown extremism". Meanwhile, a steady stream of people filed through a makeshift memorial about a mile from the nightclub. It consisted of dozens of bouquets and candles. Counter-terrorism experts have been warning in the past few years about the danger of so-called lone wolf attackers who act in sympathy with extremist groups like the Islamic State but are not directed by them. Despite the 911 call from the club, Mateen's intentions seemed to become murkier when his Afghan immigrant father suggested anti-gay hatred was another possible motive. The father said his son got angry a few months ago when he saw two men kissing in Miami. Mateen's ex-wife attributed the violence to mental illness, saying he was bipolar and abusive towards her. Mr Obama said investigators are still looking into the killer's motivations and considering all possibilities, noting that Muslim extremist groups like the Islamic State have been known to target gays. The Islamic State's radio called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America". Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the extremist group, hailed the attack, saying that it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it was the worst attack on US soil since the events of September 11 2001. The statement gave no indication of whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters that the massacre was "the act of a terrorist", and added: "I apologise for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are." Asked whether he missed his son, he said: "I don't miss anything about him. What he did was against humanity." Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and the others died at hospitals, the mayor said. Authorities were still notifying victims' families on Monday. At least 53 people are being treated in hospital, including five in grave condition, meaning the death toll could rise. The previous deadliest mass shooting in modern US history was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people and took his own life. Mateen bought at least two guns legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Mateen exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle and handgun, he had a weapon in his vehicle. Police Chief John Mina said officers held back for some time because Mateen indicated he had a bomb vest. At about 5am, authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the remaining club-goers. SC superintendent race: business donors, teacher's movement, fate of public schools Millions have flowed into SC's superintendent race where a teachers' movement is up against a network of politicians and business owners The top two Democrats in Congress for K-12 education issues are telling President Barack Obamas administration: Make sure you take care of the new grants for preschool under the Every Student Succeeds Act . In a letter to Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. and Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., say the two secretaries must simultaneously support states seeking Preschool Development Grants under ESSA, and also provide strong oversight of how states are planning to expand early learning. Murray is the ranking Democrat on the Senate education committee, and Scott holds the same position on the House education committee. ESSAs Preschool Development Grants, which provided dedicated federal funding to early learning, are authorized for $250 million under the law, and are jointly administered by the Education and Health and Human Services departments. Getting the grants authorized in the new law was a top priority for Murray, although it was a budget proposal from the Obama administration beforehand. Murray had originally wanted the program in the Education Department, and moving it to HHS was a compromise with Republicans, who wanted no early education program at all. Fulfilling the promise of the ESSA PDG program will take ambitious actions and comprehensive coordination between the two agencies. We intend for the agencies to work together, and jointly with us, in order to faithfully implement the law, Murray and Scott wrote to the two secretaries. The lawmakers have three specific suggestions for the administration as they work on the preschool development grants: Support states with ambitious plans to improve quality and access. Murray and Scott remind King and Burwell that they have the power to approve ambitious State plans to improve coordination, access, and quality in early childhood education. That means the two secretaries must carefully review states applications for the preschool grants. Work jointly and collaboratively. The two lawmakers want the two agencies to work together on these preschool grants the same way they did to implement the administrations Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge, and the way they work with states that already receive preschool development grants. Ensure an orderly and fair transition. Essentially, this means making sure that children currently in preschool development grants will have continuity and will be able to stay in their pre-ESSA, federally funded early learning programs. Read the full letter below: Dear Secretary Burwell and Secretary King: As you know, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) marks the first time that our nations primary education law includes dedicated funding to improve access to preschool for children from low-income and disadvantaged families. We want to thank you for working with us and our staff to make this a reality. As enacted under ESSA, the Preschool Development Grants (PDG) is intended to improve coordination, quality, and access in early childhood education. The program builds upon your administrations great work through the Early Learning Challenge (ELC) and the PDG program (as initially authorized under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ARRA), which helped states develop and sustain strong early learning systems with the goal of universal access to high-quality preschool. The PDG program authorized under ESSA (ESSA PDG) represents another much needed opportunity for our nations youngest learners. Fulfilling the promise of the ESSA PDG program will take ambitious actions and comprehensive coordination between the two agencies. We intend for the agencies to work together, and jointly with us, in order to faithfully implement the law. In particular, we urge the agencies to: Support states with ambitious plans to improve quality and access - The ESSA PDG program provides the Secretaries with the authority to approve ambitious State plans to improve coordination, access, and quality in early childhood education. We intend for the Secretaries to carefully review applications with regard to quality plans with the overall goal of universal access to high-quality preschool. Work jointly and collaboratively - Like the PDG program, the ESSA PDG is intended to be jointly administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Education (ED). While the funding will be allocated to HHS, we intend for the program to operate similarly with regard to the current partnership between the two agencies, and we have appreciated the collaborative approach the agencies took to implement the ELC and PDG programs thus far. The partnership has been and continues to be beneficial to grantees as they work to improve outcomes for children. Ensure an orderly and fair transition - ESSAs transition language (Section 9212(j)(2)) clearly indicates that States that have received funding under the ARRA PDG before the date of enactment should continue to receive funds under the terms of the existing award for the duration for which the award was granted. The intent of this language is to ease grantee burden. Our expectation is for these states to continue to work with staff from both ED and HHS to ensure that the more than 50,000 children served in more than 230 communities will have continuity in service to the high-quality programs in which they are being served in the fourth year of their grant cycle. The new terms of the ESSA PDG program, therefore, should take effect when the agencies hold a competition under the ESSA PDG program. We look forward to working with you to ensure that the PDG programs are effective and create real, positive change for children and families across the country. Sincerely, Patty Murray Robert C. Bobby Scott Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . MK Dhanuka, Managing Director, Dhanuka Agritech holds Bachelors Degree in Commerce from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University. He is the Managing Director of Dhanuka Agritech Limited and has a vast and enriched experience of 40 years in the Agrochemical industry. He has been managing the overall affairs of the Company and has been a key contributor to the success of Dhanuka. His foresightedness and business acumen enabled the Company in constantly achieving its goals. Dhanuka Agritech Limited manufactures a wide range of farm input products to support the farmer in his pursuit for better crop, better farming and better life. The Company has a pan-India presence through its marketing offices in all major states in India, with a network of more than 8,800 distributors & dealers selling to approx. 80,000 retailers across India and reaching out to more than 10 million farmers. The Company has technical tie-ups with 4 American and 4 Japanese companies. Dhanuka Agritech is among the top five companies in India, in Brand sales. With more than 200 registrations and 500 active SKUs, the company has one of the largest market penetration. Dhanuka Agritech currently has 30 Branch offices across India and 48 warehouses. Replying to Yash Ved of IIFL, M K Dhanuka says "Our production can be all time high in this year if the rainfall as per forecast is received at regular intervals with proper distribution. Give us the overview on the financials? We have registered a growth of 5.57% increase in its net turnover for the FY16, at Rs. 828.79 crores as against Rs. 785.08 crores for last year. The company reported PAT of Rs.107.31 crores for FY16 compared to Rs.106.08 crores, for the previous fiscal. How was the performance for the newly launched products-SEMPRA and COVER? The performance of recently launched products i.e. SEMPRA and COVER is very enthusiastic. The company is promoting SEMPRA which is only Weedicide available to control notorious weed Cyperus Rotundus, at the grass root level. The yield demonstrations are showing 12-15% increase in the yield in sugarcane where SEMPRA was used. The Company received excellent response from the farmers for COVER in the first year itself and company could do sizable volumes of COVER in FY 15-16. We hope these molecules will contribute substantially in the topline and bottom-line of the company. What are the new products launches for the current year? Dhanuka will be launching two 9(3) molecules as under: MAXXSOY (Herbicide) a tie-up product of Nissan Chemicals, Japan for controlling all kind of weeds in Soybean. Dhanuka received first of its kind CIB registration for combo pack of three products. CONIKA (Fungicide) a tie-up product of Hokko Chemicals, Japan for controlling various fungal diseases in various crops. Besides this, three to four molecules under section 9(4) will also be introduced out of which FUJITA (Isoprothiolane 40%EC) and DELIGHT (Propiconazole 13.9% + Difenconazole 13.9% EC:) have already been finalized. How is the demand for agri inputs? The major consumption of pesticides takes place from July onwards, post rainfall and sowing. The demand for agri inputs will start getting momentum from mid-June onwards. What outlook do you see for operating profit margin? Our first priority remains to sustain the current operating profit margins. The management is giving guidance for sustaining the same. However there is a possibility of a few bps improvements in the margins. Your growth target for the current fiscal? The company expects 20% + growth in the current fiscal.We are well positioned to pursue our strong growth potential and are moving forward with introducing our new products. Any plans to shift production from its current manufacturing facility in Gurgaon to the new plant? The company has started commercial production at its new unit at Keshwana (Rajasthan) from March, 2016 onwards. Few molecules from the Gurgaon unit have been shifted to the new facility. Brief us about your plans for the road ahead? The company expects CAPEX of approximately Rs. 10 crores in current fiscal to complete the 2nd phase at Keshwana Unit. Overall, Dhanuka expects financial year 2016-17 to be quite good for Indian farming community, Indian Agriculture, Agri input companies and the Indian economy. Our production can be all time high in this year if the rainfall as per forecast is received at regular intervals with proper distribution. A2Z Infra Engineering stock ended higher by 6% at Rs.32. The company announced that a contract has been awarded from Nepal Electricity Authority (a Government of Nepal Undertaking) vide Letter of Award bearing dated June 10, 2016 for Expansion of Distribution Network in the Western Region of Nepal, "vide Tender no. ICB-PMD-DSAEP-072/73-01, Lot 2" for contract price aggregating to USD 1,35,63,420.77 (US Dollar One Crore Thirty Five Lakhs Sixty Three Thousand Four Hundred Twenty and cents Seventy Seven only). The scrip opened at Rs. 32.1 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 34.6 and Rs. 31.6 respectively. So far 2197013(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 392.74 crore. The BSE group 'B' stock of face value Rs. 10 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 34.2 on 09-Jun-2016 and a 52 week low of Rs. 12.05 on 11-Jun-2015. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 34.2 and Rs. 26.5 respectively. The promoters holding in the company stood at 49.65 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 11.73 % and 38.61 % respectively. The stock is currently trading above its 50 DMA. I am not an Entrepreneur: The R Thyagarajan Story a book celebrating the life and work of Padma Bhushan R. Thyagarajan (Popularly known as RT), one of the countrys most revered and renowned business icons, was released in the City in the presence of several prominent personalities. Ajay Piramal, Chairman, Shriram Capital hosted an eagerly anticipated evening commemorating the launch of the book on Mr. Thyagarajan. The speakers' list gracing the occasion included Mr. R. Seshasayee (Chairman, Infosys Ltd. & IndusInd Bank Ltd.), S. Gurumurthy (CA, Writer & Analyst), N. Lakshminarayanan (Vice Chairman, Cognizant Technology Solutions) and .Ian Kirk, CEO, Sanlam Group. This was followed by a musical programme 'Lalgudi Rasa' musical concert by Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi on violin; Anil Srinivasan on piano; Sai Shravanam on tabla. Thyagarajan is the Promoter of the Shriram Group, which is one of Indias largest and renowned NBFCs with over 4 decades of experience and over 1,00,000 crores of Assets under management. While much is known about the company and its values, the Champion of Inclusive Growth - Mr. R Thyagarajan - has always been an enigma. His extreme selfless ways of working and living has been the core of the companys success and inspiration to all those who are part and parcel of corporate India. The book I am not an Entrepreneur: The R Thyagarajan Story is a compilation of Interviews, essays and letters that bring to life this very enigmatic business leader. The book goes through his early years of growing up and how he planted the seeds to the most successful financial services business as well as various business strategies adopted by him and how he allowed for his colleagues to work and grow the company. The book talks about his deep involvement with society and how he has always been driven to better the lives of the common man. R Thyagarajans deep love for Carnatic music and supporting social causes have also been discussed in depth. The book attempts to institutionalize the life of this amazing personality as an enduring source of inspiration for generations to come. The scrip opened at Rs. 36.4 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 37.5 and Rs. 35.5 respectively. So far 11167816(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 778.78 crore. The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 2 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 176.1 on 03-Aug-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs. 25.6 on 04-Sep-2015. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 36.2 and Rs. 33.05 respectively. The promoters holding in the company stood at 49.99 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 13.35 % and 36.67 % respectively. The stock is currently trading above its 200 DMA. Dr.Reddys Laboratories gained 1% at Rs.3085. The company has inked a pact with Teva Pharmaceutical and an affiliate of Allergan Plc to buy a portfolio of eight abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) in the US for $ 350 million (around Rs 2,300 crore) in cash. Fortis Healthcare cracked 3% to Rs.163. The company said its subsidiary Escort Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRCL) has received an order from the Directorate General of Health Services (DHS) to deposit Rs.503.36 crore for non-compliance of conditions of land allotment lease.Premier Explosives Ltd gained 1% to Rs.357. The company has bagged an order worth Rs. 72.95 crore for the supply of SMS/SME Explosives, LDC Explosives and Accessories for use in blasting for OB removal work at all the Open cast projects of the Singareni Collieries Company Limited for a period of 2 years i.e. from 2016 to 2018.Siemens Ltd slipped 0.89% to Rs.1232 after the company has announced that it has bagged order worth Rs. 78 crore from Power Grid.Canara Bank slipped 2.4% to Rs.191.40. The bank is set to raise Rs.5 billion this fiscal by selling stake in its non-core assets after it posted a huge loss in fiscal year 2015-16, says report.Tata Motors dropped 3.5% to Rs.441.25 on BSE. The company has launched its next-generation 'Ultra' range of light commercial vehicle (LCV) in Kenya.SBI stock was down by 2% at Rs.201.The State Bank of India will use all available means to resolve the over Rs.98,000 crore of bad loans on its books, chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya reportedly said.Jet Airways Ltd stock was down by 2% at Rs.559. The airline has announced new direct flights from Mangaluru to Sharjah in UAE from August 7, says report.Canara Bank Ltd stock was down by 2% at Rs. 192. The bank is planning to raise Rs.5bn this fiscal by selling stake in its non-core assets after it posted a huge loss in fiscal year 2015-16, says report.GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd stock was lower by 7% at Rs.5.24. The company is seeking shareholders' approval for raising its credit limit.Amtek Auto Ltd stock was higher by 6% at Rs. 36. The company is planning to sell its profitable German unit, Tekfor, for about $700 million (Rs 4,690 crore) to an foreign buyer to reduce its debt, according to reports.A2Z Infra Engineering stock was higher by 7% at Rs.33. The company announced that a contract has been awarded from Nepal Electricity Authority at Rs.90.5 crore. The company said contract is for expansion of distribution network in the Western region of Nepal.Jindal Steel and Power Limited cracked 4% to Rs.61.80. As per media report, the company is set to get debt recast under the Reserve Banks 5/25 scheme post deal with JSW Energy.Welspun Enterprises gained 1% to Rs.61.90. Welspun Energy, in which Welspun Enterprises holds 15.49% stake, has signed a SPA with Tata Power Renewable Energy (100% subsidiary of Tata Power Company) for divestment of its subsidiary Welspun Renewables Energy. The deal represents the largest transaction in renewables space in India.Reliance Communications slipped 1.2% to Rs.48.60 on BSE. The telecom company is set to launch 4G services on its own across India in phases, starting mid-August from the key circles of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, says report.GMR Infrastructure Ltd was down by 2% at Rs.11.80. Report says that the company is planning to pare its debt and strengthen its balance sheet.Coal India trading marginally higher at Rs.308.20. Coal India's two subsidiaries Mahanadi Coalfields and Northern Coalfields will buyback total shares worth around Rs.1,978 crore from their shareholders.PVR gained 1.8% to Rs.952. The company has earmarked a capital expenditure of up to Rs 250 crore for the current fiscal for opening new screens and refurbishing the existing ones, says report.Prism Cement trading marginally lower at Rs.92.60 on BSE. The company has acquired 15.23% equity stake for Rs.21 crore in BLA Power Private Limited ('BLA Power'), which is in the sole business of generating thermal power. Matrubharti has raised a seed funding of Rs. 20 lakh from Viridian Capital. Matrubharti offers a publishing platform to new and aspiring writers in regional languages by taking content directly from authors and publishing it as an eBook. Ahmedabad-based eBook publisherhas raised a seed funding of Rs. 20 lakh fromMatrubharti offers a publishing platform to new and aspiring writers in regional languages by taking content directly from authors and publishing it as an eBook. The seed funding amount will be used for investment in technology and expanding the team. Incubated at the Espark-Viridian Accelerator Centre at GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City), Matrubharti has more than 1,800 authors registered and have published 4,350 eBooks, so far. A recent survey by Nielsen India revealed that Indias book market, currently the sixth largest in the world at Rs 26,100 crore, is likely to touch Rs. 73,900 crore by 2020. The survey says that more than 70% of the publishers in India have digitised their content to produce eBook versions thereby reaching the target customers through a digital medium. Commenting on the seed funding and future of digital content, Mahendra Sharma, co-founder, Matrubharti said, Investment by Viridian Capital in our firm is a testimony that we have a business model which is likely to grow at a healthy rate. Matrubharti offers a digital platform to new and aspiring writers, which is our unique selling proposition among digital publishers. We have a premium subscription model through which readers can download any number of eBooks during a particular period, which reduces the cost of purchasing an eBook for readers Mr. Sharma added. Matrubharti publishes over 450 eBooks every month with 7.5 lakhs of eBooks downloaded so far. Our growth rate is 20% month on month and we expect a similar growth over the next one year, as we believe that penetration of smart phones would increase the sales of eBooks going forward. said Mr. Sharma. Published in six languages so far, Matrubharti plans to publish eBooks in 21 languages. When a Texas district started a parent-involvement program, school officials figured they already knew what the parents wanted: food, rent assistance, other basic needs. But the parents had other priorities: How can I help my kids get into college, starting in preschool? I think it sort of shifted a little bit, said Michelle Wallis, executive director of the Office of Innovation and Development for Austin Independent School District. The district recently received a 3-year, $1.75 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to start an engagement program. The Austin Families as Partners project is starting in five schoolsfour elementary and one pre-kindergarten centerto figure out what parents want and go from there. The concepts will be expanded to other schools later. In Austin, the schools were chosen in a neighborhood with high needs, including crime, mobility, and poverty. More than 30 languages are spoken in the 6-square-mile neighborhood of about 38,000 residents, many of whom are immigrants and refugees. English is the home language for just between 17 and 25 percent of the students, depending on the school. Earlier in the school year, the district used a $330,000 planning grant, which it received in 2015, to hold meetings and leadership trainings. The district created Think Tanks at each school so parents, teachers and community members to rank their needs. Meetings were held in Spanish and Arabic, as well as English. See a video of one of the parent meetings . The five schools ended up with broad focus areas: family support for student academic success, safety and health and wellness. In the coming school year, the Think Tanks plan to start specific programs, such as creating a family welcome center and add mental health services. We want the strategy to be based in what families want and need and what were finding on each campus, Wallis said. The Kellogg Foundation has been deeply involved in parent-engagement issues, starting with a $5 million pledge in 2013 . The foundation has continued to invest in family partnerships since then . See a full Education Week story about how parent engagement is increasing as a priority for districts. Related story: Study: Refugee Parents Understanding of Schools, Language Can Affect Students Contact Sarah Tully at stully@epe.org . Follow @ParentAndPublic for the latest news on schools and parental involvement. Dont miss another K-12 Parents and the Public post. Sign up here to get news alerts in your email inbox. Thinkphi raised an angel round of funding from serial entrepreneur Nimmagadda Prasad an early backer of successful companies such as; Matrix Laboratories, Maa TV, and Care Hospitals. Most recently he invested in Sachin Tendulkars ISL team Kerala Blasters. The company which creates sustainably engineered products that intelligently conserve water, energy and waste, has made some early sales of its patented rainwater and solar harvesting product to key customers like Godrej Interio and Rustomjee. The angel round of funding will be deployed primarily towards expanding operations, R&D team and starting of sales and distribution activities. With a mission to building a sustainable business the company plans to stay asset light and ensure focused effort and detail is spent on product design, material selection and manufacturing process. With the focus on innovation and R&D, Thinkphi hopes to launch future products around energy saving devices and consumer waste management. The company uses a unique interactive process of product development and enhancement which is closely tied to its proprietary sustainability wheel, staying closely to its goal to become Earths most sustainable company. The companys first product, is almost like a smart tree called Ulta Chaata, an inverted canopy looking structure provides potable water by capturing rain water during the monsoon and solar energy during the rest of the year. Each unit has the capability to harvest and filter up to 100,000 liters during the rainy season. With a maximum solar capacity of 1.5KW the product also includes an intelligent lighting system which provides various levels of programmable lighting options and a mobile charge unit, thereby making it a completely self-sustaining installation for the outdoors. Powered by a central operating system called the phi-box the controls help the lighting run for 4 to 5 days on a single solar charge and can provide potable quality drinking water through its inbuilt filter. The operating system also monitors, captures data, and allows users to communicate with a cluster of units over the cloud. The company has also filed multiple global patents on design and utility which smartly converges water harvesting and renewable energy, ideal for smart cities, industries or large campuses. Established in 2015 by, Samit Choksi and Priya Vakil Choksi, Thinkphi was founded with a mission to build aesthetically pleasing, yet simple products that create positive impact on the environment through the use of sustainable and renewable resources. Within a short span since inception, Thinkphi has steadily built a team of engineers with a background in mechanical, computer science and industrial design who believe that simple ideas, inspired by nature, have the power to change the world. Commenting on the investment, the co-founders said, Thinkphi is an innovative company creating disruptive solutions to environmental problems. We are grateful to have investors who believed in our vision - we are confident that the investment in R&D and good product design will deliver positive results while building company value. We spend a great deal of time in our talent acquisition processes to build the right team who believe in our mission and can bring new ideas and skill sets According to the United Nations, water use has grown at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century. It is estimated that the demand for water will surpass the supply as early as 2025. Thinkphis long term goal is to address a global market for environmental goods which is targeted to reach $1.9 trillion by 2020. The overall Environmental Technologies market in India including goods and services is almost $15 Billion. With the growth of urbanization and water scarcity in India, Thinkphis Ulta Chaata can become a much needed solution for smart cities and businesses in India and Globally. Travelling to a new place means trying the local food. And its even better when an element of suspense gets added to it. Wondering what the connection is? Picture this - A jail house themed dinner in an unknown part of Toronto, with a hush-hush password for entry. Or a private cooking class held by a reputed chef in Manhattan. From Buenos Aires to Tokyo, secret dining clubs are the latest rage in gourmet dining. They go by different names in different places pop ups, speak-easies and underground restaurants. winnipegfreepress.com The invitation could be by word of mouth, an exclusive invite through a mailing list, and at times even through an application process! The guest pays a certain price for a gastronomical indulgence and gets to eat and meet. We bring you a list of 10 such culinary experiences that you must try during your travels. 1. Diner en Blanc, Paris flickr One of the most coveted clandestine events, the Diner en Blanc is a by-invite all-white affair. Yes, you read that right. Not just the dress code, but everything from the linen to the decorations are in white. Held annually in the month of June, hordes of people get together at a public location in Paris, to enjoy a day of feasting and summer fun. Guests are informed about the details at the last minute and they are expected to carry their own furniture, crockery and cutlery, to participate! 2. Home Restaurants, Italy flickr Whether it's Rome or the Tuscan region in Italy, these take the form of home based restaurants. Amateur and professional chefs get together to whip up Italian delicacies for the benefit of local tourists who are looking to sample authentic regional cuisine and are looking for an underground dining experience. The chefs are generous with sharing traditional recipes and so, at times, these dinners end up becoming cooking classes. You can scour an invitation through word of mouth or check up local blogs which post information about the latest events and their locations. Some of the well-known ones are Kitchen Victim in Milan, Culinary Loft in Rome, and Cucina Cinzia in Florence. 3. Gastronomy Clubs, Spain ichef.bbci The traditional term for such institutions is Txokos. Most of these are located in Spains Basque Country, but there is a catch. These clubs are open only for men and the membership is usually inherited from the father by the son. While some of these places continue to deny entry to women, others are changing with the times and opening their doors to all. sansebastianturismo Travellers can try to secure an invite, join a local tour, or visit during one of the regional festivals when these clubs are open to the public. 4. Basement Gallery, London Ever fancied eating a meal inside the metro? Well, Londons pop up restaurant Basement Gallery does just that. It hosts the fine dining supper club the Under Ground Club. The setting is inside a 1967 tube carriage, and guests are treated to a seven course meal. Talk about eating in style! metro The dinners are held thrice a month and the tickets are sold on the Grub Club website. What makes it so secretive is that a lot of Londoners aren't aware of this place either! 5. Spring Street Social Society, New York guestofaguest Now here is a secret society that focuses on not just food, but also on having some fun. The venue is undecided till the day of the event and it could be a murder mystery dinner held in a post office, or a sit down formal affair in a retail space in the heart of NYC. You can be a part of the shenanigans either through a private membership which opens once a year, or by signing up for their guest list. Attend the party as complete strangers, and leave as best friends! 6. Thyme Supper Club, Berlin top10berlin The brainchild of Caroline Grinsted and Tobias Zeller, Thyme was launched as a supper club hosted at their place. The concept was simple book a seat online and come interact with new people. The guests are seated around a long communal table and are served food plus wine. Once the word got around and the enquiries increased, the duo decided to open an underground restaurant. Event dates are announced via their mailing list. 7. Once Upon A Table, Hong Kong onceuponatablehk.blogspot Once Upon A Table is Hong Kongs first Supper Club held once in two months at an undetermined location this could be someones residence or a public location. Their focus is on making home cooking popular. Each event is finely curated around a theme which tells a story through their menu. A bunch of food lovers from different cultural backgrounds meet up to cook and create. 8. Brunch & Co. blogspot As the name suggests, this secret club is a matinee affair. Louise, its founder, was inspired by memories of her younger days when she would play cafe. A relaxed get together where people can bond over tea and cakes. You need to be a part of the registration list to know about the upcoming events. 9. Secret Foodies, Sydney facebook Secret Foodies meets at surprise venues across the city. The guests are totally unprepared and are informed of the details a few hours prior, via a secret text message. Some of the chosen locations for their activities have been rooftops, lanes and parks. To make their events more exciting, each guest is given an eye mask to wear. The group is popular among corporate workers and interstate travellers. 10. Closed Door Restaurants, Buenos Aires blouinartinfo.com Puertas Cerradas (closed door restaurants) were started by chefs who wanted to make the most of the tourism boom after the 2001 economic crisis. They open their houses to complete strangers and the theme is about shared tables and communal eating. This concept has gained popularity because of the specialty food, experimental cooking and creative freedom for the chefs. A few worth mentioning are Casa Felix, La Cocina Discreta and Jueves a La Mesa. Shelf life is one of the most commonly used phrases in the film fraternity. In film industry, shelf life of actors is considered more than actresses. While most of our top actors like SRK and Aamir Khan are ruling the box-office at 50, the scenario is completely contrasting with the actresses. Putting across her views on the same, Nimrat Kaur finds the term 'shelf life' amusing when commonly misused in the context of female actors. Nimrat, who began her career in her late 20's doesnt agree with the phrase. She said, Pinterest "The phrase should be used only for canned goods, and nothing else. They have an expiry date." Nimrat, who is in Canada for the shoot of second season of M Night Shyamalan's Wayward Pines, added that age is just a number. She said: Pinterest "Every stage in your life can be played as a story. You can't restrict an actor and say that you can only play a character which falls in a certain age bracket. As an actor you can play any role, represent any stage in life, without being told that you look too old or too young for the part." Pointing out at the fact that age, in fact, can be used to make the onscreen characters more interesting, she added: "When actors have already lived that stage in their life, they can use their own experience to make their onscreen character more interesting. You can't say that one stops being an actor after they go beyond a certain age. They still remain stars." Elections arent won by strategies, promises and freebees. Sometimes a replacement of pen can do the trick. The voting for two Rajya Sabha seats in Haryana assembly became a laughing stock when somebody changed the pen during voting which did the Congress in and paved way for victory of two BJP backed candidates. As per Election Commission (EC) rules, MLAs are required to cast their vote using a pen with indigo ink provided by the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat, whose nib must be 1 mm in thickness. Votes marked by any other colour of ink are declared invalid. On Sunday after BJP MLAs cast their votes, 17 legislators of Congress came to cast their votes, but somebody intentionally or unintentionally changed the pen especially given by Election Commission and replaced it with a normal ink pen which resulted in rejection of votes of 14 Congress legislators out of 17. Haryana had two MP seats for Rajyasabha and BJP fielded Chaudhary Birender Singh whereas Congress fielded lawyer RK Anand. Subash Chandra of Zee had filled nomination as an independent but with obvious support from BJP. PTI But as soon as BJP and INLD legislators finished their voting and Congress MLAs started voting, somebody replaced the pen given by EC with a normal pen. The Haryana Assembly has 90 members. Out of 90 votes, Birender Singh got 40 votes, Anand got 21 votes and Chandra got 15 votes while 14 votes were rejected. Till here things were fine for Congress candidate Anand and he was certainly to get Rajya Sabha berth along with Chaudhary Birender Singh. But soon the jolt came and 14 out of the 17 votes of Congress legislators got rejected owing to the mistake of using wrong pen. This changed the scenario altogether and according to new calculation Birender Singh needed 26 votes to win and since he had already secured 40 votes, the remaining balance of 14 votes were transferred to Chandra as BJP MLAs marked him as second option. indianexpress Hence out of nowhere Chandra ended up with 29 votes resulting in crushing defeat of Congress hopeful. Although allegation have been made against former Haryana CM Bhupender Singh Hooda to deliberate plan this change of pen; but amidst the blame game Hooda has pleaded innocence. Both INLD and other Congress leaders have accused to Hooda to treachery and working against the party fearing the CBI inquiry set up against him by BJP government in the state. Last year, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had been eloquent and direct about how his government wanted to push a law to fight superstition. The murder of rationalist MM Kalburgi, a group of writers and family members of similarly slain freethinkers Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare urged the Chief Minister to proceed with the Karnataka Prevention of Superstitious Practices Bill. Turns out it might be too late - for the CM himself, if media reports are true After footage of a baby crow stubbornly perched on an SUV belonging to the Minister began showing up in local TV channels, an astrologer said that "the gods were turning against the 'non-believer' CM", Asianet News reported. A crow that forced an "atheist" CM to change his car! #ATVideohttps://t.co/jvrNUI9VJn India Today (@IndiaToday) June 13, 2016 Of course, a sane headed CM security staff picked up the crow, dropped it near the tree, and it was reportedly reunited with its bird kin. According to a report in the Coastal Digest, the government then bought him a shiny new Fortuner SUV. However the government clarified that the vehicle was booked a month ago, and the CM was due for an upgrade. @tv9kannada heres a crow sitting on my bike,plz make a spl report on this too..y only on cm car kaage? pic.twitter.com/gef7vypCBu (@TrollHaiklu) June 2, 2016 The Indian defence establishment has sounded a fresh red alert over the need to ensure cyber security of classified information after renewed online espionage and hacking attempts emanating from China. Jagran Among the threats identified, the alert warns that an "advanced persistent threat" group named 'Suckfly', which is based in Chengdu region of China, has stepped-up cyber espionage attempts against Indian security and commercial establishments. Having stolen certificates from legitimate South Korean software firms, Suckfly is apparently using them as a cover for its cyber attacks through malware like 'Backdoor.Nidiran'. Incidentally, the Chengdu region also houses the headquarters of the new western theatre command of the People's Liberation Army, which is tasked to handle the entire Indian front from Ladakh to Arunachal along the 4,057-km Line of Actual Control. Chinese hackers have been regularly attacking -- and sometimes successfully infiltrating -- security and commercial computer networks in India, as also other countries like the US, the UK and Germany. TOI had reported last week that Chinese cyber espionage group Danti had possibly breached several computers of top-ranking bureaucrats in Delhi and elsewhere, as per cyber security company Kaspersky Labs. oneworld Incidentally, India still does not have a tri-Service Cyber Command, which was proposed by the chiefs of the staff committee over three years ago to deal with the escalating threats in a unified manner. Instead, the government is planning the creation of a much-smaller Defence Cyber Agency (DCA) as interim arrangements till full-fledged commands come up. Aslo Read: Indian Computers Are Eighth Most Virus-Prone In Asia-Pacific Region, Pakistan Tops The List What is NSG? AFP Nuclear Suppliers' Group is a club of 48 nations who control global nuclear trade according to guidelines based on non-proliferation norms. These countries are allowed to trade in nuclear equipment and technology. Why India wants in? isro India wants to be part of NSG to become, among other things, a nuclear supplier. New Delhi also seeks to expand its civil n-sector and be able to shape the rules of nuclear trade. In 2008, India received a special waiver to conduct n-commerce by NSG, but it still remains out of the group. India wants to legitimise its role by getting in. Mexico backs India for NSG PTI Latest India supporters Mexico announced its support to India for NSG on Thursday. Switzerland, another key member of the NSG with strong proliferation concerns announced its support a few days earlier. India's not-NPT membership becomes hindrance isro NPT limits the possession of nukes to the big five China, US, UK, Russia and France. India, a nuclear power, is against signing the NPT. For non-NPT members, the Chinese want certain other criteria framed. China's opposition PTI Chinese opposition and the big consensus roadblock. If India has to become a part of the NSG, the member nations must unanimously agree to it. Standing between India and NSG entry is China. Beijing is believed to be backing Pakistan and has made India signing the nonproliferation treaty (NPT) as a pre-condition to its NSG entry. Is Beijing getting isolated? news.cn Turkey, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa and Austria are said to be backing the Chinese stand. But media reports claim several countries, previously opposed to New Delhi's membership, were softening their resistance. China continued to oppose India's candidature, news agency AP claimed, citing a source present at the NSG. Quick thinking helped a Jalandhar cop to save two lives from getting electrocuted at a temple on Friday night. While visiting the Devi Talab temple, a mother and her son came into contact with a live pole. Witnessing this, assistant sub-inspector Mohan Singh lost no time and proactively jumped in to save their lives. Removing his turban - a sacred mark of his faith - he offered his headgear to the duo which helped them survive a potentially tragic accident. Twitter Singh, who is associated with the crime investigation agency (CIA), emerged a hero for the survivors who thanked them for his courageous act. mapsofindia Police Commissioner Arpit Shukla rewarded Singh's gesture of heroism with a Class-1 certificate and a cash prize of Rs 2,000. He also added that he will recommend Singh for a bravery award. HT Photo Mohan Singh was on a security detail at the temple during volunteer labour work, also known as kar-seva. "Electric current had leaked into the pole during the late-evening rain and storm. Passing by, the woman in her thirties came into contact with it first and then the child, of about 4, was also stuck. As soon as I saw it, I opened my turban and tossed it over them. It took so much force to get them free that all of us were on the floor," said Singh, as reported by The Hindustan Times. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressed a special convention of the United Nations in April stating, that the "growing nexus of drug trafficking and terrorist networks endangers peace, security and stability across regions." Calling out to the international community, he added, "we have to continue and toughen our collective fight against these evils." The smuggling and consumption of drugs has been an international issue for several years with some countries taking a very strict stand against them, while others are yet to step up action against the international threat. BCCL India has maintained a strict stand on possession and consumption of drugs. The largest haul was recorded in Thane earlier this year with drugs worth Rs 2,000 crore being seized in April. According to a study in King's College in London, there are a few countries that have administered the strictest steps to counter the drug issue within their boundaries. Portugal Reuters Portugal famously decriminalised the possession of illegal drugs in 2001, instead referring people caught with drugs to a dissuasion commission where they might be opted into treatment or given education. Along with the law change Portugal also rolled out a large public awareness campaign, started a public debate about addiction and expanded their drug services. Although assessing the success of any drug policy is immensely difficult, its generally assumed Portugals policy has been positive. Drug use has remained stable and possibly decreased in young people, theres been a fall in HIV amongst injecting drug users and a decline in drug-related deaths. United Arab Emirates Reuters Even possessing a tiny amount of illegal drugs can result in a 4-year prison sentence in the UAE. They even consider drugs in the bloodstream as possession, and the maximum penalty for trafficking is death. Southeast Asia Reuters Thanks to the golden triangle of drug production in Southeast Asia, many of the surrounding countries have extremely harsh penalties for possession and trafficking of illegal drugs. The most severe is the death penalty (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam) but many enforce long prison sentences and heavy fines. China Reuters Although drug possession is technically an administrative offence, if youre caught, you face attending a compulsory detox centre for up to 3 years, plus another 3 years doing community rehabilitation. Smuggling, trafficking or manufacturing illegal drugs can even lead to a death sentence. Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia routinely executes people for drug smuggling and even possession. Punishments also include flogging, beating and imprisonment. Reuters However, not all countries are united in their approach and some countries have limited action in place to counter the drug influx. Despite the strict measures ascribed by the United Nations, several countries are yet to uphold the stipulated norms. Holland Reuters Although possession of marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, the country operates a policy of tolerance: they make a clear distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs. That means you can have a certain amount of cannabis, or grow a certain amount of cannabis plants for personal use, without being prosecuted. However if you begin importing or exporting illegal drugs you will face prison. Uruguay Reuters Breaking, or at the very least stretching, a UN convention, Uruguay legalised possession of marijuana for personal use last year. Eventually the government aim to dispense it in a controlled manner. The USA Reuters Saying the USA has a liberal drugs policy is a little misleading because drug policy varies so widely from state to state. However 23 states in the US have now legalised marijuana for medical use and Colorado has legalised it for personal use completely. It remains to be seen whether the entire country will follow suit. There are also instances like Holland and Japan that have a mix of strict as well as liberal approach to drug-related crimes and have been faring well. While it is clear, that there is no scope of tolerance, stricter laws have failed to prove to be an effective measure. Every country needs to consider a policy that works best for them. France's interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has urged cities to consider a ban on alcohol during match days during Euro 2016 as that could lead to riots between fans. AFP The first 3 days saw England and Russia fans involved in violent clashes that left many injured. AFP Cazeneuve said he asked police chiefs in nine hosting cities to take all measures to prevent the sale, consumption and transportation of alcohol on the day before a fixture and on match day. After England and Russia drew 1-1 in Marseille, police had to resort to tear gas to subdue the rioters. Both camps blamed the other for instigating the situation. Should a ban be enforced it could help curb the violence to a certain degree. Hopefully, the rest of the competition will be remembered for reasons on the field than off it. The federal government sued the New York City Department of Education on Thursday for allegedly allowing systemic discrimination and racism against black teachers at a high school in Queens. During the 2012-13 school year, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York alleges, the former principal of Pan American International High School discriminated against the schools three black teachers and retaliated against an assistant principal who spoke out against what was happening. It is nearly unthinkable that, in this day and age, one of the largest and most diverse school districts in the United States would allow racial discrimination and retaliation to flourish, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement . The principal, Minerva Zanca, allegedly made racist comments to the assistant principal, Anthony Riccardo, about two untenured black teacherscomparing one to a gorilla in a sweater with nappy hair and mocking the others big lips. Zanca also gave the teachers unsatisfactory lesson ratings before she even saw the lessons she was supposed to evaluate, according to Riccardo. Zanca also discriminated against a tenured black teacher, Lisa-Erika James, by targeting the successful theater program that James oversaw, according to the complaint. Zanca repeatedly tried to cancel student productions, the complaint said. When Riccardo refused to give an unsatisfactory rating to a lesson taught by one of the untenured black teachers, Zanca allegedly yelled at Riccardo, accusing him of sabotaging her plan and calling school security to have him removed from the building. She also filed two complaints against Riccardo with the NYC Department of Educations internal investigatory offices, which did not charge Riccardo. At the end of the year, Zanca gave Riccardo and the two untenured black teachers unsatisfactory annual performance reviewsno other untenured teacher at the school received an unsatisfactory rating that year. Zanca also refused to offer James a position as a teacher in the schools summer program. After the 2012-13 school year, Riccardo resigned, and the three black teachers left Pan American. According to the Washington Post , the two untenured teachers were fired due to their unsatisfactory rating, while James, the theater teacher who was tenured, remains employed by the district. They all filed complaints with the department. But according to the lawsuit, the NYC High Schools Superintendent Juan Mendez denied the allegations against Zanca and said she deserves our support. The department for New York City schools did not take any disciplinary action against Zanca. But the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found reasonable cause to believe that the department had discriminated and retaliated against Riccardo and two of the black teachers. The office referred the charges to the U.S. Department of Justice, which is seeking compensatory damages on behalf of the three teachers and Riccardo. Zanca retired last year as principal and now works at a Brooklyn public school as a part-time guidance counselor. She told the Washington Post that the allegations were false. I did not make those reprehensible and disgusting comments, and Im outraged that they were attributed to me, she said. Still, according to the N.Y. Daily News , community leaders, including officials from the New York City Parents Union, are now calling for Zanca to be fired from her post as guidance counselor. Devora Kaye, a NYC Department of Education spokeswoman, told the Associated Press in an email: All employees work environments must be safe and supportive, and we have zero tolerance for any discrimination. This lawsuit comes during a time of heightened scrutiny at how teachers of color are treated among a mostly-white teaching corps. My colleague Evie Blad reported earlier this month that the U.S. Department of Educations office for civil rights has been particularly aggressive during Obamas presidency identifying and rooting out unfair and discriminatory treatment in public schools. Related Reading on Race and Teachers: Follow @madeline_will and @EdWeekTeacher on Twitter. Were excited to announce that indmin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com. A new look and an improved experience means you can still stay ahead of this fast-moving market with price data, news and market intelligence right here on Fastmarkets. Discover more than 2000 prices, news and analysis in primary and secondary metals markets. We cover base metals, industrial minerals, ores and alloys, steel, scrap and steel raw materials. If you already have a Fastmarkets account, youll still have uninterrupted access to your markets by logging in with your current details. AMM STEEL SUCCESS STRATEGIES 2016, AMM's 31st Steel Success Strategies Conference is starting on13 June, 2016 and ending on 15 June, 2016. The Conference will be hosted at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. AMM STEEL SUCCESS STRATEGIES 2016, AMM's 31st Steel Success Strategies Conference is one of the noticeable event on Steel, Steel Industry, Steel Making and Strategy segments. This Conference is believed to be joined by around 660 people. AMM's 31st Steel Success Strategies Conference is organized annually. Steel Success Strategies remains the leading conference for the North American Steel industry. For over 30 years American Metal Market and World Steel Dynamics have brought together executives from the biggest players in the industry for networking and debate. Theres no doubt it has been an incredibly difficult year for the industry, and there are challenging times ahead. If youre not constantly learning and adapting your strategy, now is the time to start. Join us in New York City, meet the North American steel industry and hear from market leaders how to gain the competitive edge in these tough times. PE ENERGY RESOURCES 2016, 4th Biennial International SPE Energy Resources Conference and Exhibition will be scheduled from 13 June, 2016 to 15 June, 2016. The Conference is going to be located at the Hyatt Regency Port of Spain. SPE ENERGY RESOURCES 2016, 4th Biennial International SPE Energy Resources Conference and Exhibition is going to cover fields like Energy Resources, Energy, Power, Natural Resources, Oil And Gas, Oil and Petroleum. Obama's Pivot East Fuels an Asian Cold War Obama's pivot east has done little to contain China's strategic expansion. By Tom Hussain June 11, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Al Jazeera " - The balance of power in South Asia has been decisively tipped in India's favour by the US decision on Tuesday to grant it "major defence partner" status and support its accession to influential clubs of "good" nuclear states. The joint statement that emerged after US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met at the White House describes an emerging defence partnership in the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, an obvious response to China's increasingly muscular assertions in those maritime theatres. In seeking to contain China, however, the US has set aside long-standing diplomatic principles. Hitherto, nuclear-armed states could not gain access to the finest US military technology - specifically, equipment with dual-use applications in strategic weapons - without becoming a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. US support for countries seeking membership of clubs of nuclear states such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group has also been conditional upon them providing evidence of security measures to prevent illegal proliferation. Strategic arsenals India has done neither and, like Pakistan, rebuffed President Obama's call at the Nuclear Security Summit in April for them to reduce the size of their strategic arsenals. Instead, India has been granted an indefinite waiver because it is key to the completion of a US-shepherded unofficial alliance of Asia-Pacific powers that feel threatened by China's goal of becoming the dominant power in the region. By extending the waiver to India, but not to Pakistan, the US has chosen to discriminate between perpetual enemies with the fastest growing arsenals of nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles in the world. The timing of the US decision is as noteworthy as the decision itself. India expects to induct its first nuclear-armed submarine later this year, thereby attaining a second-strike capability that will put it on a strategic par with China. It will also give it a marked advantage over Pakistan for the first time - a disparity that will be accentuated when India inducts the supersonic interceptor missile it tested in May. Meanwhile, the US continues to pressure Pakistan to reduce its growing stock of battlefield-specific tactical nuclear warheads, its only strategic edge over India and the stated last-resort weapon for Pakistan, to be detonated on its own soil in the event of an overwhelming conventional Indian attack. In the circumstances, Pakistan can be expected to try to keep pace with India. Without access to dual-use technology, it can either source it from the international black market - without which the Indian and Pakistani nuclear programmes could not have succeeded - or it can ask China to resume the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology exchanges that ceased in 1992. The US continues to pressure Pakistan to reduce its growing stock of battlefield-specific tactical nuclear warheads, its only strategic edge over India ... In fact, Pakistan asked China to transfer technology for nuclear-armed submarines in 2014 and army chief of staff, General Raheel Sharif, rushed off to Beijing for a meeting with Premier Li Keqiang, within days of India's recent interceptor missile test. Hesitant to date, because of the wider diplomatic implications, China might be tempted to agree to Pakistan's requests in retaliation for the US granting major defence partner status to India, which will undoubtedly aid India's quest to become China's military and strategic equal. Superpower behaviour In the South China Sea, the epicentre of Sino-American tensions, superpower behaviour has been characterised by such tit-for-tat competitiveness. China has worked tirelessly to establish a fait accompli by continuing construction of dual civil-military use facilities on artificial islands in the Spratly Archipelago, prompting the US to step up "freedom of navigation" flights and voyages there for surveillance flights along the Chinese coastline. China has demanded that Washington cease the spy-plane flights altogether and, in the lead up to annual bilateral strategic talks in Beijing on Monday, said it would be within its rights to establish an air defence identity zone over the South China Sea. The US responded over the weekend by announcing two red lines: the establishment of the threatened "identity zone", and any Chinese attempt to expand its construction activity in the Spratlys to Scarborough Reef, which would prompt unspecified "actions" by the US and other nations. China's response was to send a naval vessel into the so-called contiguous maritime zone around the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea on Thursday, the first time Beijing has deployed the military to press its territorial claim. The fact that three Russian warships were passing by at the time may have been a coincidence, but it certainly identifes China's major ally in the region within days of the US saying it was risking diplomatic isolation with its conduct. The 20-plus countries in the region, home to more than half the world's population, are under growing pressure to take the side of one superpower against the other. India, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam are firmly in the US camp, while Cambodia, Pakistan and Russia are China's allies. However, the vast majority of countries in Asia have adopted neutrality, to varying degrees, because they are mindful of their vicinity to China and their economic dependence upon it, while reliant on the US for security. Thus, Obama's "pivot east" has done much to fuel tensions in the Indo-Pacific, but has done little to contain China's strategic expansion. The only winners in this Asian Cold War are armaments manufacturers. Tom Hussain is a journalist and Pakistan affairs analyst based in Islamabad. Why the Obama Administration Is Favoring al-Qaeda's Main Syrian Ally By Gareth Porter June 13, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Truthout " - In yet another a dangerous US political-diplomatic move in Syria, the Obama administration is going out of its way to protect the interests of al-Qaeda's closest and most powerful ally in Syria, Ahrar al-Sham. The administration's decision to shield the Islamist organization from the consequences of collaborating closely with al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, Nusra Front, in threatening what had been a promising "cessation of hostilities," goes much further than the US failure to pressure other armed opposition groups to separate themselves from Nusra Front, as US Secretary of State John Kerry had promised in negotiations with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. Ahrar al-Sham is believed to be the largest military force seeking to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria, with at least 15,000 troops. It is not considered by analysts who have followed its evolution to be a "jihadist" organization like Nusra Front, because it has shown no interest in terrorism against Western countries. However, some of its senior leaders have had ties with jihadists, including Osama bin Laden, in the past, and it has worked closely with al-Nusra Front since both organizations entered the Syrian conflict in 2011. Ahrar not only helped Nusra Front gain control of all of Idlib Province last year, but also joined with Nusra Front in an offensive south of the city of Aleppo in early April that was an open breach of the "cessation of hostilities" brokered by the United States and Russia. And in another development that should have alarmed Washington, Ahrar used shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to bring down Syrian regime planes in March and April. Those two firings of so-called man-portable air defense systems (Manpads), which the Obama administration has tried to keep out of the Syrian war, raise the specter that Ahrar's al-Qaeda allies could possibly acquire dangerous weapons such as these. But instead of treating Ahrar as it has treated Nusra Front in the context of the partial cease-fire that went into effect on February 27, the Obama administration is treating it with the kind of kid gloves normally reserved for clients in the Syrian opposition. Last December, the Obama administration gave the director of foreign affairs for Ahrar, Labib al Nahhas, a visa to visit the United States for a few days on what was clearly a mission to build political support in Washington for its future role in Syria. Nahhas' visit to Washington was a closely guarded secret at the time and was only revealed in a story by McClatchy News Service on May 21. Given the United States' highly restrictive travel policy, which routinely denies visas to anyone imagined to have connections with Islamic extremists, granting a high official of Ahrar al-Sham a visa for such a visit to Washington had obvious political significance. In fact, Nahhas had already met with US special envoy for Syria Michael Ratney in Istanbul in early December. And the US State Department had already made the decision to include Ahrar among the opposition groups to be invited to participate in a conference of Syrian opposition groups in Riyadh that same month. The Riyadh conference, which the United States organized along with its regional allies, was aimed at reaching agreement on the representation of opposition groups at political talks to be held with the Assad regime. At the Riyadh conference on December 9 and 10, however, the Ahrar al-Sham representative walked out of the conference after complaining that the results did not sufficiently reflect Ahrar's insistence that the opposition should have a "Muslim" identity -- meaning that Islamist groups should be dominant in the composition of the negotiating team. Ahrar's participation in the Nusra Front-led offensive that began April 3 is a far more reliable indicator of its political-military intentions than showing up at the Riyadh conference. In a video lecture on May 29, Ahrar's deputy leader, Ali al-Omar, explained its participation in the political talks as part of a strategy to "divide or neutralize our enemies." The offensive on three fronts in northern Syria has touched off further rounds of fighting that threaten to render the partial cease-fire meaningless. The Russian response to Ahrar's disruptive behavior was to propose in late April that Ahrar be blacklisted and put outside the cease-fire framework. That would have meant that the United States would not insist that Russia and the Syrian regime avoid targeting Ahrar in airstrikes. But the Obama administration rejected that Russian proposal, and in the process it revealed the new status that Ahrar now has in US policy. On May 24, when US State Department spokesman Mark Toner was asked why Ahrar should be given any protection under the "cessation of hostilities" agreement despite its violation of the cease-fire, Toner replied that Ahrar "is part of this vetted group of opposition forces that are part of the HNC, High Negotiating Council." (The actual name of the body is the High Negotiations Committee.) He also said the State Department believed that agreeing with the Russian request "would have a damaging effect on the cessation of hostilities." Toner characterized the HNC as having multilateral status, reflecting the involvement of US regional allies as well as Russia and other world powers. His response indicated that the Obama administration has decided to give Ahrar special status as part of the "legitimate" opposition. The real turning point in the administration's attitude toward Ahrar al-Sham, however, came in early 2015 when Turkey, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, supported the establishment of an "operations room" for the planning of a major offensive by the "Army of Conquest" (Jaish al-Fatah), the joint command led by Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham for the operation to take control of all of Idlib Province from Syrian government troops in March and April 2015. That operation marked the beginning of a much closer relationship between Turkey and Ahrar al-Sham. Since then, Ahrar al-Sham has been "a Turkish project in Syria," Faysal Itani, resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, told Truthout in an interview. This, according to Itani, was the reason behind the Obama administration's refusal to reject Ahrar despite its open flouting of the cease-fire. "I know for a fact," Itani said, "that the US calculated that we need the Turks, who already have a lot against us." That consideration alone, he says, accounts for the accommodation with a group it had previously spurned as too extremist. Over the past year some in Washington, including former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, have suggested that, despite its hard-line Islamist posture, Ahrar is too important to exclude from a political process aimed at a settlement. Others have suggested that Ahrar could play the role of limiting Nusra Front power. A leading specialist on the jihadists in Syria, Charles Lister, now at the Middle East Institute, has written that his Syrian Islamist contacts believed Ahrar's close relationship with Nusra Front is the "only viable method" of controlling the al-Qaeda branch's behavior. That's not the same as a readiness to break with Nusra Front, much less confront it, however. Ahrar has opposed some of the harshest implementations of Sharia law that Nusra has imposed in areas the anti-Assad coalition has conquered in Idlib. But it has far more in common with Nusra Front than in conflict with it. Like Nusra Front, Ahrar's demand for a post-Assad political system calls for "an Islamic State under Sharia law," and Ahrar fully shares Nusra's visceral hatred of the Alawite minority, to which both organizations refer by the derogatory terms "Nusaryri" and "Rafidah." Ahrar al-Sham's military cooperation with Nusra Front has been so complete, in fact, that Nusra has come to regard it as a source of weapons, according to a former Nusra fighter who has left Syria. He was referring to weapons supplied by external parties, especially Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to Ahrar. Perhaps the most crucial factor binding Ahrar al-Sham to Nusra Front, however, is that it is afraid to provoke a confrontation with Nusra Front over the latter's policies. As Aron Lund, a leading specialist on the war in Syria and a nonresident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has observed, Ahrar "probably feels too weak and internally divided to stand up to its jihadi ally."Any confrontation with Nusra, therefore, would likely split Ahrar in two and weaken it drastically overnight. There is virtually no chance that Ahrar would act to block Nusra Front's path to power. The Obama administration's coddling of Nusra's main ally is far more about the politics of its relations with regional allies -- and especially with Turkey -- than about its professed concern about bringing the Syria conflict to an end. On Sunday, June 12, Santa Monica Police arrested James Wesley Howell, 20, of Indiana. His car was found with long rifles, magazine clips, boxes of bullets, a rifle scope, and "chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device." I was invited by my friend to the Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles today and wanted to go, but couldn't, due to a Girl Scout event for my daughter. I wish I could celebrate with her, like we did when gay marriage became legal and we went down to celebrate with the people in the streets, and bonded in a way we hadn't before, as I witnessed how historic it all really was. Now, I feel the "terror" in the kind of terrorism that happened in Orlando. It is how I felt in New York on 9/11, when I was in lower Manhattan and heard the planes and watched the cloud of debris standing like a bully as I walked uptown, a testament to hate and ugliness. My terror continued in the days after, and during the confusing anthrax scares. I ended up leaving New York permanently within a month, fearful and overwhelmed. Terror took away my freedom to live where I wanted to live. Seeing that an arrest was made this morning of a heavily armed man at Santa Monica's pride parade, I know that if I went to the LA parade today, I would be afraid like I was in New York, and now I am afraid for her and others. I don't want to live like this in my country. I don't want her to live like this for a minute, ever. I don't want my daughter to ever feel this way for any reason. Terror is taking away our freedom to celebrate. It is working. That is what terrorism does. The fear of bodily harm for being what we are immediately robs us of freedom. It is felt by gay people every day, by female college students on campus, by minorities, by anyone who alters their day, their dress, or their words to avoid bodily harm for being themselves. We are not a free nation if any of us feel like this. When one of us is oppressed, it limits us all, it limits the potential of us as a nation and destroys our reputation as a symbol of freedom. How do we stand up to it? How do we stand bravely at the threat of an AR-15 automatic weapon which is legal to buy in our country? How do we support our LGBT community today and every day? I don't know. But I want to think about it long and hard today, and I want my friends to know I understand their terror and grief, and that it is not an acceptable way for anyone to live in this or any society. Already there is rhetoric that seems to blame the victims for the tragedy. You see it in the comments of news articles, and one Republican politician tweeted a bible verse suggesting that they got what they deserved, though he walked it back as coincidental. Those sickening enough to suggest that these things are deserved in some way are terrorists in our culture as much as those who holding the guns. They are the ones who fuel hatred and intolerance and make us unsafe with their rhetoric. We need to hold those who encourage hatred as accountable. It is not just an opinion to believe gays deserve to be killed, it is ignorance that incites violenceand they, too, are responsible. Anyone attending any pride event today to celebrate who they are is an exceptionally courageous and heroic person. They are facing very real, violent threats against their lives for their sexual orientation, and doing it because they refuse to be terrorized in a society that it seems to be increasingly terrifying to be yourself in. When you look at footage and photos of those parades today, remember that those people are fighting for freedomtheirs, and ultimately all of ours. WEST HOLLYWOOD: LA Times reports arrest of man armed and with explosives heading to Gay Pride Festival. https://t.co/7hyFhyt5da Chuck Pfarrer (@ChuckPfarrer) June 12, 2016 Donald Trumps Fascism and His Appeasers By Pierre Tristam June 13, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " FlagerLive " - It cant happen here? My friends, it is happening here. So says New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia near the end of the The Plot Against America, the Philip Roth novel from 12 years ago that re-imagines American history if the isolationist, Hitler-sympathizing anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh had become president instead of Franklin Roosevelt. And so the right-wing saboteurs of democracythe so-called patriots and the so-called Christians of the Republican right, Roth writes, make their march under the sign of the cross and the flag. It Cant Happen Here was the title of Sinclair Lewiss 1935 novel that imagined a fascist senator who beats Roosevelt to the presidency on a promise to, you guessed it, make America great again: To you and you only I look for help to make America a proud, rich land again, the imaginary Buzz Windrip tells a crowd that includes his paramilitary Minute Men, who beat up dissenters and open fire on them. (The paramilitary vigilantes who still patrol the Mexican-American border on this side of paradise also call themselves the Minutemen.) The two books are somewhat fictional. Only somewhat, because they draw on a strain of either violent or repressive impulses that, like the roils of magma under a volcano, have always been present in Americas political culture, at times more overtly than others. The years of the Alien and Sedition Acts in the early republic, the KKK, the Red Scare, Roosevelts internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, the John Birch Societywhose founder thought Eisenhower was a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracyMcCarthyism, the more muddled racism of the tea party movement and now Trumpism, its more fascist mutant, are all part of that toxic lineage. If the poison has always been around, its never been enough to poison the entire country. Sinclair Lewis himself thought America too strong a democracy to allow a fascist take-over. Hes right, for now. Donald Trump isnt going to win in November. By then the hordes of Bernie Sanders supporters who are making Hillary Clintons negative numbers look almost as bad as Trumps will have fallen in line. As unappealing as Clinton can seem, especially if you tune in to the hysterics of reactionary propagandathe same machine that managed to turn John Kerrys war heroics into treachery and Ronald Reagans administration, the most corrupt since Ulysses Grants, into a paragon of conservative valuesshes in a league of her own. Comparing her in any way to Trump isnt apples and oranges, two quite evolved fruits. Its more like comparing a human being to a single-cell organism to, with Trumps single cell defined by one thing: his vengeful racism. Two things struck me about the Republican reaction to Trump declaring Judge Gonzalo Curiel unfit to preside over his case for being Mexican. The first is that even as people like House Speaker Paul Ryan call it the textbook definition of a racist comment, they are standing by Trump. As Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, tweeted, Official position of the Republican Party: Trump is an inexcusable bigot, and Trump must be our next president. (Kristol is leading a campaign to dump Trump and draft Mitt Romney again.) Appeals to bigotry have never been far from national campaigns: Al Smith was demolished for his Catholicism in 1928, John Kennedy almost was in 1960, Nixon and the first Bush couldnt have been elected without coded appeals to prejudices against blacks, McCain and Romney couldnt anymore do the same with Obama and get away with it so they did the next-best thing, calling him a terrorist sympathizer, a foreigner, a Muslim. But the appeals were more tactical than central to campaigns, rather like paying tribute to a base of barnacle Republicans whose bigotry is as encrusted as their dependable votes. In Trumps case, racism is the overriding allure, the buxom gravity center of his says-it-like-it-is charisma. His supporters deny it. They have to, like drunks who havent yet owned up to 12-stepping. But take away the racism, the Mexican-bashing, the dehumanizing of immigrants, the insults to a world of Muslims, the ultra-nationalism, and theres not much left beside the Mussolini-like jabbing jaw and that hair, the only thing on Trumps body that defies gravity, his imagination included. The second thing that struck me was that even as a few Republicans denounced Trump over his Curiel insult, it was only then that Trump was assailed for exhibiting textbook racism. But hes been exhibiting it in worse ways since the day he announced his candidacy, when he compared Mexicans to rapists and criminals, and since went on to propose closing the borders to all Muslims. I dont know how thats not the textbook definition not just of racism, but of fascism. As Robert Paxton, author of The Anatomy of Fascism put it in an interview about Trump in February, the use of ethnic stereotypes and exploitation of fear of foreigners is directly out of a fascists recipe book. But even the media has betrayed a double-standard in its treatment of Trump in its handling the Curiel attacks as opposed to slurs on immigrants and Muslims. The difference is that Curiel is American. Trumps attacks on Mexicans and Muslims were directed at people either beyond the borders or beneath American citizenship. The racism, in other words, is not Trumps alone, or his supporters. Even the media is playing into the caste of narratives, which shows to what extent the culture has become either inured to the unacceptable or willing to make its accommodations with it. Ryan did: he calls Trumps racism unacceptable, yet he accepts it. Thats ultimately the danger of Trumps candidacynot that he will win, but that even in losing, he is corroding that buffer against the unacceptable. He is making what Roth in The Plot Against America called the unfolding of the unforeseen possible. Trump will fade. Trumpism may not. And the longer the Republican establishment is willing to appease himto make its Munich with himas a better alternative to Clinton, the more it legitimizes his racism as an acceptable American value at the very moment when white America is fading to minority status. It cant happen here? My friends, Trump or no Trump, it is happening here. Appeal to China and Russia: Please Do Not Let Venezuela Fall! By Andre Vltchek June 13, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Dear Mr. President Xi Jinping, Dear Mr. President Vladimir Putin, The re-emerging specter of nuclear catastrophe is once again haunting the world. The West is trying to isolate and provoke two great, proud, powerful and sovereign countries; China and Russia. It appears that the pathological desire to gain (or more precisely, re-gain) full control over the entire world is fully restraining all remaining flickers of rationale and humanism inside the brains of the politicians and business elites in Washington, London and elsewhere. The danger is real. It is enough to take a brief look at the map depicting the world at the beginning of the 20th Century, to realize that the West is capable of enslaving almost the entire Planet, by forcing through its colonialist and imperialist designs. Western imperialism has already exterminated hundreds of millions of human beings, in all corners of the globe. And even now, it is still murdering millions, directly and indirectly. Both China and Russia experienced the horrors of Western invasions. On several occasions, both nations had to turn to steel, in order to resist and to survive. And both nations are now, once again, standing tall, proudly facing those who are trying to break them, to force them into submission. It is becoming clear now that China and Russia will not back up. It is because they both want, above all, peace and justice for this world. They suffered terribly from the invasions and wars. They know how high the price of freedom and independence is. But if attacked, they will not yield. They will fight, no matter how high the cost. They would fight to defend their own people, and to defend the humanity, as they already have done on several occasions, losing millions, but in the end always defeating evil! *** China and Russia are not alone! They have allies all over the world. Some allies are simple people in the oppressed countries; others consist of entire countries from different parts of the World, like South Africa, Iran, Syria or Cuba. Until very recently, almost the entire Latin America stood by China and Russia and vice-versa. Great changes were taking place in Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia and elsewhere. Politically and economically, many South American countries began moving close, closer, towards Beijing and Moscow. The war against imperialism (re-) gained its new front. Attempts to destabilize Latin American revolutions arose almost immediately. The West began organizing and then supporting the opposition movements; funding hostile NGOs, plotting and financing coups, demonizing new governments through propaganda and indoctrination campaigns. Treasonous and morally corrupt local elites quickly joined forces with Washington; their loyalties were, for centuries, with Europe and then with North America, as well as with multi-national companies. I have been living and working in Latin America for many years. I know some of the continents greatest thinkers and revolutionaries, but I am also familiar with their oligarchs and feudal rulers. South American elites have no mercy with their common people. They cannot even be called nationalists. Just as the Western imperialists, they would easily sacrifice millions of innocent un-people (to borrow Orwells definition), in exchange for maintaining their privileges. As happened in Chile before the 1973 US-sponsored coup against the socialist President Salvador Allende, the local elites are now, once again, determinedly ruining the local economies all over South America, creating shortages, organizing and mobilizing right-wing unions, while withdrawing billions of dollars from their countries. For them it is no longer about business or making profits (they have plenty of money stored abroad) but about retaining control over their countries, often on behalf of the West. Recently, Argentinian socialism collapsed, and the neo-fascist President Macri gained power. Brazil was hit by a coup, which gave corrupt, mostly evangelical, and right-wing pro-Washington politicians, de-facto control over the country. Both Argentina and Brazil began dismantling their social policies, signing ludicrous deals with the North, including those that will soon allow the United States to build military bases in Tierra del Fuego and elsewhere. The West is achieving its goal; to torpedo BRICS, to weaken the anti-imperialist global alliance, and to discredit the Latin American model through its indoctrination channels. Almost overnight, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Cuba had lost two of their economically most powerful Latin American allies. And the West will not stop. Venezuela is next on its mafia-style hit list, as well as Ecuador, most likely followed by Bolivia! I have just returned from South America. Argentina is waking up to a horrible nightmare. Brazilian people feel that they were swindled, fooled. There are protests shaking Argentinian and Brazilian cities. But many feel almost hopeless, faced by such Machiavellian, complex and perfectly organized operations of their West and the local elites. I have also worked, recently, in Ecuador, where I got convinced that the West would never give up its attempts to destroy all progressing governments and regain full control over what it believes is its backwater. The tactics that are used to destabilize entire countries are the same everywhere. For many years I have been travelling to virtually all corners of the world, wherever the Empire has been trying to break the will of the people: from Ukraine and China, to Zimbabwe, Eritrea, Iran, South Africa, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, to mention just a few most obvious places. My latest book: Exposing Lies Of The Empire, is more than 800-pages heavy, and full of examples of how those tactics are applied, on all continents. But in South America, the West is now attacking almost the entire continent, and it does it openly, with no shame. *** To defend the independence of this continent South America is essential for the survival of our humankind. This is the frontline now! But it is the frontline where one nation after another is collapsing, under the terrible pressure of destructive, mainly foreign forces. It goes without saying that if the Empire wins here, it will try not to lose momentum; it will immediately move to another part of the world that is still standing. The destructive work will continue, (while hundreds of millions lives get ruined) until the Empires final victory, or until it gets decisively confronted and stopped! In Caracas, Quito and La Paz we are now witnessing an epic fight for the entire continent, but also indirectly for Moscow, Beijing, as well as for those still defenseless countries scattered all over the world. It is because the fight is essentially for the survival of the basic principles of humanism, decency and solidarity. It is a battle against the most cynical and oppressive forces on Earth! In short, it is a battle against imperialism, which is synonymous to fascism! *** Venezuela is still standing, but it is screaming, suffering, and in terrible pain. It cannot go on like this for too long; it cannot survive alone! It either receives some substantial help, or it will eventually collapse. The economic scavengers are already encircling its weakened body; even speculating and betting on its foreign debt. The opposition is so sure of its upcoming macabre victory that it is already allocating to its members, posts in future governments. The point has reached when Venezuela cannot defend itself alone, anymore. For years it topped the hit list of the Empire. For years no effort to ruin it was spared: coups, assassinations, economic blackmail, and a media war! And still, for so many years, Venezuela has been showing great solidarity with the rest of the world. It has stood at the vanguard of the fight against imperialism. It was spreading foreign aid all over the world, while it was flying (via TeleSUR) those optimistic and inspiring voices of the Latin American revolution, to all corners of our Planet (I made five documentary films for TeleSUR, in several conflict zones of the world, under almost impossible circumstances; something that makes me, until now, immensely proud). Like China and Russia, Venezuela refused to crack even under tremendous pressure. It began building a new, great and united South American fatherland, returning optimism, zeal and hope to the people of the continent that has been, for centuries, tormented and continuously raped by the West/North. Not everything was done perfectly, but nothing in this world is or should be expected to be perfect. Venezuelan (Bolivarian) Revolution is called the process; it is a long and complex journey, but a breathtaking journey nevertheless from slavery to freedom, to internationalism and social equality. Venezuelan people are now paying an immense price for not abandoning their principles. They are castigated mercilessly by the Empire, for making their own choices, for defending their freedom, and for refusing to return to subservience. But above all, they are punished for returning hope to others, for inspiring others, millions of others, all over the world! Because hope is what the Empire tries to strangle, mercilessly. Venezuela clearly demonstrated that a different world is possible, that solidarity is still alive, and that the revolution can serve the people. If Venezuela dies, at least it would die standing. Here, nobody surrenders! These were words of Hugo Chavez, printed on the iconic election poster, after his death. Here Chavez, already gravely ill, with his face covered by raindrops, was defiantly clenching his fist. When the poster appeared, I was in Caracas. I stood there, in front of it, for at least one hour, in the middle of the square, unable to move. I thought, as many others most likely did: A true revolutionary should go all the way! If he doesnt dare to, he should better stay where he is and go nowhere at all. Chavez went all the way and Venezuela followed him a true revolutionary and his remarkable Bolivarian motherland. Yes, if it would have to die, Venezuela would die standing. But it should never be allowed to perish! *** I have both Russian and Chinese blood in my veins. I was born in Russia. And I spent many years in Latin America, writing, making films, covering wars and then revolutions. And followed then, by the Western subversions! For me an alliance, and even some sort of unity between China, Russia and South America, is the essential pre-condition for the survival of the humanity. The West knows that such an alliance would break its monopoly on power; that all three models are now inspiring billions of people all over the world. These models may be different to some extent, but the bottom line is always the same: putting the people first, while trying to deter neo-colonialism and imperialism. If that bottom line were to prevail, that would mean the end of a long and bloody period of Western global dictatorship. It is that simple! The West would rather murder billions than to accept its defeat. Because defeat would mean that its countries would have to finally behave as equals towards the rest of the world, something culturally and psychologically unacceptable to most of North Americans and Europeans. The world has to finally defend itself. It has to defend its people. Too many lives have already been lost, too many nations plundered and ruined. Now countries under the attack should embrace each other, help each other, and not to allow each other to fall. The Western propaganda machine is spreading sinister but very effective lies that all large countries are the same, that they have identical imperialist tendencies. The only way to contradict such fabrications is to offer concrete and bright examples to the contrary. The world has been drowning in the cynicism and nihilism administered by the Empire. In order to snap out from depression, in order to erect the great flags of the resistance again, people need a substantial dose of emotions, optimism, poetry, and human warmth. They also need true leadership. They need big and powerful countries like China and Russia to show the way. To inspire the world, it is not enough to do economically well, or to be strong (although those are essential pre-conditions for progress and even for survival). What people all over the world are longing for, are solidarity, social commitments and internationalism. Both China and Russia are offering exactly those, and have already been for many decades. But it is often done in a subdued and modest way. And therefore, for the lackey Western mass media, which still controls the flow of information in most parts of the world, it is still easy to omit, and even to deny the truth. To bail out, to rescue Venezuela, would send a powerful message to both the Empire and to the rest of the world. It would be a truly positive message, full of optimism, decency and pride. In Russia, a country that suffered immensely from countless foreign invasions, there is one important term (ours). The world is clearly divided between those who are ours (our loved ones, our comrades, compatriots, friends and allies), and enemies. By nature, the Russian people are immensely loyal to those whom they have already accepted as their close ones, as ours. They are loyal to their comrades to the point that they would, without even blinking, die defending them or give them their last shirt or a piece of bread. There is no limit to the generosity towards those that Russian people love. And Chinese solidarity is legendary as well. Otherwise, how could this enormous country lift almost all of its citizens out from poverty? If Venezuela is defended and saved, the message to the Empire and to the world would be powerful and clear: Do not touch our brothers and sisters! If you harm them, you would be confronted. *** In Russia, during the old days, the rallying cry, the call to battle was often they are beating our people! And this is exactly what is happening now. They are beating our people! Venezuela, our beautiful and proud sister, our comrade, our ally, is being tortured, humiliated and devastated! Let us stand up. Let us not allow Venezuela to be violated. I have lost all my hope for the hypocritical, toothless Western Left. With some bright exceptions, it will do nothing, absolutely nothing practical to help! As it did nothing to rescue Cuba when Cuba was bleeding. It had to be China, after all, which extended its powerful hand across the seas towards Havana saving the revolution! And now, again, only Beijing and Moscow would be able to make that decisive and powerful epic gesture! As was demonstrated when China rescued Cuba, and is now being shown where Russia is fighting for Syria; these two great and brave nations are willing to get engaged when the time is ripe, and therefore capable of saving Venezuela! *** President Xi Jinping, President Vladimir Putin, I am writing this letter with great respect for both of you personally, and with profound admiration for your countries. In many ways I also belong to both Russia and China, despite my determined internationalism, and my perpetual lack of home. I also write this with great hope. I do not know how to resolve the situation practically how to save Venezuela in a sensible but also truly determined way. I cannot offer any practical political advice to the two of you great leaders of two enormous countries. I have merely outlined the global situation, the murderous drive of the Empire and the plight of Latin America, the continent, which is so deeply engraved in my heart. And I am stating the obvious: now it is only China and Russia that can save Venezuela. And I am also repeating what we all already know, in South America, in China and in Russia: Only if united, we will never get defeated! With great respect, Just a Trick By Uri Avnery June 13, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Once I heard the following story from the then Swedish ambassador in Paris: In 1947, when the UN was discussing the plan to partition Palestine, I was a member of the sub-committee dealing with Jerusalem. One day, the Jews sent a new representative. His name was Abba Eban. He spoke beautiful English, much better than the British or US members of the committee. He talked for about half an hour, and at the end there was not one person in the room who did not hate his guts. I was reminded of this episode when I saw on TV the press conference held by Dore Gold, the Director General of our Foreign Office. Its subject was the recent Paris peace conference, which was vehemently denounced by our government. From the moment I saw Gold for the first time I disliked him. He was our new ambassador to the UN. I told myself that my attitude was an unworthy rejection of foreign Jews (Exile Jews in Israeli slang). Gold speaks Hebrew with a very pronounced American accent and is no Apollo. I would have preferred as our representative an erect, Israeli-looking pioneer-type who speaks English with a pronounced Hebrew accent. (I know this sounds racist, and am thoroughly ashamed of myself.) Golds conference was about the French peace initiative concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have a lurking suspicion it is still lurking around that this is not really a French initiative, but a camouflaged American one. It arouses the fury of the Israeli government, and no American president can do that if he wants himself or his party to be reelected. There is a terrible fear haunting our government. Barack Obama abhors Netanyahu, and for good reason. But he cannot do anything against him openly not until midnight on election day. Whether Hillary Clinton or (God forbid) Donald Trump is elected, Obama remains in office for almost another three months after the elections and in this period he is as free as a bird (as the Germans would say). He can do whatever he likes. Whatever he dreamed about, day and night, for eight long years. And what he dreamed about was Binyamin Netanyahu. Ah, the sweet revenge. But only in November. Until then he has to dance to Netanyahus tune, unless he wants to hurt the Democratic nominee. So what can he do in June? He can farm things out. For example, ask the French to convene a peace conference to prepare the way for recognition of the State of Palestine. Asking the French to convene a high-ranking conference in Paris is like asking the cat if it wants some milk. You dont have to wait for an answer. France, like Great Britain, is mourning its imperial past, when Paris was the center of the world and educated Germans and Russians, not to mention Egyptians and Vietnamese, spoke French. The passports of many nations were printed in that language. That was the time when almost half the world appeared on the maps in French blue, while the other half appeared in British red. The time when the French diplomat Georges Picot and his British colleague Mark Sykes divided between them the Ottoman Middle East, exactly a hundred years ago this week. Having the foreign ministers (not to mention kings and presidents) of the world congregate in one of the many beautiful palaces of Paris is a French dream. The British, in much the same situation, would like the same, but are busy with the infantile urge to leave the European Union. Whatever, what we have now is this French initiative, a glittering assembly of foreign ministers or their representatives, demanding the resumption of the peace negotiations within a limited time frame, with the declared aim of recognizing the Palestinian state. Netanyahu loves France. He loves to amuse himself with his wife on the French Riviera, dine in the most expensive Paris restaurants and live in the most luxurious Paris apartments as long as others pay for it. This came out last week in the trial of a French Jew who is accused of swindles amounting to hundreds of millions of Euros, and who paid for several of the Netanyahus trips. Netanyahu does not believe in paying for his pleasures himself, and like the Queen possesses no credit card. But enjoying French luxury is one thing, enjoying French diplomacy is something else. At this moment Netanyahu, when he is not occupied with his lawyers, devotes his time to defeating the French initiative. Why, for gods sake? Whats so bad about a gathering of the worlds top statesmen and stateswomen to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Well, practically everything! This peace process is like a sleeping dog. A dangerous dog. While it sleeps, Netanyahu can get away with everything deepening the occupation of the Palestinian territories, expanding the settlements (quietly, quietly, dont wake the dog!), do all the hundred daily things that make the occupation irreversible. And here come the French and poke the dog in the ribs. So what? people might ask. There have been conferences before, peace processes galore, international resolutions. If another large conference is convened and the details of a peace agreement discussed, Israel will not attend and Netanyahu will ignore the whole thing. How many times has this happened before? It will hardly deserve a yawn. But this time it may be different. Not in itself, but because of the international atmosphere. Slowly, very slowly, Israels international horizon is darkening. Small things are happening every day all around the world. A resolution here, a boycott there, a condemnation, a demonstration. The Israel that was universally admired disappeared long ago. The BDS movement is immensely successful. It does not really hurt the Israeli economy. But it creates a mood, first on the campuses and then around them. Jewish institutions are sending SOS messages. By now, the Jewish institutions themselves have been infected. The daily news about the happenings in the occupied territories and even in Israel proper hurt Jews, and especially the young ones. Many of them turn their backs on Israel, some become actively engaged against it. Israel is a strong country. It has a very large military, the most modern weapons, a sound economy (especially high-tech), frequent diplomatic successes. This is no second South Africa, as the BDS people would like to see it. There are huge differences. The apartheid regime was led by Nazi-sympathizers, while Israel is still riding the world-wide wave of Holocaust-era penitence and remorse. South Africa depended on its rebellious black labor force, Israel imports foreign labor from many countries. Israel does not really depend on American financial aid. This aid is a luxury, not more. It needs the US veto against hostile proposals in the UN, but it can and does generally ignore the UN. Yet, taken all in all, Israels worsening international standing is worrying. Even Netanyahu is worried. Slowly but surely the world is accepting the State of Palestine as a fact of life and as a condition for peace. So Netanyahu is looking around for a new trick. And what does he see? Egypt! Israels relations with Egypt go back a few thousand years. Egypt was already a regional power when the original Israelite people came into being. After the exodus from Egypt (which never really happened) the Bible tells us of many ups and downs in the relations between powerful Egypt and little Israel. When the Assyrians laid siege to Jerusalem and the Judeans hoped for help from Egypt, the Assyrian general mocked: Thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, upon Egypt, on which, if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it! (2 Regnum 18 and Isaiah 36) Now the current Pharaoh, Abd al-Fattah a-Sisi, is Netanyahus great hope. Egypt, bankrupt as ever, depends on Saudi Arabia. The Saudis (secretly) depend on Israel in their fight against Iran and Bashar Assad. So a-Sisi is also a (secret) ally of Israel. To bolster his stature, a-Sisi also poses as a peace-maker. He calls for a regional peace initiative. In his diatribe against the French, Dore Gold lauded the Egyptian peace initiative. He accused the French of sabotaging it, and thereby preventing peace. Netanyahu also verbally accepted the Egyptian initiative, adding that it needs only a few changes. Indeed it does. a-Sisi bases his plan on the 2002 Saudi peace initiative, which had been adopted by the Arab league and become the Arab peace initiative. This demands that Israel leave all the occupied territories (including the Golan and East Jerusalem), accept the State of Palestine, the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees etc.) Netanyahu would die a thousand deaths before accepting any one of these. Using the Egyptian plan as a pretext for rejecting the French plan is sheer chutzpah, based on the cynical assumption that one can indeed cheat all the world all the time. Regional, by the way, is the new buzz-word. It came up some time ago, and even some well-meaning Israelis adopted it. Regional peace, how beautiful. Instead of talking about peace with the hated Palestinians, lets talk about peace with the region. Sounds good. But it is total nonsense. No Arab leader, from Morocco to Iraq, will sign a peace agreement with Israel that does not include the end of the occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state. No one can. The masses of his people will not let him. Even Anwar al-Sadat included these provisions in his peace treaty with Menachem Begin (though in terms that could easily be broken). When in 1949 my friends and I first put forward the solution that has become known as two states for two peoples, it included, as a matter of course, peace with the entire Arab world. And peace with the Arab world will include, as a matter of course, peace with the State of Palestine. The two go together, like Siamese twins. Speaking now of regional peace as an alternative to peace with the Palestinians is nonsense. Regional peace in that sense means no peace. The other day Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz that Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman are now talking like Uri Avnery in 1969. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, has described the statement credited to Ravi Naik, a former Indian Goa Chief Minister, about Nigerians as condescending and unacceptable. Naik, a senior Congress leader, over a week ago, called on the central government to ban Nigerians from entering India and the purpose of those currently resident in the country, probed. Referring to Nigerians with the pejorative negroes, the senior Congress leader also claimed that Nigerians were the leading causes of problems in Goa and other parts of the country. The government of India should ban them. They should be probed. It should be checked whether they are here to study or for picnic or to sell drugs, said Naik, who was one time home minister in the former Congress-led coalition in Goa. Reacting to the comment, Mrs. Dabiri-Erewa, in a statement by her Special Assistant on Media, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, said Naiks call was rather unfortunate. As Nigerians, we respect humanity and will not descend so low to use derogatory words even for Indians in Nigeria who are involved in illegal activities. Rather, we will allow the law to take its course, the presidential assistant said. She, however, reiterated her calls on Nigerians in the Diaspora, anywhere in the world to be law abiding. Family of the late presume winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief M.K.O Abiola, has called on the Federal Government to declare him the winner and pay presidential entitlements to his family. Alhaji Muritala Abiola, who is the head of the family, made the call on Sunday, during the 23rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 election. The event, which was sponsored by the Ogun State government, kicked off with a Democracy Walk from the June 12 Cultural Centre, Kuto, Abeokuta to the Oke Ido ancestral home of the Abiolas. Muritala, who is the younger brother of the late business mogul, said M.K.O deserved the entitlement for dying for the enthronement of democracy in the country. First, we want the Federal Government to declare June 12 as Democracy Day. It should do even more than that. Ken Saro-Wiwa died fighting over Ogoni oil spillage, the Federal Government is doing the cleaning up of the oil spillage in Ogoni land. MKO was killed because of an election he won maybe it is you journalists or the Nigerian government calling him acclaimed winner. He is not acclaimed winner, they should confirm him as slain president of Nigeria. MKO should be declared president. Although slain, all the entitlements belong to the family, he said. Muritala, however, expressed the familys appreciation to the Ogun State Government for keeping the memory of the late Abiola alive by staging a Democracy Walk in the last five years. He also used the occasion to appeal to the state government to return the Salawu Abiola Comprehensive High School, Osiele, Abeokuta, founded by MKO Abiola, to the family to administer. In his remarks, the State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, said that everyone knew that late MKO Abiola was the adjudged winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Amosun, who was represented by his deputy, Mrs Yetunde Onanuga, described the late M.K.O as the hero of the nations current democracy. We have been organising the Democracy Walk and identifying with the Abiola family for the past five years that this administration has been in government. He was a philanthropist and the hero of our current democracy, he added. Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello, Monday said Nigeria could make enough revenue from agricultural resources that could replace crude oil within a decade, if more effort is put into agriculture. Speaking in Lokoja while receiving the 5th World Bank/FGN Joint Mission to Kogi on FADAMA III AF Implementation team on a three-day project visit to the state. The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Mr Simon Achuba, said his administration believes the almost limitless value chains in the sector (agriculture) can replace crude oil earnings 100 per cent within a decade. My vision and yearnings since assumption of office has been to transform Kogi State into an industrial/economic destination with the agricultural sector playing a pivotal role, particularly through massive support for cassava and rice value chains, he said. The governor also expressed the determination of his government to ensure the success of the World Bank-assisted FADAMA III Additional Financing agricultural projects through prompt payment of counterpart contributions. However, he pointed out that the one hectare per farmer of the Brown Field was difficult to achieve without assistance on land clearing. He, therefore, requested for an increase in land clearing allocation to Kogi by 100 percent. Earlier, leader of the World Bank team, Dr Salau Sheu, stressed the need for the state government to pay its counterpart contribution to provide more food and create jobs. He said the bank would continue to support agriculture and rural development in the state. Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Monday swore in Sole Administrators for the 57 Local Government and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state, with a warning to shun corruption. The governor told the appointees at the swearing-in ceremony held at the Lagos House in Ikeja that it would no longer be business as usual as the people of the state and the government would be monitoring them. He said that the government would not hesitate to remove any administrator who failed to serve the people diligently or abused the office. It will no longer be business as usual; rather, it will be a tough journey requiring character, leadership, commitment and resilience of those at the helm of affairs to actualise our dreams. Strict accountability must be your watchword. Lagosians will be watching you and we will be watching you too. Your appointment today as Sole Administrators should therefore be seen as a call to service of our people. You are relay runners on a journey of reform that will ultimately culminate in the election of accountable people that will carry on the baton of good governance for our people. For the duration of your race, I urge you to run the race efficiently with diligence so you do not betray the trust that has been placed in you, Ambode said. The governor said that a strict monitoring, control and feedback process would be put in place to ensure that there were no excesses or excuses. He enjoined the appointees to make a difference to the lives of the people, share in their joys and pain, and reside among them. It is only through this symbiotic relationship that we can truly say we have begun to understand and serve our people, Ambode said. According to him, his administration is committed to local government reforms and is working hard to meet the yearnings of the people at the grassroots by providing them with basic amenities. We are dedicated to this and will deliver on our promise of a government of inclusion where no one is left behind, he said. Earlier, the Secretary to the State Government, Mr Tunji Bello, said the appointment was one of the steps aimed at preparing the Local Government Areas for the subsequent holding of elections. Thanking the governor for their appointments, the Sole Administrator of Bariga LCDA, Sanya Osinjo, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, reassured Mr. Ambode that they would discharge their duties diligently. It would be recalled that Gov. Ambode appointed new Sole Administrators on Saturday following his dissolution of the caretaker committees of the 57 councils. The dissolution followed the resolution of the Lagos State House of Assembly on Thursday relieving the Executive Secretaries of the LGs and LCDAs of their responsibilities. A prominent Niger Delta environmental and human rights activist, Annkio Briggs, has berated the Niger Delta Avengers for attacking oil and gas installations in the region, saying the militants are not Nigerians. Ms. Briggs, who spoke on Sunday at the 17th Annual Convention of the Igbo Youth Movement, IYM, which held at the Nike Lake Resort in Enugu with the theme Nigeria, Still in Pursuit of True Fiscal Federalism, said the Avengers are from Somalia. The founder of Non-Governmental Organization, Agape Birthrights and spokesperson of the Ijaw Republican Assembly, made the claim against the backdrop of recent attacks on oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta by the Avengers. The attacks, which had adversely affected Nigerias crude oil production, have also resulted in most parts of the country plunged into prolonged darkness as a result of the destruction of pipelines supplying gas to power stations. She also condemned the recent murder by an irate mob of a Christian trader, Bridget Agbamihe, in Kano for alleged blasphemy as well as herdsmen attacks in Nimbo Community, Enugu State and other parts of the country. Also speaking at the event, Alex Ekwueme, Second Republic Vice-President, and a former Minister of Information, Jerry Gana called for true federalism and devolution of powers to the states. They said that restructuring and resource control by regions was a panacea to end acts of uprising across the country. The former vice-president, who chaired the event, said that the British colonialists had earlier divided the country to enable each region control and manage its resources without interference. The British colonial masters divided the country in such a way that every region will operate within its constitution, he said. The guest speaker and former Information Minister, Jerry Gana, said that the key solution to Nigerias problem was through true federalism and devolution of powers to states. True fiscal federalism is the only form of association that will allow peace and stability in the country and each region should be allowed to manage its resources the way they want it, Mr. Gana said. He noted that the formula for allocating revenue made the Federal Government to get richer while the states operated like beggars. States should be allowed to manage its resources to enable them govern their people the way they want and allocate some percentage to the Federal Government. Government should not be far from the people and the federating unit should be made strong to meet the needs of the people, he said. Mr. Gana recommended continuous dialogue and the implementation of the resolutions of national confab by the government as the only means the recent agitation and other national demand could be handled. A prominent Yoruba leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, who was also guest speaker, said that the various acts of political instability in the country were because the constitution under which the country was governed was not good for heterogeneous country like Nigeria. To put a stop at the various uprising in the country such as Niger Delta Avengers, MASSOB, IPOB etc, our constitution needs to be changed to allow for restructuring of the country under true federalism. Earlier, the founder of IYM, Elliot Uko, said that the event was to honour prominent Nigerians who had contributed to the growth and development of the country. He said Igbo youth were committed to building a stronger Nigeria and to reduce the tension in the region, adding that true federalism would help the country to grow and prosper. The highlight of the event was presentation of awards to Messrs. Gana, Adebayo, detained IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, former Anambra Governor, Chukwuemeka Ezeife and Ms. Briggs. The event was also attended by Ex-Governor Peter Obi and students from tertiary institutions in the South-East. (NAN) Amid unconfirmed reports in a section of the media that over 200 officers, mostly of southern origin and perceived loyalists of the immediate past administration were retired, the Nigerian Army has come out to deny the reports. A particular online medium stoked ethnic and religious sentiments over the retirement when it released a list containing the names of those purportedly affected in the exercise. Following the release of the names and photographs of the Army officers affected in the retirement exercise, some public commentators lampooned President Muhammadu Buhari for approving the exercise in order to purge the Army of southerners and replace them with his kinsmen from the north. But the Army on Sunday described the reports and the reactions that trailed same as unfair and unethical, saying some of the officers, whose names were mentioned in the purported retirement list, were still serving. The Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Sani Usman, in a statement last night, said the retirement was carried out in strict compliance with the countrys extant laws. The statement reads in part: The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to speculations and rumours regarding the number and names of the senior Army officers affected in the recent retirement exercise. This is worrisome as some individuals and media houses went to the ridiculous extent of publishing outrageous figures and names of serving officers as being retired. This is unethical and unfair. We are quite aware that some mischievous elements are trying to whip up sentiments. This is quite unfortunate because all the affected officers were retired based on Service exigencies and in line with the Armed Forces Act, CAP A20 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. Mr. Sani, a colonel, also gave a breakdown of the affected officers by ranks. We wish to state that only 38 senior officers were affected by the retirement exercise. For the avoidance of doubt the following is the statistics of the officers retired compulsorily; 9 Major Generals, 10 Brigadier Generals, 7 Colonels, 11 Lieutenant Colonels and a Major. Col. Sani reminded the general public that the Nigerian Army is a professional institution that is based on highest standards of discipline and conduct, therefore, its personnel must remain professional, neutral and apolitical at all times. The Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, has said that it is not carrying out a recruitment exercise and warned Nigerians against falling victim of the antics of scammers. The FRSC Corps Marshal, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, who denied the purported recruitment exercise, also warned officials of the corps against peddling such rumours, adding that if caught, they would be punished in accordance with the FRSC Disciplinary Codes. A statement by the Head, Media Relations and Strategy, FRSC, Bisi Kazeem, quoted Mr. Oyeyemi as saying these on Monday, while addressing staff of the National Headquarters at the Corps Marshals weekly Parade in Abuja. My attention was drawn to the rumour, and I want to put it directly to you, that FRSC is neither recruiting nor doing any form of replacement as people are insinuating outside, he said. The FRSC boss attributed the rumour to fraudsters, whose aim he said, was to dupe unsuspecting members of the public. He assured the general public that the FRSC would follow due process and ensure wide publicity whenever it is carrying out a recruitment exercise. Mr. Oyeyemi further warned officials of the corps against indiscipline and criminality, disclosing that he was disturbed by reports that some officials of the corps were involved in crime and the peddling of rumours. I am disturbed by the activities of some staff members, who are fond of rushing to the media, especially radio, to spread lies that undermine the integrity of the FRSC, he said. That must stop forthwith. I have made it clear before that I would never allow anything that goes against the interest of the staff, and I stand by that commitment. The world's most famous haunted house, 108 Ocean Avenue (formerly 112 Ocean Avenue), in Amityville, New York is on the market again. This is the Dutch Colonial home where in 1974 Ronald DeFeo, Jr. killed six family members and, four years later, George and Kathy Lutz and their children reported that they were terrorized by evil demons. Their story became the basis for the Jay Anson's 1977 book The Amityville Horror, director Stuart Rosenberg's 1979 film adaptation, and a slew of crappy sequels that followed. Listed at $850,000, the five bedroom, 3.5 bath home on the Amityville River includes a large boat house and slip. According to the realtors, "There've been four owners since the murders, and none of them ran out of the house screaming, and there were no strange experiences [such as murder.]" If I bought it, the first thing I'd do is reinstall the demonic pig'e eye windows. (via Curbed) Dozens of Iraqi government forces and militia members have been killed in an attack on military barracks east of Fallujah by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Military sources said 50 members of the Iraqi security forces and allied Shia militias were killed on Saturday. ISIL losses were reported too, with sources close to the group saying 12 of its fighters were killed by helicopter gunships. On May 23, Haider al-Abadi, Iraqs prime minister, announced the start of the offensive to liberate Fallujah from ISIL. For almost two years, Fallujah, which is just 50km west of the capital Baghdad, has endured a siege imposed on the city after it became the first to fall to ISIL in January 2014. Matthew Glanville, former adviser to the governor of Anbar province, believes the Iraqi forces were overly confident in their operation to recapture Fallujah. The lesson from the earlier offensive against Tikrit last year was that where ISIL had the opportunity to dig in, particularly amongst the civilian population, it was always going to take a very long time to get them out without civilian casualties, Glanville told Al Jazeera. As Nigerians come to terms with the fact that the days of prolonged darkness are far from over, the Minister of Works, Housing and Power, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has vowed to use what he called tough approach to overcome the problem of power outage in the country. Fashola made the vow in Kano while launching the mass meter deployment of Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO). According to him, Nigeria would soon address the problems of power outage. We are in tough situation in the power sector, but we will soon see the end of it because we are also tough people. We must work hard to end the problems associated with electricity, he said. The minister, however, called on the electricity companies to patronise locally made meters. I have visited a meter manufacturing company in Lagos recently and the types of meters that I saw there were the same meters our electricity distribution companies are importing. So business wise, it would be good for the country if we can patronise our local goods, he said. Mr. Fashola explained that going by the current fluctuation of foreign exchange, patronizing made in Nigeria products will help to boost the economy. On the benefit of the mass meter deployment, which will cost KEDCO N500million, the Power Minister said the commitment shown by the company would pave the way for other Discos to follow suit. He noted that while the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company indicated its plan for mass meter deployment, KEDCO has gone a step further by matching words with action. Earlier, the Managing Director of KEDCO, Alhaji Jamilu Gwamna, said the company ordered for 100,000 pieces of pre-paid meters for onward distribution to customers in Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states. Gwamna explained that so far the comapny has recieved 63,000 meters, while the remaining 37,000 would be ready before end of 2016. Our plan is to make KEDCO the best valuable electricity company in Nigeria by 2030. We want deliver best services to our customers, he said. The lawmaker representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Senator Dino Melaye yesterday revealed his ambition to be the President of Nigeria someday, asserting that, I will be president. He however did not state when this will happen. The senator spoke on Channels Television while appraising the first anniversary of the Senator Bukola Saraki-led 8th Senate, arguing that, the Senate under Senator Bukola Saraki has done brilliantly well. But we would have done better if not for this; like I call it this planted distraction by people of inordinate ambition. Apparently referring to the assets falsification trial of Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, which has been linked to the way he emerged as Senate President, Melaye said; you dont kill a man for being ambitious. He continued; Everyone is ambitious. Im ambitious;like I want to be the president of the federal republic of Nigeria. It shouldnt be a crime. I will be. When asked by the anchor of the programme if he really wants to be president, the lawmaker reiterated; Ill be. When we get to that bridge; well cross it. Source: Daily Post The House of Representatives has accused the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF) Abubakar Malami of encouraging the federal government not to comply with some of the resolutions made by the National Assembly. Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business, Emmanuel Orker-Jev, APC-Benue, made the allegation, weekend, while briefing newsmen in Abuja on the legislative activities of the 8th House in its one year anniversary. According to him, instead of the Attorney General to advise the Presidency accordingly on some of the resolutions, he would do the contrary. Unfortunately, it is those we expect should know better that fail to comply with the resolutions. You have the Attorney General of the Federation who advised against the implementation of the resolution of the National Assembly when the House took a resolution that Kogi Assembly be closed as a result of the crisis there. The Inspector General complied, unfortunately the advice came thereafter and it was opened up. People know that this is a democracy and it must be respected, things will get better but for now, I think it is a learning process, he said. 45 year old Richard Macaulay Obafemi, a medical doctor who trained at the University College London, has been arrested for Armed robbery by the Anambra state police command. According to The Sun, Richard had his primary and secondary school education at Ipaja, Lagos State before proceeding to the University College London, UCL, where he obtained a degree in Microbiology in 1987 and later studied medicine at University Colege London UCL, from 1987-1992. In 1993, he did the housemanship in Hatsfield, London. In 1996, Obafemi who is an indigene of Ogun state, came to Nigeria for the National Youth Service Corps Scheme and was posted to Kwara State. At the end of the service year, Obafemi took up appointment with the College of Medicine, University of Benin, where he worked for two years from 1998 to 2000, before travelling to Saudi Arabia. He thereafter got another job offer at the University of Ghana in 2006 and worked there till 2015 when he decided to visit Nigeria. In 2015, I came to Nigeria and visited Kaduna State. During that trip, a car I was driving had an accident and the victim died. I was charged to court and remanded at Kaduna Central Prison. But I was later released from prison on April 8, 2016. While in prison, Obafemi developed a relationship WITH two other inmates, Stephen and Ifeanyi who were professional car snatchers and armed robbers. When he left prison, he met with these men who had also regained freedom and they convinced him to join their business. After I left prison, I had followed Ifeanyi to Asaba and joined their gang, which specialized in snatching cars. We have stolen cars like Lexus, SUV in Lagos State, which I drove to Katsina State to sell to buyers from Niger Republic. I sold one for N450,000. I didnt go back to University of Ghana because when I was in prison in Kaduna, I didnt communicate with them. When I came out from prison, I found out that there was no going back. I decided to join the armed robbery gang to earn a living. I am married and blessed with three children. I lost my wife, Mary in 2012 while my three children are in Canada. Luck however ran out on them when the Anambra state police arrested an alleged member of their gang, Vincent, in Onitsha who revealed information to the police. Investigations by the police led to the arrest of Obafemi on May 17th at a hotel in Anambra. The police will charge him and his accomplices to court soon. Source: The Sun The crisis rocking the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is far from over if feelers from the national secretariat of the party in Abuja, known as the Wadata Plaza, is anything to go by. The immediate past chairman of the PDP, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, has reportedly stormed the Wadata Plaza to take over the affairs of the party. He was, however, prevented from gaining entrance to the secretariat by security operatives. The Board of Trustees of the PDP last week formally handed over the running of the party to the national caretaker committee headed by Senator Ahmed Makarfi. The caretaker committee was appointed following the dissolution of the Sheriff-led National Working Committee at the e partys national convention held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on May 21, 2016. Former Governor of Nasarawa State now senator representing Nasarawa West, Abdullahi Adamu, has described the recent spate of destruction of oil installations by militant groups in the Niger Delta as grand plan to weaken Nigeria economically and destabilize the country. The Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, the militant group that has claimed the bombing of major oil and gas installations in the region, has vowed to sustain its nefarious activities until it brings Nigeria to its knees. The group has also rejected the federal governments offer of dialogue, insisting on self-rule for the Niger Delta people. Speaking yesterday in Keffi, while fielding questions from reporters at the opening of the 7th Ramadan Symposium organized by the Nasarawa State University, Senator Adamu (Sarkin Yakin Keffi) called on Nigerians to unite and stand behind President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration against divisive tactics. The whole thing is hate mind fixation, the people who are doing this have said it before now that if Jonathan did not win election because he is their own, they will destabilize the government, they said it and it was published in papers and a lot of media carried it, the Senate Committee Chairman on Agriculture said. What they are doing now, yes, Jonathan has lost. Nigerians who voted for Buhari have no regret for Jonathans loss and I want to tell in my little way as a Nigerian, as Senator of the Federal Republic that the federal government is only being restrained by the interest of the innocent. Punch A civil rights organisation, One Environment, has called on President MuhammaduBuhari, to re-enact the popular War Against Indiscipline, to protect the environment and enhance its sustainability. Guardian Ebonyi State suffered another natural disaster at the weekend as heavy downpour wreaked havoc on the capital city of Abakaliki and other areas of the state. Thisday The Federal Government has invited the banks for dialogue in order to chart the way forward. The Sun THE 8th National Assembly will today mark its first anniversary. In this interview, the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki who also marks his one year in office x-rayed the journey so far. Daily Times In fulfillment of her promise to lessen the burden of parents in the academic pursuit of their children and wards, the Lagos State Government has paid the examination fees of 44,005 SSIII Students who sat for this years West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). Daily Trust The Lagos State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, kicked against the appointment of 57 sole administrators for the local governments and council development areas in the state. Leadership Ekiti State governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, has attributed the poor financial condition of the state and his inability to pay workers salaries to the huge debt profile inherited from the immediate past administration. Tribune The Arewa Consultative Forum(ACF) has counselled the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) to give peace a chance, embrace dialogue, as well as stop bombing government facilities. The Nation A proposal to limit the over the counter cash withdrawal by bank customers to N10,000 has been tabled before the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). An undercover police officer working with the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of Lagos State Police Command, Iliasu Saidu (34), recently arrested the ring leader of a suspected four-member car robbery syndicate and cheated death by whiskers after he was shot by the gang leader. He has, however, been praised by the Lagos State governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, for the resilience and doggedness he displayed. Crime Reports learnt that the operative, Iliasu Saidu, (34), sustained an injury on the right leg after he was shot by the leader of the syndicate, one Wale Jamiu a.k.a Ijebu, who, unknown to him, had been monitoring him. But the police operative, despite his gunshot wound, still managed to pick his pistol and shoot the suspect in his right thigh, leading to his arrest. When the information reportedly got to the state governor, he reportedly ordered immediate transfer of the police officer to the Emergency Unit of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) for a comprehensive medical attention. According to information gathered by Crime Reports through a police source, the RRS undercover team had two days before the incident got a lead to a robbery case with the arrest of one Musa Sadiq, a tailor at Obalende area of Lagos Island, who was receiving stolen vehicles from robbers. Most of the vehicles, according to Musa, were sold to buyers in Kaduna and Kano states. The RRS undercover team had reportedly worked on Musa who provided links to the robbery suspects, which made the shot RRS officer to disguise as an intending buyer of a Lexus which was snatched at gunpoint in Okokomaiko, in a bid to arrest the four-member gang. The undercover team reportedly took Musa along with them after tutoring him on how to comport himself and play along with the RRS team. But, as they were devising their plan, their target too was being very careful not to expose his syndicate members. The source further disclosed that after several hours of delay tactics by the robbers aimed at ascertaining the true identity of the buyer, they finally brought the Lexus SUV to Alaba Market to pick the buyer at about 9:00p.m. The source further revealed: Then, the detective told the gang that he should be allowed to drive the car himself. They gave him the car but they were telling him the direction to take. After it was agreed that that he should go and bring money for the vehicle, the RRS operative reportedly informed his colleagues who had positioned themselves in the vicinity of the hotel where the transaction was to take place. But one of the robbers told the ring leader that he suspected that policemen were around the hotel vicinity. By then, the detective was with the ring leader. One by one, the robbers, who were outside the hotel premises started to leave. As the ring leader also made to leave, the detective grabbed him, resulting in an immediate response from his gang members who started shooting while other operatives also engaged them in a shoot-out. Crime Reports source added that it was at this point that one of the robbers shot the detective in the leg while the policeman, in turn, shot the ring leader and eventually arrested him with the SUV. Source: Tribune Nigerians have been urged to speak up against any form of financial recklessness and corruption in high places, federal, state or local administration and wherever it is found. National leader of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who made the call on Sunday, said such is the spirit of June 12 struggle. Mr. Tinubu also drummed up support for the ongoing anti-corruption campaign of the APC-led federal government. In a message he personally signed and issued to reporters yesterday in Lagos to mark the 23rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections, the former Lagos state governor noted that after the struggle in the hands of the PDP-led government, Nigerians got a raw deal. According to him, the seed of democracy was sown during the June 12 struggle of which Chief MKO Abiola remained the spirit and the moving force. Just like in the moving spirit of June 12, Nigerians must speak up against any form financial recklessness and corruption in high places, in their states or local administration and wherever this is found. Beyond speaking against and exposing corruption, Nigerians must speak for and in support of the on-going concerted efforts being coordinated by President Muhammadu Buhari. But, beyond the historic mandate given to the All Progressives Congress, APC is the urgent need to have every citizen be part of the change we want to see. From the streets and crannies, from the classrooms and boardrooms, from the lecture halls and the corridor of power, from the lawmakers, ministers and leading politicians this is a season that demands our contribution, requires we make sacrifice and seeks that we work together towards building a critical mass that will see to the processes of the change vision now unfolding. Nigerians sustained the fervour and the patriotic disposition necessary for a new political culture to take root. However, 16 years after that struggle ended and the military departed, a new kind of struggle began. With a government of the people, by the people and for the people, the desire for rapid development and a disciplined and accountable leadership became an agenda item. But, again desirous of a change, Nigerians were again galvanized into voting the PDP out and voting in the APC with its message and philosophy of change. While appreciating the doggedness of his colleagues in NADECO, Tinubu also called on the pro-democracy activists, the civil society and the professionals who stood up to be military junta in defense of democratic rights of Nigerians to be vigilant and ensure that disgruntled elements and the powers of yesterday, who we overthrew with our votes, do not destroy our democracy. Because a few courageous ones across the broad spectrum of the Nigerian society formed a coalition and lead from the front, the military was unable to get away with its constitutional impunity. Fired on by patriotism, resistant of years of oppressive military dictatorship and willing to do something about the situation Nigerians pushed the limits of civil disobedience against tyranny. By so doing, Nigerians pushed the military out, demanding for democratic governance and since then, there has been no looking back. For many years, China watchers have written about the 50 Cent Army, contractors who are paid RMB0.50 per post to sing the praises of the government in online discussions of corruption, oppression and wrongdoing; but a new report from the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Science paints a radically different picture of Chinese networked social control. While the 50 Cent Army does contribute many posts to Chinese online media, but the major source of social media from fake personas that serves governmental goals is government employees, who make the posts as "extra duty" in addition to their regular jobs 448m posts/year's worth. Rather than trying to rebut expressions of discontent with the status quo, the government employees' leading tactic is merely to change the subject, to areas where they can cheerlead for the Chinese government and its works. The flood of feel-good messages simply drown out the discontented messages. The Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2,000,000 people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people. Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called "50c Party" posts vociferously argue for the government's side in political and policy debates. Indeed, the vast majority of posts openly accused on social media of being 50c argue in this way. Yet, almost no systematic empirical evidence exists for this claim, or, more importantly, for the Chinese regime's strategic objective in pursuing this activity. In the first large scale empirical analysis of this operation, we show how to identify the secretive authors of these posts, the posts written by them, and their content. We estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million social media comments a year. In contrast to prior claims, we show that the Chinese regime's strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We infer that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to regularly distract the public and change the subject, as most of the these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime. We discuss how these results fit with what is known about the Chinese censorship program, and suggest how they may change our broader theoretical understanding of "common knowledge" and information control in authoritarian regimes. How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument [Gary King, Jennifer Pan and Margaret E. Roberts/Harvard Institute for Quantitative Science] Red astroturf: Chinese government makes millions of fake social media posts [Sean Gallagher/Ars Technica] (Image: 2012 China anti-Japanese demonstrations in Beijing, Dong Fang, PD) On this day in 2014, prolific, award-winning and critically acclaimed Nigerian film maker and broadcasting executive, Amaka Igwe was laid to rest at her marital home, in Ndiuche Arondizuogu, Imo State. Igwe won a number of awards in her career, many of which could be found hung up on the staircase and hallways of her office. She kept her more personal awards on her desk. In 2011 Nigeria recognized her substantial efforts and immense contributions to the creative industry by awarding her with the Nigerian National Order of MFR, meaning Member of The Federal Republic of Nigeria. Amaka Igwe died on the 28th of April, 2014, after she suffered an asthma attack in Enugu, was the owner of Top Radio 90.9 Lagos and Amaka Igwe Studios. She is recognized as one of the second generation of filmmakers who pioneered the Video film era of Nigerian cinema, and she remained a prominent figure in the industry until her death in 2014. Wizkid is arguably Nigerias biggest contemporary export to the international music scene. The Ojuelegba raised star is currently on tour with Chris and cant seem to put a foot wrong- until now. FAB magazine has put the superstar on its cover and we can only hazard a guess as to what they were thinking. Well let you decide, was this rad or just razz? Relief has come the way of baby Aisha Mustapha, the baby born with her heart outside the chest wall, as the Yobe State Government has donated the sum of N2.5million for her to undergo a surgical operation. Baby Aisha was born penultimate Sunday at Gonigori village, Gaidam Local Government Area of Yobe State. The infant came to public reckoning when a photo of her in hospital surfaced on the internet with pleas going out to the government and kind-spirited individuals to come to the aid of her parents who are peasants and cannot afford the cost of surgery, which was put at N3million. The Yobe State Governments donation is coming on the heels of the disclosure by Zahra Buhari that her mother and wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, has promised to take up the medical bills of baby Aisha. Confirming the donation of the Yobe State Government, the Chairman, Medical Advisory Council of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital, where baby Aisha is currently admitted, Dr. Mohammed Bashir Tahir, said that the governor has just spoken personally to me now. Yobe State Government has donated the sum of N2.5million for the treatment of the baby. This is a very good gesture coming from the Yobe State Government and we are pleased with this kind of intervention, Dr. Bashir said on Monday. He also confirmed that Mrs. Buhari has promised to take care of the cost of the operations. We hope to fly the baby to Ghana for the surgery tomorrow (Tuesday) Gods willing, said Bashir. Omar Mateen Kept On By G4S, In UN Global Compact, Any UNSC Statement? By Matthew Russell Lee UNITED NATIONS, June 12 -- The killer in Orlando, Omar Mateen, worked since 2007 at private military contractor G4S. A co-worker there is quoted that it was quite apparent that the guy had anger issues and was very unstable -- but G4S kept him on. G4S is a member of the UN Global Compact, and when Inner City Press asked the UN why this mercenary firm was a member, the response was the business is not illegal. How about, irresponsible? Ban Ki-moon issued a short canned statement, but as of 10 pm, the UN Security Council had not. Many countries had, and one wondered if the UNSC would. It'd be up to the United States. Watch this site. The UN Global Compact allows companies to claim affiliation with the United Nations as long as their practices are not illegal -- and even then, the Global Compact put on its board of directors a South Korean businessman convicted of fraud with the SK Group, Chey Tae-won. On March 15, Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Martin Nesirky if Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has any problem with his Global Compact allowing the company G4S to join, despite it being a private military contractors which has even supplied security technology to seven Israeli prisons and two remand prisons located in Israel and on the occupied West Bank. Nesirky's response was to say that Ban has confidence in long time Global Compact director Georg Kell. But G4S reportedly faced prosecution for the death of an Angolan deportee in the UK - click here for that. Subsequently, Kell's and the Compact's spokesman Matthias Stausberg sent Inner City Press a previously put out response to criticism of the Compact by the UN's own Joint Inspection Unit. Inner City Press replied: At the noon briefing I asked about the Global Compact accepting private military contractor G4S into the Compact, despite protests about its involvement in, for example, prisons in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This is what I am requesting a Secretariat response on, for example this link. Please advise, thank in advance. Stausberg asked for more time to respond -- therefore this couldn't be included in the initial story -- and subsequently on this point wrote to Inner City Press that the provision of private security services is not an illegal activity. We therefore saw no reason to deny G4S participation in the UN Global Compact. In fairness, Stausberg's full response, praising and defending G4S, is set forth below. While he raises a question about the term mercenaries, we note that private military contractors, and even forms of mercenaries, are not illegal either. Here is the question: should the only standard applied by and to the UN Global Compact be whether an activity is legal? Manufacturing weapons is legal, as is the production of pornography. Would the UN Global Compact allow pornographers and weapons merchants to join? Apparently yes. In any event, as to G4S, note that Scotland Yard is considering bringing a corporate manslaughter charge [under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007] against the world's largest private security firm over the death of an Angolan deportee. Detectives investigating the death of Jimmy Mubenga, who collapsed while being deported on a commercial flight from Heathrow, have interviewed whistleblowers from G4S, the company hired by the government to deport foreign nationals. They are considering whether the company could be held responsible for his death under rarely used legislation that came into force three years ago. Now what will the UN and Global Compact do? Watch this site. Stausberg wrote: Subject: Press Q at noon re Global Compact accepting private military contractor G4S into the Compact From: Matthias Stausberg [at] un.org To: Matthew Lee [at] InnerCityPress.org Cc: Kristen Coco [at] un.org, Farhan Haq [at] un.org, Martin Nesirky [at] un.org, Ursula Wynhoven [at] un.org Hi Matthew, here are some answers for you: Since you use the term "mercenary", can you please clarify (and provide sources) which current G4S activities you believe would qualify under commonly accepted definitions of the term mercenary (e.g., as in the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries)? 2. The provision of private security services is not an illegal activity. We therefore saw no reason to deny G4S participation in the UN Global Compact. 3. Regarding the specific provision of security technology to various clients in Israel and the Occupied Territories, please note the recent announcement by G4S that it will cease providing certain services and technologies through its Israeli subsidiary. (http://english.themarker.com/danish-company-halts-equipment-supply-to-west-bank-in-wake-of-public-protest-1.349239) 4. Please note also that G4S is a signatory to the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers (ICoC), which was launched in November 2010 as a voluntary initiative to improve industry standards and ensuring respect for human rights and humanitarian law by private security service providers. While the ICoC is not intended to replace national regulation and state control, it marks a critical effort to clarify the role of non-state actors in this arena. Ethereum Is Outperforming Stocks And Commodities Wavetraders - 39 minutes ago Ethereum is outperforming stocks and commodities, as we see it forming bullish setup patterns against NASDAQ and GOLD. South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix worries about China future AP - 1 hour ago South Korean computer chipmaker SK Hynix says it might be forced to sell its manufacturing operations in China if a U.S. crackdown on exports of semiconductor technology and manufacturing equipment to... $SPX : 3,859.11 (+1.63%) $DOWI : 31,836.74 (+1.07%) $IUXX : 11,669.99 (+2.10%) Zimbabwe's focus on wheat set to yield biggest-ever harvest AP - Wed Oct 26, 1:35AM CDT Zimbabwe says it's on the brink of its biggest wheat harvest in history, thanks in large part to efforts to overcome food supply problems caused by the war in Ukraine $SPX : 3,859.11 (+1.63%) $DOWI : 31,836.74 (+1.07%) $IUXX : 11,669.99 (+2.10%) Australian health insurer says data of all customers hacked AP - Tue Oct 25, 10:17PM CDT Australias largest health insurer says a cybercriminal has hacked the personal data of all its 4 million customers, as the government introduced legislation that would increase penalties for companies... $SPX : 3,859.11 (+1.63%) $DOWI : 31,836.74 (+1.07%) $IUXX : 11,669.99 (+2.10%) Data released over the weekend provided evidence that the Peoples Bank of China policy has helped Chinas economy find its feet even as a painful transition away from debt-fueled investment continues. Industrial production rose by 6 percent year-over-year in May, while retail sales grew at a 10 percent pace versus the same month in 2015. Urban fixed investment levels were softer than consensus forecasts at an expansion of 9.6 percentthe lowest year-over-year expansion since 2000, helping to send equities in Shanghai lower even though many analysts view slowing investments into industrial sectors that are already operating at overcapacity as a net positive. Investors, however, wonder whether growth levels can be achieved that will support the massive private-sector debt load acquired during the prior credit cycle. In a speech in Shenzen on Saturday, David Lipton, a deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund, reiterated his organizations concern over high private-sector debt levels in China. Cybersecurity merger. In a statement released over the weekend, Symantec Corp. announced it will acquire Blue Coat Systems for more than $4.6 billion in a cash deal. Blue Coat had previously filed for an initial public offering. Greg Clark, CEO of Blue Coat, will become head of the new combined entity as it refocuses on cybersecurity after Symantec spun off its data-storage division in January. Microsoft to Buy LinkedIn. On Monday, Microsoft Corp. announced that LinkedIn Corp. has agreed to merge with the software giant in an all-cash deal valued at more than $26 billion. At $196 per share, the bid represents a nearly 50 percent premium to the closing price of LinkedIns shares on Friday. Management at LinkedIn will remain in place as the corporate networking platform retains its own separate brand and identity. Peru presidential race ends by narrow margin. Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a 77-year-old former central banker, won the Peruvian national election on Friday after rival Keiko Fujimori conceded defeat, despite some remaining ballot challenges. The race was one of the tightest in Perus history. Kuczynski won on a probusiness platform that linked private-sector job creation to government policy. Blackstone raises $5 billion buyout fund. Bloomberg News reported today that Blackstone Group, currently believed to be the largest private equity manager by assets, has raised $5 billion for a new fund that will hold portfolio companies for much longer than usual within the industry. The new fund will focus on stable, deep-value plays in established industries and has accepted capital from long-term investors only, according to sources cited in the report. Yahoo! asset sale hits end game. Multiple media outlets reported today that telecom rivals Verizon Communications and AT&T are expected to submit final bids for Yahoo!s online assets in coming weeks. Multiple private equity firms and corporations have been rejected by the embattled firms board in earlier stages of the auction. Major Korean IPO scrapped as investigation begins. An initial public offering for a hotel subsidiary that would have resulted in a flotation of more than $4.5 billion by South Korean firm Lotte Group has been indefinitely delayed. Last week South Korean officials widened their investigation into possible embezzlement within the Lotte empire, which is family controlled. Portfolio Perspective: Shake Off the Hedging Fatigue Jim Strugger, MKM Partners We will take some blame for the hedging fatigue out there. Since late March, we have expected the next cyclical lift in U.S. equity volatility. A couple of different times over that period, we pushed hard on adding portfolio hedges and long volatility exposure. It is a premium that would have gone up in smoke with spot VIX now having remained below the 20 level since then and the Standard & Poors 500 index grinding for a 2 percent gain. Three and a half months marks the longest period of U.S. equity volatility suppression within a high-volatility regime, surpassing a three-month period in 2011. Had VIX collapsed toward levels from the 2012-14 period, VVIX [a volatility of volatility measure] dropped below the 80 level that has been its floor since mid-2014 and volatility across asset classes and geographies similarly broken sharply lower, we would have written a mea culpa and worked to recalibrate our methodology. That has yet to happen. With the U.S. economic expansion at 84 months versus the 95-month average of the last three cycles, it is still more likely than not that volatility broadly remains structurally elevated through an eventual recession and bear market. If so, then we can isolate the length of the recent VIX trough as a high sigma result, but one that cannot be sustained indefinitely. So does that mean Fridays lift in the VIX and VVIX and almost 1 percent drawdown in the SPX was the beginning of the next sustained volatility event? Path dependency of volatility suggests it is a higher probability now than any time over the last few months, but as always, we cannot be sure if it will intensify. That said, we believe investors are unprepared. SPY options open interest is near 24 million and approaching the highs of the last couple years, but the ratio of puts to calls is near lows back to 2009. One of the most active hedging products isnt signaling much demand for protection. VIX futures tell a similar story with net positioning having shifted from a small positive in March to short 103,000 contracts as of the last data point, just 13,000 shy of the record position in 2013. While many see an equity market poised to break out to new all-time highs, our work warns of a dislocation. Even investors in the hedging-fatigue camp should appreciate that following this unusually long period of calm, every volatility impulse has an increasing probability of triggering a high-magnitude event. Jim Strugger is a managing director and derivatives strategist for MKM Partners in Stamford, Connecticut. New Yorks highest court ruled on June 9 that Bank of America must disclose to an insurer communications it had with Countrywide Financial six months before the bank bought the mortgage lending company in 2008. The insurer, Ambac Assurance Corp., claims in a lawsuit that Countrywide illegally misrepresented its mortgage-backed securities. The Court of Appeals ruled attorney-client privilege doesnt shield hundreds of communications between the two institutions and their lawyers from Ambac as it collects evidence for its fraud lawsuit. The court reinstated the order of a judge in Manhattan, where the fraud case is pending. Ambac guaranteed payments on securities issued by Countrywide subsidiaries between 2004 and 2006. Ambac argues that the very communications Bank of America withheld from disclosure would have revealed that the merging entities structured their transaction to conceal Countrywides fraudulent dealings and leave potential victims without recourse, Judge Eugene Pigott Jr. wrote. Defendants respond that there is no evidence of actual abuse in this case. Pigott, writing for the four-judge majority, noted that attorney-client privilege in New York is generally lost when communications are shared with third parties, except when they relate to pending or anticipated litigation such as with co-defendants in criminal cases. He rejected the banks argument that privilege should apply more broadly to any common legal interest, concluding that any benefits of that would be outweighed by lost evidence, along with the potential for abuse. Judges Sheila Abdus-Salaam, Leslie Stein and Eugene Fahey agreed with him. In a dissent, Judge Jenny Rivera wrote theres already a crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege that permits disclosure of communications related to future wrongdoing. A referee in the Countrywide case reviewed and distilled the 366 communications at issue to 110 deemed privileged, she noted. Attorney-client privilege encourages the free flow of information essential to legal representation, Rivera wrote. The majoritys contention that application of the privilege might lead to misuse is purely speculative. Judge Michael Garcia agreed with her. Stephen Younger, attorney for Ambac, said the ruling gives important guidance to courts and litigants on an unsettled question. By reaffirming the litigation requirement, the court struck the right balance between providing common interest protection to the situations where its most needed and denying it where the benefits are marginal and outweighed by the costs to the fact-finding process, he said. Calls to Jonathan Rosenberg, attorney for Bank of America, were not immediately returned. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Fraud New York The Bellevue, Ohio Police Department reported that Ashley England, Mary Jordan, and Sammie Whaley were arrested on June 8 for assaulting a female McDonald's employee in the parking lot "because she was working too slowly when dealing with three woman and their family and friends from Sandusky Ohio." Jordan (left) and England (right) hammed it up during the mugshots. All three women have pleaded not guilty multiple charges. England was charged with assault, theft and child endangerment. Jordan was charged with assault and child endangerment. England and Jordan's child endangerment charges are due to the fact they had their children present with them and participating in the incident. Whaley was also charged with assault. Pennsylvanias utility regulators voted on June 9 to reconsider the record-setting $11.4 million fine they imposed on ride-hailing company Uber. The Public Utility Commission fined San Francisco-based Uber in April for operating in Pennsylvania for six months in 2014 without the required approval. Uber contends the amount of the fine is unreasonable. Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and Pittsburgh-area officials have asked the commission to greatly reduce the fine, saying it could discourage innovative companies from investing in Pennsylvania. They noted Uber has picked Pittsburgh as its world headquarters for advanced technology research and for testing self-driven vehicles. The commission voted on June 9 to conduct a rehearing of the matter. Uber has argued that it successfully filled a void in the states transportation infrastructure. It wants the fine recalculated using the number of days it violated state authority, not the number of trips it provided. The commission, which regulates buses and taxis in all counties except Philadelphia, approved a fine considerably lower than the $50 million recommended by a pair of administrative law judges in November, but its still the largest in commission history. The fine also far surpasses the $250,000 fine issued to Ubers main competitor, Lyft, for similar violations. Uber employs private drivers who use their own cars to give people rides. The commission said it had concerns because there was no uniform way to ensure vehicle safety or to determine whose insurance would cover damages in an accident. The commission has since granted Uber and Lyft temporary operating licenses everywhere but Philadelphia, which is out of its jurisdiction. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Pennsylvania A successful chief financial officer needs to be collegial, cooperative, highly visible and a strategic thinker who has the ability to view corporate risks holistically, according to Jonathan Reiss, CFO of Bermuda-based Hamilton Insurance Group. In addition to assessing underwriting portfolio and investment risks, Reiss said the job of the CFO should be a lot broader, examining the effects on the company of cyber attacks or changes in laws, regulations or taxes. The CFO needs to examine any changes that could affect the companys external environment and cause a rethink of its global footprint and in what jurisdictions it operates, he said in a recent interview, when he discussed his profession and career. Theres a lot more stress in the regulatory climate, and I think the CFO has to be on top of that, even if the company has a chief compliance officer or a whole compliance department, he added. If I see areas where we need to improve that are outside what you might think of as a CFOs domain, theyre still of concern to me. I consider myself first and foremost as a member of a team that manages the whole business. I dont consider myself stuck in a silo. I personally view a CFOs role as being very aligned with the chief risk officer role, he said, noting that, as a result, he works very closely with Hamilton Groups CRO Peter Skerlj on Hamiltons capital management, including internal and external reinsurance arrangements. Reinsurance buying has a big impact on capital management, and a critical role of the CFO is capital management. As a result, thats something I am very attuned with, as is Peter. Reiss has worked as a CFO since 2012, when he left a 19-year career at Ernst &Young (now called EY), where he ultimately became leader of EYs Bermuda insurance and reinsurance practice. He enjoyed his EY experience, particularly facilitating a group of Bermuda startups, which he said prepared him well for his current role. Not only did he work closely with many CFOs during his EY career, but he also was involved with three initial public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. There were big companies that formed after 9/11 and again after Katrina, and I was a close adviser for many of those companies, Reiss said. As a result of these experiences, by 2012, Reiss said he had a very clear vision of how I would go about setting up a finance function and creating best practices. This is why he decided to join a startup reinsurance companySAC Rein 2012. SAC Re was purchased in 2013 by a consortium led by Brian Duperreault, Hamilton Groups chairman and CEO, and the founders of Two Sigma Investments. Renamed Hamilton Re, it is now part of Hamilton Insurance Group. Ive really enjoyed bringing all of my experience to bear and helping to shape Hamilton; its been a real pleasure. Hamilton Group in Brief Previous Experience: 1993-2012: EY Bermuda and New York City, leader of insurance and reinsurance practice in Bermuda (2006-2012); named partner in 2000. 2012-Present: CFO Hamilton Insurance Group (and predecessor company, SAC Re). Hamilton Group has three financial platforms: in Bermuda (where Hamilton Re is located), at Lloyds and its Princeton, N.J.-based insurance business. Each platform has its own finance leader who reports into the platforms chief executive officer, but they also have dotted-line reporting into Reiss. Our teamand the broader team tooare responsible for making sure that Hamilton achieves its mission. That to me is core, he said. If I see areas where we need to improve that are outside what you might think of as a CFOs domain, theyre still of concern to me, he said. I consider myself first and foremost as a member of a team that manages the whole business. I dont consider myself stuck in a silo. At the group level, Hamilton has an executive team of eight members, including Duperreault. Because the company is smaller and relatively new, he said it does not have a treasurer or a chief investment officer, and it significantly outsources its investment function. This is mostly handled by Two Sigma, the New York-based technology and asset management firm. This arrangement works very well for us, and weve had good results so far. Collegial and Cooperative Reiss likes the fact that the Hamilton team is collegial and cooperative. We really work closely together. I dont feel like I have to solve problems by myself, Reiss said, noting that he feels very supported, which provides a great deal of comfort. I have colleagues around me who are so good at what they do and understand the importance of the things a CFO needs to be a success. Having a cohesive team is a luxury that I have at Hamilton, he said. Building Relationships Reiss said one of his most important roles is to build relationships between Hamilton and its various key external stakeholders, such as shareholders, clients, intermediaries, rating agencies, regulators and bankers, which are critical to our success. If Im doing a good job, then the trust between Hamilton and all those parties will be very, very strong, he said. Trust is earned by being very transparent and being proactive in managing relationships and understanding the information that people need to know about Hamilton, Reiss emphasized. We as an organization could have needs from these other parties, and if the trust is high, as it should be, well be able to accomplish more things. Successful CFOs A successful CFO must be a good leader, and good leaders have a lot of self-awareness and have good people skills, he affirmed. I like to think Im calm, Reiss said. Its very important when things dont go right that the leader remains calm. In addition, he said, a good leader needs to be collaborative and a good delegator. These softer skills are even more important than many of the other skills you could imagine a CFO needs. When asked about what he likes about being a CFO, Reiss said, first, the job always changes and no day is a typical day, which makes it interesting. He travels a lot between Bermuda and Princeton, London and New York. In fact, he would rather travel just a little less frequently. Reiss also loves the fact that being a CFO is a people job. Deep down there is the accounting nerd in me, and I do like rolling up my sleeves and solving a problem with a spreadsheet, but thats not where I spend most of my time, he confirmed. I spend most of my time talking to peopleto my colleagues and with various external [stakeholders]. Im on the phone a lot, in meetings a lot, and I help colleagues with their daily challenges, he said. I enjoy the diversity of that and the fact that this really is a people job. What accomplishment is Reiss most proud of during his career? In addition to working with the startups that he helped launch during his EY career, he said he is proud of the [finance] team weve assembled at Hamilton. I think one of my strengths is Im pretty good at identifying the right people who are a good fit for the job, he said. Im most proud of the finance people Hamilton has, many of whom I personally hired. Theyre all doing extremely well. Career Bravery But he wouldnt have gotten where he isat Hamiltonwithout taking a few risks. If you work hard, opportunities are going to come along, and you have to be brave and take a chance, Reiss said. He pointed to two such times in his own career where he grabbed opportunities that required some bravery, noting that both have panned out really well. The first was back in 1996 when he was a manager at EY. I took the opportunity to transfer from Bermuda to EYs New York insurance practicea move that really catapulted my career. Reiss said his stint in New York really broadened his horizons. This included experience with mergers and acquisitions, the nuances of the U.S. insurance regulatory framework, as well as U.S. insurance statutory accounting. Very shortly after returning to Bermuda, Reiss became an EY partner, he reported. The second career-defining move was when he decided to leave EY in 2012. That was a brave decision really. I remember my wife was very concerned. I left a very secure, great job and a great career where I was an insurance industry leader. But thanks to that move (to PAC Re and later Hamilton), I became part of the founding management team of Hamilton. Ive never looked back, and Im really enjoying the job. It was a fantastic decision. Indeed, Reiss said it has been a real privilege to work directly for Brian Duperreault. (Duperreault, a member of the Insurance Hall of Fame, has held executive positions at Marsh & McLennan Cos., ACE Limited and American Insurance Group.) Empowering Your People Reiss likes to quote Duperreault, who often says dont be afraid to make a mistake and the worst decision is no decision.' This is such a great leadership lesson from Brian, who in essence is saying, You need to empower your people. You need to make sure theyre not afraid to make mistakes,' Reiss noted. He is such an icon of the industry, it would be easy to make the mistake of wanting to check with him [about decisions youre about to make], Reiss commented. But he has empowered us to get on with our jobsand thats a lesson for me about how I treat people who report to me. Its important to tell your people not to be afraid to make a mistake, he said. You also dont want people to be afraid to tell you theyve made a mistake. As a leader, youve got to break down those barriers. But Reiss recalled that Duperreault also goes on to say: If youve made a mistake, tell me how youre going to fix it. Once youve made a mistake, let people know and let them know how you plan to fix it. Be proactive. This is Brian Duperreaults style of leadership. Its very effective, and its a great lesson that he has passed on. Reiss not only has a great deal of enthusiasm about working at Hamilton, he also thinks the industry provides a great career for younger people today. Looking Back His career choice was almost a fait accomplihis father was in the insurance business and, of course, financial services is the business of Bermuda where he grew up. After an internship with Texacos captive insurance company, he decided to become a certified public accountant, which he accomplished in 1993 after he started his job at Ernst & Young. Moving from strength to strength at the accounting firm, he became a partner in 2000 and leader of the insurance practice in Bermuda in 2006. One of the worst times he has faced during his career was related to the economic downturn, which affected the whole world and, of course, Bermuda. For me that was the time in my career that I didnt enjoy. For my whole career I was working at EY in a booming environment, and then we had this downturn, which affected all the Big Four accounting firms in Bermuda. At EY we had to let some very good, hardworking people go. While I am happy that that only happened once in my career, Ill work very hard to make sure Im not in that position again. In a post-financial-crisis world, Reiss admitted that younger people in Bermuda are having a harder time finding entry-level roles. But getting a professional qualificationsuch as becoming a CPA, a lawyer or an actuarywill give them an edge. When any young Bermudian asks me for career advice, I always recommend they get into the industry as fast as possible and try to secure a professional qualification. You want to be able to join a company that allows you to get work experience and at the same time gives you the time and credit for furthering your qualifications with a professional designation. Power of Networking Reiss emphasized the power and importance of networking to a young persons career, which is something he wishes he had learned a little earlier. Im not talking about having an extra few hundred followers on LinkedIn. Im talking about real interpersonal networking, he said. Its a big world, but the industry is not that big. You meet people over and over again. The power of networking is vital, he continued. If I was giving advice to young professionals, Id tell them dont be afraid to reach out to more senior figures in the industry and get to know them. Try to make a positive impression and then follow up with them. It will really benefit you in the long run. A version of this article first appeared in Insurance Journals sister publication, Carrier Management, which recently published a group of articles on CFOs in the re/insurance industry, with links listed below. Related: Topics Legislation New York Reinsurance XL Catlin has appointed Lloyd Haynes as senior underwriter, International Casualty, covering the Asia Pacific market, based in Singapore. Haynes has worked in the insurance industry for more than 10 years. He joins XL Catlin from Allied World Assurance Co. where he was assistant vice president for General Casualty and the key driver for the growth of the Singapore operations liability portfolio, specializing in energy liability, construction liability, product liability/recall and large complex risks. Haynes started his career in London in 2005 with QBE Europe/DAC 386 Syndicate working on various International Liability accounts before moving to Singapore in 2012. XL Catlin provides public and product liability insurance to a wide range of clients across Asia Pacific and globally, operating in various sectors including agriculture, construction, energy/utilities, food & beverage, hospitality, infrastructure, logistics, manufacturing, real estate, retail/wholesale and service industries, commented Daniel Fay, regional product leader, International Casualty, Insurance Asia. These clients make significant contributions to local economies and having the right insurance coverage in place can be critical to their ongoing success. Given Lloyds broad experience underwriting international, complex and specialist casualty business in Asia Pacific, I believe he is well-positioned to address these clients evolving needs, added Fay. The risk our clients face are morphing and developing at a rapid pace; a situation brought about by the globalized nature of trade. In order to respond to our clients needs today and tomorrow, we need a varied blend of skills, people and mind-sets, said David Guest, country manager, Singapore, Insurance and Regional Leader for Crisis Management, Asia Pacific. I believe that Lloyd has exactly the right expertise and is a great addition to the team here in Asia Pacific, he added. Source: XL Catlin Topics AXA XL Casualty North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm has fined an insurance firm that sold crop insurance in that state and ordered restitution to farmers. The North Dakota Insurance Department announced the multi-layered disciplinary action against The Climate Corporation a/k/a The Climate Insurance Agency (formerly known as Weatherbill), a licensed business insurance entity that sold crop insurance products in the state from 2011 to 2014. The commissioners consent order requires a total of $738,106 be credited to approximately 150 farmer customers in the form of premium return and premium waivers. Farmers will receive $485,948 to return previously paid premiums and any that still owe premium will be given waivers totaling $252,158. Additionally, the company must pay a $150,000 fine. According to the commissioners order, the company misrepresented their producers as agents for the insureds and misrepresented the products they were selling as well. The order also states that at least 100 farmers who purchased coverage from the company had historically low yields and profits during the 2012 growing season but received no money from the insurance product they had purchased. The Climate Insurance Agency also offered to reduce premiums for insureds who complained about the unsatisfactory performance of the insurance product. Such offers are generally not permitted North Dakota, with certain exceptions. I am satisfied we were able to come to an agreement with the company on our numerous concerns with this product and the manner in which it was sold, said Hamm. The payments I have ordered in combination with the premium waivers and the fine are an appropriate response to the confusion and frustration caused by the actions of the company. The consent order is: File No. AG-16-600. Source: North Dakota Insurance Department Topics Agribusiness An Oklahoma man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for insurance fraud. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt announced that LaTroy Staglin was sentenced after being convicted on nine felony counts of submitting a false claim for insurance. According to the AGs office, Staglin operated under many aliases. He would wait in various store parking lots around the Oklahoma City metro area, and intentionally cause wrecks that resulted in the other party paying for his false insurance claim. Many of Staglins victims were elderly, indicating that he may have been targeting them because of their age, the AG said. Video surveillance from some parking lots showed that Staglin would drive up and down the aisles of parking lots looking for the opportunity to engage in an accident with someone reversing out of a parking spot. In many instances, the victims also stated that the damage to the vehicles that Staglin was driving did not match the damage that could have been caused in the parking lot wrecks. Staglin repeated these tactics with an increasing frequency from August 2014 to January 2015. He was also convicted and sentenced to a prison term in 2009 for committing the same type of fraud. Staglin was investigated by the Workers Compensation, Social Security, and Insurance Fraud Unit of the attorney generals office. The unit investigates and prosecutes fraud on the part of claimants, doctors, attorneys and insurance companies. The unit also provides education and training about workers compensation fraud. Source: Oklahoma AGs Office Topics Fraud Oklahoma A Central Texas chiropractor must serve 14 years in prison and repay the U.S. government nearly $18 million in a workers compensation referral scam. Prosecutors say Garry Wayne Craighead of Leander ran clinics mainly treating injured U.S. Postal Service workers covered by the Federal Employees Compensation Act. Craighead was sentenced by a federal judge in Austin. The 49-year-old Craighead in December pleaded guilty to solicitation and receipt of illegal remunerations in federal health programs and to engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. Craighead operated clinics in Austin, San Antonio, Killeen, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Fort Worth and Weslaco. Authorities say Craighead, from 2008 through 2015, solicited and received kickbacks from health care providers in return for referring patients to those businesses for services. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Texas Workers' Compensation West Virginia environmental officials say they struck a $300 million-plus deal for mine cleanup with bankrupt coal giant Alpha Natural Resources. The Department of Environmental Protection said the agreement would cover bonding and reclamation at all the companys active and former mine sites. DEP says the surety bonds Alpha posted to obtain mining permits would remain. Alpha would post $100 million in penal bonds for active and inactive mines. The company would post $39 million in letters of credit or cash bonds as additional assurances for reclamation and water projects at remaining sites. For reclamation and water treatment, Alpha would also spend $109 million over 10 years and its buyer of Wyoming operations would add $50 million over five years. Up to another $50 million from Alpha would be guaranteed. The plan requires several layers of approval. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Virginia Mining A company that manufactures passenger-carrying drones will be testing its system in Nevada. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that EHang Inc., which is headquartered in Guangzhou, China, is partnering with the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems to test and develop the smartphone-directed drone service. In EHangs drones, passengers would enter a destination into the systems accompanying app and then take off in the autonomous vehicle. Institute officials announced the partnership last week, saying EHang will initially just move a small crew to the state for testing. They say it is too early to say whether the company will eventually establish a more permanent presence in the state. EHang expects to begin testing in Nevada later this year. Related: Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Training Development The husband of a Portland, Ore. woman killed when a tree slammed into their house has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the owners of the home next door. The lawsuit states that Dennis Elleson feared the Douglas fir would fall on his place, and asked for it to be removed in early 2015. The tree stood until December, when it crashed through the roof during a massive rainstorm and pinned Roberta Elleson while she was in bed. Besides her husband, she was survived by her three adult children and five grandchildren. The lawsuit filed last week in Multnomah County seeks $3 million. The defendants could not immediately be reached for a response. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits Oregon Phoenix, AZ, June 13, 2016 tKg Wholesale Brokerage has embarked on a major expansion of its Transportation Division. Under the leadership of Ed Havermann, the Transportation Division is poised to become one of the largest wholesalers of transportation products in the United States. tKgs Transportation Division is based in Kansas City, Mo. and will utilize tKgs industry leading technology to meet the transportation coverage needs of the marketplace. Areas of focus include: Commercial Auto (Contractors, Service, Manufacturing, and more) Local, Intermediate, Long Haul Trucking Mono-Line Truckers Physical Damage Mono-Line Motor Truck Cargo Excess Auto Buffer Layers Contingent Cargo Dealers Open Lot Mono-line hired/non-owned liability Mr. Havermann most recently managed the transportation division of a major wholesaler, where he guided the division through several years of tremendous growth. James Keating, CEO of tKg Wholesale Brokerage said, Eds decision to join tKg is indicative of the increasing strength of our organization. Already the finest, we are well on our way to becoming one of the industrys largest independent wholesalers. About tKg Wholesale Brokerage Founded in 2004, tKg Wholesale Brokerage, a member of Keating Companies, is one of the fastest-growing independent wholesalers in the country. By year end 2016, tKg will have surpassed $1 billion in gross written premiums. tKg is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, with offices in Boston, Kansas City, and Southern California. With our proprietary technology platform, designed around the needs of our producers, we are uniquely positioned to provide more efficient, and effective, solutions to our business partners. Our Casualty, Transportation, Workers Compensation, Professional Liability, and Small Business divisions cover many markets that traditional wholesalers do not. We are respected for our integrity, technical expertise, strategic market relationships, and salesmanship. tKg. Exceptional Wholesaler. Exceptional Results. www.tKgins.com Media Contact: Brian Frey 602-325-5549 bfrey@tkgins.com Topics Agencies Real cowboy Robert Borba was in the parking lot at an Eagle Point, Oregon Wal-Mart when he heard a woman yelling that someone was riding off on her bicycle. So Borba grabbed his trusty steed Old Grey from his trailer and took off after the suspected thief. "I just roped him and the rope went down around his feet and I just rode off like I would if I'd roped a cow or something by myself" Borba told KOBI-TV news. "Stealing ain't right so I figured get him stopped you know?" Police arrested the suspect, Victorino Sanchez, and charged him with theft. Un ottobre da sogno per Antonio Conte: lex ct della Nazionale italiana, attualmente alla guida del Chelsea, nelle ultime quattro gare di Premier League ha collezionato solo successi, conditi da 11 reti segnate e addirittura nessuna incassata. Numeri da record che non sono certo passati inosservati alla Federazione inglese, la quale ha conferito al tecnico leccese lambito premio di Manager del mese. Unavventura oltremanica iniziata in sordina, quella di Conte, pur a fronte di tre vittorie nelle prime tre gare di campionato. A far vacillare, anche se solo per un momento, le certezze del patron del club londinese, Roman Abramovich, i risultati conseguiti tra la 4a e la 6a giornata, coincisi con un pareggio sul campo dello Swansea City e, soprattutto, con le due pesanti sconfitte subite dal Liverpool, sul terreno casalingo di Stamford Bridge, e dallArsenal. In particolare, la debacle interna coi Reds, aveva irritato non poco il numero uno russo, poiche occorsa proprio nel giorno della sua 250esima partita da presidente della societa. Come detto, solo un momento. Dopo lincontro dellEmirates, il tecnico salentino cambia modulo, adottando un piu equilibrato 3-4-3 e inserendo elementi di corsa come lo spagnolo Pedro. Una svolta totale perche, di li in poi, il Chelsea inanellera solo e soltanto vittorie: 2 gol allHull City e al Southampton in trasferta, 3 ai campioni dInghilterra del Leicester e 4 allo United in casa, con un meraviglioso numero zero nella casella delle reti subite. Un fantastico poker, ottenuto tra l1 e il 29 ottobre. Un cambio di marcia sbalorditivo, confermato dal 5 a 0 rifilato ai toffees dellEverton nel primo match di novembre, e una scalata che, man mano, ha portato i blues al secondo posto in classifica, a soli 2 punti dal Liverpool capolista. E allora, non poteva mancare il riconoscimento di migliore allenatore del mese, ottenuto surclassando tecnici del calibro di Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Arsene Wenger (Arsenal) e Mark Hughes (Southampton). Tanta, ovviamente, la soddisfazione: E un grande onore e voglio condividerlo con i giocatori e con la societa ha dichiarato Conte sul sito ufficiale della Premier League -. E la prima volta che lavoro in un altro Paese, con una cultura diversa, e portare la propria filosofia non e facile, ma ora sono contento di questa scelta. A completare la festa, la premiazione del fantasista belga, Eden Hazard, come miglior giocatore di ottobre. Due risultati importanti per il club, ottimo incentivo per la rincorsa al trono dei campioni, occupato dal Leicester di Ranieri. Il prossimo appuntamento per l11 di Conte sara al Riverside Stadium, tana del Middlesborough neopromosso. Il tempo di festeggiare e gia finito. Economic sanctions are penalties levied against a country, its officials or private citizens, either as punishment or in an effort to provide disincentives for the targeted policies and actions. Economic sanctions can range from travel bans and export restrictions to trade embargoes and asset seizures. By definition, such sanctions apply to parties not readily subject to law enforcement by the sanctioning jurisdiction. Economic sanctions provide a policy tool short of military force for punishing or forestalling objectionable actions. They're widely applicable beyond the sanctioning country's borders and can be costly to their targets amid increased global trade and economic interdependence. Economic sanctions can also be a blunt and ineffective policy tool, imposing insufficient costs on the targeted governments and disproportionate ones on their most vulnerable populations. As the world's largest economy and largest trade bloc, the U.S. and the European Union have disproportionate sanctions powers at their disposal. 1:46 Click Play to Learn How Economic Sanctions Work Sanctions Can Take Many Forms Economic sanctions can be imposed unilaterally by a single country or multilaterally by a group of countries or an international organization. Sanctions measures include: Embargoes A trade embargo is a broad ban on trading with a country, though it can sometime include exceptions for the supply of food and medicines on humanitarian grounds. Cuba, Iran, and North Korea have long been subject to U.S. trade embargoes. Iran, and North Korea have long been subject to U.S. trade embargoes. Export controls Export restrictions bar the supply of specified products, services and intellectual property to targeted countries. They often restrict sales of weapons, technology with military applications or, as currently for Russia, oil drilling technologies and equipment. Capital controls Capital controls can restrict investment in targeted countries or industries, or broadly bar access to international capital markets for a country's issuers. Trade sanctions Trade sanctions can include import controls for specific countries, regions or industries. Asset freezes or seizures Assets within sanctioning jurisdictions can be seized or frozen, preventing their sale or withdrawal Travel restrictions Officials and private citizens as well as immediate family members may be denied travel access to sanctioning jurisdictions. Sanctions Examples Economic sanctions include restrictions on U.S. imports from China's Xinjiang region imposed for human rights abuses committed against Uighurs. The U.S. and the European Union also imposed sanctions against Russian officials, industries, and companies following Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and again in 2022 when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Economic sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa were often credited as a contributing factor in the peaceful transition to majority rule there. Sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, on the other hand, failed to end his rule and were called by some a "humanitarian disaster." The Bottom Line The success of sanctions can be measured by the achievement of the desired policy goals, or simply by their cost to the targeted countries and individuals, if punishment is the aim. They can also impose costs on the targeted country's citizens as well as the sanctioning country's companies. If the goal is to change the behavior of targeted countries and individuals, their incentives and options will ultimately matter at least as much as the sanctioning powers' leverage. Apple (AAPL) is one of the most valuable companies in the U.S. with a market cap of over $2.75 trillion as of March 2022. A big part of its success has come from its ability to be a true innovator in personal technology. Millions of customers are willing to pay top dollar for the quality, design, and features of Apple devices, making products like the iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, and Apple Watch top sellers. To achieve this greatness though, Apple doesn't depend on its own manufacturing alone. It has over 200 suppliers that it relies on for procuring components for assembly. Key Takeaways Apple releases a supplier list annually. Apple has established high standards for managing supplier relationships. Apples 2021 suppliers list reports on 200 suppliers and shows 615 production facilities. Apple puts a great deal of effort into the monitoring of its suppliers. Relationships that help to make the tech giant a manager of one of the most efficient supply-chain management systems on the market right now. Each year it releases a progress report outlining its supplier relationship efforts as well as a list of its top 200 suppliers, which account for 98% of its procurement. Below discusses nine of the most prominent. Taiwan Taiwan is one of Apples top supplier regions, but this is somewhat of a smokescreen. 1 Hon Hai Precision Industry: Foxconn (HNHPF) Hon Hai Foxconn is one of the major reasons that Taiwan is on the map for Apple. Foxconn is one of Apples oldest and largest suppliers. The company has its headquarters in Tucheng, New Taipei City. However, while being based in Taiwan, Foxconn is often thought of as Apples largest China supplier because of its vast number of Chinese supplier locations. In 2018, Foxconn had 35 supplier locations servicing Apple from Taiwan, China, India, Brazil, Vietnam, and the United States, and 29 of its 35 locations are in China. By 2021, Foxconn also helped Apple to branch out to India with one location there, as well as manufacturing in Brazil, eight locations in Mainland China, and one each in Texas and Vietnam. 2 Wistron Wistron is another Taiwan-based company thats also helping Apple expand into India. Wistron has four supplier locations with two in China, one in India, and one in Texas. A focus for Wistron in India has been printed circuit boards for iPhones. 3 Pegatron Pegatron is another company rounding out the Taiwan lineup. It has its headquarters in Taiwan with only one Taiwan supplier location in Taoyuan. Pegatrons other 9 locations include 3 sites in China along with sites in the Australia, Czech Republic, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and the United States. Pegatron is similar to Foxconn in that it provides iPhone assembly. China In general, China is a very important global region for Apple. The 2021 suppliers list shows Chinese and Hong Kong-based suppliers growing to account for a larger share than America and Japan. By physical location, China accounts for 156 of the total 615 production facilities. However, Apple has shared some concern over its dependence on China given the 2020 Coronavirus outbreak as well as the Trump Administrations new tariff rules. 4 Goertek Goertek and Luxshare are two Chinese companies that have been in the Apple supplier spotlight. Both companies agreed to set up productions in Vietnam to improve the manufacturing cost efficiency of the Airpod. Goertek has four supplier locations, three in China and one in Vietnam. The company has its headquarters in Weifang, China. 5 Luxshare Luxshare is also in partnership with Apple for the production of the Airpods. It has four supplier locations with three in China and one in Vietnam. United States Despite its reliance on an international supply chain, Apple is also still very dependent on many companies in the U.S., including 3M (MMM), Broadcom (AVGO), Qualcomm (QCOM), Intel (INTC), Jabil (JBL), On (ON), Micron (MU), and Texas Instruments (TXN). Other U.S. companies also include Qorvo (QRVO), Skyworks (SWKS), and Corning (GLW). 6 Qualcomm (QCOMM) Qualcomm and Intel have made U.S. headlines over fierce legal actions. NASDAQ-listed Qualcomm is a world leader in semiconductor, mobile, and telecom products and services. It is known to supply multiple electronic components to Apple, including envelope power trackers, baseband processors, power management modules, and GSM/CDMA receivers and transceivers. These are various instruments used in device power management systems and in mobile signaling. Qualcomm has also come through for Apple devices, offering necessary modem technology. Modem technology is however at the core of the Apple, Intel, and Qualcomm 504 disputes. Apple announced it was buying Intels smartphone modem business. This led to a lawsuit by Qualcomm which resulted in maintenance of the modem manufacturing relationship for Qualcomm even after the Intel acquisition. 7 Intel (INTC) In July 2019, Apple announced its agreement with Intel to acquire the majority of its smartphone modem business. With the acquisition, Apple broadened its patent ownership and setup a strong plan for 5G development. Moreover, after the acquisition, the Mac used Intel processors, but in late 2020 began transitioning to Apple silicon in Mac computers. On the 2021 supplier list, Intel reports 10 supplier locations, with four locations in the U.S. and others in China, Ireland, Israel, Vietnam, and Malaysia. Other Countries 8 Murata Manufacturing Ltd. (MRAAY) Murata is based in Kyoto, Japan. It supplies to Apple from 18 manufacturing facilities spread across Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and Singapore. It has 10 supplier sites in Japan. Apple and Samsung are Muratas top two clients, procuring ceramic capacitors from the company. These electronic parts are used to control the flow of electricity in electronic devices. 9 Samsung Samsung has its headquarters in South Korea. It supplies multiple components, including flash memory used for storing data content, the mobile DRAM used for multi-tasking various applications in devices, and the application processors responsible for controlling and keeping devices running. Despite being a competitor to Apple in the mobile phone market, Samsung uses its supplier status to reduce its own component manufacturing costs via bulk production. Supplier Relationships Apple is known to maintain one of the best-managed supply-chains in the world. Using its stature and global reach, the tech giant is able to demand high-quality products and impose stricter terms on its suppliers. When one of Apple's Chinese suppliers of "tactic engines" for the iPhone 7 proved unreliable, for example, the company quickly procured them from Japanese firm Nidec Corp. Apple has hundreds of such suppliers willing to abide by the terms Apple sets forth. What's more, by outsourcing its supply-chain and assembly operations, Apple can do what it does bestconcentrate on designing great products that offer rich functionality and are easy-to-use. On the flip side, being associated with a brand like Apple can be a remarkable boon for a supplier firm. Apart from the small novice firms, who may derive much of their business from Apple, even larger companies like Samsung use the relationship to their advantage. As noted, Samsung continues to compete with Apple in the mobile phone market; however, large orders from Apple allow Samsung to increase bulk production, which reduces manufacturing costs for its own mobile phone components. Another advantage for suppliers is that Apple has a reputation for innovation. Regardless of how specific products have performed and despite missteps that have occurred, people expect Apple to come out with something new on a regular basis and eagerly anticipate these products. To a certain extent, this shields Apple suppliers, who will continue to see new demands for their goods and services. It should be noted, however, that failing to please Apple can spell doomsday for a small or medium-sized supplier that has built its business around Apple product sales. If suppliers do not maintain high-quality goods at the right price, Apple has the positioning to replace them with another competitor. The Bottom Line Apple needs suppliers, and suppliers need Apple. It's a streamlined relationship that is often mutually beneficial, though, at times, it can create tension. Suppliers have major exposure to Apple and its overall market performance. Financial reports of supplier companies are frequently used by market analysts to project sales for Apple products, and Investors also often look to Apples underlying suppliers for insights on Apples performance as well as more granular investment opportunities independently. Apple Inc. (AAPL) is a global technology company that designs, manufactures, and sells smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories. Some of its main products include the iPhone, the Mac line of personal computers and laptops, the iPad, the Apple Watch, and Apple TV. The company also has a fast-growing services business that includes its iCloud cloud service and its digital streaming-content services, such as Apple Music and Apple TV+. Apple was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. The tech giant started out operating from the Jobs' family garage and has since grown into a diversified technology behemoth. Part of Apple's growth strategy has been to purchase small tech companies that it can easily integrate into its expanding line of products. Four years after its founding, on Dec. 12, 1980, Apple went public through an initial public offering (IPO) at $22.00 per share. Its stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. Apple's headquarters is located in Cupertino, Calif. Tim Cook has been chief executive officer (CEO) since 2011. Apple is classified as a member of the information technology sector. It operates within a number of industries, including computer hardware and technology, video streaming, and cloud computing. The company faces numerous competitors, including smartphone manufacturer Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005930), computer manufacturer Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL), video streaming company Netflix Inc. (NFLX), and other giant technology firms like Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). Apple posted net income of $57.4 billion on net sales of $274.5 billion in FY 2020, which ended Sept. 26, 2020. Key Takeaways Apple manufactures smartphones, personal computers, tablets, wearables, and accessories, and offers digital streaming-content services. Apple's rivals include Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005930), Dell Technologies Inc. (DELL), Netflix Inc. (NFLX), and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). Apple earned net income of $57.4 billion on $274.5 billion of net sales in FY 2020. A federal judge ruled in September 2021 that Apple must loosen its App Store restrictions to allow developers to provide links to alternative payment systems. Apple's Recent Developments On June 10, 2022, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, sent a letter to the U.S. Senate in support of the American Data Privacy and Protection Act. If passed, the act would limit data collection by tech firms. On June 6, 2022, Apple's World Wide Developers Conference began. It started off with six major announcements including a two new MacBook designs and new operating systems for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch On May 17, 2022, Apple announced it would be rolling out new accessibility features aimed at helping people with disabilities more easily use its products. On May 5, 2022, Apple, along with Google and Microsoft, announced they were working to expand support for a universal, password-free login for consumers. On May 2, 2022, the European Union announced it was moving forward with an antitrust case against Apple. Among the issues raised is that Apple's Apple Pay program stifles competitors and innovation. On April 28, 2022, Apple released its Q2 FY 2022 financial results. Revenue was $97.3 billion, a 9% year-over-year increase, and earnings per share (EPS) were $1.52, an 8.6% increase. Both numbers exceeded analysts' expectations. On April 27, 2022, Apple announced a that it would begin selling parts, tools, and manuals to help customers make certain repairs to certain iPhone models. On Sept. 10, 2021, a U.S. district judge ordered Apple within 90 days to begin letting developers send customers outside Apple's App Store for payments. Apple won an important partial victory, however, because the judge did not find that Apple had a monopoly on the mobile game market. (See details in Q&A below). Apple briefly became the world's first $3 trillion company during intraday trading on Jan. 3, 2022. The iPhone maker also holds the distinction of being the world's first company to reach $1 trillion and $2 trillion. What's Happening with Antitrust Suits Against Apple? In addition to antitrust litigation related to its App Store, Apple faces several other antitrust lawsuits, including these below. On Oct. 6, 2021, Reuters reported that the European Union (EU) will soon file an antitrust charge against Apple over the company's near-field communication (NFC) chip technology, according to people familiar with the matter. The chip technology allows for tap-and-go payments on iPhones. The charge follows an investigation into Apple Pay launched last year by the EU. The EU looked into whether Apple engaged in anticompetitive behavior by refusing rivals' access to Apple's payment system. The EU's main focus now is the company's NFC chip. On April 30, 2021, the European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator, charged Apple with levying high commission fees in the App Store and prohibiting developers from providing information on alternative ways to use their services. Has AAPL Ever Split Its Stock? Apple's stock has split five times on the dates below: Aug. 28, 2020: a 4-for-1 stock split. June 9, 2014: a 7-for-1 stock split. Feb. 28, 2005: a 2-for-1 stock split. June 21, 2000: a 2-for-1 stock split. June 16, 1987: a 2-for-1 stock split. Does AAPL Pay a Dividend? Yes. Apple pays a quarterly regular cash dividend of $0.22 per share. How Many Shares of AAPL Stock Are There? As of July 16, 2021, Apple had 16,530,166,000 shares outstanding. How Profitable Is Apple? Apple had a net income of $21.7 billion for the quarter that ended June 26, 2021, according to its most recent quarterly filing, which was released on July 28, 2021. That's a 93.2% year-over-year (YOY) increase from the same quarter in 2020. It also reported quarterly revenue of $81.4 billion, a 36.4% YOY increase, and earnings per share of $1.30, a YOY increase of 100%. Who Owns the Most Apple Stock? The biggest individual insider shareholder of Apple is Arthur Levinson, who has been the company's chair of the board since 2011. As of Feb. 2, 2021, Levinson owns 4.5 million shares of Apple stock. The biggest institutional shareholder of Apple is The Vanguard Group, which owns 1.3 billion shares, representing 7.8% of total shares outstanding, according to the company's most recent proxy filing, reflecting the number of shares as of Jan. 5, 2021. Who Invented the Apple iPhone? The late Steve Jobs, co-founder and former chair and CEO of Apple Inc., invented the iPhone with his team of engineers and designers in the early 2000s. Jobs announced the first iPhone in January 2007 at the Macworld conference during an hour-long presentation. After the announcement, Apple scrambled in the following months to turn Jobs' demo phone into a mass-market product. The first iPhone was released to the public in June 2007. Remember in 1988, when South Korea's military dictator created slave-labor camps and kidnapped thousands of homeless children to work in them? Or more recently, when Londoners got surface to air missile embankments on the roofs of their apartment blocks, and the public roads were denied to the public, but opened to sponsors and their cronies? Well, it's four years since London, and Rio gets to avail itself of new, nasty surveillance and control technology. Combine that with a recent coup and literally lethal crackdowns on demonstrations and civil society, and we're heading into a hell of an Olympic season. But if you ask the city's protesters, high school students and favela residents, "safety, peace, celebration and joy" are the last thing on their minds. There is little appetite for the Olympics, as seen in signs at occupied schools and community organizing in favelas in response to forced removals to make way for Olympics facilities. Police have increased violent armed raids in the favelas. Anti-impeachment activists have been met with pepper spray and arrests. And in just the last several weeks, police have increased political repression of school occupations. Students have been occupying schools across Brazil to protest budget cuts to a school system that needs every penny it can get. At one occupation I visiteda school with huge, unused spaces that looked like scenes from a post-apocalypse moviea student told me, "Adults think kids just want to have fun. We know things might not change right away, but we're not doing this for ourselves. We're doing it for the future." They cite overcrowded classes, subjects not being offered, and other problems with the city's ailing schools, and their dedication is obvious. Students told me about one incident where police pointed guns through the gate of their school until they were let in, and tried to arrest a teacher. After facing down students who insisted, "If you arrest one of us, you will have to arrest us all," the police left, but not without taking pictures of everyone present. At other schools, shock troops of military police wearing body armor and toting pepper spray have carried out violent evictions, sometimes without proper legal orders. What's especially disturbing is that to many of the students involved in occupations, this is right in line with their expectations of the police. One student told me that the last time he got beat up by the police he was happy "because they were only using their hands," instead of pistol-whipping him. The Olympics Are Turning Rio into a Military State [Dia Kayyali/Motherboard] (Image: Tropa de choque (PMERJ, 2013)., Fernando Frazao/ABr, CC-BY) If you have a Walmart card in your wallet, you are in luck if you need options to pay your bill. Walmart Stores, Inc. allows multiple payment options for its credit cards, including in-store payments. The multinational retail company has a store-only card and a general use credit card; both card balances can be paid at a retail location. In addition, Walmart cards can also be used at Sam's Club stores although you can't pay your Walmart bill there. However, if you own a Sam's Club card, you can pay at the customer service desk inside its stores. Key Takeaways Walmart offers multiple ways to pay off your Walmart Rewards card. You can now pay bills at the customer service desk of many Walmart stores. The Walmart Bill Pay app allows you to pay your bills ($700 or less per bill) using your phone. Walmart offers a Walmart retail card and a branded credit card from Capital One. Like any credit card, you must pay your balance off in full every payment cycle if you want to avoid paying interest. Payment Options With Walmart Credit Cards Walmart allows its customers to pay credit card balances in a variety of ways. Payments can be made in any Walmart location at the customer service desk. If a consumer is also a Sam's Club member, they can pay at any Sam's Club location. Payments made in the store post to a consumer's credit card account within 48 hours. Walmart cannot look up credit card information in the store, and a physical card is needed to make payment with this method. Another way is to pay a balance directly online using Walmart's portal. Consumers can sign into their Walmart credit card account to pay their balances, which posts within two to three business days. Online payments cannot be set up as recurring and need to be done individually. E-payments can also be made to pay a Walmart credit card balance if you set up directly with your financial institution and select recurring monthly payments. A valid checking account is needed, of course. Consumers can also pay credit card balances by phone. Paying over the phone using its automated method is free but costs $10 if a representative helps you over the phone. Capital One Walmart Rewards Card Walmart offers two types of cards. An in-store only (for Walmart and Sam's Clubs) card and a traditional Mastercard from Capital One. The Walmart Rewards credit card can be a useful way to rack up reward points if you are a regular Walmart customer. If you use your Capital One Rewards at Walmart.com, including delivery and pickup, you can earn 5% cash back on your purchases. Shop in-person at Walmart, plus gas stations, travel venues, and restaurants using your card and earn 2% cash back, plus 1% everywhere else that accepts Mastercard. In addition, for the first 12 months, if you shop at a Walmart store using Walmart Pay on your phone, you can also earn 5% cash back. This zero-annual fee card's balance can be paid off online or via the customer service desk at a Walmart store. Walmart shoppers need a valid checking account with their routing number and account number ready to pay their cards over the phone, or a debit card can also be used. What Is Walmart Bill Pay? Walmart bill pay allows its customers to pay their bills at a Walmart store or online. According to its website, Bill Pay at Walmart, the name of the service, is connected to over 15,000 billers allowing you to pay your mortgage, cable, insurance, and rent (along with other billers) all while shopping at Walmart. The system is "powered by" MoneyGram and CheckFreePay, and Walmart claims that you may be able to have the payments post on the same day you pay them. If you go to Walmart and plan on paying your bills there while you are shopping, you will need to bring in the accountant number and name of the company you are paying, the amount on the bill, and a cash or debit card to pay it with. If you want to pay online, you can use the Walmart Bill Pay app, which will let you pay bills under $700 using your debit card. The Bottom Line If you have a Walmart credit card, you can pay it off in a Walmart store, online, via the Walmart Bill Pay app, or the "old fashioned" way by mailing your payment by way of your local post office. Where Do I Send My Walmart Credit Card Payment? You can send your Walmart credit card to the issuer, Capital One, or you can pay it online, or in a Walmart store. How Do I Pay My Walmart Credit Card Online? You can pay your Walmart credit card online by logging onto your Capital One Walmart Rewards Card account and paying from its portal. How Long Does It Take a Walmart Credit Card Payment to Post? If you pay your Walmart credit card bill at the store, it may post within 48 hours or less. Otherwise, it usually takes two to three business days for a credit card payment to post. When Should You Make a Walmart Credit Card Payment to Avoid Interest? You should make a Walmart credit card payment in the amount of the full balance to avoid interest. Top News - Investor Idea Mullen (NASDAQ: MULN) Continues Acquisition Path With Purchase of ELMS Assets Including Factory in Mishawaka, IN., Enabling EV Production for Retail and Commercial Vehicle Lines BREA, Calif. - October 19, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle ("EV") manufacturer, announces the US Bankruptcy Court approval on Oct. 13th, 2022 of its acquisition of electric vehicle company ELMS's (Electric Last Mile Solutions) assets in an all cash purchase. Top EV Stock News - Investor Idea Breaking EV Stock News: Mullen (NASDAQ: MULN) Announces the I-GO, New Urban Commercial Electric Delivery Vehicle Available Now for European Markets BREA, Calif. - October 24, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), an emerging electric vehicle ("EV") manufacturer, announces today it has secured exclusive sales, distribution and branding rights to the new compact urban delivery electric vehicle, the I-GO, which is fully EU Standard homologated and certified for sale in select European Markets. Top EV Stock News - Investor Idea EV Stocks Driving Higher: (NASDAQ: $MULN) (NASDAQ: $TSLA) (NYSE: $NIO) (NYSE: $F) Vancouver, Delta, BC - October 20, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Investorideas.com, a leading investor news resource covering EV and automotive stocks releases a special report featuring Mullen Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: MULN), covering the continued growth of the EV market as government policy and infrastructure plans sync up with consumer and investor interest in the EV space. Top AI Stock News - Investor Idea Breaking AI Stock News: FatBrain (OTCQB: LZGI) Acquires Confidential Computing Platform ZeroTrust to Protect Data Privacy and Accelerate Innovation for Millions of Growth Businesses NEW YORK, NY - October 19, 2022 (Investorideas.com Newswire) FatBrain AI (LZG International, Inc.) (OTCQB: LZGI), the leader in powerful and easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for star enterprises of tomorrow, has acquired the confidential computing and privacy intellectual property (IP) plus software assets of Zero2A PTE LTD ("ZeroTrust Platform"), a software company based in Singapore. Check out our Podcasts for great investor ideas: Get new posts by email: Subscribe Powered by Investorideas.com Newswire: Subscribe to Investor Ideas Newswire Serves 6 Ingredients: 1 Whole Grain Bread Loaf, crusts removed, sliced cubed 1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil 8 slices bacon, cut into 12 inch pieces 1 large onion, diced 1 26oz can crushed tomatoes, drained 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper 3/4 cup extra sharp cheddar, shredded 3/4 cup mozzarella, shredded 1 green onion, chopped Salt and pepper 6 eggs Method Preheat the oven to 375F/ 190C. In a bowl toss bread and olive oil together, sprinkle with salt and pepper to season. Toss on a sheet pan, bake toast for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a saucepan, cook bacon until browned, about 8 minutes, set aside on a plate with paper towel to drain. Keep about 2 tablespoons of bacon fat in the pan. Add the onion to the pan and cook for 3 minutes, add tomatoes, red pepper and cook for a further 2 minutes. Return all ingredients to a large bowl along with cheeses and scallion. Toss until well combined. Transfer to glass baking dish, cover with foil and bake for about 25 30 minutes. Using a spatula or a cup, press down 6 holes in the bread, break and crack an egg into each indentation. Return to the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes depending on how well done you want your eggs. Scoop out with a spoon and serve immediately. This is great to serve with some hot chilli sauce. Internationally recognized Irish Chef Stuart OKeeffe is a weekly food contributor for Dublins Evening Herald newspaper and in 2011 he debuted his own cooking show, Stuarts Kitchen (airing in Ireland and New Zealand). Currently residing in Los Angeles, he hosts Kitchen Daily 101 on AOL. Stuarts philosophy is to cook hearty but healthy, marrying the old world goodness of Ireland with the abundant fresh offerings of California. Check out Stuart's Facebook page & website for culinary tips, recipes and food travels. Dr Patrick Henry Cronin, a prominent Chicago doctor from County Cork, was murdered in 1889 after he accused the board of the Irish American political organization Clan-na-Gael of embezzling funds. The Chicago media called it "The Crime of the Century." The story of the secret organization and the stabbing of the doctor is one of many tales of murder featured in the book The Bloody Century: True Tales of Murder in 19th Century America. Clan-na-Gael was a secret organization created to promote Irish independence. It was formed to replace the Fenian Brotherhood after it was discredited in the U.S. following an ill-conceived attempt to invade Canada in 1866. Modeled after secret societies like the Freemasons, Clan-na-Gael, which was its public name, was known to its members as the United Brotherhood. It had an estimated 10,000 members. Clan-na-Gael had chapters, known as camps, in every major city, reports MurderbyGaslight.com. The Chicago camp, Camp 20, was the organizations headquarters. At a convention held in Chicago in 1881 Clan-na-Gael formed a five man executive board to run the organization. Soon after, three of the board members Alexander Sullivan of Chicago, Michael Boland of Louisville, and D.S. Freely of Rochester, NY decided to work together and gain control of the organization. These three men became informally known as The Triangle. When Clan-na-Gael was accused of supplying money and men for the Dynamite War, a terrorist campaign in England, The Triangle denied the charge. However, they were unable to account for between $100,000 and $250,000 of the organizations funds. When Dr Cronin, a Clan-na-Gael member, publicly criticized the three men, The Triangle retaliated by accusing him of being a British spy. Patrick Henry Cronin was born in County Cork in 1846 and moved with his family while he was still an infant to Canada. He moved to St Louis at the age of 23. After working as a porter for a wholesale house, Cronin began studying pharmacy. He soon switched to medicine and graduated from the Missouri Medical College. He set up a practice in St Louis, where he joined Clan-na-Gael as well as a number of benevolent groups and secret societies such as Royal Arcanum and Chosen Friends. In 1882 he moved to Chicago, where he joined the Foresters and the Royal League. It was in Chicago that he joined the anti-Triangle faction of Clan-na-Gael and became their spokesman. After The Triangle accused him of being a spy, he was brought to trial before a committee of the organizations members, including Dan Coughlin, a detective in the Chicago police department. Although Cronin was found guilty of treason and expelled from the order, he had attracted a large following within the organization with thousands of members quitting Clan-na-Gael in sympathy and forming their own camps. Leaders of the different factions urged members to move on from the quarrel believing they all needed to work together to realize the goal of Irish independence. Cronin agreed provided The Triangle were fully investigated. A committee of six members, including Cronin, was in charge of investigating The Triangle, but voted four to two that the charges could not be proven. When Cronin threatened to make his notes of the proceedings public, Triangle leader Alexander Sullivan was purportedly heard to say he wanted Cronin removed. On May 4, 1889 a man came to Cronins house in a carriage asking for assistance for an injured worker at OSulliavns ice house. Dr. Cronin had been approached by Patrick OSullivan, owner of an ice house at Lake View, offering him a job as the company physician, and Cronin would respond whenever one of OSullivans employees needed medical attention. Eyewitnesses saw Dr. Cronin leave on May 4 in a carriage pulled by a white horse. He never returned. Soon after, a blood-stained trunk was found north of the city containing what appeared to be strands of the doctors hair, and Cronins friends were convinced he had been murdered. But then he was reportedly seen on a streetcar by a friend late that night, and the sighting was verified by the streetcar conductor. On May 10, the newspapers in Chicago received a dispatch from Toronto claiming that Cronin was in Canada. It said he had admitted to being a British spy and was on his way to England. Then, on May 22, the public works department in Lake View went to investigate a jammed sewer and found Cronins decomposing naked body wedged into the catch basin. He had a bloody towel wrapped around his neck; beneath the towel, he wore an Agnus Dei a Catholic medal depicting the Lamb of God. The coroner found Cronin had five scalp wounds made by a sharp, narrow weapon, possibly an ice pick. Neighbors near OSullivans ice house told investigators that a strange man had rented a cottage nearby and never moved in, although lights sometimes burned inside late at night. When police went into the cottage, they discovered a considerable amount of blood on the front steps and in several of the rooms, and the floor had recently been painted yellow in an attempt to hide the blood. The furniture in the cottage was traced to Revels furniture store. The furniture, as well as the trunk had been rented by a man named J.B. Simmonds. Detectives suspected that Simmonds was actually Pat Cooney, alias The Fox, a companion of OSullivan and Detective Coughlin, and an enemy of Dr Cronin. Police found the horse and carriage had been rented the day of the murder by Detective Dan Coughlin. John Kunze, a friend of Coughlin's, was identified as the man who drove the carriage. On June 29, OSullivan, Coughlin, Cooney, and Kunze were indicted for the murder of Dr. Cronin, along with Frank Burke, Frank Woodruff and John Beggs, members of Camp 20 and associates of Coughlin. At the recommendation of the coroners jury, Alexander Sullivan was also arrested. Sullivan had been arrested for murder in 1876 after he got into a squabble and shot and killed Frank Hanford, the principal of the school where Sullivans wife was teaching. Hanford had accused Mrs. Sullivan of creating dissension on the school board. Alexander Sullivan was acquitted of Hanfords murder after two trials. For the Cronin murder, he was released on $20,000 bail and charges were eventually dropped due to lack of evidence. The Cronin murder trial lasted three and a half months with closing arguments lasting fourteen days. The jury deliberated for 70 hours before issuing the verdicts. John F. Beggs was not guilty; John Kunze was found guilty of manslaughter, and Dan Coughlin, Patrick OSullivan, and Martin Burke were all found guilty of first degree murder. However, Kunze appealed and was granted a new trial which resulted in his acquittal, while Coughlin was granted a new trial on the grounds that two jurors were prejudiced against him and was acquitted on his second trial. Frank Woodruffs case was stricken from the docket due to lack of evidence. Dan Coughlin opened a saloon in Chicago after his release from prison but soon fled to Honduras after he was charged with attempting to bribe jurors in law suits connected with his time as an employee of the Illinois Railway Company. Martin Burke and Patrick OSullivan died in the penitentiary. Nearly 8,000 men, including Hibernians, Clan-na-Gaels, Foresters, and others, marched in Dr Cronins funeral. The procession included several drum corps and a marching band and was one of Chicagos most spectacular funerals. * The Bloody Century: True Tales of Murder in 19th Century America is available on Amazon. Singing Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life, the 10,000 members of the so-called Green and White Army had revelled in seeing their team play in their first major tournament for 30 years. For much of the match, grey clouds loomed ominously overhead, but the mood of the men and women and children with painted faces and green wigs remained jubilant. They chanted: Were not Brazil, were Northern Ireland; Were the Ulster boys making all the noise; and Stand Up for the Ulster-men with gusto and an obvious sense of pride. And as the sun tried to pierce its way through, there were some glimpses of what they had been dreaming of. Alas however, it was not Northern Irelands day, as Poland won 1-0 in Nice. Grace McNeill, 56, from Co Antrim summed up the mood. She said: We didnt get the result we wanted but we had a great day. Well be back again next week. The pre-game atmosphere could have rivalled any of the pop concerts which have been held in the fan zone at Belfasts Titanic Quarter over the past week. Renditions of Neil Diamonds Sweet Caroline filled the air in the docklands where the Titanic was built. And as Galas Freed From Desire, which has been parodied into the anthem Will Griggs On Fire rang out, the rapturous crowd went completely wild. Earlier, even the police got in on the action, playing a rendition of the 90s dance hit through a loud speaker to the thousands of fans waiting to gain entry. Despite predicting a 2-1 win for Northern Ireland, Stewart Garrett, 19, from the Shankill area of Belfast, had a great time. He said: This is the first time I have seen my country in a famous tournament. It is just brilliant. Lyndsay Moore, 24, from Belfast, who had her face painted green and white, said the atmosphere was electric. Its just like being there in France, she said. Meanwhile Derek Ferson, aged 39, from Moneymore, brought his whole family to watch the historic game. It is brilliant. I am so glad I brought the kids to enjoy it. Its the next best thing to being in Nice. Many had the name George Best emblazoned on the back of their shirts, and many sang songs about Northern Irelands greatest player who was never able to play on this stage. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has tonight sent a letter of condolence to US president Barack Obama over the "shocking" loss of life in the Orlando mass shootings, saying "Ireland stands with the US in this time of immeasurable grief", writes Fiachra O Cionnaith - Irish Examiner. Responding to the murder of 50 people and the shooting of 53 more survivors in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday night, the Fine Gael leader said the attack was unthinkable and led to people being "senselessly killed and injured". On Saturday night, a US born gunman identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire at the Pulse nightclub where more than 350 people were enjoying an evening out. In the worst mass shooting in US history, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan murder 50 people and injured 53 others. In a 911 call before he was shot dead by police, the FBI said Mr Mateen pledged his allegiance to Islamic State, although officials cautioned there is no evidence of any direct connection between the attacker and the extremist group. In a letter of condolence to the US tonight, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said what happened was senseless and said Ireland "stands with the US in this time of immeasurable grief". "On behalf of the people and Government of Ireland, I offer our sincere condolences on the shocking loss of life in Orlando today," Mr Kenny wrote in the letter to US president Barack Obama. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of the United States, the community in Orlando and the LGBT community, and above all with the families and loved ones of those so senselessly killed and injured. Once again we have witnessed the horror of young people being attacked as they enjoy themselves in their own community. Words cannot capture the shock and revulsion felt in Ireland, and around the world, at this outrage. Ireland stands with the United States in this time of immeasurable grief," he wrote. Witnesses to America's worst ever mass shooting described their efforts to flee the scene. Omar Mateen killed 50 people in a shooting spree in an Orlando nightclub which had more than 300 people inside. Jackie Smith was sitting with two friends who got shot. She said: "Some guy walked in and started shooting everybody. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance. "I just tried to get out of there." Ms Smith did not know the conditions of her wounded friends. She came out of the hospital and burst into tears. Christine Leinonen drove to Orlando at 4am after learning of the shooting from a friend of her 32-year-old son, Christopher Leinonen, who was at Pulse and is missing. She had not heard from her son and feared the worst. "These are nonsensical killings of our children," she said, sobbing. "They're killing our babies!" She said her son's friend Brandon Wolf survived by hiding in a toilet and running out as the bullets flew. A woman who was outside the club early Sunday was trying to contact her 30-year-old son, Eddie, who texted her when the shooting happened and asked her to call police. He told her he ran into a toilet with other club patrons to hide. He then texted her: "He's coming." "The next text said: 'He has us, and he's in here with us'," Mina Justice said. "That was the last conversation." Barmaid Tiffany Johnson said she initially thought the gunshots were music. But after a second shot, there was a pause, followed by more shots. That was when Ms Johnson realised something was wrong. Ms Johnson said people dropped to the ground and started running out of the club. She ran to a fast-food restaurant across the street and met one of her customers who let her get in his car. They drove away. Clubgoer Rob Rick said the shooting started just as "everybody was drinking their last sip". He estimated more than 100 people were still inside when he heard shots, got on the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth. A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area where only workers are allowed. People were then able to escape through the back of the club. Christopher Hansen said he was in the VIP lounge when he heard gunshots. He continued to hear shooting even after he emerged and saw the wounded being tended across the street. "I was thinking, 'Are you kidding me?' So I just dropped down. I just said, 'Please, please, please, I want to make it out'," he said. "And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don't get shot." If you ever get a chance to end up in Google HQ in Dublin, take the opportunity. It is a great example of the function, design and practicality a building should be. Im reliably informed that the walkway that arches over the street was tested in a Boeing wind tunnel so as not to disrupt the air flow dynamic of Barrow Street. On the outside looking in, people usually see the building as ostentatious. Step inside however, and a different story emerges. The building is designed to connect with the worker. Everything you need is under one roof including a gym, sleeping areas and event spaces. Google expects results, but it also gives its employees the platform to maximise that work. On Saturday, I met a doogler. Google lets some employees bring their dogs to work. They come into the office and become part of the team. None of this is designed for the sake of indulgence. Its all designed to ask yourself one simple question, why would you ever want leave? Startup Weekend is a simple design. You come armed only with an idea and the will to share it. It could be an idea thats been lingering in your mind for while or one which came to you on the Dart on the way here. It doesnt really matter where it comes from, so long as you have the bravery to pitch it in front of a room full of people. The point is that you at least try. If youre lucky enough youll get enough votes to form a team and work on your startup idea over the weekend. From the start on Friday evening, people were working on their pitches. One of the participants told me that she had been practising in the car all the way up from Wicklow. She knew what she was going to say, that is until she got on stage. Things change when you only have 60 seconds to sell your idea. Out of 60 participants, 43 pitched an idea. Ireland is not short of entrepreneurial thinking. Daniel Johnsen was the weekends facilitator. Daniel has flown in from Kentucky to be here for the event. His demeanour is charming and his relaxed attitude adds a sense of calm to the storm. Anybody who presents to a crowd in flip flops is worthy of being part of any startup community. He tells me that hes very impressed. Yall should be very proud of what you have here in Ireland, he says. Ive been to over 30 of these around the world and what you have here is pretty special. You have a community that cares. People want to help startups and be involved. Nothing produces start-ups like community. Having an idea isnt the only prerequisite. You need the resolve to see it through. Validating the idea means no sitting at desks. You cant find customers on a computer. I bump into one of the teams heading out the door. The team, Home Grow Heroes, wants to help people who grow their own produce at home to sell them. Andy Macken, the person who came up with the idea, is taking his team down to Grand Canal Square to talk to shoppers and supermarkets. Getting validation from your target market is key to the final pitch. A great pitch will usually beat out a great product in these types of competitions. You have a great product or service, but unless you convince the judges, youre never going to win. Convincing investors to part with money will be key to the future your start-up. For that, you need show validation, team connections and most importantly, how you can drive the company on. Gene Murphy, entrepreneur in residence at Bank of Ireland, explains why the event isnt about creating a start-up factory. Building start-ups are tough enough on their own. Were trying to push people to gain new skills and think about how they validate ideas. It may look like a start-up competition but really its about learning the foundations of progressive idea movement; so taking the idea and finding out if it does or doesnt work. Our job is to facilitate a thinking process rather than a competition process. Getting people to think differently in their approach to starting a business or moving on an idea, he says. People from big corporates come to these events too, looking for ways to make their own organisations leaner. The rapid pace of technological change means ideas in companies cant take months to be validated. Organisations are looking to get leaner and remove the long process of getting new products to market. The knock-on effect is that sales and marketing are needed to move quicker and decisions are taken more rapidly. The organisation learns how to move faster. Irelands startup scene has been driven by events like these. Youd be hard-pressed to find a day that there isnt something happening for startups. Ireland is embracing a culture; not just of creating a business but creating a successful business. Things are too far gone to accept lip service, the community expects now. That has changed everything. Sitting in the basement of Google HQ early on Sunday is an interesting experience. In the air hangs the chatter of groups carefully planning their pitches. The smell of coffee hits as you walk through the door. Crumbs from danishes and croissants fly from the keyboard. Four big screens emerge from the ceiling as people take their seats for the final catch-up before practising the pitches theyll deliver to mentors in a just few minutes. People are making notes and going through their pitch routine. Two friends are laughing about what you probably shouldnt say in a pitch to judges. People are making connections and friendships. Getting your pitch right is important, but its okay to get it wrong too. Daniel mentions that no one will call you on getting it wrong; its a learning curve, he says. Its good place to be. Why would you leave? Prices for dairy ingredients have fallen sharply for over two years, hit by a global oversupply, squeezing the finances of farmers and producers and pushing many to consolidation in search of economies of scale. By contrast, at the other end of the sector, the low- ingredient costs are plumping the profit margins of companies that make value-added products like yoghurt, cream cheese and infant formula, making them attractive targets for food multinationals and private equity investors. There is speculation about potential deals in the United States, for example, involving the likes of WhiteWave Foods, which sells premium dairy products and alternatives like soy milk, and Greek yoghurt-maker Chobani, which has rejected suitors including PepsiCo. However, merger and acquisitions activity is increasingly focusing on emerging markets in Asia, the Middle East and eastern Europe, where expanding middleclasses are boosting demand for expensive dairy products and offering the best-growth prospects. The dairy industry is one of the more attractive growth markets from a long-term perspective, in terms of per capita consumption, said Wells Fargo analyst John Baumgartner. While there have been 876 deals in the global dairy industry since 2010, worth a total of 50bn, according to Thomson Reuters data, the sector is still highly fragmented leaving room for further consolidation. The top five players Frances Danone and Lactalis, Switzerlands Nestle, and Chinas Mengniu Dairy and Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group account for just 18% of the retail market for all dairy products, which was worth 394bn last year, according to Euromonitor. The deals in the sector have included some blockbusters like Nestles 10.5bn purchase of Pfizers infant nutrition business, and Lactaliss move to control Italian rival Parmalat. However, most have been smaller bolt-on buys. On global commodity markets, dairy prices have fallen about half since 2013 and a quarter in the past year, said the UN food agencys Dairy Price Index, which factors in ingredients such as milk, butter and cheese. This has helped drive consolidation among producers; Mexicos Grupo Lala agreed to buy certain US assets from Laguna Dairy last month, while Italys Parmalat bought 11 dairy plants from BRF in Brazil in 2014. New Zealands a2 Milk last year rejected a joint takeover offer from Freedom Foods and Dean Foods, but remains a target, analysts say. Theres been severe pressure on the milk price. There is always a huge drive for efficiencies and part of that is through consolidation and taking out additional costs where possible, said Trefor Griffith, a food specialist at Grant Thornton. Billions have been wagered on betting markets and billions more on global stockmarkets. Hundreds of billions are positioned on all sorts of sterling contracts on the huge foreign exchange markets, as investors try to be on the right side of the exit polls late evening on June 23. Opinion polls suggesting a close race have spooked many financial markets. The dismal record of British election polling hasnt helped. Through the haze, its worth noting that the really serious money wagered by the City of London has been plumped on the UK remaining within the EU. We know this because sterling a global reserve currency after all has, whisper it, been trading fairly quietly. Take away the day-to-day market turmoil and a clearer picture of the UK currency emerges. Sterling has been sticking around the 78p level against the euro for a while now. That may explain why despite polls suggesting the Brexiters are trashing the Remainers, the bookies still predict more than a 70% probability the UK will opt to stay. However, what are the implications in the short term and long term for financial markets and the UK and Irish economies, if on the night of June 23 the exit polls were to show the UK is heading out of the EU? The Irish Examiner spoke to Edgar Morgenroth, associate research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute. He is the leading external adviser on Brexit to the multi-departmental committee led by a senior civil servant at the Department of the Taoiseach. Eamon Quinn: Sterling is forecast to tumble up to 20% if the UK votes to leave. What would likely happen in the following few months? Edgar Morgenroth: Exchange rates over time do tend to normalise, but in the meantime it can be destructive to firms. It depends on contracts. The exchange rate issue is a short-term issue but that is not to say that it is important. If you have a contract to supply widgets for so much sterling and what you get is 20% less, it can put you under pressure if you are a firm. It can be very disruptive in the short term. After a while, you figure out what the right price is and you charge the right price. I would expect there to be an extreme spike immediately after. I would expect it (sterling) to overshoot a bit and then slowly to get back up. When you look at polls, sterling goes up and down quite a bit. The volatility has increased quite a bit. You can imagine that before the negotiations (with the EU over a Brexit) are concluded that you would have continued volatility. Volatility is not a good thing. EQ: What would Ireland be best advised to do? EM: Ireland and the UK have significant economic connections. Those will change if there is a post-Brexit trade agreement, or worse if it operated on a World Trade Organisation basis in which the UK operated as a most-favoured nation, which implies the introduction of tariffs on individual items. Increased costs impede trade and a trade relationship is threatened by a Brexit and that possibly is the most significant economic impact. In terms of what the Government can do, up to the point of the referendum, not an awful amount. Clearly it is in the interests of Ireland that the UK stays in. And in the opinion of most economists, it is not in the interest of the UK to leave either. All the Government can do is to plan a little bit if the UK does decide to leave. If it does decide to leave, the UK will have to write to the Commission and initiate the process of negotiating the divorce. That would happen under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which sets out a two-year period for those negotiations. [There is] also a possibility of an extension but that extension is only possible with a unanimous vote and that is not a given in any issue in the EU. So, some people are talking about an everlasting negotiation but that only happens if there is unanimity. Two years after the letter is sent to the EU Commission the UK will no longer be a member. There is, therefore, a default position if the negotiation is not completed. Then you have to think what subsequently the trade relationship would be. It is likely to take longer than two years to negotiate. For voters in the UK, it may be that they may not be negotiating very much and that the EU may tell them what the deal is, and they will have to take it or leave it. That has been the position in the past with EU trade deals; the EU decides what the deal should be and the other side just takes it. The only place this has been different is negotiations on TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), and with Canada. But with other agreements the EU has signed previously it has been a very one-sided process. The UK would also need to join the WTO (the World Trade Organisation) and seek out a trade negotiating team. Thats something that no country in the EU has these days because the Commission negotiates on behalf of member states. There is an issue [whether] competencies are there in the UK administration. Clearly, the UK has to decide what it wants to do with the free movement of people. The EU has to decide what to do with the free movement of people. There are a few other things, some of which may be agreed on the bilateral basis. Perhaps, on the energy side some of the issues can be agreed between the UK and Ireland without EU interventions. The Government on June 24 will need to identify the sort of issues that are sensitive to Ireland and attempt to ensure that these are appropriately reflected in the negotiations between the EU and the UK. I think that is all Government can do on that front; to press Irelands issues and make sure they are dealt with satisfactorily. The issue is what we want. EQ: What are the implications on the North and the Republic? EM: Trade itself may reintroduce border controls. We are definitely back to customs posts and the issue of border crossings all that stuff becomes relevant again. If it is not an EEA solution, then we are back to that because you would then have to check what comes in and what goes out. On milk, it is more an issue for Northern Ireland because the milk flows from the North to the south. Agricultural products are very interesting because under WTO arrangements the most favoured nations arrangements agricultural products tend to be the most subject to tariffs. EQ: What happens to our island economy under the contrasting EEA v WTO outcomes for the UK trade negotiations post-Brexit? EM: It is difficult to have a special island arrangement because if you can export to the North then you can export to the UK and vice versa. For most things if we were in a situation other than EEA it wouldnt be feasible or likely that there would be a special island deal because it would be impossible to police. It becomes pretty tricky. There is unlikely to be many special Ireland arrangements because it will not be feasible. It is [a fact] that the EU negotiates on our behalf. On the main trade issues, there is no scope for bilaterals. The EEA is the Norway model and is very close to de facto membership without having a say. They (the UK) would have to transcribe all the EU laws and accept the free movement of people. Thats not what they (the Brexit side) wants. So, it is difficult to see an outcome like that. The only way you get an outcome like that is if they vote for a Brexit, and then regret it. EQ: Any room for bilateral trade agreements between Ireland and Britain? EM: Bilaterals could [apply] in energy because trading electricity outside the EU is not unusual. Germany gets a good chunk of its gas from Russia and it would not be a big deal for Ireland to get gas from Britain. It is just a matter of contracts. EQ: What would strengthen Dublins hand with Brussels in the event of a Brexit? EM: In the Commission and the member states there would be a realisation that Ireland, given its geographical and historical position, would be more affected by any significant barriers between the UK and the EU. In that context, there would be [a focus] on preserving the links to the wider EU market, supporting financially the connection to the EU electricity grids. You cant do [trade] bilaterals, but within the EU we have the situation where currently we have a peace fund for Northern Ireland, where we dont see anywhere else. So, there is scope for the Government to argue, given the special impacts and potential budget constraints, that some help is required and warranted. I think you can make a pretty cogent argument. Where there are immediate impacts that need immediate expenditures, Ireland could make the case about the islands remoteness for more transport. There may well be existing measures out there that could be beefed up a bit because the EU has its major corridor development and one of our major corridors is through Wales. EQ: The impact across Ireland on immigration and free movement of people? EM: With respect to borders, you could have the border controls in Ireland, or you could have controls between Britain and Ireland. The Unionists would not be very happy. Clearly a hard border with controls would be something of a red flag for Republican dissidents. History would suggest that would not help the peace process. EQ: Implications for the Norths economy? EM: The North, in my view, is the most exposed part of the UK to a Brexit in terms of a negative impact. About 60% of [the Norths] merchandise exports go to the EU. Its less than 50% for the rest of the UK. A loss of access to EU markets would have very adverse impact on foreign direct investment in Northern Ireland. Our estimates suggest the loss of EU access would diminish the benefits of [the North] going to a 12.5% corporation tax rate. And because the 12.5% rate is supposed to be self-financed it would actually imply a net loss to Northern Ireland. EQ: Rebellion by pro-EU MPs in Westminster? EM: It is a constitutional crisis. A Brexit vote is I think a recipe for disaster on political and economic issues. Ireland will, I think, survive this. I do not think it is a catastrophe. We do not need to panic. But it isnt good. It is not going to be as bad as the financial crisis, but for the UK it might be. EQ: The bookies suggest that there is more than a 70% chance of the UK staying in? EM: There is a distinct possibility that they will leave. It will depend on turnout and things like that. A 30% [Brexit] risk is a very significant risk. If you were a 30% accident risk you would find it hard to get car insurance. Once you are in double figures it is a significant risk. If you believe some of the polls, it is 50:50. London itself is probably going to vote to stay in. It is other parts you have to worry about. The opinion polls can get it very wrong if the people do not turn up on the day. I think they (the UK) are gone if turnout is low. A few percentage points either way can swing it. At the moment the momentum looks to be in the favour of Brexit, but that can change. Is that it then? Do we all breathe a sigh of relief and get on with our lives? More to the point, do the statesmen and stateswomen, and the bureaucrats and jurists, who ensure that the union ticks over from day to day, carry on regardless? Or do they engage in some serious self-examination following a divisive campaign, and perhaps a pretty tight result? There is an argument for moving on. Events pile in. This is no time for navel gazing. There are decisions to be made. The Council of Ministers will have big decisions to make. Greece, no doubt, will be on the menu as its latest deal creaks. Somewhere down the line, a markets shock awaits, another summer of financial discontent matching the labour problems spreading in France. The migrant crisis looks certain to keep the lights on in the Council of Ministers HQ. A plan has been hatched under which 160,000 refugees will be spread across countries of the union, except the UK. European Commission president, Jean Claude Juncker has proposed that states which refuse to take in asylum seekers should be fined 250,000 for every person refused entry. Imagine how that would going down in Hungary and Austria. Juncker and his team may have little option but to press ahead in the face of member state hostility but, following events involving refugees in Germany and Sweden, more efficient means of repatriation of troublesome refugees may have to be devised. For all the arguments put forward, an ageing EU needs fresh young migrants, communities across the union baulk at the changes now being forced on them. The rise of populist parties across much of the union will ensure these concerns must be met through an accommodation of some sort. The story of Europe in 2016 is one in part of elites under challenge and called on to be more responsive. However, the story in places like France is of separation of a bureaucratic, business and political elite from the citizenry. Officials on the Continent can often be tin-eared, thin-skinned and unsympathetic to the citizens they are paid to serve. Those mittel-European paper pushers are not creatures of myth and some of that spirit has managed to infect the admittedly modestly-sized Brussels bureaucratic machine. Few could deny that EU regulations have not on balance been a boon for the citizens of the union. The people of north Co Dublin have suffered in recent weeks from leaks of raw sewage that barred them from their beaches and the EU environmental machine has been cranking up in response. Dungarvan, Co Waterford-based Environet Solutions reports 15 cases are being taken against the Irish State, of which five are at stage two. This means the prospect of heavy fines now looms large with the state facing a lump sum fine of 2.7m, with another 23,000-plus added for each day of delay, for failure to regulate septic tanks. Few could argue with such EU moves aimed at shaking up our complacent officials and politicians. Yet all too often, the EU can also be the source of clunking over-regulation. Some time ago, the UK department of business produced a lengthy report proposing the simplification of EU law. It claimed that the second Company Law Directive alone imposed 75 information obligations on firms at a cost of 67m to UK business and a total EU-wide cost of 471m. It reckoned the two directives regulating domestic mergers imposed a cost of 136m on UK firms and one of almost one 1bn across the EU. It claimed that by simplifying its pollution control laws, the EU could save firms almost 950m. The department accepted the new integrated pollution directive, applying to 45,000 installations across the EU, represents a fundamentally sound approach. In other words, clean out the dirty bathwater, but dont throw out the baby. Pages of legislation could be swept away. Inspections and enforcement could be improved, with micro firms being exempted. An EU group headed by the former Bavarian premier, Edmund Stoiber, has said over 90% of SMEs operate only in their home country and should be spared EU regulatory burdens. By slashing compliance burdens, here, an EU-wide saving of 2.2bn could be secured. The Eurocracy needs to get out of the business of over-checking and acting the fusspot while concentrating its fire on really serious sources of breaches. A properly functioning single market remains the key goal along with the maintenance of basic conditions of decency in the environment, in health standards and in the workplace. The EU has worked well in ensuring such standards, something we take for granted. The bureaucrats need to restrain their natural impulse to churn out edicts often couched in dense language and contained in heavy tomes. The union leadership, above all, needs to learn how to communicate with its citizens. The great democratic leaders from Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt to JFK and Obama, have understood the power of phrases and the need for poetry in statement. Too often, the EU governs in drab prose. It needs to draw on the traditional skills of wordsmiths and on the new technological tools in reaching a citizenry which with good reason, has grown disillusioned. At the heart of the EU malaise has been the failure of the elites in many of its key member states to create jobs and opportunity for young people. That is a failure that has tainted the EU as a whole, highlighting the shortcomings of a generation of leaders and public managers who have not managed to bring their populations with them along the road towards necessary reform. Leadership above all is about inspiration which has been notably lacking in Europes conference halls where the drier skills predominate. If the EU elites escape the swish of the Brexit sword, it should use the period of remission that follows to embark on a period of reflection and self-examination that hopefully leads to a revival of the sort engineered by the commissions then- President, Jacques Delors, a generation ago. Less than 24 hours after winning the overall National Enterprise Award, Co Offaly company Applied Concepts was contacted by a north African company which had heard of its success and wanted to distribute its blasting equipment. For company founder Mark Clendennen, winning this award brought 10,000 in prize money, media exposure, recognition of the companys success in developing exports to 10 countries over the last six years and new opportunities to develop sales internationally. It all began with the identification in 2007 of an opportunity for import substitution. A manufacturing systems graduate working for Enterprise Ireland in assisting Irish companies to develop exports to the UK, Mr Clendennen saw a gap in the abrasive blasting market. No blasting machinery was being manufactured in Ireland machines used here were being imported from Holland and also from China. I saw an opportunity to manufacture and sell to Irish companies and also to export. He registered the company in 2007 but didnt actively pursue the idea until 2009 at which time he rang 300 potential Irish customers across construction and manufacturing businesses, among others. Working from home and using his own funding, Mr Clendennen drew up designs for four sand-blasting machines and had them made up by a welder. In 2010, he began targeting the Irish companies involved in blasting by sending them marketing packs. As a new company with an unknown brand it was difficult but after a few years we gained ground and earned a good reputation, he said. After briefly outsourcing manufacturing to China, Applied Concepts took on its first employee in 2010 and began manufacturing in Kinnitty, Co Offaly at the end of the year. We had our first export to the UK in 2011 when we signed a distributor there, says Mr Clendennen who shipped four machines to the distributor to convince him of the effectiveness of the companys products. Now the company has a range of six abrasive blasting machine as well as blast cabinets. Manufacturing blasting machines remains the core business. These are used in construction and renovation as well as vehicle restoration and have been used in a variety projects around the world from bridge restoration in Venezuela to boiler manufacturing in Ethiopia. Applied Concepts now sells through distributors in the UK, Belgium, Finland, Hungary and Estonia. It also has had direct sales to several other markets including South America where it now looking for a distributor. Exports now account for 40% of sales, up from 25% in 2015, and are expected to grow to 50% in 2017. The UK is now our largest export market but we expect the Northern European market to surpass it in 2017, says Mr Clendennen. Now operating from three industrial premises in Kinnitty and employing seven full-time staff as well as three part-time workers, Applied Concepts is now poised for expansion. Late last year it purchased a 24,000sq ft factory in Birr and is planning to consolidate operations under one roof with a view to employing an additional 10 staff. Profitable since 2013, Applied Concepts has, according to Mr Clendennen, been growing turnover by 30% a year for the last four years. Export opportunities are continuing to present themselves with its products being shipped to Japan, Kuwait and South America in the last four months alone. A major plan for 2017 will be the launch of a new air compressor to power the blasting machinery. Typically these machines are engine-powered and cost 14,000 but we have developed a prototype of a machine which will cost 5,000. Company: Applied Concepts Location: Kinnitty, Co Offaly Set up: 2007 Managing director: Mark Clendennen Business: Manufacture of abrasive blasting equipment Staff: 10. Exports: 40%. Website: www.appliedpi.com More than four-in-10 construction industry leaders are in favour of such a bank which they argue would finance housing projects and provide affordable mortgages. The proposition emerged as the most popular corrective action within the industry, according to research carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers (Pwc). Ensuring adequate finance is available to the sector is critical and our survey confirms this remains a key challenge. "Available funding for the sector, whether this is for housing or infrastructure projects, is key to ensuring our economy can continue on its growth path and all options, including alternative non-bank finance, need to be fully investigated, said PwC Real Estate Practice senior manager, Niall Cogan. A State Housing Bank garnered significant support among developers, builders and builder material providers, despite signs that cost pressures are easing. The number of construction industry professionals that highlighted the cost of complying with building regulations, often held up as a key impediment to new house building, as a challenge fell by more than 10% when compared with this time last year. Similar decreases were seen for those considering the planning regime and high building material costs as major obstacles to building activity. Instead, the biggest concern within the industry surrounded the availability of skilled workers. The gap is an acute issue in the industry with almost one-in-three experiencing difficulties recruiting people with specific skills. Those with managerial skills and planning and feasibility expertise are particularly hard to come by. The survey suggests that while Irelands construction industry is in expansionary mode with positive plans for growth, revenue expectations are somewhat less than last year. "While some challenges are easing-up, factors holding it back are the skills gap, available finance and for those who are exporting, external uncertainties such as the possible impact of the upcoming vote on a British withdrawal from the European Union, said PwC Real Estate Partner, Ronan MacNioclais. He warned that the lack of suitable of accommodation is limiting the influx of talented workers into Ireland and will have knock-on effects for the attractiveness of the country to foreign direct investment if not tackled. Meanwhile, the latest Ulster Bank Construction PMI report showed an increase in activity in the sector extending the period of growth to 33 consecutive months. The pace of expansion eased to the slowest in seven months, however, as fuel and raw material costs increased in the past month. The latest Ulster Bank Construction PMI signalled ongoing growth of construction activity in Ireland during May, with the headline index remaining well above the 50.0 no change mark at 55.9. Although the rate of expansion eased slightly, it was still marked and above the pre-downturn average. A slowdown from the record rate of expansion seen in February was probably inevitable, but it would be reassuring to see some stabilisation in coming months, Ulster Bank Ireland chief economist Simon Barry said. The report found that housing activity continued to increase during May while the commercial sector saw the fastest expansion. Copa and Cogeca, the umbrella body for European farmers and co-ops, highlighted the hi-tech approach at the conference on European Space Solutions: Bringing Space to Earth. It described the use of drones in agriculture as an additional agronomic tool that can help to enhance resource efficiency, productivity and profitability as well as ensure greater sustainability. Digitally enhanced agriculture, precision farming automated vehicles, robots, informatics, satellite imaging and remote sensing were also identified as having the potential to play a major role. In particular, precision agriculture offers great opportunities in terms of minimising inputs and maximising productivity, providing a whole new farm management approach. The use of drones in agriculture shows great potential. Along with other smart techniques, drones can contribute to enhanced resource efficiency, productivity, profitability and sustainability, contributing to the fight against environmental damage. They are now used to complement traditional remote-sensing techniques and enable farmers to monitor nutrients in the soil and herd monitoring, it said. Copa and Cogeca welcomed a recent decision by Brussels to ask the European Aviation Safety agency to develop a set of rules for drones. However, it said it believes it is crucial to strike the right balance between regulation and innovation and to ensure prescriptive rules are proportional to the complexity of the operation. Innovation, research and smart farming is also the topic of a workshop at the Copa & Cogeca Congress of European Farmers in Greece on October 5-6 this year. Meanwhile, drone activity in the US is expected to focus come on farms, which are mostly free of the privacy and safety concerns associated with populated areas. After waking up from a month-long induced coma, Joanne McMahon promised doctors she would spearhead a fundraiser for the burns unit at St Jamess Hospital, Dublin. Ms McMahon said she was delighted to hand over a cheque for 209,976 to Odhran Shelley, National Burns Unit director, at the culmination of a 131-day fundraising campaign. The 131 days, of cake sales and dances, cycles and concerts, represented the time Ms McMahon spent in the burns unit. In June 2014, she was airlifted to hospital from her home in Castlemahon, Co Limerick, after a food heater exploded into a ball of flames over her. She had sustained serious burns to 50% of her body at a confirmation party for one of her children, after she poured methylated spirits into the already lit food heater, which then burst into flames. A ball of fire engulfed her face neck and hands. The Joanne McMahon Thanksgiving Fund was launched last December, and ended last Friday night with the cheque presentation at Castlemahon Community Hall. An initial target of 15,000 had been set, however after donations flowed in from all over the world, including Australia and America, proceeds came to over 200,000. Its unbelievable. I would have been happy had we raised 30,000, but this took on a life of its own after we started last year, said Ms McMahon yesterday. It was such a massive involvement by everybody. I have to thank all the people of West Limerick, but we also got support from Auckland, Chicago, and Sydney... its nearly impossible to thank everyone. Management at the burns unit are to erect a plaque marking Ms McMahons extraordinary efforts as its first benefactor. A similar plaque will also be erected in Ms McMahons hometown of Castlemahon. Her sisters, Noelle Collum and Mary Griffin, received minor burns as they tried to quench the flames. Ms McMahon described Dr Shelly and the staff at the burns unit as outstanding. Im getting there. Im a lot better now even than when I was last December when we embarked on this wonderful fundraising journey, she said. Despite her ordeal, the mother-of-five said she has nothing but fantastic memories of the fundraising campaign. Im so proud of everyone, she said. Hopefully no one else will need the services of the burns unit, but if they do, at least we have done our bit to help it in some way. Record crowds availed of bank holiday blue skies to converge on Garryvoe, Youghal, and Ballybrannigan beaches. But councillors, at a meeting last week, called for remedial action to deal with a number of problems. East Cork Municipal District chairman, Fine Gael councillor Michael Hegarty, complained record crowds found over 50% of Garryvoe car park closed off. The area is undergoing repairs following April storm damage. He was also the father of 11 children, who are now aged between 20 and 27. His convictions related to incidences of abuse that dated back to the late 1970s. He had previously stood trial in 2003, for attempted unlawful carnal knowledge and indecent assault of four girls. He was found guilty but released in 2006 after the convictions were quashed due a legal technicality. He worked in Radio Dublin, a pirate station, in the 1960s and 1970s and it was in this capacity that he came into contact with young people. He was always known to gardai. In the 70s and 80s he was known as Alpha 6 amongst the police in the city because any crime scene you ever went to in the city you could be almost sure hed turn up at it. Hed drive around in his Jaguar car and hed be monitoring all the Garda calls, retired Detective Sergeant Alan Bailey told the Irish Examiner. He was sleazy. I remember there was a double stabbing up on Manor Street and we arrived and he was standing there over one of the bodies. Several times I threatened to do him for dangerous driving, he used to drive around the city like a garda would drive around the city with their lights and sirens on. When Philip Cairns went missing there was no link to him, as a matter of fact there were no links to him and the other paedophile activity he was subsequently convicted of. He was well-known, a complete oddball. You couldnt say he ever did anything that would make you suspect him, he was as much a nuisance as anything. He was sleazy and dirty and he was getting his kicks out of these crime scenes. You do get that a lot. There are people who are fascinated by police work, you took him as another police groupie. The Irish Examiner understands the terms are focussed on current child- safety procedures and the risk of another incident occurring, the actions officials responsible for Graces care did and did not take, and when these professionals first became aware of the abuse claims. The provisional terms for the inquiry were first announced just days before the February general election was called. The terms are based on the views of an independent report by senior counsel Conor Dignam, who has been examining the scandal for more than a year. The service is also feeding intelligence to an EU force in an effort to smash people-smuggling gangs operating in Libya. The smugglers prosecuted were detained by Naval Service ships operating in the Mediterranean Sea during last years humanitarian mission. According to navy sources, migrants on flimsy inflatable dinghies and dangerously overloaded wooden barges often pointed out suspected smugglers on board. Naval Service security details would then isolate the suspects and hand them over to the Italian authorities once they reached shore. Although the Naval Service is working solely on this humanitarian mission with the Italians, it enjoys a good relationship with a separate EU naval force (EU NAVFOR MED) which is conducting operations in the region. It is believed that many of the inflatable boats destroyed by the Naval Service and other navies in the 24-strong country EU force have originated in China. However, others may have been made in Libya and are considerably inferior. The Naval Service destroys all craft it comes across once migrants have been rescued so that they cannot be reused by people-smuggling gangs and do not present a danger to other shipping. However, they also scour the vessels for any scraps of information which may be useful in identifying who are behind these illegal operations. This information is then shared with the EU naval force which is assimilating intelligence gathered throughout the western Mediterranean, which may later be used for prosecutions. Direction signs do not exist for top tourist spots such as Clonakilty, Bantry, and Baltimore, on Corks N40. The national primary road forms an orbital route around the south side of the city, linking the N22, at Ballincollig, to the N25, at the Dunkettle Interchange. Senior county council officials are to meet with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) to discuss a number of issues, including its refusal to put up signs indicating West Cork. The council officials will be meeting TII officials this Thursday, on foot of a number of complaints from public representatives that TII was refusing to engage with them. Cllr Declan Hurley, a member of the councils Tranport SPC (Special Purposes Committee) and who will be attending the meeting, said he would ensure that concerns over West Cork directional signs were on the agenda. He made the comment at a meeting of the West Cork municipal district, in Bantry, last Friday, where a number of councillors expressed their anger over TIIs refusal to erect signs, on gantries near the Jack Lynch Tunnel, directing people to the coastal region. Cllr Christopher OSullivan said there were no signs directing tourists to Clonakilty, but there were signs for Tralee. I think were really missing out on the benefit of tourism revenue, because of this. In France, towns appear on motorway signs, which highlight images, as well, about whats significant in them, such as chateaux, castles, and others, Cllr OSullivan said. As you head along the main road to Waterford, theres a similar type of sign depicting Youghal and its clock tower. People have told me feedback from tourists proves the information signs work. Cllr Mary Hegarty said, even in West Cork, they were overrun with signs directing people to Kerry. Weve got to get real about the branding of West Cork tourism, especially as the council is investing a huge amount of money in tourism, she said. Cllr Hurley agreed and said he would ensure this was passed onto TII bosses. Cllr Declan Hurley It definitely needs to be sorted out, he added. Cllr Danny Collins also backed the move, but was critical of the state of some of the existing signs in the region. He said there was a sign on the outskirts of Bantry indicating an accident blackspot area and the sign was so dirty nobody could identify it. A lot of our signs are filthy and people cant read them, Cllr Collins said. Cllr Paul Hayes (SF) agreed with him and added that in many cases road signs were also obscured by vegetation, which needed cutting back. Council officials said they would consider a cleaning programme to address the issue. A plaque was unveiled on the building in Bridge St, where his parents Johnny and Lizze ran a grocery and hardware business and brought up their six children Maria, Eileen, Jerry, Nuala, Mike, and Kay. Local sculptor Paddy Fitzell carved the plaque out of black granite with an inscription from the great poet Brendan Kennelly also a son of Ballylongford with the line the crooked cross always in his heart. Paddy explained the line: The crossroad in the middle of the village is crooked so Ballylongford is often called the village of the crooked cross. Ann McCabe, who was accompanied by members of her family, recalled: The first time I came to Ballylongford I was going out with Jerry. He introduced me to Lizzie and Johnny and we used travel over to Ballybunion to the dances in the Central Ballroom. Today brings back many memories of great days in Ballylongford. Paddy Fitzells son Omar, a member of the traffic corps in Fermoy, came up with the idea of a plaque to Jerry McCabe. He said: We felt it would be fitting to remember Jerry in the street where he was brought up. Assistant commissioner for the Southern Region John OMahoney said: It is important that we remember those members of the force who have given their lives in the line of duty. They are all heroes. I am delighted that the community which shaped Jerry McCabe into the great man he was has come out today to remember him. At a reception in the Parish Hall, Ann McCabe recalled: Veronica Guerin came to Limerick to cover to story after Jerry was murdered. At Jerrys funeral Mass, the hymn Be not Afraid was sung and she said afterwards that when she died she wanted that hymn to be sung. Little did we know that this would tragically happen within weeks. Until recently, few modern-day pilgrims considered Irelands sacred trails an alternate to the hugely popular Spanish Camino. This remained true despite strong evidence that substantial numbers of medieval penitents journeyed to Lough Derg, Mount Brandon, Glendalough, Skellig Michael and Croagh Patrick. Irelands sacred trails had almost totally slipped into the mists of history. Then a new organisation, titled Pilgrim Paths Ireland, was formed in 2013 by volunteers from the countrys sacred trails. Immediately declaring itself non-denominational, its stated objective was to promote re-engagement with Irelands medieval pilgrim paths while extending a welcome to walkers of all religious backgrounds and none. Its first ventures were the National Pilgrim Paths Day of 2014 and 2015. Conceived as unifying events reaching back to a time when there was but one Christian Church, the invitation to rediscover almost forgotten pilgrim paths greatly exceeded expectations. Organisers declared themselves pleasantly surprised when 3,000 people came out to reacquaint themselves with Irelands mystical trails. Now, Pilgrim Paths Ireland has come up with another initiative. Its new passport offers the opportunity to explore a collection of way-marked penitential routes traversing some of the most captivating Irish scenery. Walkers who produce evidence of having completed 120km of Irelands pilgrim trails are entitled to obtain a teastas oilithrerachta (completion certificate) from Ballintubber Abbey. The initiative is aimed, not only at re-awakening the ancient spiritual tracks of Ireland, but also attracting tourism spend to rural areas. Initiated last March, the passport has proven a hit with over 200 walkers having already taken up the pilgrim challenge. Thirty walkers from the Mid-Tipperary Hillwalkers have set themselves the task of becoming the first group to complete the Irish pilgrim journey. Having completed Cnoc na dTobar and Cosain na Naomh, Co Kerry along with St Kevins Way, Co Wicklow, they are returning to the South-West to begin their last two paths. Starting on Monday from Drimoleague in West Cork, they will walk St Finbarrs Pilgrim Path, while led by local guide David Ross. Transferring to Co Mayo they then hope to complete the Tochar Phadraig before having the teastas oilithreachta presented to the group members who have succeeded in finishing the challenge. The ceremony will take place in Ballintubber Abbey church as part of the 800 anniversary celebrations of the abbey foundation. To find full information on completing the new Irish Pilgrim Passport Challenge visit www.pilgrimpath.ie. A review of the school support programme through the Deis (Delivering Quality of Opportunity in Schools) initiative is nearing completion. It is expected to result in changes to how schools get supports to help students struggling at home or in class. Education Minister Richard Bruton will visit a Dublin primary school which gets some of the highest levels of assistance this morning when he meets staff and pupils at St Josephs in Coolock. However, the review may see major changes to those supports from September of next year, including the way it and over 800 others are selected and funded through the Deis School Support Programme. For those like St Josephs, in Deis Band 1 for urban primary schools, the biggest aid is through increased staff that allow smaller class sizes to be provided. However, the Department of Education says new targeted measures are likely to be included in a new action plan for disadvantaged schools which Mr Bruton will publish before the end of this year. The updated Deis scheme is expected, for example, to focus on supporting school leaders and offer supports to help disadvantaged schools keep what the department said are exceptionally strong principals. Even small improvements in supports for and retention and performance of school leaders in these schools can have a dramatic impact on outcomes, said a spokesperson. There should also be a renewed focus on teaching methods, with evidence that changing how literacy is taught to children who struggle can lead to major improvements. Already, the national literacy and numeracy strategy has seen extra time devoted to these areas at primary and second levels, and more focus on their integration into all curricular subjects. Mr Bruton said he plans to make disadvantage a major theme of his ministry and to focus above all on improving outcomes for children who need most help. By getting our system of supports for schools in disadvantaged areas right, we can have huge impact on the life prospects of children increasing their chances of learning well in school, of going on to higher education, of entering and remaining in the workforce, and of avoiding the many problems that too often impact on families in these areas, he said. The action plan will also seek exploration of ways that school facilities can be used to provide other state supports within the community. The Programme for Government includes plans to have schools available for childcare services outside school hours, with community groups and private providers being invited to tender for access to those facilities. Officials in the Department of Education and the department of Childrens Minister Katherine Zappone began discussions this month on how to implement this commitment. They are set to bring proposals to both ministers on the subject. However, the need for related capital investment has been flagged by the Irish National Teachers Organisation. The union last month queried a further intimation in the Programme for Government that schools would have to be made available for childcare providers in order to receive the full benefit of promised restoration of Department of Education funding for running costs. Other measures under consideration involve the setting-up of a dedicated national inspection unit to replace the piecemeal approach of using a mix of council workers, HSE staff, and private contractors to carry out limited random checks on properties. The proposals come amid fears that the next big crisis looming in the private rental sector is a slump in dwelling standards, and as figures collected by the Irish Examiner show, the system of policing standards is seriously flawed. There were 285,025 private tenancies registered in 2014 but just 13,913 dwellings underwent routine inspections that year. Half of them were found to breach the minimum standards with damp, mould, cold, and fire safety the main violations. Tenants rights groups say poor quality housing is a growing problem as scarcity of rental properties and desperation among those renting means landlords can get away without attending to repairs and maintenance. Stephen Large of Threshold said: The number one query that we would receive would be in relation to standards and repairs. Patrick Bresnihan of Dublin Tenants Association said: Minimum standards is one of the main issues that tenants raise. A lot of landlords havent invested in their properties since the recession. Local authorities are responsible for enforcing statutory minimum standards for rented accommodation but inspection regimes vary widely, with the massive growth in the rental market far exceeding capacity of most councils to monitor it. Councils warn it is not feasible for them to also take on inspections of homes to be provided by voluntary housing bodies under the Social Housing Strategy. Councils are also, by law, meant to be the first port of call for private tenants with complaints about standards. Under this heading, critics say the system is just not working. Just over half of the countrys councils responded to queries by the Irish Examiner and most of those reported receiving fewer than 10 complaints per year. Mr Bresnihan said the tiny number of complaints in no way reflected reality. You have to recognise the context in which tenants are living at the moment, which is that theyre scared of the repercussions of complaining, he said. Mr Large echoed that view: In the current climate, people are very afraid that if they raise an issue, the landlord will retaliate by giving them notice. One council said it rarely recorded complaints formally because tenants were scared of causing trouble. It said investigations were carried out under the guise of routine inspections. Mr Large said Threshold had been lobbying for a licencing or certification system and he would welcome an overhaul of the current regime. Having an independent body dealing with all of that would certainly improve things, he said. Reviews of the existing regime are under way by both the Department of the Environment and the National Oversight and Audit Commission. The department said: Options for driving improvement in standards and configuring the enforcement system most effectively, including the potential role of certification and a shared services approach, will be considered as part of the review. That is according to economic sociologist Professor Richard Layte whose research has found some of the more challenging classroom behaviours and lower ability of many working class children can be traced back to the resources families have available to them. Prof Layte of Trinity College Dublin and the ESRI, is one of the keynote speakers at a conference which gets under way in Co Louth tomorrow, said lower income reduces parents ability to buy educationally stimulating materials for the home and for the child. The Fine Gael minister said yesterday he is determined to address the number one priority for Government while failing to rule out supporting a referendum to allow for the constitutional right to a home. Speaking on RTEs The Week in Politics before a planned Sinn Fein Dail debate on rent certainty this week and the expected publication of the cross-party housing committees report on the crisis, Mr Coveney defended his partys inability to resolve the emergency to date. While failing to give any specific details on how the issue can be addressed, he said Government will intervene in the market to protect those in need, seek to ensure unused land banks are built on and to increase rent supplement in the coming weeks. Mr Coveney said he will bring a draft plan to cabinet tomorrow on how to overcome the crisis, and insisted it remains the number one priority for Government. However, neither Mr Coveney, a spokesperson for the minister or a spokesperson for Government would provide any information on the proposed plan last night which is due to emerge as the opposition spotlight falls on the fact the housing crisis has yet to be addressed. Youll see a big initiative from the Government this week, which will be our first big decision around housing and will work to get sites moving more quickly than theyve actually been moving, Mr Coveney told the programme yesterday. And you will see the Government launching the details of its full housing initiative by the end of July So youll see a clear commitment because this is the number one priority for government, to deal with a broken housing market which is causing real distress for families, he said. Asked about the housing emergency in general terms, the minister said the solution is more than the State simply building a situation he described as crude adding we will intervene but in a way that actually complements and manages the markets as opposed to setting the market forces aside and requiring the State to do everything. He said he agreed with opposition calls for public-private partnerships to speed up construction, noting theres enough planning permission for 27,000 houses in Dublin but only 4,000 are in construction, and that an unspecified rent supplement increase will be announced in the next few weeks. However, when asked for exact details of what is in the Governments housing plan, he declined to provide specific answers. Mr Coveney also did not take the opportunity to rule out supporting a referendum calling for the constitutional right to a home which is expected to be one of the key recommendations of the cross-party housing committees report this week. Asked about it last night, a the ministers spokesperson said: Hell consider and look at whatever the Oireachtas housing committee bring forward. You can disapprove of men, women, young people, or middle-aged people getting drunk and out of control but thats different to saying she was to blame, says Ms Saidlear. Separating out those two pieces being judgemental about someones drinking is different to the persons [the perpetrator] action who is making the decision. They [the victim] did not rape themselves. We dont focus on the perpetrator, often its survivors talking and the perpetrator is not in the picture. The victim is out front and we interrogate the victim. Ms Saidlear gives the opinion that rapists will often test the water many times, to see what society finds acceptable before they go on to commit an act of sexual assault. We all have a role play, it isnt about that rapist and the rape victim. They made 101 choices before they raped. Rapists test the water and push the boundaries before they get to that decision to commit the rape, she told the Irish Examiner. Rapists are looking out for reassurance that theyll get away with it and they do it in small everyday ways and were present for those. Ms Saidlear says that every member of society can help to deconstruct rape culture by not minimising sexist jokes against either gender and by not playing into the sexual objectification of men or women. We can help by not minimising [sexist comments and acts], by not being part of the culture that says push the line, misogyny is fine, treating women as sexual objects is fine, says Ms Saidlear. Our culture is a testing ground for future rapists and what can we do, is to make our culture resilient. We are all from this culture. Cliona Saidlear of the Rape Crisis Network Ireland says alcohol should not be a factor in assessing a rape accusation. As a result of this culture victims of sexual assault, as opposed to feeling aggrieved for the crime committed against them and their bodies, are made to assume responsibility and internalise blame. The first thing that happens is victims will interrogate themselves, theyll blame themselves, Ms Saidlear says. Its a double hit. The first thing to say is our culture instinctively blames victims. She advises victims who find themselves in this mindset to first acknowledge it and then to be kind to themselves. In the first instance, they need to be kind to themselves, she says. It sounds simple, but to say: Its not your fault, you didnt choose this, the person [perpetrator] making the choices chose this. They need to be reminded of this over and over. Ms Saidlear believes that the outpouring of support for the Stanford victim may lead to real change in society. Im heartened that this gets called out, that rapists dont get away with it anymore, nor the judges, she says. Society will change when there are enough people calling something out, the vast majority of people dont want to live in that culture. This figure came out of research published last year, and it is feared that the number may actually be much higher. The voluntary survey was carried out across the campus by students involved in the information campaign Know Offence. Separate to the one in seven statistic, a further 33% of UCC students said they experienced minor sexual assaults, such as strangers grinding up against them in a sexual manner. Another worrying finding was that 82% of those surveyed said they did not know how to report a sexual assault to campus authorities, even though there is a protocol in place where students bring an allegation to the head of their faculty. A spokesperson from the Know Offence campaign told the Irish Examiner that the Stanford case is a perfect example of how a victims behaviour is scrutinised when it comes to a rape trial. This case brings to light how often a womans past is scrutinised in a rape case, i.e. her promiscuity in the past, whereas the future of the perpetrator is taken into account as a means to lighten the punishment given, said the spokesperson. For example, the fact that he was a good swimmer and would possibly go on to achieve great things in this sector was a huge aspect of this case and ultimately in the judges [another privileged white male] sentence handed down. The Know Offence campaign launched with the aim of dispelling myths surrounding sexual violence and to highlight services available to affected students. One myth that the Stanford case is helping to dispel is that a rapist is not necessarily an unkempt dangerous criminal that a victim meets in a darkened alleyway. The Know Offence spokesperson said the US case shines a light on white male privilege. I would say that this case is a perfect example of white male privilege, said the spokesperson. The first photo released of this boy was him in a suit standing upright, I think at his graduation. Whereas the first photos released after a black man rapes someone are usually ones where they are wearing a hoodie and looking somewhat suspicious, whatever that means. This case is the perfect example of one generation of man [his father] passing on the same sense of entitlement to the next. Other findings from the Know Offence research showed that just two people surveyed in UCC reported the alleged sexual assault to the university. Seven of the students surveyed reported their allegation to An Garda Siochana. The results of this research match those of the Union of Students in Ireland, that showed 16% of Irish third-level students had experienced unwanted sexual encounter. For more information on the Know Offence campaign go to www.facebook.com/KnowOffence. Victim-blaming happens when the victim of a crime has their experience invalidated by others and is held partially or wholly responsible for a crime committed against them, by the voluntary actions of another person. Criminal defence lawyer Dara Robinson told the Irish Examiner that rape is one crime where it is legitimate in law to query the complainants actions. There are a small cohort of defences where its legitimate to in law [through legislation and case law] to cast doubt on the allegations, by reference to the behaviour of the accuser, says Mr Robinson. Stacy Scriver from the Centre for Global Womens Studies at NUI Galway says that victims, and female victims in general, although it seems counterintuitive, often internalise blame as a means of future self-protection. They do it as a means of protecting themselves, says Dr Scriver. A female juror thinks, this too could happen to me. What might the victim have done to be in this position? Well this wont happen to me because I wont do that. Its known as the just world theory. Its not just about apportioning blame but internalising some of the message from society about how women should behave and the consequences when you dont fall into line. In order to move away from victim-blaming, Dr Scriver advises that more focus needs to be placed on the perpetrator of a sexual crime, not the victim of one. There has to be more focus on the perpetrator and not the victim. The immediate focus is what women can do to avoid this situation, but the perpetrator has caused this, not the victim, she says. Dr Scriver, who co-wrote the 2009 book Rape and Justice in Ireland, believes the Stanford case will help deconstruct the preconceived image of a rapist. Its a great opportunity to address issues around consent and alcohol, she says. People will look at the accused and see their own son, and think, I dont want to ruin his life, lean on the side of forgiveness and lean towards his position rather than the impact of sexual violence on the victim. Dr Scriver also argues that light sentencing does not assist in a victims recovery process. Giving these light sentences, doesnt make sense, they dont support the victim, says Dr Scriver. The trial process is difficult for survivors. In many cases, the survivors werent able to start to recover until after the trial was over and couple that with light sentencing. It adds to the pressure thats already mounting. Making changes to the sentencing criteria and to the ways rape is investigated is crucial. As part of the ongoing investigation into the case of Philip Cairns, missing person, in 1986, a 25-year appeal was circulated in 2011, a Garda spokesperson told the Irish Examiner. As a result of this appeal, a member of the public came forward and in May of this year gave a statement to the investigating gardai at Rathfarnham Garda Station. Aspects of this statement were corroborated, which opened new lines of inquiry. These lines of inquiry include interviewing people and cross-referencing DNA profiles with those on items recovered as part of this investigation. Despite assertions in the media that a woman had come forward saying she saw Cooke kill the schoolboy, gardai said they have no results as of yet. At this point in time these new lines of inquiry have not yielded positive results, however the investigation is very much active and ongoing, the Garda spokesperson said. Philip Cairns went missing on his way to school in Rathfarnham in October 1986. Aside from his schoolbag being thrown in a nearby laneway six days later, there has been no new information on the case in nearly 30 years. Cooke was convicted in 2007 of 42 counts of indecent assault against children and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He had recently been transferred to a hospice and died last week. Community activist Angela Copley rang gardai in May when a victim of Cookes approached her for help. Paedophile Eamon Cooke in court in 2002. He was found guilty of 42 assault charges in 2007 and died in a hospice last week I received a phone call from a victim of Eamon Cooke who Id offered support to over the years, Ms Copley told Marian Finucane on RTE Radio One yesterday. She told me she had a conversation with a guard, who had told her that somebody had come forward and that they were the person who threw the school bag into the lane. I said: Im going to the gardai with this. I hope this is the truth, and she said it was. I rang Rathfarnham [garda station] and I talked to a guy on the desk. I then talked to the girl who was married to Eamon Cooke, who had all the children for him, because she is someone who I support. She said: Oh, anytime anything would come on the television about Philip Cairns, Cooke would always say: I was out looking for him when he meant missing. We kind of both laughed, not in a funny way. The gardai from Rathfarnham asked would I meet with them and ask his former wife. She gave a lot of information. He was in a hospice at this stage. Retired detective sergeant Alan Bailey, who is the national co-ordinator of Operation Trace for missing persons for 13 years, is surprised at the public nature of the inquiry. For the familys sake when you think of the developments in the Fiona Pender case last year, how positive that looked and the way that just petered out then; or the case of Ciara Breen and they were digging and all of a sudden theres nothing, said Mr Bailey. I cant understand why the police would go so public on this. Its a long way from closed. When the Dublin Tenants Association ran its #rentripoff campaign on social media last month, it sought to highlight the exorbitant rents and unjustified increases private tenants were suffering. But what it also brought to the fore was the very poor conditions in which renters were living. Its one thing having to spend 40% of your income on rent but when all it gets you is a single room with no natural light and a landlord who believes he has the right to barge in whenever he wants, it sounds like even a nominal rent would be too high. It might be better, however, than the one-bedroom flat with extensive mould, damp, water dripping from the walls that costs one couple 50% of their joint wages. And it is probably preferable to the experience of another couple who were evicted from the house they rented for four years after we tried to get the landlord to repair external walls, leaking roof, and black mould. Leaks, infestations, broken electrical appliances, and plumbing problems all feature in a litany of misery that is riddled with damp, mould, and cold, and topped by a large helping of fear. It suggests that the countrys city and county councils, which are responsible for enforcing the statutory minimum standards for private rented accommodation, must be overrun with complaints from tenants. But the opposite is the case. Sixteen of the 31 local authorities provided the Irish Examiner with figures that show hardly any tenants are using the formal complaints system. Examples of the replies are as follows: Wexford: Approximately 10 complaints per year; Clare: a small number; Waterford: Fewer than 20 complaints per year; Carlow: One complaint in 2013, none in 2014, five last year, eight to date this year; Limerick: 16 last year, seven so far this year; Tipperary: Nine last year, three so far this year; Galway county: Four, six, seven, and five over four years; Mayo: Four per year; Louth: 12, 19, and 4 over a three-year period; Cork City: 34, 39, 24, and 22 over four years; Cork county: 15, 25, and 39 over three years. Dublin City had more than 400 per year so, even taking into account its very large number of rented properties, it does appear that tenants are more likely to use the formal complaints system there than anywhere else in the country. Its not just the anecdotal evidence gathered by a social media campaign, or the experience of bodies like housing charity, Threshold, that suggest the level of complaints do not reflect the reality. When councils carry out routine spot checks on rented dwellings, they find on average that half of them do not meet basic standards. The top problems are damp, mould, and fire safety. Only 5% of private rented dwellings were inspected in 2014, the last year for which records are available, but its not a stretch to conclude a 50% failure rate could apply across the board to all 300,000 registered rental properties and possibly higher among the unregistered minority. Stephen Large, services co-ordinator with Threshold, says the minimum standards are of limited value in the first place. Theres a big gap in the standards in that the landlord only has to provide a fixed means of heating but there are no guidelines around energy efficiency or effectiveness so as long as theres some form of heating and its working to some degree, thats compliance, said Mr Large. And while landlords have to provide a BER (building energy rating) cert, the rating they have doesnt count. But its the enforcement of the standards that is the biggest problem. Were quite lucky with Dublin City Council because theyre proactive but in general people dont associate the standards with the local authority and many local authorities themselves dont associate the private rented sector as their responsibility, said Mr Large. Go on to the average council website you wont find details of who to contact with a complaint, how to make contact, and what happens next. Even for well-informed tenants, the fear factor holds them back. In the current climate people are very afraid that if they raise an issue, the landlord will retaliate by giving them notice, said Mr Large. There is legislation in place under the Residential Tenancies Act where the landlord can not penalise the tenant for trying to enforce their rights but people are afraid to invoke the act they dont want to get into a dispute with the person who owns the roof over their head if they can at all avoid it. The rape by a 20-year-old man of an unconscious 23-year-old woman on January 17, 2015, has sparked a global chorus. The chorus goes like this: Rape is only ever the fault of the rapist. Not alcohol. Not clothing. Not the victim. His name is Brock Turner. Her name? We dont know. They were at a frat party. On that night, behind a dumpster on the campus of the prestigious academic institution that is Californias Stanford University, a young man was seen moving up and down violently on the partially naked body of a female. She was not moving. Two Swedish exchange students, Carl-Fredrik Arndt and Peter Jonsson, witnessed the act and chased Turner as he fled the scene. Mr Jonsson tackled Turner and held him on the ground until police arrived. The Swedish student began to cry when he recounted to police the horror of what he had just seen. The case went to trial earlier this year and it lasted one week. Turner was found guilty on three counts: Intent to commit rape, sexual penetration with a foreign object of an intoxicated person, and sexual penetration with a foreign object of an unconscious person. Prosecutors asked that Turner be sentenced to six years in prison. By sentencing the defendant to a substantial prison term, this court will send a message to him, Jane Doe [the victim], and the greater community that sexually violating a woman is never acceptable, especially when she is intoxicated. Turners lawyer asked the court to put him on probation for three to five years, and order him to serve a four-month county jail sentence. In the end, he got six months. Questions are being raised over whether he was given a lighter sentence because he was in contention for a place in the US Olympic team. Judge Persky, a Stanford graduate who was once captain of the universitys lacrosse team, said: A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, who, like Turner, was a Stanford athlete, drew criticism for the sentence The public outrage at the leniency of the sentence began, just as letters from those in Turners camp began to circulate. Dan Turner, his father, wrote a letter pleading on behalf of his son. It goes like this: These verdicts have broken and shattered him and our family in so many ways. His life will never be the one he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20-plus years of life. Its clear that Brock was desperately trying to fit in at Stanford and fell into the culture of alcohol consumption and partying. This culture was modeled by many of the upperclassmen on the swim team and played a role in the events of Jan 17th and 18th 2015. Then another pro-Brock letter emerged. I dont think its fair to base the fate of the next 10- plus years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesnt remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him wrote Leslie Rasmussen, a former girlfriend of Turner. I am not blaming her directly for this, because that isnt right. But where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isnt always because people are rapists. He is crushed that the jury ruled against him He is utterly terrified and traumatised by this, wrote his mother, Carleen Turner. The verdict hurt because we knew he was a great kid that in the matter of a few hours, made a few bad decisions that have changed his life forever, wrote family friend, Jeff Coudron. The media never mentioned the girls name to protect her, but they plastered Brocks everywhere, even before he was tried. Teresa Rhodes, another family friend, wrote: In my heart, I am certain that his intent was never anything but to have a consensual encounter with a young woman. And then came the victim impact statement, 12 pages and 7,000 words long. We heard the victims voice, her side of the story, how she woke up to find pine needles inside her body. The statement, which was addressed to Turner, was uploaded to the internet and read millions and millions of times by people all over the world. It goes like this: You dont know me, but youve been inside me, and thats why were here today. She explained how she went to a party, let her guard down, and woke up in hospital covered in dried blood. On January 17th, 2015, it was a quiet Saturday night at home. My dad made some dinner and I sat at the table with my younger sister who was visiting for the weekend. I was working full time and it was approaching my bed time. I planned to stay at home by myself, watch some TV and read, while she went to a party with her friends. Then, I decided it was my only night with her, I had nothing better to do, so why not, theres a dumb party 10 minutes from my house, I would go, dance like a fool, and embarrass my younger sister. I made silly faces, let my guard down, and drank liquor too fast not factoring in that my tolerance had significantly lowered since college. The next thing I remember I was in a gurney in a hallway. I had dried blood and bandages on the backs of my hands and elbow. I thought maybe I had fallen and was in an admin office on campus. I was very calm and wondering where my sister was. A deputy explained I had been assaulted. Perhaps the most gruesome part of her uncontested testimony was how she came to learn of her defiled, unconscious body lying in public view. In public news, I learned that my ass and vagina were completely exposed outside, my breasts had been groped, fingers had been jabbed inside me along with pine needles and debris, my bare skin and head had been rubbing against the ground behind a dumpster, while an erect freshman was humping my half naked, unconscious body. But I dont remember, so how do I prove I didnt like it. Stanford University athlete Brock Turner, who was sentenced to six months in county jail after being found guilty on three charges relating to his sex attack on an unconscious woman She said the most damaging part of all was the victim-blaming she endured. I was not only told that I was assaulted, I was told that because I couldnt remember, I technically could not prove it was unwanted. And that distorted me, damaged me, almost broke me. It is the saddest type of confusion to be told I was assaulted and nearly raped, blatantly out in the open, but we dont know if it counts as assault yet. I had to fight for an entire year to make it clear that there was something wrong with this situation. As her articulate words of truth and dignity began to be read all around the world last week, an international well of support sprung up to greet her, a global chorus echoed her call. And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought every day for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you. As the author Anne Lamott once wrote, Lighthouses dont go running all over an island looking for boats to save, they just stand there shining. Although I cant save every boat, I hope that by speaking today, you absorbed a small amount of light, a small knowing that you cant be silenced, a small satisfaction that justice was served, a small assurance that we are getting somewhere, and a big, big knowing that you are important, unquestionably, you are untouchable, you are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you. To girls everywhere, I am with you. Thank you. Leading the chorus that responded to her call was US vice president Joe Biden, in the form of an open letter. I do not know your name but your words are forever seared on my soul. Words that should be required reading for men and women of all ages. Words that I wish with all of my heart you never had to write. It has since emerged that Turner sent pictures of his victims naked breasts to his friends during the assault. Mr Biden took aim at the alcohol excuse used by rapists, defence lawyers, and society in sexual assault cases. We will speak to change the culture on our college campuses a culture that continues to ask the wrong questions: What were you wearing? Why were you there? What did you say? How much did you drink? Instead of asking: Why did he think he had licence to rape? wrote Mr Biden. We will make lighthouses of ourselves, as you did and shine. Your story has already changed lives. You have helped change the culture, And its not over. Almost 1.2m people have signed a petition to remove Judge Persky from the bench. Spanish police said they arrested nine people in the northern city of Pamplona on sex trafficking charges and liberated four exploited Paraguayan women. They said the operation started after one of the victims dialled the Spanish help hotline against human trafficking back in 2015. A law enforcement official said they believe two attackers shot the woman, her family, and other relatives, including two girls. The killers also slashed a male victim believed to be the womans partner, and may have tried to decapitate him. The Puebla state prosecutors office said that one of the dead women had been raped and had a child by one of the attackers, apparently several years ago. The killings took place on Thursday night in the remote mountain hamlet of San Jose El Mirador, in the municipality of Coxcatlan in the central state of Puebla. Clemente Hernandez, a leader of the 50-household village, said two other girls who were wounded were in serious condition, with bullet wounds to the chest and stomach. Mr Hernandez, 37, said his two daughters, aged eight and nine, were among the dead. He said one of the women who died, also a relative of his, was pregnant. We are not going back, he said of the hamlets residents. We are going to look for work wherever we can. Five witnesses survived and were under government protection. They told the authorities the attackers arrived by foot, opened fire and left. Prosecutors said they are believed to have fled into the mountains of neighbouring Oaxaca state. Officials had previously raised the possibility that the killings had religious overtones because residents of the largely evangelical hamlet had previously had disputes with Catholics in a nearby community. However, that now appears not to have played a role. The two homes where the killings occurred can be reached only by foot and the bodies had to be carried to the nearest road on stretchers. They were taken to the city of Tehuacan for port-mortem examinations. The authorities want to detain two more senior politicians as part of a crackdown that has already seen former president Otto Perez Molina jailed. All of the former officials served under Perez Molina, who faces charges of money laundering and conspiracy. He denies any wrongdoing. Former defence ministers Ulises Anzuelo and Manuel Lopez Ambrosio were arrested, as was ex-interior minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla. Chief prosecutor Thelma Aldana said they were part of a group that used about $4.3m (3.8m) in state funds to buy gifts, including houses, boats, and a helicopter, for Perez Molina. They face charges of money laundering and conspiracy. Perez Molinas former vice president Roxana Baldetti is also jailed on corruption charges, and also denies wrongdoing. Ms Aldana said a group of officials organised a collection each year to buy gifts for the president on his birthday. She said the money was handled by Juan Carlos Monzon, then secretary to Baldetti. Mr Monzon has been collaborating with prosecutors investigating the case. Interior minister Francisco Rivas said the authorities have also sought international arrest orders for former energy minister Erick Archila and former communications minister Alejandro Sinibaldi. Mr Lopez Ambrosio and Mr Lopez Bonilla were arrested at their homes, while Mr Anzuelo turned himself in after learning he faced an arrest warrant. Arriving at court offices, Mr Lopez Bonilla said he did not know why he had been detained, but expressed confidence in the countrys judicial system. I believe that at the end of the day, things will be cleared up. I cant say more than that I am proud of the work I did, he said. About 2,000 people gathered for a demonstration in the centre of Guatemala City on Saturday to support the prosecutors and the crackdown on corruption. The online poll, conducted from Monday to Friday last, shows 46% of likely voters support Clinton while 34.8% back Trump. Another 19.2% support neither candidate. Their parties hold conventions in July ahead of a November 8 election. Clintons lead was nearly the same a week ago, before she had amassed enough convention delegates to win the nomination and before Trump drew criticism from leaders of both parties for questioning the impartiality of a Mexican-American judge. Trump, 69, enjoyed a bigger boost after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee in May. Having trailed Clinton, 68, for most of the year, Trump briefly erased a double-digit gap and pulled about even with the former secretary of state. Clinton this week defeated party rival Bernie Sanders, 74, in four of six nominating contests, most notably California and New Jersey, and won the endorsements of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and other party leaders. Trump this week sparred with party leaders and struggled with questions about his now-defunct Trump University. A lawsuit accuses Trump and the for-profit school of defrauding thousands of people, including many who paid as much as $35,000 to learn Trumps real estate strategies. A wealthy businessman who asserts the lawsuit is politically motivated, Trump said presiding US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel was biased against him because of Trumps plans to build a wall on the border with Mexico. Trump later added that Muslim judges could be biased against him also because of his pledge to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. Trumps comments drew sharp criticism from Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump later said he would no longer talk about the judge. A man armed with an assault rifle killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida early yesterday in the worst mass shooting in US history, which President Barack Obama described as an act of terror and hate. Police killed the shooter, who was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida resident and US citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan. Mateen called 911 yesterday morning and made comments saying he supported the Islamic State militant group, officials said. It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, said Ronald Hopper, the FBIs assistant special agent in charge on the case. US officials cautioned, however, that they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or any other foreign extremist group. We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate, Obama said in a speech from the White House. As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people. US officials have reached no definitive judgment on the killers precise motives, Obama added. At least 53 other people were taken to hospital, most in critical condition, officials said. A surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Centre said the death toll was likely to climb. Mayor Buddy Dyer said all of the dead were killed with the assault rifle. Theres blood everywhere, he said. The suspect, who was named as Omar Mateen, died in the incident. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on a congressional intelligence committee, said Mateen may have pledged allegiance to Islamic State. He exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the gay club known as Pulse at around 2am, when more than 300 people were inside. The gunman then went back inside and took hostages, police chief John Mina said. Around 5am, authorities sent in a Swat team to rescue the hostages. Jackie Smith, who was inside the club, said two friends next to her were shot. Some guy walked in and started shooting everybody. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance, she said. I just tried to get out of there. In addition to the guns, the shooter also had some sort of suspicious device, Mr Mina said. Authorities were looking into whether the attack was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter acted alone, according to Danny Banks, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. They said they had secured the suspects vehicle, a van, right outside the club. Relatives and friends, many in tears, gathered outside the hospital to learn whether their loved ones were among the dead or wounded. The wounded included one police officer who was shot and suffered injuries to his face, officials said. Police had said previously on Twitter that there was a controlled explosion at the scene of the shooting. Mr Mina said that noise was caused by a device intended to distract the shooter. A woman who was outside the dance club early on Sunday was trying to contact her 30-year-old son, Eddie, who texted her when the shooting happened and asked her to call police. He told her he ran into a toilet with other club patrons to hide. He then texted her: Hes coming. The next text said: He has us, and hes in here with us, Mina Justice said. That was the last conversation. Pulse posted on its own Facebook page around 2am: Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running. Just before 6am, the club posted an update: As soon as we have any information, we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love. Local, state, and federal agencies were investigating. President Barack Obama was briefed on the attack and asked for regular updates on the investigation, the White House said. A Swat truck and a bomb disposal unit are on the scene of an address associated with Mateen in a residential area of Fort Pierce, Florida, about 190km south-east of Orlando. Meanwhile, hundreds of people lined up in Orlando to give blood to help the victims of the massacre. Killings reaction We are looking at a massacre that has no precedent in the history of the gay community, Romes Gay Centre spokesman Fabrizio Marrazzo told the Italian newsagency ANSA. We are heartbroken and angry that senseless violence has once again destroyed lives in our state and in our country. Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety. Equality Florida. Its horrific, its unthinkable. And just hopes go out to all those who were shot that they can recover. Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential candidate, speaking on NBCs Meet the Press. Horrific incident in FL. Praying for all the victims & their families. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant? Tweet from Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate. Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. Tweet from Hillary Clinton, Democratic presidential candidate. We condemn this monstrous attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence. Rasha Mubarak, Orlando regional co-ordinator for Floridas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Our heart is with our American brothers. Tweet from Italian premier Matteo Renzi. Aghast by the ever more dramatic news of the nightclub massacre. In a tweet from Italys foreign minister, Paolo Gentiloni. Thank you for your thoughts and love. Pulse Orlando on its Facebook page. US: A history of deadly rampages Some of the nations deadliest rampages since 2012: The opposition-held sector of Syrias divided city of Aleppo has been cut off from the outside world in recent days by an escalation of air and artillery strikes on the only road in, putting hundreds of thousands of people under effective siege. A government campaign to fully capture Aleppo would most likely bury what little hope remains of reviving a diplomatic effort to end the five-year-old civil war, after talks and a ceasefire sponsored by the United States and Russia fell apart earlier this year. Aleppo, Syrias largest city before the war when it had more than two million people, has been divided for years into rebel and government sectors, and capturing all of it has been one of president Bashar al-Assads biggest goals. An estimated 350,000 people are still thought to live in the rebel sector, in harsh conditions made worse by the latest attempt to besiege them by cutting off the last remaining route out, the Castello Road, named for Aleppos old castle. "I know the difference between the jet and the helicopter by the sound." - 10 year old Mohammed Latof from Aleppo. https://t.co/nj1lUIKwos Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 12, 2016 The regime was not able to cut the road by land, so it has decided to keep the planes in the sky continuously, hitting everything that passes, regardless of what it is, said Zakaria Malahifji, senior official in the Aleppo rebel group Fastaqim. Whoever wants to go on the Castello road is undertaking a suicide mission, he said. Its been this way for 10 or 12 days. The situation was difficult before. It was targeted and people were crossing with difficulty, but now it is almost cut, nobody dares to use it, he said, speaking at his groups office in the Turkish city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border. The international focus in Syria in recent weeks has partly turned toward the conflict with IS fighters, as the government and its enemies have made gains at the expense of the IS on several fronts. However, the separate hope of foreign powers that the wider civil war could also be resolved has broken down, with Aleppo potentially the biggest battlefield of all. Hundreds of people have been killed there since peace talks broke off. Assad vowed in a speech last week to recapture every inch of Syria. Aleppo, he said, would be a graveyard for the ambitions of his regional foe, Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, who has backed rebel groups. A pro-Damascus source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the reference was a signal of his intentions: Why this threat? Because there are preparations for something big in Aleppo. Russia had intensified air strikes in agreement with the government and its other allies to encircle rebels in the Aleppo area, including in the city itself, said the source who is familiar with the strategy. So far, pro-government ground forces, aided by Iranian and Lebanese Shia militias, have been unable to complete the encirclement of Aleppo by capturing a narrow corridor of territory through which the Castello Road passes. The highway had long been under sniper fire, but attacks from the air and artillery sharply increased less than two weeks ago, with more planes flying and new rockets and guns moved into range. Castello is the road to death to Aleppo. I did not know whether I would make it to Aleppo city alive, said Mohamad Adeeb, an opposition activist who drove the road on Friday. Asia Bangladesh Arrests 85 Islamists in Crackdown After Wave of Killings Authorities in Bangladesh arrest at least 85 militants in a crackdown on Islamists after a wave of brutal attacks on minorities and liberal activists. DHAKA Authorities in Bangladesh have arrested at least 85 militants as part of a broad crackdown on Islamists after a wave of brutal attacks on minorities and liberal activists, police said on Sunday. A total of more than 5,000 suspected criminals have been arrested since law enforcement agencies began a week-long drive on Friday to halt a series of targeted killings in the mainly Muslim nation. All arrests were made on specific charges, national police chief A.K.M. Shahidul Hoque said, relating to firearms, narcotics and other offences. We will have to prevent the emergence of militancy collectively as a whole nation, Hoque said. In the past week an elderly Hindu priest, a Hindu monastery worker and a Christian shopkeeper were hacked to death in attacks for which Islamic State claimed responsibility. The Muslim wife of a key counter-terrorism police official was also stabbed and shot dead. Militants have killed more than 30 people in Bangladesh since early last year, with atheist bloggers, liberal academics, gay rights campaigners, foreign aid workers, members of minority Muslim sects and other religious groups among the victims. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for 21 of the attacks since its first claim in September last year and al Qaeda has claimed most of the rest, according to Site Intelligence Group, a US-based monitoring service. The government denies that either group has a presence in Bangladesh and says that home-grown radicals are responsible. Last month junior foreign minister Shahriar Alam told Reuters that Islamic State was trying to ride a wave of religious radicalisation by falsely claiming killings and said there was enough evidence implicating domestic militant groups. Police said that two home-grown militant groupsJamaat-ul-Mujahideen and Ansarullah Bangla Teamwere behind the attacks as part of their campaign to impose strict Islamic law on Bangladesh, whose population of 160 million are mostly moderate Muslims. At least 10 suspected members of the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen were killed in shootouts since November, including five last week, police said. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has vowed to track down the killers, blaming the growing violence on political opponents linked to Islamist parties. The opposition party, led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, denies the accusations and said that mass arrests were a ploy to suppress political opponents. Burma Burma Army Deploying Armed Drones The Burma Army has deployed drones in ethnic minority regions, likely for surveillance and surgical strikes, says a defense analyst for IHS Janes. RANGOONThe Burma Army has deployed armed military drones in ethnic minority regions in Burmas north, likely for surveillance and surgical strikes, said a military analyst in a report for the consultancy IHS Janes. The unmanned combat aerial vehicles [UCAVs] can be used for reconnaissance and surveillance for extended periods over remote terrain, and for surgical strike missions, Anthony Davis, a Bangkok-based military expert who writes for IHS Janes, told The Irrawaddy. The IHS has confirmed that one or more Chinese-made CH-3A drones, with the capacity to carry air-to-ground missiles and satellite-guided bombs, have been deployed from an airfieldlikely Lashio in northern Shan State or Bhamo in southeastern Kachin State. Davis noted that the CH-3As have not typically been used in Burma other than in Shan States Kokang Self-Administered Zone last year, which is believed to be the first time they were used in the country. The Kokang Army, also known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), was in protracted conflict with the Burma Army last year, during which time the government army conducted airstrikes against the Kokang armys bases. They [the drones] can play an important role in gathering intelligence. As weve seen in the Pakistani tribal areas, they can be lethally effective in surgical strikes against insurgent command centersprovided there is adequate intelligence on the ground level on which to base the targets, said Davis. The IHS confirmed the deployment of the drones after a picture, believed to be taken by a serviceman, was posted on Facebook. The photograph showed a group of seven military personnel standing around a CH-3A, with its distinctive three-bladed propeller. It appears that the CH-3As have also been deployed along the Bangladesh border. However, it is unclear whether that is because of Arakan Army (AA) insurgent activity or in support of border reconnaissance for counternarcotics and counter illegal migration purposes, said Davis. Burma Heavy Downpours Continue to Batter Arakan State Heavy rain and severe flooding continue to devastate parts of Arakan State, says a spokesperson for the regional government. RANGOON Heavy rain and severe flooding continue to devastate parts of Arakan State, a spokesperson for the Arakan State Government, told The Irrawaddy on Monday. Four women in Taungup Township, a man in Thandwe Township and a student in Ann Township were killed by deadly deluges on Sunday, according to spokesperson Min Aung. However, the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement has reported a different figure of four total deaths in the region for the month of June. In terms of damage, 155 households were destroyed in Ann Township, while in Thandwe Township the heavy downpours have caused water levels to rise seven feet, Min Aung added. Arakan States Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Electric Power, Industry, and Roads and Communications reportedly intend to visit flood-affected townships to deliver aid, including food and material for building houses. Since the beginning of June, several other parts of Burma have also been struck by severe rainfall. The Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement has reported that natural disasters have claimed the lives of two people in Pegu Division, two people in Sagaing Division, one person each in Magwe and Irrawaddy divisions and one person in Kachin State. More than 5,000 households in total have also been affected by flooding, with some homes having been completely submerged and others rendered essentially unlivable. With the La Nina weather pattern looming, it is likely that Burma will continue to be hit by extreme weather in the coming months. Burma Ma Ba Tha Airs Its Dirty Laundry In the first sign of conflict within Burmas biggest Buddhist nationalist organization, two high-ranking monks descend to name-calling on Facebook. RANGOON Fissures have appeared within the Buddhist extremist organization Ma Ba Tha, after two senior members of the monk-run, anti-Muslim organization traded barbs on social media over the weekend. U Parmaukkha, a one-time senior monk within Ma Ba Tha, the Burmese acronym for the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion, condemned his former organization for supporting only one political party in last years election.. Ma Ba Tha allied itself with ex-president Thein Seins Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which was routed in Novembers elections. They did not focus on national issues and just concentrated on supporting one political party [the USDP] during the election. That is why I resigned from the organization, said U Parmaukkha, who resigned from Ma Ba Tha last month. Ma Ba Tha proposed a so-called race and religion protection law, which was ratified by the USDP government. In gratitude, Ma Ba Tha encouraged the people to support the USDP during the election, he said. He said Ma Ba Tha believed the Thein Sein government supported the cause of protecting race and religion, but that he has not seen that same commitment from the new National League for Democracy government. U Parmaukkha was a high-ranking member in Ma Ba Tha who was heavily involved in anti-Rohingya protests around the country; the Rohingya are a persecuted Muslim minority denied citizenship in Burma. The country experienced widespread violence against during the quasi-civilian government of then-President Thein Sein, who ruled from 2011-2016, and human rights activists have accused members of Ma Ba Tha of involvement in the unrest. The third anniversary of Ma Ba Thas founding was celebrated in Rangoon earlier this month, and this dispute was first sign of divisions within the organization. I wanted the Ma Ba Tha to not just work on race and religion issues, but also to take up major national concerns, but they did not listen to me, U Parmaukkha said. I wanted everyone in the country to love and support Ma Ba Tha. I wanted to have a pure Ma Ba Tha that all people in the country, not just one political party, could support. In response, Wirathu, another senior monk from Ma Ba Tha, posted a message on his Facebook page on Sunday attacking U Parmaukkha. We all supported you when you attained a high position [in Ma Ba Tha], but you insulted others and were jealous when other people were promoted above you, Wirathu wrote on his Facebook. You were the most hostile member of our organization, he wrote. We did not kick you outyou left on your own because you were upset you did not get a higher position. But the nationalist monk remained resolute that Ma Ba Tha would overcome its first public spat. We can do fine without you, Wirathu wrote. The Ma Ba Tha is a strong force no matter what. Burma Mon Groups Fear Surge of Burman Migrants Ethnic Mon NGOs oppose the new chief ministers plan to give Burman migrants household registration, a move they fear would erode their own influence. RANGOON Last week, more than 10 Mon civil society organizations (CSO) demanded that the Mon State Chief Minister review the governments plan to issue household registration cards to internal migrant workers who have moved from Upper Burma to work on rubber plantations and salt farms in Mon State. Naing Htun Myint, chairman of the Mudon Youth Organization, expressed dissatisfaction with Chief Minister Min Min Oos project, saying ethnic Mon people will face worsening trespassing problems caused by the migrant workers. Several land dispute cases with residents have recently emerged in the region as migrants construct shacks and dwellings near existing villages. Many local Mon have left their homes to find work in neighboring Thailand, leaving the local agriculture businesses with labor shortages. This led to seasonal migrant workers coming from Upper Burma, who later settled in Mon State. We worry that the large amount of Burmans will gain more influence than the Mon, said Naing Htun Myint. He was concerned that after receiving the household registration cards, the migrants would be able to obtain or change their national registration cards, giving them the right to vote in local elections. This could erode the ethnic Mon political parties power in state legislature, he said. The Mon state government has not revealed details of this project to the public, Naing Htun Myint said. We are unhappy with the lack of transparency. Three days after the CSOs sent their demands to the state government, there has been no official response. Mon State parliament Deputy Speaker Aung Naing Oo confirmed that they received a copy of the letter. Some ethnic Mon politicians are also dissatisfied with the chief ministers plan because he did not provide necessary detailshe merely informed parliament that the project would be included as a part of the states 100-day policy. The state legislator agreed with the CSOs, saying, I cant support the governments plan. Aung Naing Oo said that issuing official household registration documents would result in unexpected problems in Mon State. Buying land from locals is fine, he explained, but trespassing on their property could lead to ethnic conflicts between the two communities. The government should review the project if they are serious about being the voice of the people, said Aung Naing Oo. This could result in big problems in Mon State. Naing Ngwe Thein, chairman of the Mon National Party (MNP), said his partys representatives already voiced their opposition to the chief ministers unpopular plan, to no avail. He argued that migrant workers could stay their whole lives with no problems in Mon State without having household registration documents. Some places like Kyaikhto and Bilin townships are already full of Burmans, said Naing Ngwe Thein. A nationalist monk, Thaddhamma Pala of the Mon Young Monks Union, said migrant workers are guests and should return to their places of origin after completing their work. He claimed if the government provided household documentation, Burmans would form the second-largest population in Mon State. According to 2014 census result, Mon State has a population of more than 2 million official residents, a figure the Mon Young Monks Union claims does not include some 500,000 migrants. The government is currently compiling data on migrant workers, but their total population remains uncertain. The Irrawaddy contacted the Mon State government office on Monday but received no response. Burma Over-Extraction, Chinese Slowdown Blamed for Jade Price Slump Burmas vastly lucrative jade trade has been hit by oversupply and slowing Chinese demand, with some industry insiders calling for government intervention. RANGOON With the governments biannual gem emporium looming at the end of this month, prices for Burmese jade have continued to slide against weakening demand. Industry insiders have blamed an economic slowdown in China, over-extraction in jade mines, and market uncertainty linked to the transition of power to a democratically elected government in Burma. Here, the economy is cooling along with China. The market for jade is stagnant. There are many jade stones, with lots heaping up unsold, said Tun Hla Aung, joint secretary of Myanmar Gems Traders Association. Kyaw Kyaw Oo, executive committee member of the Myanmar Gems Traders Association, highlighted over-extractionfar outstripping current demandfor the slide in prices and what he considered the poor state of the jade market. If the government can control such over-mining, things should return back to normal, Kyaw Kyaw Oo said. Prices have been cut to cover production costs [in the short term], but jade prices keep falling, he said, without specifying by how much. Our main customers are from China. Recently, their banks have not been giving loans to gems and jade traders, due to new economic policies from the Chinese government, he explained. However, Kyaw Kyaw Oo said that recent disputes and accusationsto which he was partywithin the Myanmar Gems Traders Association had not affected the market. On June 2, 81 members of the association held a press conference in Rangoon, calling on the Ministry of Resources and Environmental Conservation to address the so-far unexplained loss of over US$100 million from the associations coffersa scandal in which the former President Thein Sein has been implicated. Some people thought this dispute might affect jade and gems trading. Actually, it has not, Kyaw Kyaw Oo said. The Myanmar Gems Enterprise, which operates under the Ministry of Resources and Environmental Conservation, will stage the biannual Gem Emporium for local and foreign traders in Naypyidaw from June 24-27. The process is tightly regulated. Only those holding mining, trading and company licenses, and members of the Myanmar Gems Traders Association, are eligible to take part. Buyers must give a deposit amounting to 5 percent of their expected expenditure. From June 13, an administrative committee in the Myanmar Gems Enterprises head office in Naypyidaw will register local and foreign dealers for the emporium. Around 6000 jade lots will be displayed, fewer than last year, Min Thu, assistant director of the Myanmar Gems Enterprise, told the Irrawaddy. Although the market is broadly cool, I hope local traders will still be interested in attending. Jade mining in Burma is concentrated around the town of Hpakant in Kachin State, northern Burma. Mining there was suspended between 2012 and 2014, due to the resumed war between the Burma Army and the Kachin Independence Army, which has yet to be resolved. In 2014, the (now defunct) Ministry of Mines began reissuing licenses. More than 850 licenses have been issued to firms at over 8,000 sites since private companies were given permission to mine in 2007. Conditions for local workers are hazardous: The Hpakant area has been plagued by a string of landslides since late last year, including a collapse on November 21 that killed more than 100 people. International advocacy group Global Witness released a report in 2015 that estimated the value of Burmas jade production for 2014 at US$31 billion. The greater part of such huge sums are said to be derived from illegal trade with Chinese buyers, from which a shadowy network of military-linked companies and non-state armed groups profit. Burma Turkish Foreign Minister Visits Burma, Offers Assistance to Arakan State Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expresses a desire to work with the Burmese government to quell racial and sectarian violence in Arakan State. RANGOON Visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu thanked the Burmese government on Monday for its efforts to quell racial and sectarian violence in Arakan State, expressing a desire for mutual cooperation to resolve the issue. We would like to cooperate with the Union government to solve this problem, and we will support the actions of the Union government, the Turkish foreign minister said at a joint press conference with Foreign Affairs Minister Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw. As a result, there will certainly be peace and development [in Arakan State], he said, adding that he admired, in particular, the citizenship verification process for Muslims in Arakan State, although some Rohingya Muslims have rejected this new verification exercise on the grounds that it omitted their ethnicity and religion. To solve the problems in Arakan State, the Burmese government should also work with international agencies like the UN, without discriminating on the basis of creed and color, Cavusoglu said. Cavusoglu and other Turkish officials were scheduled to arrive in Arakan State at noon on Monday and to meet with leaders of both Muslim and Buddhist groups at Sittwe Airport. Cavusoglu was also to join Muslims from the region in prayer. The Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency [TICA] has been giving assistance without discrimination [in Arakan State]. TICA has offered new projects to local authorities, and it will give assistance to open clinics and fulfill other requirements. The Turkish government will extend similar assistance at the request of the Union government and the Arakan State government, the foreign minister told reporters. We are working to improve the situation in Arakan State. I am thankful that Your Excellency [Cavusoglu] understands our delicate situation, Suu Kyi said. The Turkish foreign minister also invited Suu Kyi to visit Turkey to share his countrys experiences in the health, education, infrastructure and tourism sectors. Cavusoglu said that his government expects to boost its trade value with Burma, which currently stands at US$38 million, highlighting an ambition to fly Turkish Airlines to Burma. He also urged the Burmese government to open an embassy in Turkey, seeing as how the latter opened a Turkish embassy in Rangoon four years ago. Suu Kyi said that Burma will make efforts to improve international diplomatic relations with Turkey and move toward relaxing entry visa regulations for Turkish nationals. Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko. Business In Major Test, Burma Scrambles to Clear Port Jam Threatening Growth A traffic jam of cargo ships at Burmas biggest port threatens to scare potential investors away and choke off nascent economic growth. RANGOON Burmas new government has been grappling with its first economic management crisis, as a weeks-long traffic jam of cargo ships at the countrys biggest port threatens to scare potential investors away and choke off nascent economic growth. The bottleneck at the dilapidated port was caused by a spike in demand for goods as the opening up of the economy accelerates following a historic election win by Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) in November. Because of the general growth of the economy we are packed. The ships have nowhere to go, said Ma Cherry Trivedi, managing director of Ayuroma International, an advisor to Myanmar Industrial Port (MIP), where congestion has been worst. Burma boasts one of the worlds fastest growing economies, expanding at 7-8 percent in the years since the military relinquished direct control in 2011. But its main port has changed little since the end of British colonial rule nearly 70 years ago emblematic of ramshackle infrastructure that could hold back the foreign investment Suu Kyi needs to live up to sky-high expectations and remake a country impoverished by decades of junta rule. The number of ships docking in Rangoon has doubled over the past decade and the number of containers has jumped fourfold, data shows, clogging up inadequate storage space, overwhelming sclerotic logistics systems and delaying deliveries. We bring in the steel, the cement, everything you can think ofas infrastructure grows, which is the key aspect of any development in a country like [Burma], you are going to see massive growth in imports, said Ma Cherry Trivedi. Western shipping lines are largely confined to a single creaking terminal within the port, because of reluctance to use other facilities operated by Asia World, whose majority owner Steven Law remains subject to US sanctions. Working 24/7 The tipping point into a crisis came when MIP miscalculated the volume of incoming shipments before a three-week holiday in April, when the country largely shut down, shipping companies operating at the terminal said. That meant up to 10 ships faced delays of as long as two weeks to have their cargo unloaded, causing the biggest jam the port had seen in modern times. Industry sources said the hold-up cost major shipping lines millions of dollars a week. There was no proper cooperation between shipping lines, container storage facilities and terminal operators. Chaos, said Aye Lwin, Joint Secretary General of Burmas Chamber of Commerce, who was involved in efforts to resolve the jam. Burmas presidential office announced emergency measures in mid-May to tackle the congestion, including 24-hour port operation and customs clearance, and ordered daily reports from the ministers of commerce and transport. Some of the biggest shipping companies, such as Denmarks Maersk Line Ltd, dispatched their own specialists to help manage the situation. By Thursday, the backlog had been largely cleared, Ma Cherry Trivedi said, although additional staff flown in by shipping lines remained in place, as did the emergency measures, to prevent cargoes piling up once more. Tatsuya Ricky Ueki, managing director at shipping company MOL Myanmar, said the port infrastructure has not caught up with the economic development of the country. Theres no easy way out of this, but billions of dollars in the countrys development hinge on how aggressive the government is in solving the problem, said Ueki. The port jam underscores the challenges Suu Kyis government faces to keep growth going and attract investment to a country struggling to compete with neighbors in sectors such as garment exports, which rely on accurate and timely deliveries. Lead times are very important, said Jacob Clere, who works on a European Union-funded project to improve Burmas garment industry. Taking a few days longer than those in the region, they [garment brands] will avoid [Burma] until the lead time is shortened. Not So Sweet Another factor contributing to the port disruption has been a crackdown by China on sugar smuggling, officials said. Up to 1 million tons of sugar is trafficked into China every year, experts say, mostly entering the country from India and Thailand via Burma. In March, just before the handover of power, Burmas outgoing government issued additional re-exporting licences to sugar traders, Aye Lwin of the chamber of commerce said. That meant that, just as port operations were closing down for the long April holiday, four vessels came and discharged about 20,000 or 30,000 containers, said Aye Lwin. These containers couldnt move for the time being, they were blocked. As China stepped up inspections, he said, our cargo got stuck on the border. So a lot of containers cannot move and a traffic jam is formed all the way to the jetty in [Rangoon]. There should be quotas and some predictability, Aye Lwin added. Our governments should talk about it. Otherwise, its a total mess. Monday, June 13th, 2016 (4:02 pm) - Score 603 Villages in the rural Blackdown Hills, which represents a 370km2 area of natural beauty that straddles the border between Somerset and Devon in South West England, appear to have become tired of waiting for better broadband and have instead put in a bid for 4.6m from the EU to support their own plan. The proposal to secure investment via the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was officially tabled by the Blackdowns Hills Parish Network (BHPN) today, although precise details of the project continue to be in short supply. According to the press release, East Devon District Council (EDDC) has agreed in principle to be the BHPNs Delivery Partner in finding appropriate suppliers and managing the project. Under the plan its hoped that the Department of Communities and Local Government will communicate a decision on the application in July 2016 and, if successful, a full application will then be submitted before the end of October 2016. Under this plan its anticipated that an Invitation to Tender (ITT) for potential suppliers is likely to be published in early 2017, but its also possible that the imminent EU referendum might create some problems, especially if people vote to leave. In theory a post-Brexit UK would have two years to negotiate an exit, during which time the usual rules should still apply. The project will naturally be centred on parishes in the Blackdown Hills AONB (there are around 39 of those), but it will also consider extending NGA Broadband (30Mbps+) coverage to parishes adjacent to the AONB; funding and technology permitting. The tender will be technology neutral. Mrs Heather Stallard MBE, Chair of the BHPN, said: This is an exciting opportunity for all Blackdown parishes, many of whom have missed out on the current County run broadband programme. It will enable our residents and businesses to have access to the technology and trade routes of the 21st Century and we hope that the Department of Communities and Local Government will look favourably upon our outline application. We are pleased to be working with East Devon District Council as our Delivery Partner in pursuing this opportunity. At this point our regular readers will no doubt recall that the local Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) programme, which is supported by the Governments Broadband Delivery UK scheme, has been stuck in a sort of limbo for the past year after failing to agree a new extension contract with BT (here). The CDS project has in fact recently moved forward with their procurement to find a supplier that will be able to push a superfast broadband (24Mbps+) network beyond the current coverage target of 90%, which is due to be achieved by the end of 2016. But perhaps the BHPN arent too keen on waiting to see if they will be missed out again and have taken matters into their own hands. We suspect that a fixed wireless network may end up being one of the most likely solutions, much like the one that last year won a similar tender for the Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks (here). Monday, June 13th, 2016 (10:20 am) - Score 988 Mobile operator Vodafone has claimed that some small UK businesses could suffer as much as 12,310 in lost revenue by not having access to their mobile phones for a day. In order to tackle this the operator has launched Rapid, which gets a replacement device to the business within 4 hours of an approved insurance claim being made. Apparently the new device will be delivered, with the battery already charged, by dedicated scooters in London and by courier to addresses across the rest of the country. Furthermore, for every hour beyond the 4 hours Vodafone will give a small business 10 (up to a maximum of 40). In most cases Vodafone says customers will get an identical replacement, but they also suggest that there may sometimes be exceptions to this rule. The new solution is essentially a premium delivery service, which is available on all of Vodafones Business Premier plans when insurance is added. Its also included at no extra cost along with Business Insurance Damage Cover (damage only) when you choose Business Premier 20GB-50GB or Business Premier Global Traveller plans. Phil Mottram, Enterprise Director at Vodafone UK, said: When the potential loss of new business opportunities equates to billions of pounds for small businesses country-wide, and more importantly could mean that a small business misses out on that vital call, its business critical to get replacement phones into the hands of business owners as quickly as possible when they find their mobile is lost, stolen or damaged. This is where Vodafone Rapid comes in getting the countrys small business population back up and running with a replacement phone within just four hours. The figure of 12k+ was arrived at via a YouGov survey of more than 1,000 small businesses with up to 9 employees, which predicted that on average they would miss out on almost four new business opportunities in a working day when their work mobile is out of action. Apparently the average opportunity was valued at more than 3k, which makes us wonder if most of the businesses were high-end jewellery stores or investment bankers rather than local shops or other similarly small firms. Elsewhere 67% of respondents said a mobile phone is vital to the running of their organisation and 20% had seen their phone become lost, stolen or damaged. Meanwhile 55% said that they dont have business phone insurance, which is obviously something that Vodafone hope to change. Now how about Vodafone Rapid for the residential market? 5 Ways to Kick-Start Employee Energy Dana W. White is one of those people you imagine being able to sit down and have lunch with, just so you can pick her brain and gain insight from her perspectives. While that opportunity hasnt arisen, an opportunity did recently arise that was, perhaps, the next best thing: I was able to engage her in an enlightening interview. White, a leadership consultant and author of the newly released book, Leader Designed: Become the Leader You Were Made to Be, is a black woman who has spent her career working in male-dominated industries, from the automotive industry to the Pentagon to politics. Her experiences include serving as a foreign policy advisor to Sen. John McCain, and managing U.S.-Taiwan defense relations for the Department of Defense. Given that background, I could have focused on any number of topics, but I chose to focus on her experiences as a woman working in male-dominated industries. I opened the conversation by asking what working in those industries has taught her. She said its taught her how to move on, and she explained what she meant: When I was at the Pentagon, I was quite young men would joke about having shoes and shirts older than me. It taught me how to get tougher skin. And its very important to understand how men think, if you want to be a successful woman in any workplace. Dont get me wrong there were many days when I was upset, and I went out to the parking lot and cried, because I would make mistakes, and I got yelled at. But what I learned about working for men in these industries, which is different from working for women, is they would get mad at me, and then it was completely over and forgotten. Whereas Ive worked with women, and I make a mistake, and shes very nice about it, saying, Hey, it happens, but it can be very passive-aggressive. And then she never trusts you again. As a woman, you also sort of know how another woman thinks. Women forget nothing, and youre always now a little hesitant. So what I enjoyed about working around men is that its all about the mission, and you can learn a lot. You can make mistakes, but then its over they just moved on very quickly. Literally five minutes later, its like it just vanished from their head. I think thats a great lesson to learn, just in your own life. Women do have a tendency to marinate over problems, which can be an advantage, but it can also be a disadvantage. It can create unnecessary anxiety. So its not an issue of never making a mistake. Its an issue of never making the same mistake twice. That is something I think men understand really well, and it helped me not only in my career, but in my life. Move on. Theres nothing you can do about it. Just do better next time. White has spoken about how true leadership is all about putting the needs of others ahead of yourself, and it struck me that one could argue that the very fact that women by nature tend to put the needs of others ahead of themselves is what has led to women lagging behind men in leadership opportunities. So I asked White if theres a solution to that paradox. She said there is: Its a corporate culture thing, that has been dominated by men. We have corporate cultures that promote leaders based on how well they personally perform. That is very advantageous, and lends itself to men, because men, in general, tend to be competitive theyre judged on how they perform. So if you are the guy who can laugh it up with the biggest client, and bring in the most money, its all about you. They give you the big office, they make you the vice president of sales. Its about you, because you provided for the company. But somebody who is capable of doing that isnt necessarily the best leader he isnt necessarily the best person to be managing the team, and amplifying its performance. So whats required is a shift in the corporate culture. Someone who is a high performer might not be your best leader, because a leader has to be able to see in other people what theyre capable of. They have to encourage other people, and not worry that theyre not getting face time with the biggest client. They have to look around them and ask, What makes the most sense in order to accomplish our goal? And then they have to enable the people around them to do it. That, White said, is precisely where women excel: I think women are absolutely predisposed to being great leaders, because they can look at other people and nurture them, and they are very good at putting other people and the mission ahead of themselves. But in a culture that is very dominated by men, and the mode of kill the woolly mammoth, it makes it harder for women to negotiate. And being the kind of woman who can kill a woolly mammoth often turns off both men and women in the workplace. So I think thats why women lag. And that becomes the struggle. I asked White in what ways being female had been an asset in her career. She responded by pointing out that its important to be unusual, no matter who you are: Particularly among women and minorities, theres this tendency to think, I want to have what everyone has, which really means, I want to have what white men have. Thats the underlying message. But No. 1, thats not your playing field. We as people in general, and especially minorities and women, get very wrapped up in being the same: It isnt fair I want to have what you have. But the thing is, you and I are different people. My perspective is the fact that Im a different person doesnt have to be a deficit just because Im not a white male. I bring something completely different to a situation. I dont think theres ever been a time in history when different perspectives have been valued more than now. People want to know, what are the millennials thinking? Never has there been a time when the establishment, the power structure, has been more interested in inclusiveness of perspectives. So being wrapped around this idea of, I dont have what he has, youre not who he is. Thats OK, and theres actually value in that. For me, not only being a woman, but also being black, Ive always enjoyed different perspectives. Ive never walked into a situation thinking, Its not going to be fair for me. I always knew that there are certain limitations in life someone else is always going to be smarter than me, or taller than me. But I think we buy into this false narrative that in order to be happy, or in order for things to be just, I have to have what you have. Its up to me to make my perspective valuable. Its up to me to bring my special value to the discussion. All of that said, White is hardly fooling herself about the reality of the situations she walks into: Certainly, Ill walk into situations where people will have seen my resume, they will have talked to me on the phone, and then a black woman walks in. Have I ever considered that in my psyche? Of course I have. I recognize that people might be a little biased, or a little surprised, because Im not what they expected. I need to work around that. I need to work around what people may feel about me. People want to find value in sameness, but theres never value in sameness. Theres value in being unique. We wrapped up the interview on a thought-provoking note. Interestingly, White was working on Capitol Hill when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, and she doesnt shy away from talking about the damage that episode caused: Youre very impressionable when you come into your first job, and [the scandal] sort of exposed a world that, as a young woman, you, perhaps naively, thought was a bygone era that sex was a way to get ahead. That seemed so archaic no modern woman thinks that, or does that anymore. Then the Monica Lewinsky scandal hit, and this wasnt just any man it was the President of the United States. Clearly, it showed that this was very much a part of a womans repertoire. In a weird way, I think it taught a generation of women that its OK to bring sex to the workplace like its part of your arsenal. Not necessarily sex itself, but sexuality, and letting men think about you sexually. I think frankly, its something that we as a generation havent recovered from I think its only gotten worse with young women. I think young women are far less aware of just how disadvantageous, or inappropriate, how they carry themselves and how they dress can be. So I think the Monica Lewinsky scandal was very damaging in terms of setting the stage for young women to lower the bar on how we regard ourselves. A contributing writer on IT management and career topics with IT Business Edge since 2009, Don Tennant began his technology journalism career in 1990 in Hong Kong, where he served as editor of the Hong Kong edition of Computerworld. After returning to the U.S. in 2000, he became Editor in Chief of the U.S. edition of Computerworld, and later assumed the editorial directorship of Computerworld and InfoWorld. Don was presented with the 2007 Timothy White Award for Editorial Integrity by American Business Media, and he is a recipient of the Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Award for editorial excellence in news coverage. Follow him on Twitter @dontennant. According to tech experts, Apple is expected to showcase Mac iOS 10 and unveil artificial intelligence (AI) plans at its WWDC annual conference that will start today in San Francisco. The Independent reports that in the fast-growing artificial intelligence field, experts believe that Apple will use its annual conference to announce plans to compete with Facebook and Google. The high-tech company will also unveil an updated MacBook laptop line and a new version of its Mac iOS that powers the iPad and iPhone. Apple's WWDC 2016 conference, which starts today in San Francisco, will be used by the company to showcase an updated version of Siri, the virtual, voice-activated personal assistant. The software is expected to be expanded in order to be integrated in a broader range of apps. According to Forbes, Siri was first out with a mobile agent, but now Google Voice/Now/On Tap, Amazon with Alexa and Microsoft Cortana all have agents. The competition is very high in this field that lately has become very trendy. Recently, both Facebook and Google have announced their plans to focus on their artificial intelligence products. Facebook will introduce intelligent "bots" to Messenger, while Google plans on improving its software. Technology analysts expect that Apple will discuss its own plans for development in the AI field. It has been speculated that part of the Apple update could also be a new app for controlling smart home products. It is a very tough challenge for the major companies creating artificial intelligence chat bots and digital assistants to convince users to ditch their keyboards. The AI system needs to determine the words that are said, their context and their meaning in order to finally getting the right response. If Apple wants to assess the superiority of its Siri AI digital assistant then it should show at this year's edition of developers conference more in-context capabilities to take consumers to the end of a request or transaction. Siri should be able, for instance, to search for movie times then get tickets or to search for the restaurant then make a reservation. Apple should also provide Mac integration for Siri in order to offer Amazon Echo-like capabilities. The benefit of an artificial intelligence agent on a Mac is huge memory and processing capabilities as well as microphone placement. WhatsApp has finally introduced a new feature, which gives users the ability to quote messages, making replying in group chats relatively easier. According to News18, when multiple users are exchanging messages in group conversations, it could be particularly difficult to trace back the message directed at you and reply to it without losing the track of ongoing conversation. WhatsApp has introduced a new "quote" feature in order to make it easier to reply. The new feature allows users to mark any message in a group chat, to quote and send a specific reply to the intended users. These characteristics make the new "quote" feature similar to replying to emails. In order to quote any message, users have to simply tap, hold on the message and then hit reply. A quoted reply will be sent as response. Users can even scroll up to the original message by tapping on the quoted part of the message. The new feature has been implemented in the latest versions of WhatsApp app, version 2.16.95 for Android and version 2.16.6 for iOS. However, according to Engadget, it is unclear if every user already has access to it. The experimental feature first came out on Saturday, June 11, on the Android app's beta version 2.16.118. According to NDTV, WhatsApp already began rolling the feature out to the general public. The new update is not available for download on Google Play or iTune, but users have reported that they were able to quote messages on their stable apps version 2.16.6 for iOS and version 2.16.95 for Android. In order to find out if you have access to it, you have to simply press for a few seconds on the message you want to respond to, until the action bubble/bar pops up. You should find a new option that looks like the arrow typically associated with reply, located next to star, trash, copy and forward. General Motors (GM) is keen in boosting its research efforts to further support its program in developing new technologies in Canada by hiring extra staff. GM said that improving self-driving technology will be their main focus. According to Autoblog, "Commercial and regulatory progress towards autonomous-vehicle technology is taking place on both sides of the US/Canada border." In line with this, General Motors' operations in Canada and the US federal government are putting needed resources to accelerate both technology and laws affiliated with autonomous-vehicle production. GM said on Friday that number of engineers will increase to about 1,000 at its operations facility near Toronto. The company added that most of the would-be added engineers will focus in providing features on autonomous driving. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is with Premier Kathleen Wynne during GM's announcement. The focus on self-driving technology will further push more manufacturing and technology investment in Ontario, where GM's six Chevrolet models are produced. GM already started its process of hiring new engineers. Newly hired engineers will work on vehicle technology improvement and improve related features like infotainment, safety and connectivity. In addition to this, an Automotive Software Development Center will be added by GM in Markham, which is situated 20 miles in the north of Toronto. Just last month, GM said that an autonomous taxi model of the Chevy Volt will also be developed in cooperation with the ride-hailing app Lyft. Related update on INAUTONEWS added that aside from the hiring process and autonomous-driving technology focus, GM Canada also opened its 2908 Communitech Innovation Lab, which is a facility in Waterloo, Ontario that focuses on smartphone applications, improving urban mobility and related vehicle innovations. GM Executive VP for Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, Mark Reuss announced, "We selected Canada for this expansion because of its clear capacity for innovation, proven talent and strong ecosystem of great universities, startups and innovative suppliers. With this expansion, GM Canada will play an important role in our evolution toward vehicles that are connected, autonomous, shared and electric." Internet Australia is critical of the short-term thinking by both the major political parties that has plagued the planning, development and roll-out of the National Broadband Network. IA has now made a pre-election call for a focus on the long-term benefits of a fast broadband service and has given its support to a review of the network rollout. Responding to Mondays Labor Party NBN policy announcement, IA says it supports Labors election promise that it will commission a review of the NBN by Infrastructure Australia with input from relevant experts if elected to government in July. As reported by iTWire, the Labor Partys NBN policy pledges that up to two million more premises would get fibre to the premises (FttP) compared to what it called the "second-rate NBN" of the Coalition. While IA chief executive Laurie Patton says he welcomes a return to a focus on the use of fibre by the Labor Party, he also says, however, that "with so much confusion, claims and counterclaims it make sense to have an independent expert authority run its eye over things. We look forward to an opportunity to provide our expertise and that of our members if this occurs." Patton has many times offered to provide IAs expertise to government on all matters Internet, including the NBN, and is now hoping that Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberal Party if returned, or Bill Shorten and the Labor Party if elected, will look to the IAs expert input on the NBN. On Monday, the IA chief also reiterated his previous strong criticism of any policy by governments (of all political persuasions) which deliver NBN services over older copper networks, rather than fibre. He said: "Fibre is the only sensible way to connect the Internet to people's homes and businesses. We have consistently argued that the use of ageing copper wires will deliver an inferior service and which will not be fit-for-purpose even before the rollout has been completed. There is a limit to how much faster we can make the copper go, whereas those with fibre connections will experience significant speeds gains in coming years." There has been constant industry and media criticism and debate, including by iTWires writers and commentators, on the merits or limitations on the use of copper versus fibre to deliver NBN services. In his response to Labors policy announcement, Patton repeated IAs call for a focus on the long-term benefits of building a fast broadband network rather than the short-termism and for arguments about construction costs to be put into perspective. We didnt have this sort of debate when it came to the Snowy Mountains Scheme or the Sydney Harbour Bridge. These projects, like the NBN, were long-term investments in the countrys future and were rightly seen as such. How can we become an innovation nation if we dont have the tools required? One of those tools is a competitive NBN one that is on par with the broadband speeds in the countries in our region with whom we will need to compete in the emerging digitally-enable world economy. IA has also called for a ramping up of the marketing of the NBN, and Patton says that what is needed now is to concentrate on getting customers signed up. The more customers on the NBN, the more revenue it will receive and the less money it will need to borrow to complete the project. File-encrypting ransomware programs have become one of the biggest threats to corporate networks worldwide and are constantly evolving by adding increasingly sophisticated detection-evasion and propagation techniques. In a world where any self-respecting malware author makes sure that his creations bypass antivirus detection before releasing them, enterprise security teams are forced to focus on improving their response times to infections rather than trying to prevent them all, which is likely to be a losing game. Exabeam, a provider of user and entity behavior analytics, believes that machine-learning algorithms can significantly improve ransomware detection and reaction time, preventing such programs from spreading inside the network and affecting a larger number of systems. Because the decryption price asked by ransomware authors is calculated per system, isolating affected computers as soon as possible is critical. Only last week the University of Calgary announced that it paid 20,000 Canadian dollars (around US$15,600) to ransomware authors to get the decryption keys for multiple systems. Exabeam's Analytics for Ransomware, a new product that was announced today, uses the company's existing behavior analytics technology to detect ransomware infections shortly after they occur. The product uses data from a company's existing logs to build behavior profiles for computers and users. This allows it to detect previously unknown ransomware without pre-existing detection signatures by analyzing anomalies in the file and document behavior of employees. To avoid false positive detections, the technology flags incidents as ransomware when the combined risk score of multiple suspicious activities that could indicate this type of threat reaches a certain threshold. Exabeam's security research team is helping train the product in a laboratory by executing a very large number of ransomware samples on test computers and letting it observe their behavior in order to build threat models. Exabeam Exabeam builds a threat score based on behavioural anomalies. The product does not have blocking capabilities itself and is intended to be used by a company's security analysts to quickly spot and respond to security incidents. It is available as an add-on to the company's larger analytics platform, which can already detect violations of internal company security policies. Even though there's no built-in threat neutralization functionality, the platform can integrate with other security tools and allow analysts to create administrative scripts that are executed automatically when an incident is detected -- for example, to immediately isolate an infected computer from the rest of the network. Ransomware is typically distributed through drive-by download attacks and phishing emails, which means that computers are affected one-by-one, based on users' actions. However, in a corporate setting, ransomware can easily spread beyond a single computer by affecting files on document-sharing servers and other collaboration services used by employees. Recently, some ransomware programs even gained worm-like, self-spreading capabilities. Once such threat is called ZCrypt and it copies itself to external USB drives, from where it's executed via rogue autorun.inf files. By running a very large number of ransomware samples in a laboratory environment, the Exabeam researchers have also observed some interesting trends: for example, a recent increase in the ransom price. "Two or three months ago most ransom values were between 0.4 and 1 bitcoin," said Barry Shteiman, the head of threat research at Exabeam. "That changed over the past month, the price now being between 2 and 5 bitcoins." This could also be driven by the fact that many ransomware authors are now focused on targeting businesses, and companies are willing and able to pay more than consumers in order to recover critical business files. Another interesting observation is that no new ransomware installer remains functional for more than a day. This indicates that "ransomware campaigns are changing every day," Shteiman said. "It's like their creators work in DevOps mode, releasing new code to their spamming partners every day." Millennials are now the largest generation in America, and as they work their way into the corporate world, they are driving change in business communication, says Jeff Corbin, CEO and founder of APPrise Mobile, a provider of mobile communication apps. As the workplace evolves and millennials continue to comprise the vast majority of the workforce, the importance of communicating and engaging with employees has never been more important. There is definitely a shift taking place from old school and legacy communications solutions like email and corporate intranets to newer, more mobile friendly tools, Corbin says. A 2016 Digital Workplace Communications Survey conducted by the PRSA Employee Communication Section and APPrise Mobile discovered that, while communication is a top concern for most businesses, they arent being as effective as possible in the area. And millennials are forcing businesses to catch up, as these digital natives enter the workplace armed with an arsenal of mobile communication tools and expecting the same from their employers. [ Related story: Millennials force CIOs to rethink tech, training processes ] Millennial expectations For millennials, digital communication is second nature as they grew up using laptops, tablets and smartphones, and this is a group of individuals who are for the most part used to instantaneous communication. Whether its texting, Snapchat, email or Facebook, they have come to expect immediate gratification, says Corbin. What that means for your business, he says, is that you can expect your millennial employees to be frustrated with older, legacy systems that lack speed and a modern touch. Millennials are used to using the latest technology and its become inherent to their communication styles, whether personal or professional, especially since most have more than one mobile device, says Corbin. But its not easy to get an entire company on board with a new form of communication, he says. Therefore, you will need to spend time considering what initiatives you put in place and what will work best for your company. Most importantly, youll need to approach new digital communication tools with an open mind and involve your employees in the decision. Corbin says business leaders should listen to their employees and figure out what they want to increase productivity and encourage engagement. Investing in communication tools can be expensive, but the last thing you want is to waste money by introducing a new tool that nobody wants to use millennial or not. Employee engagement Communication tools might not be at the top of the list of things you want to fix in your company, but business leaders need to realize that its about more than instant messenger tools and email providers. Microsoft partnered with SurveyMonkey and polled more than 1,000 millennials in the U.S. to find out what helped them thrive in the workplace. The results showed that 93 percent of millennials polled cited modern and up-to-date technology as one of the most important aspects of a workplace. And if millennials arent be happy with your business technology they might just leave your company. A report from Nimble Storage in collaboration with Oxford Economics found that 77 percent of millennials felt that sub-optimal application performance affected their productivity and personal best, while only half of baby boomers said the same. Half of the millennial respondents also reported that they ceased using an application because it ran too slowly, while 78 percent said when using business software they occasionally or constantly experienced delays. Companies now realize the importance that communications and employee engagement have to worker productivity and their overall business success. As a result, they no longer have a choice but to go digital. As nearly half of the respondents indicated, their company needs to rethink their digital workplace communications, says Corbin. [ Related story: How to retain your millennial workforce ] No one-size-fits-all But APPrise Mobile found in its study that theres no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to digital communication, and that employees favor multiple tools, using different apps or software depending on the type of communication. If you only offer workers only one communication tool, such as email or company intranet, it can serve to isolate any employees who arent comfortable using those tools, according to Corbin. Companies should create a mix of communications tactics that support their desired objectives, he says. Lindsey Pollak, New York Times best-seller and millennial workforce expert, says that another key consideration is how millennials expect technology to evolve. Just as technology is rapidly changing, your youngest employees will also expect the tools they use to grow and adapt the same way. You dont want to choose a new tool and then leave it be, because your millennial workers dont expect the tools to remain static, according to Pollak. But, at the same time, avoid jumping on trends in technology, says Jeff Vijungco, vice president of Global Talent at Adobe. He suggests focusing on technology that makes sense for your business, enables your employees to be more productive and can be deployed quickly and efficiently. Pollak also points out how it is naive to expect that millennials workers to automatically understand how to use new technology because of their age. You should offer training to all generations in your workforce rather than assume the younger employees will inherently know how to use the new tools. Millennials may need guidance on when to use the technology and when not to, such as when its appropriate to send a text versus when a phone call or in-person meeting is needed, she says. Overblown stereotypes Millennials have been the subject of questions on everything from whether they make bad employees to whether or not they actually value similar perks as past generations. But Pollock for one doesnt buy into the stereotypes, saying that millennials have been a driving force in the workplace, bringing perks for everyone along the way. Theyve pushed boundaries in the workplace, including championing for flexible schedules, better benefits, improved parental leave and fostering the idea that work should feel meaningful. Millennials want what all generations want, she says. They simply will ask for it sooner than previous generations. The same goes for communication, theyre going to want the best tools to do their job, and they arent afraid to ask. In the end, your company might even benefit from the shove towards modern technology. But if you think millennials would rather be glued to their screen than book an in-person meeting, think again. A study from Adobe found that millennials value interpersonal interaction over digital interaction at work. While 81 percent of millennials said state of the art technology was paramount to an ideal working environment over perks or amenities, 55 percent they valued in-person communication at work over digital. But it seems even millennials buy into some of the hype about their generation; 46 percent of respondents anticipated their peers to value IM and texts over interpersonal communication, but the real number ended up being just 11 percent. We all want to do more meaningful work in less or with the same amount of time. Technology enables us to optimize how we spend our days. Companies can have the most amazing perks but if youre not able to produce work efficiently with the help of great people and technology, then massage rooms and roaming cookie cart are meaningless, says Jeff Vijungco, vice president, Global Talent at Adobe. Related Video A bill to give email and other documents stored in the cloud new protections from government searches may be dead in the U.S. Senate over a proposed amendment to expand the FBI's surveillance powers. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered warrants to search email and other data stored with third parties for longer than six months. Under U.S. law, police need warrants to get their hands on paper files in a suspect's home or office and on electronic files stored on his computer or in the cloud for less than 180 days. But under the 30-year-old ECPA, police agencies need only a subpoena, not reviewed by a judge, to demand files stored in the cloud or with other third-party providers for longer than 180 days. A similar bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a 419-0 vote in April. But sponsors of the Senate bill, Senators Mike Lee and Patrick Leahy, pulled the bill from consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week after another committee member insisted on pushing forward with an amendment that would expand the FBI's controversial National Security Letter (NSL) surveillance program. The amendment from Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, would allow the FBI to use the administrative subpoena NSL program to obtain electronic data from communications providers. Under the amendment, the FBI, through NSLs, would not need court-ordered warrants to obtain IP addresses, routing and transmission information, session data, a person's browsing history, email metadata, location information, and the exact date and time a person signs in or out of a particular online account. Lee, a Utah Republican, and Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, called the Cornyn amendment a "poison pill" that kills their ECPA revamp. An ECPA revamp is "functionally dead until Cornyn withdraws his poison pill amendment," a spokeswoman for Lee said by email. A spokeswoman for Leahy sounded a more optimistic note, saying the sponsors of the bill would continue pushing for its passage this year. "But I will keep working with Republicans to see if we can find a path forward on a version of the bill that can be signed into law," Leahy said during a committee meeting on Thursday. Cornyn suggested the committee would approve his amendment, and the bill, if amended, would pass both the Senate and the House. "It strikes me as odd that somebody could call an amendment a poison pill when, I believe, the amendment enjoys the support of a majority of this committee," he said in a statement. "Hving said all that, I support the warrant for content provisions, and Im happy to continue the conversation. Some privacy advocates and tech companies have been pushing Congress to update ECPA since 2011. Unlike in 1986, when ECPA was first passed, computer users now use the cloud to store many personal documents, and those documents should enjoy the same privacy protections as those stored for shorter periods or stored in file cabinets, they have argued. An expansion of the NSL program, as advocated by Cornyn and the FBI, would expand government surveillance in a bill that's intended to increase privacy protections, opponents have argued. This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. 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. Email Links to our top local news stories of the day, Monday through Saturday. Today Chance of a morning shower. Morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine. High 71F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Tonight A clear sky. Low around 45F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Tomorrow Sunshine. High 67F. Winds light and variable. Land and Space Journal Sentinel business reporter Tom Daykin talks about commercial real estate and development. SHARE By of the City funds would help build some new RiverWalk segments--two just north of downtown, the other in Walker's Point--under three new proposals pending before Milwaukee officials. Up to $1.53 million would help finance construction of a 390-foot RiverWalk and dock wall in connection with Wangard Partners Inc.'s redevelopment of the former Laacke & Joys Co. building, 1433 N. Water St., according to a Department of City Development report. Part of the former manufacturing building is being demolished, with a five-story addition developed to create a 113,830-square-foot multi-tenant office building anchored by Bader Rutter & Associates. Also, two neighboring buildings will be converted to restaurants, and a 12-story, 140-room hotel could eventually be developed at the site. That $31 million office and restaurant development is to be completed by December 2017. Another $453,000 would cover increased costs to construct the 460-foot RiverWalk, dock wall, N. Broadway stub and N. Edison St. extension associated with The North End's fourth phase,1501 N. Water St. That six-story, 155-unit apartment building will be finished by mid-2017, according to developer Mandel Group Inc. The RiverWalk financing proposal would supplement $3 million approved in 2015. Finally, $1.6 million would help finance a 280-foot RiverWalk and dock wall, and build the stub end of E. Oregon St., next to the $30 million 234 Apartments, 234 S.Water St. Developer David Winograd plans to open that 12-story, 164-unit apartment building by spring 2018. The city funds would be repaid through new property taxes generated by the developments, with those tax incremental financing districts requiring Common Council approval. Once those funds are repaid, the new property taxes go to the city, its school district and other local governments. All three proposals are to be reviewed at Thursday's Redevelopment Authority board meeting. As with other public RiverWalk segments, the city pays for 70% of the RiverWalk costs and 50% of the dock wall costs. All Politics Blog From Milwaukee, Madison and beyond, a daily dose of political news and glimpses behind the scenes SHARE By of the In the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Hillary Clinton's campaign event with President Barack Obama in Green Bay will be postponed. The event was due to be held Wednesday and was to mark the first time that Obama appeared with Clinton on the campaign trail since she became the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee. In a statement issued Sunday, the Clinton campaign said information about rescheduling the event will be be provided as soon as possible. By of the The planned conversion of a long-vacant restaurant on Milwaukee's north side into a neighborhood grocery store would be financed with a $140,000 loan from a nonprofit business lender, under a new proposal. King's Fresh Market Group LLC plans to buy the 6,846-square-foot former Stella's Restaurant, 2730 N. King Drive. The grocery store would sell a variety of household goods and foods, including fresh produce that is often less available in the central city. King's Fresh Market is seeking a loan from Milwaukee Economic Development Corp., a city affiliate, to help finance the $350,000 investment. The main lender would be Tri City National Bank. The Common Council and Mayor Tom Barrett in September approved plans to sell the city-owned property to King's Fresh Market for $100,000. The city acquired the property in 2014 through property tax foreclosure. The building originally housed a Ponderosa Steakhouse, which opened in 2002. The Ponderosa ran into financial trouble with the onset of the 2008 recession, losing its franchise and switching its name to Stella's Restaurant, before closing in 2010. King's Fresh Market is owned by Bruce Martin, a real estate investor and former principal of Lena's Food Market, and Tamora Martin, who has 22 years of experience in the financial services industry, according to a Department of City Development report. The grocery would have six full-time and 10 part-time employees, according to the MEDC. It would be the second neighborhood grocery recently planned for King Drive. In April, the operators of Pete's Fruit Market, a supermarket on Milwaukee's near south side, announced plans to open a second Pete's grocery store at a remodeled former Walgreens drugstore, at the northwest corner of N. King Drive and W. North Ave. The 13,700-square-foot store is to open late this year. The MEDC's Loan and Finance Committee will consider the King's loan request at its Tuesday meeting. Facebook: facebook.com/JSBusiness Twitter: twitter.com/TomDaykin To track this project and others, check out the Land & Space Development Database, at jsonline.com/development SHARE By of the A Wauwatosa firm that helps employers oversee their pharmaceutical benefits programs is moving to the Walker's Point neighborhood in Milwaukee. Remedy Analytics Inc. is moving from 1011 N. Mayfair Road to 234 W. Florida St., according to a Monday announcement from Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. The firm is leasing around 7,000 to 10,000 square feet, said Logan Dawson, director of the Milwaukee 7 regional economic development group. Remedy, which has 17 employees, anticipates hiring 27 more full-time employees. Company executives selected Milwaukee for the expansion after considering other U.S. locations, including Chicago, Dawson said. Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. has agreed to provide the company with up to $110,000 in Business Development Tax Credits through 2019. The actual amount of credits awarded will be contingent upon the number of jobs created during that period. Remedy, founded in 2012, uses proprietary analytics technology to help self-insured employers reduce prescription benefit costs. Sales of existing homes in the Milwaukee metro area jumped 12.3% in May compared with same month in 2015. Credit: Associated Press SHARE By of the Sales of existing homes in the Milwaukee metro area jumped 12.3% in May compared with same month in 2015, extending a generally upbeat year for the local housing market. A report by the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors Monday shows there were 2,111 homes sold last month in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties. That compared with 1,880 in May 2015. Sales in Milwaukee County fueled the May increase, with 1,170 closings, up 21.5% from 963 in May last year. Sales rose 5% in Waukesha County, at 608 from 579. Sales were unchanged at 126 in Ozaukee County, and slipped 2.4%, to 207 from 212, in Washington County. May marked the 19th time in the last 21 months that year-over-year sales increased in the Milwaukee metro area. Through the first five months of 2016, home sales were up 8.8% in the four-county area, and might be higher if more homes were for sale, real estate professionals say. "As has been the case all year, inventory is very tight, particularly for properties under $300,000," Mike Ruzicka, president of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, said in Monday's report. The tighter inventory is pushing up prices, with the law of supply and demand kicking in, Ruzicka said. Listings of homes for sale were down 5.8% from May of last year. "Actual sales prices will not be available until the end of the second quarter approximately July 10 but brokers are reporting multiple offers with price increases on many listings," Ruzicka said. Last week, the Irvine, Calif.-based property research firm CoreLogic reported that home prices in the Milwaukee metro area, including distressed sales such as foreclosures, increased by 1.9% in April from the same month in 2015. In the broader southeastern Wisconsin region, May sales of existing homes rose 28.1% to 187 from 146 in Walworth County, while increasing 5.9% to 250 from 236 in Racine County, according to the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors report. In Kenosha County, sales were off 11.3% from May 2015, at 219 compared with 247. Homebuilding also is off to a good start for 2016. A report last week by MTD Marketing Services of Wisconsin Inc. showed that through the first five months of 2016, homebuilding permits were up 24% in the Milwaukee metropolitan area, to 542 from 437 a year earlier. 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 Della Wells Kevin J. Miyazaki Dasha Kelly Visual artist Della Wells and writer Dasha Kelly have been given the City of Milwaukee's Artist of the Year award for 2016. The two women, both accomplished, highly visible and known for their support of other artists, will be honored at a public reception at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Marcus Center, 929 N. Water St. Wells, who didn't start making art in earnest until she was 42, is known for her colorful collages, drawings, dolls, assemblages and quilts. Her artworks are forms of storytelling inspired by deeply personal experiences, tales that are implied but not overt, stories pieced together from scraps of magazines, fabric and memories. She collaborated on a play, "Don't Tell Me I Can't Fly," which was commissioned by First Stage Children's Theater in 2011. The production was inspired by Wells' stories about growing up in a working class African-American community in Milwaukee. Wells has also illustrated a children's book, "Electric Angel," by Nanci Mortimer, to be released by Wooden Nickel Press later this month. She's also been working on a documentary film about Milwaukee's African American art scene from 1967 to 1979 with filmmaker Rubin Whitmore II, artist Mutope J. Johnson and artist Christopher McIntyre. She regularly uses social media to promote the work of African American artists she cares about, both local and national. Her collages will be sold at the National Museum of African American History and Culture when it opens in September. Kelly is a writer, poet and spoken word artist who has performed across the U.S. and Canada. Her second novel, "Almost Crimson," released by Curbside Splendor last year, was named one of the most exciting independently published books of the year by BuzzFeed. Kelly leads workshops on creativity, team building and writing around the world and was a finalist to be named as the state's poet laureate. She appeared on the final season of HBO's "Def Poetry Jam" and was selected twice to serve as a U.S. Embassy Arts Envoy to teach and perform in Botswana, Africa. As the founder of Still Waters Collective, she has for 16 years worked to give young people in Milwaukee a sense of confidence and leadership skills through spoken word and poetry programs. In addition to honoring Wells and Kelly, the City of Milwaukee is also giving Friends of the Arts awards this year to classically trained musician Thallis Hoyt Drake and philanthropist Andy Nunemaker. Hoyt Drake is a founding member of several arts organizations, including the Early Music Now concert series, where she volunteered as the director for a dozen seasons. She has served on the boards of the MacDowell Club, the Milwaukee Symphony Women's League, the Milwaukee Art Museum's Friends of Art and the Civic Music Association. Ostensibly retired, she works with the Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum on its Sunday morning concerts and Lake Park's programming. Nunemaker, CEO of software company Dynamis, serves on the boards of the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, where he is the chair. He has also served on the boards of Milwaukee Film, the Haggerty Museum of Art and the Contemporary Art Society. Lauren Collins plays one of the many instruments available for kids to play during the Juneteenth Day festivities last year. Credit: Journal Sentinel files By of the The 45th annual Milwaukee Juneteenth Day celebration takes place from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday on N. King Drive between W. Center and W. Burleigh streets. Sponsored by Northcott Neighborhood House, Juneteenth is the nation's oldest observed holiday celebrating the end of slavery, and marks the day in 1865 when slaves in Texas heard the Civil War ended. Juneteenth is celebrated in most states, and in some countries around the world. The block party-style celebration includes food vendors, novelty booths, informational stations observing the history of the event and a parade which will start at 8 a.m. For more info, call (414) 372-3770 or visit northcotthouse.org. Credit: Lionel Cironneau SHARE By , MANITOWOC Actor Shia LaBeouf is hitchhiking to Anywhere, U.S.A., and on Monday anywhere was around Manitowoc and Sheboygan. The "Transformers" star is giving strangers the chance to pick him up from coordinates posted on takemeanywhere.vice.com and on Twitter @thecampaignbook to give him a ride to any location. LaBeouf and two other artists, Nastja Ronkko and Luke Turner, rode the S.S. Badger car ferry traveling from Ludington, Michigan, to Manitowoc on Sunday night. Coordinates indicate they went to Sheboygan Monday morning, and, as of noon, were in transit on Wisconsin 23 toward Fond du Lac. The team is documenting the places they go and people they meet along the way. The project began May 23 and is expected to continue through June 23. SHARE Ruby, Allison Schillers African grey parrot, flew out of its Green Bay home and was missing until friends found it with a little help from Facebook. Courtesy of Allison Schiller By , Green Bay Social media's viral power has done it again. Ruby, an African grey parrot, is back home after sneaking out of the house in mid-May through a tear in the corner of her owner's screen door in Green Bay. This was Ruby's first time out of the house, and her owner, Allison Schiller, didn't know where or how far she may have gone. She also didn't know if the bird would know how to survive outdoors. Schiller began her search by following the usual protocol posting fliers and alerting neighbors. She also took to social media to share a brief post about her bird. Little did she know that her post would have more than 1,000 shares in just one day on Facebook and reach places like Chicago, Oregon and Mississippi. "It was like a saga. Everyone was following every day, every hour, what was happening from the moment she went missing until we found her," Schiller said. Schiller created community search teams with supporters on Facebook, and heard from new people everyday who may have seen the bird or wanted to help search. Even with the support, Schiller's hope was dwindling after 48 hours, with still no sign of Ruby. She was beginning to think her bird may never be found. The next day, however, Schiller's friend Scott Raisleger, who saw the social media post, found the bird a few blocks from the neighborhood. Schiller went out to the location with a few other people, and they rescued Ruby from a branch hanging over a cliff. Schiller said Ruby didn't seem to know how to get down from the tree since she had never flown that high. The bird seemed nervous in the windy conditions, but exhaustion had taken over and she had started falling asleep on the branch. That was when Schiller's friend Allan Evans climbed a ladder, pulled the branch in from over the cliff and grabbed Ruby. Schiller's first move after getting the bird home and washing her was to clip her wings. Ruby spent her homecoming eating and drinking, and slept for two days straight after her return. Schiller said Ruby seemed relieved and happy to be home. Schiller said she's incredibly grateful for all the support on social media. "It's nice to know that there's people out there that actually have that compassion and that care," she said. Email Jzollar@greenbaypressgazette.com or follow her on Twitter @jacyzollar SHARE Dennis J. Brantner Fond du Lac County Sheriffs Office Berit Beck By , On July 17, 1990, Berit Beck left her home in Sturtevant and headed to Appleton to attend a work-related seminar. She pulled her van into a Fond du Lac mall to pick up a few items. But the 18-year-old woman never completed her trip. Her vehicle was found a few days later and an agonizing search ensued. Five weeks later, the teenager's skeletal remains were found in a clump of tall weeds in a rural Fond du Lac County ditch. On Monday nearly 26 years after Beck went missing Dennis J. Brantner, a 62-year-old truck driver from southern Wisconsin, will stand trial for first-degree murder. Jury selection begins Monday morning in the courtroom of Fond du Lac County Circuit Judge Gary Sharpe. In late May, Sharpe issued a gag order at the request of prosecutors Eric Toney and Dennis Krueger. The order prohibits the lawyers, including defense attorney Craig Powell of Milwaukee, from discussing the case with the media. Before the order was issued, Powell said the wrong person is standing trial for Beck's murder. For two-plus decades following Beck's death, Powell said, the Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Office openly speculated Craig Hron, a car thief and bank robber from West Bend nicknamed "Psycho," was most likely responsible for the abduction and slaying. Two former longtime detectives at the Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Office, Bill Flood and Steve Hardgrove, believed Hron committed Beck's murder. In 1991, Hardgrove and Flood obtained a search warrant against Hron, declaring in court documents that Hron "is more than likely involved with it." "We kept running into things that brought us back to him." Hardgrove said during a 2013 newspaper interview. "Everywhere we turned it seemed like we shouldn't be looking at anybody else but him." Testimony relating to Hron will not be allowed during Brantner's trial. Sharpe issued a pretrial ruling that prevents Brantner's defense lawyer from introducing evidence that Hron, who was never charged with the slaying, should be standing trial for the Beck slaying rather than his client. Hron is in prison for the 2013 attempted murder of an ex-girlfriend. She survived his knife attack, which occurred in a Walmart parking lot in West Bend. Sheriff's Detective Nathan LaMotte started re-examining the old case files in summer 2013. In February 2014, LaMotte got a huge break. State Crime Laboratory analyst Karley Hujet identified a fingerprint match involving evidence recovered from Beck's van. The prints matched Brantner, who was 36 at the time of Beck's abduction. Brantner denied any involvement in Beck's death. "I swear I did not kill her. I did not kill her because I'm not that way," Brantner told LaMotte and Detective Eric Muellenbach during a 2014 interview, according to police records. "Brantner was at times emotional during the interview and cried at times when the topic of Berit Beck and the deceased body were discussed," according to records. At the time of his March 2015 arrest, nine previously unidentified fingerprints found on five objects inside Beck's gray conversion van matched Brantner's, according to the criminal complaint. "What we think the evidence shows ... is that Mr. Brantner's intent and motive is to isolate, watch, control and possess women," Fond du Lac County Deputy District Attorney Dennis Krueger argued during a pretrial hearing. Besides the fingerprint evidence, prosecutors plan to string together a number of items of circumstantial evidence. They intend to convince the jury that Brantner disposed of Beck's body about 18 miles away from the shopping mall near then-U.S. Highway 41. According to court documents: Brantner's delivery routes for a Ripon-area trucking company often brought him through the intersection of state Highway 26 and U.S. Highway 151, which is not far from the grassy ditch along Brown Road where Beck's body was found. Brantner's fingerprints matched those previously unidentified fingerprints found on a cellophane cigarette wrapper discarded inside Beck's van. A Burger King cup found in Beck's van contained two sets of fingerprints. Both matched Brantner. Three former co-workers at a Kenosha manufacturing plant told authorities in 2014 that Brantner kept a small photo of a blond girl with a 1980s hairdo clipped inside his toolbox at his welder's station. One co-worker told detectives he was 90% certain the photo was of Beck. Last year, Powell told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin that Brantner's former co-workers were badly mistaken. His client never had any photos of Beck inside his toolbox or his work station or anywhere else, he said. Powell has maintained all along that Fond du Lac County's case against Brantner "is fairly weak" and that Brantner is innocent of Beck's murder. "All they have are fingerprints on items that are not connected to Miss Beck's body," Powell has said. Tina Owen-Moore, lead teacher and founder of Alliance School of Milwaukee, is leaving at the end of the school year to pursue a doctoral degree at Harvard. Credit: Michael Sears By , When Tina Owen-Moore was a ninth-grade English student, she received an "F" on a paper she wrote about the troubles she was having at home. Her teacher commented on her paper, "Don't ever write about this stuff again." Her father had just gone to jail for abusing her family. Owen-Moore, her three siblings and mother were moving all around the country. "I had a really traumatic childhood, life was really rough, so I wrote about my family and what we were going through," she said. "When I realized the possibility that I could be a teacher, I decided that I'm going to make sure every child knows that their story is OK with me." Owen-Moore said she believes there is a reason for everything. Her rough childhood inspired her to pursue a career in teaching, and, in 2005, she helped found the Alliance School of Milwaukee, a charter school in Milwaukee Public Schools that operates on an anti-bullying mission. She is taking her career a step further and will leave Alliance in July to pursue a doctoral degree in educational leadership and policy at Harvard University this fall. She said the opportunity feels "like a dream come true." "It was kind of time to start considering getting my doctoral degree and it was something I have always wanted to do, so I decided to apply to a couple of places, but Harvard was at the top of my list," Owen-Moore said. "I will miss this place tremendously. I love every day at Alliance, but I also feel I have a calling to do something." The lead teacher, or lead administrator, at Alliance is driven by her goal to implement policies of anti-bullying and inclusiveness of LGBT students used at Alliance on a wider scale. Her hope is to change the culture of schools around the country. "I would love to be part of rethinking the way we do education in the United States," Owen-Moore said. Allan Laird, Owen-Moore's successor as lead teacher of Alliance and a special-education teacher at the school since 2013, isn't shocked she is off to Harvard. He said he can see her working for the federal government, creating policy for education after she receives her degree. "She knows what our students need," Laird said. Owen-Moore's beliefs are reflected at Alliance, the year-round MPS charter school she helped found in 2005. Owen-Moore has an undergraduate degree in education from Marquette University. After graduating, she taught at Washington High School for six years before creating Alliance. At Washington, she learned anti-bullying practices that she would implement at Alliance. She once had her students anonymously write down any troubles they were having at home on scraps of paper and had them create a collage out of the scraps. "Everybody was, like, 'wow' and was in tears," she said. "It changed the culture of the classroom and created a tight group." Owen-Moore said Alliance's diversity is unique in the city. With an enrollment of 190 students, the population is 45% black, 28% white, 20% Hispanic and 5% Asian. Owen-Moore said the school is split 50/50 between LGBT and straight students, and 40% of the graduating senior class had disabilities. "Everybody comes together here and it's like family in a way that I have never seen before," Owen-Moore said. SHARE By of the A proposed 10-year, $500 million extension of Veolia Water Milwaukee LLC's contract to operate the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District's wastewater collection and treatment facilities was endorsed by labor unions Monday at a meeting of the district commission's policy committee. The committee referred the proposed extension to the full commission for final action at its June 27 meeting. Veolia Water's contract expires Feb. 28, 2018. If the commission rejects the plan, district staff would need the remaining 20 months to work through the only two other options, either requesting proposals from other possible operators or taking back responsibility for operations, MMSD Executive Director Kevin Shafer said Monday. Each of four unions representing Veolia Water employees favor extending the Paris-based company's contract as recommended by MMSD staff, according to Earl Matzinger, business agent for Operating Engineers Local 420. The stance is a switch from union opposition to the first private operating contract the district awarded to United Water Services in 1998. Veolia Water subsequently beat out United Water Services for a 10-year private operating contract valued at $400 million that began in March 2008. They were the only two companies in the final competition for the contract at that time. A proposed contract extension would begin March 1, 2018, with a first year cost of $50.5 million, MMSD finance director Mark Kaminski said Monday. The figure includes $48 million in fees to be paid Veolia Water plus $2.5 million in other costs, including state permit fees, that the private company pays at this time. MMSD would end the practice of paying annual performance bonuses to Veolia Water, under the proposal. The company was paid a total of $320,000 in three performance bonuses for 2015, officials said. The bonus payments were in addition to the estimated 2015 base operating fee of $41.3 million paid to Veolia Water last year. The next hurdle for the proposal is a June 22 public meeting in the commission conference room at district headquarters, 260 W. Seeboth St. The meeting begins at 6 p.m. SHARE By , Saxeville One person died and another was hospitalized after a car crash Sunday morning in Waushara County, police said. Dispatchers received a 911 call shortly after 7 a.m. about a single-vehicle crash on 26th Road southeast of Waushara County W, according to the Waushara County Sheriff's Office. Two males were found in the vehicle; one was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Neenah. The vehicle appeared to have struck several trees, the sheriff's office said in a press release. Emergency responders at the scene were still investigating what time the crash occurred, but they believe it happened early Sunday morning. No names were released. This was the first fatal car crash in Waushara County in 2016. FBI and other investigators walk from a staging area at the Pulse nightclub on Monday in Orlando, Fla. Credit: Getty Images By In the wake of the Orlando shootings, people are trotting out the usual post-massacre talking points about gun control, terrorism, etc. But the solutions aren't so easy. Gun control is much stricter in Europe, but that hasn't stopped mass shootings like the ones at Charlie Hebdo's offices or at the Bataclan concert hall. (It's also very strict in California, but that didn't stop the shootings at San Bernardino.) Talking about gun control is mostly a way of avoiding a tough problem. Donald Trump, meanwhile, was quick to tweet out that this vindicates his positions: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" But Trump's proposal of a temporary moratorium on immigration of Muslims to America wouldn't have prevented shooter Omar Mateen's actions. Mateen wasn't a recent immigrant but a U.S. citizen born of Afghan parents, and he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group, according to a Department of Homeland Security report cited by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). The thing is, proposals such as gun control are basically peacetime remedies, which don't apply in time of war. But traditional wartime remedies might not work, either, because this is not a traditional war. Instead, what we are facing is what William S. Lind calls "fourth-generation warfare." Or maybe it's even fifth-generation warfare: We're not fighting armies. We're not fighting guerrillas. We're not even fighting traditional terrorists. Instead, we're fighting an opponent who turns apparently law-abiding citizens (Mateen was licensed as a security guard and thus had passed background checks) into killers without anyone noticing. They're not actually "lone wolf" terrorists; they're more like human drones, attacking distant targets on command without warning. Well, that last isn't quite true. There were warning signs with the San Bernardino shooters, whose neighbors reportedly didn't want to call the cops for fear of being thought racist. And there were warning signs with Mateen, who apparently had been on security officials' radar screen for some time but not enough to do anything about it. Classmates of Nidal Hassan said he regularly spouted Islamist propaganda months before he shot up Fort Hood, but the military was too politically correct to do anything and afterward tried for some time to pretend that his deliberate, jihadist attack was merely "workplace violence." To prevent this sort of event in the future, we need to do several things. First, interrupt the flow of radicalizing propaganda at the source: ISIL and various other jihadist outfits need to be neutralized or destroyed. These organizations pursue a deliberate strategy of radicalizing Muslims in Western countries to turn them into terrorists, and they operate networks of sympathizers throughout the USA. We used to cozy up to the Saudis, but, thanks to hydraulic fracturing, we don't really need their oil anymore, so they need to be told to put a stop to this sort of support or else. We likely could have nipped ISIL in the bud a few years ago at minimal cost or kept it from sprouting in the first place by maintaining a presence in Iraq but it needs to be brought down now. We also need to be clear about what it is we're fighting. We're not fighting Islam as such. Many good Muslims are horrified by this violence. But we are fighting the jihadist strain of Islam, and unfortunately quite a few Muslims view that strain as legitimate. We can't allow ourselves to be blinded to this reality, unless we want to see jihadist attacks like this which have, sadly, become normal in the past few years continue and increase. Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. This first appeared in USA Today. People and members of the gay community gather for a vigil near the Beaubourg art center in downtown Paris on Sunday to mourn for victims of the mass shooting in Orlando. Credit: Getty By It only compounded the horror that the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history called forth talking points that had been composed long before more than 50 innocents were murdered early Sunday. The immediate reactions on social media to the killings at Pulse Orlando, a popular gay dance club, etched a portrait of our national divisions, our mutual mistrust and our inclination to know what we think even when we lack all the facts. Even before President Barack Obama spoke Sunday afternoon, there were declarations of great certainty that he would attribute the massacre to guns and not "Islamism" and would therefore feed support for Donald Trump. Trump did not disappoint. At 12:43 p.m., he turned to his communications medium of choice and tweeted: "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!" It is no day for partisanship, but how could Trump even think of using a moment of national trauma and mourning as an occasion to tout his own genius or to reach sweeping conclusions on the fly? But it's entirely true that those of us who have long believed that our scandalously lax national gun laws make sickening slaughters inevitable had predictable reactions of our own. I freely admit that I identified entirely with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) when he declared: "This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America nowhere else. Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence." Note that phrase "near constant." We are far from alone in the world in confronting terrorism. What is different about our nation enraging, dispiritingly, depressingly different is that from Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook to Orlando, attacks of this sort happen here again and again and again. Why can we never include a reappraisal of our weapons laws as part of democracy's arsenal of responses to terrorism and mass violence? Why are those who tout themselves as being the toughest among us in calling out terrorism inspired by Islam so timid as soon as any plausible answer is labeled "gun control"? Nonetheless, those of us who hold these views must find ways of reaching out to fellow citizens with whom we have been battling for decades. Terrorism terrorizes advocates of gun control and supporters of gun rights alike. And those on both sides of the gun issue will want to know why three FBI interviews with the killer, Omar Mateen, did not raise more alarms in light of evidence of his apparent terrorist sympathies. What we know so far underscores the challenges of fighting terrorism in a free society. When the president did address the nation, his sobriety and restraint reflected the reaction of a man who had been required too often to speak about the unspeakable and whose calls for action have gone unheeded. He gave his critics who despise his views on guns nothing, turning the tables on them by saying simply that failing to act to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of those who would use them against innocent fellow human beings "is a decision as well." And it is. He also did something important, showing how futile it is to force an act of evil into the boxes we prefabricate. The Orlando slaughter was, he said, "an act of terror and an act of hate." We should despise what happened if our fellow citizens were gunned down by a man who was inspired by foreign terrorists. And we should despise what happened if people had their lives snuffed out because of their sexual orientation. We gain nothing by arguing about which form of moral revulsion is superior or more appropriate. We set ourselves back by responding to an act of violence against Americans who are gay by turning on Americans who are Muslim. The only appropriate response to Orlando is solidarity harnessed to intelligent determination. So far, no body count, however repulsive, has forced us to abandon our ideological cul-de-sacs. The dead on the floor of a night club cry out to us. E.J. Dionne Jr. is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (left) says he disagrees with Donald Trumps renewed call for a Muslim immigration ban after the mass shooting in Orlando. His Democratic challenger, Russ Feingold, said the gay and lesbian community should not have to fear threats of violence. Credit: Associated Press SHARE By of the U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said he disagreed with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's renewed call for a ban on Muslim immigration to the United States in the wake of Sunday's mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. "The root cause is Islamic terror groups," Johnson, a Republican from Oshkosh, said of the shooting during a Monday interview with Green Bay talk radio host Jerry Bader. "The best way to prevent the homegrown-inspired attacks is literally positive engagement with Muslim communities," Johnson said. "Making sure that any immigrant population that comes into America assimilates, becomes part of our culture. That has been our history, it has made us strong." Police identified the gunman as Omar Mateen, who was born in New York to parents originally from Afghanistan. News reports, quoting sources, said Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State during a 911 call. Trump repeated his call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration in a post on Twitter Sunday and in a speech Monday. During a round of television interviews Monday, Trump sounded as if he questioned President Barack Obama's motives in confronting terrorism. Brian Reisinger, a Johnson spokesman, said: "Ron finds these comments to be offensive and wrong." "We need to focus on areas of agreement that unite us in a strong commitment to destroy ISIS and battle Islamic terrorism. Ron hopes the president and people from both parties will agree on this objective," Reisinger said, using an acronym to describe the Islamic State. Johnson, chair of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee, told Bader the country needed to commit itself to "eliminating" Islamic terror, which he called "a real and growing threat." Asked how to come to grips with so-called lone wolves who are inspired by radical ideology, Johnson said: "Defeat the messenger." He said the U.S. is putting pressure on the Islamic State, but as long as the group continues to control territory, "they're going to be perceived as winning, they're going to continue to inspire these types of attacks." Pressed on whether new gun laws were needed, Johnson said there has to be a "delicate balance" between "security and constitutional liberties." "I want to err on the side of constitutional liberty and freedom," he said. "Take a look at what's actually going to work. The people that are proposing banning assault weapons, well, first of all they're already banned. Assault weapon is a fully automatic, those are already banned. So they start talking about assault style. OK, what does that mean? Those can be hunting rifles. All these proposals, I've always heard in terms of additional gun control. You stack up what they're proposing against past instances, well, that wouldn't have prevented the vast majority of those instances, so what would the point be other than reducing our constitutional liberties and freedoms." Asked why he didn't mention the LGBT community during a statement he released Sunday after the attack, Johnson said "When you slaughter Americans, I don't care what their background is, every American citizen has a constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." He added: "This is a hate crime. This is murder." On Sunday, former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat challenging Johnson in the fall, released a statement, calling the attack "both an act of hate and an act of terror." "Our LGBTQ friends, neighbors, and all Americans have the right to feel safe and secure, and should never need to fear threats of violence," Feingold said. SHARE By of the A dispute over the way the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs awards block grant money to county veterans service offices has been resolved. This month, representatives from the Wisconsin Counties Association, Wisconsin County Executives and Administrators Association, Veterans Affairs and the governor's office met to discuss complaints from veterans service officers whose requests for grants in a decades-long program were abruptly being denied with no reason given. A survey found that for 40% of Wisconsin counties, more than half of the $200,000 they requested this year through the block grant program was denied. But the VA has now agreed to revert to the previous method of applying for grants by allowing veteran service office budgets approved by county executives to be submitted to show how the grant money will be spent. "From their side of things, they were responding to an audit about inappropriate expenditures, so they tightened up the process," said Ozaukee County Administrator Thomas Meaux, president of the Wisconsin County Executives and Administrators Association. "But we prevailed that if the chief executive of the county is signing off on the county veterans service officers' budget, then it should qualify" for the grants. Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman Bill Clausius said: "It was a productive meeting and we're moving forward to develop the administrative rules that cover the grant program as a result of the meeting." In past years, counties with full-time veterans service officers received $8,500 to $13,000 each year depending on the population of the county. But starting last year, the state Department of Veterans Affairs changed from a block grant to a reimbursement system for which counties can apply twice each year. The agency also added more restrictions on the use of the money and began denying grant applications without giving a reason nor outlining criteria for submitting paperwork in what had previously been a routine matter. Waushara County Veterans Service Officer Bill Rosenau said the change is a step in the right direction but he's waiting to see how the rules regarding disbursement of grants will be written. "There has been a call pretty much statewide to return it to a block grant structure rather than reimbursement which allows for the counties to actually manage those funds to the betterment of their individual veterans service office," said Rosenau, an Iraq veteran. "Looking at the guidelines written between July and prior to this change, it certainly looked like a state agency stepping on local control issues." Poll worker Kim Tinsley checks a photo identification for a voter during the Feb. 16 primary at the Lincoln Court Apartments, 2325 S. Howell Ave. Credit: Rick Wood SHARE By of the Madison The state's elections agency will receive $250,000 to publicize the state's controversial photo ID law, under a unanimous vote by the Legislature's budget committee Monday. The meeting featured plenty of sparring between Democratic opponents of the law and Republican supporters, but the public education effort was approved 15-0. Also at the meeting, new figures on state ethics and elections funding showed that the agency in charge of those laws has sharply scaled back its spending on investigations over the past two years. Elections officials have requested the money to raise awareness about the requirement that voters show ID a measure that was passed in 2011 but quickly blocked by a series of court orders. It was reinstated last year with some changes, and this spring marked the first statewide contests to be held under the voter ID law since those lawsuits were resolved. Gov. Scott Walker's administration, for instance, has made recent changes to the process used to issue state IDs to those who can't produce birth certificates or other documents needed to get one in time for an election. The money would help run ads and fund other efforts to educate voters about the law and the changes. Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison), a fierce critic of the law, said she was pleased that the state will try to make sure voters this fall know about it. "The fact is we know there are people and this might be hard for us to believe because we live these laws all the time who don't know" about voter ID, Taylor said. Rep. Dean Knudsen (R-Hudson) said that some of the money should be used to identify and reach out to voters who are registered to vote but who don't yet have a state ID. More changes to voter ID could be forthcoming: There are two legal challenges pending that deal with the photo ID law. A federal judge in Milwaukee is considering how people who have extreme difficulties getting IDs can be allowed to vote. And a federal judge in Madison is reviewing whether more types of IDs should be allowed for voting; that lawsuit also covers challenges to other recent voting laws, such as ones limiting early voting. The judge in the Madison case has said he's unlikely to make rulings that could affect voting laws before the Aug. 9 primary. It's unclear whether that could happen in the Milwaukee case. The money was requested by the Government Accountability Board, the state's election agency. The board is being replaced at the end of the month by a new body, the Election Commission, but the leadership of that new agency has also backed the request. The Joint Finance Committee on Monday also approved the transition plan for the GAB as it transfers its duties to the Elections Commission and to the separate Ethics Commission. Since its creation in 2008, the GAB averaged tens of thousands of dollars a year in spending on outside attorneys or investigators for enforcement actions, but it has spent nothing over the past two years, according to figures from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The GAB still has its own in-house investigators and attorneys, so that doesn't mean its spending on investigations was zero. During those years in which the GAB was spending less on outside investigations, the agency was under sharp scrutiny from GOP lawmakers for its role in a now halted investigation into Gov. Scott Walker and conservative groups. The GAB spent $178,900 on outside investigators three years ago during the height of that probe, which prompted Republican lawmakers to dissolve the GAB. In other action, the budget committee voted 11-4 to shift $8 million in state tax credits for early-stage companies to a broader tax credit program for businesses. As part of that shift, the tax credits would become refundable, meaning that they could be paid out to a company in cash even if the business does not owe state taxes. Sen. Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) also sought additional money for responding to alleged abuses at Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, the state prisons for youths that are under federal investigation. "There are many things that need to change at Lincoln Hills, and I'm saying we need to do something," Taylor said. Republicans on the committee voted down those motions. By , There are some things we know about what unfolded early Sunday morning in Orlando: A gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub, killing 49 people. It's the worst mass shooting in American history. But many unanswered questions remain, and while we can't truly answer them all, USA TODAY Network wanted to acknowledge those questions and share what we know. How did the shooter get his weapons? Omar Mateen, 29, a New York-born resident of Fort Pierce, Fla., purchased the weapons legally. On Sunday night, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives tweeted that officials were able to identify the weapons that Mateen used during the shooting spree. According to officials, Mateen used a .223 caliber AR-type-rifle and 9 mm semiautomatic pistol, like thos pictured in the tweet below. The FBI had investigated Mateen twice before the shooting, but found inconclusive evidence and were not able to charge him with a crime. According to ATF, Mateen purchased the guns within the last week. But the agency has not released details on where Mateen obtained the guns. How can someone purchase an AR-15, or what some are calling "military assault rifles"? Dannette Seward, an ATF spokeswoman, notes that firearms laws vary by state, but purchasing an AR-15 from a licensed dealer is legal under federal law. "An AR-15 type rifle is legal," Seward said in a phone interview. "You go to a federally licensed dealer, fill out a 4473 (form) and do a background check, and unless you are federally prohibited, you buy the gun." Seward said the 4473 form, a "firearms transaction record" is required for anyone purchasing a gun from a dealer. The form is then submitted to the FBI, which conducts the background check. How can one shooter, one handgun and one assault rifle cause so much carnage? The AR-type-rifle Mateen used to slaughter 49 people at the Pulse nightclub, is known for it's lethality and has been used in other mass shootings in the United States. Adam Lanza, the gunman behind the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, used an AR-15 and its 30-round magazine to kill 26 people in under five minutes. And it's not just the AR-15, but semiautomatic weapons of all kinds that can be remarkably efficient killing machines. At Virginia Tech in 2007, Seung Hui Cho shot 47 people in 10 to 12 minutes, using two semiautomatic handguns with magazines that held no more than 15 bullets. So, why was a man investigated for possible terror ties in 2013 and again in 2014 allowed to purchase a weapon? Mateen worked as a security guard and already had a concealed firearms license, which requires a background check, according to Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services records. The 29-year-old did not have previous charges on his record, so it's unclear what the background check would have revealed. Seward said she is not able to comment on FBI background checks. What is the private sale "gun loophole?" While little information has been released about how Mateen purchased the weapons he used in the massacre early Sunday morning, the shooting has renewed attention on the so-called private sale "gun loophole." According to Seward, under federal law, a private seller can sell a firearm to another person and is not required to conduct a background check. "But they cannot knowingly sell to a prohibited person, and again those laws about private sales differ significantly from state to state," she said. What is the role of the Islamic State? Did Mateen, who claimed allegiance to it in a 911 call, really belong to it? Islamic State radio on Monday called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." According to police, Mateen acknowledged his support for the Islamic State group during a 911 call to local law enforcement from the nightclub, Orlando FBI chief Ron Hopper said. Investigators have yet to determine whether the extremist group had any direct role in the attack. If Omar Mateen had been on a terror watch list would he have been able to purchase guns? It's unclear whether Mateen was on a terror watch list, but if he had been, it might not have prevented him from purchasing weapons. In December, the Senate voted down an amendment that would have kept suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms. At the time, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., offered an amendment to allow the attorney general to prevent someone from buying a gun if that person is a known or suspected terrorist. A person could also be barred from buying a firearm if the attorney general has a "reasonable belief" that the individual would use it in connection with a terrorist act. Why did the SWAT team wait so long before entering the nightclub? Were victims killed in the crossfire? Would going in sooner have lessened the carnage? Authorities have released few details about why they waited several hours to enter the nightclub. What we do know, is that the tragedy began unfolding at 2:02 a.m., when officers engaged the suspect in a gun battle. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said a hostage situation then took place inside, and a SWAT team was called in. Police received updates from patrons trapped in the club, and decided to storm the club at about 5 a.m. ET. Naval Academy graduate Tom Wester (right) stands with his research adviser Sonia Garcia. Credit: Courtesy of Tom Wester SHARE By , Brookfield native Tom Wester was just a freshman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., when his history teacher, Mark Hagerott, pulled him into his office and told Wester something he would never forget. "I was nervous at first. I thought I had done something wrong and that my career was over," Wester said. "What he told me framed my academic experience." Hagerott, now chancellor of the North Dakota University System, told Wester of the potential he saw in him. From that moment on, Wester had the confidence to succeed at Navy. A 2012 graduate of Brookfield East High School, Wester finished at the top of Navy's 2016 graduating class on May 27. He is the first Wisconsin native to graduate first at Navy in 40 years. "After grading his first exam and reading his essay, I realized he is a sponge," Hagerott said. "He's a steam engine, a reactor full of energy." Sonia Garcia is a professor at the Naval Academy and assisted Wester in an independent study focused on mathematical modeling. She said Wester graduating at the top of his class was a well-deserved honor. "When we started to meet, I was shockingly surprised with the enthusiasm and serious dedication Tom was showing me," Garcia said. "I realized he was not an ordinary student." Wester said he wasn't the best student at Brookfield. He graduated in the top 10% of his class, but certainly was not the smartest or most physically fit and didn't have any expectation of being at the top of his class when he arrived in Annapolis. However, he fit the all-around mold the Navy is looking for. He called earning the honor of being at the top of his class a "nice surprise." He graduated with a degree in science and applied mathematics and is working in Washington, D.C., as a consultant for a federally funded research and development center. In the fall, he is heading to Stanford University to pursue his master's degree in management science and engineering. In March 2018, Wester will ship out to San Diego, where he has a five-year service obligation and is assigned to the USS Howard, a guided missile ship. His ultimate goal is to become a surface warfare officer in the Navy and command battleships or aircraft carriers. Hagerott was optimistic about Wester's future and can see him rising through the ranks of the military. "His career is full of unbounded possibilities. He is going to have a wonderful life," Hagerott said. "Thank God we have a guy like Wester." Reddit Email 3 Shares By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | US law enforcement is at least initially categorizing the horrific Orlando shootings as domestic terrorism. I dont think it probably was terrorism in any useful sense of the term. I used to know what domestic terrorism was, before the term became politicized in the past decade. It was defined right there in the Federal code of 1992: (5) the term domestic terrorism means activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. The great thing about this definition is that it focuses on the motive behind the act. And it specifies that the motive has to be to coerce people or influence or affect government policy. So if the alleged shooter, Omar Mateen, was a terrorist you would expect him to make demands about US government policy. There will be more such acts, he would have said, unless the US government passes a law outlawing homosexuality. Or unless the US government withdraws from Afghanistan. (But if he aimed to change the latter policy, why shoot up a civilian gay club on Latin night? Wouldnt he have targeted, say, a US Army base?) Shootings like Orlando that hit soft targets such as restaurants or nightclubs are not a form of classical strategic terrorism. Serious terrorist would hit military targets, e.g.an act that might hope to degrade US security. Shooting down people at a nightclub has no obvious strategic goal. Such a goal is intrinsic to the tactic of terrorism, and its absence should cause us to question the use of the term. What we know about Mateen so far doesnt indicate that he was a member of a terrorist organization. If the authorities thought that he was, the crime would have been labeled international terrorism, not domestic. We know that his father, Seddique Mateen, is a Pushtun nationalist from Afghanistan who objects to the 1893 Durand Line that the British drew between British India and Afghanistan, which cut the Pushtun ethnic group in two. Today, the Pushtuns (called Pukhtuns in the local dialect) are a majority in the province of Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa of northern Pakistan, while the Afghanistan Pushtuns dominate a number of provinces stretched across eastern and southern Afghanistan. Decades ago a Pushtun nationalism that wanted to unite Pushtuns into a single country and secede from both Pakistan and Afghanistan had some popularity, but it is now a fringe movement. Mateen senior goes on a California Persian-language tv and promotes this subnationalism. He is also said to support the Taliban, but that may be because he sees them as authentically Pushtun and oppressed by the Punjabi Pakistani officer corps, rather than because he is a fundamentalist. His big emphasis seems to be on erasing the Durand Line. He asserted that his sons action had nothing to do with Islam. Although the US press is depicting Seddique Mateen as himself perhaps unbalanced, his position isnt crazy, it has just become a minority idea. Iranian languages incl. Pushto h/t Wikimedia You could imagine Mateen being brought up to resent that the West had divided and weakened the Pushtun ethnic group. But there isnt any evidence that Omar shared his fathers separatist politics. We know that Omar Mateens marriage failed because, his ex-wife alleges, he beat her. Her Muslim relatives were so appalled on hearing this that they extracted her from the match. She says he wasnt religious 8 years ago. We know that a co-worker when he was employed as a security guard considered him unbalanced, racist and homophobic, and even left his position rather than continuing to have to work with him. We know the FBI investigated him twice and found no reason to pursue the inquiry or to keep him on a terrorist watch list. So this person looks as though he was unbalanced and extremely prejudiced individual who bought two semi-automatic weapons only last week and then committed a mass shooting against a group against which he was bigoted. He may have invoked Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) as he began his mayhem, but there is no reason at the moment to think that he was involved with them in any practical way. He was about to commit a mass murder that he must have known would likely end in his own death as well. So it may be that he was searching for a way to make sense of his homicidal impulse, a way to give meaning to his senseless killing and senseless death. So, a major, major hate crime for sure. But terrorism? What is the governmental policy he wanted changed? If it was about gay marriage, well, there is a lot of political opposition to that on the Republican Right, and violence against gays has been a feature of the American far right. In fact, you could argue that the American evangelical groups that successfully lobbied Uganda to execute gays were engaged in a form of international legislative terrorismthey are certainly driven by a political agenda and wanted to see people killed; they were just more patient about it. In a mirror image of Mateen, police in LA arrested James Wesley Howell , a right wing white conspiracy nut. Howell was found with high powered rifles and bomb-making materials. He says that Hillary Clinton is Hitler, and he is a truther, alleging that the US government is behind terrorist attacks since 2000. He was headed to the Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles, though friends of his denied that he is a homophobe. (Friends dont always know these things). If Howell was planning an act of violence at the parade, it was forestalled by his arrest, so it is hard to compare him to Mateen, especially since we know so little about Howells intentions. But these two men both seem to have been unbalanced, and both intended to go to a gay event. The biggest thing they had in common between being off their rockers was that they had free access to high powered firearms despite all the signs they exhibited of being one can short of a six-pack. Reddit Email 0 Shares By Bruce Pannier | ( RFE/RL) The security problems in northwest Afghanistan continue despite several trips to the region by Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former general who comes from the region. Dostum has led at last four offensives against militants there since the summer of 2015, but when he leaves the militants return. The Taliban spring offensive is well under way in northern Afghanistan. Barely three years ago, northern Afghanistan was a relatively peaceful part of the country. It was a welcome situation for the governments of the Central Asian states, who fear Afghanistans problems could create instability among its neighbors. This year there is fighting in all eight of the Afghan provinces that border Central Asia. Its been close to two decades since there was such widespread violence along Central Asias southern border. RFE/RLs Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, spoke with officials in Faryab Province, one the Afghan provinces bordering Turkmenistan, to try to get a picture of the situation there. Colonel Reza Rezai is the spokesman for the Afghan National Armys 209th Brigade, which is stationed in northern Afghanistan. As of June 1, there is heavy fighting in the Gormach district, several militants were killed and security forces had casualties also, Rezai said. The districts of Qaysar, Dowlatebad, and Khoja Sebiz Posh came under attack and traffic on the Ankhoi-Maymana highway is suspended. The Gormach and Dowlatebad districts border Turkmenistan. Ankhoi is where the planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway is supposed to enter Afghanistan from Turkmenistan. Rezai said that the security post in Khoja Sebiz Posh has been overrun by militants, as have two villages in the district. Eighteen villages in Qaysar district are currently under the control of militants, and the Taliban also has an overwhelming presence in the Pashtun Kot district. The chief of the Faryab provincial council, Tahir Rahmani, echoed Rezais assessment. Rahmani said there was fierce fighting going on in Pashtun Kot district and also that militants were getting closer to the provincial capital, Maymana. Jawid Bedar, the spokesman for the Faryab governor, said fighting was nearing Maymana and that without reinforcements the city could fall. Bedar said the militants had blocked the highway leading east from Maymana to Sheberghan, capital of Jowzjan Province. Local officials told Azatlyk that most of the militants in Faryab are from Central Asia Turkmen, Uzbeks, and some Tajiks. These officials also said the militants had control of some areas adjacent to the Turkmen border. The security problems in northwest Afghanistan continue despite several trips to the region by Afghan Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former general who comes from the region. Dostum has led at last four offensives against militants in northwest Afghanistan since the summer of 2015. His forces have chased the militants from many regions, but when Dostum departs the militants return. Azatlyk director Muhammad Tahir contributed to this report Copyright (c) 2016. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036. Via RFE/RL Related video added by Juan Cole: Wochit News: U.S. Reconstruction Effort Threatened By New Taliban Gains in Afghanistan Reddit Email 0 Shares TeleSur | Protesters say the base is being used to coordinate U.S. drone strikes in several countries which they argue violates German constitution. Several thousand demonstrators formed a human chain along the perimeter of a U.S. Air Force Base in southwest Germany Saturday in protest against drone operations by the United States. The demonstration was organized by the alliance Stop Ramstein No Drone War, which says the Ramstein base transmits information between operators in the United States and unmanned drone aircraft in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Syria. Police estimated 3-4,000 people had formed the chain close to the base, which serves as the headquarters for the U.S. Air Forces in Europe. Organizers spoke of 5-7,000 people. The use of drones is highly controversial in Germany, where an aversion to military conflict has prevailed since World War Two. Organizers say allowing data for drone deployments to be routed through Ramstein goes against the German constitution and want the bases satellite relay station to be closed. Nearly 15 years after a drone first fired missiles in combat, the U.S. military program has expanded under the administration of President Barack Obama to become an everyday part of the war machine for carrying out surveillance and launching strikes. Last October an unknown whistleblower leaked to The Intercept website classified documents on the U.S.s drone program revealing that drone strikes were often executed with inadequate intelligence, and led to further compromising intelligence gathering. Recent figures by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism show that by May this year, more than 3,000 people had been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004 including at least 500 civilians. In Afghanistan, the group said more than 1,500 people have been killed since 2015 including hundreds of civilians. Obama has launched nine times more strikes with drones in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia than his predecessor, George W. Bush. Via TeleSur Related video added by Juan Cole: Ruptly TV: Germany: Hundreds protest US drone operations at Ramstein military base TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - Cordoba Minerals Corp. (TSX VENTURE:CDB) ("Cordoba" or the "Company") announced today that High Power Exploration Inc. ("HPX"), a private mineral exploration company indirectly controlled by mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland, has completed Phase One of the Joint Venture Agreement ("JV Agreement") and has now earned an initial, 25% interest in the San Matias Copper-Gold Project ("San Matias" or "San Matias Project") in Colombia. Phase Two of the Joint Venture Agreement has now commenced, whereby HPX can earn a 51% interest in San Matias by spending an additional C$10.5 million, for total exploration expenditures of C$19 million. HPX can increase its ownership in the San Matias Project to 65% by carrying it to feasibility. Cordoba and HPX have started a follow-on, 2,100-metre drilling program at the Alacran Copper-Gold Project ("Alacran" or "Alacran Project") where recent drilling intersected 150 metres of 0.73% copper and 0.49 g/t gold in the main zone with mineralization open in all directions and to depth. The current drill program is designed to test the potential eastern extension of the deposit where recent results from soil sampling have identified a 1.3-kilometre by 800-metre gold and copper soil anomaly. The Company is targeting issuing an initial NI 43-101 resource for Alacran during the third quarter of 2016. The prior operator completed a historical inferred resource of 37 million tonnes of 0.62% copper and 0.40 g/t gold. In addition, a 10,000-metre drilling program designed to test targets identified from the initial Typhoon IP survey has been initiated and expected to commence in the coming weeks. This drilling program will also include follow-on drilling at the Montiel porphyry target, where previous drilling intersected 100 metres of 1.0% copper and 0.65 g/t gold. An expansion of the Typhoon IP survey is underway and will cover an additional 14 km2 including southern Alacran and the Costa Azul porphyry target, where previous drilling intersected 87 metres of 0.62% copper and 0.51 g/t gold. Mario Stifano, President and CEO of Cordoba, commented: "We are pleased that our partner HPX has committed to an extensive 12,000-metre drill program now underway at San Matias and significantly expanding the Typhoon survey to cover an area double in size from the previous survey. Drilling will focus on the opportunity to expand the near-surface copper-gold deposit at Alacran, while also testing targets identified by the completed phase one Typhoon survey, where results indicate multiple large and potentially significant sulphide chargeability targets." Highlights of Phase One of the Joint Venture include the acquisition and consolidation of the Alacran Project, an initial 3,000 metres of drilling, completion of the first phase of the proprietary Typhoon Induced Polarization (IP) and Electromagnetic (EM) survey covering an initial 7.5 km2 area, and key investments in community relations. Alacran Copper-Gold Project The Alacran copper-gold system is located within the Company's San Matias Copper-Gold Project in the Department of Cordoba, Colombia. The Alacran system is located on a topographic high in gently rolling topography, optimal for potential open-pit mining. Access and infrastructure are good. The copper-gold mineralization at Alacran is associated with stratabound replacement of a marine volcano-sedimentary sequence in the core of a faulted antiformal fold structure. The deposit comprises moderately to steeply-dipping stratigraphy that is mineralized as a series of sub-parallel replacement-style or skarn zones and associated disseminations. The copper-gold mineralization is composed of multiple overprinting hydrothermal events with the main ore phase comprised of chalcopyrite-pyrrhotite-pyrite that appears to overprint a large-scale early magnetite metasomatic event. High temperature potassic feldspar-biotite-amphibole-albite alteration in the host geological sequence, indicates that the copper-gold mineralization is proximal to a source intrusion. At least two intrusive phases, locally occurring as sills, confirm an intrusive source for the mineralizing fluids. The overall size and complexity of the hydrothermal system indicates a significant mineralization event. Mineralization occurs within all members of the sedimentary and volcanic sequence, where it can be traced over a strike length of greater than 1,300 metres and local thickness of more than 90 metres true-width from the current drilling and surface sampling. About San Matias Project The newly discovered San Matias Copper-Gold Project comprises a 20,000-hectare land package on the inferred northern extension of the richly endowed Mid Cauca Belt in Colombia. The project contains several known areas of porphyry copper-gold mineralization, copper-gold skarn mineralization and vein-hosted, gold-copper mineralization. Porphyry mineralization at the San Matias Project incorporates high-grade zones of copper-gold mineralization hosted by diorite porphyries containing secondary biotite alteration and various orientations of sheeted and stockwork quartz-magnetite veins with chalcopyrite and bornite. The copper-gold skarn mineralization at Alacran is associated with stratabound replacement of a marine volcano-sedimentary sequence. The nature of mineralization encountered at San Matias is similar to other large high-grade copper-gold deposits. Technical Information The technical information has been reviewed, verified and compiled by Christian J. Grainger, PhD, a Qualified Person for the purpose of NI 43-101. Dr. Grainger is a geologist with over 15 years in the minerals mining, consulting, exploration and research industries. Dr. Grainger is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG) and Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM). All samples have been prepared and assayed at ALS laboratory in Medellin, Colombia with gold assays being carried out as 50 gr Fire-Assays with AAS finish and all trace elements and base-metals being assayed using four Acid Digest with ICP-MS finish. The company utilizes an industry-standard QA/QC program. HQ and NQ diamond drill-core is sawn in half with one-half shipped to a sample preparation lab. The remainder of the core is stored in a secured storage facility for future assay verification. Blanks, duplicates and certified reference standards are inserted into the sample stream to monitor laboratory performance and a portion of the samples are periodically checked for assayed result quality. About High Power Exploration HPX is a privately owned, metals-focused exploration company deploying proprietary in-house geophysical technologies to rapidly evaluate buried geophysical targets. The HPX technology cluster comprises geological and geophysical systems for targeting, modelling, survey optimization, acquisition, processing and interpretation. HPX has a highly experienced board and management team led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Friedland, President Eric Finlayson, former head of exploration at Rio Tinto and co-chaired by Ian Cockerill, a former Chief Executive Officer of Gold Fields Ltd. VANCOUVER, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - Orex Minerals Inc. (TSX-V: REX) ("Orex"), has received the first anniversary cash payment of $US 2 million ($CA 2.54 million) from Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM, TSX: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle") as per the agreement (the "Agreement") between Agnico Eagle and Orex whereby Agnico Eagle acquired a 55% interest in the Barsele Project in Vasterbottens Lan, northern Sweden. Pursuant to the Agreement, Agnico Eagle acquired a 55% interest in the corporate entity which owns the Barsele Project in consideration of an initial payment to Orex of $US 6 million, with an additional $US 2 million payable by Agnico Eagle, in cash or shares at Agnico Eagle's election, to Orex on each of the first and second anniversaries of the closing. As part of the Agreement, Agnico Eagle has committed to spend $US 7 million on Barsele Project expenditures over three years and will earn an additional 15% interest in the corporate entity which owns the Barsele Project if it completes a pre-feasibility study. Orex was also granted a 2% net smelter royalty on production from the Barsele Project which may be repurchased by Agnico Eagle at any time for $US 5 million. Agnico Eagle holds a majority of board seats and will be the operator of the Barsele Project for customary compensation (see Orex news release 11 June 2015). Subsequent to the original transaction with Agnico Eagle, Orex spun-out their 45% interest in the Barsele Project to a new company Barsele Minerals Corp. (TSX.V: BME). The completion of the Barsele spin out was announced in a news release dated 25 September 2015. Orex and Barsele's President, Gary Cope says, "This continuation of Agnico Eagle's involvement in the Barsele Project illustrates their interest in advancing and expanding the development of one of Scandinavia's best mineral projects." ABOUT THE BARSELE PROJECT The Barsele Project is located on the western end of the Proterozoic "Skellefte Trend," a prolific volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits belt, where it intersects with the "Gold Line" in Northern Sweden. Both polymetallic deposits and intrusive hosted orogenic gold deposits are present in this region and on the property. Current and past producers in the region include Boliden, Kristineberg, Bjorkdal, Svartliden, and Storliden. In November of 2012, mineral resource estimates by Orex were released for the Barsele Project in four zones, the Central, Avan and Skirasen Gold Zones and the Norra VMS Zone (Orex news release dated 21 November 2012). The resource estimate for the Central-Avan- Skirasen Zones states an Indicated Resource of 14.1 million tonnes grading 1.21 g/t gold for 547,000 contained ounces, plus an Inferred Resource of 20.2 million tonnes grading 0.97 g/t gold for 627,000 contained ounces. The polymetallic Norra Zone contains an Indicated Resource of 110,000 tonnes grading 3.13 g/t gold, 30.3 g/t silver, 0.53 % copper and 0.72 % zinc, plus an Inferred Resource of 310,000 tonnes grading 1.62 g/t gold, 12.7 g/t silver, 0.26 % copper and 0.42 % zinc. All zones were estimated at a gold cut-off grade of 0.6 g/t. Art Freeze, P.Geo. and Ben Whiting, P.Geo., are Qualified Persons as defined in NI 43-101 and take responsibility for the technical disclosure contained within this news release. ABOUT OREX MINERALS INC. Orex is a Canadian-based junior exploration company comprised of highly qualified mining professionals. Orex has several current projects: The Coneto Silver-Gold Project in Durango, Mexico, as a joint venture with Fresnillo PLC, the Sandra Escobar Silver Project, also in Durango, Mexico, under option from Canasil Resources Inc., and the Jumping Josephine Gold Project in British Columbia, Canada. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gary Cope President This News Release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements and Orex undertakes no obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE Orex Minerals Inc. TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - June 13, 2016) - Kinross Gold Corporation (TSX: K) (NYSE: KGC) announced that the strike by unionized employees at its Tasiast mine that began on May 24, 2016 has ended. Striking employees began returning to work on June 11, 2016 and negotiations with the staff delegates on a new collective labour agreement and other outstanding items are expected to re-commence within ten days. Employees retain the right to strike during negotiations subject to Mauritanian labour laws. The strike is not expected to impact the Company's annual regional guidance and did not affect development of the Tasiast Phase One expansion. About Kinross Gold Corporation Kinross is a Canadian-based senior gold mining company with mines and projects in the United States, Brazil, Russia, Mauritania, Chile and Ghana. Our focus is on delivering value based on the core principles of operational excellence, balance sheet strength, disciplined growth and responsible mining. Kinross maintains listings on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: K) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: KGC). Cautionary statement on forward-looking information All statements, other than statements of historical fact in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of certain securities laws, including the provisions of the Securities Act (Ontario) and the provisions for "safe harbor" under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as of the date of this news release. The words "development", "expect", "focus" and "guidance" that certain actions, events or results will affect, or will occur or result, and similar such expressions identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Kinross as of the date of such statements, are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies. These uncertainties and contingencies can affect, and could cause, Kinross' actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward looking statements made by, or on behalf of, Kinross. There can be no assurance that forward looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. All of the forward looking statements made in this news release are qualified by these cautionary statements and those made in our filings with the securities regulators of Canada and the U.S, including but not limited to those cautionary statements made in the "Risk Analysis" section of our full year 2015 management's discussion and analysis and the "Risk Factors" section of our 2016 Annual Information Form. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect Kinross. Kinross disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, or to explain any material difference between subsequent actual events and such forward-looking statements, except to the extent required by applicable law. Other information Where we say "we", "us", "our", the "Company", or "Kinross" in this news release, we mean Kinross Gold Corporation and/or its applicable subsidiary(ies). www.kinross.com Romanias High Court of Cassation and Justice [official website, in Romanian] ruled Monday that an investigation into the countrys 1989 revolution [BBC backgrounder] can reopened. The prosecutor generals office said in October that the investigation into the events of December 1989, in which 1,104 people were killed, would be classified [AP report], declining to prosecute anyone. Interim prosecutor general Bogdan Licu sought in April to reopen the investigation. The court agreed Monday that the investigation can be reopened [Romania Insider report]. The Romanian revolution brought about the fall on Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. After protests reached the capital, Ceausescu and his wife fled but were eventually caught, tried and executed. The protesters faced violent repression, and more than 1,000 were killed, with many others injured or detained. Many members of the former Communist regime retained their roles in the government, and there has been reluctance to launch a full-scale investigation into the events. Tyrrells, the UK crisp maker, has enjoyed a sustained period of growth and has, in recent months, sought to bolster its business with two international acquisitions. Dean Best talks to Tyrrells CEO David Milner about the business, backed by Bahrain-based private-equity firm Investcorp, plans to continue its expansion. Tyrrells purchase of Germanys Aroma Snacks announced last month was the UK crisp firms second international acquisition in under a year, following its move last August for Australias Yarra Valley Snack Foods. The two deals were Tyrrells first moves to attain manufacturing outside the UK; until the acquisition of Yarra Valley, Tyrrells international business had been built via exports. Tyrrells presence outside the UK now accounts for 45% of the companys sales. And, speaking to just-food, CEO David Milner says it will not be long before Tyrrells international markets account for the majority of sales. By next year, it will probably have swung the other way. More international. Asked what Tyrrells sales were in 2015, Milner says: If you measure them in retail which is how most brands measure themselves, retail sales will be GBP240m this year. Tyrrells, backed since 2013 by Bahrain-based private-equity firm Investcorp does not publish sales forecasts. Milner declines to do so when asked I cant say actually. Thats confidential but insists the business will be trying to maintain its recent growth. Ill give you a clue. Weve grown 30% every year for six years. This year is 35% and its not slowing down. My plan is, who knows I might get it all wrong, but the plan is to continue this level of growth if we can. Central to Tyrrells strategy is to build on the assets it has bought in the last year. Milner says Tyrrells has just secured national listings for its namesake brand in Australias two largest grocers Woolworths Ltd and Coles. Tyrrells rivals in Australia are the same as ever, Milner says, PepsiCo are number one in Australia. Nevertheless, he adds: Fortunately for us, there are no other hand-cooked crisp manufacturers in Australia. Were the only one. Thats a lovely place to be. However, like many an international food manufacturer operating in Australia, Tyrrells sees the market as a platform to help grow its business in the wider Asia Pacific. Tyrrells already, for example, ships crisps from the UK to China weve got a really nice business in Shanghai, Beijing, Milner says and he has hopes Yarra Valley Snack Foods will help Tyrrells grow there and in the wider region. We will eventually produce in Australia for Asia. It hasnt helped us yet but thats definitely the plan. There were, Milner told just-food in the first part of the interview, three central reasons for Tyrrells more recent move to buy Aroma Snacks European production, geographic expansion and the German firms status as a supplier of organic crisps under the Lisas brand. And it is the latter that, in the short term at least, provides the most interesting growth strategy at Tyrrells. By the end of the year, Tyrrells wants to launch the a line of organic crisps in the UK. Whats unique is you cant buy an organic crisp in Britain. They dont exist, Milner says. The crisps will be made with organic potatoes from Germany. We cannot get organic potatoes in the UK all-year round but you can in Germany, Milner says. We cant do it until we get the new crop out of the ground, so that wont be until the autumn. I think its going to be the end of this year will be the earliest well be able to get them there. The plans are not yet fully-formed as there is some internal debate about the brand Tyrrells will use for the new organic line. We like the Lisas brand, [while] Tyrrells stands for premium in the UK. We havent completely concluded on this one. Some people think we should do Tyrrells organic and I think we should do Lisas but Im in charge so were probably going to do Lisas, Milner says, laughing. You want to make sure that something you do is incremental. I used to work in big branded businesses and if youve got a big share of the market and you launch something new, unfortunately, most of your new business is stolen from your existing business. The incrementality of the activity can be minimal. You can have a great big success but [the] overall business has stood still and thats just because you transferred consumers from buying the brown thing to the blue thing youve just launched. Our challenge is to try and make sure that people that are buying these organic crisps are not just switching out of Tyrrells but theyre switching from elsewhere. My argument is if its a different brand, its less likely to come from Tyrrells. I have to be careful what I say. We havent concluded on it yet. There are other views. The plans suggest Tyrrells and Milner believes there will be demand for organic crisps in the UK, a market where the wider organic category enjoyed its third consecutive year of growth in 2015, marking a sustained recovery after the countrys economic downturn hit the sector. There remains, however, some debate about why UK consumers buy organic food and drink. Milner believes there are three main reasons health, the premium cachet of the category and concern for the environment. Some people buy for all those things. Thats why we think it will work well on crisps, Milner says. Tyrrells is the most premium handcut crisps you can buy, theyre always the most expensive. Were premium. This is another step above Tyrrells. We think it fits quite nicely where were already positioned. Milner insists launching an organic crisp in the UK was not driven by a belief Tyrrells could benefit from higher margins, pointing to the cost of production. However, he suggests, with no-one else selling organic crisps in the country, the launch could pay off financially. I wouldnt say were hoping to make a higher level of margin than we do in our regular business but what I said before is you dont want to be making what everybody else makes. The nice thing about organic is there wont be anybody else selling organic crisps in the UK because we dont think anybody else can do it, Milner says. That should give us an attractive margin. It should mean its a profitable business. That is definitely part of it. If you can get a product thats differentiated or better still unique, then usually that means that you can make money out of it. The UK crisp market is, after all, an intensely competitive market, with brands often on promotion and the major supermarket chains also stocking a growing range of own-label lines. Milner sees promotions as part of the nature of the category and of retailers strategies to drive sales. One is driven very much by retailers on promotions. You have to play by the rules of the category. If we said were not going to do promotion, I think wed struggle to stay in the supermarket. Its just the way it is, Milner says. You know the background to it but what they try and do is called expandable consumption. The supermarket likes to promote brands, or lines I should say, that when people buy them, they take them home [and] theyre going to consume them just as fast as if they hadnt bought the promoted line. I used to be in the soap powder business. If you do a promotion on soap powder, you buy two boxes instead of one [and] you just dont come back for another couple of weeks because you dont use it up any faster. There are certain categories like soft drinks, confectionery, snacks, where if you buy two instead of one, youll still eat it in the week you bought it, so next week youll be back again. New products like the organic line are key to Tyrrells continuing to grow in the UK, Milner says. Tyrrells has two big bits of innovation this year, he reveals. One you know about which is organic and the second one is confidential but its a really big innovative idea which should be out next calendar year, January. He adds: Theres plenty of distribution opportunity to expand and the brand is still growing. What about Tyrrells plans for more M&A? The recently-acquired Yarra Valley Snack Foods and Aroma Snacks are both suppliers of organic crisps. Is organic the lens through which Tyrrells will continue to look at acquisition targets? Not necessarily. If were in a market with a big business already and we can make it locally and buy a business that we can make it through, thats what we want, Milner says. Those businesses have to be like us. They have to be right at the top of the market, really premium, hand-cooked. We dont want to buy anything thats not like that. It happens that these two businesses happen to be that and organic. However, Milner adds: Organic, I think, is going to be a plank of our business worldwide. Were already getting interest from America, saying weve heard you bought an organic business, can we get organic Tyrrells over here? Theres definitely an appetite for organic. That would be the biggest. The Tyrrells brand is present in the US but Milner concedes the company would need to acquire a business there to make a step-change to its fortunes there. Youre spot on. We try hard there and we do have success but you cant be a part-time competitor in North America. Its the biggest market in the world. Its the most competitive market in the world. If youre going to win there, youve got to be on the ground. Were not. You cant win everything at once. You have to stage it. Do these things one after another. Milner, however, will not list where Tyrrells is most likely to make its next acquisition. The difficulty answering that question is it sort of tells my competitors what Im going to do next, he laughs. Although I have a plan. I can tell you that. Ive got a very clear plan. Owner Investcorp has owned Tyrrells for three years and is approaching the time in which it could be more open to offers (private-equity firms would tell you they are always ready to listen to offers). Has Investcorp and Tyrrells been fielding calls from interested parties? I have to say I dont know about that because that doesnt come to me, Milner says. I just run on the crisp business and they do all that stuff. Im sure we do because were a very attractive asset but its not something I would know about. I just get on with doing this stuff. Mars Inc has moved to increase its production of Skittles in the US to meet rising demand. The company is adding the manufacture of Skittles to a site in Yorkville, Illinois that already produces gum brands including Doublemint and Juicy Fruit, as well as Life Savers hard candy. Production will start this week. The US$50m project will lead to the creation of 75 new jobs. Around 300 staff work at the Yorkville facility. Wrigley already manufactures Skittles at a site further south in Waco in Texas. This is new additional US capacity to meet rising demand, a spokesperson said. The bulk of the production from the Yorkville plant will be sold in the US but some of the products will also be sold in other markets in the Americas, including Canada and Mexico, as well as other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Skittles is among the confectionery brands run by Wrigley. Mars acquired Wrigley in 2008 in a deal worth US$23bn. The Snickers owner then moved its non-chocolate confectionery brands into its Wrigley subsidiary. Nestle has entered into an agreement to sell its Italian confectionery brands, including Rossana and Fluxes, to Italian candy maker Fida. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will also see Fida take control of the Glacia, Fruttallegre and Lemoncella e Spicchi brands. The will brands join Fidas stable of confectionery products, with brands including Bonelle, Sanagola and Charms. Fida holds a 3.5% share of the Italian confectionery market, with 2015 sales totalling approximately EUR15m (US$16.9m). Fida president and CEO Eugenio Pinel said the deal would enable the company to strengthen its market position. The group has identified significant synergies in technology, production and sales, he added. Announcing the disposal, Nestle stressed Fidas ownership of Rossana will enhance the iconic 90-year-old brand. Fida said it plans to invest human and financial resources in the development of the brands. Rumours first surfaced Nestle was preparing to sell its Italian hard candy brands in March, after the company revealed it planned to turn Italian chocolate brand Baci Perugina into a global brand. As part of that move, Nestle said it would invest in advancing chocolate production at its Italian San Sisto factory, where the hard candy brands are produced. However, announcing the deal with Fida, Nestle revealed production will be transferred to the Italian firms factory in Castagnole delle Lanze in Asti following the completion of the transcation between the two companies. Leo Wencel, the head of Nestles business in Italy, said the company had been impressed with the strength of recent consumer sentiment in support of the Rossana brand. The company was therefore pleased to sell the business to a solid and experienced confectioner in order to ensure a successful future for the brand. The deal is expected to close by the end of the month. NEWSLETTER Sign up Tick the boxes of the newsletters you would like to receive. Just Style Daily Update The top stories of the day delivered to you every weekday. Just Style Weekly Update A weekly roundup of the latest news and analysis, sent every Monday. Just Style Magazine The industry's most comprehensive news and information delivered every quarter. Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (SUROP) 2022: The Graduate School is reshaping how we support undergraduate research opportunities. We are not accepting applications for the Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program in summer 2022. Undergraduate students interested in summer research opportunities are encouraged to explore other summer research programs at K-State. About SUROP Purpose The Summer Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (SUROP) at Kansas State University (KSU) gives undergraduates experience with the research process. This experience is designed to help students prepare for graduate school. Participation in a program such as SUROP provides a first-hand look at the process and excitement of discovery through research. Such experience is viewed favorably by the admissions committees for graduate programs. Program Overview Students participating in SUROP will spend nine weeks during the summer at K-State working closely with one or more faculty members and their research teams. Faculty members have on-going scholarly programs that continue through the summer. Students are expected to spend about 40 hours per week working with their research teams and to be contributing members of this group. By the end of the nine-week period, students should have produced tangible results from their research and will report the results in a special research forum. Participants will also attend weekly seminars to learn more about the graduate school experience and are strongly encouraged to attend other events and activities organized by the SUROP coordinators. Previous SUROP participants Please direct questions about SUROP to gdschgra@ksu.edu. LINCOLN -- At least two Nebraska Department of Corrections staffers didn't follow written procedures that directly led to Friday's escape of two convicted felons, state officials said Monday. Corrections Director Scott Frakes cited the lack of an informal count of inmates in Lincoln Correctional Center work areas and an absence of supervisors in certain areas among the failures. "We had a breakdown," he said. Timothy Clausen, 52, remains at large. Armon Dixon, 37, was captured Saturday. Had the proper procedures been followed, Frakes said, the men would not have gotten into a laundry truck. In the wake of the escape, and pending the completion of a formal review, Lincoln Correctional Center Warden Mario Peart has been reassigned to the corrections department's central office, officials said Monday. Fred Britten, warden of the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center, will temporarily take over administration of the Lincoln Correctional Center, officials said. Clausen and Dixon were not supposed to be in the Lincoln Correctional Center's laundry area, Frakes said, but they told staff they were supposed to be, and prison staff added their names to a list. A review of staff procedures at the correctional center is underway, Frakes said. Monday, Gov. Pete Ricketts said capturing Clausen the No. 1 priority of his administration. Clausen still is thought to be in northeast Omaha. A perimeter was established Sunday night in north Omaha, but was discontinued about 3 a.m., said Nebraska State Patrol Superintendent Brad Rice. *** As manhunt continues for loose inmate, lawmakers seek answers from Corrections department LINCOLN State lawmakers are seeking answers as to how two inmates escaped from a medium- to maximum-security prison and whether protocol on response to an escape needs reviewing. Omaha State Sen. Heath Mello said Sunday that hes concerned whether Fridays prison break was a result of a procedural failure within the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, staffing shortages or both. Mello said he appreciated Corrections Director Scott Frakes taking full responsibility for Corrections not keeping Nebraskans safe. But the concern now is how do we make sure something like this never happens again, he said. Authorities believe inmates Armon Dixon, 37, and Timothy Clausen, 52, may have escaped custody in Lincoln via a laundry truck bound for the Tecumseh State Prison, court documents show. Authorities arrested Dixon on Saturday afternoon in Lincoln and linked him to the physical assault of two women that day. As of Sunday evening, Clausen remained at large. Officials focused their search on Omaha and encouraged people to call 911 if they spot him. Authorities said he should be considered dangerous. Wanda Minor, 50, of Omaha was arrested in connection with the escape, according to Deb Collins, spokeswoman for the Nebraska State Patrol. Minor was arrested Saturday night on suspicion of aiding a felon. She is being held at the Douglas County Correctional Center. Both men had been serving significant sentences for sex crimes and other offenses. The laundry truck left the Lincoln Correctional Center, where the inmates were housed, about 9:15 a.m. Friday headed for Tecumseh, according to an arrest warrant filed by State Patrol Investigator Cory Townsend. The trucks GPS showed that the truck stopped at a stop sign on Highway 77 in Lincoln about 9:20 a.m., near where a 911 caller reported seeing two men running and wearing clothing very similar to that of prison inmates. About 10 a.m., when the laundry truck arrived at Tecumseh, staff there noticed a hole in the trucks roof, according to the warrant. The escape is expected to be the focal point of a special legislative committee meeting set for Thursday. The meeting of the Department of Correctional Services Special Investigative Committee, which is investigating problems within the state prison system, was on the calendar before Fridays escape. On Sunday, Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha, a member of the committee, said he has no doubt Corrections officials followed protocol to identify the missing inmates after the escape and did everything they could to help correct the problem once the escape was underway. He said he was impressed with Corrections communication with lawmakers; he was notified of the escape minutes before the public alert. Still, Krist and others questioned the roughly 4-hour time lapse between the escape and the public alert. Authorities said Dixon and Clausen are believed to be the men whom the 911 caller saw Friday morning running north from U.S. Highway 77 and Warlick Boulevard. The caller said the men were wearing tan pants and gray shirts, very similar to the clothing that prison inmates wear. About 10:20 a.m. a State Patrol trooper saw men matching that description steal a red pickup truck from behind a church near Old Cheney Road and Salt Valley View. Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister said the trooper tried to halt the vehicle, which did not stop. Law enforcement officers pursued the truck for about six minutes, but stopped as they neared downtown. The pickup then hit a parked vehicle near 18th and H Streets about 10:30 a.m. One person in the other vehicle had minor injuries. Local law enforcement officials started contacting local and state corrections officials around 10:30 a.m., according to Frakes and Bliemeister. Frakes said a formal count of inmates started about 11:15 a.m. Corrections officials alerted law enforcement at 12:30 p.m. that it appeared two inmates were missing, and additional searches and verifications were done before a public alert was sent out at 1:40 p.m. Frakes said Saturday that he was satisfied with the time it took to discover that the two inmates were missing and to notify the public. He also apologized for failures that led to the escape, saying his agency failed to carry out its mission of keeping the public safe. Krist said current procedures may require too much time before public notifications are made. If protocol was adhered to, given the current protocol, is it acceptable? I think thats a question, he said. Personally, I think that might be a little too long. Mello said he has a tough time seeing how several hours is an appropriate amount of time to wait before alerting the public. I think thats something Director Frakes is going to have to explain to the Legislature and to the public, he said. The escapes are the troubled agencys most recent problems, which include a deadly riot at the Tecumseh State Prison in May 2015, the early release of inmates through sentencing miscalculations and the handling of Nikko Jenkins, a mentally troubled prisoner who killed four people in Omaha after his release in 2013. The department also has struggled with overcrowding, along with high staff turnover and the regular use of mandatory overtime. Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln, whos on the investigative committee with Mello and Krist, said those problems may have contributed to the escape. She also wants to look into whether the inmates were classified as high risk for flight or violence. We are overextending the staff thats there, she said. Were putting them at greater risk, and putting our community at greater risk. Dixon was captured after a police dog was used to track him to a storm drain in the area of 49th and Francis Streets, next to University Place Pool. Police allege that earlier in the day Dixon assaulted two women with a hammer wrapped in a T-shirt in the 5900 block of Norfolk Drive, near Dead Mans Run. One of the two, a woman in her 60s, was hospitalized for observation and was still in the hospital as of Sunday afternoon, according to Lincoln police. The other woman, in her 20s, was treated and released. Both Dixon and Clausen have been charged with a felony count of escape. Afghan migrants who live in the Hellenikon refugee and migrant camp of Athens register for asylum on Monday, June 13, 2016. Authorities began registering applications at the site Monday, in a processes expected to last months as more than 50,000 migrants and refugees have been stranded in Greece in the wake of European border closures. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Los Angeles County Sheriff's department motorcycle deputies ride along a street in West Hollywood, Calif., during the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday, June 12, 2016. A heavily armed man arrested in Southern California told police he was in the area for West Hollywood's gay pride parade. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel) 68 Shares Share In medical school, you learn very quickly that you cant know everything. By the end of your first-year anatomy course, youll probably give up on learning the names of every part of the body, let alone the intricacies of how they function. As physicians, we must grow comfortable with our limitations. We seek help from our colleagues and try not to let our egos get in the way of patient care. We accept that no physician will ever master the entirety of his or her discipline. But are physicians now expected to master other disciplines, such as software engineering and social work? If you read the popular press and even academic journals you may think so. I like to call this phenomenon, this growing body of subjects doctors should master, Hippocratic capture. I was reminded of this new pressure most recently while reading this article in a New York Times blog. The author makes some excellent points. Medical curricula are relatively stagnant while our world rapidly changes. The best medicine will incorporate modern technology and respect for the socioeconomic factors that influence patients health. The author also complains that he sometimes feels as if he has only one tool in his toolbox: the biomedical framework. For many health problems, this feels like simply not enough. Its hard to imagine any physician not empathizing with this struggle. But is the solution for medical students to take design courses from a fine arts school, as the new Dell Medical School is planning (according to the NY Times blog)? Should doctors also become designers? Doctors face the paradox of being among the most visible and respected members of the health care field. While this authority provides many rewards, it also places an enormous expectation on us as leaders of health care. Doctors are expected to heal the sick (and we want to). If socioeconomic struggles are leading to sickness, doctors are expected to fix that. If technology provides the opportunity to democratize health care, then doctors are expected to lead the charge. Were even supposed to design better hospital gowns according to Dell Medical Schools example of its innovative new curriculum. But to point out the obvious: We cant do it all! Doctors have already come to terms with our inability to master the entirety of biomedical knowledge, and we need to come to terms with our inability to personally fix every social determinant of health or poorly-designed health system. In fact, we can better provide these influencers of health the respect they deserve by allowing the true experts to take charge. There are millions of social workers, public health professionals, software engineers, designers, and others who have the ability and desire to improve peoples health through their respective disciplines. The solution isnt for physicians to master yet another subject; its to build powerful interdisciplinary teams that can address these aspects of health care in an egalitarian manner by including many kinds of experts. Doctors and other providers can no longer be the only ones responsible to the public for creating the best possible health care system. This physician-dominant model is regressive and inefficient. I am not suggesting that doctors should ignore problems outside of the biomedical framework. I personally attended business school in addition to medical school because I was excited by the opportunity to improve patients health through innovative health care delivery. But I went to business school precisely because I didnt expect the intricacies of management and economics to be taught in medical school. I dont expect all physicians to master this part of medicine. I am suggesting that if doctors are expected to master the multitudinous disciplines that are relevant to health then eventually the biomedical aspect of medicine will suffer. After all, despite the need to address the social determinants of health, you still need someone who knows how to take out an appendix. In forward-thinking health circles, the biomedical framework has become an epithet. It represents the myopia of past physicians, who thought scientists in a lab would cure every disease, ignoring issues of poverty, education, and behavior. But biomedicine is still a vital part of good care delivery and should remain at the center of medical education. While many types of professionals can address health care policy, good design, and innovative technology, only physicians have the duty to provide medical care under the biomedical framework. When someone requires a surgery or drug for their illness, it is doctors who are responsible for ensuring the proper selection and delivery of that type of care. We can dilute our education, but we cannot dilute that responsibility. Doctors should have some familiarity with the many disciplines that affect health. This isnt a new idea, despite what the popular press would lead you to believe. I attended the University of Rochesters medical school, which since the 1970s has been home to the biopsychosocial model of medicine. I greatly value the broad experiences I received from learning under this medical model. Even in this environment, however, I spent plenty of time learning the pathophysiology and technical skills that are traditional parts of medical education. I personally look forward to addressing the business side of health care in addition to providing good medical care under the biomedical framework. When I do work on issues outside of this framework, however, I expect to succeed not by knowing everything there is to know about health care delivery, but by engaging administrators, engineers, and others through interdisciplinary teamwork. If physicians are expected to be leaders of the health care system, then this is the proper way to lead. Hippocrates, after all, didnt need an MBA or MSW to be a good doctor. Benjamin Mazer is a pathology resident and can be reached on Twitter at @BenMazer or at his self-titled site, Benjamin Mazer, MD, MBA. Image credit: Shutterstock.com KITs test rigs to analyze safety, quality, and grid suitability of home storage systems for electricity generated by photovoltaics systems. (Photo: KIT) Home storage systems for electricity produced by photovoltaics facilities are gaining attractiveness, as their costs are declining. However, standardized, verifiable criteria for the end client to assess their performance are still lacking. Now, scientists have launched the largest German study so far to analyze commercial systems with respect to safety, quality, and grid suitability and to derive recommendations for manufacturers, standardization bodies, and authorities. The SafetyFirst project is funded with EUR 4 million by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and scheduled for a duration of three years. Storage systems are an important element of the German Energiewende. They store excessive amounts of irregularly produced solar and wind power and feed them back into the grids, if necessary. More and more private households use home storage systems to temporarily store power generated by photovoltaics facilities. Instead of consuming power from the grid, the households can increasingly supply themselves with renewable energy produced on their own. Thanks to their good price-performance ratio, lithium-ion batteries are increasingly applied in these home storage systems. In operation, however, they differ from conventional lead batteries in some very important respects. The SafetyFirst project studies safety, quality, and grid suitability of home storage systems for power produced by photovoltaics systems at more than 20 test rigs. (Photo montage: KIT) For the end clients and even for an expert electrician, it is difficult or even impossible to reliably assess the safety and quality of these home storage systems, as binding standards and inspection regulations exist for conventional battery technologies only. These test regulations cannot be applied to modern lithium-ion batteries, Nina Munzke of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) explains. She heads the SafetyFirst project and has already been involved in a number of projects on the use of lithium-ion batteries as interim storage systems for large solar facilities up to one megawatt power. Laboratory tests carried out in 2013 revealed major safety deficiencies of home storage systems commercialized in Germany, including fires and explosions of the batteries. This caused the responsible industry associations to cooperate with KIT and to adopt new safety guidelines. They describe the properties and safety features battery systems are to have at least. Now, the large-scale research project funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) will analyze whether this latest state of the art of safety research for home storage systems, as outlined in the guidelines, is complied with by the home storage systems sold in Germany. For this purpose, more than twenty of such systems will be subjected to permanent testing under conditions modeling real situations in private households. These are most of the systems commercially available in Germany. Special load profiles will be selected to investigate safety properties not only of brand-new, but also of aged batteries after several years of operation. These tests will yield data on the safety properties of storage systems as well as on variations of energy efficiency with time and the expected durability of these systems. In addition to the tests of complete home storage systems, some selected lithium-ion cells will be studied by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research. Parallel to laboratory experiments, recommendations will be drafted for manufacturers of home storage systems, standardization bodies, and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) for the properties of modern lithium-ion batteries being considered in standards, inspection regulations, and terms of funding. The SafetyFirst project funded by the BMWi has a duration of three years and will expire in September 2018. The total project volume is about EUR 4 million. The project is coordinated by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The project partners are the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Freiburg, and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, Ulm. It is the paramount objective of the project to study the safety, quality, and grid suitability of home storage systems and to derive, on this basis, recommendations for manufacturers of such systems and standardization bodies. More about the KIT Energy Center: http://www.energy.kit.edu Being The Research University in the Helmholtz Association, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 9,800 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,300 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence. SHARE Mr. and Mrs. Rogerson 50 years Long time former Kitsap residents Ron (Ronster) and Peggy (Mrs. "P") Rogerson recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with over 40 friends and family at a patio dance party in Surprise, Arizona. The Rogerson family lived in Kitsap for over 40 years. Ronster worked at KBRO Radio and Kitsap Credit Union. Mrs. "P" worked at Bremerton Physical Therapy. All three Rogerson children, Shawn, Kevin and Heather are Central Kitsap High School grads. They have five grandchildren. By David Nelson of the Kitsap Sun A month ago in a column I previewed an effort to organize an evening with Lloyd Pendleton. The effort, thanks greatly to the Bremerton Housing Authority's assistance, has been successful. Pendleton's from Salt Lake City, and he'll be coming to Bremerton on June 30 to talk about the success his home state has had in lowering the number of people living on the streets over the past decade. Utah's statewide "housing first" concept and the Homeless Task Force that Pendleton leads has been lauded widely for its effectiveness and efficiency. Pendleton now travels the country often it's at least his third trip to our state since last fall to share a vision that caught on in a conservative state after Utah saw the benefits of expanding a specific part of its social safety net. That is, providing homes to the homeless a concept so simple that it actually worked, and without bankrupting anyone, as you'll hear. My hope is that Pendleton's common sense explanation of the philosophy, how Utah handles tricky issues like criminal vagrants, as well some details about housing first that will perhaps influence local efforts to help our neighbors who end up without a roof over their heads temporarily. It so happens that Kitsap County is holding a summit on the same topic during the day, which leaders from agencies will attend to connect their resources and missions. Those are some of the "champions" my May column mentioned, but so are you. Readers who aren't leading a social service agency are who we want at this event, because it's ultimately up to all of us to understand what can be done and lend a voice to the solutions. Pendleton will bring his road show to the Norm Dicks Government Center on Thursday, June 30. Doors will open at 5:30, and we'll start at 6 p.m. for about 90 minutes of listening and asking some questions. This is an event for Kitsap Sun subscribers, and I expect seats will fill up quickly. Due to the size of the Government Center's council chambers, we're going to require an RSVP. All subscribers are welcome to two tickets. If you'd like to join, please visit www.kitsapsun.com/housing, and fill out the RSVP on that webpage. We'll email you a confirmation that may be used as your entry. I hope you'll considering joining us to hear from Pendleton, and I urge you to reserve your space early. Democratic Governor of NY, Andrew Cuomo writes: The coldblooded terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv this week served as a chilling reminder of the summer of 2014, when a steady rain of terrorist rockets from Gaza confined the vast majority of the Israeli population to bomb shelters and protected rooms. During a visit with a bipartisan delegation that August, I was shown a miles-long Hamas tunnel built to infiltrate Israels southern communities and murder their residents. The tunnel was frightening because it was the manifestation of the single-minded obsession by Israels enemies to destroy the Jewish state. And yet, in many ways it was not nearly as frightening as continued efforts to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. That is why I recently signed the first executive order by a U.S. governor to help protect Israel from these pernicious efforts to punish it economically. My order ensures that no state agency or authority will engage in or promote any investment activity that would further the harmful and discriminatory BDS campaign. New York will identify institutions and companies, with the list made available to the public and updated regularly, that engage in boycotts, divestment or sanctions activity targeting Israel, either directly or through a parent or subsidiary. All state funds will then be divested from such entities. If you boycott Israel, New York will boycott you. Politico report: If the first state visit by a sitting president in 90 years struck Fidel as an unseemly and undeserved victory lap, there was troubling news as well from the Southern Hemisphere. Two of the islands staunchest allies were fighting for their political lives. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was nearing impeachment; Argentinas former president, Cristina Kirchner, was about to be indicted. Indeed, the entire left-wing coalition of Latin America, methodically cultivated by Fidel for decades, was unraveling. The death of Cubas Midas-like patron, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, had birthed a feeble successor who is unlikely to survive the next year; Ecuadors leftist president was bowing out, while Castro champion Evo Morales of Bolivia had lost a referendum for another presidential term. Peru and Uruguay had lost their center-left leaders. If not a political tidal wave, a domino effect of sorts was shifting the Southern Hemisphere from left to right. Assistant Johnson County Attorney Naeda Elliott looks at the defendant while giving the prosecution's opening statement in the trial of Alexander Kozak at the Story County Courthouse in Nevada on Thursday, April 14, 2016. Kozak is charged with first-degree murder in connection with the 2015 shooting death of Andrea Farrington at the Coral Ridge Mall. Elliott is now Mills County's attorney. (Pool photo by Liz Martin/The Gazette) KPD Chief David Rausch talks about tragedy in Orlando and Gay Pride Week in Knoxville just before opening of state conference of law enforcement professionals who have graduated from the FBI National Academy Monday, June 13, 2016. About 100 attendees from across Tennessee for continued leadership training at the Holiday Inn Downtown Knoxville. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) By Don Jacobs of the Knoxville News Sentinel KNOXVILLE The same freedoms that Americans cherish also make it easier for terrorists to target crowds of people, Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said Monday. "None of us in law enforcement want people who are a danger to the community out in the community, but we have a Constitution," Rausch told the media as he waited to give a welcoming speech to the Tennessee FBI National Academy Alumni Association at the Holiday Inn downtown. Rausch was responding to concerns about the nation's deadliest mass shooting that occurred early Sunday morning at a club in Orlando, Fla. The attack by a single armed man at the gay-friendly club Pulse raised questions about the safety of this weekend's Pridefest parade. The chief said security for the parade will be enhanced because of the Orlando attack that left 49 people in the club dead. The 29-year-old assailant also was killed. "We live in a democratic, free society," Rausch said. "It's almost a blessing and a curse. It's inherently dangerous." In 2014, a bomb threat made to the City County Building claimed an explosive would detonate if Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero did not cancel the Pridefest parade in June. The May 14 threat resulted in the evacuation of the City County Building. No device was found and the parade went on as scheduled. Darrell DeBusk, spokesman for the Knoxville Police Department, said no arrests resulted from the bogus bomb threat. Records show none of the gay-friendly clubs in Knoxville hire off-duty officers to provide security. The Pulse did have an off-duty officer for security who exchanged gunfire with the terrorist, but could not stop the carnage. Rausch said Monday none of the Knoxville clubs has requested extra security from the Knoxville Police Department. "We have not heard from them yet," the chief said. He said patrol officers have been told to increase security checks at gay-friendly clubs. The chief cautioned against emotional reactions to the apparent terrorist attack in Orlando. "Don't let emotions override rational thinking," Rausch said. "It's easy to strike out at somebody in these kind of situations." Rausch said he has "a concern about our local mosques," which do hire moonlighting officers for security, records show. The chief said he knows multiple Muslims and has found them to be non-violent and no threat to the community. "Quite frankly, it's a peaceful religion," Rausch said. While police will step up security for the weekend gay parade, Rausch said the public can counter terrorists' threats "by showing up." "I say we stand up and we show that we can overcome this and show that hate is not going to win," the chief said. "I'm a strong person of faith and I think faith is where you have to go." If people are caught in an attack motivated by terrorism, hate or mental illness Rausch said there are three options available officers see when participating in active shooter scenarios. "There are three ways to respond," the chief said. " You run, hide or fight. That's the best advice we can offer." Rausch said it seems Orlando police department's response to the active shooter at the club was appropriate. He said he expects more details will be provided about the tactical response at the October meeting in San Diego, Calif., of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Rausch and Edward W. Reinhold, special agent in charge of the Knoxville office of the FBI, said the Orlando investigation has not found any ties to Knoxville. Reinhold, who oversaw the investigation of the terrorist attacks on military facilities in Chattanooga, said his office has not been asked to provide any resources for the Orlando probe. "What he did was a cowardly act," Reinhold said of the Orlando assailant. "I wouldn't name the individual because I wouldn't want to give him any more notoriety." Shelley Martin, left, prepares to draw blood for donation from Kathleen Fenton at the Medic Regional Blood Center on Ailor Avenue in Knoxville Monday, June 13, 2016. Fenton decided to give blood after seeing events in Orlando where 49 people were killed and many injured in a mass shooting over the weekend. (AMY SMOTHERMAN BURGESS/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE By Kristi L. Nelson of the Knoxville News Sentinel Fresh from watching news coverage of the Orlando shooting, Kathleen Fenton showed up at Medic Regional Blood Center Monday with her heart full and her arm out. "The violence, the hatred, the prejudice it has to stop, and I would like to do anything I can to help people who are hurt," said Fenton, who said having a son in the Special Forces makes her well aware of how close danger can be. "If you watched that mother cry . In my not-so-busy schedule, I thought, that's the least I can do." When blood is spilled in a national calamity, it's a natural response for people to want to share their own, said Benjamin Prijatel. "When a tragedy happens, people want to feel they're helping in some way," said Prijatel, director of marketing and recruitment for Medic Regional Blood Center. As early as 9 a.m. Sunday, as news of the Orlando shooting came out, Medic was getting calls and social media requests from people wanting to donate, Prijatel said. In the three hours Medic was open Sunday, some 30 donors came in just for that reason, he said, and the blood center was expecting more today at its downtown and Farragut donation centers, as well as at mobile blood drives scheduled around the area. "People want to know, 'Can my blood go to Orlando?'" he said. Medic has reached out to OneBlood, the bank in that area, and offered to supply blood if needed, he said. "But it's important to remember, the blood that saved people's lives on Sunday was blood that was donated last Wednesday and Thursday," Prijatel said. "There's blood on (University of Tennessee Medical Center's) LifeStar (helicopter) today that will save the lives of people in East Tennessee." Patricia Donovan said she's a regular donor, but "yesterday was a good reminder of the help it can be." "Seeing a tragedy like that done to any Americans, but to a certain group of people, is definitely a hard thing to see," said Donovan, who's been involved in area theater for about a decade. "I had time today, so I came." In December 2015, the FDA relaxed its guidance for blood centers, saying that rather than refusing donations from any men who ever had sex with men, blood centers could choose to take gay men's blood as long as the men had not had sex with other men for at least a year long enough for any HIV infection to show up in the centers' blood testing. But that hasn't yet taken effect at Medic, which still can't accept donated blood from men who ever had sex with men, Prijatel said. He said it will change in the next few months, as Medic updates its software and donor records. One reason for the delay is other government changes with strict deadlines, he said for example, an FDA mandate that raised the minimum level of hemoglobin in potential donors' blood, which had to be in effect no later than May 23. That change cost Medic about 2 percent of its donors, Prijatel said. Donations are typically down anyway during summer, he said, as school schedules and vacations throw off regular donors' routines. Medic offers incentives: donated tickets from attractions such as Ripley's and Zoo Knoxville, or free Bruster's ice cream, for example. For Fenton, the incentive was simply wanting to do something in addition to praying for victims of the shooting and their loved ones. "It wouldn't matter who it was," she said. "God bless us all." Brittany Green, left, and Sam Reid gather with others at Krutch Park on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in memory of the victims in the Orlando shooting. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) By Lydia X. McCoy of the Knoxville News Sentinel Although miles away, the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando is personal to members of the LGBT community in Knoxville. Jennifer Jabson and her wife, Trina McCartney, remember their days of going to clubs. "It was a place to find a sense of community and not to worry," Jabson said. "We walk up and down the streets of downtown Knoxville all the time and have recently experienced some negative heckling for being a same-sex couple. So we get why you go to those clubs. " That's why, they said, it was important for them to attend a candlelight vigil at Krutch Park on Sunday in honor of the shooting's victims. "When you live a life where holding someone's hand in public is hated, and you go a club as a place of sanctuary and to find community and someone engages in an act of terror, it's not only personal to that group, that day, that moment, those people and those families, it affects everybody who is like those people," Jabson said. The couple said they while they didn't know anyone personally in Orlando, the gathering showed Knoxville "the importance of the LGTB community, the importance of rising together; (and) the importance of standing with your brothers and sisters in resistance to terror." Several hundred people attended the vigil, which was organized by 23-year-old Jordan Sexton, who said he wanted the community to know that tragedies can bring us together. "We can rely on each other to get through these tragedies that happen to us," he said. "There's been multiple tragedies and they all upset me, but this one was very close to home because I'm a gay man." The vigil, Sexton said, was about healing. "All we can do is come together and make sure everyone knows that we are one," he said. "We're all humans. We all have our differences." Speaking at the event were Ben Byers, president of the East Tennessee Equality Council, which organizes the Knoxville Pridefest, Chris Buice, minister of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and Nadeem Siddiqi, who represented the local Muslim community. Byers, who has worked in Orlando and even been to the nightclub, said the vigil was important to allow people to grieve and process together. "I don't want the takeaway to be that bad things happen. I want the take away to be that we are stronger together," he said. "That love is stronger than hate, than prejudice, than terrorism and all these things that can darken our door." Next week is Knoxville's Pridefest, which begins at 11 a.m. Saturday with a parade downtown. The University of Tennessee Pride Ambassadors, a student organization on campus, will hold a vigil from 6 to 8 p.m. today at Hodges Library. SEE ALSO: Worst mass shooting in US history: 50 slain at gay nightclub Exclusive: Former co-worker said Mateen unhinged and unstable Medic holding blood drive in wake of Orlando shooting Everyone was 'dropping and screaming': Witnesses describe chaos in Orlando shooting Orlando nightclub shooter worked for security contractor Victims of Orlando nightclub shooting identified Mercury recovered from a soil sample taken at the Y-12 National Security Complex. (ORNL) SHARE By Frank Munger of the Knoxville News Sentinel OAK RIDGE The cleanup of mercury contamination at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant could ultimately cost up to $3 billion, according to a U.S. Department of Energy report. The report, dated February 2016 but only recently released, states the estimated cost for mercury remediation at Y-12 is between $1 billion and $3 billion. The report was prepared to outline the technology plans for mercury cleanup at Y-12, as well as the DOE's Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Enormous quantities of mercury were used at Y-12 for lithium-separation processes during the Cold War development of hydrogen bombs. During peak years 1950 to 1963 about 11 million kilograms of mercury were used at the plant. About 3 percent of this total was released into the environment, according to DOE estimates, with mercury seeping into soils and leaking into local waterways. Pockets of mercury are found in the structures of old process buildings at the plant. "The overarching challenges at Oak Ridge include remediation of the large quantity of residual elemental mercury still present in shallow source zones adjacent to and beneath former mercury use facilities," the report stated. The report also noted the potential for mercury to mobilize during efforts to deactivate and decommission the old buildings at Y-12 and further spread the mercury and other contaminants. Another concern is the continuing presence of methylmercury, the most toxic form of the metal, in East Fork Poplar Creek which has been posted as a hazard since 1982. Environmental scientists at Oak Ridge and Savannah River are working together to address common issues and resolve key technical issues. The two sites, however, have had different experiences with mercury. Savannah River used mercury for decades as a catalyst for dissolving the aluminum cladding during nuclear separation processes at the site near Aiken, S.C. Unlike Oak Ridger, the mercury at Savannah River has not been released into the environment. "Rather, an estimated 60,000 kilograms of mercury is in high-level (radioactive) waste tanks and throughout the liquid waste system," the report stated. In Oak Ridge, various technology plans are already underway, with design in the works for a new $148 million mercury-treatment facility at Y-12. The facility will be located near Outfall 200, where residual mercury in the storm sewer system at the plant continues to leak into the upper stretches of East Fork Poplar Creek. The DOE is also looking to locate a research laboratory alongside the East Fork's lower stretches so that field studies can be conducted on how mercury is transformed in the environment to become methylmercury and other mercury-related issues. Methylmercury is a bigger issue downstream than it is in the upper parts of the creek inside Y-12, where it originates. The report said mercury contamination "poses a unique, high-priority challenge" to the DOE's cleanup missions at the two sites. DOE officials said research and technology development are "critical" to the future cleanup efforts. More from Frank Munger at "Atomic City Underground:" SHARE Construction on new Student Union complex is pictured Monday, June 13, 2016, at the University of Tennessee. The State Building Commission last week approved another $4.14 million for the project, bringing the total to $181.74 million. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) Construction on new Student Union complex is pictured Monday, June 13, 2016, at the University of Tennessee. The State Building Commission last week approved another $4.14 million for the project, bringing the total to $181.74 million. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) Construction on new Student Union complex is pictured Monday, June 13, 2016, at the University of Tennessee. The State Building Commission last week approved another $4.14 million for the project, bringing the total to $181.74 million. (SAUL YOUNG/NEWS SENTINEL) By Richard Locker of the Knoxville News Sentinel NASHVILLE The timeline for completing the University of Tennessee's new Student Union complex isn't the only thing about the project that's increasing: so is its cost. The State Building Commission last week approved another $4.14 million increase in the total cost, to $181.74 million. When the commission first approved the project in 2008, its cost was estimated at $116.6 million. But that was before the Recession settled in, cutting state revenue and delaying the project for more than three years. It was also before design plans were approved and construction bids were opened. By the time its design was approved in 2011 and its size increased by 30 percent, to 390,000 square feet, the cost was pegged at $160 million. In 2012 it jumped to $167.6 million. In July 2015, the commission approved a $10 million increase, to $177.6 million, to cover the costs of "unforeseen abatement, poor soil conditions, utility relocation, user-requested design changes and for awarding bids that are higher than were estimated," according to minutes of the meeting. When demolition of the old University Center parking garage started in March 2012, finally marking the start of work, UT said it would take about four years to 2016 to complete the entire project, to be built in two phases. The target for overall completion is now during the spring of 2018. Students who were freshmen on the campus when construction began in the spring of 2012 graduated in May 2015 just before the first, smaller part of the new Student Union opened on June 1, 2015, on Phillip Fulmer Drive. They endured the construction without enjoying, as students, its benefits: the new Vol Shop, bookstore, colorful dining and career services facilities and outdoor plaza that comprise the first phase. If the larger second phase opens as now scheduled in 2018, construction will have spanned seven classes of UT graduates from the Class of 2012 through the Class of 2018 a period marked by the largest number of major construction and renovation projects on the Knoxville campus since the 1960s. "Construction of the new Student Union will cause some headaches for all of us," UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy Cheek told the campus community in early 2012. "In the end, the new Student Union will be well worth the wait and the temporary challenges presented by the construction." UT President Joe DiPietro and State Architect Peter Heimbach told the State Building Commission on Thursday that the building's longer than anticipated construction schedule resulted from unforeseen construction and soil conditions and the desire to keep part of the old University Center open during construction of the first phase. "We've had problems with the kind of soil and the ability to put in the proper foundations," DiPietro said. "I don't know if we had sinkhole problems there but we've had those before. And the scope of this project expanded, from the standpoint of Student Affairs and what they wanted to deliver there. But largely it's been the fact that, constructionwise, it's been much harder to build than expected. We tore down half the student center and built that and now we're on the second half, and the two pieces will come together." "That's been a large part of it trying to make sure the students have adequate services during the construction, they phased it to maintain those services," Heimbach said. The first phase of the project, which opened a year ago facing Phillip Fulmer Way, has 142,000 square feet of space spread across five occupied levels. The second phase now rising out of the ground along Cumberland Avenue will have 248,000 square feet. UT says the new Student Union, is the largest single construction project in its history and will have nearly double the space of the demolished Carolyn P. Brown University Center that opened in 1954 and was expanded in 1967. The second phase will contain a 999-seat auditorium, 12,000-square-foot ballroom, art gallery, 100-seat tiered seminar room, a two-story conference room for up to 150 people, student recreation areas, offices for various student organizations and student affairs administrators, an executive dining room, other meeting and conference rooms, an admissions welcome center, and retail and service operations such as the central ticket office, Post Office, Vol Card office, credit union, and printing and design. The second phase extends east-west almost on the footprint of the demolished structure but extending farther west toward Volunteer Boulevard, where three old landmark structures, including Aconda and Temple Courts, were torn down. TIMELINE: Sept. 2008: State Building Commission approves new university center project with estimated cost of $116.6 million. Selects a joint venture of architects McCarty Holsaple McCarty/Barber McMurray as designer. Nov. 2010: SBC approves issuing request for proposal for a construction manager/general contractor. March 10, 2011: SBC approves Rentenbach Constructors Inc. as construction manager/general contractor for building estimated at 300,000 gross square feet (later increased to 390,000). March 14, 2011: Gov. Bill Haslam presents his first state budget to General Assembly, for fiscal year 2011-12, which includes $127.4 million in bonds and UT institutional funds for new UTK university center, to be repaid from student fees and revenue from retail operations in the center. July 2011: SBC approves a revision in scope and estimated project cost from $114 million to $160 million and officials say project bill be built in two phases. The revision includes additional sitework, street and pedestrian transportation, utility system improvements and more demolition than planned to the parking garage. Dec. 2011: Roadwork and other preparations around the project, now called Student Union, begins and continues into early 2012, including removal of the money wall. Feb. 2012: UT update says Student Union is expected to cost about $160 million and will take at least four years to complete. March 17, 2012: Workers begin demolishing old University Center parking garage. Oct. 2012: SBC approves early design phase presented by architects. Cost still estimated at $160 million. Dec. 2012: Demolition of Aconda and Temple Courts and 812 Vol Blvd. Jan. 2014: UT update says construction is on schedule, with first phase set for completion by spring 2015. Phase Ones six-story structure is formed from steel and workers are pouring concrete floors. New pedestrian bridge is being built. Says the overall project will cost $167 million. Phase One will have five occupied levels and 142,000 square feet of space. Second phase is 248,000 sf. UT says Phase Two will be finished in 2017. June 1, 2015: Phase 1 opens as new-student orientation starts. UT says the second phase of construction starts immediately and is now set to be finished in spring 2018. July 2015: SBC approves revision in budget from $167.6 million to $177.6 million, to cover the cost of unforeseen abatement, poor soil conditions, utility relocation, user requested design changes and will allow for awarding bids that are higher than estimated for the project. June 9, 2016: SBC approves revision in budget to $181.74 million, a $4.14 million increase. This request will cover the cost of unforeseen abatement, poor soil conditions/sink holes, programmatic requirements, and higher designer cost estimates. SHARE Several years ago we bought a particular house primarily because it was near a public pool, which we thought would make it a fun place to live. The house needed some remodeling, but it had curb appeal. Because of the brisk market at the time, we toured it briefly only twice before we closed the deal. It was after we moved in that we had buyers' remorse, discovering that the house was located under a flight path for the nearby naval air station. But we were stuck and had to live with the annoying sound of roaring engines above us. I thought about that home purchase recently as we all watched Republican leaders running for the hills to distance themselves from Donald Trump. When Trump first announced his candidacy, he became a media darling whose campaign was covered wall-to-wall. As a reality TV star, Trump knew how to play the press and charm the crowds with outrageous remarks that were seen as being refreshingly non-political. Trump's business records and his false statements evaded the usual scrutiny shown other candidates. On the contrary, his insults of groups of Americans and his unfounded claims only increased his popularity. But when he accused federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel of being unfair in the fraud case against Trump University because the jurist was of Mexican heritage, Trump's campaign blew up in his face. Republican leaders denounced his allegation as being purely racist. Sen. Mark Kirk rescinded his support. Suddenly, 3,500 lawsuits against Trump, including many for non-payment of bills to small-business owners, have come to light, and we continue to wait to see the man's tax records. Many who thought Trump was entertaining have discovered that he's simply loud and offensive, but it's too late. They'll just have to live with their buyers' remorse. Cheryl Peyton, Loudon SHARE As a flight attendant (or stewardess as we were then called), I worked 72 flights into Vietnam during the war. One landing in Da Nang during the Tet Offensive forced us to race to a bunker and hide while the enemy continue its attack on the runway. We returned to Travis Air Force Base, located in Fairfield, a town in Northern California, not in San Diego, a city in Southern California. Soldiers were never asked to put on civilian clothes before they left the plane. We were landing at a base; everyone wore military clothes. I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. In the 1960s and early '70s, the campus became a hotbed of anti-war sentiment. State police helicopters periodically teargassed student protesters. At no time did I see or hear of anyone spitting on soldiers. The students were angry about the war. They were not angry with the soldiers. If anything, they were sympathetic to their situation. HonorAir is a wonderful organization, but the recent article by Mike Blackerby should have been more carefully edited. I wrote a book, "Behind the Smile During the Glamour Years of Aviation," about that time in our history. Bobbi Phelps Wolverton, Loudon Couple goes from lavish lifestyle to prison over $80 million Medicaid fraud scheme JUNE 13, 2016 at 1:14 p.m. EST Florence and Michael Bikundi used their home health care agency to carry out a massive fraud. Year after year, the D.C. Medicaid program was billed for personal home health aide services that were not fully provided to Medicaid beneficiaries. WASHINGTON Florence Bikundi and her husband, Michael D. Bikundi, Sr., the owners of Global Healthcare, Inc., a home care agency, have been sentenced to prison terms for health care fraud, money laundering, and other charges stemming from a scheme in which they and others defrauded the District of Columbia Medicaid program of over $80 million. The two defendants, of Mitchellville, Md., were found guilty on Nov. 12, 2015 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Honorable Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell sentenced Florence Bikundi to 10 years in prison. She sentenced Michael D. Bikundi, Sr. to seven years in prison. Following their prison terms, the Bikundis will be placed on three years of supervised release. Judge Howell earlier ordered them to forfeit over $11 million seized from 76 bank accounts; their residence, worth approximately $1 million; $73,000 in cash seized from their residence, and five luxury vehicles with a total purchase price of more than $400,000. She also imposed a forfeiture money judgment of $39,989,956 on both defendants. Finally, Judge Howell ordered the defendants to pay $80,620,929 in restitution to D.C. Medicaid. The investigation of this case exposed a massive health care fraud that cheated the District of Columbia Medicaid program of more than $80 million that could have been spent on people who needed services, said prosecuting U.S. Attorney Phillips. Florence and Michael Bikundi enriched themselves for years by operating a rogue home care agency. Hopefully the sentences today will serve as a deterrent to other unscrupulous health care providers who aim to steal the taxpayers money. The Bikundis funded their lavish lifestyle by defrauding the District of Columbias Medicaid program designed to provide for those in need, said Assistant Director in Charge Paul M. Abbate of the FBIs Washington Field Office. The FBI will continue to pursue criminals who target our health care system in order to protect its integrity and to prevent fraud. I commend the dedicated agents, analysts, and prosecutors who worked to bring this case to justice. Its outrageous that fraudster couple Florence and Michael Bikundi stole millions of Medicaid funds meant to provide home health services to vulnerable patients just to fuel their own lavish lifestyle, said Special Agent in Charge Nicholas DiGiulio of the HHS Office of Inspector General. But todays prison sentences show the results of our continued work with other law enforcement agencies to crack down on greedy individuals who rip off government health care programs. Health care fraud and other similar elaborate fraudulent schemes are not victimless crimes, said Special Agent in Charge Brian J. Ebert of the U.S. Secret Services Washington Field Office. This type of fraud can have a significant detrimental effect on our nations financial infrastructure and our local communitys economy. The Secret Service will continue to tirelessly pursue justice by investigating and dismantling these types of fraudulent schemes. I hope this sentence sends a clear message that we will continue to investigate and propose prosecution for anyone who engages in corruption or fraudulent activities against the District government, said Inspector General Daniel W. Lucas. I applaud the hard work of my D.C. OIG Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) staff for bringing this case to its rightful close. Florence Bikundi, 53, also known as Florence Ngwe and Florence Igwacho, has been in custody since her arrest in February 2014. She was found guilty by the jury of 12 charges: one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud; one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, two counts of health care fraud; one count of Medicaid fraud; and seven counts of money laundering. Michael D. Bikundi, Sr., 63, was found guilty of 10 charges: one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud; one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of health care fraud; and seven counts of money laundering. According to evidence presented at trial, Florence Bikundi, a former nurse, and her husband owned Global Healthcare, Inc. According to the governments evidence, Florence Bikundi was not entitled to take part in the Medicaid program and fraudulently got approval as a provider. Then, the governments evidence showed, she and her husband led a scheme to bill Medicaid for services that were not fully provided recruiting others, including family members, into the scam, and creating fraudulent paperwork to hide the illegal activity. The D.C. Medicaid program is funded jointly by District of Columbia tax dollars and federal tax dollars. Medicaid provides for home care services to be performed by personal care aides, working for eligible home care agencies. Doctors or advanced practice registered nurses must examine beneficiaries and authorize them to receive these services. The aides are to follow a plan of care and assist Medicaid beneficiaries in performing activities of daily living, such as getting in and out of bed, bathing, dressing, keeping track of medication, and so forth. In 1999, Florence Bikundi went by her maiden name of Florence Igwacho. In August 1999, the Virginia Board of Nursing revoked the nursing license of Florence Igwacho. In March 2000, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General notified Florence Igwacho in writing that she was excluded from participation in Medicare, Medicaid, and all federal health care programs due to the revocation. Florence Bikundi subsequently concealed her past namely, the Medicaid exclusion and the revocation of her nursing license - when she applied for a Medicaid provider number for Global Healthcare in June 2009 using the name of Florence Bikundi. She also used three forged signatures on her Medicaid provider application. Florence Bikundi married Michael Bikundi in September 2009. From August 2009 through February 2014, Florence and Michael Bikundi used Global HealthCare to carry out a massive fraud, the governments evidence showed. Year after year, the D.C. Medicaid program was billed for personal home health aide services that were not fully provided to Medicaid beneficiaries. Phony time sheets, patient files and employment files were created. Global Healthcare generated increasing amounts of payments as the years continued, going from roughly $1.35 million in 2009 to $14.27 million in 2011 to $27.16 million in 2013. According to the governments evidence, the Bikundis used the proceeds to finance a lavish lifestyle. In just over three years, they spent $1.3 million to purchase and renovate a newly built home. They also used the proceeds for a $140,000 Land Rover, a $120,000 Porsche, a $75,000 Mercedes Benz, a $70,000 Cadillac and a $36,000 BMW. Seven others earlier pled guilty to charges in the investigation. They include Florence Bikundis son, Carlson M. Igwacho, 35, of Bowie, Md.; Florence Bikundis two sisters, Irene M. Igwacho, 50, of Bowie, Md., and Berenice W. Igwacho, 31, of Bowie, Md.; James Mbide, 55, of Laurel, Md; Nicola C. White, 34, of Laurel, Md.; Elvis N. Atabe, 57, of Adelphia Md., and Melissa A. Williams, 33, of Silver Spring, Md. Two others were indicted on charges in the investigation but remain fugitives: Christian S. Asongcha, 39, formerly of Lanham, Md., and Atawan Mundu John, 39, formerly of Washington, DC. In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Phillips, Assistant Director in Charge Abbate, Special Agent in Charge DiGiulio, Special Agent in Charge Ebert, and Inspector General Lucas commended the work of those who investigated the case from the FBIs Washington Field Office, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, and the U.S. Secret Service, as well as a team from the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the District of Columbias Office of the Inspector General that included Director Brent Wolfingbarger; Special Agents Mike Kellam, Sandra Adams, Victor Richardson, and Senior Auditor LaShawn Brooks. They also expressed appreciation for the assistance of the District of Columbias Department of Health Care Finance and other agencies. They commended the work of those who prosecuted the case, including Assistant U.S. Attorneys Lionel A. Andre, Anthony Saler, and Michelle Bradford, of the Offices Fraud and Public Corruption Section. They acknowledged the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher B. Brown, of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, who assisted during the forfeiture proceedings, and Criminal Investigator Nicole Hinson, also of the U.S. Attorneys Office, who was the prosecutions law enforcement representative during the trial. Finally, they expressed appreciation for the assistance in this case and related investigations that was provided by Arvind K. Lal, Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section; Assistant U.S. Attorneys Zia Faruqui, Ted Radway, Michael Friedman, Chrisellen Kolb, and Michelle Zamarin; Financial Analyst Bryan J. Snitselaar; Deputy U.S. Marshal Wayne Rollock of the U.S. Marshals Service; Paralegal Specialists Toni Donato, Donna Galindo, Krishawn Graham, Tasha Harris, Corinne Kleinman, and Kristy Penny; Legal Assistants Angela Lawrence, Jessica McCormick, and Christopher Samson; Litigation Support Specialist Ron Royal, and former Forensic Accountant Maria Boodoo. Published June 13, 2016 President Jimmy Carter tours Ark Encounter JUNE 13, 2016 at 11:38 a.m. The Ark is remarkable. And it's some of the best wood-working I've ever seen..." President Jimmy Carter President Jimmy Carter wields a wooden hammer on board the Ark Encounter, accompanied by AiG's Ken Ham and architect Leroy Troyer. Photo courtesy of Answers in Genesis. WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. With skills and experiences that go well beyond wielding a hammer and cutting wood at Habitat for Humanity projects, former President Jimmy Carter was intrigued enough by the world's largest timber-frame project to visit the Ark Encounter construction site today in Northern Kentucky. At the invitation of his close friend and Habitat colleague LeRoy Troyer of the Troyer Group, who is building the Ark along with some Amish craftsmen, the 39th president and Nobel Peace Prize winner toured the 510-foot long life-size re-creation of Noah's Ark. Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter also walked through the three decks of the Ark. The Ark Encounter theme park, with the Ark as its centerpiece, is set to open in Northern Kentucky on July 7 in Williamstown, south of Cincinnati and right off I-75. President Carter praised the quality of the work and shared his impressions of the project that his architect friend Mr. Troyer has designed and built for Answers in Genesis: "The Ark is remarkable. And it's some of the best wood-working I've ever seen. My friend LeRoy Troyer has done a tremendous job." Ken Ham, the Ark's visionary and the CEO of AiG, expressed his excitement about the president's visit today: "It was a thrill to have a special time of fellowship with President Carter as we chatted and walked through the Ark. We have admired his carpentry skills for many years, and it seemed that he appreciated the incredible craftsmanship that is on display at the Ark, along with its massive amount of wood." In addition to the Ark structure, the first phase of the Ark Encounter to open July 7 includes Ararat Ridge Zoo (with a petting zoo), a 1,500-seat restaurant, a gift store under the Ark, and a zip line course that will eventually run a total of nine miles. Several dozen world-class exhibits inside the Ark will acquaint visitors with life aboard the Ark for Noah and his family, as well as explain how the Ark would have accommodated all the necessary animal "kinds" during the worldwide Flood. The Ark Encounter can accommodate over 10,000 guests per day, but research has shown that more could be expected each day during the first few weeks of its summer opening. This was the reason for establishing daytime (9 a.m. 4 p.m.) and nighttime (5 p.m. midnight) entry tickets for the first 40 days to help spread out the crowd. The day and evening times will also offer some differing experiences. For example, some visitors will enjoy sunset on the beautiful property. Tickets are $40 for adults, $28 for children and $31 for seniors. Parking is $10. Recently, AiG announced a 7-day unlimited $99 combo ticket that includes free parking and unlimited visits over 7 consecutive days to tour both the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum. This ticket offer will encourage people to vacation in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region and visit other family-friendly attractions. The Creation Museum in Petersburg, 45 interstate miles from the Ark site, has been visited by 2.7 million guests since opening in 2007. In the past two years, the museum unveiled a world-class $1.5 million exhibit of an allosaur dinosaur skeleton, and hosted the famous Bill Nye/Ken Ham evolution-creation debate (conservatively estimated to have now been watched by upwards of 15 million people). For more information about AiG, visit www.answersingenesis.org. The Ark website is at www.ArkEncounter.com. Published June 13, 2016 By Choi Sung-jin A tug-of-war is continuing between the Korean government and Google over the company's demand to use the nation's geographic data abroad for commercial purposes. The world's largest Internet company insists it needs an uncensored map to expand map-related services covering all of Korea. The Seoul government says it cannot let all location information on national security facilities be shown abroad. Google asked the National Geographic Information Institute (NGII) to approve its plan to provide Korea's geographic data services overseas, on June 1. The company made a similar request to National Intelligence Service in January 2007 but was turned down. The government plans to decide whether to allow it by Aug. 25. The government has maintained that it could provide the data only if Google deleted information related to national security facilities or agreed to Korea managing the use of personal data and national security-related information. "All other Internet businesses, including Naver, Kakao and SK Planet, have done so," an official said. "We cannot provide the privilege of using data with no such strings attached only for Google." Google wants access to undeleted geographic images of Korea to enhance services related to Google Maps, including location-based advertisements and automobile navigation services. Global map data are also indispensable in developing autonomous vehicles and operating systems for automobiles, both of which are among Google's future growth engines, according to industry experts. According to Google, however, these services are impossible in Korea because the map Google uses now is inaccurate and has no regional information on streets and stores. "We want the same map as that used by Naver and other Korean companies," a company official said. But the government's stance on this request appears to be firm. "In the satellite photos already provided by Google, all the facilities of national security, including Cheong Wa Dae and military installations, are exposed," said Choe Byong-nam, director general of NGII. "If they combine satellite photos and large-scale maps, exact locations and outlooks of security facilities are exposed on the Internet, and we cannot let this happen." Choe said all of Google's Korean counterparts, including Naver, Kakao and SK Planet, were either not showing these facilities on their maps or had deleted such photos. Some industry executives say there would be no problems if Google would move to Korea its server that stores and provides data. "If Google brings its server to Korea, it will not have to take data out of this country," said an industry executive. "It can use the data under the government's supervision." Google has data centers and servers in the United States, the Netherlands, Singapore and Taiwan, but not in Korea, and Koreans connect to these overseas servers through the Internet. Experts say the relocation of a Google server to Korea could also resolve taxation problems. Google has more than 1 trillion won ($8.3 billion) annual sales in Korea, but pays almost no corporate taxes to the host government, slipping through the loophole that Seoul cannot impose taxes as long as a foreign company's business equipment, such as a server, is not here, however much revenue it makes in the nation, they say. "It is an expedient of sorts that Google, while conducting business activities in Korea and making revenue, is free from tax payment and government controls just because the company is not operating its server here," said Professor Chung Wook-hyeon of Sogang University. Budget carrier expected to take over Asiana Airlines' unprofitable routes By Lee Hyo-sik Air Seoul, Asiana Airlines' second budget carrier, will likely begin operations as early as July, entering the country's increasingly competitive low-cost carrier (LCC) market, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) Monday. The company, set up to take over Asiana's unprofitable domestic and short-distance international routes, is widely expected to receive an air operator's certificate (AOC) from the ministry next month. "We will complete the paper-based screening of Air Seoul this week," a ministry official said. "We will then conduct an onsite inspection to check the carrier's facilities and other operational capabilities. Given the remaining procedures, we will be able to issue the certificate in mid-July." Air Seoul plans to fly on the Gimpo-Jeju and other domestic routes, currently operated by its parent firm, as soon as it is licensed. "We would like to receive our AOC from the government as early as possible to begin operations," an Air Seoul spokesman said. "We will first take over Asiana Airlines' domestic routes and then its short-distance international routes connecting Korea with destinations in China, Japan and Southeast Asian countries." The spokesman expects it will take about three months for the carrier to get aviation approval from foreign countries, adding that it will serve Korean and non-Korean passengers flying between Korea and other Asian nations in October. At first, Air Seoul plans to lease three Airbus 321-200 planes from Asiana, and then expand its fleet as it starts flying internationally. The firm's imminent entry will likely turn Korea's highly competitive LCC market even more aggressive. The budget carrier would likely bite into the bottom line of Jeju Air and four other LCCs. In 2015, Asiana Airlines decided to establish Air Seoul as it has been sandwiched by industry leader Korean Air and five local LCCs. The country's second-largest flagship carrier is having a hard time competing with LCCs in costs as it pays workers more and offers more services. In addition, Asiana has lagged behind Korean Air in attracting passengers on long-distance international routes. After handing over its domestic and short-distance international routes to Air Seoul, the company plans to mobilize more resources to become a premium carrier capable of competing with Korean Air and other multinational carriers. By Lee Hyo-sik A Lotte flag flies in front of the group's headquarters in Sogong-dong in central Seoul, Saturday. / Yonhap Lotte Group is facing the worst crisis in its 70-year history as the prosecution widens an investigation into the alleged creation of a slush fund, inter-subsidiary dealings, tax evasion and other illegal activities. The expanding probe into Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin and his older sister Shin Young-ja has derailed the group's plans to list shares of Lotte Hotel and acquire a U.S. chemical firm. Lotte is also expected to face a harder time in winning a license to reopen a duty free shop in southern Seoul later this year. It scrapped the plan to acquire U.S.-based polyethylene manufacturer Axiall, citing the increasing business uncertainties. On June 9, Lotte Chemical said it submitted a bid to purchase Axiall, valued at about 4 trillion won ($3.5 billion), as part of efforts to become one of the world's top 10 petrochemical companies with annual revenue of 21 trillion won. However, it withdrew the bid a day later when hundreds of investigators raided Lotte Group headquarters in downtown Seoul, offices of group affiliates and Chairman Shin's residence, confiscating financial records and other corporate documents. A Lotte Group official said it was unfortunate to scrap the plan of acquiring Axiall, adding that the acquisition would have helped Lotte Chemical strengthen its global competitiveness. "Chairman Shin has been trying to nurture the group's chemical unit into one of the world's largest and most competitive ones. The group's takeover of Samsung Group's chemical unit last year shows his intent," the official said. "Shin and other top executives were at first unwilling to cancel the bid. But given the situation surrounding the group at the moment, they had no other choice but to do so." In addition, Lotte has virtually abandoned a plan to list Lotte Hotel, which operates the nation's largest duty free store chain, on the Seoul bourse amid the escalating prosecution probe into its hotel unit. The group had postponed the initial public offering (IPO) of Lotte Hotel early this month following a bribery scandal that Shin Young-ja, who is the Lotte Foundation chairwoman, received kickbacks from the head of a cosmetics brand in return for providing favors to the firm in opening its shops at Lotte Duty Free stores. Lotte had delayed the IPO date to July 21 from June 29, but it has now indefinitely postponed the plan. Group officials said they will resume the IPO procedure only when the ongoing investigation is completed. Chairman Shin has been seeking to list the shares of the group's de-facto holding firm to reduce the influence of Japanese stakeholders and improve the group-wide governance structure. Lotte planned to use trillions of won raised through the IPO to expand duty free operations abroad and acquire foreign luxury brands. The duty free business generated 1.33 trillion won in sales last year, accounting for 85 percent of Lotte Hotel's revenue. The prosecution probe is also likely to derail the hotel's bid to regain a license for its duty free store at the Lotte World Tower in southern Seoul, which is scheduled to close on June 30. It failed to renew the license last November. Lotte planned to apply for a license in December but fears that the ongoing investigation will make it harder to start operations of the World Tower shop. By Jhoo Dong-chan Korea's plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) market is expected to see fierce competition with newly launched models from both domestic and foreign automakers. Considered to be an alternative choice before the coming age of electric vehicles (EV), PHEVs share characteristics of a conventional hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), having an electric motor and an internal combustion engine, and of an all-EV, having a plug to connect to the electricity grid. Some automakers even vow to build charging infrastructure to support the countrys eco-friendly cars. Kia Motors said Monday that it will start selling its K5 PHEV sedan next month. Introduced at the 2016 Busan International Motor Show, the K5 PHEV mounts a 9.8-kWh battery with a 50 kW electric motor. Combining those electric components with a 2.0-GDI combustion engine, the model can produce a maximum of 205 horsepower. The K5 PHEV has a driving range of 44 kilometers with a fully charged battery in the electric mode. When its battery is exhausted, the sedan uses gasoline in the hybrid mode. GM Korea also introduced the Volt PHEV during this year's motor show, receiving significant attention from the media. The Volt PHEV has an 18.4-kWh battery with two electric motors that can run a maximum of 89 kilometers on battery power alone. BMW said it will introduce the company's first PHEV sport utility vehicle, the new X5 xDrive 40e, and the new 330e sedan later this year. Mercedes Benz is also expected to launch their PHEV, the S500e. The luxury sedan can run 30 kilometers in battery-power mode. Experts said that success of the PHEV market depends on charging infrastructure. Without sufficient charging infrastructure, PHEVs are not different from HEVs in energy efficiency. In a bid to establish a more eco-friendly infrastructure, Hyundai Motor signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with POSCO ICT in June of last year to set up more charging station at buildings such as supermarkets and movie theaters. Under the deal, Hyundai Motor and POSCO ICT set up 220 and 300 PHEV charging devices each last year. A Hyundai Motor official said it will build 80 more charging devices this year, and 2,200 Hyundai Motor dealers and service centers will have them as well. BMW Korea, also agreed to partner with POSCO ICT as well to operate 120 charging devices at 80 E-mart chains across the country. By Jhoo Dong-chan The prosecution is investigating Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) over allegations it created a slush fund of at least 10 billion won through a subcontractor. According to prosecutors, DSME received an order in 2007 for the 15,700-ton bulk carrier Mega Trust, from a company called Interex Megaline, an affiliate of Humex Shipping & Air Freight Corp., which was controlled by DSME's then-head Nam Sang-tae's college friend surnamed Cheong. DSME then subcontracted the Mega Trust job to Shinan Heavy Industries (SHICO), which was established in 2005. It was SHICO's first shipbuilding contract. SHICO built and handed over the bulk carrier to Interex Megaline in December 2008. Interex Megaline paid DSME 170 billion won ($145 million) for building Mega Trust. Of the total, the prosecution found that Nam allegedly pocketed 10 percent, or 17 billion won, when DSME place the subcontract order. Of the 17 billion won, prosecutors say they have confirmed that Nam used 10 billion won to create the slush fund. The prosecution suspects DSME has done this more than once through subcontract orders with SHICO, because the subcontractor won only the one deal in 2007 Interex Megaline's Mega Trust deal. But its total contracts skyrocketed to 276.9 billion won in the following year. Most of the deals SHICO clinched in the year were associated with DSME's subcontract orders, the prosecution added. Some 150 investigators from the Supreme Prosecutors' Office raided not only DSME's headquarters in central Seoul and its shipyard in Okpo on Geoje Island, South Gyeongsang Province, but also Interex Megaline's headquarters as well as Cheong's home. The prosecution also questioned Cheong and raided the home of Nam's other aid Lee Chang-ha. The 60-year-old renowned architect and former DSME executive was also accused of receiving bribes when DSME built the cruise ship MS Veronica in Oman in 2010. The prosecution's move is the first of its kind after it set up an anti-corruption unit in January to tackle industry-wide corruption. The shipbuilding and marine engineering sector, which has suffered from snowballing debt amid the economic slump, has become the unit's first target. By Nam Hyun-woo Korean credit card firms said Monday that they will send a letter of complaint against Visa's "unilateral" commission raise, heralding a feud between the global credit card titan and domestic companies. The card issuers KB Kookmin, BC, Samsung, Lotte, Hyundai, Woori, Hana and Shinhan will send the letter as early as this week. The joint protest came after the world's biggest card issuer notified the local companies April 28 that it would raise fees on six types of overseas services beginning Oct. 1. The hikes range from 10 to 100 percent. This will burden not only domestic card firms but also consumers as the hike includes international service assessment fees, which card holders pay when they purchase goods outside of the country. Currently, customers holding cards issued by Korean issuers pay a 1 percent fee, but the notification forces customers to pay a fee of 1.1 percent. "This will come as a huge burden for domestic card companies," an industry source said. "Despite the fact that Visa is raising its fees, customers will blame the domestic issuers." In 2009, Visa attempted to raise international service assessment fees from 1.0 percent to 1.2 percent only for Korea. Domestic card issuers reacted by suspending the issuance of Visa cards, and Visa withdrew the plan. Though the domestic firms are also making a joint move this time, they are seemingly "cautious" in taking the lead in the protest, given Visa's worldwide dominance. "Companies are trying not to take a leading role as they are following their peers' moves," said an industry source. Visa Korea said it is yet to come up with an official stance about the letter. "There has been a guideline from headquarters saying the fee raise will cover the Asia-Pacific region," said an official at Visa Korea. "This means that not only Korea but also other countries in the region such as Japan or China will see fee hikes." By Nam Hyun-woo The government said Monday that it will consider merging ailing Hyundai Merchant Marine (HMM) and Hanjin Shipping should they successfully normalize their management. "Once the normalization program for the two shipping companies is wrapped up, the government will consider various plans including the merger of the companies," said Financial Services Commission (FSC) Chairman Yim Jong-yong at a news conference. As the restructuring programs that the debt-riddled shippers are undergoing will install the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) as the controlling stakeholder of the firms, the government can lead the merger of the pair in the future. Of the two companies, HMM last week struck deals with its ship owners over cutting charter costs and stepped into the track for normalization. If HMM joins an alliance of its global peers, the company will fulfill all preconditions that the government has set for normalization. Hanjin Shipping is currently in negotiations with ship owners, but its progress is relatively slow as the company is suffering from a liquidity crunch. "HMM's normalization effort has turned the corner, though the company still faces tasks such as joining the alliance," Yim said. "Hanjin's process is in its early stages and creditors are doing their utmost to assist its self-rescue efforts." Talk over the potential merger has been emerging since last November, when the government formed a multi-ministry consultative body for restructuring the shippers. Calls have been growing that Korea does not need two flag-carrying shippers because their businesses overlap in many aspects. The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said, "The number of flag-carrying shippers is not important and what matters is cargo volume," showing a change from its initial stance that "there must be two shippers." According to Splash, a Singapore-headquartered shipping media, combining the pair would send them up to the fourth spot in the global liner trade and establish them as Asia's largest container line. For shipbuilders, Yim said the government will begin the debate over restructuring the industry in August, when negotiating finish. Also, the FSC chairman said it will continue its efforts to table six bills at the 20th National Assembly. The bills include the Korea Exchange's transformation into a holding company and lifting the regulation separating banking from commerce. A scene from "Veteran" By Kim Jae-heun CJ E&M announced Sunday that it will sell the rights to remake the hit movies "Veteran" and "Salut D'Amour" to China. The movies will be remade jointly by Korean and Chinese companies. For the remake of the Korean action-comedy "Veteran," Korea's third-highest-grossing movie, popular Chinese actor Sun Honglei will take the role of detective Seo Do-cheol, originally portrayed by Hwang Jung-min. Hong Kong actor-turned-movie director Tsang Chi Wai will produce the Chinese version of "Salut D'Amour." The two movies are set to screen in China by next year and Korean production teams will participate in production as well as rewriting the scripts to adapt the films for local audiences. Director Ryoo Seung-wan of Veteran said he expects the remake to have a richer storyline, as China has more territory and a greater population. Cho Seong-jin By Park Jin-hai Cho Seong-jin, winner of this year's International Chopin Piano Competition, will release his debut album with the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda, Deutsche Grammophon announced, Monday. He had initially planned to make his debut studio recording with conductor Chung Myung-whun, former music director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (SPO). Cho was scheduled to start recording Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Chopin's four Ballades in April under the baton of maestro Chung and the Staatskapelle Dresden Orchestra where Chung has been principal guest conductor since the 2012-13 season. Chung reportedly canceled the recording because of personal reasons. Also Chung will no longer conduct Cho's Chopin performance with the SPO at Seoul Arts Center, July 15. He will be replaced by French conductor Yan Pascal Torteller. The pianist will be performing the award-winning Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 1 that shot him to fame last October by making him the first Korean to win the International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition. By Lee Han-soo Korean budget airline Jin Air made an emergency landing at Japan's Kansai International Airport on Monday 9:30 a.m. due to technical glitch in its landing gear, according to Kyoto News Agency. The emergency happened with 171 passengers and crew members on board. There were no reports of casualties. One of the airport's runways was temporarily shut because of an on-site investigation. The plane is now taken to a repair terminal for further investigation. Kyoto reported the passengers and crew members safely evacuated from the plane. All Chinese vessels have left neutral waters in the Han River's estuary between South and North Korea Monday, three days after the South Korean military and United Nations Command (UNC) started their first joint crackdown in the buffer zone, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. On Friday, four South Korean speed boats with military police teams were sent into the waters that flow from the Han River mouth to the Yellow Sea to drive away Chinese fishing boats that have intruded into the tensely monitored area in search of blue crabs and other resources. As the operation kicked off last week, about 10 Chinese boats retreated to the North Korea-controlled side of the waters and had since remained there. "As of late afternoon on Monday, (all the) Chinese fishing vessels withdrew from the area," the JCS said in a press release. The JSC said the crackdown operation was still in progress as of Monday afternoon "in preparations against the possibility the Chinese return to the neutral waters." Another official said the South Korean military police plan to be on stand-by for some time to come in case the vessels come back. The latest operation was the first joint project undertaken by South Korea and the UNC in the neutral waters since the area was declared a no man's land in the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. June is the peak season for blue crabs, whose reserves are abundant in the largely untouched fishing ground near the de facto inter-Korean sea border, the Northern Limit Line. This has tempted Chinese fishing boats to illegally intrude into these areas. (Yonhap) By Choi Sung-jin On April 23, weather reports expected a sunny day in Seoul. All day long, however, citizens could not see a clear sky as it was blanketed by thick fine dusts. The concentration of fine dusts, as measured in Seodaemun District, surged to 540 micrograms (ug) per cubic meter in the afternoon, 10 times higher than average. The fine dusts' concentration is forecast as "bad" when it is between 81 ug and and 150 ug, and "very bad" if it is 150 ug or higher. When the "very bad" situation continues two hours or longer, the meteorological office issues a fine dust watch, and if the average concentration exceeds 300 ug, the office raises an alarm. The average concentration of fine dusts in Seoul that day was 210 ug, meaning there were 2.1 million particles of fine dust per cubic meter, more than four times higher than the 50 ug recommended by World Health Organization. That in turn indicated that if a normal person breathes 12 times a minute, he or she might have inhaled 25.2 million fine dusts. The meteorological office advised people to stay at home but various outdoor events were held throughout the country for the weekend. Fine dusts have put the nation under an emergency. Before most Koreans perceived it, fine dust forecasts have become even more important life information than rain or wind. According to National Institute of Environmental Research, Seoul's fine dust concentration was rated as "bad" for 25 days last year. This year, there were few clear days with fine dusts filling the atmosphere of the capital city. Fine dusts are particles with diameters of 10 micrometers (one micrometer is one-thousandth of a millimeter) or less. They are a mixture of various harmful materials, including cadmium, lead, heavy metals, arsenic and hydrocarbons floating in the air. Koreans had long cited China's industrialization, and resultant fine dusts and yellow sands, as the main culprits. More recently, however, scientists point to pollutants produced by fossil fuels used by automobiles, industrial plants such as thermal power stations and oil refineries, and households here in Korea as the major cause. "So far Koreans have thought fine dusts come mainly from China, but at least half of fine dusts are produced at home," said Professor Lee Tae-hyung of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. "Its' causes are half-and-half. Had there been only fine dusts from China, the air quality might have not been as bad as now." Fine dusts are a serious threat to public health. When people breathe, fine dusts enter into their bodies through respiratory organs and stick to the lungs. Fine dusts, once they are flown into bodies, hardly go out of it, causing various diseases. International cancer experts classify fine dusts as a first-degree carcinogen. Korea Environment Institute says if the fine concentration rises 10 ug per cubic meter in Seoul, the risks of death goes up 0.44 percent. If the concentration of ultrafine dust, with diameters of 2.5 ug or less, increases by 10 ug, the risk jumps 0.95 percent. "People need to differentiate fine dusts from ultrafine dusts because it is the latter that are harmful to health," Prof. Lee said. "Humans have developed an ability to adjust to fine dusts, with evolution giving us a self-purification capacity. However, ultrafine dusts, which have surged over the past century or so, affect health in serious ways because they directly pass through the respiratory tract to the lungs." Last month, Koreans were particularly alarmed by an OECD report, which said the nation's number of premature deaths would reach 1,109 per 1 million people by 2060, three times higher than in 2010 and the highest among all member nations of the rich countries' club. The nation's life quality index in the environment area was also ranked 37th among 38 countries, indicating the government's environmental policy has failed. The report said that while most industrial countries were moving toward clean energy and green cars, Koreans would be exposed to even more pollutants produced by cars, factories and homes amid unceasing urbanization. The environment ministry announced "special measures" to cope with fine dusts early this month, which, among others, called for reducing diesel cars and closing old coal-fired power plants. Experts, however, point out that fine dusts do not occur in a few areas, which means the government should take a multi-pronged approach. "Above all, the government should clearly grasp the causes of fine dusts -- which sources produce how much fine dusts through scientific analyses," Professor Lee said. "It will take three years or even more for the nation to see the effects of countermeasures even if the government makes a correct diagnosis and takes right remedies." /Courtesy of Twitter By Lee Han-soo The mastermind behind Korea's largest porn site "Soranet" is a graduate of Seoul National University, one of the country's top universities. "An investigation revealed that Soranet was created by two couples," reported Nocut new, an Internet news site here. "They were all graduates of well-known Korean colleges, with one of the creators graduating from Seoul National University." Established in 1999, the website underwent a major upgrade in 2003 and became Korea's largest porn site, with more than 1 million users. Police estimate that the creators have amassed a huge profit, which they have used to obtain permanent residencies in nations such as Indonesia, Australia, the U.S. and the Netherlands. They founders became infamous for avoiding police investigations for 17 years by basing their servers abroad and using aliases such as Terry Park and Kay Song. However, in April this year, Korean police in cooperation with Netherlands authorities, managed to shut down Soranet's main servers there. "We are officially shutting down Soranet," posted the site's operators in an official statement on their Twitter page on June 6. "The Twitter account will also be deactivated and there will be no further attempts to restore or reroute addresses." Police have also released a statement that they are close to apprehending the Soranet operators. People's Party to probe allegations against members People's Party co-chairman Rep. Ahn Cheolsoo speaks during a party meeting, Monday. / Yonhap By Jun Ji-hye The minor opposition People's Party has created a panel to conduct its own investigation into corruption allegations raised by the prosecution and the country's election watchdog against three of its lawmakers. The move comes amid growing speculation that the party's founder and current co-Chairman, Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, may have willfully ignored their alleged wrongdoings in the lead-up to the April general election. The prosecution's ongoing investigation into the three lawmakers Reps. Kim Su-min, Park Sun-sook and Park Joon-yung could affect Ahn's potential bid to run in the 2017 presidential election. Some party members have claimed the probe is politically mobilized. Supreme Council member Rep. Lee Sang-don who was a law professor at Chung-Ang University is leading the four-member investigative panel, spokesman Rep. Son Kum-ju said, Monday. Three other members are former prosecutors Reps. Park Joo-sun and Kim Kyung-jin, and lawyer, Rep. Kim Sam-hwa. The National Election Commission (NEC) filed a complaint with the prosecution, Thursday, against Rep. Kim Su-min, one of the party's proportional representatives, accusing her of receiving up to hundreds of millions of won in political contributions earlier this year. Kim, 29, currently the youngest National Assembly member, secured a seat through the proportional representation system in the April poll. According to the election watchdog, two local advertisement companies, which were at the time in charge of the party's campaign promotion of candidates for non-electoral lawmakers, transferred 238.2 million won ($203,000) to an account owned by a design company that Kim used to run. The detailed use of the money has remained unclear, but the NEC suspected Kim of using the money to fund her campaign. The two companies allegedly signed a bogus contract with Kim's design company, called "Brand Hotel," to provide the money, according to the NEC. "Primarily, the party's investigative team will investigate allegations raised by the NEC, and then will extend the scope of the probe," spokesman Rep. Son told reporters. Regarding another suspicion that the illicit funds could have also flown into the party, Son said, "We will look into it, too." Son said the team will move on to other allegations after confirming whether Kim's bribery allegation was true. There are allegations that co-Chairmen, Reps. Ahn and Chun Jung-bae, could have been aware of the case earlier than when the NEC filed a complaint, but overlooked it. Critics also raised the need for investigating how Kim was given the seventh slot among the party's candidates for non-electoral lawmakers. Rep. Lee, who leads the investigation team, earlier told reporters that whether the probe will be extended to the process of nominating candidates for non-elected lawmakers depends on the will of Rep. Ahn. Ahn recruited Kim as part of a strategy to nurture young legislators. Kim's father, Kim Hyun-bae, was also a former lawmaker. By Kang Seung-woo North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reaffirmed his nation's commitment to developing nuclear weapons while visiting, the National Defense University, state-media there said, Monday. "The mission of the National Defense University is to nurture talented people in a bid to further consolidate the country's status as a nuclear power state in the East," Kim was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). However, it did not specify the date of his visit. The tour marked Kim's first military-related public activity since the ruling Workers' Party's Seventh Congress from May 6 to 9, at which he declared the authoritarian state a nuclear power and vowed to pursue nuclear armament and economic development simultaneously. Kim also said the university contributed to improving the nation's defense industry, the KCNA added. Ahead of the university inspection, the North Korean leader focused on economic-related public appearances including visits to a tree nursery, a machinery exhibition and a saltern, stressing the need to revive his nation's moribund economy on the principle of self-reliance. According to the Ministry of Unification, Kim has conducted so-called field guidance in economic-related areas on 13 occasions since the party congress. Kim's commitment to developing nuclear weapons comes as the international community, including its allies China and Russia, has stepped up sanctions against North Korea over its fourth nuclear test, Jan. 6. The latest punitive action came from Poland last week, as it stopped issuing visas to North Korean workers that the North was sending there to earn money for the cash-strapped regime, according to Seoul's foreign ministry. However, despite the intensifying international punishment, the North is expected to carry out a fifth nuclear test in the near future as the nation remains technically ready to do so at any time, according to analysts. By Kim Rahn Two men have received suspended jail terms for writing favorable comments about plastic surgery clinics that turned out to be false in return for money. The Busan District Court Monday handed down a 10-month jail term suspended for two years to the operator of an online community of prospective or past plastic surgery patients. The operator, surnamed Lee, 32, is also the head of an ad agency. An operator of another such community, surnamed Song, 42, was sentenced to six months in jail with the term suspended for two years. The heads of six plastic surgery clinics in Busan were also slapped with fines of 3 million won to 5 million won, each. Lee and Song received a combined 600 million won from the heads of the clinics in exchange for uploading fake testimonials of patients claiming they were happy and satisfied with the procedures. One of the clinic heads paid 227 million won to Lee and Song between January 2014 and September last year, according to the court. "Many people wanting to have plastic surgery rely on information from such communities or blogs. Lee and Song took advantage of this trend and fabricated and posted advertisements that would mislead consumers, which is banned under the Medical Law," the court said. Following the ruling, consumer groups said that the law should be changed to mete out heavier punishment to the doctors and clinics because doctors fined for illegal ads are allowed to maintain their licenses and continue practicing medicine under the law. A guest house of Lotte Group is seen in central Seoul, Monday. Prosecutors seized Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin's personal safe there during their investigation into the group's slush fund allegations. / Yonhap By Kim Bo-eun Prosecutors found key documents and a large sum of cash which they believe Lotte Group Founder Shin Kyuk-ho had stashed ahead of their group-wide investigation. According to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, Monday, investigators also found evidence that Shin and his son, group Chairman Shin Dong-bin, allegedly received 30 billion won each year from group affiliates. The findings come amid the prosecution's widening investigation into the nation's fifth-largest conglomerate. Since Friday, prosecutors have confiscated hard discs and documents through raids on 17 sites including the group's headquarters, affiliates and residences of key executives, over the allegations that the owner family had created a slush fund from illicit transactions among its affiliates and through deals with subcontractors. Prosecutors said they secured documents and 3 billion won in cash at the house of a group executive's relative. The executive was in charge of managing the group founder's funds. In Friday's raid, prosecutors searched the founder's personal safe at his office on the 34th floor of Lotte Hotel in central Seoul but the safe was empty. The executive told prosecutors that he moved the documents and the money from the safe while the founder's two sons started an ongoing succession fight last year. By Jun Ji-hye President Park Geun-hye rejected North Korea's recent offers for inter-Korean talks, Monday, calling them a "deceitful" tactic lacking sincerity. During a speech at the National Assembly, Park said Pyongyang's repeated dialogue proposals to Seoul have been aimed at breaking away from deepening isolation following harsher sanctions from the international community. "Making the offer for dialogue without any denuclearization steps is only a deceit intended to turn around their situation," Park said. The repressive state has been facing the harshest sanctions ever, imposed early March by the United Nations Security Council in response to their fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February. The President said if South Korea accepted the dialogue offer hastily, it would blunt international momentum to press the North to move towards denuclearization. She also said that the government will continue its efforts to make the North abandon its nuclear program and undergo reforms, based on the nation's firm defense posture, noting that denuclearizing the North is a matter of will. She added that the consensus among the international community has been strengthened regarding the zero tolerance policy of the North's nuclear ambitions. "There can't be any compromise on the issues of security that are directly linked to the lives and safety of our citizens," she noted, underscoring that the government would take "all necessary measures" to guard against the North's nuclear and missile threats. The comment comes as the isolated state has repeatedly made offers for dialogue since the four-day high-profile ruling Workers' Party congress ended on May 9, during which North Korean leader Kim Jong-un mentioned the need for inter-Korean military talks to ease military tensions on the Korean Peninsula. On Friday, the authoritarian state offered to hold a nationwide rally with the South to discuss ways to bring about unification between the two Koreas, the latest in a series of offers to talk. But the South Korean government has downplayed the North's offers, claiming the proposals were merely propaganda with no sincerity because it spoke of inter-Korean dialogue while continuing to develop a nuclear arsenal. Experts said the North is apparently seeking an exit strategy in the deepening international sanctions through a charm offensive toward Seoul, as the offers could cause conflict in the South between proponents of dialogue and those who object to it. Then, the North could find an excuse to blame Seoul for not showing its willingness to ease tensions, they said. By Jane Han DALLAS Who says coloring is just for kids? In the U.S., coloring books designed exclusively for adults are all the rage right now. The unusual trend is so hot that five out of the top 10 bestselling books in the U.S. are coloring books, according to Amazon, the country's largest online shopping network. And coloring books are considered the primary driver of an impressive boost in sales of print books last year. Americans are coloring at coffee shops and doctor's offices, hosting coloring meetups and watching YouTube coloring channels as they color away their stresses and anxieties. ''It's a form of therapy,'' says Bill Yeatts, a psychologist based in Dallas. ''By focusing on coloring, people are able to switch off their brains from other stressful thoughts and slip into a moment of quietness and mindfulness.'' There is no solid research that proves the psychological benefits of coloring, but the 12 million coloring books sold last year, a significant jump from the 1 million sold the previous year, show that Americans may be looking for "healing" through this unexpected trend. "I purchased some coloring books after my mom recently passed. I needed something to calm me down," wrote Vickie Siddle, a colorist on the "Adult Coloring" Facebook Page, which currently has close to 30,000 followers sharing ideas and exchanging coloring pages. Another user, Kelly Burns Johnson, wrote, "Coloring got me through a recent surgery and I am still coloring after my recovery. It is so calming after a difficult day." Coloring books for adults, which typically cost less than $10, come in various themes from flowers and intricate patterns to even swear words. For beginners, YouTube is a good place to get help. Popular coloring tutorials easily garner more than 200,000 page views as novice colorists seek advice on buying the right coloring tools and creating ideal color combinations. "I would've never thought of coloring this page like this," wrote Gwen Smith, a fan of a popular YouTube coloring channel run by artist Peta Hewitt. "This is what's great about coloring. The possibilities are endless." The 15-minute tutorial provides users tips on coloring the bestselling "Enchanted Forest," which features hidden objects and mazes among castles, embellished woods and intricate flowers. This kind of intricate and meticulous design is what attracts the growing number of coloring fans, but Koreans living in the U.S. don't seem to have jumped on the bandwagon just yet. "I recently received a coloring book as a gift from a coworker," said Alina Kim, 44, a realtor in Atlanta. "But I get a little overwhelmed every time I open the page. It looks like a lot of work to finish coloring the entire page." Like Kim, many Koreans generally seem to view coloring as "work" instead of a hobby to enjoy. Kim Ji-young, 38, who lives in Seattle, said, "It gave me instant stress. Seeing all the tiny patterns makes my head spin." Defense Minister Han Min-koo, left, shakes hands with Admiral Sun Jianguo, deputy chief of general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, on the sidelines of the 15th Asia Security Summit in Singapore on June 4. / Yonhap By Yi Whan-woo South Korea is squeezed between the United States and China amid the worsening row between the two superpowers to seize hegemony in Asia. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last week that Seoul had been "unfolding diplomacy" that embraces both Washington and Beijing after they clashed over the U.S. Department of Treasury's designation of North Korea as a "primary money laundering concern," possible establishment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the Korean Peninsula and China's military expansion across the South China Sea. But analysts remained skeptical about the foreign ministry's claim, pointing out that Seoul was forced to choose between the U.S. and China over THAAD during the 15th Asia Security Summit in Singapore from June 3-5. "It is right we're a shrimp among whales," said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. "We're under growing pressure to pursue balanced diplomacy with the U.S. and China day by day." Benjamin Self, a U.S. scholar, said South Korea was "in a very difficult situation" while Frederick Carriere, a senior fellow in the Korean Peninsula Affairs Center of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, said it would "not be easy to keep the U.S. at bay" about deploying THAAD. Defense Minister Han Min-koo, right, poses with U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, center, and Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani before their joint talks in Singapore on June 4. / Yonhap There has been speculation that U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter was displeased with Seoul being hesitant about deploying THAAD and that he deliberately omitted South Korea when he mentioned "the breadth and depth of our bilateral efforts with some of the actions the U.S. and its allies and partners have taken" since last year's security summit. Seoul's Ministry of Defense earlier denied Carter's claim that he would discuss THAAD-related issues when he met Defense Minister Han Min-koo on the sidelines of the summit. During a meeting with Han in Singapore, Chinese People's Liberation Army's Deputy Chief Admiral Sun Jianguo reiterated China's opposition to the possible presence of THAAD. He said deploying THAAD would be "an excessive measure," referring to Beijing's claim that THAAD's long-range radar could be used to spy on Chinese military activities as well as being used to deter North Korean missile attacks. The analysts held the Park Geun-hye administration responsible for remaining ambiguous over the disputes between the U.S. and China in what was in seen as a move not to provoke Beijing, Seoul's largest trading partner. "Park underscored the importance of adhering to principles, but her diplomacy was far from it when it came to issues on THAAD," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies. "Seoul is acting opportunistically given its basic acceptance of the U.S. vision for the future of Northeast Asia. As the saying goes, you can't have your cake and eat it too," Carriere said. Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University, said THAAD deployment should be "taken granted from now on," although he urged the Park government to "be cautious and flexible" in finding its way out of other disputed issues. Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Bruce Klingner criticized the Park government for being demure "for not redressing this national security shortfall out of concern of agitating Beijing." "The decision to deploy THAAD is a sovereign right that Seoul should base on national security objectives and the defensive needs of the nation," he said. "Seoul should not subordinate the defense of its citizens to economic blackmail by Beijing. "Seoul and Washington should make clear to Beijing that pressure tactics would be better applied to its ally North Korea, which has developed nuclear weapons and missiles that have caused South Korea and the U.S. to take defensive actions." Seoul-Washington-Beijing dialogue There is speculation that South Korea's failure to maintain a balance between the U.S. and China will hamper getting support from the two superpowers in dealing with North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Some analysts have urged joint dialogue among Seoul, Washington and Beijing to increase pressure on Pyongyang in line with the U.N. Security Council (UNSC)'s latest sanctions on the Kim Jong-un regime. "U.S.-Republic of Korea-People's Republic of China dialogue could be helpful in addressing the North Korean issue and perhaps facilitating denuclearization," said Center for East Asia Policy Studies director Richard Bush. Leon Sigel, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, said dialogue among the parties "is the only way forward." "Sanctions and other forms of pressure are counter-productive if there is not simultaneously in play a firm commitment to dialogue without any pre-conditions, including even a verbal commitment to denuclearization by Pyongyang," he said. "After all, at the end of the day, it is what will be done and not what is said that will make the critical difference. So everyone should just sit down and talk, and talk, for as long as it takes to get everyone to do the right thing." Bush also said there had been in part a "dynamic of mutual containment" in the North Korea policies of the U.S. and China. The U.S. Treasury Department's June 1 designation of North Korea as a global money launderer coincided with a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinxing and Rib Su-young, a vice chairman of North Korea's Workers' Party. Rib's trip as a special envoy for Kim Jung-un raised speculation of a thaw in Pyongyang-Beijing ties and that China recognizes North Korea as a nuclear state. Some analysts speculated that Washington' financial move against the Kim Jung-un regime was intended to press China, North Korea's largest benefactor, to increase leverage on Pyongyang in line with the U.N. sanctions. The measure seeks to choke off Pyongyang's remaining access to the global financial system in pursuit of its nuclear weapons development. But small Chinese banks are still conducting financial transactions with North Korea even after the U.N. Security Council approved Resolution 2270 on March 2 to cut off the flow of hard currency into the reclusive state. The U.S. blacklisting of North Korea as a "primary money laundering concern" is not expected to be as powerful as a similar 2005 financial sanction, as Pyongyang is now using Chinese intermediaries to mask its transactions and it's very difficult to detect them, a sanctions expert said. John Park, an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School with expertise in North Korea sanctions, raised the concern in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency, stressing the importance of cooperation between the U.S. and China in carrying out the restrictions. In last week's annual strategic talks with China, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proposed -- and China agreed -- to establish a panel of experts to facilitate implementation of the sanctions, and the proposal attests to the difficulty of detecting North Korean transactions hidden under Chinese names, Park said. "If you look at the BDA period ... North Korea was caught off guard. It was a big shock to them. But what comes out of that shock is that they moved a lot of their banking activities inside of China and then they started using private Chinese companies to do their activities in between them and smaller banks," Park said. BDA refers to Banco Delta Asia, a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau. In 2005, the U.S. designated the bank as a money laundering concern for doing business with North Korea. The measure scared away other financial institutions from dealing with Pyongyang for fear they would also be blacklisted. The measure hit the North hard, but was later lifted in exchange for the North's agreement to return to six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear program. The sanction has been considered the most effective U.S. sanction on the North yet. Some experts have said the Treasury Department's designation of the North as a primary money laundering concern earlier this month could have far greater effects than the BDA sanctions as it not only blacklisted one financial institution, but the entire North. Park, who researched how Pyongyang evades sanctions and held interviews with dozens of North Korean defectors who had worked for state trading firms said that the latest U.S. sanctions are not expected to be as effective as the BDA measure. "The reason is, my view is that because BDA was such a shock, the North Korean regime had to find a way to never let that kind of shock happen again. So, the movement to China and doing a lot of transactions inside of China and then using private Chinese companies to do anything as intermediaries, that's a very well-developed practice now," he said. Park said larger banks may shut down North Korean accounts, but the problem lies with smaller regional banks. "They're the ones that are very difficult to detect. Once it's operating inside of China, when the transaction starts with a Chinese company and a Chinese name, and then it moves throughout the Chinese system, it presents enormous challenges," Park said. "It's not to say that the current measures are not effective, but I think it's important to wait and see how there's cooperation and further discussion between the US government and the Chinese government," he said, adding that Kerry's suggestion of an expert group shows how difficult it is to implement. Park said that there are always Chinese middlemen and private firms who are willing to do financial transactions on behalf of North Korea for money, and commission fees go up as sanctions on the regime in Pyongyang become tighter. "It's a fact of life. If you shrink supply, the price is higher. There will be interested middlemen who have connections who see a business opportunity. So for them, they're not scared off by the punishment. Rather, they would say pay me more," Park said. He said that China is not as serious about implementing sanctions as the U.S. and South Korea, noting that Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote a congratulatory letter to the North right after Pyongyang's Workers' Party Congress and recently received a high-level delegation from Pyongyang. "That is not the behavior of a country that is as focused in terms of prioritizing implementation of sanctions," he said. "China is serious about implementing sanctions, but it's not at the same high level as the U.S. or South Korea." Park stressed his point is not to say sanctions aren't working, but various elements should be factored in pursuing sanctions. "Just like a patient getting medication, sometimes there are setbacks, you have to figure out what other combination or what other treatments can help isolate the positive and minimize the negative," he said. "Rather than this narrow focus of just sanctions and sanctions, I think it is a widened perspective and then look at other types of cooperation and capacity-building that is required." (Yonhap) North Korea's state-run weather information service appears to have moved to the so-called scientists street in Pyongyang with expanded weather equipment and up-to-date facilities, a U.S.-based media outlet said Monday, quoting an American researcher. Curtis Melvin of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that the North's Hydrometeorological Service has been relocated to a new building on the Mirae Scientists Street. He said the move marks the first relocation to the street for a state organization. Last November, North Korea completed the construction of the Mirae Scientists Street along the Taedong River in the North's capital which has a modern housing complex and service facilities for scientists. North Korea's weather information service is the equivalent of South Korea's Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). The RFA said the North's weather forecast equipment appears to have been updated, given the fact that the North media last March boasted of the modernization of the weather agency's equipment and facilities. The scholar said that it is yet to be seen how effectively the North Korea's weather service has become with the improvements in equipment. According to the Global Environmental Change, a weather academic journal, North Korea is classified as a country with no weather-related information, despite the fact the impoverished country is afflicted with frequent floods and droughts. Meanwhile, the U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said that North Korean weather officials are also very inactive in their global activities and they scarcely participate in the WMP conferences and meetings. But the U.N. organization has expressed its willingness to help North Korea upgrade its weather forecast capacity. Experts have said the North's weather forecast capacity does not seem to have improved since 2011, when WMO made its last inspection of the country, adding that Pyongyang needs to upgrade its meteorological facilities as well as education for experts in the sector. (Yonhap) South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo will visit France this week as part of an ongoing effort by Seoul to increase pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program, the defense ministry said Monday. Han will travel to France from Tuesday to Thursday to meet his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian in order to discuss the two countries' joint efforts to pressure the North as well as ways to expand bilateral defense cooperation measures, the ministry said. Both South Korea and France have been at the forefront of the United Nations Security Council's adoption of a punitive resolution against North Korea in March following the communist country's nuclear detonation test in January and a long-range rocket launch the next month. The North claimed the rocket launch was aimed to put an earth observation satellite into orbit, but the U.N. denounced it as a cover to test the country's long-range missile technology. The two defense ministers plan to further cement their collaboration to get Pyongyang to halt provocations, according to the ministry. "Han's France visit comes at the invitation of the French side that wants to discuss 'practical' measures to expand bilateral cooperation in the defense sector, which was agreed during the South Korea-France summit meeting last November," it also said. The meeting also comes less than two weeks after the two ministers held talks on the sidelines of the regional Shangri-La Dialogue held in early June in Singapore. In the past talks, they agreed to step up joint efforts to ensure the full implementation of international sanctions on North Korea. Joint South Korea-France actions on international peacekeeping operations and cyberspace security will also be on the table, the ministry said. "France is a partner that shares core values with us on the issues involving the Korean Peninsula and the globe," a ministry official said. "Han's France visit will provide a foothold for solidifying strategic defense cooperation between the countries." The last France visit by a South Korean defense ministry was December 2007 by former Defense Minister Kim Jang-soo. During the upcoming visit, Han plans to visit a monument marking the sacrifice of French soldiers sent to the 1950-53 Korean War and deliver a speech to students of France's military academies. "France is South Korea's long-time friend country with this year marking 130 years of diplomatic relations," the official said. (Yonhap) /Yonhap By Lee Jin-a A North Korean retailer stabbed a money lender to death in Yanggang Province, the Daily NK reported on Sunday, citing unidentified sources. This incident indicates the spread of capitalism in the communist state in which more people are making a living through retail commerce and money lending. The North recently cracked down on commercial activities to keep its people "unspoiled" by capitalism, but to little avail amid increasing trade with China. "A 22-year-old killed a female loan shark with a knife on June 4. The attacker is now under pre-trial investigation," a source was quoted as saying. The offender reportedly stabbed the lender at night after she repeatedly threatened the borrower for not repaying the money on time. "As the number of women doing business in North Korean has started to increase, so has the number of money lenders," the source said, adding that North Korean money lenders charged 3-10 percent interest. By Yi Whan-woo North Korea is suspected of having sold fishing rights to China in its territorial waters near the inter-Korean border, officials said Monday. The Joint Chief of Staff (JCS) said that 10 Chinese trawlers retreated from the waters near the estuary of the Han River around 11:40 a.m. after they were approached by South Korean naval vessels, crossing into North Korea-controlled waters, Sunday. The 10 trawlers were among up to some 20 fishing boats that a joint team of South Korean military and United Nations Command (UNC) officials chased away for conducting illegal fishing in the U.N.-designated maritime buffer zone alongside the Han River last week. Government officials and analysts speculated that North Korea's Coast Guard did not take action against the 10 boats as a result of a possible deal between the two countries over fishing rights. The North Korean authorities, military and state-controlled media also remained mum over the Chinese boats staying in the country's territorial waters. "We can't make a prejudgment as to why North Korea did not respond to those boats but we can't rule out the possibility that it is related to sales of fishing rights," said Ministry of Defense spokesman Moon Sang-gyun. An Chan-il, head of the World North Korea Research Center, said, "It's possible that the impoverished regime has been making money by handing out fishing rights to Chinese fishermen." The analysts warned such a sale could cause military and diplomatic conflicts. "The case involves the Chinese government, the militaries from both Koreas as well as the UNC and it could grow into a diplomatic battle if we don't settle it properly," An said. Yang, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, speculated North Korea may try to capitalize on the incursions by Chinese boats against South Korea in the future. "The boundary between North Korean waters and neutral waters is obviously vague at sea, and Pyongyang may wait until a crackdown team enters its territory one day," he said. "It will then use it as an excuse to make military provocations or a means for inter-Korean dialogue." Linda Lear, author of the biography "Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature" Emanuel Pastreich, a professor at Kyung Hee University By Kang Hyun-kyung Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring," though written more than 50 years ago, may still be valuable for Korea today, especially amid the public's fear of toxic chemicals spurred by the recent humidifier disinfectant scandal. The 1962 book, which warns of the danger of pesticides, fueled a pros and cons debate about the use of pesticides in the United States and eventually led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. But perhaps another important contribution of the book is the idea that a committed, trusted intellectual can change the direction of society. In the aftermath of the humidifier disinfectant scandal that killed over 100 Koreans and damaged the respiratory systems of hundreds others, some experts put forth the role of experts in preventing similar incidents. The scandal is made even more unfortunate by the fact that the toxic chemicals involved had already been prohibited in Europe. Observers point out that the public may not have a full understanding of chemical ingredients, and to educate the public on safe products, easy-to-understand publications about the possible harmful effects of chemicals are needed. The experts' opinions raise two important questions. Why is there no meaningful public debate about toxic chemicals in Korea? And why is there no intellectual like Rachel Carson in the country that could lead such a debate? The cover of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring published in 1962 Emanuel Pastreich, a professor at Kyung Hee University, said a structural barrier hinders a serious debate about environmental issues in Korea, including toxic chemicals. "The whole system here is set up in a way that makes it almost impossible for intellectuals to devote themselves to writing for the general audience," he said. He said the commercialized media and publishing industry, along with the limited readership and the narrowly focused environmental movement, is responsible for the absence of such debates. "Books about the environment are almost sidelined by commercialized media and commercial publishing. There are probably people like Rachel Carson, but their writings are not visible," he said."Writing for the media regarding environmental issues is almost suicidal for a professor like me because writing about the environment or environmental issues is not considered to be research by my university. They only count academic journal articles." Pastreich is one of the few active environmental contributors in the Korean media. His regular opinion pieces in major media outlets express his concerns about issues such as the desertification of North Korea and the water shortages and dying forests in South Korea. He cites the way the environmental movement has developed in Korea as another setback. "Even today, education on the environment is not as high as you would think," said Pastreich, whose experience in the Korean environmental movement includes two years as a board member with a Seoul-based environmental group. The environmental movement in Korea has its roots in the human rights and democracy movements going back to the 1970s. At the time, many people were fighting for democracy and protesting against the authoritarian Park Chung-hee government. However, few were concerned about the country's ecosystem partly because urbanization and industrialization were widely accepted as virtues, and few paid attention to the destructive impact of human activities on the ecosystem. A handful of people who were knowledgeable about the environment teamed up with students and labor unionists to start the pro-democracy movement, focusing on helping workers who were poisoned by toxic chemicals and promoting workers' rights and safety ahead of other environmental concerns, such as conservation and the ecosystem. In the early 1990s, environmental groups were officially established in the country, and activists have since expanded their activities to such previously overlooked environmental issues. "It will be great if someone like Rachel Carson would be working in Korea today," Pastreich said. "Carson was successful because she was able to write about a relatively complicated subject for the general audience in the 1960s." A biologist and naturalist, Carson was a dedicated intellectual who campaigned on several environmental issues, including pesticides and the oceans. In Silent Spring, Carson warned of the long-term harmful effects of prevalent pesticide on the ecosystem and on humans. She also raised the possible relationship between toxic chemicals and cancer. Prior to Silent Spring, she had already established herself in the field of science, having published articles in newspapers and magazines. From 1940 to 1952, she was also the editor-in-chief of U.S. Fish and Wildlife publications, after which she retired from government service to write full time. Linda Lear, author of the biography "Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature," describes Carson as a lone, single female who challenged the corporate chemical giants. According to Lear, Silent Spring was the product of Carson's fears brought about by the 1945 atomic bombing. She said the book was born out of Carson's belief that science needed to be regulated and that the public had the right to know what science was doing to the earth. "She had the ability to synthesize large amounts of information not only into a form that was readable by the expert but was understandable and even eloquent for the average reader," Lear said. "When it came to telling the public about the misuse of synthetic pesticides Carson had a huge reputation for telling the truth, for being a voice of reason and scientific accuracy and for caring for the natural world and about human health." Lear, a former professor of environmental history, said that Carson had to withstand the withering criticism heaped upon her in a backlash from the chemical industry in the wake of her book's publication. "Carson did not expect the hatred and vitriol that came to her from the chemical lobby and the petroleum companies," Lear said. "Their attack on her was personal and gendered. Before Carson, no one questioned scientists or challenged the idea that they knew best. After Silent Spring, the general public was not so easily written off. And that was one of the reasons the scientific establishment tried to silence her." Despite the hostility and criticism hurled against her, Carson told the public what she believed was true and stood up against the chemical industry. "Carson not only wrote about the damage to the biota and to the human system caused by misused chemicals, she questioned the government's right to put chemicals into the environment without the public knowing," Lear said. "She questioned the power of money behind the chemical lobby and their representatives in government, and she insisted that the general public could ask questions of government and science that they had a right to know." Lear admired Carson's courage and determination to stand up against bureaucracy and the chemical lobby. She said she was further motivated to write the Carson's biography through her personal ties with the naturalist. Lear hails from the same area outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Carson was from. She said Carson's childhood home was not far from hers, which made her feel an affinity with Carson. By Celeste Chua I've been thinking of inventing other forms of writing, other engaging ways to articulate my experience, other ways that can lead to certain results. But invention is not one of my strongest skills. I'm lucky though to have come across the discourse styles of Native Americans. This is what Lisa Delpit, an educator, says about the Athabaskans, a Native American group: The Athabaskans say "a great deal with a few words." So when Athabaskan children go to the mainstream schools, they are baffled with the wordiness of academic language. What a Native Alaskan teacher, Martha Demientieff, did was this: Students discuss whether "they have said enough to sound like a book," and then they distill this "book language" into a short saying. Another educator, Gail Martin, writes of the Arapahos: Arapaho children tell stories with no definite beginning, climax, and ending. The elder of the community said their stories do not seem to have an ending because "stories are about Arapaho life, so there is no need for a conclusion." So Martin and her colleagues decided to "try to listen and read [their students' stories] in appropriate ways." At school, we need to sound like a book. At school, a story means one that has a clear beginning and ending. This is our way, our definition. But we cannot tell the Athabaskans and the Arapahos that their ways and definitions are wrong. It just happens that somebody sometime in history made what we know as "book language" and "the story" as the norm against which other forms are measured. According to critical educators, teachers can find ways so students can understand that there are different discourse styles and the students' style is not wrong or inferior: it is just different. Teachers can teach the norm at school without implying that something is wrong with the culture of the students and without potentially wiping out the latter's culture. What's the point of accommodating the different? There are several arguments for diversity but I will only focus on one. If we all think, act, and be the same way, and if with this we are stuck in some aspects of our lives, why don't we open ourselves to the learning and richness which diverse ideas, perspectives, and ways of life can offer? Diversity is a resource that we can tap to unearth new possibilities and solutions to our problems. My problem was just language and I found amazing ideas from the minority. What about other bigger areas of life? The minority might have ways of looking at things that are better than what the majority has now. They might have ways that can give us insight to improve our lives. Why can't we also learn from them? Let's be mindful of how we frame the public discourse of diversity. A change in the discourse of diversity can lead to different responses and results. If the discourse paints diversity as a kaleidoscope of talents and friendships, the response is to cultivate it, which can eventually lead to love and peace. If the discourse paints diversity as a melange of deficits and threats, the response is to eliminate it, which can eventually lead to hate and war. What eventual result do we seek? I like the discourse style of Native Americans. So I do not need to invent new forms but just find ones that are in the margins. I might find more there that I like and can use when I deem appropriate. I'd like to end my book language with a counsel from yet another Native American group, the Lakotas: "When one sits in the Hoop Of The People, one must be responsible because All of Creation is related. And the hurt of one is the hurt of all. And the honor of one is the honor of all. And whatever we do affects everything in the universe." The writer is a former philosophy instructor at Philippine universities and served as a curriculum developer for language schools in Manila and Seoul. She now lives with her Korean husband in Ulsan and can be reached at ceschuaph@gmail.com. It was a signal of serious humanitarian problems in the East African nation of Eritrea that a disproportionate number of the refugees flowing across the Mediterranean into Europe were fleeing from that nation of only 6 million. Confirmation of the dire situation in Eritrea has now come in the form of a report released Tuesday, based on two years of research, by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in Eritrea. It is a body that included a former senior Australian U.N. official, a Mauritian and a Ghanaian. The report cited "systematic, widespread" human rights abuses, including indefinite conscription into the Eritrean armed forces and forced labor, so bad, officially administered and so extensive at an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people, that the commission deemed it slavery. The commission recommended that Eritrean officials at the highest levels, by name, be referred to the International Criminal Court, charged with crimes against humanity. Eritrea is unfortunately another case of absolute power corrupting absolutely. With a background of Italian, British and Ethiopian rule, it became independent in 1993, separating from Ethiopia, although it has continued to scrap with that country. Eritrea has never had elections. Its president, Isaias Afwerki, 70, has been in power since independence. One party, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice, is fully in control. No tolerance of dissent is part of the abusive human rights context prevailing. The United States provided it aid until 2005, when the Eritrean government put an end to all foreign aid as creating dependency, adding non-governmental organizations to the prohibition in 2006. U.S. interest in the place was based on its location, across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. It borders on Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti, where the United States maintains its only military base in Africa. Eritrea's economy is primarily agricultural and its population is roughly half Christian and half Muslim. For the sake of the situation of the 6 million Eritreans, and as part of the effort to stem the flow of migrants into Europe, the commission's recommendation of referral of Eritrea's leaders to the international court should be pursued by the United Nations as a deterrent to further beastly governance. Governments anywhere should not be permitted to systematically mistreat their people without consequences to their leaders. If the people can't turn them out through elections, there have to be other means to stem abuses. This editorial appeared on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By Jeffrey I. Kim Foreign investors must be heroes. To start a business in a new country, they have to go through so many hurdles and hazards and confront challenging tasks and numerous inconveniences. One can easily make an adventurous and bizarre story out of their experiences in the early settlement period. It could be like a story from the "Indiana Jones" movie series. In addition to struggling with seemingly endless paper work to get approval from the central and local governments, finding locations for the head office, factories, residence, and schools for their children is a daunting task. One of the most intolerable inconveniences that foreign investors experience during their settlement period is that their credit card issued in their own country is seldom accepted in the host country. In order to receive a credit card for either personal or corporate purposes, they have to wait at least a couple of years because they are required to present their annual business report, the names of references, etc. The bank officers conduct a thorough examination of the credit status of the card applicants. Foreign investors bring a huge amount of money to Korea for investment. The one-time transfer of their money into a Korean bank for investment is easy, but getting a credit card to settle business transactions and to make payments for living expenses is difficult. There must be something to this. For years they have been complaining about this, but the monetary authorities and the banks have not taken their complaints seriously. In fact, the Korean people have bitter memories of the credit card crisis and the horrible leakage of card holders' information. The credit card crisis occurred in 2003 when many credit card issuers went bankrupt. To quickly escape from the economic disaster after the 1998 Asian financial crisis, the Korean government encouraged people to use their credit cards to borrow and spend. During 1999-2002 the number of credit cards tripled from 39 million to 105 million while the volume of total credit card transactions expanded more than six times. This policy could not last long unless there was increased expansion and productivity, thus the massive credit card lending boom was followed by a miserable bust. The scary theft of card information became known to the public in early 2014. Consumer data such as card numbers, expiration dates, email addresses and salaries of the card holders were stolen. Fortunately, however, the PIN numbers and card-verification codes were not included in the stolen data. The managers of two marketing companies were charged with buying the stolen records. The heads of three big Korean credit card firms apologized and resigned. The government set up a taskforce to overhaul the data protection rules and to toughen penalties. Having gone through these experiences, the financial authorities and credit card firms have become cautious in issuing new credit cards. They have been overly reluctant to issue credit cards to foreign investors. Now, things are beginning to change. The monetary authorities and banks have become compassionate to foreign investors and more accommodating to the requests and complaints of foreign-invested companies. Only recently have they allowed foreign investors to open bank accounts in Korean currency and use debit cards. This is progress but only a little. Recently, however, commercial banks have started issuing corporate credit cards to foreign-invested companies by easing up some procedural requirements. If the certificate of registration of a foreign-invested enterprise is presented, the bank issues a corporate credit card to the corporate representative and executive members although the maximum credit line is to be expanded according to their business performance. Once they open the gate to the use of corporate credit cards by foreign investors, extensive use of the individual credit card will also be allowed very soon. A credit card is like an automobile. It makes people's lives much easier and more convenient, but it can turn into a deadly weapon killing or seriously hurting people. Sound use of credit cards by the card holders and thorough management of card information by the banks cannot be emphasized too much. Jeffrey I. Kim is a foreign investment ombudsman, a presidentially appointed troubleshooter for investors and entrepreneurs from overseas. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Sungkyunkwan University. Lotte scandal shows overhaul can't wait Korea Inc. is living through deja vu again over the expanding investigation into Lotte Group's suspected slush fund. Stopping this kind of event from recurring is the key to overcoming challenges that have proven to be a slippery slope for the nation, stuck in the limitations of being an emerging economy as it is. First, it is a typical case of a chaebol corruption. At stake is about 300 billion won or about $260 million allegedly stashed away by its Chairman Shin Dong-bin. Shin has dethroned his father Shin Kyuk-ho, founder of the conglomerate that started as a candy maker, by accusing his father of senility, while sidelining his elder brother Shin Dong-joo in a power struggle. This soap opera struggle has eclipsed other allegations about insider trading, tax embezzlement and influence peddling within the group, which are, in a way, inevitable for any business that is mostly family owned. Secondly, political motivations are hard to dismiss. Lotte blossomed under the previous administration led by Lee Myung-bak. The Lotte World Tower, the 123-floor, 555-meter high building, got its go-ahead from his government, which ignored opposition for the tall building compromising the effectiveness of a nearby airbase that serves as the fast responder to a North Korean attack. Then, Lotte acquired a lucrative license to make and sell beer. Now it is strongly suggested that the current Park Geun-hye government is out to settle old scores with her predecessor and regain some of her lost popularity by conducting an anti-corruption campaign against the chaebol. Thirdly, the case began as prosecutors, often derided as the maids of power, came under fire for sticking to the old corrupt system of giving favors to retired prosecutors who turn to private practice. In the latest case, Hong Man-pyo, a former star prosecutor, has allegedly intervened to gain favorable verdicts for his clients for astronomical fees. More surprisingly, Hong, now a lawyer, operates a chain of hundreds of "officetels" small apartments, which are estimated to be worth tens of billions of won. Also damaging the prosecution's credibility are the cases involving a female prosecutor-turned-lawyer, who allegedly swindled a big name client for an under-the-table contract for big fees, or another who had to resign over illegal stock trading for big capital gains involving the owner of a leading online game maker. Put the three factors together and the likelihood, if conventional wisdom serves as any guide, is that Lotte's Shin gets away with a little public embarrassment and a sizable but affordable fine; the current government gets an uptick in its sagging popularity or a timely distraction from the public beef about its competency; and the prosecutors feel good about thinking they have regained public trust, seeing their troubled colleagues get off the hook. The parties involved the chaebol, the regime and the prosecutors would be happy to see things get back to business as usual. People play the usual role of suckers thanks to their short memories. But this game of Russian roulette can't continue. Perhaps, the next time it is played, it would be a loaded chamber and pulling the trigger means the end of Korea Inc. A model poses with installations running on Samsung's Tizen platform during a convention in Las Vegas, last week. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics By Kim Yoo-chul Samsung Electronics is considering expanding the use of its Tizen software in all company devices to cut its heavy reliance on the Google Android platform, a senior Samsung Electronics executive said Monday. "If you don't have your own ecosystem, then you will have no future. Tizen isn't just a platform developed for use with mobile devices," the executive said asking not to be named as he wasn't authorized to officially speak to the media. The global platform market is dominated by Google as its software is open-based and the Android creator is financially supporting third-party developers to expand its base. Because Apple has its own ecosystem, its in-house iOS software has continued gaining steady momentum. The executive said Samsung Electronics was late in developing content and its own ecosystem. However, "Samsung is getting much better," he said. He pointed out that as the landscape of the technology industry has shifted toward the business-to-business (B2B) arena from the highly-volatile business-to-consumer (B2C) segment, Samsung's Tizen will see a meteoric rise in market share. Samsung has built a large ecosystem around Tizen with applications from the largest developers. For example, to compete with Android Pay, Samsung wearable devices are allowing users to make payments with Samsung Pay. "Samsung Tizen allows developers to make corrections, if necessary, and to redistribute updates to others," said the executive. Because Samsung needs a reference to solidify the Tizen system, the company is using the Indian market as a "litmus test" by steadily releasing cheaper mobile phones. "Samsung's Z-branded Tizen-powered phones are popular with Indian consumers. During the first quarter of this year, Samsung sold about 64 million phones there. This means that Tizen is proving its competitiveness," said the executive. Based on the growth, Samsung Electronics identified Internet-enabled watches, cameras, TVs and signs as the next products that will receive Tizen support. The company invited companies in Russia to promote the Tizen software and the executive said Samsung Electronics plans to hold forums for developers and to launch various campaigns to expand Tizen's base. He said more incentives and support will be provided to Tizen developers, though the executive declined to specify what incentives will be given to third-party developers. "The reason why Samsung is testing Tizen's stability and usability focusing on mobile phones and wearable devices is that we need to have a correction period as Samsung is in the process of developing Internet of Things (IoT) driven business systems running on Tizen," the executive said. Samsung has made some progress in terms of the share that Tizen software has in wearable devices. IDC, a market research firm, expects the Tizen share in wearable devices to expand 11.3 percent by the end of this year with Apple Watch OS and Android Wear having 49.4 percent and 21.4 percent, respectively. President Maithripala Sirisena said that Japans formal announcement that G7 will explore what is needed to sustain the well-being of Asia to steer economic growth, highlights the relevance of Sri Lanka being here. It endorses Prime Minister Abes reasoning for selecting us. Addressing the G 7 Outreach Summit today (May 27) in Ise-Shima in Japan, he said that with a revolutionary change of governance, his government has succeeded in creating the path for viable development environment and for reconciliation in a multi-faceted society. Now, the people are free and respect human rights. He described to the leaders of the worlds most affluent nations the steps taken since the national Unity Government was established to strengthen democracy, rule of law and good governance. We lack finances for extensive development efforts and therefore seek developed nations and multilateral and bi-lateral investors to invest in Sri Lanka, President Sirisena said and expressed the hope that the G7 Summit of 2016 will look at countries like Sri Lanka in this regard. Your invitation to me would yield real benefits beyond bounds, if serious attention is drawn to our problems. I very much appreciate the feelings of friendship and understanding demonstrated by the Heads of State of G7 countries and the Heads of State of Outreach countries during these sessions, he said in conclusion. Full statement of President Maithripala Sirisena on Stability and Prosperity in Asia at the Outreach Sessions of the G7 Summit. On 27th May 2016 in Japan I thank the Prime Minister Hon.Shinzo Abe, for the invitation extended to me to attend the Outreach Sessions of the G7 Summit. It is a privilege and honor bestowed on Sri Lanka. Japans formal announcement that G7 will explore what is needed to sustain the well-being of Asia to steer economic growth, highlights the relevance of Sri Lanka being here. It endorses Prime Minister Abes reasoning for selecting us. The 2016 Outreach Sessions theme is on stability and economic prosperity in Asia. The terrorism and conflict that lasted for nearly 30 years resulted in the economic downfall in my country. Stability and prosperity will depend on the opportunities, political and development environment, giving prominence to the huge public demands, good governance and the psychological needs for freedom, and protection from adverse situations. With a revolutionary change of governance, my government has succeeded in creating the path for viable development environment and for reconciliation in a multi-faceted society. Now, the people are free and respect human rights. I am aware how G7 countries have appreciated the change we created. This change was endorsed by the people in January and August 2015 in two elections. It exhibited peoples opposition to abuse, corruption, and many such ills, which are detrimental to stability and prosperity. These slowed down capital inflows and investments, which are the mechanisms for stability and prosperity. To create stability we formed a National Unity Government under my Presidency, combining the countrys two main rival political parties in the Parliament. Our government introduced the 19th Amendment to the Constitution through which I transferred to the Parliament most of my executive powers, except those denied by the Supreme Court. It is democracy at its best. As a demonstration of my commitment to transparency, accountability and the rule of law, and my firm determination to wipe out corruption, I established a Special Presidential Task Force to investigate Stolen Government Assets, and appointed a Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption and established a Special Division within the Police titled the Financial Crimes Investigation Division to investigate major financial crimes. Corruption and discrimination were factors that promoted political violence, withdrew investments and created an unstable economy. Therefore, our actions will instill stability and prosperity. In addition to disengaging executive powers, I re-established the Independent Commissions such as for the Public Service, Human Rights, Police, Elections, Delimitation and Finance. To focus on reconciliation, as I mentioned at the UN General Assembly, we move forward to establish mechanisms for Truth Seeking, Justice Seeking, Reparation and actions for non-recurrence, based on extensive consultation with all sections. I wish to pay my tribute to the people of Japan and the Government of japan for the assistance they provided during the last few decades to enhance the economy of my country and to bring peace to my land at the time of war. I wholeheartedly thank the Government and the people of Japan for it. We lack finances for extensive development efforts and therefore seek developed nations and multilateral and bi-lateral investors to invest in Sri Lanka. Even as I speak to you today, Sri Lanka is recovering from one of the worst floods and landslides we ever experienced. Immediately several countries offered help in our rescue and reconstruction efforts. We thank them and look forward for more development commitments as the destruction is severe. Therefore, I believe that the G7 Summit of 2016 will look at countries like ours focusing on all these fields. Your invitation to me would yield real benefits beyond bounds, if serious attention is drawn to our problems. I very much appreciate the feelings of friendship and understanding demonstrated by the Heads of State of G7 countries and the Heads of State of Outreach countries during these sessions. Finally, while thanking the Organizers for the wonderful hospitality provided to me and my delegation, I wish the outcome of G7 Summit to be a great success. Thank You. Courtesy: www.pmdnews.lk The price of LITRO gas cylinders would be further reduced in the first week of November in accordance with the Read more The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary Read more Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer riding in Sunday's LA Pride parade. Via Twitter. After the latest horrible gun massacre by an angry American man, in Orlando on Sunday, the word went out that a man stopped by Santa Monica police with a carful of weapons and explosives said he planned do harm at today's West Hollywood gay pride parade. That increased anxiety to super high levels, obviously, but by the end of the day the Santa Monica police were saying the threat never happened and it was all a mistake attributed to a tweet by that city's chief of police. The parade went off without any serious incident. The man, a visitor from Indiana, was found with a suspicious amount of firepower and explosives in his car, and he apparently did say he was going to the parade. He was arrested. But the verbal threat reported early Sunday on twitter by Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks was not made, per Santa Monica police. Here's the LA Times coverage: Lt. Saul Rodriguez said later the tweet was a misstatement. He said the suspect told investigators that he was going to the Pride festival but said he did not make additional statements about his intentions. "It was a misstatement," Rodriguez said. "Unfortunately, she was given incorrect information initially, which indicated that that statement was made; however, that statement never was made. He did indicate that he was planning on going to the Pride festival but beyond anything as far as motives or his intentions that statement was never made nor did any officer receive that statement." Police identified the suspect as James Wesley Howell of Indiana. A Facebook page for someone with the same name in Indiana shows a young man posing next to a white Acura with the same license plate as the car searched in Santa Monica for the weapons and explosives. At a news conference Sunday afternoon, police stressed they were still trying to figure out what Howell planned to do with the weapons. Howell, 20, has a history of breaking gun laws in Indiana, and earlier this year was placed on probation and ordered to surrender his guns in lieu of serving of a one-year prison sentence. The weaponry in his car included three assault rifles, high-capacity ammunition and a 5-gallon bucket containing chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device, police said, per the LAT. Howell apparently told police he was going to attend the pride event in West Hollywood. James Howell held on weapons and explosive materials charges. Stated intent: go to Gay Pride event; wrong on initial rpt of wanting to harm Jacqueline Seabrooks (@SantaMonicaCoP) June 13, 2016 The incident in Santa Monica came as Americ was waking up to news of the country's deadliest mass shooting ever: 50 people killed and another 53 wounded at a gay nightclub in Orlando by a lone gunman. Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American born in New York, had been investigated previously by the FBI for suspected ties to Middle East terrorists. No crime was found and he was allowed to keep his Florida gun license. In recent days he legally bought at least two guns. Matteen, who is a practicing Muslim, had expressed hatred of gays according to both his father and ex-wife, and both said they had no reason to suspect he had become radicalized. Here's the top of the New York Times website right now. Clover POS systems are a great solution if you want to streamline your internal services and want to replace an old kit like cash registers, payment terminals and other equipment. Clovers point of sale solution allows you to get rid of all that and replace it with a more integrated system with state of the PRESS RELEASE UN/U.S. Military in South Korea Threatens Chinese Fishing Boats June 11, 2016 (EIRNS)In yet another move which begs to create a spark towards escalation, the UN Command (UNC) in South Korea, for the first time, took joint military action with South Koreas Navy against Chinese fishing boats in the so-called "neutral territory" where the Han River empties into the Yellow Sea. The joint patrol chased the Chinese ships out of the area this past week, but, according to Yonhap, quoting an unnamed official, the military patrols "have been authorized to use force against Chinese fishing boats if they do not comply with an initial verbal warning to leave." They also report that "South Korea will have warships and choppers standing nearby to be deployed in the event of any skirmishes that could take place with North Korea in the process of the crackdown operations." A UN Command statement said that U.S. Army "Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, UNC commander, in accordance with his responsibilities under the Armistice Agreement, authorized the UNC operation to enforce restrictions on fishermen in the Han River Estuary." Under the armistice signed after the Korean War, neither Korean nor foreign ships are allowed to sail in the area unless officially registered with the military armistice commissions of either South or North Korea. PRESS RELEASE European Parliament Members Open Letter: We Need Russia; End Sanctions June 12, 2016 (EIRNS)A dozen European politicians, all Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), released an Open Letter titled "Why Europe Needs Russia More Than Ever," sent to Russian-based multimedia broadcaster RT, yesterday. It was also published in Britain by the Independent. The letter, originated by French MEP Rachida Dati and 12 others urges the immediate lifting of sanctions, especially respecting security cooperation. Both the French National Assembly and Senate have voted up resolutions in favor of lifting Russian sanctions. The letter says that it was clear even a few months after sanctions were imposed against Russia that it was "a mistake both on the political (on the Syrian conflict) and the economical level (for our agriculture), and we would pay for it dearly." It also attacks the mistake of extending the European sanctions to Russian intelligence personnel in July 2014, blocking such important figures as Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service and Mikhail Fradkov, director of foreign intelligence services, from obtaining visas, saying even the U.S., in imposing sanctions, "never went as far as jeopardizing its security cooperation with the heads of Russias intelligence. So why are we... at the expense of our own security?" These sanctions impact both both the French and European levels: The "Cooperation Council on security issues ... bringing together the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Ministers of Defense from both French and Russian sides" has been suspended and not met since October 2012. "The attacks in Paris and Brussels sadly reminded U.S. that this cooperation is far from being optimal even within the EU. Russian citizens themselves have been hit hard by terrorism. If we continue to weaken our cooperation with Russia in this field, we are participating to put our citizens in danger. "Russia thanks to its positions in Syria, has access to valuable information on ISIS, which we would be wrong to turn away from...." Reason and passion dictate that "we cooperate with the Russian State, in order to exchange critical information on the positions and intentions of ISIS. ...This realpolitik is no longer a choice ... but there are goals and interests that require that we go beyond the desire to punish. "Take the example of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahus government has decided to strengthen its ties with Russia, to enhance its national security, even though Moscow is working closely with Iran, Israels most hostile and powerful enemy in the region. "... Besides Russia wants to help us. ... "European citizens would not understand if we deprive ourselves any longer of information that is able to ensure their safety and protect them from the horrors we have known Paris and Brussels recently. "While the European Council must decide on 28th and 29th June on the renewalor notof sanctions against Russia, let us call together to revive security cooperation between those two major players of the international scene. More and more voices in Europe already call for a re-evaluation of sanctions and the lifting of sanctions applied to individuals, as showed by the French Senates vote on 8th June which called, with a wide majority, for a reassessment and even the lifting of the sanctions. "History will prove right those who find the political courage to make such a statement. "We, the undersigned: The Italian newspaper Il Giornale has sparked outrage after giving away free copies of Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf, the dictators autobiography and political manifesto, with a paid supplement to Saturdays edition. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called the move sleazy and Renzo Gattegna, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, said it was a vile act. Il Giornale, a conservative daily newspaper published in Milan, distributed free copies of an annotated edition of Hitlers Mein Kampf to readers, Reuters reports. Know it in order to reject it was the justification given by the tabloid, writes Al-Jazeera. The paper is owned by Paolo Berlusconi, brother of Italys former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who served as its publisher from 1977-94. Advertisement This weekend, Il Giornale started selling a multi-installment history of the Third Reich, with the annotated copy of Mein Kampf given away free for readers who bought the first installment. The newspapers editor, Alessandro Sallusti, explained in an editorial the decision to give away Hitlers book. Studying evil to prevent it from happening again, perhaps in new and deceptive guises, Sallusti wrote. That is the real and only purpose of what we have done. Not everyone bought the newspapers explanation. In a post on Twitter, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called the move sleazy, and offered his affectionate embrace to the Jewish community, adding a hashtag that translates as Never again. Renzis sentiments were echoed by Gattegna, Union of Italian Jewish Communities president, who said the giveaway is light years away from all logic of studying the Shoah and the different factors that led the whole of humanity to sink into an abyss of unending hatred, death and violence. Mein Kampf was effectively banned in Germany for decades, as the copyright was owned by the state of Bavaria, which forbade publishers to print editions of the book. That changed earlier this year, however, after the copyright expired. An annotated version of the book has been available in Germany since January, although many observers believe publishing a version of the book without annotations would violate the countrys Volksverhetzung laws, which prohibit inciting hatred. ALSO: Hitlers Mein Kampf to be published in Germany for first time since WWII The Way to the Spring is a sobering look at Palestinian life and resistance in the West Bank Who would you cast as Persian poet Rumi Leonardo DiCaprio? Charm bracelets with 14k gold elements, $2,700 mouse ears: Shanghai Disney tries to woo fans with merchandise This Swaroski Mickey hat is worth 17,800 (around $2,700), and limited to 2/guest. pic.twitter.com/GCapbcHoSy Yingzhi Yang (@yingzhi_yang) June 14, 2016 For Disneys bottom line, its not just important for guests to walk through the gates of their theme parks, but to spend money once inside -- and the companys newest property in Shanghai is no exception. As the Burbank-based entertainment giant gets ready to formally open the gates to its first park in mainland China on Thursday, it has stacked the shelves of its many shops throughout the resort with thousands of items it hopes will prove irresistible to Chinas growing urban middle class, from classic plush animals and character T-shirts to special items designed with the Chinese consumer in mind. For the Disney fans with renminbi to burn, there are mouse ears with Swarovski crystals going for $2,700 (limit two per guest) and Disney-themed Pandora brand charm bracelets with 14k gold elements that retail for over $2,900 (again, limit two per guest). Pampered princesses (or in fact, their parents) can fork out up to $455 to get their hair and manicures done and be photographed in the gown of their favorite Disney heroine, then have the entire afternoon documented in a custom-printed storybook that comes packaged in a small pink valise. Mickey enthusiasts on more of a budget might opt to take home some Disney princess-themed plastic chopsticks (set of four, $15.20); a red tea pot and cup set with a Mickey motif formed by stylized Chinese clouds ($55) or a vinegar dish set (again, with a Mickey style, $19). Move over China's little emperors. Disney goes after little empresses with hair, nail & gown sessions. Deluxe $455 pic.twitter.com/UsEx65Zlel Julie Makinen (@Julie_Makinen) June 15, 2016 A special line of vintage Shanghai items harks back to the Art Deco era in the city (the company likes to remind customers that Disney brought Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to play in Shanghai in the 1930s). There are candy boxes shaped like vintage Chinese lunch boxes, journals with vintage-looking embossing and a doll dressed in 1920s-era fashion. A special vintage set of Mickey Mouse ears, topped with a blue Chinese li mao hat, goes for $24. And thats not even to mention all the grand opening merchandise T-shirts, bags, blankets, champagne glasses and other items. Jeffrey Towson, a professor at Peking University and author of The 1 Hour China Consumer Book, said Disneys ultimate aim in China is not to become a massive theme park operator on the mainland but to stoke interest in its entertainment offerings and consumer products. Disneys objective in China is really not to open theme parks. Ultimately, they are ultimately not a theme park company; theyre an entertainment company, he said. Their objective is for people to love their movies and their characters, and that plays out against movies, TV shows, merchandise and consumer products. The question is, do they want to make a ton of money off the theme park, or do they see it as a beach head in the Chinese market? he asked, noting that the deal terms in Shanghai gave much more of an ownership and control stake to the government than have Disneys developments in, say, Hong Kong or Paris. I think its more of the latter. I think what they are after in the Chinese market is to be the uber childrens entertainment company. An air of both celebration and sobriety hung over the Tony Awards on Sunday, as one of the biggest hits in Broadway history was honored hours after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Lin-Manuel Mirandas Hamilton, which merged unlikely forms to become a cultural phenomenon, pulled off an epic night, winning 11 prizes, including best musical, director, score and three acting awards. The hip-hop piece, which began at downtown New Yorks Public Theater in early 2015 and opened on Broadway last summer, capped its remarkable run with one of the biggest nights in Tonys history -- though it fell just short of The Producers record of 12 wins in 2001. 1 / 49 It was a banner night for Hamilton (yeah, we saw it coming, but still), and they performed here at the end of the night. But The Humans, The Color Purple and more enjoyed accolades amid an air of sadness for the events in Orlando. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 2 / 49 Producer Jeffrey Seller, center, accepts the Tony Award for best musical for Hamilton. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 3 / 49 Producer Scott Rudin, foreground, and the cast and crew of A View From the Bridge accept the award for best revival of a play. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 4 / 49 Presenter Audra McDonald speaks. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 5 / 49 Cynthia Erivo accepts the award for lead actress in a musical in The Color Purple. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 6 / 49 The cast of Hamilton performs during the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 7 / 49 Andrew Rannells performs onstage during the 70th Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 8 / 49 Glenn Close performs onstage during the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 9 / 49 A quartet plays along as the In Memoriam section of 70th Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre plays on behind them. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 10 / 49 Frank Langella accepts the award for leading actor in a play for The Father. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 11 / 49 Leslie Odom Jr. accepts the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical in Hamilton. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 12 / 49 Playwright Stephen Karam accepts the Tony Award for best play for The Humans. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 13 / 49 Jessica Lange accepts the award for lead actress in a play for Long Days Journey Into Night. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 14 / 49 Jessie Mueller and the cast of Waitress perform onstage during the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 15 / 49 Steve Martin and musician Edie Brickell speak onstage during the 70th Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 16 / 49 Bebe Neuwirth and the cast of Chicago perform onstage during the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 17 / 49 Sheldon Harnick accepts the special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in the theatre at the Tony Awards. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 18 / 49 Gloria Estefan performs with the On Your Feet! cast onstage during the Tonys. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 19 / 49 Reed Birney accepts the award for featured actor in a play for The Humans. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 20 / 49 Andrew Rannells, Zachary Levi and James Corden speak onstage. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 21 / 49 Composer Alex Lacamoire accepts the award for best orchestrations for his work in Hamilton. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 22 / 49 Diane Lane speaks onstage with a backdrop of Arthur Millers the Crucible. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 23 / 49 Oprah Winfrey introduces a performance by the cast of The Color Purple. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 24 / 49 Heather Headley, standing, and the cast of The Color Purple perform at the Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 25 / 49 Cynthia Erivo and the cast of The Color Purple perform at the Tony Awards. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 26 / 49 Meg Ryan speaks onstage during the 70th Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 27 / 49 Laura Benanti of She Loves Me performs onstage during the 70th Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 28 / 49 Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Lucy Liu present the award for best direction of a musical. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 29 / 49 Steve Martin and the cast of Bright Star perform at the Tony Awards. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 30 / 49 Carmen Cusack and the cast of Bright Star perform during the Tonys. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 31 / 49 The cast of Spring Awakening performs at the Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 32 / 49 Nathan Lane presents the award for lead actress in a play. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 33 / 49 Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Hamilton perform onstage during the Tonys. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 34 / 49 Host James Corden performs during the opening number for the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 35 / 49 Tony Awards host James Corden gets into his act during the opening number. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 36 / 49 Hamiltons Leslie Odom Jr. performs onstage during the 70th Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 37 / 49 Actor Brian Stokes Mitchell accepts the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 38 / 49 Josh Groban wears a silver ribbon at the Tony Awards in tribute to the victims of the Orlando, Fla., shooting. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 39 / 49 Jonathan Groff, from left, Laura Benanti, host James Corden, Jane Krakowski, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Zachary Levi and Danielle Brooks perform onstage at the Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 40 / 49 David Zinn accepts the award for best scenic design of a play. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 41 / 49 Andrew Lloyd Webber (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 42 / 49 Alex Brightman and the cast of School of Rock perform during the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 43 / 49 Renee Elise Goldsberry accepts the award for featured actress in a musical for Hamilton. (Evan Agostini / Invision / AP) 44 / 49 Hamilton director Thomas Kail accepts the award for direction of a musical during the 70th Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 45 / 49 Jake Gyllenhaal presents an award onstage at the Tony Awards. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 46 / 49 Lin-Manuel Miranda accepts the award for best original score for Hamilton. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 47 / 49 Daveed Diggs accepts the award for featured actor in a musical for Hamilton. (Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press) 48 / 49 Jane Krakowski and Gavin Creel of She Loves Me perform onstage. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 49 / 49 The cast of Fiddler on the Roof performs onstage. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) Advertisement LIVE COVERAGE: 2016 Tony Awards We chase the melodies that seem to find us until theyre finished songs that start to play, Miranda said from the Beacon Theatre stage, upon accepting the prize for best score. Later, after winning the musical award, producer Jeffrey Sellers added, Look around. Look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now, alluding to one of the shows signature numbers. Hamiltons joyous presence could be felt throughout the evening, from a parody that introduced host James Corden at the start of the show to a swirling medley midway through to the final award of the night and a closing number that followed. With its subversively multiracial cast, the show, about the founding of America, has become an improbable paragon of diversity. As it happens, that was a theme Sunday night too: All four musical acting winners were black for the first time in the shows 70-year history. Hamiltons Renee Elise Goldsberry, Daveed Diggs and Leslie Odom Jr. (the latter topping co-nominee Miranda, in a reprise of sorts of the Burr-Hamilton standoff of the show) all scored prizes; so did "The Color Purples Cynthia Erivo, whose show also took best revival of a musical and whose performance of Im Here won over pretty much everyone in the audience. Diggs noted the evenings sociological importance. "Growing up I felt that there was no place for me here. But this place is so inclusive. Not just culturally but in terms of ability and in terms of age. There is so much diversity on Broadway now, Im so proud to be a part of it, so happy to see so many kids around, an exuberant Diggs, who plays both Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette, said backstage after his win, But a somber tone also infused the ceremony in the aftermath of the events at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., earlier in the day. Many nominees and presenters wore silver ribbons, designed by costume designer William Ivey Long, to commemorate the victims. Corden also began the night by pre-taping a moment from the stage that dedicated the show to those affected by the massacre. You are not on your own, he said. Your tragedy is our tragedy. Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. Frank Langella, taking lead actor in a play for his role as a man suffering from dementia in The Father, gave one of the most heartfelt speeches about the shootings -(after previously noting that his brother was suffering from dementia). When something bad happens we have three choices: we let it define us, we let it destroy us, we let it strengthen us, said Langella, who notched his fourth Tony win. Today in Orlando we had a hideous dose of reality. And I urge you Orlando to be strong. ... Were with you every step of the way. Langella won the fourth Tony of his career. The Father missed out, however, on winning play. Honors in that category went to Stephen Karams heavy favorite The Humans, which put a fresh spin on the dysfunctional-family dramedy. Ditto for director Ivo Van Hove, whose radical reimagining of Arthur Millers A View From the Bridge earned him best director of a play and his show best revival of a play. And while in many ways it was a night for the youthful upstarts of Hamilton"--20 minutes after the show ended, much of the cast could still be seen chatting and exulting in the moment on the Beacon stage--longtime performers received their moment too. Jessica Lange took home her first Tony, a lead actress in a play prize, for her performance in the latest iteration of Eugene ONeills domestic drama A Long Days Journey Into Night. The actress, a 40-year-veteran, said that the honor fills me with such happiness on even a sad day like this. 1 / 28 Danai Gurira, Julian Fellowes and Andrea Martins attend the 70th Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre in New York. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP (right and left); Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions (center)) 2 / 28 Vanessa Nadal and Lin-Manuel Miranda arrive at the Tony Awards. (Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press) 3 / 28 Lupita Nyongo (Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press) 4 / 28 Host James Corden and his wife, Julia Carey, at the Tony Awards. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 5 / 28 Neil Patrick Harris, left, and husband David Burtka wear silver ribbons at the Tony Awards to honor the victims of the Orlando, Fla., shooting. (Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press) 6 / 28 Cate Blanchett (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 7 / 28 Heather Headley, from left, Allison Williams and Danielle Brooks. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions (from left); Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions; Charles Sykes/Invision/Associated Press) 8 / 28 Common, from left, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Zainab Jah. (Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for FIJI Water (left and center); Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 9 / 28 Nicolette Robinson and Leslie Odom Jr. (Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press) 10 / 28 Saoirse Ronan (Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions ) 11 / 28 Actor Zachary Levi takes a selfie with fans before the start of the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. (Larry Busacca / Getty Images for Tony Awards) 12 / 28 Jane Krakowski and Krysta Rodriguez. (Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press) 13 / 28 Sophie Okonedo, from left, Michelle Williams and Sara Bareilles. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP (from left); Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions; Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 14 / 28 Lighting designer Justin Townsend and Elena Araoz. (Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 15 / 28 Busy Philipps, Questlove and Beth Behrs (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 16 / 28 Carole King and Lucy Liu. (Left - Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions; right - Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 17 / 28 Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 18 / 28 Chita Rivera, from left, Laura Benanti and Judith Light. (Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press) 19 / 28 Christopher Jackson (Larry Busacca / Getty Images for Tony Awards) 20 / 28 Bebe Neuwirth, Daniel Dae Kim and Uzo Aduba (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions (from left); Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions; Charles Sykes/Invision/Associated Press) 21 / 28 Actress Ali Stroker attends the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 22 / 28 Actress Nikki M. James attends the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/ Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 23 / 28 Actress Laura Michelle Kelly attends the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. ( Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 24 / 28 Jessica Lange (Charles Sykes / Invision / Associated Press) 25 / 28 David Zinn attends the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/ Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 26 / 28 David Rockwell attends the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/ Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 27 / 28 Megan Hilty, left, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) 28 / 28 Detroit drama teacher Marilyn McCormick attends the 70th Tony Awards at The Beacon Theatre in New York City. McCormick is the recipient of the Tonys Excellence in Theatre Education Award. Excellence in Theatre Education Award, Excellence in Theatre Education Award, (Dimitrios Kambouris/ Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) When it comes to overdue veterans, though, the Oscar-winning Lange may have nothing on The Humans stars Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell. Each won their first Tony, featured acting prizes, after long careers that often took them far from the Broadway stage. Ive been an actor for 42 years. Thirty-five of them were pretty bad, Birney said. The last eight have been great. Houdyshell could be seen at a swank party later that nightit included Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Andrew Lloyd Webber and nearly every other three-named person of notebasking in the congratulations of well-wishers, a reminder that Broadway is often a collision of the glamorous and the lunchbucket. History was not forgotten in other ways on Sunday. Throughout the evening current nominees paid homage to classic shows, honoring 70 years of Tonys history. Barbra Streisand also appeared on the Tonys stage for the first time since 1970. (Back then, David Frost introduced her as she received a special Tony.) An opening parody saw Corden drop himself into a series of past musicals, Billy Crystal-style, from Annie to The Sound of Music. Corden, a Tony winner himself who was hired equally for his emerging status as a CBS host and his deep roots in theater, largely kept the evening buoyant. He engaged in numerous costume changes and was often roaming the aisles of the Beacon, at one point interviewing his own father and at another, during a commercial break, creating a viral video that involved Jake Gyllenhaal, Aladdin and used chewing gum. Think of tonight like the Oscars--except with diversity, the host joked, one of several political jibes that included a fake Trump bio-play titled The Book of Moron. But it was Hamilton, in the end, that owned the evening. The Tony wins proved a capper to an odyssey that began with a Miranda performance of a nascent show called The Hamilton Mixtape at the White House all the way back in 2009. Sunday even saw the presentation of a video tribute from Barack and Michelle Obama. The president said the show has become not only a smash hit but a civic lesson [children] cant get enough of, shortly before the productions gleeful exploration of national trubulence was display once more with several numbers on the Beacon stage. Bringing together that theme with the evenings more painful motif, the exuberance of Hamilton and the sadness of Orlando, was, fittingly, Miranda himself. At bottom, his show is about how tribulation may lie at the heart of the American story, but so does an ability to push through the challenges and turn them into history. Miranda sought to underscore the idea in his score speech. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised. Not one day, he said in a sonnet. The show is proof that history remembers. We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger; we rise and fall and light from dying embers remembrances that hope and love last longer. He ended it with an impassioned, triumphant repetition of the LGBTQ rallying cry Love is love. @ZeitchikLAT Patrick Pacheco contributed to this report. steve.zeitchik@latimes.com MORE: Complete list of Tony winners and nominees Heartbroken Broadway stars take to social media about Orlando shooting The emotional hooks of Hamilton: Why the soundtrack makes me cry every single time Is Hamilton the top Broadway musical of all time? Not necessarily, this expert says steve.zeitchik@latimes.com The Harry Potter universe now includes real-life terrorism, with J.K. Rowling on Sunday mourning a victim of the Orlando shooting who worked at Universal Studios Orlandos Wizarding World. Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I cant stop crying. #Orlando, the Harry Potter author tweeted late Sunday. She then retweeted comments from people who said theyd known Vielma and offered prayers to another victim who was said to be in intensive care. Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying. #Orlando pic.twitter.com/Nz2ZCWxNsS J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 13, 2016 Advertisement I worked with Luis he was a gryffindor who would make you proud, said a Twitter user going by the name Victoria Bidorini who responded to Rowlings memorial tweet, identifying her co-worker by a well-known school classification from the Potter books. We have a slytherin whos still in the icu. His name is Tony. Authorities said Vielma was among more than 100 people who were either killed or injured in the wee hours Sunday in an attack by Omar Mateen at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. During the attack, Mateen called 911 and pledged loyalty to Islamic State; he was later killed in a shootout with SWAT officers. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Vielma had posted on social media about going to Pulse, where it was Latino night. He was always a friend you could call, Josh Boesch, who worked with Vielma at Universal, told the newspaper. He was always open and available. Vielma was planning to become an emergency medical technician, Boesch said. Rowling has long been public in her support for gay rights. #LoveIsLove she tweeted Monday morning. ALSO Victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre: Who they were The LGBTQA community, theyre like my soul mates: Adele pays tribute to Orlando shooting victims Hours after the Orlando shootings, the Tony Awards gave comfort and joy Follow Christie DZurilla on Twitter @theCDZ Team Hamilton talks backstage about their night of triumph and tragedy After a golden night with 11 trips to the winners stage, the Hamilton cast and behind-the-scenes team spoke backstage about the shows amazing run, the tragedy Florida and more. Producer Jeffrey Seller on the shows origins: We told Lin-Manuel [Miranda], if youre going down that road, were going with you. As he started to write songs and formulate what he thought was going to originally be a concept album, we were getting more and more excited. This will be a pretty good show. Every passing week, we were astounded by the way Hamilton has reached out its tentacles and roots and affected so many people in America. Seller on the shooting in Orlando: I think we all have dealt with tragedy in a personal way as a gay man, as a part of that community, as a citizen of this country. It has reminded me yet again of how all of our lives are intersections of joy, and tragedy. The tragedy has dampened [the Tonys] a little bit, made it tougher. Ive lost my good friend [composer] Jonathan Larson on the day of our first preview of Rent. [Seller chokes up and then goes on.] And the only way to honor Jonathan was to go, and the only way to honor what has transpired is to go on. Lin-Manuel Miranda on Orlando: I hadnt learned of todays events until after the Tony rehearsal. We live in a world where beautiful and horrible things exist and sometimes happen on the same day. You cant let that moment go by. Theater is a cornerstone of the LBGT community. Theater doesnt exist without it. Speaking in Spanish, he continued: This lies heavily in my heart. This is a day of sadness, and we mourn the victims. But at the same time, it also a day of celebration, not only for me but for creative partners and my family. Leslie Odom Jr., Tony winner for his role as Aaron Burr in Hamilton: When Phylicia Rashad won [in 2004], she said she wondered What would it take? [to win a Tony]. I wondered the same thing. And the most interesting thing was because only one person gets up to accept, I thought you get it for a solo effort. You were so fabulous on your own. I didnt realize what a team of people it would take and all the people that Im leaning on. Odom on giving up hope on his career: You need to put your head down and ... try not to lose hope. Somewhere I lost the way, I lost this vision. Meeting this material awakened me again. This show has so helped me find some direction and some purpose. And this is what I always felt that I was meant to be doing and waiting for Lin to write it. Thats the gift. Daveed Diggs, winner for featured actor, about all the acting awards in musical categories going to actors of color: Growing up I felt that there was no place for me here. But this place is so inclusive. Not just culturally but in terms of ability, and in terms of age. There is so much diversity on Broadway now. Im so proud to be a part of it, so happy to see so many kids around. ... Theater feels more mainstream and lot more inclusive that it did when I was a kid. And thats because Hamilton allows us to put so much of ourselves into the show. Diggs on the celebrity attention Hamilton is getting: People often ask me, What is the most surreal moment? And I say, Meeting Barack for the second time. The day we spent at the White House with them, the day they opened the White House to us. We were teaching workshops for kids. This president its not going to happen again. ... Wherever you stand politically, they represent a kind of heart we need very badly right now. They manage to see themselves in what were doing. Patrick Pacheco 8:59 P.M. The Obamas pay tribute to Hamilton The cast of Hamilton performs onstage during the 70th Tony Awards at the Beacon Theatre on June 12 in New York City. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions) Its only fitting that Hamilton, the musical about the Founding Fathers, got an introduction from the president and first lady. In a videotaped message, the Obamas paid tribute to the blockbuster musical, recalling how composer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda had performed a piece from what would become Hamilton for them seven years ago. Hamilton has become not only a smash hit but a civics lesson our kids cant get enough of, said President Obama. One with fierce musical energy, one where rap is the language of revolution and hip-hop its urgent soundtrack. First Lady Michelle Obama continued: Its a musical about the miracle that is America, a place of citizenship where we debate ideas with passion and conviction. After the Obamas remarks, rapper-actor Common introduced the cast of Hamilton for a performance of History Has Its Eyes on You and Yorktown (The World Turned Upside Down). 3:40 P.M. Theater critic Charles McNultys Tonys predictions The Color Purple (Matthew Murphy) Its hard to see Hamilton not winning for best musical, book, original score, lead actor in a musical, featured actor and featured actress in a musical, direction and orchestration. Thats eight straight off the bat, with lead actor in a musical the only one of these contests with even a smidgen of uncertainty. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of Hamilton, is competing in this category against his thrilling costar Leslie Odom Jr., leaving the outside possibility of a split between them. If this happens, dark horse Danny Burstein, the affecting Tevye of Bartlett Shers revival of Fiddler on the Roof, could find himself hoisting a statuette unlikely but something no Broadway connoisseur would mind. How about a three-way tie? Heres an opinionated look at how some of the other key races might play out. Read more 7:46 P.M. Tony-winning A View From the Bridge headed to Los Angeles in September, then Washington Phoebe Fox as Catherine, Russell Tovey as Rodolpho, Mark Strong as Eddie and Nicola Walker as Beatrice in A View From the Bridge. (Jan Versweyveld) The Young Vics production of Arthur Millers A View From the Bridge won big at the Tony Awards on Sunday, taking home prizes for play revival and director Ivo van Hove. The play closed months ago on Broadway, but Tony telecast viewers curious about the productions oddly minimalist design -- it resembles nothing close to Red Hook, Brooklyn -- will have another opportunity to catch the unconventional staging when it comes to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in September. Van Hove, who works in Amsterdam and hails from Belgium, will restage A View From the Bridge with a different cast, to be announced later. It will run at the Ahmanson from Sept. 7 to Oct. 16, followed by a run at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., from Nov.18 to Dec. 3 The revival production opened at the Young Vic in London in 2014, then moved in 2015 to the West End. The drama later transferred to Broadway, opening in November and closing earlier this year. Mark Strong starred in the London and New York production as Brooklyn longshoreman Eddie Carbone. French actor Charles Berling played Eddie when Van Hove staged the play in Paris last year. One of the most in-demand directors on the international theater scene, Van Hove staged the current Broadway revival of Millers The Crucible. On a recent afternoon in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, everyone was talking about bugs. Not the skittering cockroaches one would expect to see in this industrial corner of the borough, but something more extraordinary: brain-eating insects from outer space. In BrainDead, a genre-bending political satire filming on a sound stage standing in for Washington D.C., a swarm of voracious insects descends upon the capital. The mysterious ant-like creatures devour the brains of lawmakers and citizens alike, turning them into partisan zombies. (And yes, its a work of fiction.) In character as Laurel Healy, a Capitol Hill staffer, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is confronting her controlling father, Dean (Zach Grenier), a political patriarch reminiscent of Joseph Kennedy, about the rapidly spreading epidemic. Unlike his daughter, Dean is not concerned by the insect-borne plague. Advertisement Youre not going to convince me this is a good thing, she says. Then let me convince you its inevitable, he replies, ominously. Premiering Monday on CBS, BrainDead is a summer series with politics on its mind. Arriving just as an already surreal presidential election begins to heat up, the pilot opens with clips of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the campaign trail and text reading, In the year 2016 there was a growing sense that people were losing their mind. The idea for BrainDead was spawned during the federal government shutdown three years ago, when, like millions of other Americans, series creators Robert and Michelle King found themselves wondering just how Washington, D.C., had become so dysfunctional. There was so much going on in D.C. that was absolutely inexplicable that we needed to create a narrative to explain it, said Michelle King. Space bugs seemed no more absurd than reality -- that the job of governing had turned into a zero-sum competition between Democrats and Republicans. With a tone the Kings describe as Roger Corman meets Paddy Chayefsky, BrainDead blends satire with screwball comedy and B-movie sci-fi. While its zanier than other current political dramas, like House of Cards, it still has a serious point to make. The left and the right wings are being pushed to extremes, said Robert King. Theres the Bernie Bros on one end and the tea partiers on the other end. The moderates are kind of disappearing. Thats what the show is really coming out against, this loss of the moderate middle. The series follows Laurel, whos rejected the family business of politics to pursue a career making documentaries about obscure subjects (clog-dancing, religious music in the Solomon Islands). To fund her latest unfinished project, she accepts a bribe from her father and goes to work for her playboy brother, Luke (Danny Pino), whos carrying on the political dynasty as a Democratic senator and majority whip. Luke needs all the help he can get, as a budget stalemate threatens to shut down the government. Laurel negotiates flirtatiously with Gareth Ritter (Aaron Tveit), legislative director for Sen. Red Wheatus (Tony Shalhoub), a mildly corrupt Republican. Tipped off by a constituent, Laurel embarks on an investigation that eventually leads to the discovery of the brain-eating creepy-crawlies. BrainDeads topical focus will be familiar to fans of the Kings legal drama, The Good Wife, which ended its acclaimed seven-season run on CBS in May. The series was inspired by a number of real-life political sex scandals, and often weighed in on current events, from NSA surveillance to protests in Ferguson, Mo. There are also obvious similarities between Laurel and Alicia Florrick, the disgraced spouse turned cunning lawyer played by Julianna Margulies in The Good Wife. They both live in the same universe of a pragmatic female lead whos underestimated by a lot of people around her, said Robert King, who was impressed by Winsteads Margulies-like ability to balance comedy and drama. BrainDead even uses much of The Good Wifes production infrastructure, including the same sound stage and certain key crew members. Still, the foray into genre storytelling represents a bold move for the Kings. I love that they chose to do something so risky and weird as their next project, said Winstead, who is juggling her role on BrainDead with duties on the PBS Civil War drama Mercy Street. You need that in TV right now. Unless its a swing for the fences, theres not much point in doing it. BrainDead is almost certainly the only show on broadcast television that relies on what its creators describe as a Jonathan Swiftian metaphor, or that has episode titles worthy of a dissertation. (The pilot is called The Insanity Principle: How Extremism in Politics Is Threatening Democracy in the 21st Century.) The series is also making a fairly provocative argument about contemporary politics. Not only is it saying that the country has become almost hopelessly polarized which anyone with access to social media or cable news could tell you but that ideological purity, not corruption, is what ails Washington. We think everybodys going after the wrong thing, said Robert King. Idealism keeps people from actually talking to each other and compromising. The brilliance of the American government should be that it encourages people to compromise, and thats the only way things get done. Their perspective was forged during research trips to Washington, D.C., where they consulted with Judy Smith, the fixer who inspired Scandal, and David McCallum, deputy chief of staff for Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. With such ambitious themes, BrainDead might seem out of place in the summer, traditionally a time when pop culture goes for spectacle over substance. But with its sci-fi trappings and occasional bursts of gore, the show fits in comfortably at summertime CBS, which in recent seasons has turned to shorter-run genre series such as Under the Dome, Extant and Zoo. For the Kings, exhausted after churning out 22 episodes of The Good Wife every season, a shorter run was not just appealing but also essential. Unfortunately, it happened that production on The Good Wife overlapped with that of BrainDead. So instead of going to 13 episodes this year, we went to 35, joked Michelle King. For cast and creators alike, the biggest challenge has been nailing the tone, which swings from comedy to drama to thriller within a single scene. And as Shalhoub observed, it can be tricky to parody a political environment that already seems like farce: I keep thinking were starting to swing over into absurdist mode. Then I went to see Weiner -- the documentary about former Rep. Anthony Weiners doomed New York mayoral run -- and I started to think, Wow, maybe our show is not as wild I had imagined. meredith.blake@latimes.com BrainDead Where: CBS When: 10 p.m. Monday Rating: TV-14-DLSV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with advisories for suggestive dialogue, coarse language, sex and violence) There are nearly 50 craft breweries making beer in Los Angeles County, and by the time you finish reading this sentence, there may be three more. While it can feel overwhelming to try to keep up with all the new brews, the best of the newcomers are quick to carve out their own niche within the citys overall beer culture. Here are three tasting rooms across L.A. to explore. Pocock Brewing Co. in Santa Clarita Pocock Brewing opened just a few miles from the well-established Wolf Creek brewpub back in December 2015, and the newcomers quickly became a popular destination for Santa Clarita locals. The Popcock Brewing beers run the gamut from the hopped-up IPAs (Rooster Pith IPA, Letter of Marque) to more malt-driven brews (Witch Doctor imperial stout, Noble Piper Scotch ale) to the more adventurous (Nuptials mango ale and Wolf in the Coop, a collaboration with neighboring Wolf Creek Brewery featuring mesquite honey). Food trucks are regular visitors to the taproom, and the brewers have been experimenting with a Randall machine in the taproom. This beer-dispensing gizmo, first popularized by craft pioneers at Dogfish Head Brewing in Delaware, is used to infuse ingredients into a beer as its being poured from the tap. Some recent brews that have been Randalled include the imperial stout infused with habanero chile; an English-style bitter with Earl Grey tea and lime zest; and an IPA pushed through even more hops for a huge aromatic boost. The tasting room is open Wednesday through Sunday, and growlers and crowlers are available to go. 24907 AvenueTibbitts Suite B, Santa Clarita, (661) 775-4899, pocockbrewing.com. Scholb Premium Ales in Torrance Advertisement This is the newest addition to the South Bay brewery family. Founded by a pair of couples from the South Bay, Mandy and Patrick Schulz and Allison and Jason Kolb (who together form Sch-olb), the small-scale operation differs from many of the other South Bay craft breweries. Scholbs brewhouse is smaller than the average Los Angeles craft brewery, but the smaller batch size lets the brewers experiment with a wide variety of styles and flavors. The brewery and tasting room opened in March in the same business park as the 2-year-old Absolution Brewing, and Scholb strives to offer a variety of flavor profiles. The session-friendly Columbia Street pale and the Not Lyin Rye IPA, dense with resinous bitterness, are well-executed. But the standout of a recent visit was the Cherry Wood Smoked Brown ale. A departure from the typical smoked beers that use beechwood-smoked malts or even the more aggressive oak-smoked malts (which often over-apply the smoke flavors in a recipe), this balanced brown ale gets just enough cherry wood-smoked malts to complement the toffee-like body. Its a hit even with drinkers who dont normally enjoy smoky beers. Scholbs tasting room is open Thursday through Sunday, and the space is proudly kid- and dog-friendly. 2964 Columbia St., Torrance, (424) 731-3470, www.drinkscholb.com. Homage Brewing in Pomona Joining Claremont Craft Ales and Sanctum Brewing at the eastern edge of the county is Homage Brewing with its bright and airy tasting room. The brewery is ramping up production with a half-dozen beers on offer that lean toward the Belgian styles. Founder Matthew Garcia is particularly proud of the Reckoner IPA, which is fermented with the wild yeast brettanomyces, for a bright tropical character that he says blends wonderfully with the hop character expected from an IPA. Situated between Pomona music venues the Glass House and the Fox Theater, Homage Brewing is a great pre-show destination. The tasting room is open Wednesday through Sunday, and you can order food from the Rookery Alehouse for delivery in the tasting room. 281 S. Thomas St., Pomona, (626) 377-0930, www.homagebrewing.com. ALSO: Los Angeles craft beer guide The Taste food festival returns Labor Day weekend to Paramount Studios How to make those oh-so-addictive kimchi deviled eggs from Faith & Flower The ghost chile, also known as bhut jolokia, clocks in at more than 1 million units on the Scoville scale, the gauge used to measure capsaicin, the component in peppers responsible for their heat. To put that number in perspective, the jalapeno pepper comes in at 10,000 Scoville units. So whats it like to eat one of the hottest peppers in the world? A thousand chile heads gathered in Copenhagen last week to test the resilience of their taste buds by attempting to eat an entire ghost chile. Chile brand Chili Klaus organized the ghost pepper challenge and provided the brave souls with their own individually wrapped peppers. In the video above you can see the volunteers smiling and posing with the chiles before unwrapping them. Advertisement After everyone takes their first bites, there is a moment of calm before the storm. Then people stop chewing and start moaning. Faces flush, scrunch and twist into expressions of pain. People drop their jaws and open their mouths as if somehow this will let the heat escape. A couple of people drop to their knees and shake their heads vigorously. Cartons of milk are passed around in a feeble attempt to squelch the heat. Many cry, and some even lose their lunch. Who wants to take bets on how many repeat volunteers theyll have next year? Like your news spicy? Follow me on Twitter: @Jenn_Harris_ Sebastian, who goes by one name, takes issue with the new teacher evaluation system in Los Angeles. Her rating has declined, unfairly in her view. The San Pedro High teacher is hardly the only one with concerns. Some see the observation-based system negotiated by the district and unions as too friendly toward teachers. Others say its too cumbersome or too reliant on principals with limited expertise. Advertisement Supporters see the districts approach as breaking ground, even leading the nation. Critics say the kind of political compromise it was born of inevitably promotes mediocrity and fails to help students. The latest revisions to the one-year-old system are expected to win formal approval at Tuesdays Board of Education meeting. The pact was achieved with far less acrimony than usually has accompanied efforts here and elsewhere to overhaul how teachers are assessed. The ultimate test is: Is this having positive, measurable effects on teachers and students? Dan Goldhaber, a professor at the University of Washington But, said Dan Goldhaber, a professor at the University of Washington with extensive experience in teacher-evaluation research, The ultimate test is: Is this having positive, measurable effects on teachers and students? In L.A., its still too early to say, even more than six years into a sweeping endeavor to revamp how instruction is measured and improved. Notably missing in the latest system is any direct reliance on student standardized test scores to determine whether teachers keep their jobs. Test scores now are to be used instead for analyzing student needs, setting goals and reviewing progress toward achieving them. See more of our top stories on Facebook Until recently, the Obama administration pushed hard for test-based evaluations, as did well-heeled foundations with an outsize influence on the nations education policy. But opponents called them inconsistent and unfair. Across the country, aligning against them along with teachers were many parents, who objected to the time and emphasis placed on standardized tests. In L.A., efforts to use student scores to evaluate teachers led to lawsuits and legislative battles and played a central role in highly charged and expensive local and state elections. But now the district has more or less made peace with the teachers union, which fought against relying on test scores, and the hope is that the new approach will work at least as well. Goldhaber, however, worries, as do others, that labor harmony has been given priority over student welfare. L.A. Unified, he said, needs to resist the norm of most school systems, which rate nearly every teacher effective. A good evaluation, he said, reliably separates teachers of different abilities and is used to improve instruction. In Los Angeles, former Supt. John Deasy pushed for test scores to count for about 30% of an evaluation. His target failed to survive, though his efforts, including a lawsuit he backed, helped cement the place of student achievement in a more meaningful review process. L.A. Unified administrators now undergo five days of training in how to provide consistent and fair evaluations. Under state law, data such as test scores must be part of appraising a teacher. But the new L.A. system also can consider students progress in learning to read, portfolios of student work, schoolwide attendance, suspension rates and the percentage of passing grades in the school or a class. A teacher rated as below standard can challenge the rating by filing a grievance. Although Sebastian had reservations about test-based evaluations, shes not convinced that the new format will greatly improve teaching. Formal observation, for example, which plays a key role, is required only once during an evaluation year. Schools are supposed to evaluate about a quarter of a schools teachers every year. I think even the worst teachers at my school are able to pull off a decent one-hour evaluation, she said. Sebastians personal quibble, however, is with the limited new ratings categories. The district gave in to union demands and reduced the choices from four to three eliminating the previous top rating of highly effective. Now there are three rankings: effective, developing and ineffective. And Sebastian, who previously had been assessed as highly effective, is ranked effective. Follow the Times education initiative to inform parents, educators and students across California It kind of, in essence, lowers my rating, said Sebastian, who teaches moderately to severely disabled students. This seeming minutiae is part of a larger debate. The district would prefer a four-level rating system to better identify, among other things, teachers who could serve as mentors. Other districts have used such yardsticks to hand out bonuses. Teacher unions, however, are concerned that rating systems could trump seniority when layoffs are necessary, or abet the targeting of outspoken or higher-salaried veteran instructors. That concern prompted one new provision: If a teacher is to undergo a formal evaluation, he or she now must be notified within the first five weeks of the school year. Weve had situations where an educator sometime during the year does something to get on the bad side of an administrator and the administrator in March says: Oh, by the way, Im going to evaluate you this year, said Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. Caputo-Pearl also noted that an administrator now must provide feedback on an evaluation within 10 working days. Previously, there was no deadline. Both administrators and teachers have applauded the simplification of the evaluation form, which has far fewer categories. The idea is to delve deep into a few areas rather than get lost in a multitude of superficial details, said Linda Del Cueto, who heads the districts training and evaluation for teachers and principals. The new evaluation guidelines are part of a teachers contract revision that also includes extra counseling days outside of the formal school term, an extra teaching position at 55 elementary schools with especially high needs, a cap of 55 students in physical education classes, and an extra teaching position at high schools to help provide more electives or smaller classes in elective courses. Our elective classes often make students want to come to school every day and allow for creative expression, said Caputo-Pearl. ALSO Portland unnerved by discovery of high lead levels in school drinking water Stanford swimmer convicted of sex assault lied about never partying, documents show Some Stanford graduates protest during Sundays commencement ceremony howard.blume@latimes.com Twitter: @howardblume A well-known West Hollywood gay bar is considering making armed security guards a regular presence after the mass shooting in an Orlando, Fla., gay nightclub Sunday. The Abbey Food & Bar upped its security presence during L.A. Pride celebrations in West Hollywood on Sunday, hours after the Orlando attack. The bar had 36 guards on duty, including visible, armed guards at the front and back entrances at all times, said Brian Rosman, a spokesman for the bar. The Abbey is considering making armed guards a regular presence, especially during peak times like Pride, Rosman said. Advertisement Its something were looking at moving forward, he said. Were going to talk more with the sheriff and City Hall to figure out the appropriate safety precautions. See more of our top stories on Facebook The Robertson Boulevard bar, he said, already searches patrons bags and purses and asks them to open up bulky coats to see if they have anything dangerous underneath, Rosman said. On Sunday, the bar was extra vigilant, he said. The bars and clubs of West Hollywood are much more than a nightlife scene. For many, these spaces stand as a safe place and a haven for self expression. (Dillon Deaton/LA Times) It was about keeping our patrons safe and making sure people felt safe, Rosman said. We were worried with the news out of Orlando. We didnt know what would happen. The attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando the deadliest mass shooting in American history left 49 people dead and at least 53 injured. David Cooley, owner and founder of the Abbey, was in regular contact with Los Angeles County sheriffs deputies at the West Hollywood station to figure out the best safety precautions, Rosman said. Thousands of people lined the West Hollywood streets for the annual Pride parade Sunday, many of them saying it was more important than ever before to be visible and to not let hatred push them back into the closet. Full Coverage: Orlando nightclub shooting The Abbey staff, Rosman said, did not consider closing and had large crowds throughout the day. At 3 p.m., the crowd observed a moment of silence for the victims. It was really unusual to see the Abbey at full capacity and completely silent during Pride weekend, Rosman said. ALSO Victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre: Who they were FBI starts probe of Orlando shooters phones, computers; hundreds of leads are pursued Even after the Orlando massacre, the campaigning goes on as Trump and Clinton respond hailey.branson@latimes.com Twitter: @haileybranson The mother of former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner begged the judge not to sentence him to jail for sexual assault, saying hed never survive, according to court documents released last week. In a letter to Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky, Carleen Turner begged the jurist to spare her son from imprisonment because she feared what could happen to him. I beg of you, please dont send him to jail/prison, she wrote. Look at him. He wont survive it. He will be damaged forever and I fear he would be a major target. Stanford boy, college kid, college-athlete all the publicity this would be a death sentence for him. Advertisement His sister, Caroline Turner, asked Persky to consider counseling, community service and probation instead of jail and making him a burden of the state. Please give him the chance to use his time to educate and enact change, instead of serving time in jail, she wrote in a letter to Persky. Brock Turner is serving a six-month sentence in protective custody in a Santa Clara County jail. He will likely serve half of his sentence based on felony sentencing guidelines in California. Perskys sentencing of Turner has triggered widespread outrage, with critics calling the punishment far too lenient. When Turner was convicted by a jury in March, he faced a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence him to a six-year prison term for the three felony counts he was found guilty of: Assault with the intent to commit rape of an unconscious person; sexual penetration of an unconscious person; and sexual penetration of an intoxicated person. Later, his chief probation officer, Monica Lassettre, recommended a sentence of county jail, three years of probation and sex offender treatment, according to a probation report. NEWSLETTER: Get essential California headlines delivered daily In the weeks following Turners sentencing, nearly a million people have signed online petitions calling on the California Commission for Judicial Performance to remove Persky. Persky, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Gray Davis in 2003, is up for reelection in November. So far, no one has submitted paperwork to challenge Perksy or recall him, according to Anita Torres, spokeswoman for the Santa Clara County registrar of voters. The woman who was sexually assaulted by Turner read a 12-page letter in open court, calling the lack of a state prison sentence a soft time-out, a mockery of the seriousness of the assaults. More than 250 students signed a letter submitted to Persky before Turners sentencing, asking that he be held accountable for his actions. In a letter to Persky, founding members of the Stanford Assn. of Students for Sexual Assault Prevention said a light sentence would cause victims to lose trust in the legal system and send the wrong message, leaving widespread damage on college campuses everywhere. At Sundays commencement ceremony, several Stanford students waved signs in support of victims of sexual assault and called on university officials to publicly release names of students who were found responsible for sexual assault. In a statement released last week, Stanford said $2.7 million of the universitys budget next year is earmarked for programs to combat sexual violence. Prevention, through education and training, is at the heart of Stanfords efforts to achieve a campus culture free of sexual violence, the university said. For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter. ALSO Some Stanford graduates protest during Sundays commencement ceremony Brock Turners sentence proves again the advantage of being white, well-off and educated I made a mistake: Two women apologize for letters supporting Stanford rapist Brock Turner A federal grand jury has indicted an Orange County doctor and his two physician assistants for drug trafficking, saying they issued prescriptions for dangerous and addictive narcotics including oxycodone and methadone without a medical purpose. Within days of seeing Dr. Victor Boon Huat Siew, at least four patients he wrote prescriptions for died of drug overdoses, according to the 56-count indictment made public Monday. Those deaths occurred in 2009, 2010 and 2013, according to the indictment. Siew, 65, of Laguna Beach, is accused of seeing patients at his Fountain Valley clinic some of whom were addicted to drugs, and some of whom were undercover law enforcement officers and issuing prescriptions outside the usual course of professional practice. Advertisement See the most-read stories this hour According to the indictment, Siew and his employees allegedly wrote prescriptions for narcotics for patients who often paid cash for office visits that typically involved only the most cursory examination, if at all. Siew and his employees repeatedly wrote prescriptions for oxycodone and methadone, according to authorities. Medical professionals who prescribe dangerous drugs without a medical need are harming patients and threaten entire communities... U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker Opioids such as oxycodone and methadone can bring substantial benefits to patients who truly need these drugs, said U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker. But narcotics such as these also threaten the lives of people who abuse the drugs or become addicted. Medical professionals who prescribe dangerous drugs without a medical need are harming patients and threaten entire communities when these drugs are diverted to the black market. The indictment charges one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and 55 counts of illegal distribution of a controlled substance by a practitioner. Each of the defendants is charged in multiple, but not all, the distribution counts. Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter Siew is due to surrender Tuesday while physician assistant Thanh Nha T. Pham, 45, of Fountain Valley has agreed to surrender to authorities this week. The second physician assistant, Kaitlyn Phuong Nguyen, 31, was arrested by federal authorities in the Bay Area. Each of the charges carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. ALSO West Hollywood gay bar considering armed guards after Orlando shooting Vigils are planned throughout California to mourn victims of Orlando shooting Ex-L.A. County sheriffs deputy at center of jail scandal is given six months in prison An Indiana man who told Santa Monica police he was on his way to the L.A. Pride parade in West Hollywood when he was found with with assault rifles and explosives-making materials in his car is scheduled to make an initial court appearance Tuesday, jail records show. The arrest of James Wesley Howell, 20, raised alarms hours after a gunman killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Howell was taken into custody after officers found him seated in a car in Santa Monica with three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines, ammunition and a 5-gallon bucket containing chemicals that can be used to make an improvised-explosive device Sunday. Jail records show he is being held on $500,000 bail and is scheduled to be in court Tuesday. Advertisement Investigators are still trying to figure out Howells intentions, but dont believe there is a connection between the incident and the Orlando massacre. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks initially said on Twitter that during the arrest, the suspect told one of her officers of wanting to harm Gay Pride event. But Lt. Saul Rodriguez, a Santa Monica police spokesman, said later that the tweet was a misstatement and that Seabrooks had been given incorrect information. Howell told investigators that he was going to the Pride festival but did not make additional statements about his intentions, Rodriguez said. Howell was booked on charges that include possession of a firearm, possession of an improvised-explosive device and possession of high-capacity magazines, Rodriguez said. At a news conference Sunday afternoon, police stressed that they were still trying to determine what Howell planned to do with the weapons. Authorities considered canceling the annual L.A. Pride parade but decided to proceed Sunday morning under tightened security, including undercover officers in the crowd, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Live updates: Orlando terror attack Santa Monica police received a call about 5 a.m. Sunday of someone knocking on a residents door and window near Olympic Boulevard and 11th Street. Patrol officers arrived to find Howell seated in a white Acura with Indiana plates, with a rifle visible on the seat, Rodriguez said. A law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the contents of the bucket found in the car included Tannerite, an ingredient that could be used to create explosives. The source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, said authorities also found camouflage clothing in the car. Los Angeles County sheriffs officials said the suspect told police he was going to the Pride parade to look for a friend. Authorities were looking for that individual. Howell was charged in October 2015 with intimidation with a deadly weapon and pointing a loaded firearm at another person, according to Indiana court and police records. Howell allegedly pointed a gun at two people, according to reports released by the Charlestown Police Department. In the first case, on Oct. 14, an ex-boyfriend alleged that Howell had pointed an AR-style rifle at him, though Howell denied that and said he had kept the gun up on his shoulder. Howell was arrested the next day after neighbors called police to report that Howell had pointed a gun at one of them. On April 19, Howell pleaded guilty to misdemeanor intimidation and prosecutors dropped the pointing a firearm charge. Court records show he was sentenced to a year in state prison and placed on probation. Under the deal, he agreed to forfeit all weapons while he was on probation. Reached by phone Sunday, Howells ex-boyfriend Richard Hambrick said Howell had at least four firearms. He likes his guns, Hambrick said. Howells friend and fellow car club member Joseph Greeson, 18, said Howell was bisexual and didnt harbor any ill will towards gays or lesbians. Greeson said Howells family in Jeffersonville hadnt seen him for days and that his parents had called Greesons parents looking for him. Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman, said the bureau is conducting a joint investigation with Santa Monica police. Two law enforcement sources said Howell could face federal charges in connection with the guns and potential explosive materials recovered from the vehicle. They cautioned that Howell had said little to investigators while in custody other than that he planned to attend the gay pride parade. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Howell, according to a law enforcement source, has an outstanding warrant from Kentucky. Kentucky Court records show he has a pending criminal case in the county that includes Louisville and a court appearance next month. A Facebook page under Howells name said he attended high school in Louisville, Ky., and lives in Jeffersonville, Ind., where he works for an air filtration company. A car enthusiast, Howell posted numerous photographs of white Acura cars similar to the one found in Santa Monica, with a couple of videos taken from inside cars. A 10-second video on the page includes gunfire, with shots striking grass. Some posts are political, including one in which Hillary Clinton is compared to Adolf Hitler. Another repeats conspiracy theories that the government was behind notorious terrorist attacks, including Sept. 11, 2001. In that post is a video claiming that the 2015 terror attack on the Paris offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was a hoax and attributable to the New World Order. As police searched the white Acura on Sunday, items including a green blanket and red gasoline canister could be seen piled on the sidewalk next to the car. 1 / 11 Marchers hold letters that spell out Orlando in support of the victims in the shooting during the annual Gay Pride parade in West Hollywood. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 11 Marchers carry signs that read, We Are Orlando, while walking down Santa Monica Blvd. during the annual Gay Pride Parade. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 11 Men process down Santa Monica Blvd. under a gay pride rainbow during the annual Gay Pride Parade. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 11 A large group of people process down Santa Monica Blvd. during the annual Gay Pride parade. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 11 Members of UFCW Local 770 march under gay pride colored banners during the annual Gay Pride Parade. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 11 A L.A. Sheriff Deputies keep a watchful eye out as people process during the LA Pride Parade in West Hollywood. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 11 A moment of silence by Garcetti and crowd for the victims of the shooting attack in Orlando. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 11 Police and FBI agents stand by to provide security for the 2016 L.A. Pride celebration. (Mark Ralson / AFP / Getty Images) 9 / 11 Members of the FBI Joint Terrorism task force stand by to provide security for the 2016 Gay Pride Parade in Los Angeles, California. Security for the tightened in the aftermath of the deadly shootings in Orlando. (Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images) 10 / 11 Los Angeles police officers stand by to provide security for the 2016 Gay Pride Parade. The tightened security comes in the aftermath of the deadly shootings in Orlando. (Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images) 11 / 11 Police stand by to provide security for the 2016 Gay Pride Parade. Security for the tightened in the aftermath of the deadly shootings in Orlando. (Mark Ralston / AFP / Getty Images) Also visible were a security-style badge, two gun magazines held together with rubber bands, a rifle scope, boxes of ammunition and court papers from the Louisville area. The cars Indiana license plate had the logo of the National Rifle Assn., a specialty plate offered in that state. The events in Orlando and Santa Monica cast a shadow over the L.A. Pride celebration, though thousands still attended. City officials and civic leaders began the parade with a moment of silence and speeches calling for the occasion to serve as a rallying cry and a refutation to the violence. Alonso Pina, 25, said news of the Orlando shooting and the Santa Monica arrest caused him to look over his shoulder and keep closer eye on the parade crowd, but he never considered staying home. Its definitely not a happy pride, its a sad pride, he said. If something happens, it happened when I was showing my pride. Rebecca Carr, 23, said she felt it was important to attend, even though her mother heard about the Santa Monica arrest and told her not to to go. I said, We need each other. That cant stop me, said Carr, who is bisexual. We need to know were all here for each other. Times staff writers Tony Barboza, Hailey Branson-Potts, Kate Mather and Joel Rubin contributed to this report. ALSO Victims of the Orlando massacre: Who they were Orlando mayor: We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater Authorities considered canceling L.A. Pride after Orlando attack, but march and mourning go on UPDATES: 5:50 a.m.: This article has been updated with information about James Howells court appearance. This article was originally published at 4:11 a.m. It was a random yet chilling discovery. Just hours after a gunman opened fire at a popular gay nightclub in Florida, Santa Monica police officers stumbled upon a parked motorist with a cache of weapons and explosive chemicals some displayed openly in his vehicle. When asked what he was doing, 20-year-old James Wesley Howell told officers he was bound for the L.A. Pride festival. As the LGBT community and the nation as a whole mourn the death of 49 club-goers in Orlando, Fla., local investigators say they do not believe Howells actions were tied to the massacre or that he intended to cause harm at L.A. Pride. Advertisement Nevertheless, it remains unclear exactly why Howell had driven from his home state of Indiana with a small arsenal and what, if anything, he intended to do with it. What is known however is that Howells past behavior demonstrates a hot temper and penchant for armed intimidation of those around him. The boy was young and dumb and had a mouth on him, said Jeremy Hebert, a former Indiana neighbor who was once threatened at gunpoint by Howell, according to court documents. Howell was arrested just before 5 a.m. Sunday in the 1700 block of 11th Street in Santa Monica. A resident there had called police to say that a prowler had knocked on their front door and window. Officers had arrived to find Howell sitting in his white Acura. Upon searching the vehicle officers discovered three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines, ammunition and a 5-gallon bucket containing chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device, police said. It was Howell who had been knocking, but the resident did not know him, said. Lt. Saul Rodriguez. Howell was booked by Santa Monica police on suspicion of possessing an explosive device, possessing a loaded firearm in a vehicle and possessing high-capacity magazines. According to FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller, Howell remains in state custody while investigators consult with prosecutors at the district attorneys office in Los Angeles and the United States attorneys office to determine whether Mr. Howell will be charged at either the state or federal level in relation to the weapons and other items found in his vehicle. FULL COVERAGE: Orlando nightclub shooting Howell is being held on $500,000 bond and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday, according to jail records. Before his arrival in California, Howell had threatened people with firearms on three occasions, according to court records in Indiana. In two of those incidents, Howell was accused of threatening a man who identified himself as Howells boyfriend. The first threat occurred on Oct. 11, 2015, at a McDonalds in Charlestown, Ind., according to court records. When a police officer arrived, a manager informed him that her employee, identified as Richard Hambrick, said his boyfriend had called and threatened to shoot him when he got off work. When the officer spoke with Howell, he denied the allegations. Days later on Oct. 14, officers were called to Howells residence in Charlestown. When police arrived they were met by Hambrick, who said he had gone to the address to recover some of his possessions. However, when he entered the yard, Howell came out with an AR rifle, pointed it at him and told him to leave. James told me if I stepped foot in his yard, he would kill me, Hambrick told police. Another witness also told police that Howell had come out of the house and pointed a rifle at Hambrick. Howell told police that he told Hambrick to leave his yard and then grabbed his rifle, held it up on his shoulder and continued to ask him to leave the yard. I kept the gun pointing toward the sky up on my shoulder, Howell told police. Other witnesses also told police that Howell had kept the gun on his shoulder and did not point it at Hambrick. Reached by phone Sunday, Hambrick told The Times that Howell had at least four guns. He likes his guns, Hambrick said. The third incident occurred just one day later, on Oct. 15. Neighbors reported that Howell allegedly pointed a gun at a resident, according to reports released by the Charlestown Police Department. In that incident, Howell allegedly emerged from the side of his home with a loaded .44-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun and pointed it at a neighbor who was arguing with one of Howells roommates, according to a Charlestown police report. The roommate and her husband lived with Howell, police said. Witnesses said the woman stepped outside and accused her husband and their neighbors of insulting her. The group said they werent talking about the woman, but that they were talking about a cat that had been poisoned a few months earlier, the police report stated. As one of the neighbors approached the woman to clarify what they had said, Howell stepped out from the side of the home with the gun and pointed it at the neighbor, the report states. See the most-read stories this hour >> It was a large pistol and he drew it from behind his back, the neighbor told police. The neighbors wife called police. The first officer on the scene eventually approached Howell and told him he was detaining him until he could determine what happened, the report states. When Howell turned around to be handcuffed, the officer could see a large revolver protruding from his waistband in the small of his back, court documents show. Several witnesses corroborated the victims story and Howell was arrested for intimidation with a weapon and pointing a firearm. One neighbor told police that Howell is going to get someone hurt and he needs to quit pointing guns at people, documents show. Howell was convicted in the incident and sentenced to probation earlier this year, court documents show. In a telephone interview Monday, Hebert, the neighbor who was threatened, said he was disturbed to hear about Howells arrest. I would have never thought he would go out there to do something like that, Hebert said. But you just cant ever tell with some people. Months later, Howell was arrested again, this time in Kentucky for allegedly evading police during a traffic stop. Howell was stopped on Feb. 25 on an expressway in Jefferson County for a traffic violation, said his attorney, Ryan Vantrease. The officer approached Howell in his vehicle, got his drivers license information, and then returned to his police cruiser. Thats when Howell gunned out of there, Vantrease said. There was no high-speed chase, or anything like that, he said. Howell got away, but police already had his information. Investigators presented evidence to the district attorney who then filed charges against Howell, his attorney said. In that case, Howell is charged with felony evading a police officer, reckless driving and speeding. Robert Boyd, Howells second attorney in the Kentucky case, told The Times on Monday his clients father and mother are struggling to get details about their sons latest arrest. His family is shocked to learn about the situation, he said. Initially, Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said on Twitter that Howell told one of her officers after he was arrested that he wanted to harm Gay Pride event. A department spokesman said later the tweet was a misstatement and that although Howell told investigators that he was going to the Pride festival, he did not make additional statements about his intentions. Howells family is fully cooperating with federal investigators, according to Boyd. He added that Howells family was concerned about the Santa Monica Police Department spreading misinformation about their sons arrest. Details about the case, Boyd said, may have been blown out of proportion. They are very interested to find out the true facts of the case, he said. Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report. For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna. MORE LOCAL NEWS Vigils are planned throughout California to mourn victims of Orlando shooting Look at him. He wont survive it: Brock Turners mom begged judge not to put him in prison West Hollywood gay bar considering armed guards after Orlando shooting UPDATES: 7:24 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. This article was originally published at 2:12 p.m. For decades, the Calderon name carried weight. Ronald and Tom Calderon, along with an older brother, were power brokers and deal makers who rose up from the small-time politics of Montebello, their hometown east of Los Angeles, to hold sway in Sacramentos corridors of power. Known for a ruthless style of political hardball and audacious fundraising, the brothers were masters of leverage, using others wants and weaknesses to their advantage. But in recent years whispers about misdeeds and broken laws erupted into the open as federal prosecutors indicted the two Democrats on a host of bribery and money laundering charges. Advertisement Monday brought a crushing blow to the family dynasty as Ron Calderon, a former state senator, pleaded guilty in the case to mail fraud, conceding he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in bribes from undercover FBI agents and a corrupt hospital executive. The announcement of the plea agreement came on the heels of a guilty plea last week by Tom Calderon, a former state assemblyman, to a charge of money laundering that stemmed from allegations he helped conceal the bribes his brother solicited. The plea deals mean the brothers will avoid a trial that had been scheduled to begin next month and was expected to feature a whos who of state lawmakers, including Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), who testified before a grand jury in the case and who prosecutors planned to call as a witness. This closes a sad chapter in the Senates history, De Leon said in a statement Monday. We move on. See the most-read stories this hour >> Although the guilty plea spares Calderon the possibility of a jury convicting him and the harsh punishment that would have followed, he is almost certain to be given a lengthy prison sentence. Under the terms of the deal, prosecutors agreed only to request that U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder sentence him to no more than 70 months behind bars the low end of what sentencing guidelines suggest. His brother, meanwhile, is expected to receive about a year in prison. Along with a guilty plea for mail fraud, the deal filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles calls on Calderon not to contest any of the other allegations prosecutors leveled against him in a 2014 indictment. Although a mail fraud charge sounds somewhat innocuous, included within it are an array of allegations that Calderon solicited and received bribes for himself and his children. For example, Calderon, 58, admitted that he pressured the owner of a Long Beach hospital to hire his son as a paid summer intern in exchange for pushing legislation in Sacramento that would have benefited the man. Similarly, Calderon acknowledged he agreed to push for a state law that would have provided a tax break for producers of smaller-scale, independent films. He made the legislative moves on behalf of men he believed were film executives, but who were actually undercover FBI agents. In return, Calderon demanded that his daughter be put on one mans payroll for a fabricated job and that the would-be executives send a $25,000 check to an organization run by Tom Calderon. The brothers used the organization as a front to enrich themselves, the plea agreement said. Ron Calderons attorney, Mark Geragos, had steadfastly declared his clients innocence and vowed to beat the charges. He previously described the case as the definition of entrapment a reference to work the FBI agents did to lure Calderon in and said the alleged offenses had been manufactured by the government at the cost of millions of dollars to the taxpayer. Geragos could not be reached for comment Monday. The plea agreements mark the downfall of a political dynasty in California that saw members of the same Los Angeles County family wield power in the Capitol for more than three decades. One or more Calderons have been part of the state Legislature since the 1982 election of Charles Calderon, a Democrat from Whittier and brother to Ronald and Tom. Its a huge fall from power for the family because they were riding the crest, said Jaime A. Regalado, emeritus professor of political science at California State L.A. Its from the top of the mountain to the deepest valley. Charles Calderon, who lost a race for Superior Court judge in 2014 after his brothers indictment, at one time was the Senate majority leader. He helped elect his son, Ian Calderon, to the Assembly in 2012. Ian Calderon distanced himself from his uncles after their indictment and is the last remaining family member in state office. Neither Charles nor Ian were charged or implicated in the criminal scandal. The Calderons came to prominence as Latinos were beginning to gain more political clout in Sacramento. Changing demographics left Latinos as the majority in a large swath of communities south and east of downtown Los Angeles. Playing musical chairs, Tom Calderon served in the Assembly from 1998 to 2002, when Ron Calderon was elected to the Assembly. Ron jumped to the Senate four years later, earning a reputation as a moderate vote for business. After his indictment, he was suspended with pay for the last eight months of his term in office, which ended in November 2014. The Calderons all were skilled at political fundraising: the family raised nearly $15 million in contributions for dozens of political committees they controlled since 2000, the Times has reported. Much of the fundraising took place at lavish resorts where family members liked to golf. The older generations members used their political muscle to help one another, squeezing political opponents and pushing legislation backed by supporters. They also leveraged their power to gain important chairmanships on powerful juice committees, those overseeing banking, insurance and other industries that have the cash to bankroll political campaigns. Until his legal troubles began, Ron Calderon was chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee. Tom Calderon was also able to benefit from his family name to obtain a lucrative consulting contract with the Central Basin Municipal Water District, which serves 2 million people in southeast Los Angeles County. Tom Calderon was paid to advise the district when his brother was in the Senate. Ian Calderon has won reelection once and is running again this year. By distancing himself from his uncles and raising funds for a political reform measure on this months ballot, the youngest Calderon has shown signs he may be able to survive the fallout from the scandal that engulfed his relatives, according to Jack Pitney, a professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College. Family members once succeeded because of the family name, Pitney said. Ian Calderon is succeeding despite the family name. Join the conversation on Facebook >> The Calderons were two in a handful of current and former legislators to face criminal charges in 2014. Former Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) was sentenced in February to five years in prison for doing political favors in exchange for campaign cash, and former Sen. Roderick D. Wright (D-Inglewood) was found guilty of lying about living in his district. Its the end of a chapter, Bob Stern, an attorney who co-wrote the states political reform laws, said of Ron Calderons plea. The Legislature suffered a black eye. joel.rubin@latimes.com; patrick.mcgreevy@latimes.com Twitter: @joelrubin, @mcgreevy99 ALSO Former Assemblyman Tom Calderon pleads guilty in federal money laundering case California voters favor letting state legislators be suspended without pay for misconduct Assemblyman Calderon backs Proposition 50 ballot measure spurred by his uncles legal problems MORE LOCAL NEWS Authorities considered canceling L.A. Pride after Orlando attack, but march and mourning go on Stanford rape case: Protest planned at graduation Inglewood to pay $4.6 million to unarmed man shot by police officer UPDATES: 7:53 p.m.: This story was updated with additional background about the Calderons. 6:07 p.m.: This story was updated throughout with background details and quotes about the Calderons and the criminal case. This story was originally published at 1:49 p.m. They came to pay their respects, to mourn, to comfort each other. The crowd of more than 2,000 people gathered Monday evening at the steps of Los Angeles City Hall to honor the victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., over the weekend. "We are with our family in Orlando and everywhere else our community faces hate and violence," said Justine Gonzalez, a member of the Los Angeles Transgender Advisory Council. "And so I urge each and every one of us to love, to never slow down. To show the agents of fear and hate that they can't win. They will not hate us away." As the names of the 49 people killed were read aloud, the crowd lifted their smartphones into the air, making a starry night of the masses gathered before City Hall. Singer Lady Gaga, whose surprise appearance drew gasps from the crowd, called the shootings "an attack on humanity itself" and urged everyone to mourn "these innocent, beautiful people." "Let's all today pledge an allegiance of love to them and to their families who are suffering so deeply," she said. The vigil and rally was organized by the Los Angeles LGBT Center. MAP: Orlando shooting vigils in Southern California Other observances were held across the Southland on Monday night. The Islamic Center of Southern California and Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace hosted an interfaith vigil at the center in Koreatown. A vigil was held at Mickys West Hollywood, a gay nightclub on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, and the San Diego LGBT Community Center hosted a candlelight vigil Monday evening. At the L.A. City Hall event, members of the crowd waved rainbow flags and signs. Valentino Lugo, of South Los Angeles, held a sign that read We Are Not Afraid / We Have Fought Before / We Will / Fight / Once More!" Lugo said he decided to attend the vigil "to support the victims in Orlando and to let people know we don't need to be afraid. We're not going to be anyone's victim." Lorri L. Jean, chief executive of the Los Angeles LGBT center, roused the crowd by declaring that the attack was not instigated by the terror group ISIS, but by extremists closer to home -- including divisive politicians such as presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. But those in attendance quickly turned somber when speakers urged them to grieve for the Orlando shooting victims. Let us not forget that it is time to mourn, Rabbi Denise L. Eger of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood told the crowd. We must mourn those amazing, precious souls in Orlando. Juan Carlos Hernandez, who owns a downtown clothing store, came to the vigil with a Mexican flag draped over his shoulder. He said he was saddened by the deaths of so many young people -- so many of them Latinos like himself. "They were so young -- beginning a life in the great freedom of this country," Hernandez, who is from Acapulco, said in Spanish. "Nobody had the right to snuff out their lives." Hernandez, who is gay, said the attack has made him more worried to go out to clubs or even on the street at night. "If we don't do anything, there will be more attacks," he said. https://twitter.com/byjsong/status/742532437394128897 ALSO West Hollywood gay bar considering armed guards after Orlando shooting Orange County religious and community leaders decry Orlando violence, urge unity San Francisco vows that its own Pride celebration will go on emily.reyes@latimes.com jason.song@latimes.com ben.poston@latimes.com UPDATES: 9:42 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with quotes and details from the City Hall vigil. 7:17 p.m.: This article was updated with information about the vigil Los Angeles City Hall. 1:24 p.m.: This article was updated with information about a vigil at Mickys in West Hollywood. This article was originally published at 11:11 a.m. The Supreme Court turned down an appeal on Monday from American Samoans who said they deserved the right to be U.S. citizens at birth. The courts action leaves in place a law adopted in 1900 that says persons born in American Samoa will be considered nationals who owe allegiance to the United States, but not citizens with the right to vote and hold public office. Were obviously very disappointed. This means there will be many Samoans living in California, including veterans, who will not be able to vote in November, said Neil Weare, a civil rights lawyer and president of We the People Project, which sponsored the lawsuit brought by the Samoan Federation of America, based in Carson. Advertisement Acting without comment, the justices refused to review a U.S. appeals court ruling that said it is up to Congress, not the courts, to change the legal status of American Samoans. But currently, all people born in the 50 states and the other U.S. territories, including Guam and Puerto Rico, become U.S. citizens at birth. The lawsuit brought by five Samoan plaintiffs pointed to the 14th Amendment adopted after the Civil War, which declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States shall be U.S. citizens. In the early 1900s, however, the Supreme Court ruled that people in the newly acquired U.S. territories were not entitled to all the constitutional rights of American citizens. In 1901, Justice Henry Brown said the development of the American empire could be set back by the annexation of distant possessions, which are inhabited by alien races. The lawyers who sued on behalf of the Samoans hoped the high court would revisit the issue of birthright citizenship and overrule the earlier decisions that had authorized what they described as second-class status for the people of the U.S. territories. During the 20th century, Congress extended citizenship rights to the people of the other territories, except for the people of American Samoa. The timing of appeal may have played a role in its dismissal. Since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, the eight justices have granted review of only a handful of new cases, and most of those arose because the lower courts had split on an issue of law. On Monday, the court said it had denied review in more than 100 pending appeals, including Tuana vs. United States, the Samoans case. No new cases won a review. ------------ FOR THE RECORD 7:33 a.m., June 15: This article misspelled a name in a case citation. It is Tuaua vs. United States, not Tuana vs. United States. ------------ See more of our top stories on Facebook Separately Monday, the court left in place the Obama administrations anti-pollution rules that require power plants to sharply restrict emissions of mercury and other toxic chemicals. The justices turned away an appeal from Michigan and 19 other Republican-led states, which contended the rules were too costly and illegal. Last year, Scalia spoke for a 5-4 ruling that rebuked the Environmental Protection Agency for failing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before publishing the long-delayed rules. That decision, however, stopped short of striking down the new rules, which had just taken effect. Earlier this year, EPA published its cost-benefit analysis. Michigans attorney general appealed, arguing the rules should be put on hold while further legal challenges go forward. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj But the court said Monday it would not hear the latest appeal in Michigan vs. EPA. Today, millions of American families and children can breathe easier knowing that these life-saving limits on toxic pollution are intact, said Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund. ALSO Supreme Court rules against Puerto Rico in debt case An act of terror and an act of hate: The aftermath of Americas worst mass shooting Fighting Obamacare, many red states find fewer tools to fight opioid addiction epidemic On Twitter: DavidGSavage UPDATES: 12:55 p.m.: This article was updated with reaction and background details. 8:17 a.m.: This post was updated with a report on a separate action involving Environmental Protection Agency mercury rules. This post was originally published at 7:24 a.m. At 2:02 a.m. on a muggy night in central Florida, a gunman traded shots with an off-duty police officer, slipped into a nightclub with a rifle and killed at least 50 people in the most lethal mass shooting in U.S. history. At 5:05 a.m., a tactical unit stormed the club and the shooter was killed. The intervening three hours required responding officers to choose a strategy: Do they charge in on a barricaded suspect, risking hostage lives? Or do they negotiate with a mass shooter, hoping to save those still inside? Police training on the subject has evolved since 13 people were killed by a pair of teenage gunmen at Colorados Columbine High School in 1999. At that time, many officers were taught to respond to a mass shooting by simply containing the scene, preventing violence from spreading. Advertisement But for many departments, the high death toll at Columbine prompted a reevaluation, with officers often opting to confront a shooter on the rampage as soon as possible, before he or she can inflict further carnage. When the Bataclan theater in Paris was attacked by three heavily armed gunmen in November, tactical police units raided the hall within 35 minutes. Now, the Orlando, Fla., Police Department is facing questions about the length of time it took to end a shooting at the Pulse nightclub early Sunday morning. Police said they treated the incident as a hostage situation for two hours before a police tactical unit arrived. When they first arrive at an active shooting scene, police face a quick decision, said Suffolk County, N.Y., Chief of Patrol Stuart Cameron, who has written several academic journal articles about police protocol when faced with an active shooter. If police rush in on a barricaded suspect, they risk the lives of their officers and the hostages. But if they delay in responding to an active shooter, that can also be risky: Analyses of past shootings suggest that one person is killed every 15 seconds in a typical mass-casualty shooting, Cameron said. The onus for early action falls on the first officers to arrive. According to FBI statistics, in 57% of active shooting incidents, police were at the scene before the shooting ended. The intent of the shooter is also critical, Cameron said, and he teaches officers to distinguish among suspects looking to knowingly commit a crime against an individual or small group; the mentally ill; and terrorists. If the shooting crosses into terrorism, Cameron said, that changes the equation. Terrorism suspects are less likely to let their hostages live, and may tell police during a mass-casualty incident such as those in Mumbai in 2008 and in Paris last year that they are willing to negotiate, only to prolong the media exposure of a terrorist attack. An important initial decision is, what are the consequences of taking action [or] not taking action, wrote Leroy Thompson, paramilitary trainer and author of The Hostage Rescue Manual. Unless hostages or bystanders are being killed, once the incident is contained, the initial responders should try to slow things down. The guideline to officers Cameron trains is to run toward gunfire, Cameron said. But when the gunfire stops, you stop, Cameron said. You dont know whats going on inside there. He could have hostages, he could have killed himself or he could be waiting for you to come charging in without a plan. Orlando police referred questions about their protocol for responses to an active shooter to the FBI, which then referred specific questions back to the Orlando police. The first reports of a shooting came at 2:02 a.m., when suspect Omar Mateen is alleged to have fired on an off-duty Orlando police officer working security, and then ran into the club, which held more than 200 people. After the initial gunfire, police made contact with Mateen while he was inside the club, but police have not said what was discussed. Shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday, the nightclub posted on its Facebook page: Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running. Details about exactly what happened inside the club were unclear, but police waited outside. Some media reports suggested that police were waiting to get armored vehicles on the scene and to make sure they had enough personnel to storm the nightclub. At 5:05 a.m., police distracted Mateen with an explosive device and plowed into the building with a vehicle. Inside, they found dozens dead and dozens more wounded. nigel.duara@latimes.com ALSO Victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre: Who they were A stranger was bleeding in the parking lot. This man saved his life with a shirt and a bear hug I complained multiple times that he was dangerous, former co-worker says of Orlando shooter It was last call early Sunday morning at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Josh McGill and his roommate were with hundreds of patrons milling toward the bar when they heard a loud bang. Pop! Pop! Pop! The sound ripped through the music. McGill thought someone had shot off fireworks a cruel prank? He ducked slightly and jerked to the side, just in case, but then another club-goer pulled his roommates arm. That wasnt a joke, the man said. That was a gunshot. Before it was over, at least 50 people were killed and 53 were wounded in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, was killed by a SWAT team after taking hostages, investigators said. Advertisement After the initial barrage, McGill and his friends fell to the floor and crawled first to the patio area where they had stood moments before, then to the fence and the parking lot beyond. Is this really happening? McGill, 26, remembers thinking. The night had started like any other Saturday at the Pulse, a regular haunt for those who, like him, work at its sister bar, Southern Nights Orlando. They had arrived shortly before midnight, ready to drink Vodka Red Bulls and unwind. Two hours later, the trouble started. Oh my God! Theres gunshots! McGill heard people yell as they tried to escape. Once he and his friends made it out to the parking lot, they ran toward the police perimeter a few hundred feet away. But before they could make it, more shots cracked through the screams. McGill jumped out of the way, in case there was crossfire. He huddled behind a car, and eventually crawled underneath it. His friends kept going. I heard shots consistently firing left and right and they were getting more faint, so I thought he was going farther inside, he said of the shooter. Before he again tried to move toward the police, he noticed a man stumbling toward him, covered in blood. Can you help me? the man pleaded. McGill grabbed the stranger and pulled him behind the car. I think I got shot, the man said. McGill searched the mans body and quickly found two bullet wounds one in each arm. Dont worry, I got you, McGill said. He knew he needed to stop the bleeding. He pulled off his lavender V-neck shirt and wrapped it around the arm of the weakening man slouched against him. Blood poured onto McGills jeans. He grabbed the wounded mans shirt and tied it around the other arm. We just need to make it to the perimeter, McGill said, trying to encourage the stranger to move. But the mans back was hurting and he couldnt walk alone; thats when McGill saw the mans back, covered in blood from yet another gunshot wound. McGill ushered them both to the safety zone, where he saw a bystander observing the chaos. Give me your shirt! he called out. The man took it off without a word, and McGill pressed it to the strangers bleeding back. When they finally managed to reach an officer at the perimeter, they were assured that a police car was coming to take them to the emergency room. McGills job, the officer told him, was to lay down in the back of the car. We will lay him on top of you, and you bear hug him, the officer said. Keep him conscious, no matter what, McGill was told as they rushed off down the road. Hey, man, my name is Josh, he said, his arms covered in the blood of a man hed just met. What do you do? My name is Rodney. Im from Jacksonville, the man replied quietly. I dont know if youre religious or not, but Ill say a prayer with you, McGill said. Rodney mumbled something inaudible. McGill made promises he didnt know he could keep. He swore the man would be OK, that everything was turning out fine. He held him as tightly as he could. When they got to the hospital, doctors wheeled Rodney inside. Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that. Being covered in blood, McGill said. Trying to save a guys life that I dont even know. Hours later, McGill tracked down Rodneys family to find out how he had fared. He was recovering, they said. Sunday afternoon, McGill returned to the hospital, needing, he said, to visit the man whose life hed held in his arms in the back of a car. But the doctors turned him away. sarah.parvini@latimes.com ALSO Victims of the Orlando massacre: Who they were Orlando nightclub gunman, born in U.S. to Afghan immigrants, pledged allegiance to Islamic State Editorial: Mass murder in Orlando is the most recent in a horrific parade of violence The news of the Pulse nightclub shooting took Abel Alan Fingurs back to his childhood a generation ago, when the gay rights movement was in its infancy and he was often scared. But on Sunday, the 52-year-old piano player came to West Hollywood anyway, determined to celebrate Pride Month and all it represents. I am not going to let fear run my life like it did when I was a child, said Fingurs, choking up as he watched the parade pass by. We are not afraid. Advertisement The attack in Orlando, Fla., which left 50 people dead and 53 wounded, cast a shadow over a usually joyful weekend, when its often easy to forget that being gay in America can still be a risk. Across the country, the gay community struggled to reconcile the slaughter with the dramatic strides it has made toward equal rights over the last few years. Sundays mass shooting, the deadliest in U.S. history, followed years of unprecedented progress for the countrys gay rights movement. In the last five years, the U.S. has reversed policies that barred same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits and marrying, and prevented openly gay men and women from serving in the military. A majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage, as do a growing number of religious groups. For more than a decade, Pulse has been popular with central Floridas gay community. Patrons flock to the club to sing karaoke, watch drag queens and dance to salsa and bachata music on Latin nights. Online tributes to Pulse poured in Sunday from across the country. Several men and women said it was the first gay club they visited, before they came out to their friends and families. The clubs name refers to a heartbeat, in honor of the owners brother, who died of AIDS in 1991. These places have significance to our community, which is what makes this all the worse, said Carlos Guillermo Smith, a spokesman for Equality Florida. We still arent where we need to be as a society. Lauren Brown, 26, of Silver Lake was raised in Orlando, and went to Pulse as she began to explore her sexuality. The club became an important fixture, she said, as the place she first kissed a girl, the place she felt safe in her hometown. I feel very lucky that now I live in Los Angeles, where its easy to be out, she said. This is a depressing reminder that there are people who hate us. In the last two years, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates have fought a wave of legislation they say is toxic to LGBT Americans. This year, North Carolina became the first state to ban people from using government-owned restrooms and locker rooms that dont match the gender written on their birth certificates. A Mississippi law allows businesses and faith-based groups to deny housing, jobs and adoption services to people based on their sexual orientation. As lines at blood donation centers grew longer Sunday, some people railed that gay men are still typically banned from donating blood, a legacy of the AIDS epidemic. From AIDS to killings of transgender people, the LGBT community is too familiar with tragedy, said Lorri L. Jean, the chief executive of the Los Angeles LGBT Center. But Sundays attack still shocked, then saddened, her. Then I pretty quickly became mad that this is still happening in the United States, Jean said. They win if we allow these senseless and hateful acts to make us get back in the closet. The Pulse attack spurred an outpouring of support from across the social and political spectrum. Political figures including President Obama and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida condemned the attacks. The Empire State Building remained dark Sunday night in honor of the victims. Blood donation centers have been overwhelmed. The Empire State Building in New York goes dark in reaction to the Orlando mass shooting. (Bryan R. Smith / AFP/Getty Images ) Within hours of the shooting, more than 100 We Are Orlando vigils had been organized across the country, from the courthouse steps in Butte, Mont., to gay bars in Greensboro, N.C., and Tulsa, Okla. Others occurred internationally, including in London and Vancouver. In the Castro District of San Francisco, a quiet hush, punctuated by hugs and sniffles, enveloped more than a dozen passersby who gazed at a makeshift memorial of roses, sunflowers and lilies. Its an attack on every one of us, said Brian Levitt, 56, after he re-taped a sign on orange construction paper that said in Spanish, For our fallen brothers and sisters in Orlando. Hundreds of people crowded the street outside the Stonewall Inn in New York, where the modern gay rights movement took root. At the bars entrance, near a heavy police presence, mourners arranged dozens of red roses and a sign that said Stop the hate. Periodically, the crowd broke into chants of No hate! No hate! Theres always a sense of fear living your truth, said Quincy Bell, 34, who attended the New York vigil and said he had been to Pulse many times. The fear is always there. At 7 p.m. Monday in London, gay bars on Old Compton Street in Soho will stop serving drinks and turn off their music as staff and customers will head into the street to join hands in unity. People feel like they need to come together and be in one place because theyre shocked and people are scared, said Jeremy Joseph, who owns the popular nightclub G-A-Y. You have to not let it change our lives or the way we are living our lives, but we are living under a threat, constantly. On Sunday morning, police in Santa Monica arrested a man with a cache of weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials in his car who had apparently planned to attend the Pride parade in West Hollywood. Law enforcement and city officials had decided against canceling the annual event. Our freedoms were gained because we stood tall and strong against violence and hatred from the very beginning, West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran, who is gay, wrote in a Facebook post. We have walked through hatred and darkness, plague and intolerance, lost thousands of our people along the way. We will not cower to terrorists. Mark Oshiro, 32, grew up in Riverside, where he said he stayed closeted because he had seen violence against people who were gay. As he stood and watched the L.A. Pride parade with his partner, he reflected that the shooting is a painful reminder that we still have a lot of work to do. At one point, he looked behind his shoulder at a group of protesters gathered at the parade, holding signs that read, Jesus saves from hell. Those protests, Oshiro said, are more callous given what happened last night. As crowds waving rainbow flags converged on Santa Monica and Crescent Heights boulevards, two women wearing rainbow bandannas and temporary tattoos on their cheeks raised their fists in the air. Someone chanted: When our community comes under attack, what do we do? The crowd responded, Stand up! Fight back! laura.nelson@latimes.com hailey.branson@latimes.com brittny.mejia@latimes.com Nelson reported from Los Angeles and Branson-Potts and Mejia from West Hollywood. Times staff writer Ron Lin in San Francisco and special correspondents Peter Moskowitz in New York and Christina Boyle in London contributed to this report. ALSO Victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre: Who they were Orange County religious and community leaders decry Orlando violence, urge unity A stranger was bleeding in the parking lot. This man saved his life with a shirt and a bear hug 6:41 P.M. Orlando Orlando shooter had been removed from his job as a courthouse security guard Omar Mateen, shown in undated photograph. (AFP/Getty Images) Ken J. Mascara, the sheriff of St. Lucie County in Florida, said Thursday that the man who carried out the massacre at an Orlando nightclub was removed from his job as a security guard at the countys courthouse in 2013 after he made inflammatory comments about women, Jews and the mass shooting at Ft. Hood. Here is Mascaras statement: Omar Mateen was one of multiple contracted security guards that rotated through the St. Lucie County Courthouse as part of a contract with G4S Secure Solutions USA Inc. In early 2013, our staff was made aware of inflammatory comments made by Mateen. Our courthouse supervisor first requested that G4S management transfer him out of the courthouse rotation permanently. That was immediately granted. Our agency then made the appropriate notifications to inform our federal partners. It was at this time that the FBI began an investigation into Mateen that was later deemed inconclusive. Molly Hennessy-Fiske June 12, 2016, 4:30 p.m. Who they were: The victims of the Orlando terror attack Read more 2:06 P.M. Obama on gun violence President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at a memorial in Orlando, Fla., for the victims of Sundays mass shooting at a gay nightclub. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) The motives of this killer may have been different than mass shooters in Aurora or Newtown, but the instruments of death were so similar. President Obama 1:52 P.M. Watch President Obama speak in Orlando 1:28 P.M. Obama: Notion that being armed would have saved Orlando victims defies common sense President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden place flowers for the shooting victims at a memorial at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Fla., on June 16, 2016. (SAUL LOEBSAUL/AFP/Getty Images) In Orlando, Fla., President Obama referred to Donald Trumps recent claim that more lives could have been saved at Pulse if more patrons were armed themselves. Such a notion defies common sense, he said, without naming Trump. Obama said he was pleased the Senate would hold votes on gun safety measures, one day after Democrats waged a filibuster to force the issue. Earlier, Obama met with the owners and staff of the Pulse nightclub, a place, he said, to be who you truly are. The attack, an act of hate, was an opportunity for Americans to reflect on how we treat one another, Obama said. Hatred toward people because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes from, is a a betrayal of whats best in us, he said. Christi Parsons 1:26 P.M. Obama: Lone wolves require different approach Obama said the nation would continue to be relentless in its fight against terrorist networks like Al Qaeda and Islamic State. But he noted that attacks in Orlando, Fla., and San Bernardino were perpetrated not by sophisticated cells but so-called lone wolves, requiring a different approach. We cant anticipate or catch every single deranged person who may wish to do harm, he said. But we can do something about the damage they do. As he embraced the victims families, Obama said they pleaded for him to do more. They dont care about the politics, and neither do I, he said. Christi Parsons 1:25 P.M. reporting from orlando, fla. Most of all, there is love, Obama says in mourning Orlando victims Orlandos response to the Pulse shooting massacre is a reminder of what is good about America, President Obama said in an emotional tribute to the victims Thursday. After hours-long meetings with their families and survivors of the deadly attack, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden traveled to a makeshift memorial to leave bouquets of 49 white roses -- one for each life lost -- among the other flowers, balloons and photos that have collected there. In brief remarks to reporters after, Obama said those lost showed us what is best about humanity. It will carry us through this atrocity and other challenges, he said as a light rain began to fall. Out of this darkest of moments, that gives us hope. Though the city was shaken by an evil, hateful act, the president added, most of all, there is love. Christi Parsons 1:06 P.M. Sen. John McCain: Obama directly responsible for Orlando shooting Sen. John McCain speaks on Capitol Hill in April. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday that President Obama is directly responsible for the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla,, because Obama has allowed the growth of Islamic State group on his watch. McCain who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election made the comment to reporters while Obama was in Orlando visiting with the families of those killed in Sundays attack and some of the survivors. Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, Al Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obamas failures, utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq, a visibly angry McCain told reporters in the Capitol as the Senate debated a spending bill. So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies, McCain said. However, McCain later sought to clarify his comments, saying over Twitter: To clarify, I was referring to Pres Obamas national security decisions that have led to rise of #ISIL, not to the President himself. Associated Press This post was updated to reflect McCains clarification of his earlier remarks. The original post was published at 12:06 p.m. 12:04 P.M. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson also meets with victims families 11:09 A.M. Medical examiner kept gunmans body separate from victims The body of one of the Orlando massacre victims arrives at the Orange County, Fla., medical examiners office on June 12, 2016. (Alan Diaz / Associated Press) The medical examiner who oversaw the autopsies of the 49 victims in the Pulse nightclub shooting says he kept their bodies separated from the gunmans body. Dr. Joshua Stephany said in a statement Thursday that the remains of gunman Omar Mateen were being held in a building separate from the victims. He also says the gunmans autopsy was conducted in a separate building from the victims. Stephany says he decided to do that not because of any requirement but because he thought it was the right thing to do. The medical examiner says his staff was able to identify and conduct autopsies on the all victims within 72 hours after Sunday mornings shooting. Associated Press 10:59 A.M. Flags of Puerto Rico and Mexico appear in Orlando memorials Marisa Gerber 10:39 A.M. Obama arrives at the Amway Center 10:36 A.M. An Orlando cops gesture of solidarity with the citys Puerto Rican community Nearly half of those killed in the Pulse nightclub massacre had ties to Puerto Rico. 10:29 A.M. CIA director predicts more terrorist attacks like those in Orlando, Brussels and Paris John Brennan responds to a senators question during his February 2013 confirmation hearings to be director of the CIA. (Michael Reynolds / European Pressphoto Agency) CIA Director John Brennan warned Thursday that as Islamic State loses ground in Syria and Iraq, it probably will use guerrilla tactics to launch more terrorist attacks like those in Orlando, Fla., Brussels and Paris. The CIA has seen no sign that Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, was in contact with Islamic State or any other terrorist group, Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee. Like the married couple who killed 14 people on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, Mateen appears to have been self-radicalized online, in part by listening to jihadist sermons and watching videos of beheadings by militants. Brian Bennett Read more 10:26 A.M. Islamic State inspiring DIY terror Crime scene investigators search Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Maliks SUV after a gun battle with the couple in San Bernardino on Dec. 4, 2015. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Islamic State supporters have accounted for 67 homegrown violent jihadist plots in the United States between 2014 and early June 2016, according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service, although only a handful were carried out. The plots, in which Americans either joined terrorist organizations abroad or committed violent attacks at home or overseas, involved more than 100 individuals, the 18-page report said. A total of 13 homegrown attacks were carried out in the United States since 2001, the CRS found, five of which involved people inspired by the Islamic State. The analysis said these attackers, which include the Orlando shooter and the couple who gunned down 14 people in San Bernardino, often acted alone and did not have sustained, substantive, in-person contact with foreign terrorist organizations, rather they scraped together ideological justification from online and social media sources. In essence, these attacks involved do-it-yourself DIY terrorists, the study said. Largely isolated from the operational support of terrorist organizations, they acquired violent skills (however rudimentary) by themselves or relied on abilities that they had developed prior to becoming violent jihadists. W.J. Hennigan 10:07 A.M. Obamas Orlando visit will be different than previous trips following mass shootings (Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press) President Obama has arrived in Orlando, Fla., to meet with the family members of victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre. But unlike some of the presidents previous trips for memorial services after mass shootings, this one will be decidedly low-key: no address to a large crowd, but simply a few personal reflections to the press after spending time with mourners. The White House has worked closely with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer to coordinate the visit, spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters traveling with the president, and did not want to overburden local law enforcement officials strained by the attacks. The quick visit, though, was a way for both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to show that Americans stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of central Florida. Theres no more tangible way to show support than by traveling to the city where this horrific incident occurred, Schultz said. The shooting has quickly become fodder for the presidential campaign, but Obamas visit has a bipartisan note. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida joined Obama aboard Air Force One to travel to Orlando. And among those greeting Obama upon arrival was Republican Gov. Rick Scott. Michael A. Memoli 10:01 A.M. Vigil for Orlando shooting victims held in politically conservative Orange County Sisters Sarah Bryant, left, and Katy Bryant, both from Irvine, listen as the names of the Orlando shooting victims are read during a vigil at the Velvet Lounge, a gay bar and club in Santa Ana. (Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times) The comfort of words flowed, as smooth as their spirits. A vigil for the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, the largest in U.S. history, took place in a gay nightclub in Santa Ana the seat of famously conservative Orange County. This is the church of the LGBTQ community, our safe space, Sian Wiltshire of Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church said Wednesday night, standing under rainbow-colored spotlights at the Velvet Lounge. About 100 people, many of them holding flickering candles, intoned the names of the dead. He shattered a veneer of safety that we all had constructed. I feel like we have to go back and reclaim that. Rev. Kent Doss of Tapestry Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Mission Viejo Read more Anh Do 9:56 A.M. Obama arrives in Orlando 5:32 P.M. I complained multiple times that he was dangerous, former co-worker says of Orlando shooter A former co-worker of Omar Mateen said Sunday that the man identified as the mass shooter in the Orlando nightclub massacre often used slurs against African Americans, gay people and women. Daniel Gilroy, 44, worked with Mateen for about a year as a security guard at PGA Village South in Port St. Lucie, Fla. I complained multiple times that he was dangerous, that he didnt like blacks, women, lesbians and Jews, Gilroy told The Times on Sunday. Mateen threatened violence in front of him, Gilroy said. Once when Mateen saw an African American man driving past, he said he wished he could kill all black people, using a racial slur, Gilroy recalled. You meet bigots, Gilroy said, But he was above and beyond. He was always angry, sweating, just angry at the world. Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce police officer, described Mateen as unhinged and unstable. He said Mateen talked about his father living in the area but did not mention his Afghan roots or his faith. Gilroy said he quit his security job after Mateen began harassing him, sending as many as 20 or 30 text messages a day and more than a dozen phone messages. Gilroy said his employer, G4S, did not intervene. I saw this coming, he said. In a statement released earlier in the day, John Kenning, chief regional executive for GS4, confirmed that Mateen worked for the company since 2007. We are shocked and saddened, Kenning said. Company officials said they are preparing a response to Gilroys remarks. Molly Hennessy-Fiske 5:21 P.M. REPORTING FROM NEW YORK For LGBT community, Orlando shooting is a painful reminder of the dangers they face A vigil outside the Stonewall Inn in New York. (Monika Graff / Getty Images) Hundreds came to New Yorks famed Stonewall Inn on Sunday evening to show solidarity with the victims of the shooting in Orlando, Fla. There was a heavy police presence, including several bomb-sniffing dogs and anti-terrorism police with assault rifles. We are a community that will never be silenced again. I ask every one of you to think of a person you lost because of anti-LGBT hate, said Ken Kidd, one of the original organizers of ACT UP, one of the first organizations to push for LGBT rights. I want every one of you to remember a time you felt unsafe. I want every one of you to think about how to make things better. At one point, a woman who identified herself as a gay Muslim was heckled by an older white man, but the crowd booed him and he was escorted away by police. Dakota Nieves and Indiana Baker, both 16, said they were afraid in a new way after Sundays shooting. Nieves identifies as transgender and uses the pronouns he and him; Baker identifies as agender and uses the pronouns they and them. The two friends lit a candle at a small makeshift memorial outside Stonewall, which the Obama administration recently said it would make a national landmark. Im scared, I thought this country was headed toward something better, Baker said. It was like someone punched me in the stomach. I felt forced back into the closet, Nieves said. I came out in sixth grade, and I felt so assured of myself. And then on the train today I thought maybe I should feel scared again. Quincy Bell, 34, a health educator from Tampa, Fla., had been to the club where the shooting took place many times. He was at the Stonewall Inn with his friend Cecil Wilder, 31. I was catatonic when I found out, Bell said. I talked to friends. I cried uncontrollably and I had to turn off the TV and come out and be here. This gives me strength. The solidarity. It means Im not crying in front of my TV. Sometimes you have to get up and do it. Bell, who is black, noted that most of the people at the club were people of color. As a gay person and a man of color, theres always a sense of fear living your truth, he said. The fear is always there. It could happen to any of us, Michael Kerr, 52, said. I go places all the time and feel fear. It makes me think twice about going out. Im not going to go to clubs on Friday or Saturday. Theres times you dont feel safe. I still have to be careful. What I really think we need to do is address guns. Peter Moskowitz Communities across the U.S. have been testing their water in the wake of a lead contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., and for the most part, the results have seemed reassuring, with many cities declaring their water safe to drink. One exception has been a city that has always prided itself on its natural stream-fed drinking water: Portland, Ore., recently discovered high levels of lead in its school drinking water, and the agonizing drip-drip-drip of additional revelations that has ensued has left the Rose City with a toxic hangover. Public records, including newly released emails, have revealed that school officials not only knew the water was unsafe, but allowed students and teachers to drink it while officials decided on a course of action. The district also failed to disclose all it knew, and the schools health officer was found to have misled the public. Advertisement See the most-read stories this hour >> The two-week-old controversy has already produced a campaign to dump schools Supt. Carole Smith. They knew about the lead, says one school parent, Mike Southern, who is pushing for a criminal investigation of district actions and has started an online petition to oust Smith. They did nothing. Smith, superintendent of the 49,000-student district since 2007, apologized last week and took responsibility for the delay in notifying students and parents about unsafe lead levels. This gap in information and communications regarding health and safety cannot happen again, she said in a statement, and I am working to ensure that it wont. Portland isnt alone. While cities, especially those in the West, have generally shown favorable test results for municipal drinking water, school water systems often older piping systems are facing bigger problems. A recent USA Today analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data found almost 350 schools and day-care centers failed lead tests 470 times from 2012 through 2015. All tested above the EPAs lead action level of 15 parts per billion. One Maine elementary school came in 41 times higher. If the action level for lead is exceeded, the EPA says, extra measures must be taken to control corrosion. Children are at particular risk for lead exposure to their central nervous system and have no safe blood lead level, the agency says. Exposure can result in reduced IQ and attention spans, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, behavioral problems and impaired growth. The Portland lead test results, released at the end of May, surprised and then angered some parents when they learned the results had been known since March 31. Smith was aware of the March testing but says she didnt learn of the results until late May. The test results from Creston and Rose City Park elementary schools showed lead levels as high as 33 parts per billion. Retesting a month later at Creston turned up a 53 parts per billion reading, three times the action level. Crestons principal and some Parent Teacher Assn. members received the results on May 16, but no action was immediately undertaken. The superintendents office received the results May 25. All district drinking fountains were finally shut down May 27, and students were given bottled water as replacements. Smith announced she was bringing in a local law firm to review the districts internal response to the crisis. The PTA was at the forefront of uncovering and responding to the dilemma. The Creston PTA sought the initial testing and, after the results became known within the district, PTA President Lisa Kensel learned Creston officials had taken no action. On May 24, she posted her own signs at the school, warning students not to drink the water. Last week, the district reported the tests results from two Rose City Park elementary students revealed blood lead levels that fell within the range recommended to see a doctor for more testing. No connection to the school lead levels has yet been made. Using record requests to dig deeper, Willamette Week revealed that high lead levels were found at over half of 90 school sites tested between 2010 and 2012, while the Oregonian reported the district hadnt done regular, comprehensive drinking water testing in 15 years. That was despite a 2001 determination that most schools have at least one location where lead levels are above 15 [parts per billion], according to then-Supt. Jim Scherzinger. Last week, the release of district emails threw the swiveling spotlight on the districts senior manager for environmental health and safety, Andy Fridley, who had participated in the initial testing. Critics say his messages to parents and co-workers portray him as misinformed and reluctant to take action. If contaminants arent found in initial testing, he wrongly told one parent, there is no reason to believe they will be in the future. District spot testing, he also inaccurately said, had detected only lead levels at or below the action zone. Appointed by Smith two years ago, Fridley was put on paid leave by Smith last week, along with Fridleys boss, Chief Operating Officer Tony Magliano. Smith says shes unsatisfied with their handling of the tests. On Thursday, the district sent a notice to school families and staff, updating ongoing lead testing. Congratulations, it began, on the completion of another school year. Anderson is a special correspondent. MORE NATIONAL NEWS An act of terror and an act of hate: The aftermath of Americas worst mass shooting Victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre: Who they were A hangar at JFK became the tomb of 9/11. Now nearly empty, its job is done NEW DELHI (PTI): Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha, on an official trip to Sweden, has flown the Gripen fighter aircraft, a move that comes at a time when the government is in the process of shortlisting a combat assault plane under 'Make in India' initiative. Raha flew the Gripen at the Saab's facility at Linkoping in Sweden on June 9, IAF officials said. He flew the Gripen D aircraft with Wing Commander (Flying) Michael Lundquist. Raha was on a five-day tour of Sweden as part of discussions on cooperation in aerospace and defence between the two countries agreed between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven during the 'Make in India summit' at Mumbai in February. Sweden and Saab have offered the Gripen for production in India. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had recently said India will select a good fighter by the end of this fiscal year to be made domestically. It is not yet decided which aircraft it would be, he had said adding it may be F-18, Rafale, Eurofighter or Gripen. "The decision in this regard will be taken in this fiscal year," he had asserted. Its Democrat versus Democrat in the race to replace Sen. Barbara Boxer. From a pool of 34 candidates, state Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Orange) head to the November runoff to determine who will fill Californias first open U.S. Senate seat in nearly a quarter of a century. The two women easily beat the other candidates, with the next in line, Republican Duf Sundheim, winning just 8% of the vote far less than Harris 40% or Sanchezs 18.5%. That two Democrats could end up facing one another in the general election is the result of Californias relatively new system that sends the top two finishers in an open primary to the general election regardless of party affiliation. But just because theyre from the same party doesnt mean Harris and Sanchez are identical, or even that they share a common ideology. In California, there is a real breadth to the Democratic Party, from the tax-more-and-spend-more policies pushed by Bernie Sanders to the penny-pinching ways of Gov. Jerry Brown; from the aggressive climate change agenda espoused by billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer to the go-slow approach of the so-called moderate Democrats in the Legislature. Advertisement Yet the Senate race so far has been dull and uneventful, revealing few meaningful political differences between Harris and Sanchez. Its been a contest based largely on resumes and endorsements and bite-sized policy pronouncements that often dont go beyond the obvious or the expected. Its time for that to change. The next five months ought to be about policies and priorities. It would be good, for example, to hear the candidates explain in greater depth their views on free trade, which has become a political third rail for Democrats during this election cycle. Trade is one of the major economic engines of the state, particularly in Southern California. Both candidates oppose President Obamas Trans-Pacific Partnership trade treaty, saying it doesnt do enough to protect jobs and the environment. But what does that mean? Would they reflexively oppose trade deals going forward? If not, what does the right trade treaty look like, and can it be negotiated (since all trade agreements are negotiations between the U.S. and partners that often have very different priorities)? Does California lose or gain more if TPP is not adopted? Does the country win or lose? Some voters may feel like Democrat versus Democrat is really no choice at all. But that doesnt have to be the case. They also ought to speak more clearly on their environmental positions. Yes, both are committed to slowing climate change, but which policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions would they support, and which would be a step too far? An end to fracking? A carbon tax? And what about Californias drought and water supply challenges? Do they support Browns proposed tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta? Sanchez has said that every option should be on the table, including building new dams and changing the Endangered Species Act, which has been used to limit water releases and restrict pumping water to farmers and others in order to protect the fish, such as the delta smelt and Chinook salmon. Harris, however, has said she would not support changing the Endangered Species Act, but wants to protect agricultural interests nevertheless. What does that mean? How will Californias next senator strike the balance between the demands of farmers, fishermen and environmentalists? Both candidates support comprehensive immigration reform, but if a truly comprehensive package cant move forward in Congress, what incremental changes would they advocate, if any? What changes to legal immigration are needed? And how would they address the federal deficit, which is growing again after several years of decline? Both Harris and Sanchez have said, in broad terms, that they are wary of U.S. military intervention abroad. But how should the U.S. respond to the threat posed by ISIS? Do they support drawing down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, as Obama has planned, or maintaining the current level, as some military and diplomatic experts have urged? Does the president need a new authorization of military force to continue the fight against ISIS? If so, what limits, if any, should Congress set for the president? What should the U.S. do with the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Obama has pledged to close? Some voters may feel like Democrat versus Democrat is really no choice at all. But that doesnt have to be the case. There are shades of blue, and voters deserve a robust debate of the issues to decide which Democrat they prefer. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Donald J. Trump, the loose cannon who would be president, hinted Monday that President Obama might be complicit in terror attacks by Islamic extremists, including Sundays bloodbath in Orlando, Fla. That accusation by innuendo marks a new and repugnant low for Trump, who along with his surrogates is engaged in a smear campaign reminiscent of the dark days of McCarthyism. Trump who made hay during Obamas 2012 reelection campaign by pushing birther challenges to Obamas citizenship told television interviewers Monday that Obama may be willfully standing down in the face of terror plots by Islamic radicals, lending credence to a conspiracy theory pushed by folks who stubbornly cling to the fiction that the president is a Kenyan-born Muslim. Advertisement See the most-read stories this hour >> Look, were led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or hes got something else in mind, Trump said on Fox News. And the something else in mind you know, people cant believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and cant even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on. Whats inconceivable is Trump suggesting Obama may be endangering the people he has sworn to protect based on nothing more than the chatter of political lunatics. This isnt the first time Trump has used innuendo to introduce personal smears as though hes a small-town gossip. You can almost hear him whisper, Im not saying this, but others are talking before channeling the kind of garbage that lives out on the political fringes. Trump doubled down on his anti-Muslim hate-mongering in a speech in New Hampshire in which he warned that radical Islam is coming and pledged to ban immigration from areas of the world in which anti-U.S or anti-European terrorism may arise. Never mind that the shooter in Orlando was a native New Yorker. In Trumps view, the government has no mechanism for keeping children of immigrants from radicalizing. So not only would he ban adherents of a major world religion for the acts of the few, he also indicts them for the imagined crimes of their unborn children. And he urged Muslim communities to turn in the people who they know are bad and they do know where they are, implying Muslims are intentionally shielding terrorists. FULL COVERAGE: Orlando nightclub shooting>> Weve said before that Trumps shoot-from-the-lip persona makes him unsuited for the presidency, and well keep saying it right up until the election, when we hope he fades from the national stage and takes his repugnant intolerance with him. Yet we also fear his campaign has given currency to dangerously wrong ideas about race, religion and proper conduct of a civil society. More reasonable minds recognize those ideas as intellectually and morally bankrupt, and they should recognize the boastful messenger for what he is. MORE FROM OPINION After the Orlando shooting, pundits on both sides read the same tired lines from their scripts Mass murder in Orlando is the most recent in a horrific parade of violence A sane approach to dealing with mentally ill death row inmates Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook Egg washing its one of the many unglamorous tasks at my familys midsized Minnesota farm. We hand gather eggs and lug baskets past our often empty rainwater cistern to the processing building. There were federally bound to wash eggs with water treated with sanitizer. Nationally this egg washing process runs through some 600-million gallons of fresh water every year. And post-wash, eggs are whisked into 45-degree refrigeration and kept that way from farm cooler to your fridge. Calculating the energy outlay needed to chill all of Americas eggs is beyond this chicken farmer. One reason Americas commercially sold eggs 99.8 billion annually require all that water and mechanical cooling is salmonella, a bacterium that makes camp in the intestinal tract, and sometimes the ovaries, of hens and other critters. Its one of the most common causes of food poisoning. Advertisement Salmonella can be spread to the yolk or white of an egg from infected fecal matter on the shell when its cracked open. Washing takes care of that problem, but it cant do anything for eggs that are infected before the shell is even formed. Refrigeration keeps bacteria in check, but eggs must also be cooked thoroughly to be safe. That means no dipping your toast tips into a soft-boiled breakfast egg or eating a classic Caesar salad. And think about making chocolate chip cookies. I dont know about you, but the last time I made a batch, I taste-tested the dough. Department of Agriculture rules say thats verboten. Theres a better way to protect consumers from salmonella in eggs vaccinate the birds. When Britain set up new poultry safety rules in 2009, it mandated vaccination for nearly all its commercial egg layers. Within just one year, infection rates dropped to only 1% in its flocks. Now salmonella poisoning from eggs is virtually unheard of in Britain. Vaccination is mandated throughout Europe as well, with similar results. [American] commercial eggs must be pristine under harsh florescent supermarket lights, with nothing to indicate that they are the product of a live animal. Even though theres no U.S. law requiring it, we vaccinate hens at our farm, too. It costs less than a dime per chicken; it helps us sleep at night and were hardly alone. According to a 2015 USDA report, nearly 90% of U.S. layers have been vaccinated against salmonella as young birds. But we are still conscripted to wash and chill our eggs. Thats too bad. Washing destroys a shells natural, invisible protective coating, called the cuticle, which keeps eggs airtight and shelf stable for about four weeks. Once we wash it off, refrigeration becomes crucial. Theres an argument that egg washing isnt just for food safety, but to satisfy the aesthetic demands of U.S. consumers. Our commercial eggs must be pristine under harsh florescent supermarket lights, with nothing to indicate that they are the product of a live animal. Washing makes the illusion possible, especially if the eggs come from the largest American flocks when 100,000 hens are warehoused together, things are apt to get messy. In Britain and Europe, farmers are prohibited from washing eggs at all; the shells cuticle has to be preserved. Of course, their customers want clean eggs, too, which encourages smaller, more hygienic egg operations. EU farmers may use sandpaper to brush off fecal matter or straw on eggs, but thats the extent of the allowable processing. Eggs produced this way stay fresh in open-air displays, are safe soft-boiled and still look a lot like their American cousins, save for a few scuff marks. The U.S. rules for hens and eggs need to adapt to the advancements in avian science and the realities of strained resources. Outdated washing and refrigeration directives should give way to mandated salmonella vaccination programs for all American layers, and to smaller, cleaner egg farms. For the sake of food safety and water and energy stewardship, its time for Americans to see the beauty in not-quite-pristine food. Lucie B. Amundsen is the author of Locally Laid: How We Built a Plucky, Industry-changing Egg Farm from Scratch. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook More than six years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans are still trying to craft a workable plan to repeal and replace it. The latest attempt was unveiled in May by Rep. Pete Sessions from Texas and Sen. Bill Cassidy from Louisiana. It would provide every American adult with $2,500 to buy health insurance while abandoning Obamacares top-down, regulation-driven approach. As a Republican who believes that Obamacare has not fixed longstanding national healthcare issues, and as a healthcare professional who believes that real reform is one of the most important issues in politics, I support the underlying principles of the Sessions-Cassidy plan. I want reforms that empower patients with greater choice, protect the doctor-patient relationship, decrease costs and increase quality. But I also believe Republican attempts to fix healthcare, including the Sessions-Cassidy bill, arent going to work until the party fundamentally changes how it approaches this issue. Advertisement The GOPs biggest hurdle is convincing the American people that it actually cares about patients. Right now, voters simply dont trust the party on healthcare. An April poll by George Washington University found that 51% of likely voters trust Democrats to fix healthcare, compared with only 43% who trust Republicans. Tellingly, this 8-point gap exists even after Obamacares well-documented problems. In order to overcome this gap, Republicans must bring in the people who are the most effective messengers on healthcare: Poll after poll shows that Americans trust doctors, nurses and others involved in medicine more than most any other group, yet Republicans have failed to take advantage of this. If the party hopes to make patient-centered healthcare reforms acceptable in the minds of Americans, it needs to make doctors and nurses, dentists and optometrists, specialists and family care physicians, and everyone else involved in healthcare an integral part of its strategy. My hope is that the Republican Party will learn from the Democrats and employ doctors in its effort to responsibly replace Obamacare. Democrats understand this. In setting up Obamacare, President Obama and the then-Democratic majority in Congress routinely used healthcare professionals to lend their proposals credibility. The American Medical Assn. and the National Physicians Alliance threw their support behind the law. In the Democratic primary campaign, Bernie Sanders has done the same thing, engaging the labor union National Nurses United to promote his plan to institute a European-style single-payer system. Despite the presidents deft use of physicians to boost his partys proposals and I would say to distract voters from its flaws and false promises physicians are far from a monolithic group of Obamacare cheerleaders. A 2014 report by the nonprofit Physicians Foundation found that only 25% of doctors gave Obamacare an A or a B, while 46% gave it a D or an F. A 2015 poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 36% of physicians believe the law has harmed their practice, compared with 23% who say it has improved it. The same poll showed that 44% of physicians believe Obamacare has made healthcare more unaffordable for patients more than twice the number who say healthcare is now cheaper. My hope is that the Republican Party will learn from the Democrats and employ doctors in its effort to responsibly replace Obamacare. I have talked to hundreds of fellow doctors who are willing to do just that. A large number have wanted to play a more meaningful role in the healthcare reform movement, having seen how the Democratic Party mobilized many of our peers to move healthcare in the wrong direction. The GOP should create a program with the sole purpose of identifying, training and deploying healthcare professionals to be the primary messengers on healthcare regular, private-practice physicians rather than big names or members of Congress with an MD. The party should give doctors a prominent role at the Republican National Convention. Finally, both the party and outside groups should support efforts to found and fund doctors organizations to counterbalance the ones that reliably endorse Democrats. The American people arent happy with Obamacare, and yet as time goes by, and its bureaucracy gets more entrenched, it will get only more difficult to undo it. Whether its the Sessions-Cassidy bill, House Speaker Paul Ryans upcoming plan or Donald Trumps reform proposals, Republican efforts will continue to fall flat until they enlist an army of doctors and other healthcare professionals as allies and surrogates. The party needs to invite in those who can speak to the issues with the most clarity, sincerity and authority. Until then, Americans will continue to think that Republicans dont care about their healthcare, even though the partys proposals are far more caring than the Obamacare status quo. Dr. Joel L. Strom, a fellow at the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, is a dentist in Beverly Hills. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand Facebook To the editor: Words are inadequate to express my sadness and our sincerest sympathies to the families who lost their loved ones in Orlando Sunday morning. The heart-rending scenes of human anguish will be indelibly ingrained in our collective consciousness. This tragedy demonstrates the depth of human evil but at the same time evokes the depth of our human solidarity and bonding. I am sick of trying to defend Islamic teachings every time a deranged guy commits such barbarity. We Muslims are the main victims of medieval barbarity. Just last week, a terrorist killed five employees of the general intelligence department in Jordan. Those who believe they can incite religious animosity are mistaken in their beliefs. There are always those who will never cease to sow the seeds of religious peace and social harmony in times of adversity. Advertisement Munjed Farid Al Qutob, London .. To the editor: The national conversation that needs to happen in the wake of Orlando is about Islam. Europe is sending us dire warnings and we are not listening. I, for one, am sick and tired of waking up to Islamic terrorism and being told not least by my president that the only acceptable response is to make distinctions between true Islam and radical Islam. Acts such as the attack in Orlando are a logical outgrowth of a belief system in which women are chattels and homosexuality is a vile fornication punishable by death. While obviously only a small percentage of Muslims carry out terrorist acts, opinion polls of Muslims worldwide show support for or indifference toward terrorism in percentages disproportionate to any other group (and to civilized society). That the left defends this religion that calls for the enslavement of women and the execution of gays is a supreme betrayal of its core constituencies and purported values. Jordan Chodorow, Los Angeles .. To the editor: You dont make the world safer by giving every country on the face of the Earth nuclear weapons. You dont make the world safer by giving every person guns. There are an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and if you think that all, most or even more than a small fraction of them are violent, hate-mongering mass murderers, then you can explain to me why the rest of humanity is still alive. Islam was created in the 7th century. Every feeling and motivation that killed those people in Orlando existed long before that and would still be here if the prophet Muhammad had never lived. Islam did not do this, and mutually assured destruction will not solve it. Extremists are fine with assuring their own destruction anyway. Connor Yarbrough, Buena Park Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook MORE FROM OPINION After the Orlando shooting, pundits on both sides read the same tired lines from their scripts The right way to repeal and replace Obamacare The case for the not-quite-pristine egg More than 6 in 10 Bernie Sanders voters in California already have decided to side with Hillary Clinton in the fall albeit most of them with reservations and many of the rest said they might support her if she adopted some of his policies and received his endorsement, according to a new statewide poll. The findings from a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times postelection survey suggest a path to unity, however fraught, for Democrats nationally as the party attempts to bind the wounds of the lengthy primary battle. The poll also offers no sign of Republicans being competitive in the state in the fall. Even with only partial support so far from Sanders voters, Clinton defeats presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, who has vowed to contest California, by 30 percentage points in a projected general-election matchup. Advertisement See the most-read stories this hour >> Sanders voters who said they would not back Clinton offered several possibilities for what might sway them. About 1 in 5 Sanders backers said they might vote for Clinton if she adopted Sanders views on political reform. During the campaign, Sanders stressed refusing to raise money through super-PACs and getting rid of the Democratic Partys system of superdelegates: party officers and elected officials who have a vote in the selection of a nomination. This year the overwhelming majority of superdelegates sided with Clinton, although she also won more pledged delegates in state primaries and caucuses. Almost 1 in 5 Sanders voters said they might be swayed if Clinton adopted Sanders economic platform, which includes breaking up the nations big banks and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The same proportion said they might be affected by Sanders endorsement. Far fewer said they would be affected by backing from President Obama or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. But 25% of Sanders voters especially those who were male and independents, not registered Democrats said nothing could persuade them to side with Clinton. The former secretary of State, who defeated Barack Obama in the 2008 primary here by more than 8 points, currently leads Sanders in California by just over 12 points. As of Friday evening, state officials said about 2.4 million ballots remained to be counted, not all in the Democratic primary. Counties have until July 8 to complete the count. The USC/LA Times poll questioned 1,553 registered voters from June 7-10, including 1,264 who said they voted in the June 7 primary. The poll was conducted online by SurveyMonkey for the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles Times. It has a confidence interval of 4 points in either direction for those who cast ballots. In keeping with the entire primary race, the Democratic contest in California was marked by significant age and gender gaps. The poll found Sanders won by 60 points among those younger than 30, much as he has in other states. But under-30 voters made up only a small percentage of those casting ballots. Clinton won among those older than 30, and her advantage was particularly acute among those older than 50; she defeated Sanders by 38 points among those between ages 50 and 64, and by 37 points among those older than 65. Her advantage among women was similarly crucial to her easy win. She won 60% of female voters, most of them older, to Sanders 39%. By contrast, the two were split among male voters, with 48% for Clinton and 50% for Sanders. Another result seen in nearly every state this year proved true in California: a deep division between Democrats and nonpartisan voters allowed to cast Democratic ballots. As he has elsewhere, Sanders carried nonpartisan voters by more than 2 to 1. Clinton won Democrats, 62% to 37%. Unfortunately for Sanders, party members were twice as prominent in the June 7 electorate as independents. Sanders did make inroads, however, among one voter group much sought after by Clinton: Latino voters. Sanders appeared to have won a narrow majority of Latinos, probably driven by his success among young voters. (The polls sample of Latino Democrats was too small to say definitively.) Clinton won white voters and prevailed overwhelmingly among black voters. All told, about half of Sanders voters said that they would cast a ballot for Clinton in November but with reservations. An additional 16% said they would vote for her enthusiastically. As with the overall vote, there were strong gender and party divisions. FULL COVERAGE: Democrats campaign in California>> Women who supported Sanders were far more likely than their male counterparts to be willing to vote for Clinton; all told, 73% of women and 57% of men said theyd side with her in November. Thirty percent of men said they would vote for Trump (7%) or another candidate (23%), compared with a combined 22% of women who said they would vote for someone else. Only 4% of women who had voted for Sanders said they would withhold their vote; 12% of men said they planned not to vote. Nearly 8 in 10 self-identified Democrats who had voted for Sanders said they would vote for Clinton. Among the independents drawn to Sanders, the verdict was, at least for now, different. Just over 4 in 10 were committed to the presumptive Democratic nominee, and only 3% said they would back her enthusiastically. Winning the support of Sanders voters in California and nationally poses some complicated problems for Clinton. Much as the Sanders voters would like to see Clinton adopt the Vermont senators proposals, doing so on an assortment of issues could resurrect one of the complaints that many voters have long had about her: that she has changed her views for political benefit. So far, Clinton has emphasized the positions she generally shares with Sanders even if they arent entirely in tandem. On the minimum wage, for example, she favors a $12-an-hour raise at the federal level and would encourage states to boost it to $15 an hour, while Sanders wants a $15 rate to be applied nationally. Clintons pitch now avoids those details to stipulate that both of them want the minimum wage raised. Trump, she notes, opposes a minimum wage increase and earlier in the campaign year said he thought wages in the U.S. were too high. That highlights the contrast she has been drawing and the biggest advantage Clinton has here as nationally: her competitor. Trumps recent criticism of a federal judge who he declared was biased against him because he is Mexican actually Judge Gonzalo Curiel was born in Indiana to parents of Mexican heritage has further hurt Trumps standing among voters here. Curiel is hearing a case brought against Trump by customers at the former Trump University, a real estate school. Almost two-thirds of all voters said they strongly disagreed with Trumps treatment of the judge, and an additional 10% disagreed somewhat. Only 10% of voters strongly agreed with Trump. Yet a majority of Republicans 55% said they agreed with Trump, and 42% disagreed. More than half of Californias June voters 54% -- said the controversy made them less likely to support Trump. Only 6% said it made them more likely to back him; again, that was a position mostly held by Republicans. But for many California voters, the controversy was moot; they already have decided to vote for Clinton, who led Trump among poll respondents, 61% to 31%. Even among groups who are not always in her corner, Clinton did well. She won over men, 53% to 37%, in addition to winning women by 45 points. She won young voters, who had abandoned her in the primary, 73% to 19%. She won 54% of white voters, the most Republican group among the states racial and ethnic blocs. She also won more than 1 in 10 Republican voters. cathleen.decker@latimes.com Twitter: @cathleendecker. For more on politics, go to latimes.com/decker and subscribe to the free daily newsletter. ALSO: Full results of the poll Californias presidential party is over, and here are some lessons Hillary Clinton up, Donald Trump down in a week that flipped the presidential race Clinton, finally breaking one glass ceiling, ready for a gender battle with Donald Trump Updates on California politics Live coverage from the campaign trail UPDATES: 10:12 a.m.: This article was updated to clarify that the question about what steps Clinton could take to appeal to Sanders backers was asked of all those who voted for Sanders. This article was originally published at 3 a.m. News coverage of the early months of the presidential campaign strongly boosted Donald Trumps bid and put Hillary Clinton at a disadvantage, according to a new study from Harvard that is likely to add to the heavy volume of complaints that the media aided Trumps rise. From the time he announced his run in mid-June 2015 to the end of the year, Trump received about one-third of all coverage of the Republican race among 17 candidates, according to the study by Harvards Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy that examined all stories on the campaign from eight major television and print news outlets, including The Times. And although Trump has loudly objected since early in his campaign to coverage he deemed unfair he announced Monday that he was banning the Washington Post from his campaign events, the latest in a line of more than half a dozen organizations to be frozen out his coverage during 2015 was overwhelmingly favorable, the study found. Advertisement Trumps former GOP rivals as well as Democrats have griped for months that the news media played an outsize role in helping Trump secure the nomination. Their objection has been that news outlets disproportionately covered him early in the contest, when candidates seek to gain exposure and establish themselves as viable contenders. But the problem was not that news media actively favored Trump, wrote the studys principal author, Thomas E. Patterson, a professor at Harvards Kennedy School, who for many years has studied the intersection of the press and politics. Instead, reporters did what they naturally do look for stories about subjects that are new, different and unexpected. Trump fit that bill precisely and knew how to take advantage. He exploited their lust for riveting stories, Patterson wrote of the news media. The politics of outrage was his edge, and the press became his dependable, if unwitting, ally. The coverage Trump received was about twice the amount devoted to Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who was briefly the GOP front-runner. Two other leading GOP candidates, Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, each received slightly less coverage than Bush. Just in the eight outlets studied, the exposure Trump got during those early months would have cost roughly $55 million in advertising to obtain, the study found outpacing Bush by just under $20 million. Because most of the coverage during those months focused on the campaign itself and presented Trump as gaining in polls, drawing large crowds and exciting his supporters, it was overwhelmingly positive in tone. Across the eight outlets studied the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CBS, NBC and Fox News neutral or positive stories about Trump made up about two-thirds to three-quarters of the total, according to the study, which employed Media Tenor, a company that collects and codes news stories, to analyze the content of the coverage. The Democratic race had a notably different pattern. Not only was coverage significantly less, but, more notably, stories about Clinton overwhelmingly took a negative tone. In contrast with every other major candidate, the majority of stories about Clinton were negative in all but one month in 2015. The exception was October the month in which Vice President Joe Biden announced he would not run for the nomination and Clinton both dominated her first debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and held her own in 11 hours of grilling from a congressional committee investigating the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Fox News stood out for the most consistently negative coverage of the Democratic front-runner, but across the board, each of the eight news sources published more negative than positive or neutral stories about Clinton during the year, the study found. Part of the reason for the negative tone was that a higher share of stories about Clinton dealt with her record and positions on issues than with the campaign horse race. The record and issue coverage heavily accentuated her problems, the study found. At the same time, the horse race stories tended to focus on her losing ground in polls. Whereas media coverage helped build up Trump, it helped tear down Clinton, Patterson wrote. Trumps positive coverage was the equivalent of millions of dollars in ad buys in his favor, whereas Clintons negative coverage can be equated to millions of dollars in attack ads, with her on the receiving end. Sanders received relatively little coverage at first, but the volume grew over time, and the overall mix was more positive than for any other candidate, the study found. The Vermont senator often complained that stories about him mostly focused on the campaign horse race and not on the issues he raised, but that may have helped him, Patterson noted: The horse race stories mostly fit into a narrative of Sanders gaining ground, which almost always presents a candidate in a positive light. David.Lauter@latimes.com For more on Politics and Policy, follow me @DavidLauter ALSO Victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre: Who they were In aggressive speech, Trump broadens his proposal to ban more foreign visitors to U.S. Fighting Obamacare, many red states find fewer tools to fight opioid addiction epidemic UPDATES: 2:08 p.m.: This article was updated with a reference to Trumps having banned the Washington Post from covering him. The article was first published at 1:21 p.m. The candidates didnt take the requisite timeout from the presidential campaign trail. They didnt announce that this week was for healing only. The body count, in fact, was not even final before the massacre in Orlando, Fla., had become as politically charged as it was horrific. The deadliest mass shooting in American history became the launching point Monday for what was already expected to be one of the countrys nastier presidential campaigns, coming the week that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were set to turn their attention entirely to attacking each other and building their cases in battleground states. Instead, the attack forced them to rewrite planned speeches and confront the anxieties set off by yet another gruesome mass murder and another perpetrator of Islamic faith. Trump focused relentlessly on immigration as the root cause of the massacre, saying that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here. His unrestrained broadsides on immigrants, Muslim nations, even the motivations of President Obama at one point Trump seemed to question whether the president had terrorist affiliations defied, as usual, political convention. Advertisement Clinton delivered a nuanced speech with multiple policy proposals, emphasizing the need for the country to unite and avoid scapegoating Muslims. Our open, diverse society is an asset in the struggle against terrorism, not a liability, she said, while warning that installing an unsteady hand with xenophobic tendencies in the White House is among the most dangerous things voters could do. She mentioned no names. Election 2016 | Live coverage on Trail Guide | Track the delegate race | Sign up for the newsletter The day highlighted approaches, on style and substance, so starkly opposed that at times the candidates seemed to be coming from different planets. It all reflected the nations deep divisions on the national security and gun safety concerns likely to dominate the election, as well as the new normal in political discourse. Trump accused Clinton her name came up at least 19 times in his address of mismanagement, political correctness and designing an Obama administration immigration policy culpable for the killings in San Bernardino and now Orlando. He appeared to expand his proposed ban on Muslims entering the country to an even bigger group of people, those from any areas of the world where theres a proven history of terrorism against the U.S. and its allies. Why does Hillary Clinton want to bring people here in vast numbers who reject our values? Trump asked, citing no evidence that Clinton wants to do so. He also suggested that Clinton, who enjoys broad support from LGBT groups, is no friend of gays. Ask yourself: Who is really the friend of women and the LGBT community? Trump said. Donald Trump with actions, or Hillary Clinton with her words? Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists to pour into our country they enslave women, and they murder gays. The aggressiveness of Trumps remarks at a New Hampshire college were overshadowed only by his comments earlier in the day when he skewered Clinton and Obama on the cable news networks. He said on Fox News that either Obama was not smart and tough enough for the job or hes got something else in mind. And the something else in mind you know, people cant believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and cant even mention the words radical Islamic terrorism. Theres something going on. Its inconceivable. Theres something going on. The tone of the accusation and the unspecified insinuations harked back to Trumps time as the most prominent member of the so-called birther movement, those who questioned whether Obama was born in the U.S. He was. Clintons response since Orlando has been measured. Her campaign is confident that swing voters are going to perceive Trump as unhinged and unstable. For her, the shooting was a time to recognize the stakes of taking a gamble on a volatile personality. In Cleveland, she delivered a speech much like the ones she gave following the shootings last fall in Paris and San Bernardino, in which she soberly laid out a plan for fighting Islamic State and sought to rally voters to embrace, not resist, diversity in these moments. As in the other addresses, she laid out her bona fides for confronting such threats with a multi-plank, deliberate plan focused on engaging U.S. allies, boosting the resources of local law enforcement to combat homegrown terrorism and toughening loose gun laws that allowed shooters to get the assault weapons used in their attacks. Whatever we learn about this killer and his motives in the days ahead, we know already the barbarity we face from radical jihadists is profound, Clinton said. The attack in Orlando makes it even more clear we can not contain this threat. We must defeat it. Clinton warned that the type of Muslim ban Trump has proposed is wrong. It is also dangerous. It plays right into the terrorists hands. She reflected on the Sept. 11 attacks and how then-President George W. Bush stood firm against Americans inclined to take out their anger against Muslims. It is time to get back to the spirit of those days, Clinton said. The only place Clinton yielded to Trump, ever so slightly, was in the language she used to describe terrorists. She referred in a television interview to radical Islamism, a rhetorical shift for her campaign and one the White House is refusing to make amid concerns that the term needlessly complicates U.S. relationships with Islamic allies such as Saudi Arabia and underscores the misguided idea pushed by Islamic State and other extremists that the West is fighting a war against all of the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims. Trump took credit for the Clinton shift, but then went on to declare his rival still has no clue what radical Islam is, and wont speak honestly about what it is. Trump and Clinton talked extensively about failures in U.S. gun law enabling the Orlando killer, underscoring how once again 2nd Amendment concerns will play big in the election. Their comments reflected how little common ground Americans have been able to find on the issue, even as gun violence escalates and the weapons used in large-scale attacks are often legally obtained. Live updates: Orlando terror attack If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldnt be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked, Clinton said. You shouldnt be able to exploit loopholes and evade criminal background checks by buying online or at a gun show. Trump, by contrast, boasted of his support from the National Rifle Assn. He has suggested the attack could have been averted or minimized if there had been guns available in the Orlando nightclub to defend its patrons. Clinton, he said, wants to take away Americans guns, then admit the very people who want to slaughter us. The candidates did attempt to take some semblance of a break from politics in deference to the victims of Orlando and their families. Clinton postponed fundraisers Monday and a major campaign rally with Obama in Wisconsin on Wednesday, their first scheduled rally together since he endorsed her. It was moved to next week. Trump canceled his Monday evening campaign rally. But Clintons declaration at the top of her address Monday that today is not a day for politics hardly held true. There was no avoiding them. Bierman reported from Manchester, N.H., and Halper from Cleveland. Twitter: @evanhalper, @noahbierman ALSO: An act of terror and an act of hate: The aftermath of Americas worst mass shooting Victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre: Who they were Man with weapons was headed to L.A. gay pride parade UPDATES: 3:30 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from both candidates speeches. 11:46 a.m.: This article was updated with details from Clintons speech. This article was originally published at 7:04 a.m. Republican leaders are openly fearful that Donald Trumps divisive presidential campaign will drive Latino voters away from the Republican Party for a generation or more, much in the way Barry Goldwater alienated African Americans during the civil rights era. It was a similar lesson in California in the 1990s, when the state shifted from reliably Republican to bright blue in the aftermath of the heated 1994 anti-illegal immigration campaign led by then-Gov. Pete Wilson. Many believe that episode handed the Golden State over to Democrats. Now Republicans worry that a similar shift is underway nationwide as Trumps race-based campaigning repels even the most conservative Republicans, potentially marring the party as bigoted for years to come. Advertisement Among those most concerned is one who should know. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky voted against Goldwater in 1964 because of the GOP nominees opposition to civil rights. He worries a half a century later that the story is repeating. My party has been struggling with African American voters ever since, McConnell said recently. I dont want to see that mistake made with Latinos. The Latino community, he said, is a big important part of America. For our party to be competitive, we have to be able to reach out to all kinds of people. Trump insists he is beloved by Latino voters. Earlier this week, he argued that those who were angry over his racially tinged comments about a federal judge overseeing a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump University should just get over it. But Republican leaders know the problem is a very real one for the GOP, made up of both political optics and electoral math. From the time Trump launched his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists and vowing to build a wall along the Mexican border, his approach toward Latinos has upended Republican plans to portray the party as more inclusive and welcoming. The rhetoric only intensified when Trump insisted that he would deport not just immigrants who are here illegally, but also their American-born children, as a way to keep families together. More recently he sparked outrage by insisting he could not receive fair treatment from San Diego federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing the lawsuit against his now-defunct real estate school, because the American-born judges parents were Mexican immigrants. Trump later tried to walk back those remarks, but still questioned the judges ability to be impartial. We dont have to guess that theyre going to lose Latinos for a generation, because we saw it happen here in California, said Matt Barreto, a UCLA political science professor and cofounder of the Latino Decisions polling firm. He is consulting for Hillary Clintons campaign. Polling shows the California GOPs embrace of Proposition 187 and an anti-illegal immigrant agenda in the 90s accelerated a decline already underway due to shifting demographics. The state has voted Democratic in every presidential election since. Republicans believe Trumps race-based statements including an initial refusal to disavow former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and a reference to a black supporter at a rally as my African American are similarly limiting the partys ability to attract a wider swath of voters than its core base of white Americans at a time when the GOP had hoped to be reaching out to Latinos and minorities. Latinos are the fastest growing part of an increasingly diverse electorate, according to the Pew Research Center. Nearly one in three eligible voters this fall will be Latino, Asian, African American or other minorities. When Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s, 85% of the electorate was white. By 2012, that number had dropped to about 74%, according to Pew. Its a well-founded fear, said Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has withheld his support for Trump. To understand the depth of the partys potential loss, scholars point to the dropoff in black Republican voters after the civil rights battles of the 1960s. Republicans won 30% of black votes, on average, from 1948 to 1960. Since the 1964 election and Goldwaters stance against the landmark civil rights bill that year, it has averaged less than 6%, according to an analysis by Claremont McKenna College professor John J. Pitney. Trumps unfavorable rating among Latinos nationwide is currently an eye-popping 87%, according to April polling by Latino Decisions, versus Clintons 22%. Trump may be able to stem his losses among Latinos by turning out more white voters, who fueled a record-setting GOP primary voter turnout. But Republicans see little consolation for what has become a potentially irreversible slide. Republicans have been losing Latino voters in every presidential election since President George W. Bush hit a high point in 2000 by winning more than 40% of the Latino vote. Latino support dropped to 27% for Mitt Romney in 2012, stung partly by his suggestion that illegal immigration could be resolved with self deportation. I wouldnt put it entirely on Trump, Barreto said. Mitt Romney, of course,did very poorly among Latinos. Now, Mitt Romney looks like a nice guy compared to what Donald Trump is saying. Moreover, the growth in the Latino electorate is being powered by millennials, who will boost the eligible voting pool for years to come. While turnout among Latino voters is notoriously low, Democrats and allied groups have beefed up a strong presence in critical swing states -- Florida, Nevada, Virginia, North Carolina and others -- to push them to the polls. This is not just about now, its about 20 years in the future, said Mark Hugo Lopez, director of Hispanic Research at Pew. Where will the Latino vote go after the next election cycle? Will it be like a California in the 1990s? Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whose candidacy offered the party perhaps its best chance this cycle to turn a new page with Latinos, said that Trumps approach to these issues certainly doesnt help. But Rubio is also among those who believe the party can right itself and mend relations with a new message. If [Trump] doesnt win, therell be a new nominee in four years that will define what the party is, Rubio said in a brief interview. Many Republicans remain hopeful that Trumps popularity on economic and national security issues will overshadow his impolitic comments on race. They note that Latinos are not a monolithic voting bloc, but a diverse electorate made up of Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Central and South Americans, who bring varied backgrounds into the voting booths. Now, as in years past, Republicans have argued that many Latinos naturally align with the GOP, particularly on faith issues. Obviously, what Trump is saying antagonizes Hispanics, but it doesnt mean the Republican Party will lose the vote for a generation, said Alfonso Aguilar, a former Bush administration official who is now president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles. This is dependent on the rhetoric the Republicans choose. However, Aguilar acknowledged that his informal talks with Trump aides have left him concerned that the campaign is not doing enough Latino voter outreach. Some will disagree with me, but if Mr. Trump were to moderate his tone, clarify some of his positions, pivot to the center, he could be more competitive with Latinos, Aguilar said. Others insist the broken relationship between Republicans and Latinos runs deeper than simple slights, such as Trump tweeting a picture of himself eating a taco bowl on Cinco de Mayo with the caption, I love Hispanics! Its possible they could undo the damage, but it will take miraculous healing power, said Pitney, a former GOP policy aide. Republicans will have to learn the act of contrition in Spanish. lisa.mascaro@latimes.com Follow on Twitter @LisaMascaro On a wide, flat swath of brown, exposed earth, local officials in business suits and IKEA employees in utilitarian blue-and-yellow garb gathered under a pair of white tents, surrounded by mounds of dirt and abutting concrete walls at 805 S. San Fernando Blvd. in Burbank on Tuesday. At the back of one tent, a table was piled with brown boxes, several with their former contents perched atop them: miniature golden shovels resting in polished, black stones that were inscribed with the date and occasion the groundbreaking of a new IKEA store, set to open in spring 2017. Most of the 456,000 sq. ft. area of the new IKEA location is seen here in a panorama photo taken at the groundbreaking ceremony in Burbank on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. (Raul Roa / Burbank Leader) Nearby, regular-sized blue-and-yellow-handled shovels with gold-colored blades were plunged single file in a long furrow of dirt. Behind the formation, stood two yellow excavators, their arms crossed and draped with an IKEA banner. This is what I call a fantastic site, said Bob Grimsley, real estate manager with IKEA, listing among its benefits its 22-acre area and visibility from and access to the Golden State (5) Freeway. Most importantly, its located in Burbank it doesnt get much better than that. When completed, the 456,000-square-foot store will be the Swedish retailers largest in the United States, said Joseph Roth, a company spokesman. Its a few blocks away from an existing store, which he said is high-performing, busy and paid for. The existing 242,000-square-foot store at Burbank Town Center, 600 N. San Fernando Blvd., which was the first IKEA in California when it opened in 1990, will remain open until the new one is completed. However, that store lacks the size and visibility advantages the new one will have, as well as other benefits. Company officials had started hunting for a larger location in 2011, after facing operational challenges from outgrowing their current building, such as lack of on-site parking, which led to an inconvenient process for customers loading furniture into their cars. IKEA is focused on improving the customer experience, Roth said, even if the best solution is to start from scratch. Mayor Bob Frutos speaks to the crowd gathered as IKEA public affairs manager Joseph Roth stands nearby at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Swedish retailers new location in Burbank on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) The new store will boast an underground parking level, a ground level for retail and warehouse areas, as well as a supervised childrens play area, and an upper level consisting of showrooms, offices and a restaurant. It will have 1,726 parking spots and 86 bicycle parking spaces. Mayor Bob Frutos touted the new stores impact, which he said will be a great boost to our local economy. There will be more sales tax revenue for the city, a workforce that, at around 450 workers, will be 23% larger than the staff at the current store and 500 construction jobs in the meantime. Grimsley noted the construction contractors great progress on the site, where a few months ago there had been warehouses used by Western Studio Services for prop storage, including a saw-toothed building that was, long ago, home to Menasco Aerospace. Nineteen buildings have been demolished to make way for the new store. Much still needs to be done, Grimsley said, such as building out the parking structure, then the store, then hiring workers, installing fixtures and stocking the shelves. Not far away, wearing hard hats and reflective vests, a few construction workers leaned on a yellow tractor. Others milled about. After the gathered dignitaries and IKEA employees had tossed the first ceremonial shovel-fulls of dirt, three or four times for good measure, the heavy machinery roared to life. People who adopted a pet from the Orange County Humane Society in the past several years may have overpaid, according to an audit by the city of Newport Beach. The audit, conducted by city staff and released in late December, highlights several findings some of which allege unsanitary and inhumane conditions at the Huntington Beach shelter that ultimately led the city to terminate its animal-care agreement with the facility. The audit explores shelter activities from July 2012 to September 2015. Even before the audit was published, the Newport Beach City Council decided in November to end its agreement with the nonprofit and move the animals from Newport Beach that had already been taken there to Home Free Animal Sanctuary in the Santa Ana Heights area of Newport. Among the audits allegations is that the shelter had been unnecessarily charging 8% sales tax on adoptions. The State Board of Equalization tax law states that nonprofit animal-welfare organizations, like the Orange County Humane Society, are exempt from sales tax in California. City residents have overpaid for the animal adoptions, the audit states. It is unclear how much the shelter has charged in sales taxes on pet adoptions. But the shelter typically charges $130 to adopt an adult dog, $150 for a puppy, $110 for a kitten, $90 for an adult cat and $25 for a rabbit, according to its website. Its hard for us to determine how many adoptions that may have been happening with, Assistant City Manager Carol Jacobs said, citing a lack of adoption records turned over by the shelter to the city auditor. The audit suggests the shelter stop charging sales tax on adoptions and either return the money to pet owners who were overcharged or provide the city with proof that the money was given to the Board of Equalization. Orange County Humane Society management did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. In April 2011, Newport Beach entered a five-year contract for the nonprofit to provide shelter and care to dogs and cats picked up by the citys animal-control officers. The city paid $7,800 a month for the services. However, in the last few months of 2015, city staff grew increasingly concerned about the level of care provided by the shelter and some of the conditions there, City Manager Dave Kiff told the Daily Pilot in November. A city staff report at the time indicated that Newport Beach had had issues with the shelter for the past few years, but they had become more pressing in the fall. The contract with the shelter was set to expire in May this year. The audit states that animal-control officers frequently found dogs and cats soaked because the animals were not removed while the kennels were being hosed down. The officers brought the issue to the attention of Orange County Humane Society staff but continued to find wet dogs in the kennels, according to the audit. Officers also reported that 33 of the 64 dog kennels were missing grates over drainage channels, which could result in an animal spraining or breaking a leg, according to the audit. The uncovered drainage channels also create an unsanitary condition for the dogs when solid waste is trapped in the gap, the audit states. The audit says the shelter was vaccinating and treating animals for parasites after they had been adopted instead of giving them the necessary vaccines when they first arrived to help combat the spread of diseases. Animal-control officers also reported that some animals were being housed in a building with no ventilation or sunlight, cat cages were not scrubbed regularly, there was no quarantine area for sick cats, and food and water bowls were not cleaned regularly, according to the staff report. Residents have complained about the facilitys lack of cleanliness and that the shelters voice mail is often full, preventing them from leaving messages, according to city documents. The Orange County Humane Society also serves Costa Mesa, which has had a deal with the facility since 2009. The latest contract, approved in January 2015, is for $231,817 for services through January 2018. Costa Mesa spokesman Tony Dodero said the city is looking into the issues addressed in Newport Beachs audit. Our animal-control officers go to the shelter every day and did not have the same experience as the Newport Beach officers, Dodero said. That doesnt mean the issues arent there, but we need to investigate this ourselves. A device intended to look like an explosive was discovered outside a Costa Mesa business Tuesday morning, prompting street closures and evacuations in the area, according to authorities. Police believe the item was part of a hoax. Employees at an office near Paularino and Red Hill avenues called police around 9:15 a.m. when they found a suspicious package in front of their workplace, Costa Mesa police Sgt. Jerry Souza said. Police declined to identify the business. Souza wouldnt describe the package in detail, but he said employees opened it and found something inside that closely resembled an explosive. Authorities cordoned off the surrounding streets and asked businesses within 100 yards to evacuate, according to police. The Orange County Sheriffs Department bomb squad responded and determined the device was fake, Souza said. Police reopened the area by about 12:15 p.m., but the investigation into who left the package is continuing, Souza said. Souza said investigators dont know whether the office was specifically targeted. jeremiah.dobruck2@latimes.com Twitter: @jeremiahdobruck A group of former drivers in the Irvine warehouse for the new Amazon Prime Now delivery service have filed suit against the company, alleging they were denied overtime pay, workers compensation and mileage reimbursements. The workers say they were improperly classified as independent contractors instead of employees. The Prime Now service, which launched in Southern California in September, promises one- and two-hour home delivery of goods such as groceries and electronics. Lawyers are seeking class-action status in the suit, which was filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Amazon and Scoobeez, its contracted courier service. The four named plaintiffs allege they were classified as independent contractors even though Amazon set their schedules and controlled virtually all aspects of their work. Plaintiffs cannot reject work assignments, nor can they request that their deliveries be restricted to a particular geographic area, the lawsuit states. Plaintiffs who do not follow defendants rules or instructions are subject to discipline up to and including termination. Though drivers are paid $11 an hour, the suit claims that many are actually receiving less than Californias $9 minimum wage after factoring in expenses such as gas, tolls and maintenance. These are people who are in no way, shape or form in business for themselves, said Beth Ross, the lead attorney in the lawsuit. Theyre people who interviewed for a job, were hired for that job and show up to an Amazon warehouse every day. Amazon and Scoobeez did not respond to requests for comment. Los Angeles Times * Toshiba launches Clippers-themed photo app Before the Los Angeles Clippers home opener Thursday night at Staples Center, Irvine-based Toshiba America Business Solutions unveiled its new augmented reality app, PictureMe, which enables fans to take photos with true-to-life images of team players such as Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan. The app projects a digital image of the selected player in the users mobile device to create a photo opportunity. After snapping photos, fans can share the pictures on social media or upload them on LA Interactives array of high-definition displays. * Cost Plus World Market to open Irvine location Cost Plus World Market plans to open a new location in The Marketplace in Irvine on Thursday. The stores ribbon cutting is scheduled for 9 a.m. at 13682 Jamboree Road. The first 100 shoppers will receive a free reusable World Market tote bag. The store also will host a twice-daily raffle for a $250 World Market gift card through the opening weekend. World Market, which operates 273 stores nationwide, offers casual home decor and furnishings, gifts, jewelry, gourmet foods, wines and other beverages. * Microsemi to open innovation lab at UC Irvine UC Irvine and Microsemi, an Aliso Viejo-based provider of semiconductor products, will hold a grand opening Tuesday for the Microsemi Innovation Lab in the UCI Calit2 building. The lab will offer technology and strategic guidance from Microsemi Chief Technology Officer Jim Aralis to aid conceptual design, prototyping, integration and validation of student and faculty innovations. * St. Joseph Health, hospital affiliates paying $2.7 million in federal settlement Irvine-based St. Joseph Health is among 457 medical groups and hospitals nationwide paying a total of $250 million in settlements related to cardiac devices that were implanted in Medicare patients in violation of Medicare coverage requirements, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday. St. Joseph Health and 10 affiliated hospitals are paying a total of $2.7 million, the Justice Department said. Most of the settling defendants were named in a whistleblower lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida by a cardiac nurse and a health-care reimbursement consultant. * North Italia restaurant to host job fair for potential employees Fox Restaurant Concepts is hiring for North Italia in Irvine, the companys newest restaurant and first in Orange County. The Italian eatery will host a job fair from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 9-21 at 2957 Michelson Drive, at the intersection of Jamboree Road. North Italia is looking for more than 230 employees, including servers, hosts, pastry cooks, line cooks, back servers, dishwashers, pizza cooks and bartenders. Applicants also can go online at workfornorthitalia.com. The 6,094-square-foot space features an expo kitchen that overlooks the dining room, plus an 1,800-square-foot patio. * Brookfield announces new neighborhood for Irvines Portola Springs Brookfield Residential has announced plans for a new-home collection in Irvines Portola Springs village. Legado will feature single-family detached and paired courtyard homes with three- and four-bedroom designs in Spanish, Santa Barbara and Monterey architecture. The homes, priced from the $800,000s, will offer options including solar packages, home theater systems and outdoor rooms with glass doors. * Airport Self Storage signs on as U-Haul dealer U-Haul of California has announced that Airport Self Storage has signed on as a U-Haul neighborhood dealer to serve Newport Beach. Airport Self Storage at 3760 Campus Drive will offer U-Haul trucks, support rentals and boxes. * TestAmerica names new director of Irvine laboratory Environmental testing firm TestAmerica has named Linda Scharpenberg as the new laboratory director for its Irvine facility. Scharpenberg, who received her doctorate in organizational leadership from Chapman University, joins TestAmerica from Eurofins Calscience and brings more than 21 years experience to the job. The Grant Boys, the landmark downtown Costa Mesa store chock-full of firearms, clothes, fishing gear and camping materials, is calling it quits after 66 years. Or, as they describe it, We are packing it in and going fishing permanently! Were ready to just plain ol retire and stop working, said co-owner Randy Garell, 64, in an interview Monday. Thats the main, overriding reason. Its hard to leave Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, Garell added, but its time. The Grant Boys doesnt have a definite closing date, and no future plans for its property at 1750 Newport Blvd. have been set. Its fluid, Garell said. No ones been pressing for the building ... right now, were just focused on trying to service customers and get them in and out in a reasonable length of time. After news hit over the weekend that Grant Boys was closing and having a retirement sale, customers flooded in for discounts. On Sunday, the first day of the liquidation sale, about a hundred lined up before the 10 a.m. opening. Some waited over an hour to pay for merchandise. Staff eventually feared about being overrun, so they set up a queue system that filtered customers in as others went out. Things got worse after the air conditioning in the gun room broke. The stores Facebook page described conditions as hot and sticky and [smelling] slightly like the locker room in my high school gym class. Still, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015, was the Grant Boys biggest single sales volume day. Ever. But there is plenty of inventory left, Garell said. I dont want to discourage people. The Grant Boys was founded in 1949 by Edward Buddy Grant and his mother, Minnie Stone. They set up shop near the modern-day site of The Triangle before moving a few blocks down to 1750 Newport Blvd. in 1953. The 12,000-square-foot store has remained family owned and operated. Garell co-owns it with his wife, Alexa, Edward Grants daughter. For the thousands of customers who come into Grant Boys for guns, ammo, knives, clothing, fishing equipment or any manner of camping gear, many others simply know about the store for its distinctive Old West-style exterior thats markedly different than everything else around it on bustling Newport Boulevard. I dont think too many other businesses have had the kind of thing, which youd see on movie sets and things like that, said Costa Mesa Historical Society member Art Goddard. That was unique. The stores elevated roadside sign features its mascot, hay straw in his mouth, holding guns and wearing a cowboy hat and jeans probably Levis, which the Grant Boys has carried since its early days. Costa Mesa resident Jeff Netzer dropped in to the Grant Boys with his children Monday. Hes been going there since the 1970s. I was saddened by it, Netzer said of the closing. Its a pretty iconic store of Costa Mesa. The Netzers left with a camping picnic table and fishing gear, all discounted. Standing behind the gun displays, Garell said there just havent been enough cashiers to keep the lines short. On Monday morning, customers snaked around the display aisles. The Grant Boys parking lots were both full. Given Californias strict gun control laws, Garell said theyve made selling firearms more labor intensive, but that wasnt a primary reason to close up shop. The Internet has also made operations difficult for small, independent retailers like the Grant Boys, Garell added. At times, we feel like were a show room, he said, referring to when customers visit to see items in person before going home and buying them online, possibly for less. Young people buy online, Garell said, So where is that future crop of customers? Where are they going to come from? We kind of see the writing on the wall. Still, Garell said, its been a good ride. We like to do all the things that we sell, he said. Thats what made the business a great business all of these years. Its right up our alley. A Balboa Island resident and supporter of the City Councils Team Newport slate filed a complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission last week against council candidate Jeff Herdman, alleging that he failed to submit a mandatory form before soliciting and accepting campaign donations. A spokesman for the commission confirmed Tuesday that the agency received the complaint from Bob McCaffrey. In his complaint against Herdman, McCaffrey points to an Oct. 27 email from Little Balboa Island resident Ken Yonkers to neighbors in which he appears to be helping to get the word out about Herdmans campaign and gives direction on how to donate funds. Jeff communicated with me that he has met with his campaign manager and his campaign is off and running, Yonkers wrote in the email. He is in need of some funds now. McCaffrey alleges in his complaint that Herdman violated the state Political Reform Act by failing to file a candidate intention statement, also known as Form 501, before soliciting campaign donations. Herdman filed the form with the Newport Beach city clerks office on Nov. 5, according to city records. The form states that candidates are required to file the form prior to solicitation or receipt of any contribution, or expenditure of any personal funds used for the election. Herdman did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday. Herdman, 69, a longtime Balboa Island resident, has been critical of council members Scott Peotter, Kevin Muldoon and Marshall Duffy Duffield, all of whom, along with Mayor Pro Tem Diane Dixon, were elected last year on a slate known as Team Newport. In April, Herdman sent a letter to the FPPC alleging that a campaign contribution Peotter received last year violated the Political Reform Act and Newport Beachs municipal code. Peotter denied any wrongdoing. Herdman also has suggested in published letters to the Daily Pilot that the city should request that the FPPC conduct a full audit of all the candidates in last years election to examine their independent expenditures, slate mail committees and other expenditures spent to influence the election. McCaffrey contributed funds to each of the Team Newport candidates in the 2014 election. McCaffrey alleged in his complaint that Herdmans letters were a way to publicize his long-rumored City Council campaign for November 2016. If the commission finds that a candidate violated the Political Reform Act, the candidate could face fines of up to $10 per day for each day the Form 501 was late, according to FPPC Communications Director Jay Wierenga. One of the key goals of the act is disclosure, so getting people to file is always a good thing, Wierenga said. It allows the public to see the information, the contributions and expenditures, to give them the information they need and are entitled to, especially before any election. A pedestrian killed when a driver suspected of being under the influence of drugs veered onto a Costa Mesa sidewalk was identified Monday as Jorge Alcazar Arellano, a 64-year-old Costa Mesa resident. Police said Alcazar Arellano was a maintenance worker who was returning to the Travelodge motel on Newport Boulevard near Ford Road around 2:30 p.m. Friday when a Mercedes-Benz SUV left the roadway, striking Alcazar Arellano, a light pole and a concrete bus stop bench. Paramedics took Alcazar Arellano to Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana, where he died of his injuries about two hours later, according to authorities. Alcazar Arellanos nephew Carlos Alcazar said Monday that his uncle was a kind, humble, hard-working, generous man that was loved by the people that knew him. He was the kind of man that put others before him. It was an honor to have had a great example of what it means to be a man and a human being, Alcazar said. Witnesses told police that Alcazar Arellano barely had time to turn around before the SUV hit him, sending him flying about 15 feet before the vehicle rolled over him. Police said they arrested the SUVs driver on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of drugs. Authorities identified her as Anna Marie McPherson, 44, of Irvine. A bus stop bench and a light pole were hit by an SUV that also struck and killed a pedestrian Friday in front of the Travelodge motel on Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa. (Jeremiah Dobruck / Daily Pilot) She is being held in Orange County Jail with bail set at $100,000, according to Sheriffs Department records. Police said McPherson had two children in the vehicle with her at the time of the crash. She and the children were unhurt, according to authorities. Alcazar said his family has been in shock since the crash but that prayer has kept them strong in the face of tragedy. We also pray for the children and family of the woman that recklessly took the life of my uncle, he said. -- Jeremiah Dobruck, jeremiah.dobruck2@latimes.com Twitter: @jeremiahdobruck Among the 21 community colleges across Los Angeles County, Glendale Community College ranked at the top of the list in the percentage of students who transferred to four-year schools between 2008 and 2014. During that time, 47.4% of Glendale Community College students transferred to four-year universities, compared to the 46.5% of students who transferred at Pasadena City College and the 44.8% at Santa Monica College, which ranked second and third, respectively, on the list. Glendale Community College students fared better than their peers, as well as the state average, on several other key indicators of students success when it came to students completing certificates or degrees or transferring to four-year schools, among other data that Edward Karpp, dean of research, planning and grants, monitors closely. College officials are required to track various data by the California Community Colleges Chancellors Office. When officials tracked students success at completing degrees or certificates and how that impacted whether they transferred to a four-year school, they found that 56% of students who earned degrees or certificates then transferred. That figure compares to the 47% state average. Within Region 7, a group of 14 community colleges in Los Angeles, the average was 41%. While those figures are encouraging to local college officials, they also see room for improvement when it comes to students who arrive on campus unprepared, according to the states measure. Between 2008 and 2014, just 40% of those unprepared students who enrolled at the Glendale campus went on to complete degrees or certificates, transfer to a four-year school or earn 60 or more transferable units within six years of starting their college career. That 40% rate was only 1 percentage point above the state average, and the score placed Glendale Community College 39th in that category among the 112 community colleges in the state. College trustee Anita Quinonez Gabrielian suggested that officials further examine how counselors on campus are addressing the needs of unprepared students. Its obvious to me, from the data, that it looks like they need more direction, more motivation, a little more clarity on how [their] success in college if they follow this plan will give them success after college, she said. David Viar, the colleges superintendent/president, said a variety of support programs are in place to address the gaps. Thats where all the effort is really focused to put in place a variety of support programs that will address the unprepared and try to find what works and what doesnt, he said. -- Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com Twitter: @kellymcorrigan Just over a year after changing a Foothill Boulevard storefront to Haggen Food & Pharmacy, Albertsons has moved back into the location. The ownership change happened at the start of the month and came about after Pacific Northwest-based Haggen filed for bankruptcy last September and closed all but 37 of the 146 Albertsons, Vons, Pavilions and Albertsons stores it had purchased about 150 days earlier. The remaining Haggen stores are in Washington and Oregon. NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in your neighborhood >> Albertsons acquired Safeway in January 2015 and had to divest some of its stores at the time as part of a court order, including the Tujunga site at 6240 Foothill Blvd., where many La Crescenta residents shopped. However, a bankruptcy court judge allowed Albertsons to buy back some stores last November. A few other rival grocers also bought former Haggen stores. Our goal is to be the favorite, local, full-service supermarket for our customers, and we are confident well achieve that by focusing on running really great stores, said Carlos Illingworth, spokesman for the grocery chain. Jean Maluccio, a board member with the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce, said shes glad local shoppers will continue to have multiple grocery stores from which to choose. My opinion is it gives the community a lot more options its good to have more than a few markets, she said. Maluccio added the Albertsons is also larger than its nearby subsidiary, Vons, located about a mile east on Foothill. "[The Albertsons] is bigger than the Vons. It has a lot more products, she said. Albertsons is taking advantage of the stores size, Illingworth said. Leveraging the best of Albertsons and Vons, we have rolled out several merchandising enhancements and integrated successful strategies from one banner to the other, he said. Some employees who previously worked for Albertsons before Haggen took over were hired back, Illingworth added. Calvin Chock, the chambers board president, said hes pleased the Haggen site wasnt left vacant for long. We dont have too many empty buildings on Foothill, and we dont need to start that, he said. -- Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com Twitter: @ArinMikailian Next Thursday evening at the Alex Theatre, the Glendale Educational Foundation will screen the Sundance film, Most Likely to Succeed in hopes of inspiring interest and discussion about the future of education in our community. The film features students at High Tech High School in San Diego and focuses on the benefits of project-based learning in classrooms that differ from the traditional, teacher-led classrooms most of us remember. Read more from Joylene Wagner >> Through informational displays before the film and a panel discussion after, the event will also showcase evidence of Glendale Unified School Districts own high-tech, project-based programs and give the audience a chance to meet the districts new superintendent, Winfred Roberson. Judging by conversations Ive had with local residents and some of the emails I get, the event will provide much needed information to a community that could benefit from a better understanding of whats happening inside and outside local classrooms. An email I received recently from longtime La Crescenta resident and Hoover graduate George Klump is a case in point. Responding to a column I wrote about the need for teachers (Glendale News-Press, March 18), he cited some of the challenges currently facing teachers, including the emphasis on college-for-all and the disappearance of classes like the metal shop his classmate at Hoover so enjoyed. Reflecting that his friend went on to a career in engineering, Klump believes many students would benefit from such hands-on learning. I agree. But as I wrote to Klump, shop class is not dead. Its true such classes went missing for many years, but with funding from state and federal grants and the support of business representatives who understand the need for work-based learning, shop classes and other career-technical education, or CTE, classes are on the upswing. With the help of the Brand Boulevard of Cars, for instance, Toll Middle School recently started a class in small engines, and Hoover has developed advanced automotive classes that incorporate the technology embedded in todays cars. These classes, like the advanced manufacturing courses offered at Clark Magnet High School and the digital arts and media classes at several schools, are designed to link both to college degrees and short-term, industry-recognized certificates. Unlike many of the old-style vocational-education classes that split students into college bound and non-college bound tracks, current CTE classes are meant to benefit all students, from the academically proficient to those who are struggling. The message is that all students need to experience working collaboratively while using their academic skills to solve real problems. In a global economy with increased competition for entry-level jobs, all students should plan on pursuing post-secondary education, and schools shouldnt underestimate any students potential for academic success. But students also need information about other options, like apprenticeships and technical certificates. Four-year degrees arent the only college option. Outside of class, schools are trying to develop more opportunities such as internships and job shadowing. In this area of work-based learning, Glendale Unified is just getting started, but there are some local companies with more than a decade of experience hosting student interns. Both the Allen Lund Co. in La Canada and Bob Smith Toyota in La Crescenta have been long-term partners in providing work opportunities to the students of Verbum Dei High School, a Catholic boys school in South Central Los Angeles. Verbum Dei sends all its students to work one day a week in participating companies, most of the students staying with one employer for four years. The Allen Lund Co., a family-run truck brokerage firm with a nationwide network of offices, has also participated for many years in the La Canada Chamber of Commerce summer intern program for students from La Canada High School. Eddie and Kenny Lund spoke with me about some of the reasons the company continues its relationship with schools. It starts with wanting to give back to the community, they said, but they see the positive effect their employment of students has on company morale. Theyve watched employees become more motivated as they teach their job skills to students. It takes you out of just your business, Eddie Lund said, adding that it helps with hiring and retaining employees. Millennials want to work for a company thats engaged, he said. They also appreciate the technical skills some of the students bring to their jobs and their willingness to take on longer-term projects for which regular employees may not have time. Glendale Unified could learn a lot from Verbum Dei and the relationships it has developed with companies like Allen Lund. In a future column Ill say more about their corporate partnership program and the role of Montrose resident Jeff Bonino Britsch in developing it. But for now, Ill urge readers to get a ticket to the Alex Theater next Thursday. Join the conversation about the future of education. Student tickets are free. -- JOYLENE WAGNER is a past member of the Glendale Unified School Board. Email her at jkate4400@aol.com. When I was a kid, summers meant evenings outside, falling asleep while watching stars parade westward over my familys corn and cotton fields in Northern California. My star atlas sat by my sleeping bag, its spine ragged from constant use, its pages sloughing off by the score. Only gathering clouds could thwart my regular communion with the heavens. Now that I live in Southern California, its the Orange County Sheriffs Departments helicopters Im most likely to see when I look up at night. See the most-read in Life & Style this hour But my love for the celestial wilderness persists. That desire has led me to pockets of the West, far removed from light pollution, airport strobe lights and the Vegas Strips incandescence, where even novice star seekers can rediscover the Andromeda galaxy and Jupiters moons. Here are places where Ive bathed in the starshine. Some experiences have been more redolent with heavenly bodies than others, but each site sits under a sky far darker than most. California Most of Californias population and thus the luminescence from city lights is along its southerly coast, so the nearest escape for dark skies is the deserts to the east. Recognizing that, rangers have worked to make Joshua Tree National Park a haven for urbanites seeking ebony skies. Its a fantastic area for viewing the stars, said ranger Pam Tripp, one of Joshua Trees interpreters who specialize in astronomy. On a nice, clear night, you can see the Milky Way, lots of constellations and even satellites. This image of Joshua Tree National Park near the White Tank area is a result of 70 stacked photographs. (Aydin Palabiyikoglu / Getty Images) (Test) One excellent spot is the Pinto Basin area in the southern part of the park, farther from the pesky lights of Palm Springs and Twentynine Palms. Many skygazers like Keys View, which has wide-open vistas. That locale overlooks Palm Springs and its accompanying lights, but it still leaves plenty of darkness for stars to shine. The parks roads have plenty of turnoffs, Tripp noted, that are often good spots to stop, step safely away from the road and gaze upward. Keep an eye out for ranger talks on astronomy or special events such as full-moon hikes. Info: Joshua Tree National Park, 74485 National Park Drive, Twentynine Palms. $20 entrance fee; camping is $15-$20 per night Nevada Great Basin National Park has the finest skyward vistas Ive witnessed in the Northern Hemisphere. From the thin air of 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak to the Snake Valley below it, the park is considered one of the countrys prime stargazing spots. Several mountain ranges surround Great Basin, at the extreme eastern edge of Nevada. Most important, Salt Lake City is a four-hour drive east and the glittering gulch of Las Vegas a five-hour drive south, leaving the park blessed with a Tartarus-like lack of artificial light. Star trails over Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park. (Eric A Norris / Getty Images) (Test) Not that there isnt light; Nicole Andler, the parks chief of interpretation, fondly remembers the words of one 8-year-old camper she met. She said, There are more spots of light than there is darkness, Andler recalled, referring to the thousands of stars visible on clear nights. Despite the remote location, the park attracts amateur astronomers who assist the dark rangers in introducing the public to the celestial sphere. I once attended a sky viewing that, instead of lasting 90 minutes, went nearly 3 hours. The amateur astronomers and dark rangers gave their own time and endured icy winds to show off galaxies and nebulae to an entranced audience. Light pollution prevents 1 in 3 Earthlings from seeing the Milky Way at night If thats not convincing enough, the parks visitor center lights are now red, the only color that doesnt disturb night vision. Any spot here with a fairly open horizon is a good place to look up, but Andler suggests the Baker Creek or Lower Lehman Creek campgrounds, or the Baker Archaeological Site just outside the park. One good thing to keep in mind: Much of the park is at a higher elevation, so even in summer the weather can change quickly. Wear sensible clothing when visiting. Info: Great Basin National Park, 5500 W. Highway 488, Baker, Nev. No entrance fee; camping is $12 per night. Arizona Out of all the stops on this list, Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff is the only place where you cant roast marshmallows while trying to trace Sagittarius in the sky. This is where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, which reigned as the solar systems outermost planet from 1930 until its unfortunate demotion in 2006. Reader Photo: Six stargazing photographers capture the Milky Way galaxy Of course, no visit is complete without one of the Pluto tours. The excursion guides visitors through the small, wooden observatory that first captured a photo of Planet X, the astral midget that later earned the title Pluto. One exhibit uses sidewalks on the grounds to show the relative distance of the planets from the sun. Pluto is a decent walk. Pluto tours take place during the day, but come back at night to peer at the heavens through the Clark Telescope, a 24-inch refracting telescope in use since 1896. Info: Lowell Observatory, 1400 W. Mars Hill Road, Flagstaff. Cost is $12 for adults; $11 for seniors, military and students; $6 for ages 5-17; free for 5 and younger. Admission covers day and evening programs. On one trip to lonely but lovely Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, I was lucky enough to witness the Milky Way spilling across the entire sky. It helps that this desert locale is ideal for visiting or camping in the winter, when the night sky orients itself toward the bright stars in our neighborhood of the galaxy. A star-filled night sky looms over a saguaro cactus near Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Ariz. (Danita Delimont / Gallo Images) (Test) The national monument has plenty of flat land, making just about any spot a good place to view objects closer to the horizon such as the elusive planet Mercury. Stop by the visitor center and ask a ranger about camping at Alamo Canyon a small, remote campground with a front seat to the galactic spectacle. Info: Organ Pipe National Monument, 10 Organ Pipe Drive, Ajo. $12 entrance fee; camping is $10-$16 per night. Utah Ive fallen madly in love with southern Utah and its Salvador Dali-esque terrain as well as a loneliness that serves as a salve for the frenetic Southern California lifestyle. But I happily found out its just as gorgeous at night, when the silence in the arid atmosphere almost allows one to hear the twinkling of stars. Though not far from its sister parks, Zion and Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef National Park gets fewer visitors, meaning there are fewer people to spoil celestial contemplation with car headlights or loud blather. The Milky Way glimmers over Chimney Rock at Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. (Jacob W. Frank / Getty Images) (Test) This is canyon country, but its not difficult to find wide vistas, especially for those willing to hike a bit. Try Sunset Point for that. For a more idle experience, stop by the Gifford Homestead in the historic district of Fruita. Grab some pie and sarsaparilla and wait for the stars to emerge, one by one, above the historic orchards. Info: Capitol Reef National Park, 52 W. Headquarters Drive, Torrey. Entrance fee is $10; camping is $20 a night, with some free camping on Bureau of Land Management areas just outside the park. Stargazing tips You dont have to be Neil deGrasse Tyson to appreciate the stars, and you dont need special equipment just a dark spot, a clear sky and a healthy curiosity but here are some suggestions: Wear warm clothes and take a blanket. At night, the cooler air and heightened humidity can chill a stargazer even in summer. Also, putting the blanket on the ground and lying on it can prevent neck cricks after looking up too long. Close your eyes and count to 100 to help establish your night vision. It may take up to 45 minutes for your eyes to fully acclimate to the dark, so be patient. Besides wearing warm clothes, its imperative to use a modified flashlight that shines dark red light, not white. Red is the only wavelength of visible light that doesnt interfere with a persons night vision. An easy way is to cover the flashlight lens with a couple sheets of red cellophane. A better method is to paint the lens with one or two coats of red nail polish. A scenic view of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. (Daniel Vi Garcia / Getty Images) (Test) Use binoculars. Telescopes are great but have a limited field of view. Even an inexpensive pair of binoculars can bring into sight objects the naked eye cant capture. Use a star chart. There are several smartphone apps that can help identify objects in the heavens, but printed sky charts offer a more expansive map of the sky. Free charts are available on several websites such as EarthSky. Peek at a calendar that shows moon phases. A moon thats full or close to it will overwhelm all but the brightest stars around it. Stargaze during the new moon or before the moon has risen or after it has set. Sources: National Park Service, EarthSky Upcoming star parties and astronomy festivals June 29-July 2, Golden State Star Party, near Adin, Calif.: This event promises dark skies in rural northeastern California. Camping is available. Events are to be determined, but past years have included telescope viewing and lectures. Registration required, $70 or $25 per night. goldenstatestarparty.org Sept. 29-Oct. 1, Great Basin National Park: During the day, solar telescopes will be available to safely view the sun. In the evenings, visitors can peek through more than 30 telescopes trained on celestial objects. Free. www.nps.gov/grba Oct. 28-30, Joshua Tree National Park: Sponsored by the National Park Service and Skys the Limit, a nonprofit educational organization that runs a small observatory near the northern entrance of the park.The schedule is yet to be determined, but may include sky walks, lectures, sky observations through telescopes and childrens activities. Events are free with $20 park admission. www.lat.ms/nightskyfestival travel@latimes.com ALSO Gorgeous scenery, abundant wildlife and friendly people: What's not to like about the Black Hills? These 14 desert parks are the hottest destinations in the Southwest Discover our desert national parks and rediscover yourself. You can start with Joshua Tree No trip is all good or all bad, but I had one recently that was more the latter than the former. It should have been easy: Fly to Kansas late on a Tuesday, attend a gathering on Wednesday and come home that afternoon. Didnt quite work out the way I had hoped not for me or hundreds of other airline passengers. In that 36 hours, I learned things that may help fliers and road-trippers. Here are eight things to consider as youre planning a trip that involves flying and/or driving. One of them could save your life. Advertisement 1. If youre flying, one word: nonstop. Connecting (change of planes) flights may be cheaper, but if nonstop service is an option, take it. (Mine wasnt an option.) A connecting flight or even a direct (stop, no change of plane) flight heightens the chances of trouble wherever you land. 2. If you cant do nonstop, try connecting through Salt Lake City. At least, thats what the Bureau of Transportation statistics for January-May 2015 would suggest, citing the Utah city as having the best record of on-time arrivals. Perhaps more useful, take a look at www.lat.ms/ontime to see where the arrival time trouble spots were in 2015 and 2014. Dallas was 26th out of 30 airports for on-time arrivals in that January-May 2015 time frame but came in at No. 9 for 2014. I bumped up those stats against historic weather information for both years from Weather Underground: In 2015, Dallas had 81 weather events (rain, thunderstorms, fog or snow) and 40 for the same period in 2014. This year, Dallas has had more than 50 days of weather-related events from January to May. Places with unpredictable weather are not the fliers friend. Thats borne out by the blog fivethirtyeight.com, which analyzed which cities had the most variable weather. Winner: Rapid City, S.D. Among more populated areas: Kansas City, Mo., was No. 1; Dallas came in at No. 10, with an unpredictability index of 71, the blog noting that Scores in the 70s indicate above-average unpredictability. All in all, a high unpredictability index or a below-average on-time arrival ranking means trouble. Plan accordingly. I did not. 3. If you must be somewhere, dont take the last flight of the day. I wanted to stay at work as long as I could (no, Im not just saying that, Boss) so a 4:30 p.m. flight seemed just the ticket. Fly to Dallas, connect to a regional flight and arrive just before midnight in Wichita, Kan. Because of weather in Dallas, I was delayed leaving LAX and then sat on the runway in Dallas as my flight to Wichita took off. It was the last flight of the day. I had to be in Wichita by 9:30 a.m. Uh-oh. 4. Before your flight takes off, jot down or store in your phone the airline rebook number. As my flight sat on the runway in Dallas awaiting a gate, I called (we were allowed to use cellphones), and thats how I learned I wasnt making that flight to Wichita or any other flight that got me there or near (Oklahoma City or Manhattan, Kan.). I also learned that the first available flight from Dallas to Wichita was 4:25 p.m. the next day. No dice. I wanted to yell at someone but I vowed I would ... 5. Try not to yell at gate agents or anyone else. Theyre not Mother Nature. Furthermore, imagine being yelled at hundreds of times a day for something thats not your fault. It makes them defensive, which can escalate a situation; your ire solves nothing. And remember, airlines in this country are not responsible for getting you a hotel room if the misconnect is weather-related, so youre on your own. Agents cannot change whats happened, and unless you have super-elite status, youre not going to get rebooked on another airlines flight, if one exists, especially if youre acting ugly. Four of us arrived too late to make our flight. Three of us spent the time yelling at the gate agent, while the fourth one (me) was figuring out which rental car counter was still open so I could drive the final 320 miles. 6. As you make your way to the rental car counter whether youve missed your flight or youre taking a spur-of-the-moment road trip, use your cellphone (or call) to reserve your car. Your car rental tab may be less expensive than if you had reserved at the counter, but more important, it should save you time. I arrived at Hertz around midnight, and my car was waiting for me. (Im not a Hertz elite member so I have no special privileges other than being a customer.) 7. Make sure you call the airline and safeguard your return ticket. If you are a no-show for a flight, very often the airline will cancel the return part of your ticket. Yes, it wasnt my fault that I was a no-show, but the airline couldnt know that; the agent who took my call as I tried to find my way out of the maze that is Dallas promised me she would make sure I still had a return ticket, and I did. 8. Finally, undertaking such a drive or any drive requires alertness. I was tired, and it was dark. I was practically begging for trouble. The number of people who report driving while drowsy is astounding, said Dr. Arash Tirandaz, chief executive of Internal Medicine Associates of Plano, Texas. One in 25 adult drivers reports falling asleep [at the wheel] during the previous 30 days, he said, citing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stats that also show that more than 72,000 crashes a year are caused by sleepy drivers. Among the signs of drowsy driving the CDC noted: blinking rapidly, yawning, drifting from your lane, difficulty remembering the last few miles driven, missing your exit, hitting the rumble strips at the side of the road. I exhibited all of those signs, except for missing an exit, but only because I never exited until I stopped for coffee 30 miles from my destination. I promptly poured it in my lap, which kept me awake the rest of the trip. My technique for staying awake before that: opening the window, tuning in a radio station that played rock songs of my youth and screaming the lyrics the last 200 miles of the trip. Better idea, Tirandaz said: pulling over and taking a brief snooze. Even if [drivers] are only able to take a 15- to 20-minute nap, that can make a big difference in their energy level, he said. Would it have mattered if I had arrived at 5:50 a.m. instead of 5:30? No. And a power nap might have helped. Given that I was going to a funeral, to have put my life and the life of others at risk now seems ironic, never mind stupid and careless. My story ended OK this time. I wont drive drowsy again. In fact, I hope not to make any of these mistakes again but remember what helped (taking down the rebook number, not yelling at agents, booking a car before arriving, safeguarding my reservation) and what didnt, including soaking myself to the skin with spilled uber-hot coffee. Painful? A bit. But not as painful as the drive could have been. Have a travel dilemma? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry. MORE TRAVEL NEWS In San Ignacio Lagoon, Mexico, the whales are so close you could kiss them or at least try In the Black Hills, face-to-face sorta with Sioux leader Crazy Horse Gorgeous scenery, abundant wildlife and friendly people: Whats not to like about the Black Hills? Whether you are a Christian, Jew, Muslim or history-loving atheist, you will be deeply moved by Jerusalem. If you are a fan of all things urban, including art and a vibrant food scene, you will swoon over Tel Aviv. If you are, like me, an admitted chocoholic, you'll satisfy your cravings on a visit to Kibbutz Degania. Degania is near the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, just 90 miles from the beaches of Tel Aviv and the historic center of old Jaffa. Surrounded by natural beauty and a rich biblical and political history, its a wonderful base to explore the northern part of Israel. Here's a budget tour to Israel for less than $1,500 including airfare from LAX Kibbutzim, the plural Hebrew word for gathering, were the original collective agricultural settlements in Israel. They were started before statehood in the early 1900s by young Ashkenazi Jews and were based on the regions early attempts to construct socialist democratic and economic ideals. Light industries were added later, and all income generated was pooled. My mother, born in 1931 in old Jaffa, then a part of British Mandatory Palestine, had spent some of her youth at a kibbutz and always spoke lovingly of those memories. In early ApriI I returned to Israel, where I combined my love of this interesting country with my love of chocolate. It was, for me, a match made in heaven. Degania, established in 1909, was the first of such kibbutzim. Early participants included politician David Ben-Gurion, military legend Moshe Dayan, the second child born at Degania, and war hero Joseph Trumpeldor. The Pioneers House is where the first settlers lived on the grounds of Kibbutz Degania Bet. (Julie L. Kessler) (Test) A long-simmering dispute at Degania about child-rearing came to a head in the 1950s. One faction believed that kibbutz children should live with their parents until they complete high school; the other believed Degania should stay true to traditional kibbutz ideology, with offspring living in separate childrens homes. The issue was resolved when Degania was divided in two, separated by about 1,600 feet. They were called Degania Aleph and Degania Bet the A and B of the Hebrew alphabet. See the most-read features this hour Today, all kibbutz children live with their parents. Like most of the 300 kibbutzim in Israel, Degania has been privatized because of population declines and reductions in government funding. . As part of this privatization, Degania Bet, with 200 adult members, today has two main industries: manufacturing silicon products for medical use and commercial farm equipment spraying machines. It also has a guesthouse with 46 rooms where visitors can sample kibbutz life. The piece de resistance, however, is the Galita Chocolate Farm, in an old stone building (a former cowshed) on the grounds of the kibbutz. The chocolate kiosk at Kibbutz Degania where pre-packaged items made on the premises are sold. (Julie L. Kessler) (Test) The farm, started by Galit Alpert nine years ago, produces 24 tons of chocolate annually. It has proved profitable, and for those who believe consuming chocolate is a near-religious experience, a visit is informative, creative and, of course, deliciously caloric. As you enter the farm, the intoxicating aroma is ever-present. Theres also a cafe and a boutique offering chocolates for sale. You can observe production through large glass windows where workers dressed in white like laboratory scientists produce artistic creations using modern equipment. Missing is the conveyor belt Lucille Ball made famous in 1950s America. Most important for me were the several chocolate workshops that were offered, such as Lick Your Fingers, Chocolate Filled and Loving Chocolate. I selected the last, because loving chocolate sums up the core of my earthly existence. At a minimum I hoped to see if could complete the 45-minute workshop without eating all my coursework. I failed miserably. Apron-clad workshop participants try their hand at chocolate creations. (Julie L. Kessler) (Test) To whet my appetite, I watched a 12-minute film on the history and origins of Galita chocolates. The story begins with cacao trees in Africa, where the pods turn from green to orange-yellow. Local women sing during the harvest because they believe it makes the cacao sweeter. After the husks are removed, the white bean emerges and is fermented and dried. Its quality is graded, and then it is exported to Belgium. There the beans are cleaned, roasted and the shells removed, leaving only the nibs for processing into white, milk or dark chocolate. From Belgium the chocolate is exported to Galita. Under the patient watch of my instructor Shani, I spent the next 45 minutes in a light-filled room of long tables with enough chocolate to easily convert Jack Sprat. Accompanied by chocolates best bosom buddies cinnamon, chopped peanuts, multicolored and chocolate sprinkles, gummy bears, coconut shavings and chopped cookies I tried, with little success, to create something pretty. I also tried not to eat everything in sight. My attempt to make truffles, all of which were later devoured. (Julie L. Kessler) (Test) I learned some things: You need the patience of Job to make delicious chocolate aesthetically beautiful. Its much easier to buy finished fine chocolate than to create it. Chocolate artistry is a far better use of this space than the cowshed ever could have been. Above all, playing with chocolate was a ton of fun. When my workshop was over, Shani packaged my less-than-lovely yet delicious creations in a ribbon-tied box that could withstand international travel. They did not make it back to Tel Aviv. If you go THE BEST WAY TO TEL AVIV From LAX, El Al offers nonstop service to Tel Aviv, and United, KLM, Delta, Alitalia, Turkish, Lufthansa, Air France and Air Canada offer connecting service (change of planes). Restricted round-trip airfares from $1,730, including taxes and fees. Cars can easily be rented, but I used an English-speaking guide with a tourist car: Tamy Halperin, tamy.halperin@gmail.com. She can arrange visits to other areas of interest throughout Israel. WHERE TO STAY Kibbutz Degania Guesthouse; 011-972-4-675-5660, www.lat.ms/deganiabet. Double rooms from $120, including breakfast. Entry to the Galita Chocolate Farm and film is free; workshops are $15 to $20 per person or $48 for a family of four. Brown TLV Urban Hotel, 25 Kalisher St., Tel Aviv; 011-972-3-717-0200, www.browntlv.com. Doubles from $300, including breakfast at of one of four restaurants within a two-minute walk. Near Carmel Market and artsy Neve Tzedek neighborhood, WHERE TO EAT Salva Vida-Restaurant in Movement, 25 Kalisher St., Tel Aviv; 011-972-3-778-8996, www.browntlv.com/Salva-Vida. Napa-trained chef Yuval Fachlers new restaurant serves innovative farm-to-table cuisine. Mouthwatering lamb with bacon. Herbert Samuel, 6 Koifman St., Tel Aviv; 011-972-3-516-6516, www.herbertsamuel.co.il. Meant-to-be-shared small plates.Try Chef Adir Cohens dreamy coffee and halvah ice cream. TO LEARN MORE www.visitisrael.com, for general tourism information and trip planning Consulate of Israel, 11766 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1600, Los Angeles; (323) 852-5500, embassies.gov.il/la/Pages/default.aspx. travel@latimes.com ALSO Israel travel program seeks to strengthen Jewish connection Israel beefs up troops in West Bank after Tel Aviv shooting Exploring chocolate at the source: Dandelion Chocolate trip to Belize Oscar Pistorius is a depressed, broken man who shouldnt go back to prison for the murder of his girlfriend, a psychologist told Pretorias High Court on Monday at a sentencing hearing for the athlete, who is a double amputee. Jonathan Scholtz, appearing for the defense, said the athlete told him he had overheard the sound of a young inmate being raped in prison, and later found out the victim killed himself. He had seen the inmates body hanging from his doorway. Prosecutor Gerrie Nel, who is seeking a sentence of at least 15 years, told the court the incident never happened. Advertisement Pistorius spent a year in the hospital wing of a Pretoria prison after being convicted of culpable homicide, South Africas term for a reckless but unintentional killing, for shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, through the toilet cubicle door in his bathroom in 2013. Sentenced to five years, he was released in October and ordered to spend the remaining four years under house arrest at his uncles mansion. But the verdict was overturned last year and the athlete was convicted of murder. The trial prosecution and defense were sparring in court Monday on the first day of a sentencing hearing that is expected to last five days. The parents of Reeva Steenkamp, June and Barry Steenkamp, stand in the court room at Pretoria High Court on June 13, 2016, during the South African Paralympian Oscar Pistorius sentencing hearing set to send him back to jail for killing his girlfriend three years agog. (Phil Magakoe / AFP/Getty Images ) Scholtz argued that Pistorius psychological condition had deteriorated sharply since 2014. He said the athlete was suffering from worsened depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and agoraphobia, a condition that can include a fear of enclosed spaces. Instead of being sent back to prison, he should be in a hospital, the psychologist testified. He added that Pistorius wasnt psychologically fit to testify at the hearing, but that he was remorseful and guilty about taking Steenkamps life. Unfortunately, I feel his condition has worsened. Hes almost given up. One has to prompt him to get some semblance of hope for the future, said Scholtz, adding that Pistorius was forgetful, would not remember things he had just said, and fell asleep during his interviews with the athlete. See the most-read stories this hour >> Nel countered that Pistorius had never expressed an appreciation of the fact that he had committed murder, not culpable homicide. It can never be true remorse. Its feeling sorry for himself, Nel said. He questioned why it was too stressful for Pistorius to testify in court, when he had recently appeared on a television network making comments about the trial. Pistorius story was that he fired in the belief an intruder was in the bathroom. The appeals court found that Pistorius must have known that firing four high-powered bullets would kill anyone in the cubicle and he was therefore guilty of murder. Pistorius won global admiration as the first double amputee athlete to compete in the Olympic Games in London in 2012. His fall from grace was enormous. Although he received support from many quarters, he was vilified by many, Scholtz said. Follow @RobynDixon_LAT for news from Africa MORE WORLD NEWS Blasts rock Shanghai airport ahead of Disney opening; four injured, suspect hospitalized A rebellion inside a small Indian sect seeks to end a brutal custom: female genital mutilation Besieged Syrian suburbs receive international food aid for the first time in years British voters face one of the most important decisions in a generation June 23: Do they want to remain in, or leave the 28-nation European Union, a partnership that began after World War II to generate economic cooperation and avoid war. The latest polls on what has become known as Brexit show the two sides Leave or Remain neck and neck. In an unprecedented move, the deadline to register to vote was extended 48 hours last week after a surge of more than half a million people eager to sign up for the referendum caused a government website to crash. For weeks, so-called battle buses for either side have been driving the length and breadth of the country trying to drum up support. Each campaign has thrust vocal, prominent representatives in front of microphones to champion its cause. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook No matter the outcome, Prime Minister David Cameron, who favors remaining with the EU, will have a fight on his hands within his Conservative Party, which has become deeply, and very publicly, divided on the issue. Here is a look at the EU referendum and why it matters: What is the European Union? The EU has its own parliament, commission and courts. It operates under a single market that enables the free movement of people, goods and services and imposes standardized laws. Passport controls were abolished within the so-called Schengen Area, but Britain is not part of it. Nineteen of the 28 EU countries are part of the Eurozone, meaning that they use the euro as their currency. Britain voted against joining the Eurozone and still uses the pound sterling. Why is a referendum being held? This referendum was a key part of Camerons election manifesto. His Conservative Party has long been divided over the nations relationship with Europe and he hoped that a vote on EU membership would quell the Euroskeptics within his party. He also hoped it would counter the rising popularity of the UK Independence Party led by Nigel Farage, which campaigns on an anti-migration platform. Before setting a date for the referendum, Cameron spent weeks meeting EU leaders to renegotiate the terms of Britains membership in the EU. He argues that the reforms he secured give Britain a special status within the EU and address some of the issues that people dislike about the EU, including high levels of immigration and less sovereignty. What are the key issues? Immigration: The Leave campaign says Britain has lost control of its borders, as there is currently no way to stop EU citizens from coming to Britain to work, study or live. Net migration to Britain was 333,000 last year, according to the Office of National Statistics, and 184,000 of those people arrived from within the EU. The Remain camp says EU migrants fuel economic growth. Many Eastern Europeans work as builders or cleaners in Britain for example, jobs that many British citizens dont want to do. Remain campaigners also warn that a vote to leave would see the British border, which is across the English Channel in France, moved to Dover on British soil. Security: Those who want to leave the EU say Britain is more at risk of a terrorist attack if it remains part of the EU because it cannot control who enters the country as adequately as if it were independent. This argument has been challenged by several senior military figures who argue that being in the EU and able to collaborate on intelligence makes Britain safer. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj Trade: Britain is part of the single EU market, so it faces no trade tariffs on imports and exports. The EU also has trade deals with other world powers, such as the U.S. Britain could lose those benefits if it were to leave the EU. President Obama said a Brexit would see Britain put to the back of the queue when it came to trade talks. Those who want Britain to leave, however, argue that it could negotiate its own trade agreements and would not be burdened by restrictive EU law. Sovereignty: Leave campaigners want Britain to regain its sovereignty as an independent nation that controls its own laws. Those voting to remain say the future is about countries collaborating to flourish. On Thursday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: The future Is not about countries breaking apart their alliances. The future is about countries coming together. What happens if Britain votes to leave? If Britain voted to leave the EU, it would have to renegotiate its relationship with the remaining EU members and the world. The Leave camp says this would ultimately place Britain in a better financial position, especially because Britain contributes billions of pounds to the EU each year that could be used to boost its economy. The Remain camp, as well as leading economists, say the benefits of being part of the EU far outweigh any problems and leaving could negatively affect jobs, living standards, housing prices and long-term economic stability. This is not something to be given up easily, is it something that is actually part of our lives that we take for granted, former Prime Minister John Major said Thursday during a joint news conference with Blair. So dont take this vote for granted. Make sure that you do actually come out, and vote to stay. If the Leave camp wins, there are fears that Scotland, which saw a vote on independence from Britain defeated in 2014, would demand a second referendum. Northern Ireland would also have to introduce a land border with Ireland, which is an EU member, a move that some say could threaten the peace process there. ALSO British man who boasted of abusing children in Malaysia gets 22 life terms Heres the new portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Annie Leibovitz Flooding in France kills more than a dozen people and forces closures of roads, subways and museums Boyle is a special correspondent. Pakistan closed its main border crossing with Afghanistan and imposed a de facto curfew Monday after overnight clashes, including an exchange of gunfire, between the countries border security forces. One Afghan guard was killed and a total of 22 people were wounded, officials said. Residents of the border town of Landi Kotal in Pakistan said that after the security forces exchanged heavy fire, the local administration warned them early Monday to remain indoors. Advertisement Pakistani authorities also closed the immigration and customs offices at Torkham, the main border crossing, and sent in reinforcements of paramilitary forces. The clashes began Sunday evening when Pakistani officials began installing a security fence about 30 yards inside their territory. The fence is part of increased security measures that Pakistan says will better regulate the movement of people between the countries and curb infiltration by militants and criminals. See more of our top stories on Facebook Gen. Zarawar Zahid, police chief of Nangarhar, Afghanistan, said one Afghan security officer was killed and six were wounded, the Associated Press reported. He said Pakistani forces opened fire after the Afghans asked them to stop working on the fence, which he claimed is located on no-mans land. Afghanistan does not recognize the present boundary, the so-called Durand Line, as an international border, and has denounced Pakistans plans to erect a fence at the crossing. The Afghan government has called on Pakistan to ease some border controls to facilitate the movement of refugees. Pakistan hosts about 1.5 million documented Afghan refugees in addition to more than 1 million who do not have legal status. Pakistani officials said they had informed Afghan border police of the fence installation in advance. A statement from the Pakistani military accused Afghanistan of unprovoked firing into Pakistani territory. Pakistani authorities informed Afghan officials about the gate installation on its own territory, but despite that Afghan border police resorted to heavy firing, a Pakistani official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj The Torkham highway serves as the main trade route from Pakistan to Afghanistan and Central Asian states, and has also been the major supply line for U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. Hundreds of vehicles were stranded on both sides of the border Monday. Residents at Landi Kotal said they were breaking their daylong fast customary during the holy month of Ramadan on Sunday when the firing began. Shells were flying over residential quarters and people started fleeing their homes, said Sabir Shinwari, a resident reached by phone. He said shells fired from the Afghan side caused partial damage to houses and that firing from both sides continued into the morning hours Monday. Officials said the movement of visitors from Afghanistan to Pakistan has drastically decreased since Islamabad began installing fences at Torkham about two months ago. The move came after a January attack on a university in Charsadda, in northern Pakistan, that left at least 21 people dead. Pakistan says militants involved in the attack entered the country from Afghanistan via Torkham. Between 1,000 and 2,000 travelers with visas have been entering Pakistan daily from Afghanistan, down from the 15,000 to 25,000 who crossed via Torkham previously, according to officials. ALSO Blasts rock Shanghai airport ahead of Disney opening; four injured, suspect hospitalized Oscar Pistorius is a depressed, broken man, psychologist testifies at sentencing hearing A rebellion inside a small Indian sect seeks to end a brutal custom: female genital mutilation Special correspondent Ali reported from Peshawar, Pakistan. Times staff writer Shashank Bengali in Mumbai, India, contributed to this report. shashank.bengali@latimes.com Follow @SBengali on Twitter for more news from South Asia The mass shooting in Florida comes as Islamic State forces are stretched thin, under financial strain and losing ground near strongholds in Iraq, Syria and Libya, U.S. officials say. A multi-pronged U.S. strategy has killed thousands of Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq, trimmed their ability to smuggle oil and move supplies, and steadily chipped away at the groups self-declared caliphate in both countries. The noose is tightening, CIA Director John Brennan said in an interview Sunday with the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news channel. Advertisement They still maintain quite a bit of capability to carry out attacks in [Iraq and Syria] as well as beyond, so this is going to be a long, hard fight, Brennan said. Indeed, as the slaughter of 49 patrons at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday made clear, the Obama administration is battling a multi-front war against Islamic State, with more American casualties on the home front than overseas. Everybody is focused on the destruction of the caliphate, said Christopher Harmer, a former Pentagon strategist now at the Institute for the Study of War, a nonpartisan public policy group in Washington, D.C. But the more daunting task will be combating their ideology to inspire attacks, which is a virtually impossible problem to solve. No evidence indicates the Orlando gunman, New York-born Omar Mateen, had contact with or support from Islamic State or any other terrorist group, officials said Monday. He professed allegiance to the leader of Islamic State in a call to police during the shooting itself. He later died in a shootout with police. Mateens self-radicalization, apparently from extremist websites and other online material, is part of a trend that has confounded the Obama administration. Even as we hit their leadership, even as we go after their infrastructure one of the biggest challenges we are going to have is this kind of propaganda and perversions of Islam that you see generated on the Internet, President Obama said Monday at the White House. See the most-read stories this hour >> The U.S. military portrays the domestic attacks, in part, as a sign of the growing pressure they are putting on Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. We know they continue to look for opportunities to make spectacular, headline grabbing attacks, in part to make up for their losses on the battlefield in both Iraq and Syria, Col. Christopher Garver, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad, wrote in an email. But the evidence is scanty. Islamic State has urged followers since 2014, when it was at its peak, to mount attacks in America, Europe and other regions. Nothing suggests that Mateen, or the couple who gunned down 14 people in San Bernardino in December, or the 18-year-old who stabbed four people at UC Merced last fall, did so to avenge Islamic States battlefield setbacks. While the militants remain entrenched in cities and towns, by any measure the groups losses are substantial and growing. Iraqi military forces, tribal fighters and Shiite militias are attempting to recapture Fallujah, an Islamic State stronghold west of Baghdad. Backed by more than 80 coalition airstrikes in the last month, the offensive has moved slowly closer to the embattled city. At the same time, Islamic State has ramped up a deadly series of suicide bombings in Baghdad in an apparent attempt to rekindle sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiites, and to destabilize the central government. In Syria, rebel forces backed by coalition warplanes and about 300 U.S. advisers have encircled the key border city of Manbij in an effort to cut the militants ability to move supplies or personnel in and out of Turkey. An estimated 3,500 fighters, mostly from Arab militias, are seeking to close the so-called Manbij Pocket, a 60-mile stretch of the border that long served as a conduit for the militants. The terrorists who carried out deadly attacks in Paris and Brussels since November had traveled from Raqqah, Islamic States self-declared capital in Syria, up to Manbij and then out to the capitals where they organized their attacks, Brett McGurk, Obamas envoy to the U.S.-led coalition, told reporters Friday at the White House. So we have to work with forces on the ground to close out this area, he said. In Libya, militias aligned with the fledgling United Nations-backed unity government have retaken parts of Surt, which has been an Islamic State stronghold. In recent days, the militias reportedly took over the port area and began advancing on the city center. What we see now is that they are also being pressured by various militia groups, and the armies that have been brought to bear against them, Brennan said. These efforts take time. MORE WORLD NEWS Key things to know about the British vote on whether to remain in the European Union Some world leaders reactions to Orlando shooting prompt cries of hypocrisy on gay rights Pakistan closes border crossing with Afghanistan after clashes between security forces ROME -- The Eritreans were seeking a new life in Europe, with about 500 of them crowded aboard a 66-foot boat crossing the Mediterranean. Instead, the vessel caught fire and capsized Thursday, in one of the worst disasters seen on a route sailed by thousands of Africans each year. More than 200 migrants were pulled alive from the water as fishing boats, helicopters and coast guard vessels mounted a rescue operation off the Italian island of Lampedusa, which is 70 miles from the African coast. But at least 94 migrants drowned and more than 200 are missing, officials said. We need only caskets, certainly not ambulances, said Pietro Bartolo, chief of health services on the island, as corpses were lined up on the islands quayside. Other bodies were taken to a hangar at the islands airport. Advertisement Its horrific, like a cemetery, they are still bringing them, said Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini. The boat began to take on water half a mile from Lampedusa after it lost engine power, prompting passengers to light a fire on board to attract rescuers. Angelino Alfano, Italys interior minister, said fuel in the water ignited, setting the ship on fire. Passengers moved to one side of the boat, causing it to capsize. The U.N.s refugee agency has said 8,400 migrants landed in Italy and Malta in the first half of 2013, up from the 4,500 who arrived during the first half of 2012. About 500 migrants are believed to have died on the crossing last year, and more than 6,000 are believed to have drowned in waters off Sicily from 1994 to 2012. Survivors from Thursdays capsizing reported three fishing boats had seen their fire but sailed on without assisting. This year, many Syrians fleeing the conflict in their country have started sailing to Italy, mainly making for Sicily before trying to get to Sweden. Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said action was needed by the European Union to stem a succession of massacres of innocent people. Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Unions home affairs commissioner, said she was appalled by the deaths. Writing on Twitter, she added, We must redouble efforts to fight smugglers exploiting human despair. The word that comes to mind is shame, Pope Francis, who traveled to Lampedusa in July and met with migrants, said on Thursday during a speech. Let us unite our strengths so that such tragedies never happened again. ALSO: Mob attacks Russian Embassy in Tripoli; revenge suspected El Salvadors Catholic Church closes key human rights office Slaying of Greek rapper spurs crackdown on neo-fascist Golden Dawn Kington is a special correspondent. All material is subject to strictly enforced copyright terms & conditions and cannot be repurposed or reproduced. 19882022 Latin American Financial Publications Inc. Following the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, Latino civic and politically-engaged groups have come out to grieve with victims of the LGBTQ community. Latinos Unite for LGBTQ Latinos On early Sunday morning, at approximately 2 a.m. local time in Orlando, a man later identified as U.S.-born Omar Mateen entered the Pulse nightclub and engaged in a hostage situation and police shootout that resulted in the deaths of 49 people and injured 53 people. Pulse, a LGBTQ nightclub, was celebrating "Latin Night," and many of the victims are Hispanic. The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA), a coalition of 40 prominent Latino-based organizations, expressed their solidarity with the LGBTQ community on Sunday. "We stand in solidarity with our LGBTQ brothers and sisters who were targeted in this heinous attack in Orlando, in which initial reports suggest that the brunt of the suffering fell upon LGBTQ Latinos," said NHLA Chair Hector Sanchez. "We share our deepest condolences and sympathy with the families and loved ones of those who were killed. This was an attack on all of us," added Sanchez, who also serves as the executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement. "We hope that those who were injured are able to make a full recovery and encourage all those who are able, to donate blood as soon as possible at the nearest blood donation center to help the survivors." Voto Latino President and CEO Maria Teresa Kumar also shared her condolences and commented that the Orlando shooting should not result in an attack of the Muslim faith, which Mateen followed. "The Voto Latino community is devastated by the tragic and senseless attacks in a gay nightclub in Orlando, where more than 50 lives were taken and many more hurt. Today, our country mourns the loss of innocent lives and we stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community because love doesn't know race, gender or religion. This tragedy must not become an attack against the Muslim faith community in our country, and today we're reminded that an attack against any American is an attack on all of us," said Teresa Kumar in a statement. "We must come together in these moments, not shut ourselves off," continued the Voto Latino president. "We must open our hearts and work together toward building a country that is inclusive and reflects the rights of all people of dignity and equality. We send our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of the victims. Voto Latino grieves with you." The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the oldest Latino civic engagement organization in the country, expressed its shock to the communities affected on Sunday morning, from the LGBT to Latino communities. "The overnight terrorist attack on the LGBT community has left Orlando residents devastated while the nation sits in shock," LULAC National President Roger C. Rocha Jr. said on Sunday. "Those at the bar were celebrating Latin night and we can assume that many of the victims of the shooting were also Latinos. The hateful violent act did not have to happen. As our nation mourns the innocent lives lost, we must unite in calling for more protections and ensure the safety of all Americans. Today, LULAC extends its thoughts and prayers to the victims' families and to the residents of Orlando." President Obama Responds On early Sunday afternoon, President Barack Obama addressed the nation, stating the Orlando terror attack was also an act of hate. "We are still learning all the facts. This is an open investigation. We've reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer," said Obama from the White House briefing room, adding the FBI is investigating the events as an act of terrorism and it's clear the shooter was filled with hatred. "[T]his is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American -- regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation -- is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans. Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history," Obama later added. Obama said the Orlando shooting is another example how easy it is to obtain a weapon and shoot a place, whether a school, house of worship or movie theater. __ For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com. Reputed Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is likely to be prosecuted in Brooklyn whenever he goes on trial on federal drug trafficking charges. Guzman, who has a history of escaping from maximum security prisons in his homeland, has thus far been indicted by seven different prosecutor's office across the U.S., all of which are fighting to have him extradited to their jurisdiction to formally face charges. Brooklyn Office Once led by Loretta Lynch Speculation is Guzman will be sent to the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, an office once run by current Attorney General Loretta Lynch. To date, attorneys for Guzman have been vigorously fighting all extradition efforts and any attempt to move him is expected to be a lengthy process. Just last year, the reputed boss of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel escaped prison for a second time and remained on the run for several months before being recaptured after a deadly shootout with authorities. Investigators later discovered he escaped by dredging through a mile-long tunnel where he allegedly had the assistance of several crooked prison officials. In all the U.S. indictments, Guzman is fingered as the heartless leader of a drug empire that decimated American cities by smuggling untold amounts of cocaine, heroin and marijuana into neighborhoods via tunnels or secret compartments in cars, trucks and rail cars. U.S. Murder Charges Dropped Brooklyn prosecutors recently revised their indictment of Guzman by dropping more than a dozen death-penalty eligible accusations of specific murders by his henchmen in Mexico. The move is widely viewed as attempt to make extraditing him more plausible. In the end, former federal prosecutor Jodi Avergun stressed that higher-ups are most interested in picking the jurisdiction "that has the best chance to win and put Chapo in prison for the rest of his life." Brooklyn's chances are enhanced by the lengthy experience its staffers have in prosecuting international drug cartel cases. Over the last two plus decades, prosecutors there have built cases strong enough to convince authorities as far away as in Asia and South America to extradite defendants now serving lengthy sentences in US prisons. Prosecutors in Brooklyn "have the sophistication to do this," Avergun added. "They've been doing it forever." During a June 12 broadcast on "Fox and Friends Weekends" host Tucker Carlson questioned the right of undocumented students to receive scholarships to attend U.S. colleges and universities. While discussing undocumented students with activist and journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who was educated and lives in the U.S. despite being undocumented himself, Carlson questioned whether it was fair for high school students to receive scholarships regardless of their illegal status. Dont you think that an American citizen who has children trying to get into schools might say Wait a second, why is someone who is an illegal alien getting a scholarship and not my child?' said Carlson. Vargas was visibly frustrated by Carlson's comments as he continued to argue that the success of these students is a problem and unfair to American students. "You can see why people might be offended that she's announcing this and basically giving the finger to the United States that I've flouted your law and I'm getting away with it and there's nothing you can do," Carlson continued. Carlson's criticism of undocumented students came after two Latina teens, Mayte Lara Ibarra and Larissa Martinez, who both happened to be Valedictorians of their graduating classes, recently revealed that they are undocumented immigrants. Both Latinas, who were praised for outing themselves but also received much criticism, have received full scholarships. Ibarra will be attending the University of Texas and Martinez will attend Yale. This young woman is not taking somebody elses spot, said Vargas about Martinez. Shes not getting special treatment. She is getting that because she graduated as valedictorian. Watch the heated debate here: 403 Forbidden 403 Forbidden Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied RequestId: FE66E8569D01C198 HostId: JZacVUQ2dT/+CvqgoKBVGtop6B46w0tMLVdNCqOAZMMfIQRrd85fqcR3m3XUXquBuXq0Hg9FtKU= An Error Occurred While Attempting to Retrieve a Custom Error Document Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied At 20 minutes before 9 on Sunday night, only a few people wandered around Easton's Centre Square nearly 19 hours after a proclaimed terrorist killed 49 people and wounded more than 50 more in an Orlando nightclub known as a haven for LGBT people. But by the time vigil organizers arrived a little after 9 p.m. -- a bit late from a dance on Morgan Hill -- it was a very different picture. "We wanted to send our love to Orlando tonight," Tim Hare said, his arm around the shoulders of his husband, Earl Ball. "They're not alone. "Every community we know of in America tonight is doing something or tomorrow with New York. And we thought, we live in the birthplace of American democracy -- not a theocracy -- and what an appropriate place." About 3 p.m., they created a Facebook event for a vigil unlike the more formal gathering after the attacks in Paris, where speakers conveyed great emotion in a Centre Square lit by the Peace Candle. Sunday night would be about peaceful silence. "And if only the two of us show up and feel our pulse and send our pulse to Orlando, let's do it," Hare said. "We were so gratified. We were a few minutes late and we see all these people in the Square and I thought, 'What are they doing here?" And then I realized ..." "It's Easton," Ball said. "It's a wonderful place." But why Easton, which is more than 1,000 miles away from Orlando? "Why was it important in 1776 to gather here to read the Declaration of Independence on July 8" in the Square? Hare asked. "Because this is an American place and our rainbow community was attacked today 1,000 miles south of here and we're Americans and this was an attack on American citizens. "And this is our hometown. But why is it important for people to gather? Silence is golden. We needed to stand here in silence. and hope that our community members -- our neighbors -- would join us, because words fail. "There are no words to describe what happened today. But it's big. And it's awful. And it's a watershed. It's our 9/11, really, of our tribe. We were targeted because we are free in America and because we have gained the freedom to marry. And because we are free American citizens we are their worst enemy." Dozens of people joined Hare and Ball, hand-in-hand, as they circled the fountain at the center of the square. And when the moment passed, they all cheered, then hugged, before quietly heading home. As many as six Easton police officers looked on, guaranteeing the safety of those gathered on what had been a very violent day. "And we just came from a dance, a gay dance, up on Morgan Hill, and we figured that we are going to continue to dance," Ball said. "We're going to dance," Hare added. "Just like the people of Orlando were dancing until hatred came onto the dance floor," Ball said. "We're not going to stop. We're going to continue to dance and live our lives openly and freely. "It was very important for us to have pulled this together very quickly and spontaneously, but also we're very encouraged by the amazing response. We all stood around the Circle joining hands. "I thought maybe a few people would show up. But this is Easton; Easton has always been a very supportive community and a very diverse community. I feel so strengthened and encouraged and comforted by the response we had here right in our town." Ball and Hare have danced since 1976, when they met in Easton, they said. "We're going to continue to dance here," Ball said. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Ed Pawlowski By Ed Pawlowski When is enough ... enough? In 2007, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech before the gunman killed himself. We asked: When is enough ... enough? In 2012, 20 6- and 7-year-old children and six adult staff members were fatally shot at in Newtown, Connecticut. We grieved as a nation and asked, again: When is enough ... enough? In 2015 nine people, including a pastor, were killed during a prayer meeting in an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. We grieved again as a nation and again asked: When is enough ... enough? More mass shootings: A community college in Roseburg, Oregon. A social services center in San Bernardino, California. Kalamazoo, Michigan, a series of random attacks. A factory in Hesston, Kansas. Then June 12: A gunman with an automatic rifle opened fire in a crowded dance club in Orlando, Florida. At least 50 people dead and 53 injured -- the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. So I ask you: When is enough ... enough? Thirty three Americans die every day from senseless gun violence. Since 1968 as a result of gun violence. Put that into perspective: That is more than those killed in the Civil War, World War I, Korean and Vietnam wars combined. This is an epidemic. As a medical epidemic would be treated, this epidemic will require our political leaders to intervene based on the evidence, not on political agendas. The remedy to our gun violence epidemic must come from a combination of treatment and legislation -- the treatment of social and emotional disturbances and mental illnesses along with the passage of responsible gun laws. But there is a huge obstacle preventing treatment of this epidemic -- our state and nation's gun lobby. There are 300 million people in the U.S. who are being controlled by 4 million members of the regarding meaningful common sense gun legislation. If you ever engaged in a lively discussion about sensible gun legislation with an avid gun-rights advocate, you have heard about the Second Amendment right to bear arms. You hear the mantra: "If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns," or "Guns don't kill, people do." And the newest perspective is that if there were more armed, law-abiding gun owners, they could have disabled the shooter. How about this question? If Congress and President Bush didn't let certain gun legislation expire, would we have had the Virginia Tech massacre, the Arizona, Newtown, Charleston incidents and our latest tragedy in Orlando? Could the extent of these catastrophes at least have been minimized? We should not forget that each one of the events I mentioned was perpetrated by a law-abiding gun owner. The gun lobby folks can rationalize their assault weapons and high-capacity cartridge magazines all they want, but there is one thing they can't deny: The faster the gun shoots, the higher the body count. Let me make it clear: I am not against owning a gun or the Second Amendment. But I am for common sense. I believe there is only one thing that will guarantee a change, and that is Americans saying that this time, we must take action to keep our communities safer. Change will only happen if the American people insist on it. Enough is enough. We need state and federal legislators with courage. That courage is not just standing and giving a speech in an empty state or congressional chamber. The courage I'm talking about will be reaching across the aisle and working with others for the benefit of the good of the people they serve. Change will only happen if we insist on it. Americans of all stripes -- gay, straight, white, black, Latino, Asian -- need to take a stand and say enough is enough. It's time to take action. We have seen too many tragedies. If you are concerned like I am about our loved ones, our communities and our children to let this senseless and available violence continue, take a stand and say enough is enough. Ed Pawlowski of the mayor of Allentown. Four years in the making, the removal of the Hughesville Dam on the Musconetcong River is scheduled to begin Thursday, the Musconetcong Watershed Association announced Monday. The 15-foot-high Hughesville Dam at the border of Pohatcong and Holland Townships is scheduled for demolition, starting Thursday, June 16, 2016, according to the Musconetcong Watershed Association. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) The dam no longer serves its purpose of generating hydropower, with a flow that fluctuates seasonally and is too weak to meet modern needs, said the association. The dam's owner, International Process Plants and Equipment Corp., asked for help with removal in 2012 from the association. Dams are removed to cut potential liability for the owner, due to accidents or even a failure of the dam during a storm, and to improve the ecology of a waterway. Estimated to cost about $1.5 million, removal of the Hughesville Dam will be the watershed group's fourth dam removal on the Musconetcong since 2008, beginning with the Gruendyke Dam on the border between Hackettstown and Mount Olive Township, Morris County. Removed since then have been the Seber Dam, also along Hackettstown, in 2009; and the Finesville Dam and remnants of the Riegelsville Dam, both in 2011. The Hughesville Dam spans the Musconetcong between Pohatcong and Holland townships, and the project has required a collaboration between the watershed association, supported by the Musconetcong River Restoration Partnership, and property owners, municipalities, engineers and contractors. Partners on the effort include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Office of Natural Resource Restoration and Division of Fish and Wildlife. The effort has entailed a lot of paperwork, in addition to fundraising that netted a federal grant of $1.05 million two years ago. "Removing the dam is the easy part," Beth Styler Barry, the watershed association's executive director. Tri-State Dredging is scheduled to begin Thursday removing sediment trapped upstream of the dam, a process projected to take three to four weeks. Breaching the dam, construction of grade controls and bank stabilization will be done by RiverLogic Solutions and is to begin during the second week in July. Work on the project is expected to continue until late September, though weather could affect the schedule. Funding for the project came from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state DEP, FishAmerica Foundation/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership, Conservation Resources Inc. and Watershed Institute. The watershed association says its partners on the project got involved to improve waterways for kayakers, canoeists and other users; to bolster water quality and to open up the river for fish, including American shad that may come up from the Delaware River. Looking ahead, the association is working on removing the Warren Glen Dam, the biggest on the Musconetcong. "That'll take a lot of partners and a lot of funding," Styler Barry said. "We'll see what happens there." Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Lynne Featherstone has joined forces with Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity to talk about how the EU helps the renewable sector. Just one year of a Tory-only Government we have seen a dangerous unravelling of the green actions of the Coalition. Our investment in the renewable sector made Britain the fastest growing green economy in Europe, created jobs and set solar and wind power on a path to becoming subsidy-free. This progress has been flung into jeopardy by a Government that has not made much effort to hide what it thinks of this green crap. The renewable sector should be seen as an exciting area of innovation and growth, at a time when countries around the world are increasing their investment in green technology in response to global pressure to tackle climate change and domestic pressure to improve air quality. The UK is already a world leader in offshore wind and has the potential to establish this status in other areas such as tidal. But instead of building on our competitive advantage and strengthening Britains reputation as a hub for green innovation, the Government has cut subsidies to unsustainable levels. It has failed to work with the industry to phase these out at an appropriate pace, while in contrast fossil fuel subsidies have been given a nine year phase out period recently by the G7. Due to Britains leading role in Europe on climate change, the EU has ambitious targets for carbon reduction. These were achieved by Britains influencing power despite reluctance from countries including Germany and Poland. These legally-binding targets may prove vital in Britains fight against climate change in the face of a Conservative Government that does not have a green agenda. A future leadership change could make this all the worse. The EU is now on the right track leading the world in tackling this global threat and while it was Britain that got it there, its now Britain that needs its protection. * Lynne Featherstone was the MP for Hornsey and Wood Green from 2005 to 2015, and served as a minister in both the Home Office and Department for International Development. She is now a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords and blogs at www.lynnefeatherstone.org. The award ceremony was held at the Imaging MS: Present and Future of Multimodal Studies workshop at the ASMS Congress on Wednesday, June 8 in San Antonio, Texas in the presence of Vilmos Kertesz, (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility) and Raf Van de Plas (Delft, University of Technology), coordinators of the Imaging MS Interest Group. The panel of judges was chaired by ImaBiotech's CEO, Jonathan Stauber, and composed of three distinguished individuals within the MSI's community: - Pierre Chaurand, Associate Professor at the University of Montreal (Montreal, Canada) - Richard Drake, Smartstate Endowed Chair in Proteomics at Medical University of South Carolina (South Carolina, USA) - Sheerin Shahidi-Latham, Scientist and Metabolomics/Imaging MS Group Leader at Genentech (California, USA) ImaBiotech and the review committee would like to thank all of the participants for their entries and hard work. It was a pleasure to read more than thirty applications, which made it challenging for the panel of judges to ultimately select the winner for the 2016 MSI Award, commented Jonathan Stauber during the award ceremony. John Cahill PhD, the 2016 MSI Award winner, made great developments within the Van Berkel group, showing great development of micro-sampling methods allowing quantitative and micron resolution imaging technique. In 2014, John Cahill received his PhD in Analytical Chemistry at the University of California San Diego with Professor Kimberly Prather. Between 2009 and 2014 John Cahill has developed new techniques in aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ATOFMS) to explore atmospheric processes, material synthesis, and biological cell characterization. Since 2014, John Cahill is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Gary J. Van Berkel's department. John Cahill has developed and applied new techniques in ambient laser ablation followed by secondary ionization for use in Mass Spectrometry Imaging. Since 2011, he has written more than 17 publications in the field of MSI. ImaBiotech has developed this award three years ago in order to promote innovation in the field of Mass Spectrometry Imaging. The MSI Award recipient is awarded $5,000 for the best innovative project using MS imaging techniques (development and applications with every MS Imaging techniques such as SIMS, DESI, LAESI, MALDI ). A GRANT of 16,000 has been approved to carry out repairs on an historic thatched cottage in Adare that was gutted by fire a year ago. The funding was announced by the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys. It comes as Limerick City and County Council approves plans to repair and reinstate the iconic cottage, and a neighbouring property, which were badly damaged by a blaze in June 2015. They are among 11 thatched cottages which were built by the Dunraven family as staff houses in the 1800s and which have become a landmark for tourists to the village. As the two cottages are protected structures, it was necessary for the owners to seek a Section 57 Declaration from Limerick City and County which sets out the works which can be carried out on the buildings. It is understood that those declarations are due to be approved by the council, paving the way for the repair and reinstatement works to go ahead. The Benson cottage is one of 57 heritage projects to receive funding under the Structures at Risk Fund (SRF) for 2016 which provides funding for protected buildings. The fund also includes provision of just over 6,600 for preservation works on a medieval church site in Castletown Conyers, known locally as The Abbey. The works will seek to address a number of health and safety issues on the site. This scheme was first introduced in 2011, and since then it has made an invaluable contribution to the preservation and protection of our built heritage, said Minister Humphreys. Support for our built heritage, is vital not only for the safekeeping of Irelands architectural heritage, it also helps to support employment in the conservation and construction industries. LEGAL proceedings against an unauthorised car dealership have been adjourned to allow the defendant produce details of his lease agreement. Limerick City and County Council has initiated court proceedings against Mike ODwyer over his failure to comply with the terms of an enforcement notice. Limerick District Court was told the notice, which relates to a commercial unit on the Dock Road, was hand-delivered by a council official on November 12, last. It requires that Mr Dwyer removed all display ramps and cars from public areas of the business park including car parking spaces. Solicitor Will Leahy, representing the local authority, says the defendant has entered a lease agreement with a third party which allows him to use Unit 4 at Corcanree Business Park. Judge May Larkin was told business park is owned by the council and that Mr ODwyer does not have any permission to sell cars from the car park. Aaron Desmond BL said his client has been in business in the area for more than 20 years and that he has lodged a planning application to retain the business. Mr Leahy said he had no difficulty with the planning application taking its course but said the council wants the cars to be removed in the meantime. He has no authority to park or sell cars at that location, he said. Mr Desmond accused the council of being unreasonable saying his clients livelihood would be severely affected if he is forced to removed the cars pending the outcome of the planning process. We have complied with the enforcement notice to be best of our ability, he said. After being informed that the council has not seen any documentation relating to Mr ODwyers lease, Judge Larkin adjourned the matter to July 1, next commenting time is running. NOT one application has been received in Limerick to reinhabit a Georgian building under the much-lauded Living Cities scheme. Eighteen applications were received in Dublin, four in Cork, seven in Waterford, two in Kilkenny, two in Galway and none in Limerick, which has been praised as having some of the best Georgian architecture in the country, the Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has outlined in the Dail. Fianna Fail deputy Willie ODea has described the initial take up of the Living City Initiative in Limerick as deeply disappointing and indicative of the poor design of the scheme, which has been criticised by many locally. The initiative came in to effect on May 5 of last year and covers parts of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny Limerick and Waterford particularly areas which are most in need of regeneration. The scheme provides tax incentives for works to refurbish pre 1915 residential buildings. The cost can be claimed back against tax over 10 years. The scheme was first announced in December 2012 and took several years to get EU approval, explained deputy ODea. However, a year after it formally launched, just 33 residential property owners have applied for inclusion in the scheme. In fact, in the Limerick area there have been no applications at all. This is a major disappointment considering the number of properties that could potentially be renovated under the scheme. There are a number of aspects of the scheme that I believe should be reviewed. Under the terms of the scheme, renovation of residential properties is restricted to owner occupiers. There is a clear argument that the rejuvenation of inner cities would be best served by giving incentives to families and owner occupiers. However, for houses which are totally derelict, it is likely that only landlords will be willing to make the relevant investment and the scheme should be flexible enough to accommodate this. In relation to residential works I am also calling for consideration to be given to removing the requirement for the building to have been originally built for use as a dwelling prior to 1915. While the 1915 cut off can be maintained there are many architecturally appealing commercial buildings, in Limerick city centre especially, which would be ideal for residential conversion. If the building has gone through the necessary planning stages, then any works carried out converting the historical structure should be covered under the scheme. Last month Minister Noonan admitted that the take-up was disappointing, but said he hoped it would improve as the economy improves, and outlined that the scope of its remit may be revised in the future, as he recognised some of the existing constraints. WHEN Jesus said Go out on the highways he meant the roads, and today that means digital highways. Thats the modern interpretation of Jesuss message by Fr Seamus Enright, rector of the Redemptorists at Mount St Alphonsus in Limerick city, as he prepares to welcome crowds of up to 10,000 a day to the church. Pilgrimages by the faithful to Knock and Lourdes are regularly exalted, but Fr Enright is continuing to spread the word and advertise their presence increasingly on social media forums such as Facebook and Twitter about their own festival of faith, which begins on Friday week, June 17. A landmark event in the local religious calendar, the novena, running until Saturday, June 25, draws crowds from across Limerick and the Mid-West to the Redemptorist church at Mount St Alphonsus, regarded as perhaps the most beautiful church in the city. Over the coming three years, over 500,000 will be invested in the church, while one of its shrines is currently undergoing an upgrade thanks to a generous donor. Restoration has now begun on the Sacred Heart shrine, which was built 140 years ago this November, by Randal Hodkinson ecclesiastical decorators, who have an archive of how the church looked at every stage of its development. Some 250,000 is needed to repair the external fabric of the church, and the church organ, which is in major disrepair, requires some 300,000 in investment. The Redemptorists will continue to celebrate 150 years of devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help at this years novenas in Esker, county Galway, Clonard Monastery in Belfast and Mount St Alphonsus in Limerick. The combined novenas are one of the most significant and well-attended religious events in the country with a combined footfall of about 250,000 people, highlighed Fr Enright. The Pilgrim Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help having visited all 26 Catholic Cathedrals will return to Limerick for the last three days of this years novena. While the Icons official tour of the country has now concluded, it was also taken to Limerick Prison, and it will be brought to Mountjoy on August 21, and to Castlerea Prison at a later date. Even though pilgrimage is officially finished, we couldn't say no to go to a prison, because no matter they [the prisoners] have done they still come within our ambit, he added. The novena this year will focus on the Icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and the theme of the preaching will be Mary, Icon of Gods Mercy. Each day the church will focus on an aspect of the Icon. Examples of the daily themes are Mercy is the Language of God, With the Lord there is Mercy and Redemption (the motto of the Redemptorists), Mercy for those who are Hurting and Mercy on the Margins. There will be a Holy Door of Mercy in Mount St Alphonsus for the nine days of the Novena. Traditionally pilgrims had to go to Rome to celebrate a Holy Year symbolised by walking through the Holy Door but Pope Francis has decided that people can celebrate the Holy Year in their local Cathedrals or other churches designated by the local bishop. Among the preachers at this year's novena will be Fr Derek Ryan, who is returning from the Redemptorists' new mission in a very remote part of northern Mozambique, where he has been for two years, as well as lay missioners Sarah Kenwright and Niamh O'Neill, and Fr Derek Ryan. As usual the first Novema time is at 7am, followed by 8am, 10am, 11.30am, 1.10pm, 4.30pm, 6pm, 7.30pm, 9pm, and 10.30pm. Fr Enright said that Bishop Brendan Leahy has kindly agreed that they can have a Holy Door in Mount St Alphonsus during the Novena. There are no unforgivable sins because, as God sees it, there are no unlovable people, said Fr Enright. Among the regular Novena events will be: The Blessing of Babies and Young Children on Sunday, June 19, 4.30pm The Novena Celebration for First Communion Classes on Monday, June 20, 11.30 am; The celebration for the Sick and Infirm on Saturday, June 25, 11.30am Priests will be available to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation every day except Sunday, June 19. There will be a free, drop-in Counselling Service in a caravan outside the church from Monday, June 20 to Friday, June 25 from 10.45am to 1.15pm and from 5pm to 9pm. The Novena will be broadcast on www.novena.ie LIMERICK's lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community will gather in the city centre on Wednesday evening to show solidarity with the victims of the Orlando atrocity. At 6.30pm in Arthur's Quay park, a vigil will take place in memory of the 50 people who lost their lives when a gunman opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in the Florida city on Saturday night. Mayor Liam Galvin has just confirmed @LimerickCouncil will open online book of condolences for those killed in Orlando attacks tomorrow AM. Nick Rabbitts (@Nick468official) June 13, 2016 At least as many were injured in the sickening attacks, which were carried out by Isis sympathiser Omar Mateen, 29. Meanwhile, Mayor of Limerick Cllr Liam Galvin says the local authority will tomorrow morning open an online book of condolences. Limerick Chronicle columnist Richard Lynch, who is organising the evening vigil, said the gathering is for all members of society. "It is a chance for us to reflect on what is happened. It is not just for the LGBTI community, he explained. All of us have been affected by this. Anyone who is concerned about humanity at all, the loss of a loved one, be it a child, a sister or a brother should attend," he added. BALLET dancer turned contemporary dance artist Ella Clarke brings her autobiographical performance piece 42 to Dance Limerick next week. The piece, which is, Ms Clarke explains, a personal examination of how a dancer becomes an artist, will be performed next Thursday, June 16 at 8pm in St Johns Church. Clarke describes 42 as a kind of TED Talks dance a creation formed from the attempt to understand what makes me an artist, what governs my practice, why I love precisely ordered chaos and what use it will all be when the plane goes down in flames. Using montage, excerpts from some major ballets and some of my favourite things, Ive been writing this dance for years. Jenny Traynor of Dance Limerick, said the body was delighted to welcome Ella for the first time. This is a wonderful opportunity to see a dynamic, original performer, who questions and challenges herself, her work and her art. I find her work refreshes and invigorates, so I hope Limerick audiences will come and experience this true original for themselves. Ella Clarke graduated from the Perm State Ballet School and performed as a soloist with Perm Youth Ballet and Wexford Festival Opera before radically retraining her technique to contemporary dance and working with many of Irelands major companies and choreographers. She also earned her theatrical stripes through award-winning work at the Gate and at the Abbey theatres. See www.dancelimerick.ie. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Some of our partners may process your data as a part of their legitimate business interest without asking for consent. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. Some of the Roman sling bullets found at the Burnswark Hill battle site in Scotland. The two smallest bullets, shown at the bottom of this image, are drilled with a hole that makes them whistle in flight. Some 1,800 years ago, Roman troops used "whistling" sling bullets as a "terror weapon" against their barbarian foes, according to archaeologists who found the cast lead bullets at a site in Scotland. Weighing about 1 ounce (30 grams), each of the bullets had been drilled with a 0.2-inch (5 millimeters) hole that the researchers think was designed to give the soaring bullets a sharp buzzing or whistling noise in flight. The bullets were found recently at Burnswark Hill in southwestern Scotland, where a massive Roman attack against native defenders in a hilltop fort took place in the second century A.D. [See Photos of Roman Battle Site and Sling Bullets] These holes converted the bullets into a "terror weapon," said archaeologist John Reid of the Trimontium Trust, a Scottish historical society directing the first major archaeological investigation in 50 years of the Burnswark Hill site. "You don't just have these silent but deadly bullets flying over; you've got a sound effect coming off them that would keep the defenders' heads down," Reid told Live Science. "Every army likes an edge over its opponents, so this was an ingenious edge on the permutation of sling bullets." Burnswark Hill from the north, with one of the Roman camps visible on the slopes. (Image credit: John Reid/Trimontium Trust) The whistling bullets were also smaller than typical sling bullets, and the researchers think the soldiers may have used several of them in their slings made from two long cords held in the throwing hand, attached to a pouch that holds the ammunition so they could hurl multiple bullets at a target with one throw. "You can easily shoot them in groups of three of four, so you get a scattergun effect," Reid said. "We think they're for close-quarter skirmishing, for getting quite close to the enemy." Sling bullets and stones are a common find at Roman army battle sites in Europe. The largest are typically shaped like lemons and weigh up to 2 ounces (60 grams), Reid said. Smaller bullets shaped like acorns a symbol the Romans considered lucky have also been found at Burnswark Hill and other sites in Scotland. About 20 percent of the lead sling bullets found at Burnswark Hill had been drilled with holes, which represented a significant amount of effort to prepare enough ammunition for an assault, Reid said. "It's a tremendous amount of work to do, to just chuck them away," he said. Sling weapon secrets Whistling sling bullets haven't been found at any other Roman sites, but ceramic sling bullets with holes punched out have been discovered at battle sites in Greece from the second and third centuries B.C, Reid said. [Photos: Ancient Roman Fort Discovered] Many archaeologists had assumed that the holes in the Greek bullets were reservoirs for poison, he said. But in slinging experiments using about 100 replicas of the whistling bullets, Reid found that they would have been little use as poisoned weapons. "The holes are too small, and there's no guarantee that these are going to penetrate skin," Reid said. "And they are ballistically inferior: They don't fly as far, don't fly as fast and don't have the same momentum [as larger sling bullets] so why put poison holes in only the little ones?" Reid's brother, a keen fisherman, offered some insight into their possible purpose when he suggested the bullets were designed to make noise in flight. "I said, 'Don't be stupid; you've no idea what you're talking about. You're not an archaeologist,'" Reid joked. "And he said, 'No, but I'm a fisherman, and when I cast my line with lead weights that have got holes in them like that, they whistle.'" "Suddenly, a light bulb came on in my head that's what they're about. They're for making a noise," Reid said. Deadly in expert hands At the time of the Roman attack on Burnswark Hill, slings were used mainly by specialized units of auxiliary troops ("auxilia") recruited to fight alongside the Roman legions. Among the most feared were slingers from the Balearic Islands, an archipelago near Spain in the western Mediterranean, who fought for the Roman general Julius Caesar in his unsuccessful invasions of Britain in 55 B.C. and 54 B.C. "These guys were expert slingers; they'd been doing this the whole of their lives," Reid said. In the hands of an expert, a heavy sling bullet or stone could reach speeds of up to 100 mph (160 km/h): "The biggest sling stones are very powerful they could literally take off the top of your head," Reid said. Burnswark Hill lies a few miles north of the line of Roman forts and ramparts known as Hadrian's Wall, built during the reign of the emperor Hadrian between A.D. 117 and 138. Reid said the Roman attack on the Burnswark Hill fort was probably part of the military campaign ordered by Hadrian's successor, the emperor Antoninus Pius, to conquer Scotland north of the wall. "We think it was an all-out assault on the hilltop, to demonstrate to the natives what would happen to them if they resisted," Reid said. But the Scottish tribes fought back hard for more than 20 years, and in A.D. 158, the Romans gave up their plans to conquer the north and pulled their legions back to Hadrian's Wall. "Scotland is rather like Afghanistan in many respects," Reid said. "The terrain is pretty inhospitable, certainly the farther north you go, and the isolation and long supply lines would make it difficult for servicing an army that far north." Original article on Live Science. America has experienced yet another mass shooting. This time at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. As a criminologist, I have reviewed recent research in hopes of debunking some of the common misconceptions I hear creeping into discussions that spring up whenever a mass shooting occurs. #1: More guns don't make you safer A study I conducted on mass shootings indicated that this phenomenon is not limited to the United States. Mass shootings also took place in 25 other wealthy nations between 1983 and 2013, but the number of mass shootings in the United States far surpasses that of any other country included in the study during the same period of time. The US had 78 mass shootings during that 30-year period. The highest number of mass shootings experienced outside the United States was in Germany where seven shootings occurred. In the other 24 industrialized countries taken together, 41 mass shootings took place. In other words, the US had nearly double the number of mass shootings than all other 24 countries combined in the same 30-year period. Another significant finding is that mass shootings and gun ownership rates are highly correlated. The higher the gun ownership rate, the more a country is susceptible to experiencing mass shooting incidents. This association remains high even when the number of incidents from the United States is withdrawn from the analysis. Similar results have been found by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, which states that countries with higher levels of firearm ownership also have higher firearm homicide rates. My study also shows a strong correlation between mass shooting casualties and overall death by firearms rates. However, in this last analysis, the relation seems to be mainly driven by the very high number of deaths by firearms in the United States. The relation disappears when the United States is withdrawn from the analysis. #2: Shootings are more frequent A recent study published by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center shows that the frequency of mass shooting is increasing over time. The researchers measured the increase by calculating the time between the occurrence of mass shootings. According to the research, the days separating mass shooting occurrence went from on average 200 days during the period of 1983 to 2011 to 64 days since 2011. What is most alarming with mass shootings is the fact that this increasing trend is moving in the opposite direction of overall intentional homicide rates in the US, which decreased by almost 50% since 1993 and in Europe where intentional homicides decreased by 40% between 2003 and 2013. #3: Restricting sales works Police secure the area near a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, December 2 2015. Mario Anzuoni/REUTERS Due to the Second Amendment, the United States has permissive gun licensing laws. This is in contrast to most developed countries, which have restrictive laws. According to a seminal work by criminologists George Newton and Franklin Zimring, permissive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which all but specially prohibited groups of persons can purchase a firearm. In such a system, an individual does not have to justify purchasing a weapon; rather, the licensing authority has the burden of proof to deny gun acquisition. By contrast, restrictive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which individuals who want to purchase firearms must demonstrate to a licensing authority that they have valid reasons to get a gun like using it on a shooting range or going hunting and that they demonstrate good character." The type of gun law adopted has important impacts. Countries with more restrictive gun licensing laws show fewer deaths by firearms and a lower gun ownership rate. #4: Historical comparisons may be flawed Beginning in 2008, the FBI used a narrow definition of mass shootings. They limited mass shootings to incidents where an individual or in rare circumstances, more than one kills four or more people in a single incident (not including the shooter), typically in a single location. In 2013, the FBI changed its definition, moving away from mass shootings toward identifying an active shooter as an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area. This change means the agency now includes incidents in which fewer than four people die, but in which several are injured, like this 2014 shooting in New Orleans. This change in definition impacted directly the number of cases included in studies and affected the comparability of studies conducted before and after 2013. Even more troubling, some researchers on mass shooting, like Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox, have incorporated in their studies several types of multiple homicides that cannot be defined as mass shooting: for instance, familicide (a form of domestic violence) and gang murders. In the case of familicide, victims are exclusively family members and not random bystanders. Gang murders are usually crime for profit or a punishment for rival gangs or a member of the gang who is an informer. Such homicides dont belong in the analysis of mass shootings. #5: Not all mass shootings are terrorism Journalists sometimes describe mass shooting as a form of domestic terrorism. This connection may be misleading. There is no doubt that mass shootings are terrifying and terrorize the community where they have happened. However, not all active shooters involved in mass shooting have a political message or cause. For example, the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015 was a hate crime but was not judged by the federal government to be a terrorist act. The majority of active shooters are linked to mental health issues, bullying and disgruntled employees. Active shooters may be motivated by a variety of personal or political motivations, usually not aimed at weakening government legitimacy. Frequent motivations are revenge or a quest for power. #6: Background checks work In most restrictive background checks performed in developed countries, citizens are required to train for gun handling, obtain a license for hunting or provide proof of membership to a shooting range. Individuals must prove that they do not belong to any prohibited group, such as the mentally ill, criminals, children or those at high risk of committing violent crime, such as individuals with a police record of threatening the life of another. Heres the bottom line. With these provisions, most US active shooters would have been denied the purchase of a firearm. Editors note: this piece was updated on June 12, 2016. It was originally published on Dec. 3, 2015. Frederic Lemieux, Professor and Program Director of Bachelor in Police and Security Studies; Masters in Security and Safety Leadership; Masters in Strategic Cyber Operations and Information Management, George Washington University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Higher levels of air pollution may correspond to higher rates of mental health disorders in kids and teens, according to a new study conducted in Sweden. Researchers found that, in areas with higher levels of pollution, there were more medications dispensed for psychiatric conditions in children and teens, compared with areas with lower levels of pollution. "The results can mean that a decreased concentration of air pollution first and foremost, traffic-related air pollution may reduce psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents," lead study author Anna Oudin, a public health researcher at Umea University in Sweden, said in a statement. In the study, the researchers looked at a national registry in Sweden that lists all medications for psychiatric disorders, such as antipsychotics and certain sedatives, that were dispensed to children and teens in four Swedish counties between 2007 and 2010. The researchers also examined data on air pollution levels in these four counties (the counties were Stockholm, Vastra Gotaland, Skane and Vasterbotten). [11 New Warning Signs Help Spot Mental Illness in Children] The researchers found that the higher the levels of air pollution, the higher the rate of medications dispensed for psychiatric conditions in children and teens. Specifically, the rate of medications increased by 9 percent with every 10 microgram per cubic meter increase in nitrogen dioxide. The new findings add to previous research that has shown links between air pollution and anxiety, perceived levels of stress and mental health conditions in the general population, the researchers said in their study, published June 3 in the journal BMJ Open. It is not clear how air pollution may affect people's mental health, but it could be that air pollution leads to inflammation and oxidative stress, which in turn may contribute to mental health problems, the researchers said. Some research has also suggested that the brain is vulnerable to ambient particulate matter in polluted air, the researchers said. However, the new study does not show that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between air pollution and psychiatric disorders, said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not involved in the study. [5 Controversial Mental Health Treatments] The association between increased pollution levels and increased levels of dispensed medications for such disorders could also have been explained by other factors such as the high prevalence of the mood disorder called seasonal affective disorder (SAD) in Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, he said. More research is needed to rule out other factors that could be behind the link shown in the study, Horovitz told Live Science. Originally published on Live Science. An aerial image of the mysterious rectangular feature found at Petra, which the archaeologists call "SM Platform." (UAV composite image created by I. LaBianca; S. Parcak overlaid the data on the WV-1 satellite imagery.) Carved into desert cliffs, the towering, ancient city of Petra can trace its origins back at least 2,000 years. It lies about 115 miles (185 kilometers) southwest of Amman, Jordan, and holds the remains of what was once a bustling metropolis, including houses, forts, temples, tombs and cisterns. For two centuries, archaeologists have extensively studied what is left of Petra, but they continue to make new discoveries. Recently, scientists discovered an enormous structure that had previously eluded detection. By combining data gathered by Google Earth and satellite sensors, they observed the shape of what may have once been a giant stoneplatform, located about 0.6 miles (900 m) outside Petra's city center. [In Photos: Mysterious, Giant Platform at Petra 'Hidden' in Plain Sight] By analyzing satellite imagery taken in 2010, the researchers began their work by investigating a question: How did Petra's inhabitants the Nabateans (also spelled Nabataeans) change the landscape around their city? Then, the researchers looked for features that prior excavations or surveys might have missed. Uncovering Petra's secrets Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, described the sizable structure in an article co-authored by Christopher Tuttle, an archaeologist at Brown University. They published their findings online in the May issue of the journal Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Image sharpening applied to the satellite views of the site revealed four areas with unusual features that could represent human-made structures, the researchers reported. Located on a plateau within one of those areas was their most significant find a giant platform measuring about 184 feet by 161 feet (56 by 49 m), topped with a smaller platform that was fronted with columns and crossed by a stairway. Terrace walls supported the large platform's western side. "This monumental platform has no parallels at Petra or in its hinterlands at present," the authors wrote. The researchers selected the article's title "Hiding in Plain Sight" because despite the structure's impressive size and its proximity to the city center, it had remained undetected by earlier surveys, Parcak told Live Science in an email. And according to Parcak, improvements in remote-sensing technologies are what made this discovery possible. "This feature was not visible fully on Google Earth in 2012, when we began this study, due to poor imagery coverage it is partly visible now," Parcak said. "Only with processing the high-resolution imagery did its rectangular form become more apparent." From the sky to the ground Once satellites had detected the structure, it was time for the legwork. The archaeologists transferred GPS points from the images to maps, and then walked the site to make more detailed observations of the structures and artifacts in the surrounding area, photographing what they saw but not disturbing anything. Drones captured high-resolution overhead images, and the archaeologists overlaid these photos onto the satellite images, using them as references for later fieldwork. The structure was built by the Nabateans when Petra was at its peak, Parcak said, but how the people might have used it is unclear, and the platform's purpose might have changed over millennia. "It probably functioned for some type of public display activity," Parcak said. "This could be cultic, political or otherwise." Many questions remain about this unusual platform and the role it may have played in everyday Nabatean life. And according to Parcak, it's important to remember that even in archaeological sites like Petra that have been examined extensively, there is still a great deal to discover, and new technologies can reveal still-hidden mysteries. "So much is left to find," Parcak told Live Science. "We have truly just begun the age of discovery in archaeology, which is possible primarily through the use of new technologies like satellites. We simply cannot take anything for granted." Original article on Live Science. Forty years ago Sharron Gorman took the life changing decision to become a full time carer to her beloved husband Tom, a decision she has no regrets over whatsoever. Sitting inside the lobby of The Longford Arms Hotel last Friday, this remarkable and modest lady spoke to the Leader about what is arguably one of society's most unsung of professions. In truth for people like Sharron, caring is not an occupation, a weekly nine to five job that comes with a pay cheque at the end of it. In her own words, it's a 'lifestyle choice', one which she made without haste when Tom was diagnosed with a complex, progressive disease almost four decades ago. The couple, who were married in the UK, hadn't originally intended to settle here after arriving over in 1968 to visit Tom's father who was sick at the time. We just didn't go back, said Sharron in a soft spoken manner. Having fallen in love with their new surroundings, little did the couple know that their lives would be irrevocably changed forever when Tom, himself, fell ill. When he was diagnosed, we didn't know it would get as bad as it did, said Sharron. We just took things from day to day and hoped for the best. Preferring not to go into the complexities of her husband's condition, Sharron said the work of a carer is something which rarely attracts publicity or public attention. It's not really a paid job, she maintained. The money the Government gives us is an allowance probably just to keep us quiet. Sharron was just as plain-speaking when referring to how carers are perceived by society at large. A lot of people don't really think it's a big deal. They don't really understand what's involved, she added. One group who certainly understands where Sharron is coming from is the Carers Association. In January, the voluntary support group merged with Caring for Carers, another advocacy body to provide a stronger national voice for the estimated 200,000 Irish people who look after family members on a full-time basis. There are some great people in it, Denise (Nolan) and Caroline (Poole) especially. You can say anything to them and they understand, said Sharron. We have carers meetings every week and as well as that it's a good social outlet for us. Forty years later and with Tom now aged 83, Sharron said if presented with the same dilemma in today's terms caring for her husband 24/7 is something she would do all over again. No, I have no regrets at all, she said defiantly. We are 53 years married so no I have no regrets. That staunch reaction soon changed to a forlorn tone when asked about whether carers like herself can expect increased financial supports from the new Fine Gael led minority government. I don't think they will do anything different, she lamented. It's just a change of people with the background still being the same. As the judging season for National Tidy Towns arrives, Longford Tidy Towns is anxious to maintain and build on the towns considerable success to date. Having being granted the IBAL award for the Tidiest Town in Ireland, it is indeed our intend to maintain that distinction, John Farrell of Longford Tidy Towns explained. Longford Tidy Towns is calling on all business owners to ensure their property is presented in the best possible manner. This includes washing shop fronts, sweeping footpaths, weeding etc. If your property needs a face lift there is do have limited sponsorship from Providers Longford and Fleetwood paints which may be of interest, (contact any committee member). Likewise all approach roads and housing estates need to look their best. Some estates have residents groups in place which have made that vital difference. If your estate doesnt already have a residents association why not start one yourself, Tidy Towns are always available and willing to assist. For those living along our approach roads, a special word of encouragement to keep the roads and footpaths in your area free from weeds and litter. Longford County Council and their outdoor staff are very supportive of Tidy Towns however local cooperation and involvement is crucial. Please take out that wheel barrow, yard brush and spade, knock on the neighbours door and bring them with you. Together you will be amazed at what can be achieved in just one hour, John Farrell explained. Tidy Towns is always looking for volunteers, could you assist with litter picking or bag collecting, even an hour a week would help, Contact John 086 8346559. Aptly enough, iOS 10 has 10 major features, including sweeping new upgrades to Messages, a much more intelligent Siri, and a Memories feature in Photos that recognizes objects, people, and even locations. Introduced on Monday during WWDC, iOS 10 also makes the iPhone sublimely integrated with third-party apps. Developers can now design apps to directly enhance Messages, Siri, Maps, and Notifications. Theres also better integration for VoIP calling and a brand-new Home app. Apples most noticeable update comes to Messages, which the company said is the most frequently used app on iOS. In addition to opening up the iMessage platform to third-party developers, Messages in iOS 10 has gone through a major emojification. Emoji sent by themselves are three times bigger, and with iOS 10 its easy to simply tap-and-replace certain keywords with emojis. Messages has other visual enhancements, including rich links and in-line video and Apple Music playback, as well as bubble effects, full-screen effects, handwritten messages, Digital Touch interactive greeting cards, Tap Back for quickly responding to a text, and Invisible Ink that you can swipe away to reveal a message or photo. Other major Apple services that were opened up to developers include Siri and Maps. With Siri on iOS 10, you can now do something as simple as request an Uber or enable another third-party app thanks to the just-released SiriKit. Next-level Siri intelligence was also brought to QuickType, so whenever you get a text asking where you are, Siri will suggest dropping a pin, as well as store recent addresses, access your calendar availability, and offer multilingual support without having to change keyboards. And with Maps extensions, you can make a reservation using OpenTable without leaving the Maps app. Additionally, Maps has gotten more proactive Navigation so you can see the traffic on the route ahead or spot any upcoming gas stations or restaurants. Apple also spruced up its long-ignored Phone app in iOS 10. Most notably, theres a new voicemail transcription service that transcribes audio voicemails into text, as well as new detection of potential voicemail spam. Apple also introduced a VoIP API, so that whenever you receive a call from Skype or WhatsApp, it will look like a native Phone call. Theres also a brand-new Home app to control all your HomeKit-enabled devices around the house. In addition to tapping your devices on or off, you can use Home to set specific Scenes, like closing the shades and locking the front door before going to bed. Other native apps like Apple Music, Photos, and News also got updated. Besides a new look, Apple Music now has integrated song lyrics. Photos has a new Memories tab that stitches together your photos based on facial recognition and location thats all stored on-device to protect your privacy. And News will let you read paid-subscriptions like National Geographic and The Wall Street Journal. Plus, youll be able to view conversations in Mail, edit your Live Photos, and use Split View in Safari for iPad. In terms of user experience, iOS 10 brought a redesigned lock screen and Control Center, more-interactive Notifications, and better implementation of 3D Touch. From the lock screen you can now access your Camera by swiping from the right, and see all your widgets by swiping from the left. The Control Center is now multi-page, so you can control just Apple Music or Home by swiping to the left. And 3D Touch lets you do more with your Notifications on iOS 10. For example, you can reply to a Message or accept a Calendar invitation. Stay tuned for more information on iOS 10 and WWDC. Also on the blog this week: Join our next webinar on "PTAB Trials by the Numbers" on June 14 Latest IP developments in Asia Is the PTAB too unfair on motions to amend? And in our news and analysis: Kyle Bass IPRs end up with 57% institution success rate Americas Women in Business Law Awards: 2016 winners Mercks $200m patent damages award voided after misconduct Mexicos opposition system to come into force by August 30 Can a foreign trade mark really trump a local one in Uganda? Latest people moves in Asia - June 2016 PAGBAM IP partner named president of Argentinas patent and trade mark office Latest people moves in the Americas Highlights from the PTAB Forum 2016 What in-house practitioners really want Sequencing the future of IP in genomics Circuit split over Madonna copyright case tipped to go to Supreme Court Supreme Court SCOTUS Halo decision released The big news today is that the Supreme Court is out with its Halo Electronics v Pulse Electronics decision. The court in a unanimous ruling written by Chief Justice Roberts held that the Seagate test for assessing whether enhanced damages should be awarded is not consistent with Section 284 of the Patent Act. Managing IP will be publishing further analysis of the opinion later this week. Photo copier? Ed Sheeran has been sued by two musicians claiming his song Photograph infringes the copyright of one of their songs, reports the BBC. In a lawsuit filed in the Central District of California, Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard claim the chorus of Photograph shares 39 identical notes to their track Amazing. The pair are represented by Richard Busch of King & Ballow, the lawyer that won the Blurred Lines case. The lawsuit states: The copying of Amazing by Photograph is breathtaking in its deliberateness, magnitude, and hubris. The documents state that Photograph has sold more than 3.5 million copies. A version of Amazing by Matt Cardle has more than one million views on YouTube. Harrington and Leonard are seeking damages of more than $20 million and royalties. Singer seeks Fat Axl removal Another copyright story involves an actual photograph, with Billboard reporting that Axl Rose has issued takedown requests with Google to get an unflattering image of him that went viral removed from the internet. The photo inspired a Fat Axl meme, with social media users mocking Rose by making food puns on Guns N Roses songs. Web Sheriff made a number of DMCA takedown requests on behalf of Rose, listing a number of websites that were allegedly infringing his copyright. The snag? He may not own the copyright to the image in question, which first appeared in a concert review in the Winnipeg Free Press in January 2010. Web Sheriff told Billboard that Rose receives sign off from all photographers at his shows to transfer copyright to him. The Winnipeg Free Press disputed this. Weve had a number of requests for comment on the circulating memes of Axl Rose based on a photo staff photographer Boris Minkevich took in Winnipeg in January of 2010," it said in a statement. The Winnipeg Free Press holds editorial copyright on the image and has not approved any third-party usage. We were only recently made aware of these memes, and while we ethically dont approve, viral media is impossible for us to regulate. Welcome to the jungle. Judge upholds jury verdict in Oracle v Google The presiding judge in the Oracle v Google trial has rejected Oracles motion for judgment as a matter of law. Oracle argued that no reasonable jury could find against it, but Judge William Alsup ruled that it was reasonable for a jury to find Googles use of Java software code was fair use, reports Fortune. Alsup in a 20-page order applied the four statutory fair use factors. Overall, avoiding cross-system babel promoted the progress of science and useful arts or so our jury could reasonably have found, said Alsup. The Disruptive Competition Project (DisCo) commented: Oracle almost certainly will appeal this order to the Federal Circuit. But given how the district court meticulously found evidence in the record supporting the reasonableness of the jurys fair use finding, it is hard to imagine that the Federal Circuit will reverse it. Google gets case transferred Google received other good news recently when it was successful in getting the Fujinomaki v Google case transferred to the Northern District of California from the Eastern District of Texas. The transfer decision was granted on May 13 and made official last week. Judge Roy Payne of the Eastern District of Texas issued an order granting Googles transfer motion and defendants joinders. He noted defendants evidence at the hearing that the majority of party and third-party witnesses who have knowledge of the accused features are located in the Northern District of California. Plaintiff did not present meaningful countervailing or rebuttal evidence, he said. Judge Payne also noted that [i]n particular, no party identified any specific witness or piece of evidence located in the Eastern District of Texas. He concluded that the Northern District of California is clearly more convenient. Plaintiff Ryujin Fujinomaki, a Japanese resident, filed a complaint in July last year in the Eastern District of Texas against Google, Samsung, Motorola, LG Electronics, ASUS, and Huawei alleging that their Android-based smartphones and wearables infringed his patent through their lock features. Google filed a motion to transfer venue to the Northern District of California in November. Barry Bumgardner, Gordie Puckett, and Matthew Juren of Bumgardner Nelson Casto and Shawn Latchford of the Albritton Firm appeared for the plaintiff. Aaron Marks, Jonathan Waldrop, Darcy Jones, Marcus Barber, Heather Kim and Jack Shaw of Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman and James Mark Mann of Mann Tindel & Thompson appeared on behalf of Google, Motorola, LG, and ASUS. Thad Kodish and Jane Du of Fish & Richardson appeared on behalf of Samsung, and David Airan and Leonard Hua appeared on behalf of Huawei. Getting a case transferred is a rarity. But the Federal Circuit has been pushing back on the Eastern District of Texass unwillingness to transfer cases in recent years. Google was also involved in the Federal Circuits decision last year in In re Google, in which the appeals court directed Judge Payne to stay proceedings brought by Brite Smart and decide a motion to transfer that had been pending for more than nine months. No sugar coating M&Ms Sweden ruling A Swedish court has ruled that the lower-case m logo on Mars M&Ms product is confusingly similar to Mondelezs Marabou product, which sells lower-case m-marked chocolates. According to brandchannel, the Stockholm Court of Appeals ruled that Mars will have to use the capital M&M logo in Sweden starting in July or face fines of up to $246,000. Mars did not sell M&Ms in Sweden until 2009, whereas Marbou has been sold since the 1960s. New Delhi: The Central Government decided to appoint a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to reopen 75 cases related to the anti-Sikh riots that broke out in Delhi after the assassination of the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984. Around 3000 Sikhs were killed in the riots, out of which 2733 were killed in Delhi alone. Several Congress leaders including Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar were accused of involvement in the case. For Punjab that is going to the polls next year, the re-investigation can become a major campaign point for the BJP against the Congress. Accra : Terrorism is a scourge that knows no borders and it must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee has said while pledging India's support to Ghana for combating the menace. Mukherjee, who is here on a two-day visit -- the first by an Indian President -- said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghana's concern that it has become a global menace. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on Sunday, Mukherjee said, "It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge." Mukherjee's visit is a part of India's outreach to Africa. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled 'Africa' in his addres."Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council," Mukherjee said On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. "The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs," he said PTI Maritime environmental and logistics industry expert Thomas A. Jelenic joins Pacific Merchant Shipping Association (PMSA) as Vice President, the trade association announced today. Jelenic will work in PMSAs Long Beach office as of June 13, 2016. Jelenic brings two decades of maritime industry experience to his new role, including more than 14 years in environmental and planning positions at the Port of Long Beach, the nations second busiest seaport, and senior management roles in private consulting and logistics development. His work includes leading successful efforts to manage complex air quality, transportation and greenhouse gas issues related to the shipping industry, and he developed the landmark San Pedro Bay Clean Air Action Plan and the Clean Trucks Program for the Port of Long Beach. Most recently, Jelenic managed the CEQA review and approvals for the World Logistics Center, the largest private-sector logistics development in California. At PMSA, Jelenic will work with policy makers, regulators, industry leaders and other entities to help ensure that sound science and industry issues are part of the discussion as California continues to call for the increased use of zero and near-zero emissions equipment at Californias ports and throughout the goods movement industry. The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, fell marginally on Monday on weaker demand for smaller vessels and panamaxes, partially offset by higher demand for capesizes. The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize shipping vessels, was down one point, or 0.16 percent, at 609 points. The capesize index gained eight points, or 0.8 percent, at 1,014 points. Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, were up $33 to $7,274. The panamax index was down one point, or 0.18 percent, at 542 points. Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes, decreased $10 to $4,327. Among smaller vessels, the supramax index fell three points to 554 points, while the handysize index fell five points to 322 points. Reporting by Harshith Aranya Japanese shipping giant Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK) has agreed to invest in EMAS Chiyoda, a subsea services joint venture between oilfield services firm Ezra Holdings Ltd and Chiyoda Corp. NYK has reached an agreement with Ezra Holdings Limited (Ezra) and Chiyoda Corporation (Chiyoda) to acquire a 25 percent share of EMAS Chiyoda Subsea Limited (ECS). After NYKs participation, the shareholding structure of ECS will change to Ezra 40%, Chiyoda 35%, and NYK 25%. ECS is a global player in the engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) of subsea facilities essential components in offshore oil and gas field development. Based on its More than Shipping 2018 medium-term management plan emphasizing differentiation through the use of creative solutions, NYK has been expanding its business in offshore oil and gas exploration/development. NYK currently offers seismic, drilling, production, and shuttle transportation services, and entry into the subsea EPCI segment will enable the company to further extend its service range in the offshore oil and gas value chain. Subsea EPCI work requires highly advanced engineering capabilities and a specialized skillset utilizing sophisticated subsea construction vessels, so NYK is confident that the expertise it has accumulated in the offshore business field, as well as the companys long-standing competence in oil and gas shipping, will make a positive contribution to the joint-venture company. The Basic Plan on Ocean Policy, an act approved by the Cabinet of Japan in April 2013, stipulates a vision of Japan as an oceanic state and encourages the promotion, creation, and development of maritime industries and marine resources, in addition to human resources having maritime technological capabilities. NYK has been developing its offshore business in line with this basic plan, and we believe that we can further support the governments initiatives through this new partnership with ECS. NYK will strive to enhance its capabilities in offshore resource development, including those in the exclusive economic zone of our home country. NYK will seek to further expand its offshore business developments in accordance with the companys medium-term management plan. A containership is rerouting to assist three people aboard the battered yacht, Platino, 550 kilometers north of New Zealand, after a crewman was lost overboard and another died when hit by rigging yesterday morning. An RNZAF P3 Orion is already out searching again this morning for the man, aged in his 60s, who was swept overboard when he was likely hit by the boom in high winds, which later caused the rigging on the 20-meter yacht to collapse before midday yesterday. The body of the man who died is still on-board, as his fellow crew continue to try to secure the rigging and the mast that was drifting alongside the yacht. Rescue Coordination Centre of New Zealand watch leader David Wilson says the Airforce Orion headed out at first light, with the search area about 223 square nautical miles calculated from drift predictions. The next few hours are vital in this rescue effort both in attempting to recover the man lost overboard, and to ensure the safety of those left on-board. Once the container ship Southern Lily is alongside its crew will help to clear the rigging. There is plenty of diesel onboard the yacht, and once the rigging has been cleared the remaining Platino crew may be able to motor the vessel back to New Zealand. The sea is currently four-five meters with conditions forecast to improve later today, Wilson said. CWind, a provider of services to the offshore wind industry, has announced that it has won a contract from E.ON to undertake the annual inspection and repair services as required at Humber Gateway offshore wind farm (OWF), covering latchways, mechanical services, as well as paint works The scope of work covers all 73 turbines and the offshore substation. Offshore work is scheduled to commence this June, with CWind utilising its office in Grimsbys Fishdock. Lee Andrews, Managing Director CWind commented: This is fantastic news. I am very proud of this contract award, which recognizes our capabilities in O&M services and is a testament to our teams ability to deliver outstanding services and provide solutions that match our clients specific requirements. We look forward to working with E.ON to successfully deliver a safe and well maintained asset, building on our successful history of delivery at Humber Gateway OWF, which we have supported through a range of services since 2013. French container shipping firm CMA CGM plans to delist Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) following its takeover of the Singaporean shipper, CMA CGM's vice chairman Rodolphe Saade told French daily Les Echos. CMA CGM, the world's third-largest container shipping company, said earlier this month it holds over 78 percent of NOL shares after buying Temasek Holdings' stake in a $2.4-billion deal agreed last year. Minority shareholders can sell their shares to CMA CG until July 18. Saade said he was confident they will sell and added that as soon as CMA CGM holds 90 percent of NOL, Singapore law will oblige any remaining minority shareholders to sell, after which NOL will be delisted. Saade also said that following a deal with Singapore container terminal operator PSA, which is 100 percent owned by Temasek, CMA CGM will move its shipping traffic from Malaysia to a new terminal in Singapore. CMA CGM will also move its Asian headquarters to Singapore from Hong Kong. The NOL operation is CMA CGM's biggest-ever acquisition and comes as container lines seek to cope with a severe market downturn through greater scale. Saade said there was still overcapacity in the industry and that a price war is continuing which will make 2016 a difficult year for shipping. He said CMA CGM plans $1 billion of asset sales and in September the firm will launch a plan to cut $1 billion in costs over 18 to 24 months. He said some of CMA CGM's ships were anchored for now and that the firm would not hesitate to anchor more. Saade also said that a planned operational alliance with Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong shipping firms will be called Ocean Alliance and is set to launch in April 2017. The alliance is waiting for clearance from US, EU and Chinese authorities, he added. Reporting by Geert De Clercq A boat carrying about 200 migrants which had sent out a distress signal off Crete on Monday was spotted safe and sailing to Italy, the Greek coast guard said. Greece had ordered a Greek-flagged tanker and a Panama-flagged freighter earlier on Monday to search for the 25-metre long fishing vessel after it sent out a mayday signal about 80 nautical miles south of Crete and 15 nautical miles within Libyan waters. Greece has not rescued the migrants because the boat was not in Greek territory and the passengers were safe, a coastguard official who declined to be named told Reuters. It was not immediately known where the boat had set sail from. Crete, Greece's southernmost island, lies north of Libya and Egypt. In recent weeks, the number of migrants heading to Italy from the African coast has grown as calmer weather sets in, and so has the number of boats that have lost their way and ended up near Crete. Some 206,400 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. So far, 2,809 deaths have been recorded, up from 1,838 during the same period last year. About 320 migrants and refugees are feared to have drowned in a shipwreck off Crete earlier this month, from which 340 people were rescued. Survivors told authorities they had set sail from Egypt. (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou) 1881 - The bark-rigged wooden steamship Jeannette sinks after she is crushed in an Arctic ice pack during the expedition to reach the North Pole through the Bering Strait. Only 13 of her crew survive out of 33. 1900 - During the Boxer Rebellion, the International Relief Expedition turns back near Anting, China, and moves to Sanstun after the Tientsin-Peking railroad is cut by the Boxers, whose anti-foreign mantra grew to burning homes and killing foreigners as well as Chinese Christians. In total, 56 Marines and Sailors receive the Medal of Honor for their actions during the Rebellion. 1913 - Lt. j.g. P.N.L. Bellinger sets an American altitude record for seaplanes when he reaches 6,200 feet in a Curtiss (A 3) aircraft. 1939 - USS Saratoga (CV 3) and USS Kanawha (AO 1) complete a two-day underway refueling test off the coast of southern Calif., demonstrating the feasibility of refueling carriers at sea where bases are not available. 1943 - USS Frazier (DD 607) sinks Japanese submarine (I 9), east of Sirius Point, Kiska, Aleutian Islands. 1944 - USS Melvin (DD 680) sinks Japanese submarine (RO 36) between 50 and 75 miles east of Saipan. Also on this date USS Barb (SS 220) sinks Japanese army transport Takashima Maru in the Sea of Okhotsk and survives counter-attacks by destroyer Hatsuharu. 1992 - USS Maryland (SSBN 738) is commissioned at New London, Conn. Two days later, the 13th out of 18 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines sails with her Gold Crew to her homeport at Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Ga. (Source: Naval History and Heritage Command, Communication and Outreach Division) The container vessel COSCO Shipping Panama set sail from the Greek Port of Piraeus today on its way to Panama to make history. The Neopanamax vessel will make the inaugural transit of the Expanded Panama Canal on Sunday, June 26, after a 14-day journey. Panama Canal Administrator Jorge L. Quijano met with COSCO Shipping Panamas Captain Jude Rodrigues and crew members prior to the ships departure. I am very excited to be here today to witness the sailing of the ship from Greece, but also meet the Captain and his crew, said Administrator Quijano. We are very pleased to be here watching it leave from Port of Piraeus. He is very thrilled to be part of this inaugural transit. I had transited the Panama Canal many times before and it has been a great experience, but being the master of the first vessel to transit the expanded Canal is an experience of a century, said Captain Rodrigues. The Panama Canal is testament to the diligence and wisdom of the people of Panama. The Panama Canal Expansion is a major event on itself and a milestone in global history. I would like to congratulate the people of Panama for their efforts and contribution to global economy. Cosco Shipping Panama is a new vessel constructed and launched on January 2016. The Neopanamax containership is 299.98 meters in length and 48.25 meters in beam, and has a container carrying capacity of 9,472 TEUs. Originally named Andronikos, the vessel was renamed by China COSCO Shipping to pay respect to the people of Panama and for the honor of the inaugural transit. This ship was selected during a draw for the inaugural transit through the expanded waterway. Coincidentally, the ship was built in Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co., Ltd, the same company that constructed the valves that control the flow of water through the new locks of the Canal. Over a hundred years ago, the SS Ancon made history as the first vessel to transit the Panama Canal, said Administrator Quijano. In a few weeks, COSCO Shipping Panama, the Panama Canal, and the people of Panama will change the face of global shipping and international commerce. I am humbled and honored to lead the Panama Canal to this great milestone with the thousands who made this bold vision a reality. During the inauguration, COSCO Shipping Panama will transit Agua Clara Locks on the Atlantic side during the early morning and Cocoli Locks in the afternoon. The regular schedule of transits through the Expanded Canal will follow the next day, June 27. The Panama Canal Expansion Program is the largest construction project undertaken in the waterway since its opening in 1914. Considered and analyzed for a decade with more than 100 studies, construction on the first-ever expansion began in 2007 to provide the world with greater shipping options, better maritime service, enhanced logistics and supply-chain reliability. The project doubles the waterways cargo capacity, enhancing the Canals efficiency, reliability and customer service. Since Neopanamax vessels can now take advantage of the Canals vast benefits, new routes, liner services and other maritime changes are expected to emerge. The joint military drill by Japan, the US and India being held near the waters of the East China Sea will create more frictions in the disputed area, warns China. The first phase of the drill kicked off on Friday in Japans southwestern city of Sasebo, with the second stage due to start on June 14 off the Okinawa Island, Press TV said. Chinese military expert Du Wenlong said Saturday that the drill is aimed at the Diaoyu Islands, which Japan calls Senkaku, "to make the maritime and air space situations of the East China Sea worse. The tri-country began their marine war games, Malabar Exercise, near Okinawa Island - about 400 kilometres from the contested Senkaku Islands - hunting for Chinese submarines, ships, recreating scenario of countering a hostile Chinese People' Liberation Army (Navy). Lying around 220 km (137 miles) west of Taiwan are a group of uninhabited isles, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China, which are controlled by Tokyo and claimed by Beijing. Earlier in 2013, China unilaterally established an Aircraft Defense Identification Zone in the East China Sea (ECS ADIZ) triggering protest from Japan, USA, European Union and Australia. Besides, China has claimed several islands in East and South China Sea. The exercise, the annually held Malabar, has been recently expanded from a bilateral comprising India and US to a trilateral exercise to include Japan. This year the over-all control of the exercise will be with Japan. Over 100 assets - warships, fighters and surveillance aircrafts - will be participating in this year's Malabar, indicating the size and intent of the exercise. The newly elected President of The Nautical Institute, Captain David (Duke) Snider FNI, has pledged to ensure the mariners voice is heard loud and clear within the maritime industry. Speaking at the Institutes annual general meeting in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 9 June, Captain Snider said that one of his first roles as President will be to champion the new five-year Strategic Plan, which was launched in March. The plan, informed by responses from more than 1,400 members surveyed in a questionnaire, will see a renewed focus on human element projects aimed at building competencies for modern integrated ships. Command, manning and fatigue, mentorship and continuing professional development (CPD) were other themes identified for further development. In his acceptance speech, Captain Snider explained: We will continue to work within our industry to promote the improvement in usability of shipboard equipment by including seafarers in the human-centred design of systems and equipment. Too often, he suggested, design or regulation is introduced without sufficient thought being given to their effects on the mariner, particularly on their workload. Captain Snider, an experienced ice navigator from Canada, joined The Nautical Institute in 1989 while studying for his Watchkeeping Mates certificate of competency. He recalled his instructor telling him that the Institute was the organisation that is about best practice in all the manner of going to sea as an officer. He was a founder member, and has long been a director, of The Nautical Institutes British Columbia Branch and has been an active and enthusiastic member of Council. He was elected Senior Vice-President at the 2014 AGM. The new President paid warm tribute to his predecessor in the post, Captain Robert McCabe FNI, and reminded his audience that the Institutes long-serving CEO, Philip Wake OBE FNI, will be retiring next year. He added a personal endorsement of the organisation he now leads: Without The Nautical Institute I would not be the mariner I am today. Captain Snider wrote Polar Ship Operations, the Institutes acclaimed work on the subject of ice navigation. During his time in post, he expects to see the start of the Institutes Ice Navigator Training Accreditation and Certification schemes, which complement the IMO Polar Code Polar Waters Training programmes. The M/V James R. Barker sailed Sunday from Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding Company in Sturgeon Bay, Wisc., becoming Interlake Steamship Companys first 1,000-footer and its second self-unloading bulk carrier to be outfitted with exhaust gas scrubbers. Interlake became the first U.S.-flag fleet to test scrubbers on the Great Lakes in April 2015 after pioneering the emission-reduction technology on its M/V Hon. James L. Oberstar. Implementing this innovative scrubber system on our 1,000-foot class ships will make an even greater impact on reducing our fleets carbon footprint, said Interlake President, Mark W. Barker. Leading the way with emission-reduction technology is just another example of our commitment to continuous improvement across our fleet. Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding handled the installation on the 806-foot Oberstar, as well as the second phase of installations on the 1,004-foot Barker and the 826-foot M/V Lee A. Tregurtha, which is slated to sail later this month. A total of five Interlake vessels, including two additional 1,000-footers: the M/V Paul R. Tregurtha and M/V Mesabi Miner, will be outfitted with these types of scrubbers by 2017. The James R. Barker is equipped with the same single-inlet, closed-loop DuPont Marine Scrubbers from Belco Technologies Corp. (BELCO), a DuPont company, that were installed on the Oberstar. The scrubber units, which are attached to the exhaust system of each of the ships two engines, effectively strip the majority of sulfur from its stack emissions. Exhaust gas from the engine is sent through a series of absorption sprays that wash and remove impurities, specifically sulfur and particulate matter. That washed exhaust gas then travels through a droplet separator before a clean plume of white steam is discharged into the atmosphere. Propelled by a long-term vision to create the most efficient and environmentally friendly fleet on the Great Lakes, Interlake is shoring up its 10-year, $100 million fleet modernization which includes the steam plant conversion program and the repower of its final vessel, the Herbert C. Jackson. While the majority of the worlds SOLAS fleet is now ECDIS ready, UKHO data published at Posidonia also shows significant progress in ECDIS readiness for large cargo ships The majority of the global SOLAS fleet is now compliant with the SOLAS regulations on ECDIS carriage, according to the latest data published by the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) at Posidonia. As of May 2016, 51 percent of all vessels that are subject to the SOLAS regulations on the mandatory carriage of ECDIS, including those that do not trade internationally, are now fully ECDIS ready. This is an increase of 6 percent in the past six months. Furthermore, out of almost 42,000 internationally trading vessels, the UKHO now estimates that 59 percent are ECDIS ready, which is defined as using an ENC (Electronic Navigational Chart) service on ECDIS. This represents an important step in the transition to digital navigation, as it is first time that over half of the global SOLAS fleet has been ECDIS ready. The UKHOs data also provides an insight into ECDIS readiness for different ship sizes and classes. 77 percent of the 3,500 large cargo ships (defined as those over 50,000 gt) in the global fleet are now ECDIS ready, ahead of the SOLAS-mandated deadline of 1 July 2016 for these vessels. This is an increase of 15 percent in the past six months. By comparison, 45 percent of cargo ships over 20,000 gt and 23 percent of cargo ships over 10,000 are currently using an ENC service. The respective SOLAS compliance dates for these two classes of vessel are July 2017 and July 2018. UKHO data also shows that 78 percent of tankers are now ECDIS ready. Commenting on these figures, Thomas Mellor, Head of OEM Technical Support and Digital Standards at UKHO, said, The news that over half of all ships subject to the SOLAS Convention are now ECDIS ready is an important landmark in the transition to digital navigation. We are moving into a new era where a growing majority of the global fleet is ready to benefit from ECDIS and it is particularly encouraging to see such good progress towards the adoption of digital navigation among large cargo ships, ahead of the SOLAS-mandated deadline of July 1, 2016. It is important that shipping companies yet to make the transition to ECDIS prepare themselves in good time, and the UKHO will continue to offer practical advice and support to help them to make this step. For the growing number of owners and operators that have made the switch to digital navigation, the challenge is to ensure that their onboard systems, policies and procedures reflect the requirements of safe, effective and compliant ECDIS operations. This includes upgrading their ECDIS software to the latest IHO ENC standards. Greek fleet This latest data on ECDIS readiness was published at last weeks Posidonia exhibition in Greece, where the UKHO had a strong presence, including a well-attended series of ECDIS seminars. According to the UKHO, 44 percent of Greek-operated SOLAS vessels are ECDIS ready, compared to the global figure of 51 percent. 77 percent of the Greek tanker fleet are ECDIS ready, in line with the global figure of 78 percent. The UKHO continues to offer support and assistance for ship owners at all stages of ECDIS implementation, including those still preparing for the installation of ECDIS and those managing the operation of ECDIS on their fleet. Over 4,000 shipping professionals in over 70 countries have attended the UKHOs ECDIS Seminars since 2011, most recently at Posidonia last week, with a focus on both Implementing ECDIS and Living with ECDIS. In addition, extensive resources are available on the UKHO website and on the UKHO YouTube channel. Following a comprehensive exercise to insource all ship management functions and to build a fully integrated shipping company, Golar LNG recently chose the BASSnet software as the core building block for the management of its fleet of 23 LNG carriers. Based in Oslo, Golar Management the ship management unit of Golar LNG has joined other shipping industry leaders, such as Stolt Tankers, Anthony Veder, NYK, K Line, Wallenius, Hapag Lloyd, Wilhelmsen and CMA CGM, in the BASSnetTM customer community. BASSnet is fast becoming the number one choice in shipping software solutions for major ship owners and ship managers around the world due to its constant resolve to develop and implement the software as per industry requirements and customers needs, says istein Dahl, COO of Golar Management. Our endorsement of the BASSnet system stems from its impressive functionality, modern technology and organisational capability to deliver. This played a major role in us choosing BASSnet. With the BASSnet Fleet Management System, Golar Management can align its asset management, maintenance program and purchasing processes for optimal endorsement by oil majors and charterers, as well as enjoy a solution that keeps abreast of new developments and requirements in the maritime industry. For BASS, the LNG operators decision to purchase key BASSnet modules stands as a testament to the quality of its Fleet Management System, as well as its growing foothold in the international LNG shipping segment. BASS Vice President of Sales, Haakon Dalan, says, The success of this agreement with Golar shows that BASS has proven its capabilities and software value, and that Golar is confident that it can realise the rewards of safe, reliable and optimized fleet performance with the BASSnet Fleet Management Systems. We are looking forward to serving and developing a long-term relationship with Golar. With this deal, BASS enters into a prosperous future with an assuring stride following recent contract signings for the BASSnet software. Golar LNG is one of the most prominent operators and owners of LNG carriers globally. The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower entered the Mediterranean late on Monday, the U.S. Navy said, at a time when U.S. officials are raising alarm over Russia's maritime expansion. The Eisenhower, also known as the "Ike," will relieve the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group which later this month heads back to the United States after an extended eight-month deployment. The Eisenhower, which also leads a strike group of cruisers, destroyers and warplanes, is scheduled to continue on to the Gulf to participate in U.S. air strikes on Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria. Exact details of its deployment have not been released. Fighter jets based on the Truman have been carrying out air strikes against Islamic State from the Mediterranean since June 3. The Eisenhower's deployment is part of a rotation of U.S. forces supporting maritime security operations around the globe, the Navy said. Its strike group includes two guided-missile cruisers, four guided-missile destroyers and nine air squadrons. The Navy said the presence of two carrier strike groups in the Mediterranean showed the U.S. commitment to safety and security, while sending "a strong message of support to our allies and partners in Europe." The move coincides with NATO military exercises across eastern Europe and Turkey that may raise tensions with Russia. U.S. officials say Russia is operating warships and submarines in the Mediterranean and plans its own military exercises in coming weeks. Vice Admiral James Foggo, who heads the U.S. Navy's fleet in the Mediterranean, and naval analyst Alarik Fritz last week said Russia was aggressively expanding its surface and submarine maritime capabilities from the Arctic to the Black Sea. "Combined with extensive and frequent submarine patrols throughout the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea, and forward-deployed forces in Syria, Russia has the capability to hold nearly all NATO maritime forces at risk," they wrote in the naval journal Proceedings. They said it was critical to leverage allied navies to work with NATO partners so they could respond to emergencies and protect maritime infrastructure. Russia last week said it would respond to a U.S. destroyer's entry into the Black Sea with unspecified measures, saying it and other deployments were designed to ratchet up tensions ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw next month. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Richard Balmforth) Ships have been sailing the seas for thousands of years, and with modern technological advances and innovation, the industry continues to improve and innovate. While in 1912 the Titanic hit an iceberg that it couldnt detect, today, connected devices, modern radar, sonar, data and GPS equipment are able to show where obstacles lie and re-route any ship onto a safer path, whether its carrying holidaymakers, LNG or cargo. Just as connected devices are making headway on land, with computer chips in cars, buildings and everyday items such as watches and fridges, connected ships are growing in popularity at sea thanks to their ability to streamline and improve marine operations. While it could be said that more is being done to integrate and adopt digital technologies in the consumer space, we have to recognize the strides that the marine industry has takenfrom introducing automation and control system to implementing real-time fleet tracking. Its also vital to note that a consumer device, whether that be a car, fridge or watch, is a completely different beast from a 150,000 metric ton ship, so the two worlds cant move at the same speed. However, the key benefits of connected components remain the same no matter what industry we are discussing. This is why forward-looking fleet operators are investigating using advanced software analytics to harness data and provide insights into enhance operations. Here we outline the five key benefits of implementing digital operations aboard a vessel: 1. Route optimization and fuel efficiency Gone are the days of looking to the sun, moon and stars to navigate ships across the deep sea; now navigation is not a leap of faith, its a science. Each modern vessel, whether an offshore drill ship, cruise liner or LNG carrier, is fitted with a digital navigation system, which can not only identify the quickest routes in advance, but can also spot obstacles and re-route ships on a safer, or calmer, path when necessary. This is crucial for the safety of the crew and also for reducing fuel consumption. Its no secret that both fuel saving and optimizing operations have been the main drivers of introducing digital technology into a fleet because in some cases, fuel costs account for up to 40 percent of total operational expenses. Use of technology has the ability to reduce this figure as predictive analytics tools can bring in weather forecast data to optimize route planning, manage propulsion levels and reduce overall fuel consumption. 2. Fleet management Fleets are growing in size, and vessel operators may have hundreds of ships out at sea at any one time. Keeping track of all these ships at once may not be simple, but that knowledge provides an advantage to operators. By looking at an entire fleet, not just at each vessel in a silo, operators can automatically check operating performance against other ships, highlighting anomalies or inefficiencies aboard a specific vessel, which might indicate the need for upgrades, operational tweaks or repairs. Digital technologies are revolutionizing and simplifying this process, and its not just fleet operators that are responsible for spotting potential issues; the use of predictive analytics systems also allows GE experts from around the world to compare operational statistics and data against other fleets, providing a greater pool of data from which they can draw insights. This allows GE to use its wider global visibility to provide support at scale, spot trends, increase the reliability of a fleet and provide crucial information for decision support. 3. Improve design and testing from the outset The use of data and predictive analytics is not just crucial when a ship is at sea, but also in its design phase. Combining decades of experience, software modeling tools can analyze a vessels anticipated operational profile, optimizing the design from the offset. It has the ability to test the performance of a ships systems against mathematical models and against different combinations of weather and other marine conditions to assess and refine vessel performance. Used during the shipbuilding process, software analytics can also provide fast, real-time comparisons of the performance of different electrical configurations, enabling improved design and configuration of electrical solutions and estimating the annual running costs incurred by the vessel design, so equipment selections can be made to reduce fuel consumption and achieve further savings. 4. Reduce downtime Unanticipated outages on board vessels can cost serious money. In fact, unplanned downtime for a drillship can end up costing up to $12 million per year. However, predictive analytics tools, such as GEs SmartSignal software, can identify impending equipment failures before they happen, reducing unplanned downtime. A digital model, called the digital twin, can be built based on years of a vessels data history. By comparing asset to asset and vessel to vessel with the digital twin, the software is able to search for anomalies and give early warnings of a potential failure, enabling the industry to shift from planned to condition-based maintenance. 5. Remote monitoring The use of data allows companies to monitor vessels in real time, record and analyze their histories and search for anomalies. Software and connectivity can bring the issues encountered on board a vessel to the experts on shore, allowing issues to be resolved more quickly and helping to reduce third-party cost. Whats more, the use of predictive analytics also helps address a global skill shortage. Few vessel operators have access to sufficient qualified engineers to be able to deploy experts in every system aboard every vessel. As such, being able to resolve issues from the shore can significantly enhance operations and reduce the number of engineers needed without sacrificing safety or operational performance. There will be many large employers that risk losing 50 to 80 percent of their retirement-eligible population in the next five years. The use of analytic tools also allows knowledge and insights to be stored, capturing and retaining some of the experience that would otherwise be lost when personnel retire. It enables good practices to be repeated and scaled across the fleetagain, a key contributor to bridge the skill gap. The marine industry is continually evolving to reflect a dynamic and ever-changing world. However, while there has been a tidal wave of innovation over the last decade, there is still a ways to go. This is why GEs Marine Solutions is helping marine companies enhance efficiency, cut carbon emissions, increase productivity and enable smarter operations through use of digital technologies. Navigating through choppy waters is no easy task, and marine operators need expert support to help sail through the economic tempest weve seen over the last few years. After 5 May 2016, companies responsible for shipping commercial goods or services to Saleef, Mokha and Hodeidah ports in Yemen must obtain port clearance via the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM). Yemens Ministry of Transport has announced that, after 5 May 2015, shipping companies or owners shipping commercial goods or services to ports not under the direct control of the Government of Yemen (the ports of Saleef, Mokha and Hodeidah and associated oil terminals) must notify and apply for an entry permit via UNVIM. The permit application must be submitted upon departure from the port of origin of their cargo and at least five days prior to arrival at their port of destination in Yemen. See notice from the Yemen Ministry of Transport published 2 May 2016 for details. Vessels calling at Yemeni ports under the control of the Government of Yemen (the ports of Aden and Mukalla) need clearance from the Saudi Arabian-led coalition prior to entering Yemeni waters, and a copy of the Ministry of Transports form Entry permission for commercial and relief ships to Yemeni ports should be completed and sent by email to the Operations Unit of the Evacuation and Humanitarian Operations. Members and clients calling at Yemeni ports are advised to take note of the above changes in vessel clearance procedures and well before arrival, clarify the status of a ports services as availability of cranes, fuel, manpower, etc. may be limited. Since the political situation in Yemen remains volatile and advice concerning port security and operations may change rapidly, it is important to make frequent checks with local sources of information, e.g. vessels agent, Gards correspondent, etc., to obtain the most up to date and reliable security information available at any given time in order to assess the current security situation prior to entering Yemini waters. The weeks-long traffic jam of cargo ships at the Myanmarsbiggest port threatens to scare potential investors away and choke off nascent economic growth, says a report in Reuters. The bottleneck at the dilapidated port was caused by a spike in demand for goods as the opening up of the economy accelerates following a historic election win by Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) in November. Because of the general growth of the economy we are packed. The ships have nowhere to go, said Ma Cherry Trivedi, managing director of Ayuroma International, an advisor to Myanmar Industrial Port (MIP), where congestion has been worst. Its main port has changed little since the end of British colonial rule nearly 70 years ago emblematic of ramshackle infrastructure that could hold back the foreign investment Suu Kyi needs to live up to sky-high expectations and remake a country impoverished by decades of junta rule. The number of ships docking in Yangon has doubled over the past decade and the number of containers has jumped fourfold, data shows, clogging up inadequate storage space, overwhelming sclerotic logistics systems and delaying deliveries. Industry sources said the holdup cost major shipping lines millions of dollars a week. Myanmar's presidential office announced emergency measures in mid-May to tackle the congestion, including 24-hour port operation and customs clearance, and ordered daily reports from the ministers of commerce and transport. Some of the biggest shipping companies, such as Denmark's Maersk Line Ltd, dispatched their own specialists to help manage the situation. "There's no easy way out of this, but billions of dollars in the country's development hinge on how aggressive the government is in solving the problem," said Tatsuya "Ricky" Ueki, managing director at shipping company MOL Myanmar. Greece ordered two ships on Monday to search for a vessel believed to be carrying about 200 migrants after it sent a distress signal off the island of Crete, the coastguard said. A Greek-flagged tanker and a Panama-flagged freighter in the area were heading to the location, about 80 nautical miles south of Crete and 15 nautical miles within Libyan waters, coastguard spokesman Nikos Lagkadianos told Reuters. "We haven't spotted anything yet," he said. Crete, Greece's southernmost island, lies north of Libya and Egypt. In recent weeks, the number of migrants heading to Italy from the African coast has grown as calmer weather sets in, and so has the number of boats that have lost their way and ended up near Crete. Some 206,400 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean this year, according to the International Organization for Migration. So far, 2,809 deaths have been recorded, up from 1,838 during the same period last year. About 320 migrants and refugees are feared to have drowned in a shipwreck off Crete earlier this month, from which 340 people were rescued. Survivors told authorities they had set sail from Egypt. Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou The buy-out of the Greece's Piraeus Port by Chinese shipping giant COSCO is closer to completion, as shareholders approved a new concession agreement, reports Reuters. Greece had already agreed in April to sell a 67 percent stake in Piraeus to COSCO for $415.7 million. Now that shareholders have signed off on the deal, it heads to parliament and competition authorities for approval. The sale of Piraeus and the countrys second state-owned seaport, Thessaloniki, have been key conditions for Greece to be able to unlock the next tranche of its 10.3 billion euro aid package from the European Stability Mechanism rescue fund. Last week, Piraeus Port shareholders met at an Athens hotel to clear the concession agreement, which specifies how COSCO will operate the port, and the removal of workers representatives from the board, but the meeting was interrupted due to protests by striking port workers. The port strike has disrupted cargo operations and services provided to cruise ships. Cruise operators have warned they will shun Piraeus in favor of other ports if the action continues. Prosecutors on Sunday sought the arrest warrant of the ex-chairman of Hanjin Shipping, who has been hit with insider trading charges, says Yonhap. Choi Eun-young is specifically charged with violating the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act, according to prosecutors probing the case at the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office. The 54-year-old and her two daughters allegedly sold their stockholding in the Korean line for about about 1 billion won (US$857,632) in losses days ahead of the company announcing a resturcuting, with prosectors convinced the sell off came from a tip off from sources within the shipping line. Choi denied the charges during a questioning by prosecutors last week, saying she just sold the stocks to pay back her debts. Chois home and offices have been raided earlier in the year, and prosecutors have also been talking to officials at Hanjin Shipping as they pursue their insider trading investigations. Currently, Choi is the chairwoman of Eusu Holdings Co. that separated from Hanjin Group in May 2015. Telenor Satellite announced that is has approved the BB75 Ka-band antenna, produced by telecommunications company, Skytech, for use with Telenors new THOR 7 Ka-band payload. Skytech is the latest antenna supplier to receive approval from Telenor Satellite for its recently launched THOR 7 Ka-band services. The antenna approximately 75cm in diameter, compact in design, and weighing only 35 Kgs is a new product from Skytech, optimised for use with Telenor Satellites Ka-band maritime spot beams. With up to 20Mbits of bandwidth, the BB75 Ka-band model is an attractive mid-sized antenna, designed for maritime Ka-band users who require high-speed connections and large bandwidths on board yachts, passenger ferries, and commercial and support vessels. Skytech is our latest antenna supplier to offer a viable and high-performing antenna system, providing a good-quality service for maritime use, said Julian Crudge, Telenor Satellites Datacomms Divisional Director. The BB75 Ka-band antenna is a welcome addition to our ever-increasing list of THOR 7-approved antennas, providing an even wider choice for our customers. Henriette H. Thygesen, currently Damco CEO for the Americas, has been appointed CEO of Svitzer with effect from September 1. Thygesen, who joined Maersk Group in 1994, has been with the group for 22 years, of which the last nine with Damco. She has previously worked for Maersk Tankers and Maersk Oil and prior to her current role, she was VP and CEO for Damco in North Asia, based in Hong Kong. She holds a Master of Science, a PhD in Applied Mathematics, and an Executive MBA from Columbia University, New York and London Business School. Svitzers current CEO, Robert M. Uggla, who has held the role since 2012, will leave A. P. Mller - Mrsk A/S to take over as CEO of A.P. Mller Holding the fully owned Holding and Investment Company of the A.P. Mller Foundation starting September 1, 2016. Uggla, who started his career in the finance industry, joined A.P. Mller - Mrsk A/S in 2004 and has been a member of the Board of Directors of A.P. Mller - Mrsk A/S since March, 2014. Uggla is also member of the Foundation Board for IMD business school. Marines with I Marine Expeditionary Force participated in Exercise Ardent Sentry at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, June 7-10, 2016. Ardent Sentry is conducted with U.S. Northern Command-sponsored Defense Security Cooperation Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Guard, and U.S. Transportation Command. I MEF conducts exercises like this several times a year to ensure that if a crisis occurred, they know how to work with the other agencies involved and can effectively help the civilian forces who require their assistance. Ardent Sentry exercised a national response to a notional Cascadia Subduction Zone Tsunami event impacting Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. This earthquake simulated a full-rip of the 700-mile fault line from North Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino, California, shaking the ground for up to 50 minutes, followed by several aftershocks measuring 7.0 magnitude on the Richter Scale. Eight million citizens were directly impacted in Oregon and Washington with 14,100 fatalities and 24,000 injured, and there were significant damages to critical infrastructures. This exercise helped determine I MEF assets available during this type of crisis, as well as identify when a disaster may require the Marine Corps response. During a natural disaster, Marines would serve in a total supportive capacity, explained Maj. Louis Uhl, a liaison officer with I MEF. He explained that first responders dealing with the disaster would have to request military assistance after completely exasperating their capabilities. This is due to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which was passed to prevent U.S. military personnel from acting as law enforcement agents on U.S. soil. The National Guard is the only group authorized to engage in the U.S., however the president can permit the Army, Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps to get involved. The Marines have assets that civilian forces do not, which make them valuable in these situations. Maj. Rick Bernier, the I MEF watch floor officer in charge, explained the MEFs tactical gear is very helpful in significant events such as the one simulated. For example, the tactical vehicles used by the Marine Corps are more effective in disastrous areas and Marine aircraft is capable of carrying a lot of weight and flying for extended periods of time, which would be beneficial when picking up people in dangerous areas or dropping off supplies. Maj. Henry Soukup, a I MEF Explosive Ordinance Disposal officer and lead DSCA planner, explained that after being notified of the earthquake, they had four to six hours to start planning how they would deploy their forces in support of USNORTHCOM. After notification of the crisis, an initial response cell is formed, where leaders of the MEF assess the situation and determine if they need to push the information to subordinate commands for further support, explained Bernier. A crisis action team made of I MEF personnel would then be working to collect all data necessary to keep the command informed as the crises continues. An operations planning team would correspondingly create detailed courses of action and determine what forces are available to support. The OPT would have to plan out the logistics, such as Marine transportation, lodging, and how they were going to sustain aircraft and personnel for an extended period of time with refueling stations, sustainment and billeting close to the affected areas. Scenarios such as these benefit the MEF because they exercise cooperative assets under one command and control, said Lt. Col. Margaret Miller, an Individual Mobilization Augmentee Logistics Officer with I MEF. She explained the Marines are not in control during these crises and must have a clear mission to accomplish when being tasked to support. They would not be there for sustainment, rather they would be one of the last ones there and the first ones out after providing all of the aid they could. This exercise was just a piece of training I MEF utilizes to ensure they are ready to react to any situation whether it is overseas or in their own backyard. Presidential Dictatorship Executive orders, undeclared wars, drone hits, assassination of citizens and non-citizens alike, the overthrow of foreign regimes, domestic spying, the abetting of known criminal activities through pardons, economic planning, opening borders, monetary manipulations are just some of the nefarious activities that routinely emanate from the most dangerous political office that the world has ever painfully come to know the United States Presidency! The U.S. presidents can and have created a veritable hell on earth for their opponents, perceived enemies, and the innocent not only in the country in which they reign, but over the lives and fortunes of peoples and places where they have absolutely no authority to interfere. While other chiefs of state have theoretically had such power, U.S. presidents have been able to inflict their destruction and chaos because, paradoxically, the nations free-market system, for a long time, created immense wealth which could be tapped into. The tyrannical nature of the presidency was recognized long ago by those politically perspicacious men who opposed both the office and the draconian document which created it. Few groups in history have been so vindicated for their foreboding as those who vainly argued against the ratification of the United States Constitution than the Antifederalists. An Old Whig* aptly sums up the damage that would come about if the Constitution was ratified and the office of president would come into being: . . . the office of President of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous. To be the fountain of all honors in the United States, commander in chief of the army, navy and militia, with the power of making treaties and of granting pardons, and to be vested with an authority to put a negative upon all laws, unless two thirds of both houses shall persist in enacting it, . . . .** An Old Whig saw that the president would become a king but without the natural and binding checks that even the most absolutist of monarchs were restrained by: [The president] is in reality to be a KING as much a King as the King of Great Britain, and a King too of the worst kind; an elective King. . . . The election of a King whether it be in America or Poland, will be a scene of horror and confusion; and I am perfectly serious when I declare that, as a friend to my country, I shall despair of any happiness in the United States until this office is either reduced to a lower pitch of power or made perpetual and hereditary.*** One of the Federalists counterarguments to the Antifederalists concern over the presidential office was the widely held assumption that George Washington would become the new Republics first chief executive and the general knowledge of his impeccable character would assuage those worried of potential executive overreach. Such a lame response neglected to look into the future when the offices huge potentiality for despotism would be sought after and won by those who had less upstanding personal traits than the father of the country. The growing decentralized political movements throughout the world with, for instance, the hopefully upcoming British exit from the European Union, can only be enhanced if the office of the president and, for that matter, all other nation states chief executives are exposed as tyrannical institutions which are anathema to individual liberty and collective self-determination. Presidents, premiers, chancellors, prime ministers, and their like along with central banking are the two nefarious pillars of power of the modern nation state whose continued existence guarantees perpetual war and economic regression. In this seemingly interminable presidential election cycle, populist, libertarians, conservatives, and all sorts of anti-Establishment types are delusional if they believe the totalitarian direction in which the country is now headed will be reversed through elections or choosing the right candidate. Making American Great Again will only come about when the chief executive office and the statist document that created it have been repudiated. Prior to the presidencys abolition, its ideological justification must be first debunked. There is no finer place to start for this most necessary task to take place than in the dissemination of the perceptive and enduring words of the much neglected Antifederalists. *Probably penned by a group of Philadelphia Antifederalists George Bryan, John Smilie, James Hutchinson and maybe others. See, John P. Kaminski & Richard Leffler, eds., Federalists and Antifederalists: The Debate Over the Ratification of the Constitution. Madison, Wisconsin: Madison House Publishers, 1989, p. 18. **Ibid., p. 86. ***Ibid. Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas By Antonius Aquinas http://antoniusaquinas.com 2016 Copyright Antonius Aquinas - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors. 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Chinas Maritime Moves Are Nothing More Than a Show of Strength BY GEORGE FRIEDMAN : The Chinese have a strategic problem in the South and East China Seas. China is obviously interested in what happens in these waters, but there is much speculation as to why the level of interest is so high. The answer is simple: China wants to keep foreign powers away from its coast and away from waters vital to its global trade routes. Chinas greatest threat in these waters is the United States. Given the size of the US Navy and the location of the islands off Chinas coast, the Navy is capable of blocking China's access to the ocean. This would deal a serious economic blow to China. Countering this threat means building a navy that could challenge the US a far from easy task. So, the Chinese actions in these seas are meant to suppress American influence and boost Chinas ability to control shipping lanes. This calls for a show of strength. China wants to threaten countries around the South and East China Seas There has been ample debate that Chinas interest in the seas is linked to resources. Observersnotably those in the business sectortend to believe that an economic motivation lurks behind every strategic move. Frequently, one does. That is not, however, the case here for a few reasons. Tapping oil that might be in the seabed would be very costly. In light of the current and foreseeable market for oil, this is not a viable plan. Oil platforms at sea are also highly vulnerable to air attack. Extraction costs and exposure risk would render oil drilling irrational. So, lets look elsewhere. The real economic issue is that Chinas coastal zone is hemmed in by islands that stretch from the Strait of Malacca to Japan. These islands create fairly narrow passages, with many too shallow for deep draft vessels. The size of the US naval fleet means it could easily blockade Chinas coast. China wants to erase this threat, and so its moves are designed to intimidate countries on the perimeter of these two seas, from Japan to Indonesia. The logical path to achieve this goal would be for its navy to take control of key islands blocking Chinas access to the global oceans. The problem is that Chinas navy is not up to the task. There has been much talk about the surge of Chinas naval power. However, this surge moves Chinas capability from very little to some. China remains in no position to challenge the US, even in its coastal waters. Chinas navy isnt as dangerous as the US Navy represents The US Navy has an interest in presenting the Chinese as a serious threat. Since the Cold Wars end, the US Navy has faced few challenges, and the fleet has shrunk in response. The growing Chinese threat supports the US Navys call to increase its budget. So, the Navy will estimate the potential threat to be as large as possible. This is the normal procedure for government bodies within the Congressional budgeting process. The sense of dread about the Chinese navy stems from this dynamic. But the fact is, while China has built ships, it has not built a navy that is on par with the US. The core American naval fighting force is the carrier battle group (CBG). The US has 11 such strike groups. The Chinese have yet to float a domestic-built, operational aircraft carrier, let alone a CBG. China has ships, but it doesnt have fleets. A fleet creates a single, integrated fighting force under a unified command. Fleet operationsand having ships fight an integrated battleare very complex. The key is to have experienced military leaders and well-trained staff. The requisite experience is passed between generations of commanders through tradition and doctrine. The Chinese have never had the sort of navy they are trying to build today. They can build ships, but creating an operational navy poses a big hurdle. The Chinese pose a different kind of naval threat The Chinese have an alternative to a CBG and fleet operations: land- and air-launched anti-ship missiles. They might be unable to engage in surface-submarine warfare. They can, however, use missiles to force the US fleet away from crucial islands. China has developed missiles with enough range to threaten a line extending from the Aleutian Islands to Guam to Australia. The strategy is to saturate US fleet anti-missile defenses using massive salvos of missiles. This would then clear the way for Chinas navy. This strategy has two flaws. First, this would require a space-based survey on the location of US ships across a broad area. A great deal has been made about Chinese anti-satellite capabilities. Yet, I strongly suspect the USwhich has been refining this problem since the 1970sis way ahead of China on this. Second, Chinas missiles are vulnerable. I would assume that US technical intelligence has mapped Chinas launch sites and control facilities. The US would respond to the threat using air and missile attacks on Chinese launchers. This attack would not use nuclear weapons, but precision-guided munitions able to sufficiently diminish the Chinese threat thus allowing US fleet operations in the desired waters. Whats ahead for China China is in a difficult military position. Its best strategy is to convince countries like the Philippines that they are better off aligning with China than the US. To do this, China has made fairly feeble moves around key islands, dredging sand to make new islands, moving ships around, and flying close to American aircraft. None of these tactics are strong enough to change the balance of power in the waters around China. Ironically, they have drawn an increased American presence. China can make threatening gestures toward the US but cant afford to mount a serious challenge. The precise capability of the Chinese navy is an open debate. But to engage the US in combat and suffer defeateven in a small skirmishwould be among the worst outcomes for China. Chinas strategy of inducing shifts in the alignment of countries around the South and East China Seas requires a credible naval force. But China cannot predict how capable its navy will be in combat, and the political fallout from failure would cascade globally, regionally, and within China. China is currently trying to hold things together in the face of domestic economic failures. Its emergence as a global power acts as a psychological brace for the regime. It cannot afford to lose that brace. This explains why the Chinese cant let go of the two seas issue, nor can they do anything decisive. Carters description of what is going on is fairly reasonable. But it does not amount to a serious military threat. Chinas various minor actions have been magnified by the Chinese and the Americans for different reasons. Still, the fact is that China has been very cautious in a matter of fundamental importance to it: access to the worlds oceans. If it could have done something decisive, it would have. The risks and the realities at sea being what they are, China is likely to continue this strategy. Subscribe to This Week in Geopolitics George Friedman provides unbiased assessment of the global outlookwhether demographic, technological, cultural, geopolitical, or militaryin his free publication This Week in Geopolitics. Subscribe now and get an in-depth view of the forces that will drive events and investors in the next year, decade, or even a century from now. John Mauldin Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Fascism: A Bipartisan Affliction If neoconservatives and progressives truly understood fascism, they would stop using the word as a smear term. That is because both groups, along with most political figures and commentators, embrace fascist ideas and policies. Fascism's distinguishing characteristic is a "mixed economy." Unlike socialists and communists who seek to abolish private business, fascists are content to let business remain in private hands. Instead, fascists use regulations, mandates, and taxes to control business and run (and ruin) the economy. A fascist system, then, is one where private businesses serve politicians and bureaucrats instead of consumers. Does the modern American economy not fit the definition of fascism? Fascism benefits big businesses that can afford the cost of complying with government regulations, unlike their smaller competitors. Big businesses, which have more political influence then entrepreneurs or small businesses, also significantly benefit from government subsidies. In order to maintain their power, big businesses finance the "deep state" -- the network of lobbyists, journalists, think tanks, bureaucrats, and congressional staffers who work behind the scenes to shape government policy. Obamacare is an example of fascism that is often mislabeled as socialism. Obamacare did not create a government-run "single payer" system as would exist under socialism. Instead, Obamacare extended government control over health care via mandates, regulations, and subsidies. The most infamous part of Obamacare -- the individual mandate -- forces individuals to purchase a product from a private industry. Modern America's militaristic foreign policy aimed at policing and perfecting the world is another example of fascism that enjoys strong bipartisan support. Both right-wing neocons and left-wing humanitarian interventionists claim our supposedly noble goals justify any and all actions taken by the US government. Thus, these supposed human rights champions defend preemptive war, torture, and presidential kill lists. Many politicians supporting a militaristic foreign policy are more concerned with spreading largesse to the military-industrial complex than with spreading democracy. This is why some supposed free-market conservatives sound like Paul Krugman on steroids when discussing the economic benefits of military spending. Similarly, some anti-war progressives will support large military budgets if some of the money is spent in their states or congressional districts. Mass surveillance and limits on personal freedom are additional hallmarks of fascist regimes. While there is a movement to "reform" the police state, few want to abolish mass surveillance, civil asset forfeiture, police militarization, and other police-state policies adopted in the name of the wars on terror and drugs. The federal government has even used force to stop people from selling raw milk! Attempts by progressives to silence political opponents are more examples of how many supposedly anti-fascist Americans are embracing fascist policies. The growth of the welfare-warfare state has been accompanied by an increase in presidential power. This centralization of power, and the support it receives from the political class, is one more indication of the fascistic nature of our current regime. Of course, many in Congress will fight to rein in the executive branch, as long as the occupant of the White House is of the opposing party. Even the fiercest opponents of excessive presidential power instantaneously become lap dogs when their party wins the White House. For all their alleged anti-fascism, today's neoconned conservatives and progressives both support the use of force to reshape society and the world. This is the defining characteristic not just of fascists, but also of authoritarians. The true anti-fascists are those who reject the initiation of force. The true path to real free markets, peace, and individual liberty starts with rejecting the bipartisan authoritarianism in favor of the non-aggression principle. Dr. Ron Paul Project Freedom Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill. Dr. Ron Paul Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. The Quebec solidaire congress held on the weekend of May 28-29th marked the 10 year anniversary for the left-wing party in Quebec. After decades of domination by the Liberals and the Parti Quebecois (PQ), the founding of Quebec solidaire (QS) in 2006 generated a lot of enthusiasm as youth and workers were excited to break the hegemony of the two main bourgeois parties. But what is the balance sheet of these developments and how do we move forward? Quebec Solidaire Flags, Montreal 2015 - Photo: Mathieu CoteOver the past several years, the province has been shaken by one mass movement after another, presenting QS with an ideal situation to grow as the only anti-austerity party in the province. In spite of this, the gains for the party have been rather small, only managing to pick up three seats and less than 8 per cent of the vote in the last provincial election. How can we explain this situation? What is the future for QS? How can we defeat the bosses' parties? Quebec solidaire and the struggle for a workers' party in Quebec To this date, workers in Quebec have not been able to create their own political party to fight for their interests. Following the defeat of the 1972 general strike, the PQ co-opted the workers' movement into a national union with Quebecois capitalists to fight for their common interests. Like all national unions, the class pressures of society exacerbated by the hammer blows of capitalist crisis would inevitably cleave this national union in two. Over the years, the PQ has moved far to the right, exposing itself to be defending not the interests of the Quebecois, but the interests of the Quebecois capitalists. From the support for the FTA agreement of Parizeau in the 1980s, to the deficit zero politics of Bouchard of the 1990s, the process has run its course with arch strike breaker multi-millionaire Pierre Karl Peladeau easily taking the leadership of the party last year. While the class pressure has been pushing the PQ more and more to the right, the workers and students have been radicalizing. Since the 1995 referendum all of the main mass movements in the province have been focused around class questions. The FTAA demo in 2001, the general strike movement of 2004, the student strike of 2005, the Occupy movement of 2011, the students strike of 2012 and the recent mass public sector strikes all show an immense amount of social turbulence in Quebec society with workers and youth fighting more and more along class lines. It is not surprising that within this context of increasing class conflict, Quebec solidaire was founded as a split in this national unity, with the workers and youth of Quebec moving to break the stranglehold of the bourgeoisie on politics in the province. From its birth, QS has been an embryo, a potential party that could canalize the anger of the people and become a mass force that could challenge the rule of the capitalists. It is with this in mind that the Marxists were excited with the formation of Quebec solidaire - a party that could move towards the establishment of a real mass party of the Quebec working class for the first time in history. We held out the hope that QS could be an impetus to break the powerful Quebec unions away from the bourgeois nationalist PQ and Bloc Quebecois (BQ). The organizational might of the Quebec labour movement, with deep roots in the working class, has the material resources to break the stranglehold of the bourgeois parties. We have fought for QS to adopt clear and bold socialist politics as the only way to enthuse and mobilize workers and youth in the province and make this a reality. Reformism or Revolution? In the beginning, Quebec solidaire was more radical than it is today. The party was born as a party of the streets and the ballot box and claimed that it was the social question (class question) that was the most important for the party. In 2009, the party launched a manifesto on May 1st entitled To emerge from the crisis, should we go beyond capitalism? The question was responded to in this way, Those who want to 'restructure capitalism' are missing the real issues. We believe that capitalism needs to be overcome, that is to say, we need to move towards radically different political, social and ecological alternatives. In addition, at the party congress in 2011, party members voted in favour of nationalization of strategic sectors of the economy, including financial institutions. Unfortunately, over the past number of years, the leadership has continually watered down the program, never raising the capitalist system and nor advocating for any of the more radical measures voted on by the party membership. The more openly reformist wing of the party has slowly won out over the more radical elements and more and more the party seems like any standard social democratic party, fully committed to working within the rotten system to try to make a tiny change here or there. Party leader Francoise David - Photo: AsclepiasAs workers and youth have been radicalizing and combating the injustices of the system, the general tendency with the leadership of QS has been to water down their platform and to try to convince the other parties that they are reasonable. In the fall of 2014, Francoise David stated that QS needed to prove that it was a credible economic alternative. Adding to this, she said that [I]dealism is good, but at some point you have to enter the real world [...] We are practical idealists. This was most clearly expressed recently by Amir Khadir when he openly spoke of the leadership's perceived hurdle for the party being their radical image. We realize there are important hurdles in front of us, there was the perception (in the beginning) that we were radicals. In fact, were reformists. We are at the National Assembly because we accepted the principle of reform. This is the main reason why the party has been unable to capitalize on the mood of anger and discontent in society. More and more, workers and youth are realizing, through their own experience, that capitalism is a dead end. This is especially true for young people who are demanding a radical change to this increasingly unbearable situation. Faced with perpetual austerity and a future with few possibilities, the youth are looking for a revolutionary transformation of society. On top of this, instead of using clear language to speak to the working class and youth of Quebec, the leaders of the party continually deploy vague and cryptic language which makes the party seem out of touch and confusing. For example, the party leaders constantly uses the term citizens when referring to who the party is fighting for. This clearly shows the narrow confused petty-bourgeois character of the leadership. Isn't Pierre Karl Peladeau a citizen? Which citizens are we referring to? Why the ambiguity about who the party fights for and who the party represents? In place of vague language like this, QS needs to adopt clear and bold language. We fight for workers, youth and all layers of the oppressed, not 'citizens' in general. This is in stark contrast to the clear and bold language used across the border in the United States by Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who has been mobilizing and enthusing millions of Americans with his revolution against the billionaire class. Sander's language connects with and speaks to the needs of workers and youth. While the program Sanders puts forward is limited and does not put forward social ownership, his popularity arises from his bold rhetoric, including his language of revolution, for which there is mass enthusiasm. Most important is the fact that he is constantly and clearly denouncing the entire rigged system, the economy, the political process, the ruling class and is therefore seen as a radical break from the status quo in the United States. Contrary to this, the leaders of Quebec solidaire seem to be allergic to the word socialism, picking any variety of different leftist labels like alter-globalization, feminist, ecologist, sovereigntist, democratic, pluralist and even solidarity! Everything but socialism! The national question and the PQ The moderation and watering down of the political program and message of the party has not coincidentally coincided with a much greater focus of the party leadership on nationalism to the detriment of class based politics. While the national question cannot simply be dismissed, it is important to have the correct approach. The Quebecois are an oppressed nationality within the Canadian state. The so-called Clarity Act is the most clear violation of the democratic rights of the Quebec people to determine their own future. Marxists are duty bound to fight against all forms of oppression and therefore we fight for all the democratic rights of the Quebecois, up to and including the right to separate if the population democratically decides to do so on this question. However, genuine liberation cannot be achieved under capitalism. National independence under capitalism would not solve the problems facing the working class and youth of Quebec. In order to fight against the capitalists, whether they are anglophone or francophone, workers need to unite in this common struggle. Unfortunately, the approach of the Quebec solidaire leaders to this question has tended to be a very nationalist one. When the class struggle flares up, the QS leaders have tended to put forward nationalist politics which has contributed to dividing the workers and has distracted from the fight against the capitalists in the province. In 2011 when the Occupy movement had flared up and there was a mass occupation of the financial sector in Montreal denouncing the '1%', QS leader Francoise David was seen locked arm in arm with Pauline Marois and other bourgeois sovereigntist leaders in a demonstration for independence. Then again during the 2012 provincial election, the only demonstration that the party organized was a gathering in favour of sovereignty. This is especially ridiculous when we consider that the context of this election was immediately following the massive Quebecois Spring student strike movement which shook the province to the core and saw hundreds of thousands of students and workers take to the streets almost daily. When class questions are on the order of the day, the party leadership pushes forward nationalist politics. This was seen most clearly when the short-lived PQ government of Pauline Marois put forward their Charter of Quebec Values (also know as the Charter of Secularism) which controversially recommended the banning of religious head coverings for public employees among other things. This reactionary charter divided and distracted the working class from the fact that the PQ government had gone back on their promises and was actually implementing more austerity than the Charest government before them! QS could have benefited from exposing this cynical manoeuvre of the PQ but instead they ended up playing the PQ's game. They welcomed the charter and simply proposed their own version which made similar recommendations. Again and again, by adopting nationalist politics, QS is seen by people to be simply the left rump of the Parti Quebecois. As workers and youth mobilize in their hundreds of thousands around class politics, the leadership of QS continually plays into the age old game of the PQ. All the polls show that workers, and especially the youth are sick and tired of this same old back and forth between the nationalists and the federalists, and are looking for class based politics. There is a deep resentment and distrust of the establishment in Quebec, which is similar to anti-establishment sentiment that has given rise to mass left-wing movements in countries such as Spain, Greece, the USA, Britain and France. The PQ is very much viewed as part of the establishment in Quebec. Unfortunately, the leadership of the QS continually entertains the idea of a sovereigntist alliance or a coalition with the bourgeois Parti Quebecois with the goal of bringing down the federalist Liberals. This is in spite of the fact that members of the QS have voted against any alliance with the PQ during many congresses. Disregarding this, the leadership of the party has been constantly saying that they are open to this possibility. This only contributes to the perception of the QS as desiring to be a part of the rotten and hated political establishment and therefore to be not much different than the PQ. The Lessons of Syriza Fight for Socialist Revolution! The leadership of Quebec solidaire considers the party to be in the same mould as the various New Left formations in Europe like the Parti de Gauche in France, Die Linke in Germany, Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece. QS especially drew inspiration from the election of Syriza last year in Greece. At the time of the election, the party released a statement, celebrating the election of Syriza which publicly stated, Congratulations to the Syriza and the Greek people. A link in the chain of austerity was broken today, with the background of hope and celebration all over Europe. Yes, it is possible to change politics. Yes, it is possible to get out of the infernal cycle of austerity. Yes, it is possible for a young popular party to take power. They organized a joint event with representatives from Syriza, Die Linke and Podemos and party spokesperson Andres Fontecilla claimed that Quebec solidaire has forged links with its cousin, Syriza. These new left parties have gained a certain amount of popularity due to the discrediting of the old parties who have been in government, implementing cuts to social spending and attacking workers and youth who have been fighting back. This was especially the case in Greece where anger against the brutal austerity measures saw Syriza catapulted into government. People all over the world were enthusiastic to see this so-called anti-capitalist party form government. But what are the lessons of this experience? What can we learn in Quebec and Canada? Once Syriza took power they were faced with the brutal reality of the capitalist system. It did not matter what program they were elected on if the capitalists would not allow them to implement this program. Unfortunately the Syriza leaders, with no perspective of breaking from the straight-jacket of the capitalists system, were forced by the European bourgeois to capitulate. The program of austerity being implemented right now by the 'left-wing' Syriza in Greece would make Jean Charest look like some sort of progressive! This is a grave warning to Quebec solidaire and the anti-austerity movement in Quebec. Since the beginning of the 'Great Recession' in 2008-2009, there has been no significant recovery. Capitalism is in its deepest crisis at least since the 1930s. Capitalism not only cannot afford to provide new reforms to better our lives but it cannot even afford the gains of the past. This is why we have seen the phenomenon of austerity spread across the entire globe, being pushed by all parties, regardless of whether or not that party is 'conservative,' 'liberal' or even 'socialist'. When capitalism cannot afford to provide any reforms, reformists suddenly turn into neo-liberals and implement counter-reforms. What the Marxists of the International Marxist Tendency have been warning Quebec solidaire about is the same thing that we said regarding Syriza. Unless the party clearly commits itself to break with the capitalist system, all of the reforms that the party fights for will not be realistic or pragmatic at all and the capitalists will force a capitulation one way or another. Quebec solidaire must fight for a revolutionary socialist program to nationalize the commanding heights of the economy under democratic workers control. This would allow us to use the immense wealth and productive capacity that exists for the needs of the population instead of the private profit of a few. Is Quebec solidaire here to stay? Quebec solidaire has reached its 10 year anniversary and Francoise David has said that the party is here to stay. She also said that the goal for the party is to take power in the next ten years. But there are real dangers facing QS if the party continues to moderate. In these conditions of the masses moving in a radical direction and the QS leadership moderating the partys political message, the masses will not see a significant difference between QS and the PQ. It is possible that the PQ will pull a Trudeau and make a fake step to the left to try to capture the anti- austerity mood, as they did in 2012. In this context, the masses would see no reason for a reformist rightward moving QS to exist and the party could very-well be destroyed. QS does not have deep roots in the working class. In order for QS to thrive over the next period, it needs to adopt a revolutionary socialist program to connect with the radical mood and it needs to take action to sink roots among working class Quebecers. A revolutionary socialist program is not only the only realistic program, but it is the only real way to enthuse and mobilize the workers and youth who are desperately looking for a bold, revolutionary alternative to the bleak dark future of capitalist crisis and austerity, and an end to the domination of the bourgeois parties in the province. Springfield Orlando vigil Activists, ministers and LGBT people from around the Pioneer Valley gathered at South Congregational Church in Springfield on Sunday to mourn the victims of the Pulse Orlando nightclub shooting. Here, Amaad Rivera, founder of Springfield Pride, speaks of needed social change. (Brian Steele, The Republican) SPRINGFIELD - Be brave. Be yourself. Don't let them scare you. You are loved. These were some of the themes of a vigil held Sunday night to remember the 50 people murdered in a gay nightclub in Orlando this weekend. Activists, ministers and LGBT people from around the Pioneer Valley gathered at South Congregational Church on Maple Street to mourn together. Omar Sateen, 29, shot more than 100 people at Pulse Orlando nightclub in the early morning hours Sunday before dying in a shootout with police. One of those killed was 23-year-old Springfield native Stanley Manolo Almodovar III. A second person with ties to Western Massachusetts, KJ Morris, was working as a bouncer at Pulse Orlando. In the past, she performed at Diva's nightclub in Northampton as a drag king. Friends prayed she was safe; shortly after the vigil, authorities confirmed she was killed. In the immediate aftermath, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick sent a tweet with a Bible verse that states, "Do not be deceived: God will not be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." Patrick's office denied there was a connection to the shooting, saying the tweet was scheduled to post automatically. But for some at the Springfield vigil, it was a shameful reminder of the blind hatred directed at the LGBT community. "We cannot allow people to believe that God supports hatred and division and dehumanization of others," said Eric Elley, deacon at St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Longmeadow. "Let us not be deceived. ... God is love." Amaad Rivera was Springfield's first openly gay city council member and the founder of Springfield Pride. He said it's still socially acceptable to harm people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that must change. "In the United States, you can be fired for being LGBT," said Rivera, referring to the majority of states that do not outlaw that kind of discrimination. "That is something we still have to deal with in the 21st century. ... We should have access to every institution in this great country. ... They will not mow us down." Many speakers told stories of personal pain. One described years of rape; another said she attempted suicide. Drugs and alcohol, disease, death. Suffering. Ostracism from friends and family. All because of who they are and who they love. But they find comfort in togetherness. "We are the one community that gets to choose our family," said Rivera. "And we choose family across race, across class, across religion, across background, across geography. When we bring those people together, we build a deep bond that lets us stand by one another, that brings us through all of these tragedies." Holyoke City Councilor Nelson Roman said violence and bigotry affect us all, but "we will not allow hate to enter our hearts." SPRINGFIELD - St. Anthony's Church on in East Forest Park is dedicating its annual Feast Day of St. Anthony's Mass Monday night in honor of the victims of the Orlando shooting massacre that left 50 dead and dozens injured. The Mass is at 6 p.m., at the church, located at 375 Island Pond Road. "We open our doors wider tonight," said The Rev. George Zina, pastor of St. Anthony's Chruch. "We invite all in Greater Springfield to join with us as we pray on this special occasion, The Feast of St. Anthony, for the victims of this terrible hate crime, this act of terrorism in our nation." The church celebrates the Feast of St. Anthony each year. Bishop Mitchell Rozanski celebrated a special Mass at St. Anthony's on Sunday that was followed by a procession that included an actual relic of the renowned Saint, according to a news release. News of the Orlando massacre spread as the Sunday Mass and procession were ending, according to the release. The shooter, Omar Mateen, shot more than 100 people at the Pulse, known as a gay nightclub, early Sunday morning before he was killed by police. "This terrible tragedy is being felt by people everywhere and right here," Zina said. "The Feast of St. Anthony is a special time of prayer for us. We hope that we might provide a healing time for others in the area who seek a place of peace to gather and pray for the victims of this terrible terrorist act and to pray for our nation. We want to share our Feast of Saint Anthony, a man of peace and protection, with all who seek peace here." The Relic of Saint Anthony will be venerated all day Monday, with the church's doors open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. There is also a Mass at noon at the church. At the 6 p.m. Mass, the Parish will add intentions and prayers for the victims of the Orlando shooting to one of its most sacred Masses dedicated to its patron saint. SPRINGFIELD, Vt. -- A 39-year-old woman who worked at the Southern State Correctional Facility is facing charges that she had sexual relations with an inmate, according to Vermont State Police. Rebecca Parker The woman, identified as Rebecca Parker of Springfield, Vermont, has been issued a citation on a charge of sexual exploitation of an inmate. She is scheduled to appear in court on July 12 for an arraignment. The name of the inmate was not disclosed. Police would only identify him as a 31-year-old man. State police began their investigation of Parker on Feb. 9 after being contacted by the Vermont Department of Corrections regarding improper sexual contact between Parker, a contracted dialysis nurse at the facility, and an inmate. As part of the investigation, police seized a large amount of emails and recorded phone calls between Parker and the inmate, police said. According to Vermont state law, all employees and contractors with the Department of Corrections are barred from having sex with any inmate or a participant of any work-release furlough program. The penalty for violation can be up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $10,000. Nightclub Shooting Las Vegas Vigil A person places a rose by a flag during a vigil at The Center, a community center for the LGBT community, Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Las Vegas. The vigil was for the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. (AP Photo/John Locher) (John Locher) NORTHAMPTON -- A candlelight vigil will be held in Northampton on Wednesday in memory of the dozens killed at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The vigil, which is being organized by Pioneer Valley community members, will begin at 7 p.m. on the steps of Northampton City Hall. The event will acknowledge those particularly affected by the tragedy, including those in the LGBT, Latin and Muslim communities, according to a Facebook description of the vigil. Forty-nine people were killed and 53 more were hurt in the early Sunday morning shooting at the gay club in Orlando. The gunman, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Fort Piece, Fla., had two guns on him and a third in his vehicle, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Mateen was shot and killed by police. So far, 26 people ranging in age from 20 to 50 years old have been identified as victims in the massacre. It is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Among those killed was 37-year-old KJ Morris, a beloved dancer and drag performer with strong ties to the LGBT community in Western Massachusetts. She was working as a bouncer at Pulse when Mateen stormed the club. Springfield native Stanley Manolo Almodovar III was also killed in the massacre. He was 23. Downtown Northampton's religious communities are also partnering to hold a vigil at St. John's Episcopal Church on Elm Street at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday. And on Saturday night, a dance party benefiting Orlando's victims will take place at the World War II Club from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Cover will cost $10 to $25 on a sliding scale. The individual stories are heartbreaking. The sheer numbers can be overwhelming. The 43 law enforcement officers who were killed or died in the line of duty so far in 2016 left behind about 74 children -- in most cases, young kids. Wives lost their husbands, parents lost their son or daughter, the complete toll on families is only glimpsed at in the numbers. And if cold, hard statistics are a realistic predictor of future events, we can expect about 113 more officers to die in the line of duty across the U.S. this year, based on averages over the past decade. There hasn't been a rise in the numbers, or significant drop. It's just a constant reality for those who put their lives on the line for public safety and their families. MassLive covered the funerals of two Massachusetts officers on that list this year -- as well as a couple of others with connections to the Bay State. Auburn Police Officer Ronald Tarentino Jr. was shot in the back and killed in the early morning of May 22 as he walked back to his cruiser after pulling over a man with known propensity of violence toward police. He left behind a wife and three sons. Mass. State Police Trooper Thomas Clardy was killed in March on the Mass. Pike after a vehicle veered across three lanes of traffic and crashed into his parked cruiser at a high rate of speed. He left behind a wife and seven children. Two more deaths and two more stats. But behind each of those numbers a gut-wrenching story. MassLive took a look at all of the law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty so far this year. The two Massachusetts deaths represent the most common causes of in the line of duty deaths for law enforcement. Of the 43 who have died so far this year, most -- 19 as of this writing -- were killed by gunfire. The second most frequent cause of death are automobile related fatalities -- either accidental or, in some cases, run down by an assailant, like in the case of El Passo, Texas Patrolman David Ortiz. Police say John Paul Perry, a 45-year-old convict, told a witness that he saw the motorcycle officer as he was driving and said "(expletive) it," then purposefully drove into the officer, throwing him from his motorcycle. Ortiz died from his injuries. The year 2015 saw a boiling point in the attention on people killed by police, with several high-profile cases leading the news. These cases spurred the Black Lives Matter movement and turned public discussion toward police methods, tactics and potential biases. It was -- and continues to be -- an important discussion to have. There are bad cops. There are unjustified shootings. There are biases in play. But the importance of that discussion should not eclipse the many good men and women who put their lives on the line every day and occasionally offer that last full measure of devotion. As heartbreaking as their stories are, they can also exemplify the best of humanity. Consider the story of Florida Sheriff's Deputy John R. Kotfila Jr. who a woman credits with saving her life when he put his cruiser between her car and an oncoming wrong-way driver. "That would have been me dying," she told Bay News 9. Kotfila came from a long line of Massachusetts police officers including his father, brother and both grandfathers. Or the case of Hilliard Ohio Police Officer Sean R. Johnson. After his death in a motorcycle crash a young woman reportedly walked into the police station with flowers, saying the officer and member of the department's crisis team had once talked her out of killing herself. It is altogether fitting to pause and remember these officers, the families they leave behind and the legacy of service they lived every day. The ghastly tragedy in Orlando, Florida has re-ignited the debate over the relationship of Muslims and Muslim-Americans in this country. It is the wrong debate. The New York Daily News was out front in the real debate, which is why defenders of the so-called (and false) "right" to own assault rifles turn their heads away from the reality of events like this one. The Daily News pinned blame for the Orlando massacre on the National Rifle Association, which has defended assault weapon ownership as part of Second Amendment rights - ignoring that the Founding Fathers had no possible way of imagining the destruction potential of assault weapons when they wrote the Bill of Rights in the late 1700s. Omar Mateen legally purchased an .223 caliber AR assault rifle and a 9mm handgun within the past two weeks in Florida. Had Mateen been limited to more conventional weapons, his lunacy still would have led to death and tragedy, but he would not have been able to leave more than 100 people dead or wounded. The NRA speaks for a constituency. Not every gun owner or gun advocate endorses its radical beliefs. On the other hand, not everyone trumpeting the alleged "right" to carry such powerful weapons belongs to the NRA. The unreasonable attitude of right-wing gun advocates has stained the reputation of law-abiding gun owners and contributed to tragedies like the Orlando massacre, at least in terms of their scope and scale. Most modern American massacres and shootings have not involved Muslims, but many have involved assault weapons. Yet the debate swings to a religious or ethnic group, not the weapons that have no place in the hands of everyday citizens. The pro-weapons argument has revolved around this motto: outlawing guns would leave only outlaws with guns. Mateen purchased his weapons of destruction within the complete boundaries of American law. Typically silent and hiding in the immediate aftermath of Orlando, the NRA and its cheerleaders who defend such laws should think about that. Donald Trump In this July 10, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump smiles as he leaves after speaking at a news conference about immigration, in Beverly Hills, Calif. California Democrats hope to cash in at the polls against Republican members of Congress considered vulnerable to Latino sentiment against Trump. Statements involving immigration and Mexico by the presumptive GOP presidential nominee raised hopes Tuesday, June 7, 2016, for Democrats in some districts with large Latino populations. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has canceled several events on his schedule Monday following the massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub. A lone gunman opened fire on more than 300 people inside Pulse nightclub in downtown Orlando early Sunday morning, killing 49 people and injuring another 53. The gunman, identified by the FBI as Omar Mateen, was killed by law enforcement, bringing the total death count to 50. Trump's campaign cancelled three events to be held in Massachusetts and New Hampshire on Monday in light of the shooting. The presumptive presidential nominee was to attend a private fundraiser hosted by former Sen. Scott Brown in Boston during the day and an evening fundraiser held in the home of New Hampshire businessman Bill Binnie. Additionally, the Monday evening rally to be held at Great Bay Community College in Portsmouth has been postponed. Trump will still attend one event in New England on Monday. He will speak at Saint Anselm College. The by-invitation-only event will be held at 2:30 p.m. on the Manchester campus. In a statement Sunday, his campaign said he will "address this terrorist attack, immigration and national security." NORTHAMPTON -- Hours after a mass shooting inside an Orlando nightclub took at least 50 lives, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren declined to answer reporters' questions about the 2016 presidential race before speaking to a crowd of supporters in Western Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon. "We're not going to do politics today," she said, her voice shaking. Warren said she didn't want to comment on a group of Bernie Sanders supporters gathered on a nearby sidewalk who were protesting her recent decision to endorse Hillary Clinton for president. "There will be other chances to talk about politics," she said. She said the shooting, which seemed to target the gay community, has hit her hard. "Yesterday I was in Boston for the pride parade," Warren said. "And when I go to the pride parade, I don't march in the pride parade, I dance in the pride parade. It is a celebration. Then wake up this morning to the harsh reminder of the reality that's still out there." Warren conveyed the same message inside the World War II Club, where several hundred Democrats gathered to hear her speak. "This cannot be a moment when we attack each other," Warren said. "This has to be a moment when we say we're going to be a better people, and pull together to make sure we are an America where every person is loved." Warren then launched into a slideshow about the plight of working families, and started with her own story. "When I was in junior high, my father had a heart attack. And we lost our car, the medical bills piled up, and we were so close to losing our house." Warren said her mother "saved the family" by getting a minimum-wage job at Sears to pay the mortgage. Such a job today wouldn't even let a mother with a baby rent a one-room apartment, she said. "For some families, the system has been rigged for decades, so no matter how hard they work, there never will be a way to make ends meet. And none of this will get any better unless we make some fundamental changes in this country." Warren said Americans are "working harder and harder for less and less money" as corporations report record profits and the stock market booms. She said costs for housing, medical insurance, and childcare have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated. She spoke up for investments in education, infrastructure, and medical research, a stronger Social Security system, tax law reform, and student loan relief. She said America needs "more cops on Wall Street" and to get big money out of politics. She blasted trade deals that pit American workers against "imprisoned workers and child workers." "The system is corrupted to serve the wealthy," she said. "Politicians work for the lobbyists. Billions flow to politicians to tilt the laws." Warren said a majority of Americans support fundamental changes to help ordinary families. "This is not a Democratic or Republican agenda," she said. "This is an American agenda." A man was escorted from the hall after yelling from the audience a number of times. He could be heard shouting the words "family structure." Warren confronted him directly. "Come on, Bud, enough. You want to rent a hall, go rent a hall! OK, we've got your Trump T-shirt, we've got the whole deal." Warren rallied the crowd, encouraging them to engage with friends and family members, "including your skeptical Republican uncle, to volunteer for change, and ask hard questions of their elected officials. "Democracy will not survive on its own," she said. "It needs people to participate." Barney Frank In this Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 file photo, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. gestures during his news conference on his retirement on Capitol Hill in Washington. (The Associated Press) Barney Frank, a long serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, voiced concerns regarding the safety of gay Americans, an "Islamic element" in terrorism and an increased need for surveillance and gun control. Frank spoke of the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando this weekend in an interview with the New York Times Monday. "It's an attack against gay people but it does not reflect a general deterioration of our standing in America," he said. "It reflects the virulence of the hatred in this sector of Islam." Frank represented Massachusetts in the House for 32 years, completing his final term in office in 2013. He came out publicly as gay in 1987, the first member of Congress to voluntarily do so, and has been a vocal gay rights advocate. The former Massachusetts representative said he'd like to see more monitoring of people with extreme Islamic beliefs by both the Muslim community and government agencies. "There is an Islamic element here," he told the Times. "Yes, the overwhelming majority of Muslims don't do this, but there is clearly, sadly, an element in the interpretation of Islam that has some currency, some interpretation in the Middle East that encourages killing people - and L.G.B.T. people are on that list. And I think it is fair to ask leaders of the Islamic community, religious and otherwise, to spend some time combatting this." Frank said the mass shooting reinforces his belief that there should be "significant surveillance" of people identified by the FBI to have radical beliefs. The lone shooter, Omar Mateen, was interviewed by the FBI twice in recent years, but as a connection could not be drawn between him and terrorist organizations, both investigations were closed. Law enforcement officials say the gunman pledged his allegiance to ISIS during a 911 call just before the shooting. The day after 50 people - including Mateen - were fatally wounded, the Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack. President Barack Obama said Monday that there is no clear evidence the shooting was apart of a larger plot or directed by a terrorist organization. Armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, Mateen killed 49 people inside the nightclub. Another 53 were wounded during the attack. Mateen was killed during a shootout with law enforcement. Mateen had a Florida firearms license and legally purchased both guns within the past week. Excluding active duty members of the military, Frank said no one should have access to such guns. He said, of those citing 2nd Amendment rights to own such weapons, "By that logic people can have shoulder-fired missiles." Grooms Cal Hall and Bobby Scott. Photo by Dani Fine Photography. The story of Bobby Scott and Cal Hall is a reminder that love always seems to find a way. It appears unexpectedly and especially during the times when the idea of it seems most far away. The two met in Provincetown in 2014, while each were visiting the Cape Cod summertime hot spot with friends. Cal noticed Bobby sitting alone by the pool and went over to talk to him during a break in vacation festivities. "Neither of us were looking for love but, when we first met, we both knew. Bobby ended up staying an extra night just to hang out more. We have been inseparable ever since," said Cal, the creative director for a Wall Street tech start-up. Two months after they met, Cal proposed at the Bethesda Fountain in Manhattan's Central Park. Even with an Achilles tendon injury that left him in a cast and on crutches, Cal managed to orchestrate a secret proposal. The two drove all the way from Bobby's Western Mass. home to have brunch at the Boathouse with a friend. A horse-drawn carriage brought them to the prearranged spot and a paparazzi photographer who was "in on it" captured the scene. "The whole thing was later picked up by the New York Times and Huffington Post," said Bobby, a West Springfield native and education sales manager for Unilever TIGI. "During the whole thing, I thought we were meeting Cal's friend Cindy. I was beside myself to think she would make this one-legged man would come to Central Park. Cal forgot to ask the question [during the proposal] and just opened the box with the ring and smiled. It was a crazy, beautiful day." Bobby's engagement ring was an antique white gold and diamond band from Sweden. Cal picked the ring, over 100-years-old, while visiting family in his hometown of Stockholm. "It was only after knowing him for two months but I knew he was the guy for me," said Cal. The couple decided on the Belle Mer because they wanted a venue near the water with a contemporary feel. They worked with a wedding planner to minimize any worries on their wedding day. It was also a place where Bobby had always wanted to get married. "I didn't want to pressure Cal, so we just went to see it and he loved it," said Bobby. They married on September 11, 2015, a date, they both admitted, where people might flinch when they hear it. The couple decided on the day because they felt the world could use some extra love on that date. Joined by 120 of their closest friends and family, the plan for the wedding was to send off positive energy into the universe. During the usually stressful process leading up to their big day, Bobby and Cal realized the importance of being present and of mindfulness. "We went through a lot. It's a lot harder in a gay wedding because not everyone supports you 100-percent," said Bobby. "It all worked out in the end, which was due to love being present. Everyone who attended was 110-percent in support of our love." The two added a special details to make the day memorable for those attending and shareable for family and friends unable to make the trip. Bobby's wedding gift to Cal was a surprise videographer to film the event, since Cal's mom couldn't attend all that when on. The videographer incorporated drone footage in the final video, showing a whole new perspective of the wedding. Cal took a humorous route and hired an improv comedienne to object to the wedding before they were to exchange rings. "This was a black tie and gown wedding, so the reaction when the wedding crasher walked in with cutoffs, flip flops and and a trucker hat was priceless! Guests were beside themselves and when she stood up to object Bobby's auntie Terry told her to leave," said Cal. Instead of traditional wedding favors, the couple decided to do something that would give back to a charitable organization that was important to them. Every guest had a birthday card placed at their seat to fill out. The idea was to collect the cards and deliver them to DOROT, a New York-based senior agency where they both volunteer, to be passed out when meals are delivered to the elderly helped by the program. Wedding party: A dozen close friends and family. The men wore wore white tuxedo jackets and black pants from Menguin.com and the women wore long, tulle champagne mermaid dresses purchased in New York City's storied Garment District. Cake and catering: The Belle Mer provided the food and cake at the reception. Special late-night menu included mini chicken waffles and French toast with maple syrup on a stick. "This was a huge hit! This help keep our beautiful guests on the sober side. Cal is in recovery so it helped support that," said Bobby. A sweet part of the ceremony, instead of throwing rice after saying "I Do's," was to give guests a little pouch of Skittles so they could "taste or toss the rainbow." First dance song: The Cure's "Lovesong," covered by Adele, spun by J&J Productions of South Hadley. Photographer: Bobby and Cal picked Northampton's Dani.Fine Photography to capture the scenes from their wedding. Bobby had worked with owner Dani Klein-Williams before as a stylist on several fashion shoots and they both knew she could capture the look and feel of their day. "She wanted to tell and build our story, from the engagement to the wedding," said Cal. Honeymoon location: The couple took two honeymoons, the first to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico for two weeks and then to visit Cal's family in Sweden. The pair went in June so they could attend the Midsummer Festival then jet-set to Barcelona and Sitges in Spain to enjoy some Mediterranean sunshine. Advice for couples about to get married: Cal recommended for couples to make the wedding their own and not let it become cookie-cutter. "Shake it up. Have fun. Make sure you get a video of the whole event so you can view later," he said. "Just stick together at all points and be in great communication with each other," said Cal. "We had some family drama and we worked through it all by allowing love to be present. People always say that it's 'your day' and it is, with all the people you love. Just keep this in mind, you love them for who they are and who they are not." Want to nominate a couple for a Weddings section feature? Email weddings@masslive.com for more details. Her Excellency Mrs. K. Nandini Singla, High Commissioner of India paid a courtesy call to the Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Recreation, The honorable Stephan Toussaint on the 08th March 2021. During the consultation, the High Commissioner uttered her appreciation for the cordial and mutual relations between Mauritius and India. She also expressed great interest in increased collaboration between the high commission of India in Mauritius and the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports, and Recreation. The discussions focused on the avenues of cooperation that can be further developed in the sports sector, youth development, and recreational activities. In this context, 10 Mauritian youngsters will be invited to participate in next years national day celebration of India. The cost and accommodation will be borne by the government of India. Finally, both sides have also expressed the willingness to review the existing MoU between the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Recreation and the High Commission of India signed in 2012. Partager et informez vous aussi...... 0 shares Share Tweet LinkedIn Articles similaires by Jess Nelson , June 13, 2016 Email has become one of the top traffic drivers to BuzzFeed as the digital publication continues to test new ways to engage with readers. While social media is by far the company's largest driver of traffic, email plays a powerful role as a source of revenue and engagement for the company. In terms of referrals, email is one of the biggest we have -- its a workforce for the company, says Dan Oshinsky, director of newsletters at BuzzFeed. Its a phenomenal way to find people who love BuzzFeed and continue to bring them to our site. Aside from our mobile app, there is no audience that reads and shares more BuzzFeed stories. BuzzFeed now offers more than a dozen newsletters of varying genres, including a daily news summary and a cat-a-day newsletter. Interestingly, subscribers to BuzzFeeds cat-a-day newsletter actually share more BuzzFeed content when compared to any other reader segment. advertisement advertisement In addition to its newsletter series, BuzzFeed has offered a variety of email-based courses throughout the year. For example, BuzzFeed launched a seven-day skin challenge with open rates above 52% and more than 100,000 readers signed up for the companys 27-day core challenge, which had a 39% open rate. The first thing Oshinsky did when he joined the company in 2012 was to cancel the previous email program and begin again from scratch. Oshinsky says that at the time, nobody managed email communication and no messages were optimized for mobile devices. We learned early on that 65% of people who subscribe to a BuzzFeed newsletter read it on a mobile device, says Oshinsky. There was no any choice -- we had to make our emails mobile-friendly. BuzzFeed has been working with Campaign Monitor, an email marketing technology provider, for the past three years -- and Oshinsky praises the companys easy-to-use interface and responsive email templates. Since Oshinsky joined BuzzFeed, the companys email team has grown to four employees in New York, two in London, and several more email team members in Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Emails are sent in English, Spanish and Portuguese for now, but courses have also been translated to French and German. Tone plays an important role in email marketing, says Oshinsky, and readers respond to a brand's distinctive and consistent voice. BuzzFeed has experimented with more targeted outreach based on geo-indicators for product launches and live events in particular regions, but Oshinsky hopes to add more personalized outreach based on geolocation in the near future. As of now, BuzzFeeds email newsletters are sent at the same time a subscriber initially signed-up for them, but Oshinsky would like to ensure that those emails are compatible with a readers time zone. Oshinsky is also working on integrating video and podcasts more succinctly with the publications email program, and plans to role out a new newsletter highlighting the Reader Section of BuzzFeed in the near future. by Laurie Sullivan @lauriesullivan, June 12, 2016 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange made it clear during an interview Sunday that he plans to release additional emails from Hillary Clinton when she served as U.S. Secretary of State. The emails will be released into WikiLeaks' searchable database, previously launched in March 2016. It houses about 30,322 emails and email attachments sent to and from Clintons private email server during the time she served the United States as Secretary of State. The 50,547 pages of documents date from June 30, 2010 to August 12, 2014, and 7,570 of the documents were sent by Clinton. More emails are on the way. "We have emails related to Hillary Clinton that are pending publication," Assange said, speaking to ITV's Robert Preston. advertisement advertisement Assange said it is highly unlikely the U.S. attorney General Loretta Lynch would indict Clinton. Shes not going to indict Hillary Clinton; thats not possible," he said. "The FBI can push for concessions from a new Clinton government in exchange for an indictment." In published email, Hillary Clinton told her staff to remove the classified header of a classified document and send it by non-classified FAXs. During the Preston interview, Assange said that Clinton instructed her staff to violate the classified U.S. procedures. "Of course I think a lot of these procedures are ridiculous, but Hillary Clinton has been pushing to prosecute others -- and so has Barack Obama -- who violate technically these procedures," Assange said. When asked whether he prefers Donald Trump as a U.S. president, Assange said: "Trump is a completely unpredictable phenomena. You can't predict what he would do in office. You can predict a bit more of what the Republican Party might do." Assange views Clinton as a bit of a problem when it comes to "freedom of the press." "In relation to wars, the emails we revealed about her involvement with Libya and statements by Pentagon generals shows that Hillary overrode the Pentagon's reluctance to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi because they predicted that the post-war outcome" would evolve into what we see today, he said, calling Clinton a "liberal war hawk." by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, June 12, 2016 The amount of time that people around the world devote to using mobile Internet will increase by nearly 27.7% this year, driving a 1.4% increase in overall media consumption, according to Zeniths Media Consumption Forecast, which was issued today. All other media usage -- including desktop Internet -- will decline, by 3.4% in total, according to the forecast. Desktop consumption is now in decline as users switch to mobile devices. In 2015, mobile overtook desktop to become the primary medium for accessing the Internet. This year Zenith predicts that globally, people will spend on average 86 minutes a day using mobile Internet, compared to 36 minutes using desktop Internet. Thus, 71% of Internet consumption will be via mobile. In North America the corresponding figure is just a tick higher at 72%. advertisement advertisement According to the report, all traditional media will shrink this year: cinema by 0.5%, outdoor by 0.8%, television by 1.5%, radio by 2.4%, newspapers by 5.6% and magazines by 6.7%. However, Zenith noted in its forecast that those figures only refer to time spent with these media in their traditional forms -- printed publications and broadcast television channels and radio stations. Much of the time that consumers spend on the Internet is devoted to consuming content that has been produced by traditional publishers and broadcasters. Traditional media owners have invested heavily in online brand extensions, and some of them have larger audiences online than they ever had for their offline products, according to the report. For 2017 the report forecasts 1.2% growth in overall consumption, followed by 0.4% growth in 2018, as mobile usage starts to level off. Despite recent declines, television still dominates global media consumption, drawing nearly three hours (177 minutes) of usage a day in 2015. Internet consumption came in second at 110 minutes a day. Television accounted for 41% of total media consumption in 2015, and Zenith is forecasting that it will still account for 38% in 2018, when the Internet will account for 31%. Mobile technology is transforming the way people around the world consume media, and is expanding overall media consumption, stated Jonathan Barnard, Zeniths Head of Forecasting. It provides traditional media owners the opportunity to reach people and places theyve never had access to previously, and gives consumers entirely new ways to find and enjoy compelling content. by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, June 13, 2016 Microsoft and LinkedIn quickly glossed over benefits for Bing and Bing Ads when they announced the $26.2 billion deal on Monday, but industry insiders see the agreement as having far-reaching benefits for the two services. To be clear -- Microsoft and LinkedIn did not announce advertising services, but it seems inevitable. Here's why and how. Although LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella skipped specifics on how Bing Ads and search will fit into LinkedIn's network, industry insiders see a change on the horizon. "It will be fascinating to see where LinkedIn fits within the Bing Ads network," said David Grow, digital media manager at agency Chacka Marketing. Grow said LinkedIn doesn't really seem to fit into any of the four Bing Ads options that Microsoft offers, so it wouldn't surprise him to see LinkedIn inventory managed separately in a fifth. "I am sure Microsoft will come up with some creative ways to connect Bing Ads and LinkedIn -- possibly through ad extensions -- to increase the importance of both platforms. advertisement advertisement Aaron Goldman, CMO at social media technology company 4C, doesn't think Microsoft will integrate Bing Ads in the short term because the two companies have a different focus. LinkedIn supports a professional audience and ad placements based on job title and geographic location, rather than keywords in Bing Ads. That's not to say that Weiner and Nadella aren't thinking about changes and how to integrate the two company's services to produce better ad-targeting platforms based on artificial intelligence and data. "Microsoft has also had more of the affluent audience, so there's a nice match with LinkedIn's audience," Goldman said. "If they can do some first-party targeting using social graph data on top of keywords data, it could make for some really nice targeting opportunities." LinkedIn began to show vast improvements in site visits and shares during the first quarter in 2016. Page views per unique visit for each LinkedIn member hit an all-time high in first-quarter 2016, with 23% year-over-year growth. Daily shares for content rose nearly 40%, and traffic to third-party publishers grew more than 150%. The company also mentioned seeing "significant growth in other core engagement metrics such as profile edits, connections made, and messages sent." In the first quarter, sponsored content on LinkedIn grew nearly 80%, representing 56% of total Marketing Solutions revenue. During the first quarter, the company began piloting the sale of sponsored content through off-network inventory. Weiner said during the company's first-quarter 2016 earnings call that by the end of 2016, a Sponsored Content customer will have an option to expand targeting using their own data such as customer account lists, and use conversion tracking to better measure their return on investment, leverage improved tools, and manage campaigns. Other highlights mentioned during a Monday call with investors include that the deal strengthens Microsoft position in China through LinkedIn; 60% of traffic comes from mobile -- up from 49% in the year-ago period -- and that the LinkedIn platform supports some 7 million active job listings, up 101% since the prior year. by Sara Guaglione , June 13, 2016 Bloombergs Content Service is expanding its Spanish-language text news licensing offering, with plans to more than triple its offering of translated Bloomberg news stories to produce over 80 stories per day. The announcement was made at the 68th annual WAN-IFRA World News Media Congress, held in Cartagena, Colombia. The expanded service will include output from bureaus in Bogota, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Lima, Madrid, Mexico City and Santiago. Breaking news, analysis, commentary and exclusive feature pieces will be available to News licensing customers and subscribers of the Bloomberg Professional service, also called the Bloomberg Terminal, which provides data, news and analysis for business and financial professionals. "The demand for news in Spanish is growing," stated Josh Rucci, general manager and global head of Bloomberg's Content Service. He added: "This expansion is an important part of our strategy in extending reach to the growing Spanish-speaking business community around the world. Rucci said experienced translators are working with reporters in Bloomberg News network of bureaus throughout Latin America and Spain to translate content. advertisement advertisement According to Dylan Cohen, head of operations/product for Bloombergs Content Service, the service has long offered Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, German and Russian news services specifically for the Bloomberg Terminal. A portion of those translations were available to Bloomberg Content service clients. This announcement is the first time the service has expanded one of its translation offerings for media clients. Cohen told Publishers Daily that the service has already more than doubled its Spanish-translated Bloomberg news stories and will complete its expansion within the next few months. Last year, Bloomberg's Content Service launched Bloomberg TV Canada, bringing business and financial TV to more than 7 million Canadian households. According to Talking News Biz, the service also signed group licensing deals with Hearst Newspapers and American City Business Journals and the McClatchy Co. by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, June 13, 2016 Of all the odd and implausible schemes to save the newspaper publishing business suggested over the years, this has to be one of the strangest and, frankly, stupidest. The government of Morocco has passed a law specifically forbidding citizens of the north African kingdom from sharing their newspapers in public spaces. Thats right: under the new rules, you can only read a newspaper you paid for yourself, and you may not pick up someone elses old newspaper left lying around a cafe or at the bus stop. The Moroccan Federation of Newspaper Publishers claims the practice of leaving newspapers in public spaces costs them $150 million per year. All this makes for especially strange reading in light of media history. As publishers have known for hundreds of years, print newspapers and magazines accumulate much of their total readership through pass along consumption and publishers astutely campaigned to have this often substantial audience included in their reach figures for advertising sales. Now, however, Moroccan publishers are not only spurning pass-along readership but, with the passage of this law, actually seeking to punish readers who share their product. The thinking seems to be that consumers will be so desperate for news that they will pay for their own papers, preserving advertising reach while also boosting circulation revenues. In addition to sounding broadly unenforceable something tells me Moroccan police have many better things to do the law appears to be completely out of touch with contemporary media trends. As in other parts of the world, media consumption in Morocco has shifted decisively online, with 17.3 million Internet users in 2014, or 57% of the population; meanwhile 94% of the population owns a mobile phone and over a third of these own a smartphone. Newspaper print circulation has been declining steadily for over a decade. In short, the new law (if it were actually enforced) is more likely to be the final nail in the coffin of the industry than a magic bullet. For their sake, lets hope everyone in Morocco does the right thing and breaks the law. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, June 13, 2016 Jeff Flake, a Republican senator from Arizona, is urging Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler to back away from "onerous" privacy rules that would require broadband providers to obtain consumers' opt-in consent before using data about their Web-surfing activity for ad targeting. Flake argues in a letter sent to Wheeler last week that the rules would violate Internet service providers' free speech rights. "The use of customer information for marketing purposes by ISPs is non-misleading protected commercial speech," the lawmaker writes. Last month, Flake unsuccessfully asked Wheeler to delay the timeline for considering the new rules. He now argues that targeted ads are protected by the First Amendment, and that restricting the use of data for behavioral advertising "presents constitutional problems." advertisement advertisement Flake elaborates that the FCC hasn't justified its proposed rules by showing why they further a government interest. He also says that any threat posed to privacy by ISPs is "wholly theoretical." "Like the thousand-eyed Argus of mythology, ISPs are supposed to be the all-seeing watchmen of our personal information, according to the FCC's view," he writes. "But this alleged threat to privacy is wholly theoretical. The FCC points to no patterns of abuse by ISPs of their customer information, let alone the kind of particularized abuse that could properly rise to a significant, government interest." This is not the first time that critics have argued that restrictions on behavioral advertising might violate companies' rights. In 2008, the Newspaper Association of America argued that a Federal Trade Commission proposal for voluntary privacy standards could infringe companies' free speech rights. Those potential guidelines called for companies to allow consumers to opt-out of most forms of behavioral advertising, and to obtain opt-in consent before using "sensitive" data, including information about health conditions or sexual orientation, for targeted ads. The NAA argued at the time that ads are a form of speech, and that it has the right to serve them, provided that they are not misleading. Ads displayed to readers based on their online behavior are "not only truthful advertising speech, but advertising speech that meets their interest," the group wrote in its filing. The following year, the group retreated somewhat and voiced support for the idea that Web companies should voluntarily allow users to opt out of online behavioral targeting. It may one day be possible to identify cancer, autoimmune diseases, and a wealth of other conditions from a single drop of blood, after a team from the University of Pittsburgh reveals the creation of a test that holds promise for such a feat. Share on Pinterest Researchers have created a blood test that they say could diagnose a number of diseases with no known microbial causes. In the Journal of Immunological Methods, the researchers explain how they developed a test that may be able to identify diseases for which there are no known microbial causes. Antigens are substances such as bacteria, viruses, or chemicals that induce an immune response in the body, causing the immune system to produce antibodies that target and destroy these foreign invaders. Senior study author Dr. Donald S. Burke, of the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues explain that certain parts of these antibodies fit to the shape of molecules within the antigens in order to destroy them. However, there are a number of conditions for which there are no known antigens, including cancer, autoimmune diseases, and traumatic injuries, making them tricky to detect with current blood tests. But Dr. Burke and colleagues believe this could change following the creation of their new blood test. Regulators in the United States have approved the first vaccine intended to protect American travelers from becoming infected with cholera. Share on Pinterest Cholera occurs in parts of the world where sanitation is poor and water and sewage treatment is inadequate. In their announcement on June 10th, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) say the liquid vaccine is approved for the prevention of cholera caused by serogroup O1 in adults 18 through 64 years of age traveling to cholera-affected areas. The vaccine called Vaxchora is the only FDA-approved vaccine for the prevention of cholera, a potentially life-threatening disease that is easily prevented and treated. The live, weakened vaccine is taken as a single, oral, 3 fl oz (85 ml) liquid dose no less than 10 days before traveling to a cholera-affected area. Cholera is a disease spread by the fecal-oral route commonly caused by ingesting water or food contaminated with Vibrio cholerae bacteria. The disease is rare in the U.S. and other industrialized nations. It occurs in parts of the world where sanitation is poor and water and sewage treatment is inadequate. These areas include parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and Haiti. Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, says the approval of Vaxchora represents a significant addition to the cholera-prevention measures currently recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for travelers to cholera-affected regions. Often, infection with cholera is mild, causing a watery diarrhea. However, severe cholera can result in profuse diarrhea and vomiting, causing dehydration. When treated rapidly, people infected with cholera can recover quickly, and there are typically no long term consequences. If not treated promptly with antibiotics and fluid replacement, the disease can be life-threatening. A high percentage of children, teens and young adults with migraines appear to have mild deficiencies in vitamin D, riboflavin and coenzyme Q10 - a vitamin-like substance found in every cell of the body that is used to produce energy for cell growth and maintenance. These deficiencies may be involved in patients who experience migraines, but that is unclear based on existing studies. "Further studies are needed to elucidate whether vitamin supplementation is effective in migraine patients in general, and whether patients with mild deficiency are more likely to benefit from supplementation," says Suzanne Hagler, MD, a Headache Medicine fellow in the division of Neurology at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and lead author of the study. Dr. Hagler and colleagues at Cincinnati Children's conducted the study among patients at the Cincinnati Children's Headache Center. She presented her findings at the 58th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Headache Society in San Diego. Dr. Hagler's study drew from a database that included patients with migraines who, according to Headache Center practice, had baseline blood levels checked for vitamin D, riboflavin, coenzyme Q10 and folate, all of which were implicated in migraines, to some degree, by previous and sometimes conflicting studies. Many were put on preventive migraine medications and received vitamin supplementation, if levels were low. Because few received vitamins alone, the researchers were unable to determine vitamin effectiveness in preventing migraines. She found that girls and young woman were more likely than boys and young men to have coenzyme Q10 deficiencies at baseline. Boys and young men were more likely to have vitamin D deficiency. It was unclear whether there were folate deficiencies. Patients with chronic migraines were more likely to have coenzyme Q10 and riboflavin deficiencies than those with episodic migraines. Previous studies have indicated that certain vitamins and vitamin deficiencies may be important in the migraine process. Studies using vitamins to prevent migraines, however, have had conflicting success. An Australian study has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the tools used by medical professionals to assess suicide risk in mental health patients, prompting calls for a review of the allocation of resources based on the assessments. The meta-analysis, led by clinical psychiatrist and Conjoint Professor Matthew Large from UNSW Australia's School of Psychiatry, has been published in the PLOS ONE journal. It found that suicide risk assessment tools were not successful in predicting suicide outcomes, with no evidence of scientific progress over the past 50 years, pointing to a need for a more patient-focused approach to crisis mental health care. "It is widely assumed that the care of psychiatric patients can be guided by a mental health professional's estimate of suicide risk and by using patient characteristics to define high-risk patients," Dr Large said. "However, the reliability of categorising suicide risk remains unknown." The objective of the study was to investigate the odds of suicide in high-risk compared to lower-risk categories and the suicide rates in these two groups. The researchers reviewed every long-term prospective study of suicide risk assessment published worldwide over the past 50 years. They found there was no reliable method for assessing suicide risk, with the results of the assessments varying enormously across the 37 studies reviewed. They found half of all suicides occurred in lower-risk groups while 95% of high-risk patients did not suicide. Overall, the study demonstrated that suicide risk assessments provide results that are slightly better than chance, however complex methods of suicide risk assessment that take into account multiple risk factors offer no statistical advantage than using a single factor. "Much of what happens when a mentally distressed person presents to a hospital depends on a suicide risk assessment, based on a whole range of risk factors," Dr Large said. "Lower-risk patients can be denied treatment, while some high-risk patients get hospitalised, sometimes against their wishes, based on an inaccurate risk assessment. "In many hospitals, resources are still being allocated on the basis of suicide risk. It is time we moved away from paternalist medical decision making and classifying people into suicide risk categories. "If a patient presents with a suicide crisis they should be thoroughly assessed, without catergorisation. Mental health professionals must also involve patients in the decision making process about their ongoing care to improve their outcomes," Dr Large said. Dr Christopher Ryan from the University of Sydney is senior co-author of the study. The study's authors stress that the focus of the study was on mental health patients, rather than the potential strength of risk categorisation for suicide among the general community. The combination of type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease can be deadly. New research from a global study led by a physician from UConn Health has found that patients with Type 2 diabetes admitted into the hospital for congestive heart failure face a one in four chance of dying over the next 18 months. The results were presented on June 11 at the American Diabetes Association's (ADA) annual meeting in New Orleans and published online in the ADA journal Diabetes Care. The findings paint a much grimmer picture of the outcome for diabetes patients with severe heart disease than was previously known. "Type 2 diabetes accompanied by an acute coronary syndrome needs much more attention, especially in order to prevent yet another major cardiac event," says Principal Investigator Dr. William B. White, a professor in the Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center at UConn Health. Patients with type 2 diabetes have two to three times the heart disease risk of the general population. This is partly because obesity and other illnesses such as hypertension and elevated cholesterol contribute to both diseases, but there are concerns that some of the medications that help control blood sugar may also damage the heart. Even insulin, a hormone that healthy people make naturally but some patients with type 2 diabetes often need as a medication, can contribute to heart disease. Because of the diabetes-heart disease link, all new diabetes drugs are now required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to undergo formal testing for their impact on heart and stroke outcomes. White, along with colleagues at 898 medical institutions around the world who were investigators in the EXAMINE trial, were testing the diabetes drug alogliptin (Nesina) which is a member of the family of medications known as DPP-4 inhibitors. The researchers recruited 5,380 patients with type 2 diabetes after the patient had a major but nonfatal acute coronary syndrome such as a heart attack, or hospitalization for unstable angina. The researchers randomly assigned the patients to take either alogliptin or a placebo, and then followed their progress for up to three years. The primary findings of the study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013, showed no differences for alogliptin versus placebo patients in the major endpoint of cardiovascular death, heart attack or stroke. Now, the researchers provide new insights on mortality in the EXAMINE trial from a series of new analyses. People with type 2 diabetes admitted to the hospital for heart failure faced a 24 to 28 percent chance of death during the remainder of the trial, on aloglipin or placebo respectively. That's more than 5 times the risk of death seen in the patients who had no additional non-fatal cardiovascular event while in the study. "It's a very dramatic result," says White. "A person with type 2 diabetes requiring hospitalization for heart failure in the EXAMINE trial was a harbinger of a very poor outcome." The researchers are now trying to discover other new insights from data taken during the study. White and co-researchers from the EXAMINE study have teamed up with collaborators from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's hospital to find patterns of proteins known as biomarkers in the blood that might provide early signals for elevated risk of a second cardiovascular event, including heart failure and death. White emphasizes that congestive heart failure is by no means inevitable for people with type 2 diabetes but the problem should be receiving a great deal more attention. According to White, in all future studies of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, heart failure outcomes should receive the same amount of scrutiny as stroke, heart attack and unstable angina. Article: Cardiovascular Mortality in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Recent Acute Coronary Syndromes From the EXAMINE Trial, William B. White, Stuart Kupfer, Faiez Zannad, Cyrus R. Mehta, Craig A. Wilson, Lanyu Lei, George L. Bakris, Steven E. Nissen, William C. Cushman, Simon R. Heller, Richard M. Bergenstal, Penny R. Fleck, Christopher P. Cannon, for the EXAMINE Investigators, Diabetes Care, doi: 10.2337/dc16-0303, published online 11 June 2016. The amino acid acetylcarnitine may help predict an individual's neurobehavioral performance during chronic sleep restriction, according to results of a new study (abstract 0251) from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania that will be presented at SLEEP 2016, the 30th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC. Previous studies have shown that sleep loss degrades behavioral attention, cognitive processing and memory, but this study offers the first experimental evidence that acetylcarnitine - which transports fatty acids into the mitochondria where they are broken down and oxidized and formed into energy - may predict neurobehavioral vulnerability to sleep loss in healthy adults. In the study at the sleep lab at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, participants' blood samples were taken after 10-12 hours of fasting following one night of baseline sleep (10 hours time in bed), chronic sleep restriction (5 consecutive nights of 4 hours time in bed), and one night of recovery sleep (12 hours time in bed). The Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT), the Digit Symbol Substitution Task (DSST), the Digit Span Task (DS), the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) and the Profile of Mood States (POMS) tests were administered every two hours while participants were awake. The preliminary data associated acetylcarnitine with six neurobehavioral variables during sleep loss, including PVT lapses (longer than 500 millisecond responses) and errors, PVT response speed, DSST total correct, DS total correct, KSS scores, and POMS vigor scores - but not at baseline or recovery. Higher levels of this molecule predicted poorer behavioral attention, slower ability to process information, and poorer memory and increased sleepiness. "We know that there are robust differences in how individuals respond to sleep loss," said Namni Goel, PhD, a research associate professor of psychology in Psychiatry in the division of Sleep and Chronobiology, and lead author on the study. "Some people are very vulnerable, while others are more resistant to these effects. Identifying this marker is an important step in identifying measures to mitigate the disruptive effects of sleep loss in those who are more affected." The findings have implications for government agencies and other institutions interested in predicting who may be vulnerable to sleep loss and finding ways to offset the negative effects of sleep loss when they occur. These data build on earlier work by members of the Penn team, who previously found two markers of sleep debt that reliably track when a person is sleep deprived (Weljie et al 2015, PNAS 112(8):2569-74). Co-authors on the study include Arjun Sengupta, Ted Abel, Amita Sehgal, Aalim M. Weljie, and senior author David F. Dinges, all from Penn, as well as Peter Meerlo from the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. This work was supported by the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research Award No. N00014-11-1-0361 (NG); NASA NNX14AN49G (NG); NIH grant R01 NR004281 (DFD); the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) through NASA NCC 9-58 (DFD); Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) grant UL1TR000003; Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army Research Office (TA, W911NF1010093). Advertisement They found that mothers often like serving large portions to express affection towards their families, and that those who experienced food insecurity in the past are especially likely to overstock food as a precautionary measure. Interestingly, when caregivers provide unhealthy food, they also prepare healthy sides to make up for the other 'junk.' Because there is more food served, there are typically more leftovers, which often are thrown away. In fact, the non-use of leftovers was the most frequent type of food waste identified."It's kind of ironic," notes Gustavo Porpino, lead author of the study, "Caregivers do everything they can to fit the traditional role of a 'good mother.' They keep the house fully stocked with all kinds of food, provide snacks and treats in between meals, and make sure everyone has more than enough on their plates at the table, but it's these same behaviors that lead to wasted food, wasted money, and even to obesity."The findings suggest that connecting food pantries with nutritional educators and initiatives that teach caregivers how to manage food at home can reduce food waste in this population. Specifically, positive messages about consuming leftovers and campaigns that emphasize the financial benefits of limiting waste can be used to encourage caregivers to make changes."By recognizing that resources are wasted as a result of over-preparing food, people may be more open to exploring other ways to show their affection," explains Porpino, "The good intentions are there, all we have to do is work on how they're expressed!"Source: Eurekalert Please complete this form and we'll send you a personalised information that is requested You may use this for your own reference or forward it to your friends. Please use the information prudently. If you are not a medical doctor please remember to consult your healthcare provider as this information is not a substitute for professional advice. Advertisement "People who travel to donate a kidney can miss at least two weeks of work and spend $5,000 or more. These costs can discourage people from becoming donors," said Harvey Mysel, president of the nonprofit Living Kidney Donors Network."It is a challenge for many people," he said.Starting in January 2017, UnitedHealth will reimburse lodging and travel expenses beginning with a doctor's initial evaluation and continuing for up to two years after the donor surgery.UnitedHealth will limit this initially to its fully insured coverage. As many as 75 transplants have been covered by the insurer from living donors last year through its fully insured coverage, according to Dr. Jon Friedman, an executive with UnitedHealth's Optum subsidiary."The key here is to make it easier for donors to donate," he said. The reimbursement also can help reduce costs for insurers if it cuts the time patients have to wait for a kidney.According to the National Kidney Foundation, on an average, patients wait about three and a half years for a transplant. About 4,761 people died while waiting in 2014.The UnitedHealth said that dialysis for patients, when they are on the waiting list, costs about $780,000.A kidney transplant can cost around $150,000, excluding the anti-rejection medication that patients take afterward.Doctors prefer kidneys from a live donor because those organs tend to have better odds of functioning over the long term, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.Source: Medindia Russia This Week is a new weekly review by the MEMRI Russian Media Studies Project, covering the latest news and analysis relating to Russia from media in Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe. Cartoon Of The Week Vk.com/13studiya, June 3, 2016. The Russian bear is mightier than the American eagle and can place the Arctic under its influence. The United States and Russia collaborate in the Arctic Council, but geopolitical tensions make peaceful cooperation in the Arctic precarious. At a hearing on "Russia's Violations of Borders, Treaties, and Human Rights" (Foreign.senate.gov, June 7), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael R. Carpenter said that Russia is "projecting power in all directions: in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Arctic, and the Middle East." Zakharova Dixit Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova is one of the most-quoted Russian officials. She is known for using colorful language when describing Russian foreign policy in her weekly press briefings. The following are Zakharova's quotes of the week: (Source: Mid.ru, June 10, 2016) "One can also remark cynically that NATO survives while the Warsaw Treaty Organization was disbanded." (Mid.ru, June 10) "We believe that such actions [i.e. NATO's expansion] are an attempt to find an excuse for disappointing results of the foreign policy conducted by the departing Obama administration, which seriously aggravated the situation with the missile defense issue." (Sputniknews.com, June 10) Vk.com/13studiya, March 19, 2016. Man: "Maria, you are so brave!" Maria Zakharova: "The Motherland compels it!" In the cartoon Zakharova is depicted as the Motherland Calls statue in Volgograd, one of Russia's most iconic war memorials, which commemorates the World War II battle of Stalingrad. Quotes Of The Week : Russia's Federation Council (the upper house of Russia's Federal Assembly) Chair, Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko, said the following at a June 4conference titled "The Russian World: Problems and Perspectives" in Livadiya, Crimea on: "Russians and the Russian culture are subject to oppression and persecution. We can see numerous examples where the rights of Russian people are denied...in the spheres of language, literature, and education. We are aware of what's happening in Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and other states. Russia cannot afford to sit still calmly and observe this happening ." (Ria.ru, June 4) Russia's Federation Council Chair, Valentina Ivanovna Matviyenko (Source: Ria.ru, June 4) On the same occasion, Matviyenko said: "In current reality it's very important to utilize soft power - the ability to attract supporters via cultural values, standards of living, general achievements and way of life - skillfully" (Ria.ru, June 4) In The News: Russia-NATO Relations: NATO Activity in The Baltic Region; Lavrov: We Make No Secret Of Our Negative Attitude To The NATO Policy Of Moving Its Military Infrastructure Closer To Our Border On June 6, the NATO "Anaconda -16" military drills began in Poland. "Anaconda-16," the largest military drill held in Eastern Europe since the cold war, will last 10 days and will involve 31,000 troops. Other NATO drills "BALTOPS 2016" (June 3-19) and "Saber Strike" (May 27-June 22), a long-standing U.S. Army Europe-led cooperative training exercise, are taking place simultaneously in the Baltic region. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reacted to the NATO military drills near the Russian border, during a joint news conference with Finland's Foreign Minister Timo Soini in Moscow. Lavrov said: "We have focused on security issues in the Baltic Sea area. We are convinced that there are no threats in this region to justify its militarization. [emphasis added] We shared our concerns about increased NATO activities in the region, and NATO moving its infrastructure closer to our borders. We are convinced that all issues of cooperation in the Baltic Sea and the North in general can and should be resolved within the framework of existing multilateral formats in the Baltic Sea region, the Barents/Euro-Arctic Region, and the Arctic [emphasis added]... I can add that we have reaffirmed our belief that each country has a sovereign right to choose a security policy it considers appropriate. At the same time, we make no secret of our negative attitude to the NATO policy of moving its military infrastructure closer to our border and involving other states in its military activities [emphasis added]. In this context, Russia has a sovereign right to use such methods to protect its security as appear to be adequate to the existing risks. I am convinced that our Finnish friends and neighbors are aware of this." (Mid.ru, June 6) NATO's BALTOPS 2016 (Source: C6f.navy.mil) Discussing the NATO drill in the Baltic region, Russia's Ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko told the Rossiya 24 TV channel: "What we are seeing today in the Baltic States, as a matter of fact, is nothing [other] than attempts towards force development [in line] with the recent hostile policy pursued by NATO [emphasis added]. I would not say that it is a direct threat for Russia, but nevertheless, it obviously creates serious risks as we see an absolutely new military reality forming along our border." He then added that NATO's military activity "is profoundly changing the military situation in the region," and warned that "Russia, as is known, can ensure its security very efficiently." In the interview, Grushko also mentioned that Russia has no plans to attack Poland: "Recently the [NATO] secretary general visited Poland, and during these visits the Polish side was making statements that now Russia knows that an attack against Poland is an attack against NATO, which is completely absurd, as they are discussing a problem that does not exist...There are no plans to attack Poland." [emphasis added] He then added that "the [NATO] policy lives in a surrealistic reality, and the most dangerous thing is that it now starts taking the form of military planning and military preparations carried out on territories along our borders," Grushko said. (Tass.ru, June 6) First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council's Defense and Security Committee Franz Klincevich said that NATO is preparing a "global strike" on Russia. Klincevich said: "NATO is starting to use our old military bases in the Baltics, Romania, Poland, and sending personnel there... Of course, we will retarget [Russia's military means], move forward [Russia's forces] taking into consideration NATO's activity [in the proximity of our borders]." (Rbc.ru, June 5) Russian ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko, discussed NATO's intensified activity in the Baltic Sea region to business news radio Kommersant FM: "A decision to deploy (NATO's) extra battalions changes the regional situation in the sphere of security qualitatively...Today this situation is acquiring new parameters and it'll surely require not only a political response but also the appropriate military precautions... [The Russian military] will watch with much attention what means might be necessary to neutralize the risks...It's all too obvious that measures will be taken and our partners at the Russia-NATO Council shouldn't get surprised over it." (Tass.ru, June 3) Vk.com/13studiya, Vitaly Podvitsky, June 7 On June 7, Russian media outlets reported that a brown bear disrupted a NATO military drill in Finland after it strayed inside a military base where 3,000 members of the Finnish Kainuu brigade, were deployed (Sputniknews, June 7). The news was previously reported by the Finnish paper Iltalehti (Iltalehti.fi, June 6). Russian Officials Mock The "Russian Threat" To NATO Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov previewed what the Russian daily Izvestia termed an "ironic scenario", in describing a NATO performance against the "evil empire", to be staged on the eve of NATO's July 8 Warsaw summit.. Konashenkov said that Western actions and statements resemble a planned performance. In the first act of the performance sets the stage with alarmist non-official statements about the need to defend a member state of NATO against an external threat. "Look, [it seems that NATO] is a cornered harmless sheep, facing all kind of predators such as Russia and other countries which are not controlled by the U.S." In the second act of the performance, retired Cold War figures such as former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Victor Ash or former NATO commander in Europe Wesley Clark emerge from the "crypt",. In this second act, the Cold War figures mouth paranoid slogans on the revival of the Evil Empire. In the final act, NATO's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg appears on the scene to announce that rumors about NATO's inability to defend itself are baseless, but "one more effort" by the taxpayers is necessary. At the grand finale, of the NATO Warsaw summit, NATO will announce that the Russian threat has been "neutralized"; NATO's military budget has swelled and the good life of NATO's bureaucracy has again been defended from taxpayer queries. "Finita la commedia!" concludes Konashenkov. (Izvestia.ru, June 6; Kp.ru, June 6) Russia's Ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko told the Rossiya 24 TV channel that the Russian threat to NATO "is simply a myth, which allows NATO to pursue its chosen policy, and at the same time solve other tasks of a strategic nature." He added that "NATO is seen as an additional band for repairing Western unity...If we take a look at regional balances, NATO is playing at some murky game, as if the NATO countries themselves are states without an army, without anything [and therefore are not factored into the balance]..." (Tass.ru, June 6) NATO-Russia Council (NRC) Meeting According to Gazeta.ru, despite tensions between Russia and NATO, an NRC meeting may be organized before NATO's Warsaw summit . (Gazeta.ru, June 7) Russian Submarine Heading For English Channel Intercepted By British Royal Navy As Part Of NATO's Maritime Monitoring The British Royal Navy intercepted a Russian Kilo-class submarine as it cruised towards the English Channel. The Russian vessel was soon after escorted by HMS Kent. The Russian Defense Minister released the following statement: "The Russian Defense Ministry is surprised that the British Royal Navy and its NATO allies had to take joint efforts to discover a submarine, which was moving on the surface at a slow-speed...It would be strange if the sub had gone unnoticed by the British Royal Navy and its NATO allies. especially as the merchant ships of various countries, which were [sailing] on head-on and parallel courses, stuck to the long-standing maritime tradition of welcoming our sailors in the Barents, Norwegian and North Seas during the several days of the [submarine's] journey." (Tass.ru, June 8) Russia And The West: Russian Political Scientist Says That The Cold War Is Already Here; Former Advisor to the MOD Predicts How Hot War Will Unfold Russian political scientist and historian and head of the Center for Central and Eastern European Political Studies, Aleksandr Sytin, said that the "Cold war" is already here, adding that he does not believe that it could escalate into an armed conflict with the West. Concerning the arms race, Sytin explained that Russia does not want to "bomb the U.S." or "nuke Paris", but wants to establish who will dictate its political will. For the Kremlin, a worst case scenario involves a situation where the West - Brussels or Berlin - can tell Russia what to do and how to do it. (Echo.msk.ru, June 6) On June 8, the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article by a former Russian Defense Ministry advisor, Col. (ret.) Victor Baranez, titled "The U.S. Is Preparing to Occupy Russia in One Hour". In his article, Baranez writes that US is planning to occupy the enemy's territory (i.e. Russia's) by moving the front of ground forces forward, after launching a preemptive strike. The global strike will be more effective if the ground forces are already in close proximity to Russia's border. If Russia retaliates with its own missile strike, the Pentagon is planning to use missiles from the ABM system currently being deployed around Russia. The Russian strategic missile forces will retaliate in coordination with nuclear submarines and strategic aviation (both already deployed - the submarines are in constant movement near the U.S. seashores). The U.S. missile defense will prove unable to intercept all the Russian missiles. Thus, the first missile strike against Russia will lead to a retaliatory strike which will turn the U.S. territory into a smoking and contaminated desert. [emphasis added] (Kr.ru, June 8) Russia-Germany Relations : Merkel Seeks Free Trade Zone Between Russia And The EU From Lisbon To Vladivostok During a congress of the regional branch of her Christian Democratic Union Party, German Chancellor Angela Merkel mentioned the Kremlin's pet project of creating a common economic area extending from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Merkel declared: "I hope that Russia would increasingly develop ties with the European economic area, resulting finally in a common economic area from Lisbon to Vladivostok." (Sputniknews.com, June 5) German Defense Minister: "Germany's New Security Guidebook Won't Call Russia Rival"; But Germany Deals With A "Challenge" The German daily Die Welt (Welt.de, June 4) reported that in the forthcoming government security policy guidebook, known as the "White Book" (Weibuch), being prepared by the German Defense Ministry, Russia will be designated as a rival. However, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told reporters that Russia will not be characterized as a rival or adversary. The German Defense Minister specified that Germany is dealing with a Russian "challenge" rather than the dramatic terms used in mass media reports. (Tass.ru, June 7) Commenting on the Die Welt article, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "This can cause regret because if this is true, then the talk is about the obvious misunderstanding of the Russian side's position, which is well-known, consistent and is aimed at creating an atmosphere of interaction and mutually advantageous cooperation on the European continent rather than confrontation." (Tass.ru, June 7) Commenting on the issue, the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee Chair , Aleksey Pushkov, said: "Germany retranslates the U.S. line of action in Europe. Germany does not compare us...to the Ebola virus, but it compares us other urgent and important threats. It's impossible to understand how precisely Russia poses a threat to Germany. There is no such a threat." (Ria.ru, June 6) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also discussed the issue in a radio interview with Sputnik: "This topic has been mentioned in EU documents in more or less the same vein. This 'demonization' of Russia has become a fashionable trend in the EU [emphasis added]. With regard to Germany, I understand that this report was submitted to the German government. It hasn't been approved yet, and has yet to be considered. I hope that the coalition government will weigh the pros and cons and, most importantly, will weigh the facts, which can in no way be interpreted as Russia planning any aggression against the EU or NATO." He then added that "those who drafted this report jumped on the bandwagon of the unipolar world [where the US is the only great power], the days of which are numbered." (Mid.ru, June 6) The Russian Duma Security and Anti-Corruption Committee Chair Irina Yarovaya said on the issue: "The proposal to declare Russian a threat to Germany looks ominous following the recent re-release of Mein Kampf." (Themoscowtimes.com, June 6) The First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council's Defense and Security committee, Franz Klintsevich, said on the issue: "In the implementation of the so-called NATO eastern policy, one of the key roles belongs, perhaps, to Germany... For a long time, Russia has been de facto considered by Germany as a rival, not a partner. One behaves in a completely different way toward a partner." (Sputniknews.com, June 5) Igor Morozov, a member of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs recalled that Igor German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier talked about easing sanctions against Russia, Morozov added: "I think this tendency will prevail over the tendency of turning Russia... into a rival" (Lenta.ru, June 5) Vk.com/13studiya, Vitaly Podvitsky, June 5, 2016. German Chancellor Angela Merkel tries to strike a balance between Western sanctions on Russia and cooperation with Russia. Russia-Ukraine Relations: Russia Agreed To Allow Armed OSCE Monitors In Eastern Ukraine Vk.com/13studiya, June 7, 2016. 1st OSCE monitor: "What do we need those handguns for?" 2nd OSCE monitor: "To shoot ourselves in shame for failing to notice the Ukrainian-junta's ugly deeds". Russia agreed to allow armed OSCE monitors at specific sites in Eastern Ukraine. On June 10, more than 60,000 citizens of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic demonstrated in downtown Donetsk against the plan to arm OSCE monitors. (Tass.ru, June 10) On June 10, Ukrainian militants, belonging to the Right Sector and the Azov Battalion, blocked entry to the Russian Consulate in Odessa to stop people from attending events held in advance of Russia Day. Zakharova commented on the events as follow: "This incident is further evidence that anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine unfortunately continues to rise [emphasis added], while the Ukrainian authorities are unable even to enforce universally recognized norms of international law related to the unhindered operation of diplomatic missions in their country." On the same day, around 200 young men threw eggs against the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow. According to the Russian news agency Tass.ru, in both incidents the police did not intervene. However, according the Ukrainian press, onlookers did intervene in Odessa and prevented protesters from throwing eggs against the Russian consulate. (Mid.ru, June 10; Tass.ru, June 11; Pravda.com.ua, June 10) On June 12, Ukraine held its first gay pride in Kiev. Russian, pro-Kremlin media outlet Studiya 13, published the following homophobic cartoon, in which the Ukrainian Right Sector (that opposes gay rights) stands behind LGBT people with batons. Vk.com/13studiya, June 7, 2016. Judge: On your mark! Get set! ... Franz Klintsevich, The First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council's Defense and Security Committee, said: "The current regime in Kiev is as repressive as the one that was established in Chile after the overthrow of President Salvador Allende [i.e. Augusto Pinochet's regime]." (Tass.ru, June 3) Russia-Israel Relations: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu Visits Moscow On June 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu. The meeting marked the 25th anniversary of restored diplomatic relations between Israel and Russia. On June 8, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki visited Moscow. In a joint press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia pays "special attention to restoring intra-Palestinian unity." (Mid.ru, June 8) Vladimir Putin together with the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and his spouse visited the Bolshoi Theatre to watch a gala concert staged by Bolshoi Theatre and Israeli Opera performers, marking 25years to the resumption of diplomatic relations between Russia and Israel. (Source: Kremlin.ru, June 7) The Bolshoi Theatre and Israeli Opera's joint performance at the gala concert (Source: Kremlin.ru, June 7) The Russia-Iran-Syria Triangle: On June 9, Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu met with Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan and Syrian Defense Minsiter Fahd Jassem al-Freij, in Tehran. The meeting focused on strengthening cooperation in the fight against ISIS. While in Tehran, Shoigu also met with the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani. In that meeting, Shamkhani thanked Shoigu for the "courageous actions and policies of Russian President and his effective support in the comprehensive fight against terrorism in Syria." The Saudi-owned London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported that this is considered to be the first time that "the existence of a senior political, military and security coordinator [i.e. Shamkhani] between Russia, Iran and Syria is made public." On the same day, prior to his visit to Tehran, Shoigu visited Turkmenistan. During the visit, he said that Moscow cannot ignore terrorist threats emanating from Syria, Libya, Iraq and other countries. On June 10, Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov met with Ibrahim Rahimpur, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Moscow. (Rt.com, June 10; Aawsat.com, June 11; Tass.ru, June 9; Mid.ru, June 10) Iranian secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. (Source: Aawsat.com, June 11) A Russian Tu-142 ASW aircraft was recently spotted over Syria near Aleppo. Gazeta.ru speculates that the Tu-142 may have been introduced following the recent airstrike against ISIS carried out by U.S. carrier based planes located in the Mediterranean Sea. The U.S. carriers have been moved to the Mediterranean from the Gulf for the first time since 2003 in an apparent attempt to counter the Russian military presence in Syria. (Gazeta.ru, June 6) Russian Opposition: Russian Performance Artist And Political Activist Pyotr Pavlensky Released From Jail Russian performance artist and political activist Pyotr Pavlensky was released from jail after serving seven months for setting fire to the headquarters of Russia's security services (FSB) in 2015. On June 8, Judge Yelena Gudoshnikov fined Pavlensky 500,000 rubles ($7,750) and ordered him to pay 481,000 rubles in compensation for repair costs to the building. (Themoscowtimes.com, June 8) Russian performance artist and political activist Pyotr Pavlensky. (Source: Themoscowtimes.com, June 8) Russia Day On June 12, Russia Day was marked in Moscow by the presentation of Russian Federation National Awards for outstanding achievements in science and technology, literature and the arts, and humanitarian work. Russian President Vladimir Putin bestowed the awards. Strange But True Newspapers across Russia that are members of the Alliance of Independent Regional Publishers (AIRP) started printing notices to readers against "false news" being broadcast on the state-run federal channel NTV. Over 100 newspapers are participating in this initiative that involves printing a warning to their readers next to NTV's logo in their TV Guide sections. The warning states that NTV spreads "distorted information or propaganda under the guise of journalistic materials." (Themoscowtimes.com, June 8) The warning appears next to NTV's logo in their TV Guide sections (Source: Echo.msk.ru, June 8) Introduction On May 22, 2016, the Saudi government daily 'Okaz reported that the Shura Council had rejected a bill that, if passed, would allow Saudis to add an organ-donor designation to their drivers' licenses; the bill was rejected on the grounds that this issue is "religiously controversial." According to the newspaper, several Shura members supported the bill due to the increase in road accident deaths, as well as to the growing need for donor organs; others maintained that the Shura Council should not decide issues that are in dispute within the religion.[1] The news came against the backdrop of reports about the annual growth in the number of Saudis waiting for donor organs. According to 'Abd Al-'Aziz Al-Turki, who heads the Ithar organization for promoting organ donation in eastern Saudi Arabia, thousands of patients are on waiting lists, and demand is constantly on the rise. He assessed that by 2018, a total of 20,000 donor organs would be needed for Saudi patients.[2] Additionally, Dr. Faisal Shaheen, director of the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation, referred to a 2015 report, stating that the number of organ transplants performed in the kingdom has been increasing significantly every year.[3] Both Al-Turki and Shaheen noted that because of this grave situation, their organizations have been running campaigns promoting organ donation in the country. Dr. Shaheen said that many Saudi citizens come to his center to enroll in the donor program and sign an organ donor card, and that since the center launched the campaign some four million such cards have been signed. He added that all medical centers and dialysis units can enroll people in this donor program and distribute cards.[4] Saudi organ donor card (Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 8, 2016) With regard to the religious aspect of the issue, as early as 1982, Saudi Arabia's Supreme Council of Clerics, the kingdom's highest religious authority, issued a fatwa (ruling) permitting organ donations from both living and deceased donors, as necessary, in accordance with the operation's chances of success, and as long as no risk was posed to the life of a living donor.[5] Another fatwa by the Supreme Council of Clerics, from 1996, stated that an individual is considered dead only after his heart has stopped beating, not when physicians pronounce that brain death has occurred.[6] This led many Shura Council critics to argue that there is indeed religious sanction for organ donation, and that the rejection of the bill was unnecessary. Thus, council member 'Abdallah Al-Mutlaq said at a conference discussing society's role in encouraging organ donation that he would donate his own organs after his death, and even produced his organ donor card. Another Shura Council cleric, Sheikh Saleh bin Humayed, confirmed that organ donation was religiously permissible but stressed that doctors must confirm a donor's brain death before harvesting organs.[7] Official elements in the kingdom also expressed support for organ donation. At a meeting that he conducted on the issue, Eastern Saudi Arabia emir Sa'ud bin Naif praised the development of the transplant infrastructure in the area and the increase in the number of transplants. He called for continuing to carry out the procedures, and stressed that anyone donating their organs was doing a good deed and would be rewarded for it, as per the Koran and the Sunna. Also at the meeting, Sheikh Khalaf bin Muhammad Al-Mutlaq, a member of the Committee for Issuing Fatwas in Eastern Saudi Arabia, announced that he intended to donate his organs after death and calling organ donation a deed that is greatly rewarded by Allah and that helps save the lives of patients who suffer for years while awaiting a donated organ.[8] 'Abdallah Al-Mutlaq signs organ donor card (Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 8, 2013) However, the sympathy and support for the organ donation bill did not convince the Shura Council, which rejected it, claiming that the issue was not religiously settled. The decision sparked criticism, including from former Mecca Religious Police commander Ahmad Al-Ghamidi, who said in a television interview that the Shura Council must not stop its legislative work due to mere religious disputes on some issue or other, because it is an independent body, whose authority is granted it by the king. Organ donation, he stressed, is a moral issue relating to the public good, and therefore the rejection of this bill indicates problems within the council. He added that the Supreme Council of clerics had once issued a fatwa permitting a person to donate their organs under certain conditions [referring to the fatwa from 1982], but noted that the council's fatwas concerning the donation of the organs of a person who is declared brain dead are not properly grounded in medical expertise.[9] The decision was also criticized by Dr. Shaheen, the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation director; he said that it would damage the country's organ transplant infrastructure and expressed his willingness to debate all the council members who had voted it down should the issue be reopened for debate. He even stressed that without fatwas permitting organ donation, his center would never have begun operating in the first place.[10] Articles critical of the Shura Council decision, and the council members, appeared in the Saudi press. One stated that the idea of rejecting debate on various life-and-death matters, particularly one as crucial as this, due solely to the absence of definitive religious rulings is unrealistic. Others noted that in cases of religious disagreement, preference should be given to the opinion that gives life, as opposed to denying life, and called for changing how the Shura Council addresses important matters such as organ donation. The following are excerpts from the articles in the Saudi press critical of the Shura Council's rejection of the bill allowing an organ donor designation to be added to Saudi drivers' licenses: Saudi Writer: "If We Rejected Everything In Life Because Of An Absence Of Religious Ruling On It - Life In The Islamic World Would Grind To A Halt" Columnist Khaled Al-Suleiman wrote in the official Saudi daily 'Okaz: "When I was a young student, I responded in the affirmative to a campaign encouraging posthumous kidney donations, out of youthful enthusiasm and after being charmed by the personality of the astronaut Sultan bin Salman, who led the campaign. The campaign issued donor cards to those consenting to kidney donation after they died. After receiving my card, I immediately showed it to my grandmother... and awaited her praise - but she grabbed it, ripped it up, and berated me for allowing [doctors] to rip my body to shreds after death. "My grandmother's view eventually changed, and I saw her praise my cousin when he donated the organs of his little daughter who had died. I too changed my view, and today my view on the issue of organ donation no longer needs either youthful enthusiasm or a shot of celebrity charisma, but is based on the certain recognition that organ donation is a crucial humanitarian act that gives others reasons to live! "According to several newspapers, the Shura Council rejected a bill enabling those wishing to donate their organs to designate this on their driver's license. Sources told 'Okaz... that one reason for rejecting this bill was some [council] members' claim that there was no definitive religious ruling on this issue! "If we rejected everything in life because of an absence of religious ruling on it, life in the Islamic world would grind to a halt. Disagreements among clerics on [various] topics have existed for over 1,400 years, and it makes no sense for Shura members to wait for consensus among all clerics on an issue in order to carry it out!"[11] (Image: Al-Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 8, 2016) Saudi Columnist: In Religious Disagreements You Must Choose The Opinion That Grants Life, Not One That Denies It 'Okaz columnist Hamoud Abu Taleb penned an article titled "Rejecting a Law of Life!" that also criticized the decision: "Despite a multitude of bills rejected by the Shura Council for reasons and disagreements described as 'religious,' I did not imagine that this excuse would be used to reject a bill that gives people on their deathbed a hope for life... First, I do not know how the medical committee in the Shura Council functioned on this matter. Did it inform the opponents [of the law] that Saudi Arabia has over 16,000 patients on the waiting list to receive a kidney, 500 waiting for a heart, 700 for a liver, 500 for a lung, and 500 for a pancreas? This is according to a report published two years ago, so the numbers are certainly greater by now. "Second, 16 years ago, the Islamic Fiqh Academy published a fatwa permitting organ donations from the deceased. If this is true [for the dead], then why can't a person receive the reward in this world and the next [for donating organs] voluntarily while still alive? Third, do the opponents know the endless amount of problems involved with organ transplants abroad and how patients are exploited in the most heinous ways merely to get them to [eventually] return [to Saudi Arabia] as corpses or in worse condition [than they left]? Fourth, religious disagreements are merely religious opinions and not definitive sacred texts. If there is a disagreement on an issue such as this, should we choose the opinion that grants hope for human life, or one that denies it? [Since Koran 32:5 states:] 'whoever saves one [soul] - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.' "Fifth, there is nothing wrong in consulting relevant elements when discussing sensitive matters. However, here we are discussing the decision of a person who wants to give life to another person, using nothing but words written on his driver's license. Does this justify this stormy disagreement? Sixth, the opponents [of the law] should visit the Saudi Center for Organ Transplantation, or be the guests of its director, Dr. Faisal Shaheen, in order to see that the problem is more important and grave than religious disagreements that we relied on to reject the bill."[12] Saudi Writer: Shura Council Should Change Its Conduct When Discussing Important Issues Like Organ Donation Hashem 'Abdallah Hashem, a columnist for the official daily Al-Riyadh, also expressed surprise at the Shura Council's decision and condemned it in light of the suffering of patients awaiting a transplant: "One would expect the Shura Council to support an important bill such as this, and act to approve it, after tarrying for a long time, by increasing [its] cooperation with the Supreme Council of Clerics and the interior and health ministries. This, because we must end the suffering of hundreds of thousands of patients due to a lack of organs [to transplant] that are sourced safely and properly within the country, as opposed to traveling to other countries in Asia and Africa to acquire them, or travelling [abroad] to undergo a transplant of improper and unmatched organs... "It is time to make a decision on these issues, which are more important than all other considerations and calculations, since we currently need a combination of efforts in order to think differently, remove all difficulties and obstacles, and find better solutions in light of a proper understanding [of this issue]. Therefore, I hope we reexamine the procedures, mechanisms, and steps by which the Shura Council operates while addressing issues and topics [on its agenda], particularly more complex ones. [This,] in order for the Shura Council not to be perceived as an additional obstacle to the passage of important laws such as this..."[13] * E. Ezrahi is a research fellow at MEMRI. Endnotes: The latest round of talks on the confidence-building measures (CBMs) between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was held in Athens, on 13 June 2016, on the basis of the agreement reached by the two Foreign Ministers in Skopje a year ago, on 24 June 2015. The discussions were held in a friendly and constructive atmosphere and they were focused on connectivity projects, police cooperation, European programmes, culture, education, civil protection, public administration, health, Diplomatic Academies cooperation and launching business initiatives. The talks were held with the participation of experts from the respective relevant authorities. It was decided that the next round will be held in Skopje, early September. LANSING, Mich. (AP) A plan to prevent big box stores from paying less in property taxes may be gaining steam in the Legislature after the House approved the measure, which supporters say will lead to fairer tax evaluations. Supporters say the measure is supposed to ensure property taxes are assessed more equitably for large retail stores like Lowe's or Target. It passed the House by a wide margin despite opposition from big business interests such as the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the Michigan Retailers Association. Opponents say the legislation would complicate the tax appeal process, increase the cost of appeals and violate a state constitutional requirement that property be valued uniformly. But Republican bill sponsor Rep. David Maturen and local government groups say that many Michigan big box stores are allowed to deflate their property taxes by arguing their store's taxable values should be based on the sales prices of other big box stores that haven't been used for years and have deed restrictions precluding most commercial uses of the property. Opponents of the tactic refer to it as the "dark stores" method. It's a big issue in Ottawa County where Treasurer Bradley Slagh said local governments have lost more than $200 million because of the current criteria for tax determinations, according to a survey the county conducted of 55 Michigan counties. Ottawa County's 14 big box stores paid a combined $28.4 million in taxes after appeals to the state's Tax Tribunal. Slagh said those businesses had a combined taxable value of about $43.2 million. "Without a major change to the way the Tax Tribunal works, these loss amounts will only be exacerbated as the process moves to smaller box stores like Best Buy, Marshalls, Walgreens, and to Industrial facilities, etc.," Slagh said. Amy Drumm, director of government affairs for the Michigan Retailers Association, opposes the legislation. She said it's an attempt to discourage companies from appealing property assessments. "The legislation's changes to the Michigan Tax Tribunal Act are nothing less than an attempt to increase taxes by discouraging taxpayers from challenging the value placed on their property by local government," Drumm said in a statement. According to the Michigan Municipal League, the appraisal method allows Lowe's stores to be assessed at $22.10 per foot in Michigan. In North Carolina Lowes stores are worth $79.08 per square foot for tax purposes. The league says big box stores before about 2013 were assessed an average of $55 per square foot for taxes. Now Menards and Target are valued at $24.97 per square foot, while Menards goes for $61.23 in Wisconsin. It's a similar story with Wal-Mart and Sam's Clubs, according to the Michigan Municipal League. "If you had to boil it down to that, I think those that have used this so called 'dark store' method ... are paying less than what they should be paying," Maturen said. "It's just troubling I guess," Maturen added. Maturen, who said he's the only licensed real estate appraiser in the Legislature, sponsored the bill. He said he was surprised it received broad support from fellow House lawmakers, who approved the legislation 97-11 Wednesday. He said he hopes that support indicates a good shot in the Senate, which likely won't take it up until fall. Maturen's bill would require appeals decisions by the tax tribunal to be "better reasoned" and sets up specific criteria the Tax Tribunal must take into account when considering property tax assessment appeals. He said it's supposed to make sure it uses "truly comparable" properties in the appeal process, but does not forbid businesses from using vacant stores' sale prices for comparison. Divers from the Berrien County Sheriff's Office pulled the body of Travonne Shannon out of the water about 9:20 p.m. Saturday. Authorities say he was jumping off a pier near Silver Beach with a relative about 7:20 p.m. Saturday when he didn't resurface. Authorities said Shannon was a junior at Benton Harbor High School. Authorities say jumping off the pier is dangerous and highly discouraged. Armstrong told the Detroit Free Press the collision on June 7 in Kalamazoo County's Cooper Township, 160 miles from Chicago, is the worst he's seen and he's not sure he's emotionally ready for the ride. Armstrong says a fear of being struck by a vehicle is shared by all cyclists. Armstrong plans to join Kalamazoo-area cyclists in a 28.5-mile ride Tuesday from Kalamazoo to Plainwell and back. The driver of the pickup, Charles Pickett Jr., appeared in court Friday on second-degree murder charges and other crimes. He was ordered held without bond, and an attorney will be appointed to represent him. Investigators from the U.S. Army's Combat Readiness Center (CRC) are still combing the Fort Hood accident site, trying to piece together what caused a medium Army truck to overturn and kill nine soldiers. The CRC -- the Army's lead agency safety and occupational health sent a Centralized Accident Investigation Team to Fort Hood one day after the June 2 tragedy with the intent of finding ways to prevent similar accidents in the future. The five-member team is made of the board president of the accident investigation team, a data recorder, a medical doctor, a master driver and a military police accident investigator. During this "field portion of the investigation," the team will interview witnesses as well as members of the victims' unit while focusing on three key areas: materiel, environmental and the human dimension, according to Michael Negard, spokesman for the CRC. There is no specified time limit for the team to conclude its investigation at the base, and these types of investigations can take several months. Four soldiers at Fort Hood last November were killed in a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crash during a routine training exercise -- an incident the agency is still investigating. "They do it until they are satisfied because they are recreating the timeline the led up to the event," Negard said. The accident occurred June 2 when a 2.5-ton Light Medium Tactical Vehicle overturned during training at the sprawling Texas outpost. The 12 soldiers participating in the convoy training exercise near Owl Creek were on a dirt road parallel to a paved road that the base had closed because of the risk of flooding. The rain-swollen creek swept their vehicle into rushing waters, causing it to overturn. Two bodies were found in the vehicle and three others were found downstream from it hours later. The last four missing soldiers were found dead downstream on June 3. All but one of the nine soldiers killed were members of the 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. Once the investigation team redeploys to the CRC at Fort Rucker, Alabama, it will complete the report. Once it is reviewed, it will travel through the chain of command at Forces Command and then go to the 1st Cavalry Division, Negard said. The report will contain recommendations but only for the purpose of preventing future accidents, Negard said. Any recommendations for disciplinary action could come out of an ongoing AR 15-6 investigation being conducted by Forces Command. The purpose of an AR 15-6 investigation is to collect information for the command so that it can make an informed decision based on facts and evidence, according to Fort Hood public affairs. -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com Despite Flipping in Surf 4 Times in a Year, Marines Say New ACV Is the Future of Amphibious Warfare Some Marine veterans familiar with the vehicle and its operations have worried about the reliability of the ACV. In regards to Brewers left fielder Ryan Brauns potential availability this summer, one American League executive told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, Thats the name Im waiting for. Braun is in the first season of a five-year, $105MM extension, and both the money hes owed and his PED history are roadblocks standing in the way of a possible deal, reports Cafardo. The writer adds that the quality of return in a hypothetical Braun trade will come down to how much of his contract Milwaukee eats. The 32-year-old has dealt with injuries this season, but he has still slashed an outstanding .316/.378/.541 with 11 home runs through 217 plate appearances. More from the Boston-area insider: TODAY: The idea that Quantrill would free the Pads to sign other choices was apparently misplaced, as MLB.coms Jonathan Mayo tweets that hell actually command an over-slot bonus. His agreed-upon bonus is $3,963,045, per Mayo, which landss $332,145 above the slot value at #8. It appears that the team cut its deal with 24th overall selection Hudson Sanchez, who agreed to a $1MM bonus that leaves plenty of meat left on the bone of his $2,191,200 slot value, per Jim Callis of MLB.com (via Twitter). The remainder of that cash appears to have been redirected to Mason Thompson, who agreed to an above-slot deal yesterday. YESTERDAY: The Padres have agreed to terms with top draft pick Cal Quantrill, per a team announcement. The son of long-time big league reliever Paul Quantrill, Cal was selected eighth overall out of Stanford University. Its possible that Quantrill would have gone even higher, but hes still working back from Tommy John surgery. That didnt stop San Diego from betting on his top-tier talent, though there were other motivations at play for the organization, too. With multiple early-round picks in their pocket, the Padres were looking for someone to cut a deal at that selection. It offered just over $3.6MM in bonus spending, and expectations are that some of that will go to other players though Quantrills bonus remains unreported at present. Among San Diegos top selections were several high-schoolers including shortstop Hudson Sanchez (#24) and righties Reggie Lawson (#71) and Mason Thompson (#85). In between, the club grabbed Kent State lefty Eric Lauer (#25) and Florida outfielder Buddy Reed (#48). As for Quantrill, publications such as MLB.com and ESPN.com (Insider link) rated him just outside the top twenty draft-eligible prospects. His stock mightve been higher had he returned to pitch this year his surgery took place in March of 2015 though some clubs were able to get a look at the talented righty in workouts. Obviously, San Diego felt that the talent was worth its top pick in a critical draft for the organization. BROOKLYN, MI -- The next time Dale Earnhardt Jr. races at Michigan International Speedway, the fan-favorite driver will take the track decked out in Michigan maize and blue. NASCAR returns to the Irish Hills for the Pure Michigan 400 on Aug. 28. Axalta Racing revealed the paint scheme on its Twitter account Monday, June 13: Axalta will share the sponsorship with the University of Michigan for the August Pure Michigan 400. Earnhardt Jr. and the Hendrick Motorsports team are hoping the touch of Michigan flair will change its luck after finishing in 39th after an early exit. Earnhardt Jr. has two wins in his 34 Sprint Cup Series starts at MIS in 2008 and 2012. He finished in the top 10 in both races in 2014 and 2015 at Michigan. The 41-year-old driver sits in 11th place in the Sprint Cup season standings through 15 races. The scheme was unveiled at Axalta's Mt. Clemens plant, 400 N. Groesbeck Highway, during which the company was recognized as the General Motors Supplier of the Year. This maize and blue paint scheme won't be the only partnership between the automotive company and university, as they will reportedly partner up to support engineering and business students. "Engineering is an integral part of the racing industry, as it translates into practical applications we use every day," Steve Markevich, Executive Vice President at Axalta, said in a press release. "This partnership with the University of Michigan, one of the premier institutions in the world, will benefit current and future students and faculty while bringing invaluable assistance to the Axalta team. "Michigan is the 'leader and best' in providing the specialized programs needed to prepare its students to be the future skilled engineers and business leaders." GRAND RAPIDS, MI - Dedra Pickens says she's ready for the Kent County Land Bank to take over the overgrown and abandoned house across the street from her home on Union Avenue SE. The house, once owned by a church, has been empty for more than five years except for squatters who have moved in on occasion, Pickens said. The last residents moved out when a black mold problem made them sick, she said. Now, the home, located one block north of Franklin Street SE, has become a nuisance, Pickens said. "This was a beautiful neighborhood in its day," she said as she sat on her front porch across the street from the blighted house. The house on Union Avenue is one of about 50 abandoned properties the Kent County Land Bank is planning to take ownership of this summer. Forty-three of the properties in the city of Grand Rapids, which plans to sell all of its tax-foreclosed properties to the land bank. Executive Director David Allen said their goal will be return viable properties back to productive use to meet the high demand for affordable housing in the city. The 43 properties in Grand Rapids include 27 single-family homes, two multi-family properties and 10 buildable lots, according to Dave De Velder, the land bank's director of real estate development. This year's acquisitions mark the fewest number of properties the land bank will take since it began buying up all of the city's tax foreclosed properties three years ago as part of a joint effort by the land bank and city to eliminate blighted properties. The land bank, which has the ability to clear the clouded titles on tax foreclosed properties, has re-marketed the properties to buyers who have committed to making repairs. In some cases, the land bank has paid for demolition before remarketing the properties for new construction. This year, Allen said the land bank may redevelop some of the properties in-house in order to speed their return to productive use because the land bank can hire contractors to begin rehabbing the houses while the titles being cleared before they are resold. Although this year's list is smaller, Allen said many of the properties have a longer history of neglect. Many of them, such as the home on Union Avenue, have been tied up in lengthy court battles that have prevented anyone from making investments in them. For neighbors of the foreclosed properties, the land bank's plans to rescue the properties cannot come soon enough. Some of the properties appear move-in ready while others have been neglected for years. On the city's Northeast Side, Julie Mausolf says she and her neighbors will welcome anyone who can fix up the dilapidated four-unit apartment building next door to her house on Emerald Avenue NE. The red brick building has been empty for the past three or four years and shows the neglect. Windows and doors are boarded up, soffits are collapsing and condemnation notices are hanging on the door. "In the last six months it's really gone downhill," said Mausolf, who recently sold her home of 10 years on a street where the other houses and lawns are neatly kept and groomed. The Emerald Avenue property was tied up for years in a legal dispute that ended up in bankruptcy court, according to Allen. "We've been working on it since 2012," said Allen, who said the building is structurally sound. "We're going to make sure a really good company gets it and we'll hold them to a very high standard." Shawn Brown, a resident of VanDine Avenue NE in the Midtown neighborhood, said he's looking forward to new neighbors for the boarded-up house next door to his home of the past eight years. Brown said several potential buyers have asked him about the house located just a few doors down from East Fulton Street's resurgent commercial district. The land bank's involvement is not good news to all neighbors. The land bank's plan to revive the abandoned house at 903 Leonard Street NW may spoil long-term plans to create a parking lot for Rose Bowl Floral, its neighbor to the west. Rose Bowl owner Shawn Thatcher said the house has been empty for the past five years and its bad roof has ruined the interior. Thatcher had hoped to buy the property at auction and demolish the home to create parking for his business. Without more parking, Thatcher said they may be forced to relocate. Allen said the former property owners owed about $40,000 in back taxes when they lost the property and stopped paying taxes after a lengthy court battle. "We'll have $45,000 invested by the time we're done," he said. The house is salvageable and is likely to fetch more when it is put on the market, Allen said. Any buyer with plans to demolish the house will have to get the city's permission as well, he said. Of all the structures the land bank is acquiring this year, only one is destine for demolition, Allen said. The land bank also will purchase one tax-foreclosed property in the city of Walker, one in Kentwood and three in the village of Sparta. The remaining tax foreclosed properties in Kent County will be auctioned off by the Kent County Treasurer's office this summer. Jim Harger covers business for Mlive Media Group. Email him at jharger@mlive.com or follow him on Twitter or Facebook or Google+. WYOMING - Area residents can help honor local police and firefighters during the Wyoming Public Safety Department Appreciation Day on June 25. The group Wyoming Business Leaders is hosting the event, in its third year, featuring police and fire department equipment on display along with K-9 members. The day also includes face painting, arts and crafts for children, food and water. "We would love to have the citizens of Wyoming show their appreciation for the police and fire departments," said Harriet Sturim, a member of Wyoming Business Leaders and chair of the Appreciation Day. The event is set for 2--4 p.m. at Pinery Park Lodge, 2301 DeHoop St. SW. The event is free and open to the public. ANN ARBOR, MI -- An Ann Arbor resident has a chance to attend and report on the Democratic National Convention July 25-28. Jimmy Ramirez is one of 10 finalists chosen by public vote in a "Crash the Parties" initiative to act as an embedded reporter at the Democratic National Convention or the Republican National Convention this July. The competition is hosted by Fuse TV and Voto Latino, a nonprofit media organization aimed at empowering young Latinos. Ramirez came to Ann Arbor during his junior year of college to work as an intern for Google. He made the move to Ann Arbor after getting a job at the company. "It's the best little town," he said. "There's just a lovely community here." Ramirez has always been interested in politics, earning a degree in government studies from Georgetown University. He saw an opportunity to raise awareness and further conversations about the Latino community by entering the Crash the Party competition. "It was this 'Aha!' moment," he said. "Everything was bound together (in this competition). My civic voice, my advocacy, my family's vision to come to this country, it all came together in this big idea of voting. It's an awesome opportunity to ask candidates real questions that I feel haven't been asked that often." Ramirez chose the Democratic National Convention as the convention he'd like to attend because he's enjoyed hearing what Sen. Bernie Sanders and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been saying about supporting marginalized communities. "They're having these robust conversations about how to help and support low-income communities of color, that dialogue has been within the Democratic Party for a while now," Ramirez said. "I'd like to build on top of that dialogue." Ramirez said he'd like to see the candidates focus their discussions on educating minorities to become leaders, supporting marginalized communities and reflecting and improving on immigration policies. He said that representation of the Latino community at the conventions is important to further those conversations. "The importance of this (competition) is that the Latino community as a voting pool is not a monolithic, one-issue community, it's much more complex than that," he said. The top 10 entries were determined by public vote, and those 10 contestants will move on to the next round and be judged by the contest's panel of celebrity judges. The judges include Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC and Pulitzer prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas. Winners of the competition will receive media training from Fuse TV and serve as embedded reporters at the conventions, appearing on television on Fuse TV and online at www.fuse.tv. The two winners of the competition will be announced on Saturday, June 18. For more information, visit crashtheparties.com. ANN ARBOR, MI -- Want to learn more about plans for new regional transit services linking Ann Arbor and metro Detroit? The Southeast Michigan Regional Transit Authority is holding a public meeting tonight, June 13, in downtown Ann Arbor. The meeting takes place from 7-8:30 p.m. at the downtown Ann Arbor library, 343 S. Fifth Ave. Attendees will learn more about the RTA's master plan and have a chance to give feedback before the plan is formally adopted next month. The RTA has unveiled a 20-year, $4.6-billion plan that, in addition to a host of bus services, includes commuter rail service between Ann Arbor and Detroit. The regional authority plans to ask voters in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties to approve a 1.2-mill tax in November. Read more about what's in it for Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Ryan Stanton covers the city beat for The Ann Arbor News. Reach him at ryanstanton@mlive.com. The government plans to start work on a draft of new insurance regulations, according to industry officials, who complain that a raft of restrictions on private firms is sapping the nascent insurance sector of momentum. A parliamentary committee is preparing to draft new insurance laws, but has not yet started work, according to senior insurance company officials. The previous government ended state-owned Myanma Insurances decades-long monopoly on the sector in 2012, opening the market up to private local companies that first began operating the same year. Since then, private insurers have watched their businesses grow. Global World Insurance, a subsidiary of Asia World Group, made more net income in the first five months of this year than its entire income in 2013, the firm said. Competitor IKBZ, part of the KBZ Group, has seen its net income rise every year since it opened in 2012, according to that company. But progress in developing the market has been slower than expected, said U Nay Myo Aung, managing director of IKBZ. In order to expand, private firms need to be able to sell insurance across a wider range of businesses and products, he said. Companies face restrictions on the kinds of insurance they can offer and the size of the policies. While state-owned Myanma Insurance offers over 40 different types of insurance, from tour and travel insurance to oil and gas cover, private firms can only offer five types of life insurance and five types of general insurance. The governments Insurance Business Supervisory Board (IBSB) provides one set of premium prices and policy wordings for all firms, meaning there is almost no choice for consumers. Around half of the policies private companies are allowed to offer are not popular, which holds the market back from reaching its potential, said U Soe Win Than, managing director of Global World Insurance. Tourist agents want to be able to offer tourists full coverage as in other countries, but the insurance private firms can offer comes with restrictions, he said. For example, when car accidents occur it must be while driving, he said. So people are not very interested. If the governments planned regulations pass quickly and private firms are allowed to offer many more types of insurance the market will grow, said U Nay Myo Aung. There is no shortage of points that private firms wish to see tackled. Myanmars insurers urgently need to be able to act as brokers, connecting Myanmar clients with foreign firms, said U Nay Myo Aung. If Myanmar firms have to handle all the risk themselves, a sudden surge in claims could put the private sector companies out of business. Private insurance firms got pretty lucky that businesses [that bought insurance policies] didnt make large claims during the last three years, he said. If some big claims occurred it would be very hard for the private sector to keep operating for long. Acting as brokers between local clients and foreign firms opens up the issue of exchange rate risk, however. Myanmar insurers would buy insurance from foreign firms in dollars, but the premiums from the local client would be in kyat. Private firms could also benefit from being allowed to offer larger policies in certain cases. At present they face a K500 million ceiling on fire insurance policies and K300 million for car insurance although they can club together to create larger policies. Because of this cap, foreign firms in Myanmar that require insurance go straight to Myanma Insurance, U Nay Myo Aung said. They know the private sector cant insure them for the full amount. If we were allowed to it would be good for the market. Capital requirements are also onerous. Firms wishing to offer life insurance need K6 billion in paid-up capital, those offering non-life need K40 billion and those offering both require K46 billion. Only 60 percent of this capital is returned to the firm, and the remaining 40pc stays in a state bank account that does not pay interest, said U Soe Win Than. If [state banks] cant pay interest we should be able to deposit the money in a private bank, he said, adding that the interest on such accounts could be used for marketing and business expansion. A larger insurance market would help make Myanmars economy more robust. In other countries private insurers are a source of jobs and large holders of government debt. The government is hoping to sell long-term Treasury bonds, starting with two-year paper and moving out to three- and five-year bonds. U Maung Maung Win, head of the treasury department, told The Myanmar Times earlier this year that discussions would be held in the future on whether insurance firms and pension companies would be able to buy the bonds. A US Chamber of Commerce white paper published this week recommends that Myanmar use existing regulation from countries like Thailand and Malaysia as a starting point for building up the insurance sector. The lobby group also wants Myanmar to allow foreign companies to enter the market. Insurance is a very specialised field and foreign companies bring in much better capitalisation and experience in frontier and developing markets, the paper said. Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire, Mitsui Sumitomo, and Sompo Japan Nipponkoa all have permission to work in the Thilawa special economic zone. Over 15 other foreign insurance firms have representative offices in Myanmar outside of the SEZ, but are not allowed to practise insurance. Additional reporting by Steve Gilmore Myanmar's first industry magazine for entrepreneurs launched last week, providing a platform for young businesspeople to interact with investors. Entrepreneur Magazine will profile start-ups in English and Myanmar and will pool industry knowledge to encourage more young people to set up their own businesses, said founder Ma Su Yee Win Aung. The monthly publications founders are all new to the industry but share a common interest in promoting entrepreneurship, said Ma Ei Mon Kyaing, who co-founded the magazine. The market for business journals is an oligopoly and entry is difficult, she said. We are totally new to this industry. As we are Myanmar girls lacking experience, no one believed in us. They thought it was impossible but we have proved them wrong, she said. As full-time employees [of other companies] our main challenge was time management. We had to work overnight. Due to the culture here, our parents didnt approve of us doing this, so we had to do it secretly. For marketing manager Ma Thet Htar Swe, many challenges lie ahead. Our magazine is the only one for entrepreneurs, and the only magazine managed by women. We target not only business graduates but also other young people, so we try to use simple language that is easy to understand, she said. It will be a challenge to promote regular reading habits among young people, because they spend so much time on social media. Each edition is priced at K2500, she said. We hope that our magazine will be helpful to some noticeable extent for the people in our country. We know how it feels to start a business with a lot of difficulties, as most of the start-ups in our country do, said Ma Su Yee Win Aung. Despite being girls, we have finally turned our ideas into reality. It is our goal for our country to have more creative and strong entrepreneurs, especially young people keen on knowledge and experience. However, some who attended the launch event were unimpressed. I came to this event because I thought I would learn how to be an entrepreneur, but I did not come away with any new ideas, and it wasnt clear whether it was a launch or a seminar, said Ma Hnin Yee. The magazine is a little expensive. Other magazines also interview famous and successful people, but are much cheaper. I hope this one will improve. Ko Thet, who runs a small mobile phone software business, said he was pleased to see young people setting up a new magazine. This is the first edition, so it has many weaknesses, but the community will offer advice about how to make it better. The government will issue free licences to small liquefied petroleum gas retailers in a bid to promote safety in the under-regulated industry, while moving forward with plans to allow larger companies to distribute the fuel. Licences for small and medium enterprises to sell LPG will be issued for free until the end of this year, said U Maung Maung Thaw, deputy director of the Ministry of Electricity and Energys Myanmar Petroleum Products Enterprise (MPPE). LPG in the form of propane is typically used on construction sites and factories to cut metals, while hotels and restaurants use it for cooking. Household cooking is normally done with butane. Both types of fuel are sold in large cylinders. The aim is to expand LPG use among the public and for vendors to sell it safely, said U Maung Maung Thaw. We will check existing licenses two months before they expire and decide whether or not to reissue them. One factor will be ensuring that vendors know how to handle the gas safely. Five licence types, from A to E, are available. MPPE has already handed out D and E licences free of charge to 186 applicants. Type A licences are issued to importers with their own storage facilities and piers, at an annual charge of K1 million for every 1000 tonnes of gas imported, plus K10,000 for every 100 square feet of storage space, said U Maung Maung Thaw. Applications [for A-type licences] must be made to the regional or state government and the ministry. The regional or state authorities will forward the applications to us after scrutiny, and we will issue licences to applicants who meet the conditions, he said. The licences we are issuing now are only temporary. Shops have been selling LPG on the basis of a permit issued by Yangon City Development Committee, but that is not legal. A type B licence is issued to firms who import LPG and own storage facilities, but not piers, at a cost of K2000 for every tonne of gas and K10,000 per 100 sq ft of storage. All 13 applicants received licences on June 9. Type C licence-holders distribute gas to filling stations. They pay K5000 a tonne, plus K10,000 per 100 sq ft. Applications are still being considered. Three applicants in Yangon have been granted a type-D licence entitling them to distribute and store gas in tanks for K10,000 per 100 sq ft. A type-E licence holder can store and distribute gas in tanks, in exchange for K50,000 in annual fees. Translation by Kyawt Darly Lin and Khant Lin Oo The worlds most popular social network, Facebook, has made millions of new friends in Myanmar over the last few years. In that time, the site has played the part of nationwide news outlet, emergency relief coordinator and community water cooler but it has also provided a backdrop for privacy invasion and cyber bullying. The site hosts a multitude of personal information, yet users may not know much about Facebooks presence in Myanmar, as the site does not make its Myanmar user statistics public. With data from Yangon-based Amara Digital Marketing Agency, which the company draws from Facebooks business manager, The Myanmar Times got to know the platform better. {modal url=http://www.mmtimes.com//files/images/mte/2016/di309/facebook-monthly-use...} {/modal} One in five on Facebook By mid-May, Myanmar had racked up more than 9.7 million monthly active users meaning about 19 percent of the country is active on Facebook, according to data from Amara Digital Marketing Agency. There are perhaps three or four times more Myanmar profiles on the website, but some accounts are inactive or locked, said the marketing agencys head of operations Ma Chan Myae Khine. The number of users has doubled in less than a year, she said, as the site counted 4.7 million monthly active users as of mid-July 2015. Urban sprawl Nearly nine out of 10 users access Facebook from Myanmars two main cities, Yangon and Mandalay, and their surrounding areas. But in an upset Ma Chan Myae Khine finds hard to explain, Mandalay has eclipsed the countrys commercial capital, Yangon, when it comes to Facebook users. Of the total 9.7 million monthly active users, about 41pc are within a 40-kilometre radius of Yangon compared to 47pc around the northern city. It used to be that Yangon [had] the [biggest] digital population, but Mandalay bypassed it within the last month, said Ma Chan Myae Khine. I have not found the reason yet. Boys club Men outnumber women on Facebook almost two-to-one, the data showed. While more than 6.2 million Myanmar men were on the site, less than 3.5 million women had joined up. In Myanmar, despite making up the greater part of the population, women are almost 30 percent less likely to have a mobile phone than men, as previously reported by The Myanmar Times. Mostly mobile Ma Chan Myae Khine sees a link between increased Facebook usage and the countrys recent telecoms rollouts. She says that, for example, Facebook users in Kayah state increase when an operator launches in a small town there. Nobody is using a PC to get to Facebook, she continued. Everyone is on [their] phone. Facebook: for better or worse Ma Chan Myae Khine said that Facebook can be dangerous for users who lack digital literacy especially those from rural areas. People just do not know that they are posting things in public, she said, adding some may not be able to change their settings without knowing English. But she also said the site can boost knowledge and income. While Myanmars e-commerce landscape has yet to develop, some budding entrepreneurs have turned to Facebook to sell all kinds of things, including cows. Recently, the platform has made an even bigger push into the Myanmar market, teaming up with mobile operator MPT to provide Free Basics free access to a suite of mobile sites related to health, jobs and more. Realism in art shows you what things look like. Modern art shows you how to think about things. And caricatures make you laugh. Or so caricature artist Thein Tun Oo said at the Caricature Art exhibition, running from June 11 to 15 at Gallery 65, Dagon township. Eight caricaturists Si Soe Kyi, Kyaw Moe Aung, Thein Tun Oo, Wa Lone, BNYO, Wai Yan, Win Myint Aung and Maung Maung Aung are displaying 51 caricatures of famous people from all over the country. Thein Tun Oo (TTO), whose work is regularly featured in The Myanmar Times, said he first tried to host the exhibition five years ago, but it was difficult to organise the artists. He has since organised two solo exhibitions of his own. Theres never been an exhibition of caricature art in Myanmar and I feel we need to promote this art. So finally these eight artists are hosting the first such exhibition with their own money. We know we cant sell our work like other art exhibitions because no one wants to keep it, but we can show that caricature is not portraiture, but a different kind of art, he said. It is not a branch of art much taught in schools or described in guides. And many people feel uncomfortable at the determined ugliness of some of the works. Its a different way of looking at people, said TTO, adding that caricatures can make people look more interesting, providing they are willing to put up with being made to look that way. Caricature is an art form. It doesnt make much money and its more than just presenting a funny or cute image. Even a landscape can be a caricature, he said. Si Soe Kyi, who is exhibiting eight pictures, said there were four basic types of caricature: cute, handsome, realistic and ugly. Myanmar people tend not to like ugly, he said. A pretty cartoon can be mocked up in five minutes, but a finer and more in-depth visual satire that approaches art can take hours. A customer might happily buy a cute cartoon, but a true caricature can be hard to look at, still less buy and take home. In caricature art, I love to create more modern caricatures with bold brushstrokes and focus on things other than faces, he said. Wai Yan, who comes from Mandalay, said he had been influenced by caricature art since the great cartoonist U Myay Zar published his book Leaders in 1978. But he struggled to master the art himself, despite a mastery of other techniques. Caricaturists must be able to spot the personal characteristics that identify people, even to tell the difference between identical twins. The artist must seize on the subjects weak or strong points and satirise them, he said. Contributor Kyaw Moe Aung said most art lovers were not comfortable with an art form that embraced ugliness, but fans of caricature understood art and freedom. I launched a page for caricature art on my Facebook account and shared the meaning and drawing technique. A lot of people were interested and followed my posts, which I did not expect. I see a future for caricature art, he said. Caricature was born in mid-17th-century England, spreading to early 18th-century France and Italy as artists satirised politicians. The Caricature Art exhibition is opened from 9:30am to 5pm. Admission is free. The disappearance of seven Shan men last week on the Nant Phat Kar-Namkham road remains unresolved, while another 40 civilians have reportedly gone missing from the neighbouring township. One June 5, Namkham police officer U Min Tin confirmed that the families of the missing ethnic Shan men had come to the station to open a missing person case. He said the investigation was still ongoing. Disappearances and killings have repeatedly been reported since the Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Restoration Council for Shan State/Shan State Army (RCSS/SSA) started fighting in December last year. Both groups have accused each other of involvement. Some locals have accused the TNLA of having abducted the civilians, six Shan men and their driver. Seven civilians were detained by the TNLA while passing through Pha Lang village in Namkham [township] last Sunday [June 5]. Somebody told me they found the car in one of the Taang villages. But we will not go to that village without security backing from the Tatmadaw and the police force, said Sai Kyaw Ohn, a former Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) politician. When asked about the incident, Tar Gyoke Ja, vice chair of the TNLA, denied that the group had detained civilians in the Namkham area. The TNLA didnt detain Shan people. There are a lot of militias in the area, he said. Tar Gyoke Ja added that nearly 40 civilians had been detained by the RCSS/SSA in Manton township between June 8 and 11. Some were released but some are still detained. Yesterday, they burned three houses in Gyonekalan village in Manton. In Namkham there had been no fighting recently, but clashes are frequent in Manton, he said. A senior RCSS/SSA liaison senior denied the accusations, saying it had strict rules against practices such as civilian abduction. The RCSS didnt do that. They are not allowed to do such kinds of lawless activities to the people. We need the peoples support, he said. People in the area are becoming more worried about travelling to other ethnic areas and locals have started avoiding the road where the seven men went missing. No one dares to go that way now. All drivers cancelled trips on the 26-mile-long road between Nant Phat Kar and Namkham. They now use another, longer road between Nant Phat Kar, Muse and Namkham that is 52 miles, said U Hla Aung, a driver from Kutkai. The owner of a transportation company in Namkham said his drivers had also stopped using the road. Its not safe, he said. Some locals said that other drivers who used the road claimed that TNLA troops had blocked the road and stopped every passing car. They also said the group levied taxes. They [TNLA troops] blocked the road and ask for a tax of K100,000 for vans and K300,000 for trucks in Theinni township, said Sai Kyaw Ohn,According to the TNLA, only three cars had been stopped there. The conflict between the TNLA and the RCSS/SSA has shown no signs of abating. Local residents are constantly in fear of being detained or killed by landmines, according to both Shan and Taang civilians. The conflict reared soon after the RCSS/SSA signed the nationwide ceasefire, which the TNLA was not part of. Both sides have blamed each other for the clashes. It is a bleak sort of commemoration. As Kachin communities marked the fifth anniversary of the resumption of fighting in Kachin State on June 9, people driven from their homes are still subsisting in insecure conditions and facing food shortages. The long-standing ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Organisations military wing the Kachin Independence Army and the Myanmar government broke down violently on June 9, 2011. Over the past five years, the number of people displaced by the conflict has reached nearly 100,000. Most of them live in IDP camps along the Chinese border. The camp provided us with six baskets of rice and K6000 monthly, but starting this month were down to three baskets of rice and K3000, said Daw Mar Htu of the Kutkai RC IDP camp in Shan State. Daw Mar Htu, 36, had fled with her husband and son from Naung Phan village, Kutkai township, after clashes between Tatmadaw and the KIA in December 2012. I really want to go home, but my house is already damaged because no one could take care of it. My life depends on assistance from the camp. I dont know what well do if they cut our rations again, she said. According to the latest data collected by Kachin civil society organisations, 96,209 people are living in 161 IDP camps. Of these, 29 camps (with 46,397 IDPs) are in non-government-controlled areas (NGCAs). More than 52 percent are girls and women, while more than 49pc are children. After fighting resumed in 2011, local communities struggled to protect and assist the IDPs as an urgent humanitarian response. Since 2012, local aid groups have continued their activities with the support of UN agencies and international NGOs. In some camps, IDPs have been receiving 13.5 kilograms of rice, 1 litre of oil, 0.8kg of beans, 2.5kg of salt; nutrients for pregnant women, children and elders; and additional basic needs such as blankets, buckets, mosquito nets and soap. Each IDP received K7000 a month. However, three years later, in both government- and non-government-controlled camps, support levels have declined, including the loss of the K7000. Now the families in the camps receive only rice, oil and beans. Early this year, camp leaders were told by the support groups that rations for those aged between 18 and 50 would be cut, as the main international donor, the World Food Programme, could not maintain support levels. Daw Myint Myint Htay, a project coordinator for Lashio township with the Metta Foundation, one of the main local aid groups in both northern Shan and Kachin states, including KIA-controlled areas, said support was likely to fall. But pregnant women, the sick and the disabled will continue to enjoy full support, she said. Another local aid group, Karuna Mission Social Solidarity, said they had received the same bad news. I dont know why the WFP cut funding, but I heard more money is needed for people in Rakhine and other parts of Myanmar. Theyve been spending money on Kachin IDPs for three years, so they have to look elsewhere as well, said KMSS staffer Helen Yaw Soung. In December 2015, the WFP announced that it would continue to support the camps until 2017 in order to assist the new government. The agency had planned to stop aid at the end of last year. According to the announcement, 440,000 flood and landslide victims need food supplies, and 172,000 IDPs affected by conflicts in Kachin, Shan and Rakhine states are still in need of humanitarian aid. The WFP said it needed US$40 million to maintain that support until this month. However, the agency said it would support 2.6 million people requiring additional nutrients and conduct two-year rehabilitation programs for IDPs. The prospect of more cuts has caused deep apprehension. La Khan Aung Lung, leader of Man Wai Gyi camp in Mansi township, Kachin State, where 516 IDPs live, said, Starting this month, we have to cut rations to the 18-to-50-year-olds by half. They already receive nothing but rice, oil and salt. I dont know how they will manage, or how they will react. Adult camp dwellers are assumed to be able and willing to work, and some donors support small businesses like animal husbandry and hardware stores. But jobs around the camps near the border are scarce. Its very rare to find a job opportunity near the camp. Some go out to work as farm labourers for daily wages, earning K3000 a day. But the farmers cultivate seasonal crops, so they cant earn money out of season, said La Khan Aung Lung. By contrast with the government-controlled zone, displaced persons in KIA-controlled areas are still receiving the full quota of rice, oil, beans and salt, however. I heard UN agencies are providing funding this year, but I havent received any official information yet. We can still provide for basic needs, said Daw Mary Tawn, director of the Wunpawng Ningthoi (WPN), founded by Kachin-based churches, community-based committees and local NGOs at the KIA-controlled border town Mai Ja Yang in June 2011, in order to respond to the needs of Kachin people affected by the war. In Pictures: Kachin IDP's see in fourth year in camps WPN works in six IDP camps accommodating 10,000 people along the China-Kachin border. Despite the support they provide, conditions are harsh. Mother-of-four Gaw Lu Sai Neng escaped from Meng Tung village, Momauk township, Kachin State, in June 2011. She walked one-and-a-half days without shoes to reach N-Khaung Pa camp, which is located on the Mai Ja Yang-Laiza road. I dont want to live in this very narrow space in these poor conditions any more. I really want to go back to my village, but I have no choice but to stay in the camp, she said, sitting in a tiny temporary tent built up with tarpaulin. It is one of several hundred scattered over the side of the mountain. There is very little prospect of a safe return any time soon. Im afraid of going home because of landmines and because my house has already been burned down, she said. Besides, fighting is continuing and her village is a war zone, wedged between the Tatmadaw and KIA forces. There are 1705 people from 15 villages living in NKhaung Pa camp. Of those 15 villages, 10 are still occupied by one side or the other. If they go back to their village to see to their house and cattle, they would be arrested, investigated and tortured, said camp leader U Tu Mai. This article is the first installment of a two-part series. Look out for tomorrow: IDP homecoming contingent on the establishment of genuine peace French Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault will make an official visit to Myanmar from June 16 to 19, according to the French embassy. Mr Ayrault is expected to meet with a number of high-level officials, including State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Htin Kyaw in Nay Pyi Taw on the morning of June 17, Sonia Tebbakh, first secretary at the French embassy said. The foreign minister will also meet Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Minister for Energy and Electricity U Pe Zin Tun in Nay Pyi Taw on the same day. The purpose is to renew support of the French government in favour of the democratic transition in Myanmar and to announce what will be the financial involvement of French development aid through the French Development Agency for the coming years, said Ms Tebbakh. Mr Ayrault will also meet with the Yangon Region chief minister, French NGOs and businesses, and civil society organisations in Yangon on June 18. His delegation will visit the Secretariat and the U Thants house on June 19. The annual township registration fee for charity groups in Mandalay city will be reduced by half, effective this week, officials say. Responding to requests from the organisations, Mandalay City Development Committee said only 50 percent of the township-level fee would be charged this year when renewing licences. U Soe Tint Aung, head of the sanitation branch of MCDC, said the discount would start on June 15. The charity associations requested this during a previous [MCDC] meeting, he said. There are some charity associations which have no licence and there are some that have a licence but they are not active. We need to scrutinise them again group by group and work in collaboration. The township licence fee is normally K30,000 annually, while fees are also applied at the village, region and Union level at increasingly expensive rates, according to U Soe Tint Aung. The reduction applies only to the township licence. The other department-level charges will be up to the government, he said. Licensed associations are permitted to conduct their programs in the relevant area, including emergency response and rescue, but activities are restricted to the townships where they have applied to work. Charity associations in Mandalay welcomed MCDCs decision, but said a similar, centralised reduction is necessary. Reducing the licence fee is a good decision. But it would be better if they would implement the measure for the whole country, said the chair of the pearl charity association in Mandalay township. Translation by Emoon Yangon regional government officials are in talks with potential Japanese donors over a scheme to build 2000 low-cost apartments. The project could be a first step toward relieving the citys large number of unofficial shanty town residents. A source close to the talks told The Myanmar Times on June 10 that the negotiations were centring on the types of homes that could be built and their possible location. Were talking about where the necessary land could be found to build 2000 apartments, said the source. With the number of informal tenants estimated by some to be around 275,000, the Japanese proposal would require sustained follow-up to make a dent in the problem. According to the Yangon governments estimates, there are 157,040 unofficial tenants in the Eastern district, 8180 in the Western district, 93,483 in the Southern district and 170,975 in the Northern district. The regional government has not yet set a date for a proposed census of unofficial residents, which would be accompanied by an effort to distinguish real squatters from those trying to take advantage of the situation by renting out illegal shanties. Fake squatters, including landlords building illegal shanties to rent out to newcomers, could also face prosecution. The identification process will entail the compilation of fingerprinting and picture ID records, as well as action to carry out a pledge to help squatters find jobs. The Yangon government would then set up rehabilitation camps for them. Yangon, and particularly the industrial zones of Hlaing Tharyar township, is a magnet for jobless people from all over the country, attracted by the chance of a factory job and an escape from agricultural labour. Some have welcomed the plan to build low-cost housing. We really appreciate the chance to live in these apartments. Were prepared to work for them, too, said U San Shay, who lives in Hlaing Tharyar township. As part of its plan to discourage fresh arrivals without resorting to the physical destruction of the squatter camps, the authorities have demolished 108 newly built shanties in Hlaing Tharyar township as of June 10. Township administrator U Tin Maung Gyi said last week that a committee had been formed to draw up a list of real squatters for registration in the township. The authorities expect to have to take further action in the face of a surge of new shanty construction. In a bid to overcome suspicions built up during the military regime, Myanmars embassy in Malaysia is planning to work closely with Malaysian-based Myanmar civil society organisations to protect the rights of Myanmar citizens and workers there. Ko Kyaw Zay Lwin, chair of the Joho Yadana Setka Free Funeral Service Organisation, told The Myanmar Times that the embassy in Kuala Lumpur had met with about 50 Myanmar CSOs on June 5 to form an association to protect and help Myanmar migrants in Malaysia. If we join, we can help migrants more effectively than before, and the embassy could recover the confidence of Myanmar migrant workers. At the moment, all the migrants hate and fear the Myanmar embassy, said Ko Kyaw Zay Lwin, who also assists migrants who have been released from prison and sent to a detention camp in Joho. U Thiha Maung Maung, the head of a group that supports Myanmars prominent cleric Sitagu Sayadaw, said that adherence to the new organisation could cut the medical fees they are paying for migrants in hospital by half. He added that by teaming up with the embassy, Myanmar CSOs could help migrants by dealing more effectively with the Malaysian home affairs ministry. CSO leaders said the ambassador, the deputy ambassador and the military attache had been proposed as chair and vice chairs of the proposed new organisation, and CSO leaders had been designated to represent their respective groups. It is understood that the organisation will be set up within one month, and will register with the Malaysian Ministry of Home Affairs. There are an estimated 450,000 to 500,000 Myanmar migrants living in Malaysia, most of them illegally. Assistance from the Myanmar embassy would be helpful in matters of health, labour rights and dealings with the Malaysian police. Thousands of Myanmar migrants released from prison have been living in detention camps for years, unable to return to Myanmar without assistance. At the end of April, the Free Funeral Services Society helped 34 detained Myanmar citizens return home. But shortly afterward, the group was blocked from entering the detention centres and was told to get a letter of permission from the embassy, which was requested but not provided. The Myanmar embassy in Malaysia announced on June 7 that all Myanmar migrants experiencing problems with their employers, including denial of wages, could contact the embassy for assistance free of charge. Officials at the embassy could not be reached for comment about the planned collaboration. EA Media Production will hold a global Africa media communications summit on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 in Accra Stories, Standards, Sex are the themes for the summit. The two part summit features top names in Ghana's broadcast media including Kojo Yankson, Host of Joy FM99.7's Super Morning Show; Benard Avle, Host of Citi Breakfast Show on Citi FM97.3; Anita Erskine Host of Starr Drive on Starr FM103.5 and Host and Executive Producer on Viasat 1. According to EA Media Productions Director, Esther Armah, These 3s's stories, standards and sex are at the heart of Ghana's media. Armah, who is also a media lecturer at Webster University and host of the groundbreaking 'The Spin', a weekly radio talk show produced in Ghana airing in Nigeria and across the US. Armah further stated that : Media is power, it is influence. It can inform, transform, shape ideas. And it can misinform. Look at sex. The way we report issues around sex the language, the focus needs attention. Particular examples are how we report issues of sexual assault, rape and defilement. That's why we're having The Great Sex in the Media Debate. Part 2 of the summit is called 'Change the Conversation: The Great Sex in the Media debate'. It is a panel discussion featuring Benard Avle and Kojo Yankson. It will be moderated by Esther Armah, with an introduction by producer and broadcaster, Esi Arhin. It takes place at Alisa Hotel. The focus will be on engaging men in conversations on sex, sexual assault and rape and inviting men in the media to use their influence to report these stories with more care. Right now, we shame, blame, ridicule women and girls with these stories. What if we engaged boys and men on the issue of consent? Do that and you can reduce the numbers of defilement, rape, sexual assault. Armah adds: However much you teach Ghanaian girls and women about sex and sex education, rape can't stop unless we actively engage boys and men too. Media has a powerful role to play here. Part 1 of the summit is called Vision Breakfast. It features all women panelists and is for an all women audience. Women are half of Ghana's population. Shouldn't we be half of Ghana media 's conversation? says Armah. She adds: Women are good business, we are a market that our media is still not fully tapping or engaging. How do we change that? Our untold stories, our standards and how we negotiate sex in this industry are on the table for discussion at Vision Breakfast, Armah continued. Panelists include Anita Erskine Starr FM & Viasat1; Nana Akosua Hanson Host YFM; Nana Ama Agyemang Asante Co-Host Citi Breakfast Show, Citi FM; Dr Augustina Amakye Prime Communications Consultancy; Esi Arhin Producer /Broadcaster; Kinna Likimani Ghana Decides. The line up for the programme is below : Wednesday June 15th Re:Imagine a global Africa media communications summit Part 1 Vision Breakfast Webster University, Cantonments 9am sharp-11am Part 2 Change the Conversation: Alisa Hotel, Accra 6pm sharp 8.30pm ENTRANCE IS FREE: REGISTER 054 029 7062 If we can ban the usage of polythene, it is going to remarkably improve on the sanitation situation in the country.-Vincent Asamoah, Dep. Min. of Youth and Sports. Many people have raised concerns on the use of polythene bags in the country and have accordingly suggested a ban to save the environment from total destruction. Mountains of garbage that have been found in most commercial towns and cities across the length and breadth of the country have been blamed on the use of plastic carrier bags by most Ghanaians. Mr Vincent Asamoah has also added his voice to the call for a policy that will eventually lead to a ban being placed on the use of polythene bags in the country. He made the suggestion when he launched the 10th anniversary celebration of the Accra zone of Zoomlion Ghana Limited. The theme for the celebration was [email protected], Driving impactful waste management in Ghana and beyond. Mr Asamoah made reference to the East African country of Rwanda which banned the use of polythene bags in 2008 and argued that Ghana must follow suit as this was the most effective way to deal with the plastic menace. The ban has become necessary as we have not been able to effectively manage plastic waste in the country. Despite vigorous education to create awareness about the dangers of environmental pollution, we continue to litter the streets and other public places with waste, most of it plastic. The plastics come from bags of satchets that contain drinking water and polythene bags that we use to carry food and other articles. With our lack of technology to recycle plastic waste, we burn it which results in the release of toxic fumes that pollute the air and cause ill health to people. Water bodies may be polluted with waste that may cause disease leading to death of aquatic life and humans. When drains get choked with garbage and it rains heavily, especially for long hours, flooding results with its attendant loss of life and properties worth millions of cedis. The events of June 3, 2015 which claimed many lives and properties should not be lost on us. It was all due to a huge explosion of a filling station that caught fire and excessive flooding of the city of Accra. When visitors to our country are greeted with heaps of garbage, it dents our image as a people and as a country. Keeping our environment clean and in good sanitary condition is a collective responsibility. We must protect the environment from destructive activities so as to ensure its sustainability for current and future generations. When we destroy the environment, we are literally destroying the very source of our livelihood. Our life is dependent on a clean and healthy environment. Since we have not lived up to expectation in terms of managing our waste effectively and efficiently, legislation to ban the use of plastics should be given serious consideration by government and parliament. The ban should be limited to polythene bags and bags of satchet for drinking water. The ban should affect the manufacture, distribution or importation and use of polybags in the country. Existing laws on environmental protection should be rigidly enforced to the letter. Offenders must be prosecuted regardless of their party affiliation, gender, race or social status. All that is needed is the political will to enact laws that will protect and preserve the environment. Rwanda banned the use of polythene bags in 2008 and the results have been phenomenal: it is considered as one of the cleanest countries in Africa. Bangladesh banned plastics in 2002 with some degree of success. In 2006 Tanzania passed a law banning plastic bags. This could not have happened without the political will of the leadership of the affected countries. While advocating for a policy to ban plastic bags, those in that business must learn alternative trades such as manufacturing paper bags and other handicraft to earn a decent living. The media should help educate the public about the menace of plastics and why there is the need for its ban to save the environment. A country with a clean environment is an important destination for foreign investors. In conclusion, Ghana must take a cue from countries that enacted laws to ban plastics and do the same. I am optimistic such a measure when implemented will pay off in the long term. When people are healthy, they can increase productivity which can translate into economic prosperity for the country. ARK AWOLUGUTU [email protected] Cell: 0208 455 296 Nairobi (AFP) - Eritrea on Monday accused arch-rival Ethiopia of attacking its heavily militarised border, but officials in Addis Ababa said they had no knowledge of the reported fighting. Ethiopia on Sunday "unleashed an attack against Eritrea on the Tsorona Central Front," Eritrea's Ministry of Information said in a statement. Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Redda said there were "no clashes that we know of". The neighbours remain in a tense standoff ever since a brutal 1998-2000 border war. About 461, 013 candidates from 14,267 public and private Junior High Schools in the country will today [Monday] take part in the Basic Education Certificate Examination. The week long exams is expected to end on Friday, June 17, 2016. In 2015 about five papers were cancelled because of widespread leaks However the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has assured tight security in the exams. It has promised to fly the BECE questions papers to the various regions while personnel from the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) distribute them. Addressing a press conference in Accra today [Wednesday], the Director General of the GES, Jacob Kor, said the move forms part of its measures to avert examination leaks. He indicated that arrangements have been concluded with the Ghana Police Service and the Bureau of National Investigations to help provide effective security and quality control monitoring mechanisms throughout the period of the examinations. Right from the time the question papers are carried from the depot, there is going to be BNI personnel accompanying the questions, Mr. Kor added. WAEC has also banned teachers from using mobile phones or electronic gadgets at the examination centres. By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana Follow @AlloteyGodwin 13.06.2016 LISTEN "... The Speaker, Hon Doe-Adjaho...is not... serious when he criticizes the Achimota-Ofankor Road "create, loot and share scam (while) sitting in his China-made armchair... Fact is, at the same time that (he) is crying "fire" about a GH87,500,000 ($22,727,745) padded cost scam...he himself has been quietly presiding over a more staggering create loot and share...scam"...$6,000,000,000...of Ghana's Oil revenues...Doe-Adjaho himself is presiding over a scam that is 27,413 times higher than the one he is now condemning in public... So, how's that 17% working for Ghana...Chairman Edward Doe-Adjaho?...Wake up from that Rip Van Winkle slumber, Speaker Doe-Adjaho...Stop the massive "loot and share" of Ghana's oil revenues right now...," (Prof Lungu,10 June, 2016-rev). We continue with Part 2 of our essay on the Edward Doe-Adjaho-supervised "create, loot and share scam. But first, here is an update on the Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-Gh) Campaign/Petition. UPDATE: FTOS-Gh) Campaign/Petition: We understand that on 3 June, 2016, Mr. Edward Doe-Adjaho caused to be withdrawn from the Parliament of Ghana the 2014 version of the so-called Ghana Hybrid System oil contract bill. This is the scheme directly responsible for the loss of over $6 billion to Ghana during the last 5 years. According to our sources, they have replaced that bill with a "2016 version". There has been no public input or review. Needless to say, withdrawal of that shameful bill was one of the core demands of the Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-Gh) Campaign/Petition. (More updates will be forthcoming). Under the thumb of Mr. Edward Doe-Adjaho and the NDC administration that he is an integral part, Ghana has lost at least $1.2 billion each one of the last 5 years as Mr. Doe-Adjaho and his gang of NDC MPs, including Mr. K. T. "Hybrid" Hammond (NPP MP), have adamantly refused to adopt a fairer contract for Ghana's oil. As of the beginning of this year total loses in oil revenues to Ghana is over $6 billion, and counting. Need we point out that the $6 billion lost to Ghana is money Ghana did not receive because "Hon" Edward Doe-Adjaho has simply refused to do the right thing for Ghana even though the risks to oil companies have long dissipated, considerably. Further, GNPC itself continues to pay production and other costs not normally paid by sovereign owners of oil, under world standard Production Sharing Administration (PSA) contract system. South Sudan has one of those for its oil! And so, as a result, it is KOSMOS, Tullow, and the 33 oil companies the last time we counted, that have taken Ghana's lost $6 billion. It is they and Jon Benjamin's-DFID agency, having so greased the skids, it is they that are the biggest beneficiaries of Doe-Adjaho-supervised and benign "create, loot and share" scam. The grease is in part the $29 million DFID "Revenue Management" program. That "Revenue Management" Trojan horse is paying millions of dollars to ACEP, the Petroleum Commission, Ghanaian journalists and some media types so they will keep their African mouths shut about the massive theft of Ghana's oil revenues. Doe-Adjaho and his gang are not inclined to ask for a Fair Share for Ghana's oil, and you know why, now! This failure by Doe-Adjaho himself to "exercise proper supervision" is at a minimum an ethical violation. But it is worse. It is negligence and a sickening failure to exercise fiduciary responsibility reposed in Mr. Doe-Adjaho by all Ghanaians. This failure constitute a scam. It is a dangerous, illegal, expensive con game on the People of Ghana. And so, we must inform Mr. "Busy-Body" Jon Benjamin and all British citizens that not only are there potentially serious violations of Ghanaian laws, there are in addition, potential violations of British law: Ditto: Using British development aid funds for propaganda purposes in order to enable scams overseas. In fact, we recently discovered that NGO ACEP, and possibly other agencies, have recruited some Ghanaian students. They have enrolled them in what they now represent as Masters level "Oil and Gas" course. It sounds a lot more like the reported unaccredited d Trump "University" scam. A major principle (we call it PROPAGANDA) of NGO ACEP's "Oil and Gas" course is that while the PSA is worthwhile for South Sudan, the PSA is worthless for Ghana. NGO ACEP still continues receiving UK-DFID funds for serving Oil Company interests and for keeping their mouths shut about adoption of the PSA for Ghana. In all this Ghana oil money scam, Edward Doe-Adjaho and his committee(s) have done squat little to ensure Ghana receives a fairer share of its own oil revenues. Rather, they continue to bamboozle Ghanaians into focusing on that bright object, the "Revenue Management" Trojan Horse. They hid from Ghanaians the 2014 Ghana Hybrid Scam E&P law they wanted to enact, until the revelation the other day the bill has been withdrawn, and replaced with a 2016 version. But, all reasonable minds will agree that Fair-Trade Oil Share ought to be an elementary prerequisite for any useful "Revenue Management" program for any country's oil, unless it is of the Trojan Horse kind, like UK-DFID's that does not ask if Ghana is receiving a fair share to begin with. We will say here that even Rip Van Winkle, in his deepest slumber, understands that a true sovereign must first receive the sovereign's Fair Share of their own income from a contractor they hire, before the sovereign (Ghana) can reasonably better manage its own oil revenues. The point is, you simply do not give up $6 billion to receive $29 million for your country, Hon Doe-Adjaho! So, how's that 17% working for Ghana, Edward Doe-Adjaho? In conclusion, what Mr. Edward Doe-Adjaho and his clique in Parliament, among them NPP hangers-on T. K. "Hybrid" Hammond, are doing is a whole lot worse than the Achimota-Ofankor Road scam. Not that we are saying the Achimota-Ofankor Road scam is of no importance, that it does not deserve review. Surely, not! But, the Achimota-Ofankor Road, even as bad as it is, pales in comparison to the Jubilee Oil Fields scam. The Achimota-Ofankor Road is just about Ghc83,960,000, ($21,808,245) over the NPP estimate, representing about a 191% cost overrun. On the other hand, the $6 billion ( Ghc23,288,100,000) loss is actually $5,978,191,755 (or $5.9 billion) higher than the Achimota-Ofankor Road cost overrun. In short, Edward Doe-Adjaho himself is presiding over a scam that is 27,413 times higher than the one he now condemns in public. We are saying that a $6 billion dollar loss is a whole lot of money Ghanaians did not receive for development: to construct schools, hospitals, more and better roads, water plants, playgrounds, sustainable solar power plants independent of Chinese financing, etc. THE VERDICT! All rational minds can now deduce that based on the record, Chairman Edward Doe-Adjaho has actually been supervising the greatest financial loss to Ghana, the biggest financial scam, ever. Edward Doe-Adjaho has quite literally turned over the "Master Key" of the mansion to the Oil Companies. Doe-Adjaho has turned over the key to KOSMOS and Tullow. And instead of fixing the NPP mess, it is the Oil companies and their profits that continue to be important to Doe-Adjaho. This is a lot bigger failure. It is a lot bigger failure to "exercise adequate oversight role". And the proof is in the loss - $6 billion-plus, as Edward Doe-Adjaho sits front-and-center in that massive create loot and share scam. Edward Doe-Adjaho is the controller, the ring master, the organizer! Wake up Wake up from that Rip Van Winkle slumber, Hon Doe-Adjaho Wake up Wake up from that Rip Van Winkle slumber, Speaker Speak Do your job honestly and diligently for the People Show Ghana that draft, sir Enact the strongest Ghana-centered bill fairer and superior to 51%. Tell "young" Mahama and the rest that you cannot do it anymore Tell them Tell them you refuse to carry their water, again! So it goes, Ghana! SOURCES Ghanaian Chronicle. Parliament Has To Wake Up From Its Rip Van Winkle State By Ghanaian Chronicle, (http://www.modernghana.com/news/693991/parliament-has-to-wake-up-from-its-rip-van-winkle-state.html/). VISIT FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.GhanaHero.com . Read Mo'! Listen Mo'! See Mo'! Reflect Mo'! Prof Lungu is Ghana-Centered/Ghana-Proud! Subj: Hon Doe-Adjaho must wake up from his own Rip Van Winkle state (2) Twitter: https://twitter.com/professorlungu Support Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana Campaign/Petition. https://www.change.org/p/ghana-fair-trade-oil-share-psa-campaign-ftos-gh-psa/ Brought to you courtesy www.GhanaHero.com10 June 16. 13.06.2016 LISTEN NPP-Canada will have no qualms endorsing the Komenda Sugar Factory IF satisfactory answers could be had for the following questions. 1.A popular refrain of the P(NDC) in the late 80s and early 90s was: the private sector is the engine of growth. This eureka revelation on the part of the P(NDC) crystallized into what became known as the Divestiture Implementation Program (DIP). The DIP in its wisdom divested off the then Komenda Sugar Factory. Why the U-Turn by the Mahama Administration? 2.To the above, some may argue that only a fool will not change his mind when the tide changes. That is true enough. Was it a fool who sold off the then Merchant Bank? Or the tide had not changed then? 3. What makes it economically and philosophically smart for a so-called Social Economic government to build a Sugar Factory, plan to start a National Airline, but all the while planning to privatize the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG)? 4.Africas richest man, Aliko Dangote, made his billions in Cement, Flour and SUGAR. Mr. Dangote has built factories in several countries in Africa. Dangote SUGAR Refinery in Nigeria is the 2nd largest in the World. Mr. Dangote has said that the worst climates for investment are those countries in which he has to build his own power plant to provide reliable energy to support his factories. In an interview a few years ago, Mr. Dangote mentioned Ethiopia and South Africa as two countries where he was happy to invest in not least because he did not have to build a power plant. Shouldnt the Mahama Administration invest in the ECG and leave the investments in Sugar Factories to the Dangotes, the Nduoms, and the Osei Kwame Despites of the world? 5. The Ghana Compact of the Millenium Challenge Account (MCA) signed in 2006 by the Kufuor Administration had a grant total of $547 million. The Ghana Compact was designed to raise farmer incomes through private sector-led agribusiness development. Projects aimed to strengthen production, help move goods to markets more efficiently, and improve farm communities and farmers livelihoods. With a cross-sector approach to transforming agribusiness across 30 districts in Ghana, the compact undertook and completed one of Ghanas most significant infrastructure projects: a critical section of the N1 Highway. Would an approach such as the MCA model was not yield greater dividends for the Ghanaian people than the discredited, government-in-business model that this new Komenda Sugar Factory portends? 6. The plans for the creation of a so-called 40-year Development Plan for Ghana was heralded with the usual fanfare by the Mahama Administration and the Dr. Nii Moi Thompson-led National Development Planning Commission (NDPC). Under this 40-year Development Plan, is it a private-sector led development policy that is envisaged or it is a government-in-business approach that is envisaged? Or perhaps it is a hybrid like we say of the Ghana democratic model? 7. While the Mahama Administration is busily taking loans to go down a nostalgic but discredited path of State-Owned Businesses, the plight of brilliant but needy SHS, Vocational and University graduates continues to grow worse. Indeed, an SHS graduate in the Western Region nearly died of a suicide attempt about a month ago. Her reason for wanting to end her young life was that the withdrawal of allowances for Nursing and Teacher trainees had foreclosed on the only viable path she had to educating herself beyond SHS. Has the Mahama Administration got the right policies to help this SHS girl who nearly died because of the bleak future she faces in contemporary Ghana? 8. Do we have a costly, sugar-coated propaganda on our hands or we dont? Gilbert Adu Gyimah Director of Communications, NPP/Canada [email protected] www.nppcanada.org Tel: 587-708-9915 / 289-627-7557 13.06.2016 LISTEN The Founders, Management and entire membership of Youth Without Borders Ghana extends their best wishes to the 438,048 Ghanaian Junior High School Students participating in this years Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) across the nation. We pray and hope you will all put in your maximum efforts and come out with excellent grades in the end. Let us not engage in any unlawful and dangerous activities during and after the examinations. We urge all stakeholders especially WAEC, Schools, Head Teachers, Teachers, Invigilators, Parents, Security Officers to act well in the interest of the students, mother Ghana and Africa. No student should be denied the opportunity of writing the examinations on the basis of unpaid school fees, pregnancy, disability, religious practices among other unlawful basis. Every child has the right to education and decent life. Ghana and Africa deserves the best of performance from all students writing this examination and these students also deserve the best of support and right treatment from all stakeholders. Let us do what is right to ensure incident free, peaceful and excellent conduct throughout this examination period. God Bless Our Homeland Ghana! And Make Our Nation Great and Strong!! God Bless Africa!!! #IEYEC2016 @ywbghana facebook, twitter, instagram and youtube signed King David Cartey Director, Communications and Public Affairs 13.06.2016 LISTEN "Let them eat Brioche," Queen Marie Antoinette said when she was told that the peasants were suffering hunger. Brioche is a form of cake/bread enriched with eggs and butter that the elite had in Medieval France. She made that pronouncement in total disregard to the hungry people who were ravished by famine. Her husband King Louis XVI was busy indulging in excesses and debauchery to feel the pain of his subjects. In fact, a staff of sixteen servants participated in bathing him, the very few times he did so in a year. The French people, finally, decided that enough was enough. Unlike tolerant Ghanaians, those people agitated and executed the Royal couple at the Guillotine. That is the shameful end of belligerent rulers who were unlucky to superintend over nations of uncompromising people. In the same sense, we are being ruled by the likes of King Louis VXI (16th) and his wife marie Antoinette, in Ghana. President John Dramani Mahama seems to have gotten addicted to extreme luxury. I worried when I saw a video clip of the President exiting the huge concourse of Ibrahim Mahama's mansion at Airport Residential Area riding a Ducati motorcycle. This is a luxury speed bike that is worth over forty thousand US Dollars, the equivalent of GHs 160,000 (1.6 billion old cedis). As a biker, I can safely say that this bike is for smooth highways. It cannot be ridden on marshes, bog lands, or in floods. Besides, its hi-tech electronics cannot tolerate flooding or extreme weather. So the argument that he rode a bike to tour the carnage caused by the floods is a non-starter. Paradoxically, the 4x4s were what he was supposed to have used to achieve the purpose, but when GOD wants to expose somebody, wrong is written in almost everything that they do. For the sake of propaganda to show the nation that he is a people's man, John Mahama made his biggest mistake by venturing out on this bike ostensibly to tour the flooded areas of Accra. Alas, he must have forgotten that Ghanaians have become all too discerning to fall for this gimmick. It was soon revealed that he rode the bike in the area of his brother's house just for the mischief that this move was intended for. When people had lost everything they had as a result of floods that he could not resolve, he was out riding a very expensive luxury machines, enjoying himself at the expense of the tears of distraught Ghanaians. On the 10th of March, 2012, he signed a 795 million dollar loan to reconstruct the Accra drainage system after which he soon announced that flooding was going to be a thing of the past. Where did that money go? It is so obvious that it was not utilised for this purpose. We lost over 200 precious Ghanaian lives in the 2015 floods, do not forget! The lazy Mayor, Okoe Vanderpuje, has only paid lip service to this perennial problem that has assumed catastrophic extremes. In countries where the authorities respected themselves, those at the helm of affairs would have resigned voluntarily for such epic failures as those of John Mahama and Okoe Vanderpuje. But no, not here in Ghana. The cost of food has tripled in the past few years; the cost of household items has tripled too; electricity has become unaffordable, over twice the rent of average accommodation; fuel has sky-rocketed to hell; Doctors are unpaid; nurses are unemployed; youth are redundant; NHIA is in shambles; the economy is in a quagmire; suicide is on the rise due to harsh economic conditions; yet president John Mahama shamefully enjoys largess while Ghanaians are hungry, impoverished, devastated, and neglected. The annoying aspect of this insult is that NDC communicators hurry to bloviate in the media about how affable this most heartless president, John Mahama, is. The obnoxious views of the unfashionable Sam George, Kofi Adams, Kokoon Anyidaho, Asiedu Ntetia et al, just do not make sense. They attribute to others what is characteristic of their NDC Party. In other words, they poop in their handkerchiefs, hurl their waste at others, as they pass on the blame of the stink that surrounds all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. John Mahama's attempts to look good are as lame as a debilitated bird downed by a missed shot from the barrel of a disoriented hunter. His Ducati stunt was similarly as shameful as all other actions he had taken in bad faith to look good, albeit fruitlessly. #JohnMahamaWillFall #JohnMahamaWillNotBePresidentAfterNovember2016 #GhanaiansVoteJohnMahamaOut 13.06.2016 LISTEN Children have a right to grow up in a safe and healthy environment and, on this World Day Against Child Labour, Challenging Heights wishes to draw the attention of the government, corporate organisations and the entire public on their crucial role in combating child labour in Ghana. The Ghana Statistical Service estimates there are 1.9 million victims of child labour in Ghana and 1.2 million of them are engaged in hazardous labour. The theme forChildthisLabourin Supplyyear,Chains inEndGhana-Together we can! is wake-up call for everyone, particularly companies and other institutions to put in place structures to eliminate all forms of child labour to ensure children enjoy their basic human rights. Corporate organisations and businesses need to understand that children have rights and acknowledge that they have a responsibility to respect these rights by preventing the exploitation and abuse of children at any level in their supply chain. At Challenging Heights, we believe that the best place for children to work is in the school. Under no circumstance should a child be forced or encouraged to sacrifice her/his freedom, potential, dignity and education to work to fend for her/himself and/or provide for her/his family. With millions of children in child labour here in Ghana, all supply chains are at risk of having child labour present at some point in their supply chain. From agriculture to manufacturing, services to construction, there needs to be a focus on explicitly combating all forms of child labour as part of a broader goal of realising social and economic development. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that every contribute to ensuring that human rights are observed and implemented, and this includes business enterprises. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which has been ratified by Ghana, obliges states and enterprises to recognise the rig exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the childs education or to bemental,harmfulspiritual,moral to th or social development. It is therefore paramount for business enterprises to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address child labour situations in their supply chains by assessing the actual and potential impacts of child labour in their business, act upon the findings and communicate how they are addressing the situation. Guided by the two Conventions on child labour of (ILO), namely Minimum Age Convention (No 138) and the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour (No 182) both ratified by Ghana, as well as national legislations and frameworks, we recommend that businesses should: Develop a formal company policy to be approved at the most senior level of the organisation prohibiting all forms of child labour in the supply chain system. Explicitly state in contracts with suppliers that child labour should be eradicated and labour rights across all sub-contracted operations should be realised. Have a policy that prohibits employees from using children as domestic servants. Train staff and suppliers to instructlabour the and how they should contribute to combating child labour. Work with relevant stakeholders such as the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ministry of Employment and Labour, Trade Unions and NGOs to tackle child labour and make sure that labour rights are enforced. Get involved in efforts to combat child labour in industries where child labour is rampant (e.g. fishing, cocoa, mining and quarrying) by partnering and/or funding NGOs, CSOs and government agencies. Set up a supply chain monitoring system and invest in a management system that can credibly assert that the ofcompanysallformsofchildlaboursupply and does not violate any rights of a child. Strongly condemn the use of children in hawking their products on the streets. E.g. children selling chocolates, ice cream, biscuits, soft drinks and sachet water. Today, we also call for action from the government, which is the effective primary tool in the fight against child labour to seriously make this mission to eliminate child labour a priority and further collaborate with institutions, organisations and companies working to bring an end to child labour. We are also advocating for the Ghana Standards Authority to come out with a quality mark for companies to put on their products to signify that no children were used in the production of those goods. The general public should join hands with us to accelerate the elimination of child labour in supply chains by refusing to purchase goods and services from children who work during school hours and at night. Employing children perpetuates child labour and child labour perpetuates poverty. By creating more jobs and providing better wages for adults, poverty would be alleviated and fewer children would be exploited. Signed, Pomaa Arthur Communications Manager Challenging Heights Facebook is the biggest social media network in the world. With over a billion followers, many people can barely survive a day without visiting the platform. It is now an important component in our lives. It has bridged the communication gap and provide real-time news unlike the past when traditional media was hugely relied upon for information dissemination. Today, both Facebook (social media) and traditional media go pari-passu. Although Facebook has become a key feature in our lives, there is so much to know about the platform. Jovago.com, Africas No 1 hotel booking portal shares 5 proven facts you did not know about Mark Zuckerbergs Facebook. 350 million photos are uploaded daily According to a research carried out by Nokia, over 350 million photos are posted on Facebook daily. In addition, as at last year December, more than 250 billion images have been uploaded also. In other words, 4,000 pictures are posted every second. An incredible feat for a company barely five years old. Why is Facebooks logo blue? This is because Mark Zuckerberg is red and green colour blind. So, the brightest colour he can see is blue. Facebook offers a reward for anyone able to point out a flaw Recently, a 10-year-old boy was paid $10,000 for pointing out a security flaw on Instagram. Like many giant tech companies, Facebook also offers a cash reward to tech geeks who can identify any flaws on the site. The largest payout so far has been $33,500. This amount was paid to Brazilian computer engineer Reginaldo Silva who got $33,500 for reporting a major bug to Facebook. Divorced? Blame Facebook The rise in the rate of divorce can be laid at the footstep of Facebook according to a survey by Divorce Online. Statistics from the UK-based legal firm showed that more than one-third of divorce filings in 2011 referenced the social networking site as a trigger for marital conflict. This may due to the fact Facebook makes it easy to connect with your past. The owner of Facebook barely uses Twitter Twitter is Facebook's competitor. This may not be surprising. Mark Zu[email protected] with 413k followers has only tweeted 19 times. His last tweet was in 2012. 13.06.2016 LISTEN Currently Muslims all over the world are involved in the month long annual Ramadan fast during which they would abstain from food, water and sexual pleasures with their married partners from dawn to dusk. With regard to unmarried men and women sex is prohibited to them at all times. A visit to almost all mosques in the cities and towns would reveal large congregations especially of the youth who attend the five daily prayers with emphasis on the evening prayers during which they break their fast. Alhamdulillah for some years now, most of the youths who troop the mosques are found to have remained serious Muslims praying regularly long after the month of Ramadan. It is our prayer that this good attitude of the Muslim youth must from now on remain true Muslims. To be able to pray regularly and follow the tenets of Islamic prayers, one must first be a Muslim and accept the pillars of Islam. THE FIVE PILLARS OF ISLAM First Pillar (Faith or Iman) The Prophet Muhammad has said that Islam has been built on fie pillars; testifying that there is no god but God and that Mohammed is the messenger of God. Acceptance of God as ones Lord is like making a covenant to place him at the central point in ones thoughts and emotions. It means entrusting oneself to Him entirely, and focusing upon him all ones hopes and aspirations, fears and entreaties. ..instead of living for worldly things he or she must live for this world and the hereafter. 2nd pillar prayers The second pillar is accepting to pray as prescribe by God especially the five daily prayers that were introduced to mankind through Prophet Mohammed pbh. The prayers which are led by Imams after the Muslims perform ablution for cleanliness is meant to ensure spiritual upliftment of Muslims The 3rd pillar Fasting This is a necessary exercise of depriving one of food and water from dawn to dusk leading attainment of personal discipline needed to push one to have feelings for the needy and the deprived. A person observing the fast is permitted to break his or her fast in the evening and eat early morning but he is also required to engage in long hours of prayers at night before going to bed. God has endowed man with many gifts in life but does not value them. That is why He introduced fasting to test mankind on patience love and endurance. The 4th pillar Zakat Zakat the fourth pillar means setting apart a year a portion of ones wealth towards charity (generally 2.5 per cent) to be spent on religious duty and the poor and needy. This has been enforced in Islam because all that we have belongs to Allah and there for must be spent in line with his orders. The Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Asia and some nations Europe and America attach importance to this pillar of Islam that they send cash and valuable things to the needy worldwide . In short Zakat is the symbol of ones obligation to recognize the right of others and to be in sympathy with them in pain and in sorrow. These sentiments should become so deep-rooted that one begins to regard ones own wealth as belonging in part to others The 5th pillar Hajj The fifth and last pillar of Islam is pilgrimage to Mecca and medina to perform rituals at least ones a year meant to enforce ones looseness to Allah. The rituals that include the wearing of prescribed garments ihram and going round the Kaaba is really meant to show unity of purpose to all those performing the hajj. In sum the hajj is a complete lesson on leading a God oriented life in that it reminds one of the awesome day of resurrection- a day that could be painful for many it is a prelude to the attainment of God, exhorting us to strive with all our might to tread the path of righteousness. To achieve our cherished aims as Muslim one is required to embrace the pursuit of spirituality within the realm of Islam According to the Quran the high level of spirituality to a true Muslim reside in the mind and is achieved through endurance at intellectual level. In sum spirituality is the elevation of human condition to a plane on which the mind is focused on the higher non material reality of a Godly existence to know Go how and why you are created and what you are set out to do to Go over Locked up between Europe Asia and Africa Saudi Arabia in time past was not invaded by any of the early adventurers all because it lacked the appeal being full of deserts to any one or powerful nations yet this uncultivable land which has Mecca at the center was later to produce prophet Mohammed who was born on 22 April AD 570. His Father Abdullah Ibn Abdul Muttalib died a few months before he was born. He was six years old. He was taken care of by his grandfather and he also died he was taken over by his uncle who took care of him till he became matured. But his lifestyle depicted piety earlier in his life. This led to him getting chosen by God as messenger after people who came close to his saw in him purity in life. Even though Mohammed was not literate God ordered him to read leading to his receiving messages from God through angel Gabriel leading to the compilation of the holy Quran. In addition to the texts of the Quran his undertakings are being used as standards by Muslims. Today the religion of Islam is growing very fast worldwide and all over the world the prophet Mohammed is known to be the founder of the religion. However many are those who know that Islam means peace. As it did in the days of the prophet Islamic leaders were taught to call people into the religion through peaceful means. The word Jihad does not mean a call to persecute people for the religion or force them to be Muslims. The prophet called people into Islam through persuasion. Therefore all those engaged in extremism in the middle Asia and Africa must desist from it and tow the good path of Allah shown to the prophet. President John Dramani Mahama 13.06.2016 LISTEN The rampancy of armed robbery in Ghana is putting many peoples lives in danger. The propensity to commit armed robbery by these generational jobless criminals, who audaciously strike at anytime anywhere and on whomever, has become a great cause of frightening concern to many a Ghanaian. A government has it as its basic responsibility to ensure first and foremost, the safety and security of its citizens against external aggression and internal upheavals. Any government that fails on this basic provision/requirement is not fit for purpose. It should not be allowed to continue to govern the country. At the moment, armed robbers abundant in Ghana. They operate at any time of the day. They raid peoples homes. They attack people on our roads and rob them at gun point of their valuables and money. They maim and kill some of their victims. One cannot predict when and where they will strike. One thing that baffles me is how they have targeted the prominent members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Not long ago, they killed J. B. Danquah, an MP. Then they attacked and robbed Hon. Dan Botchwey, the Campaign Strategist of NPP. Just last Saturday night, 11th June 2016, they have attacked Mr Alan Kyeremateng, former presidential hopeful of the opposition New Patriotic Party at gun point. Why have these vermin, outrageous criminals and murderers, been singling out NPP personalities for attack? I know they have been targeting several people across the country, one wonders why most of their victims are NPP faithful. I do not want them to attack anyone irrespective of their political persuasions, nonetheless, one will curiously quickly query why most of their recent victims are NPP members? Have we not recently had instances where the police acting criminally, or armed robbers impersonating the police, have raided the headquarters of NPP in Accra? In all these situations, nobody was caught let alone, being arraigned on charges of executing armed robbery. Is there then any wonder that some hardened criminals have targeted them? I do not understand why the government has not channelled enough resources into fighting to eliminate the near chronic armed robbery from Ghana but rather choose to stay ineffective while these dastardly criminals carry out their trade without the least fear or favour. Some people may be tempted to conclude that the spate of armed robberies as are currently visibly taking place in Ghana fits well into the governments grand design to cow Ghanaians to pave the way for her to rig election 2016. I am not sure that is a befitting presumption. But why is the government not acting decisively to exterminate the cancerous armed robbery from Ghana? Is the government that weak when it comes to fighting corruption and armed robbery but only strong when it comes to stealing the countrys money, and practising nepotism, tribalism and paying radio phone-in serial callers to insult or throw dust into peoples eyes? I hope President Mahama and his government will avail themselves of my overflowing fountain of wisdom. I shall suggest to him to bring out almost all of the soldiers to carry out operation flush out the armed robbers. Put the soldiers on our roads, in our towns and cities for their presence to be felt by the armed robbers. If they should come out for three months, the armed robbery will be curtailed if not eliminated completely. As Ghana is a civilian country, but not a military one, the soldiers must go out with the police. For, say, a group of two or three army (soldiers) personnel, there must be one policeman from whom the soldiers will take instructions. It has happened many times in France when the need arose to guarantee public safety and security in the face of terrorists carrying out terror activities in the country. Once they do that, within weeks, the terror activity will have been removed for life to return to normalcy. When the situation becomes normal, the soldiers return to their barracks. To be the president of a nation is not all about embezzling funds but to guarantee the fundamental human rights of the citizens of the country. It is not all about that empty nonsensical political campaign slogan, Ede bii keke. It is all about proper governance. For the presidents failure to fight the armed robbery, but leaving it to ramify, taking roots throughout the nation, he is a GONER! Rockson Adofo File Photo 13.06.2016 LISTEN That was somewhere 2013. I lived in a suburb of Accra called Dome Pillar 2. It is such a sophisticated neighbourhood dotted with complex mansions, hotels and restaurants. In fact, it looked as if anyone living in that area was automatically considered a well-to-do personality. It can actually be a fitting place to go on tourism in the national capital. The glimpse from afar will probably make you yell loudly that, Yes, this is the capital of Ghana! if you are new to the area. Apart from the infrastructural beauteousness and captivating landscapes of the area, it is also such an arcadian neighbourhood that many people might want to live in as it is largely devoid of boisterousness and station boys and kayayes. There was, however, an existential condition that served as a blight on this envious neighbourhood of the capital. I personally consider cleanliness to be of paramount importance, and can only be next to godliness, as the old adage goes. Hence, I can easily be pushed off by a sordid environment. I would therefore cautiously shove any rubbish from my room and yard in the garbage bags at the entrance of the house due for carting. I was heavily judgmental on people who use to dump rubbish indiscriminately in the river that was just ten meters away from our house. I wondered why grown ups could treat our environment as such. But one day, a very clean and nice lady whose door post was just close to mine said: Dont talk much brother. You have just come here and you will soon know the reason why we have to litter around. She continued by telling me that some boys who use to come on motor carts from Dome central were those picking up the rubbish but the problem was that they were not always regular. Hence, they would have no choice but to manage and get rid of the garbage by any means possible. They had no Zoomlion nor any other state sponsored or private companies which were into waste collection in the area. The stench from the naturally designed snaking river could cause one to throw out in a matter of seconds and that was a despicable eye-sore on this gorgeous neighbourhood. In fact, it was later on discovered that these men who use to cart away our garbage for a fee were literally dumping everything back into the river. What! When they were summoned before the Assemblyman for the area, they hardly could deny the accusation and outspokenly stated that they had no other choice than to do so since there was no landfill allocated to them. When the rains set in there were series of massive floods in the area on top of which could only be seen white and black polythene bags, water sachets etc. On a fateful day upon my return from work, I could not have access to our house due to the flood. I stood outside undecided, dumbfounded amidst indignation and began shifting blame from left to right. But whom did I blame for the woes? The accustomed clubs of residents inured to piling up hodgepodge of rubbish in the area? The boys who carted and dumped the littering in the river? Or could it be the overall authority that shirked its responsibility of providing an effective waste collection system? Yes, I finally dissed the latter for wanton systematic failures! I also imagined how ridiculous it was putting roof without foundation! Mansions sinking in floating garbage? But did I exonerate myself and other parties from the culpability? No, far from that! The only difference I saw was that we were less reproachable as compared to those who have been given the authority to enact and implement laws. They are sitting in public offices bearing the social insignia of authority. We have voted for them, some have been appointed and weld enormous powers to make and unmake things. They levy taxes on us so that it can be used to develop our dear nation. In fact, some of them even have the power to determine our death and survival if we go contrary to the laws. All these, among others, were the reasons I shifted blame on the latter. So if these people have the authority and the mandate to manage the system, subject the deviants to justice, levy taxes on us, inter alia, then I would see no reason why I should be held accountable for such a scathing phenomenon. No matter how disciplined I am, I cant afford my own waste collection system whereby I can easily dispose off the garbage I gather. No matter how kempt and clean I am, I cant carry the pure water sachets to the landfill - and I dont even know where one can be located and the distance it takes to get there - myself after I have finished drinking but have nowhere to dispose it off. Most people litter not because they prefer a disagreeable environment to a decent one but simply because they have no choice. I know for sure some might argue that we are collectively responsable for whatever happens, just like Dr. Bawumia has put it, but it does not completely hold water. To conclude so can be likened to the saying in the movie The Revenant that We are all savage and must die as such. Unless Dr. Bawumia is referring to those who have been entrusted with power to effect changes but have failed to do so. Rather, the governed are suffering the result of the actions and the inactions of the governors and the latter must admit their fiasco. They have no business lingering in public offices of trust if they are not ready to assume responsibilities. When flood killed 29 people in a French seaside town of La Faute-Sur-Mer in 2010, the city mayor Rene Marratier was subsequently not just relieved of his post but was also jailed in 2014 for failure to consider risks and mitigate them in the said town. In our case, especially June 3, 2015 where more than 150 people met their untimely death in the worst flood and fire disaster ever recorded in the history of Ghana, no one has been made to face the full rigours of the law for their debacle. Followers have no power to implement laws, no power to bring culprits to book, and do not take taxes from anyone to provide garbage bins to households and on the streets. Meanwhile, people are in authority to make sure that the system function unfettered as individuals often have vicious inclinations to going outlawed if not checked by the authority. Per my exposure to systems in different parts of the world, I have come to realize that at the individual level, they are never better than we. Among them are those who are highly disorganized and messy, even worse than our so-called untidy folks. As a matter of fact, many at times have I been showered with praises as being even more clean and meticulous in the midst of my Western co-tenants. I have equally heard positive testimonies that the Westerners give about other Ghanaians and Africans at large. This means we are good and can even be better in a less flawed society. If the ordinary citizens are to blame for shunning the responsibility of maintaining a safe and serene environment, then their reproach can only be for failure to demand for actions, efficiency and effectiveness from those bestowed with power to function. Just think about any functional society and also take a critical look of its leadership and governance. Even if the citizens appear to have the right attitudes, as some people will always argue on that line, those attitudes have certainly been nurtured following a systematic importunity for excellence. How can we control floods when in actual facts we have mansions belonging to the untouchable in our society sited on water ways? How can we be safe when the most offenders are those who should otherwise be the proponents of orderliness and the laws of the land are even skewed in their favour when caught as perpetrators? I dare not mention any edifices wrongly sited in Ghanas capital in particular, after all most of us know the spots that are the province of the flood when it rains. Our problems are self inflicted! We may whine and revile and even pray out blood, but the truth remains that we can never outgrow our current level of thinking and behaviour. And it is our attitude that will determine our altitude on the global social ladder. The entire system seems to have vicious inclinations to mediocre and laisser-faire attitudes and we appear to be content with that. Disheartening! Sadly, nature does not pander to any mediocrity! Even in prayers, if we pray with our heads instead of just with our hearts, as it has always been the usual rhetorics: Oh God have mercy on us! we are most at times likely to hear Him speak to us: I have stacked something in your skull called brain. Use it wisely and stop disturbing my peace!. No devil is causing floods, we are the very devil ourselves! Our propensity to do wrong is the pregnancy that delivers our annual plaguing monster where precious lives and properties are lost. We all, the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, shall once in a while be buffeted by the vicissitudes of nature, be it earthquake, floods, storm or whatever. Admittedly, our failure to mitigate the perennial floods in our cities is not due to the scale of the occurence; rather, it is a measurement of our weakness. Some people are more prone to similar disasters than we do, yet they have been able to overcome that. If three days of torrential rainfall in Paris could not claim even a single life, and three hours rain in Accra can collapse buildings and even claim lives, then it can only speak volumes of our incapacity to survive in terms of even restrainable catastrophes. Nature has the cruelest laws on earth; no one violates her laws and goes unpunished! We cant abuse our environment and expect it not to carry out some retaliatory measures. We cant just sow corn and expect to harvest apple. It doesnt work that way! In George Bugnets novel The Forest, Rogers, the protagonist, after having lost his only son Paul to the flood, regrets and grieves: Nature is not wicked, and she could have been a friendly neighbour who houses me. But I have been unfair to her. I have disrespected her! Most often or not, we become prey to natural disasters because, instead of revering her, we are rather rivalling her. But her might is invincible, and we pay direly at the end! Shall we continuously sit down in indolence and insensitivity, apportion blame, favour the wrong doers in the name of partisanship and factionalism and tend to have mass graves every rainy season? And how do we really value our life as a people when most of us go partisan on issues of life and death? I dont just want to believe that the Blacks are the possible cursed race that some religious books seem to insinuate! We appear to be OK with adversities and only tend to solve them with ceaseless and impractical rhetorics accompanied with litany of promises of prompt actions which never get realized! Solution: those authorized to do so must wake up from their incessant slumber, go ahead to demolish all the buildings on water ways, provide the general populace effective means of waste collections, punish the dissidents of law, and nature will forgive us in a matter of months. Without such a move, we cannot and shall never appease her in any other way, and her laws and might can never be subverted. She doesnt also take bribe: only justice and humain treatment does she desire! As for attitudinal change, it will happen when the entire system is enlivened from its current moribundity. Peace! Sam George 13.06.2016 LISTEN There is a popular axiom which goes: if you point a finger at your antagonist, the rest of your fingers point back to you. How accurate, how philosophical and how thoughtful is the above principle? Absolutely, the above axiom underscores the Presidential staffer Sam Georges incoherent and inborn disposition for baseless accusations. I have been constraining myself from critiquing the incoherent statements, or better still, the propagandist elocutions by the mulish politicians of our time. However, on this occasion, I have no option than to unleash my fury in condemnation of a news item attributed to the Presidential staffer Sam George , titled: Mac Manu warming himself to satisfy Nana Addos violent nature. (see: kasapafmonline.com-11/06/2016). Of course, no one can be faulted for enquiring about my reasons for condemning the preposterous statement by Sam George. Well, for your information, I am neither a card bearing member of NPP nor have any pertinent coloration with Nana Addo. I am only a true patriot and a defender of the inherent dignity and the inalienable rights of all members of the human family. The only thing I share in common with Nana Addo though, is I attended the same tertiary institution in London with the NPP Presidential candidate. Although Nana Addo left that prestigious institution years before I received my tertiary training. I am indeed honoured for having such an equanimity character as my fellow Alumnus. If Ghanaians give him the nod as the next president of Ghana, I would probably be among a few people who would have the privilege of attending the same academic institutions with the two NPP presidents-the other being former President Kuffour, who attended Prempeh College, my alma mater. Well, the preceding elucidation may seem garrulous, methinks it has some pertinence in my indignation to Sam Georges vitriolic criticism towards my fellow Alumnus, Nana Addo. Obviously, there is fellowship of responsibilities and interests for belonging to the same Alumni association. Now lets analyse Sam Georges repugnant statement- Mac Manu warming himself to satisfy Nana Addos violent nature. Truly, I am struggling to find less euphemistic words to make my point, for Sam Georges arousing disgust has rather aroused my emotional intelligence and I am having difficulty in maintaining my composure. All the same, I will try as much as I could and show deference to my dearest readers. Why must Sam George and the people of such ilk think Nana Addo is violent? Obviously, Nana Addo is assertive. And, does assertiveness have a perceptible likeness to violence? No. It would seem an absurdity for anybody to equate assertiveness to violence. Indeed, it would be most unfortunate for anybody to hold such a view, for great leaders such as Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jnr, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and many others, had unbelievable assertiveness and spoke truth to power. Were they violent in your opinion, Sam George? I have heard time and time again from his adversaries that Nana Addo had previously made some perceived unhealthy pronouncements and therefore he is violent. Really? Nana Addos antagonists say he had said: all die be die and that implies he is violent. What a propagandists declamation. He takes his grievances to the law courts and Sam George and his cohorts say he is a trouble maker. How bizarre? Nana Addo loses the court case, accepts the verdict despite his disagreement and moves on. The adversaries then say he has no option than to accept the verdict. What a deflated argument. Did Nana Addo transiently cease being violent upon losing the 2012 election petition? Warped analysis indeed. As a matter of fact if Nana Addo is violent as his antagonists would want the whole world to believe, he would have gone the way of the opposition leaders in Ivory Coast, Kenya and Zimbabwe who resorted to violence upon losing their respective elections on perceived grounds of electoral fraud. Lets therefore remind Sam George and his cohorts that if assertiveness means violence, then let them aim a finger at Nana Addo and then watch the direction of the rest of their fingers. We are not serious as people, are we? K. Badu, UK. File Photo 13.06.2016 LISTEN Africa face the greatest displacement of humanity, more people forced from their homes by war, misery or oppression from government. There are currently fifteen African countries involved in war, or are experiencing post-war conflict and tension.In West Africa, the countries include Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Togo.In East Africa, the countries include Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda. As a results of this war or post war conflicts a large number of people from Africa including men, women and children have risked their lives on overcrowded boats in travelling through risky means to seek asylum in other countries. knocked on Europes front door. African leaders have failed to solve this issues confronting the continent. The advent of intra-state conflicts or new wars in Africa has brought many of its economies to the brink of collapse, creating humanitarian casualties and concerns. These conflicts are often hinged on several factors including poverty, human rights violations, bad governance and corruption, ethnic marginalization and small arms proliferation. Although many actors including African union, ECOWAS, civil society and international community have been making efforts, conflicts continue to persist in Africa and their resolution is often protracted. A more basic and long-term cause of conflict has been the catastrophic economic performance of many African countries. Coupled with the debt problem, poor flows of private capital into some African countries, and foreign aid programmes often inefficient, as Neil MacFarlane points out, economic discomfort can bail out into conflict. In 1992, UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali stated as the deepest causes of conflict: economic despair, social injustice, and political oppression. In the midst of poverty, African ruling classes, or the elite group who happen to hold power at a particular time, have enriched themselves and become the targets of envy or of rivalry by other elite groups. Politics is a commercial venture in his own right, as Roger Tangri puts it; conflicts arise not so much out of clashes of ideologies or programmes, but for profit often for just an elite few, for the masses take little part in this part of conflict: nearly all tribal or ethnic conflicts are rooted in competition between individuals, for the scarce resources of wealth, state and power. Communities will independence and self-determination when they consider that their value systems are no longer taken sufficiently into account by the society in which they have formed a part and the elites which rule it. Therefore, it is desirable that African leadership can and should rise and take up the challenge by working towards development for the benefit of all citizens of the continent. Politics of cultural plurality has sensitised that the more fairly a society is organised, the more the people tend to forget about the particularism that divide them. Conversely, the more unfairly a society is organised, the more its citizens revive and cling to all manner of cleavages of deep segmentation and the more conflict arise. Africa should work towards getting out of the zone of turmoil, characterised by poverty, repression and war, in which it has existed all along, into zone of peace, in which can be found peaceful, democratic and wealthy nations. Emmanuel Amarh Ashitey +233540981328 With a labour force of around 200,000, the textile sector is a key employer in Morocco. While sector performance has stagnated over the past decade, the last year saw an uptick in activity, with exports increasing by 5 per cent in 2014, according to figures released by the Office des Changes, the kingdoms official statistician. Ghana similarly had a vibrant textile industry, with over 40 textile firms, which used to employ more than 25,000 people. Not any more, however. The country now has only four textile factories employing less than 4,000 Ghanaians. Truth is that the industry, which was once the leader in Ghanas industrial sector, has consistently been in decline for years due largely to trade liberalization policies and programmes, which are making it impossible for Ghanas textile products to compete with cheap imports from Asia. In terms of taxes, revenue from the local industry is shrinking particularly at a time when the government is hard passed for cash to accelerate its development agenda. Meanwhile, the floodgate seems to have been opened to a few to smuggle into the country what can be produce here to meet the demands of the market. The Textiles, Garments and Leather Employees Union (TEGLEU) of the Ghana Federation of Labour has warned of massive job losses within the local Textile industry if government fails to check the incessant smuggling of pirated textile products into the country. China has gradually taken over Ghanaian market with a primary focus on the Textiles industry where the growth of its exports constitute a double agony for the country. For instance, Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL), one of the leading fabric companies in the country is on the verge of collapse as a result of cheap imports from china and other countries. Apart from Akosombo Textile Limited, other companies such as Ghana Textile Print (GTP) and Printex have all shut down their spinning and weaving departments due to cheap inports from china. These sections employed a chunk of the labour in the industry. However, the companies could no longer afford to accommodate these numbers and pay over 30times the amount of cheap imports from china. Textiles that come from china do not only carry the designs of Ghanaian cloths, but are imitated to let them appear as if they were produced in Ghana. Although the Chinese textiles are not durable, compared to made-inGhana ones, they sell far below Ghanaian textiles. Consequently, most retailers of local textile companies such as ATL, Printex, and Ghana Textiles Prints (GTP) are said to have abandoned the local cloth and are now selling wax prints from china, which is far cheaper. Due to the hardships, the companies have all resorted to the importation of gray baft and semi finished cloth for printing in the country. Though stakeholders in the country have made frantic efforts to revitalize the textile and garment industry, this seems to have hit the rocks since the economy is recording a rapid surge in the sale of fake logos and designs of Chinese textile firms on the market. Industry watchers are thinking about the fate of tertiary graduates who pursue Industrial Art programmes with textile option on the labour market as the sector faces imminent collapse. Ironically, while Ghanas textile industry is collapsing, Moroccos is on the rebound. The rise of fast fashion and just-in-time supply chains has played to the advantage of the Moroccan industry. From 2012, China and India began focusing attention to producing for their own local markets, moving away from their former export-oriented stance. The subsequent gap in the market has benefitted Moroccan exporters. According to Eurostat figures, the kingdoms textile exports to the US increased by 26 per cent in 2014, while those to the European market rose by 10 per cent in that year. Morocco has also fared rather well compared to some of its competitors, with Turkish, Chinese and Tunisian exports rising 5 per cent, 4 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively. But how did the kingdom achieve the feat? And, what lessons can Ghana learn from its old friend? Moroccos secret lies in its launch a couple of years ago of the Industrial Acceleration Plan (Plan dAcceleration Industrielle, PAI) which has started injecting new life into the industry. The textiles sector, along with the automobile industry and offshoring, was one of the first sectors to be incorporated into the new development plan, given its strong potential to generate value-added production, attract investment, stimulate exports and create new jobs. Six sub-segments were identified to be developed into productive ecosystems, and these include fast fashion, denim, technical textiles, home and lifestyle use textiles, knitwear and distribution. The sector is forecast to create 20 per cent of the 500,000 jobs promised under the PAI. To that end AMITH, the Association Marocaine des Industries du Textile et de lHabillement, or the Moroccan Textile and Apparel Manufacturers Association, put forth a 10-year textile development programme that will run through 2025, with the aim of tripling current export revenues to 9.79bn. The programme will be rolled out in two stages, with a start-up phase running through 2020, followed by an acceleration phase that will run for a further five years. In its first phase, the plan will seek to rebuild the industrys fundamentals and tackle the obstacles that have hampered the sectors development. Limited in-country access to raw materials, for instance, has impeded manufacturers, particularly those operating in the fast-fashion segment. Morocco is home to 1600 textile manufacturers, including major players such as Spanish firm Inditex, which includes the Zara and Bershka brands, for example. However, production has not often been directed to the domestic market for several reasons, key among which is the scope of the informal sector. Recent efforts to identify these constraints and assess the markets potential have revealed that business locally is not only as important as the export business, but holds even higher potential, according to documents from AMITH. With the domestic market valued at around 4.35bn in 2012 as opposed to the 3.26bn actually generated through exports various changes, including evolving consumption habits, improved purchasing powers and the expansion of the middle class, thus bode well for the future development of the local textile industry in Morocco. Morocco did something else. It also halted the downward trend in the appreciation of their famed traditional hand-woven textile. From a period when the viability of hand woven textiles in Morocco came under threat due to more Moroccans adopting Western clothing and irresponsible tourism created a trend to lower the prices of hand-woven traditional Moroccan textile, there has now returned a revival of interest towards traditional techniques; and a new generation of young artists and designers has become fascinated by these, and are using them for their creations. Ghana needs to borrow a leaf here from Morocco. While the governments Friday-wear policy is good, more proactive measure, however, need to be adopted urgently to reverse the textile industrys total collapse. Strengthening agencies such as the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) to intensify border patrols and tightening port operations to ensure that cheap imports do not slip, among others, are all good. But for the long haul, now is time for Ghana to adopt a Morocco-like sector-specific industrial acceleration plan for a sustainable local textile industry super-structure. Yesterday, the news in town was that President John Dramani Mahama took a ride on a motorbike to go inspect areas that got affected by floods recently. The conduct of the President generated a potpourri of views. Whilst some thought the President was a down to earth man riding on a motor bike others thought the behaviour of President Dramani was yet another failed PR stunt. As a Ghanaian, I also have an opinion. The conduct of the President was not only populist but also pathetic. That the President was seen riding a motor bike as circulated in the media in my view was a well rehearsed drama coming a day after the burial of one of the "Campaign Managers" of the President- Bob Okalla. Left to me alone the comedy of the President was his version of celebrating his good friend -iconic comedian Okalla. The most profoundly irritating drama emerged when communicators of the ruling NDC started alleging that the riding of a motor bike by President Mahama was a sign of humility! Balderdash! Why didn't President Mahama go to Apsonic Motors to buy a motor bike for that drama? Motorbikes enthusiasts have disclosed that the type of motorbike that the President rode was a Ducati 5000cc whose cost can buy several ambulances to hospitals in deprived communities of Ghana. What the President did was nothing but insensitive display of opulence at a time water from choked drains was carrying Ghanaians, motorists and buildings away. The other question is that- why is it that nobody saw the President riding the motorbike and took pictures but rather Ghanaians were fed with a video and pictures taken by professional photographer at a location which was not the FlagStaff House nor the official residence of the President. It is alleged that the motor bike riding drama was auditioned in the house of one of the brothers of the President. The President must be told to be serious. You don't embark on such a prank at a time unemployment was soaring with the country in a sorry state. There was nothing humbling about President Mahama allegedly riding a Ducati to inspect flood hit areas. The behaviour of the President was not only a new low in the art of propaganda but populist. Next time choose Apsonic motorbike if you want to prove you are humble and down to earth Mr President. Cheers. Akilu Sayibu Tamale North File Photo 13.06.2016 LISTEN It is a wrong perception assuming to run a State means running it at a loss as seen so visible in Africa. Germany has proven last year that Governance can well be a profit making machinery, in worst case break even. Ghana identified the lack of street names and house numbers as a major obstacle to run the logistic inside cities and villages effectively leaving strangers to an unknown area under stress having to ask and ask again for the final destination. Ghanas Government went to the World Bank asking for USD 3 Mio. to get the much needed funding secured to undertake the street naming exercise. Among the White community we were laughing about the lack of creativity to undergo the project having to ask for financial assistance. Naming the streets of Ghana could have instead turned into a profit making venture. Certain streets could have been allocated to be sold to Foreigners or locals to give them names under acceptable conditions to ensure the sanity in the overall appearance of the cities. In developed countries only famous people after their death can have a street named after them. To have asked Ghana Embassies around the world to offer a limited portion of streets to Foreigners for them to name them would have poured much needed Forex into the Common Fund by the immediate selling process as well as in years after as the Foreigners eventually would have come to Ghana as Visitors with their families to inspect their street and take photos for home. This free marketing would have brought Ghana as a creative country with good senses for managing its affairs and budget capacity as personal recommendations from person to person are much more effective than from Promotion Agencies to Individuals. It would have also send positive signals into the business community to stimulate foreign investments into the country of Ghana. Sanitation in Ghana, like all African countries, is a hugh challenge. While in Europe Litter Boxes can be found in public spaces every 400 Meters to dispose off unwanted garbage, Accra and Kumasi demonstrate absence of any such possibilities forcing pedestrians to often dump their sachet rubber on the streets with health and death implications. Litter Boxes can be used as advertisement instruments by Corporates to demonstrate their responsibility to be socially conscious and understand their position in the local and national society for which reason they would pay for the Litter Boxes and its installments, this makes thee Litter Boxes to come for free to the cities. What does cities and villages top from implementing a necessary and easy to do job? The answer is not astonishing: lack of right mindset, creativity and drive to solve real problems with simple and effective means. Someone not having the mind to generate profit, will never be able to achieve Millions of Cedis in his bank account. Africans are very resistance to accept effective advice particularly when they come from the White Man as it can lead unto the road to expose their obvious weaknesses. The fear the White Man could come back as Colonial Master is in Africa deeply rooted. Understanding History means to know History is never repeating itself, and to know societies means time is passing each day with no returning back. Every generations has a GOD given birth-right to live a happy life in abundance. No Generation of Politicians has a right to deny this to their people they are responsible for. The political and economic Elite of Africa is just doing that and must be stopped for the entire world to end the misery the black continent finds itself in not to be an endless burden on societies outside the African Hemisphere, rather to look to Africa as a shining Model of GODs creation and his goodness he had once chosen to bless his Humans with. When someone sees the running of a state as a social intervention on the journey of human kind, it always comes with at a financial, social, cultural and economic loss, while seeing and running a Nation as a Profit Center on earth to bear fruits and prosper, such a mindset will never lack anything and able to take the needy along. Birth-Right, a citizenship, is not from man but from GOD and comes along with Responsibilities for the happiness of a country someone lives in. Citizenship is not a privilege, it is a contract between GOD and the country he has decided someone to be born into and to live in. Like any contract it comes with rules, regulations and rewards, followed them means living a happy life. A country comes with humans and natural resources in a historic and spiritual setting. It is about the right management to handle all resources well and when and where needed to ask the contracted citizens for correction, when required by law enforcement to make the rules of the contract effective, otherwise a contract is useless and can be put into the dust bin. Political Leaders of the past, the present and the future (?) are not trained and testes Businessman but Lawyers, Teachers, Workers, Journalists, Civil Servant; as a Businessman is interested and focused on profit that is sustainable he uses all given resources effectively while others simply use them anyhow and waste them in the end especially when in a democratic setting. When a Businessman is President of a Nation and has a higher Authority above him directing his decisions and ways giving him the much needed framework to guide him from left to right, a Nation reaches far. May GOD send such persons to Africa to be their Helpers before long. Greda Estate, Accra, Ghana, small Bar at the road-side with two plastic tables outside, old Man defended Ghana saying: You white people do not have to worry about us Africans. GOD will never let us starve but will always provide for us in abundance as written in the Bible. Our natural resources will never end; or would he have put us here into Ghana when not caring for us always? The Bar owner, sitting across him, she stated confidently: I know, you Whites take our Gold to your countries, than you bury them with your family members when they are dead and so the Gold always comes back to us and we can dig it out again to sell to you. So, as my brother here said, do not worry, we will never lack anything. I know that Germans do not put Gold into any coffin of their loved once. Gold, unlike Iron and Steel, does not de-integrate and has no in-build Radar to know the way back home into Ghanas soil. Oh, GOD: have MERCY! or bring out your whip to use punishment for development. Author: Dipl.-Pol. Karl-Heinz Heerde, Sakumono Estate, Block D10, Aprt. 9, Tema West, Ghana, phone +233(0)265078287, [email protected] , 06.06.2016 Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo speaks with Al Jazeera Englishs Mehdi Hasan: Rejects criticism from human rights groups that Rwandan government quashes dissent: The criticism that Rwanda receives partly comes from misunderstanding where Rwanda is trying to go. Asserts the BBC promotes genocide ideology: Yes, yes, absolutely. She says, I don't see what's wrong with staying in office, on the subject of President Kagame being allowed to stay in office until 2034. Denies supporting fighters in Burundi: Rwanda has better and more effective ways of causing trouble In a heated interview with Al Jazeera Englishs current affairs show UpFront, Rwandan foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo denied a wide range of allegations including human rights abuses, suppression of press freedoms, and extrajudicial killings brought forth against Rwanda by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, and countries Rwanda is allied with. Let me put it this way, Rwanda, as any other country that I know of, has its own way of doing things, Mushikiwabo said in response to the remark that Rwanda seems to be on its own in defending itself. And not everybody should be agreeing with what the government of Rwanda is doing. On Rwandas intolerance for opposition voices and government criticism, UpFront host Mehdi Hasan asked Mushikiwabo if she really believed the BBC was banned from Rwanda because it promoted genocide ideology. Yes, yes, absolutely. The BBC produced a documentary film which is a total denial of the history of Rwanda, particularly the history of the genocide, she said. In Rwanda that is not acceptable. Mushikiwabo also commented on the alleged murder in 2014 of exiled Rwandan intelligence officer Patrick Karegeya, who was found dead in his hotel room in Johannesburg. Hasan asked Mushikiwabo if defense Mmnister James Kabarebes response to the killing When you choose to be a dog, you die like a dog" suggested the governments complicity in Karegeyas death. Let me again put it this way: I don't know anybody who betrays a country that gets rewarded, she said. In an intense exchange with Hasan, the foreign minister asserted that Karegeya, who was allegedly killed while in exile despite never having been convicted of a crime, threatened Rwanda. Why should I be unhappy about my enemies and people who threaten? she asked. When it came to Rwandas involvement in the violent political crisis in neighbouring Burundi, Mushikiwabo insisted her countrys only association was in taking care of Burundan refugees. She commented on the crisis, saying, When people make wrong choices then they have to live with the consequences. Mushikiwabo, however, denied the UN Panel of Experts report from earlier this year that accuses Rwanda of recruiting and training Burundan refugees in Rwanda with the goal of ousting Burundan President Pierre Nkurunziza. If I wanted to overthrow I would use my own army; I would not pick up children in a refugee camp, she said. Rwanda has better and more effective ways of causing trouble if that is what the Rwandan government wanted. Discussing President Kagames recent comments that no one in the media, the UN, or human rights organisations has the moral right to criticise him or Rwanda at all, Mushikiwabo said, What the president is saying is what he believes. President Kagame is a very accountable man, and everything he's done for Rwanda is out in the open. Last December, President Kagame (who came into power in 2000) supported a constitutional amendment that would allow him to run for a third seven-year term and seek two additional five-year terms, potentially staying in office until 2034. When asked if she supported it, Mushikiwabo said, Absolutely. President Kagame has responded to what the people of Rwanda wanted, and there is nothing wrong with that, she contended. I don't see what's wrong with staying in office. I think what we need to be worried about is what people do while in office. Watch the full 12-minute interview below Paul Kagame, Rwanda President 13.06.2016 LISTEN Participants at the 7th AASW and GA of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) being held in Kigali, Rwanda, were ready for a usual presentation on Developing Human and Institutional Capacity but the first words of the Presenter was enough to generate high interest in the presentation. I will tell you a story and it is from my heart, said Peter Malinga, National Capacity Building Secretariat, Rwanda, as he began his presentation. My presentation is not a scientific presentation; it is more of a testimony he went on. At this time he had the full attention of participants as he proceeded to share the unique story of how Rwanda was building local capacity and the approach adopted by the government. The Story It all began right after the 1994 situation when the effort of the government was directed towards rebuilding the society and country which had become a failed state. This was an era when the country was trying to reconstitute each and every sector of the society including agriculture. It started to address issues of the heart and mind Unity and reconciliation. When the world started implementing MDGs, Rwanda also came up with Vision 2020 to implement alongside the countrys own programme. It was a case of tackling rehabilitation, development of national plans, the first being poverty reduction programmes, reforming the public sector and rebuilding the state. We started setting up institutions that can run the country and building a common vision he said. The Journey He said the journey over the past 20 years has not been simple and cannot be wished away. With the foundation that have been laid to address development issues, we see government ministries and district offices all talking about priorities and strategic forecasting which are critical in addressing development issues. Challenge Achieving the MDGs and Vision 2020 for Rwanda was impacted by capacity challenges. Our initial attempts to address the capacity problem was stand alone, scattered and overlapping and this produced mixed results which called for a second look at the approach. In 2005, Rwanda came up with a capacity improvement programme and mobilized funds from the world bank and African Capacity Reformation to finance the project. Rwanda adopted a non sectoral - private and public sector /civil service partnership. An institution was set up to coordinate and implement the programme. Currently, Rwanda has a government agency - the National Capacity Building Secretariat (NCBS) that is cross cutting in membership, managing capacity building in Rwanda Data to factor into plans to facilitate the project continues to be a challenge. In addition to that, they were also confronted with the kind of tools to apply in capacity building. There were also synergies that have to be harnessed Not business as usual In the midst of all of this, Rwanda decided to adopt what Peter referred to as a not business as usual approach. Rwanda did not think capacity building should be driven by donors. It must be driven by government and key actors. The countrys approach to addressing capacity building was first and foremost to determine the gaps and the sectors needing capacity support. Funding is sourced and human capacity building programmes and projects are developed. After all this is done support for the programme is mobilized. In 2014, the country put in place a national Capacity Development Coordination plan among others, driven by the capacity building agenda. As a result of the importance of this to Rwanda, Capacity Building had its own budget and was placed under the Ministry of Finance. The Co- Chair of the capacity building set-up was drawn from the Private sector. Again, Rwanda looks at good practices in other countries and adopts some of the approaches. The country has also ensured that its citizens benefit from the skills of consultants through knowledge transfer Lessons He encouraged African governments seeking to build capacity to among others, use experiences and success stories available globally to inform their capacity building agendas. Peter cautioned against Copy and paste approaches. It is best to customize he concluded. When I was growing up, it was not an unusual routine to dash into the falling rain, and gleefully let the water bath me. I would stand eagerly at the window, looking at the dark clouds heavy with rain, clutching a skipping rope and anticipating the first drops. As the first watery pellets hit the earth, children would come scurrying out of their homes, screaming in delight and running into ditches and ponds to swim, I was one of them. In 2016, any child would be a fool to go scurrying into the rain, especially within the capital, Accra. Over the years, Ghanas population has grown, and so has the unsavoury practice of improper waste disposal. The long lessons in primary and basic school about climate change are now no more distant words in a book. They are visible facts for the eye to see and boy has Ghana been seeing. There are two causes of humanitarian crises facing the world: man-made and natural disasters. Humanitarian man-made crises have affected an unprecedented number of people from across the world and continues to escalate. In a research by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) titled, Armed Conflict Survey 2015, it was revealed that in 2008 alone, 63 armed conflicts resulted in 56,000 fatalities, tripling to 180,000 deaths in 2014 alone, even though the count was much smaller- at 42 armed conflicts But this is not the crisis I want to focus on today. In 2014, the United Nations estimates, over 400 natural disasters resulting in the death of over 17,000 people and running into damages that exceed $82 billion, occurred. Earthquakes, floods, heatwaves, typhoons and monsoon rains, as well as droughts and landslides heralded last years natural humanitarian crises. In Accra last year, showers that begun on June 3rd did not see children dancing in the rain, far from that. What we saw were drownings and charred remains of people, who in their attempts to flee the deluge, had been caught in an explosion at a filling station. Three months ago, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) listed the month of March as the hottest March on record, breaking a century-old record. Heavy rainfalls in Europe resulted in severe flooding in Paris, Germany and other European countries at the beginning of the month. Climate change is happening, and if it remains at the rate at which it is currently going, its consequences on human lives and the world will only continue to surge. Ever increasing erratic and extreme weather conditions have plagued the country, swelteringly heat one moment, gushing floods the next. However, climate change is not solely responsible for the June 3rd Disaster, nor is it completely responsible for the past weeks floods in the capital. In a short video posted online in May following flooding in parts of Accra, some residents in Kaneshie were caught dumping refuse tied in plastic bags into the stagnant knee-high water. The very reason why the water was knee-high. Over the week, as water submerged cars and overfilled drainage systems in the capital, up came thousands and thousands of plastic waste, blocking and chocking the drains and preventing the flow of water. On the surface of the Odaw River, measuring 5.41 kilometres in length, were different assortments of plastic waste, improperly discarded within the capital and conveyed into the river. The rains seemed like those of last years, without the blast but devastating nonetheless. I believe a dire issue Ghana needs to address is the attitude of its people towards waste disposal. A corn seller I saw last week, stationed right at the mouth of a big gutter, after selling all her corn, stooped down, lifted a handful of a heap of husks from the corn she had sold and heaved it right into the drain! An old man seated beside me as our car moved, who must have been seeing exactly what I was, muttered my exact sentiment, Oh Ghana. The indiscriminate disposal of waste, especially in the capital and a lack of effective reinforcement and adherence to sanitation bye-laws will continue to escalate the dangers we experience during the rainy season. Implementation of bye-laws that sanction indiscriminate disposal of refuse, while providing waste bins, will serve as a deterrent to perpetrators. In 2008, Rwanda begun a ban on all non-biodegradable plastics. Almost a decade on, the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, has been repeatedly lauded as Africas cleanest city. The country also requires that all households build waste disposal pits, and constantly supplies dustbins, and other waste disposal facilities to its citizens. Its true that government and private stakeholders can aid this process by supplying waste disposal facilities so people do not have to litter, but I have also been at Tema Station and watched people repeatedly hurl their waste at the waste bin not into the waste bin! I have on numerous occasions witnessed drivers and passengers fling wrappers, iced water (sachet) bags out of their cars unto the road without a blink. I remember being in boarding school and getting caught red-handed by a housemistress for throwing a water sachet into an overgrown bush. I spent that day weeding the bush as punishment. Since that day, any plastic trash I want to get rid of whiles in town, goes into my bag until I get to a waste bin, or home. I am uncomfortable throwing waste indiscriminately, I am uncomfortable seeing people throw waste indiscriminately and so should you be. ActionAids Power in People brand believes that right holders have the power within themselves to make and be the change they want to see, our role is to facilitate that change. An aspect of facilitating that change is for citizens to understand their role in reducing the effects of climate change on themselves and their families, as well as their properties and communities. By being responsible for our actions and making changes that involve proper, and efficient waste disposal as well as community members acting as duty bearers to deter activities that enhance casualties during the rainy season, we can stop the devastating effects floods have been having on Ghana, its businesses and its people. Its time to stop using gutters and drains as solid waste disposal facilities, thats not why they are built, quite the contrary! Deborah Lomotey Communications Officer ActionAid Ghana A traumatized couple has adopted spiritual intelligence in their search for their missing 3-year-old daughter, Shalom, who is feared to have drowned in last Thursday's flood in Tema. Wearing black, Christiana Obenewaa told Adom News Kwame Yankah, her husband has consulted a deity in Tema who claims the body of Shalom Kyeraa has been washed into the sea. But the 26-year-old mother maintained that until the body is found she will not believe her daughter is dead. "I don't know if she is dead or alive but until I see her, I won't believe she is dead", she said. Shalom was washed away in high-velocity flood waters last Thursday, June 9, while she played near a huge uncovered drain with her two-year cousin. File Photo Her mother who sells boiled corn, was in the rain busily attending to customers when her attention was drawn to the incident. She watched in helpless agony as the child petered out of sight. More than 72 hours after the incident at Tema Community 1, Site 7, the search party is in despair. A priest at Tema New Town has predicted that Shaloms body will be washed ashore in three days. A two-year cousin who is oblivious to the feared tragedy giggled and laughed while recollecting the last sighting of Shalom. Shalom w) gurta ni mu (translated Shalom is in the gutter), was all the words the toddler could muster. Shalom means peace. But the sight of her mother tells a story of restlessness. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com|E.A Nairobi (AFP) - Kenya's planned closure of Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, later this year must not result in people being forcibly returned to war-torn Somalia, the UN's refugee chief warned Monday. "Repatriation, when it happens, must be in a humane, dignified manner, in line with international principles," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in Nairobi, at the end of a five-day visit to Kenya and Somalia. Kenya has vowed to send back 350,000 Somali refugees living in Dadaab in north-east Kenya by November, insisting the camp is a security threat and a drain on national resources. Nairobi has taken a hardline position, describing Dadaab as a terrorist training ground for Shabaab Islamists, and has publicly and repeatedly said all the Somali refugees would be removed from the country by the end of the year. But Grandi -- who met with President Uhuru Kenyatta on Sunday -- said there was room for flexibility. "The time frame of a few months is very short. I'm sure it will be longer than November, how long I don't know," Grandi said. "I hope there will not be a scenario of coercion and forced return." Just 14,000 refugees have taken up the offer of voluntary return since the programme began in December 2014, but Grandi said "tens of thousands" more had returned "spontaneously", meaning without UN assistance. Grandi said the planned returns would not be conducted unilaterally by Kenya, but in discussion with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Somali government, and would require financial support from foreign donors to improve conditions in war-torn Somalia and provide a return package of food and money to those who go home. The vast majority of residents of the sprawling Dadaab complex of camps close to the Kenya-Somalia border fled Somalia's more than two-decades long conflict. Many remain fearful of returning to a country where insecurity remains rife and life tough. 13.06.2016 LISTEN The First Lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama, says empowering girls to prevent HIV among adolescents is a key requirement to achieving an AIDS-free generation. This is because adolescent girls and young women, aged 15 to 24 in Africa, are especially vulnerable to the epidemic that sadly continues to record new cases among adolescents. Speaking at the Side Event of the UN High Level meeting on HIV and AIDS in New York, Mrs Mahama said every hour in Africa 26 adolescents, aged 10 to 19 years, were infected with HIV leading to an estimated 250,000 new HIV infections in Africa alone. She said globally, while new HIV infections had declined by 38 per cent over the last 15 years, sadly new infections among adolescents were increasing. In high burden countries of sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls contribute a significant 30 per cent of all new HIV infections, Mrs Mahama said. The Side Event, which was attended by all African first ladies forming the Organisation of African First Ladies Association (OAFLA) and other development partners including UNAIDS, UNFPA, Gates Foundation, and adolescent representatives, was on the theme: Breaking the Silos: Empowered Adolescent Girls at the Centre of the Response. Mrs Mahama said in spite of the challenges great progress had been made in achieving our objective of universal services for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. As the President of OAFLA, Mrs Mahama welcomed the delegates to the meeting, explaining that OAFLA advocates for effective strategies towards the elimination of HIV and AIDS, the reduction of maternal and child mortality, and the empowerment of women and children. She said in all its activities, adolescent girls were at the heart of OAFLA's mission, because a more alarming statistic showed that adolescent girls and young women had up to eight times more infection and were likely to become HIV positive about five years earlier than their male peers. Very sadly, only 15 percent of young women and adolescent girls in sub-Saharan Africa know their HIV status, she said. Overall, AIDS-related illnesses are the leading cause of deaths among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa and the second leading cause of death globally. Clearly, Africa's adolescents are seriously affected by this epidemic; and our adolescent girls and young women are very vulnerable to HIV infection and AIDS related deaths. Although this vulnerability is not fully understood it is driven by lack of empowerment and compounded by other structural, social and biological factors including harmful gender norms such as early and forced marriage with its effects and engagement in age-disparate sex and oftentimes forced transactional sexual relationships, she said. Other factors are gender based violence, increased genital inflammation, inability to negotiate monogamous relationships, condom use, and/or male circumcision, inability to take decisions on matters of their own health and well-being as well as inadequate access to comprehensive sexual education and reproductive health services. There is also the experience of food insecurity and poverty; and we have a vicious cycle driven by dependence. It is against this background that OAFLA has placed importance on adolescents, in its current strategic plan, 2014 to 2018, Mrs Mahama said. That strategic plan would help in advocacy for the adoption of policies that promote services for adolescents to raise awareness and mobilise resources in support of programmes on adolescent reproductive health needs. Mrs Mahama, therefore, urged her fellow first ladies to make conscious efforts and commitment to address adolescent needs, especially for girls, saying the SDGs have provided a clear framework for adolescent girls across sectors like education, health, gender equality, reducing inequalities, and partnership. GNA Addis Ababa (AFP) - Troops from Ethiopia and arch-rival Eritrea have fought a heavy border battle, the Ethiopian government said Monday, reporting "significant" numbers of casualties, with both sides blaming the other for starting the fight. "There were significant casualties on both sides, but more on the Eritrean side," Ethiopian government spokesman Getachew Reda told AFP. He said the battle on Sunday was one of the most serious in recent years, noting that while the two sides had exchanged gun fire in recent years, this clash was on a far larger scale. The most comprehensive business website, citibusinessnews.com has been launched at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra. In a short remark, the Chief Executive Officer of Dalex Finance, Mr. Ken Thompson described the website as a game changer. This is a game changer, thats all I can say,he said. The event brought together players in the business sector, corporate Ghana and academia; who all lauded how comprehensive the website captures every subject on Ghanas economy. On his part, a former Chief Executive Officer of the National Insurance Authority Sylvester Mensah stated that this is the most comprehensive website for business people in Ghana. The website has the latest business stories, thought provoking and in-depth articles as well as up to date and comprehensive data on all business related sectors. Areas covered by the website include the economy, banking and finance, investment, trade, tourism, energy and agriculture. In addition, citibusinessnews.com has the biggest business directory with latest annual reports of all companies listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE). The website also provides live performance of all stocks listed on the GSE, and currency updates. It also provides video interviews with the movers and shakers of the business industry as well as all the biggest business events in pictures. The launch is part of the Citi Business Festival. By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana Photos: Kwame Botchway By Edmund Quaynor, GNA Akosombo (E/R), June 13, GNA - Ex-President John Agyekum Kofour, has admonished all faith groups to be law - abiding and exercise their franchise in the forthcoming general elections in November. He said voting was the civic responsibility of all Ghanaians and it behoved all the citizenry despite their religious backgrounds, to vote. This was contained in a speech read on his behalf at the launching of the 40th anniversary of the Akosombo Anglican Church of Resurrection at Akosombo. Former President Kuffour also called on Parliament to come out with strategies to support efforts at creating jobs for the youth in their constituencies. Nana Ansah Prem, Krontihene of Akwamu Traditional Area, called on the youth to desist from political violence during the forth-coming elections. Alhaji Oti Boateng, Chief Executive of Chocho Industries who chaired the function, called on Christians and Muslims to faithfully worship God and live out the teachings of their religion to make Ghana a better place to live. GNA We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message. business Welspun deal to make Tata Power a key player in renewables: IIFL The power purchase agreement (PPA) structure of the project and how Tata Power finances it, will decide how fruitful the acquisition be for Tata Power, says Harshwardhan Dole of IIFL said in an interview to CNBC-TV18. you are here: The chronicle of a life split between urban Manhattan and rural Montana. June 13, 2016 A Few More Questions About The Orlando Massacre Some additional bits about the NYPD fan who allegedly killed some 50 people in Orlando are coming to light. The father of the guy who is an immigrant from Afghanistan was a bit of a loon himself. He damned Pakistan and Afghan politicians over the Durand line. He put himself forward as a candidate for the Afghan presidency even when no election was in sight. His son, the killer, was known to the FBI as a loon. He hated black, gays, Jews etc and had claimed affinity to the Boston bomber, Al-Qaeda, Hizbullah and the Islamic State - three groups which hate each other. He was not known to have any contact to any of these groups. The Islamic State took the obvious step of adopting the shooter. The claim of IS responsibility did not come from the core organization but from its "news" agency which cited "sources". The IS folks are unlikely to have known of his existence until they heard the news. For them it is just good propaganda to claim a relation. The various politicians use the case as they use any case. They propagandize their favorite policies and whatever facts of the case do not fit those policies are simply shoved aside. One can only ignore them and hope that over time sanity will prevail. There are open questions I have yet to find answered: Any big event in these days produces dozens of videos. Some people inside the club must have filmed whatever happened. Will we ever see those clips? How does one guy in a club full of men manages to shoot 50+ and wound another 50+ without getting overwhelmed? He needed to change ammunition clips several times. The ideal time to attack him. Where there no three strong guys around in the club to jump him? Was it really only one shooter? Those are a lot of casualties for one sole loon to cause. It will take weeks until a more or less solid picture of the incident can be painted. There will of course be lots of speculations about false flag attacks and the like, including here in the comments. I do not see any evidence for such. The FBI had him on its radar? Well, there are some 600,000 people on the U.S. no-fly-list. Hardly any of them is a "terrorists". The FBI has even more under on and off surveillance. Its haystack is too big to find the real needles. They thought he as a loon and not a danger. They were right with the loon part. Posted by b on June 13, 2016 at 18:20 UTC | Permalink Comments next page Canadas banking industry has sounded the alarm on the burgeoning debt that is currently plaguing the countrys housing industry, in a sharp departure from its earlier stance of confidence in the sectors stability. In a Macleans article by Chris Sorensen, CEOs and chief economists of the largest banks have recently expressed concern about the out-of-control affordability crisis in Canadas real estate segment, after these institutions have funnelled huge sums into the industry over the past few years. Were a little concerned about housing prices in the Greater Vancouver area and Toronto, Scotiabank CEO Brian Porter said right after the most recent release of the banks financial results. The statement stood in stark contrast to Porters statement just two years ago, when he said that bubble is perhaps the most overused word since the global financial crisis, despite the fact that single detached homes in Vancouver were already going for an average of $1 million. It no doubt has much to do with Vancouver detached-house prices surging by 37 per cent in the year to this May, and Torontos soaring by a still ear-popping 15 per cent, Sorensen wrote in his analysis. Those sorts of gains are unsustainable and suggest investor euphoriathe always-dangerous fear of missing outhas firmly taken hold. Yet, while Scotiabank says it voluntarily curtailed its mortgage business, leading to flat growth in the most recent quarter, its unlikely to pull back on the reins too hard for fear of losing market share to competitors and leaving money on the table, he added. Sorensen noted that while price growthwhich has stood unchecked by both banks and the government for the past few yearshas by and large benefited the sellers side, its a development that has no legs to stand on in the long run. The flip side of all those big property value gains is unaffordable housing and overly indebted families. A study last year by the C.D. Howe Institute suggested that one out of every 10 mortgage-indebted households in Canada was extremely vulnerable to an economic or financial shocka figure thats likely only increased since, he stated. At the same time, there are concerns a housing bubble could do immeasurable damage to the Canadian economy if it bursts, since homeowners who suddenly find themselves underwater on their mortgages would dial back spending elsewhere, Sorensen concluded. HOUSTON (AP) A federal appeals court has refused to reconsider an appeal from a Honduran man on Texasdeath row for beating and strangling a Houston woman during a robbery at her home more than 20 years ago. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March ruled against 46-year-old Carlos Ayestas. In an opinion released Monday, the court said the full court would not rehear the appeal that argues his previous lawyers were deficient and questions the accuracy of the earlier ruling that said he had been examined by a psychologist for his 1997 trial. Ayestas wasn't. Tumbling crude and natural gas prices have weakened the energy industrys influence in Washington as cutbacks in the oilfield have spread to the nations capital. Casualties include the army of lobbyists battling new regulations and the rosters of trade groups trying to elect friendly candidates in November. The Independent Petroleum Association of America has shed about 100 members in the past year, as low prices force oil and gas companies to merge, declare bankruptcy and scrutinize every transaction, including as much as $60,000 they send the trade group in annual dues. At the National Stripper Well Association, officials started a monthly payment plan to keep some members on their rolls. But theyve still lost about 10 percent of their lineup. The National Ocean Industries Association slashed 10 percent off its 2016 dues -- the first time its given an across-the-board reduction -- to try to keep its roster full. Even the biggest industry group -- the American Petroleum Institute -- waived dues briefly last year. When everybody starts looking at their bottom line, trade association dues can be the first to go, said Tim Charters, vice president of governmental and regulatory affairs at the stripper well group, which represents the producers, owners and operators of marginal, low-producing wells. At the same time, this is when you need D.C. representation because the fight is on. With everything thats rolling out of this administration and the presidential election on the line, we need to be right here in the middle of the fight. The industry already feels battered by a two-year slump in oil and gas prices. After peaking at $6.149 per million British thermal units on Feb. 19, 2014, futures contracts for natural gas tumbled to nearly a quarter of that -- $1.64 -- on March 3, before recovering modestly to $2.48 on Tuesday. Oil prices sunk to a 12-year low of $26.21 per barrel in February. Though oil rebounded slightly, reaching $50.36 per barrel on Tuesday, West Texas Intermediate is still less than half its June 2014 high of $107.26 per barrel. More than 140 North American oil and gas producers and service companies have filed for bankruptcy since the beginning of 2015, according to Haynes & Boone, a law firm that tracks industry restructurings. Those that survived did so by cutting costs, including laying off more than 350,000 workers globally and cutting back on new drilling. Now, those cash-strapped oil and gas companies have less room in their budget for advocacy in the nations capital. Exploration and production companies spent just $6.2 million on lobbying during the first quarter of 2016 -- 17.5 percent less than they did the same time period two years ago, according to public disclosure data analyzed by Bloomberg Government. Lobbying spending by the entire oil and gas industry -- including refiners, service companies, pipeline operators and producers -- is down 4.2 percent. The sector is relying on a smaller army of lobbyists to deliver their message to lawmakers and regulators -- 608 so far this year, versus 812 at the beginning of the price slide in 2014, according to data from the not-for-profit Center for Responsive Politics. Oil companies havent closed their outposts in D.C., but they havent rushed to fill lobbyist openings either. Consider Chevron Corp., which reported activity by 13 internal lobbyists at the beginning of this year, down from 15 two years ago. ConocoPhillips reported lobbying by four employees earlier this year, compared to five in the first quarter of 2014. Oil and gas companies also have canceled contracts with outside consultants and lobbyists, who are sometimes hired to bring special expertise and personal connections to a single issue. Exxon Mobil Corp, the largest U.S. oil company, relied on 13 outside lobbying firms during the first quarter of 2016, according to disclosures filed with Congress -- down from 14 in the first quarter of 2014. Four lobbying firms reported doing work for Halliburton Co., the oilfield services company that made a failed bid to merge with Baker Hughes Inc., earlier this year, compared with six in the first quarter of 2014. The lobbying disclosures dont capture spending on consultants, strategists and public relations firms that arent involved in direct advocacy. Still, cutbacks in Washington havent matched the carnage in the oilfield. Lobbying experts say theres a good reason for that: The industry knows its in the middle of an epic battle for survival. Climate change concerns are driving a wave of new regulations and environmental activism aimed at oil and gas. Environmentalists united behind a keep it in the ground approach to fossil fuels have camped outside the homes of federal regulators deciding whether to permit new pipelines and have protested government auctions of drilling rights. They also have pushed the Obama administration to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions tied to oil and gas development, scoring a big win last month when the Environmental Protection Agency required energy companies to plug methane leaks at new wells and other facilities. Because oil and gas companies economic fortunes are very closely tied to policy around climate change, this is an industry with a tremendous amount at stake, said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the think tank New America who analyzes corporate influence and political spending. The industry is facing a number of almost existential threats and is going to be directly affected by public policy choices in the next several years. The American Petroleum Institute reported $232.9 million in total revenue in 2014, much of that coming from energy companies whose annual dues can stretch into seven figures for the groups largest members. Its membership roster has grown over the past year, partly because API absorbed Americas Natural Gas Alliance (and its 17 members) in January. Now more than ever, people recognize their footprint in Washington needs to be firm, said API spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel. But like other trade associations, API is adjusting to low oil and gas prices. It offered a dues holiday during one quarter last year, according to lobbyists whose companies are part of the organization. Despite the downturn, oil companies and industry trade groups threw resources into a campaign for crude exports last year that culminated with Congress lifting a decades-old ban on those overseas sales in December. All told, the sector reported spending $129 million lobbying on exports and other issues last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Companies and associations flew in executives to meet lawmakers on Capitol Hill, ordered up economic studies of the potential oil trade, commissioned public opinion surveys and used highly targeted online advertising to reach potential supporters. That big push -- combined with the oil and gas industrys downturn -- means some groups now have less money available to commission big economic studies and mount lawsuits to challenge new regulations now. Everybody put everything we had into exports last year, Charters said. That was not a cheap effort. While oil markets will start rebalancing after a slump next year, an oversupply in natural gas wont disappear until the end of the decade, the International Energy Agency said, slashing its gas demand outlook for a fourth straight year. Global consumption will expand by 1.5 percent annually from 2015 through 2021, down from last years forecast of 2 percent growth from 2014 through 2020 and a 2.5 gain over the prior six years, the Paris-based agency said Wednesday in its Medium-Term Gas Market Report. The slowdown will be driven by weaker use in the U.S. and Japan as the fuel struggles to compete against booming renewables and very cheap coal in power generation. Slower generation growth, rock-bottom coal prices and robust deployment of renewables constrain gass ability to grow faster in todays low-price environment, the IEA said. Global gas markets will remain oversupplied until 2018 and demand and supply wont align until 2021 as liquefied natural gas capacity jumps 45 percent through 2021, 90 percent of which in the U.S. and Australia. Markets will struggle to absorb the increase amid the return of Japanese reactors, cheap coal and competitive Russian pipeline fuel in Europe. The IEA in February said an oil glut that damped prices will end in 2017. U.S. gas fell 71 percent from a peak in 2008 to average $2.61 a million British thermal units on the Henry Hub in 2015, while U.K. prices on the National Balancing Point dropped 39 percent in the period to $6.53 a million Btu, according to the IEA. Meanwhile, benchmark coal in the U.S. fell 54 percent to $1.97 a million Btu and 62 percent to $2.34 in northwest Europe. World gas demand will be 3.9 trillion cubic meters (140 trillion cubic feet) in 2021, compared with 3.6 trillion cubic meters in 2015, the IEA said. Global supply will also rise 1.5 percent annually, slowing from the prior period as low prices and demand deter investments. Global gas prices will remain under pressure as huge amount of LNG export capacity is coming online just as demand slows, Fatih Birol, executive director at the IEA, said in BrusselsA at a conference hosted by Friends of Europe, which seeks to encourage discussion on a range of European issues. Consumption in Europe will rise 0.3 percent annually, ending years of declines, amid support for gas in power. While the region is seen as a market of last resort for excess LNG, its potential is limited by competitive Russian pipeline supplies. U.S. demand growth will slow as the government supports solar and wind generation and the use of gas in electricity stagnates through 2021 after a 20 percent surge in 2015. Gas use in developed Asian nations will fall 0.2 percent a year as modest growth in South Korea and increased use in Australia offset some of the 11 percent decline in Japan over the six-year period. China will be a key driver of demand, with 9.1 percent annual growth following a 4 percent increase in 2015, the slowest pace in more than 15 years. If Chinese consumption stalls, the global oversupply will extend well into the 2020s asA markets in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East only offer pockets of demand, the IEA said. It is therefore clear that the trajectory of global gas markets and how fast they rebalance will depend on the scale of expansion in China and the rest of developing Asia, the IEA said. Devon Energy Corp., the energy producer thats targeted $3 billion of asset sales to fund drilling and lower debt, agreed to sell fields in Texas and Oklahoma and a royalty interest in the northern Midland Basin for almost $1 billion to undisclosed buyers. The largest transaction was for reserves in East Texas for $525 million, the Oklahoma City-based oil and natural gas producer said in a statement Monday. The company also agreed to sell its position in the Anadarko Basins Granite Wash area for $310 million. The transactions are expected to close in the third quarter. A global oil-price crash has forced Devon and the rest of the industry to slash costs, lay off thousands of workers and cut dividends and exploration budgets. While prices have rebounded somewhat in 2016, Chief Executive Officer Dave Hager said last month its still not enough for Devon to grow production again. With oil prices having moved in our favor throughout the sales process, we are encouraged by the interest and progress in marketing our remaining non-core oil assets in the Midland Basin and Access Pipeline in Canada, Hager said in the statement. Proceeds for the entire divestiture program are well on their way to achieving our previously announced range of $2 billion to $3 billion in 2016. The East Texas properties produced the equivalent of 22,000 barrels of oil a day in the first quarter, 5 percent of which was crude, and generated $10 billion of cash. Proved reserves are about 87 million barrel equivalents. The Granite Wash assets produced the equivalent of 14,000 barrel of oil a day, 13 percent of it oil, and generated $6 million in cash during the quarter. Proved reserves are estimated at 31 million barrel-equivalents. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark crude, is up about 33 percent this year after dropping 30 percent last year. Devon is in advanced negotiations to sell its half stake in the Access Pipeline, according to the statement. The line transports Canadian heavy oil and Devon is seeking a 25-year transportation agreement in that deal, Hager said at a May 18 investor conference. Devon intends to use a third of sale proceeds to bolster this years capital spending and pay down debt with the rest, Hager said last month. Phelan M. Ebenhack The Unitarian Universalist Church of Midland announced today that it will host a vigil on Thursday for the victims of the Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting. Our hearts break for the lives lost and forever changed by the hateful violence in Orlando, said the Rev. Emily Wright-Magoon. We at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Midland stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community, including people of color who are especially targeted by hate. We are called by our faith to stand on the side of love. We must end homophobia and racism -- in our own hearts and in our communities. Midland ISD has made some changes to the summer school schedule because of the states education commissioners decision relating to STAAR. Summer school for fifth- through eighth-graders will continue this week, but has been canceled for the week of June 20, according to a press release from the district. "If it requires removing all cabinet ... President Obama was Mondays KVML Newsmaker of the Day. Here are his words: Hi, everybody. Today, I want to talk with you about the crisis in Puerto Rico and why it matters to all of us. Puerto Ricans are American citizens, just like folks in Maine or Oklahoma or New Mexico. And over the last decade, Puerto Rico has suffered through a deep and painful recession but unlike the rest of the United States, it hasnt recovered. Today, the island continues to face a crippling economic crisis. Schools are closing. Power is being cut off at homes and hospitals. Teachers have to choose between turning on the lights or turning on the computers. Doctors cant get medicine to treat newborns unless they pay in cash. And as the Zika virus threatens both the island and the mainland, workers dealing with mosquito control to help protect women and their unborn babies are at risk of being laid off. Right now, Puerto Rico is spending about a third of its tax revenue on debt payments far more than anywhere else in America. And on July 1, the island faces another $2 billion in debt payments that it cannot pay. There is only one way for Puerto Rico to pull itself out of this crisis and thats by restructuring its debt and finding a sustainable fiscal path toward growth and opportunity for its people. But heres the problem. Right now, Puerto Rico doesnt have the tools it needs to restructure its debt tools available elsewhere in America. And only Congress can fix the problem, and put Puerto Rico on a path to recovery. Thankfully, this week, the House overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill to address the crisis, and I now urge the Senate to move quickly to follow suit. This bill wont cost federal taxpayers a dime. It doesnt include special-interest bailouts. And it gives Puerto Rico the ability to restructure its debt, safeguard essential services, and provide important protections to public pensions that more than 300,000 folks rely on to retire with dignity. This bill also includes something else a temporary system of oversight to help implement needed reforms and ensure transparency. I know that some folks in Puerto Rico are worried about this kind of oversight. But Ive always insisted that any solution to this crisis has to respect the democratic rights of the people of Puerto Rico. And I am committed to making sure that Puerto Ricans are well-represented in this process, so that we can be sure were taking steps that are in the islands best interests. This bill is not a perfect solution nobodys saying it is. Thats what happens in divided government. But its the only option on the table to save Puerto Rico from spiraling out of control. And thats exactly what would happen if Congress fails to do its job. Theres no question this is a trying time for folks in Puerto Rico. Theyve seen too many jobs lost and too many neighbors leave in search of better opportunity elsewhere. Its clear that its time for Puerto Rico to chart a new course and make a fresh start. This bill is just a first step. We all have more work to do to make sure that the people of Puerto Rico receive the health care they deserve and the good jobs and economic opportunities they need to build a better future for their kids. And I want the people of Puerto Rico to know that my administration is committed to your success. Because youre vital to Americas success. Thats what this is all about. We dont turn our backs on our fellow Americans. We dont treat folks differently because of where they live. Instead, we treat each other as Americans. We come together, especially when its hard. Thats how weve always set ourselves on a course toward a brighter day. Thanks everybody. The Newsmaker of the Day is heard every weekday morning on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 AM. Bar Incident fire on STF from Big Hill Road View Photos Update at 10:00 p. m.: Forest officials say even though the flames have not grown from an acre in size, they are reluctant to call the fire contained. Wanting to err on the side of caution, the plan is to keep one engine and hand crew on scene overnight mopping up and checking for hotspots, according to forest officials. Update at 4:50 p.m.: Forest officials report crews are getting a handle on the blaze, as all aircraft have been called off the scene. The fires remains at an acre in size. No structures are threatened. Original post at 4:30 p.m.: Stanislaus National Forest, CA Fire resources including Columbia air are battling a vegetation fire in the Stanislaus National Forest that was originally sparked Saturday morning. Forest officials report the Bar Incident is a rekindle of a fire we told you about Saturday that was sparked along Forest Road 3N11 a mile northeast of Italian Bar Road near Rose Creek in the Columbia area around 2 a.m. The fire was contained at a quarter acres but has restarted and grown to an acre. It is burning in timber in a remote area. Todays flames broke out around 3:30p.m. On scene are on a helicopter, tanker, air attack, a dozer, two engines, one water tender and two crews. Forest officials report both a dozer and hose line have been completed around the flames. We will bring you more details as soon as they come into the news center. A special thanks to our community news partner Paul Zak for sending in the photo. Washington, DC Fifteen US Congressional members from California are crying foul over plans that threaten to deliver previously allocated water to farmers and wildlife refuges. Mother Lode Rep. Tom McClintock along with 13 other Republican members of Congress signed a letter penned by Fresno Democratic Rep. Jim Costa to US Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and US Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. The letter questions conflicting proposed supposed fish enhancement-related actions by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) relating to Shasta Reservoir. The signers say these would create havoc by further reducing water supplies for numerous stakeholders down the line, while potentially requiring further releases from other sources such as Friant and Folsom dams. Costa, who hails from a third-generation Fresno-area farming family, points out that the agencies have continually maintained, even in testimony to Congress over regulatory constraints, that water supply shortages were primarily due to drought. A Change Of Plan? However, after four years of drought and two years of zero water allocations for many farms and communities served by the Central Valley Project (CVP), the past winter restored Shasta Reservoir and Folsom Lake to above average storage levels. Costa notes that supplies were deemed sufficient for the Bureau of Reclamation to make 100 percent water allocation commitments earlier this year to Sacramento Valley farmers, San Joaquin River Exchange contractors and wildlife refuges in the San Joaquin Valley. Calling to task NMFS, which previously signed off on Reclamations operational plan back in March, the letter questions NMFSs recent proposal to significantly limit releases from Shasta Reservoir to further protect winter-run salmon that would cost the CVP about 400,000 acre-feet of water, creating impacts to Reclamations operational plan, possibly requiring more draw from Millerton Lake. In direct conflict to these actions, the communication also notes a FWS request to purchase up to 300,000 acre-feet of water, some of it from Shasta, in support of plans to increase summer outflow for Delta smelt. According to the lawmakers, the agencies proposed actions raise numerous questions that need to be vetted to the public, so that constituents may understand the choices and benefits and have the opportunity to evaluate and determine the sacrifices involved. The letter (to read the full text, click here) requests detailed explanations before FWS or NMFS take any actions that deviate from Reclamations already approved operational plan. The impact of Sunday mornings shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando has rippled throughout many communities in Central Florida. In the face of the tragedy, they are standing together in solidarity. Equality Florida: "This act of violence will not define us" Non-profit raised nearly $1 mil. within a few hours to assist families of victims Everyone is thinking of Orlando right now. Everyone is watching Orlando," said Nadine Smith, the Co-Founder and CEO of Equality Florida. "And everyone is proud of how we are standing together here in Orlando." Sunday afternoon, several organizations gathered at The Center, an outreach outpost for the LGBT community on Mills Avenue in downtown Orlando. Amid tears, the takeaway message was that love trumps hate, and standing together gives strength. For Anna Eskamani, who works for Planned Parenthood, the shooting hit close to home. Not only physically -- as she lives nearby -- but emotionally as well. Eskamani is an Iranian-American, with many family members identifying with Islam. Islam is meant to be a religion of peace," she said. I woke up at 4 a.m. to the sounds of helicopters." This is a powerful community, this is a passionate community," continued Eskamani. "One that is filled by love, and we want to make sure it stays that way. The people in attendence Sunday shared hugs, resources and resolve. "This act of violence will not define us," said Gina Duncan, with Equality Florida, "and it will not defeat us." Other's echoed her sentiments. We will stand together against all phobias," said Carlos Guillermo Smith, also with Equality Florida. "Transphobia, homophobia, Islamophobia. This is who Central Florida is as a people. Later in the evening hundreds came together once again for a vigil at an Orlando church, Joy Metropolitan Community Church along South Ferncreek Avenue. Equality Florida launched a GoFundMe page, which they assert will go directly to the victims families. Within hours, they raised nearly $1 million dollars. Experts believe that Pulse nightclub where the horrific rampage occurred Saturday night may have been targeted because it was a gay and lesbian hangout. Since the shooting, The LGBT Center of Central Florida has been a gathering place for many members of that community. The Center takes to social media to answer questions Grief counselors present According to leaders at the Center, their 946 N Mills Ave. location has seen a constant flow of counselors, people donating and others simply looking for answers throughout the day. They dont know if they know somebody, explained counselor Gloria Glusain. You know, the list of names has not been released. So they may know somebody, and they just need a place to come. Questions regarding the victims of the shooting have been endless. To answer them all, the Center is taking to social media. People like Michael Deeying and his friends are posting updates on Facebook, and directing people to the right resources. Many, including Deeying, have been at the Center since just after the story broke. I have friends and managers of PULSE contact me to say theyre okay, said Deeying. Im still missing one person and were not sure if theyre OK or not. And Im not sure if its going be OK. Deeyings and Glusians volunteer efforts are being applauded by staffers at the Center. All 49 victims of the shooting early Sunday morning at the Pulse nightclub have been identified, Orlando authorities said. The final name was released to the public Monday night. The victims range in age from 18-50 and come from all walks of life. The White House has announced President Obama will come to Orlando on Thursday to pay his respects to the families of the victims and stand in solidarity with the community. Meanwhile, thousands showed up at a vigil Monday night to mourn the victims and vow to never back away from hate. And workers from Pulse also vowed to rebuild and reopen their nightclub. TOP NEWS: List of identified victims Gov. Rick Scott asked President Obama to declare state of emergency for Florida Omar Mateen exchanged gunfire with police before barricading himself inside bathroom Several hostages were also inside the bathroom with Mateen Hostage negotiators communicated with Mateen for hours; no shots fired during that time OPD used 'explosive breach,' armored truck to get hostages out of nightclub Mateen escaped during rescue and began firing at officers; he was then killed By 11 p.m. Sunday, all bodies had been removed from the nightclub Other people are being investigated in connection to the shooting FBI seeking tips, information: 1-800-CALL-FBI Orange Avenue closed between Kaley Avenue to Grant Street Obama orders public flags at half-staff till sundown Thursday PREVIOUS COVERAGE Update: 8:10 a.m. In an interview with News 13 at the Pulse nightclub, Gov. Rick Scott said sharing information and stopping ISIS are important to stopping attacks like what Orlando saw. When asked if gun control or restricting access to the assault rifle used by shooter Omar Mateen, the Republican governor said that radical Islam killed the victims of the nightclub, not guns. "I believe in the right to bear arms. I believe in destroying ISIS. I believe in attacking radical Islam and stopping it. Thats whats doing this," he answered. Scott said that he was concerned that the White House would not share information with him. When the Paris terrorist attacks happened, he spoke with the White House and asked that before refugees come to Florida, if the White House can share the vetting information with law enforcement. According to Scott, the White House refused, citing privacy rights to the refugees, but he said that he replied back, "My citizens have security rights." Scott believes that information is important to preventing terrorist attacks. "I don't want another attack at a gay nightclub in my state. I don't want an attack on anybody in my state," he said, adding, "We should take care of everybody." But he did want people to be alert and report anything suspicious. "If you see something, you got to say something," he told News 13. When asked if Mateen had been to other places in Orlando before his attack at the Pulse, Scott said that law enforcement will give that information out as the investigation continues. But while he said as a city there will be a grieving period, Orlando will recover. "We will come back," he said. "We're a great city." Update: 7:01 a.m. Chris Callen, who worked at Pulse as a performer, told CNN's Anderson Cooper he had seen shooter Omar Mateen numerous times at the club. Update: 2:30 a.m. The GoFundMe site to help victims of the Pulse shooting has reached almost $3 million since it was opened on Sunday. Among the biggest donors, GoFundMe.com itself, which gave $100,000. Meanwhile the city of Orlando has created a 501c3 called the One Orlando Fund. The DeVos Family, JetBlue and Darden Restaurants have already pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars to the fund. Update: 12:20 a.m. On Tuesday, Target stores across the country will honor two employees who were killed in the shooting Sunday. Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26, worked at an Orlando-area Target while attending college. Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo worked at a Starbucks inside a Kissimmee Target, and also studied theater. Target issued this statement Monday: Like millions of Americans, the Target team is mourning the horrific violence that took place in Orlando over the weekend. Sadly, we confirmed this morning that two of our team members were tragically killed in the attack. Since that time, we have been in contact with their families to offer our heartfelt condolences and have brought in onsite counseling resources for our team. Update: 12 a.m. Two Spirit is looking for bilingual volunteers to counsel families affected by the tragedy. They have shifts open for Tuesday and the rest of the week. If you are interested in helping, text Lindsay Kincaid at 504-913-5746. DO NOT CALL. Update: 9 p.m. The 49th and final Orlando shooting victim has been publicly identified as Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez. Update: 8:55 p.m. President Obama will come to Orlando Thursday to pay respect to the victims' families, according to CNN. Update: 8:50 p.m. As the vigil ended, Saunders reminded everyone that there were still people who were at the hospitals, and asked us all to take care of each other. Update: 8:25 p.m. Rev. Dr. Betty Deas Clark of Mother Emmanuel Church in South Carolina takes the stage. She says all the love that Mother Emmanuel felt after the fatal shooting at the church a year ago is what she feels in Orlando. Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said he was coming to Orlando to console residents, but Orlando is inspiring him instead and inspiring the country to say enough. Update: 8:20 p.m. Orlando Commissioner Patty Sheehan takes the stage, fighting tears, to thank everyone in Orlando. "Murderers will not destroy our spirit. I love you, Orlando." Update: 8:15 p.m. The president of The Human Rights Campaign traveled from Washington to speak at the vigil. "We are all Orlando today." Update: 8:05 p.m. The head of The Center, Orlando's LGBT community center, thanked Orlando Police Dept. for their work Sunday morning to keep them safe in the moments after the shooting began. Update: 8 p.m. Equality FL announces that some $2.4 million has been raised in a GoFundMe account for the victims and their families. Also, Orlando Health announced on Twitter that at this time all patients have a positive prognosis and appear to be improving. Update: 7:50 p.m. Hispanic LGBT leaders and a representative from CAIR are now reading out the names of the victims in the shooting. Update: 7:40 p.m. Pulse workers took the stage and vowed to come back, bigger than ever. "We will not be defeated! We are here to stay!" The owners then led the audience in a chant of "Peace Love Pulse!" Update: 7:30 p.m. Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs fought back tears as she promised that we would stand "behind you, in front of you and beside" the LGBT community in the fight to be able to be "who you are." Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer also promised the mourners, "We will get through this because we are Orlando... In our city's darkest hour, our residents have shown they are that light." Update: 7:15 p.m. A vigil has begun at Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center in Orlando. Former State Rep. Joe Saunders opened the vigil, followed by a performance by the Orlando Gay Chorus and then a remarks by two members of "The Three Wise Guys" an Orlando interfaith team that hosts a radio show. Imam Muhammad Musri, one of the Three Wise Guys and senior Imam of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, condemned the attack and then called on fellow Muslims to join him and others for a march on Washington to call for an end to violent attacks. He also called for a ban on assault weapons. Update: 6:10 p.m. Orlando Health, which runs Orlando Regional Medical Center, announced it will host a news conference Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. It will feature two patients and eight surgeons. Update: 6 p.m. Orlando Police Dept. released the names of the officers who fired at the Pulse Nightclub shooter: Officer working extra duty at Pulse: Officer Adam Gruler, member of OPD since 2001 First Patrol Unit On Scene (Also a SWAT Member): Lieutenant Scott Smith, member of OPD since 1992 First Patrol Unit On Scene (Also a SWAT Member): Sergeant Jeffrey Backhaus, member of OPD since 2004 SWAT: Officer Timothy Stanley, member of OPD since 1998 SWAT: Officer Kevin Easterling, member of OPD since 1994 SWAT: Officer Andrew Bishop, member of OPD since 1994 SWAT: Sergeant James Parker, member of OPD since 1991 SWAT: Detective Raul Rivas, member of OPD since 1992 SWAT: Lieutenant Jonathan Bigelow, member of OPD since 2001 SWAT: Officer Ricardo Duenas, member of OPD since 2014 Officer shot in the Kevlar helmet: Officer Michael Napolitano, member of OPD since 2012 The Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates all of OPDs officer involved shootings. Update: 5:15 p.m. Another name has been added to the list of victims in Sunday's shooting. Akyra Money Murray, 18, is the youngest person killed in the attack at Pulse nightclub. The names of 48 of the 49 victims have now been released publicly. See the full list. Update: 5:15 p.m. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, spoke on the floor of the U.S. Senate Monday afternoon, after spending Sunday and Monday morning in Orlando near the command center. Nelson commended first responders, the seamless coordination of federal, state and local officials, and volunteers in the community who have been waiting on line to donate blood. The senator also said that while his Orlando office took in calls of grief, shock and comfort on Sunday, his office on Monday received hundreds of hateful calls on Monday. Nelson said that over the next few days and weeks, Americans will have to start diging down deep and figuring out who we are as a nation. "In the heat of political debate, we can sharply differ, but we can be respectful of the other fellow's point of view," Nelson said. "Thats America, and until we finally come to that conclusion and insist on this aberrant behavior is stopped -- until that happens, we will still be grieving." Update: 4:50 p.m. Harry Potter author JK Rowling is one of the many people mourning the loss of the 49 people killed in the attack. In particular, a young Universal employee. Luis Vielma, 22, was one of the people killed in the attack early Sunday at Pulse nightclub. Rowling the following earlier this morning: Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying. #Orlando pic.twitter.com/Nz2ZCWxNsS J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 13, 2016 Rowling also tweeted to those who knew Vielma, offering condolences. She also offered prayers to another Universal worker who was injured. The President of Universal Orlando Resort issued this statement regarding Vielma's death: Update: 4:25 p.m. SunRail is holding special extended service tonight so that people can attend the vigil at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. Thousands are expected to attend the vigil outside in downtown Orlando, which could cause a considerable traffic tie-up. The vigil starts at 7 p.m. For SunRail fares and schedules, head to the SunRail website. Update: 4:15 p.m. Central Floridians continue to turn out in any way they can to help. At the nearby Ace Hardware, workers decided to help out by cooking for police officers. The store, which is just inside the closure zone on Orange Avenue, was open but not very busy. Target contacted us and said hey, if youll cook it, well supply all the meat," said Walter Toole with Ace Hardware. "And well bring you some ice. So we worked together, they brought us a bunch of ice and the meat, we start cooking. Groups like Libby's Legacy Breast Cancer Foundation are doing their part by organizing volunteers and getting support for everyone from law enforcement to blood donors waiting in long lines at blood banks. "The people in line at the blood banks. We need to get sunscreen, water, umbrellas to them," said executive director Robin Maynard. Even pet groups are getting involved. Rescue groups and shelters are volunteering to help care for the pets of victims and survivors, including Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando. "We are Orlando strong," Maynard said. "We're not going to sit back and hide in fear over this hate crime and terrorist act." Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying. #Orlando pic.twitter.com/Nz2ZCWxNsS J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 13, 2016 Rowling Update: 3:40 p.m. JetBlue is offering free seats on available flights to and from Orlando for immediate family and domestic partners of victims who were killed or injured in the Pulse shooting. Those who need the help can call 1-800-JETBLUE for details. JetBlue also said it would waiver fees for customers traveling to and from Orlando who need to change their travel plans at the last minute. The airline also said it will make a charitable donation to help victims and families. In addition to being a JetBlue focus city, Orlando is also home to JetBlue's Orlando Support Center and JetBlue University. Update: 3:30 p.m. The Florida Disaster Fund has been updated to help provide financial help to any groups that help anyone affected by Sunday's attack. The state says 100 percent of the funds donated to this acount will go directly to people in need because there is no overhead. Donations can be made at the Florida Disaster Fund website. Checks can be made payable to the Volunteer Florida Foundation. Volunteer Florida Foundation Attention: Florida Disaster Fund 3800 Esplanade Way, Suite 180 Tallahassee, FL 32311 Update: 2:45 p.m. The city of Orlando has released the names of 47 deceased victims from Sunday's shooting at Pulse. The victims of Sunday's shooting come from all walks of life. We are sharing details about them as the information becomes available. Tonight at 7 p.m. the city of Orlando will hold a vigil at the Plaza at Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. Thousands are expected at the vigil. Update: 11:30 a.m. Forty-four patients were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center after the Pulse shooting. Twenty-nine remain hospitalized, while five are in "grave" condition, and remain critically ill, hospital officials said Monday. Since the incident, 26 operations have been performed; six surgeries are scheduled for Monday. Thanks to community support, local blood banks have more than 600 units of blood on hand, more than normal. Six patients have been discharged since arriving at ORMC Sunday morning, hospital officials said. Update: 7:28 a.m. Members of law enforcement addressed the public early Monday morning to provide updates in the investigation of the deadly Orlando shooting. Orlando Police Chief John Mina provided a more detailed account of the events that unfolded early Sunday morning during the shooting at Pulse nightclub. An OPD officer who was working at the club, in full uniform, responded to shots fired at about 2 a.m. According to Mina, that officer and additional officers who responded to the scene entered into a gun battle with the suspect, identified as Omar Mateen. Mateen later retreated to one of the bathroom, where he barricaded himself inside with several hostages, police said. During the hostage situation, negotiators were in contact with Mateen. Chief Mina said during that time Mateen did pledge allegiance to the Islamic State. No additional shots were fired while Mateen was barricaded inside the bathroom, according to police. Police decided to set up an explosive breach near one of the bathroom walls in order to free the hostages. The explosive breach was set off, but it didnt fully puncture the wall, police said. The decision was made to use an armored truck to punch a hole in the wall. Dozens of people were rescued through the opening in wall. Mateen, who was armed, also escaped through the wall and engaged in gun battle with officers. He was subsequently killed. When asked about the release of the 911 calls, he said that decision would be up to the FBI since they are part of the agencys investigation. However, Paul Wysopal with the FBI said the agency is pulling resources from up and down the eastern seaboard to piece together what happened and why. "The FBI has brought down resources from the Miami field office, the Atlanta field office, the Jacksonville field office, as well and Quantico, Virginia," said Wysopal. "The laboratory has sent down a shooting reconstructionist and that is kind of the next task at hand." Investigators are looking at what happened after the initial gun battle with Orlando police. Three weapons were recovered from the gunman. Two have been traced back to Mateen, ATF agents are working to trace the third weapon. U.S. Attorney Lee Bentley also mentioned that investigators have been collecting electronic and physical evidence related to the shooting. There is an ongoing criminal investigation, but it is in its early stages. Investigators said there are investigating other people, but couldn't say yet whether anyone else will be charged in connection to the shooting. By 11 p.m. Sunday night, all the deceased victims had been removed from Pulse nightclub and turned over to the Medical Examiner's Office. So far, the next of kin for 24 of the victims have been notified, but that number is expected to change throughout the day. Law enforcement officials said that 48 of the 49 victims identities have been confirmed. Mayor Buddy Dyer emphasized the importance of the community coming together after the tragedy. We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater, Dyer said. We will be defined by how we respond, how we treat each other and this community has already stepped up to do that. For the remainder of the day, law enforcement will be working to identify more victims and notify their families. A hotline has been set up for family members who are still trying to reach loved ones who may have been at Pulse during the shooting. State Attorney General Pam Bondi stressed that the number is only for immediate family members who are trying to get information. The number for the hotline is (407) 246-4357. During the press conference, Governor Rick Scott announced that he had asked President Obama to declare a state of emergency for the State of Florida. Scott declared a state of emergency for Florida Sunday after being briefed on the shooting. A state of emergency was also declared for the City of Orlando. HARTFORD (AP) Police in Connecticut say theyre being extra vigilant after the shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida that left at least 50 people dead. New Haven police say theyre paying close attention to public gatherings and LGBTQ venues. While there is no known threat of violence to New Haven or other Connecticut communities, New Haven police say theyre responding with an abundance of caution. Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy has ordered all flags in the state to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the victims of the shooting early Sunday in Orlando. BERLIN A vigil for the victims of the Orlando shooting rampage will be held at a local mosque on Tuesday. It is with a very heavy heart that we heard about the horrific shooting spree in Orlando, Florida, Reza Mansoor, president of the Islamic Association of Greater Hartford, said in a statement. We welcome the community to attend in solidarity with all Americans and especially the LGBT community in this difficult time. The way to defeat terrorism is to stand together and reject the hate. The vigil will be held at 7 p.m. at the mosque, 1781 Berlin Turnpike. A total of 49 people were killed Sunday at the Pulse Orlando Night Club & Ultra Lounge, a popular LGBT bar. Another 53 people were injured in what is considered the worse mass shooting in U.S. history. Police identified the gunman as Omar Mateen, who was killed by the police at the club. According to authorities, Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS and was homophobic. In this month of fasting when we contemplate how we can be better it is all the more tragic to see this act of pure hate perpetrated by a troubled individual, Mansoor said. We must stand up against this hate. Muslims are in the midst of Ramadan, a holy month of fasting. Other area houses of worship are also planning vigils for the Orlando shooting victims. In Meriden, Center Congregational Church and the Unitarian Universalist Church are holding an intra-faith vigil on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Center Congregational, located on the corner of East Main and Broad streets. Center Congregational Pastor Rev. Jenei Grigg said Meriden churches and mosques have been notified of the vigil. Weve been trying to gather and centralize the information to make it happen, Grigg said. The First Congregational Church in Southington is planning a vigil on Wednesday at 6 p.m. First Congregational Pastor Ron Brown is organizing the night of prayer and compassion. The shootings also reignited the political and social debate on gun control. Connecticuts U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Christopher Murphy called on Congress to enact more gun control legislation. Im aching for the victims, their loved ones, and the people of Orlando, and I pray that all those injured have a quick and full recovery, Murphy said in a statement. This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America nowhere else. Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. The Connecticut Citizens Defense League criticized Blumenthal and Murphy for their stance on guns. While CCDL members and most compassionate Americans are still thinking only of the victims and families of this horrific act, Senators Murphy and Blumenthal are more concerned with advancing their political careers,said a statement from CCDL president Scott Wilson. Once again, our two senators are calling for more gun laws that would only impact persons who actually obey the laws of our society. The individual who perpetrated this mass shooting broke numerous laws, and is bordering on insanity... In Florida, it is illegal to carry a firearm into any portion of an establishment that serves alcoholic beverages. The Utopian fantasies of gun free zones simply do not work, Wilson said. In a statement, Connecticut Against Gun Violence said another community like Newtown has had to bear the full brunt of our Congressional inaction on renewing a federal ban on assault weapons. Over the coming hours and days we will learn more about the shooter and his possible motives, stated Ron Pinciaro, executive director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence. What we do know is that, once again, an angry young man, perhaps one who should have been on the Terror Watch list, had easy access to powerful weapons and used those guns to kill dozens of innocent people. Police in Connecticut say theyre being extra vigilant in the wake of the shooting. In New Haven, police say theyre paying close attention to public gatherings and LGBT venues. While there is no known threat of violence to New Haven or other Connecticut communities, New Haven police say theyre responding with an abundance of caution, according to the Associated Press. Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy has ordered all flags in the state to be lowered to half-staff in honor of the Orlando shooting victims mgodin@record-journal.com (203) 317-2255 Twitter: @Cconnbiz Noam Galai /Getty Images for TechCrunch San Francisco-based food delivery app DoorDash Inc. announced Monday it would begin operating in some San Antonio neighborhoods and suburbs, joining a throng of delivery services that have popped up in the Alamo City during the past year. DoorDash which currently delivers food in Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston among 23 other cities expects to deliver from hundreds of restaurants in the San Antonio area starting with Grimaldis Pizzeria, California Pizza Kitchen, Tarka Indian Kitchen and Embers Wood Fire Grill. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Former San Antonio anchorman Christopher Heath, currently an investigative TV reporter in Orlando, Fla., was, like much of the media on this horrific day, hard at work. Heath started pitching in at ABC station WFTV at the crack of dawn, covering the deadliest mass shooting in this nation's history. Making the event, which left 50 dead and more injured, even more horrific was his familiarity with the scene of the tragedy: a popular bar in a nice neighborhood where he regularly jogged. It also was a mere eight miles from his home. RELATED: SAPD to increase security around popular gay clubs following mass shooting "It's definitely scary . . . especially scary to have this happen in your own backyard," Heath, who co-anchored the weekend news on KENS-TV for three years before leaving in 2011 for jobs in, first Ohio, and then, Florida. "It's one of those days that before you head to work you hug your kids one last time," he said. The father of two young boys was on the job by 7 a.m. Eastern time, he said, "making phone calls and pulling records" trying to find out as much about the shooter as possible. "I'm doing what I can to help wherever I'm needed." At the time of our phone chat this afternoon, he said people had no idea why this happened. "We're still searching for motive." He said the community "not only is shocked but saddened. Most heartening, he said, was seeing people doing what they could to help. RELATED: Local activists, community members react to Orlando shooting "Within hours of the news of the shooting there were lines wrapping around the block for people to give blood. You're proud to call a place home when you see community quickly respond to something like this." It also was heartening for Heath's former S.A. TV colleagues to learn, via Facebook, that he was safe. jjakle@express-news.net This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Bonham Exchange will be donating its cover charges this Friday and Saturday to charities benefiting the victims the massacre at an Orlando LGBT nightclub that left 50 dead, including the shooter, and dozens of others injured. Please come in to help us raise money and awareness as we stand together in solidarity for the LGBTQ community, a flyer read on the Bonham Exchanges Facebook page. RELATED: As the shootings unfolded, a horror for 1 mother via text All of the cover charges, which run $5 for adults and $15 for minors, will go to the charity, said Lee Haines, the clubs general manager. Following the shooting, The Bonham Exchange shared a post Sunday grieving for those killed and injured at Pulse in Orlando. We are saddened and grieving by the senseless act of terror against our brothers and sisters in Orlando. We pray God's peace, comfort and healing to the victims and their friends and families, The Bonham Exchange said on Facebook. Haines said the shooting at Pulse in Orlando was a terrible tragedy and disgusting. I cant believe it, he said in an interview with mySA.com. The Bonham Exchange, which has been known as one of the oldest gay-friendly hotspots in town for several decades, has a mixed crowd of both gay and straight patrons, Haines said. RELATED: Brooks & Dunn singer Ronnie Dunn blasts President Obama's comments on Orlando massacre He said people know what to expect when they come to the Bonham Exchange, and people come together in unity to have a good time without prejudice. "As long as you have an open mind youre gonna have a great time, he said. Haines said security guards at the Bonham Exchange check all purses and backpacks for weapons and alcohol to ensure the safety of all patrons. We need to know whats coming in our club, Haines said. Haines has also been very pleased with the San Antonio Police Departments response to the shooting, with several bicycle officers meeting with him to provide extra security outside the club on Sunday night, which is the day of the week the club hosts drag queens for performances. The Bonham Exchanges security guards currently do not carry weapons, but Haines said he may consider allowing his guards who work outside the club to carry them. Safety of my patrons is the number one concern, Haines said. RELATED: Orlando mourns its dead; gunman may have been 'homegrown' A GoFundMe page has been setup to rally funds to help the victims of the shooting and the families of those involved, as well. So far, the page has raised more than $2.1 million toward its $3 million goal as of 2:45 p.m. Monday. Haines said the proceeds from Bonham Exchange will likely go to that GoFundMe page, but he's also looking into other charities to determine which ones will best benefit the people affected by the Orlando shooting. The mass shooting, officially deemed the deadliest one in American history, left 50 people dead, including the shooter, and 53 wounded. The shooting has spurred debates regarding gun control, LGBT issues and religion. twhite@mysa.com Twitter: @tylerlwhite We scoured, hunted and searched far and wide in an effort to find that perfect bit of humor for Father's Day. From Buzzfeed and Reddit to Twitter and Mashable, these are the absolute best of the worst Dad Jokes you will ever read. Runners, zip liners and pets embarked on San Antonio's newest, largest city park under sunny skies and the lens of a local videography company that captured the action with drone footage on Saturday. Pearsall Park, at 4700 Old Pearsall Road, hosted about 2,000 summertime adventure seekers this weekend to the splash pads, skate parks, playground, fitness challenge zone, zip line and other amenities. Airborne Aerial Photography flew a drone above the grounds for a tour of the Southwest Side's newest attraction. NEW MILFORD Bats that have lived in an old tunnel on the Boardman Road Quarry for decades will get a new home in the coming weeks as O&G Industries constructs a new cave in preparation for blasting thats expected to affect the bats current home. The man-made cave will be less than a mile from the current cave near the quarrys entrance, which is closed to the public. Bats will be able to hibernate there from late fall to early spring. Were being proactive, said Ken Faroni, director of planning and permits at Torrington-based O&G Industries. The idea was the sooner we build it, the higher the probability they would use it in the winter. O&G has been working with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection for at least five years to create a new seasonal resting place to protect the bats as the quarrys work spreads throughout the site. They hired consultants to expand on a template design to ensure the cave would be appropriate for bats in this part of Connecticut. Theres no magic formula, theres no one size fits all, Faroni said. The habitat will include a 40-foot long tunnel thats six feet wide and seven feet tall. It will feed into an underground chamber thats 17 feet wide, 10 feet deep and 15 feet high. O&G worked with engineers that specialize in caves to ensure the humidity, temperature, air circulation and other factors are ideal for the bats. Were pretty optimistic that once its done, the bats will move to it, said Jenny Dickson, a DEEP wildlife biologist. Work is expected to start Monday and last two to four weeks. Dickson said bats are known to travel 100 miles to find suitable hibernation sites, so it wouldnt be unusual for them to move to a different location on the quarry. Theyre pretty curious by nature, she said. Theyll investigate things like this on their own. Its not uncommon for them to check something like this out in the fall. Dickson said this project is important to protect area bats, which are threatened by white nose syndrome, a disease caused by a fungus that has killed millions of bats in 25 states since 2007. Shes seen some populations decline as much as 90 percent because of the disease. The quarry is home to a very healthy population of big brown bats, said Jenny Dickson, a wildlife biologist with DEEP, who has seen about 200 bats at the site. When we see that many in one spot, we get really excited, Dickson said. She hopes the site can be used by both the bats already there, as well as bring back bats who were historically there, including little brown bats, northern long eared bats and tri-colored bats. She said some of the bat populations are so small because of the disease that its unlikely to see them in the new cave and could be some time before others join the big brown bats. My goal would be to have multiple types of bats use the site, Dickson said. That would be a huge success. Dickson said O&G has done a lot over the years to protect the quarrys bat population, including staying away from the tunnel and being proactive in creating a new hibernation habitat. Its a tremendous help for us and our conservation efforts for species that are declining as fast as our bats to have a partner like O & G step up, Dickson said. The quarry project is the second effort this spring to protect endangered bats in New Milford. The owner of the popular Torys Cave, the Weantinoge Heritage Land Trust, has decided to close the cave immediately instead of opening it to the public as usual for the summer in order to protect a bat population that was monitored over the winter by DEEP. kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345; @kkoerting Albany Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders agreed on Sunday to legislation that expands breast cancer screening availability and insurance coverage for mammograms. The legislative package requires 210 hospitals and clinics to offer screenings between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday (in addition to typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours) and between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday or Sunday. That requirement differs slightly from a regulation that was to take effect earlier this year that did not require legislative sign-off requiring hospitals and clinics to stay open at least two extra hours per day two days per week. The Sunday agreement also eliminates annual deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance payments for all screening mammograms, eliminates cost-sharing for diagnostic imaging, and tweaks law to allow New York City public employees to take four hours of leave for screenings each year. Other public employees already are offered the four hours of leave time. The governor also has called on private sector employers to provide four hours of leave each year to allow employees to get screened for breast cancer. His office said Sunday that 35 companies have heeded his call. The deal is the first of the final week of the legislative session, with lawmakers in Albany Tuesday through Thursday. It follows on $91 million agreed to in the state budget that paid for services that include mobile mammography vans and a public awareness campaign. Sandra Lee, Cuomo's partner, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. She announced last September she was cancer free after undergoing a double mastectomy earlier in the year. Lee underwent what she hoped was her final surgery associated with the cancer last month. "I have lived with this personally over the past year, Sandra Lee has had breast cancer and she is battling it," said Cuomo. "It has been a terrible, terrible ordeal to go through (and) the best case is prevention," he said at the annual Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan. "I urge everyone to get their mammogram done if they should get it done before it's too late. The best, best treatment is still early detection, and if you are in the age bracket or you are in a category that is higher risk please, please, please get the mammogram done." Following Lee's battle with breast cancer, Cuomo made the expansion of screenings an early top priority, punctuating his State of the State address in January with a personal account of Lee's ordeal. His overarching goal is to increase breast cancer screening rates by 10 percent over five years. mhamilton@timesunion.com 518-454-5449 @matt_hamilton10 ALBANY New York students could take state tests based on new social studies standards by 2019 and new science standards by 2020 under a timeline proposed by the Education Department this week. The department has been working to develop new standards for both subjects over the past year, with the help of subject-area experts and educators. At a meeting of the state Board of Regents on Monday, department officials outlined plans that would give teachers more time to provide input on the new standards in hopes of preventing the backlash sparked by an uneven rollout of English and math standards and assessments several years ago. "It's a critical piece," said Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia on teacher involvement. "And I want to assure the Regents that we are very focused on learning from some of the missteps that may have been taken in the past on not having teacher involvement to the extent that we needed to." To provide time for that involvement, the board approved a plan that would move back the first Regents exams in global history and geography by one year to 2019 so that students who are entering ninth grade in fall 2017 can have two full years' worth of course content based on the new standards before testing on the subjects. Under this plan, districts will have the option of administering the current or newly developed exams in June 2019, August 2019, January 2020 and June 2020. However, the existing exam would be truncated so that only material learned in tenth-grade global history (1751-present) is tested. Currently, students who take the global history Regents are tested on material from grades 9 and 10 that spans world history from ancient world civilizations and religions to present day. Critics of the exam have long argued that recalling and mastering two years' worth of content is a mighty task for anyone, let alone high school students. State officials ultimately chose 1751 as the cutoff for the new tests because it proved to be a year where "nothing really happened," said Peter Swerdzewski, assistant commissioner in the department's office of assessment, standards and curriculum. "I'm of course being hyperbolic," he said. "But it is immensely controversial. Some people believe it should be a certain war, or certain immigration patterns. So we went with the least controversial time period. It was truly chosen because we did not want to favor any world view over another." State officials have also developed a tentative plan for implementing new science standards and assessments. Under this plan, draft standards will be revised to incorporate feedback collected over the winter and presented to the Regents for final adoption this fall. Local implementation of curriculum and instruction would begin in the 2017-18 year and continue into 2018-19, with test development and field testing beginning the next year. State assessments in grades 5 and 8 would be administered in 2020-21, while Regents exams in biology, chemistry, earth and space science, and physics would be administered the following year. "If it turns out, working with the field, that more time is needed, then we'll work with the commissioner to ensure that so we can have a nice gradual implementation plan," Swerdzewski said. Members of the board expressed concern that educators across the state be given adequate time to offer input into the new standards and develop curriculum in both subject areas. "I think it's great to have the toolbox and regional conferences and whatever we can do, but I don't see it working at local districts unless the teachers within a district collaborate with each other and then explain it to parents," said Regent Roger Tilles. "I want to make sure that local teachers still are the key to whether or not it's going to work." bbump@timesunion.com - 518-454-5387 - @bethanybump It has all led to this: Barring any overtime, the legislative session will end Thursday. But with deals on the headlining pieces of legislation remaining elusive, don't expect an uneventful week ahead: MONDAY Rep. Chris Gibson attends the Rensselaer County Honor a Deceased Veteran ceremony at 8:30 a.m. at the Rensselaer County Office Building, 1600 Seventh Ave., Troy. The state Board of Regents meets beginning at 9 a.m. at the state Education Building, Albany. Hospitality groups urge passage of legislation allowing earlier sales of alcohol at restaurants on Sunday mornings at 11 a.m. at Ye Olde English Pub, Quackenbush Square, Albany. The state Thruway Authority Board of Directors meets at 11 a.m. at Thruway Authority Headquarters, 200 Southern Blvd., Albany. The meeting will be webcast at thruway.ny.gov. Demand Democracy New York a group backed by labor, faith and good-government groups delivers "indictments" for "crimes against democracy" to the offices of state Sens. Hugh Farley, Kathy Marchione and George Amedore at 12:15 p.m. at Legislative Office Building Room 802. Assemblyman John McDonald, Marchione, Hoosick Falls resident Michele Baker and Environmental Advocates of New York hold a press conference urging passage of legislation extending the statute of limitations for filing a personal injury action because of health effect related to pollution from a superfund site at 12:30 p.m. in LCA Press Room 130, Legislative Office Building. South Korean government officials meet with experts from the state Department of Health, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, IPRO and other state leaders to discuss end-of-life care planning at 1:30 p.m. at LeadingAge NY, Suite 2, 13 British American Blvd., Latham. TUESDAY The Assembly and state Senate are in session. The state Board of Regents meets beginning at 8:30 a.m. at the state Education Building, Albany. WEDNESDAY The Assembly and Senate are in session. THURSDAY The Assembly and Senate are in session, their final scheduled session day. Matthew Hamilton and NYSNYS.com 1 Suspect arrested: Authorities in New Mexico began the extradition process Monday for a man they say fled to Mexico after killing his wife and four daughters. Roswell police confirmed that Juan Villegas-Hernandez was arrested near Arizpe, a city south of Nogales, Mexico, on Sunday a day after they say he shot five family members before fleeing in a pickup truck. Investigators have not released a possible motive in the case, and a police spokesman said local authorities had little contact with the suspect over the years. The victims were identified as Cynthia Villegas, 34, and her daughters Yamilen, 14, Cynthia Janet, 11, Abigail, 7, and Idaly, 3. 2 Church slayings: A jury, not a judge, will consider hate crimes and other federal counts against the man charged in the shooting deaths of nine parishioners at a South Carolina church. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel ruled Monday that jurors will determine the guilt or innocence of Dylann Roof in his federal trial. If hes convicted, a jury will also hear arguments on a possible death sentence. Roofs lawyers had requested a bench trial. Roof faces the charges in the June 17 shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. The trial is set for Nov. 7. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The faithful came to church Monday to pray for world peace and for people in Orlando who are mourning their dead after the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. "I want to pray for peace in our country," said Connie Prewitt, who attended a special lunchtime Mass at Beaumont's St. Anthony Cathedral Basilica. "I want to give prayers for the tragedy in Orlando," said Prewitt's brother, Joe Parigi. Officials are blaming an American man described as a radicalized Muslim in the shooting deaths of at least 49 people, and the wounding of more than 50 others early Sunday in an Orlando gay nightclub. Police shot and killed the gunman, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen. Cynthia Parra, assistant director of diversity and inclusion at Lamar University, said she came to the Monday Mass to help support the people in Orlando. "I work for equality in the LGBT community and I work closely with youth," she said. Patrick Guillory said he came to "honor" those killed.Daily Mass usually is celebrated in the chapel next to the basilica, but the Rev. Curtis Guillory, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Beaumont, decided to move the service to the basilica to accommodate a larger group. He also delayed a planned trip to California for a bishops' conference to celebrate Mass instead. "There are many emotions - anger, frustration. That it's happened too many times," said Guillory. "We believe in a merciful God, a God of understanding. We pray on behalf of our brothers and sisters. Let us ask forgiveness and forgive one another." Guillory said he would tell the bishop of Orlando when he sees him that the people in Beaumont prayed for the losses in Orlando. "It's OK to be angry," Guillory said. "But it's not fine to act on that anger. It cannot be the GPS that moves us forward. It ought to be our faith." Guillory said there will be blame and judgment cast, partly because the killings happened in a nightclub that was hosting an event for gay Latinos. "It's easy for us to blame the LGBT or the whole Muslim world because this individual is Muslim. I believe most Muslims are good people. We do not blame all Germans for Hitler. There are radicals in Islam. There are radicals in the Catholic Church and among other Christians," he said. Richard Rosario walked up the steps amid raindrops and said he came to church to pray for the people whose lives were lost and for those who are in mourning. "And to pray for peace and justice in the U.S. and around the world," he said. Ruthie Guidroz said she came to pray for world peace. The bishop acknowledged it won't be easy and specifically mentioned the U.S. Constitution, the foundation of law in the United States. "We do not throw away our laws to deal with complex dangers," he said. "We are a country of laws. We elect our officials and we should let them know of our concerns and we ask almighty God for wisdom. Let us pray for ourselves, for the people of Orlando and for the life of the Constitution," Guillory said. Guillory said everyone shares a common humanity with the people in Orlando. "As St. Paul said, 'If one of us suffers, we all suffer.' We pray on our own behalf and on behalf of our brothers and sisters," Guillory said. DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/dwallach A Beaumont man must serve at least half of a 15-year prison sentence for three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child before eligibility for parole and must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. John Henry Whitfield pleaded guilty to the three counts of child sex abuse Monday in Criminal District Court. Fort Pierce, Fla. He was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and who at one point expressed interest in becoming a police officer, though he never pursued it. Early Sunday, 29-year-old Omar Mateen gunned down 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, police said. Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. Mateen attended evening prayer services at the city's Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Iman Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. "When he finished prayer he would just leave," Rahman told The Associated Press. "He would not socialize with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful." Mateen opened fire early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, killing 50 people and wounding more than 50 others before he was gunned down during an exchange of fire with SWAT team members, authorities said. They say Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a call to 911 on the morning of the shooting. A selection of front page newspaper covers from June 13, 2016, reveal the nation's horror and outrage after 49 people were killed by a gunman at an Orlando night club on Sunday morning. Many papers featured only a few words to capture the shock, terror and disgust. The New York Daily News' main headline was "Thanks NRA," while the Miami Herald ran the message "Work of Hate." This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A Texas man stumbled upon a 317-pound surprise while hunting on Independence Ranch, about an hour east of San Antonio, in late May and is planning to turn his novel kill into art. The man, who was only identified as an "Independence Ranch customer," shot a 317-pound hog while hunting on the 265-acre ranch near Gonzales. The hunter handed over the wild boar to a Pasadena-based taxidermist who goes by the name "Pablo Pigcasso," specializing in stuffing trophy hogs, but not before the man shared video of himself with the hog to Live Leak. RELATED: Creature believed to be a chupacabra in Oregon is really a Patagonian mara "That's definitely a large trophy," a man who identified himself as the ranch boss at Independence Ranch said in an interview with mySA.com. While the hog could not offer competition to the 925-pound hog shot 10 years ago at the ranch, or the 807-pound hog shot in June 2015, the hog weighed more than 100-pounds more than the average hog, according to Texas A&M Agrilife Extension's website. The man said the hog was not a regular find on his ranch, or to any part of Texas. RELATED: 'Gargantuan' wild hog weighing nearly 800 pounds caught in Texas According to the Texas Department of Agriculture, Texas sustains one of the largest wild hog populations in the nation with an estimated 2.6 million. The animals are considered invasive to Texas. Additionally, the Department of Agriculture reported that the animals caused more than "$52 million in agricultural damage with landowners spending an additional $7 million to control pigs and/or correct damage annually." RELATED: A Texas woman thought she found a dead chupacabra. Here's what it really was The Department of Agriculture, eager to minimize the feral hog population, opened the Feral Hog Grant program in 2012, which gave grant applicants funds to support their hog population reduction efforts and studies. While the program is not accepting applications, it's projected to re-open next summer. MMedina@mySA.com Twitter: @MariahMedinaaa This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Jim Wells County commissioners on Monday decided against pursuing a contract for an detention center that would have held immigrant families. The commissioners court voted unanimously to drop negotiations with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Serco Inc., a government outsourcing company and private prison operator. The county had voted earlier this month to negotiate with Serco over whether to convert an abandoned nursing home in San Diego to a family detention center. ICE officials would not say if the new facility would replace or be in addition to existing family detention centers in Karnes County and Dilley. County Commissioner Emede Garcia said Monday he was concerned in part because ICE and Serco showed up having already agreed to terms of an intergovernmental service agreement, a contracting method that doesnt require proposals or a public bid. Jim Wells County would appear on paper as the operator of the center and would subcontract to Serco in exchange for $90,000 a year, Garcia said. ICE has used it in the past for high-dollar contracts. They had deadlines, Garcia said. June 15 we had to have this signed. It was like pressure. A federal judge ruled last year that the detention centers in Karnes County and Dilley, which have a combined capacity of more than 3,000, violated a court settlement governing the treatment of immigrant children, in part because the facilities are closed and not licensed by the state. An Austin activist group has sued the state to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services from issuing licenses to the centers. jbuch@express-news.net Twitter: @jlbuch This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 By Pro 21 Video Show More Show Less 2 of 5 By Pro 21 Video Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 By Pro 21 Video Show More Show Less 5 of 5 A man who drowned while kayaking Saturday night on Braunig Lake has been identified as Daniel Soliz, 46, of San Antonio, officials with the San Antonio Medical Examiner's office said Sunday night. The body of Soliz was recovered by San Antonio Fire Department rescue divers Sunday afternoon after the initial search for Soliz had been called off late Saturday night. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate At a small amphitheater between the Tower of the Americas and bustling U.S. Highway 281, striking swaths of blue and gold cloth swirl through the air as Ukrainian folk dancers cavort across the stage. Behind them, green and yellow-clad Brazilian dancers wait in the wings, while all around them Scottish bagpipes scream, Lebanese shish kebabs sizzle and New Braunfels blacksmiths smash their hammers against singing iron. Eat your heart out, Epcot its the Institute of Texan Cultures 45th annual Texas Folklife Festival, where colliding worlds create a three-day, cultural kaleidoscope unique to San Antonio. Jo Ann Andera, the festival's director since 1981, said the celebration has helped cement San Antonio's reputation as a microcosm of the American melting pot. This festival says a lot about our community in how open we are and how welcoming we are, said Andera, noting that the festival brings together both native San Antonians and recent immigrants from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. Here, we have an opportunity to open these individual groups up to the larger community ... to open people up to the great dynamic of our state and our country. While its no secret that most of the thousands at the festival come for the food, Andera said they stay for the cultural smorgasbord, too. Though the sights, smells, and sounds of the festival can be overwhelming to newcomers, the folk dancing performances hinge on simple but captivating stories. Take Andrew Chobany, director of the Zorya Ukrainian Dance Ensemble of Dallas. His group, founded in 1976, blends some militant forms of line dancing with more elegant elements of ballet. "These dances incorporate parts of peoples lives, Chobany said. Ukrainian people lived on the land and grew crops in the 16th, 17th, 18th centuries our dances tell that story. The groups colorful head pieces, vests and sharovary bright red pants made from tablecloths are all sewn by hand and reflect different elements of pastoral Ukrainian society. Our girls show how people would make bread; our chumaks would gather salt; the kozaks would protect the people, he added. Chobany, who said hes been with the group long enough to see his daughter start dancing, said the group loves inviting younger generations into the fold. This is the way we continue that heritage, said Chobany. Its the only way you can keep a group like this going. While the Ukrainian group strikes an unusual sight, lifelong San Antonians might be a bit more familiar with the green, red and white polka dots of the Ballet Folklorico de San Antonio. Boni Ramos, of San Antonio, one of the artistic directors for the ballet troupe, has danced with the group for more than 40 years. The group has performed a mix of Mexican and Spanish folklore and flamenco dances for presidents and royalty from Spain to California for the past 51 years, and is a staple at the festival. Here in San Antonio, there are a lot of people who have not or will never travel, Ramos said. This festival lets them talk, to take in someone elses culture. I hear all sorts of people come here looking for their roots, because they heard their parents tell them they are German or Spanish or (Lebanese). She continued,. Well, here, you can actually touch those roots, even if you cant go to those countries. Dance wasnt the only way for festival-goers to visualize their roots. The festival also boasts a large contingent of historical re-enactors, like Doug Crumly and Jim Bosworth. Crumly, of Nueces, was dressed as a Pinkerton Detective a Civil-War era precursor of the modern private investigator and Secret Service agent while Bosworth was dressed as a sailor in the Texas Navy of the Republic. Both have spent years conducting painstaking research to create characters that are as historically authentic as possible. This is a hook you can snag people with the (costume), with the presentation, and it helps build their interest in the past, Crumly said. People have seen history in films, theyve read it in books, but they never get to touch it, to talk to it. And films, Bosworth interjected, sensationalize history. Were telling it exactly as it was there is more than enough sensationalism in the truth. With so much history to preserve, Andera said she loves seeing young visitors and participants mixed in with the old-timers. The food, the vendors, its all great, but we also create our own sense of history here , she added. If we spark any interest in even one young person, weve done our job. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate When Miriam A. "Ma" Ferguson successfully ran for Texas governor in 1924 she stood up to the Klu Klux Klan and virtually ended their reign in Lone Star politics. Ferguson was born on June 13, 1875 in Bell County, Texas, and she is most often remembered as the first lady of Texas who succeeded the governorship after her husband James "Pa" Ferguson was impeached. Indeed, "Ma" Ferguson's legacy, which includes two terms as Texas governor, is shaded by scandal. As a candidate of the Democratic party, the state's reining political machine at the time, Ferguson guaranteed voters that they would get "two governors for the price of one" if she was elected. RELATED: 7th grade Texas history quiz "Make a choice: the bonnet or hood" was her campaign slogan as she ran against the Klan-backed candidate, Felix D. Robertson, in the July 1924 Democratic Primary. Click through the slideshow to see 25 badass women in Texas History. The political power of the Klu Klux Klan had infiltrated city governments throughout North Texas and influenced legislation state-wide. The majority of politicians serving in the Texas House of Representatives were backed by the Klan, according to Jenny Cobb, a curator at the Bullock Museum in Austin. "The Klan had taken over the Democratic Party in Texas, which means, of course, the State of Texas," Jessie Daniel Ames, President of the Texas League of Women's Voters, wrote in a letter weighing the effect of voting against Ma Ferguson: "Following the tactics of the Klan in the past, no one but Klansman would be appointed [to serve as Regents of The University of Texas] and no one but Klansmen would be permitted on the faculty . . . The Klan would have been in power for twenty years at least." RELATED: From rich socialites to iconic military figures, here are San Antonio's most famous graves Ferguson's anti-Klan platform, paired with a push to cut taxes and an opposition to new liquor legislation, clinched the nomination for her. And in November of 1924, four years after women secured the right to vote, Ferguson was elected Texas governor. She was the second woman to be elected governor in the history of the United States. Although Ferguson secured legislation against Klan, prohibiting them to wear hoods in public, the courts overturned it. But the tide for the Klan had turned, and they lost their grip on Texas politics. After the Ferguson-Robertson runoff, an endorsement from the Klu Klux Klan became "poison" in Texas. To this day, Texas has had two women governors: Ma Ferguson and Ann Richards. jmscott@mysa.com A teen driver without a license died on Saturday after losing control of his truck and slamming into a Whataburger restaurant in Phoenix. Around 11 p.m., 15-year-old Jesse Entzminger was driving on Bell Road in Phoenix when he lost control of his vehicle and left the roadway. His truck struck a sign and then a wall of a Whataburger restaurant, according to a news release from the Phoenix Police Department. Damsels purportedly associated with Mexico's deadliest cartels are just as dangerous as their male counterparts, and they have the photos to prove it. Cartel news site ElBlogDelNarco released 40 photos of the gun-toting sicarias - or female assassins - Friday, noting their gold-plated assault rifles and form fitting gear. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 National Weather Service Show More Show Less 2 of 3 National Weather Service Show More Show Less 3 of 3 SAN ANTONIO National Weather Service forecasters are calling for a dry, hot week in San Antonio and South Central Texas with temperatures near 100 degrees and heat indices well above. NWS meteorologist Jason Runyen said air temperatures throughout the week in the region are expected to hover around 94 to 96 degrees. Our nation is in a state of shock. Again. According to the British paper The Daily Mail, The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Orlando gay club massacre and says the gunman that slaughtered at least 50 people was one of its fighters. Shooter Omar Mateen, 29, from Port St. Lucie in Florida, opened fire at Pulse night club in the early hours of this morning. The response from the White House? More gun control. of course. And more coddling of Middle Eastern refugees, who for the most part despise the Great Satan, the United States of America. Look for similar sentiments from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. And look for similar sentiments from our Connecticut senators and representatives, who all goose step behind Barack Hussein Obama. This is not just about Democrat or Republican policy. This is not about the Tea Party or Sanders Socialists. This is certainly not about gun control. This is about common sense pure and simple. Again. There are people out there in the world who tell us they hate our way of life. They hate that we tolerate gays and lesbians. They hate us. And yet our administration does all it can to defend them and denounce Christianity and Judaism. Why? I am by no means a firm backer of Donald Trump. But his call to halt Muslim immigration until we can get a handle on things makes perfect sense. Its not racist. Its not Islamophobia. Its common sense. Kim Raseman Milford Imagine that: Donald Trump and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor now agree on the role of heritage in a judges ability to be impartial. They both say its a nonissue. After a surprising and reassuring display of bipartisan disgust at Trumps recent comments that Indiana-born federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel is biased because his parents are Mexican immigrants, Trump had to backpedal. He released a statement that said his words had been misconstrued, adding: I do not feel that ones heritage makes (judges) incapable of being impartial. Even many of Trumps supporters had denounced him. Speaker Paul Ryan called the candidates original comments about Curiel the textbook definition of a racist comment. Speaking of crazy, there was plenty of that too. President George W. Bushs disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came out of the woodwork to support Trump. In a Washington Post opinion piece that underscored several salient points why Curiel is beyond reproach namely that while Curiel may be a member of a group called the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association, it is not in any way affiliated with the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy organization Gonzales sought to explain Trumps unease. If ... Trump is acting from a sincere motivation to protect his constitutional right to a fair trial, his willingness to exercise his rights as an American citizen and raising the issue even in the face of severe criticism is surely also something for voters to consider, he wrote, sending judiciary experts across the country into a tizzy. During a recent telephone news conference, Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said, Suggesting that a judge is disqualified from presiding over a matter because of his or her racial or ethnic heritage could ultimately bring our judiciary system to a halt. Judges are randomly assigned to cases in their district, which is a system that has served us throughout our entire history. And, in fact, 30 years ago this year, the Supreme Court ruled, in Batson vs. Kentucky, that it is unconstitutional for anyone to peremptorily challenge a juror based on race or ethnicity, due to the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Yet despite the many statements about how ridiculous Trumps remarks about Curiel were, his apologists were still sticking their feet in their mouths as they attempted to stay in the presumed Republican presidential nominees good graces. And then, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, went for the jugular. He told reporters in his home state, I think that you dont have any more trouble with what Trump said than when Sotomayor said that when she was found saying in speeches that, quote, A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male. I dont hear any criticism of that sort of comment by a justice of the Supreme Court. Grassley is wrong on two counts. First, everyone and their mother heard the criticism over that comment during Sotomayors confirmation hearings it, apparently, still haunts her to this day. Second, Sotomayor herself has, on many occasions, taken pains to clarify her stance on race and ethnicity as a judicial lens, most notably during the second day of her confirmation hearings. I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging, she told senators. I do believe every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experience. ... The words I chose, taking the rhetorical flourish, it was a bad idea. I do understand that there are some who have read this differently, and I understand why they might have concern. So there it is: Sotomayor and Trump agree that a judges heritage shouldnt imply an inability to be impartial. And for anyone to suggest that it should is, as even Trumps supporters have made clear, racist. Worse, as other Republicans have noted about this latest Trump offense, its un-American. estherjcepeda@washpost.com Donald Trump supports opening up the libel laws, and defending those he sees as victims of nasty public defamation campaigns. Well, I can suggest at least one libel victim that needs a champion: the U.S. economy. Americas economy gets a bad rap these days, thanks in no small part to Republican politicians constant smears and insults. This is the worst recovery after a deep recession since World War II, declared Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Fox Business Network on Tuesday. Hes used similar language on CNBC, PBS, Fox News and other outlets in recent days, as have other conservative commentators. This data point, Republicans claim, is an indictment of the Obama administration. Its also supposed to persuade voters to hold their noses and rally around the GOPs bigoted new standard-bearer and the alternative economic vision he supposedly represents. Except this assessment of our economy is completely wrong. Or at the very least, highly misleading. In fact, if you go by the historical record, we may have exceeded expectations for where we should be this many years after a severe financial crisis. And relative to most other countries that weathered a crisis when we did, were doing spectacularly well. Its true that the Great Recession has been followed by a slow and shallow recovery. Rather than bouncing back with annual growth rates in the 3 or 4 percent range, as we might have hoped, weve been trudging along at about 1.5 to 2.5 percent. Hiring has lately disappointed, too. This record seems pretty damning. Except, in the grand scheme of things, its not. See, its not really fair to compare todays recovery with any other post-World War II recovery, because this is the first time since World War II that weve had to recuperate from a systemic financial crisis. (The last systemic financial crisis in the United States led to the Great Depression which was before World War II.) And financial crises are uniquely traumatic events for economies, according to the work of Harvard researchers Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Recoveries following systemic financial crises, Rogoff told me in an email, are always far slower and more protracted than those following normal recessions. How slow and protracted? Well, in a recent paper, the authors examined the aftermath of 100 financial crises spanning the past century-and-a-half. They found that, on average, it takes a country more than eight years to return to its pre-crisis level of per capita income. In the United States, following the 2007-2008 financial crisis, we achieved that milestone in only seven years, according to the most recent data from the International Monetary Funds World Economic Outlook. We beat not just the (admittedly dismal) historical average, but the records of most of our crisis-stricken contemporaries, too. The United States was one of 12 countries that suffered a systemic financial crisis in 2007-2008. Of that dozen, only three others have since recovered all the territory they lost in the crisis: Germany, Ireland and Britain. The IMF forecasts that two more will recapture their pre-crisis peaks this year, and several more will do so in the next few years. Three countries Greece, Italy and Ukraine were so scarred by the crisis that forecasts going all the way out to 2021 still dont show them regaining their lost ground. Why did the United States do so much better than most of its peers? Partly better policy, partly luck. Our central bank, the Federal Reserve, opted to loosen monetary policy and undertake controversial, unconventional measures early on. Today many economists credit these actions with keeping the United States from tumbling into a full-blown depression. The European Central Bank, by contrast, took a long time to follow suit. On fiscal policy, too, we made better choices. Compared with the United States, many European countries engaged in much more draconian austerity measures, which often turned out to be counterproductive. On the luck side of the ledger, though, we also benefited from having the worlds reserve currency. This meant investors around the world continued to gobble up U.S. Treasurys at the height of the crisis, which relieved U.S. policymakers of pressure to undertake big austerity measures (as, for example, Greece had to do). Plus, Americans were able to wipe out their unpayable private debts much more quickly than many of their counterparts abroad did, since mortgages here are more likely to be non-recourse loans. Today, in the United States, the economy may not feel great. But compared with the roads not taken, it aint so bad. crampell@washpost.com Of course, the attack in Orlando at a gay dance club was an act of terror. Given that the shooter claimed allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call during the massacre and that the group has claimed responsibility though the actual ties between it and Omar Mateen are not yet proven this is an apparent act of radical Islamic terrorism. Saying that does nothing to diminish the fact that the shooter, according to reports, legally bought the guns used in the attack, which killed 49 and wounded many others. Legally, though, he had been under suspicion twice by the FBI for ties to terrorist groups or individuals. He had even worked as a security guard. In other words, just because we can sadly lay claim to homegrown jihadists, as in San Bernardino, does not mean that this nation need make it so easy to arm those who would kill us. It is a point President Barack Obama made Sunday after the shooting. He said that we need to decide what kind of country we are going to be. Unfortunately, he has had to ask this question more than once during his administration, and Congress has not acted to make it more difficult for terrorists to obtain military-style semiautomatic weapons because of lawmakers excessively strict interpretation of the Second Amendment. Congress owes the nation some action. One of the guns used was an AR-15, a semiautomatic long gun that mimics the militarys M-16. And though it is, according to initial reports, a semiautomatic, such guns can be as deadly or more deadly, because semiautomatic bursts are often easier to control than automatic fire. Congress allowed the ban on military-style assault weapons to expire 10 years after its introduction in 1994. This lack of action is a blot on the nations character. And given that this particular type of weapon has been too frequently used in such mass shootings, this has been a deadly lack of action. Making assault weapons more difficult to obtain would not infringe on Americans right to bear arms for legitimate purposes. Hunting and self-protection do not require weapons designed to produce maximum carnage. Changes in law enforcements procedures and communication practices regarding homeland terrorism also should be re-examined in the wake of this tragedy. We wont hold our breaths waiting for Congress to act now that an AR-15 was used in what is the nations deadliest mass shooting. And this should be taken into account when the nation goes to the polls in November. Where does your representative stand on an assault weapons ban? And where do candidates stand on expanded and more stringent background checks? Vote accordingly. But remember Orlando. Re: Valley rep slams Trump over wall, front page, June 7: So what exactly makes a Valley Democrat hating Donald Trump front-page, lead-headline news? And printing profanity in the process? And why are almost all the political cartoons in the Express-News anti-Trump? Bias? Daniel Mullinix What virtues? Re: Character counts, Your Turn, June 7: First, the initial comment that Congress limits presidential decrees and mandates tells me that the letter writer lives in a make-believe world. Where have you been while Barack Obama took his pen, made decrees and mandates (which only kings are supposed to do), and changed laws without our feckless Congress? Allowing immigrants into our country is part of our history, but we have the right to know who they are and where they are coming from. Finally, if you are concerned with the virtue of character, please start listing the virtues of Hillary Clinton. That task could take some time! Donna Skinner What character? Re: Character counts, Your Turn, June 7: The writer feels that character is an important virtue for the person ascending to the presidency. Agreed. But where is the outrage about Hillary Clinton, who has a long career of lying and playing the system up to and beyond the edge? Some lies have been inconsequential, like her claim about coming under fire on the tarmac in Bosnia. But they do point out a character flaw. Former New York Times columnist William Safire once called her a congenital liar. More important, look at her lies about Benghazi to the American people, to Congress and to the families of the dead. She violated State Department rules in using her private server to send official emails, including top-secret information, and then repeatedly lied about the situation. The State Department inspector general noted the violation of rules. Then there is the Clinton Global Initiative, run as a slush fund to enrich both her and Bill. (How many governments and organizations upped their contributions to the fund and tripled speaking fees to the former president when they had business before the State Department?) Character does count. Can the country afford to elect someone like Clinton, who lacks character and respect for the law and the truth, and would expand the failed policies of Barack Obama, which have been perilous to our national security? Donald Trump has his flaws, but they pale in comparison to those of Clinton. Richard A. Goldman Home sales soared in the San Antonio area in May while prices also rose as the robust local housing market continued to post strong gains. More than 2,800 homes were sold in the area last month, a 10 percent increase from the year before, according to data from the San Antonio Board of Realtors. The rate of growth accelerated from a 3.8 percent rise in home sales reported in April. 1 Border battle: Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged heavy gunfire Sunday and Monday in a serious escalation of tensions at the border, leaving at least 13 people wounded on the Pakistani side and killing at least one Afghan police officer, according to officials in both countries. The fighting forced the closing of the Torkham border crossing, the busiest between the two countries. Ghuncha Gul, a Pakistani official in the region, said the Afghan side started shooting late Sunday when construction work began on a new gate on the Pakistani side. But Gen. Zarawar Zahid, police chief of Afghanistans Nangarhar province, said Pakistani forces opened fire after the Afghans asked them to stop work at the gate, which he claimed is located on disputed land. 2 Labor unrest: Frances Senate started debating a contested labor reform on Monday as rail and air strikes continued to disrupt traffic. The national rail company, SNCF, said about 30 percent of regional trains and 10 percent of high-speed trains were canceled. About 15 percent of Air Frances domestic and long haul flights were canceled due to a pilots strike. Frances Socialist government has already faced months of protests and strikes against the labor bill. The fight is over a reform that seeks to boost hiring by making Frances 35-hour workweek more flexible, making it easier to fire workers and weakening some union powers. Posted on 06/13/2016, 9:00 am, by Farmscape.Ca The Chair of Manitoba Pork says ratification of the 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement by the Canadian and U.S. governments would benefit pork producers in both countries. Last October the 12 nations negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement announced an agreement in principal and the deal now must be ratified by the governments of those countries. Last week representatives of Manitoba Pork travelled to Des Moines, Iowa for World Pork Expo and the opportunity to discuss issues of mutual concern, including trade, foreign animal disease control and pork industry expansion with their U.S. counterparts and to gather information on the latest available technology. George Matheson, the Chair of Manitoba Pork, says exports are vital to the pork industry and the TPP offers an excellent opportunity. Its important to producers on both sides of the border. In Canada we do export 60 percent of our product so, when you have a chance to access 40 percent of the worlds economy, you want to take full advantage of that. Im sure U.S. producers feel the same way. They would not export the same percentage but, considering they are in the process of constructing 2 or 3 large world scale processing plants, they want a market for this pork and the Asian market is where theyre looking primarily. ~ George Matheson Manitoba Pork Matheson says relations between the Canadian and U.S. pork industries are very good. He notes, over the past number of years, representatives of Manitoba Pork have been attending World Pork Expo and the Pork Congresses in both Minnesota and Iowa in January developing face to face relations and have discovered were an integrated industry, our problems and challenges are very similar and producers in Canada and the U.S. are working together. The latest Convenience Matters podcast shares NACS member insights into how you can engage your elected leaders. ALEXANDRIA, Va. While it may sound cliche, members of Congress really do want to hear from their constituents. NACS, like many leading associations, makes it easy for its members to come to Washington, learn the process and have productive meetings with their elected officials. The latest NACS Convenience Matters podcast looks at how NACS members can get engaged in process and shares tips from those who have had success. Program co-hosts Jeff Lenard, NACS vice president of strategic industry initiatives, and John Eichberger, executive director of the Fuels Institute, talked to attendees at the 2016 NACS Government Relations Conference for the podcast, Advocacy Made Easy. The program can be downloaded on iTunes by searching for Convenience Matters. It also is available at nacsonline.com/podcasts. The hosts share clips from interviews conducted at NACS Day on the Hill to learn the importance of advocacy, and how others can get involved. Whether youre a first-timer on Capitol Hill meeting with your members of Congress or a regular, the process works, Lenard said. We get tips and advice from a variety of attendees, and provide context for how others can get engaged. A new Convenience Matters podcast will be released every week, focusing on topics related to convenience stores. By Lambert Strether of Corrente. TPP/TTIP/TISA I think Obama will go to [Clinton] and say, I want to get it done and dont get in the way, said Bill Reinsch, a trade policy fellow at Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank. My guess is she will go along. I dont think shell say no Not while shes facing the possibility of indictment, no [Politico]. At the same time, TPP could be the trade-deal-that-must-not-be-named when Obama and Clinton barnstorm the country. My guess is when he campaigns with her, theyll talk about something else, Reinsch said. Unless somebody asks them about it. One more reason the Democrat Party would rather just cancel the convention and move on. Google has just lent its support to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Obama administration policy priority facing significant hurdles in this fraught election year [ReCode]. If Google runs true to form, its going to be harder to find TPP information now than it already is. Not that Im foily. Companies get big enough to influence the USTR to advocate for closed room deals that favor them. And Google is big enough to play that game. This public support of the TPP is a part of that game, but its unfortunate. The company could have and should have taken a stand on this, noting the things that are important in the TPP, but also being honest about the disastrous IP section and other problems in the agreement (such as the corporate sovereignty provisions that will almost certainly come back to bite Google and others) [TechDirt]. There are good trade agreements to be made. And they can focus on things like protecting a free and open internet, and creating important safe harbors for communication and innovation. But the TPP is not that agreement and its disappointing that Google has decided to jump on board, rather than highlight the very clear and very real problems of the TPP. The White House Exaggerates the Benefits of the TPP to the Open Internet [Council on Foreign Relations]. [TPP] could help promote an open internet because it encourages cross-border information flows, bans data localization policies, and offers a means to challenge censorship and filtering as barriers to trade. However, the TPP signatories can continue to block, filter, or censor cross-border information flows by relying on TPPs broad exceptions. Moreover, the TPP says little about users or how to enhance their welfare online except to protect privacy. If the United States really wants to promote Internet freedom in its trade agreements, it should include language related to the regulatory context in which the Internet functions. By incorporating language to encourage interoperability, free expression online, the rule of law, and due process, trade diplomats can justifiably make a case that these rules safeguard digital rights. 2016 Policy Trump, Clinton and the Future of US-Vietnam Relations [The Diplomat]. Since World War II, the United States has been the purveyor of global public goods, such as developing international institutions, maintaining the freedom of the seas, promoting democratic values, and serving as an off-shore balancer to international conflicts. So, cui bono? Public goods for private benefit being the definition of corruption. Does Hillary Really Have the Foreign-Policy Advantage? [The Atlantic]. Obama says the border fence is now basically complete' [Politifact (2011)]. Resolutions of the West Virgina Democratic Party State Convention (pdf). Orlando Mass Shooting UPDATE Orlando shooters imam is pro-Trump [The Hill]. Three of the most contentious questions in American culture and politics gay rights, gun control and terrorism collided in a horrific way in an Orlando nightclub early Sunday [Karen Tumelty, WaPo]. [I]t happened in a gay club, just two weeks shy of the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, and on a weekend when cities across the country, including Washington, were holding gay pride festivals. It was perpetrated during the holy month of Ramadan by an American-born man whose family originally came from Afghanistan. During the attack, he reportedly made a 911 call pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. He did it with a handgun and an AR-15. Ticks all the boxes, doenst it? President Barack Obama says theres no clear evidence that the shooter at an Orlando nightclub was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot [Business Insider]. UPDATE Exploiting Orlando [The American Conservative]. A tweet collection with a gloriously self-cancelling last paragraphy. Speaking only for myself, tweets from people facing death isnt the kind of pr0n I prefer, dreadfully sincere youth heart-tuggingly hugging each other by candlelight isnt the kind of pr0n I prefer, and the hot takes of our political class are not the kind of pr0n I prefer. Snarl. UPDATE Americas gun problem has everything to do with Americas masculinity problem [Quartz]. Everything? I dunno. Where I grew up, the ultimate masculine role model, as we say, was the scholar. Right or wrong, thats blown away now, and not for reasons for which identity politics can give an account. UPDATE Omar Mateen bought guns used in Orlando gay club massacre from Florida store owned by retired NYPD officer [New York Daily News]. That explains the T-shirt, I suppose. UPDATE Omar Mateen and Rightwing Homophobia: Hate Crime or Domestic Terrorism? [Informed Comment]. Useful corrective on domestic terrorism. Corruption When RealClearPolitics talked to current and former lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers about the leadership styles of Clinton, Pelosi, and Wasserman Schultz, the response often heard was: Just concentrate on Clinton and Pelosi [RealClearPolitics]. Im very happy to see a corrupt election fixed like Debbie Taking One for The Team Wasserman Schultz thrown under the bus making a soft landing on K Street, but shoving one hack through the revolving door doesnt exactly constitute a political revolution, does it? Granted, Rome wasnt burnt in a day. New Hillary Scandal Checks All the Boxes on the Clinton Controversy Bingo Card [Slate]. Ka-ching. The Voters Norman Lear Calls Donald Trump The Middle Finger Of America, Talks Golden Age Of Diversity On TV ATX TV Festival [Deadline Hollywood]. Google Autocomplete Revisited [Social Strategy]. Sanders voters in California look for concessions from Clinton, but most will support her if reluctantly [Los Angeles Times]. Even the ones whose votes were suppressed? Clinton will have to work to sway Sanders millennials [Detroit News]. Georgia Democrats seek DNC tickets for Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]. Bernie Sanders should stop scheming [Seattle Times]. Moar unity! (And whos funding Sanders challenger Al Giordano, anyhow? The challenge in the upstarts home district is a classic Democrat Party ploy. The Trail [W]hy did Obama endorse Clinton when Sanderss body, politically speaking, was still warm? [WaPo]. This: [Obama] also knows that the longer a rump Sanders faction is left on its own, the longer it will take to focus on what he believes to be the real enemy: Trump in the White House. Making Sanders the real enemy. But then you knew that. UPDATE True, this: 2016's presidential race = an Internet comments thread (Trump) vs. a ream of a focus-grouped talking points written by DC staffers (Clinton) David Sirota (@davidsirota) June 13, 2016 Now, anyhow. We used to have a candidate who delivered hour-plus white papers with elbows on policy, to cheering crowds in the tens of thousands, who would chant the good lines. Fortunately, that candidate has been suppressed. Alice in Wonderland: Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court. (As that is rather a hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done. They had a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings: into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat upon it.) `Im glad Ive seen that done, thought Alice. `Ive so often read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, There was some attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the officers of the court, and I never understood what it meant till now. So, like that. UPDATE Clinton Calls For Common Sense Gun Safety Reform After Orlando Massacre [Talking Points Memo]. Because common sense ______ reform has received the Good Focus Grouping Seal of Approval. UPDATE This is a moment for Republicans, Democrats and Independents to work together as one team. The American team. And its a time for statesmanship, not partisanship, [Clinton] said on MSNBC [Wall Street Journal, Hillary Clinton Bets the Political System Works]. Ill just leave this here. From 30,000 feet, identity politics, as practiced by Democrats, makes that impossible even taking multiculturalism and diversity as unproblematic. I just cant figure out if its hypocrisy or Orwellian doublethink. Voter Suppression, Election Fixing, and Fraud Confessions of a Hillary Shill [Reddit]. I wish this were better attested. Readers? UPDATE California Counts Millions Of Provisional And Mail-In Ballots, Counties Flip For Bernie And Nine More Superdelegates Drop Clinton [The Inquisitr]. The Hill The number of executive orders by every U.S. president [Daily Dot]. Obama has issued surprisingly few. Exclusive: Obama administration not pursuing executive order to shut Guantanamo sources [Reuters]. What a shocker. Stats Watch No interesting stats today. Carry on with your beach reading! Employment Situation: Which Labor Market Data Should You Believe? [New York Times]. The unemployment rate vs. the (new) Labor Market Conditions Index. Shipping: Demand [for air cargo] in general has been flat, but the bigger problem has been pricing: the rapid expansion of passenger fleets has added big amounts of cheaper bellyhold space to the market [Wall Street Journal]. Shipping: South Koreas president calls for bone-crushing shipbuilding restructuring [Splash247]. If we dont carry out a bold restructuring by downsizing the overgrown workforce and cutting costs, the future of not only the shipbuilders but also the whole economy will be in jeopardy, [South Korean president Park Geun-Hye] warned. Shipping: As Maersk Line Goes, So Goes The Container Shipping Industry [James Sands, Seeking Alpha]. [M]any in the industry are seeing anywhere of around 12 major shipping lines becoming the future for shippers to choose from once this pricing war ends. This is not just a fact of losers exiting the industry, but also of vessel sharing alliances, VSAs. In other words, there are going to be fewer choices for shippers once this pricing war comes to an end; and pricing power will be in favor of the carriers rather than customers as is the case today. Shipping: Major U.S. retail container ports are anticipating import cargo volume to be mostly down during the summer, but they should see a significant uptick just prior to the winter holiday season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released last week by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and Hackett Associates [Progressive Railroading]. Makes sense, assuming no strikes. Housing: Real estate inventory is extremely low in this current market. This has allowed the market to put upward pressure on prices even though sales volume is low. The idea of real estate correcting has once again been washed away from the cultural psychology. Home prices, the media, and house horny shoppers have once again turned real estate into a no lose proposition [Dr. Housing Bubble]. Once again we are in uncharted waters here. In the last bubble, we had record home sales, record home building, and record buying. This all actually makes sense from a market perspective. Today, what is happening doesnt. What you have is acceptance that this is a rigged system. If prices are soaring, and inventory is tight, you would assume that builders would be out in force like last time. Yet builders dont believe the market. If they are building, it is in large part for renter households (because they believe income figures they already got burnt last time chasing hype). The market right now is driven by hype and prices are set at the margins. Frothy markets can remain frothy for a long-time. Silicon Valleys Audacious Plan to Create a New Stock Exchange [Bloomberg]. [Eric Ries has] assembled a team of about 20 engineers, finance executives and attorneys and raised a seed round from more than 30 investors, including venture capitalist Marc Andreessen; technology evangelist Tim OReilly; and Aneesh Chopra, the former chief technology officer of the United States. For long term investment, unless it turns out to be a bait-and-switch. Self-driving cars and the trolley problem [Vox]. [M]oral behavior, in the real world, has much less to do with first principles than with wisdom, perceptiveness, and self-possession. The way self-driving cars will be made more ethical, in practice, is the same way theyll be made more safe, efficient, and effective: by improving their sensors, communications, and learning. Microsoft to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion; LNKD shares jump 47% [CNBC]. The Fed: A New Normal? [Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond]. Betteridges Law. Because innovation: On balance, there is reason to be sanguine about the prospects for future technological innovation . There is also reason to celebrate recent innovations that may not immediately appear as fundamentally transforming as, say, the development and widespread use of automobiles during the middle part of the 20th century, but that have still brought great gains to millions of Americans and billions of people worldwide, gains that arguably are not fully captured in many standard measures of well-being. It would be rash to attempt to predict with precision the pace at which future innovation will take place or how important those innovations will be, but it would also be premature to say that Americas best days are behind us and that future generations will not live much better than we do today. In the next section, we will raise several policy issues that might be addressed to help provide an environment in which innovation can continue to occur and economic growth can be robust. We acknowledge that some of these ideas may be difficult to achieve politically [one can only wonder why] and that some could have adverse economic consequences for segments of the population [but then you knew that]. Insofar as the latter is true, policymakers may wish to consider ways to compensate those who are made worse off [which never happens]. Like the Bourbons. Todays Fear & Greed Index: 58, Greed (previous close: 63, Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 80 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 13 at 11:58am. Still dropping! Our Famously Free Press UPDATE Guns? Terrorism? Hate crime? Media go to their corners in reporting on Orlando. [Margaret Sullivan, WaPo]. Is there any way out? Or does the public simply have to bring a large helping of skepticism to its media consumption and assume that much of what its hearing is driven by politics? And maybe by owners? Police State Watch St. Louis police secret settlements total $4.7 million [St Louis Post-Dispatch]. Black Injustice Tipping Point History of Juneteenth [Juneteenth.com]. Black Lives Matter Pasadena Organizer Convicted of Felony Lynching Charge [Pasadena News Now]. How does that work? Making Freedom in Colonial Antigua: An Interview with Natasha Lightfoot [African American Intellectual History Society]. This is fascinating. Class Warfare Gin and Tacos [Facebook]. Reads like the South Carolina fire-eaters in 1860, but in class, not regional terms. JESUS CHRIST THE SYRIAN REFUGEES ARENT COMING TO WHATEVER GLORIFIED TRAILER PARK / FEMA CAMP / OPEN AIR METH LAB OR DYSTOPIAN INNER RING TRACT HOUSING AND STRIP MALL FART-FUCK OF A SUBURB YOU CALL HOME, THEY WOULD TAKE ONE LOOK AT YOUR SAD EXCUSE FOR A LIFE AND THINK ILL GO BACK AND TAKE MY CHANCES, DID YOU SEE THAT WOMAN WITH THE BAD BITCH TATTOO HER TORSO LOOKED LIKE SOMEONE WAS BAKING BREAD IN A HALTER TOP. From a professor of political science. University of Connecticut professor Peter Turchin has described [the] problem of elite overproduction, the process by which a growing number of elites got thrown into competition over a proportionally shrinking number of trophies. He says that phenomenon didnt just help bring down the Roman Republic; it also contributed to the onset of the American Civil War, along with countless other historical calamities [International Business Times]. For proof, look no further than the 2016 presidential campaign. As America has become more unequal over the last few decades, the top echelon of politically active billionaires and multimillionaires has grown. Classic elite overproduction. But the aspect of Hamiltons life [Miranda] celebrates the self-making entrepreneurialism of the American dream cannot be fully understood without including, indeed without highlighting, Hamiltons insistent and emphatic inegalitarianism. Hamilton and his contemporaries understood these seemingly contradictory positions as two sides of the same coin. Ignoring one side, as Mr. Miranda has done, obscures their connection both then and now [New York Times]. The Supreme Court has ruled that people should be jailed only when they refuse to pay, not when they cant, and in theory safeguards protect the indigent. In practice those safeguards are chimerical, and the poor are routinely jailed for being poor. The way forward is to curb these fees, end the use by courts of private collection companies that add their own charges to the debt, and limit court debt to some percentage of a persons income [Nicholas Kristof, New York Times]. One problem with the obscenity of using poverty porn to raise money is that it works. These images do not aim to tell the truth; they sell a product. Besides its profitability, these images work as tourist brochures. As Lindsay Murdoch wrote in a previous article, Orphanages are often run as businesses, the children being the assets.' [Nonprofit Quarterly]. News of the Wired Is Particle Physics About to Crack Wide Open? [Scientific American]. Hints of an unexpected new particle could be confirmed within daysand if it is, the Standard Model could be going down. The Venmo Request: A New Wrinkle in Modern Dating [The New Yorker]. Can sludge-like color deter smokers? The psychology behind advertising [CNN]. Not after the ISDS suit for lost profits! Mongolia will become a global pioneer next month, when its national post office starts referring to locations by a series of three-word phrases instead of house numbers and street names [Quartz]. To a data geek, this is extraordinary. HBO is ruining Game of Thrones' [MarketWatch]. The show has outrun the book, and the made-for-TV version didnt kill off Arya, and turned Vaerys into a kindly uncle. So WTF? Rae Sremmurds June/July 2016 The FADER [The Undefeated]. Fun music criticism. Dont understand a word of it, but the writing style is tasty! Unfortunately, I had stopped listening to popular music just before hip hop broke through, so Im stuck with 70s punk and reggae. This hip hop classic has contemporary relevance: Suckers, liars get me a shovel. * * * Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And heres todays plant (b1whois): From the Rainbow gathering in the Stanislaus Forrest in California. * * * Michael Redman of the 4ClosureFraud blog send a job listing that reminded us of the bad old days of 2010, when more and more evidence was coming to light about the how pervasive the problems with mortgage securitizations were, and how in turn that was leading to widespread abuses in foreclosures. A bit of background for those of you new to this issue. Mortgage securitizations, both Fannie and Freddie as well as private label or subprime securitizations, are governed by a document called the pooling and servicing agreement (PSA). It describes how a mortgage securitization is created and will operate once the deal has closed. To get the mortgages from the various banks that originated them to the trust that will hold them all, the minimum chain for a recent mortgage securitization is is A (originator) => B (sponsor) => C (custodian) => D (trust). Older deals might only have three parties, but recent vintage typically had at least four, and some as many as seven or eight. The reason for having so many intermediary parties is bankruptcy remoteness. You as the buyer of a mortgage backed security want certainty. If an originator goes bust (as ironically many did), you dont want the creditors to say, They were already toast by the time they set up that MBS, so the sale of the loans was a fraudulent conveyance, we are gonna take the loans back. Moreover, each party had to be independent (which meant the legal definition of independence; the intermediary parties and even many originators were dependent on financing called warehouse lines from the investment bank packager/distributors). The note (the borrower IOU) typically had to be endorsed (like a check) to the next party in the chain, who then endorsed it over to the party after that, with the last party being the trust. Some mortgage securitizations allowed for endorsement in blank*, as in the endorsement didnt have to specify who the next party was, but for a mortgage note to be conveyed to the trust, the originator and all the intermediary parties listed in the PSA had to have endorsed the note, and by a specified date. Normally, when there is a failure to conform the requirements of a contract, the parties get together and issue waivers to tidy matters up. But securitization agreements are rigid; Georgetown Law professor Adam Levitin, who is arguably the top US expert in mortgage securitizations, called them Frankenstein contracts in a law review article. The failure to transfer mortgages to securitizations properly would mean investors were left holding empty bags. As Levitin wrote in 2010: If the notes and mortgages arent properly transferred to the trust, then the securities that the trust issues arent mortgage-backed and are worthless. Former Fannie and Freddie analyst Josh Rosner flagged this problem as being of such magnitude that it could dwarf Lehman weekend. As we pointed out back then, there were unlikely to be consequences to investors in Fannie and Freddie securitizations, even thought there ought to be. The government is not going to want to raise doubts about the integrity of such an important market. Servicers continued to pay advances on delinquent accounts. However, there was a several-year legal battle fought in courtrooms in the US over the many foreclosures of private label mortgage securitizations. Borrowers who were unable to get mortgage servicers to entertain a modification, which is standard half a loaf is better than none lender practice, would challenge the servicers legal standing to foreclose. They were winning enough of the time to lend support to the critics case. That in turn led to a political band-aid: give the mortgage-industrial complex a get of of liability almost free card, in the form of a Federal-state mortgage settlement in 2012, with the servicers separately entering into settlement supposedly requiring them to shape up and fly right. We were skeptical about the servicer settlements, since the underlying failure to transfer the documents properly still existed. Servicers and the attorneys they hired routinely fabricated documents and forged signatures so as to create a tidy-looking chain of transfers long after the mortgage securitization had closed, when in order for them to be valid, they needed to take place before the securitzation closed, or in a narrow clean-up window shortly after. Now to Michael Redmans evidence that the old abuses are still very much with us (emphasis his): Fraudclosure: Select Portfolio Servicing Help Wanted Chain of Title Specialist Chain of Title Specialist Salt Lake City, UT, US Job Description: Job Summary: Provides assistance in demonstrating the Investor has the appropriate legal authority to initiate actions through a complete Chain of Title, by recognizing and preparing the required documents to complete the Note with applicable Endorsements, along with any Assignments and other necessary legal documents. Can work independently with the Investor, Client, Custodian, and Attorney Network to resolve any document exceptions in a professional and timely manner. ________________________________________ Principal Duties: 1. Facilitates document requests in a timely manner 2. Comprehensive understanding of proving up all Chain of Title requirements 3. Resolves document exceptions through collaborative efforts with areas outside the Department 4. Conducts training for new and existing employees 5. Assist in gathering required documents for all audits Minimum Qualifications: 1. Detail oriented 2. Document processing experience 3. Excellent written and verbal communication skills 4. Ability to lift boxes weighing 25 lbs 5. Proficient in Microsoft Office (Excel and Word) Preferred Qualifications: 1. Experience in Loan Servicing, with emphasis in Bankruptcy and Foreclosure 2. Timeline management 3. Operating imaging hardware/software 4. Records Management 5. Experience with Microsoft Office tools (Access and SQL) Select Portfolio Servicing an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. ******** Yves again. I assume you can see how brazen this is. And notice how the successful applicant needs to be able to lift somewhat heavy boxes and operate imaging software. Pixelated signatures are a sign of a doctored document; the PSAs, consistent with state laws, called for wet-ink signatures. So here we are, eight years after the crisis, and the underlying problems, that of bad incentives in the design of mortgage securitizations, and abuses that resulted, still persist. The appalling part is that the scale of the problem gave Obama all the leverage he needed to force large-scale reforms, as well as requiring servicers to provide modifications to borrowers when their income was high enough that a modification was likely to lower losses to investors. And before you dismiss that idea, vulture investor Wilbur Ross got good results with that strategy. In other words, this was a remarkable case of looting, where not only large numbers of homeowners, but also investors, suffered so as not to crimp the profits or even place undue managerial demands on mortgage servicers who had violated their own contracts on a mass scale. And it also demonstrates how corrupt Americas professional classes are, that so few stood up against it. ______ * Endorsement in blank only works if the trust is a Delaware trust, not a New York trust, and roughly 80% of the trusts elected New York law, which is unforgiving, to govern the trusts. See Adam Levitin here for more detail. The officialdom in England and in much of the rest of the advanced world is suddenly in alarm over the possibility of a Brexit. US Treasury yields sank last Friday as investors ran for cover, and the flight to safety continued today as a surge in the yen led to a 3% fall in the Nikkei The UKs elites had been confident that frequent, loud Dont Touch That Dial warnings, with vivid descriptions of all of the horrors that would ensue, would herd voters into line well before the June 23 polling date. Instead, an online poll commissioned by the Independent showed the Leave campaign to be winning by a stunning 55% to 45%. That revelation coming on top of weak economic data from the US, put Mr. Market in a funk. The Financial Times poll of polls puts Leave in the lead by a smaller margin, 46% to 44%. Moreover, the sense is that with only 10 days to the decision date, the Leave campaign is gaining momentum. The Conservatives have realized that having a bunch of toffs, big banks, and intrusive foreign leaders tell British citizens how economically damaging a Brexit would be seems only to have persuaded voters at most that the people at the top of the food chain would take a hit. Voters seem to be in a bloody-minded enough mood to be willing to take a hit if they can inflict some pain on their putative leaders and take the banking classes down a notch or two. Another sentiment (and one that the elites appear to deny) is that voters are willing to pay an economic cost, even a large one, for more national sovereignity. So now Labor leaders have been moved to the front line of the sales campaign. But even the referendum next week results in Leave getting the most results, that does not mean a Brexit will necessarily happen. There are at least two ways that the will of the public could be thwarted. Peter Hitchens outlines one possibility, that Parliament refuses to honor the vote. From the Daily Mail: I think we are about to have the most serious constitutional crisis since the Abdication of King Edward VIII. I suppose we had better try to enjoy it. If as I think we will we vote to leave the EU on June 23, a democratically elected Parliament, which wants to stay, will confront a force as great as itself a national vote, equally democratic, which wants to quit. Are we about to find out what actually happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Since the intricacies of Parliamentary procedure are well over my pay grade, I will leave it to our British readers to game out how the Parliament could maneuver to keep the UK from departing the European Union even in the face of Leave winning. Aside from some sort of crude rejection, there is a second, time-honored way that has gotten recalcitrant voters to fall into line: keep sending them back to the polls until they give the desired answer. Admittedly, it make take the European Union giving the UK some real concessions in order for voters to be swayed. For instance, Denmark required approval in a referendum as a condition for signing the Maastrict Treaty. The first vote narrowly turned the pact down. Danish officials then negotiated four exclusions from the treaty, and voters ratified in just under a year later. More recently, Ireland was the only EU member that decided to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The result, in June 2008, as over 53% opposed. The European Commission made concessions on three issues. Over 67% of voters supported the agreement in the next referendum in October 2009. Thus it appears that many experts have been focusing on the wrong issue, at least for now. Theyve been worrying about, Which post-Brexit trade and economic model will the UK use, how long would it take to implement, and what would the costs be? Yet European and UK officials are highly motivated to prevent a Brexit, and given that there is no clearly defined set of next steps if Leave wins, they have plenty of latitude to improvise. However, just because the will is there does not mean a patch-up operation would work all that well. One driver of the Brexit vote is a desire to curb immigration. While getting waivers on that would seem to be the fastest path to flipping Leave voters to Remain, it would seem to be fraught to offer the UK concessions on that front. The first is the philosophical issue that restricting the free movement of people violates the spirit of the Schengen agreement, and also obviates one of the big reasons for the European Union in the first place. Second is that voters in other EU member states are unhappy about refugee quotas; letting the UK get a break (if that were to be part of the deal) means they will presumably have to take even more. What European elected official wants to have to sell that to his constituents right now? Put it another way, what does a European Union mean if big countries can rewrite what are seen to be basic rules? The vision for the European Union had been more and more integration over time, but a successful effort to reverse a Leave vote would put it on the path of more decentralization of power. In the long run, that is likely more viable, but the transition would contested and disruptive. And third impediment is that, as Hitchens argues, voters are deeply disaffected with the political classes: It has been a mystery to me that these voters stayed loyal to organisations that repeatedly spat on them from a great height. Labour doesnt love the poor. It loves the London elite. The Tories dont love the country. They love only money. The referendum, in which the parties are split and uncertain, has freed us all from silly tribal loyalties and allowed us to vote instead according to reason. We can all vote against the heedless, arrogant snobs who inflicted mass immigration on the poor (while making sure they lived far from its consequences themselves). And nobody can call us racists for doing so. Thats not to say that the voters are ignoring the actual issue of EU membership as a whole. As I have known for decades, this country has gained nothing from belonging to the European Union, and lost a great deal. If Zambia can be independent, why cannot we? If membership is so good for us, why has it been accompanied by savage industrial and commercial decline? If the Brussels system of sclerotic, centralised bureaucracy is so good, why doesnt anyone else in the world adopt it? In other words, the Leave vote is to a large degree a repudiation of the political elite. Thus trying to deny voters their way by cobbling together a deal may enrage them further and thus backfire. Of course, the officialdom may hope that a period of market turmoil and economic dislocation may discipline them, um, bring them to reason. So even if the ruling classes pull out the stops to keep the UK in the EU, its going to be a fraught, messy process. The past precedent show that with smaller countries, with less central issues at play, in times of much lower political stress, the effort still took over a year. That is an eternity in financial time. While a Brexit would be a seismic event, a protracted effort to reverse a Leave vote would be an ongoing source of uncertainty and hence volatility. And if the last-ditch push works and Remain prevails? While it would stave off a crisis, it still leaves the European Union damaged The UK would be seen as only a provisional member, and having come so close to a win, the Brexit advocates are certain to keep the issue in play. Nanosubs gain better fluorescent properties for tracking (Nanowerk News) The next generation of nanosubmarines being developed at Rice University has been upgraded with tags that fluoresce longer, which enables the submersibles to be tracked for greater periods while being driven through a solution. The single-molecule vehicles introduced by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour last year may someday be used to deliver drugs or other cargo. The new version built and tested with collaborators at Tel Aviv University in Israel is the subject of a recent paper in the American Chemical Society journal Organic Letters ("Synthesis and Photostability of Unimolecular Submersible Nanomachines: Toward Single-Molecule Tracking in Solution"). Light-driven, single-molecule submersibles. A new version of the molecule strengthens its fluorescent response for better tracking. Atoms in red make up the light-activated motor. (Image: Tour Group/Rice University) The first nanosub, USN-1, could be monitored but not imaged by a technique that would irradiate it with light for very short times. But that did not offer information about the submersible's trajectory, according to lead author Victor Garcia-Lopez, a former Rice graduate student. The latest model, the 334-atom USN-2, can be viewed by single-molecule microscopy for at least 1.5 seconds, long enough for 30 frames of video. "This makes it possible for us to track the trajectory of a single nanosubmersible," Tour said. "It should lead to a better understanding of how our vehicles move." The lab attached cyclooctatetraene (COT) to the molecule's body and motor to keep them from bleaching, which quenches fluorescence. The light-driven motor developed by scientists in the Netherlands is a tail-like ligand that spins about a million times per second. The new subs, like the originals, are capable of moving 15 meters per second over nanoscale distances, based on the thrust provided by each turn of the rotating motor. Between the frequent collisions that stop their forward motion, Tour said, they are "the fastest-moving molecules ever seen in solution." The nanosubmarines still can't be steered in the traditional sense, Tour said. The team is satisfied for the moment with achieving "enhanced diffusion" that lets them figure out how to move a one-molecule vehicle in a solution of similarly sized molecules. SHARE Attorneys' Title Fund Services LLC (The Fund) announced Salvatori, Wood, Buckel, Carmichael & Lottes of Naples has been named a Top Contributor Member of The Fund. Events The Public Relations Society of America, Gulf Coast Chapter will hold a luncheon at 11:30 a.m. June 28 at Naples Hilton, 5111 U.S. 41 N. Information: www.gulfcoastprsa.org Good deeds CenturyLink Inc. is holding its annual CenturyLink Backpack Buddies Food Drive to support more than 150 food banks. As part of this effort, CenturyLink is inviting local residents to join its employees in supporting the following organizations: The Harry Chapin Food Bank in Fort Myers, St. Matthew's House in Naples, Port Charlotte Homeless Coalition and the Heartland Food Reservoir in Sebring. Chick-fil-A restaurants across Southwest Florida are calling on the community to help support Golisano Children's Hospital of Southwest Florida throughout June. For each Frosted Lemonade purchased through June 30, the restaurants will donate $1 to the Children's Hospital. Appointments Kathleen Oppenheimer Berkey, a land use, zoning and local government attorney and certified land planner at Pavese Law Firm in Fort Myers, was elected to join the Keep Lee County Beautiful board of directors. Allyn International Services Inc. appointed Monica Wamsley and Rujun Wang to Second in Command position's. Wamsley has been promoted for the Americas Logistics Operations out of the Fort Myers office. Wang has been promoted for the Asia Logistics Operations out of the Shanghai, China office. To submit your business news directly online, go to naplesnews.com/BIZwire or email news@naplesnews.com. SHARE WASHINGTON Several years ago Jim Mullen had a good idea. Actually it turned out to be a great idea, considering the state of American politics today. As the president of Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, a 200-year-old institution dedicated to tutoring young men and women not only in the liberal arts but also in the principles of good citizenship, Jim thought about how best to accomplish that goal. Like a lot of Americans, he was increasingly concerned about the lack of civility in public life the nastiness and disrespect that seemed to permeate nearly every aspect of every level of our national discourse, almost to the point of threatening the foundations of our democracy. So Jim decided to use his highly respected school as a model for political decency. He established a national Prize for Civility in Public Life. It would reward those public figures who throughout their careers have promoted the idea that one can disagree without slandering or libeling one's opponent, and that it is possible to run a campaign or comment on one without personal rancor or violent language or hatefulness. It's hard to think of a more welcome notion at a time when we have watched the races for the presidential nomination of both parties generate more vitriol and unseemliness than at any time in memory. Among the Republicans, debate at times could not have gotten lower, and the presumptive winner has resorted to a level of thuggish behavior unprecedented even in today's uber-partisanship. As we look forward to the next five months of political warfare, we can hope (if cynicism hasn't utterly overcome us) that the two opponents Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Donald Trump for the Republicans might take a lead from the two longtime public servants who received the Allegheny College award for civility this year. In a ceremony here recently, Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. John McCain, two who often have found themselves on different sides of the issues and competed with one another strenuously at the top of their respective parties during their many decades in office, spent an hour endorsing the respect and friendship they had for each other throughout it all. Biden called McCain, a Navy pilot who spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a genuine American hero, with whom he was overawed. He told how embarrassed he was as a young senator from Delaware on a congressional trip when, McCain, just back from Hanoi prison and a liaison on Capitol Hill, waited on him. McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, praised Biden's many kindnesses and said his behavior toward his opponents was always exemplary. Perhaps what was most refreshing about the exchanges was their genuine quality. These weren't two politicians blowing smoke at one another. They like each another, but more importantly they respect each other no matter the differences. The scene was a reminder of a time when congressional lawmakers across the aisle would rail at each other all afternoon and then go off to dinner or a party together and never think anything about it. It was a time when those of opposing parties shared rides, took trips together, even shared living quarters. They rarely if ever went after the other party's leader at election time. No one would have dared call the president of the United States a liar during a State of the Union address, as one Republican lawmaker did to Barack Obama. All that civility suddenly disappeared, leaving us now to face the ultimate example of just the opposite, when it seems all right for a presidential candidate to make racist statements about a judge in a private matter in which he is involved and then try to crayfish out of it. I recall a Washington affair a number of years ago when one of the speakers, former Ambassador Robert Strauss, once a key official of the Democratic Party, pulled from his pocket a letter from President Gerald R. Ford, written just after he had lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter. The letter, while acknowledging Strauss' fierce efforts in behalf of his party's candidate, nevertheless thanked him for his civility and appropriateness throughout the election. It was what Jim Mullen had in mind. We can only hope that spirit will one day return to Washington. However great the shock of the massacre in Orlando, it is only a matter of time before we start hearing again the fact-free dogma that "diversity is our strength." If there is any place in the Guinness book of world records for words repeated the most often, over the most years, without one speck of evidence, "diversity" should be a prime candidate. Is diversity our strength? Or anybody's strength, anywhere in the world? Does Japan's homogeneous population cause the Japanese to suffer? Have the Balkans been blessed by their heterogeneity or does the very word "Balkanization" remind us of centuries of strife, bloodshed and unspeakable atrocities, extending into our own times? Has Europe become a safer place after importing vast numbers of people from the Middle East, with cultures hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization? "When in Rome do as the Romans do" was once a common saying. Today, after generations in the West have been indoctrinated with the rhetoric of multiculturalism, the borders of Western nations on both sides of the Atlantic have been thrown open to people who think it is their prerogative to come as refugees and tell the Romans what to do and to assault those who don't knuckle under to foreign religious standards. The recent wave of refugees flooding into Europe include Muslim men who have been haranguing European women on the streets for not dressing modestly enough, not to mention their sexual molestation of those women. Smug elites in Europe, like their counterparts in America, are not nearly as concerned about such things as they are about preventing "Islamophobia." Legal restrictions on free speech in some European countries make it a crime to sound the alarm about the dangers to the culture and to the people. In the lofty circles of those who see themselves as citizens of the world, it is considered unworthy, if not hateful, to insist on living according to your own Western values or to resist importing people who increase your chances of being killed. But if you don't have the instinct for self-preservation, it will not matter much in the long run whatever else you may have. America's great good fortune in the past has been that Americans have been able to unite as Americans against every enemy, despite our own internal differences and struggles. Black and white, Jew and Gentile, have fought and died for this country in every war. It has not been our diversity, but our ability to overcome the problems inherent in diversity, and to act together as Americans, that has been our strength. In both World War I and World War II, the top commander of American troops who went into combat against the German army was of German ancestry John J. Pershing and Dwight D. Eisenhower, respectively. So, too, was Gen. Carl Spaatz, whose bombers reduced German cities to rubble. Whatever their backgrounds, they were Americans when the chips were down. Today, that sense of American unity is being undermined by the reckless polarization of group identity politics. That affects not only how Americans see themselves, but how others in our midst see America. Some people demand American citizenship, as if it is an entitlement, while burning the American flag and waving the flag of Mexico. And the apostles of "diversity" and "multiculturalism" watch in silence. That includes the president of the United States. Probably most people in most groups are decent. But if 85 percent of the people in Group A present no serious problems and 95 percent of the people in Group B present no serious problems, that means you can expect three times as many serious problems when you admit immigrants from Group A. Unfortunately, there is remarkably little interest in the relevant facts about crime rates, disease rates, welfare dependency or educational deficiencies among immigrants from specific countries. Most debates about immigration policies are contests in rhetoric, with hard facts being ignored as if they didn't exist. Tragically, the massacre in Orlando seems unlikely to change that. Too many people have too much invested in their own particular position to change, especially in an election year. SHARE While the Main Galleries will feature the artists exhibition, La Petite Galerie will contain a collection of art photography by KAT. This exhibition is a visual map that her feet and mind have taken recently through Old Car City in GA, store windows in London and NYC as well as a unique perspective of flowers and local haunts. Submitted Bob Zottola plays one of the many jazz favorites he knows on his Fugel Horn during a gig in Naples. He and keyboardist Stu Shelton are appearing at Waterside Shops Thursday night. See music Garrett Hubbard/staff 1. Second Tuesday reception: Mountains in the Sky' is June exhibition The Marco Island Center for the Arts' June exhibition will be a call to artists with the theme "Mountains in the Sky." Art displayed is submitted by a wide variety of artists in different media for the exhibition. The center's gallery committee reviews the work to ensure it meets criteria after which it is placed in the gallery, judged and awards presented. While the Main Galleries will feature the artists exhibition, La Petite Galerie will contain a collection of art photography by KAT. This exhibition is a visual map that her feet and mind have taken recently through Old Car City in Georgia, store windows in London and New York City as well as a unique perspective of flowers and local haunts. A talk with the artist will take place at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, June 16. There is no charge for this event. The June exhibitions will be open all month, but the center is hosting its Second Tuesday opening celebration at 5:30 p.m., June 14; and will feature an assortment of hor d'oeuvres for attendees. Beer, wine and soft drinks will also be available. Second Tuesday is free to members, but is also open to the public and a $10 donation is requested from nonmember attendees. Marco Island Center for the Arts is located at 1010 Winterberry Drive, Marco Island, Florida 34145 and is open from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Art in the exhibits is available for sale. In addition, the Center has a full-time gift shop on-site, with display and sale of art. Information: marcoislandart.org. 2. Kids Free Fridays From 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. each Friday, now through Aug. 5 at the Rookery Bay Environmental Learning Center, 300 Tower Road, Naples. Cost is free for each child 12 and under when accompanied by paying adult ($5, up to 5 children per adult). The theme changes each week during summer with different programs and activities that focus on fish, invertebrates, predators and plankton. Scheduled activities include marine life touch tank, face painting, story time and a feature film, while ongoing activities throughout the day include crafts, games and plankton lab. A food truck will be on site each Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration is not required. 3. Wednesday: Bob Zottola Jazz The Marco Island Center for the Arts announces the return of Bob Zottola. The renowned trumpet player performed to a sellout crowd early this year. He has performed with the Maynard Ferguson and Duke Ellington bands and has accompanied such stars as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee and Mel Torme. Hyla Crane, the center's executive director, says Zottola is one of the most exciting entertainers the center has had. Zottola will be performing with his group, Jazz Sympatico. As the name implies, these jazz musicians involve a high degree of communication among themselves and the audience. The Center will be transformed to a Jazz Cabaret as Zottola and his band expand their offerings in this repeat visit to the Center. Dancing will be encouraged. The performance will be from 5:30 until 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, June 15. Tickets are $25 and are available on a first come, first served basis. Tickets for the evening may be obtained by visiting the Marco Island Center for the Arts at 1010 Winterberry Drive, Marco Island, from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, by calling the Center at 239-394-4221 or by visiting the Center's website at marcoislandart.org. President Barack Obama pauses as he speaks about the massacre at a Orlando nightclub during a news conference at the White House in Washington, Sunday, June 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) By Arek Sarkissian of the Naples Daily News ORLANDO Gov. Rick Scott championed members of law enforcement Sunday who stormed the gay nightclub where at least 50 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. Scott also delivered several stern warnings to anyone thinking of committing a similar act in Florida again. "There will be swift justice, there will be severe penalties," Scott said Sunday night after attending a vigil held at Iglesia el Calvario, an Assembly of God Church in Orlando serving a Spanish-speaking congregation. "We will take care of our citizens and take care of our visitors." Scott, along with local government leaders and U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio of Florida, offered insights Sunday as they visited the area near the Pulse nightclub where more than 100 people were shot. Authorities believe 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce fired a gunshot at an Orlando police officer about 2 a.m. Sunday and went inside the club. About 5 a.m. a SWAT team crashed through a wall at the club and found 50 people dead, including Mateen. Nelson said Mateen was likely a "lone wolf" in the shooting rather than part of a larger organized group similar to the Paris attacks from November 2015. He said that solitary status would have made prevention particularly difficult. "As you know, stopping a lone wolf is difficult because it's hard to get the information," Nelson said. Nelson praised the coordination of law enforcement at the scene as a new level of commitment, one that wore no political stripes. "We're out here and we'll do this together," Nelson, a Democrat, said of beating ISIS. RELATED: FBI Assistant Special Agent Ron Hopper said Mateen was twice investigated, once in 2013 for making inflammatory statements to co-workers, and again in 2014 for a potential tie to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, the first American to carry out a suicide attack in Syria. Neither investigations yielded anything. Rubio said with no record, there was no way federal or state authorities could have known that Mateen could potentially commit the mass shooting. "This is terrorism and these are people who use bombs, they use cars, they use planes," Rubio said. "He wasn't in there armed to hold up the place for a robbery. He was there to hurt people so that we can be standing here today wondering when it's going to happen next." Rubio said the mass shooting in Orlando should be considered a turning point in which the U.S. will no longer be afraid of terror cells like ISIS. No American should face attack for their religion or sexual orientation, he said. "We're all Americans," Rubio said. "We will get stronger and they will not win." Orlando Police John Mina speaks to the media during a press conference near the Pulse night club, Monday, June 13, 2016. (Andrew West/News-Press) By Arek Sarkissian of the Naples Daily News ORLANDO Omar Mateen, the killer who claimed allegiance to ISIS, hid in a bathroom at Pulse, the gay Orlando nightclub where he had slaughtered scores of people. A wall of cinder block separated him from a team of police officers just outside. For three hours early Sunday morning, crisis negotiators tried to end the siege. Then Mateen whom police said had acted "cool and calm" during discussions talked about killing more people. Alarmed police placed an explosive device against the block walls and detonated them. The breach failed, the hole not large enough to allow for a successful rescue. A cop rammed his Bearcat armored vehicle through the club wall. Hostages poured out. So did Mateen, guns blazing. With quick efficiency, officers shot him dead. So ended the worst mass shooting spree in American history, with 49 others killed and 53 wounded. On Monday, Orlando Police Chief John Mina and other law enforcement officers offered new details about the shooting, including the possibility that some victims may have been killed by officers trying to save them. "I will say this, that's all part of the investigation," Mina said. "But I will say when our SWAT officers, about eight or nine officers, opened fire, the backdrop was a concrete wall and they were being fired upon." A law enforcement source close to the investigation who asked not to be named because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly said a crowd of up to 300 people and the complex layout of the dance club may have resulted in some patrons being struck by gunfire from officers. Mina said his decision to enter the club with such violence was tough. "It was a hard decision to make but it was the right decision," he said. "Our No. 1 priority is on saving lives and it was the right decision to make." Local, state and federal investigators continued to process the scene Monday from a collection of law enforcement mobile command units. So far, authorities have determined Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard from Fort Pierce, walked up to the club at 2:02 a.m. Sunday armed with an AR-15 rifle and a Glock handgun. An off-duty Orlando police officer working at the club was investigating an underage drinker outside when he heard gunshots inside, according to the law enforcement source. The off-duty officer ran inside the club and traded gunfire with Mateen, backed up soon by three other Orlando police officers, the source said. Together, the officers fired at Mateen, who retreated into a bathroom toward the rear of the club. "Those additional officers made entry while the suspect was shooting," Mina said. "They forced him to stop shooting and retreat to the bathroom where we believe he had several hostages." Mateen called 911 three times from a bathroom he shared with hostages and pledged his allegiance to ISIS, a radical Islamic terrorist group. He called dispatchers twice and hung up before they called him back, the source said. "He was in one bathroom fortified with hostages," Mina said. "There were people in the opposing bathroom, about 15 or 20 people. And the details are unknown, they're part of the investigation." Orlando police called crisis negotiators to the club to speak to Mateen. They had three conversations with him. He remained calm during the talks, but he made clear that his plan was to kill more people, Minas said. "Based off statements made by the suspect, and based on information we received by the suspect and from the hostages and the people inside," Mina said, "we believe further loss of life was imminent. I made the decision to commence the rescue operation and do the explosive breach." A SWAT team summoned by Orlando Police set up three explosive charges controlled by one device, but failed to topple the exterior wall leading to the bathroom that included 15 to 20 people. So Mina made the call to use the Bearcat. Officers wore combat-grade body armor and helmets as they rammed a bathroom wall of the Pulse nightclub, creating a small hole big enough for people to crawl through so the score of captives could escape. Along with the freed hostages who were hopping out of the jagged portal to freedom was Mateen who was wielding an AR-15 rifle and semi-automatic Glock handgun he bought days earlier from a Port St. Lucie gun shop. He fired at officers, striking one of them in his helmet before he was shot several times and killed. "There's a hole in the wall about two feet off the ground and three feet wide. We were able to rescue dozens and dozens of people who came out of that wall," Mina said. "The suspect came out of that hole himself with a handgun and a long gun and engaged in a gun battle with officers where he was ultimately killed." Dozens of bullet holes dot the exterior concrete wall, what's left as evidence of the shootout. This last exchange of gunfire with Mateen and Orlando police and Orange County sheriff's deputies occurred at 5 a.m. and ended the three hour standoff. Orlando officers walked into the nightclub and found lifeless patrons strewed about a bar, lounge area and a bathroom. They heard cellphones continued to ring and saw text messages displaying from anxious friends and relatives of the dead. By Ryan Mills of the Naples Daily News ORLANDO Nella Blanco waited all day Sunday at an Orlando hotel for any update on her best friend Eddie Justice, who was inside the Pulse nightclub when a shooter opened fire hours earlier. The 30-year-old texted Blanco around 2 a.m. telling her a shooter was in the club and that he loved her. He also sent a text to his mother: "He's coming. I'm going to die." Justice's name was not on the initial list of shooting victims. And after a day of waiting, his name wasn't on the list of wounded being treated at nearby hospitals either. "I'm going home," Blanco said as she walked with friends to their car, "and just wait for him to call me." Friends and family of the victims and the missing gathered at the Hampton Inn and Suites Orlando Downtown South, about two blocks from the Orlando Regional Medical Center. It was a chaotic scene. People tried in vain to reach loved ones on their cellphones. Others waited for updates from doctors and law enforcement officers. The best news they could hope for: their loved one was injured and being treated nearby. Those whose loved one's name was not on the list were left to worry through the night that the person they are looking for was killed in the shooting, which has been classified as an act of terrorism. The city of Orlando only released the names of seven confirmed victims Sunday, leaving friends and family of at least 43 more to wait. Another update is expected Monday morning. Law enforcement have called Sunday's attack the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, and have identified the shooter as Omar Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, who had pledged allegiance to the terror group ISIS, authorities said. RELATED: Friends and family of the missing milled about under the hotel's awning. Some shared their stories with the throng of TV cameras gathered on the sidewalk outside. Early in the evening there was an impromptu prayer circle. "There's a lot of mothers, cousins, sisters. The room is so crowded and it's hot. And the news? Nothing. We're just going crazy in there," said Noelia Santiago, who was waiting for an update on her nephew, Luis Wilson, who had moved to Orlando from Puerto Rico about 15 years ago. The tension broke just before 6 p.m., when a group of doctors brought over an updated list of wounded. Several people whose loved one was not on the list ran into the parking lot sobbing and wailing. One man voiced his frustration for the gathered press, saying most of the people in the club likely had to show identification to enter. "I don't understand why the city cannot contact the people that have been here since this morning, the ones that put their names and contact phone number and the missing person, the one that they're looking for," he said. "If you have a morgue full of dead people, why don't we check their wallet and at that point call any of the family members over here?" Adeliz Lopez learned her cousin, Ilka, is in critical condition after being shot eight times. Ilka went to Pulse for Latin Night, but what was supposed to be a fun evening of dancing ended in a nightmare. "I'm devastated," Lopez said. "There is so much hate in people's heart." For others, the unfortunate news that their loved one had been killed trickled in slowly, but painfully, throughout the day. Maria Rodriguez Hernandez tried to remain hopeful that her friend, Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez had survived the shooting. He was at the club. Friends told her Velazquez remained standing during the shooting, instead of getting on the floor. He didn't make it out with his friends, she said. By Sunday evening, she had assumed she received the news she didn't want because he wasn't on the survivors list. Velazquez, she said, was "on his second journey and in peace," Hernandez said in a text message. Earlier in the day, Angel Gardmac embraced a friend outside the Orlando Regional Medical Center as he waited to hear from six friends who were inside the hotel during the shooting. Not knowing their condition is the hardest part, he said. "I'm in shock," Gardmac said in between sobs. "I don't know how to feel." District School Board of Collier County. (Carolina Hidalgo/Staff) SHARE By Melhor Leonor of the Naples Daily News Weeks after federal education officials issued a letter mandating that school districts allow transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice, Collier school officials and the public will take on the issue Tuesday. School district counsel Jon Fishbane will present board members with his legal analysis of the issue, as districts throughout the country vow to abide by the guidance or disregard it completely at the risk of losing federal funding. Collier County board members agreed last month to delay a vote on the issue, though all expressed at the time dissatisfaction with a federal mandate that they believe trespasses on their authority as local education officials. Also on Tuesday, board members are expected to vote on the renewal of Superintendent Kamela Patton's contract. On the table is the possibility to keep Patton as the executive head of Collier County Public Schools beyond the contract's expiration date of June 30, 2018. That date was set in July 2014, shortly before the election that placed two new board members on the dais, when school board members voted 3-2 to extend the contract by two years. Before a vote on Patton's contract, board members will discuss her evaluation, which yielded a score of 3.76 on a 4-point scale. Board members largely rated Patton favorably, agreeing that she completed the goals outlined with mostly "excellent" ratings. But throughout the evaluation, board members Erika Donalds and Kelly Lichter argued that the evaluation is flawed. "I continue to assert that this evaluation tool does not provide a clear picture to the board or the public of the superintendent's performance, which should be results (and) output-based, as opposed to task-based," Donalds said. The distinction, both board members said, is that Patton is evaluated based on tasks completed "Promote literacy by designing, advertising and conducting school-based Young Author's Night in all elementary schools." They argue it should look at trackable performance measures, such as, how many incoming kindergartners are ready for school. During Tuesday's meeting, board members will also discuss the board's self-evaluation. A summary compiled by the school district shows that eight of the 34 indicators improved in their rating while 20 declined since the board's last self-evaluation completed in November. Thirteen of the indicators were the lowest scores in the history of the self-evaluation in its current form. The lowest rated performance indicator, "School Board members are respectful to each other in private and in public," received a score of 1.6 on a 5-point scale. "It is a hostile working environment with one board member," board member Kelly Lichter wrote in the comments section. Board chairwoman Julie Sprague wrote: "One School Board member sends hostile emails following meetings critical of the performance of other Board members and staff with inflammatory and derogatory comments about them." The second lowest-rated performance indicator, "The School Board and the Superintendent work well together in a spirit of mutual trust and confidence," received a score of 2. "Certain school board members think the worst of others' intentions without evidence for this assumption," wrote board member Erika Donalds. "Tension persists in this area despite the Superintendent's collaborative style. An email sent by a Board member to DOE accuses staff of collusion and illegal activity without any basis," Sprague wrote, referring to a letter authored by Lichter. Other comments also highlight the discord between board members. "The culture of the current school board is divisive, polarizing and dysfunctional. Civility at board meetings is at an all-time low," board member Kathleen Curatolo wrote. On whether board members are careful to speak publicly on issues only as individuals and not to represent the position of entire board, board member Roy Terry wrote: "This has improved, but I listened to a radio show where a board member bashed the school system and other board members for a solid hour." Following action by state lawmakers, board members will also discuss how their professional development dollars will be spent specifically, which association those dues will be directed at. The apparent choice for board members is whether to join the Florida School Boards Association or the Florida Coalition of School Board members. Sprague and board members Kathleen Curatolo and Roy Terry in the past have expressed satisfaction with FSBA, which has for years provided professional development workshops and other services to Collier County school board members. On the other hand, board member Erika Donalds has been part of a growing coalition of conservative board members in the state who banded forces to create an alternative. Their displeasure with FSBA rose after the association became a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Florida's tax-credit scholarship, or voucher program. SHARE John Brunner By Melhor Leonor of the Naples Daily News Collier County School Board candidate John Brunner has dropped out of the race for the board's District 2 seat, according to election officials Monday. Brunner's decision makes District 2 a two-person contest between Stephanie Lucarelli and Louise Penta, whom he endorsed shortly after withdrawing from the race. "I feel strongly about the need for change and realize that had I decided to stay in the race, the voices for constructive change on the Collier County School Board would be split between the two of us, lessening the potential for that change," he said in a statement posted on his Facebook page. Brunner is the second candidate to file for the seat to later drop out of the race, after Gene Ungarean, who left the race in May. Brunner, 50, had raised $18,720 in cash contributions as of May 31. Last month he raised just $100 from two donors, making it his least profitable month to date. As for cash on hand, Brunner was behind both of his opponents with just under $15,000. Lucarelli has $17,885 in hand, while Penta, the race's strongest fundraiser, has $44,884 in hand including a $10,000 loan from herself. During his time in the race, Brunner distinguished himself as a conservative candidate with views more moderate than those of Penta and a stark contrast to Lucarelli. Lucarelli, though a registered Republican, has received the support of local democratic groups and the teachers union. Brunner has not voiced to fight the presence of the Blue Zones project in public schools, a cause championed by local conservatives. But he has said the local school system should seek ways to detach itself from federal control, a view Lucarelli does not support. Brunner did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday morning. A former educator, Brunner has taught at four local schools including two traditional public schools, a charter and a private school he opened and then shut down. "I am an educator and not a politician," Brunner said in April. His platform, he said at the time, was based on shifting the focus of Collier County schools to what it was before the implementation of No Child Left Behind, a federal law that ushered in increased school accountability through standardized testing. Donors give blood at the OneBlood blood bank in Orlando, Fla., after a shooting involving multiple fatalities at a nightclub, Sunday, June 12, 2016. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. (AP Photo/John Raoux) By Annika Hammerschlag, annika.hammerschlag@naplesnews.com The phone was ringing off the hook at the Blood Donation Center in downtown Naples on Monday morning. Touched by the previous day's events where 49 people lost their lives to a shooter in an Orlando nightclub, residents were eager to help in any way they could. "There's just been an outpouring of support," said Laura Rosen, the community relations manager at the center, which is an affiliate of the NCH Healthcare System. "We're so grateful and we're working closely with officials in Orlando. We're prepared to send them any excess blood if they request it." By 1 p.m. a line of ten people had formed outside the center's blood mobile in Bonita Springs, with half a dozen more waiting inside the truck. "The response is a lot heavier than normal," said James Sutton, a senior phlebotomist and driver of the blood mobile, as he rushed to tend to donors. He says the truck normally sees around 30 people a day during the summer months, but nearly 40 people came to donate. "We're glad everybody's responded, but blood is needed every day, not just after a crisis. It's a shame they don't show up every day," Sutton said. Nicholas Constantini, a first-time blood donor, agreed. "You're right. And that's why I pledge to do this regularly." Constantini, who was on his lunch break from Rick Johnson Auto & Tire where he works as the store manager, grew up in Orlando but has been living in Naples for the last six years. Though he doesn't know anyone who was directly affected by the shooting, he felt compelled to help. "It's a must. We're all family, we gotta help each other out. We gotta give whatever we can give," he said. "I'm a gun collector but I don't understand why someone would want to use them that way," he added. "To go in and do what he did, it's not right. It's just senseless." Robert Dorsey, an Airforce combat veteran who now works as a bouncer at the Blue Martini, said his decision to forgo the gym to give blood tied back to his instinct to act when terror strikes. "Terrorism has reached our borders," he said. "It's not France or Brussels. It's Orlando. I felt I needed to reach out and help in whatever way I can." Many other Naples residents shared Dorsey's and Constantini's sentiments: by the end of the day 104 people had donated blood at the blood mobile and downtown Center combined, which is more than double the average amount for this time of year. "It's gratifying to see the public is so supportive in times like this. It shows the importance of having a blood supply before things like this happen so we can be prepared," said Rosen. She also notes that there's a shortage this time of year since many residents are "snowbirds" who are only in town during winter. "People take a vacation, but the need for blood doesn't," she said, adding that platelet donors and people with O-positive or O-negative blood types are in high demand. The Community Blood Center is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Tuesday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. The blood mobile is parked at Sunshine Plaza in Bonita Springs the second Monday of each month and at the Marco Healthcare Center the first Thursday of each month. More information and locations can be found on their website www.givebloodcbc.org and their Facebook page www.facebook.com/givebloodcbc. FDA guidelines currently do not allow gay men or people who have been out of the country in the last 28 days to donate blood. Rickey Swanson writes on a sign showing solidarity with victims of the mass killings in Orlando, Fla., at the LA Pride event today in West Hollywood, Calif., Sunday, June 12, 2016. (Mindy Schauer/The Orange County Register via AP) MAGS OUT; LOS ANGELES TIMES OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT By Ashley Collins of the Naples Daily News The Rev. Tony Fisher described Sunday's service at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Greater Naples as "quiet" in the wake of the country's deadliest mass shooting. Fisher and his congregation spent much of Sunday morning meditating and praying for the victims of the Orlando shooting and their families. The congregation hosted its annual Pride Sunday on June 5, celebrating LGBT Pride Month, which honors the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Fisher said this catastrophic event affects everyone, not just the LGBT community. "What we need to do is focus on our daily interactions. One of our seven principles says to affirm and promote the dignity and worth of every person," Fisher said. The mass shooting occurred early Sunday morning, killing 50 people and injuring 53 at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. While the gunman's motive remains unknown, the gunman's father, Mir Seddique, recalled that his son, Omar Mateen, got angry after witnessing two men kissing in Miami. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," Seddique told NBC News. "We are in shock like the whole country." Local LGBT advocates voiced opinions on the recent mass shooting. "We have seen an improvement in acceptance, but that doesn't mean there aren't people who still deal with discrimination," said David Goldstein, president of the Naples chapter of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). Jason Fleenor, of Fort Myers, called the mass shooting a hate crime. "I want to say that this makes me angry, that my people, gay people, were in a place that is supposed to be a safe haven for them and this man, who was filled with bad teachings and hate, took it upon himself to end people's lives because he was afraid of people showing affection." Nicole Lamorte of BeProudSWFL.com and the Rainbow Pages LGBT directory, said people should look at this situation as more than just an LGBT issue. "Yes, it was an LGBT club. People might try to categorize it," she said. "At the end of the day people were killed. It's just really sad. News-Press reporter Michael Braun contributed to this story. --- RELATED: This is one of three stories related to people choosing to go into the medical profession and the costs and challenges they face. Return to naplesnews.com through Monday to read all of the articles or pick up a copy of Sunday's Daily News. * * * * * The third article will focus on doctors who didn't repay their taxpayer-supported loans, which is the reason for the database at the bottom of this article. That factor doesn't relate to the people interviewed for this particular article. Despite high cost and residency shortage, Florida sees interest rise in medical school Emily Essert is coming back to her hometown of Naples this summer to be a family doctor. The 30-year-old likely could have gone anywhere because of a shortage of family doctors. But she is staying on Florida's west coast, where she went to medical school and completed her residency. In that regard, she validates a historical trend: Doctors end up practicing near where they do their residencies. 'I just signed a contract with Naples Community Hospital,' said Essert, who is finishing her three-year residency at St. Petersburg General Hospital. She graduated in June 2010 from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Bradenton on the Gulf Coast. She preferred the private school even though it didn't offer scholarships. Tuition was $26,000 a year. 'I took out loans to pay for it,' she said, adding that she wasn't overly fearful of the sizable debt. 'I think I knew things would just work out in the end. Physicians say student loans are just part of the process.' Ross Harrison, a third-year medical student at the University of Florida's College of Medicine in Gainesville, hasn't decided on his specialty but the 25-year-old is leaning toward general surgery. He grew up in Ocala. 'I think it is the best medical school in Florida and definitely the best value for a medical education,' he said. That's despite not receiving any scholarship assistance. He wants to do his residency in Florida and plans to stay in the state to practice, partly because his family is here. As the medical student representative on the Florida Medical Association's (FMA) board of governors, he sees what the association can accomplish. 'I think the FMA has done a great job representing doctors and their interests in Florida and it is a good place to practice,' Harrison said. His interest in general surgery isn't because the higher income can offset loans sooner than family medicine, which pays less. Instead, it's because he considers surgery exciting. Harrison said recent studies refute an assumption that medical students pick surgical specialties over family medicine because of an anticipated higher income.'There was a survey done and medical students said it wasn't so much loan debt, it was what they thought they were a good fit for in a specialty and whether the specialty was a good fit,' Harrison said. A study published in January in the journal Academic Medicine determined that primary care doctors are able to pay off loans, even with higher levels of student loan debt. The authors used financial planning software and various levels of debt, living expenses and income from various specialties to run calculations. Where's the doctor shortage? As for how Collier County fares with recruiting young doctors, local officials say there have been vast improvements. In addition, there's no longer a doctor shortage in Collier, said Dr. Aurora Estevez, chief medical officer of the NCH Healthcare System. 'We are quite fortunate,' she said, adding that the interest in Naples among young doctors varies. 'Some of the young physicians who are married with families (will come to Naples). The young single physician, we're not as attractive to as a big metropolitan area.' Twenty to 30 physicians come to Collier yearly now and many are younger, said Margaret Eadington, executive director of the Collier County Medical Society. The young single physician, we're not as attractive to as a big metropolitan area.' 'House prices have dropped and it's a good place to raise a family,' she said. Overwhelmingly, young doctors aren't going into solo practice; instead they are joining larger practices or going for hospital employment, Eadington said. The FMA says that's the trend everywhere, in part because being employed provides a better balance between home and professional lives, FMA spokeswoman Erin Vansickle said. Another reason is the cost of medical malpractice insurance and having to practice defensive medicine, which involves taking steps to avoid a potential lawsuit. 'Physician employment is a huge trend with medical groups and hospitals,' Vansickle said. 'It's tough to be a physician today.' Choosing an underserved area While there have been no broad federal loan guarantees for medical education since the Health Education Assistance Loan program ended in 1998, there still are options tied to financial need or willingness to practice in an underserved area. The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) provides both scholarships and loan forgiveness, including an option that allows primary-care doctors, dentists and other professionals to earn up to $60,000 to repay student loans in exchange for two years of service in facilities in underserved cities and rural areas. Although the corps has been around since 1970, it's grown sharply under the Obama administration. There are nearly 10,000 professionals in the program now, almost triple the number in 2008. There also are some scholarships and need-based loan programs run through medical schools. Officials say less than 1 percent of students and professionals default or fail to complete their assignments today, although there were more defaults early in the corps program. 'There are some pretty severe penalties for default, and we work closely with the professionals if they have some hardship,' said Rebecca Spitzgo, director of the corps, which is run through the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. __ Lee Bowman of Scripps Howard News Service contributed to this report. SHARE Henry Hartman, Naples Saturation Regarding the "Don't attack Habitat for tackling problem" editorial. This editorial evokes the concept of "need," but is silent on concept of "saturation." Where there is saturation there is no need these are mutually exclusive concepts. East Naples already hosts four Habitat for Humanity communities Charlee Estates, Victoria Falls, Trail Ridge and Regal Acres plus Habitat units and foreclosure renovations in the already existing Naples Manor. Even not counting Naples Manor, that's at least three more communities here than in other Naples areas. This negates any misconception of a need for a fifth community. (Note: Immokalee is a separate entity altogether not part of this discussion about Naples.) A glaring fallacy of the editorial inferred that the meeting's attendees were opposed to providing a place for teachers to live. The exact opposite opinion was expressed. Attendees stated that Naples has a strong need of affordable housing for teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, midlevel administrators, etc., but not additional housing for Habitat's low-income target. Those in need are generally not in a low enough income bracket to qualify for Habitat communities. The buzz phrase "litmus test" appeared, so I respond with one of my own "reality check." Though Habitat for Humanity was born of noble intentions, noble intentions don't always turn out as planned. The editorial stated, "Why drive into someone else's neighborhood if you don't have business there? Looking for negatives, maybe?" No, those concerned don't live in Habitat communities, but when a new one is about to be built in your backyard, you go into the existing ones looking for facts. If facts turn out to be negative, the reconnaissance is justified. Naples, FL June 13, 2016 For the second time in less than a year, the Walmart Foundations State Giving Program has empowered the Pan-Florida Challenge (PFC) (http://panfloridachallenge.org) through a donation of $32,000 to help provide nearly a million healthy meals for hungry children in 22 local pre-kindergarten and elementary schools. In accepting the $32,000 check at a May 6 ceremony at Florida Gulf Coast University, Maura Plante, Executive Director of the PFC, commented, Walmart Foundations generous contribution will be combined with funds raised from our charity March bike ride to feed hungry children right in our own back yard. There are over 114,000 children in Lee, Collier, Glades, Palm Beach and Hendry counties considered food insecure who do now know where their next meal is coming from. With the donation from Walmart and other supporters, our goal is to significantly extend our reach in the coming school year. The Naples, Florida-based Pan-Florida Challenge is a nonprofit corporation. Its annual two-day 177-mile bike ride from Naples to Palm Beach is already en route to dramatically reducing hunger in the region. In 2015, 65 riders helped raised $140,000 to pay for over 700,000 meals, with 100% of riders donations going directly towards meals. Results of the 2016 race are currently being tabulated. While there are many area food banks and charitable agencies, determining how to identify the estimated one-out-of-four hungry children within the region and provide them with healthy food that goes straight into their home was a supreme challenge. Many of the youngsters eat breakfast and lunch at their schools during the week, but after they take the bus home on Friday, many will not eat a meal again until Monday morning. To eliminate this, the PFC joined forces with area school districts, United Way, Meals of Hope and other agencies and now provides backpacks filled with wholesome food, distributed to needy kids every weekend all school year long through its PFC Power Pack Program. Children up to the fifth grade are selected by school faculty to receive a PFC Power Pack, which is inserted into the childs backpack before they leave school on Fridays. Filled with 13 meal offerings with 96% of the calories, protein and carbs required by the USDA now the Power Pack kid eats all weekend long. The Meals of Hope adds a family meal to preserve more of the calories for the child. The Power Pack offers more than just nourishment, adds Plante. A hungry child cant focus or learn. But after they are fed, they are happier and learning skills improve. Since the food goes into their personal backpacks, there is no stigma attached to receiving a PFC Power Pack. Instead, there is joy as the Power Pack Kids line up to receive their food, which they believe will give them super powers like their super heroes. It is a beautiful thing to see. All of this is made possible through the generosity of area residents and wonderful partners like Walmart, said Plante. Tammy Garrett: Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award finalist Meet Tammy Garrett and her cause, Rapahope Children's Retreat Foundation. Tammy is one of four finalists chosen for the Betty Jane France Humanitarian award for her dedication to helping children. In a keynote speech at the International Security Forum in Geneva on Monday (13 June 2016), NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow discussed NATOs response to current security challenges, the agenda for the Warsaw Summit, and the significance the Alliance attaches to partnerships with non-NATO members. Ambassador Vershbow underlined the important contributions Switzerland is making to the Alliance, including to the NATO-led KFOR mission in Kosovo, to capacity building in the Republic of Moldova, and to efforts by other NATO partner countries to demilitarize. Switzerland has also been a driving force behind the development of NATOs policy on wide range of human security issues. Ambassador Vershbow noted that as a result of its partnership with NATO, I believe that Switzerland has profoundly enhanced its influence on, and contribution to, international security. Regarding the current security challenges, Ambassador Vershbow said that the biggest challenges we face are the actions of a more aggressive and assertive Russia, and the tide of violence and instability which has swept across the Middle East and North Africa. NATOs Deputy Secretary General noted that two themes will define the upcoming Summit in Warsaw. NATO has taken the view that we must protect our nations by strengthening our collective defence and we must project stability beyond our borders, Ambassador Vershbow said. Deputy Secretary General also noted that at the Warsaw Summit Alliance will take next steps to enhance partnerships, especially with the European Union: Closer cooperation between the two - on hybrid threats, cyber defence and maritime security, among many other things - is frankly, a no-brainer. I strongly condemn the horrific shooting in Orlando, Florida. I grieve with all those who lost loved ones, the LGBT community, and the American people. My thoughts are with the many who were injured in this act of terror. Terror and hate will not change who we are. NATO Allies stand united in the fight against terrorism and in defence of our open societies. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefed media on Monday (13 June 2016) on the agenda of this weeks meetings of NATO Defence Ministers. Over the next two days, we will take a series of important decisions to strengthen our collective defence and enhance our cooperation with partners, said Mr. Stoltenberg. He stressed that these decisions will pave the way for the Warsaw Summit in July. We will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland, said the Secretary General. He underlined that these battalions are part of a much bigger shift in NATOs defence and deterrence posture, including a larger NATO Response Force, a new Spearhead Force and 8 new small headquarters in the eastern part of the Alliance. All together this strikes the right balance between a greater ability to reinforce, and boost our forward presence, he added. NATO has also taken action to ensure that Allied troops can move faster across Europe, for exercises or reinforcements, if needed. Last month, the Spearhead Force conducted an exercise which showed how far we have come. One thousand troops and four hundred military vehicles moved from Spain to Poland within four days, said Mr. Stoltenberg. He stressed that NATO will continue to work to improve freedom of movement for Allied troops and equipment, because speed can make the difference when a crisis emerges. The Secretary General underscored that Allies must spend more on defence to sustain this shift in NATOs defence posture. He highlighted that, following a long decline in defence spending, 2015 was the first year after many when the Alliance registered a small increase in defence spending. Our estimates for 2016 show a further increase, said Mr. Stoltenberg. The annual real change stands at around 1.5 percent, an increase of over 3 billion dollars, with twenty Allies planning to spend more on defence in real terms this year. So this is real progress. After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction, he said. This week, Defence Ministers will also discuss how NATO can expand its efforts to project stability beyond its borders, strengthening local forces in the fight against terrorism. We will also consider providing AWACS surveillance planes to support the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL, said the Secretary General. He added that ministers will assess what more NATO can do in the wider Mediterranean Sea, for instance in support of the European Unions Operation Sophia. On Tuesday, Ministers will discuss the future of cooperation between NATO and the European Union, together with High Representative Mogherini and Ministers from Finland and Sweden. Mr. Stoltenberg noted that ministers will also explore additional assistance for Ukraine and Georgia. On Wednesday, we will meet the Ukrainian Defence Minister in the NATO-Ukraine Commission. We are concerned about the security situation, amid continued ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine, said Mr. Stoltenberg. "Guns in the hands of the bureaucrats" Our own tax dollars being spent to enslave us (NaturalNews) The federal government is becoming increasingly militarized, with numerous agencies now employing their own SWAT teams to conduct raids on raw milk producers, beekeepers, lemon growers - or anyone else who runs afoul of agency policies.The trend has increased during Obama's presidency and is not only costing taxpayers enormous amounts of money, but also terrorizing citizens who could hardly be considered dangerous criminals by any sane estimation.The USDA is just one example. From BlacklistedNews.com:The militarization of agencies that have nothing to do with national security is disturbing, particularly when it involves non-violent innocent citizens being bullied and intimidated by lethal force in the name of protecting corporate interests.As Ron Paul said in 1997:No doubt the founders of this country are rolling in their graves as we slip deeper into an authoritarian system that serves the interests of a corporate fascist state.It's difficult to imagine any possible justification for supplying the SSA or the NOAA with hundreds of thousands of hollow-point bullets, or have I missed something?Over the past ten years, 44 "traditionally administrative" federal agencies have spent more $71 million on military equipment, including cannon launchers, firearms and ammunition.As the federal government increasingly encroaches on Second Amendment freedoms, it is also arming itself to the teeth. And that's not even mentioning the fact that law enforcement agencies are also becoming more militarized by the day.As Adam Andrzejewski, founder of OpenTheBooks.com, told theIt's time we recognize the threat we face from our own government. The increasing militarization of federal agencies and the simultaneously increasing restrictions on citizens' rights to own guns should send a clear signal that the principles our nation was founded upon are being systematically undermined.If we fail to heed the warning signs, we can say goodbye to the freedoms our founding fathers worked so hard to establish and that so many have died for since to protect. Are we alone in the universe? A Youtube Channel called Paranormal Crucible, recently posted a video saying that an enhanced image of the surface of Mars, taken by the Curiosity Rover, shows a visible skull from an advanced Martian humanoid. 'Sasquatch skull' seen on Mars will make your imagination run wild https://t.co/76NYaObELm pic.twitter.com/QHBT2s7jJE CNET (@CNET) June 10, 2016 The Youtube Channel Paranormal Crucible published the video on June 7. The administrator of the channel claims that NASA captured an image of what looks like a "Sasquatch" or a bizarre Martian creature. The controversial video ignited the interest of conspiracy theorists around the world. The original photo was taken by NASA's Curiosity Rover, which is currently traversing the rocky terrain of the red planet while sending tons of images back to Earth. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California posted the original and unedited photo. The caption of the photo says that the image was taken by a Mastcam onboard the Mars Curiosity Rover. In the video, the image of what looks like a skull with two visible eye sockets is the center of attention of UFO hunters today. A UFO hunter even announced that they have a latest bizarre discovery, a "humanoid alien skull" and it was spotted on the surface of Mars, according to an article by Inquisitr. The visual "proof" had stirred the minds of believers and non-believers alike. The UFO hunters even added that the image is a "clinching evidence" of advanced ancient humanoid and civilization on the red planet. The video has almost 100,000 views and debate, whether there are other life forms other than mankind, was very prominent from the comments the video has garnered. But experts disagree, saying that at this point, there could be no life form thriving on Mars. Although conspiracy theorists would like to see a Mars teeming with alien life, that might not happen. But according to the data obtained by the Mars Curiosity Rover and other NASA missions to the red planet, Mars indeed have unusual rocks, terrains and even weather behaviors which can lead people to think that there are aliens on Mars. According to a report by CNET, it is easy to add shadows and enhancement to the photo and to heighten the excitement with dramatic sound effect to come up with an interesting alien conspiracy video. The only logical explanation is that NASA captured a photo of an unusually shaped Martian rock. This is not the first time UFO hunters claim to discover alien remnants on Mars. In 1976, there was a famous image showing a face on the surface of Mars taken by NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter. NASA was quick to refute the claims, saying that the image is just part of the surface and not a face on an alien. Prepare for arrival: NASA's Juno mission is less than a month or 11.1 million miles away from reaching Jupiter on July 4. The Juno spacecraft bound for Jupiter was launched in August 2011. Its main goal is to understand the composition and evolution of the planet to give light to the creation of the Earth and the Solar System. Scientists believe that Jupiter is one of the oldest bodies within the Solar System which possess the same composition as the Sun. "Like the sun, Jupiter is mostly hydrogen and helium, so it must have formed early, capturing most of the material left after our star came to be," said NASA in a statement. Today, the Juno spacecraft is 24 days away from reaching the planet or 11.1 million miles; Juno's nearest approach to Jupiter. Upon reaching the planet, Juno will find out how much water is in Jupiter's atmosphere to understand how the planet was formed, affirming or negating existing theories. The planet's composition, temperature and cloud temperature will also be measured. Aside from that, the magnetic and gravity fields of the planet will also be observed. NASA is also hoping that Juno can peek into the composition of the giant planet to find out if it has a solid core. Jupiter, having almost the same materials as the sun, sometimes appears brighter than the star itself, so Juno will closely monitor the planet's magnetosphere as well. NASA is literally days away from obtaining all these necessary information, but Juno is working twice as hard to reach its destination. A difficult high-speed maneuver will be performed by Juno to enter Jupiter's orbit. "We're currently closing the distance between us and Jupiter at about four miles per second," said Scott Bolton, principal investigator for Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, in a statement. "But Jupiter's gravity is tugging at us harder every day and by the time we arrive we'll be accelerated to 10 times that speed -- more than 40 miles per second (nearly 70 kilometers per second) -- by the time our rocket engine puts on the brakes to get us into orbit," Bolton added. After the maneuver, harsh conditions on the planet awaits Juno. Reports say that the spacecraft will repeatedly approach the uppermost puffs of clouds at the same time, exposing itself to harsh radiation. But despite that, NASA is hopeful that Juno will be able to succeed it this attempt to be the first spacecraft to achieve the closest approach to the planet according to a report by CS Monitor. Juno's two-year mission to orbit the planet will start this July. After the mission, Juno will burn itself up into the universe, but NASA said this won't be the end of Juno's mission, instead it will pave the way for new missions based on valued information Juno will uncover in the coming days. Telsa founder, Elon Musk and his space company start-up, SpaceX is ready to conquer Mars. Musk recently revealed "mind blowing" details of his 2018 unmanned mission to the red planet, saying that in order to build a space colony on Mars they will have to establish a reliable cargo route. The route will be used to deliver cargo to the red planet during their planned trip to Mars after every two years starting 2018. SpaceX is currently affiliated with NASA as the agency's cargo resupply service using Dragon spacecraft that delivers goods to the International Space Station (ISS). Musk plans to conquer the planet earlier in 2018 and he is also set to send the first human on Mars on 2024 with arrival on 2025. Musk revealed more details about his mission to colonize Mars. It may sound easy in theory but space and renewable energy tycoon, knows what he is getting into, saying that the mission is like to be "hard, risky, dangerous, difficult," said Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, in an interview. After his 2018 unmanned mission to Mars, Musk said there would be cargo missions to Mars after every two years, in time for when the Earth and Mars are closest to each other. Earlier this month, Musk announced the "Mars Payload" scheme, a cargo service to deliver goods to Mars. It is open to commercial space companies and official agencies of the different nations for the minimum fee of $62 million. According to Musk, there are commercial satellite operators who already expressed their interests in the cargo service using the reusable space rockets of SpaceX. But just like NASA, Musk recognizes the difficulties in reaching a planet 140 million miles away from the Earth. Space cargo "routes" should be established. "It's a regular cargo route. You can count on it. It's going to happen every 26 months. Like a train leaving the station. And if scientists around the world know that they can count on that, and it's going to be inexpensive, relatively speaking compared to anything in the past, then they will plan accordingly and come up with a lot of great experiments," Musk said in an interview with Washington Post. NASA promised SpaceX with "technical support." Musk is adamant when it comes to landing on Mars in 2018, he was once quoted that SpaceX will proceed with its 2018 mission with or without NASA. Meanwhile, NASA plans to launch its mission to Mars in 2030. A researcher from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania accidentally infected herself with Zika virus while conducting an experiment in the laboratory, university officials said. The woman accidentally pricked herself with a needle on May 23 while doing an experiment on the virus. Nine days later, she started experiencing Zika-like symptoms, including fever. The university had received a confirmation that the woman tested positive for Zika. "On advice of the ACHD (Allegheny County Health Department), the researcher is complying with a request to wear long sleeves and pants and wear insect repellent for three weeks from the date of contact," the university said in a statement as reported by CNN. The ACHD has confirmed that the woman's symptoms have resolved and that she is doing well. According to ACHD officials, the case is unique because the person has not traveled to an affected area and has not been infected through sexual transmission. This is the fourth Zika-related case in the Pennsylvania county. "We want to remind residents that, despite this rare incident, there is still no current risk of contracting Zika from mosquitos in Allegheny County," Dr. Karen Hacker, director of ACHD, said in a press release. "For those traveling to countries affected by Zika, we urge caution. Pregnant women particularly should avoid travel to affected countries," she added. While the county has not yet documented local mosquito transmission of Zika, residents are still encouraged to protect themselves from insect-borne infections especially during warm weather. According to a report in CNN, almost all infected individuals in the U.S. were infected while traveling in Zika-affected destinations. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly urge health care workers to take the necessary precautions when handling the virus to prevent exposures. CDC emergency response teams are ready to be deployed when local transmission of the virus has been confirmed in the U.S., CDC director Tom Frieden told CNN. The Zika response plan had been created with inputs from state and local officials, outlining protocols for initial response during a case of local transmission. Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed the massacre in Orlando and asked for a moment of silence Monday at the tech giant's annual developer's conference. Cook spoke to the crowd Monday at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco during the weeklong Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company touted its new line of smart watches and TV features. Cook wrote at length about being gay in a 2014 op-ed, and on Monday celebrated the multiculturalism of Apples own Cupertino-based workforce. "At Apple, we celebrate our diversity. We know that it makes us stronger and moves everyone forward," Cook told the audience, saying the massacre of at least 49 people at a gay nightclub Sunday was a "senseless, unconscionable act of terrorism and hate, aimed at dividing and destroying." He called for silence, and as the audience hushed for a moment in the dark theater, Cook wiped a tear from his eye. Having diversity in the world, Cook said Monday, makes us stronger and moves everyone forward. Since Cook came out to the public, he's supported several LGBT causes, including last year when he lent his name to an anti-discrimination bill in his native state of Alabama. Last spring, under Cook's leadership, Apple announced it was giving $50 million to nonprofits to recruit a more diverse tech workforce. Most recently, in March, Cook and other tech leaders signed letters of disapproval to the North Carolina's governor over a state law derided by the Department of Justice for limiting legal protections to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Bay Area legislators gathered Monday in San Francisco to call for the passage of a package of gun control legislation that they say could help prevent mass shootings like this weekend's massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The legislative package, which includes new limits on "bullet buttons" allowing quick reloading and on the sale of long guns, faces a key vote in the state Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, according to Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. Speaking at a news conference with Assemblymen David Chiu, D-San Francisco, Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, and Marc Levine, D-Marin County, Ting noted that in addition to the Orlando shooting, a heavily armed suspect who may have planned to target the Los Angeles Pride Festival was also arrested this weekend. "We luckily avoided a tragedy in Los Angeles but relying on luck is no way to run a state," Ting said. "By passing comprehensive gun safety laws, we can prevent mass shootings in California." The legislation includes Assembly Bill 1664, which would remove a loophole in the state assault weapon ban that allows for a "bullet button" on guns allowing the rapid changing of ammunition magazines, and Assembly Bill 1673, which would prevent the sale of "ghost guns," or parts and components that can be easily reassembled. The package also includes Assembly Bill 1674, which limits the purchase of long guns to one per month, Assembly Bill 1695, which adds penalties for those who falsely report guns as lost or stolen, and Assembly Bill 2607, which would make it easier for mental health professionals, employers or co-workers to seek restraining orders for people showing signs of high-risk behavior that would prevent them from obtaining or possessing firearms. The lawmakers were joined by local officials including District Attorney George Gascon and supervisors Aaron Peskin, Norman Yee and Malia Cohen, as well as by members of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. In addition, Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' San Francisco Bay Area Office, appeared in support of the legislation. Billoo said she and others in the Muslim community were horrified by the shooting and urged local Muslims to attend vigils, donate blood and show support for the victims. She noted that in some ways the Orlando shooting, which may have been motivated in part by Muslim extremism or by homophobia, was complicated. "At the same time, it's really simple," Billoo said. "People should not have access to weapons that dangerous, period." Legislators at the national level have allowed a federal assault rifle ban to expire and failed to pass new gun laws after previous mass shootings around the nation, leaving state legislators to act on their own. "What we are trying to do in California is lead the way," Chiu said. "If you look at the history of mass shootings in California, the common thread is not the ethnicity of the shooters or the victims, but the weapons," he said. Members of Muslim communities in the South Bay bowed in prayer Sunday night asking that those injured in the Orlando nightclub shooting survive and recover. They also condemned Omar Mateen, the gunman who pledged his allegiance with ISIS and killed at least 50 people. In a show of solidarity, the executive director of the Bay Area Council on American Islamic Relations spoke to the LGBTQ community during a rally at the Billy Defrank Silicon Valley LGBTQ Center in San Jose. Zara Billoo, executive director of the Bay Area office of CAIR, said the incident was "an attack that we feel is disgusting, and we condemn it and we stand in solidarity with the victims and their families." The national leaders of CAIR also spoke out against the attack, calling Mateen a lone wolf. "You do not represent us," said Nihad Awad, CAIR's national executive director. "You are an outlaw. You don't speak for our faith." Muslims across the world turned to social media to share the same sentiment, using #NotInMyName. Also in the South Bay, a mosque in Milpitas organized a prayer service for the victims. About 50 people attended the service. The community encouraged its members to break their fasts and instead donate blood if possible. We condemn this senseless and horrific act of violence in the strongest possible terms, said Wasim Malik, president of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Silicon Valley. Our hearts go out to the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with them as their neighbors and brothers and sisters in peace. Islam teaches reverence for all human life. This is a time to pray and act to stop such senseless violence in our nation. A sex scandal involving Oakland police has spread to other area police departments, with the woman at the center of it claiming she had sex with two dozen current and former officers in five cities, a newspaper investigation published Sunday found. The woman, a Richmond resident who was not named, told the East Bay Times that she slept with three of the 24 officers before she turned 18 last August. She also told the newspaper that two Oakland officers provided her confidential police information, including tips on scheduled anti-prostitution stings and arrest records and other confidential information. In addition, she says a retired Oakland police captain in his 80s paid $250 to have sex with her in a motel. The captain and several other officers named did not return calls for comment. The scandal, involving at least 14 Oakland police officers, is a blow to a department that has been under federal oversight because of failures to adequately hold officers accountable for misdeeds. Oakland police Chief Sean Whent stepped down Thursday and gave no specific reason for his resignation. Multiple sources told the newspaper the department's federal overseer, Robert Warshaw, pressured him to resign. The woman, who began selling herself on the streets of Richmond at age 12 and eventually ended up in Oakland's International Boulevard, a well known sex-trafficking hub, said many officers knew she was underage. "They nicknamed me 'juve,' which is short for juvenile," said the woman, whose mother is an Oakland police dispatcher. The woman, who first spoke to the East Bay Express, said she also slept with five Richmond police officers, four Alameda County Sheriff's deputies, one Livermore officer and a law enforcement worker based in Stockton. She said the first officer she met was Oakland Police Officer Brendan O'Brien. The two began a sexual relationship after he defended her from a pimp and others soon followed. Police opened up an investigation after O'Brien committed suicide last year and left a note naming officers involved with the woman. "They were my protectors," she said. "I didn't have a pimp at the time. It did make me feel safer, having them." Residents of an East Bay town have said that the wife of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen grew up in their neighborhood, and her mother still lives there. Noor Zahi Salman was raised in a house in Rodeo, which is about 45 minutes from San Francisco, but had not been seen at the home since 2011, neighbors told NBC Bay Area. They said she moved to Florida when she married Mateen. The marriage reportedly was the second for both Mateen and Zahi Salman. They reportedly have a son. A woman thought to be Mateen's mother-in-law arrived at the house Sunday evening with media crews waiting but pulled her vehicle inside the garage. She would not answer the front door. Mateen opened fire at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, killing at least 50 people and wounding dozens more. He then was shot and killed in a gunbattle with SWAT team members. A rainbow flag was raised in San Jose on Monday to honor the 49 people killed at an Orlando, Florida, gay nightclub over the weekend in the nation's largest mass shooting in modern history. About 200 local leaders and community members came together at McEntee Plaza at the Santa Clara County Government Center Monday afternoon for a brief moment of silence. They also heard remarks before county Supervisor Ken Yeager and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo raised the rainbow flag in memory of the shooting victims. A sole gunman killed 49 people and injured dozens at Pulse nightclub before he was fatally shot by police early Sunday morning, FBI officials said. During the attack, the shooter made 911 calls from the club stating his allegiance to the Islamic State group. The suspect also had past contacts with federal investigators since 2013, according to the FBI. "This tragic loss of life reminds of the fear and violence faced by so many LGBTQ Americans on a daily basis," Yeager said. "As we gather, we as a community must send a message to the world that here in Santa Clara County, we don't tolerate hatred and violence." "We mourn, but we do not lose hope," he said. Yeager, an openly gay man, pointed to how Santa Clara County established the country's first LGBT Affairs Office at a county level. "This is our moment to use this grief as a means to enable us to find common ground where too many are willing to find division," Liccardo said. "This is our moment to pull together and take a stand." Later Monday, hundreds of people marched through downtown San Jose to City Hall and lit candles for a vigil honoring the Orlando victims. Tamara Alvarado, the executive director of the School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, said the shooting at the club makes her angry. "Those are spaces that are safe for us," she said. "As a woman its hard to be out. Those are places where you feel a little safer." Alvarado said people are tired of praying and it's time for politicians to act on gun control. "There's plenty of examples around the globe of policies that work for the people," she said. Back at the government center, Sheriff Laurie Smith called on the public to accept, embrace and love everyone in the community, including LGBTQ people. Smith and San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia also asked people to report any suspicious acts, no matter how small they may be, and that their forces will be on a higher alert. "We will definitely be looking at providing additional security to the gay bars in the area, and we are working very closely with the Billy DeFrank Center," Garcia said. Maribel Martinez, head of the county's LGBTQ Affairs Office, read the names and ages of the 49 victims as flags were flown to half-staff. More focus should first and foremost be on the victims, said Sameena Usman, government relations coordinator at the Council on American-Islamic Relations San Francisco Bay Area chapter. The LGBTQ community has spoken out after horrific events including 9/11 and now it's time for the Muslim community to stand in solidarity with them, Usman said. San Jose newlyweds Terrence Vargas, 42, and Johnny Zych, 43, took the day off to attend today's ceremony and other events held in memory of the nightclub shooting victims, who they consider part of their LGBT family. They wore Mickey Mouse-shaped pins bearing a rainbow that they bought from Walt Disney World near Orlando. "Whenever I see that flag, it's a symbol of peace for the LGBT community and it represents who we are as a people," Vargas said. "It's very hard for me to know a lot of our brothers and sisters back in Orlando were involved in this terrible tragedy." Said Zych: "I hate that we have come to the point where it almost feels like the norm. Oh, another shooting." The county's Board of Supervisors, San Jose City Councilwoman Magdalena Carrasco, Campbell Mayor Jason Baker and Sunnyvale City Councilman Jim Davis were also at Monday's gathering. In the wake of the mass shooting that shook Orlando on Sunday, a San Francisco supervisor is taking steps to ensure that the LGBT community in the Bay Area wont suffer the same tragic fate, especially as the June Pride Parade is two weeks away. Supervisor Scott Wiener announced on Monday he will bring together members of the LGBT nightlife community and the San Francisco Police Department later this week to discuss preparations for the upcoming San Francisco pride celebration, which last year drew one million people. The Gay Pride weekend kicks off June 25. And there are no plans to cancel it, police and politicians said. A rainbow-colored flag flew half-staff at San Jose City Hall in solidarity with 49 victims killed in Orando. Santa Clara County Supervisor Ken Yeager felt it was important to gather everyone together to havea a sense of community. Bob Redell reports. "This is an important conversation to have now so that everyone attending Pride can focus on the joyful reasons we are all together, and not be fearful of those threatened by our way of life, Wiener said in a statement. His comments come after a Sunday night rally and vigil, he helped organize at Harvey Milk Plaza, where rainbow-colored flags and banners lit up the area, and stretched to City Hall. Wiener tweeted he wanted "to honor/remember Pulse Nightclub victims and to recommit ourselves to fight hate." "We will win," he added in a separate tweet. Business owners in the predominantly gay Castro neighborhood, which Wiener represents, were also not deterred and vowed to take proactive measures to ensure that almost 50 years of the Gay Pride festivities would go off without a hitch. Tim Eicher, co-owner of Castro area bars Beaux, Q Bar, Midnight Sun, and Mix, said he plans to review security measures at each of his venues and significantly increase security staff throughout Pride. "With Pride right around the corner, we are doing everything possible to ensure that we keep our employees and customers safe, Eicher said. It is important not only that we remain alert and vigilant to these threats, but also that we continue to celebrate our Pride, support our Community, and enjoy our rich and vibrant nightlife." This year will mark the 46th annual Pride Parade, which takes place every year in the Castro and Civic Center area. According to the SF Pride website, their mission is to "educate the world, commemorate our heritage, celebrate our culture, and liberate our people," which they achieve through concerts, parties and parades that take place throughout the weekend. The Bay Area, and the nation, mourn the 49 victims killed in Orlando at gay night club. Michelle Roberts, Kris Sanchez and Stephanie Chuang report. Although the shooting has caused grief across the nation, Wiener said he recognizes that the month of June still belongs to the pride of the LGBT community, and should be celebrated. Bay Area communities outside of San Francisco, including San Jose and Oakland, also payed homage to the attacks, by holding rallies and flying rainbow-colored flags at half-staff to mark the deaths of those killed at the nightclub. No act of violence -- even one as evil as what Orlando experienced on Sunday -- will stop us from coming together to celebrate the LGBT community at Pride this year, Wiener said. More than ever, we need to show the strength and love of our community to the world. Hillary Clinton vowed Monday to make stopping "lone wolf" terrorists a top priority if elected president, saying that while the shooter in the deadly weekend attacks in Orlando may be dead, "the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive." In a sober national security address in Cleveland, the presumptive Democratic nominee also called for ramping up the U.S. air campaign targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. She pointedly called out U.S. partners in the region by name, saying Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar must stop their citizens from funding terrorism. And she vigorously reiterated her call for banning assault weapons, like one of the guns the Orlando shooter used. "I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets," she said. Clinton's address in Cleveland was supposed to mark the official start of her general election campaign against Republican Donald Trump. But Sunday's shooting altered her plans and she avoided direct attacks on her GOP rival, declaring, "Today is not a day for politics." Still, much of Clinton's comments were aimed at drawing policy and temperamental contrasts with Trump. The businessman's initial responses to the Orlando attacks included accepting "congrats" for "being right" about the terror threat facing the U.S. He also redoubled his calls for temporarily banning Muslims from the U.S. and increasing surveillance of mosques policies that have concerned even some of his fellow Republicans. "We have to have a ban on people coming in from Syria and different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible," Trump said Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America." Because the shooter was American-born and lived in Florida, Trump's ban would not have prevented the shooting. The presumptive Republican nominee was to speak on national security later Monday in New Hampshire. He had planned to use the speech to make his case against Clinton, as well as her husband Bill Clinton, but he, too, changed his focused after the shooting. Authorities say Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim, was responsible for the horrific attacks. FBI Director James Comey said that Mateen had "strong indications of radicalization" and was probably inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, though there was no evidence Monday that he had been directed by a network to carry out the attacks. These apparent "lone wolf" attackers have deeply worried counterterrorism officials because they often leave fewer intelligence trails to monitor. Clinton said she would put together teams of government and private sector officials to try to identify lone wolf terrorists and ensure law enforcement agencies have the resources they need for such efforts. In his morning television interviews, Trump redoubled his call for banning Muslims, although Mateen was an American citizen born in New York. While Trump focused in particular on keeping out refugees from Syria, he said a ban should apply to people from "different parts of the world with this philosophy that is so hateful and so horrible." The presumptive Republican nominee also appeared to suggest that President Barack Obama may sympathize with Islamic terrorists a stunning statement about the current commander in chief. "He doesn't get it or, or he gets it better than anybody understands," Trump said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends." ''It's one or the other. And either one is unacceptable." Trump said there were thousands of people living in the United States "sick with hate" and capable of carrying out the same sort of massacre. "The problem is we have thousands of people right now in our country. You have people that were born in this country" who are susceptible to becoming "radicalized," the billionaire real estate mogul said on Fox. He claimed there are Muslims living here who "know who they are" and said it was time to "turn them in." Trump's longstanding proposal to temporarily ban foreign-born Muslims from entering the United States has triggered outrage from Democrats and Republicans alike, who see it unconstitutional, un-American and counterproductive. But it has helped him win over many primary voters who fear the rise of Islamic extremism and believe that "political correctness" the fear of offending Muslims is damaging national security. Assault rifles, high capacity magazines, ammunition and chemicals used to make explosives were found Sunday in the vehicle of a man from Indiana, according to Santa Monica police. Despite an earlier report from Santa Monica's police chief, the man did not indicate he was targeting LA's PRIDE festivities, only that he intended to go to the event. Authorities arrested the man Sunday morning just hours after a mass shooting in Orlando left at least 50 dead at a nightclub, including the gunman, and before the start of the LA PRIDE parade in nearby West Hollywood, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks identified the man arrested in the beach community as James Howell, 20. During the arrest, Howell told one of her officers "of wanting to do harm to the gay pride event," Seabrooks told NBC News earlier in the day, before later sending a tweet indicating that report was inaccurate. During a mid-day news conference, the chief did not elaborate on specifics, stressing the investigation was still preliminary. Jail records show Howell was in custody with bail set at $500,000. A court appearance was scheduled for Tuesday. He is being held on weapons and explosives charges. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said the case does not appear linked to the Orlando mass shooting, but that the man was heavily armed and told police he was going to the LA PRIDE parade nearly 10 miles away. Howell was arrested after police responded to a prowler call near Olympic Boulevard and 11th Street. The suspect was allegedly knocking on a resident's door and window. Officers found Howell seated in a nearby vehicle, in which they found three assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition, Santa Monica police said. Officers also found a 5-gallon bucket with chemicals "capable of forming an improvised explosive device." The LA County Sheriff's Department bomb squad responded to the scene. Authorities said they have no additional information about the suspect's intentions. The NBC4 I-Team uncovered records that show Howell is on probation in Indiana after an altercation with a neighbor, during which he reportedly pulled a gun out in an attempt to intimidate. As part of his probation, Howell is not supposed to be in possession of firearms. The arrest came hours after a gunman opened fire in a gay Orlando nightclub, killing at least 49 and injuring more than 50 others. Sunday's parade in West Hollywood began at about 11 a.m. with a moment of silence at Crescent Heights Boulevard, then continued west along Santa Monica Boulevard to Robertson Boulevard. The usually festive atmosphere included a more somber tone on a day when the United State witnesses its deadliest mass shooting. Deputies routinely patrol the parade, held every year since 1970, except for 1973 when infighting over displays the previous two years left the organizers in disarray. The parade was held in Hollywood until 1979, when it moved to West Hollywood. As the world grieves in the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in American history, one Chicago man is mourning the loss of his cousin who was among the victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre. David Sotomayor lives in Chicago, and awoke Sunday morning to the news that his cousin Edward Sotomayor, 34, had been killed. "Edward, anyone who got to meet him know, he was just full of life, so positive," David said. "He was one of my best friends, my cousin, everything and I just don't understand." Edward worked for a company that held gay cruises and often traveled to promote the company's events, David told the Associated Press. The two discovered they were cousins during a chance meeting in Florida around ten years ago. "The sad part was that I had to wake up the next morning and find out through my fan base, my fans sending condolences and not even knowing," David said. He was a contestant on the first season of RuPaul's drag race and is active in Chicago's LGBT community. David called Edward an "angel," saying he was an "amazing guy" that was "always part of the fun," with his signature top hat often perched on his head. "Everybody knows him for that," David said. "He totally loves to party with the people, he was Top Hat Eddie." David spoke at a vigil in the Boystown neighborhood Sunday night, where hundreds of Chicagoans gathered to pay their respects and comfort one another. With Chicago's Pride Parade just a few weeks away, David encouraged people to remain strong in their resolve to celebrate the LGBT community. "I don't want people out there to think that just because of this they have to be scared," David said. "No, we are still going to be strong. We are going to be strong." In the wake of the country's deadliest mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday, Chicagoans gathered at vigils and banded together to honor the victims and cope with the tragedy. Workers hung black bunting at Sidetrack in Boystown, where co-owner Art Johnston said he was "going back and forth from anger to sorrow." "Our hearts go out to the families and loved ones of the people who were hurt and assassinated in Orlando, but our grief is more than doubled by our anger," said Johnston, who is a long-time gay rights activist. A gunman opened fire early Sunday morning at Pulse Orlando, a popular gay dance club, killing 50 people and leaving 53 more wounded, police said. Juan Casado just recently moved to Chicago from Orlando, and has visited Pulse nightclub on several occasions. "I found out this morning when I had about 20 missed calls from my mother and she's like, 'I just needed to hear your voice,'" Casado said. "If I didn't move here, who knows? It was gay days in Orlando so I could have been one of those there," he added. Hundreds of Chicagoans gathered at two emotional vigils Sunday evening, one in Boystown and one in Andersonville. "In a month where we celebrate how far we've come and how far our civil rights have advanced, to have this stark reminder of the hatred in our country and in our world, is shocking," Jim Bennett, of Lambda Legal, said at Midsommarfest in Andersonville. "We mourn the victims of the shooting in the Orlando nightclub Pulse, a popular gay venue," Equality Illinois said in a statement. "Our hearts go out to the Orlando LGBT community and the family and friends of the victims, and we wish a speedy recovery to the injured." The Center on Halsted, an LGBTQ community center located at 3656 N Halsted St in the city's Lake View neighborhood, is also hosting a vigil Monday at 7 p.m. Our community is no stranger to hate and discrimination, but time and time again we have prevailed, CEO Modesto Tico Valle said in a statement. We have been guided by love and now again we will prove that love wins. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement called the shooting a "horrifying act of terrorism" that was "an attack on our most fundamental values as Americans." "On behalf of the City of Chicago, Amy and I send our deepest condolences to the friends and family members of those who were lost," Emanuel said. "June is a time when all Chicagoans and all Americans proudly celebrate the contributions of our LGBT community. This horrendous violence will only deepen our resolve to continue building a society that values everyone, regardless of who they love. The thoughts and prayers of Chicago will remain with the victims of this attack as they seek comfort and courage in the days ahead." The Chicago Police Department offered technical, manpower or resource assistance to Orlando law enforcement. "As we learn about another reprehensible act of gun violence, CPD extends our deepest condolences to those affected by the horrible tragedy in #Orlando," CPD said in a statement on Facebook. "Our thoughts and support also go out to our partners at the FBI and Orlando Police for their great work managing such a tragic and difficult incident." A 17-year-old Urban Prep student was killed and a 19-year-old man wounded in a shooting late Saturday in the South Side Back of the Yards neighborhood. They were standing in the street about 10:20 p.m. in the 5200 block of South Sangamon when a silver Audi pulled up and someone inside fired shots, according to Chicago Police. Christopher Fields, 17, was shot in the back and taken to Stroger Hospital, where he died at 11:17 p.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiners office. He lived in the 6200 block of South Sangamon. The older teen was taken to the same hospital with an arm wound. His condition stabilized, police said. Christopher was a sophomore at the Urban Prep Englewood Campus, according to a statement from the schools CEO Tim King. Mr. Fields was not the intended target, but rather was the victim of a senseless act of violence, according to the statement. King said a suspect in the shooting was arrested, but police could not confirm that Monday morning. Undoubtedly, Mr. Fields thought that by walking on his street, steps from his home, he was being safeand he shouldve been, King said. Mr. Fields will be deeply missed. Donations to support Fields family can be made here by entering Christopher Fields in the In Memory of section. Support has been pouring in for the victims of the deadly mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, and their families. A GoFundMe page set up by Equality Florida, the state's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization, has already raised more than $1.5 million toward its goal of $2 million. The campaign raised $1 million faster than any other page in the history of GoFundMe, according the company vice president Dan Pfeiffer. The money will be directed to the victims of Pulse Nightclub and their families. "Funds raised on this page will be going directly to the victims and families affected by the horrific shooting at Orlando's Pulse Nightclub. Equality Florida is working with local organizations who are also helping to raise funds to ensure the money is distributed properly. Thank you for the support!" the page's administrators wrote. The campaign for the victims of the #PulseNightclub shooting reached $1 million faster than any in @gofundme history https://t.co/45RxYJXdDH Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) June 13, 2016 At least 49 people died in the attack, when a Florida man opened fire on the packed club. He died in a shootout with police officers after taking hostages, authorities said. Makeup artist Jeffree Star, who has a huge following on social media, apparently donated $20,000, which is listed on the page as the largest donation as of Sunday afternoon. "For everyone donating and showing so much heartfelt love, it gives me hope. We have to stand together and BE HERE FOR EACH OTHER," he tweeted. The FBI has asked that anyone who was at the club with information call 1-800-CALL-FBI. [NATL] Deadly Nightclub Shooting Leaves Orlando Reeling The city of Orlando created a page that will list names of deceased victims: Cityoforlando.net/victims. The blood donation organization OneBlood had requested people in the area donate, but later tweeted that it was at capacity. Anyone in the area can check into Facebook as safe using the social media site's Safety Check page. The Better Business Bureau is offering a list of tips for those wishing to donate to victims of rampage and their families. The BBB warns against donating to poorly managed or unregistered charities and those who do not identify the intended use of funds. Additionally, it cautions well-intending donors not to fall victim to common click-bate scams that lead internet users to websites that look like those of reputable organizations but force them to divulge extensive financial information or lure them to download malware. Following the shooting at a Colorado movie theater in 2012, the BBB said some organizations raising money failed to get permission from victims' families to use names and photographs. Ensuring that the families' wishes are respected is important in the wake of tragedy, the BBB emphasized. Furthermore, funds set up by the families are often not created as charities and it is important to verify they are managed by a third party such as a bank and used for their intended purpose such as funeral or medical costs. The Pulse nightclub was filled with more than 300 people for Latin night, when a gunman identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen began shooting around 2 a.m. Sunday. As bullets flew, club-goers struggled to understand what was happening. Here are accounts from witnesses as the horror unfolded: Brandon Wolf, a former contestant on the Bravo show Kandi factory, tweeted: "Omg. Shooting at pulse. We hid in the bathroom. And we cant find our friends." Later he wrote that a friend had died. "My heart is broken. We couldnt save Juan. Thank you everyone who was praying and hoping. May he rest easy." My heart is broken. We couldn't save Juan. Thank you everyone who was praying and hoping. May he rest easy Brandon (Were)Wolf (@bjoewolf) June 12, 2016 Luis Burbano told CNN: "The DJ was playing a typical set that incorporated what we thought was gunshots as part of the music, four shots bah, bah, bah, bah but for some reason it was different. No one put two and two together until the fifth and sixth, between 10 and 20, thats when everything really started getting real and then we all at that point did a domino effect all to the floor." Christopher Hansen told NBC News he had taken his first sip from a drink when he heard what he thought was the beat of a song until he saw people falling to the dance floor. "I just saw bodies going down," he said. "Bang, bang, bang." Christopher Hansen describes what he did to help save someones life. He crawled past a bathroom and made it outside, where people were bleeding. A man whose pants were drenched in blood had a bullet in his back, he said. Hansen used his bandana to stop the bleeding. "I had just seen the movie 'The Conjuring 2'" he said. "To go from a horror movie to a real horror, it's just shocking." Brand White and his cousin were on the dance floor when White's cousin yelled to him, "B, it's a guy with a bomb," the AP reported. Suddenly, White was hit in the shoulder. "All of a sudden it just started like a rolling thunder, loud and everything went black," White wrote in a Facebook message to the AP from his hospital room Sunday. "I think I was trampled." He didn't recall leaving the club, but he remembered the state he was in: "Covered head to toe in blood." "I remember screaming and mass chaos," he wrote. "There were hundreds of people there." **WARNING: Content may be disturbing to some viewers.** A witness outside the nightclub where 50 people were killed early Sunday morning filmed police cars and the sound of gunshots. He got to the hospital, where he received a blood transfusion. As Sunday wore on, his cousin remained missing. Mina Justice was asleep when she got the first text from her 30-year-old son, Eddie Justice, who was inside the Pulse. Here is their exchange of messages, according to The Associated Press. "Mommy I love you," the first message said. It was 2:06 a.m. "In club they shooting." Mina Justice tried calling her 30-year-old son. No answer. Alarmed and half awake, she tapped out a response. "U ok" At 2:07 a.m., he wrote: "Trapp in bathroom." AP Justice asked what club, and he responded: "Pulse. Downtown. Call police." Then at 2:08: "I'm gonna die." Now wide awake, Justice dialed 911. She sent a flurry of texts over the next several minutes. "I'm calling them now." "U still in there" "Answer our damn phone" "Call them" "Call me." The 911 dispatcher wanted her to stay on the line. She wondered what kind of danger her son was in. He was normally a homebody who liked to eat and work out. He liked to make everyone laugh. He worked as an accountant and lived in a condo in downtown Orlando. "Lives in a sky house, like the Jeffersons," she would say. "He lives rich." She knew he was gay and at a club and all the complications that might entail. Fear surged through her as she waited for his next message. At 2:39 a.m., he responded: "Call them mommy" "Now." He wrote that he was in the bathroom. "He's coming" "I'm gonna die." Justice asked her son if anyone was hurt and which bathroom he was in. "Lots. Yes," he responded at 2:42 a.m. When he didn't text back, she sent several more messages. Was he with police? "Text me please," she wrote. "No," he wrote four minutes later. "Still here in bathroom. He has us. They need to come get us." At 2:49 a.m., she told him the police were there and to let her know when he saw them. "Hurry," he wrote. "He's in the bathroom with us." She asked, "Is the man in the bathroom wit u?" At 2:50 a.m.: "He's a terror." Then, a final text from her son a minute later: "Yes." More than 15 hours after that text, Justice still hadn't heard from her son. She and a dozen family and friends stayed at a hotel Sunday evening that was used as a staging area for relatives awaiting news. Early on Monday, authorities identified Eddie Justice as one of the people killed in the rampage. Read More: [[382615301, C]] [NATL] Tributes to Orlando Shooting Victims Pour in From Around the World They were dancers, immigrants, world travelers, partners. One was his family's "superhero," another deployed to Kuwait in the Army Reserve. The youngest had only just graduated from high school. All have been described as kind, loving and full of joy. Their lives were cut short when a gunman wielding a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday, killing 49 in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Here are some of the victims' stories: facebook Stanley Almodovar III's mother had prepared a tomato-and-cheese dip for him to eat when he came home from his night out. Instead, Rosalie Ramos was awakened by a call at 2 a.m. Sunday telling her something had happened. Ramos told the Orlando Sentinel her son, a 23-year-old pharmacy technician, posted a Snapchat video of himself singing and laughing on his way to Pulse nightclub. "I wish I had that (video) to remember him forever," she told the newspaper. A former neighbor of the Orlando nightclub shooter says she never noticed anything strange about Omar Mateen and that the woman who lived with him was extremely nice. Tricia Adorno recalled seeing Mateen every day in his security guard uniform, and one time he helped her work on her car. Adorno was shocked to learn Mateen was behind the deadliest... A friend, Hazel Ramirez, told the Washington Post she also saw a video from Almodovar on Snapchat and learned Sunday afternoon what had happened. Ramirez described Almodovar as "kind, but sassy," and someone who was comfortable with his own sexual identity. "He was so proud of who he was," she told the Post. "He would do his makeup better than anyone else. It was so easy to be myself with him." ___ Amanda Alvear, 25, had bonded with friend Sandy Marte over breakups and health problems. Marte said he was trying to comfort her after the breakup. She had lost a lot of weight following gastric bypass surgery and Marte encouraged her to socialize and enjoy life. "She was loving, she was caring, she always had an open ear, she always wanted to help people," Marte said of Alvear. "She had an amazing heart. She was a really good person." Both Alvear and her friend, Mercedez Marisol Flores, posted on Snapchat from the nightclub before the shooting. Flores was also killed. Luis Burbano felt his bones shake when bullets started flying early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. At first, he thought it was part of the music. Burbano, who rushed to the aid of the injured, is now unable to sleep and struggling to understand why he was spared. Marte said Alvear's post on Snapchat showed a packed club full of revelers, flashing lights and thumping music then a selfie video of Alvear with a series of gunshots in the background. Marte said he understands what it's like to be at a nightclub during a shooting. He was at the Glitz Ultra Lounge in Orlando in February when two people were killed. He said he froze in place from the shock of it. ___ Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26, lived with his partner, Simon Adrian Carillo-Fernandez, and three Chihuahuas in a home they bought last year, a friend, Andrea Herrera, told the Orlando Sentinel. Yamilka Pimentel, a cousin, said Araceno-Montero moved with his father from the Dominican Republic to Central Florida as a child. "Oscar was a very sweet guy. Very sweet to everybody," Pimentel told the newspaper. "Every time he met somebody they would like him a lot. He was the type of guy who goes along with anybody." ___ Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33, was a biologics supervisor at the OneBlood donation center, according to the Orlando Sentinel. "He's alive in the people's lives that he saved," said Mat Simons, who worked under Ayala-Ayala and said his supervisor was also a blood donor. Regular customers of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando say they recall seeing shooter Omar Mateen at the gay bar on several occasions. Jim Van Horn, 71, said he was a frequent patron at Pulse and Mateen was another regular. Van Horn told The Associated Press on Monday that Mateen was a homosexual and he was trying to pick up men. Ayala-Ayala had bought a car and a house within the past year. Wednesday would have been his one-year anniversary of home-ownership. ___ Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21, had recently moved to Florida from Cuba and was still trying to master English, according to a friend. Sarai Torres told the Orlando Sentinel she met Martinez last year, and he "always had a smile on his face." "Every interaction I had with him was totally positive," she said, adding that she remembers Martinez as an outgoing person who introduced her to his other friends. "He's the type of person [who would] see you in a parking lot and he'd have a whole conversation with you." Torres, 30, said she saw Martinez several times at Pulse nightclub, which she described as a good place to meet new people. She was not at the club during the shooting. facebook Martin Benitez Torres, 33, had recently moved to Orlando and was working to become a pharmacy technician. Benitez was a student at a Tampa satellite campus of the Ana G. Mendez University System, based in Puerto Rico, where he was born. In a university statement, one of his professors called him a "diligent and extremely hardworking student." Benitez was "thankful for the opportunity to advance his career and hopeful to make his dreams a reality," according to Spanish professor Carla Zayas. He posted several photos and videos on his Facebook page in the days before the shooting, including one in the kitchen cooking with family members. The cover photo on his Facebook profile includes a quote in Spanish: "If God takes away my eyesight, it's because I've been allowed to see everything that's beautiful in the world." ___ Capt. Antonio Davon Brown, 29, served in the Army Reserve and deployed to Kuwait for nearly a year. Brown graduated in 2008 from Florida A&M, where he majored in criminal justice and participated in the ROTC program. Lt. Col. Kelvin Scott, a ROTC instructor, remembered Brown's positive attitude and sense of humor. "He kept a smile on his face," Scott told the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper. "He was willing to work very hard to earn his commission." [NATL] Tributes to Orlando Shooting Victims Pour in From Around the World Devonta White, a friend of Brown's, said Brown was known in their dorm for waking up early for drills and becoming close friends with his fellow trainees, but also making friends outside of ROTC. "He had a car so when he went to Wal-Mart, I would ride with him," White said. "We just became good friends over time. He helped me more than he knows." An Army service record shows Brown deployed to Kuwait from April 2010 to March 2011. ___ Darryl Roman Burt II, 29, worked as a financial aid officer for Keiser University's Jacksonville, Florida, campus. As a volunteer, he co-chaired a clothing drive for the homeless for the Jacksonville Jaycees, a nonprofit organization. "Darryl was very passionate about working in the community and wasn't afraid to take the lead," Jacksonville Jaycees President Shawn DeVries told the Indianapolis Star. "If someone needed anything, he'd usually just ask for the details: where, when and what are the deadlines." Burt left behind family in central Indiana, and recently earned a degree in human resources management. Keiser University's chancellor, Arthur Keiser, called Burt "a highly respected member of the KU team" on the school's website, and the school was providing grief counselors to help Burt's colleagues. ___ Jonathan Camuy, 25, moved to Central Florida from his native Puerto Rico to work for the Spanish-language television network Telemundo, which is owned by NBCUniversal. "We want to extend our thoughts, prayers and deepest condolences to Jonathan's family and friends," NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises Chairman Cesar Conde said in a statement. Camuy was a contractor who worked in audience management on the Telemundo show "La Voz Kids," a singing competition for children inspired by NBC's "The Voice," according to NBCUniversal President and CEO Steve Burke. He previously worked for Telemundo Puerto Rico's "Alexandra de Noche" and was killed at Pulse, family and friends told Telemundo. Camuy was also a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which confirmed his death in a statement from the president Monday. Those who knew Camuy described him as caring and talented with a bright future. ___ Angel Candelario-Padro moved to Orlando from Chicago in January to be closer to family. The 28-year-old nurse from Guanica, Puerto Rico, soon found a new job and a new love. "He was a humble boy, a good student. He liked to work and wasn't too much into partying," his aunt Leticia Padro told Univision. But he made an exception Saturday night, when he and his boyfriend went to Pulse with friends. Christopher Hansen describes what he did to help save someones life. Leticia Padro said her nephew's boyfriend, who was shot several times and is in the hospital, told her that after hearing several shots he turned to Candelario-Padro and asked if he was OK. "He told him he was OK, but in that instant he fell to the floor," Padro said. Minutes before the shooting, Candelario-Padro had posted a photo on Facebook that showed him smiling broadly while standing next to his boyfriend and two friends. Candelario-Padro, who served in the National Guard, loved music and had played the clarinet in his hometown's band, Efrain Padro, an uncle who lives in Guanica, told The Associated Press. "A lot of people know our family in Guanica and are showing a lot of support in this tough time," he said. "We're waiting for his body to be brought home. We will welcome him with music." facebook Simon Adrian Carrillo-Fernandez, 31, loved to travel and "worked to be able to enjoy his life," said co-worker Ivonne Irizarry. A manager at McDonald's, Carillo-Fernandez had traveled to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Mexico and went on cruises, Irizarry said. He and his partner, Oscar Aracena-Montero, who also was killed at the nightclub, had just returned from Niagara Falls, Irizarry told the Orlando Sentinel. President Barack Obama spoke about the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, calling Pulse more than a night club, but a place of solidarity, empowerment, where people have come together, to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. Carillo-Fernandez never forgot a birthday, she said, and would bring in cakes for his McDonald's co-workers. Colleagues said Carrillo-Fernandez's attention to detail was a trademark of his leadership style. "He had to be the best, that was his thing. I cook the best, I clean the best, I work the best," she said of him. ___ Juan Chavez Martinez, 25, was a beloved boss and friend, friends and co-workers told the Orlando Sentinel. Friends said Martinez came to the U.S. from Huichapan, Mexico, and worked as a housekeeping supervisor for a hospitality service company. "He was extremely friendly, very dedicated to his family, to his co-workers . It is very difficult. Everybody loved him," said Alicia Amarro, chief financial officer for the company, APDC Services. Jose Crisantos used to work with Martinez at Reunion Resorts and also remembered Martinez's kindness. "He was very well known among us as very kind and loving," Crisantos said. "There was nobody else like him. It is a devastating loss." ___ Luis Daniel Conde, 39, ran Alta Peluqueria D'magazine, a beauty salon in Kissimmee, with his longtime partner, Juan Pablo Rivera Velasquez, who was also killed at Pulse. "Everyone knows about this beauty salon," Irene Rivera told the Orlando Sentinel. She spoke of the couple's work on the Belieza Latina pageant. Tania Mercador was in tears as she described how she was supposed to have joined Conde and Velasquez at Pulse the night they died. "I used GPS and got lost," she said. "It kept sending me to the wrong address." ___ Cory James Connell, 21, was his family's superhero, his brother Ryan said in a Facebook post. According to the Orlando Sentinel, friends and even a former middle school teacher posted to Facebook remembering Connell. "I've taught almost 1,700 kids at Lee. He was so special," said Shelley Klein, a science teacher at Lee Middle School. "All of his teachers at Lee adored him. We describe him as our all-time favorite." [NATL] Deadly Nightclub Shooting Leaves Orlando Reeling Nancy Robbinson, a member of the Orange County School Board, remembered the smiles and hugs Connell greeted her with when she saw him at Publix where he worked. "Every time I saw him, he greeted me with a warm, inviting smile and a cheery, 'Hey, Mrs. Robbinson,' and sometimes I was even blessed to get a hug," she wrote. "I just saw him at Publix a week ago and got one of those great hugs. ___ Tevin Eugene Crosby's inspirational posts on Facebook "2016 will be the best year ever" represented his drive for success. Chavis Crosby, told the Orlando Sentinel that his brother was ambitious and hard-working. "Whatever goal he had in mind, he worked hard. Whether alone or on a team, he worked on that goal." Tevin Crosby, 25, was director of operations for a Michigan marketing firm. He recently visited his family in Statesville, North Carolina, to watch several nieces and nephews graduate. Then he traveled to Orlando after passing along some brotherly advice about business and setting goals. He loved to travel for work and fun, Chavis Crosby said. "He was definitely a good person and a good brother to me," he said. facebook Franky Jimmy De Jesus Velazquez, 50, worked as a visual merchandiser, designing displays for an Orlando clothing store, according to his Facebook page. He posted international and funny messages on his page, including a T-shirt that read: "Never underestimate an old man who is also a visual merchandiser." On a list of victims with an average age of 29 years old, Velazquez was the oldest. But age never became a barrier for Velazquez, former co-worker Bret Werner said. "He was a very outgoing, friendly person," said Werner, who worked with him at a clothing store in Miami. "Everyone wanted to be around him." Among family and friends in his native Puerto Rico, Velazquez was known for Jibaro folk dancing, said his sister Shiela De Jesus. "He was a very loved person." ___ Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32, was quick to tell someone off if she thought they were in the wrong, but it was her way of showing she cared, an ex-girlfriend said. Drayton had been in legal trouble involving drugs, but Ashleigh Alleyne told the Orlando Sentinel Drayton was changing after they had been arrested together a couple years ago. "She was actually putting in effort, because we both hit rock bottom at the same time," Alleyne said. "She pushed me to get through her issues,a nd I always tried to do the same for her." ___ Frank Escalante Hernandez, 27, loved fashion and lived to purchase the finest pieces of clothing at Calvin Klein or Armani. "He had the best of everything, the most expensive," said Jessica Leal, 19, one of his five siblings. "He liked the good stuff. And he worked hard for it." A manager at a Calvin Klein store in Orlando, Hernandez grew up in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, near the U.S.-Mexico border, and had lived in Central Florida for three years. Hernandez also loved Beyonce and going out to dance, and he frequented Pulse, Leal said. According to media reports, Hernandez's boyfriend was able to escape, but lost track of Hernandez in the chaos. His sister has planned a fitting tribute: She'll wear Calvin Klein at his funeral. "I'm pretty sure he'd love it if he saw it," she said. ___ Mercedez Marisol Flores went to Pulse nightclub almost every weekend, Flores' sister-in-law said Monday, often with her best friend Amanda Alvear. Both women died in the shooting. "She was very outgoing," Nancy Flores said of Mercedez Flores. "She had lots of friends. They used to always meet up at Pulse." Born in Queens, New York, the 26-year-old Flores moved to Florida when she was a child, her sister-in-law said. She worked at Target and studied at Valencia College, a local community college. She wanted to become a party planner so she could coordinate events with her two older brothers, who are both DJs. Flores' family spent hours waiting at Orlando Regional Medical Center, then a staging area at a nearby hotel. Someone came to read the names of victims still hospitalized or being released. Mercedez Flores' name wasn't on the list. It wasn't until the early hours of Monday that her father got a call from the sheriff's office that his daughter had died, Nancy Flores said. ___ Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 known among family and friends as "Ommy" was always the life of the party. "Peter makes a difference everywhere he goes. He was a happy person. If Peter is not at the party, no one wants to go," said his aunt, Sonia Cruz. Gonzalez-Cruz went to Pulse on Saturday night with his best friend, 25-year-oldGilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, who was also killed. After news of the mass shooting emerged, Cruz said she held out hope for hours that her nephew would turn up in a hospital bed. Silva grew up in Manati, Puerto Rico, and moved to Orlando a few years ago, his cousin Irma Silva-Lauer told the Orlando Sentinel. He was an only child and "the light and the life of all the family gatherings," Silva-Lauer said. But late Sunday afternoon, she was told he was among those killed at the club. Cruz said she had her nephew's car keys and was hoping to collect his car Sunday evening. It was parked at a Wendy's across the street from Pulse, one of many with yellow police caution tape tucked under the windshield wipers, vehicles left behind by victims of the shooting. Cruz said her nephew worked at UPS. facebook Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, told his cousin Robert Guerrero he was gay about two years ago, but he was worried about how the rest of his family would react. He did not tell them until just before the beginning of this year. And when he did? "They were very accepting," said Guerrero, 19. "As long as he was happy, they were OK with it." On Sunday morning, after learning that so many people had died at a gay nightclub, Pulse, that his cousin had gone to once in a while, Guerrero started to become concerned. Later in the day, his fears were realized when the family learned that Guerrero was identified as one of the victims. [NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More Robert Guerrero said his cousin worked as a telemarketer and in recent months he started attending college at the University of Central Florida. Guerrero said his cousin didn't quite know what he wanted to study, but he was happy to be in school. And he was happy in a relationship with a person his relatives came to regard as a member of the family, Guerrero said. "He was always this amazing person (and) he was like a big brother to me," he said of his cousin. "He was never the type to go out to parties, would rather stay home and care for his niece and nephew." Guerrero's boyfriend was identified as Christopher Leinonen, and Robert Guerrero said Juan's boyfriend was regarded by relatives as part of the family. ___ Paul Terrell Henry, 41, was a caring father of two who loved to dance, play piano and sing, according to his friends and his boyfriend. Francisco Hernandez, Henry's boyfriend, told the Orlando Sentinel the Chicago native's main priority was to make sure his kids were taken care of. "Such a loving spirit. I'll always have him in my heart," said Hernandez, who added that he will most remember Henry for his smile. Bettye Edwards, of Oviedo, told the newspaper that she and Henry started a church briefly and that Henry had a master's degree in business from Florida State University and a theological degree. Henry never took a lesson, Edwards said, but he was a talented musician who sang and played the organ and piano. Danielle Biggers, of Orlando, said she worked with Henry as a sales representative at a resort company. "He always would make sure he would say hello," she said. "He just was over the top and made everybody smile." ___ Jose Honorato wrote a simple, heartfelt message on his brother's Facebook page Sunday: "Come home bro, I'm waiting for you." Miguel Honorato did not survive the shooting. A father of three, among them a one and two-year-old, 30-year-old Miguel Honorato managed four restaurants in central Florida along with a catering business on the side and was always the one to drop everything to help out his family, which included seven siblings. "He was my mentor and my supporter. He helped very much in my parent's house and work," Jose Honorato said. Even though Miguel was younger he was the one who gave sage advice about the family business, his brother said. Jose Honorato changed his Facebook photo Monday to one of the two brothers smiling over a charcoal grill, one of many happy memories cooking together. ___ Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40, was known as "Javi" by his friends and as "Harvey George-Kings" on Facebook a literal English translation of his name. But his Facebook profile name belied a deep pride in his Latino heritage, friends told the Orlando Sentinel. "He was proud to be Latino, super proud," friend Jose Diaz told the newspaper, adding: "He was always positive. He was very humble. He was a lovely friend." Diaz recalled being sold a wallet by Jorge-Reyes, who worked at a Gucci store at an Orlando mall. Another friend, Edith Colon of Miami, said Jorge-Reyes was a top salesman and makeup artist. ___ Jason Josaphat, 19, called his mother as a gunman opened fire to ask for help, his aunt and uncle said. She stayed on the line with him and could hear gunshots in the background, but tried to calm him down as he hid in the bathroom, Jimmy and Myrleine Inelus told KPNX-TV in Arizona, where Josaphat went to high school. His mother then didn't hear anything for as many as 20 seconds. "It was dead silence on the phone ... I think that's when the gunman finally made his way into the bathroom," Jimmy Inelus said. Josaphat moved to Orlando after graduating from high school in 2014. A childhood friend, Messiah McMillian, told KNXV-TV that he was one of the first people whom Josaphat told he was gay. "When I found out, I never judged him," McMillian said. "I never looked at him any differently. He was always my friend." facebook Eddie Jamoldroy Justice tapped out a series of chilling text messages to his mother from a bathroom at the Orlando nightclub. The 45-minute exchange began with a message of love. "Mommy I love you," the first message to Mina Justice said at 2:06 a.m. The messages became more frantic as he confirmed to her that the shooter was in the bathroom where he was hiding. "He's a terror," her son said. Eddie Justice, 30, was normally a homebody who liked to eat and work out, his mother said. He liked to make everyone laugh. He worked as an accountant and lived in a condo in downtown Orlando. "Lives in a sky house, like the Jeffersons," his mother said she liked to say, referring to the TV sitcom about a family living in a hi-rise. ___ Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25, started dancing at the age of 10 and was comfortable with any number of styles, from salsa to ballroom, his cousin Ana Figueroa said. Figueroa told the Orlando Sentinel that Laureano Disla invited her out for a night of dancing at Pulse nightclub, but she told him she was too tired. He was out with two roommates, both of whom were injured in the shooting, she said. The newspaper did not identify the roommates. Born in Puerto Rico, Laureano Disla moved to Orlando about three years ago to become a dancer and choreographer, Figueroa said. "I want people to remember Anthony as someone who was very happy and very kind," Figueroa said. "This is just devastating for our family and his friends." ___ Christopher Leinonen, 32, was at Pulse with his boyfriend, Juan Ramon Guerrero, and friend Brandon Wolf, who sent a text to Leinonen's mother to say a shooting had occurred and her son was missing. Christine Leinonen drove to Orlando at 4 a.m. from Polk County, southwest of the city. When she arrived, she began checking emergency rooms to find her son. She never did. "These are nonsensical killings of our children," she said, sobbing. "They're killing our babies!" She said Wolf survived by hiding in a bathroom and running out as the bullets flew. ___ Isaiah Henderson watched his mother die. The 21-year-old was out with Brenda Lee Marquez McCool when bullets sprayed the crowd at Pulse nightclub shortly after 2 a.m. Sunday. McCool, 49, would often visit the club with her son, who is gay. A two-time cancer survivor and mother of 11, McCool had roots in New York and spent time in California before heading back east. She settled down in Florida with six of her kids, her oldest daughter, Khalisha Pressley, told NBC News. "She was always really cool, but really a mom at the end of the day," Pressley explained, calling McCool "the lovingest person in the world." Pressley answered her brother's call early Sunday. He was screaming. "He saw everybody getting killed," Pressley said, adding that Henderson, who survived, "feels it was his fault" their mother died. ___ Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35, had a humor and warmth that made him a great salesman and helped him find love, a co-worker said. "He laughed with the people and would make jokes," said Claudia Agudelo, who worked with Perez at a perfume store. "He was always happy." Mendez Perez met his longtime partner, Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, about a decade ago when he sold him the fragrance Declaration by Cartier, Agudelo told the Orlando Sentinel. Wilson-Leon also died in the nightclub shooting. Mendez Perez moved to the U.S. from Puerto Rico when he was a teenager, and made friends quickly, father Angel Mendez said. "He was a real dynamic kid," he said. Sister-in-law Katia Mendez said Mendez Perez also was a fun-loving and doting uncle who would buy her three children candy and ice cream. "He was like a little kid when he was with them," she said. facebook Kimberly Morris, 37, moved to Orlando just months ago and had taken a job at Pulse nightclub as a bouncer, friends told NBC Connecticut. Morris was a native of Torrington, Connecticut. "She was so excited," ex-girlfriend Starr Shelton told the Orlando Sentinel. "She'd just started working there and told me how she was thrilled to get more involved in the LGBT community there," Shelton said. Friends described Morris as a kind, sweet person. Narvell Benning met Morris when they were in college at Post University in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Benning said they both played basketball. "I can't think of a time when I did not see a smile on her face," Benning told the Sentinel. "I'm so thankful of the good memories I have of her. This is just unreal." ___ Akyra Murray the youngest victim to be identified was barely a week out of high school when she was slain. The 18-year-old basketball star at Philadelphia's West Catholic Preparatory High School was on vacation visiting her brother when she ventured to the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. She never left. Murray, who had a full ride to Mercyhurst College, graduated third in her class and was a leading scorer on the basketball team, hitting the 1,000-point mark early in her senior season, according to the school. "Akyra was a superstar who was a leader amongst her classmates and teammates," the school said in a statement posted on its website Monday. ___ Jean Carlos Nieves Rodriguez, 27, was remembered by family and friends as a kind man and a hard worker. Nieves Rodriguez, originally from Puerto Rico, had worked as manager of a McDonald's and a check-cashing store and bought his first house a month and a half ago, the Orlando Sentinel reported. "He wanted to be the best at what he did, and he would work very hard to achieve that... That's why whatever job he went to, he became a manager," friend Ivonne Irizarry told the newspaper. His sister Valeria Monroig said he "cared more about others than about himself." ___ Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo wanted to be a star. The 20-year-old dancer was working at Starbucks inside a Kissimmee Target store while studying theater, and would have auditioned on Tuesday for a play, said his sister, Belinette Ocasio-Capo. "He was one of the most amazing dancers," she said. "He would always call me and say, 'I'm going to be the next Hollywood star.' He really did want to make it and be known. "Now his name ended up being all around the world, like he wanted just not this way." Omar, as he was known to family and friends, seemed brash to 70-year-old Claudia Mason, who worked with him at Starbucks. But after getting to know her much younger co-worker, "I realized he had a very outgoing personality," said Mason. "His sense of humor was definitely his defining personality trait." Ocasio-Capo was hired as a cashier before moving over to the Starbucks, and became a great barista, Mason said. "Omar got along with everyone. Young, old, male, female, gay, or straight, it didn't matter to Omar," she said. ___ Geraldo Ortiz-Jimenez, 25, was known to friends and on Facebook as "Drake." He was proud of his Dominican heritage, posing with a flag of the Dominican Republic in celebration of a Dominican model winning Nuestra Belleza Latina 2016. The photo, posted on Facebook, included Spanish-language hashtags that translate as #proud #Dominican. Ortiz-Jimenez graduated from J.P. McCaskey High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 2010, school district spokeswoman Kelly Burkholder told The Associated Press. He was living in Puerto Rico, according to his social media accounts, and studying at Universidad del Este in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Kevin Ortiz, a friend from college, described him as a humble man who was always concerned about staying fit and working toward fulfilling his dream of being a dancer. facebook Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, followed the crowd from a housewarming party to Pulse, according to former roommate Abismael Colon Gomez. "I am really in shock that he was in the club, because he was not usually a club-scene person," Colon Gomez told the Orlando Sentinel. Ortiz-Rivera worked in merchandise management and had earned a degree in communications from a university in Puerto Rico. He left behind his husband of a year, Ivan Dominguez; they were married June 26, the day the U.S. Supreme Court gave same-sex couples the right to marry in all 50 states. "It was a big and happy coincidence," Dominguez, 30, told The Associated Press. Dominguez is grieving, but said he still feels connected to his husband. He was not at the nightclub because he was supposed to work the next day. Another friend posted on Ortiz-Rivera's Facebook page after learning of his death: "God just gained one funny and caring angel today." ___ Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32, moved to Florida from Mexico in the early 2000s in search of a better life. He went back to his home state of Veracruz for several years to live with his family but returned to Tampa less than a year ago, relatives and friends said. "We came here for a better life," his cousin Jose Paniagua told Newsday. "We came because here in the United States there are many opportunities here and because we were fleeing because in our country there was a lot of crime, violence and death ... and we expect it should be more peaceful here." Rayon Paniagua, a construction worker, was looking forward to meeting friends at Pulse nightclub for another night of dancing, something he loved to do, longtime friend Lorena Barragan told the Orlando Sentinel. Barragan said Rayon Paniagua was a hard worker who sent money back home. "He was the best," said Barragan, who met Rayon Paniagua at church. "He was loyal. He was always trying to do stuff to make you feel better." ___ Enrique Rios Jr. a churchgoer and college student from New York was on vacation when he was gunned down at the Pulse nightclub. He was in Orlando to celebrate a friend's birthday. "I'm not angry at the gunman. I'm angry about the situation. I'm going to forever miss my son ... but I still have the hope that I'm going to see him again one day," Rios' mother, Gertrude Merced, told reporters as she packed her bags outside her New York apartment and headed to Florida. The 25-year-old lived in Brooklyn and studied at St. Francis College, where he had transferred last summer in hopes of completing his degree, the school said. "Sadly, his dreams were cut short by this senseless act of violence," St. Francis College said in a statement to NBC New York. Neighbors in Brooklyn remembered Rios as a "sweet person" who was community oriented and "always smiling." ___ Juan Pablo Rivera Velazquez, 37, worked at Alta Peluqueria D'Magazine with Conde. Client Alexandra Ale told the Orlando Sentinel the salon would often be filled with clients who were there just to see the Velazquez and Conde. Ale said the salon would often provide free services to women who had been victims of domestic abuse. "They would take the shirt off their back to help others," said Jocelyn De Leon, another client. Messages were left in chalk on the sidewalk outside their salon. "We will always thank you for making us feel beautiful," one message read. ___ Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24, was out for a night of dancing with her brother-in law and a friend, and posed for a photo before a gunman opened fire. Known as "Mary" to family and friends, Rodriguez Solivan was married to race car driver Juan Borges and had two children, the Orlando Sentinel reported. Her friend, Jonathan Antonio Camuy, also died. Her brother-in-law, William Sabad Borges, was shot twice, but the injuries were not serious, the newspaper reported. "I swear, my heart has a ladder tall enough to reach you both," Sabad Borges wrote on Facebook. "Mary, you leave me with a pain that I never thought I would feel." facebook Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24, was always friendly and outgoing, "the most positive guy I've ever known," friend Josh Palange said. They became friends during middle school, and in high school, took honors classes and band together Sanfeliz on trumpet. Though they didn't see each other much after graduating in 2010, "we stayed friends on Facebook," Palange told the Tampa Bay Times. Sanfeliz's family moved there from Cuba in the 1960s, family friend Mike Wallace said. Sanfeliz took business classes at a community college and was hired as a bank teller and worked his way up to become a personal banker, Wallace said. "He (was) a wonderful person and this is such a tragedy," said Wallace. "He was cut down in his prime." ___ Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35, went by Eman Valentino on the stage. He dressed elegantly in a top hat, tie and gloves, collecting tips from the audience between high kicks and spins, according to a YouTube video. Off the stage, Rosado had a young son who had graduated from pre-kindergarten. "I have no words to express how proud and happy I am of my little boy," Rosado wrote on Facebook recently about his son. Yemil Royce, a friend, described Rosado as hard-working, talkative and friendly: "He was a lovely friend, brother and father." ___ Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25, moved to Orlando a few years ago, his cousin, Irma Silva-Lauer, told the Orlando Sentinel. He was an only child and "the light and the life of all the family gatherings," Silva-Lauer said. He worked at UPS and died at Pulse alongside his best friend, Peter "Ommy" Gonzalez-Cruz. ___ Edward Sotomayor, 34, was a caring, energetic man known for wearing a silly top hat on cruises, according to David Sotomayor, who said the two discovered they were cousins after meeting at Orlando's annual Gay Days festival around a decade ago. David Sotomayor, who lives in Chicago, told The Associated Press Sunday that Edward worked for a company that held gay cruises and often traveled to promote the company's events. "He was just always part of the fun," David Sotomayor said. The two texted regularly and kept in touch, last seeing each other earlier this year at a filming of the television reality show "RuPaul's Drag Race," David Sotomayor said. David Sotomayor is a drag queen who appeared on a season of the show using the name "Jade." He said Edward Sotomayor supported him and often sent him Facebook messages. They last exchanged messages late last week. "You never think that's going to be the last time you speak to him," David Sotomayor said. "It's just heartbreaking to know it just can happen anytime." David Sotomayor is a drag queen who appeared on a season of the show using the name "Jade." He said Edward Sotomayor supported him and often sent him Facebook messages. They last exchanged messages late last week. "You never think that's going to be the last time you speak to him," David Sotomayor said. "It's just heartbreaking to know it just can happen anytime." ___ Singing was Shane Tomlinson's passion. He had just performed as the lead vocalist with "The Frequency Band" on Saturday night at Blue Martini club before going to Pulse, according to the Orlando Sentinel. "He was destined for a grand stage and he was doing exactly what he wanted to do," said Dr. Lathan Turner, associate director of student transitions at East Carolina University, where Tomlinson graduated in 2003 with a degree in communication. Tomlinson, 33, was a vibrant and charismatic lead vocalist for the band, performing at night clubs and weddings in the Orlando area. "I've never met anyone like him," said Carey Sobel, an Orlando resident who hired Tomlinson's band to play for his upcoming wedding. "He was really special." Tarrick Cox, an adviser for Eastern Carolina's gospel choir who worked with Tomlinson when he was a member, remembers his contagious personality and the laughter that surrounded him. "He was gifted and creative. He was a go-getter," Cox said in a statement from the university. facebook Leroy Valentin Fernandez recently had found a job as a leasing agent for an Orlando apartment complex, said his friend, Jennifer Rodriguez. "He had finally found something he liked. He was taking care of his mom," she said. He was her hair stylist and became one of her best friends, she said. "He was like a brother," she said. "He was just really very spirited and always happy, you know?" Fernandez, 25, recently had been dating an older man, a dancer known by the stage name Eman Valentino. That dancer was Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35, who also died and left behind a young son who had graduated from pre-kindergarten earlier this month. "I have no words to express how proud and happy I am of my little boy," Rosado, 35, wrote on Facebook recently about his son. A friend described Rosado as hard-working, talkative and friendly. Said Yemil Royce: "He was a lovely friend, brother and father." A YouTube video shows him dancing as an elegantly dressed Eman Valentino at the Orlando club Parliament House. He wears a cape, tie and gloves and collects tips from the audience between high kicks and spins. ___ Luis Vielma worked as a ride attendant at Universal Studios' Wizarding World of Harry Potter, according to NBCUniversal president and CEO Steve Burke. Author J.K. Rowling tweeted about Vielma's death. "Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can't stop crying," she wrote. Vielma studied emergency medical services at Seminole State College and was enrolled in a CPR class over the summer, according to a press release from the college. "These events have shocked and saddened the Central Florida community and we are heartbroken over the tragic events this weekend," the college wrote. High school friend Eddi Anderson told the Tampa Bay Times that Vielma loved his job at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and was known for his pleasant attitude and warm demeanor. Josh Boesch, who worked with Vielma at Universal, told the Orlando Sentinel: "He was always a friend you could call. He was always open and available." Vielma "just wanted to make people smile," another co-worker, Olga Glomba, said. ___ Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, who went by Dani, barely spoke English when he moved from Puerto Rico to Florida in 2004, but he wasn't deterred by the language barrier. His cousin, Laly Santiago-Leon, said he learned English in six months, got a job at a store that sells fragrances and quickly rose through the ranks. "He was loved by everyone," Santiago-Leon said. "He walked into the room and all eyes were on him because of his positive energy, just what he radiated." She said her cousin frequented Pulse nightclub with his partner of six years, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, who also was killed in the attack. The two loved Latin Night, and Wilson-Leon, 37, had posted pictures of the club online before Sunday morning's rampage. Santiago-Leon, 40, said her cousin wanted to be treated like everybody else, to be a family man, to be a good person and to help people in need. He had an infectious laugh and loved to cook Puerto Rican food, she said. She learned of his death Sunday. "I couldn't believe that he was gone. That he is gone. That this is happening," she said. "I'm heartbroken." ___ Jerald Arthur Wright, 31, was quiet but knew how to treat guests at Walt Disney World, where he worked as a seasonal employee, a former co-worker said. "He was one of the kindest people you could meet," co-worker Kenneth Berrios told the Orlando Sentinel. "We had students from the London program ... and Jerry was always willing to give rides to them and show them around town." Wright "was a great guy to work with," former co-worker Scott Dickison said. "He was quiet but really wonderful with all the guests. He always had a smile on his face." Dickison said Wright had worked most recently in merchandising on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom, but also had worked in Tomorrowland and at Universal Studios in Orlando. Hundreds of mourners gathered outside the White House Sunday night to honor the 49 people killed when a gunman sprayed a crowd with bullets at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The vigil began at the U.S. Capitol, where members of the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington joined hands in solidarity as they sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "We Shall Overcome." "It was incredibly moving to me and incredibly encouraging as an LGBT person for me and my friends," said Mary Elizabeth, a Capital Pride participant. After the choir's solemn performance, dozens walked to the White House for a candlelight vigil. Some simply prayed, while others held signs condemning gun violence and calling on better gun legislation. One person clutched a sign that read: "Stop Homophobia. Stop Islamaphobia." The vigil came hours after authorities say 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, unloading an AR-15 on clubgoers in the early hours of the morning. Mateen traded fire with a police officer and took clubgoers hostage before a SWAT team shot and killed him. The massacre left at least 50 people dead, including Mateen, and another 53 wounded in what is now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. D.C. police increased security Sunday at Capital Pride festivities. Three Connecticut Congress members are urging their colleagues to ban assault-style weapons after the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where 49 people were killed and 53 were injured early Sunday morning. U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and with U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty held a news conference on Monday mornings and said the ability to purchase these weapons is a gift for terrorist groups. All three U.S. lawmakers have pursued gun control legislation following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, that killed 20 students and six staff members, and they have met with President Barack Obama about executive actions to tighten the nations gun laws. Blumenthal said the large scale attack that happened in the nightclub club is only possible because of the weapons are available for purchase. "If there is a lesson for these murders and attacks, assault weapons are at the center of many of these attacks," Blumenthal said. Murphy added that terrorists are no longer building bombs in basements. Instead, they are walking into gun stores to buy weapons to carry out attacks. On Sunday, he said Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence and said this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing again. Esty, wearing a pin in remembrance of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, said this latest attack is an attack on humanity. There are several ways to help after the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The American Red Cross doesnt typically serve hospitals in the Orlando, Florida area, but the Red Cross in Farmington is providing a small number of blood products to support Florida hospitals. They said they have what they need to respond to the tragic incident, but stand ready to provide additional blood and blood products as needed. Eligible individuals can make an appointment to give blood in the coming weeks and months by using the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting www.redcrossblood.org, or calling 1-800-RED CROSS. Here are more ways to help. One of the victims of Sunday's shooting at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando was a former Torrington High School basketball player who only recently moved to Florida and had just started working at the club. Kimberly Morris, 37, was known as KJ to her friends and it was her first week as a bouncer at Pulse when gunman Omar Mateen opened fire, killing 50 people and injuring more than 50 more on Sunday. She only moved to Orlando a few months ago, according to her friend, Jim Searle. Florida Gov. Rick Scott remembered Morris during a news conference on Monday morning and said she just moved from Hawaii to Florida to take care of her mother and grandmother. When you stop to think about this we always think about, Thank God it wasnt our family, but if you go through that list of family members, we have a lot of individuals from Puerto Rico. We have a wonderful Puerto Rican community. Have a young lady, K.J. Morris, that just moved here from Hawaii to take care of her mother and grandmother, Scott said. Searle worked with Morris last summer at Diamond Wireless inside BJ's in Manchester. He called Morris a great person who loved life. For officials in Torrington, the tragedy in Florida is hitting close to home after learning that Morris was one of the victims. I am saddened by the senseless act of violence which took place over the weekend in Orlando, Florida. This tragedy hit close to home for many Torrington residents upon hearing that one of the victims, 37 year old Kimberly Morris, known as KJ, grew up in our community," Mayor Elinor Carbone said a statement. "This loss of life, any loss of life, is heartbreaking. My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Kimberly Morris, and all others who have been affected by this unspeakable act. Morris graduated from Torrington High School in 1996 and played basketball all four years. She wore number 42. Her high school coach, Michael Fritch, said she always had a great attitude. She was fun loving, got along with everybody, never missed a practice, worked hard, gave us her best effort, he said. Erika Pratt, who played basketball with Morris for three years said her former teammate will be missed. She just was a good person, like she always just had a good attitude and was always happy and made people laugh and did silly things, Morris went on to play basketball at Post University in Waterbury and graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science degree. A statement from Post University said the community is deeply saddened. She "is remembered as an active, vibrant student-athlete and leader within the Post family. Our thoughts and prayers are with Kimberlys family and friends, and the many Post alumni who have contacted us to share their memories of this wonderful young woman," a statement from the school says. She lived in Northampton, Massachusetts for about a decade, where she worked at the gay club, Divas, as a drag king and bouncer. "We are deeply saddened to loose [sic] a member of our Diva's family," the club wrote on Facebook Sunday night. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to her family and friends. We will always remember her smile and her amazing way she lite up the stage in her performances." A Westport mother went to pick up her child from school while intoxicated, police said. On May 5, police followed up with Victoria Lieber after she appeared drunk while picking up her child at a local school. Police did not disclose what school her child attends. Westport officers said when they went to Lieber's house, she smelled like alcohol. When the 43-year-old mother was administered a field sobriety test, she failed, police said. Police also determined that at some point during the drive home, Lieber had threatened her child, but it is not clear how. A warrant was submitted for Lieber and she turned herself into police on June 9. Lieber faces one risk of injury to a minor charge and her bond was set at $1,000. Families and friends waited outside an Orlando hospital Sunday anxious to hear about their loved ones following the shooting. Police said 49 people were killed and 53 others were wounded at Pulse Nightclub, in what is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The shooter was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a resident of Port St. Lucie, Florida. Christine Leinonen, who waited outside Orlando Regional Medical Center hospital, said she drove to Orlando at 4 a.m. when she hadn't heard from her son, Christoper Leinonen, 32. "These are nonsensical killings of our children. They're killing our babies!" she said, fearing the worst for her missing son. Leinonen said her son's friend made it out alive by hiding in the bathroom and running out as bullets were flying. The City of Orlando began to release the names of some of the victims of Sunday's deadly mass shooting at a popular night club. Seven of the victims were identified on the city's website: Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar III, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo and Juan Ramon Guerrero, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz,Luis S. Vielma. Mina Justice was outside the dance club early Sunday, trying to contact her 30-year-old son, Eddie. He had texted her that he ran into a bathroom after the gunfire erupted and asked her to call police, then texted: "He's coming." "The next text said: 'He has us, and he's in here with us,'" Mina Justice said. "That was the last conversation." Many of the injured were critically injured and were being operated on, according to Michael Cheatman from the Orlando Regional Medical Center. Fatriana Evans frequents the club and was outside when shots were fired: "It sounded like fireworks pop, pop, pop and then everybody scatters." Jackie Smith, who was inside the club, said two friends next to her were shot. She said she hasn't gotten updates on their conditions. She came out of the hospital and burst into tears in the arms of friends. "Some guy walked in and started shooting everybody." she said. "He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance. I just tried to get out of there." Facebook added a "Facebook Safety Check" Sunday morning for people to find out whether friends and family have tagged themselves as safe. The social network is using the heading "The Shooting in Orlando, Florida." A hotline has been set up for families of the victims to call: 407-246-4357. Texas State Troopers suspect drunken driving was behind a wrong-way crash that sent two people to the hospital early Monday morning.[[382663541,R]] A preliminary investigation revealed the driver of a GMC Yukon entered the President George Bush Turnpike using the Marsh Lane exit ramp at about 3:20 a.m., said Lonny Haschel, DPS spokesman. The Yukon headed east for about a half mile until it collided with a westbound Chevrolet Impala. Soon after, a westbound Toyota Camry struck the Impala from behind. The driver of the Toyota was was taken to a nearby hospital but was not seriously hurt. Haschel said the drivers in both the Yukon and Impala were suspected of being intoxicatedf at the time of the crash. The driver of the Yukon, who was not identified, was not hurt and was taken to the Denton County Jail. The driver in the Impala was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not serious. The investigation into the crash is ongoing. NBC 5's Tim Ciesco contributed to this report. Fort Campbell, a US Army base located on the Tennessee-Kentucky border, will hold a ceremony honoring a longtime advocate for the Army, especially Fort Campbell soldiers and their families. The post said Clarissa Ann Jackson "T.C." Freeman died May 19 at the age of 83 after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis. Fort Campbell says she grew up in Killeen, Texas, near where her grandfather helped to secure the land to build Fort Hood. Freeman met her husband there, retired Col. Bobby H. Freeman, a Hopkinsville native. She was an Army spouse for 25 years and raised three children. She became a civilian aide to the secretary of the Army for central Kentucky in 2008, promoting good relations between the Army and the public. The post said it plans to hold a memorialization ceremony June 28, renaming and dedicating Gate 4 to Freeman. The Orlando terror attack struck close to home for MedStars Public Affairs Director, Matt Zavadsky. I became very concerned says Zavadsky. Before moving to Fort Worth, Zavadsky was Orlandos EMS Director, and knows many of the paramedics who responded to the massacre at the Pulse Nightclub. As long as I know theyre safe, and everybody that I know that Ive talked to are safe, its a little bit of a relief, says Zavadsky, but it still makes your heart skip a beat when you realize how close it could have been to you. You never think about that in Americas playground, says Zavadsky, but then thinking about what does that mean here in the Fort Worth area if that were to happen at one of our iconic locations. Just last summer, Medstar trained alongside Fort Worth police and firefighters to prepare for an attack by an active shooter. That training has been invaluable for us because we know its just a matter of time before we have some type of a situation here says Zavasky. The response would start with the first 9-1-1 call to MedStars dispatch center. The first thing we do is our dispatch center will call all of the area hospitals and theyll ask them how many minor patients, serious patients, critical patients can you take right now says MedStar Operations Supervisor Marshall Sharp. Medical teams in Dallas are also prepared to possible terror attacks. We have some advantages here, says Dr. Paul Pepe, Director of Medical Emergency Services for the City of Dallas. We have multiple trauma centers here being a large city, we have a well-integrated public safety system where police, fire and ems work together, says Dr. Pepe, in fact we have physicians who are part of swat teams as well. Operation Kindness, the first and largest no-kill shelter in North Texas, will celebrate its 40th year anniversary with its annual Alumni celebration and open house on Saturday, June 18 for the pets adopted from the shelter, their new families, and the public. The crowning jewel of the festivities will be the worlds largest cake for dogs created by Catering by Larry and sponsored by Blue Buffalo. The 170-pound cake will be made of Blue Buffalo dog food, mashed potato, and sweet potato icing, complete with Blue Buffalo treats on top for good measure. Furry guests will be able to enjoy doggie splash pools, canine massages, pupsicles, and free bandanas. Their human friends can munch on hot dogs and veggie burgers from the grill while taking tours of the Operation Kindness campus. The event will run from 10:30am to 1pm on June 18 at the Operation Kindness Campus, located at 3201 Earhart Drive, Carrollton. Since its inception in 1976, Operation Kindness has saved over 80,000 animals and continues to assist more than 5,000 cats and dogs annually. Three suspects have been charged in the slaying of a Del Valle man last month. The Austin American-Statesman reports that 41-year-old Reginald "Slim" Wright, 37-year-old Clifton Wade and 24-year-old Chelsea Wilhelm are charged with capital murder in the death of 62-year-old Lee King. Wright was a former roommate of the victim, but was kicked out of the house after a dispute with King, the Austin American-Statesman said. A Travis County sheriff's office spokesman says the three suspects planned to rob King of his debit card PINs together on May 31. Investigators say the three suspects taped King's wrists, injected him with a meth/poison mix and beat him with a rifle butt. When the house alarm went off and Travis County officers arrived, one of the alleged robbers first fled the scene, while Wade pretended to be a victim, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Investigators later proved Wade to be a part of the scheme to rob King. The three suspects were being held at the Travis County Jail on Saturday. Wright was held on a $375,000 bail, and Wilhelm and Wade had bails of $250,000. It wasn't immediately clear if they have lawyers. The gunman in the Orlando nightclub attack that killed 49 people had "strong indications of radicalization" and was likely inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, FBI Director James Comey said Monday. The early Sunday attack marked the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Shooter Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born Muslim who worked as a security guard in Florida, died in a gun battle with police. Comey told reporters Mateen spoke with a 911 operator three times early Sunday morning before opening fire on the crowd at Pulse, a gay club that was hosting Latin night. Mateen also pledged loyalty to the head of ISIS on his last call, Comey said. Mateen was not unknown to law enforcement: In 2013, he made inflammatory comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent Ronald Hopper, who called the interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber, but the agent described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, he had a handgun. Police Chief John Mina said officers held back for some time because Mateen indicated he had a bomb vest. Earlier Monday, President Barack Obama said there was no clear evidence Mateen was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot. He said it appears the shooter was inspired by extremist information disseminated over the Internet. Obama said the probe is being treated as a terrorism investigation and appears to be similar to last year's shooting spree in San Bernardino, California. Investigators are still looking into the motivations of the shooter, including the fact that the shooting took place at a gay venue. Two law enforcement sources told NBC News on Monday that Mateen may have traveled to Disney World to plan an attack there. One source said it was "pre-operational," meaning Mateen had not developed a plan. A second source was less certain Mateen had even gotten that far and said it's possible Mateen's visit was simply a social one. Disney spokesperson Lisa Haines said in a statement, Unfortunately weve all been living in a world of uncertainty, and during this time we have increased our security measures across our properties, adding such visible safeguards as magnetometers, additional canine units, and law enforcement officers on site, as well as less visible systems that employ state-of-the-art security technologies. Wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, Mateen opened fire at the crowded club in such close quarters that the bullets could hardly miss. He was gunned down after police used explosives and a small armored vehicle to punch a hole in a wall and allow dozens of clubgoers to escape, police said. "He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance," said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next to her get shot. "I just tried to get out of there." Mateen bought at least two guns legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. "I've always felt so safe here for my family, kids. And now, I don't know," said Marlon Massey, who lives across the street from the club, in the city known to tourists around the globe as the home of Walt Disney World and other theme parks. Obama on Sunday called the shooting an "act of terror" and an "act of hate" against a place of "solidarity and empowerment" for gays. Mateen's Afghan immigrant father, Seddique Mir Mateen, suggested anti-gay hatred as a possible motive. The father said his son got angry a few months ago when he saw two men kissing in Miami. His father told reporters Monday that the massacre was "the act of a terrorist," and added: "I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are." He wouldn't go into details about any religious or political views his son held, saying he didn't know. Asked whether he missed his son, he said: "I don't miss anything about him. What he did was against humanity." Mateen's ex-wife attributed the violence to mental illness, saying he was bipolar. The Islamic State's radio called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the extremist group, hailed the attack, saying that it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it was the worst attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. It was unclear, though, whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Meanwhile, the last of the bodies were removed from the club overnight as investigators dug into Mateen's background. Workers removed them four at a time on stretchers and loaded them into white vans. The covered bodies were taken to the county medical examiner's office. "We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer vowed. Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and the others died at hospitals, the mayor said. By Monday morning, families of 24 of the victims had been notified, Dyer said. At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb. Officials emphasized Monday morning there was no immediate threat to the public. On the same day as the Orlando attack, an Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested in Southern California and told police he was headed to a West Hollywood gay pride parade, authorities said. The previous deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people and took his own life. President Obama addressed the nation Sunday following the deadly shooting at an Orlando nightclub, calling the massacre "an act of terror and an act of hate." "Today as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder, the horrific massacre of dozens of innocent people," Obama said. "We pray for their families who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand with the people of Orlando who have endured a terrible attack on their city." A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday, killing at least 49 people before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. It is the worst mass shooting in American history. [NATL] Deadly Nightclub Shooting Leaves Orlando Reeling Sunday's address from the White House briefing room marked the 15th time during his presidency that Obama has spoken in the wake of a mass shooting, according to NBC News. The briefing room is named for James S. Brady, the former press secretary who was shot and permanently disabled in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, according to The Associated Press. "We are still learning all the facts," Obama said. Obama spoke after meeting with FBI Director James Comey and his homeland security and national security advisers, he said. The FBI is leading the investigation in partnership with local law enforcement agencies. "I've directed that the full resources of the federal government be made available for this investigation," said Obama, who spoke earlier in the day with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. "This could have been any one of our communities, so I told Mayor Dyer that whatever help he and the people of Orlando need, they are going to get it," Obama said. "As a country, we are going to be there for the people of Orlando today, tomorrow, and for all the days to come." . @orlandomayor Our community is strong. We will need to help each other's get through this. pic.twitter.com/XyUa8g5PT8 Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) June 12, 2016 The suspect was identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida. Law enforcement sources told NBC News that Mateen was born in New York in 1986 and lived in Port St. Lucie, 125 miles south of Orlando. "We must spare no effort to determine what, if any, inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups," Obama said. "What is clear is that he was a person who was filled with hatred." The suspect exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the gay club known as Pulse around 2 a.m., when more than 300 people were inside. The gunman then went back inside and took hostages, Police Chief John Mina said. Around 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages. "This is an especially heartbreaking day for all of our friends, our fellow Americans, who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender," Obama said. "The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together with friends, to dance, and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked was more than a nightclub. It was a place of solidarity and empowerment, where people come together to raise awareness to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights," he said. Expressing gratitude to law enforcement and first responders, Obama said the massacre was a "sobering reminder" that an attack on any American is an attack "on all of us." "No act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or our values as Americans," he said. Obama signed a proclamation on Sunday ordering flags to be flown at half-staff until sunset on Thursday in honor of the victims, the AP reported. The trial over a copyright infringement lawsuit involving classic rock band Led Zeppelin's iconic anthem "Stairway to Heaven" is scheduled to begin Tuesday in downtown Los Angeles. The lawsuit alleges that the descending guitar arpeggio opening of "Stairway," released 45 years ago, was lifted from the 1968 instrumental "Taurus," recorded by the long-defunct Los Angeles band Spirit. The suit was lodged on behalf of Michael Skidmore, administrator of the trust of Spirit's late guitarist-songwriter Randy Craig Wolfe, known as Randy California. Wolfe drowned in 1997 off the coast of Hawaii. Defendants include Led Zeppelin band members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, and three companies involved in the Led Zeppelin catalog. Jury selection in the case before U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner is set to start Tuesday morning. Last week, the judge denied a plaintiff's motion to compel the attendance of Page and Plant, but their attorneys previously stated the duo would attend proceedings. Klausner previously ruled that the jury trial would last less than a week and attorneys would have no more than 10 hours per side to present evidence. If Page and Plant do not show up to testify in court, video depositions, recorded in the United Kingdom, would instead be shown to the jury. The trust's attorney, Francis Malofiy, alleges in court papers that Page first heard key guitar parts later used in "Stairway" when Spirit performed "Taurus" on stage when they headlined over Zeppelin on the British band's first United States tour in 1968. The suit alleges that Led Zeppelin has "a deep-rooted history of lifting compositions from blues artists and other songwriters who they have repeatedly failed to credit." In the 1970s, the band made settlement agreements and granted writing co- credits to other artists for several songs originally credited to Page, including "Whole Lotta Love," "The Lemon Song" and "Dazed and Confused." "Attribution is the most important thing," Malofiy recently told City News Service. "What we want is for credit to be given where it's due. I'm a fan of Led Zeppelin, but in this situation, we want credit for Randy." In the liner notes to a 1996 reissue of Spirit's first album, Wolfe stated that "people always ask me why 'Stairway to Heaven' sounds exactly like 'Taurus,' which was released two years earlier... They opened up for us on their first American tour." In a six-page declaration filed with the court, Page said he didn't hear, or had even heard of, the two-minute, 37-second "Taurus' until two years ago. The Los Angeles LGBT Center is holding a rally and vigil Monday to honor and remember the lives lost in Sunday's Orlando nightclub shooting. The event begins at 7 p.m. at Los Angeles City Hall, at 200 N Spring St., and hopes to unite allies and members of the LGBT community in the wake of the tragic shooting in Orlando at a LGBT nightclub. Participants will meet in the free speech area outside the City Hall. The rally and vigil follows a number of prayer and remembrance services around Southern California on Sunday, in areas such as Santa Ana and Chino. The usally festive LA PRIDE parade began Sunday with a moment of silence for the victims. Forty nine people were killed when a gunman opened fire Sunday morning inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The shooter died in an exchange of gunfire with officers. In the wake of the Orlando nightclub massacre, one of West Hollywood's most popular gay bars is taking extra steps to protect its guests. David Cooley, owner of The Abbey, says armed guards have been hired to protect customers and hopefully bring a sense of security after a shooting rampage at Pulse also a gay bar left 50 people dead and scores more injured. The Abbey staffs armed security guards from time to time for major events, like last weekend's Pride celebration. A man from Indiana was arrested hours after the shooting, when police found assault rifles, high capacity magazines and bomb-making chemicals in his car. He said he intended to attend LA Pride. West Hollywood resident Ruben Ochoa says gay bars and clubs are a safe-haven for the LGBT community, and he hopes it stays that way. "Nothing's happened like that in this community, but clearly extra security makes people feel more comfortable going somewhere," he said. Cooley said this weekend was emotional and difficult, but he and this community will not let the horrific incident in Orlando stop them from celebrating who they are. Between the birthday greetings he got as he woke up, visual artist ChadMichael Morrisette said his heart broke for what he saw on the news Sunday morning as details emerged about the mass shooting at a gay club in Orlando. "This affected me so much. I wanted people to see as the biggest shooting in American history, what that might look like, and I have the ability to show them that," he said. It was his call to action. His vision was to show people the horror of what the aftermath of a shooting of that magnitude would look like. Morrisette created a dramatic representation of the carnage inside Pulse nightclub, with 50 mannequins on the roof of his West Hollywood home. "I put 50 bodies on the roof of my house so that people could drive by and see what 50 human bodies looks like. Piled up," he said of the installation. No two mannequins' expressions are the same, no positions are the same. It is the visual of what first responders must have seen inside that nightclub, where Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people and wounded 53 more. "The bodies are still in there. Right now. Theyre still in there," Morrisette said Sunday night. "This is exactly what theyre walking into." His art piece is titled "No One Is Safe," and he is calling on lawmakers to change that. "It doesnt matter if its a church or a movie theater or a gay club or an elementary school. All of us at this point should be able to relate to it," Morrisette said. "I dont care what you say about all this we cannot have 50 Americans killed in a nightclub and continue to do nothing about it." What to Know Florida Governor Rick Scott is asking for a federal emergency declaration from President Obama after the Orlando mass shooting. In the wake of the worst mass shooting in modern American history, Florida Governor Rick Scott is asking for a federal emergency declaration from President Obama for the city of Orlando and the state. In a statement, Gov. Scott asked for the declaration so that federal resources can begin to assist in the efforts at the Pulse nightclub, where 49 people were killed and 53 more injured after Omar Mateen opened fire early Sunday morning. I have remained in constant communication with federal, state and local law enforcement, Gov. Scott said. I have also been in contact with some of the victims families to let them know we are grieving with them and will be there for them every step of the way. Our state is mourning, but the Orlando community is strong. We are all coming together, and we will get through this together. I ask every American to continue to pray for our state and nation and all those affected by this terror attack. At a Monday press conference, officials said that 48 of the 49 victims inside the night club have been identified and the process of notifying next of kin continues. Police said the death total is at 50 when Mateen is included, as he was killed by SWAT team members. Miami-Dade Police were investigating a reported bomb threat Monday morning at a Miami courthouse, which turned out to be a hoax. Police evacuated the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building at 1351 Northwest 12th Street around 8 a.m. Someone overheard the word bomb being mentioned in a conversation between two people and police were called. The courthouse was evacuated as a precaution. Shortly after 8:45 a.m., police determined the bomb threat was a hoax and gave the all-clear. What to Know Federal and state officials are searching the home of Orlando mass shooting suspect Omar Mateen. The 29 year old opened fire inside a night club, killing 49 and shooting 53 others before police shot and killed him. In a normally quiet town less than an hour north of West Palm Beach, local and state police are joined by federal agencies in the search of the home belonging to Orlando mass shooting gunmen Omar Mateen. Just hours after Mateen opened fire inside a crowded club, killing at least 49 and shooting dozens more, officials came to his home in Fort Pierce looking for answers. The 29 year old had been a security guard in the area and had a three year old son. Those around the area who knew him are shocked to find out Mateen would do such a horrible thing. He used to hang out, he would never shoot anybody or kill anybody. That's crazy, said one nearby resident. The FBI searched the home of Mateens father in nearby Port St. Luice, leaving with bags of items they collected. Mateen first came on the agencys radar in 2013, when he was investigated following remarks made to a co-worker that indicated possible ties to terror groups. The FBI said there was no threat and closed that case, as well as a later case with possible ties to a suicide bomber. Mateen was said to have attended a local mosque three to four times a week, according to a local Imam who spoke with NBC 6. He said the FBI had visited the mosque and Fort Pierce Islamic Center in recent years, but not specifically to ask about Manteen. Luis Burbano had escaped from the bullets flying across the dance floor at the Pulse nightclub into a narrow alley and through a hole in a fence when he stopped to help a young man who collapsed in front of him. "I grabbed him not realizing that his forearm was split in two," Burbano told CNN. "Then I realized he had a gash on his side as well." Burbano quickly took off his shirt to use as a tourniquet and, as he talked to the young man to keep him calm, he realized another man was pacing back and forth. And that man had a bullet in his leg, he said. "I did a tourniquet really quick on him as well," said Burbano, an employee of Florida International University, according to his Facebook page. "I had them both by my side until the paramedics came." Stories of bravery like Burbano's are emerging from the terror in Orlando, Florida, that began inside the gay nightclub around 2 a.m. Sunday when 29-year-old Omar Mateen, armed with what authorities said was an assault rifle and a handgun, opened fire. At least 49 people were killed and dozens wounded by the time Mateen was killed by a SWAT team. His motive for attacking the club is still under investigation, authorities say. In a 911 call immediately before the slaughter, Mateen swore allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. His father told NBC News that Mateen had been infuriated earlier when he saw two men kissing. Joshua McGill, a nursing student, wrote on his Facebook page that as he hid under a car with a man who had been shot, he tied shirts over the wounds to stop the bleeding. "[A]nd got him secretly to the nearest officer who then transported us to the ER," he wrote. "Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that. Being covered in blood.. Trying to save a guy's life that I don't even know regardless that I'm fine..just traumatized." [NATL] Deadly Nightclub Shooting Leaves Orlando Reeling The man was later identified as Rodney Sumter, a bartender at Pulse who was struck in his arms and back. On Monday morning one of his cousins wrote to McGill to say that Sumter was in good spirits, waiting for surgery. "Thank you so much for saving his life," Trina Brown Linning wrote. "If you had not stopped to help him, he could have easily bled to death. God bless you and your family." Christopher Hansen describes what he did to help save someones life. Christopher Hansen, a newcomer to Orlando, thought at first that the shooting was part of the music. "I looked over and I saw bodies falling, people screaming," he said. "The person next to me was shot and the blood splattered and then I fell down." When he got out of the club, he took off his bandanna for a man whose pant leg was drenched in blood, he told NBC News. A DJ at the club, Ray Rivera or DJ Infinite, mistook the shooting for firecrackers until he turned off the music, he told The Daily Beast. When club-goers began to scream and run, he ducked behind his DJ booth and was quickly joined by a man and a woman. The man made a run for it, but Rivera helped the woman escape. "I never imagined I would be at anything like this," he told The Daily Beast. "It was so terrible." Emilie Plesset contributed research for this article. // Sunday's Tony Awards saw the four major musical acting honors going to people of color, a first in the shows 70-year history. The annual celebration of achievement in theater came some 6 months after the Oscar nominations -- which were widely chastised for ignoring the contributions of minority performers. Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Renee Elise Goldsberry and Daveed Diggs took home the top trophies at the 2016 Tonys. Erivo won for her starring role in "The Color Purple"; Odom Jr., Goldsberry and Diggs for their work in "Hamilton." "Think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity," host James Corden said in his opening monologue. Broadway has long been an inclusive arena. In 1982, three actors of color from "Dreamgirls" won musical acting awards. "There are stories to be told and there are people who want to hear them," director Thomas Kail said, accepting the Tony for his work on "Hamilton." "Growing up, I felt like there was no place for me here," Diggs told reporters after his win. "Having been a part of this season, I look around and see it's so inclusive. There is so much diversity on Broadway right now. I'm very proud to be a part of it." "It makes me so happy to see so many theater kids nerding out over these shows because they can find themselves in that," he added. "Hamilton," which went into the night with a record 16 nominations, took home 11 awards. It wasn't able to beat the record 12 awards previously won by 'The Producers" in 2001. Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip-hop musical was introduced by a pre-taped message from Barack and Michelle Obama -- the first time a sitting president and first lady have appeared on the top theater awards. "Its a musical about the miracle that is America," the first lady said. "A place of inclusiveness where we value our boisterous diversity as a great gift," the president added. "Thats the story of America," President Obama continued. "An experiment that is not yet finished. A project that belongs to all of us." Barbra Streisand also made history on the awards, appearing to present an award for the first time since 1970. The evening also included tribute to "Chicago" -- Broadway's longest running American musical -- which is currently celebrating 20 years on Broadway. Some lawmakers in Albany are pushing for mandatory lead testing at schools across New York after tests conducted independently by several Long Island districts revealed lead levels that one top scientist told the I-Team were worse than in Flint, Michigan. A bill pending in the New York state legislature would require all schools in the Empire State to conduct lead testing and provide funding for the examinations and to remediate any problems revealed in the results. The measure comes after a joint investigation by the I-Team and partners WNYC and WSHU radio uncovered a varied and inconsistent response to the lead water problems faced by schools on Long Island. "We can't continue to allow our students in school to drink unknown quality water in the schools," said state Sen. Tom OMara, one of the bills sponsors. Districts across the island began testing taps for lead contamination after news broke in March that dozens of schools in Newark, New Jersey, had tainted water. But the majority of the schools hadnt been monitoring for lead contamination before that because there were no state or federal laws mandating it. In Commack, officials footed $40,000 for tests that revealed numerous fountains and sinks had elevated lead levels. The district posted the results online in April. The I-Team showed those results to Marc Edwards, the renowned Virginia Tech environmental engineering professor credited with uncovering the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. He said some of the schools samples were worse than what teams found in Flint. "In some of these taps, little pieces of lead solder or lead brass can fall off," he said. "And drinking one glass of water can be the same lead exposure as eating 10 lead paint chips." According to the EPA, any sample that contains more than 15 parts per billion of lead is cause for concern. At Rolling Hills Primary School, 40 percent of the taps exceeded that standard, including five water fountains, one of which had twice the acceptable level of lead. At Commack High School, meanwhile, one in four taps had elevated levels. At North Ridge Primary, also an elementary school, one water fountain had 53 parts per billion. And a sink at Commack Middle School tested for 1,700 parts per billion. The Commack school district said all the fountains and sinks with elevated lead levels were taken offline after the tests were conducted at those schools, and that it was planning to fix or replace all contaminated fountains. Lisa Feit, a Commack High School parent, said she rushed her kids to the doctor after seeing the lead test results. "I actually had my kids blood tested," said Feit. Another parent, Anand Pal, said that even after seeing the results, he was still confused. "They were transparent in giving that information," said Pal. "But Im not an expert so I dont know how much is good for health." Parents in nearby Wyandanch are in the dark, however. The district hasnt tested for lead levels because of costs and backlogs at local labs. Tommy Patrick said that the tests are needed because Wyandanch likely isnt that different from other districts. "If it's happening in Northport or happening in Huntington it should happen right here, it's no different," he said. Edwards says repairs in schools and Albany cant come fast enough. "Parents have to push their school boards or we need adults to step forward and make sure that our children are in a safe learning environment," Edwards said. "Part of that safety is making sure that there is water available that is lead free." In the nationwide sweepstakes among federal jurisdictions to put Mexican drug kingpin and escape artist Joaquin `"El Chapo" Guzman on trial, the place currently leading the pack is far from the border: Brooklyn. Justice Department officials in Washington still aren't commenting on the closely watched decision involving seven prosecutor's offices that have indicted Guzman on drug conspiracy and other charges over the past two decades. But two law enforcement officials familiar with the process told The Associated Press that it's likely that if transferred from Mexican to U.S. custody in coming months, Guzman would be sent to the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the decision-making process. Brooklyn, an office once run by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, has long been rumored to be the front-runner while Guzman has been vigorously fighting extradition, an effort that could drag out indefinitely. But wherever he ends up in United States, Guzman is certain to cause a media frenzy and present a security challenge that has bedeviled Mexican authorities. Last year, the boss of the cutthroat Sinaloa cartel escaped prison for a second time _ using a mile-long tunnel and help from crooked guards _ and spent several months on the run before being recaptured in January after a bloody shootout in the coastal town of Los Mochis. His apprehension, along with Mexican authorities' decision to transfer him to a jail just across the border from El Paso in Ciudad Juarez, renewed speculation about a possible U.S. prosecution in one of the seven districts _ Brooklyn, Manhattan, Chicago, Miami, San Diego, El Paso and New Hampshire. U.S. indictments in those cities accuse him of overseeing a drug empire that poisoned American streets by smuggling countless tons of cocaine, heroin and marijuana via tunnels or secret compartments in cars, trucks and rail cars. One of New Jersey's biggest and most spirited gay pride festivals carried on as planned Sunday despite the massacre at a gay club in Orlando. But the North Jersey Pride Festival did not shy from the slaughter of 50 people less than 10 hours prior, recognizing the tragedy even as it celebrated. "We as a community here in New Jersey, we will never be silent about our love," said Sen. Cory Booker, a featured speaker at the event. "Today, though darkness rolled into our nation, today I still choose love." Booker addressed a crowd in the hundreds, many of them families with young children who were struggling to explain the violence of the morning. "In some ways I feel glad we were going to be together as a community at a time like this," CJ Prince, Executive Director of North Jersey Pride, told NBC 4 New York on the sidelines of the Maplewood event. The festival opened with a choir singing Lady Gaga anthems, but it took a more serious tone later in the day as Booker spoke. Festival goers rushed to embrace Booker and thank him, even as an a cappella band threatened to drown them out. "We feel like we want to really acknowledge it; yet, at the same time, we're here to celebrate our community and our joy," Prince said. What to Know Rescuers are searching for a missing swimmer and paddle boarder in two separate incidents in area waters. The swimmer was one of two who went missing Sunday evening. The other swimmer was pulled from the water alive. The paddle boarder went missing off the coast of Long Island on Sunday evening. He was not wearing a life jacket, a lifeguard said. A group of boaters on an evening trip got blown far off the Connecticut coast by strong winds, leading to the deaths of a kayaker and a paddleboarder, and injuring two other boaters. The boaters left Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison at about 6 p.m. Sunday. A woman and her young daughter who were in the kayak were found Monday morning on a beach across Long Island Sound in New York. Her boyfriend's body was found nearby. Soona after 1 p.m. Monday, the Coast Guard found the body of a 44-year-old Manchester, Connecticut, man who had been traveling with them on the paddleboard. Coast Guard Lt. Matthew Richards said winds gusting at about 40 mph blew their kayak about 14 miles across the sound. "They were just doing a day trip around Hammonasset," said Richards. "But they were overcome by the gale-force winds. At one point it capsized the kayak." Authorities say they were found on a beach in Southold, New York, at about 4 a.m. Monday by people who heard their cries for help. The woman's 31-year-old boyfriend was found a short distance away and had succumbed to hypothermia, Richards said. The woman and child were being treated for hypothermia at Eastern Long Island Hospital. Authorities had not released the victims' names Monday. The search for the man on paddleboard who was later found dead involved a helicopter, several Coast Guard vessels along with boats from several local police departments. Richards said it was one of two boating accidents Sunday on Long Island Sound. One person swam to shore and another was missing after an inflatable raft overturned in Bridgeport Harbor earlier in the day, he said. That missing boater was not wearing a life jacket, he said. And in a third incident on the south shore of Long Island, 41-year-old Gary Turkel disappeared while paddleboarding near Atlantic Beach Sunday afternoon. Coast Guards were called to search for the man after family members said he never returned. He was still missing Monday morning. There was a small craft advisory posted for the area Sunday because of the wind conditions, he said. "On sunny days it feels like it's a nice time to go out there," he said. "But conditions can change very fast and the water is still very cold. It's very dangerous." What to Know Marissa Delgado was critically injured in the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. The mass shooting is the deadliest in U.S. history. Delgado's friend, Stanley, was among those confirmed dead. Delgado grew up on Long Island but had since moved to Orlando and was hanging out at Pulse nightclub Saturday night when gunfire erupted. A Long Island mom is praying for her daughter, who was among those shot at an Orlando nightclub in Americas worst mass shooting. Marissa Delgado grew up in Glen Cove, on Long Islands north shore, and went to Glen Cove High School. She had since moved to Orlando and was hanging out at Pulse nightclub when a gunman entered early Sunday morning, shooting and killing 49 people and hurting scores more. Marissa was critically injured in the shooting. Her mother, Lisa Delgado, said on Facebook that her daughter may have been shot as many as 12 times the exact number wasn't immediately clear. Lisa pleaded for prayers as she and other members of Marissas family gathered on Long Island Sunday night. My sister right now is not in a position to speak to anyone, so if you guys could respect that, Id greatly appreciate it, Marissas aunt told reporters Sunday. Friends say Marissa was in her late 20s. One of them posted a photo to Snapchat and said it was the last picture Marissa had taken with her friend, Stanley Almodovar III. Almodovar, 23, was among those confirmed dead by authorities. Marissa was last listed in critical condition. Other details about her have not been released. At this point, her family is praying and hoping shell pull through. While the 59th annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade honored LGBT Puerto Ricans for the first time in its history, the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida cast a sad and daunting shadow for many marching in the parade, highlighting the violence LGBTQ communities still face. "We have come a long way, and we were finally recognized by the National Puerto Rican Day Parade." said honoree Pedro Julio Serrano, who was wearing a sash that said Orgullo Puertorriqueno, which means Puerto Rican Pride. "It is with a heavy heart that we march today, but we have to do it because this is our struggle." Serrano, an openly gay, HIV+ activist, is the executive director of Puerto Rico Para Tod@s, an LGBT advocacy group. He called the mass shooting an "unconscionable tragedy" felt throughout the Puerto Rican and LGBT communities. The shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando early Sunday morning left 50 dead and 53 injured. The City of Orlando, which has one of the biggest and rapidly increasing Puerto Rican populations in the country, has slowly been releasing the names of the deceased. Among them are Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar III, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo and Juan Ramon Guerrero. "This was an act of terror and an act of hate against LGBT people of color," Serrano said. "This is not what humanity is about and we all should respect and love each other." Ricardo Jimenez, a former political prisoner of Puerto Rico for 20 years, marched in the parade with Serrano, congratulating the progress of LGBT inclusion in the parade. "This is, in general, the homophobia and transphobia that exists in the U.S.," Jimenez said. "This parade, is dedicated to us, and we are trying to avoid incidents like those. We need to condemn, fully, the situation that happened in Orlando." Karina Claudio Betancourt, who works with the Open Society Foundation and previously directed community engagement in New York City, walked in the parade in solidarity with Puerto Ricans dealing with the islands's financial crisis as well as LGBTQ people of color who still have to endure violence in the U.S. "Many of the people that are leaving the island of Puerto Rico because of the debt crisis, and they are going to Orlando," Betancourt said. "It was also Latino night at that club, so we lost a lot our brothers and sisters. Althought today is when we celebrate, we reflect on how homophobia and transphobia still kill us to this day." Despite the backdrop of the violent shootings in Orlando, Betancourt said the LGBT representation in the National Puerto Rican Day Parade is still historic and should be celebrated. A man was shot and killed by a retired NYPD officer as he was robbing a pub in Queens, police said. The 30-something-year-old man entered the Parkside Pub in Whitestone shortly before 4 a.m., according to police. He allegedly took out a gun and stole money from the cash register before one of the patrons, a retired NYPD officer, shot him once in the face. The robbery suspect died from his injuries. Further details, including the identities of the two men, werent immediately known. Thousands crowded the streets Monday night around the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan where large-scale gay rights activism got its start in 1969. People held hands and hugged under banners heralding the upcoming Pride Week. Some waved rainbow flags and others carried signs showing support for Orlando as they listened to a slew of elected officials, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio. Cuomo and de Blasio called on New Yorkers to demand stricter gun control from Congress and for "inclusion and tolerance and love and understanding." Cuomo said, "Let's say tonight this is the day federal government will pass sensible gun control because enough is enough." The governor and the mayor, whose political squabbling have played out in the media in recent months, sounded similar messages urging inclusion and unity. "We do not accept the notion of any of our leaders sowing hatred and division, particularly in the wake of tragedy, and that means you, Donald Trump," de Blasio said to cheers. "We we have more work to do in this city but we believe in something, and it makes us a beacon to the world -- we believe that inclusion and tolerance and love and understanding are the way forward for this earth and we show it every day in New York City," the mayor said. Both Cuomo and de Blasio called on the world to attend the upcoming Pride Parade to make it "the largest and safest" one in history. Spectators watched from fire escapes and windows of nearby apartment buildings as chants of "love beats hate" rang from the crowd. At the end of the vigil, attendees held candles and some sobbed as the names of the victims were recited. Each name was met with the Spanish cry of "Presente!" from the crowd. Thomas Dougherty, 23, of Manhattan, said he came to the rally to feel united and connected. He said he had friends in Orlando who ordinarily could have been at Pulse and he spent a frantic Sunday tracking them down to make sure they were all OK. "Seeing everyone here makes me feel at home, makes me feel safe," he said. A police counterterrorism unit stood watch for safety at the event outside the Greenwich Village tavern, which President Barack Obama has proposed to designate as the first national monument honoring the history of gays and lesbians in the U.S. A 1969 police raid at Stonewall led to street protests widely credited as the start of large-scale gay rights activism. Police are searching for a gunman who shot and wounded five teenagers at a Brooklyn playground. It happened just before 5 p.m. at Harry Maze Playground on Avenue D in East Flatbush. Police say the male victims, ages 15 to 18, suffered non-life threatening injuries. Police say the teens were in the playground when an unknown person approached and started shooting at them. There have been no arrests. What should have been a celebratory time for gay, lesbian and transgender communities around the world became a time of mourning following the slaughter of at least 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando. June is pride month, but parades on Sunday took on a somber tone after the attack on Pulse, where 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire in the early morning hours. Los Angeles had a particular scare, when a heavily armed man with possible explosives was arrested before the pride parade in West Hollywood. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said there did not appear to be any link to the Orlando massacre but that the man said was heading for the parade. Meanwhile, the parades in Los Angeles and Philadelphia began with moments of silence and police increased their presence. Marchers in Philadelphia said the killings gave them new resolve to live their lives openly, without fear. "It's so sad, and you would think that we'd come further," Haden Reed, an assistant manager at an LGBT bookstore in Philadelphia, told NBC Philadelphia. "But this is just a reminder there's a really long way to go." Barack Obama says the nightclub shooting in Orlando was an act of terror and an act of hate. The rampage during pride month left people across the country stricken and Orlando's gay community in shock, said Bill Manes, an editor of the citys LGBT newspaper, "Watermark." "As far as I know, this was not an orchestrated effort," he said. "It's just something that happens when someone wants to be a really bad person." The shooter's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC News on Sunday his son apparently was motivated by anger toward gay men rather than religion. He had recently gotten upset when he saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child, the father said. "They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, 'Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that,'" the father said. "And then we were in the men's bathroom and men were kissing each other." President Barack Obama spoke about the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, calling Pulse more than a night club, but a place of solidarity, empowerment, where people have come together, to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. Sources told NBC News that Mateen, in a phone call to 911 in the moments before the rampage, swore allegiance to the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. ISIS has reportedly treated gay people brutally, releasing images that seem to show gay men being hurled off buildings and then stoned to death. At the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a symbol of gay rights after a police raid led to riots in the late 1960s, flowers were left at its entrance before a Sunday evening vigil. The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce in Orlando said it was heartbroken by the senseless attack. "We mourn for those lost and in need of answers," it said in a statement. "This only reaffirms and strengthens our commitment to fight for the inclusion and protection of the LGBT community nationwide and around the globe." [NATL] Deadly Nightclub Shooting Leaves Orlando Reeling In Toronto, police tweeted that they were reassessing security for all pride events for the month. A candlelight vigil was being planned for downtown Sunday night and Pride Toronto said that as a community it stood united during a painful time. "What a terrible day," Pride in London tweeted. "But let's remember that #LoveWins and we show our strength by coming together in Pride." The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity said it was devastated. It urged others not to rush to assign blame to any individual or group beyond the shooter. "It is also not lost on us that this horrific tragedy occurred during LGBTQ Pride month, which this year coincides with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, typically a period of peace and intense self-reflection," it said in a statement. "It pains us to see that these periods of joy, celebration, and peace have been marred so violently with such horror." The Harvey Milk Foundation, created in honor of one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States, said prayers and love were not enough. Hate continues to cause too much grief, it said. "As we reach out to comfort the Orlando families, and as we support the courage for the injured to heal, may we also have the strength to address and deal with the roots of hatred and separation that target any minority community with violence, any where in the world," the foundation said. A New Jersey woman who became ill while hiking on one of the tallest peaks in Maine was airlifted off the mountain in Baxter State Park, said authorities. The Portland Press Herald reports that the Maine Army National Guard Medevac Unit helped transport the unnamed hiker off Pamola Peak on Mount Katahdin on Saturday. Park officials said the 29-year-old Moorestown, New Jersey woman had been hiking with six people when she became ill from a medical condition and was unable to continue. She was taken to Millinocket Regional Hospital. Her condition wasn't immediately known. The gunman responsible for the deadliest U.S. mass shooting was a violent husband, according to his former wife from New Jersey. Sitora Yusufiy said she and Omar Mateen met online while she was living in New Jersey and he was in Florida. They married in 2009, her brother confirmed with NBC10's Cydney Long, but their time together was relatively brief because once the family found out Yusufiy was being abused, they went down to Florida to get her. "My family literally rescued me," Yusufiy told Reuters. "The night that they were there they had to literally pull me out of his arms and find an emergency flight. I left all my belongings." Yusufiy said Mateen was not a fervently religious man or supporter of terrorism when she was with him. Yusufiy told reporters he was bi-polar and his mental instability was the only thing she could think of that would lead him to open fire with an assault rifle at a gay nightclub in Orlando Sunday night. Mateen murdered 49 people and wounded another 53 before he was killed in a hail of gunfire when police stormed the club. "He was not a stable person," she told The Washington Post. "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that." The couple divorced in 2011 and the process took about a year and a half Yusufiy said because of the distance -- he stayed in Florida and she came back to New Jersey. [NATL] Tributes to Orlando Shooting Victims Pour in From Around the World Her brother, who didn't want his first name used, said from the driveway of the family's Edison home Monday that he barely knew Mateen. "It's a terrible thing that happened, a real tragedy. I feel bad for all those 50 people, those families that lost their sons and daughters," adding his sister was doing pretty well and he was "pretty happy" she no longer is tied to him. "She's a strong woman, as you can tell." Sitora Yusufiy, who now lives in Boulder, Colorado was awakened by her parents Sunday morning to learn what her ex-husband had done. "I was devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying," Yusufiy said. "I was so so deeply hurt and heartbroken for the people who lost their loved ones and the families that are now suffering." Travelers looking to fly to Cuban cities other than Havana will now be able to do so from Philadelphia. The U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday announced it issued an order authorizing six domestic airlines to begin scheduled flights between five U.S. cities and nine Cuban cities, as "part of the Obama Administration's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba." Travel will begin "as early as this fall," DOT said. The six airlines American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Silver Airways, Southwest Airlines and Sun Country Airlines will begin new scheduled service from the following U.S. cities: Philadelphia, Chicago, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Minneapolis. To read the full article, click here. For more business news, visit Philadelphia Business Journal. Delaware lawmakers are set to vote this week on a bill to toughen penalties for texting or otherwise using a handheld phone while driving. The legislation to be considered Tuesday increases the penalty for a first offense from $50 to $100. It also increases the penalty for subsequent offenses from between $100 and $200 to between $200 and $300. The bill initially called for points to be assessed on a person's driver's license for second or subsequent offenses, but a recent amendment strikes that provision. Gov. Jack Markell has said he would sign the bill, which must also pass the Senate. Supporters of the bill say many drivers, particularly young people, are ignoring the law, and that existing penalties are not enough to discourage such behavior. Local Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood. Less than 24 hours after the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, hundreds of people gathered in Hillcrest Sunday evening to memorialize the people who lost their lives and to just be together in solidarity. The Hillcrest pride flag and the American flag, both at half-staff, loomed over the somber ceremony as people sang, prayed and comforted. A larger police presence kept a silent but notable watch over the vigil as people honored the victims nearly 2,500 miles away. Starting at 2 a.m. Sunday, gunshots rang out in a popular gay night club in Orlando. At least 50 people lost their lives, and more than 50 others are now in the hospital. "Any hate crime in general is a hate crime against all of us as a society and as humanity," Sabrina Duong said at the vigil. "We will never, ever give in...to that type of hate," Mayor Kevin Fauconer said in front of the crowd. "We are all Orlando tonight." NBC 7 Dr. Delores A. Jacobs, chief executive officer of The San Diego LGBT Community Center, wrote a statement in reaction to the shooting Sunday. It reads, in part: "We are simply devastated at the news of this horrific loss of life in Orlando. Unfortunately, our LGBT community is far too familiar with violence. This shooting during LGBT Pride month is now the deadliest mass shooting in United States history." "Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their friends and families. This weekend, and over the coming days, our community around the country will hold vigils and other commemorations of support, solidarity and strength." Monday night a #OrlandoStrong rally is scheduled at the San Diego LGBT Community Center at 3909 Centre Street at 6:30 p.m. followed by a candlelight vigil. The center offers counseling services through its Behavioral Health Services program. People who need to speak with an on-duty counselor or would like to request an appointment should email onduty@thecentersd.org or call (619) 692-2077, ext. 208. One San Diego woman was killed and another injured when they were taken hostage in their home in a violent attack, San Diego Police said. A prowler broke into a home on Mill Peak Road at 11:30 p.m. Sunday. The home is located west of College Avenue and north of Interstate 8 in the Del Cerro neighborhood. Police said the prowler tried to break into one home but residents scared him off. Then he went to the home next door and smashed through a back sliding door using heavy weights. Inside that home were a 74-year-old woman and another woman in her 50s, poice said. The suspect sexually assaulted the women at knife point, according to police. When officers arrived, they could hear loud screams from inside the home. SWAT officers immediately set up a perimeter outside the home and pinpointed the suspect and hostages in a locked bedroom. When officers entered the locked bedroom the suspect dropped a knife and surrendered to police. Eduardo Torres, 20, of San Diego was arrested and removed from the home in handcuffs. The older victim died from stab wounds, according to SDPD Lt. Manny Del Toro. She was described as the resident of the home. The second victim - a Chicago woman who was visiting San Diego - suffered stab wounds to her upper body, police said. A 56-year-old man escaped the home unharmed, police said. No other information was immediately available. NBC 7s Liberty Zabala reports on what SDPD homicide investigators are describing as a horrific attack inside a home west of College Avenue and north of I-8 in the Del Cerro community. With authorities reporting that 49 people were killed and 53 people wounded early Sunday morning at an Orlando nightclub, the massacre becomes the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. It nearly doubles the previous most deadly incident, the 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech, in which Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people to death on the Blacksburg, Virginia, campus before killing himself, NBC News reports. It also eclipses the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School committed by Adam Lanza in December 2012. NBC News has reviewed the other deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. As the world reels from the Orlando attack, gay bars in and around the nation's capital are reevaluating how to keep patrons safe. The owner of JR's Bar & Grill, one of the oldest gay bars in the District, said he was devastated by the massacre that killed 49 clubgoers. "It's unfathomable to think that you're that vulnerable to somebody who just hates everything about you," JR's owner Jimmy Taglauer said. In Arlington, Virginia, the owner of Freddie's Beach Bar & Restaurant hung black bunting in honor of the shooting victims. "This has always been on my mind," Freddie Lutz said. He said the bar took steps to boost safety. "We have already started upping security," Lutz said. "No backpacks. If we don't know somebody and they have a purse, we're probably going to look through their purse." A number of owners of gay bars said they have security plans but prefer to keep them secret. D.C. police meet once per quarter with bar and club owners to discuss security protocols, Police Chief Cathy Lanier said. Officers on nightlife squads patrol areas full of bars. "They are specially trained just to deal with that environment and everything that could go along with that environment," Lanier said. Taglauer said if bars have to install metal detectors to help keep patrons safe, so be it. "Let's hope that we never have to get to that point, but if that's the small sort of inconvenience that I have to do, put me through seven of 'em," he said. In the wake of the Orlando massacre, officials in D.C. are stepping up security measures to keep residents and visitors safe. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier said she began reassigning officers within minutes of when she was notified about 6 a.m. Sunday of the Orlando attack on a gay nightclub. "Within the first 45 minutes to an hour, we just started moving some resources around here," Lanier said in a news conference Monday. Mayor Muriel Bowser said D.C. is accustomed to responding quickly to potential security threats. "We always operate at a heightened state here in the District of Columbia. We know that we're a target because we're the nation's capital," she said. "We're going to live. We're not going to be scared off by terrorists or hate-filled people with big guns." Lanier said she is regularly being briefed by federal authorities on the investigation into the Orlando attack. Increased security techniques, like the pat-downs performed at the gay pride festival this past weekend in D.C. may become more commonplace, Lanier said. "As we get information over the next several days, we'll continue to reevaluate and rethink what we do, she said. D.C. police meet once per quarter with bar and club owners to discuss security protocols, the police chief said. Security analyst Peter LaPorte said the D.C. region can never lower its guard. "What I'd like to see more of is exercises -- more drills, more training. Just continue to be vigilant," he said. Lanier reminded residents and visitors that if you see something, say something. "If you see something that's out of place in today's environment, don't hesitate to call because you don't think it's an emergency," she said. Pick up the phone and call 911." The trial of a Fairfax County, Virginia, lawyer accused of brutally assaulting a couple in their home in an hours-long attack he claims he does not remember now rests in the hands of jurors. Andrew Schmuhl, a former military lawyer, is accused of breaking into the McLean home of lawyer Leo Fisher and his wife Sue Duncan and holding them captive for hours, during which he stabbed, tased and shot the pair in November 2014. In the weeks of trial against Schmuhl, prosecutors have claimed he arrived at that couples home with a vengeance. Schmuhls wife, Alecia, was fired from Fishers law firm weeks before the attack, and prosecutors have argued he went to their home to avenge his wifes dismissal. Meanwhile, the defense has painted a much different story of how and why those hours unfolded with such gruesome violence. They claim it was Alecia Schmuhl who planned the attack on the couple, as she was the one who purchased tasers and prepaid cell phones while her husband waited in the car. They also claim Andrew Schmuhl was so heavily under the influence of pain medication for back problems that he had no idea what he was doing. "There is evidence of planning," the defense said in closing arguments on Monday. "Every piece of direct evidence points to Alecia Schmuhl." Schmuhls lawyers have claimed he was "involuntarily intoxicated" and was unaware of his own actions at the time of the attack. However, prosecutors presented evidence that Schmuhl is a longtime con artist, and he fabricated a back injury to get access to prescription pain medications. Last week, Schmuhl himself testified that he was taking more than a dozen medications at the time of the attack, many of which were administered by his wife, who may have manipulated the dosages. He also claimed to have no memory of the events of the attack. "These are not the acts of someone who was in his right mind," the defense said before jurors began their deliberations Monday. But prosecutors offered chilling remarks in their closing testimony as they tried to convince jurors Schmuhl was well aware of his actions during the attack. Prosecutors said when Duncan played dead, Schmuhl took time to clean up after himself in an attempt to cover his tracks. Prosecutors claimed the attack was well planned, but not perfect because the Schmuhls were still caught. "They overlooked one vital thing -- that is the will of the human spirit," said Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Casey Lingan. "The will of a human being to fight for their life. The will despite severed arteries and severed veins to pull an alarm." Both Fisher and Duncan survived the horrific incident, and investigators said Duncan left a bloody handprint on the home's panic alarm. The jury will likely reach a decision by Tuesday. A Montgomery County police officer is accused of trying to solicit a minor online during an undercover operation by police officers in Virginia. Christopher B. Dunkes, 27, was one of seven men arrested during the operation by Prince William County officers. Dunkes was hired by Montgomery County Police on Feb. 24, 2014 and was a uniformed patrol officer in Bethesda, said Montgomery County Police spokesman Paul Starks. He is now suspended without pay, Starks said. Montgomery County internal affairs investigators are communicating with Prince William County criminal investigators. Prince William County Police say officers began a week-long operation June 6, targeting offenders of crimes involving children. Undercover detectives posed as juveniles on social media and on a website. The operation was done as a proactive effort and wasn't in response to any specific incident, Prince William police said. Police said men contacted the undercover detectives and "solicited sexual or indecent acts," and in each of the incidents, the suspects made arrangements to meet the undercover detective at a public spot in Prince William County. Upon arriving, detectives arrested each suspect, seven in all. The suspects range in age from 20 to 58. Dunkes, of Gaithersburg, is charged with three counts of using a communication device to facilitate certain offense with children. He is being held without bond and is due in court July 14. Law enforcement officials are beefing up security for a LGBT pride festival in Washington D.C. after a deadly shooting at a gay club in Orlando. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a statement that she has been briefed by Police Chief Cathy Lanier about increased security measures ahead of Sunday's Capital Pride Festival. DC Police tweeted that festival goers should expect extra police presence on Sunday. Bowser said Washingtonians ``will not be deterred by hate as we gather to celebrate love.'' Festival organizers said that there will be moment of silence for the victims of the Florida shooting at 1 p.m. Officials said the shooting at the Orlando nightclub left at least 50 people dead, making it the worst mass shooting in American history. Hundreds of mourners gathered outside the White House Sunday night to honor the 49 people killed when a gunman sprayed a crowd with bullets at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The vigil began at the U.S. Capitol, where members of the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington joined hands in solidarity as they sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "We Shall Overcome." "It was incredibly moving to me and incredibly encouraging as an LGBT person for me and my friends," said Mary Elizabeth, a Capital Pride participant. After the choir's solemn performance, dozens walked to the White House for a candlelight vigil. Some simply prayed, while others held signs condemning gun violence and calling on better gun legislation. One person clutched a sign that read: "Stop Homophobia. Stop Islamaphobia." The vigil came hours after authorities say 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, unloading an AR-15 on clubgoers in the early hours of the morning. Mateen traded fire with a police officer and took clubgoers hostage before a SWAT team shot and killed him. Tribute to #OrlandoShooting victims at US Capitol & DC Gay Men Chorus sings. https://t.co/u9YfqedGyw Shomari Stone (@shomaristone) June 13, 2016 The massacre left at least 50 people dead, including Mateen, and another 53 wounded in what is now the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. D.C. police increased security Sunday at Capital Pride festivities. A northern Virginia teenager has been seriously injured after being struck by a dirt bike in Baltimore. Baltimore police say the incident happened Friday evening when the dirt bike rider hit the girl as she crossed the street at the Inner Harbor before fleeing. Tim Coffman, the girl's father, told The Baltimore Sun that his daughter is a high school senior from Fairfax County, who was in Baltimore with a friend heading to the Beyonce concert when she was hit. The victim's father says his daughter's friend said a group of dirt bikers drove through the crosswalk they were using. He says the victim suffered bruising and bleeding on the brain but is communicating with family. The victim is scheduled to graduate from high school in just a few weeks. Police don't have a suspect, but say the dirt bike used in the incident was recovered. Agostino R. Dimambro, 19, of Lebanon, Maine, has been arrested for attempted sexual assault and sexual assault involving a 14-year-old female. Both charges are class A misdemeanors. The charges are a result of a Dover Police investigation of incidents that occurred in Dover during December 2015 and January 2016. Dimambro pleaded not guilty and bail was set at $5,000. No trial date has been set. A Maine man who hid in the woods for a week after the fatal shooting of his girlfriend two years ago is due to go on trial this week. Jury selection was due to begin Monday in the trial of Jesse Marquis (mar-KEE') in Aroostook County. Police say he fled into the woods after leaving a home where the body of 31-year-old Amy Theriault (TEHR'-ee-oh) was found. Police say the victim had broken up with Marquis and was staying with friends when Marquis showed up with a rifle. An autopsy concluded she died from a gunshot wound to the chest and multiple stab wounds to the chest and neck. Marquis was captured in June 2014 with help from a bloodhound from New Hampshire's Stafford County Sheriff's Department. The Muslim community in New England is speaking out about the Orlando tragedy, a deadly attack that took place during the religion's holy month of Ramadan. "Nothing absolutely nothing justifies killing an innocent human being, regardless of what your thinking may be, what religion they may be," said Malik Khan, the president of the Islamic Center of Boston, where worshipers prayed for the victims, while their leader emphasized the true meaning of Islam. "Taking an innocent life in our religion is considered the greatest sin you can ever commit." Gunman Omar Mateen had links to Islamic extremist group ISIS, an organization most Muslim leaders denounce. Police patrols are now protecting the place of worship out of a fear of a misguided attack. "Attaching it to the religion, I would say, is unfair, it's not proper," said Khan. "It's got nothing to do with religion. People who commit such acts they primarily are mentally unstable people ." Local Muslim leaders are also urging worshipers to keep an eye out and take a stand against extremism. Two New Hampshire men face assault charges, according to Manchester police. Twenty-year-old Christian David and 21-year-old Trevor Hodgeman, both Manchester residents, are accused of attacking two men in an unprovoked attack on Mechanic Street just before 2 a.m. on Sunday. Police say the victims were walking on Mechanic Street when Hodgeman challenged them to a fight. Despite the victim's refusals to be part of it, David and Hodgeman allegedly knocked them to the ground and began kicking and punching them as the victims tried to cover their faces and heads. One victim's eye was deeply cut in addition to having bruises and scrapes on his body and was taken to a local hospital for treatment, while the other victim, who also had cuts and bruises from the attack, refused treatment. David also took money from one of the victims and damaged his phone after the assault, according to police. Police say David, who was uncooperative in their investigation, tried to struggle with an officer before he was placed into custody. David was charged with robbery, second degree assault, criminal mischief and resisting arrest. He was released on $10,000 and is due back in court on July 19. Hodgeman was charged with second degree assault and is due in court on July 13. Donald Trump says he wants to "suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism." It wasn't immediately clear whether Trump was proposing a change from his long-standing proposal to temporarily bar foreign Muslims entering the U.S. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee also called on Muslims in the U.S. to work with law enforcement on finding potential attackers. He made the proposal Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire, a day after the worst mass shooting in U.S. history in Orlando. He called for an overhaul of the nation's immigration system and said that "we have to control our borders now - not later, now." During his speech, Trump also claimed that the gunman in the Orlando shooting was an Afghanistan native - even though the suspect was born in New York City. He said the gunman, who has been identified as Omar Mateen, was "born an Afghan." The shooter was born in Queens to parents who emigrated from Afghanistan. It's possible Trump misspoke. The false claim that Mateen was born in Afghanistan is not included in Trump's prepared remarks distributed by the campaign during Monday's speech Trump was originally scheduled to speak out against Hillary Clinton but changed the focus of the speech after the shootings. His speech did include several pointed references to his Democratic opponent, however. He repeatedly criticized Clinton's immigration plan, her attempts to tighten the nation's gun control laws and for not using the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" when describing recent attackers. Trump also said national intelligence officers are "not being allowed to do their jobs" due to restrictions imposed upon them by President Barack Obama's administration. He had also planned to hold fundraisers in Boston and New Hampshire, and a rally at 6 p.m. in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but cancelled them due to the shootings. Norfolk Christians are honoured by the Queen Norfolk Christians are honoured by the Queen A number of Norfolk Christians have been honoured by the Queen for their community service in her birthday honours list. Celebrate Norfolk broadens Christian horizons 2016: Celebrate Norfolks flagship event in Norwich on June 11 and 12 has been broadening its horizons while Celebrate has also spread its wings to Kings Lynn and the Royal Norfolk Show. Keith Morris reports. The really shocking iPhone 7 news this week would be if anything related to Apples next big smartphone were announced at the companys annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Yes, big improvements to iOS and Siri are expected to be unveiled, and they will be important for iPhone 7, but were talking iPhone developments beyond that that might hit the market in the fall. Were talking about really crucial stuff, like phone color Goodbye gray, hello blue iPhone 7? Speculation swirled late last week that Apple is plotting to ditch its Space Gray iPhone color for deep blue (undoubtedly with some grabby qualifier attached). The Mac Otakara blog got this gossip going after posting a deep blue render of an iPhone, and suggesting that Space Gray will go and that Silver/Gold/Rose Gold will stay. Rose Gold is the newest addition, having debuted with the iPhone 6s. Not everyone things were in for a dramatic color change. From my point of view, Apple has played so fast and loose with the term space gray that this deep blue might be an evolution of the color, opines 9to5Macs Seth Weintraub. Hello blue, hello iPhone thieves Theres something to be said for adding new colors, and that goes for employee uniforms, too. DNAinfo reports that a man dressed as an Apple Store worker, working with an accomplice, walked off with 19 iPhones (a more than $16K value!) from the companys SoHo shop, and he did it by dressing the part. Donning one of those increasingly familiar blue shirts with the little white Apple logo on it apparently did the trick for this crook, according to police. Apple switched up its store employee uniforms early last year, according to 9to5Mac. And a quick browsing of eBay shows plenty of such shirts available for purchase by any fanboy, fangirl or fantheif. AT&T saves day for Intel The rumors of Intel mobile communications processors finding their way into the iPhone 7 have been going strong for months, and now Bloomberg confirms that this will be the case. Apple isnt abandoning longtime supplier Qualcomm, but going with Intel as a second source only makes sense for a company that wants to cover its butt in case anything ever happens with Qualcomm or its processors. Bloomberg reports (and none of the vendors involved are commenting) that the Intel modem chips will go into iPhone 7 phones for GSM networks such as AT&Ts US infrastructure. While Intels modem chips wont go into iPhones for Verizons network, this is still a very big win for Intel, which could see AT&T move tens of millions of iPhones both this year and next, according to an industry analyst cited by Bloomberg. Motorola beats Apple to punch The rumor that Apple will ditch the standard 3.5mm headphone jack in favor of one based on its Lightning adapter technology has been strong, with only a bit of wavering of late from some sources. But after all that, Motorola has grabbed headlines this week (Moto Z beats iPhone 7 in the race to kill the headphone jack) for not including a standard headphone jack in its . With phone makers thinning their devices, traditional headphone jacks are a casualty. Adapters are available to maintain wired earbuds, or just go Bluetooth all the way. Or, you might just find that Lightning headphones are the way to go (heres a gushing review of such accessories on The Verge.) All-in-1 iPhone 7 concept video Geert van Uffelen stuffs many of the most repeated iPhone 7 rumors into one slick concept video with requisite ethereal background music featuring a rendering of the next big smartphone, complete with a dual camera on the back, dual speakers and no dedicated headphone jack. Rivers in Honduras flood frequently and suddenly, wreaking havoc, washing away houses, ruining crops and displacing families. Could IoT help provide early warning of floods? Robert Ryan-Silva took on this challenge with the Hidrosonico project. As director of the DAI maker lab, hes an expert in applying technology for humanitarian projects around the world. Many villages and farms in Honduras are prone to flooding because they are on river banks. Designing a solution was challenging. It had to detect rising flood waters and alert families to evacuate in time. The solution had to be affordable, rugged and easy to install. Making things harder was the fact that mobile phones had only 20 percent penetration in Honduras. Sonar Sensors Bats use echolocation to "see" with the help of sound. They send out "bat call (sounds), which bounce off nearby objects. By sensing how long it takes for the echo to return, they can detect nearby objects and how fast those objects are moving. Sonar IoT sensors are based on the same principle. The Hidrosonico project uses sonar sensors mounted to bridges to measure the water level below. The sensors send high-frequency sounds onto the water and measure how long it takes for the echo to reflect back. As the rivers flood, water levels rise, and the return time for the echo shrinks because there's a shorter distance to traverse. This approach makes the solution affordable, with components costing around $300. All of the product design details, coding and supplier details are available freely on GitHub. This enables local firms to build an IoT warning system themselves and help protect more communities from floods. Project takeaways Having end users collaborate in the design process helps increase adoption. Using off-the-shelf components lowers costs and simplify repairs. Sharing the designs freely maximizes social benefits and encourage further improvements. Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) DAI has been developing innovative solutions to social and environmental problems for over 40 years. DAI experts work closely with local communities in over a hundred countries to build solutions appropriate for local conditions. The organization operates maker labs around the world so that solutions can be developed close to where theyll be used. The DAI maker labs help introduce the maker movement in developing countries," said Ryan-Silva. "These labs empower non-specialists to design and build electronic and mechanical devices in quantities that arent economically viable with traditional mass production methods. The impact is huge! DAI is a contractor for USAID, a federal agency that promotes international development. We engage with private sector firms to tap the smartest brains and latest technologies to solve problems around the world, said Sabeen Dhanani, deputy coordinator for the Digital Development for Feed the Future team at the Global Development Lab at USAID. You can learn more about partnering/volunteering with USAID here. Floods in Honduras are still dangerous, but thanks to the innovative IoT work by DAI, families now have a better chance to evacuate to higher ground in time. VMware Monday announced plans to acquire Arkin, a specialist in helping customers manage physical and virtual networks, for an undisclosed sum. Arkin says its tools provide cross-domain visibility, which means that it can aggregate operational data from both virtual and physical infrastructures. Correlating this data can help organizations root out the cause of problems and fix them faster. +MORE M&A: Microsoft buys LinkedIn for $26.2 billion | Symantec scoops up Blue Coat for $4.65 billion + Another reason VMware was so interested in Arkin is because of the companys experience in helping customers deploy VMwares NSX network virtualization technology, which competes with offerings from Cisco and others. Arkin automatically analyzes virtual machines in the network and categorizes them into groups based on their workloads. Arkins technology can be used to automatically generate security groups and firewall rules for these VMs and will alert managers when VMs fall outside of their defined security groups. VMware will integrate Arkin into its Cloud Management Business Unit, and specifically its vRealize Automation Suite. VMwares blog post goes into more detail about Arkins product offerings. Arkin is a venture-backed company headquartered in Santa Clara, with offices in India. According to Crunchbase, Arkin has received two rounds of funding totaling $22 million. Microsoft is buying LinkedIn for a whopping $26.2 billion. Both companies are hyping the angle of combining the world's leading professional cloud with the world's leading professional network. In Microsoft CEO Satya Nadellas memo to employees, he wrote: This deal is key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes. Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world. It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professionals information in LinkedIns public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task youre trying to complete. As these experiences get more intelligent and delightful, the LinkedIn and Office 365 engagement will grow. And in turn, new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising. Our companies are the worlds leading professional cloud and network, said LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner. He will report to Nadella but remain CEO of LinkedIn. The LinkedIn you know and value is only getting better. LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence. Weve been changing the way the worlds professionals have connected to opportunity for 13 years, and this is an opportunity for us to truly change the way the world works on a massive scale. Microsoft and LinkedIn merger presents data privacy risks But what does the acquisition, the merger of the world's leading professional cloud with the world's leading professional network, mean from a privacy and data perspective? Dimitri Sirota, CEO of BigID, warned that LinkedIn has a deep insight into the majority of professionals in terms of relationships, interests, satisfaction with their work, intentions to leave their work and so on. Those insights will now be available to Microsoft. Mergers complicate how personal data is shared across franchises. He warned there are potential privacy and confidentiality risks associated with integrating personal profile information, user data, across formerly separate entities. These businesses will suddenly have new personal data it can leverage, begging questions around controls, Sirota said. While explaining what Microsoft considers when looking at potential acquisitions, Nadella gave Business Insider an example scenario that included walking into a meeting and getting a snapshot of each person in the meeting based on their LinkedIn profile. In the email to Microsoft employees, Nadella added, This deal is the next step forward for Office 365 and Dynamics as they connect to the worlds largest and most valuable professional network. In essence, we can reinvent ways to make professionals more productive while at the same time reinventing selling, marketing and talent management business processes. I cant wait to see what our teams dream up when we can begin working together once the deal closes, which we expect will happen this calendar year. Although both companies boards unanimously approved the deal, the acquisition is still subject to approval by LinkedIn shareholders and regulators in the United States, the EU, Canada and Brazil. Hopefully at least one regulator in one country, perhaps the EU since it has stronger data privacy laws, will ask the hard questions from a privacy and data protection perspective. Download Now The News-Gazette mobile app brings you the latest local breaking news, updates, and more. Read the News-Gazette on your mobile device just as it appears in print. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. 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 A workplace outcome study published in The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM) found that offices equipped with alcohol-based hand sanitizers and hand sanitizing wipes throughout the building and at employees' desks resulted in 24.3 percent fewer healthcare claims for hand hygiene preventable illnesses -- such as cold, flu and respiratory illnesses -- than the office and employees in the control group without these products. "This study builds on the decades of science demonstrating the effectiveness of a comprehensive hand hygiene program when PURELL products are used in real-world settings," said Jim Arbogast, Ph.D., the lead author of the study and vice president of hygiene sciences and public health advancements at GOJO. "With this study, the evidence is clear that PURELL products in a workplace can directly reduce hand hygiene preventable illnesses tied to doctors' visits by more than 24 percent." The study, "Impact of a Comprehensive Workplace Hand Hygiene Program on Employer Health Care Insurance Claims and Costs, Absenteeism, and Employee Perceptions and Practices," was published June 9th in JOEM. The study evaluated a comprehensive hand hygiene program with PURELL Hand Sanitizer and PURELL Hand Sanitizing Wipes and its impact on actual medical insurance claims tied to doctors' visits. The study found in the first year of having PURELL products available at an employee's workspace as well as throughout the building, there was a statistically significant 24.3 percent lower incidence of hygiene preventable medical insurance claims compared to the control group. GOJO and Medical Mutual of Ohio began collaborating on the study in 2013. The study, funded by GOJO, began in February 2014. The Medical Mutual Strongsville, Ohio, and Toledo, Ohio, offices were equipped with a comprehensive hand hygiene program, including alcohol-based hand sanitizer and hand sanitizing wipes. Medical Mutual's downtown Cleveland headquarters served as the control group. Al Parker, biostatistician at the Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University, provided the statistical analysis. "As a health insurance company we look for ways to help employers improve the health of their workforce," said Kathy Golovan, chief health officer and executive vice president for Medical Mutual. "The significance of this study is that it demonstrates an immediate health solution for employers that is easy to implement, cost effective and one that employees clearly value. Employers often focus on long-term chronic diseases like diabetes, heart health and weight loss of their workforce, but short-term solutions like a hand hygiene program can be impactful because it can quickly improve the health and wellness of their employees without economic stress to the organization." The major findings of the study included: 24.3% lower incidence of hand hygiene preventable insurance claims compared to the control group 13.4% fewer sick episodes or unscheduled paid-time-off (PTO) in 2014-2015 in the intervention group compared to the previous year 8 in 10 employees indicated having PURELL products throughout the office positively impacted their impression of their employer "As a physician, I am a strong advocate for hand hygiene," said William Jarvis, M.D., co-author of the study and former acting director of the Hospital Infections Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Doctors and other health professionals have been telling people for years the benefits of the healthy habit of hand hygiene, but some need proof that it makes a difference. This well-designed 13-month real-world environment study, with thorough analysis of four years of retrospective data, shows that when people use PURELL products only a few times a day, it can reduce sickness and ultimately reduce a trip to the doctor's office. Improving the health of workplace employees should be every employers' top priority." A new study in zebrafish suggests that irregular fluid flow through the spinal column brought on by gene mutations is linked to a type of scoliosis that can affect humans during adolescence. Found in humans and zebrafish, these mutated genes damage the ciliatiny hair-like projections that line the spinal canal and help move the fluid and lead to a curvature of the spine. Researchers from Princeton University and the University of Toronto found that when they repaired the mutated cilia genes, they restored cerebrospinal fluid flow and could prevent spinal curves from developing. If translatable to humans, the study could lead to a non-surgical approach for treating the condition known as idiopathic scoliosis, which has no known cause and affects roughly three out of every 100 adolescents. The research was published June 10 by the journal Science. "This is the first hint of a biological mechanism for idiopathic scoliosis," said Rebecca Burdine, associate professor of molecular biology at Princeton, and a senior author of the study. "We hope this research will open up new areas of inquiry as to how the disruptions to normal cerebrospinal fluid flow can lead to spinal curvature." Burdine's lab conducted the study in collaboration with a team led by senior author Brian Ciruna, an associate professor of molecular genetics at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. "Traditionally, theories regarding the biology behind idiopathic scoliosis have revolved around defects in the bone, cartilage or neuromuscular activity," Ciruna said. "The finding that defects in cerebrospinal fluid flow may be contributing to scoliosis came as a surprise. It is not a theory that had been put out there previously." The study is the first to link spinal curvature to mutations in genes that govern motile cilia, which stick out from cells and make synchronous whip-like motions to push fluid through narrow passages such as the spinal column. Hazel Sive, a professor in biology at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the study, is an expert in the use of zebrafish to study vertebrate development. "This study is an important step forward in understanding events underlying spinal curvature," Sive said. "In an elegant set of experiments, the authors take advantage of the outstanding zebrafish system to define that cilia function and perhaps cerebrospinal fluid flow is required for normal spinal cord development." Researchers in the Burdine laboratory had observed that mutant genes that disrupt cilia motility produce spinal curves in zebrafish as adults, although the work had not been published. "I've presented this finding for years, but didn't have a way to link this work to human disease," Burdine said. "Collaborating with Brian's group helped us make this link." Previous research by Ciruna's lab revealed that mutations in a gene found in zebrafish and humans called protein tyrosine kinase-7 (ptk7) causes spinal curvature during a period of rapid growth that corresponds to adolescence in zebrafish. Published in the journal Nature Communications in 2014, the findings, suggested that the mutant fish could serve as a model for studying the condition. The researchers knew that the ptk7 gene plays a role in helping cells orient in the correct direction during embryonic development, but they didn't know that it also governed the formation of motile cilia. To explore how ptk7 mutations lead to spine curvature in zebrafish, Curtis Boswell, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, examined the brains and spinal cords of fish with mutated ptk7. In brain regions known as ventricles, which sit at the top of the spinal cord, the motile cilia were sparse and malformed and the fish developed a brain-swelling condition called hydrocephalus, which is associated with loss of cilia function. Using fluorescent dyes to track the flow of cerebrospinal fluid through the ventricles, the researchers saw that the flow was irregular and slower than normal. Genetics & Genomics eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today When the researchers introduced a non-mutated version of the ptk7 gene specifically into tissues harboring motile cilia, the hydrocephalus disappeared, the cerebrospinal fluid began to flow normally and the spine straightened. "We demonstrated that if we could restore gene function in the motile ciliated tissues, we could restore cerebrospinal fluid flow, and we could actually prevent scoliosis in these mutants," Ciruna said. The researchers also tested other motile-cilia gene mutations to see whether they disrupt cerebrospinal fluid flow and cause spine curvature. Daniel Grimes, a postdoctoral research associate, and Nicholas Morante, a graduate student, both in the Burdine lab in Princeton's Department of Molecular Biology, studied four such mutations in genes called ccdc40, ccdc151, dyx1c1 and c21orf59. They found that all four gene mutations led to curvature of the spine in zebrafish. The researchers found that the damage to motile cilia function occurs and leads to the onset of scoliosis during adolescence for zebrafish, a period of rapid growth. They took advantage of the temperature-sensitivity of the mutant c21orf59 gene, which can be switched on or off by controlling temperature. They kept zebrafish embryos at 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), which switches the mutation off, so that the fish didn't develop embryonic defects. The researchers then moved groups of fish aged 19-, 24-, 29- or 34-days-old to a tank set at 30 degrees Celsius (86 degreees Fahrenheit), which turned the mutation on and stopped cilia-driven spinal fluid flow. The fish that were switched to the warmer tank at 19 days, which corresponds to adolescence, formed spinal curves. However, fish that were shifted to the warmer tank at ages 24 and 29 days respectively developed milder curves, and fish shifted at age 34 days did not develop curves. "Together with the Burdine group we defined a critical window for motile cilia function and cerebrospinal fluid flow in normal spine development," Ciruna said. "This window appears to be not during embryogenesis and not in adulthood, but specifically when fish are growing rapidly, in other words, fish adolescence." Additionally, the development of spinal curves in these adolescent fish could be blocked by switching the fish back to the cooler tank. "This provides proof-of-principle that the development of severe idiopathic scoliosis spinal curvatures can be managed without invasive surgical manipulation," the authors wrote in Science. Several additional lines of evidence point to links between motile cilia dysfunction, cerebrospinal fluid flow disruption and idiopathic scoliosis, Burdine said. For example, individuals with primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare genetic disorder that causes defects in the movement of cilia lining the respiratory tract, have an elevated risk for scoliosis. Also, scoliosis is prevalent in humans with conditions such as tumors that obstruct cerebrospinal fluid flow. The next step will be to understand the mechanisms by which disrupted cerebrospinal fluid flow causes the spine to curve, Burdine said. "Now that we can study idiopathic scoliosis in zebrafish," she said, "we can begin to identify molecular pathways that are involved in spine curvature, and hopefully, find therapeutic targets to address this condition." For many kids, spending hours in the water this summer can bring on a painful infection of the external ear canal called swimmer's ear. One study published in the journal Environmental Health estimated that there are at least 128 million swimming events in natural waters in the U.S. each year. This exposure could result in about 900,000 cases of swimmer's ear leading to 260,000 visits to the doctor, the study says, plus almost 40,000 visits to the emergency room and nearly $4 million dollars in out-of-pocket expenditures on prescription and over-the-counter medications. While other types of ear infections cause pain on the inside of the ear, swimmer's ear causes pain when the ear is touched externally. "Swimmer's ear is a bacterial or fungal infection caused by water caught in the ear canal," said Dr. Nina Shapiro, a professor of head and neck surgery and director of pediatric otolaryngology at Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA. "The tell-tale signs are swelling of the ear canal and some drainage or discharge." Swimmer's ear is usually treated with topical ear drops, antibiotic drops or antifungal drops prescribed by a doctor. The good news is that the infection can be prevented with a few simple tips: After swimming, use the corner of a washcloth or a towel to dry the ear. If a hair dryer is available, use the low setting and position the dryer about 1 foot away from the ear to dry it. Never use a cotton swab to clean or dry the ear canal, because it can injure the ear drum. Over-the-counter ear drops to prevent swimmer's ear are available, but Shapiro does not recommend them for kids who have ear tubes, ruptured eardrums or have had ear surgery. Orthotics and Physiotherapy Partnership in Pioneering Gait Laboratory set to transform prognosis for movement disorder patients in the UK Innovative, clinician-led advances in orthotic techniques have the capacity to dramatically improve short term progress and long term outcomes for selective dorsal rhizotomy and scoliosis patients as well as patients with neurological disorders affecting movement. Thats the message that Dr Sam Walmsley BSc (Hons), Director and Lead Orthotist at London Orthotic Consultancy, brought to delegates at this years Primary Care and Public Health Conference on the 18th May 2016. Photograph of Aran in his family setting. Reproduced with the permission of London Orthotics Consultancy London Orthotic Consultancy 2016. Drawing on empirical research and patient-led data, Walmsley discussed the success rates that are being achieved at LOCs Gait Laboratory in partnership with internationally renowned physiotherapist Elaine Owen MBE (MSc SRP MCSP) whose unique diagnostic insights are rewriting conventional opinion to optimise the effectiveness of AFO-Footwear Combination (AFOFC) treatments. Walmsley also addressed LOCs innovative use of dynamic movement orthotics, citing case studies where the use of high quality lycra body suits is achieving encouraging long term results for scoliosis patients. Post SDR Patients Taking First Steps Thanks to Gait Lab Insights Aran, aged 10, is the latest patient to experience the impact of Elaine Owens gait analysis techniques, which are informing the application of AFOFC devices at LOCs Kingston clinic. Diagnosed with diplegia cerebral palsy, Aran travelled to the USA in 2011 to undergo selective dorsal rhizotomy surgery to address spasticity, before beginning a course of rehabilitative orthotic treatment with LOC. Children who have undergone this surgery typically face an intensive rehabilitation programme and orthotics play a huge part in that process Walmsley explains. The conventional orthotic opinion at St Louis Childrens Hospital is that the post-operative patient should be allowed as much movement as possible by limiting medio-lateral movement whilst allowing movement in the sagittal plane with the application of hinge splints. However, in Arans case, we felt that he had the capacity to progress much more by introducing him to the Elaine Owen clinic. Elaines approach, which has been developed over a 40-year career and attracted widespread attention across the international orthotics community, focuses instead on controlling sagittal, coronal and frontal movement, with detailed attention to stance phase positioning. Working closely with Elaines analysis, we developed a new, bespoke splint and AFOFC combination for Aran which ensured stringent control of these areas says Walmsley. The results have been remarkable. Within a week of fitting the devices, Aran was taking his first independent steps. After two months he is able to walk for five metres independently a significant milestone that is giving us new insights into his achievable goals for the future. Scoliosis Lycra Suit A Innovative Dynamic Scoliosis Management Aran also presents with Scoliosis, which had been rapidly deteriorating. This has been addressed by the provision of an innovative lycra bodysuit. Dynamic movement orthosis is designed to apply a global compression to the joint and body segment that it is worn over. This compression acts to increase the clients awareness of that part of the body, a process called proprioception. The suits are made from complex panels of Lycra that compress over specific muscle groups. In addition, elasticated panels add a biomechanical effect to specific areas of the suit. The elasticated panels allow LOC to gain control of postural problems, such as protracted shoulders, kyphotic posture or internally rotated limbs. With increased proprioception, the patient can often control that part of the body more effectively. With increased proprioception to the trunk, balance and posture can be significantly improved. Over the past two years, X-Rays have demonstrated definitive improvement for Arans scoliosis with this treatment one of numerous positive results that LOC is generating in this area. Economic, Social and Developmental Impacts Walmsley believes that it is vital to share LOCs experience of the success rates for these new orthotic advances with his fellow practitioners operating in primary and public healthcare. We are constantly learning from these new techniques he explains. But I dont think its exaggerating to say that the impact is already becoming clear to us. The benefits of early intervention to prevent invasive (and costly) surgery in later life must not be ignored. Not to mention the impact on the lives of patients and their families. By providing the right orthotic devices, informed by detailed gait analysis, we aim to improve strength and movement for patients who otherwise might not progress or may even deteriorate over time. We can impact on areas like the intensive physiotherapy that parents are often responsible for handling on a daily basis we should not underestimate the physical and emotional strain this can cause. Aran is by no means the only patient we are seeing improve beyond our original expectations thanks to these advances. If we can achieve a much wider awareness in the medical profession of the potential of these treatments, then we have the capacity not only to improve lives, but to reduce strain on medical funding by ensuring that the right treatment has the right impact at the right time. These are exciting times for the orthotics profession, and we are delighted to be working with Elaine and her team to drive them forward. A new use of chemotherapy followed by autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (aHSCT) has fully halted clinical relapses and development of new brain lesions in 23 of 24 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) for a prolonged period without the need for ongoing medication, according to a new phase 2 clinical trial, published in The Lancet. Eight of the 23 patients had a sustained improvement in their disability 7.5 years after treatment. This is the first treatment to produce this level of disease control or neurological recovery from MS, but treatment related risks limit its widespread use. MS is among the most common chronic inflammatory diseases of the central nervous system, with around 2 million people affected worldwide. It is caused when the immune system attacks the body, known as autoimmunity. Some specialist centres offer aHSCT for MS, which involves harvesting bone marrow stem cells from the patient, using chemotherapy to suppress the patients immune system, and reintroducing the stem cells into the blood stream to reset the immune system to stop it attacking the body. However, many patients relapse after these treatments, so more reliable and effective methods are needed. Dr Harold L Atkins and Dr Mark S Freedman from The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada, and colleagues tested whether complete destruction, rather than suppression, of the immune system during aHSCT would reduce the relapse rate in patients and increase long-term disease remission. They enrolled 24 patients aged 18-50 from three Canadian hospitals who had all previously undergone standard immunosuppressive therapy which did not control the MS. All patients had poor prognosis and their disability ranged from moderate to requiring a walking aid to walk 100m, according to their Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) scores. The researchers used a similar method of aHSCT as is currently used, but instead of only suppressing the immune system before transplantation, they destroyed it completely using a chemotherapy regimen of busulfan, cyclophosphamide and rabbit anti-thymocyte globulin. Dr Atkins explains that this treatment is: similar to that used in other trials, except our protocol uses stronger chemotherapy and removes immune cells from the stem cell graft product. The chemotherapy we use is very effective at crossing the blood-brain barrier and this could help eliminate the damaging immune cells from the central nervous system. The primary outcome of the study was multiple sclerosis activity-free survival at 3 years (as measured by relapses of MS symptoms, new brain lesions, and sustained progression of EDSS scores) which occurred in 69.6% of patients after transplantation. Out of the 24 patients, one (4%) died from hepatic necrosis and sepsis caused by the chemotherapy. Prior to the treatment, patients experienced 1.2 relapses per year on average. After treatment, no relapses occurred during the follow up period (between 4 and 13 years) in the surviving 23 patients (figure 2). These clinical outcomes were mirrored by freedom from detectable new disease activity on MRI images taken after the treatment. The initial 24 MRI scans revealed 93 brain lesions, and after the treatment only one of the 327 scans showed a new lesion (figure 2). Lab Diagnostics & Automation eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today Furthermore, progressive brain deterioration typical of MS slowed to a rate associated with normal aging in 9 patients with the longest follow-up, and 8 (35%) of 23 patients had a sustained improvement in their EDSS score at 7.5 years after treatment. At 3 years, 6 patients (37%) were able to reduce or stop receiving disability insurance and return to work or school. Eight (33%) of the 24 patients had a moderate toxic effect and 14 (58%) patients had only a mild toxic effect related to transplantation. Dr Freedman highlights the need to interpret the results with caution: The sample size of 24 patients is very small, and no control group was used for comparison with the treatment group. Larger clinical trials will be important to confirm these results. Since this is an aggressive treatment, the potential benefits should be weighed against the risks of serious complications associated with aHSCT, and this treatment should only be offered in specialist centres experienced both in multiple sclerosis treatment and stem cell therapy, or as part of a clinical trial. Future research will be directed at reducing the risks of this treatment as well as understanding which patients would best benefit from the treatment. Writing in a linked Comment, Dr Jan Dorr, from the NeuroCure Clinical Research Center, Charite-Universitatsmedizin, Berlin, Germany, says: These results are impressive and seem to outbalance any other available treatment for multiple sclerosis. This trial is the first to show complete suppression of any inflammatory disease activity in every patient for a long periodHowever, aHSCT has a poor safety profile, especially with regards to treatment-related mortality. He adds: The research article - Targeting the PI3K/AKT/mTOR Pathway in Prostate Cancer Development and Progression: Insight to Therapy, by Dr Claudio Festuccia (University of L'Aquila, Italy) and published in Clinical Cancer Drugs, volume 3, issue 1 - discusses experimental and clinical data on the pharmacological inhibition of the Akt/mTOR pathways. These pathways play a key role in the modulation of cellular proliferation, tumor growth and survival through phosphorylation of different downstream molecules. Prostate tumor growth and progression is negatively regulated by Phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) which is genetically and/or functionally silenced in this neoplasia. The aim of the presentation was to analyze the synthesis and functional characterization of different compounds inhibiting phospatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate-3-kinase (PI3K), Akt and mTOR activities as well as the feasibility of these inhibitors functioning alone or in combination with standard therapies in aggressive castration resistant prostate cancers (CRPC), a disease stage characterized from high percentage of patients with bone metastases. Conventional treatment for this disease stage requires, indeed, a multidisciplinary approach (medical therapy, surgery, and radiation), but is primarily palliative. Pharmacological resistance is commonly observed. Activation of PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathways plays a significant role in therapy. The blockade of this pathway may be necessary to increase standard therapies. "Several preclinical data support the rationale to advance the use of pharmacological inhibitors of PI3k/Akt/mTOR into clinical trials in CRPC as performed for several other solid tumors" remarked Dr. Festuccia. Hand-held, wireless retinal scanner harnesses new photonics technology to enable early diagnosis of glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy A European group of scientists are working on the development of a breakthrough, compact, cost-effective retinal scanner that will play a key role in targeting the early diagnosis of retinal diseases that are worldwide leading causes of blindness. Funded by the Photonics PPP platform, OCTChip is set to revolutionise diagnosis of retinal diseases and prevent millions of cases of blindness. Diabetic Retinopathy accounts for the leading cause of blindness, with 200 million cases worldwide, and 60 million affected Europeans. With an ageing population, higher life expectancies and rising levels of diabetes, the number of cases preventable blindness are increasing. The retina, with a thickness of 0.25mm and composed of over 10 layers, is very difficult to access at the back of the eye with any other technology than OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography), the established method of diagnosis in eye-related diseases. However, as Professor Wolfgang Drexler, Professor of Medical Physics and Head of Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering at the Medical University of Vienna, who heads the OCTChip project, observes: State-of-the-art OCT technology has its limitations: it is bulky, the size of a desk top and quite expensive, costing anything in the region of 100, 000 per unit. It can detect abnormalities but at the present moment, compact, cost effective versions that can be used outside of hospitals and in private practice in a hand held mode do not exist. The core component of our OCTChip project targets the size of a 1 cent coin. It will reduce costs and is maintenance free. Hence retinal diseases like Diabetic Retinopathy and Glaucoma as well as other retina diseases that are worldwide leading causes for blindness might be diagnosed via screening with this cost-effective compact point-of-care version of OCT. "OCTChip fosters wide spread use to visualise and quantify the retina in more definition, so we can diagnose diseases better, quicker, and cheaper." Professor Drexler said. The long term potential for OCTChip is exciting: hand-held, wireless and robust, it will work via Bluetooth, on a mobile phone or a tablet, enabling improving healthcare in remote Third World areas. As a miniaturized imaging technique, the implications mean it could probably be used as a battery operated capsule for gastrointestinal diagnosis in the future. It is believed that the OCTChip scanner can be made so user friendly that self-diagnosis will be possible. Perhaps in the future this will be available in supermarkets, for self-diagnosis" said Professor Drexler. The OCTChip team hopes to have refined their first prototype by end of 2017 and targets for mass commercialisation to begin around 2020. Established Aedes-mosquito population could spread the Zika virus in Europe this summer if infected travelers introduce the virus. An analysis of temperatures, vectorial capacity, basic reproductive number (R0), and air traveler flows suggests parts of Southern Europe may be at risk for Zika outbreaks between June and August. This according to a study, led by Umea University researchers and published in the journal EBioMedicine. "We know warm climates create the kind of conditions suitable for mosquito-borne illnesses to spread," says Joacim Rocklov, researcher at Umea University's Unit for Epidemiology and Global Health and co-author of the article. "Vectorial capacity depends on a number of parameters but in general, warmer temperatures increase the rate in which the female mosquitos bite, the mosquito virus reproduction, and their virus transmission risk. The presence of established Aedes mosquito populations, the warmer climate and the coinciding peak flow of air travelers into Europe, is a triage making Southern Europe fertile ground for Zika." Following a similar epidemiological study conducted on the similar dengue virus, the group of researchers led by Joacim Rocklov at Umea University, used a temperature dependent computer model to predict Zika virus infection risks for Europe. The research exploration was undertaken in close collaboration with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). In the analysis, the researchers overlaid data on monthly flows of airline travelers arriving in European cities from Zika-affected areas, data on month-by-month estimates of virus infection reproduction capabilities of Aedes-mosquito populations in Europe, and human population data within the areas where mosquito-borne transmission of the Zika virus could be possible. The main findings, presented in EBioMedicine, a journal initiative integrating the Lancet and Cell, are: The risk of mosquito-borne transmission of Zika virus is estimated to peak between June and August in parts of Southern Europe (see map) The peak flow of air travelers from regions of the Americas affected by the Zika virus coincides with the peak in the Aedes-mosquitos capacity to transmit the virus. The findings could help European public health officials to identify locations and times where the risk for Zika is heightened. The risk assessment assumes that European Aedes-mosquitos have the same potential to spread the Zika virus as their South-, Middle- and North American counterparts. Earlier research has shown that increasing temperatures will enlarge Europe's seasonal window for the potential spread of mosquito-borne viral disease and expand the geographic areas at risk for epidemics to include large parts of Europe. The threat includes tropical and sub-tropical viruses such as Zika and Dengue. The Aedes mosquitos - Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus - are largely responsible for the transmission of the Zika virus. Both Aedes mosquitos are likely to become a fixture in Europe. Historically, Aedes mosquitos were present in many European countries during the first half of the 1900s. Aedes aegypti has recently been documented in Russia and Georgia. And current surveillance indicate that Aedes albopictus are present in much of Southern Europe and as far north as the Netherlands. Source: Umea University Surgeons and researchers, responding to the known prevalence of inequalities in U.S. surgical care, have taken the first steps toward eliminating surgical care disparities by grouping their causes into themes and identifying modifiable contributing factors. The new article, including a comprehensive review of the medical literature on health care disparities, is published online as an "article in press" on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print publication later this year. Health care disparities encompass differential access, care, and outcomes due to factors such as minority group and socioeconomic status. "Disparities are a huge problem at all stages of surgical care," said principal investigator, Adil Haider, MD, MPH, FACS, Kessler Director of the Center for Surgery and Public Health, a joint initiative of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. "As surgeons, we have a long way to go to make sure that all patients have equal access to high-quality surgical care and postoperative care," Dr. Haider said. "However, we have raised awareness of the problem, which is step one to developing studies and interventions that will make a real difference for surgical patients." The authors' work, in collaboration with leaders at the American College of Surgeons and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), led to the NIH's National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities recently launching a research program to address disparities in surgical care. For this investigation, the authors evaluated 328 U.S. studies of health care disparities published between January 2008 and February 2015. The researchers identified five common major themes from the causes of surgical disparities. Previously, Dr. Haider and his colleagues identified three themes of factors that contribute to surgical disparities: patient-, provider-, and health care systems-level factors. In this new article, the researchers added two additional themes. The first new theme is clinical care and quality at the hospital level, which includes how variation in the quality of care across hospitals affects surgical results, complications, and hospital readmissions. The second new theme, postoperative care and rehabilitation, addresses how access to high-quality postoperative care and rehabilitative services can contribute to long-term recovery and outcomes. Dr. Haider called postoperative care "an important but largely unexplored area of health care disparities research." Together these five themes make up a conceptual framework that Dr. Haider said will allow researchers to more manageably evaluate factors contributing to surgical disparities by their related causes and/or impact. In turn, he noted, this process may speed development of effective interventions designed to improve access to optimal surgical care. The themes reflect that surgical disparities are multilevel and often interconnected, the authors write. Hospital-level factors, for instance, sometimes explain why racial-ethnic minorities (a patient factor) fare worse than white patients do after operations. Key hospital characteristics associated with improved surgical outcomes, according to the article, include use of quality improvement strategies, application of clinical guidelines and surgical protocols, use of supportive technology such as electronic health records, and a patient-centered culture that focuses on patient satisfaction and shared decision making. Examples of disparities in clinical care and quality that affect racial-ethnic minorities and poor patients include the following: Hospitals that treat the most uninsured patientsso-called safety net hospitalstend to have worse surgical outcomes than hospitals with a better insurance payer mix, partly because they usually cannot afford to invest in quality improvement programs, Dr. Haider said. Many minority patients use safety net hospitals. Patients who live in financially disadvantaged regions are likelier to use hospitals that perform a low volume of operations. Numerous studies show low volume is associated with worse outcomes for many surgical procedures, because the surgeons do not get enough practice. Among the factors that can affect disparities in postoperative care and rehabilitation are the timing, duration, and quality of rehabilitation, as well as whether patients even receive rehabilitative care postoperatively. Race/ethnicity and insurance status affect whether trauma and joint replacement patients receive rehabilitation and how intensive it is, and rural residence makes getting rehabilitation more difficult for joint replacement patients. Women are less likely than men to be referred for cardiac rehab after angioplasty, as are nonwhites. Inadequate follow-up with the surgeon may contribute to delays in patients receiving rehabilitation, according to Dr. Haider. "Surgeons should go the extra mile to make sure their patients get the best possible postoperative rehabilitation when needed," he suggested. Dr. Cyril Petibois THOUGHT LEADERS SERIES ...insight from the worlds leading experts Please can you give an introduction to your research? Im a biophysicist at the University of Bordeaux and I mainly work on bio-imaging methods in the cancer laboratory research facility, mostly for brain cancers. My group develops spectroscopy-based 3D imaging methods that are aiming to provide insight into the way tumors develop inside the brain. 3D Infrared Microscopy for Preclinical Pathology Play 3D Infrared Microscopy for Preclinical Pathology from AZoNetwork on Vimeo. What is the significance of spectral imaging in biomedical studies? Spectroscopy has been used in biomedical studies for quite a long time now, at least two decades. It involves the chemical imaging of bio-samples. Left: A mouse brain tissue section analysis by IR microscopy showing the anatomical details of brain with tumor (left part) based on extracellular matrix distribution. FTIR acquisition lasted 12h for a 20-m resolution while QCL-IR acquisition could be done in 1h50 with a 4.4-m resolution. The image shown is down-sampled by 8x8 due to file size limitations. Spectroscopy and microscopy provide a global chemical picture of your sample and you can access different chemical parameters. A big advantage is that you don't need to label or stain your sample first. We now have access to imaging methods using microscopy. Since the new microscopes are much faster, we have access to larger samples. You can even foresee the 3D reconstruction of the chemical information from the sample and turn that into biological information. 3D reconstruction of the tumor based on lipid/protein ratio. The tumor is presenting higher amount of proteins while brain is a fatty organ, thus making this ratio significantly different between tumor and healthy brain tissues. This is changing the role of infrared microscopy in the panel of bioanalytical methods, because we can reconstruct information in three dimensions in a quantitative way and have access at the same time to metabolic, biochemical, structural and anatomical parameters that we could not consider before. What are the main advantages of the Spero microscope from Daylight Solutions and how does it compare to other microscopes? The first generation of microscopes was limited in some capacity of measurement because of the detectors they used, which were nitrogen-cooled. That meant a 4- or 5-hour capacity of measurement. That measurement time, combined with the fact that the source they used to provide the photon flux on the sample was quite weak, meant we had to accumulate a lot of scans. Accumulating all those scans would mean we could not perform microscopy of very large sample areas. The weak source also meant the signal-to-noise ratio could not be maintained for very long. For example, in the case of a complete mouse brain, which represents 400 to 500 consecutive sections 10-m thick, it would take almost a year to get everything done. No one is doing that because you cannot maintain the same quality of measurement between the first and last day. The Spero microscope has two or three big advantages. The first one is that it uses a laser source, which is much more powerful than the previous sources found on commercial instruments, the Globar sources. It provides access to a very high signal-to-noise ratio, which can be maintained over a very long time for acquisitions. That is coupled with a second advantage, which is that we now use detectors that do not have to be liquid nitrogen-cooled, and they are also larger. Together, these advantages mean you can use it for very long acquisitions and because it's 50 times faster than before, you can have access to a large data set in a much shorter time. I would say that if you still consider the 400 to 500 2D mouse brain sections, now, you can get this information in just a few weeks and I think that very soon, it will be possible within just a few days. In that case, you have access to a very large data set, which can be reconstructed in 3D and then you can access information that you could not even imagine before. If you have a quick turnaround in a matter of days or weeks, do you have the opportunity to affect the course of drug development? Yes, for two reasons. The first one is that I think we cannot ask a big pharmaceutical company to wait a whole year for a result. Even if the drug development is taking years, they cannot wait another year for a result. If it instead took weeks for us to provide a result, that would be in the time frame of their work, which is fine. The other point is that we have access to information from the sample which is supervised or non-supervised. Usually, in histology, you are searching for something predetermined and you use labels for such specific parameters. With IR microscopy, you still have access to that, but you can now also have access to many different kinds of information. For example, you can take a normal sample and a pathological sample that is treated with a drug and check everything that is different between them. Its all based on the chemical contents of the sample, whatever their origin, and IR spectroscopy provides a global view of these contents. Then, you can check every effect the drug is having on the organ or tissue. This is what spectroscopy can do and what labeling cannot do, because spectroscopy is non-supervised. You have access to a very large range of chemical information and this is the richness of spectroscopy. You can check parameters off. You can check a parameter that you would not expect to move because of a treatment and then find that it does move and that's making the breakthrough with conventional histology. Can you give an example of the projects that you've been able to undertake using the Spero? In this lab, the main activity is histology. This has already been carried out by different groups across the world for a couple of decades. It was limited to small dimensions, let's say a few square millimeters only. Now, we have access to larger dimensions, in 2D and in 3D. In 2D, it can be, for example, a complete mouse brain section or a complete biopsy section, if we are talking about biological and clinical applications, respectively. We can do that for a stack of successive sections and with that, we can create a 3D reconstruction. This is important, because it is changing the face of infrared microscopy. Since we have access to 3D information, we can resolve anatomical, biochemical and structural parameters that were not visible with classical histology. Basically, what we are doing is 3D pathology, which is how much we can show that disease is organized in 3D in the biopsy, in the animal organ, in different samples. The first basic application is clinical; we can use it for diagnostics. We can analyze a biopsy to section it and reconstruct the 3D information in that biopsy. The second kind of application is pharmaceutical; we can check all the effects of drugs on animal organs. This is the pre-clinical validation of drug effects on the different organs. And because 3D IR microscopy provides a global chemical analysis of the organ, the preclinical analysis of drug effects is becoming systematic. That could not be envisaged before. 3D Histology with the Spero Infrared Microscope Play 3D Histology with the Spero Infrared Microscope from AZoNetwork on Vimeo. What problems has the Spero enabled you to overcome and what challenges do you think are on the horizon? I think that the Spero microscope has removed one main difficulty we had before, which was not having access to large acquisitions while maintaining a common quantitative scale between all spectra. This is the first point, which is mandatory, because this is opening the way to 3D applications. 3D applications will now raise the main problem, which is the big data issue, both in terms of complexity and size. If I take the mouse brain example, one single brain will be several terabytes of spectral data. That several terabytes will be turned into other terabytes of data, called metadata, which are biological parameters we can reconstruct from the chemical images. We can resolve the blood system; we can resolve the distribution of cells; we can resolve different structural parameters which are parameters of the tissue, in 3D. Now, we have to compute everything for the spectral data treatments and also for the 3D visualization of the parameters. The 3D visualization will be a big challenge for 3D microscopy now, using infrared microscopy. What is the role of computing and mathematics in these studies involving 3D-IR image processing? The main problem with computing is that, again, we have terabytes for every 3D image. This means that infrared microscopy is now turning into something completely different. We cannot use standard computers to make some basic data treatments; we need a computer system that is able to handle both mathematical treatment and visualization; we need to merge those. We are defining a computer which is able to merge CPU and GPU models of mathematical data treatments. These mathematical data treatments are first based on how much spectral data we can extract from the 3D spectral matrix of an image and how we can turn that into mathematical information that we can manipulate to reconstruct all the information. We need to define a software suite which is able to analyze all the information, which is quantitative at the beginning and has to remain quantitative to the end. For infrared microscopy and for chemical imaging in general, this is quite new and nobody is doing it. When you carry out imaging, you usually have a single parameter; you have an intensity of a single parameter of your image. Now, we have an image, which, for every pixel, is a few hundreds of parameters. The last dimension of the voxel is this one. From this, let's say 200 to 300 wavelengths we have per spectra, we extract a couple of hundred infrared bands. From these 200 hundred infrared bands, we extract biological information or we construct biological information. This means the mathematics is becoming a really big part of the data treatment now. And we are not just compiling existing algorithms to do it, we have to create most of them from scratch, designed specifically for 3D spectroscopy. 3D Infrared Microscopy - A Multidisciplinary Technology Chain Play 3D Infrared Microscopy - A Multidisciplinary Technology Chain from AZoNetwork on Vimeo. Can you give an overview of the range of applications of 3D-IR microscopy? I would say that at the moment, 3D infrared microscopy has the advantage of being the first analytical method able to resolve quantitatively the chemical information on large samples. Mass spec imaging or other spectroscopies can probably do it, but they are much more complicated and much more difficult to handle. A big advantage of infrared microscopy is that you don't need to stain. You don't need to manipulate your sample; you just section it, analyze it, and then it's all about reconstruction and mathematical treatments. Because we don't need to heavily manipulate or prepare the sample, we can have access to all the quantitative chemical information about the sample. This is relevant to every kind of industrial application that is related to the analysis of chemicals. Obviously, a couple of decades ago, the first industry interested in that was the clinical and pharmaceutical industry because the advantage of this microscopy is its spectroscopy; it's a chemical analysis of the sample and it provides a chemical picture of your sample. In terms of bio-medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, it's obvious that they need to have complete information like this, but I think in the future, other industries will be interested. For example, the food industry could apply it for quality control of food products. They need to know what happens to a nutrient and what happens to food when it's preserved, maintained, stored, transformed, and so on. They need to know the chemical composition of that as part of a quality control process. It may also be useful to the chemistry industry in general, for polymers and things like that. For everything that's in three dimensions, you need to know the organization of a chemical composition. What do you think will be the next frontiers in the application of 3D-IR? The next frontier will be that we need to raise this kind of technology and application to a level where it's outside the laboratory. In the laboratory, we can set up the basic tools and methods, but, really, to exploit this kind of technology, we need a much larger facility that is designed specifically for that. For example, large pharma companies that maybe interested could internalize it and set up a laboratory designed for that. I think this kind of activity is too large and difficult for a single laboratory to handle. We need to find or setup national or international facilities. We need to merge the different skills of all the people who are able to handle this kind of facility. We need to have biologists, spectroscopists, physicians, computer scientists and mathematicians all working together on each new application of 3D chemical imaging by IR spectroscopy. It's obvious that if I'm developing something for industry, I cannot do everything by myself for the biomedical industry, pharmaceutical industry, food industry, chemistry and so on. We need to design facilities which are designed for the different applications. Then, we can inject in these facilities the common tools we develop for making 3D chemical imaging robust and a routine, I mean all automated means for data acquisition, treatment and visualization. Many of those projects will involve more industrial participation are there any industrial partners who are already interested in the potential of this technology? Since I am involved in histology, my first orientation was bio-medicine. The first grants we get at national/international level, will be for developing this technology for diagnostic methods based on biopsies. Now, we are implementing some research collaborations with industrial partners in the pharmaceutical industry because we want to perform drug screening at the pre-clinical stage to have a deep impact on pharmaceutical R&D. We want to check the effects of a drug on it's organ targets but also on the other organs because we know a drug does not only affect its defined targets, but also the rest of the body. We are targeting industry for two reasons. The first one is that in terms of a laboratory, to analyze a complete organ, which takes a lot of machine time and human time, we need a very good reason to do it. I don't want to arrange for a Ph.D. student to analyze a mouse brain, if it's only going to show that there is a tumor inside. We need the pharmaceutical industry so that a big challenge can be defined with it. Enhancing drug quality and efficiency for patients is that kind of challenge we are searching for. The second reason is that development costs for this kind of technology will now be too large for an academic laboratory and because we need to setup facilities, we need to target an industry which is interested in this kind of application. Also, very soon, we will need industry to pay for the continuation of this effort. We can implement the first methods, but if we want to have research and development based on this method, we need industrial partners that are interested in paying for that. It will be servicing industry in this case. Large research institutes can be also the scientific and technological support to develop such platforms if they have the ambition to perform transfer know-hows and machine time to industry. About Dr Cyril Petibois Dr. Petibois is head of research group 3D spectro-imaging at Inserm U1029 in Bordeaux and director of an International Associated Laboratory between Bordeaux and Taipei, Taiwan. He is biophysicist in charge of the development of 3D imaging methods using IR spectroscopy to characterize chemical content changes in tissues and organs (animal models) induced by tumor growth, generative diseasesetc. He has patented and developed the concept of 3D IR imaging by reconstruction of 2D seriated images with quantitative analysis of chemical contents and their translation into biological metadata. He is implementing IR microscopy as the first hyperspectral imaging tool for 3D histology and pathology, with special interest to applications in the biomedical and pharmaceutical fields. The banks of the Sarayu host the ghats of Ram ki Peedi in the temple town of Ayodhya, the place that is right at the heart of the Ram Mandir dispute. It is from here that the BJP riding on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement scripted a remarkable political journey from two seats in 1984 to 282 seats currently.For a place that is so steeped in piety and religion, the banks and surrounding areas are incredibly unclean. One could argue that is the case with most religious places in the country but the scope for turning this into a world class tourist destination is immense.Unfortunately political parties have reaped political dividends from Ram ki Peedi but have given precious little in return.On a hot summers afternoon there are a few people taking a dip, no one is venturing to take the boat ride given the 43 degree heat. This writer got a chance to speak to some of them.Chunni Lal has come from Sultanpur for a holy dip in the Sarayu. He is hopeful if this time BJP is elected in the state, there might be some movement in building the Ram Temple.Lallan Singh who is from Ayodhya is less optimistic. He blames both the BJP and Samajwadi party of using the Ram Mandir issue to polarize their respective votebanks.Recently there was a huge controversy regarding a Bajrang Dal self-defense training camp in which the targets were made to wear skull caps and pretend to be Muslims.Babneer Singh, a local in Faizabad says the programme was meant to depict self-defence against alleged Pakistani terrorists (as bizarre as it sounds). Someone asked the targets to wear skull caps and the imagery was clear.The Bajrang Dal was defending the pious 'Hindu against the 'other. In any case, they used air guns which are meant to kill birds and not humans, insists Babneer.In Ayodhya and Faizabad, there is a degree of weariness around the Ram Temple issue. For all its pride of place in the BJPs scheme of things, there isn't a half way decent hotel in either town.The roads, other than the national highway, are in a dilapidated condition. Someone could have cut and paste this town from the 1980s and it still remains the same.Development remains a far cry. Rickety buses and shared autos are the main form of public transport. Ayodhya has no economy of its own.Most of the businesses cater to domestic tourists who come here to visit the temples in this town. Unlike Benares, there are no foreign tourists, so there is no big money to be made.Arun, our driver who refuses to reveal his last name says in a good month he can barely make Rs 3000.Interestingly in their public rallies here in Ayodhya, no BJP leader brings up the Ram Mandir issue. They are happy to let their more militant cousins in the VHP and Bajrang Dal do that.The BJP wants to keep Modi and his development agenda in the foreground and let the foot soldiers talk about Ram lalla.While BJP President Amit Shah has publicly said he reckons the fight for UP is between SP and BJP. Interestingly, it's the BSP that seems to be quietly working at the ground level.People don't tell you this directly, but when you switch off the camera or if you don't tell them you are from the media, they reminisce about how things were much better under Mayawati. Law and order is a clear case in point.Markan Pandey, a Brahmin, remembers fondly how Behenji built a colony after Kanshi Ram just on the outskirts of Ayodhya to give pucca houses to those who were living in slums. This, coming from a Brahmin, the irony was not lost on me.And finally, in my brief time here, I clocked about 400 kilometres, but nowhere, not in one place did I see a Congress flag or poster.And this in a place less than a 100 kms from Amethi and Rae Bareli. Such is the state of disarray in the Grand Old party. Priyanka or no Priyanka, they have their work cut out. Microsoft has announced that it will acquire LinkedIn for an agreed deal sum of $26.2 billion, inclusive of LinkedIn's net cash. After the acquisition, LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence, according to a joint statement.Microsoft Corp agreed to buy LinkedIn Corp for approximately Rs 17,58,02,00,00,000 ($26.2 billion) in its biggest-ever deal, combining the software giant's fast-growing cloud services business with an online network of 433 million professionals.This is the biggest acquisition by Microsoft since Satya Nadella took over as the CEO of the company. The offer of $196 per share represents a premium of 49.5 percent to LinkedIn's Friday closing price.Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn's board and the company's controlling shareholder, said the deal has his full support."I have always had a great admiration for LinkedIn," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a video on Microsoft's website. "I have been talking with Reid and Jeff for a while ... I have been thinking about this for a long time."Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive of LinkedIn and will be reporting to Nadella. Microsoft plans to speed-up monetisation of LinkedIn by growing individual and organization subscriptions as well as targeted advertising, it said.The deal, which won the unanimous support of both boards, is expected to close this year, the companies said. Microsoft said it would issue new debt to fund its acquisition.After the deal, which will require approval from regulators in the United States, the EU, Canada and Brazil, LinkedIn will become part of Microsoft's productivity and business processes unit, the companies said.This comes in as a huge move as it will be Microsoft's entry into the Social Media space and the company will be looking to accelerate their office and work products through LinkedIn once the acquisition is complete.(With inputs from Reuters) Allahabad: Indicating that the long-pending GST Bill can see a forward movement in the next session of Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday expressed confidence that legislation activity can proceed at a faster pace with the increase in strength of those parties which support bills in the Rajya Sabha and do not obstruct. The fact is that BJP and NDA and a lot of other parties which support legislation and do not obstruct have increased their numbers. I am hopeful legislation activity can proceed much more now, he told reporters. He was asked about the implications of results of the recent Rajya Sabha elections that saw a dip in Congress numbers, and the prospect of the GST Bill, blocked by the main opposition party seeking amendments, which the government is not keen on. Jaitley parried questions over RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, whose continuation has been strongly opposed by BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, and said "We do not discuss these matters through media." Asked if he will approach AIADMK, which has opposed the GST bill but is seen to be more open to the governments push, he said, As far as AIADMK is concerned we have talked to them in past and will definitely speak to them again. We will be approaching every political party without exception. As far as legislations are concerned most political parties are in support, he added. Here are some important reports from the biggest newspapers of India. Mallya quietly sold off 2 properties before ED attached Rs 1,411cr assets Why did the Enforcement Directorate (ED) rush to attach Vijay Mallya's properties worth Rs 1,411 crore in a single day? The liquor baron, who is in London, sold off two properties worth several crores before the agency could attach them on Saturday, top sources told TOI. One of the properties sold by Mallya is located in Coorg, while the other is close by, though officials refused to share details. The ED is trying to find out whether Mallya received money from the sales and if it has been remitted to him or his firms abroad. The agency obtained details of sale during its investigation and this will find mention in its complaint to the adjudicating authority within a month. 'I want him to die at home. Do you think they will let him come?' In The maze of India's terror cases, Habib Ahmad Khan, a homeopathic doctor, is the oldest convict. He is 85, almost deaf and blind, suffers from a heart disease and is unable to move without help. Last month, 23 years after his arrest, the Supreme Court upheld his life sentence. Back at his home in Rae Bareli's Kaharon Ka Adda, his 75-year-old wife Qaisar Jahan says she hasn't given up the hope of him coming out of prison alive. Jahan broke her knee a few years ago and has been bedridden since. Records show that Khan, who is lodged in jail in Jaipur, suffers from "ischemic heart disease (angina pectoris) with moderate to severe hypertension", has lost most of his eyesight even after his eyes were operated upon in jail, and "needs an attendant for help" in moving around, as reported by The Indian Express. Narendra Dabholkar murder accused prepared ground in Kolhapur: Son Virendra Tawade, the doctor arrested by the CBI in Panvel, near Mumbai, on Friday in connection with the 2013 murder of activist Narendra Dabholkar, had apparently stayed in Kolhapur for six years before carrying out his Hindutva agenda in Satara, as reported in The Indian Express. And Kolhapur is where the murders of Dabholkar and fellow activist Govind Pansare have a common ground, Hamid Dabholkar, the slain activist's son, indicated. Tawade, Hamid said, had spoken against Pansare as well during his stay in Kolhapur. Modi dials Putin as China looks to delay NSG bid As the tempo builds up on the NSG question, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Saturday. Russia has been supportive of India's global ambitions from the UN Security Council to the nuclear deal, though Modi's diplomatic focus has so far been on the US, as reported in The Times of India. According to a Kremlin statement, the phone call on Saturday was at Modi's behest. "The leaders confirmed their intention to continue comprehensive deepening of bilateral relations, which have the character of a very privileged strategic partnership," it said. Shooter's father apologizes for the worst attack in US since 9/11 A heavily-armed homophobic Islamic extremist stormed into a gay nightclub in Florida in the wee hours of Sunday and shot dead more than 50 people in the biggest terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. The gunman, who was killed by a swat team after some two hours of carnage, was later identified as Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, 29, a New York-born American citizen from Port St. Lucie, Florida. Mateen's parents emigrated from Afghanistan, as per a news report in The Times of India. Separatist leaders oppose colonies for Sainiks, Pandits The top separatist leadership of the Valley held a day-long seminar in Srinagar on Sunday to discuss the proposed establishment of exclusive colonies for migrant Pandits and ex-servicemen and in unequivocal words opposed the same. Though the government has repeatedly cracked down on the separatist leadership in Kashmir in the recent past, the seminar took place without any restrictions. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq leaders of the two factions of the Hurriyat Conference and representatives of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) attended the event. Read full article in the Hindustan Times. Modi dials Putin as China looks to delay NSG bid As the tempo builds up on the NSG question, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call on Saturday. Russia has been supportive of India's global ambitions from the UN Security Council to the nuclear deal, though Modi's diplomatic focus has so far been on the US, as reported in The Times of India. According to a Kremlin statement, the phone call on Saturday was at Modi's behest. "The leaders confirmed their intention to continue comprehensive deepening of bilateral relations, which have the character of a very privileged strategic partnership," it said. Mallya quietly sold off 2 properties before ED attached Rs 1,411cr assets Why did the Enforcement Directorate (ED) rush to attach Vijay Mallya's properties worth Rs 1,411 crore in a single day? The liquor baron, who is in London, sold off two properties worth several crores before the agency could attach them on Saturday, top sources told TOI. One of the properties sold by Mallya is located in Coorg, while the other is close by, though officials refused to share details. The ED is trying to find out whether Mallya received money from the sales and if it has been remitted to him or his firms aboad. The agency obtained details of sale during its investigation and this will find mention in its complaint to the adjudicating authority within a month. Separatist leaders oppose colonies for Sainiks, Pandits The top separatist leadership of the Valley held a day-long seminar in Srinagar on Sunday to discuss the proposed establishment of exclusive colonies for migrant Pandits and ex-servicemen and in unequivocal words opposed the same. Though the government has repeatedly cracked down on the separatist leadership in Kashmir in the recent past, the seminar took place without any restrictions. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq leaders of the two factions of the Hurriyat Conference and representatives of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) attended the event. Read full article in the Hindustan Times. Turning a metro station into a must-visit spot The character of markets across the city is constantly evolving. For instance, some markets primarily known for electronics suddenly turn into food hubs by hosting some of the best brands in the food and beverage segment. Nehru Place, primarily an office and electronics hub, has undergone a sea of change and has turned into a restaurant hub. Most restaurants here, which cater to office folk during the day, undergo a makeover at night and emerge as one of the most happening places to head out for a drink or enjoy a relaxed meal, as reported in The Hindu. Army to involve industry in its long-term plans On the lines of the Navy's design bureau which has been successful in indigenising warship design, the Army is attempting a major reworking of weapons design and procurement by incorporating academia and industry in its long-term perspective plans. This will be done under the soon to be set up Army Design Bureau (ADB) the formal approval for which is in the final stages. Hyderabad: Advocates and judicial employees across Telangana launched a week-long protest under the banner of 'Chalo High Court' on Monday against the provisional allocation of judicial officers between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The advocates have been demanding bifurcation of the existing Hyderabad High Court. Adequate security and traffic arrangements have been made in the state and police have warned of action against the lawyers in case of any violations. On Sunday, the lawyers were denied permission by the Hyderabad Police for the "Chalo High Court" programme. 'Chalo High Court' was a call given by Federation of Bar Associations appealing to all advocates practising in various courts in the districts of Telangana and Hyderabad to proceed to High Court on Monday. "Necessary prohibitory orders have been imposed in the surroundings of High Court, banning taking out any processions, organising agitations etc," Hyderabad police Commissioner M Mahendar Reddy was quoted as saying in a release. "As per the orders of the Registrar General of the High Court, only those practising advocates of High Court whose cases are listed in the cause list for June 13 shall be permitted to enter into the High Court premises," it added. (With inputs from PTI) Accra: Terrorism is a scourge that knows no borders and it must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee has said while pledging India's support to Ghana for combating the menace. Mukherjee, who is here on a two-day visit -- the first by an Indian President -- said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghana's concern that it has become a global menace. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama on Sunday, Mukherjee said, "It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge." Mukherjee's visit is a part of India's outreach to Africa. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled 'Africa' in his address. "Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council," Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. "The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism. He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs," he said. The elaborate banquet which saw traditional African dishes with Bollywood numbers playing in the backdrop was hosted at the flag staff college which has been constructed by a noted Indian builder. Mukherjee presented to Mahama a photograph of India's first President Rajendra Prasad meeting Nkrumah in Rashtrapati Bhavan as he stressed that government of India seeks Ghana's continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Indo African Forum Summit held in New Delhi n 2015. Lauding Ghana's efforts in reducing poverty levels to almost half and crossing the threshold to become a low income country, Mukherjee said India will continue to extend the hand of cooperation as it marches on the path of prosperity. New York: An uncommon calm is scheduled to embrace the frenetic "Crossroads of the World", the city's Times Square, on June 20, this year's Summer Solstice Day here, when thousands of people practice the ancient Indian art to celebrate the International Day of Yoga. The Times Square community event will likely be the biggest Yoga Day celebration outside India. The day-long series of seven events that run from 7 am to 8.30 p.m. will stretch over several city blocks. The celebration organised by the Times Square Alliance brings together 30 yoga studios ranging from the Iyengar and Bikram institutions to Sonic Yoga and mang'Oh Yoga. "Yoga unites us with the universal flow and connects us with our own personal rhythms," Douglass Stewart, co-founder of Solstice in Times Square, said in a statement. "As the sun climbs to its highest point and is suspended in the sky for the longest period, it provides us with a vital force that sustains all of life, giving us a focal point and uniting our purpose to achieve our highest ambitions." Last year over 30,000 people participated in the Times Square event. India's Consul General Riva Ganguly Das has brought together 17 organisations in six states to reach out to the American community with the message of yoga. Community organisations across six states in northeast United States are holding 30 events to observe Yoga Day. Another important celebration will be in Boston where the South Asian Arts Council is organising an observance at the historic Hall of Flags in the State House, the seat of Massachusetts state government on Beacon Hill, on June 23. The community celebrations started off Friday with events at two schools in the New York suburb of Freeport that was organised by the Hindu Swyam Sevak. On Saturday, it was the Queens Museum's turn to hold the celebration in association with the Indian Business Association, in front of the city landmark Unisphere, a 37-metre stainless steel globe. A unique feature of the community celebrations this year will be Yoga Day events at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and Newark Liberty Airport on June 21. On June 19, New England International Day of Yoga will be celebrated at the Kresge Auditorium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. Celebrations are also planned for Columbus and Cleveland in Ohio and Hershey in Pennsylvania. Several Indian organisations are to take the celebrations to schools in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut states. While Anurag Kashyap and Phantom Films are going pillar to post to get their film 'Udta Punjab' cleared by the CBFC, there is another Punjabi film, dealing with drug problem in the state that has been cleared by CBFC.Titled as 'Dhee Punjab Di', the film deals with drug problem and female foeticide that exists in Punjab. But unlike 'Udta Punjab' which CBFC refers as obscene, this film has been given a 'U' Certificate. The film's director Baljeet Singh told the Times Of India , "They said that 'Your film deserves a 'U' certificate as drugs is a pan-India issue today and it's not just restricted to Punjab'. These things are also happening in states like Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra." Singh was asked to cut only one scene where a young boy is scene snorting drugs. However, the filmmaker ads that 'Udta Punjab' shows Punjab in a bad light and therefore should not get a commercial release.Singh states that the 'bad language' that Shahid Kapoor is seen using in the film is against Indian culture. Singh will be organising a press conference on Monday in Amritsar for his and has even stated he will burn effigies of Shahid, Anurag and Ekta Kapoor at Matka Chowk, Chandigarh. "If they will apologise to us, then only we will allow the film to release in Punjab, otherwise we'll protest against them," Baljeet said.While CBFC's has on Monday stated that 'Udta Punjab' has been cleared after 13 cuts and given an 'A' certificate, the filmmakers who had approached the Bombay High Court are awaiting the verdict on the issue. The court also came down heavily on the CBFC and asked it not to act like a "grandmother", and change with times. Do not act like a grandmother. Change as per the times now. In a major reprieve to the makers of "Udta Punjab", the Bombay High Court on Monday cleared the film's release with a single cut and two changes.The high court directed the filmmaker to delete the urination scene and asked for a revised disclaimer.A division bench of Justices SC Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi directed the CBFC to certify the drug-themed film within 48 hours to enable the makers to release it on its scheduled date of June 17."Barring the deletion of the urination scene as directed by the board and modification of the disclaimer, the June 6 order passed by the CBFC's revising committee directing for a total of 13 changes in the movie is quashed and set aside," the court said.The bench, however, refused to stay its order on a plea made by CBFC counsel Advait Sethna to enable the board to appeal against it in the Supreme Court, saying the filmmakers have already spent a lot on the movie and its promotion and distribution.The court, which was hearing a petition filed by Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films challenging the CBFC order, came down heavily on the board for curbing a creative person's work.The CBFC need not be over-sensitive in the matter of art. The CBFC cannot stop creative people abruptly as it may discourage them. This will kill creativity. These days filmmakers are brutal, direct and straightforward. One need not treat them harshly just because of this, the HC said.The court further noted that the CBFC is not empowered by law to censor films, as the word censor is not included in the Cinematograph Act."Censor in common parlance means to certify a movie. Therefore, if by law the board is empowered to make changes, cuts, or deletions, this power of the CBFC must be consistently in consonance with the provisions of the Constitution and the Supreme Court directions," Justice Dharmadhikari said.As per the revised disclaimer, the 'Udta Punjab' makers will have to delete reference to Pakistan. They will also have to make additions to the disclaimer to the effect that the movie, its characters and the filmmakers do not promote the use of drugs and abusive language, and that the film is only attempting to depict the reality of drug abuse.With PTI Inputs After a week of struggle, the makers of 'Udta Punjab' can perhaps breathe a sigh of relief. The film, which had run into controversy last week after CBFC refused to certify the film until it adhered to the 89 cuts that the board had demanded in the film, has been backed by Bombay High Court. The Bombay High Court has said that they dont find anything in script that questions the sovereignty or integrity of India. In its on-point observation, the HC stated, that the film simply depicted the menace of drugs in Punjab. It is entirely on makers to choose the setting, pattern, theme of the film, the court added. The HC also told CBFC that there was no justification for asking deletion of signposts in the film. The court did not find anything that objectionable in the script that would malign the state in any way which CBFC had claimed it did. The court asserted that a blanket ban on the movie 'Udta Punjab' cannot be justified. The HC observed that the ban is found to be interfering with the creative freedom. It is entirely on the makers to choose the setting, pattern, theme of the film, the court added. The court said that they did not find anything in the script that questions the sovereignty or integrity of India and stated that the film simply depicted the drug menace in Punjab. The HC also told CBFC that there was no justification for asking for deletion of signposts in the film. The court said that deletion of words like MP, MLA from the film as recommended by the censor board, cannot be justified. The court observed that the movie only makes a general reference to the term elections and does not seem to be have targeted the representatives of the people of a state as a whole. The HC observed that the film does not seem to have been made keeping elections in mind. The CBFC on Sunday, cleared the film with an 'A' certificate and 13 cuts. The CBFC had claimed earlier that film was 'anti-Punjab' and the language that was used was obscene in nature. If there is any issue that continues to make headlines and grab everyones attention across all age groups and professions it has to be the ongoing battle between the makers of Udta Punjab and the Central Board of film Certification (CBFC). What began as a tiff soon turned into an issue that raises questions about the freedom of expression and the restrictions that are imposed on a filmmaker in the current times while he is making an earnest attempt at making a creative film.For the uninitiated, film co-producer Anurag Kashyap had attacked censor board chairman Pahlaj Nihalani over the 89 cuts he ordered in the film, which revolves around the drug menace in Punjab. A few days back, Nihalani alleged that Kashyap had "taken money from AAP" to show Punjab in a bad light through his film. While the film continues to spark heat and politics plays out in Punjab, we spoke to 'Qissa Punjab' director Jatinder Mauhar. Released last year, the film showed how drugs have destroyed the lives of several youngsters in Punjab, a harsh reality that we just cant deny.Within a few moments from now the Bombay high court will pass orders on the cuts suggested by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to the film. The ruling will be important not just because it will put the focus on the freedom of expression for directors, but also state the CBFCs power.While directors and politicians continue to argue on the alleged political motives that have been made behind making the film, and how it can effect the political result in the Punjab elections, Jatinder tells us the films debacle is only due to political parties intervention. Yes, political intervention could be a clear reason for the fiasco. With elections to happen next year, a film like this which so clearly speaks about drug addiction prevalent can sway voters.Jatinder strongly feels that the government should think of ways that can help curb drug menace in the state. We want the government to understand the real problem thats ailing the state at both the political and policy level. Nasha kyun ho raha hai Punjab mei? Kyun log isme hi chaen dhoond rahein hain? These are the questions that the government should look into and get answers for. It would be great if the government could initiate a dialogue with the youngsters? Considering the fact that the youth is an integral part of a nations growth, why cant the government speak to them? Why cant they look for a solution to the long-standing issue of jobs insecurity in Punjab?Jatinders Qissa Punjab which unravelled the lives of six young people, also dealt with Punjab drug epidemic. But he never faced any problem in getting CBFCs approval. The Censor Board had given me a U certificate. Unko koi problem nahi thi. They asked me to incorporate a few changes so that it could be shown to children below 18 years. But things do change when it comes to Hindi films as opposed to regional projects. Jitni problem Udta Punjab ko leke hui hai utni meri film ke saath nahi hoti kyunki CBFC doesnt take regional films that seriously. The fact that Udta Punjab is a Bollywood film and features A-listers, its impact is huge.Chahe Punjab mei bahut nasha hai ki baat ho ya Govt boley ki yeh hai nahi hai - yeh dono cheezein hi galat hai. To brand the youth as drug addicts and isolate them isnt the correct strategy, he adds.Does the film Udta Punjab with its defamatory references to those in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and other cities of Punjab, show Punjab in a bad light? Filmmakers logon ko kis taraf leke jaana chatey hain yeh toh film dekhne ke bad hi pata chal sakta hai.Will the deletion of the word Punjab from the film's title bring any solution? Agar mention remove kar bhi dengey kuch nahi hoga. Everybody is aware of what happens in Punjab. The Bombay HC will pronounce its order today on the petition filed by the makers of the movie Udta Punjab against the cuts ordered by the CBFC. The cuts ordered by the CBFC include the deletion of the sign board of Punjab, the removal of any reference to any city, town or district in the state. The deletion of words election, MP, MLA, party worker, Parliament as well as cuss words including a disclaimer that the filmmaker acknowledges the government's battle against drugs. The makers of the film called the cuts unwarranted and unconstitutional - while the High Court observed that the CBFC must leave it to citizens to decide what is appropriate to view. Nihalani, who was eanred filmmakers wrath for suggesting several cuts, has now said that the nine members of the Central Board of Film Certification watched the film and "unanimously" cleared it after the proposed 13 cuts. "The CBFCs job is now over. It is now up to the producer to go to the court or tribunal. We will implement the order," Nihalani said. The Abhishek Chaubey-directed film is tentatively scheduled for release on June 17. The alleged mass exodus of Hindu families from Kairana in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh has given one more potentially explosive and emotive issue to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). BJP president Amit Shah gave the first hint of his party's Uttar Pradesh election campaign pitch on Sunday when he reminded the Samajwadi Party government of the alleged plight of Hindus in Kairana. While Minister of State, Home, Kiren Rijiju called the alleged exodus unacceptable, Union Minister for Women & Child Development Maneka Gandhi lambasted the state government of failing to provide security to the residents. "A time will come when everyone will flee UP. As an MP I get 10-15 calls every day with complaints of rape and the alleged involvement of police or the repeated action of UP Police. There is no development and law and order has collapsed in the state," she said. BJP leaders accuse the Samajwadi Party government of minority appeasement and corruption. According to some BJP leaders over 300 Hindu families have moved out of the Muslim dominated Kairana following multiple reported attacks and charges of extortion. But local police officials deny the charges made in a report prepared by BJP MP from Kairana Hukam Singh. "While 68 families did indeed leave Kairana, many of them left as early as 1998. Then 65 families left five years ago. Since these people left Kairana over a period spanning more than a decade, it would be inaccurate to say this was an exodus," Shamli Superintendent of Police Vijay Bhushan told an English newspaper. However, Hukam Singh stuck to his charged. "I released a list after taking information from my workers. I have verified that the list is right. Let the district administration also give a list. The state government has failed to maintain law and order in UP. The Samajwadi Party is trying to make it a communal issue," he said. He was countered by Samajwadi Party' CP Rai who claimed that several people have Kairana in search of better employment opportunities. "People have gone out seeking employment. This is nothing new. Why did BJP not provide employment?" The holy city of Varanasi resembles a big construction site these days. The moment you get out of the Babatpur airport and drive towards the city you will see that both sides of the road have been dug up.The city is no different. Heavy machines are at work, digging large parts of the already congested roads. Different agencies are involved. The state government is building new sewage pipe lines, the central government is setting up new electricity cables and telecom companies are expanding their infrastructure. As a result moving around the city is quite a nightmare, but many in the city do not mind this inconvenience as long as it gives them a better life one day.The Assi ghat where the Prime Minister launched the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan in November 2014 wears a new look. The silt has been removed completely, neatly painted benches have been installed and Sulabh International workers clean it at least five times a day. A retired central government scientist, Lallan Kumar Pandey, who visits the ghat every day said, "Change is definitely happening but not at the pace it should."Pandey's friend, who is sitting next to him, joins the conversation saying, "Akhilesh Yadav is not cooperating with the central government". Almost all people we spoke to were full of praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the work he has started.The Prime Minister's constituency office has become like a mini PMO. Every week, three union ministers - Mahesh Sharma, Manoj Sinha and Santosh Gangwar- visit the constituency. Officials from PMO and central ministries keep flying down for meetings related to infrastructure development. The holy city has become a hub for high-level VIP visits, but it may take a few years before it actually looks like a VIP city. The reason is, most projects are at very initial stages. Construction of highway projects, solid waste disposal systems and the IPDS scheme to boost the city's electricity infrastructure will take three to five years to be completed.But, the state government is not far behind. A senior official in the district administration told us that the Samajwadi Party is doing a lot for the district as well. The sewage systems are being overhauled so that sewage doesn't flow into Ganga, cleaning up of Varuna corridor is on at full pace, social security schemes have been announced and new ambulances are being procured. If the PM visits Varanasi four times a year the chief minister does the same and both the BJP and the SP claim credit for the development work in Varanasi.BJP's Varanasi district president Hansraj Vishwakarma tells us the PM is working very hard for the city, 'like a diligent student', and that his effort will bear fruit. He is sure the PM's work in Kashi will have resonance across Uttar Pradesh in the 2017 assembly election, but the Samajwadi Party's district chief, Satish Fauji, claims the PM has not done anything for the city. He says, "zero, no work has been done by PM. They just use the broom. Even Rs 5 lakh haven't reached the city. No one has done more work than Akhilesh Yadav". Fauji alleges RSS and BJP workers in Varanasi are masters in spreading lies and claiming credit for things which they haven't done.The reason why both BJP and SP are focusing their attentions on Kashi is because it could hold the key to Poorvanchal, or Eastern UP, which has approximately 71 seats. A good show in this region could help swing the election. Both BJP and SP want to showcase Kashi to garner more Hindu votes in the election. It would be too early to say who holds the edge because the development work is not yet over and the BJP hasn't even announced its CM candidate. The big battle for UP is still eight months away and a lot can change till then. The battle for Punjab is heating up with each passing day. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is going all guns blazing on Congress over the party's decision to appoint Kamal Nath as its state in-charge. After the AAP accused Congress of showing callous attitude towards the 1984 riot victims by appointing Kamal Nath as the party in charge, the Congress leader has hit back claiming he was cleared of all charges. He also accused AAP of raking up a pointless controversy. "Nanavati Commission set up by the BJP government had absolved me in the case. The controversy is politically motivated. Akalis didn't level a charge for all these years. AAP doesn't know what they are taking about," Kamal Nath said in his defence. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had on Sunday attacked the Congress, asking Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh if he has absolved Nath for his alleged involvement in 1984 anti-Sikh riots. "Capt Amrinder shud state his stand on Kamal Nath. Does Capt absolve Kamal Nath?," Kejriwal tweeted. The Shiromani Akali Dal has also attacked Congress over the appointment of Kamal Nath, alleging the party has rewarded to the leader who had been "involved" in the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, with a "plum post". "You have only rubbed salt in our wounds by making this appointment," SAD Secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said. "Punjabis want to know why the Gandhi family continues to honour the perpetrators of the 1984 genocide with plum party posts. What is the Gandhi family afraid of? Why has it consistently blocked any action against senior leaders including Kamal Nath and Jagdish Tytler," he alleged. We are at the cusp of a historic moment, we must work for the people, Modi said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday gave seven points on code of conduct to Bharatiya Janata Party workers on the second day of the national executive meeting in Allahabad.The Prime Minister said the focus should be on public service, balance, patience, coordination, positive approach, empathy, dialogue. He said that mere slogans will not work and the focus should be on delivery.Delivering his concluding address to the party's National Executive, which saw its president Amit Shah raising concerns over migration of Hindus from a communally-sensitive western UP town, Modi made no reference to the controversial issues and instead asked leaders to use power for the benefit of society.He also invoked Maratha icon Shivaji, saying he did not enjoy the fruits of power despite being a ruler and sarcastically added that the country has on the contrary also seen those who enjoyed the fruits of power without legitimately owning it, a veiled dig at the Gandhi family of the Congress.The Prime Minister referred to the party's win in Assam and growth in Kerala and West Bengal and had a word of caution for its leaders and workers."We are witnessing history in the making. We are benefitting from the hard work of crores of workers for over many decades in building the party. We are in power in the Centre and many states as well. We should not get affected by this power but think as to how we can use this for the society's benefit. There is a need to strengthen the nation. People are no longer satisfied only with slogans. They are concerned overhow the nation is being made strong," he said.(With additional information from PTI) New Delhi: The Delhi government Bill to exclude the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the office of profit has been refused assent by President Pranab Mukherjee, raising questions over the fate of 21 Aam Aadmi party MLAs, who have been appointed to the posts. The refusal puts a question mark over the membership of 21 AAP MLAs, who have been appointed Parliamentary Secretaries by the Arvind Kejriwal government. Petitions have been filed with the President seeking disqualification of the these MLAs on the ground that they occupied office of profit in violation of Constitution. Acting as a quasi judicial body, the Election Commission to whom the President referred the issue has sought replies of the MLAs. Meanwhile, the Delhi government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. Through the Bill, the AAP government wanted "retrospective" exemption for the parliamentary secretaries from disqualification provisions. The Bill was forwarded by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to the Centre, which in turn was sent to the President with its comments. However, the President did not give his assent to the Bill, official sources said. On March 13, 2015, Kejriwal had passed an order appointing the 21 party MLAs as Parliamentary Secretaries. Subsequently, the AAP government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. Questions have been raised over their appointment by the opposition. The Lt Governor had said the office of parliamentary secretary is defined as an "office of profit if one looks at the statutes of Delhi" and that as per the GNCT Act, the city can have only one parliamentary secretary attached to the office of the Chief Minister. The 21 MLAs include Alka Lamba, Jarnail Singh, Adarsh Shastri and Rajesh Gupta. Following the AAP government's move, Prashant Patel, a lawyer, petitioned the Election Commission seeking disqualification of the MLAs. The EC had earlier issued notices asking them to explain how their appointment as parliamentary secretaries does not fall under office of profit and why their Assembly membership should not be cancelled. The 21 AAP MLAs, facing the risk of disqualification from the Assembly on office of profit issue, have sought a personal hearing before the Election Commission. In their response to the poll body, the MLAs have said that parliamentary secretary is a post without any remuneration or power. A senior party functionary maintained that there was no "pecuniary benefit" associated with the post. Jalandhar: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the Akali Dal-led government in Punjab for encouraging illegal trade of drugs. Rahul, who is demonstrating at Jalandhar against the drug menace, promised to end drugs culture if the Congress is voted to power in assembly elections scheduled to be held in 2017. The only solution to the drug menace is to keep the youth away from the Akalis. "The state government is promoting drug culture among the youths," he added. While hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi he said, "Modi ji committed to ensure ease of doing business in India. But it is unfortunate that only business which is easy to do in Punjab is that of drugs." On the context of controversy over movie 'Udta Punjab', he said, "It is the Akali Dal and the BJP who are responsible for the trouble. They want to create hurdles before its release because they don't want to admit the truth that drug became a menace in Punjab." "The truth is Punjab's future has been destroyed," he added. Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) questioned Rahul's stand on drugs issue in Punjab. AAP Leader Sanjay Singh said, "Congress has always overlooked the drugs menace. It is unfortunate that Congress leader Pratap Singh Bajwa nominated to Rajya Sabha despite his drugs link." New Delhi: Indian electronics industry is ready to fulfill components wish list of Apple for making iPhone in the country if the smart devices major provides purchase commitment to local firms, says industry body IESA. "If government says fall in line, industry associations are prepared to enter into agreement with Apple and say tell us what your wish list is, we will fulfill it in next 3, 6, 9 and 12 months," India Electronics & Semiconductor Association President M N Vidyashankar told PTI. Apple has submitted proposal for setting up single brand retail stores in the country but has sought exemption from the local sourcing norms as the US-based giant makes state-of-the-art and cutting edge technology products for which local sourcing is not possible. The Finance Ministry has rejected relaxing the 30 per cent domestic sourcing norms, as sought by iPhone and iPad maker as a pre-condition for bringing in FDI to set up single-brand retail stores in the country. However, the Ministry of Commerce has taken a line that the 30 per cent local sourcing requirement can be waived off for high-end technology products and will again try for exempting Apple from this norm. "If you make an exception to Apple, everybody will come and ask for similar differentiation. Such kind of request will only multiply. Any kind of dilution will adversely affect us," Vidyashankar said. He said that industry associations have met all concerned ministries at high level in Finance, Commerce, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotions and Communications & IT. "Industry bodies have expressed their views that there should be no dilution on this," Vidyashankar said. He, however, said that Apple entry in India is very important for industry and country. "Their coming is very important for us. If we can say we are supplying to Apple, all the leading players will fall in line. With China saying that they are supplying to Apple, the credibility touches sky high. We need to be almost equal to that kind of dispensation but there should be no dilution," he said. He said that industry can cater to need of Apple if business is assured from the iPhone maker. "If someone is heading an organisation who has 200 companies and now these 200 companies are given an order with assurance that components will be sourced from them for next three years. It can be easily done ...that's what we are looking at," Vidyashankar said. When asked that India still does not has electronic chip manufacturing plant which is a very key component for making smartphones, Vidyashankar said that industry can start with some percentage and then ramp up. "We need not start with semiconductors. There are hundreds of item where we can satisfy. Out of over 2,000 item required in an iPhone, we can start with 200. Starting from packaging, PCBs, battery to what not but as I said it will take sometime," Vidyashankar said. He added that even in Indian automobile sector not 100 per cent of vehicles are made in the country and same is the case with China. "Even in China, they also source components from various locations," Vidyashankar said. Apple's products are made Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn in China. Foxconn has set up its manufacturing unit in India but it is engaged in making mobile phones of mostly China-based companies here. I am gay and I am not afraid. Love conquers all. #PrayforOrlando Ricky Martin (@ricky_martin) June 12, 2016 My is breaking for you #Orlando! Sending love to all those affected by this ridiculous violence and... (1/2) pic.twitter.com/oQ2mOLzuJN Enrique Iglesias (@enriqueiglesias) June 12, 2016 What gives? My heart is breaking right now for the victims and families of this heartless act. I just don't get it.#PrayForOrlando Justin Timberlake (@jtimberlake) June 12, 2016 The tragedy in Orlando is just beyond sad. My deepest regrets to all those suffering. There are no words that suffice. I'm...stunned. Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) June 12, 2016 Just heard about the horrifying attack in Florida. My love and prayers go out to our brothers and sisters. Heartbreaking. Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) June 12, 2016 I'm truly at a loss for words. To everyone in Orlando affected by this massacre, my thoughts, love, & prayers are with u Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 12, 2016 Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. -H Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016 We mourn those lost in Orlando, & our hearts go out to victims, families & loved ones touched by this horrific tragedy. #loveislove Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) June 12, 2016 All Americans are horrified, disgusted and saddened by the horrific atrocity in Orlando. Full statement: pic.twitter.com/ci5kxXKSyZ Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 12, 2016 In sympathy for the victims of last nights attack in Orlando, we will remain dark tonight. Photo: @isardasorensen pic.twitter.com/FCmp4JMnph Empire State Bldg (@EmpireStateBldg) June 12, 2016 World trade centre love this respect #loveislove pic.twitter.com/lBXDTVA8Pn Stephen Brooks (@Stephen_Brooks1) June 13, 2016 Omar Mateen, 29, an American-born man pledging loyalty to Islamic State, opened fired at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early on Sunday in what is being termed as the deadliest mass shooting in US history. Latest reports said 49 people were killed and over 50 were injured.President Barack Obama has condemned the incident, calling it "an act of terror and hate".(Photo: a candlelight vigil in remembrance of mass shooting victims in Orlando, from San Diego, California, US./Reuters)(Photo: Mourners gather under an LGBT pride flag flying at half-mast for a candlelight vigil in remembrance for mass shooting victims in Orlando, from San Diego, California, U.S./Reuters) Cairo: Islamic State's Amaq news agency said on Sunday that the Islamist militant group was responsible for the shooting that killed at least 50 people in a massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. "The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," Amaq said. Police killed the shooter at the Pulse nightclub, who was identified as Omar S Mateen, a 29-year-old Florida resident and US citizen. While a top US Congressman said Mateen may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group, officials cautioned, that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or any other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between the gunman and any such group. "We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate," Obama said in a speech from the White House. "And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people." US officials have reached no definitive judgment on the killer's precise motives, Obama added. "We must spare no effort to determine what, if any, inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups," he said. Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single US mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university. Pulse was crowded with some 350 revelers at a Latin music night when the attack happened. When he finished prayer he would just leave. He would not socialise with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful [name]Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman[/name] In 2013, Omar Mateen made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and he was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. He was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and wanted to become a police officer.Early Sunday, 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, leaving 50 people dead and 53 wounded, police said.Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear: A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American.He attended evening prayer services at the city's Islamic Centre three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday.He was also bipolar, Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters in Boulder, Colorado."He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," Yusufiy said. Although records show the couple didn't divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms.Authorities immediately began investigating whether Sunday's attack was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The law enforcement official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Yusufiy said she was "devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying" when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to Mateen's mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups.Rahman agreed. "My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with ISIS," he said.Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesman who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan."It's shocking," he said about the shooting. "(Omar Mateen's) father loves this country."Some of Seddique Mir Mateen's shows were taped and later posted on YouTube. During one episode, a sign in the background read: "Long live the USA! Long live Afghanistan. Afghans are the best friends to the USA."But a former Afghan official said the "Durand Jirga Show" appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel that supports ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban, which are mostly Pashtun. Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nation's minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said.The "Durand Jirga Show" expresses support for the Taliban, has an anti-Pakistan slant, complains about foreigners in Afghanistan and criticizes U.S. actions there, the official said. Seddique Mir Mateen lavished praise on current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he appeared on the show in January 2014, but he has since denounced the Ghani government, according to the official, who said that on Saturday, Seddique Mateen appeared on the show dressed in military fatigues and used his program to criticize the current Afghan government.He also announced on that show that he would run in the next Afghan presidential election, said the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be linked to coverage of the shooting.Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and FirearmsMateen had no criminal record. Yusufiy said he wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Mateen was a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as "the leading global integrated security company."Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and was into body building. He was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence."It was totally unexpected," Rahman said. Islamabad: Pakistan has closed the chapter of acquiring eight F-16s from the US and will now opt for Jordan-owned F-16 fighter jets, foreign secretary Aizaz Chaudhry said on Monday amid the strains in bilateral ties over the scuttling of the deal and a US drone strike on its soil. Chaudhry, briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Foreign Policy, said "the US seemed to be satisfied with Pakistan's decision." "The chapter of receiving F-16 fighter jets from the US has been closed. Pakistan will now opt for Jordan-owned F-16 fighter jets," he was quoted as saying by the Geo News. Choudhry said one of the reasons for "strained relations with the US was Pakistan's close ties with China." "Pakistan cannot cooperate with the US on some issues. One of these issues is its sovereignty," he said. He said that strained relations with the US were nothing new for Pakistan. Condemning the US policy on the war on terror he said, "The US has spent 16 years fighting the war on terror. If only it had given six years to the peace process things would have been different." The Pak-US ties strained after Congressional restriction on financing of F-16 fighter jet's sale from Foreign Military Financing programme, due to which Pakistan could not buy the jets. The relationship further suffered when the US carried out a drone strike in Balochistan, killing Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, which was termed by Pakistani leadership a violation of the country's sovereignty. Shocked by the Orlando massacre, gays around the world on Monday flocked to vigils for the victims of one of the deadliest attacks in the history of the gay rights movement. From Berlin to Bangkok, gay and lesbian groups organised gatherings in solidarity with Americans after Sunday's massacre at a gay nightclub that left 49 people dead in the worst mass shooting in modern US history. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit with the rainbow colours of the gay community flag as hundreds gathered to condemn terror and homophobia. "This could have happened anywhere," Australian Paul Savage told AFP at a candlelit vigil for the victims on the busy strip that hosts Sydney's annual Mardi Gras pride march. "He could easily have walked into a bar in Sydney," he said, pointing out that Australia's tighter gun laws were "much more helpful" in preventing the mass shootings that claim hundreds of lives each year in the United States. - 'Could have been us' - In Berlin, more than 100 people gathered outside the US embassy to lay flowers, light candles and wave rainbow flags. Helmut Metzner, a leading member of the Lesbian and Gay Federation in Germany, condemned what he called an attack on the global gay "family". "It could have hit any single one of us," he told AFP, adding: "We must stand united and defend our lifestyle and not back down. That is what the terrorists want, and that's a favour we won't do them." US President Barack Obama denounced the attack at the Pulse nightclub by slain shooter Omar Mateen, which also wounded 53, as "an act of terror and an act of hate". In an outpouring of solidarity similar to that seen after the Paris and Brussels attacks, social media were awash with messages of support for the families of the victims. Using hashtags such as #loveislove or #lovewins, many shared images of ribbons -- some black, others carrying the Stars and the Stripes of the US flag on one side and rainbow colours on the other. Global landmarks were swathed in the colours of the rainbow, with Paris' Eiffel Tower set to follow suit Monday night after similar displays lit up New York's One World Trade Center and Sydney's iconic bridge. "Paris is with Orlando," tweeted Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, which is still recovering from the November jihadist attacks in which 130 people were killed. The Islamic State group, which was behind the Paris and Brussels attacks, also claimed responsibility for the Florida bloodshed. - 'Stop hate' - Whether Mateen, a US national of Afghan origin who had homophobic tendencies, was part of a wider jihadist conspiracy, as claimed by IS, remains unclear. German lawmaker Cem Ozdemir, co-chair of the left-leaning Greens Party, told AFP that whatever the outcome of the investigation, "Islamism and homophobia are two sides of the same coin." In one of several vigils across the United States, hundreds gathered in New York's Greenwich Village on Sunday to leave flowers beside a sign reading "Stop Hate". Despite the defiant tone struck at many of the gatherings, some people expressed fear. "It does scare me a bit, being gay and working in a gay bar," admitted Saleem Khan, a 30-year-old barman in London's Soho district, the heart of the city's gay scene. Obama said the FBI was investigating the latest in a string of mass gun killings in the United States "as an act of terrorism". French President Francois Hollande reacted "with horror" to the attack, which threatens to increase anti-migrant hostility in Europe where populist xenophobic parties are on the rise as the continent struggles with its worst migration crisis since World War II. The prime minister of Belgium, where 32 people were killed in jihadist attacks on Brussels' airport and metro in March, also sent his condolences. And German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed for tolerance. "Although such deadly attacks cause profound sadness in us, we are resolved to continue with our open and tolerant lifestyle," she said on the sidelines of a visit to China. Pope Francis expressed shock at Mateen's "homicidal folly and senseless hatred". The condemnation was echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has cracked down on gay pride events. "Nothing can justify killing of civilians," President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan tweeted. Washington: Republican presidential presumptive nominee Donald Trump on Monday called for vigilance on Muslims and mosques in the US, a day after an Afghan-origin gunman killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in the deadliest shooting in American history. "We need much better intelligence gathering information. We need intelligence gathering centers, because the people in the communities where these people are, they know there's something off. They know there's something going on," he said. "We need intelligence gathering. We have to look at the mosques. We have to look at the community. And believe me, the community knows the people that have potential for blow up," said Trump, who has been criticised for advocating a ban on Muslim immigrants. Citing the example of last year's San Bernardino shooter, Trump said there were bombs all over his apartment floor. "You're going to find that with this mad man (Orlando shooter). People in the area, the people in the neighborhood, they know there's something off with him, and they don't report them to the police," he told CNN. "This is much different, than when we fight a war with Germany or with Japan, and they have uniforms," Trump said. "It's an enemy without a uniform, George. It's very dangerous. We're fighting an enemy without a uniform," Trump told ABC. In response to a question, Trump told the CNN that this is going to be "pure intelligence gathering, and people... Muslims, where they are, they have to report these people. Otherwise it's going to be a bigger, bigger problem." Defending his view on right to carry fire arm, Trump said things could have been different if there were other people in the club carrying guns. "If you had some guns in that club the night that this took place, if you had guns on the other side, you wouldn't have had the tragedy that you had," he said. "If people in that room had guns with the bullets flying in the opposite direction right at him... right at his head, you wouldn't have had the same tragedy that you ended up having. And nobody even knows how bad that tragedy is, because I think probably the numbers will get bigger and bigger and worse and worse. I hear the injured are so gravely injured," he asserted. Pushing for increased surveillance, he said this is the case of intelligence gathering, information. "Many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job, he something like this would have happened. I already hear it starting to happen of people that knew him, the ex-wife and other people," he said. "They don't report them. For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this. So, we do have two different standards. We have people that live here and have become radicalized and have been radicalized," he said. A group of more than 20 gathered at First Unitarian Church in Lynchburg Sunday evening for a peace vigil to mourn the Orlando, Florida nightclub massacre. The country mourns tonight. Again, said Paul Boothby, the churchs minister. After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after so many events we are all feeling again a sense of profound vulnerability and anxiety and sadness We just need to get together and speak whats in our hearts and be there for each other. Thats whats important in a time like this. The gathering, which was organized by the Lynchburg Diversity Center (LDC) and First Unitarian Church, was just one of many held around the country following the attack early Sunday that left 50 dead and 53 injured. Those in attendance at First Unitarian Church sang songs and spoke of how the tragedy has affected them personally, and placed contributions in a donation box, which the LDC has planned to send to Equality Florida, the state's LGBT civil rights organization. The world, our world, my world feels very small today, said Andi Miller, executive director of LDC, as she fought back tears. This is a ripple effect that goes across the world. Our world and my world will never be the same from this day forward. Last year, the gay community celebrated the U.S. Supreme Courts ruling in favor of marriage equality. Now, it fights for its life, something it should not have to do, said Isaac Zralii, LDCs director of program development, who oversees the Lynchburg Transgender Alliance. My people, my community here in Lynchburg, is afraid, Miller added. Thats what Ive been hearing over and over today. Through the tears, through the frustration, through peoples rants, at pride fests today across the country, around the world, my beautiful (gay/transgender) community is living in fear. Despite the pain that has rocked the local community, members came forward and pledged their resolve to stop hiding and come out of the closet. The act of violence, said Corrine Stenman, has reminded her that life is not certain, and she no longer wants to allow fear to rule her decisions. They spoke of hope for a brighter future one not marred by hate and violence as they joined together and sang Stand by Me and Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Miller and Zralli also stressed the need to create additional local safe spaces in order to make Lynchburg a more welcoming area for the LGBT community. A lot of it is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us and saying Your rights are valid, just like my rights are valid, Zralii said. It doesnt matter the color of your skin, your sexual orientation, your gender orientation. Basic human rights are basic human rights. The drug that killed Prince in April caused more deaths in Virginia last year than any other prescription painkiller. Fentanyl, a prescription opioid that is up to 100 times stronger than morphine, has become a black-market drug rivaling heroin in the U.S., now that cartels have discovered how to make it in labs in Mexico and South America. The amount of legal fentanyl prescribed in Virginia rose only 10 percent from 2007 to 2014. But the annual death toll in Virginia thanks in large part to the illegally produced version of the drug nearly tripled in that time frame, from 48 to 134. And last year, fentanyl was linked to an estimated 221 deaths in the state, more than any other opiate-based substance aside from heroin. What were hearing now is a lot of people who use heroin are being sold heroin, and its actually fentanyl or heroin mixed with fentanyl. Thats whats leading to a really quick overdose, said Rosie Hobron, a forensic epidemiologist with the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner who tabulates and studies fatal overdoses across the state. Weve really kind of nailed down on the prescription monitoring program and really tried to limit the doctors on how much they prescribe and who they prescribe to. Now were in the illicit drugs, and theyre harder to track. ... Adding fentanyl into the mix is even more scary, because even the smallest amounts can kill people. It still is not clear how Prince obtained the drug. Authorities this month revealed that fentanyl caused the entertainers April 21 death. Doctors typically prescribe fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that usually comes in a slow-release patch to be placed on the skin, for cancer patients and those in extreme pain. Addicts have learned how to take apart the patch and isolate the drug to snort or inject. But with the cartels now manufacturing it and smuggling it through the same networks they use for the heroin trade, its showing up alongside other drugs in a growing number of overdoses. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration last year issued a nationwide alert about the increased danger posed by fentanyl. The agency noted that an outbreak of fentanyl overdoses from 2005 to 2007 was linked to a single lab in Mexico. In some states, fentanyl has overtaken even heroins death toll. 2015 would be the big shift where we saw more of an increase in the fentanyl as related to overdose deaths, said James Hutchings, Virginias toxicology program manager. Illicit fentanyl is the latest step in an epidemic that began with a rise in painkiller prescriptions during the past two decades. Attempts to clamp down on the pills opened a new market for heroin. Fentanyl is easier to produce and up to 50 times stronger than heroin, meaning cartels can make more money by shifting to fentanyl. Police in narcotics divisions often are reminded to be extremely careful around drug crime scenes now, because even a few drops of fentanyl on the skin can be deadly. Chesterfield County saw a spike in overdoses in February that state lab tests have confirmed were caused by a mixture of heroin and fentanyl. Also in February, a death in Richmonds jail was attributed to a mixture of heroin and fentanyl. Theyre getting such a high and toxic product that it kills. The amount of dose you could fit on a pinhead of fentanyl could kill you, said Lt. Jim Profita, commander of the vice and narcotics unit for Chesterfield police. Its every bit as concerning as heroin is. If youre looking at something thats 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times more powerful than morphine, it truly may surpass heroin. Adding to the degree of difficulty in stopping fentanyl overdoses is the common refrain from addicts that they seek out dealers when they hear a product has killed someone, because they assume its a strong batch of heroin. Honesty Liller, CEO of the McShin Foundation, an addiction recovery organization, said she does not hear addicts talking specifically about wanting to take fentanyl. More often, theyre looking for heroin, she said. But in the past two months, the urine screens they require of their clients have shown a huge increase in fentanyl use, further suggesting that the drug often is laced with heroin. In many overdoses, a mix of potentially toxic drugs can make it difficult to determine whether a death was caused by fentanyl, heroin or a combination of them with other substances. Richmond police Capt. Michael Zohab, who is leading the departments push to offer same-day treatment referrals to addicts, said the rise of another deadly opioid makes him worry for the addicts today who often do not know where to turn for help. Every day, Im getting closer to a plan, but today, this minute, we do not have a plan for the majority of people in this state getting opiates, Zohab said. And it worries me that our southern border is so porous that were being inundated with it. Its coming through the border, and ... its the same people that are putting the heroin out who are managing the labs. Its organized. Who is Cassie Lang - the comic history of the new Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania teen hero Cassie Lang is the daughter of Ant-Man - but she's got a superhero legacy all her own as both Stature and Stinger TATT warns: Cease from operating without licences The authority instructed that all persons who continue to operate a public telecommunications network or broadcasting service, contrary to the provisions of the Telecommunications Act Chap. 47:31 are hereby required to immediately cease and desist, failing which the Authority will be constrained to take any and all steps available to it to compel them to so do, it warned. Although TATT does not name any particular entity, it refers to a statement it made in February with regards to the financial obligations of those operating broadcast licenses. In February, WIN Communications had been identified as having run into problems with TATT for failing to meet its financial obligations. The TATT statement stops short of saying that it is now moving to shut the station down. In its statement published as a newspaper advertisement, the Authority advised of its duties as mandated under the Telecommunications Act, Chapter 47:31, Among its mandates are to regulate the use of the spectrum in order to promote the economic and orderly utilisation of frequencies for the operation of all means of telecommunications and to recover the cost incurred in the management of the spectrum as well as make recommendations to the Minister on the granting of concessions and licences and monitor and ensure compliance with the conditions set out and collect all fees, including concession and licence fees, and any other charges levied under the Act. It reminded that in February, it issued a public notice advising all Free-to-Air (FTA) Radio and Television broadcasters that failure to meet the requirement of settling their arrears due to the Authority prior to the expiry of the concessions and licences would result in the broadcasting service no longer being authorised for transmission. The Authority has exercised considerable forbearance and exhausted all avenues in its attempt to bring certain entities into compliance with the Act and in particular to recover from these entities the concession and license fees which have accrued and have now fallen into significant arrears, the statement said. The Authority acknowledges the social, cultural and other contributions these entities would have made by virtue of their programming. This notwithstanding, the Authority has a statutory duty to manage the utilisation of the spectrum fairly and equitably and ensure that there is parity and balance in the manner in which it treats with all of its stakeholders. The Authority is also unable to forbear where there is a continuing breach by persons who are unable to meet the financial and technical obligations in relation to their services, the statement added. WIN Caribbean Ltd unsuccessfully pursued an injunction against TATT in February over $5 million in outstanding licensing fees. The media house sought a a temporary extension of its licence whilst it challenged TATTs decision not to renew it until the arrears, owed since 2011, were cleared. Despite losing its application and failing to pay the outstanding fees to TATT, the media house continued to operate. Rio Claro Vedic Primary reopens today, Garcia The reopening was agreed to on Friday at a meeting between parents, the board - the Arya Pratinidhi Sabha board, and the Director of School Supervision in the Ministry of Education. In addition, Education Minister Anthony Garcia told Newsday that he spoke with the chairman of the board yesterday morning and the board has agreed to meet with him on Wednesday at 10.00 am at the Ministry of Education, Port-of-Spain. Mr Boodhan, the chairman, he said, has assured me that classes will resume. The school was ordered close by the board on June 6 based on alleged issues of with some senior staff including an incident involving the desecration of Vedic religious texts. At Wednesdays meeting, Garcia said, they will seek to resolve as quickly as possible the challenges facing the school in addition to find a resolution to the issue involving some senior staffers with whom the board does not find favour. While the issue of the desecration of the religious texts were not discussed between Garcia and Boodhan, Garcia said, he expects it will be discussed on Wednesday. The board has claimed that certain administrative problems in the school began when three senior teachers joined the school two years ago. The board also claimed that the ministry failed to address the issues. Garcia noted that the issue involving the teachers was referred to the Teaching Service Commission, but the board was concerned that a long time has elapsed and no progress has been made. ut parents are demanding the Ministry of Education -intervene and reopen the school immediately. Since the school was closed, a number of angry parents, protested the closure and called for the ministrys intervention. They were concerned about the fact that pupils were scheduled to write end of year examinations that lead to promotion, in less than less than two weeks. Good Samaritans Help Mom with Medication Newsday spoke to the good samaritans on Friday, who preferred to remain anonymous. One of them said that he decided to render assistance when he saw Aarons picture in the newspaper, He looked like a very happy young man, I try to help people whenever I can and even though the medication is costly I will try to help however I can. The other benefactor, a practicing Muslim, said that he first learnt of the story from a close relative who read the article and despite not knowing Narine or her son personally, he felt compelled to render assistance because of his faith. Human beings are like that, when we see someone in distress we feel the need to help one another, in fact one of the fundamental principles in Islam is to try and assist others in distress, not for publicity or attention but for the pleasure of the Creator. We decided to do something to help especially in this month of Ramadan when we do good things for others, we receive more blessings in return. Newsday contacted Narine yesterday, for her thoughts on the assistance and said that while she appreciates the assistance extended to her from private benefactors, she expected a response from the authorities, in helping her obtain the medication, adding that she not only spoke on behalf of her son, but also for other ailing persons, who have had diffiuclties obtaining much-needed medication. Ive spoken to both of them (benefactors) and weve exchanged information, they have offered to buy the medication for me, since I refuse to take cash. Im very grateful for their kindness, but I was expecting more of a response from the hospital and the authorities in this matter, because I am not just speaking for my son, I am speaking for all persons without medication. Panel: Downturn needs a new mind-set His was one of several calls made for citizens to adopt better mindsets at a panel discussion hosted by the TTMA, Energy Chamber and University of the West Indies (UWI) at UWIs St Augustine Campus on Thursday night. Other panelists were economists Dr Patrick Watson and Dr Roger Hosein, journalist Anthony Wilson and TT Energy Chamber director, Blair Ferguson. Replying to a member of the publics advocacy of volunteer work, Farrah replied, Volunteerism may have a use, but if we just get people to do a full days work, that will help the economy. Earlier he hoped Tobago could increase its tourism product (to earn foreign exchange), yet also said that a cultural change is needed across TT for outlets such as restaurants and fast-food places to be friendlier towards customers. He said other Caribbean islanders are friendlier to their customers than are TT nationals, but the latter are ironically pleasant to each other in their casual everyday interactions. Hosein also urged better mindsets by saying the State must dissuade any gimme, gimme attitude among the population, but instead open up the countrys economic space to new opportunities in entrepreneurship such as was advocated in the former governments Growth Poles proposal. Panelists urged TT to look to fresh opportunities in the energy sectors of nearby Venezuela and Guyana. Ferguson saw opportunities in Exon Mobils recent finds in Guyana, saying this could be serviced by TT expertise in oil/gas, port facilities and catering. He also thought that if Venezuelan gas is to be piped into TT, that can create a new economic boom here. One member of the public, Deo Gosine, said Venezuelas oil reserves are 600 billion barrels of oil and exceed those of Saudi Arabia. With our getting closer to Venezuela, it is going to open up a wonderful opportunity to us. While oil-prices have recently slightly rebounded to US$50, the panel welcomed this but slightly disagreed what to do with it, with one panellist saying it affords us wriggle room but another saying it should be factored into TTs budget deficit. While much talk centred on diversification away from oil/gas, Watson quipped, If oil shoots up to US$120 per barrel tomorrow, talk done!. The panel asked how sustainable are State subsidies, now said to be $30 billion out of the $60 billion Budget? In the question session, software developer, Irwin Williams, said TT nationals are creating great products in software but face difficulties getting to market. Farrah encouraged him saying, You are making something from nothing. Software is something that we can make here. However another member of the public said local IT developers of apps face a steep cost to pay to access foreign data. Derek Cornwall lamented, It is difficult to do transactions. You cant even open an account overseas and charge people money. Artists Coalition head, Rubadiri Victor, urged more help to build TTs creative sector, which he said could easily grow from a current size of $1.5 billion up to $6 billion. He said this global industry its worth is $2.2 trillion. The panel mulled whether a devaluation of the TT dollar could help TTs exporters of goods and services, and to curb imports. Hosein, on the latter, said devaluation alone is not enough, but using the example of local consumption of provisions, said any switch from imports must also be supported by a shifting of persons from the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) to the agriculture sector. Recall of Sleep Apnea Device Is Not Going Well We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Beirut: A fighter from the Islamic State group carried out todays mass shooting inside a gay club in Orlando, Florida, an IS-linked media report said, quoting an unidentified source. The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and that left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter, it said in a terse statement quoting a source. Amaq, the IS-linked news agency, gave no further details. US media reported that the gunmanwidely identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent -- had pledged allegiance to the jihadist group IS. Fifty people were killed, in addition to the shooter, and 53 wounded in the worst mass shooting in US history, the mayor of Orlando Buddy Dyer said earlier today. US officials were probing whether the suspect had radical Islamic leanings. US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings as an act of terrorism. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Bhopal: The censor board has cleared the controversial drug-themed Bollywood film Udta Punjab with 13 cuts under the A category, its chairman Pahlaj Nihalani said today. We have today cleared Udta Punjab under A (restricted for adult audience) category after 13 cuts, Nihalani told reporters on the sidelines of a function. Nihalani, who was in the eye of the storm over suggesting a very large number of cuts, said nine members of the Central Board of Film Certification watched the film and unanimously cleared it after the proposed 13 cuts. The CBFCs job is now over. It is now up to the producer to go to the court or tribunal. We will implement the order, Nihalani said. The Abhishek Chaubey-directed film is tentatively scheduled for release on June 17. The CBFCs revising committee had suggested a number of changes in the movie, which stars Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor-Khan and Diljit Dosanjh, and deals with the problem of drug addiction among youth in Punjab. Meanwhile, responding to a query, Nihalani, who has been criticised by the film fraternity for his dictatorial attitude said, those call me cheap are themselves ghatia (lowly). Nihalani clarified that he never called himself as chamcha (sycophant) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There is nothing wrong in admiring the Prime Minister. I never said (I am) a chamcha, he said. The makers of the movie, Phantom Films had approached the Bombay High Court against an order of the revising committee of CBFC that suggested certain changes in the film. A string of changes proposed included removing a signboard mentioning Punjab and other suggestions. The HC had on Friday said that the makers of Udta Punjab should tone down expletives and vulgar scenes as these alone cannot make a film work. A division bench had concluded hearing arguments on the petition and is expected to pass order in the case tomorrow. In Punjab which is set for assembly polls next year, the opposition parties had accused the ruling SAD-BJP of using influence to censor Udta Punjab. However, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said the government had nothing to do with the movie and that the matter was between the producers and the Censor Board. Badals rival and Punjab Congress Chief Amarinder Singh said he has written to producers of Udta Punjab, requesting them to provide him uncensored CDs of the film to release it in Amritsar on June 17. Films co-producer Anurag Kashyap got support of BSP supremo Mayawati who said there was nothing wrong with Udta Punjab and that the party supported it. The I&B ministry had sought to distance itself from the controversy, saying the certification process was independent. I&B minister Arun Jaitley had, however, said radical changes in the certification process were in the offing. The ministry had earlier formed a committee under filmmaker Shyam Benegal to look at the functioning of the censor board. The panel has already submitted the first part of its report. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav today appeared before a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) special court in Ranchi, Jharkhand in connection with the fodder scam case. There are a total of 48 accused in the case and most of them were evading personal appearance. It is a 1,000 crore rupees by the Animal Husbandry department from various districts when Lalu was the Bihar chief minister from 1990 to 1997. Earlier, on October 3, 2013, Lalu was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in another case of fodder scam by a special CBI court, which had disqualified him from membership of Parliament and also rendered him ineligible for contesting elections for 11 years. Besides Lalu, six other politicians and four retired IAS officers were also sentenced to prison terms for fraudulent withdrawal of Rs 37.7 crore from Chaibasa treasury (now in Jharkhand) when Lalu was heading the Janta Dal government in the early 1990s in erstwhile Bihar. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: According to a new study, fossils resembling miniaturised popcorn that date back millions of years provide the first statistical evidence that number of species on Earth depends on how the environment changes. Research conducted at University of Southampton in UK shows that environmental changes put a cap on species richness. This was based on analysing the fossil record of microscopic aquatic creatures called planktonic foraminifera. While the idea of infinite species on a finite Earth is clearly fanciful, the relevance of upper limits to diversity is still a fractious debate amongst evolutionary biologists, ecologists and palaeontologists, said Thomas Ezard, from the University of Southampton. We are the first to show statistically that this upper limit is environmentally dependent, Ezard said. However, previous researches have focused on either biological, climate change or geological explanations, this new research examined the co-dependence of these factors on how species interact. The outcome of the research showed that the world is full of species, but that the precise fullness varies through time as environment changes. The study was published in the journal Ecology Letters. For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A MiG-27 fighter jet of Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in Jodhpur on Monday morning. According to reports, two pilots flying the MiG-27 aircraft ejected safely. The pilot was on a routine training mission. He had reported a technical problem and sought priority landing. But a house was damaged in the crash. IAF has ordered a court on inquiry into the crash. These MiGs are already in their phasing out stage as they were bought from Russia in the 1960s and 70s. Since then they have undergone several upgradations during their tenure with IAF. Mathura: UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav today said the judicial inquiry into the Mathura incident will look into all aspects of violence that broke out during the anti-encroachment drive early this month and assured the families of the two slain police officers of all help. I hope the judicial inquiry will look into all aspects of the incident...Whatever the Government can do (for the families of the slain cops), it will do. We will fully cooperate with their families, he told reporters after meeting the families of the policemen killed in the incident in Mathura on June 2. Yadav urged the political parties not to politicise the issue, saying, We dont politicise it when such incidents happened in their states. Action will be taken for any lapses which are found during the judicial inquiry, the UP Chief Minister said. It is unfortunate that such an incident happened in Mathura, he added. Twenty-nine people including City Superintendent of Police Mukul Dwivedi Dwivedi and Farah police station officer, Santosh Yadav were killed in clashes during a drive to evict illegal occupants of Jawahar Bagh in Mathura by activists, believed to be of Azad Bharat Vidhik Vaicharik on June 2. The UP government has already announced a compensation of Rs 50 lakh each to the kin of two slain police officers. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Baghdad: A suicide attack carried out by Islamic State group fighters killed at least five members of the Iraqi security forces today in the city of Ramadi, army officers said. The Iraqi army earlier this year regained control of Ramadi, the capital of the countrys vast Anbar province, and in recent weeks has been battling to retake Fallujah, another city in the province, from IS jihadists. Major General Ismail al-Mahalawi said the IS attack targeted an army base in Ramadi with several explosives-laden vehicles driven by suicide bombers and gunmen who fired on soldiers. Our forces killed all the attackers and destroyed all the car bombs but there were a number of killed and wounded among army ranks, said Mahalawi, who heads the operations command for Anbar province. Two senior Iraqi army officers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said five soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in the attack. The attack highlighted ISs continued ability to stage deadly operations in areas where it lost control of territory, as the government seeks to bring local populations back and start rebuilding. Fallujah, which lies about half way between Baghdad and Ramadi, 50 kilometres west of the Iraqi capital, is ISs last major bastion in Anbar. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Accra: President Pranab Mukherjee today condemned the worst mass shooting incident in the US that killed 50 people and said India condemns terror in all its forms and manifestations while calling for immediate collective action to check the scourge of terrorism. In a condolence message to President Barack Obama, Mukherjee, who is here in Ghanaian capital on the first-leg of his six-day visit to three African nations, said the attack was yet another grim reminder that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them. I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the deadly attack against innocent civilians in Orlando earlier today. I offer my deepest sympathies to all those who have been affected by this terrible tragedy. India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence, he said in his message. The people of India stand by the people of the United States of America in their moment of grief and mourning. We pray for the families that have lost loved ones and for the swift recovery of the injured, the President said. Mukherjee is on the six-day visit to Ghana, Ivory Coast and Namibia, beginning yesterday. At least 50 people were killed and 53 were injured in a massacre at a gay nightclub in the US yesterday. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Jammu: A terrorist was today killed after a CRPF camp came under attack on Jammu-Srinagar national highwayin Kud area of Udhampur district, police said. The camp, located about 170 kms from here, came under attack from militants, believed to be more than one in number, who were travelling in a State Road Transport Corporation bus which was stopped for checking by a joint party of CRPF and J&K police. One militant has been eliminated even though the search operation is on, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Jammu Zone, Danish Rana told PTI. The search operation is still on and the traffic has been stopped at J&K national highway for the safety of passengers by security forces. We think only one militant was involved in the attack, he said, adding if a second militant is also involved in the attack, he too would be eliminated shortly. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Jammu: Apprehending militant attacks on vital defence installations across Jammu region through air route, the government today imposed restrictions on several air-borne activities including paragliding in the region. The defence establishments had certain inputs that militants might try to use sub-conventional tactics to target Indian Air Force, Army or police installations in Jammu region. Hence we have imposed restrictions on several air-borne activities, Deputy Commissioner of Jammu, Simrandeep Singh told PTI. He said the restrictions do not amount to a complete ban on such activities but any individual or recreational club that wants to carry out such activity should get permission from the district administration. Singh also said there would be no private air-borne activities like parajumping, paragliding and launching of any hot air balloon within the radius of one km of any security or defence installations in the district. In the past we have seen militants using sub-conventional ways to launch attack across the country. They used sea route in Mumbai attack, they jumped the wall during Pathankot attack and now we are apprehensive that they might resort to the use of air route to launch attacks, Singh said. He said all the private companies running such activities have been asked to get themselves registered with the district administration before carrying out any such activity. We need to know what type of equipment they (private operators) have and when and how they intend to use it, he said. The step is also of greater significance given the inputs that terrorist outfits across the border might try to launch attacks on the upcoming Amarnath pilgrimage which starts from July 2. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Mumbai: Admonishing the censor board for acting like a grandmother, the Bombay High Court today ordered it to certify movie Udta Punjab within 48 hours with just one cut instead of 13 suggested by the CBFC so its producers can release it on schedule on June 17. Barring the deletion of the urination scene as directed by the board and modification of the disclaimer, the June 6 order passed by the CBFCs revising committee directing for a total of 13 changes in the movie is quashed and set aside, the court said, clearing the decks for the release of the drug-themed film whose makers were locked in a dispute with the censor board. In a strongly worded order, the bench comprising Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi said,Do not act like a grandmother. Change as per the times now. The CBFC need not be over-sensitive in the matter of art. Making a strong pitch against curbing creativity, the court said,The CBFC cannot stop creative people abruptly as it may discourage them. This will kill creativity. These days filmmakers are brutal, direct and straightforward. One need not treat them harshly just because of this. It also raised questions about Central Board of Film Certifications powers to censor movies as the word censor did not figure in the Cinematograph Act and said if cuts had to be made, those should be in consonance with the Constitution and directions of the Supreme Court. Censor in common parlance means to certify a movie. Therefore, if by law the board is empowered to make changes, cuts, or deletions, this power of the CBFC must be consistently in consonance with the provisions of the Constitution and the Supreme Court directions, Justice Dharmadhikari said. The court was hearing a petition filed by filmmaker Anurag Kashyaps Phantom Films challenging the CBFC order. The CBFCs direction for multiple cuts in the film had triggered a political storm with Congress and AAP accusing the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab, which is going to polls next year, of using their influence to get it censored. The charge was denied by Punjabs ruling alliance. The makers of Udta Punjab, who had moved the Bombay High Court against CBFCs demand for cuts, hailed the verdict, calling it a landmark judgement and victory for the entire film industry. The hard work of the lawyers has paid off. I am terribly pleased with the verdict. I hope films will be viewed in context and there wont be a blanket on cinema, Abhishek Chaubey told reporters here, outside the high court. The CBFC had initially ordered as many as 89 cuts which was subsequently brought down to 13 by its revising committee. The court turned down the plea of CBFC counsel Advait Sethna to stay its order to enable them move the Supreme Court against it. The court asked the film producers to put out a revised disclaimer deleting reference to Pakistan. They will also have to make additions to the disclaimer to the effect that the movie, its characters and the filmmakers do not promote the use of drugs and abusive language, and that the film is only an attempt to depict the reality of drug abuse. On cutting out the urination scene, Justice Dharmadhikari said, The CBFC is justified in directing deletion of the scene as the shot was unnecessary given the backdrop and the theme of the movie. Instead of this particular scene, the filmmaker could have taken recourse to other methods to depict the same. The court noted that it has read the films script and did not find anything in it that showed Punjab in a bad light or affected the sovereignty, integrity or security of India. It is undisputed that the CBFC possesses powers to call for cuts, changes, deletions in a movie while certifying it. These powers come into play if the film affects the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, foreign relations, public order, and or is likely to incite commission of an offence. There is a heavy burden on the authority to show that the restrictions imposed are reasonable, the bench observed. In the present case, the CBFC-imposed restrictions were not correct. The movie has to be seen as a whole and it was not permissible to take the characters, scenes and songs in isolation and out of context, the judges said. It is open for a creative person to select the background, setting and accordingly weave the story. It is entirely on the creative person to choose the setting, pattern, underlying theme and storyline. Creative freedom allows use of certain words as per the choice of the filmmaker. Nobody can dictate to him as to how the movie should be made or its content, the court said. The bench said it was in agreement with the petitioners that there was an increasing menace of drug abuse amongst the youth in Punjab. The film is meant for adult viewing. If a maker chooses this way of depicting the movie and a subject, then it is not for anybody to restrict it. Like the CBFC, even we would be happy if better words were coined and used by the filmmaker, the judges said. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi : India may impose anti-dumping duty of up to USD 168.76 per tonne on imports of a chemical, mainly used in textile and packaging industry, from five countries including China and Iran to protect domestic players. MCC PTA India Corp and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had jointly filed an application seeking anti-dumping investigations. In its final findings, the Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties (DGAD), under the ministry, has found that Purified Terephthalic Acid has been exported to India from China, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan below its normal value which has resulted in dumping. The DGAD said that it considers it necessary to impose the duty on the imports. The authority recommends imposition of anti-dumping duty...so as to remove the injury to the domestic industry, it said in a notification. It has recommended an anti-dumping duty in the range of USD 83.08 per tonne to USD 168.76 per tonne on the imports. While DGAD recommends the duty, the Finance Ministry imposes it. Countries initiate anti-dumping probes to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by a surge in below-cost imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multi-lateral WTO regime. Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry. They are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Mumbai: The makers of Udta Punjab and Bollywood celebrities today hailed the Bombay High Courts verdict setting aside the cuts suggested by CBFC, calling the judgement a victory for the entire film industry. Anurag Kashyap, one of the co-producers of Udta Punjab, has thanked the High Court for giving its verdict in the favour of the movie. The 43-year-old Bombay Velvet helmer, who was vocal in his criticism against censor board chief Pahlaj Nihalani, also thanked his fans for supporting the team. Thank you To the honourable Judge, thank you all for the faith and support.. Time to get back to work.. Two back to back releases, Kashyap tweeted. Films director Abhishek Chaubey said, The hard work of the lawyers has paid. I am terribly pleased with the verdict. I hope films will be viewed in context and there wont be a blanket on cinema. Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal, who is heading a committee for revamp of the censor board, welcomed the ruling. I think this is a very mature verdict. Its a good verdict. It shows that the court has taken note of the seriousness of the subject as well as the ability of the film to address the subject. Running a disclaimer and cutting out a scene are not a problem for the makers, Benegal said. The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had earlier sought 89 cuts in Shahid Kapoor-starrer Udta Punjab. The HC today cleared the release of Udta Punjab, but directed the filmmaker to delete a urination scene from the movie, and also asked for a revised disclaimer. The court said it did not find anything in the films script that shows the state in bad light or affects the sovereignty or integrity of India as it was claimed by CBFC. It also said that CBFC is not empowered by law to censor films, as the word censor is not included in the Cinematograph Act. "A judgement for the whole film industry not just us, its awesome, said co-producer Madhu Mantena Verma. Actor Shahid Kapoor, who plays a drug-addict rapper in the film, called it a landmark judgement. Meanwhile, CBFCs CEO Anurag Shrivastav said, We acknowledge the verdict of the Bombay High Court. We work as per the guidelines. We work in difficult conditions and try to be honest with a film. The film, based on the drug problem in Punjab, has been in news since an examining committee, headed by CBFC chairperson Pahlaj Nihalani, asked the makers to edit close to 30 minutes of the movie citing the use of cuss words. The makers decided to challenge the examining committees decision and approached the revising committee. The revising committee then asked the filmmakers to effect 89 cuts, including the removal of word Punjab from the film. The NDA-ruled Punjab, incidentally, goes to polls next year. For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Paris: Tributes poured in from across the world today for the victims of the Orlando massacre, with global landmarks swathed in rainbow colours as people rallied behind the stricken gay community. In the outpouring of solidarity similar to that seen after the Paris and Brussels attacks, political and religious leaders lined up to condemn the worst mass shooting in US history and to reject homophobia. US President Barack Obama condemned the shootings in the Florida city as an act of terror and an act of hate and ordered flags at half-staff. Pope Francis voiced shock at the homicidal folly and senseless hatred of slain gunman Omar Mateen, who gunned down 49 people at a gay nightclub in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. Joining the chorus of tributes, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that the Eiffel Tower would be lit up Monday night in the colours of the rainbow in memory of the victims. Paris is with Orlando, the mayor of the French capital, which is still recovering from the November jihadist attacks in which 130 people were killed, tweeted along with a rainbow-coloured heart. On Sunday, the spire of One World Trade Center in New York was already dyed red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, as was a sign in giant letters spelling Toronto in a square in the Canadian city. This is pride. Toronto stands in solidarity with the LGBTQ community around the world, Toronto Mayor John Tory tweeted. Social media were flooded with messages condemning the attack using anti-homophobia hashtags #loveislove or #lovewins. Some posted images of a black ribbon or a ribbon combining the US and rainbow flag colours. Following the latest in a string of mass gun killings in the United States that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in the past two years, Obama said the FBI was appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. Although its still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate, he said. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said tolerance must prevail. Although such deadly attacks cause profound sadness in us, we are resolved to continue with our open and tolerant lifestyle, she told German television on the sidelines of a visit to China. While most leaders avoided polemical statements, the foreign minister of Lithuania, Linas Linkevicius, tweeted that the attack posed a challenge for us all & #Muslims of the world. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Washington: Republican presidential presumptive nominee Donald Trump today called for vigilance on Muslims and mosques in the US, a day after an Afghan-origin gunman killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in the deadliest shooting in American history. We need much better intelligence gathering information. We need intelligence gathering centers, because the people in the communities where these people are, they know theres something off. They know theres something going on, he said. We need intelligence gathering. We have to look at the mosques. We have to look at the community. And believe me, the community knows the people that have potential for blow up, said Trump, who has been criticised for advocating a ban on Muslim immigrants. Citing the example of last years San Bernardino shooter, Trump said there were bombs all over his apartment floor. Youre going to find that with this mad man (Orlando shooter). People in the area, the people in the neighborhood, they know theres something off with him, and they dont report them to the police, he told CNN. This is much different, than when we fight a war with Germany or with Japan, and they have uniforms, Trump said. Its an enemy without a uniform, George. Its very dangerous. Were fighting an enemy without a uniform, Trump told ABC. In response to a question, Trump told the CNN that this is going to be pure intelligence gathering, and people... Muslims, where they are, they have to report these people. Otherwise its going to be a bigger, bigger problem. Defending his view on right to carry fire arm, Trump said things could have been different if there were other people in the club carrying guns. If you had some guns in that club the night that this took place, if you had guns on the other side, you wouldnt have had the tragedy that you had, he said. If people in that room had guns with the bullets flying in the opposite direction right at him... right at his head, you wouldnt have had the same tragedy that you ended up having. And nobody even knows how bad that tragedy is, because I think probably the numbers will get bigger and bigger and worse and worse. I hear the injured are so gravely injured, he asserted. Pushing for increased surveillance, he said this is the case of intelligence gathering, information. Many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job, he something like this would have happened. I already hear it starting to happen of people that knew him, the ex-wife and other people, he said. They dont report them. For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this. So, we do have two different standards. We have people that live here and have become radicalized and have been radicalized, he said. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate MILFORD When Superstorm Sandy struck this city with a vengeance, it damaged 850 homes and left entire neighborhoods buried in sand and debris. Nearly four years later, city officials are still trying to dig out from a lingering tempest that threatens to swamp them paperwork. Charges of inadequate record-keeping and building permits granted in violation of federal regulations raised questions at the state level about local officials qualifications to oversee Milfords reconstruction, a Hearst Connecticut Media investigation has learned. For the second year in a row, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is back in the city following up on the administrative headache that prompted the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to complain that Mayor Benjamin Blakes administration was not up to the job. At the same time, an FBI public corruption task force has been nosing around city offices, seizing documents, interviewing staffers and worrying residents who have already invested untold thousands of dollars rebuilding homes. Its a nightmare, said Goren Paola, who lives near the water on Platt Street and started a Facebook page, Milford Connecticut Storm Victims Unite. No one in the city is really telling us anything. You dont feel very confident in what they do and do not do. More Information Storm's cost Milford houses damaged in Superstorm Sandy, October 2012 Sandy loss$27,643,595.12 Properties surveyed876 Some damage846 More than 45%186 More than 50%147 Have you had any Superstorm Sandy issues? Email reporter Ken Dixon at kdixon@ctpost.com See More Collapse The bureaucratic mess threatened to make life tougher for a community that has already been hit hard, jeopardizing residents eligibility for federally subsidized flood insurance, or significantly raising their rates. Blake said the criticisms were old news and the DEEP has since called the city a good partner. The heart of the conflict between the city and the DEEP was five properties among the 4,000 in Milfords floodplain that the state said were mishandled by Blakes administration. Two beach-areas homes with storm damage assessments that were initially made by FEMA and then radically altered by Joseph D. Griffith, the citys director of permitting and land use, raised questions, DEEP records reviewed under the state Freedom of Information Act show. In three other cases, the citys approval of construction that violated federal building and flood-control requirements received close scrutiny. Big discrepancies A bungalow on flood-prone Caroline Street off East Broadway was deemed almost completely destroyed. In an assessment report soon after the Oct. 29, 2012, storm, a team of FEMA officials checked the damage to the bungalows foundations, floors and windows, and judged it to have $76,000 worth of damage and the building was rated to be 86 percent destroyed. In June 2014, Griffith prepared the citys assessment of the same bungalow, but his report said the damage was far less. He listed it as having sustained only $16,466 in damages and estimated it to be only 19 percent wrecked. Accordingly, Griffith wrote, elevation of the structure was not required. There is no explanation for the discrepancy, which raised suspicions in DEEP following a whistle-blower complaint. Under FEMA rules, houses damaged 50 percent or more must be lifted up to as high as 15 feet, depending on the elevation of the property above Long Island Sound. Jacking up homes onto concrete piers can cost property owners from $80,000 to $150,000, with federal reimbursement covering only up to about $30,000. There is a potentially charged situation unfolding in Milford having to do with FEMA, DEEP staff wrote in an email to Commissioner Robert Klee in July 2014. John Coppola, who bought the Caroline Street property in a May 2014 foreclosure sale, but wasnt allowed to move in until recently, said last week that FEMAs initial report mischaracterized the damage, possibly confusing the structure with others on the short dead-end street, where six of seven houses were damaged more than 50 percent by Superstorm Sandy. The previous owner of the house had been paid $47,771 in flood insurance claims, according to the DEEP records. In another instance, a property on nearby Gardner Avenue was assessed by FEMA as 55.6 percent destroyed, but the city decreased the damage to 19 percent, allowing that home also to be rebuilt without the expensive elevation. The state also scrutinized reconstruction work the city allowed on three properties a beachside house on Melba Street where a concrete berm was deemed illegal by the DEEP because it could obstruct the flow of a tidal surge; a waterfront house on East Broadway cited for issues with a rebuilt foundation; and the site of the former Pietra restaurant on the Boston Post Road, where a developer ignored the limits of his building permit and demolished more than half the existing structure. Blake said by January of this year, issues with each of the five contested properties had finally been cleared. With regard to these five properties, the first of which is commercial and the other four residential, the City has spent a great deal of time working with the respective owners as well as with state officials from DEEP to ensure they are fully-compliant with our zoning regulations, which reference and incorporate those of FEMA with regard to flood plain management, Blake wrote. Adversarial and hostile In a string of emails between the state and the city, Blake described the agency as adversarial and hostile, while state waterways officials pushed for the citys justification of the damage reassessments. Blake, a Democrat now in his third two-year term, took his complaints to Klee and even the governors office. Still, the bureaucratic conflict continued. The DEEP warned Griffith was under qualified to take over the citys National Flood Insurance Program following the July 2014 layoff of an assistant city planner whose duties included administrating the program. Later that summer, the DEEP emailed Griffith that It is clear that attention to program implementation and staff knowledge is lacking, evidenced by two potential violations that have been brought to this offices attention. At the same time, the agency warned the city was in danger of being suspended from the National Flood Insurance Program, meaning residents might be prohibited from either purchasing or renewing flood insurance policies, and that federal grants and loans could cease. By the fall of 2014, a DEEP inter-office email shows the states exasperation. For me, the point is the town needs to be doing a more thorough job in the permitting process with staff that knows what questions to ask, the email said. Blake said any tension between the city and state only shows hes an advocate for his constituents. As Mayor, my first responsibility is to those Milford residents who lost their homes to storms and to the taxpayers of our City, he wrote. In that role, Ive had spirited exchanges with many state agencies, including DEEP, advocating on behalf of our residents. That said, the Citys relationship with DEEP is solid. He also defended Griffith, a licensed architect who, Blake said, has had significant FEMA training in recovery, insurance administration, flood hazards and flood plain development. Seeking an intervention The argument continued and in July of 2015, DEEP requested FEMAs help. We have been unable to reach agreement with the city regarding correcting the issues and therefore recommend requesting FEMAs assistance in this matter, wrote Cheryl Chase, director of the DEEPs Inland Water Resources Division. Karl Anderson, natural hazards program specialist for FEMA Region I in Boston, said recently the agency is evaluating Milfords need for further technical assistance and coordination. In addition, the visits provide an opportunity for assessing the effectiveness of local floodplain management ordinances and enforcement practices, Anderson said. FEMA, in conjunction with the City of Milford, is currently in the process of researching information on various aspects of the citys floodplain management program as well as specific properties within the city. Dennis Schain, communications director for DEEP, said last week the agencys role is to act as the intermediary between federal agencies and local governments on flooding issues. That was exactly our role here to help make certain the city of Milford understood its obligations under various FEMA and federal disaster-relief programs and to encourage them to take all steps necessary to comply with requirements, Schain said. The mayor said he had not been interviewed by the FBI. Thomas Carson, spokesman for the Department of Justice, declined to comment on Friday, as did a spokesman for the FBIs New Haven office. Residents like William Ziebell, a retired union truck driver who only last week finally moved back to his primary residence on Silver Street, expressed disappointment in the citys assistance. Leaders know the dangers of micromanaging, and most try to avoid it. But even if theyre not micromanaged, employees may still feel they dont have a voice at the office, suggested a survey from Unify, of 9,000 workers in the United States, U.K. and Germany. In the study, released in March, 95 percent of respondents said that their ideal future workplace wouldnt be "controlling." Employees have managers for a reason, but handing over the reins and giving employees more control can make for happier, more engaged employees. Here are a few ways to do that: 1. Let employees choose what they want to be an expert in. Most development programs train employees to take on the next position along the company career path. The employer looks at its needs, and develops employees to fill them. While this kind of training and development is important and contributes to job satisfaction, it can also have a negative effect, by pigeonholing employees. Employees want more opportunities to develop their strengths and then use their skills in a meaningful way. This was reflected by a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey in November and December 2015. In that study, 55 percent of U.S. employees surveyed rated opportunities to use their skills and abilities at work as a very important contributor of job satisfaction. In addition, a 2015 survey from Michelle McQuaid and the Via Institute on Character found that employees perform better and are more engaged in their work when they and their managers focus on building their strengths, rather than improving their weaknesses. The takeaway: Instead of telling your employees which training they should complete, or what they should specialize in, allow them to determine their own career paths. Give them a say in what skills they want to develop and what training theyre interested in. Talk to employees about how they see their role evolving with the company, and choose related development opportunities. 2. Grant more to-do list autonomy. In a typical work day, employees are told what they need to achieve, when it needs to be done and how their work should be done. While deadlines are inevitable, giving employees the choice to take on tasks they want to do can improve their satisfaction and their performance. Giving employees this autonomy is motivating, an article published last December in the International Journal of Psychophysiology suggested. In the study, one group of employees was assigned a task and a second group was allowed to choose tasks of equal difficulty. The employees given a choice said they felt a greater sense of motivation to get the task done. The takeaway: Instead of telling employees what they have to work on, then, allow them, whenever possible, to take on responsibilities that relate to their goals. When projects have the same priority, let employees choose which one to tackle first. These decisions may seem small, but they can make a big difference in employee happiness and motivation. 3. Allow for more flexibility. Employees want not only more control of what they do but also a say in when and where they work. In fact, 30 percent of respondents to a 2015 FlexJobs survey said they would take a 10 percent, even 20 percent, cut in pay for flexible work options. Employees want a less formal work environment that allows them to work in whatever way is best for them -- 90 percent of those surveyed by Unify called an informal workplace ideal. The takeaway: Focus less on when employees work and what they get done. Give them control of their schedule and environment to make work more productive and enjoyable. 4. Give employees a voice. Employees are used to being reviewed and evaluated. They sit down with their managers in a formal review a few times a year and theyre told what they need to work on. Often, this is a one-way conversation, where supervisors discuss employee performance. Yet even if those employees are invited to join the conversation and offer feedback, the pressure of the review may make them feel uncomfortable about doing so. After all, just 45 percent of North American employees surveyed by Achievers in 2015 said they trusted company leadership. And, if employees dont trust their leaders, theyre unlikely to speak their minds, offer suggestions or bring up any problems. The takeaway: Instead of the traditional manager-led, formal review, give employees some control back by making reviews a two-way conversation. Forget the yearly review and adopt an ongoing feedback process that both leaders and employees contribute to. Tools like BlinkEval can make continuous feedback feasible on both ends. The platform allows users to submit real-time feedback to their peers for specific events and projects. That way, employees dont feel pressured by a formal review and have the space to share feedback with leadership. Related: Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved In the early days of ecommerce, building a site for your company was time consuming, cumbersome and expensive. But for the last several years, Daniel Weinand has been on a mission to help business owners more easily turn their vision into a reality. Weinand is the co-founder and chief design officer at Shopify, an Ottawa, Ontario-based ecommerce platform that makes software and solutions for small businesses, allowing them to run their own online stores at an affordable cost. The company started life with just one store. Co-founder and CEO Tobias Lutke wanted to start a high-end online snowboard retailer, but was frustrated with the platform choices at his disposal. Related: How Shopify Became the Go-To Ecommerce Platform for Startups In 2005, after shifting away from snowboards and focusing more on developing a framework to best support the sale of them -- and just about any other product -- Shopify as it is known today was officially launched. Today, more than 275,000 businesses located in more than 150 countries around the world live on the platform. The company now has more than 1,000 employees and has partnered with big names such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Uber. Shopify, which also went public last year, reported $72.7 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2016, up 95 percent from the same period last year. Related: BaubleBar Co-Founders Amy Jain and Daniella Yacobovsky on the Importance of Relying on Your Community We caught up with Weinand to talk about the importance of embracing failure as fuel for growth, staying confident in the face of regret, and why all entrepreneurs need to have an inner fire that always keeps them going. Q: Knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently when you first started out? A: Looking back, I realize that any bad or unlucky decision that Ive made that led to an undesired outcome has actually been an important catalyst for my growth and learning. I truly believe that we learn from our mistakes -- as long as were open to learning. With every failure I experienced, there was an opportunity to come out even stronger. So that being said, Im glad I didnt deny my past self the experience of all those failures. Related: Girls Who Code's Reshma Saujani: 'Everything I've Achieved Has Come From Perseverance' Q: What do you think would have happened had you known this back then? A: Hopefully, I wouldnt get too spooked about future me paying past me a visit and everything would have played out the same way it did. Q: How do you think young entrepreneurs might benefit from this lesson? A: Starting a business is hard and experiencing setbacks is inevitable. Sooner or later you will find yourself feeling regret over a decision, but it is important that you maintain the confidence that youve used all of the necessary tools and information at your disposal to have made the best decision at the time. Related: Houzz Co-Founder Adi Tatarko Tells Us Why Bootstrapping Was the Best Thing for the Company Q: What are you glad you didnt know then that you know now? A: Being an entrepreneur requires trusting your gut instincts and having faith that you will prevail. I never focused on the high failure rate of startups, especially ones where the founders have little to no startup experience. In a way, being oblivious to this reality allowed us to keep focused, and prioritize on building the best product possible. Q: What is your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? A: There are many words that describe the "inner fire" that an entrepreneur must have. Whether you call it passion, drive, grit or tenacity, it is a mandatory requirement that will help you stick with your new business and not give up prematurely. You only achieve this state of commitment by fully believing in your businesss mission. Interview was edited for length and clarity. Related: Shopify's Daniel Weinand: 'With Every Failure I Experienced, There Was an Opportunity to Come Out Even Stronger' BaubleBar Co-Founders Amy Jain and Daniella Yacobovsky on the Importance of Relying on Your Community Houzz Co-Founder Adi Tatarko Tells Us Why Bootstrapping Was the Best Thing for the Company Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved OTTAWA, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - With growth of 2.8 per cent this year, Ontario is among the few provinces expected to see economic growth much stronger than the national average, according to The Conference Board of Canada's Provincial Outlook: Spring 2016. "Unlike other provinces more dependent on natural resources, Ontario is benefiting from favourable terms of trade that improve the competitiveness of Canadian goods and services on international markets," said Marie-Christine Bernard, Associate Director, Provincial Forecasting. "The province is on much stronger ground, with job creation fuelling consumer demand and a pick up in exports helping to bolster economic growth." HIGHLIGHTS The province's real GDP is expected to increase by 2.8 per cent in 2016 and 2.6 per cent in 2017. Employment growth running at twice the pace of the national average is fuelling growth in the province. Consumer demand for durable and semi-durable goods will boost real household consumption by 3.2 per cent in 2016, but household savings will continue to slide this year. Only four provinces are expected to see real GDP growth above 2 per cent this year: British Columbia , Ontario , Manitoba , and Prince Edward Island . , , , and . The commodity price slump will continue to hurt the economies of Newfoundland and Labrador , Saskatchewan , and Alberta . The wildfires in northern Alberta will have a short-term economic impact but rebuilding efforts will lift real GDP in 2017. Ontario's exports have been advancing at a strong pace due to stellar U.S. demand for auto and auto parts. Real exports in Ontario are slated to increase 5.3 per cent in 2016. Even with the anticipated contraction in automotive sector trade as General Motors scales back production at its consolidated and flex plants in Oshawa, exports will continue to increase in 2017. However, business investment in non-residential structures, and machinery and equipment will advance at a modest pace over the next two years. While consumption in the services sector will remain strong, it is the pent-up consumer spending on durable and semi-durable goods that will cause real household consumption to grow 3.2 per cent this year. With a stronger economy and an ongoing fiscal plan to restrain spending, the Ontario government is on its way to balancing the books by 2017-18, seven years after it laid out the fiscal plan to do so. The Provincial Outlook: Spring 2016 is available via the Conference Board's e-Library. Follow The Conference Board of Canada on Twitter. For those interested in broadcast-quality interviews for your station, network, or online site, The Conference Board of Canada now has a studio capable of double-ender interviews (line fees apply), or we can send you pre-taped clips upon request. If you would like to be removed from our distribution list, please e-mail [email protected]. SOURCE Conference Board of Canada For further information: Yvonne Squires, Media Relations, The Conference Board of Canada, Tel.: 613- 526-3090 ext. 221, E-mail: [email protected]; or, Juline Ranger, Director of Communications, The Conference Board of Canada, Tel.: 613- 526-3090 ext. 431, E-mail: [email protected] OTTAWA, June 13, 2016 /CNW/ - The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the likely death of Robert Hall: "It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors. "While Canadian officials are working closely with authorities in the Philippines to formally confirm Mr. Hall's death, we have compelling reason to believe that reports to this effect are, unfortunately, true. "The vicious and brutal actions of the hostage-takers have led to a needless death. "Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder. "With the tragic loss of two Canadians, I want to reiterate that terrorist hostage-takings only fuel more violence and instability. Canada will not give into their fear mongering tactics and despicable attitude toward the suffering of others. "This is precisely why the Government of Canada will not and cannot pay ransoms for hostages to terrorists groups, as doing so would endanger the lives of more Canadians. "We are more committed than ever to working with the Government of the Philippines and international partners to pursue those responsible for these heinous acts and bring them to justice, however long it takes. "The Government's top priority, and my own as Prime Minister, is the safety and security of Canadian citizens. "On behalf of the Government of Canada and all Canadians, I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Hall. "They have suffered a terrible loss, and this is a devastating moment for them. Our thoughts are with them as they mourn this tragedy. I would ask that the media respect their privacy, and allow them time to come to terms with their loss. "Today marks yet another difficult day for Canada and for Canadians as we grieve as a nation for the loss of both John Ridsdel, who was killed on April 25, and Robert Hall." This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca SOURCE Prime Minister's Office For further information: PMO Media Relations: 613-957-5555 Members of the All Progressives Congress in the National Assembly from Kogi State, House of Assembly members, executive of the party in t... Members of the All Progressives Congress in the National Assembly from Kogi State, House of Assembly members, executive of the party in the state and prominent party leaders from the state, held a crucial meeting in Abuja on Monday and accused Governor Yahaya Bello of engaging in anti-party activities.They therefore set-up an 11 member Disciplinary Committee headed by Senator Dino Melaye, to review the various allegations leveled against the governor, and report back within seven days.The APC elected officers and party executive at the end of their meeting that lasted three hours, accused the governor, among others, of appointing card-carrying members of the Peoples Democratic Party in the state as commissioners, special advisers, and councils caretaker committee members.According to the resolution of the meeting, which was also attended by the APC Chairman in the state, Alhaji Haddy Ametuo, and read to journalists by Melaye after the meeting, Bello allegedly made all the appointments without carrying the party along.For instance, the Kogi APC leaders said, Out of the 15 Commissioners he (Bello) appointed, PDP has 13 card-carrying members while APC has two. Out of the 105 members of the Caretaker Committee members for the 21 Local Government Councils, PDP has 72 while APC has 33.They also said, Out of the 28 people he appointed as Special Advisers and Senior Special Assistants, PDP has 24, APC has one, APGA has one, Labour has one, Accord has one.The party said it acted based on the Article 12 (8) of the APC constitution, to convey the meeting and agreed to set up the committee made up of members from the three senatorial districts of the state to invite the governor, for necessary questioning.They said their action became imperative following an alleged decision of the governor to rebuff all attempts to hold a meeting with the State Working Committee of the party since he was sworn-in as governor.They also threatened necessary disciplinary actions against the governor in accordance with the party constitution, in case he chooses to disregard the party resolution.Part of the resolution reads, After much deliberations, the House noted that Governor Yahaya Bello, has substantially, breached the provision of Article 21of the constitution of the APC.The House, therefore resolved to constitute a disciplinary committee of 11 members to invite Governor Yahaya Bello and give him the desired fair hearingMembers of the disciplinary committees are, Senator Dino Melaye ( Chairman), Hon. S.T.Adejoh (Secretary), Senator Mohammed Ohiare, Senator Abubakar Abdulrahman, Senator Nicholas Ugbane, and Alhaji Haddy Ametuo, the APC Chairman in Kogi State. President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday condemned the Sundays terrorist attack on the Pulse Night Club, Orlando, Florida, describing it as... President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday condemned the Sundays terrorist attack on the Pulse Night Club, Orlando, Florida, describing it as criminal and cowardly.According to a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President who is currently on a 10-day vacation, conveyed Nigerias sympathy to President Barrack Obama and all Americans in a letter he addressed to the Ambassador of the United States in Nigeria, James Entwistle.The letter was signed on his behalf by his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.Buhari was said to have assured the US of Nigerias continued support and cooperation in the fight against terrorism.The letter read in part, President Buhari extends his most sincere condolences to the families, relatives and friends of the victims.The President condemns such criminal, cowardly attack, wherever it might occur, as an attack on all decent, democratic, peaceful people.Every terrorist attack only strengthens Nigerias resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States and other countries in the frontline of the war on terror.Buhari also called on all peace-loving nations to commit themselves to multilateral cooperation and collaborative actions aimed at eradicating the scourge of international terrorism. Lagos lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, yesterday argued that for the country to move forward, there must be a democratic restructuring of the... Lagos lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, yesterday argued that for the country to move forward, there must be a democratic restructuring of the polity, describing efforts at restructuring the country since the return of democracy as rickety.Speaking as a guest speaker at the public lecture organized by the Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, to mark the 23rd anniversary of the annulment of June 12, presidential election, he warned that charlatans must not be allowed to decide the restructuring of the country.Falana, who called for more devolution of power to the states from the Federal Government, said; We have been having series of restructuring in Nigeria since 1999 and all we have been having are rickety democracy.Restructuring of Nigeria should be decided by Nigerians and not by charlatans. And there cannot be restructuring without democratization and the Federal Government from Abuja should shelve power to the states for even development to take place. Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have disagreed over the state actual debt profile. The governor... Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have disagreed over the state actual debt profile.The governor alleged that the N25 billion bonds taken from the capital market and N31 billion commercial loans taken by the Kayode Fayemi administration were responsible for his inability to pay workers salaries.But the APC, while admitting that its administration led by Dr. Fayemi took the N25 billion bond to execute legacy projects, described Fayoses allegation of taking another N31 billion commercial loan as a blatant lie which is far from the truth.The party called on the Debt Management Office (DMO) of the Federal Ministry of Finance to speak out and clarify Ekitis debt status.The APC, in a statement also yesterday by its spokesman, Taiwo Olatunbosun, said a clarification from DMO has become imperative.The statement accused the governor of giving inconsistent figures on different occasions that had cast doubts on the integrity of the states financial application.Fayose, in a statement yesterday by his Chief Press Secretary, Idowu Adelusi, alleged that N1.2 billion is being deducted monthly from the states allocation to service loans obtained by the Fayemi administration.He accused the APC of gingering Labour to remain adamant on the issue of strike.The governor claimed that if the N1.2 billion being deducted is added to the states monthly allocations, his administration will not owe workers.Fayose said he was surprised that when Fayemi took the loans, which allegedly made payment of workers salaries difficult, the labour did not kick against the move.The governor alleged that the strike had been politicised because of his criticism of the bad policies of the Federal Government and his fight against tyranny.He wondered why some states where workers were owed more salaries than Ekiti were still enjoying the understanding of labour.Fayose accused the Fayemi administration of inflating figures of the monthly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for political reasons and giving the labour wrong information and false hope.A state like Ekiti without any industry and Fayemi administration would post that it realised between N600 million and N700 millio0n monthly from IGR whereas in the actual sense Ekiti IGR had never gone beyond N300 million or N350 million monthly, the governor said.Fayose said he was surprised that the labour, which praised him for transparency, was now blackmailing him as if he had kept Ekiti money somewhere.The labour should hold the Fayemi Administration responsible for the economic woes in the state and stop castigating me, Fayose said.He said: During my first term, I did not borrow a dime to run the state. I paid salaries on 22nd of every month. When I was going in October 2006, I left N10.4 billion in government coffers.As a responsible governor, the state cannot be financially buoyant and I will refuse to pay the workers. A child cannot ask a good father for fish and the father will give him stone. I have been sounding the warning about the nations economy since last year.The governor explained: For the N25 billion bond Fayemi took from the capital market, the state pays over N600 million monthly to service it and we will pay till 2022.On the bond money, there is an irrevocable standing order for the monthly deductions; the Federal Government has no power over that. It was the commercial loans they took that were converted to bail-out funds by the Federal Government and we pay over N300 million to service the debts monthly and that will subsist till 2036.Also, they left debts on fertilser, vehicles purchased for different reasons and groups and other commitments for which over N100 million is deducted from our monthly allocation. If these funds are not deducted and we have them at hand, our situation would have been better than this.Denying Fayoses allegations, Olatunbosun said: In a programme he appeared on Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) recently, he put the deductions at N1.5 billion. But again few days later on Africa Independent Television (AIT), he said the figure is N600 million. We make bold to say that Fayoses claim of N1. 2 billion deduction from Ekiti monthly allocation is total fallacy and Fayoses creation to justify his inability to pay workers salary.How he spent the bailout was not clear because he collected the bailout cash of N9.6 billion at the time Ekiti was owing only one month salary, which he falsely quoted at N2.6 billion and so how he spent N9.6 billion to pay a month salary remains unclear.Accusing Fayose of deliberate and malicious misrepresentation of facts, he challenged him to produce in writing, the purported commendation he received from the EFCC and the ICPC over the N9.6 billion bailout fund he is yet to account for.On Fayoses claim that the Fayemi administration borrowed another N31 billion commercial loan apart from the N25 billion bond, Olatunbosun challenged Fayose to provide evidence of this loan and what it was used for since records are there in the office of the Account General if he is sure of his facts.The truth of the matter is that Fayose has resorted to blatant lies to cover up his many shady financial transactions and misapplication of state funds, the APC spokesman said.On Fayoses allegation that the IGR of the state was never N600 million during the Fayemi administration, Olatunbosun referred him to the published audited accounts of the state signed by the then Auditor General instead of persistent lies to cover up his financial recklessness which accounted for his inability to pay workers.Urging the governor to present the schedules of payments as he claimed for public scrutiny, the APC spokesman said it was not enough to deceive the public that he always presented federal allocation receipts to workers to see first-hand the financial status of the state.He added that actual monthly receipts and myriads of unbearable taxes imposed on Ekiti people and pupils in primary schools did not support his claim of cash squeeze.He said: Fayose only wants to confuse Ekiti people with the more you look, the less you see analysis of the financial position of the state that has become his trademark.On his claim that he left N10 billion in Ekiti coffers during his aborted first tenure, this is a lie that has been debunked many times.Fayose, who is an advocate of governments not borrowing beyond their tenure and vowed on his inauguration in 2014 not to borrow kobo during his tenure, has already borrowed N19.6 billion, which deduction is obviously beyond his tenure, thus showing his insincerity and demagoguery, Olatunbosun said. Barely one year after a judge of the Kogi State High Court, Justice Samuel Obayomi was kidnapped and his police orderly killed, a judge of... Barely one year after a judge of the Kogi State High Court, Justice Samuel Obayomi was kidnapped and his police orderly killed, a judge of the Customary Court of Appeal in the state, Mr. Isaq Momoh Jimoh Usman has been Kidnapped by suspected gunmen.His police orderly was reportedly killed during the incident which occurred along the Itakpe Kuroko road Sunday evening while they were returning to Lokoja.The judge was said to have travelled to his village over the weekend and was returning to Lokoja when the suspected gunmen stopped his car along the Okene Itakpe bye pass in Okehi local government.The Nation learnt that the suspected kidnappers mowed down the police orderly immediately while the driver of the judge received bullet wounds, before their victim was taken to unknown destination.A source said that the late police orderly made to prevent the kidnappers from abducting the judge when he was shot by one of the abductors, and his service pistol taken away.The remains of late police orderly said the source, was deposited at the morgue in an undisclosed hospital, and the driver who was said to have received several gun shots is receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital in Lokoja.Confirming the incident, the information officer, Kogi State Ministry Justice , Mr. Saqeeb Saeed, said that the Customary Court of Appeal judge was kidnapped along Okene Kuroko bye pass on Sunday evening. A 45-year-old medical doctor, Richard Macaulay Obafemi, has been arrested for armed robbery and car-snatching in Anambra State. A 45-year-old medical doctor, Richard Macaulay Obafemi, has been arrested for armed robbery and car-snatching in Anambra State.Obafemi, who hails from Sagamu Local Government Area, LGA, Ogun State, revealed to the Sun how he was lured into robbery by two men.The suspect, who attended College of Medicine, University of Benin, said he worked for two years (1998 to 2000), before travelling to Saudi Arabia.He said, I worked at the Royal Medical Centre, Jeddah, for four years. Subsequently, I got another employment offer from the University of Ghana, in 2006 and worked there till 2015.In 2015, I came to Nigeria and visited Kaduna State. During that trip, a car I was driving had an accident and the victim died. I was charged to court and remanded at Kaduna Central Prison. But I was later released from prison on April 8, 2016.While in prison, I met and developed friendship with Stephen and Ifeanyi, who were also awaiting trial.After I was released, I linked up with Stephen and Ifeanyi who had also regained freedom and within a short time; they convinced me to join their armed robbery and car-snatching gang.We have stolen cars like Lexus, SUV in Lagos State, which I drove to Katsina State to sell to buyers from Niger Republic. I sold one for N450, 000, the ex-convict added.When I came out from prison, I found out that there was no going back. I decided to join the armed robbery gang professionally to earn a living. I am married and blessed with three children. I lost my wife, Mary in 2012 while my three children are in Canada, he confessed.Confirming the arrest, the state Commissioner of Police, CP, Mr. Hosea Karma, said the suspect will be charged to court soon while efforts are being made to arrest the fleeing members of the syndicate. The ousted Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was refused entrance to the partys secretariat on Mond... The ousted Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was refused entrance to the partys secretariat on Monday, has declared that he remained the chairman of the opposition party until 2018.He argued that the court did not recognise the Senator Ahmad Markafi-led Caretaker Committee.As you may be aware, that we have been facing some challenges since we put off the national convention in Port Harcourt last month.We, therefore, consider it the height of self-deceit for anyone to pretend that the PDP is not in crisis.But I want to assure you that we have been working round the clock to see how we can resolve the matter without being on the wrong side of the law.All the judgments that are available today recognise us as the sole chairman of this party. We have a court order in our hand to allow us to go into our office but the inspector general of police, after having a truce with him that nobody should be allowed until we have decided, he decided to take the law into his hands and allow the wrong people, he told a gathering of supporters at the secretariat.We will be law abiding, but Nigeria Police is made for Nigerian people to observe the rule of law.The law clearly stated that the Inspector General of Police should give us police to go into the office, but he brought platoon of police to block the office.We will go back because we do not want some miscreants to take the law into their hands.We will wait and take the mater beyond Nigeria Police Force, he said AS Roma midfielder Miralem Pjanic is undergoing a medical at Juventus with a view to completing a move to the Italian champions, the Turin-based club announced on Monday morning.The Bosnia international is under contract with Roma until June 2018 but has a clause in his contract which allows him to leave Roma this summer provided a fee of 38 million Euros is paid for his release."Miralem Pjanic undergoes a medical ahead of his proposed move from Roma," Juventus said in a statement and have also posted pictures of the player arriving at the J Medical centre on their official Twitter account.Their first post said: "Good morning everyone and good morning Miralem Pjanic," with a winking icon and picture of the midfielder with his thumbs up, and added a short video not long after.The 26-year-old - who arrived in Turin on Sunday - began his career in France with Metz, before a three-year spell at Lyon.In 2011, he made the move to Serie A with Roma, and has made 159 appearances for the club with 27 goals cored, including 10 last season.He also contributed 12 assists in 33 league appearances in the 2015/16 term to help Roma finish third in the league. Business / Companies by Thobekile Zhou Twelve National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) engine-men have been fired for allegedly absconding work for seven straight days.The affected are part of hundreds who are on a crippling two month strike.On Thursday, Association of Railway Enginemen Acting President Janiel Manyere was also kicked out on a similar charge, insiders said."These are all Enginemen and mostly members of the National Striking Committee in Gweru."Some of the sacked include a Mapfumo, Sinyaruwa Manyundwa, Phiri F, Sango Gwangwara, Chipamaunga, Gangata, Mutikani Shadreck.The General Secretary Meshack Shaderack was also fired," said a source.In May, Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Joram Gumbo revealed that about 70 % of workers would be fired soon.Gumbo said business environment has been harsh, hence urgent need to retrench. The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has advised Nigerians to look beyond their political differences for the cou... The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has advised Nigerians to look beyond their political differences for the country to make progress.Mohammed made the call when he with four other ministers paid a courtesy call on the Akwa Ibom Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel, in Uyo on Monday.The other ministers were Mr Rotimi Amaechi (Transportation, Mr Usani Uguru Usani (Niger Delta Affairs), Mrs Amina Mohammed (Environment), and Mr Budget and National Planning.Mohammed said they were in the state to conduct the South-South Town Hall Meeting, an interaction forum between government and the people on different sectors of the economy.The meeting will sensitise the people to what government is doing, the challenges it is facing and the way forward as well as provide a platform for meaningful interaction with citizens, he said.According to the minister, the meeting is part of measures by the Federal Government to communicate policies, programmes and activities of the present administration to the people.He described Akwa Ibom as the most peaceful state in the South-South and applauded the state governor for his hospitality.Receiving the ministers, Emmanuel commended the idea of a town hall meeting.According to Emmanuel, the meeting will help publicise governments policies and clarify issues on its activities and programmes. The immediate past Finance Minister of Nigeria, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is 62 years today. The immediate past Finance Minister of Nigeria, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is 62 years today.Below are 15 Things you should know about her.When I became finance minister, they called me Okonjo-Wahala or Trouble Woman. It means I give you hell. But I dont care what names they call me. Im a fighter; Im very focused on what Im doing, and relentless in what I want to achieve, almost to a fault. If you get in my way, you get kicked.- Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala1. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was was born on 13 June 1954, and married to Ikemba Iweala a Neuro-Surgeon.2. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala graduated from prestigious Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts.3. She earned her PhD in regional economic development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1981 and received an International Fellowship from the American Association of University women (AAUW) that supported her doctoral studies.4. Okonjo-Iweala has had a two stints with the World Bank Group, first as the vice-president and corporate secretary of the World Bank Group before her first tenure as Minister of Finance in Nigeria and as Managing Director in 2007.5. She was reappointed as Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy by President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011-2015.6. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala led the team that negotiated an $18 billion debt write-off from the Paris Club in 2005.7. Okonjo-Iweala also introduced the practice of publishing the monthly financial allocation to each state from the federal government in the newspapers. She played a major part in nigeria obtaining its first ever sovereign credit rating (of BB minus) from Fitch and Standard & Poors.8. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the daughter of a king, but that is not her CV. The Harvard-educated economist has risen to become one of the most respected economists in the world, she is an inspiration and a pride of Africa.9. She is now a Senior Advisor at Lazard, a Global financial advisory and asset management firm.10. She is a board member at African Risk Capacity, a Specialized Agency of the African Union (AU) to help Member States improve their capacities to better plan, prepare and respond to extreme weather events and natural disasters, therefore protecting the food security of their vulnerable populations.11. She is the Board Chair at Gavi, an international organisation - a global Vaccine Alliance, bringing together public and private sectors with the shared goal of creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the worlds poorest countries12. In 2007, Okonjo-Iweala was considered as a possible replacement for former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.13. Subsequently, in 2012, she became one of three candidates in the race to replace World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the end of his term of office in June 2012.14. On 16 April 2012 it was announced that she had been unsuccessful in her bid for the World Bank presidency, having lost to the US nominee, Jim Yong Kim. This outcome had been widely anticipated. However, this was the first contested election for World Bank president after the demise in 2010 of the Gentlemen's agreement that the US would appoint the World Bank president and Europe would appoint the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.15. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is blessed with four children. The Niger Delta Avengers, a group that has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on oil and gas installations across the Niger Del... But the group has given stringent conditions for any talks.It is the first time the group has shown any interest discussing with the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.The latest decision came barely a week after the government ordered troops in the oil-rich region to end onslaught against the militants.In a statement signed by the its spokesman, Mudoch Agbinibo, the Avengers said it was ready to negotiate with the government if there are good grounds for such deliberation.The group, however, said it was yet to see any signs the government had made new concessions.The high command of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) is using this medium to restate that there are no new items to put on the table for dialogue, we only want a genuine attitude and conducive atmosphere that will make us commit to any proposed dialogue and last peace talk, Mr. Agbinibo wrote in a statement posted on the Avengers Web site Monday afternoon.We want the federal government to commit members states of the multi national oil corporations to commit independent mediators to this proposed dialogue; we believed that it is only such environment that will engender genuine dialogue that will be aimed at setting up a framework for achieving the short, medium and long term demands of the Niger delta to de-escalating this conflict and bring about a lasting peace.In the meantime, the group said it would continue its assymetrical attacks on oil facilities on all delta states.The NDA high command is restating our commitment to attack the interest of oil corporation and international refineries operators that bring in vessels to the Niger delta territory to buy our oil that every successive government have refused to used and reapply the proceeds towards any development in the region since 1958.If they refuse be heed to our advice will result to sinking of two their mother vessel as an examples to others They should not undertake any repair of pipeline, oil and gas facilities that is damaged or attacked by our forces during this period of Operation Red Economy until and/or after the dialogue.The Avengers further stated that it was aware of a campaign to discredit its activities on social media, warning the government and others involved to be wary of dubious politicians.We are using medium to warn and condemn the activities of all brands of social media agitators being peddled around by some politicians to promote their criminal ways in affairs of the Niger Delta. This genuine spirit behind our struggle for the Niger Delta cannot be derailed on the basis of connivance by politician, traditional rulers, settled ex- agitators and criminals moving around to fill their pockets.In a strange turn, however, the group indicated that it may review its long-standing campaign to spare human lives in the course of its agitation, urging the government and oil companies across the region to desist from carrying out further repairs of vandalised oil installations.Finally, if need be we may review our earlier stance of not taking lives. We are going to redirect and reactivate all our activities if the government, oil companies and their services firms dont heed to these modest warnings of not carrying out any repairs works and suspend the buying of crude oil from our region as we await the right atmosphere that will engender genuine dialogue.We want a peace with honour, not a peace of our time. In a bid to effectively tackle Nigerias housing problems, the country requires a consistent, measurable and sustainable housing policy ... In a bid to effectively tackle Nigerias housing problems, the country requires a consistent, measurable and sustainable housing policy that must be led by government and subsequently driven by the private sector. Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, stated this at the recently concluded 35th Annual General Meeting and Housing Symposium of Shelter Afrique held in Abuja.He noted that government has over the years embarked on series of housing initiatives which proved not to be sustainable, adding that there was an urgent need for a change of strategy based on a sustainable and well thought out initiative.The Federal Government would continue to prosecute overall housing policy stand which recognises the government as active facilitator of private sector-driven housing sector, he added. The minister cited the housing initiatives in other climes, noting that they were targeted majorly at housing the working class people.According to him, the public housing initiative of the United Kingdom was started by government in 1918 and that as of 2014, 64.8 percent of UKs 53 million people were home owners. He added that the Singaporean initiative was started by government in 1960 and that it has provided housing for 80 percent of its 3 million people. What is common to both model, is that there was a uniformity of design, a common target to house working class people, and not the elite, standardisation of fittings like doors, windows, space, electrical and mechanical, and also a common concept of neighborhood, he asserted.Fashola noted that many of the PPP housing initiatives entered into have either stalled as a result of funding, lack of capacity, land disputes or court cases, adding that this is not the road to sustainability. He said after the federal government announced plans to build houses, many people have come up with proposals to build 10,000 units of housing.However, our interrogation of these proposals shows that none of the people who want to build 10,000 houses can show us where they have previously built 500 houses to show their capacity. One of them who had signed a contract to deliver a 1,000 housing unit estate since around 2013 has run into difficulty after building 84 units, he stated. The minister said the first key to the roadmap in housing was proper planning, adding that it was crucial to successful execution, project completion, to cost control and reduction in variation requests and financial calculations.Our plan requires first a clear understanding of who we want to provide housing for. He said those being targeted by government in its plan are not people who want land to build for themselves, who want town houses and duplexes but those in the majority and those who are most vulnerable.Our plan requires us to conduct a survey of these people to determine what they expect and what they can pay. Our plan requires us to evolve agreeable housing types, between 2 to 4 designs that have a broad, national cultural acceptance.Our plan requires us to standardize these designs so that we can then design moulds to accelerate the number that can be built. Our plan requires us to standardize the size of our doors, windows, our toilet and bath fittings, our lighting fittings and other accessories so that our small and medium enterprises can respond to supply all the building materials, create diversification and jobs; and ensure that projects are completed with a steady supply of materials. Our plan requires us to ensure that the designs reflect our behavioural patterns, such as adequate storage, and other lifestyle needs. With 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) stars in the Milky Way, and 100 billion galaxies in the observable Universe, the cover theme is inspired by the StarBoy Wizkid.This is a digital magazine that is better experienced than explained as we have nothing to compare this masterpiece with at the moment, says Publisher, Familusi Akin Babajide.Wizkid has an honest and sincere chat with FAB Magazine and is styled by Jekwu The Stylist and photographed by Obi Somto.This photo of a relaxed looking Wizkid sitting on the toilet with a roll of UK Sterling Tissue is set to trend today!The StarBoy Issue is hosted at www.fab.ng/starboyissue and the first issue is free for readers based in Nigeria.International readers may subscribe at the rate of $1 per month to enjoy this issue and subsequent monthly installments of the digital magaziWatch the behind the scene clip of the photoshoot A hiker from South Jersey had to be rescued from one of Maine's highest mountains on Saturday afternoon. The unidentified 29-year-old woman from Moorestown was medevaced off Pamola Peak in Baxter State Park when she fell ill while hiking with five other people, park officials said in a news release. It took a park ranger 80 minutes to reach the group after a 911 call was placed at 11:57 a.m. The Maine Army National Guard Air Evac unit removed the woman at 4:20 p.m. and flew her to Millinocket Regional Hospital after it was determined she'd require further treatment. Officials noted that had there been lower cloud cover or rainy weather, an evacuation by helicopter would not have been possible. Instead, transporting a patient from the 4,919 foot mountain to the nearest road would have required 30-40 people and would have taken 24-36 hours to complete, according to park officials. Pamola Peak is about a mile away from Baxter Peak on Mount Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine at 5,267 feet. The more than 200,000 acre park is in the wilderness of north-central Maine and is roughly the same size as Middlesex County, New Jersey. Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook. boozle_Flooring_miller_25.JPG Richard and Diane Mitchell stand in the living room of their Lyndhurst home. They said their new flooring was improperly installed. (Andrew Miller/For NJAdvanceMedia) Floodwaters poured into Richard Mitchell's Lyndhurst home during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The damage was massive. Using grants from the Rehabilitation, Reconstruction, Elevation and Mitigation (RREM) program and payouts from his flood insurance, Mitchell had the home elevated and completely rehabbed. Now, four years later, the work is almost completed. The only problem is the flooring. "We started to notice imperfections with the flooring - not the product itself, but the installation," Mitchell said, noting the job had a one-year guarantee. He said the flooring looked wavy or loose, and there were gaps between many boards. So he called his general contractor, DSW Homes, which called the flooring subcontractor -- Sherwin Williams in Moonachie. Sherwin Williams sent workers to tend to the floor, Mitchell said, and they added nails and staples in numerous locations. "Hoping they knew what they were doing, we were somewhat satisfied but were we were a little apprehensive about what they did since we were becoming a little more educated about the type of flooring and the way it should be professionally installed," Mitchell said. He learned a lot. Blue tape marks problem areas on Richard and Diane Mitchell's new floor. Wood flooring is supposed to acclimate to a home's atmosphere for five to seven days before installation, Mitchell learned. Mitchell said his installers brought in the wood as they did the installation. "No adjustment time was provided, Mitchell said. The fix by the workers didn't correct the problems, Mitchell said, so he called DSW again. A DSW rep came to look at the floor, and he returned a second time with a rep from Sherwin Williams, Mitchell said. Mitchell said the Sherwin rep "downplayed the severity of the issues" but promised to send back his flooring supervisor and the original installers. The workers returned and put more nails and staples through the flooring, Mitchell said. He feared this wouldn't fix any spacing issues, and Mitchell's concern grew. He reached out directly to the flooring manufacturer, Mohawk Industries. "They did say that the adjustment period was crucial to the flooring," Mitchell said, and Mohawk sent a flooring inspector check out the installation on March 10. The inspector did some tests and pointed out several defects, Mitchell said. The inspector said he'd send a report to Mohawk and Sherwin Williams, Mitchell said. Mitchell asked about also getting a copy, but the inspector said he'd have to get it from the other companies. Mitchell stayed in touch with DSW, and asked if it had a copy of the report. DSW said yes, he said. (DSW later told us it never received the report.) "They advised me that the remedy would be for the installers to come back and drill holes in the edges of the flooring and then drive nails in there," Mitchell said. Richard and Diane Mitchell sit in their living room, where floor problems are marked with blue tape. But before agreeing to repairs, Mitchell wanted to see the inspector's recommendations with his own eyes to be sure the repair was the inspector's suggestion and not someone else's. So Mitchell asked Mohawk for the report and for an opinion on the suggested repairs. Mohawk refused to share the report, but it did have an opinion. "The method of repair you asked about isn't what our installation manager would recommend," the Mohawk rep said in an email. Mitchell followed up with a phone call to Mohawk, and he said the rep wasn't too keen on the repair method. Mohawk recommended Mitchell get a second opinion from an independent inspector, but that could cost $700 or more. "I have indicated to both Mohawk Industries and the DSW representative that if Mohawk deemed this to be an approved remedy and if we had no further issues with the flooring, I would be receptive to them proceeding to do so -- but, I would really like to see that in the inspector's report only to satisfy the suspicions I have as to whether it is, indeed, approved," Mitchell said. No one from any of the companies followed up with Mitchell to discuss the repair further or to schedule work to be done, Mitchell said, noting that several messages left by Mitchell were not returned. That's when he asked Bamboozled for help. FIXING THE FLOOR We reviewed the communications between Mitchell and the companies, and we asked the companies to share the status of the case. No one responded to Bamboozled, but Mitchell got a call from DSW. "He said he thought we were (verbally) agreed that the flooring would be guaranteed for as long as we continue to have problems," Mitchell said. "I told him that was a fair offer but no one ever contacted me about correcting what's wrong now and I'm curious just how long that guarantee would remain especially if the current problems weren't properly addressed." After months of complaints, the Mitchells will be getting a new floor. Blue tape marks problem areas with the current floor. The call ended, and DSW called again that evening to ask if Mitchell would accept new flooring in the kitchen, Mitchell said. He said he asked about the other rooms, and the rep said he'd see what he could do. The next day, DSW said all the flooring would be replaced. It would take about three weeks to order, and then the flooring would have five to seven days to acclimate in Mitchell's home before installation. We asked DSW about the decision. David Sellers, the director of construction for DSW New Jersey, said when the installers returned to the home, it appeared there was a language barrier. He said DSW said not to nail the wood through the face unless that's what the manufacturer said to do, but the installer nailed in the flooring again anyway. "The homeowner said it wasn't his preferred method but if the manufacturer will still warranty the floor, it's fine," Sellers said. "We were skeptical and asked Sherwin if the manufacturer would still honor the warranty." "Shame on us for not getting a definitive answer," Sellers said. Sellers said DSW never received a copy of the Mohawk inspector's report. "It was like pulling teeth," he said. Then he said he didn't hear from the homeowner for some time so he thought all was well. But once Sellers heard from Bamboozled, he said, he contacted Sherwin again. "I said, 'DSW isn't falling on this. We hired you and you're the flooring professionals,'" Sellers said. Sellers said he's requested that a different crew do the new installation. We asked why the homeowner was initially offered only a replacement of the kitchen flooring and later was offered a complete re-do. "If they installed the kitchen incorrectly, what reason would we have to believe that the rest of the home was correct?" he said. "if you're going to reinstall part of it for being installed incorrectly, you have to do the whole thing. In the end we said, 'Stop playing games. Just replace the whole floor.'" When we tried Sherwin Williams again, a manager said he's not allowed to comment, so we tried the parent company. Spokesman Mike Conway said "a problem developed after the floor was installed," that the company apologized and is now replacing the floor. Conway would not share the inspection report. The new flooring came in quickly and arrived at Mitchell's home last week for the acclimation period. The installation should begin today. "The end result is welcome news in the fact that a feeling of uneasiness would remain if only certain areas were addressed," Mitchell said. "The fact that all the flooring being properly installed will allay those fears and help prevent further complaints had only certain areas been replaced." Have you been Bamboozled? Reach Karin Price Mueller at Bamboozled@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KPMueller. Find Bamboozled on Facebook. Mueller is also the founder of NJMoneyHelp.com. Stay informed and sign up for NJMoneyHelp.com's weekly e-newsletter. CAMDEN -- It could be anything from a dispute over who sells drugs on which corner, or just a perceived sign of disrespect. As Tim Gallagher laid out the conflicts that spark dozens of homicides in the city year year -- 10 alone were killed last month -- heads nodded around the packed living room. The 17 leaders of nonprofits and social services organizations, who gathered at Guadalupe Family Services Friday afternoon as part of a U.S. State Department program focusing on the needs of underserved youth, came from thousands of miles away, but they know those reasons well. "We have a similar experience of living and working amidst violence and poverty," said Gallagher, the assistant director of Guadalupe Family Service's CASA youth development program. The visitors, hailing from 12 different Spanish-speaking countries in Central and South America, are in the midst of a five-city tour throughout the United States aimed at exposing the delegates to family support programs, after-school activities and other methods urban community groups have used to address pervasive violence and gang activity in their cities. The group, made up of educators, heads of non-governmental organizations including victim advocacy groups and other experts in their fields, arrived in the U.S. June 6. They spent time in Washington D.C. before arriving in Philadelphia Thursday and will move on to Cleveland, New Orleans and Los Angeles before returning home on June 24. Nonprofit organization Citizen Diplomacy International of Philadelphia, which organized the delegates' visit to the Greater Philadelphia Area, brought the delegates to Camden specifically to get an inside look at how CASA works with teens exposed to gun violence, drugs and poverty daily. Many of their kids live on the same block or around the corner from recent murder scenes, said Sister Helen Cole, the director and founder of Guadalupe Family Services, which counts just three full-time social workers and a handful of part-time employees and volunteers among its small staff. Other kids in their program live in unstable homes, where drug dealing is rampant and a high school diploma is a rarity. "This is a place where people aren't shooting up or selling drugs," said Cole, who was joined by three teens in the program during Friday's discussion, facilitated through translators. The CASA program was launched in 2012 -- the same year Camden's murder rate reached an all-time high of 67 -- with just 10 kids but grew, slow and steady through word of mouth, to the point where now more than 100 teens gather at its headquarters on State Street in North Camden throughout the week, participating in activities, after-school tutoring, group discussions and field trips to local attractions. Cole and her small staff also work closely with the county police force, which took over policing duties in the city in 2013, on gang intervention programs. CASA is now a haven for the students, who are given academic support and constant encouragement. So far, every single one has graduated from high school and have pursued higher education. "When we have high expectations of these teens, they rise to them," said Cole. Both Cole and Gallagher said CASA wasn't perfect, but the idea of Friday's discussion wasn't to hand down a set of instructions to their visitors, but to spark a dialogue where the delegates can learn from their setbacks and successes, and vice-versa. "My biggest goal is to have a conversation about how to provide a warm, welcoming safe space in a dangerous neighborhood," he said. "We're sharing the same problems and facing the same reality," said Laura Voirturet Gomez, the coordinator of institutional development at Uruguay's Providencia Educational Center, through a translator as Friday's discussion got underway. Her program shares much of the same focus as Guadalupe Family Services, she said, including making the strengthening of family ties their core mission as a way to help children and teens deal with educational inequalities, poverty and violence. Her counterparts in the U.S. might have more resources at their disposal, but their goals and objectives were the same. "Now we don't feel so lonely," she said. -- A total of 13 Newark firefighters were hospitalized after suffering heat exhaustion battling an electrical fire at Essex County College on Sunday morning, the city's public safety director said. Firefighters responded to the Newark college at about 8 a.m. on Sunday, after workers there reported a possible electrical fire in the sub-basement of a building on University Avenue, said Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose. "Firefighters responded and removed all the occupants inside the location and extinguished the fire," Ambrose said in a statement. Those injured included a female probationary firefighter who had graduated from the academy just three weeks ago, Ambrose said. Eight of the injured firefighters were taken to University Hospital, while the five others went to Saint Michael's Hospital, Ambrose said. Ten were treated and released, while three remained hospitalized headed into the evening, Ambrose said. The cause of the blaze was under investigation, Ambrose said. Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Business / Companies by Stephen Jakes Deputy Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development Michael Madanha has told parliament that the national Railways of Zimbabwe whose workers have been on strike for a long time was operating at a loss because the railway line is dilapidated."It is now in the public domain that some workers at NRZ are on strike. Now, what is actually happening at NRZ is, as we all know that the situation at NRZ is that the entity is not actually operating at a profit. Why? Because our railway line is now dilapidated and secondly, the rolling stock is now old to perform efficiently. So, what is happening now is that workers have gone on strike but the reason why workers have gone on strike is not actually that workers are not being paid. Workers are being paid a certain percentage every month and the other remaining percentage which is not being paid accumulatively, can amount to something like 12 months' salary arrears," he said."What is the NRZ doing as an entity? NRZ since the start of the strike is encouraging workers to go back to work because at least they are receiving something and are operating at a loss. Some workers have since returned but some remain on strike."He said the NRZ is concerned and we are going to continue encouraging workers to go back to work."Then another solution that NRZ has adopted is the legal way to at least try and see how best this problem can be resolved legally. So, NRZ is doing everything possible to actually pay its workers. Definitely, I agree that when workers work, they must be paid their salaries but the problem is that the entity is running at a loss from problems that I have already alluded to," he said. 403 Forbidden 403 Forbidden Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied RequestId: E3DF92CE7357304E HostId: VQJtCFVeQBg3QnB/VU94HlJ3knrzqR1jv5lhuLm/pBxpcx7tIJ1BzPp9P3my30U3HosuJiDRWdc= An Error Occurred While Attempting to Retrieve a Custom Error Document Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied WEST ORANGE -- New Jersey's Turtle Back Zoo is embracing its namesake animal. Essex County officials gathered at the zoo Friday to announce the creation of a Sea Turtle Recovery Center at the attraction. The 15,000 square foot rescue will rehabilitate sick or injured turtles, county officials said in a release about the project. "We are always looking for new opportunities to expand our preservation and education programs and heighten our visitors' awareness about the importance of animals and the environment," County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo said in the statement. "To be able to develop a Sea Turtle Rescue center here in Essex County and help the very animals after which our zoo is named will provide a great resource to the animal rescue community and fill a great need." The new facility, which is set to open by the end of this year, will have five recovery tanks, a display for cold-stunned turtles, life support systems, and rehab areas for sick turtles, officials said. According to officials, all six species of sea turtles found in the U.S. are threatened or endangered. Zoo visitors will be able to see the vulnerable animals as they are rehabilitated, officials said. Once the turtles are healthy, they will be released back into the wild. The center will also be stocked with information about challenges the turtles face, and how people can help. "The addition of the Sea Turtle Recovery will allow Turtle Back Zoo to take the lead on a conservation initiative that is important for our turtles," said Zoological Society Executive Director Adam Kerins. "The Sea Turtle Program gives us the opportunity to participate in an important conservation effort and make a difference with the turtles." The recovery center replaces what officials called an "antiquated tortoisry building" that was demolished earlier this year. Design and construction of the new facility tops $2 million, which is being funded by the Essex County Capital Improvement Budget, along with donations from Prudential Insurance, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, PSE&G and the Matrix Development Group. Zoo officials said they anticipate the educational exhibit will be popular among the park's about 750,000 annual visitors. "Turtle Back Zoo already is a special place where children and families can learn to appreciate animals. Introducing the Sea Turtle Recovery Center helps take our educational programming to the next level and gives us an active role in protecting and preserving wild animals," Turtle Back Zoo Director Brint Spencer said in the release. "Having the rehabilitation center on site fits into our mission of conservation and expands the potential for animal awareness." Jessica Mazzola may be reached at . Follow her on Twitter . Find . X EXJAIL27 CASIANO PERLMAN A former Essex County Correctional Facility guard was sentenced to a long prison term for sexually assaulting an inmate in 2010. (William Perlman | The Star-Ledger) NEWARK -- In a case that had court officials recalling the recent Stanford University rape case, a federal judge Monday sentenced a former Essex County Correctional Facility guard to 25 years in prison for raping a female inmate in 2010 and then trying to cover it up. U.S. District Judge Esther Salas told Shawn Shaw, 42, that he had lived an admirable life up to that overnight shift on Dec. 27-28, when he was the lone guard on the women's tier. But then, she said, "You lost who you were at that very moment." Shaw was convicted in February of depriving the woman's rights under color of law and obstruction of justice after a jury trial of seven days. Witnesses testified that Shaw -- the only guard on the overnight shift that night because of a snow storm -- targeted the woman and called her on an intercom system. A computer record showed that the woman's cell door was opened around 2 a.m. and she testified that Shaw, who outweighed her by nearly 100 pounds, entered the cell, got on top of her and had sexual intercourse with her. She testified that she said no, then "froze" during the assault, unable to call out for help. Her cellmate testified that she slept through the incident. The victim at first did not report the matter, fearing retaliation, she said. But after jail officials learned of a possible assault, she was examined and found to have evidence of Shaw's DNA in her. When the FBI was called to investigate, Shaw denied he made sexual statements to her or entered her cell that early morning. During the trial, Shaw continued to deny the charges, a position he maintained before being sentenced. "God knows the truth," he said in a tearful statement. "He knows I'm a good man." During the sentencing, the Stanford case, in which former student Brock Turner received a sentence of six months for raping an unconscious woman, was mentioned because of the wide range of possible sentences facing Shaw. Defense attorney Mark Fury asked for a sentence of no more than 10 years, prosecutors demanded 30 years and federal sentencing guidelines would have allowed Salas to put him in prison for the rest of his life. In letters sent to Salas, family members begged for only probation. According to Fury, Shaw's "more or less blemish-free" life up to that early morning should have counted in his favor. A life sentence, he said, was "so far out of proportion" to a sentence that would serve the interests of justice. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas J. Eicher, however, noted that Salas was required to sentence Shaw to a term that would show respect for the law. The sentence in the Stanford case, he said, showed disrespect for the law. While prosecutors were willing to see Shaw sentenced to something less than life, Eicher said a long sentence would send a signal to other guards that sexually assaulting inmates is a serious offense. In the case of the victim -- who was reluctant to participate initially in the investigation -- the sentence could be lifelong, Eicher said. "She's already got a life sentence," he said. Addressing more than a dozen supporters of Shaw in the courtroom, Salas said she respected the work of the attorneys during the trial and the jury in finding him guilty. "We may disagree with it, but as a judge, I have to follow that verdict," Salas said, saying Shaw faced "insurmountable evidence" against him. As a guard, "You had an obligation to protect the people whom you were guarding," the judge said. "They don't stop being human because they committed a crime." Shaw has a right to maintain his innocence, Salas added, but said it was difficult for her that Shaw showed "not even a slight bit of remorse." In addition to the 25-year sentence, Shaw will be required to serve five years of supervised release following the end of his prison term and register as a sex offender. He also was ordered to pay $6,000 restitution to the victim. Tim Darragh may be reached at tdarragh@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @timdarragh. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NEWARK -- Months after lead contamination was found in the drinking water supply at dozens of schools in the state's largest school district, federal funding to help remediate lead hazards in low-income housing is headed to the city. Newark and Trenton - two of 11 cities in New Jersey that were recently found to have a high proportion of young children with elevated blood lead levels - are slated to receive millions of dollars in federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding to help combat the chemical element, Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker announced in a release Monday. According to the announcement, the Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration program granted Newark $3 million, and the city picked up an additional $400,000 from Healthy Homes Supplemental funding. Trenton got a little over $2.1 million from the two agencies, the announcement said. The funds will remediate lead hazards in 150 low-income housing units in Newark, and 145 in Trenton. "This federal funding is critical to enhancing efforts in Newark and Trenton to reduce lead hazards in public housing, making the homes safer for residents," Menendez said in a statement about the grants. The announcement comes after a water crisis in Flint, Mich. reignited the national conversation on lead levels present in paint, water supplies, and other places. Children in 11 New Jersey cities reported having higher blood lead levels than those of kids in Flint, which experts said was in large part caused by exposure to paint in old homes. The federal government banned consumer uses of lead-based paint in 1978, but many older homes still have lead paint, or lead paint dust in them. "Under no circumstance should New Jersey families be forced to jeopardize their health or the health of their children due to dangerous levels of lead in their homes," Booker said in a statement. "We already know the potential health impacts of lead poisoning can be devastating to a child, so we have an obligation to secure the resources needed to update the aging housing and infrastructure in our communities." In March, revelations of elevated lead levels in Newark schools' drinking water spurred a flurry of lead testing in districts across the state, and several legislation proposals that would require more testing and provide funding to remediate lead issues. Experts have said that the amount of exposure through paint is much higher than through the amounts found in Newark schools' water. Staci Berger, the president and chief executive officer of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, called the HUD funding a "big step" toward addressing lead hazards in the state. "Nonprofit community developers in Newark and Trenton have the expertise to remediate homes and make them permanently safe for today's kids and future generations," she said in a statement. "It's a solvable problem, we just need the resources." Jessica Mazzola may be reached at jmazzola@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessMazzola. Find NJ.com on Facebook. 403 Forbidden 403 Forbidden Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied RequestId: 7AEFDE8CBAE4E8B4 HostId: mVBbocKZArgSeTga0Jw8ou7FPQ8ljGUx2tvBtm2flrn3urgtL1XV8NHSrnGzYFxkKIdQ56/9W6w= An Error Occurred While Attempting to Retrieve a Custom Error Document Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied NEWARK -- Mayor Ras Baraka is urging federal lawmakers to approve federal gun control legislation in the wake of the Orlando shooting massacre. "How many more lives must be needlessly lost before Congress takes action to impose even the most basic, common sense, and bipartisan reforms on the sale and distribution of guns?" Baraka said in a statement Monday afternoon, a day after 49 people were killed and at least 53 wounded at the nightclub Pulse, the single deadliest shooting in U.S. history. "This ghastly horror is the result of many things - bigotry, the accessibility of assault rifles to unstable and dangerous people, homophobia, and appalling divisions and splinterings in our country that are making it impossible to reach unity," Baraka continued. "The result is pain and suffering, all of it utterly unnecessary and preventable." Officials say the gunman, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old Queens, NY, native and U.S. citizen who was once married to a former New Jersey woman, pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call. Mateen, who was killed by police, was said to have legally acquired the semi-automatic weapon he used in the shooting. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, his ally Gov. Chris Christie and others have called the incident a terrorist attack by radical Islam. President Obama referred to the incident as and example of "homegrown extremism." Baraka issued his statement in advance of a vigil in memory of the shooting victims, sheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday in front of City Hall. Pulse is a predominantly gay nightclub and gathering place, and the vigil is being held in conjunction with the Newark Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning Commission. "Tonight, with the support of our LGBTQ Commission, the City of Newark and its diverse and united people will respond with love and prayer for the victims in Orlando by holding a vigil on the steps of City Hall," Baaka continued. "I urge all of Newark to join me at this vigil in sending our condolences and support to the victims, and a firm message to the world: Newark stands opposed to gun violence, homophobia, and bigotry." Newark is just one of many municipalities throughout New Jersey that have planned vigils in light of the mass shooting. Others include: Several vigils are Jersey City is Red Bank is hosting a community vigil Wednesday at 8 p.m. Attendees are asked to bring candles for a brief ceremony in the plaza in front of the Red Bank Municipal Building at 90 Monmouth Street. South Orange and Maplewood are hosting a joint vigil Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Sloan Street Gazebo in South Orange. In a statement about the event, Maplewood Mayor Vic DeLuca said it would be an opportunity to support the families of the victims. "It is important that we stand united against all acts of hatred and terror, as an attack against any group on ideological grounds, here the LGBT community, is an attack against our nation and the freedoms on which it was founded and upon which it endures," he said in a statement. Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Business / Economy by Business Reporter A shift towards the rand is inevitable as dollars imported to facilitate transacting do not stay within the country, FBC Holdings chairman Herbert Nkala said at the launch of the 2016 CASE Handbook."The multi-currency system is certainly the only way forward, but we need to be honest here. We know that the money we import to facilitate transacting does not stay here, and in the months ahead, we need something that people will have confidence in."My view is that while the rand is certainly not ideal as South Africa has its own issues, we import most things from Mzansi - we just need to be realistic and embrace the rand. The alternative is not attractive."Mr Nkala noted that dollars were getting scarcer and scarcer as certain individuals continued to externalise notes."We all know who the culprits are. Almost certainly the easiest way forward is to move increasingly to the rand. It does not have the desire of the US dollar, but at least there is relative confidence in the unit."The quicker this happens in this country dual pricing and the like, the softer landing we are going to have in the months ahead."Mr Nkala said it did not matter how many dollars are imported, the problem will remain because of the attractiveness in the region of Zimbabwe's usage of dollars."In Zambia and Mozambique they sell fuel for 70c, so you can just come over the border with your chigubu, nearly double your money, and go home with dollars."Mr Nkala questioned why the country continued to import large denomination bills and then drew laughter from the crowd when he asked if anyone had tried using a $100 or $50 bill in the US."They will treat you very suspiciously if you bring a large bill like that. After all, the biggest denomination in South Africa is $15 equivalent, Mozambique is $16, Zambia is $9 while Malawi is $1,50 chete!"Mr Nkala noted that he had spoken at the 2015 function about unrealistic expectations when it came to wages, yet only last week workers in the retail sector had been awarded a pay increase after the National Employment Council managed to register an award."I am not against people earning more, but I do not think that the 14 percent increase will be matched with a 14 percent increase in productivity."Ultimately this will just result in redundancies and higher prices for consumers in an environment where we should be seeing prices fall as a result of significantly weak regional currencies."Following his address, Mr Nkala presented Art Corporation with the 2015 Company of the Year award.CASE publisher Jonathan Waters said the winner had recorded the best share price performance on the ZSE in 2015, rising 233,3 percent, and had gained an additional 40 percent since January 1.He noted that Art had entered dollarisation with antiquated import-substitution machinery and had spent a large sum of money retooling the most capital-intensive part of the business Mutare Board and Paper Mills.The recapitalisation failed and Art became heavily indebted to the banks. Together with its new South Korean shareholder, the executive decided to focus on the light manufacturing operations that could deliver the fastest turnaround and generate cash batteries and Eversharp pens.While Art managed only last week to post an interim after tax profit of $892 000 compared with a loss of $114 000 in prior year, Waters noted that the group continued to suffer from an almost extortionate average cost of borrowing.The CASE Handbook profiles over 120 listed companies in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, providing financial results and prospects in the year ahead. It also includes a 5-year trading summary, highlighting the year just past. Published: 16 May 2022 at 11:52hrs | 677 | by Mark Buncombe, Head of Mining and Metals at Standard Bank Group Johannesburg - 16 May 2022 - With mining companies currently enjoying high prices, exceptional production performance and robust supply chains, the mi... Published: 31 Dec 2020 at 01:36hrs | by Staff Writer When you are planning your wedding, you need to make sure that you are getting everything right. This can be difficult to do if you have never planned... News / Africa by Thulani Nkala Yesterday, 9th June 2016 Siphesakhe Theatre Group which has written a gukurahundi play called uLoyiko, held a commemoration for the gukurahundi genocide victims at Samora Machel Community Hall in Cape Town, South Africa.More than 50 young South Africans attended the Gukurahundi commemoration. Mr Yanga Mhluzi stated that it was all tears when he delivered a lecture on the gukurahundi genocide. Most of the young people present could not believe that such a dastard and barbaric act could happen at their next door neighbour and no one gets held accountable."Why were the Ndebeles being killed in Zimbabwe?" one of the young persons asked in disbelief. Mr Mhluzi explained to the gathering that in 1979 during the Zimbabwean liberation struggle ZANU PF a political party led by Robert Mugabe crafted a document which they termed The Grand Plan, this document spelt out how Ndebeles would be treated in a free Zimbabbwe, they will be driven back to South Africa where they came from, their culture, language would never be given any space, all education & employment opportunities will be given to Shonas only. Mr Mhluzi went on to explain that the gukurahundi system is still alive and kicking in Zimbabwe right now, Ndebele people are being displaced as they are discriminated against in all spheres of life. "I didn't even know it myself that the Mugabe regime committed genocide against the Ndebele people in Zimbabwe, but when I became aware of the genocide I was interested at knowing why it happened and why it was not being talked about" Mr Mhluzi said." I then started researching and read everything I laid my hands on regarding the genocide, since then I am no longer the same, the information traumatised and transformed me, I just wonder how much traumatised were the victims who experienced it first hand" Concluded Mr Mhluzi.Mr Mhluzi stated that he told the crowd about how the Zimbabwean government is denying victims to hold any commemorations in Zimbabwe, he cited the example of a cultural group called Ibhetshu likaZulu which has been denied to organise the commemorations.When asked why they were doing the play- uloyiko, Mr Mhluzi stated that ZAPU/ZIPRA and ANC/Umkhontowesizwe fought side by side to liberate the two countries, he went on to say that after researching about the gukurahundi genocide he instantly knew that he needed to do something regardless of how small the contribution might be. "it is more than 30 years since the genocide, people are still waiting to re-bury their loved ones, the mass graves in Matebeleland should be exhumed and the loved ones given a decent burial" Mr Mthunzi said.Mr Mthunzi said that the South African young people vowed to campaign against the gukurahundi genocide until the government of Zimbabwe is brought to justice. "The commemoration event was filled with prayerful songs and poems" Mr Mhluzi concluded.On the 25th June 2016 Siphesakhe Threatre Group will be launching its Gukurahundi Play called Loyiko in the heart of Johannesburg at Hilbrow Theatre where hundreds of people are expected to attend.You can contact them directly at: loyikotheatreplay@gmail.com or call 0027717548206/0027627649602 and 0027849603154. 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. News / Local by Nqobile Tshili A GOLD coated spear and some artefacts belonging to the last Ndebele King, Lobengula, have been stolen from Old Bulawayo with the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) coming under fire for poor security.The spear, measuring 1.2M, was stolen from the historic site on the outskirts of Bulawayo where other artefacts of the Ndebele Kingdom are kept.The incident was discovered on Sunday by a caretaker at Old Bulawayo.Sources said the caretaker, Stanley Gwebu, discovered that the spear, a 45CM black fly whisk and a small brown clay pot which were placed near King Lobengula's statue, were missing at around 1:45PM while conducting his chores and reported the matter to the police.National police spokesperson Charity Charamba confirmed the incident saying police were looking into the matter."I can confirm that there was a burglary at Old Bulawayo where some artefacts were stolen. But I don't have the finer details on the matter. However, police are investigating the matter," said Snr Asst Comm Charamba.King Lobengula's descendant Prince Zwide Khumalo expressed shock at the incident saying the family has not been notified about theft.Khumalo rapped the NMMZ for failing to provide adequate security at the historic site saying royal artefacts deserved to be kept in a more secure place."It raises a lot of concerns within the family, the Ndebele speaking people as well as other Nguni ethnic groups whose history was being kept at Old Bulawayo. There's something grossly wrong with the security in the national museums. This is not the first time there has been a break in at the museums meaning there is a weakness in their security system," he said.Khumalo said the museums should remember that they are custodians of people's cultures.Social commentator Cont Mhlanga echoed Khumalo's sentiments saying the break in exposes NMMZ for its recklessness in preserving culture."This isn't the first time such an incident has happened. There was a break in four or five years ago. Mahachi (Godfrey director of NMMZ) must address this issue. This falls right on his door step," said Mhlanga.He said it was baffling that a cultural site like Old Bulawayo was neglected yet it held priceless artefacts."It doesn't make sense that a heritage site of that status can have a single caretaker. There is supposed to be more than one caretaker so that they can work in shifts," Mhlanga said.He said there were other cultural sites that are also neglected such as Mhlahlandlela and Entumbane which house King Mzilikazi's grave and artefacts.Mahachi was not was not reachable for comment yesterday. News / Local by Staff Reporter Emma Makozho, a sister to Minister of Psychomotor and Vocational Education Activities, Josaya Dunira Hungwe has died.She was 81.Masvingo Mirror reported that Makozho who was a teacher at several schools in Chivi before she retired in 1992 died at Claybank Hospital on Friday in Gweru after battling with breast cancer for over a year.Thousands of people from all walks of life thronged the Makozho homestead in Gwizi Village under headman Vutete in Chivi on Sunday to pay their last respects to the late educationist."My mother has been battling with breast cancer for over a year and she succumbed to the illness last Friday in Gweru," said Mufaro Hopeful Makozho the family spokesperson and first born to the late Makozho.Speaker after speaker spoke glowingly about this larger than life figure, describing her as a humble educationist who led by example as she ensured that her children went as far as they could in pursuit of education."She was a teacher who wanted excellent results not only for her children but for the community at large. She was a mother, unifier and God fearing," said Mufaro.The late Makozho was 'Mai Veruwadzano' in the African Reformed Church."She was a natural community leader and Chivi is poorer without her as she wanted the best out of every person in the community as exhibited by her desire to see her children excel in school," said Sanders Magwizi a relative and councillor for ward 2 in Chivi North.Minister Hungwe described the late Makozho as the family's pillar of strength and a community leader who the people of Chivi looked up to as their role model. She was also described as one of the pioneers of education in the district."We have lost not only our mother but teacher, friend and father because she had become the head of the family after the death of our father (Finichie Makozho) five years ago. She was greatest educator and very humble, we were all taught by her in grade 1 and 2,' said Dr Vongai Tracy Mpofu a lecturer at Bindura University and third born in the family.Professor Mercy Tsitsi Kurebwa, a lecturer at Zimbabwe Open University said their mother was a hard working person, a farmer, loving and great woman.Ward 30 Councillor Goddard Dunira, Ward 1 Councillor Phillip Hungwe, Bindura University Vice Chancellor Prof Edias Mwenje and several Government officials also attended the funeral.Makozho was born in Chivi and went to school in the same district, Mukotosi, Bvute and Mudadisi Primary schools until she completed her Standard 6 at Chibi High School. She was then enrolled at Gutu mission for her teacher training certificate.She went to teach at Bvute, Mukotosi and Badza Primary Schools until she retired in 1992 after 42 years of service.Makozho is survived by seven children, four girls including Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Commissioner Bessy Fadzai Nhandara, three boys and over 15 grandchildren and two grand grandchildren. Taking care of mans best friend I am sure most of you have seen the TV commercials showing homeless, abandoned, and abused dogs. Especially if you are a dog lover, these commercials are sad and heart-wrenching to watch. Some of you probably turn away, turn the channel or walk out of the room. If you think these commercials are too difficult to watch, you would be appalled to see the squalor of puppy mills and the physical conditions of the dogs. Iowa is one of the worst states in regards to the number of puppy mills and the number of violations. In fact, Iowa is number two on the list. Number two! This is not something to be proud of. Many of these dogs live in deplorable conditions; breeding unhealthy puppies. Yes, the puppy is adorable, and it is love at first sight. And even if you think it might be a mill puppy, you think you are saving it by taking it home with you. Unfortunately, purchasing these puppies allow the breeders to stay in business. Iowa receives money from licensed USDA kennels. These annual fees are collected and the kennel owners issued operating permits by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. Yet Iowa does not provide oversight of these facilities that would give the protection to these dogs afforded by Iowas own animal welfare code. Time and time again, the state legislators have let a bill die that would put in place state oversight. This bill would give the state the permission to monitor the conditions in Iowas commercial dog breeding kennels. This bill will not affect farm animals or cost the taxpayers any additional money. So uncover your eyes and ears. Instead, open them up and help Iowa become one of the best states in companion animal welfare instead of being one of the worst. To find out more information, and possibly join an advocacy team, go to iafriends.org. Or, at least, educate yourself in what to look for before purchasing a puppy: i.e., the puppys parents are not available to see, breeder does not allow you to view the living quarters of the puppies and their parents and the breeder will only meet off site. These are all good indicators the puppy is from a mill. Help stop this abusive behavior by puppy mill breeders by contacting your legislators. It is your voice that will make the difference for the lives of these dogs. Please use it. Gretchen Miller, Council Bluffs In support of Judge Garland President Obama has nominated Chief Judge Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Judge Garland has nearly two decades of experience as a federal judge, and received bipartisan support when he was first appointed to the bench. There is no question that Judge Garland deserves a fair hearing and an up-or-down vote, a courtesy that both parties have always extended to Supreme Court nominees. Unfortunately, Sen. Chuck Grassley would rather hold the seat open for a possible nomination by Donald Trump. Mere days after becoming the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump attacked the character of Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, the district court judge overseeing one of a number of lawsuits alleging fraud in the operation of Trump University. Trump claimed that Curiel had issued biased rulings and should step down from the case, citing Curiels Mexican heritage as a reason why the judge couldnt be impartial. These remarks, which House Speaker Paul Ryan called the textbook definition of a racist comment, demonstrate Trumps scorn for the judiciary and his ignorance of judicial procedure. If Grassley has his way, Trump will have the privilege of nominating someone to fill Scalias seat and dozens of lower federal court judgeships that have languished during Grassleys tenure as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Grassley has chosen Trumps hateful rhetoric over a qualified, respectful jurist. Its hard to imagine a more disappointing call. K.O. Myers, Des Moines Ironic subdivision A definition of irony: a new subdivision named Whispering Oaks in which all the trees are torn down before construction. Mark Hohneke, Council Bluffs Community Its now easier than ever to connect and chat with others in your local area. You can connect with your community by asking general questions, give area updates and recommendations and even let your community know about local events that are taking place. News / National by Itai Mushekwe/Mary-Kate Kahari MDC-T leader and former premier, Morgan Tsvangirai has reportedly reunited with his ex-secretary general and former finance minister in the Government of National Unity (GNU), Tendai Biti, behind the curtain to synergize and synchronize protest votes, in a bid to push Zanu PF out of power in the upcoming 2018 watershed presidential and parliamentary elections, Spotlight Zimbabwe reported.Tsvangirai and Biti, who now leads the opposition outfit, People's Democratic Party (PDP) as president, fell out in April 2014, when a faction led by Biti claimed to have suspended Tsvangirai from the MDC because of a "remarkable failure of leadership", while Tsvangirai concurrently came out guns blazing, announcing the expulsion of Biti from the party altogether with 21 MPs aligned to him, being recalled from parliament the following year.Tsvangirai had accused Biti of being manipulated by President Robert Mugabe, to destabilize the party, whose internal divisions all but worsened following defeat to Zanu PF in the 2013 elections.According to a senior official in PDP, Biti and Tsvangirai's spokesmen, Jacob Mafume and Obert Gutu, had set the ball rolling meeting over the reunification on behalf of their leaders more than thrice already since January this year. A re-union pact is expected in early 2017, we have been told."Tsvangirai and Biti were always going to find each other," said the official. "I can put it on record that the two will officially announce a re-union pact no later than 2017. Right now they continue playing their political cards close to the chest, but it is now a done but confidential deal."Spotlight Zimbabwe has also gathered that, Biti's reluctance to sign up to the recently launched coalition of smaller political parties, under the banner Coalition of Democrats or Code, was because of strategic reasons, because the political plan is to first join forces with Tsvangirai and former vice president Joice Mujuru's Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF), where the lawyer's PDP party is likely to assume the role of kingmaker between MDC-T and ZimPF coalition talks, which are believed to be privately ongoing.Parties under Code include, Simba Makoni's Mavambo Kusile Dawn (MKD), the Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe (RDZ) led by Elton Mangoma, the MDC-led by Welshman Ncube, Farai Mbira's Zimbabweans United for Democracy (ZUNDE) and the Democratic Assembly for Restoration and Empowerment (DARE).Gilbert Dzikiti, who leads DARE, is interim chairman of the coalition.As if to confirm that Code is likely to go it alone in 2018, without Tsvangirai and Mujuru on board, who did not attend the signing ceremony of the coalition, Dzikiti told the media that assertions that Code is weak without MDC-T and ZimPF were dangerous."The assertion that without these two we are weak is a dangerous misconception that the people of Zimbabwe are gullible and naive not to exercise rational thinking. The people of Zimbabwe are clamouring for change which strengthens institutions and not individuals," said Dzikiti."I want to make it clear those who are still in their perceived big boy or women politics that they have been overtaken by events and wishes of the people. We are not weak but in fact strong in our diversity. There is power in unity and the fact that Zimbabweans are talking about the coalition agreement shows that we are writing a new narrative and changing history."Our PDP insider, also gave a hint that the country could witness two separate grand coalitions challenging Zanu PF for the presidency in two years time."We are headed for interesting times ahead," said the PDP politician who is close to Biti. "In 2018 we are likely to have two grand coalitions participating against Zanu PF that is why PDP, MDC-T and ZimPF have held back from joining Code. The three parties naturally will have a bigger critical voting mass, come polling day."This publication has also been told that Makoni is likely to run again for president as the Code's presidential nominee, in a race he is likely to face-off with vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and Tsvangirai should Mujuru decide to stay out of contest.Tsvangirai and Biti played a key role in the launch of the MDC in 1999 to challenge Mugabe's grip on power. Their recent political divorce, was the second split in the MDC. In 2005, Biti's predecessor as secretary-general, Welshman Ncube, broke away to launch his own MDC faction.Biti could neither confirm nor deny reports about his reunification with Tsvangirai, nor suggestions that Mujuru's camp is also courting him, during a late phone interview with Spotlight Zimbabwe last night."Ko ndozvatingataura mumapepa here? (We can't discuss about this in newspapers).PDP is committed to the unity of all Zimbabweans. We are determined to fight this dictatorship in 2018, and so we all need to fight in one corner," he said. News / National by Thobekile Zhou Chinese men who are working on various projects in Zimbabwe have come under attack for not bringing along their wives.President Robert Mugabe claimed that this could lead them to prey on local girls.Mugabe said the trend raises eyebrows leaving people to wonder if they will be celibate.Speaking exclusively in Shona, a staunch anti-gay proponent said they should bring their wives.He said the Chinese men end up leaving a mixed race communities after bedding local women. He said such a practice should stop.He said Government would continue engaging Chinese authorities since the two countries enjoyed good bilateral relations to ensure that some of these issues were addressed. News / National by Thobekile Zhou Seven Dynamos supporters died on the spot and 16 others injured when a Toyota Sprinter they were travelling in burst a tyre and veered off the road at the 173-kilometre peg along the Harare/Bulawayo highway, near ZRP Battlefields Camp.The travelling Dembare fans where from Harare heading to Gweru for their teams encounter with Chapungu.Police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi confirmed the incident.Four of the injured were taken to Kadoma hospital while the rest are being treated at Kwekwe General Hospital. Yesterday: Bowling Green OH Today:Nappannee, IN Tomorrow: Gary, IN Judging by the start and the end of our day on U.S. 6 you would think it was windy. The day started in Bowling Green where there are four turbines at the Wood County landfill. The site is Ohio's first utility-sized wind farm. The wind turbines are 257 feet tall and generate up to 7.2 megawatts of power enough to supply electricity for approximately 2,500 residential customers, according the city of Bowling Greens website. Our next stop was Napoleon where we caught up with a tour of the city. The tour was walking past the historic courthouse on the business section of U.S. 6. The boys and I learned about a fire that destroyed most of the downtown in 1879. The city gained in popularity and population when a canal system was created next to the Maumee River. There were a couple photo opportunities in Ridgeville Corners as well as an ice cream opportunity at Tropical Freeze, a business in operation for 15 years in a building that has been an ice cream stand since 1948. The shop is at the corner of Ohio 34 and U.S. 6. We then crossed into our first of three I states in Indiana. The Crossroads of America as it is called appreciates the history of the road we are crossing with Grand Army of the Republic Highway signs along with the normal West 6 signs we have seen through Ohio. We took a photo of a boy in each state at the state line marker and continued into Indiana. It wasnt too far down the road to where we found Kendallville and the Mid-American Windmill Museum. It was closed by the time we arrived, but we were able to do a self-guided walking tour of the property. Will was sure to add the windmills to that section of his daily checklist. (And he also counted 1,333 barns on Sunday, over double what he counted Saturday. We stopped for the night in Nappanee, a quaint downtown with large apples that were painted by local artists along Main and Market Streets. Our Monday will start at Amish Acres, a historic farm and heritage resort. Look for updates at our site starting at 9 a.m. Follow the trip at www.sanduskyregister.com/GoWest or Facebook.com/SanduskyRegisterWerling or Twitter @WhirlybirdPhoto and Instagram @SanduskyRegister. The day is upon us. A trip that has been 6 months in the making started Saturday from Sandusky, Ohio to Long Beach, California and everywhere in between on U.S. 6. My sons Will, Payton and I left Saturday morning for a three week journey on the Grand Army of the Republic Highway and you can join us for the entire trip. Whether youre reading our stories in the Sandusky Register, online at sanduskyregister.com, on social media or across the country with our newspaper partners, we welcome you to our journey. On Friday we visited Cedar Point since we wont be home for almost a month. We rode and ranked over 10 roller coasters thanks to some help from a Fast Lane Pass. Paytons favorite- Top Thrill Dragster. Will agrees with Cedar Points VP/general manager that Maverick is their favorite ride. Riding in the front of Valravn was my top choice of the day. See the rest of the rankings and our interview with McClure at www.sanduskyregister.com/GoWest. Our Saturday will end in Bowling Green and you can watch the live updates through Sandusky and Fremont and follow up each day wherever you are reading this now. Our trip will end on June 30 at Knotts Berry Farm when we follow the old U.S. 6 to where it ends on the Pacific Ocean. In the mean time we will tell as many stories as we can in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Colorado and California. Thank you for joining us. Follow the trip at www.sanduskyregister.com/GoWest or Facebook.com/SanduskyRegisterWerling or Twitter @WhirlybirdPhoto and Instagram @SanduskyRegister. Forklift-maker Hoist Liftruck is bringing some much-needed jobs to a Region city of 29,000 that had the highest unemployment rate of any city in Indiana at 9.8 percent in April, and which has consistently had one of the highest jobless rates in the state. The nearly century-old company, which makes reach stackers, container handlers and pneumatic forklifts that can lift as much as 57 tons, expects to employ as many as 500 workers at its new East Chicago factory by 2022. Hoist Liftruck has hired about 125 employees since transferring manufacturing operations to the new East Chicago plant from Bedford Park, Illinois, with most of those hires coming from Northwest Indiana, said Vince Flaska, new business development and property manager. "We get a few dozen resumes from welders a day in East Chicago, when we got maybe one a week in Bedford Park," he said. "The demographics are different. We got one candidate at Bedford Park who welded over his hand during the welding test. In Indiana, there's no shortage of people with the skills and the experience we need. We often hear 'I ran that machine at my old job.'" The company employed as few as 70 workers during the Great Recession at its Illinois plant, but business has been booming, especially after it signed a deal to make forklifts for market leader Toyota in North America and eventually all over the world. Hoist Liftruck brought about 225 employees from its Bedford Park headquarters plant when it moved its manufacturing operations to East Chicago's Blaw-Knox tank factory at 4407 Railroad Ave., where it has invested $40 million. Flaska said all but about 10 percent of the employees decided to come along to work in the Northwest Indiana city about 30 miles from Chicago's west suburbs. The company has been hiring as it ramps up in East Chicago, where it now employs about 350, to meet increased demand for its massive forklifts used at steel mills and other industrial sites. Its given people in E.C. the opportunity to have good jobs, East Chicago resident Michael Henning told ECTV when he landed a construction job there during the build-out last year. Before that, we didnt really have none in the city. East Chicago officials had wanted to require that Hoist Liftruck hire city residents, but federal anti-discrimination laws make such geographic restrictions problematic, said Karen Lauerman, Lake County Economic Alliance president and chief executive officer. Instead, training programs were set up through East Chicago Central High School and Ivy Tech Community College that prepare East Chicago residents for jobs at the company. The mayor wanted citizens to be considered for positions there, but you cant mandate or set targets to where they come from, she said. We did work with Ivy Tech and the high school to ensure a pipeline of skilled local workers. Hoist Liftruck also is bringing new residents into East Chicago. At least a dozen Hoist Liftruck employees already have moved from Chicagos West Side or South Side to East Chicago or neighboring Hammond, Flaska said. Theyve come to take advantage of East Chicagos $10,000 to $30,000 incentives for buying homes, Hammonds College Bound program, Indianas overall lower cost of living, and a shorter commute. Another 30 to 40 are looking to move. Many of these people are living in Chicago, Flaska said. Theyre White Sox fans. Theyre Bulls fans. They love Chicago. But they're seeing theyre saving so much money on gas and cigarettes. Then they look at the home prices, and find theyd save a lot more. They learn about the South Shore Line and discover theyre not 100 miles away from Chicago. Theyre 30 minutes from the Loop. Belittled as a child growing up in Orlando, Florida, where his ethnicity was derided with the term Chinaman, Eddie Huang has the last laugh now. Huang's 2013 memoir "Fresh off the Boat" became a New York Times best-seller and was turned into an ABC sitcom of the same name starring Constance Wu and Randall Park. Huang, the host of the food and travel show "Huang's World" as well as owner of the successful New York restaurant Baohaus, is considered among the pantheon of celebrity chefs. Hes also free now to be himself, after the expectations of his Chinese-Taiwanese upbringing and bullying of many of his peers. I think all my work is really rebelling against the matrix thats trying to normalize us and create monoculture, says Huang, who will be in Chicago today to discuss his second memoir, "Double Cup Love: On the Trail of Family, Food, and Broken Hearts in China" (Spiegel & Grau 2016; $27). This time Huang writes about his trip to China in 2013 to see not only how his cooking holds up to real authentic cuisine (Huang learned to cook from his mother), but also what his life might have been like if his family hadnt emigrated to the U.S. The personal journey reinforced his view that embracing our own diversity and appreciating and honoring the diversity of others as well is of major importance. It also helped him learn to accept who he is. The most rewarding part about it is all I have to do is be myself, Huang said. Thats all anybody has to do. Everybodys kind of strange. And thats OK. News / National by Staff Reporter The Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Saviour Kausukuwere says there is no place for James Mushore at Harare City Council and that he must go back to the financial services sector.Minister Kasukuwere, who is also the Zanu PF National Political Commissar, told residents of Kuwadzana that there is no place for former banker, Mushore at Town House as he is not privy to local governance issues.The former Group CEO of NMB Bank Holdings was appointed as Harare Town Clerk by the now suspended Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni, who stands accused of not following proper procedures in Mushore's the recruitment process.The MDC-T-led council has been defying government's directive to cancel Mushore's contract, allowing him to report for duty.Kasukuwere however said Zanu PF is the only game in town, as it has the people of Zimbabwe at heart.He added that some political parties have failed to deliver their promises to the people, which is the reason why some people like Jim Kunaka have defected back to Zanu PF.Kunaka also echoed Kasukuwere's sentiments that other political parties have nothing to offer the people of Zimbabwe.Zanu PF is trying mobilise people across the country ahead of the 2018 elections. HAMMOND A Gary man arrested Friday is accused of selling cocaine to a government informant three times in May, federal court records show. Federal agents began investigating Kevin Wilbon after a confidential information alleged he was selling cocaine, U.S. District Court records said. Wilbon is accused of selling 4 grams of suspected cocaine to the informant for $175 on May 5 in a Gary parking lot. On May 17, the informant arrived at Wilbon's residence, and Wilbon asked the informant to leave so Wilbon's relative who was at home would not become suspicious, a complaint said. Wilbon eventually met the the informant near the rear of the residence and sold the informant 5 grams of suspected cocaine for $250, court records said. Wilbon also is accused of selling the informant 19 grams of suspected cocaine for $800 on May 27 in a vehicle outside Wilbon's home. Wilbon previously was convicted of selling cocaine in 2007, court records said. The U.S. attorney's office did not have information Monday on Wilbon's age, a spokesman said. An attorney was appointed for Wilbon on Friday during a hearing in federal court. CROWN POINT Wearing a white T-shirt that memorialized her father, Alecia McCloud paused after telling the court about how much her fathers homicide has affected her. "I forgive you," McCloud said to Gentry Jackson, her stepfather, who was wearing a gray striped Lake County Jail uniform. He was seated across the courtroom from her. Jackson had claimed he shot the womans father, Alec McCloud, in self-defense. A Lake County jury last month rejected his self-defense claim and found him guilty of murder. Lake Criminal Judge Salvador Vasquez sentenced Jackson to 48 years in prison Monday during a sentencing hearing. He pointed out there were a lot of unanswered questions in the case. "Theres more to this story, I believe that," he said. The shooting happened during a confrontation Aug. 3 outside of Jacksons home in the 400 block of Ellsworth Street in Garys Ambridge neighborhood. The men hadnt seen each other for about a year before the shooting, though Jackson said McCloud, who was previously married to his wife, had made past threats against him. One of his stepdaughters, Alexis McCloud-Rogers, initially told police she told Jackson that her father was outside of their home armed with a handgun. She later changed her testimony and told jurors she felt threatened by her mother when she made her initial statement. Jackson testified he went outside of his home with a gun tucked into his pants to see why McCloud was there. Jackson alleged McCloud pointed a gun at him. Jackson then fired eight shots into McClouds car with six of the shots hitting the drivers side of the vehicle. McCloud drove away and crashed into the curb of a church. He later died at an area hospital. Police never found a gun in McCloud's vehicle. Alecia McCloud told Vasquez she has lost weight and has had nightmares ever since her father was killed. Her T-shirt that memorialized her father in green print stated, "To live and die in G.I." "Something Ill never get over," she said. Alec McClouds cousin, Allison Wilson Harrison, told Jackson the only person he could control is himself. "I hope you have time to think about what you did," she said. "Think about what you did in front of his family." Sitting next to defense attorney Scott King, Jackson apologized for playing a role in someone's death. "It's not in my heart to kill somebody," he said. Jackson, who choked up during his statement, said he wasn't perfect, but he managed to stay away from trouble for most of his life. He said his single mother raised him to be respectful and work hard. "I'm not the smartest man in the world, but I'm not stupid," he said. King described Jackson as a good man who someone would want as their neighbor. Jackson was a homeowner who worked two jobs. He argued no one knew what Alec McCloud was doing outside of Jackson's home that day. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Michael Toth conceded that there were many mitigating factors in the case. He said even the state's witnesses described Jackson as a kind man. "Something took over him that day," Toth said. He argued an aggravating factor was that Alec McCloud's daughter, who was younger than age 18, was home during the shooting. Though there was a possibility jurors could have accepted the claim of self-defense, Vasquez said it wasn't surprising that jurors didn't, because of the number of gunshots Jackson fired. Jackson frowned and looked back at the crowded gallery as bailiffs led him out of the courtroom. PORTAGE A Hobart man is facing several charges following an incident Friday afternoon where he allegedly pointed a gun at several people. Rusty Windsor, 29, was charged with felony counts of pointing a firearm and criminal recklessness and misdemeanor counts of possession of a firearm by a domestic batterer, possession of marijuana, carrying a handgun without a permit, driving while suspended and possession of paraphernalia. Police were called about 3 p.m. Friday to the 5700 block of Old Porter Road on a report of a man, later identified as Windsor, pointing a handgun. A woman told police Windsor came to her home to see her daughter, whom he had allegedly battered earlier in the day in Hammond. When he was turned away, he went back to his car and got the gun. According to several witnesses, Windsor pointed the handgun at himself and also pointed it at three other area residents, threatening one of them, before leaving the mobile home park. Windsor was stopped by police in the 5700 block of U.S. 20. Police found a handgun and shotgun in the car. They also found marijuana and paraphernalia in the vehicle. In addition, an officer said Windsor gave him a cellphone he said belonged to his girlfriend. When police returned it to her, she denied ownership and police learned it came from a vehicle that had been broken into in Hammond the night before. Police also found several other items in the car, a red Pontiac Grand Am, which matched a description of a suspect vehicle at a West Beach vehicle break-in. Police were investigating whether the items found in Windsors car were stolen. He was taken to Porter County Jail. MUNSTER Residents from around the Region gathered Sunday night to mourn the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, the deadliest shooting in United States history. The Rev. Rose Fier, RM metaphysical practitioner at Reiki Energetix, said she decided to host a vigil to bring together people of all religions and sexuality. Pulse is a gay nightclub. This isnt just about the gay community, its about acceptance. Stop judging religions, sexuality and races. Be kind to each other. Love is real, Fier said. Brandon Wagman, CEO and co-founder of Rainbow Serenity, expressed his feelings on the effects the shooting has had on the LGBT community. Its sad and tragic. Its an emotional time. With marriage equality and everything thats come to pass, these events set us back, Wagman said. Among the mourners was Adam Clough, a close friend of 34-year old Eddie Sotomayor Jr., a victim of the shooting. Clough knew Sotomayor Jr. for two years and said friends called him "Top Hat Eddie" due to his habit of wearing a top hat. I texted him many times and used Facebook, just waiting. This morning has been hell, just refreshing Facebook and the longer it took I knew it wasnt good news, Clough said. He organized a cruise we did every year. He gave free hugs to everyone, whether they were gay or straight. Sotomayor Jr. was the first name released by officials from the city of Orlando, and Clough said he first learned of his death from Sotomayor Jr.s boss. My heart just sunk. Im hurt and angry over why another person could do this. Were never going to advance if we dont get past this. I know we cant agree on everything, but we can agree on some things, Clough said. In the back of my mind, Im scared to go to the pride parade in Chicago next weekend, but I also dont want to let them win by not going. Mourners gathered in a circle for a moment of silence to remember Sotomayor Jr. and the other victims. Im blessed that my 13-year old child is here so she can see all the love and support for future generations, Fier said. Eddie, youre sailing in the heavens right now. Give your free hugs to everyone. Reaction in Indiana, Illinois Vigils were also held Sunday evening in Indianapolis and at The LGBTQ Center in South Bend. Gov. Mike Pence has directed flags be flown at half-staff at state facilities to honor victims. He calls the killings a "senseless act of terror." Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett has also called for flags in Marion County be flown at half-staff. Archbishop Blase Cupich of the Archdiocese of Chicago released a statement Sunday that read "Our prayers and hearts are with the victims of the mass shooting in Orlando, their families and our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters." The statement goes on to say " In response to hatred, we are called to sow love. In response to violence, peace. And, in response to intolerance, tolerance. The people of the Archdiocese of Chicago stand with the victims and their loved ones, and reaffirm our commitment, with Pope Francis, to address the causes of such tragedy, including easy access to deadly weapons. We can no longer stand by and do nothing." INDIANAPOLIS The Indiana Election Commission will meet at noon Region time Wednesday at the Statehouse to rule on a residency challenge filed against Democratic House candidate Earl Harris, Jr. Rosa Maria Rodriguez, who lost to Harris in the May 3 primary, claims Harris is not a House District 2 resident because he owns an Indianapolis home for which he received a tax credit available only on a Hoosier's primary dwelling. Harris said he relocated to his mother's East Chicago home following the March 2015 death of his father, longtime state Rep. Earl Harris, Sr. At least three of the four commissioners must find Harris ineligible to remove him from the ballot. CROWN POINT Lake County's E-911 director is hanging it up. Lake County Commissioner Mike Repay, D-Hammond, said Monday afternoon he has accepted Brian Hitchcock's resignation, and the county soon will begin searching for a new helmsman to further bring the county's police, fire and emergency medical communications together. Hitchcock said he has agreed to take on a new 911 consolidation effort in Clarksville, Tennessee, where he once lived for two years and where he expects warmer weather and lower stress levels. He said only two departments will merge there, unlike Lake where 15 community-based dispatch rooms had to be replaced. "Have we gone through rough times? Yeah, but I've never met nicer people or more supportive officials," Hitchcock said. He said he had been looking for a change in employment since the three-year contract he signed in 2013 was soon set to expire. "I didn't know when I resigned whether (Repay) would be angry or happy, but he said he was sorry to see me go," Hitchcock said. Repay said he would have liked Hitchcock to have stayed longer to ensure the stability of the county's E-911 departments, which only became fully operational last fall with the opening of the county's $20 million call center. It has struggled with dispatching failures last year that were blamed for delays in reaching an ill Griffith man in his home and a Gary man who collapsed inside a church. Both men died. Lake County's emergency communications network is still struggling to fully staff its call center more than a year after its state-mandated consolidation. The county's pay scale is lower than 911 operations in Illinois and elsewhere in Indiana. Hitchcock said many dispatchers hired from the 15 smaller communities merged into the county operation were unprepared for the high intensity of public demand for law enforcement and medical services. Repay said the county now must look for a director who will concentrate on improving personnel relations. Hitchcock said the county may want to consider Jack Allendorf, a former Crown Point police officer who has served as second-in-command under him. CROWN POINT Edward Davies is back in charge at the Lake County Jail, 16 years after his career in law enforcement nearly came to an end over a purloined mink coat. Lake County Sheriff John Buncich said Monday he promoted the 62-year-old Davies to deputy jail administrator to supervise the staffs operation, oversee security in the lockup and administer the jails budget. Davies pleaded guilty in 1999 to misdemeanor theft of a mink coat investigators had seized in a drug raid two years earlier. The sheriff said, That is the past. I know I will have my critics, but you cant kill a guy for one mistake. He went to the FBI Academy and graduated with honors from there. He was chief of police for the Indiana University Northwest police. He has been a deputy warden, and he ran our work release. The experience is there. Ive known him for 40 years. Buncich said he wants Davies to work with Jail Administrator Mark Purevich to keep the 1,050-bed lockup in compliance with federal standards under a consent decree drawn up six years ago after the U.S. Justice Departments civil rights division declared it deficient. We have a lot of issues with the (Department of Justice). Mark has to work out the issues with the medical and mental health, the medical reporting system. We have to make constant improvements. Its overwhelming for one individual to handle. (Davies) will be there to assist, Buncich said. Buncich said the Justice Department has raised no objections to Davies appointment. Earlier this year, Davies was administrator of the sheriffs civilian employees with an annual salary of $59,564. Davies started with the sheriffs police in 1979 as a patrolman and worked as a radio communications supervisor, hostage crisis negotiator and criminal investigator who helped solve several high-profile murders. He was commander of the sheriffs drug task force in 1997 when they seized a mink coat from a suspected dealer on suspicion it had been purchased from drug profits. It was supposed to be kept as evidence until the case was over and sold at auction to reimburse the public for the cost of the police action. But a federal investigation discovered Davies wore it out in public and even had his initials sewn into it, according to a court document filed with his plea agreement. He received six months home detention and a $5,000 fine. Davies won the Addie Maddox Award in 2012 from the Indiana Fraternal Order of Police for his law enforcement career. DYER The investigation continues into a brawl that broke out at a construction site earlier this year. Background D5 Iron Works alleges its workers were attacked Jan. 7 while working on the site for Plumb Creek Christian Academy, located in the southwest corner of 213th Street and Calumet Avenue. The school is part of Dyer Baptist Church. D5 Iron Workers filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois against Local 395 Ironworkers, and the company is seeking $3 million in damages. The lawsuit also specifically names Thomas Williamson Sr., and Thomas Williamson Jr., as defendants Williamson Sr. is accused of approaching the D5 Iron Works workers Jan. 6 at the construction site to solicit a labor agreement that would call for union members to work the job. Williamson was told to leave. The next day, he allegedly again showed up at the construction site and began arguing with workers about the labor agreement. He and other men are accused of returning to the construction site later that day, when a brawl ensued. According to the lawsuit, some of the men from Local 395 Ironworkers were wearing steel-toe boots during the attack and were yelling, "395 territory." At least one worker with D5 Iron Works, Scott Kudingo, had to have his jaw wired shut because of a beating. What's next No criminal charges have been filed in the case. Dyer police responded at 3:02 p.m Jan. 7 to the construction site. Police said the suspects had left by the time they arrived. Dyer Police Department Chief David Hein said their investigation has been turned over to U.S. Attorney David Capp for his review. Hein said police worked with the U.S. Department of Labor in the investigation. Ryan Holmes, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in the Northern District of Indiana, said he couldn't confirm or deny the existence of the investigation. The lawsuit that originally was filed in Illinois recently was transferred to the Northern District of Indiana, which means the case will be heard in the federal courthouse in Hammond. Williamson Sr. did not return a phone call seeking comment. HAMMOND The U.S. attorney's office and a lawyer for a Gary man who admitted to lying to federal agents investigating the bludgeoning death of a 15-year-old Gary girl agree the man should receive 15 months in prison. Barry Taylor, 35, is scheduled to be sentenced at 1 p.m. Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Hammond, records show. Taylor pleaded guilty in March to a one count of making false statements to federal law enforcement agents. He has not been charged in the homicide. Johnice China White was found dead Aug. 8, 1995, in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Her body was facedown and partially clothed, and she had died from blunt force trauma to the head, according to an indictment. DNA testing found an unknown males semen on her underwear, court records say. FBI agents interviewed Taylor on Jan. 15, 2012, the indictment says. Taylor, who was a teenager when White was killed, allegedly denied having sex with White, knowing of anyone with a sexual interest in her or knowing of any reason his DNA would have been found at the crime scene. The agents executed a search warrant to obtain Taylors DNA after the interview. The FBIs lab confirmed in March 2012 that the DNA on Whites underwear matched Taylors DNA, the indictment says. The FBI took over the investigation because White's body was found on federal land. Authorities initially thought White might have been a victim of convicted serial killer Eugene Britt, who raped and murdered at least seven girls and women in 1995. Police later said White was not among the victims Britt confessed to killing. GARY A 26-year-old Gary man told police he was stabbed in the hand and robbed of his paycheck Saturday in the city's downtown area. Gary police were dispatched to Methodist Hospitals Northlake Campus about 12:40 a.m. for a stabbing victim, Deputy Chief Derrick Cannon said. The man told police he was in the 900 block of Broadway when two men approached him and he was stabbed in a struggle, police said. He had a non-life-threatening wound to his left hand. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Sgt. Gregory Wolf at (219) 881-1210. To remain anonymous, call (866) CRIME-GP. News / National by Staff Reporter The Senator for Beitbridge Tambudzani Mohadi came to the rescue of parents who are fighting a sex scandal case at the Beitbridge Courts when she raided the house of an alleged paedophile and found him camped with two little girls who were missing from their homes.According to Masvingo Mirror, Mohadi said she raided the place where Rayson Tsvangirai Rushwaya (26) rents one room in Dulivhadzimu and found him with two teen age girls, one of whom is pregnant.Ironically the girls had earlier refuted in court that they stay with Rushwaya when their parents laid abduction cases against the later.The case is still running at the Beitbridge Magistrates' Court."I can confirm that I went to the accused's house and found him with two young girls. The girls were fighting each other on who should stay with Rushwaya in the house."I have handed over the matter to the Police," said Senator Mohadi.The pregnant girl was allegedly forced to sleep outside the house the night before Mohadi conducted the raid.Mohadi who was accompanied by activist Patricia Ndlovu, the parents of the girls and the Police found Rushwaya and the two girls deep in argument as to who should live inside the house."The parents received a report that the girls were fighting and sought help from Ndlovu who in turn approached Mohadi," said a source that was at the scene when the Senator pounced.It is unlawful under Section 93 (1) (11) of the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act for anyone to take a child under the age of 18 and deprive the child's lawful custodian access to the child.There have been many reports doing the rounds in Beitbridge where Rushwaya is accused of abusing little school girls."She (Mohadi) asked the girls why they had lied before the court that they did not live with Rushwaya and one is reported to have said she was influenced by the accused to mislead the court," said the source.Both girls had told the court that they never lived with Rushwaya but they only visited him for a few hours."Rushwaya knelt down and apologised but Mohadi was irritated to hear that the pregnant girl was sleeping outside while Rushwaya slept with the other girl inside the house," said the source.The pregnant girl is said to have turned 18 last month. Ndlovu told The Mirror in an interview that there were many cases of abuse of the girl child but these were going unreported because poverty-stricken parents accepted gifts from perverts."Economic hardships force people into accepting such situations that traumatise girls for all their lives," she said.Ndlovu said she was extremely disappointed by Police's sluggish approach to cases of abuse of girls. She said she had inside a month uncovered two such cases that were swept under the carpet by the Police.Rushwaya's trial continues this week when the State is expected to lead evidence from other witnesses. If convicted, Rushwaya, faces a jail term of not less than five years. VALPARAISO London is calling for a painting in the permanent collection at Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University. The museum is lending its Georgia O'Keeffe 1930 painting Rust Red Hills to the exhibition "Georgia O'Keeffe" beginning July 6 at the Tate Modern in London. Gregg Hertzlieb, director and curator of Brauer Museum of Art, will accompany the painting to London on June 27 where he'll supervise its transportation, unpacking and installation. "Certain paintings you want to specify having a courier because they're really valuable and you want to make sure nothing happens to them," Hertzlieb said. This isn't the first time Hertzlieb as couriered a painting overseas. He's taken a painting to Japan and a few years ago transported the same O'Keeffe painting to an exhibition in Dublin, Ireland. He'll be in London through July 1. "It's fun," Hertzlieb said. O'Keeffe made her debut in 1916 and is known as a pioneer of twentieth century art. "She is very famous artist to the point of almost being like a folk hero," Hertzlieb said. "She is one of the first women artists to attract wide-spread fame and recognition. In the beginnings of modern art she played a very important role to kind of develop what art could become in the modern era." The London exhibition runs through Oct. 30. The exhibition runs from July 6 - Oct. 30.Then it goes to the Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna, Austria, where the show runs from Nov. 30 to March 12. The exhibition concludes at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, where the exhibition runs from April 1 to June 25. Lenders to this exhibition include many major U.S. museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago. PORTAGE The Rev. Michael Cooper said his congregants were in shock Sunday morning. As they listened to his sermon, they also kept track of news reports of the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Cooper is pastor of Metropolitan Community Church Illiana, a Christian church with a focus on gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer spirituality. "Yesterday, we were kind of in shock," Cooper said Monday. "We have churches in Florida that have been very much affected by the tragedy." MCC was founded in 1968 by Troy Perry after being kicked out of his Pentecostal church for admitting he was gay. The Illiana congregation has its roots in the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park but moved to Northwest Indiana about 13 years ago and made Portage its home at 5579 Clem Road six years ago. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families," Cooper said, adding they are continuing to monitor news reports of the event. Cooper said many of the younger congregants have never experienced violence against the gay community. "For them, to experience something as devastating as this, they are in shock. Especially since it happened at a gay bar. They have been places of community building and interaction where they can meet and socialize with people like themselves." There were violent times in the past as the LGBT community fought for its rights in the 1970s and a resurgence during the AIDS epidemic. But, he added, the group has made strides, pointing to last year's U.S. Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. Cooper said he sees a backlash in things like the North Carolina transgender bathroom law and in Sunday's attack. "With the current temperament of the presidential election, there could be a backlash against many of the gains made," he said, adding not only against the LGBT community, but also against minority racial and ethnic groups that are targets of vitriol language in the campaign. The church, which is open to everyone, is hosting a Pride event at 11 a.m. June 25. Cooper invited the community to attend to get to know the church and its members. ORLANDO, Fla. The gunman whose attack on a gay nightclub left 49 victims dead appears to have been a "homegrown extremist" who espoused support for a jumble of often-conflicting Islamic radical groups, the White House and the FBI said Monday. As Orlando mourned its dead with flowers, candles and vigils, counterterrorism investigators dug into the background of 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the American-born Muslim who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. "So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States, and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network," said FBI Director James Comey. But he said Mateen was clearly "radicalized," at least in part via the internet. Comey said the bureau is also trying to determine whether Mateen had recently scouted Disney World as a potential target, as reported by People.com, which cited an unidentified federal law enforcement source. "We're still working through that," Comey said. The FBI chief defended the bureau's handling of Mateen during two previous investigations into his apparent terrorist sympathies. As for whether there was anything the FBI should have done differently, "so far, the honest answer is, I don't think so," Comey said. Despite Mateen's pledge of fealty to the Islamic State, a murky combination of other possible motives and explanations emerged, with his ex-wife saying he suffered from mental illness and his Afghan-immigrant father suggesting he may have acted out of anti-gay hatred. He said his son got angry recently about seeing two men kiss. The Orlando Sentinel and other news organizations quoted regular customers at the gay bar as saying they had seen Mateen there a number of times. "Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent," said Ty Smith. Smith said he saw the killer inside at least a dozen times. Wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, Mateen opened fire at Pulse Orlando early Sunday in a three-hour shooting rampage and hostage siege that ended with a SWAT team killing him. During the attack, he called 911 to profess allegiance to the Islamic State group. At the White House, President Barack Obama said there is no clear evidence so far that Mateen was directed by the group, calling the attack an apparent example of "homegrown extremism." Obama is traveling to Orlando on Thursday to pay his respects to the victims and stand in solidarity with the community, the White House said Monday evening. More details of the bloodbath emerged, with Orlando Police Chief John Mina saying Mateen was "cool and calm" during phone calls with police negotiators. But the chief said he decided to send the SWAT team in and bash through a wall after Mateen holed up with hostages in a bathroom and began to talk about bombs and an explosive vest. "We knew there would be an imminent loss of life," Mina said. As it turned out, Mateen had no explosives with him. Five of the wounded were reported in grave condition, meaning the death toll could rise. A call went out for blood donations. In Orlando, mourners piled bouquets around a makeshift memorial, and people broke down in tears and held their hands to their faces while passing through the growing collection of flowers, candles and signs about a mile from the site of the massacre. Later Monday evening, thousands gathered near the site for a vigil held on the lawn of the Dr. Phillips Center, the area's main performing arts venue. Many in the crowd said they were inspired to attend because Pulse played a huge role in their lives as gays and lesbians. "It was a place that a young 20-year-old who wasn't openly gay felt safe for the first time," said Cathleen Daus, now 36. About 300 employees of the Red Lobster restaurant chain some in business suits, some in chef's uniforms emerged from the company's corporate headquarters and walked two-by-two across the street to the memorial, each carrying a red or white carnation. "We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater," vowed Mayor Buddy Dyer, whose city of a quarter-million people is known around the globe as the home of Walt Disney World and other theme parks. The tragedy hit the city's gay and Hispanic communities especially hard. It was Latino Night at the club when the attack occurred. "As the names come out, they are overwhelmingly Latino and Hispanic names," said Christina Hernandez, a Hispanic activist. "These were not just victims of the LBGT community, but of the Hispanic community, as well. This was senseless bloodshed." Mateen's grasp of the differences between Islamic extremist groups appeared shaky. During three calls with 911 dispatchers, Mateen not only professed allegiance to ISIS but also expressed solidarity with a suicide bomber from the Syrian rebel group Nusra Front, and a few years ago he claimed connections to Hezbollah, too both ISIS enemies, according to Comey. The FBI became aware of Mateen in 2013 when co-workers reported that the private security guard claimed to have family connections to al-Qaida and to be a member of Hezbollah, too, Comey said. He was also quoted as saying he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so that he could martyr himself. The FBI launched a 10-month preliminary investigation, following Mateen, reviewing his communications and questioning him, the FBI chief said. Mateen claimed he made the remarks in anger because co-workers were teasing him and discriminating against him as a Muslim, and the FBI eventually closed the case, Comey said. His name surfaced again as part of another investigation into the Nusra Front bomber. The FBI found Mateen and the man had attended the same mosque and knew each other casually, but the investigation turned up "no ties of any consequence," Comey said. Mateen was added to a terror watch list in 2013 when he was investigated, but was taken off it soon after the matter was closed, according to Comey. People who are in that database are not automatically barred from buying guns, and in any case Mateen purchased his weapons in June, long after he was removed from the list. On Sunday, the bloodshed started after Mateen approached the club around 2 a.m., exchanged fire with an off-duty officer working security, and then went inside and started gunning people down, police said. After two other officers arrived and exchanged gunfire with Mateen, the gunman holed up in a restroom with about five club-goers. An additional 15 to 20 were in another nearby bathroom, authorities said. Hostage negotiators began talking to Mateen. After Mateen began to talk about explosives, Mina made the decision around 5 a.m. to blow open a wall to the bathroom. The explosives didn't penetrate the wall completely, so an armored vehicle was used to punch a 2-by-3-foot hole. Dozens of people escaped, and Mateen was gunned down as he emerged through the hole, police said. The Islamic State's radio hailed the attack and called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." But it gave no indication the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Counterterrorism experts have been warning in the past few years about the danger of so-called lone wolf attackers who act in sympathy with extremist groups like the Islamic State but are not directed by them. Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told reporters that the massacre was "the act of a terrorist," and added: "I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are." He wouldn't go into details about any religious or political views his son held, saying he didn't know. Asked whether he missed his son, he said: "I don't miss anything about him. What he did was against humanity." ___ Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington, Mike Schneider and Tamara Lush in Orlando and photographers Chris O'Meara in Orlando and Alan Diaz in Fort Pierce, Florida, contributed to this report. Crossing the line separating Indiana and Illinois sometimes means dealing with different laws and customs. Readers are asked to share ideas for this weekly feature. This week: Flag sales tax. Americans celebrate Flag Day Tuesday in commemoration of the June 14, 1777, resolution, adopted by the Second Continental Congress, declaring the Stars and Stripes the flag of the United States. But residents of Indiana and Illinois who want to buy a flag to display for Flag Day had better be prepared to pay a little extra for the privilege, since both states collect sales tax on flag purchases. Indiana charges 7 percent sales tax statewide. Illinois sales tax varies by locality from 6.25 percent to 10.25 percent. According to the Tax Foundation, 14 states exempt the purchase of U.S. and their state flags from sales tax. Wisconsin is the only Midwest state that doesnt charge sales tax on flags. A 2014 proposal to exempt American-made flags from Indiana sales tax did not advance out of committee in the Republican-controlled Senate. The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency determined the exemption would reduce state revenue by $256,000 a year. Gary native and Valparaiso University alumnus Mark Roscoe has managed to build a successful global fashion empire without having to leave home to do it. Words of Wisdom Serving ones country is a noble choice, but its not an easy one and its not a decision that should be made impulsively. For those considering serving in the military, Rob and Laurie offer the following advice: - Make sure you know why you want to go in, Laurie says. It cant just be about a paycheck. Its a 24/7 commitment, and you have to be prepared for the possibility of deployment. - Rob serves as a Portage ROTC volunteer, and he cautions, This is a dangerous time to be a young person, so make sure you know why youre going into this. Talk to all four recruiters, and explore all of the services and options. - For those who are married or have families of their own, Rob points out, You can be put into situations that are dangerous, and your spouse has to know that. If youre going into a war zone, youre putting your spouse and family into that situation, too. As the NYPD beefs up security in the city, particularly at LGBT facilities, following the deadliest mass shooting in the nation's history Sunday, city residents are mourning the lives lost in what federal investigators say was an act of terror. Police have stepped up their presence at key locations throughout the city as a precaution. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack an act of terrorism and an act of hate against the LGBT community. "Terrorists want us to change our lifestyle. They want to make us back away from our values. They want to undermine our democracy. We cannot be intimidated. New Yorkers should go about their business knowing that the NYPD is protecting them," de Blasio said. "This department, this city administration is committed to ensuring that we'll do everything in our power to ensure, particularly in this very special month for them and the events that are coming up, parades and other events, that we will be there for them," said Police Commissioner William Bratton. Police are also planning to increase security for pride celebrations taking place this month. The department has been focusing much of its security details on LGBT locations, including the famous Stonewall Inn, where many have been gathering to mourn the victims. A vigil outside the West Village bar is currently ongoing. De Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo are both in attendance. A memorial to the victims is also outside the West Village bar. Mourners are stopping by to drop off flowers and write tributes outside of what is a landmark for LGBT rights. The messages include well wishes to the victims and vows to take a stance against gun violence. "People in my community were killed just for being who they are and loving and wanting to get together, and it's just a way of saying how much I care and how much it moves me," said one person at the memorial. "I can't be here tonight for the vigil, so I wanted to put some flowers on the site before leaving for Washington," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, whose district covers parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. "I'm going to reinstate the assault weapons ban. We passed it in '94. It was in place for 10 years. It worked. Let's put it back." Authorities worked overnight to remove dozens of bodies from Pulse Orlando, the popular gay bar where 49 people were killed and more than 50 others were injured by the lone gunman. Authorities say the families of all 49 victims killed have been notified. The suspect was identified as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, 29, of Port St. Lucie, Florida. Reports say Mateen was born in Queens and that his parents are Afghan immigrants. He moved to Florida in 1991. The Associated Press reports court documents show in 2006, Mateen filed to legally change his name from Omar Mir Seddique to Omar Mir Seddique Mateen. The documents did not say why he changed his name. According to FBI Director James Comey, Mateen was inspired by extremist information primarily through the Internet, but was not part of any network and did not receive direction from outside the U.S. The FBI says he called a 911 operator during the incident and claimed solidarity with the Islamic State group, the Boston Marathon bombers and a Florida man who died as a suicide bomber in Syria. Federal officials say they investigated Mateen in 2013 after co-workers reported he claimed to have ties to terrorist groups, but it was closed after 10 months. "We then interviewed him twice. He admitted making the statements that his co-workers reported, but explained that he did it in anger because he thought his co-workers were discriminating against him and teasing him because he was Muslim," Comey said. Speaking to reporters in Colorado, his ex-wife says he physically abused her and that he was mentally ill. "When he would get in his tempers, he would express toward things, towards everything. So in that respect, you know, yeah, but it was the moments when you see his emotional instability, turning totally different," she said. First, find out what they have heard. Through Facebook, Twitter, or friends, most youngsters will know about the mass shooting that took place on Friday morning at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. Listen to their fears. Dispel rumors. And be honest, sharing as much detail as a child is able to handle. Therapists who treat childhood trauma said on Friday that parents talking to their children about the mass shooting should address the news directly and soon, allowing the child to lead with questions and concerns. Parents can no longer control what their children know by simply turning off the television. Many children will know what is happening from mobile devices and social media; now is the time to turn those devices off, these experts said. Its important to open up the discussion, said Melissa Brymer, director of terrorism and disaster programs at the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress, based at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Duke University. Theres a lot of talk on Facebook and Twitter, and its important to clarify whats rumor and whats not. Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, a child psychiatrist at Columbia, said that parents should come to terms with their own feelings about the massacre before talking to a child. They should "essentially metabolize the awfulness of the event so that what they pass on when they have a discussion with their children conveys a certain amount of thoughtfulness and understanding, rather than raw trauma," he said in an e-mail. If a child is frightened, determine the precise source of the fear. It may be a worry that their classroom isnt safe; or about how to escape school when under threat. If you say, This bad man cant hurt you, youve introduced another fear, said Dr. Robert H. Abramovitz, a child psychiatrist at Hunter College. Ask what their worst fear is, and address that. Dr. Abramovitz said that parents can be so eager to reassure that they make unrealistic promises, like this will never happen to you. Better to validate the childs fear, to say that its natural to feel that way, and tell them, Im going to do everything I can to keep you safe,' he said. And reinforce coping skills the child may have already used. Dr. Abramovitz suggested asking, Remember the last time you were afraid? Remember what you did to calm down? He said, This gives the child a feeling of having some agency, some control. If possible, other therapists said, parents should use family or holiday routines as a comforting structure. Spend extra time with children at bedtime. Read them a book. Engage traditions that remind them what they are thankful for. Practical questions will soon arise, if not today then soon. Does a child know his or her schools emergency procedures? What is the familys communication plan, should something happen? For example, texting is a better strategy then calling, Dr. Brymer said. The phone lines clog up fast. It may be a matter of children knowing to text, Im OK.' And they should be, especially if their parents check in with them and listen. And remind them of something important: that the world is a good place, even if some people do very bad things. Published: 27 May 2021 at 05:57hrs | 4 | by The President of Zimbabwe People First Pan Africanism is the philosophy which dictate that people of African descend should have common interest and are unified. Judging by the political re... Season 3, Episode 8: Bachmans Earnings Over-Ride Perhaps the quintessential shot of Erlich Bachman pops up near the end of Bachmans Earnings Over-Ride, in the moments after the self-styled tech visionary has finally hit bottom. As the Pied Piper team celebrates 100,000 installs in 10 days and smiting its nemeses at Hooli, Erlich sits alone on the back porch, smoking weed out of a formal glass pipe. Weve seen him inhale through many vessels, so the choice of bong is significant: This is Erlich at his most distinguished and professorial, looking one tweed jacket away from a tenured position at Sarah Lawrence. He is an absurd man who longs to be taken seriously. The shot appropriately bookends an episode that opens with Erlich joining Richard on a Bloomberg TV segment, where he pronounces the c in the words Embarcadero and San Francisco with the Spanish th sound. Hes at once the high-chinned father of Silicon Valleys hottest compression company and the numbskull who dumped his 10 percent stake in Pied Piper to cover debts from a separate venture. As the ultimate pretend-sophisticate, Erlich loves to hold court, but reality has humbled him, made him desperate. There ostensibly to promote Pied Piper, hes fishing for new business to bail him out of his Bachmanity debacle, with the sad proviso that prospective incubees can find him in the White Pages under Erlich Blachman. He looks like a pitchman heading into the last hour of an all-night infomercial. At this point, Richard doesnt know that Erlich sold his stock to Laurie Bream the night before the platforms triumphant launch, which adds an almost childlike poignancy to Erlichs plight, as if hes hiding a bad report card from his parents. Hes spent the last 10 days basking in the sun, pretending that hes Jobs to Richards Wozniak and making himself available for press appearances and photo shoots. On the phone, he begs Monica to let him keep Richard in the dark for another 24 hours, just so he can attend an exclusive Vanity Fair dinner, for which hes already requested a pesca-pescatarian meal. (A pesca-pescatarian, he explains, is someone who only eats fish eaten by other fish.) Erlich will extend this charade for all its worth. Erlichs separation from the group this season has given Silicon Valley a more varied dynamic, where success and failure can coexist or perhaps meet somewhere in the middle. When Erlich, Richard and the gang were trying to get the company off the ground, their fortunes were tethered together, so their endless setbacks had all of them pushing that Sisyphean boulder up the hill. On Sunday nights episode, Richard and his engineers are riding higher than theyve ever been, hailed as a unicorn company that could be worth billions. Meanwhile, Gavin Belson, Richards bete noire, has been ousted by the Hooli board, which isnt persuaded by his tortoise-and-the-hare metaphor. (After decrying the bulldog earlier this season, Gavin blasts the insolent and cocksure hare. The entire animal kingdom should consider itself on notice.) And then theres Erlich, eager for an encore after Pied Piper, blowing Big Heads $20 million settlement on juicers, a tech blog and a $1 million luau at Alcatraz. Heres an unlikely chain of events: Catherine gives her mother a historic pen, which Selina finds surprisingly thoughtful (thereby managing to insult and thank her daughter simultaneously). That same pen gets passed along to the Chinese, to save face after the guests out-gift their hosts. From her visitors, Selina receives an antique silken robe, which she gives to Marjorie, whom she forgot to Christmas shop for. And because Marjorie looks a little Selina, when the Chinese see her wearing the robe and kissing Catherine, they think the president is making out with her own daughter. One impulsive decision provokes another, until it looks like the economic future of two countries is going to be ruined by one womans inability to look at an Amazon wish list. But just like in Mother where Selinas grief over losing the Nevada recount was interpreted as her mourning the loss of her mom in Camp David something wholly unrelated to the moment turns the tide in her favor. When the president storms out of the talks with the Chinese so that she can stop Andrew from pitching one of his dud properties to Catherine, the opposition sees this as a power move, and offers a deal that would include Chinas willingness to discuss Tibetan independence, possibly. Ignoring all the layers of perhaps in that proposal, Selina seizes the opportunity to be the president who freed Tibet and ditches the good people of Ohio and North Carolina. (They shouldve gone to college, she says with a shrug.) The addition of Minna to all this madness is a masterstroke. Its so easy to get mired in the Meyer Way of doing business, and to think that its normal or even preferable to be manipulative, petty, myopic and vain. Minnas keen observation and lack of a filter means that she ends up providing a monotone running commentary on everything thats happening, making Selina uncomfortable by pointing out her cosmetic surgery, her menopause and her casual cruelty to her only child. (When Selina compares a picture of a farm animal to Catherine, a confused Minna says, But your daughter is a beautiful woman and this is a piglet.) Minna is the anti-Meyer: friendly with other foreign leaders and personally plugged in to whats going on in the world. Its fair to say that any Veep episode that features Minna is going to be a winner. Camp David isnt perfect. Its a minor comic miscalculation to put the flat-voiced Minna in the general vicinity of the even flatter Marjorie. (But Marjorie does figure into one of the funniest moments of the episode, when Selina asks whether her sham-ham nut-loaf tastes like pork and she blankly answers, No.) And a lot of the side characters are shortchanged this week, including Mike, who gets only a few seconds of screen time to learn that the Chinese have belatedly approved his adoption of a baby, and that his surrogate mother is having twins. But the most rushed arc belongs to Jonah, who goes from being a congressional long shot thanks to a viral clip of him at a debate trying to force his opponent, Judy Sherman, to take the apple he brought her to a come-from-behind winner. After he shoots himself in the foot while hunting, Judy makes a joke about guns that turns the N.R.A. against her, driving a turnout for Jonah. It all happens awfully fast, cheating us out of a few more weeks of John H. Ryan screaming at New Hampshirites on the campaign trail. Broadways biggest stars arrived for the 2016 Tony Awards on Sunday night at the Beacon Theater. The red carpet was gusty (A wind tunnel, as the Girls actor Andrew Rannells described it), but the mood was solemn in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla. The most common accessory was a silver ribbon, worn in memory of the victims. SAN FRANCISCO Blue Coat Systems seemed poised to begin life as a public company, after selling itself to a private equity firm last year. Now, the cybersecurity software company plans to sell itself to Symantec instead. Blue Coat said late on Sunday that it would sell itself to Symantec for $4.65 billion. As part of the deal, Blue Coats chief executive, Greg Clark, will take over as the chief executive of the combined security software maker. To help finance the transaction, Blue Coats existing majority investor, Bain Capital, will invest an additional $750 million in the deal. The private equity firm Silver Lake, which invested $500 million in Symantec in February, will invest an additional $500 million. The deal will create a big provider of security products, both the traditional antivirus kind that has long been Symantecs focus and the newer online protection services in which Blue Coat has specialized. Executives see little overlap between the two businesses. Walgreens said on Sunday that it was terminating its relationship with Theranos, dealing a severe blow to the embattled blood-testing company. Walgreens said it would immediately close all 40 of the Theranos testing centers in its Arizona drugstores, the source of most of Theranoss customers. The giant retailer, a part of the Walgreens Boots Alliance, played a critical role in Theranoss early success. Founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford University dropout, the company promised to revolutionize the lab industry by being able to offer blood tests through a simple finger prick at a fraction of the cost of conventional testing. But Theranos has run into a relentless barrage of negative publicity and regulatory scrutiny, and Walgreens has sought to extricate itself from its relationship with the Silicon Valley start-up. Federal officials identified serious problems at Theranoss flagship lab in California, causing Walgreens to halt testing done there in January. The 40 Arizona locations remained open while Walgreens awaited regulators final decision, which included whether to ban Ms. Holmes from the industry for two years. While regulators have not yet made a final determination, Walgreens appears to have lost patience. In light of the voiding of a number of test results, and as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has rejected Theranoss plan of correction and considers sanctions, we have carefully considered our relationship with Theranos and believe it is in our customers best interests to terminate our partnership, Brad Fluegel, senior vice president of Walgreens, said in a company statement. It started as a fairly simple proposition: There were two schools on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, one overcrowded, the other underused. The citys Education Department proposed to redraw the schools attendance zone so that some blocks assigned to the crowded school would be shifted to the emptier one. But while most of the children at the crowded school, Public School 199, are middle class and white, most of the children at the other school, P.S. 191, are poor, and black or Hispanic. P.S. 191 has much lower test scores, and last year, the state labeled the school persistently dangerous, though many of its supporters argued that this was a mistake. The proposal became complicated as families in the blocks that would be affected objected to the change. The department ultimately dropped the idea. Now, instead of a simple solution, the department is considering a convoluted one that amounts to an educational game of musical chairs: First, P.S. 191 would move a block west, taking over a building under construction that was originally intended for a new school. The hope is that the move would provide a symbolic fresh start for P.S. 191 and that the gleaming campus would make it more appealing to the families moved there. Then, another school on the Upper West Side, P.S. 452, which shares a building with two other schools, would move into P.S. 191s current home, giving it room to grow. The school that had been envisioned for the new building would not open. Four people were killed in separate shootings across New York City late Saturday and early Sunday, the police said. The killings were a reminder of the pockets of violence that exist in the city, even as it has become safer in recent years. Two of the shootings, in the Bronx and in East New York, Brooklyn, happened in police precincts that are among the citys deadliest. No arrests had been made in any of the killings as of Sunday evening. The first shooting was reported shortly after 9:30 p.m. Saturday, near the intersection of East 175th Street and Monroe Avenue in the Mount Hope section of the Bronx, the police said. A man, identified by the police as Marvin Harris, was shot three times in the abdomen, and in an arm and a leg. Mr. Harris, 32, was taken to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead, the police said. Puerto Rico may be in an economic tailspin, but the 59th annual Puerto Rican Day Parade was a moment to celebrate the islands joys. Pint-size drum majorettes, dancing girls dressed as rain-forest frogs and thumping reggaeton music coursed through a canyon of Puerto Rican flags along Fifth Avenue in New York City on Sunday. In the wildly cheering crowd, there was a sense that the parade was in part a pep rally. Its full of life, said Miriam Rodriguez, 63, a bookkeeper from the Bronx. We feel if were here, present, were somehow supporting the island, she said, a sentiment underscored by the harsh realities of life there. Two of her nephews left Puerto Rico in the past year, she said, after finding it impossible to find jobs. Its a sad situation, Ms. Rodriguez said from under her white fedora. The doctors are leaving the island, the teachers are leaving the island. 4. The attack loomed over the presidential race. Donald Trump seized on the attack to criticize the president, calling him a fool. Mr. Trump continued to question the loyalties of Muslims in the U.S., saying that they should turn in terrorists in their midst and warning that thousands of people already in our country are sick with hate. Hillary Clinton called for resolve and political unity, saying that lone wolves could be hunted down and that weapons of war should removed from the streets. In 1975, John MacKenzie shot and killed a police officer named Matthew Giglio after a burglary in West Hempstead, N.Y. He was convicted and sentenced to the maximum term available under the law, 25 years to life. Mr. MacKenzie, now 70, has served more than 40 years in New York prisons. He has been eligible for parole for the past 16 years. At every hearing, the State Parole Board has refused to release him. No one disputes that Mr. MacKenzie has been a model prisoner with a perfect record. He has earned degrees in business administration and the arts. He has counseled other inmates nearing their own release dates, and, with the help of a $10,000 grant, he established a program to give victims an opportunity to speak directly to inmates about the impact of their crimes. At his last parole hearing, he told the board, I did that in memory of Matthew, to show his family that this is the best I can do to make up for it. He said that while he was high on drugs during his crime and did not remember shooting Mr. Giglio, the murder was a hundred percent my fault. News / Regional by Thobekile Zhou President Robert Mugabe has come under attack for vowing to do a "Gukurahundi" on dissident war veterans.A cross section of Zimbabweans took to social media to condemn Mugabe over his 'reckless' remarks.Addressing a Zanu PF Central committee on Thursday Mugabe threatened a crackdown on war veterans accusing them of pushing for Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed him.Mugabe said : "The dissidents tried it, they were war veterans and you know what happened. Lots of trouble, lots of fighting, lots of suffering of cause to our people, and these dissents activities cannot be allowed."Do we see another rise of dissident activity?"Dissident activities cannot be allowed; it ended in December 1987 when Cde Joshua Nkomo and I put our hands together and our hearts together to say never again shall we allow this to happen."Zimbabweans said this show that Mugabe does not have regrets of the massacre of more than 20000 people mainly in Matabeleland region.Political analyst Alex Magaisa posted " And that was Gukurahundi, which as everyone now knows was brutal. Threatening it again shows he feels no remorse".Below are some of the tweets seen by Bulawayo24.com IN 1985, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo proposed that New York State divest of its billions of dollars in investments in companies that did business with South Africa to demonstrate, he declared, the abhorrence of our residents to the pernicious system of apartheid. An opponent of Mr. Cuomos plan, the state comptroller, Edward V. Regan, told The New York Times, Were not in the foreign-policy business. State Republicans blocked Mr. Cuomos efforts, and he ultimately settled for divesting personally from apartheid, withdrawing his personal funds from banks with ties to South Africa. How times have changed. Last week, Mario Cuomos son, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, signed an executive order essentially creating a blacklist of entities that boycott or divest from Israel or encourage others to do so, banning those companies from receiving taxpayer funding. The movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, known as B.D.S., is a strategy intended to combat Israels nearly 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza, a situation that three former Israeli prime ministers, as well as Secretary of State John Kerry, have warned would become akin to apartheid if allowed to continue. IN the fight to fend off Donald J. Trumps conquest of the Republican Party, there has been no fiercer faction this year than the Mormons. Throughout the primaries, Mr. Trump was pummeled in the Book of Mormon Belt. In Utah, he suffered one of his worst defeats, finishing dead last with a paltry 14 percent of the vote. Outside Utah, he often underperformed in counties where Mormons were more heavily concentrated. On some level, this dynamic might seem intuitive. Mormonism is a faith that holds up chastity as a virtue and condemns pornography as a soul-rotting vice; Mr. Trump is an unabashed adulterer who has posed for Playboy covers. Mormons draw inspiration from their ancestors modest frontier frugality; Mr. Trump travels the world in a tricked-out Boeing 757 with his name stamped conspicuously across the fuselage. Many conservative Christians were willing to overlook these defects during the primaries because they liked what Mr. Trump had to say about issues like immigration. But Mormons are considerably more conflicted about his mad-as-hell message and their ambivalence could cost the candidate in Western swing states. To the Editor: Yes, its genocide, (editorial, June 3) highlighted the absurdity of Turkeys tactics in response to the Bundestags consideration and overwhelming adoption of a resolution affirming the Armenian genocide. Shedding light on past crimes against humanity isnt designed to embarrass Turkey but is important in its own right to learn from the past and help prevent future genocides. Turkey, rather than continuing its decades-long genocide denial campaign, has an opportunity to learn from Germanys example. Germany rightly owned up to the Holocaust and is a better country for it. Turkey can do the same with respect to the Armenian genocide. Bryan Ardouny, Washington The writer is the executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America. To the Editor: Yes, its genocide begs the question: Where is the comparison? Yes, the Germans have confronted the genocide in their own history. They had to. There were the Nuremberg Trials that proved that a genocide did indeed occur. The attempts by Republican lawmakers to suppress the turnout of Democratic-leaning voters in the 2016 election have reached shameless levels in Ohio a swing state where it turns out that even homeless citizens have been blocked from exercising their right to vote. Thanks to a timely ruling last week from a federal district judge, Algenon Marbley, the obstacles to minorities at the polling booth come November may be less formidable than they might have been, though the state plans to appeal and problems remain. The judge struck down a 2014 Republican-sponsored state law that, among other things, required that absentee ballots be thrown out for essentially trivial mistakes. This, the judge ruled, discriminated against minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act, including homeless people disqualified for not providing precise addresses. Other changes in the 2014 law shortened the period during which voters could correct such errors and barred election clerks from helping someone confused by the forms, unless the voter was physically disabled. To the Editor: After arriving at Pennsylvania Station from New Jersey, I read with incredulity that the station provides classical music to ease harried travelers (Curating a Polished Playlist for a Shabby Hub, June 6). How about adequate signs? Escalators and elevators that work? I have found that on arriving, other passengers and I often encounter an escalator that is not working or is going down when we want to go up. Fortunately, the one small elevator between the track level and the main lobby usually works, but the other night my newly disabled wife was unable to find a working elevator to take us from the lobby to the lower, or subway, level. Signs to elevators, if they exist, were invisible. Directed by two courteous employees to an elevator, we pressed the button, to no avail. We felt forced to take an escalator. With some trepidation, I carried her walker down the stairs while she took the adjacent escalator. She could not have done it on her own. Spare us the music, and provide adequate mobility and signs for both the disabled and the harried traveler. SUNDAYs mass murder in Orlando, Fla., was, among other grim superlatives, the worst instance of anti-gay violence in American history. But it was also far from the first. In fact, mass violence and the history of gay liberation go hand in hand. Until the weekends horrific shooting, the largest massacre of gay people was an arson attack on a bar in New Orleans on June 24, 1973. Like the community that gathered at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, L.G.B.T. people had piled into the UpStairs Lounge on the edge of the French Quarter for a happy hour to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Most of the patrons left after the celebration ended, but congregants of the local chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church, a national gay religious organization, remained. Just before 8 p.m., someone, or possibly a group of people, stopped at the entrance to the stairwell to the UpStairs Lounge, which was on the second floor of a building that had a straight bar on the first floor and a flophouse on the third. They doused the stairwell with lighter fluid, as well as the steps leading to the second floor, and then lit it. Then they rang the doorbell. When one of the patrons opened the locked door, fire exploded into the room. Within seconds, it spread through the bar, the power went out and the room filled with black smoke. The windows were barricaded and the congregants could not find their way to an exit in the back of the bar. Thirty-two people died, and many others were injured. Many of the people who died were unidentifiable, not only because the fire scorched their bodies, but also because, despite the celebration of gay liberation, many gay men were not out of the closet and used fake IDs and aliases in gay bars. Even their families didnt know they were there. For eight years, I was an editor and producer for NPRs All Things Considered. It seemed as if each week featured an example of Muslim violence and with it an opportunity to bring more nuanced perspectives and context to the discussion. Through highlighting the voices of Muslim reformists and liberals, I felt optimistic about a generation that could bridge our widening divisions. But in my personal life, I was struggling in isolation with how to reconcile my own faith with my sexuality. When I was growing up, there were no Muslim role models or blueprints for taking a different path to love. When it came to the breakthroughs for gay rights in the Obama era, even progressive Muslims were mostly ambivalent. An open letter by the religious scholar Reza Aslan and the comedian Hasan Minhaj supporting same-sex marriage prompted handwringing and arguments in my newsfeed. Islam teaches us to be accepting but it is best for homosexuals to be celibate. What is wrong is wrong, someone wrote. For so many in the Muslim community, traditional marriage is a tenet of faith. Weddings, engagement parties and family picnics constitute our safe spaces. Although weve shared political goals like the protection of civil rights with L.G.B.T. activists in this age of terrorism, ours is not a natural or a deep alliance. More important, queer Muslims are marginalized if not simply invisible. In light of this weekends attacks, we can no longer afford this kind of superficial engagement. No religion has a monopoly on homophobia. The track record of exclusion and outright abuse of gay men and women in the name of God is a depressing reality across faiths. But we cannot use those analogies to excuse our own shortcomings. Omar Mateen went on a rampage at a gay club out of hatred he attributed to his faith. He shot and massacred Americans for thriving in their safe space, for being among those they love and were loved by, and he did it during both Ramadan and a Pride Month that epitomizes self-love in the face of hate. The toxic cocktail of gun violence, unchecked mental illness and deranged ideology that propelled the massacre at Pulse is a threat to all Americans. Area 1s technology addresses one of the most pernicious digital threats: so-called spear-phishing attacks, which bait unsuspecting workers into clicking on links in emails and unknowingly giving attackers a toehold in their employers systems. Phishing attacks have become an epidemic. To date, more than 90 percent of breaches have begun with a phishing attack, according to Verizon. Intelligence experts say that phishing attacks are the preferred method of Chinese hackers who have managed to steal things as varied as nuclear propulsion technology and Silicon Valleys most guarded software code. Oren does not take it as writ law that we have to live that way, and he wanted to do something about it, said Ted Schlein, a venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has invested in Area 1. If we could look every company in the eye and say, We can stop your phishing attacks, Mr. Schlein said, then Oren could look Kevin Mandia in the eye and say, Thanks for the inspiration, but youre wrong. One of the biggest challenges in combating phishing attacks has been a lack of information-sharing among victims, security firms and law enforcement. Victims are reluctant to publicize security breaches, potentially keeping competitors from heading off similar attacks. And the role of the government in sharing threat data has been constrained since the former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden leaked documents revealing the scale of government monitoring. The Obama administration has been pushing to collect and share more threat data with the private sector. But few companies want to share any more data with the government than they are compelled to by law. George V. Voinovich, a former two-term United States senator and two-term governor of Ohio who preached frugality in his personal and public life and occasionally bucked the Republican establishment, died on Sunday at his home in Cleveland. He was 79. His death was confirmed by his wife, Janet, who did not give a cause. Mr. Voinovich had a pacemaker installed in 2003 because his heart rate had slowed down over several years as a result of a condition called progressive sinus bradycardia, and he had experienced other health problems in recent years. But his death came as a surprise to friends. He had spoken on Friday at a Slovenian Independence Day event in Cleveland. He was to be a delegate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next month. During his 12 years in the Senate, Mr. Voinovich occasionally found himself at odds with his more conservative fellow Republicans. A moderate who opposed the size of President George W. Bushs tax cuts and later questioned Mr. Bushs war strategy in Iraq, he was also an early supporter of a proposed federal bailout for the auto industry, which employs thousands of people in Ohio, and one of the few Republicans during the Bush administration to suggest raising taxes to pay for the war in Iraq and hurricane relief. WING, N.D. The Wagner family farmstead in central North Dakota could have been lifted from a Grant Wood painting: bales of hay rest on a gently sloping hill, cattle graze near a bright blue pond, green tendrils of durum and sunflowers peek out of the dirt. The Wagners fear that all of this could someday be under threat from big, impersonal corporations. It is a concern that is expected to drive them, and other North Dakotans, to the polls on Tuesday to vote on a referendum that would make it possible for companies to buy up farms like theirs. Starting in 1932, North Dakota law barred nonfamily corporations from owning farmland or operating farms. But that changed in March of last year when the state Legislature passed a bill that would relax the corporate farming ban and Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed it into law. Citizens protested the new law, with the states farmers union at the forefront, which led to the referendum that voters will face on Tuesday. The law was set to take effect last August, but its fate rests on the outcome of the referendum. Opinion / Blogs DIVINITY REVISION QUESTION |11 JUNE 2016| ANSWERS AMOS PART HOWEVER PART QUESTION DEMANDS CONTACTS QN "If Amos and Elijah could come to Zimbabwe they will feel at home "Examine the validity of this statement? (25) -pt 39- The above question requires one to have deep knowledge about the named prophets and what is happening in Zimbabwe .- We all know Amos the prophet who has been regarded as a prophet of doom because of his message .Elijah is well know by number of so many students. Recently, I wrote another question concerning Elijah the Tishbite. The following link will guide you [ bulawayo24.com - Same applies to Amos log in to Bulawayo24.com on Columnists column or subscribe using the direct contact.- To begin with Elijah ,The exhausted prophet during the reign of King Ahab performed number of prophetic duties .This include condemning Baalism which was on its peak .[We all know the Mt Camel Contest]. In Zimbabwean context, media has recorded number of so many incidents whereby the Zimbabweans manifest in churches claiming that they are connected with Satanism. Even church leaders have once accused each other for using ungodly powers .The story of the man of cloth "W.Magaya" and Johannes Ndanga which was published by Nehanda Radio and Bulawayo24.com Newspapers on the 15 January 2015 is well known. Recently media recorded the story of prophets who uses "nyanga spirit" to prophesy. The point in this case is that Zimbabweans are now mixing two different religions at the same time "syncretism". This is also the same thing which Elijah condemned [ 1st Kings 18:21 And Elijah came near to all the people, and said, "How long will you go limping with two different opinions? ..]This indicates that if Elijah would come to Zimbabwe he will feel uncomfortable [won't feel at home" leading him to champion Yahwehism. Elijah confronted King Ahab over Naboth's vineyard. The whole story is recorded in 1 Kings 21:17.The point in this case is that he fought for justice. In Zimbabwean context, injustice is prevailing .This is evidenced by Zimbabwe prophets condemning injustice, Local Newspapers record such stories on daily basis.[Therefore, there is no excuse for failing to come up with enough points].Therefore, this indicates that if Elijah comes to Zimbabwe won't feel at home.- Amos has been labeled as a prophet of injustice ,the reason being that he fought for justice during the prosperous days of Israel. Amos as a prophet was against corruption. In Zimbabwean context ,corruption is now on it'peak.For instance the author of Old Testament Questions and Answers Arthur Marara on the 11th of May 2016 wrote a helpful article " The tenders have been marred with scams, leading to the Tender Board (State Procurement Board) boss being sacked. ZIMRA boss and his top management have been suspended for alleged scandals involving millions of dollars. NETONE is in a scandal involving millions of dollars, PSMAS. The recent cash crisis as well has been traced to corruption on the part key and influential people in Zimbabwe who have been externalizing money. This therefore shows that corruption takes more than just condemning it, but real action starting with the people condemning it and fighting it to the core". Thus Amos won't feel comfortable in Zimbabwe.The media recorded the prostitution which was prevailing in Victoria Falls between the year of 2003-2009.In other words this means that men were sharing the same maiden .It also means that there are high chances whereby the son and father ended up sharing the same maiden indirect .And this is what Amos exactly condemned. Therefore, this indicates that Amos won't feel at home when he step in Zimbabwe.- It can be argued that Amos and Elijah will feel at home ,depending with their mission .- One can also argue that Amos and Elijah will feel comfortable depending with their messages and it can happen that Amos and Elijah delivers different messages with the one they delivered in Ancient Israel ,hence feeling comfortable.- Justify the validity of the statement+263777896159 (WhatsApp)Witness Dingani (Facebook page)To subscribe for Daily Divinity Questions and Answers use the above contactsSuccess is knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximumpotential, and sowing seeds that benefit others." John C. Maxwell FORT PIERCE, Fla. Omar Mateens life seemed to be on a successful trajectory a decade before he carried out one of the worst cases of mass murder in American history. He earned an associate degree in criminal justice technology in 2006. A year later, he was hired by one of the worlds premier private security companies, G4S. And then, in 2009, he got married and bought a home. Soon, though, signs of troubles emerged. His wife, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, divorced him in 2011, after he abused her. Two years after that, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was called in after reports from Mr. Mateens co-workers that he, the American-born son of Afghan immigrants, had suggested he may have had terrorist ties. The F.B.I. interviewed him twice, but after surveillance, records checks and witness interviews, agents were unable to verify any terrorist links and closed their investigation. At 3 oclock in the morning on Sunday, Benjamin Newbern, a gay rights activist in northern Alabama, arrived home from a gay pride dance party he had organized, glanced at his cellphone and spotted an unsettling social media post: Prayers for our brothers and sisters at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Mr. Newbern flipped on the television to news, he said, that just kind of took my breath away. And instantly, he knew that his life, as an activist and a gay person in America, had changed. By Sunday afternoon, Mr. Newbern, 38 who has spent two years trying to build a gay rights community in his home city, Florence, in part by persuading people that it is safe to come out of the closet was struggling, as were gay people nationwide, to make sense of the worst mass shooting in American history, committed on a Latin-themed night in a gay nightclub by a Muslim gunman. PARIS The revelation that the 29-year-old man who opened fire on Sunday in a gay nightclub had dedicated the killing to the Islamic State has prompted a now-familiar question: Was the killer truly acting under orders from the Islamic State, or just seeking publicity and the groups approval for a personal act of hate? For the terror planners of the Islamic State, the difference is mostly irrelevant. Influencing distant attackers to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State and then carry out mass murder has become a core part of the groups propaganda over the past two years. It is a purposeful blurring of the line between operations that are planned and carried out by the terror groups core fighters and those carried out by its sympathizers. KAMPALA, Uganda Dozens of military officers in Uganda, including some senior ones, have been arrested over an alleged plot to overthrow the longtime president, Yoweri Museveni, a Ugandan military official said Sunday. More officers were being arrested over suspected acts of subversion after a colonel with the countrys air forces was detained on Saturday, the military spokesman, Lt. Col. Paddy Ankunda, said. The officers are suspected of having links to an opposition lawmaker, Michael Kabaziguruka, who is being questioned by the police over similar allegations, Colonel Ankunda said. Mr. Kabaziguruka is a close ally of the opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, who was charged with treason after a disputed presidential election in February. Mr. Besigye, claiming that he had won the election, refused to accept the official results, which gave victory to Mr. Museveni. Election observers said the polls had been marred by many irregularities. Imagine if the former Mafia boss John Gotti, who went to prison for murder and cultivated the publics fascination with his flamboyant New York lifestyle and menacing charm, had a YouTube channel. Imagine if he used that channel to become a video star by portraying himself as a penitent hit man and regaling viewers with tales of violence while seeking forgiveness for homicides past. For Colombians, the real-life equivalent of such an unlikely YouTube sensation can be found in John Jairo Velasquez. He is a former enforcer for the Medellin drug cartel who has boasted of committing hundreds of murders on behalf of his boss, Pablo Escobar. Mr. Velasquez spent more than 20 years in prison for plotting the killing of a Colombian presidential candidate in 1989 and goes by the nickname Popeye. Now, Mr. Velasquez, 54, is trying to rebrand himself as a sort of truth-telling evangelist in a series of Spanish-language videos he began posting on YouTube last year. The underlying message (there were 81 videos as of Sunday) is one of forgiveness. Thanks to a constant flow of cars newly assembled on each side of the border and trucks packed with the parts used to make them, the bridge is the busiest border crossing in North America, with 6.3 million trips last year, according to the Public Border Operators Association. But the location of the Ambassador Bridge, which Mr. Moroun bought in 1979, is not where anyone would consider putting a busy border crossing today. On the Canadian side, there is no direct expressway connection, and a lack of space means that the truck inspection for customs and immigration is miles away. It is an arrangement that suits neither Windsors residents nor bridge users. After years of political debate and a string of unsuccessful and messy legal challenges by Mr. Moroun (in one tussle in 2012, the businessman, then 84, and one of his executives were jailed overnight in Detroit for contempt of court), a solution is now emerging. A recently opened expressway will link to a new bridge that the Canadian government will build in an industrial area about three miles west of the Ambassador Bridge. Mr. Moroun, however, is not yet ready to back down. For 15 years or so, his Canadian Transit Company gradually acquired houses around Indian Road as part of a plan to build a six-lane bridge beside the four-lane Ambassador and to expand the customs and immigration plaza on the Windsor side. In anticipation, an approach to the new bridge stretches for a block behind Indian Road with unused customs booths at one end and a ramp to nowhere at the other. But any new bridge needs approval from Canadas transport minister and the Province of Ontario, and Drew Dilkens, Windsors mayor, firmly opposes the idea. In a statement, Transport Canada, a federal department, said it was reviewing Mr. Morouns application but offered no timetable for its approval. LONDON Perhaps it is all the tourists 18.6 million international visitors to London last year, a record. Perhaps it is the gradual Europeanization of Britain. And perhaps it is just something to do with the blocked traffic on these ancient streets and all the diesel fumes in the air. Cars still drive on the left, and signs still instruct you to walk on the left. But these days, on the sidewalks, staircases and escalators, chaos reigns. Walking anywhere in London or navigating the subway during rush hour means having to make a mad, dodging, aggressive dance against an oncoming tide of people, many of whom seem oblivious to Britains long tradition of walking on the left. And that is not counting those engrossed in their smartphones or blocking the exits while consulting Google Maps. The answer to traffic, of course, should be the subway, or the Underground. But the system is chronically overcrowded, and annual ridership, already at 1.34 billion, has been increasing nearly 4 percent a year. It has been rising so much that at Holborn Station, one of Londons busiest and deepest, with more than 56 million passengers a year and escalators 23.4 meters, or 77 feet, tall, there is an experiment to encourage people at rush hour to stand side by side on the escalators going up and merely ride them. You may also want to consult 32fouettes.com, where you can see an anonymous dancer in practice costume doing 32 at the top, with an ensuing analysis and history of the step. Go to YouTube and hunt Swan Lake fouettes and, though individual performances come and go, youll usually find several examples of Odiles grand pas de deux with the fouettes near the end. Gillian Murphy dances the role on Monday and Friday. On Wednesday afternoon,Ms. Murphy returns to the role on Monday and Friday. On Wednesday afternoon, Misty Copeland, new to it last year, dances it again. How will her fouettes be? Last year she did only the first 16. How much does this matter? My chief reservation was not about her turns but about her interpretation, which was too contained and cliched. But amid the general brouhaha about Ms. Copeland, for many people one issue alone mattered: those damned fouettes. The 32 fouettes arent the hardest assignment in ballet, but theyre the most exposed example of virtuoso technique. If something goes wrong, the audience will see. I remember one ballerina falling flat on her backside around turn No. 14 and several who stopped (or switched to another step) after about 20. There used to be great ballerinas who avoided them: Anna Pavlova, Alexandra Danilova, Alicia Markova, Maya Plisetskaya did alternative steps. Margot Fonteyn, who delivered them for over 34 years in Swan Lake, laughs in her memoirs about how an American critic described her wandering path during them as her Cooks tours of the stage. For some of us, 32 fouette turns which became famous in the 1890s have long been a bore. The rare artist is not the one who does the most turns but the one who makes them interesting and, above all, musical. PARIS The designer Karen Chekerdjian is known in her native Lebanon for modernist objects made with traditional materials and techniques. Now, two exhibitions in Paris at the Institut du Monde Arabe and at the private Dutko Gallery offer a close look at an artist who addresses the divide between art and function, and the wider gap between Western and Arab cultures. The show at the Institut du Monde Arabe, Respiration, opened on May 30 and runs until Aug. 28. The exhibition at the Dutko with the same title closed on Sunday, with pieces offered for sale through August. The idea was to show the positive elements of the Arab world, said Philippe Castro, the chief adviser to Jack Lang, the president of the institute and a former French culture minister. Today, that can only be shown through Arab art. There is real creativity coming out of the Arab world, especially Lebanon. Given the geopolitical context, we felt it was important to give a voice to this narrative. Ms. Chekerdjian, 45, who is of Armenian descent, was raised in Lebanon, the regions most diverse society, a land unsettled by decades of conflict and turmoil, most recently by fallout from the Syrian war. She began her artistic career in film, then moved on to graphic design before earning a masters degree in industrial design from the Domus Academy in Milan, where, she said in an interview in Paris, she learned to think rather than design. LONDON The art world traditionally descends on Europe in June, first for Art Basel, widely regarded as the essential fair for collectors, then on to London for the summer auctions. But the mood this year is unsettled. There has been a significant contraction in the auction market for Impressionist, modern and contemporary art. And Sothebys, Christies and Phillipss high-end auctions in London all take place within a week of Britains referendum on membership in the European Union. Here is a look at some of the events that are driving the art market this summer. The Basel Barometer For many serious collectors, particularly in a year without a Biennale in Venice, Art Basel and its various satellite fairs and events remain the main draw. The economics of art fairs are hard to quantify Art Basel publishes attendance figures, but not sales results but this years edition, featuring 286 galleries from 33 countries, which previews on Tuesday, should give some sense of how dealers are being affected by the changed mood in the market. Year-on-year totals at last months Impressionist and contemporary sales in New York were down by as much as 64 percent. The previews Ive received from galleries have been different this year, said Heather Flow, an art adviser in New York. Theyre bringing more historical material and very little by young artists. Published: 08 Sep 2017 at 11:37hrs | 861 | by Jera "Where have you been!?" The question had an accusatory odour to it.I had been away for a week. But she put it like I had impregnated her a... Lincoln Centers organizations spent $785.4 million last season, in large part on the salaries of their 4,547 employees. Their offerings attracted 4.5 million people, a third of whom attended free events. And those ticket buyers from outside the city who said in surveys that visiting Lincoln Center was a very important reason for their trips spent an estimated $669 million elsewhere in New York. Those were among the findings of a report that Lincoln Center released on Monday outlining its economic contributions to New York City as a cultural complex, major employer and tourist attraction. The report was shared with city officials as Lincoln Center prepared to seek some city funding for its coming renovation of David Geffen Hall, home of the New York Philharmonic, which is expected to cost about a half-billion dollars. Some findings, based on extensive surveys, may interest anyone who has ever stood at the fountain trying to figure out where everyone else was from: City residents bought 51 percent of tickets; people from the metropolitan area bought 24 percent; visitors from elsewhere in the United States purchased 16 percent; and tourists from abroad, 9 percent. The report also has policy ramifications. The de Blasio administrations support for smaller cultural institutions in all five boroughs, and its emphasis on making art accessible to all, have been eyed warily by some larger Manhattan institutions, including those, like Lincoln Center, that receive some city support. So the new report noted that 1.48 million people came to free events there last year and that 1,500 school and other groups attended offerings. Homegoing, the wildly ambitious debut novel by a 26-year-old writer named Yaa Gyasi, tackles some 250 years of history on two continents. Its a novel that seems to have been inspired by such disparate family sagas as Gabriel Garcia Marquezs One Hundred Years of Solitude, Alex Haleys Roots and Thomas Manns Buddenbrooks, a novel that sets itself the daunting task of tracing the legacy of sorrow that slavery has left on eight generations of one family. Its impossible not to admire the ambition and scope of Homegoing, and thanks to Ms. Gyasis instinctive storytelling gifts, the book leaves the reader with a visceral understanding of both the savage realities of slavery and the emotional damage that is handed down, over the centuries, from mothers to daughters, fathers to sons. At its best, the novel makes us experience the horrors of slavery on an intimate, personal level; by its conclusion, the characters tales of loss and resilience have acquired an inexorable and cumulative emotional weight. When someone does wrong, one character says, whether it is you or me, whether it is mother or father, whether it is the Gold Coast man or the white man, it is like a fisherman casting a net into the water. He keeps only one or two fish that he needs to feed himself and puts the rest in the water, thinking that their lives will go back to normal. No one forgets that they were once captive, even if they are now free. Ms. Gyasis workmanlike prose and brisk jump-cuts from one generations woes to anothers, however, mean that Homegoing never creates the sort of immersive, fully imagined fictional world that One Hundred Years of Solitude did never makes the leap into the hyperspace of myth that Toni Morrisons Beloved achieved. As a result, Homegoing often feels deliberate and earthbound: The reader is aware, especially in the American chapters, that significant historical events and issues (like Reconstruction, the Great Migration and the mass incarceration of African-American men) have been shoehorned into the narrative, and that characters have been made to trudge through experiences (like chain gangs and heroin addiction) meant, in some way, to be representative. The brokerage industrys overseer, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, on Monday named a former markets regulator, Robert W. Cook, as its president and chief executive officer. Mr. Cook had been a partner in the Washington offices of the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton since 2013. Before that, he was director of the Securities and Exchange Commissions division of trading and markets, where he oversaw the staffs review and analysis of the flash crash in May 2010. He also oversaw the carrying out of new rules for Wall Street arising from the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation overhaul and the 2012 JOBS Act. He had been at Cleary Gottlieb for 18 years before joining the S.E.C. in 2010. Finra is splitting the roles of chairman and chief executive now that Richard Ketchum is scheduled to retire later this year. Mr. Ketchum has held both titles since 2009, and he announced last fall his intention to retire in the second half of 2016. The regulator said in a statement on Monday that its board, which is led by the former Vanguard Group chief, Jack Brennan, would name a new chairman in the coming months. As a lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb, Mr. Cook focused on the regulation of the securities markets as well as broker-dealers, exchanges, alternative trading systems and clearing firms. Microsofts blockbuster $26.2 billion takeover of LinkedIn might be an attempt to travel through time. Specifically, to the heady heights of yesteryears technology valuations. And if other beleaguered tech companies think that suitors will pay such handsome sums, more transactions may be coming down the pike. How generous is Microsofts takeover bid? It puts LinkedIns enterprise value at 79 times the social networks earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, for the 12 months that ended on March 31. SAN FRANCISCO Microsofts $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn is one of the biggest and most prominent technology deals of the year so far. Yet it will provide a windfall to just a handful of advisers including the boutique investment banks on LinkedIns side. Microsoft drew on two traditional advisers. Morgan Stanley, one of the top investment banks in Silicon Valley, has often worked for companies selling themselves to the tech giant, including the digital ad company aQuantive and the voice recognition provider TellMe Networks. But the bank was also one of Microsofts main advisers in its ill-fated pursuit of Yahoo nearly a decade ago. LONDON After years of international isolation under the rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya sought to emulate its Middle Eastern neighbors by creating a sovereign wealth fund in 2006 to invest the proceeds from its sale of oil. The North African nation soon turned to Goldman Sachs to help it invest some of the more than $35 billion in funds it had available in late 2007. That relationship soured after the Libyan Investment Authority said it was misled by the Wall Street bank in 2008 about a series of derivatives transactions and ultimately lost $1.2 billion when those contracts came to maturity in 2011. Goldman Sachs, by comparison, earned more than $200 million in eye-watering profit on the transactions, the sovereign fund asserted in a trial that began on Monday in London. The specter of having to testify against a client can have a chilling effect on the attorney-client relationship because clients may come to fear that their secrets will be exposed. The defense bar has protested that the government has been too willing to seek information from lawyers at the risk of undermining their representation. The American Bar Association tried to limit the potential for the government to call lawyers to testify about their clients in its Model Rules of Professional Conduct. A provision of Rule 3.8, which deals with the special responsibilities of a prosecutor, prohibits subpoenaing a lawyer for information about a client unless the prosecutor reasonably believes it is not privileged, it is essential to the case and there is no other feasible alternative to obtain the information. Putting the protection in the ethics rules is a backdoor means to regulate how often prosecutors can pursue lawyers for information about their clients because the provision is adopted by the courts in each state, not the legislature. Moreover, a 1998 rule, called the McDade Amendment, requires federal prosecutors to adhere to the rules governing lawyers to the same extent and in the same manner as other attorneys in that state. The rule could stymie an investigation because trying to compel a lawyer to provide information about a client puts the prosecutors license to practice law at risk, something few would chance doing. The limitation on trying to obtain evidence about clients from their lawyers is only applicable to prosecutors, not defense lawyers or in private litigation, so it focuses on only one area that makes it more difficult for the government to pursue a case. New Mexico adopted this requirement in 2013, which the Justice Department challenged as an infringement on the power of the federal government to pursue grand jury investigations. The United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit in Denver found that the rule violated the supremacy clause of the Constitution and could not be applied to federal prosecutors during the investigation of a violation. Because such heightened requirements for attorney subpoenas would impede the grand jurys broad investigative mandate which the framers specifically envisioned in enacting the Grand Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment the challenged provisions of Rule 16-308(E) conflict with federal law and are pre-empted, the appeals court ruled. A few other states adopted similar rules in the 1990s, including a requirement that a court approve a subpoena to a defense lawyer before it is issued. The appeals courts split on the question of its application to federal prosecutors. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston found such a requirement in Rhode Island permissible while the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia held that the same rule in Pennsylvania violated the supremacy clause. Its not easy to forecast where Bill Murray might turn up next: maybe a new Wes Anderson movie, a Netflix Christmas special, a karaoke bar or a kickball game. But it can be more safely said that this unpredictable comic actor will appear at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Oct. 23, when he is presented with its annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Mr. Murray, who parlayed his years on Saturday Night Live into a film career that includes Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, Rushmore and Lost in Translation, will be the 19th recipient of the Mark Twain Prize, the Kennedy Center announced on Monday. In a statement, Deborah F. Rutter, the president of the Kennedy Center, said that Mr. Murray was being celebrated for work that has gratified audiences with unforgettable performances from an eclectic cast of characters that have become ingrained in our cultural vernacular. (Which is nice.) Ms. Rutter continued: An award-winning writer, actor and comedian, his brilliant wit and infectious spirit continue to inspire our laughter across generations both on and off the screen. His unique brand of humor seems to defy time itself always remaining relevant and relatable to new audiences much like our awards namesake. I got 90 of these out of the Plaza, Mr. Blum said, pointing out marble fireplaces taken from the Plaza Hotel. Their details were highlighted with gold paint, which he described as being Ivana-ized, a reference to Ivana Trump, who helped run the hotel in the late 1980s, when her husband at the time, Donald J. Trump, owned it. Prices for the fireplaces range from $6,500 to $19,500, depending on size and type, he said. Other fireplaces have severely distressed finishes and cracked paint, a look that attracts some of the high-end designers who are Mr. Blums clients. He said he had pulled about 30 of the fireplaces from a hotel on Houston Street that had been boarded up for decades. Nearby were some old panes of Tudor-style stained glass recovered from a penthouse on 57th Street where the actor Errol Flynn once lived. They would soon be installed in a P. J. Clarkes restaurant set to open in Philadelphia, said Mr. Blum, who offers design services for restaurants, hotels and other spaces that incorporate his pieces. He paused at the transom from the Helen Hayes Theater, which was torn down in 1982 despite heated opposition from preservationists. He said that back then he had been hired by the citys Landmarks Preservation Commission to dismantle the theater and put the artifacts into the agencys salvage collection program. When the program folded, he said, he bought much of the inventory, including the theater transoms. Some preservationists have criticized Mr. Blum and other salvagers, arguing that selling reclaimed artifacts induces developers to sell original elements of buildings and creates a vibrant market for items that might be better placed in museums. A man who investigators believe was trying to rob a bar in Queens was fatally shot on Monday by a retired New York City officer who was there, the police said. The police were called just before 4 a.m. to the Parkside Pub, a bar on 149th Street in the Whitestone neighborhood, where they found a 24-year-old man with a gunshot wound to his head, the authorities said. The man, who was identified by the police as Andrew McClean, was pronounced dead at the scene. The authorities said Mr. McClean, who lived in the neighborhood, about a mile away, had come into the pub with a gun and was trying to rob patrons when one of them, the retired officer, a 69-year-old man, fired a single shot. That shot struck Mr. McClean in the head. The police said the shooting remained under investigation. Opinion / Columnist JUDGING by his unprecedented attacks on war veterans in Harare yesterday, President Robert Mugabe - wobblingly on his 92-year-old legs - is clearly heading towards a nasty clash with the ex-combatants as he faces an endgame of tragic dimensions.Mugabe declared war on the ex-combatants, some of whom directly helped him to gain control of Zanu-PF through the Mgagao Declaration during the liberation struggle amid deadly internal power struggles, as he threatened to crush them for interfering in his raging succession battle.Like the late retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru who helped Mugabe to seize control of the Zanu-PF leadership from founding leader Ndabaningi Sithole in Mozambique at the height of internal party strife in the 1970s, war veterans now find themselves at war with their patron.Mujuru died in a mysterious fire at his farmhouse in 2011 after clashes with Mugabe as he plotted to oust him from power. Mugabe continues to denounce him after his death.Now the gloves are off against war veterans.Addressing the Zanu-PF central committee in Harare yesterday, Mugabe warned that "politics should always lead the gun and never the gun leading politics."Alluding to the 1980s Gukurahundi conflict and the resultant massacres of innocent civilians following political clashes between Zanu and Zapu, as well as his fight against Joshua Nkomo under the pretext of combating dissidents - former Zipra army deserters - Mugabe evoked memories of the grisly atrocities which showed his dark side early after independence."The dissidents tried it, they were war veterans and you know what happened. Lots of trouble, lots of fighting, lots of suffering of course to our people and these dissident activities cannot be allowed," he said. "Is it the case that we are seeing another rise of our dissident activities. War veterans must know that it is the politics that leads the gun, not vice versa as war veterans are not the bosses of the party."He went further: "It's not your business to choose who should succeed the president and who should not, worse doing so under the pretext that there would be bloodshed if your preferred person doesn't succeed."Mugabe warned there would be serious consequences.While Mugabe claimed to be fighting dissidents in the 1980s, his real agenda was to establish a one-party state and become president for life by crushing his rival Nkomo and Zapu. Nkomo survived an assassination attempt.Human rights groups say at least 20 000 civilians in the Midlands and south-western regions were massacred.However, in the process Mugabe found himself during the Cold War-era conflict awkwardly collaborating by design and default with apartheid South Africa to fight war-time comrades in Zapu and the ANC. Declassified records show this.War veteran leaders, especially Chris Mutsvangwa, Victor Matematanda and Douglas Mahiya, have been breathing fire, shelling the Zanu-PF faction led by Mugabe's wife Grace, G40, left, right and centre in the ongoing war of attrition over succession.Indirectly, they have been criticising Mugabe for his alliance with G40 and cracking down on them as shown by the police quelling their anti-Grace protests in March before a fire-fighting meeting in Harare on April 7.While it appeared on the surface, the meeting had hammered out a truce between Mugabe and the war veterans, backed by the military, tensions remained bubbling under the surface.In reality, war veterans are now fighting Mugabe over succession. Actually, it's a fight between Mugabe and top army commanders by proxy - a hostile contest for the control of Zanu-PF and who takes over from Mugabe. We now have brinkmanship between Mugabe and the army. The end is unpredictable.The war veterans want to stampede Mugabe into stepping down, clearing the way for their unofficial patron, Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa who leads a rival Zanu-PF faction.With Mutsvangwa in reaction dismissing Mugabe as acting on "falsehoods" and the veteran leader's record of fierce reprisals and brutality, the stage is set for a dramatic finale. To the Editor: Re Cuomo, B.D.S. and Free Speech, by Daniel Sieradski (Op-Ed, June 13): I deplore B.D.S., the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. At the same time, I view boycotts by private citizens whatever the cause, including B.D.S. as representing the highest expression of liberty. But when it is the government that orchestrates a boycott of particular groups, it is a pernicious assault on free association and free speech. The Hollywood blacklisting of those perceived to have Communist ties in the 1950s might have been a laudable boycott, but it was evil to the extent that it resulted from government pressure. Mayor Bill de Blasios suggested boycott of Chick-fil-A based on the views of its chief executive on same-sex marriage is the same. And yet another example: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomos boycott of groups that advocate B.D.S. KENNETH A. MARGOLIS Chappaqua, N.Y. To the Editor: What Daniel Sieradski misses is that it is already illegal under New York State and New York City law to boycott a business based on its owners religion or nationality, just as businesses cannot refuse customers based on such considerations. It is poisonous to blame all the worlds 1.6 billion Muslims for this crisis of their religion. Trumps self-congratulatory reiteration of his call for a temporary ban on non-American Muslims entering the United States exemplifies his violence-tinged politics of division. Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told an Israeli journalist: If I were Donald Trump Id come out the minute the F.B.I. decided to start leaking this morning that we are talking about a man who acted out of Islamic motives, with connections. First of all the name itself, Omar Siddiqui Mateen, a Muslim name, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan, who apparently was somehow in touch with extremist Islamic organizations. This already has a significant influence on the race for the presidency. Later, he tweeted that Trump would do this, not that he had recommended it. It is, however, also dangerous to ignore or belittle the potency of ISIS ideology, the core role it has played in recent violence from Paris to California, and the link between that ideology and the broader crisis of Islam. The favored phrase of the Obama administration in addressing this scourge violent extremism is vague to the point of evasive meaninglessness. Yes, jihadi terrorists are violent extremists but calling them that is like calling Nazism a reaction to German humiliation in World War I: true but wholly inadequate. Mateen demonstrated again just how potent the mix of ISIS and National Rifle Association ideology is. America is the perfect setting for lone wolf ISIS followers because they have access to the weapons they need to do their worst. Despite having been investigated twice in recent years by the F.B.I. for possible ties to terrorism, Mateen was able to walk into a Florida gun dealership recently, and acquire a long gun and a pistol. This, by any reasonable standard, is madness. The AR-15 assault rifle used by Mateen was also the weapon used by the San Bernardino shooters. The former N.R.A. president, David Keene, once described the weapons as the gun liberals love to hate. It is in fact the rifle that illustrates why lax American gun laws make American lives cheap. The laws are an aberration. President Barack Obama described the shooting as an act of terror and an act of hate. He made clear his disapproval of gun laws. He called for solidarity. He said nothing about ISIS, or the way the Islamic States hold on territory in Syria and Iraq reinforces the charismatic potency of its ideological appeal, disseminated from that base through the internet. He also said this: To actively do nothing is a decision as well. Yes, to have actively done nothing in Syria over more than five years of war so allowing part of the country to become an ISIS stronghold, contributing to a massive refugee crisis in Europe, acquiescing to slaughter and displacement on a devastating scale, undermining Americas word in the world, and granting open season for President Vladimir Putin to strut his stuff amounts to the greatest foreign policy failure of the Obama administration. It has made the world far more dangerous. I hope for the best but fear the victory of the politics of anger in America and Europe. To the Editor: The atrocity in Orlando has shocked us all in its viciousness, even though Omar Mateen apparently had only tenuous connections to ISIS at best. Whether or not he was acting in the spirit of jihadist extremism, I believe that it is wrong to focus on attributing such violence solely to Muslim terrorism. James Howell, an Indiana man with guns and the ingredients to produce explosives, was arrested hours later while heading to a gay pride event in Los Angeles. Violent homophobia is quite American. Kevin Swanson, a pastor, has called for rounding up and executing gay Americans, yet three presidential candidates attended a conference of his in Iowa and failed to denounce his dangerous position. When such people are tolerated and respected here in America, there are certain to be more attacks against the L.G.B.T. community. As long as religion is used to fuel hatred and violence, regardless of which religion it is, we will all lose and we are all at risk. A year later, we succeeded in getting DNA out of ivory. Now I could compare the DNA in the seized tusks to the genetic map. It was finally possible to use science to show where the contraband had originated. How accurate is your test? I can take a tusk from anywhere in Africa and trace its origins to within 300 kilometers of where that elephant was killed, often to the very park or reserve. This has given us a new understanding of how ivory trade works. From what weve learned, organized bands of poachers appear to kill over and over again at the same sites. They operate in places with lots of elephants, where they can move in easily without getting caught and where they have a way of getting the tusks out of the country, which implies, often, some kind of high-level corruption. This is actionable intelligence. If you know that contraband ivory comes from one pinpointed site, it tells you where the next poaching event will be. Sometimes you can stop it by sending in armed rangers. However, the poachers are often better armed. Theyve got AK-47s, night goggles, sometimes even helicopters. This is major organized crime. Interpol says that the wildlife trade is the fourth-largest type of transnational crime, right after weapons, narcotics and human trafficking. Where are the poaching hot spots you mentioned? Poaching is going on all over Africa. Over the last decade, all of the large ivory seizures Ive analyzed showed that 22 percent of it came from forest elephants in Gabon and the Congo, and 78 percent from an area centered in Tanzania. Between 2002 and 2007, we identified Zambia as another poaching hot spot. At birth, the least weasel is as small and light as a paper clip, and the tiny ribs that press visibly against its silvery pink skin give it a segmented look, like that of an insect. A newborn kit is exceptionally underdeveloped, with sealed eyes and ears that wont open for five or six weeks, an age when puppies and kittens are ready to be weaned. A mother weasel, it seems, has no choice but to deliver her young half-baked. As a member of the mustelid clan a noble but often misunderstood family of carnivorous mammals that includes ferrets, badgers, minks and wolverines she holds to a slender, elongated body plan, the better to pursue prey through tight spaces that most carnivores cant penetrate. Bulging baby bumps would jeopardize that sylphish hunting physique. The solution? Give birth to the equivalent of fetuses and then finish gestating them externally on mothers milk. If you want access to small environments, you cant have a big belly, said William J. Zielinski, a mustelid researcher with the United States Forest Service in Arcata, Calif. You dont see fat weasels. SAN FRANCISCO With sales sluggish and stiffening competition from rivals like Google and Facebook, Apple announced on Monday coming improvements to the software that runs its devices, including a revamped Music app, an easier login process and better information-sharing across devices. More significantly, it also made it easier for app developers to tap the full power of Apples technology from its Siri voice assistant to instant messaging and Apple Pay in their own apps. We believe it is crucial that we provide the best tools so you can produce the best apps, Apples chief executive, Tim Cook, told a crowd of about 5,000 assembled here for the companys annual worldwide developer conference. Third-party developers write the apps that make an iPhone or a Mac more useful and personal. As the company struggles with flat sales of its products, Apple has been trying to mend its sometimes troubled relationship with the people who have filled its App Store with two million apps. Gun homicides are a common cause of death in the United States, killing about as many people as car crashes (not counting van, truck, motorcycle or bus accidents). Some cases command our attention more than others, of course. Counting mass shootings that make headlines and the thousands of Americans murdered one or a few at a time, gunshot homicides totaled 8,124 in 2014, according to the F.B.I. This level of violence makes the United States an extreme outlier when measured against the experience of other advanced countries. Around the world, those countries have substantially lower rates of deaths from gun homicide. In Germany, being murdered with a gun is as uncommon as being killed by a falling object in the United States. About two people out of every million are killed in a gun homicide. Gun homicides are just as rare in several other European countries, including the Netherlands and Austria. In the United States, two per million is roughly the death rate for hypothermia or plane crashes. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is no stranger to violence. From the 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City that set off riots and helped touch off the modern gay-rights movement to the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard to near-epidemic levels of violence against transgender women, the community has been marked by flashes of trauma. After the massacre at a gay club in Orlando, Fla., that left 49 dead and 53 others injured, Richard Kim, the executive editor of The Nation, wrote on Sunday that gay bars and clubs have often been sanctuaries. And sometimes those sanctuaries have come under siege. Here are a few significant examples. New Orleans, 1973 Thirty-two people died when a fire swept through the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in the French Quarter, on June 24, 1973. After the blaze, some churches refused to bury the victims. The arsonist was never caught. I remember my therapists advice when I was a 22-year-old, not yet out-of-the-closet gay man living in Washington uncertain, unhappy, unready. She knew that I wasnt prepared to walk into a gay club wasnt prepared to acknowledge what that meant so she recommended a kind of emotional compromise: Go into one, walk around and then leave. Test the waters. See how it feels. I did. It worked. It usually does, doesnt it? To fully grasp the unique horror of what happened inside Pulse a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that became the site of the worst mass shooting in America you have to understand the outsize role that gay bars play in the history, lives and imagination of gay people. The mass killings in Orlando will overtake events in Washington and dominate Congress this week as lawmakers seek answers and possible responses in the wake of the United States deadliest shooting attack. Public and classified briefings were already being scheduled on Sunday to allow lawmakers and others to hear from law enforcement officials on what happened as well as on whether any links to terrorism contributed to the attack. The House and Senate will honor the victims of the shooting and the emergency personnel who responded, and lawmakers will no doubt take their opportunities to offer condolences and perspectives. The political aspects of the attack were inescapable, given an episode that contains elements of Islamic extremism, gay rights, gun control and more in the final months of an already heated national campaign year. Opinion / Columnist Peace Marangwanda is a UK-based activist When I was listening to a speech by nationalist leader Dr Joshua Nkomo, on how he wished for peaceful Zimbabwe and how Zimbabwean Robert Mugabe had betrayed the nation, I wondered if Mugabe could really be removed through the ballot box.I love the man, but here I tend to defer.Can a person who knows only violence be removed through peaceful means?Mugabe knew that in 2008 he had lost the Presidential election by 75% to Movement of Democratic Change's (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirayi, but he refused to conceded defeat - rather lying that he had only lost by less than a percentage.What hope do we have then, even if we got out and vote en masse in 2018?Can any serious minded Zimbabwean hope for Mugabe to voluntarily relinquish power?Will Mugabe concede defeat even if we vote him out by 80%?I guess not!There has to be a Plan B.We in the diaspora have to be prepared for a struggle - an armed struggle.These people can not be allowed to continue wrecking havoc in our beloved land - they need to go.The only language they understand is the gun - and surely they should get that language.Mugabe was threatening veterans of the liberation war with the same violence of the 1980s genocide.Is that a man after peace?He is not after peace. He is after war. And if war he is after, war he will get.Mugabe must go by all means.He has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Zimbabweans through his brutality.He has killed thousands more through his misgovernance.Millions more have fled the country as a result of his brutality.Can we withstand this any more?Can we just sit back and watch whilst this dictator continually unleash his vile on us?No!We can not just sit by. We need action. And now is the time.Let us unite now for a revolution.Freedom can not just come. It comes at a prize. We are saddened by the tragic events this weekend, and the loss of one of our own, Dr. McGee said. Shane Evan Tomlinson, who often sang with his band, Frequency, at Orlandos Blue Martini nightclub, performed just hours before he was killed. Friends and fellow singers struggled to process the news of a charismatic life cut short. Were all really feeling that numbness right now, and just the shock, said Deejay Young, who met Mr. Tomlinson in a gospel show at Epcot. It could have been any one of us. Jerald Arthur Wright, 31, was one of those Disney World cast members who seemed to never run out of energy for helping guests, and who, as a Spanish-speaking man whose family was from Ecuador, forged a particularly close bond with Latin American visitors. Image Juan Ramon Guerrero Credit... via Reuters He was also straight, two friends who worked with Mr. Wright said. He had gone to Pulse on Saturday night to celebrate the birthday of a friend, Cory James Connell, 21, who was also killed. Its a great atmosphere, said Jessica Weyl, 23, a friend who is also straight and goes to Pulse occasionally. People arent judgmental. People arent feeling the need necessarily to impress each other. She added, At Pulse its just calm, cool, and collected. No one felt pressure to be anyone they werent. Im straight and I love going there. My brother is gay and he loves going there. Ms. Weyl had just finished training for a job in Tomorrowland when she met Mr. Wright. He took me under his wing and kind of showed me everything, she said. She turned to him for questions about Disney policies, but especially when she encountered a guest who spoke Spanish. He really connected with a lot of guests we do have a lot of South Americans come, she said. He connected especially to those people. Image Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera Credit... via Reuters Mexicos Foreign Ministry confirmed Monday that three Mexicans were among the dead. The Mexican Consulate in Orlando was working to determine if a fourth victim was of Mexican origin. President Enrique Pena Nieto said the tragedys origins lay in expressions of hatred, of discrimination, of phobia against certain people. Many Latinos in Orlando are of Puerto Rican descent. Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34, was among them. He was proud of his heritage, and had made it his lifes mission to open doors for gay travelers, especially in Latin America. As the national brand manager for ALandCHUCK.travel, an agency that caters to gay people, he organized what the companys owner, Al Ferguson, called the first-ever gay cruise to Cuba. He fell in love with Cuba, Mr. Ferguson said. During the trip, in April, Mr. Sotomayor and Mr. Ferguson met with Mariela Castro, Raul Castros daughter and a prominent gay rights activist there. The two men also posed in front of a poster left over from President Obamas recent trip. On Sunday morning at Pulse, Mr. Sotomayors boyfriend of about three years had gone outside to put some things in his car when the shots broke out. Mr. Sotomayor texted him that he was hiding, but safe, and told him not to come back inside, Mr. Ferguson said. About 25 minutes later, he texted his boyfriend again, saying he was still hiding. That was the last message the boyfriend got. Mr. Ferguson said the boyfriends parents, who live in Mexico, do not know he is gay. Its a double catastrophe, he said. You face such horrible loss and then cant share it. President Obama, speaking to reporters at the White House, said it appeared the attack was an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been concerned about, with a gunman who was inspired by radical material he found online. Even as American military forces and intelligence agencies attack the Islamic State and other extremist groups, Mr. Obama said, one of the biggest challenges we are going to have is this kind of propaganda and perversions of Islam that you see generated on the internet. New information also emerged Monday on Mr. Mateen, including frightening statements he made three years ago to co-workers at a local courthouse about being tied to terrorism, and that the resulting F.B.I. investigation was extensive, lasting 10 months. Image Omar Mateen Credit... via MySpace First he claimed family connections to Al Qaeda, which, like the Islamic State, is a Sunni Muslim terrorist group, James Comey, the F.B.I. director, said Monday. He also said he was a member of Hezbollah, a Shiite group in conflict with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. He said he hoped that law enforcement would raid his apartment and assault his wife and child so that he could martyr himself, Mr. Comey said. Our investigation involved introducing confidential sources to him, recording conversations with him, following him, reviewing transactional records from his communications, and searching government records for mentions of him, the director said. We then interviewed him twice. He admitted making the statements his co-workers reported, but explained that he did it in anger because he thought his co-workers were discriminating against him and teasing him because he was Muslim. Donald J. Trump left little doubt on Monday that he intends to run on the same proposals on immigration and terrorism that animated his primary campaign, using his first speech after the massacre in Orlando, Fla., to propose sweeping measures against Muslims that pay little heed to American traditions of pluralism. Without distinguishing between mainstream Muslims and Islamist terrorists, Mr. Trump suggested that all Muslim immigrants posed potential threats to Americas security and called for a ban on migrants from any part of the world with a proven history of terrorism against the United States or its allies. He also insinuated that American Muslims were all but complicit in acts of domestic terrorism for failing to report attacks in advance, asserting without evidence that they had warnings of shootings like the one in Orlando. Mr. Trumps speech, delivered at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., represented an extraordinary break from the longstanding rhetorical norms of American presidential nominees. But if his language more closely resembled a European nationalists than a mainstream Republicans, he was wagering that voters are stirred more by their fears of Islamic terrorism than any concerns they may have about his flouting traditions of tolerance and respect for religious diversity. WASHINGTON How unusual is the Republican blockade of the nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Obamas pick for the Supreme Court? After a comprehensive look at every past Supreme Court vacancy, two law professors have concluded that it is an unprecedented development. Senate Republicans say they will not consider any nominee offered by Mr. Obama to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February. The power to appoint Justice Scalias successor, they say, should belong to the next president. That categorical stance is new in the nations history, the professors, Robin Bradley Kar and Jason Mazzone, wrote in a study published online by The New York University Law Review. The Senate has never before transferred a presidents appointment power in comparable circumstances to an unknown successor, they said an argument that many Democratic lawmakers have also made. In every one of the 103 earlier Supreme Court vacancies, the professors wrote, the president was able to both nominate and appoint a replacement with the Senates advice and consent. This did not always happen on the first try, they wrote, but it always happened. WASHINGTON The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort in Puerto Rico to allow public utilities there to restructure $20 billion in debt, striking down a 2014 Puerto Rico law. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority in the 5-to-2 decision, said the law was at odds with the federal bankruptcy code, which bars states and lower units of government from enacting their own versions of bankruptcy law. Puerto Rico is struggling with $72 billion in debt and has argued that it needs to restructure at least some of it under Chapter 9, the part of the bankruptcy code for insolvent local governments. But Puerto Rico is not permitted to do so, because Chapter 9 specifically excludes it, although it is unclear why. In 2014, the island tried to get around that exclusion by enacting its own version of a bankruptcy law, intended for its big public utilities, which account for about $26 billion of the total debt. But that attempt, called the Recovery Act, ran afoul of the part of the code that says only Congress may enact bankruptcy laws. WASHINGTON Advocates of trophy hunting, and even the United States government, have long justified the killing of protected wildlife in Africa by saying that taxes and fees from the hunts help pay for larger conservation efforts. But a new report by the Democratic staff of the House Natural Resources Committee challenges those claims, finding little evidence that the money is being used to help threatened species, mostly because of rampant corruption in some countries and poorly managed wildlife programs. It concludes that trophy hunting may be contributing to the extinction of certain animals. It has been almost a year since an American hunter killed a beloved lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe, setting off an international debate over sport hunting and widespread anger on the internet. Since then, the Obama administration has placed lions in Africa under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, France has banned the import of lion trophies, and more than 40 airlines have said they will no longer transport hunting trophies. The 25-page House report, called Missing the Mark, says that while poaching remains the gravest threat to animals like lions, rhinoceroses and leopards, trophy hunting also removes a significant number of animals from these rapidly declining populations. BOULDER, Colo. Sitora Yusufiy thought she was done with her ex-husband, Omar Mateen. After a marriage in which she said he beat her, confiscated her paychecks and isolated her in their Florida home, Ms. Yusufiy said she fled in 2009 with the help of her parents. The last she remembers of Mr. Mateen is that he grabbed her arm to stop her from getting into the car and leaving him forever. He tried to reach in his back pocket, I dont know if he had a gun with him, but my mother felt that and she screamed out, Ms. Yusufiy said at an interview at the home where she lives with her fiance, here in the steep green hillsides above Boulder. That was the last time I saw him. Early Sunday morning, his presence ripped back into her life when Ms. Yusufiys mother called her to say that the man she had met through Myspace in 2008 and quickly married had committed the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. NAIROBI, Kenya The Eritrean Embassy in Kenya sent a text message alert Monday morning: The Ethiopians had attacked. Fighting on the border. Situation unfolding. The jagged line separating Eritrea from its former ruler, Ethiopia, has been one of Africas most combustible flash points. Tens of thousands of soldiers died from 1998 to 2000 in a war that had been called as pointless as two bald men fighting over a comb. As the news of renewed clashes in the rocky, barren frontier began to spread on Monday, many Ethiopians and Eritreans feared the worst. Witnesses said both sides were rushing troops to the Tsorona border area, and heavy artillery was apparently fired from both sides. On the Eritrean side, several people were reported to have been killed. The reports of fighting and the lack of solid information raised fears that the two countries could be sliding once again toward all-out war. But by Monday afternoon, the extent of the fighting was unclear. The Ethiopian government said Eritrea started it. Getting more information out of Eritrea is like trying to see into a pitch-dark room: The government is one of the most secretive, isolated and repressive nations in the world. 5.SOUNDBITE (English) Jonathan Scholtz, Professor in Psychology: ++STARTS ON CUTAWAY OF DEFENCE LAWYER NEL LISTENING++ ++PARTLY OVERLAID WITH CUTAWAY OF COURT ROOM++ ++SOUNDBITE INCLUDES SHOTS FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES++ My Lady, unfortunately I feel that his condition has worsened. So what I saw now was an Oscar, I dont want to talk about a third Oscar but perhaps that would be accurate, that really almost has given up. His spirit seems broken, I know thats a lay term but clinically he has deteriorated. One has to prompt him to get some semblance of hope for the future, his functioning has deteriorated, he forgets things, he forgets that he has already told you things then he repeats them. I had to wake him up twice when I wanted to consult with him then he had either forgotten or was just too tired to get ready for the consultation. This departed from how he was in 2014. So as a clinical psychologist at this time my opinion is he is quite ill and has a sever condition, I would go so far as to say if he was my patient in private practice I would admit him to hospital and thats the Oscar we see now. Chief Prosecutor Gerrie Nel let me rather put it very clear, my argument - that in your report youre biased towards the accused. To give a report that is best for the accused, in terms of sentencing. Is that what you tried to do? Scholtz What I tried to do is present the court with this person, in the fullest extent, and to link what I saw in 2014 with now, (to) convey my understanding of him as a person over time, patterns that exist, so that the court can then see the person who is being sentenced. That is what I tried to do. MEXICO CITY Back in the late 1980s, the air got so dirty in Mexico City that birds would emit a final chirp before they tumbled from the trees onto the sidewalk, their small, still bodies a sad testament to some of the worlds worst air pollution. I heard this story a lot when I first arrived in the city a few years later. Nobody had actually seen it happen, of course, but the urban legends black humor revealed a perverse pride in survival. Then the smog began to lift. The government shut down a big oil refinery and pushed heavy industry out of the city. Regulations stripped the lead from gasoline and created incentives for people to buy cleaner new cars. And the birdsong resumed. Until now. The city has registered only 20 clean days so far this year. On all the other days, particulates and ozone rose above the governments limit. Opinion / Columnist Given the country's worsening economic meltdown it is not surprising that government is struggling to raise $6.4 million, school fees of war veterans' 43 000 children. The fact that the regime has had no problems, at least so far, in raising $80 million for the first five months alone to pay for President Mugabe's globe-trotting escapades, says a lot about the regime's warped priorities. What is both shocking and disappointing is that the war veterans are themselves are going along with this charade and blissfully unaware the system is falling apart."We are in the process of receiving money from Treasury as part of US$6,4 million billing per term. Some of the funds are already reflecting in our account," Secretary for Welfare Services for War Veterans, glibly told the Sunday Mail."We are finalising clearing the remaining arrears for first term with schools that hold other accounts since we first dealt with account holders in banks such as POSB, Cabs and CBZ where the majority of our members are banked."Most parents are grateful with the work we have done so far, but we feel there is need to increase our pace so that children are not inconvenienced due to late payment of school fees. We plead with schools not to turn away children from attending lessons for non-payment of fees."Really! Has it ever occurred to anyone of these war veterans why so many of them are now totally dependent on welfare hand-out? Indeed they are luck to get the welfare hand-outs with unemployment a nauseating 90% millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are living in abject poverty and are getting no school fees and any State welfare assistance.The very fact that 76% of our people are destitute is surely proof that President Mugabe and his Zanu PF regime has failed to deliver mass prosperity he has promised repeatedly throughout the years. The ordinary people did not elect this Zanu PF regime into power, President Mugabe impose the regime on the nation and the war veterans have played a major role as the tyrant's storm troopers in this imposition. The war veterans should surely have woken up now to the reality that the de facto one-party dictatorship they helped to create has failed them and the nation at large.Who would have thought that the nation went to war fighting to end white colonial oppression and exploitation only to become a nation of economic destitute who are denied their basic freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful free and fair vote and the right to life. To add insult to injury it is none other than the war veterans who risked all for independence who are being used by the oppressive and tyrannical regime to do its dirty of oppressing the people.The war veterans have become the Napoleon's dogs in Gorge Orwell his Animal Farm. The war veterans are not economically any better off than the rest of the population; the school fees the regime is paying is no more than a bone Napoleon throw at his dogs to gnaw! People like Tapfumaneyi are clearly very pleased with the generosity of the regime!Who would have thought being naive and ignorant can be both a curse and a blessing; a curse in that the nation has blundered from one crisis to into the next and for 36 years have sunk deeper and deeper into poverty and hopeless despair. But because of our blinding ignorance we have remained blissfully unaware of what the alternative would have been and thus spared the heartbreak.Chaos is not so disappointing if chaos is all one knows and expect in life! "Most parents are grateful with the work we have done so far!" Of course they will be grateful of the little mercies; they are grateful the school fees payments have not been reduced and then finally stopped; they expect it to happen and know it will happen very soon. PESHAWAR, Pakistan Pakistani and Afghan forces exchanged heavy gunfire on Sunday and Monday in an unusually serious escalation of tensions at the border, leaving at least 13 people wounded on the Pakistani side and killing at least one Afghan police officer, according to the police and military officials in both countries. The fighting, which began on Sunday night and resumed Monday, forced the closing of the Torkham border crossing, the busiest between the two countries. The escalation followed the closing of the Torkham crossing last month after Afghan border security guards objected to the construction of a gate on the Pakistani side. That objection also apparently contributed to the conflict on Sunday, according to official accounts from both sides. The border remained closed for five days last month but was reopened after a meeting between the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, and Pakistans army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif. BEIJING The Chinese police have recommended prosecution on a charge of subversion for Zhou Shifeng, a prominent lawyer whose arrest last year formed the focus of a campaign to discredit and dissolve networks of rights-focused defense lawyers who challenged the government, one of his former colleagues said on Monday. Nearly a year has passed since Mr. Zhou and other lawyers, legal associates and rights advocates were rounded up by the authorities, who accused them of abusing court proceedings and stirring up protests in a bid to win personal fame and discredit the Communist Party. About 25 remain in detention or missing, presumed detained, and their families and supporters have adamantly rejected the allegations, although they have had no access to the detainees. Over the weekend, the police told Mr. Zhous family that they had recommended indictment on suspicion of subverting state power, said Liu Xiaoyuan, a former colleague of Mr. Zhous, citing word from Mr. Zhous family. Mr. Liu said the subversion charge was particularly serious and, if successfully prosecuted, could lead to a prison term of at least a decade. The charge suggested that under President Xi Jinping, the government would continue its intense drive to silence organizations and activists who even a few years ago survived in a margin of official tolerance, said Maya Wang, a researcher on China for Human Rights Watch. A man accused of setting off primitive explosives at Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, injuring four bystanders, was dogged by gambling debts and had threatened to do something totally crazy before he detonated a bomb made from firecrackers, police investigators said on Monday. A statement from the Shanghai police was the first account of the motives behind the attack on Sunday afternoon, when travelers scattered as cracking sounds rang out in Terminal 2 of the airport. Four people were slightly injured from shards of glass, and the suspect subsequently slashed his throat with a knife. He survived but was in critical condition. The official account implicitly ruled out the idea that the suspect, Zhou Xingbo, nursed broader political grievances. Instead, according to the investigators, Mr. Zhou, a 29-year-old migrant worker from Guizhou Province in southwest China, lashed out after becoming mired in debt. While working in an electronics factory in Kunshan, an industrial district outside Shanghai, Mr. Zhou indulged in online gambling and lost all his savings, said the police, citing the initial investigation into the attack. He regularly borrowed from friends to get by, they said. LONDON With nine days left before Britain votes on whether to remain in the European Union, the possibility of Turkeys becoming a member of the bloc has inflamed the debate, injecting divisive issues of race, religion and tolerance openly into the campaign. Supporters of a British exit from the European Union say allowing Turkey in would leave Britain exposed to a new wave of Muslim immigration and more vulnerable to Islamic radicals. While Turkey has been pushing for membership, it faces considerable hurdles, and its entry, if it ever happens, would be many years, if not decades, away. The debate over the vote, which has split Prime Minister David Camerons Conservative Party, has largely played out around fear so far. Those in favor of remaining in the bloc, including Mr. Cameron, have emphasized the economic risks of a vote to leave. Those in favor of leaving, including other leading Conservatives, have stressed the social, cultural and economic risks of continued immigration from other European Union countries, whose citizens are entitled to live and work in Britain. Most of the recent European immigrants to Britain have come from Poland, the Baltics, Spain and Greece. PARIS There is a back story to the strikes that have made life miserable for millions across France in recent weeks, and it isnt about high unemployment, immigration or the other issues confronting the country and its increasingly unpopular president, Francois Hollande. It has to do with raw labor politics and the disproportionate role played by the General Confederation of Labor, Frances oldest union, which has ties to the once-powerful Communist Party, from which it has kept a Marxist-Leninist call to class struggle. With just under 700,000 members, most of them in the public sector, the C.G.T., as it is commonly known, has moved its fight against a proposed labor law beyond the streets. It has spearheaded mass demonstrations, and small numbers of militant strikers have blocked the gates of oil refineries, nuclear power stations, wholesale food markets and waste treatment facilities. ROME By Monday morning, the grim, if now familiar, global ritual had begun. Leaders across Europe, Asia and elsewhere sent messages of sympathy and outrage. Editorialists opined against extremism and violence. Symbolic gestures another special lighting of the Eiffel Tower were announced. Solidarity hashtags circled the virtual globe. The Orlando attack now ranks as the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. And the horrific slaughter early Sunday at a gay nightclub has a uniquely American component, again demonstrating an easy access to assault weapons that stupefies much of the rest of the world. But judging from the initial reaction, the attack in Florida resonated globally on Monday not as an American anomaly, but because it felt so universal. Orlando now takes a place with Paris, Brussels, Beirut, Bamako, San Bernardino and other cities struck by different incarnations of terrorism in recent years. Candles were once lit in their honor, too. LONDON Looking for a dead medieval king? You might want to check under a parking lot. That theory, at least, is on the minds of archaeologists and historians in Reading, about 40 miles west of London, who this week will begin searching for the high altar of the abbey founded by King Henry I. They believe that the altar and, they hope, the kings remains could be under the parking lot of a local prison, near the abbey ruins. The area around a nearby nursery school will also be searched. Nearly four years ago, archaeologists discovered King Richard IIIs grave under a parking lot in Leicester, about 100 miles northwest of London, on the site of a former monastery. If youre a man in China between 20 and 45, the government has a message for you: For the sake of your country, please donate sperm. Chinas sperm banks are facing severe shortages, for a variety of political and cultural reasons. Comparatively few Chinese men offer to donate, and a study found that almost half of those who do volunteer are screened out. Now that government policy allows more Chinese couples, including older couples, to have a second child, officials are concerned that the sperm shortages will get much worse and they are doing everything they can to find new recruits. On social media, young men are bombarded with endorsements from video-game characters and promises of cash (up to $1,000 in some cases) and, even better, a coveted rose-gold iPhone. Marco Canora, the chef at Hearth in the East Village, has been interested for years in the oyster rooms and cellars that used to dominate New York in the 1890s and early 1900s. They were everywhere, he said. They were like the hot-dog stands of New York today. They were really raucous places where people brought their mistresses and threw their shells on the floor. It was like a big party with booze and oysters. Image Marco Canora, who likes the idea of an old-fashioned oyster bar. Credit... Morgan Ione Yeager for The New York Times Mr. Canora liked the sound of that, so he decided to convert Fifty Paces, his wine bar on East 12th Street, into Zadies Oyster Room, a boozy temple to the bivalve that will open June 16. Opinion / Columnist As activists at the Vigil commemorated the fifteenth month since the abduction by state security agents in Harare of the human rights campaigner Itai Dzamara, we displayed a new poster - this one condemning the arrest on Wednesday of his brother Patson.Last week Patson released a photograph of what looked like his brother with his hands tied behind his back and a bandage around his head. He told a news conference that he had been given inside information 'from within the evil establishment'.Patson was arrested along with four other activists while taking part in a revived protest in Africa Unity Square originally started by Itai against Mugabe's misrule. Their lawyer, Obey Shava of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, said they had been charged with robbery and obstructing the course of justice. 'These are trumped up charges to instil fear and discourage people from occupying Africa Unity Square,' Shava said.Ten more protestors were detained later in a clear move to close down the protest, which has been gathering increased support as the economy slips towards the cliff edge. They have all now been released on bail.The Facebook page of Occupy Africa Unity Square was defiant, saying the protest would continue: 'We have been attacked, robbed, beaten, detained without charges, arrested on trumped-up charges, denied bail by charging outrageous amounts, smeared in the Herald. All of this for 10 days of activism. All this for demanding the Freedom hard-earned at Independence, and subsequently sold down the river'. Meanwhile, youths in Bulawayo have started their own occupation outside City Hall.The protest has aroused international interest. This week the Times of London ran stories about Zimbabwe on three consecutive days. On Monday the headline was 'Cash runs dry after Mugabe plunders banks'. For details of how Mugabe has plundered the banks see an article by Eddie Cross MP. 2012 27 killed Newtown, Conn. 2012 27 killed Newtown, Conn. With 49 people killed, the Orlando shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. With 49 people killed, the Orlando shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. 2007 32 killed Virginia Tech 2007 32 killed Virginia Tech 1984 21 killed San Ysidro, California 1984 21 killed San Ysidro, California 2016 49 killed Orlando, Florida 2016 49 killed Orlando, Florida 1991 23 killed Killeen, Texas 1991 23 killed Killeen, Texas 2012 27 killed Newtown, Conn. With 49 people killed, the Orlando shooting was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. 1984 21 killed San Ysidro, California 2007 32 killed Virginia Tech 1991 23 killed Killeen, Texas 2016 49 killed Orlando, Florida 2012 27 killed Newtown, Conn. 1984 21 killed San Ysidro, California 2007 32 killed Virginia Tech 1991 23 killed Killeen, Texas 2016 49 killed Orlando, Florida The attack at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday was the deadliest mass shooting in United States history. One out of every three people at the Pulse nightclub was killed or injured after the shooter, Omar Mateen, opened fire. The Nightclub Was Loud and Crowded Mass shooting fatalities are often higher in large, crowded spaces that are somewhat confined, making it hard for people to escape, said J. Pete Blair, a Texas State University professor who trains law enforcement officers to respond to shooters. The noise may have also played a factor: When Mr. Mateen started shooting, one patron said he first thought the gunfire was firecrackers; others said they thought it was part of the music. Without available avenues of egress, it seems like they didnt have an easy way of getting out, Mr. Blair said. The Shooter Was at the Nightclub for Three Hours The police did not stop the gunman until three hours after Mr. Mateen started shooting, an unusually long time, Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama who studies mass shootings, said. At some point after the first shots were fired, Mr. Mateen went outside the club and later returned, creating a hostage situation, Chief John Mina of the Orlando police said. It is unknown if the shooter killed more people as the police prepared for a confrontation. The amount of time it takes law enforcement to respond can be a strong predictor of the number of fatalities, Mr. Lankford said. He pointed to the mass shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, when police needed more than three hours to reach injured people, resulting in the deaths of some who desperately needed medical assistance. The Shooter Had a Powerful Rifle and High-Capacity Magazines The gunman was armed with an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle and a 9 millimeter handgun, Chief Mina said. An example of an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle. The make and model of the rifle has not been released. AR-15s, which were first developed for the military and used extensively in the Vietnam War, are widely owned by assault-rifle enthusiasts. The rifle, which can rapidly fire multiple high-velocity rounds, has been used in a number of mass shootings, including those in Aurora, Colo.; Newtown, Conn.; and San Bernardino, Calif. The rifle is legal to buy in most states, including Florida. In 1994, Congress passed an assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, that prohibited manufacturing the AR-15 for civilian sale with large-capacity magazines, bayonets or pistol grips. In a video taken by a bystander at the Orlando shooting, more than 20 rounds can be heard being fired in rapid succession. Like most states, Florida does not restrict the capacity of magazines. State bans have been ineffective: purchasers can cross state lines and AR-15s with limited-capacity magazines can easily be modified to accept larger magazines. The shooters in San Bernardino used high-capacity magazines despite Californias ban on semiautomatic rifles with magazines of more than 10 bullets. The Orlando Shooting Is the Third-Highest Known Toll Only two mass shootings are known to have killed more people: a 2011 attack at a Norwegian summer camp, and shootings by a lone gunman in South Korea in 1982, according to research by Mr. Lankford. The research includes attacks dating back to a massacre at the University of Texas in 1966 that is often considered the first modern mass shooting. Opinion / Columnist Dinizulu Mbikokayise Macaphulana is a Zimbabwean Political Scientist and Semiotician who is based in Pretoria: dinizulumacaphulana@yahoo.com. In these last days of Robert Mugabe, to think of the Zimbabwean polity and economy is to confront crises, disasters and calamities. What is visible to even the uncircumcised is the crushing cash crunch, increasing poverty of the masses, infrastructural disrepair and the scarcity of life itself. These obvious disasters and calamities have arrested our collective attention the way the undulating colours of the python captivate a doomed animal that is about to be squeezed and swallowed whole by the monstrous predator. In the ruling party and the political opposition, the past weeks have seen a spectacular display of numbers and crowds that support the organisations. In apparent wisdom, at long last, some political entities have even been forging coalitions.Parties and politicians have been keen to show some muscle, fire some warning shots in preparation for 2018 elections that in my view will never come because for now the future of Zimbabwe is in the past. Behind the economic and political chaos and the spectacular crowds that the parties and politicians have been flaunting in the streets is concealed a looming civil war. From where I stand, some of the signs of our present and coming times have been small but significant events that passed much unanalyzed and undebated as mundane and insignificant in the light of the weighty matters of the day such as the shortage of food and the scarcity of cash. Robert Mugabe's beating heart and the pumping lungs are presently the fragile string that is keeping the silence that we mistake for peace and stability in the country that is about to explode into Africa's most volatile trouble spot. All the economic and political ingredients of a bloody civil war are present in current Zimbabwe whose explosion is, this time, likely to destabilise Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana and Zambia as immediate neighbhours.The Head of State and the State of his HeadMany were shocked but not entirely surprised, when recently at Independence Day celebrations, the 92 year old ruler bowed down in worship and veneration to his own picture. For Robert Mugabe, the country and its history together with its destiny and future are summarised in him, the country is himself and he is the country. Increasingly, he sees himself in ecclesiastic terms as the ultimate sacrament and living symbol of the country. In Robert Mugabe's troubling mental universe, every Zimbabwean owes him not support or gratitude to a leader but patriotism, because he is the Motherland and Fatherland combined and personified. Africa, because Mugabe used to be a Pan-Africanist, Zimbabwe as Mugabe used to be a nationalist and ZANU-PF as Mugabe was once a party leader have all come to an end, his mental and psychological world has collapsed and narrowed to himself and his very small but powerful family. Mugabeism as a political system and organizing ideology has replaced all passions and drives that once occupied the life and the times of Robert Gabriel Mugabe. In bowing to worship his own portrait Robert Mugabe was not simply being the decorated narcissist that he has always been but he was wishfully demonstrating what he wants every wise Zimbabwean to do, worship the leader. In a way, the Mugabe of flesh was personally passing on the power to the Mugabe the symbol and object as an idol of worship. In the symbolic universe, the portrait as a sign succeeds and replaces Robert Mugabe the person and a personalized religious cult of the person is inaugurated. The big continent of Africa, the nation of Zimbabwe, the party, and the tribe that all used to be important to Robert Mugabe have at last given way to a religious and political personalism centred in the Man and his family. For himself and his family, the Man is ready to set alight the party, the tribe, the country and even the continent.Most of us saw but did not really read the photograph of an ancestral looking Robert Mugabe seated down with Bona's bouncing baby in his arms. Present in the picture, smilling and looking over are Bona herself and Grace Mugabe. Absent in the picture is the father of the baby. In Robert Mugabe's life, fathers have always been absent presences. Robert Mugabe has been a big Mama's baby all his life. In his slender but important psychoanalytical narrative, Christopher Hope dared to describe Robert Mugabe as a big woman inside a very small man. The baby, in the ancestor's arms looked like many things including a little angel that in its innocence taunts and accuses an old and dying devil, a future taunting a defeated past. The baby also looked like a small but meaningful accusation to the hands that carried it, the hands that have had many babies of other mothers smashed against rocks for being children of dissidents. Innocence looks drowning in fresh and old blood in those hands. That baby also looks powerful and overcoming. In its tiny frame it exudes power and spirit. The reason why the Robert Mugabe who openly boasted of degrees in violence, and that the X of the vote cannot argue with the bullet of the gun is recently demanding that the politics must come before the gun, is exactly that, baby power. In carrying that baby, Robert Mugabe was carrying himself once again as a baby who has learnt many bloody lessons. The old crocodile, from another angle, looks ready to swallow the baby but it can't swallow itself, it can only look and die inside. The baby is the only successor that Robert Mugabe, no matter how dangerous cannot harm. The powerful mothers, Robert Mugabe's own mother Bona, and Bona's own mother Grace are looking over. The past belongs to Robert, the future to babies and the mothers. In a strong way he looks perfectly unwanted in that picture whose ceremonial effect is both a welcome and a goodbye. In Robert Mugabe's present absence, what should Zimbabweans do?The Power of the Libidinal EconomyFrantz Fanon and Sigmund Freud as psychoanalysts and social scientists are importantly usable in reading the long political journey and present tragic condition of Robert Mugabe. In his life Robert Mugabe has managed to prevent his party's factions from engaging in open violent civil war by keeping himself firm as the leader of all the factions and playing the gladiators against each other while carefully eliminating all dangers to himself. As life inevitably leaves him or as he inevitably leaves life, open and violent warfare will be inevitable, soon. Sigmund Freud's powerful concept of the pulls of the libidinal economy is amplified and enhanced in the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard who in 1974 explained the interface between economics, micro-politics of desire and power. In that exposition, "libidinal investments" and or investments of the libido, one's family and organisation, products of the libido become the most powerful drive and passion in life. At the end of the long day of one's troubled life where the world, the nation and pleasure have been important, the self and the family are the last temple. The family becomes one's "object of libido" while the self becomes narcissistically the "ego-libido." That sorry and very sad picture of Robert Mugabe at long last hugging onto his baby grandson while his daughter and wife look on becomes an important and powerful simulacrum that represents how he has become a powerless prisoner of the libidinal economy. At 92, Robert Mugabe is psychologically back at the lap of the mother. He risks being swallowed back by the power of motherhood. At the point of death, he is closest once again to the point and site of birth, and at that point Robert Mugabe has become even more dangerous than he has ever been. Picture a baby who commands an army and must urgently protect his mother from everything in the world that could harm her.Using the Ivory Coast and greater African continent as case study, Frantz Fanon described the "pitfalls of national consciousness." Because of the "intellectual laziness" of the African political elite and economic middleclass, nationalism as a unifying ideology collapses into being a divisive and toxic force. The Dear Leader of the people comes into power talking about African unity and the vision of Pan-Africanism in the entire continent. Soon enough the leader forgets about Africa except in occasional slogans and begins to talk about the country, his country. Soon enough, he begins to talk not about the country but the party, his party. Before anyone notices, Fanon demonstrates, the Dear Leader has turned his tribe into the nation and the party, all other tribes and parties are declared enemies and sell outs as the leader becomes more chauvinistic and genocidal. He becomes a tribalist, a xenophobe and a racist of proportions. Finally, in the tragic cycle of degeneration, the last thing that the Dear Leader does, Frantz Fanon explains, is to abandon the tribe, the party, the nation and the continent, and think only of " his small little family." The family and its fortunes become the country and the continent. The Dear Leader himself becomes the party and the tribe combined and he demands, violently, all the patriotism that the population can give. What can be added to Frantz Fanon's erudite exposition is that the Dear Leader stops being a person and becomes a symbol and a system, an idol that worships itself and demands to be worshiped. The leader becomes what, in the observation of Jean Baudrillard, the French semiotician, is described as "a photocopy without an original" a fake object that is more powerful than the original object, and worships its own power as a personal private religion. In all the ways, Robert Mugabe has personified the tragic Fanonian nationalist who degenerates from a Pan-Africanist to a nationalist, from nationalist to a genocidal partisan tribalist, and finally becomes a pathetic family man who thinks his family is the world. What Zimbabweans in the ruling party and the political opposition are faced with right now is a prisoner of the libidinal economy and a dangerous fallen nationalist who is prepared to destroy the whole world in the interest of his family and its fortunes.The Civil War in ZimbabweAlready, a civil war is raging in Zimbabwe, only that it is still contained in angry words and secret stratagems and plots in the dark cold nights of Harare and the world's capitals. Three powerful groupings, all with access to arms and money and all backed by different international players are jostling. The warring factions are led, one by Robert Mugabe himself but fronted by his energetic and scared wife. The other group is led by Joice Mujuru but fronted by the name and symbol of the late Solomon Mujuru whose boys in the army, police and the intelligence are bleeding and angry at the elimination of the General. The so called Lacoste group is led by Emmerson Mnangagwa and fronted by a multitude of old and angry war veterans. All these three groups are dangerous and control many armed men and women in the army, the police and the intelligence. With only a spark, these three groups will split the national security forces into three warring armies and the whole country will be on fire from Mutare to Plumtree and from Binga to Beitbridge. What looks from the outside like peace and discipline in the security forces is only silence that is occasioned by Robert Mugabe's beating heart and pumping lungs, his symbolism and the personality religion that he has inaugurated. Minus that, these powerful groups that are each richer than the country in billions of United States Dollars will go for each other and throw the whole Southern African region into turmoil any day now. These groups will not only fight to secure political power and to save their personal skins but also to secure their massive ill-gotten fortunes. This is a ticking African time bomb. Never mind the crowds that are flaunted in the streets by different political parties, the civil war in Zimbabwe will be sparked by a minority of angry and powerful people who operate in the dark not in rallies. A mixture of anger after political losses, guilt of crimes against humanity, lots of money and armed men, the hunger for political power and fear of losing wealth and going to jail are rich ingredients for a genocidal civil war.The Fourth and the Fifth GroupThere is a known war in Zimbabwe that was always going to come from the victims of genocide in Matabaleland and the Midlands. While pretending that Gukurahundi was a closed chapter, Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa have for years been trying to neutralize the anger and the grief in Matabaleland and the Midlands. The land reform programme was used to settle as many people as possible from Mashonaland provinces in the Midlands and Matabaleland to seek to dilute the identity of the populations and make fewer and fewer those people and communities who directly experienced Gukurahundi. The naturalisation of the Shona language as a dominant language in Matabeleland through teachers and the resettled new farmers has always been expected to neutralize and dilute the Matabaleland and Midlands Gukurahundi memory and consciousness. Slowly, Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa have been praying that intermarriages and social engineering of the populations will completely erase the communities that saw themselves as Gukurahundi victims and were angry enough to do anything about it. Another programme has been to prop up the other identities within what has been called the Mthwakazi Nation. The Tongas have been encouraged to stand up on their own. The Kalangas too have been energised to seek autonomous Kalanga nationalism. This has been promoted as political social engineering to ensure that soon enough there will be no one who considers him or herself as authentic Ndebele. Gukurahundi, one day, would be a genocide without victims, so hoped Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa in their guilt and desperation.Added to the Gukurahundi and marginalisation grievance in Matabaleland and the Midlands has been a big and old secret that dates back to Cecil John Rhodes and King Mzilikazi himself. This secret is the major reason why as one of the smallest countries in the world, Zimbabwe remains of interest even to the mighty super powers. The secret is the reason why Imperial forces ganged up against Lobhengula and extinguished the Mthwakazi Kingdom. In a way, Gukurahundi happened because of this secret. This is not a Chiadzwa, but one of the thickest diamond belts that runs from the far end of Botswana up to the Great Lakes Region. The angry victims of Gukurahundi are settled on one of the world's richest and largest diamond reserves that has been known and hidden since precolonial times. When politicians, the few who know, talk about Zimbabwe's natural resources they talk of, not the gold, the wild life and the other minerals but diamond and platinum reserves in Matabaleland. For that reason, in addition to the Gukurahundi victims, Dumiso Dabengwa and ZIPRA-Vets as the Fourth war-ready group in Zimbabwe, there are troops of international business tycoons, mercenaries, black marketeers, and even proxies of Western and Eastern governments that are waiting for the slightest excuse to join the scramble for the rich pickings in that region of Zimbabwe. If a civil war is allowed to start in Zimbabwe, control of Matabaleland will be the prime jewel of each group and its international backers most of whom have been sending spies as tourists and journalists, and have been pretending to be small scale businesses that fish in the Zambezi and mine for sand in the river banks when they are trying to locate the heartbeat of diamonds and platinum.The Political Settlement in ZimbabweGiven the above, a civil war can very easily explode in Zimbabwe. For political power, wealth and old grudges and grievances many powerful Zimbabweans and their international backers are ready for war. What all Zimbabweans, in the ruling regime and opposition should work for is not the 2018 election, but peace and a working economy in the country. Politicians across the divides should start mobilising for a political settlement and unity government under which the economy and the polity will be mended. Nation building strategies that will make Zimbabwe into one nation, state building strategies that will make Zimbabwe's national institutions work again are urgently needed. The friendship and partnership of international backers must be sought not their interference. Once again, every family in Zimbabwe should be exalted and protected, and its future secured in the same way that Robert Mugabe is doing with his own family. The time for narrow leadership is up or we all get swallowed by war and calamity.---------------- Opinion / Columnist Organisation is everything!!!! It is a Perpetual Taboo to be unorganised!!!! The power of human beings lies in the ability to organise themselves against adversity. Power to organise is THE STRENGTH which made humans conquer the harsh forests of Africa 6 000 years ago and develop the dexterity to improve from adverse to success. While River Nile was flowing with life bearing waters, forests bearing virgin fruits, meat, honey and milk, ancient Africans were threatened by dangerous animals.The Intelligence Quality (IQ) of Africans 6 000 years ago taught us to sleep together in campfires to protect our children and elders from lions, hyenas, cheeters and snakes. There were more dangerous animals than human beings in the dark forests of Africa those days. It was the survival of the fittest. Fit does not mean muscular strength only, it also means mental fitness which is why lions are kept in Zoo's today although they are more muscular than the hands of Mrs Obama.When human beings had completed conquering wild animals, a new problem begun and it was human domination against another. The human to human struggle is also to do with the survival of the fittest. In the ancient days, human fitness was determined by his ability to train and maintain a group of strong warriors. The group with the strongest warriors would eat the best of the cream of the land while the weaker provided the cream.Human beings evolve! The fittest in the evolved human being is one who is able to organise. Military strength can be weakened by a powerful and fact-full team of organisers which is why empires do not last for ever. Empires last for as long as they are believed and can produce exponential growth. This is why China, with its lack of Western model of Democracy, is experiencing growth all the time. It is hard to convince Chinese people to rebel against their Government and introduce Western Democracy while China and the general population of China are enjoying the tangible fruits of their country.In Zimbabwe, we have had many centuries of disorganisation from the 15th Century. The only time organisation ever entered our shows after the Monomotapa Emprire was when Mzilikazi brought organization from Shaka's influence.Organisation is strength and NOTHING CAN BEAT ORGANIZATION.Mzilikazi left KwaZulu in 1819 with only 600 ORGANISED men. By 1830, Mzilikazi was a ruler of Zimbabwe.In 1888, Cecil John Rhodes sent a team to study the STRENGTH, UNITY AND ORGANISATION of what was called Lobengula's Country. The team found a country with a King, Chiefs and subjects who loved their King but there was tribal room to weaken the ORGANISED ENTITY.Rhodes, with his education and ability to organise even better than the King Lobengula, exploited the weakness of tribal cracks within the King's dominion and used that tiny crack to propagate a split which he would be the ruler.Rhodes's descendants enjoyed a century of dominating an unorganised mass of Africans and turned them into slaves in their own country. Even today, the World says Rhodesia was a Bread Basket of Africa but I was born in Rhodesia, poor to the extreme in that Bread Basket which was designed to satisfy the happiness of a White Rhodesian.In 1956, ANC in Rhodesia organised oppressed railway workers and introduced Black Political Consciousness which became a fire never to be extinguished. Zapu, led by Joshua Nkomo, took Robert Mugabe as Secretary General and the man had just come from a foreign training in Ghana where he learnt to use (1) Procrastination, (2) Pretence, (3) Tribe as a tool to emancipate himself for self purposes which is not National Purpose. From that day, the ORGANISED OBJECTIVE OF THE PEOPLE OF ZIMBABWE AGAINST ADVERSITY OF OPPRESSION WAS POISONED.Mugabe had the EDUCATION which would allow him to ORGANISE even better, but for self enrichment and NOT NATIONAL OBJECTIVES. Mugabe had seen how Nkhwame Nkruma rose and fell. He employed the same intuition into Zapu and worked on a split to form Zanu just as it was in Ghana 1959.It was difficult for someone in 1980 to say a single sentence to ORGANISE AND EDUCATE PEOPLE ABOUT THE DANGERS OF MUGABE. Mugabe used death as a tool to silence discerning voices and the people believed him. Like the Rhodesians, Mugabe divided Zimbabweans and told others that they were more nearer to him than others in a divide and rule. Mugabe's type of organization only needed TIME to allow it to die a natural death for it is in TIME that people can be able to judge genuinety from fiction.Over all these years, Zimbabweans have now all proven that Mugabe was not the right man from the beginning. No one today in Zimbabwe does not see that if Mugabe had love for Zimbabwe, he would have allowed a new Presidential player in 1990. If Joyce Mujuru can agree with me, Rugare Gumbo, Emmerson Mnangagwa (Though still insidiously in denial ), Dydimus Mutasa, who else would deny it?If the people of Zimbabwe would go back to the true human ancient dexterity and ORGANISE AGAINST THIS ADVERSITY WHICH HAS BEEN ALLOWED FOR TOO LONG, Zimbabwe would be free in 24Hrs.This is the Menu. Everybody in any part of Zimbabwe must head to Harare and occupy Mugabe's House. Occupy Parliament, his Presidential residence and occupy all Airports. Youth must take control of all Police cars and the underpaid Arm give up Army vehicles. The Army must refuse to shoot Zimbabweans and Police refuse to victimise Zimbabweans.To the Police and the Army, "I want you to remember that Robert Mugabe was not there when Zimbabweans formed the ANC in 1956" This outsider hijacked the peoples dream to enrich himself with our money our wives (Corrupted Mrs Gorereza), our children in the Army and our brothers in the Police. The Army and the Police must be patriotic and carry the flag of Zimbabwe and help Zimbabweans to achieve democracy.All Zimbabwean Political Parties MUST CEASE TO EXIST TOGETHER WITH THE POLICE AND ARMY. If they cease to exist, and the army and police refuse to harm Zimbabweans, Zimbabwe will be ONE BIG COUNTRY.When Mugabe has been arrested and confined in a three bedroom house in Mambo, Gweru with his family, a team of 26 Presidential Search Team gets commissioned to run the interim Government. The Presidential Search Team must comprise of a man and a woman of Tonga origin, men and woman of Ndau origin, men and woman of Ndebele origin, men and woman of Karanga Origin, men and woman of Manyika origin, men and woman of Kalanga origin, men and woman of Nambya origin, men and woman of European origin, men and woman of Zezuru origin, men and woman of Venda origin, men and woman of Suthu origin, men and woman of Nyanja origin, men and woman of Shangani origin.26 Members of the Presidential search team must be appointed by members of the community where they were born and must each posses a University Degree. They must be people who have never taken senior positions in any existing party in Zimbabwe. They must be vetted for their record in opposing corruption, their record for doing something to help the community, their record for being peace makers. Their mandate should be to strengthen the equal representation of the communities from where they were born and re-introduce the culture of accountability in Zimbabwe.The Presidential Search Team must make weekly progress update to the Nation laying out resolutions of how an elected President should be brought into account and how to neutralise his influence on Zimbabwean armed forces and judiciary? The Presidential Search Team must put in place tools to root out any form of corruption and re-employ all civil servants making sure that all tribal groups of Zimbabwe have equitable representation in every office, every job and every place of influence in our shared beautiful country.If communities of an area where their Presidential Search Team member does not perform to the general expectation of that community, a replacement must be sought by that community.The Presidential Search Team's mandate should be to re-culture Zimbabwe from where it has been driven by Mugabe since 1961. The Presidential Search Team must, at the end of their mandate, provide concise evidence that all Zimbabweans feel equal on top of the Zimbabwean soil. The Presidential Search Team must protect Zimbabwe from outside opportunism where more organised countries may see a window through which to loot and re-enslave us as the Chinese are now doing after the British.Mugabe must be stripped of everything, every assert including the asserts of his relatives who got rich out of looting Zimbabwe.MDC, ZANU, ZAPU and everything in the briefcase called Political Party must cease to exist for 30 years. This is because their methodology has failed the people of Zimbabwe and caused divisions instead of unity. The Presidential Search Team must exist for four years, after which a President must be elected from the smallest of the 13 groups. This means that if the Nambya were the smallest of the thirteen, people from that area will hold an election to chose a President from their area who should be a blessing to Zimbabwe for two years. Non of the Presidential Search Team qualifies to run for President. This also means that the President from the Nambya Community will run Zimbabwe from 2021 to 2023. After the expiry of his term, the next group of the thirteen with the next smaller population, in ascending order, will elect their next to run Zimbabwe from 2023 to 2025.The President must hold the powers to change chief of Military and Police if they fail to comply with his demands. Our Military and Police should not be used by the President ever again to oppress the will of Zimbabweans.After 30 years of the running of this system, Zimbabwe should revert back to the model of democracy which is ubiquitous all around the World. The thirty years must be a healing therapy which should end with every Zimbabwean having forgotten why human beings must be divided and impoverished by one selfish man.I have given the Menu, and the youth of Zimbabwe must start to implement it now.It takes fourteen days to organise, 24Hrs to implement. All that is needed is ORGANISED ACTION WHERE MDC, ZANU, SHONA or TONGA should never be mentioned. It is a vital National Resolution. BENGHAZI, Libya Islamic State suicide bombers using an ambulance and two other vehicles targeted Libyan forces in the coastal city of Sirte on Sunday, killing at least one of them, a spokesman for militias loyal to Libyas U.N.-brokered government said. IS took over Sirte last year, exploiting Libyas turmoil to gain a foothold in the oil-rich country. The fight to retake it is being led by militias from the western city of Misrata, which advanced into the city last week. Brig. Gen. Mohammed al-Ghasri said Sundays attack infiltrated our siege on the insurgents main stronghold in the country and targeted supply lines and medical units. At least one paramedic was killed and a dozen troops were wounded, he said. They aimed to shake our ranks, to force us to retreat, but we remain steadfast, al-Ghasri said. We are determined to finish the job before the end of the holy month of Ramadan, which began June 6. Driving IS from Libya would rid neighboring Egypt of a serious security threat just beyond its porous western border and terminate what has been a key supply route for men and weapons headed to the groups affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula. The IS presence in Libya has also been a source of concern to southern European nations, particularly Italy. FORT PIERCE, Fla. He was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and who at one point expressed interest in becoming a police officer, though he never pursued it. Omar Mateen, 29, who police said gunned down 50 people early Sunday, was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show, the nature of which was not entirely clear, shown on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel with Taliban leanings. A former Afghan official said the program was pro-Taliban and a former colleague said it was enthusiastically pro-American. Mateen attended evening prayer services at the citys Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. When he finished prayer he would just leave, Rahman told The Associated Press. He would not socialize with anybody. He would be quiet. He would be very peaceful. He was also bipolar, Mateens ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters in Boulder, Colorado. He was mentally unstable and mentally ill, Yusufiy said. Although records show the couple didnt divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms. Mateen opened fire early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub, killing 50 people and wounding more than 50 others before he was gunned down during an exchange of fire with SWAT team members, authorities said. They say Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a call to 911 on the morning of the shooting. Yusufiy said she was devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to his mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups. Rahman agreed. My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with ISIS, he said. Seddique Mir Mateen, the father of the alleged shooter, is a life insurance salesman, who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. Its shocking, he said about the shooting. (Omar Mateens) father loves this country. Some of Seddique Mir Mateens shows were taped and later posted on YouTube. During one episode, a sign in the background read: Long live the U.S.A! Long live Afghanistan. Afghans are the best friends to the U.S.A. But a former Afghan official said the Durand Jirga Show appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel that supports ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban, which are mostly Pashtun. Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nations minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said. The Durand Jirga Show expresses support for the Taliban, has an anti-Pakistan slant, complains about foreigners in Afghanistan and criticizes U.S. actions there, the official said. Seddique Mir Mateen lavished praise on current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani when he appeared on the show in January 2014, but he has since denounced the Ghani government, according to the official, who said that on Saturday, Seddique Mateen appeared on the show dressed in military fatigues and used his program to criticize the current Afghan government. He also announced on that show that he would run in the next Afghan presidential election, said the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be linked to coverage of the shooting. Omar Mateen had no criminal record, but Yusufiy said he owned a pistol. She said he wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Mateen was a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as the leading global integrated security company. Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the nightclub professing allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The law enforcement official is familiar with the investigation but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The shooter in 2013 made inflammatory comments to co-workers, and Mateen was interviewed twice, FBI agent Ronald Hopper said. He called those interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber. He described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Rahman said he knew Mateen and his family since the shooter was a young boy. Playful as a child, he became more serious as an adult, Rahman said. He spoke both English and Farsi, and at one point wanted to become a police officer but never pursued it, the imam said. He was also into body building. He was not, as far as the imam could see, someone who would ever commit such a gruesome act of mass violence. The shooting was totally unexpected, Rahman said. WING, N.D. The Wagner family farmstead in central North Dakota could have been lifted from a Grant Wood painting: bales of hay rest on a gently sloping hill, cattle graze near a bright blue pond, green tendrils of durum and sunflowers peek out of the dirt. The Wagners fear that all of this could someday be under threat from big, impersonal corporations. It is a concern that is expected to drive them, and other North Dakotans, to the polls on Tuesday to vote on a referendum that would make it possible for companies to buy up farms like theirs. Starting in 1932, North Dakota law barred nonfamily corporations from owning farmland or operating farms. But that changed in March of last year when the state Legislature passed a bill that would relax the corporate farming ban and Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed it into law. Citizens protested the new law, with the states farmers union at the forefront, which led to the referendum that voters will face on Tuesday. The law was set to take effect last August, but its fate rests on the outcome of the referendum. A vote for the measure would uphold the new law, which allows domestic corporations and limited liability companies to own and to operate dairy farms and swine production facilities on land that is no larger than 640 acres, or 1 square mile. A vote against the measure would repeal the new legislation and restore the law that had governed farm and dairy operations in the state for more than eight decades. While the debate is very much focused on maintaining the character of North Dakota, it also taps into widespread fears about the disappearance of family farms throughout the United States and the spread of big corporations and their farming methods into rural America. People like the Wagners who support the earlier law one of the strictest in the country say that it protects the environment and family farmers like them. With corporate farming, they just dont have the connections, said Laurie Wagner, whose husbands grandparents started the farm in the 1930s, as she walked around the property on Thursday. They could buy up all the land, and it means nothing to them. They could make it impossible for people like us to compete. The issue has sharply divided North Dakotans. On rural roads outside Bismarck, the capital, some fields and front yards are decorated with bright green signs declaring, No to Corporate Farming. Many people are suspicious of big business and eager to preserve the states long heritage of family-owned farms. Agriculture remains North Dakotas dominant industry, with close to 30,000 family-operated farms and ranches. In 2012, North Dakota became the first state to enshrine the right to farm in its constitution. I think small towns and rural communities are at stake, said state Rep. Kenton Onstad, a Democrat and the House minority leader. I think the values of North Dakota are going to be given up and slowly erode. But those who support the ballot measure say that opponents are acting out of nostalgia and emotion. They argue that the farming and ranching business in North Dakota needs to evolve to stay competitive: Dairies and hog farms have declined in recent years, prompting many people to argue that the industries could use a boost. We have this picture in our head of the Hollywood farm, with the dairy cows, a couple of pigs, a couple of chickens, said Katie Heger, a family farmer who favors allowing corporate farming. There are very few farms that are like that. Farming and ranching is a business. So if were looking at sustaining agriculture in the state of North Dakota, we need to look at how we can build business. During last years debate, Dalrymple, a Republican, said that he hoped changes to the farming law would encourage economic growth in the struggling dairy and swine industries. And he promised that the new legislation included safeguards to protect North Dakotas family farms. The bill includes strict limits on the use of the business structure and we do not consider it a threat to the farm sector of North Dakota as we know it, he said at the time. The North Dakota Farmers Union, which opposed the bill, responded by gathering more than 20,000 signatures to force the measure onto the statewide ballot. The union has spent heavily on mailers and television ads in recent weeks and recruited more than 1,000 volunteers to make phone calls and knock on doors to drum up support. Mark Watne, the groups president, said he believed that if the legislation went into effect, it could open the door to consolidation and the possibility that smaller farms could go out of business. Family farmers, he said, have an incentive to train the next generation, while corporations could choose profits over longevity. We simply do not believe in our communities that the ownership of land in the hands of a corporate structure is in the interest of long-term agricultural production, Watne said. State Sen. Terry M. Wanzek, a farmer and rancher who sponsored the bill last year, said that opponents are driven by unwarranted fears of big business. They think Monsanto or Wal-Mart is going to come in and own everything, Wanzek said. I dont see this as some big bad boogeyman whos going to come in and take over the farm. If I felt in any way that it was going to threaten our heritage or our way of life on the farm to any great extent, I never would have supported it. Some have argued that allowing family farmers to incorporate could give them more access to outside capital and investors for expansion, like other businesses in the state under corporate structure. The disadvantage with North Dakotas law is that you cant have any other partners once youve incorporated except for a very direct relative, said state Sen. Joe Miller, the chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and a sponsor of the bill. Youre hamstringing neighbors to be able to come together, or outside investment partners, maybe a friend who lives in California who wants to invest. Theres all kinds of different opportunities that one could explore, and thats completely off the table right now. The North Dakota Farm Bureau, a lobbying organization that has farmer members, has adopted an alternative tactic in case the new law is defeated that takes aim at the 1932 law banning corporate farming. Earlier this month, it filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law, arguing that it is discriminatory and unconstitutional. The laws of our state, as they stand today, are forcing North Dakotas farm families to make business management decisions that other businesses are not being forced to make, Daryl Lies, the president of the Farm Bureau, said in a statement. David M. Saxowsky, a professor of agriculture at North Dakota State University, said that the debate speaks to a culture in North Dakota that places a heavy value on farmland. Were very proud of our resources, we think that our land is attractive to investors and we are very proud of our desire to be the business owner, he said. And for those reasons, we want to provide an environment in which smaller businesses owned by families can succeed. Dalrymple declined to be interviewed. In an emailed statement, he said, Its good that this will be decided by the people of North Dakota. VIENNA The world was a more peaceful place when a newly sworn-in President Barack Obama pledged to aggressively pursue a global ban on nuclear arms tests. But as his term winds down, a working test-ban treaty remains a dream and some of the loudest voices out of Washington are hostile. Seven years on, the Obama administration continues to publicly back ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Secretary of State John Kerry vowed late last year to re-energize efforts for congressional approval a move that the head of the U.N. organization created to enforce a ban says would lead at least some of the other holdouts to do the same. The U.S. needs to show leadership, said CTBTO chief Lassina Zerbo ahead of the 20th anniversary of his organization. We need to keep the momentum on what President Obama said in 2009. But with Obamas days in office numbered, that appears to be a forlorn hope. His deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told the Arms Control Association last week that Republican control of the Senate had left the administration with no viable path forward for ratification. Zerbos organization had hoped that Kerry would come to events marking Mondays anniversary, prompting the foreign ministers of the four other permanent Security Council members plus Germany to follow. But Kerry decided to send his undersecretary for arms control, Rose Goettemoeller, and his five counterparts from the six powers that signed the nuclear deal with Iran also are no-shows. State Department spokesman Mark Toner says ratification is still a priority, adding Kerrys absence does not mean that Washington is no longer interested in CTBT. White House officials also say Obama still supports ratification and is providing substantial funds to the effort. Anti-treaty minded Republicans already rejected ratification 17 years ago under President Bill Clinton, with Senate approval falling far short of the required two-thirds majority. But there are also other hurdles. While Hillary Clinton is more likely to endorse ratification than Donald Trump, tensions with Russia and China, Mideast turmoil, terror threats and yet unknown future crises are likely to come first for either of the two. The CTBTO already polices the world for any sign of nuclear tests with a global network of monitoring stations that pick up seismic signals and gases released by such events. But it still cannot go on site to inspect for tests. That can happen only if the treaty enters into force. And that will happen only if the holdouts among the 44 countries that are designated nuclear capable the United States, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan ratify. Treaty backers argue that the United States has nothing to lose by ratification because it hasnt performed a nuclear explosive test since 1992 and computer modeling now appears to make such live tests unnecessary. At the same time, North Korea, the only nation known to be testing, would likely have done so even if the treaty were in force. There is no room for any further tests in this civilized world, Zerbo declares, in urging the U.S. to show the way. Proponents share that view. Harvard University nuclear policy analyst Matthew Bunn says that if the United States ratified, it is very likely China would ratify. Then, he says, the United States and China would be in a much better position to pressure India, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, and Israel to ratify. Advocates also suggest the treaty should appeal to skeptics in U.S. Congress by locking in a technological advantage that puts the United States ahead of other countries following its lead. Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies describes it as preserving Americas competitive edge. Bunn agrees, saying that others would find it very difficult to bring on really new nuclear weapons with really new capabilities without testing them. Congressional opponents challenge such opinions. The treaty should remain dead, senators Tom Cotton and James Lankford declared last month, arguing that it would allow U.S. rivals to cheat while diminishing Americas security in an increasingly hostile world. In the shadow of another North Korean nuclear test, illicit rocket launch, and the catastrophic Iran nuclear deal, the Obama administration advocating for a flawed international nuclear-weapons treaty is mindboggling, they wrote. But others say that todays uncertain times speak more than anything for ratification of perhaps the only arms treaty that most countries agree with. Zerbo calls it the lowest hanging fruit that anybody serious about arms control can grab, while Fitzpatrick says that the treaty should be locked it in now before things get worse. Bunn sees other benefits. He says that ratification by nations with nuclear arms would be a welcome sign for other countries that the holdouts are making progress toward their disarmament obligations. And while North Korea will likely continue defiant at least until any regime change, Bunn says that ratification by all others would make it easier to build an international coalition to pressure Pyongyang. As it waits, the CTBTO is making itself useful. It has been on the forefront of providing detailed information on the North Korean nuclear tests. Its radionuclide detectors also delivered benchmark data on the spread of radioactivity from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. And its seismic sensor network has been crucial for tsunami warnings. But as the clock ticks down, the organization could be running out of time. Bunn says that some states may decide its not worth it to have monitors in their country sending data to countries that havent bothered to ratify, and will drop out, or that countries will get sick of paying for the verification system for a treaty that never enters into force. That, he says, means that the existing verification system could collapse endangering not only test monitoring but the other benefits. WASHINGTON The gunman in the attack that killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub was inspired by extremist information over the internet, President Barack Obama said Monday, calling it an apparent example of homegrown extremism that U.S. officials have been worrying about for years. Obama, speaking in the Oval Office after meeting with the FBI director, said the attack appears similar to the shooting late last year in San Bernardino, California, though he added that we dont yet know. Investigators in that attack determined the killers werent directed from overseas but were at least partly inspired by the Islamic State group. At this stage, we see no clear evidence that he was directed externally, Obama said, referring to suggestions that the Islamic State group or other extremists had orchestrated the attack. It does appear that at the last minute, he announced allegiance to ISIL, he said, using an acronym for the extremist group. He said the probe was being treated as a terror investigation and that investigators were examining materials from the internet that the shooter may have consumed. Obama said investigators are still looking into the motivations of the shooter and considering all possibilities. He said organizations like IS, al-Qaida and others target gays and lesbians because of their vicious, bankrupt ideology and their religious beliefs about homosexuality. The fact that it took place at a club frequented by the LGBT community I think is also relevant, Obama said. The attack took place at a gay nightclub. Obama spoke after getting briefed on the investigation by FBI Director James Comey, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other officials. Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report. DENVER The deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history has people around the world wondering why mass violence keeps happening in America. For those who have lived through mass shootings, and for the law enforcement officers trying to prevent them, the answer is self-evident. Because we allow it, said Sandy Phillips, whose daughter was among 12 killed at Colorado movie theater in July 2012. The nation began the week mourning the 50 people killed early Sunday when a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Authorities are investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism, a hate crime, or both. Politicians lamented the violence as tragically familiar despite its staggering scale. The causes of mass shootings are as disparate as the cases themselves, but those involved in other tragedies couldnt help but feel the similarities. President Barack Obama called the latest massacre a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. Although the Orlando shooters motives, and allegiance to Islamic extremism, arent yet clear, the massacre already sparks echoes of last years attack on a social services center in San Bernardino, California. For Ryan Reyes, whose boyfriend was killed in that case, the shootings have less to do with gun control and more to do with highly charged political rhetoric and how people treat each other. The issue is American society, he said. We are to blame, and the fact that we refuse to accept the fact that we are to blame just makes it worse. Its what we do to each other that causes these people to get to the point where they feel this is the only option. Still, guns get their share of the blame. Laws that allow almost anyone who has not been convicted of a felony to purchase guns have made it as simple as a mouse-click to get weapons and ammunition, Phillips said. That includes semi-automatic rifles like the Orlando gunmans AR-15, a common denominator in many of the worst recent mass shootings: Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino, to name a few. More frustrating, Phillips said, is that even the most horrifying massacres have provoked little change. The best chance might have come after a gunman in the Sandy Hook community in Newtown, Conn., killed 20 first-graders and six adults at a school, just months after the theater shooting in 2012. Obama dedicated much of the start of his second term to pushing legislation to expand background checks, ban certain assault-style weapons and cap the size of ammunition clips. That measure collapsed in the Senate, and since then, the political makeup of Congress has made new gun laws appear out of reach. Obama and other proponents of reform have all but quit calling for action after major attacks, shifting instead to simply decrying the fact that they can even happen. When politicians do succeed at pushing for tighter gun measures, they risk their careers. In Colorado, fresh off the Aurora theater shooting and still healing from the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in which two students killed 13 people and themselves, Democrats in the state Legislature in 2013 muscled through new laws requiring universal background checks and banning magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. Gun control advocates considered it a victory, until furious gun rights supporters forced from office two state senators who supported the measures. We could have done something about this in the years since Columbine, since Sandy Hook, said Marcus Weaver, who was wounded in the theater shooting and whose friend was killed. When is enough enough? Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, disagreed that stricter gun laws are the solution. I think theres other root causes in play, he said. I think mental health is a huge issue. One of the motivators is really that ISIS continues to exist, Islamic terror in other forms continues to exist. Many mass shooters have been found to have severe psychological problems, including the Colorado theater shooter and the man who tried to assassinate Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011. For Phillips, the story is the same, each time. We have made it so easy in this country, for anyone any one, she said. It doesnt matter who that person is or what their agenda is. SHANGHAI An explosion in the check-in area of Shanghais Pudong International Airport injured at least four people on Sunday, according to the police and airport authorities, who said the blast was set off by a man carrying a homemade explosive. The airport is one of Chinas busiest, and travelers described fearful moments in the early afternoon when sharp cracking sounds reverberated through the Terminal 2 departure area and plumes of smoke rose to the ceiling, according to local media and video footage. Police quickly cordoned off the area of the explosion, but the airport remained open, suggesting that officials were confident the episode was not part of a wider attack. Police said in a written statement that a man with a homemade explosive had removed it from his backpack and dropped it in front of a check-in counter. The statement indicated that the explosive was contained in a beer bottle or bottles. After the blast, the man also took a knife from the backpack and slashed his own throat and fell to the ground, police said. The man survived but was said to be in grave condition. In addition, a nearby hospital took in four casualties of the explosion who were lightly wounded by bottle fragments, police said. One was a citizen of the Philippines. None of the reports gave any details about the suspect or his motives. SANTA ANA Two men were wounded in Santa Ana late Sunday in a shooting that police are saying is possibly gang-related. Officers responded to a shooting at 10:20 p.m. on the 200 block of S. Maple St. and found two victims in their early 20, Santa Ana police Cmdr. Matt Sorenson said. One man, shot in the upper torso, was transported in serious condition to Orange County Global Medical Center in Santa Ana. The other man, shot in the lower torso, was transported to the same hospital in stable condition. At this point, it is possibly gang related, Sorenson said. It appears as though the suspects were in a vehicle described as a light-colored, possibly a Nissan, which was occupied by two male Hispanics. The investigation is ongoing. Contact the writer: 714-796-7762 or jkwong@ocregister.com or on Twitter: @JessicaGKwong Opinion / Columnist Social policies of Zimbabwe should be inclusive to all provinces of Zimbabwe Hate speeches, genocide denial, incitement of masses should be considered criminal Zambia's humanism a replicate of Ubuntu; Hunhu can play a big role in solving ethnic divide in Zimbabwe did it did it did it Tapping wisdom from Zambian humanism, Tanzania's Ujamaa and German's multi-culturalism! They implemented social policies that made multiculturalism possible, coped well in integrating multiple societies and still today these countries are global pioneers of ethnic- and racial integration in their societies. All the aforementioned philosophies failed in their own respective countries. Why would one seek solutions that failed in their implementation in those countries? When we say these noble ideas failed we look at what remained intact that is still very attractive from these three countries to adopt their developmental successes to a tribally ailing Zimbabwe. Multi-kulti in Germany was declared a failed attempt before it was even implemented.President Nyerere's Ujamaa was inclusive, President's Kaunda's philosophy of humanism was inclusive, and German's multi-culturalism is inclusive. Inclusion is a term in modern political landscapes that bring together different groups of people under one jurisdiction in a single country. A dictionary will define inclusion as follows: "Inclusion is defined as a sense of belonging, feeling respected, valued for who you are, feeling a level of supportive energy and commitment from others so that you can do your best."When Zimbabwe got its independence in 1980, it made ground-breaking social policies that gave the people of Zimbabwe a sense hope. Because Zimbabwe inherited a healthy treasury from Smith's UDI government, they were able to embark of massive educational programmes both in rural and urban areas. The national budget allocated 17, 3% towards education alone to ensure rapid expansion of educational resources that improved the quality of education in all schools be it in rural or urban ones. Primary and secondary schooling became free and also too primary education became compulsory, a reform that designated a minister to keep the maximum school attendance to all children of Zimbabwe; education is a human right. The number of school children doubled and there was need to improve infrastructure development and teacher training colleges doubled too, to meet the needs of the beneficiaries. The climate of education was boosted by the students themselves who were motivated and dedicated, politically it was an "educational miracle" said Clayton Mackenzie. All these reform were meant for all the children of Zimbabwe.But because the educational policy of Zimbabwe right from the start was not inclusive to all, thousands of children missed the golden opportunity, they were left out, mostly the rural children of Mathebelelands, North and South and some in Metropolitan Bulawayo itself. Since 1980, there were some regions that were not assessable by any government officials to boost reforms; the Gugurahundi atrocities that started in 1982 to 1987 effectively hindered any form of educational reforms and school infrastructure improvements that were taking place in other regions. What kept these schools still managing to perform however way, were the durable infrastructure developments that the colonial Smith's UDI regime left behind. The absence of birth certificates to some of the children in Mathebeleland excludes them systematically from attending schooling in the first place. These children were born in the height of the genocide activities in Mathebeleland and Midlands.Tanzania's Ujamaa was a people driven philosophy that emphasized the importance of man regardless of his tribe and race. Education was a sacred cow for the people and the government equally. Education represented a tool for the country's development and rapid industrialisation and the implementation of Ujijini. (Ujijini were land reforms based on the philosophy of Ujamaa) Social mobility was made possible if one attained post primary education and those who completed the secondary and tertiary education, the then aspired for those well-paid jobs in the modern sector. Those were the socio-and-economic realities that barely contradicted the aspirations of the people and the government development goals. And hence the education policies of Tanzania's Ujamaa were wholly inclusive of all ethnic peoples of Tanzania to be able to achieve the noble goals of Ujamaa.The language Kiswahili too facilitated inclusivity in Tanzania's social and economic development. The language Kiswahili, just like English language, was not owned by any ethnic group, but was a language that developed along the coastal regions of Tanganyika where slave trade and interconnectivity of races through trade and intermarriages took place. Kiswahili became useful in the new Tanzania's reform programme, to be used as the language that facilitated education in the primary and secondary schools. In the course of facilitating educational reforms in Tanzania of the 1960s, no region was left behind in terms of educational social policy implementations; hence the peoples of Tanzania's ethnic groups developed a bonding of oneness, one people, and one nation.The German chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel declared multiculturalism as dead! "We kidded ourselves that THEY wouldn't stay but leave Germany politely," said the chancellor. Indeed those were platitudes dressed up as epiphanies just to impress and satisfy the popular mood and sentiments back then. She had to say this as the elections were around the corner. But Chancellor Merkel is not a populist politician! When the German law makers realised that the migrant workers were not leaving Germany and that Germany was as a matter of fact an immigration country that is constantly recruiting skilled migrants to boost their gigantic economy they had to rethink how they were going to integrate the migrants in Germany and be part of them. Integration is a two way street that demands both the Germans and the migrants to live together side by side.The German authorities realised too that Islam is part of Germany as long as they have over 5 million of the population that are Muslims permanently resident in Germany. The German government under Dr. Angela Merkel developed a national-integration-plan that will give sustainable solutions to a multi-kulti society. Initially they formulated a policy plan called "German leading culture" as the focus for integration. This was rejected by the migrant population and most Germans who were then taking the multi-culturalism seriously. "Deutsche leit-kultur" smacks of arrogance, was to mean Muslims would be forced to choose between practicing their religion and adopting German identity.Again the German government, having developed the integration-national-plan, they decided to invite migrants and develop road-maps that would bring sustainable integration policies. There were integration summits and conferences in all federal lands. Above many other suggestions that came up in their consultation period, learning the German language and shepherding youth of immigrants into employment was of paramount importance. Most immigrants especially of Turkish origin lived in Germany for many years but never made an effort to learn German language properly, a prerequisite to integration and multi-culturalism, they tend to remain strangers even almost 50 years presence in their guest country. They formed ghettos in most big cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. It is in these cities where Migrants live parallel world with poor living conditions whose children have no prospects of good education and career development.Migrant workers are poorly educated and can barely read and write. What they sell in German labour market is their manual work, domestic labour, jobs, the main-line Germans shun to do, jobs of manufacturing industry and building constructions. It goes on to say that children born of migrant workers with very little or nothing in terms of education, even their offspring, there is not much emphasis on education that can be the router to alleviate poverty and marginalisation in the German main stream. About 30% of migrant children do not have a formal school leaving certificate; about 10% have completed A-level schooling.One in three children in Germany belongs to the immigrants working in Germany; this is a big constituency considering that Germany has a population of 65 million. The German law makers would rather they targeted the children of migrant workers through their program called inclusion, to be given good education and shepherd them to get skills so that they do not become a burden of the state by demanding social benefits. German culture is a culture that attaches decency to work-ethics. Here, again inclusion is buzz-word, emphasised ever to achieve reasonable multi-kulti society. Inclusion is an educational program that is intended to give all children, including those of immigrants, the opportunity of participation in the highest possible quality education services in the community. Nobody should be excluded in this program for whatever reason: a worthy societal objective. Immigrants are still coming to Germany together with a large number of low-skilled Middle Eastern, Africans and Asians refugees willing to do those domestic market jobs. Germany is going to need new concepts and fundamental changes to make inclusion a success.There is a general accepted notion in the whole of Western Europe that if ethnic minorities in their respective countries were given equal opportunities at an early stage in their lives, good education, better living conditions, (not ghettoes living standards) equal employment opportunities for all citizens and minority migrants, and we should not see terrorism in the streets of European countries. Terrorism, especially in France is bred by exclusion in all social aspects of their development leading to resentment and bitterness, subsequent revenge especially from the younger generation born in these countries as they have nothing more to lose in their lives.I take Germany as an example of good practice, considering the challenges they faced after the WW2. The German laws transcended to suite current judiciary obligations such as hatred of migrant foreigners and their marginalization by the main-line German population. Morden Germany has a constitution that guarantees all its citizens and all other nationals living in Germany freedom of press, speech and opinion. However there are publications, hate speeches and utterances that do not promote inclusion of ethnic minorities living in Germany.Chapter 7 Section 130 of the criminal code states the following: quoted from the German Criminal Code. (Strafgesetzbuch StGB) "Whosoever in a manner capable of disturbing public peace:(1) Inciting hatred against a national, racial groups, religious groups or a group defined by their ethnic origins, against segments of a population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned above groups or segments of the population or calls for violence or arbitrary measures against them or;(2) Assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning an aforementioned groups or segments of the population or individuals because of their belonging to one of the aforementioned groups or segments of the population or defaming segments of the population shall be liable to imprisonment from 3 months to 5 years"(3) Holocaust denials is a crime in Germany, such a person is guilty of "Volksverhetzung" which means incitement of the masses to hatred. Use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations such as the neo-Nazis-swastika and Nazi flags is criminal act. Hate speeches, references or attacking a section of people in the society on the basis of attribute such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability or sexual orientation is criminal. Hate speeches, gestures, writing materials that incites violence is criminal. Racist expressions allow minorities to be categorised, given a negative tag tied to them, therefore it is directly harmful to them, it's considered criminal.The German constitution is imparted on the growing children: school as the entry point. Approaching children at early age to respect human life and human beings is paying greater dividends, a plus point in boosting multi-culturalism in German society. If the children are treated equally at school, they will take this as their own personal alues, to respect one another, it does not matter who you are, where you originally come from. In 2005, Dr. Merkel said multi-kulti has failed! In 2015 Dr. Merkel is hailed as the "Mother" Meme, by tens of hundreds of minority groups now living in Germany. In retrospect, multi-kulti is a big success in Germany. Racial problems still exist, but they have a competent judiciary system at work.It is worth repeating it all over again that if there was any genuine coming together of ethnic groups and races and forming meaningful multi-cultural societies in Zimbabwe, this can be done and nurtured after the fall of Zanu PF in government. The reason is that since 1980, Zanu PF has used hate speeches against other ethnics and political groups ever to get in power. As if we have not learnt anything the past 36 years, just yesterday, President Mugabe is again inciting violence to quash dissenting voices coming from war veterans and this happened just yesterday.Not long ago, Mr. George Charamba denied the existence of Gugurahundi atrocities committed by Zanu PF in Matabeleland and Midlands. In Germany, he would have been imprisoned for denying the existence of Holocaust, rightfully so. Loss of life of that magnitude: Gugurahundi genocide went unpunished. Does it surprise us then that President Mugabe is shaking his matchbox again threatening a repeat of that violence that matches the Gugurahundi atrocities to silence the war veterans? Perpetrators of genocide must be punished so that there is no repeat in history of such atrocities. Divide and rule has been Robert Mugabe's ticket ever since he came to power. To this date Mugabe is busy manipulating peoples of Zimbabwe, totally destroyed the economy by consciously making useless journeys abroad without any economic meaning attached them but doing so out of absolute self glory. He appears not to be aware of the dangerous situation he is putting his own family into when he dies? People are not happy about the looting of country's resources, the Gushungo family have allowed themselves and his close subordinates. And his young wife and children and grandchild, where will they resort to after his death?Nigeria's Pressident Muhammadu Buhari gave us a beautiful example how to recover looted treasury that has been externalized by the ruling elite, he brought back the loot worth trillions of Naira, billions of US and British pounds and Euros. We shall do the same; we shall recover all the money looted and all the looted properties that do not belong to them by right. President Mugufuli of Tanzania is showcasing the definition of political correctness in the sense of the words and deeds. If we had ten Mugufulis in the continent, we would indeed effect change for the better, to better the African peoples.Sorry for deviating from my essay, I do get carried away especially by current events in our Zimbabwe's daily lives shaped by politics of absolute greed. I wanted to take a break and share my frustration with you without having to stop my pen from drying. I am sure we share the same political disposition.Ubuntu is now the buzz-word in town. President Kaunda, who is still alive, touch wood, should be happy to know that the origin of Ubuntu is derived from his philosophy of humanism. UNIP under President Kaunda adopted and declared humanism as a country's national philosophy. Kaunda described humanism a set of philosophical guidelines rooted in the Zambian cultural heritage intended to unify all 73 ethnic groups in the newly independent country. Humanism was conceived as a means of reconstructing a new moral and social order in Africa that was compatible with African traditional ways of life centred on the spirit of togetherness and symbiotic with extended family system. Humanism sought to establish a classless society that was to identify African-ness before colonialism took place.Author Ihonvbere provided a summary of the objectives of humanism as follows: provide greater social security to Zambians, abolish exploitation and victimization of Zambians, establish fair principles of taxation and distribution of wealth, increase Zambia participation in the control of the economy, provide free education to all Zambians, provide free medical services to every Zambians, expand infrastructure development, Increase agricultural production and rural development, Stem out abuse of power, corruption, victimization and other forms of injustices, guarantee peaceful and just future for all Zambians and increase state control of the economy. The Zambia philosophy of humanism augers well with Ubuntu, by definition Ubuntu means humanity, a quality that include the essential human virtues such as compassion and humanity.Zimbabwe was born from bitter armed struggle. It was a just struggle back then, to take up arms and fight the Smith regime that was racist. After independence, the government of Zimbabwe, because of its degrees in violence, missed it to go back to the people and tell them that violence was necessary to remove injustices in our country but to extend an olive branch of reconciliation to all peoples of Zimbabwe. President Mugabe extended an olive branch to the white population in 1980 but went to crush dissident activities in Matabeleland and Midlands, in the process, committing acts of genocide, such rhythm and grammar cannot build harmony and peaceful societies, but divides them, polarises them. Zimbabwe needs a unifier who will be able to bring together all ethnic and race societies, learn to respect one another as humans, learn to live to respect the culture and traditions of that "other." If Zambia did it, why can't we did it? If Tanzania, why can't Zimbabwe did it? If Germans, why can't weIn Zimbabwe, ethnic minorities and races desperately hope and yearn for a sense of belonging, feeling respected, valued for who they are, feeling a level of supportive energy and commitment from majority "other" so that you can do their best: inclusion."I wish to leave this topic to the people of Zimbabwe. Conclusions will be made by them so that I do not impose answers to them. A topic of this nature and sensitivity will need grand citizen participation and consultation. I could suggest that some manifesto will be essential to go to the masses what they think about "inclusion" and "multi-culturalism." What work should be done by the coming government to make Zimbabwe a multi-cultural society? We wish to see political parties adopting clauses that practically lay out political party programs and policies regarding ethnic/race integration and inclusion. A Laguna Beach doctor who operated a Fountain Valley clinic has been indicted for allegedly prescribing narcotics without medical purpose, including to addicts who died of overdoses only days after seeing him. The indictment, made public Monday, accuses Dr. Victor Boon Huat Siew, 65, of federal drug trafficking charges stemming from an undercover investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Fountain Valley Police and California Department of Justice. Siew is expected to turn himself in Tuesday, Department of Justice officials said. According to prosecutors, Siew wrote prescriptions for at least four people who died of overdoses within days of seeing him. Patients typically paid cash and received only a cursory exam, if any at all. Siew most commonly prescribed OxyContin, methadone and Xanax. Medical professionals who act with complete disregard for patient health and safety violate their code of ethics and abuse the publics trust, DEA Special Agent in Charge John S. Comer said in a news release. We will continue to target those engaged in criminally motivated prescription-for-profit schemes. Physician assistant Thanh Nha T. Pham, 45, of Fountain Valley, has also agreed to surrender to authorities this week. On Monday, physician assistant Kaitlyn Phuong Nguyen, 31, of San Jose, was arrested for her role. Contact the writer: cperkes@ocregister.com 714-796-3686 Jorge Ortega When I first began in the Hispanic communications field, more than 25 years ago, Hispanics were considered a niche market, and targeting them was far less sophisticated and complex than it is in 2016. Today, the Hispanic market has burgeoned into a large, diverse audience that has a significant impact on companies bottom lines, demanding much more from communications professionals than in years past. Be it content, channels for engagement, or community connections, in this increasingly digital world, and with Hispanics over-indexing on digital channels and devices, todays Hispanic marketer has to employ a much broader depth and breadth of assets than days past to communicate effectively with this audience. Now, more than ever, brands need to connect with Hispanics, which means communications agencies must have capabilities far beyond a well-connected, bilingual media relations team. English? Espanol? Speaking of bilingual media relations, this is not to say that bilingual media specialists arent essential to our agencies any longer. They are. However, the way our strategic communications plans approach traditional media relations has become much more complex. English or Spanish? Or do we shake things up with Spanglish content? Theres a multitude of studies circulating on the benefits of Spanish verses English to connect with different Hispanic generational levels, but thats not to mention the young, powerful Millennial generation. Good luck with them, fellow marketers. A difficult audience to categorize, Hispanic Millennials demand much more from marketers, and are hyper-connected to online media. While many of them speak Spanish as their first language, they may be equally strong in English and prefer to communicate in their Anglo tongue. Buzzfeed and Elite Daily may reach these audiences just as effectively in English, while Telemundo and Univision are now scrambling to better connect with the trendy Millennial population. Digital is spelled the same in Spanish Arguably the best means of reaching Hispanics digitally is, by its interactive nature, more demanding of marketers. Latinos are now famous for their penchant for digital media, over-indexing on digital usage. Nielsen recently found that Hispanic consumers in the U.S. tend to stream more online video and were more likely to use mobile devices as second screens. This is not breaking news to Hispanic marketers, however it does increase what is asked of brands. Across segments, brands are expected to interact with their audiences, not just market to them. Brands need to create engaging videos and content, and with public relations budgets significantly smaller than those for general market clients, they need an affordable way to create fast, creative content that will resonate with their audience across social media channels. Agencies must be able to provide this now, and even more so in the future. This could change the way that a traditional public relations agency is structured. Creating engaging content requires a talented creative team, and speedy graphic designers and video editors who can work hand-in-hand with a communications team to generate content quickly, that is in line with the brands messaging and will cause digital Hispanic audiences to take note, rather than continue scrolling down their newsfeeds. My comunidad Scan through any trending Hispanic influencers account, and youre bound to come across a meme related to having a large, extended Latino family. Its no secret that Hispanics place great emphasis on the value of family and community relationships. However, this builds expectations for brands to integrate seamlessly into the Hispanic culture. Think a Cinco de Mayo sponsorship at a local Mexican restaurant is enough? Think again. While some brands are leading the pack at infusing their brand narrative with Latino values, this requires more of a strategic communications campaigns than a presence at large, must-have events. The U.S. Hispanic population is a powerful network, reflected in the strength and influence of its organizations. Strong relationships with Hispanics begin with strong relationships with appropriate organizations within this network. Would you like to connect with young, business-minded Hispanics? Connect with ALPFA, the Association for Latino Professionals. Does your brand support entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized businesses? Maybe you should connect with the Stanford Latino Entrepreneur Initiative. Want to understand where Latino voters stand on certain issues? You can meet Latino appointed and elected officials through NALEO (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials). A successful Hispanic communications agency needs to have the connections to get your brands foot in the door across a variety of organizations and chambers. Are you ready to succeed in this market? As the entire public relations industry continues to evolve with the advance of digital media, Hispanic-facing efforts are changing even more quickly. Agencies specializing in the U.S. Hispanic market must now provide more capabilities for their clients, which requires a significant change in traditional public relations approaches. Brands needs to connect with audiences through engaging, multilingual content shared across digital channels, and interact meaningfully with the community in order to deliver measurable business impact. Hispanic marketers must strengthen and diversify their communications capabilities in order to rise to this challenge. * * * Jorge Ortega is executive VP at Burson-Marsteller, and leader of Burson Latino. Toward the end of last year, Honda invited us out to Montana to get behind the wheel of its new flagship side-by-side, the Pioneer 1000. In our eyes, this new model clearly showed that Hondas move into the side-by-side market back in 2009 was no flash in the pan. The Pioneer 1000 is Hondas first top-flight UTV aimed at the most popular segment in the industry, the multipurpose category that consists of workers and fun-seekers alike. Our time spent with Pioneer last year was great, and we left the trip with a great impression of the trail capability of the vehicle and the power that the 999cc, motorcycle-influenced powerplant provided. But we wanted to spend a little more time in the Pioneer closer to home and see how it held up to the demands of the desert landscape in our Southern California backyard. Pioneering the Way For a few months, a Honda Pioneer 1000-5 model was in our off-road arsenal of vehicles. We used it for everything from weekend day trips, photo and video shoots, and it even served as our transport vehicle during the Ultra4 King of the Hammers, as we drove it form spot to spot while covering the race in Johnson Valley. Honda offers two different models of its 1000. The standard model offers seating for three across the front bench seat, and theres the 1000-5 model that offers seating for up to five thanks to two fold-up backseats. Given the choice, wed opt for 1000-5 every time since the backseat is optional and the wheelbase and overall length of the 1000-5 isnt longer (its actually ever so slightly shorter at 116.6 inches compared to the standard models 116.8 length). When extra seats arent needed, the backseats can fold down to offer more cargo space in the cargo bed. The 1000 and 1000-5 are both rated to carry 600 pounds of cargo if you live in California (or 1,000 pounds if you live outside of The Golden State), and our 1000-5 Deluxe does pack on an additional 168 pounds more than the 1000 EPS model. When all is said and done, the additional weight doesnt take away from the versatility of the 1000-5 in our books or have any notable adverse affect on handling and performance. What separates the Pioneer 1000 from the companys previous offerings is its powerful 999cc liquid-cooled parallel-twin four-stroke engine. The engine features a unicam design inspired by Hondas motocross dirt bikes, and while some will care about knowing its 72-horsepower rating, all we care about is whether it offers usable power on the trail and were happy to report it does. Whether climbing steep slopes or blasting through sandy turns, the Pioneer 1000s engine provides great off-the-bottom acceleration and plenty of torque to put that power to the ground. The engine performance is impressive throughout the powerband, and most enthusiasts will find theres ample power on the bottom end, midrange and top end. Whether on the trail or the open desert, the Sport mode is great for aggressive driving since it allows the engine to spin at a higher RPM. The ride is nice as well, as Hondas effort to reduce engine shake transmitted to the driver and passengers thanks to rubber engine mounts is noted. The dual-clutch transmission of the Pioneer 1000 helps the 999cc engine deliver the power in a refined manner. The six-speed trans is actually the first dual offered in a production side-by-side. The easiest way to describe the dual-clutch system is to envision two separate clutches, with one controlling the odd-numbered gears and the other the even. The transmission can respond extremely quickly since theres more than one clutch at work as one gear engages the other disengages. The advance shift logic feature of the dual-clutch trans also aids in performance by monitoring settings such as throttle position and input, engine RPM and vehicle speed to adjust accordingly to the current style of the driver. What this all equates to on the trail is a smooth and powerful engine-transmission combination. Probably the feature we love most about the dual-clutch trans is the paddle shifters found just behind the steering wheel, allowing the driver to control the shift point to rev the engine higher if needed for certain situations. For instance, we found ourselves holding a lower gear longer a hard sweeping turn to allow the engine to rev higher through the corner and then upshifting while exiting the turn to maximize the speed. The great thing about the paddle shifters is the option is there to use them, but at any point the driver can let the Pioneers automatic transmission take over the shifting duty. Trail and Desert Worthy? We like the overall layout of the Pioneers interior for both front seat and backseat riders. Our only ergonomic complaint when we first drove the Pioneer 1000 still stands, and it is in regards to the dead pedal for the driver being a little too wide for our liking. That said, the overall layout of the front bench seat offers enough space for three adults, and theres even grab straps built into the seat for the middle rider. With more than 12 inches of ground clearance (12.4 on the 1000-5, to be exact) and skid plate protection for the undercarriage, the Pioneer offers plenty of clearance and we rarely bottomed out. The large 27-inch Maxxis Big Horn 2.0 tires help in the ground clearance department as well, but most importantly great all-around traction on the wide variety of terrain we encountered. The main difference on our Deluxe 1000-5 model is our unit has the upgraded 14-inch wheels compared to the 12-inch units on the standard model. The purpose-built chassis of the Pioneer showed no weak spots during our testing. Regardless of the terrain we felt the chassis rigidity was excellent even when charging through the large whoops in Johnson Valley. Since we were able to really put the Pioneer to the test in our wooded terrain last year, climbing over logs, muddy hill climbs and more, we spent far more time during this test in our typical Western desert terrain. For the most part, we were impressed with our 1000-5s ability to keep a good pace in desert. The stock suspension performs adequately in a wide variety of situations, such as sandy washes, loose-packed dirt hill climbs or rocky slopes. During our adventures in Johnson Valley during the King of the Hammers, we were impressed that the Pioneer could tackle the deep whoops of Johnson Valley but this did expose the weak spot for the side-by-side in this type of riding. The dual A-Arm independent front suspension of our test rig offers 10.5 inches of travel, and although this is plenty for average trails, when the Pioneer encounters deep, high-speed whoops, the stock suspension limits how quickly the vehicle can drive through the whoops. The stock shocks do a decent job of soaking up the bumps overall, but we quickly learned to really run the vehicle hard in the desert an upgrade to the front suspension is necessary. But this isnt a big shocker, to be honest. Most multipurpose side-by-sides are designed for both play and work, and compromises are made to cater to both activities. So for more performance-minded driving, wed look to the aftermarket to upgrade to a beefier coilover shock and likely a different A-arm setup to allow for more travel to really soak up the really harsh stuff. The Pioneer is still impressively predictable in the desert, but in large whoop sections wed have to back off the throttle to avoid bottoming out, and this essentially marks the line for performance driving. Lasting Impression After our first trail rides last year with the Pioneer 1000 to our recent adventures with our 1000-5 loaner unit, we still havent changed our initial impression: The Pioneer 1000 is a great all-around side-by-side. The base model starts out at $13,999, while the Pioneer-5 Deluxe starts at $17,199. Regardless of which Pioneer model fits your fancy, for our money, wed definitely opt for one of the models with electronic power steering (EPS) and keep in mind the 1000-5 models all come equipped with it. What we took away from our extended time with the Pioneer is that it could hold up to our abuse. Honda built a winning machine that has great mass appeal for a wide variety of riders. The Pioneer 1000 can tackle a wide variety of terrain with confidence in stock form, and with a few tweaks it would be well suited for more aggressive performance. A Lithuanian binman appeared before a special sitting of Tullamore District Court charged with the murder of a Latvian man in Portarlington at the weekend. A Lithuanian binman appeared before a special sitting of Tullamore District Court charged with the murder of a Latvian man in Portarlington at the weekend. Deivydas Zigelis(36) with an address at 24 Spa Street, Portarlington was charged with the murder of Alexander Karpov(26) in on Saturday, February 15. Detective Garda Barry McPaul arrested and cautioned the defendant at Portlaoise Garda Station at 2.01pm on yesterday Monday. When cautioned, Det McPaul said the defendant answered, no, I already gave my explanation to the guards in interview, I killed that man. When subsequently charged with murder and cautioned at 2.35pm, Mr Zigelis responded no reply, everything has already been said. Inspector Kieran Keyes applied to have the defendant remanded in custody to Cloverhill Prison. Solicitor Declan Breen consented to the remand and sought legal aid. He also applied to have an interpreter present for court appearances and prison visits. The court was told Mr Zigelis worked as a binman in Naas and earned approximately 450 a week. Acknowledging the fact that the defendant would not now be working, Judge Catherine Staines granted legal aid and approved the request for an interpreter. She remanded the defendant in custody to reappear before Cloverhill District Court on February 20. A second man who was arrested at the scene was released without charge. A file is being prepared for the DPP. Gardai launched a murder investigation following the discovery of Mr Karpovs body at about 5pm last Saturday. A garda spokesperson said that a garda family liaison officer has been in touch with the family of Mr Karpov who was known locally as Sashah. The spokesperson could not confirm reports that the victim had been drinking with friends and watching the Winter Olympics when he was stabbed. He did confirm, however, that gardai are not looking for anyone else in relation to the incident. Anyone with any information can contact the Portlaoise Garda Station on 05786 74100. The deceased is believed to have been an employee of a local waste disposal company and worked on the bin lorries. He lived in the house in which he died which he also shared with a number of others. Local election candidate Willie Murphy said the town was shocked by the death. I didnt know him personally but from talking to people who did, he was a hardworking lad, said Mr Murphy. Macra na Feirme National President Sean Finan last week led a delegation to meet with the new Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed and his officials at Ag House in Dublin. The Macra na Feirme delegation also included the Chair and Vice Chair of the Agricultural Affairs Committee James Barber (Clough) and Thomas Duffy and Derrie Dillon Acting Macra C.E.O. Macra na Feirme updated the new Minister on their current programmes which are offered to young farmers including the Land Mobility Service which continues to grow and now has over 500 clients and 200 collaborative farming arrangements in place. They also detailed the Young Farmer Skillnets training programme which is growing steadily and offering further practical training courses to young farmers to equip them with the further skills they need for a successful career in farming. Speaking at the meeting Macra na Feirme National President, Sean Finan said that, "The agri tax review which Macra na Feirme contributed to, as well as recent tax changes to incentivise long term leasing of land has helped the mobility of land and we acknowledge the governments work in this regard. Sean Finan highlighted the issues which young farmers face at the moment and some of the areas Macra will be working on with the Minister during his term of office for the betterment of young farmers and their businesses. Some of the main items discussed at the meeting include: The current income crisis and pressure young farmers face at the moment across the sectors including dairy, tillage and pigs. The availability of a National Reserve in 2016 and how Macra is seeking a commitment from the Minister on the provision of a young farmer national reserve every year for the duration of the current CAP. Delays in approval for young farmers who applied for TAMS2 grants. Macra welcomes the confirmation by the Minister and his officials that approvals have started to issue this week but highlighted how the delays to approvals is totally unacceptable and could not be allowed to continue. Measures to address income volatility and the Macra na Feirme proposal for an income volatility bond were discussed. Access to affordable credit for young farmers and availability of European Investment Bank funding. The Minister confirmed that the Department are proceeding with an ex-ante assessment. The issues with new entrant parent partnerships not being recognised in both the old CAP and new CAP. Macra na Feirme received an update on seeking recognition for the "Forgotten Farmers" as a group with specific disadvantage. The resources to Teagasc to provide distance learning and online agricultural courses to young farmers was also discussed. Farm safety and Mental Health difficulties which are two huge issues effecting our industry. Finan concluded we welcome the commitments by the Government and the significant emphasis on supporting the next generation of farmers in the recently published programme for government and we look forward to continuing our work with the Minister, his officials and the government for the betterment of the livelihoods of young farmers." Loading... OilVoice will be with you shortly... Opinion / Letters Dear Robert and Bona I have obviously been watching you since my childhood, primarily because though am now a father with teen kids, you are the only President that I know. Zambians that are my age now know 6 if not more Presidents.There are three reasons why I am writing this letter to you and your lovely daughter (she looks like a reasonable person). Just three reasons, not more than that.The first reason is because I believe as your time to the finish line approaches, we have to ask you some fundamental questions that have to be answered by you and not remain unanswered after you have left the big chair.The second is for your children and family, they need to know some of these concerns and independently and thoroughly think about their own lives after your presidency.The third reason is because I believe as so many Zimbabweans do, including those that have voted for you for years, we are disappointed in you, you have stolen our lives, our wealth and our children"s future.Imagine a guy who was 25 in 1980, educated and ambitious, did everything according to the book re planning for his or her life. Today at 61, they have NOTHING. No pension, no assets, no legacy to leave behind for their kids, absolutely NOTHING!!.Because of the above three reasons, I would like to ask you five questions which I would like Bona to take you through and discuss these with you one on one meeting.Firstly, it's about your FAMILY.What do you think or want to happen to your children and family in five, ten or more years to come? How do you want them to relate to their countrymen, knowing fully well that you have taken Zimbabwe from being a bread basket of Africa to the most demeaning levels of poverty and made them unwelcome immigrants all over the world. What do you tell your kids. When you have finished lecturing them about history and the war of liberation what do you say are your achievements as the President of a country for 36 years?. Do you discuss with them about their future? Look at them in the eye and tell them how you want them to relate with their countrymen after your era.Secondly, it's about the ECONOMY.When you took over this country. The Zimbabwe dollar was stronger than most currencies, and at the levels of the Pound. Today, you do not have your own currency. You are using your arch enemy "s currency. Have your Ministers ever told you about the Dutch disease? Is there a specific reason why Zimbabwe cannot be used as a clearing currency and debts be converted to Rands?Such a small economy like Zimbabwe with less than $12billion GDP, how do you position it as the most expensive economy and then as if that is not enough, you kill tourism. Daily flights flock to Victoria Falls, but they sleep over in Zambia. Why, because your country is too expensive. Up and above Tourism, in mining, which Minister misled you and convinced you to tell the whole world that $15bn is missing and ,aggh, tough luck! $15 billion Mr President and that's it! Right under your watch and you pretend all is well! Willove Scandal was a fraction of this but you acted, could it be that you are now too old? Surely you need time to rest and wake up and play with your grand kids and leave others to act.Thirdly, YOUR PARTYMr President. It's falling apart. Do you think it will survive after you? Why did your wife fight your colleagues? What will she do after you? She says you will rule from the grave, seriously, will you? I think it's not too late for her to apologize to your mates and take a motherly role , so that tomorrow, she will still find it easy to live happily amid her ZANU PF colleagues. It's not a family part, or is it, please tell her to also think about her future, her kids and grand children. They still have decades to live and they need to be in good terms with those within ZANU PF and outside. Talk to your wife. Be a man, Bona can surely help you on this one, she is a mother now. She is worried about the future of her kid.The fourth one is about the CURRENT CASH CRISIS and the way forward.What do we do Mr President now? Did Mangudya and Chinamasa break it down properly to you. Let's go basic arithmetics Mr President maybe they know better. $200m extra as Bond notes for an economy with 5 million economically active adults is $40 per adult. The average salary is more than four times that. Surely the Bond note will not solve anything, firstly it won't trade at par with the US$ because already before its circulation, it's already likely to trade 10% below the US$. Another 2008 beckons your Highness . Act now Mr President, one of the easiest solution is to work with South Africa, yes ,their Rand is also tumbling and they have their own issues but who doesn't. They are a $350bn GDP economy versus your $10bn. Mr President, has Chinamasa told you that your annual budget is smaller than that of Durban? My point is, the time for arrogance is over, talk to your neighbors and mend your legacy. Time is running out. You don't need a GNU to know that a militant attitude no longer works, it's so pre Lancaster House!The last question that I would like Bona to discuss with you is the issue of the 5th Brigade or let's just call it what you called it.GUKURAHUNDI! Mr President, at what point will it bother you that you killed more than 20k people just because they came from the same tribe that your father left your mother for and chose to settle in Matebeleland. Certainly the Ndebeles didn't invite him. It seems the issue hurt you so much that when you became President you had to revenge for the hurt one Matebeleland woman caused your mother and thus the whole tribe had to be called dissidents or snakes, whatever you called it.Seriously, is any of your lieutenants also telling you, that it will just wash away and people will forget. If there is, fire that person or persons now. Joshua Nkomo was about to take power from you the way the Matebele woman took a man from your mother and thus he had to be hunted down and crushed including all his tribesmen. Sadly the ANC didn't escape as you also took their Arms in the process. Could that be the reason why we are not using the South African Rand as the clearing currency?Anyway, my recommendation is, again for the sake of your children, apologize to the people of Matebeleland and Midlands. This issue gives sleepless nights. Your wife and children will also go through the same nightmares once you are gone.I keep saying for the sake of your children and not Zimbabweans because it's now clear to all and sundry, including War Veterans that have always protected you that you do not care about Zimbabweans or anyone.We still hope and trust that you care about Bona and the rest of the family. We thus appeal to you to do it for them. Step down now and ask your trusted colleagues to at least mend the economy and do better for Zimbabwe. Thereafter,facilitate free and fair elections. It has to come to an end Mr President, it is coming to an end , the end is nearer than your lieutenants tell you.Very soon you will fail to pay the Army and the entire civil service base and we do not want to see you leaving the country in a way that will be embarrassing for the country and continent. For today, l will stop here and wish you a fruitful and open discussion with Bona and your family.Your ever patriotic sonJohn MutiziriPS: Can patriotic CIOs please send this to the President and her daughter Published: 07 May 2019 at 12:01hrs | 2171 | by Pastor Tomson Dube I am sure everyone at some point has seen the phrase: Jesus is the answer! There is no question asked but that is the phrase given as pointing to the ... Pound Hall, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln dormitory, again will be open this fall, because of student demand for on-campus housing. Eleven of the dorms 12 floors are expected to be used, university officials said. Pound, which has housed students since 1969, eventually will be torn down, along with neighboring dorm Cather Hall. There are no plans to use Cather for student housing this fall. UNL has opened three apartment-style residence halls east of 17th and R Streets since 2010, adding more than 1,600 beds. Its also building a 370-bed residence hall on the East Campus that will offer a mix of traditional and apartment-style units. The dorm is expected to open in 2017, replacing Burr and Fedde Halls on the East Campus. UNMC chief will visit western Nebraska to assess the area The head of the University of Nebraska Medical Center is touring western Nebraska this week. Chancellor Jeffrey Gold will visit North Platte and Scottsbluff on Wednesday to meet with leaders of health facilities, UNMC faculty and staff, and business and community members who are members of the UNMC Board of Counselors. The Board of Counselors is a statewide group that advises Gold on health care issues. Gold said he hopes to learn about the opportunities and concerns facing western Nebraskans and look for ways UNMC can help. Three journalists to present at UNLs E.N. Thompson Forum The 2016-17 E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues at UNL will feature three journalists. The lectures, held at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, are: Sept. 27, 7:30 p.m. Sonia Nazario, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of the best-selling book Enriques Journey, will present Enriques Journey and Americas Immigration Dilemma. Oct. 4, 7 p.m. David Brooks, New York Times op-ed columnist, regular analyst for PBSs NewsHour and NPRs All Things Considered and author of The Road to Character, will present Its Better Than It Looks: Election 2016. Nov. 9, 7 p.m. Sonia Shah, investigative science journalist and author of critically acclaimed books on science, human rights and international politics, will present Pandemic: From Cholera to Ebola and Beyond. Free tickets will be available Aug. 29 at the Lied Center. The lectures are also streamed online on the Thompson Forum website. Peru State adding 4 minors, including drug counseling Peru State College is adding four new minors. Starting this fall, Peru students will be able to minor in drug and alcohol counseling; organizational leadership and global issues; organizational leadership and management; and theater. The Nebraska State College System approved the additions last week. HUMPHREY, Neb. Veterans here could have a memorial worthy of their service to the nation in the months ahead. Members of the Humphrey American Legion Foltz-Zuerlein Post 80 are working with a Hawaiian architectural firm to have a new memorial built in Heritage Park. Three designs have been created, and Legion members will seek public comment to help decide which design will be built. Geri Wemhoff, a retired U.S. Army Reservist, said the architectural firm has donated its work. The name of the company is InForm Design Inc., and theyre based out of Honolulu, Hawaii. The owner and CEO is my aunt, Ann Kutaka, and when I originally told her what we were doing, she was really excited about it, and she decided to do the project for us pro bono. She actually has a small team assigned to put this together, Wemhoff said. The memorial will be across the street from the pool in Heritage Park. The playground equipment in the park will be relocated to make room for the memorial. The cost is unknown at this point. Once the design is chosen and it is determined what materials are needed to construct the memorial, the cost will be calculated. InForm Design will help determine materials and help select a construction company. They (InForm Design) have some contacts in Omaha, so they will do some research there with us, Wemhoff said. She said it is hoped that donations will finance a large portion of the memorial. The size of the memorial is estimated at 100 feet by 100 feet. Were going to try and encompass as much of that park as we can, she said. A new memorial has been mused about for some time by Legion members, with the idea that the current memorial in the Heritage Park needed to be upgraded. The current memorial is small, kind of hidden. Its a memorial, but its not very well kept, and were just hoping to come up with something a little more visible, and a little bit bigger to honor what veterans have done, especially in the small community of Humphrey, she said. The proposed memorial has been well-received, Wemhoff said. The project design could be completed in the next six to eight months. Wemhoff said she hopes that within a year or two, the memorial could be finished. Im really proud to be part of this project, she said. ... And I hope we can do Humphrey proud. Interview: 'Orlando massacre has maximised Trump's chances' Bengaluru oi-Shubham Ghosh Bengaluru/New Delhi, June 13: Fifty people were massacred at an LGBT night club in Orlando in Florida state of the US early on Sunday in the deadliest mass shooting in the history of that country. While President Barack Obama called it an "act of terror" and a political fight snowballed between the Democratic and Republican candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ahead of the conventions next month, several questions were doing the rounds about the tragedy. Was it an episode of terror on lines of 9/11 or outburst of an individual's anger with a particular sexual orientation? Will this help Trump's cause? Or is the idea of America melting down? Oneindia spoke to Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi, an independent writer, researcher in Culture and Communication Studies and well-versed in Islamic Studies and Comparative Religion, on the issue. Dehlvi is also a frequent commentator on Muslim Affairs in Media and Doctoral Research Scholar at Center for Media & Governance, Jamia Milia Islamia, New Delhi. He is known to write in Hindi, Urdu and Arabic besides doing translation. Here are a few excerpts of the interview: Oneindia: Is this incident really about Islamist terror: A US vs IS issue or just an individuals' distaste over sexual orientation? Dehlvi: The self-imposed Islamic caliphate of Abu Bakr Baghdadi, which is brazenly inconsistent with the essential Islamic values, is based on an exclusivist religious concept of eliminating all democratic and liberal systems of governance from the world, replacing them with an "Islamic State". This is precisely why the ISIS jihadists keep playing havoc across much of the democrat and liberal world, resulting into the recent nefarious shooting in the club in Orlando, Florida. At the same time, one wonders how come Omar Mateen, a US citizen who was previously trained by the American Army successfully travelled to join the Islamic State in Syria or Iraq, while the anti-terrorism American agencies kept themselves abreast of the global jihadist recruitments looming large in the region since the creation of ISIS. Sadly enough, the US vs IS issue is becoming more and more obscure, day in and day out. To a common observer, there is something fishy about it. Oneindia: Will issues like these help Donald Trump's political ambition? Dehlvi: As long as the jeopardizing atrocities of the violent religious extremism against the liberal democrats are on the rampage in the US, the Republican White House's hopeful nominee Donald Trump's political ambition will continue to flourish. It is noteworthy that while condemning the horrific massacre of Orlando, the current US President Barack Obama could not go beyond the cliche: "This was an act of terror and an act of hate". [The more Orland-like incidents happen, the more Trump will gain] This statement came even after the US police have pinned the slaughter on Omar Mateen, a son of Afghan immigrants who reportedly pledged allegiance to Islamic State before going on a rampage with an assault rifle. Consequently, the President Obama's 'inability' or 'unwillingness' to pinpoint the ideological underpinnings behind the violent extremism has emboldened Donald Trump who is now calling for Obama's resignation. Doubtless, the Orlando shooting has maximized the chances for Trump to replace Obama in the white House next year. In this context, it should be remembered that a similar 'faith-inspired' terror attack that the IS carried out in San Bernardino, California in 2015 propelled Trump to call for a blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States. Although his call was dismissed at that time by the mainstream American democrats as racist and undemocratic, but the Orlando shooting has prompted him now to centrestage in the 2016 US presidential election. Oneindia: Is the US as a melting pot losing its credibility with such incidents happening frequently? Dehlvi: It took a long history for the US to establish itself as a "melting pot". It has been known, throughout the ages, as a land of peace and pluralism, welcoming people from all faith traditions, different countries, races, and all hoping to find full liberties, lucrative job opportunities and a better lifestyle. The idea that the US has always been a bastion of pluralistic, democratic and universal values is not that shallow to elude the modern historical memory. Nevertheless, such violent incidents and anti-pluralism atrocities which are happening frequently in the US today may indeed tell upon the historicity and sanctity of its democratic legacy of peace, pluralism and religious freedom. Oneindia: By painting everything as political, are we not addressing the real issues like gun culture? Dehlvi: There's more than meets the eye. The growing violent extremism inspired by the radical Islamism in the US, as anywhere else in the world, is not just a law and order problem. Neither it is practically expedient to politicize this grim issue. There is indeed a 'gun culture' that has deep historical roots in an anti-pluralism, anti-democracy, exclusivist and religio-fascist ideology that continues to cause Islamist radicalisation and violent extremism, stemming from the medieval war culture of the Middle East to the modern American and European nations engaged in the 'war on terror'. At this juncture, the role of intolerant and extremist theology cannot be understated. In his recently launched 'Islamic Curriculum on Peace and Counter-terrorism', the renowned Pakistan-born Canadian Islamic scholar, known for Sufism and his categorical anti-extremist stand, Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri has rightly pointed out that some people, either due to genuine ignorance or for other less genuine reasons, try to deflect the blame for religious radicalization entirely to foreign policy and military ventures in the Middle East and elsewhere. "While these issues no doubt play a significant role in the process of radicalisation, too often the theologically-based narratives which underpin the ideology of the extremists are downplayed or underestimated", he wrote. Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi can be contacted at grdehlavi@gmail.com/rasoolghulam19@yahoo.in. BJP reduces RS gap with Congress; can Modi-Shah now build on alliance? Feature oi-Shubham By Shubham The numbers in the Rajya Sabha have been the Congress's last remaining stronghold. But with the BJP now reducing the gap with the grand-old party to only three from 15 after the latest round of election to the Upper House, the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo will feel much relaxed as opposed to the Gandhis. For the weak numbers there put up obstacles on the NDA government's way to go forward with major reforms. It is not that the equation in the Rajya Sabha will hereafter tilt in favour of the BJP, but the reduction in the gap will certainly give a relief to the saffron party. It will now depend on the BJP leadership's capacity to build up on the question of political relationships. Is Congress also facing internal challenge? The Congress, although will be represented by veteran leaders and former ministers like P Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal in the Upper House, but it has also faced internal problems during this Rajya Sabha election. The party had expected lawyer RK Anand to win from Haryana but he lost to media baron Subhas Chandra after the ballots of 14 Congress MLAs were cancelled. Former Haryana chief minister Bhoopinder Singh Hooda was accused of sabotaging the polling leading to Anand's loss. After the exit of former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi and veteran political Gurudas Kamat, Hooda could pose a new threat to the Congress high command, feel observers. Another high-profile leader Kapil Sibal also did win from UP but the results were not fully satisfactory for the Congress as it was seen that he did not get the first-preference votes from all 29 Congress MLAs. It was because of Mayawati's support that he finally overcame the challenge of Preeti Mahapatra, an independent candidate, who was backed by the BJP. The reduced gap with the Congress will make it easier for the BJP in its future legislative endeavours without locking horns with the Gandhis. Now, to what extent can Modi-Shah duo succeed in finding more partners in the Upper House is the question that demands an answer. Donald Trump does it again, says 'US must consider racial profiling' How reliable is the ISIS' claim about the Orlando terror attack Feature oi-Vicky By Vicky The US authorities have not yet blamed the ISIS for the Orlando incident in which 50 persons were killed. The ISIS was however quick to claim responsibility and even posted the same on their news agency Amaq. Terrorist outfits thrive on major incidents and it was obvious when the ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in no time. ISIS fighter behind Orlando club shooting, says media The question is whether this was an attack planned by the ISIS. The answer may be no, but the fact remains that it was an attack carried out in the name of the outfit. In the name of the ISIS The ISIS as an outfit is relatively different when compared to the rest. It believes in wars against governments and is largely restricted to Syria and Iraq. However what one got to witness in Paris and Belgium go on to indicate that the outfit is gradually spreading its tentacles across the world. However the ISIS as an outfit does not plan attacks. Like an al-Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba attack would always be planned with the top boss being kept in the loop, the ISIS does not follow that pattern. It has a bunch of fan boys and radicals who plan attacks on their own. They rely more on lone wolf attacks since these have proven to be the most effective. Orlando shooting: Did killer have hatred for LGBT community? The instruction to the cadres is that they are free to strike anywhere and they do not need to wait for an approval from the high command. The money, arms and logistics are all taken care of by the individual. The only instruction is that they must make it known that the attack has been carried out in the name of the ISIS. The Orlando shooting also appears similar. The FBI is technically right for now when it says it has not established an ISIS link. However going by the profile of the terrorist Omar Mateen it is very clear that he was a fan boy of the ISIS. He gave the FBI enough indications since 2013 that he had leanings towards the ISIS. In 2013 he had told his co-workers about his leanings. In 2014 he was found to be linked to Moner Mohammad the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria. Again on the Sunday in the morning he had called 911 and pledged his support to the ISIS. This is exactly how operatives of the ISIS living out of Syria and Iraq operate. They are not part of the set up of the organisation. They do not wait for orders, instructions or funds. They just plan attacks and carry them out in the name of the ISIS. For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, June 13, 2016, 8:43 [IST] Orlando terror- India should never take Islamic radicals off the radar Feature oi-Vicky By Vicky The ISIS was quick to claim responsibility for the horrific terror attack at the Orlando nightclub in which 50 people were killed and 53 injured. The American President has called it both an act of terror as well a hate crime. The gunman who has been identified as Omar Mateen, a Florida resident and a US born son of an Afghan immigrant. The FBI which is not yet ready to term it as an attack by the ISIS had however known the shooter. He had in fact come to the FBI's attention twice but was left off as the agency was unable to verify his terror links or comments he made in favour of the ISIS. Mateen had on several occasions indicated his leanings towards the ISIS. A lesson to be learnt: In the Orlando shooting there is a big lesson that the world needs to be learn. A person who has shown leanings towards terror outfits such as the ISIS can never be taken off the radar. India too has faced similar situations where radical Muslim youth have shown their leanings towards the ISIS. Although many have been counselled, the return rate can be extremely high. Senior Intelligence Bureau officials say that they never take such youth off the radar. Although during an investigation, their crimes may not be established that does not mean they are taken off the radar. There are many who pretend to be counselled, but more often than not, they do attempt returning to the fold of the ISIS, the officer also said. No pointing in toning down: Although the FBI has not yet termed it as an act of Islamic terror, the fact is that the writing was on the wall. Mateen was under the radar of the FBI in 2013 and 2014. In 2013, he had made inflammatory comments about his terrorist ties to his co-workers. In 2014 he was questioned for possible ties with Moner Mohammad a Florida resident who was also the first US citizen to carry out a suicide bombing in Syria. On both occasions he was questioned and let off on the ground that there was no substantial evidence against him. What is worse is that on the day of the shooting he had made a call to 911 and declared his loyalty to the ISIS. The other shocker is that despite all this he had managed to obtain a gun licence. There is everything in this case to show that he was a Islamic radical. It appeared that he had been planning a major strike in the name of the ISIS and finally took advantage that he was off the radar. Donald Trump the Republican candidate for US president was the most vocal when he called it an act of Islamic Terror. The rest were toned down in their statements, but the point is that there is no point in living in denial as the threat of Islamic terrorism is real. Published: 15 Jan 2016 at 11:42hrs | 3792 | by Concerned Citizen Please note that Bulawayo24 does not edit WhatsApp updates. We publish them as sent by our readers and we do not dis... Bengalurus biking community to celebrate World Motorcycle Day in a big way India oi-Oneindia By Maitreyee Boruah Bengaluru, June 13: The bikers of Bengaluru are an excited lot. The tech hub of India has a large number of enthusiastic bikers, who love their machines dearly. On the occasion of the World Motorcycle Day, celebrated across the globe on June 21, the biking community of the city is all set to host various events. One such programme has been curated by Bangalore Bullet Club in collaboration with Bajaj Avenger Club on June 19. Talking about the upcoming event, the founder of Bangalore Bullet Club, Vivek M, said, "The special ride is to support the brotherhood of biking community across the world. We want bikers of the city to forget their daily routine for a day and join us in the mega celebration," he added. The journey will kick-start from McDonald's, Goraguntepalya in Yeshwanthpur at 5 am. The bikers will travel to Sira near Tumkur, around 110 kms from Bengaluru. Thereafter the riders will come back to the city on the same day. It is mandatory for the participants to wear helmets, riding jackets, boots and gloves. "We want the participants to follow all the traffic rules. Rash riding is prohibited. The riders won't be allowed to do any stunts. We want it to be a safe and an enjoyable ride. We have asked all the attendants to bring necessary documents, including licences, with them," said Vivek. The day-long programme is likely to see 600 participants from across the city. "Yes, we have a sizeable number of women bikers too. The biking community in Bengaluru is a vibrant one. We have people from all age groups and various walks of life. Our common passion-love for bikes-bring us together," added Vivek. Interested persons can contact the phone number 9742114646 to be part of the event. Elaborating more about the World Motorcycle Day, George CB, a biking enthusiast, says, "The World Motorcycle Day is dedicated to everybody who loves motorcycles. It is celebrated on June 21, as it the longest day of the year and gives us ample time to go for long rides and come back home." OneIndia News After the 'Jihad' comment, Patil now claims \"I never said it\" 'They want Congress-mukt Bharat': Kharge in his first address as Cong chief Congress MP Sukhender Reddy to join TRS India oi-PTI Hyderabad, June 13: In a major setback to Congress, one of its two MPs from Telangana G Sukhender Reddy and former MP G Vivek on Monday,June 13 decided to join the ruling TRS. "I have taken this decision (to join TRS) to extend full cooperation to the party and government in the interest of (irrigation) projects and the development of our district (Nalgonda)," Reddy, Lok Sabha member from Nalgonda, said. The differences among party leaders are hurting Congress in the state, he claimed. The need to work for development of Telangana is a major motivation to take the decision, he said, adding that he would not hesitate to quit as Member of Parliament. Congress won only two Lok Sabha seats in the state in the 2014 elections. The other Congress MP is Nandi Yellaiah from Nagarkurnool constituency in the state. Significantly, former MP G Vivek, and his brother and former minister G Vinod, both sons of late Congress leader and former Union Minister G Venkataswamy, also announced their decision to join the Telangana Rashtra Samithi. Appreciating the efforts of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for the development of the state, Vivek said he decided to join TRS to support the former in his endeavour. Vivek also hailed the role played by Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the formation of a separate Telangana. He had joined the TRS ahead of the formation of the separate Telangana, but went back to Congress after the Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Bill was passed in Parliament. He contested the Lok Sabha elections on a Congress ticket, but lost. CPI MLA from Devarakonda in Nalgonda district Ravindra Kumar said he decided to join TRS in the interest of development of his constituency. A number of MLAs, belonging to opposition parties like Congress, TDP and YSR Congress have switched loyalties to the ruling TRS since it came to power in 2014. The strength of TRS in the Legislative Assembly rose to 82 in the 119-member House. This excludes some Congress MLAs who moved to TRS. TDP Lok Sabha member Malla Reddy and YSR Congress MP P Srinivasa Reddy have also joined the TRS in recent months. PTI Desi transmitter comes in aid during Coast Guards rescue mission India oi-Oneindia By oneIndia Defence Bureau Bengaluru, June 13: A home-grown technology has come to the rescue of humankind once again emphasizing why India should invest more in R&D across all spectrums. The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) which has been increasingly being involved in SAR (Search and Rescue) missions in the last one year, yet again played the role of a savior on Sunday (June 12). In a well-coordinated sea-air-mission, an ICG helicopter rescued 7 crew members from a sinking vessel MSV Safina-Al-Ghelani, 40 miles south of Port Blair. According to ICG officials, the vessel sailed from Port Blair on June 11 morning, carrying cargo for Hutbay. Owing to bad weather and rough sea, water entered the vessel, flooding the engine room. On Suday morning, the vessel completely sank. Distress Alert Transmitter proved useful again ICG says all lives could be saved due to the timely warning sent by the vessel with the help of Distress Alert Transmitter (DAT), a low-cost, indigenously-developed equipment. Using one of the INSAT series satellites, the signal from DAT was relayed to the Coast Guard Marine Rescue Coordination Centre. "We have been impressing upon the fishermen and other mariners to carry necessary life saving equipment especially during monsoon season. A toll free help line number 1554 is also available with mariners to inform any distress situation to ICG for facilitating speedy search and rescue at sea," says an official. The distress message raised by vessel was received by ICG MRCC Port Blair, which launched a SAR mission immediately. Two ships -- ICGS Rajshree and C-428 -- sailed from Port Blair, while a helicopter was launched in SAR configuration as well. One DSS Ship MV Sentinel was also diverted towards the distressed vessel. "The helicopter sighted the distressed ship near North Brother Island. The vessel was badly damaged and submerged near the Island. Despite strong winds and adverse weather, the helicopter rescued all the seven crew from the vessel," says an official. Technology best bet during emergencies: ICG Spokesperson Speaking to OneIndia on Monday, ICG Spokesperson Inderjit Singh said the rescued men were brought to Port Blair for medical examination. "The medical test is mandatory and as per our SOP. The rescued crew members were medically examined and all are reported to be healthy," said Singh. ICG officials want all vessel owners and fishermen to equip their assets with DAT and other GPS-enabled equipment. "It's important that we put to use all our available technologies for a smooth and incident-free, marine missions. DAT has proven its worth once again with Sunday's incident," Singh added. Last year, in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, DATs were distributed to fishermen. The officials had said then that the DAT helped to locate the whereabouts of boats, which could be later monitored by the control rooms in Chennai. OneIndia News Do it the Israeli way, keep terrorists on radar till their death India oi-Vicky New Delhi, June 13: The one lesson that all intelligence agencies across the world must learn after the Orlando, Paris and Belgium attacks is that once a person has come under their radar, he should be pursued until his death. All these attacks show the typical style in which the Intelligence functions in US and Europe. In fact in all the three cases,the terrorists were on the radar of the intelligence at one point in time, but were let off. Amar Bhushan, former officer with the Research and Analysis Wing and author of the acclaimed book, Escape to Nowhere says that the Israel pattern has to be followed. In this interview with OneIndia, Bhushan says In Israel once a person is on the radar, he will be on it till he is dead. Why do Intelligence agencies take people of the radar? This is now typical of the Intelligence. This is how the intelligence works in the US and Europe. It happened in the Paris and Belgium attacks as well where the terrorists were once on the radar and then taken off it. These persons come on the radar, they are pursued and then the intelligence gives them up. Don't you think this approach needs to change? Yes it has to. I was once discussing this issue with an officer from Israel. He told me in their country, once a person comes on the radar he is pursued until he dies. He did not mean that they kill such persons, but what he meant was they are pursued and watched all the time. Does that happen in India too? Yes of course. Do you remember the Bhatkal case. A couple of persons were on the radar of the Bengaluru police. One of them (Riyaz Bhatkal) was called in for questioning and then let off. He turned out to be a monster. The Orlando attack again seems to be a case of a youth being radicalised and then undertaking a lone wolf attack. Yes that is the case here too. I am sure that the terrorist Mateen Omar was motivated for long. He then gets to read material on the web. This is a process. After watching material on the net, he is taken to the fringe and later he turned into a monster. Omar according to me a indoctrinated person from the word go. It is clear that he had a hatred for America. The debate regarding the US gun laws have opened up once again. Your thoughts on it. Yes now that is another major concern. In the Orlando case it is even more shocking. Omar who has been questioned twice for terror links by the FBI was able to obtain a Gun with a licence. The gun laws are too liberal in the US and this must change. The US has not yet called it an act of Islamic terror. Why is that the case? It is under investigation. They are some very moderated statements that have come out. Trust me internally many are going to face the flak. The US also needs to realise that it cannot be selective in tackling terrorism. If you recall after the 26/11 attack, they took a high moral ground. They had all the feelers and intelligence available, but shared it selectively. They need to pursue terrorists across the world and not just those who affect them. In India's dealing of the ISIS, there have been cases of youth being counselled. Do you agree with this? Not at all. Counselling them never works. Even if you counsel them, never take them off the radar. You may have a few votes during the elections if such an approach is taken, but in the long run it is too dangerous. India must stop taking a myopic approach to this problem. In Jammu and Kashmir we have had bad experiences when we have tried counselling terrorists. They have come back harder. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, June 13, 2016, 15:35 [IST] Man booked for tweets against Maha CM; has a history of such posts against leaders In Mumbai, Marathwada migrants rise above poverty line India oi-IANS By Ians English Mumbai, June 13: A migrant from Maharashtra's drought-stricken Marathwada region triples her income - if temporarily - after moving to Mumbai, climbs out of poverty and can repay loans, but families must live in 40 sq ft homes, the size of a large carpet, according to an IndiaSpend survey of 60 migrant families. Each adult in these families earned Rs 1,823 ($27) per person per month - about 80 per cent more than the official urban poverty line of Rs 1,000 per person per month - within four months of migrating to Mumbai, our survey revealed. Most are farm workers in their villages and work at construction and municipal-infrastructure sites in India's financial capital. Back home in Nanded in Marathwada, 600 km to the east, each person earned Rs 569 per month, 30 percent below the rural poverty line of Rs 819 per person per month. Migrants settled for less water in Mumbai - about 43 lt per day per family, down from 115 lt per day in their villages - but said it was easier to get, without having to fetch it from various distant sources. The average rural Indian family spends 30 minutes every day fetching water, according to the Indian Human Development Survey (IHDS II), which surveyed 42,153 households. Some of the Rs 266 extra per day the families earned in Mumbai was spent in paying for food, which for three months until April 15 cost twice as much as they paid back home. Their daily expenses of Rs 300 per family per day halved when they started received free foodgrains - rice and tur dal-from Ghatkopar citizen groups. At home, about 72 per cent of the migrants reported getting subsidised grain from the public distribution system; about half the families said children got mid-day meals at public schools. Once school ends in March, families usually assess how much water is available in the village and then decide if they will take them along to Mumbai. This year, the decision was easy to make. As many as 22 of Maharashtra's 36 districts are in the grip of the second successive year of drought. Families from the drought-ravaged districts have migrated - many more this time than any other years in the recent past, according to anecdotal accounts - to Mumbai, Pune and Aurangabad. Our sample was taken from among 350 migrant Marathwada families, who live illegally in rough shelters - tarpaulins held up by bamboo sticks - on the edge of municipal open land adjoining a hill in Ghatkopar, a teeming central Mumbai suburb. Lack of jobs, stuttering government plans fuel nationwide migration The 2016 drought has affected 330 million Indians living in 266 districts across 11 states. It is not clear how many have migrated, but the number is expected to be in millions. About a third of Indians migrate every year, according to the 2001 Census, indicating that rural incomes and government aid programmes are not sufficient. Nine in 10 migrants we surveyed left their Marathwada villages to find jobs. Half had outstanding loans to moneylenders, ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 250,000. Almost all of them were confident of earning money in Mumbai and repaying those loans. The 60 families we surveyed in Ghatkopar had grown their income by 214 per cent, tripling it. The migrants share a good rapport with local municipal-labour contractors, planning their visits when municipal and other construction work - building or repairing roads, pavements and flyovers - is about to begin. They leave when work stops during the monsoon. Only eight percent of migrants found the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGA) beneficial, although as many as 47 per cent of them have job cards. The MGNREGA is meant to alleviate rural distress, but the world's largest make-work programme often fails, as IndiaSpend reported in February, and as the third part of this series will detail. The second part reveals how while the lack of education and land forces migration, their possession of mobile phones indicates growing aspiration. From below poverty line in Marathwada, migrants rise above it in Mumbai For the individuals we surveyed, the wage earned for a day's work more than doubled, from Rs 156 per day per person in Marathwada villages to Rs 334 in Mumbai. From daily wages, number of working days in a month, and number of working family members, we calculated monthly incomes that families earned in their villages and Mumbai. An average family earned Rs 3,730 per month in its village, Rs 11,730 in Mumbai. This tripling of income, was driven, in large part, because migrants found more work - 16 working days per month, on an average, in Mumbai, compared to eight back home. This family income is shared by all family members, working and non-working. We calculated the per capita family income by dividing the monthly income by number of family members. "One migrant told me that he is going back to his village with Rs 1.5 lakh savings," Deepak Hande, municipal councilor of the area, told IndiaSpend. But this economic breathing space is temporary and comes at a degraded quality of life: 7ft X 7ft, tarpaulin, four bamboos home The migrants of Ghatkopar - mostly nomadic tribes called banjaras (vimuktajatis in Marathi) - spend three to four months of summer in Mumbai and other water-rich cities, leaving for their villages as monsoon breaks over Mumbai, to hopefully find work as farm labour for the kharif (summer) crop, sowing for which starts with the onset of the monsoon. In the winter, they travel distances ranging from 300 km to 500 km from Marathwada to Satara, Solapur, Pune and Kolhapur districts of prosperous Western Maharashtra, or Belgaum, Gulbarga and Haliyal districts in northern Karnataka, to harvest sugarcane. IANS/IndiaSpend Is Mathura mastermind Ramvriksh Yadav still alive?: Reports India oi-Preeti Mathura, June 13: Mathura, the birthplace of Lord Krishna, that was burning in protests and bloodshed last week is still coming to terms from the irreparable loss. The violence killed at least 27 people including an SHO and an SP. There were reports that the alleged mastermind behind Mathura clashes, Ramvriksh Yadav was burnt alive in the fire during the mayhem and was later cremated by his family. But, from last few days, some reports are doing the rounds that he may be alive. However, no official confirmation has come on the same. [Mathura violence mastermind dead, confirms UP Police] On June 8, an advocate named Shashikant Gautam had claimed that 60-year-old self-proclaimed guru is alive. He also claimed that 600 people lost their lives in the recent riots. Who was Ramvriksh Yadav? Yadav was a resident of Raipur Bagpur village, under Mardah police station of Ghazipur district, and was leading the protesters under the umbrella 'Swadheen Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah'. He was operating an organisation called Swadhin Bharat Vidhik Satyagrah (SBVS). [Mathura episode showed how State creates Frankenstein & then nails it] Yadav was a farmer, who had shifted from Madhya Pradesh to Mathura in 2012 with his family members. He did his graduation from a college in Mau district. He left behind his wife, two sons and two daughters. In 1984 assembly elections and in 1991 general elections, he unsucessfully contested from Zahoorabad and Gazipur, under Baba Jai Guru Dev's Doordarshi Party. He also authored a book titled 'Vidhik Satyagrah'. Uttar Pradesh government was providing him a monthly pension of Rs 15,000 as Loktantra Rakshak Senani. As his clout swelled with a political backing, he became the messiah of illegal encroachers and helped around 3,000 of them settled at 280-acre Jawahar bagh. Yadav reportedly owned property worth Rs 4,000 crore and 250 cars. He made himself an inheritor of late spiritual guru Jai Gurudev's death. Yadav demanded scrapping of polls for the post of prime minister and president in India. Interestingly, Yadav was a follower of late freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whose existence aslo turned into a mystery whether he was alive or dead and it is still under heated debate today. He used call himself a member of Azad Hind Fauz. OneIndia News Malleshwaram blasts- Bengaluru police arrest prime suspect News oi-Vicky By Vicky Bengaluru, June 13: The Bengaluru police made a major breakthrough following the arrest of prime accused in connection with the Malleshwaram or BJP office blast. A team of the CCB a specialised unit of the Bengaluru police arrested Daniel Prakash from Tiruvenalli in Tamil Nadu. The police say that he is a prime accused and his role in the blast is clear. The police are currently questioning him for more leads in the case. This is the 15th arrest in the case. On April 17 2013, an explosion took place outside the BJP's office in Malleshwaram, Bengaluru. 16 persons were injured in the blast. Investigations had shown that ammonium nitrate had been used in the explosives. It was also discovered a motor cycle stolen from Hyderabad had been used in the blast. [MHA confirms Bangalore blast as terror strike] In October 2013, a chargesheet had been filed against several persons in connection with this case. The police had named Basheer, Kichan Buhari, Sait Azgar Ali, Rehamathulla, Valayil Hakeem, Syed Suleman, Suleman, Zulfikar Ali, Mohammed Salim, Panna Ismail, Bilal Malik, Fakruddin, Pravai Basha and Ali Khan Kutti. The police had suspected that the attack could have been the handiwork of the Al-Ummah which is based in Tamil Nadu. OneIndia News IRCTC: 89 trains cancelled on Oct 26 including some in Maharashtra, UP; check complete list Two arrested for firing at a person in north Delhi Delhi LG approves Chhath ghats, warns CM against 'premature publicity' over it News Flash: PM Modi addresses rally in Uttar Pradesh India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer New Delhi, June 13: Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed shock and grief over shootout in Orlando. Get all the latest national and international news updates of Sunday, June 13 here: 2.05 am: In Philippines, Islamists 'behead' second Canadian hostage 1.30 am: China says Brazil's political crisis puts BRICS capabilities to test 1.15 am: Chinese transgress in Arunachal Pradesh, then stage a retreat 12.45 am: Capitals of Northeastern states to be connected through Railways: Rao Inderjit Singh 12.05 am: Security spokesman said, "Orlando shooter visited Saudi Arabia in 2011, 2012" 11.15 pm: UN Chief Ban Ki Moon condemns Orlando shooting UPDATE: 4 people died in under construction building collapse in Anand(Gujarat), pic.twitter.com/4bXsy827Kp ANI (@ANI_news) June 13, 2016 10:50 pm: They should rename Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to VVIP party: Ajay Maken,Cong on AAP's dual bill withheld by President 10.23 pm: Bihar topper scam: EX- BSEB Chairman Lalkeshwar Sinha's close aide arrested from Nalanda 10.02 pm: Fresh fighting erupted this evening between Afghan and Pakistani forces at the Torkham gate near the Durand Line. 10.00 pm: Historic day for us.My fight is against the system, want certification board and not censor board: Anurag Kashyap #UdtaPunjab 9.55 pm: A very big moral defeat for Delhi Govt: Vijender Gupta,Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly on dual office bill 9.50 pm: Anti corruption wing of Assam police recovers over Rs 1 crore and wild animal parts from a Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) house in Guwahati 9.40 pm: There will be no effect of this bill being withheld on assembly membership of our 21 MLAs: Raghav Chadha, AAP 9.30 pm: Economic development can't be without access to electricity,and it should be provided through clean technology: President Mukherjee in Ghana For creating appropriate investment climate, our businessmen should meet frequently: President Mukherjee in Ghana pic.twitter.com/MYKx8w7Hmp ANI (@ANI_news) June 13, 2016 Himachal Pradesh: Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in Shimla pic.twitter.com/DIWCT90EJX ANI (@ANI_news) June 13, 2016 9.00 pm: US President Barack Obama says no clear evidence #Orlando attack was 'directed' from abroad President Pranab Mukherjee and Ghana President John Dramani Mahama, witness signing of agreements in Accra, Ghana pic.twitter.com/1kS557ZmFL ANI (@ANI_news) June 13, 2016 8.50 pm: Fire breaks out in a chemical factory in Matiala area of Delhi. Fire tenders at the spot 8.45 pm: 'Significant' casualties in Eritrea-Ethiopia border clash says Ethiopia government Delhi: US Embassy lit up as a tribute to victims of #OrlandoShooting pic.twitter.com/hraCqc1hPf ANI (@ANI_news) June 13, 2016 8.20 pm: Delhi Govt's dual office bill withheld by President Pranab Mukherjee Udhampur attack: 1 terrorist killed. 1 civilian dead and 2 others injured in an attack on CRPF camp (Spot Visual) pic.twitter.com/MTBNo7rstY ANI (@ANI_news) June 13, 2016 7.34 pm: 1 civilian dead, 2 other civilians are injured. Terrorist shot down, says Durga Prasad,DG CRPF on Udhampur attack. 7.30 pm: I think it is the right judgement overall, says Shyam Benegal,Head of Committee on reforms in Censor Board on Udta Punjab row. 7.15 pm: Under construction building in Anand(Gujarat) collapses, Three dead. Rescue operations underway. 7.04 pm: Preparation remains the same regardless of series, important for me to stay focussed when opportunity comes my way, says Ambati Rayudu. 7.03 pm: Haven't really looked into the past, worked on my game and happy it's going good, says Ambati Rayudu. 6.56 pm: Uttar Pradesh receives Rs 1 Lakh crore from the Centre,don't know if it reaches the people here, says PM Modi in Allahabad. 6.40 pm: When Kalyan Singh ji & Rajnath Singh ji served in UP, state developed greatly. Development is our priority, says PM Modi. 6.35 pm: There seems to be contract in UP. SP & BSP make serious allegations agnst each other but do nothing about it when elected to power, says PM Modi. 6.34 pm: How can the youth of India get employment opportunities if development does not take place, says PM Modi. 6.11 pm: Looking at the stage it is evident what impact UP has on Govt. PM, HM, Defence Minister, all from UP, says PM Modi. 6.00 pm: One Naxalite killed in an encounter with Police. Weapons recovered in Chhattisgarh. 5.50 pm: CRPF had stopped a bus for checking,there was firing from inside the bus. Exchange of fire continues, says CRPF Sources in Jammu. 5.30 pm: BJP President Amit Shah addressing a rally at Allahabad, Uttar pradesh. 5.15 pm: It is not a setback. We have been trying to follow the act, the rules and the guidelines, says Anurag Srivastav, CEO CBFC on Udta Punjab. 5.00 pm: Terrorists open fire at CRPF and police bus in Kud area of J&K's Udhampur district. More details awaited. 4.45 pm: Orlando death toll revised down to 49 plus the shooter, says authorities. 4.26 pm: Massively relieved today,looking to release the film on the scheduled date, says Abhishek Chaubey,Director of Udta Punjab. 4.25 pm: Violence in Delhi's Sapna cinema, hoodlums enter movie theatre complex and assault owners of Sapna cinema. 4.24 pm: We have to delete only one scene(urination). It is a vindication of democracy, says Anurag Kashyap's lawyer. 4.15 pm: CBFC directed by Bombay HC to issue a fresh certificate to movie Udta Punjab in 2 days. CBFC's demand for a stay refused by HC. 4.04 pm: On cut no 9 (Tommy Singh urinating in front of crowd) ,we don't feel that this scene is necessary, says HC. 4.02 pm: Punjab is land of green revolution, brave soldiers. One sentence (Zameen banjar te aulaad kanjar) can't affect that image, says HC in Udta Punjab case. 4.01 pm: Samajwadi party suspends 4 MLAs for cross voting during Rajya Sabha elections. 3.57 pm: Vijay Mallya case hearing adjourned till tomorrow in Mumbai's PMLA Court. 3.56 pm: Cut suggestion no 7 not needed. No need to delete the scratching scene in song no 3 suggested by CBFC, observes High Court in Udta Punjab case. 3.55 pm: Incident of transgression in Yangtze area of East Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh) on June 9, Chinese PLA did a patrol and went back. 3.54 pm: Cut suggestion no 8 not necessary.. only one close up scene of injecting drug will not violate the mandate, says HC. 3.51 pm: Cut no 6 are general words ( MP,MLA,Parliament etc),don't refer to any outfit but reflect for general political work, says HC. 3.40 pm: There is no need to assert or incorporate abusive words in every dialogue, points HC 3.39 pm: We are not in agreement that in some films cuss words have been allowed so these should be allowed here too, observes HC. 3.39 pm: As far as cut no 5 suggested by CBFC is concerned,there are some abusive words,some abusive words need to be deleted, says High Court in Udta Punjab case. 3.38 pm: Kashmiri Pandit delegation meets separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. 3.37 pm: Proceedings of Udta Punjab matter resume in Bombay High Court. 3.05 pm: Zimbabwe all out for 126, Chahal takes 3 wickets, Kulkarni and Sran take 2 each in 2nd ODI for INDvsZIM. 3.00 pm: IS claims Orlando shooter as 'soldier of caliphate' in radio bulletin. 2.59 pm: 2nd ODI: Zimbabwe all out for 126, Chahal takes 3 wickets, Kulkarni and Sran take 2 each. 2.57 pm: IS claims Orlando shooter as 'soldier of caliphate' in radio bulletin. 2.51 pm: BJP protest against AAP Government over alleged water tanker scam issue in Delhi. 2.47 pm: If anyone has any problem,they must approach the Govt for amendments in the guidelines, says Shatrughan Sinha. 2.46 pm: However, Pahlaj Nihalaniji is only following the guidelines. Have always said, "Dont shoot messenger if you don't like the message", says S Sinha. 2.43 pm: I consider Anurag Kashyap as sensitive film maker.If Udta Punjab is focusing on drug problem,I believe its sincere attempt, says Shatrughan Sinha. 2.27 pm: 4 years ago when I came to Punjab and urged the Govt to address drug issue, I was mocked by the Akalis, says Rahul Gandhi. 2.11 pm: To save Punjab's future, drugs need to be eliminated: Rahul Gandhi while addressing an anti-drug rally in Punjab's Jalandhar. 2.05 pm: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi addresses an anti-drug rally in Jalandhar, Punjab. 1.50 pm: Congress leaders under BK Hariprasad and three other leaders meeting ECI over RS poll controversy in Haryana. 1.35 pm: List provided by BJP on Kairana must be scrutinised,many fled years ago when SP wasn't even in power: Akhilesh Yadav. 1.18 pm: Rahul Gandhi arrives in Jalandhar, Punjab to address a protest rally against drug menace. 1:00 pm: Shiromani Akali Dal & AAP allege that Congress has rewarded Kamal Nath who had been involved in anti-Sikh riots in 1984. 12:47 pm: Court of Inquiry ordered as MiG 27 aircraft crashes near Rajasthan's Jodhpur. 12:40 pm: Nitin Gadkari addresses media on achievements of NDA govt in Allahabad. 12.32 pm: #FirstVisuals MiG 27 aircraft crashes near Jodhpur. Pilot escapes unhurt. 2 houses damaged, no injuries reported. pic.twitter.com/E5pGuEnqP2 ANI (@ANI_news) June 13, 2016 12.24 pm: India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations: President Pranab Mukherjee. 12.18 pm: MiG fighter jet crashes near Jodhpur in Rajasthan, pilots eject safely, say reports. 12 noon: Hearing on Udta Punjab begins in Bombay High Court. PM Narendra Modi paid tribute to Chandrasekhar Azad at Chandrasekhar Azad Park in Allahabad today pic.twitter.com/BSN8wHrvII ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) June 13, 2016 11.45 am: Car rams into pedestrians in Delhi's Janak Puri area, 2 killed & 1 injured. Accused has been arrested. 11.30 am: 2002 Gulbarg society case: Court to pronounce the quantum of sentence on June 17. 11.15 am: Dera Sacha Sauda follower shot at by unidentified men in Faridkot (Punjab), admitted to hospital in critical condition. 11.00 am: Congress delegation to meet EC in Delhi today over Haryana Rajya Sabha seats voting row. 10.57 am: A truck rammed into a police patrolling vehicle in Bareilley's CB Ganj area, one policeman dead and two injured. 10.46 am: Rahul Gandhi has no moral rights to stage protest against drug menace in Punjab: AAP 10.30 am: Orlando shooting: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton postpone their respective poll campaigns 10.13 am: Centre will provide all assistance to UP govt in addressing the Kairana exodus issue: Kiren Rijiju. 10.00 am: Kairana exodus: UP govt yet to brief officially on the matter, says Kiren Rijiju. 9.47 am: Oscar Pistorius to be sentenced for murdering girlfriend. 9.44 am: NSG membership: Pakistan's credentials stronger than India, claims Foreign Affairs Advisor Sartaj Aziz. 9.35 am: Orlando shooting proves I am right on Islamist threat: Donald Trump. 9.25 am: Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi to lead protest on drug menace in Jalandhar. 9.15 am: Kairan exodus: There will be a time when everyone will wish to leave UP.There is neither dev nor safety here: Maneka Gandhi 9.07 am: Coimbatore man uses 'bulb art' to express his gratitude to CM Jayalalithaa as she announces 100 units of free power. 9.00 am: At least 8 peacocks found dead in a village in Saurikh area of Kannauj district, carcasses sent for post mortem. 8.50 am: Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav appears before CBI coourt in Ranchi in connection with fodder scam case. 8.40 am: Minor injured after shots were fired by unidentified gunmen in Delhi's Geeta Colony late Sunday. 8.30 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi to address a rally in Allahabad today. 8.20 am: President Pranab Mukherjee arrives in Accra(Ghana). 8.05 am: We stand with the people of Orlando: US President Barack Obama 8.00 am:Shocked at the shootout in Orlando, USA. My thoughts & prayers are with the bereaved families and the injured: PM Modi OneIndia News India always views war as last resort, but... : PM Modi to armed forces in Kargil PM Modi to address tax officials' meet on Thursday India oi-IANS By Ians English New Delhi, June 12: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet with top officials of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) for the first "Rajasva Gyan Sangam Annual Conference of Tax Administrators" on June 16-17, an official statement said on Sunday. "For the first time, the two revenue boards are holding the conference simultaneously," a finance ministry statement here said. While the CBDT is responsible for collecting direct taxes, the CBEC looks after indirect taxes. "He (Modi) is expected to motivate the revenue officers towards achieving high standards in taxpayer-friendly service in view of fast paced changes in the world economy," it said. "Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will also be interacting extensively with the officers of the boards during various sessions on June 16. Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha will deliver the valedictory address on June 17," it added. As many as 251 officers of the rank of Principal Chief Commissioners, Chief Commissioners and Principal Commissioners from CBDT and 170 from the CBEC are expected to participate in the two-day conference," the statement said. "On the CBEC side, the discussions will cover subjects like the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Facilitation and Best Practices, dispute management, among others," it added. The sessions will be divided into two broad subjects relating to the government's financial inclusion initiatives, and ensuring a transparent tax regime for businesses and foreign investors, besides issues and challenges being faced by the departments like income tax, customs and central excise. Eminent guest speakers, including author Chetan Bhagat, will address the conference, the finance ministry said. Meanwhile, the Centre's indirect tax collections rose by 37 per cent in April-May, compared to the same period of the last fiscal, a part of which was on account of additional revenue measures announced in the current year, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said earlier this week. "The indirect tax growth rate for the first two months of current financial year is 36.7% with additional revenue measures (ARM) and 14% without ARM," Adhia tweeted. Indirect tax revenue includes collections from excise, customs and service tax. The indirect tax collection was Rs 1.31 lakh crore up to May this fiscal, which is 16.8 per cent of Rs 7.78 lakh crore estimated in the budget. IANS Record number of refugees need to be resettled: UN India oi-PTI Geneva, June 13: The United Nations said on Monday,June 13 it will try to resettle a record 170,000 refugees urgently in need of a new home next year as it grapples with an unprecedented displacment crisis. The projected resettlement figure from the UN refugee agency represents an increase of nearly 30,000 people compared with this year. But it is still less than 15 per cent of the 1.19 million refugees worldwide who will be "in need of resettlement" in 2017, the UNHCR acknowledged in a report released today. That group mainly consists of refugees who the UN believes will not be able to return home or integrate in their current host country. But resettling 1.19 million people over a 12-month period is not feasible based on recent trends, UNHCR spokesman Leo Dobbs said. The agency therefore expects to recommend that the 170,000 people most in need of resettlement should be moved to third countries. Dobbs noted that the final decision in each case rests with prospective host countries, but in recent years the overwhelming majority of those recommended for resettlement have been given new homes. In 2015, UNHCR referred a record 134,000 people for resettlement and 104,000 in 2014. The projected figure for this year is 143,000. By nationality, Syrians led the list of resettlement cases last year at 20 per cent, followed by people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq and Somalia. The European Union has agreed to a responsibility-sharing scheme, which foresees the relocation of 160,000 refugees who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea and landed in Italy or Greece. But only a few hundred have been resettled to date under the EU plan. Overall the UNHCR has estimated that there are currently more than 60 million people who have been forced from their homes worldwide. Of those, roughly 40 million are internally displaced within their home country, while just over 20 million are refugees who have fled across borders. PTI Published: 09 May 2014 at 08:07hrs | 6846 | by Tech Reporter UK based and Africa focused Mvendr today announced it has launched the Android version of its mobile app which enables the vending of prepaid Airt... Can you run with high heels on? Well, these people can race wearing them Dented, but not scared: The Gay community in US becomes vocal International oi-Pallavi Orlando, June 13: It is perhaps a coincidence that the Gay pride parade in US was just on the day of the Orlando gay club shootings that happened in the week hours of Sunday. In a symbolical gesture of solidarity, the ones who suffered the loss of near and dear ones in the Pulse Club, made it a point to join the parade. The club is considered a meeting point of ideas and feelings, which are otherwise judged by the world outside and an attack on the club was an attack on the rights of the LGBT community here. However, confusion still belies as to why 29 year old Omar Mateen opened fire on the 300 strong crowd, killing 50 people and fatally injuring 52 others. Meanwhile the killer's father said that his father had become angry when he saw one man kissing another man. Orlando shooting: Facebook activates Safety Check feature ] Calling the killings as violation of gay rights, President Barack obama said that US is still wehere it was, even after a long string of hard-fought legal successes, including the SC's ruling just a year ago that all 50 states should be allowed same-sex marriages. One of the gay rights activists said, "An incident like this brings the hatred that does exist out there to the forefront. It is a reminder of what we have to do to spread love, not hate." [Read: Why Orlando shooting was deadliest in US history] Another woman said, "There is risk in this life and we're not going to let hate win. We've got to be amongst the family today. Everybody is suffering. I think we all kind of want to be together today." Meanwhile, in Orlando leaders of groups that service the LGBT residents said that they would amass money for the victims of the shooting and raised $430,000 within hours. [Read: UN chief, British PM slam Orlando mass shooting ] "We will love and support the victims even as we join to eradicate the hatred that lies at the core of this violence," said Mary Meeks, a prominent Florida civil rights lawyer.As people placed flowers at the Stone Wall, President Barack Obama said, ""The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub," he said. "It is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights." OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, June 13, 2016, 11:06 [IST] Donald Trump does it again, says 'US must consider racial profiling' Orlando shooting: Shooter homophobe, wife beater International oi-PTI Orlando, Jun 13: Early reports on the background of the gunman who slaughtered at least 50 people at a Florida nightclub paint a picture of a violent and prejudiced young man. The suspect, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is a Muslim American of Afghan descent and police are investigating whether he may have had a terrorist motive. US law enforcement is investigating whether he had links to -- or was inspired by -- Islamist terrorism. And US media, citing law enforcement sources, reported that he called police during the massacre to claim allegiance to the Islamic State group. But relatives interviewed by US media say Mateen, who worked as a security officer, was not overly religious but had anti-gay views and had regularly assaulted his ex-wife. Mateen's shocked father, Mir Seddique, said his son had recently been offended to see two gay men expressing affection on a Miami street. "We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music," the father told NBC News in the immediate aftermath if the shooting. "And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry," Seddique said. The attack, which became the worst mass shooting in modern US history, was carried out in the Pulse nightclub, a well-known gay hangout. "We are in shock like the whole country," Seddique added. "This had nothing to do with religion." In a separate interview, a former wife of the suspect who left him in 2011 fearing for her life, said he was violently abusive. Orlando shooting: Obama calls it act of terror; stands by LGBT community "He was not a stable person," the ex-wife told the Washington Post, which did not identify her because she fears for her safety. "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that," she told the Post. According to the wife's account the pair had met in New York but in March 2009 had moved in together in Fort Pierce, Florida. The woman's parents later rescued her from the relationship and the pair were later divorced, according to a court document seen by AFP. She described him a "private person" but not especially expressive about his Muslim faith. He owned a small caliber handgun and worked as a guard at a secure facility for juvenile delinquents. AFP No comment on Pranab Mukherjee book before reading it: Former Union Minister In Ghana, President Mukherjee calls for UN reforms International oi-IANS By Ians English Accra (Ghana), June 13 (IANS) President Pranab Muhkherjee on Monday said the United Nations should be reformed to keep pace with world developments and pitched for India's candidature for permanent seat on the Security Council. He said it was so because with India's size and civilizational depth, the country cannot remain to "be watching from the sidelines as the Security Council dispenses solutions to global issues". Similarly, President Mukherjee said, "the continent of Africa of over a billion people cannot be bystanders while its fate is defined". Addressing the students of the University of Ghana as part of his two-day visit to the country, he said: "Reform and change of the United Nations is inevitable and the youth should be at the vanguard of this call for change." "Outdated structures cannot resolve problems of today," the visiting president said, adding that "positive transformation cannot be brought about by archaic systems and concepts". "The United Nations established in the wake of the Second World War cannot effectively respond to the evolving international challenges that we face today," he said. President Mukherjee said the growth of India into a robust and a confident nation is not an overnight phenomenon, adding that it took "decades of toil and the sacrifices of our leaders and strengthened by the momentum generated by hundreds of thousands of students and scholars". "It is their innovations, discoveries, rock-solid determination and self-belief, and more importantly a burning desire to serve the nation, which has contributed to India's success," he said. President Mukherjee said after Independence, India did not "follow blindly the models of development that might have been successful elsewhere". "We recognised that natural and financial resources were only one side of the coin of development," he said, adding that "the other side is the quality of human resource that alone can transform the natural resources into prosperity and happiness of the people". President Mukherjee leaves Accra to Cote d'Ivoire on Tuesday on the second leg of his three-nation African tour which will also take him to Namibia. (Francis Kokutse can be reached at fkokutse@gmail.com) --IANS francis/tsb Beirut blast: What is ammonium nitrate that causes 78 deaths in explosion IS claims Orlando shooting in radio bulletin International oi-PTI Beirut, Jun 13: The Islamic State group today claimed responsibility for the Orlando shooting that killed 50 people, saying in a radio bulletin that it was carried out by "one of the soldiers of the caliphate". "God allowed Omar Mateen, one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America, to carry out an attack entering a crusader gathering in a night club... in Orlando in Florida, killing and wounding more than 100 of them," a bulletin from Al-Bayan radio said. The jihadist group declared its "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq in 2014. The IS-linked news agency Amaq said yesterday that the attack on the gay night club had been "carried out by an Islamic State fighter". US media reported that the gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, a 29-year old American citizen, had pledged allegiance to the jihadist group IS. The FBI has admitted that Mateen - who was born to Afghan parents in New York - had previously been investigated, but cleared, for ties to a US suicide bomber. The worst mass shooting in US history left 50 people dead, in addition to the shooter, and wounded 53 others. Events unfolded over a three-hour period from around 2:00 am (local time) when shots rang out amid the throbbing music at the Pulse Orlando club near closing time. Police said the suspect was armed with an assault rifle and a handgun. US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings "as an act of terrorism". The father of the suspect said his son may have been motivated by homophobia. Congressman Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, dubbed the murders "the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11." The attack coincides with gay pride month in the United States, with festive events all over the country, including in Orlando last week. PTI 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 fighter behind Orlando club shooting, says media International oi-PTI Beirut, June 13: A fighter from the Islamic State group carried out Sunday's mass shooting inside a gay club in Orlando, Florida, an IS-linked media report said, quoting an unidentified source. "The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and that left more than 50 dead and many wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter," it said in a terse statement quoting a "source". Orlando shooting: Did killer have hatred for LGBT community? Amaq, the IS-linked news agency, gave no further details. US media reported that the gunman -- widely identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen of Afghan descent -- had pledged allegiance to the jihadist group IS. Fifty people were killed, in addition to the shooter, and 53 wounded in the worst mass shooting in US history, the mayor of Orlando Buddy Dyer said earlier on Sunday. US officials were probing whether the suspect had radical Islamic "leanings". US President Barack Obama said the FBI was investigating the killings "as an act of terrorism". PTI Donald Trump does it again, says 'US must consider racial profiling' Orlando shooting: Here is the list of violence at gay venues in US International oi-Jagriti New Delhi, June 13: Mass shooting at a night club in Orlando is not the first attack on LGBT community in US. Many violent incidents have been carried against the them since 1973. At least 50 people were killed and more than 50 were injured after 29-year-old man identified as Omar Mateen opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in the worst mass shooting in the history of the US. The shooter died during a shootout with SWAT team members. Orlando shooting: Here's a timeline of deadliest mass shooting in US history Here is a brief look at violent incidents carried against gay men in US September 22, 2000: At least one person was killed and six injured when Ronald Gay, who was upset over the slang connotation of his last name, opened fire at the Backstreet Cafe, a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia. December 31, 2013: Gasoline was poured in a stairway at a decades-old gay nightclub and set it on fire when hundreds of people were busy for a New Year's Eve celebrations. March 1, 2009: Patron of a gay bar was injured in Galveston, Texas when brothers Lawrence Henry Lewis and Lawrneil Henry Lewis and their cousin Alejandro Sam Gray hurled chunks of concrete on him. October 7, 1998: The horrific killing of Matthew Shepard in 1998 is considered as one of the worst anti-gay hate crimes in American history. Matthew was beaten by two assailants. February 21, 1997: A bombing took place at Otherside Lounge, a lesbian bar in Atlanta. At least five people were injured in the bombing. November 27, 1978: San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the country's first openly gay elected officials, were shot to death inside City Hall. June 24, 1973: At least 32 people were killed in an arson attack at the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, June 13, 2016, 14:14 [IST] Donald Trump does it again, says 'US must consider racial profiling' Orlando shooting reignites debate on stricter gun control laws International oi-PTI Washington, Jun 13: America's deadliest mass shooting in Orlando in which 50 people were killed by a gunman pledging allegiance to ISIS has reignited the debate on gun violence, war against terror and homegrown terrorism with lawmakers calling for stricter gun control laws. Why Orlando shooting was deadliest in US history "Confronting the threat of violent homegrown radicalisation is one of the greatest counterterrorism challenges our law enforcement and intelligence community faces," Florida Senator Marco Rubio said. "We are a nation at war with Islamist terrorists. Theirs is a repressive, hateful ideology that respects no borders. It is a threat to our people at home and abroad," House Speaker Paul Ryan said. Congressman Robert C 'Bobby' Scott, a vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus' Gun Violence Prevention Task Force and member of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus called for a strong gun control laws. "These tragedies are far too common and we cannot continue to sit idly by as these incidences continue to happen. Congress must review every available proposal to determine what we can do to reduce all forms of gun violence. "Americans are understandably frustrated at our inability to come together to address this problem in a meaningful way. I will continue to fight for evidence - based policy proposals to address this issue. I just hope that the leadership in Congress will finally agree that enough is enough. Meaningful action is long overdue," Scott said. Senator Tom Carper, top Democrat on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said this horrific attack reminds that the US must remain vigilant at home against threats of terrorism. "It is critical that federal, state and local law enforcement officials work together to get to the bottom of this attack," he said. "As we learn more information about this tragedy, we must remain steadfast in our commitment as a nation to acknowledge the threats we face and do everything we can to root out terror," Senator John McCain said. Member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator Susan Collins described this as worst attack on the US since 9/11 and the worst mass shooting in "our history". "If the FBI's investigation confirms allegations that the attacker pledged his allegiance to ISIS or if he proves to have been a lone wolf, this attack is yet another stark reminder that the US is not immune from the threat of violent extremism," she said. PTI Donald Trump does it again, says 'US must consider racial profiling' Orlando shooting: Here's a timeline of deadliest mass shooting in US history International oi-Jagriti Washington, June 13: At least 50 people were killed while 53 were left injured after a 29-year-old man opened fire in the worst mass shooting in the history of the US. US President Barack Obama on Sunday termed the mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida, as an "act of terror" in his address to the nation from the White House. US has witnessed more public mass shootings than in any other country in the world, reported the CNN citing a study published recently. There were 90 mass shootings reported between 1966 and 2012. Why Orlando shooting was deadliest in US history Here is the timeline of Orlando shooting The shooting started at 2:02 a.m. ET on Sunday at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Around 100 officers from the Orange County Sheriff's Office and the Orlando Police Department responded to the incident. An urgent message urging "Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running" was posted by the Pulse on Facebook" at 2:09 a.m. ET. The shooter dialled 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS. He also mentioned the Boston Marathon bombers during the call at 2:22 a.m. ET. Orlando police posted this "Shooting at Pulse Nightclub on S Orange. Multiple injuries. Stay away from area," on Twitter at 3:58 a.m. ET. An armoured vehicle used to smash down a door at the club to evict 30 people inside at around 5 am ET. Shooter is dead, this was posted by the Orlando Police Department on Twitter at 5.53 am ET. President Barack Obama addressed the attack from the White House, calling it an act of terror and an act of hate at 1.00 pm ET. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, June 13, 2016, 9:59 [IST] Donald Trump does it again, says 'US must consider racial profiling' Orlando shooting: Turkish newspaper calls victims "perverts" International oi-Shubham Istanbul, June 13: Yeni Akit, a right-wing Turkish newspaper called the victims of the Orlando mass shooting as "perverts" and "deviants" in its news report on the tragedy that rocked the world, said a Daily Mail report. The headline of its story read: "Death toll rises to 50 in bar where perverted homosexuals go!" The headline caused a backlash online as it was said that the newspaper celebrated the attack instead of condemning it. Yeni Akit, which has links with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is known for using hate speech against minorities, especially the LGBT community, besides Jews, Christians and Armenians. In four months in 2013, Turkish think-tank Hrant Dink Foundation found in a survey that 175 articles of the newspaper contained hate speech at one of the eight separate minority groups, said the report. At least 50 people were killed while 53 were injured after a 29-year-old man Oman Mateen from Port St. Lucie, opened fire at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The freedom of press in Turkey has been said to be deteriorating over the past several years. Three journalists were killed in 2015 over their work while measures were taken against dozen others under anti-terrorism laws. Oneindia News Orlando: Why is the AR-15 rifle the gold standard for mass murder International oi-Vicky Orlando,June 13: There are statistics to show that the AR-15 assault rifle are 5 million in number in the United States of America. This powerful weapon which can spray 45 bullets in a minute is the same rifle used by Omar Mateen, the man behind the Orlando massacre. While the AR-15 rifle is America's most powerful weapon, it has been used in a series of incidents which have claimed several lives. In this context one must also read the statistics relating to homicidal deaths in the United States of America. Homicidal deaths alone in the United States of America account for 153,144 between the years 2001 and 2013. However, in terrorist strikes the statistics for the United States of America suggest that 3,046 persons had died between the years 2001 and 2014. A weapons of mass destruction: The AR-15 rifle has been described as the gold standard for mass murder. This is a weapon that has been used by mass murderers in the past as well. In 2012 28 persons had been killed in Newtown. The same year also saw an incident in Aurora in which 12 persons were killed. Last year in San Bernardino, 14 persons were killed in a party. This weapon is extremely popular and one must recollect that in 2011, the al-Qaeda had encouraged its supporters to purchase this weapons and make use of the lax gun norms in the country. The al-Qaeda which released a video at that time urges its followers to purchase automatic weapons. Adam Gadahn the spokesperson of the outfit says in the video, " you can go to a gun show at the local convention and come back with a fully automatic rifle without a background check. In the US firearms are easily available. So what are you waiting for."[Barack Obama to go to Orlando to pay respects to victims] The weapon with such capabilities becomes a favourite with both terrorists and criminals. It can be modified illegally and turned into fully automatic mode. There have been raging debates on this weapon, but the National Rifle Association has defended its sale. It says that the weapon is used by good people for good reason to protect their homes and themselves. OneIndia News LOS ANGELESAdult superstar Joanna Angel's newest BurningAngel release, It's My First Time 4, is now available for pre-order via Exile Distribution, shipping June 13 ahead of its June 20 street release. The 2016 AVN Award-winning Amateur/Pro-Am series is back with director/star Joanna Angel delivering five scenes of hardcore porn initiation featuring some of the best in fresh-faced new recruits for their first time ever on cameratwo and a half hours' worth. "This line is very special to me, and we had a lot to follow up with after winning an AVN award for the series," said Angel. "It's really incredible to watch a girl do her very first scene; when you pair a new girl up with a seasoned industry swordsman, there's always this amazing look on the girl' face that's like 'Wow, I've never been fucked like this before!' and it's quite beautiful." Angel takes the reins with Jenevieve Hexxx in a racy girl-girl encounter; Chloe Carter gets her on-screen virginity taken by Small Hands, who also takes on novice Juliana Rose in another hot scene; newbie Mallory Maneater goes deep with Seth Gamble while Rachel Ravaged gets ravaged by Bill Bailey. It's My First Time 4 has a variety of girls, all of different ages, with different body types, from different places in the country who all had their own unique reasons for wanting to get into the industry. Shot in HD, the DVD/Blu-ray of It's My First Time 4 includes photo galleries, animated menus, Behind the Scenes footage, BurningAngel trailers and DVD extras. The trailer is now up at BurningAngel.com. For sales information contact Howard Levine, Exile Distribution at (818) 576-9464 or [email protected] Terrorism must be eradicated by collective efforts: President Pranab Mukherjee International oi-PTI Accra, June 13: Terrorism is a scourge that knows no borders and it must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world, President Pranab Mukherjee has said while pledging India's support to Ghana for combating the menace. Mukherjee, who is here on a two-day visit -- the first by an Indian President -- said India has been a victim of terrorism for three decades and shares Ghana's concern that it has become a global menace. In his address at the banquet hosted by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama yesterday, Mukherjee said, "It is a scourge and knows no borders; it has no ideology except the ideology of wanton destruction. It must be eradicated through the collective efforts of the civilised world. India is in solidarity with you as you confront this challenge." Mukherjee's visit is a part of India's outreach to Africa. While Mahama quoted Mahatma Gandhi and recalled the bond shared between Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah and India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, both founding fathers of the Non-Aligned Movement, Mukherjee quoted a poem of Rabindranath Tagore titled 'Africa' in his address. "Today the world order demands global governance structures that are consistent with the new challenges that confront the global community. It is a serious anomaly that India, home to every sixth citizen of the world and Africa, a vibrant hub of the global economy, still remain out of UN Security Council," Mukherjee said. On increasing investments by Indian companies in Ghana, the President said Indian business groups understand the potential and would be happy to invest if the right opportunities are given to them. "The people of India fondly remember Dr Kwame Nkrumah, a great son of Ghana and a visionary leader of pan-Africanism.He embodied Africa's dignity, and inspired the peoples and the governments of African countries to claim their rightful place in global affairs," he said. The elaborate banquet which saw traditional African dishes with Bollywood numbers playing in the backdrop was hosted at the flag staff college which has been constructed by a noted Indian builder. Mukherjee presented to Mahama a photograph of India's first President Rajendra Prasad meeting Nkrumah in Rashtrapati Bhavan as he stressed that government of India seeks Ghana's continued support in fulfilling the vision of the Indo African Forum Summit held in New Delhi last year. Lauding Ghana's efforts in reducing poverty levels to almost half and crossing the threshold to become a low income country, Mukherjee said India will continue to extend the hand of cooperation as it marches on the path of prosperity. PTI A dream, a call and some courage: How a 15-year-old stopped her marriage Youth seriously injured, robbed off mobile, cash in West Bengal Kolkata oi-PTI Malda (WB), June 13: A 30-year old youth was seriously injured after being attacked by robbers who took away his mobile and cash and hit with revolver butt at Englishbazar in Malda district last night. The gang also fired one round in the air to scare away the locals. Sanjay Basak (30) was waylaid by the gang while returning from a marriage reception at a village under Englishbazar police station limits and robbed off his mobile phone and cash, police said. As he tried to resist the attackers beat him with revolver butt severely and left bleeding at a spot. As locals rushed on hearing the scream, the gang blank fired one round and escaped. Basak was now under treatment at Malda Medical College and Hospital. PTI In exodus of Hindu families from Kairana, there is a pattern Lucknow oi-Vicky Lucknow, June 13: The stories of mass exodus by Hindu families from the Kairana town of Shamli in Uttar Pradesh has been dominating headlines. The BJP's Hukum Singh who will be part of a high level probe team has alleged that at least 250 families have left the village since 2014 due to threat of extortion by the Mukim Kala gang. The District Magistrate too has ordered an inquiry into the incident. When OneIndia tried contacting some of the persons who had left the village, they expressed fear to come on record. However they did admit that they were living in fear and what made it worse was that the local administration was not ready to take their complaints seriously. A pattern: There have been complaints that the Hindu families were being targeted by the gang members of Mukim Kala. The intention of the gang seems to be to drive away these families and then take over their properties. After taking over these properties, they are being sold at lower prices, it has been alleged. There are some who have refused to leave the village. However these persons allege that they keep getting extortion calls asking them to either leave the village or vacate their property. The gangsters tell them if they refuse to leave, their loved ones would be abducted or killed. Although the police say that the figures being put out by the BJP are on the higher side, they also say that the tales of extortion are not completely untrue. The UP police following the news coming out conducted a verification of 150 addresses. They say that in some of the cases people had migrated out of the village in search for better opportunities. There have been cases of migration that have taken place ten years back also, the police say. The BJP however alleges that the police are covering up the issue. There have been complaints given to the police about the extortion, but most of them are never taken up. The BJP says that the UP administration cannot live in denial about the incident. OneIndia News Kairana exodus: UP police is lying says former R&AW officer Lucknow oi-Vicky Lucknow, June 13: The Uttar Pradesh police was quick to dismiss reports of a mass exodus of Hindus from Kairana town of Shamli in Uttar Pradesh. The cops said that they conducted a verification of 150 addresses and learnt that most had left in search of jobs. This is a claim that has been disputed by many. Former officer of the Research and Analysis Wing, Amar Bhushan speaks with OneIndia about this mass exodus while also stating that the claim by the UP police is far from reality. In exodus of Hindu families from Kairana, there is a pattern UP cops are taking the convenient path Amar Bhushan argues that the UP police are taking the convenient path. Like the politicians in UP, the cops too appear to be pandering to the minority community. To say that the Hindu families have not migrated due to fear but in search of jobs and better opportunities, it is one of the most convenient things for them to say, Bhushan also adds. "I know of workers from Bihar who go in search of work outside. Do you call that migration? Their families are still in their home town and these persons send back money there. However is that the case in Kairana? The village is almost empty. What does this indicate? They have left out of fear," the former R&AW officer also notes. The UP police instead of addressing the problem are twisting facts. Women and girls are being harassed and they are seeking protection from the police which is not given. Instead of addressing that issue, the UP police is trying to twist the facts. Have they not seen boards which say that the houses are up for sale? What does this indicate. Clearly these persons are being driven out so that their properties could be usurped, Amar Bhushan also points out. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Monday, June 13, 2016, 10:59 [IST] "Kick us out if we don't do anything": How Modi's emotional appeal resembles that of Mamata Lucknow oi-Shubham Allahabad, June 13: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (June 13) told the audience in a rally that if the latter did not find the BJP doing any good to the state in five years, it can kick the party out. [Modi gives 7-S mantra for BJP] The wordings at Triveni Sangam would rattle many a ear for they were uttered by the same man who gave an impressive speech at the US Congress just a few days ago. But herein, lies the man's ability to manouvre between poles and the politics related to them. On his return from the US, Modi shifted gears to become a "UPwala" and hence was such a speech. [Modi takes potshots at SP, BSP] Modi, in this regard, can be compared to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. During the Assembly polls in Bengal held in April and May, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo had taken up the entire responsibility to canvass support for her party candidates across the state. [Both Cong, BJP finding it tough to pick a face for UP] At a time when a series of sting operation videos against some top TMC leaders released by the Opposition looked threatening and even the old enemies---Left Front and Congress---joined hands to defeat her, Banerjee made it a point to emotionally appeal to the electorate. Begging for votes, she even told in a number of rallies that if the people thought she was a thief who took bribe, they were welcome to reject her. But Banerjee came back---even stronger than 2011. Modi is also executing a similar strategy, given the fact that the BJP lacks a cohesion and too many leaders are aspiring to become the CM face. Oneindia News 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. ORLANDO, Fla.The following is an updated statement from Lawrence G. Walters, Esq., General Counsel for Woodhull Freedom Foundation: The Woodhull Freedom Foundation strongly condemns the cowardly attack at the Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida, and expresses sincere condolences to the victims and their families. The mass killing of unarmed patrons is a hate crime against the LGBT community. As a longtime resident of the Orlando area, I have no doubt that we will mourn, bounce back, and squarely confront the threats posed by homophobia, hatred, and violence. We have a large, supportive LGBT community in Orlando. This event should cause us all to redouble efforts to combat anti-gay hate crimes and mass violence, while at the same time standing in solidarity with the many Muslim members of our communities who are unjustly targeted by Islamophobic stereotyping, racism, and hatred. Those who are moved to help in some way may use the resources below. Victims fund. Other ways to help. Rumble 09 Feb 2022 Eve Was Born by Caesarean Section After Being Created by Clonaid Using a Technique Similar to That Used to Clone Dolly the Sheep... ABC Action News 11 Jun 2021 Its been five years since the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando resulting in 49 deaths and dozens of injuries. For many,.. This sermon was preached by Pastor Sam Adams on 6/20/16 at Independence Baptist Church in Belleview, FL. GET USED TO IT. Much worse.. Rumble 22 Mar 2022 In the week ending 10 June, 2016, a study by BNY Mellon has found that institutional investors are planning to boost their allocations to alternative strategies to seek stronger returns. 39% of the respondents said they would increase their allocations to alternative investment types, while just 6% say they will moderately decrease it. Distressed strategies are viewed as the most attractive when it comes to hedge fund allocations, with 68% of investors currently having exposure to them and 58% ranking them as one of the three most attractive strategies for the coming 12 months. A survey by J.P. Morgan also showed that 75% of institutional investors are boosting their allocations to real assets. David Rubenstein said pension funds have earned nearly 20% annual returns from their billions of investments in Carlyles funds over the past three decades. Other reports said hedge funds could provide an important solution for mounting pension funding deficits. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts state pension fund has hired Contrarian Capital and IPM Informed Portfolio Management; San Francisco Employees Retirement System green-lit a $1bn deal with Blackstone Groups hedge fund business; a gr...................... To view our full article Click here Reprinted from www.truth-out.org with author permission The Greek chorus has finally been heard in that both the left and right are now calling Donald Trump a fascist or neo-fascist. Pundits and journals across the ideological spectrum now compare Trump to Hitler and Mussolini or state he is an unbridled tyrant. For example, the liberal magazine Slate finds common ground with the conservative journal National Review in denouncing Trump as a tyrant, while liberals such as former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and the actor George Clooney join hands with conservatives such as Andrew Sullivan and Robert Kagan in arguing that Trump represents a loud echo if not a strong register of a fascist past, updated to correlate with the age of reality TV and a fatuous celebrity culture. While such condemnations contain a shred of truth, they only scratch the surface of the conditions that have produced the existing political landscape. Such arguments too often ignore the latent authoritarian and anti-democratic forces that have a long legacy in US politics and society. Unfortunately, recognizing that the United States is about to tip over the edge into the abyss of authoritarianism is not enough. There is a need to understand the context -- historical, cultural, political and economic -- that has created this moment in US society in which fascism becomes an endpoint. Trump is only symptomatic of the problem, and condemning him exclusively does nothing to contain it. Moreover, such arguments often ignore the fact that Hillary Clinton is the underside of the new neoliberal oligarchy, which indulges some progressive issues but is indebted ideologically and politically to a criminogenic culture of finance, racism and war. Put differently, she represents a less obscene, less in-your-face form of authoritarianism -- hardly a viable alternative to Trump. Capitalism, racism, consumerism and patriarchy feed off each other and are mobilized largely through a notion of common sense. Maybe this is all understandable in a corporate-controlled neoliberal society that uses new communication technologies that erase history by producing a notion of time wedded to a culture of immediacy, speed, simultaneity and endless flows of fragmented knowledge. As Manuel Castells writes in Communication Power, this is a form of "digital-time" in which everything that happens only takes place in the present, a time that "has no past and no future." Time is accelerated in this new information-saturated culture, and it also flattens out "experience, competence, and knowledge," and the capacity for informed judgment. Time has thus been transformed to provide the ideological support that neoliberal values and a fast-food, temp-worker economy require to survive. A Culture of Forgetting and Lies Language has also been transformed to produce and legitimate a culture of forgetting that relishes in a flight from responsibility. Capitalism, racism, consumerism and patriarchy feed off each other and are mobilized largely through a notion of common sense, which while being contested as a site of ideological struggle shows little sign of losing its power as a pedagogical force. As a result, we are living through an ongoing crisis of democracy in which both the agents and institutions necessary for such social order are being dismantled at an accelerating rate in the face of a massive assault by predatory capitalism, even while there is growing resistance to the impending authoritarianism. It gets worse. We live in a moment of political change in which democratic public spheres are disappearing before our eyes, language is turned into a weapon and ideology is transformed into an act of hate, fear, racism and destruction -- all of which is informed by a dark history of political intolerance and ethnic cleansing. The war on democracy has produced both widespread misery and suffering and finds its ideological counterpart in a culture of cruelty that has become normalized. The bankers, hedge fund managers, financial elite and CEOs who rule the United States' commanding institutions have become the modern version of Mr. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. As Hannah Arendt describes them in The Origins of Totalitarianism, citing Conrad: "'these men were hollow to the core, reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity and cruel without courage ...' the only talent that could possibly burgeon in their hollow souls was the gift of fascination which makes a splendid leader of an extreme party." In the age of Trump, anticipation no longer imagines a better world but seems mired in a dystopian dread, mimicking the restlessness, chaos and uncertainty that precedes a historical moment no longer able to deal with its horrors and on the verge of a terrible catastrophe. We now live in a time in which mainstream politics sheds its ideals and falls prey to choices that resemble a stacked deck of cards and mimic the values of an authoritarian society. All the while politics is being hollowed out as lawlessness and misdirected rage, while a loss of faith in electoral politics has given rise to a right-wing populism that is more than willing to dispense with democracy itself. Demands to support Hillary Clinton as a lesser evil compared to Trump refuse to acknowledge that such mandates keep existing relations of power intact. Such actions represent more than a hollowing out of politics -- they represent a refusal of the affirmative nature of political struggle. They also represent the surrender of any hope of moving beyond the enveloping fog of authoritarianism and a broken political system. Put bluntly, such choices sabotage any real hope for developing a new politics and a radical democracy. These limited choices also undermine the need to develop a broader vision of struggle, a comprehensive politics and the need to engage multiple publics in the quest to rethink the political terrain outside of a neoliberal notion of the future. At issue here is the moral blight that permeates the United States: a politics of the lowest expectations, one saturated in lies, deceptions and acts of bad faith. Historical memory is saturated with the lies of mainstream politicians. The list is too lengthy to develop but extends from the Gulf of Tonkin falsehoods that led to the Vietnam War to the lies that produced the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have left 1.3 million dead. As documented by Elizabeth Hinton in From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America, the politics of lying by politicians and their intellectual collaborators fueled a regressive neoliberal war on poverty and crime that morphed into a racist war on the poor and helped produce the carceral state under Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. In addition, during the Obama administration, the politics of hope quickly became a politics without hope, functioning to legitimate and accelerate a flight from social responsibility that provided a blank check for Obama's refusal to prosecute government officials who engaged in egregious acts of torture, to conduct immoral drone attacks, to expand the nuclear arsenal and to display a cold indifference to the criminal environment of Wall Street. All of this adds up to a notion of politics partly driven by a culture of ignorance and lying that has surpassed previous historical eras, marking an entry into what Toronto Star reporter Olivia Ward calls a "post-truth universe." In this instance, the politics of performance denigrates language and shamelessly indulges a culture in which the truth is sacrificed to shouting, dirty tricks and spin doctors. We now are approaching a moment in US history in which truth is either viewed as a liability or ignored; at the same time, lies become more plausible, because as Hannah Arendt argued in Crises of the Republic, "the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear." Lying is now the currency of mainstream politicians and finds its counterpart in the Wild West of talk radio, cable television and the mainstream media. Under such conditions, referentiality and truth disappear along with contexts, causes, evidence and informed judgment. A manufactured ignorance and the terrifying power and infusion of money in politics and society have corrupted democratic principles and civic life. A combination of arrogance, power and deceit among the financial elite is exemplified by Donald Trump, who has repeatedly lied about his business transactions, his former misdeeds with the media, the number of Latinos who support him and the claim he personally hired instructors for Trump University. Desperation among many segments of the American public has become personal, furthering a generalized anger ripe for right-wing populism or worse. One consequence is that xenophobia and economic insecurity couple with ignorance and a collective rage to breed the conditions for symbolic and real violence, as we have seen at many Trump rallies. When language is emptied of any substance and politics loses its ability to hold power accountable, the stage is set for a social order that allows poor Black and Brown youth to continue to be objects of domestic terrorism, and provides a cover for corporate and political criminals to ravage the earth and loot the public treasury. In the age of Trump, truth becomes the enemy of governance and politics tips over into a deadly malignancy. One thing about the political impasse facing the American public is that it finds itself in a historical moment in which language is losing its potential for imagining the unimaginable, confronting words, images and power relations that are in the service of violence, hatred and racism -- this is the moment in which meaning slips into slogans, thought is emptied of substance and ideas descend into platitudes and sound bites. This is an instant in which the only choices are between political narratives that represent the hard and soft versions of authoritarianism -- narratives that embrace neo-fascism on the one side and a warmongering neoliberal worldview on the other. Over the weekend, an angry, homophobic 27-year old young man walked into a gay and lesbian bar in, Orlando, Florida, and proceeded to blow away innocent patrons in one of the worst acts of domestic, homegrown terrorism on United States soil. When the gun smoke cleared 50 people were dead -- including the shooter - and 50 more wounded, some in very critical state. Within minutes, the mainstream media jumped on his ancestry trying to make the case that a United States born mass murderer, was somehow "radicalized" and pledged his allegiance to ISIL the Muslim group fighting for a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. They did not initially see it as an anti-gay murder motivated by religious fundamentalist beliefs. Indeed, ALL of the mainstream media appeared to rush to judgment by disregarding the fact that he was born right here and was an American citizen even though his parents were Afghans. And by juxtaposing his actions with his alleged pledging his allegiance to an American designated terror group they tried to make the case that this is not "our fault" and his acts of violence were all done in praise and support of ISIL and Islam. Plus Islam and homosexuality are at odds and killing gays was a badge of honor for martyrs to the Islamic fundamentalist cause. And all of that is fine and dandy but as President Obama stated that this was and is an act of domestic terrorism that might have been inspired -- not directed -- by ISIL. Moreover, the attempt by the media to "segregate the violence" as somehow being "un-American" and therefore an aberration is aimed at "demonizing" the violence by "others" in American society. But there is no one path to violence and radical Islam is but only one such path. In the United States domestic terrorists have run the gamut from high school dropouts, college graduates, active and former military personnel, disgruntled neo-racists, anti-government extremists, militiamen, and religious zealots. Indeed, America's homegrown terrorists reflect American society in general and this latest Muslim terrorist apparently angered by a society that is defined by its diversity and open freedom sought to undermine this basic fact of American society. And there is no one cause or grievance that sparks these individuals and groups to commit acts of mass murder. Many are the triggers of domestic terrorism here in the United States. There's the issue of disgruntlement with the federal government, employers and a lack of opportunities for any meaningful and engaging political engagement. And of course, there is the access to easy guns that the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other Second Amendment groups would have us believe that this is not, at least part of the problem. That this killer was able to legally purchase a high-powered assault rifle that is used and more suitable in theaters of war, large capacity magazines, lots of rounds of ammunition, and "back up" hand guns, speak volumes about our system of access to firearms that is defensively morphed into somehow "our right to bear arms." It is my educated conclusion that instances of homegrown terrorism would be greatly minimized, not completely eradicated from society, if procurement of guns were more difficult and less easy to come by. Heck, it's easier to buy a gun at a gun show than some prescription medicines. Homegrown terrorism, like the kind that occurred in, Orlando, Florida, was simply the violent acts committed by individuals or groups right here in America "against their own people," either with or without foreign influence, in an effort largely designed to instill fear in the government and populace. These efforts could be politically motivated or issue related (like anti-abortion terrorists). Therefore, the first challenge for America today is that domestic terrorism is not easy to combat or spot and will become more sophisticated and use technology in the future. There is only so much law enforcement and intelligence can do. The reason is that domestic terrorists are motivated by radicalization on the Internet -- in their own homes - while others still have been exposed to radical Islam by visits overseas and have returned to "the Great Satan" to carry out their grisly acts. The second challenge is that radical Islam is incompatible with United States laws. Let me begin by defining the word "radical" in this context as opposed to what I will call "traditional" Islam. www.Dictionary.com defines the word radical as: "fundamental, basic. Simply stated, this means that the behavior of Muslims is basic to and inherent in their religion. By this literal definition and understanding, it can be deduced that for "radical" Muslims obeying the laws and norms of United States life is contrary to their fundamentalist beliefs. Radical Islam is built on archaic, backward and outmoded forms of socio-economic and political practices that can only be described as primitive by today's standards. Rabid misogyny, wife beating, female genital mutilation, stoning to death of daughters and wives for fornication or for simply being in a vehicle without a male family member present or for numerous other conducts the male Muslim community perceives as in violation of strict Islamic law, strikes reasonable people as simply barbaric, outdated and, well, stupid. But radical Muslims practice these abhorrent behaviors each and every day, not in the United States, but in places where those "laws and practices" still exist like Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. And the fact that Americans condemn these acts while supporting and respecting progressive, people-centered traditional Muslims who reject these outmoded and moribund practices has generated hatred and ill will against Americans. Homegrown terrorists, the kind radicalized by this strict and warped interpretation of Islam, are driven by a dangerous brew of martyrdom, hatred for the American way of life, and the need to strike fear in the hearts of the American people. Osama bin Laden gleefully said after 9/11 that "America will never be the same." And Dr. Cornell West famously made the point that now "white people know how it feels to be a n***er in the United States." So now we hear about this is another instance of "radical Islamic terrorism." We hear the same mainstream media attempting to distance American society from the incident as not being partially responsible for the creation of such terrorists. They do not label it "Christian terrorism" when "good Christians" commit mass murder. Even while making the case for domestic terrorism the mainstream media still engages in acts of involuntary racism. Adolf Hitler was not called "a Christian terrorist" or all of those other Christians on the long list of historical terrorism. Muslims are "the face" of terrorism today but they do not have a monopoly on religious violence. So in the context of the uninformed American society still ignorant about the different forms of Islam I offer this simple explanation. It's important to point out some, though not all, of these differences between "Radical" and "Fundamentalist" Islam and Traditional Islam. Let me start from the fact that today in 2016 radicalized Islamists have killed thousands of ordinary, peace-loving traditionalist members of Islam. Most American Muslim -- 99.99 percent of them - communities are easygoing, peace loving and productive. Indeed, Central Florida is home to over 100,000 Muslims that have live in peace and harmony with other peoples, races and ethnic minorities in that community. Radical Islam focuses on Jihad, especially its external military meanings. Jihad plays a lesser, or more internal, role within mainstream Islamic thought. Not coincidentally, this leads "radical" Islam to more aggressive interpretations of Sharia Law to justify the use of force against so-called "infidels" as well as ordinary Muslims. The upshot is that "radical" Islam does not only confront the non-Muslim Western nations, its main enemy, but it also strongly criticizes and fights the perceived "hypocrisy" among fellow Muslims who govern Muslim nations and who profess to be Muslim but do not meet the "fundamentalist" expectations of pure and intense devotion to Islam, Sharia law, and archaic practices. Finally, radical Islam also differs in its history from traditional Islam in many other ways. Historically, Islam began in the 7th century and spread rapidly and is today over one billion strong. However, historians believe that the religion splintered during medieval times and again during 19th and 20th century modern periods. These splits gave rise to fundamentalist Islam that took shape in modern times is a product of a neo-modernist reinterpretation of Islam in the context of a post-colonial period dominated by western conquests and rules. In this context, radical Islam clung on to its fundamentalist practices and roots of its early origins and traditions creating a warped modern day product and phenomenon. Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) June 13, 2016: "Conservatives of the world, unite!" No doubt there is no shortage of conservatives in the world today -- ranging from Pope Francis in the Roman Catholic Church, who does not favor the use of physical violence, to radical jihadists in Islam, who do use physical violence, at times against their fellow Muslims. However, all the conservatives in the world today are not likely to unite together with one another. Whew! That's good news. Why not? "Birds of a feather flock together." But all conservatives in the world today are not the same kind of birds, even though they may all be birds, figuratively speaking. As a result, we see different flocks of birds flocking together in the world today. For example, we see certain birds of American heritage flocking together in support of the wealthy developer Donald Trump of New York, and, as mentioned, we see certain other birds of Islamic heritage flocking together in support of the Islamic State in the Middle East. Crude as this may sound, shooting and killing or wounding unarmed people trapped inside a building in Orlando, Florida, in the name of the Islamic State reminds me of the proverbial expression about shooting fish in a barrel. That's the Warrior archetype gone berserk and running amok. But why does the Warrior archetype in certain people go berserk and run amok? Welcome to the twenty-first century, eh? I want to propose a framework of thought for trying to understand why certain conservatives today may feel threatened. The American Jesuit cultural historian and theorist Walter J. Ong (1912-2003) characterizes our communications media that accentuate sound as constituting our contemporary secondary oral culture (oral culture 2.0), which he differentiates from primary oral culture (oral culture 1.0). Oral culture 2.0 is here to stay. It's not going to go away. Now, in the award-winning book Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture, and Wisdom (Norton, 2014), Darcia Narvaez in psychology at the University of Notre Dame calls our attention to our small-group hunter-gatherer ancestors who lived in oral culture 1.0. Granted, the term "small-group" is somewhat elastic. But perhaps we can liken small-group hunter-gatherers to an extended family group in terms of size. Perhaps at a much later time, our still distant human ancestors in oral culture 1.0 moved from being small-group hunter-gatherers to forming larger groups and alliances. In addition, some of our human ancestors in oral culture 1.0 moved to being farmers, thereby forming an agrarian economy. To this day, agrarian economies still exist in the world. Along with them, residual forms of oral culture 1.0 still exist in the world today -- even in parts of the world where modern capitalist economies have made inroads, and even in parts of the world today where oral culture 2.0 has made inroads. In any event, in the book The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, 2nd ed., translated from the German by Ralph Manheim (Pantheon Books, 1963), the German-born and educated Israeli psychoanalyst and Jungian theorist Erich Neumann (1905-1960) discusses manifestations of the feminine archetype in oral culture 1.0. Now, in the book Return of the Goddess (Crossroad, the naturalized American physician and Jungian theorist Edward C. Whitmont, M.D. (1912-1998), discusses manifestations of the feminine archetype in our contemporary oral culture 2.0. At the present time, this is where we stand. The communications media that accentuate sound in our contemporary oral culture 2.0 are resonating deep in the human psyche -- in the deep part of the human psyche that C. G. Jung, M.D. (1875-1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychological theorist, refers to as the collective unconscious. Now, the return of the goddess, or feminine archetype in the human psyche, may sound like a bottom-up movement involving the collective unconscious. Bottom-up imagery is not inaccurate to use to characterize this movement deep within the human psyche. Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that this movement can be deeply disturbing for many people to experience in their psyches. It can be deeply disturbing not only for conservatives to experience, but also for progressives and liberals to experience. Next, I want to explain one way to understand why this movement deep in the psyche can be disturbing to experience. What can it be disturbing? In book Compassion and Healing in Medicine and Society: On the Nature and Use of Attachment Solutions to Separation Challenges (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), widely read psychiatrist Gregory L. Fricchione, M.D., of the Harvard Medical School advances the hypothetical conceptual framework that all significant psychological processes involve separation challenges and attachment solutions. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Reprinted from The Guardian This morning, I woke up in my cell to an even more shattered and fractured world. We are lost. We are devastated. We are bewildered. We are hurt. And we are angry. I haven't been this angry since losing a soldier in my unit to an RPG attack in southeastern Baghdad during my deployment in Iraq in 2010. As a young queer kid growing up, I explored my identity through the Chicago and Washington DC club scene. As many have said, the club is our sanctuary -- a place where we find ourselves, love ourselves and find community. I can totally relate to the trauma that has afflicted our community in the wake of the shooting in Orlando. We must grieve and mourn and support each other, but in our grief and outrage we must resist any temptations to let this attack -- or any attack -- trigger anti-Muslim foreign policy, attacks on our civil liberties or as an excuse to descend into xenophobia and Islamophobia. However, an attack like this is carefully planned and executed to maximize attention by inflaming the passions of a helpless public. Because of this, the response can be more dangerous than the attack. The refrains of "safety and security" have, for many years, been used as a tool by the powerful to justify curtailing civil liberties and emboldening backlash against immigrants, Muslim people and others. Those who wish to continue campaigns of fear are prepared to cast an entire religion as hateful with no reflection on their own complicity in the many forms of violence the queer community encounters in the United States. We should not let their agendas guide our reaction to this senseless massacre. We're not sure yet what schemes might be proposed over the next few days and weeks, but we have seen how politicians have used our fear to compromise our constitution many times in the past, from extraordinary rendition (kidnapping) to enhanced interrogation (torture), from foreign intelligence surveillance courts to encryption back doors. Current proposals for hate crime laws and terrorism enhancements only take more power away from our community. We consolidate power with law enforcement only to have those same mechanisms turned against us. For example, more intense scrutiny on verification procedures in government and business have created barriers for trans people seeking documents that correctly identify their gender, causing us to be subjected to abusive and humiliating searches when traveling. Any increase in surveillance of marginalized communities for the sake of security theater have expanded the cycle of criminalization that queer people -- especially queer people of color -- are forced to navigate. Some will claim extreme measures are necessary to protect the queer and trans community. Others will erase the queer and Latin identities of the victims and instead claim that we are at war with Islam. But regardless of how the narrative is told, such policies will undoubtedly have a negative impact on our community at home and abroad. Earlier this year, the FBI sought a novel judicial backdoor to a cellphone in response to the San Bernardino attack. Such a backdoor would have potentially allowed the government to more easily target queer and trans people as well as human rights campaigners, environmentalists and anti-corporate protesters as "threats and criminals." We are not safe and secure when the government uses us as pawns to perpetrate violence against others. Our safety and security will come when we organize, love and resist together. In response to leaks and mass attacks on military bases, the FBI also sought to stifle potential whistleblowers. This Insider Threat program used my gender identity, psychological profile and history as a basis for their targeting. "Safety and security" has even been used as a justification to place a two-inch limit on the length of my hair. We should remember that we are alive. We are real flesh and blood. Apart from the fact that we are increasingly disconnected from the world by technology and politics, we are still surviving as a community. And even though we have come a long way, events like these remind us we still have a long way to go. Thoughts and prayers alone won't protect our community. We need to continue to build and support queer and trans communities and end the profiling and criminalization that so many face. We find solace and sanctuary in the club because we are so often expelled from other public spaces -- from bathrooms, from street corners, from jobs, from history. Our survival is our resistance. And our solidarity and support for the Muslim community in these coming days and months -- some of whom are queer and trans -- will lift us all up in the face of anyone seeking to further marginalize another. Progressive Content Not Found Sometimes, authors delete their progressive content after publishing. To see if the progressive content was renamed or re-published, please click here. Dot Money, A New Global Community Currency Slated to Provide a Basic Income www.DotMoney.Tv/short www.DotMoney.Cash www.GlobalCurrencyReserve.com http://www.DotMoney.Cash The Global Currency Reserve (the GCR) announced that it is formally launching the development cycle of its New Global Community Currency called "Dot Money". The currency is designed to provide a basic monthly income for all its subscribers and users without the need for taxation.Pensacola, FL, United States, June 07, 2016 -- On Monday June 6th 2016, the Global Currency Reserve (the GCR) announced that it is formally launching the development cycle of its New Global Community Currency called "Dot Money". The currency is designed to provide a basic monthly income for all its subscribers and users without the need for taxation. Dot Money is specifically engineered to stabilize the global economy, lower taxes and end poverty without redistributing wealth.In last years press release, (located at) the GCR announced its intention to launch the development of Dot Money. Over a year of research and preparation that included contacting various individuals, businesses, governments and banks around the world, has enabled the GCR to form partnerships, identify the necessary technology, and formulate the implementation plan. Dot Money aims to be a real utility that will be attractive for people to use, and inspire people to engage right from the start.As part of its launch of the development cycle, the GCR is also pleased to announce its partnership with a Canadian based technology company, ChainReactor. ChainReactor has recently begun receiving positive recognition in technical reports for its development and testing of its novel Blockchain platform. ChainReactor provides the facility to utilize existing mainstream databases such as Oracle, SAP, SQL to be integrated into Blockchains, and interoperate with other blockchain flavors.At this point in history Blockchain technology, and its body of developers, remains heavily fragmented. However, GCR is convinced that Blockchain is essential for the successful design of Dot Money. There are many Blockchain technology initiatives underway to bridge existing financial networks, hardware and software systems. The goals are transfer and settlement that is faster, less expensive and not susceptible to hackers or the failures of financial institutions. After careful evaluation of the technology being developed by many groups, the GCR has chosen to partner with Chainreactor because of its speed and versatility. Its interoperability with legacy banking systems, and its resilience in the face of cybercrime presents the opportunity to build a new generation of payments.There are numerous applications that can be built on ChainReactor, and the results will be astonishing improvements and innovations that promise to change the world incrementally, says Derick Smith, the CEO of Chainreactor. We are very excited to be involved with the development of Dot Money.Dot Money is a revolutionary solution. It is a bold economic model designed to protect the security as well as the actual value of peoples hard earned money, with the rules of the system enforced transparently on a globally distributed Blockchain network. Problems such as theft, charge-backs, corruption, hacking, institutional failures evident in todays monetary systems, including cash and electronic payments, can simply not occur with Dot Money. Its a solution that is long overdue in a world where rapid changes in the value of currencies leave so many people at risk Dot Money will act as an insurance policy against devaluation for its users.Dot Money will work just like any other currency, but with more features. It is not designed to replace any other currency, rather acting as a stabilizing force. There are attractive and profitable incentives for individuals, businesses, fund managers, banks and governments that work with Dot Money and the Global Currency Reserve. The Global Currency Reserve achieves its primary goals by creating a new financial instrument, Dot Money, which can be exchanged with other currencies within fixed price ranges. These are set by the Global Currency Reserve, with inputs from the governments of supported national currencies. In addition, there are many opportunities for currency exchanges and entrepreneurs to operate businesses that support Dot Money.Since the GCR Press Release in April 2015, response from people around the world has been very encouraging. Ordinary people from all over the world have been pre-registering for Dot Money in a free process online, and many others are helping to spread the word through social media and supportive activism. For more information go to:Dot Money is a real world implementation of the ideas put forth in the book, Dot Money by Eric Majors.Eric MajorsDot Money6847 N. 9th Ave. Ste A, #324Pensacola, FL 32504850-733-8276pr@DotMoney.Cash Systech Illinois 7002 water vapour analyser in use at Salerno University Research Centre. www.systechillinois.com www.systechillinois.com The University of Salerno was founded in 1988 and is situated in the village of Fisciano in the Irno Valley, a few miles from Salerno. With its modern campus and state-of-the art facilities, it has become one of the leading universities in Southern Italy. At the laboratories of Technology of Polymers, the Department of Industrial Engineering, research has focused on developing PLA nanocomposites with improved performance for use in food packaging applications.As a result of growing consumer awareness of environmental issues and regulatory pressure concerning waste reduction, the plastics industry is moving increasingly towards the use of natural polymers. Poly-lactic acid (PLA) is one of the most widely used biopolymers in the production of food packaging. The PLA offers physical and mechanical performances comparable to traditional thermoplastic materials and it can be processed using conventional technologies. It also provides specific properties significant to food packaging products, such as a high barrier to aromas; grease resistance; high transparency and printability. However, PLA has some performance limitations including its barrier properties to water and oxygen. This has hindered application possibilities, such as packaging for foods with a short shelf life (yoghurt pots, fresh fruit and vegetable containers, juice and water bottles).The research group at the University of Salerno aim to overcome this issue and improve the properties of the PLA by blending it with other biopolymers and through the addition of nanofillers. In evaluating the permeability of water vapour in the PLA nanocomposite films, the Research Centre at the University of Salerno have chosen the Systech Illinois 7002. This water vapour permeation analyser is capable of measuring 0.002-1000 g/m2/day. It offers quick response and consistently accurate measurements with absolute moisture measurement.This leading analytical instrument offers precision temperature, humidity and flow control providing consistent and repeatable test conditions. With a wide sample temperature range and a controllable relative humidity range it has a quick changeover from wet to dry sample runs. It has the widest measurement range in the market making it ideal for research and development permeation testing.As a global company Systech Illinois specialises in online, portable and laboratory water vapour permeation analysis equipment. With 30 years as one of the leading experts in gas and moisture measurement, Systech Illinois' application and technology knowledge provides efficient gas analysis solutions in many industry sectors worldwide.For the process industry, Systech offer a wide range of analysis solutions including measurement of water vapour, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and many other gases. In addition, Systech manufacture intrinsically safe units for use in hazardous areas.Systech Illinois is a multinational company with offices and gas analysis equipment manufacturing facilities in the UK and the U.S. Systech is very proud of its well developed and well trained workforce, which enables it to offer customers a continuing high level of service, and become known globally as a leading supplier of gas analysis instrumentation.For more information on the Systech product range please visitSystech IllinoisBeth Faulkner Phone: +44 1844 216838 (EMEA)+1 815 344 6212 (N. & S. America and Canada).Web:Systech Illinois17 Thame Park Business CentreWenman RoadThameOxfordshire IQ4I Research & Consultancy published a new report on Cell-Free DNA (cfDNA) Testing Global Market Forecast To 2022 Cell-free DNA testing refers to the non-invasive screening test used in the various fields like gynecology, oncology and transplantation to detect chromosomal abnormalities in the foetus, specific mutations in cancer patients and to detect graft rejection. This process involves collection of patients sample with cell-free DNA in different forms such as fetal DNA, circulating tumour DNA and donor derived cell-free DNA respectively using various modern sequencing techniques and software algorithms to analyze the data to give rapid and accurate results for early disease diagnosis. Cell-free DNA testing is a fast emerging market with a high growth rate, as estimated by IQ4I Research is valued $XX million in 2015 and expected to grow at a CAGR of XX% to reach $8,988 million by 2022.Increased incidences of diseases like cancer due to change in lifestyle, unhealthy food habits is expected to propel the growth of this market. Genetic abnormalities among infants are also rising across the globe because of advanced maternal age. This projected increasing incidence along with the increasing income in the developing countries and the need for safer diagnostic methods provides an opportunity for molecular diagnostics company to come up with more number of tests. On the other side there are some issues like high test cost, lack of skilled healthcare professional and ethical issues related to genetic testing are hindering the growth of cfDNA market. However, there is huge potential market for molecular diagnostic companies to come up with new tests focusing on transplantation rejection cases like lung, liver etc using cell-free DNA in coming years. Also emerging applications for cell-free DNA include infectious diseases which can revolutionize the market. For instance, Cornell investors have developed Ultrashort circulating cell-free DNA for non-invasive testing of infectious disease to pathogens such as CMV and Herpes virus.The cell-free DNA testing global market is segmented by type, into three main divisions such as non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT), circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) and donor DNA market. NIPT market holds the largest market revenue of $XX million in 2015 and expected to reach $XX million in 2022 at a CAGR of XX% and Circulating tumour DNA segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of XX% from 2015 to 2022 due to increase in early diagnosis, non-invasive test procedures, technological advancements and rising incidence of cancer. The donor DNA segment product is projected to grow at a highest CAGR of XX% from 2017 to 2022 to reach revenue of $XX million due to increasing incidence of chronic diseases along with the advancement in transplantation technology and growing awareness towards organ donation among the public.The cell-free DNA testing global market by applications is segmented into three major divisions such as gynecology, oncology and transplantation. Among these, gynecology account for XX% share and is growing strongly at a CAGR of XX%. The transplantation product is expected to launch by 2017 and is projected grow rapidly at a highest CAGR of XX% to reach $XX million by 2022.The huge potential of cell-free DNA testing market has attracted many pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms either by launching their new tests or by acquiring with other major firms. For instance in June 2016, Roche Holdings AG received U.S. FDA approval for its newly launched ctDNA test named cobas EGFR mutation test V2, first FDA-approved blood based genetic test that detect EGFR gene mutation in NSCLC patients. Roche also entered the NIPT market with the acquisition of Ariosa Diagnostics for $650 million in January 2015. In January 2016, Illumina announced the formation of a new company, GRAIL with a funding of over $100 million. The company also acquired prenatal test maker Verinata Health for $350 million in January 2013. Baltimore based Personal Genome Diagnostics raised $21 million in October 2015 to develop new tests. TAI diagnostics raised $8.2 million in October 2015 to commercialize blood test for heart transplant patients. CareDx, Inc., a molecular diagnostics company which offers high-value diagnostic surveillance solutions for transplant patients, completed acquisition of Allenex AB in April 2016 for the developments of its new donor derived cell-free DNA tests for kidney and heart transplant patients. Similarly, many academic institutes are also involved in developing new tests.Sequenom, Inc. (U.S.), Illumina, Inc. (U.S.), Natera, Inc. (U.S.), Roche Holdings AG (Switzerland), Trovagene (U.S.), Biocept, Inc. (U.S.), Personal Genome Diagnostics (U.S.), Guardant Health (U.S.), Inivata Limited (U.K.), Berry Genomics Co. Ltd (China), Laboratory Corp. Of America Holdings (U.S.), Lifecodexx AG (Germany), Quest Diagnostics (U.S.) are few major companies with their tests clinically available in cell-free DNA testing market.IQ4I (Intelligence Quotient for Innovation) Research and Consultancy Pvt. Ltd. is a global strategy, consulting and a market research firm. Our clients include leading businesses, investment banks, researchers and government agencies.We are a team of highly qualified consultants and market researchers, committed to help clients make strategic decisions by providing relevant and firmly reliable Intelligence support. We enable our clients to identify the market opportunities with best-in-class market intelligence reports.No- 11, Industrial Suburb,1st Stage, West of Chord Road,Rajaji Nagar, Bangalore - 560010 TeleMental Health Institute Forms Strategic Alliance with American Mental Health Counselors Association to Train Mental Health Counselors in Distance Counseling 11 June 2016, San Diego, CA The TeleMental Health Institute (TMHI) is pleased to announce its strategic partnership with American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA). By combining AMCHAs expertise in offering advocacy, collaboration, and continuing education in the field of mental health counseling with professional training from TMHI, AMHCA is bringing the best of all worlds to providers who want to leverage the power of technology to expand their services while assuring best practices.Through an affiliation with TMHI, AMCHA is encouraging its members to obtain professional training from the industrys leader, and doing its part to curb the irresponsible practices by professionals who might not be aware of professional and ethical guidelines to providing distance counseling.Dr. Marlene Maheu, the founder of TMHI and a pioneer in the field of telemental health, said, "We are particularly delighted to have partnered with AMCHA to bring eLearning training courses to its membership. We have respected AMCHAs pioneering work for decades, and look forward to helping them transition mental health counselors seeking to deliver distance services based on best practices. Dr. Maheu continued, we plan to be exhibiting at the AMCHA annual meeting this next July 14-16 in New Orleans,and hope that counselors join us there!The TeleMental Health Institute, Inc. is the worlds first, largest and most rigorous online telemental health training, consulting and staffing institute. It is devoted exclusively to addressing the emerging opportunities and challenges of telepsychiatry, telepsychology, distance counseling, online therapy, speech therapy and other behavioral specialties. TMHI offers convenient 24/7 internet access to 100% online courses for continuing education (CE) and continuing medical education (CME) credit for these professionals with two types of Certificate Training Programs. Topics covered by TMHI professional training include risk management and best practices of behavioral telehealth (i.e., legal, ethical, practical or technical issues of video, telephone, email, or text-messaging; choosing apps and other technologies). In addition to professional training, TMHI provides consultation and staffing for:Medical groups seeking to expand into behavioral telehealthCommunity mental health centers, addiction treatment facilities, federally qualified behavioral centers, residential treatment facilities and specialty agencies looking to serve more patientsResearch projects needing telemental health program design, standardized protocols and clinical staff trainingSmall group and independent practitioners looking to grow practices, reduce operational costs or re-locate to other statesTechnology companies searching for patient engagement, other behavioral interventions and viable partnersFor more Information about TMHI, send a note to contact@telehealth.org.The American Mental Health Counselors Association has a mission targeting the enhancement of the professions of clinical mental health counseling through advocacy, education and collaboration, AMHCAs partnership with TMHI will offer an even broader knowledge base for its members. Contact info: wmeyerhoeffer@amhca.orgThe TeleMental Health Institute, Inc. is the worlds first, largest and most rigorous online telemental health training, consulting and staffing institute.1876 Horse Creek RoadCheyenne Wyoming 82009 Keyshare will Show on the Mexicos Expo Electrica Intemacional 2016 KIMON, your stunning selfie camera Hunan Keyshare Information Co., LTD will show on the Expo Electrica Intemacional 2016 from June 14th to June 16th at Centro Banamex of Mexico, which is an influential Expo in the Latin America.As a new star of the camera drone in China, Hunan Keyshare Information Co., LTD will display samples of its camera drone and selfie drone on the No. 2222 booth of the Expo, and photography amateurs will be invited there to give live shows on how to operate and control these devices.Whether you know selfie drone and camera drone or not, this would be a good chance for you to closely get in touch with selfie drone and camera drone.The products that will be showed on the Expo include GLINT 2, Courage and KIMON. As the latest released product, KIMON is a portable selfie camera, and has cute and lovely appearance with four optional colors. It has got popular recognition for its six types of selfie modes, and functions like panorama video recording, video editing and image beautification. In addition, it also supports one-touch sharing which can help you to easily share your fantastic moments on the social media, and bring you new selfie experience.Whether you are a travel enthusiast or a selfie fan, these selfie drones really deserve your attention.Hunan Keyshare Information Technology is China company focused on globalized aerial shooting for unmanned aerial vehicle systems for many years.Recently keyshare mainly focus on researching and innovation of four rotors drones, including intelligent control and navigation, visual application, communication and network system.Hunan Keyshare Information TechnologyRoom 707-712, 7/F, Headquarters, Changsha CECSoftware Park, No.39 Jianshan Road, High-Tech IndustrialEatate,Yuelu District, Changsha City, Hunan Province, P.R.China PC. 410205Tel: +86-731-89933398 Fax: +86-731-89933398Skype keyshare_hunanEmail marketing@keyshare.com.cn Dubai Based ABC Technique FZE Signs MOU with Tunisia Economic City to Build Silicon Africa Tunisia Economic City http://abc-technique.com/2016/06/11/abc-technique-fze-signs-mou-with-tunisia-economic-city-to-build-silicon-africa/ Dubai- ABC Technique FZE and Tunisia Economic City (TEC) signed today a Memorandum of Understanding to develop the first Information Technology hub in the African continent under the name 'Silicon Africa'. The new project will be a fully integrated city within the upcoming Tunisia Economic City project on the eastern coast of Tunisia.ABC Technique FZE, an entrepreneur company specialized in IT turnkey solutions based in Dubai, will design, develop and manage along with its international partners a hub for IT 'Information Technology' and IOT 'Internet of Things' city to serve as a base for Information Technology for Tunisia Economic City, all of Tunisian country, North Africa region and later the whole of Africa.'Silicon Africa' will be built over an area of 1.6 square kilometers (1,600,000 square meters) free zone within TEC. It will host regional headquarters and offices of companies working in the IT sector, data centers, IT research and development center, IT academy and training facilities, a residential complex of smart homes and a exhibition center to showcase the latest inventions in the technology field.The MOU was signed by Mr. Nour Jabi, Managing Director of ABC Technique FZE and Dr. Riadh Khalifa Toukabri, President and Founder of Tunisia Economic City.Mr. Nour Jabi stated the new Silicon Africa City was in planning for the past several months and his team is excited and honored to be part of Tunisia Economic City mega project. 'Silicon Africa will be a smart sustainable eco-friendly city built using cutting edge technologies in design and building and will provide many inducements to its residents like free highest-speed WiFi coverage all over the city and high end utilities and public transportation system', Mr. Jabi added.Dr. Riadh Khalifa Toukabri said 'We have seen the initial plan put by ABC Technique and the vision they have for the development matched with their capability to attract prominent IT companies from all over the world and we look forward for mutual cooperation to deliver Tunisia Economic City with the Silicon Africa as an essential part of it.'Source:ABC Technique FZE is an entrepreneur company specialized in turnkey IT solutions. We are based in Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.ABC Technique FZE license no. 1977Formed pursuant to law no. 16 of 2005 with limited liabilityABC Technique FZEPostal code: G-D-Flex-G084C-THUBDTEC, Dubai Silicon OasisUnited Arab EmiratesNour J: +97155-2733301 KIMON, a Newly Released Selfie Drone KIMON is an affordab selfie drone that can take selfies of different modes and stable videos. KIMON is a new type of selfie drone produced by Hunan Keyshare Information Technology Ltd. Company. With 265mm wheelbase and retractable folding propellers, it is pretty portable. Its appearance has four optional colors and its shape is cute and lovely. Equipped with 16 MP, 4K video recording, and electronic image stabilization (EIS), it can present excellent photos and videos of high definition. It can be operated through its mobile APP, which greatly simplifies its operation, and even beginners can learn how to operate it in a short time. Besides, it provides five types of selfie model, namely, 45 beautified selfies, 360 panorama selfies, follow-up selfies, indoor selfies and standard selfies. It also has functions like panorama video recording, video editing and image beautification. In addition, it supports one-touch sharing which helps you to easily share photos or videos on social media. Anyway, as a new selfie drone, KIMON can bring you new selfie experience.Hunan Keyshare Information Technology is specialized in globalized aerial shooting for unmanned aerial vehicle systems for many years. Recently keyshare mainly focus on researching and innovation of four rotors drones, including intelligent control and navigation, visual application, communication and network system.Hunan Keyshare Information TechnologyRoom 3105, Jianwai SOHO East, Chaoyang Disitrict, Beijing, ChinaTel: +86-731-89933398 Fax: +86-731-89933398Skype keyshare_hunanEmail marketing@keyshare.com.cn Middle East Partners Take Centre Stage at InfiNet Wireless International Annual Partner Conference Dubai, United Arab Emirates June 13, 2016 - InfiNet Wireless, the global leader in fixed broadband wireless solutions for Mobile operators, Internet service providers, video surveillance and public safety solutions, recently held its 7th International Annual Partner Conference in Athens, Greece. The two-day event, which brought together more than 70 strategic partners from 24 countries including Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, was an opportunity for InfiNet to share its strategic direction and updated product roadmap with partners as well as recognize key achievers for their contributions over the past twelve months.The highlight of the conference was the announcement of a record number of new projects deployed successfully in all corners of the world, particularly in the Middle East. Notable among them were the provision of high-capacity networks for CCTV and homeland security, remote asset monitoring and management in the Oil and Gas sector, as well as rolling stock and train management. Commenting on these successes, Dmitry Okorokov, CEO, InfiNet Wireless, said, The results from this years conference show just how committed and involved our partners are in the promotion and deployment of our solutions in various countries and market sectors. Our sustainable success relies heavily on all our channel partners and were excited to continue working with them to produce the very best-in-class wireless solutions for the marketplace.The conference also provided a platform for InfiNet to share strategic updates and enable partners to further enhance their knowledge about the InfiNet solutions. Kamal Mokrani, Global Vice President shared the 2015 financial results, the highlight being the 28% year-on-year growth. Dmitry Okorokov, CEO, shared with the Athens audience the companys most recent strategic investments, specifically mentioning the doubling of headcount and the opening of a brand new production facility in Ekaterinburg, Russia, which has allowed InfiNet to increase its production floor space two-fold and implement state-of-the-art testing and measuring procedures. In his presentation, Andrey Koynov, the companys CTO, detailed the product roadmap, with greater emphasis on the companys flagship InfiLINK XG, a comprehensive family of point-to-point solutions. Following the presentations, break-out workshops were arranged in order to address specific topics such as wireless network planning, Network Management Systems and Professional Services.As part of the two-day event, InfiNet also recognized several partners for their outstanding contributions to the companys continued growth. Partners from the Middle East took home the two most coveted awards - Eurotel from Saudi Arabia was recognized as the Best International Partner of the Year and HTCs deployment of InfiNet solutions in Omans demanding oil fields was recognized as the Most Strategic Project of the YearI want to thank InfiNet Wireless for hosting such an informative, interactive and fun-filled conference. Being recognized as the Best International Partner of the Year was definitely a nice surprise and is a testament to the extremely strong relationship and the success we have shared with InfiNet in the region!, said Fouad Badawi, Director, Eurotel. Between all the investments that InfiNet is making, not only at its headquarters, but also regionally, in terms of solutions and decentralised resources, I am confident that together, we are poised for much greater success in the next few years.InfiNet Wireless is in a unique position, being one of the largest privately owned Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) development and manufacturing companies in the world. Since its foundation, InfiNet has maintained organic growth through innovation and the ability to deliver complete customer satisfaction throughout. Listening to its customers for more than 22 years, coupled with its innovative approach in research and development, have resulted in a range of advanced fixed wireless connectivity solutions that are a perfect fit for many requirements, making Infinet Wireless the natural choice for global communication corporations and governments, all of whom require uncompromised connectivity. With over 500,000 deployments from the plains of Siberia to the deserts of the Sahara, InfiNet Wireless is active in market segments that deliver Broadband Wireless Access to service providers of all types, government entities, transportation sector (including mobile and nomadic functionality) and Oil & Gas.Vernon SaldanhaProcre8Villa 41, 81D StreetUptown Mirdif, Dubai, UAE, 78835 Will KIMON the Winner in the Selfie Drone Market? KIMON, a feature-packed selfie drone The war of selfie drones is subtly on show, with varied selfie drones continuously released by different companies. But, among these products who can be the winner? KIMON deserves this with its stunning characteristics.KIMON is the newly released selfie drone by Hunan Keyshare Information Technology Co., LTD, which is specialized in globalized aerial shooting for unmanned aerial vehicle systems for many year.With 265mm wheelbase and retractable folding propellers, it is portable. Equipped with 16 MP, 4K video recording, and electronic image stabilization (EIS), it can present excellent photos and stable videos of high definition. Supporting mobilephone APP control, even novices can operate it promptly. Besides, it provides five selfie modes and functions like panorama video recording, video editing and image beautification, which will meet varied needs of selfies and recording. It also supports one-touch sharing making sharing on our social media more conveniently. As to its price, it is said it is pretty affordable though it is still undisclosed. Anyway, KIMON is worthy of attention.Hunan Keyshare Information Technology Co., LTD is a company located at Changsha of China, It is specialized in selfie drones for many years.Hunan Keyshare Information Technology Co., LTDRoom 707-712, 7/F, Headquarters, Changsha CECSoftware Park, No.39 Jianshan Road, High-Tech IndustrialEatate,Yuelu District, Changsha City, Hunan Province, P.R.China PC. 410205Tel: +86-731-89933398 Fax: +86-731-89933398Skypekeyshare_hunan eXact learning solutions releases the latest version of its LCMS Fabrizio Giorgini, of eXact learning solutions. https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1248446350037060098 www.exact-learning.com The global learning company, eXact learning solutions, is releasing a new version of its learning content management system (LCMS).This new version known as M16 includes some major upgrades and brings important changes to the Project Management area of the platform. The new version of the LCMS includes fully interactive Gantt chart software, enabling project managers to manage a project directly from the dashboard - including assigning tasks, setting deadlines and so on.M16 also features major updates to the LCMSs Online Editor. These bring the Online Editor closer the companys authoring tool, eXact learning Packager, by offering, among other things, full support for interactions, along with theme personalization.eXact learning Packager offers users HTML5 templates to make creating screens and courses merely a matter of dragging and dropping raw assets (audio, images, video and so on) into a visual tree structure representing the template.M16 also offers users enhanced graphics, including a new set of icons for greater usability, as well as the relocation of some buttons and panels for easier navigation, commented Fabrizio Giorgini, eXact learning solutions R&D Manager.To help explain the new technology involved in M16 to users and potential users of its LCMS, eXact learning solutions is staging a webinar on 29th June. The webinar is the first of the companys summer series, called eXactly on Wednesdays.Federico Dondero, of eXact learning solutions, said: While the focus of the session is on M16, the webinar eXactly on Wednesdays: M16 - will also explain some of the contemporary features of eXact learning solutions authoring tools.Those wanting to know more about M16 can attend the webinar, being held on Wednesday 29th June at 17.00 to 17.45 CET (16.00 16.45 BST, 11.00 11.45 EDT and 08.00 08.45 PDT). To register for this event, visit:About eXact learning solutionseXact learning solutions is a leading business solution provider in the field of Digital Learning Content Management. Its content lifecycle care solutions include modular and interoperable tools enabling, supporting and optimizing specific processes within a Digital Learning Content ecosystem: collaborative content creation; structured and workflow-based content management, and multiple output delivery of content in any desired format, channel, device and language, with any look & feel.The eXact learning Suite comprises a fully-fledged, enterprise-wide Learning Content Management System (eXact learning LCMS), a professional template-based authoring environment, comprising an advanced, local client application and a 100% web-based tool (eXact learning Packager and Online Editor) as well as an app to manage, deliver and track learning content through iOS and Android-based mobile devices (eXact learning Mobile). The eXact learning solutions end-to-end provisioning is completed by a set of high level professional services including consulting, training and technical support in the field of Digital Learning Content Management.eXact learning solutions is a sister company of LATTANZIO Group, a holding company based in Italy which integrates knowledge-intensive business services blending management consulting, IT services, training and e-learning, market research and communication.eXact learning solutionsPiazza della Vittoria, 11/A (16121) Genoa, ItalyPhone: +39.010.81.77.500; WebContact: Gabriele CeroniPR contact: Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, Office +44 (0)1727 860405; email press.pr@exactls.com Managing Bedford Schools Energy with the Sigma Energy Viewer http://www.teamenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Bedford-Brough-Council-Case-Study.pdf http://www.sigmaenergyviewer.net/ Schools in Bedford are being introduced to the TEAM's Sigma Energy Viewer (SEV) as part of an attempt to get them to pay less for their energy usage.Bedford Borough Council wants to raise energy and water awareness amongst schools and believes the Sigma Energy Viewer is the way forward.Samantha Guy, the council's Senior Energy and Water Technical Officer uses TEAM Sigma Software (which includes the SEV) on a daily basis to support 85 schools and academies, as well as 218 corporate buildings including offices, day centres and libraries. She said:"The Sigma Energy Viewer will help build on our relationship with schools. They will be able to see simply, at a glance how much energy and water they are using and how much it costs. We hope that the viewer will provide a useful way of accessing data quickly and easily to help discuss any queries and concerns the school might have, as well as ideas for energy saving."About the TEAM Sigma Energy ViewerThe Sigma Energy Viewer is an easy-to-use browser based software system which provides a quick overview of site and energy billing dat. The software allows large multi-site organisations, like Bedford Borough Council, to share energy data with site contacts and enable them to enter meter readings, view bills and analyse data.It not only allows for data input and analysis, but manipulation of data to report on trends in consumption. This should help managers to easily feedback to staff, governors and students alike on the progress being made on a daily, weekly monthly or yearly basis.As well as proving useful for finance/office managers, Samantha believes that the SEV could also be used by schools as an educational resource. she added"It would be great to see schools in Bedford using the Energy Viewer and the data contained within it as part of their curriculum. Not only would it provide 'real' data that could be used in subjects like Maths and Science, but it would also help to raise energy and water awareness,"Schools in Bedford account for 43% of carbon emissions from building energy use across the local authority.About Bedford Borough CouncilBedford Borough Council has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) in place with all schools in Bedford for gas and electricity, helping schools to obtain more competitive prices, as well as supporting them to resolve billing queries, validate invoices and assist with lowering energy consumption.The council has used TEAM Sigma Monitoring and Targeting software since 2010 to manage the councils utility contracts; validating and verifying bills and managing day-to-day queries with suppliers. The energy team, which is led by Samantha, process more than 500 gas and electricity invoices every month, as well as manually entering water bills every quarter. Samantha said:"We work closely with schools to help them reduce their energy use. Our ultimate aim to get them to pay less for their energy usage TEAM Sigma helps us to validate the bills on their behalf, run reports, monitor usage, collate data and query bills, as and when necessary."To find out more about how Bedford Borough Council uses TEAM Sigma Software please visitTo find out more about the Sigma Energy Viewer please visitTEAM (Energy Auditing Agency Ltd.) is the UKs leading supplier of carbon and energy management solutions. With over 500 customers in the UK and worldwide we specialise in energy management software, outsourced energy management services and energy consultancy.TEAM (Energy Auditing Agency Ltd.)34 The ForumRockingham Drive, Linford WoodMilton KeynesMK14 6LY Access-IS readers help deliver a rich design process to Altro customers Access-IS LSR116 reader installed in Altro design space Altro, the high end commercial and industrial flooring and walling manufacturer, have enhanced their customer design kiosks with the installation of an Access-IS LSR116 barcode reader. More commonly found in rail gates, airport bag-drops and car park payment machines, the LSR116 has been elegantly mounted into the new interactive design kiosks allowing for an enriched design and buying experience.The innovative design kiosk allows Altro product samples to be presented in any orientation, rooms & spaces designed and the ideas emailed. When offering a sample to the LSR116, the barcode is read in a split second; first time, every time.The customer no longer has to work hard to understand what a different texture or colour might look like, just select another sample, present it in any orientation and enjoy.The LSR116 is designed to read 2D barcodes from smartphones, tablets and paper. Its unique design with a 2D omnidirectional barcode imager ensures read reliability and high-speed performance, capturing and decoding barcodes in less than one second in any orientation.It has a small-footprint, slot-in design to enable fast, easy integration into third-party public access kiosks and gates. Furthermore, its rugged, dust and water-resistant construction with no moving parts enable it to withstand years of indoor and outdoor public access use.Commenting on the use of the LSR116, Daniel Davis, Digital Communications Manager at Altro said, We wanted a product that was easy to install, simple to use and incredibly reliable; we found all of this in the LSR116. He continued You can drop into the Altro Showroom London to work on the design of your rooms and spaces as well as collecting samples.About Access-ISAccess-IS is at the forefront of the development of innovative electronic systems specialising in image processing, RFID/NFC technology, barcode reading and specialist keyboards. Access-IS are dedicated to manufacturing innovative products designed to accurately capture and transfer information into electronic systems.Found in over 35 of the worlds largest airports, Access-IS is a world leader in the design and manufacture of technology for reading barcodes, RFID/NFC & passports/ID cards for a range of applications from check-in to boarding.Accredited to ISO9001:2008 and with a track record stretching back 30 years, Access-IS continues to guarantee the highest standards of design and quality with its dedicated Research & Development team based in the UK. The vast majority of its products are manufactured in the UK with only the highest quality materials and techniques.18 Suttons Business Park, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 1AZ, UK BATCHMASTER COLOURS KROMA PAINTS WITH SHADES ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS http://www.batchmaster.co.in/pr/kroma-paints.html http://www.batchmaster.co.in/ 'Kroma Paints selects BatchMaster ERP with SAP Business One to streamline operations and power business growth'Indore, M.P.June 09, 2016BatchMaster Software, one of the leading provider of ERP solutions to process manufacturing industries, shakes hands with Kroma Paints. They have selected BatchMaster ERP with SAP Business One to support their business operations and streamline its critical processes, including inventory and order management, finance, production, and quality control.The customer was using Tally.ERP9 software for tracking financial operations. They lacked control on manufacturing operation due to poor visibility on available raw materials and time consuming plus error prone manual paper work. Thus, they were looking for a single unified ERP software with greater manufacturing capabilities.After careful evaluation of several enterprise solutions, Kroma Paints chooses BatchMaster ERP with SAP Business One for the following reasons:Efficient inventory management that ensures visibility into stock levels along with the associated bins categorizing different materials in the warehouse.Perfect order management that centralizes all orders and process them as per excise chapter-wise heading.Real-time visibility into total cost included involved incurred including maintenance cost, labour cost, item cost, etc.Ability of maintaining the records for items under Quality Check and ability to return or hold the items in case they do not qualify QC.One single unified financial system of record and financial reporting across the entire organization.360-degree view of its multiple size production batches with their associated process cell.About Kroma PaintsEstablished in the year 1996, Kroma Paints is a distinguished organization which is betrothed in manufacturing premium quality Exterior Primer, Wood Primer, Kroma Tejas, Wooden Coating, NC Putty, etc. Situated at Ahmedabad (Gujarat, India), it is supported by a well structural and wide infrastructural unit that assists them in the processing of high quality products as per the industry set norms. The company has gained a noteworthy and dynamic position in this field.About BatchMaster SoftwareBatchMaster Software is one of the market leaders in offering enterprise software solutions for the manufacturing industries. With an in-depth industry analysis, gained through a vast industry experience with over 2000 implementations worldwide, we clearly understand the unique industry challenges. BatchMaster offers ERP solutions that supports industry specific functionalities and handles critical processes of the micro-verticals. We empower organizations streamline their operations, reduce wastage, bring down costs, increase profits, improve compliance and manage safety to keep their customers happy and satisfied.Head OfficeBatchMaster Software Pvt. Ltd.(An ISO 9001-2008 Certified Company)Brilliant SolitairePlot 6 - AOffice 201-A to 204-BScheme 78, Part-IIIndore - 452010Ph: +91-731-4008031/ 35/39Fax: +91-4008033sales@batchmaster.com Infotecs selects Rohde & Schwarz as strategic technology partner Logo Rohde & Schwarz www.rohde-schwarz.com www.ipoque.com www.infotecs.biz www.facebook.com/pages/Infotecs-Gmbh_english/400720220013566 Berlin, June 13, 2016 Infotecs a leading international security software and solutions provider announced today that it has selected Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology from Rohde & Schwarz to embed in the Infotecs Cyber Security Platform as part of its Next Generation Firewall.In keeping with its mission to provide clients with superior protection from increasingly serious Cyber Threats, Infotecs is enhancing its built in Firewall capabilities by developing a Next Generation Firewall. This will allow Infotecs clients to access the most advanced best-of-breed Next Generation Firewall capabilities available on the market within the ViPNet Security Platform. The Infotecs ViPNet Security Platform provides complete multi-layer security in one cost-effective solution. It delivers robust, rock-solid security through its modular platform which is scalable, flexible, centrally managed, easy to deploy and maintain. The ViPNet Solutions seamlessly integrate into existing networks enabling customers to achieve the right balance of high security with low complexity and low risk.Infotecs has selected the DPI technology from Rohde & Schwarzs subsidiary Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoque to form a core element of its Next Generation Firewall. Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoque is a leading vendor of IP application awareness software which enables network infrastructure and security vendors to develop products with intelligent bandwidth control, prioritized quality of service delivery and reliable network security. This deep packet inspection (DPI) controls and filters several characteristics of data packets and helps to make data traffic highly secure with the level of enterprise grade security.After extensive market research we made a strategic decision to work with the Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoque solution to provide deep packet inspection, explains Josef Waclaw, CEO of Infotecs GmbH. We found it far superior to other solutions available on the market. In addition, the team from Rohde & Schwarz was extremely knowledgeable and had a strong understanding of our needs. We are confident that the Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoque DPI technology will deliver significant value to our customers worldwide.Rohde & Schwarz also praised the cooperation with Infotecs. We are pleased to be working together with Infotecs to support their customers needs for DPI technology. Infotecs recognized experience in delivering high security solutions for major enterprise customers through their Cyber Platform means their customers will benefit from using best-of-breed DPI technology in a seamless enterprise deployment, says Sebastian Schmutzler, International Sales Manager Europe at Rohde & Schwarz.About Rohde & Schwarz and Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoque GmbHThe Rohde & Schwarz electronics group offers innovative solutions in the following business fields: test and measurement, broadcast and media, cybersecurity, secure communications, radiomonitoring and radiolocation. Founded more than 80 years ago, this independent company has an extensive sales and service network and is present in more than 70 countries. The electronics group is among the world market leaders in its established business fields. On June 30, 2015, Rohde & Schwarz had approximately 9900 employees. The group achieved a net revenue of EUR 1.83 billion in the 2014/2015 fiscal year (July to June).The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and also has strong regional hubs in Asia and the USA. R&S is a registered trademark of Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG. Visit the company page at:Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoque GmbH is a leading vendor of IP application awareness software that enables network infrastructure and security vendors to develop products with intelligent bandwidth control, prioritized quality of service delivery and reliable network security. Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoques network traffic and subscriber analytics solutions enable operators to understand traffic patterns, monetize new data services and improve the quality of experience for their subscribers. Over 200 customers in more than 60 countries across the globe rely on Rohde & Schwarz Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology to minimize equipment and operating expenditure, increase profitability and maximize user satisfaction. The DPI software from Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity ipoque GmbH is a core technology in products from Rohde & Schwarz Cybersecurity GmbH to ensure network security and protect organizations and subscribers against threats such as viruses, malware and cyber attacks. See more at:About InfotecsA pioneer of software-based VPN solutions since 1991, Infotecs developed its Peer-to-Peer ViPNet technology to deliver greater security, flexibility, and throughput than IPSec and other standards-based VPN products. ViPNet is the only VPN solution that supports true endpoint to endpoint security. More than 1,000,000 clients, offices, and servers have been securely connected with ViPNet products, backed up by an unparalleled world-class support, development, and technical team. Our solutions are designed to solve the toughest security challenges by providing superior protection that is flexible and effective. Company has a strong network of partners and actively develops its international presence having subsidiaries in Europe and Americas. Additional information on the company is available at visit:ContactInfotecs GmbHAnja MuellerMarketing & CommunicationsOberwallstr. 2410117 Berlin, GermanyPhone: +49 30 206 43 66-52anja.mueller@infotecs.bizTwitter: twitter.com/InfotecsEnglishFacebook: Mass Spectrometry Imaging (MSI) Award 2016 John Cahill and Jonathan Stauber The award ceremony was held at the Imaging MS: Present and Future of Multimodal Studies workshop at the ASMS Congress on Wednesday, June 8 in San Antonio, Texas in the presence of Vilmos Kertesz, (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility) and Raf Van de Plas (Delft, University of Technology), coordinators of the Imaging MS Interest Group.The panel of judges was chaired by ImaBiotechs CEO, Jonathan Stauber, and composed of three distinguished individuals within the MSIs community:- Pierre Chaurand, Associate Professor at the University of Montreal (Montreal, Canada)- Richard Drake, Smartstate Endowed Chair in Proteomics at Medical University of South Carolina (South Carolina, USA)- Sheerin Shahidi-Latham, Scientist and Metabolomics/Imaging MS Group Leader at Genentech (California, USA)ImaBiotech and the review committee would like to thank all of the participants for their entries and hard work. It was a pleasure to read more than thirty applications, which made it challenging for the panel of judges to ultimately select the winner for the 2016 MSI Award, commented Jonathan Stauber during the award ceremony. John Cahill PhD, the 2016 MSI Award winner, made great developments within the Van Berkel group, showing great development of micro-sampling methods allowing quantitative and micron resolution imaging technique. In 2014, John Cahill received his PhD in Analytical Chemistry at the University of California San Diego with Professor Kimberly Prather. Between 2009 and 2014 John Cahill has developed new techniques in aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometry (ATOFMS) to explore atmospheric processes, material synthesis, and biological cell characterization. Since 2014, John Cahill is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Gary J. Van Berkels department. John Cahill has developed and applied new techniques in ambient laser ablation followed by secondary ionization for use in Mass Spectrometry Imaging. Since 2011, he has written more than 17 publications in the field of MSI.ImaBiotech has developed this award three years ago in order to promote innovation in the field of Mass Spectrometry Imaging. The MSI Award recipient is awarded $5,000 for the best innovative project using MS imaging techniques (development and applications with every MS Imaging techniques such as SIMS, DESI, LAESI, MALDI).ImaBiotech is a contract research organization (CRO) that offers services in mass spectrometry imaging (MSI); along with developing and implementing new imaging technologies, such as Quantinetix and Multimaging. The main facility is located in Europe (Lille, France), with an office in North America (Cambridge, MA) and a distributor in Asia (Tokyo, Japan). In order to accelerate drug development, ImaBiotech offers Mass Spectrometry Services, such as MALDI high resolution mass spectrometry imaging to provide a cost effective solution to preclinical and clinical studies. This molecular technique is used both qualitatively and quantitatively for understanding the efficacy and toxicity of drug candidates.ImaBiotech885 avenue Eugene Avinee59120 LoosEdma Fontaine,ImaBiotechCommunication ManagerE: contact@imabiotech.comT: +33 (0) 320 164 091 Fall colors at Pittock Mansion (Stephanie Yao Long) Between 2014 and 2024, 6 out of 10 job openings in Oregon will have been created by retiring workers, according to a Monday release from the state Employment Department. The release said a total of 440,100 jobs will be created by retiring workers in that time, while another 260,200 will be created as a result of job growth. "With all the baby boomers retiring and the job growth, the future does look strong for Oregon," said Brenda Turner, an occupational economist with the Employment Department. Construction and health care are the two fastest-growing industries at 22.2 percent and 21.7 percent, respectively. Turner attributed the growth in construction to Oregon's increasing population and lack of housing. The increase in health care, however, is driven by the industry's natural growth and the aging population, the release said. The next fastest-growing industries are professional and business services with 21 percent, and leisure and hospitality with 20 percent. The information industry, which includes newspaper and book publishers, will grow 6 percent, while state and local government will grow the least. A few other highlights from the release: The Portland area and central Oregon counties, such as Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties, will record the fastest employment growth by 2024. 54 percent of job openings will require some sort of education beyond high school, but only 28 percent require a bachelor's degree or higher. Service occupations will have the most job openings by 2024 in retail and food service. The Oregon Employment Department projects long-term growth, and does not take into account the business cycle, such as the possibility of another recession. -- Natasha Rausch Zoo gorillas and parenting: I would like to say amen to Michael E. White of Brush Prairie, Washington, for his fine letter of May 31 regarding the death of the innocent gorilla. In this case, it is the fault of the "incredibly irresponsible and inexcusably negligent parents in charge of their 3-year-old boy." I hope it weighs heavily on their souls. Elizabeth Johnson Gresham * Zoo gorillas and parenting: I am writing in response to Michael E. White's May 31 letter to the editor. Recently my husband and I went to the Oregon Zoo just before 9:30 a.m. when it opened. The number of small children there was absolutely staggering! Many came on field trips with their respective preschools, elementary or middle schools, and even with a large number of chaperones, some of the kids were off and out of sight at times, because we saw them with our own eyes running hither and yon. I found Mr. White's letter simply over the top in blaming the parents of this child who fell into the gorilla exhibit. Little kids can get away from the very best parent and can find themselves in trouble way too easily and in just seconds. While my husband was getting our zoo tickets, a small girl escaped from her mother who was ahead of my husband in line and was headed toward the zoo entrance on her own. The mom had to leave the window and go get the child before being able to finish the purchase. I get that this particular girl wasn't in danger like the boy inside the Cincinnati Zoo, but for Mr. White to say about the parents, "It is they who are responsible for endangering their child, and they who are responsible for the death of an innocent gorilla. It is they who should face unmitigated civil, social and criminal consequences" -- well, Mr. White has obviously never had small children around him much, because if he had, he might be a bit more understanding and less condemning of the boy's parents. Plus, no one who wasn't actually there on the scene can nor should be judging the boy's parents or zoo staff; it is just conjecture on the part of people who want to express their outrage over what they believe happened. None of us know exactly what occurred that day if we didn't observe it in its entirety from the very start. And even then, one could be wrong. If the boy had been killed by the gorilla, would people still be expressing the same outrage? L.S. Barrett Southwest Portland Thrive 2055, in partnership with the Lyndhurst Foundation, ArtsBuild and the Southeast Tennessee Development District, is pleased to announce that Cleveland, Tennessee and Dalton, Georgia have each received funding approval for a $20,000 grant from the Lyndhurst Foundation to begin implementation of arts and culture projects in their communities. Thriving Communities was conceived by Thrive 2055 and the Lyndhurst Foundation as a way to empower citizens of the region to leverage their arts and culture assets toward community vibrancy and economic prosperity. Other participating communities are Cohutta, Murray County and Rossville, Ducktown and South Pittsburg, and Fort Payne. Cleveland and Dalton are the first to apply and receive funding approval from the Lyndhurst Foundation. The grants are the second step in the Thriving Communities process, which began in January, with an intensive design thinking crash course powered by Bridge Innovate. Volunteer teams from each community participated in the three-month course, which included high energy creative work sessions and active public engagement within their home towns. As a result of the course, all of the participants discovered untapped community arts and culture assets that could be used to energize their cities and help attract sustainable economic development. Dalton leadership asked the community to re-imagine the vacant Lee Printing property in the middle of downtown as "The Spot," a place where members of the community could get together for art, music and cultural activities. "It is amazing to see so many individual people and community groups and organizations all coming together for a common goal," said Amanda Brown, executive director of the Creative Arts Guild. "Through a community survey and a resulting tester pop-up event, our team was able to move forward with a plan to create a space to house outdoor centralized arts and cultural events confidently knowing that it is something that is desired and supported by our community at large." Cleveland plans to engage local artists to develop what will be known as "Back Alley Galleries" in underutilized downtown alleys, which will create places to host future popup events and concerts. Their vision is to use the alleys to connect and enliven Cleveland's historic downtown. "We are incredibly excited about implementing this project as way to take the first steps toward embedding the arts and culture into the fabric of our historic downtown," said Corey Divel, senior planner for the City of Cleveland. "We believe it will create a sense of place in these unique areas and encourage citizens and visitors alike to explore all downtown has to offer." Both communities will now begin implementing their ideas. All eight Thriving Communities teams will gather again in August for another training session on accessing additional resources for project implementation. "Thrive 2055 has always been about making the most of our economic opportunities while preserving what we love about our home communities," said Bridgett Massengill, executive director of Thrive 2055. "These eight vibrant and distinct communities are leading the effort to enrich the culture and heritage of our entire tristate region." By Sen. Ted Ferrioli and Rep. Mike McLane Career politicians are often accused of talking out of both sides of their mouth. After a 25-year career in politics, Gov. Kate Brown is perfecting the art of saying one thing while doing another. Gov. Brown recently reiterated that she is not taking a public stance on Initiative Petition 28, the $6 billion tax on Oregon sales that government employee unions say will fund public services (although a speciously large portion would fund raises that Gov. Brown is giving to government employees). Staying neutral is a politically convenient position, as a recent report from the nonpartisan Legislative Revenue Office cautioned that such a tax on Oregon sales, higher than any similar tax in other states, could seriously dampen Oregon's economy, cost Oregon families around $600 per year and result in over 38,000 lost private sector jobs. But despite staying "officially" silent on whether she supports or opposes the measure, Gov. Brown has taken the curious step of promoting exactly how she would spend the revenue raised from IP28 if it were to pass. Are we the only ones who think this seems hypocritical? The governor says she may still oppose the measure -- but promoting how the billions of tax dollars should be spent reveals her true stance on IP28. It just isn't politically convenient to say outright that she supports the costly measure. Curiously, she hasn't presented a plan for if the measure fails. Gov. Brown's politically convenient stance goes beyond not wanting to put herself on the line during what could be the most expensive ballot measure fight in Oregon history. Government employee unions are pushing for a new tax on Oregon sales because the Democrat-controlled Legislature has overpromised and overspent for years. Oregon's own state economist recently quipped that Democrats in Salem spent like "drunken sailors" in this year's budget. Next year, Oregon's budget faces a multibillion dollar hole from government employee raises, PERS liabilities and reduced federal subsidies for Obamacare. This threatens to dry up Oregon's coffers, leaving little left for education. This tax is nothing more than a desperate attempt by Democratic politicians to cover up the budget mess they created. We're already seeing warning signs of a slowing economy. IP28 would result in 38,000 fewer private sector jobs and, because it is a tax on Oregon sales, would cost Oregon families around $600 more each year. Ironically, this tax on sales would have the greatest impact on low-income families. Is Gov. Brown really promoting a regressive tax that hurts working families and fixed-income seniors? That is not the Oregon way. By putting the cart in front of the IP28 horse, Gov. Brown is hitching her political future to the success of this government employee union-backed measure to fix a mess politicians in her own party created, at the expense of working families, Oregon businesses and even private-sector union members. Gov. Brown should take a public stance against IP28, start looking for real solutions to Oregon's budget crisis and stop spending her time divvying up money raised from a tax she won't even publicly support. * Republican Ted Ferrioli, of John Day, is Senate minority leader. Republican Mike McLane, of Powell Butte, is House minority leader. 1signs.JPG A woman holds up a sign for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Thursday, June 2, 2016, in San Jose, Calif. (The Associated Press) By Jonathan Bernstein We're now out of nomination politics (barring any late-breaking "dump Trump" effort), and the general-election campaign is on. If there was any doubt about that, Barack Obama's endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Thursday will be the flag to start the race. What happens now? Slate's Jamelle Bouie, in referring to the veepstakes, gives a great introduction to the larger subject of what campaigns really do at this point: "I guess this is a 'hot take,' but it is a waste of resources to mobilize base voters who by definition are *already mobilized*." In one sense, presidential general-election campaigns are enormous undertakings to mobilize those most susceptible to being mobilized. Remember, most voters have barely been paying attention so far. Hillary Clinton received almost 16 million votes in primaries and caucuses, and a little more than 13 million voted for Donald Trump. Barack Obama received about 66 million votes to win in November 2012. So both Clinton and Trump need to find more than 53 million new votes. Most of those votes, fortunately for them, are easy to secure. Some will come from people who supported a different candidate for the nomination, but who always intended to support their party's eventual nominee. There are also the party loyalists who skip primary elections, but who will turn out in November. What about the rest of the electorate? Lots of people need some nudging and other help. Campaigns provide that. Voters who like candidates who talk about health care for all or equality for all, for example, may not describe themselves as dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, or even as Democrats at all. Yet they'll notice from the news coverage and paid ads that Hillary Clinton uses this language and Donald Trump doesn't. That's why electioneering efforts such as Obama's endorsement video "work": Few people will automatically do whatever the president says, even if they like him a lot, but lots of Democrats will see some or all of it and more fully associate Clinton with people and ideas they like. Voters will also be reminded of what people like themselves generally do in elections. Thus, many Christian conservatives have aligned with Trump since he won the Republican nomination, not because he supports them on policy, or because he says things they like to hear, but because Christian conservatives generally support the Republican ticket. Once a voter leans in one direction, strong cognitive biases reinforce that direction: We all tend to listen with (at least) open minds and to give the benefit of the doubt to candidates we support, and to close our minds to those we oppose, even to the extent of finding them strongly repellent by November. The ubiquity of the campaign does a lot of that work. If you oppose Trump, you can't just file that away until Election Day. He's on your TV all the time, saying those things that drive you nuts. Clinton's opponents will have the same reaction to her. Even if Democrats may not be thrilled with Clinton for any number of reasons, almost all of them will not only wind up supporting her; they will become genuinely enthusiastic - at least for the duration of the campaign season. And the same will normally be true of Republicans for the Republican nominee, and probably will wind up being true for many this year, even with Trump. This dynamic helps explain why a candidate's choice for a vice president makes so little difference. For people even marginally engaged in politics, the rest of the presidential nominee's campaign is more than sufficient to mobilize them. And those who are so estranged from politics that it takes heavy lifting for the campaigns to get them to turn out aren't going to be swayed by the choice of a running mate, because they don't really know who Senator Elizabeth Warren or Governor John Kasich is. (Only half of people polled about Warren, for example, have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of her; Kasich doesn't register that much higher. The rest haven't heard of them or don't know enough to have an opinion.) We often think of voters as making choices: watching debates to see who makes the stronger points, comparing policies to see which candidate is closer to our own preferences, assessing the likely behavior of candidates in office. But even when we feel we're making a dispassionate, logical selection, most of us, most of the time, already have a heavy thumb on the scale. So campaigns aren't about making the best arguments to convince the other side. They're about finding the best cues to teach us to vote for the candidate we "should" be voting for in the first place -- the candidate that "people like us" vote for. Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg View columnist covering U.S. politics. For more columns from Bloomberg View, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/view. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 042816-cgt-adh-Annabelle Jaramillo-ABC Annabelle Jaramillo (Andy Cripe Gazette-Times) CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) -- Benton County Commissioner Annabelle Jaramillo has pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge and has been ordered to complete a diversion program. The Corvallis Gazette-Times says Benton County Circuit Court Judge David Connell on Friday ordered the longtime commissioner to complete an approved treatment program and install an ignition interlock device on her vehicle. Jaramillo was pulled over while returning home from a campaign fundraiser on April 26. Philomath police said the commissioner registered a blood alcohol level above the legal limit. Jaramillo, who is seeking a fifth term in office, later apologized for her actions. Diversion agreements are a common way of resolving first-offense DUII cases in Oregon. If Jaramillo fulfills the terms of the agreement, the charge would be dismissed and she would not have a conviction on her record. -- The Associated Press One-hundred percent of voters in Clackamas Precinct 417 cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton during the Oregon presidential primary. That said, just four people voted in that precinct. In metro-area precincts with more than 100 votes cast, however, it was Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders who had a stronger showing on May 17. Sanders, who won the state by almost 56 percent, also appealed to more voters in Portland's inner eastside. In Multnomah Precincts 4606, 4803, 4209 and 4604, he grabbed more than 70 percent of votes. And in Multnomah Precinct 4203, in Portland's Buckman and Kerns neighborhoods, he captured 76 percent - 3,623 votes to Clinton's 1,134. Clinton had more support in the West Hills and northwest Clackamas County. In Clackamas Precinct 154 in southeast Lake Oswego, she received about 76 percent of the vote. GOP voters knew their presumptive nominee by the time they went to the polls, and Donald Trump won in nearly every precinct in the area. His victories were more dramatic in farther out areas like Clackamas Precinct 362, near Estacada, where he took nearly 78 percent of the vote. Trump was, however, weaker near central Portland and lost a few Multnomah County precincts to Ohio Gov. John Kasich. In Multnomah 3609, Kasich received almost 52 percent of votes. In Portland's Southwest Hill neighborhood, he edged out Trump with about 47 percent in Multnomah Precinct 3605. You can plug your address into our database to see how your area voted. - Talia Richman trichman@oregonian.com @TaliRichman The Bethlehem Center hosted "We Fly" the Mural Celebration with Mark Making this morning.Approximately 70 attended, including Bethlehem Center students, Alton Park residents, board members from both organizations and distinguished guests such as City Councilman Chris Anderson and Mark Siedlecki, candidate for property assessor.The Mural was installed on the side of the Bethlehem Center building and Bethlehem Center Director Reginald Smith, II, recognized the children that were a part of the mural making process.Mark Making Director Frances Macdonald spoke, along with David Meredith, program director of the Bethlehem Center, and Mr. Erskine Oglesby, Mark Making board president.Griffins Hot Dog truck was on site to make hot dogs for the crowd and a celebration followed with a worship service for everyone. playworks.jpg Playworks, established in 1996, operates on the assumption that kids learn while they play. (courtesy of PlayWorks) "Grow up and stop playing." Most of us have heard this admonishment in some form as we moved from youth to adulthood. But is it good advice? In our age of inactivity and frequent screen time, what are our kids learning from us about how to be healthy adults? Research shows that play and physical activity can have positive effects on children's health, well-being, and education; they also boost health and creativity in adults. What is the value of play? This is the focus of "Why Play Matters: Promoting Health and Creativity for Kids and Adults," a free conversation with play activists Jonathan Blasher and Tara Doherty on Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 7pm at the Tualatin Public Library, 18878 SW Martinazzi Ave., Tualatin, OR 97062. This program is hosted by the Tualatin Public Library and sponsored by Oregon Humanities. Please note: this session will include interactive play for all levels of ability. Blasher was born and raised in Eugene. He is executive director of Playworks, a Portland-based national nonprofit that transforms schools by providing play and physical activity at recess and throughout the school day. Jonathan earned his BA from University of California, Santa Cruz, and MBA from the University of Oregon. Doherty is program director at Playworks, where she has had the opportunity to see and participate in the positive transformation of hundreds of school communities through recess. She truly enjoys that play is an integral part of her work, and is always excited to share her experience with others. Through the Conversation Project, Oregon Humanities offers free programs that engage community members in thoughtful, challenging conversations about ideas critical to our daily lives and our state's future. For more information about this free community discussion, please contact Julie Wickman at 503-691-3069 or jwickman@ci.tualatin.or.us. -- Information from Washington County Cooperative Library Services Members of the Lee team say goodbye to their Liberian hosts and friends. Front row, from left, Samuel Sumo; Barbara Curran; Bishop Moses Hart, Liberian national overseer; Lori Mattace; Amy Mercer; Spencer Smith and Rachen Richarsl. Back row, from left, Bishop David Kaimue, director of the Liberian Bible Institute; Dr. Arlie Tagayuna; Dr. Carolyn Dirksen; Pastor Madia Clark; Abbigail Christopher; Georgia Wright; Dr. Murl Dirksen; and three friends from Liberia. Amy Mercer, Lee University librarian, standing, reading to a group of children at the Phebe Grey Orphanage library in Liberia. Ms. Mercer and Lori Mattace, Lee University Public Services librarian, seated, joined with other members of Lees library staff to prepare a library of 700 books for the orphanage school. A group from Lee University took a three-week trip to Liberia to bring supplies and aid to the Phebe Gray Orphanage, all of which were donated or fundraised by Lee faculty, staff, and students. Faculty and staff who traveled to Liberia included Dr. Carolyn Dirksen, Dr. Murl Dirksen, Lori Mattace, Amy Mercer and Dr. Arlie Tagayuna. Lee students on the trip included Abigail Christopher, Barbara Curran, Rachel Richards, Spencer Smith and Georgia Wright. Multiple departments across campus came together to fundraise and collect needed materials for the orphanage, which is run by the Church of God and has a school for the students. The education honor society Kappa Delta Pi, Squires Library, and the Early Learning Center collected over 700 books for the library at the orphanage school. Librarians in Lees Squires Library worked to catalogue books in a spreadsheet, while two of Lees Benevolence classes put books into plastic bags for protection from the tropical humidity. Numerous members of the faculty and staff donated suitcases to transport the books, and new textbooks have been donated for classroom use. While in Liberia, Ms. Mattace and Ms. Mercer worked to set up the library with the supplies they had brought. Amy and I had a wonderful experience in sharing the gift of books and reading with the students of the Phebe Gray Orphanage, said Ms. Mattace. The students loved the library and would stop by during their recess to look at books and listen to us read stories. Dr. Mava Wilsons computer information technology class at Lee researched and set up learning games on donated laptops which were taken to the school along with durable cases and long-life batteries. Since the orphanage has no electricity, ten solar packages were donated, each of which has the capacity to light one large room. Donated packages to provide exterior lighting were also installed at the orphanage. The College of Education faculty made 10 instructional videos to help the teachers at the school with basic teaching techniques and classroom management. A class in the COE also prepared learning games for every grade level. Dr. Tagayuna and Dr. Murl Dirksen, along with the Lee students on the trip, worked to install the solar panels and paint the buildings. They also performed community needs assessment in a local village, which involved doing focus groups with community leaders about Ebola efforts. In the past three weeks, I have gained so much appreciation of the resiliency of Liberians from children at the orphanage, said Dr. Tagayuna. Listening to their stories, around 103 of them, and witnessing their plight to recover from civil war and Ebola, I am humbled to know that they are hopeful of the future. Everyone has a special dream. I have never seen children so appreciative and celebratory as when we turned on the first solar light inside their dormitories. They are very thankful for the people who donated the solar lights that now they can study in the evening. They have so little and yet have so much love to give. Additionally, a financial donation from Mission Week fundraising at Lee was brought to help the staff at Phebe Gray as other needs arise. We were able to get mosquito nets and new bedding for every child, Dr. Carolyn Dirksen said. We also treated them all to a special meal, bought medical supplies, and provided tarps for two buildings with leaky roofs. I interviewed all the teachers at the school, and we bought basic classroom supplies for all of themthings as simple as copy books, pencils, textbooks, and maps. They were very touched to learn that the money for all these projects came from Lee students, Dr. Dirksen added. This was a remarkable campus-wide project that really made a difference. GPS rising senior Katie Brandao was selected at the Volunteer Girls States closing ceremonies to be one of two Girls Nation senators. There were 573 delegates to Girls State, and of the eight nominees for Girls Nation, three were members of the GPS Class of 2017. Anna Shaw and Iman Ali, who were also nominees, were earlier announced as best citizens in their cities by a vote of their peers. Earlier in the week, Iman was elected a county commissioner, Anna ran for governor as an independent, and McKaylyn Fults was elected mayor of Overton City. Just as the Republican and Democratic parties have delegates, GPS student Delaney Swan was a delegate for the Federalist Party and Anna was a delegate for the Nationalist Party. Katie, who was speaker of the house for the Girls State government that mirrored the Tennessee legislature, follows in the footsteps of Caroline West 16, who was selected to be a Girls Nation senator in 2015. The non-partisan leadership and citizenship training program sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary has been a proving ground for GPS students and their leadership. Katie continues a streak in which for six of the past seven years, a GPS student has been chosen for a top Girls State honor. Here is the GPS history at Girls State: Nisha Boyington 11, Girls Nation senator in 2010 Sarah Shaw 12, Girls State governor in 2011 Emma McCallie 13, Girls Nation senator in 2012 Emily You 14, Girls State governor in 2013 Caroline West 16, Girls Nation senator in 2015 All of the previous office holders listed above, in addition to several other GPS alumnae, returned to Girls State this year as junior or senior counselors. Central Michigan University will receive $19.5 million to build a new Center for Integrated Health Studies, as approved Wednesday night by state legislators. Part of the $55 billion state budget, the center will address significant student demand and expand health care expertise and services across the state especially in rural and medically underserved areas. The center will allow expansion of CMUs physical therapy, physician assistant, audiology and speech-language pathology programs, which have been at capacity for more than a decade because of space limitations. Graduates of these programs are known for nearly 100 percent first-time pass rates on national certification exams and 100 percent job placement rates, with most of the alumni choosing to remain in Michigan. The proposed renovation and addition to the Health Professions Building also will fuel collaboration among several CMU colleges to expand or add programs. Opportunities for interdisciplinary programs with the The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professions include biomedical engineering with the College of Science and Engineering and health information management with the College of Business Administration. This investment in the students of CMU will increase the health and wellness of families and communities across the state, President George E. Ross said. We thank Speaker of the House Kevin Cotter, Rep. Nancy Jenkins and Sen. Darwin Booher, co-chairs of the Joint Capital Outlay Committee, and Al Pscholka, chair of the House Appropriations Committee. Their leadership and commitment to the residents of Michigan is clear once again with the approval of this funding. The CMU Center for Integrated Health Studies will include about 62,000 square feet of space, cost about $26 million and will be located in Centrals health professions corridor. Students in the center will be part of a patient-centered medical home model, which emphasizes the teamwork needed among all health care professionals. Approved by the Senate and House, the budget awaits the endorsement of Gov. Rick Snyder. We thank the legislators and Gov. Snyder, in advance of his signature, for making the tough choices. Education is one of the most critical investments we can make to shore up the economic future and well-being of this state, its residents and businesses, said Kathy Wilbur, CMU vice president of government and external relations. SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) An Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested in Southern California on Sunday and told police he wanted to do harm to a gay pride parade an event that annually draws hundreds of thousands of people, authorities said. The early-morning arrest in Santa Monica of James Wesley Howell, 20, came just a few hours after at least 50 people were shot and killed in a gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, though authorities said they had found no evidence of a connection between the suspects. Residents called police to report suspicious behavior from Howell, who was parked facing the wrong way in a white sedan, police said. When officers arrived they saw an assault rifle sitting in Howell's passenger seat, Santa Monica police Lt. Saul Rodriguez said. That prompted them to search the whole car. They found two more assault rifles, high-capacity magazines and ammunition and a five-gallon bucket with chemicals that could be used to make an explosive device, police said. Santa Monica police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks tweeted that Howell told officers after he was arrested that he wanted to harm the gay pride event in West Hollywood that was taking place about seven miles away later Sunday. Authorities would answer no further questions on Howell or his motives. The FBI has taken over the lead of the investigation from the local police. Indiana State Police Capt. Dave Bursten referred all questions about the investigation to authorities in California. A Facebook page that is apparently Howell's is full of pictures of a white Acura like the one he was arrested in, and pictures that appear to match the photo police released of him. The page's most recent public post, from June 3, shows a photo comparing Adolf Hitler to Hillary Clinton. An anti-Clinton, pro-Bernie Sanders photo was posted in February. But it shows no enmity for gays or membership in any movement. The page says he lives in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and he went to high school in nearby Louisville, Kentucky. It says he recently left a job as a security guard, and he now works as an auditor at a company that makes air filtration products. At the scene in Santa Monica, police spent the day searching the white four-door Acura sedan still parked facing the wrong direction on a busy thoroughfare in a mostly residential area of the seaside city west of Los Angeles. There was a red plastic gas can near the car and items laid out on a white sheet next to it. Heriberto Gomez, a lifelong resident who says he watches over the neighborhood, stepped outside at 3 a.m. Sunday and saw the car in the street. Gomez said the man then ran across the street and hid in bushes and overhanging trees. It appeared the man was looking back at him. "I was looking at him for a minute, for a long minute," Gomez said. "He didn't want to come my way because he seen me standing right here." The organizers of the Pride event said in a statement before the parade that "we are heartbroken that so many of our brothers, sisters and allies were lost in this tragic attack." Organizers said the tragedy made them all the more determined to continue with plans with heightened security from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department heightened security. "Our brave founders made this happen to show the world who we are," the statement said. "We will be loud. We will be proud, and we will celebrate in honor of all those lost." Taylor Hudson drove up from San Diego to attend LA Pride with friends. He followed news of the Santa Monica arrest on social media, but he then decided to ignore his phone and focus on the festivities. "Everyone has Florida on their minds, in their hearts," Hudson said. "I just hope we don't have to worry about that kind of thing here." Carl Oliver of Los Angeles attends the parade every year. He said he cried after hearing about Orlando but never considered not coming. "This is about love," he said. "We have to show our love and unity." Photo provided On Tuesday, millions of blood donors will be recognized as part of World Blood Donor Day. During this week, Michigan Blood is celebrating blood donors by recognizing their loyal contributions to the mission of saving lives. The theme of this years World Blood Donor Day is Blood connects us all. It focuses on thanking blood donors and highlights the dimension of sharing and connection between blood donors and patients. This theme matches Michigan Bloods challenge to donors to start their own bloodline, which is the permanent connection donors make with others by donating blood. The Daily News will run a weekly Political Round-up, highlighting the campaigns of candidates for both the 98th House and 99th House races. All five candidates have been contacted and asked to submit items for the round-up. In the 98th House District, Republican Gary Glenn, R-Midland, will be facing Democratic challenger Geoff Malicoat in the Nov. 8 general election. The 99th House race will have Democrat Bryan Mielke squaring off against the winner of the Aug. 2 primary between Republicans Roger Hauck and Robin Stressman. GARY GLENN Glenn, vice chairman of the House Energy Policy Committee, will point to an award-winning first term in the state House of Representatives in asking Bay and Midland county voters to support his 2016 bid for re-election this November. Glenn in 2015 was awarded the National Right to Work Committees highest honor, the Senator Everett M. Dirksen Award, for his lifetime commitment to workplace freedom and his leadership role in enacting Right to Work laws which prohibit compulsory union membership or financial support. Glenn this session has introduced legislation to extend Right to Work protections to state troopers, police officers and firefighters, who were excluded from the 2012 law. Glenn was also named recipient of the Constitutional Alliances Badge of Honor, a national award in recognition of his legislation to protect homeowners freedom to choose whether to have so-called smart meters. In December, Glenn was named 2015 Freshman Legislator of the Year by the editor and reporters of the Michigan Information and Research Service (MIRS) and was named recipient of the 2016 Award for Conservative Excellence by the American Conservative Union. Glenn voted conservative on 94 percent of the roll call votes selected by ACU. Glenn was also presented an award by the Michigan Schools Electric Cooperative in recognition of his leadership on the House Energy Policy Committee in defending public schools freedom to buy electricity from cheaper suppliers than the states two major utilities, Consumers Energy and Detroit Edison. Bay County Schools, for example, saves $200,000 a year on electricity by using an alternative supplier, while Meridian, Midland and Pinconning schools are prohibited by an arbitrary 2008 law which capped electricity choice at 10 percent of the states energy market from accessing the same savings. Glenn has introduced legislation to allow all public schools to save money through their choice of electrical supplier. Glenn was also among legislators recognized earlier this year by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy for having a perfect attendance record in the state House in Lansing in 2015. He has maintained that perfect record throughout 2016 he has not missed any House floor votes or committee meetings despite undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in January. Glenns cancer is now in remission. Glenn has been endorsed by Right to Life of Michigan PAC, based on Glenns commitment to protecting the lives of prenatal children and his leadership in ensuring that no state tax dollars are received by Planned Parenthood, the nations largest provider of abortions. For more information on Glenns campaign: www.GaryGlenn.US. BRYAN MIELKE Mielke is a Central Michigan University graduate who obtained a bachelor of science in computer science and mathematics and a master of science. In 1991, Mielke launched DCG Inc., a company that develops software to monitor and analyze oil and gas pipelines. He serves on the Union Township Planning Commission and has served on the Union Township Economic Development Authority. In 2012, he was elected to the Union Township Board. On top of his successful business, Mielke is also happily married to his wife of 32 years, Debra, an employee of Mount Pleasant Public Schools. The couple has two daughters. I have seen through my wife the issues facing public education, and my top priority is to restore education in Michigan and better incorporate training for skilled trades. As a small-business owner, I know how important small businesses are to the growth and success of Michigans economy. I know that small businesses bring jobs to local communities, and foster economic growth on both a local and statewide level. Most importantly, I know what Michigan needs to bring good paying jobs back, and I am ready to get to work in the Legislature finding innovative ways to strengthen our state economy. The 99th District has a solid manufacturing base and a successful agricultural industry. I believe our state must do better in supporting small businesses, our farmers and working families. Our state is ranked dead last in ethics and transparency. To be able to properly fix the issues in our state we must make our state government accountable. I believe we need to pass an Anti-Corruption Act and stop the power grab by the state and restore that power to our local communities. For more information on Mielkes campaign: www.bryanmielke.com. As a nation, we can talk about illegal immigration or the economy or any number of issues that were passionate about as the country prepares to elect a new president this coming fall. After what happened this weekend in Orlando, though, were reminded once again that our countrys number one priority needs to be the safety of American citizens from domestic terror attacks. May marked the 10th anniversary of the Pure Michigan advertising campaign, which is designed to lure tourists to the Great Lake State. It is sold as a program that leads to economic development and yields more in tax revenues than it spends. But our research shows that state-funded efforts to promote tourism are a net negative. Lawmakers should defund the Pure Michigan program. The state operates a travel bureau within the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which has overseen the $261 million appropriated by the Legislature for Pure Michigan since fiscal year 2006. The campaign features advertisements about Michigan and is recognized for its television spots featuring beautiful scenery, a melodic soundtrack and voice-over work by beloved Michigan actor Tim Allen. No doubt, the commercials are beautiful and award winning. The question is, are they a net economic plus for Michigan? After analyzing 39 years worth of tourism promotion data from 48 states, we believe the answer is a resounding no. We created a national statistical model that attempts to tease out the impact if any that tourism promotion has on the industries most likely to benefit from it: accommodations (hotels and motels), arts and amusements and recreation. It found that for every $1 million in additional spending by a state on tourism promotion, there was an associated increase of $20,000 in additional economic activity shared by the entire accommodations industry in that state. That is not a typo. It is not $2 million or $200,000 in extra economic activity. It is just $20,000, or less than the price of most new cars. We also found that incomes by accommodations workers were not improved as a result of the promotional efforts. Although our model is a national one, Michigan did not differentiate itself from the average. In other words, the Legislatures decision to increase spending on Pure Michigan by $4 million (almost 14 percent) to $33 million in fiscal year 2016 should result in about $80,000 in new business for all of Michigans hotels and motels. We were unable to measure the value of additional goods or services flowing to the arts industry due to limitations in the data we got from the federal government. We were, however, able to measure a response to art incomes. Our model found that for every $1 million increase in state tourism promotion, artists shared less than an additional $35,000 in the average state. As for amusements and recreation, we found no impact there from tourism promotion spending. It probably wont surprise the reader that the MEDC has claimed that the Pure Michigan program is a success. Recently the states jobs mandarins claimed that for every $1 invested in the 2015 Pure Michigan campaign, $7.67 in additional tax revenue flowed to the state treasury alone. This claim strains credulity for several reasons. First, the method for determining Pure Michigans effectiveness is steeped in secrecy. The consultant (Longwoods International) hired by the MEDC to measure the programs return on investment refuses to precisely show how the numbers are generated. Secrecy is, at a minimum, not a scholarly quality. It is as if the MEDC were saying to lawmakers and the public, We are sure the company we paid $149,000 is right; just trust us. Second, MEDC documents obtained by the Mackinac Center show that the state agency wanted to hire Longwoods on a no-bid basis confident the consultant would produce positive results that would help justify continued funding for the program. An old Longwoods web page titled Budget Justification even bragged about its ability to help Colorado officials do just that. Lastly, the MEDC has a history of buying studies that comport with its world view. Given all of this, it does not seem unfair to question the veracity of the claims being made by the MEDC or its hired gun. The MEDC simply cannot be trusted to report claims of its own programs effectiveness. The Mackinac Centers evidence shows that state tourism promotion is an ineffective economic development tool. The Pure Michigan program should be shut down. Short of that, the metrics it claims for its successes must be examined by a party not of the MEDCs choosing. Michael Hicks is the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research and professor of economics at Ball State University. Michael LaFaive is the director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland. Hicks is an adjunct scholar at the Mackinac Center. Alaska Air National Guard Airmen assigned to the 210th Rescue Squadron (RQS) Detachment 1, Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, conduct training with an HH-60 Pave Hawk June 9, 2016, in the Joint Pacific Alaskan Range Complex. The HH-60 Pave Hawk is a modified version of the U.S. Army UH-60A Black Hawk, it's primary mission is to perform rescue operations day or night to retrieve personnel from hostile environments. Along with providing Alert support for Eielson Air Force Base the 210th RQS also provides assistance to the U.S. Coast Guard, Alaskan State Troopers, and National Park Service. Morning Pointe Senior Living and the Mid South Chapter of the Alzheimers Association welcome Matthew Kodsi, M.D., Ph.D., board-certified neurologist with Chattanooga Neurology Associates, as keynote speaker for Beyond the Diagnosis a memory care seminar. The free educational presentation will take place Thursday, June 23, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., at Morning Pointe of Chattanooga at Shallowford, at 7719 Shallowford Road, across the street from The Lantern at Morning Pointe Alzheimers Center of Excellence, Chattanooga. The general public, caregivers and local healthcare providers are invited to attend. Dr. Kodsi and a panel of experts will discuss a variety of dementia-related topics, including technology and techniques to secure the home after diagnosis, safety processes trusted by first responders, alternative therapies to help maintain and redirect a person living with dementia, and ways to get the most out of physician appointments. Morning Pointe is dedicated to supporting our families and the outside community, said Rob Pollard, regional vice president of operations at Morning Pointe. Whether it's our numerous Alzheimer's support groups across the greater Chattanooga area, or our Alzheimer's and dementia resource center located in our Chattanooga Lantern location. We strive to be there for everyone. The seminar magnifies both Morning Pointes and the Alzheimers Associations efforts to advance educational opportunities for caregivers who need assistance while faced with a dementia diagnosis. Caregivers of aging adults are frequently stressed, emotionally, financially and physically, further underscoring the need for ongoing community resources. Addressing the expanding need for aging care programs, Morning Pointes five Chattanooga area Lantern Alzheimers Center of Excellence communities feature the Meaningful Day innovative therapies designed to improve the quality of life for seniors with memory loss. The program includes SimpleC Companion an intuitive, non-drug intervention that uses touch screen applications to promote improved engagement and memory. The program also includes Cuddle Therapy, a recognized Alzheimers program that features specially created, lifelike dolls that help residents feel a sense of calmness and purpose. The assisted living and memory care provider also established a dementia resource center for caregivers and families. This partnership with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the Morning Pointe Foundation provides an electronic database for visitors to research and explore care options and educational programs to better understand memory care. "Morning Pointe is a leader in our community in providing quality senior living options and Alzheimer's care, and we are proud to partner with them to offer the memory care seminar, said Cindy Lowery, senior vice president of the Mid South Chapter of the Alzheimers Association. This event supports the mission of the Alzheimer's Association by providing a free educational opportunity for families dealing with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. Heavy hors doeuvres will be served, and door prizes will be given away at the event. Guests may RSVP at 423 296-0097. BLOOMINGTON The State Farm Mutual board of directors on Monday unanimously elected CEO Michael Tipsord to the position of board chairman, succeeding outgoing Chairman Edward B. Rust Jr. It has been a true privilege to work with Ed, Tipsord said a company statement. For over 30 years, he led our company and became the very personification of State Farm. State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said the action completes the succession plan announced a year ago when Rust's retirement as CEO was announced. Rust had remained as chairman during the transition that Supple said is going well. Michaels strong leadership, supported by the leadership team he has built, is laying a strong pathway for the continued success of this great company," said Rust. Tipsord joined State Farm in 1988. Following service in various positions, he was named vice president and assistant treasurer in 1998, vice president and treasurer in 2001, and senior vice president in 2002. He was named chief financial officer in 2004, chief operating officer in 2011 and was elected to the office of president in 2015, and succeeded Rust as CEO later that same year. Rust began his State Farm career in 1975 and is the companys longest-serving CEO and chairman, having been named CEO in 1985 and chairman in 1987. I am excited for Michael and for State Farm, and for what the future holds for our customers, said Rust. Tipsord serves on the board of directors for Navigant Consulting, and is a trustee of the Brookings Institution. He also is a member of the deans advisory board for the University Of Illinois College of Law, said the statement. An Illinois native, Tipsord earned a bachelors degree from Illinois Wesleyan University and a law degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ParkLands Foundation wins grant BLOOMINGTON ParkLands Foundation of Bloomington-Normal has received a $13,000 Community Stewardship Challenge Grant for Natural Areas from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation in Chicago. The grant will support ecological restoration and stewardship at Merwin Savanna Nature Preserve/Mackinaw River Land & Water Reserve and Mohr Preserve, both in McLean County. The ICECF grant also provides a 3-to-1 match for funds raised by PLF, up to $12,000, which will be used for the same project, and $1,000 once 100 hours of stewardship work by volunteers is reached. Mopar car show set June 25 PONTIAC The second Big M Mopar car show will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 25 behind Heller Dodge, 720 Deerfield Road, Pontiac. Entry fee is $15; all GM cars are welcome. Registration will be from 10 a.m. until noon. Trophies will be awarded to the Top 25 winners. A new addition will be two Hell Cat cars. Call 815-674-6703 or email lbdehm@yahoo.com. Food and water will be available. Net proceeds will benefit the Livingston County Humane Society medical expense fund; the society will host an adopt-a-thon at the event. BLOOMINGTON The Illinois Attorney Generals office has been asked to investigate apparent violations of the states Open Meetings Act by Health Department Administrator Walt Howe and three officers of the McLean County Board of Health, accused of conducting public business behind closed doors and via email. The request was made in a May 20 letter from McLean County States Attorney Jason Chambers, who outlined concerns over email exchanges that totaled more than 4,000 pages between Howe and board President Becky Powell, Vice-President Jane Turley and Secretary Cory Tello. The emails, obtained by The Pantagraph via a Freedom of Information request, shed light on a long-running dispute between the Board of Health and county officials over decision-making authority for the agency that deteriorated into name-calling, secret meetings and a power struggle among board members and officials. In the documents, one official is called a manipulative snake, someone who questions their plans is a cranky old bird, while the McLean County Board itself is in this power crazed whirlwind. Theres even a bit of paranoia, as Turley, who works at Illinois State University, wonders if a FOIA request is a smear campaign and Howe wonders why someone keeps postponing a scheduled meeting. In an interview with The Pantagraph, Howe said "I don't believe we ever acted knowing, thinking we were in violation of the Open Meetings Act." But Howe, who said he will be talking with the health board about plans to retire from his $112,000-a-year job, acknowledged the error in transparency. "I plead guilty on that," Howe said of the alleged Open Meetings Act (OMA) violations. In comments on behalf of the three officers, Powell said health board members "are neither lawyers nor an expert in the intricacies of the Open Meetings Act. We are true volunteers in every sense of the word who serve without compensation whatsoever." When the board learned of the issue "steps were taken to increase our knowledge regarding OMA's application to the board and to ensure compliance going forward," said Powell. Ironically, Howe advised Powell in a Jan. 16, 2015 email that "there is no Opening Meetings Act prohibition on use of email for dispensing information. It only comes under the guidelines of the OMA if the email method is used for the purpose of discussing public business. Chambers office reviewed the documents that include emails from January 2014 to May 2016, in response to a Freedom Of Information Act request from Laurie Wollrab, a former BOH member who recently resigned after she was named to the county board. He then referred the matter to Attorney General Lisa Madigans office because his office represents the health department and county government. Madigans office is now reviewing the request. Violation of the Open Meetings Act is a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail. My first duty is to the people of the state of Illinois and if I see evidence of criminal misconduct I have an obligation to report it, Chambers said in the letter. First Assistant Civil State's Attorney Don Knapp declined comment on the potential violations, noting he provides legal advice to the health board and that information is exempt from disclosure. Howe said the health board's Executive Committee, comprised of Powell, Turley and Tello, recently stopped meeting after Knapp reviewed the health board bylaws and told the board about the possible Open Meetings Act violations. As a result, "We took action to cease those meetings," said Howe, adding only two officers met with him to discuss business after Knapp's advice. Wollrab said she requested the emails because she was concerned about how the Executive Committee was conducting business outside the purview of the public. The emails include specific attempts by Howe and the three officers to circumvent the state law that requires public agencies, including committees, to conduct open meetings, Chambers stated in his letter that The Pantagraph also obtained through a FOIA request. In the letter to Assistant Attorney General David Navarro of the Public Integrity Unit, Chambers cites an example: When told that a majority of a quorum of their Executive Committee could not meet and discuss Board business without notice of the meeting being posted, they decided to rename it the Board of Health Officers rather than changing the conduct or complying with the law, Chambers said. Chambers notes Howe and the Executive Committee met on a regular basis to discuss a wide range of board matters. According to Health Department spokeswoman Lisa Slater, the committee did not keep written minutes or post public notice of its meetings, as required by the Open Meetings Act. In some of those meetings earlier this year, a plan was crafted to elect Turley as president, Tello as vice president and Cynthia Kerber as secretary. In a Jan. 28 email from Howe to Powell, who works at the Community Cancer Center, he says a March or May election would be set but I do not want it anywhere near the agenda unless we get assurance AND I MEAN ASSURANCE that we have Tello, Kerber, Turley (Kurt) Bowers, Powell and (David) Naour physically present.I dont care if I have to send staff out to pick them up, we need a majority. The email records show Howe was aware of the care needed to avoid violation of the Open Meetings Act. "I think it would be a good idea to have another meeting of the Board of Health officers" (we need to shy away from suing (sic) the term executive committee for the OMA)," Howe said in a Feb. 17, 2016 email. The Turley-Tello-Kerber slate was elected at a March 9 meeting, but a review of the vote by Chambers' office found Turley and Tello, who is retired from District 87, could not serve because they already served the maximum time allowed as officers. Chambers also ruled the election agenda was unclear and required a second vote, said Wollrab, who first raised the issue. Several changes have occurred since the state's attorney's office became involved in reviewing the operations of the health board. Judy Buchanan, a board member since August 2014, was elected May 11 as board president and two additional new members have been nominated by McLean County Board President John McIntyre to the health board: Robert Kohlase and Dr. Jim Swanson, both of Bloomington. Buchanan said she sees her new role as a challenge and an opportunity. The longtime advocate for mental health services acknowledged strife between the health board and the County Board. We will be trying to work together to be sure our image going forward is positive. The health department is a part of the county of McLean, said Buchanan. Meanwhile, Wollrab said she found the emails "insightful" and is satisfied with the changes that have occurred. "What I really wanted to see was change in leadership on the Board of Health," said Wollrab. Dead Body Pulled From Lake Michigan Near Gold Coast By Mae Rice in News on Jun 13, 2016 7:18PM Photo via Roman Boed on Flickr Updated at 2:50 p.m. with data from the Cook County Medical Examiner's office: The Chicago Police Department's marine unit pulled a dead man's body out of Lake Michigan in the Gold Coast neighborhood this morning. Police got a call about a body in the water near the 1200 block of North Lake Shore Drive, and recovered the unidentified man at about 10:48 a.m. So far, the man's age and identity are unknown, and the investigation is ongoing. This is not the first dead body to be found in Lake Michigan this year. At least eight bodies (including this man's) have been found in the lake in 2016, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. The body of a missing medical student, 28-year-old Ambrose Monye, was found in the lake in May; the body of a missing jogger, 21-year-old Jessica Suarez, found in the lake in late April. NORMAL The victims of the deadly attack inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. were remembered Sunday during the 2016 Family Reunion Picnic at Underwood Park in Normal. The 19th annual reunion was co-sponsored by the Prairie Pride Coalition and the Bloomington-Normal Chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). This picnic is usually a celebration, but this year it is a bit more muted, said PPC Board President Dave Bentlin. But its a time to get together, regardless of the situation and share with each other. The local LGBT community also is hosting a vigil for the Orlando victims at 7 p.m. Monday at the Bistro, 316 N. Main St., Bloomington. About 65 people attended the picnic. Several local religious and community leaders were invited, Bentlin said. The tragedy was on everyones mind, he added. The first reports indicated that about 20 people were killed and it didnt mention that it was a gay club, so the first reaction is that of just initial sadness and disbelief, he said. Then, as we get more information, we find out that 50 lost their lives and it was an LGBT club, but one that was also frequented by a number of people in the Latino community as well. So, not only do we grieve for our own community, but we also grieve for people of that community as well. Normal resident Bonnie Garneau said she couldnt believe the news when she heard it Sunday morning. This is Pride Month and we should be coming together and being joyful, she said. Its a shame that something like this has to overshadow it. It makes it very difficult. Gretchen Shelly, owner of Merry Maids of Bloomington-Normal, said she hopes the community can come together for those lost in the shooting. The tragedy reminds us that there is so much more work to be done, she said. But its good that we can meet and kind of mourn together. Stan Kerr of Bloomington said the incident is likely to spark the ongoing debate on gun control. The thing is that this isnt about gun control, but its about terrorism control, he said. Its a shame that something like this has to happen to innocent people. Governor Bruce Rauner ordered all flags in the state to fly at half-staff until sunset on Thursday. "It was heartbreaking to learn about the tragic massacre in Orlando, Fla.," he said in a statement released Sunday afternoon. "To target a community in celebration is deplorable. The State of Illinois stands with those in the State of Florida, and in honor of the victims, I am ordering all flags to be lowered to half-staff immediately. Please join me and Diana in praying for all those affected by this senseless tragedy. Many parents worry whenever their children engage in rough play and play fighting. Researchers from Australia, however, think that these play types are crucial in a child's development. Jennifer Hart, an associate lecturer in early childhood education from the University of the Sunshine Coast, said fake guns and toy weapons help develop children's academic and social skills, News.com.au reported. Hart said past studies have already found the benefits of playful aggression among kids, but it's still highly discouraged by parents and teachers alike. Playful Aggression Encouraging Kids To Be Serial Killers? Some parents and teachers think that playful aggression among children can be dangerous and wrong. There are parents who believe that rough play and play fighting would make their kids violent or worse -- inspire them to be serial killers. According to Hart, past generations grew up playing with toy guns and they became fully functional human beings who have stable jobs. She doesn't see the reason why kids nowadays should refrain from those types of play. Hart noted that playful aggression would help children comprehend the differences of right and wrong. She also believes that play fighting would teach kids to develop empathy, cooperation, trust, organization and resolve conflicts. Lego Products Becoming More Violent Lego, a company popular for making colorful building sets and bricks, is being accused of creating more violent toys that promote arms race. A new study conducted by researchers from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand said the company is making more violent toys so as to capture children's interest, which is oftentimes held by the internet and social media apps, BBC reported. Lego, however, defended their move. Just like Hart's belief, the firm thinks that conflict play and toy weapons help a child's development and are promoting saving the world from bad guys. Christopher Bartneck, one of the study's researchers, said Lego's products are far from being innocent and its violence went beyond "just enriching gameplay," the news outlet further reported. Lego is currently manufacturing toys that feature pop culture ensembles like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Batman and the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise films. According to the Lancashire Evening Post, toys and digital media are just following existing modern and political times. Isolating children will make them naive of the current global violence. Innocence doesn't protect kids from what's really happening all over the world, and those global events could be vital in shaping a child's development. Studies also found that children are capable of differentiating between pretend and real violence. They know that play fighting is only a tangible form of enjoyment, while real violence is perilous and disagreeable. The cop who tasered a teenager while accosting him for his license plate was sentenced to four years in prison by the Missouri federal court in early June. Officer Timothy Runnels flagged Bruce Master in 2014, but the incident led to the boy's cardiac arrest and long physical and emotional recovery after Runnels tasered him. Bryce Masters, then 17, was pulled over by Officer Runnels and was told that his car's license plate was linked to a suspect. He asked Masters to get out of the car, but the teenager instead kept asking if he was under arrest. When Bryce Masters refused to get out, Officer Runnels forcibly pulled the boy from the car as he was tasered by the cop. The footage of the tasing incident was released by the court's judge last week, per CNN. It showed that Bryce Masters screamed and then dropped to the ground. Watch sickening footage of cop tasering Bryce Masters into coma https://t.co/4wFIrhQC9A pic.twitter.com/5Cpq6YRyJ8 Cop Crisis (@copcrisis) June 7, 2016 Per Huffington Post, court records indicate that the officer tasered Bryce Masters for 20 seconds, which was four times the equivalent of what should have been a non-lethal action. Then the cop dragged the boy and dropped his head on the pavement hard before cuffing him. A loud thud could be heard in the video and the boy was visibly unresponsive. Bryce Masters suffered cardiac arrest and brain damage as a result of this incident and his mom and dad were told the boy might not come out of a coma or be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life, per The Intercept. The investigation into his case took further twists and turns as he was accused of being a drug user. The FBI later became a part of the investigation and the family believed the authorities were determined to justify the extreme use of force. Bryce Masters dad is actually also a cop. The Intercept: Bryce Masters: Tased for 23 seconds, dead for eight minutes, now facing a lifetime of recovery https://t.co/cg2qEvLXAk Matt Trevithick (@M_Trevithick) June 8, 2016 The teenager had a long and hard recovery and rehabilitation, sans lapses in memory of what really happened that day. For a time, Bryce also shut down socially and encountered sleep problems. At the back of his mind, he believed that other people might think he deserved what happened on the basis of what the public heard or saw in media reports. But the tide turned for the Masters family as their case against Offer Runnels was elevated to the grand jury in March 2015. Bryce lawyer's cited that the use of extreme force was unreasonable and the manner in which the officer dragged and dropped the teenager's body was a violation of his civil rights. As everything was recorded in the police car's dashboard camera, the officer pleads guilty for all of his actions, per Fox 4 KC. With this case behind them, Bryce Masters can finally focus on his future. His parents released a statement after the sentencing of Officer Runnels was handed down. "Two law enforcement families were devastated by these events and we all simply wish that day had never happened," the statement read in the Fox report. This year's Tony Awards ceremony is dedicated to the victims and families of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting, deemed as the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States. Hosted by James Corden, the 70th annual Tony Awards airs live at 8PM ET/PT on CBS. The 2016 #TonyAwards are dedicated to those affected by the events in Orlando. pic.twitter.com/ILNbbhxSHD The Tony Awards (@TheTonyAwards) June 12, 2016 Les Moonves, CBS' chief executive, told CNNMoney that "it's important that the show go on" and that the Broadway community is doing this to honor the victims at the gay nightclub Pulse. The cast of "Hamilton," which has bagged a whopping 16 nominations for this year's Tonys, has performed an opening number where they ditched their usual prop muskets to honor the victims of the shooting spree in Orlando, Florida. Corden began the Tony Awards with a heartfelt message. The English TV host said that the victims' "tragedy is our tragedy" and that theater is "a place where every race, creed, sexuality, and gender is equal, is embraced, and is loved," CNNMoney further reported. The Tony Awards also made special ribbons dedicated to the victims and families. It is expected that a handful of the Broadway stars will forego the customary interviews and photo ops at the red carpet. Hate Crime The 29-year-old gunman, Omar Mateen, was an American citizen with parents from Afghanistan. Mateen brought an assault rifle and a pistol into the crowded Pulse nightclub around 2AM on Sunday, killing 50 people and injured 53 others, CNN reported. He was killed by Orlando police after a three-hours standoff. In an address to the nation, President Barack Obama labeled the Orlando massacre as "an act of terror and act of hate" against the LGBT community. During his attack, Mateen reportedly called 911 and pledged allegiance to terrorist group ISIS. A dark web site connected with the ISIS news agency Amaq also posted a message claiming Mateen as an ISIS fighter. The shooting spree was condemned by several groups like the Vatican, Afghanistan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said the attack is a "hate crime" that they "condemn in the strongest possible terms," CNN reported. Call To End Gun Violence Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America has staged a demonstration outside the Beacon Theatre in New York prior to the Tony Awards and urged supporters to wear orange pieces of clothing to honor the victims in Orlando. More than 100 members of the Moms Demand Action attended the demonstration aimed to demand action on gun violence and gun control in the U.S., the group's Twitter page shared. "Teen Wolf" is currently on hiatus but fans can't help but talk about the plot of the upcoming season. According to reports, "Teen Wolf" Season 6 will not feature zombies and vampires as what previous rumors suggest. 'Teen Wolf' Season 6 To Feature Zombies And Vampires "Teen Wolf" Season 5 finale featured a Nazi werewolf and rumors have it that "Teen Wolf" Season 6 will continue the trend by showing vampires in the upcoming season. Apart from this, the last season also showed the Dread Doctors, which triggers the rumors that the next season will have zombies. MTV reported that "Teen Wolf" Season 6 might follow some of the twists and highlights from "The Walking Dead" and "The Vampire Diaries." Per MTV, the next "Teen Wolf" will feature zombies and vampires, who will serve as the new villains in the new season. No Zombies And Vampires In 'Teen Wolf' Season 6 Master Herald reported that there is no truth to reports that claimed "Teen Wolf" Season 6 will have zombies and vampires. "Teen Wolf" showrunner Jeff Davis explained that the next "Teen Wolf" season would have none of the zombies and vampires that fans talk about According to Jeff Davis, "Teen Wolf" is a TV series that highlights the different kinds of mythologies, specifically those related to shape-shifters. However, he teased that the new big bad in "Teen Wolf" Season 6 is not within the scope that fans have been accustomed to but will fall within a real mythology. Dylan O'Brien To Return In 'Teen Wolf' Season 6 Meanwhile, as for the rumors that Dylan O'Brien is not returning to the show and will be replaced, Davis said otherwise. The "Teen Wolf" showrunner explained that the actor will remain as Stiles but can't film any stunts at the time. "No, we aren't replacing Stiles. Dylan O'Brien will be back to film soon," Davis told Creative 132. In fact, they are negotiating with "The Maze Runner" producer Wes Ball to have O'Brien return in "Teen Wolf" Season 6. "He wants to film, he's in perfect condition. But he's just not doing fine enough to do any stunts," What do you think of Dylan O'Brien's return in "Teen Wolf" Season 6? Is it possible or unlikely? Should the producers add vampires and zombies in the upcoming "Teen Wolf" Season 6? Share your thoughts in the comment section below. The Kentucky Education Commissioner, Stephen Pruitt, is planning to roll out a new science test to be implemented statewide and warned the federal department to back off. The test will be issued in a pilot program in the spring of 2017 and a new accountability system will also be released for the school year 2017 to 2018. However, Pruitt pointed out that the changes he wants to make is beinng meddled by the U.S. Department of Education. The federal department wants Kentucyk to change the science test earlier but Pruitt claims it is not yet aligned with what students are learning now in the classroom, Lexington Herald Leader reported. Presently, Kentucky is giving students a science test that was previously approved by the U.S. Department of Education. However, it is not included in Kentucky's accountability system. Pruitt noted that Kentucky was given two options by the federal department, one of which is to give the old science tests or to label the scores of the students with Distinguished, Proficient, Apprentice or Novice. This idea does not sit well with Pruitt as he said that the test given now do not measure the four performance levels but it measures how students compare to other students. Aside from that, the U.S. Department of Education also wants the state to identify the lowest performing schools for the new accountability system using the data from the old accountability system. Pruitt also subjected to that noting that it is not fair to identify a school as low performing using the old accountability system then incorporate it in the upcoming new system. The latest comments of Pruitt came after he sent a letter to U.S. Education Secretary John King. Pruitt said that the federal agency's constant "constant bureaucratic tinkering, pontification and dictatorial edicts" will not affect Kentucky's new program. The No Child Left Behind program of the federal agency will be replaced with Every Student Succeeds Act. Science tests statewide require students to be tested in order to ensure that they are learning. Pruitt thinks that these tests have become merely a compliance with no value to both the parents and the students. A research team in Spain has developed the world's first exoskeleton prototype to help disabled children learn how to walk and sustain mobility. The exoskeleton comes with long support rods that adjust to the legs and torso of a child with spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA. The prototype, which weighs 26 pounds and cost $56,000 to make, was developed by the Superior Council for Scientific Research at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, teleSUR reported. The exoskeleton will be used as a mobility therapy in health centers all over the world for children with ages between three and 14. Improved Quality Of Life Elena Garcia, lead researcher at the Center for Automation and Robotics CSIC, said children with spinal muscular atrophy are diagnosed around seven to 18 months of age. Kids who have the condition are unable to walk on their own because their nerve cells located in the spinal cord don't transmit signals to their muscles, resulting to inactivity. Inactive muscles are smaller in size, a medical condition called atrophy, according to the Muscular Dystrophy Association USA. Spinal muscular atrophy is a genetic disease. It affects muscles located close to the center of the body like the shoulders, thighs, hips and upper back. Weak back muscles can lead to spinal curvatures (scoliosis and osteoporosis). The condition is the number one genetic cause of death for infants, Cure SMA wrote. Garcia noted that people with spinal muscular atrophy have higher risks of respiratory failure especially if the muscles that control breathing and swallowing are affected by the disease. Hopes Placed On Exoskeleton Device Garcia said a patient's quality of life can be improved by the exoskeleton because it can prevent or lower the risks of developing other health issues associated with spinal muscular atrophy, teleSUR further reported. The exoskeleton, which is made with aluminum and titanium and has a 5-hour battery, is equipped with a clever modifying system that adapts to each child's symptoms, according to KSLA-TV. Researchers hope that the exoskeleton could be purchased by families as early as next year depending on the funding. The exoskeleton is currently in the pre-clinical stage, but researchers aim to move it outside of hospital settings and make it available for patients so they can use it at home. Just recently, researchers from the University of Missouri developed a gene replacement therapy for spinal muscular atrophy patients with respiratory distress type 1 or SMARD1. The therapy targets motor neurons affected by the disease and improves its protein expression. SMARD1 also enhances a patient's muscle strength, SMA News Today reported. For months, rumors have been rife that Microsoft is going to release different versions of an upgraded Xbox One console. One of these is the Xbox One Slim, which has been pegged smaller and thinner than the current Xbox one. Despite its size, it would have a sharper 4k resolution that's more powerful than the old unit. Ahead of its E3 presentation, it looks like the rumors are actually true as leaked images of the Xbox One Slim or the Xbox One S made its way on the internet. The new console is described as "sleeker, slimmer and sharper." The leaked Xbox One Slim images were posted on the gaming community NeoGaf and it showed that the upcoming console will be 40 percent smaller than the original Xbox One. The new console is also shown with a 2TB storage space, as well as support for 4K video gaming and High Dynamic Range (HDR) feature. This means the unit can play virtual reality games flawlessly and with concise clarity and detail. Microsoft's new Xbox One S revealed in leaked image https://t.co/3z2E3jsafU pic.twitter.com/9r8AIvXMGi The Verge (@verge) June 12, 2016 The Xbox One Slim is also pictured as a clean white unit, including its controllers. The whole color finish adds to its sleek appearance. The Xbox One S also comes with a new stand so that it can be properly placed vertically on the shelf. Kotaku reports that the console is expected to begin shipping out in stores by August 2016. The release puts a jump ahead of the PlayStation 4 upgraded console, which Sony is reportedly also planning to come out for 4K games. The Verge reports that while Microsoft is still keeping mum, the gaming company could reveal more about the Xbox One Slim at its E3 press conference scheduled Monday, June 13. Gamers would, of course, be interested to know how much the unit would cost and what its other specifications are. For those who won't be able to attend the E3, Microsoft will be live streaming its presentation online on its official E3 site. LGBTQ Chicago Shows Sympathy And Resolve After The Orlando Massacre By Stephen Gossett in News on Jun 13, 2016 3:15PM In the wake of Sunday morning's attacks in Orlando, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, Chicago's LGBT community gathered for a vigil in Boystown Sunday night, and shared many empathetic statements and condolences via social media. Our thoughts are with those suffering from the senseless act of terror in Orlando. pic.twitter.com/530sV2romw Sidetrack Chicago (@sidetrackbar) June 12, 2016 Our prayers and thoughts go out to victims of this brutal tragedy in Florida. These cowards who attacked... https://t.co/b3NEXoiabX Hydrate Night Club (@HydrateChicago) June 12, 2016 Our hearts are heavy today. Our deepest condolences to the friends and family of victims in this horrific event. Center on Halsted (@CenteronHalsted) June 12, 2016 The Association of Latinos/as Motivating Action (ALMA Chicago) expressed sympathy and resolve in a statement: "We send the victims and their families our condolences and sympathy during this difficult time. We also send the LGBTQ community in Orlando our best thoughts as they mourn, heal and work towards moving forward. This tragic event is even more difficult to understand considering that June is Pride Month. Yet, it is clear that in spite of all the legal victories in recent years, more work rests ahead of us. While this is surely one of the most tragic events in our recent history, it represents the continued violence towards the LGBTQ community, in particular for LGBTQ people of color. Last year, over 20 trans women of color were murdered in acts of hate crime; and those numbers continue to grow this year. While for many of us in LGBTQ community, our sense of safety has been shattered because of the Orlando shooting. We must remain vigilant, we must remain united, and we must continue to work together with our allies to continue our progress." Today we mourn. Tomorrow we heal. The Gay Liberation Network called for unity and warned against scapegoating: The worst thing we could do right now is compound a horrible act of anti-LGBT hate by promoting anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant hate. To use this tragedy to promote Trump-like behavior would be despicable. It is a race to the bottom---outright bigotry---branding all people in a group, regardless of character, as the enemy. We LGBTs have recently won so many rights-with the aid of so many non-LGBTs of all faiths-that it would be unworthy of us to become haters towards any other group of people. We have in our LGBT community many Muslims and immigrants who catch it from both sides-racist Islamophobes on one side, anti-LGBT bigots on the other. We especially need to stand with them, and stand against scapegoating, period. Another Chicago vigil is planned for this evening, at the Center on Halsted (7 p.m.). Scheduled participants include Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Alderman Tom Tunney (44th Ward), Korey White (Windy City Performing Arts), Mona Noriega (Commission on Human Relations), Abdul-Malik Ryan, JD (Assistant Director, Religious Diversity and Loop Ministry, DePaul University), and Jim Bennett (Lambda Legal), among others. Monday vigil - Chicago: 7 PM at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St. Equality Illinois (@EqualityILL) June 13, 2016 A GoFundMe account created by Equality Florida continues to collect funds for victims and families here. Update, 3:45 p.m.: The Legacy Project also released a statement on Sunday, excerpted here: The threat of climate change continues to loom over us. Take for instance, Greenland's ongoing ice melt that researchers have focused their energies on to determine its possible causes. A new study is looking at arctic amplification, a phenomena that may possibly be causing Greenland's warmest winter. Using recorded effects of varying temperatures on Greenland, the researchers were able to link arctic amplification as the cause of the unusual climate being experienced by Greenland recently (via The Christian Science Monitor). As per Climate Hotmap, arctic amplification occurs when the observed temperature in the Arctic is greater than the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. It has been occuring on recent decades with the temperature in the Arctic rising dramatically, almost twice as the world's average--melting more ice than ever. Arctic amplification, according to Skeptical Science, is caused by the following: changes in cloud cover, increases in atmospheric water vapour, more atmospheric heat transport from lower latitudes and declining sea ice. A 2010 study cites sea ice decline as the primary cause of Arctic amplification. This means that the surface of the sea floor is getting warmer and warmer. Christian Science Monitor further explains the link between Arctic amplification and Greenland's melting of ice. Because of the declining sea ice, uncovered dark areas of the ocean absorb more radiation coming from the sun. As a result of the heat absorption, the sea warming continues to threaten the survival of ice in Greenland. Warmer water also intesifies speed and consistency of the jet stream. The result is a hotter air on the northernmost areas (via Christian Science Monitor). The researchers from Columbia University did not see the need to further confirm if Arctic amplification is really the cause of Greenland's ongoing ice melting. Instead, they focused on Arctic amplification itself that would eventually lead to global increase in temperature and further ice melting (via Christian Science Monitor). If ice continues to melt in Greenland, the world's largest ice sheet, global water levels would be increased by more than 20 feet. This is a serious problem that more should be aware of and in our own little ways, we can choose to be part of the solution by fighting global warming. We can join volunteer groups, plant more trees, offer vehicles for car pooling, conserve water and throw our garbage properly. Before reading this article, were you aware of arctic amplification and ice melting in Greenland? What do you think can you do to help the environment survive from global warming? Sound off your comments below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates. The Orlando massacre, which to date saw the biggest death toll involving gun violence in the US, renewed public outcry for gun control. While some saw the Orlando shooting as an issue of terrorism and others saw it as discrimination against the LGBT community, the general public is unable to ignore the issue of gun control involved. CNN cites Democratic Party Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut in the Orlando shooting as an emphasis to the need to strengthen gun control law in the country. According to Senator Murphy, responsibility lies partly on Congress for the Orlando shooting. "Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence," Senator Murphy stated. "This doesn't have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing -- again." Senator Murphy finds Democratic presidential aspirant Senator Bernie Sanders in agreement. According to Bernie Sanders, the filter for gun ownership should be redefined so that weapons do not come into the possession of those who shouldn't. CBS News reports that Connecticut's Democratic Party Senator, Richard Blumenthal, added his own appeal for stronger gun control. Richard Blumenthal highlighted the need to apply common sense in exerting gun control. Democratic Party Senator Robert Casey of Pennsylvania committed to taking the practical route, on the other hand, as a response to the Orlando shooting. According to CBS News, Robert Casey promised to push forward a bill called the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The bill seeks to prohibit gun ownership of any individual that has had prior conviction for "misdemeanor hate crime." The Hate Crimes Prevention Act adds to the current law, which already disallows convicted felons from owning guns. The alleged shooter, Omar S Mateen was reportedly under FBI watch for terrorism suspicions. Despite this, the alleged Orlando shooter was allowed to purchase weapons, which would not have happened with tighter gun control measures. As the number of Zika virus cases continue to rise, this mosquito-borne infection is now considered as a global health threat as the number of cases continues to rise. That's why the World Health Organization recently outlined its expanded list of birth defects and medical conditions associated with Zika virus. People who are infected by Zika virus don't often manifest any signs of sickness. The reason? The illness is normally mild and most of the infected individuals don't get sick enough to seek medical help or go to the hospital and deaths are rare, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes. Zika virus, however, can cause severe fetal brain defects like microcephaly during pregnancy. It is also associated with other neurological complications and Guillain-Barre syndrome. As for its symptoms, Zika virus-infected individuals can have mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache, as per WHO. But how does Zika virus affects toddlers, especially those who are ages five and below? Zika Virus On Toddlers According to Romper, toddlers have weaker immune systems compared to adults so it is every important for parents to immediately seek medical advice if they think their kids has been infected with Zika virus. Since mosquitoes also love summer, parents should amplify their efforts to protect their children from mosquito bites. But parents don't need to worry too much because Zika virus-infected kids should only manifest a mild, flu-like symptoms and scientists are developing a vaccine against the virus, BBC News reports. Signs And Symptoms Of Zika Virus On Toddlers Zika virus symptoms on toddlers are usually mild and can only last for a week. These symptoms may include: headache, skin rashes, muscle pains, conjunctivitis or redness of the eyes and fever. Recommendations For Toddlers Who Are Infected With Zika Virus As per the advice of health officials, Zika virus-infected toddlers should be given medicines like Tylenol or ibuprofen for headaches or muscle pains. Parents should also ensure that the kids will get plenty of rest but if the symptoms worsen, they should take the children to the nearest hospitals as soon as possible. WHO Urges To Delay Pregnancies In Zika Virus-Infected Areas Meanwhile, the WHO has recently urged women in Zika virus-infected areas, particularly in Latin American nations and the Caribbean to delay pregnancy. The suggestion aimed to avoid having babies with birth defects and other medical conditions linked to the virus, The New York Times learns. Unfortunately, CDC is against WHO's approach, claiming that physicians and the government should not intervene in the personal decisions made by the women or by couples. But WHO stressed delaying pregnancy may be the most ideal strategy to avoid having babies with severe brain damage since there are no Zika virus vaccines currently available and mosquito eradication campaigns appear to be not enough and ineffective. Do you think delaying pregnancy is the best way to stop the spread of Zika virus? Sound off below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates. Chicago Man Accused Of Flinging A Gun Into Lake Michigan By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jun 13, 2016 4:35PM Juan Lopez, CPD handout In the midst of a bloody weekend of local gun violence, a man was arrested for allegedly trying to get rid of a gun by throwing it into Lake Michigan. Juan M. Lopez, 23, of the 5300 block of South Sacramento Avenue, was charged with two felony counts of unlawful use of a weapon after a bike cop patrolling the Lake Front path saw him throw a handgun into the Lake Sunday evening. Lopez was near the 1400 block of South Lynn White Drive on the South Side of the lakefront when the bike patroller saw him standing with a group of people and drinking alcohol around 7:50 p.m. (drinking in public on Park District property is illegal, and people who are caught doing it usually get ticketed.) As the officer got closer, Lopez walked toward the lake, reached into his pants pocket and removed a black handgun, which the officer saw him throw into the lake, according to a police department release. The police department's Marine Unit dispatched a diver to retrieve the handgun from the water. Lopez was arrested and he is scheduled to be arraigned at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse Monday afternoon. 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 Parsons Sun office at (620) 421-2000 if you have any questions I think we all knew that while Apple appeared to win round one with the government over encryption, that the government was in this fight for the long haul and that the battle would continue behind the scenes. In March Apple's CEO rubbed salt in that wound by taking up key time in a product keynote to once again make Apple's position known about encryption. In January Apple was called to a meeting to discuss a balance between nation security and consumer privacy. Apple's CEO wasn't just against the government, he openly rebuked and chastised Loretta Lynch and the government for not standing for encryption. On June 9 the DOJ led by Loretta Lynch delivered a little payback to Apple for causing the government so much grief by being so vindictive and mean spirited in public. The DOJ decided to side with Samsung in their legal battle with Apple over patent infringement. It was truly a stunning development. Should Apple lose their case with Samsung, it would be a huge embarrassment for Apple. Exactly what the Government would like to exact upon Apple. On Friday Fortune ran a report titled "Top Prosecutor Blasts Apple and Google over 270 Encrypted Phones." Speaking at a Bloomberg legal summit, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance complained the companies have chosen to "engineer themselves out of criminal investigations," and allowed cyber-criminals to operate with impunity. He said the problem is becoming acute in America's largest city. "In my office alone, we now have 270 lawfully-seized iPhones running iOS 8 or 9 that are completely inaccessible," he said, according to a copy of his remarks. "These devices represent hundreds of real crimes that cannot be fully investigated, including cases of homicide, child sex abuse, human trafficking, assault, robbery, and yescybercrime and identity theft." Vance of course has never changed his tune and so I decided not to cover the same old ground on this issue on Friday. But then on Saturday I read a surprising report that was published on Friday titled "Pelosi: The iPhone was invented by 'federal research,' not Apple." According to the report, "House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn't believe the iPhone came into existence because of Apple or Steve Jobs. At a Democratic Platform Drafting Committee hearing on Thursday, Pelosi pulled out what seemed to be an iPhone 6S Plus and said the smartphone was built through federal research, not by Apple's or Steve Jobs' ingenuity. "Anybody here have a smartphone? In this smartphone, almost everything came from federal investments and research," Pelosi said. "GPS, created by the military, flatscreens, [LCD], digital camera, wireless data compression, research into metal alloys for strength and lightweight, voice recognition the list goes on and on They say Steve Jobs did a good idea designing it and putting it together. Federal research invented it." Essentially, the idea is that businesses and individuals find success through other people, things, and, as Pelosi says, "federal research." It's up to these businesses to give back to the government, and Pelosi believes that federal research contracts deserve just as much of limelight. Although the report noted that Pelosi has already tried to dial back the rhetoric in discrediting what Apple or Steve Jobs had done. it goes to show you how both sides of the isle are not pleased with Apple's open and ugly fight that they decided to wage. If the Democrats are angry at Apple, then you know that the grumblings echoing in Congress and the Senate could spell trouble for Apple down the road. Most understand encryption for financial products like Apple Pay and infrastructure and so forth. But on general communications, the war is still on. At least twice this past weekend I heard analysts who were ex-US security agency executives display their anger with Apple's fight with the government over encryption and saying that it was high time that new laws were put into place to force Apple to comply with warrants over unlocking iPhones. The anger appeared to be misplaced as there was no mention as to the make of the smartphone that was used by the terrorist on Sunday morning and selfies taken by the shooter that are found on the net have shown him to be using a non-Apple smartphone. Yet Sunday morning's horrific terrorist attack in Orlando Florida has once again opened a wound on the issue of encryption and round two of this debate is likely on the way. It was once thought that the issue would live or die in Washington depending on which politic party wins the election this fall but with Pelosi pounding the table against Apple on Friday, I'm not sure either party will be willing to go to bat for Apple when it comes to thumbing their nose at lawful search warrants. For now there are new dark clouds forming over Apple, though it's just a little too early to detect whether there's a light rain shower on the way or an unexpected monsoon. On a side note: Later this morning Tim Cook will take to the WWDC 2016 stage and one has to wonder if he'll say something about the terrorist attack that occurred this past weekend against a gay club. Being one of the top gay CEO's in America there's more than a strong chance that he'll have an opening statement on this tragedy - so stay tuned. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. My heart sunk when I first read the news yesterday morning. Twenty dead, shot in a gay nightclub in Orlando. Then the death toll was updatedfifty dead. The worst mass shooting in U.S. history. When I first read the news, the identity and motivations of the shooter were still unknown. Some suspected Islamic terrorism while others pointed to possible Christian terrorism. Then the shooters nameOmar Mateenwas released, and his family spoke out, and this was followed later in the day with evidence of some connection to ISIS (however slight). But the day wasnt over. Next came the news that a man had been arrested on his way to LA Pride with a car full of guns, ammunition, explosives, and camouflage gear. His identity was also initially unclear, and again there was the speculation, along with questions about a connection to the Orlando shooter. By the end of the day we learned that the man was James Howell from Indiana, but while one police spokesman stated that Howell had expressed intent to harm the event, that statement was later retracted and friends from Indiana told press that Howell is bisexual. Howells Facebook page show him to be a car and gun enthusiast (with a large arsenal) prone to anti-government conspiracy theories. What Howell intended to do with the weapons and explosives that filled his car is still unknown, but his arrest didnt make an already difficult day any easier. Ive seen a lot of evangelicals today arguing that the Orlando shooting reveals the difference between Christianity and Islamthat Christians want to help gay people while Muslims want to kill them. I think we need to think very seriously about two thingsfirst, why many people initially suspected this was an act of Christian terrorism, and second, what their calls to help gay people actually look like. And yes, Ill talk about Islam in a moment, but bear with me here. I come from an evangelical background, and its only natural that I would write about what I know. We live in a world where evangelicals have spent the last several years in a focused attempt to prevent gay people from exercising equal rights. Even today, evangelicals and others in many states are still working to prevent gay people from adopting children. But its not just that. Theres also the dehumanization, the othering, the stereotyping, the smearing. Think of the bills blocking trans bathroom access. Think of the rhetoric surrounding that issue. Ive watched, over this past year, as my LGBT friends experienced euphoria over last Junes Supreme Court decision and then ever-tightening pain over what has followed. Conservative evangelicals, and others like them, have created an extremely painful and difficult climate for LGBT people. Consider the number of trans women killed in hate crimes each year. These events may seem isolated, but they ricochet. And its not just the U.S. American evangelicals have made concentrated efforts to export their hateand yes, Im sorry, Im going to call it that because thats what it is, and again, bear with meto other countries as well. Consider Scott Lively, an American evangelical activist now on trial for crimes against humanity based on his role in Ugandas anti-gay bill, which included the death penalty for repeated homosexual acts. Lively reportedly told Ugandans that gay people were behind the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. In the United States, Lively is widely dismissed as an anti-gay firebrand and Holocaust revisionist. But in Uganda, he was presented and accepted as a leading international authority. The public persecution of LGBTQ people escalated after Livelys conference, with one local newspaper publishing the pictures and addresses of activists under the headline, Hang Them. These are the evangelicals LGBT people have been dealing with for years now, and longer. LGBT individuals have grown accustom to having conservative evangelicals work to block their rights while simultaneously creating and perpetuating stereotypes and lies about them. Theyre used to hearing evangelicals say hate the sin, love the sinner, and then watching them kick LGBT teens out of their homes and onto the streets, or worse. Many of them have grown up with this rejection. In the face of this reality, an increasing number of conservative evangelicals have been insisting that they love LGBT individuals even while continuing their efforts to change them, and continuing to call their lifestyle a perversion. These evangelicals may feel this somehow makes them good, caring, supportive individuals, but it doesnt. And now, today, I have seen many evangelicals decry the Orlando attacksmany of the same evangelicals who have spent years fighting gay rights. And I have seen some LGBT individuals respond with a stern we dont need your sympathy, nor do we want it. Not after everything theyve done. I mean what is this, really? Its as though these evangelicals are a-okay with discriminating against LGBT people and denying them equal rights, totally fine with stereotyping queer people and promoting lies about them, but draw the line at actually killing them. And were supposed to be grateful to them, thankful for how good, and kind, and forward-thinking they are? Were supposed to pat them on the back for not also wanting to kill gay people, for just wanting to deprive them of their rights and say horrible things about them? At this point I would be remiss if I didnt mention Kevin Swanson, an evangelical pastor who preaches that Gods ideal plan includes the death penalty for homosexuals. He is not the only evangelical pastor to preach this, and even as they and others may condemn extra-legal murder in the form of mass shootingsand not all dotheir insistence that death is the penalty God instituted for homosexuals only feeds opposition to gay rights and bigotry toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. Do you know what I havent seen? I havent seen the conservative evangelicals currently condemning the Orlando attack condemn Swanson, or the three Republican presidential candidates who attended a conference he put on last fall. I realize that there are many conservative evangelicals who genuinely do draw the line at death. They believe that homosexuality is a perversion and that gay people need to either remain celibate or go through some form of conversion therapy, but they do not believe that gay people should be killed. I would urge these individuals to consider why so many people at first suspected that the shooter was probably a Christian terrorist. (And no, the answer isnt anti-Christian bias.) I would urge these individuals to consider the ways in which their rhetoric helps feed a toxic climate for LGBT individuals. I would urge these individuals to consider the harm their rhetoric may cause LGBT individuals in their lives. We are all familiar with the phrase sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, and we all know it isnt true. But lets move on to another point. Orlando wasnt simply about Islamic terrorism. While the killer reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS right before the attack, the information we currently have suggests that Mateen was not a long-standing plant or a carefully honed recruit. Rather, what we currently know suggests that it was Mateens homophobia that triggered his action. We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid, and he got very angry, Mateens father, Seddique Mir Mateen, said Sunday. They were kissing each other and touching each other, and he said: Look at that. In front of my son, they are doing that.' Any narrative that tries to make this occurrence only about Islamic terrorism, without including the role homophobia (religiously based or not) played in the attack, is missing something important. I watched yesterday as a conservative evangelical friend from Orlando checked in as safe on Facebook, and I shook my head. She was not in danger. This was not simply a terrorist attack; it was also a hate crime. I can understand, though, why so many conservative evangelicals seem eager to treat this as a terrorist attack and only a terrorist attack. Focusing on Islamic terrorism rather than on homophobia gets them off the hook. It makes Islam the problem, rather than prejudice against LGBT individuals. Activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali tweeted shortly after the attack that It is time to take on Muslim homophobia. I agree. We need to take on homophobia wherever it exists. (I cant speak specifically to how Mateen came by his views or to his psychology. I doubt growing up in an American society still suffused with so much homophobia helped, though I dont have a counterfactual to compare it to.) We need to take on homophobia in churches, and in mosques, and on the streetfor homophobia is not limited to religion. Perhaps we have sometimes viewed the problem to narrowly, focusing only on homophobia in one religion or community. We have work to do. For some, taking on homophobia means taking people to task for the harm caused by their words and looking for legislative means to promote tolerance and acceptance. This is important. For others, taking on homophobia means working within Christianity, and within Islam, to fight homophobia and create inclusive religious structures. This, too, is important. Conservative evangelicals responding to the Orlando shooting need to do more than condemn Mateen and his actions. They need to evaluate the role homophobia played in this tragedy, and what this should mean for their own beliefs. They need to ask themselves, seriously, why so many LGBT individuals suspected that the shooter was likely a Christian, and why so many LGBT individuals have openly stated that they dont want evangelicals sympathy or prayers. This should be a moment of serious soul-searching for Americas Muslim populationacross the U.S., Muslim groups have rushed to condemn the attacksbut it should not be a moment of serious soul-searching for Americas Muslim population only. After all, this is not merely about Islam. It is also, and perhaps more fundamentally, about homophobia. Patna: Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Sunday announced Rs. 25,000 from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund for children rescued from child labor for their education and rehabilitative expenses. At a function to mark the World Day against Child Labor, Kumar made the above announcement while also kicking off a new online portal named 'Child Labor Tracking System', or CLTS, to keep track of all rescued children. He also entrusted Chief Secretary of Bihar to head a committee to oversee this portal and its effectiveness. "Each child that is rescued from child labor will be given Rs. 25,000. It would go directly in their bank account so they would have a sense of confidence while also acting as a motivator to never go back to illegal work force," he said. Kumar said that he would take proper initiative to open more schools in Bihar with boarding arrangements so more and more rescued children are provided proper education and prepared for real jobs once they reach adulthood. Bihar Education Minister Ashok Chowdhary, Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma, Labor Resources Minister Vijay Prakash, and Cooperative Minister Alok Mehta were among many who were present on the occasion. Collection of Persian music from 1970s released in Tehran 06/13/16 Source: Tehran Times TEHRAN -- The Treasury of the Art of Iranian Music, a collection containing solo and duet performances of Persian music recorded in the early years of the 1970s, was introduced during a ceremony held at Tehrans Aryana Gallery. Published by Tehrans Beethoven Music Center (Ava Khorshid), the collection is comprised of 12 CDs featuring performances by tar virtuoso Jalil Shahnaz (1921-2013), violin virtuoso Homayun Khorram (1930-2013) and tombak player Amir-Naser Eftetah (1935-1987). The performances feature the radifs of Iranian music, which are the total collection of more than 200 gushehs (traditional melodic motifs) in all 12 dastgahs. The ceremony was attended by musicians, critics, actors and officials including Reza Kianian, Pari Maleki, Hamidreza Nurbakhsh and Deputy Culture Minister for Artistic Affairs Ali Moradkhani, the Persian service of Honaronline reported on Sunday. Critic Alireza Miralinaqi called the collection worthwhile and significant, produced after many years and said, This collection takes us to the time when creative musicians were good at improvising. The musicians enjoyed innovation and creativity in their works and this collection is one of the best of its kind. Musician Fereydun Shahbazian expressed his opinion on the recent album and said, In these albums, the best musicians have performed. The package enjoys a very good and attractive design and contains brochures both in English and French. He added, Today a mixture of different types of music is offered to people but no organization or foundation takes the responsibility to offer good, original music and it is only the duty of the musicians to take actions. It is the duty of musicians to preserve the art and culture of their country and love people and life and help their country improve, he stated, adding that a new center like the music organization of the country is needed to be established to cover all the musicians and their activities in the country. In his brief remarks, Director of the Beethoven Music Center Babak Chamanara also said that the collection has been produced to make music more popular among the people. Most albums on radifs available in the market are not complete, and they somehow focus on the teaching side of a radif, but this may be the only collection that will allow listeners to enjoy Iranian music while listening to Iranian radifs, he had previously said. Virginia Civil Rights Activist Strives to Bring Diversity to Democratic National Committee 06/13/16 Source: NIAC Action For Yasmine Taeb, coming to the United States from Iran exposed her to the harsh challenges of immigrant life and sparked a desire to advocate for those in similar situations. As a human rights and civil liberties activist, Taeb hopes that she can bring a unique perspective to politics by serving as a member of the Democratic National Committee. She is running for one of Virginias five DNC seats. Yasmine Taeb During the Iran-Iraq War, Taeb fled Iran with her mother, sister and two brothers, with the intention of joining her father in the United States. They embarked on what became a long and perilous journey. After travelling from Turkey to Mexico, Taebs mother hired a smuggler to bring them across the border, but the trip ended in disaster. We were terrified of being caught and then I realized that my nine-year-old sister, along with one of the smugglers was caught by U.S. authorities, Taeb said. We then heard a loud voice coming from one of the choppers informing us that we had to come out of hiding. The next thing I remember is seeing my sister in a van with tears running down her face. This experience shaped the course of Taebs life. It made me politically conscious at a very young age, she said. I wanted to do what I could to help foster a world where people did not have to go through what my family did. I became interested in politics, in particular policy advocacy and affecting the policy-making process. Taeb currently serves as Legislative Representative for Human Rights and Civil Liberties at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker lobby in the public interest. She has also worked for the Center for American Progress, Arab American Institute and serves as a Commissioner on the Arlington County Human Rights Commission. Taeb has been endorsed by 29 current and former Virginia elected officials, as well as over 50 community and party leaders. If elected, she will become the first Iranian American ever elected to the DNC from Virginia. The election will take place at the Democratic Party of Virginia convention on June 18 in Richmond, where more than 1,700 delegates will vote. The DNC determines the Democratic Partys platform, the rules and procedures for presidential caucuses and primaries, and coordinates strategies for Democratic candidates. According to Taeb, The DNC is a vital institution that deeply affects the future of the country and the lives of all Americans. The more diverse and inclusive the DNC is, the more the Democratic Party will be representative of all communities. Strengthening the voice of the Iranian-American community is particularly important to Taeb. I want Iranian-Americans to have a voice politically and to be a key constituency group, and having a presence in the DNC is critical to that cause. she said. Enhancing Iranian Americans presence in politics would help address issues like the recent changes to the Visa Waiver Program, which Taeb says have greatly disturbed her. It is outrageous that the U.S. government now requires visas from citizens of the countries the U.S. had a visa-free travel with who are dual nationals of Iran or who have traveled to Iran, she said. This is explicitly discriminatory and I personally have done significant work in my capacity as a lobbyist for FCNL to repeal this law. For much of her professional life, Taeb has worked on civil and human rights issues. Taeb believes that equality is critical to advancing prosperity. I think everyone deserves a shot at becoming the best version of themselves they can be, and for that we need a more just and egalitarian society, she said. Taeb has championed immigrant rights and has actively worked to include communities of color in the political process. As a country, we should strive to set an example in the international community and welcome immigrants and displaced people ... Its what America was founded on and what helped make this country what it is, Taeb said. My own background as an immigrant who for years was undocumented is what ingrained an interest in me on these issues. I strive to be a voice for the people whose shoes I was once in and for marginalized people in general whose voices are often ignored by those in power, she added. If youre interested in learning more about Yasmines campaign, visit www.yasminetaeb.com. To get involved, fill out this form to sign up to help make phone calls to voters. This is the fourth of many profiles in a series highlighting civically engaged Iranian Americans, as part of NIAC Actions Beshkan the Vote campaign. File-encrypting ransomware programs have become one of the biggest threats to corporate networks worldwide and are constantly evolving by adding increasingly sophisticated detection-evasion and propagation techniques. In a world where any self-respecting malware author makes sure that his creations bypass antivirus detection before releasing them, enterprise security teams are forced to focus on improving their response times to infections rather than trying to prevent them all, which is likely to be a losing game. Exabeam, a provider of user and entity behavior analytics, believes that machine-learning algorithms can significantly improve ransomware detection and reaction time, preventing such programs from spreading inside the network and affecting a larger number of systems. Because the decryption price asked by ransomware authors is calculated per system, isolating affected computers as soon as possible is critical. Only last week the University of Calgary announced that it paid 20,000 Canadian dollars (around US$15,600) to ransomware authors to get the decryption keys for multiple systems. Exabeams Analytics for Ransomware, a new product that was announced today, uses the companys existing behavior analytics technology to detect ransomware infections shortly after they occur. The product uses data from a companys existing logs to build behavior profiles for computers and users. This allows it to detect previously unknown ransomware without pre-existing detection signatures by analyzing anomalies in the file and document behavior of employees. To avoid false positive detections, the technology flags incidents as ransomware when the combined risk score of multiple suspicious activities that could indicate this type of threat reaches a certain threshold. Exabeams security research team is helping train the product in a laboratory by executing a very large number of ransomware samples on test computers and letting it observe their behavior in order to build threat models. Exabeam Exabeam builds a threat score based on behavioural anomalies. The product does not have blocking capabilities itself and is intended to be used by a companys security analysts to quickly spot and respond to security incidents. It is available as an add-on to the companys larger analytics platform, which can already detect violations of internal company security policies. Even though theres no built-in threat neutralization functionality, the platform can integrate with other security tools and allow analysts to create administrative scripts that are executed automatically when an incident is detected for example, to immediately isolate an infected computer from the rest of the network. Ransomware is typically distributed through drive-by download attacks and phishing emails, which means that computers are affected one-by-one, based on users actions. However, in a corporate setting, ransomware can easily spread beyond a single computer by affecting files on document-sharing servers and other collaboration services used by employees. Recently, some ransomware programs even gained worm-like, self-spreading capabilities. Once such threat is called ZCrypt and it copies itself to external USB drives, from where its executed via rogue autorun.inf files. By running a very large number of ransomware samples in a laboratory environment, the Exabeam researchers have also observed some interesting trends: for example, a recent increase in the ransom price. Two or three months ago most ransom values were between 0.4 and 1 bitcoin, said Barry Shteiman, the head of threat research at Exabeam. That changed over the past month, the price now being between 2 and 5 bitcoins. This could also be driven by the fact that many ransomware authors are now focused on targeting businesses, and companies are willing and able to pay more than consumers in order to recover critical business files. Another interesting observation is that no new ransomware installer remains functional for more than a day. This indicates that ransomware campaigns are changing every day, Shteiman said. Its like their creators work in DevOps mode, releasing new code to their spamming partners every day. McDonald's Is Moving Headquarters To Chicago's West Loop By Mae Rice in News on Jun 13, 2016 6:19PM Photo via Mike Mozart on Flickr International Egg McMuffin powerhouse McDonald's is moving its headquarters to Chicago, the company announced Monday. McDonald's has signed a lease in the West Loop, at 1045 W. Randolph St., and the company to have fully relocated its Oak Brook, IL headquarters to the new building by spring of 2018. McDonald's CEO, Steve Easterbrook, said in a statement that the "world-class environment" of Chicago would help the company by, among other things, "ensuring great talent is excited about where they work." (Subtext: No one liked working in Oak Brook.) The move will kick off McDonald's second stint in Chicago. The company was also headquartered here from 1955 through 1971; hence Mayor Rahm Emanuel's statement, which began "McDonald's, welcome back to sweet home Chicago." I'm proud to welcome [McDonald's] to our dynamic city, and proud that their new headquarters will be part of the growing West Loop dynamo," Rahm continued, concluding, extremely thirstily, "I can't wait to break ground and cut the ribbon. Okay, dude. So far, plans for the West Loop sitewhich once housed Oprah's Harpo Studiosinclude offices and one of McDonald's seven talent development centers worldwide, all of which are called Hamburger Universities. VMware wants to help companies get a better handle on the security of the computers their employees use. The new TrustPoint product the company announced Monday uses software to make it possible to track and manage computers easily and quickly, without taking up a whole bunch of data. First off, the software allows companies to detect what devices are on their networks, along with which ones are being managed by IT. That helps businesses understand if they have machines operating outside the reach of their security systems, which could be a problem for protecting company data. In addition, businesses will also be able to use TrustPoint to handle operating system imaging with VMwares technology, so its easier for them to patch systems that are managed with TrustPoint. Its all part of VMwares ongoing push to play in the market of enterprise endpoint management, which has proven increasingly popular as employees are bringing their own devices to work and security threats have intensified. TrustPoint is powered by technology from Tanium, a company that specializes in the sort of detection work thats part of what makes TrustPoint special. In addition to detecting unmanaged devices, TrustPoint can then block those devices from connecting to company networks, so they dont get access to key data. Computers running TrustPoint actually communicate with other devices near them that are running the software, so that its possible for a group of computers to all get a software update by having pieces of it pushed to several different devices using TrustPoint. Once the pieces of the update have been downloaded, TrustPoint can coordinate the transfer of information between computers so that each one gets a complete update. Thats useful in situations where administrators dont want to have each device trying to download hundreds of megabytes if not gigabytes of software whenever theyre supposed to run a software update. That approach can be taxing on network resources, which could gum up operations in other ways. VMware has said that TrustPoint is particularly well-suited to rolling out Windows 10, something more and more companies are gearing up for. As part of that, the system can actually upgrade a device with a consumer Windows 10 license to Windows 10 Enterprise, so people can use other administration tools to manage it, too. In addition to the launch of TrustPoint, VMware also announced updates to its Workspace One endpoint management software. The key new feature is onbe that lets users install business apps and have them still be managed without the enterprise requiring full mobile device management features like remote wipe and passcode reset functionality. What that means is that privacy-conscious folks might be able to get access to their work email on a smartphone thats not wholly controlled by IT. Meanwhile, IT still gets management controls to keep business data under wraps. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella just weighed in on why the company decided to buy LinkedIn for a whopping $26.2 billion in cashand no, it had nothing to do with spam email. For Microsoft, buying LinkedIn is all about combining social connections (LinkedIn) with a productivity-focused cloud (Office 365 and Dynamics CRM). Or, as Microsoft said in its graphic announcing the acquisition, creating more connected, intelligent and productive experiences. That may sound like a jumble of buzzwords, but Nadellas letter to Microsoft employees supplies an example of what he envisions. Imagine a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on, Nadella said. And Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task youre trying to complete. The key thrust appears to be to integrate LinkedIn connections with your direct productivity tasks as helpfully as possible, using intelligent computing. Nadella also sees the LinkedIn acquisition as a way to reinvent selling, marketing and talent management business processes. Maybe the acquisition does have something to do with spam after all. Heres Nadellas full remarks to employees, as published on Microsofts News site. Team, Im excited to share that today Microsoft announced a deal to acquire LinkedIn. You can see how Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, and I envision the opportunity ahead in this public presentation. This deal brings together the worlds leading professional cloud with the worlds leading professional network. I have been learning about LinkedIn for some time while also reflecting on how networks can truly differentiate cloud services. Its clear to me that the LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business and an impressive network of more than 433 million professionals. Given this is the biggest acquisition for Microsoft since I became CEO, I wanted to share with you how I think about acquisitions overall. To start, I consider if an asset will expand our opportunityspecifically, does it expand our total addressable market? Is this asset riding secular usage and technology trends? And does this asset align with our core business and overall sense of purpose? The answer to all of those questions with LinkedIn is squarely yes. We are in pursuit of a common mission centered on empowering people and organizations. Along with the new growth in our Office 365 commercial and Dynamics businesses this deal is key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and business processes. Think about it: How people find jobs, build skills, sell, market and get work done and ultimately find success requires a connected professional world. It requires a vibrant network that brings together a professionals information in LinkedIns public network with the information in Office 365 and Dynamics. This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task youre trying to complete. As these experiences get more intelligent and delightful, the LinkedIn and Office 365 engagement will grow. And in turn, new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising. Jeff and I both believe we have a significant opportunity to accelerate LinkedIns growth and the value it brings to its members with Microsofts assets and scale. In fact, when Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, and I spoke about the opportunity for us to come together, he called it a re-founding moment for LinkedIn and an opportunity to reach the mission the company set out on 13 years ago. The opportunity for Office 365 and Dynamics is just as profound. Over the past decade we have moved Office from a set of productivity tools to a cloud service across any platform and device. This deal is the next step forward for Office 365 and Dynamics as they connect to the worlds largest and most valuable professional network. In essence, we can reinvent ways to make professionals more productive while at the same time reinventing selling, marketing and talent management business processes. I cant wait to see what our teams dream up when we can begin working together once the deal closes, which we expect will happen this calendar year. A big part of this deal is accelerating LinkedIns growth. To that end, LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand and independence, as well as their culture which is very much aligned with ours. Jeff will continue to be CEO of LinkedIn, hell report to me and join our senior leadership team. In essence, what Ive asked Jeff to do is manage LinkedIn with key performance metrics that accrue to our overall success. Hell decide from there what makes sense to integrate and what does not. We know that near term there will be no changes in who reports to whom so no reporting relationships at Microsoft will change in that regard. This approach is designed to keep the LinkedIn team focused on driving results while simultaneously partnering on product integration plans with the Office 365 and Dynamics teams. During the integration, well pick key projects where we can go deep together that will ultimately result in new experiences for customers. Kurt DelBene will lead the overall integration efforts at Microsoft in close partnership with Qi Lu and Scott Guthrie. Im on the LinkedIn campus today in California and will host a call for investors at 8:45 a.m. PT with Jeff, Brad and Amy please join if you can. Following that, Ill then spend the day meeting with the LinkedIn team. Tomorrow, Ill host a special Microsoft employee Q&A I hope you can make it. So far, what Ive learned about the LinkedIn team is how much our cultures share many of the same attributes. We both care deeply about individual and collective growth, and find deep meaning in the work we do to make a difference in our world. Together well do just that. While Im in northern California sharing our vision to empower professionals, the Xbox team is in southern California at E3 sharing our vision to empower gamers. I encourage you to check out the E3 press briefing, which starts at 9:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Finally, if youre not on LinkedIn, join up now and start using and learning more. Satya Hamilton, the hip-hop stage biography of Alexander Hamilton, won the 2016 Tony Award for best new musical, capping an emotional night in which many in the Broadway community rallied to embrace the LGBT community after a shooting at a gay Florida nightclub. Lin-Manuel Mirandas hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary won 11 Tonys, just short of breaking the 12-Tony record held by The Producers. Jeffrey Seller, producer of Hamilton, quoted the shows lyrics when accepting the award. Look around, look around. How lucky we are to be alive right now, he said. Hamilton went into the night with 16 nominations and, in addition to taking the musical award, won best score, best book, direction, orchestration, choreography and best featured actor and actress statuettes for Renee Elise Goldsberry and Daveed Diggs. Leslie Odom Jr., who plays Aaron Burr, won best actor and thanks Miranda for a new vision of whats possible. He thanked his wife, actress Nicolette Robinson and his parents. The show earlier won awards for costume and lighting but lost scenic design to She Loves Me, meaning Hamilton couldnt break the 12-statuette record haul by The Producers. Still, few shows get introduced by a sitting president, as Barack and Michelle Obama did for the performance by the shows cast. The awards show unspooled with a heavy heart a night after a gunman killed 50 people at a gay Florida nightclub, prompting a Broadway tribute to the victims at the top of the show and a smattering of references to tolerance throughout it. Host James Corden, his back to the audience, spoke to viewers when he dedicated the night to celebrating the diversity of Broadway. Hate will never win. Together we have to make sure of that. Tonights show stands as a symbol and a celebration of that principle, he said. But for much of the telecast, the mood was light and typical of an awards show. Miranda, the star and creator of Hamilton, won for best score and book, and read from onstage a sonnet, referencing tragedy and urging love and love and love. Thomas Kail won the Tony for directing Hamilton. He thanked Miranda, a frequent collaborator, and celebrated the diversity of Broadway this season. Lets continue to tell stories, he said. English actress Cynthia Erivo won the Tony for best actress for her Broadway debut in The Color Purple. She thanked her cast for making me a stronger woman on that stage. Her show, which failed to beat Jersey Boys for the best musical Tony Award in 2006, won the best musical revival award in 2016. Jayne Houdyshell, a mainstay of the New York stage, won her first Tony Award at 62 for playing a gossipy, gently needling mom in The Humans. Her stage husband, Reed Birney, won best featured actor in a play. An actor for almost 42 years, he acknowledged that 35 of them were pretty bad. He thanked the theater community for keeping him going. The play, about a fractious familys get-together, won the best play statuette and playwright Stephen Karam dedicated his award to all the struggling writers. Keep the faith, he said. In response to the shooting Sunday that left at least 50 people dead in a crowded nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Hamilton dropped its use of muskets in its performance. Many stars also wore a silver ribbon to show solidarity. My heart is saddened by it, Seller said on the red carpet before the show. The celebration tonight is tempered by it. The shooting was close to home for Christopher Fitzgerald, who was nominated for his role in Waitress and went to school in Orlando. Im heartbroken. I think everybody is feeling it, so we are at least all coming together to celebrate and not live in fear, he said on the carpet. Jessica Lange won her first Tony for playing a drug-addled mother in the revival of the monumental Long Days Journey Into Night. The two-time Academy Award winner said: This is a dream come true and it fills me with such happiness, even on such a sad day as this. Frank Langella won his fourth Tony for playing a man who has begun his slide down the slippery slope of dementia in The Father. He almost teared up when he mentioned his brothers struggle with dementia. He also had a message for the people of Orlando: We will be with you every step of the way. Dutch visionary Ivo Van Hove won his first Tony for directing an imaginative revival of Arthur Millers A View from the Bridge. Under his helm, the barefoot cast warily circled one another under bright lights in a set that resembled a boxing ring. The show was also named best play revival. The show opened with the cast of Hamilton performing their opening number with the lyrics altered to have them all wondering why Corden chatting with Hollywood phonies had earned the honor of hosting the show. The The Late Late Show host had some quips for the theater-loving audience: This is like the Super Bowl for people who dont know what the Super Bowl is, he said at one point. At another: Think of tonight as the Oscars, but with diversity, and made a dig at Donald Trump for wanting to build a wall around the theater. He later flirted with Oprah Winfrey. Donald Trump was a frequent target. Nathan Lane made a crack about Trump University and Emilio Estefan insisted that his all-Latin cast for On Your Feet! were all in the U.S. legally. Corden at one point suggested there were so many diverse performers on the show that the Republican candidate would want to put a wall around the theater. There was also a joke about Trump starring in The Book of Moron. To be fair, Glenn Close mocked Hillary Clinton in the fictional show A Clinton Line. Hamilton and the 38 new productions this season helped Broadways attendance figures hit a record high, up 1.6 percent to 13.3 million ticket buyers. The season also was rich in diversity among actors: Fourteen of the 40 Tony nominees for acting in plays and musicals or 35 percent were actors of color. A growing economy means fewer disagreements over government budgets. Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders in the Legislature last week crafted the outlines of a state budget. Some details were left for this week and Wednesdays constitutional deadline for passage. For fiscal year 2016-17, which begins July 1, the outlines largely follow the governors May Revision to his January budget proposal, such as limiting spending to $122 billion for the general fund. Thats down $1.8 billion from his initial proposal because of lagging sales tax receipts. But its up from $116 billion, or 5 percent, the previous year. So state government still is growing, just a little slower than anticipated in January. Legislative leaders were sensible to go along with the governors proposal to plunk $2 billion into the state Rainy Day Fund, raising the total to $6.7 billion. That would be needed to mitigate budget cuts should the national economy falter. We would have preferred even more money go into the Rainy Day Fund as the country is overdue for a recession and that could risk another round of $20 billion-plus budget deficits. The final agreement includes an additional $100 million to help pay for minimum wage increases for child care providers, as well as some additional preschool slots, the Sacramento Bee reported. That amount will grow annually, along with the minimum wage, to an estimated $527 million in 2019-20, officials said. By 2022, the wage will hit $15 an hour, from $10 this year, pursuant to recent legislation the governor signed. The increased cost to taxpayers of higher minimum wages is overlooked in arguments for raising it. Thats something to keep in mind as public employee unions gear up their campaigns for the initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot to extend the $7 billion tax increase from Proposition 30, which expires in 2019. The Legislature also signed off on $1.3 billion of the governors $1.5 billion proposal to renovate and erect new buildings for state bureaucracies. A better idea would be to adopt leaseback policies, in which a building is sold, then leased back by the seller, a practice increasingly common in private business, while also providing the option of moving to cheaper buildings. Moreover, the state government is decades overdue for a major overhaul of its functions, which would include consolidation to reduce duplication and waste, thus cutting down the need for office space. Talks continue on the cap-and-trade provisions of the budget, the Bee reported, with the $500 million of previous quarterly auctions now but a memory after the latest auction of pollution credits yielded just $10 million. Yet Gov. Browns May Revision advanced, in its description, a $3.1 billion cap-and-trade expenditure plan that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions through programs that support clean transportation. One of those programs is high-speed rail, a boondoggle that, given the new realities, should be scrapped. The Menifee United Church of Christ voted Sunday, June 12, to display a rainbow flag and a coexist sign on the side of its building hours after at least 50 were killed at an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub. Menifee United Church of Christ Senior Minister Rev. Bill Freeman said thats the congregations way of saying that it welcomes and respects everybody in light of the tragedy. We welcome the LGBT community but we also welcome everyone, Freeman said. Especially with the news from Florida, I think thats an important thing. The congregation also had a moment of silence before Sundays service, in honor of those who were killed and wounded, Freeman said. The church has displayed rainbow flags on the side of its building at 26701 McCall Boulevard in 2016, but thieves have stolen them twice. The vote to fly a new flag was scheduled before the shooting, Freeman said, but solidified today. The congregation decided to display a coexist flag which features symbols from various religions to show its support for Muslims. Authorities said that Orlando shooter Omar Mateen was a Muslim who apparently self-radicalized after being exposed to propaganda from the Islamic State. We want to make it clear that we know thats not the essence of the (Islamic) faith anymore than when a Christian commits a heinous act, that its not the essence of the Christian faith, Freeman said. Six months after San Bernardino, the terror test is back in the presidential race. And Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are giving very different answers. The Sunday, June 12 mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub that killed 49 and wounded 53 in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11, eclipsing the Dec. 2 attack at the Inland Regional Center, has once again put terrorism and national security at the forefront of the race for the White House. In a speech Monday, Clinton called for a crackdown on homegrown terrorists like the New York-born man of Afghan descent who swore allegiance to ISIS as he gunned down his victims. She expressed solidarity with Muslim and LGBT community and called for a ban on assault weapons like those used in Orlando and the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. In his own speech, Trump repeated his call for a temporarily ban on Muslim immigrants entering the United States until they could be perfectly screened. He said he predicted attacks like Orlando would happen and blasted Clinton and President Barack Obama for being unable or unwilling to blame the attack on radical Islam. A key to winning in November may be whether voters prefer Clintons or Trumps approach. A lot will depend on how the public judges the Obama administrations response, said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College. If people think that the government is handling it appropriately, then Clinton will benefit. If people perceive incompetence, then Trump will gain. Both are sounding more presidential in their rhetoric, but Clintons campaign benefits more, she said. Clinton had some success in the primary campaign by contrasting her views in favor of restrictions on assault rifles with (Bernie) Sanders record. Clinton can consistently carry this message into the general election campaign without moderating it, especially as most Americans favor background checks and limits on high-capacity magazines. As Clinton and President Obama begin making joint campaign appearances, this issue will likely be a standard part of stump speeches. But research by three professors, including UC Riversides Jennifer Merolla, found that voters view Democratic women candidates more negatively when it comes to terrorism. Terrorism casts its shadow over individuals and communities, shaping politics and voter decision-making, the researchers said. When the threat of a violent attack by terrorists looms large, gender stereotypes lead to increased public support for male candidates. But that may not apply to Clinton, Merolla said in a phone interview. People tend to bring their stereotypes to bear, such as Democrats and female leaders being weak on national security, when they have less information about a candidate, Merolla said. But the fact that Clinton served as secretary of state, and thats shes well-known, could counteract any negatives, Merolla added. I think its kind of hard to tell in a sense because theres a lot of factors some benefiting Donald Trump, others benefiting Hillary Clinton, she said. Opinion polls present a mixed picture for Trump and Clinton. A Gallup poll from late May shows 50 percent of voters think Trump would do a better job handling terrorism compared to 46 percent for Clinton. But in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 60 percent said Trump has a very poor temperament for the presidency. And a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted after the Paris terror attacks showed Clinton leading Trump 50 to 42 percent when it comes to who can better tackle terrorism. Trumps stance on Muslim boosted his popularity in the GOP primary, said Jennifer Walsh, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Azusa Pacific University. Today, he suggested that President Obama was weak on the terror threat and hinted that he might be a supporter of such attacks, Walsh said. This rhetoric might be popular with a small faction of conspiracy theorists, but it is likely going to undermine his credibility with most voters. A Riverside County Superior Court judge on Monday ordered that lawsuits related to damage incurred in the 2013 Mountain fire near Idyllwild be consolidated for purposes of trial. Six cases, including one by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, have been filed in connection with the fire, which destroyed seven homes and 16 other structures as it charred 27,531 acres. Attorneys mentioned at least two more cases may be filed soon, and Judge Daniel A. Ottolia scheduled a trial-setting conference for the pending cases Oct. 4. The existing cases have been filed against Tarek Al-Shawaf, on whose property the fire began, and James and Donna Nowlin, Al-Shawafs property caretakers. The property is off the 243, just north of Mountain Center. The defendants have denied responsibility. The wind-driven fire started July 15, 2013, and quickly jumped the highway, narrowly missing the U.S. Forest Services Keenwild fire station. It burned for 16 days before rain helped extinguish it. At the time, the Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department stated the cause was electrical equipment failure on private property, without elaborating. Ottolia designated the lawsuit filed by Cal Fire as the lead case. The suit seeks to recoup firefighting and investigation costs, and does not mention a specific dollar amount other than that it exceeds $25,000. Other lawsuits were filed by Idyllwild and Mountain Center residents, business owners or insurance companies. The U.S. government is expected to file a federal lawsuit to recoup its firefighting costs. Fire agencies estimated the firefighting and investigation bill at the time at $25 million. Contact the writer: 951-368-9075 or gwesson@pressenterprise.com PALM SPRINGS Stomping out hate was the main theme at a vigil for the victims of the shooting in Orlando on Sunday night. The massacre that occurred in Orlando, was deeply felt throughout our communities. This vigil was a cause to show our solidarity, to show our resilience as Americans and to reaffirm our values against hate crimes throughout our country, said Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Palm Desert. Throughout the evening a common theme repeated over and over again, that racism and hate crimes of any kind should and will not be tolerated. Reymundo Nour, from the Islamic Society of Palm Springs, reached out to the LBGT community. His congregation was bombed in December of last year and he received much support from their leaders, he said. Moments before the LA Pride Parade got underway Sunday in West Hollywood, organizers, elected leaders and members of the law enforcement community held a news conference and a moment of silence in response to the mass shooting in Orlando. We are here to march, celebrate and to mourn, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said during the hastily organized media briefing around 10:45 a.m. Garcetti was joined by West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister, members of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department and the FBI. Our hearts will be heavy but our resolve will be strong, Meister said. Public safety is our number one priority and the City of West Hollywood is on heightened alert and is working very closely with the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department, the L.A. County Fire Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. More than 400,000 people were expected to line Santa Monica Boulevard for the 46th annual LA Pride Parade, and security has been increased in the wake of the shooting at the Pulse Orlando nightclub, a popular gathering spot for the citys LGBT community. A gunman armed with an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside the club early Sunday killing at least 50 people. Here in Southern California, as officials tightened security around the LA Pride Parade, a heavily armed man, who reportedly told police he planned to attend the LA Pride events, was taken into custody. A male was detained in the city of Santa Monica this morning who was in possession of weapons and other dangerous material, the Sheriffs Department said in a statement. Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Photos: Chicago Vigil Honors Victims Of The Orlando Shooting Massacre By Rachel Cromidas in News on Jun 13, 2016 5:32AM In the wake of the horrific mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed 50 and left 53 wounded, Chicago's LGBTQ+ community held a vigil in Boystown to honor the victims. With rainbow flags flying, scores of Chicagoans gathered in a show of solidarity against the horrific massacre, which has been labelled both a terror attack and a hate crime. Countless others expressed their dismay over the heartbreaking tragedy on social media, and vowed not to live in fear of hate crimes. The attack comes during Pride Montha time of celebration and revelry for queer communities across the United States. Chicago's own Pride Parade is June 26. The vigil began Sunday evening with a moment of silence, followed by a prayer for the Orlando shooting victims. Attendees held rainbow flags, flowers, candles and photos of victims of gun violence. Some read original pieces of poetry and sang songs. The phrases "Love wins,"a common LGBTQ slogan since the landmark Supreme Court ruling on gay marriageand "Don't let fear rule" were repeated among those who gathered at the vigil. Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson was among those who spoke at the vigil, saying "CPD is a department for everyone," and that the department would do its best to keep everyone safe. Organizer Andy Thayer told the crowd he remembered the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was killed in a brutal hate crime in 1998, and how an attack on one LGBTQ community member is "an attack on all of us." "We had a message: an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. We are a rainbow of community. As we go forward, my message to our community is we cannot multiply the hate that we saw at 2 a.m. this morning by scapegoating Muslims or people of other faiths," he said. "We live in a country where a leading presidential candidate is banking on anti-Muslim hate, banking on anti-immigrant hate to reach the White House. And so we LGBT people who stand for justice for all, must stand for justice for Muslims for South Asians, for anyone who is targeted by hate, and not just ourselves." Earlier in the day, Mayor Rahm Emanuel issued a statement in the wake of the shooting: Last night's horrifying act of terrorism in Orlando was an attack on our most fundamental values as Americans. On behalf of the City of Chicago, Amy and I send our deepest condolences to the friends and family members of those who were lost. June is a time when all Chicagoans and all Americans proudly celebrate the contributions of our LGBT community. This horrendous violence will only deepen our resolve to continue building a society that values everyone, regardless of who they love. The thoughts and prayers of Chicago will remain with the victims of this attack as they seek comfort and courage in the days ahead. And in a follow-up statement Sunday evening, Emanuel said he looks forward to celebrating at Chicago's Pride Parade: "We will not be intimidated by those who use fear and violence to attack our most fundamental values of inclusiveness and community. Two weeks from today I look forward to joining many others in Chicago as we come together as a city to celebrate those values, and the LGBT community, at our Pride Parade." In a separate statement, Chicago police said there would be heightened security at the Pride Parade and that CPD has offered to help Orlando's police department: "As we learn about another reprehensible act of gun violence, CPD extends our deepest condolences to those affected by the horrible tragedy in Orlando. Our thoughts and support also go out to our partners at the FBI and Orlando Police for their great work managing such a tragic and difficult incident. This morning we reached out to Orlando PD to offer any technical, manpower or resource assistance." Chicagoan David Sotomayor told ABC7 at the vigil that his cousin Eddie, 34, was one of the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting. "He was amazing," Sotomayor told ABC7. "He was awesome. I called him this morning just to hear his voicemail...it's a little heartbreaking." The deadliest shooting in U.S. history has people around the world wondering why mass violence keeps happening in America. For those who have lived through mass shootings, and for the law enforcement officers trying to prevent them, the answer is self-evident. Because we allow it, said Sandy Phillips, whose daughter was among 12 killed at Colorado movie theater in July 2012. The nation began the week mourning the 50 people killed early Sunday when a gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Authorities are investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism, a hate crime, or both. Politicians lamented the violence as tragically familiar despite its staggering scale. The causes of mass shootings are as disparate as the cases themselves, but those involved in other tragedies couldnt help but feel the similarities. President Barack Obama called the latest massacre a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. Although the Orlando shooters motives, and allegiance to Islamic extremism, arent yet clear, the massacre already sparks echoes of last years attack on a social services center in San Bernardino, California. For Ryan Reyes, whose boyfriend was killed in that case, the shootings have less to do with gun control and more to do with highly charged political rhetoric and how people treat each other. The issue is American society, he said. We are to blame, and the fact that we refuse to accept the fact that we are to blame just makes it worse. Its what we do to each other that causes these people to get to the point where they feel this is the only option. Still, guns get their share of the blame. Laws that allow almost anyone who has not been convicted of a felony to purchase guns have made it as simple as a mouse-click to get weapons and ammunition, Phillips said. That includes semi-automatic rifles like the Orlando gunmans AR-15, a common denominator in many of the worst recent mass shootings: Newtown, Aurora, San Bernardino, to name a few. More frustrating, Phillips said, is that even the most horrifying massacres have provoked little change. The best chance might have come after a gunman in the Sandy Hook community in Newtown, Connecticut, killed 20 first-graders and six adults at a school, just months after the theater shooting in 2012. Obama dedicated much of the start of his second term to pushing legislation to expand background checks, ban certain assault-style weapons and cap the size of ammunition clips. That measure collapsed in the Senate, and since then, the political makeup of Congress has made new gun laws appear out of reach. Obama and other proponents of reform have all but quit calling for action after major attacks, shifting instead to simply decrying the fact that they can even happen. When politicians do succeed at pushing for tighter gun measures, they risk their careers. In Colorado, fresh off the Aurora theater shooting and still healing from the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in which two students killed 13 people and themselves, Democrats in the state Legislature in 2013 muscled through new laws requiring universal background checks and banning magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. Gun control advocates considered it a victory, until furious gun rights supporters forced from office two state senators who supported the measures. We could have done something about this in the years since Columbine, since Sandy Hook, said Marcus Weaver, who was wounded in the theater shooting and whose friend was killed. When is enough enough? Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, disagreed that stricter gun laws are the solution. I think theres other root causes in play, he said. I think mental health is a huge issue. One of the motivators is really that ISIS continues to exist, Islamic terror in other forms continues to exist. Many mass shooters have been found to have severe psychological problems, including the Colorado theater shooter and the man who tried to assassinate Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in 2011. For Phillips, the story is the same, each time. We have made it so easy in this country, for anyone any one, she said. It doesnt matter who that person is or what their agenda is. The suspected Orlando night club shooter has been identified as a Florida man named Omar Mateen. Multiple news outlets are reporting Mateen called 911 shortly before the attack and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. And law-enforcement sources say Mateen was known to the FBI before the attack and was briefly investigated. The media outlets cited unnamed law enforcement officials in their reports. Danny Banks is an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. He says authorities are investigating whether the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history was an act of domestic or international terrorism, and if the shooter acted alone. The suspect in the Orlando attack was identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida. The gunmans father recalled to NBC News that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. A law enforcement official says Mateen was known to the FBI before the incident and had been looked at by agents within the last few years. The official spoke to The Associated Press Sunday about the shooting, the deadliest in U.S. history. The official was not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and on spoke on condition of anonymity. The official says the matter for which Mateen came under investigation was open and closed pretty quickly. Mateen was a security guard with G4S. In a 2012 newsletter, the firm identified him as working in West Palm Beach. In a statement sent to the Palm Beach Post, the security company confirmed his employment. We are shocked and saddened by the tragic event that occurred at the Orlando nightclub. We can confirm that Omar Mateen had been employed with G4S since September 10, 2007. We are cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the friends, families and people affected by this unspeakable tragedy. Prima Trio plans to take guests on a musical trip around the world with the Destination World concert on Saturday, June 18, at the Old Town Temecula Community Theater. From the streets of Buenos Aires to a village in eastern Europe, this concert will tour the world with this amazing trio of musicians, said Dana Zimbric, music director and conductor of California Chamber Orchestra, which is based in Temecula and is presenting the concert. The program features compositions by Astor Piazzolla of Argentina, Srul Irving Glick of Canada, Aram Khachaturian of Armenia, and American Peter Schickele, among others. Its a nice variety of music performed by a truly amazing group of musicians, Zimbric said. The Piazzolla works are always real crowd-pleasers. Pianist Anastasia Dedik, violinist Gulia Gurevich, and clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan founded Prima Trio in 2004 while they were studying at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. Within three years, the ensemble won the 2007 Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions grand prize and since then, has performed throughout the United States and Europe including at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Music Festival in Germany. The individual players have also received high accolades. Allakhverdyan was appointed principal clarinet of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 2013. The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra is among the very fine orchestras in the world, and Allakhverdyan could be considered the finest clarinetist in the world, said Zimbric. Violinist Gurevich made her solo debut with the Uzbekistan National Symphony Orchestra at the age of 14 and her conducting debut at the age of 15. She has performed with the Boston, Indianapolis, Fort Wayne and Charleston Symphonies, among others. At her home in New York City, she frequently performs in Carnegie and Merkin Halls. On piano, Dedik has performed at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall and Great Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has appeared as a soloist with the Fort Worth Symphony and others. The level of musicianship of this group is astounding, said Zimbric. People in Temecula should genuinely appreciate the outstanding musical performances they will hear, right here in Temecula. According to Zimbric, the combination of the ensembles instruments clarinet, violin and piano provides a rich and complex sound, unlike a strictly string trio or piano trio. The clarinet, especially, has great appeal and works very well with the violin, said Zimbric. And the variety of music for this program is challenging for the ensemble. Every piece is a nice contrast to the others. Contact the writer: features@pressenterprise.com Inland Empire Muslim leaders joined their counterparts around the world Sunday in mourning the victims of the Orlando shooting and condemning the man responsible. A vigil at the mosque in Chino that drew more than 100 people was a humble effort to build bridges, said Ahsan Khan, president of the Los Angeles East chapter, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The scripture teaches us that the killing of one person is like the destruction of all humanity, Khan said. The communitys spokesman, Amjad Khan, said the American Muslim community may not necessarily endorse the viewpoints of the LGBT community. But that I think is irrelevant when it comes to issues that bind us regardless of beliefs or orientations, as part of human family we are all entitled to live without fear, the spokesman said. Speakers from other faiths spoke at the vigil in solidarity. Im very pleased to stand with my brothers sisters of the Muslim community and those who stand for peace, said Bill McCook, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints director of public affairs for the Chino, Chino Hills and Diamond Bar area. Sheriffs captains Darren Goodman and Horace Boatwright were also expected at the vigil. Other Muslim communities were quick to express sympathy for the victims and outrage at shooter Omar Mateen, who was born in the United States to parents of Afghan origin. The Islamic Center of Riverside joins the nation in its unconditional condemnation of the senseless and horrific violence and mourn the loss of lives in yet another mass shooting in the city of Orlando, Florida, the center said in a statement. We extend our sympathies to the families of the victim and ask the Most Compassionate God to grant full recovery to the injured and bless them with patience and strength. The attack was horrible, said Ahsan Baseer, president of the board of directors of Corona-Norco. This young man had some personal agendas, and he was, from what I understand, not a religious person either, according to his parents, Baseer said by phone. What he did was based on his hate of people of different lifestyles. It should not be related to Islam or any religion. People like this have no faith. These people are criminals and they should be treated as such. The society, which Baseer said has more than 800 worshipers on a typical Friday, posted a condemnation on its website, as well. A law enforcement official told the Associated Press the gunman called 911 from the club and professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and that he called Allah hu Akbar during the slaughter. The attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando, which killed 50 people and wounded 53 others, was an act of terrorism and an act of hate, according to President Barack Obama and the FBI. Muslim groups across the country issued similar statements. In Washington, D.C., national Muslim leaders including the Council for American Relations held a news conference to condemn the shooting spree. Contact the writer: ryan.hagen@langnews.com; john.blodgett@langnews.com A gunman opened fire at a gay night club in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday, killing 50 people and wounding 53 more before he was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members. Heres what we know about the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history: MASS CASUALTIES At least 50 people were killed, and 53 were hospitalized, most in critical condition, officials said. A surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb. THE SHOOTER Authorities have identified the shooter as 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Florida. In a 911 call from the club, Mateen professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Mateen was a U.S. citizen born in New York. His ex-wife said his family was from Afghanistan. Authorities say Mateen was not under surveillance, but that in 2014, they discovered he had ties to an American suicide bomber. They said the ties were minimal and they didnt think he represented a threat at the time. They say he also made inflammatory comments to co-workers in 2013. Authorities also say Mateen legally purchased at least two firearms within the past week or so. Security company G4S said in a statement to the Palm Beach Post that he had been an employee of the company since September 10, 2007. Mateens father, Seddique Mir Mateen, said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago. He said that might be related to the attack. The father said the attack had nothing to do with religion. FATHERS ACTIVITIES A former Afghan official says Seddique Mir Mateen appears on a television program known for its anti-U.S. tirades and pro-Taliban remarks. The official says the program is broadcast in the Dari language. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be linked to coverage of the shooting. WHAT HAPPENED Police say Mateen, equipped with an assault rifle and a handgun, opened fire on patrons early Sunday. He also exchanged fire with an officer working at the club about 2 a.m., when more than 300 people were inside. Police say the gunman then went back inside and took hostages. Police sent in a SWAT team to rescue hostages about 5 a.m. and Mateen died in an exchange of gunfire with SWAT officers. THE VICTIMS The city of Orlando is publishing the names of those killed on its website after their families have been contacted. The list can be found at http://www.cityoforlando.net/blog/victims/ The attack follows the fatal shooting late Friday of 22-year-old singer Christina Grimmie, who was killed after her concert in Orlando by a 27-year-old Florida man who later killed himself. Grimmie was a YouTube sensation and former contestant on The Voice. WHAT WE DONT KNOW Law enforcement officials have not said whether Mateen had any direct link to the Islamic State, such as training or any sort of direct communication. The statement by the Islamic State did not provide details about its relationship with Mateen. It is possible he was self-radicalized that is, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State but had no direct tie like the husband-and-wife team behind the San Bernardino attack last year. The authorities said Mateen had drawn the attention of the FBI, but they did not provide specifics. The Orlando attack framed the presidential campaign Sunday. Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, pushed for gun control and outreach to a key constituency gays and lesbians. GOP nominee-to-be Donald Trump kept up his criticism of the White House, blaming President Obama for being soft on terrorists and violent criminals. And Sen. Bernie Sanders, still in the contest for the Democratic nomination despite Clintons claim on it, went on with a round of appearances on the Sunday talk shows. He acknowledged the tragedy then said he would not drop out of the race and endorse Clinton until hes convinced shes committed to fighting wealth disparity. He later issued a statement of sympathy to the Florida victims, with no political overtones. A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday, killing at least 50 people before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. Another 53 were hospitalized, most in critical condition. Wrote Clinton: The gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month. To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them, she said in a statement, adding a call to keep assault weapons out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. Trump pounced on the news of the massacre at an Orlando gay nightclub to underscore his presidential campaigns central message that the United States needs to be tougher to combat Islamist terrorism. When will this stop? Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, wrote in a Twitter post shortly before noon. When will we get tough, smart & vigilant? About an hour later, he amplified that point, writing: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! With the federal authorities describing the shooting as an act of terrorism and identifying the gunman as a U.S. citizen born to Afghan parents, Trump demanded that Obama portray the deadliest mass shooting in American history as an example of homegrown jihad. Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? Trump wrote on Twitter shortly before Obamas remarks Sunday afternoon. If he doesnt he should immediately resign in disgrace! (Obama called the assault an act of terror, but focused his remarks chiefly on the loss of lives.) A tragedy in the middle of a presidential race would typically force restraint on candidates. But this tradition has disappeared in the era of the superheated, social media news cycle, where mass shootings immediately set off debates about access to guns and, if the perpetrator is Muslim, Islamist terrorism. Clinton issued a statement echoing President Barack Obamas televised address: This was an act of terror. In her statement, Clinton said that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad and further down called for more stringent restrictions on guns. Finally, we need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals, she said. The Orlando massacre could test how willing candidates and their supporters are to pursue partisan attacks in the aftermath of horrific violence. Both Trump and Clinton were expected to lacerate each other in major speeches planned for Monday. Trump was expected to focus on what he sees as the Clintons ethical lapses, and Clinton was preparing remarks on what she deems as Trumps dangerous demagogy. They did not indicate on Sunday afternoon that they intended to postpone those speeches, and Trump issued a media advisory noting that he will deliver an address Monday in New Hampshire. Trump pays little heed to the conventions of politics, whether it is on how campaigns are waged or on the kinds of positions his party embraces. He has made his hard line against Muslims central to his campaign, and, even after claiming the Republican nomination and turning to a broader electorate, he has refused to back off from his call to temporarily ban Muslims from traveling to the United States. WEST HOLLYWOOD Some people had We are Orlando scrawled on their backs. Others carried signs saying Je suis Pulse! or I am Pulse! As an estimated 150,000 people gathered to celebrate the annual LA Pride parade in West Hollywood, and Sunday mornings mass shooting that killed at least 50 people at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, was clearly on many peoples minds. Its very emotional. It reminds me of why Pride is necessary, why were here, said Rich Meyers, a Studio City resident who is on the board of governors for the Human Rights Campaign. We dont plan to stand down after something like this. We plan to be stronger. Meyers, who attended the parade with his 16-year-old son, marched down Santa Monica Boulevard carrying a sign that said #Orlando in Solidarity. While many parade-goers were wary in light of recent events, several said they felt even more committed to the cause of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. Los Angeles County sheriffs officials said in a statement that the department, which patrols West Hollywood, was in a heightened state of situational awareness and would remain vigilant. The three-hour parade went smoothly and without incident, Lt. Edward Ramirez of the West Hollywood Sheriffs Station said after the parade. Rachel Barker, 21, of Tujunga, who marched in the parade with friends on the Netflix team, said she wanted to cry about the horrible Orlando shooting. Its scary but we just have to keep on marching forward and trying to show that we have love for everyone, said Barker, a Pasadena City College student and LGBT ally. After word spread that a man whose car was filled with explosive material and weapons had been headed to the LA Pride parade, the Netflix team was informed of the situation so that members could decide whether or not they wanted to leave, Barker said. James Howell, 20, of Indiana, was apprehended by Santa Monica police hours after the Orlando attack. Were all staying, Barker explained shortly before the parade started. Its a little scary, but I think its amazing I think love will prevail. Addressing the crowd, parade emcee Bert Champagne said the hateful act in Orlando was done to terrorize us, to undo all we have achieved in unity and love. Among the marchers was Cory Marino, 27, of Forth Worth, Texas, who was in town for work but came out Sunday to show his support. Donning an orange tutu and blue tank top, Marino said it was important to celebrate gay pride while remembering the victims of the Orlando shooting. Thats why were out here for equal rights and for people not to discriminate and kill each other senselessly like happened last night, Marino said. If you live your life in fear, then you become a victim in a sense. Moments before the parade began, organizers, elected leaders and law enforcement officials held a news conference and a moment of silence for the victims of the mass shooting. We are here to march, to celebrate and to mourn, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. Garcetti was joined by West Hollywood Mayor Lauren Meister, members of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department and the FBI. Our hearts will be heavy but our resolve will be strong, Meister said. Dominique Richardson watched the parade from the sidewalk near Santa Monica and Crescent Heights boulevards. Richardson, who lived much of his life in Orlando, said he felt it was even more important to come out on a day like today and stand with everybody in light of the Florida shooting. Richardson said he had often frequented the Pulse nightclub and was still waiting to hear whether anyone he knew may have been injured. Well see what happens, he said. Ill wait and find out before I get too into it. He added that he hoped the shooting would bring attention to the need to lift the ban on sexually active gay men donating blood and to the issue of gun access. People shouldnt have access to guns that easily, he said. Its just not right. Mikel Wadewitz, director of communications for Aids Project Los Angeles said he felt it was important to participate Sunday given the shooting in Orlando. While it wasnt clear Sunday morning whether the attack specifically targeted people for their sexual orientation or perceived orientation, it made us even more committed to be here today, to be visible, standing up for LGBT rights, he explained. Among the spectators was a woman named A.J., a lesbian visiting from Dubai who was wearing a rainbow-colored wig and taking photos of the colorful floats with her cell phone. You can feel the love, despite all the things that are going on with the world today, said A.J., who asked that her full name not be used because she lives in a conservative Middle Eastern country. It makes you feel that people are embracing each other and are full of love.in the Orlando mass shooting during the annual LA Pride Parade on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on June 12, 2016. Updates with comment from Riverside County Sheriffs Department Riverside police are increasing patrols both visible and undercover near places where members of the LGBT community congregate as well as houses of worship in the wake of the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. One of the most notable locations in Riverside is Menagerie, a nightclub on Main Street that features theme nights, a dance floor, karaoke and drag queens. Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, in a post on the department Facebook page, said there does not appear to be any local connection to the shooting that killed 50 and wounded 53 others. Still, Diaz added that police are talking with Homeland Security officials. We want the community to know that your safety is the highest priority for the Riverside Police Department, Diaz wrote. We also encourage all community members to report any suspicious activity to the RPD. Finally, we pray that this latest act of hate by one individual is not the cause for division and distrust among people of good will whose belief systems differ, he wrote. Our city has a long and proud history of solidarity and looking out for each other. This most recent tragedy wont change that. Updates with additional details of Orlando police response In 1999, police officers exchanged shots with two students at Columbine High in Colorado before falling back and waiting for a SWAT team to arrive to contain the scene and negotiate with the suspects. During that wait, the gunmen shot 10 of the 13 people they would kill that day. The lessons learned from that incident changed how police engage active shooters, police practices expert Jim Bueermann said. The first arriving officers routinely now quickly form a team and enter the building to stop the shooter and rescue victims. There doubtless will be a review of the decision by Orlando police early Sunday to assemble a SWAT team and wait three hours before entering the Pulse nightclub, where they found 50 people dead and 53 wounded, Bueermann said. Its unclear when the victims were shot. Such reviews of tactics are common. Bueermann is head of the Police Foundation, a Washington, D.C. organization that promotes better policing and is writing such a report on the Dec. 2 San Bernardino shooting that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others. San Bernardino police formed an entry team with the first handful of officers who arrived at the Inland Regional Center. The shooters had left by the time the officers arrived. The Orlando Police Department has a very good reputation, said Bueermann, a former Redlands police chief. It is a good organization that is used to dealing with sophisticated events. I would be very surprised if their policies were not consistent with current police practices in active-shooter situations. CNN reported that officers first confronted gunman Omar Mateen about 2 a.m. after shots were fired inside the nightclub. A gunbattle ensued, and Mateen went back inside. As people lay dying in the club, the shooting developed into a hostage situation, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said. Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said that initially, officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to some of his victims after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body. That held paramedics up from entering the club until it was determined the part had fallen out of an exit sign or smoke detector, the mayor said. The robot was sent in after SWAT team members used explosive charges and an armored vehicle to knock down a wall down in an effort to access the club. About 5 a.m., a decision was made to rescue the remaining victims, who authorities said likely were in one of the smaller dance rooms. Law enforcement officers used two explosive devices to try to distract the killer, and then 11 officers stormed the club and exchanged gunfire with Mateen, killing him. San Bernardino County Supervising District Attorneys Investigator Tom Boyles, who participated in the gunbattle that killed the San Bernardino shooters, said he didnt want to second guess Orlando police. Given the numbers they may be dealing with and the number of people both inside and outside not everything is as cut and dried as we may sometimes like it to be, he said Sunday. Bueermann said officers arriving at such an incident ask themselves: Is the shooter still there, is he shooting people, is he alone or with other shooters, and where is the suspect or suspects. As soon as you get as many of the answers as you can, you go, Bueermann said. My guess is that officers would have heard the shots if he was still shooting. The Associated Press and staff writer Suzanne Hurt contributed to this report. A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday, killing at least 50 people in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Here are stories of some of the victims. Edward Sotomayor, 34, was a caring, energetic man known for wearing a silly top hat on cruises, according to David Sotomayor, who said the two discovered they were cousins after meeting at Orlandos annual Gay Days festival around a decade ago. David Sotomayor, who lives in Chicago, told The Associated Press Sunday that Edward worked for a company that held gay cruises and often traveled to promote the companys events. He was just always part of the fun, David Sotomayor said. The two texted regularly and kept in touch, last seeing each other earlier this year at a filming of the television reality show RuPauls Drag Race, David Sotomayor said. David Sotomayor is a drag queen who appeared on a season of the show using the name Jade. He said Edward Sotomayor supported him and often sent him Facebook messages. They last exchanged messages late last week. You never think thats going to be the last time you speak to him, David Sotomayor said. Its just heartbreaking to know it just can happen anytime. Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, told his cousin Robert Guerrero he was gay about two years ago, but he was worried about how the rest of his family would react. He did not tell them until just before the beginning of this year. And when he did? They were very accepting, said Guerrero, 19. As long as he was happy, they were OK with it. On Sunday morning, after learning that so many people had died at a gay nightclub, Pulse, that his cousin had gone to once in a while, Guerrero started to become concerned. Later in the day, his fears were realized when the family learned that Guerrero was identified as one of the victims. Robert Guerrero said his cousin worked as a telemarketer and in recent months he started attending college at the University of Central Florida. Guerrero said his cousin didnt quite know what he wanted to study, but he was happy to be in school. And he was happy in a relationship with a person his relatives came to regard as a member of the family, Guerrero said. He was always this amazing person (and) he was like a big brother to me, he said of his cousin. He was never the type to go out to parties, would rather stay home and care for his niece and nephew. Stanley Almodovar IIIs mother had prepared a tomato-and-cheese dip for him to eat when he came home from his night out. Instead, Rosalie Ramos was awakened by a call at 2 a.m. Sunday telling her something had happened. Ramos told the Orlando Sentinel her son, a 23-year-old pharmacy technician, posted a Snapchat video of himself singing and laughing on his way to Pulse nightclub. I wish I had that (video) to remember him forever, she told the newspaper. A friend, Hazel Ramirez, told the Washington Post she also saw a video from Almodovar on Snapchat and learned Sunday afternoon what had happened. Ramirez described Almodovar as kind, but sassy, and someone who was comfortable with his own sexual identity. He was so proud of who he was, she told the Post. He would do his makeup better than anyone else. It was so easy to be myself with him. Police Increase Security In Boystown, Lakeview Following Orlando Shooting By Stephen Gossett in News on Jun 13, 2016 4:56PM Getty Images; Photo: Scott Olson The Chicago Police Department has intensified security in the wake of the mass shooting that killed 49 clubgoers, plus the shooter, at Orlando gay nightclub Pulse. Hours after the shooting, Santa Monica police arrested a heavily armed Indiana man, reportedly on his way to the LA PRIDE parade. In response, Chicago First Deputy Superintendent John Escalante ordered a "stepped-up police presence beginning Sunday," according to a statement from CPD's Director of Communications Anthony Guglielmi. The added resources are centered in the 19th District, which includes Lakeview, Lincoln Park and Boystown. But the increase was not isolated to those neighborhoods; police presence has also been bolstered at various special events and near the lakefront. "Officers will also pay special attention to CTA transportation hubs and be conducting increased traffic and safety enforcement downtown and on heavily traveled areas," according to the statement. The police department has not received credible intelligence of threats against the Chicago LGBTQ community or any event within the city. These measures are being done out of an abundance of caution, the statement says. Big thanks to #CPD for extra security at #Chicago #Midsommarfest Sunday. We will not hide who we are. We will not live in fear. #LoveWins Katie Wienke (@k80478) June 13, 2016 Mayor Rahm Emanuel pledged the Pride Parade would go on as planned. "This horrendous violence will only deepen our resolve to continue building a society that values everyone, regardless of who they love, Emanuel said in a statement Sunday night. The thoughts and prayers of Chicago will remain with the victims of this attack as they seek comfort and courage in the days ahead." Since the attacks, the Chicago LGBTQ community and supporters have voiced solidarity and organized vigils in honor of the victims. Chicagoist has reached out to the Chicago Police Department about long-term specifics of the increased patrols and will update as more information is available. Update 1:20pm: CPD vowed to continue monitoring the situation, but declined to expand on how it will dispatch added patrols over the coming weeks. "Please note that we cannot elaborate any further on any specific details regarding our operational deployment strategies and plans," the Department said in a statement. "However, the Chicago Police Department will continue to pay close attention to special events throughout the city and will assign the necessary resources to ensure the safety of Chicago's communities along with that of their residents and visitors." The gay, lesbian and transgender community has seen violence before, from Harvey Milk to Matthew Shepard, and an ever-lengthening list of transgender women. But never anything like this. Sundays massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, grimly changed the equation, stirring communal fears and swiftly prompting tighter security at gay pride events. The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen of Fort Pierce, Florida, told his father he had been disturbed by seeing two men kissing in Miami. The attack on the Pulse nightclub, which killed at least 50 people and was the deadliest U.S. mass shooting to date, occurred amid numerous events nationwide celebrating LGBT Pride Month. In several other cities hosting events on Sunday including block parties in Boston and a festival in Washington authorities beefed up the police presence. This is a tragic illustration of the legitimate safety fears that those in our LGBT community live with every day, said Mike Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, where extra police were assigned to a neighborhood that is a hub of the local gay community. In a separate incident Sunday, a heavily armed man was arrested in Southern California even as Mateens attack was ongoing, telling police he was on his way to attack a gay pride parade. Twenty-year-old James Wesley, of Indiana, had assault rifles, ammunition and chemicals that could be used to make an explosive, according to police, who said there was no evidence of a connection to the Orlando massacre. Before Sunday, the most prominent incidents of violence against gays claimed one life at a time. The highest profile of these included the murder of Milk, a pioneering gay politician in San Francisco in 1978, and the 1998 murder of Shepard, a gay college student in Wyoming at the hands of two men who beat him into a coma while he was tied to a fence. A federal hate crimes law bears Shepards name. Investigators were still trying to determine Mateens motives. He pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 call before the shooting, according to according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. But LGBT activists had no doubt that their community was the intended target. Our practices and institutions may change in light of this tragedy LGBT gathering places may have more security now, said Rev. Alisan Rowland, pastor of the LGBT-welcoming Metropolitan Community Church of New Orleans. But we will never, ever go away. We will never be cowed. Advertisement Rachel B. Tiven, CEO of the LGBT-rights group Lambda Legal, said the continued vilification of LGBT people by their detractors, and the continued resistance to expansion of their civil rights, was an invitation to violence. When people are targeted by others who are scared of difference, theyre not safe when they go dancing, theyre not safe when they go out to pray, she said. If we live in culture where fear of difference is encouraged, that can, in the hands of crazy people, have dreadful consequences. There have been a few previous attacks on gay nightclubs, but only one that caused a significant number of deaths. A fire set by an arsonist killed 32 people at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans in 1973; the arsonist was never caught. On Dec. 31, 2013, about 750 people were celebrating New Years Eve at Neighbours, a popular gay nightclub in Seattle, when Musab Masmari poured gasoline on a carpeted stairway and set it ablaze. No one was injured, and Masmari was sentenced to 10 years in prison for arson. Robert Matencio, who works as a host at Neighbours, said the club responded to the arson attack by adding extra security guards during large special events, and training employees in crowd control. Sundays attack struck a place that has long been thought of as a safe haven for the community the gay nightclub. Nightclubs have always been sacred spaces for queer people, places to gather and glitter away from the judging glares of society, where we could love and be loved for who we are and how we want to be, wrote Paul Raushenbush, a clergyman and popular gay writer, expressing his heartbreak in a lengthy, emotional post on Facebook in which he recalled going out dancing while at seminary in New York. In many cities, vigils were planned at LGBT community centers and other gathering spots to commemorate the victims in Orlando. In New York City, LGBT people and their allies converged on the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in spontaneous reaction to the shooting. The Manhattan bar became a national symbol of gay rights after a 1969 police raid led to violent street riots. Stonewall is where we go when things like this happen, said Andy Humm, host of the Gay USA TV show. Many gay bars added security measures, or considered doing so in the aftermath of the Orlando attack. As a club owner this is our biggest fear, said Jesse Pandolfo, owner of WonderLust, which opened nearly a year ago in Jackson, Mississippi. She said at least one armed security officer is on duty whenever the club is open; more if she expects a big crowd. We are family, and this is really hard for us to handle, she said. It hits hard, really deeply, and its scary and its saddening We have been pushed around, we have been victimized for a long time. At eagleBOLT, a gay bar in Minneapolis, patrons watched big-screen TVs in silence as President Barack Obama denounced the Orlando shooting as an act of terror. James Parmenter, 28, from West St. Paul, Minnesota, said he comes to gay bars to relax. It just hurts me that a place like Pulse was targeted because people go there to feel safe, he said. You go out, you try to feel safe, and you try to have a good time, and now they seem like targets. About 50 people paid tribute to the victims of the Orlando mass shooting by holding a candlelight vigil at the First Congregational Church of Riverside on Sunday evening. The 75-minute outdoor service included rock and gospel music, speakers and prayer in honor of the 50 people who died in the attack. Many people are emotionally affected, said the Rev. Hannah Cranbury, one of the ministers at the LGBT-friendly church, located at Lemon Street and Mission Inn Avenue. Its important to be together to mourn and try to process what happened by sharing and praying. The church organized the vigil with the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church in Riverside. Representatives of the Catholic and Muslim faiths also participated. Benita Ramsey, a pastor at Unity Fellowship, said the Orlando attack is a painful reminder of the dangers LGBT people face every day. We live and walk boldly just by merely existing, Ramsey said. We will not retreat in the closet. Ramsey said it would be easy to condemn all Muslims for the violence. But that would be wrong, she said. We want to stand with our Muslim brothers and sisters in this hour, Ramsey said. Mustafa Kuko, a Muslim community leader who lives in Riverside, said Muslims are in solidarity with LGBT people in the fight against bigotry, violence and terrorism. Their honor and dignity must be respected, Kuko said. Whenever a certain minority is targeted, all of us are targeted. While Islam rejects homosexuality, there is no religious justification for attacking LGBT people, he said. Everybody is free to make his or her own choice, Kuko said. The final judgement is the judgement of God. John De Gano, a deacon at St. Catherine of Alexandria Catholic Church in Riverside, said he prayed the Rosary Sunday morning with about 120 other deacons from the Diocese of San Bernardino who were attending a weekend retreat in Temecula. Were here to walk with them and let them know God is still present and God still cares, De Gano said. We need to reach out to one another and pray for each other. If not, violence wins. UPDATE (Tuesday, June 14): Man arrested before Pride parade charged with weapons, explosives counts SANTA MONICA Just hours after the worst mass shooting in American history took place inside a gay club in Florida, a man whose car was filled with explosive material and weapons was arrested by police early Sunday, telling them he was on his way to the LA Pride parade in West Hollywood. James Howell, 20, from Indiana, was arrested in the city of Santa Monica, where police found three rifles, several high capacity magazines loaded with ammunition, as well as chemicals which could be used for improvised explosives, said Santa Monica Police Lt. Saul Rodriguez during a news conference. Howell was arrested after police received a call at 4:59 a.m. of a suspicious man who was knocking on doors and windows. Rodriquez said Howell had no connection to the area. But when they found Howell, they also found his car, loaded with weapons. Our officer immediately noticed that there was a rifle in the seat of the car which lead to a further investigation. At which point, we recovered additional fire arms and high-capacity magazines, Rodriquez said. Police later said there was a 5-gallon bucket with chemicals capable of forming an improvised explosive device. A sheriffs alert listed the chemical as tannerite. Assault rifles as well as camouflage clothing were also found, according to the alert. The suspect did make an initial statement that he was going to go the pride festival, Rodriguez said. Beyond that he did not make additional statements saying he was going to do anything further than that. We do not have any additional information as to what his intentions were. A previous tweet issued by Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Saybrooks earlier said Howell intended to harm many people at the Pride event. Rodriquez called her Tweet a misstatement. Howells white sedan Acura, parked on the wrong side of a street with its doors open near 1745 11th Street near Michigan Avenue, could be seen by reporters for much of the day surrounded by police. The sheriffs bomb squad rendered the car safe later in the afternoon and the vehicle was eventually towed from the neighborhood. The Indiana man was arrested for possession of weapons and explosive materials and his bail was set at $500,000. One witness on the scene, Heriberto Gomez, told reporters he saw Howell exit his Acura sedan, run across the street and hide in the bushes about 3 a.m He stood there on the sidewalk near the bushes, Gomez said. He seen me and we stared at each other for a long minute, and he got a little shooken that I was watching him. Santa Monica Mayor Tony Vazquez praised the work of his citys police department. On behalf of the city, were disappointed to hear what happened in Orlando but also wanted to thank the neighbors who did come out and report this incident, Vazquez said. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the agency is assisting the Santa Monica Police Department with the investigation. But any relation to the deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida was unclear, law enforcement officials said throughout the day. Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to the Los Angeles County sheriffs department, which was helping out in the investigation. More than 3,000 miles away, the FBI was investigating the fatal shooting of 50 people inside an Orlando club called Pulse. Another 53 people were reportedly injured. The gunman was identified as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, 29. Mateen had reportedly called 911 to pledge allegiance to ISIS, before he headed for the nightclub. He was killed in a gunfight with police. Because of that shooting security remained high around Sundays festival in West Hollywood, though there were no specific or credible threats received by law enforcement, according to a statement by the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department. The parade, part of a two-day annual festival in West Hollywood where 400,000 people were expected, went on as scheduled. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told the crowd before the start of the parade that while the festival was going forward, it was a difficult time. He said nothing should stop people from all races and backgrounds to celebrate together. We did not want to be here under these circumstances, Garcetti said. Were here as Angelenos, as the LGBTQ community and allies, to say as Americans we will not shrink away, we will not be sullen in our homes, we will not go back in the closets. We are here to march, to celebrate and to mourn. Running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has warned that the banking industry will be hit with a crisis if government fails to settle debts owed Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) soon. The BDC debt is a real threat to the banking system. Our banking system will suffer a crisis if we do not take care. The banks are exposed to the BDCs and some of the banks will collapse if the BDCs dont pay soon, he said. Government is currently auditing a $600 million claim presented by 17 BDCs as outstanding debts. The amount represents forex losses and under-recoveries before the full implementation of deregulation. The breakdown is as follows: forex under-recoveries account for $530 million, price under-recoveries of GH46 million, as well as interest of GH414 million, which accrued on price under-recoveries since 2011, known in banking as Real Value Factor. Majority of the BDCs contracted loans from commercial banks in the country to facilitate their operations but have failed to pay up the loans due to governments indebtedness. The development has been attributed as one of the causes of the significant rise of bad loans on the books of banks recently. Earlier, the CEO of the Chamber of Bulk Distribution Companies (BDCs), Mr Senyo Hosi, told Citi Breakfast Show that majority of bulk distributors of petroleum products will be forced to halt operations by the end of 2016 if government fails to pay debts owed them. We have liquidity heavily stacked. A number of BDCs are not operational. We are using the private sector to fund government fiscal policy indirectly. That is what we have been doing. The debt at the bank is, well, you know about it already. Most of the NPAs are significant, and non-performing loans are significantly BDCs debt. Some of them have not yet been provisioned for. So you have a broader institution of the entire economy. If the banks are going to go down, we will struggle. Mr Hosi stressed that government is working closely with government to clear all debts owed BDCs. The Bank of Ghana, in its first financial stability report for 2016, revealed that bad loans on the books of commercial banks in the country increased by 14.9 per cent to 4.52 billion cedis in 2015 against the 2.72 billion cedis recorded in 2014. Players in the banking industry have described the development as troubling. CEO of Fidelity Bank, Edward Effah told Citi Business News at the banks AGM that, We have also seen a deterioration of loans from the BDCs; this is because government owes the BDC foreign exchange losses and under-recoveries. So the BDCs are unable to pay the loans, but I believe this is being resolved through the energy sector levy act, which has been passed, and we hope that by the end of the year, a lot of progress would have been made towards this resolution. Deputy CEO of Cal Bank also expressed similar views recently. The development has led to some of the banks threatening to slash, and in some cases cut, loans to BDCs. HFC bank at its AGM early this year told shareholders it may be forced to cut giving out loans to such companies due to their indebtedness to the bank. Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show last Friday, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia warned a number of banks risk collapse if the BDCs debt is not settled soon. I am very worried and concerned because of the former position I held and this BDC issue is a major threat to the banking system and it should be addressed or a number of banks will collapse because of the debt, he said. Government last month promised to clear the debts by the end of June 2016, which were accumulated over a period of two years. Source: The Finder Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Online store, Kpakpakpamarket.com is taking Ghanas online shopping sector by storm as its beat major competitors to win the emerging e-commerce of the year award at the just-ended 6th Ghana Information Technology and Telecom Awards (GITTA). The Ghana Information Technology and Telecom Awards, which took place in Accra on Saturday 21 May is said to be Ghanas premier platform for celebrating top ICT and telecom performers within the industry. Commenting on the award, promoters of the kpakpakpamarket.com said in a statement that they were poised to lead the charge of the countrys discounters as cash-strapped shoppers become more price conscious about what they buy. The platform offers companies, retailers, merchants and small scale traders an e-market platform to advertise and sell products in the most convenient hustle free environment via the internet, according to the statement. Kpakpakpamarket.com, which retails both new and old items as well as as-it-is ones, is the first platform that now allows consumers to bid for items and when offer is accepted, the product is delivered directly to the consumer before payment is made, it stated. The portal works on the click and brick model with the products being ordered online, and Kpakpakpamarkets partners - its dealers, distributors, and logistics teams helping in delivery. This is our drive. By passing on the discounts we agree on with our registered suppliers/merchants unto our buyers, we encourage bulk or wholesale purchases, thus creating a win-win-environment for the buyer and the seller. By this approach we are able to also assure our buyers of genuine products and eliminating fraud, a statement from the company said. It noted that by adding discounted inventory to its growing database of heavily discounted products, a seller can be assured of traffic to the products. Do not miss out on this great opportunity to advertise and sell products. Join this high speed marketing train to sell your goods and services. Listing is Free. All you need to do to list your products on kpakpakpamarket.com. Taking its name after the famous kpakpakpa slogan, the latest multi brand online marketing platform joins more than a dozen online stores in operation in the country with many consumers and experts tipping Kpakpakpamarket.com to take over the e-commerce sector. Online trading in Ghana is still at a nascent stage, yet has huge development potential as the governments policy support has further whetted the interest of prospective investors. Also, the young middle class in the West Africas second largest economy as well as businesses are taking the step towards online retail thereby increasing demand for online goods. Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Ghana needs to find more effective ways of assessing students than the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) system, a senior lecturer in Psychology at the University of Ghana, Dr Joseph Osarfo, has proposed. 461, 013 candidates from 14,267 public and private Junior High Schools are writing their final examinations beginning Monday June 13, 2016. Leakage of the exam papers in the past has been a problem for authorities and the Ghana Education Service (GES) said it was employing the services of the Bureau of National (BNI) to ensure there was no such occurrence this year. Five papers got to some candidates before they were due to have been written in the 2015 BECE. Director General of the GES Jacob Kor told journalists at a press conference ahead of the papers that: Right from the time the question papers are carried from the depot, there [are] going to be BNI personnel accompanying the questions. Other measures instituted by authorities to address leakages include flying the papers to the examination centres and also banning supervisors and invigilators from going into the centres with mobile phones, respectively. According to the clinical psychologist, the presence of security men at the centres can put pupils through psychological trauma, which may affect their performance in the examination. He argued that examinations were not the only way to evaluate the performance of students and has asked stakeholders to rethink and adopt a more modern and effective alternative that would be better for everyone. He said too much emphasis on the BECE made students distressed, for which they would do anything to pass, a situation that contributes to the examination leakages authorities are battling to address. If we keep doing that then we create a certain sense of desperation of wanting to pass the exam by all means in order to move to the next level. I have done some studies on suicides among adolescents in Ghana and one of the major triggers of these kids who are often in JHS is examination. When they do not pass, they feel life must come to an end, he emphasised. He continued: I am told that it is only in Ghana that we still write this JHS exam. The leakage is becoming a problem and some of them could become suicidal when the papers are cancelled and all that. He maintained that the exam was a great disservice to some young individuals who may be otherwise brilliant but could fail the BECE and end up on the streets without any assistance. Source: Classfmonline Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video At least 50 people have been killed and another 53 injured in what President Barack Obama has condemned as the worst mass shooting in US history. A heavily armed gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida at around 2am local time. After a three hour stand-off, police stormed the building armed with an armoured vehicle and stun grenades, killing the shooter and rescuing 30 people. Although its still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate, said Obama, offering his support to all members of the LGBT community. This is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, is an attack on all of us, and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. Hillary Clinton also offered her support to the LGBT community, condemning the shooting as an act of hate. To all the LGBT people: know that you have millions of allies all over the country. Im one of them. We will continue to fight for their right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hatred has no place in the United States, she said. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is coming under masses of criticism (surprise, surprise) for his utterly inhumane stance. While yes, he offered his condolences to the victims and their families, he also bathed in congratulations for being right about terrorism: Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I dont want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 Celebs are among the thousands condemning his words: Trump is truly an awful person. https://t.co/vQp3CQ9Nmv John Legend (@johnlegend) June 12, 2016 Once again, Donald, you have shown why you cannot lead us. 50 people are dead, and you bask in congratulations. https://t.co/pUN7ceAff7 George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 12, 2016 .@realDonaldTrump Youre the only person in America who would or could appreciate the congrats while families mourn 50 dead. Chris Sacca (@sacca) June 12, 2016 The whole thing is a sad, awful reminder of the easy availability of guns in America. In his address, Obama reiterated his call for tighter gun control. This massacre is a further reminder of how easy it is for people to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or in a movie theatre, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if thats the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well, he said. You can watch his full statement below: Photo: Facebook / The White House. Thousands of people are lining up at blood donor centres across Orlando, Florida, to help the 53 people wounded after a heavily armed gunman opened fire at gay nightclub in the early hours of Sunday morning (local time). At least 50 others were killed in the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub, in what is now being described as the worst mass shooting in US history. In fact, so overwhelming is the support from the community that blood centres are now at capacity. Ive been here 13 years and never seen a response like this, OneBlood spokesperson Pat Michaels told the Orlando Sentinel. One donor lining up was Becky Orero, whod worked at Pulse for five years. We have to be here for our community, she said. I made sure that I came down here so our friends and family can make it out okay. Yet the very fact that queer men one of the targets in this hate crime are unable to donate blood is prompting waves of anger. Only thing Id add to saddest tragedy in Orlando: Its made even more tragic and sad that gay men are prohibited from donating blood to help Slade Sohmer (@Slade) June 12, 2016 In 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lifted the lifetime ban on accepting blood donations from gay men, replacing it with regulations that men must wait one year after sexual contact with another man to donate. Rumours that this ban had been temporarily lifted in the wake of the shooting were quickly squashed. All FDA guidelines remain in effect for blood donation. There are false reports circulating that FDA rules were being lifted. Not true. OneBlood (@my1blood) June 12, 2016 At the moment, blood donation centres are at capacity. Michaels described it as being a little too much, too soon, encouraging people to make appointments and return later, when the diminished supply will need to be replenished. Except, of course, for queer men. It is illegal for gay men to donate blood. It is legal for anyone to buy the AR-15 assault rifle that spilled the blood of gay men today. spencer claus (@spxncxrx) June 12, 2016 i am just so angry because people are being murdered, our community cant donate blood, and this just keeps happening while the US stands by Adam J. Kurtz (@adamjk) June 12, 2016 Maybe it would be easier for gay men to donate blood if they poured it into bullets and then shot it into the recipient? Luke ONeil (@lukeoneil47) June 12, 2016 You know the most sickening thing of all? Gay people dont even have the right to donate blood to our own dying community today. (((Ryan Houlihan))) (@RyanHoulihan) June 12, 2016 Of course, the US is not the only country with these controversial and out-dated bans. Australia also fits squarely into that bracket just last week we published a piece from Heaps Gay editor Samuel Leighton-Dore on why Australia needs to bin its own outdated bans: The ban sends out an incorrect and irresponsible public health message by suggesting that all gay sex is a health risk while all heterosexual sex is safe, he quoted the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Council as saying. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have offered their support to the LGBTIQ community, but Clintons message is particularly poignant: This was also an act of hate. The gunman was attacked by a LGBT club for the month of pride. To all the LGBT people: know that you have millions of allies all over the country. Im one of them. We will continue to fight for their right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hatred has no place in the United States. This is more than just homophobic paranoia. its denying certain members of the LGBTIQ community the opportunity to help their own in the wake of tragedy. Photo: Getty / Gerardo Mora. Fair warning this will be the most frustrating nine minutes of your life. Guardian journalist Owen Jones walked out of a Sky News broadcast after enduring host Mark Longhurst and co-panellist Julia Hartley-Brewer do their absolute best to downplay the homophobic motivation for the Orlando massacre, which claimed the lives of 50 people and injured 53 more. He had been attempting to stress the importance of calling out the attack for what it was a homophobic terrorist attack at a gay nightclub, targeting members of the LGBT community and was literally shouted over by the Sky News hosts. It is one of the worst atrocities committed against LGBT people in the Western world for generations, said Jones. Its something thats carried out against human beings, isnt it, said Longhurst.You cannot say this is a worse attack than what happened in Paris. Im saying against LGBT people, said a frustrated Jones. What Im saying is, this has to be called out for what it is. It is an intentional attack on LGBT people. This was on the freedom of all people trying to enjoy themselves as [the attacks on the] Bataclan was, said Longhurst. Honestly, its a credit to Jones that he didnt walk out earlier, especially when Harley-Brewer jumped in to Longhursts defence with the unbelievable line, I dont think you have ownership of horror of this crime. In fact, so firmly are the hosts heels planted against calling out this attack for being targeted against LGBT people at all, that Jones is forced to point out that if this was an attack on a place of worship, then theyd have no problem labelling it as a target attack on that particular religion. Im sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing Ive ever been involved in on television, he said. If hed walked into a synagogue and massacred a bunch of Jewish people, you wouldnt be saying what youre saying now, youd be talking about it as an anti-Semitic attack. This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people, this was a deliberate attack on the LGBT community As it was at the Bataclan, interrupts Longhurst, displaying an astounding talent for missing the entire fucking point. Later, around the 6:30 mark, after Jones has stayed silent in frustration at being yelled over, Longhurst brings up the comments from a Stonewall spokesperson. And Jones, quite rightly, snaps. Oh, youre going to have an LGBT voice talking about it, he says. And in response, Hartley-Brewer sighs. SHE *ACTUALLY* SIGHS. Owen, seriously, she says. Were trying to have a civilised conversation. At which point Owen takes out his mic, stands up, and walks out without so much as a backward glance. Bloody onya. Jones has been silent since the clip aired, and Longhurst isnt on Twitter. However, for better or worse Hartley-Brewer is and she refuses to apologise. Back on @SkyNews at 11.30pm reviewing the papers. I hope Mark Longhurst doesnt storm off too or Ill be left talking to myself. Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) June 12, 2016 Oh, sorry, Im straight so apparently Im not allowed to care if 50 gay people are shot dead. I didnt get that memo https://t.co/GlHIQYVLUq Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) June 12, 2016 Trust me, I will not be apologising. I said absolutely nothing for which I need to apologise. https://t.co/1IWk3pjiBA Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) June 13, 2016 She then linked to a YouTube clip titled Owen Jones tantrum & storming off Sky News Press preview, which describes the video as: Owen denies the Orlando shooting had anything to do with Islam and storms off back home to his big black bull. Classy. Mark Longhurst and Julia Hartley-Brewer should be ashamed of themselves, and wont be. Good for @OwenJones84 for not being polite about it. Archie Bland (@archiebland) June 12, 2016 Photo: Sky News. Although people celebrated Dragon Boat Festival, one of the four most important traditional festivals in China, just a couple of days ago, many complained that the old feeling about traditional festivals is fading with commercialization eating into celebrations. But there is nothing to worry about, says Guangming Daily, because traditions can never be rigid. Zongzi (Chinese tamales) is an essential food of the Dragon Boat Festival. [File photo] It seems we have given up (or forgotten) most of the traditional ways of celebrating Dragon Boat Festival. Most of us neither take part in dragon boat races nor play with dragon boats. Many don't even eat the traditional rice puddings, let alone holding traditional sacrificial ceremonies. We prefer shopping and traveling, instead, which make the festival seem commercial. But such a change does not mean our traditional festivals are dying. It is natural for humans to change the ways they celebrate festivals, adding new elements to the cultural memory that these festivals are supposed to carry. These changes are rather practical and logical. Given today's fast pace of urbanization, it is no longer possible to play with dragon boats. Since the pace of life is becoming increasingly faster, a three-day holiday is especially important for us and we enjoy it by traveling and visiting places. Some "experts" say we should "protect our traditional festivals". But protection does not mean rigidly following ancient customs. Protection means altering our habits to suit present-day social needs, so as to make traditional festivals more appealing to people. The true vitality of a festival lies in being celebrated by the majority of society in their own ways. Only when people really enjoy a traditional festival can it stay alive. UPDATE: New details on the attacker, ISIS responds, more A gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, early Sunday. The attacker killed 50 people and wounded 53 more before he was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members. Here's what we know about the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history: Fatalities will likely increase. At least 50 people were killed in the attack at Pulse Orlando. An additional 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, officials said. A surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll is likely to climb. Gunman professed allegiance to Islamic State. Authorities have identified the shooter as 29-year-old Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida. In a 911 call from the club, Mateen professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Mateen was a U.S. citizen born in New York. His ex-wife said his family was from Afghanistan. Authorities say Mateen was not under surveillance, but that in 2014, they discovered he had ties to an American suicide bomber. They said the ties were minimal and they didn't think he represented a threat at the time. They say he also made inflammatory comments to co-workers in 2013. Authorities also say Mateen legally purchased at least two firearms within the past week or so. Security company G4S said in a statement to the Palm Beach Post that he had been an employee of the company since September 10, 2007. Gunman's father appeared on 'pro-Taliban' TV show. A former Afghan official says the gunman's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, appears on a television program known for "its anti-U.S. tirades" and "pro-Taliban" remarks. The official says the program is broadcast in the Dari language. The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be linked to coverage of the shooting. More than 300 people were in the club when the attack started. Police say Mateen, equipped with an assault rifle and a handgun, opened fire on patrons early Sunday. He also exchanged fire with an officer working at the club about 2 a.m., when more than 300 people were inside. The nightclub promptly posted "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running" to its Facebook page. Police say the gunman then went back inside and took hostages. Police sent in a SWAT team to rescue hostages about 5 a.m. and Mateen died in an exchange of gunfire with SWAT officers. Victims continue to be identified. The city of Orlando is publishing the names of those killed on its website after their families have been contacted. So far, those listed include: Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34 years old Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 years old Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 years old Luis S. Vielma, 22 years old Kimberly Morris, 37 years old Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old Darryl Roman Burt II, 29 years old Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32 years old Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21 years old Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25 years old Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35 years old Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50 years old Amanda Alvear, 25 years old Martin Benitez Torres, 33 years old Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37 years old Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26 years old Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35 years old Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25 years old Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31 years old Oscar A Aracena-Montero, 26 years old Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25 years old Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 years old Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40 years old Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32 years old Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19 years old Cory James Connell, 21 years old Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37 years old Luis Daniel Conde, 39 years old Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33 years old Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25 years old Jerald Arthur Wright, 31 years old Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25 years old Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25 years old Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24 years old Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27 years old Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33 years old Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49 years old Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan, 24 years old Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32 years old Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28 years old Frank Hernandez, 27 years old Paul Terrell Henry, 41 years old Antonio Davon Brown, 29 years old Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz 24 years old Mateen's motive remains unclear. President Barack Obama called the shooting "an act of terror and an act of hate," but we still don't know what prompted Mateen to attack the nightclub. The gunman's father said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago. He said that might be related to the attack. This story has been updated to include additional victims identified. FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) -- He was a body builder and a security guard, a religious man who attended the local mosque and wanted to become a police officer. Early Sunday, 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando. Police said 49 victims died and 53 were wounded, some gravely. Mateen also was killed. Not social, but didn't seem violent He attended evening prayer services at the city's Islamic Center three to four times a week, most recently with his young son, said Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman. Although he was not very social, he also showed no signs of violence, Rahman said. He said he last saw Mateen on Friday. Ex-wife He was bipolar, Mateen's ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters in Boulder, Colorado. Sitora Yusufiy, the ex-wife of Orlando shooting suspect Omar Mateen "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," Yusufiy said. Although records show the couple didn't divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms. Yusufiy said she was "devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying" when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to Mateen's mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups. Shooter's father Mateen was the son of an Afghan immigrant who had a talk show in the United States, the nature of which was not entirely clear. On Monday, the shooter's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, spoke to reporters outside his Port St. Lucie home about his son, saying "what he did was the act of a terrorist." "I apologize for what my son did. I am as sad and mad as you guys are," he said from his living room. He wouldn't go into details about any religious or political views his son held, insisting he didn't know. Seddique Mir Mateen is a life insurance salesman who started a group in 2010 called Durand Jirga, Inc., according to Qasim Tarin, a businessman from California who was a Durand Jirga board member. The name refers to the Durand line, the long disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tarin said Seddique Mir Mateen had a television show on which they discussed issues facing Afghanistan. "It's shocking," he said about the shooting. "(Omar Mateen's) father loves this country." But a former Afghan official said the "Durand Jirga Show" appears on Payam-e-Afghan, a California-based channel that supports ethnic solidarity with the Afghan Taliban, which are mostly Pashtun. Viewers from Pashtun communities in the United States regularly call in to the channel to espouse support for Pashtun domination of Afghanistan over the nation's minorities, including Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, the official said. FBI notice, but no criminal past An undated image of Omar Mateen The FBI investigated Mateen for 10 months beginning in May 2013. President Barack Obama said Monday there's no clear evidence that the shooter was directed to conduct his attack or part of a larger plot. He says it appears Mateen was inspired by extremist information disseminated over the internet. Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Mateen had no criminal record. FBI Director James Comey said Monday that Mateen had "strong indications of radicalization" and was likely inspired by foreign terrorist organizations. Comey told reporters that Mateen spoke with a 911 operator three times early Sunday morning. Mateen pledged loyalty to the head of the Islamic State group on his last call, Comey said. Job history He was born in Queens, New York, and moved to Port Saint Lucie, Florida, in 1991. Between 2001 and 2006, he worked at eight jobs, including a Publix grocery store, Circuit City, Chick-Fil-A and a Walgreens drug store. Then his jobs begin focusing more on vitamins and health. He worked at Nutrition World in Fort Pierce, Gold's Gym and a GNC store in a mall. Yusufiy said Mateen wanted to be a police officer and had applied to the police academy. Mateen was a security guard at the G4S company, which identifies itself on its website as "the leading global integrated security company." Daniel Gilroy told multiple news outlets that he worked with Mateen at G4S. Gilroy called him an angry, loud, profane man who used slurs for gay people, blacks, Jews and women. "He never used other words to describe them," Gilroy told the Tampa Bay Times. Mateen also regularly made threats of violence, according to Gilroy. Name change Mateen petitioned to change his name in 2006, the same year he graduated from Indian River Community College. The records show that he changed his name from Omar Mir Seddique to Omar Mir Seddique Mateen. Court documents don't say why he changed his name. Pilgrimage Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry says Orlando shooter Mateen visited the kingdom twice to perform an Islamic pilgrimage. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press in a text message Monday that Mateen first visited Saudi Arabia for 10 days in March 2011 and again a year later in March 2012 for eight days. flag.jpg A Highspire man accused of desecrating American flags throughout the borough, and even removing them from veterans' graves, was sentenced Monday to 2 years of probation. When he was arrested last fall, borough police said Stanley Pinko, 62, told them he was upset with the government. Pinko's lawyer, First Assistant Public Defender Ari Weitzman, told Judge Deborah E. Curcillo on Monday that his client has mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. Pinko pleaded guilty to charges of intentional desecration of a public monument. Deputy District Attorney Kristie Falbo said Pinko committed his crimes in September and October at a church graveyard and at the Highspire's war memorial and the borough's Memorial Park. Sometimes, he pulled U.S. flags out of the ground or off the memorials and tossed them away, she said. at others, he turned the flags upside down. Police captured some of the crimes after installing a game camera at the memorial, arrest papers show. In one case, several flags were found in a portable toilet. Pinko said nothing before Curcillo sentenced him. Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (R) meets with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Beijing, capital of China, June 13, 2016. [Photo/Xinhua] State Councilor Yang Jiechi on Monday called on the European Union to stop basing its anti-dumping investigations into Chinese goods on the "surrogate country system." Yang made the comments when meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is accompanying German Chancellor Angela Merkel on her ninth trip to China and for the China-Germany intergovernmental consultation on Monday morning. "The EU should deliver on its obligations -- as stipulated in article 15 of the protocols for China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 -- to ensure the healthy development of trade ties," Yang said. Yang was referring to the surrogate country system, a term used by the EU in anti-dumping investigations, under which production costs in a third country are used to calculate the value of products from non-market economies. The system should be abandoned by Dec. 11, 2016, under an agreement signed when China joined the WTO. However, the European Parliament said in a non-binding resolution last month that China had failed to meet the five EU criteria that define a market economy, thus, Chinese exports should be treated in a "non-standard way." Yang said deepening cooperation between China and Germany will serve the two countries' interests as well as China-Europe relations and the world at large. He said China is ready to work with Germany to make the G20 Hangzhou summit in September a success. Steinmeier said Germany is willing to use the intergovernmental consultation as an opportunity to deepen cooperation with China in all fields. The consultation mechanism, established in 2011, aims to coordinate and enhance cooperation between China and Germany. More than 20 ministers and vice ministers from both sides are expected to attend this year's session. statute of limitations The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday is scheduled to hold a hearing on the legal aspects of House Bill 1947, which, if approved, would amend the state's child sex crime laws, allowing victims a wider window in which to bring predators to justice. (Associated Press) Advocates of child sex abuse victims are calling it their now-or-never moment. On Monday, a bill they say would widely tip the scale of justice in favor of victims of sexual abuse and away from predators goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee. At stake is the future of House Bill 1947, which would amend the civil statute of limitations and eliminate all criminal statutes on future child sex crimes. The bill would also give past victims of sex abuse the opportunity to file civil claims against predators. Monday's hearing before the judiciary committee, the first since the bill's passage in the House in April, is slated to focus on arguments of the bill's constitutionality. "We have a moment when the survivors need to make a point - that this is all about survivors from all categories," said Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law expert and a leading expert on statute of limitations reform. "It's really time for Pennsylvania to do the right thing." Hamilton, who will be testifying on Monday on the constitutionality of HB1947, has successfully advocated for reform of child sex crime laws across the country. She says the proposed legislation is within the bounds of the law. "There's no question that in Pennsylvania the constitutional reviving of expired statute of limitation to help a victim is consistent with the remedies clause," Hamilton said. "The plain language of the remedies clause is that it is for people who have been injured. It is not a haven for defendants and those who endanger children." Advocates know that in order for the law to change the bill must survive the scrutiny of the judiciary committee, which is led by chairman Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, (R-Montgomery). Over the past month or so since passage of the bill in the House, Greenleaf has been mum about the bill. Castor testifying Monday He will on Monday consider the testimony of Bruce Castor, the second-highest-ranking official in the state's Attorney General's office, who will be testifying on behalf of the Commonwealth. Advocates fear that Castor, a former district attorney from Montgomery County with ties to his former law partner Greenleaf, is intent on arming the judiciary committee with the ammo necessary to strip the bill of the revival element and ostensibly defeat it. Bruce Castor, the second highest ranking official in the state Attorney's General office, will on Monday testify before a Senate committee regarding House Bill 1947 on behalf of the Commonwealth. Castor, who in January was brought out of retirement by embattled Attorney General Kathleen Kane, said he was simply asked to give legal analysis, and while he has no personal thoughts on the bill, his outlook on it is colored by a lifetime spent in law enforcement. "When you spend three decades in law enforcement you can probably guess I favor the idea of punishing wrongdoers, whether civilly or criminally," said Castor, whose extensive resume includes multiple terms as district attorney and county commissioner in Montgomery County. Castor has also served as president of the state's District Attorneys Association and on the state's Supreme Court Rules Committee. "Having to make the decision over the years based on the law and evidence and sometimes requiring that guilty people go free, I'm well aware of the distinction between what I want to be the case and what the law allows," he said. For advocates, House Bill 1947 represents a drawn-out attempt to reform the law. After a string of failed attempts to enact reform legislation, the bill passed out of the House in April in the wake of the latest child sex abuse scandal in Pennsylvania. A grand jury report in March announced findings of a two-year-long investigation into the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese that found the systemic abuse of children by priests over decades and the coverup by church leaders. The Altoona-Johnstown case seemed to tip the momentum in favor of advocates, who rode a groundswell of public outrage fueled by other stunning sex abuse cases in the state - including the clergy sex abuse case out of Philadelphia Archdiocese, the Jerry Sandusky case and the ongoing court case involving Bill Cosby. The bill, which passed the House with a majority vote of 180-15, has pitted powerful forces in the state against each other: namely its opponents - the business and insurance sectors and the Catholic Church - against its supporters - victims and their advocates. Retroactive measure 'blatantly unfair' The Catholic Church, which has been rocked by clergy sex abuse scandals, says the bill unfairly targets the church and would result in devastating lawsuits. The church and its legislative branch, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, has long been concerned that retroactive components of the law conflict are unconstitutional. "I expect that many of these same constitutional concerns that are specific to Pennsylvania's constitution and law will be addressed in the Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday," Amy Hill, spokeswoman for the organization, said. Hill reiterated that the conference does not oppose the elimination of the criminal statute of limitations but considers the retroactive measure that was amended into the bill "blatantly unfair." "It discriminates against survivors who suffered sexual abuse in public institutions and prevents them from seeking recourse," she said in a written statement. "It allows lawsuits to be filed against private institutions for long past actions, but continues to protect public ones, including schools and juvenile facilities." Delilah Rumberg, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, argues that the push for reform has nothing to do with the Catholic Church. She points out that the majority of child sex abuse involves adults who are close to the child - whether family, neighbor or friend of the family. "It's not about the Catholic Church," Rumberg said. "It never started out that way for any of us. It really is trying to give victims the opportunity to come forward, those who haven't had the opportunity to experience justice. That's what we really want to do is make sure we give survivors time they need to come forward and hold accountable those who did harm." Similarly, the business sector, including the insurance industry, argues that the retroactive component of the bill would be detrimental to business. Reforms have swept country Victims and victims advocates argue that the amendment to the law would grant past victims the one vital thing denied to them: justice. Advocates widely point to scientific research into abuse, which increasingly concludes that child sexual abuse is so traumatic and devastating, most victims require decades before they are ready to come forth about their abuse. By then most have timed out of the legal system. Advocates, who have for more than two decades fought to reform the statute of limitations, are riding a wave of reform legislation across the country. Some 32 states have recently amended statutes of limitations. Pennsylvania - along with New Jersey and New York - are ground zero for some of the fiercest ongoing battles. The Catholic Church has long argued that retroactive components of statute of limitations reform law are unconstitutional and unfairly target the church, while letting off the hook public institutions. Over the past 10 years, more than three dozen states have eliminated the criminal statute of limitations (for the top counts); approximately eight have imposed "windows" or revived expired statutes to allow victims to come forth. Marcy Hamilton, a constitutional law expert and author, on Monday will testify on behalf of HB1947's constitutionality. Hamilton, in this April photo, spoke at a child sex abuse statute of limitations rally at the state Capitol. Dan Gleiter, PennLive.com In every state - California, Delaware, Minnesota, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Georgia - where attempts to revive expired statutes of limitations have been challenged, courts have upheld the reform as constitutional. Hamilton said she plans to note in her testimony that the state's remedies clause is not - as detractors have argued - distinctive to Pennsylvania. The purpose of clause, she argues, is to protect plaintiffs from legislative action that will undermine an individual's remedy for an injury done. The clause states: "All courts shall be open; and every man for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and justice administered without sale, denial or delay. Suits may be brought against the Commonwealth in such manner, in such courts and in such cases as the Legislature may by law direct." Added Hamilton, "In fact the Supreme Court said it was similar to that of 30 other states." Public definitely following Since the announcement last week that Castor would testify on behalf of the Commonwealth, victims and victims advocates have expressed concern that he will thwart their goal. Hamilton said Castor represents a conflict of interest not only because of his ties with Greenleaf, but his failure to prosecute Bill Cosby, which she said shows he is not on the side of victims. "This is a tainted witness," Hamilton said. "He has already let down all of the victims of Cosby. This is just politics. The last person anyone should be listening to on the protection of children is a Catholic bishop and Bruce Castor." Castor declined to comment on the focus of his testimony. However, he provided his assessment of public opinion on this issue. "My read on the public's tolerance of the law enforcement's inability to pursue older cases has reached its limit," he said. He added that he thought the bill passed the House under public pressure, and while the Senate widely takes a more deliberative approach, its members also will fall under that same public scrutiny. The clergy sex abuse cases out of Altoona-Johnstown and the archdioceses of Philadelphia and Boston, Castor said, "have culminated in the public becoming much more intolerant of this behavior and desirous of granting law enforcement powers to deal with it. "I believe the senators while more deliberative will take a similar view to the House. Whether they take the exact view is a nuance I can't predict," he said. "But I would be surprised if the Senate did not do something similar to what the House did in an effort to grant law enforcement greater powers to deal with a social issue that the public has lost its tolerance for waiting on." Mark Romain was despondent, angry even, on Monday morning after a Dauphin County judge imposed a 3- to 6-year state prison term on a Harrisburg man who accidentally shot and killed his 17-year-old son, Amon. "It was a disgrace," Romain said moments after Judge John F. Cherry sentenced Kenneth Hunter, who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and illegal weapons possession charges in the April 2015 slaying. Kenneth Hunter Such a penalty isn't likely to deter other young men from killing each other with guns in Pennsylvania's capitol city, he said. Investigators said Hunter, 20, accidentally shot Amon Corsa-Romain, one of his best friends, in the face while waving a loaded pistol around in a bedroom at Corsa-Romain's Kensington Street home. http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/05/harrisburg_man_to_be_charged_i.html The devastation of that death was total, and it was in full view as Hunter was sentenced in Cherry's third-floor courtroom. Tears flowed freely from both Corsa-Romain's family and Hunter's kin. At one point, Hunter was so overcome by emotion he nearly collapsed. Sheriff's deputies allowed him to sit in a chair. Hunter asked Cherry if he could speak directly to the more than 20 of Corsa-Romain's relatives who packed the courtroom. When the judge gave his nod, Hunter turned in his shackles and faced them. "I'm sorry. I apologize from the bottom of my heart," he said. "I can't find words that can really alleviate all the pain I caused." Hunter's statement was hard to watch. He spoke of how he regarded Corsa-Romain as a brother. His lawyer, Public Defender Elizabeth Ruby, who sought a county prison sentence for Hunter, dabbed tears from her eyes as he spoke. "I know you will probably never forgive me" he added. "I ask God to forgive me every day for what happened." The reaction he received from Corsa-Romain's relatives was mixed. Mark Romain spoke of how he welcomed Hunter, who was basically a street kid, into his family's home. He told Cherry how the "nightmare" began when his daughter called him on the phone, screaming that Amon had been shot. "That scream I will never forget for the rest of my life," he said. Even worse, he said,was seeing his dead son "lying there, a beautiful young man." "The pain this inflicted on me is sometimes more than I can stand," Romain said. "Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night crying." Corsa-Romain's older brother Mark Romain II blasted Hunter for causing a catastrophe while "trying to be bad." "Why would you carry a gun into a house full of kids?" he asked. "You can't give that life back. No apologies are going to work...That's my little brother." Another brother kept telling Hunter, "Kenny, look at me, bro!" as Hunter avoided his gaze. "It hurts so bad. Look in my eyes, bro!" Corsa-Romain's brother Leo wept as he spoke to Hunter. He was one of the few to voice forgiveness. "You'll always have a friend in me," he told Hunter. Johanna Iftikhar-Khan, Corsa-Romain's aunt, asked Cherry to give Hunter the most severe punishment the law allows. "It was irresponsible of him to have a gun, to wave a gun," she said. A tough sentence was needed "so the kids know it's not cool to go around with a gun. It's not cool to play with a gun," she said. "Your honor, make him pay...Please, let us know Amon's life mattered." Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Sprow didn't make a specific sentencing recommendation, but did lobby against leniency. "This was a decision the defendant made to carry this gun, to bring it to the residence and to handle it in a way that was not appropriate, that resulted in the death of a human being," he said. Cherry called the sentencing unique in that he knows members of both families. Some of Corsa-Romain's relatives cited his statement afterward, saying Cherry should have recused himself from the case. The judge said he believes Hunter's remorse is genuine, but the crime was too severe for a county prison term. He called the case an example of the "epidemic" of violence tied illegal guns on the city's streets. Hopefully, Cherry said, Hunter's punishment will "send a message to the community that we're not going to tolerate the unlawful carrying of firearms." Barry Glass.jpg Barry Glass (submitted) The truck driver missing for nearly two weeks was found dead inside his rig in California, state police said today. Barry L. Glass, 53, of Broad Avenue, Altoona, was found dead by sheriffs at 10:30 p.m. Sunday at a Shell service station/truck terminal in Tulare County, Calif. "Early indications are that no foul play was involved," state police said. He apparently had been there for several days. Glass left Pennsylvania on a run to California May 31, and his last phone contact with his employer, D&R Transportation of Bellwood, was June 1. State police at Hollidaysburg said Friday they determined his cell phone was in Tulare County, Calif., but didn't find him. His last delivery had been in Porterville, Calif. The investigation continues. Anyone with information can contact state police at 814-696-6100. LANCASTER -- Less than 24 hours after a gunman pledging allegiance to the Islamic State killed 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, members of Lancaster's LGBTQ community and their supporters gathered in the city Sunday for a vigil honoring the dead and where many said they too fear for their safety, some in their daily lives. "We are always worried about our security, whether we're sitting in front of a bar and get a can thrown at us or we're just walking down the street," said Erlinda Cruz, a resident of the city. "The truth is it takes a tragedy for the rest of the world to see it. ... Hopefully this opens people's eyes up and they realize this has been a problem." A coastline away, the city of Orlando was still reeling from the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history, one committed by a gunman aligning himself with the Islamic State and who family say bore a grudge against gay people. Orlando officials had called for vigils there to be postponed Sunday evening saying law enforcement were still spread too thin. Talk at the vigil also turned to the state of LGBT rights in America following the passage of highly controversial "bathroom bills" in states like North Carolina. "We have work to do," Carroll added. "We got a hate crime bill but we still need the rights that everyone else walks around with. I'm here to plead with you to support the Pennsylvania Fairness Act. You're not alone in this process. Please stand with me." Others remained optimistic, believing massive growth in public support for same-sex marriage, the same that helped it go nationwide just a year ago, indicates significant gains and possibly a new trend. "We've made such great strides in bringing equality and in bringing that freedom that we should all be able to share," Nerva Ramos said tearfully from beneath a gazebo at Penn Square with the vigil crowd looking on. "This [Orlando terror attack] is a huge setback ... so we mourn but we still live in the best possible times because we have that freedom and we continue fighting for more freedoms and more rights to be able to be who we are and so my grandchildren can be who they are." Others are less convinced that the upward trajectory is real, while those like Erlinda Cruz hope more will be done to curb violence against LGBT Americans soon. "This is a hate crime and it needs to stop," she said. Senator Bob Casey Jr. meets with PennLive Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Bob Casey Jr. meets with PennLive staff to talk about issues he is working on in the Senate, Feb. 8, 2016. Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com (Mark Pynes | mpynes@pennlive.com) Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) was in Pittsburgh on Monday where he introduced legislation aimed at keeping guns out of the hands of those who commit criminal acts based on hate, his office said in a statement. This after a gunman pledging allegiance to the Islamic State killed 50 in an Orlando nightclub favored by the LGBT community there a day earlier. According to Casey's office, his "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" would prohibit the purchase, possession or shipment of a firearm by anyone convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime or who received a hate crime sentence enhancement, and would prohibit the sale of firearms to anyone reasonably suspected to be guilty of a misdemeanor hate crime. Casey also called for other actions to prevent gun violence, including a ban on military-style weapons, limits on clips and magazine sizes, a ban on those on the terrorist watchlist from purchasing firearms and universal background checks. "If you have proven you will commit criminal acts based on hate, you absolutely should not have access to a gun. It's common sense," Senator Casey said. "It is time we as members of Congress do something. If you are a member of Congress and you say you care about security then you have to take steps to keep guns out of the wrong hands and ensure our law enforcement has the resources needed to keep communities safe." It is not clear if legislation like it would have at all impacted Omar Mateen's ability to carry out his massacre of dozens at Orlando's Pulse nightclub early Sunday, but Casey's office said generally speaking hate groups are a growing problem in the U.S., and one requiring legislative action. Mateen's family has said he bore a grudge against gays, while Mateen was also previously taken off a terror watchlist by US officials. Reports indicate keeping him on would have done nothing to prevent him from buying weapons. Casey's office, meanwhile, believes there are many others capable of such violence who should not have access to deadly firepower as a result of that proclivity. "According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 892 hate groups are currently operating in the United States, up 14 percent since 2014 and almost 33 percent since 2000. According to National Crime Victimization Survey data, an average of about 259,000 hate crimes happen each year, and between 2010 and 2014 alone, more than 43,000 hate crimes were committed with a firearm," his office reported. Vox.com published a list of U.S. lawmakers, including those in Pennsylvania, who voted "against protecting gay people from hate crimes" under 2009's Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Vox says: "The law added perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disabilities as protected classes under existing federal hate crimes law," adding "Previously, the law only protected victims of violence based on race, nationality, ethnicity, and religion." Sunday's mass shooting in Orlando, the deadliest in modern U.S. history and the worst terror attack here since 9/11, is likely to be labeled a hate crime by the FBI, the website reported. The massacre has also rekindled debate about LGBT rights and safety, gun control, Islamic terrorism and revealed a clear partisan divide in how the event itself has been discussed publicly. Asked the chances of Casey's "Hate Crimes Prevention Act" succeeding where similar gun control measures have failed, notably after Sandy Hook and Charleston, S.C., his office admitted it may not, but said "The Senator felt whether it passes or doesn't he couldn't sit idly by and do nothing." UPDATE: This article has been updated to include information on 2009's Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act via Vox.com, and comment from Casey's office on the chances of his legislation succeeding where others like it have failed. Constitutional law expert Marci Hamilton In a three-hour long hearing steeped in references to Pennsylvania case law, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday heard expert testimony on the validity and viability of proposed legislation that would change how child sexual predators are prosecuted. The hearing, which tipped markedly in favor of opponents of House Bill 1947, was held in a hearing room packed with victims advocates as well as past victims of sexual abuse. Many of them wiped away tears as a cadre of expert witnesses - with the exception of one - argued how the Pennsylvania Constitution prohibits the General Assembly from retroactively altering expired statutes of limitations. The hearing, which featured five expert witnesses, only one testifying in support of the bill, focused on the constitutionality of the bill, which would impose look-back measures for past victims of abuse, including those molested by priests as children. Much of the testimony centered around the state's constitutional remedies clause, which ostensibly bars the General Assembly from retroactively altering expired statutes of limitations. Prior to the experts giving their testimony, Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who in March released findings of a grand jury report that found systemic child sex abuse over decades in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, delivered a short appeal. Kane, whose law license has been suspended in the wake of criminal charges stemming from the grand jury leak investigation, begged the panel to pass the bill immediately. "I'm asking you to do that because every single day that goes by... is a day more and more and more victims are denied justice," she said. Kane said that if after approval of the bill,the Senate found that it violated the state's Constitution, lawmakers should "figure out a solution" to the constitutional issue, whether that meant amending it "or whatever needs to be done but make firm commitment" to finding a way that "we are never denying justice to anyone in the Commonwealth." "We as government will prove by our actions that we support child survivors and their families and not cruel, cold-hearted criminals who prey upon our criminals," Kane said. "We will not protect the institutions that harbor them." In contrast to Kane's opening remarks, the witnesses who followed reiterated respective arguments that the bill would not pass state Constitutional muster. Coming on the heels of Kane's short appeal, the second-highest ranking official in her office, Bruce Castor, the solicitor general, testified that the bill would violate the remedies clause of the state's Constitution, and therefore, prove to be unconstitutional. "House Bill 1947, if enacted into law in its current form and without amendment will, in our opinion, violate the remedies clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution," Castor argued. "Potential defendants, who have had the statute of limitations pass without their being subjected to suit, will rightly claim a vested right in the applicable statute of limitations." Castor said that while the bill represented "a laudable attempt to provide a remedy for a well identified social problem", the the General Assembly "in its zeal, cannot overrule a state constitutional right." Castor based his conclusion in large part on a 1908 case involving a retroactive claim. In Lewis v. Pennsylvania Railroad Company, the state Supreme Court ruled against the widow of railroad worker who had filed a negligence claim retroactively against the company. The court, Castor said, had concluded that "retroactive legislation that reduces a defendant's defenses or "exemptions from demands" cannot be applied where the defense has "vested." The state's remedies clause states that "all courts shall be open; and every man for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person or reputation shall have remedy by due course of law, and right and justice administered without sale, denial or delay. Suits may be brought against the Commonwealth in such manner, in such courts and in such cases as the Legislature may by law direct." House Bill 1947 came in the wake of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese grand jury report as a groundswell of advocates called for reform in the law. The bill, which was approved in the House by a 180-15 vote, would eliminate all criminal statutes going forward on most child sex crimes and retroactively amend civil statutes. The bill would retroactively extend civil statutes that expired at a victim's age 30 to 50. Castor was followed by three other speakers - all of them law experts - who reiterated his stance that the bill would violate the state's remedies clause. Solicitor General Bruce Castor Citing a handful of case law, Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at Saint Vincent College, argued that the U.S. Constitution has permitted the revival of expired statutes of limitations in cases where legislatures have explicitly made that determination in the matter before it. Antkowiak argued that while House Bill 1947 would likely pass federal Constitutional muster, it would fail at the state level. Pennsylvania's Constitution, he argued, has been consistently interpreted to reject the legitimacy of revival of expired claims. Unless the General Assembly undertook "a dramatic reversal of established jurisprudence in the area" or passed a Constitutional amendment, the proposed bill "will fail a Constitutional challenge in the Courts of the Commonwealth." "If the bill is passed as is, there will certainly be a legal challenge," Antkowiak said. Cary Silverman, an attorney who testified on behalf of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania, reiterated that line of thinking. Silverman argued that Pennsylvania law has been "consistent and unequivocal" on the merits of reviving a civil claim for which the statute of limitations has expired. The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the church's legislative branch, and the insurance industry, along with the business sector, argue that the retroactive components of the law are unfair and would be detrimental to their interests. Silverman pointed out that while "most states" have not revived time-barred claims, Pennsylvania's constitutional law regarding vested rights is consistent with the approach taken by "most states," leading them to apply extensions of the statute of limitations prospectively, not retroactively. More than two hours into the hearing, supporters of the bill had their expert witness called to testify. Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law expert and one of the country's leading experts on statutes of limitations, said that given the fact that opponents of the bill had ostensibly been given more than two hours to testify, she would break her protocol and read her full testimony. "I haven't done that ever in my career," said Hamilton, who began her testimony summarizing what the basic points she and victims and other advocates had heard during the morning, including that "bishops fully plan on dragging victims through a constitutional challenge if the statute of limitations is revived." Her voice piqued with frustration, Hamilton registered her objection that the prosecutors involved in grand jury reports into church dioceses had not been asked to testify. "It is unfortunate that prosecutors who worked very, very hard on grand jury reports and whose lives changed by learning of this abuse were not permitted to testify," Hamilton said. "All asked to testified and were not permitted." Hamilton then went on to make a case for the constitutionality of House Bill 1947, arguing in specific, that the state Supreme Court had not heard arguments on the issue. "The Supreme Court has not ruled on this," she told the panel. "You don't know what the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will do. I don't understand how this committee would know if it's unconstitutional if the Supreme Court has not ruled on it yet." Hamilton argued that House Bill 1947 did not violate due process under either state or federal law. Revival of expired civil statutes of limitations are constitutional if two due process requirements are met: clear legislative intent and the change is to a procedural element - like a statute of limitations. At the state level, Hamilton argued, the state high court has permitted the retroactive application of statutes similar to those in HB1947, distinguishing between procedural and substantive retroactive changes in the law. Under the proposed legislation, Hamilton said, "mere alteration of a statute of limitations does not violate due process in Pennsylvania." She added that Pennsylvania was in line with the "majority of states, which have not found that defendants have a vested right in expired statutes of limitations." Hamilton further argued that the state's remedies clause protected the injured not those who caused injury. She said the Catholic Church and its powerful lobbying might had "fallen back" on the idea that the remedies clause barred revival of expired statutes in order "to protect tortious defendants." "The purpose of the remedies clause is to protect plaintiffs from legislative action that will undermine the existence of an individual's remedy for an injury done," Hamilton argued. "It is a constitutional guarantee of open courts for plaintiffs, and not a shield to block courts access in favor of powerful defendants." At the conclusion of her testimony, Sen. John C. Rafferty, addressing Hamilton, said it was incumbent on the committee to consider the legislation before it. He said should issues of constitutionality arise, it was best left up to "people in black robes." The chairman of the committee, Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery County, said he hoped his committee would rule on the bill before the summer break. "Now that we've heard testimony of witnesses in regards to the constitutionality, we can move ahead with that issue," Greeleaf said. "Members of my committee have to decide and absorb the information that they just heard and make a decision on that issue." Greenleaf said his chamber could always amend the bill, if there was a question of constitutionality on the retroactive measure. "We can take the provision out of the bill and move the bill without that provision," he said. "But this is the first time they've heard this information. I'm going to have to talk to my members." Two 17-year-old males have been accused of entering more than 33 unlocked vehicles recently in North Londonderry Township, police said. Palmyra police are also investigating a rash of thefts from unlocked vehicles between June 9-12, but it is not clear whether the incidents are all related. In North Londonderry Township, mostly cash was taken, but there were also reports of electronics, knives, lighters and sunglasses being taken, police said Monday Several vehicles were also vandalized, with seats cut and paint scratched, police said. The incidents happened June 11 on Apple Blossom, Oak and Shady lanes; East Maple, South Harrison and South Franklin streets; and Londonderry Blvd. Anyone with information or who has had items taken is asked to call North Londonderry police at 717-838-5276. In Palmyra, thefts occurred in the 100-200 blocks of North Railroad Street, Colonial Road, 700 and 900 blocks of East Maple Street, Sandalwood Drive, Sycamore Lane, 600 block of West Pine Street between June 9-12 Loose change, knife in a leather holster and iPhone charger were among the items taken. Anyone with information is asked to call Palmyra police at 717-838-8189. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 717-838-8189. thomas curran.jpg Tony J. Thomas, 23, (left) and Aurora A. Curran, 36, (right), of Middleburg, Virginia, are facing charges after police say Thomas shot into the cab of a tractor-trailer on Interstate 81 near Carlisle. (Submitted) NORTH MIDDLETON TOWNSHIP - As a pickup truck rode alongside a tractor-trailer on Interstate 81, a shot rang out and blasted through the cab of the truck, breaking the passenger-side window and hitting the windshield. Did the man accused of firing that shot actually do it? Did he do it to protect his girlfriend? All of that will have to be parsed out at another time. The accused shooter, Tony J. Thomas, 23, of Middleburg, Virginia, was scheduled for a preliminary hearing Monday, but that hearing has been continued to July 8. His girlfriend, Aurora A. Curran, 36, also of Middleburg, is facing lesser charges in the incident and has been rescheduled for a hearing the same day. According to charging documents filed by the Pennsylvania State Police at Carlisle, the incident occurred like this: Thomas' cousin, Sean Thomas, was driving a pickup truck on Interstate 81 on May 31 with Thomas and Curran riding along with him. Tony Thomas and Curran got into an argument and she asked to be dropped off, so the driver pulled over and let her out around Exit 52 near Carlisle. Shortly afterwards, Dana Ruckman, 43, of Augusta, West Virginia, was driving a semi-truck south on I-81 and spotted Curran. He picked her up, and she told him her boyfriend had just kicked her out of his truck. Ruckman let her use his cellphone to call Tony Thomas, and he pulled over several miles down the road where Thomas had also pulled over to picked her up. Once back in the truck, though, Curran said the truck driver tried to rape her. This is where their stories differed a bit after they were interviewed by police. Sean Thomas said Curran is known to "be dramatic" and said she "lies a lot." And Curran made no mention of a sexual assault to the police. And Tony Thomas made no mention of a sexual assault, either. But as Ruckman drove down I-81, the pickup truck rode alongside him and he heard a loud "boom." That "boom" is what led to the charges against Tony Thomas, whom police say shot into the truck - a move that surprised his cousin, the driver. As Ruckman relayed his story to the police at a rest area, other officers had pulled over the pickup truck down the road. Inside, along with Tony and Sean Thomas and Curran, they found a Hi-Point .380 semi-automatic pistol. Tony Thomas was charged with two counts each of aggravated assault and conspiracy (first and second degree felonies); propelling a missile into occupied vehicle, a first degree misdemeanor; and reckless endangerment, a second degree misdemeanor. Curran was charged with riot and disorderly conduct. In a round of Monday morning interviews, Donald Trump questioned President Barack Obama's motives in the Orlando shooting. While the presumptive GOP nominee didn't directly accuse Obama of being involved in the shooting, he implied the president may have some ulterior interest. During an interview on Fox News, Trump said: "Look, we're led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind. And the something else in mind--you know, people can't believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can't even mention the words "radical Islamic terrorism." There's something going on. It's inconceivable. There's something going on." Trump doubled down a little later on NBC's "Today Show": "Well, there are a lot of people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it. A lot of people think maybe he doesn't want to know about it. I happen to think that he just doesn't know what he's doing, but there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it. He doesn't want to see what's really happening. And that could be." The comments during the morning interviews came after Trump called for Obama's resignation on Sunday. When asked on Fox News Monday why he called for the resignation, Trump said, "He doesn't get it or he gets it better than anybody understands. It's one or the other, and either one is unacceptable." According to The Washington Post, Trump has previously suggested that Obama is not Christian and has questioned his compassion toward Muslims. He has also stated conspiracy theories as fact while on the campaign trail. Trump was also a leader in the birther movement, which accused the president of being born in Kenya and called for the release of his Hawaii birth certificate. This is how The Atlantic described Trump's recent words: "The idea the president is a Manchurian candidate, a mole or agent for jihadism is a stunning accusation, even by the standard of a presidential campaign in which Trump has delivered a series of breathtaking statements..." Trump is also taking heat for a tweet he posted Sunday after the Orlando shootings. Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016 On Fox News Monday morning, Trump defended the tweet. "I'm getting thousands of letters and tweets that I was right about the whole situation," he said. "I mean, I've been right about a lot of things, frankly... I was right about many, many things." When he took up an AR-15 rifle and fired again and again and again and again and again in an Orlando nightclub in the overnight hours of Saturday and Sunday, Omar Mateen was taking aim at an America that perhaps terrified him, but one that he could not stop from changing before his eyes. Pulse - a nightclub named in memory of the "beating heart" of a Florida man who died of AIDS, was a space for LGBT people to feel safe and to dance and to celebrate in the midst of an annual Pride Month observance. But Pulse was more than a gay club. It was more than a place to dance and laugh. It was, as The Washington Post reports, also a place where immigrants were welcomed. It was a place where women fighting breast cancer could find solace and support. So when he opened fire, killing 50 and wounding as many more, Mateen, a U.S. citizen born in New York who'd reportedly sworn allegiance to ISIS, was shooting deep into the heart of an America that is increasingly more diverse, more tolerant and more understanding than it has ever been. And though it should not, that scares some people. The deadly rampage also came nearly a year after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, completing the crash of a wave of social change that most Americans now give scarcely a second thought. That ISIS abhors homosexuals, that it abhors anyone who does not subscribe to its narrowly fanatical reading of one of the world's great religions, is not in dispute. In the Middle Eastern territory that this murderous band of criminals controls, gay people are pitched from rooftops. The slightest variation from its delusional interpretation of Islam is punished swiftly and harshly. And while it's tempting to isolate his attack as solely one on gay people, it's not. It's an attack on all of us. It's an attack on our identity as Americans, on the way we view ourselves in our most idealistic moments. It is attack on an America that, as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Sunday that "loves broadly," welcoming all. It is an America, as President Barack Obama said, that holds the "fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country." And still, the nation did expose its ugly underbelly on Sunday. In the hours after the attack, people with only darkness in their souls jumped on social media to celebrate this singular act of hate. "Florida Pulse club attacked. I'm so happy that someone decided to start shooting perverts instead of innocent people," someone named Jonathan Howell said on Twitter in a post that was widely and justly pilloried on Sunday. And at a time of trial, when Americans look to their leaders for hope and strength, one aspiring to lead us, the first instinct of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was to respond not with words of encouragement, but with an arrogant "I told you so." "Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart," Trump tweeted, later adding that he thought Obama should resign "in disgrace" if he failed to "mention the words radical Islamic terrorism." In a statement issued later in the day, Trump said his "deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded, and their families," but he remained defiant, adding that "because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen - and it is only going to get worse." In a series of Tweets, including one in Spanish, Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, took the exact opposite approach, observing at one point that "this is a time to stand together and resolve to do everything we can to defend our communities and country." And maybe it was appropriate that a Sunday filled with such great sadness ended with the smash Broadway musical "Hamilton" cleaning up at the annual Tony Awards, picking up honors that included Best Musical. The play, written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants, is a retelling of the American story through the eyes of people - black, brown and beige - who were not considered citizens at the time of the nation's founding. It is, Miranda said in an interview on , "the story of America then, [told] by America now." View More: | | It's the America that Omar Mateen tried to destroy in Orlando. It is the one he feared. And it is the one from which we can never retreat. An article about a Chinese video app went viral recently. Posted on Chinas social media platform WeChat, the article Cruel stories of the grassroots: the truth about the Chinese countryside via a video app, offered a disturbing snapshot of rural China. Screenshot of the video app. According to the author Huo Xuanji (alias Doctor X), the short video app Kwai (Kuaishou in Chinese) was the fourth most popular app in China despite being unheard of by many. The app was the No.1 video app in 2015 and had a huge 184 million active monthly users in March of this year. The author, a history graduate, said that the app is home to vulgar and revolting videos uploaded by predominantly rural users and offers a glimpse into the psyche of rural China. Videos uploaded on the app include a variety of self-abusive images, ranging from a middle-aged woman eating lightbulbs, glass and bugs (her video went viral several days ago and caught the attention of police for fear that the woman was being abused) to a man who sets off firecrackers in his own groin. The author attributed the unusual actions to two motivations: attention and profits. Everyone wants to get other peoples attention. But for the people who mistreat themselves in the videos have no money, no good education, no social status and no good looks. He went on to list other viral videos on the app, including children who do not look like their age and imitate degenerate adults and country rappers who embrace violence, gangster culture and ultra-nationalism. The mainstream Chinese world only focuses on first-tier cities, while the life of the 674 million rural people -- almost half of Chinas population -- have been unnoticed for too long, the author argues. The world mirrored by the app and the world represented by big Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are two isolated, separate worlds. The article has been read by millions of readers and received innumerable comments. Some leaving comments on the now deleted post praised the author for noticing the rural world while others argued that the videos are circumstantial and not representative of the vast Chinese countryside. Pundits and online commentators have generally criticized the article. An article posted on the WeChat account of the Beijing Youth Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League committee in Beijing, accused the post of igniting conflict between different social classes. This is not the first time that a story involving rural China has gone viral online and sparked controversy. During the Chinese New Year this year, a post about a Shanghai woman dumping her boyfriend after having a low-budget dinner in his rural hometown received much attention online. Though the article was later found to be fabricated, discussions about urban and rural China went on for quite a while. The gap between the urban and rural worlds is prominent in China, with drastic differences in peoples income, medical and social insurance and education. While the gap has arguably narrowed in recent years, people in the countryside still finds themselves struggling with numerous problems and receiving much less attention than their urban counterparts. Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. property taxes By Randy L. Varner Eliminating property taxes is a popular pledge on the state and local campaign trail. Randy L. Varner (PennLive file) But the promise is only half the story. Citizens need to ask: "And then what?" Like a climbing wall, eliminating property taxes may take you half way up, but you are still far from the top. In fact, you are suspended in mid-air. Pennsylvania cannot wipe out the tax without replacing it with something else. Our schools are funded almost entirely from property tax revenues, to the tune of $14 billion annually. As a citizen, tax attorney, and member of South Middleton School District's board, I understand the need to find a tax system that is stable, reliable, consistent, and fair. It's a tough recipe to find, and one which centuries of American leaders have sought without success. The good and bad of property taxes Property taxes are a centuries-old idea. In fact, among the New World's first colonial officers were tax assessors. Finding an alternative still eludes us because it is so stable - governments can predict with about 98 percent accuracy what they will collect each year. Moreover, it is not dependent on economic vitality like the sales and personal income taxes, which could dry up in the face of economic nosedives. There is a fairness aspect as well -- if you feel you are over-assessed, you can appeal your assessment every year. The downside is, of course, that property taxes are applied to all property owners, save charities and governmental entities. Not being based on ability to pay means if you lose your job or your income plummets in retirement, there's no relief. Senior citizens being taxed out of their homes does happen. Why simply eliminating property taxes won't work Though basic education funding has only risen modestly over the past few years, local school boards are staring down a pension bomb and grappling with health care costs. For example, South Middleton did not apply for an exception to raise taxes above the 2.4 percent index. Yet, even if we raise taxes to the maximum allowable, it does not cover skyrocketing increases in health care and pension costs. We are still underwater, and we will only sink further without change. But if we erase property taxes, no one can seem to make the back-end math work. Raising the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent only yields about $1.76 billion. Increasing the 3.07 personal income tax by a point is only worth about $4 billion to $4.5 billion. Doing both is still leaves us far short of the $14 billion collected annually through property taxes. Raising the corporate income tax isn't a great solution either. Our 9.99 percent rate is the second-highest in the nation and raises $2 billion, according to the governor's latest budget projection. Increasing it is both politically unpalatable and hurtful to the economy in the long run. Here's an added worry: If each school district got rid of its property tax, then the state would be collecting the money, and deciding how to spit it back out to school districts. We would need a fair funding formula to split it evenly among 500 school districts. That is a major sticking point right now between the Legislature and the Governor, as they debate what formula should guide the division of billions of education dollars. Practical property tax reforms The better question we should ask is not how to get rid of property taxes, but how to adjust its application. Perhaps we should give more relief to seniors, in a way that will pass constitutional muster. Anything that shifts local control is suspect, because most of us don't want the state divvying up the money. Reformers calling for an end to property taxes have good intentions, but keep in mind that the end result must be a fairly-funded school system that meets the needs of our children. Randy L. Varner is an attorney at McNees Wallace & Nurick where he chairs its State and Local Tax Practice Group. He is also a member of the South Middleton School District board. Jill Sunday Bartoli, believing that voters should have a choice, ran a very successful write-in campaign in April. In November she will oppose incumbent Rep. Stephen Bloom to represent the 199th Pa. legislative district. Do you remember vowing to oust all of the legislators who created the 2016 budget impasse? Now voters will have a chance to do that. Bartoli will act on the issues and values of citizens rather than partisan allegiances. Are you concerned about the inequalities in education in Pennsylvania and high property taxes because legislators refuse to fund our public schools at the full state share of 50 percent? Are you concerned that we may lose some of our best, most experienced teachers because of Bloom's bill to lay off teachers according to some "matrix?" Currently all teachers are evaluated regularly by administrators and with several unsatisfactory ratings can be dismissed. Tenure does not protect poor teachers; lack of administrative supervision does. When a district must choose between a teacher earning a higher salary and one at a starting salary, how fairly do you think this "matrix" will be used? Bartoli is concerned about clean air and water and preserving our finite resources more than alliances with big corporations and industries. Bartoli is focused on issues that are important to local citizens. She is ready to work together to find equitable solutions. Voters in the 199th District now have a choice. It is vital to learn more and inform others to ensure a brighter future. MARGARET BUTTS, West Pennsboro Twp. Write-in votes cast in April primary change complexion of some legislative, congressonal races The United Nations Agency on Refugees tells us that every five to 10 minutes 150 more people, half of them children, are becoming refugees. Many millions of very poor people have fled their homes because of terrorism, wars, persecution, famines, and drought. This catastrophic, horrific and tragic situation is taking place in Africa, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and even Latin America. For example, thousands of brave African people have drowned while attempting to flee to Europe. The United States and the international community need to greatly reduce their spending on the evils of war and weapons, and greatly increase spending on emergency and long-term aid to refugees. All nations must work together to welcome and resettle these desperately needy people, and work for peace and the elimination of all factors that cause this crisis. We as individuals can help a great deal by giving to church-related relief/development agencies, such as Church World Services, Catholic Relief Services, and the Mennonite Central Committee. We can designate our gifts for refugee assistance. JOHN S. FUELLER, East Manchester Twp. All work and no play makes the Democratic National Convention a dull week. A proposal working its way through the Pennsylvania Legislature would temporarily lift restrictions on the sale of alcohol for Philadelphia's Democratic National Convention. House Bill 1196 would create a "national event permit" allowing establishments hosting events tied to a national convention to circumvent many of the state's existing laws, including: Permitted establishments would be exempt from the requirement that other licensed restaurants stop serving at 2 a.m. They would also be exempt from the requirement for other special occasion permits that they can only be used for six days per year. Permit holders can accept, import, possess or resell donated alcohol with approval from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. This is one way around the requirement that all wine and liquor be purchased through the PLCB. Establishments that can currently sell alcohol to-go can do the same during the event. Others are barred from selling for outside consumption. No notice to local or state police required. While the bill, which unanimously passed the Senate last month and is now working its way toward a House vote, doesn't mention the DNC explicitly, it does include a provision that would cause the entire law to expire on July 29. The DNC will take place July 25-28. The new permit comes with a one-time application fee of $5,000. And the law stipulates that the PLCB "shall approve the application unless doing so would clearly be against the public interest." Although the exemption would benefit Democratic convention-goers, the bill has garnered strong bipartisan support. Earlier this month, another bill that allowed for, among other things, wine sales at grocery stores, longer state liquor store hours and 24/7 beverage service at casinos passed the House in a 157-31 vote. A far more limited allowance was implemented in neighboring Ohio, which will host the Republican National Convention. Cleveland created a waiver that liquor permit holders can use to push their "last call" to 4 a.m. Wallace McKelvey may be reached at wmckelvey@pennlive.com. Follow him on Twitter @wjmckelvey. Find PennLive on Facebook. FILE - In this Jan. 14, 2013, file photo, white roses with the faces of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are attached to a telephone pole near the school in Newtown, Conn. The deadliest shooting in U.S. history has people around the world wondering why mass violence keeps happening in America. For those who have lived through mass shootings, and for the law enforcement officers trying to prevent them, the answer is self-evident. Because we allow it, said Sandy Phillips, whose daughter was among 12 killed at Colorado movie theater in July 2012. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File) A total of 15 Philippine young people and one U.S. citizen, attempting to land on China's Huangyan Island, were intercepted by two motor boats driven by Chinese maritime police on June 12, as the Philippines celebrated its Independence Day. Those people belong to the Kalayaan ATIN ITO, a local organization, which announced its members' arrival at the area approximate to the island around 7:30 on the Sunday morning. But the fishing boat they took was spotted and intercepted by two motor boats from the Chinese maritime police who asked the interlopers to go back. The confrontation there lasted for four consecutive hours. At 11: 00 a.m., five Philippine citizens onboard trying to swim to Huangyan Island, to place their country flag as well as UN flag, were stopped by the Chinese maritime police. Two Philippine citizens swimming to the surrounding area of the island raised their country flag before they left at 12:30 a.m. Those people on the fishing boat returned and reached the Philippines at 3:00 a.m. the next day. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reiterated that the Huangyan Island is an integral part of China's territory and any actions that China launches there are within the country's sovereign rights for legitimate concerns. China is confident that it can uphold its lawful rights and interests from being encroached, the spokespeople from the ministry stressed. Emmet County plans road work, new signs with ARPA funding Bids will be going out this winter for a Camp Petosega Road project and new road signs throughout the county. ISSUES.... Inside, confidential and off the record Otto Reich: Eyes on corruption Derwick founders face appeal in Venezuela bribery claim suit A former U.S. ambassador is pursuing claims that two Derwick Associates Corp. founders tried to discredit him for his attempts to expose their bribery of Venezuelan officials even after a judge threw out his case. Otto Reich, the former ambassador to Venezuela, has asked a federal appeals court in New York to reinstate his lawsuit against Alejandro Betancourt and Pedro Trebbau. The suit was thrown out last year after a judge ruled Reich hadn't shown the case should be tried in New York and failed to establish a connection between the alleged wire fraud and the bribery in Venezuela. Betancourt and Trebbau have amassed an enormous fortune by illicitly paying multimillion-dollar bribes to public officials in Venezuela who, in turn, award Derwick energy-sector construction contracts, Reich said June 8 in court papers. He called the people of Venezuela indirect victims, saying since their government was overbilled by $2.9 billion. Betancourt lives in New York, where he owns a multimillion-dollar home, and he and Trebbau have substantial relationships with banks, law firms and public relations firms, according to the filing. Without Merit' I feel comfortable that the court will see that his appeal as to Trebbau is without merit, said Joseph DeMaria, a lawyer for Trebbau. Frank Wohl, an attorney for Betancourt, didn't immediately return a call for comment. The biggest stories of the day, every day. Sign Up Swiss regulators said in March they had 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. Justice Department. The records were sought by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan in connection with his office's investigation into representatives of Derwick Associates, the Federal Office of Justice in Bern said at the time. That office didn't immediately return a call for comment on Friday. DeMaria said at the time that any probe by U.S. authorities is part of a continuous witch hunt against his clients. DeMaria represents both Betancourt and Trebbau in a separate Florida lawsuit that claimed they bribed Venezuelan officials.? Betancourt has also been involved in Pacific Exploration and Production Corp., where a plan to expand the company amid the worst crude meltdown in decades has turned into a restructuring in Canadian courts. The case is Otto J. Reich Associates LLC v. Betancourt, 16-0510, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (Manhattan). Chinese Premier Li Keqiang recently penned a letter on how to best address the issue of campus violence. In the letter, Li asked the Ministry of Education and other related authorities to "improve laws and regulations, strengthen student's awareness of laws and rights, and resolutely put an end to behavior that disregards human dignity and lives." Bullying and violence at schools and colleges have been widely reported in recent years. In late April, a video went viral that showed a school girl being repeatedly slapped by a group of older girls. In June 2014, another video online showed several teenagers in eastern Zhejiang Province burning a first-grade boy with cigarettes. Last year, a junior high student jumped from the fourth floor of a school building as he "just could not tolerate being bullied everyday any longer." Campus violence due to loopholes In China, criminal responsibility begins at the age of 14. Defendants under the age of 16 can only be charged with eight major crimes, including murder, rape and drug trafficking. Since bullying in schools does not often involve serious offences such as these, juvenile offenders are often given lenient sentences, much to the dismay of the victims, according to a report released by the Supreme People's Court in May. The report also pointed out a lack of awareness and understanding of campus violence and the harm it does. Children under 14 who commit intentional homicide or those under 16 who engage in acts of violence may escape punishment entirely due to omissions and loopholes in the current legal system. Though some juvenile offenders were held in police custody, the public are concerned that mild punishment will not teach them a lesson, leaving more kids exposed as potential victims in future. Enhancing education, early intervention A survey by China Youth and Children Research Center (CYCRC) last year showed that juvenile delinquents are getting younger and younger, and crimes linked to cyber abuse are on the rise. The survey also showed in addition to increased incidents, school violence has escalated due to cruelty and randomness. The education supervision committee under the State Council in early May launched a campaign to curb bullying. The campaign, which will last until December, focuses on providing students with legal and mental health education. Police and judicial staff will be invited to schools to give lectures, and education institutions are asked to improve measures for preventing and handling bullying and establish an emergency plan for serious incidents. "The state legislature should begin by lowering the age of criminal liability, given some crimes committed by minors under 14 have already severely endangered and harmed society," said Guo Kaiyuan, a professor specializing in juvenile delinquency with the CYCRC. The virtual nature of the Internet has freed people from the restriction of social norms. Immersing in online games has been linked to violence, and they may blindly solve real-life problems imitating online aggression, said Guo. Although some experts have called for stricter punishment, others suggest early prevention. Children need better moral and legal guidance at home and school, said Pi Yijun, a law professor with China University of Political Science and Law. Juvenile first offenders should learn their lessons through community rectification instead of harsh imprisonment, "otherwise they might be alienated from society and neighborhood, expounding the likelihood of recidivism," said Pi. At the same time, it is equally crucial to teach children how to properly protect themselves from and deal with school bullying, said Tong Lihua, a lawyer specializing in legal aid for teenagers. "Minors under 14 with serious criminal records such as murder, mayhem and rape should be rehabilitated with strict discipline, and professional psychologists and social workers should be encouraged to guide and intervene daily conduct", said Song Yinghui, deputy director of law school under Beijing Normal University. Lagniappe John Quigley and Andrew Willis : Could Peru's new president get comunities to agree with mining ? Mine superpower status awaits Peru if new leader can woo farmers Arriving late to the mining boom helped Peru defy a global freeze on project spending as prices plunged. Now the pipeline's drying up, and the country's chances of joining neighboring Chile as a copper superpower depend largely on the next president's affinity with remote communities. For Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who secured the majority of votes in Sunday's presidential election, the task won't be easy. While outgoing President Ollanta Humala oversaw a surge in investment and output as China's MMG Ltd. and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. brought on new operations, other companies such as Southern Copper Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp. shelved projects amid community opposition that spiraled into violent protests. Mining accounts for half of Peru's exports and the industry's golden decade for investment helped boost incomes and reduce public debt. The country is challenging Chile's position as China's top copper supplier, with a 28 percent share in the first four months of the year, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. But there's a long way to go in a nation where community opposition is among factors holding up $22 billion of mining projects, according to the central bank, and no large mines have started construction since 2012. Convincing people that mining is a boon rather than a threat to their communities may determine the industry's future. Start Again You're just going to have to sit down again and start talking to whoever represents a community or the whole community, whatever it takes, Cesar Perez-Novoa, co-head of research for Latin America at BTG Pactual, said by telephone. Talk to them about what they need, and how their lives could improve and benefit from royalties and the mining canon. Peru has all the ingredients for a successful mining industry, including geological potential, low costs, water and energy, said Perez-Novoa, a Peruvian who lives in Santiago. Ores are typically much richer than neighboring Chile. Close all those tabs. Open this email. Sign Up Projects by companies including Glencore Plc, Freeport and Chinalco Mining Corp International pushed investment to a record $9.7 billion in 2013 and fueled a surge in copper production in recent months. Investment will be about $4.5 billion this year, no more than $2.5 billion next year and could fall to $1 billion in 2018 if conditions don't improve, according to Carlos Galvez, president of mining industry group SNMPE. Red Tape Successive governments have largely left companies to negotiate community support in areas lacking even basic public services, and did little to foster a favorable climate for investment, he said. At the same time, red tape has exploded in recent years with the introduction of new environmental laws. It would be an insult to go from almost $10 billion of investment to $1 billion but that's what will happen if companies don't obtain permits and the social license for new projects, Galvez said by phone from Lima. The new president needs to show leadership, which has been lacking up to now. Compounding the community opposition are low metal prices that have seen companies cut spending and output to protect margins. Copper is heading for a fourth straight year of declines and is down 56 percent from a 2011 peak. It's never been this hard to get a mine up in the world, and at present, conditions could not be worse, said Kenneth Hoffman, senior metals and mining analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. And with so many copper-producing areas expected to see water shortages due to global warming, it may only get worse. Expanding access to clean drinking water in Peru's hinterland has been slow. Fifteen percent of Peruvians living in rural areas lack access to suitable drinking water within a kilometer of their homes, compared with 20 percent a decade ago, while 43 percent of rural homes lack sanitation, according to the World Health Organization. There's an asymmetry, Jose de Echave, a former deputy environment minister now working with non-governmental organization CooperAccion, said by telephone. People feel the legislation favors mining investment and doesn't protect their rights. The great majority of conflicts are environmental -- issues related to water, pollution. Seven people were killed last year during protests against MMG's Las Bambas mine and Southern Copper's Tia Maria project. Wall Streeter Boosting mining development in Peru while protecting the environment and building community trust will require strong political will and clear proposals, De Echave said. Kuczynski, a former mining minister and Wall Street veteran, will focus on removing obstacles to the biggest projects, such as Rio Tinto Plc's La Granja mine in Cajamarca, through increased public works and accelerating permitting, said economic adviser Alfredo Thorne. The electoral office is expected to announce Kuczynski as Peru's new president in the next few days. Both he and his presidential rival Keiko Fujimori favor redistributing mining royalties to include communities further away from deposits that currently receive none of the benefits. They also back streamlining the permitting process. Frente Amplio, which will have the highest number of seats in the new Congress after Fujimori's party, will oppose any attempts by the new government to soften labor and environmental legislation or push ahead with the most controversial mining projects, said Veronika Mendoza, a leftist leader who endorsed Kuczynski. Blood and Fire' Governments have used blood and fire to impose mining projects without respecting the rights of peasant and indigenous communities, Mendoza said. The communities around Conga and Tia Maria have decided that those projects shouldn't go ahead and they'll have our support. Peru needs to remove obstacles to investment in time for the next uptick in demand, said Galvez. Countries should be ready to develop projects in a timely way when the market is asking for them, he said. The stars must be aligned. John Quigley is a Bloomberg Economy, Government & Finance Reporter, former Editor-in-Chief, CRU Steel News at CRU International and News Editor, Agra Europe/Informa. Andrew Willis is a Bloomberg reporter base in Bogota . Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Petroleumworld. Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by Bloomberg , on June 9, 2016. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers. All comments posted and published on Petroleumworld, do not reflect either for or against the opinion expressed in the comment as an endorsement of Petroleumworld. All comments expressed are private comments and do not necessary reflect the view of this website. All comments are posted and published without liability to Petroleumworld. Use Notice:This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues of environmental and humanitarian significance. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. All works published by Petroleumworld are in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.Petroleumworld has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Petroleumworld endorsed or sponsored by theoriginator.Petroleumworld encourages persons to reproduce, reprint, or broadcast Petroleumworld articles provided that any such reproduction identify the original source, http://www.petroleumworld.com or else and it is done within the fair use as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Internet web links to http://www.petroleumworld.com are appreciated Copyright 1999-2009 Petroleumworld or respective author or news agency. All rights reserved. We welcome the use of Petroleumworld stories by anyone provided it mentions Petroleumworld.com as the source. Other stories you have to get authorization by its authors.Internet web links to http://www.petroleumworld.com are appreciated Petroleumworld welcomes your feedback and comments, share your thoughts on this article, your feed. back is important to us! Petroleumworld News 06/13/2016 We invite all our readers to share with us their views and comments about this article. Follow us in : twitter / Facebook Send this story to a friend Write to editor@petroleumworld.com By using this link, you agree to allow PW to publish your comments on our letters page. Any question or suggestions, please write to: editor@petroleumworld.com Best Viewed with IE 5.01+ Windows NT 4.0, '95, '98,ME,XP, Vista, Windows 7,8 +/ 800x600 pixels Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently made his fourth trip to the United States since becoming prime minister in 2014. He met with President Barack Obama and addressed congress - a rare honor for a man who was officially blacklisted in 2005 by the U.S. when authorities revoked his tourist visa for an alleged role in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots. It was the seventh time that Modi met with Obama as prime minister, but he was not expected to make much progress with Obama. But the visit was more than just a meeting with Obama, as its objective was to deepen ties between the two countries. The greatest moment for Modi was his address to congress. It was quite a scene, and his every gesture was applauded. According to an Indian newspaper, the house clapped 64 times in the 45-minute speech. It was truly an achievement for a man who was shunned for a decade by the West for failing to stop the Gujarat massacre. The question then is: Why the sudden change of heart towards Modi? Historically, Americans were keen to be on friendly terms with India, but this changed when India refused to become part of the anti-communist campaign at the height of the Cold War. Indian leaders followed the non-aligned camp and were more attracted toward the USSR and China. Due to brief war of 1962, relations between China and India suffered a shock from which they still haven't fully recovered. Ties between China and U.S. improved after the thaw in the 1970s. However, India was impoverished and not very relevant for an international balancing of powers. The situation changed after the fall of USSR. Two key developments forced the United States to embrace India. First, the phenomenal rise of China was considered as a strategic threat and the U.S. needed a country to help with the containment of China. Second, the rise of extremism and terrorism was considered a common threat, which expedited the process of India and U.S. becoming together. These developments were supplemented by the economic rise of India, which subsequently needed a market for its commercial goods and better technology for further progress. The economic rise also coincided with the rise of fundamental Hindu ideology and a party like Modi's Bharatyia Janata Party or the BJP. The rise of BJP freed Indian foreign policy from its ideological confines. Though congress was instrumental in forging a nuclear agreement with the U.S., it has been left to Modi to explore the possibilities of restoring the ancient glory of India. As their relations develop, the U.S. needs the Indian market and its support against China while Modi needs Washington to help his country achieve a global status, including membership in the UNSC, NSG and MTCR. Since Modi was previously shunned as a pariah, it is important for him to restore his image. An opportunity like the address to the congress was a part of the rehabilitation process, which is nearing completion. So far, the relationship is working well for the both countries. India's defense and strategic needs are being increasingly taken care of. A good example is the U.S. announcement to build six nuclear reactors in India as a part of the first major deal since the two sides signed a civil nuclear deal cooperation several years ago. The China factor is also an important part of the India-U.S. ties; the question is how far India might go to play U.S. against China. An important step would be to see if it was ready to share at least some of the security burden in the Pacific region as part of a "pivot policy." Traditionally, India has been wary of being framed as "a country playing games with others." But Modi's increasing love for pomp and grand personal depiction as a "great leader" after years of demonization may be too strong for him to resist. Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. Flash Photo provided by Orlando Police Department shows police cars and fire trucks gather outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the United States, June 12, 2016. [Xinhua photo] U.S. authorities are trying to determine the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida early Sunday is a terrorist act or hate crime. Fifty people were killed and 53 others wounded early Sunday in the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told a news conference. "Today we're dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable," Dyer said. The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida, was found dead inside the Pulse nightclub after a shootout with the police, according to Orlando Police Chief John Mina. The shooting began around 2:00 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) inside the club and there once was a confrontation between the suspect and an officer working at the club outside the venue, according to local police. Then the suspect went back into the club to continue shooting and took hostages. About three hours after the shooting first broke out, police shot and killed the suspect during actions to rescue the hostages, said Mina. "It appeared he was organized and well-prepared," said Mina at a earlier press conference, adding that the suspect had an assault-type weapon and a handgun. Danny Banks, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said that the shooting, the deadliest in a single shooting in the U.S. history, was being investigated as an act of terrorism. "Do we consider this an act of terrorism? Absolutely, we are investigating this from all parties' perspective as an act of terrorism," said Banks. Ronald Hopper, an assistant FBI agent in charge, said the authorities now had "suggestions that the individual may have leanings toward" ideology held by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. But he added that "right now we can't say definitively." Reports said the parents of Mateen, a 29-year-old U.S.-born citizen, were from Afghanistan. ABC News quoted U.S. law enforcement officials as saying that Mateen was "on the radar" of U.S. officials for some time, but he was not the target of a specific investigation. U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed by his homeland security and counterterrorism advisor Lisa Monaco on the tragic shooting, the White House said in a statement. Obama asked for regular updates on the investigation, while directing that the federal government provide any assistance necessary to pursue the investigation and support the community. Gun violence in the United States has in recent years grabbed headlines nationwide and worldwide, especially such cases as the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 in Connecticut, in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered an elementary school and fatally shot 20 children as well as six adult staff members. Additionally, the United States has seen a number of cases of multi-victim shootings, such as a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. A gunman entered a movie theater and murdered 12 people and injured 70 others. But despite these and other incidents, powerful gun lobbying groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) have successively blocked Congress to pass any bills to curb gun rights. So far gun violence has not been a major political issue during this election season. It remains unknown if the latest shooting will ignite heated debate on gun violence among the presidential candidates. The NRA has endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, who attacked his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for trying to curb the gun rights of U.S. citizens endowed by the Constitution. Meanwhile, IS radicals are calling on followers to hit the United States and Europe during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts last week. In a recording released online in later May, IS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani called for launching further terror attacks against Western targets. U.S. authorities have been on high alert against terror attacks since the shooting last December in San Bernadino, California, where an armed radicalized couple killed 14 people in an act of terrorism. Indeed, U.S. intelligence and police leaders have always warned about the danger of "lone wolf" attacks in the United States by terror groups or radicalized individuals. James Clapper, director of U.S. National Intelligence, warned at a Senate hearing in February that IS is the U.S. "number one terrorist threat," as it was attempting to launch direct attacks on the U.S. homeland in 2016. Two men were killed overnight in separate motor vehicle accidents in the Philadelphia area. At 1:40 a.m., Philadelphia police responded to a crash near in the northbound lane of Old Bustleton Avenue near Gregg Street. The operator of a Volvo lost control, hit a retaining wall and flipped the car. He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said, adding speed may have been a factor. Family has not yet been notified, according to police. A Philadelphia man was killed in a single motorcycle crash on the Blue Route, state police report. The incident occurred at 2:47 a.m. in the southbound lanes south in Nether Providence, Delaware County. The driver, Rasheed Z. Spencer, 24, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. The southbound lanes were closed for some time after the crash. - Mari A. Schaefer Flash The Finnish Centre Party Convention on Sunday confirmed the presidential candidacy of former Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen. Vanhanen said his campaign slogan would be "Foreign Policy Together". Discussing the situation in northern Europe, Vanhanen said Russia needs not to be afraid that Finnish soil could be used for hostilities against Russia. The presidential candidate called for striving towards maintaining the geopolitical stability in northern Europe by keeping Finland and Sweden outside NATO. However, Vanhanen said that if stability in the region falters "for reasons not in our control," national leaders must have the ability to assess the situation again, together with the whole nation. Vanhanen, now 60, ran for presidency in 2006 and got around 600,000 votes in the first round, but did not make it to the second round. Next Finnish presidential election is set for January 2018. Current President Sauli Niinisto has not yet said whether he will run for another term. The Centre Party has long traditions of accentuating the importance of good relations between Finland and Russia. Long time President Urho Kekkonen (in office 1956-1981) was from the party, known at that time as Agrarian League. The party changed its name into Centre in 1960s. The concept of assuring Russia that no threat comes from Finland or over Finland was a key part of the foreign policy thinking in post-war Finland. Flash About three suspected al-Qaida militants were killed when a U.S. drone strike bombed three cars in Yemen's southeastern province of Shabwa on Sunday night, a military official told Xinhua. "A four-wheel drive vehicle was struck by missiles fired from a U.S. drone in the tribal area of Haban in Shabwa province, killing three al-Qaida militants at the scene," the Yemeni military source said on condition of anonymity. The military official said that all the three dead militants were known for their links to the latest terror attacks that struck southern Yemeni provinces. Residents told Xinhua that vehicle was completely destroyed in the area and no one escaped from the American attack. On Saturday, a U.S. drone attack killed two members of the al-Qaida group in their vehicle in Marib province east of the Yemen's capital Sanaa. Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East. The Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot, also known as Ansar al-Sharia, emerged in January 2009. It had claimed responsibility for a number of attacks on Yemen's army and government institutions. It took advantage of the current security vacuum and the ongoing civil war to expand its influence in Yemen's southern regions. The fragile security situation in Yemen 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 coalition. More than 6,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, half of them civilians. Flash Santa Monica police said on Monday that a man with a gun and explosives in his car had plans to harm the gay pride parade in West Hollywood. A police takes photos for evidence in Santa Monica, California, the United States, June 12, 2016. Santa Monica police arrested a man armed with a gun and seized a car with explosives here on Sunday morning hours before a gay pride parade in West Hollywood. [Photo/Xinhua] The man identified as James Howell of Indiana was arrested on 11th Street south of Olympic Boulevard on Sunday morning, hours before the parade. The 20-year-old told police that he wants to "harm gay pride event." The suspect's white Acura sedan had Indiana license plates. The location where the car was found and Howell was arrested is about seven miles from the site of the parade. The suspect's car "was full of weapons, long rifles, ammunition and explosive materials -- not explosives but the powder for explosives," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. Police officers meticulously searched the suspect's car throughout the day, setting some items on the sidewalk next to the vehicle, including a gas tank, a backpack, what appeared to be ammunition magazines, a camouflage outfit and other rifle accessories. The front of the car was smeared with insect debris, indicating it had been driven a great distance cross-country. The 46th annual Los Angeles Pride Parade, one of the biggest public festivals celebrating gay, lesbian and other alternate lifestyles, was to continue along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood Sunday. Normally, about 400,000 people will party at the celebration for freedom in diversified sexual orientation. The parade has been held every year since 1970 in Hollywood and was moved to West Hollywood in 1979. "Any possible nexus with this individual and the Pride event in West Hollywood is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," said the sheriff's department. "In light of the unfortunate shooting incident in Orlando, Florida, the Sheriff's Department is fully prepared to respond to a similar situation," said Sheriff Lieutenant Edward Ramirez. He said the security has been beefed up to ensure the safety at the Pride Weekend. "We, as a department, are in heightened awareness, and our Criminal Intelligence Bureau has been activated today to gather and disseminate information, as they receive it." uniQure Presents Clinical Data from Ongoing Phase I/II Study in Hemophilia B Demonstrating 6 Months of Sustained Increases in Factor IX Activity Details Category: DNA RNA and Cells Published on Monday, 13 June 2016 09:39 Hits: 3790 --Data from Low-Dose Cohort Presented at the 21st Congress of the European Hematology Association Show Durable and Therapeutically Relevant Factor IX (FIX) Expression-- --Median FIX Activity for All Five Patients in Low-Dose Cohort of 5.4%-- --Conference Call to Discuss Data Scheduled for 8:00 am EST / 2:00 pm CET Monday, June 13-- AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands I June 11, 2016 I uniQure N.V. (QURE), a leader in human gene therapy, announced today that additional data from its Phase I/II clinical trial of AMT-060 in hemophilia B patients were presented at the 21st Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Study investigator Dr. Frank Leebeek, Professor of Hematology at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, gave an oral presentation of a comprehensive overview of results from five patients that received a single administration of uniQure's novel gene therapy, AMT-060, at the initial low dose of 5x1012 gc/kg. Hemophilia B is a serious and rare inherited disease in males characterized by insufficient blood clotting caused by a mutation in the Factor IX (FIX) gene. The AMT-060 gene therapy consists of a codon-optimized wild type FIX gene cassette, the LP1 liver promoter and an AAV5 viral vector manufactured by uniQure using its proprietary insect cell-based technology platform. All patients in the low-dose cohort saw improvements in their disease phenotype and achieved sustained increases in FIX activity, with a median of 5.4% (expressed as % of normal) at 6 months post treatment. Prior to the study, all five patients had features of severe or moderately-severe hemophilia, including documented FIX activity levels of <=1.5%, and required chronic, prophylactic (precautionary) infusions of Factor IX concentrate to manage bleeding. After treatment with AMT-060, total usage of Factor IX concentrate declined substantially, with four patients remaining free of any prophylatic infusions through the April 26, 2016 cut-off date. The oldest patient in the cohort (72 years of age), who had severe joint disease prior to the study and continued prophylactic infusions of Factor IX therapy, also demonstrated improvement in disease phenotype. "After six months of follow-up, I can say as a clinician who regularly treats hemophilia patients that the impact on the quality of life for these patients treated with AMT-060 is very positive," said Professor Leebeek. "The increases in FIX activity and the overall stability of the activity observed over a 6-month period are cause for optimism, as they are associated with meaningful clinical benefits as well as reduced need for ongoing infusions of recombinant FIX therapy." AMT-060 has been well-tolerated thus far in the study. As noted previously, the first patient in the low-dose cohort experienced a mild, transient and asymptomatic elevation of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) 10 weeks after treatment. No cellular immune response was evident. Pursuant to the study protocol, the patient received a short course of prednisolone and rapidly returned to baseline ALT levels without any loss of FIX expression. No other patients have experienced elevated ALT levels and none of the five patients developed inhibitory antibodies against FIX. The 6 months of data from the AMT-060 low-dose cohort are consistent with the highest achieved FIX expression levels observed in a previous study conducted by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude), which utilized the same wild-type FIX gene cassette incorporated in AMT-060. The results of the St. Jude study, which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011 and 2014, demonstrated therapeutically relevant and durable clinical benefits for up to four years, with mean FIX activity of 5.1% (range 2.9% to 7.2%). The FIX gene cassette used in the St. Jude study is exclusively licensed by uniQure. "We continue to be very encouraged by the data from the low-dose cohort in our Phase I/II study of AMT-060," commented Daniel Soland, Chief Executive Officer of uniQure. "We have so far in the trial achieved our goal for the low-dose cohort, which is to demonstrate safety and therapeutically relevant, durable increases in FIX activity similar to that which was observed in the landmark St. Jude study. The objective for our second cohort is to show meaningful dose-related increases in FIX activity. Based on the results of our non-human primate dose-ranging studies, we are hopeful to accomplish this goal." On May 31, 2016, uniQure announced that all five patients in the second dose cohort have been treated with a one-time administration of AMT-060 at a dose of 2x1013 gc/kg, which is four times higher than the dose used in the first cohort. AMT-060 continues to demonstrate a very low screening failure rate, with all patients screened in the study testing negative for pre-existing neutralizing antibodies against AAV5. Patients in the second dose cohort are currently in the early stages of follow-up and initial data are expected to be presented before the end of 2016. "AMT-060 continues to have multiple distinct advantages," continued Mr. Soland. "It is the only hemophilia gene therapy that combines a gene cassette with clinically proven multi-year durability and an AAV5 vector serotype that has demonstrated safety and broad applicability in more than 25 patients across three clinical studies. We look forward to advancing our clinical program for AMT-060 and sharing additional data from all 10 patients in our Phase I/II study before the end of the year." Phase I/II Trial Overview The Phase I/II, open-label, multi-center study includes 10 patients each receiving a one-time, 30-minute, intravenous administration of AMT-060, without the use of immunosuppression therapy. The study includes two dose cohorts of five patients each, with the first cohort receiving 5x1012 gc/kg and the second cohort receiving 2x1013 gc/kg. All patients in the trial had documented severe or moderately-severe hemophilia, including documented FIX levels less than 1-2%, and required chronic infusions of prophylactic or on-demand Factor IX therapy at the time of enrollment. uniQure will follow all 10 patients in the study for a period of five years to further assess long-term safety and durability. A summary of the top-line data for the low-dose cohort is as follows: Prior hep C Hemophiliac Prior to Treatment At 6 Months Post AMT-060 Patient Age infection? arthropathy? FIX Hemophilia Prophylacitc FIX Hemophilia Prophylactic activity phenotype* FIX Infusions? activity phenotype* FIX Infusions? 1 34 No No < 1% Severe Yes 6.3% Mild No 2 54 Yes Yes < 1% Severe Yes 5.4% Mild No 3 72 Yes Yes < 1% Severe Yes <2.0% Moderate Yes 4 69 Yes Yes 1.5% Moderate-severe Yes 6.2% Mild No 5 71 Yes Yes < 1% Severe Yes 2.9% Moderate No *based on FIX activity using guidelines as published in Thromb Haemost 2001; 85: 560 Conference Call and Webcast uniQure will discuss the data in a webcast conference call at 8:00 am EST on Monday, June 13, 2016. The webcast and the accompanying slides, which can be downloaded as a PDF file, can be located on uniQure's website at http://www.uniqure.com/news/calendar-of-events/. The conference call can be accessed by 5314178. Local - London, United Kingdom: +44(0)20 3140 8286 Local - New York, United States of America: +1 212 444 0412 Local - Berlin, Germany: +49(0)30 3001 90539 Local - Amsterdam, Netherlands: +31(0)20 716 8296 Local - Milan, Italy: +3902 3600 9869 Local - Paris, France: +33(0)1 76 77 22 28 Local - Brussels, Belgium: +32(0)2 402 3092 Local -- Montreal, Canada: +1514 841 2153 Investors may also listen to the webcast of the conference call live on the "Events" section of uniQure's website, www.uniQure.com. To ensure a timely connection to the webcast, it is recommended that users register at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. The webcast replay will be available for at least 72 hours following the call. About Hemophilia B Hemophilia B is a serious and rare inherited disease in males characterized by insufficient blood clotting. The condition can lead to repeated and sometimes life-threatening episodes of external and internal bleeding following accidental trauma or medical interventions. The episodes can cause long-term damage, for example to the joints, and can be fatal if they occur in the brain. The deficient blood clotting results from the lack of functional human Factor IX, or hFIX. Treatment of hemophilia B today consists of prophylactic or on-demand protein replacement therapy, in which frequent intravenous administrations of plasma-derived or recombinant hFIX are required to stop or prevent bleeding. Hemophilia B occurs in approximately 1 out of 30,000 live births. About uniQure uniQure is delivering on the promise of gene therapy -- single treatments with potentially curative results. We are leveraging our modular and validated technology platform to rapidly advance a pipeline of proprietary and partnered gene therapies to treat patients with CNS, liver/metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. www.uniQure.com. SOURCE: uniQure Come get Merry on Main Audio Article The 2022 Merry on Main committee is busy preparing for the annual two-day Christmas festival held at the Pleasanton River... Out and About Audio Article Dia De Las Fresas on Oct. 29 One-day fall festival event hosted by Poteet Strawberry Festival Association. Live music from... Flash Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama to offer condolences over the deadly shooting in Orlando, Florida. On behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, Xi expressed deep sympathy and sincere condolences to Obama, the U.S. government and the U.S. people. He also expressed grief to the victims of the terror attack. At least 50 people were killed and 53 others wounded, including a police officer, early Sunday in a mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. It has been the deadliest terror attack in U.S. history since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the shooting. Photo: istockphoto.com The following is an excerpt from Ron Martinelli, Ph.D.'s new book "The Truth Behind the Black Lives Matter Movement and the War on Police." On September 2, 2015, I had the pleasure of appearing on Megyn Kelly's Black Lives Matter (BLM) special on Fox News. As someone who has investigated hundreds of high-profile, officer-involved shootings and in-custody deaths, I found the program both fascinating and extremely frustrating. Guests included members of the law enforcement community, legal experts, clergy, and BLM supporters. I would like to share my experience as a law enforcement and forensic expert because what I observed that night motivated me to discuss what I believe is an important strategy of the BLM movement: It tells lies and attempts to promote deliberately false narratives. Most BLM movement supporters are true believers who won't consider contrary evidence, even scientific evidence. In fact, I don't think I'm going out on a limb in claiming they spew deliberate lies regarding law enforcement's encounters with members of the black community. It is apparent that the Black Lives Matter movement is founded upon mostly groundless issues, misinformation, and outright falsehoods regarding specific police and civilian-related force encounters with black suspects and persons of interest. Let me now separate the scientific facts from the fantasies on which this movement is based. In previous chapters, I have provided the non-speculative, objective facts, forensic evidence, and police practices surrounding the fatal encounters between Trayvon Martin and private citizen George Zimmerman and between Michael Brown and former Ferguson, MO, police officer Darren Wilson. Both of these incidents formed the foundation for the Black Lives Matter movement, according to its founders Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi and the Los Angeles BLM Chapter leader professor Melina Abdullah. These incidents are frequently alleged as examples of "extrajudicial murders" of young black men by police and non-black citizens. However, there are other examples of alleged unlawful detentions and arrests and racially motivated acts of "police violence" upon blacks that often surface when BLM leaders and their supporters are marching in protest or are interviewed by the mainstream media. Hands Up. Don't Shoot I am not going to go into detail about the Michael Brown case in this excerpt. But any discussions of the lies that fuel Black Lives Matter would be incomplete without at least some mention of libel that Michael Brown was shot to death while surrendering with his hands up. The "Hands Up. Don't Shoot" lie has been disproven by several investigations and disavowed by every responsible media outlet. The autopsy reports, photographs, and diagrams of the bullet strikes to Michael Brown's body and the trajectory of the paths of those bullets through Brown's body do not support allegations that Brown had his hands up in surrender at any time during his confrontation with former officer Darren Wilson before Wilson shot at and killed him. Statements that Brown had his hands up, was surrendering, and asking the officer not to shoot are not supported by forensic and medical evidence. It just did not happen. Yet, signs reading "Hands Up. Don't Shoot" and other symbols implying that Wilson murdered Brown while he was surrendering are still common during Black Lives Matter demonstrations. "Hands Up. Don't Shoot." is the big lie BLM uses to perpetuate its core propaganda that racist police officers are callously gunning down unarmed black men in the street. So the group will not let it go despite the fact it is clearly a blatant lie. Sgt. Crowley vs. Professor Gates Black Lives Matter also uses misinformation about other famous encounters between officers and African-American men to advance its argument that American law enforcement officers are racists. One of these is the infamous encounter between Cambridge, MA, officers and a well-known Harvard University professor. On July 16, 2009, Cambridge police were dispatched to a residence on Ware Street after receiving a call from a neighbor who reported that two unknown black male adults were on the front porch of a residence and that one of the subjects was attempting to enter the front door by bodily force. When Sgt. Crowley and other officers of the Cambridge PD walked up to the porch of the residence, he observed and encountered Gates, whom he found in the foyer of the home. When the sergeant identified himself, explained the reason for the officers' presence, and asked Gates to step outside to speak with him, the professor replied, "No. I will not." When Crowley again explained that he was responding to a possible break-in, Gates replied, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" When Crowley directed Gates to produce some identification to verify that he was in fact the resident, Gates ignored him and began to make a phone call. The sergeant overheard Gates telling someone on the other end of the line that he was "dealing with a racist police officer in his home." Once additional officers, including Harvard University Police officers, arrived on scene, Gates reluctantly produced his Harvard University faculty card. Based upon this information Gates gave them, the Harvard PD officers were able to verify Gates' identity and home address. Sgt. Crowley then apologized to Gates for the inconvenience, and he and the assisting officers left the premises. This should have been the end of this encounter, but it wasn'tnot because of anything the officers did, but because the incensed and self-important Professor Gates just wouldn't let it go. As the officers walked away, Gates came out onto his front porch and began to loudly rant and rave about Crowley's racial bias, calling him a racist police officer. Crowley took this opportunity to warn Gates that he was now creating a disturbance and advised the agitated professor to calm down or face arrest. When Gates continued his tirade, Crowley had apparently had enough of the professor's belligerent attitude and arrested him for disorderly conduct. It was, in my opinion, a well-deserved and lawful arrest. Unfortunately, and most probably because Professor Gates had some standing within the Harvard academic community, the prosecutor dropped the charges against Gates. Also, Gates had a connection to President Barack Obama, who was apparently on his speed dial. President Obama publicly chastised the Cambridge police and Sgt. Crowley on the national news, saying that "the police acted stupidly" for arresting Gates. It is amazing that Obama, who touts himself as a former professor of Constitutional law, knows so little about the laws of arrest and search and seizure and the elements that constitute even basic criminal violations. In the end, Professor Gates' citizen complaint was dropped. The actions of Sgt. Crowley and the other officers were determined to have been appropriate and justified police actions. No civil rights tort was ever filed by the pedantic professor. End of storyand of this false narrative about police racially profiling a black man. But you will never get Black Lives Matter to admit Sgt. Crowley was maligned by Gates just for doing his job and protecting the professor's property. In-Custody Death On April 12, 2015, officers working in a high-crime, drug sales area of Baltimore observed Freddie Gray, 25, involved in the possible hand-to-hand sales of drugs. As police approached, Gray fled on foot and was pursued by the officers who captured him. When the officers searched Gray, they found him in possession of a spring-assisted knife, which they believed to be illegal. Gray was arrested, handcuffed, and placed into the rear of a transportation van but was not secured in a seat belt. During transportation to the Western District police station, Gray became agitated and subsequently suffered a serious medical emergency. He was comatose and hospitalized for a serious spinal cord injury and later died on April 19th. After only a 24-hour investigation by state investigators, six Baltimore officers involved in Freddie Gray's arrest and transportation were charged with several crimes, including second-degree murder in connection with Gray's death. A leaked medical examiner's report of Freddie Gray's autopsy and toxicology reports showed that Gray suffered a devastating spinal cord injury after his head slammed into a wall in the back of the police van. The Medical Examiner who authored the report found no evidence that Gray's spinal injury was caused by any use of police force during his arrest. The forensic medical evidence indicates that Gray broke his neck and that the wound to his head matched an extended metal bolt in the back of the van. The autopsy found no other evidence of trauma that would be consistent with force-related injuries on Gray's body. No police were riding in the back of the van with Gray during his transportation. Well-known forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht has opined that Gray's manner of death was consistent with a "rough ride" in the police transportation van. However, my colleague, the eminent forensic pathologist Dr. Vincent DiMaio, who has worked scores of high-profile death cases, has suggested that Gray's manner of death should actually be more accurately classified as "accidental or undetermined." As a Certified Medical Investigator myself, I tend to agree with Dr. DiMaio's opinion at this point. Another prisoner in the van, identified as Donta Allen, initially told Baltimore investigators and a Washington Post reporter that Gray had been agitated, screaming, and banging around in the van during transportation. Allen told police and the media that he thought Gray was "intentionally trying to hurt himself." He later recanted this statement. A search warrant application describes Gray during transportation as "irate" and that he "continued to be combative in the police wagon." Freddie Gray's toxicology report showed that he was under the influence of significant levels of cannabinoids and opium at the time he was hospitalized. This finding would be forensically consistent with the possibility of Gray swallowing the drugs he was attempting to sell in order to destroy evidence. The presence of drugs in Gray's system would also support his past criminal history as a drug dealer. In the past eight years, Gray had been arrested on no less than 14 occasions for felony possession of controlled substances and possession with intent to distribute. Again, Freddie Gray was only 25 at the time of his death. The narrative presented by activists, including members of the BLM movement, is that the Baltimore officers involved in this incident murdered Freddie Gray. There are no forensic evidence or witness statements to date that support this assertion. The autopsy report detailing Gray's traumatic injuries and drug influenceand prisoner Allen's initial statements to police and the mediaare far more favorable to the defendant officers than to the prosecution's theory of criminality. Therefore, the BLM movement's assertion that Baltimore police "murdered" Freddie Gray is unsubstantiated at this time. No officers have been convicted of any alleged criminal acts, and the trials for the six officers are still in progress after a mistrial in one case. Statistics and Damn Lies Perhaps the most damaging, utterly ridiculous, and patently false narrative advanced by the Black Lives Matter movement is that nationally, police officers kill a disproportionate number of black males during encounters. After hearing it exclaimed time and again by BLM activists, I have determined that they say this as a deliberate scare tactic, hoping that no one will ever do the research and engage them. An excellent example of this tactic is what I heard one activist say on the Megyn Kelly show that I was on. One BLM member told the audience, "One black man is murdered by police every 28 hours." That's absurd. Here's the truth. The most recent data from the FBI says there were 56,250 homicides nationwide from January 2009 to the end of 2012; 1,491 of these killings were the result of police uses of force. This equates to an average of roughly 372 persons a year dying as a result of police force intervention. Of the 1,491 persons who died as a result of police uses of force during the researched period, 61.4% were white males. Only 32.2% were black males, and 3.2% were males from other races. Females dying as a result of a police use of force comprised the final 3.2% of deaths. By comparison, of the 56,259 homicides reviewed from 20092012, 19,000, or nearly 39%, involved the killing of black males. Of these, only 2.5% involved the death of a black male as a result of a police use of force. In contrast to police officers, private citizen killings of black males in self-defense/justifiable homicides, at 3.4%, were higher than black male deaths attributed to police. What stands out as a significant and shocking statistic is that 17,719 criminal homicides (murders) of black males, or 93.3% from 20092012, were at the hands of other criminals who were predominantly other black males (89.6%). This is what is referred to as "black-on-black crime." In sharp contrast to the false narrative that police officers have some racial motivation to kill black men, from 20092012, nearly 41% of murdered police officers were killed by black males; compare this to the 32% black male homicide rate mentioned above. This is significant, given the fact that blacks as a whole comprise only 13% of the U.S. population of over 316,000,000, and there are less than 900,000 peace officers in this country, including many who do not work in a street patrol capacity. To put this study into perspective, an average of 120 black males, or one out of every 173,871 black males, die yearly as a result of police uses of force. When all homicides of black males are considered, black males are 35 times more likely to be murdered by another black male and 21 times more susceptible to being killed in a self-defense, justifiable homicide than killed by any police use of force. A few more numbers: an average of 120 black males die each year as a result of a police use of force. University of Toledo Professor Richard Johnson's research has found that the chances that a black man will be killed by police, is less than his chances of being killed by a lightning strike. From 1995 through 2002, 374 persons were killed by lightning in the U.S. This averages out to 0.23 lightning deaths per million persons per year. During that same eight-year period, only nine black males were killed by lightning. In essence, Dr. Johnson is correct. The chance of a black male dying as a result of police force intervention is statistically considerably far less than his chances of being struck by lightning. That's far from the BLM movement's assertion that police kill one black male every 28 hours. BLM's false assertion that police kill a black man every 28 hours doesn't even reconcile using their numbers. There are approximately 1,251 28-hour periods in the four-year period from 2009 through 2012. That is presumably how many black males would have been killed by police during this period if the BLM movement's claim were true. However, 32.2% of 1,491 deaths is 480 deaths. So, the "every 28 hours" claim is off by a whopping 250%. Revolutionary Propaganda Non-violent protest is protected under the First Amendment, and it can be healthy, informative, and change-effecting. However, the Black Lives Matter movement is none of those things. Anytime a group marches and openly chants violent and life-threatening rhetoric such as screaming, "Pigs in a blanket; fry 'em like bacon!" and "What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!" as we recently observed in Minnesota and in downtown New York City, law enforcement officers need to be concerned for their safety. That is how Adolph Hitler with his brown-shirted Nazi party, Mussolini and his black-shirted fascists, and Vladimir Lenin and his communists began their movements. If you recall, all of these movements began their ascents into power by spreading false narratives. It is also important to keep in mind that the Black Lives Matter movement is immersed in Marxist revolutionary and Black Nationalist ideology. So the lies they repeatedly shout in the streets and in front of the TV cameras closely resemble the rhetoric of these past revolutionary movements. I am not concerned about the BLM's response that "only a relative few" of their members are extremists who shout violent rhetoric and commit acts of violence during demonstrations. It's just another false narrative not substantiated by the many video news stories documenting hundreds of Black Lives Matter movement supporters chanting violent, anti-police rhetoric. I am concerned that this entire movement was founded and exists primarily upon a pack of lies. And you should be, too. Ron Martinelli, Ph.D., CMI-V, BCFT, CFA, is a nationally renowned forensic criminologist, federal/state qualified police practices expert, and a certified medical Investigator who directs the nation's only multidisciplinary forensic death investigations and independent review team. www.DrRonMartinelli.com. Since the Court's 1966 decision requiring the Miranda Warning, much has been written on the case's judicial points; however, even police officers and attorneys who work with the results of the decision know few of the details of the actual crime and investigation. Ernesto Miranda's story began over a dozen years before his untimely death in the downtown skid row section of Phoenix, AZ, only a few blocks from where his story ended. It is presented here by the police officer who made the investigation and arrest, and took the confession later ruled inadmissible as evidence by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Crime The crime involved a shy, 18-year-old woman who had just finished her shift at the Paramount Theater in Downtown Phoenix on March 2, 1963, at 11:45 pm. She boarded a bus for her home located in northeast Phoenix. She exited the bus at 7th Street and East Marlette. She had just started the five-block walk home when a car pulled up slowly from behind and stopped just in front of her. The suspect got out of the car and grabbed her, pressing a sharp object against her throat. He ordered, "Don't scream; don't scream and you won't get hurt." He forced her into the back seat of the car and tied her wrists and ankles with rope. He drove off as she cried and begged him to let her go. He would only respond, "Be quiet. Just be quiet and I won't hurt you." Twenty minutes later, he arrived in a deserted area northeast of the city and raped the young victim. He then stole four dollars from the victim and turned to her, stating, "Whether you tell your mother what happened or not is none of my business, but pray for me." He drove her back to town where she ran to the home of a family member to report the crime. The Investigation Uniformed officers responded, took the necessary reports, and contacted detectives who took the initial report. The next morning, a five-year veteran in the Crimes Against Persons Detail, 27-year-old Detective Carroll Cooley, was assigned to investigate the rape case. Cooley began with a routine interview with the victim, who provided a description of a Mexican or Italian male with dark curly hair combed back, about 25 years old, of average height and build, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. She stated the car was an old four-door sedan, light green with light beige upholstery with vertical stripes, paint brushes on the floor, and the smell of turpentine in the car. The investigation produced few results. A week passed with no substantial leads or possible suspects. Detectives noted similarity between the victim's description and those of other attacks in Downtown Phoenix. The victim continued to work at her job, but now had a family member meet her at the bus stop to walk her home. A week after the attack, while waiting to walk the victim home, the male relative saw an old light-colored sedan with a single occupant drive slowly back and forth by the bus stop several times. He noted a license plate number of DFL-317. When the victim stepped off the bus, her relative pointed to the car parked on the dark side street to see if that could be the suspect's car. They walked toward the car and the victim thought it might be the same one, but the driver started the car and sped away. The male relative called the police, who discovered the plate was registered to a 1958 Oldsmobile; however, the relative was sure the car he had seen was a 1953 Packard. On March 11, Detective Cooley had the MVD pull all their records on all Packards with the license number beginning with the "DFL" prefix. He found one registered in Mesa just one digit off from the number reported by the male relative. The next day Detectives Cooley and Young drove to the address of the registered owner, Twila Hoffman. The home was vacant, but neighbors stated the people who had lived there were Ernesto Miranda and his wife Twila. They had moved out a few days earlier. The neighbors noted that they used a truck marked "United Produce" to haul their items away. The detectives checked Miranda's name with the Mesa Police Department and learned he matched the suspect's description. They also learned he had a juvenile record of assault with intent to commit rape in 1956; a juvenile arrest in Los Angeles, CA, for robbery in 1957; as well as an arrest and conviction for auto theft in Tennessee in 1959 that resulted in a one-year sentence to federal prison. The detectives returned to Downtown Phoenix and stopped at the United Produce Company where they learned that Ernesto Miranda was employed there as a dockworker on the evening shift. United Produce did not have Miranda's home address, but they knew he had just moved. They had loaned him one of their trucks to move his family from Mesa to Phoenix. On Wednesday, March 13, the detectives continued their investigation by going to the Downtown Phoenix Post Office to see if Miranda had filed a change of address card. Their efforts paid off; they now knew where to find Miranda. The Arrest and Interrogation The detectives went to Miranda's new address on West Mariposa and drove up to see a light gray 1953 Packard parked in the driveway with plate DFL-312. Cooley noted the interior matched the description provided by the victim. A woman, Twila Hoffman, answered the door. She explained Miranda was asleep and went to wake him. Several minutes later Miranda came to the door and the detectives asked if he would come down to the police station so they could talk to him. Miranda agreed to go to the station, and rode in the back seat of the car unrestrained and was not under arrest. At the main police station, Miranda was taken to the Detective Bureau and placed in the interview room with a two-way mirror for viewing line-ups. Detective Cooley began the interview. He explained to Miranda that another victim identified his license plate as being involved in the crime. Miranda denied knowing anything about the incident and claimed to be working that night at United Produce. Cooley continued talking with Miranda for over 30 minutes about his past record for assault. He stated that Miranda may need psychiatric help and was the suspect in these cases. Miranda insisted he was innocent. Detective Cooley asked Miranda if he would consent to being viewed by the victims in a line-up with several other men of his general description. Miranda agreed after the officers told him they would take him home if none of the victims could identify him. Detective Young brought in three prisoners from the City Jail to stand in the line-up while Cooley began to locate the victims. Only two victims could be located on such short notice. The victims arrived at the station shortly before 11:30 am. Miranda was told he could choose his position in the line by selecting one of the four large-numbered cards that would be worn around their necks for identification. He chose #1, the first position in line. The victims were unable to positively identify the suspect. One victim believed that if she could hear his voice, she might be sure. Cooley went in and told Miranda that he was identified by the victims. At that time Miranda responded, "Well, I guess I'd better tell you about it then." Miranda confessed to both crimes and to using a nail file to conduct the assaults. The detectives asked if he would give them a written statement as to his actions. He agreed and was given a standard form. His written confession covered one kidnapping/rape/robbery of the 18-year-old victim. Since attempted rape could not be established in the other case, it would be the responsibility of the robbery detail, and they did not want to risk jeopardizing Miranda's successful prosecution by opening his written confession to attack because of the mention of other, unrelated crimes. After completing the statement, the first victim was brought into the room and Miranda was asked to state his name and whether he recognized the woman. He stated his name and said he did recognize her. After leaving the room, the victim stated she was positive Miranda was the man who had raped her. She was sure the moment he spoke. The same occurred with the second victim. Detective Cooley told Mr. Miranda that he was under arrest for kidnap, rape, and robbery, and he was handcuffed and booked into the fourth-floor city jail. The detectives didn't consider Miranda to be under arrest until this time. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, assuming the arrest to have been made at Miranda's home. Prior to his verbal admissions, they would have had difficulty justifying holding Miranda if he had demanded that they either charge or release him. The Miranda Decision Miranda was tried in Superior Court June 1819, 1963, based on the face-to-face identification, and part of his verbal confession was admitted as evidence. He was convicted and sentenced to 2025 years on one incident and sent to the Arizona State Prison at Florence. Within a week, he was tried on the second incident and was sentenced to 2030 years in Arizona State Prison. Two years later, a court-appointed lawyer appealed the case to the Arizona Supreme Court. He charged that Miranda's constitutional right to legal counsel in one case was denied. The court ruled that since Miranda hadn't asked for an attorney to assist or represent him at the time he was questioned by police, and since there was no legal requirement that he be advised of his rights to such counsel, the conviction would be upheld. After the failed appeal, John J. Flynn agreed to try to have the case reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court at the request of the American Civil Liberties Union. The court agreed to a review in October 1965. The U.S. Supreme Court reviewed three other cases that involved the same type of issues at the same time. The resulting decision was actually based on the Court's review of all four cases; however, since Miranda v. Arizona was the first case listed, it became generally known as The Miranda Decision. The U.S. Supreme Court returned the case to Maricopa County Superior Court for retrial. Miranda's conviction in the first original trial was not included in the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court; therefore, the court's ruling was not applicable to that case. He still faced a 25-year prison sentence regardless of the outcome of his new trial. The other case was tried and the judge ruled that the victim's identification of Miranda was inadmissible on grounds that she had not been completely positive when she initially viewed the line-up. However, the jury found him guilty a second time and again the conviction was based heavily on his own admission and confession. Miranda was sent to Arizona State Prison to serve both sentences concurrently. He remained incarcerated there until he was paroled on Monday, April 28, 1975. The End of the Line The story did not end there. Miranda began hanging out at the old Deuce, the Downtown Phoenix area where wholesale product markets were once the hub of the area's commercial activity. He made money by selling Police Miranda Warning Cards, which he would autograph for one dollar. But his life ended on January 31, 1976, shortly after 6:00 p.m. at the Amapola Bar, 233 South Second Street. He was playing cards at the bar with two other individuals. A fight erupted and Miranda was stabbed in the chest with a long-bladed knife. The suspect was later located and read his Miranda rights for the murder of Ernesto Miranda. The circle was complete; the suspect became the victim and his own original case influenced the interview of the suspect that killed him. Robert Demlong retired as a commander with the Phoenix (AZ) Police Department and now serves as treasurer and co-curator of the Phoenix Police Museum. More from The Phoenix Police Museum The Phoenix Police Museum exists to educate the public about the history of the Phoenix (AZ) Police Department through a positive learning environment. It is free to attend, although donations are accepted. Exhibits include "Miranda, You Have The Right To Remain Silent," which looks at the story of Ernesto Miranda and the origins of the Miranda warnings; "Technology Changes Through The Years;" and the "Children's Dress-Up Station" that lets kids wear a real Phoenix Police uniform and get "sworn in" as a police officer, complete with sticker badge. In October 1993, the Phoenix Police Museum started as a small exhibit at the Historic City Hall, 17 S. Second Ave. With the assistance of Cindy Myers from the Phoenix Museum of History, a temporary six-month display was created. The event was enthusiastically received. The Arizona Humanities Council funded a study of the artifacts which demonstrated that the museum had ample material existed to open a small museum. Barrister Place was selected as the permanent site of the museum. Through generous donations from Motorola, the area was painted and re-carpeted. Home Depot, Store #455, donated construction material for the creation of exhibit areas. The Phoenix Police Department provided phones and an alarm system. Volunteers prepared the exhibits including a mock-up of a 1910 city street and an old jail cell. The opening of the first exhibit in the Barrister Place location was on Friday, Oct. 6, 1995. In 2012 the museum moved to its current location at Historic City Hall, which was the home of the Phoenix Police Department from 1928 until 1975. For more information about the Phoenix Police Museum visit http://phoenixpolicemuseum.org/ Omar Mateen (Photo: Social Media) A former Fort Pierce police officer who once worked with 29-year-old Omar Mateen, the assailant in an Orlando nightclub shooting that left at least 50 dead, said he was "unhinged and unstable." Daniel Gilroy said he worked the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift with G4S Security at the south gate at PGA Village for several months in 2014-15. Mateen took over from him for a 3 to 11 p.m. shift. Gilroy, a former Fort Pierce police officer, said Mateen frequently made homophobic and racial comments. Gilroy said he complained to his employer several times but it did nothing because he was Muslim. Gilroy quit after he said Mateen began stalking him via multiple text messages 20 or 30 a day. He also sent Gilroy 13 to 15 phone messages a day, he told Florida Today. Officer Endy Ekpanya (Photo: Pearland PD) A Pearland, TX, police officer is dead following a head-on car collision Sunday morning with another vehicle, according to authorities. Officer Endy Ekpanya was driving down FM 518 en route to a non-emergency call when a woman driving a gray Chrysler SRT crossed several middle lanes near Liberty Drive. Investigators said the woman hit Ekpanya's vehicle head-on, pinning both drivers in their cars. Ekpanya was airlifted to Memorial Herman Hospital, where he later died, Click2Houston reports. The woman was not seriously injured. Texas Department of Public Safety officers are investigating. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print *The following is an opinion column by R Muse* It seems that every day there is a new report or story about how the Republican establishment is apoplectic over their presumptive presidential nominee and his penchant to offend any and every one based on flagrant bigotry. And yet, he still garners major support from the rank and file who are seemingly willing to overlook what decent human beings regard as glaring bigoted remarks whether he uttered them the day he announced his candidacy last year or this past week. Even Republican leaders who claim Trumps remarks about a district court judge are racist still accept his candidacy and support him as the partys standard bearer because, they say, he will rubber stamp their neo-conservative agenda. However true that may be, and it is certainly evident, there is more to the story than they are willing to admit and for good reason. This week it was interesting to hear MSNBCs Joe Scarborough, a one-time Trump advocate, lash out at his erstwhile hero over his continued racist remarks, and justification for those remarks, about a sitting and highly-respected federal district court judge. Scarborough said: Donald, guess what, Im not going to support you until you get your act together. Youre acting like bush-league loser, youre acting like a racist, youre acting like a bigot Until you prove to me youre not a bigot you dont have my endorsement. Despite Scarboroughs, and several other Republicans faux outrage at Trumps racist comments, like Senator Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, they still want to support him. It is evidenced by Scarborough using a qualifier in his remarks that Donald Trump is not going to get his endorsement until he gets his act together and not until he proves hes not a bigot. Remember, everything Trump is, and has been, saying throughout the primary races have been uttered by various Republicans over the past six years. They were just not repeated daily on national media and definitely not as part of stump speeches for any public office; particularly the presidency. Doubtless if and when Trump reins in the obviously bigoted remarks the entire Party will rally behind his candidacy and welcome him with open arms because the base loves the way Donald Trump speaks common sense. Something Republicans know well, and overconfident Democrats had better learn immediately, is that although Trump may offend many Americans, he speaks the language the rank and file voters want to hear. It may in fact be true that Republicans will lose a small percentage of their partys base because Trump is so racially offensive, but when November rolls around it will not be a significant number. In fact, it may be none at all. Just look at the millions and millions of Republicans who came out to vote for Trump this past Tuesday even though he had long-ago clinched the nomination and despite that he was in the midst of being assailed for what decent people know are racial attacks on a California judge. What the Republican elite understand and why they dont unleash a hellacious attempt to keep Donald Trump off the ballot and kick him out of the Party is that their voters legitimately want Trump at the top of the ticket as the standard bearer. More importantly, the current outrage over his racially-driven attack on a jurist is not an issue with a majority of the base and they certainly do not believe Trumps comments are out of bounds in the first place. According to a recent YouGov survey, 81 percent of Democratic voters and 44 percent of independents believe Trumps comments about Judge Curiels Hispanic heritage makes him biased toward Trump are racially motivated; something that is just common sense, right? However, only 22 percent of the Republican rank and file agree with Democrats and Independents and believe those comments are racist but not enough to withhold their votes. What that means is that in addition to 56 percent of independent voters, a clear and overwhelming majority of Republican voters, 78 percent, believe that not only are Trumps remarks not racist, they are just founded on common sense. It also means that nearly 8 out of ten Republican voters are of the same belief as the Donald and are tired of the political correctness when things are said that are totally fine. The survey is certainly accurate because over the past week no fewer than 8 out of 10 local Trump supporters this author surveyed said that Trump questioning the integrity of a judge of Hispanic descent is just good old common sense and totally fine by them. All but one of the 8 Trump supporters said that Trumps doubts about an Hispanic Judges ability to adjudicate his case fairly is no different than an African American questioning whether they can get a fair hearing or trial with a white conservative judge from the former Confederacy (Deep South), or with an all-white jury. Its just common sense as the Donald is wont to say and nothing remotely related to being a bigot or being racially insensitive. The same people gave the same response to Trump positing his doubts that a Muslim judge would be fair and unbiased in the lawsuit against his defunct university after his vociferous calls to ban Muslims from entering America. In fact, all the outrage from the Democrats and some Republicans over Trumps racist comments have only served to bolster support for Trump among his advocates and affirmed their belief in the fallacy that political correctness and cowardice to address common sense is driving the opposition to Trump as the Republican presumptive nominee. Trumps support among the rank and file is why the Republican establishment is terrified of seriously addressing Trumps nasty remarks on most issues and why they are unwilling to publicly hail him as their uncontested conquering hero until he gets his act together. It is true Trump is alienating several groups in the electorate and it is troubling for the party establishment, but the last thing the establishment is willing to do is alienate the base that is crucial to Republicans maintaining their control in state and local elections as well as in Congress. To any civilized human being Donald Trump is a bigot of the first order. But to the base he is just telling it like it really is and anyone who cant see it from his perspective is a loser. Republicans should not expect to see Donald Trump get his act together or prove hes not a bigot to anyone; and why should he? It is not what the majority of Republican voters want him to do. However racist his remarks may be, and they damn sure are racist, as long as the GOP base wants to hear him spout common sense and will continue voting for him he is not going to stop. If the party establishment didnt know that were the case they would take any step to purge Trump from the party; but they are not because he speaks for the base and hopefully Democrats take that knowledge to heart. h/t Digby Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print *The following is an opinion column by R Muse * So as America reels from another mass shooting, all the typical responses came as expected, mainly condemning domestic terrorism but not the ease at acquiring battlefield weapons, and offering worthless prayers to and for the victims. What has been missing from the mass of public statements is an overwhelming acknowledgement that the targets were predominately LGBT Americans. Although its true the alleged shooter carries a name associated with the Middle East, few pundits and politicians are paying any attention to the shooters fathers statement. The alleged shooters father said, We are apologizing for the whole incident. We werent aware of any action he was taking. We are in shock, like the whole country. This had nothing to do with religion but he got really angry when he saw two men kissing in downtown Miami a couple of months ago. The shooters ex-wife who wished to remain anonymous said that Omar Mateen was not a stable person. But she also made sure to note that he was also not very religious and had never given any indication of ever having fallen sway under the influence of radical Islam. She did say that, He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasnt finished. She also said that in light of the massacre she felt very lucky to have removed herself from Omar Mateen. Omar Mateens father also said his son had a degree in criminal justice and was currently working at a security job. According to several sources, the guns used in the brutal massacre were just recently purchased legally since Mateen was a native-born American citizen with no criminal record. He also had a license to carry a concealed weapon and a security officer license as well. Of course it is far too early to speculate on the shooters actual motivation, but of course since he is an American born citizen of Middle Eastern descent, it is convenient to claim his attack was borne of the Islamic faith, a claim the shooters father, and former wife, said is completely wrong. Despite there being credence to the attack being a hate crime targeting the LGBT community, no-one wanted to address the obvious except, of course, President Obama. While politicians were giving their normal response to yet another senseless mass shooting by railing on Muslims, offering prayers, defending or condemning on the proliferation of firearms, and sending heartfelt prayers to the victims and their families, only the President addressed what appears to have driven the madman to slaughter innocent Americans at what is being called a popular gay nightclub. The President said: This is an especially heartbreaking day for our friends, our fellow Americans, who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub. It is a place of solidarity, empowerment where people come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights. So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country. Of course President Obama is right; the massacre is especially heartbreaking for LGBT Americans, their friends and their families. But he was alone in making the statement that the horrific attack is on the fundamental values or equality and dignity he claims defines us as a country. Those fundamental values are not now, and have never been extended to the LGBT community to this day and the lack of acknowledgment that this attack specifically targeted gays by too many politicians is telling indeed. For example, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement that never once mentioned the LGBT community. He mentioned every other group under the Sun, but not one word about gays being the target of the mayhem. Florida Governor Rick Scott actually refused, on CNN no less, to acknowledge that LGBT people were targeted by the shooter despite Mateens fathers acknowledgment that what made his son really angry was the sight of two men kissing. One thing is certain: if the victims had been white heterosexual Christians, there would have been outrage at their being targeted and it is just further proof that Republicans in particular do not consider the LGBT community as being worthy of those fundamental rights the President talked about. The sad fact is there is a significant portion of the population that has no concept of equality being a fundamental value and defining trait of America, particularly for the LGBT community. In fact while Republicans were giving their typical responses after an act of domestic terrorism, or a hate crime, Texas Republican Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took the typical evangelical low road and tweeted an inspirational bible message in response to the massacre that said, Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Patricks evangelical extremism is legend, and he only deleted the hateful Christian response to 50 souls losing their lives after being slammed on Twitter and harshly criticized by the Texas Democratic Chair who demanded that Patrick apologize immediately. At Dallas predominately LGBT church, Cathedral of Hope, the senior pastor condemned Patricks message as contradicting gods message to, love one another as I have loved you. He continued that Such speak gives permission to hate and that it was disheartening to see a state leader use a tragic mass shooting to swipe LGBT people by saying that you reap what you sow. None of the victims in Orlando were reaping what theyve sown any more than 20 little children, theatre goers, students at Columbine, or African Americans in their place of worship did. What they reaped was a Republican Party that is too terrified of crossing the National Rifle Association and state laws allowing any citizen to own assault weapons that belong on the battlefield, not Americas streets. Sadly, the current heartbreak and shock will last about a week and then it will be back to business as usual with Republicans lashing out at Muslims, defending the proliferation of battlefield weapons, and finding new religious grounds to attack the LGBT community and deny them their constitutionally-protected equal and civil rights. At least Republicans wont be out gunning down LGBT Americansnot when they have a nation full of homophobic religious maniacs with assault weapons on every corner. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Senator Jeff Sessions, who, in an interview with Politico, told the GOP it must adapt to Trump or die (not, as we would expect, the other way around), has now excused Trumps racist attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel (never mind the most recent excuse that Mexican is not a race, therefore its not racist to attack Mexicans). Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Sessions told Bret Baier that It was a rough week, because it got him off message, and that It was one off-the-cuff comment that he probably shouldnt have made. To his credit, Baier did push back on the idea that it was just something Trump said in passing, that he did say it numerous times in a couple of interviews, and he was pressed on it, but Sessions insisted Trump was irritated about because he felt he was not being fairly treated in that lawsuit, and brushed off all questions in order to pursue Trumps vendetta against Mitt Romney. However, Fox News wasnt through with Donald Trump and his attacks on Judge Curiel. George F. Will told the Fox News Sunday panel that, Well, Senator [Jeff] Sessions [(R-AL)] says its a bad week because Mr. Trump got off message. On the contrary, Will insists. This really is his message, which is a constant barrage of this sort of thing. Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America: GEORGE WILL: Well, Senator [Jeff] Sessions [(R-AL)] says its a bad week because Mr. Trump got off message. This really is his message, which is a constant barrage of this sort of thing. Now, senior Republicans are going to him saying, change your persona. Its like going to the Rolling Stones and telling Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, Rock and rolls been very good to you, and youve been good at it, but its time for you but its time to go for chamber music. I dont think they do that, and I dont think he does that. [] BRIT HUME: Well, Trump now must appeal to a much larger universe of voters than he did during primary season, and he seems not to recognize what that means. And what it means is that you simply have to be very careful and disciplined in what you say. And, as George suggests, it may not simply be in the man to do that. We will see. But these kind of reactions to things, this was a personal reaction to what he claims is unfair rulings by a judge, and he shot from the hip, and it worked like crazy, this sort of stuff, during the primary season. It will not work during a general election when you need to gather in people who previously werent for you. Its as simple as that. And he needs to recognize that and act accordingly if he can. George F. Will wrote in a Washington Post op-ed at the end of May that, Parsing Trump sentences is a challenge but is rewarding because it frequently reveals that he actually has said nothing at all, but Will and his panel did a pretty decent job Sunday at getting to the heart of Trumps message and identifying the hate at its core. Trump has made it abundantly clear that he is exactly what we are seeing. As Will put it, this attack is his message. Even some of the white males at Fox News can see he needs to change, but also recognize that he will not. And why, when 80 percent of Republican voters say Trumps racist message is just fine? Trump is giving the Republican base what it wants: unrepentant hatred of the other. Or, as documentary filmmaker Ken Burns told Stanford graduates Sunday, always making the other wrong. In that op-ed, Will asked, Who will follow Trump off the cliff? Paul Ryan, for one. In yesterdays op-ed in the Post, Will compared Trump to the degenerate Roman emperor Caligula, writing that The Caligulan malice with which Donald Trump administered Paul Ryans degradation is an object lesson in the price of abject capitulation to power, and lamented over the price Ryan has paid for supporting Donald Trump his reputation. Will, of course, judiciously ignores his own networks earlier degradation at Trumps hands. Liberals will of course answer that Ryan had no good reputation to begin with, but they have to remember that Ryan took up leadership of the House as a sort of messiah, fueled by the idea that if he acted exactly like John Boehner he could somehow be better than John Boehner. We can no more explain such expectations than we can any other Republican expectations, but Will says the House agenda was not worth Ryans soul (which is certainly true as the House agenda itself isnt worth its weight in bull excrement). And if Will is right that Trump will destroy the GOP (or, as liberals recognize, at least finish the job Republicans began in destroying their own party) he will certainly destroy Ryan (and his precious agenda along with him). Which is precisely what Paul Ryan and the Republican Party deserve. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print After giving a widely panned, and factually empty, anti-terrorism speech, Donald Trump announced that he was banning The Washington Post because the newspaper reported the truth about his statements. Trump put out a statement banning The Washington Post from his events: As you can see, The Post is on Trumps blacklist because they dared to report that Donald Trump has been trying to connect President Obama to the mass shootings in Orlando, FL. It is no coincidence that Trump banned the newspaper after he gave an anti-terrorism speech that completely bombed. Donald Trump is failing as a candidate, and he is blaming the media for his failure. Trump also does not believe in a free press. If an organization does not give the presumptive Republican nominee the kind of coverage that he wants, Trump will ban that outlet. Trumps ban of The Washington Post flies in the face of his own media strategy. Last week, Trump told Republicans that he wasnt going to raise as much money for them as they requested because he is going to win the White House by doing lots of interviews. However, it will tough for Trump to get media coverage if he insists on banning the biggest media outlets in the country. Trump has it all wrong. He thinks that the media needs him more than he needs them, but he is a candidate with no campaign operation to speak of. Donald Trumps entire presidential campaign is made up of rallies and television interviews. Without the media, Trump would have no campaign at all. However, Trump is not stupid. His terrorism speech was a bomb, so it isnt a coincidence that he would try to change the subject by banning The Washington Post. This isnt The Apprentice. This is a presidential election, and come November; voters will be the ones saying to Donald Trump, Youre fired. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Donald Trump tries to look presidential, but his anti-terrorism speech quickly morphed into a garbled and bigoted rant about how Muslims should be banned from the United States. Video: https://youtu.be/6_XOEVRcoSQ Trump said: If we dont get tough, and we dont get smart and fast were not going to have a country anymore there will be nothing left. The killer, whose name I will not use, or ever say, was born to Afghan parents who immigrated to the United States. His father published support for the Afghan Taliban, a regime which murders those who dont share its radical views. The father even said he was running for President of that country. The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here. That is a fact, and its a fact we need to talk about. We have a dysfunctional immigration system which does not permit us to know who we let into our country, and it does not permit us to protect our citizens. We have an incompetent administration, and if I am not elected President, that will not change over the next four years but it must change, and it must change now. With fifty people dead, and dozens more wounded, we cannot afford to talk around the issue anymore we have to address it head on. I called for a ban after San Bernardino, and was met with great scorn and anger but now, many are saying I was right to do so and although the pause is temporary, we must find out what is going on. The ban will be lifted when we as a nation are in a position to properly and perfectly screen those people coming into our country. The immigration laws of the United States give the President the power to suspend entry into the country of any class of persons that the President deems detrimental to the interests or security of the United States, as he deems appropriate. I will use this power to protect the American people. When I am elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies, until we understand how to end these threats. After a full, impartial and long overdue security assessment, we will develop a responsible immigration policy that serves the interests and values of America. We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer. Donald Trump keeps playing the same note of fear over and over again. Trump is destroying the Republican Party with his bigoted plan to ban immigrants. Twenty-five percent of all US children have at least one parent who was not born in the US. By choosing to pander to a segment of the Republican Party, Donald Trump is alienating a giant swath of the US electorate. Trump talk of a ban on Muslims is the best-recruiting tool that the terrorists could ever be given. There is no better way to create hatred of the US than banning an entire religion from entering the country. Overall, Trumps anti-terrorism speech was a complete disaster. It contained no actual policies but was loaded with bigoted appeals to fear and division. Donald Trump is just helping the terrorists win. He is also making sure that Republicans lose. Portfolio English Edition's premium content is available only for subscribers Learn about the hottest news of the day, along with immediate follow-up analyses and 1000's of exclusive articles with full access to the premium content. Register and apply for a 14 days free trial period. Travel costs that could dissuade potential kidney donors from volunteering for life-saving transplants will be reimbursed by the nation's biggest insurer starting next year in a move designed to encourage more donations. UnitedHealth Group says that it will pay back up to $5,000, not counting lost wages from missed work, becoming the latest insurer to reimburse people who donate for an organ transplant. Insurers cover the medical expenses for someone who donates an organ, but many plans do not pay the cost of getting to the surgery site, staying near it while recovering and making medical appointments tied to the donation. Some states offer tax breaks for these costs. People who travel to donate a kidney can miss at least two weeks of work and spend $5,000 or more, according to Harvey Mysel, president of the nonprofit Living Kidney Donors Network. He says these costs can discourage people from becoming donors. "It is a challenge for many people," he said. ADVERTISEMENT It is illegal to pay someone to donate an organ, but other insurers like Aetna, Cigna and the Blue Cross-Blue Shield carrier Anthem also cover some of the expenses a donor incurs. Starting in January, UnitedHealth will reimburse lodging and travel expenses beginning with a doctor's initial evaluation and continuing for up to two years after the donor surgery. UnitedHealth will limit this initially to its fully insured coverage, which typically entails individual plans and coverage offered through small employers. But company officials say they may expand the reimbursement if it proves successful. The insurer covered 75 transplants from living donors last year through its fully insured coverage, according to Dr. Jon Friedman, an executive with UnitedHealth's Optum subsidiary. He couldn't say how many cases involved travel. He said UnitedHealth decided to reimburse for the additional expenses in order to spark more interest in live organ donation. "The key here is to make it easier for donors to donate," he said. The reimbursement also can help reduce costs for insurers if it cuts the time patients have to wait for a kidney. Patients wait about three and a half years for a transplant on average, according to the National Kidney Foundation, which also said 4,761 people died while waiting in 2014. Dialysis for patients during that wait costs about $780,000, UnitedHealth said. A kidney transplant can cost around $150,000, not counting anti-rejection medication that patients take afterward. ADVERTISEMENT Doctors prefer kidneys from a live donor because those organs tend to have better odds of functioning over the long term, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Last year, surgeons performed nearly 6,000 transplants with organs from living donors and almost 25,000 with organs from donors who had died. The vast majority of living-donor transplants involved kidneys. A woman who died in December was driven to her death by constant abuse, officials believe, resulting in third-degree murder charges against a Rochester man. Long Vang, 34, of Stewartville, made his first appearance this morning in Olmsted County District Court, where he faces one count each of third-degree murder-causing the death of another by perpetrating an eminently dangerous act; second-degree manslaughter-culpable negligence; and pattern of stalking conduct. All are felonies. The charges come after a long investigation of the 11-year relationship between Vang and Jessica Haban, 28, said Sgt. Kirby Long of the Olmsted County Sheriff's Office. The two were culturally married. Haban, Long said, "was subject to increasing levels of domestic abuse: physical, emotional and mental," including a traumatic brain injury about six months before she died. Haban had spoken to authorities about the abuse at Vang's hands, telling a detective Vang usually broke things in the house when he was angry. ADVERTISEMENT On one occasion, Vang reportedly poured vegetable oil "all over" Haban because she "had bad in her;" he was angry with her for having a nightmare. When Haban tried to take a shower, Vang kicked in the shower door, knocking it down and injuring Haban. She got out of the shower and tried to leave, the complaint says, but Vang grabbed her by the hair and threw her against a wall, then threw her headfirst into a washing machine. She told hospital personnel that she simply fell; medical records corroborate Haban's story. A relative also confirmed years of abuse, including an incident when Vang threw a lamp at Haban's head during her pregnancy, causing the lamp to shatter on her. When the relative questioned Haban's frequent bruising, Vang would blame Haban by saying she "pushed his buttons," the report says. Though Haban generally resisted involving law enforcement in the relationship, early on May 11, 2015, she called 911 to report Vang was throwing things at her. A deputy found Vang hiding behind a vehicle near the garage; Haban said he'd overturned a coffee table, then used it to restrain her on a couch. When she tried to call police, Vang broke the phone. Haban "cried and was apologetic during her conversation," the report notes. Less than two weeks later, the couple was at a home in Austin when Vang punched Haban in the head with a closed fist. Haban lost consciousness; the next thing she remembered was waking up the next day with a headache, feeling sick to her stomach. The couple's son told an adult at the home that day that his mother was being assaulted; witnesses found Vang holding a knife to Haban's throat, but eventually convinced him to put it down. A few days later, Haban sought medical treatment for her continuing headache and nausea; she was diagnosed with a probable traumatic brain injury. ADVERTISEMENT In August, a domestic abuse-no contact order was issued against Vang, but in November, a witness reported to law enforcement that Vang was contacting Haban. According to the complaint, the woman "was concerned for (Haban's) safety and well-being, and expressed fear that Vang would seriously injure or kill" Haban. Haban admitted to officers that Vang had been calling and texting her nearly daily. Haban told a deputy "the abuse and surrounding circumstances were beginning to exact a significant mental toll," court documents say. During a meeting with a social worker Dec. 7, Haban said she was scared and didn't know what to do, the criminal complaint says, adding that she felt like Vang had "killed her" and she was at a loss as to what to do. Haban received in-patient mental health treatment in the months prior to her death; the social worker learned Vang had been "pressuring (Haban) to leave treatment and go back to work," threatening that she'd lose custody of their children if she stayed. During the last hospitalization Dec. 10 Haban called the social worker and asked to leave treatment. On Dec. 13, the social worked learned Haban had been discharged. Haban died by suicide Dec. 16 at her home. A forensic analysis of Haban's phone revealed nearly 1,800 phone calls and messages between Vang and Haban between Sept. 12 and Dec. 16. All were violations of the DANCO. These locations are never random. These targets aren't accidental. They're the very vocabulary in which assailants like the Orlando gunman speak, and he chose a place where there's drinking. And dancing. And where LGBT people congregate, feeling a sense of welcome, of belonging. That last detail is in the foreground of the deadliest mass shooting in American history and rightly so. But let's be clear: This was no more an attack just on LGBT people than the bloodshed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris was an attack solely on satirists. Both were attacks on freedom itself. Both took aim at societies that, at their best, integrate and celebrate diverse points of view, diverse systems of belief, diverse ways to love. And to speak of either massacre more narrowly than that is to miss the greater message, the more pervasive danger and the truest stakes. We don't yet know all that much about Omar Mateen, who pulled the trigger, again and again, in a nightclub whose name connotes life, not death: Pulse. We'll be learning more in the hours and days to come, including just how potently homophobia in particular factored into his actions, how much ideological influence the Islamic State or other extremists had, how extensive his planning was, how far back he began plotting this, and how much he knew about Pulse itself and the specific composition of its crowd on different nights of the week. ADVERTISEMENT But we can assume no, we can be sure that he was lashing out at an America at odds with his darker, smaller, more oppressive mindset. The people inside Pulse were citizens of it. More to the point, they were emblems of it. In Pulse they found a refuge. In Pulse they found joy. To him they deserved neither. And he communicated that with an assault rifle and bullets. The Islamic State and its ilk are brutal to gay people, whom they treat in unthinkable ways. They throw gay people from rooftops. The footage is posted online. It's bloodcurdling, but it's not unique. In countries throughout the world, to be gay is to be in mortal danger. To embrace love is to court death. That's crucial context for what happened in Orlando, and Orlando is an understandable prompt for questions about our own degrees of inclusion and fairness and whether we do all that we should to keep LGBT people safe. We don't. As Florida Gov. Rick Scott spoke publicly of his heartache Sunday, I saw complaints on social media about his own lack of support for issues important to LGBT people. Those complaints have merit. But this isn't a moment for identity politics, which could muddle the significance of the carnage.Yes, that carnage exposed the special vulnerability of LGBT Americans to violent extremists, recommending special levels of security. And there was a frightening coda to it on the opposite coast, in the Los Angeles area, where a man with an arsenal of weapons was arrested en route to gay pride festivities. But the threat isn't only to LGBT Americans, as past acts of terror have shown and as everyone today must recognize. All Americans are under attack, and not exclusively because of whom we drink, dance or sleep with, but because of our bedrock belief that we should not be subservient to any one ideology or any one religion. That offends and inflames the zealots of the world. Often our politicians can't find their voices. Sometimes their words are poignantly right. President Barack Obama, speaking about the victims Sunday afternoon, said: "The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub. It is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds and to advocate for their civil rights. So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country." ADVERTISEMENT And this was Eric Garcetti, the Los Angeles mayor, at a news conference: "Today we know that we are targeted as Americans, because this is a society where we love broadly and openly, because we have Jews and Christians and Muslims and atheists and Buddhists marching together, because we are white, black, brown, Asian, Native American. The whole spectrum and every hue and every culture is here." It was a perfect description of the country I love. And it was an equally perfect description of what the Orlando gunman couldn't bear. The state recently awarded a $5 million contract to renovate Rochester's Minnesota National Guard Armoryto a construction firm with a large local presence. Twin Cities-based Knutson Construction , which opened its Rochester office in 1997, won the contract to remodel the facility at 1715 Marion Road SE in May. The project will include demolition and rebuild of 30,000-square-feet of offices, gymnasium, storage areas, training rooms, locker rooms and kitchen. Other work on the agenda includes installing new electrical and mechanical systems plus improvements to the 10,000-square-foot surface parking lot and landscaping. Marketing Manager Michele Odesays construction is scheduled to begin on Aug. 15. The contract calls for completion by July 2017. Knutson's team will be lead by project manager Tony Joseph. The team will be working with the Minnesota National Guard Department of Military Affairs, Blumentals Architectureand Palanisami & Associates. ADVERTISEMENT Knutson has a long history in Rochester dating back to building the original IBMfacility in 1956. Biz buzz Almost a year since buying a former Med City mail processing center for $2.11 million , Mayo Clinicstill is working out what to do with it. Mayo Clinic purchased the former U.S. Postal Servicefacility at 3939 Valleyhigh Drive in July 2015. The 72,662-square-foot center closed in January 2015, when mail processing was transferred to the Twin Cities. When asked this week about its plan, the Mayo Clinic was pretty much the same as when it bought the building. "No decisions have been made regarding the use of space at 3939 Valleyhigh Drive NW," wrote Kelley Lucksteinof Mayo Clinic Public Affairs on Friday in response to the query about the building. The 19-year-old building could be adapted for a variety of purposes, such as an industrial laundry , a distribution center or light manufacturing. The center is described as "constructed of pre-stressed concrete and steel frames for high volume load distribution and contains a total of 23 dock doors; 10 overhead doors, 12 semi-truck docks and one grade door." It started with a small group, but eventually more than 100 people gathered Sunday night at Peace Plaza. They held candles in their hands, and as the sun began to set, specks of light dotted the night. These were the symbols of solidarity and hope in the wake of the deadly Orlando, Fla., shootings early Sunday morning. The vigil was a place to make a statement against the violence that occurred when a gunman opened fire at Pulse Orlando, a popular gay bar and nightclub, and killed 50 people, and critically injuring at least 53. The shooting was the worst mass killing in recent U.S. history. The gunman who was later identified as Omar Mateen, 29, of St. Lucie County, Fla., was then killed in a shootout with the Orlando Police Department's SWAT team. ADVERTISEMENT Florida news outlets reported that the FBI had interviewed Mateen three times in 2013 and 2014 for possible ties to radical Islamic terrorist organizations, but they determined he wasn't a threat. At the Peace Plaza, people carried signs with slogans including "love over hate" and "My pride has no room for Islamophobia." "The community stands for love," said Ken Tollefsrud, Gay Lesbian Community Services in Rochester. "There is support in the community." Rochester Police Lt. Eli Umpierre was there to show her support for the victims, as were several of her fellow officers, with candles in their hands and in full uniform. "That would have never happened 25 years ago when I first started working here in the city," Umpierre said. "Especially for a marginalized group, people have the need to become one and support one another." At that time, it wouldn't have seemed possible "that we can be together and out in support for the deaths of people who have been discriminated against and marginalized their entire lives." Many at the vigil and in the LGBT community nationwide denounced prejudice against Muslims in response to the shooting. Everyone quietly sang a rendition of "Amazing Grace." Some wept, while others wrapped their arms around one another. ADVERTISEMENT "As a country, we won't be defeated by hate. We will stand up and rise together," Umpierre said, "and find the good things and the solidarity and kindness that is in the world. "This is a shining example of the resiliency of our community and our country." LONDON Of the fighting faiths that flourished during the ideologically drunk 20th century, anti-Semitism has been uniquely durable. It survives by mutating, even migrating across the political spectrum from the right to the left. Although most frequently found in European semi-fascist parties, anti-Semitism is growing in the fetid Petri dish of American academia, and is staining Britain's Labour Party. In 2014, before Naseem "Naz" Shah became a Labour member of parliament, she shared a graphic on her Facebook page suggesting that all Israelis should be "relocated" to the United States. She seemed to endorse the idea that the "transportation cost" would be less than "three years of defense spending." When this was recently publicized, "Red Ken" Livingstone, former Labour mayor of London, offered on the BBC what he considered a defense of her as not anti-Semitic because "a real anti-Semite doesn't just hate the Jews in Israel." Besides, Livingstone said, Hitler was a Zionist (for supposedly considering sending Europe's Jews to Palestine) "before he went mad." As mayor, Livingstone praised as a "progressive voice" an Egyptian cleric who called the Holocaust "divine punishment." Labour's leader, Jeremy Corbyn, says he wants to cleanse Labour of such thinking. But Corbyn hopes to host at the House of Commons a Palestinian sheikh who calls Jews "bacteria" and "monkeys" and has been accused of repeating the "blood libel" that Jews make matzo using the blood of gentile children. Leftist anti-Semites invariably say they hate not Jews but Zionism, and hence not a people but a nation. Israel was, however, created as a haven for an endangered people. Jonathan Sacks, former chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, refutes the canard that "hating Israel is not the same as hating Jews" by saying: Criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist. When Sacks asks his audiences if Britain's government can be criticized, everyone says yes. But when they are asked, "Do you believe Britain should not exist?," no one says yes. Then Sacks tells his audiences: "Now you know the difference." ADVERTISEMENT "It is very easy to hate," says Sacks. "It is very difficult to justify hate." Anti-Semitism's permutations adapt it to changing needs for justification. In the Middle Ages, he says, Jews were hated for their religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries, they were hated for their race. Now they are hated for their nation. "The new anti-Semitism can always say it is not the old anti-Semitism." But it is. It remains, Sacks says, "essentially eliminationist." It disguises its genocidal viciousness, insisting that it seeks the destruction not of a people but only of the state formed as a haven for this people that has had a uniquely hazardous history. The international "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" movement, supported by many American academics, aims not just to pressure Israel to change policies, as South Africa was pressured to abandon apartheid, but rather to de-legitimize Israel's existence as a nation. Sacks says that when bad things happen to a healthy society, it asks: What did we do wrong? A fraying, insecure society asks: Who did this to us? Sacks notes that although Jews were never more than 2 percent of Germany's population, this did not protect them from becoming the explanation for Germany's discontents. In a conversation with a supposedly "moderate" British Muslim leader, Sacks asked, "Does Israel have a right to exist within any borders whatever?" The leader replied: "Your own prophets said that because of your sins you have forfeited your right to your land." To which Sacks responded mildly: "But that was 2,700 years ago and surely the Jews have served their sentence." After World War II, Western nations strove to develop what Sacks calls "a cultural immune system" against anti-Semitism with Holocaust education and other measures. The immune system is not weakening in Britain, other than among Muslim immigrants and leftists eager to meld their radicalism with radical Islam. Labour's leader before Corbyn, Edward Miliband, who led the party in the 2015 general election, is Jewish, as was the Conservative Party's greatest 19th-century leader (Benjamin Disraeli). Former Conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who was educated at Eton, noted, perhaps regretfully, certainly indelicately, that Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet included more "old Estonians than old Etonians." This was not anti-Semitism, just a jest too fine to forgo. Seven decades after the Holocaust, some European nations have, remarkably, anti-Semitism without Jews and Christian anti-Semitism without Christianity. Britain just has a few leftists eager to mend their threadbare socialism with something borrowed from National Socialism. Rochester has a problem with its mayor-appointed boards and commissions. In February, City Administrator Stevan Kvenvold wrote a memo stating his personal opinion is that "the only body that should refer a development application to (the Committee on Urban Design and Environment) is the City Council." No action was ever taken on this memo. Yet, four months later it is clear others share his opinions. When asked by a CUDE member to have the recently developed urban-design standards presented to the committee, City Council President Randy Staver replied, "As CUDE is an advisory body, I will leave it to the consensus of the council whether they would specifically ask CUDE to review the proposed standards." Staver is incorrect. It is not up to the council to ask CUDE to review guidelines, projects or other items related to our mission. Developers or community groups often ask to come before the committee, of which I am chairwoman, or CUDE members will request staff to bring a project forward. However, it is clear our council president shares the personal opinion of Mr. Kvenvold. CUDE should be reviewing the proposed urban-design standards as they will ultimately help us be a more efficient and valuable community advisory group. Restricting access of our citizen boards, commissions and community voices is a problem Rochester needs to solve. ADVERTISEMENT Jesse Welsh Rochester We have reached many milestones and witnessed plenty of success stories at the Guam Department of Labor during my current tenure, but I will b Read moreGDOL wants to be a part of your employment solutions Back in April I noted that the liberal culturati were unhappy over the success of the Broadway smash Hamilton, precisely because its multiracial cast and hip-hop format dont conform to or reinforce the identity politics frame of the Left. Broadway is making a capitalist dead white guy look cool! Horrors! With Hamilton dominating the Tony Awards show last night, the New York Times returned to the theme as if to say You didnt get it the first time so let us hit you again. An op-ed article by Jason Frank and Isaac Kramnick of Cornell University complain about Hamilton in ways that unwittingly reveal some great examples of the lack of self-awareness among todays Left. Like this: Mr. Mirandas depiction of Hamilton as resourceful immigrant and talented self-made man captures an important aspect of his character. But the musical avoids an equally pronounced feature of Hamiltons beliefs: his deeply ingrained elitism, his disdain for the lower classes and his fear of democratic politics. . . Hamilton mistrusted the political capacities of the common people and insisted on deference to elites. Heh. Today it is liberals who have a deeply ingrained elitism, disdain for the lower classes, and fear of democratic politics. But wait! Theres more! Hamilton, with his contemptuous attitude toward the lower classes, was perfectly comfortable with the inegalitarian and antidemocratic implications of his economic vision. Again, just like todays liberals, who want to rule ever more through executive action and unaccountable bureaucracy. Not to mention a Democratic Party that has more or less openly decided to turn its back on the working class in favor of coastal elites. Somehow I doubt Frank and Kramnick will become the successors to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Many of us who have observed Sen. Sheila Harsdorf over the past several decades recall a time when, though we may have disagreed with her politics, we could respect her personally for being a sensible moderate who was willing to listen and seemed genuinely interested in the public welfare. Unfortunately, what we now see is a jaded, disingenuous, senior politician who has become comfortable supporting anything Scott Walker and the Tea Party wants. Here are a few examples of her less than admirable legislative behavior: Authored legislation that cut University of Wisconsin funding by $250 million. This will have enormous negative consequences for the entire UW system and the students who study there. This is a vicious assault on higher education by right wing extremists. Voted to appoint the son of Scott Walkers campaign chairperson to the UW Board of Regents. This blatant cronyism gives more support for right-wing attacks on our world class University of Wisconsin. Voted against Badger Care expansion and available federal funding, which would have increased access to affordable health care and lowered taxpayer cost, but is now costing taxpayers an extra $360 million just to make a partisan point. Voted to prevent adequate reproductive health care for women who were victims of rape or incest, or who were experiencing unexpected pregnancy complications. The medical community overwhelmingly opposed this bill. Voted against funding for state parks and DNR scientists, and for the weakening of shoreline zoning protections. Voted against accountability and transparency for Walkers corrupt jobs program (WEDC) which has lost track of millions of dollars in loans, repeatedly violated state statutes, and awarded money to companies that outsource Wisconsin jobs. The above items are typical of the corrupt, profit driven legislation Senator Harsdorf now supports on behalf of the top 1 percent. Wisconsin deserves better! As information regarding the terrorist who murdered dozens of people at a gay club in Orlando, Florida emerged, the question arose whether the attack was ISIS inspired. But Andy McCarthy argues that the inspiration for Muslims to brutalize and mass murder gay people does not come from ISIS; it is deeply rooted in Islamic law, affirmed by many of Islams most renowned scholars. Before getting to the renowned scholars, its worth noting, as McCarthy does (citing the Washington Post), that there are ten Muslim countries where homosexuality may be punished by death. They are Yemen, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, and Iraq. Now for the scholars. McCarthy begins with an English version of the classic sharia manual Reliance of the Traveller, which, he says, has been endorsed by scholars of al-Azhar University, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning since the tenth century; by the International Institute of Islamic Thought, a Muslim Brotherhood think tank that is influential in Washington; and by other influential Islamic governments and commentators. Here is what the manual says about homosexuality: Sec. p17.1: In more than one place in the Holy Koran, Allah recounts to us the story of Lots people, and how He destroyed them for their wicked practice. There is consensus among both Muslims and the followers of all other religions that sodomy is an enormity. It is even viler and uglier than adultery [McCarthy notes that adultery is punished brutally, including by death]. Sec. p17.2: Allah Most High says: Do you approach the males of humanity, leaving the wives Allah has created for you? But you are a people who transgress (Koran 26:165-66). Sec. p17.3: The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: (1) Kill the one who sodomizes and the one who lets it be done to him. (2) May Allah curse him who does what Lots people did. (3) Lesbianism by women is adultery between them. Next, McCarthy turns to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, possibly Sunni Islams most influential living sharia jurist, according to Andy. Here, as reported by the Middle East Forum, is Qaradawis teaching on homosexuality: We must be aware that in regulating the sexual drive Islam has prohibited not only illicit sexual relations and all what leads to them, but also the sexual deviation known as homosexuality. This perverted act is a reversal of the natural order, a corruption of mans sexuality, and a crime against the rights of females. (The same applies equally to the case of lesbianism.) The spread of this depraved practice in a society disrupts its natural life pattern and makes those who practice it slaves to their lusts, depriving them of decent taste, decent morals, and a decent manner of living. The story of the people of Prophet Lut (Lot), peace be upon him, as narrated in the Koran should be sufficient for us. Prophet Luts people were addicted to this shameless depravity, abandoning natural, pure, lawful relations with women in the pursuit of this unnatural, foul, and illicit practice. That is why their Prophet Lut, peace be on him, told them, What! Of all creatures, do you approach males and leave the spouses whom your Lord has created for you? Indeed, you are people transgressing (all limits)! (Koran, 26: 165166). . . . Muslim jurists have held differing opinions concerning the punishment for this abominable practice. Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication, or should both the active and passive participants be put to death? While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements. For the Shiite point of view, McCarthy turns to Ayatollah Sistani, the influential Iraqi cleric whose cooperation the U.S. has sought and at times obtained. According to Andy, when asked, What is [Islams] judgment on sodomy and lesbianism?, Sistani replied: Forbidden. Those involved in the act should be punished. In fact, sodomites should be killed in the worst manner possible. (Emphasis added) These bloodthirsty views arent the only way in which Islamic scripture is interpreted. But they are a legitimate, mainstream interpretation. It isnt just ISIS and al Qaeda who hold adhere to it. McCarthy concludes by considering what this should mean for U.S. immigration policy. It doesnt mean that a categorical ban should be imposed on Muslim immigration, as Donald Trump has urged. It does mean, in McCarthys view, that there absolutely should be severe restrictions on immigration from countries, regions, and communities (e.g., in Europe) in which sharia standards are de jure or de facto imposed. I agree. It isnt just that a chasm exists between the values widely held in these countries, regions, and communities and the values we stand for the right of gays to be left alone being just one example. Its that the risk is too high that these immigrants and/or their offspring will attempt to impose sharia standards here, including through violent action such as the horrific murders at the Orlando club. UPDATE: In a separate column, McCarthy asks: Will CAIR-LA Join Me in Condemning the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim Scholars Who Affirm Sharias Persecution of Homosexuals? Andys column demonstrates how unlikely it is that CAIR-LA (or CAIR-anywhere) will do so. Time and time again, in the aftermath of a horrific crime, we learn that the criminal previously had been incarcerated for crimes serious enough that he should have been in prison at the time of the latest offense. I call this our under-incarceration problem. In the case of Omar Mateen, killer of four dozen at an Orlando club, I havent seen anything that shows he should have been in jail. However, this report from Fox News suggests that the man who helped inspire him to butcher gays should be. Marcus Dwayne Robertson is a radical imam who preaches hate in the Orlando area. A former U.S. Marine, he served as a bodyguard to the Blind Sheik who was behind the 1993 World Trade Center Attack. Eventually, Robertson resurfaced in Orlando. According to a law enforcement official familiar with Robertson, the imam has a history of recruiting terrorists and inciting violence in the area. The official says that Mateen was enrolled in Robertsons online Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary. Robertson reportedly has openly and enthusiastically preached against homosexuality. According to Fox News, Robertson, spent four years in prison in Florida on illegal weapons and tax fraud charges before being released by a Florida judge one year ago. During his time in prison, Robertson was considered so dangerous that he was kept in shackles and assigned his own guards. Whenever Robertson was transported to court, a seven-car caravan of armed federal marshals escorted him. He was initially moved into solitary confinement because prison authorities concluded he was radicalizing up to 36 of his fellow prisoners. The illegal weapons and tax fraud charges in themselves may not have justified more than four years of jail time. But prosecutors say that wiretaps from 2011 show that Robertson instructed one of his students, Jonathan Paul Jimenez, to file false tax returns to obtain a tax refund to pay for travel to Mauritania for terror training. Jimenez studied with Robertson for a year in preparation for his travel to Mauritania, where he furthered his training in killing, suicide bombing, and identifying and murdering U.S. military personnel. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to lying to authorities and conspiring to defraud the IRS and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Prosecutors sought to tack on 10 years to Robertsons sentence, based on enhanced terrorism charges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. However, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell, a Bill Clinton appointee, was unmoved. He freed Robertson in June 2015 with time served. Without more knowledge of the facts, it s impossible to say with confidence that the judge erred in releasing Robertson. Unfortunately, many of the court documents, including Robertsons own testimony from his most recent criminal case, remain under federal seal. But if wiretaps showed that Robertson instructed his student to file false tax returns to obtain a tax refund to pay for travel to Mauritania for terror training, and if that student worked with Robertson for a year in preparation for that trip, then Judge Presnells decision to refuse the governments request for an enhanced sentence seems suspect. Robertson was questioned by authorities following Mateens massacre, but there is no indication he will be charged in connection with those crimes. Most likely, he will remain able to spew venom, including at gays and lesbians, to inspire violence, and to assist terrorists. Society had its chance to keep Robertson in prison and isolated, but a federal judge let him walk. I wrote about Jesse Venturas defamation/unjust enrichment lawsuit against the estate of Chris Kyle in American Sniper on trial and in American Sniper on trial: The verdict and in American Sniper on trial: The appeal. The case arises from a couple of pages now excised from the book about Kyles close encounter with Ventura at a bar in southern California. Ventura alleged that the story Kyle recounted was false and defamatory and that the success of the book was attributable in part to the story Kyle told in those pages. A jury with two holdouts found in favor of Ventura. District Judge Richard Kyle (no relation to the family of Chris Kyle) entered judgment against the estate in the amount of nearly $2,000,000 on the two claims. The Kyle estate appealed the judgment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. A panel of three judges has now ruled in favor of the Kyle estate on appeal, vacating the unjust enrichment award and sending the defamation claim back for a new trial. The Eighth Circuits opinion is unanimous in overturning the unjust enrichment award and split 2-1 only in sending the defamation claim back for retrial. The unjust enrichment claim is now gone and will not be seen again. The Eighth Circuits opinion is posted online by the court here. I encourage interested readers to check it out. Ventura appeared outside the courthouse last fall following the oral argument of the appeal before the Eighth Circuit in St. Paul. The Star Tribunes Abby Simmons and Randy Furst covered the argument and provided a brief account of Venturas remarks here. The Star Tribune also posted a video with excerpts of Ventura speaking outside the courthouse at the top of the Simmons and Furst story. Ventura has become a visibly unsavory character of poor judgment. He put these qualities on display in the video of his comments posted by the Star Tribune. Ventura mockingly disparaged the late Chris Kyle as Superman. Unfortunately, Kyle isnt around any longer to defend himself. One is left to reflect what a poor excuse for a man Ventura is, and not just by contrast with Kyle. As he has done in his lawsuit and elsewhere, outside the courthouse Ventura attributed the decline in his fortunes over the years to what Kyle wrote about him in American Sniper. If one were to take Venturas comments at face value, one might infer that Ventura is a man in need of an intervention of some kind. One wonders if he has any friends left. He needs to summon the fortitude to look at himself in the mirror. I agree with the courts opinion on appeal that that critical rulings by the trial judge with respect to unjust enrichment and evidence of insurance were mistaken. I thought that Judge Rileys comments at oral argument of the appeal suggested that Venturas side of the case has trouble ahead. The courts opinion kills the unjust enrichment claim and ensures that the defamation claim will be retried without the question of insurance to color the outcome. Once a case has been taken to court, there can be no negotiation of return of money without punishment. That is impossible and can never happen because if that happens, then it is breach of the law. Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Itse Sagay, rejecting former PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuhs proposal to refund N400 million to the federal government, and have the corruption case against him dropped (Source: The Punch) No matter the political party we belong to, the country is in turmoil. The economy is in a bad shape; insecurity is very high; unemployment is unimaginable. The next one year must not be like the last one year. We must make a difference. Senate Chief Whip, Olusola Adeyeye, said in his contribution on the floor of the senate to mark the first legislative year of the upper chamber (Source: Vanguard newspaper) I am a Fulani from Sokoto and I have cattle. I know that it is better for me to rear and keep my herds in one place and provide good grass for them. Governor of Sokoto state, Aminu Tambuwal, says federal government should only set up grazing reserves in the northern part of the country (Source: NTA) Politics should always lead the gun and never the gun leading politics. The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, said while warning the country war veterans to keep off the politics of who succeeds him as the next president (Source: Zimbabwe Independent ) When I say I hate white supremacy I dont say I hate white people. This is their home (country). They have a role to play but they must agree that there must be a deliberate programme to empower black people the same way there was a deliberate programme to empower white people. Leader of South African opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema, said to a gathering of in Midrand, Johannesburg (Source: Times Live) Many Nigerians do not believe in the Nigerian project. That is why the country is still advocating for nationhood. The current constitution of Nigeria is illegal. It was formulated by the military. Rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome, explaining why it is necessary for President Muhammadu Buhari to begin the implementation of the report of the 2014 National Conference (Source: The Sun) We should have tackled this issue of corruption gently, because when it fights back, it kills. The people that live on corruption, that is their religion. If you stop it, they would feel that you are strangling them and they fight back to strangle you. You may be surprised to discover the people behind this Niger Delta issue. Kaduna-based Muslim cleric, Ahmad Gumi, on the renewed militancy in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria (Source: Daily Trust) A government with a human face is here at last. He (President Muhammadu Buhari) represents the aspirations and symbolism of June 12 in that he also got a pan-Nigerian mandate that once again defied the divisions in our country. Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, said in an address to mark the 23rd anniversary of the annulled June 12, 1993 election which was won by the late business mogul, M.K.O Abiola (Source: Premium Times) Yes, things are bad. Yes, things are hard. Yes, Nigerians are groaning. But we have a President, who rather than (bring) plastic solution, has decided to make himself, and virtually all the governors the sacrificial lamb in establishing a foundation for a totally different nation. National Chairman, All Progressives Congress, Odigie Oyegun, on the poor state of the Nigerian economy (Source: The Punch newspaper) I do not know your name but thanks to you, I know that heroes ride bicycles. I do not know your name but I see your unconquerable spirit. Your story has already changed lives. I do not know your name but I will never forget you. U.S Vice President Joe Biden, said in an open letter he wrote to a rape victim at Stanford University in the U.S (Source: BuzzFeedNews) The Nigerian Army on Sunday denied allegations that those affected by the recent retirement exercise it embarked upon were deliberately pooled from a section of the country to further advance a northern agenda, describing the reports as unfair and unethical. The Army had come under fierce criticism following claims that senior army officers were compelled to retire because they were from the south of Nigeria and loyal to former President Goodluck Jonathan. The allegations, which came overwhelmingly from commentators in the southern part of the country, said President Muhammadu Buhari approved the exercise in order to purge southerners from the top hierarchy of the military while replacing them with northerners. But in a statement issued late Sunday by its acting director of public relations, Sani Usman, the Nigerian Army pushed back against the attacks, saying the exercise was carried out in strict compliance with the countrys extant laws. The attention of the Nigerian Army has been drawn to speculations and rumours regarding the number and names of the senior Army officers affected in the recent retirement exercise. This is worrisome as some individuals and media houses went to the ridiculous extent of publishing outrageous figures and names of serving officers as being retired. This is unethical and unfair. We are quite aware that some mischievous elements are trying to whip up sentiments. This is quite unfortunate because all the affected officers were retired based on Service exigencies and in line with the Armed Forces Act, CAP A20 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, the Army said. The statement did not specify the section of that law the Army relied on to compulsorily retire the officers. Mr. Sani, a colonel, also gave a breakdown of the affected officers by ranks. We wish to state that only 38 senior officers were affected by the retirement exercise. For the avoidance of doubt the following is the statistics of the officers retired compulsorily; 9 Major Generals, 10 Brigadier Generals, 7 Colonels, 11 Lieutenant Colonels and a Major. When asked to provide a state-by-state breakdown of the affected officers, Mr. Sani told PREMIUM TIMES it was not in the interest of the country to do so, saying the Nigerian Army does not thrive on unnecessary sentiments. The Army does not thrive on that. These people were retired strictly in accordance with the dictates of the Armed Forces Act and not based on ethnic or tribal consideration. The context of the law is what the people should look at, Mr. Sani said. The Army had on June 10 announced the retirement of some of the officers for being allegedly partisan during the 2015 General Elections. Similarly, the investigation by the Presidential Committee investigating Defence Contracts revealed a lot, the statement said. Some officers have already been arraigned in court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). People should therefore not read this out of context. The military must remain apolitical and professional at all times. A prominent female activist from the Niger Delta, Ankio Briggs, on Sunday condemned the Niger Delta Avengers for attacking oil and gas pipelines and installations in the region, the News Agency of Nigeria reports. Ms. Briggs, a close ally of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, said the avengers were from Somalia and not Nigeria. The avengers have claimed responsibility for recent attacks on oil and power installations in the Niger Delta. The attacks have reduced almost by half Nigerias oil production and caused darkness across the country by destroying pipelines that supply gas to power stations. Ms. Briggs spoke in Enugu at the 17th Annual Convention of the Igbo Youth Movement, IYM, with the theme `Nigeria, still in pursuit of true fiscal federalism. She also condemned the recent murder by an irate mob of a woman, Bridget Agbamihe, in Kano for blasphemy as well as herdsmen attacks in Nimbo, Enugu State and other parts of the country. Also speaking at the event, Alex Ekwueme, Second Republic Vice-President, and a former Minister of Information, Jerry Gana called for true federalism and devolution of powers to the states. They said that restructuring and resource control by regions was a panacea to end acts of uprising across the country. The former vice-president, who chaired the event, said that the British colonialists had earlier divided the country to enable each region control and manage its resources without interference. The British colonial masters divided the country in such a way that every region will operate within its constitution, he said. The guest speaker and former Information Minister, Jerry Gana, said that the key solution to Nigerias problem was through true federalism and devolution of powers to states. True fiscal federalism is the only form of association that will allow peace and stability in the country and each region should be allowed to manage its resources the way they want it, Mr. Gana said. He noted that the formula for allocating revenue made the Federal Government to get richer while the states operated like beggars. States should be allowed to manage its resources to enable them govern their people the way they want and allocate some percentage to the Federal Government. Government should not be far from the people and the federating unit should be made strong to meet the needs of the people, he said. Mr. Gana recommended continuous dialogue and the implementation of the resolutions of national confab by the government as the only means the recent agitation and other national demand could be handled. A Yoruba leader, Ayo Adebanjo, said that the various acts of political instability in the country were because the constitution under which the country was governed was not good for heterogeneous country like Nigeria. To put a stop at the various uprising in the country such as Niger Delta Avengers, MASSOB, IPOB etc, our constitution needs to be changed to allow for restructuring of the country under true federalism. Earlier, the founder of IYM, Elliot Uko, said that the event was to honour prominent Nigerians who had contributed to the growth and development of the country. He said Igbo youth were committed to building a stronger Nigeria and to reduce the tension in the region, adding that true federalism would help the country to grow and prosper. The highlight of the event was presentation of awards to Messrs. Gana, Adebayo, detained Biafra secessionist leader, Nnamdi Kanu, and Ms. Briggs. The event was also attended by former governors of Anambra, Chukwuemeka Ezeife and Peter Obi, and students from tertiary institutions in the South-East. (NAN) A week after the slaying of pro-Biafra demonstrators in Onitsha, details of how the mass killing was coordinated by security forces have emerged. PREMIUM TIMES has obtained an insider account by a whistleblower, who is an operative of the State Security Service. The same whistleblower had reached out and provided vital information to two human rights organization, the Amnesty International and the Intersociety for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law. Blowing the whistle The operative, who was part of the security joint operation but is now disturbed by the manner soldiers refused to play by the rule, contacted a trusted human rights activist. The identity of the whistleblower is being concealed so he is not punished by the authorities. His recorded narrative is however in the possession of this newspaper. The whistleblower stated that the operation started with medium use of force on the night of May 29. The following morning, the joint task force moved from the Onitsha Army Barracks to the rally venue on Nkpor-Umuoji Road only to find a crowd of pro-Biafra supporters who had been battered the night before by invading soldiers in the premises of St Edmunds Catholic Primary School. The crowd, joined by newcomers, was by now in a resistance mood. At that point the JTF retreated to Onitsha Military Barracks. The retreat infuriated Cantonment Commander, Issah M. Abdullahi, a colonel, who ordered them back to clear the venue and roads of all miscreants. With this firm directive, the JTF, dominated by soldiers and led by Major C.O. Ibrahim of the Nigerian Military Police, stormed the streets and the event venue. The rest is history. The whistleblower said that while other members of the JTF were minimizing the use of force, soldiers recklessly opened fire at crowds, shooting at close range, and wasting people indiscriminately. Passersby and people in their homes and shops were not spared of stray bullets, the SSS operative said. He said it got to a point where injured pro-Biafra supporters, seeing the countless bodies of their colleagues on the ground, opened their arms wide, advanced towards the soldiers screaming that they too should be killed. Three military trucks were used to cart away heaps of dead bodies. According to the whistleblower, there are two cemeteries inside the Onitsha Army Barracks. Though reserved for fallen soldiers, victims of the massacre were buried in the cemetery close to Yahweh Church, inside the barracks. The whistleblower added that in the evening of the same day when everyone thought the dust had settled, JTF operatives invaded the Nnewi Teaching Hospital and to the fury of nurses, abducted 12 gunshot victims and seven of their relations looking after them. The 19, including women, were brought before the Commissioner of Police, Hosea Karma. He claimed that the commissioner accused the 19 of threatening the security of the state. He would however order that the wounded men be returned to the hospital while their family members be taken away by SARS for interrogation. Human rights activists familiar with police tactics in Nigeria say that interrogation by SARS is a euphemism for torture. Continuing his narrative, the whistleblower said that on June 2, two days after the massacre, soldiers stormed the Nnewi hospital and arrested eight of the 12 critical injured men the commissioner had earlier sent back to hospital. Their whereabouts remain unknown. PREMIUM TIMES separately gathered that on June 3, five men with serious bullet wounds were transferred by soldiers from Onitsha Army Barracks to the State CID and dumped inside a cell without any medical attention. We are unable to ascertain if the five men were among the eight abducted from Nnewi Teaching Hospital the day before. The name of one of the abducted men is given as Ugoo K.C. As the news spread that soldiers had invaded the Nnewi Teaching Hospital, gunshot victims in other hospitals begged their relations to move them to other states. Among those moved to Abia State were Chidi Nwigwe, Uchenna Odaa, Ezeaka Ejike, Chima Anamuasonye, Nwaowe John, Ifeanyi C. Azubuike and Ugochukwu Nnamu. Those moved to Enugu included Ifeanyi Ogumma and Arinze Aja. Since the whistleblowers account, human rights groups have worked their contacts in the various security outfits to check out the story. A security source, another SSS source and a military police source individually confirmed that a mass burial occurred in the afternoon of Wednesday, June 1 in a military cemetery, near Yahweh Church, inside the Onitsha Military Barracks. The military police source added that a total of 15 graves were prepared with some taking as many as 10 bodies while some contained only five. To hell and back: an escapee experience To hell and back is the only way to summarize the experience of Henry Ibebuike Enekwe, the 32-year old electrical engineer who was abducted by soldiers on his way to Enugu. News of Mr. Enekwes abduction was widely circulated by the human rights coalition called the Southeast Based Coalition of Human Rights Organizations. Recounting his ordeal, Mr. Enekwe, who is not an IPOB member, said he was on his way to Enugu from Onitsha to seal an electrical-installation contract with a Lagos-based businessman. In the morning of the D-Day, May 30, 2016, he was abducted by soldiers and taken to the Onitsha Military Cantonment. I live at Nkpor-Agu. The greatest shock of my live was witnessing the killing of three young men returning from early-morning mass in front of the street leading to St Edmunds Catholic Church Nkpor-Agu (Early-morning mass is a daily ritual for Catholic communities). I was arrested and thrown inside a military truck. I think the three young men panicked when they saw the soldiers waving their guns and barking. They attempted to run and right before my very eyes, the soldiers fired at them one after the other. They picked up their corpses and threw them like logs of wood into the same truck I was sitting inside. The soldiers moved from that street to another, arresting people and throwing them inside the same truck and killing others and picking up their bodies. They were acting like hunters on a hunting expedition. When we got to the barracks, I saw heaps of bodies on the ground. Those still breathing were dumped together with the dead. Another military vehicle brought in a new set of corpses. Later in the evening, all the corpses were taken in the direction of a nursery and primary school inside the barracks. I never saw anything again because we were taken into a cell, Mr. Enekwe recounted. While in captivity, Mr. Enekwe said he and other detainees were tortured every morning by soldiers. The soldiers call it morning tea. They force us to lie on a long bench and flog you with koboko (horsewhip) till you begin to bleed. When blood comes out, they pour water on wounds and continue to flog you to bring out more blood. As they flogged us, they rain curses on our mothers, our fathers and our tribes, Mr. Enekwe recalled. In a little office filled with sympathizers, among them a PREMIUM TIMES reporter, Mr. Enekwe told human rights activists that in the night of Wednesday June 1, about 8.30pm, soldiers guarding his cell crudely announced to the detainees: We don give your brothers mass burial today and if you people mess up, you will join them and nothing will happen. The engineer further added that in the early hours of June 3, about 1.30am, soldiers came to his cell and moved some detainees, including six groaning with gunshot wounds. They were never returned to the cell till June 4, when he regained his freedom. Mr. Enekwe said he was lucky to have come out of military detention alive. His rescue was made possible by family contacts within the SSS. It could not be confirmed but someone in the Ebonyi State Directorate of the SSS is believed to have contacted a senior SSS colleague in Anambra. He was told that his SSS savior came six times to the Onitsha military barracks but was each time told Mr. Enekwe was not in their custody. Inefficient Human Right Desk In February this year, the Nigerian Army announced the establishment of what it called the Army Human Right Desk. The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Tukur Buratai, represented at the commissioning by the Chief of Civil-Military Affairs (CCMA), Rogers Nicholas, had said the establishment of the desk office was borne out of the increasing interest of the local and international human rights bodies on what the army was doing in the North East and other parts of the country. He had added that the human right desk was facilitated by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), assuring that the Nigerian Army under his leadership would investigate all cases of human rights complaints brought before it. That has not happened. The litmus test was the invasion by soldiers same month of a prayer meeting inside the National High School Aba and the shooting dead of 22 unarmed pro-Biafra sympathizers whose bodies were later dumped in a borrow pit. The Army announced it had dispatched an investigation team to Aba but almost four months after, the outcome of the military investigation is yet to be made public. Massacre on Heroes Day PREMIUM TIMES gathered that May 30 every year is set aside since 1966 for remembrance of fallen heroes of Igbo Ethnic nationality. In 2014 and 2015 the day was marked in Enugu and Aba and by Igbo diaspora in Europe, America, Canada and some countries of Africa. Programme of events include lectures, church services and solemn procession. There are no street protests or armed activities. It was further gathered that Onitsha was chosen for this years celebration. An expanse of land along Nkpor-Umuoji Road, close to ALO Aluminum Industry Ltd, was chosen as venue. The land belongs to a cooperative run by a traders association which had acquired same for the building of residential houses by its members. The leadership of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) showed this newspaper a copy of a notification letter addressed to and sent to the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Hosea Karma, requesting security protection at the venue. The letter dated May 23, 2016 was signed on May 24, 2016 by Uchenna Asiegbu of the IOPBs Directorate of State. A security source said the letter became the working document for counter-strategies against the Heroes Day celebration. In the night of May 29, the eve of the anniversary, blockades were mounted on all roads leading into Onitsha by soldiers, some of whom were said to have come from 82 Division Enugu. The sealed roads were Onitsha-Owerri Expressway to stop IPOB/MASSOB supporters coming in from Imo, Abia, Port Harcourt and Akwa Ibom States; the Asaba-Onitsha Expressway to prevent travelers coming in from Lagos, Edo and northern part of the country; and the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway to contain those arriving from Enugu, Ebonyi, Cross Rivers, Benue and Kogi States. Innocent travellers and IPOB sympathizers alike were allegedly pulled out of buses, verbally attacked, flogged with horsewhip and hit with the butt of the gun. At the Delta end of the Niger Bridge, some passengers were shot at, arrested and taken away. Some night travellers, who were neither IPOB/MASSOB members nor aware of anything called Heroes Day were equally beaten up by soldiers. Not a few, including women and teenagers, had to run into the bush and remained there all night. The whistleblower told a trusted human rights campaigner that to the chagrin of anti-riot policemen and operatives of the SSS, rampaging soldiers hijacked the security operation kicking passengers, ordering them to lie face down on the dirt, shooting indiscriminately and mouthing ethnic slurs. Meanwhile IPOB/MASSOB supporters who had entered Onitsha before the blockades made their way to the venue of the Heroes Day celebration. In their hundreds they camped out in a primary school close to St. Edmunds Catholic Church at Nkpor-Agu. The pro-Biafra supporters said that minutes before 2am when most of them were sound asleep, soldiers invaded the school, shooting into the crowd. Those who could run did so but that did not stop the bullets hitting them from behind. The exact number of people killed in the primary school or left with bullet wounds is difficult to tell as most of the victims had arrived from different states and did not particularly know one another. Survivors said the dead and some of the wounded were taken away in military trucks. Those arrested were packed into the same trucks carrying the dead and taken to the Onitsha Military Barracks. The D-Day In the morning of May 30, the D-Day, news of the killings of sleeping men at the school near St. Edmund Catholic Church had been heard in Onitsha, Asaba and different parts of the South East. In Onitsha, dozens of trucks and vans filled with soldiers in combat gears raced down major roads and streets. Any gathering of three or more people was at risk of being fired upon. Shootings were recorded at hotspots in Onitsha and environs including Nkpor Junction, Eke-Nkpor Umuoji road, Afor-Nkpor to Onitsha-Enugu Expressway, Flyover Bridge by New Parts Market, Ojoto- Umuoji road, Ifite-Dunu, Ogbunike and Ogidi. Following the blockade of every road leading to the event venue, the pro-Biafra leaders resorted to using mobile phones to coordinate their members. Thousands soon assembled simultaneously at three strategic spots: the Asaba-Abraka Junction by BridgeHead in Delta State, Ifite-Dunu and Ojoto/Umuoji. From these different spots, the three different crowds began to match into Onitsha with the open-air venue as destination. Not everyone made it to the Heroes Day venue. Way before sunset, 14 critically injured citizens were writhing on the floor of the Nnewi Teaching Hospital, 15 at the Multicare Hospital in Nkpor and nine at St Marys Hospital, Nnewi. Several private hospitals, including the Crown Hospital and St Michael Hospitals in Nkpor were equally recipients of gunshot emergencies. Same for medical facilities in Asaba and Okija. The Acting Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of Delta State, Charles Muka, had in a statement said that five members of the pro-Biafra group were killed by military officers after confrontations along the Asaba-Onitsha Expressway. But that was only in Delta State. In the push from Delta into Anambra, two policemen were pushed into the River Niger. One drowned, the other was rescued. A Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) was stabbed to death in Onitsha. His name was given as Genesis Akagha. He was from Umu Ororonjo in Owerri Municipal, Imo State. Family members told PREMIUM TIMES that the late Mr. Akagha was just transferred to Sapele in Delta State and was to resume at his new post the same week he was killed. Victims identities IPOB and the human rights organization, the Intersociety, said no less than 29 civilians were killed in Asaba alone. The Asaba victims included Ichoku Ndu, Ebere Obidike, Nwabueze Uzonna, Okey Roland, Chukwudi Ifenna, Isaac Uzochukwu, Eberima Aguh, Henry Gideon, Efion Apani, Abuchi Obi, Ozoemena Chukwuma, Lotenna Ifeajuna, Ifebuchi Okenwa, Wisdom Omota, Ejike Abunchukwu, Ozobu Ogbonna, Emeka Madueke, Paschal Gideon, Afam Onyeburu, Izu Onwubiewe, Okey Agubata, Celestine Nnamdi, Obieke Lotenna, Nwabueze Oti, Chijioke Ozoro, Nwadike Chibuzo, Azuka Ifeake, Chioma Nkemjika and Obiora Okonkwo. PREMIUM TIMES also gathered that in addition to the Asaba casualties, killings recorded elsewhere in Onitsha and environs were as high as 90 deaths. Intersociety claims a death toll of over 120. The names of some of the victims were given as Obi Nkemakonam, Ubani Nwenneakonam, Nwuzo Friday, Ilo Friday, Olisama Chukwuemeka, Awah Sopuruchi, Okoye Chinedu, Ezeilo Chuka, Onyeduna Ifesinachi, Nnamani Sunday, Chinonso Amadi, Tagbo Chibuzo, Anyanwu Chika, Egbe Johnson, Osukwe Ijeoma, Nkechukwu Ikechukwu, Kenneth Eni, Orjichukwu Chigozie, Solomon Izundu, Ebili Edward, Gabriel Onyedikachi, Ilo Ozoemena, Nwauju Charles, Onuoha Chidozie, Onyemaechi Nwaezeoma, Innocent Obodoekwe, Ifeanyi Azubuike, Adigwe Chukwudi, Ogochukwu Mbam, Obiosa Chukwueme, Ugochukwu Samuel, Onuoha Chigozie, Maduka Egwela, John Onuchukwu, Maduabuchi Onwukanjo, Izuchukwu Nwaogba, Nnamdi Okonkwo, Ibekwe Okechukwu, Felix Odianwu, Okafor Moses Madukasi and Egwu Joseph. Like Tiananmen Square Security operation of May 30 in Onitsha has variously been compared to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China, in 1989. IPOB alleges ethnic cleansing and genocide. Heads of the different security units involved in the Heroes Day operations included Col Isah M. Abdullahi who is the Onitsha Military Cantonment Commander; Commissioner of Police, Hosea Karma; Major C.O. Ibrahim of the Nigerian Military Police at Onitsha Army Barracks; Deputy Commissioner of Police J.B. Kokomo, who is the deputy commissioner in charge of operations in the Anambra State Police Command; DCP Makama, Secondin-command, Anambra State Police Command; Assistant Commissioner of Police H. Ezekiel who is the Onitsha Area Commander; Superintendent of Police Rabiu Garba, the DPO of Fegge Police Station; Superintendent of Police, Mark Ijaradu of Inland Town police unit; CSP Kayode Olabanji of Okpoko police station. Officers of the Ogidi Police unit also participated in the security operations but PREMIUM TIMES was unable to confirm the identity of the Head of the unit. Aside those killed or critically wounded, dozens of others have gone missing. Family members said they initially thought their missing relatives were among the over 100 people arrested and held in various detention facilities including the Onitsha Army Barracks, the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) at Awkuzu, the Nigerian Prisons in Onitsha and the State CID at Awka. They have gone from one detention centre to another; visited hospitals and mortuaries yet cannot find their loved ones. Following the Heroes Day rally, soldiers and SARS operatives have routinely invaded homes at midnight, abducting men from their beds. One of them is Chikezie Nwodo, a native of Enugu State. Human rights organizations working in the South East said that before the rally, over 600 people were documented to have been arrested, tortured and being held without trial in prisons in different parts of the country. The Niger Delta Avengers has issued what it called last warning to seven state governors to free pro-Biafran activists being held in police and military custodies in their states. This is contained in a statement signed by the groups spokesperson, Mudoch Agbinibo. The new militant group, which has vowed to bring Nigerias oil production to zero, has given 72 hours to the governors to free Biafran agitators. Some of the governors threatened by the group are Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, Willie Obiano of Anambra, Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa and Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta. Others are Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu, and Rochas Okorocha of Imo State. We request the immediate release of all pro-Biafrans activist held in your various Police/Military Custody, you are hereby given 72 hours to release them or risk your convoys, police station, military base and government offices being attacked, the group stated. We are not negotiating with anybody and nobody is representing us. In 48 hours we will release a video clip showing our arms and the targeted areas. All strike team already in position awaiting command. We are ready for war and we have nothing to lose!!! The Niger Delta Avengers, a group that has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on oil and gas installations across the Niger Delta, says it is ready to engage the Nigerian government in dialogue. But the group has given stringent conditions for any talks. It is the first time the group has shown any interest discussing with the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. The latest decision came barely a week after the government ordered troops in the oil-rich region to end onslaught against the militants. In a statement signed by the its spokesman, Mudoch Agbinibo, the Avengers said it was ready to negotiate with the government if there are good grounds for such deliberation. The group, however, said it was yet to see any signs the government had made new concessions. The high command of the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) is using this medium to restate that there are no new items to put on the table for dialogue, we only want a genuine attitude and conducive atmosphere that will make us commit to any proposed dialogue and last peace talk, Mr. Agbinibo wrote in a statement posted on the Avengers Web site Monday afternoon. We want the federal government to commit members states of the multi national oil corporations to commit independent mediators to this proposed dialogue; we believed that it is only such environment that will engender genuine dialogue that will be aimed at setting up a framework for achieving the short, medium and long term demands of the Niger delta to de-escalating this conflict and bring about a lasting peace. In the meantime, the group said it would continue its assymetrical attacks on oil facilities on all delta states. The NDA high command is restating our commitment to attack the interest of oil corporation and international refineries operators that bring in vessels to the Niger delta territory to buy our oil that every successive government have refused to used and reapply the proceeds towards any development in the region since 1958. If they refuse be heed to our advice will result to sinking of two their mother vessel as an examples to others They should not undertake any repair of pipeline, oil and gas facilities that is damaged or attacked by our forces during this period of Operation Red Economy until and/or after the dialogue. The Avengers further stated that it was aware of a campaign to discredit its activities on social media, warning the government and others involved to be wary of dubious politicians. We are using medium to warn and condemn the activities of all brands of social media agitators being peddled around by some politicians to promote their criminal ways in affairs of the Niger Delta. This genuine spirit behind our struggle for the Niger Delta cannot be derailed on the basis of connivance by politician, traditional rulers, settled ex- agitators and criminals moving around to fill their pockets. In a strange turn, however, the group indicated that it may review its long-standing campaign to spare human lives in the course of its agitation, urging the government and oil companies across the region to desist from carrying out further repairs of vandalised oil installations. Finally, if need be we may review our earlier stance of not taking lives. We are going to redirect and reactivate all our activities if the government, oil companies and their services firms dont heed to these modest warnings of not carrying out any repairs works and suspend the buying of crude oil from our region as we await the right atmosphere that will engender genuine dialogue. We want a peace with honour, not a peace of our time. Dr. Bruce L. Miller, 77, of Chippewa Falls, died under the care of St. Josephs Hospice Thursday, June 9, 2016, at HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, at First Presbyterian Church, Chippewa Falls, with visitation one hour prior to services. Pederson-Volker Funeral Chapel & Cremation Services, Chippewa Falls, is serving the family. The Nigerian government on Monday kicked off legal processes that will enable it freeze local and foreign assets of Jide Omokore and Kola Aluko, allies of former petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, who are being investigated in connection with a series of multi-billion dollar petrol import and crude export deals. Mr. Omokore, who is also an ally of former President Goodluck Jonathan, is the chairman of Atlantic Energy Concept Nigerian Limited (AEDC) and Atlantic Energy Brass Development Limited (AEBD). Both companies were listed as the first and second defendants in the suit. Atlantic Energy Limited was one of the companies that allegedly received multibillion dollar worth of public assets without due process by the Jonathan administration in 2011. The company, which was created less than a year earlier and had not produced a droplet of oil, was awarded controlling stakes in two lucrative oil blocks OML 30 and 34 for just over $50 million each. The deal, which was signed by the immediate past minister of petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, gave Atlantic Energy Limited a controlling 55 percent stake in the oil block. Curiously, Shell, which owned the remaining 45 per cent stake, fetched $1.3 billion for a single field after an open and competitive bidding process. The Federal Government, alongside its co-plaintiff, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited (NPDC) and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), filed a motion before a Federal High Court in Lagos, seeking an order of mareva injunction, directing 19 Nigerian banks, eight foreign banks and eight local and international firms to freeze the funds and assets they hold on behalf of the Mr. Omokore, Mr. Aluko, AEDC, and AEDB. The government is also seeking an order to freeze several local and international luxury properties owned by the defendants, including the Galatica Star, a $50 million Super yatch owned by Mr. Aluko and three private jets. According to the motion ex-parte, Oladipo Okpeseyi, lead counsel to the Federal Government, prayed the court for an order restraining the defendants from giving any sale or transfer instruction, demanding, accepting or receiving any payment or sale or dividend on the shares owned by the defendants, in any of any of the eight local and international companies. The company include Mia Hotels Limited, First Motors Limited, V.I Petrochemical, Evergreen Realty and Management, Ox Trade Limited, De First Union Integrated Services, Amity Plus Limited, and Seven Energy International Limited. The government is also asking the court for an order to confiscate within seven days of all sums of money and negotiable instruments of credit of the defendants domestic accounts held in 19 domestic banks. The government estimated the total sum held by the defendant to be $1.76 billion. The plaintiffs also prayed the court for an order for a freeze on sale or mortgage on the following properties in Nigeria and abroad: Houses on 755 Sarbonne Road, Los Angeles, 952 North Alphine Drive, Los Angeles, 815 Cima Del Mondo, Los Angeles, 1049 Fifth Avenue, New York, 1948 and 1952 Tollis Avenue, Santa Barbara, 157 West 57thStreet, New York, and 4100 Le Reve Dubai. Other Houses include, Avenue Towers, Lagos, Colina DOro Montagnola, Switzerland, Block A consisting of 26 Flats at No 46, Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, Mason apartments situated at No6 Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, Marion Apartment located at 4 and 5 Onikoyi Estate, Banana Island, Ikoyi, 33A Cooper Road Ikoyi, Lagos, 8 Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, Griove End Road, London, Land, 807 Cima Del Mundo, Mont Tremblant, Canada. Other assets the government is also requesting to be seized are the Galatica Star yatch, a 20-year Berth Lease in Barcelona, Watch collection, a collection of 58 vehicles, a Global Express S5-GMG jet, a Bombadier Global 600 9H-OPE, Bombardier. When the case came up for hearing, the lead counsel for the defendants, Tokunbo Jaiye-Agoro, told the trial judge, Oluremi Oguntoyinbo, that they were served the motion in court. He, therefore, requested an adjournment for defence counsel to study the motion and come up with its response. The judge subsequently adjourned the case to the 29 June, 2016 for allow the counsels of the defendants to response to the motion. Several workers who worked in the security department of Total E&P Nigeria Limited on Monday protested the non-payment of their severance packages by the company. The protesters, who bore placards and chanted solidarity songs outside the oil multinationals office in Lagos, accused the company owing them severance benefits after 17 years of service. The former workers said despite repeated demands, the company refused to fulfill its obligations to them. Some of their placards read: Casualisation is an employment fraud. Total, pay us our severance package, Total, we do not deserve this unfair treatment Total, pay us our bonuses, allowances, President Buhari, please come to our aid. Some of the former staff said they could barely feed their families, having been thrown out of employment without benefits. Some of their colleagues, they said, had lost their lives due to inability to feed well or afford medical care. Kayode Awonuga, a former security worker, said he served Total E&P Nigeria for over 15 years but was not paid a dime as severance package after his contract was terminated. When we came to ask for our benefits, they chased us away with policemen, said Mr. Awonuga. Were asking President Muhammadu Buhari to come to our aid. The government should not allow Nigerians to be treated like slaves. Another protester, Blessing Okeje, said her late husband worked as a security staff at the company for 14 years. She said she had struggled to take care of her family after efforts to collect her late husbands severance package failed. I have been demanding for my late husbands benefits so that I can use it to pay school fees and feed my children, Mrs. Okeje said amidst sobs. The company didnt even answer us. The former workers lawyer, Ali Adah, said over 105 Nigerians were disengaged by the oil giant without compensation. Some of them worked for Total E&P Nigeria for over 15 years, he said. They have families and siblings to cater for. The years put into the services of Total Nigeria is not recoverable. Where would they start from without any stipends extended to them as terminal benefit/entitlement in return for the services rendered over the years? How would they trace their entitlement frittered in the many companies Total Nigeria claims were our clients employers. Total E&P Nigeria, however, denied the allegations, saying the former security staff were not engaged directly by the company, but through contractors who were responsible for them. The contractors had contracts with Total E & P Nigeria Limited (TEPNG) for the provision of security services, said Charles Ogan, Deputy General Manager, Media and Public Affairs. These contracts were terminated according to the terms of the respective contracts. The said personnel in question were at all times employees of the contractors and not at any time employees of TEPNG. TEPNG has fully discharged all its obligations under the said contracts towards the contractors. It is the responsibility of the said contractors to fulfill their own obligations towards their respective employees. TEPNG hereby reiterates that it carries out its activities in a diligent, efficient and professional manner in full compliance with, and respect for all national laws and regulations. The embattled national chairman of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, Ali Modu Sheriff has finally gained access to the national secretariat of the party. Mr. Sheriff had stormed the secretariat in the early hours of Monday with several of his supporters, but was denied entry by officers of the Nigeria Police Force. Mr. Sheriff told reporters at the secretariat that he was resuming duties based on a court order. He however left the secretariat and reportedly went to see the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase. He returned to the secretariat at around noon, but police officers insisted they would only allow him to enter the secretariat if his supporters dispersed from the area. The former Borno governor, thereafter left the secretariat at about 12:25 pm and returned shortly after the supporters had dispersed. He is presently in the office of the national chairman in Wadata Plaza and would speak to the press soon. Follow us for updates. The Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, says the recent retirement of 38 Army officers is part of an ongoing reform in the Armed Forces of Nigeria, rather than a witch-hunt. The minister said this when fielding questions from journalists after delivering a lecture titled Defence Management: the Nigerian Experience at the National Defence College, Abuja, on Monday. He urged Nigerians not to be misled by the false information about the retirement of the officers, saying that no innocent officer was retired unjustly. Mr. Dan-Ali said what culminated into retirement of the affected officers was a process of painstaking review and assessment of officers conduct in various tasks assigned to them at a particular time. The minister said the affected officers were indicted for offences ranging from professional misconduct to financial corruption. What we did was to make sure that all those that were indicted in one way or the other for both professional corruption and monetary corruption, had the opportunity to defend themselves. What I mean by professional corruption is soldiers involvement in partisan politics; if you are partisan, then you are professionally corrupt; you will be asked to go; that was what happened. Of course, they were given fair hearing; they were called by a board and they went and testified. Dont forget that in the military, there is no half way to doing things; the moment you are found wanting, you have to succumb and you will go, he said. Mr. Dan-Ali said plans were underway to adopt and implement a reform policy that would reduce the countrys dependence on the military for duties that could be performed by the civil police. He said the Ministries of Defence and Interior were collaborating, to ensure that police and other paramilitary organisations are empowered to contain many of Nigerias security challenges and depend less on the military. The minister said the planned defence reform would entrench professionalism and discipline in the armed forces. Similarly, a former Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Admiral Ola Ibrahim, noted that the achievements recorded by the military were products of good virtues instilled in officers and soldiers by its past leadership. Mr. Ibrahim, however, identified political interference and paucity of funds being responsible for the shortcomings of the previous military leadership. He said professionalism and improved support would be required for the military to fully actualise its defence objectives and duties to the nation. The Nigerian Army recently retired 38 senior officers over what it described as service exigencies. (NAN) President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned Sundays terrorist attack on the Pulse Night Club, Orlando, Florida, describing it as criminal and cowardly. In a letter to the Ambassador of the United States in Nigeria, James Entwistle, President Buhari conveyed Nigerias heartfelt sympathy to President Barrack Obama and the people of United States of America. The president also assured the United States of Nigerias continued support and cooperation in the fight against terrorism. President Buhari extends his most sincere condolences to the families, relatives and friends of the victims. The president condemns such criminal, cowardly attack, wherever it might occur, as an attack on all decent, democratic, peaceful people. Every terrorist attack only strengthens Nigerias resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States and other countries in the frontline of the war on terror, the letter, which was signed by the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, read. President Buhari also called on all peace-loving nations to commit themselves whole-heartedly to multilateral cooperation and collaborative actions aimed at eradicating the scourge of international terrorism. At least six Boko Haram insurgents were shot dead on Sunday by troops of the Nigeria Army when a gang of Boko Haram insurgents attempted a daring attack on a military formation at Pulka village of Gwoza local government area of Borno State, the military said. Pulka is one of the villages on the fringes of Sambisa forest that once fell to Boko Haram insurgents. The 121 Task Force Battalion, 26 Task Force Brigade of the 7 Division Nigeria Army, are located at Pulka. Spokesman of the Nigeria Army, Sani Usman, who confirmed the development in a statement on Monday, said soldiers repelled the Boko Haram attack and recovered some high caliber weapons. The statement reads: The terrorists who came through Banki axis of Sambisa forest, attempted to inflict damage on our troops. But the vigilant soldiers rose to the occasion and dealt decisively with the terrorists by killing 6 of them. They also recovered 1 Fabrique Nationale (FN) rifle with registration number 167229, two belts of 148 rounds of 7.62mm (NATO) ammunition and 1 FN rifle magazine loaded with 7.62mm ammunition (Special). The troops also blew up 3 Vehicles laden with Improvised Explosives Device (VBIEDs). Unfortunately, 5 soldiers sustained various degrees of injuries during the attack. They have been moved to the units Medical Reception Station for treatment. Gov. Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom has advised the Federal Government to dialogue with the Niger Delta Avengers, to allow for sustainable peace and development in the region. The governor made the call in Uyo on Monday during the Town Hall Meeting organised by the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture for the South-South zone. Mr. Emmanuel noted that the countrys economy had been brutalised by the recent violence being experienced in the Niger Delta region. Government must do all it can to dialogue with Niger Delta militants as our economy is based on resources accruing from this region. Government must look into the underlining issues of the region; we must dialogue with the stakeholders from the region to resolve these problems once and for all. Mr. Emmanuel also urged the Federal Government to revive the amnesty programme to accommodating more persons. He said that abandoning the programme was not the best option now for the people. The governor, however, commended the Federal Government for ensuring that the Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron was elevated to a degree awarding institution. He called on the National Assembly to expedite action in giving legal backing to the university status of the institution. He commended the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture for organizing the town hall meeting to engage the people and learn of their perception of the government. Mr. Emmanuel urged all Nigerians to cooperate with the government to put the on the path growth and prosperity. In his presentation, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Usani Usani, said that the ministry empowered 130 youths recently with one million naira each, to established businesses of their choice. Mr. Usani said that the ministry had built housing estates in the nine states of the Niger Delta region. He however, expressed regret that those estates had yet to be occupied. He said that the fourth phase of the East-West road cutting across Eket in Akwa Ibom, was not abandoned and gave an assurance that the fifth phase from Oron to Calabar would commence soon. Mr. Usani urged the governors in the region to partner with the ministry in its attempt to develop the region holistically. Earlier, in her presentation, the Minister of Environment, Amina Mohammed, emphasised the need to protect the environment by guarding against pollution. Mrs. Mohammed said that the entire Niger Delta region would be cleaned up after the Ogoni clean-up exercise. She advised investors in the region to do their businesses in an environmentally friendly manner, to avoid environmental degradation. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed; Budget and Planning Minister, Udoma Udo Udoma; Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi and the Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu attended the town hall meeting. (NAN) Medical doctors in the employ of the Bayelsa State government are insisting on embarking on strike if the government failed to pay them100 per cent of their salary. Workers in the state are owed about five-month salaries. The government is set to pay half of February salary, Monday, as part of agreement it reached with the state branch of the Nigerian Labour Congress and the Trade Union Congress. The workers will continue to receive half of their monthly salaries until the states economy, which is affected by the global drop in oil prices, improves. As the situation is, there is nothing we can do than to accept it, the NLC Chairman in the state, John Indiomu, had told PREMIUM TIMES. But the Nigerian Medical Association in the state has distanced itself from the agreement the government reached with workers. Weve made it very clear that we are asking for 100 per cent of our salary, and not 50 per cent, the Chairman of NMA in Bayelsa, Israel Jeremiah, told PREMIUM TIMES. We havent moved away from the ultimatum we had given, and if by the 27 June our demands are not made we will proceed on the strike. I want to make it clear that NMA is not a part of NLC. We are not members of NLC, and we have not empowered NLC to negotiate on our behalf. So, if NLC has reached any agreement with the government, that is their cup of tea. Mr. Jeremiah, who said his association had so far had a chat with the head of civil service in state on the issue, said doctors in the state were not convinced to buy into the government argument of economic hardship. The government has not been transparent in its dealings, and they have not managed to convince us that they cannot pay. When they bring the truth to the fore, then we can begin to discuss. But right now they are sticking to half-truths and sometimes outright falsehood, Mr. Jeremiah said. The Commissioner for Information in Bayelsa, Jonathan Obuebite, told PREMIUM TIMES that the state government wasnt aware that the doctors rejected government offer to pay half of workers salary. To the best of my knowledge there has been no formal communication (between NMA and the government on this matter), Mr. Obuebite said. For them to have said that they have rejected the agreement the NLC had with the state government shows that they have not engaged the government, or else they would have said they have rejected the offer that government has given to them. A 26-year-old man, Lucky Aigbogun, appeared in an Ikeja Magistrates Court on Monday for allegedly attacking his propertys caretaker with a hammer. Mr. Aigbogun, a resident of Shola Martins Street, Agege, Lagos, is facing trial for breach of peace and assault. The prosecutor, Essien Ndarake, a police inspector, told the court that the accused committed the offences on June 1 in Agege Area of Lagos. He said the accused assaulted his caretaker, Morakinyo Sunday, by beating and hitting his head with a hammer. The accused beat and hit the complainants head with hammer which caused him harm, he said. Mr. Ndarake said the complainant went to Aigboguns office to demand the rent he owed when the incident happened. He said, The complainant approached the accused for his overdue hotel rent, which he refused to pay. Aigbogun locked the complainant up in a room and beat him, but when he was not satisfied with the beating, he went further to pick hammer and hit Sundays head. The accused later unlocked his door when he saw blood gushing out of the complainants head and allowed him to go. Mr. Ndarake said the offences contravened Sections 166 and 171 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011, which attracts three years imprisonment on conviction. The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the offences. The Magistrate, E. Kubeinje, granted bail to the accused in the sum of N100, 000 with two sureties in like sum. Mrs. Kubeinje adjourned the case till June 22 for mention. (NAN) Former Director General of the Ibikunle Amosun Campaign organisation, Bode Mustapha, has vowed to prevent the governor from imposing his successor on the state in 2019. His grouse is that the governor reneged in his promise to help him secure a federal appointment. Mr. Mustapha, a former member of the House of Representatives and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, was Mr. Amosuns chief campaigner in the 2015 governorship election. The governor, who was re-elected on the APC platform, will vacate office in May 2019 when his second tenure ends. Speaking in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Mustapha said the last time he saw Mr. Amosun was in September last year, vowing not to beg the governor again for favour. He said, Must I be going to beg the governor to see him? No. And I think I deserve respect. I have to take a retreat. A Yoruba adage says Eni to sun mo oba loba (meaning a close associate of a king risks being a victim of murder and as long as I dont want to be a victim I have to keep a distance). Mr. Mustapha said though Mr. Amosun had not discussed the issue of his successor with him, the choice of who becomes the next governor of the state in 2019 would be carefully made by all member of the APC in the state. He also said the next governor would not be allowed to make verbal commitments to members of the party as did Mr. Amosun. 2019 is not going to be business as usual; it is going to be a different ball gain, the APC chief said. I have not spoken with the governor. The governor has not told me he has a successor and there is no law that says I must support his successor. I am not a dummy that has to be push around. At 66 I must be able to separate wheat from the shaft. I must know the quality of the person I want to support to succeed. I am not just going to follow anybody blindly. I am an elder statesman. I am a stakeholder. We will have to sit down; we have to analyse who wants to be governor. There must be commitment and not just verbal commitment because verbal commitment has become the order of the day and people renege. Mr. Mustapha alleged that Mr. Amosun had allowed the governorship position to becloud his sense of judgement and reminded him that the position was a temporary one. The ex-federal lawmaker also faulted some of the governors policies, particularly the creation of Local Development Areas, which he described as misplaced. Mr. Mustapha, a former national auditor of the Peoples Democratic Party, hailed the return of a former governor of Ogun State, Segun Osoba, to the APC. According to him, Mr. Osobas return from the Social Democratic Party to which he defected before the 2015 poll, would unchained many APC members who had been under political slavery in Ogun State and also pave way for the party to regain its lost glory in the state. He said many members of the party had learnt some lessons in a hard way following the former governors defection to the Social Democratic Party before the 2015 poll. He said, It is certain that Osoba is our leader. A lot of us have learnt lesson. A lot of people have realised that Chief Osoba is a rally point in politics in Ogun State and in the country. And we are all ready to file behind him and there is no doubt about that. It is going to change the political landscape. The APC stalwart praised the national leaders of the party, including former Governor Bola Tinubu, who persuaded Mr. Osoba to return. Stating that Mr. Osoba had paid his dues in politics and should be accorded respect, Mr. Mustapha urged Mr. Amosun to create time to go and beg the former governor for forgiveness. While vowing to support Mr. Osoba, Mr. Mustapha said he had started already started to mobilise support for the former governor ahead of the 2019 political contest in the state. He said, I got excited when my former boss came back to the party that is Chief Osoba. I call him boss because he is a political leader. I have gotten to a stage in my life that I must be known to stand for something in my life, principle. Mr. Mustapha also spoke on the 23rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. He said June 12 should be observed as the real Democracy Day instead of May 29. According to him, the democracy Nigerians were currently enjoying was as a result of the sacrifice made by the presumed winner of the election, Moshood Abiola, who died in detention 18 years ago. I also think that it is only right for the government to immortalize him in a very big way as a sign of appreciation to him and for the world and Nigerians to know that the longest democracy so far in the history of Nigeria came about from the sacrifice he made, Mr. Mustapha said. Its common sense. If SGI can convince high school students that a technical education offers a path to a good-paying and fulfilling job, the easier it will be to continue to attract qualified applicants for its Chippewa Falls plant. SGI took a step in that direction recently by working with Junior Achievement to bring in eight North High School students from Eau Claire to tour the Chippewa Falls facility. What we essentially are doing is planting the seed with these kids that a technical career can be a lot of fun, said Cassio Conceicao, SGIs chief operating officer and executive vice president. Conceicao said that SGI, which makes high-performance computer products, hopes to expand the program to schools in Chippewa County. He said SGI participated in the program to make sure its pool of talented workers to hire in Wisconsin continues to grow. Its our desire to maintain our Wisconsin facility forever and ever, he said. We really want to be part of the community in Chippewa Falls. One of the challenges can be that students are unaware of the opportunities that lie at SGI and similar companies. In fact, Conceicao noted that only 32 percent of students nationally know adults who work in technical careers. He said many students are looking for direction. SGI hopes to provide that by making it clear the likelihood of being hired is greater if students pursue a technical education. The company does that by hiring from 6-10 interns from the University of Wisconsin system every year. We pay our interns pretty well, Conceicao said. The intent is that the interns will talk to their peers about the jobs. We sent them a message. These are good-paying jobs, he said. Some people might be reluctant to be engineers, and spend their day working with computers. Conceicao said the company makes a point with students that a tech career is a good launching pad into other careers in the future. Having a technology background is helpful whichever way the students want to take their careers. Plus, not everyone has to be an engineer. There are many other jobs, including those on SGIs assembly floor or as a a technician. Tech jobs can be fun, something Conceicao said SGI is trying to impress on students. One demonstration for the Eau Claire North students came from Ken Neubergs packaging engineering section, which conducts shock and vibration tests. Of course SGI also produces some of the top computing systems in the world, and that offers job satisfaction. This year is the 30th anniversary of when SGI came to Chippewa Falls after buying what was then called Cray Research. Conceicao said that by showing a commitment to the Chippewa Falls area, SGI intends on staying here for decades to come. What we essentially are doing is planting the seed with these kids that a technical career can be a lot of fun. Cassio Conceicao, SGIs chief operating officer and executive vice president Atlantic City was once known as the place where alcohol flowed freely despite Prohibition. The past four decades, it has been known as the East Coast casino capital, where complimentary drinks flow freely to gamblers. How quaint then that some in the area worry about a proposal to allow people to carry alcoholic beverages they've legally purchased onto the Boardwalk and drink them there. This is the norm in destinations that attract the kind of visitors Atlantic City also covets, such as Las Vegas and New Orleans. Even the genteel city of Savannah, Georgia, allows people to stroll its famous squares with mint juleps in hand. Atlantic City officials were ready to liberate the libations with a well-crafted ordinance, but then state officials convinced them to delay this benefit for visitors for months while possibly related laws are checked at leisure. Funny how there's never any urgency when it comes to helping Atlantic City. We're not lawyers, but we don't see what's so complicated about letting a municipality or county allow people to carry an alcoholic beverage in a specified area. New Jersey's situation seems much like that of Nevada and Georgia - the three have no state law regarding the carrying or drinking of an alcoholic beverage in public (as opposed to in a vehicle, which is routinely prohibited). That has left Clark County, Nevada, to set a possession and consumption policy that has worked in Las Vegas for many years. Savannah's ordinance allows open plastic containers of no more than 16 ounces in the Historic District of Downtown Savannah. That pro-tourism policy is exactly what was proposed for Atlantic City. Frankly, alcoholic beverages are frequently carried in public in many places with no apparent significant problem. We've seen it at special events and in just about every nightlife area. When shops on the Washington Street Mall in Cape May refreshed their holiday shoppers with a free glass of wine, many carried them from store to store, and all was fine. Worries that allowing this might encourage public intoxication seem unconvincing. A walking drinker surely is no more likely to overindulge than one sitting at a bar. We'd like to see the state act quickly (for a change) and favorably on this modest proposal to accommodate people on just a limited section of the Atlantic City Boardwalk. We think the experience with that probably will be sufficiently favorable that the city soon after will consider extending the policy throughout its Tourism District. Our view With more brands slapping on eco-friendly promises that may, or may not be true, can sustainable marketing be a bigger part of the solution ... 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. LONDON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Africa Energy Forum and Growing Economies Energy Forum will be hosted in London from 22-24 June. The Forums will welcome 14 Energy Ministers from Africa and other growing economies around the world, 250 speakers and an expected 2,000 delegates from 82 countries to close longstanding negotiations and discuss new opportunities for investment into the energy sectors of emerging markets. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378321 ) Simon Gosling of EnergyNet commented, "The theme of this year's Africa Energy Forum is 'Mergers & Acquisitions' - it's therefore exciting that six of the biggest M&A and bilateral deals ever seen on the continent will be announced this year. The scale of these impending announcements and the players involved are so important they will change how investors approach Africa and how governments seek investment going forward. The conference will close on Friday with two of the most significant deals announced at the end. After 18 years in the running, we' re thrilled the Forum is now a platform for such groundbreaking industry announcements." The Forum will welcome back EnergyNet's Student Engagement Programme (ESEI), an initiative developed to promote human capital development and job creation across Africa's power and energy infrastructure sectors. ESEI 2016 will sponsor 10 African students to fly to the conference, learn about the industry first hand and network with potential employers. 2016 also sees the launch of the Off the Grid Club, a new membership programme developed to bring together credible off grid technology providers, financiers and regional leaders to invest in and develop reliable and scalable power solutions for Africa. The Club's launch will be celebrated with a gig featuring African artists to raise awareness of the importance of energy access in emerging markets. A major pull is the networking opportunities available at the Forum for investors, which have contributed to the conference's high value position in the energy calendar. About EnergyNet EnergyNet has been producing investment forums for Africa's power sector for the last 18 years. We facilitate investment summits where international investors can build relationships with credible African public sector stakeholders to advance access to power. To apply for media accreditation for these conferences: Dates: 22-24 June 2016 Venue: London Intercontinental O2 Contact: Amy Offord - Marketing Manager E: AEF@energynet.co.uk T: +44-(0)20-7384-8068 Website: http://www.africa-energy-forum.com Twitter: #AEF16 @EnergyNet_Ltd SOURCE EnergyNet ALBANY, New York, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Transparency Market Research has published a new report titled "Aluminum Pigments Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024." According to the report, the global aluminum pigments market was valued at US$332.9 mn in 2015 and is anticipated to reach US$581.9 mn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 6.4% between 2016 and 2024. Pigments are compounds that impart colors to various substrates. They improve hiding power, opacity, fastness, weather & chemical resistance, and durability of paints & coatings, plastics, and printing inks. Aluminum pigments are a special type of pigments that provide silver color with excellent metallic effects. Pigments are broadly used to offer lustrous, glossy, and shiny effects. Aluminum pigments impart the metallic effect by scattering light on rough surfaces or reflecting light on a smooth surface. Usage of aluminum pigments helps provide metallic appearance to products, thus enhancing their esthetic features. Aluminum pigments are available in different shapes and sizes such as lamellar flakes (cornflakes), lenticular flakes (silver-dollars), and vacuum metallized pigments (VMPs). Furthermore, aluminum pigments are classified into two groups - leafing and non-leafing - depending on wetting properties. Aluminum pigments are employed widely in paints and coatings, plastics, personal care, printing inks, and construction materials. Consumer preference for high performance aluminum pigments with attractive esthetic features has been rising significantly of late. Aluminum pigments are widely employed in the formulation of automotive paints & coatings to enhance their aesthetic properties. Automotive OEM coatings, automotive interior coatings, wheel coatings, automotive parts and accessories, and automotive refinishes are the major areas where aluminum pigments are used. Increased consumption of these pigments in decorative automotive paints and coatings is likely to fuel the market in the next few years. Get free research PDF for more Professional and Technical insights: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=12047 Personal care was another lucrative end-user segment of the aluminum pigments market in 2015. Aluminum pigments are largely employed in the production of several personal care products such as eye shadows, nail varnishes, mascara, blushers, shampoos, body washes, lotions, and creams to impart shimmering effects. Growth of the personal care industry is estimated to propel the market for aluminum pigments in the next few years. Emergence of advanced technologies in the development process of aluminum pigments is projected to create lucrative opportunities for the market during the forecast period. The global aluminum pigments market has been expanding significantly since in the last few years. Automotive industry has experienced considerable growth in developing countries over the last couple of years. This, in turn, has significantly boosted the demand for aluminum pigments in paints & coatings. Thus, paints & coatings was the largest end-user segment in 2015. Furthermore, rising consumer preference for cars with metallic effect has been augmenting the demand for aluminum pigments since the last few years. Furthermore, growth in production of plastics across the globe boosted the demand for aluminum pigments in 2015. Browse Industry Research Report with free Analysis: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/aluminum-pigments-market.html Asia Pacific was the largest consumer of the global aluminum pigments market in 2015. The region is estimated to dominate the market during the forecast period due to the increasing demand for these pigments in major end-user segments. Rising trend in the automotive industry in developing countries such as China, India, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia has fueled the demand for aluminum pigments in the paints and coatings segment. China is projected to be the largest consumer of aluminum pigments by 2024, followed by Rest of Asia Pacific and ASEAN. Europe was the second-largest consumer of aluminum pigments in 2015, followed by North America. Middle East & Africa and Latin America are projected to be lucrative markets for aluminum pigments in the next few years. The aluminum pigments market has been divided into the following segments: Aluminum Pigments Market - End-user Analysis Paints & Coatings Plastics Personal Care Printing Inks Others (Including Construction Materials, etc.) Browse Other Research Report: Fire Resistant Glass Market - http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/fire-resistant-glass-market.html http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/fire-resistant-glass-market.html Biopolymer Coatings Market - http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/biopolymer-coatings-market.html About TMR: Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The company's exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMR's experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. TMR's data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports. Contact Transparency Market Research Mr. Sudip S State Tower 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany NY - 12207 United States Tel: +1-518-618-1030 USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453 Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com Website: http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com Blog: http://www.tmrblog.com/ SOURCE Transparency Market Research TOKYO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hakuho Foundation, a public interest incorporated foundation, began accepting on June 10 applications for the 12th Hakuho Foundation Japanese Research Fellowship. Objectives: With the goals of further strengthening the fundamentals of international research into and deepening understanding of Japan, the Hakuho Foundation Japanese Research Fellowship invites to Japan leading international researchers of the Japanese language, Japanese-language education, Japanese literature and Japanese culture to conduct residential research. Eligible research: Japanese language, Japanese-language education, Japanese literature and Japanese culture research Eligible researchers: Researchers working in the fields of Japanese language, Japanese-language education, Japanese literature or Japanese culture who reside outside Japan and meet all of the criteria below. Affiliated with a higher education or research institution (including postdoctoral scholars, adjunct professors and part-time lecturers), or have equivalent research and educational backgrounds. Scholar or researcher with (or soon to be granted) a doctoral degree and an extensive research or education background. Sufficient Japanese-language proficiency to be able to conduct research in Japanese. Non-Japanese national residing outside Japan or Japanese national who has resided outside Japan for 10 years or more and been active in the academic community of the country of their residence. or Japanese national who has resided outside for 10 years or more and been active in the academic community of the country of their residence. Able to stay continuously in Japan for the duration of the Fellowship period. Notes: Applications are not sought from those whose purpose is to write a doctoral thesis. Applicants who will soon receive their doctoral thesis must receive it by no later than March 31, 2017. As research reporting and communication with the Fellowship secretariat on various procedures will be conducted in Japanese only, a suitable level of Japanese-language ability is required. Those who have previously received support for residential research in Japan may also apply. Support provided: Fellows will have the following expenses necessary for conducting residential research in Japan covered. Airfares: Return economy class air tickets Relocation allowance: 350,000 yen (lump sum) Living and research expenses: 350,000 yen per month Housing subsidy: Up to150,000 yen per month (actual cost; subject to provision of a receipt each month) International travelers' illness and injury insurance In addition, the Hakuho Foundation will pay the receiving organization a hosting cooperation fee for use of facilities, etc. by the Fellow. Fellowship period: Choice of the following long-term (1-year) or short-term (6-month) periods. Long-term (1 year): September 1, 2017 - August 31, 2018 Short-term (6 months): September 1, 2017 - February 28, 2018 (Round 1) March 1, 2018 - August 31, 2018 (Round 2) Schedule: Application period: June 10 - October 31, 2016 Notification of results: Early March 2017 (tentative) Fellowship period: September 1, 2017 - August 31, 2018 (Long-term: 1 year; Short-term: 6 months) Application Guide (download from the following website): Japanese site: http://www.hakuhofoundation.or.jp/program/tabid/153/Default.aspx English site: http://www.hakuhofoundation.or.jp/english/program/tabid/196/Default.aspx Reference: Thirteen researchers from nine countries have been invited to the 11th Fellowship. http://www.hakuhofoundation.or.jp/program/tabid/154/Default.aspx About Hakuho Foundation The Hakuho Foundation was established in 1970 to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of Hakuhodo Inc., a major Japanese advertising company. It was recognized and has been operating as a public interest incorporated foundation since April 2011, following the introduction of new regulations relating to public interest corporations. Its Chairman is Junji Narita. To nurture rich human qualities in children who will be tomorrow's leaders, the Hakuho Foundation supports child education, particularly in the areas of language and culture, through such initiatives as the Hakuho Award for Outstanding Child Educators, the Hakuho Research Grant for Child Education, the Hakuho Foundation Japanese Research Fellowship and the Hakuho Scheme for a Global Children's Japanese-Language Network. URL: http://www.hakuhofoundation.or.jp/english/tabid/187/Default.aspx Contact: Scott Macdonald, Yui Sato Hakuho Foundation Japanese Research Fellowship Secretariat Tel: +81-3-6435-8140 Fax: +81-3-6435-8790 E-mail: ip-office@hakuhofoundation-ip.jp Related Links http://www.hakuhofoundation.or.jp/english/tabid/187/Default.aspx SOURCE Hakuho Foundation LONDON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly two thirds of eligible British expats will vote for the UK to remain in the EU at this month's EU Referendum, according to a survey by Experts for Expats. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377985LOGO ) The survey which asked British expats around the world about their voting behaviour found that 63% would vote to remain in the EU, while 12% remained undecided and only 25% would support Brexit. Robert Hallums, founder of Experts for Expats, believes the expat vote could yet prove crucial "Despite many expats being unable to vote, with the referendum too close to call, hundreds of thousands of British expats could yet cast the deciding vote - and they overwhelmingly want the UK remain in the EU." "The lack of planning from the Government which would underpin any exit strategy is absent, creating a vacuum which has subsequently been filled with guesswork and uncertainty." The EU Referendum on June 23rd is likely to have a major impact on expats due to currency fluctuations, uncertainty over the UK economy and in the longer term, tax and visa requirements. With a shameless battle being fought in the UK, it's vital not to discount the role that British expats could yet have on the outcome, even though up to a third of expats no longer have the vote due to the 15-year rule. Key influences on voting behaviour 79% of British expats do not believe there are enough facts being presented during the various debates -of those looking to vote leave, only 29% believe they have enough factual information to make an informed decision. Key to the outcome will be the ability of either side to persuade those who remain undecided about which way to vote. For the undecided British expats, their decision will be based on their understanding of the benefits that being a member of the EU brings. When asked to score the primary factors which could influence their decision, expats rated the benefits of EU membership as the most important factor with an average score of 8.5 out of 10. They also felt that trade agreements were equally important. The financial impact of EU membership was seen as least important with membership fees only scoring 6.4 and currency fluctuations scoring 7 out of 10. British expats "silenced" According to Robert Hallums the crucial expat vote has been swept under the carpet. "The decision whether the UK should remain in the EU or Brexit will impact British expats living in the EU more than anyone else." "It's incredible that the Conservative Government has not only back-tracked on their promise to abolish the 15-year rule, but they are also silencing hundreds of thousands of voters who could be crucial in determining the outcome of the EU Referendum." "If David Cameron was serious about wanting to remain, the fact that they continue to turn their backs on tax paying British expats is inexplicable." Expats who participated in the survey agreed. Anne, a British Expat living in France, said "I'm a British citizen but have no 'right' to vote for the simple reason that I have been living in France for over 15 years! But there's no problem when it comes to paying taxes in both France & the UK!" Harry, also in France, is deeply concerned about the impact of Brexit, "It is a very worrying time for us not knowing what is going to happen, which leads me to an analogy of a potholer faced with entering a pothole he knows well, albeit there are some hazards along the way, OR entering an undiscovered pothole and finding all manner of hazards, getting stuck, and not being able to get out again!!" James, an expat in Singapore, is disappointed how both sides are running the campaign, and despite wanting to remain, does not like the idea of supporting Cameron, "I am pro staying in. However, the referendum will be based on personalities and nothing to do with the questions asked. By this I mean we have constantly seen Cameron scaremongering, rather than stating precise facts." Another expat living in Germany, Elisabeth, has also been shocked by the campaigns, especially interviews by Boris Johnson who she believes is "playing to the masses and anti-German press" and also likened him to Donald Trump. While it's hardly a surprise that British expats would seek to remain in the EU, their collective voice should not be underestimated. In most cases they not only pay tax in the UK, but have contributed for many years to the UK, a country which has made every effort to silence their voice. And yet, with the result of the referendum too close to call, hundreds of thousands of voting expats could yet have the final say on the outcome of the EU Referendum later this month. About Experts for Expats Ltd Experts for Expats is an online resource designed for expats, underpinned by a network of independent experts providing impartial advice enabling people to make qualified decisions about their lives abroad. Contacts Robert Hallums Founder Experts for Expats Ltd +44 (0) 20 3239 0271 advice@expertsforexpats.com SOURCE Experts for Expats DUBLIN, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Canada Generic Drug Market - Industry Trends, Competitive Landscape, Opportunities and Outlook" report to their offering. Canada Generic Drug Market - Industry Trends, Competitive Landscape, Opportunities and Outlook represents an in-depth analysis on the historical, current and future trends in the generic drug market in Canada. This research report serves as an exceptional tool to understand the drivers, sales trends, prescription trends, market structure, competitive landscape, regulations, key players, key drugs, manufacturing and the outlook of the generic drug Market in Canada. This report can serve as an excellent guide for investors, researchers, consultants, marketing strategists and all those who want to gain an insight into the Canadian generic drug market in any form. Canada represents the world's ninth biggest market for generic drugs in terms of value. Over the past few decades, the acceptance and use of generic drugs in Canada has changed significantly. The growth of the generic drug market in Canada has been catalyzed by a number of factors. Key Topics Covered: 1 Research Methodology and Market Definitions 2 Report Summary 3 Canada Generic Drug Market - Introduction 4 Why is the Generic Drug Market so Lucrative in Canada 5 Global Generic Drug Market 6 Canada Generic Drug Market 7 Canada Generic Drug Market- Competitive Landscape 8 Canada Generic Drug Market - Value Chain Analysis 9 Canada Generic Drug Market - Regulatory Framework 10 Canada Generic Drug Market: Key Success Factors 11 Canada Generic Drug Market: Road Blocks 12 Requirements for Setting Up a Generic Drug Manufacturing Plant 13 Canada Generic Drug Market - Key Company Profiles 13.1 Teva Pharmaceutical Ltd. 13.2 Apotex Inc. 13.3 Sandoz Canada 13.4 Actavis 13.5 Mylan 13.6 Pharmascience Inc. 13.7 Taro Pharmaceuticals 13.8 Novartis 13.9 Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Canada 13.10 Hospira For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nfx66d/canada_generic Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com SOURCE Research and Markets This year's edition of BNEF's long-term forecast sees $11.4 trillion investment in global power generation capacity over 25 years, with electric vehicles boosting electricity demand by 8% in 2040. LONDON and NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Low prices for coal and gas are likely to persist, but will fail to prevent a fundamental transformation of the world electricity system over coming decades towards renewable sources such as wind and solar, and towards balancing options such as batteries. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150622/224641LOGO Annual electricity output by the major generating technologies, 2016-40, thousand TWh The latest long-term forecast from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, entitled New Energy Outlook 2016, charts a significantly lower track for global coal, gas and oil prices than did the equivalent projection a year ago. Crucially, however, it also shows a steeper decline for wind and solar costs. The forecast, covering the 2016-40 period, has mixed news on carbon emissions. Weaker GDP growth in China and a rebalancing of its economy will mean emissions there peak as early as 2025. However, rising coal-fired generation in India and other Asian emerging markets indicate that the global emissions figure in 2040 will still be some 700 megatonnes, or 5%, above 2015 levels. Seb Henbest, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa for BNEF, and lead author of NEO 2016, commented: "Some $7.8 trillion will be invested globally in renewables between 2016 and 2040, two thirds of the investment in all power generating capacity, but it would require trillions more to bring world emissions onto a track compatible with the United Nations 2C climate target." Here are 10 of the eye-catching findings from NEO 2016: Coal and gas prices to stay low. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has reduced its long-term forecasts for coal and gas prices by 33% and 30% respectively, reflecting a projected supply glut for both commodities. This cuts the cost of generating power by burning coal or gas. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has reduced its long-term forecasts for coal and gas prices by 33% and 30% respectively, reflecting a projected supply glut for both commodities. This cuts the cost of generating power by burning coal or gas. Wind and solar costs fall sharply. The levelised costs of generation per MWh for onshore wind will fall 41% by 2040, and solar photovoltaics by 60%, making these two technologies the cheapest ways of producing electricity in many countries during the 2020s and in most of the world in the 2030s. The levelised costs of generation per MWh for onshore wind will fall 41% by 2040, and solar photovoltaics by 60%, making these two technologies the cheapest ways of producing electricity in many countries during the 2020s and in most of the world in the 2030s. Fossil fuel power attracts $2.1 trillion . Investment in coal and gas generation will continue, predominantly in emerging economies. Some $1.2 trillion will go into new coal-burning capacity, and $892 billion into new gas-fired plants. Investment in coal and gas generation will continue, predominantly in emerging economies. Some will go into new coal-burning capacity, and into new gas-fired plants. But renewables take lion's share. Some $7.8 trillion will be invested in green power, with onshore and offshore wind attracting $3.1 trillion , utility-scale, rooftop and other small-scale solar $3.4 trillion , and hydro-electric $911 billion . Some will be invested in green power, with onshore and offshore wind attracting , utility-scale, rooftop and other small-scale solar , and hydro-electric . The 2C scenario would require much more money. On top of the $7.8 trillion , the world would need to invest another $5.3 trillion in zero-carbon power by 2040 to prevent CO 2 in the atmosphere rising above the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 'safe' limit of 450 parts per million. On top of the , the world would need to invest another in zero-carbon power by 2040 to prevent CO in the atmosphere rising above the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 'safe' limit of 450 parts per million. Electric car boom supports electricity demand. EVs will add 2,701TWh, or 8%, to global electricity demand in 2040 reflecting BNEF's forecast that they will represent 35% of worldwide new light-duty vehicle sales in that year, equivalent to 41m cars, some 90 times the 2015 figure. EVs will add 2,701TWh, or 8%, to global electricity demand in 2040 reflecting BNEF's forecast that they will represent 35% of worldwide new light-duty vehicle sales in that year, equivalent to 41m cars, some 90 times the 2015 figure. Small-scale battery storage, a $250 billion market. EVs will drive down the cost of lithium-ion batteries, making them increasingly deployed alongside residential and commercial solar systems. Total behind-the-meter storage will rise dramatically from 400MWh now to nearly 760GWh in 2040. EVs will drive down the cost of lithium-ion batteries, making them increasingly deployed alongside residential and commercial solar systems. Total behind-the-meter storage will rise dramatically from 400MWh now to nearly 760GWh in 2040. China coal-fired generation will follow weaker trend than previously projected. Changes in the Chinese economy, and a move to renewables, mean that coal-fired generation there in 10 years' time will be 1,000TWh, or 21% below, the figure predicted in BNEF in last year's NEO. Changes in the Chinese economy, and a move to renewables, mean that coal-fired generation there in 10 years' time will be 1,000TWh, or 21% below, the figure predicted in BNEF in last year's NEO. That makes India the key to the future global emissions trend. Its electricity demand is forecast to grow 3.8 times between 2016 and 2040. Despite investing $611 billion in renewables in the next 24 years, and $115 billion in nuclear, it will continue to rely heavily on coal power stations to meet rising demand. This is forecast to result in a trebling of its annual power sector emissions by 2040. Its electricity demand is forecast to grow 3.8 times between 2016 and 2040. Despite investing in renewables in the next 24 years, and in nuclear, it will continue to rely heavily on coal power stations to meet rising demand. This is forecast to result in a trebling of its annual power sector emissions by 2040. Renewables to dominate in Europe , to overtake gas in the US. Wind, solar, hydro and other renewable energy plants will generate 70% of Europe's power in 2040, up from 32% in 2015. In the US, their share will jump from 14% in 2015 to 44% in 2040, as that from gas slips from 33% to 31%. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377965 Jon Moore, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said: "The New Energy Outlook incorporates a significantly lower trajectory for coal and gas prices than the 2015 edition did a year ago but, strikingly, still shows rapid transition towards clean power over the next 25 years." Elena Giannakopoulou, senior energy economist on the NEO 2016 project, added: "One conclusion that may surprise is that our forecast shows no golden age for gas, except in North America. As a global generation source, gas will be overtaken by renewables in 2027. It will be 2037 before renewables overtake coal." The outlook for coal is crucial for international ambitions on climate. The Paris conference last December saw 196 nations agree to limit global warming to "well below" two degrees Centigrade, and to aim to reach "global peaking of emissions as soon as possible". NEO 2016 indicates that, despite the global move towards renewables, power sector emissions will not peak for another 11 years. NEO 2016 is based on a combination of the project pipeline in each country, current policies, plus modelled paths for future electricity demand, power system dynamics and technology costs. It does not assume any further policy measures post-2020, to speed up decarbonisation. Some 65 specialist analysts worked on the forecast. An executive summary of NEO 2016 can be downloaded by the media from the micro-site on this link. ABOUT BLOOMBERG NEW ENERGY FINANCE Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) provides unique analysis, tools and data for decision makers driving change in the energy system. With unrivalled depth and breadth, we help clients stay on top of developments across the energy spectrum from our comprehensive web-based platform. BNEF has 200 staff based in London, New York, Beijing, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Munich, New Delhi, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Washington D.C., and Zurich. BNEF products fit your daily workflow, streamline your research, sharpen your strategy and keep you informed. BNEF's sectoral products provide financial, economic and policy analysis, as well as news and the world's most comprehensive database of assets, investments, companies and equipment in the clean energy space. BNEF's regional products provide a comprehensive view on the transformation of the energy system by region. New Energy Finance Limited was acquired by Bloomberg L.P. in December 2009, and its services and products are now owned and distributed by Bloomberg Finance L.P., except that Bloomberg L.P. and its subsidiaries (BLP) distribute these products in Argentina, Bermuda, China, India, Japan, and Korea. For more information on Bloomberg New Energy Finance: http://about.bnef.com, or contact us at sales.bnef@bloomberg.net for more information on our services. ABOUT BLOOMBERG Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company's strength delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 327,000 subscribers globally. For more information, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/company/ or request a demo. Related Links http://www.bloomberg.com SOURCE Bloomberg -- 53 MW First Phase of 86 MW Cap des Biches power plant completed in only 14 months -- 33 MW Second Phase to begin generating electricity in September 2016 -- The modern and highly efficient plant will provide reliable low-cost energy to 100,000 people in Senegal DAKAR, Senegal and NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ContourGlobal, the U.S.-based power generation company, inaugurated its 53 MW Cap des Biches power plant in Senegal today in Rufisque just outside of Dakar, Senegal. The Cap des Biches power plant is the largest investment by a U.S. company in Senegal and the inauguration took place in the presence of 300 people, including HE Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal, Mohammed Dionne, Prime Minster of the Republic of Senegal, Joseph C. Brandt, ContourGlobal's President and Chief Executive Officer, Thierno Alassane SALL, Senegal's Minister of Energy, and Mouhamadou Makhtar Cisse, General Manager of Senelec, the national utility of Senegal. The event was also attended by James P. Zumwalt, United States Ambassador to the Republic of Senegal and the Republic of Guinea Bissau, Cheick Oumar Sylla, Executive Vice President of ContourGlobal, and other senior executives from the company as well as representatives of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation ("OPIC"), the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group ("IFC"), and Wartsila Oy, the company that constructed the power plant. The announcement comes just one month after ContourGlobal inaugurated its methane gas facility and power plant at Lake Kivu in Rwanda. Cap des Biches is an 86 MW thermal generation facility developed and constructed by ContourGlobal in two phases53 MW that began generating electricity in April 2016 after only 14 months of construction, and a second phase consisting of 33 MW that broke ground in January 2016 and will generate electricity by September 2016. The new power plant was designed to utilize the existing facilities and infrastructure of an old power plant site to lower the cost of development and construction, thereby enabling the Cap des Biches facility to produce the lowest cost thermal generation in Senegal. The Cap des Biches power plant is designed to operate day and night and will significantly boost Senegal's economic growth. The project's innovative nancing model brings together two leading development nance institutions: OPIC and IFC, with OPIC providing an 18-year nancing of USD 91m for Phase I, and IFC providing an 18-year cross currency swap of the same amount and tenor. OPIC and IFC intend to underwrite a similar structure for the USD41 million financing planned for Phase II. Joseph C. Brandt, President and Chief Executive Officer of ContourGlobal, stated, "ContourGlobal and Senelec committed to the Cap des Biches power project in Washington DC in August 2014 during the Africa Leaders' Summit convened by US President Barack Obama. This power plant has been enabled by two visionary commitments to eliminate poverty and bring the benefits of development to the African continentPresident Obama's Power Africa Initiative and President Macky Sall's Plan Senegal Emergent." Mouhamadou Makhtar Cisse, General Manager of Senelec, noted: "The execution of the Cap des Biches power plant is a decisive step in the Plan Senegal Emergent. With the support of the Senegalese Government, Senelec has set up an energy policy that combines energy mix with satisfying demand at the lowest possible prices. This will help the country's fight against poverty and ensure the industrial development of Senegal." "Today marks an important step for private sector-led development in West Africa. ContourGlobal is a steadfast OPIC partner, and with our support, their work at Cap des Biches signifies progress for President Obama's Power Africa initiative, for building bankable power facility models in the region, and most importantly providing new energy to the people of Senegal," said Elizabeth Littlefield, OPIC's President and CEO. "Electricity, a development imperative, is necessary for economic growth," said Vera Songwe, IFC Director for West and Central Africa. "IFC's innovative, customized approaches are enabling private sector operators to play a bigger role in delivering high-quality energy installations to support the Plan Senegal Emergent." About ContourGlobal ContourGlobal is a developer and operator of electric power generation facilities located in 20 countries on 3 continents. The Company owns and operates a portfolio of 62 power plants in both thermal and renewable technologies, with approximately 4,000 MW of installed gross capacity in operation. The projects utilize a wide range of fuel types, technology, and equipment and are operated by 2,000 people working for ContourGlobal around the globe. ContourGlobal in Africa ContourGlobal began operating in Africa in 2008 when it developed and constructed its flagship power plant in Lome, Togo. The ContourGlobal Togo plant, winner of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation's 2014 "Impact Award for Critical Infrastructure," was placed into commercial operation in 2010 and has been a reliable producer of electricity for the country ever since. ContourGlobal's innovative project in Rwanda utilizes potentially deadly methane gas from the bottom of Lake Kivu to generate much needed electricity. The project was commissioned in December, 2015 and will be expanded to add over 100 MW of electricity to Rwanda in the coming years. The KivuWatt project was awarded "Deal of the Year" by Project Finance International in 2010. ContourGlobal provides efficient tri-generation (heat, electricity, and water) in Nigeria to our client, Nigeria Bottling Company Limited, one of the biggest companies in the non-alcoholic beverage industry in the country and the sole franchise bottler of The Coca-Cola Company in Nigeria. Our Nigerian businesses are part of the ContourGlobal Solutions group whose nancing by OPIC was awarded "Deal of the Year" by Project Finance International in 2011. ContourGlobal also has nearly 2,000 MW of projects under development throughout Africa. Please find additional information on ContourGlobal at: www.contourglobal.com Related Links http://www.contourglobal.com SOURCE ContourGlobal Majority of insurers admit challenges extracting value from transformation initiatives; most say their transformation efforts have been less than ideal SINGAPORE, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Faced with disruptive economic, demographic and technological change, most insurers are struggling to reinvent their organizations for the future. According to Empowered for the future: Insurance reinvented, a report released today by KPMG International, only half of insurers polled believe they are capable of extracting and sustaining value from business transformation initiatives. Fifty-seven percent admitted that their transformation efforts to date have been less than ideal. "Insurers have been trying to 'transform' their organizations for decades yet very little has actually changed," notes Mary Trussell, KPMG Global Lead Partner for Insurance Innovation & Change and lead author of the report. "If insurers are to truly 'reinvent' their business and position themselves for success in a world of disruptive innovation they will need to make more fundamental changes to their business and operating models than ever before." The report was launched during the International Insurance Society's Global Insurance Forum 2016 in Singapore (12-15 June) where industry leaders and executives gathered to discuss innovation and industry transformation. Putting the customer first According to the KPMG report, insurance executives clearly understand the urgent need for transformation. However, it finds many insurers are more focused on implications of regulatory policy and may not be placing enough attention on changes in customer preferences and needs. Less than a quarter of respondents expect their operating model to be disrupted by changes in customer behavior. "We'd suggest that customers should be the inspiration for insurers' efforts to reinvent themselves," says Mary Trussell. "In a highly regulated sector, treating changes in regulation as a springboard to enhance the business for customers rather than something to be endured distinguishes players at the top of their game. The data suggests that many insurers may not yet have their eyes on the ultimate prize." Strengths to build from It's a given that many insurers possess the skills and capabilities required to bring about incremental change in their organization. More than half (53 percent) said they were capable of achieving short-term transformation wins. But there is a big difference in achieving a sustainable transformational outcome, finds the report. "When it comes to enterprise-wide strategic change the type that truly leads to companies being reinvented it takes a much broader view and a much more strategic approach than most insurers have needed for past initiatives," says Gary Reader, Global Head of Insurance, KPMG International. Applying technology to transformation The report finds that insurance executives increasingly view technology as a catalyst for change. Forty-seven percent said that new mobile platforms and apps were forcing change in their business and creating new opportunities for transformation. Forty-five percent said the same about social networking and collaboration and 41 percent sad the same about data and analytics. "In some cases, technology can act as a catalyst as the introduction of telematics did for usage based insurance but you can't let technology drive the bus, but you also don't want it to overtake you," notes Mary Trussell. Looking for new ideas Around a third of respondents to the KPMG survey noted that they were watching organizations outside of the insurance sector, and those with disruptive technologies in order to find inspiration to help them reinvent their organizations. The report finds that insurers are increasingly taking ideas, approaches and even talent from other sectors to help improve their effectiveness. "What's important," noted Gary Reader, "is to find ways to compete with other leading organizations vying for consumers' attention, not just other insurers." About the survey For Empowered for the future: Insurance reinvented KPMG International, through Forbes Insights, surveyed more than 70 insurance executives, from around the world, to find out about their recent transformation initiatives, their existing capabilities and their perceptions of the biggest risks and barriers they face. Nearly half of respondents from the insurance sector originated from Europe (48%), followed by the Americas at 33 percent and Asia Pacific at 19 percent. The report combines the findings of that survey with the insights and perspectives of KPMG's global network of insurance professionals as well as insights and ideas from industry and transformation experts. About KPMG International KPMG is a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. We operate in 155 countries and have more than 174,000 people working in member firms around the world. The independent member firms of the KPMG network are affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative ("KPMG International"), a Swiss entity. Each KPMG firm is a legally distinct and separate entity and describes itself as such. SOURCE KPMG International LUGANO, Switzerland and COPENHAGEN, Denmark, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- ESMO 2016 Congress Bella Center, Copenhagen, Denmark 7-11 October 2016 MEDIA ALERT "Learning about the latest advances, discussing the clinical challenges and opportunities for today's oncologists and learning from each other to achieve a common goal - finding the best outcomes for cancer patients. You can find all this at the ESMO 2016 Congress." Fortunato Ciardiello, ESMO President and ESMO 2016 Congress President Nearly 2,900 abstracts were submitted for inclusion within the ESMO 2016 Congress, marking a 70% increase over the past six years and confirming the ESMO Congress as the leading oncology event in Europe. With USA, Italy, Spain, France and Japan being the top five submitters, the ESMO 2016 Congress will be a truly international convention at which to learn about the latest advances in cancer, discuss clinical challenges and share best practices in order to improve patient treatment and care. More than 19,000 participants from 130 countries worldwide are expected in Copenhagen, from professionals representing various oncology disciplines to healthcare policy makers, and from patient advocates and pharmaceutical companies to international media. Congress programme highlights: 80 late-breaking abstracts submitted, with top submissions in colorectal and gastrointestinal cancers, non-small-cell lung cancer, genito-urinary tumours and immunotherapy. Keynote lectures: these must-attend sessions will give delegates the full picture regarding the evolution of cancer research and patient care, reaching beyond individual disease types to offer thought-provoking interdisciplinary discussion including: "The development of checkpoint inhibitors" by Jim Allison , Saturday, 8 October, 13:00 "The art of the possible: Bridging the gap between genomics and patient care?" by Emile Voest , Sunday, 9 October, 13:00 "The patient journey: Is cancer cure around the corner?", by Jean-Charles Soria , Monday, 10 October, 13:00 Onco-immunology: a fully dedicated track with more than 100 abstracts submitted, including hands-on educational sessions for practitioners, with a focus on patient selection and side-effect management. Record number of abstracts submitted under the Biomarkers topic, highlighting the importance of patient selection in treatment efficacy from the early phases of drug development to the bedside. Spotlight on resistance to therapy, the use of mouse models to help develop better targeted therapies and adapting clinical trials to tumour biology. The latest on BRCA testing in ovarian cancer and triple-negative breast cancer. Challenges and promises in the treatment of tumours of the central nervous system. How to provide patients with precision medicine in the clinic - interdisciplinary patient cases to translate theory into reality. A "Drugs you will be using in 2020" special symposium to share a vision of what to expect in the years ahead. Cancer prevention and screening including evidence-based prevention approaches. Public policy: sessions focusing on the most important public policy issues including the equitable delivery of anti-cancer drugs, the registration and use of Big Data and individual molecular profiles, and different approaches to qualify clinical benefit in oncology. The full ESMO 2016 Congress programme is available at http://www.esmo.org/Conferences/ESMO-2016-Congress/Programme Media registration ESMO welcomes media interested in obtaining information and reporting on cancer issues. Registration is free to bona fide journalists on presentation of a letter of assignment and a valid press card. Media representatives are required to observe and abide by the ESMO 2016 Media Policy http://www.esmo.org/Conferences/ESMO-2016-Congress/Press-Media/Media-Policy To register for the event, please fill out the Complimentary Media Registration Form http://esmo.formstack.com/forms/media_registration_form_esmo2016 Media registration in advance is strongly recommended (deadline: Thursday, 29 September 2016). A fully equipped ESMO Press Centre will be available to registered journalists, including a press room with technical facilities (computers, wi-fi internet, telephones, photocopier, etc.), interview rooms and storage cabinets. On-site staff will be ready to assist and facilitate one-on-one interviews with researchers and key opinion leaders throughout the Congress. ESMO Press Programme The official ESMO 2016 Press Programme is being developed and will be confirmed after review and acceptance of submitted abstracts. Details will be progressively uploaded at http://www.esmo.org/Conferences/ESMO-2016-Congress/Press-Media Meeting venue and accommodation The ESMO 2016 Congress will take place at the Bella Center Copenhagen, in the heart of restad with its own Metro station (M1). Bella Center Copenhagen is conveniently located for both Copenhagen Airport (six kilometres) and Copenhagen city centre (eight kilometres). Further information can be found here: http://www.bellacentercopenhagen.dk/en-GB/Location/Transport.aspx BELLA CENTER COPENHAGEN Center Boulevard 5 DK - 2300 Copenhagen S As Copenhagen is a highly popular tourist destination, we advise you to book your hotel accommodation as soon as possible: http://www.esmo.org/Conferences/ESMO-2016-Congress/Travel-Accommodation We look forward to welcoming you to Copenhagen! The ESMO Press Office Team media@esmo.org Tel: +41 (0)91 973 19 04 SOURCE European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) RZESZOW, Poland, LONDON and HONG KONG, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- G2A.COM Limited won the Outstanding New Product / Service award at the Global Business Excellence Awards 2016 in London, United Kingdom for their innovative payment and protection ecosystem, G2A Pay which is supported by the G2A Shield . G2A.COM is the world's fastest growing digital gaming marketplace and a multi-award winning international company scooping 6 international awards in 2016. http://www.gbeawards.com http://www.stevieawards.com (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377942 ) Commenting on G2A.COM, G2A Pay and G2A Shield and why they won the Outstanding New Product/Service Award, the chairman of the judges said: "Digital gaming marketplace G2A.COM, with 10 million clients worldwide, has experienced incredible success and growth by focusing on online security, customer service and on valuing its staff and encouraging them to be creative. The G2A Shield is a brilliant new innovation that protects customers' transactions and ensures money back approval in just five minutes. G2A Shield also offers an online chat service and round-the-clock live support. This level of security gives clients confidence that their money is safe - something that is essential in the gaming marketplace." Bob Voermans, EVP Global Payments at G2A.COM was delighted that G2A Pay and G2A Shield have been recognized: "G2A Pay delivers the best possible customer experience on payments made via G2A Pay. G2A developed an open and safe ecosystem and G2A Pay can be used by any digital company connected to the G2A.COM marketplace. If such a company needs to have access to over 100 payment methods world-wide, we are open for discussion." https://pay.g2a.com Upon hearing about the Award, Bartosz Skwarczek, Co-founder and CEO of G2A.COM said: "It's a big honour to be judged the winners. This victory motivates us to continue to deliver the best possible customer service worldwide." The Global Business Excellence Awards is one of the world's highest profile awards and winning this accolade speaks volumes about the quality of G2A's innovative work. Due to their high profile, the awards attract a wide range of entries from across the world, from large international PLCs and public sector organisations to dynamic and innovative SMEs. The winners all have one thing in common - they are truly outstanding at what they do and G2A.COM Limited have proved this by winning the Global Business Excellence Award. The Global Business Excellence Awards pride themselves on having a large panel of independent expert judges who select winners according to strict criteria for each category and sector; focussing on financial results, innovation, customer, employee, investor and community benefits. http://www.g2a.com. Author: Jacqueline Purcell - jpurcell@G2A.com SOURCE G2A.com PRAGUE, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- On June 8, IBA Group - www.ibagroupit.com - officially opened its new campus in Minsk, Belarus. The area includes a new office building, a data center, a fitness center, a three-level parking, and a dwelling house. A number of high-profile guests, including IBA Group's customers, partners, and members of the government attended the opening ceremony. Sergei Levteev, IBA Group Chairman, Sergei Nalivaiko, Minister of Taxes and Duties of the Republic of Belarus, Cesare Baroni, Vice President for Transformation and Operations, Systems & Supply Chain at IBM, and Valery Tsepkalo, Hi-Tech Park Director, held a ribbon cutting ceremony to inaugurate the opening of the campus. More than 300 blue and white balloons soared into the sky as Sergei Levteev lifted a symbolic key of the building. Addressing the audience, Nalivaiko said that the Ministry of Taxes and Duties of Belarus has been cooperating with IBA since 2005 and the joint work has left the most favorable impression. Tsepkalo went on to say that the new campus is a classic embodiment of the concept of Work, Live & Play, which is not only comfortable for employees, but also significantly reduces the strain on the city center. Turning to the programmers, he wished them to work with more pleasure for their own well-being and the prosperity of the country. Baroni congratulated Levteev and the IBA Group community on this great event. He said that IBA Group and IBM have been partners for many years and expressed the view that the new building is a cornerstone of future accomplishments in the expanding of IBA Group and IBM's businesses. Levteev said: "The idea of building our own campus was born a while ago. When realizing our dream, we had to overcome various obstacles. And today, on the day of the official opening of the IBA Group's campus, I would like to highlight a tremendous support of the state authorities, including the Council of Ministers of Belarus, and to thank the administration of the High Tech Park for their assistance. I think we have built a unique complex. The conditions of work of our specialists comply with international standards and we are able to meet the highest demands of our customers for the organization of projects and project teams." During his interview with the press, Levteev also underscored the importance of the IT industry in Belarus: "The domestic IT industry has a long and good tradition, and Belarusian IT specialists are rated highly abroad. Our country is focused both on the development of export potential of the IT industry and the improvement of the IT component in the products of other branches of the Belarusian economy. We hope that in the future we can further count on the support of the government in the development of the industry. We are confident that this will enable IT companies to create additional high-tech jobs, expand their presence in foreign markets, and help the transition of the Belarusian economy to more effective control mechanisms." After the opening ceremony, guests had a tour of the campus. They visited open space offices, the data center, and the fitness center. The company management also honored the best employees of IBA Group. IBA Group's new campus includes: 6-storey building with roughly 900 workplaces equipped with modern engineering and telecommunication infrastructure Fitness center with a gym, a large game room, fitness rooms, and a table tennis room Data center built in accordance with modern international standards of reliability and performance and using modern energy-saving technologies of operating energy-intensive equipment. The heat generated by computer technologies of the data center is recovered and used for heating the fitness center Three-level parking lot for 400 cars. About IBA Group IBA Group is one of the largest IT service providers in Eastern Europe performing software development, migration, maintenance, support, and IT consulting services with more than 2,600 IT and business professionals. Headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, IBA Group has offices and development centers in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Czech Republic, Belarus, South Africa, Cyprus, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Slovakia. IBA Group focuses on mainframe systems, enterprise applications, web solutions, SAP, business analytics, and mobile applications. IBA Group is recognized by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) as one of The Global Outsourcing 100 in the Leaders Category, and ranks as one of the world's largest software companies in the Software Magazine's Software 500. In 2015, 2014, 2012, and 2011, IBA Group won IT Europa's European IT & Software Excellence awards. For more information, visit http://ibagroupit.com SOURCE IBA Group SKOKIE, Illinois, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Company now selling directly to customers in South Korea Integrated DNA Technologies ("IDT"), the global leader in custom nucleic acid synthesis, has acquired MBiotech, Inc. ("MBiotech"), headquartered in Seoul, South Korea. MBiotech has been a distributor of IDT products for more than a decade. In its promotion of IDT products, MBiotech has successfully made IDT's brand well-known throughout the South Korean peninsula. The company also distributes products for other manufacturers. These other products include reagents, enzymes, kits, consumables and lab equipment. Moving forward, IDT will continue MBiotech's distribution activities of other manufacturers' products and plans to keep day-to-day operations unchanged. Dr Joseph A. Walder, IDT founder and chief executive officer, commented, "IDT has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with MBiotech. We respect and welcome them into the company. MBiotech's local-language website, efficient operations, and extensive distributor base make it a valuable asset." Joshua Lee, founder, president and CEO of MBiotech said, "We share IDT's commitment to excellent customer service and quality. We are very pleased to become part of the IDT family. As one company, we will be able to offer better service to our Korean customers and those in our global markets." Follow us on twitter @idtdna for real-time updates and insights. Editors' notes About IDT Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc. (IDT), the global leader in nucleic acid synthesis, serving all areas of life sciences research and development, offers products for a broad range of genomic applications. IDT's primary business is the production of custom, synthetic nucleic acids for molecular biology applications, including qPCR, sequencing, synthetic biology, and functional genomics. The company manufactures and ships an average of 44,000 custom nucleic acids per day to more than 85,000 customers worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.idtdna.com. About MBiotech Established in South Korea, in 2003, MBiotech is a sales company focusing on the life sciences research market. In Korea, the company represents world-renowned brands, including IDT, Bioline, Mirus, Lucigen, and others, and also exports MBiotech brand products globally. SOURCE Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Strong tire manufacturing base coupled with growing demand for small and mini passenger cars to drive Japan tire market through 2021 According to recently released TechSci Research report, "Japan Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021", tire market in Japan is anticipated to cross $ 32 billion by 2021, on account of consistent growth in passenger car production and sales, expanding automobile fleet and emergence of new technologies leading to the development of fuel-efficient and green tires. In addition to various leading automobile manufacturers, the country is home to four major tire manufacturing companies, namely Bridgestone Corporation, Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Toyo Tire & Rubber Company and Yokohama Rubber Company. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 ) Browse 24 market data Tables and 32 Figures spread through 118 Pages and an in-depth TOC on "Japan Tire Market " http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/japan-tire-market-forecast-and-opportunities-2021/695.html Japan is one the largest global automotive markets, with around 23 tire manufacturing facilities operating in the country and availability of more than 25 major tire brands. During 2011-2015, the production of passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, medium & heavy commercial vehicles & two-wheelers in the country cumulatively grew at a CAGR of more than 2%, which contributed to the growth of tire market in Japan. Owing to increasing automobile production coupled with expanding fleet size, the demand for tires, from both replacement as well as OEM market, is expected to increase at a robust pace over the next five years. Download Sample Report @ http://www.techsciresearch.com/sample-report.aspx?cid=695 Customers can also request for 10% free customization on this report. In 2015, passenger car tire segment dominated the Japan tire market, and the segment is anticipated to maintain its dominance over the next five years as well on account of increasing popularity of electric and hybrid cars. Kanto region registered majority of the demand for tires in Japan in 2015. Some of the major companies operating in Japan tire market include Bridgestone, Sumitomo, Yokohoma and Toyo, among others. "Backed by increasing disposable income and growing urbanization coupled with surging investments in the country's automotive sector, Japan automotive industry is expected to grow at a robust pace over the next five years. With around 115 million internet users in the country, the market leaders are realigning their business strategies in order to expand their customer base. E-retailing provides customers with advantages such as fast delivery period, brand comparison, lower price as compared to the offline tyre outlets; and these factors are attracting an increasing number of consumers towards opting for online purchase of tires., said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm. "Japan Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021" has evaluated the future growth potential of tyre market in Japan, and provides statistics and information on market structure, imports and trends. The report is intended to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities available in Japan tyre market. Browse Related Reports Global OTR Tire Market By Vehicle Type (Mining, Construction and Industrial Equipment, Agriculture Vehicles, and Others), By Demand Category (OEM Vs. Replacement), By Region, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021 http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/global-otr-tire-market-by-vehicle-type-mining-construction-and-industrial-equipment-agriculture-vehicles-and-others-by-demand-category-oem-vs-replacement-by-region-competition-forecast-and-opportunities-2011-2021/637.html China Tyre Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020 http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/china-tyre-market-forecast-and-opportunities-2020/105.html India Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021 http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/india-tire-market-forecast-opportunities-2021/672.html About TechSci Research TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends. Contact Mr. Ken Mathews 708 Third Avenue, Manhattan, NY, New York - 10017 Tel: +1-646-360-1656 Email: sales@techsciresearch.com Connect with us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/TechSciResearch Connect with us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/techsci-research SOURCE TechSci Research The Sohar desalination plant will produce 250 million liters of water per day and serve approximately 800,000 local Oman residents. The plant was designed by Valoriza Agua, one of the leading water technology companies in Spain which boasts a portfolio of more than 100 water treatment plants throughout Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Tunisia, Middle East, Brazil, Australia and Chile. "We are extremely honored to have been chosen by Valoriza Agua, a leader in desalination, as the membrane supplier for the Sohar plant," said Mr. Chul Nam, vice president of LG Chem. "This is a significant project for LG Chem and it is a true testament to the hard work and effort of our sales and operations teams to deliver the highest quality membrane products worldwide." Since LG Chem's acquisition of Los Angeles-based NanoH2O in May 2014, the company's product portfolio has rapidly expanded to include high rejection brackish water RO (BWRO) membranes, anti-fouling BWRO and residential RO membranes. LG Water Solutions is a business unit of LG Chem and boasts approximately twenty sales offices worldwide and almost one thousand installations across the globe. For more information on LG Chem's full line of NanoH2O reverse osmosis membranes, visit the company's website at: www.LGwatersolutions.com About LG Water Solutions LG Water Solutions, part of LG Chem, Ltd., manufactures the full line of NanoH 2 O seawater, brackish water and residential reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. Based on breakthrough nanostructured materials and industry-proven polymer technology, LG Chem's unique NanoH 2 O membrane formulation dramatically improves system efficiency and productivity. LG Chem's full line of NanoH 2 O RO membranes are Standard 61 and 58 certified by NSF International for the production of drinking water. These membranes are available in industry-standard element configurations that fit easily into new and existing RO systems, purifying water from a broad range of sources with improved productivity and water quality. LG Water Solutions is headquartered in Seoul and is part of LG Chem, Ltd. For more information, visit www.LGwatersolutions.com About LG Chem LG Chem, Ltd. is a globally diversified chemical company which operates three main business units: Basic Materials & Chemicals, IT & Electronic Materials, and Energy Solution. The chemical business manufactures a wide range of products, from petrochemical goods to high-value added plastics. It also extends its chemical expertise into high-tech areas such as electronic materials, water desalination and rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and ESS. For more information, please visit the LG Chem website at www.lgchem.com Related Links http://www.lgchem.com SOURCE LG Water Solutions DUBAI, UAE, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- With self-service Advanced Analytics solutions that improve retail business outcomes and boost customer loyalty, the partnership enables African retailers to achieve the fastest path to profit Manthan, a global leader in advanced analytics and big data, announced a partnership with Compulynx, the most respected and dominant technology solutions provider in East Africa to bring industry leading advanced analytics technology to businesses in the region. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160321/346132LOGO ) After delighting retailers in the Middle East for over 5 years now, with operations based out of its office in Dubai Internet City, this marks Manthan's formal entry into the African market. African retailers are looking for analytics and insights that yield quick ROI, in the areas of merchandising, store operations, pricing optimization as well as customer marketing and loyalty. "East Africa is the perfect portal to enter the African market considering its market maturity and excellent technology adoption appetite. Retailers can boost revenues and maximize profits with our innovative analytics solutions in the domains of customer marketing, merchandising, supplier collaboration and online retailing. Our partner Compulynx's extensive regional network and retail expertise, proven over a period of 20 years, strongly complements Manthan's retail analytics capabilities and will extend the power of analytics driven decision making to every retailer in the region.", said Ehtesham Mohammed, VP, Middle East and Africa, Manthan. East Africa is one of the fastest growing regions with over 3.3% growth rate. Organized retail comprises of about 35% share, and has registered a growth of over 10% YoY. The market for BI and Analytics software in Middle East and Africa grew by 11%, as per Gartner*. "The time is thus ripe to enter the market with quick start, built-for-retail analytics solutions that are tailored to address market needs, thereby providing the fastest path to profit.", adds Ehtesham. "This partnership opens up new opportunities for us to offer significant value add to our retail customers. We can now enable the retailers to gain new insights into their business operations, out of the existing data, which they were not able to use as effectively until now. This will enable them to take informed business decisions, resulting in improved efficiency in their business operations as well as improved service to their customers" said Sailesh Savani, Founder and CEO, Compulynx. Manthan has revolutionized the advanced analytics universe with a unique blend of enterprise BI and self-service, packaged analytics solutions that cover every role and function in retail, in a plug and play environment. Manthan's innovative Switch On approach utilizes big data technology, process automation and process optimization to ensure that analytics can now be made available to business users in a matter of a few hours, not weeks. Recently voted as the #1 vendor for Tier One Retailers by RIS Software Leaderboard, Manthan has also partnered with Tableau, Hortonworks and SnapLogic to ensure that retailers have best of breed technologies at their fingertips. About Manthan : Manthan is the Chief Analytics Officer for consumer industries worldwide. Manthan's portfolio of analytics-enabled business applications, advanced analytics platforms and solutions are architected to help users across industries walk the complete data-to-result path - analyze, take guided decisions and execute these decisions real-time. Sophisticated, yet intuitive analytical capability coupled with the power of big data, mobility and cloud computing, brings users business-ready applications that provide on-demand access and real-time execution - the only path to profit in a contemporary, on-demand and connected economy. Manthan is one of the most awarded analytics innovators among analysts and customers alike. To see how your business can gain from analytics, visit http://www.manthan.com. Reach out to Manthan on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. *http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3109217 SOURCE Manthan LONDON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Top Novus executive Torbjorn Sjostrom was celebrating this week after taking the title of Business Worldwide Magazine's (BWM) Media/Communications Industry CEO of the Year (Europe) Award 2016. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/809284 ) Sjostrom's leading Swedish-based market research company aims to help brands, NGOs, unions, political parties and charities assess and understand public opinion in order to grow their business and influence. The company's fact-finding and commentary collecting work covers their native Sweden, the Nordic regions and Europe. They have also carried out research in countries as far apart as the USA and South Africa. The entrepreneur and former software engineer took over the running of Novus from his father who established the company back in 2006 - although he had been mentored in market research for at least two decades prior to taking up the post. On receiving the BWM award Sjostrom said he was delighted but insisted that it should be shared with his staff who were "probably the most experienced market researchers in Sweden." He added: "Today our challenge at Novus is to keep going against the stream and educate the public about what proper research really is. And that means a focus on integrity, facts, and evidence. "The media has become a particularly dominant opinion forming force, and it frames knowledge in very particular ways. The rise of digital media over print exacerbates those trends, and we are perhaps witnessing a decline in quality and a lack of complexity in opinions. "At Novus we deliver qualified knowledge, not simply statistics as part of a report." To back up his point about falling standards in market research Sjostrom pointed to the poor outcome of the polls in predicting the UK General Election last year. Many had claimed Labour had as much support as the Conservative party. The election results notably proved otherwise. The failure of those UK polls was attributed to poor sampling methods leading to unrepresentative counts as well as pollsters possibly skewing findings to match other polls. Cutting corners was blamed as the underlying reason in many cases. For some years now Novus has been undertaking global research for the Gapminder Foundation's Ignorance Project. This is to help prepare teaching materials and looks at public knowledge on global issues. Sjostrom added: "Public opinion influences everything, from who gets elected to what people buy, whether people will give to charities or support particular organizations etc. Knowing why people make particular choices can prove to be extremely valuable information for any organisation looking to be a leader and opinion former in its field." Find out more about Novus and their research and reporting methodologies visit the website http://www.novus.se An article on the company can also be found on BWM website http://www.bwmonline.com/2016/05/market-research-matters/ For more details on Business Worldwide Magazine Awards 2016, go to http://www.bwmonline.com/awards/ About Business Worldwide Magazine Business Worldwide Magazine is the leading source of business and dealmaker intelligence throughout the world. Our quarterly magazine and online news portal enables an established audience of corporate dealmakers to track the latest news, stories and developments affecting the international markets, corporate finance, business strategy and changes in legislation. This readership includes of CEO/CFO - Banks, Corporate Lawyers and Venture Capital/Private Equity Companies to name a few. http://www.bwmonline.com Contact David Jones Awards Department E: david.jones@bwmonline.com W: http://www.bwmonline.com SOURCE Business Worldwide Magazine NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement is being issued by Pomerantz LLP regarding In Re Petrobras Securities Litigation. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK IN RE PETROBRAS SECURITIES LITIGATION No. 14-CV-9662 (JSR) SUMMARY NOTICE OF PENDENCY OF CLASS ACTION To: (1) All purchasers who, between January 22, 2010 and July 28, 2015 (the "Class Period"), inclusive, purchased or otherwise acquired the securities of Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. Petrobras ("Petrobras"), including debt securities issued by Petrobras International Finance Company S.A. ("PifCo") and/or Petrobras Global Finance B.V. ("PGF") on the New York Stock Exchange ("NYSE") or pursuant to other domestic transactions (the "Exchange Act Class"); and (2) All purchasers who purchased or otherwise acquired debt securities issued by Petrobras, PifCo, and/or PGF, in domestic transactions, directly in, pursuant and/or traceable to a May 13, 2013 public offering registered in the United States and/or a March 10, 2014 public offering registered in the United States before Petrobras made generally available to its security holders an earnings statement covering a period of at least twelve months beginning after the effective date of the offerings (the "Securities Act Class"). A class action lawsuit is now pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the "Court") under the above caption (the "Action"). The suit is brought on behalf of investors for alleged violations of the federal securities laws by defendants for purportedly concealing a multi-year, multi-billion dollar bribery and kickback scheme. Defendants have denied the claims and maintain they are not liable for the injury alleged. YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED of the pendency of the Action as a class action. You may be a member of the Class whose rights might be affected by this Action. YOUR RIGHTS AS A CLASS MEMBER: If you purchased or otherwise acquired the securities of Petrobras, including debt securities issued by PifCo and/or PGF, on the NYSE or pursuant to other transactions occurring in the United States during the Class Period, or purchased or otherwise acquired prior to August 11, 2014 debt securities issued by Petrobras, PifCo, and/or PGF, in transactions occurring in the United States, directly in, pursuant and/or traceable to a May 13, 2013 public offering registered in the United States and/or purchased or otherwise acquired prior to May 15, 2015 debt securities issued by Petrobras, PifCo, and/or PGF, in transactions occurring in the United States, directly in, pursuant and/or traceable to a March 10, 2014 public offering registered in the United States, you are a member of one or both of the Classes. If you choose to remain a member of one or both of the Classes, you do not need to do anything at this time. You will automatically be included in either or both Classes unless you request exclusion in accordance with the procedure set forth below. Your decision is important for the following reasons: If you choose to remain in either or both Classes , you will be bound by all orders and judgments in this Action. Your interests are being represented at no cost to you by the representatives of the Classes and Class Counsel. Class Counsel will be awarded fees and costs only if it succeeds in obtaining a recovery from one or more defendants. You may remain a member of the Classes and elect to be represented by your own counsel at your own expense. If you retain separate counsel, you will be responsible for that counsel's fees and expenses and such counsel must enter an appearance on your behalf by filing a Notice of Appearance with the Court and mailing it to Class Counsel at the address below on or before July 29, 2016. If you exclude yourself from the Class and decide to pursue your own action individually, you may not be able to pursue certain claims due to the lapsing of the statute of limitations, including claims under Section 11 related to the May 13, 2013 offering. If you seek to share in any Class recovery, you will be required to prove your membership in either or both Classes with evidence of (i) your purchases, acquisitions and sales of Petrobras securities (including debt securities issued by PifCo and/or PGF); (ii) that you purchased Petrobras securities in a domestic transaction and suffered resulting damages, and/or (iii) that you purchased such debt securities pursuant to or traceable to one of the registered offerings referenced above. In addition, defendants may seek to prove that you did not rely on the integrity of the market or that you had knowledge of defendants' alleged misrepresentations or omissions. If you choose to be excluded from either or both Classes , you will not be bound by any judgment, nor will you be eligible to share in any recovery that might be obtained in this Action. If you exclude yourself, you may individually pursue any legal rights that you may have against the defendants. To exclude yourself from either or both Classes, you must mail a signed letter by mail stating that you "request exclusion" from either or both of the Classes in "In re Petrobras Securities Litigation, No. 14-CV-9662" postmarked no later than July 29, 2016, to: Petrobras Securities Litigation, Notice Administrator, c/o GCG, P.O. Box 10280, Dublin, OH 43017-5780. Full details on how to be excluded are available at www.PetrobrasSecuritiesLitigation.com. WHERE YOU CAN FIND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: This Notice is only a summary of the lawsuit. For more detailed information, including a complete list of defendants and CUSIPS of the debt securities and ADSs involved, you may contact Class Counsel, Pomerantz LLP, 600 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10016, (212) 661-1100, call the Notice Administrator at (855) 907-3218, or visit http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/judge/Rakoff or www.PetrobrasSecuritiesLitigation.com. To get a copy of this notice in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, German, Japanese or Chinese, visit www.PetrobrasSecuritiesLitigation.com. PLEASE DO NOT CALL OR WRITE THE COURT OR THE OFFICE OF THE CLERK FOR INFORMATION OR ADVICE. Dated: May 9, 2016 BY ORDER OF THE COURT United States District Court for the Southern District of New York SOURCE Pomerantz LLP NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- New York Residence, Inc., a world-renowned real estate brokerage firm, is pleased to announce that Mr. Richard Pino, Chief Financial Officer and Associate Broker, will be traveling to Italy and Croatia from July 1st through July 13, 2016 to meet with customers. Mr. Richard Pino, Chief Financial Officer, said he will be traveling to Rome, Trieste, and Croatia to meet with existing customers who continuously show a strong interest in purchasing additional property in New York. Mr. Pino further stated that he has set aside additional time to meet with potential new customers. Private appointments may be arranged in advance by sending an email to Mr. Pino at rpino@nyr.com. Over the last decade, Mr. Pino has traveled to Columbia, Panama, China, Hong Kong, Russia, and Ireland to meet with customers and represent New York Residence at international trade shows. Mr. Pino stated that an investor can buy a beautiful condominium in a full service building starting at US$500,000 and going beyond US$100 million. In addition, newly constructed developments are being built with extensive amenities, similar to five-star hotels. New York Residence has ranked within the top five of Manhattan boutique real estate firms for the past three years, 2014-2016. In addition, New York Residence was ranked number 20 in closed transactions amongst all firm sizes. The 2016 independent ranking charts and articles can be seen in the May 2016, issue of The Real Deal, an industry real estate publication. Since solidifying its outstanding reputation in the real estate world, New York Residence has provided consulting services to real estate developers on ground-up developments, and on converting rental buildings to condominiums. New York Residence' seasoned brokers speak a total of 20 languages, and are well-educated in all aspects of the real estate market. New York Residence has access to all residential, mixed use, and commercial listings in New York. New York Residence is a real estate brokerage firm specializing in residential, commercial, and investment property sales and rentals to domestic and international buyers. It maintains three offices in New York, with international offices located in Korea, Seoul, and Shanghai. New York Residence' corporate headquarters is located at 1501 Broadway, 26th floor, in the iconic Paramount Building in the heart of Times Square. Contact: RUBENSTEIN PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTACT: ALAN SEGAN ASEGAN@RUBENSTEINPR.COM Related Links http://nyr.com SOURCE New York Residence, Inc. Tesla to showcase the OEM model of the future -- test drives for attendees during Intelligent Mobility and GIL 2016: Europe events LONDON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- No longer can cars be considered as metal hardware used mainly as a means of transport from A to B, no longer can OEMs wait for regulations to encourage innovation connectivity is transforming the industry. Visionary partnerships with tech-companies and start-ups will prove essential for traditional car manufacturers. During Frost & Sullivan's Intelligent Mobility event, the panel debate "Future of Connectivity" will unite experts from different players and with varying approaches within the connectivity field. There is no company which would be better suited to demonstrate where the industry is heading than Tesla; hence Frost & Sullivan is delighted to offer attendees the chance to gain first-hand experience of the Tesla Model S, provided for test drives during the Intelligent Mobility event on the 29th of June as well as GIL 2016: Europe on the 30th of June. To download brochures and register to attend Frost & Sullivan events please visit http://frost.ly/78 for Intelligent Mobility and http://frost.ly/fu for GIL 2016: Europe. In 2015, globally, 17.8 Million cars were sold with either embedded or tethered connectivity. This number is expected to grow to over 22.3 Million cars by 2016. OEMs are pushing towards connected cars enabling a seamless IoT ecosystem which can leverage data. Connectivity in cars, contextual services and cyber security will remain key themes for the automotive industry. The proliferation of data in the ecosystem will challenge incumbents and disruptors alike to realise additional revenue streams. The focus will be on smart mobility and positioning the car as a key element in a connected living environment. "Automakers understand that today's customer expects a connected value proposition both inside and outside the car," finds Frost & Sullivan Principal Consultant Niranjan Thiyagarajan. "Partnerships and collaborations are required to bring down walls and open doors to create a link between the car and the external environment." As part of the Frost & Sullivan industry event "Intelligent Mobility" taking place on the 29th of June at the Jumeirah Carlton Hotel in London, the panel on Connectivity will evolve around the above topics and beyond. Highlights will be the contributions of Thomas Schmidt, Managing Director, TomTom Telematics, who will speak about the opportunities behind Data as a Service (DaaS) in an evolving ecosystem and Martin Hunt, Automotive Industry Practice Lead, BT Global Services, who will bring in an interesting perspective from Telecom Service providers and their value propositions that can support a connected future. Beyond the panel on the future of connectivity, Intelligent Mobility will bring together industry experts on Mega Trends, autonomous business models, corporate mobility, integrated transport solutions as well as new mobility concepts. The conference will be complemented by a debate at the House of Lords and the Frost & Sullivan Intelligent Mobility Awards Banquet, a black tie evening and gala dinner. For more information on Frost & Sullivan's events and for media passes, please e-mail Jana Schoeneborn, Corporate Communications, at jana.schoeneborn@frost.com. About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. Our "Growth Partnership" supports clients by addressing these opportunities and incorporating two key elements driving visionary innovation: The Integrated Value Proposition and The Partnership Infrastructure. The Integrated Value Proposition provides support to our clients throughout all phases of their journey to visionary innovation including: research, analysis, strategy, vision, innovation and implementation. The Partnership Infrastructure is entirely unique as it constructs the foundation upon which visionary innovation becomes possible. This includes our 360 degree research, comprehensive industry coverage, career best practices as well as our global footprint of more than 40 offices. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies? Contact Us: Start the discussion Join Us: Join our community Subscribe: Newsletter on "the next big thing" Register: Gain access to visionary innovation Contact: Jana Schoeneborn Corporate Communications Europe P: +49 (0) 69 770 3343 E: jana.schoeneborn@frost.com http://www.frost.com Related Links http://www.frost.com SOURCE Frost & Sullivan DUBLIN, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "UV Stabilizer Market by Type (HALS, UVA, Quenchers), by Application (Flooring & Decking, Furniture, Packaging, Automotive Coatings, Agriculture, Adhesives & Sealants), & by Region - Global Forecasts to 2020" report to their offering. The global UV stabilizer market size, in terms of value, is projected to reach USD 324.4 Million by 2020, registering a CAGR of 6.7% between 2015 and 2020 The growing manufacturing industries, increasing demand for UV stabilizers in the Asia-Pacific region, increasing demand of wood coatings in North America, and continuous product development, expansion, and merger & acquisition activities undertaken by companies are the key factors for the growth of the global UV stabilizers market. UV Absorbers are projected to register the fastest-growth among other types, followed by HALS in the global UV stabilizers market. The demand of UV Absorbers is mainly driven by its ability to provide low-cost solution, good processability, improved weatherability, and low volatility to applications such as high-performance thermoplastics, polyurethanes, polymers, construction, and packaging among others. Packaging is the fastest-growing application segment in the global UV stabilizer market. HALS and UV Absorbers are the highly preferred types of UV stabilizers in the packaging sector. The increasing demand of non-degradable and UV resistant plastic packaging components from PET bottles and food & beverage containers among others have fueled the growth of UV stabilizers in the packaging application market. Though the UV stabilizer market is gaining importance, few factors act as a bottleneck toward the growth of UV stabilizers in the global market. The volatility in UV stabilizers raw material prices and stringent governmental regulations are the major restraints toward the growth of the UV stabilizers market. Companies such as BASF SE (Germany), Clariant AG (Switzerland), Cytec Solvay Group (U.S.), Evonik Industries AG (Germany), and Songwon Industrial Co., Ltd. (South Korea) are the dominant market players in the global UV stabilizers market. Key Topics Covered: 1 Introduction 2 Research Methodology 3 Executive Summary 4 Premium Insights 5 Market Overview 6 Industry Trends 7 UV Stabilizers Market, By Type 8 UV Stabilizers Market, By Application 9 UV Stabilizers Market, Regional Analysis 10 Competitive Landscape 11 Company Profiles - Addivant - Akcros Chemicals - Basf Se - Clariant Ag - Cytec Solvay Group - Everlight Chemical Industrial Corp. - Evonik Industries Ag - Lycus Ltd. - Mayzo Inc. - Songwon Industrial Co. Ltd. For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/vmz8d5/uv_stabilizer Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com SOURCE Research and Markets JOHANNESBURG, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 140 rising young Southern African leaders met in Johannesburg, South Africa June 9 11, 2016 to collaborate on their role in driving sustainable development and a prosperous future for Africa. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160612/378268LOGO In support of U.S. President Barack Obama's Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, USAID and IREX organized the Southern Africa Regional Conference. It emphasized how Fellows can live by example, mobilize resources, and build inclusive societies to achieve the United Nations' Global Goals for Sustainable Development. As leading community activists, social entrepreneurs, and public servants, the Fellows also discussed the importance of public-private partnerships, fostering transparent governance, and strategies for achieving the African Union's Agenda 2063. Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Special Envoy on Gender, African Development Bank Group encouraged Fellows to be bold and audacious in addressing issues facing the continent. "Nobody necessarily invites you to take a seat at the table, so you need to claim it," she said. Todd Haskell, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southern Africa and Public Diplomacy, Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State urged Fellows to work together toward positive change in their communities. "This conference reflects a founding principle of the Mandela Washington Fellowship that smart, dynamic young people are more powerful working together than alone," he said. Speakers also included Dr. Joseph Chilengi, Presiding Officer, Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), African Union; Phuti Mahanyele, Executive Chairperson, Sigma Capital; Cheryl L. Anderson, Mission Director, USAID/Southern Africa; and Kristin Lord, President and CEO, IREX. Over the three-day conference, Fellows showcased their projects and ideas to partners from the private and nonprofit sectors at the conference's "Pitch Competition", sponsored by BancABC, Procter & Gamble, Impact Hub, and CareerCore. Jane Nthanda Jere, a Fellow from Malawi, received first place for her rehabilitation center for disabled children. "We want to be able to improve the function of these children so they can be more independent and have a better quality of life," she said. The Mandela Washington Fellowship brings hundreds of young African professionals from across the continent to U.S. universities for leadership training in business and entrepreneurship, civic leadership, or public management. The Southern Africa Fellows represented 14 countries Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Photos and video from the conference are available online. Contact: Jennifer Nevin Anderson 202-628-8188 Related Links http://www.irex.org SOURCE IREX LONDON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- This press release is intended for UK medical media only. New results from two Phase 3b trials have shown that type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients treated with Tresiba (insulin degludec) experience significantly lower rates of several types of hypoglycaemia, compared with patients treated with insulin glargine U100[1],[2] . The findings are important for people with diabetes, as fear of hypoglycaemia or 'hypos' is a common problem and a feeling that is often shared by their friends and loved ones[3]. On average, people with type 1 diabetes experience two episodes of symptomatic hypoglycaemia per week and for people with type 2 diabetes, at least one episode per fortnight, with almost 50% of all types of hypos occurring during the night[4]-[6]. Hypos range from mild to severe and can greatly impact quality of life, affecting people's sleep patterns, their relationships and their ability to work[7]-[9]. The results from the SWITCH, treat to target, trials - the first-ever double-blinded, crossover basal insulin studies - assessing the safety and efficacy of insulin degludec compared to insulin glargine U100 in patients at high risk of hypoglycaemia with type 1 diabetes (SWITCH 1) and type 2 diabetes (SWITCH 2), were presented over the weekend at the 76th annual Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in New Orleans, USA. Dr Simon Heller, Professor of Clinical Diabetes at Sheffield University said: "Hypoglycaemia is a common concern for patients I see treated with insulin, particularly night-time episodes that are harder to detect and manage. The SWITCH results add important new evidence to the overall body of data supporting the use of insulin degludec for people living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes who experience problematic hypoglycaemia - and provide additional clinical approaches in this important group of patients." In SWITCH 1, type 1 diabetes patients on insulin degludec showed[1]: Significantly lower rates of severe or blood-glucose confirmed symptomatic hypoglycaemia versus insulin glargine U100 in the maintenance period Significantly lower number of severe of blood-glucose confirmed symptomatic nocturnal hypoglycaemia (occurring between the hours of 00:01-05:59) in the maintenance period Significantly reduced rate of severe hypoglycaemia in the maintenance period and across total treatment period Superiority to insulin glargine U100 regarding a lower proportion of patients experiencing severe hypoglycaemia during maintenance and total treatment periods HbA 1c non-inferiority of insulin degludec versus insulin glargine U100 at week 32 (6.95 vs 6.92%) and week 64 (6.95 vs. 6.97%) In SWITCH 2, type 2 diabetes patients on insulin degludec showed[2]: Significantly lower rates of severe or blood-glucose confirmed symptomatic hypoglycaemia during the maintenance period Significantly lower number of severe or blood-glucose confirmed symptomatic nocturnal hypoglycaemia (occurring between the hours of 00:01-05:59) versus insulin glargine U100, during the maintenance period Similar rates of severe hypoglycaemia during the maintenance period versus insulin glargine U100 (significantly lower in the full treatment period) HbA 1c non-inferiority of insulin degludec versus insulin glargine U100 In the trials, insulin degludec was well-tolerated. Adverse events were comparable between the two treatment arms across both trials. The most common adverse events were nasopharyngitis and upper respiratory tract infections and hypoglycaemia[1],[2]. NOTES TO EDITORS About SWITCH 1 and SWITCH 2 The two 2 x32-weeks randomised, double-blind, cross-over, treat-to-target trials were initiated in January 2014 with purpose of comparing the safety and efficacy of Tresiba and insulin glargine U100 in patients at risk of hypoglycaemia. The overall purpose of the trials is to document the hypoglycaemia profile in type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes respectively, compared to insulin glargine U100. In SWITCH 1, 501 people with type 1 diabetes were randomised to crossover treatment with Tresiba and insulin glargine U100 in combination with insulin aspart. In SWITCH 2, 721 people with type 2 diabetes were randomised to crossover treatment with Tresiba and insulin glargine U100 in combination with oral antidiabetics. About Tresiba Tresiba (insulin degludec) is a once-daily basal insulin that provides duration of action beyond 42 hours[10],[11]. It is important for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes to establish a routine for insulin treatment. On occasions when administration at the same time of day is not possible, insulin degludec allows for flexibility in day-to-day dosing time when needed[10],[12],[13]. A minimum of 8 hours between injections should be ensured. Insulin degludec received its first regulatory approval in September 2012 and has since been approved in more than 60 countries globally. About Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk is a global healthcare company with more than 90 years of innovation and leadership in diabetes care. This heritage has given us experience and capabilities that also enable us to help people defeat other serious chronic conditions: haemophilia, growth disorders, and obesity. Headquartered in Denmark, Novo Nordisk employs approximately 41,600 people in 75 countries and markets its products in more than 180 countries. For more information, visit novonordisk.co.uk. Further information Stephen Cull +44-(0)-7584-447-280 scul@novonordisk.com Rupal Patel +44-(0)-7870-678-084 rupal.patel@packerforbes.com Jade McCudden +44-(0)-7424-410-749 jade.mccudden@packerforbes.com References Lane W, et al. SWITCH 1: Reduced hypoglycaemia with insulin degludec (IDeg) vs insulin glargine (IGlar), both U100, in patients with T1D at high risk of hypoglycaemia: a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial. Poster presented at the 76th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association ( ADA ). June 2016 . Wysham C, et al. SWITCH 2: Reduced hypoglycaemia with insulin degludec (IDeg) vs insulin glargine (IGlar), both U100, in patients with T2D at high risk of hypoglycaemia: a randomized, double-blind, crossover trial. Poster presented at the 76th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association ( ADA ). June 2016 . Diabetes.co.uk Fear of Hypoglycaemia. Available at: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/fear-of-hypoglycemia.html. Last accessed June 2016 . McCrimmon R and Sherwin R. Hypoglycemia in Type 1 Diabetes. Diabetes. 2010; 59(10): 2333-2339. Diabetes UK. Survey reveals hidden incidence of 'hypos' among people with type 2 diabetes. Available at: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_us/News_Landing_Page/Survey-reveals-hidden-incidence-of-hypos-among-people-with-Type-2-diabetes/. Last accessed June 2016 . Allen K and Frier B. Nocturnal hypoglycemia: clinical manifestations and therapeutic strategies toward prepisodeion. Endocr Pract 2003; 9(6):530-43. Diabetes World Awake Study. Conducted by Aequus August 2013 . Funded by Novo Nordisk A/S. Kovacs Burns K, et al. Diabetes Attitudes, Wishes and Needs second study (DAWN2): cross-national benchmarking indicators for family members living with people with diabetes. Diabet Med 2013 Jul; 30(7):778-88. Brod M, et al. The impact of non-severe hypoglycemic episodes on work productivity and diabetes management. Value Health 2011; 14(5):665-71. Tresiba Summary of Product Characteristics. Available at: https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/27363. Last accessed June 2016 Haahr H and Heise T. A review of the pharmacological properties of insulin degludec and their clinical relevance. Clin Pharmacokinet 2014;53:787-800. Meneghini L, et al. The efficacy and safety of insulin degludec given in variable once-daily dosing intervals compared with insulin glargine and insulin degludec dosed at the same time daily. Diabetes Care 2013;36:858-64. Mathieu C, et al. Efficacy and safety of insulin degludec in a flexible dosing regimen vs insulin glargine in patients with type 1 diabetes (BEGIN: Flex T1): a 26-week randomized, treat-to-target trial with a 26-week extension. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2013;98:1154-62. SOURCE Novo Nordisk DUBLIN, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Mining in Uganda: Business Report 2016" report to their offering. This report is a comprehensive research of Mining in Uganda. The first two chapters of the report feature the country profile by giving general information on Uganda and by thoroughly studying its economic state (including key macroeconomic indicators and their development trends). The third chapter covers common business procedures in the country: from starting a project to closing a business. This chapter elucidates the country's fiscal system, existing labour practices, property rights regulation peculiarities and other issues vital for running business in this country. Further the report analyses Mining in the country. This key chapter tells about main trends in the industry, identifies key market players (including major producers, traders, etc.), and evaluates trade operations within the sector in the recent years. Related news bulletins update adds the finishing touch to an overview of economic situation in Uganda. Key Topics Covered: 1. UGANDA: COUNTRY PROFILE 1.1. Geographical position 1.2. Historical background 1.3. Demography 1.4. Administrative divisions 1.5. Political situation 1.6. Economic situation 1.7. Foreign relations 1.8. Social environment and culture. Cultural differences and their impact on business negotiations 2. UGANDA: FINANCIAL AND ECONOMICAL PROFILE 2.1. Country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP): historical trends and projection 2.2. Industrial production outlook 2.3. Uganda foreign trade 2.4. Current investment climate 2.5. Labor market overview. Current employment state 2.6. Ratings by major rating agencies 3. PECULIARITIES OF DOING BUSINESS IN UGANDA 3.1. Procedures for starting a business 3.2. Routine for building permits obtaining 3.3. Registration of ownership rights 3.4. Basic terms of providing business loans by banks 3.5. Measures for investments protection 3.6. Tax system 3.7. Foreign trade transactions 3.8. Debt collection 3.9. Business liquidation 4. UGANDA MINING OVERVIEW 5. UGANDA ECONOMY NEWS AND ANALYSIS DIGEST For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7nknts/mining_in_uganda Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com SOURCE Research and Markets LONDON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Panel Sessions Featuring World's Top Marketers Offer Daily Dose of Creative Insight Chief marketing officers from some of the world's most prestigious brands will again debate the place of creativity in today's world of business at the second Wake Up with The Economist event during next week's Cannes Lions festival. The morning panel sessions were a standing room only highlight at last year's festival and offered guests candid conversation and debate from senior marketers representing Dell, Airbnb, Nestle and P&G among others. The 2016 event, which takes place every morning at 10:30 am CET on 20 - 24 June at the Cannes Lions Beach Club, will follow a similar format this year and feature the marketing heads of Merck Consumer Health, P&G, MasterCard, Citi and Unilever among others. Daniel Franklin, Executive Editor at The Economist will again moderate a number of these panel events, which will also feature the return of Jonathan Mildenhall, CMO of Airbnb and a standout guest speaker in 2015. "The Economist is creative every week in its approach to covering the news, but we are also always on the lookout for creativity in others and bring to the fore people and companies who are doing creative things in the arts, business and politics," said Mr. Franklin. "Panellists of Jonathan's calibre help ensure that the Wake Up With The Economist series sets up every attendee with insight for the day." With data analytics now becoming increasingly mainstream, discussion at Wake Up With The Economist this year will also focus on how chief marketers can bring rigour and analysis to the marketing practice and the role of creativity in a world where everything is measured and counted. "Cannes Lions is the de facto capital of creativity for our industry, and a celebration of the best creative work being done around the world," said Paul Rossi, President, The Economist Group media businesses. "The Economist Group works hard to partner with clients and agencies to deliver the most creative ideas possible. In this tradition we invite festival attendees to join The Economist every morning for a mind expanding discussion on how their peers are using creative thinking to tackle the challenges of the future." Marketers heading to the Cannes Lions 2016 festival can register to attend the Wake Up With The Economist events by visiting http://wakeupcannes.economist.com Alternatively social media roundups and video recaps will be uploaded on a daily basis and available from The Economist's YouTube channel https://youtu.be/A8LbKBp1QRw About The Economist (http://www.economist.com) With a growing global circulation and a reputation for insightful analysis and perspective on every aspect of world events, The Economist is one of the most widely recognised and well-read current affairs publications. The paper covers politics, business, science and technology, and books and arts, concluding each week with the obituary. In addition to the web-only content such as blogs, debates and audio/video programmes available on the website, The Economist is available to download for reading on Android, Blackberry PlayBook, iPhone or iPad devices. The Economist Espresso, our daily briefing smartphone app, is also available for download via iTunes App Store or Google Play. SOURCE The Economist WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to a petition which called on the Obama administration "to assist in the liberation of the Azerbaijani provinces occupied by Armenia," the White House stressed the importance of "the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan's control." In its reply, the White House further urged Armenia and Azerbaijan "to demonstrate restraint and enter into an immediate negotiation on a comprehensive settlement," which would include "a determination of Nagorno-Karabakh's status." Elkhan Suleymanov, the President of the Association for Civil Society Development in Azerbaijan who initiated the petition, welcomed the response but expressed disappointment about its "vague and noncommittal language." He pointed out that the United States is one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the mediators also consisting of Russia and France, which has made "no progress towards the liberation of our occupied territories," as the petition stated. "We had hoped for an explicit endorsement by the White House of the recent resolution by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), calling for the immediate withdrawal of Armenia's forces from the occupied territories," Suleymanov said, adding, "sadly, that did not happen." Suleymanov said he appreciated the White House statements that the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh should be returned to Azerbaijan's control and that it is not supporting a separatist solution for Nagorno-Karabakh. "About the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh, we note this may be indeed determined when it comes to the level of local autonomy, as it is for instance the case in many European countries. Nagorno-Karbakh is and will always be part of Azerbaijan." The Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding provinces were occupied by Armenia during the post-Soviet power vacuum. Fighting erupted again in April, resulting in hundreds of casualties. In addition to PACE, the United Nations, European Parliament and the OSCE have all called for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from the Azerbaijani territories. The petition, which received more than triple the number of signatures needed to secure a response from the White House, also called on the Obama administration "to assist in the prevention of a humanitarian catastrophe in the region" because of the dangers posed by the neglected Sarsang dam, which is located in the Armenian-occupied territory. In its response, the White House noted that it will "continue to facilitate discussions related to humanitarian issues" and that technical experts will inspect the dam and water management. SOURCE Azerbaijan Monitor PHILADELPHIA, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Deal Sets the Foundations for a Long-term Strategic and Collaborative Relationship Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced that WuXi AppTec, the world's largest Contract Research Outsourcing (CRO) provider, has adopted Reaxys and Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry. More than 3,500 chemists across WuXi will use the products to support their synthetic chemistry and medicinal chemistry research, giving them quick and easy access to state of the art chemistry information. The deal also supports WuXi's ambitions to expand and move into newer areas, such as medicinal chemistry, and to build strong technology platforms. "As we expand our offerings, our focus is less on point solutions, and more on partnership with providers who can offer complete solutions that support a broad set of needs for our researchers across the organization," said Mr Lucent Lu, VP Procurement of Wuxi Apptec. "Elsevier's ability to provide robust solutions covering an entire spectrum of chemistry and other life science research disciplines made Reaxys a natural fit for us." By extracting and indexing more than 500 million experimental details, the Reaxys platform provides the most robust system for searching published, reviewed data, along with the ability to utilize data in the manner that most suits researchers' workflows and needs. Reaxys, with its recent expansion of chemistry data and capabilities, encompassing content from over 16,000 periodicals, provides the deepest and richest fact-base of experimentally measured chemistry data. Reaxys Medicinal Chemistry offers access to data from a vast repository of peer-reviewed journal articles and patents, and is interoperable with Reaxys. Both solutions also integrate with technology from other vendors, allowing WuXi to incorporate its own data and content. Coupled with the flexibility of its search function and the way results are presented, this will enable chemists to more effectively examine the reactions and relationships between different compounds, supporting WuXi's continued growth in medicinal chemistry, and its novel pharma R&D business. The five-year agreement between Elsevier and WuXi took effect in December 2015, and consists of an unlimited license for both solutions that covers all WuXi sites. Established for over 13 years, WuXi AppTec has operations in both China and the United States, with over 3 million square feet of laboratory and manufacturing space. "In an increasingly competitive market, many pharmaceutical and Life Science organizations employ CRO providers to boost productivity and the success rate of research," said Dr. Guenther Kurapkat, Head of R&D Solutions for Pharma & Life Sciences, Elsevier. "For the providers themselves, productivity is vital. Tools that provide timely access to accurate and relevant data will ensure greater productivity and the success of any research. We value having a well-regarded and global CRO provider as a customer, and look forward to building a foundation for a long-term strategic and collaborative relationship." The Reaxys solutions empower early discovery in drug development with access to over 500 million published experimental facts on compounds, reactions and bioactivity, including structure-activity relationship (SAR) data supporting hit identification, lead optimization and synthesis planning. Find out more about Reaxys. About Elsevier Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions - among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey - and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 35,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a world-leading provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. http://www.elsevier.com Media contact Christopher Capot Director, Corporate Relations, Elsevier +1 917 704 5174 c.capot@elsevier.com SOURCE Elsevier ORLANDO, Fla., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- A Courteous Communications, an answering service located in Orlando, celebrated its 30-year anniversary on June 12th. Their dedicated team of virtual receptionists has been providing the best in class customer service to their clients since 1986, and they accredit this to their success. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/378098 Success From The Start Current president and founder Doris Primicerio started A Courteous Communications in 1986 in a small office located in the heart of Central Florida. When first opening the doors Doris had just one client, a physician's office that still trusts them with their answering services 30 years later, and one virtual receptionist, herself. Over the years her dedication, hard work and wise business ventures have helped her build the largest phone answering service in Florida; top 10% in the USA and was one of the first in her industry to take it global. Over the years, A Courteous grew from a small business answering service to a large corporation providing the best services possible to industries throughout the entire nation. Some of their major clients they have served throughout the years include Walt Disney World, Pepsi, Barnies and Nordstrom. A Dedicated Staff A Courteous Communications has managed to retain a strong team of answering service professionals who are truly dedicated to the success of the company. Many of these team members have been with Doris for over 15 years. This commitment provides for an amazing work atmosphere that feels like a family affair. Their pride in their company and general interest in giving back to their community just solidifies this bond. One of these team members who has been with Doris since the start is Jean Pearson, current VP and partner of A Courteous. Jean has been with the company for over 28 years and has assisted in the growth of the company. Doris considers Jean to be a huge part of her company's success and wouldn't have been able to stay ahead of the pact without her. Doris Primicerio spoke highly of her team: "I want to thank each and every team member for their dedication and loyalty. Their loyalty to and tenure with A Courteous Communications really shows what kind of company culture we have. We aren't just colleagues, we are family. To me, it seems that a company in our industry that has expanded and grown, and continues to do so, for nearly 30 years is a success. Here's to the next 30 years!" If you would like more information about this company, please visit http://courteouscom.com Media Contact: Jean Pearson (407) 896-4800 SOURCE Courteous Communications Related Links http://courteouscom.com NEW ORLEANS, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Abbott (NYSE: ABT) today announced the results of the IMPACT clinical trial, which demonstrated that the FreeStyle Libre system met its primary endpoint of a reduction in time spent in hypoglycemia (low glucose levels, defined as <70 mg/dL1) for people with type 1 diabetes. People in the trial who used Abbott's FreeStyle Libre sensor and reader system spent 38 percent less time in hypoglycemia, as compared to people who managed their glucose with traditional self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) systems (pricking a finger to draw a drop of blood that is added to a test strip inserted into a glucose meter). Data were presented at the American Diabetes Association's 76th Scientific Sessions. Data from the study also showed that the FreeStyle Libre system reduces all measures of hypoglycemia without increasing HbA1c (an average measurement of glucose levels in the blood over the past 90 days, typically understood to be the 'gold standard' of measuring overall glucose control) versus SMBG, showing that the FreeStyle Libre system can safely and successfully replace the need for routine finger sticks2 as a tool for managing diabetes. Traditional self-monitoring of blood glucose among people with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes falls short of U.S., E.U. and other key guidelines that recommend at least 4-8 self-tests per day3, with the consensus that the more testing per day, the better people have an understanding of their glucose levels and can manage their diabetes accordingly. In actuality, data shows that people test less than three times per day4the biggest obstacle being the pain and hassle of routine finger sticks5. But when people with diabetes don't monitor their glucose levels regularly, additional complications including hypoglycemia can become life-threatening. "Hypoglycemia is the main barrier to attaining optimum glucose control in persons with insulin-treated diabetes. Moreover, hypoglycemic events can not only lead to adverse clinical outcomes including cardiovascular events and death, but they can also incur significant emergency healthcare costs," said Prof. Jan Bolinder, MD, FRCPE, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden, and chief investigator for the IMPACT study. "This clinical trial has proven that patients will test more often when they have an easier and more convenient way to do so utilizing a device like FreeStyle Libre, leading them to ultimately being healthier, which is our goal for our patients." Empowering patients with data For the first 14 days of the IMPACT study, the participants wore a FreeStyle Libre sensor but did not have access to their glucose results. During the next period6, when participants had access to their data via the FreeStyle Libre reader, time spent in hypoglycemia7 was reduced by 33 percent within two weeks and was sustained by at least this amount (between 33 percent and 42 percent) throughout the study. Time in range (70-180 mg/dL) was increased by one hour per day versus SMBG. Data from the trial also showed a significant increase in testing frequency with participants scanning their FreeStyle Libre sensors an average of 15 times per day. More scanning led to more access to information about glucose levels, which ultimately led to FreeStyle Libre users being able to take action to significantly reduce their hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia on their own. "The IMPACT trial confirms the importance of empowering people with the data they need to make their own choices," said Jared Watkin, senior vice president, Diabetes Care, Abbott. "We cannot underestimate the power of knowledgeespecially for someone who is managing a chronic condition. Our goal is to help our customers be healthier and live fuller lives, and it's clear from this trial that FreeStyle Libre provides our customers just what they need to do that." Hypoglycemia and HbA1c The FreeStyle Libre system has shown that it reduces time spent in hypoglycemia by 38 percent while also significantly reducing nocturnal hypoglycemia (<70 mg/dL; between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.) by 40 percent. In addition, serious hypoglycemia (<55 mg/dL) was reduced by 50 percent. Throughout the study, results showed FreeStyle Libre users significantly reduced time spent in hypoglycemia without increasing HbA1c, showing that more frequent testing and a complete glycemic profile enables better diabetes management. Conventional wisdom in diabetes care is that reductions in HbA1c are linked with increasing risk of hypoglycemia8traditionally, there is an inverse relationship between risk of severe hypoglycemia (low glucose levels) and HbA1c reduction (an average number). But in this clinical trial, subjects managed to significantly lower their time spent in hypoglycemia without an increase in their HbA1c levels, shifting a paradigm in the understanding of diabetes treatment and management. In addition, those reductions were achieved rapidly with the first unmasked sensor from the start of the trial and were sustained over the six months of the study through continued use of the FreeStyle Libre system. About the study The IMPACT clinical trial is a randomized, controlled six-month trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the FreeStyle Libre system in improving glycemic control for the self-management of type 1 diabetes as compared to self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG). The primary endpoint was a difference in number of hours per day in hypoglycemia (<70 mg/dl) between the group using the FreeStyle Libre system and the group using traditional finger sticks (SMBG) from days 194-208. Two hundred and fifty-two (252) patients over the age of 18 participated in the trial, which took place across 23 sites in Austria, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Germany. Key findings from the trial include (FreeStyle Libre users versus traditional SMBG): 38 percent reduction in time spent in hypoglycemia (<70 mg/dl) 40 percent reduction in time spent in nocturnal hypoglycemia at night ( 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. ) ) 50 percent reduction in serious hypoglycemia (<55 mg/dl) No increase in HbA1c at six months Glucose monitoring increased to an average of 15 scans per day Routine finger sticks2 were nearly eliminatedreduced by 91 percent About the FreeStyle Libre System Abbotts FreeStyle Libre system consists of a small, round sensorapproximately the size of two stacked quartersworn on the back of the upper arm for up to 14 days, which measures glucose every minute in interstitial fluid through a small (5mm long, 0.4mm wide) filament that is inserted just under the skin and held in place with a small adhesive pad. A reader is scanned over the sensor to get a glucose result painlessly9 in less than one second. Each scan displays a real-time glucose result, an eight hour historical trend and the direction the glucose is heading. Unlike other continuous glucose monitoring devices (those that measure glucose levels in real-time throughout the day and night), the FreeStyle Libre system is factory calibratedmeaning that it does not require a finger stick test for calibration, where other continuous glucose monitoring systems might require two or more calibrations per day. In 2014, Abbott launched the FreeStyle Libre system in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and U.K. It is now available in 11 countries in Europe, and recently launched in Australia and Brazil. A professional-use version called FreeStyle Libre Pro utilizes similar technology and is available in India and South Africa. About Abbott Abbott is a global healthcare company devoted to improving life through the development of products and technologies that span the breadth of healthcare. With a portfolio of leading, science-based offerings in diagnostics, medical devices, nutritional and branded generic pharmaceuticals, Abbott serves people in more than 150 countries and employs approximately 74,000 people. Visit Abbott at www.abbott.com and connect with us on Twitter at @AbbottNews. 1ADA (American Diabetes Association), CDA (Canadian Diabetes Association) and EMA (European Medicines Agency) 2 A finger prick test using a blood glucose meter is required during times of rapidly changing glucose levels when interstitial fluid glucose levels may not accurately reflect blood glucose levels or if hypoglycaemia or impending hypoglycaemia is reported by the system or when symptoms do not match the system readings. 3 Schnell O, Alwai H, Battelino T, et al. Consensus statement on self-monitoring of blood glucose in diabetes. A European perspective. Diabetes, Stoffwechsel und Herz, Band 18, 4/2009:3-7 4 Vincze G, Barner JC, Lopez D. Factors associated with adherence to self-monitoring of blood glucose among persons with diabetes. Diabetes Educ. 2004;301(1);112-125. 5 Wagner J, Malachoff C, Abbott G. Invasiveness as a barrier to self-monitoring of blood glucose in diabetes. Diabetes Technolo Ther. 2005; 7(4):612-619. 6 Nominally two weeks between days 15 and 31 7 Time <70mg/dL 8 The effect of intensive treatment of diabetes on the development and progression of long-term complications in insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial Research Group. N Engl J Med. 1993;329(14):977-86. 9 Based on a user study, 100% of patients agree that there is no pain when they check their glucose readings by scanning the FreeStyle Libre sensor. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150928/271488LOGO SOURCE Abbott Related Links http://www.abbott.com ALLEN, Texas, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Simon, a global leader in retail real estate, today launched the expansion of Allen Premium Outlets, one of North Texas' premier shopping destinations. The dramatic expansion is expected to include an estimated 30 new specialty retailers that will be added at the heart of the shopping center near Neiman Marcus Last Call, greatly enhancing the center's experience. The existing center of Allen Premium Outlets will be renovated with new features and amenities including updated seating, a new play area, WiFi service, landscaping and architectural adornments to match the new structures. In addition, a 22-acre plot northeast of the current shopping center has been rezoned to allow for the future inclusion of restaurants and hotels. The acreage will also be home to approximately 1,300 parking spaces to accommodate for an anticipated increase in shopper traffic. "Allen Premium Outlets is a popular destination for the greater Dallas/Ft Worth metroplex's residents and visitors alike, with a collection of over 100 name-brand stores offering an everyday savings of 25 to 65 percent," said Mark J. Silvestri, COO, Simon Premium Outlets. "Simon is proud to continue to enhance our presence in the area with this expansion and we are excited to bring new, high-quality retailers, restaurants and hotels to Allen." Allen Mayor Steve Terrell said, "Allen Premium Outlets put our city on the map as a true shopping destination. Simon has been a great partner since the day the development began, creating jobs, supporting the community and attracting visitors from all over the world. We look forward to their continued investment in Allen with these expanded options." Allen Premium Outlets currently boasts well-known designer and sportswear retailers such as Kate Spade New York, Michael Kors, Nike Factory Store, Polo Ralph Lauren Factory Store, Under Armour and many more. The expansion is expected to be complete by Fall 2017. About Simon Premium Outlets The global Simon Premium Outlets portfolio offers exceptional brands at extraordinary savings through a diverse mix of luxury, designer and popular retailers representing the best in fashion, family and home. Our 87 Simon Premium Outlets in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and South Korea are some of the most iconic and productive shopping destinations for residents and travelers including Woodbury Common (New York City), Orlando, Desert Hills (Palm Springs), Las Vegas and Wrentham Village Premium Outlets (Boston). For more information visit premiumoutlets.com or follow Premium Outlets on Facebook and Twitter. About Simon Simon is a global leader in retail real estate ownership, management and development and an S&P100 company (Simon Property Group, NYSE:SPG). Our industry-leading retail properties and investments across North America, Europe and Asia provide shopping experiences for millions of consumers every day and generate billions in annual retail sales. For more information, visit simon.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150227/178536LOGO SOURCE Simon Related Links http://www.simon.com PUNE, India, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new market research report "Allergy Diagnostics Market by Product (Assay Kits, Instruments (Immunoassay Analyzer, Luminometer), Consumables, Services), by Allergen (Food, Inhaled, Drug), by Tests (In Vivo, In Vitro), by End User (Hospital, Diagnostic Laboratory) - Forecast to 2021", published by MarketsandMarkets, The global market is expected to reach USD 5.34 Billion by 2021 from USD 2.98 Billion in 2016, at a CAGR of 12.4% from 2016 to 2021. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 88 market data Tables with 93 Figures spread through 192 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Allergy Diagnostics Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/allergy-diagnostics-market-232871701.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. The report provides a detailed overview of the major drivers, restraints, challenges, opportunities, current market trends, and strategies impacting the allergy diagnostics market along with the estimates and forecasts of the revenue and market share analysis. The major factors driving the growth of this market are increasing number of allergens and increasing healthcare expenditure worldwide. In this report, the allergy diagnostics market is segmented based on product, allergen, test, end user, and region. The assay kits segment is expected to account for the largest share of the allergy diagnostics products market in 2016. This segment is also projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2016 to 2021, owing to the number of allergic diseases. On the basis of allergen, the allergy diagnostics market is segmented into food allergens, inhaled allergens, drug allergens, and other allergens. The inhaled allergens segment is expected to account for the largest share of this market in 2016, owing to rising CO2 levels in air and the rising prevalence of allergic diseases such as asthma, COPD, and allergic rhinitis. On the basis of end users, the allergy diagnostics market is segmented into diagnostic laboratories, hospitals, academic research institutes, and other end users. The diagnostic laboratories segment is expected to account for the largest share of the global allergy diagnostics market in 2016. Rise in healthcare spending has resulted in the increasing use of allergy diagnostic products in diagnostic laboratories. Geographically, the global allergy diagnostics market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia, and the Rest of the World (RoW). North America is expected to account for the largest share of the market in 2016. Growth in this regional segment is driven by factors such as increase in aging population and increasing pollution due to urbanization. Talk to our Experts: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalyst.asp?id=232871701 Key players in the Allergy Diagnostics Market include bioMerieux SA (France), Danaher Corporation (U.S.), Hitachi Chemical Diagnostics, Inc. (Japan), Siemens AG (Germany), Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.), Stallergenes Greer (France), HOB Biotech Group Co., Ltd (China), HYCOR Biomedical (U.S.), Lincoln Diagnostics, Inc. (U.S.), and Omega Diagnostics Group PLC (U.K.). Browse Related Reports: Immunoassay Market by Technology (ELISA, Fluorescence, Colorimetric, Chemiluminescence, Rapid Test, Western Blot, ELISPOT, PCR), Application (Infectious Disease, Endocrinology, Cardiology, Oncology, Hematology), & End User - Global Forecast to 2019 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/immunoassay-market-436.html Vaccines Market by Technology (Live Attenuated, Toxoid, Conjugate, Subunit, Synthetic, Dendritic Cell, Inactivated), Type (Preventive, Therapeutic), End User (Pediatrics, Adults), Disease Indication (Infectious Disease, Cancer, Allergy) - Forecasts to 2019 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/vaccine-technologies-market-1155.html About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets is the world's No. 2 firm in terms of annually published premium market research reports. Serving 1700 global fortune enterprises with more than 1200 premium studies in a year, M&M is catering to a multitude of clients across 8 different industrial verticals. We specialize in consulting assignments and business research across high growth markets, cutting edge technologies and newer applications. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. M&M's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. The new included chapters on Methodology and Benchmarking presented with high quality analytical infographics in our reports gives complete visibility of how the numbers have been arrived and defend the accuracy of the numbers. We at MarketsandMarkets are inspired to help our clients grow by providing apt business insight with our huge market intelligence repository. Contact: Mr. Rohan Markets and Markets UNIT no 802, Tower no. 7, SEZ Magarpatta city, Hadapsar Pune, Maharashtra 411013, India 1-888-600-6441 Email: [email protected] Visit MarketsandMarkets Blog @ http://mnmblog.org/market-research/healthcare/medical-devices Connect with us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets SOURCE MarketsandMarkets SALT LAKE CITY, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Boart Longyear (www.BoartLongyear.com), the world's leading provider of drilling services, equipment and performance tooling, announced today that Professor Anton Kepic has been appointed to the Boart Longyear Professorial Chair at Curtin University, based in Western Australia. The $1.4 million investment to the university will support high-profile research in exploration geophysics, including the development of advanced instrumentation and the expansion of research capabilities in instrumentation and logging-while-drilling (LWD) technology. "Even in the current down cycle, we recognize the need for research that will advance the long-term knowledge and capabilities of our industry," said Kent Hoots, senior vice president, global products. "Our goal is to invest further in Geological Data Services (GDS) to make geologists, drillers and students smarter. By doing so, they will be able to better analyze drilling data to improve efficiency and reduce costs. We look forward to working with Curtin University, which has an excellent record in exploration geophysics research, and we congratulate Professor Kepic on his appointment." Professor Kepic has been a member of Curtin University's Western Australian Department of Exploration Geophysics for 15 years. He has held a long line of research leadership positions at the university, including Head of Exploration Geophysics, Director of the Centre for High Definition Geophysics, Program and Project Leader in Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Center (DET CRC) and Project Leader in Cooperative Research Center for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO 2 CRC). About Boart Longyear Boart Longyear is the world's leading provider of drilling services, drilling equipment and performance tooling for mining and drilling companies globally. It also has a substantial presence in aftermarket parts and service, energy, mine de-watering, oil sands exploration and production drilling. The Global Drilling Services division operates in over 30 countries for a diverse mining customer base spanning a wide range of commodities, including copper, gold, nickel, zinc, uranium, and other metals and minerals. The Global Products division designs, manufactures and sells drilling equipment, performance tooling, and aftermarket parts and services to customers in over 100 countries. Boart Longyear is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney, Australia. More information about Boart Longyear can be found at www.boartlongyear.com. To get Boart Longyear news direct, visit www.boartlongyear.com/feed. Contact: Monika Portman Director of Product Management, Marketing, and Corporate Communications Phone: +1 801-952-8451 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Boart Longyear Related Links http://www.boartlongyear.com NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Atlantic Trust, the U.S. private wealth management division of CIBC (NYSE: CM) (TSX: CM), today announced that it has moved its Newport Beach office from MacArthur Court to the city's Fashion Island shopping area. The new office, located at 520 Newport Center Drive, provides room for expansion as the firm looks to meet the growing demand for its services and deepen its capabilities in Orange County and surrounding areas. "The primary purpose of our move is to provide additional space for our rapidly growing team," said Andrew J. Lang, CFA, managing director and head of the Newport Beach office. "We also chose the new office for the ease of access it provides for our clients." "Our expanded footprint in Newport Beach allows us to further build upon the great foundation and brand of Atlantic Trust," said Eric B. Propper, CFA, Atlantic Trust President. "The new office follows a period of impressive growth for our firm in the region, and we look forward to further expanding our capabilities on behalf of our clients." Over the last 12 months, the Newport Beach office added three professionals to its team of wealth strategies and investment experts, increasing the number of professionals in that office to nine: Patrick R. O'Day , CFA, CAIA , senior relationship manager and senior vice president , senior relationship manager and senior vice president Martin I. Ortiz , senior client service manager and senior associate , senior client service manager and senior associate Tommy A. Vu , client analyst and associate The growth of the Newport Beach office reflects a similar trend across the firm. Nationally, Atlantic Trust hired 28 professionals in the past year. Additionally, the firm opened a new office in West Palm Beach, Fla., last year and relocated its headquarters office from Midtown Atlanta to the city's Buckhead neighborhood earlier this year as the firm also looks to expand its presence in the Southeast. "We are seeing a significant increase in demand for high-quality, professional wealth advice in key money centersincluding Newport Beachthroughout the United States," says Jack Markwalter, Atlantic Trust chairman and CEO. "We are committed to growing our business and continuing to provide expertise and best-in-class service for our clients and for affluent individuals and families, foundations and endowments in these markets." This year, Atlantic Trust received two awards from Family Wealth Report: Leading individual (multi-family office) to David L. Donabedian , CFA, chief investment officer to , CFA, chief investment officer Multi-family office (client initiative) for the firm's G2G Impact, Women's CIRCLE and internal legacy training initiatives Additionally, the firm was highly commended in the private client investment platform category. Atlantic Trust was also named Best Private Wealth ManagerOverall by Private Asset Management (PAM), a leading financial services trade publication, earlier this year. Disclosure 2016, Family Wealth Report , "Multi-Family Office (Client Initiative)": Atlantic Trust was one of five firms shortlisted and the only firm to receive this award. The award recognizes new initiatives for clients from multi-family offices of any size or reach. Atlantic Trust was one of five firms shortlisted and the only firm to receive this award. The award recognizes new initiatives for clients from multi-family offices of any size or reach. 2016, Family Wealth Report , "Leading Individual (Multi-Family Office)": David Donabedian was one of three candidates shortlisted and the only recipient of this award. The award recognizes an individual working in the private client world. David Donabedian was one of three candidates shortlisted and the only recipient of this award. The award recognizes an individual working in the private client world. 2016, Family Wealth Report, "Private Client Investment Platform" Highly Commended: Atlantic Trust was one of five firms shortlisted for this award and the only firm to be recognized as "highly commended" in this category. The award recognizes investment platforms specializing in servicing the investment needs of the high net worth community. Atlantic Trust was one of five firms shortlisted for this award and the only firm to be recognized as "highly commended" in this category. The award recognizes investment platforms specializing in servicing the investment needs of the high net worth community. 2016, Private Asset Management (PAM), "Best Private Wealth ManagerOverall": PAM annually invites firms to compete for awards in several categories that are reviewed by a panel of independent industry experts. PAM considers the following criteria when selecting the winners of these awards: - Financial progress: Candidates must be able to demonstrate performance track records over the course of the last 12 months. - Growth: Client numbers, internal hires and geographic expansion - Client satisfaction: Provide evidence of client satisfaction - Product innovation: Details of new services and products launched over the course of the year prior to the year the award is given Eight firms were shortlisted for this award. For more information, visit pammagazine.com. About Atlantic Trust Atlantic Trust is one of the nation's leading private wealth management firms, offering integrated wealth management for high net worth individuals, families, foundations and endowments. The firm considers clients' financial, trust, estate planning and philanthropic needs in developing customized asset allocation and investment management strategies. Experienced professionals deliver a broad range of solutions, including proprietary investment offerings and a robust open architecture platform of traditional and alternative managers. The firm has achieved 35 straight quarters of growth coming from clients adding assets to their existing accounts and from new business. Atlantic Trust operates in 13 full-service locations throughout the U.S., with 306 employees nationwide and $26.8 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2016. For more information, visit www.atlantictrust.com. About CIBC CIBC is a leading Canadian-based global financial institution. Through our Retail and Business Banking, Wealth Management and Capital Markets businesses, CIBC provides a full range of financial products to individual, small business, commercial, corporate and institutional clients in Canada and around the world. CIBC acquired Atlantic Trust, a premier U.S. private wealth management firm, in January 2014. You can find other news releases and information about CIBC in our Media Centre on our corporate website at www.cibc.com. SOURCE Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management NEW ORLEANS, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq. and the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") are investigating the proposed sale of Axiall Corporation ("Axiall" or the "Company") (NYSE: AXLL) to Westlake Chemical Corporation (NYSE: WLK). Under the terms of the proposed transaction, shareholders of Axiall will receive only $33.00 in cash for each share of Axiall that they own. KSF is seeking to determine whether this consideration and the process that led to it are adequate, or whether the consideration undervalues the Company. If you believe that this transaction undervalues the Company and/or if you would like to discuss your legal rights regarding the proposed sale, you may, without obligation or cost to you, e-mail or call KSF Managing Partner Lewis S. Kahn ([email protected]) toll free at any time at 855-768-1857. To learn more about KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General, visit www.ksfcounsel.com. Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC 206 Covington St. Madisonville, LA 70447 SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC Related Links http://www.ksfcounsel.com KNOXVILLE, Tenn., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Best Medical Degrees (bestmedicaldegrees.com) has compiled a list of 25 Fastest Online Registered Nurse (RN) to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) Degrees (http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com/rankings/fastest-rn-to-bsn-programs/). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. is experiencing a critical nursing shortage which is expected to worsen over the next ten years as an estimated half a million nurses retire. The growth of open nursing positions in healthcare--predicted to rise to 100,000--is also anticipated due to the increase in patients insured by the Affordable Care Act, as well as the emergence of the aging Baby Boomer population. The salary range for nurses varies depending on education, area of expertise, certification, and licensure. Salaries can range from a median of $66,210 per year to $94,000 for advanced degrees. "For decades, qualifications for nurses focused on diploma nurses or those with Associate Degrees in Nursing," says editor Susan Kemppainen. "However, the field is rapidly changing and more employers are seeking nurses with a minimum of a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN)." Colleges and universities are expanding their degree offerings to accommodate the demand for registered, licensed nurses. There are now many accredited programs that allow already licensed nurses to earn their BSN online while continuing to work. Best Medical Degrees has compiled a list of online RN to BSN programs that may be completed within two years or less. The list was compiled using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American Nursing Association, the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), and rankings by U.S. News and World Report. The 25 Fastest Online RN to BSN Degrees are as follows, in alphabetical order: Arizona State College of Nursing and Health Innovation - Phoenix, AZ Bethel University - St. Paul, MN East Carolina University - Greenville, NC Eastern Kentucky University - Richmond, KY East Tennessee State University - Johnson City, TN Jacksonville University School of Nursing - Jacksonville, FL LaSalle University - Philadelphia, PA Northeastern University Bouve College of Health Sciences - Boston, MA Notre Dame College Online - Euclid, OH Rasmussen College, St. Paul - MN SUNY-Delhi School of Nursing - Delhi, NY Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center - Lubbock, TX The University of Tennessee Chattanooga - Chattanooga, TN University of Central Florida - Orlando, FL University of Cincinnati School of Nursing - Cincinnati, OH University of Illinois - Chicago School of Nursing - Chicago, IL University of Louisiana, LaFayette - LaFayette, LA University of Miami - Miami, FL University of Saint Francis - Fort Wayne, IN University of Saint Mary - Leavenworth, KS University of South Alabama - Mobile, AL University of Southern Indiana - Evansville, IN University of Texas at Arlington - Arlington, TX Villanova College of Nursing - Philadelphia, PA Western Carolina University - Cullowhee, NC BestMedicalDegrees.com is an independent online publication dedicated to providing accurate and useful information for prospective students considering a career in medicine. In addition to medical school profiles, reviews, and rankings, you will find online resource guides for a variety of medical fields, medical career and salary information, as well as interesting and fun articles and infographics on medical related topics. Contact: Susan A. Kemppainen Editor, Best Medical Degrees Email (865)-258-1064 SOURCE Best Medical Degrees Related Links http://www.bestmedicaldegrees.com NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Investment management firm Bluerock Real Estate, LLC announced today that it has tapped Tim Hughes and Jack Wood as Co-Heads of Distribution to lead the Company's sales effort for its managing broker-dealer, Bluerock Capital Markets (BCM). Carla Martin has joined as a Managing Director in the company's Relationship Management group. The hires come as the company undertakes a significant expansion of its distribution initiative. Tim Hughes and Jack Wood will be responsible for accelerating sales growth and product offerings across the company's expanding line of private and public investment products, and will also be tasked with broadening and channelizing Bluerock's distribution teams to support a growing base of independent broker-dealers and Registered Investment Advisors. Carla Martin, as a Managing Director in Bluerock's National Accounts team, will share responsibility for growing the company's broker-dealer partnership network nationwide and for raising awareness of the full scope of Bluerock's offerings among leading institutions. "Tim, Jack and Carla each come to us with extremely successful track records," said Ramin Kamfar, Bluerock CEO and Founder. "Jack and Tim are natural mentors with a deep understanding of the financial services industry and a good pulse on regulatory changes, product innovations and the sales and marketing process. They have helped thousands of advisors achieve their investors' financial objectives. Carla joins us with a tremendous reputation in the industry as well. For nearly 15 years she has built and maintained long-term relationships with some of the most respected broker-dealers in the industry." Bluerock is a leader in the development of investor-friendly FINRA 15-02 and DOL fiduciary rule compliant products in the alternative investment space, offering a portfolio of gold-standard iPERE (institutional private equity real estate) investments including the Total Income+ Real Estate Fund (TIPRX), and non-traded preferred offering for Bluerock Residential Growth REIT which are built to improve both the risk and return profiles of a diversified portfolio, with stable yields, low volatility and solid performance. "With demand for Bluerock's product suite growing, we are focusing actively on engaging talent that can support our clients consistently and well at all levels," Mr. Kamfar said. About Bluerock Bluerock Real Estate is a national real estate investment firm headquartered in Manhattan, founded to provide institutional investments for individual investors. Bluerock principals have over 100 years aggregate experience and have transacted on over 30 million square feet and $10 billion in acquisitions, primarily on behalf of leading U.S. institutional investors. Bluerock's current portfolio consists of approximately 16 million square feet of multifamily, office, and retail properties with over $2 billion of assets under management across the United States. 2016 Bluerock Real Estate, LLC. All rights reserved. SOURCE Bluerock Real Estate, LLC Related Links http://www.bluerockre.com CALGARY, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust ("BEI.UN" TSX) Boardwalk Rental Communities ("Boardwalk", "The Trust") is pleased to advise that all nine of its Communities in Fort McMurray are now open to welcome home its Fort McMurray Residents. No major damages were sustained to any of its Fort McMurray Communities All units have been professionally cleaned to remove any residual smoke and soot Boardwalk will be offering newly furnished suites in Fort McMurray Over the past two weeks, Boardwalk has professionally cleaned all of the common areas and units of its Fort McMurray Communities to remove any residual smoke and soot from the fires. To date, all nine buildings have been completed, and are ready to welcome home its Resident Members. Boardwalk has been in constant contact with its Resident Members providing updates on their homes. Sam Kolias, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Boardwalk REIT commented: "We are so proud of our entire team and all of their efforts to ensure the safety and comfort of our Resident Members. From the courtesy phone calls to each Resident Member, to the immediate cash reimbursement of May's Rent, or to the special rental packages offered to displaced Residents, and by going the extra mile to have all of our homes professionally cleaned, we believe that we continue to offer the best rental communities. Thank you again to all of the first responders, all levels of Government, and the Community for all that they have done to help with the return of Residents in Fort McMurray. Welcome home." Boardwalk will begin offering newly furnished suites in Fort McMurray. Rob Geremia, President of Boardwalk REIT provided the following details: "Through the conversations we have had from our rental inquiries as well as with displaced residents, we often heard requests for furnished units. We believe that a product offering which includes furnishings along with our quality communities and superior customer service may provide a unique housing product and are excited to offer a select number of units fully furnished." Boardwalk's Fort McMurray Portfolio: Boardwalk's Fort McMurray apartment portfolio represents a total of 352 units or approximately 1% of its over 33,000 apartment units across Canada. Working with both Provincial and Municipal agencies, Boardwalk's team has been on location in Fort McMurray since the last week of May to prepare its Communities for re-entry. Boardwalk is pleased to advise that no major damages were sustained to any of its nine Communities, and only localized smoke damage was present in a small portion of its units and common areas. To date, Boardwalk has remediated all of the common areas, and occupied apartment units. We are excited to welcome home all of our existing and new Resident Members. Since the evacuation, Boardwalk had offered a special rental package to any displaced resident of Fort McMurray which has included flexible lease terms, no security deposit, and discounts to rental terms. Boardwalk has opened its doors and welcomed home over 600 families who were evacuated from Fort McMurray. Over 500 families have joined our Edmonton Communities and another 100 families have been welcomed in Boardwalk's Red Deer and Calgary Communities. Boardwalk will continue to work with Municipal and Provincial Agencies to provide housing in this time of need as well as offer special rental packages to displaced Fort McMurray Residents. It is Boardwalk's understanding that any damage caused in excess of the Trust's deductible will be covered by our existing insurance policy. Similar to the Insurance Coverage used in other circumstances such as the 2013 Flooding in Calgary, this includes assessment, restoration, business interruption and income loss. Resident Members are encouraged to contact Boardwalk Customer Service if they have any questions or concerns: Boardwalk Customer Service Contact information: Toll Free Phone: 1-800-310-9255 Email: [email protected] Website/Live Chat: www.bwalk.com About Boardwalk REIT Boardwalk REIT strives to be Canada's friendliest landlord and currently owns and operates more than 200 communities with over 33,000 residential units totaling approximately 28 million net rentable square feet. Boardwalk's principal objectives are to provide its Residents with the best quality communities and superior customer service, while providing Unitholders with sustainable monthly cash distributions, and increase the value of its trust units through selective acquisitions, dispositions, development, and effective management of its residential multi-family communities. Boardwalk REIT is vertically integrated and is Canada's leading owner/operator of multi-family communities with 1,400 Associates bringing Residents home to properties located in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Quebec. Boardwalk REIT's Trust units are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol BEI.UN. Additional information about Boardwalk REIT can be found on the Trust's website at www.BoardwalkREIT.com. SOURCE Boardwalk Real Estate Investment Trust Related Links http://www.bwalk.com WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Brand USA, the destination marketing organization for the United States, in partnership with Explore Minnesota and the Metropolitan Airports Commission, has unveiled a new program called "Market the Welcome" to inspire and welcome international visitors with the Minnesota experience. The program is now live in both terminals at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP). "Brand USA and our partners can provide the most inspirational and compelling storytelling about our country around the world," said Christopher Thompson, Brand USA president and CEO. "That story begins the moment international travelers arrive in the United States where we have the opportunity to extend the spirit of hospitality to and thank our guests for choosing the USA for their travel experience. Explore Minnesota and MSP officials are leaders in recognizing this critical need and will provide a model as we roll out the program around the country." MSP is the third airport in the nation to implement the program as an integral part of Brand USA's new branding and marketing strategies. The program works in support of the country's national goal and airport-specific action plans developed by the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce in response to President Obama's Presidential Memorandum on entry policy in May 2014. The national goal calls for the United States to "provide a best-in-class arrival experience, as compared to our global competitors, to an ever-increasing number of international visitors while maintaining the highest standards of national security." "Tourism supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and generates over $13 billion a year in economic activity in Minnesota alone. There is huge, untapped potential to expand the international tourism market, which will benefit local economies not only in Minnesota, but across the country. In fact, each overseas traveler spends approximately $4,400 when they visit the U.S.," said Senator Amy Klobuchar, chair of the bipartisan Senate Travel and Tourism Caucus. "That's why I've championed efforts to increase tourism to our country, including reauthorizing Brand USA through 2020. The new 'Market the Welcome' campaign at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport will help give an even warmer Minnesota welcome to international visitors to our state." Comprised of welcoming signage and digital displays that showcase high-impact, inspirational imagery of all aspects of the Minnesota experience, the program is designed to provide travelers a warm and seamless arrival experience as they proceed through immigration and passport control and on through international baggage claim and baggage re-check and exit. "For millions of travelers each year, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is their first experience of Minnesota, and for connecting passengers it might be their only experience," said Brian Ryks, executive director and CEO of the Metropolitan Airports Commission. "We want to do all we can to make that experience a positive one and to encourage travelers to use our airport and choose our community when planning their next trip." The Market the Welcome program is designed specifically for gateway airports, offering customized display graphics and templates with welcoming messaging, impactful photography and more all of which is customized to feature local attractions, history, cuisine and personality. It features high-impact signage and digital displays and focuses specifically on the environment inside the federal inspection service areas and international baggage claim prior to clearing customs. "Minnesota has always wished to extend a warm welcome to international travelers. This new program helps strengthen that message to make Minnesota a desirable destination for visitors throughout the globe," said John Edman, director of Explore Minnesota. "The imagery portrays an array of outdoor adventures, cosmopolitan cities and one-of-a-kind attractions that can be found only in Minnesota, inspiring visitors to explore destinations all across the state." Brand USA has a similar program with U.S. embassies in which display graphics, video, photography, and informational travel pieces adorn Consular rooms. This public-private collaboration on the front lines helps improve the visa application experience and showcase a wide breadth of experiences that travelers can have in the United States. In 2014, 75 million international travelers who visited the U.S. spent a record $221 billion on goods and services, with direct support for 1.1 million jobs from international visitor travel-related spending, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Overseas visitors spend approximately $4,300 per trip, stay an average of 17 days, and generate tax revenue in communities across the United States without burdening local services. About Brand USA Brand USA, the destination marketing organization for the United States, was established by the Travel Promotion Act as the nation's first public-private partnership to promote the United States as a premier travel destination and to communicate U.S. visa and entry policies and procedures to worldwide travelers. The organization's mission is to increase international visitation to the USA in order to fuel the U.S. economy and enhance the image of the United States worldwide. Formed as the Corporation for Travel Promotion in 2010, the public-private entity began operations in May 2011 and does business as Brand USA. According to studies by Oxford Economics, over the past three years Brand USA's marketing initiatives helped welcome more than 3 million incremental visitors to the USA, benefiting the U.S. economy with nearly $21 billion in total economic impact, which has supported an average of nearly 50,000 incremental jobs a year. For industry or partner information about Brand USA, visit www.TheBrandUSA.com. For information about exceptional and unexpected travel experiences in the United States, please visit Brand USA's consumer website VisitTheUSA.com (global) or GoUSA.cn (in China). SOURCE Brand USA Related Links http://www.TheBrandUSA.com Background The dispute centers around unclaimed "official checks" held by MoneyGram Payment Systems, Inc. ("MoneyGram"), an entity incorporated in Delaware, with its principal place of business in Texas. MoneyGram has been escheating large amounts attributable to unclaimed official checks to Delaware for years. Based on statements in court pleadings, it appears the official checks may have attributes of money orders or similar instruments, and other attributes of a different nature. When other states where such checks were purchased realized they were not receiving unclaimed funds attributable to these instruments, they conducted an audit and then made demand upon MoneyGram for sums allegedly owed to their respective states. However, when Texas and other states confronted MoneyGram about the funds, MoneyGram indicated it had already escheated the funds in question to Delaware. Estimates regarding how much money may be at stake in the case range from (i) about $160 million for the 21 states that sued Delaware in the U.S. Supreme Court, and (ii) about $400 million if the remaining 28 states were to join such suit and be successful in the suit. Key Legal Issue The key issue in the case is whether the escheatment of "official checks" are governed by the federal priority rules decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in Texas v. New Jersey 1965, or whether they are governed by the more specific "place of purchase" rules enacted by Congress in 1974 as part of the Disposition of Abandoned Money Orders and Traveler's Checks Act. The pertinent part of the 1974 money orders legislation provides that where any sum is payable on a money order, traveler's check, or similar written instrument (other than a third-party bank check), on which a banking or financial organization or business association is directly liable, and if the books and records of that entity show the state in which such instrument was purchased, then the state where the money order, traveler's check, or similar written instrument was purchased "shall be entitled exclusively to escheat or take custody of the sum payable on such instrument, to the extent of that State's power under its own laws to escheat or take custody of such sum." See 12 U.S. Code sec. 2503(1). That issue will turn on whether the federal courts decide that an "official check" is or is not a "similar written instrument" under the 1974 money orders legislation. In light of the high financial stakes in this case, the general upsurge in unclaimed property litigation, and the large amounts of money at issue in many unclaimed property audits, the necessity of an effective unclaimed property compliance program is increasingly important. Holders seeking additional clarification on how unclaimed property matters relate to their specific situations may contact their designated Abandoned and Unclaimed Property (AUP) representative or one of the Ryan contacts below. About Ryan Ryan is an award-winning global tax services firm, with the largest indirect and property tax practices in North America and the seventh largest corporate tax practice in the United States. With global headquarters in Dallas, Texas, the Firm provides a comprehensive range of state, local, federal, and international tax advisory and consulting services on a multi-jurisdictional basis, including audit defense, tax recovery, credits and incentives, tax process improvement and automation, tax appeals, tax compliance, and strategic planning. Ryan is a five-time recipient of the International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America (CSIA) for its commitment to world-class client service. Empowered by the dynamic myRyan work environment, which is widely recognized as the most innovative in the tax services industry, Ryan's multi-disciplinary team of more than 2,100 professionals and associates serves over 12,000 clients in more than 40 countries, including many of the world's most prominent Global 5000 companies. More information about Ryan can be found at ryan.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160125/325377LOGO TECHNICAL INFORMATION CONTACTS: Mark A. Paolillo Principal Ryan 857.288.1976 [email protected] Susan Han Principal Ryan 442.244.2447 [email protected] Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link. Mark Paolillo ProfNet - https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=112034 SOURCE Ryan Related Links http://www.ryan.com Goldsberry, a 1993 graduate, earned her first Tony Award for best performance by an actress in a featured role in the musical "Hamilton," where she played Angelica Schuyler. Goldsberry boasts a multitude of film and stage credits and most recently held a recurring role on CBS' "The Good Wife." She also starred in the 2001 film "All About You." Odom, Jr. took home his first Tony Award for best performance by an actor in a leading role for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in "Hamilton." After making his Broadway debut at the age of 17 in "Rent," he graduated from CMU in 2003 and held recurring roles in numerous television series. "We are very proud of Renee and Leslie for the great work they've done on Broadway and throughout their careers," said Dan J. Martin, dean of CMU's College of Fine Arts. "Thanks to a firm foundation in K-12 arts education and the benefits of Carnegie Mellon's conservatory training, our graduates continue to achieve great things and the Tony Awards are one example of that success." CMU, Tony Awards Honor Theatre Educator Marilyn McCormick During the Tony Awards broadcast on CBS, Carnegie Mellon and the Tony Awards announced that Marilyn G. McCormick, a teacher at Cass Technical High School in Detroit, won the Excellence in Theatre Education Award. She was recognized during the show by another CMU alumnus, Blair Underwood, who introduced McCormick from the audience. The award is the first, national recognition program to honor kindergarten through high-school (K-12) theatre educators who demonstrate a monumental impact on the lives of students and who embody the highest standards of the profession. Nearly 1,200 nominations were received from across the United States for the award. For more information: http://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2016/june/goldsberry-odom-win-tonys.html Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378277 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20020422/CMULOGO SOURCE Carnegie Mellon University Related Links http://www.cmu.edu Cengage Learning's Detroit Collective Impact, a collaboration with McDonald's, Michigan Virtual University, Matrix Human Services and Kinexus, is designed to support the city's recovery from bankruptcy by re-engaging adults with their education. The program provides access to a career credential and accredited high school diploma via Career Online High School (COHS). COHS is accredited by AdvancED/SACS, the accreditor for thousands of schools and districts across the country. Approximately 23% of Detroit residents age 25 and over do not have a high school diploma. "We are truly honored that President Clinton and the CGI America team have recognized our efforts to bring life-changing education opportunities to Detroit residents. This program and others around the country are a testament to the positive impact education can have on an individual and a community. We hope to inspire even more creative public-private collaborations that will open access to workforce training programs for people in need," said Ron Stefanski, Executive Director of Strategic Alliances, Cengage Learning and a Detroit resident. The COHS program typically takes 12-18 months to complete. The Detroit Collective Impact program launched last year with 20 students and recently graduated its first student, who received her entry-level workforce certificate and high school diploma. The goal is to graduate 1,350 disconnected older youth and adults. Partners in the Detroit Collective Impact program include: Matrix Human Services, a Detroit -based nonprofit, social service organization that has been serving the community for 109 years to fight generational poverty. a -based nonprofit, social service organization that has been serving the community for 109 years to fight generational poverty. Michigan Virtual University (MVU), one of the largest and leading nationally recognized supplemental virtual school programs in the country. one of the largest and leading nationally recognized supplemental virtual school programs in the country. McDonald's Corporation, which offers COHS to all eligible employees in corporate and franchise-owned restaurants. Detroit franchisee Errol Service is recruiting participants from among the 1,200 Detroit -area associates who qualify. which offers COHS to all eligible employees in corporate and franchise-owned restaurants. franchisee is recruiting participants from among the 1,200 -area associates who qualify. Kinexus, a Michigan non-profit dedicated to creating economic vitality by connecting business, workforce, and community. COHS was created in 2012 by Cengage Learning and Smart Horizons Career Online Education to provide affordable, career-based online education opportunities for the millions of adults in the United States without high school diplomas. In 2014, the program was adapted for the public library space by Gale, a division of Cengage Learning. Cengage Learning and Smart Horizons also work with several partners to support commitments through the Clinton Global Initiative. Collectively, the program has reached over 11,000 adults. For more information on the Detroit Collective Impact, please visit: https://www.clintonfoundation.org/clinton-global-initiative/commitments/detroit-collective-impact-pathway-education-work To learn more about the COHS program and partnership opportunities, please visit: http://www.careeronlinehs.org/. About Cengage Learning Cengage Learning is a leading educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education and K-12, professional, library and workforce training markets worldwide. The company provides superior content, personalized services and course-driven digital solutions that accelerate student engagement and transform the learning experience. Cengage Learning is headquartered in Boston, MA with an office hub located in San Francisco, CA. Cengage Learning employees reside in nearly 40 different countries with company sales in more than 125 countries around the world. www.cengage.com. About Smart Horizons Career Online Education Smart Horizons Career Online Education, founded in 2009 and located in Pensacola, Florida, is a private, AdvancED/SACS accredited online school district. AdvancED/SACS District accreditation signifies that SHCOE and all of its schools are fully accredited and that SHCOE is recognized across the nation as a quality school system. Smart Horizons Career Online Education offers 18-credit, career-based high school diploma programs that are designed to prepare students for entrance into the workplace. Career certificate offerings include Childcare Education, Office Management, Protection Services, Homeland Security, Transportation Services, Professional Skills, Retail Customer Service Skills, and Food & Customer Service Skills. About Clinton Global Initiative America Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America brings together leaders from the business, philanthropic, nonprofit, and government sectors to develop solutions that encourage economic growth, support long-term competitiveness, and increase social mobility in the United States. CGI America's annual convening is designed to be a working meeting that promotes collaboration. Each CGI America participant makes a Commitment to Action: a new, specific, and measurable plan that supports increased economic growth and opportunity. To date, CGI America participants have made more than 500 commitments, which have improved the lives of nearly 2.4 million people. Media Contact : Kristina Massari Cengage Learning (203) 965-8694 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20070724/NYTU125 SOURCE Cengage Learning Related Links http://www.cengage.com PANAMA CITY, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Copa Holdings, S.A. (NYSE: CPA), today released preliminary passenger traffic statistics for May 2016: Operating Data May May % Change YTD YTD % Change 2016 2015 (YOY) 2016 2015 (YOY) Copa Holdings (Consolidated) ASM (mm) (1) 1,813.4 1,818.2 -0.3% 9,132.9 9,012.4 1.3% RPM (mm) (2) 1,406.3 1,353.4 3.9% 7,047.6 6,793.2 3.7% Load Factor (3) 77.6% 74.4% 3.1p.p 77.2% 75.4% 1.8p.p 1. Available seat miles - represents the aircraft seating capacity multiplied by the number of miles the seats are flown 2. Revenue passenger miles - represents the numbers of miles flown by revenue passengers 3. Load Factor - represents the percentage of aircraft seating capacity that is actually utilized For the month of May 2016, Copa Holdings' system-wide passenger traffic (RPM) increased 3.9% year over year, while capacity decreased 0.3%. As a result, system load factor for May 2016 was 77.6%, a 3.1 percentage point increase when compared to May 2015. Copa Holdings is a leading Latin American provider of passenger and cargo services. The Company, through its operating subsidiaries, provides service to 76 destinations in 31 countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean with one of the youngest and most modern fleets in the industry, consisting of 100 aircraft: 77 Boeing 737NG aircraft and 23 EMBRAER-190s. For more information visit www.copa.com. CPA-G CONTACT: Raul Pascual Panama Director Investor Relations (507) 304-2774 SOURCE Copa Holdings, S.A. Related Links http://www.copa.com SAN DIEGO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Carlsbad based online lender, Dealstruck, was named one of the 2016 Best Places to Work by the San Diego Business Journal. This is the second year in a row that the company has been honored as one of places with the best work environment and employee culture, while contributing to the county's economy. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/378149LOGO Dealstruck is being honored in the medium-sized business (50 - 249 US employees) category and is one of only one hundred companies being recognized. The rigorous review process included evaluations of the company's workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems, and demographics, followed by an extensive employee survey to measure employee experience and satisfaction. The combined scores determined the top companies and the final ranking. The list-making companies will be honored at an awards ceremony on August 11. A special issue of the San Diego Business Journal that profiles the companies selected as the Best Places to Work in San Diego will be published on August 22. For more information on the Best Places to Work in San Diego program, visit www.BestPlacestoWorkSD.com. About Dealstruck Dealstruck is an online direct lender and the first to offer multiple products including flexible term loans and multiple line of credit solutions to small and medium sized business (SMB) owners. With a mission to provide growing SMBs with access to capital that is unique, appropriate and affordable with honesty and transparency, Dealstruck is committed to placing SMBs on a credible path to bankability. For more information, please visit https://www.dealstruck.com/. SOURCE Dealstruck Related Links http://www.dealstruck.com PITTSBURGH, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Donate Life America and UPMC will participate in today's White House Organ Summit, where they will present a first-of-its-kind online community aimed at increasing awareness for living donation a critical effort to reduce waiting lists and save lives. The Living Donor Transplant Facebook page is the first step in creating a social space for patients who have received or are waiting for an organ, living donors, prospective donors, and the public to connect, share stories, and learn more about the option of living donation. The goal of the partnership is to harness the power of social media to reduce the pediatric and adult liver and kidney waiting lists, eradicate pediatric waiting list deaths, and improve access to transplants nationally. "With more than 115,000 Americans waiting for a kidney or liver transplant, it is vital people know about living donation as an option," said David Fleming, president and chief executive officer of Donate Life America, a nonprofit alliance of national organizations and state teams committed to increasing donation. "Living donation offers a key opportunity to save more lives, and we are honored that the White House has chosen to recognize Donate Life America and UPMC's efforts to build a national living donation community through the power of social media." Today, more than 120,000 people are in need of a lifesaving organ transplant including liver, kidney and other organs but last year, there were only 9,000 deceased donors and 6,000 living donors in the U.S. More than 4,000 people died in 2015 waiting for a new kidney, and 3,600 were taken off the waiting list because they became too sick for a transplant. Although 90 percent of Americans say they support organ donation, only 52 percent are registered donors, and even fewer understand the benefits of kidney and liver transplants from living donors. "The transplant field has come a long way over the last 20 years, but the organ shortage has gotten worse," said Abhinav Humar, M.D., UPMC's chief of transplantation. "One of the main reasons living donor transplants haven't taken off is because of a lack of information about the process, what it involves and who can be candidates. This initiative uses social media as a way to disseminate living donor transplant information to more people, which could help alleviate the organ shortage and save countless lives." Donya McCoy knows all too well the power of an individual's social media community and network when it comes to finding a donor. At 3 years old, her daughter Kennedy was diagnosed with a rare metabolic disorder, and doctors believed a liver transplant could correct some of the factors contributing to the disease. Kennedy didn't have a very good chance at securing a deceased donor liver, and living-donor liver transplant was her best option. Due to her rare condition, the donor had to be unrelated. After researching how the living donor transplant process worked on several websites, Ms. McCoy posted what she called the "request of a lifetime" on her Facebook page in July 2014 looking for anyone with O positive blood willing to donate 25 percent of his or her liver to save her daughter's life. Firefighter Mike Thompson, a former classmate, messaged her back and wanted to help. A successful living donor transplant later took place at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Today, Mr. Thompson and Kennedy are doing well. In addition to featuring educational content about living donation, including videos from experts, articles and patient stories, the Living Donor Transplant Facebook page welcomes stories from patients, families and others whose lives have been affected by transplantation. The White House Organ Summit will take place today at 10:30 a.m. EDT, and will be webcast live at www.whitehouse.gov/live. During the Summit, the Administration and private entities will announce a new set of actions to improve outcomes for individuals waiting for organ transplants and improve support for living donors. About UPMC A world-renowned health care provider and insurer, Pittsburgh-based UPMC is inventing new models of patient-centered, cost-effective, accountable care. It provides more than $888 million a year in benefits to its communities, including more care to the region's most vulnerable citizens than any other health care institution. The largest nongovernmental employer in Pennsylvania, UPMC integrates 60,000 employees, more than 20 hospitals, more than 500 doctors' offices and outpatient sites, and a more than 2.9 million-member Insurance Services Division, the largest medical and behavioral health services insurer in western Pennsylvania. Affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences, UPMC ranks No. 13 in the prestigious U.S. News & World Report annual Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals. UPMC Enterprises functions as the innovation and commercialization arm of UPMC while UPMC International provides hands-on health care and management services with partners in 12 countries on four continents. For more information, go to UPMC.com. About Donate Life America Donate Life America is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit alliance of national organizations and Donate Life State Teams across the United States committed to increasing the number of donated organs, eyes and tissue available to save and heal lives. Donate Life America manages and promotes the national brand for donation, Donate LifeSM; manages the National Donate Life Registry, RegisterMe.org; develops and executes effective multi-media donor education programs; motivates the American public to register now as organ, eye and tissue donors; and assists Donate Life State Teams and national partners in facilitating high-performing donor registries. For more information, please visit DonateLife.net. SOURCE UPMC Related Links http://www.UPMC.com SAN FRANCISCO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- DoorDash, the technology company that connects customers with the most local restaurants by offering door to door delivery, today announced its launch in San Antonio, Texas. This announcement marks DoorDash's expansion into 25 major metropolitan markets across the US and Canada to date. Starting today, customers in San Antonio will be able to order from hundreds of restaurants in the area via the DoorDash Android or iOS app or online at doordash.com. At launch, delivery will be available for the special rate of $1, with no order minimums. Fast and fresh delivery will be available in under one hour from local San Antonio favorites, including: Grimaldi's Tarka Indian Kitchen Embers Wood Fire Grill Thai Topaz With today's launch, DoorDash's national delivery partnership with restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen and Taco Bell will also extend to San Antonio. "We're excited to bring DoorDash to San Antonio residents, making delivery simple and affordable for local and national favorites," said Tony Xu, CEO and co-founder of DoorDash. "We're looking forward to working with local restaurants so that more customers than ever can access the San Antonio food and restaurants that they love, from burritos to donuts and everything in between." At launch, delivery will be available in Downtown San Antonio, North Central, the Northwest Side, Alamo Heights, Olmos Park, Hollywood Park, Stone Oak, Leon Valley, Castle Hills, Hill Country Village, Shavano Park and Terrell Hills, with more neighborhoods to be added later this year. To search DoorDash for local hotspots or discover your next go-to, visit doordash.com or download DoorDash for Android or iOS. About DoorDash DoorDash is a Silicon Valley technology company that brings the very best of the city to your doorstep by connecting customers with local businesses. Founded in the summer of 2013, DoorDash empowers business-owners to grow their businesses by offering on-demand delivery, data-driven insights, and better in-store efficiency. By building the on-demand delivery infrastructure for local cities, DoorDash is bringing communities closer, one doorstep at a time. Read more on the DoorDash blog or at www.DoorDash.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/378169LOGO SOURCE DoorDash Related Links http://www.DoorDash.com LONDON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Crossject has developed a deep pipeline of products that are based on its proprietary needle-free injection system, ZENEO, across a variety of indications. The benefits of ZENEO include no need for needles, as well as a simple and quick (~1/10th of a second) delivery of the drug. Its first commercial product, ZENEO Methotrexate for rheumatoid arthritis, should reach the market in 2017. We value the company at 11.96 per share, which is based on the value of four of its nearer-term disclosed programmes. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130417/608168 ) Using a risk-adjusted NPV method valuing Crossject's disclosed nearer-term products (methotrexate, sumatriptan, adrenaline and midazolam), we value the company at 81.1m or 11.96 per basic share. As of 2015 year-end, the company had 5.2m in cash. It expects to receive an additional 3.1m in grants in 2016 and has also recently announced an equity line, which could provide up to ~10m. Between now and projected profitability in 2018, we forecast a total funding need of 15m for all projects. This would be mitigated in part by additional upfront payments from partners, as well as milestone payments on product approvals. Click here to view the full report. All reports published by Edison are available to download free of charge from its website http://www.edisoninvestmentresearch.com. About Edison: Edison is an international equity research firm with a team of over 110 analysts, investment and roadshow professionals and works with both large and smaller capitalised companies, blue chip institutional investors, wealth managers, private equity and corporate finance houses to support their capital markets activity. Edison provides services to more than 420 retained corporate and investor clients from offices in London, New York, Frankfurt, Sydney and Wellington. Edison is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Edison is not an adviser or broker-dealer and does not provide investment advice. Edison's reports are not solicitations to buy or sell any securities. Contact details: Learn more at http://www.edisongroup.com and connect with Edison on: LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/edison-investment-research Twitter http://www.twitter.com/Edison_Inv_Res YouTube http://www.youtube.com/edisonitv Google+ https://plus.google.com/105425025202328783163/posts For more information please contact: Maxim Jacobs Edison Investment Research +1-646-653-7027 Nathaniel Calloway Edison Investment Research +1-646-653-7036 [email protected] SOURCE Edison Investment Research NEW YORK and TORONTO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Exiger, the global regulatory and financial crime, risk and compliance firm, together with Generation Ventures, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, Export Development Canada and Trellis Capital announce an equity investment in RANK Software, a Toronto-based company that is pioneering the use of big data analytics for cyber security solutions. One of the first firms to leverage big data analytics to the cyber security space, RANK's core offering is an enterprise security analytics and visualization platform focused on high velocity, real-time contextual and behavioral analytics and malware analysis. Designed to rapidly detect and prioritize threats across a wide range of Internet-connected applications and devices, the RANK solution provides an unrivaled level of forensic and malware analysis while improving the overall efficiency and accuracy of the monitoring and investigation process. "The future of threat monitoring and investigations of all types will depend on our ability to develop and deploy solutions that combine data science, behavioral analytics, and machine learning to identify and prioritize risk quickly," said Michael Beber, Exiger President and CEO. "RANK has shown that it has both the technological and real-world experience to develop revolutionary solutions that weed out noise and focus critical investigative resources on material threats." Led by a team of technology and data science veterans from Amazon, Blackberry, and Microsoft with extensive experience developing and scaling digital enterprises, RANK has developed industry-specific cyber security solutions tailored for the financial services, healthcare, government, energy and telecom sectors. "In a landscape in which mission-critical services are all reliant upon connections to the Internet, rapid detection and response to cyber intrusion is critical," said Dr. Niranjan Mayya, Founder and CEO of RANK. "We are pleased to partner with such a powerful group of investors who will help catalyze the growth of our solutions not only through their capital investments, but also through their industry expertise and relationships in the risk monitoring and investigations space." Alistair Mitchell, President of Generation Ventures, a Toronto-based venture and growth equity firm, commented: "Mobile, cloud-enabled and Internet of Things are driving an explosion in connected devices, with more than 50 billion devices expected in 2020 compared to 10 billion today. As a result, the surface area for potential attacks will grow 10 times larger in the next five years. Traditional cyber security solutions provide an overwhelming amount of potential intrusion data without context or priority. RANK's application of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize cyber security response by allowing corporations to focus on the highest priority threats." For more information on RANK Software and their investors, please visit their respective websites RANK Software: www.ranksoftwareinc.com Exiger: www.exiger.com Generation Ventures: www.generationcapital.com MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund: www.marsiaf.com Export Development Canada: www.edc.ca Trellis Capital www.trelliscapital.com Contact: John Roderick J. Roderick, Inc. For Exiger 631-584-2200 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378374LOGO SOURCE Exiger Related Links http://www.exiger.com OULU, Finland, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Retired Air Force Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski has the experience, perspective and grit to undo Washington's destructive status quo. That's according to expatriate and Army veteran Jett Pence, who encourages voters to write in Kwiatkowski for president in November, and to advocate vigorously for world peace. Pence has created a Facebook page to serve as an advertisement and launch pad for The Black Widow Peace Party - a fledgling movement for women everywhere who desire world peace today. "I've been writing for many years about what I call 'Congressional Male Violence,'" explains Jett Pence, "and I was searching for the right person to lead a movement to restore sanity and peace. I found that person in Colonel Kwiatkowski. She has all the qualifications to make her the perfect antidote to the patriarchal, militant bureaucracy that seems to have kidnapped our nation. Therefore, I'm asking Americans to wake up, join The Black Widow Peace Party, and write in Kwiatkowski as the first 'female peace president.'" In 2015, the military accounted for slightly more than half of the nation's discretionary spending - to the tune of $598.5 billion. That figure is larger than the next seven largest military budgets put together. The U.S. consistently accounts for more than one-third of the world's military spending. It's this out-of-control spending that Pence wants to see reigned in because, as any economist can explain, all of that spending has to be "applied" to something. And in the case of military spending, that something is war. "Eisenhower warned us of this calamity more than half a century ago, but no one was listening," concludes Pence. "Runaway military budgets have been the norm for so long, that people now sadly take it for granted. We can change that, one vote at a time." Pence picked the retired colonel as the leader of this emerging movement for a number of reasons. First, as a former senior Air Force officer with a PhD in world politics, Kwiatkowski has an insider's understanding of how the military-industrial complex functions. She is also a prolific writer on geopolitics and foreign relations, and has clearly thought long and hard about the issues facing America and the world today. Shortly after Kwiatkowski retired, she courageously blew the whistle on those who were manipulating the government and the nation into attacking Iraq. Pence believes Kwiatkowski could bring much-needed feminine values to Washington - a place that has for decades show the bankruptcy of the masculine way of doing business. For his part, he intends for The Black Widow Peace Party to develop its own inertia; once a core group of women are steering the organization, Pence will step away entirely. His long-term plan is to keep the party's platform in the public eye for as long as he's capable. In addition, Pence will work to promote Kwiatkowski as a write-in candidate prior to each presidential election. About Jett Pence Jett Pence was born in 1943 and served overseas in the U.S. Army from 1963 to 1966. After earning a Master of Science degree in clinical psychology, he worked as a school psychologist for 25 years. A retired expatriate and father of three, Pence has been globetrotting with his Finnish wife for the last seven years. They spend each summer in Finland. Contact: Jett Pence 011.358.44.369.9639 Email SOURCE Jett Pence NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Faithful+Gould is pleased to announce that Mark Collett is joining the firm as a Senior Facilities Accessor. In his new role, Collett will oversee the Facility Condition Assessment (FCA) of 35 facilities amassing approximately 2,100,000 square feet for the San Diego Airport Authority. He will also be supporting projects in Southern California for the City of Los Altos and the City of Commerce. "Faithful+Gould enables me to pursue and build my skills as a building surveyor," said Collett. "I am fortunate for this opportunity and excited to join the team at such an industry-renowned company." Collett brings over 25 years of experience in facility assessment and building surveying to Faithful+Gould. Prior to joining Faithful+Gould, he served as a Senior Consultant at Currie & Brown. Collett's background ranges from advising clients on building repairs to ultimately providing new, refurbished facilities. His most notable project was the preservation and transformation a 150-year-old landmark building into the South Molton Police Station. The project's scope of work included coordinating improvements to building perimeters, structural repairs to walls, stone repairs, roof repairs, improvements to the thermal properties of the building, removal of insensitive additions to the building, repairs to boundary walls and railings and providing level public access to meet with current legislation. Technical Director Dean Leonard said, "Mark has extensive experience, both on the West Coast and abroad, and we are confident he has the skills and abilities to capitalize on Faithful+Gould's services in this market." About Faithful+Gould Faithful+Gould (www.fgould.com) is a world-leading integrated project and program management consultancy. Operating at the forefront of the industry for more than 65 years, Faithful+Gould has approximately 600 employees delivering project and program management consultancy worldwide. With its headquarters located in New York, New York, Faithful+Gould has 60 offices worldwide. Faithful+Gould is a part of Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com), one of the world's leading design, engineering and project management consultancies. SOURCE Faithful+Gould Related Links http://www.fgould.com To mark the occasion, FSP will release a Special-Edition Commemorative 50 th Anniversary Pen, created in a high-gloss black finish, featuring five cycles of the moon engraved in metallic gold. Fisher's 50 th Anniversary Pen was inspired by the artisans who defined the modern mid-century design movement. From the sleek pen profile, to the geometric moon-cycle engraving, to the accented gold finger grip, it was carefully designed to reflect FSP's milestone invention and historic role in space exploration. The Fisher Space Pen was showcased in the hit comedy series Seinfeld, and has become entrenched in the global culture as a symbol of American innovation, quality, reliability and performance, traditions that are synonymous with the American Space Program. As part of its anniversary celebration, the company launched a newly designed website to reflect its image as a family business manufacturing high quality, beautiful, timelessly classic and cool products that are symbols of American technology. "We are very proud to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of my father's groundbreaking invention: The Fisher 'AG-7 Anti-Gravity' Space Pen, used for the first time in space on the Apollo 7 Mission," declared Cary Fisher, President of Fisher Space Pen Company. "We also celebrate the longevity of our company and the enduring power of the Fisher Space Pen as a beloved, Mid-Century Modern product that is consistently recognized for its dependability." Continue reading... Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160611/378204 SOURCE Fisher Space Pen Co. Related Links http://www.spacepen.com ATLANTA, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- College Abacus, a free online tool that helps families easily comparison shop for affordable college options, today announced the release of two first-of-their-kind Spanish-language college search tools: College Abaco, and its Pell Grant-specific partner tool, Pell Abaco. These free online resources make it possible for bilingual Hispanic families to navigate the often complex financial aid process in Spanish, allowing them to calculate and compare their personalized financial aid estimates across 5,600 U.S. colleges in a fully translated format. Abigail Seldin, College Abacus co-founder and vice president of Innovation & Product Management at ECMC Group, unveiled the tools today at the sixth annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America meeting in Atlanta, GA. Of the roughly 17.9 million Hispanic children in the U.S., many come from Spanish speaking families. In fact, the Pew Research Center reports that nearly three-in-four Hispanics over the age of five speak Spanish at home. College Abaco and Pell Abaco were designed to address the language barriers many bilingual families face when evaluating their college options, as well as the tuition "sticker shock" many first generation and minority students experience when considering higher education. In one recent survey of young Latinos who chose not to attend college, nearly three-quarters attributed their decision to financial concerns. "Researching and understanding your college financial aid options is daunting for most people, but it can be especially overwhelming for first generation students and parents who are non-native English speakers," said Seldin. "By launching College Abaco and Pell Abaco, we're making it easier for the tens of millions of Spanish-speaking households in America to not only identify the best schools for their budgets, but navigate the college search process as a family unit." The Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 required all U.S. colleges to publish net price calculators on their websites tools that allow families to calculate personalized tuition estimates after grants and scholarships are subtracted from the total. By allowing families to access the net price calculators of 5,600 U.S. colleges in one place, College Abaco serves as a 'Kayak.com' for college costs, eliminating the need to click through multiple websites and continuously re-enter financial information while also translating that information into Spanish. For low-income Hispanic students likely to be eligible for federal Pell Grants, Pell Abaco streamlines the process even further by asking just one financial question: "Are you eligible for free or reduced lunch?" A recent report by the Education Trust shows roughly half of Latino undergraduates use Pell Grants to pay for college. "From meeting with thousands of Hispanic students and their families this year through ACT's bilingual Parent Academies across the country, I've seen firsthand how urgently we need tools like College Abaco and Pell Abaco to educate them on college affordability," said Juan Garcia, Senior Director for the Advancement of Underserved Learners at ACT. "These resources have the potential to be game changers in helping these families understand true college costs beyond sticker price, and make informed decisions about financing their future educational plans to ensure their upward mobility." College Abaco and Pell Abaco are the first consumer tools to launch with fully integrated Spanish language data from the Obama Administration's College Scorecard, an initiative that Seldin and her team partnered with the White House and U.S. Department of Education on last fall. By pulling data from the College Scorecard API and translating it into Spanish, College Abaco and Pell Abaco package students' individualized tuition estimates with school-specific data on a range of financial factors impacting college choice, such as average alumni earnings, percentage of students with federal loans and average monthly loan repayment rates. After launching the tools at the 2016 CGI America meeting in Atlanta today, Seldin and her team will carry out the Commitment to Action by promoting awareness and adoption of College Abaco and Pell Abaco within the Hispanic community. In addition to ACT, Seldin announced support for the tools from partner organizations including the National College Access Network, Florida College Access Network, College Summit, ECMC Foundation and Latino U College Access. About College Abacus Hailed as one of CNN Money's "Best New Money Ideas" of 2014, College Abacus is a one-stop, secure search site that helps families easily calculate and compare their personalized tuition estimates across roughly 5,600 colleges. Using net price calculators built by U.S. colleges as mandated by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, the tool connects users with school net price calculators in real time. The projected cost of education generated on College Abacus mirrors the same net price estimates students would generate by visiting each school's website individually. College Abacus results also include data from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard. Offered as a free resource by nonprofit education entity ECMC Group, College Abacus is operated out of the Washington, DC based ECMC Innovation Lab. Click here for more information on Pell Abacus. About Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America brings together leaders from the business, philanthropic, nonprofit, and government sectors to develop solutions that encourage economic growth, support long-term competitiveness, and increase social mobility in the United States. CGI America's annual convening is designed to be a working meeting that promotes collaboration. Each CGI America participant makes a Commitment to Action: a new, specific, and measurable plan that supports increased economic growth and opportunity. To date, CGI America participants have made more than 500 commitments, which have improved the lives of nearly 2.4 million people. About ACT ACT is a mission-driven, nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. Headquartered in Iowa City, Iowa, ACT is trusted as the nation's leader in college and career readiness, providing high-quality achievement assessments grounded in more than 50 years of research and experience. To increase participation and opportunity among underserved students, ACT provides free access to ACT Online Prep for students from low income families. ACT offers a uniquely integrated set of solutions that help people succeed from elementary school through career, providing insights that unlock potential. To learn more about ACT, go to www.act.org. SOURCE College Abacus Related Links https://collegeabacus.org SAN FRANCISCO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The global geriatric medicine market is expected to reach over USD 1,017 billion by 2024 according to a new report by Grand View Research Inc. Increase in the global geriatric population is one of the major challenges for the healthcare industry and the governments across the globe, however, it has proven to be a boon for the geriatric medicine market. Grand View Research Logo (PRNewsFoto/Grand View Research_ Inc_) (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150105/723757 ) The high market growth is anticipated on account of the rising prevalence of various target diseases in the geriatric population, the demographic shift, the upward trend in lifestyle-related risk factors, and the significantly improved access to affordable healthcare as well as medicine across the developing and emerging economies. The rising prevalence of the Alzheimer's disease in the geriatric population is expected to serve as a high impact rendering driver for the geriatric medicine market over the forecast period. In 2015, as per the estimates published by the Alzheimer's disease International, nearly 47 million people have dementia and this number is expected to double after every 20 years. Furthermore, as per the estimates published by The Alzheimer's Association, in the U.S., out of the 5.4 million Americans living with the disease, nearly 5.2 million or 96.3% are aged 65 and above. In order to mitigate the concerns arising due to the unfavorable shift in the demographic variables such as age, lifestyle patterns, economic development, coupled with the upward shift in the disease trends associated with the geriatric population, the developed regions have consistently improved their healthcare practices by allocating high amount of resources towards the healthcare and social development sectors. For instance, the U.S., Germany, the UK, and Japan allocate 17.1%, 11.30%,9.10%,10.20%, of their GDP respectively towards healthcare expenditure and majority of these resources are channelized towards developing new drugs, new software, and building technology platforms for hospitals and home health services. Browse full research report with TOC on "Geriatric Medicine Market Analysis By Therapeutic Category (Analgesics, Antihypertensives, Statins, Antidiabetics, Proton Pump Inhibitor, Anticoagulant, Antipsychotic, Antidepressant), by Therapeutic Condition (Cardiovascular, Arthritis, Neurological, Cancer, Osteoporosis, Respiratory) And Segment Forecasts To 2024" at: http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/geriatric-medicine-market Further key findings from the study suggest: In 2015, analgesic medicine accounted for the highest revenue of nearly USD123 billion . The key factors attributed to include the rising prevalence of various types of pains associated with aging. These pains can be categorized as general body pain, post-surgical pain, muscle pain, acute or chronic joint pain, neuropathic pain, and others. . The key factors attributed to include the rising prevalence of various types of pains associated with aging. These pains can be categorized as general body pain, post-surgical pain, muscle pain, acute or chronic joint pain, neuropathic pain, and others. In 2015, North America dominated the geriatric medicine market with a revenue share of over 37% owing to the presence of well-developed social and healthcare sectors, the availability of the latest medicine, and insurance coverage coupled with the presence of a large number of people aged above 60 years. dominated the geriatric medicine market with a revenue share of over 37% owing to the presence of well-developed social and healthcare sectors, the availability of the latest medicine, and insurance coverage coupled with the presence of a large number of people aged above 60 years. Asia Pacific region is anticipated to exhibit the maximum growth rate at a CAGR of over 7% from the year 2016 to 2024. In comparison with the developed regions, the economic burden of the target diseases, the access to healthcare, health insurance and the percentage of public and private healthcare expenditures vary significantly in the Asia Pacific countries. region is anticipated to exhibit the maximum growth rate at a CAGR of over 7% from the year 2016 to 2024. In comparison with the developed regions, the economic burden of the target diseases, the access to healthcare, health insurance and the percentage of public and private healthcare expenditures vary significantly in the countries. The countries such as China and India are expected to witness a significant rise in the elderly population base and this factor in turn is expected to create an upward trend in the geriatric medicine market over the forecast period. and are expected to witness a significant rise in the elderly population base and this factor in turn is expected to create an upward trend in the geriatric medicine market over the forecast period. The market dynamics indicate the presence of strong competition amongst the key players such as Eli Lilly and Company, AstraZeneca plc, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Abbott Laboratories., Sanofi S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck & Company Inc., Novartis AG, Pfizer, Inc., and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. Grand View Research has segmented the geriatric medicine market by therapeutic category, therapeutic condition, and region: Geriatric Medicine Market by therapeutic category (USD Billion, 2016 - 2024) Analgesics Antihypertensives Statins Antidiabetics Proton Pump Inhibitor Anticoagulant Antipsychotics Antidepressants Geriatric Medicine Market by therapeutic condition, by Revenue (USD Billion,2016 - 2024) Cardiovascular diseases Arthritis Neurological Disorders Cancer Osteoporosis Respiratory Geriatric Medicine Market Regional Outlook, by Revenue (USD Billion, 2016 - 2024) North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany UK Asia Pacific Japan China Latin America Brazil Mexico MEA South Africa Browse related reports by Grand View Research: Orthobiological Products Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/orthobiological-products-market Bone Morphogenetic Proteins (BMP) Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/bone-morphogenetic-proteins-market Biotechnology Reagents Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/biotechnology-reagent-market Nuclear Medicines Market - http://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/nuclear-medicines-market About Grand View Research: Grand View Research, Inc. is a U.S. based market research and consulting company, registered in the State of California and headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries, from technology to chemicals, materials and healthcare. Read Our Blogs - legalworkshop.org, grandviewresearch.com/blogs/healthcare Contact: Sherry James Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Grand View Research, Inc Phone: 1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.grandviewresearch.com SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc. ISTANBUL, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Forum for Investor Education (IFIE) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) today opened their eighth annual investor education conference in Istanbul, Turkey, with a focus on the best strategies for improving investor engagement in order to build financial capability. Throughout the conference, titled "Global FC/IE Strategies and Implementation: Meeting Needs and Bridging Gaps," speakers, panelists and practitioners from around the globe will share knowledge, experience and perspectives to make Financial Capability and Investor Education (FC/IE) strategies and programming more successful. The full agenda, including panels, skills workshops and speakers, is available at www.ifie.org/2016conference . This year's programme is oriented towards capacity-building to meet existing and future FC/IE needs by working together across sectors; building bridges and alliances to develop and sustain efforts; highlighting ways to address FC/IE and investor engagement challenges in Growth and Emerging Market jurisdictions as well as in advanced markets; and using in-depth content, case studies, skill-building and problem-solving sessions to help provide implementable information. IOSCO Secretary General Paul Andrews said, "It is critical in today's global world that all stakeholders work together towards greater financial capability and protection of investors. I am very pleased that this conference provides a much needed forum to reinforce and support that to happen in practice." Chairman of IFIE and Vice Chairman of FPD Turkey Alparslan Budak said, "IFIE has come a long way in becoming a global player in the financial education arena. I believe that this conference provides an excellent opportunity to listen to a very good number of speakers, experts from all around the world, with diverse backgrounds and views." Turkish Capital Markets Association (TCMA) Chairman Ilhami Koc said, "The financial crisis triggered demand for investor education around the world. In light of problems that have arisen, we are once again reminded of how important it is for individuals to become financially literate. I believe that the conference will provide an exceptional platform for all stakeholders to discuss challenges in the global arena." Participating experts include: Paul Andrews , secretary general, International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO); , secretary general, International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO); David Boyle , group manager, Investor Education, Commission for Financial Capability (CFFC); , group manager, Investor Education, Commission for Financial Capability (CFFC); Koichi Ishikura , director & chief officer for International Affairs and Research, Japan Securities Dealers Association (JSDA); , director & chief officer for International Affairs and Research, Japan Securities Dealers Association (JSDA); Attila Koksal, chairman of the Financial Education Committee, Turkish Capital Markets Association (TCMA); Khairul Ridzwan Abdul Kuddus, deputy general manager and head of Investor Affairs and Complaints, Securities Commission Malaysia (SC); Noel Maye , chief executive officer, Financial Planning Standards Board Ltd. (FPSB); , chief executive officer, Financial Planning Standards Board Ltd. (FPSB); Douglas Melville , principal ombudsman and chief executive, Channel Islands Financial Ombudsman (CIFO); , principal ombudsman and chief executive, Channel Islands Financial Ombudsman (CIFO); Flore-Anne Messy, head of the Financial Affairs Division and executive secretary of the International Network on Financial Education (INFE), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); Leonardo P. Gomes Pereira , chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), Brazil ; , chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), ; Daniel Pfannemuller, head, Educational Institute and Associate Director, BM&F Bovespa; Olaf Simonse , leader, Money Wise Platform, Ministry of Finance, Netherlands; co-chair, Expert Subgroup on Long-term Savings and Investment, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); , leader, Money Wise Platform, Ministry of Finance, Netherlands; co-chair, Expert Subgroup on Long-term Savings and Investment, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); Jose Alexandre Cavalcanti Vasco , director, Office of Investor Protection and Assistance, Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), Brazil ; , director, Office of Investor Protection and Assistance, Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM), ; Gerri Walsh , senior vice president, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), U.S.; president, FINRA Foundation; , senior vice president, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), U.S.; president, FINRA Foundation; Helen White , head of Financial Capability, The Money Advice Service (UK); and , head of Financial Capability, The Money Advice Service (UK); and Patrick Yu , senior vice president and partner, Head Financial and Professional Services Sector Asia Pacific. Topics on the conference agenda include: Optimizing programmes that help retirement planning and initiatives to mitigate senior investor vulnerabilities; Emerging Fintech trends and impact on investor education programmes and strategies; Addressing financial capability and investor education needs of consumers of financial services that have emerged post global market and economic crises; Media Training; Behavioural economics trends in policy, research and practice; Building investor engagement among young adults and meeting needs of military personnel and their families; and Building and articulating value and return on investment in Financial Capability and Investor Education efforts. The 2016 IFIE/IOSCO conference is sponsored by FINRA (United States), Securities Investor Protection Corporation (United States), CFA Institute (worldwide), ANBIMA (Brazil), TCMA (Turkey), and JSDA (Japan). ABOUT THE GROUPS The International Forum for Investor Education (http://www.ifie.org) is a global membership organization committed to strengthening resources and standards for financial capability and investor education within and across jurisdictions through such initiatives as global conferences; webinars; surveys; a resource clearinghouse; and development and distribution of best practices, implementation strategies, capacity building and leadership support. IFIE also has global regional Chapter networks of members in Asia (IFIE/AFIE), MENA (IFIE/MENA) and the Americas (IFIE/Americas) who work together to develop and implement approaches to regional challenges in financial education, financial capability and investor education. Chapter development in Europe and Africa is underway. The International Organization of Securities Commissions (http://www.iosco.org), founded in 1983, is the international policy forum for securities regulators and is recognized as the international standard-setter for the financial securities sector. The organization's membership regulates more than 95 percent of the world's securities markets in over 115 jurisdictions. IOSCO members have resolved: to cooperate in developing, implementing and promoting adherence to internationally recognised and consistent standards of regulation, oversight and enforcement in order to protect investors, maintain fair, efficient and transparent markets, and seek to address systemic risks; to enhance investor protection and promote investor confidence in the integrity of securities markets, through strengthened information exchange and cooperation in enforcement against misconduct and in supervision of markets and market intermediaries; and to exchange information at both the global and regional levels on their respective experiences in order to assist the development of markets, strengthen market infrastructure and implement appropriate regulation. The mission of the Turkish Capital Markets Association (https://www.tspb.org.tr/about-the-association-2/?lang=en) is to contribute to the development of a community of professionals equipped with high level of expertise who are sincerely committed to ethical values and perceive competition as offering better products and services to investors with the ultimate aim of contributing to the development of the national economy and the capital markets. SOURCE International Forum for Investor Education (IFIE) Related Links http://www.ifie.org The result a new report, Hidden in Plain Sight: Homeless Students in America's Public Schools , written by Civic Enterprises with Hart Research Associates and released today by the GradNation campaign provides insight into how educators, policymakers and community organizations can help more students cope with homelessness, graduate from high school and get on a path to adult success. The report challenges the nation to embrace the goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate for all students, including those experiencing homelessness, and to make the provision of safe housing for homeless students a priority. Key survey findings provide a glimpse into the challenges homeless students face. 78% of young people surveyed say homelessness was something they experienced more than once . of young people surveyed say homelessness was something they experienced . 61% say they were never connected with any outside organization for support while homeless; 87% of those who were connected found the help valuable. say they were never connected with any outside organization for support while homeless; of those who were connected found the help valuable. 67% (approx. two-thirds) say they were uncomfortable talking with people at their school about their housing situation and related challenges. (approx. two-thirds) say they were at their school about their housing situation and related challenges. 62% say proof of residency requirements and 56% say lack of cooperation between their new and old schools posed a major challenge for them while changing schools. say proof of residency requirements and say lack of cooperation between their new and old schools posed a major challenge for them while changing schools. 54% say concrete supports (housing, food, transportation) and emotional supports are equally important. say (housing, food, transportation) are equally important. 50% say they slept in a car, park, abandoned building, bus station or other public place. say they slept in a car, park, abandoned building, bus station or other public place. As a subgroup, homeless students are one of the lowest graduating student populations in the nation -- 42% say they dropped out of school at least once. With student homelessness on the rise, liaisons say resources haven't kept up. 89% say they spend just half of their time or less on their responsibilities as liaisons. say they spend just on their responsibilities as liaisons. They cite key challenges , including lack of funding (78%), lack of time, staff and resources (57%), lack of community awareness (36%), and inability to find safe spaces for homeless students before and after school (30%). , including lack of funding (78%), lack of time, staff and resources (57%), lack of community awareness (36%), and inability to find safe spaces for homeless students before and after school (30%). Nearly 90 percent of liaisons report that they work with unaccompanied youth (not in the custody of a parent or guardian), and fully half of liaisons report that unaccompanied youth present a major challenge when it comes to connecting them to the services and supports they need. "Homelessness is a threat to everything students might want to achieve in their lives, but it doesn't have to be a barrier to success for millions of students," said John M. Bridgeland, president and CEO of Civic Enterprises and a co-author of the report. "Schools, community organizations and caring adults can create a web of support and lifelines to action that will help students experiencing homelessness cope and thrive. "For the long term," Bridgeland continued, "we should aspire to make the provision of safe, affordable housing as common as school breakfast and lunch." ESSA & McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. With the passing of the Every Student Succeeds Act, for the first time ever all states and school districts will be required to report high school graduation rates for homeless students, beginning with the 2016-17 school year. Currently only five states report high school graduation rates for homeless students - Colorado, Kansas, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming. In all five states, graduation rates for homeless students lag well behind rates for all students, even other low-income students. "Given all the challenges they face, homeless students graduate from high school at significantly lower rates than their peers," said Erin S. Ingram, policy advisor at Civic Enterprises and a co-author of the report. "Achieving their high school diploma is a critical step toward breaking the cycle of poverty and homelessness for these students, and we must ensure they have the right supports to meet that goal." Effective October 1, 2016, the new ESSA amendments will strengthen the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, a federal law that provides key educational protections and funding to help states and school districts identify and support homeless children and youth. Students and school liaisons call for changes. The majority of students surveyed said they needed: Concrete supports, including housing, food, clothing, before and after school programs, school supplies, transportation, academic support, help with college preparation. Caring adults, someone to talk to or check in with for emotional support. Opportunities to connect with other students and maintain friendships. The majority of school liaisons surveyed called for more efforts to: Raise public awareness of the problem. Train all school staff to help identify and support homeless students (think not only teachers and counselors, but bus drivers and cafeteria workers). Half of the homeless students who participated in this study said they had to change schools while homeless, many of them multiple times. Both liaisons and students spoke about the need to ease paperwork challenges that make re-enrollment difficult. Policy recommendations. Among the report's key recommendations: 1) Work to ensure that the ESSA amendments on identifying and serving homeless students in the McKinney-Vento Act and Title I part A are fully implemented in states, schools and districts. 2) Focus on outreach efforts to inform homeless students and families of their rights and raise community awareness. 3) Ensure that schools have the resources to actively engage with homeless students to help them stay in school. 4) Build connections between community organizations and schools and connect homeless students to those outside supports. 5) Set community and national goals around outcomes and graduation rates for homeless students and use data to drive progress. 6) Increase efforts to provide more affordable housing. "Schools offer a significant opportunity for early intervention and outright prevention of student homelessness, but they must be properly supported," said Tricia Raikes, co-founder of the Raikes Foundation, lead sponsor of the report. "We all have a role in thisfrom federal and state policymakers to leaders within our local schools, nonprofits and businesses. We must all join with students themselves to ensure that every young person has the safe, stable home needed to thrive." The Road to 90. The GradNation campaign led by America's Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and the Alliance for Excellent Education - set a bold goal to reach a 90 percent on-time high school graduation rate by the Class of 2020 and that goal is in sight as the graduation rate hit a new record high of 82.3 percent. While students of color, low-income students and students with disabilities are key drivers of the national graduation rate, this report recognizes that other subgroups like homeless students will be important to meeting the campaign goal as well and may require different kinds of support. "The goal of a 90 percent graduation rate won't be reached if we leave certain subgroups behind," said John Gomperts, president and CEO of America's Promise Alliance. "We must do more to help homeless students cope with the adversity in their lives and continue their educations. In today's economy, a high school diploma doesn't guarantee success, but the lack of a diploma consigns a young person to almost certain failure." Authors and sponsors. Hidden in Plain Sight was written by a team of researchers at Civic Enterprises, a public policy and strategy firm, in association with Hart Research Associates. The study was released by the GradNation campaign, and funded by the Raikes Foundation, with additional funding support from Casey Family Programs, the Kresge Foundation, the Polk Brothers Foundation, and State Farm. Full report. To read the full report, access graphics, and other resources, visit: www.GradNation.org/homeless. Civic Enterprises is a public policy and strategy firm that helps corporations, nonprofits, foundations, universities and governments develop and spearhead innovative public policies to strengthen our communities and country. Created to enlist the private, public and nonprofit sectors to help address our nation's toughest problems, Civic Enterprises fashions new initiatives and strategies that achieve measurable results in the fields of education, civic engagement, economic mobility, and many other domestic policy issues. www.civicenterprises.net Hart Research Associates is one of the leading research firms in the United States and has been at the cutting edge of change in public opinion since its founding in 1971. www.HartResearch.com GradNation is a national campaign of individuals, organizations and communities focused on raising the national on-time high school graduation rate to 90 percent by the Class of 2020 and increasing college enrollment and completion. The campaign is led by America's Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and the Alliance for Excellent Education. www.GradNation.org MEDIA CONTACTS: Kathleen McMahon Civic Enterprises 703-868-6981 [email protected] Daria L. Hall America's Promise Alliance 202.657.0621 [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160612/378245 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160612/378243 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160612/378244LOGO SOURCE America's Promise Alliance Related Links http://www.americaspromise.org DALLAS and SAN FRANCISCO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- TSSP, a leading special situations investment platform, and Hunt Oil Company, a privately held oil and gas exploration and production company, today announced an agreement to develop certain of Hunt Oil's assets in the Midland Basin in Texas. The development area covers approximately 18,000 net acres across Martin, Glasscock, Midland and Upton counties. Under the agreement, TSSP has committed up to $400 million to fund the development which is expected to take approximately three years to deploy. Additional terms were not disclosed. "Hunt Oil Company is pleased to partner with TSSP in the Midland Basin," said Travis Armayor, Senior Vice President for Hunt Oil Company. "This partnership will provide strategic capital to efficiently develop a premier asset position in a world-class basin. We look forward to working with a well-respected capital provider such as TSSP to deliver solid results from these assets." Matt Dillard, a TSSP partner said, "Hunt Oil has a proven track record in safe, profitable and successful operations from its founding in East Texas to its assets around the world. We are very excited to partner with their strong team to provide strategic capital in a key, low-cost basin. We expect this agreement to generate significant value for both parties and look forward to deploying capital in the region over the coming years." Jefferies LLC acted as sole financial advisor and Baker Botts LLP acted as legal advisor to Hunt in this transaction. Kirkland & Ellis acted as legal advisor to TSSP. About Hunt Oil Company Hunt Oil Company is one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, operating both domestically and internationally. With more than 80 years of leadership in the exploration and production industry, Hunt Oil Company found its original success in the East Texas oil fields. Today, the company is actively engaged in exploration and production activities in North America, South America, Europe and the Middle East. The company has drilled wells on every continent except Antarctica. About TSSP TSSP is the global credit and special situations platform of TPG. Co-founded in 2009 by Chief Investment Officer Alan Waxman, TSSP has approximately $19 billion in assets under management. TSSP has a long-term oriented, highly flexible capital base that allows it to invest across industries, geographies, capital structures and asset classes, in distressed assets but also healthy and growth companies. TSSP's investments are typically complex to source, analyze and execute. For more information, please visit www.tpg.com/platforms/tssp. SOURCE TSSP Related Links http://www.tpg.com/platforms/tssp NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- New Age TechSci Research Logo (PRNewsFoto/New Age TechSci Research) The power sector of India is expected to grow in coming years on account of increasing demand of electricity from the end consumers. The increasing demand of electricity will result in development of new power generating stations. To ensure sustainable development the government has taken certain measures that will help in offsetting the harmful emissions from conventional methods of power generation. The development of solar power systems is one of the major step towards sustainable development of the country. India has got rich potential for solar generation having around 300 sunny days in a year making it rich destination for solar power generators. There is a huge opportunity in the country to tap the solar potential and reduce the use of conventional fossil fuel. There has been increasing awareness among the end consumers of electricity regarding the environmental issues which has led to development of clean energy technologies. The installation of solar power systems at the rooftop of office buildings, residential apartments, community centres, government buildings will result in huge upsurge in the market of rooftop solar business in India. Apart from that the reduction in price of solar panels will lead to increase in solar rooftop installation in the country. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 ) India Solar Rooftop Market: Drivers and Restraints The increasing focus on clean energy development mechanism supported by policy initiatives of the government are major drivers for solar rooftop market in the country. The renewable purchase obligation for power utilities companies, bulk consumers of electricity, etc. will result in installation of solar plants in the country to ensure adequate supply to the obligated entities. The viability gap funding of renewable energy projects will provide a big impetus to the rooftop solar projects because the monetary support from government will increase the economic value of the projects. The major hurdle in development of rooftop solar projects is the lack of proper energy storage technology. The solar power is an intermittent source of energy and it is generated during the day time when solar irradiations are high. The power generated must be consumed as soon as possible because the existing battery technologies have limited capacity in terms of energy storage. India Solar Rooftop Market: Segmentation The India rooftop market is segmented on the basis of Connectivity, End-Users and Region Based on Connectivity, the India rooftop solar market is segmented into the following: On-Grid Connectivity Off-Grid Connectivity Based on End-Users, the global gas genset market is segmented into the following: Industrial Commercial Residential India Solar Rooftop Market: Overview The Solar Rooftop Market in India is anticipated to grow at a steady rate during 2016-2021, on account of increasing focus of the government on clean energy generation. The government of India has set an ambitious target of 100 GW of solar power addition in the country which includes 40 GW of rooftop solar. The net metering policy of the government will provide a big thrust to the rooftop solar business in the country. The provision of exporting the extra power generated from the solar plants to grid is a big boost for rooftop owners in the country. The increasing pollution from fossil fuel is a one of the major reason for the government to focus on development of renewable energy in the country. The coal based power generation results in huge amount of green-house gases emissions which cause adverse effect on the atmosphere. In order to increase the penetration of clean energy in the energy mix of the country, solar rooftop can be very beneficial. India Solar Rooftop Market: Region-wise Outlook At present, Northern India is the leading region in solar rooftop market in India, followed by Southern, Western and Eastern India. States such as Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, etc. are rich in solar resources because they receive long and intensive sunny days. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has fixed ambitious targets for capacity addition in solar rooftop segment and Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan have highest target of capacity addition in the rooftop solar installation by the end of 2022. India Solar Rooftop Genset Market: Key Players Key players in the Solar Rooftop Market in India include Tata Power Solar, Moser Baer Solar Group, Vikram Solar Pvt Ltd, Titan Energy Systems Ltd, ACME, Selco Solar Light Pvt Ltd, etc. The report covers exhaustive analysis on: Market Size Market Segmentation Innovations and Technological Advancements Market Dynamics (Market Drivers & Challenges) Market Trends & Developments Competition & Companies involved "India Solar Rooftop Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021" has analyzed the potential of the solar rooftop market in India and provides statistics and information on market sizes, shares and trends. The report will suffice in providing the intending clients with cutting-edge market intelligence and help them in taking sound investment decisions. Besides, the report also identifies and analyses the emerging trends along with essential drivers and key challenges faced by the industry. Report Highlights: India Solar Rooftop Market Size, Share & Forecast Segmental Analysis - By Connectivity, End-User, Region & Company Market Dynamics Market Attractiveness Index Changing Market Trends & Emerging Opportunities Competitive Landscape & Strategic Recommendations About TechSci Research TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends. Contact: Mr. Ken Mathews 708 Third Avenue, Manhattan, NY, New York - 10017 Tel: +1-646-360-1656 Email: [email protected] Connect with us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/TechSciResearch Connect with us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/techsci-research SOURCE TechSci Research INDIANAPOLIS, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Indie Boards and Cards, a California-based publisher of board games and Indiana-based Action Phase Games proudly announce the pending merger of the two companies and key personnel into a single games publishing behemoth. Going forward, the teams will work together on releasing new games mostly under the Indie Boards and Cards imprint. The Action Phase Games brand will continue as the imprint for the successful Heroes Wanted line of games and other select projects. As both companies use PSI (Publisher Services International) to handle Hobby and Mass-Market distributor relationships, there will be no changes to the retailer terms and conditions for either product line as a result of this merger. "Having experienced tremendous growth over the past seven years, Indie Boards and Cards was at a critical point," said Travis Worthington, CEO of Indie Boards and Cards. "I just couldn't keep up with our existing business and continue to grow the company without bringing on a very talented group of game designers and developers. Travis R. Chance and Nick Little are excellent additions, with a proven track record of making great games and providing great convention coverage and customer support. Together we are going to be unstoppable!" "I am very excited to be working within Indie Boards and Cards," said Travis R. Chance, Director of Product Development & Marketing at Indie Boards and Cards. "We now have access to financial resources and market reach that we never had before and are looking to expand the number and quality of games we release each year. Ever since the news of merger discussions started to spread, we've been seeing a lot more game designs from both established and first time game designers." "There are a lot of games and design concepts that have been sitting on the back burner at both Indie Boards and Cards and Action Phase Games that we'll be able to work on now that I am able to focus on board game development full time," said Nick Little, Director of Product Development & Manufacturing at Indie Boards and Cards. "I also look forward to working the convention circuit with Travis & Travis to find the gaming world's next big blockbuster hit." Indie Boards and Cards will continue to operate out of Oakland, California and have a regional office in Indianapolis, Indiana. Indie Boards and Cards will have a major presence at the Origins, GenCon and Essen conventions later this year. About Indie Boards and Cards Indie Boards and Cards started in 2009 with the hand-made release of 100 copies of Triumvirate. Over the years, we have had the good fortune to work with many great game designers, illustrators, graphic designers, manufacturers, foreign publishers and thousands of retailers to expand beyond our humble beginnings. By focusing on the simple motto of "Making games that people enjoy playing," Indie Boards and Cards has become a multi-million dollar business with over one million games sold. Indie Boards and Cards best known titles include The Resistance, Coup and Flash Point Fire Rescue. This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com SOURCE Indie Boards and Cards Related Links http://www.indieboardsandcards.com/ HARRISBURG, Pa., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Medical blogger Gus Geraci MD is consulting clinical adviser at the Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED). Prior to joining PAMED, Dr. Geraci worked for multiple different health care entities, including health systems, insurers, and health care vendors. In this Quality and Value blog, he writes about three components to burnout and several ways physicians can approach those components to find balance and increase happiness. We entered into medicine mostly because we wanted to help people with yet-to-be-acquired knowledge, skills, and experience. We survived the rigors of pre-med, competing against the best and brightest to pass the first hurdle, getting into medical school. We then absorbed the knowledge of thousands of pages of books, and the experience and skills of our older more experienced future colleagues, enduring incredibly long hours and tremendous amounts of work through medical school, then residency in our chosen future profession within the house of medicine. None of us thought the work would ever go away, but we hoped that as time, maturity, and position increased, the tremendous burden of training would be converted to a lesser burden to using that training for good. The goal was to finally use the hard won training, skills, and always growing experience to help. Many of us are there, practicing, having finally achieved the goal of being able to use the skills for good. Then why are so many of us burned out, or close to it. To read the entire blog, visit https://www.pamedsoc.org/tools-you-can-use/topics/quality-and-value-blog/BlogMay1116 To learn more about PAMED, visit its web site at www.pamedsoc.org or follow on Twitter @PAMEDSociety. Members of the media are encouraged to follow Chuck Moran on Twitter @ChuckMoran7. SOURCE Pennsylvania Medical Society Related Links http://www.pamedsoc.org NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Strong tire manufacturing base coupled with growing demand for small and mini passenger cars to drive Japan tire market through 2021 New Age TechSci Research Logo (PRNewsFoto/New Age TechSci Research) According to recently released TechSci Research report, "Japan Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021", tire market in Japan is anticipated to cross $ 32 billion by 2021, on account of consistent growth in passenger car production and sales, expanding automobile fleet and emergence of new technologies leading to the development of fuel-efficient and green tires. In addition to various leading automobile manufacturers, the country is home to four major tire manufacturing companies, namely Bridgestone Corporation, Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Toyo Tire & Rubber Company and Yokohama Rubber Company. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140117/663730 ) Browse 24 market data Tables and 32 Figures spread through 118 Pages and an in-depth TOC on "Japan Tire Market " http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/japan-tire-market-forecast-and-opportunities-2021/695.html Japan is one the largest global automotive markets, with around 23 tire manufacturing facilities operating in the country and availability of more than 25 major tire brands. During 2011-2015, the production of passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, medium & heavy commercial vehicles & two-wheelers in the country cumulatively grew at a CAGR of more than 2%, which contributed to the growth of tire market in Japan. Owing to increasing automobile production coupled with expanding fleet size, the demand for tires, from both replacement as well as OEM market, is expected to increase at a robust pace over the next five years. Download Sample Report @ http://www.techsciresearch.com/sample-report.aspx?cid=695 Customers can also request for 10% free customization on this report. In 2015, passenger car tire segment dominated the Japan tire market, and the segment is anticipated to maintain its dominance over the next five years as well on account of increasing popularity of electric and hybrid cars. Kanto region registered majority of the demand for tires in Japan in 2015. Some of the major companies operating in Japan tire market include Bridgestone, Sumitomo, Yokohoma and Toyo, among others. "Backed by increasing disposable income and growing urbanization coupled with surging investments in the country's automotive sector, Japan automotive industry is expected to grow at a robust pace over the next five years. With around 115 million internet users in the country, the market leaders are realigning their business strategies in order to expand their customer base. E-retailing provides customers with advantages such as fast delivery period, brand comparison, lower price as compared to the offline tyre outlets; and these factors are attracting an increasing number of consumers towards opting for online purchase of tires., said Mr. Karan Chechi, Research Director with TechSci Research, a research based global management consulting firm. "Japan Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021" has evaluated the future growth potential of tyre market in Japan, and provides statistics and information on market structure, imports and trends. The report is intended to provide cutting-edge market intelligence and help decision makers take sound investment evaluation. Besides, the report also identifies and analyzes emerging trends along with essential drivers, challenges and opportunities available in Japan tyre market. Browse Related Reports Global OTR Tire Market By Vehicle Type (Mining, Construction and Industrial Equipment, Agriculture Vehicles, and Others), By Demand Category (OEM Vs. Replacement), By Region, Competition Forecast and Opportunities, 2011 - 2021 http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/global-otr-tire-market-by-vehicle-type-mining-construction-and-industrial-equipment-agriculture-vehicles-and-others-by-demand-category-oem-vs-replacement-by-region-competition-forecast-and-opportunities-2011-2021/637.html China Tyre Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020 http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/china-tyre-market-forecast-and-opportunities-2020/105.html India Tire Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2021 http://www.techsciresearch.com/report/india-tire-market-forecast-opportunities-2021/672.html About TechSci Research TechSci Research is a leading global market research firm publishing premium market research reports. Serving 700 global clients with more than 600 premium market research studies, TechSci Research is serving clients across 11 different industrial verticals. TechSci Research specializes in research based consulting assignments in high growth and emerging markets, leading technologies and niche applications. Our workforce of more than 100 fulltime Analysts and Consultants employing innovative research solutions and tracking global and country specific high growth markets helps TechSci clients to lead rather than follow market trends. Contact Mr. Ken Mathews 708 Third Avenue, Manhattan, NY, New York - 10017 Tel: +1-646-360-1656 Email: [email protected] Connect with us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/TechSciResearch Connect with us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/techsci-research SOURCE TechSci Research CINCINNATI, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) today announced that Kroger Technology has been named to Computerworld's Top 100 Best Places to Work in IT for 2016. This is the first time Kroger's technology department has been named to this annual list. Kroger ranks #45 among large organizations. Also today, Kroger Technology also launched a new website, www.kroger.com/livekt/, designed to connect with and recruit top talent from around the world to join the growing and innovative company. "We are thrilled that Kroger Technology has been named one of Computerworld's Best Places to Work," said Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO. "One of the things that makes Kroger Technology such a great place to work is that it provides an opportunity to directly improve the lives of more than 8.5 million customers every day whether they are ordering online, visiting our stores, or engaging with our mobile app." Kroger Technology employs nearly 2500 associates and contractors throughout the United States and around the globe. Kroger Technology is responsible for industry-leading new tools like ClickList Kroger's order online, pick up at the store service, mobile app innovations like personalized shopping lists and store maps to locate products, and money-saving digital coupons powered by the company's proprietary technology and personalization platforms. "The Computerworld Best Places to Work in IT recognition emphasizes the welcoming, innovative culture we strive for," said Chris Hjelm, Kroger's executive vice president and CIO. "Kroger Technology is committed to exceeding customer expectations, investing in quality, and creating innovative solutions that are changing the way we connect with customers." Mr. Hjelm was named to the list of Computerworld Premier 100 Technology Leaders for 2016. The Best Places to Work in Information Technology (IT) list is an annual ranking of the top 100 work environments for technology professionals by IDG's Computerworld. The list is compiled based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, career development, training and retention. In addition, Computerworld conducts extensive surveys of IT workers, and their responses factor heavily in determining the rankings. More information is available at: www.computerworld.com/category/bestplaces2016. Every day, the Kroger Family of Companies makes a difference in the lives of eight and a half million customers and 431,000 associates who shop or serve in 2,778 retail food stores under a variety of local banner names in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Kroger and its subsidiaries operate an expanding ClickList offering a personalized, order online, pick up at the store service in addition to our 2,231 pharmacies, 784 convenience stores, 323 fine jewelry stores, 1,387 supermarket fuel centers and 38 food production plants in the United States. Kroger is recognized as one of America's most generous companies for its support of more than 100 Feeding America food bank partners, breast cancer research and awareness, the military and their families, and more than 145,000 community organizations including schools. A leader in supplier diversity, Kroger is a proud member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150408/197347LOGO SOURCE The Kroger Co. Related Links http://www.kroger.com PHILADELPHIA, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lannett Company, Inc. (NYSE: LCI) today announced that it has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of its Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for Neomycin Sulfate Tablets USP, 500 mg, the therapeutic equivalent to the reference listed drug, Neomycin Sulfate Tablets USP, 500 mg, of Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. According to IMS, total U.S. sales in 2015 of Neomycin Sulfate Tablets USP, 500 mg, at Average Wholesale Price (AWP) were approximately $3 million. "The approval for Neomycin Sulfate Tablets expands our portfolio of anti-infective and antibiotic products and represents our fifth approval in 2016," said Arthur Bedrosian, chief executive officer of Lannett. "We expect to commence marketing the product in the next several months, adding to our positive momentum as we enter the coming fiscal year." About Lannett Company, Inc.: Lannett Company, founded in 1942, develops, manufactures, packages, markets and distributes generic pharmaceutical products for a wide range of medical indications. For more information, visit the company's website at www.lannett.com. This news release contains certain statements of a forward-looking nature relating to future events or future business performance. Any such statement, including, but not limited to, successfully commercializing Neomycin Sulfate Tablets USP, 500 mg, whether expressed or implied, is subject to market and other conditions, and subject to risks and uncertainties which can cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors which include, but are not limited to, the risk factors discussed in the Company's Form 10-K and other documents filed with the SEC from time to time, including the prospectus supplement related to the proposed offering to be filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements represent the Company's judgment as of the date of this news release. The Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Contact: Robert Jaffe Robert Jaffe Co., LLC (424) 288-4098 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150417/199461LOGO SOURCE Lannett Company, Inc. Related Links http://www.lannett.com Since her arrival in the United States, Natalia has positioned herself as a local star, and in a short period of time has become an exemplar in television. The mayor of Miami, Tomas Regalado, gave her the key to the city because of her altruistic and journalistic work, plus accolades for her support for foundations for children with autism. She also received a "Premio Carteles," which is granted to the best of Miami's radio and TV, thanks to her social and humanitarian journalism with the program "Corazones Guerreros." Denegri has had an impressive trajectory as an actress and host for more than 15 years in Argentina, Mexico and the United States. On the radio, she was nominated for the Faro de Oro in Mar del Plata. In Mexico, she participated in several fashion shows and was in commercials. She was also on the show "Otro Rollo," with Adal Ramones. Later, she was on the program "Angel o Demonio," on channel TVA, a magazine with news, fashion, and interviews of politicians and celebrities. She was also on the show "Solo Polo," which was aired by Channel 13. She was invited to host the Movie Festival in Mexico with actor Gabriel Soto for two consecutive years. She was honored as an actress with the award "Actriz Revelacion" in the first Muestra Internacional de Cine Independiente (MICI 2012) in Mexico. In 2015 she received the AIPE award for the magazine dedicated to "sassy" women. She is about to film the movie UMA in Europe, with director Alain Maiki as the protagonist, with an international cast of actors that includes Argentines, Venezuelans, Italians and Spaniards. In the movie, Natalia brings Doctor Vega, a brilliant neurology specialist with an enigmatic personality, to life. For interviews: Conchita Oliva- [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160603/375216 SOURCE Latin Iconos The Sohar desalination plant will produce 250 million liters of water per day and serve approximately 800,000 local Oman residents. The plant was designed by Valoriza Agua, one of the leading water technology companies in Spain which boasts a portfolio of more than 100 water treatment plants throughout Spain, Portugal, Algeria, Tunisia, Middle East, Brazil, Australia and Chile. "We are extremely honored to have been chosen by Valoriza Agua, a leader in desalination, as the membrane supplier for the Sohar plant," said Mr. Chul Nam, vice president of LG Chem. "This is a significant project for LG Chem and it is a true testament to the hard work and effort of our sales and operations teams to deliver the highest quality membrane products worldwide." Since LG Chem's acquisition of Los Angeles-based NanoH2O in May 2014, the company's product portfolio has rapidly expanded to include high rejection brackish water RO (BWRO) membranes, anti-fouling BWRO and residential RO membranes. LG Water Solutions is a business unit of LG Chem and boasts approximately twenty sales offices worldwide and almost one thousand installations across the globe. For more information on LG Chem's full line of NanoH2O reverse osmosis membranes, visit the company's website at: www.LGwatersolutions.com About LG Water Solutions LG Water Solutions, part of LG Chem, Ltd., manufactures the full line of NanoH 2 O seawater, brackish water and residential reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. Based on breakthrough nanostructured materials and industry-proven polymer technology, LG Chem's unique NanoH 2 O membrane formulation dramatically improves system efficiency and productivity. LG Chem's full line of NanoH 2 O RO membranes are Standard 61 and 58 certified by NSF International for the production of drinking water. These membranes are available in industry-standard element configurations that fit easily into new and existing RO systems, purifying water from a broad range of sources with improved productivity and water quality. LG Water Solutions is headquartered in Seoul and is part of LG Chem, Ltd. For more information, visit www.LGwatersolutions.com About LG Chem LG Chem, Ltd. is a globally diversified chemical company which operates three main business units: Basic Materials & Chemicals, IT & Electronic Materials, and Energy Solution. The chemical business manufactures a wide range of products, from petrochemical goods to high-value added plastics. It also extends its chemical expertise into high-tech areas such as electronic materials, water desalination and rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and ESS. For more information, please visit the LG Chem website at www.lgchem.com Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378345 SOURCE LG Water Solutions Related Links http://www.lgchem.com CHESTERFIELD, United Kingdom, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mallinckrodt plc (NYSE: MNK), a leading global specialty biopharmaceutical company, today announced it has submitted an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for Synacthen Depot to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The company will pursue an indication for the drug in treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Synacthen Depot is a depot formulation of Synacthen (tetracosactide), a synthetic 24 amino acid melanocortin receptor agonist. Synacthen Depot is approved and marketed outside of the U.S. for certain autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, but has never been approved for use in patients in the U.S. Mallinckrodt has invested substantially in the research program, including completing the pre-clinical work necessary to support its IND application filing, and in transferring and updating manufacturing processes for the product. Mallinckrodt remains committed to bringing this treatment option to patients suffering from this disease, and to working closely with the FDA. "This IND filing is a critical step toward FDA approval of Synacthen Depot in the U.S. and a significant milestone for our organization," said Steven Romano, M.D., Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer. "Mallinckrodt is committed to investing in reaching underserved patient populations with medicines that provide effective treatment in areas of high unmet medical need. We believe Synacthen Depot may have potential to offer physicians and patients a new alternative for this devastating disease that has very few existing treatment options." Mallinckrodt's recent progress with Synacthen Depot exemplifies the company's commitment to innovation, and the company expects continued significant R&D investments in Synacthen Depot as this development program progresses. About Duchenne Muscular Distrophy Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic disorder characterized by progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. It is one of nine types of muscular dystrophy. DMD is caused by an absence of dystrophin, a protein that helps keep muscle cells intact. Symptom onset is in early childhood, usually between ages 3 and 5. The disease primarily affects boys, but in rare cases it can affect girls. Symptoms include muscle weakness, which can begin as early as age 3, first affecting the muscles of the hips, pelvic area, thighs and shoulders, and later the skeletal (voluntary) muscles in the arms, legs and trunk.[1] About Mallinckrodt Mallinckrodt is a global business that develops, manufactures, markets and distributes specialty pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical products and therapies, as well as nuclear imaging products. Areas of focus include autoimmune and rare diseases in specialty areas like neurology, rheumatology, nephrology and pulmonology; immunotherapy and neonatal respiratory critical care therapies; analgesics and hemostasis products; and central nervous system drugs. The company's core strengths include the acquisition and management of highly regulated raw materials and specialized chemistry, formulation and manufacturing capabilities. The company's Specialty Brands segment includes branded medicines; its Specialty Generics segment includes specialty generic drugs, active pharmaceutical ingredients and external manufacturing; and the Nuclear Imaging segment includes nuclear imaging agents. To learn more about Mallinckrodt, visit www.mallinckrodt.com . Mallinckrodt uses its website as a channel of distribution of important company information, such as press releases, investor presentations and other financial information. It also uses its website to expedite public access to time-critical information regarding the company in advance of or in lieu of distributing a press release or a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosing the same information. Therefore, investors should look to the Investor Relations page of the website for important and time-critical information. Visitors to the website can also register to receive automatic e-mail and other notifications alerting them when new information is made available on the Investor Relations page of the website. CONTACTS Investor Relations Coleman N. Lannum, CFA Senior Vice President, Investor Strategy and IRO 314-654-6649 [email protected] Media Rhonda Sciarra Senior Communications Manager 314-654-8618 [email protected] Meredith Fischer Senior Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs 314-654-3318 [email protected] [1] https://www.mda.org/disease/duchenne-muscular-dystrophy (Accessed June 3, 2016) SOURCE Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals Related Links http://www.mallinckrodt.com Research, Design and Development Key to Growth and Success for One of World's Most Respected Brands of Infant Products PURCHASE, N.Y., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MAM, a manufacturer of award-winning, innovative and unique baby products including pacifiers and baby bottles, this year celebrates its 40-year anniversary. From its beginnings in 1976 as a small company in Vienna, Austria, MAM has grown into a leading global brand in five continents with more than 50 million products sold annually in 60 countries. "We understand and love babies. For the past 40 years our top priority has been the development of products for the well-being, safety and health of babies that make life easier for parents and allow them to focus on the joy of family," said Jennifer Mitchell, CEO, MAM North America. "We are proud of our heritage and will remain committed to developing products that unify design, technological innovation and medical know-how. In commemorating this special 40 year milestone, we also celebrate our MAM parents and thank them for helping to make MAM the trusted and admired brand it is today." MAM was founded by Austrian plastics engineer Peter Rohrig, whose unique insight developed the idea of creating baby products that combined attractive, innovative design with proven medical benefits. The company sold its first pacifier in 1976 and today 40 years later is firmly established as the world's leading authority on the design of baby products. In addition to pacifiers and baby bottles, MAM's product offerings have evolved over the years to include related accessories as well as bottles, cups, teething and oral care products. A market leader for pacifiers in the U.S. and across the globe, one MAM product is sold somewhere in the world every second. There are 370 different pacifier designs in the MAM range and each production employee finishes over 1,000 products daily. Based in Austria with production plants in Hungary and Thailand, MAM puts a strong emphasis on ethical business practices and meticulous quality. With a commitment to produce only 100% safe, top-quality products for babies and young children, extensive testing is carried out to ensure product safety and reliability. MAM pacifiers are subjected to 40 different testing methods. Their bottles must also pass 28 separate tests. The company is also a key member of eight international scientific and standardization committees. All MAM products are researched and developed in partnership with relevant professionals, from orthodontic specialists to midwives and pediatricians and with extensive market research among consumers. MAM currently cooperates with more than 20 medical partners worldwide and has conducted studies involving nearly 40,000 consumers in 15 countries over the past 5 years. MAM products have won numerous International awards including two prestigious Red Dot design awards in the last four years. The Red Dot Awards recognize the most exceptional examples of design and are recognized as a quality seal worldwide. Giving back has and always will be a core value of MAM. Since its founding, MAM has supported mothers in need and their children through various projects around the world. This includes an initiative for refugee aid with the donation of more than 16,000 MAM products to 30 different organizations and a partnership with [email protected], a campaign of the United Nations Foundation where MAM helped support efforts to provide thousands of pneumonia vaccines to children in developing countries. MAM also proudly supports military organizations including Operation Shower and Operation Homefront providing products for these organization's baby showers to help ease the stresses military families have during deployment. About MAM standard setting baby products MAM combines technological innovation, medical function and contemporary design to develop superior baby care products that support a baby's development from day one. Since MAM developed its first pacifier in Vienna in 1976, it has evolved to become a global authority on baby care product design and quality. Today MAM products are used by families in over 60 countries and in five continents. To find out more and view MAM's baby care range of award-winning pacifiers, bottles, cups, teethers, oral care items, coordinating accessories and gift sets visit www.mambaby.com. Follow MAM: Facebook: facebook.com/MAMbabyUSA Twitter: @MAMBABY Pinterest: Pinterest.com/MAMUSA http://instagram.com/Mam_usa Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/378058LOGO SOURCE MAM GENEVA, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mercuria Energy Trading S.A ("Mercuria" or the "Company"), announced today it closed its USD 2.2 Billion Multicurrency Revolving Credit Facilities (the "Facilities"). The Facilities launched at USD 2.1 Billion, and as a result of strong support closed oversubscribed by almost 25 percent. ABN AMRO Bank N.V. ("ABN AMRO"), Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank SA ("CA CIB"), Credit Suisse AG, Industrial Commercial Bank of China Limited London Branch ("ICBC"), ING Bank N.V. ("ING"), Natixis, Cooperatieve Rabobank U.A. ("Rabobank"), The Royal Bank of Scotland PLC ("RBS"), Societe Generale ("SG CIB"), Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation ("SMBC") and UniCredit Bank AG ("UniCredit") are the "Bookrunning Mandated Lead Arrangers". Bank of America Merrill Lynch International Limited, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, DBS Bank Ltd., London Branch, Deutsche Bank AG, Amsterdam Branch, Emirates NBD PJSC, London Branch, Mizuho Bank, Ltd. and National Bank of Abu Dhabi PJSC, London Branch joined as Mandated Lead Arrangers. The Facilities comprise a 364 day Multicurrency Revolving Credit Facility, a 364 day Multicurrency Revolving Credit Facility/Swingline and a 3 year Revolving Credit Facility. All Facilities include a 364 day extension option, and will be used for general corporate purposes and working capital. The Facilities were launched at USD 2.1 Billion on 15th April and a bank meeting held in London on 18th April. Following strong demand from banks, the Facilities were significantly oversubscribed by more than 25 percent, and subsequently increased to USD 2.2 Billion in aggregate with Mercuria choosing to scale back lenders' participations. "This strong outcome represents a tremendous enthusiasm from our banking partners. Thirty-nine geographically diverse banks committed to the Facilities. This includes a large group of top level BMLA and MLA banks" said Guillaume Vermersch, Group Chief Financial Officer of Mercuria. "These Facilities, which Mercuria chose to scale back, reflect Mercuria's sustained business growth boosted by the recent strategic investment by China National Chemical Corporation, and the funding will be utilized to support the Group's continued expansion. The strength of the syndicate demonstrates the continued confidence of our financial partners in Mercuria's business model. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our banking group." The following banks joined the Bookrunning Mandated Lead Arrangers and Mandated Lead Arrangers in general syndication: Arrangers Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ First Gulf Bank HSH Nordbank Nedbank UBS Co-Arrangers Banco do Brasil Commerzbank Hang Seng Bank KfW IPEX Bank Lloyds Bank Raiffeisen Bank International Scotiabank Sumitomo Trust and Banking Corp. Zurcher Kantonalbank Managers Bank Leumi Banque Cantonale de Geneve Banque Cantonale Vaudoise Banque de Commerce et de Placements DZ Bank Garanti Bank Union de Banques Arabes et Francaises About Mercuria Founded in 2004, Mercuria is one of the world's largest independent energy and commodities trading group. Mercuria supplies products from areas of surplus to areas of need, and optimizes the commodity supply chain for its counterparts. The Company's operations span five continents and engage more than fifty countries with principal commercial hubs in Geneva, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, London and Houston. More than 1,000 people operate from offices worldwide to sustain the group's extensive business reach with their market knowledge, diversity, and experience. The group, primarily focused on energy, is present all along the commodity value chain with activities forming a balanced combination of commodity flows and strategic assets. Mercuria is a leader in the trading of physical energy products ranging from crude oil, refined petroleum products, petrochemicals, natural gas, LPG, power, emissions, and coal. Mercuria is also active in iron ore and metals/concentrates. Worldwide, their activities range from sourcing, supplying, trading, and financing to investment, logistics storage and blending. In 2016, Mercuria welcomed the strategic investment by China National Chemical Corporation ("ChemChina"), in addition to the investment by China Materials Storage and Transportation Development ("CMST") into the Henry Bath warehousing business. www.mercuria.com SOURCE Mercuria Energy Trading S.A. Related Links http://www.mercuria.com SAN DIEGO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Millennium Health, a leading health solutions company, today announced the appointment of Michael Keane as chief financial officer. Keane will report directly to Chairman of the Board and CEO Ronald A. Rittenmeyer. Keane brings more than 20 years of experience as a senior financial executive to Millennium Health, having worked for a variety of publicly traded and privately held technology-based companies, including those in the late venture capital stage and in the Fortune 150. "We are pleased to welcome Mike to Millennium Health at this time. He brings a unique blend of skills that makes him well-suited to meet our current and future business needs. Mike has been advising the company for several months and is integrated into all aspects of our operations," said Ronald Rittenmeyer, chief executive officer of Millennium Health. "I would also like to thank Tim Kennedy for the contributions he made to the company during his three-year tenure, including the successful financial restructuring last year." Most recently, Keane was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Genomatica, a leading industrial biotechnology company. Prior to that, he served as executive vice president, chief financial officer and board member at wind energy company Clipper Windpower, Inc., which sold to United Technologies Corporation. Keane previously held chief financial officer and executive positions with Computer Sciences Corporation, UNOVA, Inc., Western Atlas Inc., and Litton Industries after beginning his professional career as a certified public accountant for Price Waterhouse. Keane holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from Illinois State University and a master's degree from the University of California at Los Angeles' Anderson Graduate School of Management. Keane was inducted into the Illinois State University College of Business Hall of Fame in 2011. He is a member of the Financial Executives Institute and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. About Millennium Health Millennium Health is a leading health solutions company that aims to get more from medicines by delivering accurate, timely, clinically actionable information to inform treatment decisions. The company believes that everyone has the right to the safest and most effective treatments, and aims to deliver on that idea by providing clinicians and payers with personalized medication intelligence through our comprehensive suite of services including RxAnte's population drug therapy management platforms, Millennium PGTSM and Millennium UDTSM, that can be used to better tailor patient care. More information can be found at www.millenniumhealth.com. SOURCE Millennium Health Related Links http://www.millenniumhealth.com LOS ANGELES, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Mindshare, the media agency network that is part of WPP, has appointed Cheryl Idell to run its West Coast operations. Idell joins from Nielsen where she most recently held the role of EVP Client Solutions leading the Disney relationship. She brings with her a wealth of performance, research, client side and agency experience, having previously held senior roles at 20th Century Fox, IAG Research (now Nielsen TV Brand Effect) and Initiative Media, where she was EVP, Chief Strategic and Research Officer. Idell will be based in Los Angeles and will also have responsibility for the Portland and newly launched San Francisco operations, covering clients including Lionsgate, Nike, BBVA, and Nordstrom and 150 employees. Mindshare San Francisco was launched earlier this year to harness the speed and culture of Silicon Valley partners, technologies and platforms at the center of Internet of Things and new disruptive models. Nick Emery, Global CEO Mindshare said: "We are delighted that someone with Cheryl's experience is joining our U.S. team to take the helm from Adam Gerhart and continue the growth of our West Coast operations. She brings with her a fantastic heritage in performance and has worked on all sides of the equation and understands what clients want and how to deliver that." Ernie Simon, Mindshare North America CEO said: "Cheryl is a world-class talent with a unique background encompassing client side, research, insights and analytics and is a true thought leader in our industry. We're thrilled that she is joining our team to help bring to life the adaptive marketing approach for our clients." Cheryl Idell, West Coast Lead, Mindshare U.S. said: '"I'm energized to re-enter the agency world at a time when the convergence of big data and consumer insights are critical in developing media strategies for successful business outcomes for advertisers. Joining the Mindshare team with its incredible breadth of resources and dynamic client base is the perfect opportunity for me to use the varied skill set I've developed throughout my career." The appointment follows the recent restructure of the North American leadership team that saw LA office lead Adam Gerhart assume the role of CEO Mindshare U.S. Additionally, it signals the growth of the West Coast operation that has seen the opening of a San Francisco office as well as the LA office's relocation to a new campus in Playa Vista, as well as a 27 percent increase in employees including a fourfold expansion of its analytics team. For further information please contact: Greg Brooks, Global Marketing Director, Mindshare Worldwide on: +44 (0)7826 869312 or [email protected] About Mindshare: Mindshare is a global media agency network with billings in excess of US$34.5 billion (source: RECMA). The network consists of more than 7,000 employees, in 116 offices across 86 countries spread throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Each office is dedicated to forging competitive marketing advantage for businesses and their brands based on the values of speed, teamwork and provocation. Mindshare is part of GroupM, which oversees the media investment management sector for WPP, the world's leading communications services group. Visit us at www.mindshareworld.com and follow us on Twitter @mindshare and facebook.com/mindshare and LinkedIn.com/company/mindshare. About GroupM: GroupM is the leading global media investment management operation serving as the parent company to WPP media agencies including Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom, and Maxus, each global operations in their own right with leading market positions. GroupM's primary purpose is to maximize performance of WPP's media agencies by operating as leader and collaborator in trading, content creation, sports, digital, finance, proprietary tool development and other business-critical capabilities. GroupM's focus is to deliver unrivaled marketplace advantage to its clients, stakeholders and people. Discover more about GroupM at www.groupm.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378623LOGO SOURCE Mindshare Related Links http://www.mindshareworld.com WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The public is invited to a free talk called "The Juno Mission to Jupiter," presented by John (Jack) Connerney, at the Mary Pickford Theater (3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.) on Thursday, June 23, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT. Connerney is an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He is the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Juno Mission, and lead for the magnetometer investigation. The Juno spacecraft, launched in 2011 and arriving at Jupiter on July 4, 2016, will orbit the planet for about 18 months to study the origin and evolution of Jupiter and deepen our understanding of the solar system's beginnings. "Juno is the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter from pole-to-pole, racing across Jupiter's cloud tops at unprecedented speed, and ducking below the most hazardous radiation belts in the solar system, truly going where no spacecraft has gone before," said Connerney. "I can't wait to see what we'll find there." Juno will unlock many of Jupiter's secrets: Measuring the abundance of water in Jupiter's atmosphere, a critical test of planet formation theory; Peering beneath the clouds to measure composition, temperature, and fluid motions in the deep interior; Mapping Jupiter's magnetic and gravity fields, revealing the planet's deep structure; Exploring Jupiter's magnetosphere from a unique vantage point above the gas giant's poles, traversing the auroral ovals Jupiter's northern and southern lights providing new insights about the planet's enormous magnetosphere and powerful aurorae. The Library of Congress maintains one of the largest and most diverse collections of scientific and technical information in the world. The Science, Technology and Business Division provides reference and bibliographic services and develops the general collections of the library in all areas of science, technology, business and economics. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/. The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world and holds nearly 151.8 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The library serves Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov. For inquiries about this or upcoming talks at the Library of Congress, the public can contact the LOC Science, Technology and Business Division at 202-707-5664. ADA accommodations should be requested five business days in advance at 202-707-6382 (voice/tty) or [email protected]. The lecture will be later broadcast on the library's webcast page and YouTube channel "Topics in Science" playlist. For more information visit: http://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/ For directions, visit: http://www.loc.gov/visit/maps-and-floor-plans/ For information about the Juno mission, visit: www.nasa.gov/juno Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO SOURCE NASA Related Links http://www.nasa.gov REDWOOD CITY, Calif., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Nevro Corp. (NYSE: NVRO), a global medical device company that is providing innovative evidence-based solutions for the treatment of chronic pain, today announced the closing of its previously announced offering, registered under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, of $172.5 million aggregate principal amount of 1.75% convertible senior notes due 2021, which included the exercise in full of the underwriters' over-allotment option to purchase additional notes. J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley acted as joint book-running managers for the offering. Leerink Partners and JMP Securities acted as co-managers. Nevro intends to use a portion of the net proceeds from this offering to fund the net cost of convertible note hedge and warrant transactions entered into in connection with this offering. Additionally, Nevro intends to use approximately $21.0 million of the net proceeds to repay in full an existing term loan agreement, including the associated closing and repayment fees, with Capital Royalty Partners and certain of its affiliates. Nevro intends to use any remaining proceeds for general corporate purposes, which may include continuing commercialization of its Senza spinal cord stimulation system, funding research and development and increasing working capital. The notes were issued pursuant to an effective registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 6, 2016. The offering of the convertible notes was made only by means of a prospectus supplement and a related prospectus, which Nevro has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Copies of the final prospectus supplement relating to the offering may be obtained, when available, from J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Attention: Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, or by telephone at (866) 803-9204, or from Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, New York 10014, or by telephone at (866) 718-1649, or by emailing [email protected]. Copies of the prospectus supplement may also be obtained by visiting EDGAR on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov. This press release does not and shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any notes or common stock, nor shall there be any sale of notes or common stock in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction. Any offer, if made at all, will be made only by means of a prospectus supplement and an accompanying prospectus. About Nevro Headquartered in Redwood City, California, Nevro is a global medical device company focused on providing innovative products that improve the quality of life of patients suffering from debilitating chronic pain. Nevro has developed and commercialized the Senza spinal cord stimulation (SCS) system, an evidence-based neuromodulation platform for the treatment of chronic pain. The Senza system is the only SCS system that delivers Nevro's proprietary HF10 therapy. Senza, HF10, Nevro and the Nevro logo are trademarks of Nevro. Investor Relations Contact: Nevro Investor Relations Katherine Bock (650) 433-3247 [email protected] SOURCE Nevro Corp. Related Links http://www.nevro.com Noninvasive ventilation (NIV) therapy is used to treat breathing difficulties, often caused by obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), or neuromuscular disorders such as muscular dystrophy. While adult mask options have evolved in the past several years to become smaller, lighter and less obtrusive, pediatric masks have, until now, remained largely the samebulky and cumbersome. "There have traditionally been few mask options for pediatric patients using NIV, making it difficult in some cases for young children to adopt therapy," said Teofilo Lee-Chiong, M.D., Chief Medical Liaison, Philips. "Philips designed this new mask with the child in mindpairing the functionality and comfort of adult masks with child-friendly materials. With its giraffe print fabric and an animated character that helps to engage children, therapy might be less intimidating for the tiniest patients." Designed specifically for kids The Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask is designed to support one of the most vulnerable populations of patients, and has a variety of unique features to help patients and their parents adjust to therapy. Key features and resources of the Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask include: Kid-Friendly Theme The Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask has a fun, child-friendly giraffe print and soft, fabric materials. The Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask has a fun, child-friendly giraffe print and soft, fabric materials. Caregiver Resources Caregivers have access to demonstration videos to help them use the mask, while children can enjoy a fantasy world featuring Philips' cartoon character Jacky Giraffe. Jacky, who interacts with his friends Sami the Seal and Tucker the Turtle, provides a playful theme that is designed to help a child ease into therapy. Caregivers have access to demonstration videos to help them use the mask, while children can enjoy a fantasy world featuring Philips' cartoon character Jacky Giraffe. Jacky, who interacts with his friends Sami the Seal and Tucker the Turtle, provides a playful theme that is designed to help a child ease into therapy. Leak Correction Dial The innovative Leak Correction Dial on the mask enables caregivers to fix small leaks without disturbing a child's sleep. The innovative Leak Correction Dial on the mask enables caregivers to fix small leaks without disturbing a child's sleep. An Infant-Centric Design Children tend to have low or no nose bridges as opposed to adults. With this in mind, the Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask has three cushion sizes designed to fit infants weighing 22 pounds to age 7, with a shape created specifically to fit the curvature of an infant's face and nose. As the latest addition to the Wisp family of masks, the Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask may help to smooth transition across care settingsfrom the hospital to the home and as the child ages, providing continuity of care with the full line of masks. The Wisp mask line includes the Wisp Minimal Contact Nasal Mask, which was introduced in 2012 by Philips, as well as the Wisp Youth Mask that Philips introduced in 2014 to begin serving older children and teenagers. The Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask will be available in the U.S. and Europe in the second half of 2016, with launches in additional markets to follow. More information about the mask, the animated cartoon and demonstration videos can be accessed at http://www.philips.com/wisppediatric. The new Wisp Pediatric Nasal Mask will be on display at the Philips' exhibit (booth number 101) during SLEEP 2016 taking place in Denver (June 11-15, 2016). Visit http://philips.to/1sdjDqI and follow @PhilipsLiveFrom and @PhilipsResp for #SLEEPDENVER updates throughout the event. For further information, please contact: Alicia Cafardi Philips [email protected] 412-523-9616 About Philips Respironics Philips Respironics is a global leader in the sleep and respiratory care markets, offering solutions in sleep apnea management, oxygen therapy, noninvasive ventilation and respiratory drug delivery. With more than 10 years of cloud-based data sharing experience and analytics for more than 7 million patient lives, Philips Respironics has a long history of leading new innovation in both devices and informatics solutions to help patients sleep and breathe better. About Royal Philips Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. The company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips' health technology portfolio generated 2015 sales of EUR 16.8 billion and employs approximately 69,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378382 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140122/NE50581LOGO SOURCE Royal Philips Related Links http://www.philips.com NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience, the leader in measuring non-conscious responses to deliver consumer insights, today announced the launch of an advertising research solution that will set a new standard for marketers looking to elevate their advertising creative and optimize in-market performance. Video Ad Explorer, which was shown to predict in-market consumer sales behavior in a ground-breaking study with CBS, integrates the most comprehensive suite of neuroscience technologies. It helps brands unlock consumer insights and unravel the complexities of advertising creative development with unprecedented predictive power. While individual neuroscience measures provide some level of prediction to in-market sales, Video Ad Explorer employs unique analyses using a rich combination of neuroscience tools for the highest level of prediction on a global scale. With analysis and feedback on a second by second basis, the results and insights can help optimize ideas and turn good advertising into great advertising. By evaluating creative with measures from electroencephalography (EEG), core biometrics (which includes skin conductance response and heart rate), facial coding, eye tracking and self-report, brands can access their unique, complementary insights into the complexity of the consumer brain. The integrated use of these tools improves the ability of ad creative to drive-in-market success. "Over the years, brands have had to settle for incomplete tools and processes for understanding creative development, but Video Ad Explorer changes that," said Dr. Carl Marci, Chief Neuroscientist for Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience. "By integrating these tools, we're providing brand teams with a full picture of their consumers' thinking and emotional response that will create greater confidence and understanding about how their creative will perform." In a major validation of Video Ad Explorer, CBS, Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience and Nielsen Catalina Solutions today announced the results of a five-month study that found large, statistically significant and meaningful relationships between individual neuroscience measures and sales. When used separately, the relationship to sales of the individual metrics ranged from a low of 9% for facial coding and 27% for biometrics to a high of 62% for EEG. The study further showed that the integration of multiple neuroscience measures results in up to 77% explanatory power with in-store sales, providing marketers with unprecedented research potential. The study, which took place at multiple lab locations across the country using multiple technologies, collected consumer reactions to nearly 60 video ads across almost 20 product categories. The incremental sales generated by the specific TV schedules for those same ads was then determined by Nielsen Catalina Solutions using their single source dataset. This dataset included 4.3 million cable set-top-box households and retail purchase behavior from more than 90 million households and is nationally representative. "With today's consumer continuously exposed to more and more media messages, it is increasingly difficult for an advertiser to develop creative that breaks through and resonates with the target audience," said David Poltrack, Chief Research Officer, CBS Corporation and President, CBS Vision. "The product of this large-scale groundbreaking study, Video Ad Explorer, will provide the advanced measurement toolkit needed to develop powerful and effective advertising. We are pleased to be able to join with Nielsen in offering this new product at our Television City Research Center in Las Vegas." While brands have been able to use these technologies in the past, this is the first time they have been able to use them all together. Each of these technologies captures a different aspect of non-conscious processing, creating a non-invasive, passive measurement of attention, emotion and memory activation that can be used in tandem to address unique challenges. For EEG, multiple sensors across key brain regions derive measures of emotional motivation, memory activation and attention processing. Core biometrics includes a combination of skin conductance and heart rate changes that capture the emotional journey. Facial coding captures discrete facial expression of emotions, such as surprise, confusion, joy and sadness. Eye tracking pinpoints visual focus on creative content, including specific areas that attract the most, and least, attention. Self-reporting balances non-conscious measures with consumers' conscious responses about what they say, think, do or plan to do. "The integration of each of these technologies allows us to arrive at the most comprehensive understanding of what in these video ads is and isn't working and how to improve them," said Joe Willke, President, Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience. "That, in turn drives superior ROI for ad spending." ABOUT NIELSEN Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers Watch and Buy. Nielsen's Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services across all devices where contentvideo, audio and textis consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry's only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen provides its clients with both world-class measurement as well as analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries that cover more than 90% of the world's population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com. ABOUT NIELSEN CONSUMER NEUROSCIENCE Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience is dedicated to delivering unprecedented understanding of consumer decision making, providing brands with insights essential to making informed business and marketing decisions. With the research industry's most complete suite of neuroscience based tools - often integrated with traditional measures - Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience offers unique insights based on both non-conscious and conscious responses central to consumer emotions and behaviors. We specialize in optimizing the effectiveness of video advertising, digital advertising, packaging and in-store elements, including the ability to test in neuro-labs and in more natural environments. Research is led by a team of 20 neuroscientists and supported by a Science Advisory Board comprising members from leading academic institutions. Our team has authored more than 550 peer-reviewed articles and won more than a dozen Great Mind Awards. With a patent portfolio that is the largest in the neurotechnology industry and offices around the globe, brands can deploy our breakthrough methodologies virtually anywhere at any time. For more information, visit: http://www.nielsen.com/consumerneuroscience. ABOUT NIELSEN CATALINA SOLUTIONS Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) is a purchase-based ad targeting and ROAS measurement firm serving the CPG industry. We integrate in-store purchase data from over 90 MM households with media exposure data from TV, online, mobile, print, radio and CRM to help consumer packaged goods advertisers, agencies and media companies define their most valuable audience, reach them with advertising and measure incremental sales from the campaign. The joint venture between Nielsen and Catalina has helped over 200 advertisers and 450+ brands optimize ad performance to drive revenue growth and increase return on ad spend. Visit us at www.ncsolutions.com to learn more. SOURCE Nielsen Related Links http://www.nielsen.com WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As part of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on June 15, at 3:00pm ET, the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association and the National Aging in Place Council will host Strategies for Keeping Older Adults Safe From Financial Predators, a free online tutorial open to all professionals committed to the financial safety and well-being of seniors. Each year an estimated 1 in 10 older Americans are victims of elder abuse, neglect, or exploitation. According to the Administration for Community Living, for every case of elder abuse or neglect reported, as many as 23.5 cases go unreported. "As professionals who work closely with older adults, we have a special responsibility to be able to recognize the signs of elder abuse, especially of financial exploitation, and provide victims with resources to find the help they need," said NRMLA President and CEO Peter Bell. "The June 15 webinar is an approved continuing education course for NRMLA members seeking or holding our Certified Reverse Mortgage Professional designation, but given the importance of the material, we are partnering with our NAIPC colleagues to open the class to all interested professionals at no charge." NAIPC Executive Director Marty Bell said, "We are a network of professionals devoted to older adults whose desire is to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. To best meet seniors' needs, our members evaluate their cognitive, mobility and confidence issues, which require a heightened and necessary sensitivity to understand. In some unfortunate situations, our members have peeled back the layers and found that a senior is being mistreated, taken advantage of, or even scammed." The free webinar will be led by Lorraine Geraci, a professional trainer and member of NRMLA's Education Committee. With real world examples, Lorraine will explain the different types of financial abuse, describe common scams and fraud perpetrated against seniors, help attendees recognize the warning signs of abuse and exploitation, and also provide participants with a list of resources for reporting abuse and support for victims. "Lorraine Geraci is an industry veteran who's been there with seniors, and with her excellent class, she provides attendees with the information and insight they need to quickly recognize the signs of financial exploitation and to report any abuses appropriately," said Marty Bell. What: Free Webinar: Strategies for Keeping Older Adults Safe from Financial Predators When: June 15, 2016, 3:00pm ET Learn more and register: NRMLAonline.org WEAAD was launched on June 15, 2006 by the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and the World Health Organization at the United Nations. The purpose of WEAAD is to provide an opportunity for communities around the world to promote a better understanding of abuse and neglect of older persons by raising awareness of the cultural, social, economic and demographic processes affecting elder abuse and neglect. In addition, WEAAD is in support of the United Nations International Plan of Action acknowledging the significance of elder abuse as a public health and human rights issue. WEAAD serves as a call-to-action for individuals, organizations, and communities to raise awareness about elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation. About the National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA) is the national voice for the industry and represents the lenders, loan servicers, credit unions, and housing counseling agencies responsible for more than 90 percent of reverse mortgage transactions in the United States. All NRMLA member companies commit themselves to a Code of Ethics & Professional Responsibility. Learn more at www.nrmlaonline.org. About the National Aging in Place Council The National Aging in Place Council (NAIPC) is a not-for-profit senior support network. NAIPC was founded on the belief that an overwhelming majority of older Americans want to remain in their homes for as long as possible, but lack awareness of home and community-based services that make independent living possible. Together we can create widespread awareness among America's Seniors of the Aging-in-Place alternative and of the services available to them. Learn more at www.ageinplace.org. Contact: Jenny Werwa, 202-939-1783, [email protected] National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association SOURCE National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association Related Links http://www.nrmlaonline.org VISTA, Calif., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- NuFACE, leaders in innovative, at-home anti-aging solutions, is excited to announce the brand's latest accolade as winner of the coveted "Korea's Best Selling Brand Award." This award is indicative of the unparalleled success NuFACE has experienced over the past year within the Korean market, having only launched in Korea in April 2015. This recognition comes on the heels of the company's continual year-over-year growth, which includes rapid retail expansion to all major, U.S. luxury department stores as well as impressive international growth, having expanded to five new markets in 2015 alone. "Korea's Best Selling Brand Award" is selected by executives at Dong-A ilbo, an esteemed South Korean media company, who annually evaluates the country's consumer brands based on product sales and consumer satisfaction to determine the year's "Best Selling Brand." This distinction is particularly noteworthy for NuFACE as they have only been in the market for a short period of time and recipients of this honor are typically some of Korea's largest domestic brands including LG, Hyundai, and AmorePacific, further demonstrating the impact NuFACE has made on Korean beauty consumers. Additionally, as a result of this award, NuFACE has seen substantial sales growth in the Korean market since winners were announced in January, boasting a 355% increase in monthly unit sales. "We're honored to be the recipient of such an esteemed award," shared Tera Valdez-Peterson, NuFACE CEO and Co-Founder. "We're thrilled with the response our brand has received in Korea to-date, and are truly appreciative of consumers' passion and excitement, especially in such a short amount of time. As other countries look to Korea for its innovation and cultural advancement, we're excited about the potential this creates for the brand throughout Asia," added Peterson. NuFACE's popularity among Korean consumers has been unprecedented from the start. Their launch on the Hyundai Home Shopping Network last year sold through 130% of the sales goal, to make NuFACE the best new vendor on a launch day for Hyundai in 15 years. Korean distribution has continued to expand for the brand since its initial launch to now include home shopping channel, GS Home Shop, and multiple doors with Hyundai Department Store's Hyundai and Shinsaegae. The brand's popularity within Asia has also expanded beyond Korea with similar sales success in nearby countries, including Hong Kong. The NuFACE brand is available in all 10 doors at Hong Kong's internationally renowned, Joyce Beauty. NuFACE was recently recognized as a top seller for the retailer, being credited for its efficacy and product sophistication, and helping to guide industry trends. NuFACE is currently available in 150+ doors in 14 international markets including: Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, China, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Canada, and has plans to expand to six additional markets by September 2016. Leveraging its momentum within the Asian market specifically, NuFACE is also planning to enter Thailand and Japan, in addition to expanding within existing sales markets. About NuFACE The NuFACE brand was launched by aesthetician Carol Cole and her daughters Tera Valdez-Peterson and Kimberly Morales in 2005 to provide consumers with a home-care version of the microcurrent treatments Carol had provided to her clients for over 30 years. Since its inception, NuFACE devices continue to impress and amaze consumers, professionals and media alike. Behind the scenes of every red carpet event and used by celebrity makeup artists and aestheticians, NuFACE devices remain the secret weapon of everyone who aspires to look his or her best. Today, NuFACE offers the NuFACE Trinity Device with two treatment attachments, NuFACE Trinity Pro, NuFACE mini, as well as a skin care product line comprised of eight SKUs. NuFACE is available at Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, ULTA Beauty, Sephora.com, SpaceNK, QVC and top spas and medical offices. For more information, visit www.mynuface.com. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150219/176569LOGO SOURCE NuFACE Related Links https://www.mynuface.com VERNON, Calif., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- NYDJ Apparel, LLC, ("NYDJ"), a leading women's denim and fashion company, announced today that Lisa Collier has been appointed President & Chief Executive Officer of the company. Ms. Collier was previously with the San Francisco-based global denim giant, Levi Strauss & Company ("LS & Co"), where she most recently served as its President of Global Dockers and Chief Transformation Officer. NYDJ, which targets a female customer over 35 years old with its signature Original Slimming Fit, is the number-one women's denim brand at department stores in the United States (dollar volume, NPD Group Consumer Tracking Survey, 12ME March 2016). Founded in 2003 under the name Not Your Daughter's Jeans, the brand transitioned its name in 2013 to NYDJ to reflect an ageless consumer mindset and facilitate product expansion beyond denim into sportswear and other fashion bottoms. Available at better department stores in over 7,000 points of retail globally, NYDJ is a premium denim authority with a passionate consumer following behind the brand's signature, flattering fit. "We are thrilled to have Lisa at the helm of NYDJ," said Mackey McDonald, Chairman of the NYDJ Board of Directors and Senior Advisor to Crestview Partners, NYDJ's majority owner. "Lisa has a rich knowledge of denim and retail, as well as a track record of successfully transforming organizations for growth. Moreover, Lisa has a unique blend of operational expertise coupled with strategic vision and palpable creative energy. We feel confident that her leadership and passion for building brands will help take NYDJ to new heights." As LS & Co's Transformation Officer, Ms. Collier spearheaded a comprehensive operational and strategic transformation of the company across all brands, regions, and channels. As President of Global Dockers, Ms. Collier managed the brand's strategic vision and was a member of LS & Co's worldwide executive leadership team. She joined LS & Co in 2003, holding diverse senior roles of increasing responsibility across the company in sourcing/production, product innovation, merchandising, retail, and international. Prior to her 13-year career at LS & Co, Ms. Collier was the Vice President of Product Development, Planning & Sourcing at Tarrant Apparel Group. Previously, she spent over a decade in buying and merchandising at The Limited. She began her career in fashion and retail as a trainee at Hess's Department Stores Inc. Ms. Collier is a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. "I am incredibly excited to be joining NYDJ," said Ms. Collier. "The brand has carved a unique niche in the premium denim space and I see tremendous opportunity ahead. I look forward to working with the team to further tap into the consumer mindset, deliver innovative product, create financial growth, and develop NYDJ into a formidable, global leader in women's fashion." Ms. Collier succeeds Robert C. Skinner, Jr., who resigned as President & Chief Executive Officer of NYDJ, a role held since January 2014, when Crestview Partners and Maybrook Capital Partners acquired NYDJ Apparel from private equity firm Falconhead Partners and NYDJ's founding family. "Despite a difficult retail environment, Bob helped position NYDJ for growth by expanding the product portfolio and NYDJ's direct-to-consumer business," said McDonald. "We would like to thank Bob for his many contributions and wish him continued success." ABOUT NYDJ Founded in 2003 in Los Angeles, NYDJ is a denim and apparel brand designed by women for women. Renowned for pioneering the slimming denim category, every pair of NYDJ jeans and pants features its exclusive Lift Tuck Technology that slims in the front and lifts in the back, contouring your curves for a slimming, flattering fit. The technology works so well that customers look, feel, and buy one size smaller. Since Spring 2013, the brand has expanded their product offering to include tops and pants in addition to its world-famous denim. Sold in better department stores and over 7,000 global points of retail distribution, NYDJ has been the number-one denim brand at department stores since 2011 (dollar volume, NPD Group Consumer Tracking Survey). In 2016, NYDJ debuted its "Fit to Be" campaign featuring a powerhouse cast including supermodel icon Christie Brinkley, modeling sensation and body activist Ashley Graham, actress Bridget Moynahan, and model/designer Lana Ogilvie, demonstrating a fit for all ages, shapes, and sizes. With a cult following and a transformative fit, women who wear NYDJ aren't just loyal, they're obsessed. For more information, visit NYDJ.com. @NYDJ | #FitToBe Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377890LOGO SOURCE NYDJ Apparel, LLC Related Links http://www.NYDJ.com KARMIEL, Israel, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The future of thermal security cameras became reality as Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd., a leading manufacturer of thermal imaging systems, announced that they will be unveiling their new Sii OP thermal security camera later this month. Based on Linux OS, the Sii OP is defined as the first thermal camera with a truly open embedded software platform, boasting an incredibly easy installation and a dedicated Software Development Kit (SDK) for seamless third party integration. The new Sii(TM) OP dual channel thermal camera system allows easy integration via SDK and is built upon Linux OS. (PRNewsFoto/Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd.) (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160608/377259 ) Security cameras have come a long way in recent years. Once the realm of traditional CCTV systems, more security projects these days are built around thermal technology due to the 24/7, all weather detection capabilities of these devices. The need for better target detection has created a demand for thermal cameras that will be able to integrate with end-point analytics software that facilitates easier target detection and tracking. "With our growing line of Vumii thermal imaging systems, we are always seeking ways to reinvent thermal imaging and bring new technologies to market," stated Amit Mattatia, President & CEO of Opgal. "The Sii OP introduces new standards to the security industry, by offering a cost effective option and a truly open platform to system integrators and software developers alike. This is yet a further proof of Opgal's ability to leverage its vast experience in creating game-changing products." Equipped with both thermal and HD visible-light channels for day and night surveillance, Sii OP meets global ONVIF standards to ensure interoperability of hardware and software products for easy integration to both existing and new infrastructures, regardless of manufacturer. Sii OP will be available from Opgal via a growing network of solution providers and distributors in all major countries, and will be offered with pre-integration to some of the leading VMS and analytics software in the market. Opgal will unveil the Sii OP at the IFSEC exhibition to be held June 21-23, 2016 at the ExCeL London, UK convention center. About Opgal: Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd. is a leading global provider of innovative infrared thermal imaging systems and advanced vision and surveillance solutions for a variety of markets. Using state-of-the-art thermal and active-imaging technologies, Opgal leverages advanced electro-optics and image processing expertise to create high performance, versatile visualization hardware and software products. We work closely with clients in security & safety, commercial aviation, defense, oil & gas and other industries. Our mission is to meet and exceed customer expectations from project initiation through implementation, in developing and deploying cutting edge technology quickly and effectively. Founded more than 30 years ago, Opgal is a major supplier of solutions to leading contractors and integrators, as well as corporate and professional customers in over 60 countries. For more details about our expertise in this area, please visit our website at http://www.opgal.com Media Contact: Roy Israeli, Head of Marketing Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd [email protected] +9724-9953906 SOURCE Opgal Optronic Industries Ltd. SOUTHFIELD, Mich., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Park West Gallery believes in the importance of art. Art has always been a medium for people to channel their creativity. It's a form of expression, and those who enjoy it love to create. For years, art was an essential part of almost every American school district. 2001's No Child Left Behind Act categorized the arts as a core academic subject. The act's increased emphasis on test scores, however, gave way to more focus on technical subjects in schools instead of art classes. Unfortunately, this may actually be more hurtful than helpful. A study of Missouri public schools found that schools with a greater art education presence generally exhibited better standardized test scores. Don't believe art education matters? Take a look at the data from schools in the Turnaround Arts program. Between 2011 and 2014, participating schools have experienced a 22.5 percent and 12.6 percent improvement in math and reading proficiency. Beyond test scores, it's difficult to quantify the importance of art. A Rand Corporation report stated that art can be used as a creative outlet and connects students to the world. Reportedly, art programs in schools give underprivileged students better experiences to help prepare for adulthood. Studies like this are why the Park West Foundation works to bring back art education. In February 2016, Park West artist Autumn de Forest worked with Turnaround Arts, a program that brings art education into low-performing schools to improve overall educational standing, to teach a class at Barton Elementary in San Bernardino, California. Park West Foundation provided the supplies and Autumn taught the kids how to paint self-portraits. In an article by T Brand Studio of the New York Times, Park West CEO Albert Scaglione discussed the importance of his foundation. "The idea that I could have this life where I still have the opportunity to work with the artists, educate, bring art to the public," he said. "I'm thrilled about that." About Park West Gallery: Founded in 1969, Park West Gallery has connected artists to more than 1.8 million fine art collectors through cruise ship art auctions, art auctions in major metropolitan regions and via public art galleries in Michigan and Florida. Park West Gallery creates an entertaining, education and welcoming environment that ignites a passion for the arts and offers an incomparable collecting experience. Contact: Chris Gray 248-354-2343 x1934 [email protected] SOURCE Park West Gallery Related Links http://www.parkwestgallery.com WEST CHESTER, Ohio, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Penton's HostingCon, the premier event for the cloud and service provider ecosystem, is pleased to announce the keynote speaker for ResellerClub presents HostingCon Europe. Jamie Woodruff, leading authority on cybersecurity and ethical hacker will address the HostingCon audience in Amsterdam on October 11, 2016. "Excited to speak at HostingCon!" said Woodruff. "People within the hosting industry take cybersecurity seriously not just from a company, but also from an end-user perspective." Woodruff entered the public eye when he successfully hacked Facebook as part of a student competition at Bangor University where he was studying computer information systems. He has since uncovered security holes in numerous high-profile operations, including Kim Kardashian's website, which he hacked in May to reveal that it was putting her fans' data at serious risk. Woodruff is an expert on cyber issues, traveling internationally to talk at global corporations and the industry's most important conferences. He is also writing a book on cyber intelligence and combating terrorism whilst pursuing a PhD in political science at Sheffield University. He often speaks to the importance of system and network security and is known for disclosing world-wide exploits and vulnerabilities within leading security applications such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Apple and Google. Woodruff finds existing exploits by infiltrating the companies in question. He demonstrated this by impersonating a Domino's pizza delivery boy at a large financial institution and gaining access to their server room via lock-picking. All carried out under fully authorized, ethical penetration testing. Woodruff's keynote presentation at HostingCon Europe will focus on what leaders in the service provider industry need to know to protect both their customers and their business. He'll share his latest research in social engineering and human manipulation methodology as well as provide demonstrations for the audience. "Cybersecurity is always a hot topic in our industry," said Cheryl Kemp, Director and Conference Chair for HostingCon. "Our attendees and exhibitors are affected daily by security issues that cause a real threat not only to customers but to their bottom line. We're excited to have Jamie address the latest trends in cybersecurity and how service providers can better protect themselves and their customers." The show will also feature a panel discussion led by cPanel General Counsel David Snead, addressing a different area of cybersecurity. This session will be focused on how the extent of government access to customer's data fundamentally alters how the internet service provider ecosystem works. "This show will tie a couple of things together that are really important to the market: security, innovation and the growing amount of startups that operate in our market," said Mark Karsch, HostingCon advisory board member. "We want our attendees to come away smarter by understanding the next opportunities the market and technology offers." The conference, held at the Amsterdam Passenger Terminal on October 11-12, 2016, will focus on addressing issues and trends in the cloud and hosting industry. HostingCon is known for its vendor neutral education and opportunities for meaningful networking. ABOUT HOSTINGCON HostingCon is the premier event for the cloud and service provider ecosystem. The conference connects the industry including hosting and cloud providers, MSPs, Telcos, Resellers, ISVs, SaaS, IaaS and other Internet infrastructure providers who make the Internet work to network, learn and grow. HostingCon is a Penton event. ResellerClub Presents HostingCon Europe is being held for the third year in a row. For details about HostingCon, visit www.HostingCon.com. ABOUT RESELLERCLUB The ResellerClub platform powers some of the World's most popular Web Hosts, Domain Resellers, Web Designers and Technology Consultants. ResellerClub provides scalable and secure Shared Hosting, Reseller Hosting, VPS Solutions, Dedicated Servers, Managed Servers as well a host of Website Security products, in addition to a comprehensive suite of gTLDs, ccTLDs, new gTLDs and other essential Web Presence & Website Security Products. Current Partners: Over 200,000 Domains Served: Over 5 Million Server Locations: US, United Kingdom, India, Hong Kong, Turkey Team Strength: 100+ www.resellerclub.com ABOUT PENTON Penton is an innovative information services company that empowers nearly 20 million business decision makers in markets that drive more than 12 trillion dollars in purchases each year. Our products inform with rich industry insights and workflow tools; engage through dynamic events, education and networking; and advance business with powerful marketing services programs. Penton is the way smart businesses buy, sell and grow. Headquartered in New York, Penton is privately owned by MidOcean Partners and Wasserstein & Co., LP. For more information, visit http://www.penton.com or follow us on Twitter @PentonNow. MEDIA CONTACT: Cheryl Kemp Director, Community and Conference Content HostingCon 513.322.4789 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377871LOGO SOURCE Penton Related Links http://www.penton.com BALTIMORE, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. (PGDx), a provider of advanced cancer genome testing products and services, today announced that co-founders Luis Diaz, MD, and Victor Velculescu, MD, PhD, have won the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2016 Award in the Maryland region. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the EY Awards program, which recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Drs. Diaz and Velculescu were selected for the top honor in the Innovative Technology category by a panel of independent judges based on their ability to inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. Drs. Diaz and Velculescu commented, "On behalf of our colleagues at PGDx, we are honored to have been selected as winners of this prestigious award that celebrates successful entrepreneurs who also demonstrate a commitment to their employees and communities. We founded PGDx with a mission to provide broad patient access to the pioneering cancer genomics technologies that we and our colleagues were developing at Johns Hopkins. Today we are more than 60 strong and offer a growing menu of state-of-the art, high quality cancer DNA testing services to a diverse customer base that includes researchers, drug developers, molecular testing labs and physicians and patients." PGDx offers a complete range of cancer genome analysis tools, including exome and targeted approaches for tissue specimens, targeted approaches for plasma samples and a variety of custom tissue and plasma-based options designed to address the specific needs of cancer researchers and drug developers. It was established in 2010 by researchers from Johns Hopkins University who are pioneers in cancer genome sequencing and liquid biopsy technologies. The company has achieved consistent growth by successfully commercializing novel clinical and investigational products and services for researchers, drug developers, molecular testing laboratories, and physicians and patients. Drs. Diaz and Velculescu continued, "We are proud of our team's progress in advancing the understanding of cancer and facilitating the development of new diagnostics and therapeutics with our comprehensive range of advanced cancer genome analysis tools. As part of our drive to increase patient and physician access to these potentially life-saving technologies, we are especially excited about PGDx's PROGENUS initiative, an innovative turnkey technology transfer solution that enables local and regional molecular laboratories to easily internalize and offer advanced genomic testing. Finally, we remain committed to building a successful business here in Baltimore, a city with a world class research university, rich cultural resources, great location and much else to offer new technology enterprises." Founded and produced by Ernst & Young, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year is one of the world's most prestigious business awards for entrepreneurs. The award celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses globally, through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 145 cities in 60 countries. About Personal Genome Diagnostics Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx) advances the frontiers of cancer medicine through innovative genomic technologies for oncology researchers, drug developers, clinicians and patients. The expert team at PGDx draws on a deep understanding of cancer biology, extensive experience in cancer genomics and clinical oncology, and the company's distinctive technologies. These novel technologies precisely identify and characterize unique genomic alterations in tumors. PGDx is working toward broad patient access to its genomic approaches, through both a CLIA-certified facility providing comprehensive genomic services, as well as a technology transfer solution enabling other molecular laboratories to easily internalize testing. For additional information, visit personalgenome.com. Contacts PGDx Corporate: Media: Melody Gretz Barbara Lindheim 973 598-5515 BLL Partners LLC [email protected] 212 584-2276 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150112/168424LOGO SOURCE Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. Related Links http://www.personalgenome.com DENVER, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Philips Respironics, a division of Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), will be participating in this year's SLEEP 2016 event (June 11-15), to highlight its vision for the future of innovation in sleep. As part of the 30th anniversary meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS), Philips will showcase several of its cutting-edge solutions in connected sleep and respiratory care as well as reinforce its commitment to providing innovations designed to enhance sleep. As part of an ongoing collaboration, Philips has invited Arianna Huffington, editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post and author of The Sleep Revolution, to serve as a special guest speaker and share her passion for healthy sleep at the Philips salon dinner during SLEEP 2016. For the past 40 years, Philips has been leading research and innovating solutions to bring sound sleep even to those with serious sleep disorders like sleep apnea. This year's SLEEP meeting comes at a critical time, as not only has the number of patients seeking medical care for sleep disorders increased by 266 percent over the last ten years*, but the world is waking up to the challenge of healthy sleep, its impact on overall health and the need for a good's night rest. As a greater population of people aims to improve their sleep, behavior change will be a large challenge that Philips is primed to address. "For more than four decades, we've been developing revolutionary diagnostic treatment and monitoring solutions to meet the needs of sleep physicians and real people with sleep apnea, a potentially life-threatening condition," said John Frank, CEO, Sleep and Respiratory Care, Philips. "This journey brought us insights, experience and passion to broaden our approach because we see opportunities to improve sleep broadly beyond treating sleep apnea. We understand sleep as the third pillar of health next to nutrition and exercise, and now we are looking to the future for all people who need help with improving their sleep quality. Our goal is to make good sleep possible for everyone." As a leader in the sleep community, Philips has demonstrated success in supporting over 7 million patients through its EncoreAnywhere platform, the world's most widely used compliance management system. Building on the company's longstanding leadership, Philips is looking to help the world wake up to better sleep by providing next generation software applications and informatics that enable its customers to better manage patients and improve lives. During the annual SLEEP event, Philips will present innovations that will help people to get a good night's rest, including DreamStation PAP device, Philips' masks such as DreamWear and AmaraView, and supporting patient management programs. In a dedicated area at the show (booth 213), Philips will showcase its vision for healthy sleep and its impact on healthy living. The company's evolving product lines have been created to better address the needs of sleep apnea patients by incorporating patient feedback to provide solutions that continue to offer a better patient experience and encourage long-term therapy. To further demonstrate Philips' commitment to educate and engage patients and consumers, Arianna Huffington will be speaking at an invitation-only salon dinner during SLEEP 2016. Most recently, Philips joined Arianna Huffington and The Huffington Post for a campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of sleep deprivation and support improved sleep habits globally. During the salon dinner, Arianna Huffington will offer a sweeping exploration of sleep, from its rich history to the latest science with an emphasis on how it can transform our lives. To see the entire portfolio of sleep-disordered breathing products, visit Philips Respironics at booth 101 as well as the additional booth 213 where Philips will be showcasing its holistic vision for healthy sleep and its impact on healthy living. For updates on Philips' presence at SLEEP 2016, visit http://philips.to/1sdjDqI and for more information on Philips' advanced solutions for sleep and respiratory care and updates from the show, follow @PhilipsLiveFrom and @PhilipsResp. * Ford ES, Wheaton AG, Cunningham TJ, Giles WH, Chapman DP, Croft JB. Trends in outpatient visits for insomnia, sleep apnea, and prescriptions for sleep medications among US adults: findings from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey 1999-2010. For further information, please contact: Alicia Cafardi Philips [email protected] 724-387-4439 About Royal Philips Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) is a leading health technology company focused on improving people's health and enabling better outcomes across the health continuum from healthy living and prevention, to diagnosis, treatment and home care. Philips leverages advanced technology and deep clinical and consumer insights to deliver integrated solutions. The company is a leader in diagnostic imaging, image-guided therapy, patient monitoring and health informatics, as well as in consumer health and home care. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips' health technology portfolio generated 2015 sales of EUR 16.8 billion and employs approximately 69,000 employees with sales and services in more than 100 countries. News about Philips can be found at www.philips.com/newscenter. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140122/NE50581LOGO SOURCE Royal Philips Related Links http://www.usa.philips.com MANCHESTER, England, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As London Luton Airport passes its 13 million passenger milestone, it's an exciting time for anyone interested in investing in the fastest growing UK airport. Over 1.1 million people flew through London Luton Airport in April representing a 17% increase in passenger numbers compared with the same month last year. The latest record month means London Luton has catered to over 13 million passengers in the past 12 months, the first time ever that the airport has passed that milestone. April also marked 25 consecutive months of passenger growth at the airport, and London Luton is now the fifth busiest airport in the UK. London Luton Airport has announced a 110million programme to transform the airport. Contractors are already on site redeveloping the terminal building to increase annual capacity from 12 million to 18 million passengers by 2020. Improved transport access to the airport is on the way too, with a major upgrade to J10a of the M1 planned to make it easier for the majority of air passengers who choose to travel to the airport by car. Earlier this month plans were announced to build a 260million mass passenger transit (MPT) link at London Luton to connect the rail station with the terminal. This link will replace the existing shuttle bus and cut journey times from St Pancras Station to around 22 minutes, bringing the airport closer to central London than both Gatwick and Stansted airports. London Luton Airport, which is a base for airlines Easyjet, Monarch, Thomson and Ryanair, now has flights to 174 destinations worldwide. As other airlines announce new routes, passengers at London Luton Airport are benefitting from more frequent flights to a wider variety of European and Transatlantic destinations from the airport's three terminals. Direct Airport Parking Investment, a Cheshire-based company that offers investment opportunities in off-airport car parking, is keeping a close eye on the exciting growth at London Luton. Raj Shah, Senior Consultant at Direct Airport Parking Investment, said: "The transformation of London Luton is underway, with the airport's 110 million investment programme set to drive passenger numbers up to around 18 million in the next four years. "This investment, coupled with new routes being added by a number of airlines including Spanish airline Air Nostrum, make London Luton Airport a very attractive investment option for private investors, and we're feeling very positive about the airport's future." For information about opportunities to invest in off-airport car parking at major UK airports through Direct Airport Parking Investment Limited, visit www.directparkinginvestment.co.uk SOURCE Direct Airport Parking Investment Ltd WALTHAM, Mass., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Rocket Software, Inc. (www.rocketsoftware.com) today announced the opening of new offices in Japan, China and the US to meet increasing customer demand and to hire top local talent. Rocket, which launched 26 years ago in Boston, has a growing global footprint that includes more than 1300 Rocketeers in 31 offices across North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific. Rocket opened a new office in the heart of the business district in Sapporo less than two years after establishing its first Japan office in Yokohama . This expansion reflects Rocket's increasingly important relationship with IBM in Japan . less than two years after establishing its first office in . This expansion reflects Rocket's increasingly important relationship with IBM in . To support its growing operations in China , Rocket moved to a new facility in Dalian , the financial center of Northeast China . Because this city hosts both the Dalian IT Zone and Dalian Software Park, it is the ideal location for expanded operations and talent acquisition. , Rocket moved to a new facility in , the financial center of . Because this city hosts both the Dalian IT Zone and Dalian Software Park, it is the ideal location for expanded operations and talent acquisition. A new office in Austin, Texas is increasing Rocket's presence in the innovative IT community there, and is already home to nearly 40 Rocketeers. The company has already announced plans to hire for several new positions in Austin in 2016. "Part of being a global company is being active where our customers and partners are doing business," said Andy Youniss, President and CEO of Rocket Software. "The opening of these three new offices is part of our strategy to bring in the best possible people wherever they're based and leverage their talents to help solve technical and business problems in all of the markets we serve." About Rocket Software Rocket Software (www.rocketsoftware.com) is a technology company that helps organizations in the IBM ecosystem build solutions that meet today's needs while extending the value of their technology investments for the future. Thousands of companies depend on Rocket to solve their most challenging business problems by helping them run their existing infrastructure and data, as well as extend those assets to take advantage of cloud, mobile, analytics, and other future innovations. Founded in 1990, Rocket is based in Waltham, Massachusetts with locations in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Press Contact: Richard Berman VerbFactory +1 415 359 4906 [email protected] SOURCE Rocket Software Related Links http://www.rocketsoftware.com SAN FRANCISCO, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- DIALOGUE, the San Francisco-based agency, working with organizations and brands to help them use experiences of human connection as a competitive advantage, has partnered with unique space-rental company, Splacer and Interior Design firm, AubreyMaxwell to move the needle on the conversation on the topic of 'Place & the Future of Urban Development.' With the changing needs of people in growing cities, it is important to understand the ways in which the creation of alternative environments and intentional spaces in cities will have an impact on urban living and how we perceive the idea of 'Place' vs. 'Space'. What is Place? How does the perception of Place shift in urban environments? How does it impact the future of urban design? "I'm intrigued by the evolution of public spaces in our daily existence as a 'plugged in' society. The formerly active public forum of coffee shops now function as quiet, solitary pods of online focus with less and less direct human interface. The modern salon takes place online, but in that dramatic shift, the dialogue is far more global. The 'ether' is now a 'space' of its own, and I'm engaged in understanding how that changes our design of physical places" says, Robbie McMillan, Founder of AubreyMaxwell On June 20th, gathered in the abandoned, 16th Street Station, the select list of attendees will include: British-born, former Creative Director at NOWNESS, Alex Tieghi Walker; SF Arts Commissioner, Dorka Kheen; Neighborhood Development expert, Amy Cohen and Project Director of the Street Plan Initiative, Julie Flynn; Film-maker, Theo Rigby; as well several artists and tech entrepreneurs from the likes of Lyft, focused on the 'future of place.' DIALOGUE started in 2014 as a pop-up ThinkTank with the sole purpose to bring together thought leaders from across design, business, and arts & sciences to explore and create tangible, relevant ways to spark innovation, unleash human potential, and harness untapped intelligence for maximum impact. DIALOGUE is the brainchild of Rimma Boshernitsan, previously a strategic advisor to Fortune 500 companies on culture, human behavior and transformation, whose diverse background also spans the art and design worlds. "We believe that designing experiences where people are able to connect to themselves, a topic they are well-versed in, and one another while taking part in creating a collective intelligence can be very powerful. We are motivated to enable people to see beyond what's possible, to create an environment that pushes their boundaries, and to revive dialogue in a way that will shift paradigms. The way we work is different from other companies in that we aren't just focused on inner workings of organizations and outward focus of brands, we're interested in looking at humanity as part of culture at large, and how that lens can affect every touch point in our lives," says Boshernitsan. To learn more about DIALOGUE visit www.in-dialogue.co SOURCE DIALOGUE Related Links http://www.in-dialogue.co WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Saudi Ambassador to the United States Abdullah Al-Saud issued the following statement on Sunday: "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia condemns in the strongest terms the attack on innocent people in Orlando, Florida, and sends its deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims and to the people of the United States. We stand with the American people at this tragic time. We pray for the recovery and the healing of all those injured in the attack, and we will continue our work with the United States and our partners in the international community for an end to these senseless acts of violence and terror." This is distributed by Qorvis MSLGROUP on behalf of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. SOURCE Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Information Office RUEIL-MALMAISON, France, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- At the end of 2015, COP21 raised enormous, legitimate hopes worldwide that citizens, governments and companies would coordinate their efforts to limit the causes and effects of climate change. Just a few months later, the Newsweek Global Green Ranking 2016, the global listing of the most environmentally friendly corporations produced by U.S. weekly news magazine Newsweek in partnership with Corporate Knights and HIP Investor, has commended the environmental commitment made by Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation. The Group is proud to be ranked 10th, alongside other reputable companies such as Shire Plc., Reckitt Benckiser and British Telecom. Driving Innovation at Every Level for Sustainability The high scores obtained by Schneider Electric reflects the Group's proven track record in driving innovation at every level through connected energy management and automation technologies that reshape industries, transform cities and enrich lives. At Schneider Electric, we call this Life is On. "We are very pleased with the results of the latest Newsweek Global Green Ranking. It shows that we have the right sustainability strategies and innovation roadmap in place", said Gilles Vermot Desroches, SVP Sustainability at Schneider Electric. "We want everyone on our planet to have access to safe, reliable, efficient and sustainable energy. We are committed to providing innovative solutions that address the energy paradox: balancing our planet's carbon footprint with the irrefutable human right to quality energy". The big jump in the ranking also results from the company's initiatives in using natural resources wisely, including renewable sources, in its global operations. The ranking recognizes the 10 commitments taken by Schneider Electric at COP21 for the company and its ecosystem to achieve carbon neutrality over the next 15 years, through its products, solutions, R&D and industrial operations. These commitments include: Measuring the carbon impact of 100% of major client projects Designing 100% of new offerings using the Schneider ecoDesign Way and achieving the company's Green Premium standard in 75% of its business Avoiding 120,000 tons of CO2 by introducing "end of life" products in line with circular economy principles Helping 50 million people at the base of the economic pyramid to access lighting and communications over the next 10 years through low-carbon solutions Schneider Electric's environmental and sustainable development performance is reported quarterly through its Planet & Society barometer. Schneider Electric's sustainable development strategy has also been recognized by other organizations such as the CDP which has named in November 2015 the Group as a world leader for its corporate action & transparency on climate change for the fifth consecutive year. About the Newsweek Global Green Ranking The Newsweek Green Rankings is based on eight objective performance indicators, following a clear and rules-based methodology. A company's score results from the weighted average of these indicators, based on its combined energy productivity score, combined greenhouse gas productivity score, combined water productivity score, combined waste productivity score, green revenue score, sustainability pay link, sustainability board committee and audited metrics. About Schneider Electric Schneider Electric is the global specialist in energy management and automation. With revenues of ~$30 billion in FY2015, our 160,000+ employees serve customers in over 100 countries, helping them to manage their energy and process in ways that are safe, reliable, efficient and sustainable. From the simplest of switches to complex operational systems, our technology, software and services improve the way our customers manage and automate their operations. Our connected technologies reshape industries, transform cities and enrich lives. At Schneider Electric, we call this Life Is On. www.schneider-electric.com Discover Life is On Sustainability Report Follow us on: https://twitter.com/schneiderelec https://www.facebook.com/SchneiderElectric https://www.linkedin.com/company/schneider-electric https://plus.google.com/+schneiderelectric/post https://www.youtube.com/SchneiderElectric http://tv.schneider-electric.com/site/schneidertv/ http://blog.schneider-electric.com/ Hashtags: #LifeIsOn #InnovationAtEveryLevel #Sustainability #CSR #Ranking SOURCE Schneider Electric Related Links http://www.schneider-electric.com WASHINGTON, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association (SMSA) announced the awarding of $275,000 in scholarships at its national Scholarship Announcement Reception today. The Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association is the nation's only provider of need-based scholarships to the children and grandchildren of individuals who have served with America's Seabees and the Civil Engineer Corps (CEC). SMSA has provided over 2,800 scholarship awards totaling $4.6 million since 1972. As college costs continue to outpace military family salaries these scholarship awards are critical to Seabee families. "We are honored that the Seabee community and corporate and civic leaders generously support our efforts to provide scholarships for deserving Seabee families. This year America's fighting Seabees celebrate 75 years of defending and protecting America, we are honored to be part of that extraordinary legacy and confident that the young people supported by our scholarships will go on to do great things for our nation and our world," said SMSA chairman Rear Admiral Mike Giorgione, CEC, USN (Ret.). The Association's scholarships develop the nation's future workforce, rewarding those young scholars who embody the character, leadership, and academic values needed for success in today's globally competitive economy. Seabee scholarship recipients tend to graduate in the top ten percent of their high school graduating class. Scholarship recipients prove the effectiveness of the program through their academic and professional achievements. All Scholarship Association recipients attend four-year colleges or universities and 80 percent of students graduate at a time when the national rate is only 38 percent. The 2016-2017 scholarship recipient class includes 85 children and grand-children of active duty Seabees and Civil Engineer Corps members as well as those who have been honorably discharged, wounded in combat or killed in action. Brandi Anderson, a political science and religious studies major at Stetson University received one of this year's scholarships. Anderson's scholarship honors her father, Navy Seabee Builder 2nd Class Michael C. Anderson who was killed in action while serving in Iraq. "In America, we can celebrate such freedoms such as going to the school of our choice, thanks to the sacrifices of men and women like my dad who paid the ultimate price. I was only seven years old when I lost my dad. He was in the NMCB14 unit, and was killed in Ramadi, Iraq, on May 2, 2004. I have spent my whole life trying to be someone he would be proud of. It is because of people like him, that we are awarded the great liberties, which we so enjoy. I believe that by attending college and being successful, I will be honoring my father's legacy," said Anderson. On September 20, 2016, SMSA will holds its inaugural Building America's Future Gala, recognizing scholarship recipients and General John Allen USMC (Ret.), AECOM and Mike Rowe, host of CNN's Somebody's Gotta Do It. Sponsorship and ticket information are available at www.seabee.org or by contacting Dan Miller at [email protected]. About the Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association: The Seabee Scholarship Association is the nation's only provider of need-based scholarships for the children and grandchildren of individuals who have served with America's fighting Seabees and the Civil Engineer Corps (CEC). SMSA has awarded over 2,800 scholarship awards totaling $4.6 million since 1972. For more information on the Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association visit www.seabee.org. SOURCE Seabee Memorial Scholarship Association Related Links http://www.seabee.org Red Herring Top 100 America enlists outstanding entrepreneurs and promising companies. It selects the award winners from approximately 1,200 privately financed companies each year in the US and Canada. Since 1996, Red Herring has kept tabs on these up-and-comers. Red Herring editors were among the first to recognize that companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, Salesforce.com, YouTube, Palo Alto Networks and eBay would change the way we live and work. "In 2016, selecting the top achievers was extremely difficult," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "The variety, depth, disruption and traction we saw from the early stage companies to those with significant scale made it one of the toughest vintages to judge. The North America winners are representative of the amazing ecosystem that never ceases to astound, with new and experienced entrepreneurs continuing to push the barriers of innovation. As one of the winners, Solutionrach should be proud of its accomplishment under such strong competition." Red Herring's editorial staff evaluated companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technological innovation and intellectual property, DNA of the founders, business model, customer footprint and market penetration. This assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the track record and standing of startups relative to their sector peers, allowing Red Herring to see past the "buzz" and make the list a valuable instrument of discovery and advocacy for the most promising new business models in North America. Contact: Kim Justesen 1-801-331-7139 [email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/378151 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/378150LOGO SOURCE Solutionreach Related Links http://www.solutionreach.com BLOOMINGTON, Ill., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the State Farm Mutual Board of Directors unanimously elected CEO Michael Tipsord to the position of Chairman of the Board. Tipsord succeeds outgoing Chairman Edward B. Rust Jr. "It has been a true privilege to work with Ed," said Tipsord. "For over 30 years, he led our Company and became the very personification of State Farm." Tipsord joined State Farm in 1988. Following service in various positions, he was named vice president and assistant treasurer in 1998, vice president and treasurer in 2001, and senior vice president in 2002. He was named chief financial officer in 2004, chief operating officer in 2011 and was elected to the office of president in 2015, and succeeded Rust as CEO later that same year. Rust began his State Farm career in 1975 and is the company's longest serving CEO and Chairman, having been named CEO in 1985 and Chairman in 1987. "This is a continuation of the succession plan we put into place last year with Michael's move to CEO," said Rust. "Michael's strong leadership, supported by the leadership team he has built, is laying a strong pathway for the continued success of this great company," Rust said. "I am excited for Michael and for State Farm, and for what the future holds for our customers." Tipsord serves on the board of directors for Navigant Consulting, Inc. and is a trustee of the Brookings Institution. He is also a member of the dean's advisory board for the University Of Illinois College Of Law. A native of Illinois, Tipsord received a bachelor's degree from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington and a law degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "I am excited to be leading the current generation of State Farm associates who are guided by our mission to help others, and I am honored to have this opportunity to serve as Chairman of the Board," Tipsord said. "Working together with our Board of Directors, a strong leadership team and State Farm agents and employees, we are building on the strong foundation we've inherited so the incredible State Farm success story will continue to be told." About State Farm: State Farm and its affiliates are the largest provider of car insurance in the U.S. In addition to providing auto insurance quotes, their 18,000 agents and more than 65,000 employees serve over 83 million policies and accounts nearly 81 million auto, home, life, health and commercial policies, and nearly 2 million bank accounts. Commercial auto insurance, along with coverage for renters, business owners, boats and motorcycles, is available. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company is the parent of the State Farm family of companies. State Farm is ranked No. 35 on the 2016 Fortune 500 list of largest companies. For more information, please visit http://www.statefarm.com. State Farm Bank, Bloomington, Illinois, is a Member FDIC and an Equal Housing Lender. Insurance, annuities and securities products offered by affiliate companies of State Farm Bank are not FDIC insured, are not guaranteed by State Farm Bank, and are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal. Before investing, consider the funds' investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Contact State Farm VP Management Corp (1-800-447-4930) for a prospectus or summary prospectus containing this and other information. Read it carefully. Investing involves risk, including potential for loss. State Farm VP Management Corp. is a separate entity from those State Farm entities which provide banking and insurance products. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120803/MM51963LOGO SOURCE State Farm Related Links http://www.statefarm.com SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 12, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- "Today's deplorable act of terrorism goes against everything we stand for as Americans and as Christians. Every life, deserves to be loved, cherished and respected. We mourn with the families of the victims and pray for those injured in Orlando. In addition, we call upon all Americans to come together for the purpose of building a firewall of love, grace, truth and respect against intolerance, hatred, bigotry and violence." NHCLC/CONEL is the world's largest Hispanic Christian organization. It serves as a representative voice for the more than 100 million Hispanic Evangelicals assembled in over 40,000 U.S. churches and another 500,000 congregations spread throughout the Spanish-speaking diaspora. For additional information, visit http://www.nhclc.org. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120912/CL72800LOGO SOURCE National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference Related Links http://nhclc.org TEL AVIV, Israel, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Therapix (OTC: THXBY) (TASE: THXBY.TA), the pharma company specializing in the development and commercialization of cannabinoid-based drugs, announced that five internationally renowned experts, from Israel and the world, have joined its scientific board and team of consultants. The new experts will join Prof. Raphael Mechoulam, who identified the active compound in cannabis, THC, on the advisory board, and Dr. Yafit Stark, a vice president at Teva and a member of the Company's Board of Directors. Such experts will assist the Company by providing counsel, planning and executing the clinical trials for which the Company is preparing. The experts joining the Company include : Prof. James Leckman, a child psychiatrist, psychiatrist and physician at Yale University. Dr. Leckman is a reputable child psychiatrist and patient-oriented clinical researcher. He served as Director of the Child Study Center at Yale for over two decades. His colleagues have chosen him as one of the best doctors in America. Prof. Leckman is one of the prominent and notable international experts in the field of research and treatment of Tourette syndrome and movement disorders, and is the author of hundreds of publications in books and leading journals. Prof. Kirsten Muller-Vahl, Professor of Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry, Socialpsychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Hannover Medical School, Germany. An expert in neurology and an adult psychiatrist, who has been working for many years in a clinic specializing in movement disorders. Since 1997 and until 2003, she was the recipient of an award from the German government for clinical research related to Tourette syndrome. In the course of the past 18 years, Prof. Muller-Vahl has studied more than 1,200 adults and children suffering from Tourette and has served as Head of a Tourette syndrome outpatient department since 1995. Since 1994, she has been serving as a member of the scientific advisory board of the German Tourette-Syndrome Association. Prof. Muller-Vahl is the world's leading researcher in the field of cannabinoid-use in treating patients with Tourette syndrome. Prof. Michael Davidson, Professor of Psychiatry, served as Chief Psychiatrist at the Department of Psychiatry of the Sheba Medical Centre Tel-Hashomer between 2001 and 2007, and currently serves, inter alia, as Chairman of the Stuckinski Centre for Alzheimer's Disease Research in Ramat Gan. He holds a professorship at the Sackler School of Medicine Tel Aviv University and at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Prof. Davidson is considered an international expert on Alzheimer's Disease and is the author of approximately 300 publications in scientific literature. He is also the editor of European Neuropsychopharmacology. Prof. Avi Weizman, Professor of Psychiatry at the Sackler School of Medicine Tel Aviv University, Head of the Laboratory of Biological Psychiatry at the Felsentein Medical Research Center and Director of the Center and Head of Geha Mental Health Center's Research Unit. After earning his MD, he pursued a postgraduate fellowship in both Child and Adult Psychiatry at Tel Aviv University. Since graduating, he held several academic, research, clinical and administrative positions at both Tel Aviv University and the Geha Mental Health Center. Prof. Weizman is an international expert in psychiatry and neuroscience and is the author of 5 books and more that 650 publications in scientific literature. Dr. Michael Bloch, graduated the Yale University School of Medicine and completed his residency in adult and child psychiatry at Yale. Dr. Bloch serves as Chief Resident at Yale's Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit. His fields of research are concentrated on the study of Tourette syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder and trichotillomania across the life span. His research focuses on developing better treatments for children and adults in such situations, and examining predictions of long-term outcomes, with an emphasis on neuroimaging. Dr. Elran Haber, Therapix's CEO, stated that "we welcome the joining of the revered team of experts, and believe, that in light of their scientific achievements, proficiency and vast accumulated experience, their joining will contribute to the promotion of the Company's operations and the advancement of its business and scientific objectives". About Therapix Therapix is an Israeli pharma company specializing in the development and commercialization of approved drugs that are based on cannabinoid molecules. The Company is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and is also traded over-the counter (OTC) in the United States. The Company is engaged in the development of a drug based on cannabinoids and the entourage technology for treating Tourette syndrome, and is preparing for the development of a cannabinoid-based drug for treating impairments in cognitive functioning (including preliminary stages of Alzheimer's disease). The Company's Chairman is Dr. Ascher Shmulewitz and Dr. Elran Haber is its CEO. For further details, Goldfinger Communications, Irit Radia, +972-546699311 [email protected] SOURCE Therapix AUSTIN, Texas, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Students who qualify for free and reduced lunch during the school year often miss out on adequate nutrition when school is out for summer. Either they are unaware of free summer lunch programs around Central Texas or they don't have a way to get to the program. In an effort to address this challenge, Sendero Health Plans is partnering with the Central Texas Food Bank, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) to sponsor free summer lunch programs at three Federal Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in Austin through August 19, 2016. Central Health Southeast Health & Wellness Center, CommUnityCare North Central Health Center and People's Community Clinic are also partners in the initiative to link health centers with healthy food programs. Last summer Sendero Health Plans sponsored a pilot program with the Central Texas Food Bank to include adults, not just students. Healthy meals were provided for adults who accompanied their children to a free lunch program. Other free lunch program around the country do not include adults. The results in Austin were positive and now the Central Texas Food Bank is providing meals for both children and the adults who accompany them to the three FQHCs in partnership with Sendero Health Plans. In addition to the free meals the Central Texas Food Bank is providing a weekend backpack on Friday to each child that attends the summer lunch program so they can have healthy food on Saturday and Sunday. The space is being provided by the clinics and staffed by Sendero Health Plans. "This opportunity supports our mission to help people live better, healthier lives," said Wesley Durkalski, president and CEO of Sendero Health Plans. "We are proud to be part of a program to help make sure that no child goes hungry this summer, and to provide these meals in a respectful and dignified environment." The Central Health Southeast Health & Wellness Center at 2901 Montopolis and the CommUnityCare North Central Health Center at 1210 W Braker Lane will be open Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. People's Community Care Clinic at 1101 Camino La Costa will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. every week day except Tuesday. Other weekly nutrition activities at Central Health Southeast Health & Wellness Center include free produce bags distributed by Farmshare Austin and cooking demonstrations by the Sustainable Food Center. The summer lunch program is open to anyone in the community and does not require registration or enrollment. More About Sendero Health Plans Formed in 2011 to improve access to care for those covered by publicly-funded health insurance programs, the non-profit health plan covers an eight-county area in Burnet, Bastrop, Travis, Fayette, Hays, Williamson, Lee and Caldwell counties. Sendero Health Plans is sponsored by the Travis County Healthcare District (d.b.a. Central Health), Visit www.senderohealth.com to learn more about Sendero Health Plans. Contact: Linda Burton, Director of Marketing Sendero Health Plans (210) 482-0789 cell [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160610/377979LOGO SOURCE Sendero Health Plans Related Links http://www.senderohealth.com "The theme of the conference is "Making the Connection", and for good reason," said Tara Sweeney, who serves as chair of the Arctic Economic Council as well as executive vice president of external affairs for ASRC. "In the 21st century you need to be connected to be successful; in the most remote parts of the world, this need only multiplies. The introduction of high-speed broadband across the North Slope and other parts of the Arctic will open the door to opportunities including education, government services, and the day to day quality of life. If we don't make this connection with the rest of the world, our region is stuck in the past. Fortunately, with broadband, we have the opportunity to help ourselves." For more information on the conference, please log on to www.arcticeconomiccouncil.com. For members of the media interested in covering the event, please contact Marie Duriez at [email protected] or (907) 339-6889 for travel information. About Arctic Economic Council (AEC) Established by the Arctic Council under the chairmanship of Canada, the AEC is an independent business forum established to facilitate Arctic business-to-business activities, promote responsible economic development and provide a circumpolar business perspective to the work of the Arctic Council. The inaugural meeting was held in September 2014 in Iqaluit, Nunavut Canada. The AEC has a 42-member board from eight Arctic states and six permanent participant organizations. Finland will assume the chairmanship from the U.S. in 2017. About Inuit Arctic Business Alliance (IABA) IABA comprises representatives of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC), NANA Regional Corporation (NANA) and Bering Straits Native Corporation (BSNC). Its mission is to provide a unified voice, collective vision, guidelines and venue for doing business in the Arctic. The three corporate members of IABA were established as part of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. Together, they own a total of 9.3 million acres of Arctic surface and subsurface real estate and represent more than 31,900 shareholders. About Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) Arctic Slope Regional Corporation is owned by and represents the business interests of the Arctic Slope Inupiat. Since opening enrollment in 1990 to Alaska Natives born after 1971, the corporation's shareholder base has nearly tripled, growing from the 3,700 original enrollees to around 13,000 today. Corporate headquarters are based in Barrow, Alaska, with administrative and subsidiary offices located in Anchorage and throughout the United States. ASRC, along with its family of companies, is the largest Alaskan-owned company, employing approximately 10,000 people worldwide. The company has six major business segments: petroleum refining and marketing, energy support services, construction, industrial services, government services and resource development. CONTACT: Ty Hardt, ASRC Sr. Director of Communications Desk (907) 339-6888 Mobile (907) 223-3253 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150910/265586LOGO Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378539LOGO Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378541LOGO SOURCE Arctic Economic Council Related Links http://www.arcticeconomiccouncil.com DUBLIN, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Mining in Uganda: Business Report 2016" report to their offering. This report is a comprehensive research of Mining in Uganda. The first two chapters of the report feature the country profile by giving general information on Uganda and by thoroughly studying its economic state (including key macroeconomic indicators and their development trends). The third chapter covers common business procedures in the country: from starting a project to closing a business. This chapter elucidates the country's fiscal system, existing labour practices, property rights regulation peculiarities and other issues vital for running business in this country. Further the report analyses Mining in the country. This key chapter tells about main trends in the industry, identifies key market players (including major producers, traders, etc.), and evaluates trade operations within the sector in the recent years. Related news bulletins update adds the finishing touch to an overview of economic situation in Uganda. Key Topics Covered: 1. UGANDA: COUNTRY PROFILE 1.1. Geographical position 1.2. Historical background 1.3. Demography 1.4. Administrative divisions 1.5. Political situation 1.6. Economic situation 1.7. Foreign relations 1.8. Social environment and culture. Cultural differences and their impact on business negotiations 2. UGANDA: FINANCIAL AND ECONOMICAL PROFILE 2.1. Country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP): historical trends and projection 2.2. Industrial production outlook 2.3. Uganda foreign trade 2.4. Current investment climate 2.5. Labor market overview. Current employment state 2.6. Ratings by major rating agencies 3. PECULIARITIES OF DOING BUSINESS IN UGANDA 3.1. Procedures for starting a business 3.2. Routine for building permits obtaining 3.3. Registration of ownership rights 3.4. Basic terms of providing business loans by banks 3.5. Measures for investments protection 3.6. Tax system 3.7. Foreign trade transactions 3.8. Debt collection 3.9. Business liquidation 4. UGANDA MINING OVERVIEW 5. UGANDA ECONOMY NEWS AND ANALYSIS DIGEST For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7nknts/mining_in_uganda Media Contact: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager [email protected] For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets Related Links http://www.researchandmarkets.com OMAHA, Neb., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Union Pacific Railroad climbed Newsweek's 2016 Green Rankings to No. 81 among U.S. businesses and No. 143 globally, improving from No.121 among U.S. businesses and No. 187 globally in 2015. The magazine recently ranked publicly traded companies by market capitalization. To read about Union Pacific's green efforts, visit http://www.up.com/aboutup/corporate_info/building-america-report/2015. "Union Pacific is honored to be recognized for its continued commitment to operating a safe, efficient and environmentally responsible railroad," said Scott Moore, Union Pacific senior vice president Corporate Relations. "Being a good neighbor in the communities where our employees and customers live and work is of utmost importance." Newsweek scores publicly traded companies against their global industry group peers based on eight indicators: Combined energy productivity Combined greenhouse gas (GHG) productivity Combined water productivity Combined waste productivity Green revenue score Sustainability pay link Sustainability board committee and Audited environmental metrics. Union Pacific recently released its 2015 Building America Report, detailing key sustainability accomplishments such as becoming the safest Class 1 railroad in the United States based on its employee injury rate, and operating 100 locomotives that meet the Environmental Protection Agency's stringent Tier 4 emissions standards. ABOUT UNION PACIFIC Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP). One of America's most recognized companies, Union Pacific Railroad connects 23 states in the western two-thirds of the country by rail, providing a critical link in the global supply chain. From 2006-2015, Union Pacific invested approximately $33 billion in its network and operations to support America's transportation infrastructure. The railroad's diversified business mix includes Agricultural Products, Automotive, Chemicals, Coal, Industrial Products and Intermodal. Union Pacific serves many of the fastest-growing U.S. population centers, operates from all major West Coast and Gulf Coast ports to eastern gateways, connects with Canada's rail systems and is the only railroad serving all six major Mexico gateways. Union Pacific provides value to its roughly 10,000 customers by delivering products in a safe, reliable, fuel-efficient and environmentally responsible manner. www.up.com www.facebook.com/unionpacific www.twitter.com/unionpacific Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110304/LA59497LOGO SOURCE Union Pacific Railroad Related Links http://www.up.com MINNEAPOLIS, June 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity honored The Valspar Corporation June 9 at its inaugural Habitat Hero Award Dinner at the Loews Chicago Hotel, recognizing the company's significant contributions and support for Habitat homeowners across the Chicago area. Valspar has been a long-standing partner of Habitat for Humanity, helping provide affordable housing for families and improving communities across the region and the nation. Habitat for Humanity has been in the Chicagoland area for over 30 years, and Valspar has provided volunteers, funding and free paint for every Habitat home that is built and restored. In May, Valspar sponsored National Neighborhood Week, which prompted more than 500 Valspar employees from 30 of the company's U.S. locations to volunteer with their local Habitat organization. Dozens of employees from Valspar's four Chicago-area facilities volunteered hundreds of hours to help the eight Habitat affiliates in the Chicago region with building and painting projects. "Here in Chicagoland, Valspar and its local executives have been instrumental leaders in our work to change more families' lives," said Tony Gambell, a partner at McKinsey & Company, vice chair of the Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity Board and a co-chair of the Habitat Hero event, who presented the award. "In addition to deploying employee volunteers, Valspar has provided a quarter million dollars in cash and product donations to the Chicago region alone." Les Ireland, EVP and President, Global Consumer, who is a member of Chicagoland Habitat's Executive Advisory Council, accepted the award on behalf of Valspar. "To be truly generous, one must be willing to give their time, their talent, and their treasure to serve others. There is no greater example of this than Habitat for Humanity, and Valspar is very proud of our partnership and the ways in which we work together," Ireland said. "Thank you for this wonderful honor, and we look forward to our continued partnership." John Edwardson, retired CEO of CDW, also was recognized at the Habitat Hero event for his company's and his personal long-time contributions to Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity. Valspar: If it matters, we're on it. Valspar is a global leader in the coatings industry providing customers with innovative, high-quality products and value-added services. Our 11,100 employees worldwide deliver advanced coatings solutions with best-in-class appearance, performance, protection and sustainability to customers in more than 100 countries. Valspar offers a broad range of superior coatings products for the consumer market, and highly-engineered solutions for the construction, industrial, packaging and transportation markets. Founded in 1806, Valspar is headquartered in Minneapolis. Valspar's reported net sales in fiscal 2015 were $4.4 billion and its shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol: VAL). For more information, visit www.valspar.com and follow @valspar on Twitter. About Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity: Chicagoland Habitat for Humanity was created as a support organization for Habitat for Humanity affiliates in the Chicagoland area, with a goal of significantly increasing the number of families served in the Chicagoland region. Habitat is committed to creating opportunities for individuals and families to thrive; to revitalizing neighborhoods and building communities; and to helping transform generations through home ownership. We do this by making housing affordable to hardworking people without access to conventional financing and offer individuals a hand up, fueled by our belief in dignity, self-sufficiency, collaboration, and hope. For more information, visit www.chicagolandhabitat.org. #HabitatHero Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150513/215784LOGO SOURCE Valspar Corporation Related Links http://www.valspar.com AUSTIN, Texas and DALLAS, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vinson & Elkins LLP continues to enhance its global Intellectual Property practice with the addition of five highly regarded partners in Austin and Dallas who have a broad range of patent, copyright, trademark, trade secrets and complex commercial litigation experience. The new partners arrive on the heels of the hiring of two IP partners on the West Coast and the recent opening of the firm's Taipei office. Fred Williams, Michael Simons, Todd Landis and Eric Klein have joined V&E from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. Craig Tyler has joined the firm from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC. Williams and Tyler both started their careers at V&E more than 20 years ago. "Having a vibrant intellectual property group with a national representation that is integrated with the rest of the firm has been a real focus of ours," said V&E Chairman Mark Kelly. "Attracting these five accomplished lawyers, when added with our other recent additions on the West Coast, is a big milestone and will position us well for the future. These strong partner additions confirm our commitment to the Austin market and bolster our Dallas IP practice." The new partners join V&E's global IP practice, which spans eight offices and includes a deep bench of trial lawyers who have successfully litigated a wide range of complex disputes. They will also support the firm's broader litigation practice, which includes more than 250 lawyers worldwide. "We are thrilled that Fred and Craig have come back to V&E and are being joined by Michael, Todd and Eric, all of whom are leading IP litigators," said V&E Global Litigation Head Jim Thompson. "V&E is committed to maintaining an elite litigation practice in Texas and throughout the world, and the addition of these partners underscores our dedication to that effort." Williams, who served as deputy group leader of Akin Gump's global IP practice, will reside in V&E's Austin office. He is being joined by Simons, who previously served as partner in charge of Akin Gump's Austin office, and Tyler. Landis and Klein will reside in V&E's Dallas office. "Returning to V&E presents a unique opportunity to reconnect with my roots and to be a part of the firm's ongoing efforts to expand its IP practice nationally and internationally," said Williams. "I am excited to be joining V&E's exceptional litigation team and starting the next chapter of my career." The partners focus their individual practices on a wide range of intellectual property disputes and commercial litigation and represent a number of name brand clients across a broad spectrum of industry, including the personal computer, telecommunications, LCD, software, Internet, semiconductor, medical device, gaming, e-learning, and energy sectors. "Our newest partners are an incredibly welcome addition to V&E's growing IP practice," said Hilary Preston, co-head of V&E's Intellectual Property Practice Group. "Fred, Craig, Michael, Todd and Eric are outstanding trial lawyers who will enhance the firm's presence in Texas and strengthen our global IP profile." The group's arrival follows V&E's opening of a new office in Taipei focused on serving the U.S. intellectual property and commercial litigation needs of over 40 Taiwanese companies, introduced to the firm through the addition of partners Chris Kao and David Tsai, who were attracted to V&E's IP practice in San Francisco and Palo Alto last September. They joined partner Darryl Woo, who previously had chaired the Litigation and Patent Litigation Groups of Fenwick & West. Woo now co-chairs V&E's IP Group along with Preston. "I am so excited about returning to V&Ethe firm has an outstanding reputation and an impressive global IP platform, which is a strong fit for my practice," said Tyler. "The firm is clearly committed to growing a robust IP presence in Austin and around the world and I am looking forward to contributing to that vision." Below is a brief overview of each new partner's practice. Fred I. Williams focuses his practice on complex litigation and counseling, with emphasis on intellectual property, antitrust, and class action disputes. The majority of his work is devoted to representing industry-leading companies in cases involving patent infringement, trade secret, competition, trade regulation and consumer protection claims. Williams prepares and tries cases to judges and juries across the country, having represented clients in 28 different states and the District of Columbia. He has extensive experience in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas and in representing technology companies and financial institutions nationwide. Williams also maintains an active pro bono practice focused on civil rights and consumer-protection litigation. M. Craig Tyler has litigated more than 140 patent infringement cases in federal courts throughout the country. Tyler also provides guidance, counseling and coordination of patent enforcement and patent defense efforts throughout the world, having assisted clients with patent-related issues in Japan, Taiwan, China, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, France, Australia and Canada. Tyler also has extensive experience with misappropriation of trade secrets, trade dress, trademark infringement, Lanham Act, copyright infringement and unfair competition claims. He is particularly experienced in ex-parte/emergency proceedings for temporary and preliminary injunctions involving IP and breach of contract issues in both federal and state courts in Texas and other states. An accomplished appellate lawyer, Tyler has handled appeals before the Federal Circuit and the Fifth Circuit. He has also handled AAA and JAMS arbitration proceedings, and has prosecuted patent and trademark applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. Todd Eric Landis practices intellectual property litigation in the electronic arts, chemical arts and oil field services. An experience trial lawyer, Landis has served as lead counsel in dozens of intellectual property matters and has significant jury and Markman hearing experience. He has represented companies as both plaintiff and defendant in patent litigation. Landis also has extensive experience in transactional aspects of intellectual property law, including complex licensing negotiations. Michael Simons is an experienced trial lawyer with first-chair experience in complex litigation cases. Simons practice focuses on patent infringement, trade secret, breach of contract, fraud, copyright, trademark and trade dress cases principally in the areas of medical devices, disruptive internet technology and financial services. Simons has tried IP jury cases as both plaintiff and defendant, including a significant trade secret verdict in the Eastern District of Texas that was affirmed by the Federal Circuit in the past few months. Prior to joining V&E, Simons served as the partner in charge of Akin Gump's Austin office. Simons was named one of Law360's top intellectual property attorneys under 40 to watch in 2011. Eric Joseph Klein's trial practice focuses on intellectual property matters, with a particular emphasis on patent litigation. Klein has a broad background in engineering and extensive experience building cases in highly technical subject matter areas. His practice encompasses all aspects of case preparation, discovery, expert preparation, claim construction, trial preparation and trial. Klein's technical experience spans a variety of fields, including computer hardware and software, Internet-related technologies, cell phone technologies, computer and data networking, wireless communications and semiconductors. In particular, he has litigated numerous cases involving telecommunications technologies and standards, such as Wi-Fi (802.11), WiMAX (802.16), CDMA, UMTS (3G), LTE (4G), GSM and Bluetooth. Klein is also one of the world's foremost legal authorities on the invention of the touchscreen computer. V&E has an established record of success obtaining, protecting, defending and enforcing clients' intellectual property rights, including patents, trademarks, trade dress, trade secrets and copyrights. The firm's lawyers have successfully litigated patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret cases in state and federal district courts throughout the United States and have obtained highly favorable results for V&E's clients at the U.S. International Trade Commission and in a variety of appellate courts, including the Federal Circuit. With more than 250 trial and regulatory lawyers located in offices across the globe, V&E's Litigation Department has experience litigating major disputes covering multiple jurisdictions and devising innovative methods to resolve those disputes. Recognized as an "awesome opponent" in litigation by BTI's Litigation Outlook 2016, the team's seasoned attorneys have substantial experience in jury and bench trials in the federal and state courts when litigation is necessary, as well as before administrative agencies and in arbitration. Vinson & Elkins LLP is an international law firm with approximately 650 lawyers across 16 offices worldwide. For more information, please contact Jeremy Heallen at +1.713.758.2079. SOURCE Vinson & Elkins LLP Related Links http://www.velaw.com WALNUT, Calif., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- VIASPACE CTO, Dr. Carl Kukkonen, made an invited presentation on Giant King Grass at the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference Feedstocks held in Miami, Florida June 6-8, 2016. The Conference, organized by Biofuels Digest (http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/), focused on the most critical issue in bioenergy today -- the availability of reliable feedstock, according to Biofuels Digest publisher, Mr. Jim Lane. The conference covered a wide variety of feedstocks including agricultural and forestry residues, municipal waste and dedicated energy crops, which included Giant King Grass, trees and algae, used for bioenergy, advanced biofuels, renewable chemicals and biomaterials. Topics included specific feedstocks and applications, and also supply chain management for reliable delivery of the feedstocks to the conversion customers. Dr. Kukkonen's presentation was entitled: "Giant King Grass Versatile Biomass for Bioenergy and Biorefineries" and was the leadoff presentation in the session dedicated to Energy Crops. The presentation covered Giant King Grass characteristics and applications for biopower/bioelectricity through direct combustion and anaerobic digestion, and for biofuels and biochemicals using its cellulosic sugars. Laboratory analysis data was presented for these applications and also for using Giant King Grass as a feedstock for bio coal, energy pellets and as a high nutrition animal feed for dairy cows and cattle. Dr. Kukkonen stated, "It is rare to find a single crop that can cover as many applications as Giant King Grass. If you cut it at 6-7 feet tall every two months, it is excellent animal feed. If you wait another month and cut it at 10 feet tall, it produces large amounts of biogas through anaerobic digestion. If you wait six months and it is 15 feet tall, it is the right time for cutting Giant King Grass for direct combustion in a power plant, energy pellets and as a feedstock for biofuels and biochemicals." Dr. Kukkonen remarked that he found the conference to be very valuable and made many new business contacts. "I learned about a lot of other feedstocks, and each one may have its own niche, but none of them came close to the biomass yields of Giant King Grass. This high yield characteristic makes Giant King Grass the lowest cost feedstock for any of the applications." VIASPACE Chairman, Dr. Kevin Schewe, commented, "VIASPACE has established itself as a leading authority in the business universe of renewable energy crops. We are regularly invited to present our work with Giant King Grass at these high profile conferences. We continue to work hard and are very close to having significant bioenergy projects come to fruition in Nicaragua and elsewhere globally using GKG as the principle feedstock." The VIASPACE presentation is available on the VIASPACE website www.VIASPACE.com. A picture from the conference is available on the VIASPACE Facebook page www.facebook.com/viaspaceinc. About VIASPACE Inc. VIASPACE grows renewable Giant King Grass as a low-carbon fuel for clean electricity generation; for environmentally friendly energy pellets; and as a feedstock for bio-methane production and for green cellulosic biofuels, biochemicals and biomaterials. Giant King Grass is a proprietary, high yield, dedicated biomass energy crop. Giant King Grass when it is cut frequently at 4 to 5 feet tall is also excellent animal feed. The USDA granted approval for planting Giant King Grass throughout the US and cooperates in exporting by performing the required inspections and issuing the phytosanitary certificate needed for import into foreign countries. Giant King Grass is being grown in California, Hawaii, St. Croix Virgin Islands, Nicaragua, South Africa, China, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines and Guyana. For more information, please go to www.VIASPACE.com or contact Dr. Jan Vandersande, Director of Communications, at 800-517-8050 or [email protected] Safe Harbor Statement Information in this news release includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Such factors include, without limitation, risks outlined in our periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015, and other factors over which VIASPACE has little or no control. SOURCE VIASPACE Inc. Related Links http://www.VIASPACE.com PALO ALTO, Calif., June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Vivo Capital, a global healthcare investment firm, announced the closing of a new healthcare venture capital focused fund, the Vivo PANDA Fund ("Vivo PANDA"), at over $100 million. Vivo plans to invest the capital primarily in innovative early-stage healthcare companies across the industry spectrum, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, and diagnostics. The addition of Vivo PANDA will enable the firm to invest in all stages in the life science industry's development cycles. Vivo PANDA will complement and build synergies with Vivo Capital Fund VIII, which invests primarily in later development stage and growth stage healthcare companies. Vivo also intends to continue its strategy of collaborating with portfolio companies on both sides of the Pacific in their efforts to forge cross-border partnerships. Through its bridge strategy, Vivo intends to promote cross-border dialogue and collaboration, enabling companies to accelerate innovation, acquire new products, and expand the market for their existing products. Investors in Vivo PANDA include financial institutions, corporate entities, and family offices. In addition to the close of the fund, the firm also announced the opening of its office in Taipei, Taiwan. The firm's new Taipei office is located at 18/F, No. 460, Section 4, Xinyi Road, Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. About Vivo Capital Founded in 1996, Vivo Capital is a global healthcare investment firm focused on investing in and building high quality companies. With more than $1.8 billion under management, Vivo employs a unique multi-pronged strategy of identifying and working with companies with promising technologies. Vivo Capital (http://www.vivocapital.com/) has offices in Palo Alto, Beijing, Shanghai, and Taipei. SOURCE Vivo Capital Related Links http://www.vivoventures.com VANCOUVER, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Wellgreen Platinum Ltd. ("Wellgreen Platinum" or the "Company") (TSX: WG; OTC-QX: WGPLF) is very pleased to announce that Diane R. Garrett has joined the Company as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors. Ms. Garrett has over 20 years of experience in the mining industry and an exceptional track record for developing projects, building companies and creating considerable value for shareholders. Most recently, Ms. Garrett was President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Romarco Minerals Inc. ("Romarco"), a Toronto Stock Exchange listed company which was acquired by OceanaGold Corp. (TSX, ASX, NZX: OGC) in 2015 for a final transaction value of over C$550 million. As CEO of Romarco, Ms. Garrett restructured the company and built and led the team that developed a world class mining project from exploration through to final feasibility, permitting and into construction, starting in 2002 with no assets and a market capitalization of less than C$20 million. Ms. Garrett has extensive experience in executive management and advanced academic credentials in the mining and petroleum industries, including a Masters degree in Mineral Economics and a Ph.D. in Engineering (with her doctoral dissertation focused primarily on Platinum Group Metals) from the University of Texas at Austin. Myron Manternach, Chairman of Wellgreen Platinum, stated, "We are thrilled to have Diane join the Company. She is ideally suited to lead the Company forward and to unlock the tremendous value of our assets for the benefit of all our stakeholders. We look forward to working with Diane and benefiting from her energy and enthusiasm as well as her vast experience, expertise and network." Ms. Garrett stated, "I'm very excited to join Wellgreen Platinum, which controls a project that is not only one of the largest undeveloped PGM-Ni deposits in the world but is also located in one of the most attractive jurisdictions globally. The Wellgreen Project is exceptionally attractive in terms of the extraordinary size of the resource, the diversity of base and precious metals, and its being situated in a supportive community. I appreciate the hard work carried out by current management and the Board that has brought Wellgreen Platinum to this point, and I look forward to working with the team to take this project up the value chain." The hiring of Ms. Garrett concludes a successful search process conducted by the Executive Search Committee of the Board of Directors led by Board member, Michele Darling. Mr. Manternach stated, "On behalf of the entire Board of Directors, I want to extend a special thanks to Michele for her excellent work in managing a thorough, professional and cost-effective search process." Mr. Manternach further stated, "On behalf of the Board of Directors, I also want to thank John Sagman, Wellgreen Platinum's Chief Operating Officer, for his excellent leadership as interim President during the last six months." Wellgreen Platinum is also pleased to announce that Gillyeard (Gil) Leathley has been appointed as an observer to the Board of Directors, and is expected to stand for election to the Board at the Company's next Annual General Meeting. Mr. Leathley is being proposed as a director by Electrum Strategic Opportunities Fund L.P. ("Electrum") pursuant to its rights under the terms of a unit purchase agreement between the Company and Electrum dated March 9, 2016. Mr. Leathley has more than 50 years of experience in the mining industry, culminating in the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Homestake Mining where he provided executive leadership in all aspects of mine construction and operations around the world. Myron Manternach stated, "We enthusiastically welcome Mr. Leathley to Wellgreen. With his extensive mine-building expertise, Gil has the very skill sets we need on our Board to help us as we take our project to the next level." About Wellgreen Platinum Wellgreen Platinum is a Canadian mining exploration and development company focused on the active advancement of its Wellgreen platinum group metals (PGM) and nickel project. Located in the Yukon Territory of Canada, the 2015 PEA demonstrated that the Wellgreen project has the potential to become a large, low cost, open pit producer of nickel, platinum, palladium, gold, and copper. The Wellgreen property is accessible from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to year-round deep sea ports in southern Alaska. The Company is led by a management team with a track record of successful large-scale project discovery, development, financing and operation. Our vision is to create value for our shareholders through development of the Wellgreen deposit into a leading North American PGM and nickel producer. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Information: This news release includes certain information that may be deemed "forward-looking information". Forward-looking information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans" or similar terminology, or negative connotations thereof. All information in this release, other than information of historical facts, including, without limitation, regarding the size, scale and future development of the Wellgreen deposit, is forward-looking information that involves various risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in such forward-looking information are based on reasonable assumptions, such expectations are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in the forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is based on a number of material factors and assumptions. For more information on the Company and the key assumptions, risks and challenges with respect to the forward looking information discussed herein, and about our business in general, investors should review the Preliminary Economic Assessment dated March 19, 2015 on the Wellgreen project, our most recently filed annual information form, and other continuous disclosure filings which are available at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. SOURCE Wellgreen Platinum Ltd. Related Links www.wellgreenplatinum.com "We are grateful to Whirlpool for their continued commitment to furthering Habitat's mission of helping families build a decent and affordable place they can call home," said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International. "The donation of a range and refrigerator for Habitat homes in the U.S. is just one way Whirlpool helps families who need a helping hand, and we appreciate their faithful partnership." In addition to its financial commitment, Whirlpool will fully fund the construction of a new home in Bloomington, Indiana and Benton Harbor, Michigan and partially sponsor builds in Dallas, Texas; Tampa, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Phoenix, Arizona; Amana, Iowa; Cleveland, Tennessee; Detroit, Michigan; and Monterrey, Mexico this year. Whirlpool Corporation will also participate in a blitz build with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University for the seventh consecutive year. Students at Indiana University and Whirlpool employees will work alongside a Habitat family to help them build a home in ten days in the Bloomington area. Whirlpool will continue its Habitat Ambassador Program, which was developed to create champions for the company's signature charities. Whirlpool Ambassadors are actively engaged in the partnership with Habitat and fulfill leadership positions on local Habitat boards, participate in construction activities and represent Whirlpool at Habitat-related events. "Whirlpool Corporation is committed to continuing to help families build strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter," said Deb O'Connor, director of global corporate reputation and community relations. "This 17-year partnership with Habitat Humanity is something that our company, employees and community all take great pride in." Since the partnership began in 1999, Whirlpool has donated more than 87,000 refrigerators and ranges to Habitat families in the U.S. Whirlpool has also helped build more than 170 houses around the world. Whirlpool employees participate in builds where the company's manufacturing operations, customer service and administrative offices are located. About Whirlpool Corporation and Habitat for Humanity International In more than 17 years of partnership with Habitat for Humanity, Whirlpool Corporation has developed active programs in more than 45 countries with a commitment of more than $95 million. In the United States and Canada, the company has donated more than 175,000 ranges and refrigerators to new Habitat homes, serving more than 87,000 families. Additionally, Whirlpool has donated more than 41,000 products to Habitat ReStore retail outlets, helping raise nearly $5.7 million. The company has engaged thousands of employee volunteers, sponsored nearly 170 homes and donated products to more than 75,000 Habitat families in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Whirlpool supports Habitat's work around the world through product donations, financial contribution and/or volunteerism. For more information, visit http://whirlpoolcorp.com/social-responsibility/. About Habitat for Humanity International Driven by the vision that everyone needs a decent place to live, Habitat for Humanity has grown from a grassroots effort that began on a community farm in southern Georgia in 1976 to a global nonprofit housing organization in nearly 1,400 communities across the U.S. and in over 70 countries. People partner with Habitat for Humanity to build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage. Through financial support, volunteering, or adding a voice to support affordable housing, everyone can help families achieve the strength, stability and self-reliance they need to build better lives for themselves. Through shelter, we empower. To learn more, visit habitat.org. About Whirlpool Corporation Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) is the number one major appliance manufacturer in the world, with approximately $21 billion in annual sales, 97,000 employees and 70 manufacturing and technology research centers in 2015. The company markets Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Consul, Brastemp, Amana, Bauknecht, Jenn-Air, Indesit and other major brand names in nearly every country throughout the world. Additional information about the company can be found at WhirlpoolCorp.com, or find us on Twitter at @WhirlpoolCorp. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160613/378429 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050501/NYSU020LOGO SOURCE Habitat for Humanity International Related Links http://www.habitat.org BEIJING, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Yirendai Ltd. (NYSE: YRD) ("Yirendai" or the "Company"), a leading online consumer finance marketplace in China, today announced the appointment of Mr. Yang Cao to the positions of chief operating officer and chief technology officer of the Company. In these roles, Mr. Cao will lead the Company's technology, product and engineering divisions and oversee business operations including customer acquisition, business development and product marketing. "We are thrilled to have Yang on board," said Ms. Yihan Fang, chief executive officer of Yirendai. "Yang's expertise and leadership will enable the robust growth of our business in the years to come." Mr. Yang Cao brings with him more than 19 years of experience in building, scaling and growing successful technology companies in both Silicon Valley and China. Prior to joining Yirendai, Mr. Cao was the general manager of Asia-Pacific operations at xAd, a leading mobile location advertising technology platform, where he led the efforts to start, build and grow xAd's technology and business in the region. Prior to that, Mr. Cao served as chief technology officer of Zhubajie Network, where he joined through the acquisition of Julu Mobile, a mobile technology company co-founded by Mr. Cao. Mr. Cao also served as chief technology officer of WhitePages and held technology executive positions at TokBox and StarCite. Mr. Cao received Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and Bachelor of Science in Physics from Peking University. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements constitute "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "target," "confident" and similar statements. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations and current market and operating conditions, and relate to events that involve known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, all of which are difficult to predict and many of which are beyond Yirendai's control. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any such statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, uncertainties as to Yirendai's ability to attract and retain borrowers and investors on its marketplace, its ability to introduce new loan products and platform enhancements, its ability to compete effectively, PRC regulations and policies relating to the peer-to-peer lending service industry in China, general economic conditions in China, and Yirendai's ability to meet the standards necessary to maintain listing of its ADSs on the NYSE or other stock exchange, including its ability to cure any non-compliance with the NYSE's continued listing criteria. Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in Yirendai's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Yirendai does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law. About Yirendai Yirendai Ltd. (NYSE: YRD) is a leading online consumer finance marketplace in China connecting investors and individual borrowers. The Company provides an effective solution to address largely underserved investor and individual borrower demand in China through an online platform that automates key aspects of its operations to efficiently match borrowers with investors and execute loan transactions. Yirendai deploys a proprietary risk management system, which enables the Company to effectively assess the creditworthiness of borrowers, appropriately price the risks associated with borrowers, and offer quality loan investment opportunities to investors. Yirendai's online marketplace provides borrowers with quick and convenient access to consumer credit at competitive prices and investors with easy and quick access to an alternative asset class with attractive returns. For more information, please visit yirendai.investorroom.com. For investor and media inquiries, please contact: Yirendai Hui (Matthew) Li Director of Investor Relations Email: [email protected] Christensen In China Christian Arnell Phone: +86 (0) 10-59001548 Email: [email protected] In U.S. Linda Bergkamp Phone: +1 (480) 614-3004 Email: [email protected] SOURCE Yirendai Ltd. Related Links http://yirendai.investorroom.com 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 Manila, June 8 : The Philippines-based terror group Abu Sayyaf has released four abducted Malaysian sailors in the island of Borneo, officials said on Wednesday. The four, abducted on April 1, were freed after several rounds of talks between Malaysian and Filipino negotiators on the island of Jolo, a stronghold of the terrorist group, and reached the city of Sandakan in Sabah on Wednesday morning, Efe reported. The rebels had demanded a ransom of $4 million to free the hostages, all crew members of a tugboat, which was seized while returning to Malaysia after leaving the Philippine waters. On May 1, the rebel group freed 10 Indonesian sailors they abducted in March in exchange for $1 million, and 10 days later released another four Indonesian sailors captured in April, for the same ransom amount. The group, which beheaded a Canadian hostage on April 25 after the deadline for ransom expired, is still holding a Japanese, a Dutchman, a Norwegian, a Canadian and his Philippine girlfriend. In May, the group had threatened to decapitate either Norway's Kjartan Sekkingstad or Canada's Robert Hall on June 13 if they were not paid $6 million. New Delhi, June 8 : India on Wednesday strongly condemned the terror attack in Turkey's Istanbul city on Tuesday that claimed 11 lives. "India strongly condemns the terror attack that occurred in Istanbul on 7 June, 2016," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement. "We offer condolences to the bereaved families and wish speedy recovery to the injured," it said. "This dastardly act once again underlines the need for concerted action by the global community against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations," it added. Seven police personnel and four civilians were killed with over 30 others injured on Tuesday in an attack targeting a police vehicle in Istanbul. A bomb-laden car was detonated as the vehicle was passing by a police station, according to Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin. The police vehicle was heading to Istanbul University for regular duty. Gunshots were heard after the explosion, officials said. New Delhi, June 8 : After some files of the fodder scam went missing in Bihar, Union Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Wednesday accused the Nitish Kumar government of "protecting criminals" and said all this was being done to get a clean-chit for RJD chief Lalu Prasad. "Today it seems that there is a political system in Bihar which is protecting criminals and giving shelter to them," Rudy said here at a press conference. "The missing files signify there are people in the system trying to get a clean-chit for Lalu Prasad," the minister, who hails from the state added. Rudy's remarks came after files related to the multi-crore fodder scam in Bihar reportedly disappeared from the state's Animal Husbandry Department office in Patna. "This is time to review, revive and recall what is happening in Bihar," Rudy said, adding, "Fodder scam garnered the attention of the nation as a sitting chief minister was accused in the case." "In this case Lalu (Lalu Prasad Yadav) was forced to exit from his post and also had to go to jail. And even today he can't contest election as he is a convict in the case," the BJP leader said. Former Chief Minister of Bihar Lalu Prasad was convicted in the Rs.900 crore embezzlement scandal. The minister said there has been a sharp rise in crimes in the state after the Nitish Kumar-led Grand Alliance came to power. "There is theft, murder, loot, abduction, rape in Bihar. The figures related to these defines the status of crime in the state. Now, it seems Bihar is for criminals," Rudy said. He also refuted the allegations of government interference over the ongoing controversy on "Udta Punjab". "The process of censorship must have certain guidelines. I reject the charges of government interference into the censorship," he said. He also accused the Aam Aadmi Party of fuelling the issue, saying "AAP's survival is based on creating controversies and then to do politics over it." The minister also said that drugs is not an election issue in Punjab and added that the BJP-Akali Dal alliance is doing "extremely excellent" work. "I don't see there is any problem in Punjab," he said. Panaji, June 10 : Goa PWD minister Sudin Dhavalikar on Friday reiterated his demand for the shifting of the Portuguese consulate in Panaji to Delhi to "prevent Goans from opting for dual citizenship". "I reiterate my demand for shifting of the Portuguese consulate to Delhi," Dhavalikar told reporters at the secretariat here. On June 7, Goa's freedom fighters sought the closure of the consulate that processes the documents of Goan natives desirous of Portugal's citizenship under a unique nationality law. "Portugal is still trying to interfere in the internal affairs of Goa and India. We want punishment for Goans who opt for Portuguese citizenship. Dual citizenship is a threat to the state's security," freedom fighter and noted poet Naguesh Karmali said. Goa was one of the oldest colonies of Portugal before its liberation by the Indian Army in 1961. All Goan natives were thereafter granted Indian citizenship via a notification. However, the departing Portuguese allowed residents of Goa during its rule to get their birth registered in Portugal and thus avail of citizenship and Portuguese travel identity documents. The privilege was later extended to two more generations of Goans. Nearly two lakh Goans have so far opted for Portuguese citizenship, retaining their Indian citizenship at the same time. The home ministry has now promised to set up an authority in Goa soon to examine the citizenship issue on a case-by-case basis. Mumbai, June 11 : Over 30 online petitions started by people across the country are demanding the release of an uncensored version of "Udta Punjab". The petititons on the website Change.org are in the wake of the controversy in which the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) initially demanded 89 cuts, which were then brought down to 13 by its Revising Committee. However, the movie's makers are fighting against the censorship, for a due certification. The biggest petition, with the hashtag SackNihalani, was started by Mehakpal Singh from Amritsar. It has drawn the support of nearly 35,000 people in four days. In his petition, Singh says: "'Udta Punjab' shows the dark reality of youth in Punjab and every Punjabi wants that the plight of Punjabi youth to be improved. We want to see the movie without any cuts." While most of these petitions express anger at undue censorship by CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani, three of these specifically demand Nihalani to be sacked. According to another petition filed by Shriya Desai, "Pahlaj Nihalani has been treating the censor board like his personal fiefdom". The petition also reads: "He has taken arbitrary decisions, sometimes without even watching movies. He has embarrassed the movie industry, the Central Government and the Indian people. It's time to fire him." While these two categories of petitions continue to trend on Change.org, Jayashree B, a mother of two boys, started a third element of debate on the CBFC -- random certification. In her petition, Jayashree says she recently took her sons to a Tamil movie branded as science fiction, because it had been given 'U' certification. However, the movie featured violent and disturbing scenes inappropriate for young children. On the other hand, a movie like "Udta Punjab" that "challenges status quo", receives heavy cuts. "Why does the 'Censor Board' treat children like adults and adults like children," Jayashree has questioned in the petition. The "Udta Punjab" controversy has brought forward many filmmakers, actors and most of all common people who have questioned the role of the censor board. Even the Bombay High Court on Friday pulled up the CBFC for insisting on 'censoring' films instead of 'certifying' them. Marseille (France), June 12 : A 50-year-old English man is battling for his life at a hospital here after assault by a group of Russian fans ahead of the Euro 2016 Group B game between England and Russia, Marseille police official Laurent Nunez, has said. The man suffered a heart attack and was resuscitated by police, and was rushed to a hospital in that city in critical condition on Sunday, reports Efe. The attack came near the Vieux-Port district of downtown Marseille when fans clashed hours before the start of Saturday night's match at the Stade Velodrome, which ended in a 1-1 draw. Authorities said the English man received several blows with a metal bar, some to the head. A total of three English fans were hospitalised with serious injuries, Marseille's city government said. The opposing fans squared off in a pitched battle in the city's downtown for several hours despite the deployment of riot police, who used tear gas and water cannon. It was a third consecutive day of violent incidents in Marseille, mostly involving English hooligans, dozens of whom have been arrested. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve condemned the violence, blaming it on "pseudo-fans". There were also violent incidents inside the Stade Velodrome during Saturday night's match, with reports of fighting and the setting off of flares. New Delhi, June 12 : Stunned by the outcome in the elections to the Rajya Sabha from Haryana where votes of 14 Congress legislators were declared "invalid", the party has decided to approach the Election Commission to demand a probe. "It was all part of a conspiracy hatched by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)," Congress General Secretary B.K. Hariprasad told a TV channel on Sunday. "We will meet Election Commission tomorrow (Monday) to protest against the misuse of government machinery," he said. Following rejection as "invalid" of some votes polled in the Rajya Sabha elections for two seats in Haryana on Saturday, Independent candidate R.K. Anand, backed by the Congress, lost the poll to media baron Subhash Chandra, also an Independent who was supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party. Asked whether the party suspected sabotage by its own leaders, including former Chief Minister B.S. Hooda who had initially opposed Anand's candidature, Hari Prasad replied in negative. "The final decision to support R.K. Anand's candidature was taken at the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting," he asserted. "All our MLAs voted in favour of Anand," he said. For his part, senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister Hooda also demanded a probe. United Nations/London, June 13 : UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and British Prime Minister on Sunday condemned the "horrific attack" in Orlando in the US state of Florida, in which 50 people were killed and 53 were left injured. The secretary-general "extends his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and expresses his solidarity with the government and people of the US," Xinhua quoted a statement as saying. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his horror by the shooting attack. "I'm horrified by reports of the overnight shooting in Orlando. My thoughts are with the victims and their families," he tweeted. Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, also tweeted, "Shocked by shooting in Orlando". He noted that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is in contact with the local authorities, adding, "Thoughts are with victims and families." A gunman wielding an assault-type rife and a handgun killed at least 50 people in a nightclub in Orlando on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in the US history. US President Barack Obama decried the tragedy as an "act of terror." The Islamic State-linked news agency, Amaq, said the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. New York, June 13 : Fifty people were killed and 53 others injured on Sunday when an Islamic State (IS) gunman opened fire at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Xinhua news agency compiled the major shooting incidents in the US that caused deadly casualties in the past decades. On June 12, 2016: A gunman killed at least 50 people and injured 53 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. On April 16, 2007: A 23-year-old student from the Republic of Korea went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg of Virginia, killing 32 people and wounding 15 others before killing himself. It was the worst school shooting in the US history. On December 14, 2012: A 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 28 people including 20 children and eight adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School in the US state of Connecticut. Lanza first killed his mother at their shared home before taking her guns and driving to the school. On October 16, 1991: A 35-year-old gunman crashed his truck through the wall of a Cafeteria in Kileen, Texas and shot dead 23 people and wounded 27 others. He then committed suicide. On July 18, 1984: A 41-year-old gunman killed 21 adults and children at a local McDonalds in San Ysidro, California before he was killed by a SWAT team sniper. On August 1, 1966: A former US Marine killed 14 and wounded at least 30 while shooting from a University of Texas tower in Austin, Texas. Police officers shot the gunman dead in the tower. Before he went on the shooting, he murdered his wife and his mother in their homes. On December 2, 2015: A married couple shot 14 people dead and wounded 17 in a conference hall at a service centre for disabled people where county employees gathered for a celebration in San Bernardino, California. On August 20, 1986: A part-time mail carrier armed with three handguns killed 14 postal workers in Edmond, Oklahoma in 10 minutes before killing himself. On November 5, 2009: Major Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people and injured 32 at Fort Hood, Texas in a shooting rampage. He was convicted and sentenced to death. On April 3, 2009: Jiverly Wong killed 13 people and injured four during a shooting at an immigrant community centre in Binghamton, New York and then took his own life. On April 20, 1999: Two teenagers killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before committing suicide in the school library in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. On February 18, 1983: Three men entered the Wah Mee gambling and social club in Seattle, Washington, robbed the 14 occupants and shot 13 of them dead. On September 16, 2013: Thirty four-year-old Aaron Alexis fired inside the Washington Navy Yard, killing 12. He was also killed in the shooting. On July 20, 2012: A heavily-armed 24-year-old gunman killed 12 people and 58 wounded in a shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. On March 10, 2009: Michael McLendon of Kinston killed 10 people including his mother, grandparents, aunt and uncle, and then committed suicide. An average of about 33,000 people were killed by guns each year in the US in the past five years, according to the data released by the US Central of Disease Control. Reports said that during Obama's seven and half years in office, he has come out to address a major shooting tragedy for a total of 15 times. Chennai, June 13 : Director Sam Anton, who has teamed up with G.V. Prakash Kumar for the second time in forthcoming Tamil action-comedy "Ennaku Innoru Peru Irukku", says unlike their previous outing, this film completely belongs to the actor. The duo had previously worked together in 2015 Tamil horror-comedy "Darling". "'Darling' was a heroine-centric film. However, 'Ennaku Innorua' is an out-and-out hero-centric film, despite the presence of nearly dozen strong characters. The film rests completely on the shoulders of G.V Prakash," Anton told IANS. Prakash has evolved as an actor since "Darling", said the director. "He has worked really hard this time. In 'Darling', his character didn't require him to do much. However, this time he has really pushed himself to the edge in terms of performance. Out of the four songs in the album, he has danced to three like never before," he said. The film, which features Prakash as a gangster, is slated for release on Friday. Nearly 70 percent of the film has been shot at night. "This is the story of the rise of a gangster. The film is filled with wacky characters and we've treated it with high-octane humour. The last half hour is where the film shifts gear and audiences will get to see something unexpected," said Anton, who would love to work with Prakash again. "I hope there will be a third film with Prakash. I want to work with him again but not sure when it will happen, because he's busy with nearly half a dozen projects in his kitty," he said. The film is bankrolled by Lyca Productions, who are currently producing Rajinikanth-starrer "2.o". "More than the pressure of working with such a big banner, I felt more responsible. Usually, producers come and see the rushes of the film at regular intervals. However, my producer only saw the film after it was certified. It shows the trust they had in me and my product," he said. Chennai, June 13 : Nani-starrer Telugu thriller "Gentleman", which is slated for release this Friday, will have a record number of release in 127 screens in the US. According to Gaatri Media, the overseas distributor of the film, this is biggest US release for Nani. In an official statement, the company confirmed that the film releases in 127 screens, with special premieres planned on Thursday. Apart from releases in regular cities, "Gentleman" will also make it to the tiniest of US cities such as Tallahassee, Maryville and Poughkeepsie among others. Outside of US, the film will also release in countries such as Africa, Germany and Mauritius. Directed by Indraganti Mohan Krishna, the film also stars Nivetha Thomas, Surbhi and Srinivasa Avasarla. Accra (Ghana), June 13 : Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, on a three-nation African tour, has expressed his grief over the Orlando mass shooting that left 50 people dead and has emphasised on the need to coordinate global efforts to fight terrorism. Mukherjee said he was "shocked and deeply saddened" at the killings at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida. "This event is yet another grim reminder that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them," the Indian President said. "India condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. We believe that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence." Mukherjee's message to the Ghananian leadership was also on similar lines as he expressed solidarity with the African people wherever they are hit by terrorism. As a victim of the "global menace" for the past three decades, India believed that terrorism knew no religion, no ideology, Mukherjee said at the banquet hosted in his honour by President John Dramani Mahama. Mukherjee applauded Ghana's role in promoting cooperation among the African nations and with India, as Mahama had underlined during the India-Africa Forum III last year. The Indian President congratulated the Ghanaian leadership for moving the country to the low-middle income group and becoming one of the major African economies. India and Ghana, he said, shared common experiences of the past. He quoted Tagore's famous lines on "Ethiopia" to underline the Indian empathy for the African people who had freed themselves after years of colonialism. He offered Indian investments and assistance in a whole range of economic and development activities to boost the African endeavour. A number of agreements are scheduled to be signed at Accra where Mukherjee will interact with the businessmen and members of the 10,000 strong Indian community. Mukherjee arrived here on Sunday on the first leg of his three-nation tour that will also take him to Cote D'Ivoire and Namibia as part of India's outreach to Africa to consolidate ties with the continent. Washington, June 13 : US President Barack Obama on Monday once again called the nation's attention to the pressing problem of gun violence following the mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando city, Florida, which left 50 people killed and 53 injured. Until the end of 2015, Obama had made 15 public statements condemning gun violence and calling for a restriction on sales. However, he is not the only US president who has made efforts to curb gun violence, Xinhua news agency reported. The following are more statements or actions over US gun control made by the presidents in the past decades: This year on January 5, Obama presented at the White House a set of administrative measures to restrict gun use, including strict background checks on firearm purchasers, federal research on gun safety technology and a request for $500 million to improve mental health programmes. On December 3, 2015, a day after Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook killed 14 people and injured 17 in a service centre for disabled people in California, Obama appealed for gun law reforms to restrict gun sales, the third time in a week that he made such a statement. On December 16, 2012, Obama called for an urgent change to current US gun laws when attending a meeting to remember the 26 lives, including those of 20 children, lost in the school mass shootings in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14 that year. After the 2012 shooting, the Obama administration initiated but failed to push for stronger gun control laws. Recalling such frustration, Obama admitted that the failure to reform gun laws is "one of the greatest frustrations" of his presidency. During the presidency of George W. Bush, national gun laws were somewhat loosened as the Democratic Party supported the gun lobby and supporters. Compared to Obama, Bush, according to the US media, made no direct public statement on any shooting incidents during his term. Bush's predecessor Bill Clinton successfully signed several federal acts on gun control in 1994, including the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, and the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, commonly called the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB). However, the AWB expired on September 13, 2004, as President Clinton had made the compromise with a Democrats-dominated congress that the ban only had effect for a term of 10 years. Given that the right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, many see scant hope to make big changes to American gun laws. An average of about 33,000 people were killed by guns annually in the US in the past five years, according to data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New Delhi, June 13 : President Pranab Mukherjee has expressed shock and sadness over the deadly attack "against innocent civilians" in Orlando, US. In a message to US President Barack Obama on Monday, Mukherjee said: "I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of the deadly attack against innocent civilians in Orlando earlier today. I offer my deepest sympathies to all those who have been affected by this terrible tragedy." He said that India condemns terrorism in "all its forms and manifestations" and that there can be no justification for such senseless acts of violence. "This event is yet another grim reminder that the world must come together to address, comprehensively and urgently, the scourge of terrorism, its perpetrators and also those who support or harbour them," Mukherjee added. He said the people of India "stand by the people of the US" in their "moment of grief and mourning". "We pray for the families that have lost loved ones and for the swift recovery of the injured," he said. Thiruvananthapuram, June 13 : Two film personalities in Kerala on Monday welcomed the Bombay High Court ruling clearing for release of film 'Udta Punjab' without the cuts demanded by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). "The entire controversy was needless and the censor board is unnecessarily interfering. I am happy now that the court has intervened to make way for the release of the film," popular film director Kamal told reporters here. Amateur film-maker Sijo Kannanaikkal said: "It's rather strange that after all the hard work of making a film, one has to approach the courts." Kannanaikkal is engaged in his own struggle with the CBFC over some scenes in his film 'Kathakali'. He has been asked to remove certain scenes from the film for it to be certified. The Bombay High Court on Monday overruled the CBFC-recommended 13 cuts for Bollywood film 'Udta Punjab' and cleared the film for release with one cut and three disclaimers by the filmmakers. Colombo, June 13 : Sri Lanka's main Islamic political party, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), on Monday called for removing excess military camps in the former war zones in the country's north. SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem said his party does not agree with the proposal that the army should be fully withdrawn from the north, Xinhua reported. He said there is a concern by the public that the army is still occupying property it does not require. He said the army must release property which needs to be given back to the people and have camps in the north which are only required for national security. The Sri Lankan army earlier said it will not withdraw from the north despite the end of a 30 years civil war in 2009. Sri Lanka government battled Tamil Tiger rebels in a brutal war which saw thousands killed on both sides. However following the end of the war Tamil political parties have been calling for the withdrawal of the army from the north. Bhubaneswar, June 13 : The Odisha government has ordered 10 Chinese nationals working in the Adani Group-managed Dhamra Port Company Limited in Bhadrak district of the state to leave the country, a senior official said on Monday. The state government took the step after the Ministry of Home Affairs directive for the issuance of 'leave India' notices to the Chinese nationals. Sources said two of them have already left the country. The Chinese were asked to leave as the area they are working in is close to the missile launch facility at the A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Island, approximately 10 km off the coast of Odisha in the Bay of Bengal. Dhamra is the nearest port. "The MHA informed the state government last week about the presence of the 10 Chinese nationals in Bhadrak district. They were working in DPCL. We have asked the intelligence chief and Bhadrak Superintendent of Police to execute the leave India notices on these foreign nationals," Home Secretary Asit Tripathy told reporters here. The 10 Chinese engaged by Thailand-based Sunzo Foundation Engineering were working on a business visa instead of an employment visa for some months, said an official. Bhadrak SP Nihar Ranjan Das said the Chinese nationals have been served the notices. Islamabad, June 13 : Pakistan on Monday summoned the Afghan envoy to lodge a protest against cross-border shelling by Afghan troops that injured at least two soldiers and nine civilians, a foreign ministry statement said. The Pakistani Army said Afghan troops "resorted to indiscriminate firing" at Torkham border point where Pakistan is constructing a gate on own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement. "Today, Afghan envoy was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey Pakistan's strong protest over unprovoked firing by the Afghan forces at Pakistani forces on Torkham border crossing," the statement said. "The Afghan envoy was told that the firing incident was contrary to the spirit of friendly relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghan side was urged to thoroughly investigate the incident and share the findings with Pakistani authorities," it said. Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told ministers that Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to observe ceasefire along the Torkham border and solve the problem through diplomatic means. Adullah confirmed that one Afghan border police was killed and six others were injured in clashes. The Pakistan foreign ministry spokesman said it was further emphasized that all steps should be taken for avoiding recurrence of such incidents in the future. The firing was aimed at disrupting the construction of a gate well inside Pakistani territory at the border which is being constructed to facilitate the cross-border movement of people and vehicles. "It was conveyed to the Afghan side that the regulation of movements at Torkham is part of government's policy to strengthen border management. Therefore, Afghan government's cooperation was needed as it would enhance mutual security and help combat the threat of terrorism," the spokesman said. The Afghan foreign ministry also said that it wants to solve border issues with Pakistan through diplomatic channels. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan considers this tension as unpleasant. Afghanistan adheres to its pervious accords with Pakistan and emphasizes peaceful methods and expects from Pakistani side to tackle this problem through diplomatic channels," a statement said in Kabul. Islamabad, June 13 : The transgender community in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province took to the streets on Monday to protest a murder attempt on a community member who was shot multiple times for refusing the sexual advances of a group of armed men. The transgender community also criticised the police for not providing them security in the wake of rising incidents of attacks on community members. They took to streets after a transgender, identified as Kashi alias Chand, was critically injured after being shot for allegedly resisting sexual advances of some armed men who barged into her house in Mansehra town of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The Monday incident comes weeks after another transgender activist succumbed to her injuries after being shot multiple times in the provincial capital Peshawar and was denied treatment at the hospital. Police sources told the Express News, "Kashi alias Chand was at her home when three armed persons barged into her home and started making sexual advances towards her which she resisted." "Chand's refection infuriated the men who shot her multiple times, leaving her critically injured," a source added. The attackers managed to escape from the scene while the victim was shifted to a hospital in a critical condition. There has been an increase in incidents of violence against transgender people in the province, where they have been beaten and their heads shaven. New Delhi, June 13 : The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Monday issued notice to the Rajasthan government on the plight of women branded as witches in the state's Bhilwara district. Taking sou motu cognizance of the issue through media reports, the commission has learned that most often widows or women without any family support have been branded as witches. "Some of them were tortured brutally or even killed. Some of them were forced to leave their homes, and their properties were grabbed by powerful people," a statement from the commission said. The state authorities have allegedly not taken effective action against either the offenders or to curb this menace. Accordingly, the commission has observed that the issue if true, raises serious violation of human rights of the hapless and helpless women in Rajasthan. "The notice has been issued to the Chief Secretary and Director General of Police, Government of Rajasthan calling for reports in the matter. They have been asked to indicate the action taken by the law enforcement in each such incident and the steps taken by the State authorities to address the issue," said the statement. Accra (Ghana), June 13 : The West African nation Ghana is looking to India for a civil nuclear route to augment and diversify its energy requirements and to the Indian railways to connect with its hinterland and the Saharan region to its north. These were among the 'new' areas earmarked for exploration as President Pranab Mukherjee's state visit here took concrete economic dimensions during delegation level talks. On bilateral trade, the President mooted an ambitious $5 billion target over the next three years from the current $3 billion turnover. President John Dramani Mahama, hosting Mukherjee, mooted the civil nuclear route as it is heavily dependent on gas from Nigeria that has of late been uncertain. It was not mentioned, but Ghana appears to be taking a cue from India's rapid strides in the nuclear field, including its bid to gain membership of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group. Mukherjee's visit has enjoyed a fairly high profile in the media to the extent that the people on the street here have taken note. India enjoys considerable goodwill and people recall Jawaharlal Nehru's strong bonds with their first prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah. Mukherjee laid a wreath at the mausoleum of Nkrumah and also visited the memorial of another prominent Ghanaian friend of India, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. While basking under that goodwill, India wants, as Mukherjee stressed, to reduce the state-to-state cooperation and encourage private enterprise investments. The "Brand India" is being sought to be promoted in the field of capacity building, IT and small scale industries. The railway network being proposed is to connect Tema to Akasombo that wil help Ghana to reach out to neighbouring Burkina Faso. It comes on the heels of India, Afghanistan and Iran signing a deal last month to connect Chabahar port with Afghanistan. A plant to process sugarcane at Kamenda in central Ghana is expected to add value to Ghanaian sugarcane, another area for which it is dependent upon for outside help. The Indian-assisted plant is to be commissioned soon, Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs Amar Sinha told media after the talks. Ghana is keen and India agreed to have an institutional arrangement for regular consultations. A joint Commission is being established to meet at the ministerial level. Besides a joint commission, two more MOUs were signed on visa waiver, for diplomats and officials and training by the Foreign Service institute. The plus point that has made the dialogue conducive and fairly ambitious is the fact that like India, Ghana is a democracy with stability that makes all-round cooperation achievable. (Mahendra Ved can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com) New Delhi, June 13 : President Pranab Mukherjee has rejected the Delhi government's bill to exclude the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the office of profit, sources said on Monday. "The president did not give assent to Delhi government's bill and sent it back to the Lt. Governor's office on Monday. This has been forwarded to the Law Secretary of the Delhi government," sources at the LG's office told IANS. Mukherjee is on a three-nation six-day visit to Africa. Rejection of the bill has put the fate of 21 Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, who have been appointed to the posts of parliamentary secretary, in jeopardy. These 21 legislators might lose their house membership. The Delhi Government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. This Bill was aimed at exclusion of the post of Parliamentary Secretary from the office of profit. Petitions had been filed with the President seeking disqualification of these MLAs on the ground that they occupied office of profit in violation of the Constitution. New Delhi, June 13 : The Congress on Monday accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of running a "mischievous campaign and a nefarious agenda" against its party leader Kamal Nath, who was made incharge of the Punjab party unit affairs ahead of the 2017 assembly elections. Kamal Nath, also made incharge of Congress affairs in Haryana, was indicted by the Nanavati Commission for his role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The AAP had termed the Congress move as "shameful" but the latter rejected the AAP reaction as 'perverse' and 'mischievous'. "It is a nefarious aganda; it is a perverse mindset; and unfair targeting of my colleague and the Congress rejects it. "The AAP, after having miserably performed in Delhi, are mischievously misrepresenting the facts to reap narrow political dividends. What they have said about Kamal Nath is perverse, contrary to the fatcs," senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma said. "Till 2005, no one took Kamal Nath ji's name. In 2005, the Nanavati COmmission was set up. Prior to that, so many other commissions were also set up. No commission had taken his name anywhere. None of these commissions indicted him," said Sharma. "Nobody even lodged a complaint against him. The first time his name was mentioned was by the Nanavati Commission which was formed during the National Democratic Alliance's rule," he added. The Congress leader said: "A journalist named Sanjay Suri, who was present during the riots, gave his statement to the Nanavati Commission saying that Kamal Nath was urging the crowd not to indulge in violence." Sharma quoted Nanavati Commission report which stated: "In absence of any evidence it is not possible for the Commission to say that he had in any manner instigated the mob or that he was involved in the attack on the gurdwara." "After the Nanavati Commsission report came, an adjournment motion was brought in the Lok Sabha by the opposition. The BJP was in opposition then. (BJP leader) L.K. Advani ji didn't even utter a single thing about Kamal Nath. Neither the Akali Dal nor the BJP mentioned his name," Sharma said. New Delhi, June 13 : A contractual worker employed by the Delhi University was on Monday allegedly assaulted by Delhi University Students Union president Satender Awana and six other students, police said. Victim Vineet Mehta is incharge of the swimming pool at Sri Ram College of Commerce in north Delhi, police said. "He was assaulted by the DUSU president and few of his friends over the issue of entry to the swimming pool," a senior police official told IANS. He said police is probing the matter after receiving a complaint. Mehta said Awana was accompanied by six to seven unidentified students when he was beaten up around 4 p.m. New Delhi, June 13 : The Congress on Monday demanded an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for what it said was "misleading the country" that the recent meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) had India's membership on the agenda. The recent Nuclear Suppliers Group meeting was held in Vienna. "This government must apologise for misleading the country that the recent meeting of the NSG had India's membership on the agenda. This has not even been discussed. It is not there on the agenda," said senior Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma. "They are saying everything has been done, but the truth is it was not even discussed," he added. The Congress leader also reminded that the Indo-US nuclear cooperation was started by Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. "After the 123 Agreement, it was agreed that India will be invited to join the NSG. We were aware of the pitfalls and the challenges. We had enlisted the support of the large number of countries but we knew China had to be brought on board," said Sharma. "But the countries whih were brought on board by (then Prime Minister) Manmohan Singh and the UPA government included Japan, South Korea, Canada, Germany, United States, Russia, UK, France, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil," he added. Sharma said: "They all supported India's membership to the NSG. They have made list of four nations and sought support from them. They are not doing anything new. The opposition is same from the northern neighbour, China. On the issue of Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), Sharma said: "MCTR is still a work in progress. Application was filed during our time. India should and must get the membership of the NSG. "But Prime Minister and his inadequately informed party president Amit Shah should not mislead the people by continuously making false and tall claims," he added. All recent published data confirms that the Spanish property market is well on the way to recovery with prices back into positive territory. According to data from the Spanish Land Registrars Association prices increased by 9.39% in the first quarter of the year while the official Government index shows valuations up 2.7%. In the month of March the index from the Association of Spanish Notaires increased by 0.4% and figures for April from valuations company Tinsa show growth of 5.4%. The data from the registrars indicate that prices have risen 26% since they bottomed out at the end of 2014, but are still down 18% compared to the peak in 2007. A breakdown of the figures from Tinsa reveal that in the larger cities prices increased by 8.7% in April year on year while prices in the Balearics and Canary islands were up by 5.6%. But values on the Mediterranean coast were up by just 0.3%. These national indices dont tell us anything about local markets, but they do give us some idea of where we are in the property market cycle. Spanish house prices are back in positive territory, whichever index you choose, said Mark Srucklin of Spanish Property Insight. However, the latest real estate report from Lucas Fox points out that figures from Idealists suggest while property prices in Valencia are currently less than half of those in Barcelona and Madrid the market in Spains third city is picking up. Sales transactions in the first four months of 2018 increased by 20% over the same period in 2017 and data from Spains National Institute of Statistics (INE) shows a similar trend with sales of homes in the first quarter of this year, up by 17% compared to the same period in 2017. Overall prices in Valencia ended 2017 up 13% year on year while the districts popular with foreign buyers, such as Eixample and El Pla de Real, saw price rises of 10% and 13% respectively. Lucas Fox Valencia data also shows that the number of foreign buyers has increased from 10% in the first four months of 2017 to 33% in the same period this year. The figures also show that 58% of Lucas Fox buyers purchase a home in Valencia as a primary residence, 25% buying as a second residence and 8% as an investment. Valencia has all the amenities and services you would expect from Spains third city but its manageable size appeals to foreign buyers, as do the beaches to the north east of the city where the mix of apartments and townhouses with communal pools and play areas make them popular with families, said Juan Luis Herrero, partner of Lucas Fox Valencia. He pointed out that it is a growing hub for business and innovation and is home to leading companies such as Ford, BP, Mercadona and Caixabank. It will only be a matter of time until Valencia becomes as internationally known as Barcelona and Madrid, he added. A significant sign that the property recovery in Valencia is well underway is the growing numbers of cranes hovering over the city. New homes are now in continual demand with Valencia seeing a 5% rise in the number of turnkey home sales in 2017 compared to 2016. The property recovery has been slower in Valencia than in Barcelona and Madrid. But with increasing demand and supply for new homes we expect to see a noticeable change in the pace of the market over the next few years, Herrero explained. Nualight, a specialist LED lighting technology company has reached an agreement to sell certain assets from Lumotech, its driver and motion detector business to California, USA based company, Fulham. With its acquisition, Fulham will add that product portfolio to their existing range of LED drivers, modules, engines and further lighting solutions. Fulham will also strengthen its European presence through Lumotechs existing sales channels, bringing new sustainable lighting solutions to global OEMs and distributors. The sale is expected to complete on July 01, 2016. The terms of the transaction remain confidential. We are delighted to have found an ideal partner in Fulham who already has a strong focus towards intelligent lighting components and can now draw upon the technological expertise of Lumotech as the industry continues to innovate. Nualight will help support the transition process and work towards a smooth handover for our customers. As Nualight, we continue to make strategic changes, in which our clear focus is to further develop our core LED lighting business in our specialist areas. said Peter Mazalon, Nualight CEO. Jason Kai Cooper and Sally Thomas Cooper in the stunning 85,000-square-foot Thomas Cooper facility. As part of the L.A. Design Festival, join Jason Kai Cooper and Sally Thomas Cooper, in part with Dwell Magazine, on Saturday, June 25th, to celebrate the unveiling of a thrilling new addition to their stable of brands: Thomas Cooper Limited Edition. Jason and Sally personally design and handcraft exquisite limited-edition pieces for discerning clients, drawing both on their years of design experience and the creative renaissance taking place in their downtown Los Angeles neighborhood. Be the first to get a sneak peek of this collection of edgy, serious and modern pieces. Thomas Coopers studio is home base for several highly successful brands including Lusive, which creates large-scale custom lighting features for international hotel and casino projects, and Luxe Light & Home, handcrafted high-end residential lighting fixtures and accessories. Following a tour of their stunning 85,000-square-foot facility in downtown L.A., Jason and Sally will host a lively discussion, which will be moderated by Bradley Blair, L.A. Kravet Showroom Manager and Design Insider, about the rich history of L.A. design and how it affects what theyre producing today. The evening will end with an intimate gathering with food and drink where you can mix and mingle with people as obsessed with authentic, artisanal design as you are. Admission is free and all are welcome. WHERE: Lusive Design Studio 3400 Medford Street Los Angeles, CA 90063 WHEN: Saturday, June 25th 2:00 PM - 7:00 PM ITINERARY: 2:00 PM Factory Tour 4:00 PM L.A. Made." A Design Discussion Moderated by Bradley Blair Design Professional & L.A. Showroom Manager 5:00 PM Design Reception Refreshments and Meet & Greet with the Designers Donald R. (Don) Nilson, Corporate Business Strategist & Program Manager, Lockheed Martin Mr. Nilson has spent 30 years designing, developing, and testing military aircraft for Lockheed Martin and is currently a business strategist and program manager for Corporate Engineering, Technology and Operations. SAE Internationals Executive Nominating Committee (ENC) has named Donald R. (Don) Nilson, Corporate Business Strategist & Program Manager, Lockheed Martin, to its Board of Directors. He was elected by the ENC during the SAE 2016 World Congress; his term will span 2017-2020. Mr. Nilson has spent 30 years designing, developing, and testing military aircraft for Lockheed Martin and is currently a business strategist and program manager for Corporate Engineering, Technology and Operations. He is responsible for providing executive leadership across the corporations business areas to develop and implement efficient business models to achieve customer and company objectives. His current focus is on developing next generation business models for the F-35 Product Support Integration (PSI) contract expected in 2019. Mr. Nilson has held a variety of positions in the military aeronautics business including; mission systems design on several aircraft development programs, advanced programs chief engineer, director of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Air System Design and Systems Engineering team. He also has led multiple functional organizations with a focus on performance and affordability enhancements and served as a member of several design teams and led multiple advanced design/development programs. He routinely leads action teams to assess program/business performance and define necessary improvement actions. Mr. Nilson holds degrees in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, post graduate certificates from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and George Mason University, and is a graduate of the Defense Acquisition University for Program Managers. SAE International is a global association committed to being the ultimate knowledge source for the engineering profession. By uniting over 127,000 engineers and technical experts, we drive knowledge and expertise across a broad spectrum of industries. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering professionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our charitable arm, the SAE Foundation, which helps fund programs like A World in Motion and the Collegiate Design Series. SPARTOX Ozone Water Treatment System Spartan Environmental Managing Director Anthony Sacco commented, "Spartan is proud to help protect ground water with SPARTOX ozone water treatment system." Spartan Environmental has sold its first turn key ozone water treatment system for ground water remediation to a Fortune 300 company located in the Southeastern United States. Ozone is increasing its share of the ground water remediation market due to its ability to breakdown complex organic molecules. Ozone is produced from the oxygen in air on site, so it does not have to be purchased, transported or stored. After reacting with contaminants it breaks down back to the oxygen it was made from leaving no byproducts. The self-contained SPARTOX system includes all of the subsystems for making ozone and mixing it with water. It first produces concentrated oxygen from air, converts it into ozone and then mixes it with water. The system is computer controlled and is remotely monitored with information stored in the cloud. Communication is handled over a cellular network. Operators are notified immediately if there is a problem with the system. The containerized system was factory tested prior to shipment and immediately ready for operation upon installation at the site. The container has its own lighting, heating and cooling. The system has been successfully treating ground water for six months and has been accepted and turned over to the client for operation. The SPARTOX system has been used in a wide range of water treatment applications ranging from treating wastewater for a major aerospace company to a US Army munitions plant. The technology can be easily adapted to also operate as an advanced oxidation process treating a wide range of contaminants in water. About Spartan Environmental technologies: Spartan Environmental Technologies has been designing and building ozone water treatment systems and ozone based advanced oxidation systems since 2004. Our clients include the aircraft manufacturers, food producers, biotechnology firms, the US military among many other industries. Early on we learned that peer-to-peer reviews significantly influence which of our member destinations travelers book reservations with, explained CellarPass co-founder Sarah Elliman. Four Napa Valley wineries and one in Sonoma County took top honors in the third annual CellarPass Destination Awards competition, earning accolades for the best visitor experience and customer service excellence. The annual awards competition was created by CellarPass, the leading online reservations and ticketing platform, to recognize their destination partners who rise above the rest with regards to top-notch hospitality to their guests. More than 150,000 travelers and industry professionals were invited to vote between March 18 and June 1st, and more than 150 destinations were nominated in six categories: Best Unique Tasting Experience; Most Friendly & Knowledgeable Staff; Best Food & Wine Pairing; Best Wine Education Experience; Best Hidden Gem; and Best Romantic Destination. While vote tallies were close in most categories, two wineries won for the third consecutive year: J Vineyards and Winery, which won for Best Food & Wine Pairing; and Robert Mondavi Winery, for the third time won the Most Friendly & Knowledgeable Staff category. Early on we learned that peer-to-peer reviews significantly influence which of our member destinations travelers book reservations with, explained CellarPass co-founder Sarah Elliman. The annual CellarPass Destination Awards program takes those guest reviews a step further, allowing our guests to recognize our destinations that raise the bar when it comes to providing the best hospitality experience. Overall, women cast 62.1% of the votes; males cast 37.9%. As expected, a plurality of votes, representing 40.9% of the total cast, were from the influential 35-54 age group. About a quarter of all votes were cast by 25-34-year-olds, while those older than 54 accounted for 29.9% of those voting. And the 2016 CellarPass Destination Awards winners are: Best Unique Tasting Experience: Robert Mondavi Winery Most Friendly & Knowledgeable Staff: Jessup Cellars Best Wine Education Experience: Robert Mondavi Winery (3rd Year in a Row) Best Food & Wine Experience: J Vineyards & Winery (3rd Year in a Row) Best Hidden Gem: Vezer Family Vineyard (2nd Year in a Row) Best Romantic Destination: Handwritten Wines ABOUT CELLARPASS Officially launched in mid-2012, CellarPass is the leading real-time winery, distillery and brewery tour and tasting reservation and ticketing service that offers consumers easy and free access to confirmed tickets and reservations, online or through a mobile-friendly website. CellarPass provides a robust guest management platform that offers wineries, distilleries and breweries an enterprise-level guest management and marketing platform to promote their events nationwide while connecting with their guests in ways that enhance the visitor experience and build long-lasting relationships. For more information about CellarPass, contact Sarah Elliman at (707) 255-4390, or email media(at)cellarpass(dot)com. Follow CellarPass on Facebook at http://facebook.com/cellarpass and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cellarpass to get the freshest updates. The CellarPass Winery Reservations App is available for download at the Apple App Store and other app sources, or on the companys mobile-friendly website at http://www.cellarpass.com.. My experience in different settings and my personal conviction that every stage of life is precious, guides me in my work every day, Ms. Avedis explains. Senior Quest, a full-service licensed home care agency, serving northern New Jersey, has recently moved to Oradell, NJ. The company began providing geriatric care management in 2011 and has since expanded to include a full-range of home care services to seniors living at home and in institutional settings. Silva Avedis, founder of Senior Quest, is a certified geriatric social worker whose diverse background spans over 30 years and includes hospital-based discharge planning, private case management, inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation programming, as well as admissions coordination and social work services in a geriatric care facility. My experience in different settings and my personal conviction that every stage of life is precious, guides me in my work every day, Ms. Avedis explains. Long before Senior Quest was conceived, Avedis was making home visits to elderly clients and their families in an effort to help them find a way to manage their needs and keep them in a safe environment. As people age they often face a need for assistance and have to rely on others in a way that they never had to before. It is natural to resist that, Avedis explains. Often it helps everyone concerned, seniors and their loved ones alike, to get a professionals opinion on how best to navigate the situation they are facing. With the founding of Senior Quest and the expansion of its services, clients receive this personalized assessment followed by the professional care needed to maintain their independence for as long as possible. Senior Quest takes the guesswork out of where to go to find the recommended help once this assessment is complete. The company has taken great care to build connections with certified home health aides that are both competent and compassionate. An involved nursing staff provides quality assurance on every level by routinely assessing, evaluating and overseeing patient care, and a physician, who makes house calls, provides just what is needed to those who are homebound. Located at 700 Kinderkamack Road in Suite 305, Senior Quest provides round-the-clock services every day of the year. Those in need of services are encouraged to call 201.523.9966 or visit http://www.seniorquestnj.com to learn more. ### Senior Quest helps aging adults and their loved ones find solutions to the changes life brings by providing personalized geriatric care management services and employing certified home health aides to assist with activities of daily living. Whether it is a living situation that is no longer working; daily chores that have become overwhelming; legal and financial management that needs oversight; or assistance in understanding how to get qualified benefits from private health insurance policies and Medicare, Senior Quest is focused on finding solutions that are right for each individual and satisfying each clients specific needs. Follow on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Senior-Quest-inc-330147173678659/ Communications and advertising agency Jackalope recently aired the first-ever branded ad completely voiced in Lakota for the Black Hills Federal Credit Union (BHFCU), which is playing on stations across South Dakota. The campaign recently won Best of Show and a gold American Advertising Award at the AAF-Black Hills awards show. For Jackalope, the effort is part of a larger movement to preserve the Lakota language, place Lakota consumers on an equal plane and give greater representation to a voice conspicuously absent from the media or present only in controversy, like the debate over the Washington Redskins name. Through a partnership, Jackalope will offer Lakota translation services for free to any business or organization seeking to translate its advertising. According to the Lakota Language Consortium, of the hundreds of indigenous languages spoken in North America, only a dozen can be considered viable enough today to survive. Of the more than 6,000 languages spoken worldwide, over 43 percent are considered endangered, including Lakota, and more than half of all languages will become extinct in the next century at current rates. In fact only 2,000 first-language speakers of Lakota remain -- a decline of 66% in ten years. Jackalope, from its name to its work, is grounded in a sense of place, deeply rooted in South Dakota. I wanted to faithfully represent that sense of place in its diversity by celebrating Native American language and culture and speaking directly to a population that makes up 10 percent of South Dakota, said Jason Alley, principal and head creative of the firm. The two Lakota commercials, Tiospaya Wicasa and Tiospaya Winyan, focus on family, a central concept in Native American culture. This idea of family guided the ads creative development, which aimed to take a mainstream financial institution and translate its benefits through concepts familiar and important to Native Americans. The Lakota commercial parallel the BHFCU ad running simultaneously in English, and joins other BHFCU efforts to increase financial literacy and services on the reservation through its new member service center on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Jackalope has won a total of five National American Advertising Awards in the last six years, alongside the likes of Coke, Nike and other major multinational organizations. Principal and head creative Jason Alley was also featured as one of the People to Watch in 2016 by Graphic Design USA magazine, the only one from the Midwest. Alley is also the driving force behind the Lakota Voice Project, a nonprofit aimed at empowering Native American youth and preventing youth suicide on South Dakota reservations. Watch Tiospaya Wicasa (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI2Pm-aIt24), Tiospaya Winyan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dut7dahsVA), and the English version, Road Trip," (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY_xo8NgXSU). Network Funding, LP announces that it has been named a Scotsman Guide 2015 Top Mortgage Lender. Network Funding was ranked #73 in the Top Overall Volume category. This recognition by Scotsman Guide as a top, national mortgage company is something we take a lot of pride in. It is the result of having a group of mortgage professionals that put people and values first, said Network Funding President Matt Kiker. People want to work with a lender they can trust. So, thats what we strive to be. Network Funding was ranked among entries from hundreds of mortgage companies across the country. To be eligible for consideration in Scotsman Guides Top Mortgage Lenders rankings, all loan volume had to be from mortgages on one-to-four-unit residential properties within the United States. No commercial or international loans were included. After receiving submissions, Scotsman Guide required written verification of top entrants volume from a certified public accountant, the chief financial officer at the company or a similar source. Scotsman Guide, a leading resource for mortgage originators, released its fourth annual Top Mortgage Lenders rankings on June 1. The list, which ranks the nation's top mortgage-lending companies, appears in Scotsman Guide's June 2016 residential edition, and rankings are available online at http://www.ScotsmanGuide.com/TopLenders2015. All Scotsman Guide rankings are searchable at http://www.ScotsmanGuide.com/Rankings/Search. About Network Funding Network Funding, LP, NMLS #2297, is a private residential mortgage lending company that operates branches across the country. Since it was founded in 1998, Network Funding has financed more than 100,000 homes at more than $17 billion, making the American Dream a reality for its customers. Network Fundings key standards are based on integrity, reliability and simplicity and aims to empower its customers through educating and equipping them for the home-buying process. Network Funding is nationally ranked as a Top 100 Mortgage Company in America, 2015 and one of the Top 50 Mortgage Companies to Work For, 2016 by Mortgage Executive Magazine and a Top Mortgage Lender by Scotsman Guide. To learn more about Network Funding, visit http://www.nflp.com or for career opportunities, visit join.nflp.com. TOPAZ16 Fully Integrated Phased Array Ultrasonic Instrument For almost 50 years, Zetec has set the standard for high performance, high quality inspection solutions. TOPAZ16 continues that standard while adding exceptional value for mainstream inspection applications. Its an unbeatable combination Zetec, Inc. introduces the new TOPAZ16, a 16-channel fully integrated phased array ultrasonic instrument for nondestructive testing (NDT) projects. Zetec has always had a reputation of a premier products supplier of NDT solutions. TOPAZ16 is Zetecs entry into more mainstream inspection markets. It is ideal for the most common applications including weld inspections, corrosion mapping, encoded or manual inspections and inspections of complex components. With a highly compact footprint plus proven Zetec quality and innovation, TOPAZ16 is sized for convenience and built to perform. Best in Class Productivity: Since its introduction in 2013, the award-winning TOPAZ ultrasonic instrument family has always stood for portable productivity. The new TOPAZ16 is no different. Featuring powerful UltraVision Touch software onboard, TOPAZ16 data analysis and reporting capabilities are the best in its class. An advanced focal law calculator with visual feedback simplifies preparation for complex inspections. Plus, onboard volumetric merge and measurement tools speed up the analysis process. With a class leading operating temperature range and a rugged aluminum casing with no air intake, TOPAZ16 is built to meet a wide range of inspection demands regardless of the environment. The 10.4 high resolution display of TOPAZ16 has one of the largest size ratios when compared to an instruments total footprint. This highly responsive multi-touch screen offers the best resolution in its class so it is crystal clear inside and outdoors. Plus, users interact just like they would with a smartphone or a tablet. Unmatched Value: From preparation to reporting, TOPAZ16 is the complete solution. This fully-integrated and simplified approach can reduce the amount of equipment needed to perform an inspection. Getting started with TOPAZ16 couldnt be simpler -- connect any Zetec scanner or accessory such as a probe to the TOPAZ16 and it will automatically recognize and preconfigure accordingly, saving valuable time and resources. For almost 50 years, Zetec has set the standard for high performance, high quality inspection solutions, states Federico Zottig, Zetec Product Manager. TOPAZ16 continues that standard while adding exceptional value for mainstream inspection applications. Its an unbeatable combination, adds Zottig. For more information on the TOPAZ16ultrasonic instrument, please visit http://www.zetec.com/topaz. About Zetec Zetec is a global leader in nondestructive testing (NDT) solutions for the critical inspection needs of industries the world counts on every dayincluding power generation, oil and gas, transportation, heavy industry and manufacturing. We serve as a single source for high-performance solutions in both eddy current and ultrasonic technologies. For nearly 50 years, weve advanced NDT standards and science, providing new insight and control through inspection solutions that protect our customers most important assets and ensure the quality of their products. By integrating design and engineering with our own manufacturing, Zetec delivers solutions that optimize productivity, safety and total cost of ownership. Zetec is a subsidiary of Roper Technologies, Inc., with global engineering and manufacturing centers in Quebec City and at our corporate headquarters in Snoqualmie, Washington. Zetec support spans the globe, with Centers of Excellence in Houston, Paris, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo. For more information about Zetec, visit: http://www.zetec.com and follow us on Linkedin. Zetec, Topaz, UltraVision are registered trademarks or trademarks of Zetec in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. The information provided in this press release contains forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward looking statements include, among others, statements regarding operating results, the success of our internal operating plans, and the prospects for newly acquired businesses to be integrated and contribute to future growth and profit expectations. Forward looking statements may be indicated by words or phrases such as "anticipate," "estimate," "plans," "expects," "projects," "should," "will," "believes" or "intends" and similar words and phrases. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward looking statement. Such risks and uncertainties include our ability to integrate our acquisitions and realize expected synergies. We also face other general risks, including our ability to realize cost savings from our operating initiatives, general economic conditions, unfavorable changes in foreign exchange rates, difficulties associated with exports, risks associated with our international operations, difficulties in making and integrating acquisitions, risks associated with newly acquired businesses, increased product liability and insurance costs, increased warranty exposure, future competition, changes in the supply of, or price for, parts and components, environmental compliance costs and liabilities, risks and cost associated with asbestos related litigation and potential write-offs of our substantial intangible assets, and risks associated with obtaining governmental approvals and maintaining regulatory compliance for new and existing products. Important risks may be discussed in current and subsequent filings with the SEC. You should not place undue reliance on any forward looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update publicly any of them in light of new information or future events. WinDocks has released a free WinDocks Community Edition, a port of Docker software for Windows 8, Windows 10, along with Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2016. WinDocks support of Windows 8 and Windows 10 dramatically expands developer access to Windows containers, adds Server capabilities to Windows clients, and delivers full Microsoft stack support for both .NET and SQL Server containers. The Windocks Community Edition has resulted from developer requests for access to Windows containers, and enables as many as 5 million professional developers to access and explore use of Windows containers (http://www.idc.com/research/viewtoc.jsp?containerId=244709 ). The WinDocks Community Edition removes barriers between clients and servers with identical capabilities, and supports up to 5 containers. With support for the full Microsoft development stack, developers can innovate with SQL Server containers on a Windows 8 laptop with identical images used on Windows Server 2012 or 2016, or in the Public Cloud. The Community Edition supports Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows Server 2012 (and r2), and Windows Server 2016, with .NET 4.5, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008r2, SQL Server 2012, SQL Server 2014, and SQL Server 2016. WinDocks is being adopted to address two primary needs. Organizations use SQL Server containers to improve support for development and test processes. The ability to create identical, isolated SQL Server instances, on a shared VM, in seconds, delivers agility needed for developers and testers in todays fast paced environment. WinDocks is also used for Continuous Integration, with support for Git and automated build and test processes. The WinDocks Community Edition is available immediately for download at the WinDocks web site, with an automated install that detects and configures WinDocks on any of the supported Windows environments. It is also available as a pre-configured VM through Amazons AWS Marketplace. Visit: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace Continuing to expand our team, attracting independence-seeking advisors is one of the key goals of Noyes strategic growth plan. Noyes, a 108 years old wealth management and investment-banking firm, announced today the appointment of Scott Schmidt to its Wealth Management Group. Schmidt will be based at Noyes office in Elgin, IL. As a Wealth Advisor he will focus on providing comprehensive wealth management counsel and services to the firms clientele, as well as attracting new high-net-worth clients. Prior to joining Noyes, Schmidt served as Investment Executive at Firth Third Securities, Inc. and he will continue his work as Founding Partner at Schmidt & Lerner, LLC, an Elgin, IL-based law firm specializing in estate planning. Continuing to expand our team, attracting independence-seeking advisors is one of the key goals of Noyes strategic growth plan. Scott is a great addition to our growing team of experienced wealth managers, said Jim Lynch, Illinois Market Leader and Managing Director. Throughout his career, as both an investment executive and an accomplished estate planning attorney, he has consistently focused on his clients best interests. His philosophy is perfectly aligned with Noyes mission of delivering the best unconflicted client service, high-caliber investment products, services and support, Lynch concluded. I joined Noyes in order to provide a high level of wealth management services to a very select group of clients, stated Schmidt. As a true advisor my focus is strengthening relationships with existing clients, and I take on additional clients only when I am certain I can provide them with the high level of service my current clients have come to expect. The Noyes team supports my vision and provides me with a wide range of tools and the backing I need to realize it. Schmidt began his career in 2007 as an Associate Attorney at the law firm OConnell, Tivin, Miller & Burns, LLC in Chicago, IL. In 2011, he joined Meritus Financial Group, Inc. There, as Vice President, Chief Compliance Officer and Securities and Investment Advisor, he managed the daily operations of Meritus Financial Group and Meritus Capital Management, as well as counseled clients on investment objectives and financial goals. In 2014 he moved to Fifth Third Securities, Inc. in Elgin, IL from where he then joined Noyes. Schmidt holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame and a Juris Doctor degree from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, IL. He is admitted to the Illinois State Bar. In addition, Schmidt holds FINRA Licenses 7, 24, 53, 63 and 65 and an Illinois Life, Health & Long-term Care License. About Noyes Noyes, through its subsidiaries David A. Noyes & Company and Noyes Advisors, LLC is a full-service investment firm headquartered in downtown Chicago with branches throughout the Midwest. Founded in 1908, the firm is one of the oldest securities firms in Chicago, and has served the Indianapolis area for nearly 80 years. The employee owned firm offers a comprehensive menu of products and services to individual and institutional clients. Noyes has 10 offices in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. For more visit http://www.danoyes.com. Chrissi Poland Says Chrissi: I was burnt out on doing the same thingsI didnt know where to turn nextI needed to shake things up. Joes Pub at The Public Theater in NYC is the place to be on June 22 when Chrissi Poland officially releases her new album, Waking Hour. The album was co-produced by Chrissi and industry veteran Jamie Siegel who has also collaborated with Joss Stone, Lauren Hill, Blondie and Sting. Waking Hour is the follow-up to Chrissis 2013 EP release, Reckless Ones. While Reckless Ones had a more electro-pop feel, Waking Hour offers a more organic and modern soulful sound. The album benefits from an array of collaborations with top-tier musicians including Will Lee on bass, Matt Beck on guitars and Eugene Lake on drums. Chrissi has truly actualized her writing and production skills on Waking Hour; the songs have drawn comparisons to the writing of Carole King. The album has been described as Amy Winehouse meets Joan Osborne. Following a rewarding few years touring with ScissorSisters as a vocalist, Chrissi was reluctant to go back to the NYC grind. Says Chrissi: I was burnt out on doing the same thingsI didnt know where to turn nextI needed to shake things up. Completed in March 2016, Chrissi wrote most of Waking Hour while in Las Vegas performing in a pop/theatrical show. Drawing on a period of anxiety and confusion, and inspired by the beauty and stillness of the vast desert landscape, Waking Hour was truly a labor of love. Waking Hour is an album about change and renewal, about shedding one stage of life for another while still holding on to the shadows of the past. Songs like Lonely Light and Far From Love explore rich human themes, like our struggle to be comfortable with the unknown and the importance of connection, love and understanding. In February, 2016, Chrissi released a music video for her song Shaky Man. Infused with soulful guitars, an infectious hook and a playful, teasing groove, Shaky Man is for all the lovers out there who have experienced times of doubt and unsteadiness having to deal with their partners "crazy." Check out the video for a taste of Chrissis unique sound and style - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMlAW0eVS3I). Since completing the album, Chrissi has been touring the globe performing for her fans in Germany, the UK, the Caribbean and around the US. Waking Hour even earned Chrissi Artist of the Month across 900 coffee shops in the UK! Fans and professionals alike are abuzz about the album and its creator: Poland dishes out plenty of attitude. She crafts original tunes that harness soul, rhythm, blues and rock. And she wraps it up in reflective lyrics that give the music thrust and momentum without sacrificing any tenderness. She is a dream girl who will surprise you with her soulful power. Come hear for yourself on Wednesday, June 22 at Joes Pub. Its a warm, soulful venue that oozes with the talent and passion of all the musicians who have graced its stage, from Adele to Dolly Parton to David Byrne. And soon, Chrissi Poland will join those ranks when she opens her soul and shares the deep meaning and soulful music of Waking Hour. TRACKS: All songs written by Chrissi Poland. Dawn Why Lie? Shaky Man Silhouette Lonely Light Angel Weep for Me Airplane Far From Love WHERE: Joes Pub The Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10003 WHEN: Wednesday, June 22, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. INFO: Tickets available at: http://joespub.publictheater.org/en/tickets/calendar/playdetailscollection/joes-pub/2016/c/chrissi-poland/?SiteTheme=JoesPub ABOUT CHRISSI POLAND: Born and raised in southern Massachusetts, Chrissi started out playing bars and clubs in and around Boston, then soon after moved to New York City and began playing shows in the West Village underground scene. She quickly made a name for herself in New York, and within a few years began touring the world with her own work as well as with other artists. As a multi-instrumentalist and in-demand vocalist, Chrissi has worked and performed with an array of artists and icons including Nile Rodgers, Macy Gray, Sting, Moby, Bette Midler, ScissorSisters, The Edge and legendary Stax Soul Man Sam Moore (Same & Dave) who declares of Chrissi, Now, this is a girl you GOT to hear!! http://www.chrissipoland.com https://www.facebook.com/chrissipoland https://soundcloud.com/chrissipoland https://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/link?path=chrissipoland Cell Signaling Technology (CST) has awarded $40,000 as part of its inaugural 2016 Science Scholarship Program in an effort to inspire high school students to pursue careers in science and promote opportunities to make a difference in the world through science. CST, a worldwide provider of antibodies, is providing four high school juniors from Boston North Shore communitiesGloucester, Lynn, Peabody and Salemwith $10,000 each to pursue a college education in a science-related program. Students also will be given the opportunity to participate in an internship designed to give hands-on experience at CSTs biotechnology production laboratory, whose mission is to produce high-quality products that help solve important questions about disease and cancer. The following students were awarded CSTs 2016 Scholarship: Ismael Aquino, Lynn Classical High School Trevor Liimatainen, Salem High School Shannon Silva, Peabody High School Jonathan Denman, Gloucester High School Each student scholarship recipient will receive the $10,000 award distributed across their four years at a qualifying higher education institution. In addition to the financial award, there are two unique aspects of the scholarship: a paid internship and community service. The scholarship recipients will have the opportunity to participate in a guaranteed paid summer internship at CST during the summer between their senior year in high school and their first year in college. Prior to completing their senior year in college, scholarship recipients are required to commit time to community service by talking about their science education to elementary or middle school students, helping to inspire the next generation of students to pursue science-related interests. The future of science, and especially our industry, depends on highly committed individuals that want to make a contribution to solving human health issues and advancing personalized medicine, said David Comb, CSTs director of Corporate Social Responsibility. We believe this scholarship will inspire local students to choose science as a program of study in college and support the next generation of scientists. We are thrilled to be able to help these exceptional students and invest in our communities. The CST Science Scholarship is a fund managed by the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF). ECCF will help facilitate and oversee the scholarship distribution throughout each recipients college career. CSTs generosity and dedication to the community is a valuable model of corporate responsibility, said Julie Bishop, Vice President for Philanthropy at Essex County Community Foundation. We look forward to partnering with CST and to working with these Essex County students throughout their college experience. CST reviewed student applications and evaluations submitted by teachers at public high schools from four of the most underserved communities on Bostons North Shore. Science teachers from local public high schools nominated 12 students who demonstrated academic excellence and a strong interest in science. Nominees, who will be first generation college students, wrote essays about science and society and visited CSTs Danvers campus to meet CST employees and gain a better understanding about working for a biotech company. Furthermore, nominees can leverage this recognition during the college application process. About CST Cell Signaling Technology (CST) is a private, family-owned company, founded by scientists and dedicated to providing high quality research tools to the biomedical research community. Our employees operate worldwide from our U.S. headquarters in Massachusetts, and our offices in the Netherlands, China, and Japan. http://www.cellsignal.com. About Essex Community Foundation The mission of Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) is to strengthen the communities of Essex County. We do this by promoting philanthropy and managing charitable assets, making grants and engaging in strategic community leadership. Since 1998, ECCF and its family of 180 charitable funds have granted over $30 million to nonprofits, schools and students in Essex County and beyond. Our ultimate goal is to have 34 thriving cities and towns in Essex County and to improve the quality of life for the regions 750,000 residents. http://www.eccf.org. CST Media Contacts: Rebecca J. Reppucci, MBA Cell Signaling Technology, Inc. Director of Marketing Communications 978-867-2382 rebecca.reppucci(at)cellsignal.com Shayna Chapel The Castle Group 617-337-9501 schapel(at)thecastlegrp.com Cellular Sales will celebrate it's new store in Cumming, Ga., with a grand opening celebration in July. Were really excited to pull out the red carpet and show Cumming, Ga., the trademark Cellular Sales customer service experience. Cellular Sales, the nations largest Verizon premium retailer, plans to open its first store in Cumming, Ga., in July. The store, scheduled to open July 1, is located in The Collection at Forsyth, an outdoor lifestyle shopping destination. Cellular Sales Regional Director Jason Myers said The Collection at Forsyth provides a convenient location for all of the companys customers in the area. A red carpet grand-opening event will be held later in the month for members of the community to attend. We are very excited to serve be a part of the Cumming community, Myers said. Our grand opening will be a wonderful opportunity for the people of Cumming to come visit our newest location and check out our great products. The 4,800 square-feet store will be Cellular Sales 31st in the Peach State, as the company continues to expand in Georgia. This is one of the bigger Cellular Sales stores, Myers said. Were really excited to pull out the red carpet and show Cumming, Ga., the trademark Cellular Sales customer service experience. Cellular Sales expects to hire up to 12 new sales professionals for the Cumming location. Cellular Sales prides itself in hiring representatives who are focused on providing excellent customer service. The Knoxville, Tenn.-based company currently operates approximately 550 stores across the nation and has grown to become the nations largest Verizon Wireless premium retailer. It has been named to Inc. Magazines Inc. 5000 list seven of the past eight years. Individuals interested in applying to be a Cellular Sales store representative should contact Marnita Zander at Marnita.Zander(at)cellularsales.com. About Cellular Sales Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., Cellular Sales was founded in 1993 and has been named by Inc. Magazine as one of the nations fastest-growing, privately owned retailers for seven of the past eight years. The company currently employs nearly 4,500 people and operates approximately 550 stores nationwide. Job seekers may visit jobs.cellularsales.com. For more information on the company, visit cellularsales.com. ### MaidPro celebrates it's 25th anniversary We are proud of the success the company has had especially in helping to better people's lives. MaidPro proves home cleaning never goes out of style by celebrating its 25th anniversary. Since its start in 1991, MaidPro has seen rapid growth in the franchise industry currently spanning 203 locations with 5000 employees across 38 states, District of Columbia and Canada. During such time MaidPro has accumulated numerous awards including Forbes #2 Best Franchise to Own, CNBC Top 50 Franchisee, Franchise Business Review Top 50 in Franchisee Satisfaction, and Boston Business Journals Best Places to Work & Healthiest Employers. Co-Owner Richard Sparacio reflects on the past quarter century stating, Few people are lucky enough to walk right out of college and get the opportunity to open a business in their early 20s. For me its been mostly about the luck of meeting Mark and our hard work over these past 25 years. Co-Owner Mark Kushinsky agrees, It certainly has been a fun and adventurous 25 years and we are looking forward to the next 50! Both are proud of the success the company has had especially in helping to better peoples lives. MaidPro thanks its employees, franchisees, vendors and customers who have all helped MaidPro reach this milestone. To get a free estimate for housecleaning services from MaidPro please visit http://www.maidpro.com. ABOUT MAIDPRO MaidPro is a Boston-based franchisor of house cleaning services with over 200 locations in 38 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. The company, which began franchising in 1997, takes pride in its strong owner community, cutting-edge technology and creative marketing. It has been honored with the Franchise Business Reviews Four-Star Rating and Franchise 50 awards every year from 2006 to 2016 for owner satisfaction. MaidPro was named one of the Top 50 Franchises for Minorities by USA Todays Franchising Today. MaidPro is also a proud member of the International Franchise Association and the New England Franchise Association. The company can be found online at http://www.maidprofranchise.com. Long Live The Kings - Annual Fishing Derby Participants enjoy world-class fishing and luxury accommodations while competing against LLTK's most generous supporters for more than $25,000 in prizes. Dukes Chowder House, a chain of family-owned sustainable seafood restaurants in the Seattle area, joins Long Live the Kings, (LLTK), a nonprofit committed to recovering wild salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest, in presenting the First Annual VIP Salmon Fishing Derby. The Derby will run from June 18-21, 2016 on British Columbia's beautiful Esperanza Inlet, hosted by Nootka Marine Adventures at the new Newton Cove Resort, exclusive fishing lodge on Vancouver Island. To enter, competitors pay $5,000 plus transport costs. $2,500 of the $5,000 goes directly to benefit LLTK. In return, Duke guarantees chowder for one year at any of the six Dukes Chowder House locations (valued at $10,000 when chowder is eaten twice per day). Included with entry is a copy of the official Dukes Chowder House cookbook, "As Wild As It Gets . . . Dukes Secret Sustainable Seafood Recipes." The Derbys goal is to fund the work of LLTK, namely, figure out why juvenile salmon and steelhead are dying and how to multiply and recover endangered salmon and steelhead populations in the Salish Sea and the Pacific Northwest. Participants enjoy world-class fishing and luxury accommodations while competing against LLTK's most generous supporters for more than $25,000 in prizes. Moreover, the Derby presents a splendid opportunity: Washington's most influential environmentalists will become better acquainted, experience fantastic fishing in an iconic northwest setting, and to reassert a life-long commitment to salmon and steelhead restoration. The Derby is limited to 40 fishers. For more information on Dukes Chowder House, visit http://www.dukeschowderhouse.com/. For derby details, contact Daniel Poppe: (206) 382-9555 x21, or dpoppe(AT)lltk.org. Can't attend? Donate here! About Dukes Chowderhouse Dukes Chowder House is a family owned and operated enterprise with six different locations throughout the Puget Sound region. Renowned for its Award Winning Clam Chowder, Dukes menu is filled with delectable seafood dishes crafted by Duke and Dukes very own Executive Chef Wild Bill Rannigera proclaimed culinary genius in the region. Founder and Owner Duke Moscrip together with his son and partner John Moscrip continue their passionate journey to source all wild, natural, healthy and fresh tasting ingredients. Dukes food is free of hormones, antibiotics and harmful chemicals. Dukes is an upscale, casual Pacific NW seafood concept offering signature, flavorful, 100% sustainable wild seafood, Award Winning Chowder and grass fed burgers. Guests sum up their favorable assessment of what Dukes Chowder House has to offer with three words: Its sooo good! Dukes is honored to have received the highest seafood restaurant rating in the State of Washington by Fish2Fork, a leading evaluator of worldwide seafood restaurants, garnering a 4.5 out of 5 (no higher rating in the world). Duke's is equally honored to be among the first restaurants in Seattle to be recognized with a 100 percent volume compliance sustainable seafood rating from Smart Catch, a program designed to promote sustainability and raise consumer awareness regarding sustainable seafood options. Learn more and join Duke's VIP club at http://www.dukeschowderhouse.com/email-club/. About Long Live the Kings Long Live the Kings (LLTK) is a public 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to restoring wild salmon and steelhead to the waters of the Pacific Northwest. LLTK pursues projects and partnerships that compel coordinated, scientifically-credible, and transparent changes to harvest, hatchery, and habitat management to protect and restore wild salmon using innovative tools, proven processes, and a track record of success to each of our projects. With non-government partners, LLTK builds new and necessary constituencies and support for change. For more information, visit http://www.lltk.org/. About Nootka Marine Adventures Nootka Marine Adventures is designed to serve all the aquatic needs of everyone; from families with kids to multi-national corporations with VIPs to reward. Newton Cove Resort is one of three all-inclusive fishing resorts that surround three-quarters of Nootka Island, part of Nootka Sound. For more information, visit http://www.nootkamarineadventures.com/. SemaConnect is the leading provide of EV charging stations to commercial properties The installation of stations will make IMT Sherman Circle available to the growing demographic of electric vehicle drivers in California. This new, green amenity will add to IMT Sherman Circles reputation as a highly desirable apartment complex. IMT Residential, a leading nationwide apartment operator with a portfolio of properties expanding throughout Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Texas, is proud to announce that IMT Sherman Circle in Van Nuys, CA has installed three SemaConnect electric vehicle charging stations. These SemaConnect electric vehicle charging stations are in addition to IMT Sherman Circles substantial list of amenities, elevating their already robust sustainability efforts. IMT Sherman Circle is an ideal property for SemaConnect charging stations, said Mark Pastrone, VP of Business at SemaConnect. The high caliber building attracts residents who understand and appreciate the importance of this unique addition. The installation of stations will make IMT Sherman Circle available to the growing demographic of electric vehicle drivers in California. This new, green amenity will add to IMT Sherman Circles reputation as a highly desirable apartment complex. As environmentally and energy sustainable apartment community, IMT Sherman Circle focuses on protecting the environment a standard equivalent with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards in mindset during, design, construction, and operations of the property. The complex exceeds the Title 24 energy efficiency requirements by approximately 15%, an impressive statistic for multifamily locations. LEED for Homes is a system developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) for the purpose of rating and recognizing homes built to a more sustainable standard than conventional homes built to code. LEED was developed with the intention to transform the mainstream building industry by promoting and encouraging best practices for environmental design, construction, and property management. LEED Certification is based on a point system that is broken down into eight credit categories: 1)Innovation in Design Process, 2) Location and Linkages, 3) Sustainable Sites, 4) Water Efficiency, 5) Energy & Atmosphere, 6) Materials & Resources, 7) Indoor Environmental Quality, 8) Awareness & Education. LEEDcertified homes can have a myriad of benefits and green homes generally are more comfortable, more energy and water efficient, and have a smaller overall environmental footprint than conventional homes. The three electric vehicle charging stations at IMT Sherman Circle provided are private use to be enjoyed by property residents only. Residents wishing to use the stations must be a member of IMT Sherman Circles electric vehicle charging program, and a member of the SemaConnect network. The installation of these electric vehicle charging stations is for the enjoyment of our residents, said IMT Sherman Circle Construction Project Manager, Matthew Para. Our newest additional amenity contributes to our company goal of achieving sustainability while simultaneously protecting the environment and conserving earthly limited resources. The efforts of providing electric vehicle charging stations exemplifies the importance of alternative fuel vehicles and supports those who want to live at an IMT Residential property. This new community offering with our partners SemaConnect, these stations will demonstrate IMT Sherman Circle a leader in sustainability for the Van Nuys area. About IMT Capital IMT Capital, LLC is a private real estate investment firm based in Los Angeles, CA, with offices in San Francisco, CA and Austin, TX. The companys principals have made investments in excess of $2 billion in value since 1992. The company is a specialized manager concentrating in multifamily opportunities in major U.S. markets. Additional information on IMT Capital can be obtained by going to http://www.imtcapital.com About IMT Residential IMT Residential is a Los Angeles based privately held full-service operator of multi-family residential communities. The company currently manages over 20,000 residential units and 50 communities in six U.S. states. Founded in 1992, IMT Residential has been recognized on the lists of Top 50 multifamily firms nationally by the National Multi-Housing Council (NMHC) and Multi-Family Executive Magazine. Additional information on IMT Residential can be obtained by going to http://www.imtresidential.com. About SemaConnect SemaConnect is the leading provider of electric vehicle amenities to the North American commercial and residential property market. A complete EV support partner, SemaConnect delivers a truly modern property experience through innovative, elegantly designed charging stations and a robust and open network. The company has helped maximize property value and appeal through thousands of successful Class A deployments since its founding in 2008, for companies like CBRE, JLL, Hines, Greystar, Cisco Systems, and Standard Parking. SemaConnect remains the preferred charging solutions partner to municipal, parking, multifamily, hotel, office and retail customers across the United States and Canada. For more information, visit http://www.semaconnect.com. Sabrina Parsons, CEO of Palo Alto Software Women are opening more than 1,000 new businesses daily, and women-owned businesses are generating $1.6 trillion in revenue yearly this is a significant signal that we are better positioned than ever to contribute to our local and national economies." Palo Alto Software, the world leader in small business planning and financial management software, today announced that chief executive officer Sabrina Parsons will be participating in the first-ever United State of Women Summit at the White House in Washington D.C. on June 14. The United State of Women, hosted by first lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey, with support from women leaders such Cecile Richards, Tina Fey, Tory Burch and Meryl Streep, brings together women and girls from all around the world to celebrate womens empowerment and to collaborate around the movement towards gender equality. Women are opening more than 1,000 new businesses daily, and women-owned businesses are generating $1.6 trillion in revenue yearly this is clearly a significant signal that we are better positioned than ever to contribute to our local and national economies, to job growth, and innovation. But there is still a lot of work to be done, said Parsons. As a female entrepreneur myself, Im excited to collaborate with other bright minds to discuss how we can harness the tools and resources available to us and build a better future for all of us. Nominated to attend by the Oregon chapter of Main Street Alliance, a national network of state-based small business coalitions, Parsons will engage and speak with attending women around Economic Development, Health and Wellness, Educational Opportunity, Violence Against Women, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Leadership and Civic Engagement. Parsons, a renowned small business expert, has served as CEO of Palo Alto Software since 2007. Prior to that, she led the companys marketing communications and business development. Parsons has published articles in several notable publications including Forbes, Inc., and The Huffington Post, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Oregon Community Foundation, and a board member on the Regional Accelerator Innovation Network (RAIN) and the Princeton Entrepreneurs Network. Parsons is an active supporter of women in the workplace and has spoken and written about how women can advance, lead, and be successful in business and politics. She advocates leading ideas around paid time off, workplace flexibility and a new paradigm for working women. Convened by the White House, The United State of Women aims to ally women from all walks of life to celebrate gender equality achievements, but also focus on action moving forward. The Summit itself will host 5,000 women, with a live stream available on the Summit website, http://www.UnitedStateofWomen.org. For more information about Palo Alto Software, please visit: http://www.PaloAlto.com, and their flagship product, LivePlan, visit: http://www.LivePlan.com. About Palo Alto Software: Based in Eugene, Oregon, Palo Alto Software, Inc. is the world leader in small business planning and strategic forecasting. It develops and publishes tools, products, and content to help small and midsized businesses pitch, plan, manage, and grow their ventures. LivePlan, the companys flagship product, is a SaaS (software-as-a-service) solution for dynamic business planning and small business management. Palo Alto Software has been the market leader in its category for more than 15 years, serving over two million entrepreneurs in 180 countries. The company was founded in 1988 by business planning expert Tim Berry, and is now led by CEO Sabrina Parsons. For more, visit http://www.paloalto.com. This book shows the complex, emotional, quirkiness of people around the world. Ever wonder where you would be without your group of friends? Or maybe how the world would be if every country joined forces and worked together? In his new book The Dream Team, author Brian George provides readers with an action-packed adventure filled with sabotage, sex and the deeper meaning of being a part of the team. Following Barry Parkers quest to get revenge on those who wronged him, readers are thrown into wild parties and dangerous situations all while learning how to turn three people into one force of reckoning. I wanted to take readers for a ride with this book, George said. This fictional depiction of anti- establishmentarians, Europes economy and fighting for the right to love, life and freedom resonates with many, not just in Europe but around the world. George is currently a project and construction manager working in China and has found in his travels people and events much like those he wrote about in The Dream Team. From his own experiences in traveling the world and meeting people from all walks of life, George found most of his inspiration in those around him. This book shows the complex, emotional, quirkiness of people around the world, George said. I wanted to show that no matter who you are, where you are from or what you do, you look after your own. For more information, visit http://www.brianandbyrongeorge.com The Dream Team By Brian George ISBN: 9781491891483 Available in softcover, hardcover, e-book Available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and AuthorHouseUK About the author Brian George has been writing all his life in some form or another, for business and for pleasure. His extensive world travels on a variety of projects has given him a broad appreciation of other cultures and a liberal outlook. George currently lives between India, Thailand and England and travels to new places when the opportunity arises. He is currently working on the sequel to Face & Honour. For review copies or interview requests, contact: Elizabeth Coomer 317.602.7137 ecoomer(at)bohlsengroup(dot)com Posi-Shell Containing Toxins from Becoming Airborne in Canada Fire Wreckage LSC CEO, Joe Donze, visited the site and stated It is almost impossible for pictures or video to convey the scale or impact of this terrible fire. We were proud to be called and part of the path to recovery for the residents of Fort McMurray. LSC Environmental Products LLC, an upstate New York manufacturer of premier spray applied environmental coatings, is assisting with the massive re-entry effort in the aftermath of the devastating fires in Alberta, Canada. The fires, which have leveled countless acres of forest, have also destroyed more than 2,400 homes and displaced thousands of families in the close knit community of Fort McMurray. Posi-Shell, LSCs flagship product, is being applied by a local Canadian contractor to help prevent ash and toxic particles from becoming airborne or washing into waterways. Posi-Shell is a patented blend of clay binders, reinforcing fibers and polymers that when mixed with water, produce a spray-applied mortar that dries in the form of a thin durable stucco. LSCs products have been utilized in other major clean-up efforts, including the aftermath of 9/11, and are sought after for their efficacy, environmental sensitivity, and easy removal as long term cleanup plans are implemented. LSC CEO, Joe Donze, visited the site and stated It is almost impossible for pictures or video to convey the scale or impact of this terrible fire. We were proud to be called and part of the path to recovery for the residents of Fort McMurray. About LSC Environmental Products LSC is a global manufacturer of premier products and equipment designed to address the persistent environmental challenges of erosion, odor, land reclamation, waste cover, seeding, and dust. Over 25 years ago, LSC pioneered the use of spray-applied alternate daily cover and solar-powered vent flares in the solid waste industry. Since then, they have applied their unparalleled expertise in spray-applied environmental coatings to a variety of new products, industries, and markets. LSCs product offering also includes a full line of specialty mixer/spray applicators. Hansen Technologies Limited (ASX: HSN) announced today that Xcel Energy Services Inc. has renewed and extended their agreements with Hansen to support billing operations for residential and commercial & industrial electricity and gas customers across 8 Western and Mid-Western states. For over 12 years Hansens Customer Care and Billing solution has provided the power and flexibility to solve Xcel Energys scalability, multi-jurisdiction, and integration challenges. As one of North Americas largest energy providers, Xcel Energy uses the Hansen Utilities platform to support more than 3.5 million electricity and 2 million gas customers across Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin. We are committed to providing specialized services and a stable, dependable, and relevant billing platform for Xcel Energy. said Andrew Hansen, CEO of Hansen Technologies. We value our 12-year business relationship with Xcel Energy and we look forward to our continued partnership. About Hansen Technologies Hansen Technologies is a global Customer Care and Billing Solutions provider with more than 40 years of experience in the energy, utilities, gas, water & wastewater sectors. Hansen offers a suite of CIS and B2B gateway solutions built for Regulated Utilities, Municipalities, Energy Retailers, and Distribution network companies. Our solutions enable small to large organizations to react and evolve quickly to challenges posed by industry, regulation, and increasing customer demands. Hansen has offices in Australia, USA, New Zealand, China, Denmark, Germany, Argentina, India and the United Kingdom. TCI provides immediate access to cash using accounts-receivable financing, which provides small businesses the funds they need to continue their day-to-day operations. TCI Business Capital (http://www.tcicapital.com) announced today that it will exhibit at the Minneapolis Small Business Expo, to be held June 23rd at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The day-long conference and trade show, which travels throughout the countrys top cities for small business, brings together industry thought leaders and experts in a hands-on environment that features more than 20 free business critical workshops and programs along with more than 100 interactive booths, demos and brand exhibits. TCI Business Capital will exhibit to highlight its accounts-receivable financing programs for small businesses. Many small businesses find that their customers will take as long as 90 days to pay invoices, and this creates cash-flow issues that can cripple business operations, said Tony Dobek, senior vice president of sales for TCI Business Capital. TCI provides immediate access to cash using accounts-receivable financing, which provides small businesses the funds they need to continue their day-to-day operations. This is why many smart business people are signing up with TCI so we can fund their accounts. Were looking forward to meeting with local businesses to share how our financial solutions can help them cash flow their companies. Accounts-receivable financing, also known as factoring or asset-based lending, is the selling of accounts receivables, or invoices, to a third party for immediate cash. These cash payments can then be used to improve cash flow. Registration for the Minneapolis Small Business Expo is free. More information is available at http://www.thesmallbusinessexpo.com/minneapolis/. TCI Business Capital is a privately held financial services company founded in 1994. The company has operations in Burnsville, Minnesota and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. TCI Business Capital provides a full range of business financial services including: accounts-receivable management, asset-based lending, collection services, credit analysis, factoring services, risk assessment, treasury and more. The company is proud to be recognized for its reliability, flexibility, responsiveness, innovative products, customer service and exemplary corporate citizenship. For more information visit TCI on the web at http://www.tcicapital.com. Formation Data Systems (Formation), a company revolutionizing enterprise storage, today announced that Sudhakar Mungamoori, Formation Vice President of Customer Success, will speak at the 2016 SNIA Data Storage Innovation Conference on June 13-15 in San Mateo CA. At the conference, Formation will also exhibit and conduct demonstrations of FormationOne Dynamic Storage Platform (FormationOne), the companys hyper-scale dynamic storage platform. Presenting alongside leading SNIA leaders, analysts and industry experts, Sudhakar will illustrate how loosely coupled software-defined storage architectures provide better resiliency, performance and scale to accelerate infrastructure modernization projects across enterprise and service provider environments. Sudhakar will detail how to migrate application workloads from legacy storage arrays to software-defined architectures using tiering and quality of service for consistent performance delivery. Hell also explain how de-duplication, journaling and space efficient snapshots provide superior data protection across the distributed architecture to minimize data loss and storage consumption. Formation will also exhibit at the three day exhibition, offering technical deep dives and demonstrations of its flagship FormationOne storage platform to SNIA members and attendees. The FormationOne platform offers the ideal combination of private cloud control and public cloud scale to transform enterprise infrastructure and solve the data challenges businesses face today. In an extension of the companys highly successful See-a-Demo-Get-a-Goat, in which Formation has partnered with OxFam America, Formation will donate a goat for every qualified 1-1 demonstration. Speaker session Session title: Embrace Hyper-scale Storage Architecture to Drastically Increase Reliability and Lower Costs Speaker: Sudhakar Mungamoori, Vice President, Customer Success, Formation Data Systems When: June 15, 2016 Time: 10:00 AM Where: Marriott San Mateo, San Mateo CA Formation Exhibit at SNIA Data Storage Innovation Conference. When: June 13 June 15, 2016 Where: Marriott San Mateo, San Mateo CA RELATED LINKS Follow Formation on our blog, Twitter, LinkedIn FormationOne VSR press release --- Ends --- For more information, please contact John Vu at Eastwick FDS(at)eastwick(dot)com | 415-820-4484 Okuma Donates CNC Machines to Central Piedmont Community College Were excited to partner with CPCC in educating and training the next generation of operators, machinists, and programmers. Okuma America Corporation announces the donation of a MC-V4020 CNC vertical machining center and an ES-L8II CNC Lathe to the engineering technology programs at Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte, North Carolina. Okuma and CPCC dignitaries attended the formal announcement ceremony Tuesday, June 7, 2016 at the Advanced Technology Center on the CPCC campus. The lack of skilled labor is one of the biggest threats to the manufacturing industry. Were excited to partner with CPCC in educating and training the next generation of operators, machinists, and programmers, said Jim King, Okuma America president and COO. The generous gift of this equipment supports Okumas and CPCCs efforts to give students hands-on machining experience, manufacturing knowledge, skills and practical experiences necessary to pursue careers in todays high technology industries. Several key manufacturers have recently opened facilities in North & South Carolina that require skilled labor. This trend supports the important work of CPCC to prepare individuals for rewarding careers in the manufacturing field. Teaching students with the Okuma machines creates a machining graduate with a more diversified set of machining skills. This set of skills appeals to a larger portion of employers, making our graduates highly valued. Okumas generosity is a great benefit to our students, said Mike Hogan, CPCC associate dean of STEM programs. Okuma and CPCC share a long standing relationship dating back to the early 1980s. For more information on Okuma CNC machine tools visit http://www.okuma.com/cnc-machine-tool-lineup. About Okuma America Corporation Okuma America Corporation is the U.S.-based sales and service affiliate of Okuma Corporation, a world leader in CNC (computer numeric control) machine tools, founded in 1898 in Nagoya, Japan. The company is the industrys only single-source provider, with the CNC machine, drive, motors, encoders, and spindle all manufactured by Okuma. The company also designs their own CNC controls to integrate seamlessly with each machine tools functionality. In 2014 Okuma launched the Okuma App Store, the industrys only centralized online marketplace for machine tool apps and related content. Along with its extensive distribution network (largest in the Americas), and Partners in THINC, Okuma is committed to helping users gain competitive advantage through the open possibilities of machine tools, today and into the future. For more information, visit http://www.okuma.com/americas or follow us on Facebook or Twitter @OkumaAmerica. About Central Piedmont Community College Central Piedmont Community College is one of the largest community colleges in the Carolinas, offering nearly 300 degree, diploma and certification programs; customized corporate training; market-focused continuing education; and special interest classes. CPCC is academically, financially and geographically accessible to all citizens of Mecklenburg County. CPCC responds to the workforce and technology needs of local employers and job seekers through innovative educational and training strategies. Established in 1963, CPCC has provided more than 50 years of service to Mecklenburg County residents, business and industry. For more information, see http://www.cpcc.edu. Connect with the college on social media at http://www.cpcc.edu/social. ### Wines from Spain, the trade association responsible for the promotion of Spanish wines around the world, is proud to announce that it will participate in the 2016 Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. For its 24th year in Aspen, Wines from Spain the only country with its own, exclusive tent has partnered with the Tourist Office of Spain to showcase the diversity of Spanish wines through seminars and tastings. On World Tapas Day, June 16, 2016, Wines from Spain will kick-off the Food & Wine Classic with a Welcome Barbecue during which they will present Food Networks Iron Chef and James Beard award winning Chef Jose Garces. Guests will have the opportunity to experience the incredible versatility of Spanish wine and cuisine under Chef Garces mastery. Chef Garces, who recently opened his first Manhattan-based restaurant, Amada NYC, will also be teaching Battle of the Spanish Classics, a seminar held on Saturday, June 18, 2016 at 3:45-4:30pm From June 17- 19, Wines from Spain will participate in the Grand Tasting with 24 tables that include the campaigns of Rias Baixas, Sherry, Rioja Ribera del Duero. In total, there will be 20 wine tables, 3 food tables including Forever Cheese, Tempranillo Restaurant and a table from the Tourist Office of Spain who will be promoting the wine routes of Spain. Guests are invited to learn more incredible versatility of Spanish wines during the following seminars: Spains Most Extraordinary Wine Region: Catalonia | Presented by Ray Isle o June 17: 2:00 pm2:45 pm The Best of Spain: Contemporary vs. Classic | Presented by Andrea Robinson o June 17 & 18: 2:00 pm2:45 pm Battle of the Spanish Classics | Presented by Chef Jose Garces o June 18: 3:45 pm-4:30 pm Not only is the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen the premier industry event, it is also a key initiative in Wines from Spain's efforts to promote Spanish wine in the U.S., said Katrin Naelapaa, director of Wines from Spain. We look forward to connecting and sharing quality Spanish wines with media and industry friends at our opening night BBQ, which anchors and sets the tone for the Grand Tastings." For more on the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen and schedule of events, visit foodandwine.com/classic About Wines from Spain ICEX Spain Trade and Investment is the authorized governmental platform for the promotion of Spanish exports and Spanish companies' international growth. Vinos de Espana - or Wines from Spain - is ICEX's brand for a wide range of promotional activities designed to inform trade and consumers abroad about quality Spanish wines. Wines from Spain has been promoting Spanish wines in walk-around tastings to press, trade and consumers in New York and the United States for nearly 30 years. Each year, Wines from Spain hosts Spains Great Match- an opportunity to sample and learn about a variety of the worlds most sought-after Spanish wines paired with tapas from the top rated area Spanish restaurants. A new animated video series on the Four Grapes to Know, narrated by renowned sommelier Marnie Old can be viewed here. Attorney Candy Marrufo Phoenix criminal defense law firm MayesTelles, PLLC would like to congratulate Attorney Candy Marrufo on graduating from the State Bar of Arizonas Bar Leadership Institute (BLI), Class of 2015-2016. The BLI is a nine-month professional development program geared toward the professional growth and leadership enhancement of a diverse and inclusive group of lawyers. The BLI was founded in 2007, and since that time has prepared more than 100 attorneys for leadership positions within the Bar as well as the community. Program sessions cover a variety of topics including leadership development, ethics and career development, and include conversations with judges, government attorneys, in-house counsels, and executives. MayesTelles, PLLC is extremely proud of Marrufos notable accomplishment, and looks forward to seeing what the future has in store for her. About the Firm MayesTelles, PLLC is a criminal defense law firm located in Phoenix, Arizona. The firm handles a wide range of cases, from DUI and drug crimes to expungements and sex offenses. The attorneys at the firm have collectively handled thousands of cases. Inquiries are welcome 24/7, so to learn more, get in touch with the firm at (602) 428-7104 or by visiting http://www.mayestelles.com/. Our passion lies in harnessing the power of technology to make people's lives better, be it through mobile apps or cognitive computing. TheAppLabb CEO Kundan Joshi was honoured to receive the 2016 Transformation Award in Innovation at the Transformation Awards Gala on Saturday, June 4. Alongside fellow Transformation Award recipients including Olympic gold medalist Donovan Bailey, Global News meteorologist Anthony Farnell, 2015 Pan Am Games CEO Saad Rafi and others, Joshi walked the red carpet prior to the awards reception at the historic Fairmont Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto. During the ceremony, Joshi gratefully accepted the Innovation Award on behalf of his family and his team at TheAppLabb, stating "Such great honours are rarely individual achievements. They are a testament to being blessed with great people supporting and believing in you." He promised to continue enabling innovation, saying "Our passion lies in harnessing the power of technology to make people's lives better, be it through mobile apps or cognitive computing. And this recognition is a great validation for us to continue working harder and keep getting better at fostering innovation." Joshi ended his speech with a reminder to the audience about the power of innovation, declaring "Today we are at a stage where technology has progressed to a point where our only limitation is our own imagination. So let's extend ourselves, imagine, think creatively about the problems in the world that really need to be solved, for the greater good of humanity and the world. If you can imagine it, with technology, we can achieve it." As founder and CEO of TheAppLabb, Joshi has guided his team of technology evangelists through the creation of over 450 apps for clients large and small, from enterprise giants like Unilever, Dell and Samsung to innovative startups. In addition, Joshi holds a degree in software engineering from the University of Western Ontario and is the founder of 15 other tech companies including StartupLabb, an accelerator for high-potential technology startups. Presented by Diversity Magazine, the Transformation Awards celebrate the achievements of distinguished individuals in twelve categories. Through cross-cultural celebration, they reward community leaders who demonstrate leadership, excellence and innovation. Past recipients include Hazel McCallion, former Mayor of Mississauga; Hakimi Karimi, founder of Hakim Optical; and World Vision President Dave Toycen, to name a few. ### About TheAppLabb TheAppLabb is a dynamic global tech company that has built over 450 mobile apps for clients like Unilever, Samsung, Dell, HBC and TIFF, among others. They are a leader in product innovation, passionate about harnessing the power of technology to make peoples lives better. Headquartered in Toronto and with offices in New York, Hong Kong, Australia, Malaysia and India, TheAppLabb works with global brands, agencies and tech start-ups and contributes to their success by understanding their unique needs and creating business value through innovative solutions with a comprehensive 360-degree product development process that includes ideation, research, app strategy, design, development, maintenance and customer acquisition. You can find out more at http://www.theapplabb.com. This is the third year in a row for our company to receive this honor, which demonstrates the vital role our technology team plays in developing solutions that drive our business. - Paul A. Larkins, president and CEO SquareTwo Financial, a leader in the $100 billion asset recovery and management industry, today announced it is being honored nationally as a 2016 Best Places to Work in IT by IDGs Computerworld. It is the third consecutive year the company has been recognized as one of the top 100 organizations nationally and the only one listed from Colorado for offering staff a stimulating workplace with innovative projects and competitive compensation. Winning organizations are included in coverage in Computerworld along with results from the 23rd annual Best Places to Work in Information Technology survey. The Best Places to Work in IT list is an annual ranking of the top 100 work environments for technology professionals based on a comprehensive questionnaire. "The organizations on this years Best Places to Work in IT list excel at creating a dynamic and satisfying IT work environment, says Scot Finnie, editor in chief of Computerworld. In a competitive market for tech talent, these outstanding employers are able to attract highly skilled IT pros by offering great benefits, new learning opportunities, access to cutting-edge technologies and challenging, business-critical projects. The list is compiled based on company offerings in categories such as benefits, career development, training and retention. In addition, Computerworld conducts extensive surveys of IT workers, and their responses factor heavily in determining the rankings. SquareTwo Financial is proud to be selected for this technology-focused workplace award, said Paul A. Larkins, president and CEO of SquareTwo Financial. This is the third year in a row for our company to receive this honor, which demonstrates the vital role our technology team plays in developing solutions that drive our business. SquareTwo Financial provides employees with the tools and technology they need to thrive, as well as competitive compensation, benefits and continuing education. Learn more about employment at SquareTwo Financial. About the Best Places to Work in IT The Best Places to Work in IT list is an annual ranking of the top 100 work environments for technology professionals by IDGs Computerworld. The list is compiled based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, career development, training and retention. In addition, Computerworld conducts extensive surveys of IT workers, and their responses factor heavily in determining the rankings. About Computerworld Computerworld from IDG is the leading technology media brand helping senior IT, business decision-makers and key influencers navigate change with effective business strategy. As the voice of business technology, Computerworld enables the IT value chain with unique editorial coverage from setting strategies to deriving value. Computerworlds award-winning website (http://www.computerworld.com), focused conference series, strategic marketing solutions and research forms the hub of the worlds largest (40+ edition) global IT media network and provides opportunities for IT vendors to engage this audience. Computerworld leads the industry with an online audience of over 7.2 million monthly page views (Omniture, January 2016 March 2016 average) and was recognized in BtoBs 2013 Media Power 50 list; recognition Computerworld has received for more than 5 consecutive years. Computerworld is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary IDG. Company information is available at http://www.idgenterprise.com. About SquareTwo Financial SquareTwo Financial is a leader in the $100 billion asset recovery and management industry. Since 1994, the company and its subsidiaries have helped more than two million individuals and businesses resolve their outstanding financial obligations. SquareTwo Financials collection agency, Fresh View Solutions, works with consumers to repay their financial obligations. The companys Fresh View Funding debt ownership team works with banks and other issuers of credit to purchase unpaid debt. SquareTwo Financial is based in Denver, Colorado. Visit http://www.squaretwofinancial.com for more information. We offer our congratulations to CDK Global for their winning insight and our thanks to all the MVI finalists for sharing these terrific ideas with their dealer peers. We look forward to seeing an expanded presentation of the CDK Global findings at DSES DrivingSales today announced that "The Language of Closers: Communication that Wins," presented by CDK Global, has been named the 2016 DrivingSales Most Valuable Insight. CDK Global received the award from DrivingSales CEO Jared Hamilton at the third annual Presidents Club event in Miami. The Most Valuable Insight competition, which was judged exclusively by dealer executives, was created by DrivingSales to foster the spirit of progress and thought leadership in the auto industry. It was also announced that The Presidents Club, which expanded to include six new interactive workshops and sold out for the third year in a row, returns to New York City in 2017. Each year the presentations in our Presidents Club Most Valuable Insight competition raise the insight bar for our industry and this year was no exception. From a focus on innovative recruiting to transaction-transparent pricing, to the winning insight from CDK Global, which analyzed key email words and phrases that help boost closing ratios, these high level presentations offered our attendees actionable learnings that they can take home and implement in the dealership, said DrivingSales Founder & CEO Jared Hamilton. CDK Globals winning insight used sentiment analysis to analyze the language found in the first email responses of the top 10% of closers of a set of 1,000 dealerships and then compared that language to the responses of the bottom 10% of email closers to discover the words and phrases that have a higher likelihood of motivating the shopper to act, as well as words that keep shoppers from moving forward in their decision to acquire a vehicle from the responding store. We offer our congratulations to CDK Global for their winning insight and our thanks to all the MVI finalists for sharing these terrific ideas with their dealer peers. We look forward to seeing an expanded presentation of the CDK Global findings at the Eighth annual DSES in Las Vegas in October, continued Hamilton. The Most Valuable Insight runners-up are (alphabetically by company) Hireology for "Effective Employment Branding Drives Better Hiring and Accelerated Business Growth," and vAuto for "A Pathway To Improved New Vehicle Performance, Profitability." For the DrivingSales Most Valuable Insight competition, industry professionals are asked to provide an insight, founded on original research, which can provide significant value to dealership executives. A panel of top Dealer Principals/Owners and General Managers from innovative dealerships across the US chose three finalists from online applications. The submissions were evaluated entirely on their merits, without identifying the submitter. The finalists presented their insights onstage, in nine minute presentations, at the Presidents Club event, with the winner selected by a dealer panel. The Most Valuable Insight Competition was part of a high-level line-up at the DrivingSales Presidents Club that included best-selling author and consultant Dan Waldschmidt, Managing Partner of Underwood & Roberts PLLC Jeff Roberts, and DrivingSales Founder and CEO Jared Hamilton. For more information about the DrivingSales Most Valuable Insight Competition, go to http://drivingsalespresidentsclub.com/#mvi. Check out DrivingSales News for more coverage of the event at: http://www.drivingsales.com/news/day-1-recap-4th-annual-drivingsales-presidents-club/ About The DrivingSales Presidents Club Held annually on the east coast, The DrivingSales Presidents Club offers dealer principals a place where they can access the right, relevant information to lead their dealerships profit-building information filtered through those who understand it best: innovative leaders from inside and outside the industry who have built great business strategies; progressive dealerships who are making a difference on the ground, and the forward-thinking general managers and dealership principals who not only know what information matters, but how it matters. The event, which is dealer-designed to cover the topics most relevant to the challenges of dealership leadership today, also emphasizes peer interaction and idea-sharing forums. Discussions and presentations focus on the three foundational assets of successful dealership operations, Capital, Brand and People and the event includes The Most Valuable Insight competition. About DrivingSales DrivingSales serves automotive retailers with an integrated suite of technology, knowledge, community and performance insight designed to advance the success of retail professionals and their dealerships. Founded by a third-generation car dealer in 2008, today DrivingSales is utilized by two-thirds of franchised dealerships in North America as a resource to improve their business performance. To learn more about the DrivingSales community, news, dealer education or performance analytics visit DrivingSales.com. DrivingSales Media Relations: Melanie Webber (melanie(at)mwebbcom(dot)com), mWEBB Communications, 424.603.4340 Crystal Hartwell (crystal(at)mwebbcom(dot)com), mWEBB Communications, 714.987.1016 Partnering with Alexa Cafe is a natural fit, allowing us to complement the organizations efforts while providing another resource for our young members who are looking for more ways to explore their interests in STEM. The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has endorsed iD Techs Alexa Cafe curriculum by entering a partnership with the organization. The endorsement is in support of iD Tech and SWES shared objective to further education in science, technology, engineering and math, with a heavy focus on providing exposure to STEM among girls, underrepresented minorities and other children with limited access to valuable, educational programs. Expanding diversity in STEM careers starts with our future generation of engineers, said Karen Horting, CEO and executive director of SWE. We have to change the perception of STEM by offering educational programs like this to communities in need, and by showing girls and minorities how engineering and technology can align with their interests. Partnering with Alexa Cafe is a natural fit, allowing us to complement the organizations efforts while providing another resource for our young members who are looking for more ways to explore their interests in STEM. iD Tech is a summer camp program offered across the country that provides students with high-energy, hands-on technology education. Alexa Cafe is a program within iD Tech that was created in 2014 after YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki approached iD Tech to start an all-girls STEM program something that would appeal to both girls who have done coding before and girls who might not otherwise try a coding or STEM course. Since its creation, more than 1,400 girls have attended Alexa Cafe, and 2,000 participants are attending this summer. With iD Techs focus on getting more girls involved in STEM with programs like Alexa Cafe, the organization has seen an increase of 205 percent in the number of girls attending iD Tech camps from 2013-2015. In addition to having girls who like coding attend, weve had girls attend our camps who have had virtually no interest or awareness of STEM, and come out wanting to pursue a future career in engineering and technology, said Pete Ingram-Cauchi, CEO at iD Tech. Partnering with an organization like SWE increases awareness of these programs to even more girls who may have high potential in STEM careers in the future, but may not have access to resources that encourage that potential. The Alexa Cafe program puts an emphasis on entrepreneurship, leadership, brand identity and philanthropy. Girls participate in STEM projects that focus on meaningful, social causes. Girls can participate in courses on programming, engineering, 3D modeling, 3D printing, game design, web design, photography and filmmaking. Girls have a tendency to diverge toward careers where they can make a difference in the world, and they often dont realize they can do that as an engineer, Horting added. Demonstrating this first-hand is how we are going to change the perception of what an engineer is and what an engineer does. Creating an environment like Alexa Cafe does one of open communication, inspiration and empowerment of women furthers that encouragement and allows girls to discover STEM in an un-biased environment. At a young age, this is highly impactful. As part of the partnership, SWE will be providing scholarship opportunities to girls who need additional support to attend the Alexa Cafe summer program. The scholarships will be provided through SWENext, SWEs program for students under the age of 18. SWENext is a program at no cost that provides up-to-date information on engineering events, camps, scholarships, awards, meet-ups and more. To learn more or sign up for SWENext, visit swenext.swe.org. Media photos can be accessed here: https://drive.google.com/a/idtech.com/folderview?id=0B11e9sFqcAN4b2lGeFFuZGptMzQ&usp=drive_web# About SWE The Society of Women Engineers (SWE), founded in 1950, is the worlds largest advocate and catalyst for change for women in engineering and technology. The not-for-profit educational and service organization is the driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women. To ensure SWE members reach their full potential as engineers and leaders, the Society offers unique opportunities to network, provides professional development, shapes public policy and provides recognition for the life-changing contributions and achievements of women engineers. As a champion of diversity, SWE empowers women to succeed and advance in their personal and professional lives. For more information about the Society, please visit http://www.swe.org or call 312.596.5223. About iD Tech iD Tech is the leader in summer STEM education programs for students ages 6-18, with over 235,000 students enrolled since 1999. Students solve engineering challenges, learn programming, code apps, build robots, design video games, and more. Programs are held at over 120 prestigious campuses nationwide, including Stanford, Rice, Caltech, Yale, Princeton, and many others. There are 5 iD Tech summer STEM programs held nationwide: Alexa Cafe (all-girls, weeklong, ages 10-15), iD Tech Camps (weeklong, ages 7-17), iD Tech Mini (weeklong, co-ed, half-day options, ages 6-9) as well as teen academies iD Programming Academy and iD Game Design & Development Academy (2-week, pre-college, co-ed, ages 13-18). To learn more, visit iDTech.com or call 1.800.709.8324. Joel Levitt I am thrilled about the opportunity to join Reliabilityweb because I want to be part of the future of the conversations about reliability. Reliabilityweb.com announces that best seller author, Joel Levitt has joined the Reliabilityweb.com team as Director of Projects for the Reliability Leadership Institute in Fort Myers, Florida. Levitt has been facilitating workshops, short courses and training courses with Reliabilityweb.com since 2003 while also serving as the president of Springfield Resources, a maintenance management training and consulting firm. The new role is effective immediately. I am excited to work with Joel to create new strategies to expand the work we have been doing around the Uptime Elements Reliability Framework, states Reliabilityweb.com CEO Terrence OHanlon; He is a trusted advisor who is recognized around the world. His unique perspective and his deep experience in the industry will contribute to the results we are already generating. Joel Levitt will join the Reliabilityweb.com Functional Leadership team, focusing on expanding capabilities for the Uptime Elements Reliability Framework and on continually improving the Certified Reliability Leader management system. According to Maura Abad, Director of the Reliability Leadership Institute, We are looking forward to working with Joel as a key contributor in developing strategies that fulfill our mission of discovering and delivering ways to make asset managers, reliability leaders and maintenance professionals safer and more successful. Mr. Levitt is highly respected in our community, and we are fortunate to add his knowledge and experience to the work we are doing at the Reliability Leadership Institute. Joel Levitts career includes 25 years of experience in the asset management, reliability and maintenance field including process control design, source equipment inspection, electrical expertise, field service technician, maritime operations and property management. Levitt added, I am thrilled about the opportunity to join Reliabilityweb because I want to be part of the future of the conversations about reliability. Reliabilityweb has stood for professionalization and leadership in reliability to deliver the triple bottom line of economic prosperity, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. I wanted to be part of that. Training more than 15,000 asset managers and reliability leaders in over 3,000 organizations across the globe, Levitt is recognized as an expert in competency based learning. His most recent assignment was Director for International Projects with LCE, a global leader in asset management, reliability and maintenance services and training. As an industry thought leader, he has authored numerous best selling books on reliability topics and is a frequent keynote speaker at leading conferences and educational events around the world. Levitt earned a bachelors degree in computer and information science from Temple University. About Reliabilityweb.com Based in Fort Myers, Florida, Reliabilityweb.com produces the IMC-2016, the 31st International Maintenance Conference to be held December 12-16, 2016 in Bonita Springs, Florida. Reliabilityweb.com also provides the worlds largest maintenance reliability body of knowledge, educational information and networking that enables safe and effective physical asset management for organizations around the world. The company develops numerous conference programs and publishes Uptime Magazine as well as 100 books on the topic of asset management and reliability performance. Learn more at http://www.reliabilityweb.com Terrence OHanlon Reliabilityweb.com, Uptime Magazine PO Box 60075, Fort Myers FL 33906 Terrence@reliabilityweb.com, crm@reliabilityweb.com 239-333-2500 http://www.reliabilityweb.com Reliabilityweb.com, Uptime, Reliability, Uptime Elements, Reliability Leadership Institute and Certified Reliability Leader are the trademarks or registered trademarks of NetexpressUSA Inc. d/b/a Reliabilityweb.com and its affiliates in the USA and in several other countries. For the third consecutive year, JEBCommerce has been selected as a finalist for the Rakuten Marketing Golden Link Awards OPM Agency of the Year. The esteemed industry honor comes during a year of unprecedented growth for JEBCommerce. With its recent acquisition, the award-winning affiliate marketing agency has expanded its expertise into the digital marketing spaceallowing it to continue serving the needs of leading online brands. JEBs latest Golden Link nomination reflects the companys results-driven culture and the unparalleled quality of its clients and partners. Were thankful to all of our partners who have helped nominate us as a finalist for this years award, said Jamie Birch, Founder and CEO. Were looking forward to continue our partnership with leading brands that are driving forces for change in their industry and world. Rakuten Marketing has been an amazing partner of ours since my days at Coldwater Creek, now almost 17 years ago. Im so excited that our team is on this list again. The Rakuten Marketing Golden Link Awards is an annual celebration of excellence and innovation in the performance marketing industry. The industry voting period culminates in the annual awards event, which is expected to draw more than 350 advertisers, publishers and agencies to New York on June 22. Based in Coeur dAlene, Idaho, JEBCommerce is an award-winning performance marketing agency that helps savvy online brands increase customer acquisition and drive growth. JEBCommerce has been a recognized leader in affiliate management for more than a decade, and is guided by more than 75 years of combined expertise in affiliate and omnichannel marketing. For more information on JEBCommerce, visit jebcommerce.com or email Jamie(at)jebcommerce(dot)com. Visit the Rakuten Marketing blog to see the full list of Golden Link nominees. "There are many places to learn Hawaiian now, but this kind of effort links up all the learners, and even the teachers, in a fun 'give it your very best' kind of competition. This contest will generate new poetry, songs and short stories that the whole Hawaiian language community can enjoy." says Dr. Puakea Nogelmeier, a professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a multi-award-winning composer, and the executive director of Awaiaulu, Inc., the organization sponsoring the competition. Hawaiian is considered an endangered language, with only perhaps 10,000 fluent speakers. Efforts to save the language and increase its number of speakers began with the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s, leading to widespread teaching and the establishment of Hawaiian immersion schools. Hawaiian is an official language of the State of Hawaii, the number of speakers is rising, and students can complete their entire educational career - from preschool through college - in olelo Hawaii. There is a great historical collection of Hawaiian language literature in the more than one hundred Hawaiian language newspapers of the 19th and 20th centuries which are still being explored and enjoyed today, but this competition is providing a venue for brand new works. "There is a long history of Hawaiian writers and composers - all of the Hawaiian royals were skilled poets, as were farmers and pharmacists - so we want to encourage that tradition to continue on as a living legacy of Hawaii." Contest entries are accepted until July 31st, and award recipients will be announced on September 2nd in Oahu. All dates are Hawaii Standard Time. For more information on the competition or to submit an entry, visit http://www.hawaiianliterature.com. Hal Wendel, Chief Revenue Officer My goal is to play an important role in meeting the diversified needs of our growing customer base and assist our customers in their efforts to increase their revenues in a compliant way by using leading-edge contact center technology NobelBiz, an award-winning provider of contact center solutions and patented technologies announced the appointment of Hal Wendel to the role of Chief Revenue Officer. Phil Grudzinski, President of NobelBiz, expressed his excitement toward the hiring, lauding Wendels experience and leadership qualities. NobelBiz has been building a strong leadership team and strategically aligning all of our divisions for expansion," Grudzinski said. "As such, were delighted to welcome Hal to our company. Hal has demonstrated leadership throughout his career, and his experience in the growth of multiple Service as a Software (SaaS) providers is a perfect fit for the vision of NobelBiz." Wendel has over 20 years of Sales and Management background in both domestic and international markets especially in the enterprise software, business intelligence and SaaS industry. In his prior endeavors he has managed CRM and telco applications into Fortune 500 accounts. He has a strong background in managing large teams of hundreds of personnel. Hal also was awarded a Sloan Fellowship/MBA from the London Business School. As Chief Revenue Officer, Mr. Wendel will assume responsibility for the Sales and Marketing Division. Additionally, he will work closely with other departments in the company that include: Sales Engineering, Industry Compliance and Product Innovation. Im excited to be part of NobelBizs market penetration and of the expansion of the customized products that we offer. My goal is to play an important role in meeting the diversified needs of our growing customer base and assist our customers in their efforts to increase their revenues in a compliant way by using leading-edge contact center technology, said Hal Wendel. About NobelBiz NobelBiz is a seasoned team of experienced professionals who are focused on developing and implementing technology solutions that facilitate the compliant engagement of customers. Our flagship product, LocalTouch, is a patented, award-winning caller ID management solution that is tested and proven to increase performance and enhance productivity for any contact center campaign. It is a part of our NobelBiz Shield of Products that delivers trusted compliance and trusted customer engagement in a variety of contact center applications. NobelBiz product lines include enhanced carrier services, cloud-based contact center solutions, performance-based routing, and state of the art data aggregation and business reporting platforms that are revolutionizing contact center outcomes. Together with their extraordinary attention to service, NobelBiz has earned a solid reputation with hundreds of clients based in the US and internationally. Pelican Brewing Company unveils brand refresh for its craft beer Theres a consistent quality and pride in what we do. And like our beer, the brand refresh was designed to embody that heart and soul. As craft beer brands duke it out in crowded beer aisles, Pelican Brewing Company this week aims to bring a refreshing calm to the escalating carrier wars. Oregons iconic craft brewery introduces a packaging refresh to showcase its coastal roots and playful personalityall while staying true to its flavorful, honest, well-crafted beer. With a deep commitment to the legacy they created, Pelican founders set out to inspirit its 20 year old presence asking itself how do we support our brand and communicate who we are and what our beer representsconsistently, across packaging and distribution? This week Pelican lands in the beer aisle with bolder colors and a lively new look designed to be an easy find for craft beer lovers. Our goal was to visually translate our beer to the drinkerits unexpected levels of flavor, aroma and quality are hallmarks of our craftsmanship. Our brand presentation is now as consistent as the beer we brew, says Darron Welch, founding brewmaster of Pelican Brewing Company. Creativity with a twist As always, Pelican likes to do things a little differentlyoffering a few twists like vertical labeling in a refreshing design that clearly reflects its direct nature: Bigger, bolder Pelican logo Stronger, contemporary mixed typefaces and sizes Vertical presentation of the beer names Crisper, richer, more saturated colors Flavor notes and characteristics displayed Unique label treatment for tactile experience Candid, genuine communication and packaging Everything Pelican does is done with purposetheres a consistent quality and pride in what we do. And like our beer, the brand refresh was designed to embody that heart and soul, says Jim Prinzing, CEO, Pelican Brewing Company. We held on to the traditional Pelican, added bolder colors, more negative space to remain simple and easy to find. Its a very visually interesting look that we think will appeal to our customers and maybe even offer a welcoming calm in the growing storm of craft beers. Led by premier Oregon branding talent With years of creative branding expertise behind her and now some of the best young in-house design talent, Pelican asked Jeanie Coatesfounder and CEO at Coates Kokes full service marketing agencyto help shape Pelicans brand refresh strategy. Coates recommended the new adventurous and spirited brand imagery to create a stronger presence in the competitive craft beer aisle and simplicity to showcase Pelican culture. From the size of the type to the vertical display of the beer name, a cropped logo and a mix and match of typefaces and sizes, Coates and her team readied Pelican for its makeover debut. At the end of the day the Pelican brand had to be held together by who they are and their brand positionborn at the beach, authentic, not frilly or frivolous, says Coates. Across the board people love the Pelican logo so we gave him a vivid refreshed presence as well as packaging to mirror who the Pelican founders are: they value hard work, people, their place on the coast, the history of beer and creating quality and memorable brews and experiences. We think this simple, bold new look will make a big difference in the beer aisle. Born at the Beach Pelican was born at the beach 20 years ago as a small, stand alone brewpub in a small town on the Oregon coastPacific City. Pacific City is still a small town, but with consistent growth and demand for its products, Pelican sales are up more than 500% from 3,500 barrels in 2013 to 18,000 barrels this year. The company recently doubled its brewing and bottling capacity at its Tillamook facility and opened a new brewpub in Cannon Beach. Pelican also recently won a bronze medal at the World Brew Cup and eight medals including Champion Medium International Brewery at the Australian International Beer Awards. According to founding brewmaster Darron Welch, Pelican has always been focused on creating as wide a range of beers as possible: Designed and brewed with innovation and craftsmanship Showing our guests and fans the many possibilities of flavor in the world of beer Dedicated attention to detail in the pursuit of quality and consistency About Pelican Brewing Company Pelican Brewing Company was founded in 1996 by Jeff Schons and Mary Jones in Pacific City with Oregon's only oceanfront brewpub. Celebrating its 20th year, the brewing company has created masterpieces like Kiwanda Cream Ale, India Pelican Ale, MacPelicans Scottish Ale, Tsunami Stout and Dorymans Dark. With the vision, creativity and brewing expertise of founding brewmaster Darron Welch, Pelican Brewing has won over 300 awards including the 2014 World Beer Cup Champion Small Brewing Company and Brewmaster of the Year. Pelican Brewing currently distributes 22oz bottles, 12oz bottles in 6-packs, a new mixed 12-pack, and 50 liter and 20 liter kegs via a network of distributors in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Hawaii and Vermont. The company operates brewing and brewpub facilities in Pacific City, Tillamook and Cannon Beach. Contact: Claudia Johnson, PR, 503-799-2220 Port of Kalama offers industrial property and industrial buildings just 30 minutes from Portland, Oregon. When Joe Christiansen relocated his dry kiln fabrication services to the Port of Kalama in 2013 little did he know what kind of welcome he would receive from a booming manufacturing sector and an uptick in the economy. Inspired by a challenge, happy customers, and a growing demand for commercial, industrial and decorative metal work, Christiansen launched CE Metal Fabrication. The company leased another 10,000 square feet at the Kalama River Industrial Park and another Port of Kalama business success story was born! CE Metal Fabrication now leases 20,000 square feet in Kalama and serves a growing cadre of clients throughout the Pacific Northwest with precisely crafted metal works. From decorative handrails to steel structural beams, CE creates quality metal components and other necessities for commercial buildings, industrial settings, and automotive applications. Metal fabrication as an art CE Metal Fabrication works with architects, designers, builders, artists and other individuals to bring their creative ideas to life in the form of metal works. The firm offers architectural metal fabrication for decorative and ornamental projects including business signs, staircase handrails, railing systems, circular staircases, gates, furniture, and fixtures. We honed our craft by building and maintaining lumber dry kilns all over the Pacific Northwest and today we are serving a vast array of fabrication clientswe are perfectly placed at the Port of Kalama and our business growth reflects that, says Christiansen, owner of Christiansen Enterprises. When clients outside of the lumber industry became interested in what we were creating here in Kalama, our expert welding team rose to the task and have become quite the team of artists. COMMERCIAL METAL FABRICATION CE Metal Fabrication offers a turnkey fabrication service wide variety of custom designed, fabricated and installed commercial metal work for architects, general contractors and subcontractors. CE now provides metal fabrication services for food service equipment, commercial sinks, metal shelving, conveyors, awnings and guardrails. INDUSTRIAL METAL FABRICATION CE Metal Fabrication is also equipped to produce world-class industrial metal fabrication offering a wide variety of custom designed, fabricated and installed industrial metal equipment. Industrial companies, architects, general contractors and subcontractors seek CE services for lumber dry kilns, industrial machinery, platforms, guards, equipment components and metal covers. Port of Kalama not only offers us an ideal location to serve our customers in the forest products industry, but they have supported our company growth in ways we couldnt have expected, said Joe Christiansen, owner, Christiansen Enterprises. We have grown substantially every year since moving to the Port and expect to continue to increase our services to a new fabrication market. 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 1,000 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. "Z Octet," the new CD by pianist-composer-arranger Peggy Stern. I like that it doesn't really fit into any genre. Finding inspiration in the physical surroundings of her current hometown of Austin, Texas, and drawing upon what jazz critic Harvey Pekar called her fertile imagination as a pianist, composer, and arranger, Peggy Stern has recorded the deepest and most personal album of her distinguished career, "Z Octet." Comprised of several of her most poignant compositions, the recording shapes them into a cohesive work of great beauty, color, and tender emotion. Sterns Estrella Productions will release the CD on July 8. At once bold and subdued, shimmering and shadowy, "Z Octet" is neither jazz nor classical, bridging those genres in a way that recalls Maria Schneiders efforts with her larger ensemble. I like that it doesnt really fit into any genre, says Stern, who has never let generic expectations color her approach to the music or the way she plays the piano. On the new CD, recorded at Greenhaven Studio in Austin, pianist Stern is joined by an unusual blend of players, including clarinetist Su Terry, featured with Stern on "The Art of the Duo" (2010); flutist Alex Coke, a seasoned avant-gardist; trombonist Alex Heitlinger, a gifted and widely experienced young player and composer; and Ilia Delarosa, a cello virtuoso from the Dominican Republic. The CD also features bassist Richard Mikel and drummer Wayne Salzmann, as well as vocal harmonies on two tracks by the leader and Austin favorite Suzi Stern (no relation). Ranging from The Elephants Tango, a gently swaggering tango named after the Elephant Room, an Austin club, to Phille, a rich, choral-style piece written after the death of Sterns mother, "Z Octet" covers a wide range of emotions and styles. While "Z Octet" is a suite, with a trajectory and atmosphere all its own, each piece within it radiates its own particular qualities. Native Philadelphian Peggy Stern began playing classical piano at an early age, acquiring her Bachelors Degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York in 1968, and then her Masters in 1970 from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. Stern moved in the early 1970s to San Francisco, where she learned to improvise and expanded her musical horizons. One of her first jobs in town was with the popular Latin dance band SuperCombo, the hardcore Cuban rhythm section of which toughened her approach to salsa montunos, six nights a week for two years. She also played in the Latin-rock big band Azteca, the R&B band Cats Cradle (which she co-founded with Linda Tillery), and jazz trumpeter Eddie Hendersons group. After moving to New York, she added to her Latin resume by playing in legendary percussionist Machitos legacy band and performed jazz in varied settings. Heading to Seattle in the early 80s, Stern thrived in a music community that was more amenable to outsiders and non-conforming styles than New York. I have consistently found that the West Coast is more open to new musical ideas, she says. In Seattle, where she lived for eight years, Stern played with such local heroes as Julian Priester, Gary Peacock, and Jay Clayton and was an assistant professor for six years at the Cornish College of the Arts. Her first album, "City Hawk" (1985), a collection of originals save for Dave Brubecks In Your Own Sweet Way, featured her on piano and synthesizer. In 1988, she recorded the solo album "Aliyah," a collection of Jewish tunes (one that neatly paired up with her earlier release, "Christmas Collection"). Two years later, she was back in New York, where, when not teaching upstate at SUNY-Purchase, she immersed herself in the downtown scene. She played with a formidable number of first-rate artists, including Lee Konitz, with whom she recorded such albums as "Lunasea" (1992), much of which she composed. She co-led a quartet with a very different saxophonist, singular avant-gardist Thomas Chapin, a collaboration documented on "The Fuchsia" (1997). Free jazz is my favorite thing to play, says Stern, who was good friends with Chapin when his life was tragically cut short by leukemia in 1998. Her other 90s recordings include the trio effort, "Pleiades," which teamed her with rising bassist Ben Allison and drummer Jeff Williams; "The Jobim Collection," a duo album with Konitz; another trio work, "Room Enough," consisting largely of jazz standards and featuring Harvie S and Jeff Williams; and her first large ensemble recording, "Actual Size," a kind of precursor to "Z Octet" featuring such stalwarts as trumpeter Ron Horton and trombonist Art Baron. In 2006 her Estrella Trio released a self-titled CD. Stern, who has also extensively performed, recorded, and taught in Europe, relocated to Austin in 2013 in order to be close to her married daughter Sarka and her two grandchildren. Moving to Texas, Stern quips, was a little like moving to the moon, but Peggy has adapted by playing everything from modern jazz to salsa to western swing. She also added a popular jazz venue to the sceneher living room aka Salon Peggyand a gorgeous new CD to her discography. We believe that TetraScience has the capability to significantly impact how research is performed and managed." Digital Science, a technology software company that makes the research process simpler and more efficient, today announced it has invested in TetraScience a Boston, MA based scientific start-up and an Internet of Things company, that aims to modernize research by bringing cloud software to the laboratory. Founded by scientists and engineers from Harvard & MIT, TetraScience has developed a solution for connecting and managing research equipment and instruments via the web. TetraScience was the recipient of a prestigious Digital Science Catalyst Grant in 2015 - awarded to support the innovation of new software tools and technologies for scientific research and intended to provide initial support to take ideas from concept to prototype. TetraScience is the first Catalyst Grant winner to receive a follow-on investment from Digital Science. TetraScience, started by Harvard and MIT researchers Alok Tayi, Siping Wang and Salvatore Savo, was founded with the mission to modernize research by bringing cloud software to the laboratory. The company already works with some of the most respected research and academic institutions and scientific instrument manufacturers, and will use the funds to accelerate development and market penetration. Our goal is to make management of the research process as simple and easy as possible, letting researchers improve productivity compliance, and quality, all-the-while enabling them to focus their time where it matters most, said Alok Tayi, PhD co-founder and CEO, TetraScience. We believe that TetraScience has the capability to significantly impact how research is performed and managed, said Daniel Hook, Managing Director, Digital Science. TetraScience has built a very talented team with a deep background in research, so they understand fully the challenges that need to be solved and are building a great solution to meet those challenges. Digital Science supports a suite of renowned researcher tools across a wide portfolio of companies across the globe, including ReadCube, Figshare and LabGuru. The addition of TetraScience will expand the research management portion of the Digital Science portfolio, enabling the delivery of ever more comprehensive solutions for researchers. Background Modern scientific research is rife with manual processes and inefficiencies. Experimental deviations, instrument failures and underutilized equipment are just a few of the challenges that contribute to 45% of R&D dollars wasted each year. TetraSciences solution is purpose-built for science and used across industries including pharma, biotech, food & beverage, oil & gas, chemistry, plastics and others. The solution connects scientific instruments and equipment to the web, allowing research teams to remotely monitor and manage experiments in real time, and log data automatically - accelerating productivity, saving time and money. Key use cases and users for TetraScience include: Scientific workflows: R&D managers and scientists responsible for managing experimental and instrument data Lab monitoring: Lab managers and operators responsible for instrument failure/downtime and equipment service tracking Utilization: R&D and finance executives responsible for productivity, capital efficiency, systems integration and time to market About TetraScience TetraScience is an Internet-of-Things platform for science. The company connects scientific equipment to the web to enable scientists to remotely monitor, manage, and automate experiments. TetraScience works with leading pharmaceutical companies and prestigious academic institutions and its hardware and software helps R&D labs become more productive, ensure compliance, and improve quality. More information can be found at http://www.tetrascience.com About Digital Science Digital Science is a technology company serving the needs of scientific and research communities at key points along the full cycle of research. It invests in and incubates research software companies that simplify the research cycle, making more time for discovery. Its portfolio companies include a host of leading brands including Altmetric, BioRAFT, Figshare, Labguru, Overleaf, ReadCube, Symplectic and UberResearch. It is operated by global media company, the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. Visit http://www.digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on Twitter. Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLPs Bradley R. Marsh will be speaking at the CalCPA's 2016 Estate and Trust Planning Conference, held June 16-June 17 at the Golden Gate University in San Francisco, California. Speaking Friday, June 17, at 10:15 a.m., Marsh will address the topic "Property Tax Strategies to Avoid Reassessment." Marsh will discuss techniques using both legal entities and other applicable exclusions to provide clients with property tax-efficient transactions, as well as other hot topics. According to the website, the conference will help identify ways to maximize the worth of clients estates, recall specific non-tax reasons for estate planning, and recognize ways to take advantage of changes in estate planning to build a practice. Marsh, a shareholder in the firms San Francisco office, focuses his practice on tax controversy matters, including property, sales, payroll, business license, employment, franchise, parcel, district, documentary transfer, transient occupancy, utility user, income, parking, gift, and estate taxes. Marsh is experienced in representing clients in audits, litigation, and administrative hearings; analyzing transactions and business models; as well as providing legislative solutions. About Greenberg Traurig's Tax Practice To stay competitive in today's global marketplace, international companies must seek out greater efficiency in their tax planning and compliance, including coordinating tax decisions from country to country. For U.S. operations, an environment of increased scrutiny including passage of more restrictive legislation and a spike in audit activity at every level is quickly becoming the norm, likewise spurring a need for greater self-evaluation and for more frequent representation in controversies and litigation with tax authorities. Greenberg Traurigs multidisciplinary tax team works closely with our clients to address these and other tax planning needs, as well as tax controversies and litigation issues. About Greenberg Traurig, LLP Greenberg Traurig, LLP is an international, multi-practice law firm with approximately 1,900 attorneys serving clients from 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The firm is No. 1 on the 2015 Law360 Most Charitable Firms list, third largest in the U.S. on the 2015 Law360 400, Top 20 on the 2015 Am Law Global 100, and among the 2015 BTI Brand Elite. More information at: http://www.gtlaw.com. This is an exciting time of growth for Gander Mountain, and I am honored to be joining the executive team in this important role. Gander Mountain, the nations largest and fastest-growing network of outdoor specialty stores, announced today that Jeff Csuy will be joining the companys executive team. Csuy has been named Gander Mountains Senior Vice President of Softlines Merchandising and Product Development, and will officially join the company in June. We are excited to welcome Jeff to the Gander Mountain executive team and we will benefit greatly from having his experience and expertise in the fold, said Derek Siddons, Gander Mountains President. Jeff joins us at a time of unprecedented expansion for the company, and we look forward to his contributions as we grow the Gander Mountain brand, focus on our core business and continue to expand our offerings in areas like footwear and outdoor clothing. Csuy (pronounced suey) will lead the Softlines Merchandising and Product Development Teams in the development, implementation, and execution of integrated business strategies that deliver growth to Gander Mountain. Csuy joins Gander Mountain from Shopko in Green Bay, Wis., where he was Senior Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer, overseeing the Home Store, Apparel and Accessories, Consumables, and Private Label merchandising teams in all aspects of planning, purchasing and daily execution of business and marketing plans. During his tenure with Shopko, Jeff was instrumental in repositioning the company through a more relevant assortment and stronger price-value market proposition. He led his team to deliver solid financial results and develop strategic growth plans to support market expansion. Csuy brings Gander Mountain more than 25 years of retail experience and has held executive merchandising positions at Stage Stores in Houston, Texas, and Carson Pirie Scott prior to joining Shopko. Csuy holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology and Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. This is an exciting time of growth for Gander Mountain, and I am honored to be joining the executive team in this important role, said Csuy, who plans to move his family to Minnesota over the summer. I look forward to bringing my retail background and experience to the position as our work to meet the needs of outdoors enthusiasts everywhere continues. Founded in 1960, Gander Mountain is in the midst of a sizeable expansion, with more than 55 new stores opened since 2012. Gander Mountain has also remodeled more than 85 of the companys existing stores to bring the best in outdoor gear and service to its customers across the country. This has included a major expansion of footwear, apparel and active lifestyle offerings. More new store announcements are expected soon. About Gander Mountain Company Gander Mountain Company headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., is the nation's largest and fastest-growing retail network of outdoor specialty stores for hunting, shooting, fishing, camping, archery, boating and outdoor lifestyle products and services. Since 1960, Gander Mountain has offered the best selection of outdoor equipment, technical apparel, active casual wear, and footwear featuring national, regional and specialty brands at competitive prices. Focused on a "We Live Outdoors" culture, Gander Mountain dedicates itself to creating outdoor memories. Gander Mountain has launched a national campaign encouraging responsible firearms ownership take the Responsibility Pledge at http://www.GanderMountain.com and use the hashtag #responsibilitypledge in social media to raise awareness. Gander Mountain has more than 160 conveniently-located outdoor lifestyle stores in 27 states. For the nearest store location call 800-282-5993 or visit http://www.GanderMountain.com. Gander Mountain is also the parent company of Overton's (http://www.overtons.com), the leading supplier of boating accessories and watersports equipment for boaters, anglers, waterskiers and paddlesports enthusiasts. Rigaku XtaLAB MM003 Single crystal diffraction system with microfocus sealed Tube X-ray source Rigaku Corporation is pleased to announce its attendance at the 4th Annual Symposium on Structural Biology. The event will be held on June 14, 2016 at Stephenson Life Sciences Research Center at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK and hosted by the Oklahoma Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Structural Biology (OCSB). Rigaku is presenting its current line of protein crystallography products and technologies. Protein crystallography is a powerful structural biology technique. X-ray Diffraction systems from Rigaku enable structure determination of macromolecules while the companys small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) systems provide structure determination of protein solutions. More information about structural biology technologies from Rigaku can be found at http://www.rigaku.com/applications/protein_macromolecular_crystallography About Rigaku Since its inception in Japan in 1951, Rigaku has been at the forefront of analytical and industrial instrumentation technology. Rigaku and its subsidiaries form a global group focused on general-purpose analytical instrumentation and the life sciences. With hundreds of major innovations to their credit, Rigaku companies are world leaders in X-ray spectrometry, diffraction, and optics, as well as small molecule and protein crystallography and semiconductor metrology. Today, Rigaku employs over 1,400 people in the manufacturing and support of its analytical equipment, which is used in more than 70 countries around the world supporting research, development, and quality assurance activities. Throughout the world, Rigaku continuously promotes partnerships, dialog, and innovation within the global scientific and industrial communities. For further information, contact: Michael Nelson Rigaku Global Marketing Group tel: +1. 512-225-1796 michael.nelson(at)rigaku(dot)com Dr. Sonal Patel We are delighted to have Dr. Patel joining our group...she has established herself in Tampa Bay area by providing quality and compassionate patient care Florida Hospital Physician Group (FHPG) is pleased to announce the opening of a brand new physician office located in the Sunlake area and the addition of Sonal Patel, MD to Florida Hospital Physician Group. The new Sunlake Lutz Medical Center is located on State Road 54 and Sunlake Boulevard in the Shoppes at Sunlake Centre, making it easily accessible to patients from both Lutz and Land O Lakes. It is the new office of Dr. Sonal H. Patel, a Board Certified Internal Medicine physician who has been practicing medicine in the Tampa Bay area for over a decade. Dr. Patel earned her medical degree from the Medical University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland before completing her internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, New York. Dr. Patel provides comprehensive care for adults ages 18 and older and she specializes in adult preventative medicine, women's health, acute and chronic disease management, dermatological issues and geriatric medicine. Florida Hospital Physician Group physicians and staff focus on compassionate, whole-person care with extensive knowledge and expertise to diagnose and treat medical conditions with a patient-focused approach. Florida Hospital Physician Group recognized the need for additional quality health care services in the Sunlake area, and we are very excited to open our newest practice in the Shoppes at Sunlake Centre to meet the need in the community, shared Chris Jenkins, President of Florida Hospital Physician Group. We are also delighted to have Dr. Patel joining our group. She has established herself in the Tampa Bay area by providing quality and compassionate patient care, which makes her the perfect fit for our newest office in Sunlake and for patients in the surrounding communities. Dr. Patel and the Sunlake Lutz Medical Center are located at 18923 State Road 54, Lutz, FL 33558, and Dr. Patel is currently accepting new patients. For more information, or to schedule an appointment, please call (813) 803-7150 or visit http://www.SunlakeLutzMedicalCenter.com. About Florida Hospital Physician Group Florida Hospital Physician Group (FHPG) is a multi-specialty physician group, dedicated to improving the health and wellness of communities throughout the greater Tampa Bay region with more than 130 providers operating in over 40 locations representing over 25 medical specialties. FHPG offers patients the highest level of compassionate and multidisciplinary care through a broad range of medical and surgical services, as well as direct access to five local Florida Hospitals, a Long Term Acute Care facility, imaging centers, specialty and urgent care centers, rehabilitation facilities and home care agencies located throughout Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties. Part of the Adventist Health System, Florida Hospital is a leading health network comprised of 26 hospitals throughout the state. For more information, visit http://www.FHPhysicianGroup.com. Islands Restaurants, known for its signature burgers, ice-cold drinks and laid-back surf-inspired atmosphere, is partnering with Southern California-based Left Coast Brewing Co. to create an exclusive new brew just in time for summer. Beginning June 13, Islands guests can enjoy the brand new Hula Bay IPA along with seasonal menu items including the Heat Wave Burger and refreshing Colada Sunset. A classic West Coast IPA, the Hula Bay is a light bodied draft with hoppy aromas of citrus, grapefruit, tangerine and pine. Available only at Islands restaurants for a limited time, the beer was created by the San Clemente-based brewery to pair well with Islands signature burgers and fare. Craft beers are popular at Islands, and with the Hula Bay IPA weve created an excellent summer beer that pairs perfectly with our food, said Islands Vice President of Food & Beverage Tim Perreira. Left Coast Brewing Co.s philosophy of using premium ingredients, great technique and passion is a great match with Islands and were thrilled to introduce this beer to our guests. A tried-and-true favorite, the Heat Wave Burger is returning this summer for a limited time. Bringing the sizzle both on and off the grill, the Heat Wave Burger is topped with grilled Serrano chilies, grilled green chilies, melted pepper jack cheese, and spicy mayo. Also new to the summer menu is the Colada Sunset, an Islands twist on the classic pina colada with pineapple, coconut cream and a float of Myerss Rum. In addition to the new summertime menu items, guests are able to enjoy Islands happy hour deals in the bar area every Monday through Friday from 4 to 7 p.m., with late night happy hour available at select locations. Along with food and drink specials, each of Islands 54 restaurants is giving away custom his and hers beach cruisers this summer. Complete with Hawaiian floral designs and bells, the Freedom Cycle Co. beach cruisers are perfect for riding along the boardwalk. Beginning June 13, guests can enter for a chance to win every time they visit an Islands location, and the lucky winners will be selected on August 18. For more information, follow Islands on Twitter and Instagram via @IslandsBurgers and like Islands at http://www.facebook.com/IslandsRestaurants. About Islands Restaurants Founded in 1982, Islands is privately held and has managed controlled but steady growth, with a focus on providing the finest quality food and an outstanding guest experience. The companys philosophy that eating out should not be complicated is reflected in the simple, fresh ingredients found in its signature burgers that are never frozen, daily fresh-cut fries and the best tropical drinks around all served in a laid back, beach-inspired environment. The Carlsbad-based company operates 55 restaurants throughout California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii. For more information visit http://www.islandsrestaurants.com. About Left Coast Brewing Co. Left Coast Brewing Company is family owned and operated in the iconic surf side town of San Clemente, California. The independent brewery began its craft back in 2004 and over the last 11 years has expanded into more than 25 states and seven countries. With more than 23 awards under their belt, Left Coast prides itself on its commitment to quality and constantly strives to find premium ingredients to achieve the perfect balance of aroma and flavor. The family and brewers that comprise Left Coast are passionate about the art and craft of brewing and seek to invent recipes that they not only love drinking but love sharing. Ingredients, technique and passion poured into every pint, that is the Left Coast way. For more information visit http://www.leftcoastbrewing.com Three Commas Apparel announced today its inclusion in Amazons newest Exclusives category, the Mark Cuban Collection. The collection is part of Amazons Exclusives program which was first introduced in March 2015 and features one-of-a-kind products exclusive to Amazon. The Mark Cuban Collection is a subset of the Amazon Exclusives program that features up-and-coming products, many of which billionaire investor Mark Cuban has invested in through the ABC hit television show, Shark Tank. Amazon have been amazing to work with on their exclusives program, said Mike Chaffin, co-founder of Three Commas. This is another avenue we can use to help us build additional brand awareness and inspire the shattering of glass ceilings. The collaboration with Three Commas and Mark Cuban brings together Cubans innovation, leadership and entrepreneurial drive all in a collection of casual, relaxed shirts enabling consumers to express their style and drive. The Mark Cuban Collection will feature his favorite tee, The Currency Tee, starting at $19.95. Three Commas is the first collection for the existing entrepreneur and those that dream to become one. In addition to inspiring the entrepreneur in all of us, Three Commas partners with influencers, innovative organizations, and non-profits that seek to nourish the entrepreneurial spirit, embody the can-do attitude, and reach for the American Dream. Cuban has been quoted saying, Money is not easy to come by. You have to work hard to get it. And then, never take it for granted. Three Commas celebrates successes and inspires innovation. Three Commas was founded in 2015 and is headquarter Dallas, Texas. For more information about us, please visit: https://goo.gl/XoeuXz Centris and Instanet Solutions announced today they are now providing Authentisign to all of its subscribers as a benefit . Authentisign, the electronic signature software solution, also received Provincial regulatory approval meaning licensed Real Estate Brokers in Quebec can easily transmit contracts and documents to their clients for online signing. Since 2012, Brokers in Quebec have been using InstanetForms which includes all real estate documents such as the "Promise to Purchase". Brokers in Quebec have filled more than 4 million of the Provincial Regulator's forms using Instanet Solutions services. Accreditation of Authentisign means that a Broker already using InstanetForms to fill out the online real estate documents can now easily submit those same forms to buyers, sellers and other transaction participants to securely sign online without the need to upload to another third-party solution. "Brokers across Quebec are now able to complete the entire process of listing or selling real estate without paper," says Martin Scrocchi, CEO & President of Instanet Solutions. "No longer will a Broker need to rely on printed or faxed copies of listing and contract documents, nor will they need to drive across town to obtain a signature. They will now fill out every element of the real estate transaction online and securely send them to clients to sign online using Instanet Solutions services. On behalf of Instanet we are thrilled to expand our partnership with Centris where every one of their Broker members will now have access to Authentisign at no extra cost." "Centris is excited to add the Authentisign electronic signature tool across Quebec", added Eric Charbonneau, General Manager. "Centris and Instanet have been working diligently to achieve the compulsory requirements from our Regulator. It great to have earned accreditation, and now we have Authentisign available to all of our Brokers effective immediately. InstanetForms has been widely adopted by our members for many years and we appreciate Instanet's work to customize their software to meet the unique real estate requirements throughout Quebec. Instanet has been a very good technology partner for Centris and we look forward continuing our partnership with them in the long-term." "The accreditation process included a very detailed evaluation of our systems, security, data access, disaster recovery, business continuity, management of the signatory workflow, and the forms-signing workflow. It was an extremely microscopic look across our business practices. I am proud to see the Provincial Regulator confirms what we've known for 25 years -- Instanet is a high-quality and reliable vendor. This should give Brokers in Quebec tremendous confidence in using our software," adds Mr. Scrocchi About Centris: Centris is the technology division of the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board. Its mission is to provide and manage real estate information and technology solutions so that brokers can successfully meet their business objectives. Centris offers close to 20 technology solutions to brokers, agencies and industry stakeholders. It also provides 365-day technical support to more than 13,000 brokers across the province of Quebec. About Instanet Solutions: Instanet Solutions is a leading provider of real estate technology with over 500,000 licensed, paid user accounts of their various real estate focused products Authentisign, TransactionDesk, InstanetForms, DocBox, InstanetOffers and InstanetFax. Instanet Solutions began delivering residential real estate technology in 1991 and is proud to be celebrating our 25th year of providing technology to the real estate world. Visit http://www.instanetsolutions.com for more information. The Galvanize team thrives on fast paced, energetic and experienced leadership. Which is why Im deeply excited and honored to welcome these outstanding tech and education leaders to their new roles and to the Galvanize family and community, Jim Deters. Galvanize, the tech learning community that offers education, workspace and networking, today announced three additions to its corporate leadership. These new leaders bring over 50 years of deep industry experience in education, technology and tech education. The following executives have been carefully selected to further Galvanizes success and growth strategy and include: Beatrice Spaine, Chief Marketing Officer Ryan Orban, Chief Technology Officer Caroline Esmurdoc, General Manager, San Francisco Beatrice Spaine brings a wealth of marketing and branding experience and joins Galvanize from Lynda.com (acquired by LinkedIn, 2015) where she was Vice-President, Consumer Marketing. At Lynda.com, Spaine was responsible for subscriber and revenue growth for companys consumer-facing business, drove all marketing efforts including brand strategy, customer acquisition and retention and generated more than 20% growth in subscription bookings and 40% growth in paying subscribers. At Galvanize, Spaine will lead the companys brand and product positioning and build awareness of the company's offerings. Galvanize is a truly unique environment for learning and growth and theres an amazing story here about the people and mission, Spaine said. I am excited to share that story and help people connect with the active community and opportunities at Galvanize who want to access and accelerate careers in technology. Ryan Orban was promoted to Chief Technology Officer; he previously served as Executive Vice-President of Product and Strategy. Before joining Galvanize, Orban served as the Founder and CEO of Zipfian Academy, the leading provider of immersive data science education. In his new role, he will use his experience in machine learning, data engineering, and bioinformatics to oversee the vision and direction of Galvanize education programs, as well as instructional design, data analytics, and content production. As an entrepreneur, engineer and tech evangelist, the Galvanize community is a perfect fit for my work and passions, Oban said. Im thrilled to start this new role and be able to share even more of my experience to help guide and empower the student experience and learning at Galvanize. Caroline Esmurdoc will direct the San Francisco campus of Galvanize and joins the Galvanize team from Hack Reactor, where she was the Chief Executive Officer. As General Manager in San Francisco, Esmurdoc will establish the campuss strategic direction in order to cultivate outstanding student and member experience, grow revenue and manage operational efficiencies and further the Galvanize brand in the local startup and entrepreneurial community. One of the things thats exciting about Galvanize is that its not just a tech learning environment or a space for growing companies it connects the two and is also an outstanding place for community engagement and connectivity, Esmurdoc said. The San Francisco campus is an amazing space and a highly visible landmark in the tech community and Im excited to build on that and be part of delivering more and better service and support for our members, students and community. Galvanize teaches web development, data science and data engineering to students who are looking to start or advance in tech careers as well as those who seeking to refresh or level-up their existing tech skills. The company runs eight beautifully designed campuses in communities including San Francisco, Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins, Seattle, Austin and Phoenix where start-ups and established companies use workspace and networking opportunities to build tech-enabled innovations. The Galvanize campuses also serve as key community-focused spaces, hosting more than 200 business and technology events a month. The Galvanize team thrives on fast paced, energetic and experienced leadership. Which is why Im deeply excited and honored to welcome these outstanding tech and education leaders to their new roles and to the Galvanize family and community, said Jim Deters, CEO of Galvanize. I am confident that they, along with our existing team of dedicated teachers and professionals, will build on Galvanizes place as a successful technology industry, education and community innovator. About Galvanize Galvanize is dynamic tech learning community that that offers education, workspace and networking for students, startups and large companies. Galvanize teaches web development, data science and data engineering to students, offers support and space to member companies and provides over 200 networking events across eight urban campuses throughout the nation. Galvanize campuses bring together entrepreneurs, students, investors, mentors, and great people and companies to develop the skills, mindset and networks necessary to thrive in a technology driven world. To learn more about Galvanize, visit http://galvanize.com or like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GalvanizeHQ or follow us on Twitter @Galvanize. Media Contact: Alyssa Miller alyssa(at)ammediaworks.com 973-615-1292 Amma's arms are open to all Amma has done more work than many governments have ever done for their peopleher contribution is enormous In just a couple of weeks, renowned humanitarian and spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi, known to millions around the world simply as Amma, will host three days of free public programs at MA Center Chicago, located in Elburn, Illinois. The programs will take place at 11 am Monday, June 27, at 10 am and 7 pm Tuesday, June 28, and at 10 am and 7 pm on Wednesday, June 29, 2016. Amma travels all over the world, guiding people to a better understanding of how to be happy, as well as offering insights and solutions to global issues such as environmental pollution, the mistreatment of women, and religious disharmony. She inspires those she meets to make more space in their hearts for others and to help the needy. Amma does not ask anyone to believe in God or to change their faith, but to inquire into their own true nature. Ammas teachings are universal. When asked about her religion, Amma says, My religion is love. Amma has personally embraced more than 34 million people across six continents. Her message of love resonates with people of all nationalities, religions and races. Ammas dedication to uplifting others has culminated in an international network of charitable projects which operate under the banner Embracing the World, now active in more than 40 countries. Amma has been honored with a number of international awards, including the prestigious Gandhi-King Award for Non-Violence (2002), the James Parks Morton Interfaith Award (2006) and the Cinema Verite Award (2007) for humanitarian and human rights work. In December 2014, Amma joined Pope Francis and 10 other global spiritual leaders from a range of faiths to sign the Declaration of Religious Leaders Against Modern Slavery. At the center of Ammas life is her darshan: the tender, caring embrace sought by millions. It is in this intimate mannerthrough a heartfelt hugthat she receives one and all, listening to their problems and providing comfort and inspiration. If you attend one of Ammas programs, one of the first things you will notice is that people come to Amma from all religions and all walks of life. Some have been dedicated to a spiritual path for decades, while others have yet to pick up a spiritual book. Some come because they are suffering mentally, physically or materially, and they hope Amma can help them. Some are simply curious. Regardless of why they have come, many describe experiencing a feeling of pure and unconditional love in Ammas presence. Some are moved to tears and feel emotionally healed; others experience profound peace or joy. Ammas message of love and compassion resonates powerfully in todays world, and Ammas record of tireless service or compassion in action inspires volunteers all over the world to selflessly serve others. In the words of Professor Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Amma has done more work than many governments have ever done for their peopleher contribution is enormous. This year in Elburn, thousands of people are expected to seek Ammas life-changing embrace during her programs at MA Center Chicago, located at 41W501 Keslinger Road. Whether you feel drawn to meet Amma because of her message of unconditional love or her inspiring charitable works, Ammas programs have much to offer everyone. For more information about Amma and her Chicago area programs, visit http://www.amma.org/chicago or http://www.facebook.com/macenterchicago. Visit http://www.embracingtheworld.org/ for more details about Ammas charitable activities. From June 15-17, business, policy, and political leaders from Canada and the U.S. will convene for the inaugural U.S.-Canada Summit Strategies, Advocacy, Gateways, Engagement (S.A.G.E.) at The Ohio State University. We are excited to be hosting this first-in-its kind event in terms of bringing key stakeholders in the worlds largest trading relationship under one roof, says Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney at Dickinson Wright PLLC who has worked in both the U.S. and Canadian governments. Meeting in the political and economic heartland of the continent ensures that this Summit is more than just talk participants will gather at The Ohio State University to develop actionable strategies for the automotive, aerospace, biomedical, energy, financial, and technology sectors and discuss the current trade debate. Founded by The Ohio State John Glenn College of Public Affairs, Dickinson Wright PLLC, the Cross-Border Institute, and the Center for Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins, this three-day retreat will feature key speakers from both Canada and the U.S., including: Catherine A. Novelli, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment & fmr. VP of Worldwide Government Relations for Apple Ambassador Bruce A. Heyman, U.S. Ambassador to Canada Consul General Douglas George, Consul General of Canada for Ohio Governor James Blanchard, fmr. Governor of Michigan and U.S. Ambassador to Canada; Advisor to Hillary for America Matt Borges, Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party Panel discussions throughout the summit will focus on a wide variety of topics that impact the Canada-U.S. relationship, including: advanced manufacturing, aerospace, agri-food, consumer products, and energy as well as discussions on initiatives to expand trade and investment across the worlds longest safe and secure border. The summit will place new emphasis on the future of binational relationships in areas such as additive manufacturing, innovation and R&D, labor mobility, and regional wellness. The event will conclude with the leading stakeholder groups meeting under one roof to develop an actionable set of deliverables for advancing the relationship in 2017 and beyond. Canada-U.S. Summit Strategies, Advocacy, Gateways, Engagement (S.A.G.E.) Date: Wednesday, June 15 Friday, June 17, 2016 Location: The Ohio Union at The Ohio State University 1739 N. High Street, Columbus, OH 43210 For additional information and a complete agenda, please visit http://glenn.osu.edu/sage. To register, please click here. *30* For more information and/or to arrange an interview, please contact: Dan Ujczo U.S. Canadian Summit 2016 Phone: 614-744-2579 Dickinson Wright PLLC Mobile: 614-271-8355 150 E. Gay Street, Suite 2400 Fax: 248-433-7274 Columbus, OH 43215 Email: dujczo(at)dickinsonwright(dot)com About the US-Canada Summit: The Summit is being organized by a Council of more than 40 Canada-U.S. business associations led by Dr. Christopher Sands of The John Hopkins Center for Canadian Studies at SAIS, Beth-Anne Schuelke-Leech of The Ohio State University John Glenn College of Public Affairs, Laurie Tannous of the University of Windsor Cross Border Institute, and Dan Ujczo of cross-border law firm, Dickinson Wright. For more information, please visit: http://glenn.osu.edu/sage/. Kerri Couillard, Babierge Founder with New CEO Fran Maier Fran Maiers grasp of the gig and sharing economies as well as her success in building national brands is a big advantage for Babierge. Babierge, Inc., a rapidly growing multi-state online baby equipment rental platform, has appointed Fran Maier as Chief Executive Officer. She succeeds Kerri Couillard, Babierges Founder, who will continue to serve as the Companys Chief Technology Officer. Baby Gear Rental Platform Gears Up for Growth Babierge (baby + concierge) aims to become a trusted national brand for traveling parents and grandparents. It currently operates in nine marketsSanta Fe, Albuquerque and Rio Rancho, New Mexico; San Francisco and Los Angeles, California; San Antonio, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago, Illinois, and Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. It will roll out dozens of additional markets by the end of the year including three more this month in Kalamazoo, Michigan; Phoenix, Arizona; and Burlingame, California. The companys Trusted Partners, independent representatives of Babierge, deliver, set up and pick up the items families need when traveling to create a hassle-free, positive experience for families and hosts. Ms. Maier and Ms. Couillard met at the well-regarded Women's Startup Lab (http://womenstartuplab.com/) earlier this year, when Kerri was selected for a coveted slot in the February 2016 program. Ms. Maier has served as an adviser to Womens Startup Lab since its inception in 2013. Babierge makes traveling with kids a better experience and at the same time provides extra income opportunities for our on-the-ground Trusted Partners, said Ms. Maier. Kerri has done an amazing job demonstrating the high demand among parents and grandparents for baby equipment rental, from car seats to full-size cribs to highchairs. We are in the process of scaling the success in Santa Fe to other markets. About Fran Maier Fran Maier is best known for her 10+ years leading TRUSTe, the leading privacy trustmark and solutions provider, her role as co-founder and first general manager of Match.com, the earliest and most successful online dating platform. She has been active as an advisor to start-ups, many led by female entrepreneurs, as well as being an angel investor. Recognition for her contributions include: 20th Annual Jerry I. Porras Latino Leadership award recipient, 2016 100 Most Influential Women in Tech, Hot Topics, 2015 150 Most Influential Women in the Bay Area, San Francisco Business Times, 2011 She holds an A.B. and M.B.A. from Stanford University. Ms. Maier is also an Airbnb Superhost in both San Francisco and Santa Fe and has first-hand knowledge of the need for baby gear for traveling families, as well as the importance of personalized service. Ms. Couillard said, Having Fran on board adds an important dimension to Babierge as we scale the business to a national trusted brand. Her grasp of the gig and sharing economies as well as her success in building national brands is a big advantage for Babierge and our Trusted Partners. Ms. Maier, whose maiden name was Allocca, grew up in Santa Fe. She will continue to live and work out of San Francisco, however, she will make frequent trips to New Mexico to support her new role as Babierge CEO, as well as other investments she has in the state. New Mexico occupies a special spot in my heart, Ms. Maier said. I have been watching the growth of entrepreneurial activity in Santa Fe, Albuquerque and other parts of the state and am pleased to be working with Kerri in a high-potential New Mexico company. About Babierge Babierge (baby + concierge) Inc, was incorporated in 2016, and is building on Founder Kerri Couillards vision for a more positive travel experience for parents of small children and their hosts. Ms. Couillard began renting equipment in the Santa Fe, NM area in 2011. Ms. Couillard has received recognition from numerous competitive startup programs, including the Hautepreneurs HauteHopes accelerator program in Albuquerque (http://www.hautepreneurs.com) and participation in the Womens Startup Lab in Silicon Valley. Operating in eight states as of June, 2016, Babierge is developing a national trusted brand and platform, leveraging gig and shared economy models, in a market that has been fragmented to date. http://www.Babierge.com Sarah Cary Robinson has been named vice president of advancement at Husson University. Husson University is truly exceptional. Their selfless dedication to inspiring, engaging, and empowering students for professional careers in current and emerging fields has touched my heart and soul. Husson University has named Sarah Cary Robinson as their new vice president of advancement. Prior to joining the University, Robinson was a vice president and trust officer at Bar Harbor Trust Services where she specialized in consulting with non-profits about charitable gift planning. In her new role, Robinson will be responsible for leading the Universitys advancement division. This includes alumni relations, major gifts, and planned giving efforts. She was selected after an extensive national search. Sarah brings energy, passion, and a wealth of knowledge to her newly appointed position as vice president of advancement, said Husson President Dr. Robert A. Clark. Her in-depth experience in charitable giving with banking and non-profit organizations will be an enormous asset to our university as we look to develop the financial resources necessary to the begin construction of a new home for our College of Business. Clark continued: Creating this new facility is just one of the initiatives we are working on as part of our $30 million Shaping Our Future fundraising campaign. Once completed, this campaign will provide our campus with additional scholarships, new faculty, and other important resources needed to profoundly transform students lives. Prior to her position at Bar Harbor Trust Services, Robinson worked at several other colleges and non-profit institutions on annual fund, capital campaign and planned giving fundraising efforts. She graduated from Bowdoin College in 1985 with a Bachelors of Arts degree in geology/environmental studies. I said I would never return to a fundraising position unless the organization was very special to me personally, said Robinson. Husson University is truly exceptional. Their selfless dedication to inspiring, engaging, and empowering students for professional careers in current and emerging fields has touched my heart and soul. Robinson concluded: While I chose to join Husson because of who the college is today, its the potential to impact students tomorrows that makes it exciting for me to come to work every day. For more than 100 years, Husson University has prepared future leaders to handle the challenges of tomorrow through innovative undergraduate and graduate degrees. With a commitment to delivering affordable classroom, online and experiential learning opportunities, Husson University has come to represent superior value in higher education. Our Bangor campus and off-campus satellite education centers in Southern Maine, Wells, and Northern Maine provide advanced knowledge in business; health and education; pharmacy studies; science and humanities; as well as communication. In addition, Husson University has a robust adult learning program. For more information about educational opportunities that can lead to personal and professional success, visit Husson.edu. Mits Arayama I've always been a fan of visual marketing and printing. I knew Minuteman Press was fantastic because of my own past experiences with them. Their reputation and support provided by them is outstanding. Past News Releases RSS Minuteman Press International Gets... Minuteman Press Owner Mark Calis... Minuteman Press Franchise in... Celebrating ten years as an entrepreneur and business owner, Mits Arayama runs his Minuteman Press design, marketing and printing franchise in Dana Point, CA with the same energy, excitement and vision that has always served him well. For 30 years, Mits worked for Nissin Foods, a Japanese food manufacturer, where he held top-level positions of Marketing Director and CEO. During his time at Nissin, Mits was responsible for bringing the Cup Noodles and Top Ramen brands to the U.S. from Japan, a massively successful marketing venture that changed the way college students consumed dorm room meals forever. From Soup Branding King to Printing Franchise Boss Mits Arayama reflects on his crowning achievement during his time with Nissin Foods: "I brought instant Ramen from Japan to the U.S. from concept to market in the 1970s. I never thought it would be as big as it was. It was very challenging, and we tested everything from taste to concept, from product to brand. We went up against Campbell's and we were told we couldn't compete. We took the position of soup, and we targeted and 18-29 year-old demographic, especially college kids. We started with supermarkets on the west coast, and little by little we grew to what the brand became." After retiring from Nissin and leaving the corporate world behind, Mits Arayama could now focus on fulfilling his lifelong dream of owning his own business. "I was highly micromanaged, from taste and visual to advertising and marketing," Mits recalls. In 2006, he bought an established Minuteman Press franchise for sale in Dana Point, California. This has enabled Mits to help other businesses bring their own marketing ideas to life by sharing his insights and offering them complete branding solutions. Why Minuteman Press? Asked why he chose to buy a Minuteman Press marketing and printing franchise, Mits Arayama doesn't hesitate to answer: "I was looking for an opportunity on the visual marketing side. I've always been a fan of visual marketing and printing. I knew Minuteman Press was fantastic because of my own past experiences with them. Their reputation and support provided by them is outstanding." Armed with a wealth of knowledge and backed by ongoing local support as well as the products and services he is able to provide as part of the Minuteman Press franchise system, Mits Arayama found his home as a business owner in Dana Point. He takes pride in helping his clients grow their businesses. In 2016, Mits not only hit the 10-year mark for his business but he was also elected as the Chairman of the Dana Point Chamber of Commerce. Over the past decade, he has also won several awards including business of the year and ambassador of the year. Future of Printing and Fusion with Marketing For Mits Arayama, there is another huge benefit of franchising with Minuteman Press. He explains, "From the day I started ten years ago, everything began to move towards digital printing. I knew that Minuteman Press International was following the industry very closely and did their homework on printing trends and innovations. I followed their direction they gave us, and we have extended our business not only into digital printing but also promotional items as well." Mits sees the promotional products sector as a real growth market for his Dana Point business: "Dana Point is between Newport Beach and San Diego. It's a beautiful coastal town and a high income city. Promotional items are ideal because today's business professional wants them. Whether it's branded apparel or surfboards, these products are great promotional drivers for businesses and their brands." Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Love for Dana Point As successful as Mits Arayama was in the corporate world, he appreciates what he is able to do today as a business owner. "Being an entrepreneur lets me be more independent. I did not like reporting to corporate headquarters for every little thing. I like to control my own destiny." Minuteman Press International also provides Mits with the support and resources to back him up. "I am in charge, but I also have all of the resources at the national and local levels thanks to Minuteman Press. We all share ideas and you get the pulse of how other centers do business, and that is very helpful. We are all part of the same franchise family and the owners who I contact are very open and supportive." Another reward of entrepreneurship for Mits is that being a business owner allows him to be so active in the Dana Point community. He cares deeply about making a positive impact in Dana Point, and as the 2016 Chairman for the Dana Point Chamber of Commerce, the affection Mits has for this city is clear: "We have been honored as Business of the Year in the past, and it meant so much to have our business peers recognize us in that way. Through the Chamber and other organizations, I promote Dana Point quite a lot. This is a unique city that is changing. If you go from San Francisco to San Diego, you probably won't find a city like ours that has 4 or 5 hotels and resorts along with harbors as well. Dana Point is an undiscovered diamond, and everyone I know who does business here we are all proud ambassadors." Typical Day With ten years in the printing business under his belt, Mits Arayama continues to spend his time adhering to the same principles he learned throughout his career as well as through Minuteman Press training. "I get into the office between 7:30 and 8 am to catch up on business, and I have found that we are consistently getting a lot of repeat business as well as Internet orders." "After that, I go out and see my customers, and many of them are now my friends because of the relationships I've worked hard to build over the past decade. They now see me as Mits, and not just as Minuteman Press. The everyday work we all put in together translates into the success we are having, and I make it a point to go out and market the business and avoid getting stuck inside in production." "Mits Arayama has accomplished so much in his career and I congratulate him for ten years in business with Minuteman Press," says Dan Byers, Minuteman Press Regional Vice President for Southern California. He adds, "Mits follows the Minuteman Press program, goes out there and markets himself and his business, and is successful as a result." Advice and Tips for Others Mits Arayama made it all the way to the top of the corporate ladder before franchising with Minuteman Press, and with that experience comes insightful words of wisdom for others who are thinking about transitioning to entrepreneurship: "I would imagine that many new business owners are like me and came from corporate environments. I say to them, 'You are the salesman as well as the president as well as the janitor. It's all yours. Also, you cant do business if you dont have customers. Joining the Chamber of Commerce and other organizations brought me a lot of business.'" Mits adds, "I think we are a complete operation. Customers have learned we are not just printing but a team of marketing professionals. With our graphic designer and other staff, we are able to solve anything you need. I sell myself first, and make sure that clients understand we are all about providing solutions." When asked about a specific example that comes to mind, Mits explains, "We had a local attorney come in for a quote on printing where he was changing his branding. An outside graphic designer did the logo, and it just didn't reflect the image of this client. I quantified who I am and where I was coming from. He listened, and we were able to provide him with the intended messaging he wanted at 40% of the cost. Even if he didn't want to change anything, I only felt it was right to offer my professional opinion before printing the original job." One final piece of advice comes from the brilliant business mind of Mits Arayama. It also happens to come from the heart: "Stay within the franchise system, but be who you are. I find satisfaction with Minuteman Press." Mits Arayama's Minuteman Press franchise is located at 24721 La Plaza, Suite A, Dana Point, CA 92629. For more information, call (949) 240-2760 or visit their website: http://www.danapoint.minutemanpress.com. Learn more about Minuteman Press franchise opportunities at http://www.minutemanpressfranchise.com. Jessica H. Ressler Request that your attorney ensure that your custody provisions are clear, as experienced matrimonial attorneys will know which areas can cause parents to return to court. Past News Releases RSS Westchester Matrimonial Attorney... Matrimonial and family law attorney Jessica H. Ressler, of Westchester Matrimonial LLC, recently gave a standing-room-only presentation at a Morgan Stanley seminar series, sponsored by The Ruby Group at Morgan Stanley, entitled Facing the World Alone: Financial and Legal Survival After Divorce or a Loss. The audience was comprised of people who went through a divorce or suffered a loss of a spouse and needed to find ways to protect themselves financially. This was my first presentation with Morgan Stanley and I agreed to speak after meeting Douglas Ruby of The Ruby Group and was impressed by him, said Ressler. Douglas asked me if I would participate in this seminar series, focusing on divorce and financial loss, which covers both of our backgrounds. Topics addressed during the seminar included retaining knowledgeable counsel in the field in the event of a divorce, as the first and arguably the most important step that you can take is to retain knowledgeable counsel that practices in the field of matrimonial law, said Ressler, who practices matrimonial and family law exclusively. Ressler also educated attendees on budgeting, statements of net worth and financial professionals, as well as pitfalls in settlement agreements that cause divorced spouses to return to court and spend money after a divorce is over and how to avoid returning to court once a divorce has been finalized. Custody and visitation is an area that will often cause parents to return to court, said Ressler. Unclear custody provisions can lead to impasses that the parents cannot resolve on their own. Request that your attorney ensure that your custody provisions are clear, as experienced matrimonial attorneys will know which areas can cause parents to return to court. About Westchester Matrimonial LLC Westchester Matrimonial divorce lawyers devote their practice exclusively to matrimonial and family law. The firms family law attorneys have, in the aggregate, been instrumental in the litigation or settlement proceedings of thousands of matrimonial and family court issues in New York State. Westchester Matrimonial attorneys are uniquely qualified to handle legal matters concerning child custody, child support, divorce negotiation and litigation, Jewish Orthodox divorces, mediation and collaborative law, paternity, visitation and much more. For more information, please call (914) 361-5500, or visit http://www.westchestermatlaw.com. Westchester Matrimonial LLC is located at 445 Hamilton Ave., Suite 607, White Plains, NY 10601. About the NALA The NALA offers small and medium-sized businesses effective ways to reach customers through new media. As a single-agency source, the NALA helps businesses flourish in their local community. The NALAs mission is to promote a business relevant and newsworthy events and achievements, both online and through traditional media. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361. If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity. PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move. A Paris bookstore goes digital-only; a Montana store to pair tea with its books; a Kansas icon says goodbye; and more. POD-Only Bookstore in Paris: Pariss Libraire des Puf, first founded in 1921 and then forced to close by soaring rent in 2010, is back. The bookstore, which run by the University Press of France, has reinvented itself as a storefront in the Latin Quarter, without books. Customers can have a cup of coffee and use a tablet to place their order for a book, which is then printed on an Espresso Book Machine. The concept is working so well that other publishers are about to begin selling through the store, which is considering expanding to other university towns in France. Billings Bookstore to Open at End of Month: The community-owned This House of Books will hold an open house on Thursday evening June 30 with assorted teas and snacks. The store will host author events, tea tastings, book clubs, writers groups, childrens story times, game nights, comedy nights, and live music. Varneys Closing on June 30: After 126 years, the Manhattan, Kans., bookstore is shutting its doors at all three locations. The bookstore, which Joseph Guy Varney founded in 1890 to sell books to students at the Kansas Agricultural College, had long been rumored to close. Seattles Bookstore Exchange Closing: After closing in 2012 and reopening two years later, the used bookstore is liquidating its inventory and all fixtures. Christian Bookstore to Close in Groton, Ct.: Dennis and Liz McGee will close 24-year-old Cornerstone Bookstore in July. They said that their decision came from competition with online retailers and increased business costs. This Wednesday, the first Canadian Writers' Summit (CWS) kicks off in Toronto. The four-day event, which features more than 200 speakers and panelists, will be the largest event of its kind in Canada. A collaboration between 14 national writers organizations CWS will feature keynote speakers such as Lawrence Hill (The Book of Negroes) and sessions on how to write grant applications and pitch stories to magazines. The Writers Trust of Canada, one of the groups that organized CWS, said its goal was to bring members of different national writing groups together. According to Mary Osborne, executive director of the Writers Trust, the initial idea sprang from an event in Banff, Alberta, two years ago, during the National Summit of Writers Associations. By pooling resources, were able to deliver a broader range of programming, and also bring together writers who are not just in different areas of the country, but different genres, who are usually at their own conferences, separated according to the organization they belong to, she said. The summit will make use of Torontos Harbourfront Centrethe same venue used for the annual Word on the Street Festival and the International Festival of Authorsand its varied indoor and outdoor locations. In addition to the speakers and sessions, there will be a two-day book fair, called Book Hub, where indie publishers and arts organizations can sell books and promote their services. I think there will be a cross-pollination of ideas with people working in different genres who are not usually in touch with one another at their conferences, who have a chance to meet here, says Osborne. If the inaugural CWS proves a success, Osborne said the plan is to hold the event every other year, with each individual organization holding its own summit in different locations across the country on alternate years. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Indiana could be headed for another drought this summer, according to the Indiana State Climate Office. Some northern Indiana counties already are abnormally dry. It depends on the strength of a developing La Nina weather pattern. Stronger La Nina conditions in summer typically result in hotter and/or drier Midwest summers, such as what happened during the historic drought in the summer of 2012. Changes in large-scale weather patterns such as the demise of El Nino and strong possibility of La Nina conditions in coming months are leading to local scale impacts of reduced rainfall and hotter landscapes, said Dev Niyogi, state climatologist based at Purdue University. "This, combined with the need by plants to replace water lost through evaporation, is setting a classic scenario for a regional drought," he said. If La Nina does develop quickly and with at least moderate intensity, drought conditions may develop in Indiana by August, said Ken Scheeringa, associate state climatologist. "In recent years, there has been a trend to fall droughts in Indiana," he said. "For example last year, moderate drought occurred from late September into late December." The climate office expects the second half of June to be drier than normal, followed by equal chances that July and August will be wetter, drier or near normal in precipitation across the Midwest and a slightly higher chance of drier-than-normal conditions over Indiana. Neutral weather conditions began in late May after what the climate office said was one of the strongest El Ninos on record. The El Nino generated eight consecutive months of above -normal temperatures in Indiana through April and a mix of above- and below- normal precipitation. "Historically, a quickly developing La Nina after a strong El Nino can be moderate to strong in intensity," Scheeringa said. La Nina conditions occur when Pacific sea surface temperatures in a specific area near the equator persist cooler than normal by about 1 degree Fahrenheit. The "signature" impacts of La Nina are Indiana summers with above-normal temperatures and less-than-normal precipitation. Signs of extended dryness have been reported in the June 9 update of the U.S. Drought Monitor, with several counties in the far north and northeast portions of Indiana abnormally dry. (A map of Indiana as part of the Drought Monitor is available at http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?IN.) Extended periods of dry conditions are nothing new to Indiana. In addition to the moderate drought in some parts of the state last year, other areas were abnormally dry before and during it. Heavy spring rains that killed or severely damaged some crops and dry conditions in the summer took a toll on Indiana's corn crop, which was the smallest since the devastating drought of 2012. Soybean crops fared better, recovering enough after the spring to produce a stronger crop. "We will monitor the situation," Niyogi said. "Droughts don't always mean lowered yields. The timing, intensity, duration and area covered matter." Writer: Keith Robinson, 765-494-2722, robins89@purdue.edu Sources: Dev Niyogi, 765-494-6574, iclimate@purdue.edu Ken Scheeringa, 765-494-8105, kens@purdue.edu Agricultural Communications: (765) 494-2722; Keith Robinson, robins89@purdue.edu Agriculture News Page WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. Carina Olaru, assistant professor at Monmouth College, has been selected as director of the Latino Cultural Center at Purdue University. Olaru will succeed interim director Rosa Acevedo Villarreal at the LCC effective July 18. "The knowledge and experience Carina brings to Purdue will provide a warm, welcoming atmosphere for our Latino students, faculty and staff, as well as provide a source of education for our entire community," said Deba Dutta, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity. At Monmouth, she organized Latino College Day, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals events and first-generation college student focus groups to help bring to light the issues facing students of color in higher education. During her graduate studies in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Olaru taught a variety of courses, worked as a research assistant, conducted research afforded by the Tinker Field Research Grant and studied in Brazil as a recipient of the Foreign Language Area Studies fellowship. She also worked as an instructor at Brazil in Chicago, where she taught Spanish to native speakers of Portuguese. "I am excited at the opportunity to engage with the Latino community, on and off campus, to create opportunities for dialogue about issues facing Latinos/as in higher education and to collaborate with students, faculty and staff to contribute to an atmosphere of inclusion," Olaru said. She received her bachelor's degree in English and Latin American and Latino studies with a minor in Spanish from DePaul University. She studied in Merida, Mexico, and, as a McNair Scholar, conducted graduate-level research in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She received her master's in Hispanic literatures with a minor in gender and womens studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ximena Arriaga, provost fellow, a member of Purdue's Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Team and professor of psychological sciences, chaired the search committee. "Olaru brings a vast amount of knowledge, perspective and experience to this position, and we look forward to where she can take the LCC," Arriaga said. Writer: Megan Huckaby, 765-496-1325, mhuckaby@purdue.edu Sources: Deba Dutta, dutta@purdue.edu Ximena Arriaga, 765-494-6888, arriaga@purdue.edu Carina Olaru, cvasquez@monmouthcollege.edu G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now! Under the agreement with CRRC, DB and the Chinese rolling stock manufacturer will continue their work to establish and optimise a maintenance system for high-speed EMUs while DB will provide operational support to overcome issues associated with wheel - rail interface. In addition DB will provide maintenance and repair support to China Railway Corporation (CRC), which operates 1400 trains on China's 19,000km high-speed network. In Dalian, DB Engineering & Consulting has secured a consultancy contract for operation of regional transport in the city, which has a population of 6 million. "The People's Republic of China is an important market for us and will remain so in the future," says DB CEO Dr Rudiger Grube. "In view of the plans to invest more than 300bn in transport infrastructure, we wish to benefit from growth and potential in China." The announcement of the agreements coincides with German chancellor Mrs Angela Merkel's visit to China and continues DB's work in the country which dates back to 1966. Lankhorst's recessed KLP hybrid plastic sleeper was chosen together with five other alternative sleepers for the test installation near Kalmar. The hybrid sleeper is reinforced with two steel bars using a patented production process to achieve the required rigidity and strength. According to Lankhorst the sleeper has lifespan of more than 50 years, compared to just 10 years for untreated oak sleepers while offering the same level of damping and continuous track stiffness. The sleeper was developed in response to the European ban on the use of creosote in railway sleepers and the restricted availability of hardwood. KLP sleepers are already in use in the Netherlands, France, and Germany with applications including conventional plain track, bridges, and switches. In a letter to Washington Governor Jay Inslee, the president of the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters, Dennis Lawson, asked to prohibit rail transport of Bakken crude through our state until there has been a full investigation into the cause of the Mosier oil train derailment. 16 tank cars of a Union Pacific train carrying 96 carloads of Bakken crude derailed on June 3 in Mosier, Oregon, en route from New Town N. Dak. to a refinery in Tacoma, Wash. The account given by firefighters of the Mosier response and by others who have responded to similar incidents across North America make it clear these fires are exceedingly difficult to extinguish, even under unusually ideal circumstances, Lawson wrote in the June 8 letter. Lawson cited the fire fighters previously stated position: In June 2014, delegates at our statewide convention called for an immediate halt to the movement of Bakken crude by rail until there has been a determination that it is safe to transport. Clearly, given the Mosier incident, there has been no such determination. You can read the full text of the letter HERE. Welcome to Railway Gazette. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to browse this site you are agreeing to our use of these cookies. You can learn more about the cookies we use here. OK For Release Monday June 13, 2016 Military members who visited a primary care clinic while suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and depression reported fewer symptoms and better mental health functioning a year after enrolling in a treatment program that included specially trained care managers and telephone therapy options, according to a new study. The study focused on primary care as a way of combating the stigma many service members feel about going directly to a mental health specialist. The intervention assigns patients to nurse care managers with special training to help patients remain in care and follow treatment recommendations, coordinate patients' status with the health care team, and help patients to access telephone-based therapy. Researchers found that the approach resulted in significant improvements in recovery after one year, as compared to peers assigned to care managers without the added training and teletherapy options. The findings are published online by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. "Although the improvements were modest, the reach of the program can be large and has the potential to bring more people under a high-quality treatment umbrella sooner," said Dr. Charles Engel, the study's lead author and a senior natural scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "These findings suggest that the military health system might use this strategy to extend the reach of mental health care and reduce time to first treatment for PTSD and depression." The prevalence of mental health issues is relatively high in the U.S. military, with an estimated 13 percent to 18 percent of members suffering from PTSD, anxiety or depression after deployment. Fewer than half of the affected personnel receive military mental health services and when services are received they often are not timely or adequate. Collaborative care models that provide mental health treatment in primary care settings with the support of nurse managers and options to see mental health professionals have been widely shown to provide high-quality care and improve clinical outcomes. However, few studies have examined whether the approach is helpful for PTSD and no previous studies have examined whether the concept can work in the military health care system. The study, conducted by researchers from RAND, RTI International and the Department of Defense Deployment Health Clinical Center, examined the experiences of 666 military members treated in 18 primary care clinics at six large Army bases during 2012 and 2013. Participants, who were mostly men in their 20s, were randomly assigned to one of two different programs that provided care for mental health problems in a primary care setting. The existing Army model, used for test comparison, trained staff at primary clinics to screen for PTSD and depression. Nurses contacted patients monthly to check on symptoms, coordinate care with primary care providers and increase access to mental health professionals. The test model, centrally assisted collaborative telecare, preserved existing Army model and added some key features. The nurses were specially trained in behavioral activation, problem solving and motivational interviewing to help patients remain in follow-up and stick to treatment recommendations. In addition, the test model used psychologists to deliver telephone-based cognitive-behavioral therapy and offered face-to-face psychotherapy in a primary care or specialty setting. The nurse care managers also helped patients access and complete online cognitive-behavioral self-management programs. A centrally located psychiatrist, psychologist and nurse care manager remotely assisted the clinic sites, using a central database of symptoms to review caseloads weekly and suggest changes in treatments as needed. Engel said that while the extra improvement seen among those treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model was not large, it is important given that the original Army approach already is an improvement over usual approaches to treating PTSD in primary care. "Our findings are consistent with what has been observed in nonmilitary health care settings," Engel said. "This approach results in better outcomes and improves access to high-quality care. This is particularly important for a population that has a demonstrated need for mental health services." After 12 months of care, 25 percent of military members with PTSD who were treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model showed a 50 percent improvement in their symptoms, compared to 17 percent for those treated under the first model. Similarly, among patients with depression, 30 percent treated under the second model showed a 50 percent improvement in symptoms after a year, compared to 20 percent for the first model. People treated in the centrally assisted collaborative telecare model also had fewer suicidal thoughts and physical symptoms. In addition, patients treated under the model had more telephone contact with care managers and more months on appropriate medication for PTSD and depression. "The results support the idea that high-quality mental health care can be provided in primary care settings," Engel said. "While many military members are reluctant to seek out mental health specialists, they are more willing to receive primary medical care. So this is a good way to encourage more people to receive mental health care, while also improving the quality of mental health services for military members." The medical clinics involved with the study were at Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington, Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Stewart in Georgia, Fort Campbell in Kentucky and Fort Carson in Colorado. Support for the study was provided by the U.S. Department of Defense Deployment Related Medical Research Program. Other authors of the study are Lisa H. Jaycox and Terri Tanielian of RAND; Michael C. Freed of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the Deployment Health Clinical Center (now at the National Institute of Mental Health); Robert M. Bray, Donald Brambilla, Marian E. Lane, Kristine L. Rae Olmsted and Russ Vandermaas-Peeler of RTI International; Dr. Douglas Zatzick, Dr. Jurgen Unutzer and Dr. Wayne J. Katon the University of Washington School of Medicine; Brett Litz of the VA Boston Healthcare System and Boston University School of Medicine; and Laura A. Novak, Bradley E. Belsher and Daniel P. Evatt of the Deployment Health Clinical Center. RAND Health is the nation's largest independent health policy research program, with a broad research portfolio that focuses on health care costs, quality and public health preparedness, among other topics. Renowned Mexican cinematographer, cameraman and editor David Torres is using a Facilis TerraBlock 24D shared storage system to handle 6K workflows. David Torres' work ranges from the series of short films he produced for the project Stars of the Bicentennial to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of Mexico to underwater cinematography and commercials.Because of the multifaceted aspect of his work, Torres needed to find a shared storage system with the highest performance and flexible volume management to handle both his personal work and commercial projects, the company explained.I am currently working on a beautiful conservancy film project right now that is being shot in 6K. But I also work for Curiosity Media, a well-known production company based in Mexico City that creates an enormous amount of commercials and other video content, using a variety of formats and codecs, Torres said. "Whether it is handling 6K raw files in real time, or multiple FCP and Adobe Premier files for offline work, our TerraBlock is in use pretty much 24/7 and solid as a rock.Using the Facilis Shared File System that is included with every TerraBlock, Torres was able to accommodate his complex multi-platform requirements and enable his team to collaborate on projects using diverse applications and formats.Torres' TerraBlock shared storage system is set up to support six editors working simultaneously, with four clients connected via 16Gb Fibre Channel and two seats connected via 10Gb Ethernet.While our set-up is busy and sometimes complex, the system itself is really easy to administer, Torres said. After all, we are creative people, not engineers. With the TerraBlock, volumes can be made of any size, and the size can be increased or reduced on the fly, as our projects require. Setting up permissions is really simple, and the interface is easy to navigate making the learning curve minimal, and really simplifies the process of bringing in new editors on projects.Meanwhile, the company has continued to expand its reach geographically. Last year Facilis expanded its focus with the European launch of its shared storage systems and dynamic workflow solutions for the film, broadcast and AV markets. The offerings will include solutions for high-end and budget-conscious facilities, along with a tracking product that combines search, management and access to project assets in a simple interface. As we see a surge in inflation globally, it is now critical that everyone is aware of the implications this will have along every step of the insurance and reinsurance value chain. This piece was created in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson Center, where David B. Ottaway is currently a Senior Scholar. The views expressed are solely those of the author. Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabias iconoclast deputy crown prince, makes his Washington debut this week amid a new low point in U.S.-Saudi relations. At age 30, and after just 14 months on the job, the upstart prince is already the most influential policymaker in the ruling House of Saud, while remaining somewhat of an enigma in the American capital. He has been busy engineering a new Saudi economy no longer dependent on oil for its lifeblood, and now he has to deal with shaping a new foreign policy no longer dependent on the United States for its military muscle. Mohammed is the leading young hawk of a royal family determined to show that the Saudi kingdom is not only a religious and oil powerhouse, but also a military one. The Obama administration has been encouraging the Saudis to rely more on themselves for their security, but has discovered in the process that Riyadh has conflicting objectives and priorities from Washington. This has become most apparent in their differing attitudes toward Iran. The Saudis -- who view Iran as their main enemy in the region -- seek to isolate Tehran, while the Obama White House has encouraged Riyadh to share the neighborhood. But the primary bone of contention in Mohammeds talks here with senior U.S. officials will no doubt be Syria. The Saudis are chaffing to escalate the war to force President Bashar Assad from power. They are pushing the White House to embrace a Plan B calling for such an escalation, including the controversial inclusion of anti-aircraft missiles for anti-Assad rebel groups. So far, President Obama has shown no interest in Plan B, which even his secretary of state, John Kerry, is reported to favor as a means of gaining badly needed leverage over the Assad government. In a nationwide speech delivered last week, Assad made clear he intended to stay on indefinitely and vowed to retake every inch of Syrian territory now controlled by myriad Islamic and secular rebel groups. Syria is emblematic of a larger malaise in the fading U.S.-Saudi special relationship dating back to the end of World War II. Its long-enduring keystone -- Saudi oil for the United States in return for American protection of the ruling House of Saud -- no longer holds. Saudi oil has ceased being crucial for the United States, and Saudi Arabia is becoming increasingly less dependent on Washington for its security. The two are still bound by numerous military and security ties, but their goals and objectives in the region are often at odds now. Differences between the two countries have recently become more pronounced. The two do not see eye to eye on the goals of war in Syria and Yemen and above all on whether to seek accommodation with Iran. Saudi oil policy, long responsive to U.S. interests, is now partly aimed at putting competing American shale oil producers out of business. And Congress is pressing legislation to strip the Saudi government of its sovereign immunity in order to allow the families of 9/11 victims the ability to sue the kingdom in U.S. courts for alleged Saudi support of the hijackers. Into this unsettled relationship now comes Mohammed bin Salman, too young and untested for American policymakers to judge his mettle. Thanks to his father, King Salman, Mohammed is challenging the usual criteria for kingship by projecting himself to the forefront of contenders before proving his skills in governance. He carries multiple titles, from deputy crown prince and defense minister to head of the new Council of Economic and Development Affairs that is pioneering a sweeping makeover of the stultified Saudi government. The council recently published a 112-page National Transformation Program outlining detailed reforms and progress indicators for every ministry and government agency to fulfill in order to meet the highly ambitious goals of the Vision 2030 reform plan. Its main objective is to end the kingdoms dependence on oil largely by establishing the worlds largest public investment fund to produce billions in earnings with the initial target of tripling non-oil income to $141 billion in four years. In many ways, Mohammed represents a radical break from his fathers generation of tradition-bound elderly princes who have ruled the kingdom in secrecy since its founding in 1932. He clearly has no regard for age or seniority. He has also shown no qualms about promoting himself in the foreign media, previously a royal taboo. And he seems unafraid to challenge the royal status quo by competing with his far more experienced elder cousin, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, to become his fathers immediate successor. For this to happen, King Salman, who already deposed Crown Prince Muqrin last year, would have to remove Mohammed bin Nayef, the powerful and proven interior minister who has dealt with security issues for 17 years. He is credited with keeping the ruling House of Saud safe from the terrorist machinations first of al-Qaeda and now the Islamic State as well. Bin Nayef, who turns 57 in August, is chairman of the other key policymaking body set up last year by King Salman, the Council for Security and Political Affairs. He has long been viewed as Washingtons favorite Saudi prince and seemed safely on track to become the next king. But Mohammed bin Salman is now challenging that assumption, forcing U.S. officials to take his measures more seriously and probe his motives and objectives. Mohammed bin Salman is leading a faction of hawks within the royal family that is determined to vastly expand Saudi military power in order to compete more aggressively with Iran, which is now emerging from international isolation after agreeing to halt its military nuclear program. The Saudis have launched two military coalitions in the past 15 months, one consisting of nine Sunni Arab states fighting in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The formal objective of the other, embracing 34 Sunni Muslim countries, is to combat terrorism, although it is widely viewed as another stratagem to counter Shiite Iran. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is participating in a third U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State. But the primary objectives of the two countries are not the same. For the Obama administration, the lodestar of its Middle East policy is currently to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS, extricate the United States from the regions multiple wars and sectarian conflicts, and promote a Saudi-Iranian detente. For Saudi Arabia, the overriding goals are to roll back Shiite Iranian influence in the Sunni Arab world, overthrow Irans main ally there, Syrian President Assad, and keep the United States fully engaged in the region. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale Buy real estate. Find a great selection of commercial real estate, manufactured homes, timeshares and more for Sale in US and Canada. Search Real Estate Posted by Jeremy on at 03:09 AM CST Outfox the Empire with the Rebel Combat Frigate featuring foldout wings, spring-loaded shooters, stud shooter, lifting handle, removable top, 4 minifigures and a Droid. If you want to to know more - like the price (US$109.99) or the release date (August 1st) - head to LEGO shop@home who have updated their product page with the full description. Nopictures yet so you'll have to rely on the ones that were leaked a month ago. Presidential Candidate Donald Trump speaks during a Trump Rally at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia on 2/21/16(Photo/Chase Shy) SHARE EZ Waterless Shave lets men and women shave without water. Remember your last camping trip? If you camped for more than a couple of days, one of the challenges was most likely keeping clean, especially if in a campsite without restrooms with running water. Hand sanitizers only go so far and can leave your skin feeling dry and rough. Personal care is a multibillion dollar industry. A 2010 report by Global Industry Analysts Inc. forecast that the global market for shaving products will reach $33.3 billion by 2015, based on factors including technological innovations, new product launches, an increased focus on women's shaving products and a growing awareness of personal grooming. A recent product innovation also happens to be eco-friendly. EZ Waterless Shave is, as the name says, a shaving product that doesn't need water to work. Its biodegradable, botanical ingredients include aloe vera, green tea extract, camomile and lemon and orange essential oils. It contains no preservatives, parabens, propylene glycol, mineral oil or color. With a light citrus scent, you don't need to lather or even rinse it off when done. It goes on like a smooth cream and you can rub any excess into your skin for a moisturizing effect. It's made to help minimize razor cuts, burns, bumps and ingrown hairs. Designed to be nonirritating for all skin types, any razor will work with EZ Waterless Shave, and it can be used on your face, legs or body. The EZ Waterless Shave is definitely a "why didn't they think of this sooner" product. This product was created by Idaho mom Sue Donnellan when her 10-year old son had eczema on his feet. Doctors prescribed steroid cream for him, which she wasn't comfortable with. "With a chronic problem, you look at the big picture," Donnellan said. "You can't continue to keep using steroid creme forever. It gets absorbed into your body." From this, Donnellan founded her company BodyVerde, a family-owned business that produces safe, natural products for families and kids. Her husband was the inspiration for the EZ Waterless Shave. Having been deployed several times in the military and partially bald on top, he became frustrated by not being able to shave while in the wilderness. To help him, she began working on a product that doubled as a shaving lotion and a moisturizer but that didn't require lathering or rinsing. It started by being convenient, but she realized it was eco-friendly too. It saves water. It saves resources. "All these developed after the fact," Donnellan said. Like anything new, however, there are drawbacks not with the product but with consumer perception. When they first began testing the product, people were afraid that if they didn't use water, shaving would hurt or that it would pull. "We're breaking out of (a) mindset," Donnellan said. "Just because you've been shaving (the same way) doesn't mean you have to do that forever." "After using this product," she said, "your skin's all smooth it has a great aftereffect." It has an added plus, she said. Her husband uses it for the top of his head to keeping it from peeling or getting sunburned. "For bald guys, it's a great asset for them," said Donnellan. "They can use it to shave and as an in-between moisturizer." Currently only available online, you'll find EZ Waterless Shave at www.BodyVerde.com. SHARE By JENNIFER C. KERR and MEGHAN HOYER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) The problem of students habitually missing school varies widely from state to state, with about one-third of students in the nation's capital absent 15 days or more in a single school year, according to an Associated Press analysis of government statistics. At the other end of the spectrum, Florida had the lowest rate of chronic absenteeism, 4.5 percent in the 2013-14 school year. Overall, the national average of chronic absenteeism was 13 percent, or about 6.5 million students, the Education Department said. "Chronic absenteeism is a national problem," Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said in a statement Wednesday. "Frequent absences from school can be devastating to a child's education." Bob Balfanz, a research professor at Johns Hopkins University and director of the Everyone Graduates Center, called the numbers disturbing. "If you're not there, you don't learn, and then you fall behind. You don't pass your classes. You don't get the credits in high school and that's what leads to dropping out," Balfanz said in an interview. The report was the first release of chronic absentee figures from the department. The Obama administration began a program last fall that now works with states and local groups in 30 communities to identify mentors to help habitually absent kids get back on track. As part of the effort, the White House said Wednesday that a New York-based company, STATE Bags, was donating 30,000 backpacks to children being mentored in the program. NBA star Kevin Durant is working with the administration on the initiative. "Sometimes the reasons come down to not having what you need to be present and ready ... like a book bag, school supplies or the support of a caring adult," Durant said in a statement. Detroit is among the new communities to sign up for the My Brother's Keeper Success Mentors Initiative. Of the 100 largest school districts by enrollment, Detroit had the highest rate of chronic absenteeism. Nearly 58 percent of students were chronically absent in the 2013-2014 school year. Alycia Meriweather, interim superintendent of Detroit Public Schools, said Wednesday: "This is a serious problem, which I would term a leading indicator, that impacts everything else we are trying to accomplish at the District. DPS must address this issue in order to see greater results in our classrooms and schools." Meriweather said Detroit was working with absenteeism and behavior experts to address the problem, and hoping to gain "some new perspectives and ideas" from the My Brother's Keeper Summit this week in Washington. In Washington, Michelle Lerner, press secretary for the District of Columbia Schools, said the district is taking an "all-hands-on-deck approach" to try to ensure that students attend school. She said the school system last year met its "in-seat attendance goal a measure that shows how many students are actually present on any given day of 89.5 percent," which she said was an improvement over the previous two school years. "But we still have more work to do to ensure more students continue to be in school every day," Lerner said. Elsewhere around the country, Washington state and Alaska had chronic absentee rates hovering around one-quarter of students with that level of absences. According to AP's analysis, girls were just as likely as boys to habitually miss school. Nearly 22 percent of all American Indian students were reported as regularly absent, followed by Native Hawaiians at 21 percent and black students at 17 percent. Hispanic and white students were close to the national average of 13 percent. Students are regularly missing school for lots of reasons, Balfanz says. Many are poor and could be staying home to care for a sibling or helping with elder care. Others are avoiding school because they're being bullied or they worry it's not safe. And then, there are some students who simply skip school. Schools should be creating welcoming environments to make students feel wanted each day, Balfanz says. They also need to build relationships with the kids who are regularly absent to figure out what's keeping them away, he said. As part of its Civil Rights Data Collection, the department surveyed all public schools in the country, covering over 95,000 schools and 50 million students. Roughly one in seven of all K-12 public schools nationwide reported having not a single chronically absent student that year. Chronic absenteeism is one of several topics covered in the data collection. It also looked at school discipline and high-rigor course offerings. Other figures from the report: Black preschool children are 3.6 times as likely to get one or more out-of-school suspensions as their white counterparts. Black children represent 19 percent of preschoolers, yet they account for 47 percent of preschool kids getting suspended. White students make up 41 percent of preschoolers, and 28 percent of preschool kids with suspensions. Nationwide, almost half of high schools offered classes in calculus, and more than three-quarters offered Algebra II. 33 percent of high schools with substantial black and Latino enrollment offered calculus. That compares to 56 percent of high schools with low numbers of black and Latino children that offered calculus. Similar gaps were seen for physics, chemistry and Algebra II. _____ Associated Press data journalist Michelle Minkoff contributed to this report. This image provided by Google shows people looking at a view of the solar system using technology Google calls "Project Tango." Tango uses software and sensors to track motions and size up the contours of rooms, which can empower a smartphone to map building interiors. Thats a crucial building block of a promising new frontier in augmented reality, or the digital projection of lifelike images and data into a real-life environment. (Courtesy of Google via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT SHARE By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Suppose your smartphone is clever enough to grasp your physical surroundings the room's size, the location of doors and windows and the presence of other people. What could it do with that info? We're about to get our first look. On Thursday, Lenovo will give consumers their first chance to buy a phone featuring Google's 3-year-old Project Tango, an attempt to imbue machines with a better understanding about what's around them. Location tracking through GPS and cell towers tells apps where you are, but not much more. Tango uses software and sensors to track motions and size up the contours of rooms, empowering Lenovo's new phone to map building interiors. That's a crucial building block of a promising new frontier in "augmented reality," or the digital projection of lifelike images and data into a real-life environment. If Tango fulfills its promise, furniture shoppers will be able to download digital models of couches, chairs and coffee tables to see how they would look in their actual living rooms. Kids studying the Mesozoic Era would be able to place a virtual Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor in their home or classroom and even take selfies with one. The technology would even know when to display information about an artist or a scene depicted in a painting as you stroll through a museum. Tango will be able to create internal maps of homes and offices on the fly. Google won't need to build a mapping database ahead of time, as it does with existing services like Google Maps and Street View. Nonetheless, Tango could raise fresh concerns about privacy if controls aren't stringent enough to prevent the on-the-fly maps from being shared with unauthorized apps or heisted by hackers. Lenovo announced its plans for the Tango phone in January, but Thursday will mark the first time that the company is showing the device publicly. At the Lenovo Tech World conference in San Francisco, the Chinese company is expected to announce the phone's price and release date. The efforts come as phone sales are slowing. People have been holding off on upgrades, partly because they haven't gotten excited about the types of technological advances hitting the market during the past few years. Phones offering intriguing new technology could help spur more sales. But Tango's room-mapping technology is probably still too abstract to gain mass appeal right away, says Ramon Llamas, an analyst at the IDC research group. "For most folks, this is still a couple steps ahead of what they can wrap their brains around, so I think there's going to be a long gestation period," Llamas says. Other smartphones promising quantum leaps have flopped. Remember Amazon's Fire phone released with great fanfare two years ago? That souped-up phone featured four front-facing cameras and a gyroscope so some images could be seen in three dimensions. The device also offered a tool called Firefly that could be used to identify objects and sounds. But the Fire fizzled, and Amazon no longer even sells the phone. The key to the Tango phone's success is likely to hinge on the breadth of compelling apps that people find useful in their everyday lives. If history is any guide, the early apps may be more demonstrative than practical. Google already has released experimental Tango devices designed for computer programmers, spurring them to build about 100 apps that will work with Lenovo's new phone. At a conference for developers last month, Google demonstrated an app for picturing furniture in actual living rooms and for taking selfies with digital dinosaurs. Both large and small tech companies are betting that augmented realty, or AR, will take off sooner than later. Microsoft has been selling a $3,000 prototype of its HoloLens AR headset. Others, such as Facebook's Oculus and Samsung, are out with virtual-reality devices. Google has one coming as well through its Daydream project. While AR tries to blend the artificial with your actual surroundings, virtual reality immerses its users in a setting that's entirely fabricated. With both, the devices out so far invariably require users to wear a headset or glasses. In many cases, they also must be tethered to more powerful personal computers, restricting the ability to move around. None of that is necessary with Lenovo's Tango phone. Instead, you get an augmented look at your surroundings through the phone's screen. "This has a chance to become pervasive because it's integrated into a device that you already have with you all the time," says Jeff Meredith, a Lenovo vice president who oversaw development of the Tango device. "You aren't going to have to walk around a mall wearing a headset." Google plans to bring Tango to other phones, but is focusing on the Lenovo partnership this year, according to Johnny Lee, a Google executive who oversaw the team that developed the technology. Tango drew upon previous research in robotics and the U.S. space program. Lee believes three-dimensional imagery and data whether through the new Tango phone or another technology will help reshape the way people interact with e-commerce, education and gaming. Marysa Nichols' mom gets hug after the guilty verdict in the Quentin Bealer murder trial. Bealer was convicted of murdering the 14-year-old girl in Red Bluff. Her body was found Feb. 28, 2013, lying facedown in a creek bed near her high school. SHARE Quentin Bealer UPDATED 9:30 a.m. A Sacramento jury found Quentin Bealer guilty of first-degree murder in the 2013 murder of a 14-year-old girl in Red Bluff. Defense attorney Shon Northam was a no-show for today's reading of the verdict. Instead, a substitute attorney was called in for Bealer. Bealer kept his head down as the verdict was read. Sentencing will be July 8 and may be held in Red Bluff if motion is filed for it to be moved. Bealer will remain in jail without bail until sentencing. Red Bluff Police Chief Kyle Sanders issued a statement after the verdict saying, "While we continue to mourn Marysa's loss, we are thankful the jurors saw the truth and returned their unanimous verdict, finding Bealer guilty of first-degree murder." Sanders also thanked the agencies and officers who helped with the investigation: Tehama County Deputy DA Donna Daly, police Sergeant Scott Curtis and Kevin Hale of the DA's Bureau of Investigations. Original story A verdict has been reached in the murder trial of a Red Bluff man accused of strangling a 14-year-old girl in 2013. But the decision in the trial of Quentin Bealer won't be read until 9 a.m., Wednesday, a Sacramento County Superior Court spokeswoman said. The verdict was returned around 4:30 p.m., but it's not being announced until tomorrow due to the lateness of the day. The verdict comes after a juror was excused this morning after being accused of potential jury misconduct. He was replaced with an alternate juror. Jurors in Bealer's murder trial got the murder case mid-Thursday afternoon following closing arguments by the attorneys. But jurors were sent home Friday morning after an issue centering on the juror arose, bringing deliberations to a standstill. Jurors were questioned about the juror Monday and the judge decided today to replace him with an alternate around 10 a.m. The 42-year-old Bealer, who has proclaimed his innocence, is charged with murder in the death of Marysa Nichols, whose body was found Feb. 28, 2013, lying facedown in a creek bed near her high school. The trial, which began in late April, was moved to Sacramento due to extensive pretrial publicity in the North State to ensure an impartial jury could be selected. Its alleged Bealer strangled the teenager after following her on a trail near Red Bluff High School where she was a freshman. Her yellow tank top was tied tightly around her neck when she was found, authorities have said, noting that Bealers DNA was found on her tank top. Bealer was arrested March 2, 2013, after he turned himself in to police following the release of a surveillance video that showed a man matching Bealers description outside the high school. Bealer confirmed he was the man in the video surveillance, but maintains he had nothing to do with the teens violent death. SHARE A 24-acre grass and brush fire in the Keswick area northwest of Redding was 65 percent contained Sunday. The fire was the largest of two other vegetation fires that broke out in the area Saturday. A California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman said the cause had not yet been determined. The fire started on a hillside near a popular outdoor target-shooting site off Iron Mountain Road within Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction. Its undetermined whether a ricochet caused the fire, but authorities issued a request just before 5 p.m. Saturday for people at the gun range to quit shooting. The fire was initially reported at a half-acre just after 4 p.m. Saturday and grew to 2 acres within 20 minutes. SHARE Neighbors awake to no power A power outage left about 150 West Redding residents without electricity Sunday morning, but power was restored to all but one customer as of early that afternoon. The cause of the outage had not been determined. The outage caused a pair of overhead electric fuses to blow out, forcing crews to switch off the power to the entire affected area to ensure no further fuses or equipment was damaged, a utility spokesman said. Crews quickly restored electricity to a the City of Redding's Water Treatment Plant on Foothill Boulevard and the power outage was isolated to the one neighborhood. Keswick fire burns 24 acres A 24-acre grass and brush fire in the Keswick area northwest of Redding was 65 percent contained Sunday. The fire was the largest of two other vegetation fires that broke out in the area Saturday. A California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman said the cause had not yet been determined. The fire started on a hillside near a popular outdoor target-shooting site off Iron Mountain Road within Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction. It's undetermined whether a ricochet caused the fire, but authorities issued a request just before 5 p.m. Saturday for people at the gun range to quit shooting. The fire was initially reported at a half-acre just after 4 p.m. Saturday and grew to 2 acres within 20 minutes. Pony Fire burns 1,655 acres The Pony Fire burn southwest of Happy Camp in Siskiyou County grew Sunday to 1,655 acres and was 20 percent contained. A Klamath National Forest spokesperson said the fire, which began June 7 and was caused by lightning crossed containment lines Saturday night above the Dillon Creek drainage on the southwest side of the fire. Aircraft dropped water and retardant to help slow the fire's downhill growth into the drainage. Nearly 900 firefighters are working on the fire. Dead trees and underbrush are driving much of the activity with the Pony Fire with numerous snags, downed logs and steep terrain making fire-fighting hazardous, officials say. Bill Press SHARE In 1956, Sen. John F. Kennedy published his masterpiece, "Profiles in Courage," short biographies of eight United States senators, Republicans and Democrats, who had shown extraordinary courage in their careers, willing to buck the opinions of their party and their constituents in order to do what they thought was right. What a contrast to today's Republican leaders, who've shown no courage at all in their response to repeated racist comments by GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Of course, it started on day one of the Trump campaign, when he characterized all immigrants as rapists and criminals. It continued when he proposed banning all Muslims from entering the United States both positions he still holds. But Trump's outright racism reached a new low with his attack on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, the presiding judge in the San Diego trial over a class-action lawsuit filed against Trump University, which alleges the so-called university is nothing more than a scam. He could never get a fair trial under Curiel, claimed Trump, because the judge is "Mexican" and Donald Trump wants to build a wall along the border. Trump refused to back down, even when reporters pointed out that Curiel's actually an American citizen, born in Indiana. Instead, he doubled down by insisting he couldn't get a fair trial under a Muslim judge, either. Indeed, Trump has insulted so many people of so many different faiths and ethnicities that, by his logic, he probably couldn't get a fair trial from anybody. Certainly not from a woman. His racist, personal attacks against a sitting judge, confirmed unanimously by the Senate, have put GOP leaders in a pickle. After all, Trump's their newly created presidential nominee. He's now the head of the Republican Party. They either have to condemn his comments or cave in. So what do they do? In classic political fashion, they do both. And nobody's proved a bigger hypocrite than House Speaker Paul Ryan. Unfortunately for Ryan, Trump's outburst came just as the speaker was trying to unveil a new GOP anti-poverty program. To his dismay, however, at a news conference in Washington's Anacostia neighborhood, all reporters wanted to ask him about were Trump's latest comments on Judge Curiel. Which led to the embarrassing scenario of Ryan, surrounded by a group of African-American leaders, denouncing Trump's remarks as "textbook racism" while vowing to support him anyway, because he's the Republican nominee. Ryan's not the only Republican trying to have it both ways. Others have outdone themselves, seeking refuge in ever more clever, and cynical, formulas. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he disagrees with Trump, but will stick with him because "The party of Lincoln wants to win the White House." Former candidate Marco Rubio also disagrees, but adds, "You don't want Hillary Clinton to win." Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN.), rumored to be on Trump's short list for vice president, admits "there could be" a line that would make him withdraw his support for Trump, but we're not there yet. Even John McCain, who was himself ridiculed by Trump for being a prisoner of war, admits he's offended by Trump's racist comments, yet argues "You have to listen to people that have chosen the nominee of our Republican Party." Really? No matter who he is? No matter what he says? Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), in a tough race for re-election, has re-written the political lexicon by inventing a new category of support. She told reporters she will vote for Donald Trump, but she does not "endorse" him. Equally disgusting was Chris Christie's robust defense of Trump. He's known Trump for 14 years, Christie told reporters, and he knows he's "not a racist." Yet Christie, a former federal attorney, also knows that Trump's lawyers have filed no motion to recuse Judge Curiel from the case. In fact, they've actually praised him for conducting a fair trial. The only reason Trump attacked him is because of his supposed ethnicity. Profiles in Courage? No, these Republicans are just the opposite. Profiles in Cowardice: so-called political leaders who readily put what's good for their party over what's good for the country, because they believe in nothing and stand for nothing. It's not that they don't know the difference between right and wrong. They just don't have the backbone to do what's right. Fortunately, there are at least two brave voices among the GOP. Illinois Senator Mark Kirk cited Trump's comments as reason to withdraw his endorsement, which led South Carolina's Lindsey Graham to observe that if any Republican was looking for an "offramp" to get off the Trump highway, this was it. More Republicans should take it. Email Bill Press at bill@billpress.com. National Bourbon Day specials, a pie-eating contest and more things to do in Chicago on Tuesday, June 14. EAT Pie-Eating Contest Advertisement Woodie's Flat 1535 N. Wells St. 312-643-0093 Advertisement Stuff your face with French silk pie for a shot at winning a gift certificate and bags set at the third annual competition. The Old Town bar also offers food and drink specials including $3 tacos, Montejo, Dos Equis and Tecate. 7 p.m. No cover. Register: elaine@woodieschicago.com DRINK A Night with Ommegang Jerk. Modern Jamaican Grill 811 W. Chicago Ave. 312-763-2870 A four-course dinner with pairings from the New York brewery includes jerk chicken tacos with Hennepin farmhouse saison and jerk wings plus yucca fries with Rosetta Belgian kriek. 6-8:30 p.m. $39.95. Tickets: eventbrite.com National Bourbon Day The Pony Inn 1638 W. Belmont Ave. 773-828-5055 The Lakeview bar celebrates by serving $2 bourbon-braised brisket tacos, $4 house bourbons and $5 you-call-it bourbons. 5 p.m. No cover. DO Michel Martin Eat. Watch. Do. Weekly What to eat. What to watch. What you need to live your best life ... now. > Michel Martin: Going There Athenaeum Theatre Advertisement 2936 N. Southport Ave. 773-935-6875 The weekend host of NPR's "All Things Considered" leads a panel discussion on segregation, housing and education in Chicago to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s northern campaign. The Chicago Children's Choir and Louder Than A Bomb perform. 7 p.m. $10-$20. Tickets: wbez.org/events Two Cookie Minimum Comfort Station 2579 N. Milwaukee Ave. Snack on free cookies while listening to comic book readings from writers and self-publishers involved in the Chicago zine community at the monthly series. 8 p.m. Donations accepted for the Chicago Publishers Resource Center. More information: twocookieminimum.blogspot.com HAPPY HOUR OF THE DAY Tortoise Club (350 N. State St. 312-755-1700) offers $1 cocktail shrimp and oysters from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Does the French automakers insignia help the cleverly packed Kwid to be on the premium side compared to Datsuns humble redi-GO? Both the vehicles underpin the same platform which is pulled by a similar 0.8-litre petrol motor and are made by the same alliance. Read on to find out more! Following the footsteps of the Renault Kwid, Datsun has launched its entry-level offering - the redi-GO. The former turned out to be a runaway success for Renault and now Datsun is hoping for a similar result with the redi-GO. For the uninitiated, Nissan and Renault are in a strategic alliance globally and in India. The alliance shares a common plant in Chennai and Datsun is Nissans economical sub-brand. The conglomerate has been known to make badge engineered vehicles in the past such as the Micra-Pulse and others. But this time they have taken a different approach - both the vehicles do not look badge-engineered at all, despite sharing mechanics and platform. Heres how the two cars differ from each other. Design and dimensions Although, the cars share a same platform - CMF-A (Common Module Family), but their intuitive packaging makes them visually and diametrically opposite to each other. The redi-GO is based on Datsuns Yukan design language, which means bold in Japanese. Indeed, it features a maximum number of character lines compared to other cars in the segment, including the Kwid. It also marginally sits higher off the ground juxtaposed to the Kwid. In contrast, the Renault Kwid is an entirely different story. The vehicle speaks out loud and clear that it belongs to Dusters clan. Justifying the same, the Kwid features partial body cladding , pronounced wheel arches and tonnes of accessories! The wheelbase of both the cars are almost identical. With an upright stance and tallboy design, the redi-GO is nowhere close to what Renault has to offer on the table. Though, the Kwid looks wider in comparison and also has a rugged feel to it. Where redi-GO looses despite having somewhat similar wheelbase - is the boot space. The Kwid offers 300-litres of boot space as compared to Datsuns 222-litres. However, space inside the cabin in both the cars are same and it is not a let down for the redi-GO since the Kwid is one the most spacious cars in its class. Cabin and features The two do not share their interiors. Both the vehicles use a different layout for the dashboard and even the features are not same. Renaults cabin looks and feels on the more premium side in contrast to Datsuns. The former is also loaded to the brim. A vital USP which the Kwid will have over the redi-GO is the 7-inch MediaNav touchscreen infotainment system, that also features built-in satellite navigation. The redi-GO doesnt even offer Bluetooth in any of its variants, while the Kwid offers a Bluetooth enabled audio system in the mid-trim. Both the vehicles use piano black appliques in their dashboards. The Kwid features several chrome highlights and a partial leather wrap steering wheel - none of which are present in the redi-GO. Even fabric upholstery in the Kwid is sportier in contrast to the one in redi-GO. Prices As expected, Datsun has priced the redi-GO pretty competitively - it undercuts its french cousin by Rs 14,000 to 38,000. And this explains why the Datsun doesnt support the features which are flaunted by the Renault. It seems that the Franco-Japanese conglomerate is looking to make an impact on the entry-level segment which has vehicles such as the Maruti Suzuki Alto 800, the Hyundai Eon and the Tata Nano. The shortage of officers at the Centre has become so visible that the Department of Personeel and Training in a candid acknowledgment of the shrinking pool asked the states to share the shortage There are very few officers to fill up the key posts in the Narendra Modi-government. This is showing up in alarming numbers. Every year since 2014, the number of joint secretary-level posts left untenanted has risen and could affect the performance of the government, said an officer with k nowledge of the trend. In the Indian government scheme of functioning, when the joint secretary assumes the role of chief executive officer for a department, she carries the institutional memory of the department as she holds the post for five years, said GK Pillai, former home secretary in the central government. As compared to only nine vacancies for the joint secretary-level posts carried over to the next year from December 2013, the number had jumped to 14 by December 2015, according to records maintained by the department of personnel and training. Worse, is the intra-year trend. In May 2013, the number of unfilled vacancies were only 11. But, by May the following year this number had risen to 14 and then to 24 by May 2015. This year in May the number has shot up to 35. The number of joint secretary-level posts which are likely to be carried over to the next year already looks uncomfortable. To put a perspective to these numbers, every year about 90 officers of the rank of joint secretary move out from their posts in the central government in favour of promotions from the immediate-level-below of directors. And in a sign of deepening stress, even that supply line has got stretched. Till 2014, data from the department of personnel and training, shows it had been shortlisting on an average 45 officers to be promoted to the rank of directors from the central governments feeder services. As the availability of officers above has diminished, the department too has had to soften the rules for postings as directors. Keeping in view large number of vacancies in the grade of director and want of eligible officers -- the competent authority -- has relaxed the eligibility condition for promotion, an office memorandum issued in 2014 noted. It did have a salutary effect but only for a year. A record 113 officers became ready to join as directors. This order though was acted more like a vacuum cleaner on the supply line of junior officers, to then dry it up once again in subsequent years. In 2015 the department has just been able to meet the demand for 75 vacancies at the same level, with a candidate list of 83 candidates. Each year, there are several drop outs so the department is scouring the bottom of the line to just meet the pending demands from various ministries. Central government rules say that no officer can become joint secretary at the Centre, unless they have put in a full term as a director or deputy secretary in one of the central ministries. This problem is much larger than the shortage of officers at the top. The shortage has become so visible that the DoPT, which handles the posting of officers in central government ministries, has in an unusually candid acknowledgment of the shrinking pool, asked the states to share the shortage proportionately with the Centre. The instruction was sent out by the department to the state governments recently. There is a general shortage of Indian administrative service officers at deputy secretary/director level (at the centre) and, therefore, you may like to recommend a sufficiently large number. In the Indian administrative set up, most of the joint secretary-level posts at the central government, numbering 462, are assigned amongst the officers of the IAS. These posts are distinct from the ones filled by officers of specialised services like revenue, railways and audit. IAS officers are allotted to the states and union territories from where they come on line to the Centre to take up assignments in various ministries. Every state assigns a percentage of its cadre officers to a pool known as the central deputation reserve. These officers, when they join the central government, are allowed a special promotion, and additional allowance known as deputation pay as an incentive to be assigned as joint secretaries to the various departments. As an aside, the messaging of this letter was considered terse and on the same day it was reissued to the state governments but with the offending paragraph deleted. The original letter went on to add that the CDR as determined by the states is not just low, 'most of the states fail to achieve (even) the proportionate CDR by a wide margin'. Instead of the usual repetitive stuff that clutters such letters, this one cajoled and even threatened the state governments in turns to make them sponsor more officers for central duty. You would agree that the movement of the officers from the states to the Centre and back is also crucial for building up the capabilities at the state level and contributing towards developing national perspectives at the decision-making levels in the government of India, it noted. A perusal of the data on state wise CDRs show the validity for this resentment. Andhra Pradesh for instance is supposed to offer 36 officers to join as joint secretary, and as director at the Centre. As of March 31, 2015, there were only 16 officers from the state, a CDR utilisation rate of 44 per cent. Madhya Pradesh was supposed to provide 70 officers but had allowed only 28, making it just 40 per cent of the CDR. Of the ten large states with IAS officer cadre strength of 300 and above, seven have missed the CDR margin by a wide berth. This has its own insidious effect. Two states with poor development records, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have sent a disproportionately larger number of officers for central deputation. In 2016, the Centre has been able to get only seven IAS officers from all states so far. In the absence of IAS and its feeder service cadres, officers from the central services have made a pitch with the committee of secretaries to allow more of them to join in the deputation posts. It has begun to happen, though the general secretary of the central services officers association, Jayant Mishra says it is yet to gather steam. There are also issues, like the sad spectacle of a revenue service officer who secured a posting to suppress extremism in the central part of India. It didnt take long for him to get transferred. Pillai says as long as these officers are selected on merit, there would be no issues, but at times the selection has been made because of desperation. According to former Boston Consulting Group (BCG) India chief Arun Maira, these problems have cropped up because the Indian government does not have an effective human resource department. It is the largest recruiter of managerial level people in the country and yet has an insufficient degree of competence to manage those people, he says. He says the cadre management ability of DoPT needs vast refurbishing to handle the challenges that a posting at the Centre means. The officers face increased workload and performance pressure, he said. Pillai agreed and pointed out that the higher workload would continue for another few years till the larger recruitment to the all India services, including IAS and Indian Police Service (IPS) reinstated since 2010 takes effect. It was during his tenure as home secretary, when the government agreed to raise the intake for IAS reversing a decade of government downsizing. There is clearly a build up of stress among the officers, meanwhile, Maira said. Not only are there less officers to step up to the role of CEO in the various government departments, those finally made available are also arriving at their posts after long gaps. This makes the department run on junior staff without any obvious sense of direction for quite some time. The finance ministry, for instance, has surrendered options to join sub-committees of the prestigious Financial Action Task Force because of lack of officers in the department of economic affairs. Maira says, unlike earlier, more IAS officers prefer to be posted in the states where they are assigned, instead of coming to the Centre. As the Union ministries push their top officers to take on more responsibilities, the attraction of being posted to the Centre has visibly diminished. The other unstated reason is the rise in the transfers among the joint secretaries across various departments. This reduces the time when they are effectively in charge of a particular line of work reducing their satisfaction levels. In the past two years, data shows there has been a nearly 20 per cent rise in the change in the posting orders for joint secretary and senior level officers. It is a tough job being an officer in the central government ministries, now. At least half a dozen are in the works with increasing brand awareness and growing purchasing power in upper classes. Malls selling luxury brands are increasingly catching the fancy of property developers and corporate groups. At least half a dozen luxury malls are either being built or being planned, said realty sources. Major luxury malls in the country are DLF Emporio in Delhi, The Collection (UB City) in Bengaluru and Palladium in Mumbai, selling top-end brands. Developers are looking to tap the demand from the ultra rich in metros and Mumbai is taking a lion's share of the new ones. Reliance Industries, for instance, is looking to build a luxury mall of "substantial size" in its convention centre project at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), said a source in the company. "There is very little space available outside five-star hotels in Mumbai and its suburbs can take more of luxury properties. Besides, it is a high-premium locality and has a lot of propensity to spend," said the source. Maker Group, which has a joint venture with Reliance for the Maker Maxity commercial complex in BKC, is also looking to build a luxury mall in the locality, said a source. The group is developing the mall as part of its MGM Bellagio hotel project there. Maker could not be reached for comments. Mumbai-based Oberoi Realty is looking to build a 500,000 sq ft luxury mall in the city's Prabhadevi area, a mixed land-use project which will have a Ritz Carlton Hotel and The Residences managed by Ritz Carlton Mumbai. The company could not be reached for comments. In Delhi, DLF is developing a 200,000 sq ft mall in the Chanakyapuri area and has already leased out 60 per cent of it. It is negotiating to lease out another 25 per cent. This mall is at the centre of the Lutyens' zone, housing the powerful and wealthy. "Demand for luxury in the city is stable, and showing signs of growth," said Sriram Khattar, chief executive, rental business, DLF. It is spending Rs 350 to Rs 400 crore on this mall, scheduled to be completed by early next year. Khattar said the company had been able to show with Emporio, housing brands such as Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Canali and Jimmy Choo, among others, that they could offer luxury experience. Anuj Puri, chairman of JLL India, says luxury malls in India have seen varied success. "Earlier ones, catering only to a particular category or segment, are repositioning themselves to include a more comprehensive trade and tenant mix. Often, a sharp focus on only luxury for HNI (high net worth) shoppers needs to be toned down, so as to be a bit more inclusive of potential shoppers from other income groups," he said. Adding: "There is a lot of demand for luxury goods in India but apart from that class of wealthy shoppers, this demand can vary along with how the country is performing on a macro economic level. Appetite for luxury goes up in good times and decreases in not-so-good times." In January this year, a study by business chamber Assocham said with increasing brand awareness and growing purchasing power of the upper class in tier-II and III cities, the Indian luxury market was expected to cross $18.3 billion by 2016 from the current $14.7 bn, a compounded annual growth rate of 25 per cent. Susil Dungarwal, chief mall mechanic at Beyond Squarefeet Advisory, a mall management entity, feels developers are looking at luxury malls as it adds brand value to their portfolio. "For instance, Emporio might not give better returns than Promenade (a mall in the vicinity) but it certainly adds value to DLF." He says the cost of construction for a luxury mall is three times more than for a normal one but the returns are two times higher. "Cost of construction of a luxury mall in Mumbai is Rs 12,000 a sq ft and for a normal mall is Rs 3,500 a sq ft," he said. And, that a normal mall commanded rent of Rs 350 a sq ft in South Mumbai but a luxury mall got Rs 700-Rs 800 a sq ft. TAPPING OPPORTUNITIES Says he had extended full cooperation, civil matters being treated as criminal charges Vijay Mallya, the tycoon whos self-exiled in Britain to avoid probe agencies in this country, has accused the latter of 'pursuing a heavily biased investigation' and holding him guilty without trial. This was a day after the Enforcement Directorate attached properties worth Rs 1,411 crore (Rs 14.11 billion) of Mallya and his United Breweries (Holdings) in the case of alleged diversion of a Rs 430-crore (Rs 4.3-billion) loan from IDBI Bank to run his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines. The ED has also approached court under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act Court to declare Mallya a proclaimed absconder, after he did not respond to non-bailable summon warrants. The assets purportedly attached under PMLA date back to several years prior to the launch of Kingfisher Airlines. "There is no rationale nor any legal basis for the series of actions initiated by the ED, which is now making it more difficult to raise resources to pay the banks, Mallya stated on Sunday night. Purely civil matters such as loan recovery are being connected with criminal allegations, without any basis whatsoever. PMLA allows taking over of the property of a person being investigated. I left India as per schedule on March 2 to attend meetings in Geneva, at which time no ED proceedings had commenced and no summons had been issued to me, Mallya said. All government agencies are approaching various courts to cancel previous exemptions from personal appearance granted to me, so that further NBWs can be issued against me. All of which seem part of a concerted effort to construct a case for my extradition. On Sunday, the Press Trust of India reported that the ED clarified to Interpol, the global police network that had raised questions on the investigating agencys request to issue a red corner notice against Mallya. Issuance of an RCN against Mallya was 'obligatory', the ED told Interpol, as all due legal processes had been followed in this regard. Mallya is being investigated by both the Central Bureau of Investigation and ED, of shifting offshore Rs 900-crore (Rs 9-billion) of loans taken from IDBI Bank -- an internal committee had recommended against the loan. Mallya also faces cases at the Supreme Court, Karnataka high court and Debt Recovery Tribunal in Bengaluru, over Rs 7,200 crore (Rs 72 billion) of unpaid loans taken for Kingfisher. His passport has been formally ordered impounded and warrants issued for not appearing before the ED for investigation. On Monday, the DRT here will resume hearing the case filed against Mallya by a consortium of lenders led by State Bank of India to recover their unpaid dues. Last week, the tribunal had asked the banks to adjust a little over Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion) deposited in the HC towards unpaid loans. Mallya complained CBI had constituted a special investigation team to further investigate him and Kingfisher, despite months of personal interviews with him. It is, indeed, sad and disappointing that the thousands of documents submitted by us and interrogation of several executives seems insufficient to convince them there has been no wrongdoing. "I have maintained and continue to maintain that there has been absolutely no misappropriation or diversion of funds and strenuously deny any allegation to the contrary, goes his statement. The UB Group had put Rs 6,000 crore (Rs 60 billion) of own money into Kingfisher, recalled Mallya, and this had been lost due to a genuine business failure. At the relevant time, state-owned Air India received a bailout package of Rs 30,000 crore (Rs 300 billion) from the government, which went to show the stressed position of the aviation sector at the time. The ED has alleged that proceeds from the loan made to Kingfisher by IDBI Bank were diverted or siphoned out. "Kingfisher provided full details, supported by copies of bank statements and swift copies showing the funds were utilised only for legitimate business purposes. If the ED wish to expand their scope to include all banks, Kingfisher will be only too happy to provide full details and cooperate in the investigation, Mallya pleaded. Image: Vijay Mallya. Photograph: Reuters Despite bad experiences it's not easy to ignore a relative or a friend is in need of financial help. It is often said that the easiest way to lose a friend is to extend him a loan. Many would have gone through the regret of lending to a family member or a friend, who didn't stick to the mutually agreed time of repayment, or worse kept requesting for more time, giving one excuse or the other, until you stopped expecting the money back. Despite bad experiences it's not easy to ignore a relative or a friend is in need of financial help. You can, however, stick to certain principles to avoid confrontations, complications or regrets later. Money you can afford to lose When a person requests Siddhartha Ray, a Central Government employee, for a loan, he always asks himself what is the maximum amount of money he can afford to lose? Irrespective of the borrower's requested amount, he only extends funds within his means. This way, he minimises his risks even at the cost of losing a relationship. The idea behind this is not to prepare oneself for the loan going bad. It's not uncommon that the person borrowing the money delays the repayment. Your financial plans should not get affected because you are relying on the person to repay by a particular date. You must, therefore, lend the amount which does not affect your budget or plans. Know the purpose Before lending, you must check the purpose of the loan. It's not prudent that you cut corners to save and a person with bad money management reap the benefits. Jayant Sharma, for example, got a call from his college friend, Vinay, whom he had not been in touch with for over a decade. When they met, the friend requested for money as he had a temporary squeeze in his business. He promised to repay in three months. Jayant didn't commit and said he will let him know later. After returning home, he called up a few common friends to crosscheck. They informed him that Vinay had borrowed money from them in the past but never repaid. Many chronic borrowers usually lie about the end use of the money. They even have dramatic stories to play with lender's emotions. If you are not sure of the person's intention, do crosscheck. These kind of borrowers are usually the ones that delay repayment and are difficult to deal with. Lending for a cause There are times when a person can approach you during an emergency, say for treatment of someone who is hospitalised. During such times, many offer all the help they can afford, even beyond their means. This is not the right approach. If the borrower is a family member, you can involve others to and ask them for help. This way you can not only arrange a bigger amount but also cut down on the risk of non-repayment. You can also help the person secure a loan. Many don't know that non-banking finance companies lend to individuals even if they have a low credit score, but at a higher rate. Usually, individuals approach banks, which have stricter lending criteria. On rejection, they lose hope. However, don't become a guarantor to the applicant. If he fails to repay, the institution can approach you for money. You can also check peer-to-peer platforms to help the person get a loan. Lending effectively Lending can have an impact on your Income Tax when the borrower repays you. Say, the borrower deposits Rs 200,000 in your bank account. The assessing officer might call you to explain the bank entry if the amount is significant. That's why formalise lending if a considerable amount is involved. You can draw a loan agreement that specifies terms and conditions of the loan and repayment schedule and also includes identity proof, and Permanent Account Number details of both parties. Opt for funds transfer only through a banking channel. Income Tax rules do not allow lending and borrowing in cash if the amount involved is over Rs 20,000. The Income Tax department can levy a penalty equivalent to the loan amount, if you don't adhere to it. Sometimes, you may be forced to lend despite not being comfortable. It can be on insistence from a close relative whom you cannot refuse. In such situations, you can do paperwork that can come handy in future if the borrower tries to delay payment indefinitely. You can use a simple promissory note, which is a declaration that the borrower has taken money from the lender and the lender is willing to return the same. You will need to enter the amount of loan taken and how and when the loan will be repaid. This could be a balloon payment covering several instalments or a bullet payment with a single end of the period payment. This should be done along with a loan agreement that can be registered to give it more legal sanctity. You can also ask for post-dated cheques (popularly called PDC) of proper amount from the borrower. The promissory note along with PDCs may act as an effective instrument in protecting the interest of the lender. If you have to approach the court, your case will be stronger with these instruments. Also remember that if you receive more money than what you pay, say be way of interest, the lender will have to record this as income from other sources and pay tax. Malhar Majumder is a certified financial planner AVOID REGRETS Only lend the amount you can afford to lose What is the reason for the loan? Introduce the prospective borrower to lending channels like NBFCs and peer-to-peer platforms Approach others to be part of the lending Maintain a loan agreement and use the banking channel to transact for Income Tax purposes Draw up a promissory note and take post-dated cheques to protect from non-payment Illustration by Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com Here's a five-part series on smart cities. We begin with Surat as the city prepares for a new future. IMAGE: There will be a world of difference from how things are now in Surat. Photograph, courtesy: Rahul Bhadane/Wikimedia Commons Through the week, we will cover Bhubaneswar, Pune and Vizag as part of the governments 100 smart cities projects. In addition, we will look at Lavasa as a private initiative in smart city development. As you drive through the streets of Surat on a dark and cloudy afternoon, LED street lights spring a surprise on you. The streets light up automatically. You ride further and before you know it, you get a ticket on your smartphone for over-speeding. And, speed detectors have replaced traffic police - well, almost. Thats not all, an S-Connect Smart Card lets you pay the fine through a cashless transaction. Thats just a tiny glimpse of how the diamond city of Surat would look and feel five years from now, once the National Democratic Alliance governments ambitious smart city project takes shape. People familiar with the city are already looking forward to the no-vehicle zone thats set to come up on one side of the busy Ring Road between Sahara Gate and Millennium Market stretch. The other side could turn into skywalks for pedestrians. IMAGE: Employees work inside the polishing department of a diamond processing unit at Surat. Photograph: Arko Datta/Reuters TRADERS DREAM BIG That should be a world of difference from how things are now. Traders and buyers who come to buy textiles and diamonds from other states and cities are a stressed lot because of unruly traffic caused by workers loading and unloading stock in the busy market. The smart city proposal (SCP) would not only benefit pedestrians but also help the trading community in seamless loading and unloading of stock, says Devkishan Manghani, a leading city-based textile trader. While work on this project is yet to begin, Surat already boasts of a few firsts. Among them is the citys tertiary treatment plant capacity of 40 million litres a day, the highest among Indian cities, apart from having a 95 per cent drinking water coverage to its six-million population. IMAGE: Vehicles move over a bridge built over the river Tapi at Surat, in Gujarat. Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters TARGETS As part of SCP, Surat Smart City Development (SSCDL), the special purpose vehicle set up on March 31, with an initial corpus of Rs 51 crore to oversee the projects implementation, has chalked out an ambitious target of 24x7 water supply to the entire city area of 326 sq km by 2020, up from the current 19 sq km. Led by Surat Municipal Commissioner and SSCDL Chairman Milind Torawane, along with SSCDL CEO M Nagarajan and city engineer of Surat Municipal Corporation J S Shah, among others, the smart city project is expected to see some headway later this month. The vision under smart city project for Surat is utilising the citys potential for enhancing quality of life for citizens by providing equal access to best quality physical infrastructure, social infrastructure and mobility through leveraging state-of-the-art technology, says Torawane, adding the city already topped the list of per-capita household income at Rs 6.5 lakh among Indian cities. IMAGE: International Business Center, Piplod, Surat. Photograph, courtesy: Tarunyadav1989/Wikimedia Commons PROJECT FINANCE Surat had bagged the fourth rank under the Smart Cities Mission based on its proposal. It divided the proposal into two parts, according to its mission guideline - pan-city development and area-based development. While pan-city development will cost around Rs 795 crore, the area-based retrofitting carries a project cost of Rs 1,802 crore, taking the total smart city project cost to Rs 2,597 crore. Under the pan-city smart solution, the proposal looks to implement systems and services that cater to transport, mobility and connectivity. These include the Surat Integrated Transport-Mobility Administration Centre, automatic fare collection system, S-Connect Card Management System, fibre-to-home WiFi connectivity and the SMAC Centre. For area-based development, retrofitting smart solutions are to be implemented for 24x7 water supply, smart metering and quality, LED street lights with seasonal timers, use of renewable energy sources, logistic park, incubation centre, skywalks, smart parking, recycle/reuse of waste water, affordable housing under the Smart Cities Mission. IMAGE: Urban development ministry had set a guideline of minimum 500 acres for retrofitting-based smart city development. Photograph: Vimal Chand/Wikimedia Commons TOWN PLANNING SSCDL has identified seven town planning schemes for area-based retrofitting development, including Anjana, Umarvada, Dumbhal, Magob-Dumbhal, Parvat-Magob and Dumbhal-Magob. According to Shah, area-based development will cover retrofitting. The urban development ministry had set a guideline of minimum 500 acres for retrofitting-based smart city development. These seven town planning schemes together have a combined area of 2,167 acres and form eight per cent of Surats population, but contribute 18 per cent to Surats gross domestic product, Shah adds. IMAGE: The real action will begin only after a detailed project report is prepared.. Photograph: Reuters THE CRITICAL PILOT On June 25, SSCDL will host a pilot demonstration of the SMAC Centre, an Intelligent Transit Management System and a slum redevelopment project on public-private partnership (PPP) basis comprising 4,350 units of affordable housing. Well be able to monitor traffic, control smart street lighting system and keep a birds eye view of the city from the SMAC Centre, says Torawane. Meanwhile, work has begun on use of renewable energy under the SCP. About 25 per cent of the municipal corporations annual power requirement of 80 megawatt is self-generated through renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, Torawane adds. Financially, the project is already on track with Rs 194 crore being disbursed by the central government under Smart Cities Mission funding, apart from Rs 102 crore from the state government. While the Gujarat government has recommended PricewaterhouseCoopers and Tata Consultancy Engineering for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based solutions and infrastructure aspects of the smart city project, SMC has also been working with its own consultants such as Multimedia Consultants for water supply and MWH for sewerage management. According to Nagarajan, talks are on for consultants for various retrofitting development areas. So far, SSCDL has partnered with Surat Agricultural Produce Market Committee for implementation of a biogas plant on a PPP model. The real action will begin only after a detailed project report is prepared. Only then will one know how wide the gaps are or how tough the challenges are for making Surat a smart city. In one of the biggest mergers in the IT space, Microsoft on Monday said it will acquire professional networking platform LinkedIn in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion. IMAGE: Microsoft buys LinkedIn. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters Take a look at the 10 biggest IT deals ever: IMAGE: EMC Chief Executive Joe Tucci (right) speaks as Dell Chief Executive Michael Dell listens. Photograph: Reuters. Deal: Dell Inc buys EMC Rank: 1 Amount: $67 billion Year: 2015 The Round Rock, Texas-based, Dell - a privately owned multinational computer technology company is named after its founder, Michael Dell. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals, HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players, and electronics built by other manufacturers. EMC, based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, sells high-price data-storage systems to corporate customers. IMAGE: Avago CEO Hock E Tan. Photograph: Reuters. Deal: Avago Technologies buys Broadcom Rank: 2 Amount: $37 billion Year: 2015 Singapore-based-Avago makes analog and mixed-signal chips for automotive, industrial and communications applications. It also makes custom chips known as ASICS that are used in networking. Headquartered in Irvine, California, Broadcom Corporation makes radios for cellphones and other consumer devices, plus chips used in networking equipment for the data centre. IMAGE: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gestures during a Microsoft cloud briefing event in San Francisco, California. Photograph: Robert Galbraith/Reuters. Deal: Microsoft buys LinkedIn Rank: 3 Amount: $26.2 billion Year: 2016 Microsoft Corp agreed to buy LinkedIn Corp for $26.2 billion in cash. "Today is a re-founding moment for LinkedIn," Reid Hoffman, chairman of LinkedIn's board, said in a statement. Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive of LinkedIn, reporting to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The deal is expected to close in 2016. The Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft Corporation develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics and personal computers and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, Microsoft Office office suite, and Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking service. IMAGE: Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters. Deal: Facebook buys WhatsApp Rank: 4 Amount: $22 billion Year: 2014 The Menlo Park, California-based Facebook is a for-profit corporation and online social networking service company. Based in Mountain View, California WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary cross-platform, encrypted, instant messaging client for smartphones. Deal: VeriSign buys Network Deal: VeriSign buys Network Solutions Rank: 5 Amount: $21 billion Year: 2002 Security software maker VeriSign acquired the Jacksonville, Florida-based Net name registrar Network Solutions. The Reston, Virginia-based VeriSign alos operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers. IMAGE: Carly Fiorina (left), former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, with Michael Capellas, chairman and CEO of Compaq. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Deal: HP buys Compaq Rank: 6 Amount: $18.6 billion Year: 2002 The Hewlett-Packard Company (popularly known as HP) is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It develops and provides a wide range of hardware components as well as software and related services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including customers in the government, health and education sectors. Compaq Computer Corporation developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Deal: HP buys EDS Rank: 7 Amount: $13.9 billion Year: 2008 Founded in 1962 by H Ross Perot, Electronic Data Systems was an American multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Plano, Texas. Photograph: Reuters Deal: Symantec buys Veritas Rank: 8 Amount: $13.5 billion Year: 2005 A Fortune 500 company, Symantec headquartered in Mountain View, California produces software for security, storage, backup and availability - and offers professional services to support its software. Founded in 1983 as Tolerant Systems, Veritas Software Corporation was renamed Veritas Software Corp in 1989, and merged with Symantec in 2005. IMAGE: A neon logo is seen at the Google office in Toronto. Photograph: Mark Blinch/Reuters. Deal: Google buys Motorola Mobility Rank: 9 Amount: $12.5 billion Year: 2014 Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University, Google is an American multinational technology company specialising in Internet-related services and products. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Motorola Mobility was formed on January 4, 2011 after splitting Motorola Inc into two separate companies. Google acquired Motorola Mobility in 2012 and two years later, sold it to Lenovo. Photograph: Courtesy, A Sorense/Flickr Deal: NXP buys Freescale Rank: 10 Amount: $11.8 billion Year: 2015 Founded in 2006, NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a global semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Freescale was one of the first semiconductor companies in the world, having started as a division of Motorola in Phoenix, Arizona in 1948. It is the Prime Minister and the Finance Ministers prerogative on how they want the appointment process to be. The government has left unclear the mandate of the selection committee which has been tasked to recommend names for top posts at regulatory bodies The government has left unclear the mandate of the selection committee which has been tasked to recommend names for top posts at regulatory bodies. This gains importance in the backdrop of mounting speculation on a second term for Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan. The Financial Sector Regulatory Appointment Search Committee, headed by the Cabinet Secretary was set up more than one year ago by the Narendra Modi government to recommend names for top posts at regulatory bodies such as the RBI, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority and Pension Funds Regulatory and Development Authority. But the opinion in the government is clearly divided. While one section close to the government said the RBI Governor was unlikely to be appointed on the basis of recommendations by the FSRASC and the decision would be taken directly by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, others said no final decision on the selection process of the RBI Governor had been taken. It is the Prime Minister and the Finance Ministers prerogative on how they want the appointment process to be. The FSRASC is one of the ways to help in taking such decisions. It was set up with the purpose of shortlisting candidates for positions in financial regulators, said a senior official. However, no decision has been taken yet on how the political leadership wants to go about the process, the official said. The person added that even if the FSRASC was made a part of the selection process for the RBI governor, its recommendations would still have to go to the ACC, and hence the prime minister would have the final say on the matter. The official did not speculate on whether the incumbent could also be among the shortlisted candidates. Apart from the cabinet secretary, the FSRASC comprises additional principal secretary to the PM P K Mishra, and three outside experts Rajiv Kumar of Centre for Policy Research, Manoj Panda of the Institute of Economic Growth and Bimal N Patel from Gujarat National Law University. As per a government official, if the selection panel was indeed tasked with shortlisting candidates for the RBI top job, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das and Financial Services Secretary Anjuly Chib Duggal could also be special invitees to the panel. If FSRASC ends up acting as the agency responsible for RBI governors appointment, then it would mean that the government has fully accepted the recommendations of the report of the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) on regulatory appointments. The commission presented its draft report in March 2013, and suggested that any regulatory appointment should be done through a committee even as the final decision would rest with the government. While discharging this responsibility, the government will be guided by the recommendations of a selection committee, the report had said, adding the selection committee would shortlist at least three candidates for every position and provide the list to the government. The members of the committee would be appointed from a list of experts maintained by the government at all times, consisting of experts in the fields of finance, economics, law and public administration. The selection committee, which would be independent, will have a representative of the government who would serve as the chairperson), the majority of the members must be persons who are not related to the government, to ensure that the selection committee is not biased towards short listing only government officials. The committee also stated that merit will be the guiding principle for the appointment of board members. "Therefore, if the pool of applicants in a selection process is weak, the selection committee will have the right to suggest other names to be considered for selection. If it was a completely new appointment, a committee would have made sense, but if the panel is to decide if Dr Rajan should be reappointed or not, it would mean that the present situation is too controversial for the government to take a direct call, said Ashwin Parekh of Ashvin Parekh Advisory Services LLP. Manish Sabharwal, chairman of Teamlease, a human resource firm, said involving a committee increases the credibility of the entire appointment and eventually that is the path to take for all key appointments. This is moving from lobbying black-box to meritocratic discretion. To get a lateral entry into the government, you need to bring some sort of the transparency in the process, while retaining the governments discretion, Sabharwal said. Finally the decision should be with the government. I dont think they are outsourcing that anytime, said Sabharwal. The appointment panel recently conducted interviews for the post of RBI deputy governor as HR Khans term ends in early July. So far, RBI governor used to head the panel for selection of deputy governor. In the new scheme of things, RBI governor is a member in the selection panel. In the last one year, FSRASC met several times for selection of Securities and Exchange Board of India chairman, but subsequently UK Sinhas term was extended. The previous United Progressive Alliance regime had recommended setting up of FSRASC for transparency in appointments in regulatory posts. A final decision on 'Startup Fest', however, is yet to be taken by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion Pitching as a new start-up haven, India's youngest state Telangana has been trying to emerge as a base for budding companies in the country. Looking to keep the momentum alive on generating home-grown entrepreneurs, the government is planning an event similar to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Startup India. The event is likely to be organised in Hyderabad in August. A final decision on 'Startup Fest', however, is yet to be taken by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and meetings on the matter will be held on Tuesday. Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is expected to be briefed on it this week. According to DIPP officials, Telangana has been chosen as a focus state for start-ups based on the initiatives that have been taken by the state government in this space. "The state government is giving a lot of tax sops and has already started single-window clearances for budding entrepreneurs. Its T-Hub is one of the best facilities in the country. That is why we are planning to organise the next start-up event in Hyderabad," said a senior official at DIPP. T-Hub is a massive 70,000 square foot start-up incubation lab, which is based on public/private partnership between the government of Telangana and premier academic institutions such as International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad; Indian School of Business; NALSAR; and key private-sector leaders. According to experts, the response to the T-Hub has been significant and the area is completely sold out. "There are 800 start-ups that have housed themselves in T-Hub. The government plans to come up with a phase-II and -III of T-Hub in the state. The focus of the state is to create a start-up ecosystem. "If the trend continues in the next few years, Telangana might just take over Karnataka as the start-up hub in southern India," said Vanitha Datla, chairperson, Confederation of Indian Industry, Telangana. In an effort to get more companies from the Silicon Valley to set shop in the state, Telangana's information technology minister K T Rama Rao, along with other officials, has been touring the US scouting for potential investors. In April, the state unveiled its new information and communication technology policy through which it plans to double IT exports over the next five years. Under the policy, the government said it would develop a million square feet of workspace dedicated to start-ups over the next five years, of which 300,000 square foot of space would be used to develop phase-II of T-Hub. The state also plans to bring on board 20 global accelerators and incubators to build plug-and-play workspaces in public-private partnership mode. The government also plans to mobilise a Rs 2,000-crore (Rs 20-billion) innovation fund to help start-ups. DIPP is also looking to invite a large number of start-ups as well as incubators at the event. Refusing to put a number on the potential invitees, the senior official cited above said it would be substantial. The image is used for representational purpose only. Photograph: Reuters The Enforcement Directorate has managed to sniff out over Rs 9,000 crore as suspected haul from money laundering in a decade, but it has yet to link those against anyone successfully in a court. Image: Most money laundering cases have a foreign link to them. Photograph: Reuters The Indian prosecution network for anti-money laundering has all the elements in place, except the criminal. In 11 years since July 2005, when the Enforcement Directorate, or ED, was asked to operate the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), no one has been convicted for the crime. Indias lead prosecuting agency against money laundering and illegal use of foreign exchange has tried hard but it has not managed to crack through a stretched out judicial process, the lack of inter-agency coordination among the prosecution agencies and a crippling shortage of staff. It has managed to sniff out over Rs 9,000 crore as suspected haul from money laundering in a decade, but it has yet to link those against anyone successfully in a court. The number seems impressive but judged against the estimates put out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the lead international tracking agency for this crime, it is peanuts. FATF estimates the money being laundered at over 2 per cent of the GDP of its member countries, or about Rs 120,000 crore for India. It (ED) has a problem as it is often not the lead enforcement agency for a money laundering crime, says Mohan Parasaran, former solicitor general of India. He has had plenty of experience of dealing with ED cases, including Indias most famous white collar crime, the Satyam case, that broke out in January 2009 when its then chairman, Ramalinga Raju, confessed to a fudging of books for over $1 billion. ED could not bring a closure to the case, Parasaran says. The only case for which Raju has been convicted is one by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for cheating in a trial court. He has subsequently been released on bail. Money laundering is a crime with wide ramifications that finances even more serious ones like terrorism and drug running. India sits at a vulnerable geographical position, flanked by two of the most prolific drug producing regions of the world. It has battled terrorism for decades and now as the fastest growing economy in the world, its financial sector is a huge attraction for anyone wanting to clean up the money they have made from any crime by investing in it. At one stage, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bangladesh were classified as high risk and uncooperative countries by FATF. So the Indian economy has plenty of stake in how the ED performs. The nitty-gritties The Directorate has two laws under which it prosecutes offenders. Of them the Foreign Exchange Management Act, carries no criminal liability. It is more of a relic of the older Foreign Exchange Regulation Act that was framed at a time when India used to suffer massive shortages of foreign exchange. It is the PMLA through which the ED mostly enforces its mandate now. The passage of the Act was Indias passport to join the 37-country FATF in 2010, the last country allowed to do so to date. The Act has a long list of 28 types of offences that are treated as crime, including those of willful pollution and trade in wildlife. To turn the heat on such crimes, Parliament has had to amend several Acts to bring them in sync with the tough regime. The problem emerges in making the charges stick. ED officials, speaking strictly on the condition of anonymity, say they are quite successful in collecting evidence of wrong-doing from the records of financial agencies in India, but are stymied in gathering those from abroad. Most money laundering cases have a foreign link to them. In the case of businessman Vijay Mallya, for instance, the ED is convinced there is a valid PMLA offence. While reneging on a bank loan is not an offence under PMLA, escaping a country subsequently is. The Directorate has consequently asked the Interpol to help arrest Mallya for deportation to India. As one of the officer explains, this is a tough call. A money laundering charge has to be agreed upon as one both within India and abroad. If a court abroad decides the case can be settled with a rap on the knuckles and lets go off the defendant, any case made out in India too falls apart. The special courts here have to release the wealth of the person here. It is a provision that India has objected to since 2011 with a parliamentary committee under former finance minister, Yashwant Sinha, taking objection to it. But negotiations in the inter-country forum, the FATF, are yet to provide results. In the absence of convictions, the ED has found itself more often in the news for taking up high-profile cases like that of Mallya. But as Parasaran points out, the charge sheets have to be brought in simultaneously at the same designated courts. Under PMLA, the ED cannot produce the primary charge sheet; it is for the others, like the income tax or the CBI, to make out the first case. If the judge looks bleakly at the first one, it becomes difficult for us to convince the court that the subsequent money laundering charge should stick, says an ED officer. Indian investigating agencies dont like to share information on cases, so the charge sheets suffer. Statistics show that ED has managed to prosecute only 173 people in 11 years of whom none has gone behind bars as a convict. According to Jay Savla, an advocate with the Supreme Court, there are additional problems too. The appellate tribunal for hearing appeals against orders by the ED was without the presiding officer for some months recently, considerably slowing down the pace of decisions. No easy task Tracking a money laundering case is a complex exercise. The ramifications of the cases go deep and cannot be classified only as white collar crimes. It also requires a high-level political commitment to ensure that the legal, regulatory and operational reforms required by the action plan are implemented, as FATF puts it. In its absence, the records of most countries to bring a money laundering case to completion is dismal, which is why the organisation is keen to pounce upon even a single successful prosecution anywhere as a major achievement. ED depends on the mass of data supplied by the Financial Intelligence Unit, which tracks banks and others for suspected layering of transactions. It is the job of the ED officers stationed in the heart of New Delhi at Lok Nayak Bhawan to use their judgement to go after the promising ones. We have set up a cyber security cell to do a large part of the number crunching, says the official. The offenders tracking system - E-DoT and National Risk Assessment Monitoring System - trails the stages at which the crime lies. The stock market, with its lightning fast trade regime, is an attractive destination for the launderers, just as stacking up bank transactions just below the threshold for automatic detection. So, number crunching is vital for us, the official says. Despite the support, ED needs numbers. It has just 682 employees as on March 2015, a third of its sanctioned strength of 2,064 and the numbers are not rising. Filling them up is a nightmare for the top-level officers who mostly arrive from the police and the two revenue services. The lack of personnel had the agency struggling to deal with the disclosures surrounding allocation of mines for favours in Jharkhand in 2012. The money trail forced the Election Commission to ask for re-elections to the Rajya Sabha seats from the state. ED opened a sub-zonal office in the state capital, but four years later, in the absence of a chief there, the director of ED has to now hold the additional charge. As Parasaran puts it, ED needs to pay more attention to the framing of charge-sheets and push the courts to give it real custody of the money. The courts havent helped by passing contradictory orders, keeping up the good times for the suspected criminals. 'Today is our independence day. Udta Punjab is not just a film anymore. It is a movement and one that has ended in the victory of democracy.' The Bombay High Court has cleared the decks for the release of Udta Punjab, whose makers were locked in a dispute with the Central Board of Film Certification, after ordering deleting a urination scene and displaying a revised disclaimer. The court came down heavily on the CBFC and asked it not to act like a 'grandmother', and change with times. A division bench of Justices S C Dharmadhikari and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi directed the CBFC to certify the drug-themed film within 48 hours to enable the makers to release it on its scheduled date of June 17. "Barring the deletion of the urination scene as directed by the board and modification of the disclaimer, the June 6 order passed by the CBFC's revising committee directing for a total of 13 changes in the movie is quashed and set aside," the court said. The bench, however, refused to stay its order on a plea made by CBFC counsel Advait Sethna to enable the board to appeal against it in the Supreme Court, saying the filmmakers have already spent a lot on the movie and its promotion and distribution. The court, which was hearing a petition filed by Anurag Kashyap's Phantom Films challenging the CBFC order, came down heavily on the board for curbing a creative person's work. "Do not act like a grandmother. Change as per the times now. The CBFC need not be over-sensitive in the matter of art. The CBFC cannot stop creative people abruptly as it may discourage them. This will kill creativity. These days filmmakers are brutal, direct and straightforward. One need not treat them harshly just because of this," the HC said. The court further noted that the CBFC is not empowered by law to censor films, as the word censor is not included in the Cinematograph Act. "Censor in common parlance means to certify a movie. Therefore, if by law the board is empowered to make changes, cuts, or deletions, this power of the CBFC must be consistently in consonance with the provisions of the Constitution and the Supreme Court directions," Justice Dharmadhikari said. As per the revised disclaimer, the Udta Punjab makers will have to delete reference to Pakistan. They will also have to make additions to the disclaimer to the effect that the movie, its characters and the filmmakers do not promote the use of drugs and abusive language, and that the film is only attempting to depict the reality of drug abuse. On cutting out the urination scene, Justice Dharmadhikari said, "The CBFC is justified in directing deletion of the scene as the shot was unnecessary given the backdrop and the theme of the movie. Instead of this particular scene, the filmmaker could have taken recourse to other methods to depict the same." The court noted that it has read the film's script and does not find anything in it that shows Punjab in a bad light or affects the sovereignty, integrity or security of India. "It is undisputed that the CBFC possesses powers to call for cuts, changes, deletions in a movie while certifying it. These powers come into play if the film affects the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, foreign relations, public order, and or is likely to incite commission of an offence. There is a heavy burden on the authority to show that the restrictions imposed are reasonable," the bench observed. In the present case, the CBFC-imposed restrictions were not correct. The movie has to be seen as a whole and it was not permissible to take the characters, scenes and songs in isolation and out of context, the judges said. "It is open for a creative person to select the background, setting and accordingly weave the story. It is entirely on the creative person to choose the setting, pattern, underlying theme and storyline. "Creative freedom allows use of certain words as per the choice of the filmmaker. Nobody can dictate to him as to how the movie should be made or its content," the court said. The bench said it was in agreement with the petitioners that there was an increasing menace of drug abuse amongst the youth in Punjab. "The film is meant for adult viewing. If a maker chooses this way of depicting the movie and a subject, then it is not for anybody to restrict it. Like the CBFC, even we would be happy if better words were coined and used by the filmmaker," the judges said. The court said one must not forget that the movie is a work of fiction. On the board's direction to the movie makers to delete all scenes where expletives have been used, the court said that the dialogues have to be seen wholly and not in isolation. "Such blanket deletion without reference to the theme and subject of the film is bound to interfere with the creative freedom of the petitioner. The petitioners have used such language as they feel that people from that particular strata of society used such language ordinarily," the HC said. The court also noted that with the passage of time, filmmakers will realise that their films will not sell only because of such words. "But this realisation should happen on their own. The vocabulary used in a film, its utility is best left to the audience to decide," the court observed. On deletion of the use of the words, 'Election, MP, MLA, Parliament, Party Worker and Punjab', the court said, "These are general words and the film does not talk about any particular person or party. It is common knowledge that elections are round the corner in several states. Udta Punjab is not made keeping in mind the upcoming elections in Punjab or with any political propaganda." The HC also said there was no justification for deleting a scene from the movie which shows signboard with Punjab, Jalandhar and Amritsar written on it, as directed by the CBFC. "It is surprising that the board wants the signpost scene deleted, but has no issues with the title of the movie having the word Punjab," the court said. The HC, while setting aside the deletion of the scene where a character in the movie is injecting drugs, said, "This is just a fleeting scene and we have already said that the movie is not encouraging or glamorising use of drugs. Similarly, a scene in a song where a person is shown scratching himself is also just a passing shot and need not be removed. It does not show anyone in bad light and is not vulgar or obscene," it said. On deletion of a dialogue 'Zameen banjar te aulad kanjar', the court said, "This dialogue does not necessarily imply that the land of Punjab is infertile and that nothing useful can be found growing in them. It is a known fact that Punjab is a land of hard working and toiling farmers." Senior counsel Ravi Kadam, appearing for the petitioner, had argued that the CBFC's revising committee's order for changes and cuts in the movie was "arbitrary", "unfair", "without proper application of mind" and in violation of the fundamental rights of the filmmakers. He said in the past the board had certified for release several movies with expletives and cuss words. CBFC counsel Advait Sethna, however, opposed this argument and said, "Every movie is independent and hence the same yardstick will not apply." He justified the 13 changes ordered by the board and said the scenes were "vulgar, obscene and deplorable". The Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Diljit Dosanjh starrer, which delves into how the youth in Punjab have succumbed to drugs, had also unleashed political sparring, prompting Anurag Kashyap to ask parties to stay away from the censorship row. Punjab goes to polls next year. Kashyap had earlier hit out at CBFC chief Pahlaj Nihalani, calling him an "oligarch" and a "dictator" and that it was like living in North Korea. He got the support of several filmmakers, including Karan Johar, Mahesh Bhatt, Ram Gopal Varma and Mukesh Bhatt. "It is a dark day for freedom of expression and creativity in the country," Mukesh Bhatt had said, calling Nihalani a "stooge" of the government. The Bombay Velvet director took to Twitter to vent his ire at Censor Board and said there is no sense of freedom. 'I always wondered what it felt like to live in North Korea... Ab to plane pakadney ki bhi zaroorat nahin...,' Kashyap posted on Twitter. The AAP and Congress had earlier accused Punjab's ruling SAD-BJP alliance of exercising its influence to 'censor' the movie, a charge denied by the state government. To this, Kashyap had said, "I request Congress, AAP and other political parties to stay out of my battle. It's my Rights vs the Censorship. I speak only on my behalf." Meanwhile, the makers of the film have hailed the verdict, calling it a 'landmark judgement' and victory for the entire film industry. "The hard work of the lawyers has paid. I am terribly pleased with the verdict. I hope films will be viewed in context and there won't be a blanket on cinema," director Abhishek Chaubey told reporters, outside the high court. "Today I salute the courage of my producer and the hard work that my lawyers have put. Now, the film has been passed and we're going to fight for the release on June 17. I am terribly pleased with the verdict and relieved," he said. Director Sudhir Mishra said, "The verdict is fantastic. It makes me proud. This is great that the court has stood by young filmmaker Abhishek Cahubey who makes interesting and relevant films. The other filmmakers will now think freely." Madhur Bhandarkar told PTI: "It is a landmark judgement. It is a great victory for everyone connected with the movie and the film industry. The honourable court has given a positive judgement. I have always faced problems with the board since Chandni Bar to Calendar Girl, so today it is a victory of filmmakers," he said. Filmmaker Hansal Mehta said, "It's a welcome judgement. The high court has shown the way, but at the same time it's unfortunate that filmmakers have to knock the doors of the courts to get redressal when there is a body independently set up by the government to look into film. With this decision, the CBFC has expired. We should stop blaming individuals for these things. I think Pahlaj Nihalani is reflection of the system." Producer-director Vikram Bhatt said, "Today is our independence day. Udta Punjab is not just a film anymore. It is a movement and one that has ended in the victory of democracy." Noted film producer Mukesh Bhatt told PTI, "As a filmmaker and President of Film & Television Producers Guild of India, I am a very relieved man today. The entire film fraternity was worried thinking what was ahead of us. We thought this was the end of the tunnel. The verdict has re-enforced our faith in judiciary. We don't want a watchdog sitting on top of our heads, cutting the wings of creativity. The board must realise we need to change with times. Today in the age of internet and self-regulation you cannot create archaic laws." IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, June 7, 2016. 'If the dimensions of the strategic partnership worked out by India and the US seem like a grand alliance targeted at you-know-who, China had better realise that it has fathered it,' says B S Raghavan, a long time observer of China. My first reaction to the news that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was going to the United States for yet another meeting (his seventh) with President Barack Obama, was one of scepticism. My misgivings arose on four counts: First, about Modi over exposing himself, thereby incurring a dent on his gravitas, affecting his and India's emerging role as a world leader; second, about his being discounted in the eyes of the political leadership and public opinion in that country and the international community as a supplicant or a client of the US many of whose policies and approaches have been self-centred and hegemonic; third, about the possibility of such a manifestly effusive and effervescent relationship impairing India's capacity to judge world issues on merits and its right to independent decision-making; and fourth, about drawing needless attention on himself by investing so much time and energy in cosying up to someone who is lame duck. But seeing him in action on US soil, especially after going through the statement issued jointly by him and Obama, and more emphatically, after listening to his speech to the joint session of the US Congress, I am happy to cast off my misgivings like worn out garments. There is only one way of summing up the outcome of his visit: Modi has once again done India proud. I say 'once again' because I have by now watched him speaking at a variety of forums, and as a role model for effective communication, he is nonpareil. Among the country leaders in Asia, Africa, the West and the Indian Ocean Rim I have seen over my long many years in public life, Modi comes close to being a man for all seasons with unmistakable grasp over the many complex and intricate issues impacting the world. He captures and holds the attention of whatever audiences he addresses with a cogently and coherently woven tapestry combining sweep of vision with tangible pathways to realise it, as also with his conviction and commitment matched by impressive eloquence and flawless delivery. His ideas flow in the right sequence with the right emphasis, laced with humour at appropriate junctures. In his latest address to the US Congress, he quoted from the American national anthem, the Declaration of Independence and Walt Whitman with effortless ease and without fumbling and faltering. And he pulls it all off in a relaxed manner. That explains the rapturous ovations he got from the hard-boiled Congresspersons and Senators. Chapeau, Narendrabhai! There is a fitting answer to the reservation about his repeatedly meeting and doing business with a lame duck President. Presidents may be ephemeral, but governments are eternal, and once the directions and dimensions of a partnership are affirmed in a declaration signed on both sides, it binds the governments concerned in all aspects. The fact that the Modi-Obama joint statement has been enthusiastically welcomed by the leading lights of the US Congress and the media is a pointer to the US-India strategic partnership assuming broader, deeper and stronger proportions in the near future. Now to brass tacks. Let's face it: Whatever the camouflage, call it 'major defence partner' or the new found phrase coined during the current trip, 'priority partner,' India, under Modi, has wittingly and willingly decided to become the staunch ally of the US and signed and sealed something akin to an inviolable grand alliance for all practical purposes. For half-a-century after Independence, India was happy to be virtually in the camp of the Soviet Union which stood by it through thick and thin. Besides providing easy access to supplies of arms and weapons systems, it committed itself to military help in the case of attack on India and extended unquestioned and unconditional support to India's stand on Jammu and Kashmir in the United States and wherever the question was raised. But the tensions of the Cold War and the label of a Communist state constricted the influence and authority the Soviet Union; there was also some mild degree of unstated disreputability attached to India seeking its backing. For these reasons, there are those in India itself who argue that it would have been far more beneficial for India to have been the friend and partner of the US during those, what now seem to them, wasted years. In their view, by getting under the wings of the Soviet Union, India denied itself the gains flowing from the military might, technological prowess, and unbounded wealth of the US -- all of which would have been at its disposal. At that time, it was the anti-capitalist prejudices, and pro-socialist predilections of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and his daughter Indira Gandhi who also became prime minister, that ruled the roost making estranged democracies of India and the US. Rajiv Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, each in his own way, tried rebalancing the relations, but the inhibitions and repressions of the past disabled them from going the whole hog. Since the Leftists still had a sizeable presence and a vocal say in Parliament and in the country, they had to walk a tightrope so as not to be seen currying the favour of the US. Meanwhile, even the Congress and a preponderant section of India's political class had quietly veered round to the view that in the unipolar world in which the US has emerged a decisive player, it is best to side with the strongest, the richest and technologically the most advanced. Because of his spectacular electoral victory, Modi had far greater opportunity vouchsafed to him to shape India's relations with the US without the 'hesitations of history' (as he put it in his address to the US Congress) in terms of either ideology or the past baggage, and he has grasped it by taking India, based on his own world view, to where he believes India should be heading. One can be sure that this has not been without ratiocination or rationalisation of some kind. One can guess what must have provided the ballast to Modi deciding to throw in his lot with the US: China! Before I set out the basis for my statement, I must, for the record, make a disclosure: I have been, for as long as I have been writing on public issues, an ardent proponent of understanding and accommodation with China. I had a romantic vision that the two ancient civilisations, by working together and mutually reinforcing their strengths, can usher in a brave, new world order and put their stamp on the coming centuries. Alas, China has managed to shatter that vision by continuing to behave, in relation to India, like an insensitive, intractable, impolitic, implacable dragon in the China shop. I have been disillusioned to the extent of being driven to ask myself whether all the effort that India has put in from the time of Nehru to be on its right side has been futile. In retrospect, it would seem that the fiery socialist, George Fernandes, whose upbringing should have predisposed him towards China, and who was the defence minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's National Democratic Alliance government, was only being prescient when he declared publicly in 1998 that China was India's 'potential threat No 1.' He cautioned India to wake up to the fact that Chinese military activities and alliances, particularly those involving Pakistan, Burma (Myanmar) and Tibet, had begun to 'encircle' India. He was trenchantly critical of the 'carelessness and casual attitude' in regard to national security in recent decades, in the context of the reality of what China was doing. 'China has provided Pakistan with both missile as well as nuclear know-how,' he said. 'China has its nuclear weapons stockpiled in Tibet right along our borders... We have become a very soft people, and we must realise that nations are not built through soft options, nor are the country's frontiers secured by a soft line... One has to be willing to live a hard life.' It has insolently resorted to issuing 'stapled visas' to Indian passport holders hailing from Arunachal Pradesh wanting to travel to China, and has been brazen in warning prime ministers to desist from visiting that state. Off and on, its authorised spokespersons have been proclaiming Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese territory. More recently, it blocked UN action against Pakistan for releasing Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, allegedly the masterminded behind the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, blaming India for not providing adequate proof for his complicity. It has voiced its strong opposition to India's admission to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, without Pakistan also being made a member. All this makes nonsense of all the pampering of Chinese President Xi Jinping by Modi. In short, it has been using every conceivable opportunity to harm India's interests and has been myopic in pulling all stops to prop up Pakistan, a patently insolvent and failing State and a seedbed of terrorism, to boot. The other problem with China is its promulgation of its ever expanding core interests. It covers a wide range from sovereignty, territorial integrity and security (Tibet, Taiwan, Xinjiyang) to furtherance of its economic, commercial and maritime ambitions (the South China Sea, the Yellow Sea). It has been adding to them from time to time creating uncertainties and insecurities in the minds of its neighbours and the world community by its minatory attitude of confrontation. At this rate, nothing may stop China from extending the coverage of core interests to even the operation of exchange rate to suit China's exports-imports and currency management regimes, right to exercise veto over other countries' foreign and domestic policies, unilateral claim of ownership of other countries' territories, and deciding when, where and how it would strike to enforce its diktats! In sum, over a period, China has been proclaiming more and more areas to be out of bounds for the rest of the world, and taking aggressive postures to enforce its own version of the Monroe Doctrine. At one stroke, China has brought the entire Korean peninsula within its sphere of influence; it has enlarged the scope of maritime domination in strategic waters that connect Northeast Asia and the Indian Ocean; and it has asserted its interventionist rights over whatever has a bearing on its 'core interests'. The result is that even those who were in favour of friendly and harmonious relations with China, are now convinced that there is a megalomaniacal streak of insensitivity in its make-up leading to its behaviour as the odd person out and that it only understands the language of tit-for-tat. It may have a sobering effect on China if India also draws up its own list of inviolable, immutable core interests and asks China to adhere to them. It is not to be wondered if, in this background, other countries, notably those in its neighbourhood, with their own stakes and core interests, engage themselves in devising the means of injecting a sense of sobriety in China's conduct. In that sense, if the comprehensive and concrete dimensions of strategic partnership worked out by India and the US seem like a grand alliance targeted at you-know-who, China had better realise that it has fathered it. There is no point in the Global Times sermonising to India that 'Picking one side or camp against the other is not the way India will rise,' or that 'its great vision cannot be realised by bashing or containing China.' The commentary published by the Xinhua news agency was nearer the mark in acknowledging the strategic considerations behind the frequent meetings between Obama and Modi. It quoted Jin Canrong, vice-president of the School of International Studies at Renmin University, as saying that the 'US attaches importance to India's strategic value, economic development potential and ideological advantage... Embracing India will help consolidate the US rebalance to the Asia-Pacific... (and) India is willing to deepen the India-US relations out of the consideration in both strategic security and economic development.' I am content to let Jin Canrong have the last word. Mr B S Raghavan -- who joined the IAS in 1952, has served among other positions as chief secretary of Tripura. director, Political and Security Policy Planning at the Union home ministry and secretary, National Integration Council during the terms of India's first four prime ministers -- is currently patron of the Chennai Centre for China Studies and adviser to the Indo-Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The PM's vision of a lean, agile, mobile and technology driven force requires more than 1.7 percent of GDP that it now gets, says Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd). In December 2015, at the Combined Commanders Conference on board the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke both frankly and forthrightly. The address provides the necessary insight into what have been his government's thrusts so far and also objectives in the years ahead for regional security and military modernisation. On completing two years in saddle, how far have the Indians progressed to the goalposts is the moot question? It is important to recall the PM's view of the spectrum of security challenges we face before dwelling on various issues he flagged in his talk. 'We see terrorism and ceasefire violations; reckless nuclear build up and threats; border transgressions; and, continuing military modernisation and expansion,' he said. 'The shadow of West Asian instability is becoming longer,' he added. 'Beyond that, our region is marked by uncertain political transitions, weak institutions and internal conflicts. And, major powers have also increased their engagement in our land and maritime neighbourhood.' Having defined the threat he addressed modernisation of forces, 'We will soon reform our procurement policies and process. And our offsets policy will become a strategic tool for improving our capabilities in defence technologies.' The Defence Procurement Procedure-2016 was released during the DefExpo 2016 by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. Though a truncated version, it did address offsets and raised the offsets applicability from the existing stipulation of contracts over Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) to only those deals that are over Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion). What will be more important is how well we manage offsets. So far we have been unable to utilise offsets worth $11 billion to $12 billion (about Rs 7.37 lakh crore/Rs 737 billion to Rs 8.04 lakh crore/Rs 804 billion) that are either already due or in the pipeline. The new DPP does reduce the time we have been taking for military procurements to materialise, however, it still remains a long drawn process. Certain aspects, most importantly the policy for choosing strategic partners for complex, high value areas of defence production, is yet to be decided upon. The DPP will be more holistic in its scope only if these issues are quickly decided upon and incorporated in the DPP. The DPP-2016 also reflects the PM's emphasis on Make in India. A new category -- Indian Designed, Developed and Manufactured -- has been introduced and will be the first preference. The DPP provides Indian industry a level playing field in competing with global arms manufacturers. Regarding rightsizing of forces, the PM had said, '... major powers are reducing their forces and rely more on technology, we are still constantly seeking to expand...' Parrikar has issued instructions to the services to identify flab. The issue is all the more important with the army's raising a new mountain strike corps; an additional 35,000 personnel for even the truncated version being pursued as of now. A 11-member committee led by retired Lieutenant General D B Shekatkar has been constituted to go into various issues, including changes that will improve the tooth to tail ratio. Talking about the structural reforms of the armed forces, the PM said, 'We have been slow to reform the structures of our armed forces... And, we should promote jointness across every level of our armed forces. Jointness at the top is a need that is long overdue.' Of late, the issue of appointing a Chief of Defence Staff has gathered momentum with Parrikar being quite emphatic about it. Jointness also promises substantial reduction in manpower and would surely be looked into by General Shekatkar's committee. But, it will require political will and bureaucratic foresight to actualise the process by a top-down approach. Amongst other points, one that does make a definite statement about the Delhi dispensation's visualisation of Indian reach was, 'As our security horizons and responsibilities extend beyond our shores and borders, we must prepare our forces for range and mobility.' The Indian Navy is participating in exercises in the South China Sea and the north-western Pacific. They will also be undertaking port calls in a host of countries. Reports suggest strengthening of bases in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and P8I multi mission maritime patrol aircraft being deployed there. The strategic airlift capability has increased with the induction of Globemaster Transport aircraft. India's missile reach has been steadily enhancing too. There is a lot more in terms of reach to include seven stealth frigates and six submarines under construction; in fact close to 70 naval platforms are at various levels of completion. Rafales for the air force and a concerted effort at force modernisation with the emphasis on indigenisation will definitely enhance the reach of Indian forces. However, the PM's vision of a lean, agile, mobile and technology driven force requires more than 1.7 percent of GDP that it now gets. It also requires a thriving private defence sector, concerted research and development and the best human resources from premier colleges to fill the ranks of the military leadership. There is a huge gap between us and the Chinese already and if we limit our budgets to as severe levels as we have been practicing, we may not be able to field the quality of forces that can be a stabilising influence in the India Ocean region. Finally, the quality of personnel inducted is of paramount importance. The ingress of technology in warfare requires the best brains to optimise their employment in combat. The government and the armed forces will have to find ways and means of drawing the best talent. Undeniably, such an enhancement in quality of manpower induction pivots on the pay and allowances offered. 'Our policy seems to be to give away part of J&K, even though we are entitled to the entire state.' 'The Congress has done so, and the BJP is following the same policy.' 'No one is applying their mind to the legal position.' 'Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution.' IMAGE: A view of Srinagar from Pari Mahal, Kashmir. Photograph: Mridula Dwivedi Aman M Hingorani, a Supreme Court lawyer, has come up with an extremely well-researched and compelling book on the Kashmir dispute, Unravelling the Kashmir Knot (Sage). Dr Hingorani, left, below, believes it is imperative both to depoliticise the issue and then take recourse to resolving the dispute by following the legal route as a key way to achieve enduring peace. He spoke to Rediff.com contributor Rashme Sehgal. What made you want to do a book on Kashmir? I, as such, have no connection with Kashmir. I had completed my LLM from the UK and was searching for a topic for my doctoral thesis. My father, who was a pre-Partition lawyer, suggested that I look at the Kashmir issue as every conceivable principle of law had been turned on its head in creating and sustaining this issue. I felt that no comprehensive legal analysis on India's stand on J&K had been undertaken and I believed this would be an interesting area to look at academically. The Partition of India took place because the British wanted to create a sphere of influence in the sub-continent. Since the British had poor relations with the Congress, they felt the Congress would deny Britain military cooperation so they settled for the Muslim League and Mohammed Ali Jinnah to help them establish a separate State, namely Pakistan. The Great Game was being played out between Britain and Russia. The British wanted to stop Russian influence southwards, where the oil wells were located. The British knew they would have to transfer power to Indian hands, but they did not want to let go of the entire subcontinent. Jawaharlal Nehru had already stated that he did not want an independent India to be part of the Commonwealth. Declassified British archives disclose that since the British wanted to retain a slice of India, they felt that the north-western part of India (particularly, the North West Frontier Province) could become a friendly State for their strategic, political and defence interests. The Muslim League had been created by the British initially to communalise the Indian polity with a view to offset the freedom struggle spearheaded by the Congress. Since the north-western region of the sub-continent was predominantly Muslim, the British handpicked Jinnah to mouth the two nation theory in order to create Islamic Pakistan. For them, Pakistan was a means of continuing to wield power in this region. The British outwitted the Indian leadership into letting the Congress-ruled NWFP go to Pakistan, was complicit in Jinnah's 'Direct Action.' leading to a bloodbath in Bengal, Punjab and other parts of the country, and even effected the coup in the strategically located Gilgit to hand over such territory of J&K to Pakistan after J&K had acceded to India. "We are seeing terrorist movements in the guise of a freedom struggle because Nehru said the Kashmiris had the right to self-determination. We created the problem in the first place." The British were playing a dangerous game by stoking this religious frenzy between the Hindu and Muslim communities. They knew we would head for a bloodbath? They were ruthless, viewing the dead and dispossessed Indians as incidental damage. Lord Mountbatten is on record as having said 'What is 200,000 (dead Indians) out of 400 million? That is one person in 2,000, isn't it. It is a fractional percentage.' The whole world was looking with amazement at how we gave the British, who divided the country, a festive farewell. It seems shocking that the British were working according to a blueprint to divide the country about which the Congress did not have a clue. You write about the seeming innocence of Indian politicians. It was only a handful of Indian leaders in undivided India who were hobnobbing with Mountbatten. Following Partition, the British were heading both the Indian and Pakistani armies. We remained a British dominion till 1950. Right up to 1948, our entire Kashmir policy was being formulated by Mountbatten heading the Emergency Committee and the Defence Committee of the Indian Cabinet. IMAGE: The conference in New Delhi where Lord Louis Mountbatten disclosed Britain's plan for the Partition of India. Left to Right: Jawaharlal Nehru, Lord Ismay, adviser to Mountbatten, Lord Mountbatten, and Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images. How could we have been so naive? We were politically naive. My sense is that very effective smokescreens had been created by the British. They cultivated Jinnah. In the Simla Conference of 1945, they made Jinnah the sole representatives of all Indian Muslims even though he had little or no support of Indian Muslims. They identified influential Muslims to counter the Hindus and other Muslims. They set people against each another, like they did to disintegrate the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. They encouraged traditional Hindu-Muslim differences to deteriorate into a killing frenzy. Congress President Acharya (J B) Kripalani had said that if we go on like this, retaliating and heaping indignities upon each other, we shall progressively reduce ourselves to a stage of cannibalism and worse, and in every fresh communal fight the most brutal and degraded acts of the previous fight became the norm. The entire political leadership of undivided India was naive. The Pakistani historian Ayesha Jalan has written that people who we thought had statesmanship, acumen and far-sightedness were left blinking their eyes while the British divided the country with stern calmness. Nehru promised a plebiscite in J&K to determine the wishes of the people to accede to India or Pakistan. Both modern day India and Pakistan are creations of British statutes enacted to give effect to the political agreement driven by the British and the Muslim League, and eventually accepted by the Congress, to partition the sub-continent. According to this agreement, the British provinces were to be partitioned according to the two nation theory, which I have explained was conceived by the British to create Pakistan. However, all the princely states were to regain full sovereignty and that sovereignty vested in the ruler, regardless of the religious complexion of the people of that state. It was the ruler alone who could offer accession. These British statutes were accepted by India and Pakistan. Pakistan had taken the correct legal position that princely states were sovereign in the full sense of the term as of August 15, 1947. J&K was a sovereign state on August 15, 1947, which is why it could accede to sovereign India in October that year. Pakistan had no say in the matter. But because of the controversial accession of the princely states of Junagadh and Hyderabad, the Congress formulated a policy making the wishes of the people relevant to the accession of a princely state. Nehru then agreed that this would apply to J&K. But the question to be asked was whether Nehru could make a promise that was contrary to the constitutional law then in force and which was accepted by both India and Pakistan -- namely, the British statutes. These statutes -- the Indian Independence Act, 1947 and the modified Government of India Act, 1935 -- clearly stipulated that it was only the ruler who was competent to decide the future of his princely state. The Instrument of Accession by the princely states was unconditional and not subject to the wishes of the people. Yet Nehru sent cables to Liaquat Ali Khan and to world leaders that the accession of J&K to India was subject to the reference of the people of that state. New Delhi kept reiterating this stand even in its White Paper on J&K thereby creating a feeling of injustice amongst the Kashmiri people when no reference was held. It was overlooked by Nehru that once a political decision has been crystallised into law, the executive has to accept this for it cannot act beyond its power. New Delhi has acted beyond the scope of its power by promising self-determination and plebiscite in J&K. We are seeing terrorist movements in the guise of a freedom struggle because Nehru said the Kashmiris had the right to self-determination. We created the problem in the first place. IMAGE: 'On December 2, 1947, Nehru wrote to Maharaja Hari Singh that Sheikh Abdullah should be the prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir and should be asked to form the government. With this letter, Nehru took over the shaping of India's Kashmir policy so far played by Patel as minister of states,' Sanjeev Nayyar wrote in a column on Rediff.com Did Mountbatten play a devious role and outwit the Indian leadership to take the Kashmir problem to the United Nations? The British did not need the whole of Kashmir. They just needed the northern areas of J&K for the Great Game with the Russians, and the slice of land known as 'Azad Kashmir' to protect Pakistan from liquidation should India try to vacate the aggression. At the time of accession of J&K, Mountbatten said he would sign the Instrument of Accession (as the governor general of the Dominion of India) only if Nehru agreed to hold a plebiscite in J&K to determine the wishes of the people. He then persuaded Nehru to commit to plebiscite before the UN Security Council. The Security Council called for a cease-fire, without requiring Pakistan to first vacate the areas that it had occupied through aggression. Thus, in the guise of a cease-fire, the Security Council allowed Pakistan (and through Pakistan, the British) to retain precisely those areas of Kashmir which the British needed for the Great Game. It was a trap laid at the Security Council, which is a political entity. Interestingly, under the British statutes, the accession of J&K to India was unconditional, final and complete. But the British representatives argued to the contrary before the Security Council. The Security Council overlooked that when the UN accepted India as a member State, it accepted its territorial integrity, which includes the entire territory of J&K. Furthermore, Kashmir is not a part of Pakistan under its own constitution. What was the Indian stand after the Security Council debacle? Since then, the Indian policy seems to be of territorial status quo and of converting the LoC into the international border. That is, India would give up the territory of J&K occupied by Pakistan and China. At one time, the Supreme Court had held that Parliament can cede Indian territory. But after the formulation of the basic structure doctrine by the Supreme Court in 1973, even Parliament has no power to tinker with the basic structure of the Constitution. This, according to the Supreme Court, includes unity of the country. As a result, Parliament today cannot give away Indian territory. Unfortunately, our policy seems to be to give away part of the state, even though we are entitled to the entire state of J&K and we cannot legally give away any part of Indian territory. Following the policy of status quo, we handed over our own territory to Pakistan -- we gave away Haji Pir we won in the 1965 War, we gave away territory we had won in Kargil. Under what provisions of law are we handing over our territory to Pakistan? The Congress has done so, and the Bharatiya Janata Party is following the same policy. No one is applying their mind to the legal position. In fact, China is asking Pakistan (who has no right to any part of J&K) for legal documents for the Northern Areas in order that they can safeguard their economic investments in those areas. Your book talks of two steps to resolve the Kashmir issue. Since we created doubts about the unconditional nature of the accession of J&K to India, internationalised the Kashmir issue and conferred a disputed territory status on J&K, we need to, as a first step, confirm, as it were, our title deeds to J&K, which would clearly show that the whole of J&K belongs to us. The only body that can look into this issue is the International Court of Justice. We need a finding from this body because it will be binding on both India and Pakistan and all other members of the UN. Otherwise, no one is going to listen to us. If the International Court of Justice gives a verdict in our favour, then other nations will no longer be in a position to say that what is going on in J&K is a freedom struggle and will have to ask Pakistan (and China) to vacate the territory of J&K under their occupation. If we fail to convince the International Court of Justice, we fall back on our existing stand and so we lose nothing. Having the correct legal position will help alter the current political discourse and swing political opinion in our favour to create a momentum for winning the confidence of the people. But law alone will not resolve the Kashmir issue. The second step would be to regain the moral authority to be in J&K and to undo past mistakes. Once we make the international community accept that J&K is part of India, we must restore the sanctity of Article 370 of the Constitution, roll back the Armed Forces Special Powers Acts and try new methods of conflict resolution, and address the adverse ground realities. The chief justice of India has rightly said that we need to win over the hearts of the people in J&K. Are you optimistic? The Kashmiris generally feel that they have been backstabbed. Pakistan believes that Kashmir belongs to them. Debates in Indian universities are about whether we are an occupying army. The misconceived policy of territorial status quo is implicit in the Simla Agreement and the Lahore Declaration. We need to depoliticise the Kashmir issue by subjecting it to a legal analysis and then take steps to change the current political discourse, both nationally and internationally. We need to reclaim moral authority in J&K. The way forward suggested in the book is not an easy fix, but is the only viable option we have. Whether we will be able to win over the confidence of the people of J&K depends, in the ultimate analysis, on the character of the Indian State and of the men and women who run it. Relatives of John Philip have informed the Kerala CM and the external affairs minister that they suspect it to be a case of abduction. A 47-year-old Indian national has been reported missing from his workplace in Sunaina near Ibri in Oman, his relatives said on Monday. Relatives of John Philip, who hails from nearby Manarcadu said they suspected it to be a case of abduction. We have informed the matter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, they said. According to his brother Jacob Philip, John had gone missing from the fuel filling station in Sunaina in Ibri, some 217 kilometre from Muscat since Friday night. John had been working as a supervisor in the station for the last 12 years, he said. His colleagues reported for duty on Saturday and alerted the Oman police after they found signs of disturbance at the station, he added. The CCTV camera and its hard disc was also found missing from the petrol pump, where John was the only person on duty on Friday night, the relatives claimed. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP's national president Amit Shah during the party's National Executive Meet in Allahabad on Sunday. Photograph: PTI Photo A war of words broke out on Monday over alleged migration of Hindus from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh with the Bharatiya Janata Party saying it is not good for democracy and that a party team will be sent to probe the sensitive issue, prompting Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav to accuse the saffron leaders of resorting to lies. As political temperatures rose over the alleged exodus of Hindus from Kairana village in Shamli district in western Uttar Pradesh ahead of elections due in the state next year, the BJP promised proper action after the completion of the probe. Shamli district had witnessed communal riots in 2013. A day after BJP chief Amit Shah expressed serious concern over the migration, senior BJP leader and Union minister Nitin Gadkari said his party has taken up the issue with all seriousness. (The) party president has set up a committee, which will go there and study the situation. Such a migration is not good for democracy. The party is sensitive about it and proper steps will be taken after the report comes, Gadkari told reporters on the second day of BJP National Executive meeting in Allahabad. The seven-member committee comprises four MPs and three leaders from UP. Gadkari, a former BJP president, parried a question about the Samajwadi Party governments assertion that many Hindus had migrated from Kairana long back and some of them are now already dead, saying the BJP President has already reacted to this matter. The party is sensitive on this issue and will take proper action, was his repeated refrain. Akhilesh Yadav accused BJP leaders of being dishonest and lying on the issue and said he would like to see better work from the party. The BJP is alleging that the Samajawadi Party government forced the people flee from Kairana... (the) BJP can be dishonest to this extent, Yadav told reporters in Mathura after meeting the families of two police officers killed in the violence that erupted during an anti-encroachment drive on June 2. Yadav claimed that most of the people left the village about 10 to 15 years back while others left in search of jobs about seven or eight years back. A house to house search shows the lie of BJP, he said, adding that in fact BJP does not have any issue like development and would only tout digital India whereas the state has made tremendous progress under the SP-led government like distribution of laptops, construction of roads and bridges and providing power for long hours. Taking a dig at the BJP, which is seeking to wrest power from the SP in the state, Yadav said he would like to see better work from the BJP. I want them to show some work. They should come and say that they distributed laptops to the people and not only talk about digital India, he added. Shah, in his address to the National Executive on Sunday, had said, The migration happening in Kairana due to violence is a matter of serious concern. There is an atmosphere of violence. The lack of development and the lack of governance in the largest state of India, that is Uttar Pradesh, is becoming a matter of serious concern. Meanwhile, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad held that jihadi elements responsible for the alleged exodus of Hindus from Kairana and asked the SP government to rein them in and tighten law and order in the state. "Jihadis are being encouraged to carry out their activities... (the) VHP calls upon the state government to rein in (the) jihadi elements who are responsible for this exodus and tighten the law and order in the state, VHP joint general secretary Surendra Jain said. He hit out at SP leader and state minister Azam Khan over his statements on the Kairana issue and said it only proved the anti-Hindu mindset promoted by him. Jain said the migration of Hindus from Kairana is unfortunate and the township, which was a Hindu majority 40 years ago, now has only eight per cent Hindus. "It is not only Kairana in Uttar Pradesh that is a mute testimony to the exodus of Hindus, there are many more places other than Kairana which are also witnessing this trend of mass out-migration of Hindus. Apart from Kandhla, Gangoh and Thanabhavan, there are many other places in Western UP where Hindus are resorting to mass out-migration, he said. The VHP leader alleged this dismal state of affairs has not come about in one day and unfortunately the parties that have been governing UP have concentrated more on vote bank politics rather than the interests of the nation and the state. Instead of taking action against the criminals, they provided political patronage to them. The Centre on Monday said it is working round the clock to secure the release of Judith DSouza who has been abducted in Afghanistan even as her family wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to do his utmost in ensuring that she is reunited with them at the earliest. This is a very delicate matter. Human life is at stake. We are working round the clock. I cannot share details, tweeted External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj while responding to a question on what steps government has taken to rescue the 40-year-old woman from Kolkata. The Indian Embassy in Kabul has been in constant touch with the Afghan authorities. Official sources said government was in constant touch with Afghan authorities and they are making all efforts to trace and ensure her release. Meanwhile, keeping the hope alive that Judith will be home soon, her family on Monday wrote to the prime minister, urging him to do his utmost in securing her release. Her father Denzil DSouza, mother Gloria DSouza, brother Jerome DSouza and sister Agnes DSouza wrote a common letter to Modi, whose copies were sent to the external affairs minister, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Trinamool Congress member of Parliament from the state Derek OBrien. In the letter, the family members have said the brave, thoughtful, generous and compassionate Judith had been working in Afghanistan for the well-being of the Afghan people and as an ambassador of goodwill from Indias people, participating in the developmental programmes of that country. Describing her as a proud Indian, the family said, as you can imagine, the news of Judiths kidnapping has shocked and stunned us. It has placed a shroud upon our family. They added, We were eagerly awaiting her arrival home on vacation in a week from now, and do hope she will be back with us soon. Judith, working for an international non-governmental organisation Aga Khan Foundation as senior technical adviser, was kidnapped by suspected militants in the heart of Kabul three days back. She was scheduled to return to India this week. The family members said the government has reached out to them in our time of need and anxiety and the external affairs minister as well as an official of the ministry had spoken to them in the past two days. However, we still await concrete details, they said. Sir, we appeal to you in your capacity as the leader of our great country and as the custodian of the well-being of our citizens, to please do your utmost to get dear Judith back home, among her family, her friends and her people. Please commit all levers you can bring into play to successfully reunite our family, the family wrote in the letter to the prime minister. The letter from Judiths family members noted Modis remarks earlier that Afghanistans success is a deeply-held hope and desire of every Indian and said it is so critical to Indias engagement with the neighbouring country. ...we seek your active support under this noble sentiment as well. The family had words of praise for the Mamata Banerjee government. In Kolkata, where we have lived our lives and where Judith was born and educated, the community, our peers and the government, led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, have left us overwhelmed with our warmth and solidarity in this hour of crisis for our family, they said. Earlier, the family members had said yesterday that the Centre was doing its best to bring Judith back. There has been lot of communication from the MEA and the Union government. A joint secretary level officer is coordinating with us. We have full faith on the Indian government and the MEA, they are doing their best to bring my sister back. We have also spoken to the organisation my sister was working for, Judiths brother Jerome said on Sunday. Swaraj on Friday last had called up Judiths family and assured them of making all-out efforts to bring her back. IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani interact during the party's National Executive meet in Allahabad. Photograph: PTI Photo Skipping any mention of controversial issues, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday asked party workers to follow seven mantras, including empathy and restraint in their conduct, and said people are not content with mere slogans but concerned about how the nation is being strengthened. Delivering his concluding address to the partys National Executive, which saw its president Amit Shah raising concerns over migration of Hindus from a communally-sensitive western Uttar Pradesh town, Modi made no reference to the controversial issues and instead asked leaders to use power for the benefit of society. He also invoked Maratha icon Shivaji, saying he did not enjoy the fruits of power despite being a ruler and sarcastically added that the country has on the contrary also seen those who enjoyed the fruits of power without legitimately owning it, a veiled dig at the Gandhi family of the Congress. The prime minister referred to the partys win in Assam and growth in Kerala and West Bengal and had a word of caution for its leaders and workers. We are witnessing history in the making. We are benefitting from the hardwork of crores of workers for over many decades in building the party. We are in power in the Centre and many states as well. We should not get affected by this power but think as to how we can use this for the societys benefit. There is a need to strengthen the nation. People are no longer satisfied only with slogans. They are concerned over how the nation is being made strong, he said. Briefing reporters about Modis speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the prime minister also laid down seven mantras for party workers to follow in their conduct and policy. Sevabhaav, santulan, sanyam, samnway, sakaratmak, sadbhavana and samvad (Service, balance, restraint, coordination, positivity, empathy and dialogue) The PM stressed to the workers that all these seven traits should be reflected in their conduct and policy, Jaitley said. He had earlier used the word sadbhavna (harmony) but later clarified that it was samvedna (empathy). To sum up, the message from the National Executive is that when the partys political power has grown, this power has to be used for the society, Jaitley said. To a question over what was the provocation for Modi to lay down a seven point mantra, he quipped, Politicians make well-considered statements, not necessarily under provocations. At the National Executive, the prime minister spoke at length about the importance of sensitiveness, saying that it is not with words but with continuous good behaviour and conduct, one can win over people. Citing examples like somebody helping others cross the road, Modi said a similar sensitivity can be shown in policies like vaccination of children. If we ensure that no child is spared vaccination as it will prevent them from developing health problems, then it is sensitivity, party sources quoted him as saying. Jaitley quoted the prime minister as saying that India has missed a chance to grow during industrial revolution but has got another such chance now, which if utilized properly will strengthen the nation. Asked about the Kairana issue, Jaitley said that the party President had already referred to both Kairana and Mathura issues on Sunday and the party has nothing more to say on it. His remarks came hours after Union minister Nitin Gadkari dubbed the migration of Hindus from the area as bad for democracy and promising proper action after probe by a party team into the matter. Targeting Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, Jaitley dared him to accept the results of 2017 assembly polls as a referendum on law and order in the state under his tenure. If he is so confident about law and order here, then (the) BJP is ready to accept the 2017 polls as a referendum on law and order. If this election is accepted as a referendum on 2017 polls, it will hurt Samajwadi Party very much, Jaitley said. The Union finance minister also faced questions over the long-pending goods and services tax bill in Parliament on which he expressed confidence that the number of those supporting the bill is growing and made it clear that he will approach all parties on the issue, including All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, to see the bill through. Underlining the significance of the timing of the National Executive, he said that it was happening at a time when Modi government has completed two years and assembly election results of five states have come in which BJP has registered victory and growth in those areas where the party was not traditionally very strong. Jaitley said, 2014 Lok Sabha poll was an important occasion, when the BJP emerged as the largest party. 2016 has its own significance. If seen politically, the popularity of the prime minister and his government is not only in place but has risen. Geographically, the party was rising even in those areas, where it was weak historically, he said, noting that there was a particular significance of BJP forming government in Assam and increasing its vote share in Kerala and West Bengal. We believed so far that there are two important political parties in the country besides some other small parties. In 2016, a huge difference has come in the comparative power and popularity of the two. So from the political point of view, this is very important for the party to take the country forward while remaining in power and expand in North East analyzing the present political scenario there, Jaitley said. Party Chief Amit Shah talked about the need to establish a party office in each district and inter-connectivity among all of them. Unveiling future expansion target of the party, Shah said at the National Executive that the party needs to be strengthened further in seven states like West Bengal, Assam, Kerala, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Jaitley said that one of the objectives of the meeting was also to deliberate on how to take the nation forward and credited the Modi government with making India the brightest spot and fastest growing economy from a state of policy paralysis. The US Embassy in New Delhi on Monday lit up its building with rainbow colours to show solidarity towards the LGBT community in the wake of an attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando which left 50 dead. IMAGE: US Embassy celebrates the LGBT Pride Month with lighting the Embassy Bulding in Ranbow colors in New Delhi on Monday. Photograph: Photograph: Atul Yadav/PTI The embassy will also raise the rainbow flag along with the American flag following the mourning period for the victims of the Orlando attack. "The US stands firmly by the principles of equality for all, including members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community. "It is in this spirit, and in celebration of June's LGBTI Pride month, that the US Embassy is lighting the Embassy building in the iconic colours of the LGBTI movement," said Michael Pelletier, Charges d' Affaires at the US Embassy in New Delhi in a statement. "We will raise the rainbow flag with the American flag, once the American flag has been raised to full-staff following the mourning period for the victims of the Orlando attack," Pelletier said. Quoting US President Barack Obama, the statement said, "In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another. We will not give into fear." Forty-nine people and a heavily-armed gunman died when he opened fire and held hostages at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, police said in the worst mass shooting in US history. Mommy I love you. In club they shooting. Hes coming. Im gonna die. IMAGE: Women embrace before a make-shift memorial in front of the Stonewall Inn where a vigil was held following the massacre that occurred at a gay Orlando nightclub. Photograph: Monika Graff/Getty Images Thats what a terrified 30-year-old man texted his mother while trapped inside the Orlando, Florida nightclub where at least 50 people were killed early Sunday. Mina Justice was outside the club trying to contact her 30-year-old son Eddie Justice, who texted her when the shooting happened and asked her to call the police. 133 The number of mass shootings in the United States in 2016 The number of mass shootings in the United States in 2016 15 The number of mass shootings in Florida this year The number of mass shootings in Florida this year He told her he ran into a bathroom with other club patrons to hide and then wrote hes coming. The next text said: He has us, and hes in here with us, Mina Justice said. That was the last conversation. Its unclear so far whether Justice was one of the casualties. Some Orlando massacre survivors have started to speak about their struggle to stay alive. About 2 am at Pulse nightclub, one of the club patrons, Chris Hansen, thought the popping sound was part of the music. It went with the beat almost, he said later. A man with a gun, an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, was shooting people. Witnesses described dead bodies littering the ground and people trampling over one another in their struggle to stay alive. IMAGE: The texts that Eddie Justice sent to his mother Mina around 2 am on Sunday when the shooter entered Pulse nightclub and went on a rampage. Ricardo Negron Almodovar was in the club when Omar Mateen let a shower of bullets rain in the club. He wrote on Facebook: I was there. Shooter opened fire around 2:00 am. People on the dance floor and bar got down on the floor and some of us who were near the bar and back exit managed to go out through the outdoor area and just ran. "I am safely home and hoping everyone gets home safely as well L Officials have begun releasing the names of the dead as family members were notified. So far, six men have been formally identified, including Edward Sotomayor junior, who was 34. Sotomayor was a national brand manager for ALandCHUCK.travel, a travel agency catering to the gay community. Other named victims include Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20, Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, Peter Gonzalez-Cruz, 22, and Luis Vielma, 22. Tales of horror continue to emerge from the patrons at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, the site of the deadliest mass shooting in the United States and the nation's worst terror attack since 9/11. IMAGE: FBI agents investigate near the damaged rear wall of the Pulse Nightclub where Omar Mateen allegedly killed at least 50 people on June 12. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images Pulse describes itself as "the hottest gay bar" in the heart of Orlando. Hours before the shooting, the club urged partygoers to attend its "Latin flavor" event Saturday night, CNN reported, adding, that the the cavernous club was hosting more than 300 patrons late Saturday and into Sunday morning. Normally packed with dancers, the club was filled with chaos immediately as Omar Mateen, the shooter, opened fire. Jackie Smith, who was inside the club and says two of his friends were shot, told the Associated Press after release from Orlando Regional Medical Centre: "Some guy walked in and started shooting everybody. He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance. I just tried to get out of there." Club goer Christopher Hansen who escaped the club, later told CNN, "It's just shocking, I just saw bodies going down." IMAGE: Savannah (left) is embraced by her friend Ricky during a vigil to commemorate victims of a mass shooting at the Pulse gay night club in Orlando. Savannah said she lost a friend in the shooting. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters He heard gunshots, "just one after another after another." The gunshots went on for so long that the shooting "could have lasted a whole song," he said. Witnesses said Mateen aimed at people, who dropped to the ground. For the next three hours, law enforcement and SWAT members worked to rescue hostages from inside the club. "People were trampling over each other," said Jillian Amador, whose arm was cut by broken glass. "I feel terrible. I have anxiety. I'm scared. I don't want to go out." "At first I thought it was fireworks ... I didn't believe it, then I saw people on the ground and people running," she told the Orlando Sentinel. Rosie Feba, who was at Pulse with her girlfriend, said: "She told me someone was shooting. Everyone was getting on the floor. I told her I didn't think it was real, I thought it was just part of the music until I saw fire coming out of his gun." Janiel Gonzalez, 26, said he was sober and he remembers checking his watch just before walking up to the bar at Pulse nightclub. IMAGE: Two women hold each other at a vigil outside The Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, considered by some as the center of New York State's gay rights movement, following the shooting massacre at Orlando. Photograph: Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters "I was ordering a Red Bull at the bar. I decided not to drink alcohol last night. As I was signing my tab, out of nowhere, I heard gunfire," he told The Palm Beach Post. At first, he said, people thought it was a fireworks display for the music. "But it got louder and louder," he said, adding "It wasn't until everybody started smelling the ammunition everybody realized this is real life." "Everybody dropped to the floor. We were trying to look for an exit. But the main exit was right next to the entrance where the shooter was shooting," he said. "In a moment of desperation we were all crawling on the floor trying to find a place to exit. I looked to my right and I could see people going through some curtains. We were digging through the curtains and found a door." IMAGE: Investigators work the scene following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters But he said the door was blocked by a man. He wasnt sure if it was a club security person or an accomplice to the gunmen. "Fifty people were trying to jump over each other trying to exit the place. There was a guy holding the door and not letting us exit. Hes like 'Stay inside, stay inside'. As he is saying that, the shooter keeps getting closer and closer and the sound of the bullets is getting closer. Everyone starts to panic. People are getting trampled. Let us out, let us out!" The Delhi governments Bill to exclude the post of parliamentary secretary from the office of profit has been refused assent by the President, raising questions over the fate of 21 AAP MLAs, who have been appointed to the posts. The refusal puts a question mark over the membership of 21 Aam Aadmi Party MLAs, who have been appointed parliamentary secretaries by the Arvind Kejriwal government. Petitions have been filed with the President seeking disqualification of these MLAs on the ground that they occupied office of profit in violation of Constitution. Acting as a quasi judicial body, the Election Commission to whom the President referred the issue has sought replies of the MLAs. Meanwhile, the Delhi government had sought an amendment to the Delhi Members of Legislative Assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. Through the Bill, the AAP government wanted retrospective exemption for the parliamentary secretaries from disqualification provisions. The Bill was forwarded by Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to the Centre, which in turn was sent to the President with its comments. However, the President did not give his assent to the Bill, official sources said. On March 13, 2015, Kejriwal had passed an order appointing the 21 party MLAs as parliamentary secretaries. Subsequently, the AAP government had sought an amendment to the Delhi members of legislative assembly (Removal of Disqualification) Act, 1997. Questions have been raised over their appointment by the Opposition. The Lt Governor had said the office of parliamentary secretary is defined as an office of profit if one looks at the statutes of Delhi and that as per the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, the city can have only one parliamentary secretary attached to the office of the chief minister. The 21 MLAs include Alka Lamba, Jarnail Singh, Adarsh Shastri and Rajesh Gupta. Following the AAP governments move, Prashant Patel, a lawyer, petitioned the Election Commission seeking disqualification of the MLAs. The EC had earlier issued notices asking them to explain how their appointment as parliamentary secretaries does not fall under office of profit and why their Assembly membership should not be cancelled. The 21 AAP MLAs, facing the risk of disqualification from the assembly on office of profit issue, have sought a personal hearing before the Election Commission. In their response to the poll body, the MLAs have said that parliamentary secretary is a post without any remuneration or power. A senior party functionary maintained that there was no pecuniary benefit associated with the post. Following the decision, the AAP held an emergency meeting to deliberate on possible situation if 21 of its MLAs lose membership of the assembly. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal reacted sharply to the development and targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, alleging that he does not respect democracy and was only fearful of the AAP. The meeting presided over by Kejriwal deliberated on the President refusing assent to the Bill. At the meeting, many AAP leaders were severely critical of the Centre as they said the President rejected the Bill on the recommendation of the Modi government. Kejriwal took to the twitter to express his anger. He said no MLA was given a single paisa, car or bungalow in their capacity as Parliamentary Secretary and said they were giving services for free. Modiji says all of you sit at home. Should not work, he said adding MLAs were tasked to look after power supply, water supply, functioning of hospitals and schools. Modiji says neither will work nor will allow to work, Kejriwal said. IMAGE: A man lays flowers at a memorial outside The Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, considered by some as the center of New York States gay rights movement, following the shooting massacre at Orlandos Pulse nightclub, in the Manhattan borough of New York, on Monday. Photograph: Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters Sikh-Americans, who have faced hate crimes after every major terror attack, fear a backlash following the Orlando gay club shooting even as the Obama Administration has assured them of their safety. In a bid to allay growing concerns within the community, the White House sent one of its top officials to a Gurdwara in the suburb of Washington, DC on Sunday to meet members of the Sikh community and local leadership to assure them about their safety and interest. We know, this is a time when some in the community fear unease, Cecilia Munoz, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House, said after her interaction with the Sikh community at the oldest Gurdwara of Maryland -- Guru Nanak Foundation of America. She also attended sangat with its members. I shared the work that the federal government is doing to make sure that every child is safe and secure, every person is feeling safe and secure in the places of worship and the places where they work and the places where they study, Munoz said, adding that there was no need to be fearful. Her visit to the Gurdwara was planned a few days ago but her presence was very timely in terms of the new wave of fear that has gripped the community because of the Orlando incident -- the deadliest mass shooting in Americas history. Omar Mateen, an Afghan-origin gunman who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando in the wee hours of Sunday and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. This is a country of great diversity. We cherish that diversity. We celebrate it. We feel great gratitude to the Sikh community for the many many contributions to the United States, Munoz said. It is fundamental to our democracy that people have freedom of worship, but also have freedom from fear, she said, adding that the Obama Administration has taken steps to address these challenges. Paramvir Singh Soni, chairperson of the Guru Nanank Foundation of America, acknowledged that there is a sense of fear in the community and said the Sikh-Americans are touched by the steps being taken by US President Barack Obama in this regard. We are still looking for stronger actions against hate crimes. I think there we need to do some more work, but we are making progress, he said. Singh said the community wants to have the next president as one who can address its challenge. Someone who is more open to the Sikh community, somebody who is more engaged, he said. Dr Rajwant Singh, Washington-based chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said the Sikh community is very concerned about the possible backlash because of the Orlando killings. We are thankful to the White House for sending Cecilia Munoz to the Sikh congregation in Silver Spring in Maryland. As we were thrilled by this kind gesture, our hearts were broken with the terrible news about the merciless killings of so many innocent people in Orlando, Singh said. We have had several incidents of violence after the San Bernardino killings last December. We are praying for the victims but at the same time very concerned that how this would impact the Sikh community across the nation, he said. We have conveyed that this needs to be spelled out by the White House and we request that President Obama include and mention Sikhs particularly in his remarks while issuing a statement about the Orlando tragedy. Sikh congregations across the country would need some security assistance and capacity building resources, Singh said. The Sikh Coalition, in a statement, condemned the Orlando shooting as a terrible act of terror, hate and bias-based violence and bigotry against minority communities, including the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) community. In the aftermath of such events, minority religious communities are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge every Sikh to exercise extra vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety, it said. In another statement, the Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund condemned the hateful attack on the LGBT community in OrlandoFlorida. American Sikh Council ASC said it is extremely distressed by the indescribable act of mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in the city of Orlando As a result of such events, religious communities like the Sikh-Americans are acutely vulnerable to backlash, and we urge everyone to exercise vigilance and caution during this period of heightened anxiety. Please notify the local law enforcement in case of any threats of violence, it said in a statement. IMAGE: Security personnel seize the bus from which a terrorist opened fire at a CRPF camp in Kud area of Udhampur district in J&K on Monday. Photograph: ANI Security forces on Monday gunned down a militant who targeted a Central Reserve Police Force camp on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway after a state road transport bus in which he was travelling was intercepted for checking at Kud. Three civilians -- two women and a child -- were injured in the incident in Udhampur district, which falls in Jammu region of the state, police said. One of the women later succumbed to injuries in the hospital. The State Road Transport Corporation bus was on its way from Kashmir Valley to Jammu when it was stopped for checking at Kud, about 170 km from Jammu. Police and the CRPF were frisking all the Jammu-bound vehicles at Kral Nallah area in Kud when they stopped an SRTC bus and during its checking, an unidentified suspected terrorist opened fire at them this evening, Director General of Police K Rajendra Kumar said. IMAGE: Traffic stopped at the Jammu-Srinagar highway after the attack. Photograph: Umar Ganie In the cross-fire, one terrorist was killed and one AK-47 rifle and one pistol were recovered from him. He said it seems only one terrorist was travelling in the bus. He said while it seems that the attack was carried out by one terrorist, the security forces cordoned off the area and launched a combing operation to ensure that no other suspected militant was involved in the attack. The firing has stopped, the CRPF and police are on the spot and we are carrying a combing operation. Investigation is also on to ascertain the identity of the slain militant, the state police chief said. Inspector General of Police Jammu, Danesh Rana said that one terrorist has been eliminated even though the search operation is on. He also said that a civilian woman who was injured in the attack died in hospital. With inputs from Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar. At least 50 people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas - the deadliest mass shooting in the history of United States. IMAGE: A Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer stands in the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue after a mass shooting at a country music festival nearby. Photograph: Ethan Miller/Getty Images Here's a look at other such incidents that have struck the country in recent times. June 12, 2016 A lone gunman armed with an assault rifle shot and killed 50 people and injured 53 others at Pulse -- a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida in June, 2016, making it one of the deadliest mass shooting in the US which was also described as the "worst terror attack" in American history since 9/11. >> Tragedy strikes Pulse nightclub December 2, 2015 Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his partner Tashfeen Malik, 27 -- armed with assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns, and dressed in 'assault-style clothing', stormed the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The shot 14 people dead and wounded 17. >> Pak-origin couple open fire at Christmas party in US July 20, 2012 James Eagan Holmes arrived at the Aurora movie theatre armed with guns, ammunition, tear gas and a gas mask before indiscriminately shooting moviegoers during a midnight screening of 'The Dark Knight Rises', killing 12 and injuring 70. The 27-year-old was sentenced to life in prison without parole. >> Gunman kills 14 during 'Dark Knight' screening December 14, 2012 Adam Lanza, 20, killed 28 people including 20 children and eight adults in Sandy Hook Elementary School in the US state of Connecticut. Lanza first killed his mother at their shared home before taking her guns and driving to the school. >> 20 children among 28 dead in US school shooting April 3, 2009 Jiverly Wong, 42, a Vietnamese immigrant invaded an immigration services centre in downtown Binghamton, New York, during citizenship classes and shot 13 people to death and critically wounded 4 others before killing himself. November 5, 2009 Nidal Hasan, a US Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others at Fort Hood, Texas. The shooting produced more casualties than any other on an American military base. He was convicted and sentenced to death by a military jury after just two hours of deliberation. He said he acted to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American aggression. >> Upset at Iraq posting, US army major guns down 12 April 16, 2007 Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old student from the Republic of Korea goes on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg of Virginia, killing 32 people and wounding 15 others before killing himself. It was the worst school shooting in the US history. >> The Viriginia Tech Massacre April 20, 1999 Seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold storm Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado shooting four guns and carrying dozens of pipe bombs. They kill 12 classmates, one teacher and then themselves. They also wound 23 others. Authorities find a powerful 20-pound propane-tank bomb Harris and Klebold had planted in the school's kitchen. Officials later say if it had gone off, hundreds of people would have been killed. October 16, 1991 George Hennard, 35, opened fire crashed his blue Ford Ranger though a floor-to-ceiling window at Luby's Cafeteria just off US Highway 190 in Kileen, Texas. He then shot dead 23 people and wounded 20 others before retreating to a restroom and killing himself. August 20, 1986 Patrick Henry Sherrill, a part-time mail carrier who thought he was being treated unfairly, entered the Edmond Post Office in Oklahoma armed with three handguns. He killed 14 postal workers in 10 minutes before killing himself. July 18, 1984 James Oliver Huberty, a 41-year-old unemployed security guard dressed in camouflage fatigue pants, walked into San Ysidro McDonald's restaurant armed with an Uzi semiautomatic rifle, a shotgun and a pistol and started shooting. He killed 21 people and injured 19 others before he was slain by a police sharpshooter. At the time, it was the largest massacre in the United States. August 1, 1966 Charles Whitman, a 25-year-old architectural engineering major and ex-Marine who had previously complained of searing headaches and depression -- climbed to the top of the University of Texas Tower with three rifles, two pistols, and a sawed-off shotgun. From there, he killed 14 and wounded at least 30 before police officers shot him dead. He had already murdered his mother, Margaret, and his wife, Kathy, earlier that morning. Republican presidential presumptive nominee Donald Trump on Monday called for vigilance on Muslims and mosques in the US, a day after an Afghan-origin gunman killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in the deadliest shooting in American history. "We need much better intelligence gathering information. We need intelligence gathering centers, because the people in the communities where these people are, they know there's something off. They know there's something going on," he said. "We need intelligence gathering. We have to look at the mosques. We have to look at the community. And believe me, the community knows the people that have potential for blow up," said Trump, who has been criticised for advocating a ban on Muslim immigrants. Citing the example of last year's San Bernardino shooter, Trump said there were bombs all over his apartment floor. "You're going to find that with this mad man (Orlando shooter). People in the area, the people in the neighborhood, they know there's something off with him, and they don't report them to the police," he told CNN. "This is much different, than when we fight a war with Germany or with Japan, and they have uniforms," Trump said. "It's an enemy without a uniform, George. It's very dangerous. We're fighting an enemy without a uniform," Trump told ABC. In response to a question, Trump told the CNN that this is going to be "pure intelligence gathering, and people... Muslims, where they are, they have to report these people. Otherwise it's going to be a bigger, bigger problem." Defending his view on right to carry fire arm, Trump said things could have been different if there were other people in the club carrying guns. "If you had some guns in that club the night that this took place, if you had guns on the other side, you wouldn't have had the tragedy that you had," he said. "If people in that room had guns with the bullets flying in the opposite direction right at him... right at his head, you wouldn't have had the same tragedy that you ended up having. And nobody even knows how bad that tragedy is, because I think probably the numbers will get bigger and bigger and worse and worse. I hear the injured are so gravely injured," he asserted. Pushing for increased surveillance, he said this is the case of intelligence gathering, information. "Many people that knew him felt that he was a whack job, he something like this would have happened. I already hear it starting to happen of people that knew him, the ex-wife and other people," he said. "They don't report them. For some reason, the Muslim community does not report people like this. So, we do have two different standards. We have people that live here and have become radicalised and have been radicalised," he said. The Republican White House contender took the time to pat himself on the back for being right on radical Islamic terrorism and sought the resignation of US President Barack Obama. IMAGE: People hold a vigil after the worst mass shooting in US history at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in front of the White House in Washington. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters Republican White House contender Donald Trump has called on US President Barack Obama to resign for not using the term radical Islamic terrorism to describe the gay club massacre even as his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton backed redoubling of efforts to defeat terror groups. Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism? If he doesnt he should immediately resign in disgrace! Trump said in a series of tweets as he slammed the US President for not blaming radical Islam for the terror attack by the lone Afghan-origin gunman Omar Mateen at a public bar in Orlando that claimed at least 50 lives. In another tweet, Trump claimed that Mateen shouted Allah hu Akbar! as he slaughtered clubgoers. The police, however, is yet to corroborate this claim of Trump. The 69-year-old presumptive Republican presidential nominee also stated that a second man was arrested in Los Angeles with rifles near the Gay parade. The police, however, has so far ruled out any linkage with the Orlando shooting, which is the deadliest mass shooting in American history. In a separate statement, Trump also asked Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to get out of the race. In his remarks today, President Obama disgracefully refused to even say the words radical Islam. For that reason alone, he should step down. If Hillary Clinton, after this attack, still cannot say the two words radical Islam she should get out of this race for the Presidency, Trump demanded. Last night our nation was attacked by a radical Islamic terrorist. It was the worst terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11 and the second of its kind in six months. My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded and their families, he said. If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore. Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen and it is only going to get worse. I am trying to save lives and prevent the next terrorist attack. We cant afford to be politically correct anymore, Trump said. Meanwhile, Clinton, 68, described the Orlando mass shooting as an act of terror and called for redoubling of efforts to defeat international terror groups. Islamic State has claimed credit for the mass shooting carried out by 29-year-old Mateen, the New York-born American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan. This was an act of terror. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies are hard at work and we will learn more in the hours and days ahead. For now, we can say for certain that we need to redouble our efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad, Clinton said. That means defeating international terror groups, working with allies and partners to go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defences at home, she said. It also means refusing to be intimidated and staying true to our values, Clinton said in a statement. Describing Mateen as a terrorist, Trump said the shooter was the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for president of Afghanistan. According to Pew, 99 per cent of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law. We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States, he said. Hillary Clinton wants to dramatically increase admissions from the Middle East, bringing in many hundreds of thousands during a first term -- and we will have no way to screen them, pay for them, or prevent the second generation from radicalising, Trump alleged. We need to protect all Americans, of all backgrounds and all beliefs, from radical Islamic terrorism -- which has no place in an open and tolerant society. Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a president for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans. We are going to make America safe again and great again for everyone, Trump said. Describing the Orlando shooting as an act of hate, Clinton said, The gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during pride month. To the LGBT community: please know that you have millions of allies across our country. I am one of them. We will keep fighting for your right to live freely, openly and without fear. Hate has absolutely no place in America, she said. Clinton said the horrific incidents reflect the need to have strict gun control laws. We need to keep guns like the ones used last night out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals. This is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States and it reminds us once more that weapons of war have no place on our streets, she said. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a Democratic party presidential aspirant, said all Americans are horrified, disgusted and saddened by the horrific atrocity in Orlando. At this point we do not know whether this was an act of terrorism, a terrible hate crime against gay people or the act of a very sick person, but we extend our heartfelt condolences to the victims families and loved ones and our thoughts are with the injured and the entire Orlando LGBTQ community, he said in a statement. Omar Mateen, 29, walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday and carried out the deadliest mass shooting in United States history, killing 50 innocent people before being shot dead in a standoff with the police. Here's what we know about him so far: * Mateen, a 29-year-old American-born man born in New York and who lived in Florida, was on the FBI's radar for having ISIS sympathies and called 911 20 minutes into the attack to pledge his allegiance to the terror group, officials said. * Mateen was not under FBI surveillance at the time of the incident. His name had been flagged in 2013, after he made inflammatory comments to his coworkers, officials said a the 2:30 pm press conference. The FBI had interviewed Mateen twice in 2013 and later found he had ties to a 2014 American suicide bomber, but both those investigations were inconclusive and deemed non-threatening. * Mateen first drew the FBI's attention in 2013, when he made "inflammatory comments" to co-workers about having ties to terrorism. "In the course of the investigation, Mateen was interviewed twice," FBI's Ronald Hopper said. "Ultimately we were unable to verify the substance of his comments and the investigation was closed." * Mateen's father apologized for the whole incident, and told reporters his family was "in shock like the whole country," adding that his son expressed anti-gay sentiments after seeing two men kissing a couple months ago. "This had nothing to do with religion," Mateen's father told NBC * According to public records, Mateen has had a firearm license since September 2011. He was also licensed to be a security officer. In a statement, the global security company G4S said that Mateen had been an employee since September 10, 2007. G4S provides security in many places, including Afghanistan and Iraq. * Mateen legally bought two weapons -- a hand gun and a long gun -- in the past several days. * Public records show that Mateen was married in 2009. The Washington Post spoke to a woman whom they identified as his ex-wife. She described Mateen as unstable. "He beat me," she told the newspaper. "He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that." Public records show that Mateen and his wife were divorced in July 2011. * In a press conference in Boulder, Colorado, on Sunday night, Mateen's ex-wife described her former husband as "mentally ill" and "disturbed." She thanked her family for rescuing her from the violent relationship. She said he wanted to be a police officer, and was a licensed gun owner while they were married. 'We ask all Americans to stand against homophobia as well as against Islamophobia.' Ritu Jha/Rediff.com reports from the US. IMAGE: Ahmed Zaeem embraces Billy Quimby while attending a candlelight vigil in San Francisco for victims of the Orlando attack. Photograph: Beck Diefenbach/Reuters When Almas Haider heard on the news that a man had gone on a rampage and killed people at an Orlando nightclub, she cringed the same way many Muslims do when they learn that someone who share their faith has killed people. The Orlando tragedy has been especially difficult for Haider to process because she is the president of KhushDC, a South Asian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer support and social group in Washington, DC. Islamophobia and anti-LGBTQ violence are both rampant in America, and tragic events like these provoke a backlash on both fronts. In wake of the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, various US LGBTQ organisations are asking for a renewal of a national discussion on strengthening gun control. 'As LGBTQ Muslims, we know there are many of us who are living at the intersections of LGBTQ identities and Islam. At moments like this, we are doubly affected.' "We shouldn't have one individual represent an entire community," Haider told Rediff.com, describing her displeasure about the coverage of the Orlando tragedy, adding that clubs and social places won't be comfortable welcoming them. "I am Muslim and also a queer woman and those two things are not separate or different," she added, "I feel this violence is not just (directed) at the queer community. Now I am afraid to go and to be in places that I thought were safe like clubs or social events." "I don't feel I will be welcomed even though this is my community because I am a Muslim." "I am concerned people could choose this opportunity to continue to support Islamophobia and use it to further any policies or programme that target the Muslim community," she said. IMAGE: A vigil in California to mourn the victims of the Orlando attack. Photograph: Beck Diefenbach/Reuters "We are all very concerned and are working with local organisations to host community dialogue at LGBT centres," Haider said. "So we can come together as a community and unite with different races. Our main concern is the safety of our members and our community." "All members of the LGBTQ community are our family members and anyone hurt is a loss for us, whether in Orlando or anywhere else," Mohammed Shaik H Ali, chairperson, Trikone-Bay Area, a LGBTQ community organisation, told Rediff.com Asked about plans for the Pride Parade in San Francisco on June 25-26, Ali said, "A hate crime is always on our minds, but we will not let fear rule us. We will be vigilant, but also make sure we win over with our show of strength." IMAGE: William Delis holds a smartphone with a solidarity message during a rally to protest the Orlando massacre. Photograph: David McNew/Reuters Another LGBT organisation, the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity in the US, said through a press note, 'Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their loved ones. Although the facts are still emerging, as LGBTQ Muslims, we feel compelled to speak out at this time of a national tragedy to appeal for solidarity and to ask that there be no rush to assign blame to any individual or group beyond the shooter.' MASGD, which works to support, empower and connect LGBTQ Muslims in the US, further stated that there is no religious justification or precedent in Islam for mass shootings targeting any population, regardless of identity, nor is there justification in American law or values. 'This tragedy is a reminder of the terrible harm that can result from the wide availability of guns and explosives. The proliferation of guns facilitates acts of violence by individuals whose own values conflict with those of most Muslims and most Americans which hold human life to be sacred,' MASGD stated. 'With that in mind, we call for a renewal of the national conversation around strengthening gun control,' it added. IMAGE: The Empire State Building went dark in sympathy for the victims of the Orlando tragedy. Photograph: @isardasorensen/@EmpireStateBldg/Twitter 'This tragedy cannot be neatly categorised as a fight between the LGBTQ community and the Muslim community,' MASGD said. 'As LGBTQ Muslims, we know that there are many of us who are living at the intersections of LGBTQ identities and Islam. At moments like this, we are doubly affected.' 'We reject attempts to perpetuate hatred against our LGBTQ communities as well as our Muslim communities,' MASGD added. 'We ask all Americans to resist the forces of division and hatred, and to stand against homophobia as well as against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry.' The White House on Monday demanded the Republican-controlled Congress pass legislation blocking extremists from obtaining assault weapons like the one used in the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. IMAGE: A rainbow flag is held up with the name of the gay nightclub where the worst mass shooting in US history occured in Orlando,Florida, during a vigil in front of the White House in Washington, US.. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters "There are certain common sense things that Congress could do that would make it harder for any individual to get their hands on a weapon of war," said spokesman Josh Earnest following the Orlando shooting. The president has been quite frustrated, and in some cases even angry, about congressional inaction," he said. The White House singled out the AR-15, an assault weapon that was used by Omar Mateen in a rampage that killed 49 revelers at the Pulse nightclub. Earnest said the weapon was designed for the battlefield, not for Florida's streets. For much of his eight years in office, Obama has butted heads with Congress over gun control. A previous ban on assault weapons was in place for a decade, but lapsed under George W. Bush's presidency. The White House blamed Republican fear of the high-spending gun lobby -- particularly the National Rifle Association -- for the unwillingness by conservatives to vote for the ban. The organisation pours tens of millions of dollars into the election campaigns of pro-gun politicians. "The president believes that ban on assault weapons should be reinstated," Earnest said. The Afghan father of Orlando gay nightclub shooter Omar Mateen on Monday said that he would have had himself handed over his son to the police and the FBI if he had even one per cent inkling of what his son was planning to do. "I am sorry again. It is very sad news today for all Americans. I am very, very mad. If I did know one per cent that he is committing such a crime, my son, I would address it myself. I would have called the FBI. I would have called local law enforcement," Seddique Mir Mateen told reporters. Seddique's son Omar, who carried an assault rifle and a pistol into the gay club in Orlando in the wee hours on Sunday and killed 50 people while injuring 53 others, was later shot dead by the police. Seddique has been a political activist and the most recent video on his YouTube channel shows him declaring his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. Both father and son lived separately in Orlando. "I don't know why he did what he did. I wasn't aware of it. And I always paid attention that he should get higher education and serve the United States of America. And I thank you all for coming in here. And I am very sorry and I am very upset that he did what he did inside the United States," he said. Meanwhile, the US State Department refuted reports that its officials had met Seddique. "We have no record of any meetings between State Department policy officials and Seddique Mateen," State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner told PTI. However, the State Department is aware of reports from social media purporting to show Seddique meeting with State Department officials, he said. "While we continue to review our records, at this time, we believe he was photographed outside of the State Department's office on Capitol Hill (where we work on consular issues for Members and their constituents)," Toner said, referring to the pictures being circulated on the social media. Seddique said his family is completely shocked by the terrorist act of his son. "We can't believe what did he do. And I want to take this message out. I don't allow nobody to do any kind of crime or terrorist act inside the United States. And I don't allow it," he said. "My principle as a father, my principle as a US citizen, I am against -- I've been, throughout my life, against terrorism, against injustice, against what anyone can do against US, especially my homeland, the US," he told reporters in response to a question. Seddique said he has no idea why his son took such a action of killing people. Two years after capture of Mosul, displaced Iraqis struggle to survive; still more flee their homes Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Two years after capture of Mosul, displaced Iraqis struggle to survive; still more flee their homes, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e4bd34.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Two years after fleeing Mosul, half-a-million people remain uprooted from their homes, while military activities in the north and south-east of Iraq's second largest city are causing fresh displacement. More than 14,000 displaced Iraqis have been registered in camps north and south-east of Mosul and across the border in Syria, since the Iraqi Security Forces began a new military offensive in late March this year. This includes more than 8,000 people who arrived in Debaga camp in Erbil governorate since 24 March, where UNHCR is providing aid. Thousands more have moved on to Kirkuk or other governorates in Iraq. A further 6,700 Iraqis from in and around Mosul have fled to Syria's north-eastern Hasakah governorate since April, including 5,400 of whom are registered at Al Hol camp where UNHCR is working with partners to provide shelter, sanitation facilities and medical care. Meanwhile, many of those who fled the city two years ago have had to move several times in search for safety and a decent place to live. Most face economic hardship. A recent survey found unemployment is the greatest problem facing families uprooted from their homes and scattered across Iraq, a country where more than 3.3 million people - around 10 per cent of the population - have been displaced due to conflict since the start of 2014. Eighty-two per cent of families from Mosul report not having enough income to cover their basic needs. This economic pressure leads to other problems and coping strategies, including high levels of child marriage, which is twice as prevalent among displaced people from Mosul compared to those from other parts of the country, according to the recent survey. The UNHCR survey of 5,000 displaced families across Iraq - including 800 from Mosul - found people from Mosul are about three times as likely as other displaced families to consider moving to another location within Iraq, and about four times as likely to consider leaving the country. Only a small minority of displaced people from Mosul - about three per cent - are considering returning home, compared to 21 per cent of displaced people from other areas. Of the half-a-million people who fled combat in Mosul two years ago, most (over 300,000) found shelter in Dohuk governorate of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, while others are scattered across the country. Local authorities in Iraq estimate that an additional 30,000 people could be displaced from the area in the coming months. To mark the two year anniversary of the fall of Mosul, UNHCR has published text and video features (https://youtu.be/JQ3Z73UR-Eg) on its website featuring displaced families from the city. UNHCR and partners revise funding needs for Greece & Balkans Publisher UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNHCR and partners revise funding needs for Greece & Balkans, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e4c6c4.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Today we are launching an update of the regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP) involving 60 partner organizations and covering the eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkans route. The RMRP has been revised to take into account the new circumstances on the ground following border closures along the Western Balkans route, and the entry into force of the EU-Turkey agreement. These developments have had a significant impact on the numbers of refugees and migrants arriving, with a decrease in the number of people along the Western Balkans route and an increase in the number of people remaining in Greece. While the measures adopted have significantly reduced the number of arrivals in Greece, over 57,000 refugees and migrants are currently dispersed across the country in several sites on the mainland and the islands. In this context, UNHCR and humanitarian partners have redefined their engagement from a response primarily targeting people on the move, to focusing on a static population in Greece and on protection activities in countries in the Western Balkans . The financial requirements to implement the plan have been adjusted to reflect the change in circumstances. They currently stand at almost 670 million US dollars for 2016, of which contributions of 328.8 million US dollars have been received. Unmet needs remain significant, as living conditions in the sites in Greece, both on the islands and the mainland, have deteriorated as a result of congestion and the rapid nature in which sites were established on the mainland. The affected population includes many people with specific needs, such as unaccompanied or separated children, single women, pregnant or lactating women, the elderly, people with disabilities, as well as the sick and injured. The number of children in these movements has been on the rise, reaching 38 per cent of the total arrivals from Turkey to Greece in 2016. There is a risk that these people will increasingly rely on smuggling and trafficking networks, exposing themselves to greater protection risks, which will be even more challenging to address considering the clandestine nature of the movement. The regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP), was launched in January 2016 following the large-scale population movements registered throughout Europe in 2015, when 1 million refugees and migrants undertook the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea. The vast majority crossed the Aegean Sea by boat from Turkey to Greece. Many lost their lives: in total, 3,771 people died or were reported missing in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015. Despite worsening weather conditions brought on by the onset of winter, the movements did not subside during the first five months of 2016, with some 200,000 arrivals by sea from January to May 2016, including over 150,000 to Greece. Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Kazakhstan: Bank accounts blocked, "expert analysis" costs Publisher Forum 18 Author Felix Corley Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as Forum 18, Kazakhstan: Bank accounts blocked, "expert analysis" costs, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e55694.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. At least 26 people convicted of exercising their freedom of religion and belief have had bank accounts blocked by the government without being informed of this, and without additional legal process. They are also required to pay for "expert analyses" used to convict them. Kazakhstan: 31st criminal conviction since December 2014 Publisher Forum 18 Author Felix Corley Publication Date 8 June 2016 Cite as Forum 18, Kazakhstan: 31st criminal conviction since December 2014, 8 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e55f54.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Kazakhstan has jailed Murat Takaumov for 9 months for alleged membership of Tabligh Jamaat, the 31st Muslim to be convicted. Five more alleged members are under investigation. And 12 Kazakh organisations have strongly criticised the government's ICCPR record to the UN Human Rights Committee. Haiti: UN supports Government in potable water campaign reaching 30,000 residents Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Haiti: UN supports Government in potable water campaign reaching 30,000 residents, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e56c340b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - Some 30,000 residents of three localities in Haiti now have access to potable water, thanks to a sanitation campaign launched by the Government and supported by the United Nations following a cholera epidemic that killed almost 100 people in the community. So much of my time was spent looking for water, recalled Ivrose Paul, who, along with hundreds of other women and children living in the neighbourhood of Los Palmas which lies 30 minutes north-east of the city of Hinche used to leave her home early every morning, walk for more than an hour, and wait for hours to secure a container full of water. The residents of Los Palmas, Guebo and Jacob three localities in the third communal section of Hinche were part of an initiative aimed at increasing and improving access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in schools in particular, but which also focused on supplying water to health centres and homes. The initiative also involved engaging in the construction of latrines to avoid contamination of water by open defecation, practices which reduce the spread of waterborne diseases including cholera. In July 2014, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Los Palmas, along with Sandra Honore, his Special Representative in Haiti and also Head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), and Laurent Salvador Lamothe, who was then Prime Minister of Haiti, and expressed sympathy to cholera victims and the victims' families. Following exchanges with the population, the officials laid the first stone of a drinking water system for the citizens of Los Palmas and surrounding areas. At the time of his visit in 2014, the Secretary-General said that the UN stands ready to support this initiative in more remote areas, where cholera persists [...] You can count on me and on the United Nations to do our part of the job. At an opening ceremony this past week in Jacob, Pierre Ubalijoro, Acting Head of Civil Affairs, who spoke on behalf of Ms. Honore, stressed that the initiative is crucial to reduce the risk of waterborne diseases including cholera, which he underlined is a priority for the UN in Haiti. The work in Los Palmas is part of efforts made by the United Nations family in Haiti and MINUSTAH, various agencies, funds and programs to support Haiti to fight against cholera and to advance towards Sustainable Development Goal 6, which aims at ensuring universal access to water and sanitation, he said. The work, which cost $163,000, was funded by MINUSTAH and realized under the Mission's Quick Impact Program, which provides support to the Haitian authorities by improving public infrastructure and the living conditions of citizens. Specifically, actions included water source collection and the manufacture and installation of 12 kiosks and two water points. In 2015, there were 326 cases of cholera identified in affected areas, while in 2016, only 6 cases were identified. Haiti: UN envoy urges political actors to maintain constructive approach ahead of National Assembly Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 12 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Haiti: UN envoy urges political actors to maintain constructive approach ahead of National Assembly, 12 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e56d640b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 12 June 2016 - The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Haiti has urged all Haitian actors to maintain a constructive approach in the country's electoral process. According to a statement, Sandra Honore, who is also Head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), urges all Haitian actors to maintain a constructive approach to ensure the continuity of governance at all levels and to pursue the electoral process as foreseen. In that context, the Special Representative said she expects the Parliament to meet in the National Assembly to open the second ordinary session of the legislative year on 13 June, in keeping with the country's constitution. On 14 February, the Haitian National Assembly elected Jocelerme Privert as the island nation's interim President, one week after former President Michel Martelly departed without a successor. On 25 April, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply concerned that the agreed-upon date for holding elections in Haiti 24 April had not been met. That date had been set following an agreement known as the 5 February Agreement between Haitian stakeholders to preserve institutional continuity and further the electoral process. Syria: Ban condemns deadly attack near Damascus shrine Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 11 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Syria: Ban condemns deadly attack near Damascus shrine, 11 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e56f340d.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 11 June 2016 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned an attack carried out today near the Sayidda Zeinab shrine in a Damascus suburb of Syria, in which several civilians were killed and many others wounded. A statement attributable to the Secretary-General's spokesperson said that according to reports from local monitor groups, several civilians, including women and children, were killed and many others wounded in the attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh). Those responsible for attacks on civilians must be held accountable, the Secretary-General said. Mr. Ban extended his deepest condolences to the bereaved families and the Government of Syria, and wished a speedy recovery to the injured. Ban welcomes Central African Republic President's resolve to seek all-inclusive resolution to crisis Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Ban welcomes Central African Republic President's resolve to seek all-inclusive resolution to crisis, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e573540b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - Meeting today with Faustin Archange Touadera, President of the Central African Republic (CAR), United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that the country had turned a corner following the holding of democratic elections, and welcomed the leader's resolve to fully address the root causes of the country's crisis in an inclusive spirit. According to a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban met in New York today with President Touadera to discuss the situation in the CAR, including the President's dialogue with representatives of the armed groups. [The Secretary-General] welcomed the President's outreach to the armed groups and his vision for a comprehensive process to address the underlying reasons that had driven them to take up arms, said that statement, adding that the UN chief also welcomed the resolve of the President and his Government to pursue this process in a spirit of national reconciliation and inclusiveness, guided by the principles and recommendations of the Bangui Forum. The Forum, held in the CAR capital from 4 to 11 May 2015, covered reconciliation, and the inclusive grassroots level consultations that gathered views of local citizens in advance. Further to today's statement, Mr. Ban urged the armed groups to seize the opportunity afforded by the President's initiative to bring peace and stability to the country by engaging in it in good faith. He stressed that the early restoration of State authority was critical for security and the country's socio-economic recovery. The Secretary-General also emphasized the importance of the international community's support for the CAR's efforts to tackle the root causes of the crisis and its backing for the country's recovery plan, the statement said, adding that Mr. Ban also reaffirmed the commitment of the UN and its mission in the country, known by the French acronym MINUSCA, to lend its full support to the peace process. Somalia: Ban condemns attack on Ethiopian troops at Mission base Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Somalia: Ban condemns attack on Ethiopian troops at Mission base, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e577640c.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned yesterday's attack on Ethiopian troops at an base of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in Halgan, Somalia. The Secretary-General calls on the people of Somalia and their Government to remain resolute in the fight against Al Shabaab and extremism, said a statement attributable to Mr. Ban's spokesperson. He reiterates the United Nations' unwavering support for their determined efforts to build a peaceful and stable Somalia, the statement also said. Mr. Ban also expressed his condolences to the families of those killed and wished a speedy recovery for the injured soldiers. Afghanistan: UN condemns attack targeting civilians gathered for Friday prayers Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Afghanistan: UN condemns attack targeting civilians gathered for Friday prayers, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e57a740c.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - The United Nations envoy in Afghanistan today condemned an attack targeting civilians gathered for Friday prayers at the Hisarak Jami Mosque in Rodat district, in Nangarhar province. According to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the attack killed at least three civilians and injured more than 70 others including 31 boys with at least two in critical condition. An improvised explosive device planted at the mosque detonated, killing a mullah, one man, and one boy as they prayed on the first Friday of the Holy Month of Ramadan. An attack deliberately targeting civilian members of a community praying together in a mosque can never be justified and highlights the perpetrators' intent to destroy lives, and spread terror among the civilian population, Nicholas Haysom, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, said in a statement. International humanitarian law prohibits the deliberate targeting of civilians, including at their places of worship, and imposes a specific obligation on combatant parties to allow religious personnel to carry out their work. At face value, this attack a war crime and the perpetrators must be held accountable, he stressed. On behalf of the United Nations in Afghanistan, Mr. Haysom expressed deep condolences to the families of the victims and wished a speedy recovery for the injured. Gambia: UN adviser condemns President's reported threats against ethnic group Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Gambia: UN adviser condemns President's reported threats against ethnic group, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e57ea40b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - The United Nations Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide has condemned the inflammatory speech by the President of the Gambia, Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia at a political rally this past week, in which he reportedly threatened to eliminate the Mandinka ethnic group. In a note to correspondents, Adama Dieng, the UN Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, said that on 3 June in Tallinding, President Jammeh allegedly referred to the Mandinka as "enemies, foreigners" and threatened to kill them one by one and place them "where even a fly cannot see them." "I am profoundly alarmed by President Jammeh's public stigmatization, dehumanization and threats against the Mandinka," the Special Adviser said. "Public statements of this nature by a national leader are irresponsible and extremely dangerous. They can contribute to dividing populations, feed suspicion and serve to incite violence against communities, based solely on their identity," he added. Mr. Dieng said he was particularly appalled by President Jammeh's "vitriolic rhetoric," as history has shown that hate speech that constitutes incitement to violence can be both a warning sign and a powerful trigger for atrocity crimes. "We have seen, in Rwanda, Bosnia - and more recently in the Middle East - how incitement to violence has led to mass killings along identity lines," the Special Adviser said, reminding President Jammeh that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence is prohibited under international human rights law as well as under national legislation. Mr. Dieng also noted that States have the primary responsibility to protect their populations. In 2005, all Heads of State and Government acknowledged the responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, as well as their incitement. "I urge the President of the Gambia to fulfil this responsibility," said the Special Adviser, "and ensure that the rights of all populations of the Gambia are respected, irrespective of ethnicity or political affiliation." Iraq: UN refugee agency warns of struggles and new displacements in Mosul Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Iraq: UN refugee agency warns of struggles and new displacements in Mosul, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e583e40c.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - More than half a million people remain uprooted from their homes two years after fleeing violence in the Iraqi city of Mosul, while military activities in the north and south-east of the city are causing fresh displacement, the United Nations refugee agency said today. At the regular bi-weekly news briefing in Geneva earlier today, William Spindler, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said that more than 14,000 displaced Iraqis have been registered in camps north and south-east of Mosul Iraq's second-largest city and across the border in Syria, since the Iraqi Security Forces began a new military offensive in late March. Many of those who had fled the city two years earlier have had to move several times in search for safety and a decent place to live, Mr. Spindler said, adding that most faced economic hardship. He noted that a recent survey has found that unemployment is the greatest problem faced by families uprooted from their homes and scattered across Iraq, a country where more than 3.3 million people around 10 per cent of the population have been displaced due to conflict since the start of 2014. The spokesperson also said that 82 per cent of families from Mosul reported not having enough income to cover their basic needs. Such pressure has led to other problems and coping strategies, including high levels of child marriage, which is twice as prevalent among displaced people from Mosul compared with those from other parts of the country, according to the recent survey. The UNHCR survey of 5,000 displaced families across Iraq, including 800 from Mosul, also found that people from Mosul are about three times as likely as other displaced families to consider moving to another location within Iraq, and about four times as likely to consider leaving the country. Only a small minority of displaced people from Mosul, about 3 per cent, are considering returning home, compared with 21 per cent of displaced people from other areas. Of the half a million people who had fled combat in Mosul two years earlier, more than 300,000 have found shelter in Dohuk Governorate of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, while others are scattered across the country, Mr. Spindler said. Local authorities in Iraq estimate that an additional 30,000 people could be displaced from the area in the coming months, he added. Asked how the displaced people in northern Iraq are receiving assistance and coping, Mr. Spindler said that their situation is precarious, and many of them are staying in camps for internally displaced persons. Others are just remaining at ad hoc locations, such as abandoned buildings. UN refugee agency modifies response plan for Mediterranean and Western Balkans Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, UN refugee agency modifies response plan for Mediterranean and Western Balkans, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e599a40c.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - The United Nations refugee agency today announced a revision to the regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan, involving 60 partner organizations and covering the eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkans route, in order to focus on the static population in Greece and on protection activities. In the regular bi-weekly news briefing in Geneva earlier today, William Spindler, spokesperson for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said the Refugee and Migrant Response Plan takes into account the new circumstances on the ground following border closures along the Western Balkans route, as well as the entry into force of the European Union-Turkey agreement. Unmet needs remain significant, as living conditions in the sites in Greece, both on the islands and the mainland, have deteriorated as a result of congestion and the rapid nature in which sites were established on the mainland, Mr. Spindler noted. The affected population includes many people with specific needs, such as unaccompanied or separated children, single women, pregnant or lactating women, the elderly, people with disabilities, as well as the sick and injured, he added. The developments have had a significant impact on the numbers of refugees and migrants arriving, with a decrease in the number of people along the Western Balkans route and an increase in the number of people remaining in Greece. While the measures adopted have significantly reduced the number of arrivals in Greece, more than 57,000 refugees and migrants are currently dispersed along the country in several sites on the mainland and the islands, the spokesperson said. In this context, UNHCR and humanitarian partners have redefined their engagement from a response primarily targeting people on the move, to focusing on the static population in Greece and on protection activities in countries in the Western Balkans. Mr. Spindler also said that the financial requirements to implement the plan have been adjusted to reflect the change in circumstances. They currently stand at almost $670 million for 2016, of which contributions of $328.8 million have been received. The spokesperson underscored that the number of children in these movements has been on the rise, reaching 38 per cent of the total arrivals from Turkey to Greece in 2016. There is a risk that these people will increasingly rely on smuggling and trafficking networks, exposing themselves to greater protection risks, which will be even more challenging to address considering the clandestine nature of the movement, Mr. Spindler said. The regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan was launched in January 2016 following the large-scale population movements registered throughout Europe in 2015, when one million refugees and migrants undertook the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea. The vast majority crossed the Aegean Sea by boat from Turkey to Greece, with a total of 3,771 people dying or reported missing in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015, the spokesperson said. Despite worsening weather conditions brought on by the onset of winter, the movements did not subside during the first five months of 2016, with some 200,000 arrivals by sea from January to May 2016, including more than 150,000 to Greece. Rocket and mortar attacks in Yemen's Taiz condemned by UN rights office Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Rocket and mortar attacks in Yemen's Taiz condemned by UN rights office, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e59bc40b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - The United Nations human rights office today strongly condemned a series of rocket and mortar attacks against several residential areas and markets in Taiz, Yemen, since last Friday, which killed 18 civilians including seven children, and injured 68 others. "Several markets were hit while full of people who were shopping ahead of Ramadan," said Ravina Shamdasani, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at a press briefing in Geneva. According to several victims injured during an attack near the Delux Market on 3 June, the shelling originated from the Tabat Al-Sofitel hill, in the eastern part of the city of Taiz, which is currently under the control of the Popular Committees affiliated with the Houthis and forces loyal to former President Saleh. The shelling on civilian areas reportedly continued until the evening of 4 June and restarted on the 6th, when several houses in the Al Ta'iziyah and Al-Qahirah districts were hit, killing three civilians and injuring twelve others, including nine children. Another very serious incident took place in the early hours of 8 June when a school near the Al-Thawrah hospital was hit, killing five people, including three children. "All victims belonged to a marginalized community, the Al-Muhamasheen, and had taken refuge in the school after having been forced to flee their homes due the ongoing violence. According to eyewitnesses, the shelling also came from the Tabat Al-Sofitel Hill," Ms. Shamdasani said. Since 26 March 2015 and up to 8 June 2016, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has documented a total of 3,539 civilians killed and 6,268 injured. Syria: UN agencies reach families with food in the besieged town of Darayya Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 10 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Syria: UN agencies reach families with food in the besieged town of Darayya, 10 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e59e940c.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 10 June 2016 - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today announced it delivered food for the first time since 2012 to the besieged town of Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, as part of a joint UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) convoy. WFP delivered a family ration - enough to feed 2,400 people for one month - and enough wheat flour in bags to feed the entire population of 4,000 people for a month. The nine-truck convoy also carried medical supplies and health items late on Thursday to the people of Darayya. WFP food boxes included rice, lentils, chickpeas, beans, bulgur, oil, salt and sugar. According to a press release issued by the UN agency, more convoys are planned to all of the 19 besieged locations in Syria as part of the plan for June, following the Government of Syria's approval to reach all these locations. Elsewhere, WFP reported that a series of airdrops over the besieged town of Deir Ezzor have delivered a month's supply of food for the 100,000 people trapped inside the city. It plans to continue the flights in the next few weeks to deliver another monthly ration. In total, during the first few days of June, WFP has already provided life-saving food assistance to more than 1.4 million people across Syria as part of the organization's monthly plan to reach 4 million displaced and vulnerable people. In addition, the agency provides assistance - mostly cash-based transfers through "e-cards" - to around 1.5 million Syrian refugees living in the neighbouring countries of Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon Iraq and Egypt. Security Council condemns deadly terrorist attack in Tel Aviv Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 9 June 2016 Cite as UN News Service, Security Council condemns deadly terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, 9 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e5a3e40b.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. 9 June 2016 - The members of the Security Council today condemned in the strongest terms yesterday's terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, Israel, during which at least four civilians were killed and many more injured. In a statement, the 15-member Council expressed its deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Government of Israel, wishing a speedy recovery to those injured. The members of the Security Council reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, the statement indicated. The members of the Security Council underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice. They stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable, and urged all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, to cooperate actively with all relevant authorities in this regard, it added. The Security Council also reiterated that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed. Its members further reaffirmed the need for all States to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and other obligations under international law, including international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. Bahrain: Lagging Efforts to End Torture Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 13 June 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Bahrain: Lagging Efforts to End Torture, 13 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e5cdf4.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The latest annual report from a Bahrain office tasked with addressing torture and mistreatment of detainees indicates that authorities have made little progress in holding police and security forces accountable. The third annual report from the Office of the Ombudsman, released on June 1, 2016, indicates that there have been no convictions in alleged cases of torture relating to political unrest since the Office of the Ombudsman was set up to accept complaints in February 2012. The report provides further evidence that the ombudsman routinely refers torture allegations to the Interior Ministry's Special Investigation Unit, but does not indicate whether that body has taken even limited steps to investigate these complaints. "This third report from the Ombudsman's office underscores the serious inadequacy of Bahrain's highly-touted efforts to end torture by its security forces," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. "Torture has not stopped in Bahrain, and the institutions that were supposed to address the problem aren't holding anyone accountable." The report contains no information on the status of 15 complaints relating to the alleged torture of inmates by prison officials after unrest in Jaw Prison in March 2015. In the meantime, 57 inmates involved in the unrest have each been sentenced to 15 years. The Office of the Ombudsman, under the Ministry of Interior and Islamic Affairs, is responsible for receiving complaints from detainees, their families, and human rights organizations and referring them to the appropriate investigating authorities. In the period covered by this report, May 1, 2015 to April 30, 2016, it received 992 "investigation requests," 305 of which it classified as "complaints". Fifty-five of those concerned allegations of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and were referred to the Special Investigations Unit. The Ombudsman's report states that 53 of the 55 torture allegations are "under investigation," one case is "pending in court," and one case was "dismissed" or "closed". The Special Investigations Unit in the Interior Ministry's Office of the Public Prosecutor, like the Ombudsman's Office, was established following the 2011 brutal suppression of mostly peaceful anti-government demonstrations. It is responsible for investigating and prosecuting the criminal liability of security or other government officials allegedly involved in the torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees. Based on the Ombudsman's three annual reports, it has referred 138 cases to the SIU since July 2013. Of these, the Special Investigations Unit has successfully prosecuted only one torture case, which the Ombudsman's second annual report characterized as "a vicious assault" on a detainee "in an attempt to force him to confess to drug dealing." In August 2015, the Ombudsman, Nawaf al-Mouada, told Human Rights Watch that a "full report" of the cases under investigation would be included in the third annual report, but the latest report included no details on the 73 torture allegations that its first two annual reports classified as being "under investigation."| In the aftermath of serious unrest that broke out in Jaw Prison in March 2015, four former detainees told Human Rights Watch security forces subjected prisoners to abuse that would appear to amount to torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. In his August 2015 response to Human Rights Watch, the Ombudsman said that his office had met with 156 inmates, and that 15 had filed formal complaints, which had been referred to the SIU "for criminal investigation". The Ombudsman's most recent report states that it referred 24 complaints pertaining to incidents in Jaw Prison for criminal or disciplinary proceedings, but it is not clear if these include the 15 torture allegations that stemmed from the events of March 2015, and there is no information suggesting that there have been any prosecutions for prison staff in relation to those events. The Ombudsman and the SIU were established in response to the recommendations of the Bahraini Independent Commission of Inquiry, appointed by King Hamad to investigate allegations of human rights abuses related to the anti-government protests of 2011. In November 2011, the BICI released an approximately 500-page report detailing its findings, and concluded among other things, that the National Security Agency and the Ministry of Interior "followed a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which in many cases amounted to torture, with respect to a large number of detainees in their custody." In response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy in April 2015, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) stated that the UK has provided the Bahraini authorities with a package of technical assistance, funding, and training, "focused on strengthening the oversight mechanisms responsible for investigating allegations of torture and mistreatment and supporting the reform of detention procedures in Bahrain." In November 2015, and in light of serious ongoing allegations of torture much of it in Criminal Investigations Directorate custody Human Rights Watch recommended that the UK government suspend its support for security sector reform until Bahrain responded positively to the request of the United Nation's special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, to visit the country. In April 2013, authorities cancelled Mendez's scheduled country visit after postponing an earlier visit scheduled for 2012. In June 2016, Mendez told a journalist that Bahrain considered itself "shielded" from scrutiny because of its close relationships with the UK and the US. There is also evidence that the Ombudsman's office has sent misinformation to the UK government. Tobias Ellwood, a UK FCO minister, in a written response to a question on the alleged torture of 32-year-old Mohamed Ramadan in Bahrain custody, told UK Member of Parliament Tom Brake that UK embassy officials had been in contact with the Ombudsman's Office over the case. Ellwood's response said that the Ombudsman's office had said that "whilst there have been a number of complaints raised with his office in the case of Mr. Ramadan, there have been no allegations of mistreatment or torture." But Human Rights Watch has seen a copy of the complaint that Americans for Human Rights and Democracy in Bahrain submitted by email to the Ombudsman on July 17, 2014. The complaint contains serious allegations of torture of Ramadan consistent with the allegations about the use of torture documented by the BICI in 2011, and in a November 2015 Human Rights Watch report on torture in detention. On December 29, 2014, a Bahraini court sentenced Ramadan and Husain al-Moosa to death for their alleged role in an explosion that killed a policeman in February 2014. Both men retracted their confessions, claiming that they confessed after being tortured in the custody of the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID). Despite this, Bahrain's Court of Cassation upheld the death sentences on November 16, 2015, and the two men are awaiting an execution date. The men's lawyer, Mohamed al-Tajer, told Human Rights Watch that the authorities have never investigated their torture allegations and there is no mention of the case in any of the Ombudsman's reports. "The fact that a UK minister has apparently repeated misinformation from the Bahrain Ombudsman's Office in relation to torture allegations in a case that could result in the executions of two young men should lead to an immediate UK reappraisal of its Bahrain policy," Stork said. Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Sri Lanka: Enforce Commission Directives on Terror Detainees Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 13 June 2016 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Sri Lanka: Enforce Commission Directives on Terror Detainees, 13 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e5d6c4.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. The Sri Lankan government should abide by National Human Rights Commission guidelines on arrest and detention while taking urgent steps to repeal the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), Human Rights Watch said today. Sri Lankan authorities have continued to use the PTA to detain individuals without charge, despite pledging to revoke the law at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva in October 2015. The PTA was used widely during the country's decades-long civil war, primarily against those suspected of involvement with the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Exact numbers of those still held under the PTA are unknown, with estimates ranging from 120 to 162 detainees. Since April 2016, the government has arrested at least 11 people under the PTA for alleged terrorist activities instead of using appropriate provisions under the criminal code. "It is encouraging that the government has taken preliminary steps to abolish the Prevention of Terrorism Act, but the process is moving too slowly," said Brad Adams, Asia director. "Until it is repealed, the government should announce a moratorium on the use of the PTA and instead rely on the criminal code, which does not allow indefinite detention without charge or trial." The PTA allows for arrests for unspecified "unlawful activities" without warrant and permits detention for up to 18 months without producing the suspect before a court. People detained under the PTA have been held without charge for years. The law also provides immunity for government officials responsible for abuses if deemed acting in good faith or fulfilling an order under the act. Although the government has been more transparent about recent PTA arrests, the tremendous powers given to the security forces under the PTA facilitate abuses. Following a scathing report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2015, the government agreed to a resolution at the Human Rights Council in which it made many pledges toward accountability and justice. Paragraph 12 of the resolution committed the government to review and repeal the PTA and enact a law in line with international best practices. The government is working on a new bill to replace the PTA but there is no sign that this will be passed soon, and little transparency or consultation about the process. Recent arrests under the PTA in Chavakachcheri in the Northern Province prompted Sri Lanka's National Human Rights Commission to issue Directives on Arrest and Detention under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act No. 48 of 1979 on May 18, 2016. This comprehensive list of directives is intended to protect detainees against the security forces' broad powers under the PTA, particularly at the time of arrest and ensuing detention. These include guarantees of medical and legal assistance, registration of arrest, right to language of the detainee's choice, security from torture and other ill-treatment, and special protection for women and children. The directives also reassert the commission's mandate to be promptly informed of all PTA arrests, to access any person arrested or detained under the PTA, and to access any place of detention at any time. The government has made substantial progress on many cases of prior PTA detainees. The authorities have released some PTA detainees on bail, "rehabilitated" others, and promised to charge and prosecute the remainder. However, the government has still not put forward a plan to provide redress for those unjustly detained under the PTA, or addressed the issue of detainees charged and prosecuted solely on the basis of coerced confessions obtained during detention. "So long as the PTA is in place and being used, the Sri Lankan government will have a hard time convincing the Human Rights Council that it is keeping its commitments," Adams said. "Revoking the PTA is absolutely crucial for ensuring respect for the basic rights of criminal suspects and the rule of law in Sri Lanka." Copyright notice: Copyright, Human Rights Watch Which African country is worst at fighting insurgents? Publisher IRIN Publication Date 13 June 2016 Cite as IRIN, Which African country is worst at fighting insurgents?, 13 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e5e454.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Public approval in Nigeria and Kenya for their governments' handling of jihadist violence is low, and citizens have a poor opinion of the security forces that are supposed to protect them, according to a survey-based report released this week by Afrobarometer, a pan-African research network. Both Nigeria and Kenya are facing ruthless insurgencies, but only about four in 10 of their citizens back the counter-insurgency efforts. That score contrasts with high approval ratings in regional neighbours Niger (96 percent), Cameroon (81 percent), and Uganda (83 percent), which also face security threats. The Afrobarometer surveys were carried out in 36 countries at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015 as face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent's choice with a maximum +/-3 percent sampling error. They not only reveal that citizens in Nigeria and Kenya are unhappy with their governments' performance in dealing with Boko Haram and al-Shabab violence, but also expose significant levels of distrust in the security forces. Out of all the countries surveyed, public confidence in the police was lowest in Nigeria (21 percent) and Kenya (36 percent) compared to Niger, where almost nine in 10 citizens said they trusted their police. When people were questioned on their perceptions of their armed forces, Nigeria's military was again the worst performer, with only 40 percent of people saying they were trusted. In Kenya, the military enjoyed more confidence at 68 percent. By comparison, 86 percent of people polled in Senegal regarded their army as reliable; in Tanzania it was 82 percent. Big caveat "Context really matters," said report co-author Rorisang Lekalake. "At that time [of the surveys], there were large numbers of attacks in Nigeria and Kenya. In Nigeria, the situation was so precarious we couldn't conduct the surveys in three northern states." Forty-five percent of Kenyans voted security as their number one concern, as did 39 percent of Nigerians. But the most concern was found in the middle-income island nation of Mauritius (48 percent), followed by Tunisia (47 percent). By contrast, only 10 percent of Ugandans said they were worried, despite the country's long battle with al-Shabab in Somalia. Sierra Leoneans were positively sanguine; just three percent mentioned security as an issue. There are large local swings in the survey results. Nigeria's northern states, the home region of the Boko Haram insurgency, were more critical of the government's efforts than the southern half of the country, said Lekalake. In one telling result, more than one third of respondents believed that "all" or "most" Muslim citizens support extremist groups (the north is predominantly Muslim). Boko Haram was seizing and holding northern towns in 2014, and a badly led and under-equipped Nigerian army was demoralised and on the back foot. In the survey, Nigerians blamed government officials, parliamentarians, and the military basically anybody in power for Boko Haram's success. Unsurprisingly, President Goodluck Jonathan was dumped at the polls in 2015 the first time an incumbent lost an election. It's also political In Kenya, support for the government's counter-insurgency efforts is highest in its biggest political constituency of Central Province (79 percent approval). It's weakest in North Eastern Province (12 percent), which borders Somalia, and which has felt much of the brunt of al-Shabab attacks and the security campaign. Support for Kenya's five-year military intervention in Somalia is well over 50 percent across the country (in Central it's 80 percent). The exception is North Eastern, where only 31 percent of people approve. The intervention was launched to halt cross-border raids, but cited by al-Shabab as a reason for their continued attacks including those on the Westgate shopping mall and Garissa University that killed a total of 215 people. Yet two thirds of Kenyans said the intervention "has been necessary despite the terrorist problems resulting from it". So what do people want their governments to do? In Nigeria, the survey found the priorities were a strengthening of the military response (44 percent); more job creation (34 percent); outreach to religious leaders (17 percent); followed by an array of approaches, including better governance and community engagement. "Nigeria has a much longer history of violent extremism," Lekalake told IRIN. "Even at the community level, people realise that the military response can't be the only response, and is not necessarily the best response." Syrians trapped in desert no man's land Publisher IRIN Author Bethan Staton Publication Date 9 June 2016 Cite as IRIN, Syrians trapped in desert no man's land, 9 June 2016, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/575e5f0b4.html [accessed 26 October 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. Some 60,000 Syrians are currently trapped in Rukban and the smaller Hadalat, makeshift camps in a barren slice of desert at the border between Syria and Jordan. Accounts from the settlements describe a lawless no man's land where healthcare, food, and water are difficult to access. They are places ruled by violence and fear, threatened by disease and where relief is hard to find. With daytime temperatures topping 40 degrees, the fasting month of Ramadan, which started this week, will be particularly gruelling. These makeshift camps are sandwiched between two ridges of earth and sand (berms). The international border, based on the 1916 Sykes-Picot line, should be somewhere between the berms, built by Syrian and Jordanian authorities to demarcate a demilitarised buffer zone. In recent weeks, it's become clear the camps are not just temporary way stations, but here to stay, and growing. The little aid that gets in is poorly targeted and monitored. Jordan is letting in 100-200 each day. But some Syrians are choosing to stay in limbo at the berm, unsure of the reception that awaits them in Jordan, or fearing they will be sent back to Syria. According to recent projections by humanitarian agencies, the border population could reach 100,000 by the end of the year. International aid organisations are constructing a service area on the Jordanian side of the berm at Rukban, which will serve as a base for providing goods and services. "Let's be honest, it's going to be a permanent service area," a source familiar with the situation told IRIN. "Unless we're finding a solution to the conflict, unless we're finding a long-term solution for these asylum seekers, this camp is going to stay; and this setup is going to stay." The problematic "setup" is one that's been gradually evolving, to the dismay of humanitarian observers, for more than a year. In mid-2014, Jordan, which hosts some 650,000 registered Syrian refugees, effectively closed its border crossing points at Rukban and Hadalat. That stopped Syrians entering Jordan, but not their desire, or drive, to flee. Many still headed towards Jordan but found their way barred. Gradually, a community of asylum seekers amassed at the country's eastern border: 5,000 people last November, 20,000 by January this year. The numbers have tripled since and now more than 60,000 are stuck there. Estimates are derived in part from satellite imagery, as international access is blocked. Many of those living here have been waiting to cross for more than six months. In March this year, Jordan began letting several hundred Syrians in daily. In less than three months, nearly 20,000 have arrived at Azraq camp, not far from the border. But Azraq has reached its working capacity. The numbers entering Jordan have declined significantly from a peak of 400-500 a day in mid-May. Although border officials insist people are still arriving, while undergoing strict security vetting, it's unlikely that the tens of thousands at the berm will all be able to enter Jordan. Edgar Mwakaba/IRIN "These people will be left in the desert," the humanitarian source said. Survival of the fittest The fate of these forgotten people depends on a fragile infrastructure cut through by the high-stakes politics of the earthen berm. The community lives on one side of the berm, an area of sunbaked desert with no running water, no authorities and almost no facilities. On the Jordanian side of the berm, aid agencies set up for daily distribution, bringing mobile clinics, food provision and, to a limited extent, psychosocial support. Water is brought in trucks and distributed among individuals who then have to carry it back to their tents. There's some maternal care and children's health programmes and vaccination campaigns. Food parcels are distributed every two weeks, but facilities aren't available for more than a few hours a day. Suheiya and her six children spent four months at the berm, and are now recovering from the war, their escape, and their time at Rukban. The 42-year-old told IRIN that her family left Aleppo after their house was destroyed by Russian bombing; they reached the berm in a farmer's truck by hiding themselves among sheep. "The situation is really hard," Suheiya said. For much of the time during the four months at the berm, she and her children stayed inside tents, frightened. Although she was able to turn to her brother-in-law for protection, she was especially vulnerable as her husband was still in Syria. "There's gangs controlling everything and stealing all the services. It was really frightening. Because I was alone, they took everything." The area north of the Jordanian berm is not treated as Jordan's territory so the Jordanian authorities don't officially operate there, and humanitarian agencies are kept out by security concerns. In the absence of rule of law, tribal power dynamics are reportedly filling the void in terms of controlling of the camp. Violent crime has been reported, as well as rioting - a phenomenon that's not helped by the scarcity of aid. Suheiya explained that the means of distributing help varied. Distributions to people grouped from the same area in Syria were safer and better organised, she said. But on some days private donations would be brought to the border without organisation, leading to chaos. "We had to walk there to get anything, but it was so, so hot," Suheiya said. "It's in the desert so there were wind and dust storms. It was so hot in the day, then at night very cold." Aid workers report high levels of malnutrition among arrivals at Azraq, although the status of the wider population at the berm is hard to assess. Diarrhoea is reportedly common, and women have had to give birth in flimsy tents without medical care. Alima, now at Azraq's Village 5, told IRIN that the chaos often meant she went hungry. "Every time I tried to get the card to get food they would start a problem, a fight, and I wouldn't be able to get anything," the 23-year-old said. Between a rock and a hard place Brigadier General Mohammad al-Mawajdeh, director of civil and military affairs for the Jordanian military, told IRIN that the violence and lawlessness stems from those he called "trouble-makers", people that have no intention to claim asylum in Jordan but who exploit the desperate and vulnerable and the humanitarian assistance they are provided. "They create problems intentionally in order to create this chaos. They are war traders. They are getting benefit out of the situation," he said. Jordanian authorities also believe that so-called Islamic State elements move among those at the berm, and the resulting security threat is one of the reasons border control is stringent. But the presence of profiteers doesn't change the immense humanitarian needs of those at the berm. "You cannot stop sending assistance because of some bad people," al-Mawajdeh explained. "You cannot separate the good from the bad." For humanitarian organisations, the ambiguity contributes to a complex moral dilemma. It's not unusual for vulnerable people to get pushed to the bottom when aid is distributed, but in most contexts humanitarian workers are able to get to the community and mitigate the risks. At the berm, service providers have no consistent access to the people they're helping, and in a world where nepotism, factionalism, and extortion are likely rampant, the unseen side-effects of any intervention are difficult to assess. The humanitarian source IRIN spoke to said their organisation was "working in the dark", and compared the camp to a "net" where vulnerable people, attracted by life-saving assistance, could be preyed upon. "We, by our own presence, are creating a pull factor that is dragging people to the corner of the desert people that are genuinely vulnerable," the source said. "They are going to be eaten alive by those dynamics in the camp." The service area currently being built and coordinated by agencies including the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR), the World Food Programme and the International Committee of the Red Cross, it's hoped, could go some way to addressing these problems. Many months in negotiation, it will be designed for effective crowd control and distribution, organising aid to better ensure those in need get a fair share. With more permanent structures in the field, less money and time will be spent on the daily journey - much of it off-road - that aid workers make to the border. "Having this service area in place will improve the humanitarian assistance to be given to the refugees or asylum-seekers, and to organise the flow of the refugees and vulnerable people who are allowed to come in Jordan," General al-Mawajdeh said. "We will provide them with the basic needs of life." It's far from perfect, and doesn't address the underlying issues: that refugees cannot easily enter Jordan, that humanitarians can't access the community, and that those fleeing a devastating conflict will continue to mass at the border. Some aid workers have expressed concerns that the centre will require people to pass through a high level of security clearance just to fulfil their basic needs, and that it strongly indicates the border camp will become permanent. But for now the importance of saving lives means compromises have to be made. "We can't really manage to solve the dilemma," IRIN's humanitarian source said. "It's unacceptable to work at the berm. But it's unacceptable not to be there. We just have to swallow it." An uncertain future "We are not intending to have a permanent camp there," al-Mawajdeh told IRIN. But while stressing that refugees will continue to enter Jordan, he also highlighted that the border population continues to increase, despite the recent spike in entries to Jordan. His response to the question of whether the border camp would then remain: "You had better direct it to the international community, to resolve the issue of the Syria crisis." The precarious status of the people at the berm may be based on flimsy legal grounds. Human Rights Watch suggests the exact international border runs roughly halfway between the two berms at Rukban, based on analysis of satellite photographs and maps from the UN and US. As the shelters at both Hadalat and Rukban are clustered towards the southerly Jordanian berm, many may already technically be inside Jordan. Jordan rejects this analysis. If on Jordanian soil, international law would imply that the people would be entitled to protection from being sent back. It would mean Jordan could ease humanitarian access to the area - and it would add thousands to the country's refugee caseload at a stroke. In any case, if Jordan is preventing asylum seekers from entering what it says is its territory and controlling access to them, that likely amounts to "extraterritorial control". That may mean Jordan is already responsible for those at the berm, according to Bill Frelick, director of the refugee program at Human Rights Watch. "If you're preventing people from accessing their rights, if you're pushing them back, that is a violation of non-refoulement law," he told IRIN. The principle of non-refoulement forbids returning people to where their lives or safety may be in danger, and it's a crucial tenet of refugee law. HRW recognises that important security concerns necessitate controlling the border, but regards the idea of a "no man's land", where no state is responsible for the rights of asylum seekers, as a "legal fiction". "Where a state exercises control over people, they have a responsibility to protect and uphold the rights of those people. You can't declare a stretch that's a rights-free zone," Frelick continued. With Jordan's capacity to receive refugees increasingly squeezed, the options available for the population at the berm are narrow. And regardless of the legal status of the territory, its remote location and vulnerable population mean providing aid there will continue to be difficult and expensive: In documents seen by IRIN, Jordan's Interagency Task Force working at the border estimated that its operations will require $117 million of funding for the remainder of the year - an amount that covers only the most basic level of life-saving assistance. And as the population of the border camp continues to increase, those trying to improve the lives of those trapped there face a bleak situation. The prospect of 100,000 people stuck in a demilitarised zone has scant precedent. "What we're looking at are really just options that are less worse," an employee of an NGO operating at Azraq said. "There are no good solutions any more." Community leaders discuss future of mental health services in Morgan County A large crowd gathered at First Christian Church to learn about local efforts that are underway to manage growing mental health pressures facing the city and all of Morgan County. An estimated $300 million in cost-share assistance payments is being made available to the nation's cotton producers to expand and maintain the domestic marketing of cotton. Since 2011, cotton fiber markets have experienced dramatic changes. As a result of low cotton prices and global oversupply, cotton producers are facing economic uncertainty that has led to many producers having lost equity and having been forced to liquidate equipment and land to satisfy loans. The one-time payment through the new Cotton Ginning Cost-Share program will be available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency upon sign-up, which will begin June 20 and run through August 5. Payments are expected to begin in July. 'Today's announcement shows USDA continues to stand with America's cotton producers and our rural communities,' Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. 'The Cotton Ginning Cost Share program will offer meaningful, timely and targeted assistance to cotton growers to help with their anticipated ginning costs and to facilitate marketing.' The ginning of cotton is necessary before marketing the lint for fiber, or the seed for oil or feed. 'While the Cotton Ginning Cost Share program makes payments to cotton producers for cotton ginning costs, the benefits of the program will be felt by the broader marketing chain associated with cotton and cottonseed, including cotton gins, cooperatives, marketers and cottonseed crushers and the rural communities that depend on them,' Vilsack said. The program will provide, on average, about 60 percent more assistance per farm and per producer than the 2014 program that provided cotton transition assistance, Vilsack said. 'I know producers have been waiting for this announcement on ginning cost-share assistance from USDA, and I am pleased to see the department put some assistance in place,' said Rep. Randy Neugebauer, who represents the Big Country and the South Plains where the nation's majority of cotton is grown. 'This is not producers' first choice for how USDA could have addressed the downturn in cotton, and I agree that more could have been done by designating cottonseed as an eligible oilseed. The economic challenges facing cotton producers in our area are significant, and when farmers are in trouble, the whole community is affected,' Neugebauer said. 'We greatly appreciate Secretary Vilsack and the USDA for listening to the concerns of cotton producers and coming up with a viable short-term solution that will helps us face some of our challenges,' said Johnie Reed, a cotton producer from Kress and president of Lubbock-based Plains Cotton Growers. The payments will be based on a producer's 2015 cotton acres reported to the Farm Service Agency, multiplied by 40 percent of the average ginning cost for each production region. With the pressing need to provide assistance ahead of the 2016 ginning season this fall, USDA will ensure the application process is straightforward and efficient. According to USDA, the program estimates the costs based on planting of cotton in 2015, and therefore the local FSA offices already have this information for the vast majority of eligible producers and the applications will be prepopulated with existing data. The program has the same eligibility requirements as were used for the 2014 Cotton Transition Assistance Program, including a $40,000 per producer payment limit, requirement to be actively engaged in farming, meet conservation compliance and a $900,000 adjusted gross income limit. 'Payments to Texas producers will be $36.97 per acre,' Reed said. 'We had hoped for some flexibility in the payment limit, but we are grateful for the assistance, because our producers certainly need it,' Reed said. 'We recognize that this is a program for the near term, and we remain committed to working with Congress and others in trying to establish cottonseed as an 'other oilseed' under Title I of the 2014 Farm Bill, which would provide long-term stability for our industry.' For more information or to sign-up, producers can visit their local FSA county office. In the Big Country, the FSA office is located at 3400 S. 14th Street, Abilene or call 325-695-0140. Concho Valley producers can visit the FSA office at 3514 Devonian Dr., San Angelo, or call 325-653-1246. Email Jerry Lackey, agriculture editor emeritus of the San Angelo Standard-Times, at jlackey@wcc.net. The Rev. Margaret Warn-Walker of Exodus Metropolitan Community Church in south Abilene issued a statement Sunday, via Facebook, about the nightclub shootings in Orlando, Florida. Exodus Metropolitan, on its website, is described as 'a Christian congregation of people who are inclusive, loving and affirming without condemnation or judgment based on gender, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.' Warn-Walker wrote: 'As many of you know, last night in the early morning hours, a man entered the Pulse Nightclub, a prominent GLBT club in Orlando, opened fire, killing 50 people and injuring 53. It is not known if this was a domestic or an international terror incident. Regardless, it was an act of hatred against human life. 'This will become the deadliest mass shooting and worst mass murder of GLBT people in the history of our country, surpassing the firebombing of the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans (in 1973). 'The duty of all Christians is simple: We must preach a message of respect across lines of difference. God loves diversity as is seen in all creation. We must speak out against those who spread a culture of fear and hatred against those who are different or who believe differently, and oppose those who justify violence of any kind to achieve political, social, or religious ends. And we must pray for those who would use violence and for those impacted by it.' LOS ANGELES 'Sometimes, I just come here and stare at all the pretty boys,' says Emilia Clarke. She's standing in the middle of Gjusta, a bakery-slash-deli-slash-juice-bar in Venice that may also secretly serve as the national headquarters for Jesus impersonators. 'OK, truth be told, this is, like, a poser-y kind of place to go, I think,' she says, looking around at all the well-coiffed beards and Birkenstocks. 'Everyone's pretty, and everyone's looking at each other, but the food is so good that I just cannot help it.' Everyone is looking at one another, and especially at Clarke. She insists that without the blond wig she wears as Daenerys Targaryen/Khaleesi/the Mother of Dragons on 'Game of Thrones,' fans barely recognize her. But it seems most of the patrons know who she is. Maybe it's all the ads that have been running on television lately for her new film, 'Me Before You.' In the movie, based on Jojo Moyes' best-selling novel, the actress plays Louisa Clark, a small-town girl in desperate search of a job to help support her working-class family. The only gig she can find is one no one wants: working as a caretaker for a wealthy young man who was recently paralyzed after being hit by a car. Though Louisa has an, uh, eccentric wardrobe she's obsessed with floral-patterned high heels and bumble-bee-striped tights she looks a lot more like Clarke than Daenerys does. For one, the character is a brunet, as the 29-year-old is off-screen. And she certainly would never stand stark naked in front of a crowd of onlookers as a building burned to the ground behind her. Indeed, the filmmakers initially had trouble envisioning Clarke as anyone other than the fearless queen she plays on 'Game of Thrones.' She'd appeared in only one major studio release prior to 'Me Before You': 'Terminator Genisys,' last year's reboot of the Arnold Schwarzenegger franchise, in which she starred as Sarah Connor. 'Frankly, I was a little bit skeptical,' says Moyes, who helped director Thea Sharrock sift through more than 300 actresses for the part. 'Like, the Mother of Dragons? How is that gonna work?' But during her audition, Clarke took off her coat and accidentally knocked over a bottle of water behavior that seemed totally in line with the clumsy Louisa. 'She got down on all fours and started apologizing profusely, embodying Louisa's klutzy nature,' recalls Sharrock. 'It's amazing that she's had the part of 'Game of Thrones' for so long, but I think fans of the show are going to be really surprised by her range in this movie. It feels like when people first saw 'Pretty Woman,' when Julia Roberts just popped and came to life and you went, 'God, where did she come from?'' The movie was a personally transformative experience for Clarke too. Unlike 'Thrones,' which is filmed abroad in remote locations like Malta and Croatia, 'Me Before You' was shot mostly in England. She was able to go home every night to her apartment in Hampstead. But she also identified with Louisa in a way she never has with her more iconic character. 'I just felt so much that someone had written me down that a part of myself was written in a book,' she says. 'She wants to be happy. She's got this innocence that I after six years in this industry I've lost. What I've managed to go through within this industry has, I think, given me a maturity at a speed which I wouldn't have normally had. I was forced to grow up and take responsibility for myself, because whatever mistakes you make? You can't be putting nothing on no one. You have to be cool with the choices you're making.' Even out here by the ocean, though, she's not entirely immune to industry pressure. She's struggled, for instance, to feel comfortable with her body particularly with a role on 'Thrones' that requires her to show it off so frequently. As a teenager, sometimes she worried about her weight so much that she wouldn't go out with her friends for fear they might call her fat. 'I feel like so many women in this business don't speak truthfully about what they put in their body,' says Clarke. She puts on a Valley Girl affect: 'They're, like, 'I eat pizza all the time and I don't work out!' It's, like, no. You're a twig. You've got an eating disorder and you're not talking about it. And that's annoying. 'For me,' she continues, 'I got to a point where I was, like, wait a second. I, Emilia, care more about the size of someone's brain than the size of their a--. So why should I care if someone is looking at me and judging the size of my bum over my brain? If you work hard enough and you're not a (jerk), people will hire you for your talent over the fact that you're, like, super skinny.' Still, Clarke acknowledges she's still learning how to speak up for herself in the business world. On set, she says, it's not her tendency to demand a latte instead, she's the one profusely thanking the production assistant for retrieving her drink. Jason Adams was wrestling Wednesday at Business Expo. He wrestled while placing the posts for the awning covering his Vagabond Wood-Fired Pizza setup at the south entrance to the Abilene Civic Center. While building his tasty pies, he wrestled with lightweight ingredients such as basil to keep them from blowing away. And, whoops, wasn't that a customer's ticket that just blew off? That would be, uh, a to-go order. Although most taking part in the annual event stayed inside, Adams, his wife, Jessica, and chef Rob Allen fought the good fight outside, where consistent southerly winds of 20 mph and sometimes stronger buffeted the downtown area. The expo's theme this year was "Business Mania 2016," a concept someone had fun rasslin' with. At the center of the main exhibit hall was a ring, and some of the more than 200 exhibitors were dressed in masks and capes but thankfully not the tight short shorts worn back in the day. At last report, tempers were cool and no one was seen slammin' a folding chair over a competitor's head. At the HealthSouth booth was Donna J. Slatton, daughter of the late wrestler Don Slatton, aka The Lawman. Among memorabilia on display were a ring bell, his gun and holster The Lawman was way ahead on open carry and a photo of her, all curly blond hair and cute, being held by Andre the Giant. Adams soon won't have to deal with wind or whatever being outdoors brings. In a 3,500-square-foot space at 1056 N. Second St., the Adamses are preparing to open a restaurant. It's something he has wanted to do since he was a teenager making food service deliveries. A successful restaurant creates energy, he said, and working in that environment appeals to him. But you have to work your way to most goals, and Adams has trekked slowly but surely toward making Vagabond a business that can support his family. On Tuesday, wallboard was being installed at the restaurant and he had a private gig. On Wednesday, he was at the Civic Center an hour ahead of the event's start time to set up his serving area and, most importantly, to fire up the oven. It needs to be 850 degrees, allowing him to make pizzas in 90 seconds to two minutes. He was making pizzas to sell and also providing meatball and sausage subs ("heroes" he was calling 'em to fit the wrestling theme) for the vendors. Once his authentic Texas mesquite starts burning, he moves it to the side so he can place his pies inside the 5,000-pound mobile oven. The heat rises to the top of the oven, raising the temperature to 1,000 degrees. The stones below heat to more than 550 degrees. The effect is all-around baking with a woodsy flavor. The mesquite ain't there just to be Texas-y. The Texas Forest Service says it generates big-time BTUs. He can bake five pizzas at once. The 6,000-pound oven in the restaurant will bake nine at a time. About 3 years ago, he got in early on the food truck craze, though we didn't know it would be a craze back then. Besides, he didn't have a truck but a trailer customized to haul his wood-burning stove that looks quite like an American Indian kiva. Why mess with a good idea? Adams' story in many ways was perfect for a pro-business event. Allen, for example, is a 2014 graduate of TSTC's culinary school. Adams and Allen work with students there, and the restaurant is a work-in-progress example of how to set up a business, he said. Adams, 32, has a degree in ag business leadership from Texas A&M, where he also learned his culinary skills. There, he met Abilene girl Jessica and a job opportunity for her brought them here. He said he is aware of the cultural change downtown and wants to be "the next cog in the wheel." There are more and more reasons to come to this city's center during the day, the evening and weekends. "I love it here. We're going to be here awhile," he said. He started his mobile pizza business to build clientele. He has that two people arriving early Wednesday said they'd be back for his Margherita pizza. That's tomato sauce, basil and mozzarella. Adams paused. Cheese and crust and sauce are what make the pizza, he said. "You need to have those three," he said. There have been some misses among his hits. For example, a pizza he called Chef's Favorite Canadian bacon and cider-braised onion didn't sell. He changed the name to Momma's Favorite and it did. "No one argues with momma," he said, setting out supplies and working on a cigarette whose smoke was lost amid that coming from the oven. Growing up, Saturday was pizza day at his house supreme for dad and bacon/onion for everyone else. Adams said he plans to keep the yesteryear atmosphere of his restaurant space as intact as possible. The wood floor in the kitchen had to come up (health regulations), but instead of tossing it all in the dumpster, he used pieces for his sign and will use more for the counters. He will offer 15 pizzas, 10 appetizers, up to six salads and four or five desserts. Pappy Slokum beer, a local product, will be on tap or you can order a glass of one of 80 to 90 wines he'll offer. Jason and Jessica were married at a California winery. "We love wine," he said. Undoubtedly. Vagabond will employ 20 to 30 people. Job creation in Abilene always is good. "A lot of young professionals are coming to this town from bigger cities," he said. "This place, being located where it is, should have a lot of stuff." And now, for the big question: Has it been hard to work with the city on starting a business? For the most part, Adams said, no. "Starting a new business is hard," he said. He has learned to ask questions and has found that the city staff gives him good answers. But then, his operation was shut down for no more than 30 minutes Wednesday when the director of the local heath department "didn't like our setup," he said. So, tablecloths were found and stapled to enclose the preparation area. Another good reason to move inside, Adams joked. Vagabond will open this spring, which gives this Adams family project until June 20 to get everything right. Adams credits the success of food trucks here to a nationwide trend that has allowed people to discover their inner chefs and Abilene's open-mindedness to something new both to do and eat. "Abilene's palate is improving," he said. Yes, our stomachs are ready to rumble. Incident reports released Sunday by the Abilene Police Department: Driving while license invalid, 900 block of North Mockingbird Lane, Saturday. A 29-year-old male was arrested for driving with an invalid license. Upon being stopped by the police, the driver was discovered to have three prior convictions for the same offense. Driving while intoxicated, 100 block of Oak Street, Sunday A 37-year-old male was arrested and charged with DWI after being seen driving the wrong way on a one-way street. The individual failed a field sobriety test and was subsequently taken to the Taylor County Jail. Driving while intoxicated, 1000 block of Hickory Street, Saturday A 46-year-old male was arrested and charged with DWI after being pulled over by police for a routine traffic stop. The individual failed a field sobriety test and was taken to the Taylor County Jail. Possession of a controlled substance, 1100 block of North Eighth Street, Saturday A 21-year-old female was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance after she tried to throw a baggie out of the passenger side of a car during a traffic stop. Police picked up the baggie, and the substance inside later tested positive for methamphetamine. Fleeing to elude, 1400 block of Burger Street, Saturday A 19-year-old male was arrested after refusing to stop for police after he ran a stop sign. The individual led police on a multi-block chase, and finally pulled over before being arrested. Assault on a citizen, Dawn Court, Sunday A 47-year-old male was arrested and charged with assault after police responded to a domestic disturbance call. Upon arrival, police discovered a female who said she had been hit in the face by the suspect. She wished to press charges, so the man was taken to the Taylor County Jail. Public intoxication and resisting arrest, 3800 block of Vine Street, Sunday A 26-year-old male was arrested after police responded to report of a fight at a local bar. While attempting to separate those who were fighting, the individual attempted to go back into the building to continue fighting. As the individual was being handcuffed, he began resisting arrest, requiring additional officers to subdue him. Criminal mischief, 600 block of Harwell Street, Saturday An 18-year-old female reported her car had been egged and covered with flour. She reported to police she believed she knew the perpetrators, and filed a report. Theft/shoplifting, 1600 block of State Highway 351, Friday Two separate individuals stole window air-conditioner units from a north-side business. The investigation is ongoing, but police believe they know the identity of one of the individuals. Assault, 1700 block of North 15th Street, Friday A 21-year-old female reported that her boyfriend forced her to get in the car with him; then took her to a north-side location and assaulted her. The victim had facial injuries. Burglary, 1400 block of North Eighth Street, Friday A 51-year-old male and a 56-year-old female reported their home was broken into; items valued at more than $1,250 were taken by the thieves, they said. A price hike could be coming to breakfasts and secondary-level lunches in the Abilene Independent School District in August, according to a recommendation to the district's school board. Jay Towell, director of student nutrition for the district, is asking the school board to approve the price hike of 25 cents to both student and adult breakfasts, as well as lunches at the middle and high schools. It's a measure, he said, that's required to maintain the level of federal funding coming into the self-sustained program. 'Our prices are based on a market average,' Towell said. 'If we don't meet that average price, we have to increase our prices or use local money to balance (the program).' School board trustees are expected to vote on the issue at their regular meeting Monday. It's scheduled to begin with a closed session at 5 p.m. in the AISD boardroom, 241 Pine St. In 2015-16, Abilene ISD charged $2.25 for lunch at the elementary level. That would remain the same next year, as would the adult lunch option at $3.25. Students at the secondary level would pay $2.75 if the recommendation is approved after paying $2.50 last year. Breakfast for students this past school year cost $1.25, while adults paid $1.75. If approved Monday, the district will increase those two costs to $1.50 and $2, respectively. Factoring in these prices, Abilene ISD charged a weighted average of $2.38, well below the required minimum weighted average price of $2.78 districts must meet, Towell said in a memo to Scott McLean, the associate superintendent for operations who oversees the program. Understanding why the price hike is needed is complicated, Towell said, as formulas take into account both a standard increase in prices of food and an increase in the consumer price index, or CPI. As the goal of the program is to operate without using any money from the school district's general fund, Towell said, the program must make enough money from paid lunches in the district at prices that are as reasonable as possible. The district receives federal reimbursement for every student breakfast and lunch sold, including those at full price. But if food prices go up, the district must be able to pay for the meals while the reimbursement rates stay flat. It's why Towell said this proposed increase likely won't be the last one the Abilene ISD sees in the next two to three years, or even beyond. 'I'm trying to read the tea leaves,' he said. 'Right now, I'm seeing prices and looking at a 23- to 25-cent increase over the next little while. I have two kids in school right now. I'm going to be paying this increase, too. 'I'm making these recommendations knowing full well it's going to be coming out of my own pocket, too.' Twitter: @TimothyChippARN A past president of the Friends of the Abilene Public Library doesn't mince words when talking about Margaret Basquette. 'There wouldn't be a book sale without her,' said Carrie Casada, who served a one-year term as president of the Friends and has worked with Basquette for six years. 'I truly admire her so much everybody does.' Other members of the Friends are stepping in to make sure that the annual book sale goes on, despite the loss of Basquette, who at 81 has decided it's time to step aside. This year's sale will be held Thursday through Sunday at the Civic Center. Basquette will continue as a member of the Friends but no longer will spend long hours year-round sorting donations for the book sale. She does her work in a storage area at the back of the basement in the main library, with the help of a few other volunteers. Matt Preston, current president of the Friends and chair of the book sale, has known Basquette 10 years and has worked with her the past five years. He described Basquette as a 'quiet leader' who gets things done. 'The only demand she ever makes,' Preston said in an email, 'is for empty boxes to be moved from storage to the library basement.' There, Basquette diligently goes through the donations of used books, CDs, vinyl records, even audiobooks on eight-track and cassette tapes. She culls what most likely won't sell, donating some of it to Goodwill Industries and tossing the rest. Basquette credits the late Ricki Brown, former librarian, with coming up with the sorting system she now uses. Boxes are numbered according types of donations and a corresponding number is taped to a bookshelf. Previously, donations were sorted only by 'fiction' or 'nonfiction.' 'The book sale in those days was very, very small,' Basquette said. But it has grown considerably. Casada said that today more than 100,000 items are available at the book sale. What's amazing is that Basquette probably could tell what many of them are. 'She has touched just about every one of those,' Casada said. Thanks to the large number of donations and popularity of the book sale, the Friends organization has raised enough money to donate more than $500,000 toward a new branch library in the Mall of Abilene. Preston gives much of the credit to Basquette. 'Margaret is the backbone of the book sale,' he said in an email. 'She is loyal, hard working and bears much fruit.' Basquette isn't sure where her next volunteer efforts will be, but it's likely she won't stay still for long. She will continue volunteering with the Friends, but also will look for other places of service. 'I don't know what it is at the moment,' she said. Born in Crockett, Basquette graduated from Reagan High School in Houston and from Sam Houston State University. She taught fourth and fifth grades in Houston, Waco, and Abilene, where she moved in 1965. Basquette and her husband, Hugh, have two sons Ronn and Roger, one daughter Vickie and three grandchildren. When Basquette quit teaching school, she began volunteering. Besides the library, she has volunteered at Abilene Regional Medical Center, the Grace Museum, Frontier Texas, and the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP). She started volunteering at the library in 1991 whenbarcodes first were being used on books.Her job was to put plastic covers on the books after the barcode was stamped on. She did that until she started her sorting duties in 1997. Basquette traces her love of books and reading to childhood when her mother read to her and her four siblings. She still is an avid reader, especially all types of fiction 'Preferably something that has a happy ending,' she said. Now that it has come time to hand the sorting job over to others, Basquette is leaving with a mixture of sadness and relief. 'I've thoroughly loved being involved in this,' she said. Halloween events, fall festivals pack October in Abilene, Big Country From family-friendly to frightful, there are plenty of opportunities to don the costumes and scare up some treats. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below This just in... Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday appeared to warn the nation that his patience with the opposition is wearing thin as he reminded everyone that the levers of power in Cambodia are in his hands. In a speech at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, he addressed Cambodias current political crisis, dismissing the concerns of the international community, rejecting talks with the opposition Cambodia National rescue Party (CNRP), and warning that his administration will not look kindly upon demonstrations in support of CNRP politicians or their supporters. Some people bring the whole party in to protect one individual who has done wrong, he said. We hear the word protest. Please dont threaten that in this way. I am telling you. Please dont make this threat. I will not tolerate it. I am telling you. Hun Sens government and the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) have been backing a push in Cambodias courts to bring CNRP leader Kem Sokha in for questioning regarding his alleged affair with a young hairdresser. The case has seen the arrest of four employees of the human rights group ADHOC and a member of the National Election Commission (NEC), while an arrest warrant was also issued for a U.N. worker. CNRP headquarters were also raided by heavily armed police in an effort to arrest Kem Sokha for failing to appear in court in a pair of cases related to the alleged affair. Bail denied for Kem Sokha Five On Monday, an appeals court in Phnom Penh denied bail for the four rights workers and the NEC official, saying the court feared for their safety and that they have been uncooperative in the investigation into the affair. The Kem Sokha Five are facing bribery or accessory charges for allegedly attempting to keep hairdresser Khem Chandaraty quiet about her alleged affair with Kem Sokha. An attorney defending the Kem Sokha Five said they are willing to cooperate, but that the court is unwilling to listen. The appeal courts decision is not right, said attorney Sam Sokong. They are qualified to be free on bail, but the court did not consider this matter and the legal process. The decision was dismissed by rights workers as politically motivated. Licadho investigator Am Sam Ath told RFA the Kem Sokha Five would go free if it were not for political interference. If we are talking about the legal perspective, they are qualified for bail, but the political environment makes it harder, he said. Before being sent back to jail on Monday, NEC Deputy Secretary-General Ny Chakrya and ADHOC worker Yi Soksan shouted to supporters from their prison vehicle urging them to continue the Black Monday protests. Detention of civil society groups should not happen in a rule-of-law country, they shouted. We want the charges dropped. We support Black Monday! The Black Monday protests were launched by civil society groups after authorities arrested the Kem Sokha Five. It gets its name from the black shirts demonstrators wear as they protest outside the notorious Prey Sar prison. Dont tread on the CPP While there were recent reports that CNRP and CPP working groups would meet in an effort to resolve the ongoing crises, Hun Sen appeared to reject that effort during his speech. The CPP is not a stone to be stepped upon, or a puppet for any political party to use to solve the mistakes of their makers, Hun Sen said. The Kem Sokha saga has caused political turmoil in Cambodia as the CNRP and its allies mount the gravest threat yet to Hun Sens 31-year reign. While Hun Sen and the CPP have ruled the country for more than three decades, Cambodias ruling party suffered a dramatic drop in support during the countrys last election in 2013, and could see even more erosion in the 2017 commune elections and 2018 general election. CNRPs secretary general Eng Chhai Eang told RFAs Khmer service his party has no plans for mass protests against the government. The CNRP does plan a mass meeting at party headquarters on Tuesday, and the opposition party also plans to deliver a second batch of petitions to King Norodom Sihamoni seeking his help in releasing the Kem Sokha Five and ending what they see as the persecution of Kem Sokha, Eng Chhai Eang said. Police were erecting barricades Monday in downtown Phnom Penh in what appears to be an attempt to prevent people from gathering near the CNRP headquarters. A political game Eng Chhai Eang told RFA that the CNRP plans to maintain its stance that Kem Sokha should stay out of court because he has parliamentary immunity, and that the case against him is politically motivated. We cant let the court solve this issue, he said. As you know, the court is just a tool for a political game that has been used to change the subject of the story. Everybody clearly sees that. Eng Chhai Eang told RFA that the recent threat by the European Union (EU) to withhold funds until the crisis is resolved, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moons personal attempt to get the CPP and the CNRP back to the negotiating table, mark international recognition of the political nature of the crisis. A European Parliament resolution approved on June 9 calls on Cambodia to release the Kem Sokha Five or face losing millions in EU aid. On June 7, Ban urged Cambodian Minister of Foreign Affairs Prak Sokhon to resume the culture of dialogue between the Cambodia Peoples Party (CPP) and the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), according to a U.N. summary of the call. Ban Ki-moon and the European Parliament clearly understand this matter, Eng Chhai Eang said. If it is a love affair or an individual matter, then the U.N.secretary general and the European parliament, with its 28 member-countries and 600 lawmakers, wouldnt get a headache about this, but this is a political issue. Hun Sen tells off the EU For his part, Hun Sen dismissed the E.U.s threat, telling the university students cutting aid would harm his opponents more than it would hurt him or his supporters. The ones who die first are the nongovernmental organizations. The aid is never injected into the government, he said. Its only injected to NGOs. The people who will die are the people who make hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars. So dont just intimidate us this way. While Hun Sen was critical of the EU, the U.N. and the U.S., he praised China, saying it is the main source of loans for infrastructure in the country. China also has never threatened us like this. Cambodia has its own political independence, he said. China also never advised Cambodia to do this and that. Independent social researcher Kem Ley warned that EU cuts would be a disaster for Cambodia. If we ignore the Europeans measure, and if they freeze their aid, it will lead to aid cuts, he said. If they cut aid, other countries will have a reason for economic sanctions that would ban Cambodian exports. Reported by Moniroth Morm, Mengchou Cheng, Maly Leng and Chandara Yang for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Sarada Taing. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. Ethnic Mongolian herders in China's northern region of Inner Mongolia on Friday blocked construction traffic en route to a highway project in protest at the use of their grazing lands. Herders in Bieligutai township to the southwest of Shiilinhot city in Inner Mongolia's Shiilingol League are angry over what they say is the second encroachment by highway builders into their grazing lands this year. "We are blocking the traffic here today because a lot of local herders don't dare speak out," local herder Ulanqiqige told RFA. "They say they'll only speak out when some journalists or other people who can help us resolve this are involved." "We are blocking ... the road every day," she said. Local herders are angry that their village chief had commissioned the building of the highway without their knowledge or consent. "He didn't sign a contract with us, nor did he pay us any compensation," Ulanqiqige said. "This is the second road they've built here this year." She said the road-builders had already placed stones to widen the road beyond its original specification, further encroaching on surrounding grasslands. "The head of the construction team is our local People's Congress representative, so [the government] says they can't help us," she said. "But the roads are all dug out of our grazing lands." Calls to the Abag banner government offices rang unanswered during office hours on Monday. Pollution, encroachment Ethnic Mongolian rights activist Xinna said rights protests in Inner Mongolia fall broadly into two categories: anti-pollution protests and protests over encroachment on grasslands. Both issues strike at the heart of traditional Mongolian nomadic lifestyles, activists have said. Xinna said the Abag herders have a legitimate complaint. "They have an agricultural production license for this land, which is also their home, but it's not worth the paper it's written on," she said. Xinna said the road protest isn't the first in the Abag banner. "A few years back, the authorities in their production brigade built a highway of dirt ... which damaged the environment of the grasslands," she said. "Now, they are widening that road, and Ulanqiqige is trying to highlight this problem, because she wants them to pay compensation, which they should." Many of China's ethnic Mongolian herders hold their grazing lands under "household responsibility" contracts, which typically last up to 30 years. But authorities routinely ignore the herders' land rights when using land for road-building, mining, or forestry projects, activists say. "These lands have been granted to the herders, and if they want to take them over, they must discuss it with them," Xinna said. The Abag protest comes after Chinese authorities detained 12 ethnic Mongolian herders amid a protest over the building of a highway across grasslands in Shuluun Hoh banner. The activists were detained on May 21 after protesting that they graze the lands under a 20-year government lease. Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie. North Korea is sending growing numbers of active-duty soldiers to work at construction projects in the Middle East in an effort to bring hard currency in to the isolated, sanctions-hit state, a source in the Middle East says. The number of civilian workers sent to Kuwait has dropped from about 4,000 last year to approximately 3,200 today, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. But the number of North Korean soldiers deployed as laborers to construction sites in Kuwait and other Middle Eastern countries has rapidly increased, RFAs source said. The soldiers, all in their 20s and belonging to engineering battalions in North Korea, are employed by the Middle East-based North Korean construction firms Namgang and Cholhyun, the source said. So far, the Namgang Company has dispatched about 800 North Korean [soldiers] as laborers to Kuwait and about 750 to Qatar, he said, adding that the Cholhyun company too has steadily increased the number of soldiers it has sent to work in Kuwait since its first deployment of 70 soldiers in 2010. Almost 30 percent of North Koreans now working in Kuwait are soldiers on active service, he said. Disguised identity North Korean authorities tell the soldiers sent to the Middle East to grow their hair long to disguise their identity, RFA's source said. North Koreas growing use of soldiers as laborers sent abroad to work may be due to their readiness to quickly obey orders and to work without pay during their period of service overseas, he said. The soldiers are feisty and aggressive, though, and are resented by North Korean civilian workers for sometimes taking their jobs, he said. The ordinary laborers call the soldiers Makhnoa Russian word meaning reckless gangstersand avoid all contact with them, he said. More than 50,000 North Koreans have been sent abroad to work in China, Russia, Africa, and the Middle East, bringing in an estimated 1 billion pounds (U.S.$1,504,140,000) each year for the regime, according to U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea Marzuki Darusman, quoted in an Oct. 29, 2015 report by The Guardian. In addition to seafood processing and factory work, many are employed in logging, textiles, and construction. Reported by Albert Hong for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Dohyun Gwon. Written in English by Richard Finney. Tursunjan Memet, one of the web administrators of the Uyghur-language website Misranim, in northwestern China's Xinjiang region in an undated photo. Authorities in northwestern Chinas Xinjiang region detained five web administrators and writers for two months before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to keep them from criticizing Chinese regulations that restrain Uyghurs activities during this time, sources inside the region said. Just before Ramadan, when Muslim Uyghurs fast during daylight hours for 30 days, news appeared on social media and on Uyghur-language websites that police had apprehended several website owners and managers in the region. Through telephone interviews, RFAs Uyghur Service was able to confirm that at least five Uyghurs were held between March and MayTursunjan Memet, Omerjan Hesen, Ababekri Muhtar, Akbarjan Eset, and an online writer whose name could not be confirmed. Misranim and Baghdax are two of the most popular Uyghur language websites established by intellectuals in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Tursunjan Memet, one of the web administrators of the website Misranim, was detained on March 29 at his house in Korla (in Chinese, Kuerle), capital city of the Bayingholin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. A week after Tursunjan Memet was apprehended, authorities detained Ababekri Muhtar, Misranims founder, in the regional capital Urumqi. Next, Akbarjan Eset, founder of the Baghdax website was detained at his home in Komul (in Chinese, Hami), the most eastern prefecture that borders Chinas inner provinces and has still not reappeared. On May 31, Aksu (Akesu) prefectures Commission for Discipline Inspection announced on its website that Omerjan Hesen, an active web writer and government official in Aksu, had been expelled from the Communist Party and was under investigation. Authorities in Urumqi also took into custody another Uyghur web writer who works in the field of education but whose name could not be confirmed. Morning invasion Six plainclothes officers from the public security bureau in Aksu arrived in two cars at Tursunjan Memets home in Shangho village of Shangho township in Korla on the morning of March 29, and informed him that they were temporarily detaining him, said Memet Qari, Tursunjan Memets 59-year-old father. They thoroughly searched Memets room and checked all his books, taking some of them along with a desktop computer, Qari, who is a farmer, said. My wife and I asked them why they were detaining our son, but they only informed us that there appeared to be some problem with the Misranim website, he said. Police warned the couple not to say anything about Tursunjan Memets detention, even to their close relatives, and declined any requests for interviews from local journalists, he said. Tursunjans mother, who suffers from heart disease and diabetes, fell ill after authorities apprehended her son, and had to be hospitalized, Memet Qari said. Qari inquired everywhere about possible information as to his sons whereabouts, but he could not find him in Korla. Later, he became aware that policemen took Tursunjan first to Aksu, and then transferred him to the Urumqi railway detention center, he said. Father hires lawyer On May 18, Memet Qari went to Urumqi and contacted a lawyer named Abureshit Mejit, who said he knew of Memet through his writings. Qari paid the attorney a 15,000 yuan (U.S. $2,300) fee to help free his son, he said. The next day, when Memet Qari and Mejit went to the detention center, authorities denied the father entry but let in Mejit. Police did not allow him to meet with Memet though, Qari said. Lawyer Abdureshit told me that my son had been accused of the crime of instigating ethnic-hatred and separatism, he said. When RFA contacted Abdureshit Mejit to inquire about Memets detention, he said he could not talk about the case. Police have transferred Memet back to Aksu again and are detaining him at the prefectures central detention center, Qari said. The deputy director of Aksu prefectures security bureau, who gave his name as Tuyghun, called Memet Qari about three weeks ago to inform him that his son had been moved, and that his family needed to provide clothing, food and money for him, he said. In late May, Memet Qari went to Aksu and met with Tuyghun, who read him Memets official letter of arrest. It said: Tursunjan Memet, 25, from Korla city, Shangho township, was officially arrested and accused of the crimes of instigating ethnic hatred and separatism. He uses the Misranim website as his platform to publish illegal writings. Qari said he went to the facility where a police officer named Muhtar would not let him see Tursunjan Memet until his trial takes place. But we can send money, daily necessities and letters to our son while hes in detention there, Qari said. When RFA contacted officer Muhtar at Aksu prefectures central detention center, he declined to say anything about Memet. Writer and social activist Tursunjan Memets case is connected to that of Omerjan Hesen, a writer who uses the pen name Bozqir and works as a vice director of the Urban Greenery Office in Aksu prefectures forestry bureau, Qari said. Omerjan Hesen used to write articles for the Misranim website. According to information published widely on Uyghur websites in Xinjiang, Omerjan Hesen is a well-known writer and social activist in the Uyghur community in Xinjiang. He previously was a journalist, writer and translator at the Aksu TV and radio station, the Aksu prefecture government, and Xinjiang Peoples Publishing House. At the end of May, Aksu prefectures Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that Hesen had been expelled from the Communist Party and removed from his position at the forestry bureau for breaking party discipline. The commission accused him of writing essays attacking the party and governments ethnic or religious policies in Xinjiang, distorting the history of Xinjiang, instigating ethnic hatred, and opposing Chinas unity or territorial integrity. Ababekri Muhtar, founder of the Misranim website, in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Misranim website No contact Ababekri Muhtar, the 29-year-old founder of Misranim and a handicapped social activist, is Tursunjan Memets best friend, Memet Qari said. A week after Tursunjan was detained, Ababekri Muhtar contacted Memet Qari to inform him that he had not been in contact with Tursunjan for a week. Memet Qari, who told Ababekri about Tursunjans detention during his visit, said Ababekri Muhtar himself disappeared a week later around the beginning of April. Although accounts of Ababekris detention have appeared on social media in the region, Chinas official media have not published any reports so far. On Sunday, RFA was informed that Ababekri released on June 10 and spotted in Urumqi. Yes, he was released on last Friday and reunited with his family, said one of Ababekris relatives in Istanbul, Turkey who confirmed the news on condition of anonymity. Ababekri Muhtar had met with former U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke and was invited to visit the United States in the spring of 2015 as part of the Chinese private web-founders team that is supported by the American embassy in Beijing. Reports about Muhtars trip appeared on Misranim, and Muhtar himself also published a series of essays about his travels. Uyghur-language movement Akbarjan Eset was detained and had to shut the Baghdax website down after a series of riots over ethnic tension that broke out in Urumqi on July 5, 2009, said Imameli Hesen, a Uyghur youth who knows Akbarjan and is studying in Turkey. Abduweli Ayup, a western-educated linguist who operates Uyghur-language schools in Kashgar (Kashi), said Akbarjan restarted Baghdax after he was released and was involved in Ayups Movement for Mother Language Based Education, which promotes the learning of the Uyghur language, from 2011 to 2013. In May, news of his detention appeared on social media sites, but authorities released no official information. One of the former administrators of the Baghdax website told RFA last Wednesday that Akbarjan had left for a business trip more than a month ago. The administrator, who requested anonymity, said Akbarjan was still missing. I dont know when he will come back, he said. Nobody knows where he went or when he will return. Little is known about the fifth detained Uyghur who works in the field of education, except that he is being held with Tursunjan Memet and Omerjan Hesen at the Aksu prefecture central detention center, Memet Qari said. Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by Eset Sulaiman.Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. A Uyghur man detained last year in northwestern Chinas Xinjiang region for watching a banned Islamic video on his cell phone has died in police custody, raising suspicions of torture at the hands of authorities, sources in the region and in exile say. Memet Ibrahm, who worked as a veterinarian and was aged about 40, was taken into custody on June 25, 2015 in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture, the Sweden-based East Turkestan Information Center said in a report released on May 12. He was moved to a detention center in Aksus Kuchar (Kuche) county in September, and was reported by authorities to have died of a heart attack at the end of the year, according to the report. Speaking to RFAs Uyghur Service, Tohti Rozivillage chief for Ibrahims native Qitat village in the countys Alaqagha townshipsaid that county authorities had informed him of Ibrahims death, telling him to order Ibrahims family members not to conduct a funeral for him. The police said that Memet Ibrahim had died of a heart attack, but no one in this county believes such simple explanations, Rozi said. The police have given this explanation [for unexplained deaths] many times in recent years. Probably, the authorities refused to allow the family to perform a funeral ceremony so that they could keep Ibrahims body away as much as possible from public view, he said. 'I didn't ask' Ekber Imin, chief of the veterinary hospital in Kanas village, where Ibrahim worked, told RFA that he knew that his colleague had been detained for watching illegal religious materials. The police who handled his case came to my office to ask me what reading materials he was usually interested in, he said. Ibrahims wife and mother had also visited him at his work place and said that Ibrahim had died under torture, Imin said. I didnt ask how he had been tortured, or how they came to know about it, because nothing I could learn about this would help them deal with what they were facing, he said. Also speaking to RFA, Kanas village security chief Eziz Qasim said that he had been assigned to watch Ibrahims family home for 15 days after his body was returned. We didnt allow anyone except for direct family members to visit the house, Qasim said. Luckily we didnt have to face any strong resistance to this, because of tightened security measures in our township. Though Ibrahims brother-in-law and the imam at his mosque were allowed to view Ibrahims body following its return one week after his death, neither of them said anything about the body showing signs of torture, he said. China has vowed to crack down on what it calls religious extremism in Xinjiang, and regularly conducts strike hard campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material. But experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from Uyghur "separatists" and that domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2012. Reported and translated by Shohret Hoshur for RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Richard Finney. While Vietnamese officials have yet to publicly announce what killed tens of thousands of fish in waters along the country's central coastal provinces in April, residents of the affected areas are complaining about the financial hardship they now face with job losses and lack of income. Fishermen from the central region said they have not been able to fish offshore for several weeks, while local merchants complained that they have not yet received promised support from the government. One fishermans wife from Vung Ang in Ha Tinh province told RFAs Vietnamese Service that that her husband had to go to Taiwan to work, while she remained behind to try to find a job to help feed their two children. We have no money, said the woman who declined to give her name. My husband and I have to live separately to make money for our children. We have been living off the sea, and now we have no sea to rely on, so we have to find other jobs to do. The government has provided each family affected by the environmental disaster with 22 kilograms (49 pounds) of rice, but still has not informed them of the cause of the fish deaths, she said. Government experts have variously cited "red tide or other factors, but many Vietnamese blame sewage-pipe runoff from a huge steel plant run by Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Corporation of Taiwan, for poisoning the fish. The company has said it treated the wastewater it had discharged, according to a May report by Vietnam's Thanh Nien News. Dare not go out to sea A man who works as a diver in Vung Ang, told RFA that he has not had any work since the dead fish washed ashore and rarely travels far away for jobs. Now with the mass fish deaths and contaminated sea, I dare not go out to sea, he said. We live off the sea and now we have no work. Our lives have become very difficult because we have no work. Another fisherman who does diving jobs and declined to be named told RFA that the water along the coastal area is very contaminated, and no one can work. The release of the wastewater [from the plant] has contaminated the water as far as five to seven nautical miles out, he said, adding that he has had to go as far as 100 kilometers (62 miles) from shore to be able to harvest clams, but still doesnt make much money when he sells them. I made about 20 million dong (U.S. $891) after two months at sea, he said. It was just about enough to feed my family. Its nothing compared to what I used to make. The government will help After the tons of dead fish washed ashore in April, the government announced a plan to provide each family affected by the disaster with 22 kilograms of rice per month. It also said it would pay 5 million dong (U.S. $223) to each family that had to move its boat ashore on account of the contaminated waters. The Ministry of Industry and Trade in late April set up a hotline for fishermen to call and discuss their situations so the government could help them by buying their catches that no one else wanted. When RFA called the hotline on Monday, Vice Minister Do Thang Hai, who is handling the calls said to visit the ministrys website for further information. The website quotes Hai as saying that the hotline received many calls between April 30 and May 7, but now people have stopped phoning. A recent report by state media told the story of a man from Cua Tung town in Quang Tri province who had purchased 30 tons of frozen mackerel that contained excessive levels of phenol, also known as carbolic acid. The man who bought the fish said he was surprised to find out about the high level of phenol contamination because provincial authorities had issued him a food safety certificate at the time of purchase. He said he had bought the fish for 750 million dong (U.S. $33,400) 15 days after the disaster occurred and currently has another 110 tons of fish worth of 2.7 billion dong (U.S. $120,300)both of which he will declare as losses. After the media report was published, the provincial director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said the certificate it issued was not a guarantee that the fish were safe to consume. 100 tons of fish At least 100 tons of dead fish washed ashore in central Vietnam beginning in early April, with some apparently killed by heavy-metal poisoning, Thanh Nien News reported. The fish, which washed ashore in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien-Hue provinces, were apparently killed by industrial effluents, the report said. Late last week, the information minister told the media that the government will announce the cause of the mass fish death sometime this month. In addition, Vietnamese state media recently quoted the National Assembly secretary generals office as saying that the government is preparing report about the mass fish kill to present to lawmakers at the first meeting of the new parliament in July. More than a week ago, dozens of young people protested in Hanoi to highlight what they said was a slow and irresponsible government response to the disaster. Officials have said they have not been able to detect any link between the Formosa plants discharge and the disaster, the Thanh Nien News report said. Reported by Gia Minh for RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Russia continues to strike targets across Ukraine, causing damage and killing civilians, as its forces are preparing for battle in the strategic southern region of Kherson, Ukrainian officials and the military said. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said early on October 26 that more than 40 settlements were hit by Russian strikes during the previous day. Russia used a combination of air strikes, rockets, and missiles to hit Ukrainian targets, the General Staff said in its morning report. In the central city of Dnipro, at least two people, including a pregnant woman, were killed in the Russian bombardment, regional Governor Valentyn Reznichenlo said. In the southern city of Kherson, Russian forces are digging in for the "heaviest of battles," said Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. A Ukrainian counteroffensive has driven Russian forces back in the region, where the provincial capital of Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the invasion eight months ago. "With Kherson, everything is clear. The Russians are replenishing, strengthening their grouping there," Arestovych said in an online video late on October 25. Russia-installed authorities are evacuating residents to the east bank of the Dnieper River as Russian forces prepare to defend the city, he said. "It means that nobody is preparing to withdraw. On the contrary, the heaviest of battles is going to take place for Kherson," he said. Zelenskiy on October 25 reiterated a pledge to retake the city of Kherson, the loss of which would be a big setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Of the four Ukrainian provinces partially occupied by Russia that Putin proclaimed to have seized last month, Kherson is arguably the most strategically important. It controls the only land route to the Crimea region that Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnieper River that that bisects Ukraine. Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden warned Russia on October 25 that the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine would be an "incredibly serious mistake." Moscow over the weekend claimed Ukraine is preparing to use a so-called dirty bomb on its own territory, drawing immediate dismissal from the United States and other countries that have backed Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies suspect Russia might have made the claim to set up a "false flag" attack in which it would use a dirty bomb itself but would blame the attack on Ukraine and use it to justify the use of conventional nuclear weapons by Moscow. "Let me just say Russia would be making an incredibly serious mistake were it to use a tactical nuclear weapon." Biden told reporters. "I cannot guarantee you that it is a false flag operation yet. We dont know. But it would be a serious mistake." Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented no evidence for the claim when he spoke on October 23 with his counterparts from several NATO countries, including Britain, France, and the United States, who dismissed the claim after the series of calls. WATCH: Speaking to Current Time in Riga on October 22, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks said Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot change the course of war in Ukraine by dropping nuclear bombs. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on October 25 that Washington's refusal to take note of Russia's warning was "inappropriate given the seriousness of the threat we are talking about." A dirty bomb would use a conventional warhead to create an explosion that would spread radioactive, biological, or chemical materials over an area. Moscow took its accusations against Ukraine to the UN Security Council on October 25, and the country's UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said afterward that Russia was "satisfied because we raised the awareness." Speaking to reporters, he added: "I don't mind people saying that Russia is crying wolf if this doesn't happen because this is a terrible, terrible disaster that threatens potentially the whole of the Earth." The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said earlier on October 25 that it is preparing to send inspectors to two Ukrainian sites in the coming days in reaction to Ukraine's request for an inspection following Russia's claims. Enerhoatom, Ukraines nuclear energy operator, issued a statement on October 24 voicing its concern that Russias statements may indicate that Russia is preparing an act of nuclear terrorism. Russian troops have occupied Ukraines Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, since March. It is still run by Ukrainian engineers though Russia claimed after its illegal annexation of the Zaporizhzhya region that it is on Russian territory. Enerhoatom said that Russian forces have carried out unauthorized, secret construction work over the last week at the plant in the area of the spent nuclear fuel storage facility. Russian officers controlling the area wont give access to Ukrainian staff or monitors from the IAEA that would allow them to see what they are doing, the operator said. Enerhoatom added that it assumes the Russians are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored at the plant. With reporting by AFP, dpa, BBC, and Reuters The Belarusian Foreign Ministry has expressed hope that U.S. sanctions imposed against Minsk in 2006 will be fully lifted in the "nearest future." In 2006, the United States froze the financial accounts of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and nine other high-ranking Belarusian officials. On June 10, Washington extended the restrictive measures by another year. Belarusian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dzmitry Mironchyk said on June 13 that the move does not take into account "positive" changes taking place in Belarusian-U.S. relations. "We intend to continue our dialogue with American partners to normalize ties" and to achieve the lifting of the sanctions, Mironchyk said in the statement. In October 2015, the U.S. Department of Treasury suspended sanctions against Belarusian oil giant Belneftekhim and its subsidies. Belarus recalled its ambassador in Washington in 2008 and insisted the U.S. ambassador must leave Minsk. The moves came amid tensions between Belarus and the West over the Belarusian authorities' crackdown on civil society. Bosnian Muslim leader Bakir Izetbegovic has paid tribute to several dozen Serb civilians killed in Sarajevo during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. On June 13, Izetbegovic visited Kazani, on the heights of the Bosnian capital, where at least 30 Serbs were killed and dumped in a ravine by a Bosnian Muslim paramilitary group. It was the first visit by a Bosniak leader to the site. Izetbegovic laid flowers on the edge of the ravine. "I feel I have a debt toward the victims, he said. I should have come here earlier to express my regrets and express condolences to the people who have ended up here in an awful way." More than 10,000 people were killed or disappeared during the Sarajevo siege. Overall, the Bosnian war claimed more than 100,000 lives. Based on reporting by AP and AFP On the eastern edge of Kabul is a modern housing development that once embodied everything the city hoped to become as international aid and investment poured into the Afghan economy. The neat rows of trim bungalows and towering villas, dotted with a high-rise complex and a new mosque, went up quickly, with 500 construction workers and plenty of buyers. But now, property developer Haji Hafizullah Karwan sits in his office surrounded by advertising materials for his still mostly uninhabited development and frets over how Kabul's economy has collapsed since most foreign troops and much foreign aid left Afghanistan at the end of 2014. The loss of the country's economic backbone has left many of his customers without an employer and unable to move into their finished homes because they cannot afford the installment payments that are part of their purchase agreement. "Most of our customers have bought units by paying 20, 30, or 50 percent in advance," he says. "The units have been completed for three years, [but] now, when we demand payments from them, they don't answer when they see it's a call from our office." Karwan's construction force has dwindled to just 100 men and his prospects for selling any more homes in the development, even after slashing prices by half, look bleak. The deserted new township is just one side of the rapidly changing face of Kabul as the city and the country adjust to some hard economic realities. For more than a decade, from 2001 to 2012, Afghanistan posted an average annual growth rate of 9 percent. But that fast growth rate slowed to just 1.5 percent in 2015. The precipitous drop is the direct result of the withdrawal of foreign troops, whose presence injected billions of dollars into an economy whose own economic motors of agriculture and manufacturing still barely turn. Afghanistan's economic growth has been based on the service sector, which the presence of foreign troops created," says Economy Minister Abdul Satar Murad. "With the withdrawal of foreign troops, service, especially in the transportation sector, sharply decreased and caused a big drop in economic growth. In 2010, when there were 130,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, total foreign aid including military and reconstruction spending was $15.7 billion according to the World Bank. But today, just 14,000 NATO troops remain and total spending is reportedly down to $8 billion. At the same time, Afghanistan has suffered a downturn in private investment as most foreign troops have left, but the Taliban insurgency continues with no end in sight. According to the World Bank, registrations of new commercial firms in 2014 shrank by nearly half compared to 2013. The scale of the economic downturn has left Kabul with a list of problems that goes far beyond simply unfinished dream homes. Kabul's relative stability and security after 2001, coupled with its booming economy, turned it into a magnet for people fleeing violence elsewhere in Afghanistan and those simply seeking a better economic future. The influx has made it one of the fastest growing capitals in the world, ballooning from some 500,000 people to 2001 to 5 to 7 million today. That growth has put enormous strains on the city's infrastructure as it has created an urban sprawl of mostly unplanned new neighborhoods that now fill the broad valley in which Kabul sits. Many of the new neighborhoods started off as encampments of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who have settled on vacant land, usually on the outskirts of the city or on the slopes of the hills that ring it. Over time, the residents have built simple mud-brick homes, but their settlements remain unconnected to the city water supply, sewer system, or bus lines. The Institute of Afghan Studies, a private institution that promotes Afghan-U.S. ties, has estimated that up to 50 percent of the city's burgeoning population lives in such settlements, creating a stark contrast to the older areas of the city which remain the center of business. WATCH: Welcome to Kabul -- where swanky villas sit empty while shanty towns teem with life. "The influx of IDPs to Kabul has been a big problem for the city," says Khozhman Uloomi, the former deputy head of urban services at the Kabul Municipal Office. "They have put burdens on all the city's facilities, not only in terms of [housing] but also creating problems in the areas of providing jobs, health and education, and sanitation and drinking water. Unfortunately, the government, including the municipality, is unable to solve these problems." In reaction to the influx, the municipal office began developing plans in 2008 to accommodate population growth up to 8 million people. But Uloomi says the planning is being outstripped by strongmen putting up townships when and where they wish and by IDPs occupying hillsides and other vacant areas. He says the lack of facilities means that the children of IDPs most study outdoors under tents. As for sanitation, the waste produced by Kabul's burgeoning population is more than the city can collect and clean, leaving debris to accumulate and spread disease. As fighting continues in many parts of Afghanistan, more people keep coming to Kabul and the problems keep growing. On the other side of the city from the modern township Karwan is building, still another makeshift camp is taking shape as a new wave of people arrives from the northern province of Kunduz, where the Taliban this year launched a new offensive. Ghulam Ali sits in a tent he has placed on a vacant lot near an established older neighborhood. The new arrivals have been warned by people he does not identify that they are on land destined to be a construction site and that they can only stay there only temporarily. But Ali, who is a cobbler by trade, and his family of eight have laid down a carpet and made their tent as neat and comfortable as possible in the meantime. "We thought there would be work, work for cobblers, that our economic situation would be better, that's why we came to Kabul," he says. Ali says his home in Kunduz now looks like "a black crow" after it was burned down during fighting. Each day, he walks to a nearby square with his tools and waits for women and children to bring him shoes to repair. He says he earns 10 to 50 Afghanis ($0.14 to $0.72) a day, then buys bread in the evening with nothing left over. With nearby schools too overcrowded to accommodate his children, Ali says his only wish is to go back to his home village one day. But many others who have been displaced to Kabul, or come seeking a better life, have ended up staying, swelling the city with millions of dispossessed people. Unable to afford property of their own, they pay rent to one, and sometimes, multiple people who claim to own the land they occupy, risking eviction if they refuse. Some analysts warn that as the face of Kabul changes, the deepening income gaps between residents are creating the ingredients for social instability that will last long after any peace deal with the Taliban ends security problems. "Even if peace negotiations -- and we are nowhere near them -- will succeed in ending the war, we will still face all these social problems here," says Thomas Ruttig, of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network. "Afghanistan will still be one of the poorest countries in the world and there will be a lot of conflicts which, because during the war society has been so militarized, might be fought out with weapons." Many foreigners who have visited the capital over the years recall that in 2001 one could see the city limits from the rooftop of any tall building in the center. Today, the uncontrolled sprawl of the city extends far out of view. RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondents in Kabul Tameem Akhgar, Elyas Saleh, and Wali Sabawoon contributed to this story Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) says it has killed five Kurdish rebels near the country's border with Iraq. The IRGC said in a statement on June 13 that the five were members of the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) and were responsible for the killing of three Iranian Basij militia members more than one month ago. "A team of five from the PJAK terrorist splinter group...has been identified and destroyed in the Sardasht region on the Iraqi border," a statement on the IRGC's official website said. There were no other details about the incident. PJAK is an Iranian-Kurdish party based in Iraq with links to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Its members frequently engage in fighting with Iranian forces along the Iraqi-Iranian border. Two PJAK fighters and two Iranian soldiers were reported killed in clashes in September. Based on reporting by AFP and Mehr An estimated 4,000 more Iraqis have escaped from the Islamic State (IS)-held city of Fallujah after government troops opened a corridor upon retaking a key road. The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which works with internally displaced Iraqis, said on June 13 that the latest numbers meant that some 27,580 civilians have fled Fallujah since the Iraqi offensive to oust IS fighters from the city began in late May. Iraqi Brigadier General Yahya Rasul said the latest groups of displaced people escaped along the Al-Salam (Peace) Junction in the southwestern part of the city. Aid groups estimate that at least 50,000 civilians are still trapped inside Fallujah, which has been under IS control for more than two years. The United Nations said there could be as many as 90,000 civilians remaining in Fallujah, which has shortages of food and water. The NRC said some refugees reported that IS militants are demanding payments of some $130 per person to leave the city, which is just 30 kilometers away from Baghdad. Based on reporting by AP and The Daily Mail Iraq says it has detained a number of fighters suspected of violating human rights during the three-week-old operation to retake the western city of Fallujah from the Islamic State militant group. Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi "issued arrest warrants against some suspects who took part in the operation a few days ago," government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi said on June 13. "The prime minister is closely following the investigation and we are still awaiting the results." Hadithi did not provide details on whether the fighters are from the army or government-sanctioned paramilitary forces, which are mainly made up of Shiite militias. Shiite militiamen have been accused of arresting, torturing, and killing Sunnis fleeing Fallujah. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi said four military personnel were arrested after video footage showed them abusing people displaced from Fallujah. Anbar Province Governor Sohaib al-Rawi has said more than 640 men had gone missing between June 3-5 and "all the surviving detainees were subjected to severe and collective torture by various means." Based on reporting by Reuters and AP BISHKEK -- A Kyrgyz opposition politician suspected by officials of being part of a plot to overthrow the government has been transferred from house arrest to a detention center. The Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on June 13 that Dastan Sarygulov had also been charged with corruption allegedly committed while he was director of the Kyrgyzaltyn gold production company from 1992 to 1999. Earlier in March, the UKMK said that three other suspects in the alleged plot -- Bektur Asanov, Kubanychbek Kadyrov, and Ernest Karybekov -- were charged with planning to use force to overthrow the government. The three opposition politicians are in pretrial detention. The suspects were arrested and charged after an audio recording circulated on the Internet with voices discussing ways to seize power in Kyrgyzstan. Authorities say some voices on the tape belong to the arrested opposition figures. Asanov told RFE/RL before his arrest in March that the tapes had been doctored and their appearance in the Internet was "an attempt to blackmail the opposition." The mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, has left U.S. authorities poring over possible clues to explain the motives of the gunman. The suspect, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, is thought to have killed at least 49 people and left more than 50 others injured in a three-hour shooting rampage before being shot dead himself when police stormed the Pulse nightclub in the early hours of June 12. Some of the earliest clues as to Mateen's possible motives came from an unlikely source: the suspect's Afghan-born father, Seddique Mateen (aka Mir Seddique). Early media reports suggested the younger Mateen cited a hatred for homosexuals and an allegiance to the radical militant group Islamic State (IS) in a phone call to the 911 emergency number during the attack, and former acquaintances and colleagues have been quoted as suggesting the suspect held numerous minorities in contempt. (It would be the latest in a number of deadly attacks in the West by killers proclaiming allegiance to IS, dating back to an attack on a Jewish museum in Brussels in May 2014 and continuing through the November 2015 Paris attacks and the San Bernardino, California, attack in December.) But the elder Mateen asserted in an interview with NBC News that his son's actions had "nothing to do with religion." He also said Omar Mateen had been angered recently by the sight of two men kissing in public in Miami in front of his 3-year-old son. Seddique Mateen then posted a video on Facebook on June 13 that drew further attention to the suspected gunman's history, including his family and the politically charged and seemingly religiously inspired convictions expressed by his father. In it, he appeared to suggest that his son had acted according to his understanding of Islamic principles that forbid homosexuality. It is unclear whether, or to what extent, the younger man shared his father's views, and authorities in the United States have not suggested Omar Mateen's actions on June 12 were influenced by actions or statements from his family. But Seddique Mateen's fulminations are certain to continue to attract media attention. In his Facebook video, in Dari, one of two official languages of Afghanistan, Seddique Mateen asked aloud of his son "why he committed such act in the [Islamic] holy month of Ramadan." He continued: "The issue of homosexuality, the punishment, whatever they do, God punishes it. It's not up to God's servants." He added: "May God give all young people full health so that they follow the real path of the sacred religion of Islam." The older Mateen, who is reportedly based in Florida, also said that he was deeply saddened and puzzled over the actions of his son, whom he described as a "good kid." "I don't understand what made him do it. I don't know. I didn't realize he had [hatred] in his heart," Mateen added. Seddique Mateen did not respond to a Facebook inquiry for comment and did not answer RFE/RL's calls to his mobile phone seeking comment. The Facebook video was subsequently removed. The elder Mateen appears to have tried to carve out a niche as a commentator through video messages and an occasional satellite television broadcast believed to have a tiny audience, at best, in his country of origin. He has frequently railed against the actions of Pakistan, an archenemy of Afghanistan for decades, and appeared to have outsized opinions of his own influence. The Facebook video after his son's alleged attack is no exception, as Seddique Mateen adds: "We in the international media, all U.S. TV channels, have been highlighting what Pakistan had done and why young people are suffering from mental problems because their country is not in peace. It's Pakistan that brings distress." In his videos and seemingly obscure political show, the elder Mateen has attacked Pakistan and Iran as "Afghanistan's enemies," announced his would-be candidacy for the Afghan presidency (a year after the election), boasted of having appointed a cabinet, and purported to have ordered the arrest of Afghan officials. Seddique Mateen's effort for broadcast notoriety included a January 2014 interview with the current president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. In a bizarre clip showing Seddique Mateen in military fatigues and posted hours before his son is thought to have mounted his attack in Orlando, Seddique Mateen described Ghani as a "traitor" and urged his and other officials' arrests. Targeting "the revolutionary people of Afghanistan" with his remarks, Mateen says that each one of them has the power to arrest Ghani and other current and former officials, including Afghan national security adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar and former U.S. Ambassador to Kabul Zalmay Khalilzad, and "rid Afghanistan of them." Also on June 12, Mateen posted to Facebook the image of a green T-shirt with his photo printed on it with the slogan "Seddique Mateen the real leader of the people of Afghanistan." In a video posted roughly four months ago, Seddique Mateen criticizes the hard-line Islamist Taliban who were ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 but continue to fight against Afghanistan's central government, accusing them of killing Afghan people and weakening Islam. "How can you and dare you kill Afghans, put bombs in the soil of Afghanistan and smitten Afghanistan in front of Punjabi ISI?" he asks the Taliban, in a reference to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency. In a 2015 video, Seddique Mateen praises the Taliban while referring to territorial claims that some Afghans have made against Pakistan along the border of the two countries, known as the Durand Line. "Our brothers in Waziristan, our warrior brothers in the Taliban movement and in the Afghan National Army are rising up. [God willing], the Durand issue will be solved in the near future," he says in a political show, titled The Durand Jirga Show, on a satellite channel called Payam-e Afghan that is broadcast from California. WASHINGTON -- U.S. President Barack Obama says there is "no clear evidence" that a gunman who carried out the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history -- killing 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida -- was "directed" by a broader extremist organization. Obama said on June 13 that Omar Mateen, a U.S.-born citizen of Afghan descent identified by U.S. authorities as the shooter in the June 12 massacre, was likely influenced by extremists but that no direct evidence suggests he was acting under instructions or was part of a larger plot. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Obama warned that the investigation was at a "preliminary stage" but said it appears that the 29-year-old Mateen, who proclaimed allegiance to the extremist Islamic State (IS) group during a call to emergency dispatchers made from the nightclub, had been "inspired by various extremist information that was disseminated over the Internet." "One of the biggest challenges that we are going to have is this kind of propaganda and perversion of Islam that you see generated on the Internet, and the capacity for that to seep into the minds of troubled individuals or weak individuals and seeing them motivated then to take actions against people here in the United States and elsewhere in the world that are tragic," Obama said. He added that the country must also consider the risks of "lax" laws allowing easy access to "very powerful firearms." Mateen was shot dead by police who stormed the Pulse nightclub three hours after the killings began there, bringing the total number of dead to 50. Following the attack, IS called Mateen one of its "soldiers." The IS-linked news agency Amaq, meanwhile, said the attack had been "carried out by an Islamic State fighter." Despite the statements, however, IS has not officially claimed responsibility for the attack. WATCH: Father Of Shooter 'Didn't Know He Had Hatred In His Heart' Police said the attacker opened fire with an AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun in the nightclub shortly before 2 a.m., and then held a group of club patrons hostage for three hours before he was killed in a shoot-out. Fifty-three people were wounded, and many remain in critical condition with multiple gunshot wounds. Later on June 13, White House spokesman Josh Earnest criticized the Republican-controlled Congress for "inaction" on passing gun-control legislation that would make it more difficult "for any individual to get their hands on a weapon of war." Earnest specifically cited the AR-15 used by Mateen, which he said is designed for use on the battlefield, not on the streets of Florida. Obama said investigators are examining the gunmans potential motives, including whether he deliberately targeted the nightclub because it was a gay venue. He was speaking in the Oval Office after being briefed on the investigation by top law enforcement officials, including FBI Director James Comey and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Comey said authorities are "highly confident" that Mateen was "radicalized" at least partially through information he obtained on the Internet. It remains unclear whether he belonged to an established extremist group or what organization he may have been inspired by, he added. "We'll leave no stones unturned and we'll work all day and all night to understand the path to that terrible night," Comey said. He added that the FBI is trying to establish whether Mateen had recently scouted Walt Disney World, which is located in Orlando, and other venues as possible attack targets but said he was not in a position to provide further details. The U.S. entertainment magazine People, citing an unidentified federal law enforcement source, reported on its website earlier on June 13 that Mateen had recently scouted the world-famous amusement park on a visit with his wife. Authorities said they are investigating whether Mateen may have had assistance in carrying out the killings but emphasized that they believe he was the only attacker in the massacre and that there is no evidence that the public is currently in danger. "There is an investigation of other persons. We are working as diligently as we can on that," Lee Bentley, the U.S. attorney for the middle district of Florida, told a June 13 news conference. "If anyone else was involved in this crime, they will be prosecuted. WATCH: Obama Says Orlando Massacre 'An Attack On All Of Us' The presumptive presidential candidates of the two main U.S. political parties weighed in on the mass killing in television interviews. The Democratic Partys Hillary Clinton called for more stringent gun-safety measures and increased security efforts, while warning against demonizing Muslims. "What I don't do, because I think it's dangerous, is to demonize an entire religion, and that plays into Islamic State's hands," Clinton told CNN on June 13. Addressing a campaign rally in Cleveland, Ohio, later in the day, Clinton said that while the Orlando killer may be dead, "the virus that poisoned his mind remains very much alive, and we must attack it with clear eyes, steady hands, unwavering determination, and pride in our country and our values." Her Republican rival, wealthy businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump, reiterated his support for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and criticized U.S. Muslims for not alerting authorities of suspicions about Mateen. He told supporters at a June 13 campaign rally in New Hampshire that he would "suspend immigration" from countries with a "proven history" of terrorism against the United States or other allies "until we fully understand how to end these threats." "We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer," Trump told the crowd. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned against attempts to "point fingers at one group or one form of sectarianism or another, or one religion or another" over the killings. "Those are not the values of our country," Kerry said on June 13. "What we need to do is bring people together and work to forever prevent this kind of hate and terror from playing out as it has so horribly in the last day." Statements of sympathy and condemnation have been pouring in from around the world. In a statement, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the attack, saying that "targeting civilians is not justifiable under any circumstances whatsoever," while Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told the country's cabinet that the incident "tells us that terrorism knows no religion, boundary, and geography. Terrorism must be eliminated." Paris city hall said the Eiffel Tower will shine in the colors of the rainbow on the night of June 13 to honor the victims of the Orlando tragedy. U.S. and rainbow flags will fly. The rainbow flag is the symbol of the LGBT community. In November, 130 were killed when IS extremists carried out attacks on a music hall, restaurants, and bars in the French capital. Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister David Cameron have sent messages of condolence from Britain, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said it's important to continue with "our open, tolerant life" following the Orlando attack. China's President Xi Jinping has telephoned Obama to express his condolences over the shootings. Iran, where homosexuality is illegal and can be punishable by death, also condemned the massacre, calling it an "evil... terrorist attack." "The Islamic Republic of Iran, based on its principled policy of condemning terrorism and its strong will to seriously confront this evil phenomenon, condemns the recent terrorist attack in Orlando," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaberi Ansari was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying on June 13. WATCH: 'We Will Not Give In To Hate' -- U.S. Muslim Group Mateen, the son of Afghan immigrants to the United States, was born in New York and moved to Florida at a young age with his parents. He had been an armed guard at a gated retirement community and worked for the global security firm G4S for nine years. G4S said he had cleared two company background screenings, the latest in 2013. G4S said in a statement that it was "cooperating fully with all law enforcement authorities, including the FBI, as they conduct their investigation." G4S has 623,000 employees worldwide and describes itself as "the largest security solutions provider in the world" on the company website. Florida state records show that Mateen held a firearms license since at least 2011. Authorities also say Mateen legally purchased at least two firearms within the past week or so. Mateen married a woman in March 2009 named Sitora Alisherzoda Yusufiy who was born in Uzbekistan and immigrated to the United States. They became separated after just a few months and were legally divorced in 2011. Yusufiy told the media she had met Mateen online and moved to Florida where she lived with him from April to August 2009. She said he beat her regularly. "He was mentally unstable and mentally ill," Yusufiy told reporters in Boulder, Colorado. WATCH: Ex-Wife Speaks Of Beatings The suspect's father, Seddique Mateen, said early on June 12 that he believed his son was motivated by hatred of homosexuals -- not by his Muslim religion. Seddique Mateen said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in public in Miami several months earlier in front of his 3-year-old son. "This had nothing to do with religion," Mateen's father told the media. "I don't know what caused it," Seddique Mateen said. "I never figured out that he had a grudge in his heart...I am grief-stricken." "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," Seddique Mateen said. "We are in shock like the whole country." The FBI said its agents twice investigated Mateen for alleged Islamist links but closed those cases after interviewing him. Special Agent Ronald Hopper said Mateen was first investigated in 2013 after he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible ties to terrorists. In 2014, the agency looked into potential ties between Mateen and Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a resident of Fort Pierce, Florida, who carried out a suicide truck-bomb attack in Syria and had appeared in a video released by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front. Hopper said the FBI determined that contact between Mateen and Abusalha "was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or a threat at that time." With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, AP, Washington Post, NBC, Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, and the Orlando Sentinel A Sweden-based nonproliferation think tank says the worlds biggest nuclear powers, the United States and Russia, are slowly reducing their nuclear arsenals but are modernizing their capacities. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says in its annual report on June 13 that there were 455 fewer nuclear warheads at the start of 2016 among nine nuclear states than a year earlier. It said the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea had a total of 15,395 nuclear warheads at the start of 2016, including 4,120 that were deployed operationally. It said the total number of nuclear warheads in those countries at the start of 2015 was 15,850. Researchers Shannon Kile and Hans Kristensen wrote in the report that global nuclear-weapon inventories "have been declining since they peaked at nearly 70,000 nuclear warheads in the mid-1980s." They said the decline has been due primarily to cuts made by Russia and the United States. But they said "the pace of their reductions appears to be slowing compared with a decade ago, and neither Russia nor the United States...has made significant reductions in deployed strategic nuclear forces since the bilateral New START treaty" came into force in 2011. SIPRI estimated that Russia had 7,290 nuclear warheads, including tactical, at the beginning of 2016, and the United States had 7,000. It said that accounts for 93 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world. It estimated France has 300 nuclear weapons, followed by China with 260, Britain with 215, Pakistan with 110 to 130, India with 100 to 120, Israel with 80, and North Korea with 10. SIPRI also said that "None of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future," and that Washington and Moscow both have "extensive and expensive nuclear modernization programs." SIPRI said India is strengthening its nuclear-capable ballistic-missile program and speeding up its production of plutonium while its regional rival, Pakistan, is developing battlefield nuclear weapons in response to Indias stronger conventional forces. The SIPRI report said Pakistans nuclear arsenal "may increase significantly" during the next decade. The report concluded that the prospects worldwide for "genuine progress towards nuclear disarmament remain gloomy." SIPRIs report was based on open sources, including data from governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency. But SIPRI said many nuclear-capable states were "nontransparent." The report said SIPRI was unable to verify whether the secretive country of North Korea, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, has been able to produce or deploy operational nuclear weapons. With reporting by AFP and dpa DUSHANBE -- A Tajik lawyer who represented a prominent opposition figure has died 10 days after his second son was sent to prison on what he said were trumped-up charges. Ishoq Tabarov, 61, died in a Dushanbe clinic on June 12. His wife, Zuhro Sherova, told RFE/RL that doctors said his death was caused by a stroke. On June 2, a court in the western city of Vahdat sentenced Tabarov's son, Daler Tabarov, to six months in prison for failure to report an unspecified crime. Tabarov's second son, Firuz Tabarov, was sentenced to 13 1/2 years in jail in February for promoting antistate propaganda. Tabarov had insisted that the charges against his sons were politically motivated. His relatives say he had lost 20 kilograms since the probes against his sons were launched. Tabarov was a lawyer for opposition businessman Zayd Saidov, the leader of the unregistered New Tajikistan opposition party. Saidov has been serving a 29-year prison term since 2013. He was found guilty of financial fraud, polygamy, and sexual relations with a minor. Saidov and his supporters deny the charges, saying they are politically motivated. Are Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin too alike to get along? After the Turks shot down a Russian Su-24 bomber on the Turkish-Syrian border in November 2015, relations hit a historic low; Russia started a number of embargoes and punitive measures against trade and tourism with Turkey; political rhetoric colored with nationalist and "anti-the-other-side" "news" and op-eds became "popular" in the usually loyal media of both countries; and many were even speculating about a possible escalation of Turkish-Russian military confrontation. It has not happened in the six months since the Su-24 incident. Today there are occasional indications that both sides are willing to get back to some kind of "business as usual" as they had before November. I would argue that both sides are aware of the need to normalize ties, but in practice it's far easier said than done. It seems now that it all depends on the two leaders -- Erdogan and Putin -- and on them personally, not their governments, parliaments, or military commanders. After all, unlike Western democracies, the Turkish and Russian leaders have created and are maintaining ultimate personal power in their respective countries to decide major policies. After the Russian bomber was downed, many Western analysts speculated that the two leaders will never get along because they are too similar in character. Indeed, both have a strong tendency to brag and to overwhelm everyone (and certainly their own citizens) with their fast and big decisions. Neither of them appears ready to leave room for any doubt or look back and change direction. And they both love to exaggerate and even occasionally fantasize about their governments' and nations' capabilities. Finally, both Erdogan and Putin seem to dream of themselves as a "modern and republican Ottoman sultan and Russian tsar," respectively. Erdogan, while speaking about the "tradition of Turkish-Islamic rule," nostalgically points to the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa as his geopolitical priority. Before Erdogan, Turkey's foreign-policy orientation was more toward Europe and the West, in general. Putin, for his part, considers the former Soviet region as Russia's backyard and refers to "history" in justifying the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea or the support for ethnic separatism and secessionist movements in former Soviet republics. Erdogan's chief adviser, Yigit Bulut, even said recently: "From Central Asia to Africa and from the Middle East to the Balkans, nations talk about a new scenario, a unity with Turkey. And yes, they want to be administered from Istanbul." Erdogan and Putin got along very well for a long time, sometimes even to the extent that Western leaders started to question Turkey's loyalty as a NATO member. Maybe it was that imperial history that ended in bitter decline; maybe the need for a show of "national pride" vis-a-vis the West; or maybe that close similarity of characters. But certainly it was a mix of all that. After The Downing Of The Russian Jet Much still remains unclear about the conditions of the incident. The pilot of the Russian bomber was killed. Putin reacted harshly, described it as a "war crime" and demanded an apology from nobody less than Erdogan himself, something Erdogan did not, and apparently will not do, in full accordance with the behavior he shares with his adversary-turned-old friend Putin. All records and descriptions lead us to believe that the Su-24 crossed into Turkish airspace for less than a minute, maybe 20-25 seconds, before being shot down by a Turkish F-16 fighter jet. Nothing like that would have happened between two friendly countries, which is how both leaders described relations prior to that. Obviously the bilateral crisis cannot be understood outside of the Syrian war context: Turkey together with Saudi Arabia and the West siding with opposition groups, even armed and extreme Islamist ones, to overthrow the current central government of Bashar al-Assad, while Russia sides with Iran to keep Assad in power. But there's no doubt that simple mathematics, and money, will force Ankara and Moscow to rethink their animosity. To be clear: The real reason for this animosity is the Syrian war and not directly the Su-24 downing that was a by-product of the war and the current interstate confrontation. Yes, the war in Syria costs both Turkey and Russia millions of dollars every single day in different ways, involving dozens of states and interest groups. That is a far more complex and global issue than the smaller-scale Russian-Turkish relations. But still, the Turkish-Russian crisis also hurts bilateral trade and investment, with the Turkish side apparently suffering more than the Russians. Last week 400 shopkeepers and hoteliers from the Turkish resort Alanya gathered to protest the "drastic drop in tourist numbers" caused by Russia's boycott of the Turkish Riviera and held a symbolic "prayer for tourists," raising the pressure on the Turkish government. It's hard to believe that Turkey and Russia could fully restore their pre-Syria relations after such deep involvement on opposite sides of the conflict, unless there is an international and regional/interethnic settlement that does not look like happening anytime soon. But certain signs from Ankara and Moscow indicate that both sides are warming up to a level of bilateral relations that would let the Syrian conflict continue with both Ankara and Moscow at least returning to the state before the plane was shot down. Right after the downing, Turkish media reported that Erdogan personally ordered the plane to be shot down. It was domestically used to appeal to Turkish voters' nationalist feelings for a "show of power" against Moscow. Later, that version changed and the then-prime minister claimed to have given the order. Again later, it was again revised with the blame being put on "technical issues." In February, Russian media reported that Erdogan through the Turkish ambassador to Moscow had twice asked for a meeting with Putin but that the request had been left unanswered. Visiting Athens last month, Putin said Russia was "hearing from the Turkish side the desire to normalize bilateral relations." And he added, "We also wish that but we are awaiting concrete steps from Ankara, while we still haven't heard any apology" for the killing of the Russian pilot. The ball is clearly in Erdogan's court. But will he apologize? Erdogan? Most Turkish analysts and people on the street I talked to clearly say he won't. Like a vicious circle, you may argue, it again comes to the same point of character -- or the political system you have created to rule. You first do things because of a certain character and the same character prevents you from correcting it. Maybe you realize that you had better change it, but you can't. You could ask the same question about Putin and Crimea. And would probably get the same answer. Uzbek authorities have released from prison the lawyer of an ethnic Armenian man convicted of Islamic extremism. The lawyer, Olim Qobilov, was arrested in March and later convicted of bribery and extortion and sentenced to seven years in jail. Qobilov told RFE/RL by phone on June 13 that he has been released and is currently at home. He did not elaborate. In February, Qobilov's client, Aramais Avakian, a 34-year-old ethnic Armenian, was sentenced to seven years in jail on Islamic extremism charges in Uzbekistan's eastern region of Jizzax. Four other men in the case were sentenced to prison terms between 5 1/2 and 12 years. Avakian, who was arrested in September, was the only defendant who pleaded not guilty. Avakian's relatives say local authorities in Paxtakor district trumped up the charges against him in order to take over his fish farm. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Midway through a statewide summit on college completion, the educators heard a tale of two high schools that underscored the uneven access to higher education in Virginia, even within regions. Lakilya Parker, a May graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, told of attending one school in Hampton Roads where from the moment that we walked in the door the faculty held us to their highest expectations. They automatically assumed we all would do our best, we all would go to college. But when her family moved, she transferred to a school that was totally different. There is an education gap. Trade programs were emphasized more, and sometimes community college, she said, but a lot of my peers didnt even know that college was an option for them because they assumed they couldnt afford it. Nobody told them that actually they can get the most money because they dont have any, she said, referring to need-based financial aid programs for disadvantaged students. Bridging such gaps in access and smoothing the transition from K-12 to college was the focus of last weeks Our Students, Our Future, a summit sponsored by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia as part of a goal to make the state the best-educated in the nation by 2030. Currently, 51 percent of college-age students in Virginia attain a post-secondary degree or workforce credential, which puts the state in sixth place. The state will need an additional 1.5 million degrees or credentials within 14 years, an attainment rate of 70 percent, to reach the top, according to SCHEV. About 275 people attended a series of panel discussions at The Westin Richmond hotel to hear ideas for strengthening partnerships between K-12 and higher education and for improving access for underrepresented groups, including first-generation students who cannot rely on experiences of family members to find their route to higher education. Parker spoke on a panel moderated by state Secretary of Education Anne Holton about the barriers first-generation students face and programs that help them understand their options, such as Upward Bound, GRASP and the University of Virginias Virginia College Advising Corps. Such programs provide counseling services and even help students fill out the federal financial aid application known as FAFSA. In a poll, 84 percent of the people attending the summit said they found the form to be frustrating or very frustrating. Parker, the recent VCU graduate, said she was blessed that I could find these programs but thinks they should be similar efforts for first-generation parents. I witnessed my mom being really sad because she just didnt know how to help me, she said. Jesse Turner Jr., principal of Monticello High School in Albemarle County, agreed. To aid first-generation students, the programs need to reach out to their parents, he said. Sometimes the parents themselves represent a barrier, he said, because if they did not go to to college they might discourage their children from trying. Getting into college is not the only challenge. Blake Johnson, communications director for Complete College America, said students face too many choices and too little guidance once they get there. Most schools offer more than 100 majors but only about one counselor per 400 students or more, he said. The result is that students earn more credits than they need and yet still do not complete their degree within four years. The cost of an additional year at a four-year institution is $68,000 when lost wages are factored in, Johnson said. VCU President Michael Rao described how the university is addressing that issue with a Do the Math campaign encouraging students to take the right credits to graduate in four years. The familiar college experience has not changed much over the years but needs to change dramatically, he said. It is going to have to be more engaging, and its going to have to focus less on the boxes that get checked and more on what really happens in the development of the person and the extent to which that leads to their success. The Virginia Community College System is examining all its policies to determine which present barriers to success, said Sharon Morrissey, vice chancellor for academic services and research. One change under consideration is the requirement that all students take a placement test. You can graduate as the valedictorian of your high school class and enroll in your local community college, and we will make you take a placement test because thats what our policy says, she said. Edward L. Ayers, president of the University of Richmond from 2007 until last year, carried the torch, as he put it, for private colleges. UR had worked to provide access to a university education throughout its history until VCU opened and took away our local population, he said. When he arrived, the university already was using its substantial resources to provide financial aid, and its students were graduating on time and doing well, he said. But what would you do to fulfill the moral responsibility you have if youre that fortunate? The answer was to open the doors as widely as possibly, he said. Access and affordability became URs top goals, and that has made the university more diverse and inclusive, he said. The university offers a free education to Virginians with a family income under $60,000 and embraces first-generation and low-income students. When we became more welcoming, we also became better, Ayers said. Other private, nonprofit liberal arts schools also offer more affordable options than people realize, he said. But all the news coverage about student debt has resulted in families overestimating the difficulty of obtaining a college education, he said. Less than 24 hours after the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., that left 50 dead and 53 injured, more than 100 people gathered at a solemn ceremony at Virginia Commonwealth Universitys Compass on the Monroe Park Campus. As the vigil began, the attendees embraced, quietly sobbed or spoke in hushed tones. Candles lit in remembrance were passed through the crowd. As the Florida shooting happened during Latin night at the club, veladoras that were placed on the ground were lit, and numerous people bought their own. The Hispanic people in attendance were asked to come forward to light them. Many of those in attendance were uncomfortable with being named or photographed. Reasons ranged from not being out to loved ones, to fear of being identified and targeted. My heart is breaking for our community, said Camilla Hill of VCUs Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. The vigil lasted more than an hour as students and members of the surrounding community expressed their thoughts and sorrow. One speaker, who identified as Lourdes, recently attended a Latin night at a club after attending pride events in Washington, D.C. It hit me today that what happened in Orlando could just as easily have happened to anybody who was there with us, Lourdes said. They were people just like us. ... I hope that seeing this beautiful community around us tonight is going to help us feel a bit more supported and a bit more like were less alone. Although initial reports stated the shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before the incident occurred, one of the organizers of the vigil, Maheen, asked that no one paint with a broad brush and blame the attack on Muslims. It dually marginalizes people of Muslim descent who also are in the LGBTQ community. One person was killed and three others were injured early Sunday in a single-vehicle crash in King George County. The crash occurred at 2:04 a.m. on state Route 218 (Caledon Road), a mile east of Vertical Ridge Road, according to Virginia State Police. A 2001 Toyota Tacoma was traveling west on Route 218 when it ran off the road to the left, overcorrected right and overturned about four times before coming to rest. All four occupants in the vehicle were ejected, according to police. The driver and the three passengers were transported to Mary Washington Hospital with serious injuries. One of the back-seat passengers, Katelyn A. Kipp, 26, of Gainesville, died of injuries suffered in the crash. None of the occupants was wearing a seat belt. Richmond police are asking the public for help to find a man who has been missing since December and could be in danger. William K. Dean Jr., 52, was last seen Dec. 18 leaving Richmond Community Hospital, police said. A drifter, Dean is known to frequent Rudds Trailer Park in the 2900 block of Jefferson Davis Highway and areas in Richmonds east end, police said. Dean is a white male with blue eyes and brown hair, standing 5-foot-6 and weighing about 175 pounds. He has scars on his right cheek and a tattoo of the name Brenda on his right arm. An Ashland man has been arrested in a motel attack with a machete, according to Ashland police. Police said they were called about 10:30 p.m. Friday to a motel in the 600 block of North Washington Highway in Ashland. The victim, a man, had severe injuries from the machete attack and was taken to VCU Medical Center. Jose Menjivar, a 30-year-old resident of the motel where the attack occurred, was charged with aggravated malicious wounding, according to police. Donald Trump supports opening up the libel laws, and defending those he sees as victims of nasty public defamation campaigns. Well, I can suggest at least one libel victim that needs a champion: the U.S. economy. Americas economy gets a bad rap these days, thanks in no small part to Republican politicians constant smears and insults. This is the worst recovery after a deep recession since World War II, declared Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Fox Business Network on Tuesday. Hes used similar language on CNBC, PBS, Fox News and other outlets in recent days, as have other conservative commentators. This data point, Republicans claim, is an indictment of the Obama administration. Its also supposed to persuade voters to hold their noses and rally around the GOPs bigoted new standard-bearer and the alternative economic vision he supposedly represents. Except this assessment of our economy is completely wrong. Or at the very least, highly misleading. In fact, if you go by the historical record, we may have exceeded expectations for where we should be this many years after a severe financial crisis. And relative to most other countries that weathered a crisis when we did, were doing spectacularly well. Its true that the Great Recession has been followed by a slow and shallow recovery. Rather than bouncing back with annual growth rates in the 3 or 4 percent range, as we might have hoped, weve been trudging along at about 1.5 to 2.5 percent. Hiring has lately disappointed, too. This record seems pretty damning. Except, in the grand scheme of things, its not. See, its not really fair to compare todays recovery with any other post-World War II recovery, because this is the first time since World War II that weve had to recuperate from a systemic financial crisis. (The last systemic financial crisis in the United States led to the Great Depression which was before World War II.) And financial crises are uniquely traumatic events for economies, according to the work of Harvard researchers Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff. Recoveries following systemic financial crises, Rogoff told me in an email, are always far slower and more protracted than those following normal recessions. How slow and protracted? Well, in a recent paper, the authors examined the aftermath of 100 financial crises spanning the past century-and-a-half. They found that, on average, it takes a country more than eight years to return to its pre-crisis level of per capita income. In the United States, following the 2007-2008 financial crisis, we achieved that milestone in only seven years, according to the most recent data from the International Monetary Funds World Economic Outlook. We beat not just the (admittedly dismal) historical average, but the records of most of our crisis-stricken contemporaries, too. The United States was one of 12 countries that suffered a systemic financial crisis in 2007-2008. Of that dozen, only three others have since recovered all the territory they lost in the crisis: Germany, Ireland and Britain. The IMF forecasts that two more will recapture their pre-crisis peaks this year, and several more will do so in the next few years. Three countries Greece, Italy and Ukraine were so scarred by the crisis that forecasts going all the way out to 2021 still dont show them regaining their lost ground. Why did the United States do so much better than most of its peers? Partly better policy, partly luck. Our central bank, the Federal Reserve, opted to loosen monetary policy and undertake controversial, unconventional measures early on. Today many economists credit these actions with keeping the United States from tumbling into a full-blown depression. The European Central Bank, by contrast, took a long time to follow suit. On fiscal policy, too, we made better choices. Compared with the United States, many European countries engaged in much more draconian austerity measures, which often turned out to be counterproductive. On the luck side of the ledger, though, we also benefited from having the worlds reserve currency. This meant investors around the world continued to gobble up U.S. Treasurys at the height of the crisis, which relieved U.S. policymakers of pressure to undertake big austerity measures (as, for example, Greece had to do). Plus, Americans were able to wipe out their unpayable private debts much more quickly than many of their counterparts abroad did, since mortgages here are more likely to be non-recourse loans. Foreclosures were painful, but once they were over, the underlying loans were discharged, and families could move on with their lives. Today, in the United States, the economy may not feel great. But compared with the roads not taken, it aint so bad. COLUMBUS A 27-year-old area man facing a fourth prison sentence is scheduled to go to trial in district court. Platte County Court Judge Frank Skorupa bound Anthony Mattison over for trial on theft by receiving stolen property, operating a motor vehicle to avoid arrest, possession of a controlled substance and habitual criminal charges stemming from a May 17 incident in Columbus that led to a weeklong binge of felonies across multiple jurisdictions. The judge scheduled Mattison for arraignment on the charges June 24 in district court. Mattison, who waived his right to a preliminary hearing in county court, is being held in the county jail on a bond of $75,000, 10 percent allowed for release. Mattison, who was released from the Clay County Jail a few days before the Columbus incident, was previously sentenced to prison for 20 months to four years in Hall County in 2010, and three to five years and one to two years in Polk County in 2013. The penalties for the felonies in the current case range from two to 20 years imprisonment. The weeklong spree in Columbus got underway following a complaint about a loud vehicle in the 2500 block of 47th Avenue. Columbus Police Officer Heath Aldrich wrote in his arrest statement that he made contact with Mattison, who was sitting behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS at the scene of the complaint. As I started to ask for identification, the subject reached up to the steering column and did something that made the car start, Aldrich wrote in his statement. I told him to shut it off and he did not respond. I then saw him grab the shifter ... the subject then put it in gear and backed up at a high rate of speed. Aldrich wrote that the suspect then accelerated rapidly, with the tires squealing and the vehicle sliding sideways, onto 47th Avenue and sped away. He crashed the vehicle into a sign and utility pole at the intersection of 26th Avenue and 27th Street then fled on foot. Authorities believe Mattison, who was wanted for probation violations, stole a 2008 Chevrolet Silverado from Ernst Auto Body in Columbus, although he hasnt been charged in connection with that theft, which is still under investigation. The vehicle was involved in a pursuit involving the Nebraska State Patrol before it was abandoned in Grand Island, where another vehicle was reported stolen a short time later. Members of the Central Nebraska Drug and Safe Streets Task Force arrested Mattison around 4:30 p.m. May 24 after locating a stolen vehicle in Hastings and staking out the location. Task force authorities involved in the arrest said the suspect has been connected to a vehicle theft in Aurora and police chase in Kearney that ended when the suspect crashed on a rural road and escaped on foot. A vehicle stolen in Gibbon was located in Hastings, which led to the arrest after a brief foot pursuit. Mattisons most recent address was in Osceola, but he has family in Columbus. A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. For only the second time in more than two decades, 6th District voters will head to the polls Tuesday to settle a contested race for the Republican nomination for Congress. Longtime U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, is facing a rare intraparty challenge from Harry Griego, a pilot and self-described constitutional conservative. Griego, also of Roanoke County, carries endorsements from the Roanoke Tea Party and Americans for Legal Immigration, an anti-amnesty PAC hoping to oust more than 175 GOP incumbents it put on its Cantor List, a reference to the stunning 2014 primary defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Henrico County. Griego, who served for 23 years in the Air Force and National Guard, said voters are tired of being ignored by the political establishment in Washington. They want a change, he said, drawing a parallel to the tide buoying Donald Trumps presidential bid. I think in Trump what a lot of people, why theyre attracted to Trump, is hes not part of the Washington elite. And literally Goodlatte is. Hes part of the leadership team. Hes been there for 24 years. He is the elite. Goodlatte, a 12-term incumbent and chair of the influential House Judiciary Committee, declined to comment on his opponent and said hes focused on his own campaign message. Weve had a lot of successes, he said, citing initiatives to protect personal data, address immigration enforcement and push back against what he described as President Obamas executive overreach. Tuesdays primary marks only the second time Goodlatte has drawn an internal party challenge since he took office. He easily turned back a primary opponent in 2012, winning by a 2-to-1 margin. For Griego, this is his second time taking on a Republican incumbent. He ran for the House of Delegates last year and came close to pulling off an upset. The 6th District a large territory extending from Roanoke County through the Shenandoah Valley likely remains safe for Goodlatte, said Harry Wilson, director of Roanoke Colleges Institute for Policy & Opinion Research. I think the only path for Griego is extremely low turnout, Wilson said, adding sparse turnout tends to favor high-motivation voters who are more likely to be galvanized by a desire for change. Its going to be low turnout anyway, everyone knows that, its a congressional primary in June, he said of the election. But I think Griego has to hope for just incredibly low turnout. That said, Wilson added, the lessons of Cantors defeat continue to loom large over the political world. Incumbent Republicans now ignore challengers from their right at their own peril, he said. Griego, 55, has built his campaign around a strict interpretation of the constitution and a belief that Congress needs to take a more disciplined approach to issues like debt reduction and safeguarding civil liberties. I want to get back to the Constitution: maximum liberty for people, limited government and low taxes, he said. If you look at Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the enumerated powers of government, that tells you what government can do. If its not in there, Im not going to vote for it and Ill work hard to fight against it. Griego faulted Goodlatte for not doing enough to fight for goals like defunding Obamacare and halting debt ceiling increases. Goodlatte espouses conservative priorities like reining in executive overreach, Griego said, but doesnt back them up by pursuing options like using his Judiciary Committee role to push to impeach agency heads. The fact of the matter is hes been there since 1992, Griego said. Hes established in that seat, and its a job to him. That was really not the intention of the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is supposed to be people like you and I in there, citizen legislators, not career politicians. Goodlatte supporters said the congressman is fighting for change in an adversarial environment that includes a Democratic White House and a Senate often stymied by its own filibuster rules. I guarantee you that Bob Goodlatte would love to see Obamacare go away, said Trixie Averill, a longtime Republican activist and former 6th District chairwoman. But you have to be realistic about what you can get done. Hes not the only one in there. I think Bob is doing an excellent job in Congress, she said. He represents the views of the people here and is definitely a good conservative, social and fiscal. Goodlatte, 63, has been endorsed by the NRA and the group National Right to Life. His campaign also touted a statement issued by U.S. Rep. Dave Brat the Tea Party-backed candidate that took down Cantor praising his work in D.C. Goodlatte has drawn passionate criticism from a conservative union group that has held protests outside his campaign offices at least twice since April. The Roanoke Committee to Protect Pensions, which has since endorsed Griego, broke with Goodlatte over controversial changes in pension law made in 2014. Committee director Tim Vermillion, of Roanoke County, said for him the dispute was the tipping point amid other disappointments that included lack of substantive action on deficit reduction, immigration and other issues. He keeps talking about the deficit, Vermillion, a Republican, said of Goodlatte, who regularly sponsors a balanced budget mandate and calls for debt reduction. But it [the national debt] is sitting there at $19 trillion, and he hasnt done anything. Harry is a good man, he continued. He wants to make Congress accountable. Were tired of the party establishment. Its the same old thing with them. Vermillion said the pension committee has about 300 members in the local region and advocates for the interests of around 2,400 union retirees in the area. Goodlatte has campaigned on priorities like reforming federal spending, cutting taxes and continuing efforts to fight Obamacare through legislation and lawsuits. He voted against the last federal omnibus spending bill in December, citing in part a failure to curb wasteful spending and strip out funding for programs like Planned Parenthood. Griegos campaign countered that Goodlatte voted no because he knew a primary challenge was ahead and highlighted his past votes for other budgets, including some that encompassed debt ceiling rises or other contested measures. Polls in the 6th District will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday for the primary vote. The victor will run against Democrat Kai Degner, a Harrisonburg City Council member, in the fall election. LINCOLN Lincoln Correctional Center Warden Mario Peart has been reassigned pending completion of an investigation into the Friday morning escape of two inmates from the maximum-security prison near Pioneers Park. Warden Fred Brittan has moved from the state Diagnostic and Evaluation Center to LCC in the interim, state Corrections Director Scott Frakes said at a news conference Monday morning. Frakes said it appears that at least two LCC employees failed to follow procedure. Among the mistakes, he said, is that inmates Armon Dixon and Timothy Clausen were allowed into the laundry area when they should not have been. Frakes said the pair told an employee they were assigned to do laundry work, and the employee let them through even though they weren't on a list of inmates approved for that area. Dixon was captured Saturday afternoon in Lincoln; Clausen remains at large, and authorities said they believe he is in the Omaha area. On Monday, Frakes ticked off a number of procedural errors that led to the Friday morning escape and said a critical incident review is underway. He said Peart, a longtime state Department of Correctional Services employee, will be in the system's central office for the time being. "If proper procedures had been followed ... we should have known that there was a problem by 9 or 9:30 and that would have allowed the facility to move into a formal count," said Frakes. The morning news conference at the Capitol also was attended by Gov. Pete Ricketts, Col. Tim Rice of the Nebraska State Patrol, Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer and Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister. The No. 1 priority, Ricketts said, is public safety, and all of the officials cautioned people to continue to be vigilant and be on the alert -- particularly in northeast Omaha -- for Clausen. He was last seen about 10 o'clock Sunday night in Omaha, Schmaderer said, adding that he doesn't think Clausen had access to a vehicle at that time. Wanda Minor, 50, was arrested Saturday night in north Omaha. Officials said Monday she is suspected of helping Clausen get from Lincoln to Omaha. Minor, who is being held at the Douglas County Jail, was charged in 2013 with tampering with a witness during Clausens sexual assault trial, according to court documents. She got two years probation. Dixon and Clausen left the Lincoln Correctional Center in a prison laundry truck at 9:12 a.m. Friday, Frakes said. A woman reported seeing them near U.S. 77 and Warlick Boulevard about 9:30, and deputies from the Lancaster County Sheriffs Office were dispatched. About the same time, the prison switchboard transferred a call from a woman to a caseworker asking if Dixon had a cellphone. She told the caseworker she got a call from someone saying he was Dixon. She thought it was a joke. The caseworker made a note that she had seen Dixon earlier in his unit and the yard, the timeline says. At 10:20 a.m., LCC got a call from Lincoln Police about the possibility of escapees. At 11:15 a.m., the Nebraska State Patrol notified the Corrections Department about the sightings. An emergency count began at 11:20 a.m. At 12:15, staff from the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution called LCC to say the laundry truck had arrived in Tecumseh with a hole in the top of it. Fifteen minutes later, LPD called Corrections and reported one of the escapees may be Dixon. His escape was officially confirmed at 12:53. A news release was issued at 1:38 p.m. Now, officials remain focused on capturing Clausen. "I've told Col. Rice that we will make available any resources that he needs to make that happen," said Ricketts. Anyone who sees Clausen should call 911 immediately and not approach him, the officials said. Clausen, 52, is doing time for sexual assaults in Douglas County and considered dangerous. Frakes acknowledged that LCC is overcapacity, but said the review so far doesnt conclude that was a factor in the escape. The prison, he said, is at 163 percent of design capacity and 108 percent of what he called operating capacity. He also acknowledged that staff at the prison is forced to work overtime. On Friday, he said, four staff members were held over to work additional eight-hour shifts, two of those were mandatory. In all, he said, 11 staffers were on overtime on Friday morning. Ricketts said cooperation across a broad spectrum in law enforcement led to Dixon's arrest and will assure Clausen's capture. In addition to catching Clausen, Ricketts said, a thorough investigation has been launched into how they got out. "We had a breakdown and two people got hurt," the governor said. "What we do in corrections is very, very important. ... Nobody wants to know about how this happened more than I do. So we will have a complete investigation to find out how this all broke down." Said Frakes: "Last Friday, we failed in our mission to keep the public safe. We will make no excuses for our failures. ... Our focus now is to ensure nothing like this happens again." A MAN was taken to hospital and three people arrested after a knife attack on Monday morning. The victim and another male are thought to have arrived armed at Waleswood Way, Wales. They are said to have approached the stabbing suspect, who had been sitting in a work van shortly after 9am. He got out of the vehicle and an altercation followed, police said, during which one of the pair suffered a stab wound to the chest. All three left the scene and the victim was taken to Sheffields Northern General Hospital. One man was arrested on suspicion of GBH and two others were detained for carrying an offensive weapon. Insp Abdul Aziz said: Were still trying to piece together exactly who has done what to who, and why. The injuries are not considered to be life-threatening. MORE NEWS Long delays after Swinton crash leaves car on its side Three held by police after knife attack Millers set to tour Poland The guide boats skipper, Lt. Howard Vander Beek of Cedar Falls, Iowa, kept the flag up until his 2014 death when the family sold it to the actual seller. No data were available about the auctions winner. Some other important artefacts of D-Day sild in auctions during time were: The Admiral Ramsays order of the day, signed in 1944, shortly before the D-Day invasion; Churchills inspection of the fleet with his autograph; a Rupert dummy from a large numbers of dummy paratroopers dropped as diversion along the French Atlantic coastline; Montgomerys cigarette letter sent to the soldiers who had taken part in the attack and to the population of the occupied portion of Germany; Robert Capas Omaha Beach prints; Eisenhowers D-Daybroadside; the Complete Operation Overlord plans and more. No one was perceived by the buyers as a such big value as the last auctioned U.S. flag. Chipotle's cup of woes runneth over, as it has been toppled by Moe's Southwest Grill as America's most popular brand selling Mexican-inspired food, according to a new poll. The E. Coli outbreak that led to closure of some of the restaurants of three-year winner Chipotle apparently had a role to play, pushing it to the fifth spot. An annual survey from Harris Poll that measures how people feel about restaurant brands showed that Moe's, which runs 600 units, had the largest increase in brand equity, up 13 percent, among all restaurants measured. It was ranked the highest in familiarity, quality and purchase consideration. For the poll, Harris Poll surveyed more than 97,000 U.S. consumers on more than 3,800 brands, including more than 60 restaurants. Taco Bell finished No. 2 in the latest poll, while Qdoba Mexican Grill and Baja Fresh Mexican Grill took third and fourth spots, respectively. Chipotle Mexican Grill chain, which was hit by food-safety issues last year, was the favorite in the past three years. Last year, the Denver-based 1900-unit chain's sales declined 30 percent and shares fell 33 percent following a norovirus outbreak that sickened 386 customers, a salmonella incident and e. coli episodes in 11 states. Lisa Recoussine, vice president of client services at Nielsen, which owns Harris Poll, stated that Moe's has benefited from a rapid expansion in recent years. Moe's opened 70 new restaurants last year, and sales reached nearly $640 million. Meanwhile, Chipotle's sales were $4.5 billion in 2015. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Canadian stocks may remain swept up in a global equities rout Monday, with significant weakness in the energy sector due to falling oil prices. Geopolitical tensions and a possible exit of the UK from the EU have been spooking investors in recent days. The S&P/TSX Composite Index was down 202 points, or 1.42%, to 14,037.54 on Friday, and shows few signs of bouncing back today. The U.S. is on edge after a Muslim fundamentalist killed 50 people at a gay niteclub in Orlando over the weekend. In corporate news, Wellgreen Platinum (WG.TO) has announced the appointment of Diane Garrett, as president, CEO and director. ProMetic's (PLI.TO) plasminogen has been granted Fast Track designation by the US FDA. Wal-Mart Canada, a unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), said it will no longer accept Visa credit cards in one store because the fees applied to purchases are too high. This change will then be rolled out in phases across the country. WTI crude oil for July was down 53 cents at $48.53 a barrel, falling further from last week's 10-month peak near $52. Gold stocks may get a boost, as bullion prices have jumped on safe haven buying. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Market Analysis The pure electric variant of the Bajaj Qute quadricycle has been spotted testing once again. Unlike last time, when the rear was spied, this time the front has been spotted. Thanks to automotive enthusiast Siddharth Patil. Interestingly, the first spyshots also revealed that the vehicle carried Qcar badge instead of Qute. Bajaj has trademarked the name QCAR. With electric vehicle revolution taking over the world at an impressive rate, the Qute EV comes as a no surprise. After a long and arduous legal battle, Bajaj won the approval to market the Qute in India but export operations would remain critical for the low-cost urban runabouts commercial success. Given that the prototype adopts LHD configuration, it is possible that, like the petrol-powered Qute, the electric version would launch in international markets first before coming to India. As of now, the tiny four-wheelers main markets are Turkey and Russia but once the electric version is ready, we could see Bajaj expanding into developed markets including Europe. With several European metros planning on restricting fossil fueled vehicles from entering the city centers, quadricycles like the Bajaj Qute would gain increased attention. The compact footprint, zero emissions and two row of seats would make the Qute EV ideal for major European cities where parking spaces are extremely scarce. The technical specifications of the Bajaj Qute EV are still under wraps but we expect the company to localize the electric powertrain in a bid to receive the Indian governments FAME-II subsidy in the domestic market. We expect the electric motor to be rear-mounted and supported by a lithium-ion battery pack. The top speed is likely to be restricted to 70 kmph to comply with the quadricycle norms. It is to be noted that, even in developed markets like Europe, the safety regulations for quadricycles are much more relaxed compared to regular passenger cars. That said, the export-spec Bajaj Qute is expected to offer standard ABS. Bajaj recently introduced the Chetak electric scooter with Pune and Bangalore as first markets. The Qute looks set to be the second EV from the company, which will be launched in 2020. Will it be introduced under the Urbanite brand name? Renault Kwid based electric small car has made its debut at the Auto Expo 2020. Already launched in China, the new Renault Kwid electric hatchback is expected to be launched in India later this year. It has now been showcased at the 2020 Auto Expo to gauge customer interest. Once launched, Kwid electric will be the perfect rival to the upcoming Maruti WagonR electric. Compared to the regular Kwid, the electric Kwid gets a new bumper design and full LED headlamps. It also receives a new grille, new LED tail lamps and redesigned rear bumper while front air intake and rear air outlets are just for design with no real function since it gets an EV powertrain. In terms of charging, Renault is expected to offer the Kwid EV with multiple charging options, making charging possible via both domestic and public chargers. Charging updates will be seen on the instrument clustering indicating remaining battery charge, distance to empty and the nearest charging station. The electric motor is developed in association with DongFeng of China and will have a driving range of 250 kms in the NEDC cycle. In compliance with new safety regulations, the Renault Kwid EV will also get more airbags, 4 disc brakes, a sun roof and rear parking sensors. Renault India also awaits the Government policy on electric vehicle charging in India ahead of official launch of the Kwid EV in the country. The launch of this new electric vehicle in India follows electric vehicles being tested by other automakers. The Maruti Suzuki WagonR EV is currently under test along with the electric version of the Mahindra KUV100. Tata is also expected to launch Tiago electric in the future, which is a potential rival to the Kwid EV. At the moment, there is no word from Renault about a potential launch date for the EV in India. However, considering the recent developments and the increasing push from government to move towards EVs, it is safe to presume that the car will be in launched sooner than expected. To help you avoid all of those things, check out these important things to watch out for, when you receive a prize notification. The consequences of falling for sweepstakes scams can be severe. With bad luck, you could lose money, be harassed by con men, and even be added to lists of easy targets, making you more likely to be scammed again. Everyone should know how to recognize and avoid sweepstakes scams, but it's especially important when you have a legitimate reason to think you may have won a prize. Winning a fabulous sweepstakes prize is a dream come true. However, that dream can turn into a nightmare if what you think is a legitimate win notification turns out to be a sweepstakes scam. So it's vital to know the warning signs of scams before you respond to any potential win. 01 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Demand Payment to Receive a Prize Never hand over your credit card number to get a prize. Peter Dazeley/Photographer's Choice/Getty Images Does your notification ask you to pay money to receive your prize? If so, you're almost certainly dealing with a scam. Legitimate sweepstakes never ask you to pay fees to enter a giveaway or to receive a prize. Scammers might say that before they can release your prize, you have to pay for: Sweepstakes taxes Customs fees Handling charges or shipping fees Service fees Withholding Any other charges However, you never have to pay upfront to receive a legitimate prize. Sweepstakes taxes are paid directly to the IRS along with your regular tax return. Except for rare exceptions, such as port fees for a cruise prize or a nominal amount for hotel taxes, anyone who asks you to pay taxes on prizes directly to them instead of to the IRS is running a scam. 02 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Use Free E-mail Accounts Why isn't your win notice coming from an official email address?. Caspar Benson / Getty Images If you receive a win notification by email, check the email address that sent it. If it's from a free email address, like Gmail or Yahoo Mail, take care that could be a warning sign of a scam. Some very small companies legitimately notify winners from a free email address... though not many. These days, there are so many ways to get email addresses that match your business that most legit companies have them. Large companies should definitely have business email addresses. If you receive a win notice claiming to be from a company like Publishers Clearing House or Microsoft, but the email arrived from a free account, you can be sure that you're dealing with a sweepstakes scam. Also, be wary of email addresses that look close to, but not the same as, those from official companies. Like "sweepstakes@publisherclearinghouse.com" might look OK until you notice that the official company has an "s" after "publisher". Sometimes scam artists will spoof the email address so that it looks like it's coming from a legitimate company, even when it's not. Stay alert for phishing emails. 03 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Tell You You've Won Contests You Didn't Enter You might not be able to remember every sweepstakes you enter, but if it sounds completely foreign to you, it's probably a scam. Katie Black Photography / Getty Images The only sweepstakes you can win are ones you've entered. If you receive a win notification from a giveaway that you don't remember entering, it's a red flag. It's possible you did enter and then forgot about it, or you used an easily-overlooked method like scanning your grocery store club card. But before you respond, take the time to do some additional research. Another way of verifying that your prize win is not a scam is to look up the telephone number for the sweepstake sponsor, then call and verify that you really won. However, don't use a telephone number from your suspicious win notification. Get a legitimate number from another source, like a phone book or the company's official website. 04 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Send You Large Checks with Your Notifications Stephen Stickler/The Image Bank/Getty Images If your win notification comes with a check as your prize, it's a sure sign that you've won, right? Wrong. If the check is worth more than $600, you're definitely being scammed. To fool people into thinking that sweepstakes scams are legitimate, con artists send counterfeit checks along with their phony win notifications. This is called a fake check scam. Fake checks are dangerous in more ways than one: Not only do you not get the money from the check, but cashing fraudulent checks is also a crime. If you deposit that check, you could be liable for fines and could even have your bank account closed. Finally, you'll also lose any money you send to the scammers. Remember, legitimate sweepstakes must send affidavits before sending out prizes worth over $600. 05 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Instruct You to Wire Money Ben Miners/Ikon Images/Getty Images Does your win notification include instructions to wire cash to the sponsor? If so, run. Even in the few legitimate cases where you have to pay money to a sponsor, you wouldn't need to use a wire service. Criminals use services like Western Union to receive illicit funds because it is nearly impossible to trace who received the money. Western Union transfers are handled like cash, meaning that the con artists can simply pick it up and disappear. You can say goodbye to any money you sent. Another twist on this sweepstakes scam signal: con artists are now asking their victims to buy Green Dot Money Pack cards from retailers like Walmart. These cards let you transfer money by simply giving the recipient the numbers printed on the card. Once you've done that, there's little to no chance of getting your money back. 06 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Pressure You to Act in a Hurry Glow Images, Inc/Glow/Getty Images Does your win notification pressure you to respond immediately or lose your chance to claim your prize? If so, proceed carefully. Sweepstakes scammers have a good reason for wanting you to act quickly: They want to ensure that they receive their money before their check bounces or you read an article like this one and realize that you are being defrauded. In some legitimate cases, a sponsor might need a quick answer. For example, if the prize includes tickets for a concert taking place during the upcoming weekend, they might need you to claim the prize right away or the tickets won't be any good. But you should always have at least a few hours to investigate the notification. And if there's no good reason for a rush to accept a prize, then it's probably a sweepstakes scam. 07 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Ask for Bank or Credit Cards to Receive Your Prize Martin Dimitrov/E+/Getty Images Do you have to verify your bank account number or credit card number to get your prize? This is a clear sign of a sweepstakes scam. Legitimate sweepstakes don't send prizes by direct deposit, nor do they need to withdraw money from your bank or verify information using your credit card number. The only sensitive information that a legitimate sweepstakes sponsor needs to process your win is your social security number. Asking for a bank account or credit card number is a huge red flag that you are dealing with a sweepstakes scam, and you should never hand over this information. 08 of 13 The "Win" is From a Lottery (Especially a Foreign Lottery) Achim Sass/Getty Images Did you receive a notification that you have won a prize in a lottery? Perhaps the Microsoft Lottery, the Heineken Lottery, or Euromillions? If so, don't get too excited, it's almost certainly a scam. It's impossible to win a lottery without buying a ticket. Even if you did buy tickets, the lottery wouldn't call or email you. You'd have to find the winning numbers in a newspaper, the internet, or on TV and compare them to your ticket. Win notices from foreign lotteries are even more suspicious. Not only do foreign lotteries have the same restriction as domestic lotteries, but it is also illegal to sell tickets for foreign lotteries across international borders. Therefore, unless you bought a ticket while you were actually in a foreign country, prize notifications from foreign lotteries are fraudulent. 09 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Don't Know Your Name Entienou/E+/Getty Images Does your win notification address you by a generic title like "Dear Winner" or "Dear Sir"? If so, this is a strong warning sign. Many sweepstakes scams send thousands upon thousands of fake mails or emails to every address they can get their hands on, often without knowing any personal information about the people they're contacting. On the other hand, legitimate sweepstakes already have your entry information from the entry form. Most of the time, this includes your name, and they'd use that name when they contact you. It's possible that a small company that's giving away a lot of prizes might not customize their notification letters, but it's pretty unlikely. So if this happens to you, be sure to research your prize carefully before proceeding. 10 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Pose As Government Organizations Bill Varie/Photolibrary/Getty Images To appear more legitimate, some sweepstakes scams pretend to come from government organizations such as the FTC or the "National Sweepstakes Board" (which doesn't actually exist). Real sweepstakes sponsors send their win notifications directly to the winners. Government organizations are not involved in awarding sweepstakes prizes, nor do federal marshals hand out the prizes. If you're not dealing directly with a company sponsoring or administrating the giveaway, you're being scammed. 11 of 13 Sweepstakes Scam Notifications Arrive by Bulk Mail Simon Battensby/Photographer's Choice/Getty Images Take a look at the envelope that contained your win notification. Does it have first-class postage? If not, that's a bad sign. When legitimate sweepstakes sponsors send out win notifications, they use first class postage or services such as FedEx or UPS to deliver them. Sweepstakes scam artists, on the other hand, want to target the most people at the least cost in order to keep their profits high. They lower their costs by using bulk mail for their mailings. Any win notification that arrives by bulk mail should be treated with a great deal of suspicion. 12 of 13 Sweepstakes Scams Contain Typos Lucy Lambriex/Moment/Getty Images Scan your win notification. Do you notice bad grammar, missing words, or spelling mistakes? These are red flags for a scam. Any company can make a minor mistake when typing out a win notification. However, multiple or glaring errors are a bad sign. Many sweepstakes scams originate outside of the United States and Canada, and the people who write the scam letters are often not proficient in English. Be very cautious of any win notices that have a lot of errors, use strange or stilted language, and otherwise sound "off." When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. 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 ... It had been an evening of drinking, dancing and drag shows. After hours of revelry, the party-goers crowding the gay nightclub known as the Pulse took their last sips before the place closed. That's when authorities say Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and spraying the helpless crowd with bullets. Witnesses said he fired relentlessly 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot at police. He took hostages. When the gunfire finally stopped, he had slain 50 people and critically wounded dozens more in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Mateen, who law enforcement officials said had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a 911 call around the time of the attack, died in a gun battle with SWAT team members. Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism and probing the background of Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida, who had worked as a security guard. The gunman's father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault. Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Mayor Buddy Dyer said. Jon Alamo had been dancing at the Pulse for hours when he wandered into the club's main room just in time to see the gunman. "You ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? That's how he was shooting at people," he said. "My first thought was, oh my God, I'm going to die," Alamo said. "I was praying to God that I would live to see another day." Pulse patron Eddie Justice texted his mother, Mina: "Mommy I love you. In club they shooting." About 30 minutes later, hiding in a bathroom, he texted her: "He's coming. I'm gonna die." As Sunday wore on, she awaited word on his fate. At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb. The previous deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself. Mateen's family was from Afghanistan, and he was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida, authorities said. His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters that her former husband was bipolar and "mentally unstable." Mateen was short-tempered and had a history with steroids, she said in remarks televised from Boulder, Colorado. She described him as religious but not radical. He wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy, but she had no details. The couple was together for only four months, and the two had no contact for the last seven or eight years, she said. A law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the club in which he professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The official was familiar with the investigation, but was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The extremist group did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, but the IS-run Aamaq news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the attack was carried out by an Islamic State fighter. Even if the attacker supported IS, it was unclear whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand. Mateen was not unknown to law enforcement: In 2013, he made inflammatory comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent Ronald Hopper, who called the interviews inconclusive. In 2014, Hopper said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide bomber, but the agent described the contact as minimal, saying it did not constitute a threat at the time. Asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Hopper said authorities had "suggestions that individual has leanings towards that." Mateen purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so, according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. In a separate incident, an Indiana man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make explosives was arrested Sunday in Southern California and told police he was headed to a Los Angeles-area gay pride parade. The Orlando shooting started about 2 a.m., with more than 300 people inside the Pulse. "He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance," said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next to her get shot. "I just tried to get out of there." At 2:09 a.m., Pulse posted on its Facebook page: "Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running." Club-goer Rob Rick said the shooting started just as "everybody was drinking their last sip." When he heard shots, Rick dropped to the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth. A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area where only workers were allowed. People were then able to escape through the back of the club. Mateen exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club, and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, the shooter also had a handgun and some sort of "suspicious device," the police chief said. About 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the remaining club-goers, Police Chief John Mina said. At first, officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to the dead after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. That prevented paramedics from going in until authorities determined the battery was something that fell out of an exit sign or a smoke detector, he said. The robot was sent in after SWAT team members put explosive charges on a wall and an armored vehicle knocked it down in an effort to rescue hostages. Just before 6 a.m., the Pulse posted an update on its Facebook: "As soon as we have any information, we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love." Authorities were looking into whether the shooter acted alone, according to Danny Banks, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. "This is an incident, as I see it, that we certainly classify as domestic terror incident," Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. Mateen's father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News about his son seeing the men kissing a couple of months ago. "We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," Seddique said. "We are in shock like the whole country." Mateen was a security guard with a company called G4S. In a 2012 newsletter, the firm identified him as working in West Palm Beach. In a statement sent Sunday to the Palm Beach Post, the company confirmed that he had been an employee since September 2007. State records show that Mateen had held a firearms license since at least 2011. President Barack Obama called the shooting an "act of terror" and an "act of hate" targeting a place of "solidarity and empowerment" for gays and lesbians. He urged Americans to decide whether this is the kind of "country we want to be." Authorities said they had secured a van owned by the suspect outside the club. Meanwhile, a SWAT truck and a bomb-disposal unit were on the scene of an address associated with Mateen in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando. Across the country, police departments stepped up patrols in neighborhoods frequented by the LGBT community. Langhorne, PA -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/13/2016 -- FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. is a home improvement company located in Langhorne, PA. They have over 60 years of experience in cabinetry design and remodeling experience. Customers all over Bucks County and Southeastern Pennsylvania can rely on FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. to develop and implement the most beautiful kitchens and bathrooms. This Bucks County kitchen designer offers a wide variety of cabinetry in many different wood species and finishes. They will remodel bathrooms according to the wishes of their customer. Those who need bathroom remodeling in Bucks County, PA can look to FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. Their expertise in the bathroom remodeling industry can help customers achieve the look they've always wanted for their bathroom. This company helps their clients transform their existing bathroom into something spectacular. They create customized solutions for every client, whether the client has a particular image in their head or they just want something better. FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co.'s designers and contractors understand how important it is to have their customer's best interests in mind. It may be easy to decide to remodel a bathroom. But it will almost definitely be difficult to choose the correct style, hardware, and materials for the new and improved bathroom. FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath wants to help with this. They make each phase of the process simple and easy for the customer by doing all the dirty work and helping the customer's dream come to life. To learn more about bathroom remodeling services, contact FINE Cabinetry Kitchen and Bath at 215-392-4584. About FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. With over 60 years of cabinetry design and remodeling experience, FINE Cabinetry Kitchen & Bath Co. has been offering the finest cabinetry designs and solutions to the people of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They also offer a complimentary in-home design service with their very qualified and talented design professionals. For more details, visit http://www.finecabinetryllc.com/. Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/13/2016 -- The GCC (Gulf cooperation council) Ecotourism market is expected to witness significant contribution to the overall ecotourism market, by registering a robust growth of nearly 7% by 2020. Growth of nature, wildlife as well as generic services respectively is an equivalent contributor to the total GCCecotourism growth. National investment, nonconventional locations are among the noticeablefeaturesmotivating the demand for ecotourism across GCC. Also, an increase in arrivals and increase in currency value thus pushing the ecotourism wallet which is expected to bolster the market growth thereby increasing competitiveness in the region. Geographically, Qatar represents a huge market potential followed by Kuwait wherein the Saudi Arabiatourists owe a significant contribution to GCC ecotourism market. Read Complete Report @ http://www.mrrse.com/sample/266 In this study, we analyze the GCC Ecotourism Market during 2014-2020. We focus on: Market size and forecast, 2013-2020 Market Growth with respect to Gross Value Added, by characteristic industries Key drivers and developments in ecotourism in GCC Key Trends and Developments for Ecotourism in GCC Key Drivers and developments along with total contribution in particular countries such as Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Key Geographies/ Countries Covered Global, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates Get a Free Sample Copy of the Report @ http://www.mrrse.com/sample/266 Other Key Topics Ecotourism contribution to GDP, Ecotourism contribution to whole economy, Ecotourism receipts Ecotourism Arrivals, Average receipts per Arrival. About MRRSE MRRSE stands for Market Research Reports Search Engine, the largest online catalog of latest market research reports based on industries, companies, and countries. MRRSE sources thousands of industry reports, market statistics, and company profiles from trusted entities and makes them available at a click. Besides well-known private publishers, the reports featured on MRRSE typically come from national statistics agencies, investment agencies, leading media houses, trade unions, governments, and embassies. Westmont, IL -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/13/2016 -- Rasdale Stamp Company knows how important collecting is for their clients and philatelists in general. They are the oldest company of their kind in the United States. They auction off stamps, coins, and other collectibles. Rasdale Stamp Company knows how important a decision it is to let go of valuable collectibles and family heirlooms. They are also aware of the value of items, and they stay abreast of the fluctuating markets of stamps, coins, and other collectibles. Their auctions will showcase items for their clients in order to get them sold in a timely manner and for as much as possible. This company offers live auctions that take place locally and online. Rasdale Stamp Company is holding one on June 25th and 26th in Milwaukee. This weekend show will put many collectibles on sale for customers to choose from. There will be an array of products that will vary in price and stature. Customers will see items that are historic and valuable. This auction will take place at 1435 South 92nd Street and customers are encouraged to arrive on Saturday early because the bidding will begin sharply at 10 am. On top of holding large scale auctions, Rasdale Stamp Company has taken part in many different associations, club, and societies. They are highly involved with the American Stamp Dealers Association, the American Philatelic Society, and the American Topical Association. Owners and employees of Rasdale Stamp Company have also held many different positions in various societies and clubs, such as the President of the Midwest Stamp Dealers Association, Director of the American Stamp Dealers Association, and the Secretary of the American Stamp Dealers Association. Along with the latest in auction news, there is also a retail store located on Rasdale Stamp Company's website. This retail store contains collections that are for sale that may have not sold in an auction or are just new to the store. There are many items to choose from, including coins, stamps, and other collectibles such as postcards and booklets. All of the customers and clients of Rasdale Stamp Company can get an idea of what they sell by looking through the retail store. For those who cannot attend the June auction, there are many more to come. Rasdale Stamp Company is getting ready for auctions in August on the 13th, 15th, 18th, and 20th. These will all be public auctions with plenty of collectibles to bid on and buy. These auctions happen quite frequently and the calendar is always updated on their website. For more information, visit their website at http://www.rasdalestamps.com. About Rasdale Stamp Company This company is not only a family themselves, but make it a point to treat their clients as such, as well. They are committed to helping others learn and grow as they collect stamps and other collectibles. They do this through giving advice, answering questions, and offering guidance to their clients. They support the idea of collecting as a hobby, as a career, and as investments. Rasdale Stamp Company 35 Chestnut Lane Westmont, IL 60559 630-794-9900 info@Rasdalestamps.com www.Rasdalestamps.com US cargo spacecraft, the Orbital ATK Cygnus, is ready to leave the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday, June 14. The live coverage of Cygnus's departure will reportedly be provided by NASA TV, starting from 9 a.m. EDT. Incidentally, the cargo spacecraft was launched on March 22 and it reached the ISS on March 26, after four days of journey. The Cygnus has delivered almost 3402 kilograms of cargo to the space laboratory for the purpose of experiments, which has included Earth science, physical science, biotechnology and biology studies. On its release day, the cargo ship will be maneuvered in place by robotic controllers. Tim Peake of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Tim Kopra of NASA, crew members of Expedition 47, will give the command for Cygnus's release at 9:30 a.m. Five hours from the departure of the Cygnus, the Saffire-I experiment will take place onboard it, which will offer a new technique to monitor a realistic fire on a spacecraft. An experiment like this has never been possible previously because there are too many dangers of carrying out such analyses onboard a crewed spacecraft. The oxygen use and flame growth on the returning cargo spacecraft will be measured by instruments already present onboard. The study of a realistic fire on a spacecraft is important for the safety of space missions, both present and future. In addition, an external deployer will release five LEMUR CubeSats from the Cygnus on June 15, which will play a key role in remote sensing satellite constellation which will offer weather monitoring and global ship tracking. The Cygnus will stay in orbit until June 22, following which its engines will fire twice, facilitating its entry into the Earth's atmosphere where it will subsequently burn up above the Pacific Ocean. However, the deorbit burn of the Cygnus will not be covered by NASA TV's live broadcast. You can get more information about the live NASA TV coverage here. American Space Agency NASA is reportedly contemplating sending a scaled down helicopter to the red planet to serve as the aerial scout for the Mars 2020 rover. The mini helicopter will be the first vehicle to travel through the thin atmosphere of Mars for technology demonstration, if it is actually sent. According to a report it is a challenge to fly on Mars as the atmosphere is just one percent of our planet; the miniature helicopter needs blades that are comparatively bigger than its full size to accomplish such a feat. "The way any of these helicopters work is the rotor blades spin up and they produce lift because of the density of the atmosphere," said Mike Meacham, NASA mechanical engineer. "So once you lose that density, you've got to spin even faster or get bigger rotor blades or get lighter. Currently, a 2.2-pound cube Mars helicopter, approximately a tissue box's size, is being monitored at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California's Pasadena. The blades of the prototype measure 3.6 feet from one edge to another. If the mini helicopter is approved then it will take a piggyback ride on the Mars 2020 rover during its journey to the red planet, after which it will separate on landing. The helicopter will be solar powered and have GoPro-type cameras to search for efficient and safe routes for the rover, and will have enough power to facilitate two to three minute flights every day for a distance of about 550 yards. The helicopter would also help the rover cover twice or thrice the distance it can normally travel, if the control teams on Earth rely only on the cameras and photos from orbiting satellites to plan its route. At the moment, the main point of worry for the engineers is the takeoff and landing of the helicopter each day on Mars, because the latter is a mission's riskiest part. Therefore, the team is trying to ensure that the helicopter has a bulletproof landing system. The Congress is in favor of a trip to the Moon and wants NASA to make it a priority over an asteroid mission or Mars exploration. The House reportedly wants the space agency to plan a lunar mission, because then NASA could pretest technologies needed for a mission to the red planet on the Moon itself. "There is no better proving ground than the Moon for NASA to test the technologies and techniques needed to successfully meet the goal of sending humans to Mars by the mid 2030s," said Mike Honda, Congress Representative. The possible tests that NASA can carry out on the Moon in preparation of the Martian mission could include testing habitation modules, lunar prospecting, landing and ascent of vehicles. Furthermore, according to reports, NASA itself wants to focus on the lunar mission to facilitate the target of Mars expedition. The exploration of the Moon will give astronauts an experience of real human spaceflight outside Earth's low orbit before actually embarking on a journey to the Martian surface. In 2010, President Barack Obama and NASA had put forward the proposal of sending astronauts in deep space to visit and study an asteroid in its natural habitat. However, the proposal was deemed as too challenging and expensive by the Congress, and its skepticism was apparent in the limited funding the asteroid mission received. At present, the plans for an asteroid mission include getting a small boulder off the surface of an asteroid and bringing it to a location near the Moon where astronauts can access it more easily. As per a report, NASA wanted a $66.7 million fund for the asteroid mission this year, but the House legislation may possibly deny it and persist on a lunar exploration instead. The red planet mission also faces problems that go beyond financing, because the space agency should be able to land massive payloads on the Martian surface. Until now only small payloads, such as the Mars Curiosity rover weighing 900 kilograms has been landed on the planet. A human mission, with related cargo weight, would mean much huger and heavier payloads. The members of the Congress feel that a mission to the Moon is a more practical and viable interim step for developing deeper space expeditions in the future. The researchers from MedUni Vienna's Department of Clinical Pharmacology have developed the world's first vaccine against Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS). The report was printed in the leading journal "The Lancet Infectious Disease." The researchers collaborated with Biomedizinische Forschungsgesellschaft mbH in Vienna, according to Science Daily. The vaccine is safe and effective. It has no side effects and was developed from a detoxified Staphylococcus toxin. The researchers tested the vaccine on 46 young men and women. It was injected into their skin. Bernd Jilma from MedUni Vienna's Department of Clinical Pharmacology said that the effect of the vaccine is the same to that of a tetanus vaccination. He further explained that the immunization with such vaccines last for five years or more. Once a person is vaccinated, he develops antibodies, which become active if the germs start to pose a threat. Martha Eibl, director of Biomedizinische Forschungsgesellscaft mbH and former university professor at the Institute for Immunology of the medical faculty of the University of Vienna stated that they are well on the way to having a vaccine that prevents this disease. On the other hand, it will still take some years before it is in clinical use. They are still looking for more volunteers for the Phase II trial to check promising results of the vaccine. Toxic Shock Syndrome is a life-threatening disease caused by a bacterial toxin. These bacteria are the Staphylococcus aureus (staph) and the group A streptococcus (strep). The condition is also referred to as "tampon disease." This is because a blood poisoning happened in young women when they use the "superabsorbent tampons" during their periods. The disease may occur in children, men and postmenopausal women. Its risk factors include surgery and skin wounds. The toxic shock syndrome can be treated through hospitalization. In the hospital, the patient with TSS is given antibiotic and fluids to treat dehydration. She also receives medication to stabilize her blood pressure if it is low (hypotension). Surgery may be performed if there is a need to eradicate nonliving tissue from the site of infection or to deplete the infection. A physicist from Florida Institute of Technology captured lightning bolts at 7,000 frames per second. This means they are in the super slow motion wherein you can stare on their mighty electrifying details. skunkbear: Ive always wanted to see lightning in slow motion! Scientists at Florida Institute of... https://t.co/Sh7RyQafye TheNebinator (@BenLovati) June 2, 2016 So, what happens when the lightning is at this speed and how it works? As you can see in the video below, the lightning looks like a branch, which creates a series of channels flowing from a negatively charged pool of electrons and ions. It was swirled up by wind and collisions within its cloud of origin. Lightning storm in super slow motion #video from Florida researchers https://t.co/3BANWfCJtz Electricity flows like water at 7k frames/s Mark Gerstein (@markgerstein) June 2, 2016 When the branches ooze down, they rest after each movement for a fraction of a second before resuming. When the prime of one of these branches is closer to the ground, there are a positively charged bolt rises from the Earth. This creates an ionized conduit out of molecules in the air just like a wire. The conduit then pulses with an immense energy. As it changes back and forth, the conduit transforms into lightning, according to Cosmos Magazine. Professor Ningyu Liu from the Florida Institute of Technology explained that lightning is one of the most enthralling atmospheric phenomena on Earth. On the other hand, little is known about on how the lightning starts in thunderclouds, its movement through the air and then strikes objects on the ground,according to Daily Mail. LAKE CITY, S.C. - The regular meeting of the Lake City City Council will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 14 in council chambers in the Judicial Center at 202 Kelley Street. According to the agenda, council members will receive comments from members of the public, proclaim June as Microbusiness Month, and approve a proclamation honoring RaShaud Graham. Additionally, council will take action on a resolution regarding body cameras to be worn by Lake City police officers, authorize sanitation equipment for sale and propose amendments to Ordinance 2016.422, regarding the budget. Council will have second reading of the ordinance, which adopts the general fund budget, and water and sewer enterprise fund budget for the city for 2016-17 fiscal year. Council members will have second reading of an ordinance to levy an annual tax on all motor vehicles in the city, an ordinance to increase the salary and clarify benefits of the Office of Mayor, an ordinance to convey the train depot to the Greater Lake City Chamber of Commerce, an ordinance to amend the monthly rates of sewer service to Olanta and its sanitation services. Also, council will have second reading of the ordinance to amend water and sewer tap fees for customers inside and out the city limits, an ordinance to establish the 2016-17 city budget, and an ordinance to establish the facade improvement program. Council will approve bills to be paid, and receive reports. KINGSTREE, S.C. Dudley Musier was elected Williamsburg County Sheriff in the January 20, 2015 special election. He will face his former Chief Deputy at the polls on June 14 when Stephen Gardner faces him as his only opponent. Musier, originally from McCormick, is a retired S.C. Highway Patrolman and was Chief Deputy of the County Sheriffs Office when he defeated three opponents in the December 2014 primary, moving on to win in the general election. Musier appointed Gardner, a Williamsburg County native, to follow him as his Chief Deputy. As such, Gardner ran the countys day-to-day operations, as Musier did in that position before becoming Sheriff. Gardner served 17 years with the South Carolina Highway Patrol before taking the Williamsburg County Sheriffs office position. Musier said he is seeking to retain his position as Sheriff because he has worked to build the trust of the citizens. Gardner said he is running to become Sheriff because he has the knowledge and ability to bridge the gap between law enforcement, the citizens served, and governmental partners. In other Williamsburg County races, Linda Woods of Kingstree has filed to run against incumbent Sharon Staggers, incumbent, for the countys Clerk of Court position. This would be her second term if re-elected. Staggers has served in the Clerk of Court office for 20 years. Woods has 20 years of experience in the countys Third Judicial Circuit Solicitors Office, which serves Williamsburg, Sumter, Clarendon and Lee counties. She is a former deputy clerk in the general sessions court with the countys Clerk of Court from 1987-1990., Incumbent Andy McKnight of Kingstree, County Council Seat 5, is being challenged by William Terry Wallace of Kingstree. McKnight has served on council since 1981 and is its current Vice Chairman. This is Wallaces first run for office. In another contested County Council seat, Harry Darby is being challenged by Jonathan Joe Miller. Darby has been a council member since 1977. Miller is a Williamsburg County native who has returned home after living away. Incumbent County Coroner Harrison McKnight is being challenged by Ivori Henryhand, a licensed funeral director, of Kingstree. Unopposed incumbents Sen. Ronnie Sapp (Dist. 32), Rep. Cezar McKnight (Seat 101), Eddie Butch Woods Jr. (County Council Seat 4), and Probate Judge Betty Matthews of Greeleyville will not be on the June ballot. DARLINGTON, S.C. -- The Darlington Police Department is seeking the public's help in identifying subjects who were involved in a drive-by shooting that occurred on Farm St. in Darlington. The shooting occurred around 11 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, 2016. Investigators found several bullet holes in three vehicles as well as in the wall of a bedroom that was occupied by two children. Details are still being gathered at this time. If you have any information about the incident please call 911 or contact the Darlington Police Department at 843-398-4026. It's a sad day in America when you realize our choice for President is Clinton or Trump. This really says a lot about how far morals have sunk. Let's see, with Clinton we have a liberal who screams it proudly, and Trump, who not too long ago was a liberal, although now he says he changed his mind on many moral issues. So now the question is what are we going to do with the choices we have? I have heard many people say that they are going to do a write-in. You can write in, if you choose, but you might as well stay home, because it will be a wasted vote. As a Christian, I have to pray and weigh my options. As I see it, I have one clear choice. That is which one has better morals, by their actions. No, we are not electing a pastor, but as a Christian I cannot in good conscience vote for someone who proudly proclaims their desire to clearly go against the word of God, as Clinton has publicly done. (Clearly much more than Trump.) We are in a mess. Trump or Clinton is not going to save us from ourselves, only God can, but I think if we have a snowball chance in hades, we have to vote at least for the less of the two evils when the time comes. Melinda G. Haithcock Timmonsville